MUSIC LIVE REVIEWS
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DAILY PAPERS §
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IIZEEIHIIIIII GRANT lEE BUFFALO
Venue, Edinburgh, 21 June It’s the longest day oi the year and the day that Grant Lee Buifalo’s debut album comes out. Spirited spiritual celebrations all around. Pop those corks and draw a deep draught: as llli launches of ‘hot’ new US bands go, few deserve the uncontrollable yee- ha! and congratulatory raised glasses as much as this lA threesome. Forget all those dirgeiul/cacophonous ,navel- gazing seli-obsessives - the obtuser, the obscurer ,the better - tonight’s headliners Come included. Grant lee Bufialo are where it’s truly at.
Michael Stipe digs them, so we’re told, but GlB transcend the attention- by-assoclatlon soft option. Funy, that album, sees to that. As encapsulated tonight by ‘Shlnlng llour’, GlB clasp the strident burr of Mike Scott’s Waterboys before they disappeared up
their own mystique. The Big Music has here got bigger and grander and closer, not wider and thinner and iurther like it has on llream llarder. Frontman Grant lee Phillips has a customised acoustic guitar that spits hot-wrought sparks and cossetting
~ iolky curlicues in lightning shifts of i pace. ‘Jupiter And Teardrnp’ has both,
the soundtrack to image-rich, darkly- hypnotic storytelling. llere, in Grant’s torn and iisted lyrical punch, do Grant Lee Buifalo call to mind American Music Club and The Triiiids.
But mostly they call to mind themselves. ‘The llook’ and the closing ‘Grace’ are dewy-eyed ballads with fire in their bellies. ‘They wanna legislate the moon, they wanna
legislate the womb,’ Grant sneers on ‘America Snoring’. ‘lord almighty l
feel the tension rising,’ Grant howls on their cover oi ‘Bumin’ love’, which ends up sounding like the Bunnymen’s ‘Gutter’ sharpened to a swinging scythe of sound. Bass man Paul Kimble is pivotal here, pounding and pummelling like a titanic piston. llis shivery falsetto on ‘Fuzzy’ comes in stark, startling contrast.
Enough of such huff ’n’ puii. Grant lee Buiialo are astounding, a mighty real, steely rock revelation. Three blokes who sound like a symphony. lt’s nights like these, unexpected and unforgettable, that make everything worthwhile. (Graig Mclean)
THE BLEEDING HEARTS
F
t V llice’n’Sleazy, Glasgow, 17 Jun.
When The Bleeding llearts walk down the street, do we think they are = postman? Stockbrokers? Tree
surgeons? No, we don’t. We know they
are rock stars. When they go
3 strutaround on stage and assume the
‘ preenlng position, you fancy they’re wiping away some residual crumbs from the flock As it Was Meant To Be Rolled Manual they devour before
each perionnance.
Rock’s rich reierence points? They got ’em. The trashy camp of New York Dolls, the raunchy blues and good-
time choruses of The Faces (and, it follows, The Black Growes - writs to the usual address, boys), the crunchy punk riiiola of M05, Aerosmith’s harnmy posturing, The llulreboys without the boring bits . . . and the Manlcs’ love of only the biggest and best role models.
llot rockln’ visual cliches? Step this
; way. Singer Gary sports leather pants
3 and leopard-skin shirt crowned with a
i convincing Mick Bonson feathercut
; and a less convincing California-via-
) Gorstorphine accent. The bass player
: clones a passable Paul Simenon, while
,the drummer (in true rock tradition to be referred to only as ‘the drummer’) has the Bonnie Wood entry on ‘Stars In Their Eyes’ well tied up.
llammy song titles? Check the menu. ‘Baby Can You Feel My lleat’ (‘not sexual’ apparently - like elephants are not big, grey and descended from mammoths), closely succeeded by ‘l
1 Can Touch The Sky Tonight’, the slow
3 one, pregnant with eemoshun. And an
Alex llarvey cover, oi course. Well, it was either him or llazareth really, wasn’t it?
The Bleeding llearts gleefully embrace every rock cliche going and how fortunate for the redundant Billy Idol fan that they do. There’s a sly
. knowing air to their perionnance. You
could call it subtle self-mockery, if subtlety was part of their vocabulary.
