Kassidy Interview

At the end of last month I was lucky enough to interview the lovely Barrie James and Hamish from Kassidy just a couple of hours before their sold out Glasgow gig- 28th April 2011 in O2 ABC. Due to publications with other sites, it's delayed going up on mine, but thought you might fancy a swatch anyway! 

What a Welcome home…

After playing thirteen headline gigs in sixteen days, selling out three of these dates and running about the country with the enthusiasm and excitement of a small kid at Christmas, Barrie-James O’Neil and Hamish Fingland did not disappoint as they burst into the dressing rooms in Glasgow’s O2 ABC. With just hours to go until they graced the stage of their sold out home town gig, they were the epitome of the confidence and determination that has lead Kassidy to the levels of success that they are achieving.  

“Everywhere we’ve played the crowds have been fantastic to us,” said Barrie with a grin on his face. “People have learnt the words to the songs, totally helping us out with the singing. It’s just a great buzz. Everybody’s coming and everybody likes it. We’re on form just now, so we’re pretty happy.”

Kicking off in Dundee before touring Scotland, driving down to England to play the likes of Newcastle, Nottingham, Manchester and London, before heading back home for the Glasgow date, Barrie explained, “Dundee was the first one. We’ve started our last few tours in Dundee, pretty much because it’s the best place to start… the people there are just fantastic. We just love the banter of Dundee people. We know a lot of people in Dundee, so it’s a good place to start and Glasgow’s a good place to end it, because it’s our home town.”

Selling out their Glasgow gig five weeks in advance, as well as their dates in Dundee and Edinburgh, the guys remain down to earth about why they’re fans are so supportive in their home town.“We have no idea. All we can think of is the fact that we’re very active to anyone who follows us… who follow Kassidy on Facebook or on Twitter. We like to keep everyone informed about everything that we do. We like to make videos and we like to share our music tastes with people and we like people to share their music tastes with us. We just like to know what people think. You know, people who follow us, we want to know what’s on their mind. We’re very personal with people who follow us,” said Barrie, with Hamish jumping in to explain, “We’re really appreciative. It gives us energy.”

Kassidy are famous for their innovative use of social media to keep in touch with their fans, updating frequently and actively interacting with their fans. Recently this included a live performance via live streaming on Facebook.

Hamish explained, “We just heard about the programme and we… well everyone has Facebook, and everyone loves to get involved.  

                                                                                                          (Photo by Henry Lee)

If there’s a spell where we’re not gigging… we love to be active- if we’re not gigging and we’re not recording, we’re like “what are we meant to do? What are we meant to do?!” cause we love performing. So it was like “You know what, there’s this programme where you can do that,” and we thought, “let’s just get gigging!” So it’s good fun; we got a great reception.”

But the guys were exceptionally modest when it came to the fact that they’re not far off 10,000 fans on Facebook. “It’s amazing. It just comes out of nowhere man, we don’t know where these people come from. We don’t know how people hear about us… I’m pretty sure our friends make up fake accounts to try and help us get to the 10,000 mark,” laughed Barrie.

When asked what made the band different, the guys showed no lack in confidence over where the strength of the band lies. “We’re real, we’re honest. We’re a real band,” Hamish quickly and confidently stated. “There are not a lot of real bands anymore. We live in the same house, we write songs every day, we record ourselves… we don’t stop- ever. We’re a real band. We’re a family.”

The enthusiasm and excitement that this band has for their band and their music, is something that you cannot deny. Barrie explained, “We want to write the best songs, and we want to be happy with our own songs and our song writing and we want to play, we want to be the best live band out there. I think we’re pretty close to getting there.”

“We are close to it,” continued Hamish. “You’ll see it tonight. We are. It’s confidence. We’re doing well just now. You’d rather be hated than just be alright. So if you can be loved or hated, you’ve got to be one or the other. Who wants to be mediocre?”

Bear Arms, Directions EP

So the time has finally come for the Bear Arms boys to officially release their first EP. I have to admit it’s been a long time coming as their loud and luscious record has forcefully and speedily become a staple part of several of my playlists.

Having seen them perform live, several times and in several different locations (including The Banshee Labyrinth last week, where they suitably rocked that little dungeon out of the ground) I know these songs, and I know how they fit into a set list.

But what I really enjoyed was sitting down this evening, coffee in hand and staring out into a dark and gloomy Buchanan Street, just listening to how this EP fits beautifully together, while still giving each song space to suitably shine.

