News, Plans and General Prattle 2009

20. 12. 2009

Back in London, it was straight back on the train - to Bristol. Massive Attack will release a brilliant new album in February - I had an informative as well as friendly chat about it with 3D.

The next day, Tuesday, brought an excellent surprise. Musik Express had wanted me to attend a performance by the young LA band Local Natives. The prospect didn't seem overly attractive, I must say, since all the write-ups I came across before hearing a note of their music compared them to Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend. As it happens, I can't stand either of these bands (no, really, I find them very nearly as repulsive as French band Phoenix, who since their debut album have been my benchmark for measuring awfulness in modern music). As I said, the lunchtime launch concert at Ronnie Scott's (not been there in years - still looks practically the same) showed them to be ace singers; the interview a few hours later outed them as enthusiastic and interesting people, and an acoustic show on a boat a few more hours later proved that they are a powerful band indeed, even without their full range of electric gear. Since then, their debut album has grown mightily on me, too.

Two days later, on Thursday, another train journey, this time to Woking. In a village nearby, Paul Weller has set up his recording studio, and here Scottish singer/songwriter Amy Macdonald ("Mc Donald" on the studio's wallplanner) has recorded most of her new, second album. Snow everywhere, idyllic English views, too. But neither sandwiches nor biscuits or anything else apart from the occasional tea were forthcoming during my five-hour stay to listen to five of the new tracks and talk to Amy. My, how some record companies are poverty-stricken nowadays! Needless to say, the vague promise/hope that Weller himself might show up was not fulfilled. Either way, Macdonald's new album is dead catchy.

And now it's the accounts, in preparation of a trip to Taunton where the accountant, extremely unflappable Sue McDonald, lives and works

13. 12. 2009

Switzerland was notable for two discoveries. Firstly, having pretty much run out of Andrea Camilleri novels to read, I discovered another stupendous Italian thriller writer, Valerio Varesi, merely by looking at the names on the spines on the "crime" shelf in the Buchhandlung im Volkshaus. Yes, I am a firm believer in the maxim "do judge a book by the name on its cover". I'm already halfway through my third Varesi, and all have been tremendous, particularly "Der Nebelfluss. Commissario Soneri sucht eine Leiche" - a dense evocation of a wintery River Po, in which all sorts of skeletons are dragged from the cupboard of local WW2 politics.

The second discovery took place in the same building the bookshop is housed in, Volkshaus (the venue, by the way, where I saw my first non-oompah-band-concerts - the very fist being Quintessence supported by Lol Coxhill). Drawn in by a rather amateurish looking poster I wandered in to sample the atmosphere of a "Record Collectors' Fair". Quite incredible. A gloomy refuge for dusty-looking middle-aged men with pouches, facial hair in all the wrong places, and bulbous noses. Or the exact opposite, bean-poles with massive ears behind which cigarettes were stuck, or spliffs or pencils. The fervour of these collectors was impressive. More than once I was simply shouldered aside when I took too long over the "Progressive Rock" box. Actually, they were quite within their rights, these followers of the God "Yes". They were indeed on a mission - whereas I was flicking through the old sleeves only to amuse myself and to remind myself of the strange iconography of ancient pop times. Actually, I did buy a record. Vinyl, of course. "Wrecked Again", an album by the wonderful Michael Chapman that I once possessed and stupidly flogged.

One frosty evening I also made my way to Steffisburg near Thun. This, on the invitation of Thomas "Chappu" Käppeli who has set up his "King of Pop Museum" here in a restaurant called Brasserie 98. Thomas had sent me an invitation to the opening of this museum earlier in the year, but I wasn't in Switzerland at the time and couldn't go. Their website - http://www.king-of-pop-museum.ch/ - left a somewhat baffling impression, I have to admit. The reality was utterly different from what I had expected. I was welcomed and charmingly fussed over not only by Thomas and his wife, but also Franz-Urs, the restauranteur, and his family. Thomas's life story complete with near-death experience would have been exceptional enough even if he had never met Michael Jackson personally. But he did, the two became friends, and Thomas has all the photos to prove it, including MJ and TK together in in the back of MJ's car. These, and a few dozen items like gold discs, exclusive, photos, rare special edition releases, jackets, contracts, signed serviettes etc make up the exhibition. Thomas's stories came thick, fast and emotional. Without a doubt, I will go back for more. More food and drink, too. Over a couple of rounds of first class Grappa, Franz-Urs, aka Francesco, dropped more than one strategic hint that he, too, might have a few interesting tales to tell. One, in the shape of a book he had produced himself, he has already given me as a going-away present: a beautifully presented history of juke-box manufacture in Switzerland, Franz Urs Linder, "Swiss Jukebox Art - Die Geschichte der Schweizer Musikautomaten", published in the early 90s - and still available from the author whose picture - if I'm not very much mistaken - appears in the book on the sleeves of singles by Spiders Jet Set (a cover version of "Monja") as well as Hausi Straub & The Hobby Ranchers.