Which It isn’t. So, let’s call It a beacon
oi sardonic showrnanshlp in a genre generally bankrupt of entertainment value. let’s call it rock’n’rolleramalamalamamanla with a tattooed heart. Er . . . yowsa! Isn’t that how you’re supposed to end ironically gushing reviews? (Fiona Shepherd)
l V BOOK NOW 1
i Concerts listed are those at major venues, for
1 which tickets are on
public sale at time of
I going to press.
iROGK
I GLASGOW
I BAllllllWlAllll (226 4679)
1 Galliano. 31 Jul; Iggy
' Pop. 21 Aug; Levellers.
6—7 Oct; The Saw
1 Doctors. 17 Dec.
1' I GLASGOW CELTIC PARK
(227 5511) U2. 8 Aug. I GLASGOW CONCERT
HALL(227 5511) Squeeze. 26 Sept; Jethro Tull. 11 Oct; Mary-Chapin Carpenter. 21 Oct; Bobby Vee. 11 Nov; Gary Glitter. 23—24 Dec. I GLASGOW PAVILION
(332 1846) Blues Band. 27 Aug; Errol Brown. 19
Sept.
I GLASGOW SECC (227 5511) OMD.4 Dec; Gary Glitter. 23—24 Dec.
I EDINBURGH MEADOWBANN (557 6969) Prince. 29 Jul.
I EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE (557 2590) Bootleg Beatles. 2] Nov. I EDINBURGH OUEEN’S HALL (668 2019) Indigo Girls. 30 Jul.
I EDINBURGH USHER HALL (228 1155) Squeeze. 24 Sept; Mary-Chapin Carpenter. 24 Oct.
JAZZ
I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL (227 5511) Bilk and Ball. 12 Oct; Syd Lawrence Orchestra. 30 Oct; Glenn Miller Orchestra. 18 Nov.
I EDINBURGH OUEEN’S HALL (668 2019) Benny Goodman Tribute. 7 Aug: James Morrison. 8 Aug; Bilk and Lyttelton. 9 Aug; Jazz from Down Under. 10 Aug; Leon Redbone. 11 Aug; Fats Waller Celebration. [2 Aug; Ronnie Scott. 13 Aug; Jazz Ball. 14 Aug.
FOLK
I GLASGOW CONCERT HALL (227 55 I l ) Tom Paxton. 3 ()ct.
."i I
I a“. l I
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) Rebecca Storm. 12 Sept; Tammy Wynette. 6 Nov.
CLASSICAL
I GLASGOW CONCERT llAll1227 5511) NYOS. ll Aug; All Souls Orchestra. 14 Aug; 100 Summers with Tchaikovsky. 8. 15. 22 Aug; Wilhelmenia Fernandez. 17 Sept; Bolshoi Orch. 18 Sept; Scottish Celebration. 19
Sept.
I GLASGOW RSAMD (332 5057) Hilliard Ensemble. 9—10 Aug; Festival of BYO. 14 Aug—4 Sep; Academy CO. 12 Sep; Leda Trio, 23 Sept.
I EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE (557 2590) All Souls Orchestra. 13
Aug. I EDINBURGH QUEEN’S llAll (668 2019) Chilingirian Qt. 15 Nov; lmai and Vignoles. 6 Dec; Emperor Qt. 17 Jan; Schubert Ens. 7 Feb; Endellion Qt. 21 Mar. I EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 15 Aug—4 Sept. Programme and tickets from EIF Box Office. 21 Market Street. Edinburgh EHI 1BW(031 225 5756). I SUBSCRIPTION SEASONS Programme details and tickets for RSNO. SCO. BBC 580. and CGPO concerts are available from Ticketcentre. Glasgow (227 5511); Usher Hall. Edinburgh (228 1155); Queen's Hall. Edinburgh I (668 2019). Tickets for 1 Scottish Opera from Theatre Royal. Glasgow ,l
(332 90(XJ); King’s Theatre. Edinburgh (229 1201).
Iggy Pop
38 The List 2—15 July 1993