V SINGLES
I Edwyn Collins: 50 Shades of Blue (Demon) Pogo. Edwyn. pogo now! Mr Collins gets down in style. wobbling his fringe and instigating minor haemorrhages in the legion of his fans already drowning in the lushness of his Hope and Despair album. The voice gallops and snorts. as do the drums and keyboard frenzies. and all the poor punter can do is puff and pant and beg for more.
And that‘s the truth. (CMcL)
I His Latest Flame: His Latest Flame (London) Over-paid. over-sexed and over here. Hazel O'Connor vocals. black market tan tights. scorching harmonies and a wailing harmonica meet in a tidy. spunky poppy thingy. As gutsy as the decidedly indie-based guitar screech intro suggests it will be. America Blue is yet another tasty nibbler from the imminent In The Neighbourhood album. (CMcL)
I Summerhill: Here lAm (Polydorlingle-jangle. a honey tangle that sparkles like spring dew in winter‘s grey. Summerhill are fun-lovin‘. guitar-besotted chappics who are clearly far better than their American forebearers at inspiring 12-string country rock-ish mayhem among the more discerning ofthe British public. We‘ll forgive them the folly of supporting All About Eve and look forward to seeing them with Green on Red. Rednecks and soul-boys. don‘t miss out. ((‘McL)
I The Soup Dragons: Crotch Deep Trash (Haw TV) The Soup Dragons surge single-mindedly on in their quest for the biker credibility that their early reputation as scribblers of fey. Buzzcocks~style love letters will never let them attain. Heavier than ‘Backwards Dog‘ but not as good a tune. What‘s it next year. Sean. flame-spitting codpieces'.’ (AM)
I Barry Adamson: The Taming of the Shrewd (Mute) Continuing the sombre tension of this year‘s Moss Side Story. and his fascination with 60s film and TV themes. Adamson has taken tribal drumming and Morricone guitar and proved himself yet again an adept and inventive practitioner of
ROCK 55 JAZZ SBFOLK 39 CLASSICAL 40
IMUSIcm usmes
MUSIC LIST
um:- Love Live
After being forced to cancel Scottish dates twice this year, The House of Love have finally confirmed them. Main man Guy Chadwick doesn’t have to get all bleaughy with statements like ‘We just want to tell the people that still like us thatwe still like them’, but he does anyway.
And now, with their new single ‘I Don’t Know Why I Love You' on the verge oi release, nothing, it seems, can stop their inexorable rise. Not even the gloomy reputation that Chadwick admits has dogged them since their incephon.
‘We made a very sad first LP,’ he says, in a surprisingly polite, cultured voice. ‘It was almost pathetic, really. It was total slit-the-wrists time, and a lot of people identified with that because a lot of people go through a lot of suffering, and that was the kind of vibe. Live, we probably have got a reputation for being a bit doomy, but it hasn’t
“'7.
stopped people from coming to our gigs, and it’s getting a bit better now. I’m a bit more confident, and I don’t want people coming away from our gigs feeling really depressed, lwant them to feel elated. I like the way that there’s always ten people taking the piss out of me.’
Still beside himself with joy that ‘NME' readers voted The House of Love the best new band of last year, he’s convinced they are a long way from their peak.
‘How long do I think it’ll be? Forever. For me, it’s some fantastic journey. Now I’m starting to realise what we can achieve as a group. It's been a real slog at times, but we do feel we have discovered something. How far can you go? It’s the unknown.’ (Alastair Mabbott)
The House of Love, Calton Studios, Edinburgh, Fri 3 and Sat 4 Nov; Town Hall, Greenock, Sun 5 Nov.
Out of the shadows
Emily Sailers and Amy Ray are the Indigo Girls, two singers, songwriters and guitarists, who have enjoyed a surprising amount of success in the US this year with their eponymous major label debut, which included the attention-grabbing single, ‘CloserTo Fine’. They have made the transition to the big league with surprising ease, but their success has been built over a period of several years.
‘I was a senior in High School, Amy was a junior, so that was 1981 when we started working together,‘ says Emily. ‘When we first started playing, it was just for fun. We played a lot of cover songs —James Taylor, Elton John and things like that— and we mainly played in local bars. We tried writing a song together once, but it sounded awful. Since our musical styles are so different, we write separately and then arrange everything together. So, really, the finished product of the song is like both of our contributions- if you
listen to the album enough, you can point out the distinctions between
Amy's writing and my own.‘
Emily admits to listening to more singer/songwriters, crediting Joni Mitchell ‘for inspiration' on the album sleeve, while Amy has her roots more in ‘alternative’ rock-thus the appearance of all the members of REM on the album, including Michael Stipe’s duet on the brilliant ‘Kid Fears’, is not a great surprise, although the Stipe duet is a ploy that has also been employed by Natalie Merchant and Syd Straw . As the Hothouse Flowers also appear on the album, was it not a worry that they would be overshadowed by theircollaborators?
‘I only thought about that because Michael said something about it. He expressed concern about not wanting to take away from what we were doing, but we said “Don’t worry, you won’t overshadow us - don't flatter yourself”!' (John Williamson)
The Indigo Girls support 10,000 Maniacs, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Sun 5.
Bros, not Bros
Kenny Mathieson looks at the emergence of Zimbabwean popsters The Four Brothers.
Well, ifit's good enough for The Ramones. I can see no reason why The Four Brothers should not also adopt a mock-sibling status. In the case of the Zimbabwe pop band. however, the pretence did not take the shape of borrowed surnames; instead, as drummer and singer Marshall Munhumumwe recalled. it seemed an accurate reflection of their relationship.
‘In 1978. we went to a record company in Harare. The A&R manager was not very impressed with us or our music. but he agreed to make a record with us. First.
though. he needed to have a name
30 The List 27 October — 9 November 1989