Category: BR Content

Words by John Noblet

Abie’s Miracle Tonic are a three piece band with way more instruments than members – their arsenal includes various types of guitar, several kazoos and a souped up washboard.

The stage they grace tonight is situated outside the Midlands Arts Centre, and although the MAC might not be the best possible backdrop for their eccentric, ragtime whimsy, it seems like the right choice; kids run around happily, the odd passerby stops for a quick dance, casual observers dip in and out of conversation whilst the hardcore musos gape in awe at how quick the guy on the washboard can move his hands.

I find their easy going charm very difficult to resist. Yes, many modern bands who are influenced by 1940s/1950s music can come across as gimmicky, wheeling out the ‘vintage’ outfits as if that makes up for the screamingly obvious lack of content. But Abie’s Miracle Tonic come across as capable, talented musicians who have found the right tools to express themselves. In fact, they’re the direct opposite of gimmicky, given that their stage presentation involves the three of them sat on chairs, passing instruments back and forth, making music and enjoying themselves.

The kazoo solos function as just another cool sound to play around with, an acidic contrast to the lush vocal harmonies. Although the approach is undoubtedly lighthearted throughout, the arrangements and instrumentation are varied enough to prevent them from ever becoming merely pleasant background music; time and tempo changes creeping up on you just when you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security.

Whilst their humility is refreshing, you wonder if it works against Abie’s Miracle Tonic in the modern self-promotion = oxygen music scene. I want them to make videos just to see what crazy visions they’d conjure. They may well be a hard sell to anyone who completely dislikes their genre, but I think there’s a lot of floating voters out there who could be easily converted, given the right opportunity. And anyone who’s got a fetish for that kind of thing should check them out immediately.

The same is true for tonight’s headliners, Mellow Peaches, who take to the stage as the first few stars appear in the sky. The Peaches (as probably nobody but me calls them) have been around for a while now, slowly treading a determined path with twin bluegrass acoustic guitars. Amit Dattani’s rich, warm vocals sound particularly good tonight, despite some of the details of the rest of the mix getting lost in the breeze.

Their set tonight draws heavily from their debut album, I’ll Go Down with This Ship, released late last year. My lone criticism was that, having seen them a few times before, I’d have liked to have heard some new material. However, this doesn’t spoil my enjoyment of the show – the one new song goes down a treat, and augmenting much of the set with guest musicians is a great idea.

Dan-the-washboard-man’s (from Abie’s Miracle Tonic) intricate skiffle style percussion adds rhythm without over powering the guitar interplay, and ‘Mayflower’ rolls out like a great lost classic you haven’t heard in years. It reminds me of the time I once drunkenly described Mellow Peaches as “the good Mumford & Sons”.

An odd thing about the Mellow Peaches is how easily songs written by Amit sit alongside those from the nineteen twenties. Someone should lock that boy in a cage with a guitar, some whiskey and enough steak to stop him from starving, and only let him out when he’s written some more timeless classics.

It’ll happen eventually anyway, and I’m sure more than a few ears will be keen to hear them.

For more on Abie’s Miracle Tonic, visit http://www.abiesmiracletonic.co.uk/

For more on Mellow Peaches, visit http://www.mellowpeaches.co.uk/

For more music at MAC, visit http://www.macarts.co.uk/events/performances/music

Words and thumbnails pics by Matthew Osborne

As a media assassin you can become a little blasé about killing off celebrities these days, with so many boasting very good reasons to take them out.

I’ve become almost too used to it. I don’t see what I do as wrong; taking out artists who have crossed boundaries of taste and decency to make the world a better place. And not all artists start off that way, but some of their careers take such unfortunate turns it becomes my job to “preserve their legacy”.

However, every once in a while I pick up the phone find myself charged with the job of potentially killing one of my heroes.

David Byrne has been in my life for as long as I can remember, and over the last four years has collaborated with a number of musicians, including Fat Boy Slim, which was awful. But most recently Byrne teamed up with Annie Clarke (aka St Vincent) whom he is now touring the world with despite their album, Love This Giant, being fair to middling at best.

With a solo career seemingly drying up, David Byrne looked like an obvious contender for the musical scrap heap. This is when I get the call; so armed with poison pen and spy (neé Instamatic) camera, I made my way to Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.

Some of my earliest memories involve going somewhere in a car listening to Stop Making Sense, and as time rolled along I’ve taken Talking Heads to my heart; they remain to this day one of my favourite acts. Taking a clean shot at their founder and leader was not going to be easy, and would probably take a few days of pretty serious drinking to get over. Particularly as I had brought my Dad, the man who introduced me to David Byrne, along for support.

But my job was made even more difficult, due to a number of unforeseen factors.

