In conversation with Dananananaykroyd

Dananananaykroyd

Earlier this month in Brighton, we caught up with two of the finest live acts in the UK, let alone central Scotland, before they performed on the Levi’s OnesToWatch stage at Audio. First up were Dananananaykroyd’s Laura and Duncan.

Muso’s Guide: So were you here last year for The Great Escape?

Duncan: We were asked to come down but we didn’t have the money so had to pull out quite late which was a real shame so we are doubly excited for it this time.

It was my first time last year, so much going on that you usually have three or four options to go elsewhere if you can’t get in to something. … Continue Reading

Musoings with Jeremy Warmsley

Jeremy Warmsley

Jeremy Warmsley is a bit of a Muso’s Guide favourite, at least round these parts. How We Became is such an inviting record, so full of sonic variation yet with this very real, wholesome core of honesty. So it was our pleasure to speak with its purveyor on the phone for this very interesting conversation on opinion and such like. It went a little like this:

What are your favourite albums?
The Dreaming by Kate Bush. It’s a great example of someone who’s moulded as a key pop artist, someone who’s really tried to make something completely confrontational and difficult, and in fact very beautiful. A lot of people would’ve written Kate Bush off. Another one would be Richard D. James by Aphex Twin. People got used to the idea that Aphex Twin was difficult, but then he came up with this album which is really melodically good. It’s just so simple and beautiful. Recently I’ve been playing the Fanfarlo record a lot – it’s produced by Peter Katis, one of my favourite producers, it’s got great songs, great arrangements. And I’m going to be joining them on guitar on the tour coming up. Another is John Martyn’s Grace and Danger. … Continue Reading

Of Montreal: the European success story

Of Montreal

A continued conversation (first part here) with Jamey Huggins of the glamtastic American band, Of Montreal: this week read about the band’s almost overnight success in Europe, opening for Franz Ferdinand, and life on the Of Montreal tour bus.

MG: of Montreal just played over in Europe—how was the response different over there?

JH: Uh, well, it’s a weird thing, you know? Like, in England it’s such a hard thing to get an audience. And then suddenly, the last time we were there, or the time before this last time, we were really struggling for some press. And we played a show for like 200 people or something, did a couple of interviews, and then the last time we were there, we sold out this like 1,500 theatre and had to turn away like 300 people who were trying to get in. It was like overnight we were suddenly like legitimate in London after we’d been playing there for years at these really small clubs. And then like, the Franz Ferdinand concert, we opened for them and did that.

MG: How did that show go?

JH:  It was kind of a nightmare, actually. Nothing to do with them, you know, they’re absolutely great. They were really kind and everything, the band, but we had to go on in this really small space. And for of Montreal to do an opening set for anyone, it’s kind of tricky. So we played like six or seven songs, and we had a major technical meltdown where our in-ear monitoring died, so no one could hear what they were singing, we couldn’t hear each other. We fixed it after a couple of songs.  But still, it was great. And then we went to France and had a fantastic show in Paris. For some reason Paris loves the new of Montreal stuff. We sold more copies of Hissing Fauna and Skeletal Lamping in France than all of the rest of Europe combined.

MG: Why do you think that is?

JH: Well, I don’t know, the French like electro. And those records are very much, like, beat-driven. Um, but also I think we have a really great press team there. We just happened to get lucky with some really great, super enthusiastic, super influential people. And I guess, they told us this one story about this really popular TV host who has, like, several million viewers, and does this show, and apparently she made some little statement where she held up Hissing Fauna on her show and said “This is the best record of the year, and if everyone watching the show doesn’t go out and buy this tomorrow I’m gonna stab my hand with this…” She had like a knife, and was holding up the record with this knife, and was stressing how emphatic she was that France needed to listen to this strange American band.

MG: I guess it worked, then.

JH: Well, I’m sure that’s part of it. But it’s weird, cause in France, they play us on like regular radio, you know? More of like the Clear Channel rock station or something. So it’s like weirdly somehow more legitimate or something. They don’t have the sense that we’re like an indie band.

MG: So will there be more crazy costumes tonight? Any family members making cameos again?

JH: Yeah, you know, it’s always a revolving cast, depending on who can do it. I mean, if we had our way, we’d have them all every night. People have been kind of trading off, taking legs of the tour. So like we had Nina [Barnes, Kevin’s wife] in New York, and we even had Alabee [Kevin’s daughter] on stage. … Continue Reading

Of Montreal: on-stage battles and solo projects

Of Montreal

We had the chance to chat and dine with a red skinny-jean-clad Jamey Huggins from Of Montreal before the band played the first of two sold-out shows at Boston’s Paradise Rock Club. Read on to find out about on-stage battles, the bustle of being on tour, and Jamey’s new solo side project as James Husband.

Muso’s Guide: So the tour’s been going well so far?

Jamey Huggins: Um, yea, all the shows have been sold out; audiences have been enthusiastic, if not maybe a bit misbehaved. We’ve had a few ejections.

MG: What happened?

JH: You know just, them jumping on stage and getting drunk and stage diving. A couple of our people got hurt [laughs] because of our own antics on stage, fighting. Not really fighting, but choreographed fights, a couple of bumps on the head, you know. I’ve got some wretched calluses. … Continue Reading

Frightened Rabbit: “I don’t want to sound indulgent”

Frightened Rabbit

If you’ve swooned at the feet of heartwarming, romantic Caledonian folk over the last year or so, chances are it’s down to honey-tongued Scott Hutchison.

