Jarvis – Further Complications
Jarvis - Further Complications
It’s just not a very conceivable story, is it? This man playing basically the whole 1980s in an unsuccessful band, being on the dole to boot.
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Classic album: Kenickie – At The Club
Kenickie - At The Club
So it’s early 1997. Oasis are a matter of months away from strapping Britpop to their motorbike and heaving its tired carcass over the metaphorical shark. Blur have already evolved their way out of the scene by indulging their Pavement fantasies on their eponymous classic. And Kenickie, with characteristically disastrous timing are about to unleash their debut album At The Club.
Blur announce two intimate charity dates
Blur
As a warm-up for their massive, huge, gigantic, showstopping shows, Blur have announceD a duo of intimate club shows to raise money for charidee.
These fan club only dates were announce this morning at blur.co.uk, and will come before the band’s appearances at Hyde Park, the MEN Arena, Oxegen, T In The Park and Glastonbury.
On June 13, they will be making a return to the East Anglian Railway Museum, the venue of their first ever gig. The proceeds will go to the Aldham Village Hall Restoration Project and the museum itself. … Continue Reading
The Bluetones – Expecting To Fly (Expanded Edition)
The Bluetones - Expecting To Fly
There’s a heavy weight bearing down on bands when it comes to naming début albums.
It could make people pick up or turn away – it could make the difference between a lasting career or a brief day basking in the warming sun of musical success.
The Bluetones’ 1996 début was named Expecting To Fly, which spoke more volumes about the band than they could have with their music.
It was a record that tied up their fearful ‘dare to hope’ attitude with a small amount of self-assurance, well-placed in their understanding that they had talent, dammit, and people would see that.
And they did, for a time. Expecting To Fly fired Oasis’ (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? from the number one spot, which was a grand measure of popularity indeed. … Continue Reading
Mark Morriss – I’m Sick
Mark Morriss - Sick
Remember when Britannia ruled
and everyone wanted to be photographed in 10 Downing Street?
Blur are officially BACK!
Blur - Blur
No word of lie, Blur have announced a reunion date – and all four will be in attendance when the super-duper amazing generation-definers unite at London’s Hyde Park on Friday 3 July 2009.
Talking Heads #2 – The much-maligned return of Oasis
Nat: Don’t know if I’m feeling overly pissed off today but I’ve been pondering Oasis – what is their point? I summon them to a different kind of awful because of their boundlessly high self-congratulation. Which is surely way out of line considering that all they’ve managed is seven albums’ of two-and-a-half-chord, everything-will-be-alright-in-the-end, McCartney-siphoning dirge. Go on, Gallaghers, get back to the quarter-full pub you came from – it was a miracle you made the lesser-minded minions succumb en masse in the first place.
Kula Shaker
Academy 2, Manchester – 06.10.2007
Cast your mind back, if you will, to the summer of 1996. In the aftermath of The Battle of Britpop, a new band emerged in a haze of psychedelia and incense. But after two rampaging rock albums laced with sitars and Sanskrit, as we welcomed in the millennium we bid farewell to Kula Shaker.
Seven years on and Kula Shaker’s return is yet to make an impact on many. For the benefit of those whose reaction to this interview is, “They’re still around?”, I launch into my questions with:
Muso’s Guide: So you’ve been away for a while, how does it feel to be touring again? (unfortunately directed at new member Henry ‘Harry’ Broadbent who discreetly reminds me he’s never been away).
Alonza Bevan (bassist): It’s marvellous but we’ve been back together for a couple of years now.
Muso’s Guide: How, then, has the reformation of one of the biggest British bands of the nineties passed so many by?
Alonza Bevan: We’ve been building it up very gradually, we just wanted to play live and find our pockets again. So we’ve been doing that, trying to write new songs and playing them live in the last couple of years.
The band’s attempts to keep their return quiet included playing a small pub in Leighton Buzzard under the guise of The Garcons, although blackboards outside saying “Kula Shaker live tonight†may have given them away. However, I find staying under the radar for so long while perfecting the third album Strangefolk far more encouraging than churning out any old crap to cash in on a come-back.
Muso’s Guide: What do Kula Shaker think of today’s music scene, and is there still a place for you ten years on?
Alonza Bevan: It has changed, but we’ve still got loud guitars.
‘Harry’ Broadbent: Yes, guitars, drums, bass – we fit in perfectly. We never fitted in back then though, that’s the thing. We were never mad for it!
Muso’s Guide: Alonza, you don’t seem happy about being placed in the Britpop category back then – are you mad for it now?
Alonza Bevan: Maybe a little bit. Maybe we’re a bit more mad now.
Madness must pay off as Strangefolk is more than just a comeback album, it’s a masterpiece in its own right. It has the anthemic qualities of K, a bit less of the experimentalism of Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts but the added wisdom and experience of an older, more mature lyricist.
Muso’s Guide: The track that really intrigues me is ‘Song of Love/Narayana’, and I think to myself, have Kula Shaker covered The Prodigy?
Alonza Bevan: We did a collaboration with The Prodidgy and when Crispian originally sang and wrote those lyrics it was for another piece of music. Then cleverly, with their technology, they swapped it around so the voice was on another piece of music, so we swapped it back again and took the original music, and then he changed his vocal line on it!
Muso’s Guide: We’re confused!
Crispian Mills (frontman): Re-write mash up.
Alonza Bevan: It’s a good moment, big massive mantras, we love that.
