FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Cracking Easter Songs

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: @jeshoots/Unsplash

Cracking Easter Songs

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BECAUSE it is Easter Sunday…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Victor Larracuente/Unsplash

I thought it would be appropriate to put together a playlist of Easter-related songs. Maybe they refer to chocolate or Easter themselves, or have Easter in the title. In any case, they are related to the day. It is a time of year that I look forward to myself. In terms of holidays, it is less represented than, say, Christmas or Hallowe’en. Even so, there are songs out there one can apply to Easter. A day for togetherness, celebration and treats, the Lockdown Playlist below is a selection of songs that have an Easter theme or are related to the holiday. I hope that these songs help to…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @tonicuenca/Unsplash

LIFT your mood.

FEATURE: Levitating: Dua Lipa: A Modern-Day Pop Icon

FEATURE:

 

 

Levitating

PHOTO CREDIT: Dua Lipa 

Dua Lipa: A Modern-Day Pop Icon

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SOME people find the term ‘icon’…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Cameron McCool for Vogue

a bit premature and exaggerated when describing a modern artist. Surely, to obtain that sort of status, they need to have put in the hard graft and spent years or decades in the business. I think an icon can be applied to someone who has a raw and undeniable talent and has made a big difference in music so far. Someone who this applies to and can go on to become as big as the all-time best Pop artists is Dua Lipa. I am going to focus on a couple of interviews and reviews for her latest album, Future Nostalgia, in a minute. She has just started a U.K. tour. It has been two years in the making, so the sense of relief and excitement (from her and her fans) is palpable. I will start with a review of her gig in Manchester. There are so many promising artists emerging at the moment. Pop artists are taking the genre in different directions. The scene is as fertile and varied as it has ever been. The reasons why Dua Lipa is such a modern icon is because her music is very much her own, and yet she has this sort of flair for the 1980s. Not that she is entirety swayed by the decade, yet her best music reminds me of the Pop of the ‘80s. She has a great sense of style and her own identity, a range of interviews that show her as very intelligent, open, vulnerable, impassioned, ambitious and assured.

Someone who is grounded yet complex, there is as much to admire about her as a person and as an artist. A great songwriter, dancer and a very strong role model – for artists and fans alike -, Lipa is the full package! Future Nostalgia’s incredible reception and amazing range of songs confirmed her as one of the greatest Pop artists of her generation! I think that her subsequent live performances and interviews have cemented this. Whilst we may never see a Pop artists that has the same sort of legacy and potency as Madonna in terms of the changes of character and evolution, in addition to the way she dominated Pop culture for decades and did it on her own terms, Dua Lipa is someone who is an icon for sure. She is also a remarkable live performer. The Guardian were in attendance when Dua Lipa played in Manchester last night (15th April):

“She isn’t the kind of powerhouse singer who decorates her vocals with elaborate curlicues and tracery – her voice’s strength is its hint of husky intimacy, which vanishes live – nor is her show the kind of eye-popping spectacle that dazzles you into submission, inflatable lobster notwithstanding.

There’s some fantastic staging, particularly when she and her dancers take to a smaller stage in the centre of the crowd and a square lighting rig descends: hemmed in by its beams, they effectively conjure up the atmosphere of a nightclub dancefloor.

PHOTO CREDIT: Samir Hussein/WireImage 

Equally, there are points where it can seem a little low-wattage. A balloon drop during One Kiss looks like it’s been subject to the cost-of-living crisis: there really aren’t that many balloons. She looks fantastic in a sparkly catsuit, but hers is not a career founded on bewitching charisma or outsized personality. In an era where the key to pop success is supposed to be relatability, she exudes a kind of cool, well-spoken distance: “Like modern architecture,” she sings during Future Nostalgia’s title track, “John Lautner coming your way”.

But a huge star she undoubtedly is, complete with an arena full of fans going nuts at whatever she does, even when what she does is the stuff pop starlets playing arenas invariably do: a dance routine that involves sitting backwards on a chair, a moment where she’s hoisted aloft by her dancers and carried prone around the stage, still singing.

And the gig also provides an answer to why, albeit a prosaic one. What Dua Lipa has, and has in profusion, is a noticeably better class of song than any of her British pop peers. It was a state of affairs noticeable on her debut album, as underlined by the night’s performance of New Rules, a confection made entirely of earworms and memorable lines (“if you’re under him, you’re not getting over him”), and one that becomes unignorable when the set draws on Future Nostalgia.

Tonight, songs that appeared potentiated by the privations of lockdown feel even more potent ripped from the context of the kitchen disco and rattled out at a breathless pace: Love Again’s canny reworking of the old Al Bowlly sample first used on White Town’s 1997 hit Your Woman; Break My Heart, with its knowing echo of INXS’s Need You Tonight.

An artist with a plethora of hits, she’s smart enough not to deviate from the script with anything unexpected – like a house DJ’s set, the tempo is more-or-less fixed throughout; the mid-paced beats of Cool are about as slow as her set gets – and she keeps the interludes between anthems as brief as possible. Indeed, occasionally the interludes are non-existent: a version of Hallucinate elides into a take on Cold Heart, her collaboration with Elton John, the latter appearing in video form.

Rather than outsize personality or powerhouse vocals, this is exactly what people want at this precise moment in history: a live show that delivers on Future Nostalgia’s lockdown promise of uncomplicated good times and seamless big tunes”.

There are a couple of interviews with Dua Lipa that caught me. I am fascinated by her background and how she has transitioned into one of the world’s biggest and most important artists. Vanity Fair spoke with Dua Lipa last year:

“Lipa was born in London in 1995, about three years after her parents, Dukagjin and Anesa, emigrated from Pristina, a midsize city in Kosovo, then still part of Yugoslavia. Though the war that would make Kosovo a matter of global concern wouldn’t begin until 1998, Pristina in 1995 was already a difficult place to live for its ethnic Albanian majority. Dua’s grandfather, Seit Lipa, was head of the Institute for the History of Kosovo when it was targeted for closure by Serbian law in 1992, a move that a special rapporteur for the United Nations later called a sign of burgeoning human rights violations.

In London, where the family joined a growing exodus from Kosovo, Lipa’s parents spoke Albanian and raised her with an awareness of their culture. Dukagjin is a musician, and Lipa remembers a house full of music. In December, Anesa told CBS Sunday Morning that her daughter seemed destined to be a performer early on, and when I asked Lipa about it, she said, “Probably the amount of times I annoyingly interrupted her dinners at home with friends and was like, I’m going to put on a show now.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Venetia Scott

“Everything was Albanian at home, and English was my school life,” Lipa said. “I had so much family in Kosovo, but also because of the situation and not being able to go back, I had never really met my family.” Because she was young during the open conflict that lasted until the summer of 1999, Lipa didn’t know much about it. “I guess my parents also didn’t want to upset me at such a young age,” she said. “After the war, my dad’s father passed away and my dad couldn’t make it back in time, because obviously all the borders were closed, but it was just one of those things they didn’t tell me until a little bit later on.”

Still, Lipa always had a sense that she had another place to return to and was excited when the family, which by then included her younger siblings, Rina and Gjin, moved back when she was 11. “I was returning to a place where I almost already felt I belonged,” she said. “It was really exciting for me to get to go to a place where also I felt, in some way, I would be more normal.”

In Pristina, she became an amateur anthropologist of a culture she was already a part of. It started with the larger things, like realizing that her Albanian wasn’t yet up to snuff for academic work and struggling through a few years of bad grades. She also started to learn, via her friends, more about the region’s conflict. “These stories, they stay with you forever,” she said. “The people that they’d lost during the war, and the amount of friends I had that had lost their fathers or their uncles or brothers, or how people were violently taken away from their homes.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Venetia Scott 

She made friends and watched the way teenagers in the city coalesced in Mother Teresa Square. In the mid-aughts, a few prominent businessmen realized that bringing international artists to the country could help reassure the world that Kosovo was safe. Because hip-hop was easily the most popular genre there, 50 Cent became the first major star to perform in Pristina’s stadium in 2007. That show’s success led to more, and Lipa saw a pretty impressive list of American rappers such as Method Man and Redman and Snoop Dogg in concert before the age of 15. It was an early exposure to what it means when music functions as a universal language.

Lipa credits her time in Pristina with instilling her with political convictions. Though her music isn’t explicit on the topic and her persona as a pop star is slick and playful, she’s always been willing to take a side, even when it could spark controversy. Those who watch her closely will have noticed her full-throated support for Black Lives Matter, her enthusiasm for voting Labour in 2019, and her persistence in celebrating her Albanian identity despite occasional negative reactions to the symbology she’s used to express it.

“It mainly came because of my roots in Kosovo, and wanting to take a stand on that and talk about that and the refugee situation. And then slowly starting to understand how, you know, the politics of war, how that all happens, why so many children are displaced,” she said. “Things stemmed from a personal experience into then wanting to learn more and trying to also be a voice for lots of other people.”

It’s also a matter of using the platform she regards as a privilege: “As my profile is growing, especially online, I feel like I need to use that to do something better than, you know, posting cute pictures or whatever.”

Lipa’s sense of what will work on the dance floor—and her ability to translate that around the world—is reminiscent of Kylie Minogue, the Australian artist whose long career has made her the doyenne of dance-forward pop songs. So it’s only natural that Minogue took an interest in Lipa once she encountered her music. Eventually the two met and were able to collaborate in a distinctly 21st-century way, in a busy frenzy of remixes and Minogue’s guest appearance on Studio 2054, a livestream concert that attracted 5 million viewers in November.

“I think it works with how so many people hear music now,” Minogue told Vanity Fair of the circumstances that led her to work with Lipa. “She’s delivering quality all the way and I totally appreciate that even though she is making it look easy, it takes a lot of hard work and devotion.”

As Mawson pointed out, Lipa and her team were lucky to release the album at a time when other pop stars had decided to wait things out. Still, something about Future Nostalgia seems tailor-made for a moment when traditional sources of fun have shut down but you still need joy as a lifeline. Lipa lights up when she reminisces about the impromptu gatherings she’s seen coalesce around her: those teenage hangs in Mother Teresa Square, watching the 2014 World Cup broadcast in London. Before the pandemic, she would throw dinner parties and turn her apartment into a dance floor. “My flat is quite small. So it’s always quite fun when you just fill it up,” she said with a laugh. “It just gets fun and sweaty.” It might be why she was a perfect ambassador to a new way to party—“Club Living Room,” as her songwriting partner Coffee put it.

Over the course of the spring—in between writing and recording songs for another album, which Lipa has already given a title, currently known by only a few collaborators—she left the flat behind for a while and went on a victory lap befitting a global star, with blockbuster performances at the Grammys and the Brit Awards, and a performance at Elton John’s Oscar livestream that included two different high-collared Balenciaga gowns.

For an artist, something on the level of Future Nostalgia could represent the pinnacle of a pop career. It brought Lipa the respect she had been hoping for while giving her plenty of opportunities to have fun despite the difficulties of 2020. Now she’s in uncharted waters, and it’s up to her to find a place in pop’s pantheon”.

Prior to rounding with a couple of reviews for Future Nostalgia that help explain why Dua Lipa is a modern-day phenomenon, there is a Vogue interview. It explores (among other things), Lipa’s relationship with the Internet, and how she remains unchanged and rooted in spite of her celebrity and status:

“Calculated in sheer numbers (more than two billion YouTube views for her 2017 single “New Rules” alone), Lipa’s career might seem almost clinically successful, yet her real secret is an emotional one: the ability to connect. The “smile through the pain” ennui of Gen Z is her speciality, and she describes her oeuvre as “dance-crying” music or “dark pop”. On this album, however – and its thrilling new additional tracks – “dance” and “pop” take precedence. “I had to fight inner demons,” she tells me. “I wanted to write songs that were more sad, more about heartbreak, because I thought that writing happy songs would turn into cheesy songs. I had to fight that because I was like, ‘I am happy. I deserve to be happy.’ I should be able to write about that without the fear of feeling like I’m compromising my authenticity because I’m not crying about something or someone.”

Indeed she is not. She has been with Anwar for more than a year and a half, and last summer adopted a rescue puppy called Dexter. Her sizeable smile widens at the mention of Anwar, a guarded giddiness. Being highly visible yourself is one thing, being half of a highly visible couple another entirely. How does she navigate it? “We have all these incredible memories and experiences, and if there’s something that we want to share together, then OK, that’s fun,” she says of posting couple moments on Instagram. “But at the same time, we’re quite private – we’ll only show you as much as we want you to see. It’s a little bit of give and take, trying to find the right balance of being so excited and being in love, and wanting to share that with the people around me, but at the same time not wanting to put too much out there. I want to be able to just be happy in this relationship without having other people’s opinions.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Summerton

Like many, Lipa has a complicated relationship with the internet. Yes, it has been integral to her rise – it was where she made her name, and continues to do so. The #dualipachallenge, set to “Don’t Start Now”, lent itself to one of summer’s biggest TikTok routines. (“You know that song your kid listened to, like, 5,000 times trying to perfect a dance on TikTok?” she said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “That was me. You’re welcome.”) But she has struggled with social media, highlighting its adverse effects on women in her 2019 Cambridge Union speech.

Last year, #dualipaisoverparty trended on Twitter, after a video of her in a strip club surfaced. Then there was the time she trended for a bad dance routine and, while she is willing to laugh at herself – she retweeted the most savage memes – her management now runs her account. Twitter was the first social media platform she had. She used it to connect with fans she’d meet post-shows, which now sounds absurd. “I would go into interviews and people would say, ‘How do you deal with hate?’And I’m like, ‘Hate? I don’t get hate, what are you talking about?’ It was so early on that people didn’t even care to try and say something mean.” As her star rose, however, things “got really hectic”. Despite her better judgement, she started endlessly scrolling hateful comments about herself. “I would get anxiety,” she says. “And I was like, ‘This shouldn’t be the way that I’m experiencing this once-in-a-lifetime experience.’ It was messing with my confidence. I’d be super-nervous, wondering what everyone’s gonna say.”

While life in the public eye can take its toll, Dua asserts that much has remained unchanged. “My home life is really normal,” she says. “The people I surround myself with have known me for the longest time. My job doesn’t define my circle, and that makes a world of difference”.

Future Nostalgia is one of the best-reviewed albums of 2020. She is working on her third album at the moment, and it will be interesting to see how this worldwide Pop icon follows up such a celebrated album. The Line of Best Fit observed the following when they reviewed Future Nostalgia:

“Future Nostalgia is Dua Lipa cementing her status. She’s already created this decade’s perfect workout song (complete with workout video) with “Physical” and single-handedly brought back the woodblock (“Don’t Start Now”), but each song here is so meticulously crafted that any could’ve been the lead single.

The likes of Prince, Moloko and Chic have their fingerprints all over these 11 songs. It’s peak disco-revivalism, with “Levitating” feeling right at home in a roller disco. But it never feels like she’s copying other people’s homework. Even when she’s sampling INXS on “Break My Heart” or White Town on “Love Again”, her creative voice is always at the forefront, building fantastic bangers.

“Pretty Please” is a stripped-back slow burner that lets the thumping bass and shimmering guitars take you to a dancefloor right before the lights come up. “Hallucinate”, meanwhile, is a blissful early ‘00s club floor-filler. The kind that gets limbs and sweat flying everywhere with abandon. “Cool” is the only real misstep. It lacks that Dua Lipa personality; as though you could quite easily paste someone else’s vocals in and it’d still be a perfectly fine summer bop.

It’s the kind of unabashed frankness of tunes like “Good In Bed”, featuring a line about getting the “good pipe in the moonlight”, that drives a great Dua Lipa song. From the title track's “I know you ain’t used to a female alpha” to the dismantling of the patriarchy on “Boys Will Be Boys”, it’s this approach that makes her tunes more than just club bangers. Even when she swings to socio-political issues, it fits seamlessly.

Bores argue that all pop music is copy-paste manufactured, but if that’s true, then why doesn't all pop music sound this incredible? Future Nostalgia is an artist in total control. It’s built on such an addictive carefree spirit that it’s hard not to let loose and go with it. The greatest pop star of this generation? That’s for you to decide. But Future Nostalgia makes a very convincing argument that Dua Lipa just might be”.

An album that accrued so much applause and huge appreciation, it was the moment when Dua Lipa was confirmed as the most talented Pop artists of our time. I think this will only solidify and intensify as she prepares her third studio album. DIY were definitely overwhelmed and stunned by Future Nostalgia:

“In times of increasing uncertainty and worry, we could all use a little something to uplift us - and Dua Lipa has stepped up to the plate. Releasing hotly-anticipated second album ‘Future Nostalgia’ a week early due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, she took to Instagram to explain her reasoning: “I hope it brings you some happiness, and I hope it makes you smile, and I hope it makes you dance. I hope I make you proud.” And, well, ‘Future Nostalgia’ delivers on this and then some. A sassy and euphoric offering, ‘Future Nostalgia’ sees the superstar embracing her firm position amongst the pop greats.

Across its 11-track run, it’s a non-stop party, from the punchy titular opener that channels Prince grooves, to the dancefloor-ready ‘Levitating’, to the goosebump-inducing sample of White Town’s ‘Your Woman’ on ‘Love Again’, and the penultimate ‘Good In Bed’ with lyrics Lily Allen is going to wish she thought of first. By the time closer ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ hits, Dua’s already smashed it out the park, and the euphoric ballad cutting down inequality with her impassioned chorus of “boys will be boys but girls will be women” only further cements what this album has proved: Dua will be going down in pop history as one of the best”.

As she plays some big U.K. dates and prepares for a busy year of gigs and promotion, there will be so many new fans going to see her after the success of Future Nostalgia. A grounded and relatable Pop artist who is huge is hard to find. With songs that will endure for years and influence artists coming through, there is no doubt Dua Lipa is a Pop icon! Although there are some incredible established and new Pop artists making inventive and fascinating music, there is nobody doing things like Dua Lipa. Her peers and contemporaries should…

FOLLOW her lead.

FEATURE: Paul McCartney at Eighty: Twenty-Nine: Here, There and Everywhere: His Greatest Beatles Track?

FEATURE:

 

 

Paul McCartney at Eighty

Twenty-Nine: Here, There and Everywhere: His Greatest Beatles Track?

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IT is a subjective question…

but, if you had to narrow down the best Paul McCartney song, which would you choose? My personal favourite of his from The Beatles is Paperback Writer. In terms of Wings, it would have to be Band on the Run. I think my favourite solo McCartney would be Coming Up. Although my favourite Beatles song he wrote is Paperback Writer, I don’t necessarily think it is the best. I would say that McCartney’s own favourite of his Beatles compositions is from 1966’s Revolver. Here, There and Everywhere is a masterful love song from a man who has written more than his fair share of classic love songs! There is something about the purity, beautiful and sentiment of the song that means it has endured for over fifty-five years. Before continuing on, the Beatles Bible provides details regarding one of Paul McCartney’s greatest moments as a songwriter:

“Paul McCartney’s favourite among his own compositions, ‘Here, There And Everywhere’ is often cited as his finest love song.

It was written alongside John Lennon’s swimming pool in Weybridge, while McCartney waited for Lennon to wake up.

I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E, and soon had a few chords, and I think by the time he’d woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up.

Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Mile

Paul McCartney’s favourite among his own compositions, ‘Here, There And Everywhere’ is often cited as his finest love song.

It was written alongside John Lennon’s swimming pool in Weybridge, while McCartney waited for Lennon to wake up.

I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E, and soon had a few chords, and I think by the time he’d woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up.

Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

‘Here, There And Everywhere’ was particularly highly regarded by Lennon.

Paul’s song completely, I believe. And one of my favourite songs of The Beatles.

John Lennon
All We Are Saying, David Sheff

Interestingly, McCartney claims to have had a demo version in March 1965, while The Beatles filmed Help! in Obertauern, Austria.

John and I shared a room and we were taking off our heavy ski boots after a day’s filming, ready to have a shower and get ready for the nice bit, the evening meal and the drinks. We were playing a cassette of our new recordings and my song ‘Here, There And Everywhere’ was on. And I remember John saying, ‘You know, I probably like that better than any of my songs on the tape.’ Coming from John, that was high praise indeed.

Paul McCartney
Anthology

While the song was written with Jane Asher in mind, McCartney found inspiration for his vocals from a less likely source.

When I sang it in the studio I remember thinking, I’ll sing it like Marianne Faithfull; something no one would ever know… So that was a little voice, I used an almost falsetto voice and double-tracked it. My Marianne Faithfull impression.

In the studio

Recording for ‘Here, There And Everywhere’ took place over three days. On 14 June 1966 The Beatles recorded four takes, only the final one of which was complete and with vocals. The group overdubbed the first of the harmony vocals that would be so important to the final sound.

The harmonies were performed by Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison, and were arranged by George Martin, who was somewhat modest about his contribution.

The harmonies on that are very simple, just basic triads which the boys hummed behind and found very easy to do. There’s nothing very clever, no counterpoint, just moving block harmonies. Very simple to do… but very effective.

