MUSIC PREVIEW
V LISTEN!
I The first copies have just reached Scotland of ‘Stickbastard’/‘Could A Heart'. a 7in single split between Edinburgh band Gila Monster and Welsh indie scamsters The Pooh Sticks. What these two disparate bands have in common is a high regard for the American comic Stickboy, so when a competition was ‘ announced to find the best song that could possibly be written about the comic‘s grumpy. soul-searching anti-hero. neither wasted any time in reaching for their guitars. Gila Monster‘s ‘Stickbastard' came out on top and made the A-side of the single (out on the cool Californian label Sympathy For The Record Industry), thus being spared the ignominy of appearing on the Losers’ Tape. a warts-and-all compendium ofgrim, shameful failure that we‘re not masochistic enough to listen to right now. even if we had a copy. Interested parties can hear a live rendition when Gila Monster appear with PJ Harvey at Potterrow. Edinburgh on 5 March. Meanwhile, the new issue of Srickboy can most easily be found in those shops where comics come supplied with plastic bags. I The thick yellowish fluid we referred to in our last issue. the — you remember - the one ‘formed by an inflamed wound or sore‘ that‘s full of ‘serum. white blood cells‘ and . . .oh. don‘t want to think about it. . . was. of course,pus. Well done to Alistair Tankard. Jeff Craig and Mr P. Milne for being cultured enough to know the answer to that one. You‘ll be receiving your Exploited C Ds as soon as we can wipe them free of all this . . . oh. God. no I Colin Usher. photographer and member of band The Olives. has 22 of his pictures exhibited in Edinburgh‘s Theatre Workshop cafe/bar between 28 Feb and 25 Mar. The first half ofthe exhibition is a photographic record of five days spent in Rostov-On-Don in Russia by The Olives last October. and deals with ‘the new Russia as it comes to terms with the challenges of dcmocracy‘. The second part takes on the subject ofthe sensory problems caused by migraines. using photo-montages taken in three countries. Afterits stint at the Theatre Workshop. the exhibition will be moving to Philadelphia and then Boston.
V JAZZ
The real McCoy
Moving on with McCoy
exploratory passion took him off in a
Kenny Mathieson looks at the making of a modern jazz legend with pianist McCoy Tyner.
McCoy Tyner was only 22 when he began the association with John Coltrane which would establish his reputation as one of the handful of crucial keyboard players in the development of post-bop. contemporary jazz. These days. Tyner‘s music has mellowed a little from the frenetic intensity of that epochal quartet. a lateral shift which. he argues. was always implicit in his work in any case.
‘I did try even then to show other sides of my musical personality than
the one I was developing with John. especially in projects like the album with Duke Ellington. but the band's music was so much a part of me at the time that I really couldn‘t depart from it. nor did I want to.‘
There is no doubting the importance of those years in forging McCoy Tyner‘s distinctive voice. but the pianist's role within the band was equally central. although it has perhaps not been recognised to quite the same degree as that of Coltrane himself. or ofdrummer Elvin Jones.
The quartet (with Art Davis. then Reggie Workman. and ultimately— and most significantly— Jimmy
Garrison on bass) lasted for five
years from 1960—65. and reached its
_cu|mination in A Love Supreme
(1964). before the saxophonist’s
direction which neither Tyner nor Jones felt willing to follow. The quartet. though. was the cauldron in which they brewed the most intense. exploratory jazz ofthe modern period. evolving a new harmonic and rhythmic language which re-defined the way in which jazz groups organised their ensemble interaction.
‘II was an incredible experience. you can't put it into words how incredible it was. and I think it had an awful lot to do with my subsequent development. I was really formed as a pianist in that band — l was hearing a lot of things in my mind at that time. but I needed that environment to bring them out.
‘What I did was sort of lay a
28 The List 14 - 27 February 1992