Posts Tagged ‘Bob Dylan’

11 Questions – Groove Armada

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Findlay and Cato

Over the past decade, Tom Findlay and Andy Cato have established themselves among the planet’s most loved dance acts, storming charts and stages across the world. Through the years Groove Armada have moved through moody ambient electronica, urban riddims’ and with their latest offering, the album Black Light a sort of new-wave mesmeric pop. They find a fanbase in everyone from angst ridden youths to parochial minded adults and admiration from other musicians for their uncanny ability to create music that can live on radio and music television while still be able to get guys and girls boogieing on the dancefloor until the break of dawn.

There is an unusual blend of influences in each of their albums, spanning house (of course), big beat, reggae, disco and funk. Production wise they definitely have the knack of combining a traditional range of instrumentation with modern rhythms and technology. Their DJ sets however are most definitely rooted in house. Cato and Findlay remain two of the most passionate and knowledgeable fans of the genre you are ever likely to meet.

Although they have played in venues as diverse and remote as Romanian beaches and WW1 aircraft in Los Angeles, the duo always return to Ibiza. With a prodigal sons type vibe in the air, it’s promising to be a special season on the Terrace at We Love.. Space this year for Groove Armada as DJs and as live performers when their Black Light show rolls into the cavernous Discoteca.

Take note in your diaries ladies and gentlemen. Groove Armada will be DJing at We Love on the following dates: 20th June, 18th July and 19th of September. Expect that spectacular live show on the 15th of August.

For now we’ll leave it to Andy Cato (he’s the 6ft 8 Yorkshireman) to give us some insight to his musical history and hopes for the future. Genuinely interesting and insightful – thank you Andy.

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Is there one book that you have read that has been life-changing for you?

Several. On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Chronicles by Bob Dylan, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, The Manual by Bill Drummond, The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock, etc.

Did your parents encourage you to work in music?

My dad was a blues player so he got me playing blues on the piano as soon as I could sit up. He also rigged up a bag of nails hung over a hook in the roof so I could start playing the trombone before I was old enough to lift it.

How did you begin to work professionally in music?

I was doing jazz gigs, weddings, funerals and the like from age 13 onwards. When I could get out of school, I used to spend afternoons in a studio underneath Wakefield Snooker Club, working out how it worked in exchange for releasing the tunes via the son of the club owner.

How do you apply your past experiences to what you do today?

I can’t tell you which bit of my musical life I’m drawing on when it comes to sitting down to write a song. I’m sure it’s all in there somewhere. But when you walk out to play to 50,000 people, it helps to have spent most of your life on stages, however small they were. And as far as DJing goes, there’s a big part of the sound at the moment that’s rooted in where it all started for me. The sound of Basics, Kaos, Soak and DiY parties in ’89/’90. A lot of the old tunes are coming back up from the basement. There was also a real importance back then in working your tunes in the right order – before fx and loops could cover the gaps – and that’s stayed with me.

Where is your current studio and what is it like?

It’s in an old cowshed. It’s actually the first proper studio I’ve ever had. I’ve been quite nomadic and have had studios in various cellars, bedrooms and boats up until now. It’s got some nice gear and pair of speakers I bought from Mike Oldfield that could rival the Terrace soundsystem.

Black lights


How much have you had to consider marketing issues since embarking on your career and how has that affected your creativity?

It’s been more lack of marketing issues for us. Until recently we were stuck on a major with Britney and NSync, with little attention coming our way. This meant we put a lot of work into the live show, the DJ sets, things we could get out there and do ourselves without hanging around waiting for answers from the label. In this way, GA has always been a DIY project. It’s meant less time for studio work over the years, but given that making a living in music is all about the gig these days, it hasn’t worked out too bad.

How would you describe your work?

A game of four halves. A lot of people only know the big singles and have no idea about all those deep and weird album tracks, the GA house sound, the amazing vibe of the live show, or the fact that Black Light (the new album) is the best music we’ve ever made. So we’ve still got a way to go.

Who were your teachers?

Studio-wise I just went for it from the off and worked it out. It takes a long time but it’s the best way to do it. DJ-wise, Sasha at Shelleys was one inspiration, and my cousin, Digs DiY the other. As a result I’ve always been sowewhere between the big breakdown and the hypnotic groove. In terms of playing instruments, it was my dad and Grimethorpe Colliery Band for the trombone, Stan who now plays with Faithless on the bass, and a woman down the road whose name I can’t remember for the piano.

