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ARCHIVED REVIEWS November
2004
Tuesday November 2
A veteran journeyman of blue eyed English rock
n roll, Carrack was the voice behind classic Ace hit How Long, was part
of Squeeze and can still occasionally be found adding vocals to Mike and
the Mechanics. He maintains a respectable solo career too that, while not
throwing up hit records, does support a solidly respectable base of loyal
admirers. Filtering elements of Phil Collins, John Martyn and Paul Young
into his smoky vocals, he variously leads from the front on guitar or gets
behind the piano for the more ballad inclined numbers.
7.30pm, £20, Alexandra Theatre.
Tuesday November 2
Having parted company with their major label deal since debut album
The Beginning Stages Of..., the 20+ choral outfit return, robes and Brian
Wilson and Jeff Lynn influences unimpaired with Together We're Heavy (Good
Records), though their place on the lush orchestral summery pop ladder
has been recently usurped by The Earlies and The Heavy Blinkers.
Tuesday November 2
Now down to a trio, but still refusing to lay down and die, Nottingham's
space guitar boys soldier one with new album 04 (Saturday Night Sunday
Morning) inclining towards the Spiritualized 3 side of things with druggy
drones and heavy shades of psychedelic 60s influences, crashing fuzzed
and distorted guitars soaring over electronic rhythms and swirling beats.
7.30pm, £6.50, Bar Academy.
Wednesday November 3
Having fought back against breast cancer, the gutsy voiced rock chick
struts in to town in fine fiery fettle for her first UK shows since the
release of her self-titled third album with its songs inspired by her experiences
and the stunning no prisoners track Left Outside Alone. A departure from
previous Not That Kind and Freak of Nature it dumps the disco and funk
in favour of a sound she dubs Sprock, a combination of soul, pop and rock.
As anyone who's heard the guitar fury likes of Seasons Change, Sick and
Tired, Rearview and Where Do I Belong will testify it's a fairly accurate
description. Not that it goes half way to capturing the sheer force she
puts behind her delivery, even the more balladeering moments of Where Do
I Belong and current single Welcome To My Truth making Gwen Stefani sound
like some wilting violet.
7.30pm, £35/£28.50, NEC.
Thursday November 4
Winding up the year with helpful reminders of live favourites from
their two albums, Ideas Above Our Station and this year's Shatterproof
Is Not A Challenge, they'll also be offering some pre Christmas treats
with tasters from their work in progress third offering. They also arrive
towing a covers EP which features an unexpectedly excellent rock drone
version of The Smith's How Soon Is Now? That Morrissey should be proud
of, alongside a swagger through AC/DC's Back In Black and, just to ring
the changes, a fuzzy guitar (and too prominent drums) take on Tracy Chapman's
Fast Car.
7.30pm, £11, Carling Academy 2.
Friday November 5
Returning after a two year sabbatical, Borrowed Heaven (Atlantic)
proved it was still business as usual for the Celt rock sibling quartet,
marrying their folk roots with pop sensibilities and a sheen of electronica.
Unfortunately despite the surgingly anthemic Angel and the undeniably catchy
Even If and Summer Sunlight (where Video Killed The Radio Star meets The
Bangles), it's not really a patch on its predecessors and certainly not
likely to leave anyone, well, Breathless. Elsewhere they go through the
ballad motions for the pulsing Hideaway, a big build Long Night and the
breathy waltzing Time Enough For Tears without ever really engaging the
head or the heart, and whipping out some penny whistles can't make Humdrum
do anything to stop living up to its title.
7.30pm, £32.50/£27.50, NEC.
Friday November 5
Allegedly a mnemonic for Enhanced Low-light-level Visible and Infrared Surveillance System rather than any reference to Mr Presley, they're a punk by way of psychobilly quartet with a handful of releases and a Japanese major label album deal already to their name. They load in here to plug their new Not Enough (Karma Lion) single, a bass throbbing, guitar slashing strobelight surge of noise that clearly bears the stamp of Ash/Placebo producer Paul Tippler and bodes well for next year's UK debut album. The inclusion of a live version of Sober suggests they're a little muddier and messier live, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. 7.30pm, £6, Edwards No 8.
Saturday November 6
Times have obviously been a bit rough round the Harcourt emotional
homestead if new album Strangers (Heavenly) is any indication with its
hymns to loneliness and anthems of anguish, the guitars on epic opener
The Storm Is Coming almost as tortured as the man himself. He's even written
a song called, well, Loneliness. And yet, rather than the bedsit dirge
you might assume, it's all breezy pop where the orchestral soaring of Brian
Wilson meets almost Morrissey inflections; assuming Mozza had taken a crash
course in smile pills. Yes, love might have dealt a few jabs to the heart,
but he can still walk with a skip in the step as the tumbling guitar pop
of Born In The 70s (very James actually) ably demonstrates and recent jaunty
trotalong (though worryingly stalkerish) single This One's For You confirms.
6.30pm, £10.50, Carling Academy 2.
