Music
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‘I PICKED UP A GUITAR FOR TWO SECONDS AND HAVEN’T PUT IT DOWN SINCE’ Hitlist THE BEST ROCK, POP, JAZZ & FOLK*
✽✽ Glasgow Jazz Festival It’s the last few days of the annual jazz bash, and still time to catch the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (see page ?? to win tickets); Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra with George Burt & Susan Alcorn, or Brass Jaw, among others. Various venues, Glasgow, until Sun 27 Jun. (Jazz) ✽✽ Born to be Wide: Music Agent Seminar More helpful advice from the BTBW team, this time telling musicians how to get a booking agent and start booking your own gigs. Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Thu 1 Jul. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Slash The Guns N’ Roses axe-man brings his solo album to life. See interview, left. HMV Picture House, Edinburgh, Thu 1 Jul. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Elvis Costello & the Sugarcanes The man behind ‘Alison’ and ‘Watching the Detectives’ (above) has gone all country since last year’s album Secret, Profane & Sugarcane. Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Fri 2 Jul. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Kelburn Garden Party That castle that got covered in all that graffiti hosts a laidback weekend festival ‘in a fairytale setting’. DJ Astroboy, Alex Tronic, Panda Su and plenty of other local acts deliver the soundtrack. Kelburn Castle, Fairlie, Sat 3–Sun 4 Jul. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Words Per Minute Part 3 of the monthly spoken word, music, film and performance afternoon. This month they’ve got smart, emotional pop from Swimmer One, a DJ set from Miaoux Miaoux (absolutely nothing to do with the plant food drug, please note), hip hop from Bigg Taj, performance poetry from Drew Taylor and new writing from Jane Flett and Simon Sylvester. Creation Studios, Glasgow, Sun 4 Jul. (Rock & Pop)
Lone gun
Henry Northmore catches up with guitar legend Slash, as the tour accompanying his first ever solo album arrives in Scotland
Since Guns N’ Roses conquered the world (selling over 100 million albums) Slash has lent his guitar skills to music by Michael Jackson, Alice Cooper and Ray Charles; formed his own band, Slash’s Snakepit; started Velvet Revolver with fellow GN’R alumni Duff McKagen and Matt Sorum (alongside Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland); been transformed into a playable character in videogame Guitar Hero III and secured his place as the most iconic guitarist of his generation. Officially quitting Guns in 1996, Slash kept his dignity despite vitriol aimed at him from Axl Rose. Even through the fame, adulation and tabloid tales of excess, he’s still friendly and unassuming with a sincere and infectious love of hard rock.
Born in Stoke on Trent, Slash (aka Saul Hudson) grew up listening to his parents’ music, sharing their passion for The Stones, The Kinks and The Who. He moved to LA aged 11, again absorbing the rock that surrounded him (professing an early love for ‘Aerosmith, AC/DC, Cheap Trick and Black Sabbath’). ‘I had no aspirations to be a musician but I picked up a guitar for two seconds and haven’t put it down since,’ explains a softly spoken Hudson when we speak during a recent London trip. He has also got a star on Hollywood’s Rockwalk and was runner-up in Time magazine’s ‘Best Electric Guitar Player of All Time’ (he was pipped to the top by Jimi Hendrix). ‘I have my moments as a player that really come from a sincere place – maybe people pick up on that, or maybe it’s just the riffs. But it’s been cool to be recognised as a decent guitar player,’
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he says modestly. ‘That’s one thing I’ve always wanted, to communicate with the guitar better and better as I go on, and I think that’s started to work a little bit.’ His first solo album came out this year, a collaboration with Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell (Soundgarden), Lemmy (Motörhead) and Iggy Pop. ‘I wrote the music, then sent it to the artist I thought should sing on that, then they could write the lyrics. So every song was co-written by the vocalist.
‘Obviously it’s a rock record, because I’m a rock guy, but I have different moods that don’t always translate with say Velvet Revolver or Guns. When you’re in a group it tends to have certain boundaries musically. This was a lot of fun because I could do whatever I wanted and pick the singer to go with that song. It really accentuates the difference between the songs.’
Perhaps the most surprising collaboration is a track with Fergie of Black Eyed Peas. ‘She’s got one of the most kickass rock voices I’d ever heard coming out of a girl, or anybody for that matter. There were rumours I was going pop but I knew what I was doing.’ For this tour it’s Myles Kennedy (Alter Bridge) fronting Slash’s tour band (the only vocalist to contribute two tracks to the album). ‘I’m just having a gas, the band is great and Myles is fucking incredible, so we’re just having a really, really good time.’
Slash, HMV Picture House, Edinburgh, Thu 1 Jul. For a full transcript of this interview see www.list.co.uk