Issue 67 / June 2016

FREE
Issue 67
June 2016
MC Farhood by Michelle Roberts
MC Farhood
Eleanor Nelly
Dragged Into
Sunlight
Mbongwana Star
Summer Festival
Guide

SAT 14 MAY 7pm
THE ISRIGHTS
+ DAEZ + STILLIA
+ BRICKHOUSE
SUN 15 MAY 7pm
SEPTEMBER GIRLS
WED 18 MAY 7pm
SPRING KING
THU 19 MAY 7pm
EMMA POLLOCK
SAT 21 MAY 7pm
MICHAEL SUTTAKORN
(IN AID OF TEENAGE CANCER TRUST)
TUE 24 MAY 7pm
WE CAME AS ROMANS
& MISS MAY I
WED 25 MAY 7pm
AS IT IS
WED 25 MAY 7pm
BEN WATT BAND FEAT.
BERNARD BUTLER
THU 26 MAY 7pm
BEN CAPLAN & THE
CASUAL SMOKERS
SUN 29 MAY 7pm
HANDS LIKE HOUSES
TUE 31 MAY 7pm
MOON HOOCH
WED 1 JUNE 10pm · 18+
GOLDTEETH
SUMMER CARNIVAL
THU 2 JUNE 7pm SOLD OUT
SUNDARA KHARMA
SAT 4 JUNE 7pm
WAVE WEEKEND
TUE 7 JUNE 7pm
NORMA JEAN
MON 20 JUNE 7pm
BOYSETSFIRE
TUE 21 JUNE 7pm
NAPOLEON
WED 22 JUNE 7pm
UNKNOWN MORTAL
ORCHESTRA
FRI 15 JULY 7pm
SPACE & STEPHEN
LANDSTAFF
+ SATIN BEIGE
SUN 17 JULY 7pm
RAGING
SPEEDHORN
TUE 19 JULY 7pm
AREA 11
TUE 9 AUG 7pm
BIG D & THE
KIDS TABLES
WED 10 AUG 7pm
SARA BETH
& GLEN MITCHELL
TUE 6 SEPT 7pm
BROKEN BRASS
ENSEMBLE
THU 8 SEPT 7pm
ELEANOR
FRIEDBURGER
THU 15 SEPT 7pm
THE SHERLOCKS
WED 28 SEPT 7pm
JAKE QUICKENDEN
SAT 1 OCT 7pm
ELVANA - THE
WORLD’S FINEST
ELVIS FRONTED
TRIBUTE TO NIRVANA
MON 3 OCT 7pm
AKALA
THU 6 OCT 7pm
STEVE MASON
SAT 26 NOV 7pm
MOTORHEADACHE
SAT 3 DEC 7pm
IAN PROWSE
& AMSTERDAM
PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS
MONDAY
20TH JUNE
LIVERPOOL’S
MOST ICONIC
STUDENT
NIGHT
EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT
11pm
LIVERPOOL
TICKETS FOR ALL SHOWS ARE AVAILABLE FROM TICKETWEB.CO.UK
90
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Bido Lito! June 2016
3
Bido Lito!
Issue Sixty Seven / June 2016
bidolito.co.uk
12 Jordan Street
Liverpool L1 0BP
Editor
Christopher Torpey - chris@bidolito.co.uk
Editor-In-Chief / Publisher
Craig G Pennington - info@bidolito.co.uk
Media Partnerships and Projects Manager
Sam Turner - sam@bidolito.co.uk
FROM IBIZA TO THE NORFOLK BROADS
Editorial
In or out? If you prefer a little more melodrama, how about Bremain or Brexit? I’m not one for sound bite-friendly portmanteaux, so I prefer to
couch the EU Referendum as a question between the following two choices: choosing to be a part of an inclusive, cosmopolitan union with a rich
history versus choosing to turn our backs on our closest neighbours and risk becoming an isolated outlier. Alternatively, you could put the whole
debate in Eurovision terms: Jamala or Lazarev?
You’ll have hardly been able to escape the fierce to-ing and fro-ing on each side in recent weeks, as campaigning in the UK’s biggest referendum
since 1975’s EEC vote comes to a head on 23rd June, when voters in the UK will be asked whether they want the country to stay in or leave the
European Union. I’m not going to beat about the bush here, I’m firmly in the IN camp. I buy into the fact that Europe, as a wider bloc, is overwhelmingly
beneficial to us as citizens, and richer for having the UK as part of it. Those of us who’ve grown up in an EU world often take things like freedom of
movement across borders (for work and travel), workers’ and consumers’ rights, and the protection of the European Convention for Human Rights for
granted; I think it’s important to educate ourselves on the benefits we’ve received from being a member state of the European Union, and appreciate
the privileged position it puts us in. Though I don’t wear my EU citizen’s hat all too often, it’s encouraging to know that I still have it if I need it.
From the point of view of arts and culture, it’s interesting to think of our how our own position in the creative community would be altered by
the referendum decision. Arts Council England, which invests millions of pounds of funding in the creative and cultural sector each year – including
providing support to Sound City, Liverpool Psych Fest and Threshold festivals – states that “the relationship our sector has with the EU is complex,
ranging from finance to State Aid, copyright regulation and the movement of artists across European borders”. Though not explicitly saying so, the
inference is that there are more benefits for artists in the UK if we are an EU member state, through schemes like Creative Europe, European Regional
Development Funds and cross-border exchange programmes like Erasmus and Interreg. The Musicians’ Union is a little more up front in its support:
“For musicians, the benefits of Britain staying in the EU are numerous,” reads the opening line of its statement to members. The statement goes
on to point out that EU legislation has improved the working conditions for musicians, and that “at least three European Copyright Directives have
been responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of our members and ensuring that they receive remuneration for the use of their
work”. In terms of the live music and touring business, on which many musicians rely as a steady stream of income, open EU borders make touring
both easier and less expensive. If we weren’t part of the EU’s free travel area, the extra expense of visas and carnets (customs documents which
allow the tax-free temporary importation of equipment) to regular live touring acts would be a lot greater than it currently is, as well as costing
a lot more valuable time, effort and money.
Even if the impact on arts and culture doesn’t figure very highly for you on this issue, think about what Europe means to you. Do you want us
as a country to embrace the cultures, languages and heritage of our nearest neighbours – or do you want us to remove ourselves behind a veil of
ignorance and become haughty, isolationist UK that takes its ball home when it can’t get what it wants. It is narrow-minded and selfish to think
this is the only way of dealing with any issues we might have with the way the EU is run. Let’s show Europe – and the world – that we’re not the
conservative little Britain of suspicious shopkeepers, but an outward-looking, participatory member of the global community. Jonathan Jones
summarised this thought quite neatly in his recent Guardian column: “A vote to leave is to declare that Britain is an island, not just physically but
culturally”.
Around 200,000 people will be at Glastonbury on 23 rd June when the referendum is held and, despite the best efforts of the Eavis family,
permission for a one-off Worthy Farm polling station hasn’t been granted. If you’re lucky enough to be attending Glastonbury this year, make sure
to register for a postal vote before 7 th June to ensure that you get the chance to have your say in this referendum. Head to gov.uk/register-to-vote
now to register.
I’d like to finish by mentioning two people who, for differing reasons, came to mind at various points over the last four weeks: actor and Tramp
Attack founder member Kris Ealey, who tragically passed away at the beginning of May; and Professor Phil Scraton, who was instrumental in the
long-overdue findings of the Hillsborough inquest, working tirelessly and with great dignity alongside the families of the 96 victims – both men
are inspirations to a city of great musical and civic pride.
Christopher Torpey / @BidoLito
Editor
Reviews Editor
Philip Morris - live@bidolito.co.uk
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Mark McKellier - @mckellier
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Matthew Wright and Scott Smith
Words
Christopher Torpey, Joshua Nevett, Del
Pike, Stuart Miles O’Hara, Roanne Wood,
Damon Fairclough, Mark Greenwood,
Glyn Akroyd, Philip Morris, Josh Ray, Sam
Turner, Matthew Wright, Scott Smith, Matt
Hogarth, Rosa Jane, Yetunde Adebiyi, Tom
Bell, Christopher Carr, Phil Gwyn, Johnny
Winship, Paul Fitzgerald, Frankie Muslin,
Harry Brown, Rory Taylor, AW Wilde.
Photography, Illustration and Layout
Mark McKellier, Michelle Roberts, Brian
Sayle, Liz Sheard, Georgia Flynn, McCoy
Wynne, Gareth Arrowsmith, Keith Ainsworth,
Stuart Moulding, Jack Thompson, Gaz
Jones, Mook Loxley, Aaron McManus,
John Johnson, Glyn Akroyd, Nata
Moraru, Darren Aston, Olivia Hayes.
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bidolito.co.uk

When Iranian-born rapper FARHOOD first arrived in
the UK, he had no money and could barely speak a
word of English. Having fled his home country, he
intended to fly to America where he could start a new life on
his own terms. Farhood, then aged 18, was no longer welcome
in the Islamic Republic, where his political activities had gotten
him into trouble. Besides, he had family – an uncle and cousins
on his mother’s side – in the US, so his parents were supportive
of the move. In April 2011 his family paid for his flight via the UK,
where he was supposed to meet “someone who could help me
enter the US”. That help, however, would never arrive, leaving
Farhood stranded at Liverpool John Lennon Airport. His family
had trusted the wrong person; they had been duped. With no
British passport or right to citizenship, he had no other option
but to turn himself into the police. Ahead of him was a long
battle for asylum with the Home Office, and an even longer
emotional and psychological journey.
More than five years since his botched attempt to reach the
States, we speak to Farhood from his flat in Liverpool, a city
which he is now proud to call home. “Most of my friends call
me Fred here,” he says, “it sounds more English.” A well-spoken
23-year-old, his immaculate English is delivered in a languorous
Middle Eastern drawl. A gentle Liverpudlian lilt and the trailing
off of consonants hint at the influence of his adopted home.
These days, though, he is not afraid to express himself in his
mother tongue either. To hear him bark lyrics in Farsi, the most
widely spoken language in Iran, on his explosive debut EP Tike
Tike, is to hear the impotent voice of a generation completely
disillusioned with the Iranian status quo. In a staccato, throaty
baritone, he spits out lines at speed and with intense ferocity
and purpose.
For those not well versed in Persian, Farhood draws his
subject matter from what he considers to be the failings of his
native land; namely, the repressive political, social and cultural
policies of the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, and his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The regime
swept to power following a revolution in 1979. Since then, the
country has “gone in the wrong direction,” Farhood chides – the
first of many.
“Most people are not happy with the mistakes happening
within our government. Rap, rock and metal are pretty much
illegal in Iran,” he says. “We can’t really put on a gig, let alone
buy or sell music. The authorities just curtail
these genres before they
can grow
“I heard that if you
went to church,
they could help your
asylum claim. And by
that I mean trying
to convert you to
Christianity. There
are thousands of
migrants who do it
because that’s their
only choice.”
up.” However, despite the government’s efforts to diminish
culture, Farhood says rap and hip hop have gained massive
popularity in Iran during the past 15 years. Hichkas (“He’s the
godfather of Persian rap”) and Shahin Najafi (“a very brave
political artist”) are just two of the names he says have helped
to sear the genre into the national consciousness. Recalling
his own musical awakening as a teenager, he cites Eminem as
a particular favourite of his during his formative years. He didn’t
understand his lyrics, he admits, but his “confrontational style
just resonated with me”. It’s this attack-dog style that seems
to bleed through every one of Farhood’s productions, albeit
through the lens of a very British phenomenon: grime.
Only in Liverpool, under the wing of experimental artists
Kepla and Ling, has he been exposed to the genre. Having met
the pair by chance at a gig at the late MelloMello, he was invited
to freestyle over beats at one of Kepla’s gigs. When the EP was
mooted, he knew they were the right producers to cultivate his
sound. “The greatest thing that’s happened to me in the UK was
meeting them [Kepla and Ling]. They create a completely unique
atmosphere; they’re like sounds from different planets,” he says
of their productions. Why grime though, I ask? “I think they just
realised grime would suit my style. I think it goes well with the
aggression and flow of the Iranian language. Most of my poems
are dark, so it suits the feel of it.”
Listen to Farhood on record, and you hear echoes of the genre
everywhere. On Gomnam, the monotone flows of Flow Dan and
Killa P are called to mind. But Farhood frames that aesthetic in
a context that’s unique to him. Where Skepta might rap about
Rolexes and badmen, Farhood’s lyrical content is much more
politically charged. In parts, Tike Tike is practically a polemic of
the political climate in his country interweaved with subplots
of his personal experiences. Odd then, that he admits he never
had much to write about back in Iran. He didn’t even harbour
aspirations to become a musician, he says. But the last five
years, however, have changed his world view. And it’s
not difficult to see why.
When Farhood turned himself into the cops
at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, he was
taken straight to Lancaster Farms prison in
Lancashire. There, he was locked up for four
months under the same roof as murderers,
rapists and paedophiles. He describes his
stint there as some of the most difficult
days of his life. “I was the only Middle
Eastern man there, which is pretty hard
when you don’t know English and you’re
not used to prison,” he says. “I never really
knew what the charges were, presumably
it was something to do with not having
the correct travel documents.”
Words: Joshua Nevett / @joshuanevett
Photography: Michelle Roberts / sheshoots.co.uk
MC FARHOOD
bidolito.co.uk

Bido Lito! June 2016
5
He was eventually released from prison and sent to live at a
hostel while his asylum claim was processed. But when his first
claim was rejected after less than a year, he found himself living
on the streets. With no right to work, he was destitute. He lived
hand to mouth for the next couple of years, scraping by with
the support of friends and working illegally. After four years, he
made a fresh claim. But this time, the claim was very different.
“When I became homeless, I was desperate to turn my life
around. So I heard that if you went to church, they could help
your asylum claim. And by that I mean trying to convert you to
Christianity.” Farhood, who is a staunch atheist, was baptised
by an ordained minister. His family are Shia Muslims who don’t
practise the faith strictly. Wasn’t adopting the faith, at best,
disingenuous, and, at worst, a complete compromise of his
principles?
“Most people embrace it, because once you’ve been baptised,
they give you a letter, and with that letter, you can make a
fresh claim in the Home Office,” he explains. “To stay in the UK,
that’s how I got my visa. It’s the system trying to convert you.
Personally, I had to do it, because nearly four years of my life
had been wasted.”
I ask was he explicitly told by anyone that converting to
Christianity would help his claim: "Yeah, if you're a migrant you
know that. There are thousands of migrants who do it because
that’s their only choice.”
Farhood’s plight mirrors that of the hundreds of thousands
of asylum seekers who are trying to seek a better life in Europe.
Although his journey is by no means unique, it’s no less
poignant. Nevertheless, his lyrics evoke the language of hope
and aspiration. He has always been an advocate of women’s
rights and the burgeoning LGBT movement in his country. But he
is no longer cowed, no longer disenchanted, no longer unable
to express himself. Farhood has found his voice where he least
expected it: in grime, in Liverpool, in politics. Tike Tike is the
sound of someone taking a leap of faith.
“I never dreamed of making a career from music until I came
to the UK. I’ve got loads of things to say now,” he says. “I’m just
tired of being a victim, tired of complaining about the mistakes
our parents’ generation made. Nothing is impossible to fix. My
music is the music of hope.”
farhood.bandcamp.com
“Rap, rock and
metal are pretty
much illegal
in Iran. The
authorities just
curtail these
genres before they
can grow up.”
bidolito.co.uk

a.P.A.t.T.
6
Bido Lito! June 2016
Words: Stuart Miles O'Hara / @ohasm1
Photography: Liz Sheard / lizsheard.co.uk
John Lennon said that “avant-garde is French for bullshit”. That’s
rich coming from the husband of the artist who once plastered
Church Street with tits. Also translatable as ‘vanguard’, it has
military connotations, as if the Symbolists were marching forth on
the battlefields of the art world. For veteran Liverpool band A.P.A.T.T.,
music isn’t such an act of war. When I meet their top brass, General
MIDI and Colonel Legno, I get the impression that it’s more of a day’s
paintballing to them. They stretch 40 instruments over a line-up
of (currently) eight players. There’s no guarantee you’ll catch them
promoting their new release until September. They’re going (even
deeper) underground, but what are they doing there? How does a
band survive 15 years of anarchy? What keeps a.P.A.t.T. the same?
“Not being the same!” shoots back the General. “We do take in
waifs and strays and we do have a quite busy turnover of members.
We never jam, we’re not a commune or any shit like that. It’s a freefor-all,
not a one-in-one-out scenario. There’s also a larger ensemble
[the a.P.A.t.T. Orchestra] who occasionally play.”
This loose association with their very nature is perhaps a.P.A.t.T.’s
one consistent trope, allowing them to flex their muscles across a
variety of different setups. The word ‘band’ hardly seems adequate
for them, but do they see themselves that way? “It’d be ridiculous
not to, given that we encompass those tropes, but we’re not really,”
says the General. “I do use the term ‘we’: we do feel like a unit with
core members. We adopt some of the instruments and styles of
being in a band, so we don’t deny that. But sometimes it’s using the
[band] framework as a platform to experiment. We definitely work
collectively, but also we don’t. We are still just musicians who have
an interest in other mediums, but we pivot around music.”
There’s a certain type of stasis attached to a.P.A.t.T., in that they
seem to have been around forever but don’t play for months at a
time. I’m intrigued as to how one starts a band that isn’t really a
band in the first place, and the General is happy to enlighten me.
“Most of our members were in bands, rejected what you do in bands,
then tried to create something which is the opposite of all those
acts. It started as a recording project, because that was the easiest
way to experiment. Then it became, ‘Should we try to play that live?’
and we did, and we realised that was interesting, then we realised
that was a different deal entirely to what we’d been developing.”
“It’s been really organic all the way through,” Col Legno chips in.
“Sometimes you wanna do something organic, and sometimes you
wanna fight it.”
“We tend to burn out people, until they don’t want anything
to do with us for as long as possible,” continues MIDI. “Then we
might speak to them after a bit longer and they want to do things
with us again, they think, ‘Eh, it was all right that’. Mark E. Smith
does a different thing, he just gets young people in. I watched a
documentary about this; he said, ‘They’re really good, what you get
out of them’. I’m watching and thinking, ‘Get out of them’? Use them
up and throw them in the bin?”
If the title of the group’s new album, Fun With Music, sounds like
a manifesto, that’s probably because it is. “Our album titles were
always self-evident. EP, LP, etc. This time, the name summarises
what’s in the box,” says the Colonel. “It’s definitely our most focused
piece,” the General suggests. “Normally it’s a frantic collection or a
conceptual thing, whereas this was always going to be a 10-track
on vinyl, which made it product-led.”
The fact that the album is coming out on a notoriously prog
label in Italy (Altrock), opens up another of a.P.A.t.T.’s identifying
characteristics. It’s easy to label something that sits slightly outside
bidolito.co.uk
our structured view of ‘normal’ music as prog – especially when the
people making it seem to be walking to a different beat. “People say
that,” responds the General. “I say it’s prog-pop, but in a Steve Reich
sense as in a popular act who control everything. Using the broader
sense, we’re a modern-day pop band. We just demand an active
listener more than a passive listener sometimes.” “Probably 80% of
the time,” adds the statistical
Legno, as MIDI continues:
“It was a key objective to
annoy the audience from the
offset. And it still is. Though
we might do it more… seductively.
There’s nothing better than watching
people enjoy your music but not know what
they’ve just seen; like a room of fazed chaps going,
‘You fucking idiots’.” The General holds his head, a look of
mortification on his face. “They’re absolutely shocked that we’re
wanting to do that, never mind actually doing that. If we don’t get
that kind of response, I’m usually bored out of my head.”
When checking out their YouTube channel (which is well worth it,
if only for their sombre meditation on Donald Trump’s love of China),
you might not believe that one band could make such different
tracks. The same bewilderment awaits Fun With Music’s listeners;
opening track Yes… That’s Positive is Devo-flavoured, but without
Mark Mothersbaugh’s rebellious conformity, and, despite its realworld
references, Give My Regards To Bold St is an astral voyage
with descant recorders. Sometimes it comes across as articulate
prog, and other times as music for scatter-brained misfits.
There’s clearly quite a punk attitude that runs through
the whole a.P.A.t.T. ethos, but not in the blunt three-chord
way that most people would assume. There’s more of a
deconstructive approach, which is led by the General. “We’ve
all got backgrounds in quite ‘edgy’ music and the punk ethos
is for me more about DIY – having a go without going through a
school. Playing instruments you don’t know how to play, having no
manager, having a cottage industry, that type of thing. To keep that
connection is super-important. I think Zappa led the way on this.”
It’s likely that, even after all this, you’re no clearer to
knowing ‘what’ a.P.A.t.T. ‘is’. And that’s kind of the point.
They’re an antidote to bands in the conventional
sense. Of course, they’re
not really ‘one
band’ at all –
they’re the
seductively
annoying
a.P.A.t.T. Vive la
différence!
apatt.com
a.P.A.t.T are looking for new members, specifically for drums and
keyboard. If you are interested in getting burned out, leaving a band,
and re-joining at a later date because it wasn’t all that bad really,
get in touch on Facebook. Fun With Music is out now on Pickled Egg
Records/Altrock.