Sunday November 7
Not content their new Coldplay tag, recent single Everybody's Changing put in pitch for the early Radiohead audience too. It seems to be working. The Sussex public schoolboys aren't doing anything groundbreaking, but it has to be said that between their way with dripping forlorn melodies and Tom Chaplin's bruised falsetto their Hopes and Fears album has the songs to go with the confidence; Bend And Break, Your Eyes Open and Bedshaped perfect samples of their way with sorrow, sadness and regret while the aptly titled Sunshine shows they can put the lachrymose to one side when they feel like it. It's a little worrying that they seem to have a fondness for soft rock as evidenced on This Is The Last Time and the appearance of bass on a few of the tracks suggests they may yet find themselves welcoming a guitar into their trademark drums/piano live format too, but for now at least auntierock and artistic compromise should be the least of anyone's worries. 7.30pm, £13.50 Carling Acadcemy.
Sunday November 7
Formerly guitarist with Birmingham alt-country outfits Buick 6 and
then The Toques (same band, different name), Summerfield's now gone solo.
However, his debut album Hailah, Hailah (Bearos) remains musically allied
to Americana, albeit much of it heading into the sparse, darker moss hung
territory of ghostly bluegrass frequented by the likes of Gillian Welch,
Gabe Minnikin and the Handsome Family.
8pm, £4.40, Midland Arts Centre.
Sunday November 7
Having made a bit of a splash with previous singles For All My Sins and Standing Watching, the London based four piece return with In Your Arms Again (Island), another radio friendly bubble of rushing guitar pop and emotional yearning that makes them sound like a more danceable Starsailor. Well, could be worse. 7.30pm, £5, Bar Academy.
Sunday November 7
If Nocturama was a partial if somewhat lyrically cosy return to form,
Cave's latest, the double disc set Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (Mute)
sees him firmly back at his vintage best, current domestic Brighton bliss
clearly no impairment to digging baleful songs of misery and doom from
the pit of his creative psyche. These though he's confined to the former
of the two discs, a record overflowing with bilious brimstone that opens
in clattering fury with Get Ready For Love and proceeds through a stomping
Nature Boy that leans cheerfully on Steve Harley's (Make Me Smile) Come
Up and See Me (and talks of 'routine atrocity' and wisteria), the
slow steamrollering title track with lyrics that run from apocalyptic to
tongue in cheek. a moody folk-blues Messiah Ward that fuses Cohen and Dylan,
and three lurching junkyard clanking Waitsian blues in Hiding All Away.
Fable of the Brown Ape and Cannibal's Hymn.
7.30pm, £25, W'hampton Civic Hall.
Monday November 8 The Czars Five albums in and the Denver quintet are finally starting to
make serious inroads into the UK consciousness with their world weary brooding,
sometimes dazedly languid and frazzled and at others lushly opiate pop.
They’re over here to promote the glowing received Goodbye (Bella Union),
again drawing on such reference point influences as Chris Isaak, Go-Betweens,
Triffids, and Tindersticks (you might even detect Procol Harum on Los)
for its acoustic pop songs of love, loss and regret. While I’m The Man
picks up an electronic Latin sway for its desert night mood, the fabulous
Paint The Moon harks to twangy border country harmony balladeering and
Pain is a Spectorised toybox of Mary Chain chug, the dominant colours
here are the slow swells evidenced on the soulful Bright Black Eyes and
moody piano ballad Little Pink House, the autumnal weariness given added
resonance by the warmly melancholic brass that veins the Kurt Weill cabaret
jazz ambience of I Saw A Ship and the hymnal choral harmonies of, er, The
Hymn.
8pm, £8, The Glee Club,
Tuesday November 9
A superb stylist and mesmerising performer, she’s also probably the only artist on the De-Lovely soundtrack truly suited to sing the work of Cole Porter and here’s hoping she decides to include her version of Just One Of Those Things in the set tonight too. 7.30pm, £30/£27.50, NIA.
Tuesday November 9
This year’s token UK Asian rapper (and whatever happened to Apache Indian?), Sean quit med school to take up a career in hip hop, joining forces with the Rishi Rich Project to provide the vocals on last year’s hit Dance With You. Profile established, he Stolen then took off on a solo tip with summer smash Eyes On You and, most recently, the follow-up Stolen. He arrives now with his debut album, Me Against Myself (Relentless), a sort of desi answer to The Streets with its beats and British wit married to Bollywood rhythmic flavours and the US r&b influences (Stevie Wonder’s a big one) evident on the likes of Don’t Rush and On & On. Deftly blending the cultures to produce a commercial crossover that appeals equally to mainstream clubbers and the bhangra brigade, the title track even sees him duelling between his rap and singer identities. He’s still settling into his performing skin, but inventively playing around with samples, cut ups and Indian flute to texture his smooth soul grooves, chances are that he could prove slightly more durable than this year’s ragga fad. 7.30pm, £8, Carling Academy 2.
Tuesday November 9
NYC guitar slingers, the trio continue the currently fashionable trend of acknowledging early Stones influences, marrying the Mick n Keef swagger to the sort of down home country blues vibe favoured by Creedence and, more recently, the Black Crowes. They’re over here to plug new single Dreaming (Kanine), a perfectly respectable but unmemorable dose of Brown Sugar that lives up to the derivation of the band’s name in an old negro slave term for the friction between the sexual and the spiritual. Though I suspect that any testifying going down tonight will be decidedly of a profane rather than a sacred nature. 7.30pm, £5, Bar Academy.
