About this time last year Findo Gask were, in my opinion, just about the most promising band in Scotland. Their unusual take on electro disco pop seemed to appeal to the indie kids as much as to the dancefloor, and with Vic Galloway and Muslim Alim putting them forward as one of two recommended Scottish bands for the BBC Introducing slots at Glastonbury they seemed to be gaining real momentum.
Personally I love their first two singles, Va Va Va and One Eight Zero, and they are a band I would actually have loved to have on the label, but they seemed to be doing so well by the Spring of 2010 that I was unlikely to have ever asked them because despite being unsigned I thought they had probably progressed beyond us already.
Then, around April, they suddenly announced that they were to split. This wasn’t entirely out of the blue – I had heard fairly wispy rumours to that effect before – but it seemed so incongruous: they seemed just on the verge of genuinely achieving something.
Nevertheless, there it was. They said that their intention was to finish their debut album, release it, and then walk away, in a similar move to the recent announcement by Edinburgh’s Come On Gang!
I suppose it’s no surprise that the album shows absolutely no signs of materialising, all motivation presumably dissipating as the band’s members involve themselves in other projects. I still consider it a massive shame though, as I was a big fan of the band, to the extent that we interviewed them at Homegame last year, up in Fife.
I’ve been embarrassingly tardy editing the video together. As I suppose must have been the case with the album, once the split was announced it just never seemed pressing, with so many other things to do. But as some sort of obituary I thought I should post a short film of the interview (above) and then a couple of song videos (below), two from their full set on the Friday night and then two from their acoustic performance the next morning in the Hew Scott Hall.
So cheers lads, and good luck for the future. I still wish I could have heard that record.
Before seeing the band perform for the last time ever at Sneaky Pete’s last week, I had the chance to sit down for a chat with Owen Ashworth from Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. This is his last tour as Casiotone, but this is not for the purposes of retiring from music, more so that he can put to bed a project which has dominated the last thirteen years of his life and start work on new projects with relative freedom.
It was interesting listening to him talk about it, because for all he repeated the reasons he’s given about not being the same person anymore, and it feeling a little false to sing songs in his thirties which were written when he was in his twenties and in a completely different place emotionally, it seemed that the actual constrictions and demands generated by the success of the band played an equally important role in his deciding it was time to move on to new projects.
Have a watch of the video above for edited highlights from the interview, and below we have a couple of live videos from the performance. I’d forgotten, I have to confess, just how much I love the Casiotone material, until I heard about this tour and went back to listen to it all over again. It really is incredibly intimate and organic for music made entirely on machines, and I ended up buying three of his records on 12″ before end of the show. When the live element is being retired, all we’ll be left with will be the artifacts.
Homegame this year was a distinctly danceable affair for me. Not that I did dance (I wasn’t that drunk) but the bands I enjoyed the most were the ones like Findo Gask and Django Django who are most definitely very friendly to those of the dancing persuasion. I had to miss Silver fucking Columns though, because it clashed with the Cold Seeds gig which, being a record released on our label, I really had to attend.
Homegame was in fact the first ever Silver Columns gig, and Johnny and Adem were nice enough to sit down with us on the morning of the show, give us a cup of tea* and chat a bit about their new project. Listening to the live footage, I think this is going to be a cracking album. I know I’m much more into my whiney folk at the moment, but stuff like this serves to remind me that my Mum raised us with Erasure, ABC, Bronski Beat, Duran Duran and Depeche Mode, so it’s not like infectious dancefloor electro-pop is a massive stranger to my ears.
Many thanks are due to Dylan for filming both the interview and the gig. The title shots for each video are taken from his photos from the gig, the full set of which can be found over at Blueback Hotrod.
*Alright, it was Lapsang Souching with milk, but I appreciate the thought.
[Click on the images to enlarge them, and go to Blueback Hotrod to view the full set. I'd like to say a big thank you to Dylan for filming the interview and for letting me use his photos, both for this post and for the titles for the videos.]
He is also one of the nicest, most unassuming people I have ever met – just a complete gent from start to finish. I am far from an experienced interviewer, and his readiness to chip in, to participate, and to make the conversation worth everyone’s while turned what could potentially have been quite an awkward half hour into a genuine pleasure. Maybe that’s why he’s such an engaging performer – he always puts enough of himself into the show to make the interaction worth his and his audience’s while.
