MUSIC PREVIEW
l
j I Contrary to popular opinion. there will be a new Proclaimers album before the end oithe century. The twins are at this very moment recording some tracks in the USA with Barry Beckett (who produced the last Waterboys album as well as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon). The bulk of the songs,however.will be recorded in Britain and released some time in 1992. ‘7 I Martin Melcalie faced a setback he hadn‘t anticipated when he slunk off alone to a cottage in ' the wilds of Fife to write , the lyrics for Goodbye Mr Mackenzie‘s next album. ’ It wasn’t writer‘s block that curtailed his efforts. but the loss of all the cottage's electricity. In a , panic. he called up the : Mackenzies‘ manager Deke Primo (no stranger to this column) for help. Primo eventually stopped laughinglongenoughto comfort Metcalfe with a message that translated roughly as: You‘re on your own. kid. lfMetcalfc can grope his way back to ‘ civilisation. the band will start work on their next album in January. The producer is not confirmed. but hopes are high that Talking Head Jerry Harrison will prove to be a compatible partner. I The Silencers might be doing their own Fab Four-style rooftop concert at the University of Glasgow soon. The building that houses the music organisation CODA and many other groups and clubs is to be taken away by the University for use as lecture halls. and The Silencers have agreed in principle to expose themselves to the ; elements in protest. along with some other bands ' (the point apparently being that there's nowhere else for them to V play except the roof). but bad weather could scupper the whole deal. I The legacy of The Syndicate continues to grow. (‘alum McNair's é Apples have been active for some time. and now McNair‘s former partner James Stewart has got his ; own band together. The unnamed guitar-based quartet have done some eight-track demos and . have shows planned for the New Year. One Who Knows describes them as ‘a bit like The Jesus And Mary Chain meetsThe | Syndicate‘. I Do any aspiring composers read these bits'.’ Perhaps not. but we‘ll put the word out anyway. The Scottish ('hamber Orchestra, in association with Glasgow Film Theatre. and with the involvement of L .
28 The List 22 November— 5 December 1991
l
' People seeing Nanci Grliilth live lorthe '. first time oiten experience something oi a shock when she reaches the end oi her opening number. In contrast to her singing, remarkable for its range,
Bitter sweet
Nanci Grliiith
clarity and power, her speaking voice is breathy, high-pitched, at times verging on the gushy. Combined with her slight, almost irall, stature, the wee-girlish persona seems at odds with the wise, wiry toughness oi her largely sell-penned material.
In iact, this mixture at the wide-eyed
l and the worldly is perhaps the key to
the 37-year-old Texan‘s appeal. Having produced nlne albums since 1983 and spent most oi the last ten years on the road, Grliilth is no ingenue; that angelic voice has a
distinctly steely undertone. It’s one way she resembles the lemale country stars of yesteryear, a musical genealogy she readily acknowledges. ‘Country music has always been a big lniluence,‘ she says. ‘Loretta Lynn was the ilrst lemale songwriter that I knew oi as a young girl, then Carol King; without them I would have never have thought that women could actually write songs. I like the way their songs are put together, having a little short story there, three-and-a-hali minutes at someplace else to go.’
It’s been a long, hard road at times, however, and the toll it's taken is reilected on her distinctly downbeat ninth album, ‘Late Night Grande Hotel', which is pervaded with a sense at small-hours loneliness and longing ior home. Given the rigours at so much touring, why does she keep on doing it? ‘Basically, that 90 minutes at magic onstage makes it all worth while,’ she says. ‘l just love periormlng. I’m very much a homebody type oi person, though, and l’m looking iorward to when this world tour ilnishes next June. But I plan on being around tor a while yet. When I’m 64, I want to be a mean ol’ lady who’s still writing songs.‘ (Sue Wilson)
Nanci Grlitlth plays Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Mon 2.
um:- Blacho the
So we’re sitting round a table, me and Perspex White Out, and I’m casting about ior some eiiectlve handle on
which to hook the band so that
everyone out there in Listland can garner some idea of where Glasgow’s
latest rising stars are coming irom. And i it isn’t easy.