Wednesday November 10
Having made an impressive splash with last year’s debut album, So Much
For The City and songs such as One Horse Town bespeaking its love
affair with San Francisco summers and Americana dreams, the Dublin
quintet ably consolidate their fast rising status with speedy sequel Let’s
Bottle Bohemia (Virgin). It’s no huge departure, the melody drenched songs
steeped in tales of regret, ennui and loss. Much informed by looking
back at their Irish roots from the glossy alienation of LA. Small town
laments and themes of rejection and failure loom large, though generally
couched in breezy falsettos, chiming guitars, sweeping strings and flourishes
of brass. Recent hit Whatever Happened To Corey Haim? succinctly encapsulates
both the album’s reference points and fears of passing from favour just
as You Can’t Fool Friends With Limousines sketches out the wariness of
succumbing to West Coast phoniness and the guilt of success. Both sit happily
alongside equally catchy but lyrically downbeat numbers like the
stompy downtown Saturday Night, the lush but cracked Not For All The Love
In The World and the jaunty lounge bouncer Faded Beauty Queens. Throw in
the equally self-doubting and ‘Catholic shame’ of The Irish Keep Gate-Crashing
and the tellingly titled The Curse of Comfort and you’ve got probably the
most toe tapping radio friendly depressive pessimistic pop practitioners
you’re likely to meet.
7.30pm, £13.50, Carling Academy.
Wednesday November 10
The latest breathily sweet voiced sensitively melancholic singer-songwriter
with an acoustic guitar and piano to get the new Jeff Buckley/Nick Drake/whatever
treatment, the Suffolk boy’s debut album, Feather & Stone (Sony) touches
all the right bases. It’s a regulation balance of minor key
ballads and breezy upbeat melodies, veined with strings and set to the
service of songs about bruised relationships, overcoming misfortune and,
naturally the autobiographical laying it on the line of and the cumulative
swell of My Declaration. There’s a hint of Michel Legrand to
Girl From The Hills, a melding of Steve Forbert and Hothouse Flowers on
All Comes True, some heady Celtic aromas on the overly earnest Don’t Let
Go and a touch of bossa McCartney to This Boy while the finger-wagging
Under The Thumb (mate spends too much time with new bird) goes for
the big tumbling pop sound.
7.30pm, £8.50, Glee Club.
Thursday November 11
Currently to be found as one of the few saving graces in the misfiring
remake of Alfie with her version of the classic theme song (originally
done by Cher not Cilla, trivia fans), Stone effortlessly brushes aside
those sophomore album doubts with Mind Body & Soul (Relentless), retaining
the same back up band and proving a scorching sequel to her blistering
The Soul Sessions debut. Entering the UK charts at No 1 is impressive enough,
but taking old school soul back to America and turning it into a gold album
says much about the authenticity that burns through the 17 year old’s whisky
and pain coated vocals.
7.30pm, £17.50, Carling Academy.
Thursday November 11 Beverley Knight
It does perhaps wear a little thin on the likes of Tea & Sympathy, Below My Radar and the well intentioned but actually rather dull Latin flavoured r&b of token social comment number Salvador, but any minor blips are fully redeemed as those vocals take off into gospel heaven with the wholly self-penned piano soul closing track Remember Me, a song of loss guessingly about her 'brother-sister husband' Tyrone. A slick, stylish and soulful evening’s guaranteed. 7.30pm, £19.50/£17, Warwick Arts
Centre.
Friday November 12
Formed by Jamie Evans and Tim Trotter from the ashes of late lamented
local outfit Fin, the name’s rather misleading, evoking as it does some
sort of TexMex sounding combo. However, while the Edge inspired guitars
strobing their way through Easy Smile and the slow chiming Fake Plastic
Trees beauty of classic in waiting that is (Times) Infinity suggest
they’ve not strayed too far from the previous incarnation’s Radiohead meets
U2 sound, there’s some definite permutations to be found on the first batch
of demos for the work in progress debut album. Indeed the clattering
juddery Come Clean conjures thoughts of early Cream (Jack Bruce dominant),
while Skin Tight borrows Imagine’s intro refrain for its sustained background
theme, hands clap and guitars squall on the hypnotic staccato surge that
is Darko and both Falling and Race For The Lifeboat hark to the prog folk
soul influences, although with the latter also supplying an anthemic soaring
chorus that puts Coldplay to shame.
8.30pm, £3, Jug of Ale.
Friday November 12
If you go see Kevin Spacey’s Bobby Darin biopic Beyond The Sea, watch
out for the scene where Darin, well into his psychedelic phase, slips a
copy of Hush on his turntable. Whether Darin was ever a Purple fan
himself is debatable, but Spacey certainly is. And while they may not dominate
the charts in the way they once did, there’s still a legion of like-minded
admirers out there. They arrive now, Steve Morse on guitars and Don Airey
providing keyboards, to give a belated push to recent album Bananas (EMI),
arguably the best thing they’ve done since their 1984 reunion, confidently
riding the range between classic Purple blues riff rock such as Razzle
Dazzle, House of Pain and the scorchingly great Walk On and less obvious
moments like the reggae based Doing It Tonight, the lovely Byrdsian Never
Aword and the criminally overlooked big soul ballad single, Haunted, easily
one of the best things Ian Gillan’s ever written.
7.30pm, £29.50, NEC.
Sunday November 14
Dubbed 'angular post-rock noiseniks', the Manchester trio generally tend to favour instrumentals, but they’ve made a concession to singing bits with debut single Transition (Deltasonic) where shouty punk vocals pop up on either side of its guitar riffing, drum hammering blend of New Order, early U2, New Model Army and Sonic Youth. Frankly quite staggeringly stunning. See them now and tell your children in years to come. 7.30pm, £5, Little Civic.
