MUSIC LIVE REVIEWS
I
THE WENDYS Venue. Edinburgh. 24Jan The Wendys. eh'.’ The first
, Scottish band to sign to
Factory (well. okay. apart from The Wake).
evidence that the grim
north had something to appeal to that arbiter-of-style (sic). prophet-of-fortune (sick). Tony Wilson. For The Wendy's. plucked from local obscurity and given the keys to so-called cooldom. the promise turned sour as the once-mighty Factory teetered and finally toppled. (PS. The fact that their debut album erred on the lumpy and
was accordingly appraised —thisin the contextof
stressfully high
; expectations—cannot be discounted as a factor in 3 The Wendys' slide of
late.)
BL‘T! Having played footsie with Dame Misfortune. flirted with the fickle mistressof fashion. The Wendys are back. chaste and their own men. Last year. as they awaited the financial nod from the record company to begin recording their long-completed album. theydidn't dither. Instead they set about (to excavate the baggy argot) ‘getting sorted‘. So tonight ‘Sun‘s (ionna Shine For Me Soon‘ and ‘Suckling‘ sound re-fitted and overhauled. cleared ofthe doomy Manchester clutterofthe 1991 versions. The raincoats still hang heavy round the Peter I look-y bass line and Will Sergeant-esque guitar burr of ‘I.ucillia'. the first new song. Animated vocals— Jonalhon hauling himself up front the boggy mumblings of yore — and nimble pacing. though. are The Wendy's saviours here. ‘Dean Martin's
Hangover' (Title ()fThC : Year 1993. already) is ‘ similarly direct andlively.
kicking off with Johnny‘s tattooing drums and flinty spikes from guitarist Ian.
(iobbledygook‘? Not a bit of it. The eurobeat pummel of ‘Experiment'.". the sound of infernal machines pounding in satanic mills I‘m reliably informed. touches up the picture. To mix poxy metaphors. The Wendys now have more textures to their steely colours to their palette than the slate-grey
. conformitythattainted
their earlier stuff.
Their ill-advised affair Madchester (nee Manchester) has been
broken off and The
L
BEThe List 29 January — February 993
Wendy's are wiser for it. Just shows what time and the turning of the fashion- blinkercd tide can do fora
“W‘d- - ~ (“WE MCI-Cu") l misfortune. ACR have spentyears
um:- EVAN DANDO
Cafe Royal, Edinburgh, 21 Jan
C’mon feel the Lemonheads. Come up and see ’em, make them smile. Evan Dando is that kind of frontman, his band that kind of band -the archetypal good bloke fed by the fans’ fever and fired by a need to impart easy-flowing conversational intimacy in his songs. Evan Dando’s solo acoustic excellence and It’s A Shame About Ray’s exuberance are two sides of the same dime: the snappy melody, the deft lyrical observations, the share- and-share-alike devolution of importance that makes this pop star and his records your bosom buddies, your bestest drug buddies. No stage-as-pedestal stand-offlshness here. If he's going to set off ’flakey
’ Yank alert’ alarm bells, he’s the first to
tell you about it.
? philosophywith dopey Q self-etfacement.
From Lovey we get ‘Stove’ and ‘Half
‘ The Time’, bare and naked and de-rocked. On his jack iones with just a
guitar and very clean hair (Evan Dando
fi uses Timotei: ‘It feels meadow fresh
! and. . . got any skins?'). He needs no
3 props, musical or physical. He even
! forsakes the lone mic, goes off
a-wandering as the crowd sing lustily
5 along to Ray’s shiney bright gems.
I Tune into Radio Forth’s live broadcast I
L of this cool and fine evenlng on 1 Feb at ' 10pm. No disagreementwith the
contents of this review will be brooked.
