MUSIC PREVIEW
r l
V LISTEN!
I Hoary shamanistic rockers The Cult retread all their yesterdays with a
' forthcoming compilation
LP- wait for it — Pure Cult. Wannabe bloodbrothers can sup its
; mystical revelations at a ? series of preview airings in
clubs around Britain. Scottish devotees can
trundle along to The ’ Cathouse in Glasgow on
Saturday 3().lanuary.
I 09GFM, the Paisley-based radio station, is on the lookout
; for input from budding
contributors and local bands for two of their
3 Monday evening shows. Firstly, from 7pm—8pm
the University of Paisley
Students’ Association
; broadcasts its show featuringstude-orientated ; music and issues. and are
' asking for any ideas or
enquiries to be faxed to: Tony Foster, Promotions Manager. University of Paisley Students‘ Association on 041 848 9693. Their telephone number is 041 889 9940. Between 8pm and 10pm. lain iiossack presents Smile, an indie/new music programme which plays the latest alternative releases, but also seeks to play demos by bands from the West of Scotland. Hopefuls angling for airplay should send their tapes to: lain Hossack, do 096, PO Box 96. Paisley. PA1 ZNS.
l 23rd Precinct, the happingest label on the block, are launching their own DJ and PA agency. Their roster includes on the group side ofthings the exquisite Sublime. Havanna and Gipsy, all of whom have scored club success with their recent releases, and the DJ list includes Michael Kilkie, Streetrave‘s Bob Jeffrics. Mark Burns, Matt Brown and label co-owner Billy Kiltie. All 015 and acts can be booked individually or as part ofa 23rd Precinct package. For all bookings and enquiries contact Lynda at 23rd Precinct on 041 332 4806.
I Two headlines for you: ‘Smear yourselfwith Sloan‘ and ‘Sneaky Billy Sloan Flogs Pop Freebies‘. Could they. by any chance. be related? ‘Fraid not. The gods of chance. however. were smiling maliciously this
week as a press puff from
Geffen arrived advising of the imminent release of the debut album.
Smeared, by Canadian band Sloan. Meanwhile.
LP ‘ 28'I'he List 29January— 11 February 1993
over at Kinning Park the smearaway Scottish Sun were cock-a-hoop as they scored a cruel point over arch-rivals The Daily
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Huge potential
Kevin MacKenzie
Guitarist Kevin MacKenzie has long seemed one of the most consistently
impressive young players to emerge on i
the Scottish jazz scene in the mini-boom oi the late 803. His early appearances with the Strathclyde Youth Jazz Orchestra signalled the arrival at a prodigious talent, and his membership oi the crucial John Rae Collective conlirmed that impression.
: The band have been absent irom the
Scottish scene since last year’s Glasgow Jazz Festival, but will make a
i welcome return as support to pianist
Michel Petrucciani (12—14 Feb). Kevin, meanwhile, has been developing his own music along multiple lines. The electric powertrio he unveiled in April 1991 eventually turned into the oil-centre jazz-rock quintet which supported Ornette
Coleman a year later. At home, he has also been working in a line acoustic quartet with saxman Phil Bancroit and a rhythm section of Kenny Ellis and Iain Copeland, and is the guitarist oi choice tor several other band-leaders.
At last year’s Round Midnight Festival, Kevin launched yet another band, an acoustic quartet with
London-based playersJulian Arguelles ‘ ’ the pop video exhibit . about to open in The V Arches.
on saxophone, Mick Hutton on bass, and drummerTom Bancroft. The results were impressive, and the band were promptly booked for a live-date tour on Assembly Direct’s The Jazz Club circuit (see Listings), albeitwith an enforced change.
‘Mick Hutton got a call from Tommy Smith to go on a tour at Pakistan, and Tommy has first call on his services. I am going to use Kenny Ellis instead,
because I play with Kenny a lot anyway,
and he knows some at the material we will be using. Otherwise, itwill be Julian and Tom again, and we are really looking lorward to getting a chance to play a series at gigs, rather than just a one-oil. I feel the band has huge potential, and we will have a lair amount at new material to till the extra set as well.’