2. 12. 2009

Off to Zurich. In my bag is a fine pile of new CDs. As usual, I will take these along to Radio DRS3 for a special edition of their daily evening music program "Sounds" on Tuesday, December 8th. Back in London on December 12th.

Lightspeed Champion, pix knicked

30. 11. 2009

A whole batch of interviews and PR encounters in the last few days. First was Corinne Bailey Rae who showed in a showcase at the newly done up Tabernacle in Notting Hill that her new songs are a bit beefier and more diverse than those on her somewhat over-polite debut. It wasn't easy to interview her about it, though, seeing that questions about one of the main subjects of the album, the death of her husband, weren't allowed (a chap from EMI sat in on the interview and made sure).

Next was the Pope, or rather one of the composers who have framed some of his sermons and speeches in music, Simon Boswell. Boswell is mainly known for his many soundtracks, but he was once a member of the power pop troupe Advertising to which also belonged my drumming friend Paul Bultitude. It just so happens that I own a copy of their one album, "Jingles" (naturally), which I brought along to my meeting with Mr Boswell. As I showed it to the Universal Records press chap Ed Scott, he chuckled a little and pointed out that the very same Bultitude was now working in his department at Universal. Even stranger, on the same evening I did actually run into Paul - he was directing events at a small Paul McCartney press do to support the release of a live CD and DVD. It was a strange event (nothing to do with Paul, though). After a few morcels of handfood and short showing of the highlights of the DVD, Macca was interviewed very gently, occasionally wittily, by Big Brother-co-presenter Dermot O'Leary who I'd last seen looking baffled after Michael Jackson had run off after four minutes at his O2 presentation. In-between there were pre-arranged questions from a select crew of continental journalists. Jesus Christ, what a bunch of showers! The questions ranged from "when you perform live, is the spirit of the Beatles still with you?" to "what Beatles song would you recommend to introduce the band to a 7 year old child?"

Much more satisfying, inspiring even, was an encounter with Lightspeed Champion, aka, Dev Hynes. His second album is out early next year and it's excellent. After having recorded a whole album with Van Dyke Parks (the release of which has been indefinitely postponed) Dev has now also mastered the art of arrangement and delivers an album full of unexpected turns and corners. His palette of his interests is large - he turns out, for instance, to be an expert in all matters Patricia Highsmith.

Also highly enjoyable was an encounter with Kieron Hebden, aka Four Tet, to talk about his dancey new album "There Is Love In You", due at the end of January. Listening to it I was reminded again and again of Anthony More's "Pieces From Cloudland Ballroom", a minimalist masterpiece from 1971, very much in the mode of the Krautrock electronica pioneers of the time. Hebden, however, had never heard of the album or the artist.

23. 11. 2009

A truly memorable weekend - short hop to Beijing. The company was great (Mark Cooper from the BBC, his wife Sian Davies, Ian Ashbridge from Wrasse Records, journalist David Hutcheon), the hotel so fantastic that all traces of travelling fatigue instantly disappeared (The Opposite House, www.theoppositehouse.com). The reason for the trip was a showcase by, and an interview with local singer Sa Dingding, a kind of Chinese Björk with spectacular, self-designed clothes and a neat line in pop with a dose of Chinese tradition and a hint of eletronica. Before the showcase I ran into the clutches of a local TV crew who wanted to know why everyone abroad made such a fuss over this singer whilst in China she was "virtually unknown". Naturally, I had absolutely no clue how to answer this.

Since both the showcase (impressive) and the interview (somewhat difficult, since the room was full of Universal China employees, and the whole thing was filmed) took place late in the day, we had time for a wander through the Forbidden City (a strange mixture of deeply impressive and oddly impermanent, tacky even) to Tiananmen Square where we hung around in sub-zero temperatures to await the daily removal of the Chinese flag at sunset. A funny little ritual, executed by a well-drilled company of post-Maoist soldiers, and witnessed by exclusively Chinese tourists. The next day we took a 1 1/2 hour taxi trip to the foot of the Great Wall of China. Since it wasn't the tourist season, and the temperatures were positively arctic, there weren't many people walking the Wall either, making for a wonderful few hours enjoying the views over a vast expanse of mountains. We even managed to go to a local indie club (every detail down to the black walls and the blasé cool punters exactly the same as in a London indie club) to see a local post-Goth-indie-girl singer, The Brilliant Gia. What we saw was intriguing, half-exotic, half-familiar - although, having purchased Gia's album I suspect we were a little lucky to arrive in time just to catch her last song.

