Last year, I wasn't able to go to many events because of health troubles - apart from a trip to the zoo, and a gig by Oumou Sangare at the Belfast Cathedral Festival in May, there wasn't much going on. In September, I was told that I could go out. Singer-songwriter Brett Anderson kindly allow me to tag along at a few of his concerts, so I went along to Feeling Gloomy at N1 Islington, JD Set at the London Village Underground, The Notting Hill Tabernacle, Other Voices in Dingle, Shepherd's Bush London, Lido Berlin and Manchester Acedemy 3. I've never really followed a tour so that provided a lot of insight. I also saw Edwyn Collins play at Bloomsbury Ballroom, London and Black Box Belfast and he was with his wife Grace Maxwell who read from her new book "Falling and Laughing", plus Colorama Fyfe Dangerfield (The Guillemots) played the London Scala in January 2010. There was the forever postponed but finally happened concert by Richard Hawley at the Belfast Ulster Hall in December. The newly re-opened Ulster Hall welcomed Iain Archer and John D'Arcy as well as the Belfast-Nashville Festival. Nashville was a recurring theme because the JD set featured a few musicians from Nashville, one of them was Wayne Carson who wrote "Always on My Mind". December 2010 saw Oppenheimer play their last concert as Shaun is going to America, good luck Roky O'Reilly - an all age concert meant that small people came too. The Feile Belfast had musical treat in the shape of The Penguin Cafe, whose live CD is sold in proceeds to Teenage Cancer Trust.
Exhausting perhaps but it was an exciting musical journey!
Belfast Cathedral Festival - Oumou Sangare and Band
Oumou Sangare was born in 1968 in Bamako, the capital of Mali, her family, though, was from Wassoulou, in the southwestern region of Mali. Sangare is the leading female star of the Wassoulou sound which is based on an ancient tradition of hunting rituals mixed with songs about devotion, praise, and harvest played with pentatonic (five-note) melodies. Wassoulou is typified by a strong Arabic feel along with the sound of the scraping karinyang, women play the fle, a calabash strung with cowrie shells, which they spin and throw into the air in time to the music.
Sangare most often sings about about love and the importance of freedom of choice in marriage, an issue she feels strongly about because her father had two wives which Sangare thought was a "catastrophe." In 1986, the eighteen-year-old Sangare toured Europe and the Caribbean with a 27-piece folkloric troupe, and at 21 she already had a huge hit in the album, Moussoulou (means "women") which sold over 200,00 legal copies and many more in the illegal pirate cassette trade. In 1995 she toured around the world on the Africa Fete tour along with Baaba Maal, Boukman Eksperyans, and Femi Kuti.
Worotan was released (1996), and a 2-CD compilation Oumou (2004), all released on World Circuit Records. Oumou Sangaré supports the cause of women throughout the world. She was named an ambassador of the FAO in 2003 and won the UNESCO Prize in 2001 and a commander of the Arts and Letters of the Republic of France in 1998. Her latest album released in 2009 is called Seya.
www.myspace.com/oumousangare
The Cribs with
Adam Green and Talulah does the Hula
Talulah does the Hula
By Kernan Andrews
PAULA CULLEN and Caoimhe Derwin rose to prominence as the glamorous, brunette pair of ‘saucy pieces’ who fronted The Chalets. The Chalets are no more - having closed their shutters earlier this year - but the girls have not gone away. They’re back, as Talulah Does The Hula.
Talulah Does The Hula - featuring former members of The Chalets and Neosupervital - will bring their catchy indie-pop to this tour. Paula says the split was “amicable enough” and that “there was no great drama”. “It’s all worked out,” she says. “There’s no hard feelings.”
Paula could be forgiven for being angry with the guys in the band for letting a good thing go south, but instead of wasting time and energy, she and Caoimhe resolved to live by the ‘show must go on’ philosophy.
The girls had a clutch of songs which they had written for The Chalets. Eager to do something with them and eager to be in a band again, they decided to form their own. It so happened that Neosupervital’s Lauren and Jessie were available for such a project and wanted in. Everyone shares duties on guitar, bass, and keyboards. The band originally had a female drummer but she left to be replaced by ‘token male’ Mike.
“We nearly have an all-female band,” laughs Paula, “as Mike’s pretty much nearly a girl as it is, as he’s getting used to us gossiping and bitching at the rehearsals. He’s getting into it himself. We’ll have him donning a dress at some stage!”