Perfect Symmetry forcefully grabs you and passionately crashes you about.  This song just emphasises how together this band are. The guitar line, the drums, the bass, the vocals; they’re all talented and perfected in their own way, but still manage to stand together strongly as a group.

Echoing and distorting into focus comes To Whom it May Concern. Not quite as forceful as Perfect Symmetry, but it gives  the listener time to focus on the lyrics and vocals that just add to the Bear Arms package; not only can they play their instruments brilliantly and effortlessly, they can also write and perform vocals and harmonies that create a distinctively different  sound to what is popular in the Scottish rock scene at the moment.

Wolves takes the tempo back up, with a rhythm that you can’t help but to nod along to. Loud and luscious I think covers its perfectly.

And then, Directions; the title song off of the EP. Take all of the positives that I’ve said about the last three songs, and bash them together- you’ll then get Directions. They showcase their talents perfectly, while still giving each element its own space to breath, giving the listener that little second to fully appreciate it before it moves onto the next.

The EP is everything that you’d want from a debut release. Strong, together and clearly derived from a whole lot of talent with equal amounts of passion.

With Perfect Symmetry on my running playlist, and Directions on my driving one, I’m excited to see where the songs off their next EP can be a theme tune for.

Their EP launch will be  at Captain’s Rest on Wednesday the 18^th of May. 

This Silent Forest & Little Fire (Supporting The Boy Who Trapped the Sun)

King Tuts Wah Wah Hut

15.04.11

The whole point in a support band, or warm up act, is to warm up the crowd- right? Pretty self explanatory. Still, it must be pretty tricky; going on stage to perform on front of a room full of people who, lets face it, aren’t their to see you, and are using this time to get their round in at the bar, catch up with their gig buddies and sneak in a pee break before the main act comes on.

Well if this was what you did at The Boy Who Trapped the Sun gig at King Tuts, then in all honesty, you lost out.

The first support act, This Silent Forest, demanded the entire room’s attention. It was almost in a reverse psychology kind of way, as their stage chat was incredibly laid back, with their dulcet Scottish tones reaching out to the audience.

This was then emphasised by the semi-acoustic, stripped back set that they performed, with Squirrel, their lead singer, explaining, “We’re a lot louder on the single. This is very different to how we normally sound.”

Even without drums and their usually incredibly full sounding musical accompaniment, the six piece still held the audience’s attention throughout their set. There was an almost vulnerability to their performance, with their echoing harmonies and beautifully story telling lyrics being entirely exposed.

Considering the band are from all across Scotland, the mix of accents and influences, including Scottish folk music as well as a healthy mix of up tempo pop music, all contribute to the band’s un-ignorable sound.

Falter Discover, and The Fight both went down particularly well and not only showed a lovely snippet of what this band are capable of, but left the audience suitably warmed up for what was to come next.

Little Fire; quite ironic as a name for a warm up act, but entirely appropriate.

I always admire solo artists, and Jamie McGeechan, aka Little Fire, as he strolled on stage and introduced himself, is no exception. To have the confidence to showcase yourself, your voice and your song writing, even with the amount of talent that he has, is something I cannot comprehend. 

He started strumming, then burst into some of the strongest vocals I’ve heard in a long time.

No wonder he’s called Little Fire; his voice is so strong, rich and powerful that I don’t think the audience had any choice but to be warmed up.

On the rockier side of the folk scene, Little Fire’s dulcet Ayrshire tones went down a storm with the audience, who, by the noise of them, where there specifically to see him play at his debut King Tuts performance. 

Fire Me Up Now, and All I Need in Life were definite crowd pleasers, with the avid fan standing behind me singing his socks off to every lyric.

I think that’s what is so great about these types of performances; the support can get such a strong crowd in and get such a strong reaction that you begin to wonder how much pressure the headline act is under to outshine their scorching hot warm up acts?

Why bother with the main performance when the warm up acts are on fire? 

Excuses, excuses!

Sorry it's been a while guys.

Alas being a post grad has finally taken its toll on my blog as well as my social life! But alas I'm back and I'm ready to blog my socks off! Expect a couple of catch ups tonight to get us back on track.

H x

Tom McRae at the Arches 11.04.11

The formal title of his performance was “Tom McRae and String Quartet.” Now this string quartet makes all the difference. Primarily, McRae’s music has a prominent cello, a wee sneaky violin here and there, but it is mainly lyric/vocals/guitar based. Hearing his music stripped back, but at the same time equally emphasised was just… goosebump inducing. 

