Balgay Hill: A play about Dundee, Billy MacKenzie, The Associates, about heroes, fame and home

History is (mostly) straightforward. Events happen, are recorded by a number of eyewitnesses, whether written down or carried in the minds of those who experience it. These become the definitive 'facts' which give us our sense of identity, our sense of who we are, the sense that we are the product of a long line of Others - that we are here today because of their actions. We impose upon it a beginning, a middle and an end. And because we are a perverse species we mostly like to insist on a happy ending.

Even music is prone to such gross simplification. Not so 'Balgay Hill' a play which reflects the inter-connectedness between home, our sense of belonging and the memories which become (formalised as) our histories.

"Neither James (Brining, Director) nor I wanted to write a straightforward bio because nothing about Billy or his story is straightforward. He is an amazing character full of contradictions trailing a litany of legends in his wake. He is a different kind of hero blessed with an extraordinary voice" (Simon Macullum, Writer).

Balgay Hill is (loosely) the story of Billy Mackenzie, maverick and magnificent singer with The Associates, told through the interwoven lives of four individuals from Dundee, where Billy was born and now rests close to the titular Balgay Hill. At first I was uncertain as to how this could be accomplished without seeming forced in terms of incorporating Billy's (larger than) life into the lives of mere mortals (so to speak), however it was very sensitively done, with the main framing device being a video that one of the characters was making about Billy's life as, they quite rightly said, there is no real, lasting memorial to him. Only fragments of a life that was lived for the briefest of moments in the spotlight; the seminal being when Billy shimmered onto the Top of the Pops stage - wearing a black beret and raincoat, seemingly trying not to laugh at Alan Rankine and the chopsticks stuck in his hair - rightly identified as a key moment (as beautifully described by Simon Reynolds in 'Rip it up and start again'). Such fragments can be misleading - how much do we really know about someone like Billy?

"To think you learned to know someone and find / That you don't know, don't know them at all." (Club County, The Associates)

Whilst Billy's life provided the structure for the events (the details of which would be familiar to anyone with more than a passing interest in The Associates, they cannot help but attract big stories to them), there was always some blurring between what belonged to the life of the character, and what belonged in the life of Billy. This was effective in that it created a real sense of how memories operate, they are often jumbled and incoherent, hard to fathom as to their time and place until we place them into a narrative. These memories were not existing as something given, but we had to piece them together, to give them meaning.

"I found a coin and washed away the silt / I found a shiny coin / A coin whose head was slightly to the tilt / Who'd leave it there in silt / guilt?" (Nude Spoons, The Associates)

Whilst it seems ironic that going by his singing voice you could have thought that Billy Mackenzie was as likely to have come from Saturn than from Dundee, also poignant was the emphasis within the play, in the words of writer Simon Macallum, "our relationship with the place of our birth". And although Billy himself left Dundee several times he always came back. Two of the characters in the play had never left, one never really belonged there, and the last only returned (as was implied) to die there, according to the Japanese saying. Sadly this was the same for Billy, who was found in his father's garden shed in 1997 having taken a fatal overdose. The closing of the play on Balgay Hill, close to Billy's final resting place, no happy ending, no tying of the ends reflects (for me) the reality of memory, there is no end, and with there being no end the memories will live on, gathering their own momentum; not Billy-as-he-was but Billy-as-he-is-remembered which will necessarily be different depending upon who is doing the remembering. Yet this is the nature of memories, they are idiosyncratic, highly personal and indisputable, the perfect foil to the 'boring old history' that we are forced to learn because someone tells us it is important. But it got me thinking, why do some memories endure more than others? Which memories of Billy will endure and which will fade? All in all it was more than a curiosity piece, it was a thoughtful and engaging work which deserves a lot of success. Now I wonder if Take That the Musical will have the same effect....

"So what if this party fears two? / The alcohol loves you whilst turning you blue / View it from here, from closer to near / Awake me!" (Party Fears Two - The Associates)

Some pictures....

