Friday November 21 2008
I used to be an actor. I spent my days on the circuit, auditioning for parts I didn't get. Writing songs was just something I did to amuse my drunk, stoned friends. Eventually I noticed that, in fact, my songs were the only thing working for me; that suddenly I was getting a response from people I didn't even know. It was then that I stopped being an actor.
I've spent my time writing comic songs ever since, and as I head to the UK to perform this weekend, it seems there's a boom going on in musical comedy: Flight of the Conchords, Sarah Silverman, Tenacious D, your own Mighty Boosh. When I started there weren't a lot of people doing it, never mind successfully. So sometimes I like to think that I am the sole reason and inspiration for this renaissance. Although Adam Sandler is responsible for the bad stuff. Continue reading...
Mercury-nominated Portico Quartet on the South Bank, where they used to busk. Photograph: Martin Argles
Most jazz festivals, big or small, programme music that's not strictly jazz. There are good reasons for this - it's not wise to stretch serious jazz fans' financial resources too far, or slice the good stuff too thinly - but the result can be lots of gigs that are merely "jazzy": funky; jazzy MOR; World; raggy classical; or Jools Holland. Continue reading...
Three magazines. Three men. About one human being's worth of talent
You know that feeling of mingled joy and frustration when the set of keys you've just spent ages looking for turn out to have been lurking in the pocket of your chinchilla overcoat all along? Such was the mix of emotions prompted by a belated run-in with the November issue of The Wire. Continue reading...
It is absolutely not true that Guardian.co.uk/music has too much time on its hands
I've always avoided computer games like they were Keane albums, but that was before I heard about PlayStation's LittleBigPlanet game. Basically, there's a character called Sackboy who wanders through different levels designed by - and here's the fun indie part - Lily Allen, Crystal Castles and the Horrors. But what can we expect from these levels? Let's take an exclusive peak ... Continue reading...
It's gonna be a Borstal breakout! ... Ray Winstone and co bring the ruckus in Scum
It turns out it's quite hard to compile an RR playlist, let alone write about these choices, when 50% of the recommendations make you want to leap out of the desk chair and dance your socks off. Such was the admittedly pleasurable difficulty of working through last week's nightclub theme. Still, at least I have nicely toned calf and foot muscles now from all the tapping along. I promise I won't allow this week's theme, violence and fighting, to have such a visceral effect on me. Continue reading...
Thursday November 20 2008
Adele, one of Richard Russell's biggest acts at XL
At a MusicTank conference on Tuesday night, I had a chat with Simon Wheeler, Director of Digital at Beggars Group, about what it's like running an independent label in these changing times for the music industry. He said: "When it comes to negotiating deals with new digital ventures like Nokia Comes With Music and MySpace Music, we can't compete with the majors when it comes to money and might. But we can compete when it comes to talent and signing great artists. And that is our main focus."
Independents have always championed some of the most interesting acts, acts that have even defined genres. Maybe it's because indies don't have to report to stockholders. Maybe it's because starting a label is so time consuming and expensive that you would only do it if you absolutely love music and the artists you sign. This is why indies tend to stick with their artists should a record fail to hit the charts. Continue reading...
Kurt Elling performing in Los Angeles. Photograph: Jordan Strauss/WireImage
Do singers - or lyrics for that matter - mean much to jazzers? And should they? As a quick scan of the current London Jazz festival's packed programme reveals, jazz remains a predominantly instrumental music, despite the fact that when it makes its rare incursions into the world of chart hits or mainstream acclaim, it's usually because a singer has taken it there. After all, you don't have to be one of the cognoscenti to have heard of Jamie Cullum, Norah Jones or Diana Krall - or their giant predecessors Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan.
In general, however, singers have mostly been peripheral to a music dominated by the sax sounds of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, the trumpets of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, or the pianos of Thelonious Monk and Keith Jarrett. The message seems to be that these artists have said more by those means than words ever could. Continue reading...
Prince claims the words printed in the New Yorker were not his own. Photograph: Corbis
Can Prince really have spoken out against same-sex relationships? Did he really tell the New Yorker: "God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever and he just cleared it all out. He was like 'Enough'"?
Now we're talking about Prince here, not Cliff Richard. You know, dressing in women's blouses, high heels, eyeliner Prince. The radically progressive artist who had people of all races, colours, creeds and sexual orientation in his band, the Revolution. The guy who adopted a female persona (Camille) to record the brilliant If I Was Your Girlfriend. But this was also the guy who gave his last album away free with the Mail on Sunday. Hmmm. Continue reading...
You've waited 273 years. You've read the terrible reviews. Now hear the music!
Having missed out on the wonderfully vibrant, utterly debauched and musically thrilling gay scene of New York in the late-1970s and early-1980s - by dint of age, location, and a rather parochial heterosexual streak - I didn't come across Male Stripper by Man to Man until hearing it at The Limelight Club in London in 1986, just prior to its UK release in the spring of 1987. Continue reading...
Wednesday November 19 2008
French drummer Manu Katché and his band Playground perform last month. Photograph: Robert Atanasovski/AFP
European jazz - what does that phrase conjure up for you? Lonely goatherds playing freakout alphorns? Italian boppers with goatees? Cerebral Nordic types with blond beards? Intense Germans? Continue reading...
Little drummer boy ... Keith Moon of the Who. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
As the best pop music proves, there is much more to a drummer than somebody who keeps the other musicians in time. Led Zeppelin could not continue without theirs and Mitch Mitchell's sad death received heavy coverage thanks to his prowess behind the kit. So why is great drumming so magical? Continue reading...
Guardian.co.uk/music disclaimer ... this is not actually Everett True's child - as he only listens to music in the car. Photograph: Michael Wildsmith/Getty Images
"No music in house!" he'd yell, soon as we tried to flick on the new Herman Düne or one of those eclectic Cherry Red Records reissues (the breezily nostalgic 1969 Les Reed soundtrack to Les Bicyclettes de Belsize, for example, which is as great as any Love or Byrds album from that era). Soon as we'd start up the car, however, he wanted to listen to music. Indeed, he'd demand it. It didn't particularly matter what – although he does have a preference for the songs of Brisbane garage band the Young Liberals, featuring myself on guest vocals.
We'd catch him singing along to Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, the theme from The Third Man, the "Gabba gabba hey" chorus to Thee Headcoatees' lively Davey Crockett ... if I forgot to turn the CD player on, we'd know soon enough.
But as soon as my wife tried to put on the Ronettes, Camera Obscura or even Ms Winehouse, he would bellow: "NO MUSIC IN HOUSE!" Continue reading...
Where do ravers, mods and indie rockers go when they're done worshipping at the altar of hedonism and need respite from Bobby Gillespie drooling in their ear? Answer: to the river, with a rod in hand. That's the impression created by new website Caught By The River, anyway.
Started by Heavenly Records' Jeff Barrett and friends, CBTR is more than just a website: it's a design for living aimed at maturing music fans. Pleasure is found in pursuits that certain circles might still consider subversive: obscure real ales, BBC radiophonic workshop albums and natural world heroes like Roger Deakin. You can expect guest contributions from the likes of Edwyn Collins, too. With an online shop, a book and festival appearances forthcoming, this virtual waterway is well worth a visit.
