LIVE MUSIC REVIEW: Withered Hand

This article is copyright of The Scotsman and used with their permission for this purpose only.

Withered Hand

The Glad Café, Glasgow

****

The Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter Dan Willson, aka Withered Hand, has an unusual backstory. Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, he started writing songs at the late age of 30, on a guitar gifted to him by his wife. Now, twenty years later, he’s recognised by those who know as one of the greatest living alt-folkies.

This intimate solo gig was proof of that. An unassuming, bespectactled figure - in person he resembles an exact three-way split between Mark Radcliffe, Randy Newman and a slimmed-down Newman from Seinfeld - Willson writes literate, funny, introspective and sometimes inscrutable-in-a-good-way songs while singing in a high, fluty voice. The overall effect is bewitching.

He sounds a little bit like Neil Young circa On the Beach and John Darnielle from The Mountain Goats; which is to say, he only really sounds like himself.

Here is a man in love with melody and language. Every tune sticks, while memorable lyrics abound. 

How about this, from his la-la-la singalong anthem Religious Songs? "I beat myself off when I sleep on your futon/I walk in the ran with my second-hand suit on."

Or the opening couplet from Takeaway Food? "All this takeaway food is making me feel unwell/At my funeral let them play Highway to Hell."

Or this, from Horseshoe? "Here I go pigeon-toed to the featherweight fight."

Willson is not your standard sad man with guitar archetype, he’s far more interesting and unusual than that. 

Indeed, at this late stage you’d think there could be nothing more to mine from a template more or less created by Bob Dylan back in the early 1960s, but Wilson reminds us that every now and again a few exceptionally talented eccentrics will always manage to make it sound fresh again.

LIVE MUSIC REVIEW: Deep Purple

This article is copyright of The Scotsman and used with their permission for this purpose only.

Deep Purple

OVO Hydro, Glasgow

***

Unlike many of their rock monster contemporaries, Deep Purple – one of the founding fathers of heavy metal – rarely lumber. Their rock ‘n’ roll is hard and fast, just as it should be. You could even argue that from a certain angle they had/have more in common sonically with the punks who supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs in the late 1970s.

But let’s not get carried away; as evinced by this scrupulously engineered barrage of voluminous heavyocity, Deep Purple are the quintessential prog-adjacent hard rock band.

After only three songs we were treated to a long unaccompanied guitar solo from newish recruit Simon McBride. It felt like a showcase to waylay any fears their fans may have – don’t worry, this kid (he’s 45) can play. And he can, although I was inevitably reminded of Nigel Tufnel. But that’s only to be expected, these guys helped to create the arena rock clichés after all.

Longstanding keyboardist Don Airey performed two extended showboating solos, one of which incorporated snatches of classical, boogie woogie, Scotland the Brave and a pleasing barrage of squiggle and skronk teased from a beautiful analogue synth.

At one point, while mid-flow, a roadie dressed as a waiter handed him a glass of red wine to toast the crowd with; a corny piece of rock theatre that only a band such as Deep Purple can get away with.

Ian Gillan’s banshee voice has weathered well. A little strained at times, perhaps, but he still has a stronger set of pipes than anyone resembling an exact gene splice between Sir Ian McKellen and Terry Jones has any right to.

The unassuming star of the show, though, was founding member Ian Paice on drums. A rocking Womble, he can still conjure up the thunder of the Gods.

LIVE MUSIC REVIEW: Nathan Evans & Saint Phnx

This article is copyright of The Scotsman and used with their permission for this purpose only.

Nathan Evans & Saint Phnx

SWG3, Glasgow

***

Nathan Evans, a postal worker and budding singer-songwriter from Airdrie, became a worldwide viral sensation in 2020 when he released a TikTok video of him performing the traditional New Zealand sea shanty Wellerman.

Many theories have been posited as to why this happened, chief among them being that its earthy spume-flecked romanticism chimed with millions of people looking for an escape from the restrictions and uncertainty of lockdown. And that’s probably true, but I personally think it became a ‘novelty hit’ because it was catchy, charming and good.