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Photography: Georgia Flynn / gerogiaflynn.com
bidolito.co.uk

Bido Lito! June 2016
9
There is a mighty little ball of energy bouncing around
Liverpool right now that is set to rocket skyward at any
moment. In case you’ve missed her so far, I’m talking
about ELEANOR NELLY: at just 16 years of age she has a maturity
to her songwriting and performing that is way beyond her years,
while still maintaining a youthful sense of fun. You may have
noticed in last month’s Bido Lito! that the marvellous Miss Nelly
has just earned herself the honour of being supported by LIMF
Academy as one of their Most Ready artists. She has spent the
past year on the circuit with such other incredible young talents
as LUMEN, Katy Alex and Jalen N’gonda, and those lucky enough
to have caught her act this year
will testify that Eleanor has a
special quality that will ensure
the Academy’s decision is a
sound one.
Eleanor is not your average
teenage wannabe – far from
it. Her style is strictly retro,
with a killer quiff and attire
not dissimilar to a young June
Carter Cash, with added DMs.
Her music covers country, blues
and rock ‘n’ roll with stories
straight from the heart. She’s
always had a love of music and
has embraced a wide range of
genres, albeit craftily avoiding
chart pop. Raised on Cilla, The
Beatles and Buddy Holly, her
biggest influence appears to
be Sandi Thom, who Eleanor
followed religiously as a
child. A LIPA graduate, Thom
has certainly had a major
impact on Eleanor’s life and
career. “I followed her around
everywhere, and we ended up
being friends. She knew who I
was because I used to always
go backstage to meet her,”
Eleanor recalls fondly. Thom,
who had a major hit with I
Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With
Flowers In My Hair) in 2006,
offered Eleanor sound advice
after she had been scouted by
The X Factor. “I just didn’t want
to do it, and I told Sandi this, so
she invited me to her room at The Hilton in Liverpool and went
through the dos and don’ts of the industry with me, and then
she gave me my first-ever guitar. I thought, ‘If I’ve been given
this guitar, I’d better learn to play it’.” This invaluable meeting
prised Eleanor away from the piano in her Mum’s kitchen, and set
her off on a massively exciting route that comes full circle when
she supports Sandi Thom in Chester on 27th May.
Eleanor’s gigs are often quite intimate affairs, as exemplified
by her appearance at the Unity Theatre as part of Liverpool
Acoustic Festival in March. The small, subdued crowd present on
that Saturday afternoon responded to her set with great warmth,
and Eleanor says these are the gigs she cherishes. “If someone
in the audience says something, I’ll mess around and have a
laugh with them; I’m confident and I’ll happily talk to strange
people,” she giggles, before straightening up. “All my songs are
based around a story; they’re all very personal stories to me, they
are honest and true. When I play gigs like the one at the Unity, I
feel like I can explain them, so they [the audience] get to know
me as a person, not just some girl singing a song.” She pauses
to think about what she’s just said, then adds: “I want people to
feel my personal experience and see me as a kind of old soul… a
very old soul.” In reference to her song Old Soul, a lament on her
prison-like existence at school, Eleanor regularly returns to the
sore point of how much she dreams of leaving state education.
“When I finish school I’m going to be like an explosion, you’re not
going to miss me.” The chorus to Old Soul pretty much sums her
up: “I’m an old soul with a voice that will break free.”
Her songs are wonderful things; the brilliant Dark Wood
embraces Americana stylistically, but the lyrics are homegrown,
reeling off her influences through Elvis and The Beatles to
Johnny Cash and the hair of Amy Winehouse. It’s a song that
sends shivers down your spine as Eleanor’s voice ebbs and
flows, but there is warmth and humour that link directly to
her charming persona. And then there’s Blue Eyes, already a
standout in her blossoming canon of original compositions,
a simple and charming tale of a chance adolescent encounter
with a guy in a shop. Despite the scenario of a schoolgirl crush,
the song still has a maturity that belies the age of the writer.
I ask her if she finds it annoying that some people view her
precocious talent as a novelty factor, overlooking the strength
of her talent to wow audiences in ways that people twice her
age struggle to do. “It’s cool when people say, ‘You’re so young’,
and I’ll say, ‘Oh, thanks’, but at the same time I don’t think age
really bothers me. The only problem is not being able to play
certain gigs because I’m under 18. I feel like I can’t wait to be
18, but do you know what? I’m already doing things. I’m ahead
of my time. Things other people start doing when they’re 18, I’ll
have already done when I’m 13. It’s cool; I enjoy it regardless.”
Her raw, young talent is difficult to ignore, however, and an
online clip of her performing the self-penned Me And You at
Liverpool’s Free State Kitchen at just 14 is astounding in its
maturity.
I ask Eleanor if she thinks her style of music is likely to
lead to success, and she is quick to tell me that she is not in
it for either fame or money,
“although a new pair of Docs
every week would be nice!”
But she feels this might be
the time. “There’s a place right
now for grassroots music to
come through. People are
seeing how The X Factor is a
fix, it’s a fast-track to fame,
but when you get that fame
it’s not where you want to be.”
With a smile, she continues:
“Country is the next big thing.
In years to come when blues
comes back in style, I want
kids to look back and say
[exaggerated Scouse accent],
‘Eleanor Nelly, she was that
old country singer, weren’t
she?’ You have to stay true
to what you are.” Having said
that, she finds her music tricky
to categorise. “My last EP was
just country acoustic, me and
my guitar with a harmonica,
but my new EP will be a bluesy
rock and roll kind of thing. I
listen to The Stone Roses and
then I go and write like Dolly
Parton.”
I give Eleanor the
opportunity before we finish
up to send out a message to
other girls of her age, and she
goes back to a topic she raised
during a panel discussion at
the Acoustic Festival (she was
the youngest member of the
panel) about the difficulties women face in the music industry.
“People were saying there are no idols for young females and
I was saying, ‘But there are!’ Age and gender don’t define the
dreams you can and can’t achieve. I meet loads of young kids
along the way and they say, ‘I wish I could do what you’re doing’,
and I say, ‘You can!’.” Eleanor clearly resents The X Factor culture
and concludes by stating that “TV and the media brainwash
girls into thinking they have to look a certain way. I’ve done
everything the complete opposite to what The X Factor want
you to. You don’t have to be what the magazines tell you to be,
and that’s the message I want to get across.”
nellysworld.co.uk
As one of the LIMF Academy’s Most Ready artists, Eleanor Nelly
will be playing on the LIMF Academy stage in Sefton Park for this
year’s LIMF Summer Jam on 23rd July.
bidolito.co.uk

There’s something quintessentially British about observing
the rituals of summer in the months of June, July and
August. As God-given as the predisposed flight of migratory
gannets, we descend en masse to the nearest beer garden
as soon as the working summer day is done. Whether you’re
casting long shadows over cricket pitches, drinking warm beer
or traversing the invincible greenery of Sefton Park, it’s crucial
to plan those precious days of sunlight and to think about which
of the many festivals you’re going to attend. With such a host
of great events catering to all kinds of mainstream and niche
tastes, it can be a bit of a daunting task. Well worry ye not: Bido
Lito!’s serial wristband and lanyard collector Philip Morris has
marinated in this year’s mammoth festival calendar, putting
together this selection of the best festivals taking place on our
doorstep over the next few months. If you end up at that lawnmower
festival in Southport again, don’t blame us…
Words: Philip Morris / @mauricedesade
Illustration: Gareth Arrowsmith / garetharrowsmith.com
Green Man (Jack Thompson)
FESTIVAL NO. 6
1st-4th September / Portmeirion, Wales
Bido Lito! Highlight: HOT CHIP
...............................................................................................
Set in the idyllic ‘Welsh Riviera’, FESTIVAL NO. 6 is a bespoke
offering like no other. The Italiante village of Portmeirion – a
geography-defying coastal retreat that blends sub-tropical
vegetation with the traditional rugged beauty of Snowdonia –
offers fairy-tale surroundings of sandy estuaries and 70 acres
of exotic woodland that wouldn’t be out of place in the quirky
yet bountiful universe of a Wes Anderson film set. Spend the
weekend discovering screenings, readings and installations in
the various coves and crannies of this truly magical site. Now
in its fifth year, Festival No. 6 will be hosting an eclectic array of
headline talent, from NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS
to ROOTS MANUVA. Elsewhere, the world-famous MANCHESTER
CAMERATA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA will perform their very special
tribute, David Bowie Reimagined. festivalnumbersix.com
GREEN MAN
18th-21st August / Brecon Beacons, Wales
Bido Lito! Highlight: SONGHOY BLUES
...............................................................................................
The serene and genteel atmosphere of GREEN MAN has
established itself as a staple for festival-goers everywhere.
Nestled away amongst ancient oak trees lies the discerning
indie pagan’s nirvana. Enveloped in the emerald-green beauty
of the Brecon Beacons, enjoy a haven of holistic realignment
or let the little folk loose in the family-friendly children’s area.
This year’s line-up is one of the strongest of the season, with
the emphatic JAMES BLAKE set to showcase his new material,
alongside stalwarts BELLE & SEBASTIAN and the unstoppable
LAURA MARLING. Further down the bill, KAMASI WASHINGTON
showcases his epic new jazz and CHARLOTTE CHURCH brings her
Late Night Pop Dungeon. greenman.net
GOTTWOOD FESTIVAL
9th-12th June / Anglesey, Wales
Bido Lito! Highlight: AWESOME TAPES FROM AFRICA
...............................................................................................
Take a delightful train ride to the most north-western point of
Wales and you’ll find the UK’s best-kept secret. GOTTWOOD, now
in its seventh year, blends an expertly curated assortment of
underground sounds. Meander through the hand-made yurts
and beautiful woodland and you’ll come across an intimate
dance arena carved into the trees. This year’s music bill sees
ANDREW WEATHERALL going back-to-back with ROMAN FLÜGEL,
JOY ORBISON coalescing funky-step and garage vibes, and Brian
Shimkovitz’s AWESOME TAPES FROM AFRICA bringing the sound
system of the savannah to the secret plains of Anglesey. Expect
awe-inspiring installations, psychedelic light shows and sets
lasting several hours. gottwood.co.uk
KENDAL CALLING
28th-31st July / Lowther Deer Park, Cumbria
Bido Lito! Highlight: SPRING KING
...............................................................................................
Conceived by a bunch of music lovers who felt the abundant
fields of the Lake District could be put to better use, this now
annual event lures some of the industry’s biggest names to a
region rich in natural beauty. Ten years on from its inception,
KENDAL CALLING has become something of an epicentre for
Cumbrian culture. Set amidst the dense forest and rolling hills
of Kendal, this year’s event boasts Mercury-nominated artists
like RUDIMENTAL and GHOSTPOET alongside prominent musical
mastodons like THE CHARALTANS, MADNESS and DONOVAN.
Lose yourself in this Lost Eden, an area dedicated to wandering
percussion troupes, brand-new sculptural pieces and stunning
woodland walks. kendalcalling.co.uk

FIRE IN THE MOUNTAIN
3rd-5th June / Isaf, Cnwch Coch, Aberystwyth
Bido Lito! Highlight: THE TURBANS
...............................................................................................
Located on an ancient farm in the foothills of the Cambrian
Mountains, you’ll find FIRE IN THE MOUNTAIN. Cradled by
the beautiful beaches of Cardigan Bay, this lively and familyorientated
folk festival casts a warm glow high up in the valleys
of Aberystwyth. A jam tent will be set up for anyone who wants
to join in the music, and a range of local ales and ciders will be
on tap to slowly nudge people towards doing so. Now in its
sixth year, organisers have attracted international acts from the
furious fiddlers of America (FOGHORN STRING BAND) to the laidback
groove of Jamaica (HORSEMAN AND THE UPPERCUT) – and
the event even featues local representation from THE PRINNY
AVE. JAZZ BAND. Join them in bringing this hippy kingdom alive
once again in another magical gathering of hearts, minds and
music. fireinthemountain.co.uk
TRAMLINES
22nd-24th July / various venues, Sheffield
Bido Lito! Highlight: FIELD MUSIC
..............................................................................................
Sheffield’s TRAMLINES is as reliable as the British Steel the
city was built upon. The once free festival has swollen in size
and proportion in recent times; but don’t be mardy, this year
organisers have delivered the biggest and best event yet.
Bringing together a strong selection of contemporary urban and
indie acts, 2016’s genre-spanning curation includes Sheffield’s
finest TODDLA-T as well as CATFISH AND THE BOTTLEMEN. For a
bustling inner-city event aimed at the nippers, organisers have
challenged the audience by providing genuine eclecticism:
DIZZEE RASCAL is billed alongside JANE WEAVER, and YOUNG
FATHERS share a stage with QUANTIC. Even the old-timers
are catered for with funky sets from GEORGE CLINTON AND
PARLIAMENT, reggae veteran DAWN PENN and the eternal
Babylon of DAVID RODIGAN. tramlines.org.uk
LONG DIVISION
10th-12th June / various venues, Wakefield
Bido Lito! Highlight: KAGOULE
...............................................................................................
There was a time when Wakefield looked with envy at Leeds
and its Carling-drenched festival. Five years ago, LONG DIVISION
put Wakey back on the map, with their annual zenith of cultural
achievement held in the historic city centre. The event has become
the beating heart of the local music scene and a vital platform
for young artists to develop – most of the bill is comprised of acts
looking to impress and some of this year’s whipper-snappersto-watch
include South Yorkshire five-piece DEADSET DREAM
and Leeds noiseniks FOREVER CULT. Further up the bill LOS
CAMPESINOS! and JOHNNY FOREIGNER bring reputable quirk
pop and post-punk legends GANG OF FOUR top the bill with the
ever-serene FIELD MUSIC. longdivisionfestival.co.uk
BLUEDOT
22nd-24th July / Jodrell Bank, Cheshire
Bido Lito! Highlight: AIR
...............................................................................................
In its maiden voyage, the brand new BLUEDOT Festival invites
you to contemplate the wonders of the universe from the
stargazing setting of Jodrell Bank observatory. Camp under the
cosmos and explore a galactic curation of music, science and
technology from the organisers of the iconic Live From Jodrell
Bank series. This edifying experiment blurs the boundaries
of art and science and promises earth-shattering encounters
with pioneering electronic acts such as UNDERWORLD and
CARIBOU. If that doesn’t set your thrusters ablaze, space-out
under the starry dynamo to the staggering visuals and newage
eccentricity of French composer extraordinaire JEAN-MICHEL
JARRE. discoverthebluedot.com
Kendal Calling (Gaz Jones)
LUNAR FESTIVAL
3rd-5th June / Tanworth in Arden, Warwickshire
Bido Lito! Highlight: OS MUTANTES
...............................................................................................
The Midlands’ mini Glastonbury continues to go from strength
to strength and this year’s LUNAR FESTIVAL looks set to orbit
that trend. This year they present an ambitious programme over
three days, with Liverpool’s winsome heroes BILL RYDER-JONES
and STEALING SHEEP carrying the torch for the locals. Legendary
New York-scene lynchpins TELEVISION bring some gravitas to
the bill, alongside futurist, powerful post-rock duo MERCURY
REV and Brazilian tropicalia act OS MUTANTES. Pitched in the
Umberslade Estate, the spiritual home of Nick Drake, you’ll find
an eclectic mix of acts with a strong undercurrent of psychedelia
charging through this Lunar line-up. lunarfestival.co.uk
PARKLIFE
11th-12th June / Heaton Park, Manchester
Bido Lito! Highlight: FOUR TET
...............................................................................................
It’s a simple equation, but park + great music almost always
equals win – that’s exactly the formula PARKLIFE have stuck to
for years, and nobody does it better. This year they’ve outdone
themselves, with THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS leading the charge
on a bill that offers something for everyone. The mercurial FOUR
TET, the fiery grime spitting of STORMZY, and WOLF ALICE’s
summer-ready rock are prime examples of the huge variety
on offer across multiple stages in the gorgeous setting of
Manchester’s sprawling Heaton Park. parklife.uk.com
Festival No.6 (Glyn Akroyd)

