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Day: 18 January 2014

Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Written by Robbie Davidson on . Posted in Film.

If the message of Wall Street, the seminal Wall Street movie of the 80s, was “greed is good”, then surely the message of The Wolf of Wall Street, the Wall Street movie for the post-financial crisis generation, is “greed is great and there is fuck all you can do about it”.

Yet even ‘greed’ doesn’t quite do justice to the sheer, unrelenting excess of the The Wolf of Wall Street and its leading man Jordan Belfort (Leonardo Dicaprio). From snorting cocaine off a prostitute’s behind, orgies on airplanes, crashing helicopters on front lawns, to laundering millions in Swiss bank accounts, everything Belfort does is excessive. At moments you might even think the running time is excessive, but Martin Scorsese crafts every scene with the electric energy of a director half his age and ensures this three hour epic stands alongside the other great crime sagas of his illustrious career.

Worryingly for a film about a stockbroker who stole millions of dollars and ruined the lives of hundreds of people, The Wolf of Wall Street is also Scorsese’s most entertaining film in years. A particular scene, Belfort having discovered his phones have been tapped by the FBI, rushes to get home to stop his associate Donny (Jonah Hill) from incriminating them, but the extremely potent  Quaaludes he has taken makes the simple trip down the stairs near impossible. Dicaprio is agonisingly funny in this scene and throughout the film, delivering what is a career-best performance.

Some have even been critical of the film accusing it of glamorising the lifestyle of Belfort and his criminal cohorts, without ever acknowledging the disastrous impact their actions had of the ordinary people they’d swindled. However as the credits rolled, whilst nobody could deny that the film does not shy away from portraying all the riches enjoyed by those at the top, the overwhelming feeling is that of anger. Anger that after everything, Belfort still manages to land on his feet, and anger that nothing has really changed on Wall Street. This anger is clearly felt by Scorsese too, who doesn’t hold back, in the final half hour, from portraying the ugly side of Belfort’s fall from grace and the personal consequences of his actions.

Perhaps more of the film could have been dedicated to depicting Belfort finally having to answer for his crimes, but if that meant sacrificing some of the genuinely hilarious exchanges between Belfort and Donnie, or losing some of the great cameo appearances from the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Jean Dujardin, Rob Reiner and, er, Joanna Lumley (you read that correctly), then it’s better left unchanged

There are plenty of excellent films which portray the stark realism of the Wall Street culture and its repercussions. The Wolf of Wall Street is not one of them. The Wolf of Wall Street is a highly entertaining and study of a man who remains resolutely unchanged, and unrepentant for the lifestyle he has lived, and invites you to enjoy it with him whilst it’s good, before you desperately pray it goes bad.

★★★★

Interview: Crystal Fighters

Written by Matthew Staite on . Posted in Music.

If you had been on the road for as long as Crystal Fighters, you would be understandably tired. Surprisingly though, they don’t show it, even after rushing up the UK to Manchester after playing a sold out show at London’s Brixton Academy last night. “It’s turned into a never ending tour, as Bob Dylan described it”, Sebastian jokes about Crystal Fighter’s current tour, which has been going on for nearly six months since before the release of Cave Rave in May. The tour has taken them to cities across Europe, America, to an actual rave in a cave in the basque country of northern Spain, and now finally to the home stretch of the UK. “The tour has been a long journey, but we treat every day as a new story”. This is evident from the band’s continued injection of vast amounts of energy into their shows, despite this extensive touring schedule.

With Cave Rave, there has been a clear shift in style from the thumping dance style of their largely self produced first album. When probed into the reasons of this change, Sebastian puts it down to a renewed interest in acoustic guitars, and the albums isolated recording in the Basque Country and LA. Not to mention the influence of new producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen, who has produced albums by the likes of Foals. Out of the new album “‘You and I’, is my favourite song to play live, for its range of styles, but we still enjoy playing material like ‘I Do This Everyday’ from the first album.” It’s good to hear that Crystal Fighters aren’t spurning their roots.

