The first night of this year’s ever-bankable Here And Now tour saw the Trent FM Arena transformed into one giant Reflex bar, as seven chart acts from the 1980s wheeled out their old hits and several thousand eager thirty- and forty-somethings turned back the clock with them. This time around, the focus was on the latter part of the decade, and particularly the years 1987 and 1988: an era when yuppies ruled the roost, Gary Davies and Bruno Brookes ruled the airwaves, and "club culture" still meant wearing a shirt and tie to get into Ritzys. If you were at the right age to be buying Smash Hits and watching The Chart Show, then this was the show for you. Any older or any younger, and you might have found yourself muttering that old cliché: nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

Hands up, who remembers Cutting Crew? With only two hits to their name (and only two members left in their line-up), the duo were on and off the stage in the blink of an eye. This was a shame, as Nick Van Eede turned in on of the best vocal performances of the night, backed by some appealingly flashy soft-rock soloing from guitarist Gareth Moulton.

Johnny Hates Jazz fared slightly better, being permitted to perform three of their four hits, in what was announced as only their second ever live appearance in the UK. Opening with the anti-war song I Don’t Want To Be A Hero, they provided the night’s one brief nod to "social commentary" -- an element that was key to much of the decade’s most memorable music. The band’s trademark slick suits were back, but sadly not their original vocalist Clark Datchler. New vocalist Danny Saxon gave a passable imitation, but his somewhat puny delivery failed to ignite the arena crowd.

Anyone expecting to see the full original line-up of Curiosity Killed The Cat was in for a disappointment, as singer Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot shambled onto the stage accompanied by, er, nobody. According to Ben (whose unique line in stage patter is best described as "eccentric"), the other three members "said Hi" and "sent their love". Hands up, who believed him? As Ben diddled aimlessly around the stage, drifting in and out of key, and looking thoroughly out of his depth, it was enough to make you feel nostalgic for Cutting Crew.

With the evening in danger of floundering in a half-baked stew of half-remembered mediocrity, it was time for a seasoned professional and a proper star to rescue the proceedings. On that score, ABC’s Martin Fry delivered in spades. A veteran of the nostalgia tour circuit, he knew what was expected of him, and he knew how to pitch it to perfection. As the opening chords of Poison Arrow rang out, the whole night stepped up a notch, the crowd rising to their feet and bellowing along with some of the sharpest pop lyrics ever written. If Ben from Curiosity was the random youth trying to chat you up at the bus stop, Martin from ABC was the smooth gigolo, sweeping you off your feet in the cocktail bar.

Boasting a similar veteran’s pedigree, Paul Young gave an equally arena-friendly performance, hurling his mike stand around the shop in best Rod Stewart style. Although numbers such as Love Of The Common People suffered from the absence of female backing singers (hands up, who remembers the Fabulous Wealthy Tarts?), and although Young struggled with his upper register on Come Back And Stay and Senza Una Donna, a terrific extended performance of I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down turned out to be the night’s unexpected musical highlight. In particular, it allowed the six-piece house band to demonstrate what they were made of. On stage for the full three hours, during which they trawled through thirty-seven songs and a myriad of musical styles, the band were the unsung heroes of the night.

As the acts got bigger, the sets grew longer. Bananarama managed nine songs in thirty-five minutes, spanning seven of their most successful hit-making years. With founder member Siobhan and substitute member Jacquie long gone, Keren and Sara have been performing as a duo since the early 1990s, cranking out their roster of camp classics with a delightful disregard for stage-school slickness (they still have trouble remembering the set list) and sophisticated vocal technique (you’ll still search in vain for a harmony line). That said, the set was tightly and ably choreographed, the girls being joined on stage by a pair of humpy male backing dancers.

And finally, and to a hero’s welcome: Rick Astley, making his debut on the nostalgia circuit, and cheerfully admitting to finding the whole experience overwhelming and bizarre. Now re-established in the nation’s affections thanks to an Internet phenomenon known as "rickrolling", Astley surfed a tide of goodwill from the crowd, which was almost enough to cover his lack of memorable hit singles. (Hands up, who can name more than three of them?) Admittedly, it all got a bit Cruise Ship during his syrupy cover of When I Fall In Love, and even Rick himself seemed less than enamoured of some of the later Stock Aitken Waterman hits (he could barely wait to get to the end of the frankly rubbish Take Me To Your Heart, exclaiming "will this madness never end?" during the final chorus). However, all was forgiven in time for the grand finale, and the only chart-topping song of the whole night: the immortal Never Gonna Give You Up, which duly raised the roof and sent the crowd home happy.

Set list:

Cutting Crew: I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight, I’ve Been In Love Before.

Johnny Hates Jazz: I Don’t Want To Be A Hero, Turn Back The Clock, Shattered Dreams.

Curiosity Killed The Cat: Down To Earth, Misfit, Ordinary Day, Name And Number, Hang On In There Baby.

ABC: Poison Arrow, Tears Are Not Enough, All Of My Heart, When Smokey Sings, The Look Of Love.

Paul Young: Love Of The Common People, Come Back And Stay, Senza Una Donna, I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down, Every Time You Go Away.

Bananarama: Cruel Summer, Really Saying Something, Robert De Niro’s Waiting, I Heard A Rumour, Nathan Jones, I Want You Back, Love In The First Degree, Venus, Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye).

Rick Astley: Together Forever, She Wants To Dance With Me, Hold Me In Your Arms, When I Fall In Love, Take Me To Your Heart, Cry For Help, Whenever You Need Somebody, Never Gonna Give You Up.

Labels: eveningpost, gigs, popmusic

(An edited version of this article originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)


I notice from your tour schedule that you’re on a bit of a break. Are you enjoying having a few days off?

Absolutely, yeah. We’ve just done Australia, the Far East and Central America, then we’re off to Vancouver next week. We’ve had an exhausting travel experience over the last few weeks, so it’s good to get a few days at home, pat the dog, kiss the wife…

Are we all basically getting the same tour, or do you make any significant changes as you go along?

You tend to find that the show develops. You start recognising what’s not working in the set, and maybe introduce a few different numbers to refresh it. We’ve got a huge catalogue of work to pull from, so we like to change it a little bit. We get quite a lot of repeat members of the audience, that travel with us – so we like to juggle up the set, so they get to see something different.

You played a storming show at Nottingham Arena back in April 2004. It was one of your first UK dates with the full original line-up, so there was a sense of not quite knowing quite what to expect. For all we knew, it might have been awful! Did it feel at the time that you were on a mission to reclaim your heritage, and to remind people of who you were?

I think we had to prove ourselves. I don’t think there’s anything worse than going back to see your childhood heroes, and having them not quite live up to how you remembered them. So I think we were on a mission to prove we could still do it.

When we originally got the band back together, we started by playing very small theatres. From the energy of those small performances, it grew into a huge scene, where we got to play five nights at Wembley Arena, and Madison Square Gardens in New York. So it suddenly felt like a new band again, and not something that had been trodden into the ground. We had left the original line-up on a real high, and so it actually felt very fresh.

Something that surprised me about that show was your audience. During your “imperial phase”, you were almost seen as a boy band by certain people, and so I had assumed that I’d be one of the very few men in that audience. But actually, it was a fairly equal 50:50 split. So either your audience has changed over the years, or else it was never really about the screaming girls in the first place. What’s your perspective on that?

Maybe the girls dragged their husbands along, I don’t know! But there’s definitely more of a crossing over now – especially in America, where we get a lot of guys coming to see us – whereas in the Eighties, it was 95% female.

Because we had a real teenage audience, that maybe scared off the guys. If you get a band that has a teenage girl following, then the guys will probably go to another band. But we’ve come out of that now. I think the guys have come back and said: actually, I always liked Duran Duran, but I was afraid to admit it. So it’s cool.

You’ve had an interesting journey in terms of going in and out of fashion. It’s completely OK now for bands such as The Killers or Franz Ferdinand to name-check you, so that must be extremely gratifying to witness.

It is, because music journalists – particularly those in the UK – would constantly try to write us out of history. They’d have preferred it if we didn’t exist during the Eighties, and if it was just The Smiths and New Order and U2. So it’s been really cool that the new bands are saying: actually, they were a cool band, and we are influenced by them. It’s great to feel that we are leaving some sort of legacy, which bands are now being influenced by.

When you first emerged, you were part of what some people called the New Romantic scene, although in Nottingham we liked to call ourselves Futurists. Very early on, you played at Rock City to a deeply fashionable crowd, and it became quite a legendary gig. But then of course, there was a moment when you went very pop. When Is There Something I Should Know came out, the DJ at the same venue actually denounced you down the microphone, as everyone thought you were turning into the Bay City Rollers. Did you care? Was it a conscious decision?