STAY LOCAL
If you’re not one to venture too far from your own back yard
then Liverpool has plenty to keep you occupied on the festival
front this summer, too. Home comforts have never been so
tantalising, with a host of family-friendly and free weekend
events dominating the sun-drenched season. It’s no longer
necessary to pack the car with tents and tinnies to go on a
journey in search of musical nourishment: some of the biggest
names in the global music community are descending on the
city this very summer. Happy wristband collecting!
AFRICA OYÉ
18th-19th June / Sefton Park
Bido Lito! Highlight: PAT THOMAS AND KWASHIBU AREA BAND
...............................................................................................
Chillax in the vibrant greenery of Sefton Park and enjoy a truly
international festival that harnesses the spirit of multiculturalism
and tolerance. AFRICA OYÉ is a celebration of all aspects of
African culture, with food, drink and craft stalls representing
culture from right across the African diaspora, packed into the
ever-popular traders’ village. With music from MBONGWANA
STAR – our all-time favourite band from DR Congo – and Gambian
composer SONA JOBARTEH, this free weekend is a real highlight
on the calendar. africaoye.com
Green Man (Jack Thompson)
LIVERPOOL
INTERNATIONAL MUSIC
FESTIVAL
21st-24th July / Liverpool (multiple venues)
Bido Lito! Highlight: LIANNE LA HAVAS
...............................................................................................
Another ray of sunshine in the city’s summer schedule,
LIVERPOOL INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL has fast become
the leading family festival in the UK, simultaneously cementing
Liverpool’s world-class cultural offer and global city of music
acclaim. This year’s Summer Jam – held in the splendour of
Sefton Park – will see SIGMA, LIANNE LA HAVAS and WRETCH
32 perform at Europe’s largest free music event, with the ROYAL
LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA offering a reimaging
of some of the city’s most-revered musical motifs. Alongside,
the festival also has a range of specially commissioned events
taking place across various venues. We are hosting our own
tribute to legendary LA band Love in our FROM LIVERPOOL
WITH LOVE commission, and Gilles Peterson takes us on his
own FROM THE SOUL musical adventure. limfestival.com
LIVERPOOL CALLING
9th July / Camp and Furnace
Bido Lito! Highlight: YAK
...............................................................................................
If you can’t quite manage a long weekend outdoors convening
with nature, then you might want to squeeze your festival fix in to
a single day, and that’s precisely what LIVERPOOL CALLING offers.
Upgrading from their bijou former residence at The Bombed
Out Church, this year’s event has been up-scaled to make full
use of Camp and Furnace and the adjacent Blade Factory. Indie
vanguard act SPECTOR are this year’s pièce de résistance, while
Bath blues siblings THE FAMILY RAIN head proceedings at Blade
Factory. It goes without saying there’s a tonne of talented local
bands on the bill too, in floral psychsters THE WICKED WHISPERS,
the awesome ELEVANT and cock-rocking indie eccentrics
JACKOBINS. facebook.com/LiverpoolCallingFestival
LIVERPOOL
INTERNATIONAL
FESTIVAL OF
PSYCHEDELIA
23rd-24th September / Camp and Furnace, Blade Factory and
District
Bido Lito! Highlight: THE HORRORS
...............................................................................................
Calling all freaks: the UK’s largest celebration of psychedelic
sub-culture is back to expand your mind and enrich your soul.
The 2016 edition follows last year’s sold-out and critically lauded
instalment of the festival. This year’s congregation is helmed
by goth/psych dreamers THE HORRORS, oddball psych royalty
SUPER FURRY ANIMALS, and Japanese, post-punk, noise/prog
specialists ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE. Elsewhere, the PZYK 2016
line-up features a fine selection of artists from across the globe,
between them spanning the international PZYK sub-culture.
For out of towners, PZYK Dorms and Hotels are available as
accommodation packages. liverpoolpsychfest.com
X&Y
9th-10th June PLUS 8th and 10th July / Sefton Park Palm House
Bido Lito! Highlight: FRANK TURNER
...............................................................................................
If you want tropical but you’re not too keen on travelling
miles to get it, then X&Y FESTIVAL surely ticks the box. The
increasingly popular mid-summer event has found a new home:
Sefton Park’s gorgeous Palm House, which plays host to two
weekends of action in June and July, headed up by folk/punk
troubadour FRANK TURNER. X&Y has developed its reputation
by being a showcase of the brightest in new music, and this
year is no different. Soulful electronic duo HONNE are joined
by BABEHEAVEN's hazy vibes, the aggressive indie rock of VANT
and a whole host more. iloveliveevents.co.uk
Kendal Calling (Gaz Jones)

NEW GIGS
Liverpool Philharmonic
May – October
TEDDY THOMPSON
& KELLY JONES
Thursday 26 May 8pm
–
LUKA BLOOM
Friday 27 May 8pm
–
BEVERLEY KNIGHT
Sunday 29 May 7.30pm
–
ERIC BIBB & BAND
Monday 30 May 7.30pm
–
BRIAN WILSON
PRESENTS PET
SOUNDS
Tuesday 31 May 7.30pm
–
THE CHILLS
Tuesday 7 June 8pm
–
BEN FOLDS
WITH YMUSIC
Support from Lera Lynn
Wednesday 15 June 7.30pm
–
CHINA CRISIS
SOLD OUT
Friday 17 June 8pm
Saturday 18 June 8pm
SELLING FAST
EXTRA DATE
SOLD OUT
GEORGE BENSON
Monday 20 June 7.30pm
–
BURT BACHARACH
Wednesday 29 June 7.30pm
–
ELVIS COSTELLO
& THE IMPOSTERS
Monday 11 July 7.30pm
–
IAN PROWSE
Friday 15 July 8pm
–
LIMF: FROM THE
SOUL LIVE WITH
GILES PETERSON
Thursday 21 July 7pm
–
MARY CHAPIN
CARPENTER
Wednesday 27 July 7.30pm
–
RODDY WOOMBLE
Friday 16 September 8pm
–
KESTON KOBBLERS
Thursday 29 September 8pm
–
EXPLOSIONS IN
THE SKY
Sunday 9 October 8pm
SELLING FAST
SELLING FAST
Box Office
liverpoolphil.com
0151 709 3789
Image Elvis Costello

14
Bido Lito! June 2016
So, you’re off to your festival with your wellies, tent and
cider crammed into a backpack, looking forward to the
entertainment that is waiting to come your way. But what
of the musicians booked to provide you this entertainment: who
makes sure they get a fair deal from the situation, from headliners
to stage openers? The Musicians’ Union (MU) and the Association
Of Independent Festivals (AIF) have joined forces to draw up a
code of conduct that provides practical and realistic guidance to
emerging musicians (those who don’t have the representation
of an agent or a manager) in the form of an agreement that they
hope will work for promoters and artists alike. Roanne Wood
takes a closer look at the Fair Play For Festivals Agreement.
To play a festival is often a central aim for any upcoming band
or artist. Putting aside the work of BBC Introducing for one minute,
it’s the independent festivals that offer the most achievable slots
for emerging talent. The chance to play that one show on an
outdoor stage in front of a big crowd is often too tempting to turn
down, making it appealing for artists to jump on any opportunity
they can get. This leaves a potential opening for acts to be taken
for granted by festivals or promoters – no payment agreement,
no rider, no travel expenses, no storage options and little contact
before and after. This is where the MU and AIF’s joint Emerging And
Independent Artists’ Festival Code Of Conduct comes in.
“As festivals are the key incubators of developing emerging
talent and offer musicians so many opportunities, it made sense
to have an agreement to reflect how important emerging artists
and independent festivals are to each other,” says Paul Reed,
general manager of AIF, and one of the key drivers of this Fair
Play For Festivals initiative. “Even something as large as Bestival
has a line-up which is 35% emerging artists. The agreement took
some time to develop, rightly so. It needed to be balanced, and to
reflect the actual concerns and issues of festival organisers and
the musicians playing them.”
All of the AIF’s 55 member festivals are signed up to abide
by the terms of the agreement, which stretches to all artists
represented by the Musicians’ Union, and formalises the existing
relationship between emerging artists and independent festivals
represented by the AIF. Although the agreement was created by
two organisations that rely on – and protect – their affiliated
members, it isn’t restricted to members only. The code of conduct
applies to bands and promoters outside of the organisations as
a way of putting down some basic rules, and also acts as a way
of alerting non-members to points to be looking out for. Kelly
Wood, Live Performance Official at The MU, explains: “This code of
conduct was created with the help of, and for use by, our members
in connection with AIF member festivals. However, it will come
into play for many non-MU member artists across festivals, and
we expect that the organisers will still deliver according to the
document where it forms part of their booking terms with artists.”
With sections of the code of conduct encompassing
Remuneration, Payment And
Fees, Merchandise and Riders,
it is a pretty comprehensive
manifesto which lays out a set of rules from which both sides
can work harmoniously, to make sure that all eventualities
are covered. From a musician’s point of view, it’s exceptionally
encouraging to see the words “artists should not be expected
to ‘pay to play’” finally written down in an official document
endorsed by respected, popular and trusted organisations. The
one trap artists regularly fall into is not respecting their own
value, thus allowing promoters to dictate the terms. Tom Peters,
guitarist in Alpha Male Tea Party, says, “It is important for bands
to value themselves beyond simple exposure, and I would
always encourage a band or artist to arrange an appropriate
fee upfront. I don’t think it is the role of an artist to sell tickets
in ‘pay to play’-style arrangements, and it is good to see that
this is covered in some official way.”
A veteran of many gigs and tours, Peters agrees that its
good practice to have something agreed by both parties set
in stone beforehand. “I think a lot of smaller, less experienced
bands would just accept no fee, no meal and a huge cut
taken out of their merch without question if the festival
seems like a good idea.” This is where the new agreement
comes in, stating that you can either do the merch yourself,
or get somebody else, usually an advocate of the festival,
to staff your stall for you for a small commission. “The way
I usually look at it is: do I want to stand in the same place
all weekend selling my own clobber instead of having
a nice time partying with my friends? The answer is an
unequivocal NO,” says Peters. “So, with that in mind, I
don’t really care if someone takes a cut of our merch as
long as we have a fee arranged for the show.”
Brian Campbell, of Liverpool’s influential alternative
outfit Clinic, agrees that the points raised in the agreement
are all points worth mentioning. “Musicians should be treated
with respect when playing festivals, and should be well looked
after financially and accommodated well. Likewise, when you’ve
been booked by a festival, the musicians also owe respect to them,
too.” This is also covered in the agreement, with sections detailing
just what is required from the artist in advance and during the
event once they have been booked.
“I really do hope that this new code of conduct helps new
bands,” asserts Campbell. “However, bands should do their
research when offered gigs and festivals. Check out other events
that the promoters have put on; make sure that their prior events
actually happened. Contact other bands who have played previous
shows by these promoters and double-check they had a good
experience! Ask for any agreements of payment and rider to be
put in a form of contract. And always ask for the payment or at
least some of the payment in advance, for protection against
cancellation.”
Kelly Wood also hopes that the agreement will encourage
contracts to be written out in advance. “We’re aware that many
artists don’t use contracts for their performances, and we hope
that documents like this will help them to understand the
importance of using agreements in order to clearly set out what
AAA
ACCESS
ALL AREAS
Ensuring a Fair Deal
for Artists at Festivals
Words: Roanne Wood / @grrrlparts
Photography: Keith Ainsworth / arkimages.co.uk
is expected of both parties and to protect the musicians’ interests
in the event that something goes wrong.”
“The key things the agreement is aimed at improving are
communication processes between the organiser and artists,
especially in advance,” Paul Reed confirms. “Let’s ensure that
everyone knows what the set-up at the festival is and what to
expect. Likewise, let’s ensure that musicians are delivering info
needed according to deadline, etc. The agreement is practicable
and realistic.”
It just goes to show that it doesn’t necessarily matter if you have
a great booking agent, a manager or a record label behind you,
thanks to the work of the MU and AIF. Hopefully the agreement
will not only bring fairness to the artist and promoter, but will
also create fairness in the treatment of ‘established’ acts versus
up-and-coming acts.
Fair play.
You can read the Fair Play For Festivals Code of Conduct in full
at aiforg.com. If you’re a musician and you’d like to find out more
about this – and the wider support work of the Musicians’ Union –
head to musiciansunion.org.uk.

16
Bido Lito! June 2016
Words: Mark Greenwood / @markgreenwood23
Photography: Brian Sayle / briansaylephotography.co.uk
DRAGGED
INTO
Watching, waiting, visible
SUNLIGHT
bidolito.co.uk

Bido Lito! June 2016
17
January 2016. It’s a cold, wintry night as our car snakes
through Saddleworth Moor. An intangible black
void surrounds the outside of the car as we plunge
further into darkness towards Leeds. I’m in the passenger
seat, riding shotgun with DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT’s
photographer, and we’re listening to Norwegian black metal
band Mayhem. Occasionally passing headlights pierce the
darkness, illuminating a large antelope skull, nobly resting
on the back seat, its long twisted horns casting strange
shadows and decreasing visibility in the rear-view mirror. The
skull’s presence is ominous and disturbing, yet still guides
us perilously towards Leeds, where Dragged Into Sunlight
are playing a rare UK gig, bringing together a pilgrimage of
followers from as far as Scotland and London.
I’ve followed Dragged Into Sunlight for some time now. The
media offered on their website allows a disturbing insight into
a sincere and intelligently articulated utterance of frightening
metal. Their records describe the dark materiality of fear, with
calculated writing that mirrors a Crowley-esque and De Sadean
obsession with magic and torture. Murderous confessions
haunt their releases, adding an extra malevolent dimension
overflowing with savage imagery. I’m reminded of the sonic
grotesque of bands such as Mayhem, Venom, Whitehouse and
Throbbing Gristle, yet these references hardly describe the
Artaudian Theatre of Cruelty that the band insidiously conjure.
Live, the band appear diabolically possessed as they push
and strain with backs turned, on invisible leashes to an
ominous pulse that eventually explodes into a cannibalistic
mania of shock and awe. They are framed by a structure of
skulls, totems and candles that grimly flicker and dance to
unrepentant strobes. Dark sonic episodes are executed with
the precision of a hot razor blade, as murderous confessions
meander in foul vapours. Dragged Into Sunlight are easily one
of the most brutal and heaviest bands I’ve ever witnessed,
effortlessly shifting through complex blast beats, to heavy
death riffs, fastidiously focused on a visceral utterance of
persistent pain.
Almost five months later I’m waiting outside Liverpool
Museum and it’s pissing down with rain. I’ve agreed to meet
the usually taciturn T and C from Dragged Into Sunlight for a
rare interview. To be honest, I’d expected to meet the band
in an abandoned lock-up on the Dock Road. I hadn’t ruled
out the possibility of being kidnapped and brutalised. I later
discover that the Museum has a history of tragic suicides at
odds with the chatter of happy families who meander between
dinosaurs and tropical fish. I stand nervously at the entrance of
the museum, contemplating a statue of Athena, the goddess
of strategic warfare, art and literature.
T and C emerge from the gloom. We exchange handshakes
and wander around the museum, pausing to look at ancient
suits of hessian armour and the odd trepanned skull. We
drink tea. Both of them appear intensely alert, articulate and
amiable; however, there is an underlying, palpable tension
lurking in the subtext of this encounter. We chat informally
about the trials and tribulations of touring, adding a series
of anecdotes unfit for publication but adding to the sense of
mystery and debauchery that surrounds the band. They’re just
about to start an extensive US tour, yet seem unmoved and
unflustered about their current success. So who are Dragged
Into Sunlight…?
T: Dragged Into Sunlight are a collective and only a few realise
that we’ve invited around 10 musicians to collaborate with
us over the years. A lot of those musicians looked at the
initial idea as an escape from the constant grind of touring
and all the bitterness and frustration that can cause. We all
shared a common desire to experiment and deviate from the
expectations of the recording and touring circuit. Dragged
Into Sunlight became a kind of cauldron for ideas and an
opportunity to explore a deliberate and extensive writing
process. We’re obsessed with refining ideas to perfection,
which can be difficult when some members of the band are
over 300 miles away, but we’re driven by that process and
we’re not happy until we’ve reached that state of precision
and purity. In terms of influence there’s a lot going on, from
Ulver to Burning Witch. But the thing that really pushes the
Dragged Into Sunlight philosophy is the horrible fucking
emptiness of life that’s there all the time and is impossible to
ignore, not just in the media but in the flesh. It’s like there’s
an omnipresence of corruption and malignance.
Bido Lito!: There’s a much more industrial sound to your
latest album, N.V., and I’m reminded of Godflesh. Would you
consider them as an influence?
T: There’s a cultural influence that surpasses the music for us,
so much anger that emerges from a number of factors. You
could take an album like N.V. and critically dissect it into a
thousand pieces. As artists we’re constantly reassessing and
analysing our process in relation to the music and artworks;
something that bands like Bolt Thrower and Carcass have
never neglected. To us there are no excuses for diluting artistic
integrity. No excuses at all. For example, [2011’s debut album]
Hatred For Mankind was a real struggle and it’s really hard to
listen to now because it reminds us of that struggle. We’d be
loading in gear in the studio at 3am and taking so much time
over the blastbeat sections. It was exhausting and shattering.
We don’t really consider ourselves as technical musicians, but
the amount of conviction and discipline we apply to the writing
and production process surpasses that.
BL!: The Dragged Into Sunlight live experience is gruelling and
cathartic; even though your backs are to the audience there’s
an affective power. You can see the band getting genuinely
wound up on stage.
C: Yes, we feel we’re definitely at our most vicious now. At
times in the past we’ve felt a bit fractured and our intention
has always been to overcome life events that detract focus
and commitment, and always give 200%. We’ve got to enjoy it,
we’ve got to harness that energy and project it. There’s a level
of trust in the band whereby each member knows that the
other is going to deliver. There’s no room or time for carrying
dead weight and we simply won’t allow that to happen. We
constantly want to push for that extreme next level, to be
faster and heavier. It’s hard sometimes when you’re on tour
and reversing vans down mountains in Austria. Even on stage,
we can’t see the audience, so that is never a driving factor.
It comes from inside and it’s about an utterance – a purity
of utterance that’s sometimes hard so summon, especially
when you’ve driven 48 hours for one show and ended up
standing at the side of a road getting drug tested. That doesn’t
sound like hard work – I guess the hard part is not wanting
to pull out a nail gun and do some damage. Making music is
testing, character-defining, as with any artistic output, and it
is a constant challenge. It’s that tension which gives rise to
an unfathomable energy within Dragged Into Sunlight. We
won’t settle for anything less than 200%, that’s a collective
commitment. It’s like operating a bulldozer. We just want
to smash everything, running over buildings. We want our
shows to terrorise audiences but we also want our gigs to be
exclusive, special experiences for audiences, like the tapetrading
days; you’d go to shows back then and remember
them. Meeting new people and catching up with old friends
is important to us too and it’s led to discovering other bands
who are pushing the boundaries of extreme music but perhaps
don’t draw the attention of magazines or anything. Even in a
visual sense there seems to be something really interesting
about bands like Vomir, performing with black plastic bags
over their heads… it’s a throwback to bands like Throbbing
Gristle, who really explore a much starker materiality in their
artistic output. The narrative is one of suffocation, restriction,
danger and risk… elements which really reverberate and
stay with us in terms of sustaining and mirroring our own
intentions.
BL!: The band occupy an esoteric area of extreme music
which remains underground, a network that relies on
autonomy. While remaining fiercely individual there’s also
a sense of community that exists separately to the more
corporate inadequacies of the music industry. The networks
remind me of the anarcho-punk scene in terms of form and
structure. Do the band share the political commitment of
those movements?
T: A lot of people try to lure us into stating some kind of
political statement. We’re much more interested in the idea
that you could be kicked to death on the streets by people who
probably know fuck all about politics – evolution is almost
devolution nowadays. You’ve talked about the intelligence
of Dragged Into Sunlight: maybe there is no intelligence and
there’s something much more primal driving the band. I’ve
read interviews with some bands who’ve tried to project their
egos through the media. You know? Turning up in fucking
priest outfits while they’re doing phone interviews. But
anything that anyone says in an interview isn’t really going
to break the mould. We’re more interested in spreading like
a virus in a much more organic and natural way, letting the
records and the live shows talk for themselves. It’s about that
connection between artist and subject. For us that’s where the
intelligence and inspiration lies.
.................................................................................................................
It’s stopped raining. We leave the museum and go our
separate ways. It’s strange how T and C seem to vanish
into the whorls of Liverpool’s thoroughfares and there’s
nothing immediately striking about their disappearance
into a maddening crowd… they might be hunting for a bowl
of soup on Bold Street. Perhaps that’s the most disturbing
thing about Dragged Into Sunlight, their ability to become
unassuming and anonymous away from the media glare. I’m
suddenly aware of the calculated expression of serial killers
and their abilities to coldly articulate their barbaric actions to
stunned psychologists. Dragged Into Sunlight deserve special
attention in an oversaturated metal scene due to a stubborn
philosophy that engages with the thresholds of violence
and annihilation. They remain speculative and mysterious,
exerting their independence and emerging in the black holes
of the universe and of the mind, both interior and exterior at
once. Dragged Into Sunlight inhabit a dark void, realigning and
disrupting prescribed notions of the real and the imaginary.
If Liverpool is indeed the centre of the universe in a Jungian
sense, Dragged Into Sunlight might just be the ones who
cause its sudden implosion.
draggedintosunlight.co.uk
N.V. is out now on Prosthetic Records.
bidolito.co.uk

