Review - William Elliott Whitmore at Borderline

About a decade ago a band limped on to the scene, hung around for a bit and then promptly disappeared, although they stayed together and still release albums and tour.

They were instantly recognisable for singing style of Tom Gray. It was a husky, smoke infused drawly growl which peppered such hits as Whippin Piccadilly and Get Myself Arrested. It was a subtle voice which fitted nicely into their rag tag multi instrumentalist line up evoking a sound more entrenched in the American South than South Bermondsey.

Tom Gray was in his early twenties at the time and had the voice of a 70 year old lifetime smoker and it just oozed from his lungs coating the songs in Americana.

William Elliott Whitmore is into his thirties and whereas he is a Jack Daniels swilling Iowan he sounds much less convincing.

I was taken in by it initially on record and was struck by the stark instrumental use and husky bark which contrasted to great effect.

I was convinced that he was black and knocking on heavens door. When I found out he was only 30 something and white I thought, nice idea.

Then the idea started to grate with each listen but I had already bought tickets for the Borderline gig.

Whitmore is a very personable young man. Bearded and wearing a pork pie hat he was every inch the musician as he wandered around mingling with the punters. He remembered people from previous gigs and spent a fair amount of time with each fan who wanted a chat. If this job doesn't work out he should consider a position in customer service.

Taking to the low, intimate, wee Borderline stage he opened a full bottle of JD and handed it to the audience to polish off. Another nice touch.

His playing style is bold rhythm strokes, be it on banjo, or less successfully on acoustic guitar. The songs are solid and stand up well as solo accompaniment but the playing is rather rudimentary and it all got a bit samey after a while.

He can hold a crowd well and everyone was rapt, but I got a little bored and went back to meet Allan Jones the editor of Uncut.

Another bottle of JD got opened and passed around and he left the stage to huge cheers and I admit the gig improved after the obligatory encore.

The voice, oh the voice. It sounded better and less contrived than on record but it is so put on it sometimes sounds like he is swallowing frogs and trying to regurgitate them again.

Will he be around in a decade? I'm sure he doesn't know anything else, but he won't be on the radar round these parts unless he changes his style as it was just a little tedious.

Rolling Stones - Cocksucker Blues

This film has been banned, ever since its conception in 1972. There is a court order, which still applies today, stating that no-one may view the film without the director being present. With that in mind, I present a review based on spurious speculation....

Presented in black and white and colour, the film follows the Glimmer Twins and the rest of the Stones (Mick Taylor era) on tour to promote the awesome Exile on Main Street album.

 Interspersed with intimate footage of Mick and co are up close and equally personal moments of the band performing. The cameras get so close to the action, even when they are playing to thousands of fans. And this less than three years after the murder and mayhem at Altamont.

But there is a reason for this blase attitude and that is the copious amounts of powder flying about. One of the reasons it's banned is because it shows the touring party, including Jagger, openly sniffing the marching powder backstage.

A lengthy passage showing Jagger in a trance performing Midnight Rambler is spellbinding, as he crawls around and stalks the stage. This is in glaring pinks and shows the band romping in its full majesty. This then cuts back to the entourage talking about and experiencing the joy of cocaine, once more.

Then the film takes a darker turn as Richards and a couple of pals go straight for the horse. It is no wonder they never wanted this shown. While he is strung out in one part of a room backstage, Ahmet Ertegan, founder of their legendary record label is just feet away. It truly is a different era.

The cast of beautiful people also includes Stevie Wonder, Andy Warhol, Biance Jagger and Tina Turner, all of them just players in the main story of the kings of their world, Mick'n'Keef. "Anything to get away from those 39 people" Mick says at one point as they are driving down a freeway. It's clear that touring was tedious business at times, even among the drugs, mayhem and nakedness.

The live bits are gloriously loose and ramshackle. Without the sheen of trained camera angles and Scorcese being coerced by Jagger into how to do his job it shows the band at their best. Wonder joining them onstage for Uptight and Satisfaction is a mess but so uplifting and Jagger and Keef combing for a raucous rendition of Happy is brilliant.

