Frightened Rabbit in Profile

Selkirk has a total population of 5,742, described by the local council as having a "ripe flavour of antiquity about it" it’s a town best known for its dried fruit cake ‘Bannocks’ - at least until now that is.. Frightened Rabbit a five piece, indie-folk band have caused some relatively major splash in the alternative music scene of late, and they have hardly jumped in at the shallow end, rather diving head and heart first from the top board.

Frightened Rabbit was formed in 2003 as a humble one-man project by vocalist Scott Hutchinson. With just a Tascam 4-track recorder Scott wrote, played and recorded all instrument parts in his bedroom, “It gradually grew from there, one member per year.” He jokes for the first addition was his brother Grant who joined a year later and sibling quarrels have followed the Frightened Rabbit tour bus ever since, “Last night was fiery, we had a shouting match,” Scott explains, laughing as he remembers the night, “We were sharing a hotel room and I had done that thing where I forgot to have dinner and gone out for drinks so I was more pissed than I thought I was.”

“This morning we woke up and just started laughing about how ridiculous it was,” Grant adds. “If anyone had heard it in another room it would have seemed like a couple having an argument.”Scott still smirking jumps in, “It’s never come to blows yet, thank god!”

The brothers talk of Selkirk with great fondness, but recall even back then recognising how restrictive it could have been, “You grow up in high school, playing covers, songs your mates would want to sing-along to.” Leaving Selkirk for Glasgow was inevitable for a band who wanted to make creative material, “We had to get out in terms of a band and doing original material, not Supergrass covers for the rest of time.”

What came from the move was 2006 debut ‘Sing The Greys’, the initial run of 1,000 on ‘Hit The Fans’ record label sold out but the band look back at their debut with a sense of humility, “I think some of the songs are pretty decent, we were new to it,” Scott says, “I don’t think you should make your best record first, it’s a learning process. We learned a lot from doing it so I don’t regret it but there are things we’ve done since I’m much more proud of put it that way.”

Since Brighton indie label Fat Cat records got involved in 2007 and re-released their debut fortunes have slowly turned for Frightened Rabbit “They’d heard a lot of stuff we were demoing at the time as well as the first record and were totally on board.” The band travelled out to Bridgeport, Connecticut, to record second album ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’ in just two weeks with Peter Katis (Mercury Rev, Interpol) and it received a modest release from Fat Cat. However within months there were positive signs - the record might be just the breakthrough hit Frightened Rabbit needed.

“People didn’t seem to just like it a little bit, they either didn’t get it and left it be or really, really got it and it became part of their life.” Scott spoke of the record’s appeal, in part due to his utterly beautiful yet scathingly honest lyrical spewing out, “A lot of the stuff on there goes beyond what most would be comfortable to reveal.” He talks of the classic break up album “It’s been around since modern music began,” but where Midnight Organ Fight (a euphemism the band coined for sex) delves deeper; it can encompass much darker territory. ‘Floating on the Forth’ for example is Scott’s autobiographical tale of suicidal deliberation, “Up to the point where it’s released to the world it doesn’t dawn on you. You’re in your bedroom writing it and in the studio it’s just you and a guy recording it, it’s still a private thing.” Scott admits playing those songs live when family and friends are present can be “a bit icky” but joyfully confesses, “I don’t really have those feelings about that time anymore, it fades and it’s kind of the best therapy you can have to thrash the songs out every night and that just numbs the feelings.”

There were signs even then that the ripples the Scottish four-piece had made were emanating across the great Atlantic pond, where by way of SXSW festival appearances and support slots with We Are Scientists and Death Cab For Cutie the Rabbit’s name was becoming hot topic. “More consistently we’re bigger over there than we are here.” Scott says, “I don’t know if it’s something to do with a love for Scottish things out there or not. It’s almost a romance attached to Scottish things and the heritage of it.”

Grant agrees, “The way music works over there is not the quite same as over here, in the way the word gets out. Here the NME is quite influential in breaking bands for example, where over in the states its all blogs, it’s all people talking to other people.” The Scottish lads have even found their songs pop up on major US drama series like One Tree Hill, Chuck and Grey’s Anatomy. “I met the guy who created One Tree Hill and he was just a fan of the band. He said if you continue to make music I’ll continue to put it into the show.”

