MUSIC
preview
Bigmouth
The column that dribbles a lot of bollodrs.
4‘ ‘ l... ‘A lot of people would rather sit ., I back and watch TV than go to a hip ‘ . , ‘ , Hp v hop show, because they're \ j v- wondering whether they’re gonna
get killed and that. Tends to ruin the vibe a bit.‘
Fruitkwan (no, really) of the Gravediggaz ponders why some live gigs just ain’t as much fun as they used to be.
'We don’t really go out there with a My Bloody Valentine it's got-to- hurt-or-it's-not-doing-me-any-good attitude. but then again we don't come onstage in white muslin and sit down and have flowers on stage. At least, not so far. . .' Harriet Wheeler of the recently re- surfaced Sundays explains how to tread that fine line between whimsy and goresp/attered horrorcore stage shows.
’I mean, sometimes I can look like a shed. But other times, obviously, I look fantastic. I don't ride a motorcycle -— too much hair damage. And I don't do wind, sand, rain.‘
Ian McCul/och gives the faithful some tips on how to maintain that beautiful rock star image.
I ‘ \ :2
I I up and go home, and that few but Scott Walker could
I even contemplate. As always, there lurks a feeling of
’ danger. He was a man who reported back from places someth'ngy
few would dare follow.
It was to be his return from the pop wilderness, in partnership for the first time with Saul Galpem, who runs Nude Records, home of Suede, Geneva and Goya Dress. Mackenzie and Galpem had known each other for years, but Galpem had declined to sign him
In January, the curse of 'Gloomy Sunday' struck again; another of that notorious song's interpreters had met a tragic end. Now that BILLY MACKENZIE'S final work is being released, it's clear that at the time of
on the ‘three or four occasions’ that Mackenzie had shown an interest, ‘simply because it didn’t feel right his suicide he was at a creative peak. Words: Alastair Mabbott
Billy Mackenzie: pop noir
‘Sex is a very important part of a relationship. It's integral to keeping a relationship alive. It's nice to have someone with really big tits who likes to bend over and take it up the . . .‘
Chris of 3 Colours Red proves conclusively that the art of romance is flourishing.
at that time.’ ‘But this time,’ he says, ‘I was completely bowled over by the tracks.’
Whatever turmoil Mackenzie was experiencing, however, he kept locked away from most others, showing only confidence in his new material, written with pianist Steve Aungle and, on one track, Paul Haig. ‘He seemed okay,’ remembers Galpem, ‘he seemed . . . I dunno . . . he’s always been the same Billy, he was quite introverted a bit, not overly. He seemed the same as he’s always seemed to me. In fact, I didn’t even know about the death of his mother until someone told me, so I didn’t really know he was depressed about that.’
Galpem recalls the encouragement he gave the
‘If there is ever an opportunity to put into exercise the much-needed practice of lynching journalists and paparazzi - you know, hanging them by the neck from trees until they are dead, then burning their bodies - then that time is now. Weighed down by the burden of
Inevitably, a chill settles upon the listener during parts of Billy Mackenzie’s posthumous new album,
Beyond The Sun. In the wake of his suicide, so soon after his mother’s death, it’s hard not to react to already-poignant lines like ‘You know I’ll never follow you/But I’ll be there’ and, later, ‘I read it in the sand/You’d come and take my hand’ as eerie foreshadowings of his eventual fate. And the title track itself ‘Beyond The Sun’. The prospect of bliss just gets more and more remote, doesn’t it?
Beyond The Sun was built up from demos made for his Nude Records debut, but it may prove to be Mackenzie’s most brilliant and most lasting solo work. You’d never know its humble origins from his rich, full-blooded vocal performances. Even for these demos, Billy Mackenzie held nothing back. With the exception of some fine examples of Mackenzie’s particular pop noir, most of the tracks are piano—and-vocal ballads, with a grandness that would make The Bathers pack
42 TIIELIST 12 Sap-25 Sep 1997
'He was certainly looking forward to getting a band together, which he talked about quite a lot, and actually going and playing, which was something he hadn't done for a long time.’ Saul Galpern
singer, suggesting to him that, with this record, ‘it could all happen again.’ But, given his mercurial nature, and his habit of turning his back on the shining lights of showbiz, did Mackenzie give the impression that he was prepared to make a go of this comeback?
‘Well, you know, he’s an artist that’s been around and played the game. It wasn’t like dealing with somebody who’s new to it all, where you have to sit down and explain about this and that. I’m sure we were aware of the fact that he wouldn’t have been available to have done as much as we may have wanted him to do. But the impression I was given was that he was certainly looking forward to getting a band together, which he talked about quite a lot, and actually going and playing, which was something he hadn’t done for a long time.’
Beyond The Sun is released on Nude Records on Mon 6 Oct.
their guilt you will find they are not very fast runners and quite easy to catch.’
Princess Diana ’5 death invokes a predictably Old Testament eye for an eye response from Saint Nick Cave.