(Craig McLean)
By his covers shall ye know him. Evan does Neil Young’s ‘Barstool Blues’, Gram singing ‘Streets Of Baltimore’, Mike Nesmith’s ‘Different Drum’, ABBA’s ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You', ‘Frank Mills’ from Hair, the classic torch-tortured ‘Gloomy Sunday’. Having plotted these co-ordlnates a picture emerges. One of Dando pinpointing ache and glee, mischief and love, posessed of a symbiotic ‘ rapport with each. The popular image 1 is of the slacker and the space cadet, the hunky dude who’ll never grow up,
, hangs out in Sydney, and has babes
called Hannah and Gabi and Juliana
3 coming out of his ears. But really Evan ; Dando is well-adjusted and
. communallytherapeutic, wonderfully T adept at masking his keen grasp of pop
HEI- A CERTINWRATIO
King Tut’s, Glasgow, 21 Jan. There's a feeling with A Certain Ratio that if you were to meet them in the street, you’d dolf your cap, even offer them your arm to negotiate that tricky zebra crossing. The grand old dukes of white funk still tackling that bracing daily hobble round the block because that’s what they’ve always done. It’s a feeling enforced by the delivery of a more-of-the-same-again, tepid, 2-D album ‘Up In Downsville’, a groove waiting to happen, and a restrained Barrowland support to Brand New Heavies on their last Glasgow appearance. It’s like, ifthey're not up to scratch let’s afford them the respect they’re due anyway— nearly fifteen years of innovation and still the arenas elude them.
That was a hall, though, and this is a club, ‘the best club gig in Europe’, say ACR. They respond to this impetus with an eruption of molten funk so immediately congruent with the King Tut’s crush that the arena bypass seems more by design than
casually flouting the apprehension that they’re austere clinical practitioners. There are definite echoes in their sublime electro-ambient layers of 808 State, but the nub of their sound is a whole heap warmer than that.
Tonight, Denise Johnson (from Primal Scream) lends rich vocal succour to understated slivers of
shimmypop like ‘Mello’ which, despite its staple position in the current set,
sounds undernourished spliced back to back with its cocopop cousin “Won’t Stop Loving You’ orthe anthemic ‘Be What You Wanna Be’, an escalating club mantra on record, a convulsive
beezerofan epic live.
But besides being resolutely song-driven, ACR understand the science of dance —y’know that, oh, tribal lhang - as evinced by their
improvised percussive encore where
it’s possible to forget that singer Jez looks like a pallid overgrown indie kid
cocooned in his garret and witness him
reborn as an exotic witchdoctor
regulating the frenetic dance around
I the pyre. (Fiona Shepherd)
V BOOK NOW
Concerts listed are those at maiorvenues, for which tickets are on public sale at time of going to press.
ROCK
I GLASGOW BARROWLAND (226 4679) Hendrix Tribute. 12 Feb; Pantera. 14 Feb; Arrested Development. 19 Feb; Dinosaur Jr. 20 Feb; B-52's. 21—22 Feb: Alice in Chains. 24 Feb; Stiff Little Fingers. 17 Mar; Jeff Healey. 1 Apr; James. 2—3 Apr: Hothouse Flowers. 30 Apr—1 May.
I GLASGOW CELTIC PARK (2275511) U2.8Aug.
I GLASGOW CONCERT
HALL(227 5511)E1vis 5 Costello and Brodsky
Quartet. 22 Feb; Gerry Rafferty. 26 Feb; Solid Silver Sixties. 8 Mar; Don Williams. 18 Mar; Brenda Lee. 19 Mar; The Hollies. 24 Mar; Elkie Brooks.4 Apr; Everly Brothers. 19
Apr; Neil Sedaka. 29 Apr;
Crystal Gayle. 23 May. I GLASGOW PAVILION (3321846)MaryChapin
‘ Carpenter. 11 Feb;John Martyn. 17 Feb; Dougie MacLean. 25 Feb: Tasmin
i Archer. 28 Feb; Queen
Tribute. 3 Apr.
5 I GLASGOW SECC (031
5576969) Chris Rea. 12 Feb; David Essex. 8May;
Michael Bolton.9—10
: May; Bon Jovi. 19 May;
- Iron Maiden. 21 May.
: I EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE
(557 2590) Joe Satriani.l Feb; Kid Creole. 6Feb; Gerry Rafferty. 25 Feb; Brenda Lee. 20 Mar; Elkie Brooks. 3Apr: Everly Brothers. 21 Apr. I EDINBURGH OUEEN'S HALL(668 2(119) John
Martyn. 16 Feb; Dougie
MacLean. 27 Feb. I EDINBURGH USHER
HALL(2281155)Suzanne ' Vega. 14 Apr.