Looking across to The Law from Balgay Hill

Looking across to the 'Silvery Tay' from the cemetery on Balgay Hill

The Dundee Rep Theatre

The best record shop I have visited in ages, Groucho's in Dundee

NB All quotes from Simon Macallum are from the 'Balgay Hill' programme; song lyrics from The Associates album 'Sulk'

Crystal Stilts - Alight of the Night

The name Crystal Stilts sounds like one of those magical objects found only in European fairytales; like Baba Yaga's house that spins on chicken legs, the nettle shirts that Elisa must knit for her doomed brothers or the singing ringing tree that restores the morally bankrupt Princess to goodness.  Likewise the sounds constructed by the Stilts are somewhat vague and ethereal, with a tinge of the typical English weather.  If drizzle and mist could sing, rather than whisper with eerie precision in your ears, 'Alight of the night' might be the consequence.  Singer Brad sounds like he is enveloped in the stuff, his melancholic drawl subsumed beneath the weight of the ponderous production, recalling the wooziness of sinusitis, or that early sensation of numbness when operating on little sleep.  The world becomes cocoon-ed, perhaps a little indifferent, a little detached; its rather reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine and Shoegaze bands, but without the excruciating  ear-bleed.  Whatever - the results are beguiling, particularly songs 'The Dazzling' and 'Departure' which set a simple repetitive rift against bass-lines that chog along almost jovially alongside the mournful (and unfathomable) vocals, the slight melodies weaving in and out.  The power of the rhythms rise above the murk and prevent this album sinking into its own navel, creating an oddly uplifting experience.

Do the Mussolini (Headkick)

In the movies machines almost never listen to music, indeed they seem to go out of their shiny way to avoid it.  So the machines in the Matrix might get some stirringly creepy soundtrack to their human-growing activities, but in the reality they would only be listening to the hum of the electricity generated.  Cybermen may have a glorified I-Pod attached to their 'ears' but it is doubtful they hear anything more than the stomp stomp of their heavy feet as they go about their deleting business.  However if machines were going to listen to music it would be tempting to consider that they would not look much further than Sheffield's Cabaret Voltaire, surely the most suitable soundtrack to any dystopian nightmare?  There is no softness in their creations, no hint of the natural world in their stark soundscapes, brittle textures and distorted vocals.  So whilst some songs recall beauty, some revel in the soppy-ness of love and human relationships.  Not the Cabs.  'The Original Sound of Sheffield '78/'82' could only be forged in the fires of Steel City, the sweat and grind of the mill, the continual threat of gory accident or death, hastened by the dilapidation and griminess of everyday existence.  It's like heading back to the Industrial Revolution in a rusting shopping trolley, as told creatively through tape cassettes and voice modulators, guitars pushed to their limits through electronic veils.  Obscure, obscuring.  So "Nag Nag Nag" worms its seedy way into your skull, un-fathomable instructions barked in bleary voices, seemingly recorded in a wind tunnel.  "Do the Mussolini (Headkick)" constructs its beat around metallic intestines, churning through the sewers of human existence to spew out only garbled messages.  Whilst the woozy clatterings of "Yashar" are imbued with traces of Eastern melody, generally this is a grim, if satisfying, trawl - satisfying in that it reminds forcefully that music does not always have to be a pleasant or uplifting experience - it can be discomforting, unsettling even.  Take the saxophone on "Wait and Shuffle" merely a discordant meandering, only here it sounds threatening, as far away from the smug tedium of jazz as can be imagined.  Then in 1983 'The Crackdown' lets us imagine how it might be if the machines decided that they liked to disco.  Only a very imaginative (and un-self-conscious) individual might attempt a shuffle to "Baader Meinhof".  Anyone might move themselves around to "24-24", still cloaked in urban tension, but far more accessible with it.   Still, even if the beats are more familiar, the dissonance only becomes greater with immediacy; imagine Britney Spears doing a cover of "Why Kill Time (When You Can Kill Yourself), imagine if pop could be this discomforting?  (Although the sight of Britney, post breakdown, continuing to gyrate on stage is pretty discomforting in itself)  Chinks of light are also beginning to appear in the darkness; "Animation" with its shiny guitars and jaunty, if jerky, rhythm effectively creates machine-funk, "Diskono" escapes the dirge that otherwise drowns its comrades, describing (perhaps) the ecstasy rush of LEDs, and, of course, "Just Fascination", the closest to a conventional song as the Cabs are willing to provide, sent askew with its claustrophobic atmosphere - the prototype of electro-Goth.  The future is bleak, (if) the future is Cabaret Voltaire; listen to it and despair.

