By Mark Glenister “We miss the crush, the gig, the buzz, the noise, the gathering, the sweat” It started with a text some 12 years ago, from a friend whose opinion I value greatly, and still do, it said …. “Singer songwriter, right up your street, you’ll love him” This was how I used to find out about new bands, through a group of friends I met through football, but whose music tastes and opinions I grew to value, if they recommended someone, then 9 times out of 10 they were spot on - So, I downloaded, I purchased and then I went to see this singer songwriter play live. First to a few people, then a couple of hundred, then a couple of thousand. Saw him play at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, play a headline show at the O2 and busk to a few hundred people alongside Billy Bragg. I did get selfish about him at one point, not wanting him to sell out and get 'popular', I then saw him smash Alexandra Palace (just under 10,000 people) to pieces, and I realised he hadn't changed no matter the crowd size, you still sang along, danced, sat down and did star jumps (yes you heard right) and you still walked out with a huge grin on your face and some faith in humanity, and Rock N Roll. Today, I got the chance to chat to this man, we spoke about learning new skills in lockdown, small venues, what constitutes a definite gig (there are rules), cats and their music tastes, and everything in between. The singer songwriter that my friend Michael texted me about is Frank Turner, and this is our chat . . . . So, during lockdown have you learnt any new skills like a lot of people seem to have? Yes, quite specifically a couple of things. I bought a build your own guitar kit for a beginner to intermediate, which I thought would make sense, thinking that it wouldn’t be that hard. Turns out it’s an absolute nightmare, its really very difficult. But I’ve learnt things about sanding and spraying, aligning fretboards, screwing holes and all that kind of business - which is a thing I’ve watched other people do to my guitars endlessly over the years, but never actually done much of myself. More specifically or more usefully I should say, I have been doing some online courses in music production and mixing in particular. I have been toying around in an amateur fashion with Logic for years, just always thinking to myself that there is a skills cut off point beyond which I won’t bother going. When we make an album, I go in with a producer who’s in charge of all the difficult bits. I am sort of most of the way there on a lot of things, so I have been learning lots and lots about delays, compressors and saturation, and that kind of thing, which is going to be useful. Totally agree, the more insight and knowledge you can have in to making a record, will only benefit you in the long run Yes, definitely agree with that ! Apart from learning new things, how have you approached lockdown? I know a lot of bands have been doing different things, and you seem to have continued touring even if it is from your own front room.
Haha the things is, the central thing about the nature of my character is that I have a busy brain, and I get very bored very easily. Most of the time my busyness is geographically focused, I‘ll be on tour, so I can be busy in Berlin for a few days or busy in Munich, or wherever. But at the moment its slightly more universalised because of the nature of what’s going on, and the fact that I broadcast through certain channels that are the same every day, I think a lot of people are like “oh my god he is everywhere”, where in fact I’m less busy but people are seeing more of what I do normally, because they have less to look at. I wanted to stay busy, certainly for my own mental health, I find idleness quite difficult. Its trying to make the best of a bad situation, I think like most people lockdown has not been one kind of universal monumental thing, its changed as its gone on in a number of ways, in terms of the reality of it, as like most people when it started I was thinking well maybe this will be for 3 or 4 weeks, and yet here we are on week 900,000 or whatever it is. So my expectations have had to be managed as to what’s going to happen on the other side of this, because again I think at the beginning a lot of people, myself included, were sort of imagining this joyous day where the church bells would ring, and we would all run into the street and hug each other, and everything would be fine. I don’t think that’s going to happen, I don’t think there will be any sort of black and white end to lockdown, so that’s been a thing to manage. Also, just in terms of at the beginning I was like “right I am going to be really productive, whatever it is, I’m going to have no distractions” and then I remembered this one enormous distraction which is a fucking global pandemic! Which counts as a distraction in my opinion! Then I had a couple of weeks of achieving nothing at all as a writer, which was very frustrating. I still find it quite difficult, you go to write and I don’t want to just write songs about lockdown, not least because I think there will be a huge pile up of lockdown songs in about 9 months time, which will obviously be quite tedious. I say this as someone who has written a few lockdown songs, because what else are you going to do! And at the same time writing about anything else is quite challenging, because there is this huge weight pressing down on everything we do. I don’t know about you, but at least twice I day I suddenly go “fuck” and remember what is going on, you get busy with something, you carry on with your day and then you suddenly go “oh my god global pandemic”, its very weird. I think for myself I generally have that ‘What day is it?’ feeling most days, and I know for my own mental health that I need to stick to a routine, and as much as I like doing things like this, it would be good for me to get back to work and have a 9 to 5 day Yes definitely, one of the things for me, is the way my life generally works is this sort of extreme contrast between when I am on the road, I tend to be on the go for 24 hours a day. And usually when I get home from tour the very first thing I want to do is do nothing at all, I want to sit in a darkened room and watch Netflix and talk to no one, well apart from my wife. Its very much about powering down, so I was in the middle of a tour when this first started, so initially it was well this ok, but then it turned in to the first few days after tour for ever, which is not a scenario I wish to get trapped in. I do think routine is a very important thing for a lot of people, a bunch of people have said to me “I really glad you are doing your shows every Thursday, because that gives me some structure to my week” my reply to which is “you and me both” I tend to know what day