Top tunes for all

(Morning Star, Saturday 08 July 2006)

ALBUM: Aberfeldy - Do Whatever Turns You On
(Rough Trade)

IN terms of twee pop with a hint of the 1970s, Aberfeldy are up there with the best.

As a country whose prime exports number shortbread and skirts for men, Scotland's grasp of fashion is not what it might be.

As such, Aberfeldy's fellow limp-wristed noiseniks Belle and Sebastian rule the Caledonian airwaves, all gentle jingly-jangly pop played by foppish boys with Frank Spencer faces. And berets.

So it's nice that Aberfeldy have come back from their 2004 debut Young Forever having turned the guitars up a notch - to a tentative three, in fact - in an effort to dethrone B&S.

With the acerbic wit on show on Do Whatever Turns You On, this sort of fighting spirit is not entirely out of character. These sweet-voiced folky also-rans have a grit to them that songs like Uptight - name-checking the People's Friend magazine, always a plus in pop - and Poetry exhibit in a pleasingly straightforward manner.

The high point would have to be the title track, giving airtime to the idiosyncrasies that separate people from each other, a favoured conceit of the indie fan.

The gentle indie tunesmithery is still here and yet the appearance of a bit of gumption seems to have set Aberfeldy apart from their peers, with tunes to please everyone on the cool continuum from Russell Brand to Ken Bruce.

Et tu, Belle and Sebastian?

Rock god or just a shambles?

(Morning Star, Saturday 22 April 2006)

LIVE: Babyshambles, Spring and Airbrake, Belfast

SINCE the inception of the rock'n'roll star, few candidates have so embodied the live fast, die young template as Pete Doherty.

The idea that all his waywardness could be close to an end is enough of a catalyst for the ambulance-chasing media to follow his every public utterance.

And the added intrigue of the off-on relationship with one of the world's most famous supermodels throws any music actually produced into stark relief for the former army brat.

On record, the Babyshambles sound lives right up to its name - as such, a live crowd cannot approach their shows with high expectations.

And yet, the clean, lean and healthy Doherty that bounds onstage this evening is a far cry from the tabloid whipping boy pissing his talent up the wall.

The form of Babyshambles gigs seems to be at the discretion of Albion's favourite son, but, after dodging last night's show in Dublin, Doherty seems in a positive mood, showing up on time, running through the hits and fucking off without incident.

The crowd, resplendent in tracksuits and hollering football chants between songs, are all well versed in the lyrics, singing along to Killamangiro and 32nd of December.

But even Doherty wanes sometimes. The promised anthemic Fuck Forever doesn't materialise in the encore and the assembled kids drift home despondent, let down by their hero. Rock'n'roll indeed.

A new love

(Morning Star, Saturday 22 April 2006)

ALBUM: Morrissey - Ringleader of the Tormentors
(Sanctuary)

AS Ringleader of the Tormentors thrills into being, all Boz Boorer's rumbling guitar and full of eastern promise on I Will See You In Far-off Places, many a heart will skip with delight.

To Morrissey fans, Stephen Patrick is the god of literate lyricism and a withering wit who takes his cue and hands it on, holding court on a variety of topics.

This release is no different. The Roman ex-pat is in fine voice, with his amazing throaty croon which seems to have been gifted him for his 45th birthday.

He has his targets - such as US imperialism - but, overall, the record is overshadowed by a new-found passion. For who, who can say.

But the new brand of supposedly autobiographical love songs sit at odds beside acerbic solo standards such as The Father Who Must be Killed and In the Future When All's Well.

However, it would be churlish to complain about the album on the whole - the gift of a well-crafted, beautifully sung and intensely felt record is one too seldom in the world of popular music in 2006.

Naked emperor

(Morning Star, Saturday 15 April 2006)

ALBUM: Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics
(Warner)

LIKE Murdoch from the A-Team, Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne is someone whose annoyance level cannot be overstated.

Both men are crazy, whacked-out kooks, determined that the world should function on their level and that, as such, they are called creative, strategic visionaries.

Well, Murdoch is a fictional construct, so the annoyance that he fosters is a limited problem. But Coyne, with his pseudo-intellectual, neurotic sex-and-death confrontational bull, seems to be entirely real and, as such, is 100 per cent irritant.

So, At War with the Mystics comes highly commended, with some no mark calling them the "greatest US band."

