Troubadour of a generation

(Morning Star, Friday 11 May 2007)

LIVE: The Lemonheads, Mandela Hall, Belfast

THE long-haired troubadour onstage this evening was the tabloid fodder of yesteryear. Pete Doherty with arrests for drug offences and shagging supermodels? Pah.

These are paltry tales of rock'n'roll excess compared to Lemonheads' frontman Evan Dando, whose various reported misdeeds are probably too libellous to reprint here.

The Lemonheads' first incarnation made sweet hippy poppy records with a nice line in wry lyrical self-deprecation and a suitably laid-back sound.

Then came Dando's 2003 solo effort Baby I'm Bored LP and, whaddya know? Sweet hippy pop turns out to be in his blood.

Now with a reformed Lemonheads - reformed because there are no original members in this line-up save for Dando himself - the tour of the century is dragging itself laconically around the country.

The crowd tonight are suitably matured. After all, most under-twenties wouldn't have the first notion about the band who set the radio waves alight in 1992 with their cover of Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs Robinson, or melted to the country-folk strains of Big Gay Heart in 1994.

But, as the audience buzzes with anticipation, it becomes clear that Dando, despite his wayward lifestyle and reserved attitude to public appearance, has built up a loyal following across the world.

With a nice mix of old and new music, it is worth noting that old standards such as Bit Part and Alison's Starting to Happen - off the 1992 classic album It's a Shame About Ray - stand shoulder to shoulder with the new material on this year's eponymously named comeback record. The only difference is that the level of voices singing along to It's a Shame About Ray dwarfs the few plaintive voices reciting new material such as Black Gown. It's a measure of fan dedication to the classics.

A half-time acoustic set lulls the crowd nicely, with solo work such as Shots is Fired sitting nicely beside The Outdoor Type from 1997, but there is a flurry of excitement when Dando mistakes a fan shouting: "Play Patience" for a heckler. "Play some songs? I just played one, man," says the voice of a generation before lunging into the crowd for swift justice. Talked over quietly, order resumes and the rest of the band return for a strong finale, following on from a fairly heavy Zep-style guitar freak-out.

Dando, it seems, cannot write a bad song. His knack for singalong verses and heart-wrenching tales of melancholy are the stuff of real pop legends and his onstage persona is so magnetic, so electrifying, that it seems almost criminal that there's ever a time when he isn't performing and weaving his sweet harmonious spell.

The Lemonheads are probably only really about Dando and maybe they only ever were, but there's a heart full of soul right ther and anyone would be honoured to watch the master at work.

Just don't call her Lily

(Morning Star, Friday 20 April 2007)

LIVE: Kate Nash, Spring and Airbrake, Belfast

YOU might well know who pretty singer-songwriter Kate Nash is because of the column inches about her in newspaper supplements. Notably, she's often presented not as an artist in her own right so much as the "new Lily Allen."

The idea of a new Lily Allen is, in itself, preposterous. It's like there being a new new thing to replace a merely slightly less new thing.

Allen has barely straightened her legs and left the pot since releasing her Alright, Still debut to the masses last year.

This sort of lazy comparison is a tool that we music journos often employ when our critical faculties leave us. But, in this case, it springs only from the fact that Kate Nash, like La Allen, is female. And maybe because she likes to speak her mind through music. But that's where the similarities end.

The venue is awash with oestrogen, all young ladies in floaty, hippy clothes ready to bob along to Kate's floaty, hippy music. A few guys are dotted about but, to be honest, they look a bit shifty.

In actuality, Ms Nash is ballsier than a look at her audience would lead you to believe. Decked out in a red ruffled dress with auburn hair spilling over her petite shoulders, Nash makes flirting with the audience an art form, imploring them to move closer to her in the opening minutes of the show with a tinkle of her feminine laugh.

The shifty guys notably swoon at her eyelash-fluttering and the room suddenly envelopes the crowd warmly.

As the vision onstage romps through Caroline's a Victim, the mood is one of '80s electro-pop exuberance and at no other point is Kate's media-given queen of cool Laaandon persona more apparent - "Caroline sits in her room playing killah killah killah killah beats."

But the following mood change is swift and tangible with the introduction of Birds, a ballad of young love conducted in Nash's world, which involves teens sneaking onto public transport without paying and issuing Skins-style declarations of love.

The high point comes at the end, with the production of Merry Happy. A song with home-grown sweetness baked right in, it tells of a suddenly single girl who is trying to assure herself she doesn't need her boy, with the mantra, "I can watch the sunset on my own."

Nash probably feels this herself, but to compare her to Allen and nowt else does her a great disservice.

She must be assured success, with her guileless charm and tunes that successfully marry the banality of everyday life with the enchanting world of young love.

