Previews by Mike Davies
Monday September 1
The Wedding Present
David Gedge still
sings off-key, but two decades on from being indie darlings,
it’s good to see his seminal outfit’s still got the batteries
charged and have proven more influential (listen to the Artics)
than might have been reckoned.
They’re back out
on the road servicing latest album, El Rey (Vibrant), a reunion
with producer Steve Albini who did the honours for Seamonsters,
and yet more tales of unreliable relationships, this time
littered with such references to America as the Santa Monica
Freeway, Spider-Man and even Winona Ryder.
Unusually, Gedge
seems to have polished up his accessibility stick here, with
tracks like the jangling Don't Take Me Home Until I'm Drunk,
Santa Ana Winds, Spider-Man On Hollywood and, once past the two
minute intro, The Thing I Like Most About Him Is His Girlfriend
all catchy, radio friendly melodies.
Of course, if you
prefer to work at things, you can always take the angular riffs
of Soup and Boo Boo, the slow low level rumbling to The Trouble
With Men or the gathering anthemic sludge of Lost The Monkey and
Model, Actress, Whatever.
Heading towards
his 50s, it’s probably about time Gedge sorted out a settled
relationship he could write about rather than yet more tales of
being given the elbow, but then he’s always been better at being
the bridesmaid rather than the bride.
7pm.
£11. Barfly
Tuesday September 2
Bryn Christopher
A new Birmingham
old soul boy, Christopher deservedly set superlatives fluttering
with debut single, The Quest A song about his brother’s
experiences serving in Basra, it ably demonstrated that when he
cites Al Green, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and Nina Simone as
influences he's not just looking to boost the bio hype.
Warm, muscular,
deep with a fiery passion and bolstered by a tight horn section
and musicians weaned on Stax milk, we're talking the new Terence
Trent D'Arby, Roland Gift, Percy Sledge and Seal rolled into
one. New single, Smilin’(Polydor), has a slightly more
psychedelic pop twinge to its rolling gait while, from the
upcoming My World album, Gone Gone Gone suggests The Temptations
doing Northern Soul and the handclapping beat, brass parps and
urgent rhythm drive of Seconds Ago has Amy Winehouse getting
into bed with his Prince and Jackson grooves.
With Mary J Blige
a fan and his acoustic recordings of I've Been Loving You too
Long and Bobby Hebb's Sunny suggesting that this is a voice for
whom the charts are just a stepping stone to knocking them dead
in Vegas, you should catch him while he’s still in the country.
7.30pm.
£7.50. Barfly
Wednesday September 3
Gomez
It’s been 10 years
and a consistent line-up since Southport’s stoned American
roots-blues blues-rock and southern soul crew released Bring It
On and, to mark the occasion, like many a recent act, they’re
out on tour playing their entire Mercury Music Prize winning
debut album from start to finish. Presumably including 44 second
playout track Comeback.
Featuring the
dust throated tones of Ben Ottewell, the album holds up well
with its frazzled sun and drugs shuffles and hip hop lurches,
with Get Miles still sounding like a loose limbed Tom Waits
outtake while Whippin’ Piccadilly, Here Comes The Breeze,
Tijuana Lady, Get Myself Arrested and 78 Stone Wobble variously
in tune with the current output of Devendra Banhart and Alabama
3.
The Collector’s
edition reissue (EMI) comes as a double disc with 11 tracks
lifted from two previously unissued 1998 Radio One sessions
(including their fine downhome stomp version of Stag O’Lee) and
the nine B-sides featured on the album’s three singles.
While their last
studio album, How We Operate, may not have made the UK Top 40,
it’s served to consolidate their success in America, tracks
finding their way on to episode of House and Grey’s Anatomy,
underlining the fact that this tour really is about celebrating
their past rather than trying to recapture it.
7.30pm.
