NEW SINGLE AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD NOW...

22nd August 2007

Get the brand new Bone-box single ladies & gentlemen. The cut in question is 'Do you feel you've been warned?' taken from our current long player 'Death of a Prize Fighter' and the flip side is the previously unreleased, unavailable number 'Tightwoundblues' that won't end up anywhere else after. Ever. We promise. Oh, and the cover art will feature the work of northern poster supremo Drew Millward. We like Drew in the way we like single-minded and extrodinarily talented mad scientists. Jump to the Download page folks.

XFM SINGLE OF THE WEEK...

15th August 2007

The fine new Bone-box cut 'Do You Feel You've Been Warned?' is Clint Boon's single of the week (that's this one starting on Monday 13th). Tune in to Clint's frankly terrific show right here folks: www.xfmmanchester.co.uk

'DO YOU FEEL YOU'VE BEEN WARNED?' FIRST REVIEWS...

14th August 2007

CLICK RIGHT HERE LADIES & GENTLEMEN

BLUES MATTERS NEW REVIEW...

7th August 2007

The first question to be asked about this album, "Is it Blues?" And the answer is, "Who cares!?" This is stunning music by any brand. The Mariachi trumpet that calls you into the first track, 'Song For The Wood That Wouldn't', then gives way to Jay Taylor's utterly gruff, growled vocals underpinned by urgent drums and vibrato keyboards and strings. The album is full of songs of downtrodden humanity, despairing and pleading yet accepting of the state of the world and everywhere those vocals, sounding like a man on the edge of the world, unsure whether to stay or jump. Musically it veers into the path of country or Americana with touches of Mariachi and even folk. The simplicity of much of the music is refreshing but when they song calls for discordance or requires the band to storm out then the chops are all there and the musicianship in every department is first rate. None of the songs could ever be described as lightweight but 'St. Jay's Infirmary' or 'Dragging Wires' are incredibly strong meat. 'All My Problems Are Caused By Other People' is an anomaly - a piece of jazz experimentation, but somehow it still fits the tone of the album. 'That Secret War', with just voice and guitar leading into a hootenanny of 'Toasting The God Of Graceless Living' brings the listener down just enough to end well. The passion and majesty in the playing crosses so many boundaries that there is no point in restricting it to any single genre: just call it American music at its finest - it definitely includes the Blues!

Andy Snipper

www.bluesmatters.com
www.myspace.com/bluesmatterspublication

SANDMAN INTERVIEW NOW ONLINE...

14th July 2007

Right here folks: www.sandmanmagazine.co.uk

DIGITAL NORTHERNER 3...

14th July 2007

'DEATH OF A PRIZE FIGHTER' TRACK LISTING & A FEW HINTS...

13th July 2007

 

Death of a Prize Fighter is a twelve round bout for anyone who likes their tumbler full but their jokes baleful. It touches on lost love and lost friends, on all our inner-monkey fistfights and stubborn old trees. It salutes proud-as-punch sticks-in-the-mud, single-minded down-and-outs and all kinds of spirits. You'll get a wry glimpse of why the devil really is in the detail and a lesson in how to talk yourself right out of existence. You�ll hear an empathetic but sardonic roar to all hell-raisers everywhere and you may even find an appointment card that drags you through foul Mancunian weather to St. Jay�s Infirmary.

1. SONG FOR THE WOOD THAT WOULDN'T
"A song for lovers of immovable objects everywhere. Some things should always be allowed to stay put"

2. DRAGGING WIRES
"A salute to all single-minded down-and-outs and tramps whatever their chosen vocation. Just where was he dragging those wires?"

3. TALKING CHRIST DOWN FROM THE CROSS
"A lesson in how to talk yourself right out of existence. Pop, and he's gone"

4. THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL
"The minutiae of a hospital room and a dissection of the people around a bed. Amputations abound"

5. ST. JAY'S INFIRMARY
"An admission. I'm riddled with contradiction"

6. RETURN TO ST. JAY'S INFIRMARY
"A re-admission"

7. DO YOU FEEL YOU'VE BEEN WARNED?
'For when you're not entirely certain that you are upright, present and correct. Sometimes it's not always that plain"

8. ALL MY PROBLEMS ARE CAUSED BY OTHER PEOPLE
"I'm right, they are wrong of course. I'll broach no argument, thus an instrumental"

9. FOUL WEATHER
"Sometimes the weather gets it wrong even in the Rainy City. I'd prefer some control over climactic soundtracks to chaotic events please"

10. SOME SPIRITS SAID...
"A man following a road map to salvation made up of the scars and bruises on his wife's face. But it seems never ending"

11. THAT SECRET WAR
"An inner-monkey fist-fight where I should have spent more time at the training camp in retrospect"

12. TOASTING THE GOD OF GRACELESS LIVING
"An empathetic and sardonic roar to all hell-raisers everywhere and a holler to great domestic rows. Feels pretty good right?"

HIGH VOLTAGE INTERVIEW...

10th July 2007

Your album "Death Of A Prize Fighter" received great reviews across the board. Did you expect such a good reception?

