MIKE DAVIES COLUMN OCTOBER 2021

Producer, songwriter, singer, engineer, and quizmaster of this parish, ROB PETERS has released his first solo album in 15 years, albeit greatly aided and abetted by Dermot ‘Dog’ Walker on electric guitars, the tracks recorded over recent years in an assortment of studios. Titled The Moon That Thought It Was The Sun (Wafer Thin), it bears his familiar Lennon influences, opening with the echoey strum of When We Fall harking to late 60s progressive folk and from whence the title comes and a song about perhaps how limitations or circumstances prevent us achieving our aspirations (“The moon that thought it was the sun/So wanted to shine on everyone/But it was so dark it could not dee far/and lost its way amongst the stars”).

Alive, one of my favourite tracks,  is another strum, slower,  here with a slight waltztime melody, a reflective, plaintively sung love song about standing by him despite his screw ups  (“punctured by idiocy I fall down again … all that I’ve promised you will be there in time… all that we sacrificed will haunt us for the rest of our lives/But you and your persistence has kept us alive”).

The musical mood shifts to take in medieval colours for another stand out, the 6os (and,  slightly Bowie) psychedelic  folk shaded Madam Misery, an old Peters and Dog number guessingly about bullying those who are different or with mental health issues (“mercurial and agile, they took the piss when he was fragile”),  with its woodwind simulating keyboard notes and catchy chorus. A shuffling jazzy blues groove underpins Suse Loves Cooking, a relationship in crisis number (“what has happened to our heart? We were lost in love now we’re drifting far apart”) because “You’re not listening, you only see things your own way”, but looking to try and work it out. 

It’s back to70s  progressive psychfolk territory for tale of The Bearer Of The Poisoned Chalice (Part One: Descent From The Mountain), another Peters and Dog number,  with its pulsing distorted guitars  and which, telling of a sorceress “who swept down from the mountain” and “fell upon the village/Like an ancient curse” so that “All children later born were strangers to their kin/The adults withered from within”.

Taking a lazing blues lope  with Lennon/Oasis tones, Scapegoat delves into New Testament territory (“leave us with your sorrow but don’t desert us in our hour of blue/Believe us when we tell you that the mystery of this wilderness is you”) with its chorus of “when he comes from back from the darkness he will shine with the stars up above”.

Another infectious folksy strum with a singalong chorus, Long Island, Long Island is  a slow shanty call for emotional salvation (“you were my only hope when lost at sea”), followed by A Little Box Of Forgetfulness, a  bluesier introspective reflection of getting older (“I was born after the war, then spent my youth lost in the Sixties… Older I took my time to wander/Long hair and drugs were all the rage/Playing music was an answer/I felt that I had come of age...these days…my hair is long once more but greying”) with its nod to current climes (“we live in stranger days than ever/We sing this song to stay alive”).

Given the notes of disillusion, disappointment, despair and desperation that inform several of the songs, a swaying strum heads to a close with hope in the vanguard to take A Leap Of Faith  on the wings of love and friendship (“I will walk the Earth if you want me to/I will never leave you ‘cos you’re my soul/I will hold you in your darkest hour …keep me in your thoughts ‘though we’re far apart/I’ll forever me there by your side/I will be the one who halts the tide”), ending with Inside Out,  John McQueen on double bass and wurlitzer-like sway as the ripples of time wash up memories and whatever the distance in years or miles “Here in your sigh/We’re entwined/And in my mind/There is treasure inside/For us to find”. Shine on.

Originally one of Birmingham’s great rock hopes of the 80s, DAWN AFTER DARK released three EPs on the nigh legendary Chapter 22 label before imploding in 1991.  In 2019, however, they were approached to see if they’d consider getting back together to open for reformed former fellow touring outfit Balaam and The Angel. Such was the response that Chapter 2 owner  Dean Brown resigned them and now, with founding members drummer Tony Henderson and singer Howard Johnson alongside new recruits Ollie on lead, Russ Frame on rhythm and bassist Drew Gallon, they’ve released their first music in 32 years, a new updated version of Maximum Overdrive originally produced by AC/DC guitarist Stevie Young, and the all new heads down, hard rocking riff driven Nothing Can Fulfil Me (Without Your Love), sounding like they’ve never been away. A long belated debut album, New Dawn Rising, will be released in December.

