Music
PSYCH ROCK CROCODILES Captains Rest, Glasgow, Sat 2 Oct
San Diego’s Crocodiles wear their influences well. Named after Echo and the Bunnymen’s moody 1980 debut, the title of their own first album, last year’s Summer Of Hate, was also the title of a collection of recordings by Charles Manson, the man who turned the California dream into a nightmare. A hazy concoction of propulsive beats and shoe-staring white noise, Summer of Hate’s blog-buzzing lead-off single ‘I Wanna Kill’ didn’t so much recall The Jesus and Mary Chain’s ‘Head On’ as envelop it in a cloud of grinding nihilism.
Though more refined, for the most part recent second effort Sleep Forever brings more of the same, vocalist/programmer Brandon Welchez and guitarist/synth man Charles Rowell having decamped to studios at Joshua Tree in the Californian desert with Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford.
Bonding with the Arctic Monkeys and Klaxons producer over their shared love of Harmonia and the minimalist garage punk of eccentric GIs The Monks, Welchez and Rowell plundered the studio’s vintage equipment for an album that’s a solid, albeit unsurprising successor to Summer Of Hate.
Though often seething with characteristic malevolence, there’s a tenderness in evidence here; Welchez’s vocals often recalling the lazy sweetness of Bobby Gillespie at his most wide-eyed, while tracks such as ‘Girl in Black’ echo the Paisley- patterned romance of The House Of Love’s heyday. The confrontational posturing of their days with old band The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower may be largely behind them, but this gig should nevertheless be a memorable swirl of dense white noise, poppy melodies, shades-wearing sass and even the odd Deee-Lite cover. (Nadine McBay)
COUNTRY CAITLIN ROSE Captains Rest, Glasgow, Fri 1 Oct
Nashville songbird Caitlin Rose is trapped in a Bristol Travelodge. Nursing a hangover, and with only Desperate Housewives for company, the 21-year-old singer-songwriter isn’t quite relishing life on the road. ‘There’s some kind of construction and lots of shouting going on outside,’ she notes. ‘It’s very loud and obnoxious.’ Such importunate surroundings are at odds with the soulful, clarion country music of Own Side Now, her debut album, which has just been released to blanket adulation. Does Rose think that travelling will impact on her future songs? ‘Well, there’s a lot of folk music over here,’ she considers, ‘and that’s hard not to pick up.’ (The List fervently hopes she means the likes of Laura Marling as opposed to, let’s say, morris dancing). ‘I’ve been writing about some very American things though,’ she continues. Like? ‘Like
rodeo clowns,’ she offers. ‘I guess I’m a little homesick.’ Has she at least packed some home comforts for the tour bus? ‘I’m reading The Immoralist by Andre Gide – not exactly comforting,’ she ventures, ‘and I brought The Palm at the End of the Mind by Wallace Stevens, which I really enjoy.’ It comes as little surprise that Rose holds poetry
close to her heart: her lyricism is vivid, universal and vulnerable, as evinced on recent single ‘For The Rabbits’ (‘fall back into my desperate arms’) which was written when she was only 16. Its clarity is reinforced by Rose’s genuinely startling voice. Those Patsy Cline and Linda Ronstadt comparisons aren’t so wide of the mark. Her congenial Fleetwood Mac homages and gigs with Phosphorescent and Bill Callahan may have won her many hipster fans, but Rose has the markings of a superstar. Ego notwithstanding, that is. Did she realise her debut would make such a splash? ‘I’m surprised when anyone likes the record.’ (Nicola Meighan)
SOUL JAZZ TERRY CALLIER Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 30 Sep
He was an old schoolfriend of Curtis Mayfield, a touring buddy of Gil Scott-Heron and, in the days when he was starting out in the clubs of his native Chicago, he saw John Coltrane play. Yet the first two decades of Terry Callier’s life in music weren’t so rewarding that he didn’t pack it all in come 1983 and embrace a life of academia (some accounts say as a student of sociology, others have it that he became a professor of computer programming). Yet this was just another stop in his nomadic career, one which we might describe as enigmatic were it not for the sheer warmth and beauty of his music. Raised on a poor social housing project in the north side of the city during the 1940s and 50s, Callier passed the audition for his first single to
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be released by Chess Records in 1964. Shortly thereafter, he would sign with Prestige Records for his debut album The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier, although it was a string of records released by Cadet in the 70s that would cement his reputation. The tender and dreamy What Color is Love (1973) was probably the pick of the lot, and it would go on to be a favourite again when the UK’s Acid Jazz crew rediscovered its singer in a big way during the 1990s. Having recorded with Beth Orton during her halcyon days, Callier released his first album in 20 years, Timepeace, in 1998. Since then, five records over the next decade culminating (so far) in last year’s Hidden Conversations have added range to an artist whose soulful style transcends fads and fashions. This show should be a timeless treat. (David Pollock)