MUSIC PREVIEW
V LISTEN!
I Lloyd Cole was seen in Dublin satisfying some artistic urge or other on a TV show that will be aired on Channel 4 in the autumn. With a 60-piece orchestra behind him, the stubbled one ran through specially-arranged versions of some new songs from his forthcoming album. By some extraordinary coincidence, the album will be out in the early autumn (September to be precise), and a full halfof it was recorded with a orchestra some 30 members strong. Neat synchronicity there. Other artists seen rising to the full symphonic magnificence ofthe occasion apparently included one ‘Talcy‘ McLaren. But then he would. I It’s Raining Mani Well, no, it isn’t. Quite the reverse in fact, ifyou’ve been attending the Heuch! series of Friday night ceilidhs (‘with attitude’) at the Arches, the old site of Glasgow’s Glasgow. The ceilidhs held in April attracted a disproportionate number of young women, and Heuch! hope to balance things out this time around. I And when they’re not arranging ceilidhs, Tower Promotions (the company that likes to say. ‘1 Iere. have another concise. informative press release well in advance ofyour deadline‘) are keeping themselves busy by organising their latest project: The Circuit. The
intentionofthisventureis
1‘ to get the best pub venues
in Glasgow putting on one or two regular nights of live music a week. which all combine to make up a full week of bands. The increased number ofgigs, they suggest, will benefit both bands and gig-hungry customers andit‘s hoped that putting them all under the ‘Circuit‘ banner will be enough ofa guarantee ofquality to tempt people away from their videos of an evening.
I T'othertower, that is, the big record store which is ‘ no relation to the
slim List lZ—ZSJuly 1991
promotions company mentioned here. has
another batch ofpersonal ‘ appearanceslined up for its Glasgow store.
Worldwide play an
acoustic set on Fri 12 at
i
The Primitives
Never really understood all that ‘iizzy chainsaw’, ‘buzzing buzzsaw‘ malarkey. ForThe Primitives, ‘see-saw’ rather than any kind oi tree-telling implement would seem more litting a tag. Up and down it’s been since those iirst hazy Lazy days oi ’87. Three rush-thrill singles on their own indie label were the cue ior label and band to sign it big. Therealter, ‘Crash’ crashed the Top Five, iront covers were adorned and much curious debate ensued over- oi all things—the colour oi the hair on the singer’s head. Two albums down the line, and alter a pop liietime away, The Primitives have returned. Once they were the apple oi the disaiiected youth's indie-skewed eye, but more recently
their cute and winning guitarthang (‘bubblegum' isthe word, apparently. Why?) seemed a marginalised anomoly.
‘I think we came out oi that anyway,’ says Tracy Tracy, the vocalist so good they named hertwice. ‘I don’tthink we were like many indie bands at the time. The main thing ior us was always to evolve irom that and to move to a major record label. It’s quite the opposite at the moment— everyone’s quite happy to be on subsiduaries. But at the time we were quite determined to do that.‘
Determined they‘ve remained. For a while, their adherence to the dinosaur-cum-albatross that is/was post-shambling sugar chords was decidedly anachronistic. But, as ever, the musical worm has turned and those Byrdsian/REMish 12-string times are here again (see Top, Milltowns, Rain, etc). The Prims vindicated? Whatever, the new Ian Broudie-produced single, ‘You Are The Way’, is identiiiably Primitive and, as ever, cunnineg catchy and, what’s more, most
delinitely not bowing to iaddish lunacy.
‘We've always maintained our own identity,’ says she, ‘and even more so now- our stuii’s gone back to what it was like in the early days. A lot harder and a lot groovier.’ (Craig McLean) The Primitives, King Tut’s, Glasgow, Sat 20 Jul.
Crossing over
Richard Rodney Bennett is one at those rare musicians who has succeeded in building a bridge between the oiten divided worlds oi classical music and
! jazz, and crossing back and iorth
wheneverthe mood takes him. A
proliiic and much-honoured composer , in the classical idiom, Bennett has long . pursued a parallel career as a jazz
; pianistand singer.
‘My love oi jazz began irom listening to the radio and songs in movies when i- . was a child, and I started to learn these
i great songs by Gershwin and Kern and
myseli in America, and that has now
Porter, which are still the ones I do in
the show, when l was nine or ten years old. lworked with Marion Montgomery ior years. but I was also working by
taken overcompletely.‘ Although he continues to compose ior _ both concert hall and iilm, Bennett now 3 plays exclusively jazz, notably in his j show‘Nobody Else ButMe‘. He can ' change the show irom night to night, depending on his mood and the reaction oi the audience, butthe i backbone oi the material is drawn irom the great age oi American popular i song, which he reiuses to view as i simply nostalgic. 1 ‘I do find jazz more rewarding to play, j which is strictly a personal view. I include a iew modern songs and things at my own, but I love to perlorm these classics simply because they are great
Richard Rodney Bennett
songs, and have lasted irom the timel iirst heard them. They stay iresh, and oiier a new challenge every time I play them in iront oi an audience. and I love that. I couldn‘t be tied to a desk all the time.‘
He is tied to a desk long enough to turn out a continuing stream oi
I classical compositions. however, one
at which, the ‘Percussion Concerto‘
1 written ior Evelyn Glennie and
premiered at the St Magnus Festival in Orkney last year, will be included in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's concert at the Glasgow Concert Hall on 4 September, as part at the Glasgow International Gala Season. (Joe Alexander)
Richard Rodney Bennett’s ‘Nobody
Else But Me‘ is at the Glasgow Concert , Hall irom Tue 23—Thurs 25.
: kite
. Arguablythe bandthat
i invented the whole genre
f ofindie-dance with ‘Loaded’, Primal Scream
' are taking tothe road
again. Fiona Shepherd switched on her tape
i recorder and sat back as ‘Modest Bob” Gillespie let
.i ; rip.
activate mental teleportation. You have a ticket to ride and your
time equally between radiating joy and togetherness and dispensing goodwill and Ecstasy. Love is the drug. More importantly, Radio Paradise (the celestial station) is playing the number one song in Heaven. It’s by Primal Scream, but
this is just the twenty-minute radio
asa
Close your eyes, relax your body and ;
destination is The Future. How's this , for one penetrating version ofwhat it will be like: the populace divide their.