The searing sound of Cabaret Voltaire - 'Nag Nag Nag'

Dot to Dot Festival 2009 - Nottingham

The Dot to Dot Festival, for those who are not familiar with it, takes place over two days in May in two cities, Bristol and Nottingham.  I had the opportunity to attend the festival in Nottingham, which spread around fifty bands across five venues.  Fortunately all of them are close to the city centre however I saw only the minutest percentage of bands (only seven!, which is pretty pathetic really) and, of course, there being many frustrating clashes where I had to choose.  Still I was very pleased with who I did see, and I liked skipping between the venues (most of which I had not been to before) with the aid of a red wristband, none of the mud or trouble with rain like a proper outdoor festival.

The Pains of being pure at heart were LOUD and reminded me more than a little of My Bloody Valentine crossed with a Sherbet Dib Dab, although they didn't make my ears bleed (fortunately as it was still only 3.30pm).  Very cutesy, very fun but not too twee!

When Maps first emerged they (he) made music from the bedroom, woozy and unfathomable.  Now Maps are out of the bedroom and onto the dance floor!  Whilst new touches to old favourites like 'Back and Forth' refreshed their sound, the new ones (including 'Let go of the fear') were a bit formula electronic for my liking, having lost some of the idiosyncratic melodic touches of 2007's 'We can create.'  One which had the repeated refrain 'Love will come' was downright sinister.

I wondered into the Rock City's basement venue to watch Telegraphs who were a bit too US Rock copyists to hold my attention for very long.  In the main room I found Mumford and Sons four young men sounding much older than their years with a succession of folk-y songs played on acoustic guitar, double bass, steel guitar / banjo and piano.  The singer looked a bit like a young Stephen Fry as the group next to me had the pleasure of pointing out.

There was more than a shiver of anticipation for the next act Patrick Wolf; I confess I knew very little about him but it was evident from the moment he stepped onto the stage in leather leatherhosen, knee high socks, and most of Barry M's makeup range exploded onto his face that this is someone who is DIFFERENT, maybe a bit STRANGE.  Well my measure-stick of 'different' is 'Sulk' by the Associates and the music did not even come close to the bizarreity and bravery of that album.

Much of it was quite conventional if I dare say it, the addition of a violin giving an eastern European flavour which perhaps makes it different to other bands around at the moment.  Who can say?  Never mind, it was entertaining enough and Patrick had a fine pair of lungs on him.

Ladyhawke lurked in the darkness and barely came out from under her fringe, but who could blame her when for the first ten minutes there were about eight photographers sticking their camera lenses in her face?  When they had gone she seemed to visibly relax and even came out front for a guitar solo (of sorts).  Backwards-looking-but-future-sounding songs like 'Delirium', 'Magic' and 'Dusk til Dawn' were rousing and got the crowd going despite the vocals being washed out by the over-enthusiastic synths.

Omigod - Friendly Fires  - I was NOT prepared for the frenzy!  Nor the sense of euphoria despite the beer raining down and the crush of the crowd!  Starting off with the best song on their album - 'Lovesick' - it only got better and better, singer Ed Macfarlane drenched in sweat from gyrating so much, guitarist and drummer duetting on cowbell and shaker to the beginning of 'On Board', the mad hysteria to the arrival of 'Jump in the Pool'... as a total immersive experience it was more than enough to make me want to do it all over again when the final strains of 'Strobe' faded away.

To end on such a high it was difficult to go and watch another band after that, and Crystal Antlers really were not doing anything for me so reluctantly I gave up the pretence that anything could match the Friendly Fires!

