Everybody Dansh Now.
These past few weeks have been another mad time around these parts, hence my inability to get near a computer to type up these darned updates. I am going to do my best to fill in the blanks, but forgive me if the timeline is a little bent.
Let's start with some recent magazine articles:
The Sad And Beautiful World Of Sparklehorse
By Ross Thompson
Somewhere, deep in the heart of North Carolina, Mark Linkous lives in a house that, AU imagines, looks as if it fell straight out of a 1970s Horror Movie. However, instead of being filled with bear traps and chainsaws and perhaps a few disembodied teenagers, it is stacked to the rafters with guitar pedals, mellotrons, pump organs and half-built drum kits. This is the home of Sparklehorse, the music project on which Mark Linkous has been working for over a decade. Drawing influences from more underground artists such as Daniel Johnston and Smog, Sparklehorse take Alt. Country tropes and bend them into strikingly weird shapes.
The songs sound as if they have been fashioned in a workshop or excavated from the dirt, but Linkous’s lyrics are as poetic as anything by Blake, Shakespeare, Bukowski and any of the other writers to which he alludes in his literate lyrics. There are references to spirit ditches, apple beds, gasoline horseys and painbirds, but for all the otherworldly nature of the imagery the focus is ultimately on the workings of the human heart.
Sparklehorse are due to release a new record, the enchantingly entitled ‘Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain’. For a while, there was the fear that Linkous would never record again. The distorted ghosts that haunt his songwriting were filtering through to the other side of the glass, and threatened to destroy him completely.
“It was pretty tough to put this record together. I was in the middle of a depressive slump. I was in a pretty bad place in my head for two or three years, and I pretty much became a recluse. I liked writing songs, but I didn’t like recording them. On one hand, I couldn’t pay my rent, but then I didn’t want a guilt trip from making a living from my screwed-up brain.”
In a traditional Sparklehorse song, darkness is never too far away. The title song from the new album is a huge in scope, ten-minute instrumental that one might hear reverberating through the woods near where Linkous’s home.
“I recorded a loop on a guitar pedal, turned it down half-speed, but forgot to switch it off when I left the studio that night. It was still playing when I came back the next morning, so I sat down at a piano and started playing chords over the top. It sounded pretty good.”
The song holds a sense of place that is normally lacking in most contemporary music.
“Where I live is pretty cool. It’s full of chilled-out rednecks. There are mountains and trees and a huge valley. And I really did get trapped inside my house by a bear, and my dog really did get bitten twice by rattlesnakes.”
Sparklehorse dwell in the same slightly scary fairy-tale world that is inhabited by Tom Waits, who not only guests on the new record but was initially one of the figures that kickstarted Linkous’s writing.
“There was just something about Waits. There was stuff on his record ‘Swordfishtrombones’ that nobody else could get away with. Before I was in a band, I lived in a shitty apartment with a shitty record player. I had, like, three albums that I played over and over, and that was one of them. That was my only source of entertainment for a while. I was really into The Stranglers and, to some extent, The Pixies, but I really wanted to make a pop record in the same vein as Waits. It’s hard to make rock or pop songs that don’t sound bogus, that I won’t be embarrassed by in later years.”
Throughout previous albums ‘Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot’, ‘Good Morning Spider’ and ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’, Linkous has honed the trademark Sparklehorse sound, which switches between songs from broken toy melodies to full-tilt feedback boogies. Then, there are the collaborations with some pretty distinguished guests: Polly Harvey, Nina Persson and, most recently, the ubiquitous Danger Mouse.
“I loved the Gnarls Barkley record, and then I heard that Brian was a fan of Sparklehorse, so we started working together. He came into the studio and started fiddling around with computers and stuff. He was pulling guitar bits from one track and turning them backwards and splicing them into another song. We’re going to collaborate on another record next, which will probably be called ‘Danger Horse’, I think.”
Tom Waits once said in an interview that he hears music in the same way that Picasso saw colours. For Linkous, however, it’s a slightly different process.
“It’s kind of abstract and hard to articulate, but when I hear songs in my head they are like individual frames of film. Like from a documentary movie.”
Wherever the inspiration behind it lies, Sparkelhorse’s new album is an absolute cracker. When speaking of what comes next, however, Linkous is typically modest.
“Honestly, my only goal at the minute is to be able to pay my rent.”
Heart Of Darkness: A Sparklehorse Mix-Tape
Download ‘Em! Burn ‘Em! Love ‘Em!
1. ‘Spirit Ditch’
Linkous juxtaposes a recording of his mother speaking alongside ghostly guitars. Lovely.
2. ‘Tears On Fresh Fruit’
Propelled by a squalling riff, this is a standout rocker from ‘Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot’.
3. ‘Most Beautiful Widow In Town’
Frequently covered by The Frames, and if you have heard this poetic song then you will know why.
4. ‘Pig’
The opening track on ‘Good Morning Spider’ is loud, fuzzy and deliciously nasty.
5. ‘Sunshine’
Male and female harmonies mingle on this butterscotch-flavoured slow track.
6. ‘Sick Of Goodbyes’
Poppy without sounding bogus, and as catchy as a winter cold.
7. ‘Apple Bed’
Starring Nina from The Cardigans, this an off-kilter, melancholy ode to childhood.
8. ‘Eyepennies’
Featuring another classy lady (Polly Harvey), this is a creepy piano number with allusions to The Wizard Of Oz: “At sunrise / The monkeys will fly”.
9. ‘Don’t Take My Sunshine Away’
The first single from ‘Dreamt…’ is a cracking slice of Alt. Country fuzz, with Danger Mouse sprinkling his magic all over it.