£20. Carling Academy
Thursday September 4
Jackie Leven
In his press blurb, Leven reckons
Lovers At The Gun Club (Cooking Vinyl) is one of the best albums
he’s ever made. I doubt anyone’s going to quibble with that,
though it’s a little disorienting when the first thing you hear,
the ‘psychosexual voodoo redneck’ title track (a wry observation
on the connectivity of firearms, sex and machismo) actually
features the liquid sleaze vocals of Johnny Dowd. He also takes
spoken verse duties on the sax soaked, neon lite rainy sidewalks
slow funk groove of The Dent In The Fender And The Wheel Of
Fate. A song about revisiting his dad’s old yellow Lada, it’s
one of several numbers reflecting on the past and lost
connections.
There’s the memories of young crushes
and runaway lovers on The Innocent Railway, the sense you can
never truly go back on My Old Home’s warm Celtic soul and the
tender acoustic Woman In A Car while I’ve Passed Away From Human
Love is an aching lament of loss and the gospel blues doo wop
Head Full Of War examines destructive inner rage.
It’s a rich and eclectic album.
Olivier Blues is a straight rewrite of blues chestnut My Babe,
To Whom It May Concern a spoken Irish mist setting of a poem by
Kenneth Patchen, the jaunty countrified Fareham Confidential a
snapshot on a city of lost soul which borrows the melody from
Top Of The World and is surely the only song to namecheck
Somerfields. And, by way of a bookend, the last track, the
yearning hymnal Americana of Heart In My Soul, not only hands
over to another voice, American singer-songwriter David
Childers, but is actually lifted from his own Hard Time Country
album. Should make for a fascinating evening.
8pm. £8. Kitchen Garden Cafe, York
Rd, Kings Heath
Monday September 8
Stevie Wonder
It’s been over a decade since Wonder
last toured these shores, three years since he released the
underperforming A Time To Love album. However, next year
reportedly sees two new conceptually based studio recordings
(The Gospel Inspired By Lula and Through The Eyes Of Wonder)
while, having claimed his late mother came to him in a dream,
he’s now back doing the live thing.
This is the opening night of the UK
tour so the set-list is pretty much up for grabs, though with
his critical and commercial star not shining as brightly as it
did during the 80s chances are it will lean fairly heavily on
crowd favourites like Signed Sealed Delivered I'mYours, Higher
Ground, Superstition, Living For The City and, of course, I Just
Called To Say I Love You. Undoubtedly a musical genius, he can
also be a bit self-indulgent, so hopefully he’ll be favouring
the former rather the latter traits tonight.
7.30pm. £65/£55. NIA
Monday September 8
Little Man Tate
Somewhat perversely, although they’re
just releasing a new album the Sheffield outfit have elected to
play a series of shows featuring just former B sides and
rarities with the set list decided by their fans. So,
apparently there’ll be no sampling any live showcases from
Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy (Yellow Van), doubtless meaning
a second tour not too far down the line. You’ll be pleased to
hear, though, that it builds confidently on their About What You
Know debut, easing out the folkier elements in favour of the
cranked up melodic indie guitar pop and anthemic singalong
choruses embodied in such numbers as new single Hey Little
Sweetie, What Your Boyfriend Said, A Little Heart and the
jubilant bounce along Reflection In His Sunglasses.
There’s some slower paced moments, at
their best on the vaguely Oasis-like swaying Joined By An iPod,
while Shoulder To Sigh On closes out on almost a clunky
vaudeville note, but it’s those rousing, arms in the air
flurries that carry this off and which you’ll be wishing they’d
bend their rules for tonight. 7pm.
£10. Bar Academy
Tuesday September 9
Gemma Hayes
The Tipperary singer-songwriter's
debut album, Night On My Side, earned a Mercury Music Prize
nomination and saw her being compared to the likes of Beth
Orton and Joni Mitchell. However, come the equally fine follow
up, The Roads Don't Love You, the fickle nature of the business
had seen new names take their place in the next big thing
spotlight and, outside of Ireland where she picked up a Best
Irish Female Artist award, the album slipped past almost
unnoticed. Now comes The Hollow Of Morning (GH), released on her
own label and a pretty even balance of the stripped down
acoustic and more fleshed out, rockier tracks, but all again
sharp with the emotional depth and observations of her past
output.
