THE GIG LIST
The final chapter of Oliver's first book, 'Volume', contains a list that covers almost 60% of all concerts Oliver attended between 1964 and the present day.
To witness this list with your own eyes, please click here.

ARTICLES
Oliver has written for many magazines and newspapers, including Sounds, Record Mirror, Musicians Only,the NME, MOJO, Venue and (in the US) Amplifier, among many others. Here is a small selection of articles and interviews.

Joe Jackson Interview
SXSW 2005
Razorlight
What a Picture
Richmond Fontaine
The Bravery
Holliedelayz
Jesse Malin
Sons and Daughters
Laughing Hyenas
SXSW 2004
Grandaddy Interview
And On The 8th Day, God Created Austin
Goodnight Glastonberry
Soft Bulletin
Tragic Popband
Amor Feature
Live Forever
Louse of the Rising Sun
The Nightporters
Baring the Bruntnell
Down The Line
Reading Writing
Glastonbury Acoustic Stage Preview
The Agency Biography
Blues Traveler
Stories From The Sea
Why should I give up on rock and roll?
Interview: Chris T-T
Glastonbury Acoustic Stage Preview
Tribute to The Hoax
Different For Joe
Interview: John Parish

REVIEWS
Oliver's reviews have appeared in more publications than you can care to mention... and now we can add to that list.

Richmond Fontaine
Charmingly laid back and blissfully unaware.
Spirit of Austin
Barking but brilliant.
Mercury Rev / Grand Drive
A penchant for prog.
Athlete
A model of unpretentiousness.
Amor
The entire band has entered orbit.
PJ Harvey
A minor dispute with the locals.
Spiritualized
A reliable heart-stopper.
The Flaming Lips
This is one band that you can't ever imagine letting you down.
Grandaddy
"We love your drummer", shouts a lady...
Ikara Colt
A friendly female Goth ran her fingers through my hair.
NME Tour
Looking like Kraftwerk fronted by Peter Noone...
The Warlocks
The Warlocks have their very own Bez.
Peter Bruntnell - Ends Of The Earth
There's more than a tinge of menace in the lyrical content.
Jesse Malin / Jeff Klein
Are they all they should be?
Tom McRae / Adam Snyder
It's obvious he's going to be enormous
John Parish - Berlin
The stoners were out in force for Queens Of The Stone Age
Doves
I think they sound like Camel, and I'm sticking to it
The Bees / Blue Jay Way
"It's the Average White Band Revival", said the barman. "
Reuben / Dustball
Reuben have a good Romany name and luvverley T-shirts



Richmond Fontaine
Railway Inn, Winchester
First night of the UK tour, and where are Richmond Fontaine? Twenty minutes to door opening and Dan Eccles is on all fours screwing valves into his amp while Willy Vlautin is languidly stringing his guitar. It has somehow taken them six and a half hours to do the one-hour journey from London but they are charmingly laid back and blissfully unaware of their media profile and the fact that there is a capacity crowd outside baying to get in. "Gig of the Week in the Independent? Gee, man, that's awesome!"
And awesome is the performance; it takes more than a minor detour to faze this decade-old Portland, Oregon quartet, which is just beginning to grab the UK public's attention. Vlautin is in his element, telling tales both in song and word, and exchanging good-natured banter with the audience. Dan is headbanging like a true punk rocker but the tracks from "Winnemucca" and, more particularly, the hugely admired "Post To Wire" are performed with the intensity they deserve. Opener "The Longer You Wait" recalls the best of American Music Club", while "Allison Johnson" wouled't be out of place in a Nick Cave set. The sequencing is a tad bitty, but that's half the fun, as they take the opportunity in this tiny venue to bed in a programme which will later in the tour slay audiences in much bigger halls. The audience, feeling truly privileged, stayed behind en masse way after closing time.
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Spirit of Austin
London, various venues in October
Perish the word, but the "alt-country" royalty were out in force as October saw London deluged with critically lauded but under-sold mavericks coming to terms with their muses and hitting the buttons which might garner them some record sales. First up, Mark Eitzel and American Music Club, whose show at the Islington Academy, far from the shambolic, alcohol-raddled affairs we have sometimes experienced, was a cheerful and unashamed trawl through some back catalogue favourites ('Outside This Bar') being the outstanding example and an introduction to the excellent "Love Songs For Patriots" album. They seem healthy, energetic and determined to finally bring their music to a wider audience, so watch out for them in the New Year.
Over at the Mean Fiddler, Richmond Fontaine climaxed their tour by reminding us that their decade-long career has produced some great songs of melancholy, humour and psychedelia. Willy Vlautin, fuelled by whisky and beer, elicited deserved adoration from his loyal followers. They may not be as well known as some others in the genre, but they are just as atmospheric. They had to be in their mettle, though, following an on-form Neal Casal.
The delightful Bush Hall saw yet another seemingly rejuvenated old master at work. Think Howe Gelb and think endearing but slightly shambolic eccentric. Not any more. The new, largely Danish version of Giant Sand sees Howe as an unlikely but highly convincing sleekly besuited, smiling guitar hero, now encasing his gruff desert tales in a pleasingly accessible rock environment.
The giants can't be complacent, though. Snapping at their heels come the more traditional Justin Rutledge (Mean Fiddler) and the barking but brilliant Scout Niblett (Bush Hall). It's gonna be a great 2005.
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Mercury Rev / Grand Drive
Beerkeller, Bristol
Isn't life cruel? No sooner have Grand Drive achieved their long-awaited critical breakthrough with "The Lights In This Town Are Too Many to Count", than their drummer leaves them seriously in the lurch. They have to cancel their high profile showcases in favour of opening for Mercury Rev as an acoustic trio. Still, they are veterans of adversity and more than capable of bouncing back. With their silken Aussie harmonies and impeccable songwriting, Finn Brothers comparisons are unavoidable, but who better to emulate?
If you like glorious melodies and don't mind admitting to a penchant for prog, Mercury Rev have the music for you, especially if you prefer ypour bands to be eye-pleasing. The super-elegance of Jonathan Donahue (the widest smile in rock) and the biker chic of Grasshopper see to that. A slightly altered line-up tried out a raft of new songs from their forthcoming album "The Secret Migration", some of them more acoustic - poppy, even - than we've been used to from Mercury Rev. Fans were also treated to the usual sigh-inducing favourites such as "Spiders and Flies" and "Goddess On A Hiway". Music doesn't come any more enchanting than this.
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Athlete
Shepherds Bush Empire, London
You know that feeling which overwhelms you occasionally, when whatever it is you're experiencing is so perfect that you are desperate to preserve it in your memory forever? The words that come into your head are: "Oh, this is beautiful, I've got to soak it up".
So when Athlete display the genius to write a song with exactly that chorus, that's good enough. When they add it to an irrestibly anthemic tune which forces the audience to bellow it en masse, the subject of the song somehow ends up describing itself. It is beautiful and we are soaking it up.
And who can pretend they haven't identified with the chorus of One Million: "It was just one of those days I needed to deal with"? First, we had to deal with interminable performances by two of the worst support bands ever to sully Shepherds Bush. Good thing nobody knew who they were, I might have had to be cruel about them. Athlete, though, warming up for the V Festival and taking a brief break from recording their second album, were just perfect. Not just "part of the rock scene" (Westside), they tower above all the competition right now, a model of unpretentiousness and letting the music and songs speak for themselves. To follow the Mercury-nominated "Vehicles and Animals" might seem a well-nigh impossible task, but new songs such as "Tourist" bode well. You almost felt like joining in on first hearing, but you were already too hoarse from yelling about the doubtful merits of El Salvador and Dungeness. Not that I would do anything like that, you understand.
A truly knockout set of killer tunes and genius lyrics. You can't ask for much more.
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Jon Amor
Borderline, London
With the strength of interest in guitar rock at the moment, it’s a mystery why Jon Amor seems to have hit a plateau of popularity beyond which the public stubbornly refuses to move. Yet songs are pouring out of him like a jackpot from a fruit machine, and when the UK’s best live act hits the Borderline’s stage with the merciless kick in the balls that is the as-yet unrecorded "Fool Enough", the already up-for-it audience is slack-jawed with amazement. Not since Led Zeppelin’s "Black Dog" has such a rifftastic creation opened a show in the cellars of London.
Amor fans, horrified at the band’s stated intention of dropping the show-stopping "Hit So Hard" from their set, were threatening physical protests, but the result is a happy one. They’ve pared this brilliant song down to its bare essentials and made it even more dramatic. And what other band could overcome a mid-set amp failure without any loss of momentum? Following the running repairs, they simply pick up the bullet train that is "1999" from where they’ve left off and continue the aural assault. By the time the muliti-orgasmic climax of "Hard Hat" is reached, the entire band has entered orbit, Jon playing in a frenzy of dexterity that is almost superhuman.
What with one thing and another, it’s clear that Jon Amor is a troubled soul. In "Sweep The Room", he sings about the "words left unspoken of the bones that I’ve broken and the pain that I’ve caused". There’s nary a hint of a twelve bar, but this is still the blues in the truest sense of the word.
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PJ Harvey
Zodiac, Oxford
What would it be like? No one had any idea. Last time around, touring "Stories From The City", Polly had assembled a pretty motley band which alienated many of her followers. Then, in Summer 2003, she hit the road with a classic 3-piece which really did the business. But now she’s gone and recorded an album all by herself. Could she come on like John Shuttleworth and do a solo show? Not as daft as it sounds, because nothing is beyond PJ Harvey.