George Martin
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn

On 16 June they recorded takes 5-13 of the rhythm track, the last of which was deemed to be the best. Onto this they overdubbed more harmony vocals along with McCartney’s lead vocals and bass guitar. The following day McCartney double-tracked his lead vocals, and the song was complete”.

Because Paul McCartney is eighty in June, I wanted to spend some time exploring various songs and albums. Before rounding up the forty features, I will cover other songs he wrote for The Beatles. Here, There and Everywhere is important, as McCartney himself regards it so highly. His vocal is sublime. The maturity and sense of realisation is there from the first lines: “To lead a better life/I need my love to be here”. Without a wasted syllable or note, it is a short and gorgeous love song straight from the heart. The poetry in the track is evident and moving: “Everywhere/Knowing that love is to share/Each one believing that love never dies/Watching her eyes and hoping I'm always there”. Such a remarkable song that will mean something to everyone, I wonder whether McCartney has written a better love song!? It proves how sensitive, tender and intuitive it is when articulating this undying love, devotion and compassion. Maybe he will change his mind in years to come, though McCartney has highlighted Here, There and Everywhere as his favourite Beatles song. Among a fine and varied catalogue, picking one song is pretty tricky! The more you listen to Here, There and Everywhere, the more you can see why…

THE song means so much to him.

FEATURE: Inside Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty: Track Two: There Goes a Tenner

FEATURE:

 

 

Inside Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty

Track Two: There Goes a Tenner

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BEFORE Kate Bush’s The Dreaming…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush and an extra during the shoot/rehearsals for the There Goes a Tenner video in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from the book, KATE: Inside the Rainbow)

turns forty in September, I am writing a few features about it. One run I am doing is a track-by-track guide. I have reached the second track on the album, There Goes a Tenner. To many, it is the worst track on the album. One of the reasons people think that is because the track was released as a single and only reached ninety-three. Released in November 1982, maybe people had heard the album and felt it was not necessary to buy the single. The Dreaming is more of an album that you need to listen to in full. It is not something that has many ready singles you can separate from the rest Bush corrected that with 1985’s Hounds of Love. I actually like the fact The Dreaming is an album that you need to treat as a single work. Because of that, maybe There Goes a Tenner gets overlooked. It is a fun song where Bush adopts a cockney accent. Playing a robber during a heist, I feel it is an underrated song that people should listen to. Before I continue with my thoughts on the track, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia collates a couple of interviews where Bush discussed There Goes a Tenner:

“It's about amateur robbers who have only done small things, and this is quite a big robbery that they've been planning for months, and when it actually starts happening, they start freaking out. They're really scared, and they're so aware of the fact that something could go wrong that they just freaked out, and paranoid and want to go home. (...) It's sort of all the films I've seen with robberies in, the crooks have always been incredibly in control and calm, and I always thought that if I ever did a robbery, I'd be really scared, you know, I'd be really worried. So I thought I'm sure that's a much more human point of view. (The Dreaming interview, CBAK 4011 CD)

That was written on the piano. I had an idea for the tune and just knocked out the chords for the first verse. The words and everything just came together. It was quite a struggle from there on to try to keep things together. The lyrics are quite difficult on that one, because there are a lot of words in quite a short space of time. They had to be phrased right and everything. That was very difficult. Actually the writing went hand-in-hand with the CS-80. (John Diliberto, Interview. Keyboard/Totally Wired/Songwriter (USA), 1985)”.

I think that each track on The Dreaming has its place. The fact is that, until this point, the album was the most diverse Bush had delivered. With each song completely different and with its own style, I can understand why the singles did not fare so well (apart from the first, Sat in Your Lap). There Goes a Tenner is a song that warrants more acclaim. As with all songs on The Dreaming, the lyrics are great. There are plenty of lines on There Goes a Tenner that grab you. My favourite sections are “I've been here all day/A star in strange ways/Apart from a photograph/They'll get nothing from me/Not until they let me see my solicitor/Ooh, I remember/That rich, windy weather/When you would carry me/Pockets floating/In the breeze”. Even though the accent is not everyone’s favourite part of the track, the fact Bush adopts this persona and accent is great. She commits to the part and the video, which I think is one of her most interesting, was a plea from EMI. The video for The Dreaming’s title track was less conventional and cinematic in terms of its shots and feel. That single did not do too well and, not helped by the video, there was this demand to make There Goes a Tenner’s video more conventional and less complex/expensive. Even though the Paul Henry-directed video was not shown a lot, I think that it is really great. An underrated song from The Dreaming, I think that it should get more airplay and attention! There Goes a Tenner is one of ten wonderful tracks from…

A spectacular album.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Dana Gavanski

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Clementine Schneidermann 

Dana Gavanski

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IT is a timely moment…

to spotlight the wonderful Dana Gavanski. The London-based Canadian singer-songwriter released her fantastic debut album, Yesterday Is Gone, in 2020. On 29th April, she prepares to release When It Comes. It is an album that you need to pre-order:

“There’s something mesmerising about the fingertips of Dana Gavanski. Conducting each note with a light gracefulness, they appear to dance whilst aiding their owner in expressing the stories behind each of her lighter-than-air tones. Stories which, on her new album When It Comes, may never have been heard if not for healing ‘lost’ vocal cords and a lesson in taking the rough with the smooth.

“In many ways this record feels like it is my first,” Dana tells. “When I could use my voice, I had to focus so there is an urgency and greater emotional trajectory than before… it’s very connected to vocal presence, which extended into an existential questioning of my connection to music. It felt like a battle at times, which I frequently lost.”

Arriving where introversion and extroversion meet, When It Comes is Dana’s most vulnerable record to date. A Canadian-Serbian artist unafraid of extremes, she seamlessly blends her love of music from the 50s-70s with mythology. Led by instinct in its purest form, Dana’s latest chapter is an ode to the voice as an instrument – its power, and how intricately it can deliver words to tug at, and tie knots in, every heartstring. “Words can be taken quite literally, but to me, a lot of the time, they are pivots. They point in a direction but don’t necessarily stay there,” she says.

Recorded in London, the original ideas for the record were played out on Dana’s toy Casiotone. Returning to Capitol K’s Total Refreshment Centre (TRC) with partner James Howard, the pair co-produced the songs together and felt very much at home. “James has an effortless musicality and we work together so well. The TRC is a special place, like a community centre,” she recalls. “It’s very understated but important to the people who come through it. It’s a rehearsal space, a recording studio, and there are a handful of music studios.”

Opening with music box sweetness, ‘I Kiss The Night’s twinkling piano melody paves the way for the baroque Wurlitzer-like nursery rhyme of ‘Bend and Fall’ and mystical lullaby ‘Under The Sky.’ Alongside humour and caricature (‘The Reaper’), mythological romance and spirituality (‘Knowing to Trust’) and idiosyncratic carnival arpeggio grooves (‘Indigo Highway’), the squelchy staccato and subtle jazzy flecks of ‘The Day Unfolds’ and tension release of ‘Letting Go’ dazzle like bokeh in a Nick Drake haze. The autumnal hymnal of ‘Lisa’ meanwhile, was one of the first, more fictional tracks written for the record, from the viewpoint of the sea, watching the protagonist pass by day after day, offering a metaphorical reflection on the natural world around us. “We don’t realize we are surrounded by all this beauty; we’re shut up inside, rushing to get to work, buying books online without ever leaving home. It’s about focus, recognising what’s in front of you”.

I am going to come to a fairly recent interview that she gave. Before that, and if you have not followed or know about the amazing Dana Gavanski, you need to spend time with When It Comes. It is going to be one of this year’s most impressive albums:

“Arriving where introversion and extroversion meet, When It Comes is Dana’s most vulnerable record to date. A Canadian-Serbian artist unafraid of extremes, she seamlessly blends her love of music from the 50s-70s with mythology. Led by instinct in its purest form, Dana’s latest chapter is an ode to the voice as an instrument – its power, and how intricately it can deliver words to tug at, and tie knots in, every heartstring. “Words can be taken quite literally, but to me, a lot of the time, they are pivots. They point in a direction but don’t necessarily stay there,” she says.

Just as Dana’s debut Yesterday Is Gone and her covers EP Wind Songs were lauded for their intimacy captured through an innate sense of melody to convey a mood, they traced a timeline of Dana’s teenage years in Vancouver, a move to Montreal and visiting family homes for kitchen talks with her “Baka” (grandma) in Belgrade / Serbia. Her latest was started in Montreal before ending in Belgrade and whilst expressive with French Yé-yé flourishes – offers something altogether more atmospheric and widescreen.

“Yesterday Is Gone consisted of straightforward pop songs, this album is about searching for something to excite me back into songwriting,” Dana reveals. “It’s about finding the origins of my connection to music, that tenuous but stubborn and strong link - why it draws me and what if anything, I can learn from it. The album title has a heaviness to it but also a lightness, depending on your frame of mind. It’s about being open, and letting it come whatever it is, without judgement.”

Recorded in London, the original ideas for the record were played out on Dana’s toy Casiotone. Returning to Capitol K’s Total Refreshment Centre (TRC) with partner James Howard, the pair co-produced the songs together and felt very much at home. “James has an effortless musicality and we work together so well. The TRC is a special place, like a community centre,” she recalls. “It’s very understated but important to the people who come through it. It’s a rehearsal space, a recording studio, and there are a handful of music studios.”

Opening with music box sweetness, ‘I Kiss The Night’s twinkling piano melody paves the way for the baroque Wurlitzer-like nursery rhyme of ‘Bend & Fall’ and mystical lullaby ‘Under The Sky.’ Alongside humour and caricature (‘The Reaper’), mythological romance and spirituality (‘Knowing to Trust’) and idiosyncratic carnival arpeggio grooves (‘Indigo Highway’), the squelchy staccato and subtle jazzy flecks of ‘The Day Unfolds’ and tension release of ‘Letting Go’ dazzle like bokeh in a Nick Drake haze. The autumnal hymnal of ‘Lisa’ meanwhile, was one of the first, more fictional tracks written for the record, from the viewpoint of the sea, watching the protagonist pass by day after day, offering a metaphorical reflection on the natural world around us. “We don’t realize we are surrounded by all this beauty; we’re shut up inside, rushing to get to work, buying books online without ever leaving home. It’s about focus, recognising what’s in front of you.”

Now planning her headline tour with an expanded 5-piece line-up and taking to the stage for the first time since touring with Porridge Radio, Damian Jurado and Chris Cohen, Dana is currently perfecting her live performance by practising a voice ever more elaborate, and perfecting those subtle hand gestures to match. “I’m so inspired by David Bowie’s performances and discovered he practised mime with Lindsay Kemp early on in his career,” she says of seeking inspiration. “I’ve done some mime classes since and it’s become good practice to go deeper into the body and be less controlled by the humility of the mind”.

Back in February, writewyattuk had a detailed chat with Dana Gavanski. Such a compelling artist, she is equally fascinating when it comes to interviews. I would suggest you read the entire thing. I have selected a few sections that caught my eye:  

“When talented singer-songwriter but self-confessed introvert Dana Gavanski lost her voice at a key stage of her fledgling career, it was a wonder that self-doubt didn’t conspire to sink her rise to indie fame. But like the Croatian sea organ heard on a life-affirming soundscape composition she recently made for national radio, it’s clear that Dana is made of sterner stuff than she suggests.

What’s more, this South London-based Canadian-Serb clearly has good people around her, near and far, seeing her through a stop-start couple of years due to the pandemic (she was holidaying in Serbia with partner and musical co-worker James Howard when the country closed its airports, leaving them unable to return at first) and big life moves.

Dana reveals of aptly-named second album, When It Comes, out on April 29th via Full Time Hobby (and set to be released in the US via Ba Da Bing Records and Flemish Eye in Canada), “In many ways this record feels like it is my first”.

She added, “When I could use my voice, I had to focus, so there is an urgency and greater emotional trajectory than before… it’s very connected to vocal presence, which extended into an existential questioning of my connection to music. It felt like a battle at times, which I frequently lost.”

Accordingly, Dana’s most vulnerable record to date is, “an ode to the voice as an instrument – its power, and how intricately it can deliver words to tug at, and tie knots in, every heartstring”.

I hear that, but feel the instrumentation, not least the LP’s electronic touches, adds something else again, carrying on where she recently left off.

Dana’s debut LP, 2020’s Yesterday Is Gone, and that year’s covers EP, Wind Songs (her cracking interpretation of King Crimson’s ‘I Talk to the Wind’ accompanied by Chic, Tim Hardin and Judee Sill covers, and a Macedonian folk song) were lauded for their intimacy, the first record tracing a timeline of her teenage years in Vancouver, a move to Montreal and visiting family homes for kitchen talks with her ‘Baka’ (grandma) in Serbia.

But while this LP started coming together in Montreal and was completed in Belgrade, it’s more of a London creation, while at the same time – as her label put it – ‘something altogether more atmospheric and widescreen’.

Dana explained, “Yesterday Is Gone consisted of straightforward pop songs, this album is about searching for something to excite me back into songwriting. It’s about finding the origins of my connection to music, that tenuous but stubborn and strong link – why it draws me and what if anything, I can learn from it”.

A simply amazing artist who I hope more people tune into, I have been a fan of Dan Gavanski for years. Although she has been making music a while, maybe not everyone knows about her. With the upcoming arrival of When It Comes, that will all change. It is a sensational album that will mean a lot more ears and eyes…

TURN in her direction.

______________

Follow Dana Gavanski

Official:

https://www.danagavanski.co.uk/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/danagavanski

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/danagavanski/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/danagavanski

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyr3p8wwQLjCxtDAO4eWZOQ

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1GSLjV7vq6pSsNAEFwWSbn?si=WjWh2ezCRO-wA5N-CqTmsQ&nd=1

FEATURE: Live and (Just About) Kicking… The Worry for Artists and Their Physical and Mental Health Whilst Touring

FEATURE:

 

Live and (Just About) Kicking…

PHOTO CREDIT: @rkok/Unsplash 

The Worry for Artists and Their Physical and Mental Health Whilst Touring

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ONE exciting thing that is happening…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @yrss/Unsplash

is that venues are open again and gigs are back in full swing! Although the pandemic is not over, things are open and there is great accessibility to live music. I wonder how long it will last and whether there will be further lockdowns in the future. It is unfortunate that there were lockdowns, as many venues had to close permanently because of the loss of trade. I hope the Government properly subsidise venues and ensure they are covered if we do return to lockdown. Festivals are going ahead through the summer, and it will be the first time many have been to a festival for over two years. Although it is great for punters and music fans that have been deprived of seeing live music in the flesh for a long time, I do wonder what it is like for the artists. It is great that they are performing and are resuming life as it was before 2020. I have seen quite a few posts from artists who are catching COVID-19 because they are in close contact with so many people. I guess this is an issue that could affect a lot of gigs this year. Already many are being cancelled or rescheduled because of this. The other problem I see is exhaustion and stress from touring. As a lot of artists are now trying to reduce their carbon footprint, many are using public transport rather than planes or cars. Things have had to change in that respect. The life of a touring artist is tougher now than ever. Having missed out on gigs for so long, so many are performing flat-out for the rest of the year.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @sebastianervi/Unsplash

It’s wonderful that they have enthusiasm and want to see as many fans as possible. I do worry whether this will have an impact on their general mental health afterwards. Not only is there that ever-present danger of catching COVID-19 and having to be derailed for a little bit. This sense of making up for lost time means they are pushing themselves the limit! Cramming in more gigs this year then they would at any other time, so many artists are competing for spaces and slots. Many venues were fully booked up a while ago, whereas others are struggling to accommodate demand. For those artists who have been playing at venues, they are getting back into the routine. Sort of like retraining themselves or working muscles that have been atrophied for a long time, I am reading social media posts from some who are already feeling quite strained. The overall impression and reaction from artists is positive. They are pumped to be back on the road and doing something that was not possible until fairly recently. Relying on gigs for income, there are a mass of artists who are probably working harder than ever. Sleeping less and not getting as much rest as they should, I do have a concern of what all this intense performance – after quite a time away from the circuit – will do shortly.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @abbiebernet/Unsplash

I guess there is no real way of being able to recoup lost earnings and only perform at select venues and times. So many artists are in the same storm. That desire and love of being back touring, but there is also that risk of their health being jeopardised. Not only is it the physical demands of going back to gigs; there is also that fatigue and the stress of packing so much. As the pandemic still looms large and can affect any artist at any time, it is a time that is both strange and a relief. I do hope that artists will be okay but, as there is this sense of catch-up and relishing a return to near-normality, a lot of the impact and effects of rigorous performance might not be felt right away, or it is being supressed. It is wonderful live music has made a big return. There are great charities like Music Minds Matter that provide support to anyone who is struggling or finding their mental health has taken a hit. Musicians are a sensible bunch, though they also want to please their fans. I can only imagine how fantastic it is for them to be back on stage making that direct connection! There are many who are already finding things quite hard and tiring. Conflicted as they want to gig and deliver to the fans, many are not giving themselves room to breathe and time to relax. I hope that they do. It is a moment when the pandemic is calming slightly in one sense, but also making a big return in another. It is fairly precarious, meaning it is hard for artists to know what to do when it comes to their schedule and how many gigs they take on. Although it is so important to make sure fans are happy and get to see gigs, it is even more important that artists and touring crews…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Dan Burton/Unsplash

FIND time to look after themselves!

FEATURE: Getting Their Priorities Right… Why Self Esteem’s Hugely Acclaimed Second Studio Album Should Win This Year’s Mercury Prize

FEATURE:

 

 

Getting Their Priorities Right…

Why Self Esteem’s Hugely Acclaimed Second Studio Album Should Win This Year’s Mercury Prize

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ALTHOUGH awards are not everything…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Suzie Howell for The New York Times

and the true mark of a successful and worthy artist, I do think that there is a discrepancy when it comes to Self Esteem (Rebecca Lucy Taylor). I shall come to it soon, but her latest studio album, Prioritise Pleasure, was released in October. One of the most acclaimed and remarkable albums of the past decade, it has won a slew of five-star reviews. She and her group have a busy spring and summer ahead as they head to various festivals and venues. One of Rotherham’s proudest and most amazing daughters, Rebecca Lucy Taylor released the best album of last year. Although, on stage and on record, others help bring her music together, it is very much her central and blinding talent that has blown people away. A queer artist who composed a warts-and-all album that will stand the test of time. It was disappointing to see that she missed out on receiving BRIT honours and any gongs from NME. In the case of NME, one would have thought they would have given her some due credit! As I said, awards are not everything, but Prioritise Pleasure is an album that should be picking them up left, right and centre! After her debut album, Compliments Please (2019), missed out on a Mercury nod, there is no way her second album can be ignored. There will be stiff competition from the likes of Little Simz and her album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. Surely the other frontrunner, I do think that Prioritise Pleasure should be given the gong. For one, it would go to an artist born outside of London. Come September, I would expect to see Self Esteem rocking up to the Eventim Apollo pretty much assured that she will win the prize.

The dozen shortlisted albums are not announced until 28th July, but there is this split between the overwhelmingly positive reviews (I have literally not read a review that is anything less than hugely effusive!), the ecstatic and passionate audiences that have witnessed these electric and timeless live shows and the seeming absence of awards. Many people think awards shows are pointless and they have no meaning. I think that they do acknowledge excellence, and it is a huge incentive for artists. In the case of the Mercury Prize, it is literally about the best album of the year from a British or Irish artist. Drilling down to the importance of a single album, there is that desire to recognise a great upcoming artist, but also not have that be the main focus. Self Esteem is a relatively new artist. As her first studio album was a few years ago, it is not the case of this very long-running and established artist being given the prize. Like I said, Rebecca Lucy Taylor is from Rotherham (born to a steelworker dad and secretary mum). The last few years and more have been dominated by London artists taking away the prize. It is very boring and seems to suggest that being from the capital is the main criteria for the winner! Not to take anything away from Little Simz (who was born in Islington), but I would be disappointed if the Mercury went to a London artist again this year. It would show no imagination, and it would solidify claims that the prize is Londoncentric.

I am going to finish with a few interview samples, where Rebecca Lucy Taylor has talked about her work and inspirations behind Prioritise Pleasure. Like any valid award show, the Mercury Prize should award the best album of that year. More than eligible for inclusion, you only need to read a couple of sample reviews to understand that Prioritise Pleasure is more than an amazing album – it seems like a watershed moment and something that will inspire so many other artists! Funny, honest, open, powerful, varied and impossible to dislike, Prioritise Pleasure is almost like Rebecca Lucy Taylor has done a Madonna in the 1980s: going from the budding Queen of Pop in 1986 with True Blue and having it confirmed on 1989 with Like a Prayer. Not to make too many Madge comparisons, but I hear shades of several Madonna albums in Pritotise Pleasure (Erotica, Like a Prayer, Ray of Light and Confessions on a Dance Floor among them). A modern-day icon and heroine whose third album will be the most anticipated of this age, there is no doubt in my mind that Prioritise Pleasure should walk away with the Mercury Prize. I have seen the release schedule for albums due that could challenge. From those released already from the likes of Little Simz, Yard Act, IDLES, Wet Leg and Adele, to upcoming promise from Florence + the Machine and Kelly Lee Owens, I still think that this is (finally) Self Esteem’s year!

