MUSIC LIVE REVIEWS
King Tut's. Glasgow. 8 June. Friends of ultimate rootless. hippy improvisers Ozric Tentacles. nurtured by the same live schedule as Back To The Planet. championed by the crusty subculture . . . ifSenser are the sound of the new unwashed. how come they're so sharp and . . . clean?
After the (mostly) dull new metallisms and
of support band The Cherries, Senser are a rush of adrenalin to the corporal extremities. For those not already familiar with their brutal but uplifting indie hit ‘Eject'. Senser are another brick in the rock/rap crossover wall. inherently political but eschewing the juvenile soapbox already occupied by Rage Against The Machine. Granted. rapper Heitham‘s endearing (and regular as clockwork) anti-fascist spiel is simplistic. but witness their driving
-— and their sophistication count rockets.
What they share with the fraggle fraternity is a guiding eclecticism. Just as the aforementioned Back To The Planet are dub meets ska meets ambient meets pop. so Senser are equally adept at space rap. jazz rap. hardcore rap.
Bassist. drummer and guitarist adopt a down-to- work stance. lining the back wall. but their exhilarating. compressed contribution. especially on the ferocious. chaotic version of 'Eject‘ which closes their set. is the perfect foil for Heitham‘s edgy itinerancy and singer Kerstin‘s bug-eyed over- acting. Vocally. though. she‘s a revelation. emitting Bjork-like intonations. and raising ‘Eject‘ to an orgasmic state with her hyper- ventilating yelps. It‘s a simple but original way of integrating vocals into a predominantly rap framework. and certainly one of Senser‘s trump cards. along with their simultaneous appeal to the feet and the conscience.
L (Fiona Shepherd)
tentative scorning attitude ; impressively Spectorish wall of sound
version of Public Enemy‘s ‘She Watch Channel Zero' — every bit as blistering as the original. ifnot more so ; ’
IilIIEIIIIIIII NANCI GRIFFITH
Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, 8 Jun. ‘It was just so great to walk out in the streets and see all the lovely
faces . . .’ Can she mean us? She surely does. Nanci Griffith has a mutual little love affair with Glasgow that teeters on the brink of showbiz cliche before toppling back into playful sincerity. Still, she must have been seriously tour-fatigued to see beautiful people on Sauchiehall Street . . .
No signs of tiredness in the opening jabs - classics all, kicking off with Archers anthem ‘Trouble In The Fields’, swiftly followed by a dust- kicking ‘listen To The Badio’ and a suitably epic reading of Kate Wolf’s ‘Across The Great Divide’, a huge summit-scaling song that expanded to § fill every acoustic crevice of the . Concert Hall.
, The Blue Moon Orchestra has been
reinforced with the voices of Lee Satterfield and Maura Boudreau, making up what Nanci affectionately called her ‘oestrogen choir’, giving an
effect on the upbeat numbers. The ‘Other Voices Other Booms’ album
1 makes up a good half of the show,
demonstrating Nanci’s ability to flirt
aspects of old folk tunes and somehow get away without a trace of embarrassment, and often (with the likes of ‘Four Flights lip’ and Oylan’s , ‘Boots Of Spanish leather’) achieve ? something truly affecting. 5 Less appealing was the mawkish 1 intro (all ‘Martin Luther King and let’s 1 love our children’) to the trite ‘lt’s A Hard Life Wherever You Go’, which i Nanci sadly regards as her finest : work. The intimate couplets of second encore ‘The Wing And The Wheel’ are infinitely more direct and moving. I Still, you can’t tell these songwriters anything can you? Glasgow loves her regardless. (Tom Lappin)
l with the schmaltzy and unfashionable
NAUGHTY BY NATURE
L. ‘
Barrowland, Glasgow, 4 Jun. ‘C’mon now, wave your hands in the air and scream like you just don’t care!’ As sad and cliched as it is, this sort of audience caioling still goes on in some hip-hop circles. I thought (and hoped) it had gone out in the sad old days of 80s rap culture, when people wore Gazelles, Jordache and big ole fat (Mr T style) fly gold chains. But no, look out, here comes Naughty By Nature on stage with the fattest gold chains I’ve seen since Nool Moe Oee - sad, very sad - and needles to say there is plenty of the old ‘Let me hear you say yeah’. Gold chains, naked torsos and macho posing are what’s in store for the rest of the night, with a bit of misogyny thrown in for good measure, ‘All the ladies in the audience with big titties wave your hands in the air.’ Sad, very sad, and
people wonder why hip-hop is such a
.‘ male-dominated thang.