Two of the factors which make Crystal Fighters so distinct is their wide range of instruments, and the unique atmosphere they create at their live shows. “We try to visit most of the cities we play, and most of the instruments are picked up along the way”. Extensive touring of Spain has resulted in the band using instruments from their adopted Basque heritage, such as the txalaparta, danbolin, and the txistu. While those names seem hard enough to even pronounce, “the instruments themselves are mostly percussion based, so they are quite easy to learn”. When asked how Crystal Fighters create the party vibe which is so present throughout all of their shows, Sebastian is quick to respond. “We all DJ a lot, which has the impetus of getting to people to dance for a whole night, and so getting people to dance for an hour seems easy”.

“A lot of the music we all like and are influenced by, we bring out through our DJing”. One of these influences is Mexican 3bal music, a mix of hispanic music with elements of house music blended in, which is as abstract as it sounds. “My advice is to check out an artist called Erick Rincon if you want to get a flavour of it.”

Crystal Fighters know a thing or two about throwing a party, whether in a cave or not. If the Crystal Fighters were running a festival this year, Sebastian considers his dream headliners carefully. “Vampire Weekend – who every time I’ve seen them I’ve seriously been blown away by”, fit the indie band bill. Aretha Franklin, ticks the legendary solo artist box. “As for the last night, I’d have to choose a wild card – Rihanna”. We’ll have trust him on this one.

Interview: Young Rebel Set

Written by Jamie Bulman on . Posted in Music.

Young Rebel Set are a folk-rock band from Stockton-on-Tees, a small town way up north. Their sound fuses the ‘chugging beats’ of Americana and Country artists such as Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan with the punky grit of Northern England. In wake of their sophomore album released in September last year, YRS rocked Manchester’s Soup Kitchen back in November. I spoke to lead singer Matt about the gig…

‘We had a brilliant gig! Having started our career here it’s nice to see it build in steps, gradually building bigger and bigger audiences, with more and more people singing along. It’s really qualitative to see things growing!’ The new album Crocodile is filled with sing-along sentiment, with Matt Chipchase’s powerful vocals perfectly complimenting the band’s simmering grunge. ‘We’re really riding the wave at the moment – everything’s totally surpassed expectations! We’ve broadened our horizons with the new album and are letting it grow organically.’

As well as their success in the UK, YRS are a sensation in Germany and Switzerland, where they are currently midway through their 2nd tour of the new album. ‘We broke into the scene completely by accident, and treated our first tour out there like a bit of a holiday, but suddenly we found ourselves playing sold-out shows!’

‘The Lash of The Whip’ is the single from Crocodile, and is a real doff of the proverbial hat to indie bands like The Cribs and The Libertines, unfortunately a dying breed these days. The rousing organ and relentless drumbeat evoke memories of sweaty mosh-pits and spilt lager. Matt cites ‘Unforgiven’ as his favourite song from the album, written quickly and recorded live ‘as is’, he describes it as ‘thinking out loud’. A stripped down, emotive confession of guilt, the song breaks down into a Dylan-esque folk-rock stomp mid-way through.

In spite of the band’s frequent and arbitrary association with Nu-Folk, Matt maintains that YRS are ‘a rock band who use acoustic guitars. We don’t play to it, and don’t want to get caught up and confined by genre. People will take what they want from it.’

This band’s haughty and original acoustic rock make them well worth a listen, and their live show is not one to miss!

 

 

Album: A Day To Remember – Common Courtesy

Written by Donald Spencer on . Posted in Music.

Released 25th November, 2013

Self-release

8/10

A Day to Remember have been owning the Pop-mosh scene since 2003, they seem like a pretty youthful band still, but that’s ten years of dominance. Their early years saw them playing small venues around Ocala Florida, nowadays they are selling out venues only a step down from arenas (that includes Manchester’s prestigious Apollo).

Just like their gigs, the quality of their music seems to be rapidly improving. Their first record And Their Name Was Treason was thrown together in three days in record producer Andrew Wade’s bedroom, credited as the Wade Studio. From this release they acquired a massive local following, vocalist Jeremy Mckinnon claiming that fans all around Ocala knew the words to their shabby tracks. Jeremy admits the band had ‘’no idea what they were doing’’ yet they continued their success with their second album For Those Who Have Heart, a significant step up in production and overall brutality. Their most hailed record to date Homesick was released in 2009, and was welcomed with critical acclaim, as was the follow up in 2011 What Separates Me From You.