of the week it is relative to how long it is till I’m playing again. The gigs you have been doing from home, you have added those to your list of total gigs that appear on your webpage (currently 2491 Gigs in 48 Countries). I have, I was ambivalent about that at the beginning, but again that was at the point where we thought this would last just a few weeks, so it seemed much more like a passing phase. The rule I have always had about gigs is that they count of you play more than 5 songs, and the audience out number the performers on stage, which has not always been true in my career. The things is there’s my wife and my cat in the room, and the cat is standing in as an extra person in the band! The cat definitely counts as a band member! She is not fan, I’ll tell you that, its quite funny. My wife is a singer as well, we sort of realised that the cat (Queen Boudicat) has never known what we do for a living prior to this, because we don’t tend to do shows in the house during the normal course of life. She is not a fan, particularly as I sing very loudly when I sing, and the very first time I sang for one of these shows, she stuck her head round the day and looked as if to say “what are you doing” she has revealed herself to not be a die-hard Frank Turner fan Cats can be very judgemental sometimes Well exactly! So, the gigs you have been doing have all been in aid of various small venues around the country. As a music fan and as someone who follows bands that play in these venues, I understand how important they are. As an artist, how important are these small venues to you? On a basic level, culture needs a space in which to exist, and particularly noisy culture needs a particular type of space in which to exist. I notice you are wearing a Crows t-shirt today; I love Crows, James is an old friend (James Cox - Crows Lead Singer). A band like Crows, they have to play somewhere, they can’t just play on the street, they need that space to play and exist. For me as a performer it’s a place where I built an audience, built a career, figured out myself as a writer and a performer, and all this kind of thing. Its interesting, I do a lot of work for the Music Venue Trust, one of the sort of PR lines we go down for that, for understandable reasons if you consider the audience its being pitched to, is that people like Ed Sheeran, Adele, Muse, Radiohead and Biffy Clyro all found their feet in small venues, and went on to arenas and stadiums. Now that’s all well and good, but I do also feel its really important to also stress that some of my favourite bands will never play to more than 200 people, and they are equally as valid. Small venues are not just an audition ground for the “big leagues” , they are also the place where awesome fucking bands can make the racket they want to make for the people who want to hear it. Definitely, most of the bands I follow play in small venues, its how they grow their fan base and reputation. Even if its to just a 100 or 200 people, it’s a 100 or 200 people that want to be there to see live music. Right, and that’s completely valid. Its funny, live music, particularly live Rock N Roll music has always been the awkward stepchild of the arts world, and I don’t mean to say this with any sort of bitterness, but there are plenty of theatres that get loads of government funding, that have a 200 capacity. And quite a lot of venues that hold 200 people, don’t get that funding. What I would like in the world is an equal playing field. I’m not saying that everything has to be government subsidised or nothing needs to be government subsidised, but it would be nice if there was some sort of equality across the board on these things. The fact that the Music Venue Trust exists even when there isn’t a global pandemic, goes to show its not the easiest thing to run a small venue at the best of times. So, when the pandemic kicked in, I was looking for a thing I could do that would be helpful. I’m not sure that I am going to save the NHS, and I might add that I’m not sure its my job to do that! I was thinking about a forum with which kinds of funds I could raise, and the kind of actions I could take would make a meaningful difference, and this seemed the best one (Supporting Small Music Venues). So, with these front room gigs, you have been playing entire albums, b sides, rarities over the past few weeks. How have you found that, as there may be some tracks you’ve never played live or at least haven’t played for some time? Oh yeah definitely, in a way its probably not interesting to anyone other than myself. I’ve found the process of systematically playing through every song I’ve written in roughly chronological order, to be really quite an interesting experience. Because each record that I write, its such a concentrated period of time that I find it hard to compare my first record to my fifth record for instance. Its like comparing being 12 to being 25, not that I was 12 when I wrote my first album, its an impossible comparison to make. However the act of playing them through week by week, its interesting to look at it, almost with a degree of detachment for the first time. I’ve certainly spotted commonalities in song writing, that’s the polite way of saying it, between some songs in terms of certain chord changes or rhythmic tricks, that have cropped up more than I thought they had, because sometimes if I write two songs that are roughly taking the similar approach, one of them will go on the back burner. And now when I’ve been playing both its “oh yeah they are kind of the same song” not exactly but there are moments when you realise that was the trial run for that one. As I say I am writing at the moment, so its quite a good discipline to play through everything prior to writing something new, because at the very least it shows you what you’ve done and therefore shouldn’t do again. Totally understand that, you are learning by mistakes - because as you get older, things change, and the way you wrote about something years back, won’t be the way you perhaps look at things now. I believe incredibly, emphatically, that it is the duty of the artist to change. There are a handful of bands who are allowed in my mind to repeat themselves, ACDC and Pennywise spring to mind. The world is full of people who want me to put out ‘England Keep My Bones’ again, or ‘Tapedeck Heart’ again, or ‘Love & Ire Songs’ again! and I’m not going to do that, or at least try not to do that, because these records still exist. I still play tons of material off them live, and if you want to listen to it, its there. It’s on Spotify or its in your record collection. I want to make sure with what I am doing is at least in some ways fresh and new in my own catalogue. I think as an artist as you grow older your audience grows with you, they will be