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PREVIEW ROCK TAKING BACK SUNDAY ABC, Glasgow, Wed 29 Jul
Taking Back Sunday have had so many line-up changes since their inception in 1999 that they’re now printing T- shirts with the slogan ‘I used to be in Taking Back Sunday’. So have they sent one to former bassist, Fred Mascherino, who had an acrimonious split with the band in 2007? ‘We haven’t,’ laughs bassist Matt Rubano. ‘But I’m sure someone, somewhere has tried to.’
Rubano says the band haven’t heard from Mascherino since he quit, but have they heard his new band, The Color of Fred? ‘He played the record for me before quitting the band, to show me this great thing
that I was going to lose out on being a part of. It came off to me as a bit safe and boring.’
Mascherino has since been replaced by new guitarist Matt Fazzi, and TBS are taking an additional guitarist out on the road this summer. But don’t expect to hear too much from the debut album, Tell All Your Friends. ‘We do grow tired of playing the older songs,’ admits Rubano. ‘Some of us more than others. It has a lot to do with time and being different people when those songs were written; much younger and much different. ‘Adam has a hard time listening to his own voice from
ten years ago, and particularly the lyrics. The things you said when you were 18 you certainly wouldn’t say right now, just the way the clothes you wore in high school you wouldn’t wear right now.’ (Rebecca Moore)
Music
PREVIEW FESTIVAL THE BIG TENT FESTIVAL Falkland, Fife, Sat 25 & Sun 26 Jul
‘There is a real sense of belonging and connection to something at the Big Tent Festival,’ explains the event’s programme director Mike Small. ‘The message is more “come join us” than “gimme your money”.’
Set up in July 2005, the
environmentally-friendly two-day festival started out as ‘a good idea conceived by a group of activists’ to become Scotland’s largest eco event of its kind.Taking place in the grounds of Falkland Estate next to the palace, Mike explains that its family-friendly ethos makes it a great antidote to the bigger, more hedonistic festivals in Scotland’s calendar. The Family Zone includes engaging
kids’ activities, from treasure hunts and puppet making to hand drumming and tribal belly dancing. Also making music will be the melodic guitar pop of Glasgow’s Attic Lights, the 18-strong Creole Choir of Cuba, and The Moonzie Allstars from nearby Cupar. There will be quieter attractions such as reiki in the Body & Soul Zone, eco- camping, poetry and ecological issues in the Head Zone, a Wild About Wood Zone and craft stalls.
The back to grassroots philosophy extends to the food where organisers are promoting local, seasonal, sustainable produce. The One Planet Food Village has an organic beer tent, local meat on the barbecue, and veggies will have a whole café to themselves. There will even be Scotland’s first people-powered flour mill onsite, and it’s fair to say that you don’t get much more carbon neutral than that! (Emma Newlands)
PREVIEW ORCHESTRAL POP FINAL FANTASY Classic Grand, Glasgow, Wed 5 Aug
‘I play a lot of instruments,’ Owen Pallett attempts to convince us, ‘but none of them very well.’ Come off it. You don’t get to become the orchestra and string arranger for Arcade Fire’s Funeral and Neon Bible albums – at the same time helping to create a new and vibrant sub-genre of mini-orchestras – unless you’re really rather good. Yet he seems fairly louche about the whole deal. ‘Arcade Fire had shows supporting Jim Guthrie, for whom I was playing,’ says Pallett, who lives in what he calls ‘an illegal tenement’ in Toronto. ‘Jim’s record Now More Than Ever was my first attempt at pop string arrangement, and the band liked it and asked me to work with Richard (Reed Parry) and Sarah (Neufeld) on getting their arrangements together.’
Then, two hugely influential records later, he was gone. ‘I left because Final Fantasy was
taking up too much of my time, and I wanted to pursue other arrangement projects.’ A solo endeavour, with Pallett playing violin, keyboards and singing during live shows, Final Fantasy received a large boost in credibility when it won the Polaris prize (Canada’s equivalent of the Mercury) in 2006 for Pallett’s second album under the video-game influenced name, He Poos Clouds. Subsequently working with The Last Shadow Puppets (Alex Turner and Miles Kane are ‘true
gentlemen’) and recording Final Fantasy’s third album, Pallett has also managed to keep the name so far. The makers of the video game haven’t been in touch, but every year ‘I get free tickets to those symphonic Nobuo Uematsu (who scores the Final Fantasy games) concerts, so I think the publishers probably have a positive view on my endeavour.’ (David Pollock)
23 Jul–6 Aug 2009 THE LIST 65