Clark, meanwhrle, are lrstenrng rn wonder to ermy Taylor, the Avenue's loquacjrous bass player, rurnrnatrng over rllness.
’The last trme I was really rll was when I had tonsrllrtrs,’ he recalls. 'And because | don't usually get rll, I drdn't do anythrng about rt. It had got to the pOrnt where I hadn’t eaten for three days, I had to go to casualty to get some paracetamol stuck up my arse, because I couldn't swallow anythrng And they were masSrve, so I rust sard, no, l wouldn't do rt I've strll got them I had to srt there, lrterally all day drrnkrng paracetamol. l should've Just whacked rt up my hole, really lt’d probably have been gurte enjoyable
Illness and orrfrces — desprte berng the rumoured workrng trtle of the next Radrohead album ~ are SUbJQClS many trmes removed from the Montrose Avenue’s usual beat. tvlrnrng a vaguely country, trad-pop vern, the band have the pundrts rnvokrng names lrke The Byrds, Brg Star, CSN&Y and Gram Parsons when descrrbrng the lazy rush of therr musrc.
'We don't sound lrke anyone else,’ rs Everrtt‘s oprnron. ’Gomez are dOrng somethrng vaguely srmrlar, but there rsn't any scene rn the press sayrng: Thrs rs the New Wave of Three Frontmen Harmony S0undrng a Brt ere Amerrcan Bands-rsh But Not Really Bands '
After a couple of year's tourrng and wrrtrng, therr debut album rs almost upon us, and th0ugh a brt phlegmmy today, they're eager to prevrew rt at T rn the Park. lt’ll probably be gurte enjoyable. tDamren Love)
CHUMBAWAMBA
Main Stage, Sun 12 Jul. A year on from ‘Tubthumprng', the song that Jettrsoned them from anarcho-vegan obsc urrty to celebrrty, and a few months after frontman Danbert Nobacon clumped a bucket of rced water over John Prescott, Chumbawamba are braced for another onslaught. Therr World Cup song, ‘Top Of The World’, only happens to have the same trtle as the rather more natronalrstrc lvlcCulloch/Marr-pennecl footre anthem A sporler tac trc, obvrously Not the case, rnsrsts the band’s Dunstan Except, of course, that rt's the krnd of thrng they MlGHT have done delrberately rf they'd thought of rt And the shoutrng strll hasn't clrecl down about how they supposedly betrayed therr anarchrst prrncrples by srgnrng to Elvll Dunstan, needless to say, rs havrng none of rt
'We would always call ourselves an anarchrst bancl because of the way we work as a band,’ he says 'We take all decrsrons collectrvely, we all get the same amount of money from the band no matter what we do Gorng rnto the Wrder world, we decrclecl gurte a few years ago that rf you've got what you belreve to be a good rdea, what rs the pornt of keeprng that rdea to yourself7 We don't want to be thrs lrttle rdea that a few people are aware of we want to be thrs brg rdea that everybody knows about
It was a brt of a change of tactrcs, wasn’t rt, to make a decrsron lrke that
after nearly srxteen years together as a band7 'lt was sornethrng that happened rn the 80s, really, rt rust took a long trrne to reach thrs pornt,’ he laughs 'We've trred lots of drfferent thrngs We've trred havrng our own record label, we've trred strll havrng our own label and rust havrng someone else drstrrbutrng our records, we've trred berng on an rndependent label and now we're on a major label. Part of what we do rs always wantrng to try somethrng drfferent '
So how much does success matter to Chumbawamba now7 'We want to experrence rt all We’re rnto havrng our frfteen mrnutes now that rt's landed rn our laps We're not gorng to harp on about that sort of thrng for years and then, when rt happens, shrrk away from rt and go, "Oh no, we're artrsts, we don't want to be rnvolved rn that sort of thrng " Ithrnk we've shown that, srnce thrs opportunrty's come along, we're gOrng to try to cause as much trouble as possrble rn our alloted frfteen mrnutes ' (Alastarr Mabbott)
— SCOTT 4
NME Tent, Sun 12 Jul. Abrasrve cOuntry and less easrly rdentrfrable norses made by more obscure electronrc rnstruments mrght sound irke uneasy bedfellows but north London three-prece Scott 4 have brokered a ternpestuous relatronshrp between the two
Not that the band set out on a
T IN Tm: max
"“ From left to right Chumbawamba: fifteen minutes of trouble-making The Stereophonics: innocent bruisers
(top) Montrose Avenue: pills. thrills and arse-ache (below) Wanted: The Scott 4 Threesome
delrberate attempt to marry two seemrngly rrreconcrlable musrcal mates It rust sort of happened rn the way that these thrngs do. ’| drdn't mean to form a group, never mrnd gorng on any krnd of musrcal rourney,’ ponders frontman Scott Blrxen 'lt's JUSI the materral started suggestrng clrfferent ways of dorng thrngs We were Just a small folky group that started sprrallrng off rn drfferent drrechons'
’Your Krngdom To Dust', the frrst Srngle off therr debut album Recorded In State LP, maps out Scott 4's terrrtory Blrxen's vocals sear themselves rnto a backdrop of woozy blues and alren echoes of found sounds from the electronrc prarrres. Old style preacher man rhetorrc grapples wrth the rdeas of urban boredom and mrraculously rt all sOunds rather compellrng
There's a bleak edge to Scott 4’s materral and much of rt comes from the oft troubled soul of Mr Blrxen. 'lt w0uld be narve of me to say that all the best musm comes from lookrng on the dark srde,’ explarns the softly spoken srnger. ‘But my best musrc comes from the bleak stuff The feelrngs of frustratron and oncomrng madness that I've got to know from the last few years come Out I can very gurckly flrp rnto a paranord consprracy theorrst, mrstrustful of multrnatronals, advertrsrng that sort of thrng ' (Jonathan Trewt
T in Park preview contined over page D
25 Jun—9 Jul 1.998 THE lIST 17