Tagged with: Interviews
Posts (109)
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Masters In France: world domination part one
Bethan Elfyn
As you can probably see now from the myriad of 'new sound' lists in all the mags, radio shows, and on this here blog, January is a great time for new bands to make a bit of a splash. Masters In France Most of the work, however, has already been done during the previous year, and in ord...
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Lostprophets - Better Off Dead: Zane Lowe interview
James McLaren
This morning Zane Lowe was joined on Radio1 by Lostprophets' Ian Watkins to talk about their new album, Weapons, and to play the new free download track Better Off Dead. Listen to the interview here: You can download a free copy of the song from their website. For me, this is poss...
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New sounds for 2012
Bethan Elfyn
What a wonderful year of music we've enjoyed in 2011, and who would have thought, with recession, troubles and such crazy world events all around us, that people are still being inspired, still cutting a path for themselves. It's January, a clean slate of a month, and that prime time of year ...
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Meet Tom Morgan, a Eurovision hopeful, but not for Wales
James McLaren
This morning Tenby's Tom Morgan spoke to 成人论坛 Radio Wales' Louise Elliott about performing in Eurovision 2012 as a potential entrant for Finland. Listen to the clip here, including a snippet of the song Melt: Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other 成人论坛...
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How did it go for you?
Bethan Elfyn
Back in January 2011, a long long time ago, I wrote a blog post about all the bands I was excited by who had big plans afoot for the year. Before I write about a whole batch of new bands, I caught up with four of the bands from last year to see how they got on, to see if was indeed it was a good...
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Lost Welsh classics: The Table - Do The Standing Still
James McLaren
The other day I was introduced to a 1977 song by Welsh band The Table, called Do The Standing Still. Not quite punk, not quite new wave and not quite anything else, it had a brilliant effervescent charm and energy that had all the hallmarks of late-70s punk but with added musicality. Add the fact that the lyrics were nothing but a list of comic book titles and straplines, and I was hooked. Russell Young, Tony Barnes, Micky O'Connor and Len Lewis of The Table (1977) Wanting to find out more, I located one of the core duo, Tony Barnes, who now runs an animation company in the Channel Islands. Hi Tony. There's some information about The Table out there on the web, but could you tell us a little about how The Table got together? "Basically The Table was me and my school-mate Russ Young. We hooked up in good old Cathays High School Cardiff and started writing songs and recording them, largely at home on domestic tape recorders. We'd send them off to various record companies in London and get the subsequent rejection letters. "Influences around then were The Beatles, Beach Boys and classic power-pop (Who, Move, Kinks etcetera), Iggy Pop, Velvet Underground and various 'out there' stuff like Van Der Graaf Generator, Soft Machine, Gong, Bonzo Dog Band, Krautrock, Wild Man Fischer, Beefheart, Roxy Music. "I was more into the standard cheesy poppy chart stuff, Motown and Dr Feelgood, whereas Russ was into the more avant garde and way out - he bought Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music for instance. And most likely listened to it. Still does, probably." One of those record companies was Richard Branson's Virgin Records. What became of that deal? And is it true you owned no instruments? "Standing Still was on a bunch of songs we recorded around 1975 and we got a nibble from Virgin soon thereafter at the start of the 'punk' thing. That was when folks were tiring of the overblown Yes/ELP prog-rock schtick and craved more basic material to listen to. So we got signed up to a one-single deal with Virgin. "We had done the odd gig, like the Windsor Free Festival, but between getting a deal and the single coming out, punk had mutated from the quaint (Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner) to the extreme (Clash, Ramones, Pistols, Sham 69). So we found ourselves in the middle of that stylistic fashion pose. Not Punks, not hippies, just too arty-probably-for-our-own-good writers primarily. And certainly not disco either. "We picked up a drummer, Len Lewis, and guitarist Micky O'Connor to get more of a 'band' sound that Virgin required, and when the single came out to good reception got offers for a few gigs and tours. Trouble was the sheer cost of paying for the PA equipment and crew and all that. "We were offered tours but Virgin wouldn't back us which we