I don’t think so. As you become very successful, you become very uncool, and unfortunately it’s very hard to run those two things together. We were breaking America at the time, so we didn’t give two hoots about the criticism. But you’re right: it has taken a long time for people to recognise the significance of the early work. Our success was probably our worst enemy.


In terms of the creative dynamics within the band, it always seemed as if there was an “arty” faction led by Nick, and a “rock” faction led by Andy. We particularly saw it during the period when you split into Arcadia and The Power Station. But it also seemed that you were the guy who floated between those two factions.

I think you’re probably right. It was like being in a gang at school. You had the kids who liked football at one end, and you had the kids who liked softball at the other end. There was a big gap there, and I fell in the middle.

But that’s what made it so creative. It wasn’t like you had five Nick Rhodes, all wanting to be like Depeche Mode. You also had Andy in there, who wanted to be like AC/DC. When we went to America, they were ready to accept us because we had a guitar player that could play heavy riffs – particularly live, which at that point was very important over there. And then of course you had John, who was into the disco bass lines. So you had this real clash of musical cultures, this whole juxtaposition of styles going into the bucket, and I think something very interesting and very successful came out of it.

When I think of Duran as a rock band, with all the rock and roll excess which goes with it, you strike me as the sensible, grounded, non-starry one. If Duran were the Rolling Stones, you’d be Charlie Watts. Fair comment?

You could say that. I’ll take that a compliment, because I do love Charlie Watts. I think drummers tend to play that role in the band. Musically, you have to be an anchor when things are maybe going a little bit haywire. So I guess that could possibly be my role.

When you left the band in the mid-1980s, did you have any thoughts of returning to music in the future?

I just wanted to get as far away from music, and from rock star culture, as I possibly could. I bought a farm in the Midlands, and I retreated there. The pressure surrounding the band had become so intense. You have no idea what it was like. In those few years, we lost all of our freedom. We’d get to a hotel and you couldn’t actually leave your room. You couldn’t go into the lobby, and you couldn’t walk down the street, because you’d get harassed by a thousand teenage girls. People were camping outside our houses, and it was all very intense.

I got to the point where I’d just had enough. I had no idea what I was going to do, and no idea if I was going to go back to music, or reject it for the rest of my life. All I knew was I needed to get away from it for a while, and that turned into a number of years. I slowly started getting back into music, and then the chance of a reunion came up.

Did it require any persuasion to get you back into the band, or were you eager as soon as the suggestion was made?

It was a real surprise. By the year 2000, I thought: that’s it, it’s never going to happen again. Then I got a call out of the blue from John. It took me a little while to think about it, but I think I was ready.

I don’t think anybody needed persuading, as it was one of those things that almost had to happen. I don’t know how many times people have said to me over the years: when’s the band going to reform, when are you all getting back together. It was a constant nagging question, I suppose.

Are you back in the band for the long haul? Making that Rolling Stones comparison again, can you see yourself still doing this in twenty years time?

I don’t know. We don’t even talk about that, to be honest with you. We don’t even talk about a five year plan. All we talk about is this tour. We’re kind of thinking about another album after the tour, but that’s as far as we go.

Of course, it all depends on whether you’ve still got your audience. We’re not going to be playing in a little pub in Shepherd’s Bush, or whatever. We’d never do that. If we still have our audience, and if we still feel creative, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t keep doing it for a number of years.

But I don’t think it’s something you can plan. I’m sure the Rolling Stones didn’t sit down when they were forty and say: oh yeah, we’re still going to be doing this when we’re seventy. They’d go mad. It has to be a progressive thing.

But they do set an example of that being a perfectly good, viable option to take.

That’s the thing about the Rolling Stones: they have opened that option. There are only a handful of bands who are still going: U2, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Depeche Mode, and not many others. But the Stones have said: actually, you don’t have be done when you’re forty, or fifty, or sixty. You can keep doing it.


I’m intrigued to see you worked closely with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake on the current album (Red Carpet Massacre). What were you looking for them to bring to the table?

Timbaland has been one of the world’s biggest producers over the last few years, and Justin has been one of the biggest male artists. So if you get those two guys saying that they want to work you – of course! It was a no-brainer. We didn’t go chasing them; they wanted to work with us. It was a great opportunity to keep the band moving in a contemporary direction.

It must have been a departure for all concerned. I’m not aware of Timbaland having worked with any bands before. Was it a two-way learning process?

I think we were the first band that he’s worked with, and it was the first production project that Justin has been involved in. It was very much an experiment. We had no idea what to expect. We all just turned up to this little studio in New York on a Sunday evening. Timbaland was there with his beat box, Justin was there with some lyrics and melodies, and we just jammed. It could have gone completely wrong, but luckily it worked.

A lot of the tracks have a late night, funky feel, as if you’re finding the groove again. Was that part of the intention?

That was one of the manifestos for this album: that we would somehow get back in the clubs, and find our groove again in a very contemporary way. We thought Tim would be the ideal guy to do that for us.

Timbaland is known for using electronics to generate beat patterns. As a drummer, do you find that today’s technology can take some of the challenge away? Is there a danger that it can dull your edge?

Well, I’ve never been a down-the-line rock drummer. I’ve always used electronic drums and I’ve programmed, so that makes it a lot easier. If I was a rock drummer with no interest in electronics, it would have been difficult, but that’s always been very much part of the Duran sound. If they’d tried to do it with the Chilli Peppers, who just plug in their instruments and play, I’m not sure it would have worked. But we grew up with Kraftwerk and the Human League, and we formed the band in a club, so that made us much more open-minded.

I heard that there’s a section in this tour where you explicitly pay homage to Kraftwerk. All four of you take to the keyboards, is that right?

Yeah, I play a little electronic kit à la Kraftwerk, and the other guys play keyboards. Our management suggested that we should do a bit in the show where we come to the front of the stage with acoustic guitars and bongos, or whatever. F**k, we’re not doing that! Our roots were electronic, which is to say Kraftwerk. So we thought that a great way to do our “acoustic moment”, if you like, would be to get out the electronic instruments and pay homage to our roots.

It really gets us in contact with the audience, because we’re all right at the front. It only lasts for fifteen or twenty minutes, so it’s a nice contrast to the live band thing.

One of the great things about your 2004 show at the Arena was the sound quality. The Arena is a difficult venue acoustically, and you do have to put more work in with it. So I salute you for doing that.

We’ve got great sound guys, so hopefully it should work for us!

(Photos of Roger Taylor taken in New York in November 2007 by li'lhug, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.)

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

Seth Lakeman likes the Rescue Rooms, and with good reason. One of his first gigs was at the venue, and its warmth and intimacy have always suited him well. However, times and circumstances change.

Three years after his breakthrough nomination at the Mercury Music Prize, and less than two years after his Freedom Fields album cracked the Top Forty, Seth has reached a level of popular success which no other young English folk artist has reached since the days of Steeleye Span, over thirty years ago. Quite simply, he has outgrown the venue, which by his own admission resembled a “sweat pit” last night.

There’s nothing wrong with sweat pits, of course: but for all the muscular, percussive energy on display, something vital was lost along the way. Lakeman’s songs are mostly centred around stories, and successful story-telling requires a certain degree of calm, focussed concentration – particularly when, in the case of the selections from the forthcoming album Poor Man’s Heaven, the stories haven’t been heard before.

Without that direct, personal connection between artist and audience, the newer material fell somewhat flat. Seth is an able guitar player and a more than nifty fiddle player – indeed, the solo voice-and-fiddle pieces went down better than anything else – but he is no virtuoso either, and so his performance fell rather between two stools.

Nevertheless, it was still a delight to witness further evidence of English folk’s unexpected and wholly deserved revival – and on St George’s Day itself, what could have been more appropriate?

Labels: eveningpost, gigs, popmusic

(An edited version of this article originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)


It’s refreshing to note that you’re embarking on an 11-date UK tour, without having any new product to promote. We don’t get that too often anymore. Does the tour have a particular purpose?

Just to get out and play, really. We enjoy touring, we enjoy playing, and it seems to be something that audiences are into. There’s also a whole new album called Poor Man’s Heaven, which comes out on 30th June.

Will you be performing some of the new songs for the first time?

We will, actually. We’ll probably play a good eight or nine songs from the new record. We played a handful of them last summer, and on our last tour in November, and there was a great reaction. We’re quite excited to see how they go down. And playing the Rescue Rooms is always a lot of fun for us.

We are blessed. It has a great acoustic, and you can get quite an intimacy.