There are scores of concerts planned for PJH this summer. Warm-ups are usually conducted in her home town of Bridport, but this time there is a minor dispute with the locals on account of noisy rehearsals, so the faithful with their ears to the ground have congregated on Cowley Road, Oxford for the world debut of this new line-up. It’s nine o’clock and the mood is teetering on the edge of ugliness, as the crowd has been here since seven and there’s no support act and still no sign of any music. Frantic activity takes place around the rebellious keyboard stack in an attempt to coax it into life. "Sod the keyboards", shouts someone, "Gerronwithit!"
And so they did. The new band turns out to be a quartet, with faithful (and brilliant) Rob Ellis on drums, a new guitarist called Josh Klinghoffer and the Fall’s bassist Dingo. They love their nicknames round these parts. Rob Ellis used to be called Rabid and long-term sound engineer Dick Bullivan rejoices in the soubriquet of Head.
Head is crucial to the success of this show. "Uh Huh Her" is quite a thin-sounding record and the band’s recent appearance on "Later" was almost tinny, but in the confines of this small venue, the huge volume and the outstanding echo effects make for a gigantic, deep sound which more than does justice to a long trawl through the best new songs and classics from the past, such as the evergreen "Dress" and a nicely lugubrious "Down By The Water". Of the new songs, the single "The Letter" is a stunner, and "Who The Fuck" makes a lot more sense than on record. Polly herself (continuing her habit of singing without a guitar more often than with) is on ace form, and Klinghoffer is the best sideperson she has found since the much-missed Jeremy Hogg, despite the prevalent habit of continually swopping guitars with little noticeable effect on the sound.
For Polly Harvey and her band, it’s going to be a very long, hot summer, but the start could hardly have been better.
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Spiritualized
Southampton University
This evening’s audience consisted mainly of extremely mature students who probably had finished their studies at least twenty years ago. I fear that today’s freshers have musical tastes which don’t include Spiritualized. But how happy all these gentlepersons were to discover beer at £1.60 a pint. "I’ll have a quadruple whisky", said the guy next to me.
But why do I keep coming back for more Spiritualized? Judging by the size of the crowd, there’s a diminishing returns scenario in progress. And hell, I just know those horrible strobes are gonna give me a three-day headache.
The trouble is that the incomparable opener of "Electricity", just gets you every time. What follows nowadays is a really pleasing sequence of the "new" Amazing Grace-era Spiritualized, which – whisper it – incorporates elements of folk, country and even blues, interspersed with selections from "Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space", the album which is destined to remain this band’s meisterwerk. "I think I’m In Love" is a reliable heart-stopper.
Any band which ploughs its own lonely furrow with such determination deserves support, but the current "clean living" Spiritualized (a contradiction in terms, but apparently true) is, with the help of Tim’s luxurious keyboards and Tom’s vibes, a hypnotically tuneful proposition, spiritual both by name and nature. And there’s something about those intermittent triple-pronged guitar whiteouts that other bands which attempt similar things just can’t match. As for Jason, well, he can’t really sing, he sits around boringly and he’s probably a bit of a grumpy sod, but you just can’t help but love him.
All great bands defy explanation, and Spiritualized is a great band.
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The Flaming Lips
BIC, Bournemouth
Isn't it horrible when a band you view as your own personal property starts getting popular and you have to go and see them in barn-like conference centres? But the Flaming Lips, bless them, have been at it so bloody long and are just so plain loveable that you can forgive them and magnanimously allow other people to benefit from the rays of pure sunshine they emit.
The Flaming Lips are one of the few bands one can dare to call "unique", which is probably why the audience ranged from 16 to 60, all curious to put a finger on that mysterious x-factor which makes them so special. Is it the understated but staggering virtuosity of Steven Drodz? Is it the incongruousness of Michael Ivans, who manages to convey the air of a university professor despite being dressed as a snow leopard? Or is it the fact that Wayne Coyne is the man you would most like to go to the pub with? It certainly isn't all those furry animals, although they are part of the fun. Oh heck, all right then, it's the glorious music.
No band has ever created a bigger knockout punch of a set opener than "Race For The Prize". It ensures that the audience experiences an almighty adrenaline rush from the first instant, which is then miraculously sustained for the next one and a half hours. Me, I had other worries, because this was my first ever experience of a photographers' pit, and being covered in confetti, splashed with fake blood and smashed in the face with huge rubber balls was quite a challenging initiation. The feeling? The purest, purest joy.
With the shoulders of his crumpled suit resembling a cricketer's crotch after the new ball has been taken (they obviously don't take a dry cleaner on tour), Wayne introduced the BIC audience to the art of community singing in a venue which presumably normally only sings along to "Things Can Only Get Better". The song was "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots", but soon it was "Happy Birthday" and, oh joy, "She Don't Use Jelly", during which Coyne's latest madness entails blowing a gigantic balloon until it bursts, showering the audience with yet more debris. As the giant mirror balls spin into action for the finale of "Do You Realise?", we find ourselves involved in a singalong chorus of "everyone some day will die" (honest). And on that theme, it is a measure of Coyne's communication skill that, amongst all the mayhem, he still commanded an emotion-filled silence for a charmingly cogent anti-war speech and a moving dedication of "Waiting For Superman" to Elliott Smith.
This is one band that you can't ever imagine letting you down. Why, they even still set up their own gear. "Thanks, everybody!".
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Grandaddy
Ancienne Belgique, Brussels, Belgium
The aroma of joss sticks wafts out from the stage over the largely - um - relaxed audience. The set is adorned with stuffed crows sitting atop TV aerials. The weird pile of wheezing keyboards and effects gadgets which form Jason Lytle's console sports a blackbird and a cat. The surreal backdrop cranks into action and Modesto's finest take the stage in all their accustomed sartorial inelegance. "We love your drummer", shouts a lady and Aaron Burtch smiles with a mixture of shyness and pleasure. He may not be a sex symbol but he is the undisputed chain-smoking champion of the world. This tour has been going well and an air of confidence and general joy at how much they are loved pervades the band. Tim Dryden and Kevin Garcia give absolutely nothing away, but both Jason and guitarist Jim Fairchild are visibly emotional, the latter doubtless because this year he has survived being run over by a truck.
"So many songs, so little time", sighs Jason in response to the audience's shouted requests, and it's true, any band which can afford to omit "Hewlett's Daughter" through insufficient time has one hell of a catalogue. Spanning gems from "Under The Western Freeway" and items from "The Software Slump" and "Sumday", the albums on which their rural-techno-prog identity was truly established, the biggest cheers are reserved for "Standby", "The Crystal Lake" and my personal heart-stopper "The Group Who Couldn't Say". The place erupts as Jason's duck decoy signals "Now It's On" (introduced as "one of the best songs written on the day this song was written"), while the supremely atmospheric "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot", dedicated to the band's friend and musical antecedent Elliott Smith, makes a winning coda.
"We're nobodies from nowhere, thank you for welcoming us to somewhere" is Jason's self-deprecating comment on the evening. Nobodies? I don't think so.
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Ikara Colt
The Railway, Winchester
Thank you Ikara Colt, for proving to me that moshpits aren't as intimidating as I'd imagined. As I grovelled on the floor attempting to be a dutiful press snapper, a kind tall gentleman stepped aside, apologising for his height, a friendly female Goth ran her fingers through my hair and the assembled slam-dancers plied their energetic trade leaving a respectful six-inch berth around me.
Warm-up nights at the Railway really are something , as bands which are actually too big to play there bed in new songs and / or new members in a warm and densely crowded, yet pleasingly bouncer-free environment. This was a bit of both: a large slew of new songs, none of them with intelligible titles ("This is another new one") but almost all of them perky-sounding and filled with variety. This is a band riding along on a wave of energy and creativity, perhaps partly inspired by new bassist Tracy Bellaires, who'll have a job if Charlotte Hatherley ever leaves Ash. And talking of lookalikes, there's a place for singer Paul Resende at Tussauds as Julian Casablancas should they ever do the Strokes.
Vocally, he's either a longtime admirer of Mark E. Smith, or else just coincidentally sounds like him, but there are worse templates to follow. He encourages the stage mayhem by strutting manically from one side to the other, leaving the hapless roadie to pick up the various bits of demolished equipment. Guitarist Claire Ingram, meanwhile, sensibly ignores the chaos and drummer Dominic Young - er - drums.
Surfing the crowd and crowning a fun evening with that most patronising adieu "Thank you, Winchester", Ikara Colt replaced itself in its holster and moseyed on down to - um - Tunbridge Wells.
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Jesse Malin / Jeff Klein
The Borderline, London
It's really exciting when the Yanks send over their cool young talent to be discovered first by the UK music press, then the UK public, and then re-exported back to them. Following that, of course, we Brits go over the top in our enthusiasm, the floodgates open and quality control collapses. It's already happened in the world of handsome and noisy NYC garage bands, next it'll be the post Ryan Adams / Pete Yorn area of equally handsome but less noisy country-rock singer-songwriters. Meanwhile, let's just be happy that dear old Jesse Malin is the real rock and roll deal and revel in this classic, media-swamped sweatbath of a showcase.