Yet the idea of an all-female, or at least female dominated, band had long been in the back of Paula and Caoimhe’s mind. When I interviewed Paula in 2005 as part of The Chalets she remarked: “We plan to do a Milli Vanilli on it. Get three good-looking guys - male models! - to stand behind us and play and the other guys stay in the background and write the music.”
“Did I say that?” asks Paula, who cracks up with laughter at being reminded of the quote. “Well we managed to get one good looking guy in anyway! We had wanted an all-female band. It was nothing against being a band with boys.”
When deciding a name, the band took inspiration from a book of hideous appellations that some parents have unwittingly sought to maim their children. The quartet eventually settled on Talulah Does The Hula.
The name comes from a case heard in New Zealand earlier this year where a couple named their child Talulah Does The Hula From Hawaii. The child was embarrassed about her name and had refused to reveal it to friends. For their recklessness, the parents saw their child taken into court guardianship so her name could be changed.
Talulah Does The Hula is much better for a band, giving the impression of sun, sea, and all things ‘naughty but nice’.
“It gives a nice visual image - palm trees, pineapples,” says Paula, “but I don’t think we’ll be taking to the stage in grass skirts and coconut shells any time soon...but you never know...”
Image though was a strong part of The Chalets and Neosupervital’s stage show and while the girls remain nothing less than glamorous, they want to stay away from anything too image focused this time.
“There won’t be much of that,” says Paula. “That’s something we’re quite conscious of. A lot of people said The Chalets were just an image band because they saw us dressed up like Christmas trees but we put a lot of work into that music. Neosupervital got the same kind of thing. At the end of the day we are still four girls, but we will just be dressed up as we would for going out on a Saturday night!”
The most important thing though is the music. The band’s Myspace page features two songs - ‘Order’ and ‘Brick For A Brain’ - and they cite their influences as The Beach Boys, The Shangri Las, and The Ramones. They also hope to release an EP after Christmas.
“I wouldn’t think it’s a million miles away from our previous bands,” says Paula, “but we played our first show on Saturday and people afterward said they thought we were very different! I suppose we are exactly in the middle of The Chalets and Neosupervital, but it’s a lot more relaxed - not break neck speed party music.”
Adam Green -
Born in 1981 in New York, Adam Green used to front the Mouldy Peaches from 1998 to 2002 before embarking on a solo career. In Germany journalists often note that his great-grandmother, Felice Bauer, was engaged to Franz Kafka, who was born in Prague but wrote in German; her family fled the Nazis in the late 1930s and wound up in New York.
Adam Green’s flowering from puerile anti-folk twonk with The Moldy Peaches to suave lounge-country crooner is laudable. This sixth solo outing widens his cultural rehabilitation, carving splinters of Lambchop (‘Cigarette Burns Forever’), Magnetic Fields (‘Castles And Tassels’), Nilsson (‘Give Them A Token’), The Velvet Underground (‘What Makes Him Act So Bad’), The Strokes (‘Goblin’) and Scott Walker (‘Boss Inside’) from a sawdusty bar-stool... coupled with Wurlitzer, desert echo and Mexican arpeggio – suggest a wonk.country ripening, but hang on: it seems maturing doesn’t involve growing up. (Mark Beaumont, NME)
Garfield (October 22, 2002)
Friends of Mine (July 22, 2003)
Gemstones (February 22, 2005)
Jacket Full of Danger (April 24, 2006)
Sixes & Sevens (March 18, 2008)
Minor Love (January 8, 2010)
Cult with No Name
www.myspace.com/cwnn
Blank Point is proud to present an interview with Erik Stein who's half of the duo that comprises Cutl With No Name (the other half being Jon Boux.)
Enjoy!
Blank Point: How did the two of you meet?
Cult With No Name: We were both working a central London branch of HMV, the music store. A long time ago now. I was managing the jazz section, Jon was managing the classical. I'd like to think there's something in that.
The interesting thing I suppose is that we were friends for many years before we started 'the band'. It's a different kind of glue that bonds us creatively. No auditions, no ads in the NME.
BP: How quickly did realize that you wanted to make music together?
CWNN: It took years! That's really my fault. I was arrogant enough to think that people out there would actually choose, or even like, to listen to my indulgent, neurotic 4-track recordings.