experiencing different things, so they’ll look to you to be expressing these things in your songs. So, you’ll keep the fanbase that you’ve always had, but perhaps bring some new fans in as your material grows. Well hopefully, fingers crossed – I think the other thing for me is that so much in the broadest sense of the term ‘Pop Music’ is concerned lyrically with events that take place between the ages of 16 and 25. I understand why that is, it’s because that’s the moment in life where people feels things very viscerally, and its therefore the easier fuel for song writing. At the end of the day there are bands out there who release songs about High School when they are in their mid 40s, and I’m like what the fuck are you talking about, what would you know and why would you care? I can’t remember the last time I thought about school, it’s just not a day to day concern in my life. One of the reasons I’ve always loved for example the Hold Steady, Loudon Wainwright III or people like that, is that they always write about grown up things, in way that I find very powerful, because I am now in my late 30s so I think about the kind of things that people in their late 30s think about. Well yes, you are married, you have a cat . . LOL yes exactly, by the way are you familiar with a singer call Chris Woods, he is folk singer who has been around for a while. His most recent record was called ‘So Much to Defend’, as an example of grown up song writing about grown up life, it is devastating, the best writing I have heard in years. Ok, I shall have a look for it (I did, its brilliant, seek it out) – that brings me nicely to my next question, if you could have written one song by someone else, what song would it be? There are endless examples of this, to be honest I’m quite jealous as a songwriter, if I hear a good song I’m like ‘fuck!’ – which is not a terrible instinct for someone who is a writer. The example I would pick is ‘This Love won’t let you Fail’ by Chris Wood. Its about his daughter going away to university, if that song doesn’t make you cry you have no soul in my opinion. I don’t have a daughter that is going to university, but it is just the most beautiful exposition of emotion and adult growing up emotions, it’s a really wonderful song. So, as we have mentioned you are currently touring from your front room, how important are fans to you now and outside of global pandemics? Well, that’s an interesting question. I always get this disclaimer in, I’ve always been uncomfortable with the word ‘Fan’ because it reeks of Marie Antoinette, its describing people who like my music ‘Oh it’s the fans’ it just sounds a little bit like ‘Oh the proles’ (I’ll admit I had to look this up, the Proles are the working class in George Orwells 1984) So having got that little disclaimer out the way, I have been very pleasantly surprised by the consistency of the people listening to my music, in terms of not just the basics of checking out the viewing figures of my weekly shows. The very first one was massive, and then it dropped down a bit which I expected, and I was expecting to continue dropping, but it hasn’t its stayed really constant, and its actually risen with the recent shows. And similarly the amount of money raised for the venue each week, I was expecting to tail off as the weeks went by, as peoples patience and pockets got exhausted, and that really hasn’t happened, and again the amount raised has been climbing as the weeks have gone by. So the thing that I did the other week, I was really awkward and defensive about this, in a way that my wife eventually persuaded me that I didn’t need to be. I did a show that was effectively for my own benefit, I did it through the medium of my merch company and my record label, it was like buy stuff as it helps those companies and in turn helps me. My source of income has ceased to exist in the short to medium term, I’m ok financially and I’m not going to be evicted any time soon, but at the same time I do have to think about that type of thing after a certain period of time. So when I was setting this up and doing the live stream, I was so defensive and apologetic and ready for the grief, and after a while my wife was like ‘Shut the fuck up, no one is complaining, everyone gets it’ and people were very generous then and I really appreciate that, as it is going to help get me through this. It’s a funny thing because I guess on some levels I’m looking to hard at the fact that I am supported by the generosity of people listening to my music- not because I don’t appreciate it, I don’t want what I do to feel too transactional. But at the same time it is true I don’t have a regular office job because people like my music, and feel bound to financially contribute to it from time to time. And I am very grateful for that, because I still don’t have to get a normal job for the time being, so lucky me! See I think you do have a normal job, I think a lot of people would love to do the job you do Absolutely, this is the thing, I have always been a bit ambivalent about the word job because on some levels what I do is very much a job, there are lots of boring grinding shit bits that I have to do. But at the same time, I would have killed for this when I was a kid, most of my friends would kill for it now. I am the luckiest mother fucker in the world, I am my own boss, I do something creative for a living, I do my creative passion for a living, I don’t want to ever sound ‘this is my job’ about it, I want people to know I’m aware of how fucking lucky I am. To be honest with you I feel you’ve always come across like that. Most people that know you and your music would never accuse you of taking it for granted. Well, thank you, I really appreciate that We briefly mentioned Crows earlier, speaking to them and some of the other bands I follow, its pretty apparent just how important fans have been during this pandemic. Fans that would normally be buying gig tickets, are helping keep these bands alive by buying albums or t-shirts or tote bags, and a real community has grown up around this. Yeah, I’ve been really impressed with how quickly the general public for want of a less apt term, have grasped that idea. An interesting comparison for me, I was just about around when streaming really properly started massively reshaping the economics of the music industry. And everyone was like ‘Its destroying it’ well its not, its changing it. At that moment in time people were very slow to appreciate what the financial realities of this change was going to mean particularly to smaller bands. I remember when I had my first song on Radio 1, I was technically homeless, there was a sofa in hallway id sleep on when I was in London and had nowhere else to go. I was in bar where some guy came up to me and was like “oh you got a song