MUSIC PREVIEW
V LISTEN!
I Meet the stars £ l ! Or alternatively. meet The Buzzcocks. Prior to their appearance at Edinburgh‘s Venue on Wed 9 (see preview). Pete Shelley and ver lads will be appearing at HMV in Princes Street at lpm. What do i get? Signed copies of their new album. that’s what. (If you tender sufficient amounts of cash. natch.)
I Meet the stars £2! Glasgow band The Basement launch their eponymous CD EP with a set in Tower Records in Glasgow on Sat 5 at lpm. And the next day. Sun 6. The Lost Soul Band follow their Headh appearance with an acoustic bash at Virgin in
' Glasgow‘s Argyle Street
at 2pm.
I Play With the stars! Scarborough rock comes to Edinburgh as Little Angels play the Usher Hall on 6 July. And the band are offering ‘professionally presented‘ unsigned local acts the chance to support. Send quality demos. info and photos by 9 June to Mike Dewdney. Little Angels ‘Jammed Every Night' Tour, 27a Floral Street. London EC2E 9DQ.
I Letter from America . . .They're the darlings of Hollywood and they‘re what Entertainment Weekly calls ‘the greatest neo-nerdy. quasi- evangelistic folk duo to come out of Scotland'. th'.’ The Proclaimers are BACK, riding high in the American charts courtesy of the hit new Johnny Depp movie. Benny & Joan. Seemingly the brothers Reid‘s 1988 hit ‘l‘m Gonna Be (500 Miles)‘ was the font of
inspiration for said movie. -
and was played daily on the set to gee up the cast. Now the parent Sunshine 0n Leith album has been reprornoted. selling
50 000 copies in America in three weeks (outselling the big bucks Yank launches of PJ Harvey. Radiohead and Suede).
and the single is steaming I
up radio playlists at a frankly frightening rate. Sales are apparently particularly high in Salt
Lake City. Unflustered by this sudden upsurge in the
US profile stakes. the boys begin recording their salivatingly-anticipated
third album in September.
I Beat Generator is a sparky new fanzine covering the local band scenes in Perth and Dundee. Copies of the latest issue (featuring 3 l/2 Minutes. The Stranglers. Frank Skinner and demos a-plenty) are available for 50p and an SAE to SpeakEasy Publications.
l i l l i
16 Canning Place. Dundee
DD3 7RT.
Fishes and whales
Sally Beamlsh Already established with a reputation for intelligent and unusual programming, the Chamber Group of Scotland follow their successful Mayiest collaboration with choreographer Rosina Bonsu (winner of a Scotland on Sunday Paper Boat)
with a fascinating blend of accessable
miniatures by composers as diverse as Weber and George Crumb.
Co-director Sally Beamish is becoming more and more involved with mixed media, having recently been selected to take part in the Arts Council/BBC 2 Music on Film project. The CGS are playing Iasg (fish), a duo for cello and piano inspired by the life-cycle of the salmon - Sally wrote
the piece for her husband, the cellist llobert Irvine, who is a keen fisherman. iler’s is a piquant and disconcertineg elusive voice, ideally suited I anticipate, to the subject- matter.
lt’s good too, to hear - and see - George Crumb’s Vox Balaenae (the voice of the whale) presented with all the subdued lighting and amplification. An odd figure in some ways, Crumb was at one and the same time bespectacled professor at the University of Pennsylvania - ’uptown’, as a flow York minimalist once succinctly described him - and darling of the avant-garde for radical experiments with sound which put him up there with the likes of John Cage and llarry Partch. A collagist - or sampler, if you prefer - the great strength of his music, the exquisitely beautiful sonic surface, can also be his undoing, since there is frequently little by way of structural underwear. Vox Balaenae was written back in the 1960s, prompted by Crumb’s fascination with the sound of whale- song rather than the animal’s symbolism.
The concert rounds off with a piece for solo cello (and hat) by Bill Connor, better known for his film and TV work (A Sense of Guilt). Called ‘Busker’, the duration (eight-fifteen minutes) is vague enough to suggest a bit more theatre in the offing. (Peter Cudmore) The Chamber Group of Scotland, Sun 13 Jun, Stevenson ilall, BSAMD, Glasgow and Mon 14 Jun, Queen’s llall, Clerk St, Edinburyi.
mm:- Blues blow
Bluesman Snooky Pryor makes a rare Edinburgh appearance with ffational steel guitarist John llicholas, the latest in Open House Music’s admirable series of acoustic music gigs at Old St Paul’s llall. li blues is your thing, then Pryor is too, because the septuagenarlan harmonica player carries with him both the authentic flavour of the Mississippi Delta blues style, and the later modifications of it through developments in Chicago.
That CV is a familiar one. Like Buddy Guy, who passed through last month, Pryor was born in the South, in Lambert, Mississippi, and is a self- taught instrumentalist. fie became a professional musician at the age of sixteen in 1937, and then served in the army during World War Two. There, he picked up the idea of playing through a public address system on any bases, and took that notion on stage after his demob in 1945.
The PA gave the harmonica a new prominence when playing in a band, and opened the way for the remarkable growth in importance of the instrument in the Chicago style, whether in an essentially acoustic or lightly-amplified duo like this one, or in a kicking electric ensemble, as exemplified by little Walter with Muddy Waters’s great 50s band. Pryor has done both, and still plays with just
as much power and love for the music. The harmonica man goes on to take part in the blues extravaganza at the Caird ilall which opens this year’s Dundee Jazz Festival, the first of two major blues nights which top and tall the event, the second of which stars guitarist Philip Walker at the flop Theatre. In between, a strong jazz line- up at the flop includes Courtney Pine, nanny Thompson, Bheki Mseleku and a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald (see listings for details). (Joe Alexander) Snooky Pryor and John Iicholas play at Old St Pauls in Edinburgh on Fri 4.
um- Sweet soul
sister
She’s gone home and gone raucous. Maria McKee’s second solo album is tall-walking and free-roaming, roping in r’n’b, country-blues and Craig McLean’s gibbering enthusiasm.
‘l came back specifically to make the record but i ended up staying here. i think this album really couldn‘t have been made anywhere else.‘ She‘s home. Maria McKee is back in Los Angeles. living on breezy street. having a laugh. and making records to suit. For her second solo album. You 't'e Gotta Sin To Get Saved. the former singer with Lone Justice has returned to the cradle of her musical learning. 'ljust got so
30 The List 4—l7 June I993