This is what DIY said in their hugely positive and fulsome  review for Prioritise Pleasure. So many other reviews are as rapturous and adoring:

“On her 2019 solo debut ‘Compliments Please’, Rebecca Lucy Taylor set out the stall for her project Self Esteem as an assertive but nuanced pop star. It’s with ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ that she’s upped the ante considerably. A powerful and potent look at - quite simply - the experience of being a woman in the present day, this is an album that encapsulates the fear, anger, dread and exhaustion that has become so commonplace in so many female lives. And yet, it’s a record that still offers comfort and levity; there’s a wittiness and dark humour that traverses the likes of ‘Moody’ - its opening line being the iconic “Sexting you at the mental health talk seems counter-productive” - and ‘Fucking Wizardry’, all the while remaining honest and raw, but free of judgement. When the record’s opener ‘I’m Fine’ closes with a voice note of a woman in her early twenties explaining that - if approached by a group of men - her friends’ reaction is to begin barking like a dog - because “there is nothing that terrifies a man more than a woman who appears completely deranged” - Rebecca’s response is to begin howling herself.

It’s also an album that sees Rebecca continually pushing herself to explore new sonic avenues; eclectic instrumentation and bold sonics are the backbone of the record, with tracks switching from spoken-word manifestos (‘I Do This All The Time’) through to more traditional R&B pop formats (‘Still Reigning’) via gigantic gospel-backed offerings (‘Prioritise Pleasure’), and back again. Most importantly, though, this is a record that doesn’t compromise. An uncomfortable and unnerving listen at times - as any album dealing in this level of openness arguably should be - it’s also an absolutely necessary one. Through her own personal stories - and those of others - ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ manages to challenge accepted norms and help to exorcise long-buried demons; it’s powerful to the last drop”.

Prior to coming to some reviews and rounding off, I wanted to include The Line of Best Fit’s review. They gave Prioritise Pleasure a full ten of ten, and they were not holding back on the praise:

“It’s in this pursuit of pleasure that Taylor snatches the opportunity to embrace emotion in abundance. “Don’t be embarrassed that all you’ve had is fun” she preaches on gripping centrepiece “I Do This All The Time”, her vocals backed by a choir. The inclusion of these choral outbursts throughout the album help to reinstate Taylor’s messages of unity, with the sea of vocals welcoming washes of sonic euphoria.

The thunderous outcries of “How Can I Help You'' convey a retaliation against societal norms and the unrelenting standards that women are expected to yield to. “But I don’t know shit, do I?” she snarls, supported by tribal rhythms and a cavernous bass drum beat that simply demands you realise your own self worth. Similarly across the title track, Taylor’s rhythmic flourishes allow the powerful chorus to explode into the importance of prioritising yourself. Elsewhere, “Moody” - a highlight of the record - not only contains a funk-pop pre-chorus that’ll make Dua Lipa green with envy but also the wickedly witty line “Sexting you at the mental health talk seems counterproductive”.

In between those intense flashes of emotion though, Prioritise Pleasure also makes space for contemplation and quiet vulnerability. In “Still Reigning” for example, we see her step back from the flag-waving hedonist into a more empathic, nurturing role. “The love you need is gentle, the love you need is kind” she muses, like a warm hug from the big sister you never had. Although perhaps the most stark and goosebump inducing moment on the record is during opener “I’m Fine”. In a spoken word snippet taken from a National Youth Theatre workshop on the topic of consent, we hear an unnamed woman recount that “There is nothing that terrifies a man more than a woman who appears completely deranged” - a bleak reminder of the fear of male violence shared by countless women and the normalisation of it in our society.

Commanding, assertive, and powerful, Prioritise Pleasure is everything pop music should be. Wholly unafraid to tackle difficult subjects with ease, in Rebecca Taylor we also have the makings of a serious pop behemoth”.

In August, Self Esteem spoke with NME ahead of the release of an album that would soon announce her as one of the most important and extraordinary artists of her generation:

“There was a lot of promotion around the release of Prioritise Pleasure. As one can imagine, for such a quality album, there was a lot of demand and requests from the press. I wanted to source a couple of interviews (segments from them), just to give a more personal sense of what Prioritise Pleasure means and where Self Esteem is in her career now.

“Though Self Esteem’s 2019 debut album ‘Compliments Please’ won Taylor plenty of fans with its barbed take on pop music, ‘I Do This All The Time’ represents her breakthrough moment ahead of ‘Prioritise Pleasure’. Her June rendition of the song on Later… with Jools Holland was one of the most powerful television performances of this year; as the lights burst into technicolour, Taylor throws her head back and beams with pure, undiluted glee. Though she initially set out to build a discography rather than one huge moment, she’s grateful for the steam it has gathered all the same.

“Mostly, I’m excited that the song isn’t a poppy sure-fire breakthrough,” she points out. “I still love that song; I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever made in my whole career.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Eva Pentel

Many of ‘I Do This All The Time’’s lyrics refer to Taylor’s own experiences – the voice creepily calling her a “sturdy girl” is based on a real-life tour manager, while many of the reassurances – “don’t be intimidated by all the babies they have / Don’t be embarrassed that all you’ve had is fun” – answer to the pressures that Taylor still feels.

“I was born in the ’80s, in Rotherham,” she says. “There was no way I wasn’t going to grow up thinking this is all well and good, but when I’m married and I have my children then I’m sorted. I still have that wiring. I start dating someone, and I’m like, ‘is this it?’ I have to go, hang on, is this what?’” Gradually undoing that same wiring, she says, has led her to some positive realisations – around the idea of a chosen family, for example. “I have a family and they’re not just people I’m related to,” Taylor says. “Humanity and connection and love doesn’t just have to be sexual. It’s all hard work, isn’t it?”

The advice-dispensing, spoken-word track has won understandable comparisons to Baz Luhrmann’s 1997 single ‘Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen’, a spoken-word song that issues sage nuggets of wisdom over woozy, lounge music. The sheer volume of comparisons eventually led Taylor to tweet about hypothetical male mourners who might crowd around her open casket following her death in order to whisper: “It’s like a Baz Luhrmann for women”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Eva Pentel

And, true to its title, ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ as a whole is an album that champions putting yourself first – even if it makes certain people uncomfortable. “I’ve done years of therapy, done plenty of work on myself, and read every fucking book you can fucking read about it, and it comes back down to true self-acceptance and self-love,” Taylor says. “It’s the answer to everything, but it’s still something that you’re meant to not do. I go down this road a lot, and I get quite upset. But then I think, no – just keep in my little part of the world, my group, accepting myself, loving myself, and then make my little silly songs and do my little silly dances. And if someone can learn from that and pass it forward, at least I’m doing something?”

This same boldness is also evident in ‘Prioritise Pleasure’’s sound, which often springs up from a particular kind of steamy, slower-burning pop, and warps it – and for every chipper nu-disco bass-line, there’s a left-field touch of abrasiveness. “Sexting you at the mental health talk feels counter-productive,” Self Esteem belts out on ‘Moody’, her sheer honesty jarring with a snappy alphabet-chant chorus.

On the thumping title track, she reflects on the freedom she feels both as a solo artist and a woman as stuttering synths assemble into a gigantic grinding wall. “Prioritise pleasuring me, no need to wait for bended knee,” she demands, “I’m free.” Though she doesn’t view herself as a pop star, Taylor enjoys inhabiting that world anyway – and has little time for snobby attitudes towards pop music”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Eva Pentel

I am going to finish off with an interview from The Guardian. They (among many others) named Prioritise Pleasure as their album of 2021. It is an album that is very important to Rebecca Lucy Taylor as it is to those who have listened to it:

“Prioritise Pleasure is the Guardian’s album of the year. How do you feel?

It’s fucking cool, innit [laughs loudly]. My PR told me at my gig in Manchester and then just walked off, like the ultimate mic drop. Also, I’ve done the double as well, with the single of the year. Amazing.

Did you expect the album to break through in the way it has?

No. I’d absolutely made my peace with being told I’m underrated. But I also don’t feel like things have massively changed – I still feel like I will be fighting for ever. But I get my own Travelodge room [on tour] now and – I’m not joking – that’s bliss to me. Before I was always sharing.

Why do you think the album connected in the way it did?

I keep doing this joke that everyone’s as depressed as me now because of the pandemic, so maybe it’s that. I used to feel very alone and I couldn’t understand why I found everything so difficult. On this album I’m starting to feel like, certainly for women, or for people who struggle not to live the perfect 2.4 children dream, it’s society that’s caused it to be shit for us. I think a lot of people are realising that as well, and maybe I’m vaguely eloquent enough to make sense of it all.

A few months after your debut Compliments Please came out, you were worried about whether or not you even could make a second album.

It had been a risk to do [Self Esteem], and I felt so accomplished, actually, on that first record. Then I was hearing “Hmm, but it didn’t really sell and no money was made” from the label. Are you kidding? All this work hasn’t been enough? That feeling of “maybe I’ll get dropped” was horrible but it managed to thicken my skin and I realised I wanted to do this regardless. I was prepped and ready to do [a second album] anyway, but then I didn’t get dropped.

When did you start writing it?

I did How Can I Help You at the end of 2019. Then I wrote a lot of it at the start of 2020 and spent the whole pandemic listening to the demos just ready to make it. I had to just sit and think about it longer than usual.

Was it important to have the lyrics be pretty plain-speaking and direct?

I think so. I was in an indie band [Slow Club] for so long and I remember wanting to say really simple things I felt, but to get it OK’d I would have to deploy a metaphor or think about how Bob Dylan would say it [laughs]. So my lyrics sound like they do now because I’m not having to get it through someone else’s lens any more. When I was younger I’d get my disposable cameras developed and none of my pictures would be of the scenery or any cool things I saw, it was all just my friends. All I care about are people and the things they do. I’m interested in horrible life, and lyrics are the horrible life bit for me.

There’s a black humour to some of the songs – is comedy an inspiration when it comes to lyric writing

No, not really. I’ve definitely curated a kind of [does a goofy voice] “I’m funny” thing to survive being a woman, and it seeps into who I am. It also is who I am. But it’s sort of the last level for me when it comes to things I need to stop doing. Gaga doesn’t have to do jokes! It naturally comes out of me because that’s just me, but I think it’s when I feel like people expect it that it pisses me off.

Your moniker was sort of about wish-fulfilment – if I put it out there in the world it will happen. Do you think you’re getting there now?

It comes in and out. These past six months I have been very emotional. I’m really used to knowing why but I don’t know why this time. I think it might be that something is happening in me where I think I might love myself, finally. And that just makes me cry loads, but in a beautiful way. It just feels like there’s no going back now, and life will throw all sorts of shit but I finally feel like I’m on an even playing field with people who don’t suffer with this bullshit. I feel limitless”.

Although there is a way to go before we learn which dozen albums are in contention for this year’s Mercury Prize, there is no doubt Self Esteem’s Prioritise Pleasure will be among them. I also feel that Wet Leg, Little Simz, Yard Act, IDLES, Adele, Florence and the Machine, Black Country, New Road, Charli XCX, and Pillow Queens will be in the running.

PHOTO CREDIT: Suzie Howell for The New York Times

Having won so much acclaim, and being named as one of the defining albums of last year by some (and the absolute best album by many others), the sheer momentum and importance of Prioritise Pleasure means it should finally win a big award! The incredible and enormously memorable gigs that have been performed after the album’s release, and the fact Self Esteem is now a bigger name in the U.S., leads me to believe it will walk away with the Mercury. Even if Self Esteem is not brand new, giving it to an artist from Yorkshire who is still early on in her career and has put her heart and soul into every song means that it would be a welcomed break from the slew of London artists who have won in recent years. An album that is still reverberating and stunning to listen to, it is a great shame that it has not been garlanded with much-deserved awards. Rarely has an album that has amassed such critical acclaim and sold so well (Prioritise Pleasure reached number eleven in the U.K.) been overlooked when it comes to awards. A modern-day queer icon and hugely honest and down-to-earth artist who is writing with so much wit, revelation, depth and maturity, there is so much to recommend. The videos for the singles are so well-shot and choreographed; the live performances have won so much love, and Rebecca Lucy Taylor herself is so fascinating to listen being interviewed. Such a real and respected woman, it will be fascinating to see where she goes next. Prioritise Pleasure, for many reasons, needs to get the Mercury Prize come September. To me and so many others it is…

THE very least it deserves!

FEATURE: Paul McCartney at Eighty: Twenty-Eight: The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl

FEATURE:

 

Paul McCartney at Eighty

Twenty-Eight: The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl

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ON 4th May, 1977…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles perform at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California on 23rd August, 1964/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

the world received The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl. It is a live album (in the U.S.; 6th May in the U.K.) by the iconic band, featuring songs compiled from three performances recorded at the Hollywood Bowl in August 1964 and August 1965. It was the band's first official live recording. I am including this as part of my run of Paul McCartney features ahead of his eightieth birthday in June. One reason I am doing so is because the forty-fifth anniversary of the live album is coming. The album does have a reputation as being the black sheep of the band’s catalogue by some. I think it is an important album that contains some of the band’s best live performances. Such a historic set of gigs and live album, I think Paul McCartney was pivotal. Not only in terms of his musicianship and singing. His showmanship and crowd interaction were incredible! Before rounding off, I am going to come to a great insight from the Beatles Bible. They tell the story of The Beatles’ gigs at The Hollywood Bowl:  

“The Beatles’ first official live album was recorded over three nights at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, in 1964 and 1965.

George Martin had originally wanted to record The Beatles’ concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall on 12 February 1964, during their first US visit. Although Capitol Records agreed, he was denied permission by the American Federation of Musicians.

As the effects of Beatlemania became all pervasive, the label decided to release a live album to capitalise on The Beatles’ US success. During their first full American tour Capitol agreed to record the group’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl on 23 August 1964.

George Martin was at the venue, working with Capitol Records’ producer Voyle Gilmore on the recording. The concert was seen by 18,700 people.

George Martin made such a speech. It sounds like he changed it but I doubt it. There’s not much he could do. It was recorded on three-track machines with half-inch tapes. The Hollywood Bowl has a pretty good stereo sound system so we plugged our mikes right in there. I didn’t do an awful lot. There wasn’t much we could do. They just played their usual show and we recorded it. It wasn’t that bad. I kept thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll get permission to release the tapes.’ So I took them back to the studio and worked on it a while. I worked on the applause, edited it down, made it play and EQd it quite a bit.

The Beatles heard it and they all wanted tape copies. I had five or six copies made and sent over. That’s where the bootlegs must have come from. We had a system at Capitol and we knew where all our copies were. The Beatles said they liked the tapes, that it sounded pretty good, that they were surprised but they still didn’t want to release it.

I thought the first concert was a little better than the second. I don’t know if I would have put them together like they did because doing it that way they have sacrificed an album. They really could have made two albums.

Voyle Gilmore

The Beatles performed 12 songs at the concert: ‘Twist And Shout’, ‘You Can’t Do That’, ‘All My Loving’, ‘She Loves You’, ‘Things We Said Today’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘If I Fell’, ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, ‘Boys’, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, and ‘Long Tall Sally’.

The Hollywood Bowl was marvellous. It was the one we all enjoyed most, I think, even though it wasn’t the largest crowd – because it seemed so important, and everybody was saying things. We got on, and it was a big stage, and it was great. We could be heard in a place like the Hollywood Bowl, even though the crowds was wild: good acoustics.

John Lennon, 1964
Anthology

George Martin was initially reluctant to tape the concert, and after mixing the tracks on 27 August Capitol decided the quality of the recording was not suitable for release. They did, however, include a 48-second extract from ‘Twist And Shout’ on the 1964 documentary album The Beatles’ Story.

We recorded it on three-track tape, which was standard US format then. You would record the band in stereo on two tracks and keep the voice separated on the third, so that you could bring it up or down in the mix. But at the Hollywood Bowl they didn’t use three-track in quite the right way. I didn’t have too much say in things because I was a foreigner, but they did some very bizarre mixing. In 1977, when I was asked to make an album from the tapes, I found guitars and voices mixed on the same track. And the recording seemed to concentrate more on the wild screaming of 18,700 kids than on the Beatles on stage.

George Martin
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn

The Beatles returned to the Hollywood Bowl the following year, playing two further sell-out concerts on 29 and 30 August 1965. Capitol Records again recorded the two shows.

They played the same set on both nights: a truncated version of ‘Twist And Shout’, followed by ‘She’s A Woman’, ‘I Feel Fine’, ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’, ‘Ticket To Ride’, ‘Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘Baby’s In Black’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, ‘Help!’, and ‘I’m Down’.

The album

Although they had hoped the 1965 recordings would be better than the previous year’s, Capitol decided that the quality was insufficient for release. The tapes remained in the record company vaults for several years, and in 1971 were given to Phil Spector to see if an album could be prepared. However, Spector’s work came to nothing, and the tapes remained unreleased for several more years.

Capitol called me a few months back and asked if I could help find the tapes in the library and, of course, I knew right where they were. They wanted to get permission to put them out and thought it would be useful if George Martin was involved, since he knew the boys and had made all their other records.

Voyle Gilmore, 1977

In the mid-1970s Capitol president Bhaskar Menon gave George Martin the tapes and asked him to compile an official live album. Although impressed with The Beatles’ performances, he found the sound quality disappointing. Nonetheless, in January 1977 he began working with studio engineer Geoff Emerick to clean up the master tapes and assemble a set of songs for release.

Bhaskar Menon, the president of Capitol Records, is an old friend of mine. He mentioned these tapes to me and asked whether I would listen to them because capitol was thinking of releasing an album. My immediate reaction was, as far as I could remember, the original tapes had a rotten sound. So I said to Bhaskar, ‘I don’t think you’ve got anything here at all.’

There have been an awful lot of bootleg recordings made of Beatles concerts around the world and they’ve been in wide circulation. But when I listened to the Hollywood Bowl tapes, I was amazed at the rawness and vitality of The Beatles’ singing. So I told Bhaskar that I’d see if I could bring the tapes into line with today’s recordings. I enlisted the technical expertise of Geoff Emerick and we transferred the recordings from three-track to 24-track tapes. The two tapes combined 22 songs and we whittled these down to 13. Some tracks had to be discarded because the music was obliterated by the screams.

George Martin

The recordings were transferred to 24-track tapes to be edited, filtered and equalised. No redubbing of voices or instruments took place. Eventually an album was assembled consisting of recordings from all three Hollywood Bowl concerts.

Six songs were included from the 23 August 1964 concert tapes: ‘Things We Said Today’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Boys’, ‘All My Loving’, ‘She Loves You’, and ‘Long Tall Sally’.

Due to an error, the tracklisting for The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl lists all the recordings as dating from 1964 or 30 August 1965. However, three of the songs – ‘Ticket To Ride’, ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’, and ‘Help!’ – originated from 29 August 1965. Unfortunately a technical fault left Paul McCartney’s vocals and introductions inaudible during the first four songs of the first 1965 show, rendering a substantial portion of the recordings unusable.

Five songs from 30 August 1965 appeared on The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl: ‘Twist And Shout’, ‘She’s A Woman’, ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, and ‘A Hard Day’s Night’. The album version of ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ was a composite edit incorporating parts of the 29 and 30 August performances.

Some of The Beatles’ on-stage announcements were inconsistent when presented in album form. A Hard Day’s Night and Help! are both referred to as their latest albums, owing to the different recording dates.

“The release

The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl was released in May 1977, at a time when Beatlemania was a far cry from current musical fashions. Nonetheless, the public appetite for live Beatles recordings was proven when a set of bootleg recordings from Hamburg’s Star-Club was released in 1977.

Once the technical work had been completed, EMI needed approval from the four Beatles before the album could be released. I had to go to New York anyway, so I rang John Lennon and told him about the recordings. I told him that I had been very sceptical at first but now I was very enthusiastic because I thought the album would be a piece of history which should be preserved.

I said to John, ‘I want you to hear it after I’ve gone. You can be as rude as you like, but if you don’t like it, give me a yell.’ I spoke to him the following day and he was delighted with it. The reaction of George and Ringo was much cooler.

George Martin

The Hollywood Bowl recordings were issued with a gatefold sleeve, inside which was a selection of live photography and memorabilia. The back cover featured sleeve notes written by George Martin.

I have an acetate of it, right from ’64 and I had the tapes in the studio in England a few years ago. The thing is, it’s only important historically, but as a record it’s not very good.

While each of The Beatles was on EMI/Capitol, the LP wouldn’t have been released because we didn’t like it. But as soon as we left, and we lost control of our material, it was released. The sound quality on the album sounds just like a bootleg, but because Capitol is bootlegging it, it’s legitimate.