It is after this Keef vehicle that we cut to a naked groupie with her legs open, covered in cum. This opens up a whole section where groupies dominate proceedings, handing out spliffs, jacking up and being naked. This is the part of the tour you only hear in articles, but it's all there.

If you can get yourself a copy of this film and can get a sit down with the director to see it, I urge you to do so. I hear it's very, very good...

How To Buy music

If you are looking for inspiration on what music to buy next, I have already sung the praises of The Wire magazine if you wanted to look forward and discover music.

If you wanted to look back, though, you could do worse than checking out this website:  www.muzieklijstjes.nl/mojohowtobuy.htm . Yes it's Dutch, but as it collates information which is purely artist names and album titles, all the info is in English.

It lists the top ten albums of the best releases of a certain artist, band, label or genre as voted for by the readers of Mojo magazine. And they are usually pretty spot on.

So, if you wanted to kickstart a John Martyn or Quincy Jones collection, this is for you. I have found these lists invaluable and I hope you do too. Let me know if it helps in any way.

Review: Morrissey - Years Of Refusal

His recent activity on our shores have caused the legions of fawning fans to rise to the surface once more, defending their fay hero to the hilt.

It seems our Moz would do anything rather than stay in this country. It seems he is less loyal to his loyal following than, I'm sure, they would like. He is no better than Phil Collins really. Stay in the U.S. or Italy, anywhere, just not Britain. Just nip over, raid their manbags and purses and flee like Raffles into the night.

Before he starts his biannual theft of the nation's overdrawn bank accounts he has dropped another one of his much hyped solo albums. The man who railed against the record companies so effectively on 'Paint A Vulgar Picture' is doing the rounds, laughing at Wossy's gags on his chat show and looking very uncomfortable. The credit crunch truly must be universal. He has even resorted to a strip with his band to try and shift a few extra units. Sellout? Well let's look inside. 

It's a hairdrying, furnace blast opener in 'Something Is Squeezing My Skull'. He sounds positively masculine, barking the names of prescription drugs out against the howling tsunami of his full-on band. It has the light thrash of a limp Therapy? under his Manc-Irish Proclaimer-lite chorus. 500 miles?

The next two bang along in a similar fashion, like Spector has burst in to the studio and told everyone to play like there were 50 of them at gunpoint. 'I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris' takes the foot off the pedal in a Stranglers on the Bontempi kind of manner. 'All You Need Is Me' is fine, it has a great lilting verse but the chord changes are somewhat pedestrian.

The Spanish clippity clop of 'When Last I Spoke To Carol' is a welcome respite from the unnatural tone of the album and provides one of the highlights. It's playful, and shows the humour that Morrissey used to display so well and in such abundance. He also manages to stray of the lyrics and 'wo-wo' giving the tune an air of spontaneity.

Halfway through and I am just crying out for a lead guitar line or a frickin' piano or something to break the monotony. The beautiful bass of Andy Rourke is a very distant memory and this very tiring album wears thin very quickly. Even when the Spanish trumpet reprises for 'One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell'.

'It's Not Your Birthday Anymore' and to be honest I am not looking forward to it if someone is going to get me this half-arsed, one-trick pony of an album. I'm going to get my copies of Strangeways and Vauxhall and pour myself a Baileys. Hopefully next time Morrissey deigns to darken our shores he can come bearing finer gifts than this.

4/10

More Miles

Another week, another Miles Hunt gig. This time it was just him and his violinist and partner (?) Erica Nockalls. In the intimate back room of the Half Moon Putney, it was the perfect place for Miles to hold court.

After the pretensions of the previous week, being kind and polite to everyone in the Birmingham Town Hall, he was back to his sweary, loutish best. The songs were peppered with forthright profanity-strewn anecdotes and most of the audience lapped them up. There was a small group of Wonder Stuff fans who chatted throughout the opening salvo of new material.

"If you lot shut the fuck up, it makes my job a lot easier. Why don't I come to where you work and talk like cunts while you try to do your work?" He volleyed forth.