the black ghosts - the black ghosts

It is rather shameful to admit that I completely passed The Black Ghosts by when they first emerged... introduced to 'Something New', which was a rather jaunty tune with a pleasing discordant chord opening, nonetheless it (unfortunately) came across as rather insipid outside the context of its encompassing album (although in place it makes perfect sense).  It took an opening song to a recent low-budget film with lame (ahem) sparkly vampires to ignite that fatal interest....  A little bit of research and it emerges that the 'Ghosts are formed from the smouldering ashes of Simian (splitting into two with Simian Mobile Disco being the most obvious link), a band who exists virtually in my collection and is virtually never played, being a bit too day-glo and sickly sweet for more melancholy tastes.  The Black Ghosts are, however, leaning more towards this vein; despite the high energy forced into dance-able tracks like 'Repetition kills you' and 'Anyway you choose to give it' there is a certain fragility in the arrangements - a sense of loss underlying the optimism - that keeps it interesting, a vibe that hangs together upon the wistful, yet fortunately not so cloying, vocals of singer Simon Lord (he seems to have lost most of the affectation he employed in Simian although there is an ill-advised lapse into cockerney at times).  Damon Albarn also appears but I am not sure he adds much in the way of interest (meow!)  In terms of the songs... there is a certain schizoid nature at work here; if you heard some of these songs randomly you would hardly link the two together.  Take 'Full Moon' (from said sparkly-vamp-fest) which could be from the pen of a folk group, all lilting guitars and throbbing bass speaking of the earth and pine trees, immediately followed by 'I don't know' which was made for all I know by intelligent computers and robots manipulating synth pads, only the voice recognisably human (and even then you would hardly link the Simon 'here' with the lushly-tracked Simon 'before').  Both have in common that they are ridiculously catchy.  Gloriously dramatic to open, 'Some way through this' is aching to be the soundtrack to bleeding hearts, however in the next breath 'Anyway you choose to give it' revels in the obsession caused by love - although the narrator is of sufficient presence of mind to almost resent their paramour for causing this parlous state - to what must be one of the most criminally underrated disco stomps this century (it's not the kind of thing I hear at the disco anyway when it should be!)  As well as disco, the 'Ghosts also reveal a well-raided musical styles sheet, managing smooth ('It's your touch'), funky ('Until it comes again') guest singers ('Repetition kills you') and ballads ('Don't cry').  It all builds for the cataclysmic final blow-out - 'Face' - constructed around the repetitious call to arms 'you've got to face the music', underpinned with basic killer beat and 80s throwback synth crunches that makes my heart skip with excitement and notch up the volume.  One to play as loud as you dare in the hope that the neighbours will lap it up with grateful pleasure.

The video for 'Anyway you choose to give it' , which sort of goes with the idea that it's made by computers or robots!



For comparison purposes, 'LaBreeze' by Simian....



...and the brilliant 'I Believe' by Simian Mobile Disco (you might recognise the singer)

bell hollow - foxgloves

Foxgloves are amongst my favourite flowers, a graceful blush of pink amongst the trees, carefully designed to manipulate the bee into its pollen-lain interior.... Bell Hollow likewise draw you in with a rich, velvety sound like those petals.  Whilst having more than a passing resemblance to Interpol and their ilk (not a terrible sin in my book I'll admit) Bell Hollow do not have the same aggressive edge exhibited by that band, more of a shimmery softness around the edges; so trailing a hand lazily in the water on a sultry summer's day (rather than getting all hot and irritable on the sweltering streets of New York).  Opening with the spirited dance-y 'Seven Sisters', Bell Hollow echoes all the pleasant aspects of those fey whimsical bands that you feel might be too delicate to be bruised by the rigours of success (and alas Bell Hollow are no more, adding weight to that ad hoc theory....)  Even Nick Niles singing "and we're young and wild" barely stretches to upbeat.  Even so the sound of melancholy is a wondrous thing, his voice drips with such lusciousness it has the effect of making even the most prosaic of actions compelling.  Exhibit A on 'Our Water Burden' - "take the letter on the mantle, open it slowly, read my hand-" convinces me that even a shopping list would be transformed in his capable larynx.  If you have an irrational hatred of jangly guitars then this album might be hurled against the nearest wall in a fit of pique, for herein is plenty of delicate chiming 'bell-like' guitar (I am honestly running out of metaphors and words to describe this kind of thing, no wonder music journalists go a little barmy in the search for better and greater adjectives), inducing all kinds of pleasant imaginings in the mind of the susceptible listener; personally I am still reclining in a boat slipping silently through the water, somewhat like the doomed Lady of Shalott, especially by the time 'Eyes like Planets' mopes into view.  Things head rapidly downhill after that before pining away with the despair of 'Lowlights' only...only... before there is a brief flash of resilience 'The Bottle Tree' which crackles with the bitterness of resigned 'told-you-so' - 'that was then, but this was now, you got what you wanted but it went sour' - a battered cry to be careful what you wish for if ever there was one.  Still, a good dose of melancholy which never collapses into utter misery is always welcome, only the sad note to end on reflects the fact that it DOES end here. Forever.  And the bell tolls goodbye.