Having released her debut single in mid-2020, GABY KETTLE finally has a follow-up with Jamaica (GK Records), an assured slice of jazzy soul that starts of slow before hitting its slinky, prowling  piano backed funky groove as she sings about “standing in Jamaica wearing no make up”.  Potentially of Knight and Mvula levels, someone should invest in putting an album together.

You should be familiar with the name JACK RUBINACCI from his six albums, most specifically the first two, 2008 debut  The Boys at Twilight and follow-up The Opal Tree. What you might not know is that the Anglo-Italian singer-songwriter was prominent on the Birmingham scene  in the 90s as part of Honeyman. Now based in Norway, he’s just published Songs & Stories, a memoir of his life and career to date with a background to some of his songs that makes great reading, especially for those who were around Birmingham at the time. The good news is he’s also working on a new album, meanwhile the book can be found at Amazon.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN SEPTEMBER 2021

The spirit and sound of vintage Dexys Midnight Runners is alive and well with That’s Me, (Shoestring) the infectious goodtime bouncy new single from COLIN HALL, not least since it features   trombonist Big Jim Paterson from that classic line-up. Guaranteed to lift the spirits, you can find it at  https://colinhall.bandcamp.com/track/thats-me.

A guitar and drums duo from Wolverhampton, BROOZER tag themselves as Anti Silence Pioneers. Well, they may not be pushing any envelopes, but new single All The Same is solid chug and fizz punky pop with more than a touch of The Only Ones about it. Which is no bad thing. CHARTREUSE are a jazzily soulful four piece with a fondness for fractured time signatures, as made evident on the forthcoming Is It Autumn Already EP, trailed by Things Are Changing Too Quickly and their rather fine recent piano and strings-based single Only You which, sung by frontman Michael,  musically references  Alicia Keys Empire State Of Mind while also calling to mind the early albums of Richard Hawley.

Also of a jazzy persuasion GEORGIA BRAY has been likened to Corrine Bailey Rae and new EP Forget Me Not should certainly get her much wider attention, opening with the Latin bossa nova feel of Dirty Little Secret and sustaining the groove with Over Again, the smoothe horny funkiness of Think About You and, catching slower Girl From Ipanema breeze, the breathy, kittenish-sung Tease Me. Ronnie Scott’s should be on the phone.

It’s hard to ignore the Verve influences evident on Medicate + Alleviate from Wolverhampton’s LIONS OF DISSENT, which clearly has a thing for Bittersweet Symphony, while the narcotic otherworldy influence of Ashcroft can also be heard on Kubrick. A little obvious perhaps, but they weave gold rather than copper from the melting pot.

Described as a love letter to a dying planet, electronica, jazz and avant-pop alchemist ROSIE TEE releases her new EP, Earth, Embrace Me, next month, trailed by the singles Lungs, 99-seconds worth of bleeps, keyboards and cosmic atmospherics, and the pulsing otherworldy Anchors which conjures a cocktail of Bush and Bjork. 

From Rhino & The Ranters to a solo spotlight, R John Webb now surfaces under a new guise as DANDY THE VANDAL who, backed by The Godforsaken Sweethearts, offers debut single Dandy The Vandal, a snapshot of his very own bohemian chic Ziggy Stardust, a steady driving drum beat propelling the rhythm as he parlays Reed, Jagger and Bowie  (and, of course a nod to Bolan’s Dandy In The Underworld) as he sings “They all want some of his rock n roll/He's the trigger to the lock and load”. He may well be.

Drum set a walking beat with the piano joining in for Sinking, EUAN BLACKMAN nicely lives up to the Facebook blurb about writing “introspective and evergreen songs for rainy road trips with wistful gazes”, which sits nicely alongside previous release 24 Hours 7 Days, though it would be interesting to hear him on something with a little more muscle to it.

Featuring Ange Lloyd on vocals, the latest rising talent to be showcased on their releases, produced with customary magic touch by Gavin Monaghan, Wolverhampton’s gloriously retro pop collective CERTAIN perfectly capture the sound of 60s Spector girl pop balladry on Whatever I Do, a song that vividly conjures thoughts of The Ronettes, The Crystals or, on a  UK note, even Cilla Black. Terrific. Bring on an album.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN AUGUST 2021

BOAT TO ROW emerge from lockdown with a fabulous new single, Quiet Place (Static Caravan). Written and recorded before pandemic got stuck in, so not themed about its enforced isolation but rather anxiety, depression and not getting lost in self-absorbed introspection at the expense of relating to others. Featuring Deborah Hutt on bass clarinet, it’s an uptempo, rippling melody number with echoey reverb guitar, shimmering keys and Michael King’s reedy vocals conjuring thoughts of early ISB and the watery pastoral folk of Nick Drake. 