Of the uptempo material, Out Of Our
Hands is the most obviously direct though In Over My Head is a
shimmering wall of sound that at times feels almost shoegazey
and Don't Forget is scuffed beats pop.
However, it's the quieter moments that
are the most persuasive; a gently rippling Chasing Dragons where
her whispery delivery sounds incredibly strung out and world
weary, At Constant Speed's six minute simple synth pulsing
reflections on an ended relationship and, showing off guitar
dexterity, the dreamy haze of This Is What You Do where she
sings in a languid, husky whisper that's both sensual and sad.
It's not going to bring a return to the attention she received
first time out, but those who've kept the faith will find no
disappointments as she wheels them out tonight.7.30pm.
£12. Glee Club
Tuesday September 9
Lights, Action!
Listening to mini-album All Eyes To
The Morning Sun (Xtra Mile), anthemic, emotionally driven
numbers like Aurora, Story of A Broken Boy and Satellites make
it almost impossible to talk about the London five piece without
comparing them to U2 and The Editors. They’re not yet in either
league, but Patrick Currier’s soaring falsetto vocals and the
big drama guitars show they have their aspirations well
sharpened. That they also include an organ backed cover of
Imogen Heap’s Hide And Seek adds to their credibility weighting,
and with debut album Welcome To The New Cold World
due in November, their time in the spotlight shouldn’t be far
off.
They share the bill with
label-mates A Silent Film,
a piano-led quartet who’ve seen their share of Keane, Radiohead
and Coldplay references on the back of staccato driving debut
Sleeping Pills and recent follow up You Will Leave A Mark, a
song about feeling guilty for being born in the West.
Actually, given Robert Stevenson’s
vocals, the electronica sheen and racing, pulsing rhythms on
both singles, a more likely influence might well be Ultravox and
those rain-washed noir streets of Vienna. They’ll doubtless be
looking to prove otherwise with the live set which will be
showcasing numbers from next month’s debut album, The City That
Sleeps. 7.30pm. £5. Bar Academy
Wednesday September 10
The Dodos
Hailing from San Francisco and playing
psychedelic folk pop, drummer Logan Kroeber and
songwriter-guitarist Meric Long’s Visiter (Wichita) album comes
over like a folk version of The White Stripes, Joe’s Waltz
showing they share the same Led Zep influences. But Kroeber’s
inventive percussion on the likes of Ashley, Winter, new single
Fools and The Seasons equally suggest Tyrannosaurus Rex while
Long’s guitar work on God? and Paint The Rust evokes vintage
John Fahey.
Walking comes dappled with country
banjo and female harmonies, Red And Purple a Latin flavoured
swayer with Kroeber skittering rimshots while Jodi builds from
crystal water guitar figures to thundering tumbling clatter.
They make a hell of a noise for an acoustic duo and if it’s
sounds remotely like this, then the gig should be a stormer.
7.30pm.
£7. Bar Academy
Thursday September 11
Kirsty McGee
Rapidly establishing itself as a
singer-songwriters venue of note with its eclectic programme of
both rising and established names, this week proves no exception
to it high standard of guests. It also affords the Mancunian
songstress a chance to unveil her latest album, The Kansas
Sessions (Hobopop), one which marks a huge departure from the
pastoral contemporary folk and dusty English vocals of her
previous releases.
Recorded, as you might guess, in
Kansas, it’s very much an album of old school American
folk-country with a dose of New Orleans jazz and vaudeville for
good measure. What she terms, hobopop.
It may also be the best thing she’s
recorded. Which, if you’ve heard her three other albums, is
really saying something.