the radio, buy a fucking round in for everyone then yeah” and I was like what are you talking about, you are out of your fucking mind, that might have been true in the 70s and even then! So, I just feel that in this moment in history people have really looked at it and gone ‘cool I get it, I understand what an impact this is going to have on bands. I think people have sort of accepted that touring and merchandise is the way that most people make money as a band, and if you take one of those out of the equation something else has to pick it up. I know as a fan, how much I miss going to gigs at the moment, so anything I can do to help that band to ensure they will still be around once lockdown is over, I’m going to do whatever I can Totally, I was having this conversation with a friend the other day, in a way that wasn’t planned by anybody which I find interesting. What lockdown and the whole livestreaming phenomenon has done has really very like precisely and scientifically isolated what’s good about gigs. I think livestreaming is great for the time being, it’s not a terrible replacement and blah blah blah, and even the minor sense of community with the comments coming through on the screen. But its not being in a fucking gig, James (Cox) doesn’t crawl on your fucking head during a live stream, and I miss that. Its kind of cool because in the long term there were lots of people talking about things like virtual reality downloads of shows, buying a USB of the gig as you leave, and always thought that was kind of horse shit basically. I think that everything that is happening now, is really pinpointing what is good and different about the live music experience, in short that is gathering really, and that’s obviously problematic. There are all these people and bless them they are trying to come up with socially distanced gigs. I saw some video footage of one and it was the worse thing I’ve seen in my life. Its not what we miss, we don’t miss sitting in a fucking car park watching a band on the stage at the end, we don’t miss it being roped off in individual seats 10 metres away from everyone else in a massive auditorium. We miss the crush, the gig, the buzz, the noise, the gathering, the sweat – now it may be a while before we are allowed to do that again, but the positive is that that’s become very very clear that it’s a very uncopiable experience. It’s funny I was chatting to my friend Dave, Dave Danger who was my best man. He said about a week before the lockdown kicked in, somebody asked him to go and see band, a band that he liked, he was just like I’ve had a long week, another time maybe. And now he is like I will literally go and see any band, I don’t even care, any band in the history of music, with the possible exception of Screwdriver. He was like just give me a gig, and that’s how I feel as well at the moment. So what are your thoughts on the current music scene, not the top 40 as I don’t think that has any relevance now, but the current ‘alternative’ scene? I guess the first thing I would say is that I would hesitate to crown myself as fully qualified to talk about it, do you know Cal McRae by any chance? Yes, he is the Crows manager Yes that’s him, the thing about Cal is, I’m 10 years older than Cal and I fucking love him, quite often he is my voice through the underground. If Cal is going to see a band and I have a free evening its probably something cool, relevant and hot so I’ll stick with him and I mean that in the best possible way. I am getting to the answer of your question I promise. The second thing I would say, as compared to when I grew up and I don’t know how old you are but at the very least I would say we are of similar age (I said nothing and took the compliment), before the internet the things like scenes and movements meant a bit more in my opinion. What the internet has done is it’s removed the geographical constrictions of being into music. In 1991 if the NME declared that guitar music was dead then that meant something, because it meant the access to guitar music for your average kid was hugely restricted. These days if someone says that guitar music is dead, anyone listening to guitar music goes ‘ok carry on’ and keeps listening to the bands they like, so its not so tidal or fashionable, and I think that’s a really good thing. But anyway, having said all of that, it seems to me that there is a lot of good music coming along. In terms of Punk there has been a really interesting wave in terms of British punk, maybe not British but not American, so you have IDLES, Fontaines DC, Slaves, Crows. It’s a very noisy heavy thing that isn’t like American Hardcore, I love American hardcore, its what I grew up with, its really cool to hear bands that are really heavy but not sounding anything at all like Sick of it All (American Hardcore Punk Band). I think that’s really exciting and interesting, so as far as I am aware which is limited, I think there is some good shit going on. You need to speak to Cal again quickly so he can tell you Well exactly, can I like phone a friend? Errr No! I think IDLES are a good example, its so refreshing to see a band that aren’t young, haven’t been put together. And they are speaking about things that so many people have or are going through which is so important, and it makes other bands realise they can do the same. Absolutely, the thing I thought when I heard IDLES and I mean this as the biggest compliment, I don’t know any of those guys, the biggest compliment I can pay them is that it was the most threatened I’ve felt listening to a punk band since the Sex Pistols pretty much. There has been a thing that has happened in my lifetime, and even which I arguably play a role in and I will fess up to that, which I would call the nice-efication of punk rock! A lot of it comes from the late 80s posicore thing, and a lot of it comes from more progressive political ideas, and that’s great. But there is a part of me that remembers punk rock was also about threat, it was not necessarily about feeling nice and everything being nice. There are moments where a punk rock show was supposed to be dangerous, so the first time I heard IDLES, I was like ‘Mother Fucker, I’m scared of this guy and that’s awesome. It’s been a long time since I was scared of the front man and that’s what I want, not all of the time but some of the time at least. As a side bar, in recent years I love The Clash, but I have definitely decided in the Pistols versus Clash debate, I am hardcore on the Pistols side of that, I just thought the Pistols were fucking incredible. When Johnny Rotten sings ‘I look around your house and you’ve got nothing to steal’ its just fucking terrifying, even now when you listen back you can understand why people shit their pants when the Pistols came along. Its such a punch in