Veteran observers of the Birmingham music scene will recall that, having left the early Duran Duran line up, Stephen Duffy teamed up with TV Eye’s Dave Twist, Paul Adams and Dave Kusworth to form the Dylan-inspired named Obviously Five Believers and alongside fellow ex-Duranie bassist Simon Colley. Following a name change to The Subterranean Hawks, they eventually became THE HAWKS, recording just one Bob Lamb-produced single, Words Of Hope before call it a day in 1981 and going on their individual musical journeys.

Kusworth passed away unexpectedly last year, but not before he had been in contact with Duffy, as custodian of the band’s cassette archives, with a view to releasing an album. As literally the last thing he said to him, Duffy has now honoured Kusworth’s request and memory with Obviously 5 Believers (Seventeen Records), a 10-song collection (some of which were regulars in The Subterranean Hawks  live shows) of  what he refers to as blueprints rather than demos. Released at the end of the month, it’s, as you might expect, a somewhat ramshackle sounding affair with its share of somewhat flat sounding vocals, rambling late 70s slacker melodies with hints of folk influences (as on Aztec Moon) and psychedelic era influences. Opening with All The Sad Young Men (not, it must be said the young Duffy’s finest vocal hour), it proceeds through such numbers as the bass bolstered psychedelia Big Store (which, recorded in their earlier incarnation,  actually has a hint of those early Duran days), chugging Colley showcase A Sense of Ending with its staccato guitar riffing, the poppy bounce of Bullfighter and, by way of musical tangents, the jazzy swing and undercurrents of Jazz Club that might well have been an early Police work out.

A jangling Serenade (which reminded me of the early Idle Race), the harmonica blowing 60s pop Something Soon and, mining a Spencer Davis bluesy groove, the sprawlingly rowdy What It Is! complete the package which, while likely of interest only to Birmingham music historians and ageing fans of their chaotic live shows, most certainly deserves to be out there as part of Kusworth’s legacy. 

Underlining the adage that three’s a crowd, THE MASSES are a burly-looking Birmingham rock trio, guitarist-singer Ed Woolams,  bassist Rishy Kumar and drummer Will Downs, whose self-released second single, Think For Yourself,  reveals an infectious raspy vocal, driving bass lines, fierce distorted guitar all encased in a strong melody  with engaging hooks.  Decidedly one’s to keep a very close eye on.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN JULY 2021

Burntwood’s Gorstey Lea Street Choir return with new Gavin Monaghan-produced album Prince’s Park to Farsley - Volume I (500 Broadcast), comprising four new tracks and four from Extended Play One ‘re-imagined’  by Choque Hosein from Black Star Liner whose then band, The Hollow Men,  Michael  Clapham had supported when he was part of The Great Divide and whose current Leeds residence provides the journey link in the title (for the record, Burntwood’s Prince’s Park is the smallest park in the UK). Obviously, it also nods to Prince and Prefab Sprout.

Of the latter, first up is  FireboySlowBurn, a pulsing, spooked  rework of  ...from a boy with the vocals back in the mix, followed by Cinquante Cinq Six Huit, a glorious marching drums and brass driven  transformation of   Saint Marie into something majestically anthemic. In contrast Lowborn & Stargazing is stripped of its vocals and re-emerges as heady dance track    Lowbyrne while the indie rock Broken Down Radio is recast as the cosmic floating instrumental Mr Blue Sky Boat.

Of the new material, the album opens with the shimmering slow sway alt folk of Up With The Larks featuring George Shilling and piano by The Great Divide member Paul Cooper, followed by the bass, guitars,  crashing drums and tumbling chords of Bluebird, Hollywood… Domino with its Eastern psychedelia feel. One Way Ticket opens with a spoken sample behind the piano and plodding drums for another retro psychedelic groove that, like its predecessor (“One summer long ago before this all began/We left school for fame and fortune”) features reflections of days passed and the grey nature of change (“Round here were fields, corner-shops and public houses/Pastures of green… now not so super, supermarkets”). The last is a more upbeat nuggets, the loping brass-burnished 12 string guitar bounce of That Chitty Bang Majik inspired by watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that speaks of an escape from dead-end mundanity (“I'm leaving this burnt town/Tomorrow night on a runaway train/I need to seize this time”).  They’re quietly becoming one of the most interesting bands in not just the West Midlands, but the country as a whole.