Your home is burgled but fortunately the culprits are caught and your possessions returned to you. What would you deem a suitable punishment for the burglars?

Carry my records back upstairs.

You have to make one species of animal extinct. Excluding insects, which species would that be?

It would have to be the mosquito, but you can bet that there’d be an unforeseen outcome and we’d lose all our chickens or something within the year. That’s the thing with species. Once they start going, the rest follow.

If you could spend one week in any period of history, which period would you choose?

I’d repeat the 13th – 21st July, 1991 at the DiY free party, Morton Lighthouse. It doesn’t get any better.

Thanks again to Andy Cato for taking time out of his busy touring and production schedule to answer our 11 Questions, you can find the archive of everyone else who has kindly answered here. Check out the video below for a taste of Groove Armada live incase you haven’t witnessed it before. And remember, the full Black Light live show will be out in full force for We Love… Space on Sunday 15th August.

Groove Armada – DJ Profile

Groove Armada – Official Site

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Bob Dylan – Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

From the beginning of film, music has been involved in its presentation. In the early 20th century, live music was used to indicate certain narrative and emotional cues for silent moving pictures. If the animated actor sensed danger, the music would speed up and if that same actor fell in love with the heroine, a ballad could be heard throughout the theater. A good soundtrack is inexorably attached to a movie and will, for good or bad, remind you of that film, just as the images are now married to your favourite songs. What is becoming a regular feature on the blog, we look at great films through their soundtracks – find the rest here.

Knockin' on Kristoffersons door


Billy: Ol’ Pat… Sheriff Pat Garrett. Sold out to the Santa Fe ring. How does it feel?
Garrett: It feels like… times have changed.
Billy: Times, maybe. Not me.

Bob Dylan survived a near-fatal motorcycle crash in 1965, but his artistic persona of the day did not. The drug-fueled wild-haired rock poet who could churn out a million songs a minute was gone forever. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, for if he had continued along that course, he probably wouldn’t have survived to the present. Instead, he calmed down a little, and for the next decade took a kind of whimsical, laid-back approach to his music. There’s some really interesting material from this period – anyone not familiarized with Self Portrait or New Morning should grab it yesterday – but the most unexpected project he undertook was a collaboration with famed director Sam Peckinpah on Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.

How's Jesus look to you now, Bob?


One of the finest westerns ever made (especially the director’s cut), it tells the story of Pat Garrett (Kris Kristofferson), erstwhile travelling companion of the outlaw Billy the Kid (James Coburn) who has become a sheriff, tasked by cattle interests with ridding the territory of Billy. After Billy escapes, Pat assembles a posse and chases him through the territory, culminating in a final confrontation at Fort Sumner, but is unaware of the full scope of the cattle interests’ plans for the New West. The powers that be want Billy out of New Mexico, not for ethical reasons, but rather so that things can be neatly protected for the approaching business exploitation. “Billy, they don’t like you to be so free!” proclaims Bob Dylan’s theme song, summing up why the power men find Billy so irritating – his refusal to compromise and his declaration of his own personal independence.

Director Peckinpah uses two regular themes in most of his work, the death of the West, and men living past their time and deciding whether or not to accept change. The cinematography is beautiful and haunting at the same time and matches the mood and characterization in the film. Pat Garret knew he had a job to do, but just could not handle the fact it was a friend he had to kill. The myth and actual facts of the last days of Billy the Kid play out the doomed friendship between the title characters – but the film is really about the death of an American way of life. The best and saddest moments in the film involve characters who know they are going to die and accept it. Using Bob Dylan’s score could have been intrusive to this subtle film, and made it feel tacky in a trying-to-be-hip kind of way. Instead the score works well and gives the film a soulful feel. It’s testament to the director’s skill that he chose to make a work about the end of the myth of “Billy the Kid” instead of glorifying it further. Neither Garrett nor the Kid are very admirable in this film, they feel distant because there is no moral centre to the film – as there was little or none to real 19th century West – an empty space, scenery and some misfits of various backgrounds trying to make a living in an inhospitable domain.

Hell, that was a year ago. I shot him straight up.