There’s a political streak to the
material too, whether in the self-styled anti-capitalist New
Orleans brassy gospel swing The Profit Song, the good timing
(yodelling even) Bonecrusher’s sly metaphor about greed that
could well apply to US foreign policy, or the more direct (yet
never obvious) banjo dappled carny shuffle Gunsore with its line
about ‘bombs that splutter in the road’.
These are finely offset by the
personal with songs about loss; of a relationship (the gentle
Janis Ian like acoustic filigrees of Sparks, the Baez echoes of
the hushed No Way To Treat A Friend,) or trust (a world-weary
Faith).
And if anyone’s written a song that
captures the itch of paranoid delusion and nervous breakdown
better than the skittering Harlem jazz jive and gypsy guitar of
Killer Wasps, I’ve yet to hear it.
But, if there’s loss, psychological
hives and self-deluding wanderlust (Alibi Blues), there’s also
the pledge of love to the burnished Southern torch sway of
Sandman and the mountain music bluegrass of Lamb, the dark
passion and sensual intimacy of Dust Devils’ clarinet kissed,
Yiddish jazz-blues moods.
Playing live as a duo with fellow
multi-instrumentalist Mat Martin, they’ve been described as a
Tim Burton version of Simon and Garfunkel. Which sounds
incentive enough for anyone’s ears.
8pm. £8. Kitchen Garden Cafe, York Rd, Kings Heath
Friday September 12
Sun Kil Moon
Named for a South Korean boxer and the
current vehicle for former Red House Painters singer-songwriter
Mark Kozelek's tales of memory and melancholy, it’s been five
years since his last original material with Ghosts Of The Great
Highway. But, with a running time that pushes the clock past 70
minutes, he’s certainly made the wait worth the while.
The same applies to the songs and
musical mood which, in dealing with trademark themes of loss,
loneliness and death, calls to mind the Harvest/Zuma days of
Neil Young veined with traces of Nick Drake and, on Harper Road
and the disturbingly dark Heron Blue, traditional English folk
transplanted to the stark Appalachian mountains. Some might wish
to toss the Tim Buckley tag around and, while it’s not without
merit, Tonight In Bilbao is probably more a kindred soul to
David Ackles.
He turns up the guitars to throaty for
The Light and the reverb growling Tonight The Sky, but otherwise
his dominant mode is pastoral strum, Lucky Man and Moorestown
(one of two numbers previewed on 2006’s Little Drummer Boy live
album) both dressed in crystal tinkling guitar arpeggios, the
latter gilded with dreamy strings and piano that echo the
sadness in his warm wearied voice.
Mortality and ghosts (of the departed,
if not necessarily dead) haunt the album; on the lengthy guitar
and violin opener Lost Verses with its reflections on youth, in
the angel that whispers word of comfort as she follows him down
the Unlit Hallway and, most poignantly, on the closing plucked
flamenco guitar Blue Orchids with its reference to his sister’s
death.
Drawing on both albums (and quite
possible his Modest Mouse tribute collection), it’s not, perhaps
likely to be the cheeriest of sets, but sorrow and sadness has
rarely been so intoxicating. And, besides, who knows, he may be
persuaded to drop in one his AC/DC covers, too.
7.30pm. £12. Barfly
Saturday September 13
Stone Gods
Rising from the ashes of The
Darkness, now fronted by former bassist Richie Edwards the new
incarnation is a far tougher proposition. They’re back in town
plugging the debut album, Silver Spoons And Broken Bones
(Integral), having fun with the metal cliches and poses as they
swagger their way through fret racing flurry Don’t Drink The
Water (think hard rock Mud), Lizzy meets the Faces barroom air
punchers Where You Coming From and Start Of Something, Burn The
Time and the Bryan Adamsy terrace anthem to a boozy good time Oh
Whereo My Beero. With Ronnie Lane style folksy ballad Magadalene
a likely live favourite, they’re well worth raising a glass to.
7.30pm. £10. Barfly