The set list, as expected, is composed mainly of tracks off their recent LP, ‘19Naughtylll’, ‘Nip-Ilop
. Ilooray’, ‘Take It To Ya Face’, ‘Oaddy
.I';'_
Was A Street Corner’, ‘The flood Comes Flrst’, ‘The Only Ones’ and ‘It’s On’ (their latest bland single release), all merging together into one long, rather dull night of break-beats and raps, with very little standing out to make this a night worth remembering. Also, the fact that Barrowland wasn’t even half full doesn’t exactly make the air bun with excitement. Only a couple of hundred ‘typical Americans’ turned up for this one. At least they did actually ‘iump around’ when they were told to.
What had to be the lowest point of the night (of almost any concert I’ve
been to), was when they got some poor
wee boy onstage, gave him the microphone, and let him wander about front-stage screaming in drunken abandon. The only high point for me was the rendition of the powerful, autobiographical track ‘Ghetto
Bastard’ off their first self-titled LP,
; good powerful bass-lines and a heavy
1 hardcore rap, which proves they can be conscious once in a while, but hardly a saving grace. (Joe Larnpard)
_..__.__ _TI 1 I l
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Concerts listed are those at major venues, for which tickets are on public sale at time of going to press.
ROCK
I GLASGOW BARROWLAND (226 4679) Manic Street Preachers. 3 Jul; Suicidal Tendencies. 15 Jul; House of Pain. 16 Jul; Galliano. 31 Jul; Iggy Pop. 21 Aug; Levellers. 6—7 Oct.
I GLASGOW CELTIC PARN (227 5511) U2. 8 Aug.
I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL (227 5511) Squeeze. 26 Sept; Jethro Tull. ll
Oct; Gary Glitter. 23—24 Dec. I GLASGOW PAVILION
(332 1846) ELO Part 11.7 Jul; Blues Band. 27 Aug; Errol Brown. 19 Sept.
I GLASGOW SECC (227 5511) Neil Young. 12 Jul;
OM D. 4 Dec; Gary
Glitter. 23—24 Dec.
I EDINBURGH MEADOWBANN (557 6969) Prince. 29 Jul.
I EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE (557 2590) Bootleg Beatles. 21 Nov. I EDINBURGH DUEEN’S HALL (668 2019) Indigo Girls. 30 Jul.
I EDINBURGH USHER
' HALL (228 1155) Little
Angels. 6 Jul.
JAZZ
I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL (227 5511) Dionne Warwick. 3 Jul; Nina Simone. 7 Jul; BB. King. 8 Jul; Tony Bennett. 9 Jul; Stephane Grappelli. 10 Jul; Bilk & Ball. 12 Oct; Syd Lawrence Orchestra. 30 Oct; Glenn Miller Orchestra. 18 Nov.
I GLASGOW FRUITMARNET (GIJF) (227
5511) Stan Tracey Octet.
2 Jul; Jack Bruce. 2 Jul; David Murray Trio. 3 Jul; Joe Pass & Martin Taylor.
. 3 Jul; Don Fallen. 3 Jul;
Tommy Smith & SYJO. 4
L Jul; Tommy Smith & John
Taylor. 5 Jul; Ahmad Jamal. 6 Jul; Brecker
Brothers. 7 Jul; Carol Kidd. 8 Jul; Art Ensemble Of Chicago. 9 Jul; Django Bates & Joanna
’ MacGregor. 10Jul; Hermeto Pascoal. 9-10
Jul. GIJF info from 041
552 3572. I EDINBURGH OUEEN’S
; HALL (668 2019) Georgie
Fame. 8 Jul.
iFOLN I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL (227 5511)Tom i Paxton. 3 Oct.
é LIGHT I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL (227 5511) Pasadena Roof Orchestra. 27 Aug; Rebecca Storm. 17 Oct; Dominic Kirwan. 4 Nov; Tammy Wynette. 7 Nov;
Patsy Cline Tribute. 28-29 Nov. I GLASGOW SECC (031 557 6969) Johnny Mathis. 26 Sept. I EDINBURGH USHER HALL(228 1155)Tammy
T Wynette. 6 Nov.
CLASSICAL
I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL(227 5511) 100 Summers with Tchaikovsky. 8. 15. 22 Aug; GIGS, 17—19 Sept. I EDINBURGH DUEEN’S HALL (668 2019) Scottish Ensemble. 9 Jul.
I EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 15 Aug—4 Sept. Programme and tickets from EIF Box Office. 21 Market Street. Edinburgh EH1 lBW(031225 5756).
I SUBSCRIPTION SEASONS Programme details and tickets for RSNO. SCO. BBC SSO. and CGPO concerts are available from Ticketcentre. Glasgow (227 551]); Usher Hall. Edinburgh (228 1155); Queen’s Hall. Edinburgh (668 2019). Tickets for Scottish Opera from Theatre Royal. Glasgow (332 9000); King‘s Theatre. Edinburgh (229 1201 ).
30 The List 18 June—l July 1993