First up, all the way from Austin, Texas (the place where I wish to wake up after I die) is Jeff Klein. Jeff's motto is: "No matter how bad things are, everything could probably be worse" - and that's just how his publicity sheet tries to attract us! With a truly terrifying beard, he looks and sounds like he wishes he was in ... Trail Of Dead. Jeff can make a lyric like "Everything's gonna be all right" sound like a threat. His best song was about being caught mid-wank by his dad, but still we liked him.
And so, as the cellar threatened to turn into a home-made volcano and explode upwards through the pavement, Jesse Malin and his band lived up to the hyperbole. Are they all they should be? Yes sir! Tears started flowing from the off, as the band (dressed, as all alt-punk bands should be, in head-to-toe black) took the stage to the strains of the Clash's "Bank Robber".
There's something reassuringly wholesome about what Jesse does. His presence even brings to mind Ray Davies, while the ecstatically-greeted "Wendy" is a full-scale pop classic. And what a charmer, as he winks to the adoring girls in the front row and tells us tales of Barbra Streisand's furniture. Call it alt-whatever (it's youthful, punked-up Neil Young, actually), all the music is crisp, timeless rock and roll with its best, least affected face on. "Death Or Glory" was dedicated to Jesse's friend Joe Strummer, plus a few choice (sadly probably unheeded) words of advice to G.W. Bush. The almost unbearably poignant "Brooklyn" rapidly turned into a full-scale crowd singalong, and the evening ended with some serious moshing to Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding?". In the Borderline! And I joined in! Well, it would have been rude not to.
Go, Jesse! You truly are a King of the Underworld.
(from LOGO)
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The Warlocks
Joiners Arms
We live in a time of low inflation, but this is not a concept with which the (don't mention the) Warlocks are familiar. There are loads of unnecessary members, notably one hapless guitarist who cringed against the wall throughout in order to avoid being splatted in the face by the bassist. And two drummers ... well, very few bands apart from Pavement benefit from such excess, and this one certainly doesn't. To produce the monotonous, tub-thumping beat maintained by the Warlocks throughout their entire set, one drummer is an elegant sufficiency, thank you very much.
In the front bar, the video was showing Black Grape, up at the Railway the Equidistant Sound were re-creating the Happy Mondays, so it was spooky that Warlocks singer Bobby Hecksher bases most of his oeuvre (apart from the bits where he imitates Chris Martin) on the talents of Shaun Ryder. But there's more: The Warlocks have their very own Bez, in the form of an embarrassed-looking Laura Grigsby, who bangs inaudible tambourine and occasionally waves a finger, Linda McCartney style, at a keyboard.
The Warlocks are from California, usually rather a friendly place, but tonight they seem a pretty fed up bunch. This is a band whose idea of musical subtlety is to play for an hour without a single change of pace, whose idea of lighting ambience is to keep the strobe on the entire evening, and whose idea of audience communication is to bark "More Monitors" (not a hint of a please) at the sound engineer.
The only entertaining moment came as they left the stage to a ripple of applause and huddled beside the stage for a moment (the Joiners exposes such things) before rushing on for an undemanded encore. Suddenly, Hecksher, in a Michael Jackson falsetto, had something to say: "Oh, sometimes this shit can be so hard ..." Poor lamb, he must have had all of 20 yards to walk to his luxury tour bus.
From LOGO
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The Datsuns / The Polyphonic Spree / Interpol / The Thrills
Portsmouth Pyramids
This years' NME tour is an entertaining set of contrasts but, with one notable exception, as derivative as hell. It was 2003's equivalent of a package starring Smokie, Joy Division, The St Winifred's School Choir and AC / DC. And oooh, how they'll hate me for saying that.
The Thrills are sadly-misnamed. Battling a disgraceful sound quality on this occasion, they're a sort of cross between Wilco and Mercury Rev without the charisma or bite of either. Still, it was an undemanding start to the show. "When are they going to play 'Hotel California'?" asked my neighbour.
Looking like Kraftwerk fronted by Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits, Interpol were certainly a bit more stimulating, both visually and musically. There's a disciplined sparsity about their sound which almost makes you forget that Joy Division were doing this stuff two decades ago. But who can blame today's students for wanting a slice of such action? Style, content, perameters: 10 / 10. Originality? Hmm ... They're not much use if you like any soul in your music, and if that ugly bassist keeps on smoking like that, he won't live long enough to appreciate his success.
Four things that I like are: friendly people, The Eels Orchestra, Texas (the state, not the band) and the Flaming Lips. As the Polyphonic Spree are all four, I was in heaven as they comprehensively slayed this "cool" audience and elicited mass adulation, despite being a huge gang of berobed hippies. Mind you, they had a cheek expecting us to pay money for all that pretentious droning on their album. Luckily, live, they stick to the tunes. Even the soundman woke up for a while. You can't help but wonder what kind of salary the members are on. Still, at least there's no problem if someone leaves - they probably wouldn't even notice.
And so to the Datsuns. If you like third-rate cock-thrusting seventies heavy metal, this is your band. If not, it isn't. We need punk, NOW.
From AMPLIFIER
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Peter Bruntnell
Ends Of The Earth
Back Porch is a subsidiary of Virgin, so this signing is big news for Peter Bruntnell, a downbeat family man currently residing in Devon, England, a backwater from which he seldom emerges, despite the numerous begging messages (mostly from the US) on his website.
Peter's previous album "Normal For Bridgwater" is a gem of a collector's item, and fans, had they been asked, would have requested more of the same. Peter has obliged, once more making a record which it's hard to believe isn't American, partly courtesy of the brilliant country electric guitar and lap steel playing of his prodigy sidekick James Walbourne. "Ends Of The Earth" hits you between the eyes with a cracking opener in the form of "Here Come The Swells". There's more than a tinge of menace in the lyrical content, and the musical setting is heavy, heavy. I'm not certain what this song is about, but it sure is scary.
Another standout is "Tabloid Reporter", a succinct and apt trashing of the UK gutter press. This song contains no less than two manic guitar solos, one of which contains the maddest use of empty space ever heard on record, You can just imagine the engineer yelling, "Yeah! Leave it in!"
Peter Bruntnell has a magnificent voice, a deep and mysterious personality and effortless writing ability, The only question is: Does he have the required sense of ambition?
Amplifier magazine
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Tom McRae / Adam Snyder
Glasgow CMU, 22.2.03
It's years since so many solo blokes with backing bands were doing the rounds: Martin Grech, Richard Hawley, Echoboy. The format is: Sign a nice guy with good tunes and melancholy lyrics and you just might come up with a David Gray-style cash cow. And if your artiste turns out to bo not much cop, you can always buy him a high profile (see Ed Harcourt).
Support Adam Snyder, however, is firmly in the "find one in any bar in Nashville" category. This means competent country rock which is pleasant to listen to but doesn't have the proverbial "Snowball's". If any New Yorker is going to break through in the slipstream of Ryan Adams, it will be Jesse Malin. Sorry, Adam.
Well, one of the lovely things about rock and roll is its contradictions. Here in Glasgow, where the frisking at the venue was more thorough than on the flight up, the audience is composed of wild students, out to get very drunk and, if possible, laid. They obviously haven't paid attention to Tom McRae's publicity flyer, which advertises his qualities of "dislocation, dissatisfaction and desire for escape". Great! That's just what we're all out on a Saturday night trying to get away from.
Luckily, the blurb makes it all sound considerably more doomy than it is. There are a few things to get over, though, before you succumb to Tom's charms. For a start, his band is the first to use cello as a lead instrument since Drugstore, surely a suicidal policy; then, he looks shockingly like Paul Merton; plus, he's so damn handsome and golden-voiced that he's like a "Popstar" with better songs (as the ladies in the front row agreed); and finally, oh dear, he undeniably does indeed sound an awful lot like David Gray.
But, despite a hint of too much "Mr Perfect", Tom is bold in the downbeat, poetic songwriting and willingness to plough his own furrow demonstrated on his "Just Like Blood" album, which the entire audience already knows by heart. It's obvious he's going to be enormous; it's just a pity that all his attributes are also shared by our old friend Mr. Sting.
From LOGO
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John Parish
Columbiafritz, Berlin
The Columbiahalle is in the old American sector of Berlin, just opposite the diplomatic and military buildings from where the Berlin airlift was launched. That's why the Underground station next to it is called "Platz der Luftbrücke". As we emerged from said station, anticipating a select and low-key evening with John Parish and his band, we were startled to find ourselves surrounded by thousands of rowdy, grungy, beer bottle-throwing youngsters. Blimey, John has a bigger following in the German capital than we anticipated.
And then it became clear: The Columbiahalle has a little brother called the "Columbiafritz" lurking in its shadows. Here was the venue for the John Parish show, while the stoners were out in force for the Queens Of The Stone Age next door. We treacherously toyed for a moment with the idea of pretending that our guest passes were for the main hall, but, having travelled half way across Europe, settled for the more discerning, better behaved, more intimate gathering in the "Fritz". Two credibility-boosting things that John's band has which the Queens don't, however, are: 1. Their tour bus is bigger and more densely populated. 2. They got busted on their way through France and the Queens didn't.
Well, you know that thing that only happens on rare and magical occasions? I'm talking about when the encore have been done, the house lights have been switched on and taped music is blasting out over the P.A. It's obvious the band isn't going to come back on, yet still the audience refuses to go home. Short of cracking open the tear gas, there's no option for John and co but to re-appear one more time. "That's it", he gasps, "you're all invited backstage for a drink. Every last one of you". "Westward Airways" is reprised and the evening has been a winner.
