MUSIC PREVIEW
lThe shameless lust for glory (or at least publicity) ofllugh Reed And The Velvet Underpants continues. Now. Reed announces. he's ‘in consultation‘ with The Raving Monster Loony Party. with a view to standing for Parliament. His platform. you'll be greatly amused to hear (assuming you find a man with a television on his head funny). would be to abolish ‘l leavy Plant Crossing' signs on the grounds that he's never seen said weighty vegetation in all his years of motoring. That's
enough. O‘llaganl
Begone from our sight!
The Vaselines l Rumours thatCaptain America had just become the first Scottish group to sign to the widely adored American grunge label Sub Pop turned out to be slightly wide of the mark. It is actually Eugene's former group. The Vaselines. who are about to have a posthumous retrospective issued by the label. Apparently. many of the label's bands rave about The \‘aselirics. .\'iry aria refusing to play Scotland unless they would reform to support them. Which. being obliging chaps. they did. (‘aptain America. how ever. have been asked to send tapes to Sub Pop for consideration. ‘The best thing we ever did w as to split up.‘ reflected litigene last week. poignantly.
I Headers OTOUTRm‘k Report who found Big Noise studios impossible to contact should note that w hen the publication appeared. it w as iii the process(ilClitinglng hands. A new lo-track studio. A64 R. is now iii ope ration at that address il-Ha Pitt Street. lidiriburgli [{l lfi-ll)l). 'l'cl: (Bl-554 3379).
They 'ye been bending our ears about their facilities and rates too. but we leaye that for interested parties to liiid out for themselves.
32'l lie List 14 27.lurie 1991
v LISTEN! 5
Young (and single)
A nation may have fixed its heady eyes on the hazy visage of Jim Beattie when Spirea X performed a perfectly dubbed version of ‘Chlorine Dream’ on ‘Snub’ earlier this year. A nation may have believed they were Scotland’s rising stars with their breathy harmonies and chiming guitars, but then a nation didn’t know that on the nighttheir pristine performance was totally eclipsed by some local upstarts, wielding a mean melodic twist and a stock of beefy basslines, nodding reverently to the 603 and impishly to indie dance. Certainly, Spirea X live performances hadn’t reached double l figures at that point, but you could count support band White Out’s previous appearances on the fingers of 3 one hand. One finger of one hand to be precise.
White Out are now a big seven months old, and whetting their adolescent appetites forthe imminent release of their debut single —the double A-sided ‘Orange Overdrive’/‘The Next Big Thing' — on Bob Stanley’s Cath label. They near enough had to pawn their Syd Barrett record collection to finance the project . but 500 copies will shortly find their way into the grubby mitts of 500 discerning record buyers.
Cutting a disc before you’ve cut your
' teeth could prove to be jumping the
gun, but guitarist Craig is sensitive to
that. ‘l’m not thoroughly happy with the single, but I’d rather get a record out now and be able to develop rather than make a single that’s totally perfect so that you’ve got nowhere to go after. There are flaws in the single but I think they’re permissible flaws for a band of nineteen-year-olds.’
White Out know how much mileage they’ll get out oftheiryouth, and aim to plumb that potential while it’s still there, as Craig acknowledges with brash confidence when he concludes, ‘We burn a hole in a lot of things going about now because of our age. We’re fresh compared to bands that have been about for years.’ (Fiona Shepherd)
White Out support Band of Susans at The Venue, Glasgow on Thurs 27.
Rock out with White Out
V CLASSICAL
American tunes
The current season of Scottish Proms, which moves from Edinburgh to Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall, includes a tribute to two famous American composers, both of whom died only last year. Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein made major contributionsto American—and consequently international — music. lnevitably, the Prom concert celebrates their most popularworks. and the ones forwhich they are likely to be best-remembered. Copland’s contribution to 20th-century music was long and highly diverse, spanning Neo-Classicism to twelve-tone experiments, but most listeners immediately associate him with the vigorous, often folk-derived melodies and rhythms of his popular ballets of
AaronCopland i conductor.(KennyMathieson)
the 403, including ‘Billy The Kid’, ‘Hodeo’ and ‘Appalachian Spring’.
They seemed to establish a genuinely
American voice in his music, heard again in the two sets of ‘Old American Songs' (1950—2), which have just been issued in a new recording by bass singer Samuel Barney on Argo.
The orchestral version of his most recorded work of all, ‘Appalachian Spring’, is featured in the concert, alongside his dance piece ‘El Salon Mexico’ and the superb ‘Clarinet Concerto’ which he wrote for Benny Goodman in 1947, based on a Brazilian tune and jazz borrowings. Bernstein, too, used jazz as a source material on occasion, and made his biggest impression as a composer not in the concert hall, but on Broadway and the sound-stages of Hollywood (where Copland also found success, including an Oscar for his soundtrack to ‘The Heiress’ in 1949).
The ‘Candide Overture’, ‘Symphonic Oances‘ from ‘West Side Story’, and ‘Three Dance Episodes‘ from ‘On The Town’ all celebrate that vibrant, boisterous side of Bernstein’s work, rather than the more soul-searching angst of his symphonies and religious compositions. If Copland was the greatercomposerof the two, Bernstein‘s legacy will survive not only in his writing, but in his copious— and often controversial — recordings as a
Sophis-
~ ticated
Paul W. Hullah chats to
Inspiral Carpets organist,
Clint Boon, who’s
growing accustomed to the
finer things in life.
3 There are rock-star rock stars (Billy
Idol) and there are earnest types (Bono). There are anti-rock stars (Sinead) and there are intellectuals (Pat Kane). Punk rockers (John Lydon) and chameleons (Prince). And then there are ordinary.
- no-nonsense. genuine blokes. (.‘lint
Boon. bizarrely coiffured tinkler of
the Inspiral (‘arpets sound‘. belongs
to that last. curious tribe.
‘Hotels are starting to feel like
home.‘ he moans with a warm
Lancastrian Iilt. tour-bleary in his
3 suite at the London Hilton. ‘You
know. I’m iii the process ofbuilding myself a house right now. It‘s just
, outside Manchester — two houses. actually. side-by-side semis. Settling -
down. My mum and dad are having one end and I‘m having the other. We‘re having a doorway going through. so I can keep my eye on
them. ha ha. I’m a quiet type. me.
I‘m 32 next week. Maybe the Inspiral (‘arpets are all getting past it. eh'." Not yet. The (‘arpets' maturely pop-crafted second LP. The Beast Inside. released this April. saw them ’taking risks. because we believe in going forward‘. convincing both critics and public alike oftheirability as songsmiths and proving that there is life beyond the Manchester Flares’n'Acne craze. The group‘s precocious first long player. last year's Life. plus the ace singles ‘This Is How It Feels'. ‘She Comes In The Fall' and the Island Head IZP. had
hinted at greatness to come: Beast
Instr/e delivered the goods as
: pledged. The new 45. ‘Please Be
(‘ruelfi may be about ‘kinky sex. bondage. transvestitisrn. how‘s your
what one scribe called ’that godawful . whining organ that spoils yet makes
father ~ it’s usually real-life stuff with ’
us'. but the lrispirals‘ plangent. hypnotic soundscapes have an elemental appeal that is so much more honest than the lightweight
vapidityof uninspiring
bandwagon-j umpe rs like Northside
and The High. And it‘s an honesty
bred of hard work and ‘sustained belief”; John Peel championed the
, (‘arpets way back in 1986. and they
l
were hauling themselves round Britain‘s hostelries in a Transit van