Their music may be dark but there’s nothing gloomy about Stuart Staples’ mood as he talks to Phil Udell about the new Tindersticks album, Waiting For The Moon, and how after 11 years they’re finally going home
After a hiatus and reshuffle, Tindersticks have returned to former glories with their album The Hungry Saw. Singer Stuart Staples talks about the band's rejuvenation.
They got rhythm; they got soul; they got a newfound pop sensibility. Yes indeed, folks, Tindersticks are back and they're better than ever. It seems that Stuart Staples & Co. have finally had enough of life in the lonely bedsit and have decided to come out and face the world.
If the name TINDERSTICKS is synonymous with images of grim-faced men in suits, peddling unbearably lovelorn songs of emotional destitution and heartbreak, then the Nottingham sextet have only themselves to blame. But, as frontman STUART STAPLES tells NIALL CRUMLISH, their new offering Simple Pleasure swops despondency for optimism with brilliant results.
IT WAS straight out of Reservoir Dogs. Six men, all in black, most in suits, lope onto the stage, a cigarette nestling between fingers or dangling from
the side of the mouth. You half-expect them to open with 'Stuck In the Middle With You' and drag out a member of the Garda Siochana from the side
of the stage with a gag in his mouth and the contents of an extra-large can of Castrol GTX dripping from his fettered uniform.
The late lamented Tindersticks may not be around anymore, but the band’s singer and songwriter Stuart A. Staples still knows how to turn a masterful tune.
1993 may not have been a classic year for rock ’n’ roll but away from the bright lights and the glitter of chartland, there is still great music being made. GERRY McGOVERN talks to five bands who went to the heart of the matter over the past 12 months and made great and memorably soulful albums: TINDERSTICKS, LUNGFISH, MARXMAN, GIRLS AGAINST BOYS and SCRAWL.
A hit album, critical acclaim, sell-out shows… everything was going swimmingly for DAVID KITT until a sunday paper made serious allegations about him and his Government Minister Dad. In a gloves-off interview with COLIN CARBERRY, Kittser responds to his detractors and explains why, despite the journalistic flak, 2001 has been a great year
Summer time, and the record stores are going to be full to bursting with some cracking albums across all genres. John Walshe examines the hottest album releases set to hit the shelves
This is the kind of music I'd like to be able to enjoy but simply can't. Independently, the various components - the piano, the string arrangements, the guitar choruses, the odd bits of futuristic sampling, even the slightly whiny vocals - are interesting in a Tindersticks, experimental kind of way.
Far from loud excessive rockisms, Willard Grant Conspiracy flirt around the edges of folk-rock and lo-fi country. This, their fourth album, captures a warm glow that will doubtless delight many who are already partial to Nick Cave and Tindersticks.
Cousteau's debut LP finally gets an Irish release, and about bloody time too, Guv'nor. The London-based collective have been clocking up superlatives across the pond like they were going out of fashion, drawing comparisons with everyone from Scott Walker to Tindersticks.
They may be Europe s premier exponents of dishevelled cool and string-laden romance, but, as tindersticks mainman stuart staples explains, there s always been that Nottingham Forest element to their music. We re 35% more popular in Greece than Sting, he tells a gobsmacked stuart clark.
Hales has ploughed his own furrow in an admirably single-minded and low-key fashion, deservedly earning himself a loyal following for his Tindersticks/ Joy Division-indebted brand of spectral melancholia.
Hales has ploughed his own furrow in an admirably single-minded and low-key fashion, deservedly earning himself a loyal following for his Tindersticks/ Joy Division-indebted brand of spectral melancholia.
You can count on it happening at least once a year – an album so singular it cuts through arbitrary notions of taste and unites disparate audiences in a brief consensus.
A suitably awestruck nick kelly shares a chinwag with jake shillingford, ringmaster of perfect pop merchants my life story and unashamed wearer of gold lami suits in public.
Their odd-ball sound is hard to pin down, but that hasn’t prevented indie rockers 8 Ball from becoming one of the most buzzed about Irish groups on the scene.
You know, Nick Lowe was right when he asked “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?” Lately, I try to avoid the news as often as not, because it seems that every day there’s another atrocity: more carnage, more blood, more tears, more misery, more grief.
Like Groucho Marx may or may not have said, timing is (pause) …everything. As such, the two albums that electrified us this year (Interpol’s hugely moving, visceral masterpiece Turn On The Bright Lights; Justin Timberlake’s Neptunes-assisted pop‘n’B triumph Justified) were actually released in ’02.
Unreconstructed Downpatrick rockers The Answer are brewing up a whirlwind of hype. But frontman Cormac Neeson admits their good humoured hair-metal may never be cool
Frazer Guided Melodies
TARNATION may make soundtracks to cinematic desert scenes but there s more to Paula Frazer s beautiful songs than a fistful of spaghetti western themes. Interview: Nick Kelly.