You Cut Her Hair to open, was just beautiful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxEzMTJJVz0

 “Hello,” was the first word Tom greeted the crowd with, followed, after a long pause by “… sitting down… well this is different.” It was exceptionally odd to be sitting at a gig in the Arches, let alone a Tom McRae gig. He continued to explain that choosing the arches was to “drag you and me out of our collective comfort zones,” which I think it is safe to say was the outcome of the evening.

I think the only comparison I can make is that it’d be like seeing your friend’s band performing in your house for years, to then having to see them perform at somewhere like the Royal Concert Hall. You’re used to a more homely, chatty, intimate setting, such as McRae’s previous and numerous gigs at King Tuts. Whereas now you’ve been thrown into a large room with neatly laid out chairs where you feel that you should sit with your legs crossed at the ankles and clap politely.

Thankfully, neither Tom nor the audience were up for that kind of polite, aloof and out right pretentious mumbo-jumbo.

There was an outburst of laughter when Tom explained, “We’ve usually been performing in churches, but I thought it was unlikely to get a couple of hundred Glaswegians into a church. You’re far more likely to find them under a railway bridge.”

It’s a tribute to the respect that Tom McRae has gained as an artist, a musician and a performer that a Glasgow crowd would let him away with such banter; to be honest, the chat between Tom and the general heckling from random members of the crowd made it feel homely and familiar in the new and particularly formal surrounding.

Launching back in to Karaoke Soul and Walk to Hawaii, off of his second album Just Like Blood, Tom then explained that he was starting to write songs for other people, muttering something about getting to that age, and said how people like Leona (Lewis) and Will Young still wont get back to him (clearly joking as his lyrical and musical talent would entirely be lost in the pop circle) he smoothly lead onto All that’s gone. The pensive lyrics were quite tragic, in relation to both the age comment as well as the careers of older pop celebrities.

There’s a wonderful wee video of the performance here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y85CX3CBjUs

Border Song, and 2^nd Law were followed by the out cry of a audience member shouting, “I love microphones,” to which Tom smiled, shook his head and said, “It’s just so random.” Obviously the next cry from a member of the crowd was, “Welcome to Glasgow.”

Linking back to the chat about Leona Lewis, McRae ended his song, Blackheart rodeo with a nice wee rendition of Bleeding love, which although was not something I would have ever imagined in a million years, worked incredibly well and gained a suitable amount of chuckles from the crowd.

Continuing with the chuckles, Tom went on to explain a long an intriguing story about how he was trying to translated and remake a song that he had heard when he was travelling in Eastern Europe. After a long and deeply traditionally eastern European folk music style intro, Tom broke into a great, yet unexpected…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiuQD5GmsqU&feature=related

…cover of Duran Duran’s Hungry Like the Wolf. If you watch the video, you’ll see what I mean.

Finishing, well, pre-encore finishing with One Mississippi, the crowd were going crazy. I don’t think he had a choice but to come out for an encore.

In true comedic style, he came back, announcing, “You can’t get out that way.”

Vampire Heart and Boy with the Bubble Gun went by with enthusiastic sing-a-long by the crowd. But the memorable moment, the one that even thinking about gives me goosebumps, was to End of the World News (Dose Me Up). 

I don’t think there was a soul in the room who wasn’t on their feet and singing their heart out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VeB4mLIi84

For all your Tom McRae needs head to: http://www.tommcrae.com/

Or follow him on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/tommcrae

All the videos in this blog came from the lovely Rhiannon. It’s definitely worth checking out her videos, not only from the Tom McRae gig at the Arches, but also some previous King Tut gigs, as well as a couple of wee cheeky videos from Regina Spector’s recent Glasgow gig.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Rhiannon83videos

Tsunami Charity gig- The main act!

Scott lackadaisically wandered onto stage and broke into one of the biggest songs off Frightened Rabbit’s second album, Modern Leaper, followed swiftly by The Twist. He then announced that he hadn’t actually made a set list, to which there was an outcry of requests from the audience. He selected, Less Rude, providing a rare performance of one of their songs off of their first album, Sing the Greys.

 

Throughout the gig, the audience were not only kept entertained by the musical talents of Mr Hutchison, but were also suitably kept chuckling by Scott’s comedic commentary on his songs. Stopping halfway through Nothing Like You, he explained that in the chorus he always has to restrain the urge to palm mute along to “she was not the cure for cancer, and all my questions still ask for answers…” (Palm muting, for all those who aren’t musically minded, is when a chord repeated chord is played faster, but quieter. It’s predominantly used in genetic rock/pop/punk music, hence the jest.) The crowd were loving it, but whether it was the song, the palm mute, or the hilarity created by the combination of the two, it is yet to be decided.