That’s Evans’ slim oeuvre in a nutshell. Now a full-time professional musician, he writes unpretentious, steadfastly sincere and accessible singalong songs in the country/folk-pop vein which strike a chord with listeners who don’t want anything more than that. Sometimes you don’t really need anything more than that.

This sold-out gig, during which Evans performed alongside Scottish sibling duo Saint Phnx, was a celebratory affair - the summation so far of a feel-good grassroots success story.

Our personable underdog hero grabbed the moment for all it was worth, at one point stepping down from the stage to sing a commendably personal song about anxiety and depression from a spot in the middle of the crowd.

Is Evans a major talent? Nope, but at his best he knows how to write simple, effective Caledonian hoedown numbers. Highland Girl, for instance, has a sweetly daft and corny "la-de-deedly-la-de-da" chorus hook. This canny lad knows what he's doing.

An encore version of John Denver's Take Me Home, Country Roads was a cheerful acknowledgement of his benign modus operandi. It's the populist blueprint for pretty much everything he's written to date.

He may well be on his way to becoming some kind of national treasure.

BOOK REVIEW: Street-Level Superstar: A Year with Lawrence, by Will Hodgkinson

This review was originally published in The Big Issue in September 2024.

Street-Level Superstar: A Year with Lawrence, Will Hodgkinson, out now, Nine Eight Books, £16.49

The mononymous Lawrence is the very definition of a cult musician. He first rose to underground fame in the ‘80s as the enigmatic leader of delicate indie art-poppers Felt, before setting off on an unparalleled glam/novelty pop odyssey with Denim, Go Kart Mozart and Mozart Estate.

A talented artist with a singular vision, his dreams of stardom have been constantly thwarted by a complex combination of bad luck, stubborn self-sabotage and the inescapable fact that Lawrence – great though he is – is just too ‘weird’ for mainstream consumption. He’d doubtless disagree, but the masses don’t deserve him.

Music journalist Will Hodgkinson’s highly entertaining account of Lawrence’s unusual life and career is so much more than a mere rock biography. It’s a fascinating, funny and occasionally sad character study written with tremendous affection and empathy, an insightful tribute to a sometimes selfish and exasperating eccentric who nevertheless remains strangely lovable.

Hodkinson’s year with Lawrence involves them wandering around various London boroughs, liminal spaces and unlovely suburbs – in essence, a topographic journey around Lawrence’s mind.

He’s always imposed a strict set of rules upon his life and art – which are basically the same thing – but it’s still surprising to learn that he’s never bothered with the internet and doesn’t have a bank card. His only concession to modernity is a very old, basic Nokia mobile phone. He purposefully makes life difficult for himself.

He’s also been celibate for over twenty years, having eventually realised that he’s incapable of having a conventional romantic relationship (interviews with two of his ex-girlfriends confirm this; he sounds impossible, an absolute nightmare).

An emaciated figure who never seems to eat anything apart from his favourite brand of Poundland liquorice, Lawrence is aware that most people assume he’s a homeless drug addict. And for a while he actually was. But he never feels sorry for himself, he’s not bitter.

That resilience is key to the book’s appeal. Lawrence doesn’t come across as pitiable, he’s a deadpan funny and intelligent man who has chosen to exist on his own uncompromising terms – although, as Hodgkinson notes with typical acuity, maybe he didn’t really have a choice in that matter.

Either way, I suspect Lawrence is secretly pleased with this touching monument to his contrarian legacy. You'll worry for him, though.

BOOK REVIEW: Freaks Out! by Luke Haines | The Life and Times of Little Richard by Charles White

This article was originally published in The Big Issue in 2024.

Freaks Out!, Luke Haines, out now, Nine Eight Books, £18.65

The Life and Times of Little Richard, Charles White, out now, Omnibus Press, £16.99.

The musician and author Luke Haines, formerly of The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder, is a self-proclaimed Freak and proud. This, his fourth book, is his Freak manifesto, a righteous celebration of gloriously weird cult rock ‘n’ rollers who weren’t born to conform.

Part memoir, part alternative history lesson, it revels in skewering received wisdom and classic rock narrative orthodoxy, the “middlebrow stranglehold of cultural mediocre thinking” that Haines – an unabashedly opinionated curmudgeon - loathes with every fibre of his pasty-faced being.