Having released his debut album to little recognition at home in Ireland. Perry Blake's career unexpectedly gathered momentum in continental Europe. Whilst he remains little more than a cult figure in his native land. These days in France it's all deification by La Monde, movie soundtracks and policy debate with the Culture Minister. "Part of me is thinking, oh fuck I hope it doesn't do a David Gray" Perry Blake.
When we catch up with Bell X1 frontman Paul Noonan on a fine August afternoon, he’s bracing himself for a grueller of an autumn schedule that will begin with a handful of festival appearances – including an Electric Picnic set – and culminate in full-on month-long European and US tours. Reading dispatches from the band’s recent blogs, it’s apparent that the landscape of modern touring is far from Beat Generation romance and way closer to a Ballardian landscape of endless petrol stations, motorways and ferry docks.
An icy welcome is swiftly thawed by laughter and vodka as the legendary Townes Van Zandt briefly retreats from the endless tyranny of road and stage to discuss his life and times in a darkened Dublin hotel room with Patrick Brennan.
KIM PORCELLI sees DAVID KITT in Brussels on the eve of the release of his new album The Big Romance. Back in Dublin, the pair settle in at the Long Hall for the long haul…
Photography: MYLES CLAFFEY
So says our not-normally-easily-ruffled news hound Stuart Clark - and so will you be when you hear that country-noir legend Lee Hazlewood is playing the Dublin Olympia in September
In a year that saw events which will forever change the world in which we live, selected hotpress contributors offer some personal recollections of the past twelve months. We begin by listing the critics’ choice of 2001’s single and album releases
The big time came knocking but Jack L said, "No thanks, I’d rather do my own thing." In a revealing interview, he explains why he’d rather be an underground star and tells of how melancholy gets him out of bed every morning.
For a man who was working in Galway nightclubs and renting damp rooms in dilapidated hotels at the turn of the decade, PERRY BLAKE hasn t done too badly since. After releasing two acclaimed singles for Polydor, he s now set fair to emerge as one of Ireland s brightest new
songwriting talents.
OLAF TYARANSEN hears his intriguing story.
For a man who was working in Galway nightclubs and renting damp rooms in dilapidated hotels at the turn of the decade, PERRY BLAKE hasn t done too badly since. After releasing two acclaimed singles for Polydor, he s now set fair to emerge as one of Ireland s brightest new
songwriting talents.
OLAF TYARANSEN hears his intriguing story.
In a rare interview, DJ, Sabres Of Paradise mainman and all-round geezer andrew weatherall tells stuart clark about why he won t be working with Primal Scream again, comes clean about his Van Morrison obsession, and does his best not to slag off Kula Shaker and Mansun.
The tears have stopped falling – because those who bitterly mourned the demise of The Go-Betweens soon discovered that what they got instead was a double-helping of the weird genius which had inspired the band in the shape of solo albums from Grant McLennan and Robert Forster. With both of them releasing new records and working on a film script together, everything seems to be coming up roses. Why Lorraine Freeney even got to see a breathtaking reunion gig . . .
Falling in love not only altered David Kitt’s heart but helped reshape his musical vision. Olaf Tyaransen visits his home cum studio and hears about the family affair that is his new album and how meeting Poppy reawakened his love of pop. all this and why the son of a Minister opposes the smoking ban! Photography Roger Woolman.
The Sultans of Ping may have a penchant still for fetishwear and dirty three-minute pop songs but they’re definitely mellowing as Stuart Clark discovers when he meets Niall O’Flaherty and Pat O’Connell for
afternoon tea. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON
Cakes: Mr. Kipling
t certainly would, Joe. But you can have a toot on my megaphone if you like! Gavin Friday discusses the finer points of sexual politics not to mention the post-Freudian subtext to his stunning new meisterwork Shag Tobacco with Dr Joe Jackson. Our man in the white coat concluded: Gavin s time has come. But is the world finally read
The Heineken Rollercoaster Tour is taking to the road again and this time the capital is nobody’s hometown gig. From Kells come Turn, from Limerick Woodstar and from Cork The Frank and Walters. Next stop: a venue near you.
The album won him countless new admirers all over Europe and revealed evidence of Blake's reverence for classic Motown, with lush strings, brass and choral arrangements and a fresh authority in his writing.
With the release of their fourth and finest album "For The Birds", THE FRAMES have zoomed straight into the Irish top ten for the first time. Now, with critical acclaim ringing in their ears, and their glowing fanbase sensing that something special may be about to take place, they prepare to take the Green Energy Weekend by storm. could it be their time has finally come? Interview: KIM PORCELLI. plus mainman GLEN HANSARD gives us a glimpse inside his private diary. out of frame: MICK QUINN
There s very little torture involved in making a record until it s released and then the audience gets to suffer. PETER MURPHY meets the one and only LYDIA LUNCH.
The fourth series of RTÉ Two's highly-acclaimed Other Voices, presented by John Kelly, was recorded over an extraordinary eight days during the madcap run-up to Christmas, in the thoroughly invigorating coastal environs of Dingle. Hot Press reporter Craig Fitzsimons was there to soak up the phantasmagoria, as some of the hottest talent from Ireland and abroad descended on the tranquil Kerry town to make heavenly music.