This is no ordinary band, oh no. Just look at the state of them. The more "experienced" members (John, Jeremy Hogg and Portishead's Adrian Utley) mainly keep their heads firmly bowed to concentrate on their enormously complicated foot pedal boards, thus revealing their uniform state of follicle fallibility. Then there are loads of youngsters like Jesse Morningstar (who also doubled as support act) and Ben Shillabeer (who also doubled as T-shirt vendor). Finally, the ensemble is completed by the demure Claire McTaggart (violin) and Tammy Payne (drums and vocals).
Last time John hit the road, he had a diverting backdrop of visuals from the film Rosie, but this time, with no stage antics and no particular visual focal point, it's solely about the music. And the music is so strong and so atmospheric, (there are nine of them, you know) that there is a tangible feeling of affection and emotion throughout the hall as almost all of the new album "How Animals Move", plus a good chunk of "Rosie" is performed with precision and spirit.
You might think I was mad to travel all the way to Berlin for a gig. Well, I wasn't. I was bloody sensible. You should have done it too.
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Doves
Portsmouth Pyramids, 7 May 2002
In a country where Mercury Rev's "The Dark Is Rising" has recently been adopted as the station ident of one of the leading TV channels, it's perhaps not surprising that Doves are popular enough for their album "The Last Broadcast" to debut at number 1 in the charts and stay there. We Brits like a good tune, you see.
There are a couple of results of this. Firstly, it means that the audience doesn't care that Doves are a charisma-free zone. That's nicely reassuring in an industry dominated by plastic, manufactured bands, and maybe bodes well for possible acceptance in the less fashion-conscious US. The fact that the US single Top 100 in May contained not a single British record caused front page news, TV investigations and much soul-searching and self-flagellation within the UK music industry.
Secondly, it means that the audience is as eclectic as it is possible to be, consisting of nice middle-aged couples attracted by the soaring melodies and the fact that they cover King Crimson (I think they sound like Camel, and I'm sticking to it) plus a healthy (or unhealthy) proportion of out and out druggies attracted by the dance elements. The guys round us where so high I thought they were going to take off and float round the room.
What? The music? Well, there the news is all good. Given that both the new Doves album and the previous one ("Lost Souls") are masterpieces, the only question was "Can they hack it live?" and the answer is an emphatic yes. The lack of traditional rock poses on stage (bassist and lead vocalist Jimi Goodwin looks like your average garage mechanic, or, to put it another way, a member of Grandaddy) is more that made up for by a stunning light show and a highly imaginative movie backdrop which had me pining for the Cure or even Pink Floyd. Yet these are hip guys from Manchester who claim never to have seen a ship before arriving in Portsmouth.
Highlights are hard to pinpoint, since there wasn't a dull musical moment at all, unless I missed it in the queue for the bathroom. A substantial proportion of both albums was played, including a beautiful mood-altering acoustic interlude on "Friday's Dust" and then, in the encore, they employed a trick familiar to Electric Soft Parade and ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead: Drummer and lead vocalist swapped places for a jaw-droppingly brilliant rendition of "Here It Comes", introduced by a celluloid John Cooper Clarke. A brief tongue-in-cheek Moby / Sub Sub pastiche and they were gone.
Doves appeared totally shell-shocked at their unexpected but richly-deserved surge in popularity. And this is only the beginning.
(Amplifier Magazine USA)
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The Bees / Blue Jay Way
Joiners Arms, Southampton
Blue Jay Way purvey melodic pop after the fashion of Teenage Fanclub. Nothing thrilling but pleasant enough. I didn't challenge the singer when he talked loudly through much of the Bees' set, because he was obviously so thrilled at the good reception he had received.
Now then, the Bees. They have certainly achieved one thing, by adding themselves to Craig Douglas and Level 42 in one of the world's shortest lists, namely successful musical exports from the Isle of Wight.
Five or six years ago, you'd have thought that the Bees, with their wide musical range, their analogue instrumentation and their Flying Teapot-style woolly hats were exciting and innovative, but today ... well, think Gorkys, Super Furry Animals, the Beta Band. There's not much that special about them, apart from being capable instrumentalists. With the dominant instrument being the trumpet and the music veering between reggae, Zappaesque jazz-rock, stout funk and Gorkys whimsy, you would definitely be tempted to buy one of their albums. And now that bands like Spiritualized and Doves have pleasingly proved that you don't need a wild stage act to create a following, the Bees have every chance of moving a long way from their hive (preferably without their preposterous tour bus. Heck, they look as if they were living in teepees until a few weeks ago).
Their last song was called "You Gotta Leave", but the audience didn't want to obey. "It's the Average White Band Revival", said the barman. "They're like a cross between the Beacch Boys and Hatfield and the North", whispered my frend.
This one will buzz and buzz.
LOGO magazine
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Reuben / Dustball
Railway, Winchester
Every so often, you stumble on a gem downbill at the Railway. Such a jewel was Dustball. A recently restructured four-piece from Oxford, they have the passion of the Manics, the charm and inventiveness of XTC and, in singer Jamie, the raw-throated roar of The Vines. Plus they have style, in the form of a stick-twiddling harmonising drummer and a laid-back bassist (literally, he spent most of the set propped up against the wall). Dustball aren't afraid of musical precision and light and shade, either. From the car park, they sounded like early REM. Must have been that Rickenbacker.
Hailing from North Hants, Reuben have a good Romany name and luvverley T-shirts. But magic was in short supply. Two telling things were said from the stage: "How many of you are in a band?" (70 percent of the audience shouted yes) and "A guitarist without effects is like a man without genitals". Yes, these are musos, hugely, almost intimidatingly perfect on their instruments, but you listened in vain for a degree of originality, soul or inspiration. Iron throated trios were invented by Motorhead, but nowadays audiences seek more.
So what makes the White Stripes an incandescently brilliant duo and Reuben a not particularly memorable trio? Ah, that indefinable old black magic. That's why, despite all the singer's yelling and hair-flailing, the audience remained resolutely immobile.
LOGO magazine
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JOE JACKSON INTERVIEW
A unique new style of show featuring two of the world’s finest songwriters, Todd Rundgren and Joe Jackson, rolls into Portsmouth on May 30th. Can it be mere coincidence that Portsmouth is the city chosen to be the first on the eight-date UK tour? Yes, according to Joe, who although famously faithful to the maritime city, denies having strong emotional ties to it.
"It’s actually a pure coincidence. It’s true that, although I wasn’t born there, I grew up there. Portsmouth feels like my home town, but that’s about it. Your home town will always be your home town".
Nonetheless, Joe’s song "Home Town" is one of the most goose-pimple inducing evocations of a sense of belonging that have ever been recorded. One of the most heart-stopping musical moments of recent years came on the "Laughter and Lust" tour, when the piano introduction to the song was played as the Guildhall clock struck eight o’clock, but still Joe insists that the song is less personal than it seems: "It was an intellectual exercise in writing a nostalgic song. I tend not to be a nostalgic person, but I was trying to create a song which had a sentimental, nostalgic flavour. I guess it expresses a kind of idealized nostalgia".
"Don’t ask me how this joint tour with Todd Rundgren came about", warns Joe, "because it’s not remotely interesting. It wasn’t any meeting of minds, it was put together as a one-off event by various players, but what happened was that the show worked so well that the idea of a full tour came up. It was a mad experiment which just clicked. What happens is that there’s an opening set by the string quartet Ethel. That’s not to be missed, so get there early. Then there’s a solo set by me, a Todd solo set, and at the end we all come together and play some JJ songs, some Todd songs and some by other writers."
On the subject of nostalgia, last year’s reunion tour by the original Joe Jackson band was considered a huge success for all involved. How does Joe feel about it now?
"I feel great about it, although it was always intended to be a one-off. The original band made three albums, but the third one wasn’t that great. What we should have done was taken a couple of years off and come back with the killer fourth album. We did – twenty years later! So now the stake has been driven into the vampire’s heart and we can lay it to rest."
Local readers may remember observing Joe striding up Winchester High Street on numerous occasions in the mid-nineties. "The reason for that was that I rented a flat in Winchester for eighteen months. It was an attempt to find somewhere convenient between London and Portsmouth, and I love Winchester, but in the end I was falling between two stools and not spending much time there."
So has Joe now committed himself to New York? "Not at all. I always kept a pied à terre in England even when I was living in New York. Even today, I don’t really know where my main base is, Portsmouth or London. But don’t feel envious of my freedom of movement. Indecision is stressful and not knowing where home is can drive you nuts."
That won’t prevent Hampshire fans from doing their very best to make Joe feel at home on Monday.
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SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST 2005
Shivering at Stubbs on Wednesday evening, I was wondering whether the festival was peaking too soon, as the very first band on stage was so fantastic. The Hammond heaven of Detroit’s The Sights was like a 2005 take on The Nice. After guitarist Eddie Baranek had destroyed his own instrument, he disembowelled the Hammond as well. Judging by the horror on Bobby Emmett’s face, this wasn’t rehearsed.
At the Vibe, it was criminal to see artists of the calibre of Willard Grant Conspiracy and South San Gabriel reduced to begging the sound technicians to allow them to hear themselves. Add to this a vile, stinking "bathroom" which made Glastonbury seem like The Ritz hotel and you wonder whether the show’s sponsorship by Uncut might have done the magazine’s reputation more harm than good.