18
Words: Glyn Akroyd
Bido Lito! June 2016
MBONGWANA STAR
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 65% of the population
live in poverty. In the capital, Kinshasa, the state is
seemingly incapable of, or disinclined to, provide even basic
utilities: the power supply constantly goes down and there is
no sewage system. “The pain is so quotidian and so deep and
unmerciful that people are attempting to find solace through
pleasure,” says Didier Gondola, a Congolese academic.
How does this escape translate to people’s everyday lives
in a culture where luxuries like televisions and mobile phones
can be acquired, even if they come via the scrapheap, while
essentials are routinely denied? There is the preening dandyism
of the Sapeurs (celebrated/appropriated in a recent Guinness
advert); there is sport, but organised opportunities are severely
limited; and there is a traditionally vibrant music and dance
scene. Since the Second World War, Congolese music has been
dominated by the imported rhumba, mixed up with traditional
African rhythms and vocals, and its descendants Soukous and
Ndombolo. The music scene, along with the rest of Congolese
society, was decimated by the civil wars of the 1990s and early
2000s, which have left an impoverished community who now
more than ever have to rely on their wits for survival.
Throw into this daily grind the added difficulties of coping
with the crippling effects of polio and you get some idea of the
sheer tenacity of guys like Coco Ngambali and Theo Nzonza,
the founder members of this year’s Africa Oyé headliners,
MBONGWANA STAR. After years of surviving in disabled persons’
hostels and on the streets of Kinshasa while playing in a variety
of bands, they burst out of their local scene in 2009 with the
band Staff Benda Bilili, whose album Tres Tres Fort went global
and saw them touring Asia, Europe and the US. I mention some
well-known Western artists who have also suffered from polio
to them, including Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Ian Dury, and
ask if they have tackled the subject of polio in their songs. Their
reply is a rebuff to my presumptuous Eurocentricity: “We don’t
know these people, but yes we are talking about it: like in Staff
Benda Bilili, the song Polio; or in Mbongwana in Coco Blues.”
After an acrimonious breakup from Bilili in 2013, Coco and
Theo, now in their 50s, didn’t waste any time wallowing in selfpity
but quickly sought a new direction, which they describe as “a
change in the colour of the project” (mbongwana means ‘change’
in the local dialect, Lingala). The new project, after numerous
line-ups that included a veritable choir of family and friends,
was finally kicked into shape when the band were introduced
bidolito.co.uk
to producer Liam Farrell, aka Dr L, by maverick filmmaker Renaud
Barret, who had previously documented Staff Benda Bilili. Dr L,
who had produced Tony Allen’s Afrobeat album Black Voices,
which Coco and Theo loved, flew into Kinshasa for 10 days of
recording and returned to his Paris studio with a seemingly
impenetrable wall of vocally dominated sound. In an interview
with the Guardian’s Tim Jonze (June 2015), he explained that he
introduced “more space into the music – made it more groovy
and psychedelic – without space there’s nothing for the listener
to dream of.”
There is more than one kind of space in the subsequent album
From Kinshasa and its accompanying videos. Released in May
2015, with the pared-down line-up of vocalists Coco and Theo
joined by guitarist R9, percussionist Sage, drummer Randy
Kalambayi and Dr L on bass, the album garnered near-universal
five-star reviews. Tristan Bath stated in his review for Drowned
in Sound that the album represented a “turning point for the
music of the entire region”. I ask the band if comments like that
put any pressure on them but their response is again revealing.
“We don’t feel any pressure. Maybe now we are representing
something new in the West, but we can assure you, we have in
Kinshasa so many new talents, using all that they can to express
it. In fact, it’s not really new: many Congolese and other African
musicians have always experimented [with] new stuff. The only
problem is just Western producers were and still are looking for
exotic music, or just what they think the audience in the West
are looking for. Fortunately, there are some others who just look
for talent whatever is the style.”
One such is Dr L, who responds to accusations that his
involvement in the band amounts to little more than cultural
imperialism in brusque fashion – “I think if you like music, if you
like art, colour’s got fucking nothing to do with it. It’s not me
inventing them. They’re artists.” The Guardian’s album review
states: “Who did what? When it’s this exciting who cares”.
And it is an exciting album. From the opening track, From
Kinshasa To The Moon, it is shot through with elements of
techno, dub and rock over or under which, depending on the
track, lie elements of traditional rhythms and vocals. The music
sounds fresh, pushing Congolese music into new territory
in which the old traditions are glimpsed like faded sepia
portraits in a gallery of bright digital saturation. Theo alludes
to this in the Andy Morgan article (who called them “Afro-junk
revolutionaries”) when he says: “the roots of Congolese music
are still in the rhumba. That will never disappear, but this is
rhumba-rock”. The Guardian stated that “fusion is too smooth
a word to describe it”, and maybe From Kinshasa is more like
two continental shelves sliding along in opposite directions,
throwing up brilliant volcanic eruptions of pyroclastic sound.
Suzanna, which, from the title, you might expect to be a ballad
about a beautiful woman, crashes in with a heavy-duty techno
riff and proceeds at a pace with traditional rhythms flying along
beneath. The beautiful slow burn of Coco Blues is awash with
shimmering guitar while Coco’s vocals intertwine with a lovely
female voice over a delicious melody. Shegue (street children)
features a jazzy organ lick over a dub bass and weaving soukous
guitar lines, the call and answer vocals persistent and urgent,
and the fadeout electronics sounding suspiciously like distant
gunfire.
I ask them what the songs are about and whether Lingala has
a strong tradition of poetry and storytelling. “Like in many African
languages the lyrics are taking the place of books in a continent
where people don’t read so much. We are talking about many
aspects of life: poverty, democracy, street kids, corruption, love,
the difficulties for couples to get married as the customs force
people to have money when most of the people haven’t….”
The accompanying psychedelic-sci-fi-slumdog videos,
produced by Dr L and the aforementioned Barret, are no less
striking. Out of the darkened streets and alleys loom a cast of
local characters: dancers, street children, the Congo Astronaut
(a guy who dresses in a DIY garbage spacesuit and wanders
around Kinshasa at night), and the band half-glimpsed in the
gloom. In Kala, a crippled man dances on the floor and at one
point appears to be trying to eat his own hand, on the verge of
anguished tears. The videos, say the band, “are more or less to
reflect as much as possible the atmosphere of the music”, and
in their edgy blend of verité-noir they succeed.
How will they translate the sound of From Kinshasa and the
new songs that they have been working on to a live audience?
“In fact, live is more rock probably, and the vibe is more energetic;
we want to shake dancefloors across the world.” If the energy
levels at Africa Oyé are even higher than those on the album,
this is definitely going to be worth seeing, and when we’re
shaking our cosseted Western asses around in the beautiful
surroundings of Sefton Park to these guys, let’s not forget the
journeys that went into the making of this particular vibe.
mbongwanastar.com
Mbongwana Star headline Africa Oyé on 19th June. Their debut
album, From Kinshasa, is out via World Circuit.

TRANSATLANTIC
20
Bido Lito! June 2016
VIBRATIONS
LEVI TAFARI AND LIVERPOOL’S REGGAE ROOTS
If the dancehall beat and throb of dub soundsystems is what
gets your feet moving, then you’ll love POSITIVE VIBRATION.
Liverpool’s only dedicated festival of reggae returns for its
third year on 11th and 12th June, packing a helluva lot in to two
days at Constellations: live performances from Don Letts, Les
Spaine and DJ Vadim will be interspersed with deeply funky
sets from guest selectas, with the International Reggae Poster
Contest hosting an exhibition on one of the days. Ahead of
this year’s family-friendly event, Josh Ray picks up the roots of
Liverpool’s reggae heritage with dub poet LEVI TAFARI, who is
also appearing at the festival.
In a similar way to what happened in Liverpool, the early stages
of Jamaica’s musical development were largely shaped by the
sounds imported by American military bases. However, while
Liverpool picked up the baton and ran with Merseybeat, there
was a whole different thing brewing in Jamaica. To keep up with
people’s demand for the latest jazz and rhythm ‘n’ blues cuts,
music heads like Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid and Tom The Great
Sebastian began setting up sound systems and taking trips to the
Southern states of the US to procure the most cutting-edge sounds
from people like Fats Domino, Willis Jackson and Louis Jordan.
Words: Josh Ray / @josh5446ray
When the RnB craze ended in the US and the supply of
previously unearthed gems began to dry, people like Dodd
and Reid began producing local artists, originally on soft wax
acetates that came to be known as ‘dubplates’. The first few
records weren’t much more than imitations of the New Orleans
RnB sound; but, as influences from Jamaica’s mento folk music
entered the melting pot, a few innovative Jamaicans soon
found their own groove, which came to be known as ska, which
developed into rocksteady, before morphing into the reggae
sound that caught the world’s imagination.
“Reggae is a positive vibration that speaks to people,”
explains Levi Tafari. “Through music it brings people together.”
I’m speaking to the legendary Liverpudlian reggae poet over the
phone, and he is relishing describing how the genre was formed.
“Ska was rapid: it had a very fast rhythm, like ‘ska ska ska’,” he
explains. “It became so hot when people were dancing that
someone decided to slow the rhythm and cool it down and that’s
when it became rocksteady, because people started rocking
steady in the dance.” As the rhythms became more prominent
and the basslines more gutsy and raw, a reggae sound began to
develop and rocksteady’s romance began giving way to a more
socially and spiritually conscious lyrical style.
“It became revolutionary in terms of what was happening
in Jamaica politically at the time, with the various gangs and
the government,” Tafari explains. “You had the JLP [Jamaican
Labour Party] and the PNP [People’s National Party] and there
was always conflict between the two but then you had Rastas,
who stayed neutral. There’s was always more of a spiritual vibe
than a political vibe – that’s where the spirituality started to
come out in reggae music.”
When Coxsone Dodd’s right-hand man, Lee ‘Scratch’
Perry started approaching reggae from his own angle, the
genre really started to grow and spread globally, largely
thanks to a young artist Scratch had discovered and
produced, called Bob Marley. As reggae spread across
the world, so did the Rastafarian ideas that came with
it. “People think that Rastafari is a religion, but it’s
not a religion,” Tafari clarifies. “It’s a way of life that’s
based on spirituality and culture. Those two things
are really important to Rastas.”
As things progressed musically in the
early 1970s, Perry and a studio engineer named
Osborne Ruddock, amongst others, starting
experimenting with stripped-back versions of
records. This studio engineer was of course
the man better known as King Tubby, and
this was the beginning of dub. “Dub was
mainly about taking a popular rhythm
and putting a lot of emphasis on the
drum and the bass,” Tafari adds.
Over in the UK, where the
Jamaican population was larger – more
people had emigrated here due
to the fact it was perceived
as the ‘motherland’ – the
story was different and
young Caribbean
kids started
making
their own
reggae and dub. “I think people started looking at themselves
and searching for an identity, looking towards culture,” Tafari
elucidates. “In Britain, people were being racist and prejudiced
in a lot of ways. People started to rediscover who they were,
using the cultural elements they identified with to express
themselves.”
It wasn’t just the black youth who identified with these
Jamaican sounds: the white working class of Britain had a love
affair with Jamaican music stretching back to the mods in the
early 60s. In the less enlightened, overtly racist 70s and 80s,
music was a great bridge-builder and beneath the surface of a
broken society facing race riots, young people of all colours and
races were coming together at underground parties. “Because
a lot of black people weren’t allowed into white clubs in many
cities, we used to have things called shebeens,” Tafari explains.
“It was an Irish word that meant a secret drinking place, which
then changed into blues and you’d have a blues dance – that’s
kind of where the sound system gained prominence.”
“When I was a youth, we used to go into Old Swan to go to this
place, Saint Anne’s, which was a church, and they used to play
Motown, funk and reggae – it was all black music, basically,” Tafari
recalls. “This was in the 70s now and skinheads used to attack us
because we were black. We’d leave Toxteth and go to Old Swan
to get to this place – when we’d go in it was just harmonious,
everybody would be rocking and dancing and the DJ would spin
the tunes and everybody would just be getting on; there’d be
harmony in the dance, no problem. As soon as you came out,
the skinheads wanted to attack us; people used to have to run
for their lives.”
With the discriminatory ‘sus law’ [the stop and search
‘suspected person’ law] and the ever-present National Front, life
was tough for young black kids at the time, and this came out
through the dub poetry or ‘duboetry’ of people like Linton Kwesi
Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah and, of course, Tafari. “Everybody
liked the poem Liverpool Experience because it was kind of postriots
and we were just saying, ‘Living in Liverpool is like living in
hell, especially if you’re black’,” he explains. “Unemployment was
high, there was no work.”
Although things like Positive Vibration, Africa Oyé and the
various parades and carnivals that Liverpool now boasts
show that the city is in a much better place in regard to its
multiculturalism, this wasn’t always the case and Levi Tafari’s
early work reflected this. Much like in the way people such as
Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets used their words to try and
affect positive change in the civil rights movement, Tafari and
his peers were doing almost exactly the same on the other side
of the Atlantic. “I talked about jazzoetry,” he explains, “because
I thought, if The Last Poets were doing jazzoetry, I wanted to do
duboetry – it’s a unity thing. Like I said in that poem:
de struggle
is de same where
ever wi may be
WORD SOUND have POWER
come fe set wi FREE
Levi Tafari will be performing at Constellations on 11th June as part of
the Positive Vibration Festival of Reggae. He will also be involved in
a discussion on 23rd July at the LIMF event, Yes Indeed: A Celebration
of Some of Liverpool’s Forgotten Merseybeat Pioneers.

22
Bido Lito! June 2016
SKELMERSDALE
AND THE MAGIC OF
ROUNDABOUTS
Not so long ago, I regularly drove to Preston for work.
Each day was bracketed by a slack-eyed journey through
morning mists or fading light, the grey miles marked
by motorway punctuation – the forked-white-fingers-on-blue of
regulation Highways Agency signage.
I soon learned to avoid as much of the M6 as I could, so from
my south Liverpool home I would swoop round the city’s northeastern
rim via the M57, then take a right along the M58. The place
names became my commuting mantra, a meditative incantation
through post-war estates and edgeland settlements, industrial
parks and expressway towns.
One place in particular always caught my eye. As I sped past
its southern edge, the name Skelmersdale seemed to carry
an ancient echo, perhaps Norse or Celtic in origin, a linguistic
provenance that seemed at odds with the tangle of slip roads
and central reservations that formed its surrounding landscape.
I wondered if I should take the exit and see for myself how a
1960s new town – designed to accommodate Liverpool families
decanted from slum-riddled inner-city districts – had been laid
over a settlement that dated back to the Domesday Book.
Skelmersdale was designated a new town in 1961, and its
plan of roundabouts and subways was laid down over the
subsequent decade. I’m not alone in being intrigued by such
manifestations of utopian 1960s development. In his book
Concretopia, John Grindrod discusses the idealism of architects
and planners who “…made the most of what was at hand in
that moment of post-war plenty, often with new materials and
new ways of building that would have boggled the minds of
those even a generation before.” He acknowledges the many
crises that have subsequently dogged such communities, but
still speaks eloquently about the fact that it’s a shared interest,
“…that other people are glad there’s more to urban Britain
than endless tudorbethan semis, made-over terraces or poky
Playschool houses.”
Perhaps there’s no little nostalgia in this too, because, for
those of us who were around four decades ago, these masterplanned
grey-and-greenish landscapes were simply the way the
future was meant to look. Experienced by children, they formed
the foundations of memories that still resonate, that can still
trigger reveries made manifest through art.
Take Simon Tong for instance. Tong, who grew up in
Skelmersdale, was once guitarist and keyboard player in The
Verve, and has more recently been playing alongside Erland
Cooper in Erland & The Carnival. The pair, along with musician
and singer Hannah Peel, form an occasional collaborative trio
called THE MAGNETIC NORTH, and their recent album, Prospect
Of Skelmersdale, is a melancholic tour through a version of the
town constructed from the elongated shadows of memory.
Not that the record is a straightforward hymn to the concrete
and roundabouts of Skelmersdale (or Skem as it’s commonly
known). In 1984, the UK branch of the Transcendental Meditation
movement made Skelmersdale its official home, establishing
a community centred on an arresting circular building with a
golden dome. People interested in pursuing peaceful meditative
lives were drawn to the town, and Tong was a child of one of
those families.
This influence adds a haunting texture to The Magnetic North’s
record, casting a loose narrative web that takes in opening track
Jai Guru Dev and the closing cover of George Harrison’s Run
Of The Mill. In between there are gentle string-laden journeys,
public information-film soundbites and lyrical bus rides through
that traffic-light-free land. To anyone who has ever turned
their ear towards remembered childhood soundscapes, it’s
spellbinding stuff.
In an effort to get a little closer to the Prospect Of
Skelmersdale story, I speak to Hannah Peel to ask how these
three accomplished artists came together – and how such
personal childhood experiences were translated by their
collaborating minds.