We didn't really say 'right let's start a band'. It was a very gradual process, with several small catalysts that ranged from doing a cover of the Nits' classic "In the Dutch Mountains", to actually having a car to transport gear. It's difficult to say whether we should or shouldn't have started earlier. To be fair, though, we've been pretty prolific.
BP: Is this really the first band for each of you?
CWNN: Jon has been in a multitude of bands, duos and travelling circuses. I don't know how CWNN compares, but obviously this has been his longest tour of duty to date. I'd never been in a band prior to CWNN, apart from with myself, which really was the hardest of all. We split because of musical differences.
BP: What's your song writing process? Is it truly collaborative or is one of you the principal songwriter?
CWNN: With the exception of the instrumentals, I generate the songs initially. They then get squeezed through Jon's creative filter; his style of playing, his dynamics, his endless cups of coffee. Arrangement really is so integral to the songwriting process. Any one of our songs could have ended up as ska or skiffle, but they haven't...yet. I do most of the programming and production, and am slightly obsessive about mixing.
In terms of my own songwriting process, it's amazing what a garbled answerphone message can trigger.
interview by Blank Point the Sicthings e-zine
http://www.sicthings.com/cwnn.htm.
Kid Harpoon
Born in 1982, and Originally hailing from Chatham, Kid Harpoon began to play live locally at venues such as The Tap & Tin and Command House. He became more and more well known locally and featured on the Urban Fox Press compilation CDs on which early recordings of Fathers and Sons and Tunnels were aired. He relocated to Holloway, North London, to pursue his music and became a regular at local venue Nambucca.
The first official release of Kid Harpoons's career was the "Riverside" single, released on 7 inch and CD on independent label Brikabrak in 2006. The single, which featured the b-side "It's Time", received acclaim from NME and particularly Drowned in Sound . The follow up to this, The First EP, was released on October 22, 2007 on vinyl and on CD. The Second EP was released on February 18, 2008, again on both formats. His album is called "Once" (Rough Trade/Young Turks)
Colorama
Colorama are: Carwyn Ellis, Luca Guernieri, Matthew Evans, Wendon Davis, David Fletcher
Carwyn Ellis's brainchild, Colorama was born when he moved from London to Liverpool in 2005. There he started to write, record and sing the songs that would make up his first album, 'Cookie Zoo'.
Having graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, Carwyn paid his dues playing with a number of bands in London, including Southern Fly, Thee
Hypnotics and The Babysnakes. During this time, he became a respected multi-instrumentalist and began to work increasingly as a session musician in the UK and internationally. He has collaborated or performed with Oasis, Shane MacGowan, Edwyn Collins, UNKLE, North Mississippi Allstars and James Hunter to name just a few! As a sideman, Carwyn has also opened for acts as diverse as Van Morrison, Neil Young, Paul Weller, Ryan Adams and the Stereophonics.
During this busy period, Carwyn managed to find the time to begin writing his solo material, and also forged a lasting relationship with legendary
English producer Liam Watson and Toerag Studios, where he contributed to records by James Hunter, Pete Molinari and Fabienne Delsol among others. It was here that Carwyn met Quruli when they were recording their 'NIKKI' album, and they became good friends.
Quruli's front man, Shigeru Kishida, visited Carwyn in Liverpool not long afterwards, where he heard Carwyn's demos for the first time. He immediately fell in love with them, and begged Carwyn to record and release an album through his record label, Noise McCartney Records.
Last summer, Carwyn toured with Quruli in Japan as their keyboard/guitar player and also released a limited edition tour-only CD, 'COLORAMA EP' which completely sold out its run of 2000 copies.
This then, is Carwyn's first COLORAMA album - filled with the warmth of song writing and rich arrangements which will make 'COOKIE ZOO' a classic for years to come. released their debut single, a psych pop classic Sound from Redbricks Recordings in July 2008.
In 2009 September sees the release of Colorama’s new CD, Magic Lantern Show on Redbricks Recordings, featuring songs in Welsh and English. Described as 'incredible' by Huw Stephens and hailed a ‘Soft Psych Classic’ by Sean Rowley, Magic Lantern Show has been enthusiastically received with extensive radio play on XFM, BBC 6 Music & BBC Radio 1.
