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Day: 4 April 2013

Interview: David Ford

Written by Tom Ingham on . Posted in Music.

“People are buying less and less; the quality of music is deteriorating so if you put out something of quality people will take interest.” David Ford speaks to me after the release of his New Album Charge and prior to his sold out gig at The Deaf Institute. “The people who come to my shows and listen to my records seek me out and remember me even though I’m not on the TV and radio.”

David approaches live shows differently to most singer-songwriters, using a Boss loop pedal to build and layer songs without anyone else, effectively becoming a one man band. “The loop machine is only for live use, in the studio I like to do things old school and organic, I try and pretend I’m using a tape machine so I don’t cheat too much. The Looping style was born out of fun; I was never good enough as a guitarist or a piano player to freak out with some awesome moves, but because I could do a bit of everything I could and put it all together quite easily.” This approach isn’t without its problems, with just one mistake being enough to ruin the whole process. “It’s gone really wrong a few times, most of the time it’s when you put a really bad note in or just trip over, but you don’t want to eliminate all the danger because without that you don’t have the same sense of excitement. It’s like plate spinning, you kind of want it just to prove it can go wrong – and it does”

David’s annual Milk and Cookies gigs allow him to experiment and indulge in genres that we wouldn’t perhaps associate with singer-songwriters, whilst raising money for a good cause. “The charity gigs are just about getting drunk and having a laugh really. The most challenging cover I ever tried to do was ‘Bat Out of Hell’, it’s very long and it never repeats itself – I never quite nailed it, it was an impossible task on the one piano and to even get close was good enough.”

Released in March, Charge climbed to number 12 in the iTunes charts with relatively little PR. But despite this success his approach to record making hasn’t changed. “It was me in a basement and that was it, no-one else entered the basement for 18 months, although I did occasionally come out to see the sunlight. Working alone is a necessity for me, and its free – my time is worthless. I also like the self determination of it; I stand or fall from my own efforts. If it fucks up I don’t have a producer to blame.” This isolated existence is a very necessary one, and one that doesn’t welcome outsiders. “I can’t co-write, my process is very solitary. To me it doesn’t make sense to write with someone else. It’s a very personal process that happens by accident, I couldn’t do it on a given day or time,”

Playing smaller venues like The Deaf Institute, the audience is treated to a far more intimate show where the humour and the personality of the artist comes across, however if Wembley came knocking he wouldn’t shy away. “It’s a challenge I’d welcome if it ever arose, I’m not cursing my luck playing in these smaller venues. It’s much easier to engage an audience this close. I’ve never been to a gig in a stadium but I imagine the performer has to be pretty damn special to create a connection from 100 yards away. But I don’t think the problem of stadia is something I need to worry about right now.”

Ford wrote his book I Choose This on his experience of nearly making it in the industry, reflecting on what held him back. “I’m holding myself back for certain, and I don’t know how close I ever really got to ‘making it’. I had a deal with what I consider to be the greatest record label that ever existed, Columbia – home of Springsteen, Paul Simon, Jeff Buckley and anyone who was anything to me was on that label. But they were going through some very difficult changes, basically destroying the label to build it back up again and there wasn’t the inclination to get behind me and to be honest I didn’t have the record to do it either.” The mind set of someone trying to be famous is also one David has little time for. “One of the things you have to do to make it big is to peruse that fame at the cost of everything else, and I have friends who wanted to be famous and have became famous and that’s great. Personally I would find it difficult to reconcile myself if I did that, rather than just for sheer excellence.”

Despite his time with Columbia he has no resentment for the industry. “I’ve absolutely no bitterness towards the industry, I’ve not had a job for 13 years and I’m 35 this year. I’m the luckiest guy in the world because I love what I do and I can just about pay the mortgage. It’s never about the money; I do it because it’s very important to the world and wellbeing of humanity that I make records.”

“The industry is a reflection of how the world’s going, the problems with music are similar to the problems in football, we’re in an age of shortermism. It’s people who want everything now and want to get paid for it. Like Chelsea not renewing Frank Lampards contract – the man deserves to be on the books for life.”

The death of Rock n Roll (as he calls it) and the time in which we live is the biggest factor in affecting his popularity. “Popular music as an art form was a blip; it was all to do with population growth. We had a war that wiped all lot of people out – it was pure demographics. The ages that people were in the 50’s and 60’s were perfect, pop music was intelligent and poetic and the audiences were enlightened enough to get it. Standards haven’t fallen but the population has moved on. Popular music now is different because the people have changed, and what I do isn’t popular anymore and that’s cool, however there are still enough people who still get it for me to carry on.”

Briefly studying Drama in Manchester, David has some fond memories of the city but not necessarily its music. “I’ve got to say, no offence intended to Manchester, but I fucking hated Oasis, and I think the Stone Roses are kind of responsible for killing music. For me The Bee Gees and Simply Red are the two best bands to come out of Manchester. The problem with the Stone roses was it was way too heterosexual, before that music was all a little bit gay, and it does need to be a bit sweet and camp – they were so straight it was painful, and then all of a sudden lads started making music. The Stone Roses were a death nail for music and other bands even if they didn’t sound like them there was a certain attitude that followed on from that.”

David Ford’s new album Charge is out now and is available from iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/id600620925?affId=2220393

http://www.davidfordmusic.com/2013/03/where-to-get-david-fords-new-album-charge/

Live: Eels

Written by Joe Goggins on . Posted in Music.