Words: Damon Fairclough / noiseheatpower.co.uk
Photography: McCoy Wynne / mccoywynne.co.uk
“We met on tour when I was supporting Erland & the Carnival,”
says Peel. “Erland and Simon were talking about doing a record
about Orkney. Erland had grown up there, and had a dream
about a woman called Betty Corrigall who had come to him
and said, ‘You’ve got to write an album’, and given him all the
track names. Being as gullible as we were, we went up there
and started writing a record about it. It ended up being called
Symphony Of The Magnetic North.”
Orkney’s wind-chapped landscapes might be considered a
conventional source of artistic inspiration, but how did they
come to turn their musical sensibilities towards Skem?
“I’d been questioning Simon about where he was from. I lived
in Liverpool for 10 years [Peel studied at LIPA and worked as a
composer in the city prior to her first EP, Rebox, in 2010] so I
knew Skelmersdale, but only from driving past on the motorway.
When he told me about the town and the Transcendental
Meditation community, I thought it sounded amazing.
“Erland and I went up and loved it. We met some brilliant
people who gave us books of poetry and things inspired by the
town. But when we presented our ideas to Simon, he didn’t
want to do it. He just said no one’s going to want a record about
Skelmersdale. So it took us a while to convince him that it should
be our next album.”
What was it about Skem that inspired such certainty?
“The fact that the whole place was built with such utopian
ideals, so much hope. It did come across as kind of bleak, but at
the same time it was wonderful because in between all these
brutalist buildings and the Conny [the Concourse shopping
centre], you’ve got trees growing where they weren’t growing
when Simon was a child. I just found it fascinating, especially
because of the Transcendental Meditation community, and
how they believed they could change the town and give it
positivity.
“They were middle class, they wouldn’t have been on the
dole, and they believe their meditation changed things. I think
just the fact that they moved there changed it, and gave people
hope that there was life outside. I mean, Skem isn’t known for
its public transport. It doesn’t even have a train station. So it
must have been quite bizarre that all these people wanted to
move there.”
These twin strands of idealism – the optimistic 1960s dream
and the focused deep thought of the TM community – weave
in and out of Prospect Of Skelmersdale, but there is also a
frayed melodic thread that hints at the sadness at the edge of
such urban/rural locations. The track Sandy Lane opens with
an aching flute line that I find naggingly familiar, and it’s only
after repeated plays that I realise it’s a direct quote from John
Cameron’s beautiful score for the film Kes.
“Skelmersdale is pastoral,” explains Peel, “and underneath
the town it’s very beautiful – it was all farmland. So I saw it
through a kind of 1970s photographic lens in terms of using
flutes, woodwind and strings. In the back of my head it was
always a bit like a lost Kes soundtrack.”
However, while the Kes landscape is one of Victorian red brick
clutching at smoke-throttled green hillsides, Skelmersdale’s
once-gleaming concrete betrays its more recent gestation
during the post-war building boom.
“It’s fascinating that you would build these new places
and dump everybody there, and expect them to work,” says
Peel. “Most don’t have town centres or communal areas, just
shopping centres. So many of them didn’t work, especially
during the 1980s, but I think Skelmersdale is one of the ones
that has come through because of its surreal side.”
I wonder if Peel felt any tension between being an outside
observer of the town, and the fact that Skelmersdale is not just
an inspiring curiosity, but also home to almost 40,000 people.
“I was definitely aware of that,” says Peel, “more so than
with Orkney. Skelmersdale is a tight community. The way we’ve
approached our records is to have one person – Simon in this
case – who draws on their experience and knowledge, while
the other two bring their own perspectives to the place. But
the reaction has been amazing in terms of people saying thank
you for thinking of the town. It’s a positive record, and I’m really
thankful that people like it.”
If there’s one thing the 1960s development corporations
were good at, it was making promotional 16mm films about
their visions of the future, many of them now available on
YouTube. The Magnetic North make good use of this evocative
source material, deploying paternalistic voice-over samples
at strategic points throughout the album. It’s the British
psychogeographic equivalent of the way Public Enemy used
to use James Brown.
At the end of the track Northway/Southway, just such a voice
intones, “Our task is to build the town… and then go away, and
if at the end of the day the people that are here are not happy,
then we’ve failed.”
I ask Peel for her Skelmersdale verdict.
“Fifty years on from when it was built, I would say it hasn’t
failed. People are happy there and are very protective of it. But
around the late 1970s, 1980s, it would have been a different
matter. I think with any community, if you’re going to build
something, it’s going to take a long time to develop, and it’s
been nice to actually see that process. Even since we first went
there, some of the housing estates are completely regenerated
and there’s lots more building work going on. But I think the
initial planners did fail in giving the town something that was
worth holding on to for a while.”
As for me, I never did take the Skelmersdale exit while
commuting to and from Preston. I suppose I was always too
worried about being late for work or I was simply far too keen
to get home. But having listened to the exquisite new town
dreaming of The Magnetic North, I do feel as though, somehow,
I’ve seen its “golf course in the moonlight, the heroes in the
half-light”.
It’s a memory that will stay with me. And once you’ve heard
this record, perhaps a corner of your soul will remain forever
Skelmersdale too.
symphonyofthemagneticnorth.com
Prospect Of Skelmersdale is out now on Full Time Hobby.

24
Bido Lito! June 2016
JUNE IN BRIEF
Edited by Matthew Wright and Scott Smith
PARQUET COURTS
Post-punk NYC rock band PARQUET COURTS are big favourites here at Bido Lito! HQ, as anyone who saw us losing our shit at their previous Liverpool
gig will testify. The quartet released their feral new album, Human Performance, on 8th April, and you can experience its fever-pitch depiction of New
York life yourself when the band stop by at the Invisible Wind Factory on 15th June. Parquet Courts are one of the tightest, most prolific acts around right
now: expect a brawl of nervous energy and dreamy respites mingled in between their spirited skull-smashers.
Invisible Wind Factory / 15th June
EYES ON THE PRIZE
MERSEYRAIL SOUND STATION, the region’s premier network for new music, is once again welcoming entries to their innovative Prize competition. From
Saturday 21st May, musicians are encouraged to rock up at performance locations at Liverpool Central, Hoylake, Hooton, Southport, Kirkby, Wallasey
Grove Road and Liverpool South Parkway and record one of their original tracks on a smartphone. Entrants uploading their videos to the Sound Station
Facebook page are in with a chance of winning a year of industry mentoring, studio time and free train travel. The eventual winner will be picked from
10 finalists playing the Merseyrail Sound Station Festival in November. merseyrailsoundstation.com
A PORTRAIT OF BRITISH SONGWRITING
We’re delighted to be collaborating with Domino Publishing to bring the fascinating PORTRAIT OF BRITISH SONGWRITING exhibition to Liverpool. The
show explores the art of songwriting through portraits of songwriters in their places of inspiration taken by photographer Rachel King, and Rachael
Castell’s intimate interviews with artists such as BILL RYDER-JONES (pictured), CLIVE LANGER and KATE TEMPEST. The month-long exhibition at Bold
Street Coffee begins in early July, throughout which we will be hosting a variety of live events and discussions.
Bold Street Coffee / 8th July – 7th August
FIESTA BOMBARDA
Don't miss out on helping FIESTA BOMBARDA celebrate four years of hosting some of the city's most colourful and jubilant celebrations. Their upcoming
Fiesta Carnival takes place in the awe-inspiring Dome at Grand Central Hall, with veteran British DJ NORMAN JAY (MBE) and DUB PISTOLS joined by
NUBIYAN TWIST – a 12-piece whose groove-driven music fuses sound-system culture and jazz improvisation. A selection of other bands and DJs join
the festivities, together with the stunning set design that has become a part of Fiesta's vibrant and unique character.
Grand Central Hall / 3rd June
THE NEWS TODAY WILL BE THE MOVIES OF TOMORROW
A special screening of LOVE STORY – the documentary about the legendary LA group Love –marks the beginning of our FROM LIVERPOOL WITH LOVE
project. The film screening at A Small Cinema will be followed by a Q&A with original Love guitarist Johnny Echols and Bido Lito!’s Craig G Pennington,
and takes place just before Echols’ sold-out Love Revisited show at Leaf on Saturday 25th June. From Liverpool With Love is a commission for this
year’s Liverpool International Music Festival, which sees Echols joined by a slew of great Liverpool artists who have been influenced by the seminal
band, culminating in a special performance on the itsLiverpool Stage at LIMF Summer Jam.
BIENNIAL’S BRAND NEW EPISODE
The programme for the ninth edition of LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL – the largest contemporary art festival in the UK – brings together 42 artists whose
new work will be exhibited as a series of episodes, drawing inspiration from Liverpool’s past, present and future. Across the Children’s Episode,
Ancient Greece, Chinatown, Flashback, Software and Monuments From The Future, a different view of the city’s architectural, cultural and political
heritage will be brought to life. The festival is set to unfold throughout the landscape of the city, creating fictional worlds in previously unused
spaces, galleries, museums, pubs, stations, hotels, parking lots and supermarkets. Find out more details at biennial.com.
COMPETITION: WIN TICKETS TO BLUEDOT
There’s a star man waiting in the sky, but the guys down at Jodrell Bank are putting their search on hold while they host BLUEDOT – an intergalactic
festival of music, technology and space. Bluedot’s stellar programme features JEAN-MICHEL JARRE, CARIBOU and FLOATING POINTS among its
highlights, and you can read more about it in our Summer Festival Guide on page 10. To get your hands on a pair of tickets for this amazing event,
simply answer the following question: Which astronomer once said, when referring to the famous pale blue dot photograph, “Look again at that
dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.”? Email your answer to competition@bidolito.co.uk by 23rd June to be in with a chance of winning.
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Bido Lito! June 2016
25
BEN FOLDS
Mercurial singer-songwriter BEN FOLDS brings his chamber rock collaboration with New York instrumentalists yMusic to the Philharmonic this month.
This special live show is in support of critically acclaimed album So There, released in 2015, a pop/classical amalgamation that fuses Ben Folds’ unerring
ear for writing a tune with the ensemble’s classical flourishes. Though not quite the career arc you’d expect of the man behind Rocking The Suburbs,
So There is a perfect fit for his songwriting nous. Make sure you’re quick to the box office for this one.
Philharmonic Hall / 15th June
IN RESPONSE TO: FRANCIS BACON @ TATE LIVERPOOL
This summer, Tate Liverpool hosts the largest exhibition of FRANCIS BACON’s work staged in the north of England, displaying more than 30 paintings
and previously unseen sketches by the influential artist. Bacon has long been an inspiration for artists, with Christopher Nolan claiming that Bacon’s
paintings inspired his Dark Knight series. Off the back of our successful In Response To… Jackson Pollock series last year, we would like to invite a
group of Merseyside musicians to once again take part in a reactionary exercise, where artists are invited to create new pieces of music inspired by
the works of Francis Bacon on show at the Tate Liverpool. Anyone interested in being involved should contact us now on submissions@bidolito.co.uk.
LIVERPOOL CALLING LAUNCH PARTY
LIVERPOOL CALLING is back for its fourth year, and after the huge successes of previous years, they’re going for gold with COASTS and SPECTOR lined
up to headline this year’s show at new venue Camp and Furnace. To get the ball rolling for this year – and to whip you party lovers up into the right
mood – we will be holding a launch party for the festival at our next Bido Lito! Social, at Maguire’s on 23rd June. One of the artists from the festival bill
will be performing alongside some special guests; keep your eyes on bidolito.co.uk for full details on the line-up, coming soon.
Maguire's / 23rd June
HIGH SOUL #3
For their monthly excursions into the out there, the folks from High Soul bring together a fearsome collection of bands, DJs and assorted mates for
an eight-mile-high party. June’s instalment is their third, and it features some of the city’s most ferocious beasts of talent: resurgent garage rockers
STRANGE COLLECTIVE (pictured), mercurial gloomsters RONGORONGO, and THE FLOORMEN’s druggy, dreamy vibes. With BERNIE CONNOR and KAPRA
in charge of the wheels of steel, you can expect some top-quality funk, soul and everything in between to light up your soul til the early hours.
Buyers Club / 17th June
LIVERPOOL CRAFT BEER EXPO
The city’s “game-changing” LIVERPOOL CRAFT BEER EXPO returns to Constellations with the usual mix of fine beers, brewing experts, food and a
party atmosphere. The event represents the cutting-edge of the country’s craft beer industry and will once again bring the finest sounds to accompany
the great bevvies, with a programme of DJs and artists picked by Bido Lito!: keep your eyes peeled for the bill of selectors set to be announced soon.
A limited number of tickets for the four-day event are still available from liverpoolcraftbeerexpo.com.
Constellations / 16th-19th June
BIDO LITO! BEACH PARTY
The Bido Lito! Beach Party swings into action later this June. For four consecutive weekends, we have commissioned local artists to curate various
performances in one of a series of beach huts placed on the waterfront by cultural hub Metal during the International Festival Of Business. Each
weekend between 25th June and 10th July, we will be handing over the keys to the Bido Lito! Beach Hut, bringing a pretty darn exciting range of
live performances and DJ sets to The Strand. Keep your eyes glued to bidolito.co.uk for announcements about the curators and their programme of
performance. Bring your bermudas!
JUMP ON DEMAND
DIY label and zine JUMP ON DEMAND hold their second annual festival over two evenings at Liverpool’s DIY music Mecca, Maguire’s Pizza Bar.
The festival will showcase 15 of the best up-and-coming alternative and pop-punk bands that the UK has to offer, teaming up with mental health
charity CALM to raise funds over the weekend. Saturday night brings fresh and ballsy headliners HIGHLIVES (pictured) to the stage, supported by
newcomers COAST TO COAST. Bath’s melodic quartet MONTROZE headline the Friday night, joined by Liverpool’s own RED WINTER.
Maguire’s / 24th and 25th June
THE RETURN OF TOP JOE
Mathew Street venue The Hatch welcomes the unique comedy stylings of TOP JOE as he brings back his rather infrequent Regular Gig. After a successful
run at the Well Space last year, which featured fantastic comedy acts, music from Esa Shields, AJHD and A Lovely War, an AWOL hamster circus and a
disastrous Christmas special, the enigmatic high-vis-sporting Welshman returns. He promises more of the same gloriously shambolic action with
highly rated comedians and music from some of the city’s finest musicians.
The Hatch / 16th June
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26
Bido Lito! June 2016 Reviews
Juliette And The Licks (Keith Ainsworth / arkimages.co.uk)
FESTEVOL
Camp and Furnace
FESTEVOL is more than just a music festival;
it is truly an endurance event which can only
be compared to running the London Marathon.
With bands spreading across a massive 15 hours
and a line-up that spans genres and fanbases
small and large, only the most diehard music
fan shall survive. It’s hard not to love a festival
that supports tradition and innovation in equal
measure, bringing a thrilling mix of new and
established music to the Baltic Triangle.
On an early slot in Blade Factory are postpunk
newcomers LUNGS. Dark and brooding
in nature, Lungs’ deep baritones are infused
with intricate high-pitched guitar riffs. The
band seem to completely lose themselves
in their own hypnotic mantras, and it seems
quite fitting that they play within a venue with
‘factory’ in the name as they would surely
have been snapped up by Tony Wilson were it
a different era.
Sticking with the Blade Factory brings us the
equally atmospheric power-poppers CAVALRY. slow and steady build-up of their cinematic
Having recently gained national exposure and sound characterises Cavalry’s performance, as
finding fans in Huw Stephens and Chloe Moretz, vocalist Alan Croft lets blows away the crowd
the group are welcomed by a packed room. The with an incredibly strong voice delivering a
Hooton Tennis Club (Mook Loxley / mookloxley.tumblr.com)
performance of epic proportions. With the
room a mixture of smiles and open mouths,
the band live up to the expectations of fans
new and old.
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africaoye