I think so as well. Last time in Nottingham we played the university, and I was actually missing playing the Rescue Rooms. We always have a great night there. I did one of my first gigs there, with Benji Kirkpatrick and also John Jones from the Oyster Band, and I remember just thinking it was an amazing venue. And it turned into a club afterwards!

I’ve heard rumours that the new album is less acoustic and more electric…?

It’s not electric, no. It’s just heavyweight; it’s quite in your face. In terms of the stories, I’ve gone for a coastal-based concept. There are stories of tragedy, including the true story of a lifeboat disaster that happened in Cornwall. There are stories of the wreckers in Cornwall, who used to put beacons on the coast to lure ships in and steal their cargo. There’s a story of a pirate, and there’s a story of the Hurlers Stones on Bodmin Moor, so it’s very much a West Country based record. Most of the stories are about wanting or aspiring to something more in your life, and so the title of Poor Man’s Heaven refers to that aspiration, or that ambition.

How do you come across these stories? We’ve lost the oral tradition, so is there a certain amount of research involved?

Obviously, there’s some of it which is made up. Some are based on a true story, such as Solomon Browne, the Penlee lifeboat disaster song. Crimson Dawn is based on a very romantic true story with a happy ending, which is quite strange for a folk song! There’s also The Unquiet Grave, which is a traditional song that I’ve reworked. But mostly it’s researched: looking on the Internet, or knowing about the songs anyway. A lot of people in this area are aware of the little coves where wrecks have happened, and of the Manacles rocks, which have wrecked thousands of ships over the years. So I guess it’s common knowledge round here, and you just kind of dig out the details.

We don’t have anything like that in our part of the country at all, I don’t think…

[Baffled] What, in Nottingham? Haven’t you got …?

[Hastily] Well, yes, we have Mr. Hood. But he’s been done to death. And he’s apparently from Sheffield, anyway. They’ve even put Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster! It’s got nothing to do with us!

That’s madness… (Laughter)


Going back a bit, you first caught a lot of people’s attention when you were plucked from obscurity for the Mercury Music Prize in 2005. You represented what a lot of people still think of as the “token folk” category, which means that no-one thinks it will win. A lot of the nominated folk artists have quickly returned to their own scenes, but for you it provided a real springboard to greater success. In retrospect, do you see that as a defining moment?

I think it just gave me the confidence to work out that what I was doing was something that people could enjoy, and were starting to enjoy. I wasn’t even trying to be a lead singer. At that point, I was actually trying to put a band together with a girl singer. I released Kitty Jay as an experiment, and then the nomination meant that I could actually be a professional solo artist. So that was the break.

I’m a person who likes to experiment in music quite a lot. I like to produce my own records, with my brother Sean, and I like to be involved in every part of the project. It develops with curiosity, I guess.

Your breakout at the Mercurys seemed to coincide with a remarkable resurgence of popular interest in British folk and folk-influenced music. It feels like it has broken out of the niche where it was languishing for a good couple of decades.

I was lucky enough to come out at that point, yes – but I was already well aware that acoustic music, open mike nights and contemporary singer-songwriters were coming through. The record companies were starting to finance people like Damien Rice and KT Tunstall, well before I was doing anything. With artists like Kate Rusby, Jose Gonzales and Newton Faulkner, a lot of people are doing things from different directions – but you’re right, it seems to be more popular than ever. I think that’s because of the confidence from the labels of using acoustic instruments, and so they’re putting money behind that. I also think it’s from MySpace and the Internet revolution, which has really fuelled independent musicians.

It’s bad news for the record companies, but an amazing opportunity for people who are actually making the music, so I think you’re right. A friend tells me that there’s a whole underground acoustic scene going on in London at the moment: not so much directly folk-influenced, but very much acoustic music. He’s going to gigs all the time, and there’s a whole network of people that all seem to know each other, and so there’s something really breaking through there.

Yes, it’s exciting. I think it’s good for English music, so hopefully we’ll get something that will translate internationally, and that we can stand proud of as a country. Because I think, to be honest, we could do with that musically. It’s just an exciting time. You kind of know. You can feel something bubbling, can’t you?


Definitely, definitely. Talking about breaking out internationally, you supported Tori Amos around Europe last year. How did European audiences take to your very English material? They wouldn’t have had the same reference points, so did they get it?

Well, that’s the thing about what I do. There’s quite a lot of depth, in terms of the stories and the messages that I’m singing about. So without having that in the forefront of your mind, and because it’s not popular music, it doesn’t translate as well.

But because of the energy, and the instruments that we use, and the way the guys are so amazing musically: whenever we’ve played abroad, people really are into it. They really like what they’re hearing. In that way, I would love to follow in the footsteps of an act like the John Butler Trio. He sells a lot of records in other countries, and he spreads himself in a really good way, but without selling out to anyone.

In a certain sense, a weight has been placed on your shoulders, in that you’re almost being cast in the role of an ambassador for British folk. For people that don’t buy fRoots magazine, or who don’t listen to Mike Harding’s show on Radio Two, yours and Kate Rusby’s may be the only folk-influenced albums in their collections. Does that role sit easily on your shoulders?

Kate would probably be more of a folk artist than me. I’m definitely a folk singer, but I write pretty much most of what I do. Because it’s conjured up from my mind, but inspired from where I live and the people I live around, it’s definitely very realistic English music; there’s no doubt about that. I do feel a certain amount of pressure sometimes, but I also feel very content with the way things have gone. I couldn’t be happier, actually. I’ve been very lucky. The reality of what I do is: I play the fiddle and the tenor guitar, stomp my foot, and sing songs about local legends and stuff.


Unlike the rock tradition, which exploits the differences between the generations, you seem to be playing in a tradition which actually builds bridges between them. There’s less of an emphasis on that kind of difference. Is that a fair observation?

I think it is, yeah. I’m trying to look forward as well as re-work traditional songs, which I have done once or twice on this new record. I like to write new narrative tales such as Solomon Browne, which covers a disaster from 1981. I’m trying to put a record together that feels right and can flow well, and I think Poor Man’s Heaven has done that. I’m not consciously setting out to change folk song, or direct it in a different way. I’m really just trying to find a collection of songs that I’ve written, that really encompass a poor man’s heaven.

What line-up will you be taking on stage? You used to perform accompanied by nothing more than your foot, but I guess it has expanded a bit by now.

Yeah, my foot has turned into an engine room drum kit behind me: a guy called Andy Tween from Bristol, who’s amazing. Then we’ve got Ben Nichols on double bass and banjo, me on fiddle and acoustic guitar, and my brother Sean on acoustic six-string guitar.

So it’s an acoustic line-up – but like you say, there has been such a boom. Last year, we were playing after McFly and before The Sugababes on the V Festival Tent, which was an amazing experience for us, and something that wouldn’t have happened ten years ago. So I think you’re right: the music is changing, and young people are really getting into it.


(Photos of Seth Lakeman taken in Cheltenham on September 28th 2007 by 6tee-zeven and in Oxford on October 16th 2007 by Mr Ush, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.)

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

(An edited version of this interview, which took place on Monday March 17th, originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)

Your new album The Seldom Seem Kid is out today. It’s been on sale for, what, about three hours now, so it must be an exciting and nerve-wracking moment.

Very, very exciting. Not so nerve-wracking, really. I’m very proud of it, and it’s been a long time in the making. It’s been a couple of years, for various reasons, with record company negotiations and such like. We had the luxury of quite a long time to make it. We just locked ourselves away in our studio, and in my opinion we’ve made the best record we’ve ever done.

I see that the album is self-produced for the first time. Hard-Fi and Athlete did the same thing last year, and a few bands seem to be going down this route. How did the decision come about for you?

It’s something that we’ve always dabbled in. We’ve always had a pro-active part in the production, even when working with other producers. Leaders of the Free World was pretty much recorded by ourselves, but we didn’t quite have the confidence to mix it, and so we worked with a guy out in L.A. Whilst we were out there mixing, we basically came to the decision that we’re actually quite capable of doing this ourselves. My brother [keyboardist Craig Potter] has really proved himself as the producer. I’m very proud of him, and for me it’s our best sounding record.

So you now have your own dedicated studio, which is part of a larger complex?

Yes, we rent a large space on the top floor. You can actually see it in the DVD that came with Leaders of the Free World. There’s a really big room up there, in which we do a lot of the live stuff in, and a smaller room which is our control centre. Over the years, we’ve made a point of upgrading and building our own studio whenever we can. You never know when record companies won’t exist, and so hopefully we’ll always be able to put records out.

The album isn’t what I was expecting. I had you down much more as a sort of straight down the line, meat-and-two-veg guitar band, so it came as a pleasant surprise. A couple of things stood out: the sheer musical variety on offer, and also, as you say, the quality of the production. There are so many little details tucked away on there, and so I think people need to hear it on CD, rather than getting it on a cheap download.

