F--.“
MUSIC PREVIEW
um:- Spiritual healing
/ ‘
A new organisation endeavours to breathe some fresh air into the Glasgow scene. bringing variety and vitality in music from over the border and overseas. From an idea of Michael Zolker. a drummer and percussionist who runs drumming workshops in the city. and who wanted to bring more cultural and rhythmic colour to Glasgow. Spirits Music Productions was born. The diversity of music that they enthusiastically promote can be seen when the organisers present two concerts on the same evening in different parts of the City. At very much a dance I event. in a cheerfully
cabaret-tabled Henry Wood Hall. Edward ll's gig will include much of the material from their recently-released CI). The band have just concluded a deal with Sony US. So catch them while you can when they use their indigenous urban English roots reggae to pull the Glasgow punters onto , their feet. 5
I've seen lidward ll‘s ' brass. bass. vocals and accordion fill the floor at the Aberdeen Alternative I Music Festival where the band's energy supply and ‘ propulsion system seemed to be jammed full on all night. (iet down to a Caribbean ceilidh.
In contrast. the music of Pakistan's renowned Sabri Brothers is a vocal. ioyotrs. forceful and sometimes contemplative e\pression of spiritual devotion and mystical union. Based on the sacred music of Islam's Sufis. ()awwali music has an ancient history and the brothers have been continuously performing their art since moving from India to Pakistan at the Partition.
The tour. originally scheduled last month. was cancelled due to the sad death of one of the group. but they have decided to continue their work. which is their life. as a tribute to IIaji (ihulam I'arid Sabri. (Norman Chalmers)
lidward ll play Henry Wood Hall and Sabri Brothers play The (‘ouper Institute. both Glasgow ; and both on Sun 2‘). l
34 The List 20 May 2 June I994
Making Music Happen
Return of the Ryder
25?," ‘3’: “i. ‘ .v , a, I . "as"? It’s been ten years since Sid Griffin brought his sideburns and band the Long Byders to Britain on the back of the Paisley Underground, a scene that drew on country, rock and psychedelia
Q in unequal measure. During the mid- i 80s, their brand of punked-up Byrds-
style country - they had more than an idiosyncratic ‘Y’ in common — and Griffin’s biography of ultra-hip country legend Gram Parsons, made the long Byders a name to drop, even in polite company.
Two classic albums - ‘flative Sons’ and ‘State of Our llnion’ - and memories of countless sweaty gigs were their legacy, before internal pressure blew the band apart in 1988. Direct descendants like the Gin
Blossoms and Jayhawks are now
reaping the bountiful harvest that
eluded the long Byders.
‘It was boo-boo to break up at the time we did,’ agrees Griffin. ‘I was under a certain amount of pressure to have another Long ilyders but when Stephen [McCarthy - now in Gutterball] wanted to quit I thought to hell with it. I’ve seen The Byrds with only Boger McGuinn and I’ve seen The Animals with only Eric Burdon and it’s
not the same thing.’
Instead Griffin formed the Goal Porters, a good-time, rockin’ blues band that made little impact beyond their Los Angeles base. flow married and living in London, Griffin and the Mark II Coal Porters have found a niche preaching country blues to British audiences, who he reckons understand American music better
than the Americans.
‘There’s a lot of people in America that just no longer look for a good hamburger, they think any old fast food place has a good hamburger and that’s kind of what they do with their
music,’ Griffin explains.
(in the evidence of their mini-album ‘llebel Without Applause’, the Goal Porters are a stripped-down Long Ilyders, with less of the groovy 60$ influence but the same raw blues energy. Meanwhile, the Long Ryders back catalogue has been prepared for re-release. Check ’em out if you missed them the first time round.
(Eddie Gibb)
Sid Griffin and the Goal Porters play The Arches, Glasgow on 30 May.
Little and large
A big band was perhaps a logical progression in the career of pianist McCoy Tyner. In his association with the epoch-making John Coltrane Quartet, and in a variety of his own hands since that time (most recently a working trio with Avery Sharpe on bass and Aaron Scott on drums), Tyner had the opportunity to explore small group jazz from myriad angles.
In the late 80s, be simultaneously expanded on and contracted from that small group standpoint. On one hand, he cut a series of three highly accomplished solo (and occasionally duo) recordings for Blue llote, beginning with ‘Bevelations’ in 1989, and completing what be conceived of as a trilogy with ‘Things Ain’t What They Used To Be’ in 1990, and ‘Soliloquy’ in 1992.
At the same time, and ‘largely at the request of a number of musicians who had been asking me for some time to put one together’, Tyner also formed his own fifteen-piece big band. It was not an entirely new departure for him as a musician - he had recorded an album with Duke Ellington, for example, while still a member of the Coltrane quartet - but it was a new venture as a leader, and provided a marked contrast in approach to both
?$
his solo and trio work.
McCoy Tyner
‘The big band allows me to develop my ideas in a more compositional way than playing solo, which is more spontaneous, and more dependent on my mood at the time. Over my career, I have been able to create new vehicles for my music as it develops, and the big band is an aspect of that process, but I also like to go back to older tunes of mine and see if I can re- arrange them a little bit to reflect new things that are coming out in my
music.’ (Kenny Mathieson)
McCoy Tyner plays solo and with his big band at The Queen’s Hall,
Edinburgh on Fri 20.
Back in the saddle
Luke Haines is back. with a spikey new Auteurs album and a mission to convince Fiona Shepherd that he’s not the glum git he’s painted.
Luke Haincs needs a doctor. Iiarlier in the day he tried to smile and the sudden stress placed on his underused facial muscles proved too much to take.
Actually. that‘s a cheap lie; a lie masquerading as the kind of dry humour manifested but overlooked in much ofThe Auteurs‘ genteel pop vignettes. In fact. he needs a doctor like only a man with a sore throat and a national tour commencing in three days can. Yet here he is. delicate vocal cords aside. fulfilling the promotional schedule for the second Auteurs' album. Now I'm A Cowboy, with a wit and affability beyond the call of duty and beyond his habitually scowling public face.
‘People say I‘m miserable.‘ he says (probably thinking ‘not this old chestnut again‘). ‘I'm not. I smile occasionally. It‘s just that I don't go out with The Boo Radlcys and get pissed at every London gig.‘
Tennents Live! Making Music Happen
i I I I