28
Bido Lito! June 2016 Reviews
Looking for a change from the organic sounds
of Cavalry we move to the comfy confines of
District, where the old videos on show come
with a rather good musical accompaniment.
TVAM, Wigan’s finest export since pies, reels
a clunky old monitor on to the stage like a
school teacher, but that’s where the feelings
of comfort end. Joe Oxley’s blend of library
footage, on-screen lyrics and experimental
garage rock seems to prove quite transportative.
Like a nuclear war public broadcast on acid, the
dissociative music leaves the crowd entranced
in awe and fear in equal doses.
After sampling the joys of the smaller stages,
it seemed time to head over to the much larger
Furnace in search of local favourites HOOTON
TENNIS CLUB. With a huge crowd filling the room,
the band play with their usual effortless coolness.
Having released Highest Point In Cliff Town last
year, the group seems to be an unstoppable force.
With a teenage playfulness the band make full
use of the large stage, dancing about, bashing
into each other and performing rock-god knee
solos much to the crowd’s delight. With headbopping
sing-a-longs and rather a lot of merry
dancing, the lads fill the room with a childlike joy
with which they have become synonymous.
Headliners JULIETTE LEWIS AND THE LICKS
Cavalry (Stuart Moulding / @oohshootstu)
are supposed to share top billing with Steve
Mason, but a technical hitch leaves actorcum-rock
star Lewis leading the way on her
own. And boy does she know how to top a bill.
Nothing is left behind as Lewis stomps and
heaves her way across the stage, cradling her
stars-and-stripes microphone like a precious
relic. The Licks seem well-suited to bobbing
and weaving with the stage theatrics, but even
though the high energy levels are admirable,
the music itself is pretty forgettable. Rock ‘n’
roll, of course, isn’t meant to induce mass chin
strokery, and you certainly can’t fault Juliette
And The Licks for bringing a fun focal point to
tonight’s show – even if the inclusion of Proud
Mary feels only like a clumsy nod to a ‘tune’ in
the set, and a perfunctory one at that.
No act seems more fitting than OHMNS
when twilight approaches. These riotous
night dwellers launch into their ferocious
garage rock with a runaway speed and jagged
edge, before being followed on stage by what
seems to be their sound incarnate: an angry
bald man equipped with a plank of wood. What
ensues is perhaps one of the most punk rock
shows Liverpool has seen for many a year.
Complete with forward-roll solos, bleeding
heads and a stage invasion from a metal Viking
gesticulating devil horns, it can be exhausting
work watching an Ohmns show.
Matt Hogarth and Frankie Muslin
GNOD
Barberos
Harvest Sun @ Buyers Club
Who can follow BARBEROS? They must be
cussed like no other band, right, because what
breed of lunatic would dare try? The aforesaid
trio do their usual here – play the show of their
lives, hold the place up with their headsockshock
and percussive awe – and the impossible
challenge is laid. The sharper among you will
know, though, that the answer is (uniquely)
GNOD. By happy coincidence, they’re playing
at tonight’s concert, and the titular foursome –
beefed up to six in touring mode – love a bit of
repetition and loathing.
Let us not mince genre-speak: track one
beats you about the head then scrapes nails
down a blackboard; track two is a beating with
heavier implements, then an unwisely busy
pizza during a fever, while a baby cries through
one wall and an argument rages behind
another. Dual drumming denies comfort: no,
not bandmates joining in on the first single
off the second album of a noughties indie
mediocrity, but proper, working stick-wielders,
making that four on the night.
Back in the show, track three’s dynamics
(roughly: slipping on wet rails in a pitch-black
tunnel, knowing the midnight express to
oblivion is due) collapse inwards. “Too many
well-known faces are staring at me from the
mirror,” Paddy Shine howls – this is The Mirror,
one of two oldies (released a whole month
earlier) in a set of ultra-new material. Track four,
to continue the only naming system available,
is a rash, then an anxiety dream involving
clocks and some unreasonably hyperactive
ferrets, until it downs tools and insists we have
it out. I’m reminded of my old friend X (not his
name) who’d turn up to morning shifts drowned
in booze, and not in a “great party” way. He’d
vanish for hours. We muddled through with
humour, were young and clueless, did nothing;
he’s left us now. One day, he’d rocked up cased
GNOD (Darren Aston)
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Bido Lito! June 2016 Reviews
in cuts and bruises, serene. He’d felt so numb
he’d provoked a commuter into decking him.
They’d brawled on the road for no reason at all.
X ate pavement, wanted to. And he looked so
alive. And now here are the visceral, merciless
Gnod, and somewhere the two seem to relate.
Considering it’s a relentless, industrial
krautrock battering, there’s an extraordinary
range of moods. Track five, aka Learn To Forget,
is dentist’s drill jamming with an air-raid siren
and a lawnmower that your sleeve is caught in,
then rips a plaster from a longstanding scab
before continuing with a fire alarm you can’t
silence and the consumption of the blackened
toast responsible. Track six is your regrets
fenced in by roaring road diggers operated by
your nemeses and the heat of molten Tarmac,
which you’re attuned to until an unhelpfully
laissez-faire beekeeper passes as you address
the lemonade Beyoncé made you.
Gnod refract the political and psychological,
each too murky to decipher else why would
they be trying? Track seven has you soundly
thrashed beneath a glaring sun, until an
outbreak of shade that, despite Field Marshall
Shine’s grating bark, offers sweet relief. With
that, a herd of passing horses tramples you
for three minutes solid and a door slams on
your fingers. There’s a kind of outage, a bomb’s
aftermath, and that’s it, no coming back for you
or the magnificent Gnod. That was fun, let’s do
it again ASAP. And so long, X – you’d have dug
these.
UNITED VIBRATIONS
Spaceheads – Paddy Steer
Rebel Soul @ 24 Kitchen Street
Tom Bell
The tucked-away cobbles of 24 Kitchen Street
are usually home to DJs and their dancers until
the early hours of the morning; tonight, this has
been replaced with live instruments, colourful
lights, enticing projections and the sound of
laughter brought forth from a slightly older
age demographic, casually sipping their drinks,
awaiting the return of UNITED VIBRATIONS. The
London group’s latest album, The Myth Of The
Golden Ratio, which packs a distinctive blend
of Afrobeat, hip hop, jazz, funk and soul into
its 10 tracks, is the reason for tonight’s busy
gathering.
Opening act PADDY STEER evolves from
an ordinary-looking bloke into a cosmic high
priest before our very eyes, donning shamanic
garb that’s complete with a helmet featuring
glowing eyes. The one-man groove machine
is a master of his craft, delivering a sound that
cannot be placed into a single genre, but rather
incorporates everything Melt Yourself Down
manage to and beyond. Each crowd member
interprets the music in their own way, moving
with the distorted rhythms of Steer’s warped
electronic version of Chic’s Le Freak. After his
final song, Steer removes his performance
attire to once again become an average guy
blending into the crowd.
A two-piece blend who use trumpet, drums
and synth to create galactic textures over
mechanical rhythms, SPACEHEADS take to the
stage after a short DJ interlude, announcing
that they’re “going to take us on a cosmic train
journey”. As their set evolves, the audience are
transfixed on the duo’s ability to transport them
to a whole new world through their ambient
electronic timbres as the trumpet player moves
into the crowd. With their final song Flip To The
Future offering a more upbeat and lively sound,
it’s almost as if the audience have been thrown
into a time machine to experience the busy and
chaotic jumble that is the future.
After an inter-set Prince tribute, United
Vibrations take to the stage. Performing a series
of tracks from their new album, the quartet
execute a diverse blend of rhythms painted
with call-and-response lyrics, melodic brass
and driving drum patterns, all tinted with synth
to present a fresh new element to their space
jazz sound that would make idol Sun Ra proud.
The catchy lyrical hooks of I Am We and Golden
draw the crowd in to the set, but it’s later, near
the end of the set, where the boys display their
true talent. Without the crowd even realising,
United Vibrations drift into a completely
improvised jam, taking us on a journey through
a series of immaculate saxophone solos that
United Vibrations (Glyn Akroyd)
Paddy Steer (Glyn Akroyd)
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send the crowd into overdrive. With the crowd
screaming for one more song, the band returns
to the stage, selecting The Goddess Theme
for their encore. Not only do United Vibrations
deliver a sensational performance, their music
conveys important messages about freedom,
politics and how to achieve “a golden state of
mind”.
RUSSIAN CIRCLES
Samothrace – The Bendal Interlude
Bam!Bam!Bam! @ Constellations
Rosa Jane
A slight confession: this reviewer was late to
arrive tonight. But it doesn’t matter if you turn
up 10 minutes into THE BENDAL INTERLUDE’s
set, because you can hear in the street. You
can hear it in the next street, too. You could
probably hear it in the Anglican Cathedral
as well – drums, bass, and something else,
something louder and lower that can’t quite
be explained… is this what the pealing of bells
sounds like in the inferno?
Definitely at the doomier end of tonight’s
post-rock spectrum, The Bendal Interlude don’t
bother with pleasantries, instead dispatching
repeat slabs of brutality (ideally spelled like
we’re posting on an internet forum c.2003 i.e.
br00tality) and that’s definitely what this crowd
want. It’s a truth universally acknowledged
that metal sounds fantastic in a warehouse,
even when it’s still practically daylight in
Constellations’ back room. They don’t reveal
much in the way of song titles, but they’re local
boys with loads on YouTube and Bandcamp.
Well worth checking out.
Kicking off with the kind of pulverising
noise you’d get if Cammell Laird made a slinky,
Seattle’s SAMOTHRACE’s continuous sludge – a
kind of moat – isn’t just metal. There are shades
of Tangerine Dream and even Spiritualized (!) at
times, and it’s easy to imagine them playing
Liverpool Psych Fest. It’s hard to reconcile softly
spoken guitarist Bryan Spinks’ offer to play “…a
little blues for you” with the guttural hissing
he makes mid-set. They’re masters of delayed
gratification, playing in two 15-minute blocks
and finishing with Awkward Hearts from first
album Life’s Trade.
Authors of 2013’s Memorial, widely
acclaimed as one of the albums of that year
(and not just by the metal community),
RUSSIAN CIRCLES are barely seen until 20
minutes into their hour-long set, shrouded
as they are in clouds of thick yellow smoke.
Fire and brimstone notwithstanding, their
sound is more traditionally post-rock than
that of their supports: that’s not to say it isn’t
heavy, being music that really makes you feel
something inside, even if it’s just your quaking
viscera. Within the confines of their large-scale
instrumentals for downtuned instruments,
there’s a lot of diversity. Nobody’s surprised
when Atackla’s sweet, almost Sigur Rós-y
introduction plummets into Laibach territory,
but it’s still heavy as. Constellations is dark
by now, but highlights include 1777, with its
stark, percussive opening lurching out of the
darkness, and Ethel’s math-rock guitar lines,
eliciting a roar of approval as it grinds into
life. Grind is the word: for two years, Russian
Circles have been touring songs that sound like
the unoiled gears of plate tectonics that drive
continents off-course and throw up mountains
in their battery. A new album is overdue.
Stuart Miles O’Hara / @ohasm1
THREE TRAPPED TIGERS
Lawoftheland – Taws
Bam!Bam!Bam @ Buyers Club
Buyers Club sheds its skin and transforms
once again, playing host to a selection of
mathematically skilled musicians this evening.
Genre-bending, instrumental noise-rock
trio THREE TRAPPED TIGERS are the reason,
stopping by for this intimate show to expand
our minds with their latest album, Silent
Earthling.
TAWS take to the stage first on this
unassuming Wednesday evening, providing us
with their funky rhythm-led take on progressive
rock. Leela Dawson’s soulful vocal really gives
this Liverpool-based band a unique sound,
deviating from the generally more aggressive
vocal styles of definite influence The Fall Of
Troy, which lends itself to the eclectic sounds of
Taws, showcased as they begin Mama Doesn’t
Own You. Though at times their use of nontraditional
time signatures is a little chaotic,
these young musicians have a lot to offer and
their set is brimming with potential, sure to be
heard on their forthcoming EP.
LAWOFTHELAND begin their set backed by
an unknown galaxy projected behind them,
and, thriving off their receptive audience, they
launch into a scene-building number that
creates the mood for their almost ambient
take on rock music. The trio’s passionate
performance lends itself well to the changing
projections, matching scenes of speeding lights
that evoke a cinematic quality thanks in part
to solid melodies from Stephen Miceli (Guitar).
A gentler approach to crescendo building is
taken on self-titled EP track A Part Of Nature,
as Adam Caine (Drums) and Teddy Smith (Bass)
mesh together with great pace and strength,
rounding off a brief and well-received set.
THREE TRAPPED TIGERS take to the stage
modestly – but then dive headfirst into droid
odyssey Silent Earth. As it progresses, we are
supplied with lush synth melodies, sombre
guitars and ruthless drumming provided
unbelievably cohesively and simultaneously

32
Bido Lito! June 2016 Reviews
by Adam Betts (Drums, Electronics), Matt
Calvert (Guitars, Synths) and Tom Rogerson
(Keyboards, Vocals). A towel-covered cymbal
receives the beating of its life, fuelling my
appreciation for the sheer speed and skill
necessary for the Tigers to pull off instrumental
complexities the likes of which I’ll probably
never begin to understand.
The trio have progressed since their 2011
debut, Route One Or Die, with the performance
of Silent Earth feeling more full, more capable
of creating an intricate industrial landscape
within this cocoon of pulsing ambient lights.
This techno-infused math rock finds its perfect
setting at Buyers Club. Engrams urges a trancelike
state by building textures and layers into
a raucous cacophony of sound, bass-heavy
synths and soaring guitars endlessly growing,
while this particularly frenetic number is held
together seamlessly.
As the set develops the sound diversifies,
exemplified by track Rainbow Road, where
sparse, escalating vocals are layered over
the crescendo. It seems that this is how TTT
have managed to shirk the chains of being
bound to one genre, not unlike math rock
contemporaries This Town Needs Guns. The
show ends and a sense of kinetic tranquillity
falls over the crowd, as we wander off into the
haze of an April evening.
Yetunde Adebiyi
SUBMOTION ORCHESTRA
Catching Flies
Ceremony Concerts @ 24 Kitchen Street
The latest chapter in 24 Kitchen Street’s
unstoppable rise comes on the Friday of a bank
Three Trapped Tigers (Aaron McManus / ampix.co.uk)
holiday weekend featuring one of the country’s
most acclaimed and exciting live acts.
Supporting the headliners tonight is
23-year-old London DJ CATCHING FLIES, who
offers up 40-odd minutes of electronica. The
crowd take a little while to warm to him, given
that most are still arriving as he’s performing,
with the subsequent hustle and bustle making
it harder for the producer to cut through and
make an impact.
Stylistically, Catching Flies’ set seems to
focus on mid-tempo trip hop and ambient
chillout sounds. It’s an inspired concoction,
with elements of Boards Of Canada, Air and
The Future Sound Of London all being clearly
present. There is a distinct musicality in the
mix that displays not only passion and talent
but intellect and writing ability. By the end of
the set, the crowd has truly gathered. There
are those who dance and those who stare,
entranced. No matter what they’re doing,
nobody can get enough.
Only six of the seven limbs of SUBMOTION
ORCHESTRA are present tonight. Their singer,
Ruby Wood, is not out on tour for this run.
In her place, the band have two guests with
them. Alyusha provides a lush and soulful
range of tones, from dreamy falsetto vocals to
intricate and powerful choruses. In contrast,
the band and Alyusha have a deep-pitch vocal
counterpart in Billy Boothroyd, who offers
smooth baritone as well as soaring, sincere
muscle behind his voice. The two complement
each other perfectly and offer an incredible
sense of dynamism to the show as a whole.
Instrumentally, the band are pretty much
the loudest live band on the planet. They play
with precision and groove, technique and flare,
both smooth and tight in equal measure. The
rhythm section, Tommy Evans on drums and
Chris Hargreaves on bass, have an inimitable
power and style that heavily underpins every
movement throughout the set.
Tonight’s show contains a wealth of material
from their most recent album including Red
Dress and, perhaps the strongest song of the
set thanks to Boothroyd’s vocals, the soaring
Submotion Orchestra (Georgia Flynn / georgiaflynn.com)
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34
Bido Lito! June 2016 Reviews
imagine a more well-rounded and wholesome
performance. These are some of the best, and
most inspired players to ever grace this stage.
SubMo leave to rapturous applause and 24
Kitchen Street is up in arms.
Christopher Carr
In Gold. Other tracks include previous album
cuts such as It’s Not Me It’s You and All Yours.
Submotion Orchestra (Georgia Flynn / georgiaflynn.com)
It’s a perfect selection.
instrumental sections which give so much
Interspersed throughout the set are long range and depth to the set that it’s hard to
XAMVOLO
Michael Seary – Jalen N’Gonda – Amique
LIMF Academy @ Proud Camden
It’s easy enough to make bold declarations that
Liverpool is the country’s best incubator of new
music. Justified, as well. But it’s another thing
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what Liverpool International Music Festival
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their LIMF Academy-backed artists who benefit
from the patronage that the innovative project
provides for a lucky few.
And so behind the imposing gates that bar
your way to the converted horse stables of
Proud Camden is an oddly contrasting scene,
half made up of snatches of Scouse from the
performers’ mates and fans, and half industry
folk (all tote bags and digital notepads) who’ve
been assigned with scouting out what’s going
on north of the Watford gap.
First up in LIMF’s four-pronged proof of the
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TUESDAY 7TH JUNE
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SATURDAY 3RD SEPTEMBER
TONY MORTIMER & HIS BAND
THURSDAY 22ND SEPTEMBER
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36
Bido Lito! June 2016 Reviews
northern ascendance is alternative soul talent
AMIQUE. It’s an obvious reference to make
given current circumstances, but it’s hard to
keep Prince from the mind as he bristles with
tension whilst bathed in purple light. Taking
us back further into the depths of 60s soul is
JALEN N’GONDA, the Maryland-raised but now
Liverpool-based troubadour. Blessed with the
sort of unfeasibly smooth voice that sounds like
it could cure a hangover and a way of wringing
warmth out of his guitar, he hypnotises his
audience with Holler (When You Call My Name),
which seems a worthy modern addition to the
classic soul lineage of unrequited love. With
artists like Leon Bridges and Gregory Porter
bringing some of Otis Redding’s spirit back
into contemporary pop music, N’Gonda and
his two-piece band leave the stage seeming
a real prospect: notes are made and deposited
in tote bags.
While Scouse producer MICHAEL SEARY
and band hook up a rig that might put NASA’s
mission control centre to shame, SUEDE
BROWN oils the transition from soul by slipping
in some futuristic beats from the likes of Mura
Masa. Seary has an infectious enthusiasm
about him, metronomically bobbing around
his laptop while flanked by a full band for
his massive and melodic dance tunes. His
collaboration with Luke Cusato, Can’t Say It
Back, is an obvious highlight, but Seary seems
at his best when joined by an MC on stage for
what almost sounds like a Scouse version of
The Streets with breakbeats; something which
turns out to be a very good thing.
If the previous acts are all strong examples
of the creativity in Liverpool right now, it’s
XAMVOLO who’s the real star here, a complete
knock-out blow of hazy charm and charisma.
Dressed head to toe in black, right down to
the roll neck, scarf and coat, it’s not a surprise
when he stops to consider how hot it is towards
the end of his set. The heat and wheezes of
a smoke machine provide the right frame for
his woozy RnB vibes, the jazzy landscape on
which his distinctive voice stretches out. He
doesn’t mess around with anything other
than excellent, but it’s the blissful wanderings
of Sapphires that confirm him as a slightly
unhinged and single-minded talent; not just
one of Liverpool’s best, but one of the UK’s,
too. Which, after all, was sort of the whole point
of the night.
Phil Gwyn / @notmanyexperts
SKATERS
I Love Live Events @ Parr Street Studio2
Big Apple residents SKATERS are a band who
are more than the sum of their parts. Guitarist
Josh Hubbard started life as axeman for Hull’s
finest early noughties export The Paddingtons,
while frontman Michael Ian Cummings’ former
life was given to Bostonian indie types The
Dead Trees, a band who rattled few cages this
side of the Atlantic but are well worth looking
up. Skaters announced themselves with a
superb debut album back in 2014 which was
criminally overlooked. Manhattan is peppered
with indie rock anthems which may owe a debt
to NYC forebears The Strokes but hold their own
as hooky, expertly written gems.
Two years later, the four-piece return to these
parts with a new line-up and a point to prove.
Cummings now sports a guitar instead of only
a look of malice and a jaded attitude. Another
former Paddington, Stu Bevan, has taken up
bass duties but the core members of Hubbard
and drummer Noah Rubin remain. They are
a unit who are obviously happy in their own
skin, exchanging jokes throughout. Dressed
like the cast of Micheal Keaton classic Dream
Team (what do you mean you haven’t seen
it?), but somehow making it look cool, Skaters
appear to have quietly achieved cult status in
Liverpool. Set opener Mental Case gets bodies
swaying and the young crowd obviously need
no convincing.
There are obvious tensions between band
and sound tech tonight, tensions that are
possibly heightened when the band jettison
the stage and play in amongst the crowd for
several numbers – but such animosity cannot
dampen the atmosphere at Studio 2. Every
word of single I Wanna Dance (But I Don’t
Skaters (Nata Moraru)
Know How) is sung back to the band and
Hubbard declares it the best version the band
Skaters (Nata Moraru)
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Thursday 23rd June 2016 at 8pm
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GENESIS CONNECTED
Playing the music of Genesis, Phil Colins,
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16th July 2016 at 8pm
Tickets £16.00
LLOYD COLE
Tuesday 11th October 2016 at 8pm
Tickets £20.00
DARKSIDE THE PINK FLOYD SHOW
Saturday 2nd July 2016 at 8pm
Tickets £15.50
HUE & CRY ACOUSTIC
Friday 19th August 2016 at 8pm
Tickets £20.00
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Sunday 20th November 2016 at 8pm
Tickets £18.00 (advanced)
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have ever performed. The band seem to be
revisiting 50s rock n roll in some of the newer
songs, but it’s done through the prism of a New
Wave aesthetic which bodes well for a second
album. Schemers could be a bona fide indie
disco floorfiller, if any DJ had actually heard it
upon its release. Tonight it gets the respect it
deserves, played with studied abandon and
lapped up by the crowd. The band sheepishly
ask the waning tech if they can play an encore,
and a cover of Nirvana’s Territorial Pissings is
decided upon when the thumbs up is given.
Some of Kurt Cobain’s favourite bands were
only discovered by a wider public through his
championing; it seems Skaters may need a
similar advocate to reach the audience they
deserve.
Sam Turner / @samturner1984
RATKING
Rico Don
Bam!Bam!Bam! and Madnice
Marauders @ 24 Kitchen Street
The crowd in front of me start to shuffle and
become restless. The illuminated thick smoke
starts to swirl around the gigantic pendulous
disco ball suspended in front of the stage
(I’m sure they don’t have a smoke machine),
the previously searing atmosphere sparked
by the ferocious sets of the supporting acts
(in particular Liverpool-based RICO DON)
beginning to dwindle to embers. Suddenly, a
few whoops and hollers go up at the front of
the stage and on swaggers Wiki. The snaggletoothed
headpin of RATKING storms the stage
unaccompanied by his fellow members, snaps
a skittish snarl at the crowd and tears into his
set. Immediately the place is reignited, as
the crowd bounce in unison and the smoke
is whipped by the flailing limbs and torsos of
those at the front.
Wiki is ferocious from the get-go, brazenly
snapping against the smooth, yet lashing,
sleek grime-influenced backing tracks. The
set is predominantly dedicated to his recently
released first solo mixtape, Lil Me, still
composed of the progressive experimental hip
hop ingredients, infused with the traditional
endemic New York sound. Like Ratking’s
previous releases, it harks back to the mid to
late 90’s – however, sliced with warped-cuts
of British rap music.
He declares, “I’m gonna slow things down
a bit” as he drops into Seedy Motherfucker,
giving himself the opportunity to drop the
ruckus, and allowing the nasal and grimacing
character of his voice to sit on top of the
languid guitar of the track.
He appears an amicable and relatable
character. Although his interaction with the
crowd is almost exclusively confined to the
front few rows, he appears infatuated with
their engagement, as he is whisked up within
the intensity of the moment. On one of the
rare occasions when he addresses the whole
crowd, he pauses briefly to declare his affinity
for Liverpool, confessing, “Y’all got a good city
out here”.
Livin’ With My Moms describes the pains of
balancing adolescent life with a domestic one.
The track perfectly summarises his sense of
humour: his unglamorous, inane jibes at real
life, and his honest and refining confessional
lyrics centred on unremarkable subjects.
The other Ratking member in attendance,
Sporting Life, only appears briefly towards
the close of the set for God Bless Me: a track
from the album that also features Skepta. His
induction catalyses a peak in vigour amongst
the crowd, before he retreats to the side of
the stage, allowing Wiki to wrap up the rest
of the set.
Ultimately the set mirrors the mixtape, in
that for all the lyrical prowess and, at times,
outstanding instrumentals, it lacks structure
and concept. Perhaps this crude display is a
reflection of a raw artist still experimenting,
tinkering and broadening the boundaries
of East Coast hip hop. But for those in
attendance, it’s been a unique opportunity to
witness a potentially revolutionising young
artist at a defining time in his career.
Jonny Winship
MELT YOURSELF DOWN
Dead Hedge Trio
Bam!Bam!Bam! @ 24 Kitchen Street
MELT YOURSELF DOWN stop off at Kitchen Street
as part of a UK tour to promote their recently
released second album Last Evenings On Earth.
Again the critics have showered the ensemble
– composed of luminaries from across the
spectrum of modern British jazz, dance and
world music (Polar Bear, Sons of Kemet,
Acoustic Ladyland, Transglobal Underground) –
with four- and five-star reviews. After an eighthour
diversionary road trip to get here from
London, you might expect Melt Yourself Down
to be a tad jaded, but it turns out they just need
to release some pent-up energy as they storm
into an unrelenting, physical barrage of a set.
Local jazz luminaries DEAD HEDGE TRIO
play a short but sweet opening set; what it
lacks in quantity it more than makes up for
in quality. A slow, shimmering start sees Rory
Ballantyne’s echoey guitar washing over
Michael Metcalfe’s pattering drum breaks
before evolving into a beautifully gentle
Nick Branford saxophone melody. Swapping
guitar for trumpet, Ballantyne underscores
Brandon’s funky, honking sax before an epic
building of looped trumpet builds a wall of
sound evocative of Miles Davis’ Sketches Of