Scott got his brother Grant out to vibe with him to Old Fashioned, where he grab a spare tambourine and brought his dulcet tones to the piece.

One of my personal highlights from the evening was the story behind the song, Snake. Scott explained about his heartbreak over “Midnight organ girl,” to which the audience gave supportive cheers and jeers, telling the audience about how he wrote a song about his and his girlfriend’s draft excluder, which was a multi-coloured snake, so as to woo her back when she moved to New York. It was funny, heart warming and heart breaking all rolled into one.

It was especially poignant as Backwards Walk followed it; to which the audience sang along, word for word. The emotional lyrics, “I’m working on erasing you, I just don’t have the proper tools. I’ll get hammered forget that you exist, there’s no way I’m forgetting this,” were so relevant and immediate to the emotion behind the story that it just made sense that the they went together in the set list.

Finishing the intimate glimpse into the emotional mindset behind the album, Midnight Organ Fight, Scott played Floating in the Forth. This song, which he doesn’t play with the band and feared that he’d “fuck it up,” talks about the suicidal thoughts that he was dealing with when writing the album, and openly said, “it’s just how I was feeling at the time.” It was just beautiful to behold the stories behind some of the most honest and beautifully blunt lyrics ever written.

He grabbed his Frabbit band mates for a broken down version of Living in Colour and Head Rolls Off, followed by Swim Until You Can’t See Land, which is was safe to say that Scott was pretty much drowned out by the audience participation.

After the Frabbit boys, the next special guest that Scott brought onto stage was the lovely James Graham from Twighlight Sad. The unnecessarily bashful singer helped Scott out with the vocals for their cover of the Halle and Oats classic, Private Eye.

Rounding off the evening with Good Arms vs Bad Arms, Scott then stepped on front of his mic and performed Poke entirely acoustically. The entire room filled with the crowds’ voices, along with the almost silent sound of his guitar; it was a beautiful way to end the gig.

The crowd wanted more, however, and Scott came back on to finally finish the set with Keep Yourself Warm, to which the crowd joined in, word for word and note for note.

We all knew why we were there and where our money was going to. But what the acts managed to do was equal the charitable efforts of the evening, with some spectacular performances, making the evening wholly and entirely sweet.

Tsunami Charity gig- warm ups!

I find charity gigs quite bitter-sweet in general.

Predominantly it’s a band or artist constantly reminding you that you are having a great time while other people are struggling through some of the most horrible human experiences, inevitably leading to a mixed emotional bag of awkwardness.

Clearly not everybody feels as I do though, as the tickets for the gig were sold out days before the event. I caved and purchased the last two tickets available; the opportunity to see Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison perform an intimate and acoustic solo set was, and for future reference is not, an opportunity to be missed.

The atmosphere at stereo emphasised the bitter-sweet element of the evening; the excitement was juxtaposed by a relaxed and pensive friendliness. Everyone knew the meaning and purpose behind the night’s performance, but equally it seemed as though everybody was there primarily to experience some truly moving music.

Haight Ashbury made a strong start to the evening. Clearly influenced by American folk music, with a healthy amount of sixties love and protest based lyrics thrown in, Haight Ashbury managed to intrigue the surprisingly large audience for the first act on.

As the second act set up, the crowd grew extensively; a couple of shunts forward and the last bar trip of the evening undergone, two exceptionally stunning ladies came to the stage.

Now it wasn’t only the duo’s looks that grabbed the crowds attention and grasped on tight so that they had no choice but to sit up and take note; by the end of their first song, Gill and Jenny managed to stun the audience into a suitable awe struck silence, followed quickly by a mass round of applause.

The girls are not only exceptionally talented musicians, with both of them switching from guitar to fiddle, but they are so harmonised in their vocals that it came as a complete shock when they announced that this was the first time that they had performed together.

Their hauntingly harmonised vocals were also impressively and imaginatively altered during one of their songs, when one of them sang through their violin string, creating the oddest, yet perfectly suited reverberation of sound.

Their set concluded with a comic, yet original cover of JLS’s Beat Again, where the audience gave enough whoops and cheers to prove that they were most definitely ready for the main performance of the evening.

Frightened Rabbit/Scott Hutchison gig review to follow...