In our penultimate Bands in Lockdown interview, Mark Glenister speaks to Damien Sayell of The St Pierre Snake Invasion who talks about getting reacquainted with lie ins, working on what could be their last album and how things may become pre and post Covid in the future. Firstly, how are you? How are the rest of the band as well? I’m well thank you very much. The guys are good too. Paddy is dug-in like an Alabama tick above the Mothers ruin. Szack is at home with his family conquering the realm of DIY. Sam is staying down by the seaside with his better-half’s family, exercising and generally being a merry person. Sanjay on the other hand is still working. He works at a blood clinic so hasn’t had any respite at all bless him. Do you have a daily routine, are you learning anything new as everyone else seems to be? I had a routine, but like most I’ve rekindled my relationship with lie-ins. I had planned on doing some free courses in body language until DIY and music got in the way. Are you seeing this lockdown as a time to be creative? And has it changed the way you view the industry? I’m definitely taking advantage in terms of being creative. I’ve managed to get 11-12 songs demoed for the next St Pierre album. I’ve written 2 for a future solo album, and a song for a friend’s album as well. As a band are you doing anything for the fans? A lot of online gigs and Q&As seem to be the norm for a lot of bands, how easy or difficult is that for you as a group? We’ve done nothing, haha. Nothing at all. Not that we don’t want to, we’ve just not been asked, nor have we had the inclination to venture down that path. I was asked to do an acoustic set from my living room, which for the sake of anyone with ears I graciously declined. With the lockdown being extended, does that effect plans for tours, singles, albums? I know you said earlier that this would be the last TSPSI album, is that still the case?
It’s put the brakes on everything except writing and pinning down the ‘sound’ of the new album. I said it would likely be the last TSPSI album. A lot of people jumped on that like I’d said our demise was imminent. It’ll more than likely will be the last TSPSI album for a number of reasons, the first being that I only ever wanted to make three albums as this band. We might do another album at some point, but I like the idea of having three albums wrapped in a ribbon, a trilogy which won’t be sullied by a fourth and fifth album which might not stand-up to their predecessors. Once album three is out it ‘should’ be clear that we’ve purposely changed our sound with each album whilst trying to maintain a sense of individuality. To do that four or five times consecutively (which is what we’d have to do to keep it interesting for us) is a massive ask, one which at present I don’t think I’ve the mental fortitude to endeavour. As a fan I know how much I miss going to gigs, for the music and for the social aspect, is this something that you miss as well? Of course, everything bands do, writing, albums, singles, videos, press, are all mean of getting people to come to your shows, because shows are the best part of being a musician. I miss it everyday, I’m sure all the boys do. I’m sure every musician does. How important are your fans at this time, I know and I speak from experience, a lot of merch is being purchased to help bands, and I know you have a great connection with fans generally so are they an important aspect of getting through this? Fans are the most important part of any band, lockdown or not. It’s been made abundantly clear how they hold the well being of artists during this period. There’s been an outpouring of appreciation in general for creatives in wide variety of disciplines. It seems to have struck home farther afield than your diehard daily gig-goers too. It seems like the wider public has a greater appreciation for those in ‘entertainment’. Despite horrors of this pandemic, the lockdown seems to have a created a lot of really positive community action, and for once social media is being used mainly I a positive manner – Do you want life to return to normal once this is over, or would you like people to be using this time to evaluate their lives and start be part of communities and positive social change? I don’t think it can return to normal. I think we’ll view world events as pre and post-covid once we’ve some semblance of our previous life reinstalled. The world, how we connect, how we work, how we socialise, how we travel, will all change to varying degrees. It’s evident now that a vast amount of jobs can been done remotely, and that perhaps as way of lowering the risk of something like this happening again, it’s something which should be implemented across all sectors. As for wanting people to evaluate their lives, I did that a lot in my twenties and it took me a long time to learn that how people go about achieving happiness is none of my business. I do think some people who’ve been furloughed will be giving some thought to work / life balance post-lockdown though. I’ve definitely questioned why I work the hours I do for the money I’m on when it leaves me little time to do the thing I love doing most in the world, but much like when we vow never to drink again when in the grasp of a world class hangover, I’m sure once it’s passed we’ll slip back in to character in no time. Our final interview of the Bands in Lockdown series with Lumer will be out on Wednesday.