Firstly, when the house lights went down I was hit by the realisation that I’d be mere metres away from a man I had idolised for decades. Added to that, he was not alone. Not only were there six players of various beguiling wind instruments, a drummer and a keyboardist, but also a strikingly blonde young woman – Annie Clarke.

If I was going to make a clean kill now I would have to take all ten of them out, and that would be very messy indeed; so I screwed the top back onto my pen and watched patiently, hoping for a better chance later in the evening.

The concert began with ‘Who’ from Love This Giant, the album and reason that had given me this job. However, it is easy to forget that Byrne is as interested in visual arts as he is in music, and from the first brassy parp of the sousaphone something more than a music recital began to take place.

Byrne and St. Vincent’s ten piece band never stood still for more than a few seconds, with each player guided by some loose choreography that tied everything together whilst giving the illusion of delightfully spontaneous randomness. Byrne’s jerky stage moves have long been revered and aped, but Clarke added a beautiful counterpoint to his gesticulations, gliding to and from her microphone as if she were a figurine on an elaborate Swedish cuckoo clock.

Dance routines were not intricate; one of them involved everyone except Clarke lying down, another involved the band splitting in two, moving to either side of the stage and slowly stepping towards each other. Some moves just involved raising their hands in the air on a queue from the tenor saxophonist. All of this was recreated in elongated shadows which flickered against the simple backdrop, a nod back to Talking Heads’ classic Stop Making Sense film.

As this theatre continued my pen stopped burning a hole in my pocket and my mind strayed away from any assassination attempt. Whether or not I liked Love This Giant did not matter. The songs were played so well, and performed with such imagination and ironic comedy, that they became something more than their album equivalents.

Besides, the set was littered with a fairly healthy dose of both artists’ other material. From St Vincent we were treated to ‘Cheerleader’ and ‘Northern Lights’, both of which benefited from the brassier instrumentation available on this tour.

And from Byrne’s hefty back catalogue came the real delights. His surprising late nineties/early noughties comeback song, ‘Lazy’ worked brilliantly with the brass set up; whilst ‘Wild Wild Life’ from True Stories was an absolute riot, with the band forming a conga line and each member singing a line from the song as they passed by the microphone.

Talking Heads’ ‘This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)’ gave Byrne a chance to perform some of his trademark moves (which you might have seen on the video for ‘Once in a Lifetime’), albeit with an elderly slant. And whilst Clarke’s dramatic stage posturing seemed natural and well executed, Byrne, with his pencil thin frame filled out in later life, occasionally looked older and tired.

After the band left the stage and the audience thundered for more, the big hitters really came out. Clarke returned and performed her beautiful ‘Cruel’ and then Byrne brought the house down with the appropriately titled ‘Burning Down the House’, which saw many of us leave our civilised seating to race to the front and dance.

The finale came in the form of ‘Road to Nowhere’, a fantastic chance to sing along with the band and get a face full of brass as the various players formed another conga line which intimidated the crowd whenever they swung by stage front.

For me the night was a welcome reminder that Byrne is an artist on every level, and his commitment to an enthralling stage production has not diminished since Talking Heads’ hey-day. I lost my pen, probably during the finale, and didn’t inquire at lost and found. This is one assassination that won’t be taking place.

And Annie Clarke is a perfect foil to Byrne’s eccentricities, finding herself a new fan in me that night. I just hope I don’t get a phone call in five years about her.

For more on Love This Giant, visit http://lovethisgiant.com

For more on David Byrne, visit http://journal.davidbyrne.com/

For more on St Vincent, visit http://www.ilovestvincent.com/

For further information on the Town Hall and Symphony Hall, including full event listings, visit http://www.thsh.co.uk/

Hidden amongst the laboriously clandestine MAC music listings (honestly, do they not want us to go???)…

Mellow Peaches play at the MAC on Thursday Aug 29^th as part of the arts centre’s Summer Sessions finale – performing alongside Abie’s Miracle Tonic, on the Terrace (the old courtyard) from 7pm onwards.

A Midlands based song writing duo, armed with 12strings or more, Mellow Peaches comprises of Amit Dattani and Richard Harris.

Promulgating Blues, Roots and Country, Dattani and Harries celebrate Americana through their guitar, banjo and ukulele based portfolio; frenetic, ‘supple’ and with the occasional foot stamp. And they really like cake, apparently.

Releasing their first EP, Biscuits and Cobblers, in 2009, Mellow Peaches followed their debut release with the 11 track I’ll Go Down With This Ship in 2012 – recorded at Blue Whale Studios.

Self confessed ‘purveyors of rootsy stomps and gutsy groove’ , Mellow Peaches have been building a name on the Midland’s Folk and Roots gig circuit, garnering much peer based interest and support.