That is, of course, what Kula Shaker are known best for, entire songs written in Sanskrit, combining traditional British rock with psychedelic visions and their use of Eastern mysticism and instrumentation. So I half expected them to want to explain hidden spiritual messages in their music, and was taken by surprise by their light-heartedness.
‘Harry’ Broadbent: I like the hippy second half of the album…’Fool That I Am’, that’s my current favourite.
This common misconception that Kula Shaker take themselves too seriously may have been the reason for the softly softly approach of their comeback. There is a more laid-back delivery of Mills’ political attacks in the new material, and with comic delights such as ‘Great Dictator’, there is also a real sense of fun. The live show is no exception, as Kula Shaker are preceded by Dr Joel, a south Indian vocal percussionist who must be seen to be believed, putting a packed Academy Two into incredibly high spirits (or is that just the incense?).
Kula Shaker enter the stage, sharply dressed in tailored suits, to a series of clips from cult movies, which have also been a source of inspiration in their latest videos. And then psychedelic rock n roll fills the venue and old meets new as ‘Hey Dude’ slots in perfectly next to ‘Out on the Highway’. For anyone who had forgotten Kula Shaker it’s a real wake up call to how bloody good they were! In the middle of all the madness, Crispian strums the opening to ‘Shower Your Love’ for a truly spiritual hands in the air type moment, a chill out tune to rival ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.
Crispian commands the stage and works his magic not just as a performer, but a conductor, a great dictator and spiritual leader. For the final song, the band begin an eastern sounding build up and you know it could only be ‘Govinda’. As Crispian sings the Sanskrit lyrics, he conducts the audience with fascinating flowing arm movements until, as if by some miracle, everyone in the Academy is singing in a foreign tongue.
Welcome back to the cult of Kula Shaker.
The Bluetones, Holmfirth Picturedrome
Picturedrome, Holmfirth – 22.09.2006
For those of you unfamiliar with settlements in West Yorkshire, let me explain. Holmfirth is an idyllic place not very far from Huddersfield, and is widely-known as the place where Last Of The Summer Wine was filmed. Not too far from Sid’s Cafe, Hounslow’s The Bluetones were playing in a working, albeit antiquated, cinema.
The venue was unique enough for the band to comment on it; as they stood on the stage in front of the cinema screen, the audience squashed into a small standing space at the front, or sat in the worn old rows of cinema chairs. Mark Morriss and his band have been around so long that they barely raise an eyebrow in most circles, except for those who are surprised that they are still together.
The Bluetones suffer from a problem that is faced by many, many established bands: the need to get the new music across to an audience who have come to hear the old stuff. Morriss is almost apologetic in his cause, and promises to play some classics within the set. We are even treated to ‘Slight Return’, a song that the band vowed never to play again a few years back.
The songs from the new album sound like The Bluetones always have, and present songwriting qualities that show what has kept them in the business all these years. Their Britpop stylings are still obvious in new single ‘My Neighbour’s House’, which goes down well, as do the glut of old singles: ‘If’, ‘Solomon Bites The Worm’, ‘Keep The Home Fires Burning’ and encore closer ‘Bluetonic’.
Morriss coos “I don’t love you anymore” in the song of the same name, taken from their forthcoming self-titled album.
The question is, how can you fail to love The Bluetones?
Rosemary – London’s new Suburban Kings
Rosemary’s ever-popular MySpace page informs the reader that the band are a “Retro yet modern London 3-piece”. In the internet world, where ‘hyperspace’ can be a literal term, this description is surprisingly bang on the note.
The first moot point when listening to any new band is that inevitable question: “Who do they sound like?” Well, for the record, Rosemary sound like an English pop-rock band; English in the way that Morrissey, The Jam or The Kinks are, for example. You know the word: quintessential.
Their debut single ‘Suburban Kings’ is a gallivanting pop-trip, much in the mould of Supergrass (think ‘Mansize Rooster’ for the rhythm section). Singer Tim Hill’s gravelly vocal is set off at delicious counterpoint with bassist Martin Brett’s honeyed response. It’s lovely and summery, and you can’t help but hope that Rosemary don’t remain as understated as Supergrass have in their decade in the business.
As a mission statement, ‘Suburban Kings’ may well sum up Rosemary’s sound and intentions. It has the simple but potent chord patterns that The Beatles used in songs like ‘I Feel Fine’, and intersperses some edgier chord changes in the manner of The Buzzcocks – always putting harmony first. But it could be hasty to make conclusions on this band from their first offering. Something tells me that the inevitable album will be a relishing and even more revealing prospect. Indeed, the buzz around their first release has led to it selling out.
The band have been on tour practically non-stop for almost two years, as the gigography on their website shows. This incessant gigging has clearly gone some way to creating the tight sound of the band, which will stand them in good stead and promises for an exciting live prospect.
You can catch Rosemary playing live at the following places:
Sep 21 2006: (DJ SET) Suburban Kings Clubnight Tap n Tin, Chatham
Sep 29 2006: PURE GROOVE CLUB NIGHT, London
Oct 11 2006: Club NME, Leicester
Oct 12 2006: Buff Club, Glasgow
Oct 13 2006: Reach Out and F*** Somebody Clubnight, Telford
Oct 19 2006: Suburban Kings Club Night Tap n Tin, Chatham
Nov 10 2006: Lucorum – supporting Bromheads Jacket, Barnsley
For more information, and to listen to the band, please visit their www.myspace.com/rosemarymusic
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