From A to Z, Paul Nolan and Ronan Fitzgerald introduce all the runners and riders for Punchestown – throwing in a baker’s dozen of acts who are not to be missed * along the way
From A to Z, Paul Nolan and Ronan Fitzgerald introduce all the runners and riders for Punchestown – throwing in a baker’s dozen of acts who are not to be missed* along the way
Our appreciation of Scandinavian bands has, to date, largely been limited to the high profile pop of acts like ABBA and Ace of Base. But, as anywhere, there's usually more to it than that - a generalisation given real meaning by The Opiates' Anywhere.
Albums like this should in theory be reviewed in our main section, but the Back To Mine albums are marketed as post-clubbing chill-out sessions for the dance market.
Hush, pause and languor stand here as equal substitutes for Nixon’s multi-layered density and, minus the clutter, Kurt Wagner’s battered muse is allowed a quiet chance to shine.
Bristolian trip-hop may be somewhat far off the Zeitgeist but new Virgin signings Ilya manage to fuse the sound of their coven with both a timeless London cool and classic arthouse charm.
The setting was most appropriate given the band's literate lyrical approach and the brooding intensity and intelligence they bring to contemporary indie rock
You'll probbly know Jacques better as Anthony Reynolds, leader of moderately acclaimed also-rans Jack, who released a couple of valuable records on the Too Pure label in the mid-to-late nineties.
The Dears seem set to storm Europe with their second offering, the literary and apocalyptic No Cities Left, a cinematic symphony about the death of one world and the birth of another.
It's been called 'lo-fi swamp'. I tend to think of it as loping prairie music, but hey, you'll find your own words to capture the essence of Willard Grant Conspiracy. Mojave is their fourth album, a shambolic, dazed and confused affair that's guaranteed to hog your stereo if it's quirky, original meanderings you're looking for.
What sorcery is this? By now, it’s accepted that every musical sub-genre gets excavated and recycled after time has put the original article at an appropriate distance, but a full-on psychedelic folk revival?? Weren’t the punk wars fought to cleanse the Earth of beads, beards, flutes and six-minute one-chord drone jams?
“If you build it, they will come” – a familiar quote from a Hollywood baseball movie – became the mantra for Dolan’s Warehouse’s 10th birthday celebrations.
THE CRITICS PANEL WHO VOTED FOR THE TOP 30 ALBUMS AND SINGLES OF THE YEAR ARE AS FOLLOWS: BILL GRAHAM, LIAM FAY, GEORGE BYRNE, STUART CLARK, LORRAINE FREENEY, TARA McCARTHY, GERRY McGOVERN, NEIL McCORMICK, DERMOT STOKES, OLIVER P. SWEENEY, SIOBHAN LONG, STEVE AVERILL, ANDY DARLINGTON, COLM O’HARE, JOE JACKSON, HELENA MULKERNS, DAN OGGLY, CATHY DILLON, NIALL CRUMLISH, OLAF TYARANSEN, PATRICK BRENNAN, JACKIE HAYDEN AND NIALL STOKES.
Sometimes putting together this fortnightly column is far easier than you could possibly imagine, and this particular one has been a truly effortless breeze.
The Sex Pistols are back! In what has the look of a major coup for the event, punk’s great trailblazers are among this year’s headliners at Electric Picnic 2008, which takes place in Stradbally over the final weekend in August.
Skibbereen is the unlikely location for one of the most impressive festival line-ups of the year. Simon Basketter hears how Liss Ard can attract some of the biggest international names in rock.
The Critics Panel who voted for the Top 30 Albums and Singles of the Year are as follows: Bill Graham, Liam Fay, George Byrne, Stuart Clark, Lorraine Freeney, Tara McCarthy, Gerry McGovern, Neil McCormick, Dermot Stokes, Oliver P. Sweeney, Siobhan Long, Steve Averill, Andy Darlington, Colm O’Hare, Joe Jackson, Niall Crumlish, Olaf Tyaransen, Patrick Brennan, Nicholas G. Kelly, Jackie Hayden and Niall Stokes.
1995 had us gaga about Courtney love, PJ Harvey, Tindersticks, R.E.M., Blur, Whipping Boy and, em... Star Trek. Plus, our Rory Gallagher memorial issue.
You may know him as a band member of illustrious artists like David Gray, Tindersticks and Lydia Lunch, but saxophonist Terry Edwards will be taking centre stage at the Lazybird in Dublin on Sunday.
THE BALLOT–BOXES HAVE BEEN OPENED, THE VOTES SCRUTINISED UNDER THE STRICTEST OF SECURITY AND NOW THE RETURNING OFFICER STEPS UP ONTO THE STAGE TO ANNOUNCE THE RESULTS OF THE 1993 HOT PRESS READERS’ POLL
