MUSIC LIST
0 Happy The Man Napoleons, Merrylee Road. 8pm. Free. Hard working local band. vaguely reminiscent ofthe Jam.
Edinburgh
5 The Moody Blues Playhouse Theatre, Greenside Place. 7.30pm.
3 £9, £8, £7. Perhaps this is just some
“ cruel joke. But no, the Blues are too dependable for that. Too dependable to go a show without playing Knights In White Satin,
that’s for sure. Nostalgia value only. 0 The Alice House Preservation Hall, Victoria Street. 9pm. Free.
WEDNESDAY 10 - Glasgow
0 Scheme Rooftops, Sauchiehall Street. 10.30pm. £3.50.
Edinburgh
0 Perlstalsls Brothers Boston Bean Co, St James Centre. 9pm. Free. See Wed 3.
0 Billy Jones Canny Man’s, Morningside Road. 8.30pm. Free. Pop/folk.
THURSDAY 11 Glasgow
0 Zero Zero/Helium Ruin QMU, University Gardens. 9pm. Students and friends. I seem to have been cruel to everyone this week, which is a shame for Zero Zero, who are slick, professional and bland.
O The Godlathers Fury Murrays, Maxwell Street. 10.30pm. No doubt advising their fans to buy their latest single, which is called ‘Sunarise’.
o The Bounty Hunters Midas, West Regent Street. Free.
All at UB40 (See Tues 2 Dec).
Edinburgh
0 The New York Plglunkers, Deal Heights Cajun Aces and Tarn White and The Dexters Pauper’s Ball, Chambers Street Student Union. 8pm. £2. The Pigfunkers, with an imminent record release, are compelling, strangely strange but oddly normal, and needless to say, very funky. The Aces and The Dexters provide your more traditional fare. Students and guests only.
0 Billy Jones Lord Darnley, West Port. 9pm. Free. Pop/folk.
0 Watch With Mother Stag’s Head Hotel, High Street, South Queensferry. Edinburgh pop band with newly-released debut single.
GIG REVIEW
0 The Communards: Playhouse, Edinburgh. Sarah Jane Morris has been home two weekends in the past year, The Communards taking up the remainder oi her time. Their set at the Playhouse the other night included two Roman pillars with liowers stulied in— them (like you get at a luneral service) which occasionally glowed a charming pink. I suppose the music at Jimmy Somervllle and Richard Coles is really lorthe car, but that could get a bit pricey ll you haven’t got one.
However, Sarah Jane (complete with the 'llu) has a mesmerlsing voice, and it seemed a pity that there wasn’t more ol it. Oh well, look on the bright side - alterthe show she revealed ‘l've got an Ansaphone. That’s the only thing that's changed in-my lile.’ Who’s going to play back the messages?
(Paul Almond)
0 WE DEHY lT ALLil And no wonder . because never have so low exaggerated so much about so many. As speculation about the rumoured splits in Hipsway and Lloyd Cole And The Commotions grows, local rags have been going crazy trying to get their stories right. Two magazines, ‘Cut’ and ‘Hocket 88’ actually printed a ‘Hlpsway Spllt’ story and then denied it on the next page! Unbelievable, but not as mysterious as who gives a darn anyway . . .
0 And talking about total non-events, King (otherwise known as last year’s model popsters) have split up. Keep your sympathy lor the other three splldes in the band though, because Paul King -the man oi a thousand caricatures — is currently in New York recording with a Mr Dan (‘I single-handedly saved James Brown’s career’) Hartman. Oh dear, he’ll be back, you know . . .
o More on the non-story line (well everybody else does it!) Hick Kamen is not going out with Madonna (doesn’t that make you want to throw up,
ladies?) but Samantha Fox is going out with Hugo Burnham (ex-drammerwlth The Gang 0! Pour). Funny old world, innit?
0 Young Parisians, apart irom being so French, got a bit ol a treat at the Huey Lewis And The News gig in Paris last week when big Hue was joined onstage by the two mostesteemed pop artists in the history ol the world (calm down now) The Boss Himsell and Saint Bob Geldol. . . Funny old world, innit?
0 Oh dear, just when it looks like the Edinburgh live scene was starting to get quite healthy again come a iew blows: a pitched battle between police and punks In Victoria Street when anarcho-punkers Conlilct played The Mission has put the More oi that venue in jeopardy, though at press-time, the two Dnlon Cellar dates were still going
ahead . . . The lnestimable Beat Freak Alan Campbell has ilnaily decided, alter scaling down the number oi live bands overthe last iew months, to hand over the reins at The Hoochle Coochle Club. it’s luture as a live venue is still uncertain . . . The re-opening oi The Jailhouse as The Venue has been put back again . . . But live bands can be heard most nights in The Cavern (ionnerly La Sorbonne) in the Cowgate, and would the folks running it like to coniirrn or deny rumours that live bands are being shiited to the Bedlam Theatre?
0 BDCK STAB EXCESS!!! Spandau Ballet, alter being mobbed by a thousand teenles at Home Airport went on to drink lorty, I mean ADI bottles oi champagne alter appearing on Italy’s equivalent oi ‘Wogan’ ‘Entre Amigos'. Spand lans can be glad that they weren’t actually doing Wogan as the band may never have recovered . . .
0 Still the ttalians aren’t all dart. . . the complete consignement oi Bruce Springsteen’s box sets was hl-jacked on the Italian border on its way from the pressing plant in Holland.
raham Skinner oi Hipsway
NEW SINGLES
Courtney Pine: Children ol the Ghetto (island). The tire! single lrom the young lion whose more extravagant supporters claim is the saviour oi British jan. Well, time will tell, but it’s lucky ior us that Pine hasn’t iallen under the spell oi Wynton hiarsalls, who certainly wouldn’t approve ol a
Spndau Ballet
supposedly serious black jazz musician doing something as unseemly as releasing a single. Which is something that Pine, heading the close links that have always existed betweeen jazz and pop, has gone and done. it’s a rather long single, clocking in at just over seven minutes. but the song has been given just the right space in which to breathe. This is deilnltely a song that will make the world seem a brighter place alter a shitty day: smoooth, dlgnliied, the tone at Plne’s sax is gorglous and vocalist Susaye Greene soars. A glance at the lable is reassuring. Chris Blackwell will hopeiully look alter Pine as he did Bob Marley and let him develop at his own
n ace. Time will tell.
:- z ' — “i m» a r The Woodentops (See Listings Thu Alison Moyet: is This Love (CBS). The annoying thing about All’s singles is that we know how much bettershe can be. This is nursery-rhyme stull, with predictable climaxes and that damned headache-inductngdrumbeat. A song that even at llrst hearing you know intimately.
The Cateran: Last Big Lie (DDT). Dne oi the new crop ol excellent Edinburgh bands, The Cateran make some line music. This is . . .well, punky butwlth sell-mocking tongue-ln-cheek lyrics instead oi hall-baked politics, and they can’t help showing that they know how to use their instruments to maximum ellect. it’s great to hear that two-guitar assault again — I think people have been lrightened at it tor the last iew years—traditional but iresh. is this another blind alley or the real way ahead? Fling it at our pop kids! Let them decide.
Lowlile: Vain Delights (Nightshllt). We listened so hard, so many times, to this record to try to llnd something interesting, original or something that Isn’t done better elsewhere. in vain. Lowlile just can’t get Joy Dlvlson/tlew Order out ol their heads ior the duration of the A-slde. Ponderous sludge. Why on earth do they bother?
Dec)
The List 28 Nov — 11 Dec 41