Monday November 15
Forget Jamie Cullum, if there’s going to be a Sinatra for the twentysomethings
then the finely chiselled Bublé has it all sewn up, his easy going
relaxed swing on the likes of Summer Wind, Sway and Come Fly With
Me (Blue Eyes classics all) clearly well soaked in the style and spirit
of Frank. He’s considerably more adept at reworking pop into the jazz idiom
too, compare Cullum’s dull version of Everlasting Love on the Bridget
Jones soundtrack with Bublé’s Vegas lounge arrangements of
Stevie Wonder’s For Once In My Life, Van Morrison’s Moodance and
Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love.
7.30pm, £27.50, NIA.
The Swedish psychpop sextet have been threatening world domination for
a while now, but with their fourth album Origin (Phase 1) (WEA) they might
actually achieve it. They’ve stripped back some of the lush sophistication
in favour of the more in your face 60s garage riffery of things like Royal
Explosion, Mother One Track Mind, Transcendental Suicide and Bigtime, but
the melodic content still remains paramount, touching anthemic proportions
on the piano ballad Song For The Others and Borderline while Heading For
A Breakdown and Lone Summer Dream show off their West Coast influences,
respectively recalling Buffalo Springfield and Love.
7.30pm, £8, Carling Academy 2.
Monday November 15
A bit of a low key gig this given that Kotzen used to be guitarist with mega-selling poodle rock outfit Poison for whom he wrote Stand and Until You Suffer Some. Now solo after an acrimonious split, he’s been exploring a range of styles, embracing rock, soul and fusion, the latter seeing him becoming part of Stanley Clarke’s new outfit Vertu back in 99 while also finding time to join Mr Big for the Get Over It and Actual Size albums. For now he’s back doing his own thing, arriving here to plug his latest solo album Get Up. 7pm. £6, Bar Academy.
Not so long back written off as missing in action rock casualties, the ‘prophs returned with a vengeance earlier this year with Start Something blending a commercial pop sensibility within their scouring metal riffery on the likes of Burn Burn, I Don’t Know, Make A Move and Last Train Home. Urgent, intense and driven, the raw throat yowling and piston slashing guitar work of such tracks as We Are Godzilla, You Are Japan. To Hell We Ride and Start Something itself can’t disguise that fact that behind the blistering assault there lurks a well sussed awareness that durability and catchy tunes still go hand in hand. 7.30pm, £14.50, W’hampon Civic Hall
(+ Wed Nov 24).
Tuesday November 16
A founder member of Dexys Midnight Runners before clashes with Kevin
Rowland’s ego led to a bitter parting off the ways and the formation of
These Tender Virtues and The Bureau, Williams has recently kissed and made
up with Kev, working as co-vocalist on the recent Dexys’ To Stop The Burning
tour.
7.30, £7, Glee Club.
Thursday November 18
For a while there it seemed that Embrace were going to be lost in the flood
of sensitive anthemic guitar bands that emerged in their wake. However,
Out Of Nothing (Independiente) sees them returning in monumental form,
colours flying from the top of the mast with soaring banners of chest swelling
songs into which they’ve poured everything and the kitchen sink. The big
gospel of Someday makes the Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What
You Want sound like a church mouse while Looking As You Are, Keeping, Wish
‘Em All Away, Ashes and Gravity (written by Coldplay’s Chris Martin) all
swell to majestic proportions. You do find yourself yearning for a touch
of quiet restraint after a while, but even the piano tinkling Travis-like
moments of Glorious Day feel the need to explode into towering cathedrals
of emotive sonics and, while not prone to ripping off its shirt and standing
on a mountain top, the ringing guitar pop of Ashes can’t help riding its
chorus into the wild surf with packs of jubilant hounds on its tail. Exhausting
after a while, but you’ll not be finding much time to mope in the corner
that’s for sure.
7.30pm, £15, Carling Academy.
While the sandpapery voiced New Hampshire born singer-songwriter may have
spent a rootless childhood moving from pillar to post, or indeed chicken
coop, he obviously managed to keep his record collection with him, the
influences seeping into his blood like mother’s milk. They surface now
on his debut album, Trouble (Echo), where you can easily trace the work
of Van Morrison (Trouble), Dylan (Hannah), Ted Hawkins (Hold You In My
Arms), Otis Redding (Shelter), Stephen Stills (How Come, Forever My Friend),
Loudon Wainwright (Burn), and Neil Young (Narrow Escape) veining his blue
eyes soul n roots songs of love’s healing, heartache and human concern.
7.30pm, £7, Glee Club.
If The Flaming Lips and David Byrne happen to ring your bell then this
Seattle outfit should certainly strike a few chimes, making their big breakthrough
with Good News For People Who Love Bad News (Epic), their most accessible
and (in their terms) conventional album to date. Melodies come in big packages,
arrangements no longer scare the horses and you can even make some sense
of the normally obtuse songs.
7.30pm, £11.50, Carling Academy 2.