George Harrison

The album was a commercial success, selling more than a million copies worldwide. It topped the New Musical Express chart in the UK and reached number two on the Billboard chart in the US.

The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl was reissued in the UK in September 1984 on EMI’s budget label Music For Pleasure. However, it was given minimal promotion and failed to chart, and was deleted the following year.

I haven’t heard it. Geoff [Emerick] keeps telling me to, because he did it. He thinks it’s good, but I’m just not that bothered. I’ve got a lot of those tapes anyway in my private collection. I’ve got original demos and original tapes so I’ve heard a lot of them. But I must have heard it, because I’m on it.

Paul McCartney, 1977

Despite the warm public reception, the album is yet to be reissued digitally. Needle-drop transfers from original pressings of the album have been traders by bootleggers, although the complete recordings from all three concerts are also in circulation.

Other releases

The Hollywood Bowl recordings were also used to bulk up the sound of the film The Beatles At Shea Stadium, and were incorporated into the soundtrack on 5 January 1966.

John Lennon’s spoken introduction to ‘Baby’s In Black’ from 29 August 1965 was also included on the 1996 single ‘Real Love’, along with the full version from the 30 August performance.

In 2006 the Love album included a version of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ which combined the studio version with the live recording from 23 August 1964.

A new album, Live At The Hollywood Bowl, was released in September 2016 to coincide with the Ron Howard documentary The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years. The audio had been remixed by George Martin’s son Giles.

The album contained 17 songs: eight from the 1964 show, two from the first 1965 show, six from the second 1965 show, and a composite version of ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ from the two 1965 recordings (similar to the 1977 album).

Sleevenotes

Over twelve years ago the Beatles appeared for the first time at The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. It was not long after they had made their first impact on the United States, but already two years after I had signed them to a recording contract for EMI. Frankly, I was not in favor of taping their performance. I knew the quality of recording could not equal what we could do in the studio, but we thought we would try anyhow. Technically, the results were disappointing; the conditions for the engineers were arduous in the extreme. The chaos, I might almost say panic, that reigned at these concerts was unbelievable unless you were there. Only three track recording was possible; the Beatles had no “fold back” speakers, so they could not hear what they were singing, and the eternal shriek from 17,000 healthy, young lungs made even a jet plane inaudible.

A year later, in 1965, John, Paul, George and Ringo appeared again at The Hollywood Bowl and again Capitol taped the show for posterity, and there the tapes remained for over a decade. Neither the boys nor I considered they should be used because they consisted of titles that had already been issued as studio recordings, we often spoke of making a live recording, and in fact the ill-fated Let It Be album began as an attempt to make a live record of new material.

It was with some misgivings therefore that I agreed to listen to those early tapes at the request of Bhaskar Menon, Capitol’s president. The fact that they were the only live recordings of the Beatles in existence (if you discount inferior bootlegs) did not impress me. What did impress me, however, was the electric atmosphere and raw energy that came over.

And so, together with my recording engineer, Geoff Emerick, I set to work to bring the performance back to life. It was a labor of love, for we did not know if we could make them good enough for the world to hear – let alone John, Paul, George and Ringo.

We transferred the vintage three track tapes to modern multi-track, remixed, filtered, equalized and generally polished the tapes. Then, by careful editing from the two performances, we produced the performance that you hear now, obviously there has been no overdubbing. All the voices and instruments are the original performance (some of the vocal balances, with three singers on one track are evidence enough). But it is a piece of history that will not occur again.

Those of us who were lucky enough to be present at a live Beatle concert – be it in Liverpool, London, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Sydney or wherever – will know how amazing, how unique those performances were. It was not just the voice of the Beatles: it was expression of the young people of the world.

And for the others who wondered what on Earth all the fuss was about, this album may give a little clue. It may be a poor substitute for the reality of those times, but it is now all there is.

In the multiplatinum, sophisticated world we live in today, it is difficult to appreciate the excitement of the Beatles breakthrough. My youngest daughter, Lucy, now nine years old, once asked me about them, “You used to record them, didn’t you, Daddy?” she asked, “Were they as great as the Bay City Rollers?’ “Probably not,” I replied. Some day she will find out”.

Ahead of its forty-fifth anniversary, I wanted to investigate and spotlight one of the most important live albums ever. From the iconic The Beatles, I think Paul McCartney was a big reason as to why the shows and songs are so thrilling and tight. It must have been so daunting performing at such a large venue with a huge crowd, even though The Beatles had performed to huge audiences long before 1964. Playing to such a wild American audience relatively new in their careers is quite a task. They handled it expertly and delivered some sensational shows! As part of this run of forty features ahead of Paul McCartney’s eightieth birthday in June, I am highlighting various aspects of his career. Key moments, albums and parts of his personality. As The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl is forty-five on 4th May, I wanted to spend a bit of time with it now. All of the band were tremendous during the gigs, but I think there was something that extra bit magic about…

PAUL McCartney’s performances.

FEATURE: A Kiss from the Rose of Lee: To Have Been There: The Short-Lived Wonder of the KT Bush Band

FEATURE:

 

A Kiss from the Rose of Lee

PHOTO CREDIT: Vic King 

To Have Been There: The Short-Lived Wonder of the KT Bush Band

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I almost missed the anniversary…

IN THIS PHOTO: The original site of the Rose of Lee pub (on 162 Lee High Road) in Lewisham, where the KT Bush Band performed their first gig in April 1977

but, in April 1977, a bit of history was written. Kate Bush had already recorded songs for her debut album, The Kick Inside, before this. It would be a few months before she stepped back into AIR Studios to finish the album. A useful way of getting live experience (that she would bring into the recordings of her debut album), the KT Bush Band was this short-lived venture that played to small audiences across the summer of 1977. To have been at one of those gigs must have been such an experience! Before moving on, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia provide background about the formation and success of the KT Bush Band:

“Band formed in 1977 by Brian Bath, Vic King, Del Palmer and Kate Bush. After practicing in Greenwich and East Wickham Farm, they made their live debut in April 1977 at the Rose Of Lee in Lewisham. The set list consisted of standards like Come Together, 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine', 'Tracks Of My Tears', but also early versions of Kate Bush songs like James And The Cold Gun, Saxophone Song and Them Heavy People. During the summer of 1977 the band played various venues in and around London, a grand total of 20 gigs.

When Kate Bush started recording her debut album The Kick Inside, she actually recorded versions of 'Them Heavy People' and 'James And The Cold Gun' at De Wolfe Studios in London with the KT Bush Band, but in the end, the band members were not used for the album recordings. Also, an attempt to release a single of the KT Bush Band's version of Johnny Winter's 'Shame Shame Shame', recorded at Graphic Sound studios in Catford was halted either by Kate's family or EMI Records. Although many of the band's gigs were filmed, photographed and recorded, none of these have surfaced.

In 2016, Brian Bath reformed the KT Bush Band together with Vic King and new members Steve Bevan on drums and Jodie May on vocals. They have played various live gigs in the UK”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1977/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

I wanted to celebrate forty-five years of a slice of Kate Bush history many might not be aware of. Many see Bush much more as a recording artist rather than a live performer. Although she only conducted one tour (1979’s The Tour of Life) and a residency (2014’s Before the Dawn), she did do a lot of live T.V. performances. Coming before all of that was the modest gigs at in 1977. Starting out as small pub gigs, buzz grew and, before long, the KT Bush band had this giant following! As great as Del Palmer and the rest of the band were, I feel most people were there to see and hear Kate Bush! Whether it was because of her allure and magnetism or the incredible vocals and performance, many people would not have heard anyone like her! We mark album anniversaries and stuff like that, but there are these important occasions like the KT Bush Band coming to life. Although the band are around today, they, obviously, do not include Kate Bush. Brian Bath’s recollections are illuminating:

“I had some regular musical friends – Paddy Bush, Vic and Del, and we played together often. One day shortly after a gig at Whitechapel Art Gallery, Paddy said that Kate was looking for some live experience and wanted to join a band, as she was about to record her first album with EMI. I said I would definitely endeavour to sort out a band.

My immediate reaction was to get the old TAME band from school back together. I rushed around to Del Palmer’s house, explaining that tons of gigs would come our way, that Kate was a great singer, had great looks and with her theatrical tendencies she could front a band for sure!

It seems Kate had also approached Vic at the Whitechapel gig, and with us all on board it wasn’t long before we had a rehearsal organised. So, we met up with Kate and she was more than eager to get the band out there. We immediately started work rehearsing a set of songs that would blow the socks off of any competition on the pub circuit. Kate needed a good vocal microphone so we all went with Pa Bush to the Fender Soundhouse in Manchester Square, and from the range available Kate chose the favourite professional mic of the time, a Shure Unidyne.

Rehearsals for the KT Bush Band began in earnest. After a first try in a room at the swimming baths, we cleared out and set up our equipment in the Barn over at Kate’s home, The Farm. It was midwinter and absolutely freezing.

I remember setting my amp up in the old disused fireplace. Maybe if I played loud enough it would warm us up! Things began well. Kate spoilt us all with gallons of tea and biscuits, and fun was had by all.

We needed a gig to try the band out on, so I went to the Rose of Lee pub in Lee Green, London, one evening, and got the guvnor interested in the band. I said we would guarantee 20 people in the first week, bodies up to the bar the second, down to the other end the third, and packed on the fourth! This is precisely what happened.  What a gig it became – dry ice during “James and the Cold Gun” at the end of the evening where Kate went around with a pretend rifle, mock shooting at the audience!

As we were all working at the same time as performing, we juggled late nights, and early starts with exhausting schedules : Up at 7am, home at 5pm, off to gig, home at 2am, back to work – and around it went!”.

Although it was brief, those who got to see the original incarnation of the KT Bush Band will never forget what they heard! I am glad the band continues to this day. Forty-five years ago, Kate Bush and her band started these modest (at first) pub gigs that were designed to give her some live experience. They soon exploded and, demand-wise, she could have kept doing them for years. As it was, Kate Bush would go on to become one of the most loved…

ARTISTS of all time.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Stand Atlantic

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Stand Atlantic

__________

I am doing a few Spotlight features…

but this one is with a band who have been around for a decade. They formed in Sydney, so I am not sure how many people in the U.K. know about them. The band consists of vocalist/guitarist Bonnie. The mighty Stand Atlantic signed with Rude Records in 2017. They released an E.P., Sidewinder, in September 2017. Their debut album, Skinny Dipping, was released in October 2018. Their second album, Pink Elephant, was released on 7th August 2020. There are not that many interviews online with the band from the past couple of years. I am going to concentrate on a couple of great interviews to promote Pink Elephant. This is timely, as Stand Atlantic are preparing to release their new album, F.E.A.R. (Fuck Everything and Run) on 6th May via Hopeless Records. They are a terrific band that are gaining popularity and press in the U.K. and U.S. Dubbing them one of the most interest Pop-Punk bands around, Upset chatted with them in 2020. At a time when the pandemic was in full flight, they were putting out music of the highest order:

“Along with a handful of fellow Australians, Sydney pop-punkers Stand Atlantic are ripping up the rulebook, throwing the codes and conventions in the proverbial bin, and bringing a whole new flavour to the genre with their strikingly vibrant second album, 'Pink Elephant'. From its pop-sensible arena-ready sing-alongs to its explosion-of-colour cover, vocalist and guitarist Bonnie Fraser, guitarist David Potter, drummer Jonno Panichi and bassist Miki Rich are done with being down as 'just another pop-punk band'.

"We wanted to show that it's so easy to just stick a label on a band from a certain scene. We wanted to prove that we're more than that. Genres don't exist anymore, and people just do what they want," says Bonnie defiantly, not letting the confines of her hotel room during self-isolation following her return to Australia stop her from taking a stand against the old guard. "We wanted to prove to ourselves that we're not one-trick ponies, and we like writing songs no matter what style that is."

One trick ponies and one-hit wonders, they are not. While 2018's 'Skinny Dipping' was a dazzling debut of pumped-up pop-punk, 'Pink Elephant' rearranges and reinvents their sound. They've spent some time slipping, sliding, and shapeshifting through genres, resulting in experiments in early-era PVRIS electro-rock ('Shh!'), synth-pop ('Blurry'), singer-songwriter acoustics ('Drink to Drown') and late-night laid-back R'n'B-meets-pop-punk vibes ('Silk & Satin'). Like a sponge, they've soaked up the suds of the washing bowl of popular music.

"Music is always changing in terms of trends, and that's not to say that we set out to follow any trend, but there's so much music coming in that it's hard not to get inspired by new sounds and new things.

"I wouldn't say there was any 'we want to sound like this band', it was kind of like, 'yo, this song by this band is really cool'. That song itself might not even sound like the rest of that band; it was just the process of taking little factors of different sounds we've heard. It's just a big conglomeration of everything."

While Stand Atlantic were working on their sound, they were also writing a record in realtime, drawing off of the day-to-day experiences and emotions they were working through. As a result, Pink Elephant is at once a collection of perfectionate, polished pop-punk and a riveting, raw expose of their struggles.

"The whole album is about having tough conversations, whether that's with yourself or somebody else. It's fucking scary to think about needing to talk to someone about something or have someone confront you about something you're doing wrong”.

'Pink Elephant' addresses the elements (and elephants) of Bonnie and her bandmates' lives that they've been brushing under the rug and running away from, bringing them into focus as part of a cathartic process.

"For me, writing lyrics is the only way I can truly express my feelings. I've said this a million times, I'm not very good at talking about my feelings, and I feel like I lose confidence as soon as I start opening my mouth and try talking about something. I don't know why the fuck that is, but when I start writing songs, like, it's kind of the way I wish I would talk about things, but I don't know how so I just sing about them. That's a cathartic experience for sure. It helps me get over things. For example, if I'm angry at my mum or something, I write a song about it, and it's like me putting it to bed and getting over it".

I am going to wrap up in a minute. Before then, it is worth highlighting an interview from Depth Magazine. Their incredible lead, Bonnie Fraser, spoke about the mighty Pink Elephant:

“Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Pink Elephant (except maybe just how good it is), is how much personality is contained within the album’s eleven songs. Fraser commented that the intention was to just get weird with it, saying “It’s hard to avoid when you’re writing about your life, the lyrics are coming from my head so they’re going to be a bit weird every now and then because that’s just who I am.”

Along with the weirdness that characterises the band so well, Fraser expressed that it was integral that Pink Elephant also felt like a Stand Atlantic album at heart, despite how much the band changed. “As much as I say we wanted to change and we wanted to try these new things, we were still very aware of our roots and I think we wanted to make sure that we still had that foundation and starting point to bounce off.” Summing it up quaintly, she simply stated “I think that’s good and I think it’s part of the reason we were able to still have it so far away from home and still have it somehow hit home.”

Every song on Pink Elephant defines Fraser’s confrontation with her own ‘pink elephants’ – with just some examples on the album being those in the form of mental illness, personal relationships or the pressure of being in a band. The song “Jurassic Park” talks about the impact of mental illness on family and partners, while the effervescent “DWYW” talks about the claustrophobic pressure of the band having to follow up their first album.

It’s this cathartic release that Fraser says remains her only really way of dealing with these issues outside of her own head. “It’s literally the only way,” she says, continuing by saying, “90% of the time after I write a song about how I’m feeling, I then understand how I was feeling which is super weird because music is such a permanent outlet for your feelings.” Whether or not she believes it’s a good release remains unknown, explaining “At the time of writing I’m still trying to figure out what I’m saying and how I’m feeling, but then once I’m done I realise I have this summation of how I’m feeling and I understand why. Maybe that’s immature emotionally but fuck it, I just know that’s the way I process my feelings.”

With her it comes with the medium, while others confide in those around them she doesn’t find the same comfort in discussing these issues with others. Describing what music means to her she continued, “At this point it’s kind of like a crutch. Having said that, I’ve definitely opened up a lot more in terms of sharing my feelings and all that kind of shit in real life. Songwriting, even since I was a little kid, has just always been the only way that I’ve properly had an outlet.”

While the formation of the lyrics of Pink Elephant followed a similar process to the releases before it, certain aspects of the songwriting process changed drastically. “Things didn’t really change in terms of the core of how we were writing songs, but in terms of location, who was involved and the time it took us to write it all – that was all very different,” she explained.

Recalling the differences between the writing process of Pink Elephant and Skinny Dipping she fleshed out the biggest changes. “With Skinny Dipping we were kinda just in and out of the studio, in three weeks we wrote a whole album and recorded it in four more, but with Pink Elephant it happened over the course of 18 months,” she says. It wasn’t just the time the album took that changed, with Fraser continuing “Some of them I did in LA. Some of them were written on a cliff at Bondi. It was just really random and all over the place, which kinda sums up the album stylistically as well which is weird!”.

Stand Atlantic are a band that everyone should know about. With a new album coming next month, I know the band are going to be busy touring and getting the new music out there. With such a terrific archive already under their belt, the Australian band are destined for huge things. Even if you do not like Pop-Punk or similar sounds, I promise they will captivate you. Here is a band that are…

ONES to watch.

____________

Follow Stand Atlantic

Official:

https://www.standatlantic.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/StandAtlantic

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/standatlantic/

Facebook:

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FEATURE: Paul McCartney at Eighty Paul McCartney and Me: The Interviews: Martyn Strong

FEATURE:

 

 

Paul McCartney at Eighty

IN THIS PHOTO: Paul McCartney in 1964/PHOTO CREDIT: RA/Lebrecht Music & Arts  

Paul McCartney and Me: The Interviews: Martyn Strong

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IN the lead-up to Paul McCartney’s eightieth birthday…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Martyn Strong

in June, I am doing a run of features about the great man. Within this, I am conducting interviews with broadcasters, musicians, people in the media, and McCartney fans and asking what his music means to them. Today, musician Martyn Strong discusses what Paul McCartney means to him. Martyn has been following all things Beatles since he was 10 years old, taking up the guitar at 13 just so he could play Beatles songs. He still plays, but he spends most of his time keeping a local radio station on air and hanging out with his wife and two teenage children. Getting to as many gigs as he can afford in a year. In this very personal and interesting interview, Martyn Strong discusses what the magical, iconic and genius Paul McCartney…

MEANS to him.

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Hi Martyn. In the lead-up to Paul McCartney’s eightieth birthday on 18th June, I am interviewing different people about their love of his music and when they first discovered the work of a genius. When did you first discover Paul McCartney’s music? Was it a Beatles, Wings or solo album that lit that fuse?

It was primary school, and a mate asked me what music I was into. I didn’t really have an answer, so when I got home, I rifled through my parents record collection, I discovered this awesome-looking record cover with loads of characters on it. I asked Dad if he’d let me play. I wasn’t allowed, as a 9-year-old, to touch the hi-fi system, and the record blew me away – it was, of course, Sgt. Peppers. We then spent the evening listening to the Beatles albums he had. Then, three or four months later, Paul issued McCartney II and that was it: I was in love with the Beatles and Paul McCartney.

Like me, you must have been engrossed by The Beatles: Get Back on Disney+. How did it change your impression of The Beatles at that time, and specifically Paul McCartney’s role and influence on the rest of the band? Did you have any favourite moments from the three-part documentary?

Yes. I think the Get Back film completely reframes the history of The Beatles; their break-up, their genius, and the love between all four of them. This was a band at the peak of their talents, but they had lost their way a little and were trying to get back (pun intended) to something they had lost, which seemed to be a confidence in themselves. But, like many people who spend a great deal of time together, there were of course tensions and this can be seen. But they were still creating amazing and exciting music.

I think we see Paul’s role was just trying to keep them together as a band, as a gang and as a ‘family’. I think we’d all been told Paul was the over-dominant, over-bearing, dictatorial member getting the rest to play the things he wanted them to play, when in reality he just wanted them to play and make great music. I think the Get Back films really changed our perception of Paul’s role as the one who really tried to keep it all together, rather than being the man to break them up.

Favourite moments. I’ve loads. I loved the footage on the rooftop that was so cool. I loved when Paul says: “It's going to be the most comical thing in 50 years time, they broke up because Yoko sat on an amp”. John saying, just use “cauliflower as a holding word until you get the right word’” to George when writing Something. Paul saying “It’s just us; it’s always been just us, and we’re best when our backs are up against the wall”. And finally, the genius of their songwriting. Seeing Get Back, The Long and Winding Road, Don’t Let Me Down, Two of Us etc. being written was just immense, and I can’t deny there were a few emotional tears shed while watching.

“I’ve always really loved the way McCartney never sticks to one specific way of songwriting”.

You are a songwriter. How has McCartney impacted you in terms of what you write? Has he been a big influence on you in that sense?

Oh yes. The way Paul uses words as sounds to make up a lyric has been a massive influence on me. So things like This One, where he uses “The swan is flying” (the song’s line is “The swan is gliding above the ocean”) has shaped my songwriting. The way he and The Beatles never stick to musical convention but add in a chord or melody that really shouldn’t be there but works so well. I’ve always really loved the way McCartney never sticks to one specific way of songwriting. It’s never just ABACAB type writing, but each song has a new element. Whether that’s a big story-style song like Band on the Run or Beautiful Night to the catchy little pop songs like C Moon or We All Stand Together, he gives songwriters the ability to experiment with styles – meanwhile, always coming up with a great hook.

