Roddy Woomble explains time travel made easy
One of my favourite things is revisiting places. imagining the person you were the last time you stood there, compared with the person you are now. This is something that happens quite a lot with me. The most recent location for such a revelation was standing on top of a hill by Bridge of Orchy in the Highlands. I took a deep breath. closed my eyes. and then opened them a happier young man. I even paddled in a river that day. Two years earlier I was being rained on. watching toddlers dribble into their stovies through the hotel windows.
I'm having another such revelation sitting typing this in an internet cafe in Australia. It's winter. yet I‘m wearing a T-shirt and a lady with a giant smile has just tried to sell me some yellow flowers. so it‘s all good. The last time I was here. about two years ago. we stroked a few kangaroos and played in a few pub backrooms, but this time it's proper venues. TV appearances and everything. which I guess is some sign of progress. It‘s just a shame that in order to get here you have to endure a flight that I can only describe as my version of hell. Sitting strapped into a chair for 24 hours surrounded by the smell of fart. whimpering infants. snoring golfers, eating food that I‘m pretty sure I’d spit back out if I ate it on earth. culture being supplied by endless streams of Hugh Grant movies.
But when you‘re here and you get over the jet tag (which always seems to hit me during concerts. unfortunately) it's a pretty cool place. Lots of rollerbladers. strong coffee. friendly people. koala bears etc. This time we're also making our first trip to New Zealand. so we can hang with some hobbits and scan the horizon for whales and dolphins.
Finally, I'd just like to add that I am not a rollerblader.
Id/ew/ld's album Warnings/ Promises is out now on Par/ophone.
68 THE LIST 9 I’ll .lun 900:3
GEEK ROCK WEEZER Carling Academy, Glasgow, Fri 17 Jun
We should all thank the crap out of Weezer, because before they came along the best effort the world had of marrying the power of metal with the glorious choruses of pop was bloody Bon Jovi. OK, the American foursome might have inadvertently invented the often irritating sub- genre of geek rock, and spawned a thousand soundalike outfits seemingly tailor-made to soundtrack the latest retarded American high school flick, but you can hardly blame them for the idiocy of what came in their wake. Formed in 1992 the band - essentially a vehicle for troubled and curmudgeonly fiber-geek frontman and songwriter Rivers Cuomo - set their stall out early doors, their eponymous debut album in1994 spawning a bunch of hit singles including possibly the best power pop song ever written in ‘Buddy Holly’ (accompanied by that awesome Spike Jonze Happy Days tribute video). Of course, selling millions of records made Cuomo and his geeky bandmates uncomfortable and they retreated from the limelight, Cuomo returning to study at Harvard. The
more introspective album which followed two years later, Pinkerton, was a relative commercial flop, but was still a damn fine rock record by anyone’s standards.
Thankfully, another few years off got all that uncommercial stuff out their system, and by the time The Green Album emerged in 2001 the band were once more knocking out effortless MTV-friendly gems like ‘Hash Pipe’ and ‘Island in the Sun’ and turning a whole new generation of geeky skate kids into massive fans.
80 what about Weezer in 2005? Still cranky and unwilling to play the industry game, yet still churning out awesomely simple yet beautifully sarcastic guitar pop nuggets of genius, such as new single ‘Beverly Hills’, this time accompanied by a great video of the band looking uncomfortable as hell in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion.
The genius of Weezer is that they are a complex, troubled outfit who gently deride themselves and the world around them, and mock many of those who laud them, yet they get away with it because they do it in a song that is catchy as hell, and sounds like the dumbest tune on the planet. Truly, the geeks have inherited the earth. (Doug Johnstone)
WORLD TAJ MAHAL Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Mon 20 Jun
Born in New York's Harlem just as Pearl Harbor catapulted the US into the war. Henry St Clair Fredericks grew up to become one of the first exponents of what is now known as 'w0rld music'. and was even eventually to collaborate with musicians from the Hawaiian islands.
Brought up in a musical family (his father was a jazz player) the yOung man learned half a dozen instruments before adopting his stage name Taj Mahal — 'it came to me in a dream' — and heading off to the blues boom in 60s Los Angeles. And when he got there he formed a band with none other than Ry Cooder. Their six- strong the Rising Sons supported the cream of the west coast soul scene. including Otis Bedding. the Temptations and Martha and the Vandellas. and Taj was up close to the roots of the music that has since dominated his eclectic life.
He's played with Howlin‘ Wolf. Muddy Waters. Junior Wells. Buddy Guy. Sleepy John Estes. Lightin' Hopkins and more. but wherever his musical curiosity leads him — to the Caribbean. Hawaii, Latin America. Cajun cOuntry. Cuba or Africa (he's been performing with kora and percussion from Mali. and recording with Zanzibar musicians) — the bedrock of a life steeped in music. As he says: ‘I walk with the energy of music every day. I don't have to turn it on to hear it play' (Norman Chalmers)
it's the southern country blues that remain