0 Comments
By Jon Milton and Mark Glenister Links to music and articles in blue You’d think that the lockdown might stem the tide of new music coming through, but it appears as though bands are still finding ways of creating new tunes and getting them out. Take workfriends for example, a Sheffield based band who came to our attention last week with their excellent debut single ‘Man on the Run’, which was recorded in the kitchen of their house and produced by their bassist Jamie. The band met at Sheffield Uni last year and are made up of members from York, Stockport, Wirral, London and Bristol. Despite only starting gigging recently and mostly in Sheffield and York, the band have amassed a sizeable following on Spotify. Man of the Run has a real Velvet Underground feel to it, it’s a top tune and you can hear it here. Another set of artists finishing off their tunes remotely are those that feature on the debut EP by Kitchen Practice Records ’Let it Bleeds’. The EP features cover versions of songs called Let it Bleed performed by Spider Noises, Women’s Fashion, Friends of the Monday Table and Pink Poison respectively, and its fun! We had a chat with Kitchen Practice impresario Lloyd Bolton and reviewed the EP on Friday, which you can read here. Ian Charles Carter also made his debut as a solo artist this week, releasing his ‘New Teeth’ single. Ian is also a member of Human Pet, who released the cracking AA single earlier this year Itch/Scratch and Automated and by all accounts he has more solo music in the works as well as more material with the band. New Teeth starts off like the Damned’s New Rose, goes trippy in the middle before resuming the garage rock / punk. Its good, and you can hear it here. South London's finest Sleep Eaters sound like they have spent their lives in backwater bars of the American deltas, and their new single 'In this Town' cements that image. Already a favourite of their live set, this dark brooding bourbon-soaked slice of Americana will have you bingeing on David Lynch box sets, with the line 'Stuck in this town' resonating ominously during these days of lockdown. One of London's best live bands, their fanbase and reputation will grow later this year with a support slot on rescheduled LIFE tour. Get this track and go see them live before America claim them for their own, and read our Bands in Lockdown interview them here. On the ‘bands to keep an eye out for’ front we came across Anyone’s Ghost and Spherical this week. Both bands look incredibly young, and their music shows a lot of promise. Anyone's Ghost are a 4 piece post punk band from Hertfordshire taking influence from the likes of IDLES, Shame, Fontaines DC and Joy Division. They released three songs at the start of April – MAN which begins sedately before exploding into a crescendo and No God and Greens which thrash along at a canter. Spherical are from Peterborough and they released their latest single Embers on Friday. Embers has quite a commercial indie sound about it, mixing spoken and sung vocals with neat, lively instrumentation. A more established act with new music out that we came across this week was Sunstack Jones. Anyone who appreciates the Verve’s superb debut album and early material, and bands like House of Love should appreciate their wonderful new single Glass Boat, taken from their forthcoming album Golden Repair. Unsurprisingly there is a Verve connection, with Glass Boat produced by Simon Jones of the band, and Nick McCabe has also worked with them in the past. Listen to it here.