The fact we had such a long time to make it definitely contributes to that. You talk about the finer details – we’re very much perfectionists about what we do, especially my brother as the producer. Some songs can come literally from a sound – that’s where they can begin.

Elbow songs are written, recorded, re-written, then played live, and then re-recorded. So it’s quite a long process, before the song ever comes to completion. I think it’s that attention to detail which sets us aside from other acts.

The flow of the album is quite unusual. It starts quite lively, building up to a crescendo with the fourth track Grounds For Divorce, before slipping back into a quieter, slower mood for the remaining seven tracks. You’re the lead guitarist, and you supply that grinding riff on Grounds For Divorce. Was there a part of you that felt frustrated at not being able to rock out for a bit longer?

(Laughs) I am the rocker in the band, and I’ve been playing around with that riff for many years now. Eventually, the rest of them picked up on it and thought: Hang on, it’s pretty good, that riff. Let’s get that in a song.

The fact that all five members of the band contribute to the writing is what gives it its eclectic nature. We all love bands like Radiohead, Queens of the Stone Age, and more recently Smashing Pumpkins, on the heavier side of things. But then we love stuff like David Sylvian – and Talk Talk, who are a massive influence on all of us. I actually think that delicate beauty is what we do best, and I think matches up well with Guy’s lyrical style.

There’s a very pronounced emotional quality that runs all the way through. The album’s title refers to a friend of yours called Brian Glancy, who died last year. Can you tell me a bit more about him?

He was a very good friend of ours – a local Manchester musician, who had been around for many years. He did some stuff with Mark Burgess [The Chameleons] many years ago. He was just such a loved guy: he was best friends with multi-millionaire rock stars and homeless people in the street. His music was very delicate: he played beautiful, heartfelt songs on an acoustic guitar. He’s very sadly missed. I don’t think there was a musician in Manchester that wasn’t mourning for quite a while when we lost him, to the point where I think there’s going to be a tribute record coming out, of local Manchester bands performing his songs.

The album’s final track Friend Of Ours is clearly dedicated to him.

It is. That’s a direct goodbye to him, from all of us. Whereas the lead single Grounds For Divorce is really about the way we felt. After his death, there were a lot of people drinking heavily, in a couple of our local bars in Manchester. Guy’s lyric – “I’m working on a cocktail called Grounds For Divorce” – was basically him saying: it’s getting a bit on top me now, and I want to get out of this feeling. So it’s not about divorcing your missus; it’s about divorcing a feeling within oneself.

I’ve not seen a lyric sheet, and I have struggled in a couple of places without one. I’m particularly curious to know more about the lyrical concept behind Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver.

Guy [Garvey, singer and lyricist] actually met a guy in a pub – there’s a theme running here, the pub seems to come into it quite a lot! – and he was a power crane driver on one of the work sites near the studio. They started talking, and Guy was saying: Oh, it must be great doing your job and being up there. The guy was saying: Yeah, I absolutely love it, I’ve got my own little toilet, and I’ve got a TV up there.

But after a few beers, it came out that this guy was very lonely. He wasn’t liked on the site, because his was the highest paid job and so he was making more money than anyone else. And at the end of the working day, by the time he’d got down from his power crane, everyone had gone. Therefore he didn’t have any friends on the site. So it’s really about that isolated sort of feeling.

What would you say are the album’s main lyrical themes?

Love is something that Guy has always written about. He’s very much in love, for the first time in a long time, and so it’s about the way that love make you feel. Mirrorball is about how you feel the day after you’ve met somebody that you know is special, when the world looks differently to you.

So it’s about love, it’s about loss – with Brian, obviously – it’s about hope, and it’s about us being comfortable with where we are musically. I don’t think that we’ve ever been so confident with the music that we make.

One particular departure is the track One Day Like This. In a way, it’s the nearest you’ve got to a stadium anthem. It’s notably more uplifting, with a singalong chant (“throw those curtains wide”), but it’s actually a very personal love song at the same time, so there’s quite a contrast.

That was quite intentional. I do find it hard commenting on Guy’s lyrics, because they’re so personal to him. On Weather to Fly, Guy talks about how we feel as a group of mates, and as a group of musicians, who are lucky enough still to be doing what we love after all these years. It’s actually my favourite song on the album, and I’m afraid it brings a bit of a tear to my eye, because it’s a bit of an “I’m proud of you, lads” from Guy to the band.

There’s also a duet with Richard Hawley on The Fix, which is a nice piece of Manchester-Sheffield crossover. How did that come about?

Guy met Richard as part of a strange collaboration in Memphis, Tennessee. I think it was Jack Daniels sponsored, and so it was a small gig in a distillery out there. They used some legendary local Memphis musicians who had played on a lot of Motown stuff, and Frank Black was also out there. Guy became very friendly with Richard out there, and they sang with Frank on a Pixies song. On the plane back home, they made a decision to do a collaboration.

The song is about a couple of friends who fix a horse race and then disappear on their winnings. As soon as we heard it, we thought it would be great to get Richard on. He came down one afternoon, we set two mikes up, they stood opposite each other, and it was pretty much done on the first or second take.

It was interesting to hear that you write the songs and play them live, before going back and re-recording them. Because the production is such a key feature of the album, I wondered whether there would be problems translating those songs to a live setting. But it’s like you’ve done that first, in a way.

Almost, but not with everything. In an ideal world, you’d write a record, then tour it, then go into the studio and record it. That’s because songs evolve live.

We never try to do an accurate, bang-on version of the actual album. We’re not big fans of backing tapes, or anything like that – although there are certain sounds that we will use on stage, as long as there’s one of us playing a similar thing. As long as there’s a visual, actual live representation of it, then we’ll occasionally use subtle sounds to back up what we’re doing. But we will actually be touring with a string section as well.

Cool, I was wondering about those orchestral flourishes…

I hate it when you see a band, and halfway through the gig, a string section comes out of nowhere. It’s not good enough, in my opinion.

I also read somewhere that this might be your last new album in the traditional sense of the word, and you might switch to releasing EPs and single tracks from now on. Is that correct?

I think that was slightly misquoted, actually. In fact, it definitely was. Guy was talking about how these days, the album as a format is a dying thing, because of all the downloading. We wanted this to be a record where people listen from to start to finish. We took it to the point where we had written three songs, and then we started putting them together in the order we thought they would work on the album. Then we’d listen to them and we’d think: OK, what would be great to follow that? For example, there’s a high backing vocal at the end of Weather to Fly which starts the following track, An Audience with the Pope. I don’t think there are many people doing that these days.

The Seldom Seen Kid is out now. It’s a terrific album, which I hereby recommend to the group.

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

(An edited version of this interview originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)


Where are you speaking from today, Gaz?

I’m at home on Oxford, recording some B-sides in my little studio, with a few of the fellas. It’s been a good day, actually.

You recently appeared on ITV’s Guilty Pleasures, covering Michael Jackson’s Beat It. I thought it was a good performance on an otherwise iffy show.

You just don’t know at the time. When we heard about it, we knew the Magic Numbers would be there, and Sophie Ellis Bextor, and obviously a few real mainstreamers. I thought it sounded alright, and that it could be quite a laugh. When I saw it, I thought it was a bit dull. But although it didn’t make for riveting viewing, I actually really enjoyed it. Basically, it was like walking into a pub full of old folks and screaming really loudly. We woke everything up a bit, I think.

I do take issue with the concept of “guilty pleasures”, though. Apart from maybe smoking, I don’t see why any pleasures should be guilty ones. I thought we were over the whole “cool factor” thing by now?

Well, that’s true – but there are certain pleasures that maybe one wouldn’t want to mention too much in public!

I guess that show marked the end of your Diamond Hoo Ha Men side project, where you and drummer Danny Goffey went out and performed as a duo – including here at the Bodega Social last December.

We knew we wanted to get out and play, because our bassist Mick was still laid up after a serious accident, but we didn’t want to reconstruct Supergrass too differently, and bring in too many different people. A lot of our new songs have riffs in them, and so they were possible to translate into guitar and drums, in a White Stripes-y kind of way. So it all pieced together, and it all worked. Plus playing in little clubs for 18 to 25 year olds was a really good laugh.

The title track on the new album (Diamond Hoo Ha) has a White Stripes sound about it, with that typically bluesy riff, so I guess there was a link.

I dunno. I mean, we weren’t really taking the White Stripes thing too far. They’re an amazing, inspiring band, but we’ve always written with riffs, going back to Richard III.

Have you buried the alter egos, or will they make a re-appearance?