Listening to Vlautin’s songs, they are brought vividly to life by what is an understated, but nevertheless phenomenal talent for finding the important detail which turns his broad-brush vistas into crystal-clear snapshots of people and places you can almost smell, they’re so real.
I wonder if it’s his genuine sympathy and interest which allows him to spot that kind of detail, and to communicate it so cleanly. It’s hard to describe what’s so special about the way he does it, too. He’s observant, and can be harsh, but never in a judgmental sense. If ever what he describes comes across as harsh, he manages to do it in a sense that implies somehow that he still has great love for his characters, and it is simply reality which is mean-spirited. Even describing a van he bought which clapped out five hours out of the lot he imbues the tale with a kind of pathos: “I don’t know what happened to that poor van. It liked me I think; it just didn’t want to drive any more.”
When he talks to me about how he builds his stories, he tells me that there may be a great deal of reality in there but it’s completely jumbled up, although you’d never guess it. He doesn’t write to expose or to finger point, more as a way of imagining away the injustices and misfortunes of life either for himself or the people he writes about.
In fact, for someone whose stories can be so stark, and whose characters so intensely observational, he is at considerable pains to avoid either being voyeuristic or taking advantage of someone else’s misfortunes, explaining how he’ll exaggerate situations, extrapolate greatly from small moments to create the chains of events which provide the backbone to his plot, and break up and bury the literal observations under layers of new characters, new places and new consequences.
The catharsis, he tells me, is still the same. Just because the feeling is caused by different circumstances and happening to a very different person, doesn’t mean that demon isn’t exorcised – as long as the heart of it is there, it’s still the same.
I was a little nervous going into this interview not to cross any lines by talking about Vlautin’s books or his music either too much or too little; preferring to try and let him define how much separation he wanted to keep between the two. It turns out that boundary barely exists, however.
During the interview he tells me about how his latest book, Lean On Pete, was what happened when he sat down and started writing a story which had begun as a song which didn’t really work. Songs like The Disappearance of Ray Norton from Thirteen Cities remained as songs, but ended up being spoken word because he just couldn’t get the story he wanted to tell to fit into a traditional song format.
The band have been together for fifteen years, and the obvious consonance between them as musicians seems to flow from that openness to other people, and the performance itself is full of that spirit. I love an awful lot of Richmond Fontaine’s music, but there are definitely times when it’s not entirely my cup of tea. Live, though, the generosity of Vlautin and his friends has so much impact that I found myself drawn in by the warmth they project and even loving the songs I hadn’t enjoyed as much on record.
It was a lovely evening in general, and the interview was so interesting that I am going to publish it in its entirety as a podcast in the next couple of weeks so you can all hear it for yourselves. I’ll intersperse the conversation with the songs which get mentioned, and I absolutely defy anyone not to be captivated.
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These videos were taken when I interviewed Wild Beasts for Fresh Air Radio a little while ago, and I thought you might be interested in seeing them. Ben (the wee chap on the left) has a fucking amazing voice.
The Fresh Air broadcast is about to start up actually, and it looks like I am going to get a Wednesday evening slot – hopefully around half six or seven – so watch out for that in the coming weeks. In fact there’s actually a launch party in the big swanky-looking Uni building thing on Bristo square (Teviot, is it?) on Tuesday. The beer’s fucking cheap so please come along and help kick things off with a degree of drunken debauchery.
I’ll admit before I start writing this review that I am oddly ambivalent about Wild Beasts, and that this gig didn’t entirely cure that. Some of their songs I absolutely love, a couple are just a little too weird, and a couple don’t quite light the fireworks. For the most part though, I really like them, and this performance generally cemented that impression.
Interviewing them beforehand for Fresh Air Radio was interesting too. Apart from the fact that they came across as incredibly nice, down to earth guys, it was interesting to hear about the emotional state which led to some of the wilder aspects of their music. Originating in the bustling metropolis of Kendal*, they decided to make the move to Leeds specifically to take a chance on their music careers.
