January 2005 Archives
REVIEW
AFTER SNOW PATROL, here's music of a different genre. Thanks to John from Mossley for the following CD review.
OLD COMRADES
Imperial Corps of Drums, Liverpool.
Available from: Glenwood Publications, First Floor, 316 Shankill Road, Belfast, BT13 3AB.
Price: £11.00 (includes p&p). Please make cheques/PO’s payable to Glenwood Publications.
Playtime: 56 minutes
I WAS BORN and raised in East London so military bands were a reasonably familiar sight and sound. It was easy to wander down to Tower Hill or to get a bus or the tube over to Buckingham Palace or the Royal Parks to see a band play.
However, I must admit never really considered the history – or indeed the purpose – of military bands. I think that this is something to do with being so close to a particular culture. Because it’s all around you and you just take it for granted. Therefore, I only really became aware of this aspect of British military culture after obtaining a review copy of getting hold of a review of Old Comrades by the Imperial Corps of Drums, Liverpool.
The sleevenotes of this CD have been an education for me:
“The scene is somewhere in Natal at the height of the Zulu wars. Lines of Redcoats, the pride of the British Empire are preparing to do battle with the Impis of the Zulu Kings Regiments. It is dawn and the men are tired but ready to fight. Among them are the young drummer boys who will relay the battle orders to the rifle platoons and cavalry. In those days the surest way of sending orders on the battlefield was through the boys who made up the British Army Corps of Drums. Communications were sent using different drum beats to convey the various orders. Those boys, many as young as ten years of age, did their part in defending the Empire and never flinched from their duty”.
I knew that (years ago) the British Army enlisted underage youngsters, but I never knew they were as young as ten! Also I never knew that the Army used different drum beats to convey orders. I’d always assumed that military orders were always written. I suppose these drums were the forerunner to the modern IT communications systems employed by the military!
So what of the CD itself? To quote the sleeve notes again, it’s full of “Stirring marches, jigs, traditional Orange tunes and a drum salute featuring beats that would have been used in campaigns such as the Crimea and Waterloo”.
Those interested in Orange tunes should listen out for a beautiful rendition of On Boyne’s Red Shore. There’s also some old standards like Aces High (track 7) and Colonel Bogey (track 8). As well as this, there’s an interesting interpretation of the old Beatles classic Hey Jude. I think it’s interwoven with another Beatles song but I’m not too sure which one. (I’m only a young thing – and the Beatles were way, way, before my time!)
All of the tracks are crisp and clear. The whole CD is uplifting – there’s a certain ‘feelgood factor’ about Old Comrades – so much so that you’ll find yourself either conducting an imaginary orchestra or marching up and down the living room with the band! I certainly worked up a bit of a sweat beating the hell out of an imaginary Bass drum whilst listening to the Rakes of Kildare (track 17).
I found the range of instruments used by the band staggering. There’s Drums, Bass Drums, Cymbals, Triangle, Piccolo, 1st Flute, 2nd Flute and F Flute. (I must admit I don’t know the first thing about musical instruments or bands, so I haven’t got the faintest idea of what the difference is between all of these flutes! Perhaps a reader of Kerr’s Corner could help out here?).
Old Comrades by the Imperial Corps of Drums, Liverpool is an excellent CD and a fitting tribute to the men and boys of the British Army Corps of Drums. It’s also opened my eyes to military music - a completely new musical genre for me. I’d highly recommend this CD to anyone. Get hold of your copy today!
AFTER SNOW PATROL, here's music of a different genre. Thanks to John from Mossley for the following CD review.
OLD COMRADES
Imperial Corps of Drums, Liverpool.
Available from: Glenwood Publications, First Floor, 316 Shankill Road, Belfast, BT13 3AB.
Price: £11.00 (includes p&p). Please make cheques/PO’s payable to Glenwood Publications.
Playtime: 56 minutes
I WAS BORN and raised in East London so military bands were a reasonably familiar sight and sound. It was easy to wander down to Tower Hill or to get a bus or the tube over to Buckingham Palace or the Royal Parks to see a band play.
However, I must admit never really considered the history – or indeed the purpose – of military bands. I think that this is something to do with being so close to a particular culture. Because it’s all around you and you just take it for granted. Therefore, I only really became aware of this aspect of British military culture after obtaining a review copy of getting hold of a review of Old Comrades by the Imperial Corps of Drums, Liverpool.
The sleevenotes of this CD have been an education for me:
“The scene is somewhere in Natal at the height of the Zulu wars. Lines of Redcoats, the pride of the British Empire are preparing to do battle with the Impis of the Zulu Kings Regiments. It is dawn and the men are tired but ready to fight. Among them are the young drummer boys who will relay the battle orders to the rifle platoons and cavalry. In those days the surest way of sending orders on the battlefield was through the boys who made up the British Army Corps of Drums. Communications were sent using different drum beats to convey the various orders. Those boys, many as young as ten years of age, did their part in defending the Empire and never flinched from their duty”.