Indeed, I had fallen out of touch with Miles' solo material since his earlier 'depressing trilogy' of the 90's. But the new stuff is better, enhanced as they are by the superb playing of Nockalls. Her talent is unquestionable. It would just be good to see her get a bit more involved in the stories as she is in most of them. A bit of patter between the two would make the 'act' gel and Miles can truly be part of duo as it states on all the promo material.

The anecdotes included tirades at Bono, en erstwhile target, and usually included Miles getting a bit miffed at something or other. Great story about a blowout on a California highway and a good Stuffie story about their radically different tastes in music introduced the subject of the dearly departed bassist and drummer, Bob Jones and Martin Gilkes.

The new album "On sale tonight, with other lovely souvenirs" is well worth the investment to further explore the duo's take on folk rock as is their last effort, Not An Exit.

The audience was filled with late thirty to forty-somethings and a fair few of them were very pissed indeed, stumbling around the venue, possibly imagining being in the Melody Maker tent at Reading circa 1992. But the atmosphere was genial and had an air of old school reunion.

Miles' voice is getting better with age and has lost some of its early naive charm. Bottles and bottles of red wine and thousands of fags later, he is becoming a great draw on this circuit and if the songwriting stays at this level, he will be able to shout at and harangue his ageing fans for years to come.

Nick Cave

The long-faced uber overlord of populist doom rock is fast becoming a veritable national treasure. He is Australian, yet the UK has taken the ex-junkie to their bosom with aplomb. It is quite a recent development, starting with Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus and gathering rapid momentum with the chart conquering, barn-storming Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! LP of last year. Released in March, he only stopped glorying in its success in November with two sell out shows at the grand reopened Troxy in London's grimy side of Limehouse.

Now, a lot of his fans, his true fans, fans who have been with him since the scuzzed up, fucked up days of the nihilist Birthday Party, through the God fearing, revenge wreaking of his early bad Seeds albums 'From Her To Eternity', 'Your Funeral, My Trial', et al. claim that he has sold out with proper tunes and soppy-arsed ballads. Fortunately, I only got Nick around the Murder Ballads album so I am not one of these people. To be honest he scared my pants off before that. When he would gaze out, all ivory faced and blank from my cherished NME I would quickly flick to a comforting piece on Carter USM or something to take my mind off him. 

Surely for those 'fans' he is trying to appease all comers with his side-project Grinderman, being the unsatiable workaholic that he is. Nowadays I own every single studio album he has released and immerse myself totally in his genius. His music has taken me back to the folk music of the 1920's where he has taken so much inspiration. The man is a walking reference book of the last century and of the ancient worlds of Greece and mythology. A poet up there with Cohen and Dylan, some say and I agree. I look up the references he alludes to. never happy to rest on a traditional structure of writing, he will put it all in and then with the help of the latest Bad Seeds take out the crap.

A decade and a bit love affair with heroin has not destroyed the man, it has enhanced him and he can look back at an astonishing catalogue written in the depths of addiction and come out the other side with a family of four boys and a loyal wife and write songs more in keeping with this new routine. It is a natural progression. Selling out is a lazy way of saying that the guy has moved forward in a career of thirty years. People grow up. Some don't, like Mark.E.Smith, and he still writes the same kind of stuff. And that's fine too. Just as long as what you are saying is still vital and original it doesn't really matter does it?

Review: William Elliot Whitmore - Animals In The Dark

Listen to Whitmore for the first time and your head will fill with questions. Why haven't I heard him before? How old is he? Is he black or white? And most importantly, is he touring?

The first track on this remarkable album is Whitmore accompanied by a military shuffle on a snare drum. And that's it. It's raw and naked and utterly compelling. Singing with a throaty yarp you reckon he's been around a bit. Maybe another Seasick Steve. Well the colour is accurate, this weather beaten voice belongs to a white guy and not a Leadbellyesque troubadour. The whiteness is betrayed by a slight vulnerability to the voice which pokes its head above the cotton fields from time to time. 