That, and she's one hell of a flirt.

EUGENE FRANCIS JUNIOR - THE GOLDEN BEATLE

(AU magazine April 2008)

(LEGION)

LIMPING in like a weirdy beardy scholar, Eugene Francis Jr is enough to put anyone off their falafel.
Hailing from Wales, this debut is packed with socio-political comment and poppy tunes in equal measure. However, the nauseating aroma of incense sticks speaks loudly of undergraduate revolution circa 1992, as repackaged from 1968.
The mystical whirr of new single ‘Beginners’ trades on spiritual enlightenment as if all the cool kids are buying it down TopShop. They’re not – and on ‘Hobo Occupation’ (shudder), the naffness of lyric ‘the politicians are going straight to hell’ is something that would embarrass even the most reactionary of dippy hippies. Like The Levellers never left the building.

Suede man's epic fall from grace

(Morning Star, Friday 30 March 2007)

ALBUM: Brett Anderson - Brett Anderson
(Vital)

POISE is everything. Pretension, or the appearance of being pretentious, is key in pop.

In the heady days of the early 1990s, indie bands looked like Fraggles. The sartorially and intellectually challenged days of baggy left a sour taste in the mouths of music fans looking for more grace and style. They were looking for Suede.

Four whey-faced, fey, wasted indie kids with their roots in Thatcher's grim Britain, Suede shone a light on the bleak streets of modern Britain.

Theirs was a kingdom of urban wastelands and adolescent ankle sock dramas and, with well-read Brett Anderson at the helm, they offered intelligent pop for the disaffected youth unable to identify with the likes of the great unwashed superstars of grunge Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder.

So, Anderson has earned his stripes as a forerunner and a pioneer. He formed one half of probably the greatest songwriting partnership of the 1990s and gave nothing but sensational column inches for a music press foaming at the mouth for an erudite, self-aware frontman.

It's a bit of a shame that it's come to this for the great man, his first solo effort.

In fairness, his voice is still unique and attention-grabbing, if you like that sort of thing. He drags the emotion out of every note on debut single Love is Dead and, elsewhere, his singing sits well with the predominantly slow-paced tracks.

The real letdown here is, sorry to say, the lyrics. Dust and Rain plumbs new depth with its "I am the needle, you are the vein," while the less said about The More We Possess The Less We Own Of Ourselves, the better.

The strangely familiar chiming guitars of Intimacy bring back the Suede tingle, but the "Intimacy, I want you to be part of me" refrain is a little nauseating.

From such incredible stock, Anderson's made the leap to peddling sixth form poetry, becoming a slightly embarrassing earnest songwriter. Is it even earnest? Maybe he thinks this is how he should write.

It would be churlish to deny Anderson was ever prone to a little pretension.

Ditto's surprise

(Morning Star, Friday 16 March 2007)

ALBUM: The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
(Backyard)

AS tabloid fodder goes, the Gossip's Beth Ditto is up there with the best. She has been labelled a "fat lesbian," but the Arkansas native actually has a lot more to her than that.

She cuts an erudite, intelligent swathe through other US government botherers and has certainly paid her dues before coming to this, what people are calling The Gossip's "success."

So, after all that, the music better be pretty good and - sigh with relief - it is.

Mostly because Ditto's pipes can adequately cover any style, from bellicose liberal rant to gentle lover's croon.

Surprisingly, much of Standing in the Way of Control is a lament for love, for society and for the lack of a perfect life, but not an outraged rant.

Standing in the Way of Control, the single, is the highest tempo track on here, but songs such as Holy Water and Dark Lines showcase a softer, more sensuous sound which gives The Gossip a roundedness which often eludes their garage punk peers.

Ditto's social activism may spook the coy and it would be fair enough to fear that her self-righteous indignation might bleach out all the soul from the music, but doubters should be ready for a surprise.

Bizarre abode

(Morning Star, Friday 16 March 2007)

ALBUM: The Horrors - Strange House
(Polydor)

IF you believe nothing else about The Horrors, you must believe that they do have a bloody strange house.

In this album, they sing about spectres of serial killers past drifting by in Jack the Ripper, violent femmes in Sheena is a Parasite and the terminally troubled Morgan in Excellent Choice, who wishes his family dead.

Like Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster before them, The Horrors are not all about making crazy eyes and butchering kittens. Rather, they take the best parts of goth and marry them with a punk rock sensibility, giving birth to a most uneasy alliance. It's a bit like pantomime, but with an underlying stench of dread and, well, horror.

The cacophonous result which springs forth from these art school boys makes their debut one of the records of the year.

All the same, Strange House is a cool place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.