Dylan composed the score for the film, but it doesn’t sound quite like anything else in his catalogue. There is, of course, the signature acoustic guitar and harmonica, but the tracks (most of which are instrumental) have a windswept south-of-the-border feel. When you hear the Spanish guitar picking and the leisurely congo drums, you feel almost as if you’re wandering through prickly pear thickets in Sonora. The score is defined by the iconic “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, which is one of the songwriter’s finest works. His version (which remains the definitive interpretation) is bare and sorrowful; in the film, it accompanies a scene in which an old outlaw watches the sun set while dying from a gunshot wound. Dylan recorded the final version of Knockin’ On Heavens Door at a session on Warner Bros. Records soundstage in Burbank, California. “It was very early in the morning,” recalls drummer Jim Keltner. “I think the session was 10 a.m There weren’t any overdubs on that, the singers were singing live, little pump organ and guitars. This was for a particular scene in the movie when Slim Pickens is dying and that’s the first time I ever cried while I played. It was the combination of the words, Bob’s voice, the actual music itself, the changes, and seeing the screen. In those days you were on a big soundstage, and you had this massive screen that you can see on the wall, with the scene running when you’re playing. I cried through that whole take.”

As an extra incentive, Dylan also acted in the film, playing the role of a knife-throwing outlaw. His character plays an important part, representing the storyteller that passes down the legend of this story to all generations. If you’ve ever wanted to see Bob Dylan slay someone with a knife, now’s your chance. If you’re planning to watch it, go for the full 122 minute director’s cut, which is immeasurably superior. Download the soundtrack here.

Download – Bob Dylan – Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid Official Soundtrack

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid – IMDB

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid – Discogs

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Office Listening – #6 – Christmas Edition

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Little helpers

Little helpers

Andy has taken a tenuous point of view on the Chistmas theme – snow, ice and Bowie. However, he has come up with this fine play on words…

We Ho Ho Hope you enjoy listening to these songs.

Mark…

Watiresses – Christmas Wrapping
The Pretenders – 2000 Miles
Ramones – Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)

Andy…

Snow – Informer
M.O.P. – Cold As Ice
David Bowie – Cat People (Putting Out Fire)

Ruairi…

Bob Dylan – I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Ben Folds – Bizarre Christmas Incident
Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Siberian Sleigh Ride

Sarah…

The Only Ones – Another Girl, Another Planet
The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl – Fairytale Of New York
Karen O & The Kids – Capsize (Where The Wild Things Are)

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Bill Drummond – A History Of Music: Part 19, 3 of 4

Monday, December 14th, 2009

This is part 3 of Bill Drummond’s critique of the music industry, you can find the first 2 parts here.

Around this time the long player which we later learned to call the album was fast becoming the format that most people listened to recorded music on. On this long player up to forty minutes of music could be contained, on the old 78′s we could only get a few minutes on either side of the disc. Fast forward again, this time mid 60′s. Around about then, two incidents took place that were to symbolise yet another massive shift in our relationship with music. Each of these incidents happened on separate continents and in totally different disciplines of music. One was in Canada the other in England. In 1964 a young Canadian classical pianist who had already made a name for himself in concert halls around the world decided for various reasons to never play as a soloist in concert again, but dedicated himself to making recordings. This pianist was Glen Gould. The vast majority of music he chose to record was music composed in the pre-recorded era. 18 months later, in 1966 a young English beat group who had rapidly become the biggest thing since Stalin, the first beat group to fill sports stadiums – even Elvis did not do that – made the decision to never preform in concert again. The beat group was the Beatles. The difference between Glen Gould and the Beatles was that Glen Gould wanted to record his interpretation of old music that he considered to intimate to be exposed to the concert platform. Whereas the Beatles wanted to create new music that could only ever exist as a recording. For both of them to go out and attempt to play their music live infront of an audience would have compromised the music. Thus make null and void the complete raison d’etre of the art they were making.

Savage young Beatles

Savage young Beatles


There had been pop record producers and avant-garde composers who used the recording studio as their primary musical instrument before. But Glen Gould and the Beatles were the first two major artists to make the decision that what they did as artists was from then on only going to exist as recordings. Before that historic point in the mid-sixties recorded musics prime reason for existing was to promote the live careers of music makers. Recorded music has been made so that the listener could have the illusion that they were actually listening to the musicians playing in their front room. That they were at the concert where it was being performed. But 1966 was, to use the now tired cliche, a tipping point. I was just going to say tipping point but a friend of mine read through this and said, “You can’t use the word tipping point, that’s the ultimate cliche. Anyone talking about American politics now will talk of the tipping point. But I wanted to keep it in”.