Onto Common Courtesy then, a holistic approach wouldn’t do the album justice so I’m going to talk about a few tracks instead. The opener ‘City of Ocala’ (yes, a reference to their hometown) is an instant banger: energetic, emotional and all round fun. It is a nod to their humble beginnings and an acknowledgement of how far they’ve come as a band. A solid beginning to a solid album. The second track ’Right Back At It Again’ is classic ADTR with that hardcore breakdown feel along with the cheesy pop punk guitairs and lyrics: ‘‘You’re too cool for school I ain’t here to make no friends.’’ These two openers are worthy tracks that suck you straight into the record. Once you’re sucked in though, you sort of get chewed up and spat out, for the middle part of the record at least. ‘Dead and Buried’ and ‘Sometimes You’re The Hammer, Sometimes You’re The Nail’ are good, catchy tracks; they’re heavy and are sure to get the crowd moving, but leave a bit to be desired in the choruses. The next few tracks are soon forgotten, using the same formula which is sure to get ADTR into trouble if they don’t start to experiment – ‘Violence’ which was surprisingly the lead single off the album seems to be an attempt to show how heavy they can be, which is totally unnecessary for such an all rounded, talented band.

Don’t worry, all isn’t lost. Following the not-so-awesome mid section of the album is the best song A Day To Remember have ever written in my opinion – ‘Life@11’. It’s not anything new, but it is lyrically touching, full of energy and it truly encapsulates the pop-punk vibe A Day To Remember are no strangers to. Lyrics can be looked at from a number of perspectives, but it seems here that Jeremy is speaking about his personal demons. It’s an honest track that can’t be faulted.

The back of the album is a funny mix, there’s a couple of acoustic tracks which feel like they started off with a good basis but never really reached their full potential. There is also ‘Life Lessons Learned The Hard Way’ which is a death-metal-esque track, and without a doubt the heaviest song the band have ever written. At the 1:30 point Jeremy screams ’You live your life as a fucking target’ followed by a breakdown so earth-shaking I had to physically stop what I was doing when I heard it. The album wraps up with a couple of decent tracks – ‘The Document Speaks For Itself’ with its droning guitar intro and drawn out chorus is very reminiscent of their second release For Those Who Have Heart.

The title of the song begs whether or not the song refers to the recently won legal dispute between the band and Victory Records, if you’ve heard of this record, you’ve heard of this dispute, but that’s a different matter.

The closing track on the album ‘I Remember’ is upbeat musically but melancholy in its lyrical content, it’s a whopping 9 minutes long (very lengthy by ADTR’s standards) – but the latter half is simply a recording of the band talking nonsense. Is it necessary? Not really. Is it what I want to hear on an A Day To Remember album? Not really.

I feel as if some parts of this review may have sold Common Courtesy slightly short – make no mistake, ADTR are one of the best bands around and anything they produce is still golden by default, including this. Overall, Common Courtesy is a great record, but only the amazing few tracks it has props it up as a contender amongst their other records. It’s no less a record than their others, nor is it anything more. Common Courtesy sees A Day To Remember being formulaic, a formula one can’t help but wonder if they can afford to keep up, Common Courtesy also sees A Day To Remember belt out some of the best songs they have ever concocted and it looks like we will hear plenty more from them in due time.

Album: Toy – Join The Dots

Written by Cordelia Milward on . Posted in Music.

Released 9th December, 2013

Heavenly Records

5/10

Only a year after the release of Toy’s self-titled debut album, the announcement of Join The Dots seemed a little premature. Bands often struggle to overcome ‘second album syndrome’ and with Join The Dots sounding more like a collection of demos than a matured follow up album, this cliché is proven to be true. An unspoken rule says that songs lasting over seven minutes have got to be worth your while, but the three tracks on Join The Dots that extend beyond a traditional length, sound more like a gig rehearsal. Left waiting for the lengthy introduction to lead to something spectacular, the climax that makes just a minor appearance is somewhat underwhelming. ‘Conductor’ opens the album, progressing from ethereal eeriness to some sort of space rocket crash, proving that Toy are not about conforming to any musical norms. But while the psychedelic sound of ‘Frozen Atmosphere’ and ‘To A Death Unknown’ re-establish Toy’s title as krautrock chiefs, they’re the kind of songs that would work much better live.