Concluding our recommendations for the last week is the new single by Cross Wires, Distraction Technique. Distraction Technique was our highlight from the bands debut album ‘A Life Extinct’ which we reviewed last year. Its now been released with three new tracks as an EP – ‘I wanna be your man again’, ‘Vultures’ and Shades of Light and Dark’. We saw the band play earlier this year (remember gigs?) and you can see our footage of the band playing Distraction Technique here. Continuing our series of interviews with bands during lockdown, Mark Glenister spoke with Will Atkins of Sleep Eaters just prior to them releasing their new single 'In this Town' about life in lockdown, how its impacted the bands plans and what's in store when life returns to 'normal’. Firstly, how are you? How are the rest of the band as well? I’m well thanks, Mark. It’s been nice having the time to read & write & relax! The others are good too I believe, we talk every day and do the occasional video call. In a perfect world we’d all be at Dec’s cabin in Essex writing and recording but we’re all keeping well regardless! Do you have a daily routine, are you learning anything new as everyone else seems to be? I’m down at my folks’ now and I’ve been blessed with the task of helping my uncle log and price his record collection which is massive and gives me a decent task to be getting along with! I’ve never been great with routines though as I don’t have too much of one in my normal working life due to shift work but I’m trying to use this time wisely, practicing violin everyday which is fairly new to me, and I’ve got some Spanish tapes on the go too! Are you seeing this lockdown as a time to be creative? And has it changed the way you view the industry? It’s definitely a time to be creative, for sure! I’ve been writing a lot of poems and a few songs so far, just need to push the work ethic to the max to get as much done as I can because I know when it’s all back to normal I’ll be kicking myself if I haven’t used this time wisely! Luckily the business side of the industry has an ability to largely exist online, with access to releases and press, all being able to be done online but I miss being at gigs, either as a spectator or a musician and I miss hanging out with the guys at rehearsal or just in spare time. We see each other often, normally, in our social lives which is nice but unfortunately we’re unable to at the mo! Photo by Sara Fonfria Instagram: @sarafonfria As a band are you doing anything for the fans? A lot of online gigs and Q&As seem to be the norm for a lot of bands, how easy or difficult is that for you as a group? We release a single on Monday 27th April which we’d had recorded for a while. It’s titled ‘In this town’ and sort of fits in nicely with the current circumstances. It’s being released with a video too! We’re doing a couple of Q&As as you’ve mentioned and we’re also compiling some playlists, too. I’m terrible with technology, but we’ll try and get some live from home stuff happening at some stage! With the lockdown being extended, does that effect plans for tours, singles, albums? Our tour in March with Stonefield was cancelled just before the lockdown, which is a shame, but it could have made things worse for the virus! The other, with LIFE, has been postponed to October, which is good because it means that we’re able to still go on tour with them this year which we’re really looking forward to. As well as the single we’ve just released, we have a new one recently recorded which we’re waiting to release after the lockdown. We’ll have a release party somewhere but that’s looking to be more like September, so watch this space! And we’re still working hard on the album, just need to get together in the studio to sculpt it out! All this time off has given us the opportunity to write new material and finish things which were in progress so we can hit the ground running when we’re back! Photo by Sara Fonfria Instagram: @sarafonfria
As a fan I know how much I miss going to gigs, for the music and for the social aspect, is this something that you miss as well? Definitely! I’ve always been a fan of going to gigs from when I was really young. It’s great fun and you really get a feel for the band you’re watching that you could otherwise miss out on with recordings. It’s a totally different experience! I miss playing gigs the most though, there’s a certain apprehension I get when onstage about to play a gig which is really great; you never know how people will react the first time they see you play. It’s always nice when there’s a positive reaction from a crowd and individuals afterwards and I really enjoy meeting people at these gigs! Will definitely be celebrating the next gig we play! How important are your fans at this time, I know and I speak from experience, a lot of merch is being purchased to help bands, and I know you have a great connection with fans generally so are they an important aspect of getting through this? They’ve been great! We’d just stocked up on merch for the tours and then they both got cancelled or postponed so it was a bit uncertain how we’d be able to make back the money but the reaction to this virus on behalf of the fans has been outstanding! T-shirts have been flying out and Danny’s been delivering some of them by hand when they’re local enough! It’s been really great seeing people come together in support during these times, not just for us but for all bands who have been hit hard by this crisis. I feel for all those bands who were gearing up for SXSW, booking flights, getting VISAs sorted etc and then the whole thing got pulled! Such a disappointment for so many! But I’ve seen how good their fans have been and it’s great to see so many people coming together in support. Despite