MUSIC PREVIEW
v lISTEN! l
The [.is! has been inundated with requests for demos and such. for possible gigs and releases. We know how many bands and bedroom recording artistes there are out there. so here‘s a quick rundown of people who may be interested in your work:
Electric Honey Records.
Stow College. ~13
Shamrock Street. Glasgow (34 ‘)l.l) intend to bring out material by a Scottish band soon. They'd appreciate demos. biographies. photos. all the usual stuff. Mark your Jiffy bag for the attention of Alan Rankine. Different Class Records. West l.othian College. Marjoribanks Street. Bathgate till-18 lQl. are planning their annual release. This year. though. they might be
using several bands. so
there's a greater chance of" getting selected. As well as tapes. they're appealing for details of gigs so they cart check bands out live.
Fire Island Records. PO Box ll. Bathgate Ell-IS IRX seek ‘bouncy house. happy house. hard house. garage and trance tunes'. Mark envelopes for the attention ofJamie Raeburn and bear in mind that no hi-NRG. liuro or ‘cheesy‘ tunes will he considered.
ll‘ yott have tapes ready. whack something off to David P Semple at Beatbox. 9‘) t-‘innieston Square. Glasgow G3 Sl-lN. Demos should reach them no later than Mon 28 Nov. There could be gigs at stake here.
legends. The Cowgale. Edinburgh lilll are once more on the hunt for bands to lill their stage in the coming months. Their brief is pretty wide: from anywhere iii Scotland. young. old. punk. hip-hop. folk. rock. you name it. Possible residency.
I A.C. Acoustics are so chuffed with their excellent new single. ‘Hand Passes Plenty'. that they‘ve come over all generous and supplied us with live copies. plus copies of their acclaimed albutn and T—shirts to go to live readers who cart tell us. . .just what was that album called. anyway"? (You should all have heard of it by now!) Answers on a postcard to Listen! at the Edinburgh editorial address.
I News of two more Sound Advice seminars at the OFT. The first. on Fri l8. covers ‘Record Promotion and Plugging‘. ‘Concert Promotion‘. the topic for discussion on 9 Dec. will include a case study of T In The Park. Both at lpm. both free. I
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32 The List 18 November—l December I‘M-I
am:- ’ Charm before the storm
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Gene at la Belle Angele in August
‘We’ve really just stuck to a basic plan, which consisted of: get radio play for the first single, as with the second, and get both in the Top 75, etc, and it’s all worked remarkably close to that. As for our success, I would have to be honest and say it doesn’t surprise me in the least . . . cocky soul that I am.’
Martin Hossiter has plenty to be cocky about. With their third single, ‘Sleep Well Tonight’, his band, Gene, have taken the music press and live audiences not so much by storm as sheer charm. Having met in October 1993, they were discovered by journalists Boy Williamson and Keith Cameron who decided Gene were the
Costermonger Records.
new band, parallels will be drawn. It happened to Suede and Pulp, and now
Hossiter. ‘I can understand why the
perfect band to launch their label,
Of course, with the emergence of any
Gene have fallen prey to the ‘pseudc- Smiths’ label. ‘Yeah, the Smiths thing,’ groans
comparisons happen. It’s because we’re four white British males who try and write intelligent, eloquent, lucid songs, which sadly is a rare currency these days. It’s just necessary for them, for some perverse reason, to find a particular cupboard to slip us genflyinfi
Although it is hard to look or listen to this charming man without thinking briefly of Morrissey, the similarities are fleeting. Gene have far wider influences and a style all their own.
Rossiter cites The Faces, Van Morrison, The Jam, Stax and Northern Soul, some of which will no doubt find i its way into their debut album, due in 9 February. :
‘I think the album will surprise a lot of people in the sense that it will be far more diverse than they would possibly expect,’ Rossiter says. But couldn’t such diversity on a debut prove a little risky? Hot at all. i ‘Because I believe the songs are strong and that simple, unfashionable things like harmony and words are still g desirable.’ (Michael Carrigan) ; Gene play The Venue, Edinburgh on Tue 22 and King Tut’s, Glasgow on Fri 1 25.
Groovy, laid ’Nifty Mouth Music and Shooglenifty have one thing in common - drummer James Mackintosh. Back from the ’Hifty’s first trip to Holland, he is enthusing about the relaxed Dutch lifestyle, and their enthusiasm for the band.
Not really understanding what the group did, their agent sold them as a folk band, a traditional band, and not an all-instrumental outfit playing rootsy Celtic dance grooves.
‘We don’t have a vocalist. Well, Angus the fiddler often sings whatever comes into his head, stream of consciousness stuff . . .and I think the audiences were a little perplexed at first, but after a few numbers they got the message. The Dutch are not known as great dancers, but in most places we had them up on their feet, going mental. We sold lots of CDs and have already been asked back to do some festivals in the spring.’
With Mouth Music off the road for about a year, James has until now been faced with no conflict of interest. However, with Shooglenifty’s
ever-heightening profile and recently- released first CD, he’ll have to start '
together, improvising. We keep the
into the live set. Work in some new
'. Shooglenifty play The Assembly
l
juggling his diary. i
What does he make of the slight disappointment expressed by some i who feel that the new album doesn’t capture the edgy energy of their live sets?
‘You do what you do live. Our music comes together organically. It comes together on stage, putting things
good stuff, the rest goes. But it’s a completely different process when you’re recording. We really got into the creative process of working in the studio. So the album is something we made, and it’s a lot mellower than we are live.
‘We’re even looking at doing a three- track re-mix, making the music even more ambient, and hopefully we’re going to put a lot more light and shade
tempos. You can only play reels for so long. We’re still evolving.’ (Norman Chalmers)
Rooms, Edinburgh on Sat 19.
mm- = No world
order
Stop dicking around! It’s Moby, prolific composer
; and techno—guru, who’s 7 rather disturbed to find the
USA collapsing around his ears. ‘The world doesn’tjust need the occasional nice dance record,’ he tells Fiona
Shepherd.
For a raving. speedl'reak. keyboard- jettisoning. equiptnent-trashing. 'Iiriu Peaks-sampling. Christ-professing. larger-than-life character on the New York techno scene. Moby is sounding a mite subdued. One. a transatlantic phone call has just woken him tip and two. he was up late. not working on sotne hyper-bpmatic Jean Michel Jarresque electronic anthem in his basement hive but drinking in the results of the latest round of US congressional elections.
‘ln one night. Washington has gone from being a moderate place to being a conservative place.’ he intones. like a Pathc News voiceover. "The people who appeal to crass, lowest common denominator. hateful emotions won and the sensible. reasonable people were thrown out of ol'l'tce.‘
The man whose electro-elegy ‘llymn' contains a repeated idealistic sample of the words ‘I/ti's is my (Iratm' sounds
J