17th March 2013

Academy 1

8/10

Back on the road in support of his tenth record under the Eels moniker, Mark Oliver Everett – or E, as he’s known whilst on band duty – is not a musician I’d had the opportunity to see live before. A friend of mine, who’s a die-hard Eels fan, had done little to provide a clear picture of what I should expect from a frontman known to be a little difficult at times. “Sometimes, he’ll come on, play the songs and get off without uttering a word, and other times he’ll be hilarious, interacting with the crowd all night and generally putting on a great show.”

Tonight, it’s the latter that’s the case, as E stakes a convincing claim for the title of indie rock’s most enthralling frontman. Decked out, like his bandmates, in an Adidas tracksuit, he’s on rare form throughout, joking with both band and crowd and even, at one point, pausing to ‘renew his vows’ with guitarist The Chet, before drummer Knuckles delivers a stirring rendition of ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’; the band reciprocate with an quick, improvised jam, ‘Go Knuckles!’, by way of thanks.

The evening’s setlist, unsurprisingly, leans heavily on latet effort Wonderful, Glorious; with ten records and a raft of EPs already behind them, you have to wonder exactly how you’d best go about putting together a running order for an Eels show. It’s a little surprising, then, that they’re able to accommodate the straight-up hard rockers, which dominate their repertoire tonight, as well as a few quieter moments; ‘The Turnaround’ and ‘Dirty Girl’ are particular highlights. Inevitably, there’s a host of disappointing high-profile exclusions, but at least the band have strived to find creative ways to squeeze as much into each show as possible – an inventive mashup of ‘My Beloved Monster’ and ‘Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues’ opens the encore.

The real triumph tonight, though, is E himself; so often portrayed as awkward and brooding, onstage he’s a revelation; personable and witty, he makes the Eels live show one of the most consistently entertaining on the circuit.

‘Man! I feel like a woman’

Written by Susie Coen on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

You wouldn’t enter enemy territory without armour, and that is exactly what the power suit used to be for women: a shield against the brutal patriarchal business world. Although it might appear a trivial analogy, in a society where women were chained to their kitchen sinks, looking fierce reiterated that girls ran the world (well, we didn’t then but we do now). Yet today we don’t need to be kitted out with shoulder pads to show we mean business and the trouser suit can be worn on a daily basis. So how did the Power Suit come into being? And does its demise mean that women have gained enough confidence that we can face battle unarmed?

Sowing the seeds of the power suit in the 1920s, Chanel designed skirt suits which liberated women from restrictive clothing like the dreaded corset. Chanel’s suits consisted of knitted cardigans and matching skirts, not quite the polyester suits we are used to today but still a revolutionary step. Around the same time, the adored German actress Marlene Dietrich exhibited a male suit with bow tie and matching top hat and looked powerful, sexy and down right fabulous. Following the example of Dietrich, the fantastic Katharine Hepburn demonstrated that it was possible to wear a trouser suit and maintain your femininity. Her role as Tess Harding in the 1942 sensation ‘Woman of the Year’ influenced innumerable women about how to dress to get recognised in the business world.

Photo: crisandcros.com

In the swinging ’60s nobody can be more accredited for helping women’s suits gain prominence than Yves Saint Laurent. The creation in 1966 of YSL’s infamous Le Smoking suit paved the way for androgyny to gain momentum. The style gained even greater attention in 1971 as Bianca Jagger married her beloved Mick whilst wearing a white Le Smoking jacket designed by YSL, although as Mrs Jagger decided to wear nothing under the suit jacket, this exact look wasn’t quite mimicked in the office. However, although Bianca’s suit wasn’t present at board meetings, the second-wave feminism of the 1970s inspired the power suit to explode into people’s wardrobes. Suits emerged which exaggerated women’s shoulders, deeming her a force to be reckoned with. Skirts were more often than not traded for trousers and combined with a double-breasted jacket. Giorgio Armani was one of the many designers who embraced this look, creating unstructured designs with relaxed jackets. This contrasted with Donna Karan who endorsed women’s sexuality by incorporating designs such as wrap skirts to enhance their curves.

Photo: lookingstylish.co.uk Photo: igossip.com

At the power suit’s peak, the 1980s showed sharp cuts, rigidity and superiority. The 1988 film ‘Working Girl’ demonstrated the influence that a structured suit could have on a woman’s career, as the secretary Tess McGill managed to climb the ladder of success after stealing the skirt suits of her boss. Along with this, the election of Maggie Thatcher indicated just how powerful women had become, as she donned her power suit in 10 Downing Street. Yet she wasn’t quite the style icon young women desired. Rather, Madonna became the ultimate role model of that era, and her 1990 Blonde Ambition tour simultaneously inspired girls and revolutionised fashion. Madonna mixed a Jean Paul Gaultier pinstripe suit with a conical corset giving birth to the idea of contrasting the masculine and the feminine, and women everywhere began mixing lace shirts with their trouser suits.

Yet throughout the late 1990s, the power suit’s popularity began to fall and by 2000 it was deemed near extinction. The new workplace look for women became more feminine, softer cuts and feminine colours such as pinks appeared more and more. Along with this, the trouser suit has become adapted into everyday fashion; it can be worn to university or even to the supermarket.

But the power suit’s disappearance is not due to women losing power, quite the opposite. With more and more women on top, they can decide what they wear and when they want to wear it. Rather than being restricted into attempting to fit into the male businessman exterior, women all over the world now enjoy the freedom to dress how they want but still maintain their authority.