MUSIC LIST
CATHODE RAE
Just when you thought it was sate to go back in the heather. . . the man who made kilts and six-toot claymores de rigeurtorthe stylish man-about-town is back. Yes, Jesse Rae is making a rare live appearance at Edinburgh’s The Venue on Saturday 7 March to preview material trom his forthcoming album, entitled The Thistle (well, at course), to be released in the first week of March. Since his emergence into the spotlight a couple of years ago with the unforgettable Over The Sea video single, a breathtaking marriage of music and video which intermingled New York funk with an unmistakably Scottish sentiment and chorus, little has been heard of the man. Many uncomprehending souls have tiled him away as a curious Scottish eccentric and torgotten about him. The tact is, as Jesse tells me from his Borders retreat, that he's spentthe last year and a halt putting together his debut LP in, of all places, Dayton, Ohio, with crack producer RogerTroutman. Nine trips were made over there, and Jesse insists he never removed his helmet and full regalia, even in the hottest weather. ‘It caused a lot of problems with airport metal detectors,’ he adds. The album he describes as having ‘more different ingredients‘ than the fragments of his work we’ve heard so tar, butwill admitto it being mainly ‘dance tracks, Iunk with Scottish
overtones‘. Jesse’s better qualified than most to talk about dance music: in his years as a studio musician in the States he worked with Buddy Miles, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Hall and Dates and the whole of the eccentric George Clinton’s Parliament/Funkadelic crew, where, rumour has it, he was the only white man allowed in the studio. Nevertheless, his video work attracted the most attention when he first started to make his presence felt as a solo artist.
He promised something of a revolution in the marriage of music and
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video (receiving praise from no less than Francis Ford Coppolla), planning to make videos realistically compete with conventional records. The video for him is never an afterthought, but an image that grows in tandem with the song from the idea's inception. The revolution hasn’t happened yet, mainly due to the complex legalities ot the situation, but ‘it should be here now. One in three households have videos, and people are now making extended videos to go with 12in singles.’ Whatever happens, Rae won’t give up. ‘In my own area I know I’m the best at what I do. Not as a musician —there are other people I know are better— but as a video director.‘
These days Jesse's avowed intention, delivered with his customary deadpan determination, is ‘to make Edinburgh the musical capital of the world’. He drops hints that several of his triends— naming Chaka Khan for one— are keen to record in the city.
As unlikely as the fruition ot Jesse’s plan might seem, no sooner had I put down the phone than the news came through that he had been approached by chart artist Taffy to make a ‘specilically Scottish remix' other current hit I Love My Radio -to be sold to Italians. ‘They're really into Scottish sounds overthere', my informant confided. Well, maybe Jesse’s dream isn't too tar-fetched after all. (Mab)
Road. Playing their first gig around here in quite a while. local boys with a few A&R men snapping at their heels. Big chart sound.
0 Alice House Preservation Hall. Victoria Street. 9pm. Free. See Wed 11.
0 Billy Jones Lord Darnley. West Port. 9pm. Free.
0 Back Beat Clowns. High Street. 9pm. Free. Hits from yesteryear.
o Speakeasy The Cavern. Cowgate. 9pm.
0 Driving Sideways Top ofthe Walk. St James Centre. 8pm. Free. Blues-rock.
FRIDAY 13 . .
Glasgow
0 Soup Dragons/the Cateran OMU. 8pm. £3. It‘ll be interesting to see if the new Soup Dragons single (still on Raw TV) does anything nationally after the independent success of ‘HangTen EP‘. After the Mission and Fuzzbox both doing well. it might not be all that unlikely. Also this is the first chance to see the Cateran in Glasgow for ages — a pity that it is students and friends only.
0 Straight Men Riverside Tavern. Gorbals. 9pm. Free. Residency.
Edinburgh
0 Pop Will Eat Itself Hoochie Coochie Club. West Tollcross. 10.30pm. Saw this lot through a drunken haze last time they played up here and thought they were great. Sharp parodists in and ofthe independent scene. their appearance. headbangers pogoing about on stage. comes as somethingof a shock. Incidentally. Candyosis said
more about 1986 than a dozen end-of—the-year round-ups in The Face.
0 We Free Kings, The God-Faced Hermans and Radium Cat Wilkie House. Cowgate. 9pm. £1.50 (£1 U840). Radium Cat are a mysterv to me. and everyone knows about We Free Kings. who are set to knock The Pogues back into obscurity. but I'll mention the Hermans. who greatly impressed me a while back at the Onion Cellar. Hard-hitting ‘punky‘ sound but with the addition of trumpet as lead instrument on several numbers. Worth giving them a try.
0 Bop Sh‘Oam Mandela Centre. Potter Row. Students and guests only. Formed by ex-Question John Robinson. and playing bright poppy jazz funk.
0 Last Orders Clowns. High Street. 9pm. Free.
0 Rootsie Tootsie Band Preservation Hall. Victoria Street. 9pm. £3 after 9.30pm.
0 Billy Jones Student Union. Teviot Row.
0 Shetland Studio Union The Cavern. Cowgate. I‘m reliably informed that this is indeed a band.
SATURDAY 14 , _
Glasgow
0 Victorian Kitchen The Doune. 9pm. Free.
0 Trident Windy’s. Paisley. 9pm. Free.
0 Mary Kiani Baby Grand. Elmbank Gardens. 8pm. Free.
0 Zeke Manyika Strathelyde University Union. 8pm. Free. The ever-interesting Manyika returns. with a new. and by all accounts. excellent band. In the interim he has been working with. among others. Paul Weller and The Bhundu Boys.
Edinburgh
0 Nightcrawlers Clowns. High Street. 9pm. Free.
0 Bluetinger The Cavern. Cowgate. 9pm.
0 Billy Jones Burke and Hare. West Port.
0 Road Runner Preservation Hall. Victoria Street. £3 after 9.30pm.
0 Bald Cormorant Lord Darnley. West Port. 3pm. Free. See Sat 7.
SUNDAY 15
o Tam White and The Dexters Preservation Hall. Victoria Street. £3 after 9pm. See Sun S.
0 Billy Jones Lord Darnley. West Port. 9.30pm. Free.
0 Snake Pete Party The Cavern. Cowgate. 9pm.
MONDAY 16 Edinburgh
01000 Violins and The Starekase The Onion Cellar. The Mission. Victoria Street. 9.30pm. I()()() Violinsare a Cato-style indie band. and none the worse for it. Support. The Starekase. are part of that obscure and incestuous Edinburgh cult dedicated to the worshipof all things psychedelic and Oils.
0 The Big Wheel Preservation Hall. Victoria Street. 9pm. Free. No relation to Jake Burns‘ backing group.
30 The List 6 — 19 February