Blink hard, my friends - the emperor is entirely nude. Coyne's daft squeaking rasp, cheap Prince take-offs and Jeff Wayne-style balladeering has no home on my stereo, even if Coyne is one of a crack team of military... oh, wait, that's the other guy.

Punk in the blood

(Morning Star, Saturday 25 March 2006)

INTERVIEW: STEVE DIGGLE chats to the Star about being part of the seminal Manchester punk band the Buzzcocks.

If there was ever a band who could puff out their chests and walk tall, a band who taught instead of learning, who forged instead of following, who spoke to the youth of a generation and would brook no disagreement, it would be The Ramones. Right?

Meanwhile, back in Britain, a Manchester band were throwing their lot in with some London punk rock ne'er-do-wells.

In 1976, the Buzzcocks, hailing from the "grim north," played their first show with the Sex Pistols and they've never looked back, so says the band's erstwhile guitarist and songwriter supreme Steve Diggle.

"Our first gig was with the Sex Pistols in 1976 in Manchester," Steve remembers with a grin. "It took us three weeks to get a band together. It really helped to put Manchester on the musical map and the provincial scenes really sprung up from there, as people realised that you didn't have to be in London to be a part of it all. I think that we were a catalyst for that in terms of coming from Manchester."

Diggle's conversation is peppered with references to how important and influential the Buzzcocks were. Anyone else who tried this would surely deserve a smack. But, when it comes to this confident northerner, you can't knock him - it's all true.

What would anyone's reaction be if they were hailed as punk's forefathers? Diggle is nonplussed.

"It's strange how time has flown. We do take it as a compliment that so many bands around sound like us. We invented the world that we came from, we were distinctive and individual," he affirms.

The Buzzcocks have a new album out.

It's not a Best Of, as one might expect. It's not even a rerelease of their most successful long-player. It's an all new, singing and rocking example of why these guys never went away. Yes, you read right - never went away. Anywhere.

"There is a lot of interest in this album." Diggle scratches his head. "Even though we did have one out three years ago. It's almost like people think we've made some big comeback. But it is a good album, so I think it deserves the coverage."

Diggle isn't at pains to point out their expertise, by the way. It's just something that seems to reaffirm itself.

So, after three years, how are the band sounding? Well, the album's a brash, searing take-no-Guantanamo-prisoners account of modern life - that it's rubbish, of course, but more than that. The world's changing in a terribly distressing way and, from our little corporate boxes, we're all complicit in some way.

As Diggle pointed out on his solo album, the Bruce Springsteen-approved Serious Contender, the brands that we buy are buying us off - lock, stock, the bleedin' lot.

From his solo record comes Diggle's best example of his feeling of dread. "I've got a song on my solo album called Starbucks Around the World, which has the lyric 'paper cups all look the same.' It means that we're all suffering from this corporate industry that runs everything. People are sitting in offices somewhere making marketing strategies and messing with our lives.

"Punk and the whole movement which we were part of questioned it all," he finishes triumphantly, confident that he has been part of a movement that judged everyone around them and who, years later, are still calling it how they see it. So what of today's young pretenders? What of the Buzzcocks-for-today, the social commentators and devil-may-care working-class intelligentsia like, say, the Arctic Monkeys?

Diggle seems unconvinced as to their socialist credentials. "They have an easy use of language, but they're not dangerous. It sounds like they're spirited, though, which is good. I like Hard-Fi, singing about coming from Staines and searching for a better life."

With all that's happened for the Buzzcocks - the booze, the bust-ups, the tours and the tantrums - they have earned their punk rock stripes. Diggle agrees emphatically.

"We just stand back in amazement that we got through. We seem to have gone from strength to strength. This album is a true return to our form and there are certainly some classic moments on there."

After all this time, Diggle is still fairly pragmatic about his lifestyle choice.

"If music is in your blood, you can't deny it. You can change the music over time and I think that I've changed into something else. I'm a conscientious objector to work after all this time." He laughs. "Something always spurs you on and writing new songs keeps the interest up and keeps your mind and heart in it. It's the age-old process of a blank piece of paper and just pulling something out of the air and making it great."

And great it indubitably is. Is the harmonious output of the band at odds with any sort of volatility in the relationship between Diggle and bandmate Pete Shelley?

"He has his business and I have mine," Diggle immediately jumps in. "I think that our songs complement each other, but we do have very different influences, as people more than through music. I like to write more social songs about the world and Pete writes about the love side of things. There are limits to how far I can go with my style, so it's a good healthy mix for us to have. People have called my lyrics existential and I guess that's accurate. I just want to make a point and let people decide for themselves."

