Reviews
INDIE ROCK
LITTLE DOSES oooo KIDDO oo
VITAMIN FLINTHEART 0..
Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Thu 6 Mar
Cabaret Voltaire sees a good turnout for tonight's New Found Sound showcase of local talent. Though third down on the bill, Vitamin Flintheart’s swirling atmospheric set sets a solid standard. Switching between flickering melodies to layered riffage they are taut and occasionally haunting, though some of the songs would presumably fare better with a mixing desk that emphasised their grander moments. Sauntering on next are Kiddo who sound slightly more polished but suffer as a result of some dire lyrical clangers. Their set is delivered with admirable enthusiasm but the frenetic ‘Elegy’ — a vengeance rite directed against some former band mates — can’t help but appear a wee bit petty. Then the headliners, featuring Mark McClelland once of Snow Patrol and recently recruited new guitarist, ex-Fuck Off Machete axeman Paul Mellon, Little Doses sound fresh, muscular and, thankfully, not much like Snow Patrol. While the songs are decent. personnel is their strong point. The drummer provides some refreshing on stage banter and front lady Kirsten Ross possesses enough charm to entrap the audience. With some luck they could emerge from under the shadow of their former bands. (Miles Johnson)
Tomorrow’s music today. This Issue: Sixpeopleaway
Despite pressure from various short-sighted industry types to fill out with extra members, Glasgow-based duo Sixpeopleaway have stuck to their guns and rightly so. Forming in the summer of last year and based around the songs of Alistair Merrick (vocals, guitar, laptop) and close friend Robert Hitchen (bass, backing vocals), the outfit make beautiful, beat-fuelled acoustic tracks which stick out like a sore thumb from the current crop of supermarket indie-touting wannabes and are all the better for it.
We drag Merrick away from an episode of Masterchef to find out more . . .
A lot of people told us to come back once we had a proper band, but to be honest 2%SHCAF38FBONALD I found my own voice making music this way and Bob is the only guy in the world King Turs Glasgow Tue 13 Mar I’d trust to help me out. Plus we want to keep it simple and keep the backing as .. ’ ’
minimal as possible.
A definite case of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ then?
Exactly. I just graduated from university and this has been much more successful than any of the jobs I applied for! We're getting lots of support, gigs are filling up with new faces all the time and we’re both having so much fun.
Did you ever imagine that your Green Day-loving teens would lead to this?
Not at all! I have been writing songs since the age of 14 and played in various bands over the years but I never thought it would go anywhere. This is all very much by accident and a wonderful one at that. (Camilla Pia)
I The Classic Grand, Glasgow, Wed 28 Mar; Spectrum 4, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, Sun 7 Apr. Sixpeopleaway's self-titled debut EP is out now.
I thought that if you had an acoustic guitar, a wise man once said, then it meant that you were a protest singer. Quite what he’d make of 19-year-old Amy Macdonald is difficult to predict: her lyrical targets include reality TV, ‘the trouble and strife of the footballer's wife’ and a song about the youth of today, inspired, she explains, by a conversation she had aged 15 with a man in 8&0. Lordy!
JAZZ MOISHE’S BAGEL Bongo Club, Edinburgh, Sat 7 Apr
To be fair it’s all delivered in a commanding vocal, a kind of turbo charged Dolores O’Riordan meets Sandi Thom, neither of whom coincidentally are strangers to either the clunky lyric or sound of the cash register. But her musical reference points — a cover of the Killers' ‘Mr Brightside' and a nod to Pete Doherty in ‘Poison Prince’ — only confirm suspicions that there’s more to life than records released in the last five years. Much, much more. (Emma Newlands)
WEIRDNESS THE ABDOMINAL SHOWMEN oooo
TINY LITTLE HEARTS oo
Octopus Diamond, Edinburgh, Fri 16 Mar
Run by two-time travelling futuristic Japanese robot space blokes, it’ll come as little surprise to hear that Club Crazi Afro Sushi Fry Up is a very silly place. Patrons are greeted with free Space Raiders. A man plays sitar in the corner. The bands too are unorthodox. Edinburgh's Abdominal Showmen resemble a white boy Parliament, fresh off the Lothian Mothership, buzzing on soap bar and fronted by a ganeg Snoop Dogg alike, albeit a Scottish one who wears spectacles. They’re terribly good fun. sending the room into a contorted ball of p-funk for a half hour. Unlike Tiny Little Hearts. who are just plain terrible. Taking that frantic, screeching disco punk template as pioneered by fellow Glaswegians Shitdisco, they beat it into unrecognisable — sometimes unbearable — shapes. swigging Buckfast and serving only to frighten people throughout. They may regard that as a compliment — as I said. this was a very silly place. (Malcolm Jack)
60 THE LIST 29 Mar—12 Apr 2007
As pianist Phil Alexander explained on the eve of the release of their second album . Salt, the band have relaxed into their trademark blend of jazz—influenced Klezmer and Balkan music since forming back in 2003.
“Having started largely through a grand accident with all the Klezmer and Balkan stuff, we have established a sound, and what we are trying to do now is take that sound and adapt it onto other styles of music as well, but still with those roots.
‘In the beginning it was mainly myself and our accordion player. Pete Garnett. that brought some tunes along. Everybody else picked those up and ran with it. and we evolved the beginnings of this new sound. Since then, though, it has evolved to a point where everybody is bringing in material and writing stuff, which is great. We are sourcing things from much further afield as well.’
Alexander and Garnett are joined by violinist Greg Lawson. bassist Mario Caribe and percussionist Guy Nicolson. Between them, they represent a multifaceted musical background that takes in jazz. folk, classical, and various shades of Latin American music, as well as the Klezmer and Balkan idioms.
‘The band is very democratic and organic in the way we work, and I think we are more comfortable with exploring our own individual backgrounds within the band. Now that we have the basic format in place, it has given us all more freedom to explore. I think that is reflected in the album which we ended up having to record in a day-and-a-half. Fortunately, the material was well bedded-in.‘ (Kenny Mathieson)