Saturday November 20
The splenetic angular Welsh punk trio return for a second bout in aid of current album The Difference Between Me And You Is That I'm Not On Fire (Too Pure) with its dark, raw and abrasive rumbling bass assaults and spiked guitar storms, That Man Will Not Hang a pummelling riff machine of chainsawing guitar that sounds like what PiL might have been had they come from a folk rather than punk background. Pummelling their loud-soft, stop-start way through the likes of such catchy ditties as 1956 And All That, Falco vs the Young Caoneist, Without MSG I Am Nothing and the industrial sonic chaos that is Suppory Systems with no compromise to noise or content, they do happen to have a slightly softer side, evident on ‘ballads’ Your Children Are Waiting For You To Die and the splendid skewed pop of She Will Only Bring You Happiness. Mind you, anyone expecting to have a furtive smooch in the corner during the set is probably in need of a good kicking. 7.30pm, £8, Carling Academy 2.
Saturday November 20
Last time around Mr Peculiar was treating ears to new album Growing
Up With Vinny Peculiar where distinctively English songs about Heaven’s
call centre (I Work For God) shared space with disturbing schooldays memoirs
(We Tried To Drown Our Music Teacher In 1974), tales of strange graffiti
(Root Mull), lost innocence (We Didn’t Paint Our Nails When We Fought The
Germans), and the parental implications of IVF (Confessions of a Sperm
Donor).
8.30pm, £5, Jug of Ale.
Sunday November 21 Ian McNabb
Always a welcome visitor, except perhaps by those trying to shut up shop when he insists on doing yet another 30 minute encore to satisfy audience demand, this finds the rich voiced former Icicle Works founder hitting the road to promote his recent best of compilation. As such, in addition to whatever obscurities and covers take his fancy for the evening, you can pretty much rely on taking a guided tour through such solo career nuggets as Liverpool Girl, All Things To Everyone, Merseybeast, Great Dreams Of Heaven and German Soldier's Helmet Circa 1943 with maybe the odd Icicle putting in an appearance along the way. 7.30pm, £11.50. Glee Club. Mike Davies Monday November 22 Mark Lanegan A much anticipated gig from the former member of Screaming Trees and sometime Queens of the Stone Age guitarist, this comes on the back of his recent album, Bubblegum. The title's ironic of course. There's nothing chewy chewy here. Instead, with guests that include Izzy Stradlin, Greg Dulli and PJ Harvey, his throat scouring gruff vocal bends itself around musical shapes that variously conjure thoughts of Tom Waits (the swampy Wedding Dress), Cohen (When You're Number Isn't Up), early Lou Reed (Hit The City), Captain Beefheart (the industrial clattering Methamphetamine Blues), the haunted desert night prowls of Giant Sand (One Hundred Days) and The Stooges (the ragged scratched Driving Death Valley Blues and hard on psychobilly punk assault Sideways in Reverse). Lacerating rock n roll and electrosonic experimentalism (Head, Can't Come Down) go head to head with the bare ballad slow waltzing Strange Religion, the gospel rooted Morning Glory Wine, Come To Me's tinkling musical box spooked country and a rumbling blues Like Little Willie John. Stained with nicotine, harsh with whisky breath and with songs both worm eaten with despairing darkness and burning with gravelly hope, it's promises to make for an invigorating and challenging gig. 7.30pm, £12.50, Carling Academy. Mike Davies
Monday November 22 Hiding Place
Founded upon guitarist twin brothers Del and JJ Somerville and with schoolchum Paul McCallon on throaty vocals, the five piece Glaswegian outfit trade in surging guitar riffs and driving raw but melodic indie rock. Following on the heels of Slave Trade, they’re now out spreading the word for thrashingly ballsy new single Cruel Kindness (RCA) though those only aware of this side of the boys may be surprised to find a gently troubadour balladeering cover of Blue Oyster Don't Fear The Reaper lurking in there too. 7.30pm, £5, Bar Academy. Mike Davies
Monday November 22 Joanna Newsom
It’s been many a year since Mary O’Hara tinkled her Celtic harp into the charts, but now the instrument usually associated with Welsh music fests is back in favour courtesy of the infinitely strage Ms Newsom. A native of California (which may not come as too much of a surprise), the twentyish pixie-ish singer-songwriter most certainly sounds like no one you’ve ever heard before. Well, not unless you’ve been privy to some gig where Bjork has sung country tunes after inhaling helium. Grounded in American folk with particular leanings Appalachian, bluegrass and old blues, her high pitched childlike voice, ragged and cracking in place, is nothing if not idiosyncratic, a bit like Victoria Williams possessed by faeries while there’s times here when you can’t avoid thinking of Melanie doing things like Animal Crackers and Christopher Robin. It must be said that a little exposure to it goes a long way, but equally it’s hard not to be beguiled by her debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City), an extraordinary collection of articulate, literate but playful songs sporting titles like The Book of Right On, Three Little Babes, current single Sprout and the Bean and, pointing up her nursery rhyme, kindergarten shapes, the harmonium pumping Peach, Plum, Pear and the contemplative Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie. Lyrically oblique with references equally to molluscs and Camus, whalebones and balloons in her storytelling songs of life, love and spirituality, musically somersaulting between the trebly piano waltzing Inflammatory Wit, the arpeggios of Cassiopeia, the backporch folk blues of Swansea and the quiet Edward Lear pulsing shanty pop of Bridges and Balloons, it makes for intoxicating and bewitching (with an emphasis on the witchery) listening. Given to trad covers and bursts of a capella, it also promises a memorably eccentric evening out. 7.30pm, £6.50, Glee Club. Mike Davies Tuesday November 23 John Miller & The Country Casuals