The lovely strains of 'Seven Sisters' (as found on YouTube)

The Stills - Logic will break your heart and Oceans will rise

I refused to even engage with the second album from The Stills (Without Feathers) as soon as I learnt that David Hamelin, who had previously been the drummer, would be taking on vocal duties alongside Tim Fletcher, who sang for the majority of their first album 'Logic Will Break Your Heart.'  Not that I have any specific prejudice against singing drummers (ahem Phil Collins ahem) and I am very sorry to Mr Hamelin but the sublimity of 'Logic Will break your heart' was mostly secured for me because of the vocals of Mr Fletcher, which are often so beautiful I often found myself longing to have his dulcet tones drip-fed into one ear continuously (the other ear would be reserved for David Sylvian) as I am certain this would make the world a much better place to inhabit.  Anyway, I am running ahead of myself to get on to the second without talking about the first... Aside from having an inspired title, 'Logic Will Break your Heart' for me was the best example of the harnessing of an intelligent post-punk sensibility and reconfiguring it through the glossy sounds of the '00s; okay they are still dealing with the same issues as everyone else, love, death, love and death, however the heartfelt nature of Tim Fletcher's keening vocals helps to lift this collections of songs above the murky parapet of indie rock and imbue them with a fatalistic core that taps into our deepest fears of melancholy and being alone-ness (or something to that effect).  An instinctive pull towards melody pervades songs like 'Changes are no good' which contains some of my most favourite lyrics ever - 'All the world's deranged and I'm left crushed, people delayed or in a rush' - for their simplicity.  'Fevered' is sheer heartache melted and poured into the amplifier, a tiny tear clinging to the ephemeral plastic of our mass culture.

Like the Killers, the Stills kind of lost their edge on their second album although, as I admit, I have not taken the time to listen to it and find out.  I will have to wallow in my ignorance for the third attempt 'Oceans will Rise' is taking my attention at the moment and... hooray there is Tim Fletcher's voice stamped all over it and David Hamelin's voice is pleasant enough and there is plenty of melody to counteract the slight element of U2-esque bombasity that has crept in, but then 'Logic...' had such an atmosphere of resigned introspection that even the slightest cranking up of those guitars could blow away its fragile pretensions.   Saying that, I think The Stills have sacrificed some of their quirkiness for conventionality, unless they were a conventional band all along and 'Logic...' was merely an aberration.  Still, whilst some of the songs are forgettable ('Hands on Fire' is pretty bland, 'I'm with You' predictably dull) there is enough to make you hope; 'Snow in California' is a lovely song with seductive harmonies, 'Snakecharming the masses' a more low-key appeal and unusual structure; an achingly beautiful song seems to be trying to get free from 'Dinosaurs' if it wasn't for the intrusive 'rawk' guitar that stomps heavily all over the fledging attempt.  So 'Logic...' still beats the pants off 'Oceans' merely for its refusal to get too enmeshed in the need to be anthemic  - for this reason, 'Oceans' seems rather forced instead of effortless. 

Courtesy of YouTube, the sublimity of 'Changes are no good' from 'Logic will break your heart'

Taking it easy with Mansun and Marion

There seems to be a 90s revival happening at the moment, lots of rumours flying around about the 'seminal' (I say this with a heavy amount of sarcasm) 90s band The Stone Roses reforming, and The Charlatans and Saint Etienne playing at the Summer Sundae festival in Leicester this August, to suggest but two things floating around the Internet ether.  So I decided to have a listen tonight to some tunes that I was listening to in that very decade.  A couple I have to mention; the first is 'Take it Easy Chicken' by Mansun.  I was never a huge fan but I did love this song, due to the wonderful sneering vocals and the dense guitar riff that drives into your skull with the subtlety of a migraine.  Besides the gratuitous incorporation of a farmyard animal into a song title is pretty funny.  The second song I 're-discovered' was 'Sleep' by Marion; poor Marion never really seemed to get anywhere and I think they ended up re-releasing Sleep twice in slightly different versions.   Like 'Take it easy chicken' I get the sense that Marion do not really like the protagonist of their song, although singer Jaime Harding is too polite to sound really cruel.  I always like the lyric 'Go to sleep there's more fish in the sea' as a potential put-down, sadly I have never had an occasion to use it.