In spite of its seven minute duration, the album’s title-track works well in staying the coherent side of experimentalism, with a catchy chorus sustaining the structure from which improvisation can be built. Likewise songs such as ‘Endlessly’ and ‘You Won’t Be The Same’ find the right balance between the obviousness of pop that Toy are keen to avoid, and the aimless psychedelia the rest of the album captures. Elsewhere tracks are made up of layers of sound that develop little by little until the individual instruments are indecipherable. This multi-layered mash up of noise is complemented by the monotone drone of Tom Dougal’s vocals, which remain unchanging throughout the entire record. If psychedelia is meant to endorse a sense of hallucination preferable to reality, Toy’s new album drags you to place that would probably grow dull very soon.

Tame Impala manage to capture a similar hallucinogenic sound and make it accessible to the masses, but that is clearly not the intention of Toy. As ‘Fall Out Of Love’ closes the album, falling only a few seconds short of ten minutes, Join The Dots can be epitomised by its opening and closing tracks. By honing in on experimentalism, Toy manage to avoid the manufactured sound of commercialism, but that doesn’t make the album any easier for your average listener to digest.

 

Live: Farao

Written by Robert Firth on . Posted in Music.

16th December

The Deaf Institute

7/10

The Deaf Institute’s chic décor and cool ambiance made it the ideal venue for songstress Farao, aka Kari Jahnsen, to warm up the crowd with her Nordic infused folk melodies. The simple set embellished just by cloth embroidered with heraldic stitching, complementing the venue’s bird inspired wallpaper.

The set was brief: Jahnsen played her breakthrough singles ‘Tell a Lie’ and ‘Skin’, a cover of Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘Go with the Flow’ and a couple of lesser known singles. Accompanied solely by a woman who provided keyboard accompaniment and backing vocals, Farao’s strong vocal presence and adept handling of harmonies was brought to the forefront of the performance. Cryptically, for unexplained reasons, the rest of her band couldn’t be there tonight. The performance suffered in their absence: Farao’s songs are heavily instrumental and the lack of backing meant at times the performance could be sparse, albeit harmonious.

One of the best moments of the set came when Farao covered ‘Go with the Flow’, asking the audience if anyone didn’t recognise it. When somebody confessed they didn’t, she responded “well you should’ve known it then”. It was a moment that exposed Jahnsen’s playful charisma which the set could have at times done with more of: the audience was as she noted “very quiet”.

Despite that, her performance was in general captivating enough: the layered vocal harmonies were beautifully carried off and Jahnsen with her scant, witty remarks and little movement is an imposing figure on stage. Whilst at the beginning the set could sometimes feel a bit amateur, with Jahnsen loudly requesting “more vocals please”, as it progressed the intricate melodies ascended to supremacy. Initially restless, the audience (of whom it seemed the majority were unaware of Farao before, and passing time before Ásgeir came on) became absorbed in her spare yet melodious performance.

Interview: Rey Pila

Written by Rachel Connolly on . Posted in Music.

I arrive at Night and Day cafe just as Mexican rockers Rey Pila are finishing their sound check. I watch the last few songs and then sit down for a chat with lead singer and founder of the band Diego Solorzano and guitarist Miguel Hernandez. Rey Pila have experienced impressive success in the two years since developing from Solorzano’s solo project into the four piece it is today. The band moved to New York in 2012 to work with Chris Coady (Beach House, Smith Westerns) to produce the debut album for Rey Pila’s current formation, swiftly signed with Julian Casablanca’s label ‘Cult Records’ and have spent the better part of the past few months touring with Albert Hammond Jr. I am curious as to whether or not this rush of fame will have made divas of the boys.

We sit down to talk and Soloranzo and Hernandez greet me politely and offer me a drink, quickly dispelling my reservations about diva behaviour. We talk about how the band are finding their first tour of Europe, they say they have loved their recent shows in Glasgow and the North because of the dynamic audience. Solorzano identifies strongly with the friendly Northern stereotype, comparing it to the laid back national character of native South America.