Like all unabashedly opinionated curmudgeons with a sincere love of art and a healthy sense of acerbic humour, Haines is often right and often wrong, but he’s almost always entertaining. Key quote: “Rock ‘n ‘roll is a deadly serious business. It’s also very funny.”

The book begins with a roll call of people who won’t understand or enjoy it – Keir Starmer, Noel Gallagher, PE teachers etc. – before careening off into a concentrated sprawl of thoughts on the Freak flag hoisting likes of Gene Vincent, poor old Johnnie Ray, and the none-more-drugged or doomed solo career of original Tyrannosaurus Rex percussionist/uber-Freak Steve Peregrin Took.

We’re also treated to typically serious/not serious theses on how Haines’ beloved childhood favourites The Shadows invented psychedelia, how the Beatles unwittingly created the Male Genius Myth and thus ruined rock ‘n’ roll forever, how Britpop begat Brexit, and why the Doors are indisputably one of the greatest stupid bands of all time.

Haines clearly doesn’t care if you agree with him or not, as Freaks are above such polite considerations. When he casually dismisses the entire output of Prince as worthless, without any attempt to back that statement up, he’s fully aware that some readers will be annoyed. That’s the joke: an outrageous opinion presented as a fact so empirical it requires no further elucidation.

Haines is a genuinely funny nuisance, and he can write. Imagine Lester Bangs if Lester Bangs was reared in lower middle-class Portsmouth on a diet of Metal Guru and Apache. Get your Freak on, people.

Little Richard, the Big Bang of rock ‘n’ roll Freakdom, was a uniquely magnificent and complicated cat whose many contradictions and wild epoch-shaking genius were laid bare in Charles White’s riveting 1984 biography The Life and Times of Little Richard.

This latest edition features bonus chapters, previously unseen photographs, and an exhaustive discography.

Written with Richard’s full cooperation, it mostly consists of transcribed interviews linked by White’s contextualising interludes. This allows Richard and his associates to tell their versions of the truth, which are far more interesting than anything White – a rather prosaic writer - has to say. He’s such an awestruck fanboy, he never challenges our sometimes unreliable narrator.

That, however, works in the book’s favour. We spend unedited time in the fascinating mind of Little Richard, a devoutly religious man who never came to terms with his homosexuality and addiction to the Devil’s music.

He was constantly battling against himself, a sweet, eccentric, vulnerable, self-loathing enigma who also – quite rightly – knew he was the greatest. Little Richard is rock ‘n’ roll, the originator of that hard, fast, funky, glorious reason for living.

He was also a hilariously frank raconteur. The book is festooned with eye-popping anecdotes of a pornographic nature. You’ll never look at Buddy Holly the same way again.

Flaws and all, this is one of those rock biographies you really must consume.

BOOK REVIEW: My My! ABBA Through the Ages by Giles Smith

This article was originally published in The Big Issue in June 2024. 

My My! ABBA Through the Ages, Giles Smith, out now, Gallery UK, £18.40

It’s perhaps easy to forget that ABBA’s now immovable status as one of the greatest acts in pop history wasn’t always a matter of consensus.

Prior to the critical rehabilitation that began – gradually, cautiously - in the early ‘90s, ABBA were generally discarded as a lazy punchline for every sniggering joke about ‘70s kitsch. Terminally naff, hopelessly uncool, they were considered at best a ‘guilty pleasure’ couched in face-saving irony.

These days, anyone who still subscribes to that objectively wrong opinion is regarded with pity and suspicion, but how did we get here? How did ABBA defy the naysayers and emerge triumphant as a universally beloved treasure?

As the witty and perceptive music critic Giles Smith points out in this enjoyable semi-autobiographical meditation on what it means to be an ABBA fan, ABBA themselves did nothing to encourage their revival. They split without fanfare in 1982, quietly got on with their lives, and just watched from the sidelines as everyone eventually realised that they deserve our utmost respect.

Smith was twelve and immediately smitten when he watched ABBA win Eurovision in 1974, but over the next few years he gradually became aware that here was a love that dare not speak its name within earshot of ‘credible’ music fans. 