With his social awareness expressed throughout his music, does Diggle feel that this is something that people should choose as their life plan? Or are careers teachers duty-bound to put off young Buzzcocks fans who hear punk's anarchic call?

"I didn't think of it as a career, it was just an urgent, direct thing. I just thought that one gig might lead to a couple more gigs. At the time, a lot of young people did feel the angst of 1976. There were coming up for one million people on the dole and the audience were just questioning things. We had an awareness of life which I think is lacking now."

So maybe punk fans need to re-evaluate. Because, if there was ever a band who could puff out their chests and walk tall, a band who taught instead of learning, who forged instead of following and who spoke to the youth of every generation and would brook no disagreement, it would be the Buzzcocks.

From pop's early days

(Morning Star, Saturday 18 February 2006)

ALBUM: The Hollies - Staying Power
(EMI)

HAVING appeared on the first ever Top of the Pops in 1964, The Hollies have proven that their staying power is quite almighty.

It seems incredibly unlikely that the old timers of British pop will be invited onto the show in its new guise, with their yester-pop crafted for Magic FM listeners. Well, we may be surprised.

In the meantime, this is tipped by the band themselves as their best ever studio album and who am I to argue?

First, the idea of the band still being The Hollies after all this time is an anathema to their youthful exuberance, not to mention how many are still original members. Very Stranglers.

Many tracks here are full of the same old pop ideas, but they don't really have the charisma to carry them off.

The Spanish guitar in So Damn Beautiful is peculiarly nauseating, while album closer Let Love Pass is unwieldy for the casual listener and just too too much.

With the vocal harmonies The Hollies are famed for peeking in every so often, most notably on Touch Me, there are sparks of inspiration, but the overall effect on this listener is one of antipathy, amplified to repulsion when the sleeve reveals Enrique Iglesias's part in the songwriting duties.

Juggernaut of revenge

(Morning Star, Thursday 09 February 2006)

Get Carter, Byre Theatre, St Andrews

WITH a burst of strident period music, Red Shift's production of Get Carter haemorrhages onto the stage, all bloody and grimy and full of despair.

Better known as the 1971 film starring Michael Caine in his most iconic of roles than from the 1970 novel Jack's Return Home by Ted Lewis, productions of Get Carter will forever be held up against Caine's defining celluloid interpretation.

Vicious gangster Jack Carter (Jack Lord) travels from London back to his childhood home in a northern steel town for his brother's funeral.

Suspecting that his death was not an accident, Carter sets out to find the culprits, weaving a heady and often violent path through the booze and fag-soaked north, finding momentary pleasure with tawdry sexual encounters.

Lord asserts himself early on in a blackly comic interchange with Daniel Copeland's Gerald Fletcher.

His Carter is a juggernaut of revenge, unstoppable until his brother's killers are brought to rough justice. He shines here as the punisher - remorseless and unforgiving but also brash and swaggering - and smart enough to watch his own back.

The female roles played by Sally Orrock and Angela Ward are uniquely strong, each woman inhabiting three distinctly separate characters.

This is a play full of strength and venom, where even the set is deceptively complex.

The only letdown is a soundtrack populated with a raft of recognisable hits so staccato in their appearance as to resemble a round of guess the intro. Recommended anyway.

The new cynics

(Morning Star, Saturday 04 February 2006)

ALBUM: Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
(Domino)

KIRSTIE MAY introduces us to new rock upstarts the Arctic Monkeys, a Sheffield four-piece with a nice line in snappy lyrics and top tunes.

If you don't know who the Arctic Monkeys are, you must have been burying your head in the sand.

They are a critically lauded, recently successful band with a nice line in snappy lyrics and rocking tunes.

But, if that's all you know, you're still pretty clueless, because there's so much more.

Like a gang of little scoundrels who besiege your local offy, these four Sheffield boys have something of the glue sniffer about them.

Graduates of the school of junkie youth, like a Busted put together by Pete Doherty, Alex Turner and pals are dirty and dour, displaying a disenchantment and cynicism far beyond their average 19 years.

Their first single, I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, was number one with a bullet off the back of a guerilla net campaign.

The song soundtracks a hundred school discos - sweaty and sordid, mindful of its own youth.

Dancefloor's chart success was echoed by its follow-up When the Sun Goes Down, a tale of hookers and horror in the north, ruled by a riff straight out of Keef's back catalogue.