The Midnight Organ Fight seemed to harmonise and connect with people at the time when blogs had finally established their staying power and influence inside the music scenes. The Skinny and Drowned in Sound were just two websites to rank it amongst the best albums of 2008 in yearly polls, “All those end of the year things came out when we were in Australia touring with Biffy Clyro and we didn’t really notice at first, it was really incredible.” Just as the band took in the impossibility of the press the album had received, fellow musicians stepped up to sing their praises. Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World said in his blog it was his favourite album of the year, sentiments echoed by Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil and Nick Harmer of Death Cab For Cutie.

Maybe then it’s understandable that pressure is high on the five piece to deliver with their follow up record ‘The Winter of Mixed Drinks’, they know just how hard it can be to keep a devout and ardent fan base on side, “You look at bands like Death Cab For Cutie and they’re probably the biggest cult band in the world and they’re at the point where they’re really successful but it’s still like a bit of a club being a fan of that band.” We discuss the success and failures of bands like Kings of Leon and Biffy Clyro to struggle with the balance of maintaining their indie image after mainstream commercial success. “Hopefully we’re not going to disappoint or alienate those people for whom we were their little secret,” But Scott agrees, “There’s that point where there’s no way back, but it can still feel like fans are onto something that a lot of the general public doesn’t now about.”

The signs seem bright ahead as the lead in single from the album ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ has all the emotive lyrical punch and musical grandiose that Frightened Rabbit do so well; it looks like the formula is still very much safe in their hands. “The title was a sentence I had come up with before I wrote any of the record and I knew then I wanted that to be the starting point, and it to just unravel as a theme from there.” Says Scott, who reveals while he’s a happier bloke this time around the out-at-sea theme and isolation crops up a lot over the next album, “There’s definitely an aspect of loneliness to the record.” Still, if the results of the last record are anything to go by, it feels like we’ll all be willing to live with Scott’s loneliness another time round.

Invaders Must Die - The Prodigy

It’s tragic a little over a decade on from ‘Fat of The Land’ the Prodigy do find themselves under attack from music press and on the back foot desperately trying to prove they’re still as relevant and 'cutting edge' as they were at the turn of millennium. After the ill-conceived single ‘Babys Got A Temper’ and criminally underrated follow up album ‘Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned’ it seems main man Liam Howlett has been fiddling with the formula once again and decided to look inwards for this their fifth full length. But if ‘Invaders Must Die’ is the sum of the Prodigy’s parts it manages to fall despairingly short of the magnificence of many of their previous efforts.

Lead in singles ‘Invaders Must Die’ and effortlessly catchy ‘Omen’, both blow electro-rock pretenders Pendulum well and truly out of the water for their crossover sublimity. However ‘Thunder’ is the breathtaking moment in the album, a masterpiece of early, big beat techno. Howlett touches old territory, once again proving he can still sample a mean line or two as ‘I hear thunder but there’s no rain’ rattles through the speakers.

‘Warriors Dance’ with its graceful female vocal sample could prove to be a dancefloor killer akin to ‘No Good’, and this alongside ‘Take Me To The Hospital’ make a refreshing change of direction for IMD that hankers back to the techno grooves of early nineties ‘Jilted Generation’ Prodigy.

Yet it’s the second half of ‘Invaders Must Die’ that falls flat, ‘Piranha’ and ‘Run With The Wolves’ sound like poorly worked out b-sides, uninspired and lyrically sterile. ‘World’s on Fire’ despairingly spiritless and colourless five minutes couldn’t set flame to tinder wood. Up against the real dangerous vitality that ran through mid-nineties hits like ‘Breathe’ and 'Firestarter' it all sounds like the Prodigy are treading-water.

Overall this might be enough to stop the rot for now but under ‘Invaders Must Die’ and all its rhetoric and bravado is a flawed 45 minutes of music that promises more than it could ever manage to deliver.
7/10

Tellison @ The iBar

Basement gigs don’t come much more intimate than this; descend into the depths and you emerge into a small neat box of a room, bar to the back and the front a stage, barely raised from ground level, on which a rather trippy screen background hangs, whirling with multi-coloured patterns and visual delights.