He understood why hipsters felt that way – the outfits, the grinning, the occasional lapses into outright shlock - but he still couldn’t quite work out why ABBA were always written off as mechanical purveyors of commercial pop.

No one ever criticised the Beatles, the Beach Boys and Phil Spector – three of ABBA’s main influences – for being commercial, so why weren’t these self-evident pop geniuses afforded any respect during their chart-topping imperial phase?

Short answer: rock critic snobbery, sexism and casual xenophobia. ABBA didn’t fit into the ‘authentic’ Anglo-American narrative.

That said, Smith’s penetrating odyssey isn’t defensive in the slightest. It’s written with love and wry self-awareness, it analyses some of ABBA’s signature songs in commanding, rapturous detail while affectionately needling some of their more questionable decisions. 

This is a book written by an ABBA fan, a pop fan, someone who understands what it means to be in thrall to this music and the absolutely vital minutiae surrounding it.

It’s ABBA gold.

BOOK REVIEW: Postcards from Scotland: Scottish Independent Music 1983 - 1995 by Grant McPhee

This article was originally published in The Big Issue in July 2024.

Postcards from Scotland: Scottish Independent Music 1983 - 1995, Grant McPhee, out now, Omnibus Press, £18.39

1984: The Year Pop Went Queer, Ian Wade, out now, Nine Eight Books, £16.49

The esteemed music journalist Simon Reynolds once said, “Indie music as we know it was invented in Scotland.”

He wasn’t wrong, and here’s the hefty oral history to prove it. Curated by filmmaker Grant McPhee, director of the essential Scottish music documentaries Big Gold Dream and Teenage Superstars, it’s the definitive account of a seminal period in pop history.

This is the story of a hugely creative and incestuous scene nominally led by the likes of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Teenage Fanclub, BMX Bandits, the Pastels, Primal Scream, and the Shop Assistants.

But to McPhee’s eternal credit, there are no footnotes or also-rans here – practically every Scottish indie act who released a record during this fertile epoch receives their due. The circle wouldn’t be complete without contributions from the Jasmine Minks or Meat Whiplash, or even Nocturnal Vermin and their bizarrely prescient ‘tribute’ to budding MSP classmate John Swinney.

It’s a Byzantine saga involving hundreds of musicians and ever-changing line-ups, so much so it sometimes resembles Monty Python’s Rock Notes sketch. McPhee – who provides context via clear-eyed chapter intros and outros - is aware of this, drily noting at one point that the sprawling rock family tree he’s dealing with “would send shivers down Pete Frame’s spine.”

Nevertheless, he makes compelling sense of it all. A labour of love, it’s a sometimes funny, sometimes bittersweet tribute to a gawky generation of like-minded dreamers who fully embraced the post-punk DIY ethos. They all left something indelible behind.

BOOK REVIEW: 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer by Ian Wade

This article was originally published in The Big Issue in August 2024.

1984: The Year Pop Went Queer, Ian Wade, out now, Nine Eight Books, £16.49

A resonant ode to the gay pop revolutionaries who ruled the UK charts during a particularly bleak era for marginalised sectors of society, 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer by music journalist Ian Wade does what all the best pop books do – it celebrates the music and the artists who made it while doubling up as an acute piece of social history.

Wade argues that 1984 was a pivotal year in terms of gay visibility within the mainstream. This, of course, was the year of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, co-architects with producer Trevor Horn of the literally orgasmic punk-disco behemoth Relax – in Wade’s words, “possibly the most homosexual record ever made.”

Frankie revelled in uncompromising provocation via their tough underground gay club scene aesthetic. The Village People’s leatherman looked positively quaint by comparison.

It’s a recurring theme throughout the book – in 1984, many queer artists finally felt able to express themselves openly while selling loads of amazing, accessible pop records to gay and straight audiences alike.

Lest we forget, this remarkable feat, this bold, subversive political statement, took place against a hostile backdrop of virulent homophobia drummed up by Thatcher’s government and its right-wing tabloid media lackeys. The tragedy and injustice of the AIDS epidemic informs every single page of this saga.