Bassist Warrick iixes you with the kind oi sardonic hall-smile that could express any one at a hundred things, but more often than not registers mild disdain, especially on the occurrence of words like ‘Teenage Fanclub’ and ’C-86’. Despite the lack oi eiiort required to trace their lineage with
relerence only to other Glasgow bands, 3 Perspex White Out are determined to
‘ light comparisons at every turn. Just
i because they play ramshackle tunes,
sing coyly and exude the animation oi a
woolly mammoth in a sauna doesn't
2 make them direct descendants oi the
still-reviled cutie phenomenon. An impromptu poll reveals that none of the band ever owned an anorak, wrote a
Perspex White Out ianzine or collected the Sha-la-la ilexidisc series. However Richard, one at the vocalists, is lorced to confess he joined Friends at The Pastels.
Perspex White Out treat the whole exercise with scepticism. They‘re old
to be wary oi premature pigeonholing, especially now that tell-tale patterns are emerging. Listening again to their debut single ‘You Turn On My World’ only strengthens my convictions. it has all the requisite qualities— a bit oi iangle, a bit of grunge, laid-back periormance. And, like it or not, they do sing about girls a lot. “‘You Turn On My World” isn’t about girls,’ protests othervocallst/guitarist Calum. ‘That's the whole thing. l’ll now spill the beans - it’s actually about LSD.’ Okay then, how about they sing about girls a lot, except on this single. (Fiona Shepherd) Perspex White Out support Moose and Stereolab at the Venue, Edinburgh on Thurs 28.
Kenny Mathieson looks at the travials ofblues man Buddy Guy.
Those of you with long memories, big brothers who didn‘t pawn their record collections. or a penchant for o()s revivals will recall the famous guitar licks which Eric Clapton
contributed to that definitive Cream
opus. ‘Strange Brew’. Clapton picked them up from the son of a poor Louisiana share-cropper who
; ‘had followed a well-worn trail
northwards. and ultimately took the
Chicago blues scene by storm.
Buddy Guy reminds us all of that
debt on his new Silvertone release 3 Damn Right, 1 Got The Blues, on
which he is joined— in tacit
2 acknowledgement ofthat debt as
well as openly-voiced admiration —
not only by old Slowhand himself. but also by Jeff Beck and Mark
Knopfler. Dues get paid, units get shifted. And Buddy? Well. Buddy
gets to play the way he wants. and basically. as long as that is the case, he has no axe to grind about the relative state of his bank balance via a vis that of his white imitators.
He professes no resentment, for example. at the fact that the single
release of ‘Mustang Sally’ was re-cut to feature Beck much more prominently in order to attract MTV ;
audiences. where black music still has no great presence. but a white rock star like Beck is big news.
‘I hadn't made a record for twelve
’ years.‘ Guy tells me. ‘and when
, Silvertone came to ask me. I liked
the sound ofwhat they were saying. T All I wanted was control of my own
playing. because there have been
times when l have gone into a studio
and some producer or other has tried
to get me to play some other way.
and i don't need any ofthat shit. As enough to be cynical and young enough .
for people like Eric and Jeff. I do
believe those guys have done more
good than they ever did us harm.‘ Muddy Waters. a man who was one ()quy‘s own major influences when
he hit Chicago as a raw 21—year-old in
1957. effectively settled the ‘can a white man play the blues'." argument
back in the 60s. He said then that .- when he was asked that question. ‘I
tell them they can play the blues better than me. but they‘ll never be able to sing them as good as me. I‘m just telling the truth about it. White boys can run a ring around me playing the blues.‘
Listening to the evidence. it‘s hard
to disagree with him. In the case of
Buddy Guy. a completely self-taught musician, there are definite flaws in