Reviews
Bido Lito! June 2016
39
Melt Yourself Down (Glyn Akroyd)
Spain. On Driving With John, a song about a
road trip to the Alps, a tense Ballantyne guitar
riff plays off Brandon’s abstract sax patterns as
Metcalfe builds towards a thunderous climax –
must have been one hell of a trip!
I suspect Melt Yourself Down’s road trip up
a choked M6 this afternoon was somewhat
less exciting and they appear keen to put it
behind them from the moment diminutive bass
player Ruth Goller walks on stage and begins
a heavy-duty solo introduction of shuddering
volume. Max Hallet’s drums and Satin Singh’s
percussion crash in with an Afrobeat sensibility,
delivered, along with the twin saxes of Pete
Wareham and George Crowley, in a punk-like
attack. Vocalist Kushal Gaya enters the fray
in a whirlwind of chanted vocals and intense
movement, hand extended towards the crowd.
The first song squeals to a halt but, before
the audience have time to applaud, they put
the pedal back to the metal and leave tyre
marks all over the Kitchen Street highway as
the second song veers quickly out of sight.
Wareham, Crowley and Gaya are amongst the
audience almost immediately, bobbing and
weaving their way amongst a partisan crowd
who seem more than happy to cheer them on.
So, whereas I expect consummate
musicianship (which they deliver) I am
somewhat taken aback by the ferocity and
abandon of their approach. I must admit, a
few songs in, I find myself hankering after a
little change of tempo, a bit of a breather, but
the crowd patently do not, leaping, arms aloft
and repeating Gaya’s chanted tribal calls with
gusto.
Goller’s massive, dubby bass continues to
anchor proceedings while Hallett and Singh’s
double drum Afrobeat barrage propels things
along. Up front Wareham and Crowley have all
kinds of fun blowing the bejesus out of their
horns with hints of two-tone and eastern
European klezmer in the mix. Their laughter
as they pogo around the stage bouncing off
other band members is infectious, as are
Gaya’s perpetual-motion exhortations. The
crowd continue to bounce off the walls during
a furious and joyfully received encore which
brings a wham-bam-thank-you-mam set of
intense virtuosity to a close.
Glyn Akroyd
THE ALEPH
Germanager
Deep Hedonia @ Everyman Bistro
It is with a heavy heart and the sickening pang
of schadenfreude that I thumb through The
Purple One’s obituaries in the dimly lit café of
the Everyman Theatre prior to tonight’s show.
Sometimes It Snows In April is the general
consensus – and by far the most sagacious
retweet of an endless online outpour.
Quite their own revolution, Deep Hedonia
have delivered two forward-thinking and
uncompromising shows as part of their
Everyman Bistro residency so far this year,
featuring Laura Cannel and an introduction to
live coding from Joanne. We are told they’re
ready to receive us, so the gathering crowd
eagerly make their way down the stairwell to
the Bistro. A large projection and a block of
seating greets us from the far end, as the night’s
ample entrée GERMANAGER prepares himself
to begin, a strange hybrid of his face adorning
the screen. Rnrnb is a powerful introduction to
the world of Germanager (aka Alex Germains):
there’s a touch of Richard Dawson about his
melodic dissonance, as melodically crunchy
guitar lines dangle over a precarious-sounding
backing track. His beef-witted humour is very
dry and exactly to my taste; at one point he
stops to reflect that Prince was “up there with
Paul Daniels”.
Just when we think we are through the
looking glass, pop reconstructivists THE ALEPH
arrive to tip the balance of distinction. Formed
in 2013, The Aleph was initially a project that
was commissioned for a special performance at
Tate Britain, which was subsequently premiered
at London’s Café Oto the following year. The
avant jazzisters presumably derive their name
from the Jorge Luis Borges novel – in the book,
The Aleph is the fulcrum point in the universe
where all angles meet – making for an apt title
for a duo who successfully refract a plethora of
musical invention. Another equally credible line
of enquiry may reference Charles Avery’s fertile
imagination; the Scottish-born artist sketched
and sculptured elephantine demigods of the
same name (his most famous piece being a
giant Aleph head), a totem of anatomy that
these lads have form with.
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40
Bido Lito! June 2016 Reviews
The Aleph’s eccentric maestros, Jonathan
Hering and Benjamin Fair, are perhaps most
recognisable as two of the faces of acclaimed
percussive ensemble Ex-Easter Island Head.
This evening, however, the duo take on an
entirely different guise, one that is equally
stunning in its invention. Swinging Mary is
a slow-burning Roman Candle of a tune that
builds with a flurry of deftly administered
claps and loops. Gleeful overtones of humour
course throughout the arrangement, and
there’s a cunning refrain that zips it all together
succinctly. But their most beguiling number
by far is She Hangs Her Coat On The Highest
Pin, which utilises a pair of duelling sewing
machines. I am in awe. Don’t leave it so long
between shows next time though lads.
Philip Morris / @mauricedesade
MARTIN SOLVEIG
Michael Calfan – Pep & Rash – Myles
My House @ Arts Club
There’s a scene in the film of Peter Shaffer’s
The Aleph (Darren Aston)
Amadeus in which Salieri watches Mozart
perform various musical party tricks at a
masquerade. After dazzling everyone by playing
upside-down, hands behind his head, he takes
requests. Salieri, in disguise, must keep silent as
he watches the young genius cruelly lampoon
him and his music.
MARTIN SOLVEIG might not be Mozart, but
he is prodigiously talented as a DJ, all-round
musician, and showman. His set – in the middle
of a bill that transplants his 20-date residency
at Ibiza’s Pacha to Arts Club for one night only
– is ostensibly a celebration of house music,
but Solveig’s dayglo visuals and his slightly

Reviews
Bido Lito! June 2016
41
porno tache betray his love of classic sounds,
particularly disco. He calls it future house, but
it’s self-consciously retro.
It’s not this venue’s usual crowd, but it puts
the club(bing) in Arts Club for the first time in
years. Dropping tunes like Tove Lo’s Habits and
Duke Dumont’s The Giver, this show shares its
target audience with Capital FM – there’s a lot
of love for Major Lazer’s Lean On when it lands.
Irrespective of your taste in music, the little
French guy behind the decks has a love for pure
pop, and it’s infectious.
However, it’s taken a few hours to reach this
level of elegance. Upstairs, MYLES remains
somewhere in the purgatorial 90s, followed
by PEP & RASH. Despite their harder, technoinfluenced
sound, their set is the same student
disco, different decade. It’s well received, but
there are too many outrageous samples, and
a pace that sees drop after drop without any
chance to build on the chaos.
Back in the Theatre, MICHAEL CALFAN spins
out a set of deep house (or, at least, deeper
than Solveig’s) that’s well paced, but hardly
revolutionary. He pulls out his own Nobody
Does It Better, which wears its 18 years lightly,
but the drops are predictable, and there’s too
much basking in adulation that big club DJs are
prone to. They pause, revel, and indulge in that
raising of arms that’d be onanistic if it didn’t put
their hands so far from their crotches.
Not Martin Solveig, though. His set is
structured to be unpredictable without
disorienting anyone. He keeps them guessing,
drawing on a vast library of samples; there’s
almost never a straight repeat of any four bars,
and the reward is big tunes. He, too, works the
crowd. Leaving the drum track shuffling when
he comes out in front of his decks, he interacts,
face to face, hand to outstretched hand. Then he
reaches behind himself and, without looking,
without fumbling, sight unseen, releases the
fattest, most perfect, most gyratory hit of rich
synth brass – a bit like Mozart.
Stuart Miles O’Hara / @ohasm1
JOHN MCCUSKER
Philharmonic Music Room
JOHN McCUSKER is nothing if not prolific,
nothing if not collaborative, and nothing if
not well connected. As he takes the stage in
the Philharmonic Music Room, and introduces
himself with his characteristic soft Caledonian
charm, he surrounds himself with a band of
sublime folk talent and experience. To his
immediate left is the backbone of much of
McCusker’s work, his close friend and 35-year
musical comrade Andy Cutting. The melodeon
player is fresh from the Radio 2 Folk Awards,
where he won the coveted Musician Of The
Year award for the third time. As well as Innes
White on guitar and mandolin and Toby Shaer
on violin, flutes and whistles, McCusker is
joined by Adam Holmes, here to add depth
and colour with his rich, warm, burned-at-theedges
vocals, and to provide valuable dynamic
spaces in the pieces, courtesy of his refined and
stripped-bare guitar work.
As with all great folk artists, McCusker is
a serial collaborator, and with collaboration
comes spontaneity and innovation. Each
performance brings something new, something
different: traditional stories are retold with new
vision and new interpretation. As unassuming
and composed as McCusker comes across, it
is abundantly clear who is the guide here. The
affinity between him and his fellow musicians
is obvious to all, as he deftly communicates
changes, gently guiding the dynamic with a
nod of the head, a smile, or the genteel flick
of a viola bow. As a producer of much renown,
the flow of the jigs and reels, the seamless
leaps between pieces, and the sweeping lifts
and falls are all central to this impressive
performance, and his years of experience and
the breadth of sheer musicality onstage here
breathe life into this striking collection of work.
Here in support of his new album, Hello
Goodbye, his first solo album in 13 years,
and itself a celebration of his 25 years in the
business, McCusker sees to it that the evening
revolves largely around traditional and
contemporary pieces of his and Holmes’ solo
material. These are songs that evoke the spirits
of their histories, and speak so well of their
origins. The lilting, almost ambient, lament of
the intro to Calendar Boys gives itself over to
an irresistible, urgent folk stomp, where two
jigs melt together and are driven by Cutting’s
melodeon and the expressive vigour of John
McCusker’s stamping foot. The interwoven
strings of McCusker and Innes on this and the
many jigs are the absolute highlight, as they
hold the centre ground for much of the set.
The beautiful, melancholic and the drifting
subtlety such as is found in songs like Milk
Carton Kids add an important element to this
commanding, engaging performance, which
in turn is highlighted by John McCusker’s dry,
almost whispered wit and charm as he goes
about setting the scene for his tale. These
quieter moments give Holmes the opportunity
to join the band, and he's a real find, bringing
as he does a John Martyn-style tranquillity to
the vocal lines of his and McCusker’s work,
and the warmth of his semi-acoustic on songs
such as Cutting Loose and the scorched-earth,
sun-blushed gospel blues of drinking song
Mother Oak, or the slender, plaintive beauty
of Aviemore and the perfectly chosen final
Ceremony Concerts Present
China Crisis
The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool – Saturday 18 th June 2016
SECOND DATE ADDED – Friday 17 th June 2016
Roddy Woomble
Performing 'My Secret is my Silence'
The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool – Friday 16 th September 2016
The Travelling Band
Magnet, Liverpool – Friday 14 th October 2016
Heaven 17
& British Electric Foundation
O2 Academy, Liverpool – Thursday 20 th October 2016
George Monbiot & Ewan McLennan
The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool - Thursday 20 th October 2016
Blue Rose Code
The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool – Friday 21 st October 2016
Robyn Hitchcock
The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool - Saturday 22 nd October 2016
Michael Chapman & Nick Ellis
The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool - Sunday 20 th November 2016
Sheelanagig
The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool - Sunday 27 th November 2016
TicketQuarter / See Tickets / WeGotTickets / Gigantic
bidolito.co.uk

