INDIE THE WALKMEN Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Wed 20 Sep
The life of a touring indie band involves a hell of a lot of hanging around doing sack all. To fill the hours in the back of the van, bands might invent puerile games, take a PlayStation or even read a book. New York oddballers The Walkmen took that last idea a stage further and started writing a novel.
‘lt’s 50 pages long now,’ says singer and guitarist Hamilton Leithauser. ‘We’ve probably done about ten pages each. It was just something we came up with to pass the time, and for some reason it doesn’t get boring. You can go to the toilet and write a couple of pages, and keep yourself entertained for hours on end.’
It’s just one example of what makes The Walkmen different. While everyone else in NYC was chug-a- lugging around in an endless garage rock or new wave purgatory, The Walkmen set about creating weirdly experimental, atmospheric, haunting music with clanking pianos and ghostly guitars.
FOLK
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The band members got together from the remnants of a number of underground acts in 2000, and their career so far has seen three albums of increasingly assured mayhem being released, as the band have moved from indie label to major, and from soundtracking art college parties to soundtracking The OC.
According to Leithauser, the band don’t like to labour long and hard in the studio, maintaining that spontaneity is key to their individual sound.
‘lt’s really hard to keep things fresh,’ he says. ‘Things get stale so fast. There’s always a danger of killing songs by overplaying them. If we come up with something we like, we just try to get it on tape as soon as we can, then pray to God that it’s good. Every once in a while we’ll listen back, and if we still like it, it’s worth keeping.’
In similar style the band have just finished dashing off an entire album of covers - their take on Harry Nilsson’s 1974 album Pussy Cats (itself a covers album), and are halfway through writing a new album. So it looks as if that novel will have to go on the backburner for now. (Doug Johnstone)
FIONN REGAN ABC, Glasgow, Sat 16 Sep
Fionn Regan is the latest in a long line of quality folk-influenced singer songwriters to come from Ireland. His recent debut album, The End of History. is so brimming with talent and assurance that it's hard to believe it almost never got made.
‘I'd done some EPs. but then I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue dOing music. cos I'd been Incarcerated in so many different forms of papenuork.’ says Regan With refreshing frankness. ‘I got to the stage x-rhere I wasn't sure if the highs were worth the lows. In the end. I deCided to do everything on my own. make the record I wanted to hear. Trying to keep the roof over my head was a bit of a struggle. but I got there in the end.‘
Thank God he did. Regan's songs have a strong stonytelling pox/er. combined With some exceptional gtiitar playing and a poignant. melancholic v0ice. Much of the music is Influenced by traditional Irish folk. something that was always liker to seep into his SubconsciOus. given his upbringing.
'My dad is a guitar player and he was alt-says in traditional bands.‘ says Regan. ‘The house I grew up in was full of musicians and bands rehearSing. That thread running thrOugh what I do. I've inherited by Just being around that kind of mLiSiC all the time. But when I started .‘Jrlilflg songs I wanted to go completely in the opposite direction. It took a bit of time to go. "OK here's the truth. here's who I really am".' lDOug Johnstonei
Roddy Woomble ponders the big birthday question: are you really only as old as the taxidermed animal you feel?
I never really ever expect anything for my birthday. which is why in recent years I've been unexpectedly surprised and delighted by the way things have turned out. This year I spent it on a beach in Iona. eating banana and pineapple birthday cake. then sinking back some Caol Ila whisky in possibly my favourite bar in Scotland. the Martyrs Bay pub and restaurant. It's become quite a cliche. all this 30 is the new 20 talk (that would make 20 the new ten). I suspect a lot of it came from people who worry about getting older. But I don't, and without wishing to sound arrogant. I prefer myself more with every year added. There’s not a lot you can do about it anyway, really.
This year my parents gave me the present of a digital radio. which is a revelation. so I'm getting happily older listening to static-free Radio 4. I also received quite a few stuffed animals. I'm considering becoming a collector.
I made my first trip to Cambeltown and the Mull of Kintyre at the weekend, playing the first proper ‘rock' show of the year with ldlewild. It's quite a boisterous town, full of drink, old fashioned sweetshops and groups of men shouting. Still, a good time was in effect (I hope) and I was loudly reminded of the joys and difficulties of singing along with electric guitars as loud as jet engines.
Spending the first half of this year ensconced in folk music. it was a baptism of plastic pint glasses thrown in the air all over again. Long may it continue.
{a Roddy Woomb/e's debut solo album My Secret is My Silence is out now on Pure Records. A new ldlewi/d a/bum is due in 2007.
7~2‘: Sep 2006 THE LIST 63