Getting To Know... The Imagineers

Scottish four-piece The Imagineers recently performed on CBS’s The Late Late Show for five consecutive nights as a tribute to Craig Ferguson's Scottish roots and a tribute to his glory days of being in a rock band during his youth. We found out a bit more about them:

The Imagineers are four chancers speaking to you from a hotel room in Los Angeles.

We take influence from everything really. Any thought is a lyric if you choose to follow it through.

Being on The Late Late Show was the first time we saw behind the showbiz curtain of how things are really done. Craig Ferguson was a cool guy.

Scotland is arguably the best country north of England. We wouldn't trade where we come from. I think you have to have been raised there to understand it though.

It might surprise people to learn that this line-up has been together just over a year.

In the future we will be hardened cynics, with good reasons to back it up. Hopefully still playing music.

Interview by Bobby Townsend. Keep up to date with The Imagineers on Facebook.

David Ford - How to Nearly Make it in the Music Industry

"There was a time when people swore I would be the next big thing. It took ten years of hard work and dedication but I finally proved them wrong."

So reads the synopsis of David Ford's book, I Choose This - How to Nearly Make it in the Music Industry, in which the English singer/songwriter talks with wit and honesty about everything from the Easyworld days through the recording of his solo albums, his attempts to break America, record company wrangles and life on the road. Just like Mark E Smith and Jim Bob's accounts of life as a musician, Ford's fine prose has an accessibility about it that means I Choose This has every chance of appealing to an audience wider than his fan-base. In the way that Fever Pitch was embraced by non-football fans because it told universal truths, Ford's story would be enjoyable even to someone who had never heard a note of his music.

To promote the release of I Choose This, Ford is touring an evening of music, conversation and prosaic reminiscence around the UK and the US in April and May. As well as a seeing Ford perform songs from his outstanding back-catalogue, the show will inevitably contain strong language and unrestrained self-loathing. Would you expect anything else? I Choose This - How to Nearly Make it in the Music Industry will be on sale at all of the intimate gigs on this tour. Details of which are below.

UK Dates:
Tue, 26 April, Band On The Wall, Manchester
Wed, 27 April, Plug, Sheffield
Thu, 28 April, Fibbers, York
Fri, 29 April, Beechwood Community Centre, Runcorn
Sat, 30 Apr, The Cellars at Eastney, Southsea
Mon, 02 May, The Borderline, London
Tue, 03 May, The Donkey, Leicester
Wed, 04 May, Dean Clough, Halifax
Thu, 05 May, Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh
Fri, 06 May, The Glee Club, Birmingham

US Dates 
Thu, 12 May, The Turning Point, Piermont, NY
Fri, 13 May, (Le) Poisson Rogue, New York, NY
Sat, 14 May, The Rock Shop, Brooklyn, NY
Tue, 17 May, Club Passim, Cambridge, MA
Wed, 18 May, The Iron Horse, Northhampton, MA
Fri, 20 May, The Saint, Asbury Park, NJ
Mon, 23 May, IOTA, Arlington, VA
Thu, 26 May, The Cactus Cafe, Austin, TX
Fri, 27 May, All Good Cafe, Dallas, TX

For more details about tickets, his book and to hear some tracks, visit David's Myspace and his Facebook. 

Words and picture by Rob Townsend.

Broken Records - Let Me Come Home

At the same time that frontman Jamie Sutherland found himself obsessed with films like Rumblefish, Badlands and East Of Eden and albums by Nick Cave and Springsteen, Edinburgh’s Broken Records sat down in the singer’s kitchen and started working on some lo-fi acoustic efforts. Eventually fleshed out into a full band sound, the six-piece’s new album remains, however, much more sparse than the rich and sweeping orchestration of their debut.

That’s not to say this is a lo-fi record. Not at all. There are still strings and huge choruses aplenty, but there is certainly a more organic, less cluttered feel to Let Me Come Home. That said, they certainly still throw plenty at their songs, which has inevitably led to the somewhat lazy comparisons to Arcade Fire that you can read in pretty much any Broken Records review ever written. Admittedly, the songs do march and rumble along, and Let Me Come Home also has a touch of The Killers about it. This isn’t as bad as it might sound, as at least when Broken Records do occasionally sound like a Scottish Killers, it is their Springtseen era rather than their annoyingly pink-jacketed, I’ve-got-soul-but-I’m-not-a-soldier period.

This is not an album in which the obvious singles jump out at you, nor is it perfect for the impending Australian summer. However, while it is bleak and earnest, Let Me Come Home is also rousing with moments of tenderness. It takes the dour and the day-to-day heartbreak of life and wraps them in strings and soulful vocals until there is romance and beauty dripping from them. And it’s all done in a typically unpretentious Scottish way of course.

KT Tunstall - Tiger Suit

Three years on from her sophomore album and six years since she burst onto the scene with her massive-selling debut, Scotland’s KT Tunstall returns with a new long-player. In it, she adds a dancey, electronic vibe to her familiar folk-rock sound. Whether this is a bid to fit in with current industry darlings like Ellie Goulding, or simply because she fancied a slight shift in direction, the result is certainly a bit poppier than her previous outings.

That’s not to say she is going all Katy Perry on us. This is still very recognisably KT Tunstall, with her delicious rasp and acoustic guitar, but things here are often more conventional than we might expect. For instance, The Entertainer and Lost are ballads-by-numbers in comparison to Tunstall’s usually interesting structuring, while Glamour Puss’s dance-pop just feels a bit generic.

However, the perky acoustic melody and delicate xylophone of lead single, Fade Like a Shadow, is a fine example of KT Tunstall doing pop excellently, and it’s no coincidence that Tiger Suit’s highlights come when she further pushes her creative boundaries. Push That Knot Away, for example, is awesome in its combination of dance-beat, acoustic lick and body-shuddering bluesy bassline fuzz. Similarly, the vocal of Madam Trudeaux swaggers and struts its way marvellously through an infectious tune.

Tiger Suit therefore proves that KT Tunstall is at her best when sidestepping the clichés that already litter our charts. This is a woman who can write insanely catchy tunes while remaining interesting and very likeable. If anything, pop singers should be attempting to sound more like her, rather than the other way round.