The most surprising thing about this guy is that he is just 31. A goatee bearded, skater looking hick. Born to Iowa farm owners he sings from the red and brown earth of the land and is always only sparsely accompanied. Slide guitar and footstomps, banjo or just a well-picked acoustic, it all serves that voice.

With songs like the aforementioned 'Mutiny', 'Hard Times' or the sprightly yet funereal stomp of 'Old Devils', the album just reeks of hardships and struggles. Moonshine, prison and stolen souls, Southern landmarks and sin. It sounds like the musical of Robert Johnson's life. And I would sell my soul at the crossroads for this album.

9/10

Miles Hunt prepares for Shared

Their paths rarely crossed when they were enjoying their greatest successes but the lead singers of The Wonder Stuff, The Mission and Aztec Camera will all perform at ‘Shared’ later this month. It’s an evening of acoustic performances at the newly renovated Birmingham Town Hall on January 30th. The eclectic line-up also includes Nick Heyward from eighties band Haircut 100 and singer-songwriter Katell Keineg. The event is being organized by Miles Hunt, the mouthpiece of the Midland’s favourite sons, The Wonder Stuff. “The offer was made to me and Erica (Nockalls, the band’s violinist) by the Town Hall and we jumped at the chance,” he says from his studio in Shropshire. “But as we have just done some big Wonder Stuff gigs I wasn’t sure 1000 people would want to come and see us do something different just 3 months later.” So he decided to share his evening with other musicians, hence the title. “There are plenty of people I would like to see doing an acoustic set that I haven’t seen yet,” he says, “so why not use this as an opportunity to do just that?” It seems, though, that he has been admiring most of the performers from afar. He has only met Roddy and Nick a handful of times between them. “The only thing that links them is the fact that I like them,” he laughs, “I don’t know if any of them have even met each other.” His initial encounter with Roddy Frame back in the late eighties ended in ‘drunken nonsense’ at the famous Rockfield Studios in Wales which has previously hosted Oasis, Coldplay and Queen. “I think Roddy was recording his big hit, ‘Somewhere In My Heart’ and we were starting our second album, ‘Hup’”, he recalls. “They wanted to borrow a harmonica and then about a week later I got given it back and they asked if I wanted a drink as it was their last night in the studio. It was only me and (bass player) Bob Jones who went and we got slaughtered. Then something occurred that night and Roddy felt bad about it.” They didn’t see each other then for over 15 years and Roddy still felt the same way even after all that time. When I asked what happened, Miles remained tight-lipped out of respect for Bob who died in 1993. Perhaps it will all come out on the ‘Shared’ night. “I suppose we’ll broach the subject but I know it’ll be fine, Roddy’s an absolute gent.” he states. Hunt’s first encounter with pop sensation Nick Heyward was much more innocent. But this time Miles was the one to feel embarrassed as he was only aware of the one album of Nick’s, Pelican West. “Then I was relieved to hear him say that he had only done the one.” says Miles. One artist he is very familiar with, though, is his great friend Wayne Hussey who has had chart success with goth faves The Mission and Sisters of Mercy. Neither of these groups would be musically associated with The Wonder Stuff but the friendship has endured. “I have known Wayne for 25 years,” he says, “and yes, our music isn’t similar. We play the guitar very differently and to sit and write songs together would be a right old chore.” So instead the pair have managed to remain close by being supporting acts for each other on various tours over the years. Recently, Wayne has played keyboards on occasion on Miles’s tour with Erica. And as for the little known female on the bill Katell Keineg? “I’ve had two of Katell’s records for years and it was a friend, who is also a female singer-songwriter, who played me her stuff. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake for her as I just thought ‘This is you, you’ve been copying Katell Keineg!’” Keineg, born in France, earned her playing stripes in New York and performed at Sin-e, the same venue that got Hallelujah singer Jeff Buckley noticed. She even got to sing with the tragic star as well as recording with the gnarled legend Iggy Pop. Hunt, who is best known for hits Dizzy and Size Of A Cow, is proud to be sharing the stage with such variety and talent, and he hopes that it is only the start for ‘Shared’. “I would like to do at least one more this year,” he says, “not in London, London gets spoiled with these things all the time. We want to find a nice venue like the Birmingham Town Hall which is a lovely place.” Shared will also form part of the Heavenly Planet festival in Reading in July. The event will feature world music, poetry and comedy as well as the best of British talent. Hunt is thrilled to have been given the opportunity and is keen to make the most of it. “Hopefully it will run and run and we could do a Shared live album. With the mix of people we could get playing together it could be really interesting.” One of his heroes is Paul Weller, did he approach the Modfather himself? “No I didn’t ask Weller! And judging by his behaviour in the tabloids recently, I don’t want a drunk like that there! Anyway, I think me and Wayne will have that covered.” They most probably will. Miles Hunt was never a stranger to drink and cites anti-hero poet and writer Charles Bukowski as a constant reference point. He even penned a song, ‘A Great Drinker’ in his honour. Hunt had a bigger reputation, though, as a straight-talker, never afraid to voice an opinion on anything or anyone. His current targets are emo’s in their ‘uniforms they buy in Top Shop’ who have ‘everything provided for them.’ “It strikes me that emo’s not a scene at all really, just someone making a lot of money out of telling them what to do rather than them thinking for themselves.” Welcome back Miles, we’ve missed you.