The super Ambulance Ltd managed only three songs in an afternoon monsoon before zooming off for their packed show at Exodus. Other bands "doing the rounds" included the ubiquitous Duke Spirit, who did themselves much good with music which is likely to appeal to an American audience. The Kaiser Chiefs made a good fist of their battle with Bloc Party for coolest new band, almost suffocating under the weight of BBC radio DJs fawning over them. Hobbling around on a walking stick with his rosy cheeks and striped blazer, KC’s singer Ricky Wilson has the air of a country squire.
Dogs Die In Hot Cars were a lowlight of a mainly unexciting "British Invasion". Their unimaginative and derivative set contrasted tellingly with last year’s equivalent, the show from Franz Ferdinand which sealed their international career. Soundtrack Of Our Lives, fronted by a tribute Demis Roussos, proved that you need a lot more than posing around to really ignite an audience.
There were more than enough really great things, though. The perfectly-formed Ash were on fire, and the unlikely triumph of an incendiary Wreckless Eric at Elysium was a joy to experience. Who else would serenade a Texan audience with a song called "The Golden Hour Of Harry Secombe"? Nashville’s Legendary Shack*Shakers, opening for Robert Plant, were a revelation, hurling themselves into their rockabilly circus with total abandon. Plant himself brought the house down, the audience pinching itself at hearing "Whole Lotta Love" in all its glory. Among other fine performances were the ever-brilliant Richmond Fontaine, the charmingly natural and always engaging Embrace; Willy Mason, seemingly on every street corner; The Bravery (over the top but fun); and an absolute stunner of a show from those uniquely edgy, sexy Kills.
Yes, but who was best? Well, for me, the most exciting, most musical, most emotional, most real and unpolluted band was Centro-Matic, from just down the road in Denton, Texas. Forget their unstudied image and lose yourself in their beautiful, challenging, tough-as-nails music. They are at the heart of SxSW, and they embody its excellence.
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RAZORLIGHT
It was certainly one of the the more original reasons for leaving a band: "Health Differences" were what caused Christian Smith Pancorvo to quit the Razorlight fold at a rather crucial stage of the band's career, namely just as their first album "Up All Night" was being released in the UK. Andy Burrows, in a very real sense, saved the band in the nick of time, being selected from hurried auditions and crowned with the ultimate Johnny Borrell accolade: "Andy is a one-in-a-million drummer".
It's questionable whether Andy, who has spent much of 2004 touring an album on which he didn't play, is "health compatible" with Johnny and the Swedish contingent of the band. Johnny's outspoken - um - self-belief and tendency for Libertines-style lurid drug-related headline-grabbing isn't, on the face of it, comparable to Andy's reputation as the "nicest man in rock". "I fucking love Johnny, he's great", he will assert at the beginning of an evening's drinking. By the end, he'll be claiming, "He's a bastard". But you just said you loved him? "Yeah, I do, I love him".
No one can deny that Andy has made a huge difference to the live impact of Razorlight or that Johnny's assessment of his skills is accurate. Luckily, Andy comes from a musical background which has prepared him ideally for this position: For years, he has played in bands with one Peter Hobbs, a similar rock and roll figurehead to Johnny with just a little bit less bravado. Andy had a similar love-hate relationship with Hobbs too.
It's been a hard year. Spending a very rare couple of free days in his home town of Winchester over Christmas, Andy seemed exhausted and bemused, yet thrilled to be living the rock and roll lifestyle he has craved: "It's just completely crazy. I don't get any time to see my friends any more. Since I joined the band, I've flown twenty-three times - and I hate flying!" Tried valium? "No, my tranquillizer of choice is whiskey. I start ordering it the moment the plane takes off, and when they refuse to serve me any more, I get the others to order it on my behalf."
So will the States take to Razorlight? "We're doing it the traditional way, by coast to coast touring. It's going to be hard, just traveling with a driver and a tech." (Razorlight spent the back end of 2004 opening for the Manic Street Preachers in arenas, and later this year have landed the ultimate career maker, a US stadium tour with U2). Meantime, the band has recorded its first songs with Andy drumming, but isn't it frustrating that he isn't on the album people are listening to? "Well, it is weird playing someone else's drum parts, but it's a nice feeling that there are already two new songs in the set where the drumming is all 'mine'. My favorite songs to play are 'Rip It Up', because that' s the song we always open with and it gets a great response. I also have affection for 'Golden Touch' because that's the one I auditioned with."
What does Andy feel he has brought to the band? "Well, a new enthusiasm, I guess. And people tell me we're now a lot more solid live. For myself, this has definitely been the best year of my life, because I left school seven years ago and at last I've got a job!"
My guess is that American music lovers will be initially sceptical about Razorlight, because Johnny Borrell is so full of shit. But they will be won over, because he really does walk it like he talks it, and the rest of the band never let him down. "Up All Night" has a pleasing identity and unity of purpose, like a London version of Lou Reed, with impressively understated tinny production which really works. There's not a poor track on it, and in "Golden Touch" and "Stumble and Fall", a couple of classic songs.
This time round, the only mention of Andy on the cover artwork is in the Thanks to … category. Remembering that Andy is a fine songwriter himself, next time round (assuming they haven't collapsed from exhaustion), his name will be a lot more prominent.
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WHAT A PICTURE!
It was thanks to Amplifier that my so far brief career as a rock photographer got started. The editor Joe likes his live reviews to be illustrated, so I spent slightly more than intended on a new camera and off I went.
First piece of vital equipment: a good set of earplugs. You have to be right at the front to get decent pics, but the people in the front row hate it if you push past them, so you nearly always end up with your head pressed against the speakers. It's not good for your health, as you crouch among the cigarette butts and puddles of beer, being crushed my moshers and smashed by crowdsurfers' Doc Martens. How we suffer for our art.
Probably the worst gigs to take photos at are sparsely attended ones. Here, rather than blending in with the crowd, you will attract attention and people will ask you why you are taking photos. You have to admit that it isn't for the NME or Mojo, although, come to think of it, you could claim it was and they wouldn't know any different.
My first foray into a photo pit was probably the most sensational baptism of fire I could have chosen. Those lovely old Flaming Lips hurl large objects at the crowd from the moment they hit the stage, but of course, as a photographer, you are between the band and the crowd. Within seconds, we were covered from head to foot with confetti and fake blood, being smashed in the face by enormous rubber balls. I caught the eye of the drummer, straight ahead of me, and we both collapsed into helpless laughter. It was a moment of pure - though uncomfortable - joy.
Less joyful were my attempts, last month, to get some photos of Mercury Rev. Halfway through the first song, I was physically dragged from the crowd by a security guy the size of a buffalo. As if I were a spy, he interrogated me as to my motives and threatened to impound my camera.
Now much as I love Mercury Rev, these bands just can't have it both ways. They want, and need, publicity. At the beginning of their career, they are invariably delighted to be photographed, so who are they to get sniffy when they don't need you any more? But Mercury Rev were innocent. The man-monster claimed to be "only obeying orders" and the tour manager located me a photo pass. From then on it was quite fun, watching Oddjob hauling other hapless snappers from the crowd and dispensing summary justice.
And how to achieve good photos? Use flash (this helps counteract the dry ice and the light show), be patient and persistent. Above all, take hundreds of photos of your elusive moving target. If you're lucky, one of them might just be okay.
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REEL AROUND THE FONTAINE
From Portland, Oregon, here's a brand-new band … hold on, they may be brand new to UK audiences, but in February 2005, Richmond Fontaine celebrates its tenth anniversary. Let Willy Vlautin introduce his band to you and explain the fantastic things that have happened to them over the past year:
"Well, first is Dan Eccles, he's our guitarist. He's one of the most positive
and cool guys you'd ever meet. Plus he's a madman on the guitar.
Sean Oldham is the drummer. When we began playing with him is really when Richmond Fontaine came into its own. He's an amazing drummer who can play any style he wants and he's so good he could probably read a book and play all our tunes and watch TV at the same time. Plus he's an expert
electrian, mechanic, plumber, and carpenter.
Dave Harding is really the heart of Richmond Fontaine. He's a huge music fan and an encylopedia of knowledge about it. He and I have been at this a long time and still there is no better guy to get a drink with. Plus he's just a great, great bass player, my favorite bass player around."
It is evident that these guys are the greatest possible of friends, who like nothing better than gruelling tours such as the one they undertook in Europe in the autumn:
"Hell, just getting to get out of the States was a huge success for us. Only
Sean had been to Europe. I'd never really left the States, nor
had the the other guys. So it was a great adventure. To think that I'd get to travel to the UK and to Ireland and Norway and Spain. Those are things you dream about but never think will really happen. And then to have people actually like our band was even more exciting, and the people we met were really nice and friendly and we all wanted to move to the country we were in at the time. If we were in Spain we'd all say, 'we should just move here.' And we'd talk about it and dream about it. It was the same in Ireland and everywhere else. So all in all, a real lucky break."
On the other hand, it takes much more than luck for a band to break through in such a dramatic way, and much of the credit must go to Willy's episodic, story-telling style of songwriting:
"I write in a style of a narrator a lot of the time. I'm usually trying to tell
a story and I want the music to be the soundtrack for the lyrics.