Rising stars and schooldays friends from Stourbridge, now based in Birmingham, THE NOVUS, Connor Hill (vocals), Thomas Rhodes (guitar), Tyla Challenger (bass) and Euan Woodman (drums) unveil their debut EP Thaleia Standing (also produced by Monaghan), named after the Greek muse of comedy. Opening with the industrial bass grinding heavinesss of previous single I Serve Not, it cranks up the pass for, bass throbbing away the driving post-punk, spoken-styled vocals of the paranoia-themed Hate Is The Cancer with its PiL echoes. Overdriven nods to Sabbath-smelted heavy rock with a deliberate pummelling groove, cast in echo and reverb, before floor toms intro and underpin the 70s psychedelic swagger of Castaway, culminating in the doomy Journey (With No End), its a capella opening blossoming into sitar-coloured hints of the darker prowling shadows of Bowie or perhaps even The Chameleons alongside the EP’s recurring nods to Nick Cave.  Stoked by the anger of youth and fuelled by Hill’s powerful vocals and the immensity of the guitars and rhythm section, they are poised to take their national place as Birmingham’s next big thing.

Frontman with Odmansbox, WILLIAM WILLIAM ROGERS  trails his forthcoming solo album, William William Rodgers Sings the Yellow Pages, with Gone Shrimping, a catchy, upbeat alt-folk ditty about, well, what it says, featuring Pete Churchill on  accordion, double bassist Ben Muirhead and Eddy Hewitt on percussion.  Bringing further sunshine to these overcast times, ALEX OHM releases the scampering indie pop of Joy. Spread it around.

BRUM BEAT RECORD REVIEWS JULY 2021

THE AEROVENS

A Little More (Self-released)

Back in 1969, the St Louis psychedelic pop  outfit signed to Parlophone and recorded their debut album Resurrection at Abbey Road with Beatles’ sound engineers Geoff Emerick, Alan Parsons and Norman Smith. However, when its two singles failed to chart,  the label shelved the album and bid the bad farewell. However, in 2003 it finally surfaced, accompanied by press coverage about how they’d hung out with The Beatles and met Hendrix, with both The Guardian and Rolling Stone extolling the album’s praises. Now, 18 years later, founder member Tom Hartman has resurrected the name for this follow-up, although the McCartney-like album opener Stopped! opener  and the title track  were both actually written back in 1969,  after recording the album, the latter having a  previous existence  as the B-side to Hartman’s 1971 post-Aerovons single released  on Bell, home to The Box Tops.

It is, as you might expect, of a decided 60s psychedelic-pop persuasion with its treated vocals and acid-guitar sounds, Shades Of Blue calling Sgt, Pepper influences to mind with its  Indian instruments and reverse guitars while piano ballad Me & My Bomb, about your first car as a teenager,  is pure ELO while You  & Me, a  song about a  lifelong relationship  conjures George Harrison.

So Sorry is another piano ballad, about a messed up relationship, channels McCartney, the album ending with The Way Things Went Tonight which switches allegiances to the dreamy harmonies of The Beach Boys and, finally, harpsichord makes an entrance for Swinging London which, as the title suggests, evokes the sights and sounds of  1969 England. Like stepping into a musical time warp, this succeeds in both capturing that retro magic while still sounding fresh and youthful.  Definitely a case of looking forward to a little bit more. Mike Davies

MIKE DAVIES JUNE 2021

 A bit of a lull this month, but Wolverhampton’s FITZROY HOLT  makes his debut with Kelly, a  strummed Dylanish slow summery waltz  drawn from his experiences of working with the Wolverhampton-based women’s homeless charity, Haven, and an ode to all the forgotten, misjudged and neglected homeless Kellys in his hometown. The blurb likens him to Damon Albarn, Leonard Cohen, Scott Walker and Richard Hawley, the latter at least being an influence you might hear.

Shifting from Wolverhampton to Dudley, I Met A Girl is the first taster from the upcoming album by Kate’s Hillbillies, a duo comprising Christopher Nott and Dave Low, the album being a collection of songs in celebration of their hometown. The bouncy, melodic single recalls the old night club in Dudley Zoo (the Zoo Bar, as I recall) in a musical mood that mingles Northern Soul with the 80s pop of bands like The Bluebells and Lightning Seeds.