Iain Archer
Black Box Belfast - December 2009 and Ulster Hall, February 2010
Black Box writes:
2009 has seen Iain Archer release the stripped back album ‘To The Pine Roots’, as well as touring with Athlete, Foy Vance and Snow Patrol, and playing Oxygen, V, T In The Park and Great Escape. Between times he has been producing and writing in London and Berlin.
Iain will be playing with Snow Patrol on their upcoming ‘Reworked’ tour which finishes in Belfast on the night before this Black Box appearance. He will then be spending early 2010 in Portland, Oregon recording an album as a member of Gary Lightbody’s new project ‘Tired Pony’.
Archer moved from Belfast to Glasgow in the mid 90's where he made two albums, which led to him being invited to tour as support act to legends such as Nils Lofgren and John Martyn. Moving to London he fell into working with a number of other artists including Athlete, Fionn Regan, Juliet Turner, Jacob Golden, Reindeer Section, and Snow Patrol.
Asked to join forces with Snow Patrol he spent time on the road and in the studio co-writing key tracks on their breakthrough album 'Final Straw', which would earn him an Ivor Novello Award.
His own third album 'Flood The Tanks' was a spectral album of hushed melodies and yearning; follow up 'Magnetic North', an album of extremes - much of it a reflection on Archer's home of Northern Ireland.
With 'To The Pine Roots' Archer has made his barest and most heartfelt work to date, full of woody tones, distant birdsong and and an uncommon sense of hope.
‘Summer Jets’, taken from second record Flood The Tanks, is classic Iain Archer: introspective, unashamedly melodic and inspired by the same jaded spirituality that has fuelled the hearts and hands of many of Northern Ireland’s modern songwriters (see: Duke Special, The Amazing Pilots, Foy Vance). The track drives steadily along the right side of twee and displays the playful turn of phrase and watercolour analogies that speak volumes about how that ‘Run’ song ended up being so successful. SB
The new album, "To the Pine Roots" is partly inspired by the lanscapes of the Black Forest. He mentioned the Hirschsprung ravine and the wintery landscape of lake Titisee near Freiburg.
and Frozen Lake is about that sea of pine trees and lake Titisee in the winter. You would have to be adventurous to walk on ice but I'm very pleased that this particular region in the world inspired a bunch of lovely songs. In fact, apart from Eduard Moericke, I can't think of anyone who has been able to capture the beauty of the area in poems/songs. What makes this album authentic is that Iain Archer lived in Freiburg with his wife this year for a while.
The songs that book-end his album "The acrobat" and the "Nightwatchman" are great character descriptions. He said during the concert that they are like guards but very different people, the acrobat is a man who likes to show off his skills and often dances on the tight-rope taking risks, and the Nightwatchman likes to observe the world from the shadows and you can't really see him and he likes it that way.
There are other details on this album that enchant. Whether it is that parred down melodic acoustic guitar that reminds me of Bert Jansch's on that older album with John Renbourn, or the imagery that he uses. His father is a lanscape painter in Belfast, and so we have a song where the scenery is depicted as a painting, with "Liver Reds" and "Beetle black".
Villagers - On a Sunlit Stage
[ www.myspace.com/wearevillagers]
Kid Harpoon : Back from Beyond
[www.myspace.com/kidharpoon]
JJ Gilmour (formerly The Silencers) : Smile
[www.myspace.com/jjgilmourmusic]
Talulah does the Hula : Bad Boyfriend
[www.myspace.com/talulahdoesthehula]
Adam Green : Boss Inside
[www.myspace.com/adamgreen]
Chase The Dragon : The Lasting
[www.myspace.com/letschasethedragonhome]
Aiofe Scott : Colony
[ =www.myspace.com/aoifescott ]
Penguin Cafe: Music for a found harmonium
>[ =www.penguincafe.com ]
Colorama - Pan Ddawr Nos
[www.myspace.com/coloramasound ]
JJ Gilmour supported Edwyn Collins at the Black Box, Kid Harpoon was at Shepherd's Bush as Brett Anderson's support band , Villagers opened for Fyfe Dangerfield, Talulah Does the Hula are from Dublin and supported The Cribs, so did Adam Green. Chase the Dragon are from Magdeburg/Germany and supported Brett Anderson in Berlin, Colorama (Carwyn Ellis) plays guitar with Edwyn Collins, and played a set at Bloomsbury Ballroom.
I warmly recommend all these bands.
I'll put photos up later.