That's where the band is so great. They're good at taking the folk song I bring them and changing it into something different altogether. The postcards came from when we'd be on the road in the States and I'd send my grandmother postcards from every town we'd go to. She was one of nicest people I knew so I could never tell her anything except about the weather or about what a great time I was having. That I was making money and being safe and that I wasn't drinking too much and I was saving for my retirement. All lies, I hate to say. So I started writing these crazy postcards for fun, to let off steam. Walter (a character from the latest album, Post To Wire) came out of that. I get a little nuts on the road, and he's one of those personalities that comes out after hanging out with the same four guys and drinking every day. Then when JD Foster, our producer, came, I told him about wanting to do a spoken word series on the record and he thought it was a good idea and we gave it a try."
Anticipation is high for the band's newly-completed seventh album, "The Fitzgerald". Willy (who has also just been signed up for a book deal with Faber and Faber for his first novel) has an interesting explanation for why Richmond Fontaine's progress up the slippery ladder of success has been so gradual:
"Right now we're just practising and getting ready to eventually hit the road in the States. But all in all we're taking it pretty easy. That's how we've lasted so long, we just don't work too hard."
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THE BRAVERY FEATURE
It's half an hour after opening time and in time-honoured tradition, the queue stretches "round the block". Not bad for a band whose live UK record so far stretches to a brief tour of tiny venues and some cancelled support dates with Clinic. The Bravery are late because they have arrived from Holland for this, the opening date of their first full headline tour.
It's the way of the world with bands nowadays; they've hardly sneezed before the UK takes them to its collective heart and makes them instant stars: The Killers, the Scissor Sisters, you name them. But Michael Zakarin of the Bravery isn't keen on being mentioned in the same breath as such contemporaries: "We always separate ourselves from other bands like that", he splutters, with just a hint of protesting too much. "Good songs are good songs. Sure, there are synthesisers and guitars and drums, but in the end, it's just about the songs, not about any other artists that are around."
The interview hasn't started very well, and now it's about to get worse. An innocent question is met by an explosion. "Do you like The Cure?" "No!" barks Michael, shooting me a look of pure venom between the mascara. "It's okay," intervenes keyboardist John Conway, "he said 'Do you like The Cure?', not 'Are you like the Cure?'" But Michael is already into his stride: "If you are asking whether they had an influence on our music, I'd say absolutely not. There's this funny thing where people sort of guess at obvious musical influences, but more of it is really what all of us grew up listening to." John joins in: "People bring up a lot of English new wave bands, and we probably share a similar mindset, in that in the eighties bands were discovering a lot of new sounds, new technologies and taking advantage of that. But nothing we do is outwardly nostalgic or retro. We try to look to the future."
But looking to the past just for a moment, it really has been an amazingly fast rise to fame, at least in the UK. John fills in the background: "The band's only been playing live shows for a little over a year. Initially, it was just a recording project with me and Sam (Endicott, vocals). We started writing and working on some new songs, but when we saw there was something there, we set about putting together an actual band. We put ads in the paper to try and meet people, but in the end, Michael and Mike H, the bass player, were college friends and the drummer was recommended to us. So we started recording at home and actually, the recordings we did are what has ended up as our first album. We just recorded the whole thing in Sam's apartment on an old iMac. We felt more comfortable that way than going into a studio."
John, seemingly a crucial part of the creative process, gives an insight into how it all works: "Sam is the main songwriter. He writes all the lyrics and most of the tunes. Literally, the two of us just record everything on synthesisers and old acoustic guitars and then the other guys come in and add their elements."
To what do they attribute their sudden popularity, and doesn't this put them under a lot of pressure? Michael is enthused: "There's no pressure about it, it's just really exciting! It's downloading which has helped us achieve our success in the UK, because people like Zane Lowe (Radio 1 DJ) simply downloaded the rough MP3s from our website and played them on the radio."
At this point, two things happen. First, I suggest taking some photos. Instantly, the two of them leap up and start rearranging their hair in the dressing room mirror. At that moment. The door opens and in strides singer Sam. Realising that photos are on the agenda, he not only takes several minutes sorting out his hair but also insists on changing into his full military style stage outfit. I restrain myself from asking him any questions about musical style, because he, too, is baffled that people say they sound electronic when all the bands they like (Nirvana, Jane's Addiction) are anything but. But such attention to detail is typical of a band which does everything. They make the videos and the records and do the artwork. Put simply, they know exactly what they are doing.
When the Bravey later blast onto the stage with a carefully rehearsed but hugely impressive sense of high drama, you just know that this is a band which will achieve and maintain long-term success. Singer Sam is a high-kicker in the mike-twiddling-stick-insect tradition, while Jesse Malin lookalike Michael splatters solos over John Conway's synth layers and makes them ROCK. The groovy lead track from their first EP "Unconditional" makes a great opener, while new single "Honest Mistake" appears two thirds of the way through a set which contains a slew of fabulous songs and an awful amout of beer squirting from bassist and Adam Ant clone Mike H. It works, and it's fabulously exciting.
In the words of Sam Endicott: "That's what this band is about: Standing tall and not being afraid".
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HOLLIEDELAYZ
They’re coming your way, so you’d better get ready. I’m talking about a new band from Southampton, UK called the Delays. Melodic pop-rock from a band with perfect harstyles is always in with a chance of crossing over, and the Delays have a better chance than most. But what is most shocking about them is that they cite their main musical influence as the Hollies.
It’s fair enough. Like the Hollies did when they started out (and much like recent Amplifier cover stars the Cooper Temple Clause), the Delays pay massive attention to their hair and how it looks. Most importantly, though, they specialise in harmonies and high-pitched lead vocals from singer Greg Gilbert. Not Muse-style falsetto, but a Graham Nash high harmony. They sound lovely.
The Hollies are out on a fortieth anniversary tour right now. It takes them all over the world, including the US where, lest we forget, they once enjoyed a number one chart hit with "Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress". Graham Nash, no longer with them but stull on great terms, has a travelling exhibition of his brilliant black and white photos doing the rounds, very well worth a visit if you get a chance. Nash and his various projects have always been considered cool, but the Hollies never achieved this cachet. If it’s okay for the Thrills to be proud of sounding like the Beach Boys, then well done to the Delays for rehabilitating the Hollies. And congratulations to Amplifier for never having been afraid to include the Hollies in their musical orbit.
Well, the other day, I got to meet one of my childhood heroes, namely Bobby Elliott, the Hollies’ drummer. Bobby it was who was indirectly responsible for my receiving a beating from my Latin teacher, who cought me thwacking out the drum part to "Stay" with my fingers on the school desk. Bobby had heard about this injustice and wanted to make it up to me. It was amazing how many of my friends were insanley jealous, I guess because Bobby is quietly acknowleddged as one of the great rock drummers, certainly head and shoulders above most Sixties’ tub-thumpers. But what they all wanted to know above all was "Is he really bald?"
Listen, of course Bobby Elliott is bald. He was bald from the very beginning, which was always a problem for Hollies photo sessions. Currently, he sports a baseball cap, but previous attempts at disguise have included a straw hat, a fedora and, during the seventies, a very obvious blonde wig. Nowadays, with image at a premium, it would present an even bigger problem, Could you see the Strokes, Franz Ferdinand or the Delays with a bald member? I don’t think so.
The Hollies put on a tremendous show, featuring brain-scrambling psychedelic back-projections, a slight anomaly from this most undruggy of bands. The music is intact but nowadays increasingly incongruous. Last year, singer Allan Clarke retired to nurse his ill wife (retirement from a band being another previously unknown concept) and was replaced by Carl Wayne from The Move. Despite his excruciating cabaret patter, he does provide the opportunity for a selection of Move songs, reminding us what a fine band they were. Unfortunately, the bassist from Mud is also present, and we don’t really need a selection from them as well.
With the obvious exception of Bobby, hairstyles, playing skills and above all, the harmonies, are reassuringly intact. Not many of us will be around to see it, but here’s hoping the Delays will make it to their 40th anniversary tour. And that none of them will be bald.
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JESSE MALIN
Jesse Malin’s old band D Generation was often compared to the New York Dolls, and there’s definitely a bit of Johnny Thunders in him. His first solo album was called "the Fine Art Of Self Destruction", but Jesse goes about things differently from Thunders’ particular style of self-destruction: He takes his band, gets out on the road and plays, all over the world, with hardly a break. That’s why, in stark contrast to "Fine Art", which was completed in six days, the new album "The Heat" was recorded over a period of eleven months, with visits to studios being scheduled for days off from the road.
Malin is a tiny, terrier-like man with a most impressive e desire and willingness to communicate. As far as it is possible to get from the traditional surly, arrogant rock star, he loves to tell stories in between songs and is the dream interviewee, staring confidently into the camera and nattering into the tape recorder with hardly a space for any questions. Like a test for a long life battery, you can just wind him up and let him go.
Much is made of Jesse’s affinity with his home city of New York and his connections with fellow New Yorkers like Bruce Stringsteen and Ryan Adams. "I try to write stuff that people can connect to on a personal level, you know, I’m not from Southern California but I love e the Beach Boys. When I meet people, the biggest thing, more than payment, more tan posters, more than records in the shops, is having someone come up to you and say they got something out of the lyrics of a song. It's priceless, that kind of thing, because often that same person is listening to Lou Reed or Springsteen or Dylan or Wilco or the Replacements or the Clash, and those are all bands which have changed my life."
Jesse is correctly viewed as something of a punk historian and the inheritor of the movement’s mantle, even though there is nothing remotely punky about his music. He was good friends with Joe Strummer and it is in remembering Joe that the only cloud draws over Jesse’s face: "Joe was just a dynamite guy. The Clash were my professors as regards culture, life, politics, sexuality and music. Joe was a great man, very supportive and generous of heart."