The Radio Sweethearts frontman gets back out on the road, trying out a bunch of new songs for next year’s new album and digging into favourites from his two solo albums, Popping Pills and last year’s One Excuse Too Many, both of which bear fine testament to his love of Hank Williams, Johnny Cas), the country swing of Ernest Tubb and the TexMex cowboy ballads of the legendary Marty Robbins. Inevitably heartaches and self-questioning provide a backbone to the honky tonk friendly songs, all more than enough to keep bartenders and Relate counsellors in business for some time. With no guests this time round, he’ll be doing a full two hour set, no doubt leaving you with an overwhelming urge to run out and buy a rhinestone studded shirt. 8pm, £7, Ceol Castle. Mike Davies Tuesday November 23 Josh Ritter
Last here wowing them at the Glee Club, Ritter may be a touch derivative with his musical influences (Dylan, Springsteen, Prine, Cohen) worn openly on his sleeve, but you can’t get away from the sheer talent and some great songs. If he follow a similar set, there’ll be all the best bits from his two albums to date, Golden Age of Radio and Hello Starling, the latter’s title track, Man Burning, Me & Jiggs and Kathleen figuring large among those you have to simply insist on hearing. 7pm, £9, Irish Club. Digbeth. Mike Davies Tuesday November 23 The Mooney Suzuki
They may be named in tribute to founder Can members Malcom Mooney and Holger Czukay, but you’ll find no krautrock influences buzzing around this bunch of NYC retro garage rockers. Slogging around the circuit for the past few years, things are starting to pay off with the former art school students, with frontman Sammy James Junior recently co-writing the title track to School Of Rock which the band featured on the soundtrack. They arrive here in the wake of the Alive & Amplified (Columbia) album, wearing their Kinks, Stones, Yardbirds and Who influences emblazoned on their sleeves, melding old school Brit R&B with Staxy soul and the dumb garage rock of the MC5 on the likes of Primitive Condition, Legal High, the boogie woogie New York Ladies and the inevitably strutting Hot Sugar. Titles like Messin’ In The Dressin’ Room, Loose ‘n’ Juicy and Shake That Bush Again (nothing to do with GW) should give a rough idea where they’re coming from in terms of school singalongs, though Naked Lady will probably fill in the picture for those slow on the uptake. If the garage boom still has any fuel left in the tank, this lot should safely burn a few miles of tarmac. 7.30pm, £7. Bar Academy. Mike Davies Wednesday November 24 Josh Rouse
Following the recent release of his live DVD The Smooth Sounds Of and its bonus CD of rarities and previously unreleased recordings featuring a cover of The Kinks A Well Respected Man and the melancholically lovely Princess On A Porch, you can pretty much expect to find the Nebraska born singer-songwriter in mellow mood, recreating the feel of the languid pop and gentle soul of the 70s. Still in the sunny frame of mind found on the 1972 album with its flourishes of brass, shades of Latin and thoughts of heat hazed boulevards or hanging out on the beach, if he sticks to the DVD set list he’ll be easing his solo way through the likes of the jaunty Love Vibration, a Simon-esque Sunshine, the Al Green slinky soul of Come Back (Light Therapy) and an newly warmed up take on Flight Attendant’s story of a bullied, repressed gay kid in redneck territory who grows up to take things out on airline passengers. Worryingly, the DVD doesn’t contain the brilliant Dressed Up Like Nebraska or Sparrows Over Birmingham, but if you insist loud enough... 7.30pm, £12, Glee Club. Mike Davies Thursday November 25 Jim Bob
Recovered from the ardour of watching the Olympics and redecorating his daughter’s bedroom, the one time Carter USM frontman picks up his acoustic guitar for a solo jolly round some of the nation’s hostelries looking to persuade punters to fork out a few extra quid for his new album Angelstrike (TheTen Forty Sound). Of course, he’ll be expected to throw in the old Carter memories and will undoubtedly regale literature buffs with extracts from his recent memoirs of life on the road. But ears should really be pinned back to take in his new material which, while it may not be the most sophisticated in the world as it swings between punk pop, country and acoustic balladry most certainly has something to say about the state of a nation with its run down junkie wasteland estates, out of control crime rates, missing kids, dead end lives driven to drugs, bullying, self-destructive self-hate, teenage write-offs, the young homeless, paedophiles and, expanding the horizons on The Hippies Were Right, war and domestic abuse. With the concerns about the neglect and sufferings of children and youth that run through such songs as Closure, The Revenge of the School Bullied, Victim, Georgie’s Marvellous Medicine, The Children’s Terrorism Workshop, Feral Kids and the stunning epic title track, it’s essentially a latter day answer to Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. The Carter legacy of passionate concern and strident issues-confronting songs continues, isn’t it about time someone stood up and gave him the respect and attention he deserves? 7.30pm, £8, Glee Club, Mike Davies Thursday November 25 John Otway
