Music
PREVIEW PUNK CROONERS CREEPING BENT RECORDS Vic Godard & The Subway Sect and The Sexual Objects, Citrus Club, Edinburgh, Fri Dec 4; then same line-up at Stereo, Glasgow, Sat Dec 5 with Flesh
When Andy Warhol said everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, he wasn’t counting on the irresistible rise of the Creeping Bent Organisation, which this month celebrates 15 years carving out a parallel pop universe with two very special shows. Vic Godard & The Subway Sect first appeared in Edinburgh supporting The Clash on their 1977 White Riot tour, and duly inspired Edinburgh’s high-concept label Fast Product, while a young Davy Henderson went on to form Fire Engines, Edinburgh’s incendiary post-punk jangular sensations that begat Win and The Nectarine No 9. Henderson’s latest combo, The Sexual Objects, play in tandem with Godard and co, while the Glasgow show features the Ze- Records styled avant-disco of Creeping Bent’s latest flame, Flesh. ‘Vic and Davy are the people that influenced and focused Creeping Bent,’ McIntyre explains. ‘A lot of it too came from Fast Product’s ideas about packaging and consumerism. To still be here is quite an achievement in sheer bloody-mindedness.’
Creeping Bent was launched at A
Leap Into the Void, an Yves Klein referencing multi-media happening at Tramway in Glasgow in 1994. Picking up where Fast Product left off, keeper of the flame and Creeping Bent prime mover Douglas McIntyre’s eclectic back-catalogue predicted a future whereby Franz Ferdinand took sounds patented at Bent and Fast into the mainstream. McIntyre is keen to do likewise with Flesh, an entryist idea masterminded with producer Steven Lironi, who has combined the voices of chanteuse Sharon Martin and Suicide’s Alan Vega to thrilling effect.
Now a digital only label, Creeping Bent plans to release long-lost archive material by the likes of The Leopards and The Nectarine No 9 online. ‘The whole beauty of digital releases,’ McIntyre says, ‘is that you don’t have to have money to release obscurities.’ (Neil Cooper)
66 THE LIST 3–17 Dec 2009
PREVIEW JAZZ PAUL BOOTH QUINTET AND INGRID JENSEN City Halls (Recital Room), Glasgow, Sun 6 Dec
Neither English saxophonist Paul Booth nor Canadian trumpeter Ingrid Jensen is a newcomer to these parts, but this will be the first time they have featured together. Booth was last here in the summer to work with
trumpeter Ryan Quigley’s big band at the Glasgow Jazz Festival, when he also more than held his own sitting in with Quigley and alto saxophonist Nigel Hitchcock on a terrifyingly fast version of ‘Donna Lee’ at the end of their quintet gig at this venue. Jensen is featured on Booth’s new album, but it has
been rather longer since we last heard her live. Previous visits include a memorable collaboration as guest soloist
with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra in their Miles Ahead project back in 2000. The trumpeter rose to both the physical and musical challenges, cleverly balancing a distinctly Miles Davis- like sound with her own sharper-edged approach, and evoking Davis’s original solos without simply repeating them. Finding her own way has always been central to her musical philosophy.
‘I know that if you ask the average guy in the street
what they think a jazz trumpeter is, they’re not going to say a blonde-haired white girl from Canada. I’ve never really thought in those terms, though. I see the trumpet as an extension of my voice – if I think a piece should sound masculine, I’ll play it that way, but if it calls for openness and sensitive shadings, then I’ll do that.’ (Kenny Mathieson)
PREVIEW POP PUNK PARAMORE SECC, Glasgow, Thu 10 Dec
You know a band’s famous when, months after it’s happened, the world is still talking about the singer going blonde, and they’re only just losing Grammies to megastars like Amy Winehouse by a whisker. And boy are Paramore famous. Having sold out both the SECC and
Wembley Arena, Paramore have eclipsed predecessors Fall Out Boy as the biggest pop punk band on the planet. The only person mighty enough to keep their latest album off the top spot in the US charts was Babs Streisand. It hasn’t all been plain sailing, though. Just last year it was looking like
Paramore were suffering from burnout. They cancelled their planned Glasgow gig and the rest of their European tour and flew home to America. Tensions in the band were widely reported, with guitarist Taylor York confessing that the rest of the band were furious about frequently being mistaken for Williams’ backing musicians. Paramore now acknowledge that at that stage they were no longer friends, but merely ‘business partners’. Miraculously, the band moved forward, with vocalist Hayley Williams locking
herself in her bedroom to write the lyrics to the resulting smash hit album Brand New Eyes. The band appeared to find their feet and landed themselves a spot on this summer’s mammoth No Doubt comeback tour.
If you’re into pop punk that’s more pop than punk, Paramore are a must see.
Just cross your fingers they’re en route to the SECC rather than on a plane home. The jury’s certainly out on their longevity. (Rebecca Moore)