I knew that (years ago) the British Army enlisted underage youngsters, but I never knew they were as young as ten! Also I never knew that the Army used different drum beats to convey orders. I’d always assumed that military orders were always written. I suppose these drums were the forerunner to the modern IT communications systems employed by the military!
So what of the CD itself? To quote the sleeve notes again, it’s full of “Stirring marches, jigs, traditional Orange tunes and a drum salute featuring beats that would have been used in campaigns such as the Crimea and Waterloo”.
Those interested in Orange tunes should listen out for a beautiful rendition of On Boyne’s Red Shore. There’s also some old standards like Aces High (track 7) and Colonel Bogey (track 8). As well as this, there’s an interesting interpretation of the old Beatles classic Hey Jude. I think it’s interwoven with another Beatles song but I’m not too sure which one. (I’m only a young thing – and the Beatles were way, way, before my time!)
All of the tracks are crisp and clear. The whole CD is uplifting – there’s a certain ‘feelgood factor’ about Old Comrades – so much so that you’ll find yourself either conducting an imaginary orchestra or marching up and down the living room with the band! I certainly worked up a bit of a sweat beating the hell out of an imaginary Bass drum whilst listening to the Rakes of Kildare (track 17).
I found the range of instruments used by the band staggering. There’s Drums, Bass Drums, Cymbals, Triangle, Piccolo, 1st Flute, 2nd Flute and F Flute. (I must admit I don’t know the first thing about musical instruments or bands, so I haven’t got the faintest idea of what the difference is between all of these flutes! Perhaps a reader of Kerr’s Corner could help out here?).
Old Comrades by the Imperial Corps of Drums, Liverpool is an excellent CD and a fitting tribute to the men and boys of the British Army Corps of Drums. It’s also opened my eyes to military music - a completely new musical genre for me. I’d highly recommend this CD to anyone. Get hold of your copy today!
NORTHERN IRELAND’S music fans are taking more interest than usual in the annual Brit Awards ceremony on February 10th. Our own home-grown talent, the indie band Snow Patrol, have three nominations. They have been nominated for the best British group and also the best British rock act. This second award is to be chosen by viewers of the Kerrang! cable and satellite television channel. Their third album, Final Straw, has been nominated for best British album.
To add to all this acclaim, Snow Patrol have also been nominated as best Irish band and Final Straw as best Irish album in the Irish Meteor Awards at the Point in Dublin on February 24th. Things are looking up for the lads who are due to go touring the US in May.
All this success wasn’t handed to them on a plate, however. Kerr's Corner recently spoke to the band’s energetic drummer, Johnny Quinn. We wondered why Snow Patrol was doing so well when other Ulster bands never get beyond the local club and bar circuit. Johnny’s recipe for success is perseverance. Many give up before their chance of getting into the big-time comes up. He says, “Don’t give up!” Bands need a real determination to succeed, hard work, time for rehearsal and a lot of luck. As he put it to me, “It took us seven years to become an ‘overnight’ success.” Their influences were the grunge scene, Nirvana, hip-hop, Northern soul and country music.
The lads, he thinks, probably had an advantage in that their first gigs were in Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh where it was easier to come to the notice of record companies. Northern Ireland’s geographical isolation and the troubles meant that local bands often had to travel to London to get their big break. Record executives were quite reluctant to travel to Belfast.
What are Snow Patrol’s chances in the Brits, then? Johnny doesn’t expect to win this time around. He reckons that the Scots sensation, Franz Ferdinand – which come head-to-head against Snow Patrol on each nomination – are more likely to win. Not that this fazes him. No more singles are to be released from the Final Straw album, so the nominations will keep the popular band and the critically acclaimed album in the public eye for a while yet. However, the band may do better in the Meteor Awards where they played last year.
They played to sellout gigs last year in the Ulster Hall, Belfast on December 21st and the RDS in Dublin on December 29th where they got a great reception. For Johnny, these were the best gigs they have yet played. This strong home support may well be translated into votes on the night. We’ll just have to wait and see.
In the meantime, local fans will have to make do with watching the lads on TV or listening to their CDs including another new album under the Polydor Fiction label. There will be no local gigs until 2006! They need a break before flying of in May to tour the States where they are currently lying 91st in the Billboard charts.
We asked Johnny where the band hoped to be in 2015. Nobody can know the future, he says, but he hopes that they will still be making albums and able to get away with not having to get up early in the morning!
