Category Archives: Interviews

Cecilia Noel Special – Patron Saint of Salsoul Musica 13th December 2009

Lucky old me, a few weeks a go I got to meet and interview the stupendous singer Cecilia Noel. Regular listeners will know that one of the missions of the Crossroads programme is to spread the glad tidings about the divine Miss Cecilia. Her music is a wonderful mix of salsa and soul music and she has been compared to the great soul singers.

She was accompanying her husband Colin Hay, writer of (I Come From) the Land Down Under on his latest tour. We met on a cold wet afternoon in Manchester and we chatted for over an hour about her, her musica and some of the people who influenced her. Her latest album is called A GOZAR – To Enjoy – and it’s a corker. Exciting, tight, latin music done in a way only she can. If you ever get the chance to see her DVD LIVE IN HOLLYWOOD then do so, I can thoroughly recommend that experience as well. It is popular music as it should be done. A large band with brass, percussion and four back-up singers – everyone relaxed and having fun, knowing the songs and belting them out – catchy tunes done by people who know what they are doing.

Continue reading

The Peppermint Lounge in session on The BCB Sessions!

Hi folks,

We had a treaty treat on Wednesday’s show – a session from The Peppermint Lounge. They’re based in Leeds and their music’s really hard to describe but reminds me of The Beta Band & Hot Chip – not bad eh!

Acoustic number

Acoustic number

Also Phil Collins’ vox made an appearance – not something I’d usually big up / do but it’s a top remix from a local outfit.

We’re offering you the chance to win Graham Coxon’s latest album – check Albert’s blog for details. Deadline’s midnight Sunday 13th Dec 09.

If you missed the programme, no worries –  it’s repeated on Saturday at 7pm (12th Dec).

Here’s the list of tunes:
Continue reading

Breeze out your toaster and hit the floor with the eggs

I should have been there.

I should have been there.

This week’s show had ice, 1950s hipsters. I jived well clear of Kerouac and kept the noise beats real fly. If you gaters feel like popping some rhyme waves in your noise cans but failed to reach down on in your pads yesterday then cak face not. For below is the entire interview (45 slick mins) with Max Decharne vomiting about his book/dictionary Straight From the Fridge, Dad. I would like to draw your attention to the end segment where he gives some great music and movie recommendations.

[podcast]https://www.bcbradio.co.uk/musicblog/wp-content/uploads/hip/Hip_part1.mp3[/podcast] Part 1
[podcast]https://www.bcbradio.co.uk/musicblog/wp-content/uploads/hip/Hip_part2.mp3[/podcast] Part 2

Just a few of the tracks we rolled were;

Jumpin Jive – Cab Calloway
Three Alley Cats – Roy Hall
(no idea) – Doctor Sausage and His Five Pork Chops.

The Show brings you intresting culture so you don’t have to find it yourself. Hopefully this week we will be having a poetry slam as a follow up. With our attempts at beat poems.

A

Woke up this morning got myself a PUN!


spirtoflove

Now that you have recovered from the incredibly witty title that I have conjured for the benefit of your eyes you can turn your attention to the post below.

So I went over to meet Alabama 3 on Thursday, Brixton’s ageing hipsters who have been going since 1997 [crikey, does that make them aging? I’m well past it then!- ed]. You might first have heard them when one of their tunes was used as The Soparnos theme. You can play the interview at the bottom of this blog. I was not quite sure who I was going to be given to talk to, and it turned out to be keyboardist Orlando Harrison (Larry Love was eating his dinner). He chatted about the new album and the rest of the band. Apparently they are not allowed in the same room for interviews; I guess that’s what happens when you have been on tour for a million years. He was a lovely gent and spoke with pride about his work. Katie also came along and asked him the world’s most difficult question. I edited out the 20 minute pause when she asks it.

We stayed for the gig, but unfortunately it was a slightly disappointing affair, possibly because it was the end of the tour, the sound was not quite right and they’re touring an album that does not exist. I would heartily recommend you catch up with all their albums if you have not done so on Spotify already. Click here for Hit and Exit Wounds from a few years back for a good introduction and Exile on Coldharbour Lane is simply an incredible album.

However, on the night I found myself thinking it might have been better, after the interesting chat with Orlando, to go and see Charlotte Hatherley who was playing in Leeds the same night, would have been a rather nice contrast and her recent work is rather intresting.

Spirit Of Love - Alabama 3 Interview

Also I could not help thinking Orlando looked a little bit like the hitcher from The Mighty Boosh. However, Orlando was rocking the look long before the hitcher existed.

Wed 18th – The BCB Sessions show

Greetings one & all,

Loads to report so here goes…

Competitions for bands / musicians and chance to be a singer!
You can win Andrew Bird‘s latest album – check out Eclectic Mainline (Wed, 8pm & DJ Alb’s blog)!
Your chance to win money, slot on stage, kit, endorsements….worldwide fame and fortune (well, maybe):
Check out www.surfaceunsigned.co.uk for details & online applications.

Create the soundtrack for Yorkshire County Cricket Club
YCCC is looking for talented unsigned Yorkshire bands to send their music and become part of the Club’s official soundtrack to the 2010 season. They’re looking for music of all genres to reflect the highs and lows of a Yorkshire cricket season.
Contact James Butler: comps@yorkshireccc.com

Meet Me In Vegas are currently auditioning for a new singer (can be male or female)…
If you’d like to give it a shot contact chrisdabass@hotmail.com (07974 317 284)

I love this band & we’ve got session arranged once they’ve got a new singer so get a move on and help them out.