The pure tension and anticipation in the crowd has been turned up to eleven when Tellison stroll on stage. They seem a geeky misfit of a band, with a nervous and hesitated raise of the hand lead singer Stephen Davidson welcomes everyone, ‘Hello’ before diving head first into energetic opener ‘Hanover Start Clapping’. They swing straight into ‘Henry Went to Paris’, another upbeat rocker that rouses the front of the audience into the first sing-along of the evening. Audience and band, both in a good spirits, share banter together between songs.

Single ‘Gallery’ is another crowd clapping favourite, but it proves to be later in the set that Tellison get a chance to show just why they’re the name on everyone’s lips, when they slow it all down for ‘Architects’. It strips back their percussion led, electro pop rock to a simple, slow heartfelt ballad that crescendos into a whirring emotional climax.

‘New York, New York’ follows and with all its pop rock charm is the most well received of the evening. Leaving with an old classic to close the show, Reader’s punk-rock guitar riff keeps everybody in the place moving and makes sure Tellison leave the iBar craving more.

Campire Punk Rocker

Sitting in the dimly lit corner of a bar in Bournemouth, Frank Turner cuts a lonely figure, with the standard bourbon and coke in hand. Behind the tall, bearded figure of a man is a character of great honesty, wit and humility, at just 27 his career in music has been a long and turbulent one.

Born in Bahrain, Turner remembers none of the land where he was born “We moved back to England when I was about a year old. My dad had business interest out there but wanted us to grow up in Britain.” His childhood he remembers as a relatively normal and pleasant one, growing up just outside of Winchester with his two sisters. Music played a huge part in Turner’s upbringing “First band I ever really got into was Iron Maiden, after seeing a poster of theirs when I was about 10 and just loving the artwork.”
It wasn’t until being granted a scholarship at Eton that life really began to change for young Frank Turner. “Being affronted by some of the opinions and seeing the bigotry in kids there, I think that is really what turned me into an anarchist.” It was at Eton he met Ben Dawson, one of his best friends to this day, and their joint passion for punk and hardcore music would emerge.
Frank excelled at academia and he turned down a place at Cambridge to study History at London School of Economics. It was moving into London however that really spurred his interest in the underground punk scene exploding across the capital at the time and when Ben formed three piece punk band Million Dead he seemed an obvious candidate for vocals. “I remember in the second year of university it getting a lot harder and getting calls whilst on the road with the band going where are you, why haven’t we seen you in lectures for three months.” He recalls, “That was a hard time managing between the band and the education.”
Million Dead would only last a four year stretch, they like the hardcore band that they took their name from would become victim to their own success and internal unrest. Their two critically acclaimed records would secure them a large cult following and they counted both John Peel and Steve Lamacq as fans. When second LP ‘Harmony No Harmony’ emerged in April 2005 all within the group was not well, as Frank so gently puts it looking back on it all - ‘a fucking nightmare’. By the time the band played their career defining performance at Reading Festival in August that year they knew it would be one of their last. The band granted fans one swansong tour in the Autumn before disbanding for good. “The Reading show that summer was so intense, I remember me and Ben after coming off stage just looking at each other silently, thinking why the fuck are we calling it quits now. It felt like there was at least one more album in the band but by that point we were all such an intensively dysfunctional group of people we knew it had to come to an end.”
The last year of Million Dead saw time to time Frank picking up the acoustic guitar to form his own tune, however he is quick to point out he never wanted Million Dead to split to pursue solo endeavours. “I loved my time in the band and despite some people’s misconceptions our split was nothing to do with a desire to go solo.” Turner solo music looked back to influences of the past like Counting Crows and The Levellers, as he began to realise new writing genius in folk heroes of the past like Dylan and Springsteen. “I remember discovering the Cash ‘American Recordings’ series in later years of Million Dead and just being blown away by the intensity, I never knew country and folk music could be so powerful.”