The album clearly has a lot to live up to - the success of the singles means that the eyes of the music world are fixed on their every move - and there are already detractors baying for their demise.

But, take a step back from all of this superfluous journo opining and the fact remains that the Arctic Monkeys are just a very good band.

Maybe you don't like Turner's disinterested vocal, particularly on the sweet Mardy Bum.

That's your choice, of course, but bear in mind that he is merely aping the misanthropic Dylan at his most churlish.

Maybe singing in Yorkshire accents pisses you off, although the band themselves prize that honesty above all, as detailed in Fake Tales of San Francisco, a warning tale for indie poseurs everywhere.

Maybe you feel that their better-than-chav style is unpalatable, as they clearly have roots in that culture. Witness A Certain Romance, the album highlight.

Rolling in with a heavy drum sound, the song itself displays a ska tempo, the backdrop to a tale of two tribes destined not to see eye-to-eye.

But Turner's detailing of the differences creates a "them and us" scenario, that we know better than smashing people's heads in down the Red Lion, as much good as this knowledge does us.

When people say they like good music, it's often because they like a nice tune or the singer's got good hair.

But it takes effort and passion to like the Arctic Monkeys, because that's what they deserve.

Grows on you

(Morning Star, Saturday 28 January 2006)

ALBUM: Regina Spektor - Mary Ann Meets the Grave Diggers and Other Short Stories
(Transgressive)

THE idea of a experimental female pianist may make most gag and, trust me, there is a part of Regina Spektor's mythology which doesn't sit well.

That self-aware logo - so it looks like "respekt‚" do you see? - the associated cool from rock'n'roll pals like The Strokes, the gothic illustrative work on this album sleeve - all have the smell of trying a little too hard and ticks every one of my "irritating" boxes.

But then, there is the music. Hailing from New York via Russia, Spektor's self-awareness is probably less studied than it seems.

A genuinely talented pianist, she seems to have taken a Tori Amos fan club membership and made it into her own shtick.

This CD comprises all the highlights of Spektor's career so far and, truly, it is a thing of beauty.

Opener Oedipus has a charming naivety, both lyrically and vocally.

In Consequence of Sounds, Spektor showcases her humorous side with the lyric "the National Geographic was being too graphic/ When all she had wanted to know was the traffic." A clumsy couplet, sure, but one with more heart than Coldplay could ever hope to instil in their work, with their bland song-for-everyone template.

The standout track has to be the single Us, with its haunting strings and clearly defined characters - it is a truly career-defining piece for any artist, established or emerging and should guarantee this newcomer centre stage for class and majesty.

Regina Spektor is an acquired taste for certain, but delving into her dark little world is a bit like text sex with an ex - at first, it'll make you feel uncomfortable, but, once you throw yourself into it, you won't remember life without it.

Magic of water

(Morning Star, Tuesday 24 January 2006)

EXHIBITION: Elizabeth Ogilvie - Bodies of Water, Dundee Contemporary Arts

Having worked with water for over 10 years, Fife resident Elizabeth Ogilvie's show is a real coup for the DCA, an outstanding installation which exhibits strength and vulnerability in equal measure.

Gallery 2 is a gateway to the main event, showing Ogilvie's collaborative piece with renowned Taiko drummer Joji Hirota.

The piece features three screens, one showing off Hirota's rhythmic understanding of water and its movement and one displaying Ogilvie's reaction to the music as she excites the water with a rod.

The third and main screen displays the water itself changing from inanimate blank canvas to an intense, vibrant illustration of the collaboration.
The main attraction in Gallery 1 offers two large pools surrounded by a platform.

In the dim light, the first pool is mesmerising in its absolute stillness.

Acting as a reflective surface, the piece becomes more about that which can be seen in it, than what it is itself.

Over the pool, film is projected of the three main processes of the water cycle, a representation of the indefinable magic of water.

The second pool in the room is agitated, water being actively manipulated by way of pipes in the ceiling.

From them, precipitation falls in cycles, starting out as steady drizzle and eventually cascading down in a deluge.

Ogilvie's ongoing fascination with water seems never better placed than when in such close proximity to one of Scotland's grandest rivers, and Bodies of Water shows the lengths to which this natural resource can represent the fluidity of music and of human perception.

The artist's recent pledge to "promote a greater respect and understanding for water" is both brave and daunting, but through installations such as this, Ogilvie goes some way to persuading all that global bodies of water are ever-changing and our rapt attention is warranted.