Tomorrow '3 music today This i33ue: Julia Thirteen
Formed at high school in 1999, this Glasgow six-piece are already well ahead of their tender average age of 21. Progressing from teenage Radiohead fanatics, via the Cure, to recording their self-financed, gothic rocking, world wars-themed epic debut album Last Night of the Long Knives, they’ve even managed to get lain Cook and Campbell McNeil from Aereogramme on board to produce. The List spoke to guitarist Johnny Sellar.
They must have been handy.
Yeah, Ian and Campbell. and the rest of Aereogramme have given us endless support. They've always really liked Our stuff. and helped us record an EP last year that we never even put out in the end. They were really disapj'minted. and pushed us towards recording the album.
‘The two world wars and the personal relationships such
Henry‘s.
events created and destroyed’. Sounds a bit heavy for mere youngsters . . .
People can never really seem to get their heads round it. It obviously sounds a bit daft to think that we could create an album about something as vast as world wars. but I think we were always trying to create something bigger than we really thought we could manage - punch above our weight. It's son
of the coldness. the sense of loss about war that interested us.
Reaching back to a time when things were supposedly so much better.
A concept album then?
We always wanted it to sound like a complete album rather
than just a collection of songs. We talked about concepts a lot.
but never really talked about it being a concept album as such. It's kind of an attack on bands that just release a single or two with nice catchy melodies and really nothing to say. We think it's possible to write catchy songs but still have something very serious to say. We're trying to bridge the gap. (Malcolm Jack) I Barfly, G/asgow, Wed 27 Ju/.
JAZZ DAVID BINNEY QUARTET Henry’s Jazz Cellar, Edinburgh, Thu 28 Jul
New York-based saxophonist David Binney flies in for a couple of gigs at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, including an intriguing collaboration with Edinburgh-based saxophonist Julian Arguelles. Just before the Festival gets underway. though, Binney will team up with the Paul Harrison Trio at
He was born in Florida and brought up in southern California, but has been part of the New York scene since he moved there as a 19-year-old in 1980. Early in his career he was linked in many minds with the experiments of Steve Coleman and Greg Osby in the 'M-Base’ collective in New York, an association he both acknowledges and denies.
‘If you go back to my first record in 1991, I think that was pretty M-Base influenced. but I found myself after that CD and never really looked back. It's funny because I still get comparisons to Steve and Greg and M-Base even now. and it is so funny to me — it seems if you play in an odd time and/or intervallically, which I have always done. you get compared to those guys. They are probably my two favourite alto players in the current generation. but it doesn't inform my music in the least.'
Binney has released a number of 005 over the years. but believes that downloading is the way forward for artists.
“Some artists. especially in the early Napster days. were freaking out about people illegally downloading music. I guess my point to my peers was who cares? Did you ever see a dime from record sales anyway? We weren't making any money from record sales. so for us it makes total sense to bypass record companies and sell our music ourselves.‘
(Kenny MathieSOn)
Festival rot ls setting in at chez Woomblo, and no bloody wonder . . .
335:: The internet is something I used to deny. but who am I kidding? I’m addicted. If I don't get to check my emails or visit the websites I like most days I begin to feel like the smoker who dangles out of the window reaching for the last cigarette that's dropped in the gutter with bedsheets tied to his legs. And the thing is. more often than not it's for information I already have. or don't need. Last year it reached crisis point when I got obsessed with a website about mystics of the 16th century. I'm pretty sure I bored many a friend into submission with my in-depth character studies of Hildergard of Bingen. She was quite the punk rock nun. mind you. Although she also believed that her reflection was another person.
I suppose now it's officially festival season, which are two words put together that give me the proverbial fear. I had the time of my life from 15 to 19 going to them. drinking lager in ten-man tents. falafel in hand, pretending Lou Reed was good live. But now they fill me with a very particular kind of worry.
There's not much lonelier than eating a damp burger in a backstage bar surrounded by fashionistas in wellies. Maybe I'm too cynical and need to go join the throng setting fire to dome tents and chatting to guys from Arbroath about the Foo Fighters . . . on second thoughts, maybe not. We've played a couple of festivals so far, and what a weird way to spend your life. An 18 hour bus journey to Germany to play ten songs in front of stoned students who've been sleeping in bin bags. then 18 hours back. It's what Jagermeister was invented for. Playing poker for chocolate M&Ms. I think that's anyone's bedtime cue. Lastly. I learnt last week that the word ‘cynic’ translated into greek means ‘dog'.
Idlewi/d's new single ‘El Capitan' is out now on Parlophone.
21 Jul—4 Aug 2005 TH! LIST 65