It also explicitly foreshadows the bigotry directed towards the trans community in this supposedly enlightened day and age,

Frankie aside, Wade devotes comprehensive chapters to key zeitgeist-defining heroes such as Wham!, Pet Shop Boys and Bronski Beat, as well as LGBTQ+ allies Cyndi Lauper and Madonna. He also writes sensitively about the gay pop stars who worried – for various entirely understandable reasons – about the repercussions of coming out publically.

A warm, perceptive, frank and funny writer, Wade states his case persuasively in this rather marvellous book. Pop, as he so rightly declares, is important.

BOOK REVIEW: Under a Rock: A Memoir by Chris Stein

This article was originally published in The Big Issue in June 2024.

Under A Rock: A Memoir, Chris Stein, out now, Little, Brown, £18.89

Chris Stein is a rock ‘n’ roll Zelig. In his likeable memoir, the Blondie co-founder displays an uncanny knack for turning up at pivotal moments in pop culture history.

Even before he formed a romantic/creative relationship with Debbie Harry, he’d attended a Central Park Be-In during the Summer of Love, hung out at Haight-Ashbury, been knocked sideways by the Velvet Underground live, and witnessed Hendrix et al at Woodstock. 

Later on, we’re treated to memorable cameos from the likes of David Bowie, William Burroughs, Jean-Michel Basquiat and a predictably gun-toting Phil Spector.

Blessed with a seemingly photographic memory, Stein recounts these extraordinary incidents in an endearingly dry-witted style. His prose is crisp and conversational, his stories rich in evocative detail. You can practically taste New York’s bohemian/Taxi Driver-esque Lower East Side during those particular chapters.

Stein also shares admirably candid accounts of the years he lost to heroin addiction, and the tensions within Blondie during their imperial phase.

Still, he never comes across as someone with an axe to grind. He’s philosophical, generous, self-aware, a decent human being.

BOOK REVIEW: Entrances and Exits by Michael Richards

This article was originally published in The Big Issue in June 2024.

Entrances and Exits, Michael Richards, out now, Permuted Press, £22

Michael Richards will forever be associated with Kramer, the wildly eccentric ‘hipster doofus’ character he inhabited so exquisitely for nine years on Seinfeld, one of the greatest and most successful TV sitcoms of all time.

On a far less stellar note, he’ll also be remembered for a notorious incident at an L.A. comedy club in 2006, when he lost his temper and hurled racist abuse at some hecklers.

In his often fascinating, often frustrating memoir, Richards attempts to present an honest account of himself. To a certain extent he succeeds.

At best, he comes across as a sensitive, cultured, offbeat soul with an acute understanding of the cosmic art of comedy. Enter: Kramer. Working on Seinfeld was clearly one of the happiest times of his life, a time when he could give full vent to his prodigious comic genius. 

Like all great clowns, Richards takes his work seriously, and the chapters devoted to his meticulous Method-influenced approach to playing Kramer leap off the page with a kind of joyous intensity worthy of the K-Man himself.

Unfortunately, the good stuff – basically everything pertaining to his comedy career - is surrounded by page after page of Richards’ long-winded spiritual/philosophical musings, an interminable section on his army service (where he goes out of his way to prove his non-racist credentials), and various other inessential diversions.

The book also flounders when he addresses his public meltdown. It’s awkwardly foreshadowed throughout, with Richards repeatedly describing himself as an improvisational performer driven by irrational impulses, a “Dionysian” clown. He also admits to a lifelong struggle with anger management.

One sympathises with his difficult family background, a complex subject he writes about movingly. It helps to explain his insecurity and anxiety. However, while he’s genuinely appalled by what he said that night, he never addresses why he went there. Why did he resort to racist abuse? That’s not just an irrational impulse, it came from somewhere.

The hecklers told Richards he wasn’t funny, which is probably the worst thing you can say to someone who’s based most of their self-worth on making people laugh. So he lashed out with the worst things he could say to a person of colour. He knows that was wrong, but that’s all he’s really prepared to say. Maybe it’s all he can say.

Richards, to his credit, doesn’t ask for forgiveness and never wallows in self-pity. I hope he finds peace within himself one day. This uneven book suggests he’s still got some way to go.