The MPT Inquisition – Kid Canaveral

Ahead of Sunday night’s gig at the Westport in Dundee, Kate from  Kid Canaveral is the first to respond to the MPT Inquisition:

Q – If people don’t know you, what can they expect from the gig?

KC – We try and put on an energetic show full of pop tunes.

 

Q – What’s happening with the band just now?

KC – We’re currently in the process of finishing our first album. It’s in the final stages now and we’re hoping to get all the recording done by the end of next month. It’ll be released towards the end of April or the start of May, we’re toying with a couple of dates. We’ve just come back from touring our EP (‘Left and Right’) that we released in October. We played a string of shows through England and Wales.

Q – What’s your history with Dundee like?

KC – We haven’t played in Dundee for a long time. The last gig we played was terribly oganised and a bit of a shambles. So we’re looking to make up for it.

Q – Favourite KC gig this year and why?

KC – The EP launch at The Bowery in Edinburgh. We’ve spent most of 2009 writing, recording and bringing our new drummer, Scott, up to speed, so it was great to see people hadn’t forgotten about us, which we took the packed venue to indicate.

Q – What records are you listening to at the moment?

KC – The new Twilght Sad, Trashcan Sinatras, FOUND, Magic Arm, Aereogramme, Rozi Plain, Lord Cut Glass, Sweet Baboo, Cancel The Astronauts were all on the stereo or sliding about in the “listen pile” on the dashboard of our van.

Q – What’s the best non KC gig you’ve seen this year and why?

KC – Kate saw Blur at Goldsmith’s College. The sweatiest show I’ve ever been to. I never thought I’d get to see Blur with Graham so it was a bit of a dream gig. They were completely amazing – and all looked really happy as well.

Sunday’s gig at the Westport (doors at 7.30pm, first band on stage at 7.45pm, so don’t be late!) also features Saint Jude’s Infirmary, Panda Su and Hookers for Jesus. Tickets priced £5 are available from Groucho’s in Dundee and from Ticketweb. Advance purchasers get a limited edition EP.

Chemikal Outing

The Phantom Band

Last night’s Chemikal Underground showcase in Aberdeen proved to be a wonderful evening’s entertainment. Given that neither Lord Cut-glass nor Zoey van Goey were performing it says a lot about the label’s rosta.

First up was ex-De Rosa main man Martin John Henry. This was the first time I’d seen Martin perform since the band’s demise and although afterwards he was a little bit self critical it wasn’t obvious why that should be the case from the front of the stage. The set was a mixture of De Rosa tunes, new solo numbers and his ‘Army Dreamers’ cover.

Unlike the Dunfermline acoustic performance, Martin played with an electric guitar and even some laptop backing on a couple of newer solo songs. Unfortunately the laptop didn’t want to play ‘Span’, the most ambitious of the MJH solo demoes to date but we did get a solo ‘Love Economy’ instead. The use of backing suggests that Martin is wanting to make a bigger noise on stage so it will be interesting where he takes this in the New Year.

Martin played:

1. Cathkin Braes  2. New Lanark  3. Pest  4. Army Dreamers  5. I Love Map  6. Only Colour  7. A Love Economy

Martin John Henry

I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from Aidan Moffat, but it’s fair to say I wasn’t expecting a discussion on quantum mechanics. But we got that as an introduction to the highlight of his set a love song about Multiverses.

At times I got the impression that some of the tunes are a bit slight musically but his force of personality, really important in the solo context, carried the day. Roaming from stand-up to spoken word via a variety of unusual instruments it was a brilliantly entertaining 40 minutes or so.

Aidan played quite a lot of songs including  ‘Oh Men!’, new single ‘Knock On The Wall of Your Womb’, ‘Double Justice’, a Cyndi Lauper cover ‘Money Changes Everything’, and ‘The Lavender Blue Dress’ .

Aidan Moffat

Another revelation, Emma Pollock wishes she sounds more like Lemmy. No seriously! Emma was the first artist backed by a band and she successfully mixed songs from her forthcoming album (on Chemikal) with highlights from her debut LP ‘Watch The Fireworks’.

The mix worked more successfully than her downbeat Homegame set which had been dominated by the newer songs. Which isn’t to undermine the quality of the new songs in any way. In fact the highlight was probably her solo rendition of new tune, ‘The Child In Me’, a song I had only heard the once before in Anstruther, yet it already sounds like a classic.

But the WTF material fared very well giving the whole thing a nice up tempo feel although the best of this bunch may well have been a version of ‘Limbs’ backed only by Jamie on piano.

Emma played:

1. New Land  2. If  Silence Means That Much  3. Adrenaline  4. I Would Be A Saint  5. Green (?)  6. Hug The Harbour  7. Fortune  8. Limbs  9. The Child In Me  10. New untitled  11. Paper & Glue  12. The Optimist

(Despite repeated requests) Emma didn’t play ‘Ace  of  Spades’.

Emma Pollock

I’ll be honest, partly because I’ll see them supporting Frightened Rabbit in a couple of weeks, and partly because bits of the album don’t do much for me I wasn’t too excited about seeing the Phantom Band again. Big mistake.

For whatever reason, this was far and away the best gig I’ve seen them play. The first half of the set was simply stunning – a brilliant ‘Throwing Bones’ and a thunderous ‘Crocodile’ were the highlights as was The New Song. ‘Island’ though saw the intensity drop off a bit and ‘The Howling’ suffered a little in its wake But they managed to pick things up again after that and set closer ‘The Whole In My Side’, a song I’ve never really taken to on record was immense.