JAZZ
I GLASGOW CITY HALL (227 5511) Lyttelton and Bilk. 4 Feb; Kevin MacKenzie. 6 Feb; Michel Petrucciani. 13 Feb; Don Cherry. 25 Feb; Melanie O‘Reilly. ll Mar;Tom Bancroft Orchestra. 20 Mar; Rebirth Brass Band. 25 Mar.
I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL(227 5511)Herb Miller Orchestra. 8 Feb; Chris Barber. 23 Feb.
I EDINBURGH OUEEN'S HALL (668 2019) Lyttelton and Bilk. 5 Feb; Evan Parker and Django Bates. 8 Feb; Michel Petrucciani. 12 Feb; Don Cherry,26 Feb; Cauld Blast Orchestra. 5 Mar;Tom Bancroft Orchestra. 19 Mar; Rebirth Brass Band. 26 Mar.
I EDINBURGH USHER HALL(228 1 155) Herb Miller Orchestra. 9 Feb.
FOLK
I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL (227 551 1 ) The Dubliners. 17 Mar.
LIGHT
I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL (227 5511) Richard Claydcrman. 9 Feb; Howard Keel. 5 Apr; Pirates of Penzance. 5 Mar; Michael Ball. 1 Apr; Slim Whitman and George Hamilton IV. 8 Apr.
I GLASGOW PAVILION (332 1846) Lena Martell. 18—19 Mar.
I GLASGOW SECC (031 557 6969) Barry Manilow. 14 Apr; Johnny Mathis. 26 Sept.
CLASSICAL
I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL (227 551 1) Polish CO.1Feb;John
Williams. 10 Feb;
Wilhelmenia Fernandez. 25 Feb; Vienna SO.4 Mar; Call That Singing. 25 Mar; Philharmonia. 22 Mar; Itzhak Perlman. 20 Apr; St Petersburg Phil, 11—12 May; Leipzig R30. 17 May.
IGLASGOW RSAMD (332 5057) Leda Trio. 22 Jan; Paragon Ensemble. 24 Jan; Ralph Kirshbaum. 26 Jan; Liederfest. 29 Jan: Chambchroupof Scotland. 30 Jan; Talieh Quartet. 4 Feb; Zoe Alambicum. 6 Feszohn Currie Singers. Feb 7: Academy Orchestra. 1] Feb: Scottish Ensemble. 12 Feb; Voices. 14 Feb: Hebrides Ensemble. 20 Feb; Paragon Ensemble. 21 Feb; Zelenka Lamentations. 27 Feb; Acad Wind Orch. 4 Mar; Leda Trio. 5 Mar; Glasgow Wind Band,6 Mar; Voices. 7 Mar; Peter Michael Hamel. 11 Mar; SCO Brass. 12 Mar; Glasgow Cham Orch. 13 Mar.
I EDINBURGH OUEEN’S HALL (668 2019) Cabaret. 30Jan-6 Feb; Scottish Sinfonia. 7 Feb; ECAT.8 Feb; John Currie Singers. 11 Feb; Scottish Ensemble. 14 Feb. 25 Apr; Britten Quartet. 15 Feb; Leonard Friedman. 17 Feb; King‘s Consort. 18 Feb. 13 May; ESO.20 Feb; Hebrides Ensemble. 21 Feb; Brindisi Quartet. 23 Feb; SEMC, 24 Feb. 18 Mar: Composer‘s Ensemble. 28 Feb; SCO Brass. 13 Mar; Nash Ensemble. 22 Mar; BBC $50. 27 Mar; Florilcgium, 28 Apr.
I EDINBURGH USHER HALL(2281155)ERCU Elijah. 3Apr. ISUBSCRIPTION SEASONS Programme details and tickets for RSNO. SCO. BBCSSO.
; and CGPO concerts are available from
l
Tieketcentre. Glasgow (227 5511); Usher Hall. Edinburgh (228 1 155); Queen‘s Hall. Edinburgh (6682019). Tickets for Scottish Opera from Theatre Royal. Glasgow (332 9000); King‘s Theatre. Edinburgh (229 1201).