As regards attitude, there’s a lot of Joe in Jesse:. "Well, I’m not shy. I’m an Aquarius, and we’re very sociable people, very in your face. When I was a kid, I was the class clown. I was the outsider and I didn’t fit it and I got beat up a lot for being into punk rock. You find your own way and I think being an individual is something I always promote in my songs, telling people that it’s cool to be different. There’s a million love songs in the world, but it’s how you approach the love song, where you approach it from. Check out the Buzzcocks’ "You Say You Don’t Love Me" - that’s just the best, saddest song."
On "The Heat", you’ll find a good quota of quite heart-wrenching songs of love and loss, making you realise that Jesse is a natural communicator. He has achieved probably exactly what the record company wanted, a truly representative album with major crossover potential. "I don’t like it when artists make the same record every time, and on the flip side, I don’t like it, as a fan, when bands completely change. So I haven’t gone metal or ska, I don’t sound like the Gang Of Four or Public Image or whatever the flavour of the month is. To me, I don’t look into niches, I’m not glam, I’m not alternative country, I just play rock music and write songs. So with this record, I just wanted to be more electric, take the intimacy of the songs and on a musical level make it a more sonic record but still try to keep the personal bits and make a record that I can play with my band live. ‘Fine Art’ was written in my apartment, not knowing whether there was going to be an audience beyond my girlfriend and my cat. Lyrically, ‘The Heat’ was written away from New York, on the road living out of a suitcase during a time of war, a time of a lot of hatred towards the American government, the post- 9 / 11 environment. During the oppressed times of a right wing government, I think good art tends to come out."
Rock and roll to the core, it’s touching that Jesse is also capable of betraying signs of mid-life thoughts: "It’s strange, being away from home in my mid thirties, while people back home who had dreams of art are now selling weed, having kids or working in mainstream jobs. I kind of feel a yearning to be a parent and to hook up with someone and have a family, but I’m also living like a teenager on the road. I’m lucky that I have that duality. A lot of my friends have had to cash their dreams in because of the pressures of life."
For now, though, the road beckons. There’s a full US tour coming up in July, including an appearance on Conan O’Brian’s TV show, and there’s the album to promote: "You have to step back after you create something and six years later, when you’re drunk in a bar, you hear it and think, "Ah, that’s what it sounds like. And we thought we were trying to fuse the Beatles with Stravinsky ..."
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SONS AND DAUGHTERS
It doesn’t happen often. You walk into some nondescript club and the support band knocks you for six. Yet that was the case at Edinburgh’s Venue when Sons and Daughters opened for Nina Nastasia at the back end of last year. The audience inched closer to the stage, sensing that they were in on the early stages of something big. "What’s your name?" called out a couple of people, but the band didn’t seem to hear. I had to approach them as they loaded their gear into a boot in the teeth of a howling gale. "Look at our website", they said, "It’s sonsanddaughtesloveyou.co.uk". Somehow, it seemed apt.
Claiming to be "related in every sense but blood", Sons and Daughters have not just sprung from nowhere. All four members were active in Glasgow before coming together. Adele Bethel (guitar and vocals) and David Gow (drums and percussion) recorded and toured as members of Arab Strap, in addition to their involvement with the Zephyrs and David Kitt. Scott Paterson (guitar and vocals) is the man behind March of Dimes, while Ailidh Lennon (bass, piano, mandolin) studied the classical route at college. "She lends a touch of class to the proceedings for sure!" enthuses Scott.
The music that had so fascinated the crowd that night was difficult to describe, so how about giving it a go yourselves, guys?
Scott: "We play music which draws a lot from Scottish and American folk influences, fused with an array of everything else we love from blues, funk, country, post-punk and rock n’ roll. It’s difficult to nail us down, I suppose. There is a lot of drama involved in the music and lyrics we write - someone described it recently as ‘killbilly’."
"We aren’t really aligned to any particular style", continues Ailidh. "There’s a freedom there to do what we like as long as it feels good to play. It’s not like we sat down and said ‘let’s start a punk-folk band.’ We just started writing and rehearsing, and it evolved into what we sound like now."
Their debut full album, "Love The Cup" appeared early this year and coincided - with the kind of serendipity that even a great band needs - with a sudden interest in all things musically connected with Glasgow. So how do you fit in?
Scott: "I don’t know if there’s a Glasgow scene as such, but there is definitely a vast range of imaginative and eclectic bands around at the moment. More so than any time I can remember. Bands like Pro-Forma, Multiplies, Foxface and Franz Ferdinand all have completely different styles, but could and have played on the same bill. I don’t think any of the bands in Glasgow fit in with anything happening in the wider circle of music, so I guess that’s something you could say we have in common. There’s a real punk ethic about things in Glasgow though, in the truest sense of the word: do whatever the fuck you wanna do."
"There’s no two bands exactly the same", adds David. "Often there’ll be similar reference points, but I think most bands want to be a little different, and that’s where the excitement comes from. It’s not about posturing, it’s just about trying to be musically good and entertaining."
When trying to pin down the charm of Sons and Daughters, an enquiry as to their influences explains a lot.
Adele loves songwriters like (Smog)’s Bill Callahan, and Leonard Cohen. "Lyrically they’re both fucking geniuses. I enjoy the black humour that runs through their records. I also love music that can be depressing, but funny at the same time, like the Smiths." Scott, on the other hand, admires Bob Dylan, Nick Cave, Johnny Cash and Neil Young. "These are guys that have a real grit and passion about them. I also love Shellac and Led Zeppelin." And just to complete the melting pot, Ailidh cites bands like Parliament / Funkadelic, Talking Heads and Devo, while for David, it’s the Stooges, Ramones, and Mudhoney. "My new favourite band is Comets on Fire. I’m going to see them in Texas and I cannae wait! I love bands that are a bit wrong!"
One thing you can’t miss is Sons and Daughters’ interest in the Scottish folk tradition. David confirms: "We listen to guys like Bert Jansch, Davy Graham, Anne Briggs, John Martyn. None of these people really set themselves limits on what they should and shouldn’t be doing. If a certain instrument or arrangement should be right for the song, then so be it. That’s the kind of spirit and freedom we want to continue."
Sons and Daughters are accompanying Franz Ferdinand first on a US tour and then on a UK and European jaunt as well. These bands are made for one another. "We first played with Franz Ferdinand in Stereo, Glasgow", remembers Ailidh. "There was a great buzz that night, and we were playing the best we could, so they wouldn’t completely blow us off the stage, but they did anyway!"
"Then we played with them one night at Fibbers in York", continues Scott, "and it was fantastic! We stayed up into the night drinking and having fun in the hotel. We’re good pals now, and can’t wait to get away on the U.K. tour with them and the Fiery Furnaces."
The buzz around this band and its unique appeal is palpable, and they are swept away by it, yet down to earth as well. "At the moment, things are just crazy", agrees Scott. "Every day there’s a new development or something good to look forward to. It feels great to know we aren’t alone in loving this kind of music."
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LAUGHING HYENAS
I have a friend who has just joined a fast-rising and very fashionable band. My delight about his success is tempered with worry about how it might all turn out. It’s been said often enough, it’s a nasty industry. We punters and journalists can just sit back and enjoy it, but for those at the cutting edge, trouble is always lurking round the corner. This particular band is so sparky that there is major potential for a Libertines / Vines style implosion, and then where will my friend be? He doesn’t have a manager and I’m sure as hell that the band is in the same position as any other newly-signed act has ever been in: feeling temporarily and thrillingly rich but in reality in massive debt that will only ever be resolved if they have a highly successful long-term cereer.
Or not even then. Seeing little Ian McLagen onstage recently with his Texan Bump Band reminded me that it took the Small Faces over thirty years to salvage any of the royalities due to them, by which time, two of them were already dead. And that, remember, is a band which had many, many major worldwide hits. Avid consumers of music biographies will be delighted with the publication of a long overdue acount of the life of Steve Marriott ("All Too Beautiful", by Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier), but the best book to read in preparation for the moment when your son / daughter announces that he / she intends to enter the music industry, is "Without You", the tragic story of Badfinger, by Dan Matovina. Two members of this highly influential band, Pete Ham and Tom Evans, hanged themselves as a result of their treatment by the music business – and these, lest we forget, were the writers of "Without You", which over the years has sold multi-millions in various versions.
It can’t get any worse? It can, actually. Last month, a UK TV channel showed a documentary entitled "What Happened to the Bay City Rollers’ Millions?’ Actually, it was revealed that in today’s terms, the band’s record sales actually reached a value of over a BILLION dollars. Singer Les McKeown was seen playing tiny cabaret gigs to avoid the destitution into which all the other remaining band members (apart from the dead one) have sunk. Les was granted an interview with Rollers manager Tam Paton in his mansion, but the only answer to his question was, "There is no money, it’s gone." This didn’t explain how Les, in another scene, was able to go into a London record store and fill an an entire basket with Bay City Rollers compilation albums for which he would receive not one penny in royalties.