Is it possible to express and explain what McCartney’s music means to you? How impactful has it been in your life?

Paul’s music has been the soundtrack to my life from the age of 9 to now (51). Each album takes me to a place where I was at that time. Tug of War takes me to back my cousins house, as that’s where we first listened to it. McCartney II to a summer in 1980 in my dad’s Cortina. Flowers in the Dirt to my first dates with my now-wife, and also to the first time I saw McCartney live in 1989. I could  go on forever. Paul’s music and the Beatles have been there each step of the way. When I need picking up, it’s there I go to. Even listening to things like Standing Stone and the Liverpool Oratorio take me to places where only Paul and I could ever go to!

If you had to select your favourite Beatles, Wings and McCartney albums (one each), which would they be and why?

I couldn’t really choose a favourite from each, so that’s a really hard question for me, as they all stir emotions in me whenever I listen to them. But, I’ll try…

For The Beatles, I’d probably opt for Rubber Soul, as it’s the first Beatles album I bought with my own money, and an album I spent an entire Christmas playing (annoying my parents). Special mentions for Sgt. Peppers (my introduction), The White Album (The Beatles) and Revolver.

“It’s a truly complete album, and the addition of Elvis Costello (I’d choose Spike as my favourite Costello album) just makes it perfect”.

For Wings, this is tougher, but I would probably opt for London Town. I love the vibe of this album, love the songs and, again, it takes me to a special place both musically, emotionally…and it’s about a city I love! Special mentions for Venus and Mars and Red Rose Speedway. Some excellent songs on these.

Solo McCartney, I’d opt for Flowers in the Dirt. It’s a truly complete album, and the addition of Elvis Costello (I’d choose Spike as my favourite Costello album) just makes it perfect. Plus, special mentions for McCartney II, Flaming Pie and Pipes of Peace.

McCartney is confirmed for Glastonbury as a headliner this year. I feel it will be one of the most uplifting and important gigs ever. What do you think we might expect from his Saturday night slot?

I agree. I think this will be one of the gigs of this century. I think we’ll see tributes to John and George. Perhaps even Ringo joining him on stage. I think he’ll do a greatest hits set-list of Beatles/Wings/McCartney songs, but I’d really like him to do some of the more obscure McCartney stuff for the fans who’ve made the trek to Glastonbury and those of us who couldn’t get tickets but will be watching it. I think there will be a few surprises in store from him.

I am not sure whether there are plans for any Beatles. Wings or solo McCartney reissues this year. I would love to see The Beatles’ Please Please Me get the Giles Martin treatment. How about you?

I agree. I thought the Anthology stuff gave us loads of good material, and I absolutely loved hearing the Esher tapes from The White Album. I think any of the early records given a polish by Giles Martin would be great, although I’d love him to take McCartney and polish that up too.

There was a period when the music of The Beatles and McCartney fell out of favour or was seen as uncool. I guess, when Britpop broke, it regained popularity. Did your relationship with McCartney’s music change during that 1980s and 1990s?

No. I was always out of step. At comprehensive school early-‘80s, I was one of only a few true Beatles fans. While others were listening to Heavy Rock or Goth, I was listening to The Beatles and telling others how they’ve been influenced by The Beatles! When they regained their popularity, I was probably a bit like ‘I told you so’. Always been a fan of The Beatles and Paul McCartney, and I have always argued for him. I even love The Frog Chorus.

“He creates things some of us can only dream of creating”.

On that point, I think McCartney is one of the most enduring, consistent and surprising artists ever. What do you think the secret to his longevity is?

First and foremost, I think McCartney is a musical genius. He creates things some of us can only dream of creating. He’s also not afraid to take risks and experiment, from big numbers like Jet, Live and Let Die to The Frog Chorus and C Moon through to Liverpool Oratorio and Standing Stone, he tries new things. Even McCartney III sees Paul’s love of trying new things out - and to critical acclaim.  That, and he is a normal working-class guy from Liverpool, family man…and I always feel if I met him he’d shake my hand and have a chat rather than be all super-starry.

If you could get a single gift for McCartney for his eightieth birthday, what would you get him?

It would just be a big heart with ‘thank you’ written through it. I’d love to say thank you for seeing me through the good times, the hard times and those times when we needed him most he’s been there. So anything with thank you written on it.

Were you to have the chance to interview Paul McCartney, what is the one question you would ask him?

Who is the one person he’d like to have worked with but never got the chance to…who would that be.

Will he release Give My Regards to Broad Street on Blu-Ray. I loved the film. And did he ever play the game released on the ZX Spectrum?

To end, I will round off the interview with a Macca song. It can be anything he has written or contributed to. Which song should I end with? 

You Gave Me the Answer. For me, it sums up my relationship with his music. Whatever the question, there is the answer in his music. Thank you, Paul.

FEATURE: Fitter Happier: Looking Ahead to the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of Radiohead's OK Computer

FEATURE:

 

 

Fitter Happier

Looking Ahead to the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of Radiohead’s OK Computer

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RELEASED on 21st May, 1997…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Radiohead in New York in 1997

Radiohead’s seismic third studio album, OK Computer, celebrates twenty-five years next month. In fact, it was not released in the U.K. until June. OK Computer was released first in Japan. I wonder what the Japanese market made of OK Computer back in 1997! Considered a modern masterpiece and one of the most important albums ever, not all the reaction to OK Computer was positive in 1997. Maybe critics reacted to what Radiohead had done on 1995’s The Bends and felt OK Computer was a move in a strange direction. More Electronic and a bit more experimental, it was a year when there was a lot of pioneering albums released. Radiohead would step further into Electronic music with the follow-up, Kid A (2000). OK Computer is a remarkable album that, since its release, has only grown in its reputation and popularity. In 2009, a Collector's Edition was released. I am going to come to an article that discussed the recording of OK Computer and how the band came to work with Nigel Godrich. In terms of the songs on OK Computer, some of Radiohead’s best and most enduring work can be found. From Paranoid Android to Let Down through to Karma Police, it is a genius album. I know others will write about OK Computer before its twenty-fifth anniversary. Although they will do a better job, I wanted to have a say and draw attention to the anniversary. Before getting to a couple of reviews, there are articles that explore OK Computer in more depth. In November, Audio Media International looked at the recording of the iconic OK Computer:

“But back in 1997, computers were still clunky desktop affairs. With their gradual infiltration of our daily lives then a pretty unthinkable idea for most, the rapid development of computing – not least the potential of the internet – led a swelling company of forecasters feeling uneasy, particularly as an unknowable new century ominously loomed.

That foreboding anxiety is central to Radiohead’s critically lauded OK Computer. Via its 12 tracks, Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Colin Greenwood and Philip Selway anticipated a soulless, tech-saturated future. Yorke’s lyrics alluded to the fast-paced, casual violence of an interconnected world (Paranoid Android), Hordes of faceless, insect-like commuters, heads-down within a sprawling modern city network (Let Down) a resulting sense of social isolation (Climbing Up The Walls) and a prevalent back-watching paranoia – a gnawing fear that a 1984-like authority would deem you cancel-able and bundle you off somewhere unpleasant (Karma Police, Lucky). It’s a vision that, in retrospect, seems eerily prescient.

Prior to OK Computer’s release, Radiohead were mainly regarded as being an angst-ridden guitar band, having only really dented the public consciousness with 1993’s unrepresentative outsider-anthem Creep. While 1995’s The Bends foreshadowed a much more colourful musical scope, it wasn’t until OK Computer that Radiohead’s reputation as sonic frontier-expanding experimentalists was established.

ENLISTING THE RADIOHEAD PRODUCER

The sound of their new album was always intended to be a departure, and while The Bends had featured occasional forays into diverse instrumentation, a greater prevalence of off-the-wall arrangements defined OK Computer, and would shift the perception of Radiohead in the eyes of the world at large. Though the quintet had the desire to self-produce, they enlisted Nigel Godrich to help with the recording sessions, having assisted John Leckie back on the sessions for The Bends. The technically-minded Godrich proved to be an indispensable element to the record’s production, so indispensable in fact, that the band would subsequently use him as the man to helm on all their successive albums. He would become the Radiohead producer.

Though initial sessions took place at Radiohead’s newly constructed Canned Applause studio in Didcot, creeping dissatisfaction with the environment as the right creative space to work up their ideas pointed them towards a much more atmospheric recording location.

Bath’s St Catherine’s Court proved a better fit. A 16th century mansion owned by actress Jane Seymour (and previously used by The Cure to record their Wild Mood Swings album), St Catherine’s Court’s roomy ambience and natural reverberation would impart discernible character into the recordings. A notable example is Exit Music (For a Film)’s gloomy vocal, which was captured half-way up the Court’s stone staircase. “It was the band and me and Peter ‘Plank’ [Clements] who was their roadie.” Godrich told Rolling Stone, “Literally, it was just me [as Radiohead’s producer] on the album. I didn’t have an assistant; I didn’t have any help. Plank had never been in the studio before, but he’d help me lugging the stuff around. It was the seven of us plus the cook and Mango, Jane’s cat. The gatekeeper looked over the cat. He’d say, ‘Don’t let the cat in the TV room since it pisses on the carpet.’”

“I think that’s one of the things that makes this record different is the fact that we managed to capture these old sorts of 15th through the 18th century rooms that we recorded a lot of the album in.” Colin Greenwood told NPR’s All Things Considered. “You set up a bunch of microphones in a room and the ambience is going to be different from room to room.” To further expand the spacious ambience, Radiohead’s producer brought along his EMT 140 Plate Reverb.

Setting up a control room in the house’s library, Godrich and the band recorded most elements live “When you’re recording a band, it’s a bunch of microphones, a mixing desk, and a multi-track tape machine. That’s it. There’s a bit of computer jiggery-pokery if need be. but basically they’re a band, and they play together really well.” Godrich told The Mix. Among the gear that Godrich, Plank and the band installed at St Catherine’s Court were an Otari MTR-90II two-inch tape machine and both MTA series 980 and Soundcraft Spirit 24 mixing desks. While most of the gear was relatively traditional, Godrich used the then-new Pro Tools  software to polish the mixes. Fittingly, further toes would be dipped into computer music-making as the sessions continued.

At this stage, the band were primarily a guitar band. Godrich mic’d up Thom, Jonny and Ed’s guitar amps with a set of fairly straightforward Shure SM57s. Yorke stuck to his Fender Twin Reverb, while Ed and Jonny leaned on a classic Vox AC30 sound for clean tones, with Greenwood’s Fender 85 and O’Brien’s Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Trem-O-Verb being unleashed when a crunchier overdrive was needed.

On the bass front, Colin Greenwood’s sunburst Fender Precision bass was output via a malleable Gallien-Krueger 800rb head in tandem with a beefy Ampeg SVT 8×10 cab.

EVERYTHING OK?

The songs that were being crafted at St Catherine’s Court were sounding like the best the band had yet written. Scene-setting opening cut, Airbag was defined by both Greenwood’s soaring riff in A major, and a hypnotic drum loop (captured with an Akai S3000 rack-mounted sampler, later edited on a Mac). Taking cues from the likes of DJ Shadow. While Thom and Phil were responsible for capturing the required loop, Godrich felt its character lacked edge. Running it through Greenwood’s pedalboard, imparted the right amounts of distorted bite, phasing and occasional wah to its sound.

The multi-sectioned Paranoid Android would take a while to find its shape. Starting with an acoustic-oriented arrangement, the track expanded into a head-banging, heavy-riff dominated rocker, before coalescing into an ethereal, haunting mid-section. Though both of the track’s ‘heavy’ sections were pretty similar, they were recorded months apart. This lead Godrich to have to manually merge each element to just one piece of 24-track tape. Trimmed down by Radiohead’s producer from 14 minutes to a more palatable 6 minutes and 30 seconds, the song would become a crucial statement of the band’s innovative intent, bubbling with both off-kilter guitars and synthesiser textures.

Among the synths that were harnessed on the album, there included an original Novation Bass Station (for the cavernous grind of Climbing Up The Walls) a Korg Prophecy – used to create the theremin-like sounds under the surface of Airbag. The analogue sound of a Moog and Mellotron were also called upon, as well as a quirky ZX Spectrum-based synth for the bubbling outro of Let Down.

On that subject, the uplifting Let Down was recorded in the master ballroom at 3am. Yorke had been Inspired to write its nihilistic lyric when sat in a pub one night. Propulsed by Greenwood and O’Brien’s sparkling arpeggiated Fender Starcaster on Rickenbacker riff (played in 5/4, as opposed to the track’s bpm of 4/4 to add a sense of floaty groundlessness) Let Down was perhaps the most optimistic-sounding record on an album that was shaping up to be darker than anything the band had previously written.

That darkness was evident on two other key tracks, the haunting, nursery-rhyme like arrangement of the now-ubiquitous No Surprises and the chilly uncertainty of Karma Police. Despite being recorded as a song in its entirety, Karma Police wasn’t quite working for Yorke. “We went out for a pint and he sort of complained about how he didn’t like the second half. He asked ‘Can we construct something from scratch’.” Recalled Godrich in Rolling Stone, “It was the first time we’d done that. From the middle section to the outro, it’s a completely different technique of building up a song. It’s not like the band playing. It’s just samples and loops and his sort of thing over the top, which sort of was the forerunner of a lot of things to come, good or bad.” Alongside this sonic maelstrom is Ed O’Brien’s self-oscillating delayed guitar, using a DMX 15-80s digital delay.

Karma Police bled into the electronic voice-delivered Fitter Happier. Less a song as such, and more an eerie stream of consciousness list of the travails of modern existence at the end of the 20th century, Fitter Happier’s distinctive voice was actually named ‘Fred’, and originated from a Macintosh’s SimpleText program. “The others were downstairs, ‘rockin, and I crept upstairs and did this in 10 minutes,” Thom told Select. “I was feeling incredible hysteria and panic, and it was so liberating to give the lyrics to this neutral-sounding computer.”

Across the sessions, the band pushed boundaries both sonic and conceptual, yet there was still room for more traditional fare. The squalling riff-age of Electioneering harked back to the likes of The Bends‘ more frenzied guitar freakouts, while the Bosnian war-inspired Lucky originated as Radiohead’s contribution to the Help compilation. While these tracks didn’t require too much left-field engineering, Godrich was keen to capture Yorke’s vocals as clearly as possible, using both a Neumann Valve 47 and Australian Rode Valve mic on Yorke’s vocals across the album. “I haven’t used much processing, just a bit of plate reverb, or a short delay.” Radiohead’s producer told The Mix, “Some singers just have a great tone, and [Thom] is one of them, so it’s not hard work. The vocals haven’t ended up very loud because it’s not a pop record, but it’s something I’m very conscious about. I’m always thinking, can you hear what he’s saying, because his lyrics are so great.”

With the album recorded, string recording took place at Abbey Road Studios, while full mixing took place at both AIR and Mayfair studios. The project then returned to Abbey Road for mastering. From all involved, especially Radiohead’s producer, there was a building sense that something monumental had been achieved”.

The way Radiohead evolved from their 1993 debut, Pablo Honey, to 1997’s OK Computer is amazing! The band started when Grunge was huge. Rather than follow the Britpop sound or stick too closely to Alternative and Rock, OK Computer was the band – and especially Thom Yorke as a lead songwriter – really broadening their horizons. The New Yorker looked back at OK Computer in a feature from 2017:

“Yorke was twenty-seven when he started working on “OK Computer,” and just coming off several years of touring. (“I was basically catatonic,” he told Rolling Stone. “The claustrophobia—just having no sense of reality at all.”) Though Yorke insists that “OK Computer” was inspired by the dislocation and paranoia of non-stop travel, it’s now largely understood as a record about how unchecked consumerism and an overreliance on technology can lead to automation and, eventually, alienation (from ourselves; from one another).

The disparity between these two things—the idea that everyone has gone on believing that the record is about the rise of machines, when Yorke keeps telling us it’s about how much he hated touring the world in a dumb bus—is fascinating, and at least partially attributable to the record’s fretful instrumentation. (Its lyrics are abstract enough to suit just about any imagined narrative.)

Radiohead came of age in the public consciousness in the citadel of grunge, an era in which rock was more introspective than ambitious; grunge was, in many ways, a fierce response to the bloat of the seventies and eighties, and indulgence of any sort was quickly sniffed out and vilified. (Nirvana, for example, never felt on the verge of incorporating a glockenspiel.) Radiohead wasn’t a grunge band (if anything, it was in danger of being rolled into Britpop), but its insistence on a kind of brainy largesse—on bringing in unexpected instrumentation, approaching rock from an unapologetically cerebral place—felt almost countercultural.

Musically, “OK Computer” was inspired by Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew,” an aggressive and beautiful jazz-fusion album from 1970. Davis’s producer, Teo Macero, was a student of musique concrète, an experimental French genre in which tape is manipulated and looped to create new musical structures; much of “Bitches Brew” was pieced together after the band had gone home. Accordingly, its paths are not foreseeable, or even particularly human—navigating “Bitches Brew” remains a heady and disorienting experience, in which it is very easy to forget which end is up, or which way is out. “OK Computer” was made mostly live—it was started in a converted shed in Oxfordshire (the band called the space Canned Applause) and finished at St. Catherine’s Court, a stately stone mansion near Bath, owned by the actress Jane Seymour—but Radiohead and its producer, Nigel Godrich, shared Davis and Macero’s yen for disorientation. The reigning sound of the record is panic: darting, laser-like guitars, shaky percussion, moaning.

“OK Computer” was critically lauded upon its release—Spin named it the second-best album of 1997, calling it “a soaring song-cycle about the state of the soul in the digital age (or something),” and a Times piece marvelled at its ubiquity, noting that “although the band’s first video is six and a half minutes long and features twisted animated sequences in which children are shown drinking in a bar and paying women to flash them, it has been in heavy rotation on MTV.”

Still, I’m not sure that anyone really knew how to metabolize its precise disquiet until exactly this moment—which makes the timing of its reissue feel nearly fated. For me, revisiting some of these tracks now incites a bizarre kind of déjà vu—as if I am barely but finally remembering some whispered warning I received two decades back. The second half of “Paranoid Android,” one of the record’s darkest and most popular tracks, features Yorke singing in a strange, ghostly harmony with himself. “From a great height,” he repeats in his crystalline falsetto, stretching the final word until it sounds like some abstract plea. Meanwhile, a second, feebler voice opines, “The dust and the screaming, the yuppies networking, the panic, the vomit, the panic, the vomit.” Is this terribly dramatic? Sure. But if you have ever glanced around a bar—or a subway car, or a coffee shop—and seen a dozen sentient humans all tapping away on a device, forgoing awkward, fleshy engagement for a more mediated and quantifiable digital experience, and felt a deep and intense terror in your gut, then perhaps you’ve experienced some version of what Yorke’s voice is doing here: splintering, dissociating, freaking out. Many other bands have expressed worry about the proliferation of devices and the strange divisions computers have wrought, but I can’t think of another song that sounds as much like a person getting swept into a black hole”.

OK Computer is an album so majestic and all-conquering; it is hard to ignore or undervalue it. Such a wide-ranging and nuanced album, it still elicits big reactions twenty-five years later. I want to end with a couple of reviews. The A.V. Club wrote this in their review of one of the most important albums ever:

“Who could have guessed, when Radiohead's obnoxiously overexposed debut single "Creep" came out in 1993, that the band's two subsequent albums would be such elegant artistic triumphs? The Bends, Radiohead's 1995 sophomore release, was a creative success from start to finish, held together by stunningly dramatic songs like the hit "Fake Plastic Trees." But as good as The Bends is—and it's very, very good—the new OK Computer is on an entirely different level. It isn't necessarily better than The Bends; it's not nearly as instantly accessible, for starters. But it's much more ambitious and far-reaching, packed with meandering, shape-shifting, busy, spaced-out epics that are as unpredictable as they often are beautiful. It's hard to imagine anything here finding a great deal of success in a Hanson-saturated radio world. But OK Computer needs to be heard as a whole anyway: The songs blend together in such a way that they'd seem out of context when heard between Spice Girls and Collective Soul. That isn't to say there aren't marvelous moments spread throughout OK Computer—there's nary a weak spot—but you won't soon forget "Airbag," "Exit Music (For A Film)," "Letdown" or the amazing epic single, "Paranoid Android." You'll discover more the more you listen to it, and that fact alone makes the album downright essential”.