Consequently, according to the band, a lot of the desperation in the howls and yelps on Limbo Panto was just that: a shrill proclamation of their existence. The risk they took to arrive in a new city and try to make themselves heard in an already bustling music scene drove them to extremes, and you can hear it in the album, which has a kind of manic, dark energy to it. Follow up, Two Dancers, is mellower and less ragged, with the band now achieving consistent recognition and admitting to consciously taking it a little easier on their audience.
Nevertheless, the transition from being a band who had to shout just to be heard to a band enthusiastically pimped by the NME and one who are now as cavalierly dismissed as being good as they were previously just cavalierly dismissed has been a little weird for them. They have only just taken the next big risk: that of becoming full-time musicians. This is a terrifying time for any band, because it’s a circular dilemma. The only way to become full-time musicians is to take the chance and just do it, because without devoting that kind of time and energy to it, you can’t make it work well enough to justify the decision in the first place. And even then it might not work. But basically the only way is to just do it and take the chance and in the current music industry, where no-one really knows where the money is coming from, that’s a big risk – something of which the band are acutely aware.
I can’t really tell whether that newfound confidence which they describe as being present on the album has transmitted in any way to their live performance. They do strut confidently on stage, but the fourth wall is generally left intact. Ben talks to the crowd occasionally and a little uncomfortably but Hayden, chatty, thoughtful and sincere during the interview, tends to stay hidden behind a wall of hair. He has already admitted that he finds the recent increase in demand for live acoustic sessions to be a rather trying because it is a little too personal, and a little too unforgiving, when he would rather keep a little distance between the performer and the person.
On stage you can see that quite clearly, although they aren’t as theatrical or as flamboyant as you might expect. In fact they’re a pretty straighforward four-piece: drums, bass and two guitars with a bit of keyboard thrown in from time to time, when called for. The real difference comes with the math-rock flavoured drumming, the simple but brilliant guitar riffs and the interplay between the two lead vocalists.
As my gig companion Morgan said, it’s weird to see a group switch lead singer mid-set, because it fundamentally changes what you perceive to be the character of the band. I suppose we tend to project a lot of the musical emotion onto the singer, and having to shift that to someone else after three songs is quite strange. Having said that, the interplay between Ben and Hayden’s voices is amazing, and is just about my favourite aspect of their music. One is wild and pleading, the other more vulnerable and sympathetic and that seems to be the dynamic of the music itself. Wild Beasts are simultaneously fractious and vulnerable, and that contradiction is probably what I find so engaging about them, despite the fact that I don’t love every song they’ve ever written.
Even during this set, which I really enjoyed, there were songs I found to be a little too full-on. Particularly with their early stuff I can find the songs getting away from me a little when the theatricality is at its strongest. At the same time, and slightly paradoxically, there are times when I find the songs a little bland – where the twin sparks of pop sensibility and innovative belligerence just fail to ignite something exciting and the song never quite gets off the ground.
So I come back to where I started: Wild Beasts have done a lot of brilliant songs, and the ‘one hand giveth while the other taketh away’ dynamic is something I find really exciting, but there are definitely times when I don’t really connect, for various reasons. An intriguing band though, and a really good gig.
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This weekend I am going to be publishing a mammoth post of Broken Records live videos from their Bedlam Theatre gig in March of this year. The band suggested we get the cameras in and so we’ve got about ten songs, all with top notch audio mixed by Kas, their sound guy, and honestly, I think they look fucking incredible. I know that’s a bit wanky to say, but in terms of the quality of material that’s been on this site, I think it’s a big step forward, and I am really pleased with how they turned out. They also give you a really good idea of just why people love this band, and how immense they can be in a live setting, which can often be hard to get across.
Anyhow, at that gig, Jamie and I sat down and discussed some stuff after the show, and I’ve interspersed some of that footage with some teasers of the live stuff to make the above video. It makes for a really nice ten minute inro to the band and the album and stuff like that, so have a watch, and I expect you all to be waited with bated breath for Sunday’s video extravaganza.
My favourite bit is when we’re discussing lyrics, and more specifically the ones to If Eilert Loevborg Wrote a Song, it Would Sound Like This, and Jamie says…Â well, you’ll have to watch it and see, won’t you.
