MUSIC PREVIEW
I Fears about the continuation of the Clyde 1 Free Music Festival in Kelvingrove Park have been allayed by an agreement between Clyde and the developers of the bandstand Redevelopment 0f the site. which was delayed by legal wrangles. has been postponed until
later in the year. Meanwhile. the fourteenth festival will be held on Sunday 23 May. and any Scottish bands playing original material are eligible to play it. Demos and bumf (including mentions of any forthcoming gigs) should reach Kelvingrove ‘93. Clyde 1. PO Box l()25. Glasgow G81 ZHQ no later than 9 April.
I Another venue with the bots for new Scottish talent: the fortnightly Phoenix Club in Glasgow. which. very accomodatingly. doesn‘t stipulate any particular styles or genres. Demos and bumf should go to EPL. State Bar. 148 Holland Street. Glasgow G2 4NG.
I BIO! Grrrls among you who thrilled to the fighting talk of Niki from i Huggy Bear last issue. i might find it useful to have about their persons a contact address. You can write to: Huggy Nation. c/o Rough Trade. 130 Talbot Road. Notting Hill Gate. London W] l lJA (check the postcode if you‘ve ever wondered how Wiiija Records got their name). We don‘t know if they answer all enquiries or anything like that. so don’t expect a membership card. copy of the Situationist manifesto. free Christmas flCdelSCoCIC I A phone call from The Duke. a.k.a. Allan Campbell. to remind those listeners to his Forth RFM show who hadn't cottoned on already that the programme has now moved to Saturdays at 8pm. And on Saturday l3. he promises to delight the more depraved sections of his listening audience with an exclusive interview with Perry Farrell. ex of Jane's Addiction. now burning down the house with Porno For Pyros.
I Finally, a reminder to those good people out there who send or phone in listings. whether performers. managers. bar staff or whoever. that we really need to have the information in as early as possible. The deadline for music listings is a week before the publication date. To include anything arriving later than that involves bribing our production people with promises of an extra mouldy crust and five minutes trudge around the courtyard every four weeks. Thank you.
28 The List 12 —25 March 1993
; Writ large
Tom Bancroft: strike up the band
When drummer and composer Tom Bancroft launched his innovative and unconventional Orchestra at the Glasgow Jazz Festival in 1990, he said then that it would reflect his interest in ‘the tension between the free side and the structured side of the music’. That is equally true of the latest version of a proiect which has had necessarin limited outings (the economics of mounting concerts for a seventeen-piece band don’t square with recession-blighted Britain), but Tom has an evening’s worth of new material to unveil on this bucking-the- trend tour for Assembly Direct.
‘I had a period last year when I was
playing a lot, but I really wasn’t spending any time writing. My medical commitment (Tom, like his saxophone- playing twin brother Phil, is currently in his house-doctor year at the end of a medical degree, but has split it into two six-month segments) meant I had to cutback on gigs in the past few months, and l was able to get going on composition again, which is great.’ Bancroft has already found a strong, original voice for his music, but the Orchestra’s earlier gigs at The Oueen’s Hall also reflected flashes of the influence of favoured musicians, from Ellington and Mingus to David Murray and Henry Threadgill. His current burning enthusiasm is Prince, and
= while he doesn’t anticipate an overt
resemblance in his own music, he hopes it will reflect the same kind of vitality, self-belief and sense of purpose.
‘When we first did the band, I tended
; to allow people to do pretty much ' what they wanted, but as it has gone
on I’ve learned to take more control of the direction of the music, and I think we will have a better balance between writing and freedom this time. I’m not going to inhibit anybody, which is the last thing I want, but there will be more set material and structure this time. At least, I think there will.’
Both Tom and Phil intend to concentrate their attention on music once their studies are completed, and that can only be good news for ian in Scotland. (Joe Alexander)
The Tom Bancroft Orchestra plays at The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh on Fri 19
4 and The City Halls, Glasgow on Sat 20.
m- Showman
Ah, the arrogance of the experienced. ‘There’s no point in being in a band unless you have some kind of arrogance,’ states The Auteurs’ Luke Ilalnes defiantly, ‘unless you want to be The Wedding Present or some drab little band like that. The whole thing about putting a bunch of songs on an album, like “I have a need to say all this”, is arrogant anyway.’ Then again, when you pen couplets like ‘I took a Showgirl for a bride/Took her bowling, got her high’ (‘Showgirl’), when you get together a fellow bunch of swaggerers with attitude who finally fulfil your wish ‘to be sought after’, when your debut album (‘flew Wave’) is the year’s loudest fanfare for finesse, florid starlust extravagance and a dandy line in immaculately wrought pop, well, you’re entitled to preen, pout and puff out your skinny chest proudly. No, really.
Until the groundswell of approval that has greeted the arrival of The Auteurs, however, Luke might well have opted to be christened Job Instead: five years in The Servants (don’t worry, no one has), five years of making music that was ‘iaded and difficult, and deliberately so’, five years for one album, no audience and Iess-than-zero acclaim. Okay, so maybe ‘Idlot Brother’ is ‘a boring old record company’ but the rest of ‘flew Wave’ proves that after all that, this
threesome-plus-cellist can sprinkle stardust over their crackling pop with consummate ease.
‘The Servants was pretty much a reaction against everything, even ourselves,’ continues our cool-banded friend, ‘whereas The Auteurs are the accessible version, the pop version. Above all, we’re a good pop group, and the intention is never to be much more than that.’ Too late, mate. Already, they’ve been offered (and refused, happily) a support slot on Ouran Ouran’s Stateside tour. Already, they’re confounding those glib ‘pseudo- Suede’ slights that followed their supporting Brett’s bunch on last year’s treks. Already, we’re starting to (steady on!) love them. And luke, of course, wouldn’t have it any other way. (Galvin Bush)
The Auteurs play King Tut’s, Glasgow on Fri 12 and The Venue, Edinburgh on Sat 13.
Skinned u
! Big Country are back in business. And. as Alastair Mabbott discovers. in the perplexing question of the shite versus the haircut. Stuart Adamson chose the haircut.
dThe thing that turns me on.‘ declares Stuart Adamson. ‘the thing that l‘ve always wanted to do. is to make contemporary rock music. music that has a mind and soul of its own and that
great big huge rushes ofemotion coming through me. and I love to represent that with loud slabs of guitar music.’
And who better to provide said sonic outbursts than your very own Big Country? The band are back with a new album. The Buffalo .S'kinners. for a new label called Compulsion. ‘Our relationship with Phonogram had deteriorated so much that we didn't know whether to go for a shite or a haircut. to be honest.‘ Adamson offers. following this puzzling bun mm with a qualified defence of their last album. ‘I mean. I‘m quite happy with some of the songs on it. but it isn't representative of what l want to do. or what I want the group to be. or what l feel we're about.
The Buffalo Skinners has the band
comes out the way 1 feel about music ~
#l