Live music listings: May 2008Roll the mouse over the dates on the calendar below to see who's playing, then click on the date for the full listing and ticket info. We think it's more intuitive than the old way of clicking five times through months and years to find a show.Click on the mailing list link to your left there and enter your email address and we'll let you know, at the start of every week, who's playing in the next seven days and for how much, and leave you to peruse the full listings here at your liberty and leisure.
Roll over dates on the calendar above to show event details.
|
|
Wed 21st The Luminaire presents KING CREOSOTE ACOUSTIC + Guests
Doors 7.30 There are well-kept secrets, and there is Kenny Anderson, AKA King Creosote. If fame were a contagious disease, Anderson would have caught a severe dose of it years ago. From KT Tunstall perhaps, sometime backing vocalist in his first band from the mid 1990’s, the faux-bluegrass outfit, Skuobhie Dubh (pronounced Scoobie Doo) Orchestra. Or from his brother Gordon, founding spirit of The Beta Band, and now The Aliens. Or from his Fifer compatriots from Falkirk, the sex miserablists Arab Strap, or James Yorkston, one of Fence’s most affecting traditional voices, now signed to the mighty Domino label. But he never did. Instead Anderson has spent most of the past 20 years honing his musical craft and, since the demise of the S.D.O. in 1996, creating a catalogue of over 600 genius folk-pop tunes, most of which he has released as limited edition CD-Rs through the Fence label. Anderson started out as an accordion player, deeply intrigued by the manner in which Dexy’s Midnight Runners used traditional instruments such as his, “but not in a folk way.” Since then he has expanded his reach, assuming guises ranging from the canny indie rocker to the Highland balladeer. Local Scottish media have picked up on the awesome quality of the Creosote sound, one reviewer calling it “the most sublime Scottish folk songwriting since Donovan.” When he isn’t polishing off another of his own songs on his home 8 track, he spends time encouraging other members of the Fence community - in the main, mates and family members from Fife who share his passion for music of genuinely independent spirit, and his fondness for quirky names. (The Pictish Trail, Midget Squid, HMS Ginafore etc.) In 2005 he contracted KC’s music to the 679 label, a subsidiary of Warners, with grander designs than the stubbornly rustic boutique ethos of Fence. King Creosote’s first album for 679, KC Rules OK, followed later that year. Backed by label mates The Earlies, KC Rules OK earned widespread critical acclaim with The Telegraph hailing Anderson’s latest work as “edging towards classic territory” whilst Word agreed that “KC Rules OK is an emphatic KO.” Anderson was clearly making progress in moving from the realms of fringe-folk and into the mainstream. King Creosote’s finest hour, the new album Bombshell, emphasises that change ever more dramatically. Either as an introduction, or as a further instalment in an extraordinary tale, this 13 track portfolio reveals everything you need to know about Anderson’s maverick musical personality - right down to the influence of brother Gordon, who helps out on several tunes. Highlights include the propulsive You’ve No Clue Do You, the best country rock highway driver the Eagles never wrote (“they couldn’t have managed the Fife accent nor the lyrical puns on Cluedo.”). At the other end of the Creosote spectrum is And The Racket They Made, a shimmering, hymnal duet sung by Anderson written by fellow Fencer HMS Ginafore. “The idea this time around was to make the songs sound bigger, and more accessible,” is Anderson’s summary of his 2007 agenda. “I’m not leaving home, but I am getting out a lot more.” As he speaks, he has just returned from a gig in Brazil. For King Creosote the old ‘think local, act global’ mantra is fast becoming a reality. |
 |
 |
 |