On the subject of the band’s native country, we discuss the choice to make a new album entirely in English. Rey Pila’s first album had a mixture of English and Spanish songs and I ask if Mexican fans consider this swap unpatriotic. Solorzano says he has experienced negativity and some “seriously bad reactions” but insists the decision is not commercially motivated. Having tried his music in Spanish, he says the music simply sounds better in English. He has a point, the synth, guitar pop that characterises ‘No Longer Fun’ and ‘Alexander’ is rooted in England’s 80s pop scene. The catchy, playful lyrics are filled with stock phrases and references that are probably lost in Spanish. Influences are “Roxy Music, David Bowie, The Ramones, all 80s music is good”, Solorzano pauses and laughs, “well maybe not all 80s music”. They say they love pop but try not to take too much influence from current artists to try and make their own music distinct.

Hernandez is wearing a brilliantly eye catching coat, a floor length fur lined affair, apparently a hand me down from his uncle. We discuss the link between music and style. With Bowie and Roxy Music as influences they must see fashion and showmanship as an imperative part of music, but has this relationship gone too far, is music today too much of a circus? They agree that this is an issue, talking about the wave of similar sounding, identical looking indie bands, who all “look like paid up members of the Topman club”. Both agree that the secret to their success has been differentiating themselves from other bands by taking influence from older artists rather than their peers.

Rey Pila are travelling back to Mexico soon, skipping the Italian leg of the tour to play a big home show. So how different does it feel to play to a mass of devoted fans in Mexico, compared to a small crowd, some of whom haven’t even heard of Rey Pila? The challenge of getting the audience involved is actually an incentive, rather than off putting. “When people start getting into it in the middle of a set, I think that’s really cool”, says Solorzano. This attitude is the antithesis of the sulky rockstar caricature and displays a genuine passion for performing and entertaining. Touring with Hammond has been “really fun, the cool thing about him, despite his fame, is that he’s just a dude.” The same could be said of this unassuming pair.

The recent success of the band has impressive future implications, I ask the boys if they see themselves as having made it and is this where they pictured themselves as teenagers? They question what ‘it’ is, “we didn’t finish high-school, but you’re not supposed to say that”, they both laugh. “I always saw myself making music and playing every night to people who love music, that’s really cool”, says Solorzano, so I suppose we’ve found our ‘it’.

I see the band at the end of the show standing at the bar where they appear to have been watching Hammond’s show and mingling with the crowd. I tell them that I really enjoyed their show and that Diego has a wonderful voice, they’re modest and say its great to play for a responsive audience and they’ve had a great night. Polite and modest behaviour from a band with old school rock stage presence and undisputable talent. Rey Pila are definitely one to watch.

Interview: Albert Hammond Jr.

Written by Dan Whiteley on . Posted in Music.

It’s been an eventful few years for Albert Hammond Jr. – having shot to fame as one fifth of game-changing indie rockers The Strokes in 2001, he’s spent the last half a decade juggling commitments to both the band and his solo efforts. This year alone has seen the release of The Strokes’ hotly anticipated fifth album, Comedown Machine, as well as his own AHJ EP, the latter of which Hammond is currently promoting with a handful of small scale European shows. The Mancunion caught up with him – shortly before his sold out performance at the Northern Quarter’s Night and Day Café – to discuss the past, present and future of his impressive career.

“The Strokes weren’t touring or gonna do anything else in the studio, so it just seemed like a little off-time to do it,” Hammond said of his new release, “I’d already been talking to Julian [Casablancas, Strokes frontman] since he started Cult [Records], like a year or two ago, about releasing fun little things on it, and then from that it turned into releasing an EP. At first it was maybe gonna be a song, just release a digital song or a few throughout the year, but everyone got so excited from the first one that we kinda just went on, and by the fifth one it was like “alright, this is great, let’s just put this out before we keep going and have a record but no time to do anything with it.””

The first single from AHJ, ‘St. Justice’ is a bouncy, undeniably Strokes-y piece of power pop; it wouldn’t sound out of place on one of his band’s more recent albums. Explaining how the track came about, Hammond recalls “it started with just keys, just a pad, so I could sing around it, but then I started doing this guitar thing which then became the whole guitar part over it and made it more interesting, then we took out the pad and all of a sudden it was a different thing. That was fun,” he adds, “when you’re just hanging out in your house and you just push mute, and you look up and the song changes so much. Especially if you listen to it a hundred times at all these different stages.”