John Simpson - Man of the World

(My Weekly magazine, 3 March 2007)

She's got balls

(Morning Star, Friday 02 March 2007)

ALBUM: Charlotte Hatherley - The Deep Blue
(Little Sister)

CHARLOTTE Hatherley may have left a pop-punk trio of men in Ash, but make no mistake about it - she's the one with the testosterone.

Her kick-arse attitude aside, the video for The Deep Blue's first single offering I Want You To Know shows a beat 'em up Charl in fighting form with more muscles than Madonna.

But don't let the fact that she could punch your lights out cold force you into enjoying this record.

If you've any sense, you'll decide that this is one of the poppiest, rockiest, ballsiest, sweetest, coolest, hottest female artiste records to hit the shelves on musical merit alone.

The high point is the single. Lower points are apparent in some of the dodgier lyrics. But laying themselves bare is what these pop stars are all about, so just be prepared for it - and dive in.

THE DRAYTONES – FOREVER ON

(AU magazine March 2007)

(1965 Records)

A London-based Anglo-Argentinian trio with a penchant for jazz and two feet firmly in 1965 –year and label – The Draytones hail from the same stable as The View.
This alone should trigger the ‘scene’ warning loud and clear, but The Draytones’ sound is mercifully different from the Dundonian noiseniks.
In fact, the best word for this first album is ‘schizophrenic’, taking in as it does influences of garage rock, Babyshambles and even Jungle Book-style jazz on ‘Trafalgar Square’.
First single, ‘Keep Loving Me’ pushes some rock buttons, but the differences between the songs – from acoustic ‘Out Of This World’ to the soft-shoe ‘Trafalgar Square’ - translate as a distinct lack of cohesion.
With the varied influences they’re pulling together, it’s less than clear if the band are leaders or followers, but the latter seems a safer bet.

The return of rave

(Morning Star, Friday 09 February 2007)

LIVE: Klaxons/CSS/Sunshine Underground/New Young Pony Club, Sheffield Octagon

KIRSTIE MAY investigates the new rave phenomenon that's infecting dancefloors all over Britain this year.

The occurrence of the "new rave" phenomenon is ostensibly a terrifying event for those who remember old rave and, more specifically, for those who love music.

Who could celebrate the days of glowsticks and oversized dummies, surgical masks and hoodies?

There was an age when music lacked smarts and, crucially, heart.

With New Young Pony Club, one wonders if there's one member of the band who identifies with new rave.

Wearing their new romantic heart on their sleeves, they have the whiff of Duran Duran fronted by Tracey Emin.

But track Get Dancey is a surefire floorfiller and the overall set gives a pleasant glow to the unsuspecting crowd, most of whom are too young to remember anything before 1996.

But they're certainly not too young to realise that the Sunshine Underground are a bunch of chancers, tossing off a substandard set of dirges wherein the cowbell - yes, cowbell - is king.

Singer Craig Wellington, from Leeds, wears a menacing Top Man hoodie and has an arrogant persona- that's cribbed from Liam Gallagher. Piffle.

CSS are a band who revel in fun. Coming on draped in black sheets to the all too familiar strains of 1993 hit No Limits by Dutch chart-botherers 2Unlimited, singer Lovefoxxx discards her attire to eventually reveal the marginally less unsettling lilac lycra bodysuit which forms her second skin.

The Brazilians race through a set culled from their successful debut album and the underagers and ageing ravers alike find nowt at fault here, as Lovefoxx bounds like a demonic Jane Fonda, all flailing limbs and exuberance.

As a band of six, CSS really do fill out the stage and the arrival of Klaxons, a pitiful fourpiece, is a bit of a letdown.

But, with the magnetic stylings of singer Jamie Reynolds, the crowd quickly forgets all that came before.

To the untrained ear, their track The Bouncer would seem to have rave - the proper, no-brainer, old-school kind - stamped right through it like Blackpool rock.

Some wag in the crowd even throws one of the old-style Altern-8 face masks on the stage, which the guitarist toys with before deciding against it.

From Atlantis to Interzone is surely a lost dance classic of the early 1990s, packing a euphoric punch that any self-respecting noughties hitmakers should eschew at once.

Klaxons' trick, though, is to marry a set of harder dance with the sweet renderings of their own sounds - like current radio-friendly unit-shifter Golden Skans.

And that's how they disarm their audience, it seems, by wrongfooting their ear.

For every Four Horsemen of 2012 or Magick, stuffed full of rave goodness, there's a heartfelt plea from these four misfits, such as their glorious cover of Not Over Yet.

Klaxons are heralded by "those in the know" as the new rave figureheads who flew the coop before it took proper hold.

Well, whether they're pigeonholing themselves or not, they are heading up this bill, but, for them, labels are irrelevant - they're making tunes for music lovers.