felt aggrieved by as it would've promoted our material on their label so we were kind of stuck in a Catch-22. There wasn't exactly pressure from Virgin to tour but they had signed the Sex Pistols and XTC so probably lost what little interest they had. I don't know. "That's where the legend of us having no gear must have come about. Basically we had our instruments and attendant amps, but nothing else, so when we played we were in the hands of whoever was running the PA and who of curse wouldn't know our songs. That said, we made a good fist of it despite essentially not being showbiz types. There were memorably good gigs with XTC and us swapping top spot and using their PA. Others, not so good, with The Police heckling us! Getting management was a problem too, and as we didn't connect with anyone we deemed legitimate that became a hassle too." Do The Standing Still became NME's Single of the Week on its release - didn't that help? "Despite Single of the Week, and John Peel playing it, we hardly got any exposure - not least Radio Wales not playing us as it 'wasn't their sort of thing'. Anyway, we soldiered on. Virgin wanted another single from us but we didn't like the thought of taking on all that with no backing so impolitely declined. We had another single out on Chiswick called Sex Cellsbut again no promotion meant limbo was beckoning." So what happened after Sex Cells? "We soldiered on a while, with some personnel changes, and I got sidelined to be a 'Brian Wilson' type figure supplying songs and The Table gradually petered out due to being ignored, lack of interest or perceived commercial viability, just plain being crap or whatever. We were essentially ourselves, unique but sadly totally ignored. "Russ and I have continued our separate ways and occasionally have dialogue. I'm putting out a few tracks under The Table name which maybe I can tempt him to do the vocals on sometime." Did you make anything out Do The Standing Still? "No, we made no cash, but have some kind of legendary status I guess!" Watch the video for Do The Standing Still: Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other 成人论坛 blog, you will need to sign in to your 成人论坛 iD account. If you don't have a 成人论坛 iD account, you can register here - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of 成人论坛 sites and services using a single login. Need some assistance? Read about 成人论坛 iD, or get some help with registering.
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Welsh DJ's Welsh connection
James McLaren
Joanna Ranson, a dance music journalist who's an occasional contributor to 成人论坛 Wales Music, came to me a few months ago with some interesting information about a link-up between a Welsh DJ and a forthcoming major film. Interest piqued, I asked her to investigate. Here's her report: Neil Nav...
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Archive interview - Gruff Rhys (2000)
Adam Walton
Despite Super Furry Animals' and Gruff Rhys' (almost) ubiquitous presence in the modern Welsh musical landscape, I have only ever interviewed Gruff twice, and met him once (when honoured to present the inaugural Welsh Music Prize to him for Hotel Shampoo, last month.) Gruff Rhys This ...
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Right Hand Left Hand - Power Grab
Bethan Elfyn
One of the buzz bands of the last few years at Cardiff's S诺n Festival have been local boys Right Hand Left Hand. They only perform a handful of shows, full of their distinctive brand of looped guitar and fierce drumming. There's a d茅but album Power Grab available through Bandcamp, and it's interesting to see them make the jump to recorded project. I caught up with the band to find out a bit more - here's what happened: Right Hand Left Hand Hi RHLH! Who's in the band and how long have you been playing together? We are Andrew Plain and Rhodri Viney. We've been playing in bands together since 2004 but we decided to ditch other people and employ a loop station and formed Right Hand Left Hand back in late 2006. The loop station does what we tell it to do and, apart from some funny mood swings from time to time, it rarely argues back and doesn't have a drink problem. What's the reason you got together? We formed Right Hand Left Hand while on tour in Europe with another band of ours. We'd just finished a show in the Vera in Groningen and were drinking in the little club downstairs when we discussed the idea of doing something on our own. Slow Response by Trans Am was playing in the background so we decided to cover that song first. We ended up sharing a flat when we got back and one night we were watching a great Robert Mitchum movie called Night Of The Hunter. There's a scene where he tells the story of 'right hand, left hand' or, in other words, the battle between love and hate which he has tattooed on his knuckles. We'd recommend it, it's a great film. We decided that it was a cool band name for a two-piece so