Turner reveals while in those first years after Million Dead split just taking any gig, “If there was people who wanted to book me I just thought lets go for it.” Turner, who always seem to be on the road in some territory admits the early days were really hit and miss, “Playing a good show to a crowd is the best thing in the world. But touring round the country on my own, sleeping on strangers floor could be really hard. I felt really on my own sometimes without a band specially after a bad show in a room full of strangers.”
Debut EP ‘Campfire Punkrock’ was a five track statement of intent on Turner’s part and garnered great reviews, not least from some hardcore Million Dead fans. “I’ve been pleasantly surprised how fans of the band took to the solo stuff.” It captured Turner’s spirit of political punk from his youth which found a new mix with traditional folk ballads of yesteryear. It became the basis for 2007 full length ‘Sleep is for the week’ which became an even bigger hit for the singer, earning him support slots with Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, The Automatic and Biffy Clyro.
By the time second album ‘Love, Ire and Song’ hit stores late March this year Frank Turner had cemented his place as a punk folk hero for the 21st century. “I think the new record is some of the best stuff I’ve done musically” He adds, “I’ve learnt so much over the last two years from touring the last record that this one sounds so better executed.” Fortunes have again come back around for Turner who returns to Reading Festival and the Lock Up stage again this year, this time under his own name. “I feel so much more proud of my solo stuff, it feels like everything I’ve achieved over the last two years I’ve done in my own right.” Turner who still lives in Winchester with his parents will play Glastonbury and Cambridge Folk festival this year. He wants to still be producing honest heartfelt songs in five years time. “I’ll be happy so long as I’m still making music that is artistically valid. I’m sure I’ll still be touring every day of the year for the next decade. ”

To download free or not to be?

For Radiohead fans ‘In Rainbows’ was an important chapter in the bands history, for those with an interest in the future of music it was probably the most important record of the last decade. Radiohead became the first multi-million selling band to let their audience decide the price it legitimately would pay for a piece of the artist’s music. If the music itself was not forward thinking enough, the concept definitely was and had economists and industry-types all in a stir. But since the ‘experiment’ Radiohead’s management have remained quiet on the outcome, choosing not to disclose download figures or profits, especially after signing a multi-million pound deal to get the record a physical release on Xl Recordings a few months later. While Radiohead may be seen as the pioneers behind the experiment, they certainly weren’t the only artist to trial the potential for delivering free content last year.


Lesser-known artist Saul Williams took a very similar idea in 2008 for his release ‘The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!’ and shocked the world with the outcome...
American poet and rapper Saul Williams had already much success with two critically acclaimed albums featuring the likes of Zack De La Rocha, The Mars Volta and Serj Tankien. Even then fans found it rather strange when they found out the rapper would be collaborating with industrial metal legend, Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor for his latest effort, and even stranger when they found out they the fans would be deciding the price they paid for the album. The digital download of ‘...Niggy Tardust!” was either free or $5, the buyer had the choice.
The man behind the production and funding of the release, Trent Reznor has been open as of his disappointment with the results. After two months 154,449 people had downloaded NiggyTardust and 28,322 of them paid the $5. Clearly for an artist this was not a profitable scenario and Trent said, “If I could redo everything and start again, I think having a physical product is a good thing.”
However he is the first to admit that the idea wasn’t a total failure, for one a relatively unknown artist like Saul Williams received far more downloads of his new album than if he were to have charged, due mainly to the publicity of the concept and the nature of the free giveaway. It does however pose the question, what do people want to pay for music? In America $5 is about the price of a Big Mac and for us with current rates it’s not much less. The ever increasing levels of illegal downloading show no sign of slowing, yet the move to digital formats and the legitimate internet store has presented encouraging results. The BBC reporting recently that iTunes currently score 500,000 downloads a week.
The negative impact of illegal downloading cannot however be underestimated, music industry body, the IFPI, revealed at the start of this year that more than 40 billion songs were illegally downloaded in 2008. This equates to 95% of all downloads last year, add this to the fact sales for physical formats fell again to their lowest ever in 2008 it’s not surprising record labels are currently cutting back staff and spending budgets. Maybe it’s time then that the industry embraces these experiments and more bands start to think about ‘doing a radiohead’; especially when those few who have already followed suit like Bloc Party and Mcfly have had relatively positive returns.
For Radiohead the results of the experiment were relatively insignificant, it gave them a fresh headline, new record deal, handful of Grammys and sell out tour in 2008. Saul Williams will carry on touring the new record, through which he will make most his money, heading to Europe and the UK this summer. The losers ultimately of the trend for paying less for music will be you and me, the music fans, as new bands sell less, record labels take less risks in signing new and unproven talent, new bands will therefore get less attention and in turn we hear less new music. Artists won’t be prepared to take risks or make niche music in fear of selling less, gone will be challenging art and musical expression as those who make it have to ‘sell out’ to keep food on their tables and shoes on their feet. Paying for the music we listen to or losing the music as we know it today, it must be time we decide which is the lesser of the two evils.