Another Black Country name, GIANT AND THE GEORGES (George brothers Ben and Sam, the tall one Luke Best and drummer Kristian John) are an outfit with an inclination towards Oasis-like swaggery  indie as evidenced on new single Mexico, which also throws bells and whistles (well brass anyway)  for a suitably upbeat summery sound. 

THE SILVER LINES revive late 60s British garage rock a la the early Stones with new single Alive featuring a throbbing bass solo while Quentin Francis are, it says here,  a Midlands-based supergroup, featuring  Matty George of The Sunset Beach Hut, with Luke McCrohon (TSBH) on bass, Ross Carley of Echo Beach! on lead guitar and James Morris of La Dharma on drums. Debut single Molly is another injection of summer bounce into proceedings, again trailing retro clouds (well as retro as The Strokes), about a  girl who, having gone through a  break up, heads off to Paris  to be an actress , written from a  friend’s perspective.

Mentored by Dan Whitehouse as part of his lecturing job with BIMM, ELASTIC release Scatterbrain, written by Adam Murphy, featuring Joshua Reece on vocals and Dan providing the inspiration for the string outro. A lush, dreamy pop ballad with touches of vintage McCartney, as well as Whitehouse himself, it marks the pair as names to keep an eye out for (https://soundcloud.com/admurf/elastic-scatterbrain-official).

BRUM BEAT RECORD REVIEWS MAY 2021

 

MARK & THE CLOUDS

Waves (Gare du Nord)

From Bologna but based in London for some years, guitarist, singer and keyboardist Marco Magnani is patently in thrall to the psychedelic pop of 60s UK, here working as a trio with John O’Sullivan (on bass, vocals and guitar, and Shin Okajima on drums, augmented by Rachel Kashi on keys, violinist Maya Kasparova (and Tom Hammond and Joseph Hammond supplying brass. He has an appealing nasal tone to his delivery and the songs, anchored by his organ work, are melodic and hummable with some solid guitar flourishes.

The core influence is clearly Sgt Pepper era Beatles, Harrison especially, but you’ll also hear strong echoes of the era’s psychedelic underground more cult names such as The Idle Race, Simon Dupree & The Big Sound and The Pretty Things alongside hitmakers like Hendrix and the early Quo, working their way through American garage band (think Count Five, The Beau Brummels, styled rockers such as ‘You Wanna Put Me Down’, the spacy balladeering ‘Winter Song’, moody acoustic strum  ‘Free Me Now’ (definite hints of the UK’s Kaleidoscope) a riff heavy ‘No One Makes A Sound’, the brass bolstered ‘Heavy Drops of Rain’ and the jangly pop ‘In The Big Crowd’. Closing with the five minute cinematic work out of ‘Someday Else’ with its spaghetti Western guitars, they’re not perhaps among the first division of retro psych rock, but a very credible entry in the league playoffs.  Mike Davies

JOE CARDAMONE

Quarantina (Sonic Ritual)

The former Icarus Line frontman is now something of an independent filmmaker and this second solo album serves as a soundtrack to his latest project, a series of nineteen real life-based shorts exploring a couple’s relationship over the course of lockdown. Musically stripped right down with running times varying from 66 seconds at the shortest to three minutes 21 seconds at the longest, generally just his yearning, at times pleading voice and keyboard drone, it’s a brooding affair that works largely as a collection of tone landscapes variously evocative of Bowie, Cave and Scott Walker’s experimental later years.

There’s a minimalist beauty and emotional ache to things like Dead Sky, New Moon and Flowers, three of those that stretch barely over a minute, while Nine Of Swords is a more dramatic, more forcefully expressed number with stark cabaret colours, Nite Theme (Rock N Roll) set to an electronic pulse, Crushed Skull an appropriately disorienting listen, Yeshua a simple churchy organ vignette of a ballad and, another taking its title from the Tarot, The Tower a disquieting instrumental shrouded in storm clouds. Cluster B is another instrumental, this a late night neon and rain soaked number featuring saxophone by Taiwanese-Canadian actor-musician Alex Zhang Hungtai.

Baby Blue, with its Bowie inflections, drums and background harmonies is the closest it comes to what you might call radio friendly accessible, the 19 tracks ending with the dreamy cosmic drone of Ur So Cool 2, but, while doubtless having more impact when heard in tandem with viewing the films, it makes for an immersive experience. Mike Davies