I can’t remember where they are at the moment. They went off on sabbatical. Maybe joined a cult, somewhere in Middle America.

Good luck to ‘em. The new album is more upbeat, punchy and straightforwardly joyful than I was expecting. After some of the darker material on Road to Rouen, was there a conscious decision to return to fun?

I don’t think there was a conscious decision to return to anything. From the beginning, we were writing in quite an energetic fashion, so we just pushed that. We didn’t want to repeat Road to Rouen, but at the same time we wanted to take some of its more intense elements and bring those into the new record. In songs like Whiskey & Green Tea and The Return Of, there’s some crazy stuff going on, which isn’t simple. It might sound simple, but it has complexities underneath.

In The Return Of, you sing about “the return of inspiration, the return of serotonin”. It made me feel that Supergrass is back in a happy place.

There’s maybe some underlying message in there, yeah. I don’t think there has ever been any lack of inspiration, but there has definitely been a return of a sort of bonding between us as a band. Our closeness has come back really strongly. There were troubling times between us over the last three years, so it’s great to be close and excitable again.

It’s such a relief that you haven’t gone down the route of making the sort of polite, sensible, mid-paced, thirty-something corporate indie which you hear so much of these days. Naming no names…

It’s just not in our nature. We like things to be raw. We’ve never really thought about whether something will break through and sell millions of records – although we always think after we’ve completed each record, that it’s definitely a massive album that should sell millions. So someone’s going wrong, somewhere along the line!

There’s also an unexpected variety on the album. Based on the two singles, and on the songs that you’ve been performing on TV, you would expect that all-out, rock based energy to run all the way through, but there’s a change of direction in the middle. Songs like The Return Of and Ghost of a Friend have a lighter, more pop-based approach, and there are some 1970s Bowie influence at work on the final track Butterfly. Is that due to the influence of the Hansa studios in Berlin, where Bowie recorded in the 1970s, and where you recorded this album?

Not necessarily. The songs were written before that, back in Oxford. For me, Butterfly has a kind of epic quality, but in quite a raw way. There aren’t too many instruments plastered all over it, just a sort of emotional power. We try not to get into particular references, where we want something to sound like Bowie or whatever.

I just thought that there might have been a deliberate nod towards him. I suppose it was something about the way it was phrased.

I don’t think we ever do any deliberate nods to people. We stumble across things, and at times they might have a bit of Stones-y edge, or a bit of a Bowie feel, or a bit of a Talking Heads-ness, but that’s as far as it normally goes for me. It’s what I do with all bands. Even with really so-called “pioneering” bands like Radiohead or the White Stripes, I can still say: oh, there’s definitely a little bit of Al Green there…

It’s a game we all play, isn’t it?

Definitely, yeah. So it’s that sort of thing, but we don’t really look at references too much.

The song that has grabbed me the most is Ghost of a Friend. It’s certainly the tune I’ve been ear-worming the most. It sounds like a really radio-friendly, hooky pop song, at least on a certain level. Would that be a potential candidate for a future single?

I don’t know. We all love that one, and it’s just a case of which ones are coming through, and which ones are getting the feedback. It hasn’t necessarily come through as a single yet, but there’s still time. Rebel In You is going to be the next single, but after that we don’t really know what the deal is.

Well, that would be my tip, for what it’s worth…

Yeah, mine too, I’m into that one.

Although on one level it’s radio-friendly, hooky pop, there also seem to be some personal references going on. It sounds like someone from your past – maybe a former lover, or a former friend – is reminding you to keep your distance from some of the madder elements of the rock and roll circus.

Yeah, I think that’s what it is. Danny wrote a lot of those lyrics, and I think he was escaping from that kind of intense life, that doesn’t really let you breathe. It’s really constricting and suffocating. Then there’s a chance to get out, and you hear the voice of someone pushing you or guiding you through. It’s definitely got that vibe.

The other one that interested me lyrically was Whiskey & Green Tea, which describes a trip to a Chinese karaoke bar called KTV. I’ve spent some time working in China myself, and we had a KTV in our city as well. It sounds like you’ve had one of those deeply weird nights that can only happen in China.

Well, that’s it; all sorts of things happened. It was a really mad visit, and really culturally interesting. On the plane home, I started writing about it. It was almost like a little story, and we just picked out lines from it for the final track. Things like going up to the thirteenth floor, to be greeted by military rows of schoolgirls. The situations were bizarre, so it deserved to be noted down.

I ended up in a nightclub on Christmas Day, with go-go dancers dressed as Santa Claus, writhing to a gangsta rap version of Jingle Bells. Then when you went to the loo, the toilet attendant would give you a back massage, whether you wanted one or not. Totally weird. I also met some musicians when I was over there, and they seemed culturally starved in terms of access to Western rock music. You couldn’t buy it in the shops, so I sent some over when I got back, almost like food parcels. When you were there, did you get any indication that China might be opening up to Western rock music?

Only the very beginnings of it. I think we were only the fourth rock and roll band to go over there, or something. I think it will open up, because like anything they’ll realise that there’s potentially money to be made. There were little signs of it.

In the city I was in, there was just one club that played live rock music, and that was shutting. I went to the last night. Everyone was still talking about when Suede played Shanghai five or six years earlier, as there had been nothing since.

Yeah, yeah, totally – it’s crazy.



I have a niggle about the album’s packaging, which is rather on the minimal side. It’s like you’re just expecting people to burn it to their iPods, and never look at the CD box again.

That’s pretty much what they do, isn’t it? But I don’t know if that was really the issue. On vinyl, it’s actually superb. It’s brilliant: you basically pull the vinyl out of the… [pause] inside bit, if you know what I mean. It all makes sense; it’s like you wouldn’t want any more. But yeah, the CD does perhaps look a bit minimal.

I just think that with a CD, you want to add a bit of value to the people who are going to pay that extra three quid, rather than just going straight to iTunes.

Well, perhaps, perhaps. But I love the cover anyway.

In terms of the way that you’ve survived, people now see you as the last survivors of the Britpop era. A lot of the reasons why bands tend to split up haven’t happened to you, so what is it that has kept you together as a foursome?

I suppose we feel like there’s a long way to go. We haven’t yet explored everything that we want to. Maybe there’s a timeless quality. Maybe when bands are stuck into a fashion or a trend or a movement, it shortens their life as a band.

Often one person will take over and start dictating the musical direction, but it strikes me that you must be considerably more democratic than that.

All four of us write songs, so it’s a bit like the bloody Beatles! No, I’m joking. But as we all write, it’s easy to get variation. It keeps the interest going, and it keeps things flowing.

Am I right in thinking that you’re touring as a five-piece?

Yeah, we’ve got my brother Charlie on board. He’s playing second guitar, and some backing vocals. It’s really opened up certain tracks. Some of the new album has a real heavy guitar sound, so it really works with that second guitar.

Is Mick fully recovered, and coping OK with the demands of touring?

Yeah, he’s pretty good. We did those four dates last month, and he played really well, so we’re not really worried about that. We’re looking forward to the gigs. We’re playing better than we have done for years, so the set’s going to be wicked.

And you’ve had many, many visits to Rock City under your belts before. A favourite venue?

Yeah, it can be just totally f**king mental. The roof can really lift off, so it can be a great night.

Well, best of luck with the album. I know that it hasn’t exactly set the charts alight, so I hope that situation turns around.

I think it’s really down to EMI. If you don’t put much money into something, you probably won’t get it out there, so it is frustrating. We’ve loved everything we’ve done on this record, and so you want that to come from other areas as well. But we’ll see what happens, eh?

Photos taken outside the Royal Festival Hall, London, on March 19th 2008 by Matthew Armstrong and Mr_Benn, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

The Breeders are not a band to be rushed. Released at the beginning of this week, Mountain Battles is only their fourth album in eighteen years. It’s a murky, low-fi, subdued affair, whose understated charm sneaks up on you from behind. Unlike 1993’s breakthrough album Last Splash, it won’t be going internationally platinum any time soon. These days, that’s hardly the point.

As on record, so they were on stage: unhurried, slightly shambling, not making a big deal out of themselves. An amiable goofiness, which masked a calm, clear sense of purpose.

Leading the band as always, but resisting the centre stage limelight, a broadly beaming Kim Deal set the mood of the whole show. “When are you going to marry me?” shouted one fan. “No warrants, a licence and a job, that’s all I ask”, she batted back, with an earthy cackle.

Her addictions long since conquered, Kim’s sister Kelley looked weather-beaten yet gamine, her singing voice as sweet as ever. Later this year, she’ll be publishing a book of knitting patterns: “Bags That Rock: Knitting on the Road”. How times change.