Anyway, the other day. I popped into my local small-town gig and was astonished to find it full of people, despite the fact that a little-known local band was playing. "What’s up?" I asked the promoter. Ah, he replied, bursting with apparent pride, "It’s an A & R feeding frenzy." This rather upsetting phrase apparently refers to the fact that these creatures invariably hunt in packs, mainly in the fear that someone else might sign a hot new act that could have made money for them. Little matter that the image conjures up a picture of a bunch of rabid hyenas chewing over the bones of some hapless wildebeeste, because, if you’ve read the above, that’s in fact an accurate picture. The band was weak and the A & R pack were so drunk and inattentive that, by the end of the evening, they had probably all signed each other. The band, assuming there was any vestige of good taste in the A & R boys (no girls, for some reason), remained unsigned. They had a lucky escape, I reckon.
And yet, there’s nothing like the thrill of a rumour going round town: "Hey, guess what, so and so’s been signed by the such-and such label!" You can’t help but be impressed and excited. But, if you’ve read enough rock biographies, the awful reality will soon hit you. "Love and Poison", David Barnett’s fascinating story of Suede, is full of dimly-remembered names of bands which once hit the front page of the NME in a flurry of techicolor publicity but were quietly dropped after a couple of singles and an album: Menswear, Adorable, Spitfire and Kingmaker, to name but a few. Remember them? Thought not.
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SXSW 2004
Here’s a taste of the uniquely enjoyable madness that is South By Southwest. Every evening, all evening, at the Junction of Sixth and Trinity, a group of Christian evangelists try to convert the many thousands of sinners streaming past. As every building is shaking to the bone-shattering volume of punk bands, rock bands, metal bands, blues bands and Japanese Hardcore Transvestite Glam-Slam bands, the only way they can convey their message is to shout. But they are not alone. Permanently challenging them is a wizened old hippie dressed in nothing but a skimpy leopardskin chemise and a thong. His method of countering God’s word is to shout even louder than them. He roars terrifyingly into their faces for as long as they are there, which is a long time. It’s great entertainment, but there’s no time to spare, for we have 1200 bands to see.
The madness continues. In an event where eccentricity is almost de rigeur (Robyn Hitchcock comes across as being perfectly normal), London act Paul The Girl, dressed in a silver lamé dress and a trilby, is playing a looped Led Zeppelin song to fifteen people on the 18th floor of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. She is warming up – I kid you not – for Jamie Cullum.
At Elysium, the singer of one of the many Japanese all-girl groups present is reading her between-song patter from cue cards. The front row of the audience is having a great time. "Say ‘rock & roll’", they plead.
SxSW is famously impossible to review, because at any one moment, scores of bands are playing concurrently in different places. Teeth-grinding dilemmas are a permanent reality. Franz Ferdinand or Athlete? Razorlight, the Veils or the Gourds? How do you decide? Why, you drink loads of beer and do whatever seems right at the time, which is almost certainly wrong. My best example: Choosing Drive By Truckers rather than the Polyphonic Spree, on the basis that it would be easier to get in. It was, but the Truckers were a load of sub-Lynryd Skynryd bombastic country rock, of a standard lower than hundreds of other bands around this weekend.
So what is the "real" SxSW? Is it the industry bashes where labels, and, increasingly, national cultural agencies show off their new artists? These ones are good to suss out, because they invariably dole out lashings of free beer. The UK Showcase "pre-party" (may have got the terminology wrong) saw snooty music journalists mingling with Radio 2 DJs and the likes of Tom McRae and Thea Gilmore being terrifyingly cool. Refreshingly uncool and just charming were Aqualung, who played this event acoustically. "We’ve never played at a wedding before", observed Matt Hales.
Nearer to the "real" SxSW was the brunch party at Maria’s Taco Express, hosted by Aljandro Escovedo, a respected Austin musician who is currently much in the limelight on account of a serious illness. As breakfast burritos crunched all around, the huge but cuddly Nicolas Tremulis pricked the bubble refreshingly with some swampy Chicago blues. "If there’s anyone influential out there", he cried, with unusual candour, "don’t sign us, we suck!"
Even closer to the "real" SxSW (maybe on account of being miles from anywhere, conducted in the Church of the Friendly Ghost, a prefab on a suburban trailer park), was the Ba Da Bing party, featuring those lovely Sons and Daughters, a Glasgow band who are relishing the increasing attention their hugely entertaining mutant punk-folk is receiving. They have the added advantage of being frienfs with Franz Ferdinand, which means that they are going to be heard by lots of people. Seldom has a band deserved it more (and seldom, incidentally, has a band been more drunk).
Ah, Franz Ferdinand. The event in which an act that no one has heard of is booked into a little venue but then turns out to be the hottest ticket in town is definitely part of the "real" SxSW. The mayhem of this show is hard to describe, and there is absolutely no doubt that FF is a great band, but there is a certain arch knowingness about them which takes the edge off. Credit where it’s due, but once you’ve got it into your head that Alex Capranos is actually Wilco Johnson and Nick McCarthy is a member of Spandau Ballet, it’s hard to concentrate. Whatever you do, though, don’t try to stare out the bassist – he’s scary. So allow me to observe that the band immediately before FF, namely Clearlake, stole the show as far as I was concerned. With their pastoral melodies, melancholy lyrics and unstudied, low-key delivery, this is a band whose patience will one day be rewarded.
If you can get over the feeling of "Oh God, what if there’s a fire?", Stubbs Barbecue on Red River is probably the best place to be. Here, I contrived to see Detroit’s Von Bondies twice – one of the few bands for which the expression "You rock" is truly apt. Las Vegas’ semi new romantic revivalists The Killers impressed too, as did the showbiz-dedicated Hives, trying out some new songs on us.
One really rewarding thing to do at SxSW is go and see a band that you’ve liked before and find that they don’t let you down. Stellastarr* opted to play a little show at the Red Eyed Fly rather than a schmoozefest showcase, and it worked. This is a band you should take someone to see who wants to understand what rock and roll is all about. They are just incendiary. Bassist Amanda Tannen would stir unworthy thoughts in the most respectable of gentlemen, while Shaun Christensen really should invest in a trouser roadie. Similarly un-disappointing was Jesse Malin at the Cedar Street Courtyard. This New York ex-punk is charming, literate and humorous, plus has a lovely voice and great songs. A new album from Jesse later in the year is indeed something to look forward to.
Mentioned in dispatches: Sarah Sharp, whose "do-it-yourself" ethic has resulted in "Fourth Person", an astonishingly accomplished album which will kick-start her career; International Noise Conspiracy, deft masters of the art of scissor-kicking, microphone-lassooing and vying with the Hives in the "Scandinavians in daft outfits" stakes; Robyn Hitchcock - so it’s true he’s still big in the States; the Black Keys, whose "turn it up to eleven" distorted blues couldn’t have found a more appropriate home than Antones; American Music Club, who gave the lie to the notion that legends shouldn’t re-form (as unfortunately demonstrated by Big Star); representing the huge Aussie contingent, a shockingly well-behaved Sleepy Jackson. After two technical breakdowns, even the mildest-mannered band would have smashed their instruments, but the Sleepys’ mood was positively mellow. Great, though; … oh, and a couple of dozen more.
Disappointments: The Veils (it just doesn’t work); Graham Parker (he’s been at the same thing for too long); Electrelane (amateurism is sometimes good, but not in this case); and Cerys Matthews, who looked and sounded virtually unrecognizable in her perfunctory set. And by the way, if this all seems a bit indie for you, it’s worth mentioning that other artists appearing included NERD, Kris Kristofferson and – yes – Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.
No two reviews of SxSW will mention the same bands, and certainly none will agree on a highlight. Mine had the unexpected bonus of being a bolt out of the blue. The scruffy, Grandaddy-style unkempt bunch of apparent Austin slackers called Centro-Matic didn’t look promising at all, but the explosive performance of their anthemic songs – think Radiohead meets Neil Young with a healthy dollop of grunge thrown in – caught the soporific audience on the hop, chewed them up and spat them out, exhausted.
It was a low-key afternoon affair at the Red Eyed Fly, so there probably weren’t any cheque book-waving A & R men shouting "sign 'em". But there should have been.
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GRANDADDY INTERVIEW 2/12/03
My top musical memory of 2003 was of Grandaddy, publicly claiming to have "taken every drug we could lay our hands on", blasting out their charming hybrid of hi-tech and pastoral prog at unthinkable volume to a field full of wasted but adoring Glastonbury-goers. The synergy was perfect, and it's a moment Grandaddy won't forget either, a highlight of what, for them, has been a brilliant year. Speaking backstage at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels, Keyboard player Tim Dryden recalls: "Glastonbury was one of our best shows, and it was a very special moment for us, because we'd never played in front of an audience that size. It was even a little bit frightening, but it meant a lot to us because it showed we'd come out of our shell a bit more and the band had matured. And the technology behaved itself" (frantic knocking on wood).
It's all a long way from the gang which grew up in Modesto, in the Santa Cruz area of California, a place of surfers, pelicans and silicon chips. This is definitely a band which is a community rather than a business. "Jason and I were in high school together and pretty much all of us met through skateboarding. We were all friends long before we were in a band, we skateboarded together; we're not one of those bands that had to advertise for members".
A band as unique as Grandaddy could only really have emerged from the inherent contradictions of life in Southern California. "I can honestly say that all the music is written because of where we came from and the fact that we grew up together. 'Sumday', particularly, contains a lot more personal stuff from Jason about things that were happening to him, but anyone listening to our albums will understand that they came about because of where we're from."
So what's with the "sprinklers that come on at 3 am", then? Tim smiles before explaining the song "The Group Who Couldn't Say": "The song is written about people who are cooped up in offices, in a cubicle with a computer, and they don't have a differ