It had been a while since the last long player you know, so that even though the last one got damn good press and sold well all that was nestled firmly in a dark storeroom somewhere in my mind. So this time round it was anyone's guess what the press notices were going to be like. That said I knew I'd slaved over it relentlessly, that I'd made something I was ultimately content with and that the varied styles and moods I was pitching for came through intact - I certainly wouldn't change a note. On the whole people seemed to get what I was driving at too which is always a surprising plus.

You used to run Night and Day, which must be an amazing place to work and be inspired by all the bands passing through. Have you always been musical or did your involvement in bars encourage you to start making music?

What can I say, my father was a bass player and my mother was a showgirl. That's a pretty potent combination and I was nailed to the mast early. Going down this insecure, fraught and chaotic route was inevitable I think. Of course the bars helped as they often do.

Were there any gigs which especially influenced you during your time managing Night And Day?

Oh sure, there were so many shows at Night&Day that reminded me of what great Rock'n'Roll is and why it can still excite even when you are a confirmed naysayer like yours truly. Jesus, some stunning shows. I'm thinking Jonathan Richman, Gogol Borgello, Regina Spektor, Art Brut, Mick Jones, Dirtbombs, Bob Log III, Curtis Eller... the list is nearly endless.

On your Myspace page, you cite a massive amount of influences on your sound. How far would you say you were inspired by everyday life?

Well the fat list up on Myspace is partly self serving. People search for other people with the same tastes right? So I get disparate missives from people about Laphroaig Whisky, Raymond Carver, Boxing, Dusty Springfield, Ezra Pound - you name it, not just the combo. As for influences a bunch of that stuff is in there and some things are plainly more in sight than others but sure I'm a devotee of the idea that everyday life is in turn nothing but bizarre and cruel. What is it that Harvey Pekar says? "Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff"

Your album is incredibly textured and full of instruments. Which instruments do you play yourself and did it take a long to time to arrange?

Absolutely, that was the plan from the get-go with this LP, not to be remotely constrained and let the arrangements and the individual song's needs dictate the level of instrumentation. Most of them are written traditionally on my battered acoustic guitar then the arrangements are hammered out partially in my head and in my pocket book and then fine tuned via rehearsals. I generally have a pretty well mapped out idea of where a particular song is going. For instance I always knew that 'Dragging Wires' was going to be a big epic number with an emphasis on strings, whereas 'That Secret War' was always going to be just voice, Spanish guitar and Hammond organ. As for what I contribute, singing and guitars mainly but somewhere in there is me with a tiny music box that plays 'Happy Birthday to You'.

If you had to give your album a theme, what would it be?

Goethe said "A useless life is an early death". It's up to each of us to decide just how useless our lives are.

Where does the name for your album come from?

I plucked it out of the ether and it fitted the themes like a sock. After the LP came out I found a great American short story by Robert Switzer from the 50s with the same title.

Your vocals have been compared to Tom Waits. How many cigarettes did that require? Are you a Tom Waits fan?

Of course, everyone loves Tom right? Though my own larynx has been progressively mugged by smoky bars and a pathological love of being the devil's advocate (plus an inherent low pitch). Those falsettos just don't come.

What musicians/bands/poetry would you say you are most inspired by?

Again that's a big long list and of course annoyingly, everyone says that right? So I'll pick three things that High Voltage readers should go out and find today...

1. 'Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky' by Patrick Hamilton (All of life's indiscriminate insecurities torn to the bone. Just remarkable)
2. 'Revival' by the Reid Paley Trio (Out of Brooklyn, the Bill Hicks of the blues. Damn superb)
3. 'Weegee' by Weegee (Photographs of life & death - visceral, dark, arresting...)

You're going to SXSW to play in March. Is this your first time and are you looking forward to it?

It is our first trip out there. It's taken them this long to invite us. It should be quite a thing, our US shows have always been really something in the past and we've always hit a chord there. Getting a 9 piece plus the label, crew and press folk over is a bone-fide miracle & triumph in itself though - I'll be bordering on happy when we are all finally in the lobby of the Austin Holiday Inn staring at each other.

Will you be looking out for any bands while you're there?

Of course. It's going to be one long attempt to stave off urges to sleep while keeping my fragile mechanism intact somehow. Today a friend compared my potential mental state to a sun-bleached and water damaged commemorative Charles & Diana plate. Looks kinda intact from a distance but is riddled with cracks up close.

Do you find it hard to juggle your music and gig with running a music venue?

I buy a desk diary and once something is in there I stick to it. Any other way is going to add to those spreading cracks. Add to that the joy of wrangling a 9 piece band about the place and that diary takes on levels of biblical importance. Voltaire said "Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice and need". I am at the very least not bored.

What plans do you have for 2007? Are you recording or touring later on in the year?

We have odd shows dotted here and there. We are pretty choosy about how and where we play but we will be out and about hawking the new record about. There will probably be another single on lovely Czechoslovakian vinyl at some point with something new on one side of it and I've started bringing in songs into rehearsals for the next long player as well. It's the cycle starting again I suppose, plus there's a few other nice things in the wings involving some film soundtrack projects too. We'll probably record post summer, I'm planning to decamp to a Welsh wilderness and hole the band up in an Evil Dead style log cabin for the next one.