Trent Uni’s student union building is a sadly underused venue, whose superb acoustic played to the band’s strengths. The slower material from Mountain Battles resonated and captivated, while old favourites like Divine Hammer and the classic Cannonball retained a box-fresh sparkle.

Like Kim’s former band The Pixies, you can never quite pin down what makes The Breeders so special. You just instinctively know that they’re a class act.

Labels: eveningpost, gigs, popmusic

Witnessing first-hand the squeals of female delight which greeted his every move, I suddenly realised that John Barrowman might be something unique: an openly gay heartthrob, whose unequivocal frankness merely adds to his appeal. If that sounds like a contradiction, then it’s certainly not one which bothered either the artist or his adoring audience, whose tangible rapport was wonderful to behold.

Drawing on his long experience in musical theatre, Barrowman delivered a highly accomplished performance, mixing pop standards and favourite show tunes with sparky quips and occasionally tear-jerking personal stories, all with the total self-assurance of a seasoned professional.

Although a gifted musical interpreter, Barrowman was canny enough to realise that, in his new incarnation as a Saturday night prime time TV regular, he would have to up the cheese factor: Barry Manilow numbers, Latino rump-shakers, I Am What I Am histrionics, the works.

Occasionally, he overstepped the mark: an over-familiar Amarillo was an end-of-the-pier gesture too far. But for the most part, the balance between showmanship and song craft was ably struck.

Highlights for the music lovers included fine renditions of Nina Simone’s Feelin’ Good and I Won’t Send Roses (from Mack and Mabel). Highlights for the fans included special appearances from Captain Jack’s greatcoat and the Elvis outfit from Dancing On Ice.

Who cared if the outfits got the bigger cheers? Certainly not the ebullient Barrowman, whose infectiously gleeful determination to make the absolute most of his “moment in the sun” may be his biggest asset of all.

Labels: celebs, eveningpost, gigs, popmusic

A Barry Adamson gig outside London is rare enough, but a full tour is something quite unprecedented. Last seen here in 1984 with the Bad Seeds, Adamson’s long overdue return saw him fronting a six piece band, and promoting his eighth solo album, Back To The Cat.

Although a multi-instrumentalist in the studio, Barry played no instruments on stage (unless you counted a vintage Rolf Harris Stylopohone, which was briefly brandished and caressed in the manner of an axe hero giving a virtuoso performance). Shaven-headed, sharply dressed and powerfully built, he prowled the stage with the arresting presence of a retired boxer, immersing himself in the characters of his filmic, retro-flavoured “imaginary soundtracks”.

As the set progressed, selections from the new album increasingly dominated – as well they might, given that this is possibly Adamson’s most immediate, audience-friendly work to date, and hence the inspiration for breaking with precedent and staging the tour. I Could Love You flirted with deep soul, Straight ‘Til Sunrise mixed Bacharach-style breeziness with lyrical darkness, and the rousing, anthemic Civilization drew the loudest cheers.

The band encored with the album’s brooding opener Beaten Side Of Town, before closing with a slinky re-working of Sly Stone’s (and Magazine’s) Thank You.

Labels: eveningpost, gigs, popmusic

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post's EG supplement. This is the extended remix.)

I read with some amazement that this will be your first ever solo tour. Why now, and why never before?

This is the question on everybody’s lips at the moment! That sentence has been taken a little bit too much to heart. I’ve always played live, but I’ve never done a consecutive string of dates. So I think that’s where the gasps of amazement are coming from, as if I’ve never left the house for thirty years. And sure, the last time I played Nottingham was at Rock City with the Bad Seeds, or maybe with Magazine, which is eons ago.

But the “why now” is a fair question – and it’s because the new album [Back to the Cat] just screams to be played live, that’s all. Funnily enough, I was able to play it live as a preview, right after it was written. It went down really well, which gave me an indication. So I thought: OK, let’s just do it. Let’s go out, night after night, and play it. And I think I’ve now got a sufficient body of work, as well.

Also, I wasn’t really a band. I was this guy who sat with a keyboard, twiddling away and making these scores, and I didn’t feel comfortable taking that out on the road. I’m not really a band now – but it sounds like it’s a band, and it’s presented in a band way.

So you don’t generally define as a band leader for most of the time?

I do now, and I feel like I can take that out.

Are these people that you’ve worked with many times before?

Yes, they’re regulars. They’re the same people that play on the new record, and on the other records.

So there will be quite a full line-up, I guess.

It’s funny, because people think there’s eighty people playing on each track, and there’s not really. There’s only four or five, or seven at most, and they’re the people that I’ll be bringing with me, so sonically it will be fine. People do seem to think that we’ll be coming on ten buses.

You do imagine an orchestra, somehow.

Yeah, but there’s not one there. That’s how it works today. A keyboard can sound like an orchestra, which it does on the record.

Tell me more about the Back to the Cat album. Are there particular unifying themes?

I guess there always is with me, because I’ve got that film head. I guess I work in the background. I run around from theme to theme, from the psychological set-up to the next beat of the movie, and I pull it together in that way.

But what’s interesting about this record is that there wasn’t a lot of pre-meditation. The first song that popped up was Walk On Fire. I thought: well, that’s pretty upbeat, even though it still has the same flavours of noir, and a dark leaning in some ways. It set me off, and then it was a bit like watching a garden flower, really. The songs sprang up one after the other, really quite quickly.

It’s funny, because I usually keep such a tight rein on the themes. I put it down to experience, and having a bit more confidence, just to let things happen.

It’s more stylistically diverse than I was expecting. I had a pre-conceived notion of your music as being very much down the John Barry and Leonard Bernstein route.

Yeah, I’ve always been linked to the Bernstein/Barry ends of film composition, but maybe there are newer elements that I’m adding.

The standard description which gets applied to you, over and over again, is that you compose soundtracks for imaginary movies. Is that the way that you approach the composition process? Does an imaginary movie spool in your head?

I think it does, actually. I’m writing from an idea, which is driven from character – but you do almost drift, from station to station. You go into each place, and inhabit each world on the record.

I think it was more applicable in the early days. The pieces were instrumental, and so they were like soundscapes, where you could apply your own imagery. In that sense, they were open. There wasn’t a narrative, and there wasn’t an idea that was verbalised. But I still think that that’s the thread of the record, yeah. I still think they have a sense of that.

A track that I visualised particularly strongly was your instrumental Flight. To me, it suggests men in trench coats and trilbies, running down dark alleyways at night, with police sirens whooping behind them and lights chasing them…

All that for a little cat, running down the alleyway! But I know what you mean, of course. It does hark back to that way of working. I actually find that track quite out there on its own. It’s not like anything I’ve done before, but at the same time you kind of know what it means. And it’s exactly the description you’ve made there – that’s what’s going on in it.

So basically, you’ll start from a narrative standpoint, as opposed to an emotional standpoint. You don’t really write about personal emotions, in terms of spilling your heart out and letting a particular personal situation inform a song.

Well, no. I’ve made mistakes in the past where I’ve attempted to do that, and I don’t think that’s good art. Well, I can’t do it, put it that way.

What I tend to do is use symbolism and metaphor, that drop quite definitely into the emotions. Then you can get a sense of where I’m coming from, and of the feelings which come behind that, which are in some ways therefore biographical.

So what I enjoy is mixing up those states, and moving from the head to the heart, if you like, and back again. Being abstract about that, and then covering that, and then mapping that, and then purposely not revealing that, and then revealing something when you think: well, that’s all obviously made up. It’s very much a filmic way.

Truffaut had this idea that you should write 25% of yourself, 25% from a friend, 25% from what you read in the newspaper, and 25% totally made up. That’s what makes up a narrative.

To what extent, if any, should the album be viewed as a quote-unquote “retro” project?

I think that would be a cheap shot. I think that would be a slightly cynical way of brushing off something, in order to get back to reading the News of the World.

But it has a retro-istic standpoint, and on purpose. Because, if you think about it, where we are now musically: there’s nothing going on. I don’t think anything’s really going forward. I think we’ve driven to the coast, and we’re looking to build a boat. So all I’m doing is saying: while we’re building the boat, just think this. This is what’s got us here anyway, so let’s go and build the boat. To be honest with you, that’s what my thinking is.

Mm, okay…

“Mm, grunted Mike!” (Laughs) No, go on!

Well, yeah, there is an undeniably retro feel – but to me, there’s an element which reminds me of the music that I grew up with in the Sixties, which is very formative music for me. There’s something very reassuring about some of the Bacharach/David elements, and so on.

