MUSIC LIST
Port, 229 4341. 10pm. Free.
1
MONDAY 22
Glasgow
I The Whisky Priests La Taniere. 15 Fox Street. 221 4844. 9pm. Free. Continuation oftheir pub tour. which 1 think is promoting a new single.
I Eye Scream Halt Bar. 160 Woodlands Road. 332 1210. 9pm. Free. Recently announced gig. which is the first Eye Scream live work for quite a while. In the last few months they have managed to come up with a fine new demo. Never. which hopefully promises good things from this show.
Edinburgh
I Andy White and His Classmen Venue. Calton Road. 557 3073. See Festival Rock.
I John thay Gilded Balloon Theatre. Cowgate. 226 2151. 5.45pm. £3.5()(£3). See Fri 19.
Julia Fordham, widely tipped to be the chanteuse discovery of the year after the wide acclaim for her eponymous debut LP, plays her first solo Scottish show at Edinburgh‘s Assembly Rooms on Wednesday 24 — but her Scottish
' connections are extensive, as she
relates.
‘l was a session singer between the ages of 20 and 24, then i started work on my solo career. I’d been putting it off because it was such a big leap. I came to Glasgow to team up with Bill Padley, and we made the tape of six songs which won me the record deal.’
As well as boasting a disproportionately high number of Scots in her backing band, Fordham cites Edinburgh, alongside Paris, as one of her favourite places: ‘lt‘s just more romantic. i was there about four times when l was singing with Mari Wilson,’ the disappeared beehive queen of the early Eighties, ‘but I‘ve never been to the Festival, and i‘m just looking forward to being there.‘
‘Very much a South Coast person,‘ Julia Fordham grew up in Weymouth and Portsmouth, discovering hertalent at twelve when her father presented her with a guitar— ‘My first song was actually a social conscience song.‘ — and was singing her compositions in clubs from the age of fourteen. Early
musical inspirations included Joan Armatrading, Joni Mitchell . . . mainly women, though she admits admiration for Sting, Elvis Costello and John Martyn.
Her debut LP, thoughtful, adult, with a glossy production obviously intended to reproduce well on CD, endeared her enough to the producers of ‘Wired‘ for
them to ask her on to the show twice.
JULIA FORDHAM
I Amampondo Assembly Rooms. George Street. 225 2427/8. 11.45pm. £5 (£4). See Fri 19.
I Jools Holland and His Big Band Amphitheatre. Lothian Road. 228 4373. 9.15pm. £5 (£4). Well. he plays for Squeeze. and The Tube made him acult hero for all the ‘groovy fuckers‘ in the country. so why not. even if he is goingto be playing a set mainly ofNew Orleans jazz. Drumming in the big band is. of course. by Holland's faithful sidekick Gilson Lavis. also of Squeeze. Shout out for a minor-key boogie-woogie.
I Jesse Rae Marquee. Music Box. Victoria Street. 220 1708. I saw Jesse in this venue at Christmas and he tore the roofoff the place. so don't be put off ifyou were one of the three people and a dog who saw him at Fife Aid. where he was subject to unfortunate and ill-suited conditions. Fervent audience gives gigs the atmosphere of a Run Rig show. and Jesse believes in himselfso much he can pull anything off.
.g/
She seemed slightly ill-at-ease, her movements mannered, perhaps with being the centre of attention, but she doesn’t see it that way at all. ‘It felt fantastic. That show was the real launch of me.‘
The most recent single from the LP is ‘Happy EverAfter‘, a warming chant-based song ever African drums, but l‘d thought the most radio-friendly slice was ‘My Lover’s Keeper’, in the end relegated to a B-side.
‘You thought it should have been a single! I thought it should have been a single! We went for “Happy EverAfter” because it was the one everyone liked the most, and i thought I’d put it on the B-side so that people could flip it ever, hear what a good song it was and buy the album. it‘s hard knowing what to do as a single, and I knew the record company weren‘t keen on it as a single. It was my decision.‘ That she can make decisions like that, even misjudged ones, is a measure of the freedom she has at her record label Circa, also the home of Hue and Cry. Despite offers from other companies, Circa were chosen for being ‘independent and intelligent. And i got on well with the people, which is one of the most important things. They‘re letting me do it my way, be myself. They‘ve got an admirable approach and a firm plan.‘
So far, despite whizzing around on promotional tours, she and her band have done only half a dozen live performances. Are they ready for all the attention of the coming months? ‘Who knows,’ she says, blithely dismissing the question, ‘We‘ll find out.‘(Mab)
Julia Fordham Assembly Rooms (venue 3) 226 2427/8. 24 Aug. 9.30pm.