At this year’s amazing Homegame Festival, run by our DIY pals at the Fence Collective (who have been incredibly helpful in the start up of Song, by Toad Records), I had the chance for a bit of an interview with Scottish indie hero Malcolm Middleton.
Neil from Meursault, who is a longstanding fan, conducted most of the interview itself, and we teamed up with Andy from the new Edinburgh live session showcase Off the Beaten Tracks, who shot a couple of session videos at the same time. You’ll have to go to their site to see the session videos, but it’s well worth the visit as they have stuff from Team Turnip and Come On Gang already up, with Slow Club, Meursault, Randan Discotheque and, I think, Found all to be added in the coming weeks.
The interview itself was really nice, as can be seen in the video above. Malcolm himself has a reputation for being a miserable bastard, and I have to confess that made me a little apprehensive about talking to him. I’m still new to interviewing people and, whilst it’s piss-easy when things are going well, turning things around when they are going badly is something of a skill, and one which I am yet to come anything close to mastering. Read the rest of this entry »
[I wrote this article for the good folks at The Skinny, who were kind enough to give me the opportunity in the first place. Song, by Toad does not, yet, have enough pull to swing interviews with the likes of Jason Lytle, so I am very grateful for the chance, and a big thanks to Milo from Products of a Gaseous Brain, who suggested me in the first place.]
When Grandaddy dissolved in 2005, their lead singer disappeared to the mountains in Montana, essentially turning his back on the industry to reinvigorate his relationship with music. Jason Lytle sits down with Matthew Young to explain how he found the road back.
King Creosote didn’t just vanish for ten years in between the fall of the Khartoum Heroes and the release of his first album on Domino Records. Micah P. Hinson wasn’t saved from self-destruction by the redemptive power of music. And Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle didn’t just run away to the wilderness to live in a cave for three years after the demise of one of the most successful indie bands of recent memory.
This is the vague story that percolated through to my mind when, after more than ten years of what any independent band would consider wild success, Grandaddy finally imploded. Lytle moved out to Montana and made a clean break ostensibly, it seemed, to retire. But like Hinson and Anderson before him, Lytle seems to bristle slightly when faced with the simplistic version of his own life story. Read the rest of this entry »
One thing everyone knows about Micah P. Hinson is the fairytale story of his fall and rise from the depths of a drug related incarceration after falling in with the wrong woman, to the valedictory release of his beautiful debut album Micah P. HInson & the Gospel of Progress back in 2004. He was saved by the music, we tell ourselves, fitting the whole thing neatly into a nice, Meg Ryan-friendly narrative that fits the kind of one-dimensional storytelling to which we are becoming increasingly adherent.
I myself had pretty much that basic story in my head when I met him at the End of the Road Festival, in September 2008. Fortunately, before I could stray too far down a path that seems to quite irritate him, Micah himself decided to make sure I knew that was bollocks from the beginning. “The music for me wasn’t like a saviour to pull me out of the dark spaces” he told me early on, after explaining that the narrative in most people’s heads is a pretty superficial charicature of years of his life, the actual story much less neat and tidy than that.
“Even on the new album [Micah. P Hinson & the Red Empire Orchestra] there’s songs, like Keep Having These Dreams that I wrote when I was 19 or something. There’s some other songs on the record that are quite old. On Opera Circuit there are some other songs that are pretty damn old that didn’t come from that exact time. By the time I recorded the Gospel of Progress record I had a lot more than just a couple of dozen songs. By that point I’d been recording songs for eight years. Not sending out demos or talking to labels of any of that shit, but I had a four track and then I moved up to having a computer. By the time I had the Gospel of Progress I probably had five hundred songs maybe, I mean a shitload of songs, and so the Gospel of Progress was when we went back through all of those tunes and decided what the best ones were and that’s what made up the Gospel.
“So the Gospel didn’t come out of a certain time in my life, it wasn’t like there was a fall and there was this rise and all these songs came out, it was nothing like that. And even getting signed to a record label, from the time I lived in the hotel and I was writing songs, and you know my life had fallen apart, and I was bankrupt and all of that shit, to the time that I actually got signed by a record label like at least three or four years had passed between those points.” Read the rest of this entry »
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