42
Bido Lito! June 2016 Reviews
song tonight, Oh My God. The story goes that
McCusker was listening to the radio as he drove
through the Highlands, and Holmes came on.
He pulled over to make a note of Holmes’
name. I’m glad he did, just as much as I am
grateful he wasn’t listening to another channel
at that moment. Proof, if proof were needed
(which of course, it isn’t), of McCusker’s ear, the
key to this most impressive of careers. A class
in folk, this was.
Paul Fitzgerald / @NothingvilleM
Sugarmen (John Johnson / johnjohnson-photography.com)
to finish from the local lads as they dispense set of razor-sharp, Spandex-tight compositions
with between-song pleasantries to focus on a which take in Joy Division, Television and preshit
Muse.
WE ARE CATCHERS have remained rather
enigmatic since the release of their superb
debut album on Domino two years ago, but
it seems that Peter Jackson is now back in
the swing of things with a new line-up that
is completed by a flautist – a bold move but
one that pays off in spades. The new-look
Catchers have obviously given Jackson a new
lease of songwriting life as they play a set
primarily made up of brand new tunes tonight.
Old favourites Tap Tap Tap and If You Decide
are warmly received but it’s the darker Doorsy
styles of closing track Citadel which recaptures
the excitement that surrounded these Scouse
Beach Boys back in 2014.
Buyers Club is reaching capacity and there’s
a buzz in the air as a home crowd ready
themselves to welcome SUGARMEN, who
return to the city after impressing industry
types across the Pond at SXSW festival. There’s
more to this band than the standard format of
two guitars, bass and drums suggests: their
sheer energy for a start, as well as their ability
to contort a hook within a catchy indie anthem.
Singer Luke Fenlon's vocal effect brings an extra
dimension to the aesthetic and the confidence
that exudes from the group is infectious. You
can always tell when a band are high on selfbelief
when they throw their best-known track
in the first half of their set, and Plastic Ocean is
certainly a high point of the evening. The song
has obviously been a benchmark for Sugarmen
and the tunes which have cropped up recently
point to a new interesting direction for a band
SUGARMEN
We Are Catchers - The Probes
Pretty Green Presents @ Buyers Club
The stage is set at Buyers Club tonight for
Liverpool to show its true colours. As the
shadow of Prince’s untimely passing is cast
over the city, three of Merseyside brightest
hopes for the future set about proving the
hype.
First up are THE PROBES, a band who have
been plugging away for a good couple of years
now but have stepped things up a notch with
EP Autonomy. Tonight, it is clear a slew of
high-profile support slots including one with
spiritual forefathers Echo & the Bunnymen have
helped the four-piece hone their spacey psych
sound. It’s a business-like approach from start
We Are Catchers (Glyn Akroyd)
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Gareth Arrowsmith
SOUND MATTERS
In this monthly column, our friends at DAWSONS give expert tips and advice on how to achieve a
great sound in the studio or in the live environment. Armed with the knowledge to solve any musical
problem, the techy aficionados provide Bido Lito! readers with the benefit of their experience so you
can get the sound you want. Here, Dawsons’ Harry Brown discusses the equipment which gives the
travelling troubadour the edge in the world of solo performing.
While playing with a full band is a fantastic
experience and produces a kind of chemistry that
a solo performer can be hard-pushed to replicate,
many musicians frequently find that at some point
going it alone can be a lot more flexible, logistically
simpler, and also more profitable!
There are drawbacks to this line of work though,
including not having several people to share
the (often uncovered) travel expenses with. But
one of the most difficult aspects of going solo is
almost certainly transporting and carrying all your
equipment on your own. Without the other three
or four sets of hands, suddenly moving your guitar
or keyboard plus the PA system around becomes
not only becomes a tiring job but also sometimes
physically impossible.
Many musicians playing solo performances for
which they are required to provide their own PA
system are not aware of the brilliant array of superlightweight
and small-footprint systems available
in today’s market. So I’d like to highlight just a few
basic products that could be the key to your solo
performance career’s success.
If you have a vehicle that offers plenty of space
and can get close to the space you are performing
in, then you can take a heavier, larger PA system
as it will not cost you too much effort before and
after your performance. (This is definitely worth
remembering – how would you expect to give an
engaging performance if you’re tired out before
the gig even begins?) If you’re without a vehicle or
the space isn’t particularly accessible via a vehicle
and you have to provide your own PA, you’re going
to need something lighter and smaller than a
conventional system.
Let’s say you’re travelling on the train to play a
café/bar in the neighbouring town and you need to
take your own system. You play acoustic guitar and
sing to backing tracks, so you need the capacity to
plug in a few different sound sources and probably
need to carry the whole system easily for several
hundred metres. In this situation, the Lucas Nano
300 by HK Audio is an ideal candidate, featuring two
minuscule speakers and one subwoofer, all of which
clip together in both travel and performance formats.
The speakers clip to the rear of the sub for convenient
travel, but can be clipped straight to the top of the
sub unit for super-compact performance spaces, or
attached to the top of a pair of microphone stands
and placed either side of the stage for a roomier
venue. The whole system weighs a surprising
10.3kg and has a very comfortable handle, making
it a perfect solution for the performer travelling via
public transport.
Another good option for this application is
Fishman’s SA220 Solo system, which is more
powerful but without a subwoofer unit. Weighing
in at a very reasonable 15kg, it will cater to a slightly
larger venue or audience. For a performance
involving backing tracks that would benefit from
a sub unit as part of the system, HK’s larger Lucas
Nano 600 system is more powerful, being ideal for
a slightly larger performance space than the 300
model.
OK, change of scene: you’re running an openmic
night for a local bar, needing to travel by bus
to the venue and to provide a PA system that’s not
only capable of amplifying your own act’s sound
sources but those of all the other acts too, each of
which might have several musicians. In this case,
something a little more powerful with a range of
different inputs may be needed: enter Yamaha’s
Stagepas 400i. This system has a removable
powered mixer in the back of one speaker (featuring
an effects section) and a storage space in the back of
the other for your cables and microphone. This is less
transportable, being slightly heavier (17.8kg) than
the previously mentioned products, and also has to
be carried as two units rather than one.
Wireless control technology has filtered down
into the wider consumer market over the last few
years and products such as Mackie’s new Reach
system are the epitome of the portable, flexible
all-in-one PA system. Featuring wireless control via
their Connect app, which is available online, you
can adjust volumes, EQ and effects parameters for
a performance while on stage or in the audience.
It provides in-built monitoring through a separate
side speaker and has the same kind of volume
usually associated with a modern active/powered
speaker.
You can find Dawsons at their new home at 14-16
Williamson Square. dawsons.co.uk
who may have supported The Who and worked
with The Clash’s Mick Jones but are certainly no
pastiche of past glories. As with all the bands
on the bill tonight, there are certainly nods to
history’s musical giants here, but these are acts
that want to drive Liverpool forward as a city
that defines what is cutting edge in rock ‘n’ roll.
Sam Turner / @samturner1984
NICK ELLIS
Tom Blackwell – Roy
Mellowtone @ Leaf
In the warm ambience of Leaf’s large
upstairs space, a small crowd is gathering in
anticipation of the night’s unravelling. The small
bustle reduces to a hushed silence as opening
act ROY approaches the stage. This guy has a
humble charm and comes bearing stories of
insight and hilarity. We’re treated to two stories
of his mostly factual or semi-autobiographical
work. These are stark images of the real world
come from Roy’s philosophy of writing about
only what he knows. And what does he know?
He knows what only those with a keen eye for
observing life’s nuances would know. What
only someone who can understand a person’s
character and behaviour would know. He also
knows that he could manage Everton 10 times
better than that Moyes fella ever could have.
Full of the common man’s charm and with a
charismatic fondness for regaling tales of real
life, Roy wins the crowd over and leaves us all
laughing.
As the easy-going feel of the evening
develops, folk artist TOM BLACKWELL moves
Sugarmen (John Johnson / johnjohnson-photography.com)
seamlessly in. His set feels slightly contrived
and unoriginal, although he has no problem
with winning the audience over. His sound is
typically folk – hushed, slightly hoarse vocals
over earthy and stripped-back guitar work.
The physical performance is captivating,
but somehow his music seems somewhat
imitational. He sings in an accent that is clearly
affected and his style hovers dangerously close
to the realm of the cliché. However, it’s a solid
set of folk balladry that leaves the crowd, all
except one member, ecstatic and wanting
more.
Tonight’s headliner, NICK ELLIS, arrives
on stage after a short break. This show is a
celebration. His new EP, Grace And Danger,
is receiving its official launch tonight at this
very show and Ellis is on top form to mark
the occasion, playing through the high points
of his new EP (Cooler Than A Cupid) and even
dropping in his own consummate re-working
of the Bunnymen’s Lips Like Sugar. Ellis’ guitar
work transcends the folk category and enters
into something more complex, rhythmic and
unique. Aspects of his guitar playing-style bare
resemblance to the likes of John Martyn and
he has a clear mark of sincerity in the way that
he behaves. His whole persona, voice, guitar
playing and physical character seem to offer
something direct from his heart. Tonight’s
set carries the weight of a musician who
understands that his voice is his weapon. His
lyrics and his voice give the impression that
Ellis is imparting wisdom through his song,
that he’s expressing that which he feels is of
the utmost importance. Ellis has done himself,
and his city, proud.
Christopher Carr

SAMANTHA
BARKS
THU 16th JUN
7:30pm
All Tickets £20.50
MATT
CARDLE
SUN 10th JUL
7:30pm
Standard £23.50
Meet and Greet £99.00
JAMES
BURTON
WEEKEND
VIP Weekend Ticket £74.50
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
MARTY WILDE
AND THE JETS
THU 28th JUL
7:30pm
All Tickets £27.50
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
THE MERSEYBEATS
FRI 29th JUL
7:30pm
All Tickets £27.50
Prices include a
£1.50 fee per ticket.
The extensive
range of products
in our basement
section includes
the following:
“
At Dawsons we provide personal,
one-to-one advice and help you
find the perfect equipment to get
your production sounding great
Terry Cooper, Pro-Audio Specialist
Dawsons Music Liverpool
”
We’ll help find the perfect guitar
from our huge selection
Spread over two floors, Dawsons
Liverpool stocks a vast range of
equipment and instruments for all
musicians. As well as the leading
brands at great prices, we also
have friendly, knowledgeable staff
who will do all they can to help
you find the right equipment.
10% OFF
CABLES AND ACCESSORIES
Cut out this coupon and bring it along to our Williamson Street store to claim 10% off products in our extensive
range of cables and accessories. Please note this offer does not extend to hardware.
Dawsons Liverpool I 14-16 Williamson Street Liverpool L1 1EB
0151 709 1455 I liverpool@dawsons.co.uk
@Dawsonsmusic
Dawsonsmusic

DIGGING A LITTLE DEEPER
with Radio Exotica
We’re always interested to hear what waxy gems are lurking in the depths of the record bags of
the city’s DJs, or the kind of music they’re indulging in away from the dancefloor. In the latest in
our RADIO EXOTICA series, Rory Taylor takes us on a tour of some of his favourite world music
genres, with reggae as this month’s focus.
Ahead of this month’s Positive Vibration – Festival Of Reggae (10th and 11th June), Rory has put
together a selection of his top tracks from some of the most exciting, up-and-coming reggae
bands and artists who are performing at this year’s festival.
DJ VADIM
FUSSIN’ ‘N’ FIGHTING (feat. DEMOLITION MAN)
A prolific DJ, producer and Ninja Tune stalwart, DJ VADIM has been
spinning and producing for over 20 years, and has released some
incredible records exploring hip hop, soul and reggae. Vadim released
his 11th album, Dubcatcher 2 (Wicked My Yout), in February this year,
which features collaborations with some reggae greats including Max
Romeo, Tippa Irie and General Levy. However, it’s the opening track that really stands out for me.
As well as showcasing the vocal talent of London-based MC Demolition Man, the track has a real
rootsy vibe about it. It’s also a winner when you spin it at a reggae party.
BACKBEAT SOUNDSYSTEM
COME UNDONE
Hailing from the charming Cornish idyll of St Austell, BBSS are an eightpiece
outfit who create up-tempo, infectious and sun-soaked reggae
music. In 2013 they released their debut album Together Not Apart via
Easy Star Records (Gentleman’s Dub Club, The Skints). The album, which
is fantastic, casts a critical eye on social inadequacy and presents the
inclusive idea of community as a solution. My favourite track off the album is Come Undone, which
addresses the mistake of inaction in the face of malevolent forces and emphasises our shared
responsibility in building a better future. It’s also really boss.
MUSICAL YOUTH
PASS THE DUTCHIE
Released in 1982, this belter of a reggae song was a huge hit worldwide,
selling over five million copies. The song is a cover version of Gimme
The Music by U Brown and, most notably, Pass The Kouchie by Mighty
Diamonds. For sake of clarity, ‘kouchie’ is a slang term for a cannabis
pipe and ‘dutchie’ is a patois term for a cooking pot. The reason for its
inclusion here is… Don Letts: the music video for Pass The Dutchie (which is also ace) was directed
by the Grammy Award-winning filmmaker. Classic British reggae!
SHANTY
NOWHERE TO NOWHERE
I first became aware of London-based SHANTY back in 2014 following the
release of their EP Leave Me Out. Since then, I’ve not stopped listening to
the band: I’m turning into a bit of a fanboy. I love the fusion of Jamaica’s
authentic dubwise bass and rhythms, dirty jazzy brass and soulful vocals
on Nowhere To Nowhere. For me, it’s one of the best reggae songs from
the past couple of years. It’s no surprise that David Rodigan hails Shanty as the “best of British
reggae”.
Want some more reggae? RADIO EXOTICA have provided us with a mini mix to accompany this column,
which you can listen to now at bidolito.co.uk.
@RadioExoticaDJ
THE FINAL SAY
Words: A.W. Wilde / awwilde.co.uk
Each month we hand over the responsibility of having the final say to a guest columnist. This
issue, A.W. Wilde mourns not just the loss of another of our cultural icons, but also the loss of
sincerity in our online tributes.
For Whom the Retweet Tolls
Prince. Never has an artist been so majestically revolution in public mourning that occurred
positioned at the centre of his own orbit, in 1861 after the death of Queen Victoria’s
dragging beguiling melodies and era-defining husband, Prince Albert. Mourning someone
lyrics towards him with all the effort of buttering you’d never met, provided they were Royal,
hot crumpets. And it was this non-stop creative became de rigueur. But this revolution was
fluency that made his eccentricities not just buried with the dead of WWI, a conflict in which
acceptable but unquestionable. Like Bowie no one died a quick and painless death and the
before him, he afforded a new freedom to horrors of which were best left unspoken. Those
expression, one that simultaneously clicked memories were the bridge that pain travelled
with one generation and appalled another. over, so we clammed up. And that’s where social
With reassuring regularity he upset the existing attitudes towards grief stayed put, stifled on
state of affairs in a purple crushed-velvet coat the tip of the collective tongue, just below the
and stacked heels; he made people feel – feel stiff upper lip. Our vocabulary for loss simply
each other and feel themselves: he’s the very ebbed away and then we lost it altogether.
reason the Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics But things are changing, fast. And one
stickers were invented.
thing is for sure: the public grieving we’re now
Prince questioned what it was to be sexual, seeing online is at the beginning of its cycle,
heterosexual, a proud black man, a musical inchoate, in its infancy – and should be judged
virtuoso – and the social importance of the as such. And with more celebrities to die than
Space Race in a time of chronic welfare cuts. ever before, it’s not going to go away. I would
He could do all this in the time it takes Harry suggest that many opinions about how people
Styles to shave his ball bag. He could do this grieve on social media are themselves imbued
just because he was Prince: the embodiment with how that individual feels about social
of sumptuous talent in excelsis. And because media itself – narcissist’s playground or great
his music spoke volumes, he didn’t do much enabler – and that this explains a little of the
talking. Nor did he do much walking: he spent disparity. I would also suggest that there is a
a significant portion of the 80s being carried case of transference going on: perhaps people
everywhere on the back of a heavily tattooed are marking the death of a celebrity in the
Hell’s Angel called Chick.
way they couldn’t a family member, but taking
We’re only five months in, but the emoticon something personal from it. This could be a
for 2016 could well end up being a guitarshaped
coffin. And, like controversial petite I’ll be honest: the only dead celebrity I’ve
good thing, no?
Prince, public grieving on social media has ever cried about is E.T. – but when my own
been divisive. It has clicked with one group father died, the grief that arrived felt both alien
and appalled another. This year’s omnipresent and isolating. It’s glorious to feel solidarity
outpourings for dead celebrities has prompted in those darkest of dark times. It’s also way
debate on the appropriate nature of memorial, too easy to throw stones in an online world.
for whom you should grieve and how. This No one is setting out to hurt anyone else by
debate is to be welcomed.
sharing, liking, or reposting – and it’s important
So, is it a case of weapons-grade stuffed to remember this before saddling up a high
lolcat starfuckery? Or something with greater horse. That said, using the death of someone
social value? Many have termed it mawkish and you’ve never met in an arms race for Likes is a
vulgar and this is nothing new: in 1721 a new bad scene, using it to make yourself look cool,
genre of poetry emerged that glamorised death; promote your new latte/baguette/re-edit/
it was called Gangsta Rap Graveyard Poetry. It mixtape/T-shirt range lacks class, dramatically
too was vilified by some, yet academics have so. RIP the glib self-promotional RIPs. The
proved this poetry to be the basis for the Prince is dead! Long live the Prince!

camp and furnacE
b lade factory - DISTRICT
baltic triangle, liverpool
23+24 SEPTEMBER 2016
SUPER FURRY ANIMALS.
THE HORRORS.
DEMDIKE STARE. THE STAIRS.
DUNGEN. SILVER APPLES.
CAVERN OF ANTI-MATTER.
ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE. the MOONLANDINGZ.
LA HELL GANG. POP.1280. SINGAPORE SLING.
THE OSCILLATION. JOSEFIN ÖHRN & THE LIBERATION.
ULTIMATE PAINTING. THE LUCID DREAM.
EARTHEATER. GNOOMES. ACID WASHED.
GUADALUPE PLATA. FLAMINGODS. FLAVOR CRYSTALS.
GURUGURU BRAIN PRESENTS:
NARROW ROAD TO THE DEEP MIND FEATURING:
KIKAGAKU MOYO + MINAMI DEUTSCH
+ NAWKSH + PRAIRIE WWWW
10 000 RUSSOs. ASHTRAY NAVIGATIONS. BABA NAGA.
CAIROBI. CELLAR DOORS. CHUCK JOHNSON.
COOL GHOULS. GO!ZILLA. HELICON. HOWES.
MDME SPKR. PURE JOY. RATS ON RAFTS.
SILVER WAVES. SPECTRES. TAMAN SHUD.
TOMAGA. TREMENTINA. vanishing twin.
WOODEN INDIAN BURIAL GROUND. YE NUNS.
Plus, a further heavy terrain of
analogue fuzz and subterranean gloop,
digi-grit noize makers and kaleidoscopic
adventurers - in virtual and actual
realities - all to be announced...
JOIN THE PZYK COLONY.
TICKETS + ACCOMMODATiON PACKAGES AVAILABLE FROM SEETICKETS.COM
PROBE RECORDS (LIVERPOOL) + PICCADILLY RECORDS (MANCHESTER)
+ JUMBO RECORDS (LEEDS)