horrors of this pandemic, the lockdown seems to have a created a lot of really positive community action, and for once social media is being used mainly in a positive manner – Do you want life to return to normal once this is over, or would you like people to be using this time to evaluate their lives and start to be part of communities and positive social change? I would hope that people will realise that even when there isn’t a global killer virus hanging around outside that they are able to live their lives with kindness and understanding towards people in all circumstances. Even if the sun is shining and it’s all rainbows and butterflies for you, it might not be for someone else. So to see people live with empathy and think about others’ situations as well as their own would be a really nice thing. I’d like to think this situation will have some form of long lasting impact for the better, in regards to people’s relationships to their communities and further afield. You can listen to Sleep Eaters new single here. Our penultimate 'Bands in Lockdown' interview with Damien Sayell of the St Pierre Snake Invasion will be published on Monday. By Jon Milton I’ve been a fan of the Rolling Stones album ‘Let it Bleed’ since my teens, and up to a few weeks was completely unaware of artist other than the Stones that had a song that went by that name. Ignoring the cover versions, there are loads though, by Goat, The Used, Unlike Pluto, Cough, Smrtdeath, Boysetsfire, King Gizzard and the Lizard, Dead Birds & Blind Kids, John Phillips, the list goes on. The reason for this discovery? A new EP called Let it Bleeds, the first to be issued on Kitchen Practice, a new label based in London and the North-East. Each track on the EP is called Let it Bleed, but they’re all different songs, covers of The Rolling Stones, Goat, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and John Phillips respectively. The eclectic and idiosyncratic set of new artists featured on the EP range from the psych-folk of Spider Noises, the ambient electronica of Friends of the Monday Table, the art rock of Women’s Fashion and the garage rock of Pink Poison. It’s good too, and fun!. A wry, playful set of songs that sound like they’ve come from a lost tape from 1968. The EP kicks off with Spider Noises psych-folk version of the Stones song, followed by Women’s Fashion’s quirky take on the Goat version, and ends with Pink Poison’s deranged lo-fi version of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s track. The highlight of the EP for me though is Friends of the Monday Table’s clever deconstruction of John Phillips’s folky number, which is converted into a trippy chill out number, that with a bit of tweaking could quite reasonably have come from an ancient Boards of Canada session. Some of the songs were put together by the bands in isolation after the lockdown began, just when label head honcho Lloyd Bolton thought the EP would have to be put on ice. Individual parts were recorded and bounced back and forth until they arrived at the finished tracks.
Lloyd explains his motivations for starting a record label and the EP below. I’ve always loved the idea of record labels that have their own identity that goes beyond the bands they have. Since discovering Courtney Barnett I’ve been particularly obsessed with her label Milk! Records, not because of the individual artists (who are great) but for the community they constitute together, starring in each other’s videos, touring together and making compilation albums together. The idea of starting Kitchen Practice off by releasing a compilation was largely inspired by Milk! as well as other favourites like Slow Dance, Speedy Wunderground and Bedroom Suck. I’ve always liked the idea of indie music because it’s all about making up your own rules and not taking yourself too seriously. I feel like beginning life with a compilation of four different songs, each called Let It Bleed is a good mission statement in that regard. It’s a rather silly, tongue-in-cheek concept but has produced some great songs. For me, that’s exactly what having your own label is about. Similarly, I feel like the weekly Instagram feature of a Kitchen Practice Kitchen Object of the week sets the right tone for the label. (The Kitchen Object is a picture of something from my actual real kitchen, which I rate out of ten for ‘kitchenality’, ‘practicality’, ‘musicality’ and ‘significance to music history’ (and ‘bonus let it bleed factor’ at the moment)- you can see the first four entries on the KP insta now.) There was also a pragmatic reason for starting the label. All of the bands on Kitchen Practice constitute my immediate music-making community. I am in Friends of the Monday Table and Women’s Fashion, Spider Noises is the solo project of Women’s Fashion’s drummer Jack Calvesbert and Pink Poison is a band Jack is in with Tyler and their mate Louis. With these four unsigned bands around, I was immediately attracted to the idea of grouping them together on a label, since we would probably have just ended up releasing our stuff separately anyway (indeed, Spider Noises and Pink Poison already have their own stuff out already on their respective Bandcamp pages). It allows us to establish ourselves in reference to each other and maps out the range of output from each of us for people. In short, my love of indie labels and their capacity to express my favourite things about independent music are so integral to my enjoyment of the music they put out, it seemed obvious to start my own label to put out my own music and that of my friends. Let it Bleeds is released today. You can listen to the entire EP here. https://kitchenpractice.