Whilst Hammond’s fans have been spoiled with regular new music in one form or another as of late, it’s been five years since they’ve had the chance to see him up close and personal in an intimate setting. The Strokes have toured intermittently playing huge arena and festival shows, most notably in support of their 2011 comeback record Angles, but Hammond’s solo ventures are a whole different ball game. “Every time I come back I almost have to start from scratch,” he admits, “in this business, people come and go so fast that five years without playing a show is a long time to come back and just be like “Hey!”. But I mean, it’s fine, it’s part of the fun. It’s not like I didn’t know it was gonna be like that. It’s part of the process. I even felt it in New York, where we’d built it up to this 1,200 capacity room we sold out, and now we need to start again from 500 a night.”

Comedown Machine, The Strokes’ follow up to the chart topping Angles, was released back in March to little fanfare and was their first not accompanied by any sort of concert tour. When asked if there was a conscious decision to dial back the promotion that time around, Hammond quickly asserts “that was definitely a decision… I don’t think we knew that we weren’t gonna tour, it was just the idea of let’s release this record and not do any press and just see what happens. I mean, the thing is we got to a point where the press – us talking – becomes this circle of just gibberish. It just didn’t feel necessary.” More sheepishly, he then admits “I didn’t want it to come about and everyone be like “oh, was Julian there? Do you not talk to each other anymore?” I’d almost rather have it fail than have to deal with that.”

This year is also a special year for the band and its fans, as it marks the tenth anniversary of the Strokes’ second album Room on Fire, a record Hammond clearly has fond memories of. “To me, I prefer it over Is This It, not to put Is This It down – they’re different and I’m glad they both exist – but if I was gonna grab a Strokes album, it’s always the one I would probably start with.” He explains, “When you’re home and you have the time, it’s nice to listen to a full record, and I got stuck on listening to B sides; like the B side of this Elvis record and the B side of Room on Fire. For some reason I just really liked just putting it on repeat. It felt very comfortable.” Despite his pride in the record, he’s not oblivious to the criticism it has received since its release: “We got a lot of slack, just like “oh, it’s just sounds the same as the first”, but time has made me feel like whatever they wrote about it, they were wrong.” He continues, elaborating on his train of thought, “If they could only write an article about those articles put together, it almost sounds like a crazy person… If you were going out with that span of ten years of articles, you’d wanna get divorced so bad.”

Inevitably, as the conversation winds down, the question of The Strokes’ future crops up, which is met with an elusive, albeit optimistic, reply: “We speak, but we don’t know exactly what we’re gonna do yet, or timing-wise. I always still see us doing stuff – just in my opinion,” he says, “but I don’t know when, where or why.”

Live: Noah and the Whale

Written by Ruby Hoffman on . Posted in Music.

9th December

The Deaf Institute

9/10

“Tonight’s the kind of night, where anything could change”, sings lead vocalist Charlie Fink, opening the set with the anthemic ‘L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.’.  This lyric could well set the tone for the gig.  Fresh off supporting American indie pop act Vampire Weekend at arena shows, the last place you’d expect to find Noah and the Whale is at a quietly announced, blink-and-you-might-miss-it gig.  Before the first song, Fink holds up a paper plate on which six songs are written.  “This is our set list”, he explains.  A band this well known in the indie scene could pretty much get away with anything playing a free gig at such a small venue, so perhaps six songs is to be expected.  However, Fink elaborates; clarifying that after these six songs the rest of the gig will consist entirely of requests.  The band has been practicing their old material, making sure they know every word and chord to every song, indicative of their commitment to both the music and their fan base.  This is indeed tested as mingled with popular ballads such as ‘Blue Skies’, fans call out more obscure choices as well.  Even when Fink fumbles the words to the first verse of ‘2 Atoms in a Molecule’ from the band’s first album it’s endearing.