That’s true, but there’s another thing going on there, Mike. Why? Why? Why is he doing a record like this? There’s something else going on there. You’re right: I’m taking comfort from that in some ways, but I’m also saying: this is where the buck has stopped. You know, if it was 1977, well, I wouldn’t be making that kind of record.

You’d have been tearing up the past?

Yeah, exactly. But I don’t see that happening now. And when it does happen, I’ll gracefully bow out, and do something else. But until then, I’ll create these worlds, and use the past to inform a future.

When you do see people attempting to tear up the past and start afresh, it all seems a little bit unconvincing to me. Maybe I’ve just been around too long, and I’m not taken in by it. Maybe we’ve reached a point where we can’t do it anymore.

I’m not convinced that you can ignore history, ever. In artwork, or in music, or whatever.

Finally, I have to commend you for playing on one of my absolute favourite singles of all time, which is Magazine’s A Song From Under the Floorboards. It came along at just the right time for me, especially with the way that it revels in self-abasement, in a way that I found very appealing at the time. I guess you must have been responsible for that lovely popping bassline, that goes all the way through it…

That’s true, yes. Well, you see, even then that was kind of new for me – a case of: oh let’s just try it and see what happens. It was taking an idea that I’d heard on a Sly Stone record, and then from something that was going on in a David Bowie record at the time. I was trying to fuse them together, and to make this thing that was bubbling underneath the surface – which was like the floorboards, from my end of the story.

(Photo of Barry Adamson taken on June 1st 2007 by Angel D, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.)

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

(As excavated from the comments box at Popular - where it makes slightly more sense in context, but it seemed a shame not to share.)

Re: It Ain't Half Hot Mum: I’m trying and failing to Form A Position on Melvyn Hayes, but he’s proving rather slippery to pin down. (Wa-HEY!)

As a 13-year old who was growing uncomfortably aware that his Fancying GURLS phase of a year earlier was just that, a Phase, the growing prominence of that stock mid-1970s comic character, The Mincing Poof, was… not entirely helpful, shall we say. For in the absence of any other readily available role models, The Mincing Poof was all we had, and she weren’t doing us no favours neither.

But then, that’s the perspective of a closeted and increasingly terrified 13 year old. For if I had been ten years older, more secure in my identity, and acclimatised to the sub-culture, then I might well have regarded Messrs Hayes, Inman and Grayson with a good deal more fondness. After all, as Harvey “Torch Song Trilogy” Fierstein once said of the “sissy boys” of 1930s Hollywood: any representation is better than no representation.

And in any case, all three characters were allowed to maintain quite a substantial degree of dignity, self-knowledge and self-acceptance. They certainly weren’t portrayed as pathetic, self-loathing victims, forever trying and failing to ensnare the hapless heteros. Instead, each was able, in a certain sense, to claim his space. There was mockery, but there was also affection.

Compare and contrast with the out and out minstrel-show vileness of Dick Emery’s “Honky Tonks”, Duncan “Chase Me!” Norvelle, any number of sitcom cameos… and even, I’m sorry to say, some of the more questionable Monty Python representations (Graham Chapman, you should have known better).

Anyway, yes, “Whispering Grass”. I loved the show (as did all my classmates) and I got the joke. Can’t say much more than that.

But better than Dad’s Army? Ooh no, wouldn’t go that far. Better than latter day teetering-into-self-parody Dad’s Army maybe, but those earlier series were in a class of their own.

These army-nostalgia sitcoms were a little sub-genre of their own, weren’t they? And here’s another one: Get Some In, which covered the National Service period of the 1950s. I seem to remember that “POOF-ARSE!” was one of its favourite terms of abuse. Dark days, dark days!

(P.S. A vignette to share with the group. My father, a sentimental man, once burst into tears while watching The Good Life. My step-mother, an unsentimental woman, asked him what on earth was the matter. His stricken reply: “It’s just that Felicity Kendal is SO NICE, and I wish I was married to HER, not YOU!”)

Labels: popmusic

(As excavated from the comments box at Popular, as highly recommended as ever.)

Well, I absolutely ADORED “Oh Boy”, perhaps assisted by never having heard the original. (Indeed, I think this may still be true; there’s a glaring Holly-shaped gap in my musical knowledge.) But this was, to a large extent, circumstantial. I’d been at boarding school for six months by now, and hence with far less control over my exposure to music than I had been used to. Thursday night TOTPs were rationed to the first ten minutes, after supper and before prep, when dozens of us literally sprinted out of the dining hall each week, and straight into the TV room to catch every second. And on Sunday evenings, there were enough radio sets knocking around to ensure that we heard the the Top 20.

Other than that, it was a wasteland, dominated by overheard prog leaking from the studies of the senior boys… and eventually, the mono turntable in the common room, which turned up during the Easter term, but which was almost entirely controlled by the Cool Police in the year above (I think one of them owned it).

They were an unusual Cool Police, though. Top power plays included The Allman Brothers’ Brothers And Sisters, Sha Na Na, the first New York Dolls album… and Mud Rock Volume One, which didn’t really fit any of the prevalent definitions of cool at all, but there you go: someone in charge liked them, so Mud were allowed.

This extended to the 7? of “Oh Boy”, which the Cool Police played and played and played, and played again some more. During the 20 minute morning break period, it was sometimes played as much as three times… and, for whatever reason, all of us loved it beyond all reason.

Maybe it was just - as sometimes happens with chart pop -an almost arbitrary assignment of an anthem, which somehow made us feel that much more aware of the thrill of living in the present. (If that makes any sense at all.) But I do think that it’s stuffed full of great moments, such as the a capella intro and outro bookends (the outro mirroring the intro so closely that it somehow wanted to make you immediately play the whole thing again), and yes, the hesitation on “hesitating”, and the silly breathy voiceover from Ellie Hope (later of Liquid Gold), and really just the lovely crisp choral cleanness of it all. As with most of Mud’s best moments, it felt like a party to which all were invited.

Objectively a 7, subjectively a 10.

Labels: popmusic

Nearly a year after the release of their debut album, the critical plaudits continue to roll in for this five-piece band from Kilsyth, near Glasgow. On the strength of Tuesday night’s arresting show, it is easy to see why. Taking the so-called “shoegazing” music of the early 1990s as their starting point, the Twilight Sad mix the widescreen, effects-laden sound of My Bloody Valentine with the fuzzed-out squall of the Jesus and Mary Chain, adding some of the sweetness of classic Phil Spector for good measure.

Perhaps their nearest contemporary counterparts are the much-vaunted Glasvegas, particularly in the heavily accented vocal department – but the material is denser, less immediate, less anthemic, and altogether more personal.

Standing at right angles to the stage, singer James Graham combined Ian Curtis-like intensity with a gentler, more measured approach. The overall impact was undeniably dramatic – but it was also unexpectedly uplifting, and almost reassuring.

(Photo taken on November 29, 2007 by nailest)

Labels: eveningpost, gigs, popmusic

Shiny New Web Toy of the week has to be Muxtape, which is spreading like wildfire around some of the places which I frequent.

Here's mine. Now show me yours...

Labels: linkage, mp3, popmusic

Shall we play a little game of spot the difference?

BBC Radio 1 (hip and happening Yoof Music for Ver Kidz), BBC Radio 2 (soothing middle of the road sounds for Ver Mumz 'N' Dadz) and BBC 6Music (cutting edge alternative "tracks" for The Burgeoning Middle Youth Demographic) all use last.fm to monitor what tracks they're playing.

These are the current weekly "most played artist" charts for each station.

Oh, brave new world of Listener Choice!

I shall say no more... (*)

Radio 1:


Radio 2:


6Music:


(*) Update: Actually, there is one more quite important thing to say. Take another look at those three lists. Now tell me how many non-white artists feature on them.

So, that would just be Leona Lewis then? For shame, BBC.

(Thanks to Marcello for the spot. There's more discussion in the comments.)

Labels: fluffy duffy, popmusic, radio

(Yesterday marked the end of my Four Gigs In Four Nights Project. Here's the final instalment.)


If Duffy's swift and seemingly effortless rise to fame has sometimes felt like the work of an uncommonly slick and efficient marketing machine, then you have to wonder what glitch in the masterplan allowed her to end up playing a tiny venue like the Bodega. With Mercy enjoying at its third week at Number One, and with her debut album Rockferry set to enter the charts at the same position, she could have filled a venue five times the size -- and so it was very much to her credit that she opted to honour the booking.

As the Bodega isn't exactly in the business of hosting chart-topping acts, there was a palpable sense of occasion in the room, as the lucky few jostled for position. In keeping with the singer's star status, a full-sized mixing desk had been installed, reducing the available space still further. If our applause seemed muted, it was simply because we were wedged in so tightly that clapping had become a physical impossibility.