Rhodri went and booked us a gig. It wasn't until 10 days before that gig we realised we hadn't played a single note or used the loop station so we got to work and wrote five songs in a week and covered the Trans Am tune. I'd recommend that approach to anyone. Having a deadline really got us to do something rather than just talk about how great it would be. We were probably a bit crap but we enjoyed it. What's been your career highlight so far? We've been very fortunate to have supported some really great and diverse bands in the last few years but one of our highlights was supporting Super Furry Animals. Getting the opportunity to record our album was also a big deal. Which have been your best and worst gigs to date? Too many favourites to mention and I don't think there's been a worst gig as such. The weirdest was when we supported Funeral For A Friend in the Pavilion in Tenby. It was great to be asked to do it but the venue was weird and the crowd didn't really get it. One kid asked us afterwards if we had a bass player who hid backstage. Saying that, we left a bunch of free demo CDs out on the merch stall and they all went. Hopefully the the kids listened to it before they used it as coaster for their bottles of black hair dye. You mostly write instrumentals. Are there any with lyrics on the album, and is there any reason for avoiding words? Power Grab has a few songs with vocals on it but we tend to treat vocals as another instrument as opposed to a main vocal over the top. It's not something we try to avoid - if we feel it needs vocals then we'll do it. For those willing to look a little deeper, some of our song titles have useful/useless bits of information without needing vocals. You played a blinding set at S诺n. Where's usually good to play and what's your favourite Welsh venue? Thank you, we had yet another great time at S诺n but it was a bit weird playing in the afternoon. We had to play our daytime, pre-watershed set! There are so many venues in Cardiff these days and I think the whole gig playing circuit is very healthy. What we do is a very visual thing so we feel comfortable in smaller venues where the crowd can get up close and see the looping in action. Downstairs in Clwb Ifor Bach is still one of the best and I've really enjoyed watching gigs in Undertone lately but Right Hand Left Hand are yet to play there. Have you got any tales of crazy misfortune while on the road? Unlike our previous bands, there's no real tales of misfortune with Right Hand Left Hand. Maybe it's because there's only us two idiots to look after. The loop station going down in a show would be a massive dose of misfortune for all concerned if that happens. 2011 is closing on a busy high for you, but what about next year? And what are your plans following the album release? We've got a few shows before this year is out and we plan to release the songs that didn't make it onto Power Grab along with some remixes which some very lovely friends of ours have done. These include a remix by Guto Pryce from Super Furry Animals and Underpass. It'll all be on Bandcamp before Christmas and we might set it as a freebie or perhaps set it up so that people pay what they feel they want to pay for it. If there are any proceeds then we'll take the people who were kind enough to remix a track out for beers. We'll keep gigging in 2012 but we also intend to record another album in February. It's almost written so we're really excited. We'll be working with the amazing Charlie Francis again and be doing it at the legendary Musicbox Studios. Where can people find you online? We are available on Facebook as well as Myspace. We are RHLHmusic on Twitter but most importantly you can listen and buy our album Power Grab from Bandcamp. Shameless plug! What are the next few gigs coming up? We're playing with our friends Poket Trez in Dempseys on 18 November and supporting Truckers Of Husk upstairs in Clwb Ifor Bach on 26 November for their album launch. We'll be doing a headline show somewhere too but we're yet to sort that. Getting out further afield is also on the cards for early 2012 but nothing has been finalised just yet. Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other 成人论坛 blog, you will need to sign in to your 成人论坛 iD account. If you don't have a 成人论坛 iD account, you can register here - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of 成人论坛 sites and services using a single login. Need some assistance? Read about 成人论坛 iD, or get some help with registering.
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"I've only served eight weeks, I can't really write a concept album about jail"
Adam Walton
With the news of The Stone Roses' reunion last week, here's a companion piece to the blog post I wrote earlier this month. This is a transcript of the interview I conducted with singer Ian Brown on 2 February 2000. It was recorded at Wise Buddha in London prior to the release of Ian's second ...