To finish off, I will bring in AllMusic’s take on a masterpiece from 1997. Although Radiohead have released other genius albums, OK Computer, to many, was the first. It was a clear sign that the band were in their own league and had come a long way from their somewhat listless 1993 debut:

“Using the textured soundscapes of The Bends as a launching pad, Radiohead delivered another startlingly accomplished set of modern guitar rock with OK Computer. The anthemic guitar heroics present on Pablo Honey and even The Bends are nowhere to be heard here. Radiohead have stripped away many of the obvious elements of guitar rock, creating music that is subtle and textured yet still has the feeling of rock & roll. Even at its most adventurous -- such as the complex, multi-segmented "Paranoid Android" -- the band is tight, melodic, and muscular, and Thom Yorke's voice effortlessly shifts from a sweet falsetto to vicious snarls. It's a thoroughly astonishing demonstration of musical virtuosity and becomes even more impressive with repeated listens, which reveal subtleties like electronica rhythms, eerie keyboards, odd time signatures, and complex syncopations. Yet all of this would simply be showmanship if the songs weren't strong in themselves, and OK Computer is filled with moody masterpieces, from the shimmering "Subterranean Homesick Alien" and the sighing "Karma Police" to the gothic crawl of "Exit Music (For a Film)." OK Computer is the album that established Radiohead as one of the most inventive and rewarding guitar rock bands of the '90s”.

Even though the U.K. release was not until June 1997, next month, on 21st, is when OK Computer was first released. It will provoke a lot of new evaluation and revision of an album that is still without equal. Such a remarkable album that will be discussed and loved for the rest of time, it is hard to believe that OK Computer is…

ALMOST twenty-five years old.

FEATURE: Paul McCartney at Eighty: Part Twenty-Six: Following in His Footsteps…

FEATURE:

 

 

Paul McCartney at Eighty

IN THIS PHOTO: George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney outside McCartney’s Liverpool home at 20 Forthlin Road/PHOTO CREDIT: Keystone Press Agency/Keystone USA via ZUMAPRESS.com 

Part Twenty-Six: Following in His Footsteps…

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IN June…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Outside 20 Forthlin Road, Liverpool/PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Hickey/Alamy Stock Photo

we mark the eightieth birthday of the peerless Paul McCartney. Not to say that home and hearth is entirely responsible for how we turn out and approach the world. That foundation and inspiration is very important. For Paul McCartney, his childhood home was vital. Soaking up everything around him, this is where the world’s greatest songwriter started out. One can only imagine a young McCartney penning songs in a Liverpool hallowed space. NME reported how a very important address is being opened for aspiring and unsigned artists:

“Paul McCartney is opening up his childhood home for unsigned artists to use as a base to write, perform and gain inspiration from.

The Forthlin Sessions initiative, backed by the former Beatle‘s brother Mike, will see artists chosen by Mike and local partners to write music at the same place where Paul and John Lennon forged their distinguished songwriting partnership.

20, Forthlin Road in Liverpool is where the pair wrote hits including ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ (from 1963’s ‘Please Please Me’) and ‘When I’m 64’ (from 1967’s ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’). The property is now owned by the National Trust.

Mike told Sky News: “This house to me, is a house of hope. And I hope it will be for the young people that come through the doors.

“I would be in the other room learning photography, but whilst I’m doing all that I could hear guitar noises coming from this room,” he said.

“In there were what turned out to be two of the world’s greatest songwriters, McCartney and Lennon. They were rehearsing from a school book on the floor, that’s why this house is so unique.”

Paul and Lennon would play the piano in the living room or rehearse in the bathroom due to its better acoustics.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” Mike added. “Inviting young people to this house and giving them the opportunity of doing the same as us, coming from nothing and seeing where it takes them”.

Not to say that anyone who stays at the house and writes will turn into Paul McCartney. It is a rare opportunity for artists to share common space with McCartney. It does make me wonder whether we will ever see another songwriter like him. Maybe not to the same level in terms of musicianship and invention. That is not to say that those early Pop songs Macca wrote cannot be replicated or matched! In any case, I wanted to spend this feature wondering about 20 Forthlin Road. It may seem pretty ordinary from the outside but, over six decades ago, it was home to Paul McCartney. Imagining McCartney and Lennon at a young age thinking of songs and shooting the breeze is a wonderful thought! You can almost hear them talking and imagine what would have happened there! Today, I don’t think it would have been possible for McCartney to be as productive and inspired. With too many distractions and amore developed and busier local community than he grew up in, there wouldn’t have been the room for inspiration. Having McCartney and Lennon playing piano in the bathroom would have been quite a sight! In such a technological and busy age, it seems almost unimaginable how simple and sparse it would have been there!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Paul McCartney

The fact that McCartney is opening up his childhood home shows how generous he is. Although McCartney has been writing songs for over sixty years, he would be the first to admit that his early years were among the most important. Before things got crazy with The Beatles, he was living in Forthlin Road and there was this simplicity. With no technology at his fingers, this was McCartney (and Lennon) working on songs and ideas in their raw state. In 2022, when we are surrounded by tech and crutches, I wonder whether songwriters who got there will be going back to basics. When McCartney turns eighty in June, there will be a lot of celebration and new spotlight. I wonder how many people will spend time discussing and writing about Paul McCartney’s childhood homes. I feel they are as important to his story and legacy as anything else. A crucial and monumental part of Liverpool music history, young artists will get the opportunity to stand in the same space as a young Paul McCartney. I myself – not that I am a songwriter – would love to go to Forthlin Road in Liverpool. The lucky songwriters who will get to spend time at McCartney’s childhood house will share this moment of history. It is unlikely that aspiring artists will…

HAVE that rare access and opportunity again.

FEATURE: Big Love and Wonder: Fleetwood Mac’s Tango in the Night at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Big Love and Wonder

Fleetwood Mac’s Tango in the Night at Thirty-Five

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ONE of Fleetwood Mac’s greatest albums…

the superb Tango in the Night is thirty-five on 13th April. It was produced by Lindsey Buckingham and Richard Dashut. Although there are a couple of weaker songs on the band’s fourteenth studio album, some of their best material can be found on Tango in the Night. From Lindsey Buckingham’s opener, Big Love, to Stevie Nicks and Sandy Stewart’s Seven Wonders, Tango in the Night gets off to a tremendous start! Christine McVie’s classic, Everywhere, completes one of the strongest opening trio of songs in music history. Elsewhere on Tango in the Night, there is the incredible title track and Little Lies. As Rhino wrote in their article, even though the material on Tango in the Night is superb, Fleetwood Mac were not unified and solid when they started recording:

“Fleetwood Mac was in pretty rough shape when the band got together to record what would become the group's 14th studio effort, Tango in the Night. The record was originally conceived as a Lindsey Buckingham solo project; it was Mick Fleetwood who  coerced the guitarist into morphing it into a full Fleetwood Mac release.

"That was in my estimation when everybody in the band was personally at their worst," Buckingham recalled years later. "If you take the whole subculture that existed in the 1970s, and what it led to -- and how it degraded -- by the time we did Tango in the Night, everybody was leading their lives in a way that they would not be too proud of today. It was difficult for everybody."

That included singer Stevie Nicks, who spent most of the laborious 18-month process making Tango in the Night out on the road promoting her third solo album, Rock a Little. Ultimately spending only two weeks at Buckingham's home studio over the course of recording, Nicks customarily got drunk on brandy before singing her vocal takes. Most of them were left on the cutting room floor.

Once the dust settled, Fleetwood Mac released Tango in the Night on April 13, 1987. Much like Rumours, the behind-the-scenes drama was the genesis for hit records. Lead single "Big Love" cruised up the charts, peaking at #5 on the Hot 100 for the week of May 21, 1987. The song was also a hit on the dance floor, with an extended remix of the track twirling all the way to #11 on the Billboard Dance Sales chart in June 1987.

The second single from Tango in the Night was another radio winner: "Seven Wonders." The Stevie Nicks showcase made a formidable chart run, breaking into the top 20 to peak at #19 on the Hot 100 for the week of August 15, 1987.

It was Christine McVie who shined on third Tango in the Night single, "Little Lies." Peaking at #4 on the Hot 100 in November 1987, the song soared all the way to #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart for the week of October 10, 1987.

Christine McVie again took the spotlight with the album's fourth single, "Everywhere." The song followed "Little Lies" up the Adult Contemporary chart, hitting #1 on January 15. 1988. Over on the Hot 100, "Everywhere" broke into the top 20 to peak at #14 in February 1988.

Tango in the Night was a massive success for Fleetwood Mac, reaching #7 on the Billboard 200 chart over the week of May 23, 1987. The #1 album in America that week: U2's The Joshua Tree.

"The album was well received," Mick Fleetwood told Classic Rock in 2013. "Somewhat sadly, the kudos of that was never really fully attributed to Lindsey because he wasn't present... He was coerced and persuaded to do that album - mainly by me. And, to his credit, he put aside everything that he'd dreamt of doing, including making his own album, for Fleetwood Mac; but then realized that he'd made a mistake... Lindsey was not being heard. We just didn't get it."

Tango in the Night is the last Fleetwood Mac studio album to date that features the classic lineup of Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and John McVie. Selling more than 15 million copies worldwide, it stands as group's second-most successful release behind Rumours.

Lindsey Buckingham quit Fleetwood Mac after the release of Tango in the Night. The band recruited guitarists Billy Burnette and Rick Vito to make up for his absence on the subsequent tour. It wasn't until 1997 live album, The Dance--released 10 years after Tango in the Night--that Buckingham would return to the fold”.

Receiving a large amount of positive reviews, Tango in the Night is Fleetwood Mac’s  second-biggest-selling studio album (after Rumours). The album was a success in the United States, where it peaked at number seven for three weeks, spending more than seven months within the top twenty. Tango in the Night It was certified 3× Platinum in October 2000 for selling three million copies in the United States. It is a remarkable album that ranks alongside the very best of Fleetwood Mac. Before finishing off, I want to quote a couple of reviews. The second relates to the 2017 reissue. AllMusic underline how strong and consistent Tango in the Night is:

“Artistically and commercially, the Stevie Nicks/Lindsey Buckingham/Mick Fleetwood/Christine and John McVie edition of Fleetwood Mac had been on a roll for over a decade when Tango in the Night was released in early 1987. This would, unfortunately, be Buckingham's last album with the pop/rock supergroup -- and he definitely ended his association with the band on a creative high note. Serving as the album's main producer, Buckingham gives an edgy quality to everything from the haunting "Isn't It Midnight" to the poetic "Seven Wonders" to the dreamy "Everywhere." Though Buckingham doesn't over-produce, his thoughtful use of synthesizers is a major asset. Without question, "Family Man" and "Caroline" are among the best songs ever written by Buckingham, who consistently brings out the best in his colleagues on this superb album”.

I don’t think there are too many big plans around the thirty-fifth anniversary, Five years ago, Tango in the Night was re-issued. Pitchfork note that the album is abstract, in terms of the way love is written about, and the fact Fleetwood Mac were falling apart:

“Still, it’s McVie whose work is most realized by Buckingham’s impressionism. Her “Everywhere” is the best song on the record. Like “Big Love” it too is about encountering an idea too big to contain within oneself (love, again). But where “Big Love” apprehends it with icy suspicion, “Everywhere” responds with warmth, empathy, and buoyancy, describing a kind of devotion so deeply felt that it produces weightlessness in a person. Its incandescent texture is felt in almost any music that could be reasonably described as balearic. Elsewhere, “Isn’t It Midnight,” McVie’s co-write with Buckingham and her then-husband Eddy Quintela, seems an inversion of the values of “Everywhere,” a severe ’80s guitar rock song that gets consumed by a greater, more unnerving force by its chorus, as if it’s succumbing to a conspiratorial dread. “Do you remember the face of a pretty girl?” McVie sings, and Buckingham echoes her in an unfeeling monotone (“the face of a pretty girl”) while behind him synths chime in a moving constellation, UFOs pulsing in the dark.

This is the essence of Tango in the Night: something falling apart but held together by an unearthly glow. More of a mirage than Mirage, it is an immaculate study in denial (its most enduring hit revolves around McVie asking someone to tell her “sweet little lies”). It’s a form of dreaming where you could touch the petals of a flower and feel something softer than the idea of softness. In this way, Tango seems to emerge less from Buckingham’s pure will and imagination than from a question that haunts art in general: How can one make the unreal real, and the real unreal?

The remaster of Tango in the Night isn’t as topographically startling as last year’s Mirage, where new details seemed to rise out of the mix as if in a relief sculpture; it sounded good on CD in 1987. The reissue does sound warmer and brighter, and the instruments feel less digitally combined, which lifts background elements to the surface, like the seasick drift of the bass notes in “Caroline” and the coordinated staccato harmonies in the title track. The reissue also includes two discs of b-sides, demos, and extended remixes, several of which were previously unreleased. “Special Kind of Love” is described as a demo but sounds like a completely developed Buckingham song, gentle and simple, with every edge expressively filigreed; it could’ve been a potential second sequel to “You and I.” “Seven Wonders” appears in an earlier, more relaxed arrangement, with Lindsey’s guitar warmly swanning between the notes that would eventually be reconstructed in perfect digital isolation by a synthesizer.

The demos also reveal the ways in which the songs could fold into and out of each other. On the “Tango in the Night” demo you can hear Buckingham, at the edge of every chorus, begin to invent the trembling choral part that opens “Caroline.” Nicks’ eventual solo track “Juliet” is present in two of its primordial forms—as the instrumental “Book of Miracles” (credited to both Buckingham and Nicks) and as a five-minute “run-through.” The run-through is especially curious, reducing “Book of Miracles” to a formulaic blues-rock over which Nicks’ voice produces a just-barely musical static, full of wobbles and distortions and exclamations. After the take she says, ecstatically, “I thought that was wonderful! I didn’t play! I did not play because I am so smart!”

Nicks exhibits a strange, dissonant giddiness in this moment that isn’t present in any of the band member’s memories of the recording process. At the time, in his interview with the Times, Buckingham imaginatively described Tango in the Night as a restorative process. “This album is as much about healing our relationships as Rumours was about dissension and pain within the group,” he said. “The songs look back over a period of time that in retrospect seems almost dreamlike.” Twenty-six years later, Buckingham summarized the experience to Uncut in more severe terms: “When I was done with the record, I said, ‘Oh my God. That was the worst recording experience of my life.’”

The jealousy and resentment he felt toward Nicks for the success she experienced in her solo career, and the prevailing feeling that his architectural work on the band’s records went unnoticed and unappreciated, had built to a flashpoint. Later in 1987, the band met up in anticipation of the promotional tour for Tango, for which they had already secured dates and signed contracts. At the meeting, Buckingham announced he was quitting the band. “I flew off of the couch and across the room to seriously attack him,” Nicks told Classic Rock in 2013. “...I’m not real scary but I grabbed him which almost got me killed.” They spilled out of McVie’s house and into the street. Buckingham ran after Nicks and threw her up against a car. She “screamed horrible obscenities” at him, and he walked away, from the moment and the band. What’s left, after these harsh fragments of reality are swept away, is Tango in the Night: a remarkably complete album, a lavish garden growing out of negative space. Just a dream”.

Tango in the Night’s title did almost point to a last dance for Fleetwood Mac. 1990’s Behind the Mask did not feature Buckingham predominantly. It was a bit of a low point for the band. Tango in the Night was this amazing album that was created at a time when things were strained. Like Rumours, out of turmoil and dissolvement, the band created something remarkable and enduring. Maybe not as timeless as 1977’s Rumours, Tango in the Night is full of incredible material. This remarkable album is one of Fleetwood Mac’s…

VERY best works.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Rose Gray

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Rose Gray

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ALTHOUGH there are not many new interviews online…

from Rose Gray, she has been involved with some fantastic features through the years. A hugely talented young artist whose music should be in everyone’s rotation, her latest track, Last Song, is among her best. With embers of ‘00s Pop and Electronic together with modern vibes and the huge personality and buzz from the infectious and irresistible Gray, she is an artist who is going to go far. I am not sure whether there is an E.P. coming soon. Before wrapping up and looking to the future for the incredible Rose Gray, there are a few interviews that I want to bring in. A lot of the online promotion and interview surrounded around the release of Drinking, Dancing, Talking, Thinking (2021). It is an amazing and eclectic 1990s-infused and inspired collection of songs from one of the most promising British artists. The London-born Rose Gray is, like me, someone hugely inspired and motivated by the music and characters of the ‘90s. Not that she is beholden to the decade. She is a singular voice who does not wear her influences heavily and too obviously on her sleeve. The first interview I want to quote from is The Forty-Five. In addition to talking about her Drinking, Dancing, Talking, Thinking mixtape, we discover about her childhood and fascinating upbringing:

“Born and bred in E17, she only has fond memories of her childhood, and speaks warmly of trips to the market with her parents, and of Sundays spent watching greyhounds speed around the borough’s long-since-closed dog track – the same stadium where Blur famously shot the now-iconic artwork for ‘Parklife’. “I really love my area, but it is quite a confused little place because it’s quite close to Essex,” she smiles. “And at school with you were either one or the other: a real East Londoner or quite suburban with different prospects for your life. I definitely decided that as soon as I possibly could I would be making my way in the city.”

You could argue this desire to make an impact is hereditary: both her mum and stepdad are jobbing actors after all, and – being the oldest of five – much of Rose’s childhood was spent socialising with her parents’ friends, many of whom were also actors or musicians. “I think I just thought that everyone was in the arts somehow?” she shrugs. “Like that’s what everyone did.” But compound that upbringing with the eerie focus that she credits to being a “textbook Capricorn”, and it feels like Rose was always destined to push herself to the fore.

“Seriously, my tunnel vision is almost quite dangerous. I was quite dweeby at school, always wanting to spend hours on projects. And I was sporty as well. I used to train a lot, do cross country and play football for a girls team, so I was quite driven with practise. And I always wanted to win things. So it hit me hard when I left college and I realised I was no longer the little star at school with a really good voice. Suddenly you’re in this massive pool of brilliant people and you need to work out who you are and what you want to do before you can make anything happen.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Eva Pentel

After dropping out of her Performing Arts course, she focused on finessing her songwriting, though it was still to be some time before her epiphany at the Bussey Building. Even looking back on 2019 singles ‘Good Life’ and ‘Blue’, Rose confesses to feeling removed from the pared-back, jazz-influenced sound. “I think I took myself a bit too seriously with the other releases. Because I’ve got a soulful voice it was easy for me to lean into that neo-soul and jazz influence but actually the music I love to listen to, and the music I like to go out to, is quite different. My manager was like, ‘Rose, you want your music to reflect who you are.’ And I feel like this mixtape is 100% me.”

Recorded over the last year and half with long-term collaborator Frank Colucci plus Rob Milton (Arlo Parks, Easy Life) and Mark Ralph (Georgia, Jax Jones), the seven-song collection solidifies Rose’s status as a rising star, and one who isn’t too proud to wear her reference points on her sleeve. Joining the Madchester swagger of ‘Save Your Tears’, the balmy dream-pop of ‘Same Cloud’ channels the swirling rhythms of ‘Screamadelica’ while ‘Easy’ features the sort of rave piano last seen on Strike classic ‘U Sure Do’. And that’s before you even get to her uncannily faithful version of Saint Etienne’s ‘Nothing Can Stop Us,’ her latest release”.

With a foot in the 1990s (musically) and the ’00 (musically), there is that sound and blast from the past. Rose Gray is a very modern artist who, in a sea of competitors, is shining and a real bright spot. I think she will be a massive artist of the future. NOTION confirmed this promise and potential when they spoke with Rose Gray back in late-2020:

“Noting Primal Scream, Massive Attack and Saint Etienne amongst her influences, Rose Gray has been building a name for herself as a rather uniquely British pop star. Lacing her music with her own blend of 90s dance melodies and 00s indie-pop vocals, the budding artist has been creating quite a buzz since releasing her first single last year.

Recalling house parties, bus rides, and the highs and lows of relationships, Rose’s music, in her words, “captures the early 20’s experience and all the in-between”.

The Walthamstow musician started her music career young but rebelled against the traditional popstar aesthetic she was being corseted into, instead, choosing to run down her own path.

With six singles under her belt, Rose is gearing up to release her debut mixtape, ‘dancing, drinking, talking, thinking’, due in January 2021.

From singing about a loved one with a cocaine addiction on the stripped-back track “Billy” (“But the powder’s got to you/ It’s got a power over you”) to serving up nostalgic Balearic House vibes on “Easy” and “Save Your Tears”, Rose Gray’s mixtape is the antidote we all need in today’s fun-sapped world.

You’ve just shared the brilliant new song “Save Your Tears”, a homage to 90s dance music. You’ve said that the genre is a big source of inspiration for you – what drew you to it in the first place?

From a young age, I was always in awe of the voice. Soulful pop Queens. From, Aretha, Dusty to Etta..and modern Queens like Amy, Christine Aguilera, and Lauryn Hill. I’ve always loved playing with my voice, and I feel 90’s dance music sets the stage for this exploration. Crazy big voices and soundscapes cushioned by breakbeats, strings, electronic elements live and programmed. It just feels so fun. I found a place that really works for my voice and where I’m at as an artist. Before lockdown going out and partying was a massive part of my life and I wanted this to reflect in my music. I have the freedom to sing and speak all in one song. 90’s dance music does this a lot, someone like Lady Miss Kier (the lead singer of DeeLite) positions herself so perfectly within a dance track. She’s a big inspo for me. There’s also something quite magic that 1990 is now 30 years ago. In the 90’s a massive subculture was psychedelica/ trip rave music.. heavily influenced by the 60’s. Now in 2020, we are 30 years on from the ’90s, it’s like a natural revival of this music. It feels like the right amount of time to be making and recreating these sounds. I also just honestly love this music.