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/kitchenpracticerecs/ https://www.instagram.com/kitchenpracticerecs/ In the fourth part of our series of interviews with bands during lockdown, Mark Glenister spoke with Sammy Robinson of Treeboy and Arc and asked him about dealing with lockdown, how it’s impacted the bands plans, and their plans once life returns to ‘normal’. Firstly, how are you? How are the rest of the band as well? Hey, we’re all doing pretty good at the moment. Obviously, it’s easy to focus on the negatives in a time like this and dwell on certain things. We’re just trying to stay positive and productive, knowing that there’s many people in worse situations than us worldwide and feeling lucky to be in the position of safety that we’re fortunately in Do you have a daily routine, are you learning anything new as everyone else seems to be? Definitely trying to keep a daily routine. Getting up early, having a coffee and taking the day from there. None of us have got set things that we do each day, but in general we’re just trying to keep writing music and catching up on life admin. It’s also been nice having some time to rest. Usually we all work full-time jobs alongside the band so often don’t have much free time to relax, so this has been nice in that sense. Are you seeing this lockdown as a time to be creative? And has it changed the way you view the industry? We’re definitely all trying to be creative and continue writing as much music as possible. Whether that’s writing music for Treeboy & Arc or just writing and recording random bits just for fun to keep busy. With regards to the industry changing, I think it definitely will change in so many ways, but I think currently it’s too up in the air to pin point anything specific. Nobody really knows what’s going on or when gigs will even start happening again, so we’re just taking it as it comes. As a band are you doing anything for the fans? A lot of online gigs and Q&As seem to be the norm for a lot of bands, how easy or difficult is that for you as a group? It’s been difficult for us as we live across 3 different households. We feel that our music really needs all of the elements in it for it to be at it’s best, so it’s tricky for us to try and do any kind of live streams etc. We’ve made a couple of playlists like everybody seems to be doing, but that’s probably it for the moment. Photo by Megan Mechelle Dalton
With the lockdown being extended, does that effect plans for tours, singles, albums? Absolutely. We recorded our first album in the back end of 2019 and were very excited to get it released and tour it as much as possible. Obviously due to the current situation all of our plans have been put on hold and everything is pretty delayed. As I said before though, we’re aware that there’s many people in the same boat as us and also many people (not necessarily in the music world) who might be in bad situations right now. From a selfish point of view, yes we’re a bit frustrated that we can’t get the album out as soon as we would have liked to, but then again… it’s not the end of the world! Shit happens. As a fan I know how much I miss going to gigs, for the music and for the social aspect, is this something that you miss as well? Yeah definitely. All of us spend a vast amount of our free time at The Brudenell Social Club in Leeds. Whether that’s watching a gig or just hanging out, either way we miss it very much. Going to live gigs is our biggest intake of culture personally, so to have that taken away is pretty crap and can leave you feeling a bit uninspired and deflated. It’s for the better good right now though so I suppose we can suck it up and miss out on things for a while. We’re just looking forward to it all starting up again and being able to go to gigs nearly every night of the week. How important are your fans at this time, I know and I speak from experience, a lot of merch is being purchased to help bands, and I know you have a great connection with fans generally so are they an important aspect of getting through this? Absolutely. It’s nice to know that people still care, are still thinking of you and listening to your music. We’ve been getting occasional messages from people about a show they’d come to in the past or have seen clips of us playing live posted on social media by people and it definitely puts a smile on our faces for the day. Despite horrors of this pandemic, the lockdown seems to have a created a lot of really positive community action, and for once social media is being used mainly I a positive manner – Do you want life to return to normal once this is over, or would you like people to be using this time to evaluate their lives and start be part of communities and positive social change? I think that’s a difficult question. Yes, there’s lots of positive things happening across social media platforms at the moment and sometimes they’re great. However, often these things can also be coated with social pressure bringing great anxieties to many. Personally, we miss genuine face-to-face interaction with our pals and are looking forward to things returning to normal. At the same time, we hope there can be some lessons learned throughout this. It definitely seems to have made everyone in the UK realise how important the NHS is to our country, which we hope will be remembered when it comes to the next general election. Let’s vote for those who will fund and nurture our NHS, rather than just patronisingly clapping for it once a week. Obviously showing our appreciation to those key-workers right now is an amazing and important thing, we’re not trying to belittle that. We just hope that pride and faith in our NHS continues on after this pandemic is over. Our next Bands in Lockdown interview with Will Atkins of Sleep Eaters will be published tomorrow (Saturday) |
Archives
December 2023
Categories |