Good luck!

I’ve sorted the playlist for the show and it reads a little something like this: Continue reading

Archive Interview: Martha Wainwright on Selection Box, 30 July 2008

Proof that smoking IS cool.  (The opinions expressed by this writer are not necessarily the opinions of this writer.)

Proof that smoking IS cool. (The opinions expressed by this writer are not necessarily the opinions of this writer.)

Last Summer, a short time after the release of her second album I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too, I was rather excited by the opportunity to speak to Martha Wainwright.  For “rather excited” also see “so giddy a bit of wee came out.”

Continue reading

Selection Box Show 110 – Kate Walsh interview special

As previewed in my last blog entry, this week’s show featured an interview with the frankly lovely Kate Walsh, recorded a few hours prior to her show at the Brudenell Social Club in That There Fancy Leeds.

The scarf isn't hiding lovebites, y'know.

The scarf isn't hiding lovebites, y'know.

Walsh’s current album Light & Dark – which I reviewed here – is the follow-up to the iTunes # 1 album Tim’s House (although a disgracefully low 75 in the proper charts), released in 2007.  Since that time she’s flirted with a major label who obviously sniffed a star in the making, only for her to decide that this was not the way she wanted to take her work forward, preferring to release on her own label Blueberry Pie.

It’s probably a wise move, as its tempting to think that the pressures from the suits in the corporate boardroom would try to push Kate Walsh into swooning songbird frippery which is not her idiom.  To steal a phrase from my own previous blog entry, the strength of Walsh’s alarmingly candid and beautifully stark songwriting is that she realises that true art lies in reigning in the excesses of the emotional.

Continue reading

Podcast Special – Selection Box v Speech Debelle

Yon editor seems to have got all a-giddy and presented this as some kind of huge new exciting podcast brew ha ha type behaviour. It seems a bit over excited, considering that I announced that this interview would appear on these pages a few weeks ago, but if someone wants to trump for my corner, who I am to complain? So long as it doesn’t smell.

Speaking of corners, it also seems that young Adam – for he is the aforementioned editor in question – has titled this interview as either some sort of pugilist pagga betwixt myself and my subject. Either that or that we’re indulging in one of those terpsichorean mash-ups, which is not the case either. It’s just two people having a chinwag, one of them (me) duty-bound to be far nosier than the other.

So, here’s the obligatory photo for visual stimulus, and then you can listen to the interview, by jiminy.

The wind was a South Easterly that day

The wind was a South Easterly that day

[podcast]https://www.bcbradio.co.uk/musicblog/wp-content/uploads/SinglesClub_03.mp3[/podcast]

Selection Box Playlists & Kate Walsh preview

Before this gets too involved, I’d best catch up on myself and give you the playlist from the last two editions of the show.  So here tis.  They are.  Them’s these.

Selection Box Show 108

Transmitted 12/10/09

1.  Billie Holiday – Them There Eyes
from: The Collection

2.  Nouvelle Vague featuring Ian McCullough – All My Colours
from: 3

3.  Dirty Projectors – Cannibal Resource
from: Temecula Sunrise EP

4.  The Big Bopper – Little Red Riding Hood
from: The Best of The Big Bopper

5.  Grandaddy – He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s The Pilot
from: The Sophtware Slump

6.  Zé Cafofinho e Suas Correntes – Meio de Transporte
from: The Rough Guide To Brazilian Street Party (various artists)

7.  Kenny Rogers & The First Edition – Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
from: The Best of Kenny Rogers & The First Edition

Utterly splendid compilation of axe backed babes Girls With Guitars

Utterly splendid compilation of "axe backed babes" Girls With Guitars

8.  Bob Dylan – If You Ever Go To Houston
from: Together Through Life

9.  The Beat Club – Security (Midnight Club Mix)
from: The Hacienda Classics (various artists)

10.  Tomboys – I’d Rather Switch
from: Girls With Guitars (various artists)

11.  Richard Hawley – For Your Lover Give Some Time
from: Truelove’s Gutter

12.  Devendra Banhart – Baby
from: What Will We Be

Continue reading

Selection Box 5/10/09: Speech Debelle interview special

I’ve found of late that I have reached the age where I am simultaneously envious and sneering of young people just entering adulthood.  I recognise that this is something of a tragic and predictable state of affairs for someone starting to leave the realms of “young” and hurtling with a winced resignation towards the slapheaded middle age that will be my lot by the time the next Olympics come around.  I swear I blinked when I was 19 and suddenly 13 years had passed me by.

Thankfully the what-the-hell-does-he-think-he-looks-like fuddy-duddisms and the you-know-nothing-you-fools grumpy grotty gripes were less in evidence when I took a trip up to Leeds University last week to meet Speech Debelle before she performed her headline gig at the Mine venue of the aforementioned learning establishment’s Student Union.  There was, I’ll confess, an overriding sense of jealousy, however.  Fresh-faced Freshers with their entire University life ahead of them – a life of late nights, debautched frivolity and loose sexual morals.  Even if I wasn’t happily married I just simply wouldn’t have the energy to keep up any more.  I guess I’ll have the last laugh when they’re all riddled with the clap.

Continue reading