Its true that Gang of Four had been and gone before I was around… now that’s not much of statement because so had The Beatles, the Clash and Elvis… but for a band who’s sound so defines the end of a decade, my decade, these guys totally past me by. I’ll try a little comparison by way of introduction to anyone else in the dark: Gang of Four are a post-punk group that sound somewhere between DEVO and The Specials, their material is political and somewhat dated but they sound great on the albums I’ve found online. The only track I recognised was ‘Natural’s Not It’ as used in the film (I think it was actually the trailer) “Marie Antoinette”- brilliant song, go find it!

On Friday Editor of The Leither (check out the fancy new website at leithermagazine.com) and myself trundled up to the Picture House on Lothian Road. Read On »

Until today I’d never bought 3 albums by the same artist in one day, but I just have to hear more of Laura Cantrell. This isn’t supposed to be a review- there’s really not a lot to say, here’s the title track from her latest download-only E.P. Trains and Boats and Planes she is my all-new (all new genre for me) favorite contemporary country singer. Don’t you love her voice? For me – its sound of apparent experience that hit home… although an album of mostly covers, I believe every expression from her, every twangy note and its not in an obvious weapy Christina Agulera “oh i’m so sad, so i’ll sing with a mopey voice in this verse, and now i’m happy again in this verse so i sing with a smile” which has confused most popular music (and most contemporary listeners) into believing slow means sad, twangy means uncultured, leonard cohen means suicide.

Of particular note (on the believability of performance chart) ‘Roll Truck Roll’, lyrics from her previous album, a song is written from the perspective of a Trucker’s wife- singing…. to the truck. The truck that she prays will safely bring her man back home, she sings with such an urging but not at all tiresome voice;

Roll, truck, roll
Bring my baby back to me
I’m gettin’ tired of waiting, and I’m much to lonely
Use those 18 wheels and all the speed you can muster
Roll him on home

Those are classic country lyrics to me but it feels so fresh and real from Cantrell. The next track (another re-working of her older work Cantrell’s- ‘Big Wheel’) she sings;

I feel like a big jet plane
I’ve gotta’ get in the sky,
I’ve gotta’ give it up real high,
I’ve gotta fly

Bland stuff, no? NO! Not at all, she expresses all that is dreary and southern dustbowl / one-horse-town-ish about this lyric she deeply understands. You can hear the genuine tiresome widow to the road in ‘Roll Truck Roll’ without pretense. The title track ‘Trains and Boats and Planes’ (written by Burt Bacharach) is really special in my mind and this recording does a particularly good job of capturing the spirit and thread of this ‘concept’ album. Her version has become one of my all-time favorite covered songs, its simple and raw, the mandolin is perfect.

You are from another part of the world,
You had to go back a while and then
You said you soon would return again.
I’m waiting here like I promised to.
I’m waiting here but where are you?

There’s meat too- ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ which I think would sound great in an gruff Irish drinking shanty type voice is not reduced to weepyness by Cantrell’s light Emmylou Harris-esque’ voice, the lyrics still have power and the instrumental is on a Fairport Convention level that suits me just right. So different to Fairport’s ‘Sailors Life’ but thematically and emotionally on the same level.

Maybe this E.P. is thematically in the right place for me at the moment, but I think I’m going to enjoy the rest of her albums when they arrive. Check out: Laura’s Website, Diesel Only Records Read On »

There’s a story I once heard about Thom Yorke’s hard-working conscious getting the better of him which I think may account for the ‘Bauer Iron Erectors’ hoody he chose to wear in Radiohead’s “Scotch Mist” special new-years’ recording (Watch via YouTube). I was hoping to get the Google Whack on this one… but someone raised questions about Yorke’s blue-hooded fashion statement in this forum, nevertheless that odd company title emblazoned apon the Yorke-sters back in that video has been bugging me for a good while.

Who are ‘Bauer Iron Erectors’?

Last year, as the story goes, Thom Yorke grew tired of his unbarred creative lifestyle– it was all too ‘easy’. Getting up whatever time in the morning / early afternoon (he looks like a late riser?), skipping breakfast on occasion (going straight to the veg drawer no doubt –like some kind of cazy-talented wonky-eyed bunny), scribbling down musical notation here and there, bashing out a rare solo project in between un-hectic schedules comprised of saving the world, editing Radio 4’s Today programme and being frightened of cars… fatigued by his contentment he reached out to a friend who ran a construction site.

For two weeks last year Thom Yorke worked as a construction labourer on-site somewhere in Oxfordshire (sorry, Yell.com couldn’t help me become more specific). Who knows what he got up to, consider the lyrics of ‘In Rainbows’ – perhaps we can find some clues:

Thom the: Architectural Office Assistant

So don’t get any big ideas
they’re not going to happen
You’ll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

… here Thom complains about an over-baring boss, dashing his plans he wants to kill the stuffy closed-minded architect by drowning them in their own filth. obviously.
(disclaimer: i am not talking about anyone i know… honest)

Thom the: Lighting Engineer

I am a moth
who just wants to share your light
I’m just an insect
trying to get out of the night

…with zoophilia (here imagining he IS the moth, Lighting-Engineer-Yorke alludes to his decision to install low beam lighting in-doors which do not attract the proverbial moth to the flame… he may have also installed bright outside lighting for his insect friends, allowing both humans and metaturnal animals to enjoy Edison’s invention without interference. aww

Thom the: Ironic Site Manager

Jigsaws falling into place
There is nothing to explain

… here he pokes an irreverent finger at day-to-day planning issues, scope-creep and the ongoing increase in basic material costs- although he couldn’t put it into so many words when it came to discuss the problems with his client.

Thom the: Recycling Guy (who said tenuous?)

Squeeze the tubes and empty bottles
and take a bow, take a bow, take a bow

… i think Yorke did particularly well at this job- he seems to have got compression down to a t, in-fact the lyrics to Faust ARP suggest he won an award which was presented on stage at some by-weekly construction related ceremony.

Thom the: fella about to throw the towel in on his construction site job

The walls abandon shape

… things didn’t go well on this project. apparently this was all captured on CCTV camera’s by Yorke’s boss- who had the grin of a feline.

Thom Yorke, back the in the real world (or at least the anecdotal one) did throw the towel in, after two weeks. Its a tough job smashing things up… apparently. I can’t imagine it did much for morale having a guy working on site who once wrote “I’ll build you up to pull you down”.

Bauer Iron Erectors may well have been the company he worked with last summer. I doubt it, they aren’t listed online and searching for Iron Erectors in Oxfordshire is a simple task; there’s only 2 competing companies. I think the company is fictitious- perhaps the made-up name Yorke gives to himself when he plays in his back garden… sitting on one of those pedal-JCBs *brumm brumming* like a loon, he hauls piles of staples from one edge of the patio to the other, on occasion he creates a tower- only to tear it down seconds later, that’s when he’s not caring for moths who are scared of the dark.

It only hit me today, how bloody-brilliant the ablum ‘In Rainbows’ is. Watch their performance video Scotch Mist for a sample, you’ll see that Blue hoody 10mins in.

prolific guy, our friend catgut. new ep for free download: Catgut Music. its pretty pretty good.