the face! Totally, its so confrontational, I think that’s what IDLES do so well, you see them on stage, they have that aggression but there is a lot of thought in it as well, its not aggression for aggressions sake! Well there’s intelligence to it, its intelligent aggression. Its been a while that I have felt that in a band, and I really appreciate that, its so important. Agreed – moving away from that, is there one person dead or alive, doesn’t have to be music related, that you would love to meet and interview? Clive James, I am an enormous Clive James fan, and one of the great sadness’s for me is that the moment I started to get into him was when he first became very seriously ill. He was given 6 months to live but ended up living for another 8 years, which is a wonderful thing for those of us who are a fans of his work, because in my opinion as a poet he did some of his best writing during this time. But like Cultural Amnesia is a book that changed my life, from top to bottom, just rearranged how I did everything. Its weird because it was a time of my life where I could have met him if he hadn’t have been ill, in terms of where his celebrity was and where I was. If he wasn’t terminally ill I could have figured it out we did have one or two vague mutual friends, but you are not going to call someone who has leukaemia and ask if they want to meet a fan, its not the done thing! I just sort of felt that he had probably had enough of people like me in his life, so I didn’t do anything about it. I think that was the right decision, he passed away last year, and very sad about that I was too. Its just a shame because I feel like everything I know about the guy, shooting the shit with Cline James would have been the best. I think like yourself probably I knew him as the guy off TV, and it wasn’t until they started publishing his poems when he first got ill, that I was like wait a minute he is poet, yeah and cultural critic and a giant intellect, and his autobiography is the best book ever, so yes I was a late comer to his oeuvre! But at least you found him Yes, very true So, last question, when this is over, do you think when we return to whatever normal is now, that the community spirit we’ve seen over the past few months with supporting the NHS or helping small venues will remain, will people have learnt lessons from all this? I think we are in a point in history as you and I have this conversation today, I’m reticent to make some sweeping predictions, going back to what we said at the beginning, the enormity of what we are living through has become clear as its gone along. In the beginning it might have been this weird thing that happened in 2020, that we’ll look back on in 2 years’ time and go ‘wow wasn’t that strange’. I think that the comparisons to the wars or whatever are pretty overblown, no one is bombing us and no one is being shipped off to shoot at people they don’t know. Nevertheless, in terms of it being a society wide impactful event that I suspect will last for many years in some form or another, I think that this is the large event of our lifetimes. I am big history buff as is my wife, and she said a fascinating thing the other day ‘I’ve always loved reading about history, not that keen on living through it’ and I couldn’t disagree with her. I don’t know, I suspect that the world will be much changed on the other side of this. I hope that those changes will empathise the better things to come out of lockdown, the sense of community, the most positive thing to come out of lockdown for me was that almost everyone I know first instinct was ‘How can I help?’ I think that’s actually a really positive reflection on mankind, of course there is negativity out there, but generally speaking most people were like ‘how can I help, how do I fit in’ – there was a thing for a calling in service for old people isolating alone, to be on the phone for them, we were up for that, but we went there and they were like we have already had 400 times more people than we needed after the first day, like everyone wanted to do something. Friends of mine are doing catering deliveries for people, or whatever it else might be. Is that sustainable change for the rest of our lives, I don’t know, there are plenty of bad things about lockdown, but who knows, I think that it will change everything radically Let’s hope so – thank you so much for doing this, its really appreciated and I’ve enjoyed chatting. Hopefully see you on stage properly not in your front room soon! I must admit the day when I play a gig, even if it’s a livestream in another building, that’s going to be a nice day. Whenever it might be, I really feel like the first time we are able to do a proper gig, and you and I both know what the phrase ‘proper gig’ means. The first time that happens again its going to be really emotional, its going to be a really powerful event! And with that, the interview is over, I could have chatted to Frank for ages. Afterwards I sit thinking about how life takes us on twists and turns, if someone had said to me years ago that I would be interviewing musicians who I admire as a hobby, I would have laughed at them. Yes, they usually got it right when it came to suggesting bands to listen to, but I never held out much hope for them predicting the future. I hope the one thing that does happen, is that we can get to go to gigs again. We understand how important they are to us, as Frank said “We miss the crush, the gig, the buzz, the noise, the gathering, the sweat” and that first gig is going to be a very very emotional moment for a lot of us!
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By Jon Milton A month or so ago we interviewed Manchester based band Alex Rave and the Sceptical as they released their debut single Itch, and today marks the release of Profound Absurdities, the full EP from which that song was taken. The band describe the EP as a ‘discontented take on various aspects of life that we can all relate to’ with its lyrics exploring ‘Love, landlords, workplace exploitation, fear and despair’. It’s certainly the sort of thought provoking music that will make you ponder your lot. Profound Absurdities is a cohesive body of work, full of reflection and melancholy that should be listened to as a whole. Singles Itch and Reasons are both good songs on their own but seem more complete when placed together with the others on the EP. Wistful opener Reasons sets the tone, all reverb heavy guitar swathes and impassioned vocals. So it Goes (So I’m Told) echoes the post punk / goth rock of their Manchester scene contemporaries Document and is followed by the hardy Itch. The mood of reflection continues with the disconsolate No Wonder and is completed with beautiful piano led Cher Ami/Coda, which in a way reminds me of Asleep by The Smiths.