Rave On Buddy

Buddy Holly died exactly 50 years ago. Rock'n'roll wasn't even 5 years old and one of its pioneers was dead. Along with the Big Bopper and Richie Valens, Holly perished one freezing February night because of the pressures the music industry was exerting, even then. The pilot also died , taking with him a talent so huge that his influence and image still reverberate around the planet to this day. 

Everyone knows at least one of his songs, most know 3 or 4 and even the least knowledgeable music fan will recognise more and not necessarily be aware it is one of Holly's compositions. The back catalogue, owned by Fab Macca, thumbs aloft McCartney is small but perfect and should the man have lived, who knows what he was planning next. They even made a posthumous hit out of some demos he recorded - Peggy Sue Got Married.

If you look at his record lables, they are listed as being co-written, however, this is normal for records from that era. When managers all wanted their larger than justified slice of the action, they threw themselves on the writing credits. This greed led to Holly not receiving his fair dues. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't a huge star in his day. A lot of the records became big after the crash, but he could have lived a fuller life if he didn't have to chase the money so much on the punishing tour circuit. This led to is untimely demise and robbed the world of an original talent.

He was a kind and, maybe, too generous man, although not a total pushover. He managed to rile the prudish Ed Sullivan and refused to kowtow to his demands. Sullivan had his instrument turned down so he just shouted to be heard. He didn't suffer fools but his pandering to the financial restraints imposed by his management saw him pay the ultimate price.

Dig out the greatest hits, download it, whatever. Just listen once more to the timeless songs. The music didn't die that day but it was severely damaged for a while and its progress delayed by years.

Review: Grand Duchy-Petits Fours

This collaboration between Black Francis and his partner Violet Clark sees the former Pixie on fine form. 

It really is a partnership to rival his sparring with Kim Deal on the Pixies efforts. On Fort Wayne, for example the backing melody could have been the deal herself. Clark's voice doesn't have the American drawl that typifies Deal's performance and she is more reminiscent of Kristen Hersch/ Tanya Donnelly, and that, if you cast your mind back to the early 90's, is no bad thing.

Black's contribution is strangely muted, taking the back seat on the majority of tracks. The songwriting is strong and the use of electronic gadgetry on some tracks is most welcome, adding another, sometimes dreamy, wistful, air to the tunes. His growly trademark, off key guitar lines are ever present and reminds you of the Pixies heyday. But the songs, while looking forward and sounding modern will always have one foot firmly in the past due to the unmistakeable input from Black.

Seeing Stars is a highlight, using all of the above ingredients to great effect. When the going gets a bit more rocking, (Black Suit) it is closer to his solo efforts than the Pixies but the ever present presence of Violet take the edge off.

It's a varied, surprising album and if you have become a bit bored with his output of late, this should give you the jolt to put a little black back in your heart.

7.5/10