MUSIC | Previews 94 THE LIST 1 Jun–31 Aug 2017
CHAMBER POP THE DIVINE COMEDY Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow, Fri 2 Jun
Is it too soon to hail the man who sang ‘National Express’ as a national treasure? It’s a term loaded with affection but also hints that the artist’s best work is behind them. Neil Hannon, however, is only getting started. In recent years, he has composed for prestigious opera and theatre companies and worked with a donkey called Wayne who can be heard braying on current Divine Comedy album, Foreverland. Perhaps renaissance man is a more accurate description.
His first opera commission, Sevastopol, was an
adaptation of a Tolstoy story: ‘it was a bit like when sixth formers decide to do Brecht. I just think I bit off a little more than I could chew.’ Hannon was happier with ‘To Our Fathers in Distress’, an organ piece inspired by ‘the Hannon family average Sunday in the 1970s which generally involved eating fried bread. Now they’ve started telling us that any hint of blackening of the toast is terribly carcinogenic; I should be dead by now, because everything I’ve ever loved is burnt.’
Hannon himself has helpfully dubbed this present period in Divine Comedy history as the ‘imperial phase, when everyone just accepts my domination,’ he deadpans. ‘After the hits and the Top of the Pops era died away, I took it hard for a few years, but the audience stayed with me. It’s like a big cult. Not like the Scientologists, more like the Moonies.’
That fanbase will be out in force when the Divine Comedy bring their sunny wit – and period costume – to Kelvingrove Bandstand. Taking his style cue from Foreverland’s opening track ‘Napoleon Complex’, Hannon will be attired as the diminutive emperor. ‘Really it’s just a great excuse to hire the costume and prance around on stage shaking my epaulettes.’ Suitably imperial behaviour. (Fiona Shepherd)
EXPERIMENTAL POP ADAM STAFFORD Stereo, Glasgow, Thu 29 Jun; Leith Depot, Edinburgh, Sat 1 Jul
Adam Stafford has a history of taking on projects that are tangled up in both sound and vision. So, it’s no surprise that he’s decided to combine the two in his upcoming venture Reverse Drift, a collection of photographs combined with a 40-minute continual-track improvised album. ‘I do always try and think visually in terms of music and what I’m trying to get out of it,’ says Stafford. Having studied film and photography at uni, Stafford has been taking pictures since high
school, and the photo book’s selection includes images from as early as 1999. He takes inspiration, photo-wise, from Todd Hido, Andrei Tarkovsky and Edward Hopper, the latter of whose influence can be most seen in Stafford’s stark, humanless scenes. ‘Although a lot of Hopper’s pictures do have figures in them, I’m more inclined to his work where it’s just sunlight on the wall of a room. I think when you bring humans into a photo or a film, it detracts from the landscape and you start to focus on that figure.’ As for the accompanying album, Stafford wanted to take his music in a different direction. ‘There’s a more experimental, compositional dimension from what I’d previously been doing, which was songs with verses and choruses. It’s mostly improvised: the only thing I had written was the first phrase with the chimes and the voice. That was the jumping off point that the rest of the album was made up of as we went along.’ (Kirstyn Smith)
FESTIVAL WEST END FIESTA Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow, Fri 9–Sun 11 Jun
The continuing development of the frankly lovely Kelvingrove Bandstand as the epicentre of summer live music in Glasgow continues apace. Regular Music’s Summer Nights is now well-established in August, although their game has been upped several levels this year with a fortnight-long programme featuring everyone from Brian Wilson to Arab Strap and Pixies to Texas. The live action has also moved to June, with the West End Fiesta offering a weekend of crowd-pleasing artists. There’s a smart curation behind the West End Fiesta, with a nostalgic disco focus fusing to a
wisely chosen group of artists who best exemplify today’s sound, alongside contemporary names carrying on the party tradition of New York’s 1970s Paradise Garage and Studio 54 scene. The big draw is Nile Rodgers and Chic, who are afforded two headline slots on Saturday and Sunday, and play music so epochal they’re probably worth seeing twice. Rodgers, no shrinking violet and an expert self-mythologist, is admittedly one of the most influential producers and songwriters of the 20th century. As a fulcrum of Chic, Rodgers recorded classics ‘Le Freak’ and ‘Good Times’ before moving into production on albums like Bowie’s Let’s Dance and Madonna’s Like a Virgin, more recently playing his distinctive guitar lines on Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’.
Headlining on Friday will be longstanding New Jersey R&B group Kool & the Gang. Jocelyn Brown and Odyssey will also be making live appearances alongside Studio 54 resident DJ Nicky Siano and locals Andrew Divine, Dixon Avenue Basement Jams and Al Kent. (David Pollock)