Readers can keep up-to-date with all the band’s activities on www.snowpatrol.net
Thanks to Ciara and her mates from Year 10, Ballyclare High School for their help with the Snow Patrol interview.
To add to all this acclaim, Snow Patrol have also been nominated as best Irish band and Final Straw as best Irish album in the Irish Meteor Awards at the Point in Dublin on February 24th. Things are looking up for the lads who are due to go touring the US in May.
All this success wasn’t handed to them on a plate, however. Kerr's Corner recently spoke to the band’s energetic drummer, Johnny Quinn. We wondered why Snow Patrol was doing so well when other Ulster bands never get beyond the local club and bar circuit. Johnny’s recipe for success is perseverance. Many give up before their chance of getting into the big-time comes up. He says, “Don’t give up!” Bands need a real determination to succeed, hard work, time for rehearsal and a lot of luck. As he put it to me, “It took us seven years to become an ‘overnight’ success.” Their influences were the grunge scene, Nirvana, hip-hop, Northern soul and country music.
The lads, he thinks, probably had an advantage in that their first gigs were in Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh where it was easier to come to the notice of record companies. Northern Ireland’s geographical isolation and the troubles meant that local bands often had to travel to London to get their big break. Record executives were quite reluctant to travel to Belfast.
What are Snow Patrol’s chances in the Brits, then? Johnny doesn’t expect to win this time around. He reckons that the Scots sensation, Franz Ferdinand – which come head-to-head against Snow Patrol on each nomination – are more likely to win. Not that this fazes him. No more singles are to be released from the Final Straw album, so the nominations will keep the popular band and the critically acclaimed album in the public eye for a while yet. However, the band may do better in the Meteor Awards where they played last year.
They played to sellout gigs last year in the Ulster Hall, Belfast on December 21st and the RDS in Dublin on December 29th where they got a great reception. For Johnny, these were the best gigs they have yet played. This strong home support may well be translated into votes on the night. We’ll just have to wait and see.
In the meantime, local fans will have to make do with watching the lads on TV or listening to their CDs including another new album under the Polydor Fiction label. There will be no local gigs until 2006! They need a break before flying of in May to tour the States where they are currently lying 91st in the Billboard charts.
We asked Johnny where the band hoped to be in 2015. Nobody can know the future, he says, but he hopes that they will still be making albums and able to get away with not having to get up early in the morning!
Readers can keep up-to-date with all the band’s activities on www.snowpatrol.net
Thanks to Ciara and her mates from Year 10, Ballyclare High School for their help with the Snow Patrol interview.
CD Review: Return To Splendor by The King aka Jim Brown.
RETURN TO SPLENDOR by The King aka Jim Brown.
15 Tracks. Running Time: 58 minutes 38 seconds.
“PLEASE ALLOW me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste” – the first line of the famous Rolling Stones song, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ – a song about the devil in disguise. I hadn’t expected to find this on an album by Northern Ireland’s foremost Elvis tribute act. Nevertheless, it’s there as the first track of Jim Brown’s second album, ‘Return to Splendor’. I thought that Gravelands was good, but that was just a warm up for this truly splendid CD. Shame about the spelling!
An Elvis fan for many years, I might be expected to welcome any decent tribute to the late King of Rock and Roll. True enough, but until listening to ‘Gravelands’ and this CD, I’d only thought of Elvis tribute acts singing Elvis songs! Who else could get away with adding that special Elvis touch to such a variety of songs and styles? From that opening Stones ballad, through the fast-paced ‘The House is Rockin’’, and country standards like ‘King of the Road’ and a very upbeat cover of ‘Take me Home Country Road’ to apparently outlandish tracks like the Sex Pistols’ classic ‘Pretty Vacant’, ‘The King’ makes them all his own. There’s not a weak track on it!
I particularly liked ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ and ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ as they gave The King’s Band a chance to excel in some wonderful instrumentals. I also loved the Elvisly-influenced gender-swapped version of Dusty Springfield’s ‘Son of a Preacher Man’. On this album she becomes ‘Child of a Preacher man’ with the occasional touch of ‘Elvis That’s the Way it is’ style comments throughout the track! Wow! The album winds down with a pleasant cover of the ever-popular ‘What a Wonderful World’ and a cheerful version of Dean Martin’s tearjerker, ‘Little Ole Wine Drinker, Me’ that quite belies the self-pitying lyrics.
Quite why this talented singer has been so little recognised at home beats me. The man is a musical virtuoso, but his record label is German. He’s bigger there than he is here, so it’s good to see him getting a bit more airplay on Gerry Anderson’s Radio Ulster show in the last few months. I hope that the renewed interest in this talented artist will bring many new faces to his Elvis Spectacular Show in the Clarion Hotel in Carrickfergus on March 3rd.