Who are some of your all-time favourite 90s dance artists?

Ok here it goes. Saint Etienne of course. Primal Scream. Opus 111…the lead singer gives me Grimes.  I like listening to quite obscure stuff a little different from the music I’m making like Eris Drew or just ravey mixes. 1998 Madonna, Ray Of Light. I love this era for Madonna. Andy Wetheral mixes of any kind, he remixed ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ its magic. Smoke City. The Grid. Moby of course. Massive Attack and Portishead for slow dancey jams. The list could go on.

PHOTO CREDIT: Freddie Stisted

Your mixtape, ‘dancing, drinking, talking, thinking’ is due in January. What can we expect from the record?

So, ‘Dancing, Drinking, Talking, Thinking’ – is just that. it falls into one of those motions, maybe a few at the same time.

It’s 7 tracks. It’s fun. It’s sad. It’s classic. I’ve cried and danced making every track on it. I hope it captures the early 20’s experience and all the in-between.

Do you have a favourite song from the mixtape?

It’s always different. The mixtape goes through the motions. Some days I feel like I want to dance to some of the songs. Other days I could cry to all of them. I think I have a soft spot on a track called “Interlude, Thinking” – I produced it myself in June. It’s a reflection/realisation that partying and getting involved in fun dark things maybe isn’t what I really want. I love the string arrangement”.

There are a couple of other pieces I want to bring in before closing up. DORK chatted with Rose Gray in February last year. At a strange and stressful time for artists trying to put material out there, they asked as to whether lockdown and the pandemic had altered her approach to music and songwriting:

“Hi, Rose. You’re often described as telling sweeping stories with your lyrics, how do you approach writing?

I try not to give myself rules. I do write a lot of my songs as notes on my phone, concepts on my phone, so I do call myself a lyricist. I have a lot of poems and writings that I’ve built myself up, but if I’m at home writing, I do write a lot of my stuff on the spot.

You have a new mixtape coming up, right? How would you describe its sound?

I think it’s really fun, there’s a massive influence of 90s dance music! It’s quite classic with a lot of breakbeats. One thing as well that I feel threads through the whole mixtape is there’s a lot of lyricism, there’s a real story that comes through. It’s about a time of my life where I was partying and going out a lot, and so it feels like it’s going through motion.

Has lockdown changed the way you approach the creative process?

100%. I had a lot of unfinished songs. From the second week of lockdown, I started to figure out the production software Logic. I needed to figure out how to produce, how to make beats, how to finish off the vocals at home, so I’ve learnt a lot. I really love production and playing around, there is something on the mixtape I produced completely.

How has the mixtape changed the way you think about music?

For me now, I feel quite excited about where I can go. It’s the first stepping stone, and there’s so much material, and I feel quite excited. There are no rules, my next EP or album could be completely different. I feel creative freedom, especially for when I can play live again. I have so many ideas. I want to keep being different”.

There is one more feature that I want to include. Fred Perry asked some quick-fire questions about Rose Gray’s favourite music, some of the songs she grew up listening to, and songs that define the teenage her:

“If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?

John Lennon. I would love to share poetry or ask John to play something on his white grand piano. I think we could write something beautiful... try and put the world to right.

Of all the venues you’ve been to, which is your favourite?

Brixton Academy in London. I love this venue. The sound and atmosphere, the way the floor is raised so even if you're near the back you have a perfect view.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music?

Of course Amy Winehouse. I grew up loving Amy, her lyricism and honesty had me in awe from a young age. I related to her, I felt like I'd never listened to a female being so honest about love and loss. But also - Melanie. She went pretty under the radar in the '60s/'70s and should have been huge.

The first track you played on repeat?

'F*ck You' - Lily Allen.

Apart from playing the Spice Girls and Christina Aguilera on repeat as a young one, I have a real memory of buying 'It's Not Me, It's You'. I remember breaking up with my boyfriend who was the definition of the guy described in 'F*ck You' so it just became my vent song.

A song that defines the teenage you?

'With Every Heartbeat' - Robyn.

If I listen to this I am 14 again dancing around my room.

One record you would keep forever?

'A Brand New Me' - Aretha Franklin (song - 'Angel' The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra version)

I grew up on Aretha Franklin. She had a true voice of an angel. I think I will love this album for the rest of my life. The Royal Philharmonic version of this record is so beautiful.

The song to get you straight on the dance floor?

'Groove Is In The Heart' - Deee-Lite.

Family parties and or weddings I will leap from my chair for this song. Also 'Green Light' - Lorde.

Best song to end an all-nighter?

'Yes I’m Changing' - Tame Impala.

I played this walking home the other night, the sun was just coming up and it was a special moment, beautiful way to start/end the day”.

I shall wrap up now. Keep an eye out for Rose Gray throughout 2022. With a new track out there, I think we will hear more from her. Whether that is another mixtape, or an album has yet to be seen. Whatever it is, it is going to be a fantastic release. Although she has a deep love of the music she grew up on from the 1990s and 2000s, she is someone who is very contemporary and unique. On the evidence of a song like Last Song, it will not be long until we will see the fantastic Rose Gray…

REALLY take off!

____________

Follow Rose Gray

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/rosegray_

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/rosegray_/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/rosegrayyy

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5YYrWH3w4JYijU4JZrOXWA

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwBKtW5UEKfHpdRrhbyW3Pw

FEATURE: Inspired By…Part Sixty: Elvis Presley

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

Part Sixty: Elvis Presley

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I have not included him yet...

but for this sixtieth part of Inspired By…, I am including the King of Rock & Roll, Elvis Presley. One of the most influential artists ever, I am ending with a playlist of songs from artists influenced by Presley. In August, we will mark forty-five years since the icon died. His legacy and impact are being felt today. Before getting to the playlist, here is some biography about the incredible Elvis Presley:

“Elvis Presley belongs on the short list of artists who changed the course of popular music in the 20th century. He may not have invented rock & roll, but he was indisputably its first rock star, a singer whose charisma intertwined tightly with his natural talent for a combination that seemed combustible, sexy, and dangerous when Presley seized the imagination of America in 1956 with four successive number one singles in 1956. Elvis spent the next two decades near the top of the charts, weathering changes in fashion, self-inflicted career missteps, and comebacks as his music expanded and evolved. Throughout his career, Presley never abandoned the rock & roll he pioneered on his early singles for Sun Records, but he developed an effective counterpoint to his primal rockabilly by honing a rich, resonant ballad style while also delving into blues, country, and soul, progressions that came into sharp relief with his celebrated "comeback" in the late 1960s. Some musical nuances were overshadowed by Presley's phenomenal celebrity, a fame maintained by a long string of B-movies in the '60s and extravagant Las Vegas shows in the '70s, elements that were essential in creating a stardom that persisted long after his premature death in 1977. The myth of Elvis grew in his absence, aided by turning his Memphis home Graceland into a tourist attraction, which made him an enormous cultural icon only loosely tied to his rock & roll origins; fortunately, the passage of time helped clarify the depth and range of his musical achievements. He undeniably kick-started the rock & roll era, shaping the sound and attitudes of the last few decades of the 20th century in the process, but he also built a distinctive body of work that reflected the best of what American music has to offer.

Born to a poor Mississippi family in the heart of the Depression, Presley had moved to Memphis by his teens, where he absorbed the vibrant melting pot of Southern popular music in the form of blues, country, bluegrass, and gospel. After graduating from high school, he became a truck driver, rarely if ever singing in public. Some 1953 and 1954 demos, recorded at the emerging Sun label in Memphis primarily for Presley' own pleasure, helped stir interest on the part of Sun owner Sam Phillips. In mid-1954, Phillips, looking for a white singer with a Black feel, teamed Presley with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black. Almost by accident, apparently, the trio hit upon a version of an Arthur Crudup blues tune, "That's All Right Mama," which became Presley's first single.

Presley's five Sun singles pioneered the blend of R&B and C&W that would characterize rockabilly music. For quite a few scholars, they remain not only Presley's best singles, but the best rock & roll ever recorded. Claiming that Presley made blues acceptable for the white market is not the whole picture; the singles usually teamed blues covers with country and pop ones, all made into rock & roll (at this point a term that barely existed) with the pulsing beat, slap-back echo, and Presley's soaring, frenetic vocals. "That's All Right Mama," "Blue Moon of Kentucky," "Good Rockin' Tonight," "Baby Let's Play House," and "Mystery Train" remain core early rock classics.

The singles immediately sold well in the Memphis area, and by 1955 were starting to sell well to country audiences throughout the South. Presley, Moore, and Black hit the road with a stage show that grew ever wilder and more provocative, with Presley's swiveling hips causing enormous controversy. The move to all-out rock was hastened by the addition of drums. The last Sun single, "I Forgot to Remember to Forget"/"Mystery Train," hit number one on the national country charts in late 1955. Presley was obviously a performer with superstar potential, attracting the interest of both bigger labels and Colonel Tom Parker, who became Presley's manager. In need of capital to expand the Sun label, Sam Phillips sold Presley's contract to RCA in late 1955 for $35,000.00; a bargain when viewed in hindsight, but an astronomical sum at the time.

This is the point where musical historians start to diverge in opinion. For many, the whole of his subsequent work for RCA -- encompassing over 20 years -- was a steady letdown, never recapturing the pure, primal energy that was harnessed so effectively on the handful of Sun singles. Presley, however, was not a purist. What he wanted, more than anything, was to be successful. To do that, his material needed more of a pop feel; in any case, he'd never exactly been one to disparage the mainstream, naming Dean Martin as one of his chief heroes from the get-go. At RCA, his rockabilly was leavened with enough pop flavor to make all of the charts, not just the country ones.

At the beginning, at least, the results were hardly any tamer than the Sun sessions. "Heartbreak Hotel," his first single, rose to number one and, aided by some national television appearances, helped make him an instant superstar. "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" was a number one follow-up; the double-sided monster "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" was one of the biggest-selling singles the industry had ever experienced up to that point. His first two LPs, Elvis Presley and Elvis, were also chart-toppers, not just in the U.S., but throughout the world. The 1956 RCA recordings, while a bit more sophisticated in production and a bit less rootsy in orientation than his previous work, were still often magnificent, rating among the best and most influential recordings of early rock & roll.

Presley's (and Parker's) aspirations were too big to be limited to records and live appearances. By late 1956, his first Hollywood movie, Love Me Tender, had been released; other screen vehicles would follow in the next few years, Jailhouse Rock being the best. The hits continued unabated, several of them ("Jailhouse Rock," "All Shook Up," "Too Much") excellent, and often benefiting from the efforts of top early rock songwriter Otis Blackwell, as well as the emerging team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The Jordanaires added both pop and gospel elements with their smooth backup vocals.

Yet worrisome signs were creeping in. The Dean Martin influence began rearing its head in smoky, sentimental ballads such as "Loving You"; the vocal swoops became more exaggerated and stereotypical, although the overall quality of his output remained high. And although Moore and Black continued to back Elvis on his early RCA recordings, within a few years the musicians had gone their own ways.

Presley's recording and movie careers were interrupted by his induction into the Army in early 1958. There was enough material in the can to flood the charts throughout his two-year absence (during which he largely served in Germany). When he reentered civilian life in 1960, his level of popularity, remarkably, was just as high as when he left.

One couldn't, unfortunately, say the same for the quality of his music, which was not just becoming more sedate, but was starting to either repeat itself, or opt for operatic ballads that didn't have a whole lot to do with rock. Presley's rebellious, wild image had been tamed to a large degree as well, as he and Parker began designing a career built around Hollywood films. Shortly after leaving the Army, in fact, Presley gave up live performance altogether for nearly a decade to concentrate on movie-making. The films, in turn, would serve as vehicles to both promote his records and to generate maximum revenue with minimal effort. For the rest of the '60s, Presley ground out two or three movies a year that, while mostly profitable, had little going for them in the way of story, acting, or social value.

While there were some quality efforts on Presley's early-'60s albums, his discography was soon dominated by forgettable soundtracks, most featuring material that was dispensable or downright ridiculous. He became largely disinterested in devoting much time to his craft in the studio. The soundtrack LPs themselves were sometimes filled out with outtakes that had been in the can for years (and these, sadly, were often the highlights of the albums). There were some good singles in the early '60s, like "Return to Sender"; once in a while there was even a flash of superb, tough rock, like "Little Sister" or "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame." But by 1963 or so there was little to get excited about, although he continued to sell in large quantities.

The era roughly spanning 1962 to 1967 has generated a school of Elvis apologists, eager to wrestle any kernel of quality that emerged from his recordings during this period. They also point out that Presley was assigned poor material, and assert that Parker was largely responsible for Presley's emasculation. True to a point, but on the other hand, it could be claimed, with some validity, that Presley himself was doing little to rouse himself from his artistic stupor, letting Parker destroy his artistic credibility without much apparent protest, and holing up in his large mansion with a retinue of yes men who protected their benefactor from much day-to-day contact with a fast-changing world.

The Beatles, all big Presley fans, displaced him as the biggest rock act in the world in 1964. What's more, they did so by writing their own material and playing their own instruments; something Presley had never been capable of, or particularly aspired to do. They, and the British and American groups the Beatles influenced, were not shy about expressing their opinions, experimenting musically, and taking the reins of their artistic direction into their own hands. The net effect was to make Presley, still churning out movies in Hollywood as psychedelia and soul music became the rage, seem irrelevant, even as he managed to squeeze out an obscure Dylan cover ("Tomorrow Is a Long Time") on a 1966 soundtrack album.

By 1967 and 1968, there were slight stirrings of an artistic reawakening in Presley. Singles like "Guitar Man," "Big Boss Man," and "U.S. Male," though hardly classics, were at least genuine rock & roll that sounded better than much of what he'd been turning out for years. A 1968 television special gave him the opportunity he needed to reinvent himself as an all-out leather-coated rocker, still capable of magnetizing an audience, and eager to revisit his blues and country roots.

The 1968 album From Elvis in Memphis was the first LP in nearly a decade in which Presley seemed cognizant of current trends, as he updated his sounds with contemporary compositions and touches of soul to create some reasonably gutsy late-'60s pop/rock. This material, and 1969 hits like "Suspicious Minds" and "In the Ghetto," returned him to the top of the charts. Arguably, this period has been overrated by critics, who were so glad to have him singing rock again that they weren't about to carp about the slickness of some of the production, or the mediocrity of some of the songwriting.

But Presley's voice did sound good, and he returned to live performance in 1969, breaking in with weeks of shows in Las Vegas. This was followed by national tours that proved him still capable of being an excellent live entertainer, even if the exercises often reeked of show-biz extravaganza. (Presley never did play outside of North America and Hawaii, possibly because Parker, it was later revealed, was an illegal alien who could have faced serious problems if he traveled abroad.) Hollywood was history, but studio and live albums were generated at a rapid pace, usually selling reasonably well, although Presley never had a Top Ten hit after 1972's "Burning Love."

Presley's '70s recordings, like most of his '60s work, are the focus of divergent critical opinion. Some declare them to be, when Presley was "on", the equal of anything he did, especially in terms of artistic diversity. It's true that the material was pretty eclectic, running from country to blues to all-out rock to gospel (Presley periodically recorded gospel-only releases, going all the way back to 1957). At the same time, his vocal mannerisms were often stilted, and the material -- though not nearly as awful as that '60s soundtrack filler -- sometimes substandard. Those who are serious Presley fans will usually find this late-period material to hold only a fraction of the interest of his '50s classics.

Presley's final years have been the subject of a cottage industry of celebrity bios, tell-alls, and gossip screeds from those who knew him well, or (more likely) purported to know him well, but it's enough to note that his behavior was becoming increasingly unstable. His weight fluctuated wildly; his marriage broke up; he became dependent upon a variety of prescription drugs. Worst of all, he became isolated from the outside world except for professional purposes (he continued to tour until the end), rarely venturing outside of his Graceland mansion in Memphis. He even stopped leaving his home for recording sessions, using an RCA Records mobile recording truck to make up the bulk of his final two albums, 1976's From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee and 1977's Moody Blue, At Graceland . (A collection of these final home recordings appeared in 2016, titled Way Down in the Jungle Room.) Colonel Parker's financial decisions on behalf of his client have also come under much scrutiny.

On August 16, 1977, Presley was found dead in Graceland. The cause of death remains a subject of widespread speculation, although it seems likely that drugs played a part. An immediate cult (if cult is the way to describe millions of people) sprang up around his legacy, kept alive by the hundreds of thousands of visitors who make the pilgrimage to Graceland annually. Elvis memorabilia, much of it kitsch, is another industry in its own right. Thousands of singers make a comfortable living by impersonating the King in live performances. And then there are all those Elvis sightings reported in the tabloids, first on a seemingly weekly basis, then less frequently as the decades went on.

Although Presley had recorded a mammoth quantity of both released and unreleased material for RCA, the label didn't show much interest in repackaging it with the respect due such a pioneer. Haphazard collections of outtakes and live performances were far rarer than budget reissues and countless repackagings of the big hits. In the digital age, RCA finally began to treat the catalog with some of the reverence it deserved, at long last assembling a box set containing nearly all of the '50s recordings. This 1992 set, called The King of Rock 'n' Roll, was the first of many serious compilations that focused on particular decades, phases, and collaborators. These archival sets were balanced by sets from Follow That Dream, all targeted at collectors, with the discs aimed at mainstream audiences. The most popular of these was the 2002 compilation Elv1s: 30 #1 Hits, which topped the charts in the U.S. and U.K. on its way to multi-platinum certification, but a pair of albums that grafted original Presley performances to music by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra -- 2015's If I Can Dream and 2016's The Wonder of You -- went to number one in the U.K. in the mid-2010s; Christmas with Elvis, a seasonal set overdubbed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, debuted at six in the U.K. upon its 2017 release. In 2018, the two-part documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher premiered on HBO and was accompanied by two soundtracks, one a single disc and one a box set. Later that year, an overdubbed collection of gospel material was released under the title Where No One Stands Alone, as was a box set celebrating the 50th anniversary of his '68 Comeback.

In 2019, the 50th anniversary of Presley's return to live performance, was celebrated with the release of Live 1969, a box set containing 11 full concerts from his first engagement at the International Hotel in Las Vegas”

To showcase the impact and influence of The King, below are songs from artists that count him as a guide. Someone they have taken something from, or they have been compelled by him in some way. Influencing artists from multiple genres, Elvis Presley will be inspiring people…

FOR many more years.

FEATURE: Revisiting… Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains

FEATURE:

 

 

Revisiting…

Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains

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IT may be an uneasy listen..

and an album that has a hard and tragic backstory. It was celebrated upon its release on 12th July, 2019. Purple Mountains is the only album from the Indie Rock band of the same name. It is the final overall album by David Berman before his death on 7th August, 2019, almost four weeks after the album's release. Formerly a member of Silver Jews (in 2009), this was the first new studio album from Berman. A remarkable album throughout, I am not sure how many of the tracks are played a lot on the radio. How well is the album known? Maybe Purple Mountains is spun more in America - though there is awareness in other parts of the world. It is worth spending time with and playing if you have not heard it. Although it is quite emotive and is for particular moods and times, it is a wonderful album that will stay with you. The gorgeous and rich arrangements, together with David Berman’s unique and always-fascinating lyrics, will definitely pull you in. I am going to end with a couple of the many positive reviews Purple Mountains received. Not only was it one of the most acclaimed albums of 2019. It is one of the best-reviewed and adored albums of the past decade. This is what AllMusic said in their review of the sublime Purple Mountains:

“After the Silver Jews ended in 2009, David Berman's retreat from music seemed so final that the mere existence of Purple Mountains is somewhat miraculous -- and even more so because it's one of his finest collections of songs. For this go-round, Berman chose a brilliant band name: Purple Mountains is traditional but not obvious, familiar but with more than a hint of eternal mystery. While he's always been an eloquent songwriter, now he's also a direct one -- it's as if these songs are making up for lost time as they let listeners know what's been on his mind during the years he was gone. Within the first few seconds of "That's Just the Way I Feel," the hapless honky tonk that begins Purple Mountains, Berman transports his audience back into his world instantly. Just as quickly, it becomes clear that this incarnation of his music isn't as ramshackle as the Silver Jews were, even at their most gussied-up. He's backed by Woods, who ably handle any challenge Berman throws at them, whether it's the ironically mighty brass that soundtracks his lack of faith on the standout "Margaritas at the Mall" or the velvety vibraphone and pedal steel on "Snow Is Falling on Manhattan."

