Violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen: “Her Elgar was immaculate”. Picture: Patrick Allen
Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Christopher Glynn, All Saints’ Church, Helmsley, July 25
THE violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen was to have been the mainstay of Ryedale Festival’s final weekend, giving an Elgar programme in tandem with pianist Christopher Glynn on Saturday afternoon and then leading her Albion Quartet on Sunday evening.
In the event, she appeared on Saturday only and the Carducci Quartet played Beethoven when the Albion had been promised in Schubert. These are unpredictable times and we must go with the flow of RyeStream, the revised, online festival.
But her Elgar was immaculate. Her lack of sentimentality gave it a feeling of freshness, while consistently sustaining the composer’s momentum. The heart of her recital was Elgar’s only surviving violin sonata of 1918 (he had destroyed another written 30 years earlier).
Even bearing in mind that the violin was the composer’s own instrument, I cannot remember it sounding more personal than it did here. Elgar had waited till relatively late in life to compose his three greatest chamber music works – the others being the string quartet and the piano quintet – but they hinge on his transition from great patriotic topics to a more sober sensitivity, doubtless brought on by the Great War.
Christopher Glynn: His piano pairing with Tamsin Waley-Cohen’s violin was always tautly intertwined. Picture: Gerard Collett
Those two strands are reflected in the two themes of the Violin Sonata in E minor’s opening Allegro: Waley-Cohen contrasted them beautifully, the one with resolute, forceful rhythms, the other with calm arpeggios (prefigured by the piano in the first theme).
The quirky Romance was straight out of an earlier era, echoing the rural serenity that the Elgars had found when they moved from London to a small Sussex cottage in 1917. It did not prevent this duo from reaching an impassioned climax, though they remained emphatic in the muted, closing bars.
This pairing, always tautly intertwined, responded to one another most closely in the wistfulness of the finale, where Glynn’s piano neatly echoed many of the violin’s phrases. Waley-Cohen’s long bows in the reminiscence of the Romance were especially effective, before the coda brought a spirited close.
The rest of the programme gave us Elgar’s three most famous salon pieces for the violin. The seriousness of Chanson de Nuit was complemented by a more playful Chanson de Matin, as if reflecting emergence from our present crisis. Salut d’Amour (played as an encore) would have gladdened the gloomiest heart: English music at its most cheery.
Rowan Pierce: “Proved extremely telegenic, her calm features responding well to close-up camera-work”
Rowan Pierce and Christopher Glynn, Music For A While, All Saints’ Church, Helmsley, July 24
ROWAN Pierce’s soprano brought a ray of sunshine into this online festival, albeit under cover of candlelight.
Her partner in a “taster” – and tasty – programme was the ever-versatile Christopher Glynn, Ryedale Festival’s artistic director. They opened with Purcell and dipped into a cross-section of lieder from Schubert to Grieg, before landing squarely in English repertory again (via three folksongs), topping it all off with optimism from Richard Strauss.
It was a mouth-watering selection that whet the appetite for their early return in proper concert conditions.
So much of the poetry was keenly suited to our present plight. Music for a While, in Purcell’s famous setting of Dryden, “shall all your cares beguile”. It made the perfect opener. Similarly composed on a ground (a repeating phrase in the bass) is O Solitude, My Sweetest Choice!, a translation from the French by Katherine Philips. It invited us to treat lockdown as a bonus.
Christopher Glynn: Deft colourings. Picture: Gerard Collett
The sunshine first appeared in Schubert’s Im Haine (In The wood), where sunbeams slanting through the trees bring peace, wiping out our woes. It was tenderly treated, as was a Schumann love-song. Pierce took flight with Mendelssohn, before bringing us flowers courtesy of Strauss and Grieg.
Blow The Wind Southerly was a daring choice, given its association with Kathleen Ferrier, but this prayer for a fair voyage benefited from Pierce’s unsentimental approach. Alan Murray’s I’ll Walk Beside You, one of the very last drawing-room ballads, offered touching support, before joyful abandon from both performers in Quilter’s setting of Love’s Philosophy. Donald Swann’s The Slow Train aptly brought tearful nostalgia, while Strauss’s Morgen! (Tomorrow) promised sunshine ahead.
Pierce proved extremely telegenic, her calm features responding well to close-up camera-work. The clarity of her vowel sounds, unusually distinct for a soprano, also helped her many mood-changes throughout – as did Glynn’s deft colourings. Every listener will have yearned for more from these two. Next year perhaps?
Matthew Hunt & Tim Horton; Castle Howard Long Gallery, July 21
TUCKED down slightly apologetically at one end of the Long Gallery at Castle Howard, when performers are usually in its centre, Matthew Hunt and Tim Horton’s clarinet and piano made a short tour around Fantasy Pieces by Schumann, Widmann and Ireland. Shorter perhaps than it might have been, at rather under 40 minutes, but these days we must be grateful for small mercies.
They were certainly worth waiting for. Schumann’s Three Fantasy Pieces, Op 73 all date from February 1849, one of the composer’s most fertile periods, and are also related by key, the first being in A minor and its partners in A major.
In his introduction, Hunt referred to them as a mini song-cycle, and his own legato was distinctly song-like. In the first, marked Zart und mit Ausdruck (tender and with expression), it was a joy to hear the main melody so soulfully weaving between the two players, with Horton’s keyboard coming subtly to the fore when opportunity allowed. Both players brought delicate touches to the light central piece, bursting into much greater passion in the finale.
A clarinettist himself, the German composer Jörg Widmann wrote his solo Fantasie in 1993, at the age of 20. It has become something of a calling-card for the instrument. Its restless range of extended techniques was smoothly negotiated by Hunt, who seemed to revel in its wave-like motions. Still, it is a work that prompts awe rather than outright pleasure.
John Ireland’s 1943 piece, Fantasy-Sonata in E flat, was apparently inspired by his evacuation by sea from Guernsey when the German occupation began. Certainly there is a persistently undulating figure in the piano that provides a watery backdrop.
But in other respects, while Hunt maintained a lyrical brio in the clarinet, Horton refused to allow the lush piano part to overshadow him. Only in the march-like closing section did both players spring clear of Ireland’s rhapsodic moods to reach a triumphant conclusion – presumably on the mainland.
Isata Kanneh-Mason: Opening online concert at the 2020 Ryedale Festival
Isata Kanneh-Mason, All Saints’ Church, Helmsley, July 19; Rachel Podger, Castle Howard Chapel, July 20
RYEDALE Festival has not so much stolen into our lockdown imaginations as bounced back into our lives, reminding us what we’ve been missing. Performers normally rely on the adrenaline of an audience. These two ladies, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason and violinist Rachel Podger, shooting straight for the stars, needed no such help.
It was impossible not to smile at the way Isata Kanneh-Mason dispatched the opening Allegro Vivace of Beethoven’s Sonata in A, Op No 2. Right from the off, she was light-footed – very little pedal – and her long fingers (something we might not have spotted in a live concert) caressed the composer’s wide leaps with carefree wit in the development section. She might have brought a touch more orchestral tone to the chorale-like Largo, but her momentum kept interest alive.
Outwardly playful in the minuet, she was much more plaintive in its minor-key trio. But in the concluding rondo she gave quiet emphasis to Beethoven’s teasing returns to the theme and finished with serene nonchalance.
Samuel Barber’s only sonata, written in 1950, brought out deeper passions. There was drama to burn in the opening Allegro Energico and (as with so much of what Kanneh-Mason does) its form emerged with great clarity. She turned skittish in the second movement, with little squibs exploding all over the texture in what is effectively a scherzo.
There was menace from the start of the Adagio, which reached an angry climax before subsiding into resignation. This was Barber trying his hand at 12-tone techniques, but Kanneh-Mason made much more of it than that.
In the jazz-inspired fugue at the close, her syncopation was heady. Once again clarity was her watchword and the coda brilliantly summarised what had gone before. There was only time for one of Gershwin’s Three Preludes – No 1 in B flat – but its rhythmic cross-currents were crisp and precise. On this evidence, she is a pianist worth travelling a long way to hear.
Rachel Podger: First “live” performance in five months
Rachel Podger has graced this festival several times and always emerged triumphant. If such a thing were possible, she burnished her credentials on Monday. With her flowing hair, she looked as if she might have stepped straight out of one of the Castle Howard Chapel’s pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows, and her solo violin floated magically into the warm halo of the building’s acoustic.
Johann Joseph Vilsmayr’s name does not trip easily off the tongue, even of Baroque specialists. That may be about to change. He belongs to the generation just before Bach, and was a pupil of Heinrich Biber, who was born still another generation earlier, in 1644. Podger gave us the sixth and last of Vilsmayr’s partitas, which are all that survive of his output. It is cast in nine short movements, most of them dance-derived.
Its most lyrical moments occurred in its five Arias, where the composer’s melodic riches were most apparent, enhanced by any amount of double-stopping. But more notable still was Vilsmayr’s use of the instrument’s different registers: Podger found wonderfully varied ‘voices’ for them.
There were subtle echo effects in the jolly Gigue, but they were mere trifles compared to the tricky techniques demanded by the closing Aria Variata. She was equal to them all.
The peak of 17th century scordatura – unconventional tuning – occurs in Biber’s Mystery (or Rosary) Sonatas, onto which he tacked a Passacaglia in G minor, based on a simple tetrachord, here a four-note falling phrase. Podger’s treatment of these variations was breath-taking, all the more so for her seemingly carefree approach. Hard to believe that this was her first “live” performance on five months.
Bach’s Cello Suites are not normally heard on other instruments, least of all No 6, which is written for the five-string cello. Nevertheless Podger’s own arrangement for four-string violin is extremely convincing, particularly because it stays in the original key, D major.
She managed to increase the urgency of the rapid triplets in its Prelude without speeding up and countered it with taut decorations in the stately Allemande. Perhaps closest to her own personality was the frisky Courante, but she was deeply ruminative in the double-stopping of the Sarabande.
She found greater depth than most in the famous Gavotte and topped it all off with a beautifully proportioned, neatly signposted Gigue. Behind her friendly approach and technical prowess lurks a hugely penetrating intelligence.
Finally, a note on the production skills in these broadcasts. One had to admire the gimmicks involved but they were not overused. Fading one camera-shot into another, for example, or even superimposing the player on a stained-glass backdrop were both grist to Patrick Allen’s mill.
It must be admitted, too, that in venues such as Helmsley Church, where sightlines are poor, it is greatly satisfying to be able to see the pianist at close quarters. So while we may lament the lack of social interaction in lockdown streaming, there are definite compensations.
All these concerts are available, free, on Ryestream, up until August 16. Donations are sought – and thoroughly deserved.
Spring a surprise: Laura Marling hatched her seventh album earlier than first planned
Laura Marling, Song For Our Daughter (Chrysalis Records/Partisan) ****
LAURA Marling’s style is elegance personified, that distinctive voice flouting over a summery backing.
For this record, the production is more expansive, but never immodestly. This album, her seventh, is written to an imaginary daughter, but not in the crib-style of Jackie Oates’ Lullabies.
Held Down is a frank song about power and relationships, and probably not for pass-the-parcel playlists. The songwriter has described Song For Our Daughter as “a rumination on modern femininity”, and the spaces in between the words leaves plenty of room for interpretation. This is a record to close around you like a hug. It’s not stifling; 36 minutes and you are done.
Most distinctive, and probably the soonest to pall, is Strange Girl, swept along on a Latin riff and a naggingly good chorus. Marling sounds in control, even when singing about the opposite, and Joni Mitchell remains the closest comparison.
You sense Marling stretching out, but nimbly rather than dramatically, astute enough to move forward at a pace her audience can live with. The strong arrangements are tastefully done and beautifully recorded.
If Only The Strong Survives is becalmed, the message is irrefutable: Marling is in this for the long run. No histrionics or Penderecki. Blow By Blow’s stark piano beauty sees the singer chasing a kind of Blue, and was inspired by Paul McCartney. The aura of Leonard Cohen hovers near the opening Alexandra.
Like the wonderful Bedouine, Song For Our Daughter is calming and mellifluous, a summer brook, but dip below the jewelled surface and the temperature soon drops. Hope We Meet Again is particularly effective, this time half spoken, while For You ends happily, the sort of coda that Nilsson might have once conceived.
Review by Paul Rhodes
Only One Question for Laura Marling…
Why did you speed-release Song For Our Daughter in lockdown “ahead of our planned schedule”?
“IN light of the change to all our circumstances, I saw no reason to hold back on something that, at the very least, might entertain, and at its best, provide some sense of union,” says Laura.
“It’s strange to watch the facade of our daily lives dissolve away, leaving only the essentials; those we love and our worry for them.
“An album, stripped of everything that modernity and ownership does to it, is essentially a piece of me, and I’d like for you to have it. I’d like for you, perhaps, to hear a strange story about the fragmentary, nonsensical experience of trauma and an enduring quest to understand what it is to be a woman in this society.
“When I listen back to it now, it makes more sense to me then when I wrote it. My writing, as ever, was months, years, in front of my conscious mind. It was there all along, guiding me gently through the chaos of living. And that, in itself, describes the sentiment of the album – how would I guide my daughter, arm her and prepare her for life and all of its nuance?
“I’m older now, old enough to have a daughter of my own, and I feel acutely the responsibility to defend The Girl. The Girl that might be lost, torn from innocence prematurely or unwittingly fragmented by forces that dominate society. I want to stand behind her and whisper in her ear all the confidences and affirmations I had found so difficult to provide myself. This album is that strange whisper; a little distorted, a little out of sequence, such is life.
THERE is something deeply satisfying when an artist long missing in action re-appears with great songs.
Badly Drawn Boy, Damon Gough to his mum and bank manager, was always an interesting character. His anti-rock star demeanour contrasted with his early success.
Like Elliot Smith, here was a songwriter that didn’t fit the commercial juggernaut. There were always flashes, like Space Between Your Ears from his 2012 soundtrack to Being Flynn.
After a decade-long hiatus, Gough re-emerges at 50 with a fistful of tunes that are at once familiar but cleverly good. He has always had a flair with melody; it rarely goes where you think it is heading.
The life knocks he’s endured – it transpires he hasn’t been sitting in a pool lapping up adoration all these years – have given him a rich vein of material to write about, and there’s a more direct edge to the lyrics. Looking over his shoulder at the exit, I Just Want To Wish You Happiness is affecting, while I’ll Do My Best ushers Gough into a new relationship.
Badly Drawn Boy: “A fistful of tunes that are at once familiar but cleverly good”
Fortunate, too, that Gough has not sunk into tuneless gloom. On the contrary, I’m Not Sure What It Is features a glorious Technicolor production, full of sunlight and hard-won wisdom. Rightly, Like Tony Wilson Says has been singled out for praise and may yet be a hit. Taking a Manchester cultural icon, Tony Wilson, and his Hacienda nightclub, it’s an uplifting tribute that even seems to have left space for the crowd’s roar.
You can never tell whether Gough is being ironic, but it does seem that he is now foot-sure about which musical path to pursue. As he told the Guardian, this record presents “a more focused version of what I’ve tried to achieve in the past”.
Fly On The Wall captures Gough’s worldview to perfection, married to another joyous melody that both harks back and looks more hopefully ahead to what tomorrow brings.
Compared with these heights, the quality does ebb in the middle. For example, Colours feels dated and the Eighties touches are overdone, but these slips are few and the overall upbeat mood makes for the pleasing contrast to the pallor of our economic sky. Definitely Gough’s best record since his debut, the Mercury Prize-winning The Hour Of Bewilderbeast, 20 years ago.
York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir and Ryedale Voices members recording Keep Singing via Zoom
YORK Philharmonic Male Voice Choir and Malton’s Ryedale Voices are uniting for a Virtual Summer Concert online on July 25.
Raising funds for the Trussell Trust through donations, the 7.30pm concert will be live-streamed on YouTube, hosted by Richard Kay, who has been leading rehearsals over Zoom since lockdown began.
“It will feature around 20 choral pieces and smaller collaborations, compiled from around 350 individual recordings made by 60 members of the two choirs,” says Richard, the Phil’s assistant musical director and Ryedale choir’s conductor.
Richard Kay: Leading rehearsals on Zoom
“Several songs have been learned during lockdown and so have never before been performed by these choirs, including three brand new compositions that have never yet been performed by singers in the same room!”
Already in lockdown, the Phil and Ryedale Voices have made a virtual choir recording of Keep Singing, attracting more than 1,200 views online.
CULTURE Secretary Oliver Dowden is on the case, he says, making plans for the gradual re-opening of theatres, comedy joints and music venues, when Covid-safe to do so, but the traffic lights are still stuck at red.
Outdoor performances were given the thumbs-up to resume from last Saturday, not so helpfully at two days’ notice, and cinemas are pencilling in a re-start from July 31, although nothing is confirmed yet. Meanwhile, assorted summer festivals are going virtual, as did this week’s Great Yorkshire Show.
This masked-up column will steer clear of the pubs, bars, restaurants and shops making their welcome comebacks, focusing instead on what’s going on…or not going on, as CHARLES HUTCHINSON reports
Violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen: RyeStream concert on July 25
RyeStream, Ryedale Festival online, July 19 to 26
THE 2020 Ryedale Festival has transmuted into RyeStream, an online festival of eight concerts, streamed straight to your home daily over the course of a week.
Musicians are making the journey to North Yorkshire to perform in three empty but beautiful locations: All Saints’ Church, Helmsley, St Michael’s Church, Coxwold, and the triple whammy of the Long Gallery, Chapel and Great Hall at Castle Howard.
Taking part will be Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano, July 19, 3pm; Rachel Podger, violin, July 20, 11am; Matthew Hunt, clarinet, and Tim Horton, piano, July 21, 1pm; Anna Hopwood, organ, July 22, 11am; Abel Selaocoe, cello, July 23, 6pm; Rowan Pierce, soprano, and Christopher Glynn, piano, July 24, 9pm; Tamsin Waley-Cohen, violin, and Christopher Glynn, piano, July 25, 3pm, and Carducci Quartet and Streetwise Opera, July 26, 6pm.
Go to ryedalefestival.com/ryestream/ for instructions on how to view. This debut online season is free, although donations are welcome.
Staithes Blue, acrylic on canvas, by Giuliana Lazzerini at Blue Tree Gallery
New exhibition of the week: Giuliana Lazzerini: Solo, Blue Tree Gallery, York
BLUE Tree Gallery artist in residence Giuliana Lazzerini has opened an exhibition of new acrylic work online and at the York art-space for viewing by appointment only.
The Bootham gallery is “not fully open as yet”, but Covid-safety measures are in place, enabling viewing appointments to be made for Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays until August 5. To book one, send an email to bluetreegallery@hotmail.co.uk.
Owner Terry Brett outside Pyramid Gallery, in Stonegate, York
Gallery re-opening part two: Pyramid Gallery, York
TERRY Brett’s Pyramid Gallery, in Stonegate, York, has re-opened, operating a two-fold system for visitors.
You can book a 30-minute slot to browse the gallery at your leisure at pyramidgallery.com/ or, alternatively, if there is a sign up saying Please Knock To Enter, knock on the door and either Terry or Fi or Sarah will invite you in, one group at a time, and lock the door behind you.
“If the lights are not on, the shop is closed that day,” says Terry. “We will not be open on Sundays.”
Bootiful: Harrogate artist Anita Bowerman with her Tree of Life installation at Castle Howard for York Cancer Research’s Give It Some Welly fundraising campaign
Art installation of the week: Anita Bowerman’s Give Cancer The Boot, Castle Howard grounds
HARROGATE artist Anita Bowerman has designed a Tree of Life installation, Give Cancer The Boot, for Yorkshire Cancer Research’s Give It Some Welly fundraising campaign.
Hanging from a fir tree by the Atlas Fountain on the South Front, glistening in the sun like a summer variation on Christmas decorations, are 191 hand-polished stainless-steel wellies embossed with the YCR’s rose.
Why 191? They represent the 191,000 Yorkshire people who have “given the cancer the boot” over the past 25 years or live with it. To see the wellies, you will need to book a visit to Castle Howard at castlehoward.co.uk.
Oh, you are Orpheus: Storyteller Alexander Flanagan-Wright and minstrel Phil Grainger await your invitation
Outdoor theatre show of the summer: Orpheus, The Flanagan Collective/Gobbledigook Theatre
LIVE theatre is back, all over North Yorkshire, at your invitation. Step forward York theatre-makers Alexander Flanagan-Wright and Phil Grainger, who are mounting a five-pronged art attack under the banner I’ll Try And See You Sometimes.
Among their analogue enterprises is Orpheus – A Hyper Local Tour. “We’re taking Orpheus on an outdoor tour around North Yorkshire’s local lanes, villages, and towns, performing with social distancing in place and abiding by Government guidelines on how many people can meet at any one time,” says Alex.
“The shows can take place on people’s streets, at their front windows and in parks and gardens,” says Phil. “Instead of announcing a show that the public can book tickets for, we’re asking for people to pop on to flanagancollective.com and book a suitable slot and the whole show will be brought to them.”
Scarborough storyteller and artist Jan Bee Brown
Home entertainment of the week for children: A Bee and Lari the Seagull in Scarborough
SCARBOROUGH Museums Trust will present an online summer programme of seaside and animal-themed stories, crafts and activities, based around objects in the Scarborough Borough Collection, with the help of Lari the Seagull from July 22 to August 20.
On Wednesdays, from July 22 to August 19, families can enjoy Seaside Adventures, whether “meeting” rockpool creatures or magical selkies, all inspired by paintings at Scarborough Art Gallery and designed by storyteller and artist Jan Bee Brown.
On Thursdays, from July 23 to August 20, Animal Antics will take participants on a journey across the world, inspired by animals in the SMT natural history collections.
The highlight each week will be a new audio story written by Brown, released each Wednesday.
Lockdown disco queen Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Kitchen Disco Tour next May
Seek out the good news
YORK Racecourse’s Music Showcase Weekend with Pussycat Dolls and Rick Astley is a non-runner on July 24 and 25. Les Miserables will not mount the barricades from July 22 at Leeds Grand Theatre. However, Greg and Ails McGee’s According To McGee gallery, in Tower Street, York, will be opening its doors once more from Saturday. Sophie Ellis Bextor has announced a Kitchen Disco Tour date at Leeds Town Hall on May 19 2021; Irish chanteuse Mary Coughlan has re-arranged her Pocklington Arts Centre gig for a second time, now booked in for April 23 2021.
And what about…
THE Luminaires on BBC One on Sunday nights; can anyone shine a light on what’s going on with all that to and froing in time? New albums by Sparks, Margo Price and The Streets. The Reading Room café at Rowntree Park, York, re-opening.
Third time luck of the Irish: Mary Coughlan has re-arranged her Pocklington Arts Centre show…again
Full of Bull: York band Bull after their signing by EMI
YORK band Bull are signing to record industry giants EMI, nine years after first forming.
They become the first York group to put pen to such a deal since Shed Seven rubber-stamped a six-album contract with Polydor Records in October 1993, going on to notch up 15 Top 40 hits from Dolphin in 1994 to Why Can’t I Be You? in 2003.
Songwriter and vocalist Tom Beer, co-founder and guitarist Dan Lucas, drummer Tom Gabbatiss and bass player and print-maker Kai West will be working in tandem with EMI alongside Young Thugs: the York indie label, artist managers, recording studio and gig promoters, run by Dave Greenbrown and Jonny Hooker up the stairs at South Bank Social Club in the pioneering, underground spirit of Andy Warhol’s Factory in that other York, New York.
The first green shoots of what the EMI publicity campaign is calling “the start of a beautiful friendship” is the aptly named single Green, a crowd favourite with a history stretching back to 2012, released today.
Depending on which band member you ask, this blissful slice of jangle-pop with a pinch of psychedelia and a grating of scuzzy lead guitar is either a “melancholy rumination on decisions made and the grass always being greener”, or is all about “ripping bongs down at the basketball court when you really should be writing the next great American novel”.
“It feels surreal,” says frontman Tom Beer, breathing in the giddying fresh air of becoming a major label act. “I just didn’t really expect it, to be honest! Delighted as well…and really excited. Lucky too, as there are so many good bands out there.
“The way it worked for us was that we’d been doing a lot of gigs, touring so much, here, in the Netherlands, Germany, America, and when we released songs we had more plays because we’d played so many places.
Shed Seven: The Britpop luminaries that set the benchmark for York bands
“Young Thugs and Dave Greenbrown have been so supportive too, and then the MD [managing director] of EMI came to see us supporting Warmduscher at The Crescent.”
When? “I’m not good with dates,” says Tom. “Except in the future. I only remember them when I need to.”
Dave Greenbrown says: “We’ve been working on this for around 18 months. The MD of EMI was looking around for groups and came across Young Thugs two years ago and we’ve been trying to figure out something ever since.
“Clearly, Bull were the ones with the songs and I said to them, ‘I think there’s a chance for you if you can work on your professionalism as you have to be good every night’, and they were up for that and did exactly that.
“I didn’t want the EMI MD to see them until it was the right time, as you have only one chance, don’t you, and Bull took it.
“They write great catchy pop songs; they’ve finished the album, and they’ve signed a one-year deal with EMI: three singles, one album, just royalties off the streams and the sales of their records.”
Bull charged on to the York music scene in 2011, led by Tom and Dan, both inspired by their 1990s’ alt. rock heroes, Pavement, Yo La Tengo and The Pixies.
The present line-up of four Yorkshiremen emerged through friendship and happenstance: drummer Tom joining after he and the other Tom jammed together in bars when backpacking around Thailand; Kai making the giant leap from persistently jumping up on stage to dance in the erratic, blissful manner of Happy Mondays’ Bez to eventually being allowed to play bass.
“It feels surreal,” says Bull frontman Tom Beer. “Lucky too, as there are so many good bands out there.”
But 2011 to 2020, Tom, that is an unusually long gestation period for a band, isn’t it? “I would never not want to do this. I just can’t see myself not doing it. It’s how I operate. I’ve always busked…I’ve worked at the Golden Ball, where I put on open-mic nights on Mondays…and I’m good at living on chickpeas,” he says.
“I definitely feel that one of the best feeling you can have is playing music with another human being and I incorporate the crowd in that.”
Apparently, this is “the start of a beautiful friendship”, Tom? “I hope that’s true and I believe that to be true, because it’s always been based on friendships between us and promoters, travelling around and making it happen and it’s been rewarding.”
One such bond paid off, leading Bull indirectly to their Dutch record producer, Remko Schouten. “Whether it was blind faith or fate, we decided on a whim to go to Germany, just after Tom and Kai joined in 2018, and we were all feeling very serious about it, like when The Beatles played Hamburg,” recalls Tom.
“We were playing dive bar gigs, and we went to this bar at three in the morning, where Tom was wearing my hat, and this guy came up and said, ‘Where did you get that hat?’.
“He turned out to be the drummer – and a golfing pro! – for Spiral Stairs and Remko was there on tour with them doing their sound. We put on this house party at a friend’s house in Berlin, in Schoneberg, the area where Bowie used to live, and the next thing we know, Spiral Stairs [alias Scott Kannberg of the aforementioned Pavement] was playing at our house party!
“That night Remko said, ‘if you ever want to record with me, let me know’, and we did, two months later.”
Over the next two years, Bull visited Schouten’s Amsterdam studio four or five times, recording songs over a few days each time, songs that will now form the album whose title and release date are yet to be confirmed (although Dave Greenbrown did mention January 29 2021, so watch this space).
The artwork for Green, Bull’s first single for EMI
“This was no ‘one weekend, bash it out’ recording session,” says Dave. “This was a proper job, working over a long time.”
The Coronavirus pandemic may have brought gigs to a stultifying halt, but Bull are coping with being a band in Covid-19 times in 2020, boosted by the momentum of signing a record company deal. “It feels OK for us right now because luckily we finished the album the day before we had to flee the Netherlands, returning home instead of playing with our favourite Dutch bands in Amsterdam, but we definitely made the right decision,” says York-born Tom, who now lives in Scarborough.
Green is the first fruit of that record deal. “That song is one of the oldest Bull songs, I wrote it in 2012, and it’s the only song on the upcoming album that was featured on She Looks Like Kim, our first album in 2014, which we self-released,” says Tom.
“We recorded it at the Melrose Yard Studios, the brilliant studio off Walmgate that sadly closed last year, and we launched it with a gig at Dusk, covering the cost of the recording that night.
“Green was the first song on there and the lead single back then too, and we just thought it’s a good song, it’s always been a favourite, so let’s give it a second shot at the big time.”
The accompanying video is the work of Bull too. “We’ve worked on a lot of music videos: the one for Green is the first time I’ve ever used movie software, with the help of Dan [Lucas],” says Tom. “We had a lot of footage from various things that we could use, and there’s even some footage on there from the original Green video, made by Rory Welbrock, our bassist before Kai joined.
“It also features some latex masks made by my sister, Holly, who’s been really interested in making masks for three years – and now masks are everywhere of course, aren’t they!”
Dave Greenbrown hopes Bull’s record deal will be a trigger for more York musicians to find favour with record labels. The Howl & The Hum set the bar high with Human Contact, their late-May album for our disconcerting, disconnected times, and the likes of Bonnie & The Bailers, Fat Spatula and Perspex should be on the radar too.
Fellow York band of the moment The Howl & The Hum, featuring drummer – and former big band trumpet player – Jack Williams, left
“I think it’s been really good to be a musician in York. As a child, there were amazing music services provided for you in the city,” says Tom. “I was in a big band, playing the trombone; there were loads of people doing that, like The Howl & The Hum drummer, Jack Williams. He played trumpet.
“I think that’s had a massive impact, because you can enjoy it when you’re little, and then your musicianship progresses and you start playing in bands. For me, it was places like The Woolpack Inn [in Fawcett Street], run by a guy called Sid, who had bands on every night. It made it feel like you owned it, and if you wanted to put on a gig, you could.”
Broadening his thought, Tom says: “I’d like to thank Young Thugs for their involvement; the MD of EMI got in touch with them because he was impressed with what Young Thugs bands, such as The Lungs (Theo Mason Wood and Bonnie Milnes) and …And The Hangnails, and Bonneville, were doing.
“And now, the great thing with the link-up between EMI and Young Thugs is that hopefully it’s going to benefit other York bands too.”
What makes Bull stand out, the way a bull does when frequenting a china shop? The infectious tunes, yes, but also the humour in Tom’s Yorkshire-frank lyrics. “I’m very glad you say that,” he says. “I definitely don’t want to be any one thing in my lyrics – a lot of the time I’m capturing a temporary feeling – but a lot of my favourite songwriters embrace humour…though sometimes it doesn’t want to be too funny, just for the sake of it.
“Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus, one of my favourites, likes to use humour, and Dylan, my hero, is full of it. He plays with words a lot. It’s that thing of, if you don’t cry, you’ll laugh.”
Right now, on Green day, Bull have every reason to be smiling.
Brought to its knees: SIX The Musical’s summer of drive-in shows has been scuppered by localised lockdowns. Picture: Johan Persson
DIVORCED, beheaded and now Covid-19ed. Live Nation Entertainment have called off SIX The Musical’s drive-in concert series, hitting for six the August 11 to 16 run at the Church Fenton airfield.
Blame “localised lockdowns” for scuppering the Queens’ irreverent regal shows at 12 locations, explain the “devastated” producers.
“The latest developments regarding localised lockdowns mean it has become impossible for us to continue with the series with any confidence,” say Kenny Wax, Wendy & Andy Barnes and George Stiles.
“This devastating news has come out of the blue and hit us all for six. We are so sorry to disappoint the thousands of fans who have booked tickets and sold out many dates on the tour.
Dead end: The Divorced Beheaded Drive poster for SIX The Musical, no longer hitting the road
“It is also a sad day for our West End and UK Tour Queens who had already started rehearsals and our entire team of up to 60 people who were all working so hard to deliver a spectacular show.”
Their statement continues: “Despite the Government announcing Stage 3 of Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden’s road map, permitting performances outdoors with an audience, the planned tour was due to visit 12 cities, several of which have since been identified as emerging Covid infection hot spots.
“We know that ultimately there is nothing more important than the safety and wellbeing of our company and the Six Queendom. We look forward to better times.” Full refunds for “the first West End musical to perform again after lockdown” will be issued directly to all ticket holders within the next seven days from Ticketmaster.
Leeds East Airport, at Church Fenton, was among 12 sites nationwide picked for Live Nation Entertainment’s Utilita Live From The Drive-In: SIX The Musical, The Live Concert.
A bevy of Queens from the West End cast for SIX The Musical in 2019
The West End and tour casts were to have taken to the road in August and September to present the full musical version in the open air, with the Arts Theatre, London company in action at Church Fenton.
Billed as “Divorced, Beheaded, Drive – Live In Concert” for the now cancelled drive-in tour, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss‘s SIX is the “electrifying musical phenomenon that everyone has lost their head over”. First presented by Cambridge University students at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the show has been catapulted into a West End and international hit en route to being named the Musical of the Decade by WhatsOnStage.
From Tudor queens to pop princesses, the six wives of Henry VIII take to the mic in SIX to tell their tales, remixing 500 years of historical heartbreak into a 75-minute celebration of 21st-century girl power where these queens may have green sleeves but their lipstick is rebellious red.
Wife strife: Drive-in audiences will now miss out on the joy of SIX in the open air after the “out of the blue” cancellation of shows at all 12 locations
The publicity promised: “This intoxicating Tudor take by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss is a histo-remixed pop-concert musical you won’t forget. The Queens are back, so grab your crowns and your picnic blankets and get down like it’s 1533.”
SIX The Musical and Utilita Live From The Drive-In were to have linked up this summer from August 4 to September 12 for shows at Colesdale Farm, London; Birmingham Resorts World Arena; University of Bolton Stadium, Bolton; Filton Airfield, Bristol; Cheltenham Racecourse; the Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh; Leeds East Airport, Church Fenton, near Leeds; Lincoln, Central Docks, Liverpool; The National Bowl, Milton Keynes; the July Course, Newmarket Racecourse, and Teesside International Airport.
SIX The Musical, The Drive-In: Divorced, beheaded and now cancelled, alas.