The EP was recorded over five days at the bands’ guitarist Connor’s home studio in Huddersfield, with the title 'Profound Absurdities', ‘an existential reference to the seemingly relentless stream of absurd/meaningless obstacles that life throws at you - stressing about rent, pledging more time to a job than to the things and people that you love etc’. The band cite parallels between themes explored by that king of alienation Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus and a couple of the tracks here, and that certainly seems a fitting description. Profound Absurdities is out today, and you can listen to the full EP Here It’s a wonderful thing, chatting to artists about what got them into music and how other people’s music has influenced the way they make theirs. You quickly realise that at heart, they are just music obsessives like you and me, with the only difference being that they’ve got more talent for making music and performing than you and have done something about it! I’ve always been fascinated by those artists that embrace a wide range of different types of music, either through their songs, their playlists, or in other forms, so I thought I’d approach a few and find out what made them tick. Seeing as Yak were the inspiration behind this blog and given that his playlist tastes seem wide and varied, lead singer and guitarist Oli Burslem seemed a natural choice to start with. Since the band became dormant late last year, Oli has retreated to a chicken shed in the wilds of the West Midlands, near to where he grew up. The decision to put the band on hold came from a lack of impetus to write anything else, and he felt as though he had started to repeat himself. We began our conversation with Oli mentioning that this break period had allowed him to start writing again, and reinforced the enjoyment of doing it, so whilst there are no immediate plans for a return, you get the feeling that a third album may well just happen. Having established the state of the band, we go on to the topic of how he got into music: Early on I was pretty useless at school. My brother played music and music was always around the house and as I was kind of useless at everything else, I found great comfort in music. Since the age of 5 I’ve been obsessed with it. I even dressed up as Elvis at an early age, 5 or 6. My sister is older than me, and she went off to university and left me a load of house music, because she thought I might get bullied, because all I was listening to 50s music! Locally, I’d go down the pub and there would always be musicians there, and they’d give me tapes of their recordings. I was mad into Dr John - my uncle had all his records. He was probably more into the New Orleans traditional stuff whereas I liked all the trippier stuff, and I’ve been obsessed with Dr John ever since. How did you get into playing? Just going down the local pub. There was always drums around the house, and my brother played guitar so I got into playing that and going down to the local jam night on a Monday, which I think was encouraged because I was so useless at everything else, and music was the one thing that I had a great passion for and still do. I found great solace in music – I’d always have my music on. What was the first gig you went to? I went to a load of gigs that my brother played in, bikers bashes and down the pub. But I remember the first one I went to was at Wolverhampton Civic, my local venue, which was Hot Chocolate with my mum. It was the ‘Full Monty’ boom and funnily enough we recorded our last record at Micky Most’s RAK Studios (where Hot Chocolate recorded). I was listening to a Hot Chocolate song the other day, ‘Man to Man’ and it’s so good, sounds like David Bowie. I’d always go to Wolverhampton Civic Hall to see the bands that were coming through, so I’d see anyone that was coming. I saw the White Stripes play there for their White Blood Cells album which got to number one, so there was real good hysteria around the venue. That got me on to a load of those Detroit bands, who would come to Birmingham. Those Detroit bands and their connections with Birmingham – I always kind of romantically thought that a lot of rock n roll I like, like the Stooges was born out of the suburbs of post-industrial decline so I thought there was a connection between Detroit and Birmingham. What was the first record you bought? A Shaggy single – I had the choice between that, and Oasis and I preferred Shaggy, still do! How have you discovered different genres? Just searching for the truth in the music. Maybe the words, the lyrics or in the composition or putting yourself in a dream state. I’ve never really found I’ve been into one thing, and that’s maybe been in detriment to the band to not follow a clear narrative, and even when we have got into one, we’ve switched it up a bit. I think most bands, to have some success have to be consistent, within yourself or musically, and to sell themselves as one thing. With all the different music I like you can always find some truth in it, and that’s what I like and that always resonates with me, rather than a simple narrative. The last one for us was ‘lives in car’ I just found I love so much, not just music. I like everything, taking pictures and videos and doing up my car, I just love finding the beauty in something that no-one else can see. That feels quite personal. I did think this analogy once – my relationship with music is quite intense I suppose, our live performance is quite intense, and I think that’s because my relationship with music from the get-go was quite intense. Maybe not really figuring out what I wanted as a kid, my relationship with music seemed to make sense. Me being involved in music slightly later has always made me think ‘do I deserve this?’ I don’t know, but if I make it genuine and real and still have the relationship that I did with music then it makes me feel better about making stuff and feeling self-indulged. The more you put yourself into something, the more you get out of it and that goes beyond music. At this stage I asked Oli about ‘A Rainbow in the Curved Air’ by Terry Riley (the song that Yak always use to take to the stage), and about how he came across other similarly experimental artists like Steve Reich, who have appeared in the band’s playlists. I remember the Terry Riley one - I was just in a really lucky situation when I listened to it. We were all coming down off a binge in the van driving up to Glasgow, and it came on the radio. We were driving through hills and it just fit the situation and we went ‘wow’. And from that stemmed lots of finding out lots more about that kind of music. I think now, over the last ten years people start to listen to music differently. People have playlists now, and have music to wash up to, to drive to, people listen to music in slightly different ways and there isn’t one clear narrative, one clear scene. Another area of interest to me is how people consume music. I wanted to know whether Oli binged on types of music (as I do) with me citing James Brown, the JB’s and that whole 60s/early 70s funk era as a binge-worthy example. Depending on what I’m doing. James Brown ‘Live at the Apollo’ is wicked. We used to listen to that a lot in the van, it’s just beautiful ‘tonight we’ll play like this’ and they do a big melody at the end. But then I’ve been working on building sites and that’s just Gold FM and Absolute 70s and about having a good laugh listening to all sorts. And listening to more expansive stuff too. Just all sorts. There are some correlations, like I might listen to old blues like Mississippi John Hurt, and then in the same breath I’ll listen to Mali/African things because I think there’s a lot of similarities between that music. Or more expansive music, and then driving fast and listening to the Stooges. Do you have certain musical icons / pin ups? The first one would have been Elvis, and I think that was because the movies were always on in the house around Christmas time, and I couldn’t figure out whether he was real, or whether he was fake, and then the live comeback thing came – it was all mysterious – was he black, was he white, was I supposed to be attracted to him or was I not? Is he male is he female? I wanted to dress like Elvis, curl my lip and all that. Then there was obviously Bowie, ACDC/Angus Young, then lots of classic rock, because it’s a very rock neighbourhood round here, Robert Plant lives up the road and all that. There wasn’t much you could get into in the old days – if you had a record player you had your Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, you wouldn’t need that many records. With the internet now there’s shit loads, more people are into more stuff and now more and more people are exploring different things I suppose. Have you modelled yourself on any of your heroes?
Probably. I guess because the band came along later in my 20’s I think I’d probably tried everything and failed, and then there was only thing and that was to try and be as truthful unto myself as possible. But I’m sure there were lots and lots of ones there. If there was one song you could have written, what would it be? (Ponders this question) Well there’s the more expressive songs that players like Hendrix which are a document of a time so you couldn’t do that, and then there’s classic songs that encapsulate anything, like Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful World. Some of these classics are lost because they are so etched in your mind, they’re like buildings that have been there for years, you just kind of walk past them every day. They have no relevance because you’ve just taken them for granted, they’re just there, and sometimes you revisit them and go ‘fuck – that’s pretty good!’. Like ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon is a song that I’d probably never listen to, but when you think of the sentiment to it you think wow, that’s pretty all-encompassing, so probably something like that. Is there anyone alive or dead that you’d like to meet so you could find out more about them? Dr John would have been one – although I’d always say it’s a bit tricky meeting people you idolise as it can be a bit weird. I loved working with Jason from Spiritualised because I was a big fan of Spaceman Three and Spiritualised. There’s lots of people I’d like to meet because I think it would be quite amusing. I’d like to go to the Wolves with Robert Plant, that would be amusing just to listen to funny stories. He talked the other day about playing with Bobby Bland’s band and those kinds of funny stories. Ronny O’Sullivan, I’d like to have a pint with him. Maybe a superstar - I have been around certain people that are of a superstar / rock star people – but when you meet them in certain situations it’s like ‘god, he walks and he talks’ I’m not really bothered about meeting people. We concluded our chat with me saying that I hope Oli returns to music, how the band have a real difference for me, and about the warmth felt by a lot people toward Yak. Reinforcing his earlier sentiments, he concluded: You just have to get rid of some of things that frustrate you, and the only way to do that is to isolate, turn off from everything, write some songs, come back and do it more independently, so that’s the plan. I’ll be back with a vengeance, the third record’s always a good one! Part 4 of the Stay Home interviews, and Cameron Pettit of Fish Bowl Events talks to Psychic Lemon, Murman and Forest Mourning, all of whom have contributed music to the 'Stay Home: Independent Artists Against Covid 19' compilation in aid of NHS Charities, which you can listen to and buy from Bandcamp here. Psychic Lemon Tell us a bit about the band We are three guys from Cambridge and our sound is a mixture of psych, space rock and krautrock. The band used to record in a studio in the back of a small garden in Cambridge, but got evicted and now lead a nomadic existence. Our influences include bands like Hawkwind, Goat and Amon Düül II. Most of our rehearsal time is spent trying to understand why people vote tory. What has changed for you as a band during lockdown? Everything and nothing: we are used to playing together every week, and have done for years, but a band injury forced us into taking a break just before lockdown started. So while not playing together every week is a big change, we would be in the same situation with or without lockdown. However, we have decided to swap the bass for an analogue synth so we can get around this injury and play together again, so that could be a big change in our sound. Are there any tips that you can give to bands for the remainder of the lockdown, anything to help keep them sane, busy, productive etc.? Just look after yourself and your friends and