Music Strange fruit A major new Scottish supergroup has formed to tackle stigma around mental health. Kirstin Innes talks to Rod Jones about the Fruit Tree Foundation
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✽✽ Music From Herat The Festival of Afghanistan welcomes master musicians from the country. Roxy Art House, Edinburgh, Fri 24 Sep. ✽✽ September Girls Girls are the theme for this line-up, with Lou Hickey (of Codeine Velvet Club) and Ramona (singer Karen Anne fuses Ramones and Blondie’s punk and pop styles) among the performers. Oran Mor, Glasgow, Sun 26 Sep. ✽✽ Grinderman Nick Cave and assorted Bad Seeds bring their garage rockin’ side project. Barrowland, Glasgow, Tue 28 Sep. ✽✽ PVT Formerly Pivot until another band of the same name got litigious, the Warp- signed electro-rockers from Australia are back with the new album, Church With No Name. Stereo, Glasgow, Wed 29 Sep. ✽✽ Eastern Promise This two-day line-up includes King Creosote, Josephine Foster, Malcolm Middleton and FOUND. Platform, Glasgow, Fri 1–Sat 2 Oct. ✽✽ Music Like a Vitamin See preview, left. HMV Picture House, Edinburgh, Fri 1 Oct; O2 ABC, Glasgow, Sat 2 Oct. ✽✽ Enfant Bastard Album Launch The eight-bit Edinburgh noisemonger (see picture, above) celebrates the release of his album Master Dude on SL, with guests Kylie Minoise, Wounded Knee and Bit Face. Roxy Art House, Edinburgh, Sat 2 Oct. ✽✽ Kelis The likes of Lady Gaga have stolen her crown as top milkshake shaker of late, but her first album in four years, Flesh Tone, has been well received. ABC, Glasgow, Mon 4 Oct. ✽✽ Hurts The sharp-suited synthpop revivalists reveal their debut album, Happiness. Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 4 Oct. 23 Sep–7 Oct 2010 THE LIST 71
S ons and Daughters. Frightened Rabbit. The Phantom Band. Norman Blake. Perhaps because it sets out to encourage discussion of problems nearly everyone has come into contact with at some point in their lives, the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival has always attracted high-profile support. It seemed a logical step, then, for Rod Jones and Emma Pollock, who traditionally curate the festival’s Music Like a Vitamin gigs, to get some of Scotland’s best musicians together and record an album in celebration of SMHAFF’s aims – challenging the stigma around mental health issues.
‘The festival creates so much enthusiasm around itself and does so much to raise awareness about mental health,’ explains Jones, ‘but that enthusiasm exists mostly in the one month the festival runs for. I thought, with an album, people could listen to it year round, and it might extend their interaction with those issues. So I shanghaied Emma into helping organise it!’ The result is The Fruit Tree Foundation, a new collection of music from a veritable Who’s Who of Scottish indie and folk. Jones is of course from Idlewild; the album also features Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison, James Graham of The Twilight Sad and Jill O’Sullivan from Sparrow and the Workshop (pictured), alongside singer-songwriters Pollock, Karine Polwart, Jenny Reeve, Alasdair Roberts and James Yorkston. What’s remarkable about this record is that it was written, collaboratively, in less than a week, by artists who hadn’t all known each other previously, and yet it’s a polished, coherent work, that feels lush, full, beautiful, and, well, planned.
‘WE’RE
ENCOURAGING
PEOPLE TO THINK ABOUT
MENTAL ISSUES’
‘We didn’t give them a brief as such,’ Jones explains. ‘I said when we were writing, you can pick any song out of the history of songwriting and find a way to tie the lyrics to some sort of mental health issues. We didn’t want to get all ‘Feed the World’ about it – when you write from your own life and experiences, these issues tend to come out anyway.’
He did try and steer them down a theme of ‘childhood’, as that’s what the festival is looking at this year. ‘Some have addressed that directly, some haven’t. It’s a particular bee in my bonnet, actually – I want to petition the government to spend more time on mental health education in schools. We have physical and sexual education already – I’m not saying an equivalent will stop people having mental health problems. It won’t. But people need to know what’s available to them.’ Jones’ own involvement in the festival is personal, and he’s not afraid to talk about it. ‘After I was diagnosed with depression, I could look back and point to times in my life when that had been what was going on – I just didn’t know. Music plays such a huge part in youth culture, that when you’ve got someone who you admire, someone who’s in Frightened Rabbit or whatever, onstage, talking about why they’re involved – I don’t think we’re making mental health issues ‘cool’, but we’re encouraging people to think about these things, to talk about them. That’s a huge starting point for a lot of people.’
HMV Picture House, Edinburgh, Fri 1 Oct; O2 ABC, Glasgow, Sat 2 Oct. www.mhfestival.com