After a brief jaunt round Belgium at the end of 2012, to promote I’ll Go Down With This Ship, Mellow Peaches have also played various venues further south since the Yuletide. Now back in the B postcodes, Dattani and Harris close off their summer with a couple of well-placed end of August gigs.

Mellow Peaches perform at the MAC on Thursday 29^th – followed by a slot on the Moseley Folk Festival’s Centre Court Stage on Saturday 31^st; the former being a free affair.

Johnny Kowalski will be at MAC for a Birmingham Review.

For more on Mellow Peaches, visit http://www.mellowpeaches.co.uk

For more on music at Mac, http://www.macarts.co.uk/events/performances/music

Hailing from Brighton, DJ and producer duo – Spectrasoul, have been carving out a sound of soulful D&B and deep House beats since 2006.

Spectrasoul return to The Bull’s Head in Moseley, to close out the Bank Holiday weekend on Sunday August 25th – promoted by PROspec.

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Citing acts as diverse and distinctive as Cinematic Orchestra and J-Dilla as inspiration, Spectrasoul combine a low key yet lush melodic approach over traditional D&B and House BPMs. The result was best represented in their debut album, Delay No More, released via Shogun Audio in July 2012.

Heralded by the likes of Maya Jane Coles and Birmingham’s own Nerm (Shiva Soundsystem, BBC), which should nudge you in the comfortably correct direction, Delay No More is an accomplished debut album – featuring vocals from Terri Walker, Tamara Blessa, Echo Park and MC Fox.

Delay No More’s first single came out in April 2012, with two equally strong and different vocally led D&B tracks; ‘Light in the Dark’ featuring the soulful Terri Walker, and ‘Shackles’ featuring the Mancunian MC Fox.

Two months later, Spectrasoul released ‘Away With Me’ on EP – offering another set of soulful vocals, this time from Tamara Blessa, over stripped back deep House. Inviting a cascade of remixes, ‘Away With Me’ was an elegantly precise final introduction to Delay No More – an album which took its name from the impetus to finally finish the LP.

Spectrasoul last played at The Bull’s Head in November 2012, again promoted by PROspec. Their subsequent gig tomorrow (Aug 25^th) promises a ‘2hour set, loads of new tunes’ – with support from Mutated Forms and Roksta.

Heather Judge will be there for a Birmingham Review.

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Spectrasoul play The Bull’s Head in Moseley on Sunday August 25^th, promoted by PROspec. For info and tickets, visit http://bullsheadmoseley.co.uk/event-listings/event/?eventID=10027178

For more on Spectrasoul, including digital downloads of Delay No More and remixes, visit http://www.spectrasoulmusic.com/

For more on PROspec, visit https://www.facebook.com/prospecbirmingham  

For more on The Bull’s Head, including full gig listings, visit http://bullsheadmoseley.co.uk/

Promoting their collaborative album, Love This Giant, David Byrne & St Vincent perform at the Symphony Hall on Weds 28^th August.

Love This Giant is the first collaboration from Talking Heads founder, David Byrne, and singer songwriter St Vincent – who prior to her solo work was part of The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Steven’s touring band.

After seeing St Vincent (aka Annie Clark) perform at Manhattan’s Bowery Ballroom in 2008, soon after the release of her debut album – Marry Me, David Byrne reportedly took an interest in her work.

Then after an official introduction at a charity concert for Dark Was the Night, Red Hot Organisation’s 20^th compilation to raise funds and awareness to tackle HIV/AIDS, the duo began working on ideas for collaboration.

Three years later, David Byrne & St Vincent released Love This Giant – a 12 track album co-written by both artists (with the lines from Walt Whitman included in ‘The Forrest Awakes’). Love This Giant was released through 4AD, the same label that released Dark Was the Night, on May 28^th 2013.

Self described as ‘an album that’s brash and quite literally brassy’, Love This Giant cites an additional 49 musicians on the finished recording – the vast majority of whom contribute through a varied brass ensemble.

Having been touring September 15^th 2012, starting in Minneapolis (North America), David Byrne & St Vincent come to Birmingham half way through their European leg.

Finishing in Rome (Italy) on September 11^th 2013, Love This Giant will have been toured through North America, Canada, Australia and Europe.

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David Byrne & St Vincent perform at the Symphony Hall on August 28^th, promoting their collaborative album Love This Giant. Matthew Osborne will be there for a Birmingham Review.

For more on Love This Giant, visit http://lovethisgiant.com

For more on David Byrne, visit http://journal.davidbyrne.com/

For more on St Vincent, visit http://www.ilovestvincent.com/

For further information on the Town Hall and Symphony Hall, including full event listings, visit http://www.thsh.co.uk/