IIISIG PREVIEW
. interested partiesshould callMartinJonesonll91 : 2303746assoon as
possible.
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V LISTEN!
I With the re-openlng of the flooded Apollo still a long way in the future, The Bogle Stone in Glassford Street has undergone a name-change to The 13th Note (like. groovy, man, we miss The Third Eye Centre too) and will recast itself in the mould of the inoperative venue. in other words, its folky programme will be scaled down and the music featured will be more mainstream and rocky. with plenty ofattention being given to emerging local acts. Seems like only yesterday this metamorphic venue was known to all and sundry as Traders . . .
Eugene and rances pan the royalties dilemma
I And lithe new Nirvana odds-and-ends package. lnsesticide. sells, despite . its name, the millions it‘s expected to, just how much will Eugene and Frances Vaseline stand to gain in royalties from the covers of their two songs, ‘Molly‘s Lips‘ and ‘Son Of A Gun"? And will Eugene decide that his share would be better spent on i the recording costs of the next Eugenius album or towards more recreational pursuits? Glasgow‘s publicans are awaiting his decision with bated
breath. . . I Due to the increasmg
workload caused by the running of The Vaults. bands keen to play the { Edinburgh Venue should I now send demos to. and ’
8f
generally hassle. Richard Forbes (not George Duffin) at The Venue on 031557 3073. Mr Forbes is intending to feature more local band packages there. so this could bring the ! oxygen of publicity to a lot of new talent.
I Following on from similar events in Manchester and Durham comes a two-day workshop at Strathclyde University on 14 and 15 December to provide information about the legal and financial side of the music industry. Called the Music Business Workshop, it will draw on the experience ofadviser Eric Longley. lawyer Constantina Nicolau and accountant Roz Horton. who hope that it will provide invaluable experience for managers. promoters, publishers, produce rs and small labels. Demand is expected to be high. so
. Alastair Mabbott on
l um:-
Pumping up the Basehead
He drawls! He plays guitar! He opens cans of beer with his bare fingers!
dc Basehead.
Just when the massed ranks ofJohn and Jane 0 Public thought they‘d got this rap thing sussed. 1992 proved them wrong. Again. What with
« Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy.
' excellentwork this year by The l
1! Arrested Development.
Consolidated and Gang Starr, to name but several. the form has
redefined its territory once more. ,
; i
Just how far do the boundaries i stretch now. and do they include dc Basehead? The music is ambiguous. but the preponderance of baseball caps at gigs show that the Washington trio is being embraced by hip hop fans as well as a growing number ofpeople who would never put themselves in that camp.
Punters of many persuasions will find plenty to enjoy in the debut dc Basehead album. Play With Toys. At the moment. they‘re on tour with the Disposable Heroes. at first glance a more open-minded gig for them than their previous fourteen-date tour supporting The Beastie Boys. although chief Basehead Michael Ivey has described the stint as ‘kinda neat.
Play With Toys uses plenty of rap devices: it's framed by amusing l country and western scenes. and
3 there are occasional interruptions. 5 Ivey being urged to get back tothe l
friggin‘ song‘. But the vocals seem to
= have been drawled out from a comfy :
seat in front of the TV. with smokes.
potato chips and a six-pack never far out ofreach. lvey‘s languid delivery
more than once to that of a young Lou Reed. as well as Prince. Syd Barrett and even Galaxie 500. Musically. the band is just as laid-back. coming across like
a stoned homeboy‘s interpretation of R&B — or what the blues might
sound like if De La Soul had invented it. But the sound is live and organic. without the metronomic beat ofthe once-obligatory drum machine. Basehead use a DJ who fills in on keyboards. but that‘s about as far as they‘re prepared to go down that particular route.
Possibly aware of the dubious reception his innovative sound might get — at one time. he himselfwas dismissive ofeverything that smacked of ‘white shit‘ — Ivey. a 24-year-old Film Studies graduate of Washington‘s Howard University. recorded at night on $4000 he had saved and kept the project secret
2 told Hip Hop magazine in July: ‘I
I Tunnel. Glasgow on Mon 1 4. i
3“ until until the album wa
s ready. He was very secretive and undercover about it. because I didn‘t want to hear people telling me shit like “It isn‘t gonna work“ or “You’re not doing it right". So the first my friends and I knew of the project was when I brought home a CD of the album.’ Noted hip hop label Tommy Boy turned down the tapes because they couldn‘t imagine how they would market it. and there’s also the slight problem that there’s very little on Play With Toys that resembles a single. It‘s one of those records you just listen to all the way through — a ‘head trip‘. as Ivey puts it. More ‘aggressive‘ material is promised for the next album. so hold tight. dc Basehead support The Disposable Heroes 0 f H iph op risy at Th e
m9.- Illto king
In a British jazz scene that tends to be I dominated by tenor players, Peter King . plays alto saxophone with a rare grace and fluency. It has become a critical , commonplace to describe him as ' Britain's leading bebop player, and a musician of genuine world class, both of which are true. To limit him to ; bebop, however, is to do an injustice to the variety and depth of his musical intelligence. ‘I feel more energetic about my music ; now than at any time since the very l
: early days. lam making a reasonable
living playing jazz now, although that is
’ mainly through playing in France or
3 Sweden or Italy. That means I come
i into contact with a wide variety ol 3 musicians, and lam very interested in ' a lot ol the dltterent musical things
24 The List 4— 17 December 1992
which are going on now. My days at being a pure bebopper are long gone, although I am obviously still rooted in
Peter King
the music stylistically, but my whole approach is very different now.’
King belongs to a generation ol British jazz players who have been rather passed over, and his association with WEA subsidiary Blanco Y Negro, which produced the muted
pop-crossover album Crusade with Everything But The Girl’s Ben Watt, has not borne lruit. He may take heart trom the news that Blue Note have just signed Stan Tracey, as well as completing the expected deal with Andy Sheppard, but for now he continues to play the music he knows best, in the best possible way.
‘I leel I am playing more strongly and with more conviction than I was ten years ago, and I am more aware of the importance at trying to communicate with an audience as well. You learn that some of the things audiences appreciate are in tact the better part of the music— maybe we tend to over-complicate things and play too much some at the time, when a little less would actually be more telling. it’s a matter of dynamics and climaxes, light and shade, and musicians maybe get a little detached from that awareness at times.’ (Kenny Mathieson)
Peter King 8. Brian Kelloclr Trio, Tron Jazz Cellar, Edinburgh, Sun 13, 9pm.