The Silly Army

Space hopping adults get a massive four figure grant from Bournemouth Borough Council.

The Silly Army, an unusual adult sports club were awarded a £4,200 grassroots grant from Bournemouth Borough Council this week.
Founded by Peter Reed and David Hann in 2006, the two forty-year-olds were glad to finally get the recognition and financial support, “The last two years David and I have almost paid for everything ourselves,” Said Peter, who hopes it will at least pay for some new laser guns and space hoppers, “We do tend to lose one a week at the moment.”

The group’s activities include dodge ball, ultimate frisbee, volleyball and they’re already in preparation for the annual New Milton Pedal Car Grand Prix this July. Local lorry driver Peter insists it’s all about the taking part though, “The cars got four buckled wheels at the moment so I can’t see us being that competitive.”
Open to anyone 18 and over, the Silly Army boasts a group of nearly 70 regular recruits including Robert, a retired 60-year-old, “He’s probably our oldest member but he still likes to get stuck in.” There’s no membership and no fee required, anyone is welcome to turn up and play every Sunday afternoon at Kings Park.
Greg, a thirty-five year old accountant found out about the Silly Army online, “I just wanted a bit of exercise; I sit down all day in my job, it’s nice to be able to get out and run about a bit.” Peter and David have high hopes for the Army’s future now they’ve finally got the grant, “I think every town in the UK should have a Silly Army.” David remarks, “We do plan to take over the world at some stage.”

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle

Two decades under the comedy spotlight Stewart Lee is now one of the most respected stand up comedians in the country and across television, radio, stand up, print and even theatre he has become synonymous with creating challenging, often controversial comedy. Like Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and Bill Hicks before him Lee has fought hard public and private battles. He was almost forced into police protection four years ago after receiving death threats for his involvement in writing and directing the critically-acclaimed ‘Jerry Springer the Opera’.
‘Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle’ on BBC2 will mark his first return to television in just over a decade but the forty-one-year-old insists he isn’t going to go looking for mainstream acceptance now, “I’m curious as I get good reviews and other comedians seem to like me, it’ll be interesting to see how the general public will react and how it will be received.” Still haunted by the Jerry Springer fiasco, Lee is cautious when flirting with larger audiences, “I’m always worried about getting in the middle of a big scandal again,” He references the opera and confesses, “It was a very tiring and very confusing experience.”
The series certainly hasn’t kept shy of the controversial subjects; political correctness, money, religion and celebrity all come under the lens. Lauded by fellow comedians and celebrities, Lee was labelled the best stand up in Britain by Ricky Gervais, yet he unashamedly remains here the outsider clown figure, the first episode giving him a chance to use his dry wit and satirical style to send up Chris Moyles, Jeremy Clarkson and rapper Asher D.
Lee has, as is traditional, taken meticulous care to work in the material, touring it for over half a year before he felt it was ready for recording. “I just wanted to make sure the stuff was proper stand up rather than just jokes for the television. When you see a stand up there is an internal rhythm and a nice sense of a story being told, whereas what we tend to see of stand ups on TV is them delivering one line on panel games.”
The series blends customary stand up performances with short sketch pieces, stylistically it is reminiscent of older stand up shows, “When I was growing up there was a comic called Dave Allen on TV who also did very long routines, quietly while sitting in a chair and then they would cut to a film item. So I thought it can work but it just can’t work like it’s done now with very fast cutting, in a very brightly lit room, or on a panel show or in a 4,000 seater, none of those would suit me.”
Directed by eminent comedy figure Armando Iannucci (Alan Partridge) with script contribution from Chris Morris (Brasseye) the series manages to collect some of the finest talent in British comedy, including Paul Merton, Kevin Eldon, Stephen K Amos, Tim Vine and even a rare television appearance from Jerry Sadowitz as Jimmy Saville no less.
Stewart Lee remains typically reserved and detached when he thinks about the success the show might receive. Preferring rather to celebrate the achievement of making such a series, he assures everyone he will be back touring a brand new show come autumn.