Despite the band’s smart attire (“I’m a bit dressed down tonight”, cracks violinist Tom Hogden in reference to his blazer-less shirt), the atmosphere is one of intimacy and warmth.  Apart from an announcement on social media the day before and a freshly printed flier on the door of the Deaf Institute, there was no hype surrounding the London-based band’s performance at the venue.  As the gig ends with an encore of ‘Life is Life’, even long-term fans of the band have a sense of new appreciation- and this is what live music should be all about.

Interview: Findlay

Written by Bianca Boorer on . Posted in Music.

Backstage after sound checks with the rest of the band mates, a tired and stressed but feeling good Findlay spares a moment to have a chat with me. She reminisces about her days starting out here in her hometown Manchester, “I’m from here so I’ve played here like so many times, I played the ruby lounge the last time I was here and before that I did a residency at the castle and I used to do kind of open mic nights around the Northern Quarter like Trof when I was really young”.  Starting out as a solo artist she left the scene for a bit to put her band together, “wrote a load of band orientated tracks and came back and started doing what I’m doing now.” She describes her genre of music as a “kind of blues meets rock meets jazz meets hiphop. It’s just a mash up of music I like listening to and all my influences.”

Her parents fed her a heavy diet of Blues and Jazz during her childhood, “I really love Jack White and the White Stripes; I grew up listening to Harlon Wolf, Captain Beefheart and those kind of weird old Blues singers that my Dad was really obsessed with and my Mum used to play me loads of Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Jazz.” She also gathers inspiration from her new found love of hip hop, “More recently I’ve got into Kanye West, Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar and those kind of artists,” but her favorite go to band for inspiration would be the Velvet Underground.

Her unique style of singing is a blend of various singers  such as Amy Winehouse and Karen O,“ I guess when you start singing you kind of imitate who your favorite singers are so I messed around with those kind of vocal styles and came into my own.” She also adds a signature element to her voice through her use of distortion to give this sort of megaphone effect, “Tonight I’ve got a normal mic and I use another one which has a guitar distortion pedal, it’s just a weird sound but it’s becoming a signature thing for me now which is cool.”

She tells me what inspired her lyrics ,“I read a lot of poetry like children’s poetry and war poetry and stuff like that which I find really inspiring.” The inspiration for her hit ‘Greasy Love’ came from “the conspiracy theory that Barbara Bush’s mum had an affair with this guy called Aleister Crowley who said he was the devil and stuff like that which was pretty interesting.” She also finds Google a useful tool, “in the day and age when you can literally Google anything you can find so much information about a topic or whatever’s floating your boat at the time.”  A lot of her stuff is also autobiographical, “It’s therapeutic to write out songs, if you’ve got a lot of feelings bottled up you can release them through your lyrics.”

Her artistic and strange music videos depict quite a lot of random imagery which are apparently lots of fun to make, ”In ‘Off & On’ I wanted to emulate the weirdness of the lyrics. My friend Felix who’s a model was really up for stripping off and messing around with pomegranates and stuff like that. For the ‘Your Sister’ video I got really obsessed with burlesque so I just wanted to try and incorporate as many weird fetishes into the video. The girls that we used were really up for anything, letting me put like hot wax on them and shit. The ‘Greasy Love’ video is kind of a performance video.”

She describes her style as different when she’s off and on stage, “I’m dressed like a scally most of the time, unless I’m trying to impress a bloke or going on stage so I don’t know just whatever’s clean usually. I got this really cool cat suit thing made that I wore in the ‘Greasy Love’ video, a designer made me one, probably the coolest thing I’ve had so far. I don’t really think about it, hoody, trainers when I’m off duty and cat suits and miniskirts when I’m not.”

I ask when her favorite gig was, “I’m hoping tonight’s going to like smash my expectations but we played the 100 club in London which is one of the most iconic venues in London; The Clash, The Sex-Pistols and all those awesome punk bands used to play there all the time so to sell that out was fucking amazing. That’s probably my favorite show to date. I remember thinking fucking hell if I could sell this place out then I’d be really proud of myself so actually achieving that was a good moment for me.”

Looking towards the future Findlay plans to continue making music and touring, “As long as I can keep making music on my terms and touring and travelling and meeting cool people I’ll be happy to keep doing it for as long as people want to put my records out.”

Check out her recent EP Greasy Love.