family. Everything else is secondary. If that's all ok and you want to get back to your band, keep up with musical things -- keep playing, record new ideas, try new things, work on your technique, maybe make a plan for what the band does next. Find out if your favourite venues and rehearsal studios need your help. We'd like to hear other bands' suggestions too. Can you recommend any artists that you’ve found during lockdown? Since Tony Allen died we've been listening to a bit of afrobeat, both Tony Allen and Fela Kuti. Andy B: I've gone back and trawled the classics from my collections - Lots of The Birthday Party, early Sonic Youth, early The Cure and of course Joy Division and 70's Hawkwind. Murman Tell us a bit about the band: We're MURMAN, a London three piece formed in 2018 through a Gumtree ad. We play high energy, loud live shows, and are inspired by post-punk and indie classics. What has changed for you as a band during lockdown? We don't live together so can't really practice at the minute. It's been really strange not rehearsing in the same room for months! Abbi doesn't have a kit at home so can't play, but we're still writing and trying to develop new songs through the madness of it all, and we've already booked in a few shows for the Autumn so we have something to aim for. Are there any tips that you can give to bands for the remainder of the lockdown, anything to help keep them sane, busy, productive etc.? Don't put too much pressure on yourself to use this time productively! Going out for walks and keeping in frequent contact with others should definitely be a part of your daily routine from a sanity perspective, but you shouldn't feel pressured to create music during this strange time - if anything, there'll likely be a flourish of new material and songs developed in the first few weeks of people being able to practice together again. Can you recommend any artists that you’ve found during lockdown? Our friends Bokito have just released a new song which is a great addition to the lockdown playlist. Aside from that we've spent a lot of time diving into older musicians' back catalogues, from Siouxsie to Erykah Badu. Forest Mourning
Tell us a bit about yourself: Forest Mourning is my solo project birthed from my ruminations on decaying natural landscapes and expansion of housing in rural communities. Most of the Forest Mourning material is recorded in a natural setting to capture the environment sounds and my sound responses to them. What has changed for you as an artist during lockdown? Not a lot has changed for Forest Mourning during lockdown. I have been sending out recordings to do proxy collaborations with people around the world to be released in the future. Are there any tips that you can give to other artists for the remainder of the lockdown, anything to help keep them sane, busy, productive etc.? I'd totally recommend reading 'Deep Listening' by Pauline Oliveros. It contains practices to apply to general listening and performance of improvisational music at home or elsewhere. Some roots in yoga and spiritualism but also an introduction to sound creation even if you don't play a conventional instrument. Can you recommend any artists that you’ve found during lockdown? I've been listening to a lot of Jana Winderen (field recording sound artist), Lao Dan (Experimental Saxophonist and Flortist), International Harvester (Trad Folk/Psych act that evolved into Träd Gräs och Stenar), Toru Takemitsu's soundtrack to the film Kwaidan and loads of Sun Ra. By Jon Milton It’s certainly been a quiet week on the new releases front. Up until Friday I thought the only new release I would be writing about this week would the splendid Modern Nature mini-album’, which is no bad thing of course, but fortunately a few more good tunes managed to present themselves. The seven tracks on Modern Nature’s ‘Annual’ are a requiem to the four seasons, beginning in the winter, passing through the Spring, joining before Autumn and winter reappears. Naturally the mood and tone of the record changes as the seasons unfurl, the beautiful Flourish ruefully considering how the world will unfurl in the coming months, Halo basking in the light of summer and Harvest ushering in the Autumn before the album concludes back in the season it started with Wynter. Anyone familiar with Modern Nature’s debut ‘How to Live’ will appreciate how beautiful their music is, although the considerable folk influence on their debut and Krautrock touches are superseded by far jazzier tones on Annual. Jack Cooper’s hushed, considered vocals will naturally draw comparison with Nick Drake, but the laid-back guitar and brass recall Miles Davis from his ‘Kind of Blue’ era and Wes Montgomery. You can listen to the full album here, and we’ll be talking with Jack about his musical influences later this week in a new series of interviews called ‘Pin Ups’. Staying with yer Jazz, John Dwyer of Oh Sees has teamed up with some friends and formed a band called Bent Arcana who released a single this week. ‘The Gate’ is ‘the first interstellar transmission from five days of electrified & improvised sessions recorded at Stu-Stu-Studio, edited down to 40 minutes’. Dwyer describes the project as ‘very much on the ECM / 70s hard fusion / prog-kraut tip’ and this track reminds me of Miles Davis around the time of ‘On the Corner’ and Big Fun’. Anyway, the full album is coming out in August, ‘The Gate’ is cool and it all sounds very intriguing, so I pre-ordered the album and you can do the same at www.johndwyer.bandcamp.com.
Also of note last week were singles from JW Paris, Lice and Lumer. JW Paris ‘That’s Why’ follows on from Royalty earlier this year, and is another catchy indie rock tune from the band. You can listen to it here. Bristol’s Lice have released two new tracks - Arbiter which like its predecessor Conveyor is an enjoyably noisy beast, and Folla which takes in a different direction, with layered voices combining wonderfully over an eerie organ and pounding drum backing. Last but certainly not least, Lumer released the first track from their new EP ‘ By Her Touch’. As you’d expect from the band it’s a top-quality tune, that starts at a measured pace and then explodes into a tribal post punk frenzy at its conclusion. ‘By Her Touch’ also displays a growing maturity from the band, and you can hear it here. |
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