These timeless sounds mirror the classic tenor of Purple Mountains' songwriting. Over the years, Berman tried to record an album numerous times (with collaborators ranging from Destroyer's Dan Bejar to his old friend Stephen Malkmus), but reportedly couldn't finish his songs' lyrics. Based on how his simple, carefully chosen words let his wit and poetry ring out on Purple Mountains, it's safe to say that they were worth the wait. As he touches on his losses, Berman blends humor and heartbreak more masterfully -- and quotably -- than ever. "Lately, I tend to make strangers wherever I go/Some of them were once people I was happy to know," he sings on "All My Happiness Is Gone," a song with a shuffling beat that echoes Silver Jews' "Trains Across the Sea" and synth strings that feel decidedly Purple Mountains. He's even more eloquent on "Darkness and Cold," where he distills the growing distance between him and his estranged wife, Cassie, with lyrics like "the light of my life is going out without a flicker of regret." That song's flip side, "She's Making Friends, I'm Turning Stranger," boasts a country song title so archetypal that it almost didn't need to be fleshed out into an unflinching mix of self-awareness and jealousy with a bitterly strutting bass line and quietly seething pedal steel -- but fortunately, it was. By the same token, Berman knows when to let a simple "she was, she was, she was" speak volumes on "I Loved Being My Mother's Son." Filled with lonely songs that are as warm as a hug from a long-lost friend, Purple Mountains is a potent, poignant reminder of Berman's gifts -- and how much they, and he, will be missed”.

To finish off, I will source a review from Pitchfork. There is a simplicity and beauty to Purple Mountains that reminds me of Pink Moon. It is debated whether Nick Drake took his own life or died of an accidental overdose, though there is a graveness to his final album. David Berman took his own life in August 2019. Whether there are ‘warning signs’ or haunting messages that point to future tragedy, there is definitely more weight to Purple Mountains than other albums:  

“As warm and immediate as the record sounds—heartland harmonica, cantina horns, and pedal steel all guide his words—Berman’s lyrics reveal all the reading that has inspired him. The singalong chorus of “Margaritas at the Mall” alludes to a philosophical text on the capitalist origins of purgatory; a line about treating the world as a “roadside inn” in “Nights That Won’t Happen” echoes a teaching by the second-century Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus. And the jaunty “Storyline Fever” continues his tradition of whimsical penultimate tracks by considering the span of life as a long narrative with an infinite number of possible outcomes—it reads a lot like an anxiety attack but sounds a little like the Kinks. That Berman has scrounged a college syllabus’ worth of texts for their most human uses is a testament to the enduring, tragic empathy of his writing. Few writers are so willing to submit to their lowest depths to make you feel less alone.

While Purple Mountains is remarkable for affirming what we missed in Berman’s songwriting, it’s equally affecting for what it’s missing. He alludes to crises of faith in both “That’s Just the Way I Feel” and “Margaritas at the Mall,” a song that finds him at his wit’s end looking for answers from “such a subtle god.” His separation from Cassie after two decades of marriage casts a heavy shadow through nearly every song, a thematic and musical absence that gives the album an unsettling starkness. His voice has never been strong, but there’s a new helplessness to his delivery. “The end of all wanting is all I’ve been wanting,” he sings weakly in the opening track. “If no one’s fond of fuckin’ me, maybe no one’s fuckin’ fond of me,” he grumbles in the last. These are the kinds of characters he once observed with self-aware distance; nowadays, he just sounds spent.

The subject matter of Purple Mountains is grim, but he’s still David Berman, and he can still dazzle with the sheer beauty of his writing or wink at the camera to lighten the mood when necessary. Back when he first gained prominence in the ’90s, he was called a slacker, suggesting his unpolished delivery was either an affect or an ethos. Over time, he insisted just the opposite—that it was the striving that was important; that even if you couldn’t hold a note, it was worth showing the effort; that a song was something you spend a lifetime learning to sing right”.

An album that is so moving to listen to, it is not as hard-going or downbeat as one might imagine. Go in with an open mind, though there are songs and moments that will hit you. Purple Mountains runs in at just under forty-five minutes; it is not a huge or epic thing that takes several sittings. As I said, it might be for a particular mood or time of the day. If you do listen to it, you will definitely not regret it. Purple Mountains does deserve more discussion and airplay, as it is the final album…

OF an extraordinary and hugely-missed artist.

FEATURE: Inside Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty: Track One: Sat in Your Lap

FEATURE:

 

 

Inside Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty

Track One: Sat in Your Lap

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IN September…

Kate Bush’s fourth studio album, The Dreaming, turns forty. It is a way away, but I wanted to spend time investigating various aspects of the album. In the first instance, I wanted to look at all ten tracks from The Dreaming. Going more into detail with each, it is a chance to highlight their individual originality and brilliance. Starting at the top, it is time to look at Sat in Your Lap. The first single from The Dreaming, it was released in June 1981. Over a year until the album came out, I wonder what people thought when they heard the song! Faster and most percussive-heavy than any single Bush had put out before, it was a definite change of direction. Struggling to write, Bush’s writer’s block was unlocked when she went to see Stevie Wonder play in concert at Wembley. Although Sat in Your Lap does not share too much DNA with Wonder (there is more of Bowie in the mix), the fact that am exhilarating performance stirred something inside of Bush resulted in one of her greatest singles. One of the things that will become clear about the singles from The Dreaming is that they did not chart as well as the singles from her follow-up album, Hounds of Love. Sat in Your Lap was the most successful from the album, though it only got to eleven in the U.K.. That is a pretty good position, though I think Sat in Your Lap is worthy of a top ten place. Not a commercial and easily accessible album, The Dreaming’s strengths lie in the fascinating layers and sounds. Relying more on texture and depth rather than instant hooks and catchy choruses, The Dreaming is an album that demands a proper listen and consideration.

Sat in Your Lap is the perfect opening song. It opens the album with so much propulsion and physicality. Not exactly commercial, it is one of the more accessible songs on The Dreaming. With its video filmed at Abbey Road Studios across two days, the editing was a long and difficult job. Even though it sounds like the video was a lot of work, the result was unlike any other Kate Bush video. A nod to the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia who are going to prove invaluable when it comes to getting more detail about the brilliant ten tracks on The Dreaming. Here is what Kate Bush said about the incredible Sat in Your Lap:

“I already had the piano patterns, but they didn't turn into a song until the night after I'd been to see a Stevie Wonder gig. Inspired by the feeling of his music, I set a rhythm on the Roland and worked in the piano riff to the high-hat and snare. I now had a verse and a tune to go over it but only a few lyrics like "I see the people working", "I want to be a lawyer,'' and "I want to be a scholar,'' so the rest of the lyrics became "na-na-na"' or words that happened to come into my head. I had some chords for the chorus with the idea of a vocal being ad-libbed later. The rhythm box and piano were put down, and then we recorded the backing vocals. "Some say that knowledge is...'' Next we put down the lead vocal in the verses and spent a few minutes getting some lines worked out before recording the chorus voice. I saw this vocal being sung from high on a hill on a windy day. The fool on the hill, the king of the castle... "I must admit, just when I think I'm king."

The idea of the demos was to try and put everything down as quickly as possible. Next came the brass. The CS80 is still my favourite synthesizer next to the Fairlight, and as it was all that was available at the time, I started to find a brass sound. In minutes I found a brass section starting to happen, and I worked out an arrangement. We put the brass down and we were ready to mix the demo.

I was never to get that CS80 brass to sound the same again - it's always the way. At The Townhouse the same approach was taken to record the master of the track. We put down a track of the rhythm box to be replaced by drums, recording the piano at the same time. As I was producing, I would ask the engineer to put the piano sound on tape so I could refer to that for required changes. This was the quickest of all the tracks to be completed, and was also one of the few songs to remain contained on one twenty-four track tape instead of two! (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982)”.

There is so much to unravel and investigate when it comes to Kate Bush’s The Dreaming. I will discuss Bush producing the album, a lot of the sounds and instruments used throughout, in addition to the way The Dreaming was received and influences people today. A lot of people either do not know about The Dreaming, or they pick a few tracks. In this ten-part feature that looks at each song individually, I am starting out with the lead single. Anyone who felt they have Kate Bush pegged before 1981 would have been in for a surprise when Sat in Your Lap was released. A year later, the extraordinary The Dreaming highlighted the fact that her music would…

NEVER be the same again.

FEATURE: Born in a Storm: Deacon Blue’s Raintown at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Born in a Storm

Deacon Blue’s Raintown at Thirty-Five

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IT is a shame…

that there is not more available online regarding Deacon Blue’s debut album, Raintown. With the Glasgow band still going strong today, I wonder how they will mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of their remarkable debut. It hits that milestone on 1st May. With Oscar Marzaroli’s iconic cover image of a rainy day in Glasgow’s West End, you are gripped and intrigued by Raintown before you even hear a song. With most songs written by their lead, Ricky Ross, Deacon Blue (Ricky Ross – lead vocals (additional guitar, piano & keyboard on bonus tracks on reissue version), Lorraine McIntosh – backing & harmony vocals, Graeme Kelling – guitar, low voice, James Prime – keyboards, backing vocals, Ewen Vernal – bass guitar, backing vocals and Dougie Vipond – drums, percussion) released a masterpiece in 1987. I was very small when the album came out, but I can only imagine what it was like trying to earn a living and survive. Sadly, there are parallels today. With energy prices rising and the Conservative leadership leading us into Hell, the songs on Deacon Blue’s debut seem strangely fresh today. Before carrying on, the band are releasing a thirty-fifth anniversary edition of Raintown:

“To celebrate its 35th anniversary, we’re excited to announce a special release of Raintown. The remastered album will be available on 12″ black vinyl and limited to 2000 copies, each individually numbered. This latest edition also features new liner notes from Ricky, plus the famous cover will feature “Raintown” in gold lettering. It will be released as part of this year’s Record Store Day UK in association with War Child – £1 from each sale will go towards supporting children living in conflict.

Available to buy from your local indie record shop on Saturday 23rd April. More info on #RSD22 and to find your local store, click here. Also see Record Store Day.

From Ricky: “I’m grateful, every day, we got that chance to make an album we still hold up to be the template of what any Deacon Blue album should be. That we are remastering the album for an audience who still want to hear it thirty-five years later is something none of us expected. Thank you for listening”.

One of the best releases from the band (arguably it is their finest album), Raintown contains some classic Deacon Blue cuts. Born in a Storm, Raintown, Loaded, When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring), Chocolate Girl, Dignity are wonderful songs that I fell in love with as a child. I do not know why there have not been more articles written about the mighty and magical Raintown. Glasgow Skyline wrote about the making of a masterpiece:

“Raintown was recorded at Air Studios in London between December 1986 and February 1987.

Associated Independent Recording (AIR), an independent recording company, was founded in London in 1965 by Beatles producer George Martin and his partner John Burgess after their departure from EMI.

The studio was on the fourth floor of 214 Oxford Street, over looking Oxford Circus which famously inspired Ricky Ross to write the song Circus Lights.

RPM2015 · Deacon Blue: 30 Years of Raintown

In 1991 AIR Studios relocated to Lyndhurst Hall in Hamstead, London.

The album was produced by Jon Kelly. One of the 'Great British Producers'. He has produced and mixed legendary albums for an incredible spectrum of artists including Chris Rea, The Beautiful South, Heather Nova, Tori Amos, Paul McCartney, Prefab Sprout and Kate Bush.

Jon Kelly later returned to produce the Four Bacharach And David EP and Fellow Hoodlums.

The band set up live in the studio and recorded together in the same room. This provided a great connection and energy much like their famous live performances.

Dignity is perhaps one of the most striking songs on Raintown, the lead single from the album it was the track that attracted the attention of Gordon Charlton who would later sign Deacon Blue to CBS. Written by Ricky Ross on holiday in 1985, this early Ricky Ross demo, whilst early in it's production shows the clear vision Ricky had for the track, capturing much of the feel of the finished record. Dignity (Demo 1).

By 1986 and now with much of the Deacon Blue line up in place this second demo shows how close the band were to having the final arrangement for the track. Dougie and Ewen's rhythm track is in place and Jim Prime's piano arrangement is also largely complete. Graeme's guitar part is very much to the forefront and there are still no backing vocals. Dignity (Demo 2).

Although Riches never made the final cut for Raintown the song was recorded by Jon Kelly during the Raintown sessions and has always been an important song for Ricky Ross. This early demo has a similar arrangement to the final recording but the inclusion of a drum track give it a more pop laden sound. Riches (Demo).

This demo of The Very Thing recorded circa 1986 was one of the tracks on the cassette that attracted Gordon Charlton to the band. Very similar to the final cut, the most noticable absence once again is Lorraine's backing vocal. The Very Thing (Demo).

Whilst recording Raintown it's said that Ricky Ross was sat at the piano playing this song and Jon Kelly suggested they record the track 'just like that' stripped back, more acoustic and soulful, with less production than Ricky's previous demo. The track was When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring). This classic Deacon Blue song began life sounding very differently as this demo shows. When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring) (Demo).

Songs often first premiere at gigs as the band try them out. This happened a lot with the songs that made it on to When The World Knows Your Name. Sadly very few recordings exist of Deacon Blue concerts before Raintown, in fact there are no known audience recordings in circulation. However on the 20th November 1986 just weeks before Deacon Blue began recording Raintown they played a gig at The Marquee, London. The show was recorded by the band and the tape has been in circulation for a number of years. Some of the tracks have now been officially released on the 2006 Raintown Legacy Edition.

Loaded was performed that night, and like the demo version that appears on the Legacy Edition this live performance features some alternate lyrics and slight differences to the finished arrangement. Loaded - Marquee 86”.

I am looking forward to the thirty-fifth anniversary of Raintown on 1st May. Deacon Blue are on the road at the moment, and I know that fans love to hear songs from their debut played live. They resonate with different generations for different reasons. Such a remarkable album that introduced a band who are so beloved, Raintown summed up a lot of the despondency and depression that would have been evident, not only in Glasgow in 1986 and 1987, but right across the U.K. under Thatcher. Today, as we look back, one wonders of the current government are any better. The relevance of Raintoiwn remains. If you have not listened to the album before or have not heard it in a while, go and spend some time with it. I feel we will be discussing Raintown for decades to come. Such is the quality of the songwriting and the band performances, you are hooked and immersed in the album from start to finish. There is no doubt in my mind that Deacon Blue’s Raintown is…

ONE of the very best debuts.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Dead Kennedys – Bedtime for Democracy

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Dead Kennedys – Bedtime for Democracy

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THE final album…

from the San Francisco band, I wanted to shed light on Bedtime for Democracy. Released in November 1986, the album deals with themes such as conformity, Reaganomics, the U.S. military, and critique of the hardcore Punk movement. Maybe not ranked alongside classics such as Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (the band’s debut), I feel Bedtime for Democracy is an album that deserves new light and appreciation. The band split up as the record was released. Even though Bedtime for Democracy is the last album from the band, they did reform in 2001. The new line-up consists of East Bay Ray, Ron ‘Skip’ Greer, D. H. Peligro and Klaus Flouride. Their former lead, Jello Biafra, split from the band following the release of Bedtime for Democracy. It is like looking back at the former life of a band. I am not sure whether they are going to release another album, but it is encouraging to see there is still life in them! Bedtime for Democracy arrived at a moment in the U.S. when Ronald Regan was President; there was a lot of anger towards his foreign and domestic policies. Whilst some applaud his term as President (between 1981 and 1989), there were many more who felt he caused more harm than good. It is unspringing that artists reacted with albums that were quite political and angry. Dead Kennedys’ Bedtime for Democracy still has relevance today. I want to explore a couple of reviews for an album that definitely requires fresh ears and some new appreciation.

In their review, AllMusic had this to say about one of the strongest albums of 1986. They note how, whilst not their strongest album, the band do go out with a bang and sense of purpose and anger:

“The Dead Kennedys go out in a blaze of snarling, defiant glory in their final studio release. They drub a bushel basket's worth of entrenched interests, including scientists, the military, the power hungry, macho attitudes, classicism, lie detectors, Reagan and his economic policies, the press, the entertainment industry, and the commercialization of rock and revolutionary attitudes. The album's manic speed punk style recalls In God We Trust Inc., particularly on the frenetic cover of Johnny Paycheck's hit "Take This Job and Shove It." When the tempo slows, a few songs resemble frantic rockabilly; of these, "Hop With the Jetset" lampoons the privileged classes, "I Spy" savages government agents, and "Where Do Ya Draw the Line" is a plea in favor of anarchy. The quiet, furtive "D.M.S.O." is a highly atypical number strongly resembling the theme to The Pink Panther. The lengthy, anthemic "Cesspools in Eden" is a hard rock number with unusual chord changes and lyrics railing against toxic waste; similarly, "Chickenshit Conformist" alternates slow and hyperfast sections and sports wide-ranging verses that constitute a scathing indictment of the rock music industry. As usual, the rushed hardcore numbers often garble or swallow up the well-written lyrics (if you want people to follow you into revolution, your ideas need to be intelligible). The album cover sports witheringly disparaging artwork; also included in this release are two muckraking newspapers, one containing clip art, and the other written articles about the obscenity trial embroiling the band at that point. While it's not totally successful, at least the Dead Kennedys had the satisfaction of going out on their own terms. It's all well worth hearing”.

I think Bedtime for Democracy is an album people should spend a bit of time with. This is Punk News’ tale on a fitting and fierce final studio album (or is it?) from Dead Kennedys:

“By the time their final studio album, Bedtime for Democracy, was released in November 1986, the Dead Kennedys were no longer a band. They announced their breakup in January, and played their final show (at least with Jello on vocals) in February. The title of the album was a play on the 1951 Ronald Reagan film, Bedtime for Bonzo. The album expanded on musical and lyrical themes the band had previously worked in, and would do so successfully.

The opening song, was a cover, of the David Allen Coe song “Take This Job and Shove It” which given the bands dissolution at the start of year, was likely a not so tongue in cheek nod to their decision to no longer be a band. While the song was, and still is, unlikely to appeal to David Allen Coe’s core audience; it was able to become a favorite for some Dead Kennedy’s fans and they certainly were able to show how elements of outlaw country and punk rock can make solid bed fellows. Given the breakdown that occurred between Jello Biafra and the other members of the band in the decades to come, the song now reads like a tongue in cheek statement on Jello’s behalf.

Coming off a trial for obscene album art, for the H.R. Giger insert for Frankenchrist, some may have wondered what the band was getting at with the song “Rambozo the Clown.” As it was a critique of the violent imagery found in many 1980’s action films. This is where the band walked the fine line between punk rock outrage and a more intellectual outlook on issues such as this. The band wasn’t saying these films should not exist, but rather stating films that suggest over the top violent action films being used to help define masculinity were dangerous. As was, and still is, the case with many Dead Kennedys songs the songs would come to reflect the culture and remain relevant in conversations of not only modern punk society, but American society as a whole. And while the term “toxic masculinity” is likely unsettling to some, in contemporary terms that’s what this song was about, when violent or otherwise harmful behavior becomes interchangeable with the term masculine.

The band would also begin to examine punk culture as they made their exit from it. Songs like “Chickenshit Conformist” along with “Anarchy for Sale” would not only touch on the punk scene becoming more intellectually mainstream but also the tourist nature some people coming into the punk scene were taking on. It would be easy to simplify this down to a simple word, such as poser, but that wouldn’t be doing the songs justice. The scene had begun to attract the attention of people who would have previously been at odds with the punks. This isn’t to say jocks, but definitely people who were drawn to the scene not because it challenged societal norms. But, rather they were drawn to the scene because of the nihilism and violence that came with those challenges, without any of the intellectual sacrifices that fueled those feelings.

Jello also goes after his normal targets in the form of Ronald Reagan, Reaganomics, the government as a whole, citizen’s privacy rights, and machismo. Given how accurate the predictive nature of his lyrics were, and the tinges of psychedelia, metal, rockabilly, surf rock, and straight ahead hardcore the band delved into on this album, the fact it ended up being their last proper album, truly is a shame. While Jello Biafra would continue to make strong albums both inside and outside the umbrella of punk, neither Jello nor the band would ever recapture the magic they had when they were playing together.

Even with all that heaping praise in mind, the measure of classic album is that album’s lasting influence and not the band that produced it. Nobody will ever be able to dispute the influence this band had, but when you ask people to name their favorite Dead Kennedys’ songs or you see a band cover one of their songs live. You’ll find those songs are rarely off of this album. Perhaps that’s because the band’s previous albums garnered so much attention. Perhaps, it was a band getting their last gasp of life in and using it to try as many things as they could. Whatever caused, Dead Kennedys will always be a classic punk rock band, however that did not and does not make this a classic punk rock album”.

If you are new to Dead Kennedys or have not heard Bedtime for Democracy, I would urge you to give it a listen. It did not get the strong reviews that it should have (not from everyone at least). Although the band did produce stronger albums earlier in their career, the magnificent Bedtime for Democracy is…

A really solid album.