In addition to his own tour, Kevin also tours with the Collective in England next month torJazz Services, and is a member of the Tom Bancroft Orchestra which will play three Scottish dates the lollowing month (19—21 March). In addition, he has just been award a Jazz Project grant by the SAC, to develop and promote his Ouartet. (Kenny Mathieson)
Mac Talla
‘It’s just one at those things that happened,’ explains singer Christine Primrose speaking from the Gaelic college—the real one on Skye, not the lictional Lewis establishment in TV soap Machair— in describing the origins at new Gaelic vocal-based group Mac-Talla.
‘We didn’t plan it really. We all meet regularly at concerts, lestivals and the like, and socially although we are geographically spread out. And we have sung together in various combinations, so one night the idea came about to record together, make an album. We are still going to do that Iaterthis year with Temple records, but were asked recently it we would play at the Cumbernauld Festival, which will actually be our tirst concert as a band.’
With two regular duos, one lrom Skye in singer Arthur Cormack and one time Bunrlg keyboard player and accordionist Blair Douglas and the other comprising Christine with Borders-based clarsach exponent and vocalistAlison Kinnaird, Mac Talla is long on talent and experience. Lewis singer Eilidh MacKenzie, winner at the YoungerAward adds her considerable vocal skills to make a live piece. 'Eilidh and Blair have both been appointed Gaelic Arts otticers with
'- Ev:
responsibility lor music all over the North and West, in tact anywhere Gaelic music needs encouragement and development,’ continues Christine. ‘Eilidh‘s a lovely singer, with a great ability to improvise harmony, and she’s now also writing her own songs.
‘As a group we’ll sing solo, duets, choruses and some ensemble. But the songs we do don’t need that much changing, not for change’s sake. We want to let the strengths ot the songs through, keep their originality. There will certainly be arrangements, and vocal harmony, but not to the detriment oi the songs.
‘I suppose we would have hoped tor more time together to evolve what we will do, but the distances and the atrocious weather have kept us apart. We’ve been rehearsing by phone and tax!’
Mac-Talla; Cumbernauld Celtic Festival, Sat 30.
V EXHIBITION
vision
Fiona Shepherd previews
Press play. ’l‘hen blame Queen. It‘s all their fault. this desire for visual interpretation in an aural medium. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody": a five-minute blast ofspandex and cheekbones. a multiplicity of
Freddies snaking into infinity and for
this the pop fan has endured over lilteen years of hackneyed split-screens. slo-mo. animation and
costumed poncerama. Ask Wayne
and Garth. the ultimate videoniks in a square-eyed generation about the influence of that promo and they‘ll say . . . ‘Beelzebub has a devil set
3 asidefor meeee." They're a killer.
Queen. But hold on a minute. Press pause. Rewind. What about Pink Floyd?
Sod the flying pigs; for the ultimate
in stagecraft witness the colossal
1 psychedelic projections that
: embellishedtheir earlier concerts. _ The Grateful Dead too were liquid crystaltrailblazers.
‘A music video in its truest, purest term is nota promotional video used by a record company, but they are dominating the whole scene and demeaning its value.’
Pause and rewind again. So what
, was Help! if not a longform Beatles
video, albeit one shrouded flimsily by a daffy plot and comic set pieces‘.’
Ultimately it was an excuse to get Ringo‘sgormlessvisage further imprinted on the teen consciousness.
BUT. . . spool back further still.
‘ and the self-evident progenitor of ~ the modern popular music video
phenomenon is manifest — Betty Boop. Yus. that helium-throated.
curvy coquette withtheoutsized cranium. Sound and vision in perfect harmony. A cartoon invented video.
This is roughly the point ofentry for the Irn-Bru Pop Video
Exhibition,amulti-mediablast
through the history of the pop promo. shortly to take up a
: four-month residency in Glasgow‘s Arches. The exhibition was
originally conceived and displayed in London‘s Museum of the Moving Image but at the behest of Irn-Bru has now become a travelling concern.
MOMl‘s Dick Fiddy was present at the birth. "I‘he modern genre was about ten or twelve years old so it had a bit of history to talk about. where the pop video stood in the
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