Recovered from the stress and excitement of becoming a two hit wonder, Otway now embarks on an early warm up to his World Tour 2006 complete with a brand new own label album to launch it all in style. Showing he’s lost none of his talent for groaning word play it’s called Ot-Air and, obviously creatively recharged, it’s one of the best things he’s done in recent years. Devotees of the Otway cracked ballad will be disappointed perhaps to learn that although We Rock lulls you into a false sense of security before the heavy guitar chorus rears its head, there’s only one heart-wringer here, the folksy swayalong Enjoy with its seize the day message although Three Kinds of Magic has a solid crack at a big 60s Spector sound complete with the sort of overkill ringing guitar and piano chorus Meatloaf would envy. But if you want uptempo Otway, there’s plenty to tickle your fondant fancies, especially those that hark back to his early days with Wild Willy (who guests here) such as Slack Jack where The Beatles The Two Of us meets Creedence’s Have You Ever seen The Rain, and the cheerfully silly hoedown title track, gleeful barnyard stomper storysong The Old Fiddler where Dave Swarbrick meets Charlie Daniels under the influence of Alfred Noyes’s classic poem The Highwayman. The punkier rock n roll side of things ably represented by Lasers of Love, crunchy dancing didecoi folk rocker The Dream Makers, a cover of the old Motors hit Airport, and a frenzied brass flourishing nut case Rumplestiltskin there’s also some Otway bass slapping funk in the shape of the lyrically clever International Dateline. In short, something of an Otway classic and, if he’s not careful, capable of actually making him three times lucky. Everyone need to see an Otway gig at some stage in their life, make this one yours. 9pm, £5. The Jam House. Mike Davies Thursday November 25 Darren Hayes
Formerly 50% of soft rock combo Savage Garden, the Aussie singer-songwriter struck out solo two years ago with Spin, a disappointing album despite its massive hit single Insatiable. He’s back now though, revised and restructured, taking things to another musical level with the confessionally autobiographical The Tension and the Spark (Columbia) which turns its unexpected old school pop electronica gaze on the less sunny sides of success and relationships with the likes of Popular, Darkness, Unlovable and Dublin Sky as it takes a painful personal journey towards forgiveness and the light at the end of the tunnel. Likely to scramble the heads of those who just want an endless repeat of Truly Madly Deeply and I Knew I Love You, but for those willing to put aside preconceptions and listen to numbers such as Hero, Love And Attraction, Void and Ego might find that beneath the electronic surface they’re not such as drastic departures after all. 7.30pm, £23.50, W’hampton Civic Hall. Mike Davies Thursday November 25 Carl Palmer Band
You look at the sleeve of Working Live Vol 2 (Sanctuary) and see a track called Fanfare & Drum Solo that clocks in at over 15 minutes and your heart sinks. And yes, this is every bit as thunderingly bombastic and senses numbing turgid as you might expect of a live workout from the former ELP drummer stuck in a timewarp where it is forever the early 70s and progressive rock trios have a nation enthralled with interminable rock arrangements of classical pieces. In the absence of keyboards Palmer has reworked the old ELP numbers for face-screwing guitars, but quite frankly you would have to be brain-damaged to want to be within fifty miles of hearing Tarkus or a lumbering assault on Carmina Burana ever again. 8pm, £10. The Robin. Mike Davies Saturday November 27/Sunday November 28 Snow Patrol
It’s been a bit of a good year for the lads. When it began they were looking optimistic that they might find some modest commercial success with new album Final Straw, and it ends with them selling out two nights at the Academy and being celebrated as one of the hottest bands around, with platinum discs plastered all over their walls and a solid run of majestic, emotionally swelling anthemic hit singles for Run, Chocolate, Spitting Games and How To Be Dead. And really, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer album. 7.30pm, £13.50, Carling Academy. Mike Davies Saturday November 27 Will Young
A fairly swiftish second tour on the heels of his debut earlier this year, this too looks like being a total sell out. But it remains a mystery why his anodyne blue eyed soul is so incredibly popular. The current Friday’s Child album has him sounding like a limpid George Michael on Stronger, a thin Stevie Wonder on Going My Way and a saccharine Westlife with Love Is A Matter of Distance, and as Out Of My Mind shows he certainly doesn’t convince as funkster either. To be fair Young does hit exactly the right easy going laid back tone, but the damning thing is that it’s all so inoffensively pleasant you feel positively churlish about criticising it. Cliff Richard for the thirtysomething moms then. 7.30pm £28.50, NEC. (+ Mon Dec 6/Wed Dec 22) Mike Davies
Tuesday November 30 They’ve grown up of late, this year’s album a self-titled affair to underline the new start. So no juvenile scatological references here then. Unfortunately not too much fun either despite generally adhering to the old proven formula of big chorus buzzing guitar pop songs about girls and raging teenage hormones delivered in those familiar chewy vocals. The new serious side comes through loud and clear with Stockholm Syndrome a song about paranoia which uses letters from Mark Hoppus’ grandmother to his grandfather during World War II while I Miss You finds them exploring their acoustic side. Good stuff, but perhaps not exactly what those reared on the likes of Enema of The State want to hear. Still, assuming they’ve not given the set a radical overhaul in the past few months, you can expect to still find a solid balance between, say, the misery and pain of Stay Together For The Kids and the brash bouncy day glo skate punk pop of the ever brilliant All The Small Things. Support comes from The Kinison, the Illinois band signed to Blink drummer Travis Barker’s La Salle Records label.