From here on in or at least until the end of the 20th century, more and more of the music performed live was only done so to promote recorded music. We now judge the careers of almost all music maker by the albums they have made. Whether it was Herbert von Karajan, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Fela Kuti or whoever the rock and roll sensation of the moment was. Thus all ambitious young music makers aspired to get recording contracts so they could be allowed to make albums. The recording of and the subsequent release of an album gave complete validation to the their ambitions. The whole of the world wide music industry was based on a business model built around the recording and selling of albums. Radio stations, music magazines, concert tours, music videos all existed for one reason, to sell more albums. It was in nobodies interest to question the restrictive elements of the album format to closely, while the business model still worked and we still loved to own them. Very few of us noticed that the physical restrictions of the album format was turning all music into almost exactly the same thing. From wherever the music on these albums came from in the world or whatever tradition be it classical, jazz, world, rock, pop, etc. it all ended up as recorded music. We could walk into a major HMV or Virgin Megastore and choose from upwards of 300,000 albums. Every type of music known to mankind would be represented. Every year there were thousands more of these albums being recorded as our tastes became more refined we stumbled across undiscovered continents of music. How could we ever tire of it all?

But this sense of limitless choice was an illusion. The reason why all this music from every corner of the world, from every musical discipline was becoming the same thing was that it was all brought to us in a roughly identical length, equalised within the same narrow band of frequencies, broadcast through the air to our ears via similar electronic speakers. Close up all this music may have sounded different but take a few steps back and you notice how similar and one-dimensional it all is. The technology that had evolved through the 20th century to record and produce music had morphed it all from just being a convenient and marketable format into one mega all encompassing genre – that of recorded music.

KLF – Official Website

BBC – Radio 3

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Backstage Riders

Monday, December 7th, 2009

The contract rider includes specifications on stage design, sound systems, lighting rigs, as well as an artist’s wish list – from transportation and billing to dressing room accommodations and meals. In some cases, a promoter will refuse a demand (crossing out the request on the document), though stars usually get what they want, whether it’s clean boxer shorts (Jane’s Addiction), a large selection of top-shelf liquors (Frank Sinatra), or an arrangement of adult magazines i.e. Penthouse, Playboy (Guns N’ Roses). Thankfully, Bob Dylan’s is refreshingly understated…

How many towels must a singer-songwriter have?

How many towels must a singer-songwriter have?

The Smoking Gun has what many consider to be the Holy Grail, the most famous rider of them all, the one in which Van Halen stipulated that brown M & M’s were to be banished from the band’s dressing room. The 1982 Van Halen World Tour rider is type-written and 53 pages long. The document containing the M & M stipulation contains some other unique demands including “herring in sour cream” and “One (1) large tube of KY Jelly”. The rider has been described as an example of rock and roll excess, the outlandish demands of multimillionaires. However, the group say these provisions were included to ensure the promoters actually read the lengthy rider. They surmised that if brown M & M’s were in the candy bowl backstage, then more important aspects of a performance – lighting, staging, security and ticketing may have been botched by an inattentive promoter.

'Van hell of a rider

'Van hell of a rider

A personal favourite is the requests for Iggy and the Stooges. It goes to 18 pages in total and is a rambling but hilarious take on the tour rider. Demands for an “English language newspaper like the New York Times, Miami Herald or a copy of USA today that’s got a story about morbidly obese people in it,” sit alongside “1 x case of big bottles of big, premium beer. You decide. But remember, I might ask you to taste a bottle so buy something nice! Here’s a clue – it probably won’t start with a letter ‘B’ and end with ‘udweiser’” and “2 bottles of smooth, full-bodied, Bordeaux type red wine. Probably French. And something we’ve heard of, but still can’t pronounce.” As far as food goes: “Dinner for Iggy and two other people should be available at the venue or local restaurant, after the show local cuisine is acceptable (i.e. local food for local people) or steak / chicken, endangered species (excluding moths or anything really cute), snake, whale, nurse shark (nurse on the side just in case. Well we could get bitten couldn’t we?).”

Have a read of page 13 – stipulating how the band feel about video recording of their performances…

How right you are Iggy.

How right you are Iggy.

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