I PRESS RELEASE of the week comes from the very unwonderful Chrysalis press office giving us the latest run down on the Proclaimers. Firstly-the factual mistakes. We are told that Teardrops is the extra track on the 12in of their new single l’m Gonna Be (500 Miles). We are then told that it is not featured on the new LP, Sunshine on Leith. The next sentence gives us the full track listing of the album, with Teardrops taking its place on side two track five. Confused? Just wait. Then we are told that they are going on a tour of ‘the lesser accessible spots in Scotland‘ (ten points off for grammar), which includes a visit to (according to the press release) Stornway. We reckon they mean Stomoway, which may be one of the less accessible spots in Scotland. And Teardrops may/may not be omit the 121n/album. So now you know-nevertrust a press release. It also has to be said that every English music paper has listed the gig as being at Stornway.
I TOWER STUDIOS in Glasgow are looking for some reasonably established bands to participate in what has loosely been termed a ‘Fife Aid Disaster Benefit.’ The idea is that the studios are putting on a gig at Rooftops provisionally on 7th September, from which all proceeds will go to help overcome the File Aid debts. interested parties should contact Craig at 041 332 6725.
I Strange (subject to exaggeration in the telling)but true story no. 3111: the current hit single by Brother Beyond, The Harder 1 Try, was put up for charity auction by writers Stock Altken and Waterman. Desperate EMl AGR men who had watched Brother Beyond’s own attempts at hit writing flop thought the song was a snip at £15. 000. Value judgements need not be made here. . .
I JUST iii: For our sins, we have the pleasure of supermegarock heroes Bon Jovi’s company at the SECC on 3 December. Tickets, priced £12.50 and £11.50, are available from Glasgow’s Just The Ticket and Virgin, Edinburgh’s Virgin and Dundee Groucho‘s, or by post (plus 50p booking fee perticket) from Bon Jovi Box Office, PO Box 180, Head Post Office, Edinburgh. Hard-rockin‘ credit card holders phone 031 ~226 2295.
I THE MO0TED single isn’t the only project aimed at filling the coffers of the File Aid disaster fund. A Van Morrison/Marilllon single is apparently under negotiation (one on each side, or a duet?), and there’s also the possibility of a video release of the best three hours of Celt-connected music from the weekend (Van, Davey Spillane, Run Rig, etc).
ALBUM REVIEWS
I Midge Ure: Answers To Nothing (Chrysalis): 0n the positive side, i have at various times liked Ultravox songs. Midge is a genuine good guy. 0n the
negative side, this sounds like a slightly updated Jethro Tull. You imagine a line of hippies standing playing the monotonoust boring percussion-you imagine that the synths sound incredibly like flutes and you spend four minutes wondering when the hook is going to appear. The ‘experimental’ instrumentals on the 12in B-slde reach even lower depths as Midge seems to be plotting the Stewart Copeland new age path to retirement. A truly bad record from someone who should know better. (JW)
I Carly Simon: Greatest Hits Live (Arista): The number of truly worthwhile live albums can be counted on one hand, but this one is among them. Classic songs beautifully sung and played with a maximum of taste and a minimum of over-indulgence - normally the problem with live albums. Fifteen years separate You’re So Vain and Coming Around Again, but they provide the highlights, the latter wonderfully segued into itsy Bitsy Spider. Elsewhere there is little overlap with the 1975 ‘Best of Carly Simon‘ studio album, making this an important document for any self-respecting record collection.
(JW)
I June Tabor: Aqaba (Topic): Few folk albums manage to maintain the depth of emotion present throughout Agaba, and come to think of it, few albums full stop manage to create such an intensity of feeling. This is a result of two factors: a truly great voice and an interesting selection of songs, which ranges from a cover of 10,000 Maniacs‘ Verdi Cries through to a selection of traditional songs sympathetically arranged to the usually sparce instrumentation. The stand out track is indeed Verdi Cries, and June Tabor is one of a very small number of artists who could approach it with the necessary reverence. Overall, the album is fairly heavy, intense listening, but taken a side at a time, nearly inspirational.
I Various: 5 (Castle). The Dungannon Musicians Collective in County Tyrone claim this collection of mainly mid-tempo indie rockers is the first totally independent production to come out of Northern lreland since the post-punk boom of the early Eighties. The choice pick of the bunch to these ears is ‘Persona‘ by McGovern, moody with strategically-placed touches of oboe. Tiberius‘ Minnows alter Sting‘s ‘So Lonely' chord progression not a jet, though Wrong Door Raid do fiddle around with it a bit. The Hasbeens put one in mind of a (very) youthful 02 with their spirited ‘Showbands Must Go‘. A big plus for the LP is the freshness that comes with a relative freedom from the mainland indie scene’s snobbishness and obsessive fashion-consciousness. All in ail’, not bad for a year-old collective. (Mab)
The List 19— 25 August 1988 69