A shouty, scouringly intense bunch whose debut album, What Are You Listening To is a punk barrage of stuttering guitars, brutal riffs and staccato rhythms, spilling over with songs of rage, cynicism, sex and disaffection. The likes of The Farm & The Girls, You’ll Never Guess Who Died, Lake Calmern Is Full Now and No Talk are all solidly played, but the sheer relentless attack and cheerlessness of it all can get very exhausting. (The band also headline at the Little Civic on Dec 4, £7). 7.30pm, £20, NEC.
Tuesday November 30
Not a name most will be familiar with, Detroit born Davidison is an old school troubadour whose obvious Woody Guthrie influences are filtered through punkier models like the Clash and Dead Kennedys. With four self-released albums to his name (the titles Ring Them Bells and This Machine Kills Fascists underlining those Guthrie roots), he’s over here now on the back of a new EP, Better Living Through Creative Selling (Times Beach) which reveals him as a blues-folk singer-songwriter with a throaty voice and political conscience. Set to a Middle Eastern groove and beatbox, the stand-out track has to be Terrorist, a spoken story of 70 year old Jewish woman proudly recalling her youth as a terrorist fighting against the British occupation of Palestine but unable to see the parallels between that and the current struggle by the Palestinians themselves. The rest of the disc’s pretty solid too, the bluesy Drive By Diplomacy that wouldn't be out of place on a Bruce Cockburn album, the snake charmer funeral march rhythms of the spare and again Middle-East flavoured My Black Dog Days and the swamp blues born under a bad sign stomp of the satirical I Want To Be A Comfortable Middle-Class Consumer. Rounded out with a Forbert-Dylan acoustic version of Ring Them Bells and, back to Guthrie again, a high stepping romp through Tom Joad, it promises to make for a thoughtful and musically potent evening. 8pm,
Actress & Bishop, Ludgate Hill, B’ham. Tuesday November 30 The Bluetones frontman arrives for a solo gig under his part time persona of Fi Low Beddow, an acoustic artiste whose influences include, er, Barbra Streisand. Whether he’ll be treating everyone to renditions of Second Hand Rose or People is open to speculation, but he’ll certainly be wandering through some of the band’s back catalogue as a warm up for their December tour which, of course, doesn’t come anywhere near here! 7.30, £6,
Bar Academy Tuesday November 30 They’ve grown up of late, this year’s album a self-titled affair to underline the new start. So no juvenile scatological references here then. Unfortunately not too much fun either despite generally adhering to the old proven formula of big chorus buzzing guitar pop songs about girls and raging teenage hormones delivered in those familiar chewy vocals. The new serious side comes through loud and clear with Stockholm Syndrome a song about paranoia which uses letters from Mark Hoppus’ grandmother to his grandfather during World War II while I Miss You finds them exploring their acoustic side. Good stuff, but perhaps not exactly what those reared on the likes of Enema of The State want to hear. Still, assuming they’ve not given the set a radical overhaul in the past few months, you can expect to still find a solid balance between, say, the misery and pain of Stay Together For The Kids and the brash bouncy day glo skate punk pop of the ever brilliant All The Small Things. Support comes from The Kinison, the Illinois band signed to Blink drummer Travis Barker’s La Salle Records label.
A shouty, scouringly intense bunch whose debut album, What Are You Listening To is a punk barrage of stuttering guitars, brutal riffs and staccato rhythms, spilling over with songs of rage, cynicism, sex and disaffection. The likes of The Farm & The Girls, You’ll Never Guess Who Died, Lake Calmern Is Full Now and No Talk are all solidly played, but the sheer relentless attack and cheerlessness of it all can get very exhausting. (The band also headline at the Little Civic on Dec 4, £7). 7.30pm, £20, NEC.
Tuesday November 30
Not a name most will be familiar with, Detroit born Davidison is an old school troubadour whose obvious Woody Guthrie influences are filtered through punkier models like the Clash and Dead Kennedys. With four self-released albums to his name (the titles Ring Them Bells and This Machine Kills Fascists underlining those Guthrie roots), he’s over here now on the back of a new EP, Better Living Through Creative Selling (Times Beach) which reveals him as a blues-folk singer-songwriter with a throaty voice and political conscience. Set to a Middle Eastern groove and beatbox, the stand-out track has to be Terrorist, a spoken story of 70 year old Jewish woman proudly recalling her youth as a terrorist fighting against the British occupation of Palestine but unable to see the parallels between that and the current struggle by the Palestinians themselves. The rest of the disc’s pretty solid too, the bluesy Drive By Diplomacy that wouldn't be out of place on a Bruce Cockburn album, the snake charmer funeral march rhythms of the spare and again Middle-East flavoured My Black Dog Days and the swamp blues born under a bad sign stomp of the satirical I Want To Be A Comfortable Middle-Class Consumer. Rounded out with a Forbert-Dylan acoustic version of Ring Them Bells and, back to Guthrie again, a high stepping romp through Tom Joad, it promises to make for a thoughtful and musically potent evening. 8pm,
Actress & Bishop, Ludgate Hill, B’ham. Tuesday November 30 The Bluetones frontman arrives for a solo gig under his part time persona of Fi Low Beddow, an acoustic artiste whose influences include, er, Barbra Streisand. Whether he’ll be treating everyone to renditions of Second Hand Rose or People is open to speculation, but he’ll certainly be wandering through some of the band’s back catalogue as a warm up for their December tour which, of course, doesn’t come anywhere near here! 7.30, £6,
Bar Academy
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