I'd been looking forward to seeing some antique cars in the roads of Beijing, but I was sadly disappointed. Not a single car seemed to be older than five years, just as no building - even in the suburbs we were passing on the way to the Wall - seemed to be older than ten years. The food was a surprise, too. In three days I must have tasted twice as many of completely new flavours and textures as during the past fifteen years. I'm not sure I don't actually prefer the London version of Chinese to the authentic Beijing variant. Too pungent were some of the flavours, too indefinable for comfort some of the textures. And I couldn't get used to seeing turtles and the gigantically phallic geoducks in the fishtanks of restaurants, nor the battered frogs pictured on the menu. Oh, and I didn't know the Chinese were such fierce hagglers. What a splendid trip!

14. 11. 2009

Leona Lewis at the Hackney Empire frankly was rather uninspiring. A woman who can undoubtedly hit every note quite perfectly but doesn't quite know herself why she bothers. The songs are an assemblage of clichees from the toolbox of American Pop R&B. The way she stands on stage, feet wide apart, backside stuck out, holding the microphone as if it was an ice cream, dripping, somehow made me think of a cart horse.

The weekend brought a walk in the countryside, near Ware in Hertfordshire. Rather idyllic, complete with herds of squawking pheasants in the oundergrowth. Until, as it was getting dark, we came past a swish bungalow with a large garden, including a pond. Of course, we heard the banging noises, we could even smell the gun powder. It turned out that the bungalow's inhabitants and their pals, a bunch of bouncer types dressed in black, took a delight in attracting geese to the pond with their goose-whistles, just to shoot them out of the sky from a distance of, oh, ten yards, just as the they decended on the pond. One of the dead geese lay directly by the footpath. As we waited for a couple of stragglers to catch up with us, one of the bouncers told us in no uncertain terms to move on, "plea-SE!" Bloody ignorant thugs.

On Monday I interviewed, first, one of the actors who plays a zombie at the London Bridge Experience, followed by These New Puritans. I didn't like their first album very much - it seemed a little cerebral, a little cold, spidery in the post-Gang of Four-way that was fashionable when it came out. Their new one, however, out early next year, is incredible. The band have learnt to arrange woodwind, brass and strings, and the outcome is brilliant. What makes their use of these extra instruments - for the recording of which they travelled to Prague - so different is the fact that they don't just slop them on a series of conventional rock compositions. Rather, everything, guitars, beats etc and extras, is of one cloth, tightly meshed in and quite clichee-free.

William Drake

Foster & Gilvan

31. 10. 2009

What a splendid gig last night at the Luminaire, thanks to Rob (http://www.oppositiont.co.uk/) who called at the last minute and caught me at a loose end for the evening.

Foster & Gilvan started off proceedings. A duo of clowns - Gilvan the singer, Foster on a succession of banjos, ukuleles and squeeze boxes - they performed their very funny songs without amplification in the middle of the floor. Riveting. Next up were The Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra - thirty musicians on a stage that normally holds about six - seven violins at least, trumpet, trombone, tuba, flute, cor anglais, oboe - and even a full-size harp, and everything held together by singer, acordionist and pianist Martin White. They, too, performed story songs which, of course, sounded all the more dramatic thanks to the spectacular line-up and remarkably tight playing. The most amusing was the "national anthem" of a flea ("one nation on one dog").

Top of the bill was William D. Drake. Had I ever followed The Cardiacs this wouldn't have been a new name to me, but I hadn't (which I now regret), and so it was. Accompanied by James Larcombe on keyboards as well as hurdy-gurdy, and an excellent female singer whose name I didn't catch, Drake sat at his piano and performed songs whose fiendishly tight and complex arrangements were halfway between poppy chanson and the repetitive minimalism of contemporary music (Drake is also a member of contemporary music ensemble North Sea Radio Orchestra). Gripping stuff - and a wonderful evening all round. Cheers, Rob!

28. 10. 2009

Always the same: nothing really happens for weeks, and then all of a sudden there's millions of interviews and even more deadlines to deal with. Thus, in the last fortnight I've met The Priests (an interesting diversion, seeing that church music isn't usually my bag), Fujiya & Miyagi (only by phone, unfortunately, and specifically on the subject of Krautrock; I did also find out, however, that the group will spend November in the USA to record their new album with producer Thom Monahan who´s worked with Devendra Banhart and Au Revoir Simone, amongst many others), Smokey Robinson (in fine shape and form), Ian Brown (same as Smokey), Jamie Cullum (same as Ian), and, finally, Owen Pallett aka Final Fantasy. The Final Fantasy album, by the way, is quite amazing. It doesn´t quite sound like anything I´ve heard before, an often quite dissonant and rhythmically interesting fusion of contemporary chamber music mixed with poppy melodies and intriguing lyrics. Pallett is otherwise known as an arranger on albums by Arcade Fire, The Last Shadow Puppets, The Hidden Cameras and many more.