For Duffy herself, the show represented a fresh opportunity: to play her songs to an audience who were already familiar with them. Her excitement was evident, and charmingly genuine. Instead of the cool, untouchable professional polish that might have been expected, she radiated an unspun, girl-next-door quality, still very much the former Welsh waitress made good, and with something of the friendly, homely appeal of a young Dolly Parton. Even her slightly gawky stage banter ("and my next song is called...") worked to her advantage, bringing her appeal down to a thoroughly human level.

When a dramatic pause in one song accidentally exposed one audience member in full (and foul-mouthed) conversational flow, she milked the moment to full advantage: grinning in mock-horror, sharing the joke, and stretching the pause almost to breaking point before resuming the song to loud whoops of appreciation. "You're so... fluffy!", exclaimed one excited punter. "Yeah -- fluffy Duffy!", she beamed, lapping up the compliment.

Although breathless comparisons have been made with Amy Winehouse and even Dusty Springfield, these do not serve her well. Vocally, the 23-year old is a good deal more eager Lulu than measured Dusty -- but as some clued-up commentators have already spotted (and as a few visits to YouTube will confirm), her singing bears a particularly striking resemblance to the long-forgotten early 1980s singer Carmel.

Right from the first few notes of the opening number Rockferry, it was clear that the bright young starlet had the vocal skills to justify the hype. Hers is a powerful, dramatic instrument, which can confidently ride a melody and sweep you up with its sheer force. Yes, it still lacks a certain emotional depth -- but equally, it doesn't seek to compensate with false shows of manufactured melodrama.

For Duffy is who she is: an essentially cheerful girl, who readily confessed that she had never truly been in love ("Or maybe I have? Oh, I don't know! What is love, anyway?"), and whose strongest suit is a gently assertive, not-going-to-take-any-nonsense-from-you-mister approach. By and large, her songs are not yet written from personal experience, and nor do they claim to be. Either that will come in time, raising her artistry to greater heights, or else Duffy will settle into the sort of role previously occupied by the likes of Sam Brown: a happy trouper, with many years of guest appearances with Jools Holland ahead of her. It will be fascinating to see how she develops -- and after last night's wholly delightful performance, only the most grudging of cynics could fail to wish her well.

(Photo taken at the Bristol Thekla on February 26th 2008 by podiluska, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.)

Labels: eveningpost, gigs, popmusic

As the leader of The Go! Team, to what extent do you control everything that goes on?

The Go! Team sound is a lot to do with stuff I’ve always dug. It’s almost like my record collection melted down. I started the group, I wrote the first album, and I did all that myself really. The band came together because I really wanted to do things as a gang. There was certainly no plan to do it as a laptop thing, because it’s just dull, and it’s been done. There were no auditions, and no kind of grand plan. I really got it together just for one gig in Sweden in 2004, with the idea of: let’s get through this, let’s see if I can blag it, let’s pretend we’re a band for one festival. Then we just took it from there. We never really spoke about the future. It was just like, OK, we’ve got another one in a week’s time, and do you want do that? So I guess we got to know each other on the road.

Two years later, when it was time to make another record, I wanted to involve everyone in the recording process. So we all went into the studio, and everyone did their own instrumental parts, but the songwriting is still a lot to do with me. There are also lots of collaborations, with people around the world. Ninja wrote a lot of the lyrics, particularly for the live show. I also like to get involved in the videos and the whole visual side – but apart from that, every other decision is made as a band.

So it’s still your creative vision as interpreted by others, even though they might bring some of their own stuff to it.

I guess so. I wrote the songs, so I suppose that defines the sound. We’re all quite different people, and there are different kinds of playing styles, so that comes through. Maybe the next album will be more of a jam-off, but I’ve got an inkling that it might not sound like the Go! Team. It might sound good and noisy, with lots of wigging out and thrashing around, because we’re all noise fans – but I’m not a great believer in jamming. I’m more of grafter. It’s more a case of trial and error: trying things out, storing them away and then pulling them out again.

Jamming can be a dead end…

I’m sure it works for some bands, but I’m a terrible jammer.

Well, you can be one step away from the Jools Holland end of things, if you’re not careful. (Laughter) Enjoyable to play, but it can sometimes lose creative focus.

I like to hoard melodies, and then revisit them. It’s that kind of distance you get when you have an idea, but when you listen back two weeks later it’s almost not your idea anymore. You can say: oh that’s alright, I’ll use that. Or you can say: no, that’s shit.

You can sometimes start with one idea, and by the time the track’s finished it has warped and shifted so much that it’s ended up in a different place.

(Dubiously) Well, every song starts with one kick-ass idea that I definitely think is worthy of using. Then it builds out from there, and you’ll try other ideas next to it. I’m really interested in contrasts, and different styles of music rubbing shoulders. So a song will grow out, and spread into three minutes that will be worth listening to.

To my ears, it certainly sounds as if the first album was more of a studio project, whereas the second album does sound more like the work of a live band. There’s a more unified sound, in terms of the instrumentation and the line-up.

Yeah, I think so. I certainly wanted it to be more kick-ass and more ballsy, with thrashy guitars and the drums kicking in more – which is a lot more like the live show.

Barring a couple of tracks, there’s a kind of full tilt, ecstatic energy level to it, which you manage to maintain pretty well throughout.

Yeah, some people find it a bit wearing. (Laughs) But I wanted it to be an all-out thirty minute assault.

It’s certainly that. There’s something that I like about the vocals, in that they remind me of late 1980s party-rap, such as the Cookie Crew and people like that. There’s a kind of playground quality at work. Was that era an influence?

Definitely the early hip hop stuff. I wanted people to imagine street corners and sports halls, rather than studios. I like “found sounds”, which is how some of the vocals on the album came about. We used a chant team in Washington DC, where a geezer just turned up to one of their practices, stuck some microphones up, and said: just do something. It was the same with the Double Dutch Divas, a jump rope team from Brooklyn, who have been going since around 1979, and who have toured with the Fat Boys and Run DMC.

I didn’t even know that whole tradition was still continuing. It’s a tradition which seems to have got lost.

Yeah, that kind of jump rope, chanting stuff has always been an influence to me, and I felt it was underused. And that girl gang feel is something I’m always drawn towards. I want people to imagine girl gangs, with baseball bats, taking to the streets.

I guess you must be a crate digger to a certain degree, in terms of that samples that you’ve managed to dig up.

I’m not super-knowledgeable, but I’m always hustling for it. People give me stacks of easy listening records, and 99% of it is bollocks, but there will be the occasional moment of usable stuff. I look out for Blaxploitation soundtracks, Bollywood soundtracks and all kinds of blaring, brash stuff from unusual places – but hopefully nothing too obvious.

How do you translate that sort of sound to a live setting?

It’s a shifting kind of line-up. There are six of us: three girls and three blokes. Three of us can drum, so at times there are two people drumming. I play harmonica, drums and guitar, Kaori plays recorder and glockenspiel, and so there’s loads of swapping. The samples are set in stone: they’re off, they’re doing their thing. We didn’t really make that a part of the visual thing, because it’s quite dull. We could have had someone with a laptop, pressing buttons, but…

Laptops on stage can be deathly, can’t they?

It’s a kind of wall of sound, I guess. There’s so much going on, with six people plus a whole bunch of samples, so for the sound man it’s a real feat. (Laughs) There’s a real art to getting everything balanced.

Without it just completely disintegrating into a mush, and everything cranked up to maximum…

It has just taken people’s heads off. It’s probably more ballsy live than it is on record.

Good God! The music sometimes sounds as if it’s teetering on the brink of chaos, but then it just stops short. Do you retain that element?

Yeah, chaos is a plus in my book. If someone asked me what was my dream gig, I think chaos would be the key word. Particularly in the crowd. I dig that idea of the whole room descending into chaos!

So, is slickness the enemy?

I thank that’s actually a quote, isn’t it?

Oh, is it? I actually thought that was an original observation! (Laughs nervously)

Well no, I think I’ve actually said those words on a press release.

Have you? Oh, I didn’t see any press releases… (*)

But yeah, pretty much. Like you say, you’ve got to draw a line somewhere. It’s a lot to do with the reaction to current production styles. When you turn on Radio One and you hear the latest song from Keane or Coldplay, it’s all very lavish and very panoramic. You know that they’ve spunked thousands of pounds on the best studio, with the best producer, and that it’s the best it could ever sound. For me, that sucks all the life out of it. It’s certainly helpful for getting a hit, because it suckers the listener into thinking that it’s a real piece of work – but I always want people to think of immediacy, spontaneity and energy. I want people to imagine us recording in a garage, rather than a £2000 a day residential studio.

Are there any