As singer and creative doyen of Frightened Rabbit, the Selkirk native’s broad Scottish burr makes sport of the heartache of youth; from broken hearts to lost loves and all of Cupid’s treachery in between, this young Rabbit’s got a grasp of the emotional and no mistake.

After a year living with the runaway success of 2008’s The Midnight Organ Fight, Scott has been holed up in Fife demoing tracks for the band’s as-yet-untitled follow-up record, which promises to be every bit as magical as fans would expect – but there are hints that the lyrical emphasis may be in for a shift.

It’s no secret that Scott has harvested his own experiences for his astonishingly personal lyrics – but he is the first to admit that he didn’t forsee the sheer audience for his angst.

He explains: “I did expose myself. When I wrote those songs, we didn’t really have much of a fanbase at all, and then all of a sudden your album’s released and all these thoughts that were put down in your bedroom onto a cassette tape are now completely public.”

From the adolescent ankle-sock drama of a bedsit balladeer to featuring on youth-orientated Channel 4 shows – that was some transition.

“Yeah, I don’t think it would have been possible to make it that personal if we had known that it would end up on the soundtrack to Hollyoaks.” He laughs. … Continue Reading

Part two of our exclusive chat with The Specials!

Paul meets The Specials

Here’s the second half of our interview with The Specials. Click here if you haven’t read the other bit!

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Part one of our exclusive chat with The Specials!

Paul meets The Specials

On Monday 4th May 2009, legendary band THE SPECIALS were preparing for the second consecutive show at the Manchester Apollo on their 30th Anniversary Reunion Tour. Muso’s Guide’s very own Paul Wilson met up with guitarist Lynval Golding and drummer John Bradbury for an exclusive interview on everything from their chequered past to the bright outlook for a ‘Special’ future; read on to find out more.

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Meet Kojo the Comedian

Kojo

If laughing grants you a longer life then be prepared to live for an eternity.

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The Maccabees – Wall Of Arms

The Maccabees - Wall Of Arms

The Maccabees’ debut album Colour It In, released in 2007, featured some sterling tunes but was perhaps a bit too derivative for its own good: drawing on influences like XTC and Gang of Four, the Brighton-based  five-piece were late contributors to the then-fading post-punk revival that had been instigated by bands like Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads, Dogs Die In Hot Cars and Bloc Party. Still, there was plenty of potential evident in their jerky, energetic compositions and singer Orlando Weeks’ trembling  vocals had a distinctive charm of their own.

The release of ‘No Kind Words’ a few weeks back indicated a change of direction: the vocals sounded meaner, the guitars more menacing, the atmosphere more charged and tense, while the similarly dark lyrics alluded to infidelity (“Dear friend of mine is testing his body/Tempting disaster/Testing water with another’s daughter”). It seemed that slightly twee ditties about toothpaste kisses were firmly a thing of the past.

Wall Of Arms’ opening track, ‘Love You Better’ doesn’t dispel the notion, but it’s not quite in the same vein as ‘No Kind Words’ (included here) either: it’s an earnest, impassioned, ‘big’ sounding composition; steadily and deliberately paced, its echoing guitars and reverbed vocals build a sense of anticipation as the song swells into a brass-propelled crescendo. It also proves to be more representative of the album as a whole. On paper, that sounds like the kind of thing that’s going to have many people running back to their Animal Collective records: the world certainly doesn’t lack for fervent, well-meaning guitar bands at this point in time, and being subjected to ‘soul-stirring’ music from the likes of Editors, Snow Patrol or Razorlight over the last few years is enough to make Metal Machine Music sound like a merciful alternative. Nevertheless, the Maccabees bring a pleasing lightness of touch to the formula, avoiding the overblown pompousness that sunk An End Has a Start or the insufferable mawkishness that did for Snow Patrol’s last two records.

Many reviewers have already made copious references to Arcade Fire, and it’s not hard to see why: Weeks’ tremulous, impassioned warbling is highly reminiscent of Win Butler’s style, and the wordless choral vocals on songs like ‘Dinosaurs’ and the title track have the stamp of Funeral all over them. It’s probably no coincidence that the album is produced by Markus Dravs, who also worked on Neon Bible: the intro to ‘Young Lions’, indeed, is a dead ringer for that album’s title track.

Musically, however, it’s less complex and ambitious than all the Arcade Fire comparisons might suggest. ‘One Hand Holding’ is driven along by a limber bassline and a guitar riff almost as catchy as the “Why would you kill it before it dies?” chorus, the exuberant ‘Can You Give It’ will probably prove a live favourite with its bouncy rhythm and handclap-friendly outro, while ‘Wall of Arms’ has enough off-kilter charm about it to overcome its painfully obvious influences.

Overall, it’s enjoyable stuff, if hardly in danger of pushing any envelopes. It might be a stretch to call it essential, but we’d be quite happy to hear this blaring out of car windows come the hot summer days.

KiD BRiTiSH: the future of ska?

Paul meets KiD BRiTiSH

Fresh off the stage after supporting The Specials, Muso’s Guide caught up with James Mayer and Adio Marchant from the band for a quick chat…

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