An encore of ‘Half Hound’ and they were done and I’m now really looking forward to the FR gig.

The Phantom Band

The Phantom Band played:

1. Throwing Bones  2. Burial Sounds  3. Folk Song Oblivion  4. Crocodile  5. The New Song  6. Island  7. The Howling  8. Left Hand Wave  9. The Whole Is On My Side

Encore
10. Halfhound

With Stewart Henderson giving way the Chem087 CD + DVD package on the way out, it was a great night. Roll on the next one.

I Might Just Get Lost This Way Again

Kid Canaveral’s new EP ‘Left and Right’ bears all the hallmarks of their run of excellent singles to date. On one listen you may be prepared to dismiss it as ‘ok’ but give it a second chance and the tune will squat in your head and simply refuse to leave.

For ‘Left & Right’ is another brilliant, infectious guitar pop song from a band who seem to increasingly dispense such tunes with ridiculous ease.

Where ‘Left and Right’ differs from previous releases is that the other tracks on the EP are stylistic departures from their previous material. ‘Stretching The Line’ is a much more contemplative number with electronic percussion whilst ‘Long In The Tooth’ is effectively an Arab Strap tribute with very Aidan Moffat like spoken vocals set against a gorgeous melody with strings and vocals.

‘Left and Right’ is the latest release to pursue the current bizarre fad for cassette singles, although thankfully it is also available on download (and that’s not something I say often!) If you want the cassette though you’ll have to get along to one of their gigs, including their appearance at the Manic Pop Thrills presents event on Sunday 29th November at the Westport Bar, Dundee when Kid Canaveral will be playing with Saint Jude’s Infirmary, Panda Su and Hookers for Jesus

Tickets for the event can be purchased online here or in Groucho’s whilst you can download the EP here.

What’s Hot (and What’s Not)

Being adventurous in purchasing new music is sometimes easier said than done. Sometimes I find it difficult to spend my emusic credits on new stuff. (And then find it even harder to listen to anything I do download!).

A new site though could be a way of sorting some of the wheat from the emusic chaff.

Any Decent Music? is kind of an aggregator of music reviews, created by a team including  Ally from TV21. Individual reviews are rounded up, summarised and, perhaps the USP of the site, rated out of 10. Yep, even the ones without numerical ratings are awarded a value and included, although the creators are at pains to point out that this aspect is done by real humans rather than web-bots. And of course there are links to the reviews, song snippets and You Tube tunes.

What emerges is some sort of critical consensus on the hottest LPs around. Given that my Christmas music spend often has some relation to end of year charts, then ADM? seems like a good way of flagging up possible avenues for investigation on a more regular basis.

Now the site as it stands isn’t going to throw much light on, say the current Scottish underground scene, nor on more obscure artists. To illustrate this, my favourite three records of the year are under- represented. Only De Rosa’s ‘Prevention’ gets a mention whilst Lord Cut-glass and Lucas Renney don’t appear at all.

Nonetheless it has to be said that the site appeals to the musical geek in me and I can easily imagine myself losing hours and hours in here. In fact I’ve already started.

Have a look here and see what you think.

17 Seconds of Your Time

Been meaning to write a wee piece on  for a few weeks on 17 Seconds Records since Ed of that parish sent me some songs to listen to.

17 Seconds Records grew from Ed’s blog of the same name and I’ve always kept a wee eye on it since our two blogs originated around about the same time (although I suspect that Ed must have posted about 5 times as often as I’ve managed).

It’s fair to say that the expanding 17 Seconds roster is a varied one. On the basis of their ‘Neon Lights’ EP, X-Lion Tamer are very 80’s influenced electro pop whilst Chris Bradley seems to have a nice line in country-esque pop.

But it’s Escape Act’s single ‘Cabin Fever’ which has really grabbed my attention. Their second for the label, ‘Cabin Fever’ musically reminds me very much of the grandeur of Hope of the States in their hey-day a feeling not in anyway diminished by its refrain of ‘I want to shout it out, I still believe in you’ .Meanwhile b-side, the bizarrely titled ‘Sullied Behave For The Moon’is more poppy.

There’s another EP which I haven’t had the time to check out yet, but Escape Act are certainly a band to look out for.

Also worth looking out for in the New Year on 17 Seconds is the new LP from MPT favourites The Wildhouse. They were signed a few weeks back  and “Jackson56” will be out in the New Year together with digital re-releases for previous LPs ‘Hyenas’ and ‘Poet:saint’.

The Escape Act single:

 

Do You Know Who They Were?

Anyone still expecting a genuine renaissance from Echo & the Bunnymen will surely be left disappointed by new LP ‘The Fountain’. Frankly it’s the Bunnymen for fans of Coldplay. The darkness and the mystery are long gone and, on the evidence of the last 5 Lps, never likely to return.

McCulloch has stated that he has never sounded better but if the majority of the material is this uninspired then it really doesn’t matter how it’s sung. The big problem is that most of the tunes are Bunnymen on auto-pilot – they’re simply not memorable.

To be fair the record is not entirely without merit as there are a handful of decent tunes on here. The fact that three of these are the opening 3 songs briefly, but ultimately misleadingly, raises hopes. But the rest of the record is a struggle with only the atypically piano led ‘Proxy’ any sort of highlight.

From anyone else ‘The Fountain’ may just about be acceptable, but this is the Bunnymen and it adds nothing to their legacy.

Here’s a live performance of lead single, ‘I Think I Need It Too’, one of the bettere songs on the album: