Teenage Fanclub on the remote Scottish island of Great Bernera when recording Do Not Dare To Dream. Picture Donald Milne
TEENAGE Fanclub head to Project House, Leeds, on Monday (9/11/2026) on their 15-date November tour to promote Do Not Dare To Dream.
“Last time in Leeds we played the Brudenell Social Club, and it’s good when you’ve been doing it for so long, and you’re going a back to cities you’ve been before, to play somewhere new there,” says co-founder and lead guitarist Raymond McGinlay.
Released on October 9 on Merge Records as the follow-up to 2023’s Nothing Lasts Forever, their 13th studio album was recorded at Black Bay Studio on the remote Scottish island of Great Bernera, the Glasgow band’s most remote recording location since their formation in 1989.
This setting helped the five-piece to focus on the work, while putting them in a place of awe, surrounded by the sound of crashing waves and the haunting presence of ancient ruins.
“It was a new studio to us,” says Raymond, who is still at the heart of Teenage Fanclub’s signature blend of melodic guitars, warm harmonies, and reflective songwriting, along with fellow songwriter Norman Blake, after 37 years. “We’re always on the lookout, when we’re making a new record, to find a new place that we’ve never been to before.
“We usually start with fragments of songs, allowing things to happen in the moment, reacting to the surroundings, and when we were looking for a studio, there was this one on an island off the far end of the Isle of Lewis. We looked at pictures and it looked interesting.
“It worked out for us, doing the album in late January and early February, when we thought it would be bleak, but actually it was really beautiful: lovely to walk around, with not many people there and the main inhabitants being sheep. Not many hours of daylight, but at least there was light in the studio.”
Production duties were shared between band members, the band’s studio engineer and the studio owner. “There was no producer as such; it was a collective endeavour,” says Raymond, who “feels lucky that you find people that you connect with”.
Teenage Fanclub in Black Bay Studio when recording 13th studio album Do Not Dare To Dream. Picture: Donald Milne
“From that point of view, experience tells you to let things happen without having too much ego or someone trying to impose an idea. We’re pretty good at working together, with me and Norman presenting ideas, and then it’s all quite instinctive with the band.”
McGinlay and Blake are “the ones sitting up at night, maybe three in the morning, trying to figure out lyrics”. Alongside them for the recording sessions are long-time members Euros Childs (keyboards), David McGowan (bass) and Francis Macdonald (drums).
“Euros starts contributing or David does what he feels like doing, Francis joins in on drums, and it just kind of evolves into songs,” says Raymond. “The input of everyone is important.” So, on this occasion, were synthesisers and a Domus church organ found by the band at Black Bay, the organ now heard prominently on many songs, most notably on Over And Over.
“We approach everything kind of the same way each time we make a record,” says Raymond. “Whether you intend things to be different, you just have to be conscious of trusting your instincts in doing our thing. We are the people we are now that we were then, but the subtlety of things changes year to year All you can do is offer something that comes from within yourself.”
Raymond continues: “Sometimes, if you’re going to show something of yourself, you show vulnerability, which exists in everyday life, and I find it’s best to reveal something of yourself, rather than constructing a persona.”
How was the album title chosen? “It’s difficult when it comes to…coming up with a name for an album,” says co-founder Norman. “Especially after you’ve made 12 of them.” In the end, his song I Do Not Dare To Dream was adapted to represent the overriding theme of pushing back on hollow optimism while still embracing a quietly hopeful outlook. “Those ‘dare to dream’ sentiments are kind of ridiculous,” reckons Norman. “I don’t think the world works that way.”
Raymond adds: “Norman came up with the title as a riposte to that soundbite optimism, those completely meaningless expressions.” Instead Teenage Fanclub advocate resilience when facing an increasingly uncertain world, where the need is to find clarity and comfort in the everyday, rather than giving in to despair.
“Now it’s the unknowingness of it that makes it more scary,” he says. “We’re no different to anyone else in presenting introspective reflections on creativity.
“In the place where we made the record, people would have been singing thousands of years ago,” says Teenage Fanclub’s Raymond McGinlay. Picture: Donald Milne
“We’re not that different to people before technology, people dealing with difficult circumstances, though most of us had been far less pessimistic before.” That said, Raymond declares: “We can still be cheerful and optimistic in the face of things not being great”.
Picking a favourite from Do Not Dare To Dream, Raymond says: “I really like Norman’s song Somewhere To Land, the last one of his we recorded, where he added mellotron when we got back to Glasgow.”
Reflecting on Teenage Fanclub’s longevity, Raymond says: “Yeah, it’s been a while since we started doing this thing we do, but to us it feels like no time at all. In the place [Great Bernera] where we made the record, people would have been singing thousands of years ago. Life is short, but music is eternal.
“What you do with your life, doing this mad thing for 37 years, it‘s a privilege, because most people who want to do this, be in a band, make records, play concerts, most people don’t manage to do that. I don’t think we’re better than others, but somehow we connect with our audience and that has allowed us to continue.
“We started the band in 1989, going into the studio wanting to make a record in our little bubble. Me and Norman had played in the band The Boy Hairdressers, which then fizzled out and we thought, let’s do something, as opposed to just talking about it. Let’s make an album and ask if others are interested in these songs, going from just doing something for yourself, to then having an audience. That’s something you can’t take for granted.”
Four decades have taught McGinlay and Blake that “when you make a record you never presume anyone will be interested”, but that interest has sustained. For proof, Do Not Dare To Dream has just been placed at number 48 in Uncut magazine’s Top 80 albums of 2026.
Futuresound presents Teenage Fanclub at Project House, Armley Road, Leeds, on November 9, doors 7pm. Box office: https://www.seetickets.com/event/teenage-fanclub/project-house/3481726.
Track listing for Do Not Dare To Dream:
There Was You; Tomorrow People; Over And Over; Be With You Tonight; The Same Air; I Do Not Dare To Dream; Take Time; Day In The Sun; Somewhere To Land and Young And Wise.
The cover artwork for Teenage Fanclub’s Do Not Dare To Dream, released on Merge Records last month
Nick Walters’ Honey Dipper, on show in The Wisdom Of The Desert at the Red Tower, York
FROM Jane Asher as The Queen to honey artworks at the Red Tower, the Aesthetica Film Festival to Neon Crypt’s ghost story, Charles Hutchinson highlights more November gems.
Pop-up art show of the week: Navigators Art presents No Spinoza & Nick Walters, The Wisdom Of The Desert, The Red Tower, Foss Islands Road, York, today, 6pm to 9pm; tomorrow, 1pm to 4pm
GROUNDBREAKING multi-media York artists No Spinoza (Thomas Pearson) and Nick Walters share an interest in the immersive, provocative, multi-sensory experience of film, sound and sculpture, as represented in their joint show in York’s historic Red Tower.
No Spinoza presents Jupiter’s Great Hurricane (2026), a cycle of experimental music and film that broadly explores themes of temptation, progress and inheritance with references to desert spirituality. Walters’ Honey Dipper (2026) passes electrical current through honey to create mysterious and ever-changing textures of sound, while Ex-voto (2026) is a series of small sculptures set in niches in the tower walls that alludes to beeswax votive statues placed in shrines as a gesture of gratitude and devotion.
Victorian Penny Farthing Rider lit up at Ghosts After Dark at York Museum Gardens. Picture: Celestine Dubruel
Sculpture trail of the week: York BID and York Museums Trust present Ghosts After Dark, York Museum Gardens, today and tomorrow, 5.30pm to 9.30pm; timed entry slots until 8pm
IN the wake of Ghosts In The Gardens’ free public art trail of 70 wire-mesh sculptures across 32 city-centre locations, Ghosts After Dark brings storytelling, light, smoke and sound to York Museum Gardens, plus King’s Manor courtyard and Library Lawn, the Anglian Tower, Edible Wood, Artists’ Garden, St Olave’s churchyard and the area beside York Art Gallery.
Representing a fascinating person, creature or story connected to York’s history, each sculpture was made by York creative agency Unconventional Design. A new immersive experience (the Witch Encounter) and the inaugural night market are further highlights of the 90-minute trail. Bookings: www.theyorkbid.com/ghosts-after-dark/.
The VR Lab at the National Centre for Early Music, in Walmgate, at the Aesthetica Film Festival
Festival of the week: Aesthetica Film Festival, York, until tomorrow
IN its 16th year under the artistic directorship of Cherie Federico, Aesthetica Film Festival welcomes filmmakers, games developers and virtual reality experts from around the world. The five-day programme comprises screenings, VR & games labs, a podcasting lounge, industry masterclasses and workshops, networking sessions, live performances, pitching opportunities, the New Music Stage and much more. For the full programme and tickets, go to asff.co.uk.
Gareth Malone: Inviting you to Sing-A-Long-A-Gareth’s afternoon of movie songs
Instant choir of the week: Sing-A-Long-A-Gareth At The Movies, Grand Opera House, York, today, 4pm
LIGHTS, camera, sing! Choirmaster supreme Gareth Malone returns with a new tour show in an immersive celebration of the greatest songs from the movies and the joy of singing together. Please note, there is a maximum of ten tickets per household and seats in higher levels or with restricted views may not have full visibility of the on-stage screen. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
The Gipsy Kings by Andre Reyes: Championing flamenco music at the Grand Opera House, York
Flamenco gig of the week: The Gipsy Kings by Andre Reyes present Viva El Arie, Grand Opera House, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm
THE Gipsy Kings by André Reyes transcend musical borders with their flamenco music and rumba. Led by Gipsy Kings co-founder Andre Reyes, the family project combines the band’s original essence with a renewed energy.
Together with his son and nephews, Reyes still conquers the world’s most prestigious stages after three decades. His dedication celebrates the rich cultural heritage of the gypsy community while ensuring this music continues to resonate with new generations. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Ellie Mackenzie in a montage for Oddsocks Productions’ Motherhood
Maternal matters of the week: Oddsocks Productions in Motherhood, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm
REGULAR visitors to the JoRo, Matlock company Oddsocks Productions present an amusing and moving look at the bizarre and downright unbelievable aspects of raising children while running a family business in Motherhood. Actress and writer Elli Mackenzie explores the highs and lows, the frustrations and joys of being a working parent alongside her husband Andy, an orangutan and a giant woodlouse. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Laura Main as The Dresser and Jane Asher as The Queen in Daisy Goodwin’s play By Royal Appointment, on tour at York Theatre Royal
Regal drama of the week: By Royal Appointment, York Theatre Royal, November 10 to 14, 7.30pm plus 2pm Wednesday & Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
THE late Queen Elizabeth II had one way of expressing what she really thought –through her wardrobe. Daisy Goodwin’s funny, poignant and celebratory By Royal Appointment takes a behind-the-scenes peek into the world of our most popular monarch and the image she presented to the world.
Here, The Queen (played by Jane Asher) is uninterested in fashion. Instead, her look is managed by her Designer (David Robb), her Milliner (Matthew Cottle) and most powerful of all, her Dresser (Laura Main), a working-class girl who goes from advising Her Majesty on the colour of her lipsticks to the real power behind the throne. Like all royal favourites, however, the Dresser is living on borrowed time. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Author Miles Salter holding a copy of his new book, A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83
Book launch of the week: Miles Salter, A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83, Topping & Company bookshop, Museum Street, York, November 10, 7pm (doors 6.30pm)
YORK author, journalist, songwriter, band leader, podcaster, storyteller, festival organiser and poet Miles Salter launches A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83 in conversation with poet and author John Goodby at Topping & Co.
“Their remarkable, strange, dark, sad tale was a gift to a writer,” says Salter. “Every time I thought ‘this can’t get any stranger’, something else came up. The more I talked to people, the stranger it became, the darker and darker it became. A story of totally living that rock’n’roll life but to the detriment of band members James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon as it cost them their lives.” Tickets cost £17.95, including hardback book or £5 “if you just want to come and listen”. To book, go to:https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/york/miles-salter-the-pretenders/
Michael Cornell, left, Laura Castle, Laura McKeller and Jamie McKeller in Neon Crypt’s production of 2:22 A Ghost Story at Theatre@41, Monkgate
Supernatural thriller of the week: Neon Crypt in 2:22 A Ghost Story, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, November 10 to 14, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
AFTER two visits to the Grand Opera House, Uncanny and The Battersea Poltergeist ghost storyteller Danny Robins’s West End smash 2:22 A Ghost Story falls into the welcoming hands of York spook specialists Neon Crypt, who will stage the modern-day horror show in traverse – with seating to either side of the stage – for the first time. “The audience are a part of the story. There is nowhere to escape,” forewarns director Jamie McKeller.
Jenny (Laura McKeller) believes her new home is haunted, but husband Sam (Jamie McKeller) is having none of it. They argue with their first dinner guests, old friend Lauren (Laura Castle) and new partner Ben (Michael Cornell). Can the dead really walk again? Belief and scepticism clash, but something feels strange and frightening, and ever closer, so they vow to stay up until 2:22am…and only then will they know. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk/.
The poster for David Ford’s Songbook gig at The Dolphin in Robin Hood’s Bay
If you go to one coastal gig next week, make it: Higgledy Gigs presents David Ford, Songbook, The Dolphin, King Street, Robin Hood’s Bay, near Whitby, November 11, 8pm
EASTBOURNE, singer, songwriter, sage and scribe David Ford’s Songbook tour combines highlights and stories from 25 years of songwriting in a a stripped-back, intimate evening. Part live set, part storytelling, he revisits the songs that have shaped his career, sharing the moments and influences behind them along the way as he moves between raw, powerful performances and quieter, more reflective moments with warmth and humour throughout.
The tour accompanies the release of a special career-spanning retrospective double album on vinyl, bringing together standout songs from his catalogue. Comprising updated recordings and re-mastered originals, Ford’s selection of his most important work is compiled in one place for the first time. Tonight’s show offers the chance to hear those songs as they were meant to be experienced, up close and in the moment. Tickets: trybooking.com/uk/event/110427 or at the bar.
Chris Ramsey: Here, Man, in York on November 12 with the last few tickets still available
Comedy gig of the week: Chris Ramsey, Here, Man!, York Barbican, November 12, 7.30pm
IN response to overwhelming demand (mainly from wife Rosie who is desperate to get him out of the house), South Shields comedian and podcaster Chris Ramsey is on the road this month after selling out his March travels.
You may have seen him on TV on The Chris & Rosie Ramsey Show, Strictly Come Dancing and Taskmaster or presenting Children In Need or heard him co-hosting his weekly marital podcast, Shagged. Married. Annoyed, with the long-suffering Rosie. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
In Focus: Teenage Fanclub, Project House, Leeds, November 9, 7pm. Raymond McGinley in discussion with CharlesHutchPress
Teenage Fanclub on the remote Scottish island of Great Bernera when recording Do Not Dare To Dream. Picture Donald Milne
TEENAGE Fanclub head to Project House, Leeds, on Monday (9/11/2026) on their 15-date November tour to promote Do Not Dare To Dream.
“Last time in Leeds we played the Brudenell Social Club, and it’s good when you’ve been doing it for so long, and you’re going a back to cities you’ve been before, to play somewhere new there,” says co-founder and lead guitarist Raymond McGinlay.
Released on October 9 on Merge Records as the follow-up to 2023’s Nothing Lasts Forever, their 13th studio album was recorded at Black Bay Studio on the remote Scottish island of Great Bernera, the Glasgow band’s most remote recording location since their formation in 1989.
This setting helped the five-piece to focus on the work, while putting them in a place of awe, surrounded by the sound of crashing waves and the haunting presence of ancient ruins.
“It was a new studio to us,” says Raymond, who is still at the heart of Teenage Fanclub’s signature blend of melodic guitars, warm harmonies, and reflective songwriting, along with fellow songwriter Norman Blake, after 37 years. “We’re always on the lookout, when we’re making a new record, to find a new place that we’ve never been to before.
“We usually start with fragments of songs, allowing things to happen in the moment, reacting to the surroundings, and when we were looking for a studio, there was this one on an island off the far end of the Isle of Lewis. We looked at pictures and it looked interesting.
“It worked out for us, doing the album in late January and early February, when we thought it would be bleak, but actually it was really beautiful: lovely to walk around, with not many people there and the main inhabitants being sheep. Not many hours of daylight, but at least there was light in the studio.”
Production duties were shared between band members, the band’s studio engineer and the studio owner. “There was no producer as such; it was a collective endeavour,” says Raymond, who “feels lucky that you find people that you connect with”.
Teenage Fanclub in Black Bay Studio when recording 13th studio album Do Not Dare To Dream. Picture: Donald Milne
“From that point of view, experience tells you to let things happen without having too much ego or someone trying to impose an idea. We’re pretty good at working together, with me and Norman presenting ideas, and then it’s all quite instinctive with the band.”
McGinlay and Blake are “the ones sitting up at night, maybe three in the morning, trying to figure out lyrics”. Alongside them for the recording sessions are long-time members Euros Childs (keyboards), David McGowan (bass) and Francis Macdonald (drums).
“Euros starts contributing or David does what he feels like doing, Francis joins in on drums, and it just kind of evolves into songs,” says Raymond. “The input of everyone is important.” So, on this occasion, were synthesisers and a Domus church organ found by the band at Black Bay, the organ now heard prominently on many songs, most notably on Over And Over.
“We approach everything kind of the same way each time we make a record,” says Raymond. “Whether you intend things to be different, you just have to be conscious of trusting your instincts in doing our thing. We are the people we are now that we were then, but the subtlety of things changes year to year All you can do is offer something that comes from within yourself.”
Raymond continues: “Sometimes, if you’re going to show something of yourself, you show vulnerability, which exists in everyday life, and I find it’s best to reveal something of yourself, rather than constructing a persona.”
How was the album title chosen? “It’s difficult when it comes to…coming up with a name for an album,” says co-founder Norman. “Especially after you’ve made 12 of them.” In the end, his song I Do Not Dare To Dream was adapted to represent the overriding theme of pushing back on hollow optimism while still embracing a quietly hopeful outlook. “Those ‘dare to dream’ sentiments are kind of ridiculous,” reckons Norman. “I don’t think the world works that way.”
Raymond adds: “Norman came up with the title as a riposte to that soundbite optimism, those completely meaningless expressions.” Instead Teenage Fanclub advocate resilience when facing an increasingly uncertain world, where the need is to find clarity and comfort in the everyday, rather than giving in to despair.
“Now it’s the unknowingness of it that makes it more scary,” he says. “We’re no different to anyone else in presenting introspective reflections on creativity.
“In the place where we made the record, people would have been singing thousands of years ago,” says Teenage Fanclub’s Raymond McGinlay. Picture: Donald Milne
“We’re not that different to people before technology, people dealing with difficult circumstances, though most of us had been far less pessimistic before.” That said, Raymond declares: “We can still be cheerful and optimistic in the face of things not being great”.
Picking a favourite from Do Not Dare To Dream, Raymond says: “I really like Norman’s song Somewhere To Land, the last one of his we recorded, where he added mellotron when we got back to Glasgow.”
Reflecting on Teenage Fanclub’s longevity, Raymond says: “Yeah, it’s been a while since we started doing this thing we do, but to us it feels like no time at all. In the place [Great Bernera] where we made the record, people would have been singing thousands of years ago. Life is short, but music is eternal.
“What you do with your life, doing this mad thing for 37 years, it‘s a privilege, because most people who want to do this, be in a band, make records, play concerts, most people don’t manage to do that. I don’t think we’re better than others, but somehow we connect with our audience and that has allowed us to continue.
“We started the band in 1989, going into the studio wanting to make a record in our little bubble. Me and Norman had played in the band The Boy Hairdressers, which then fizzled out and we thought, let’s do something, as opposed to just talking about it. Let’s make an album and ask if others are interested in these songs, going from just doing something for yourself, to then having an audience. That’s something you can’t take for granted.”
Four decades have taught McGinlay and Blake that “when you make a record you never presume anyone will be interested”, but that interest has sustained. For proof, Do Not Dare To Dream has just been placed at number 48 in Uncut magazine’s Top 80 albums of 2026.
Futuresound presents Teenage Fanclub at Project House, Armley Road, Leeds, on November 9, doors 7pm. Box office: https://www.seetickets.com/event/teenage-fanclub/project-house/3481726.
Track listing for Do Not Dare To Dream:
There Was You; Tomorrow People; Over And Over; Be With You Tonight; The Same Air; I Do Not Dare To Dream; Take Time; Day In The Sun; Somewhere To Land and Young And Wise.
The cover artwork for Teenage Fanclub’s Do Not Dare To Dream, released on Merge Records last month
Sweet Baboo’s Stephen Black: “Shimmering, lovely tunes” at The Crescent, York. All pictures: Paul Rhodes
ON supposedly one of the worst nights of the year to put on a gig – new school year just started and all that –Sweet Baboo nevertheless did his best to blow away the Tuesday late-summer torpor that hung over the city. Elsewhere Dexys took up the challenge at York Barbican.
Sweet Baboo is the stage name for Stephen Black, a shining light of Wales’s indie scene. While latterly he has paid his bills as part of better-known bands – he sets off again in October touring with Teenage Fanclub – he periodically resurfaces with his own shimmering, lovely tunes.
The stage name comes from Charles M Schulz and Peanuts. His music shares Schulz’s depths, his shiny and bright melodies carrying darker meanings, as great music tends to. More than one of his 13-strong setlist was written to “keep the s**t world at bay from his son”. The best of these was Clear Blue Skies, a song about father and son blasting melodically into space.
Sweet Baboo with his tape backing contraption at The Crescent
Black was performing solo, but like his friend and collaborator H. Hawkline, he trades a fine line in using tape backing. This contraption, which required a stolen eraser to keep it going, provided enough of the flavour of the rich band music from his latest album Wreckage. This machine was also the means to keep us laughing as Black paused to get the tape in the right place, no back, forward, pause, close enough and on with the song. They acted as a well-oiled double act.
Black played beautifully throughout, performing tunes from across his back catalogue. His feigned innocence, his off-kilter world view and innate romantism recalled Scandinavian performers like Sondre Lerche, another multi-instrumentalist. With his austere haircut and monochrome white outfit, if you squinted and listened to the finger picking on Walking In Tthe Rain, it could have been Paul Simon at the time of his Songbook.
Support act Rowan: “Ramshackle but fun”
Following support act Rowan’s ramshackle but fun opening set (a one-man Violent Femmes), Black was a welcome contrast. Where Rowan’s music sometimes lacks the heft to convey all those ideas, Black can work wonders with little.
New single Werewolves is a case in point; a clever twist on daydreams that could have wide appeal. Rowan’s Skeldergate – written for the saddest street in York – needed to be much glummer, although new song Sail Anywhere would be grand performed with a full band.
A song of farewell was the highlight of Sweet Baboo’s set too. Proving he can make magic of the daily blur, Goodbye is a gorgeous composition about taking a dog for lockdown walks, but so cleverly written and tuneful as to have far wider appeal.
Sweet Baboo’s songs: “Feigned innocence, off-kilter world view and innate romantism”
Expense ruling out touring with a band, Black is one of the very few who doesn’t need one. Adept on assorted instruments, he gave us snatches of flute, and even a temperamental Yamaha wind synthesiser that lent a Bernie Worrell or William Onyeabor-style squelch to Pink Rainbow.
Swimming Wild stretched out with no trappings, then Cate’s Song topped that, touching, funny and both better than the more arranged originals.
In Black’s hands there was no room for gloom, and for 80 minutes, we were in his palm. Catch this original if you can.
SCOTTISH indie legends Teenage Fanclub return to Leeds Beckett University tonight for gig number three on their 11-date tour in belated support of tenth studio album Endless Arcade.
Released last April on the Glaswegians’ own label PeMa as the follow-up to 2016’s Here, the songs “walk a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths: the importance of home, community and hope, entwined with bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts of insecurity, anxiety, loss.
Endless Arcade was almost finished by the time the first Covid lockdown was imposed with its stay-at-home orders. How apt that Norman Blake’s seven-minute Home should open Endless Arcade, albeit that its sentiments were shaped by his experiences stretching back pre-pandemic in his search for what ‘home’ means.
Blake has been living in Canada for the past ten years. “My wife is Canadian, so we moved over there, but we’re now in the process of coming back to Glasgow,” he says.
“We live in Kitchener, about an hour’s drive west of Toronto, but it makes more sense to be over here with the band.
“Over the ten years, I’ve had a nice time over there, making friends travelling around Canada and the USA.”
That said, his sentiments in Home are etched in loss and yearning. “Without going into too much detail, the last 18 months have been challenging for me on an emotional level, but it’s been cathartic channelling some of these feelings and emotions into song,” says Blake.
The poster artwork for Teenage Fanclub’s tour and album, by Huw Evans, aka musician H. Hawkline
Has living in Canada influenced his song-writing. “I don’t think so directly, but I guess you will always be influenced by your surroundings, and every songwriter would say you’re influenced by the songs you hear and the gigs you go to, but thematically it’s the same subjects as always.”
During his time in Canada, Blake has worked with Joe Pernice, frontman of Scud Mountain Boys, Chappaquiddick Skyline and the Pernice Brothers, the duo being joined in The New Mendicants supergroup by The Sadies’ drummer, Mike Belitsky, to release the album Into The Lime in 2014.
“We first met when our bands played a show together in London in 2000. Joe lives in Toronto, so we started working together when I moved there,” says Blake. “It was great doing that because you always pick up bits of technique and he’s a real lyrics guy.”
Blake has contributed Sun Won’t Shine On Me, Warm Embrace, I’m More Inclined, Back In The Day and Living With You alongside Home to Endless Arcade, an album recorded in Clouds Hill Recordings in Hamburg with fellow founder Raymond McGinley, drummer Francis McDonald, bassist Dave McGowan and Welsh musician Euros Childs, featuring on keyboards across an entire Teenage Fanclub album for the first time.
“We were very comfortable with each other in the studio,” says Blake. “I think some of the playing is a bit freer and looser than on recent albums. Dave and Euros’ playing is amazing, and Francis on drums is really swinging. The whole process of making this album was very invigorating. Everyone in the band contributed a lot and the song arrangements came together really quickly. Everything felt fresh.”
A new album is in the making already. “We’ve been in the studio; we’ve come to the realisation that the thing to do before we’re all too knackered is to crack on!”
Norman Blake is 56.
Teenage Fanclub play Leeds Beckett University tonight, supported by Norwegian musicians Frøkedal & Familien; doors, 7pm.
Teenage Fanclub: Yorkshire shows in 2022 in Sheffield and Leeds. Picture: Donald Milne
TEENAGE Fanclub will play The Leadmill, Sheffield on April 8 and Leeds Beckett University the next night on their rescheduled 2022 tour.
By then, almost a year will have passed since the April 30 release of the Scottish indie favourites’ tenth studio album, Endless Arcade, preceded by the Norman Blake-penned single I’m More Inclined.
Fellow songwriter Raymond McGinley says: “When we first starting talking about getting songs together for a new album, Norman said, ‘I have one ready to go now!’ and that was I’m More Inclined. He played it to us, we loved it, and that got us started on the whole thing that became Endless Arcade.”
Endless Arcade is the long-awaited follow-up to Here, the 2016 album that brought Teenage Fanclub their first British top ten entry since 1997. The new record has all their familiar tropes: melodies are equal parts heart-warming and heart-aching; guitars chime and distort; keyboard lines mesh and spiral; harmony-embossed choruses burst through, like the sun on a stormy day.
Affirmation that even if we were not living through extraordinarily troubling times, who better than Teenage Fanclub to assuage the mind, body and soul and to confirm that all is not lost in this world.
In the 1990s, the Scots crafted a magnetically heavy yet harmony-rich sound on classic albums such as Bandwagonesque and Grand Prix. This century, Man-Made, Shadows and Here have documented a more relaxed, less “teenage” Fanclub, reflecting the band members’ stage in life and state of mind, and now Endless Arcade slots snugly alongside.
The new album walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts: insecurity, anxiety, loss.
Such is life, but the title track suggests: “Don’t be afraid of this endless arcade that is life”. “I think of an endless arcade as a city that you can wander through, with a sense of mystery, an imaginary one that goes on forever,” says McGinley. “When it came to choosing an album title, it seemed to have something for this collection of songs.”
So how did the band set out to explore this Endless Arcade? “The process is much the same as it always has been,” says McGinley. “In 1989, we went into a studio in Glasgow to make our first LP, A Catholic Education. Francis [Macdonald] starts setting up his drums, the rest of us find our spots around him and off we go.
“Thirty years later, Francis is setting up his drums in Clouds Hill Recordings in Hamburg. A few hours later, we’re recording the first song. We don’t conceptualise, we don’t talk about it, we just do it. Each of us are thinking our own thoughts, but we don’t do much externalising. We just feel our way into it.”
Dave McGowan has been “feeling his way” into the band’s sound since 2004, mainly on keyboards and guitar, but the past two years have seen him take over on bass, his primary instrument, after the departure of founder member Gerard Love in 2018.
Although Euros Childs has played and sung on record with the band previously, Endless Arcade is the first time the Welshman has featured on keyboards across a whole Teenage Fanclub album.
Huw Evans’s artwork for Teenage Fanclub’s new album, Endless Arcade
“We were very comfortable with each other in the studio,” says Blake. “I think some of the playing is a bit freer and looser than on recent albums. Dave and Euros’s playing is amazing, and Francis on drums is really swinging.
“The whole process of making this album was very invigorating. Everyone in the band contributed a lot and the song arrangements came together really quickly. Everything felt fresh.”
Childs suggested they use his friend Huw Evans, alias musician H. Hawkline, to design the sleeve. “It’s amazing. We absolutely love it!” says McGinley.
A preview from the album came in February 2019 with McGinley’s Everything Is Falling Apart, an online single released at the outset of a six-month tour and now a highlight of Endless Arcade.
Is everything falling apart? Yes, but the song was written long before Covid-19 took up unwelcome residency. McGinley’s inspiration was neither political nor social, but more, “the entropy in the universe, the knowledge that everything eventually decays,” he explains. McGinley says relax. Or rather, “Relax, find love, hold on to the hand of a friend”.
Fortunately, Endless Arcade was all but finished by the time the first lockdown was announced, bar the odd tinker under the engine hood. Now, it seems timely, given how everyone had to stay home under lockdown strictures, that the album starts with Blake’s composition Home, although it was chosen in part on account of its opening line: “Every morning, I open my eyes…”.
Blake’s search for “home” could be literal – after all, he has been living in Canada for the past ten years – yet it is figurative too. Like his other Endless Arcade songs – The Sun Won’t Shine On Me, Warm Embrace, I’m More Inclined, Back In The Day and Living With You – his words on Home are etched by loss and yearning.
“Without going into too much detail, the last 18 months have been challenging for me on an emotional level,” he admits. “But it’s been cathartic channelling some of these feelings and emotions into song.”
In contrast, McGinley’s songs – Everything Is Falling Apart, Endless Arcades, Come With Me, In Our Dreams, The Future and Silent Song – are philosophical and questing. As he sings in The Future: “It’s hard to walk into the future when your shoes are made of lead”, but he will still try “and see sights we’ve never seen”.
In Teenage Fanclub’s own near-future, already they are planning another new album, given that they cannot tour the one they are releasing this spring until September’s shows in Manchester, London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow.
Teenage Fanclub release Endless Arcade on April 30 on their own label PeMa.