10. ‘Shade And Honey’
First featured in the movie Laurel Canyon and given a new lease of life here, this melancholic yet tuneful track is another gem from Linkous’s songbook.
By Ross Thompson
Somewhere, deep in the heart of North Carolina, Mark Linkous lives in a house that, AU imagines, looks as if it fell straight out of a 1970s Horror Movie. However, instead of being filled with bear traps and chainsaws and perhaps a few disembodied teenagers, it is stacked to the rafters with guitar pedals, mellotrons, pump organs and half-built drum kits. This is the home of Sparklehorse, the music project on which Mark Linkous has been working for over a decade. Drawing influences from more underground artists such as Daniel Johnston and Smog, Sparklehorse take Alt. Country tropes and bend them into strikingly weird shapes.
The songs sound as if they have been fashioned in a workshop or excavated from the dirt, but Linkous’s lyrics are as poetic as anything by Blake, Shakespeare, Bukowski and any of the other writers to which he alludes in his literate lyrics. There are references to spirit ditches, apple beds, gasoline horseys and painbirds, but for all the otherworldly nature of the imagery the focus is ultimately on the workings of the human heart.
Sparklehorse are due to release a new record, the enchantingly entitled ‘Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain’. For a while, there was the fear that Linkous would never record again. The distorted ghosts that haunt his songwriting were filtering through to the other side of the glass, and threatened to destroy him completely.
“It was pretty tough to put this record together. I was in the middle of a depressive slump. I was in a pretty bad place in my head for two or three years, and I pretty much became a recluse. I liked writing songs, but I didn’t like recording them. On one hand, I couldn’t pay my rent, but then I didn’t want a guilt trip from making a living from my screwed-up brain.”
In a traditional Sparklehorse song, darkness is never too far away. The title song from the new album is a huge in scope, ten-minute instrumental that one might hear reverberating through the woods near where Linkous’s home.
“I recorded a loop on a guitar pedal, turned it down half-speed, but forgot to switch it off when I left the studio that night. It was still playing when I came back the next morning, so I sat down at a piano and started playing chords over the top. It sounded pretty good.”
The song holds a sense of place that is normally lacking in most contemporary music.
“Where I live is pretty cool. It’s full of chilled-out rednecks. There are mountains and trees and a huge valley. And I really did get trapped inside my house by a bear, and my dog really did get bitten twice by rattlesnakes.”
Sparklehorse dwell in the same slightly scary fairy-tale world that is inhabited by Tom Waits, who not only guests on the new record but was initially one of the figures that kickstarted Linkous’s writing.
“There was just something about Waits. There was stuff on his record ‘Swordfishtrombones’ that nobody else could get away with. Before I was in a band, I lived in a shitty apartment with a shitty record player. I had, like, three albums that I played over and over, and that was one of them. That was my only source of entertainment for a while. I was really into The Stranglers and, to some extent, The Pixies, but I really wanted to make a pop record in the same vein as Waits. It’s hard to make rock or pop songs that don’t sound bogus, that I won’t be embarrassed by in later years.”
Throughout previous albums ‘Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot’, ‘Good Morning Spider’ and ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’, Linkous has honed the trademark Sparklehorse sound, which switches between songs from broken toy melodies to full-tilt feedback boogies. Then, there are the collaborations with some pretty distinguished guests: Polly Harvey, Nina Persson and, most recently, the ubiquitous Danger Mouse.
“I loved the Gnarls Barkley record, and then I heard that Brian was a fan of Sparklehorse, so we started working together. He came into the studio and started fiddling around with computers and stuff. He was pulling guitar bits from one track and turning them backwards and splicing them into another song. We’re going to collaborate on another record next, which will probably be called ‘Danger Horse’, I think.”
Tom Waits once said in an interview that he hears music in the same way that Picasso saw colours. For Linkous, however, it’s a slightly different process.
“It’s kind of abstract and hard to articulate, but when I hear songs in my head they are like individual frames of film. Like from a documentary movie.”
Wherever the inspiration behind it lies, Sparkelhorse’s new album is an absolute cracker. When speaking of what comes next, however, Linkous is typically modest.
“Honestly, my only goal at the minute is to be able to pay my rent.”
Heart Of Darkness: A Sparklehorse Mix-Tape
Download ‘Em! Burn ‘Em! Love ‘Em!
1. ‘Spirit Ditch’
Linkous juxtaposes a recording of his mother speaking alongside ghostly guitars. Lovely.
2. ‘Tears On Fresh Fruit’
Propelled by a squalling riff, this is a standout rocker from ‘Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot’.
3. ‘Most Beautiful Widow In Town’
Frequently covered by The Frames, and if you have heard this poetic song then you will know why.
4. ‘Pig’
The opening track on ‘Good Morning Spider’ is loud, fuzzy and deliciously nasty.
5. ‘Sunshine’
Male and female harmonies mingle on this butterscotch-flavoured slow track.
6. ‘Sick Of Goodbyes’
Poppy without sounding bogus, and as catchy as a winter cold.
7. ‘Apple Bed’
Starring Nina from The Cardigans, this an off-kilter, melancholy ode to childhood.
8. ‘Eyepennies’
Featuring another classy lady (Polly Harvey), this is a creepy piano number with allusions to The Wizard Of Oz: “At sunrise / The monkeys will fly”.
9. ‘Don’t Take My Sunshine Away’
The first single from ‘Dreamt…’ is a cracking slice of Alt. Country fuzz, with Danger Mouse sprinkling his magic all over it.
10. ‘Shade And Honey’
First featured in the movie Laurel Canyon and given a new lease of life here, this melancholic yet tuneful track is another gem from Linkous’s songbook.
DAMAGE LIMITATION: AN INTERVIEW WITH LAMBCHOP
By Ross Thompson
Kurt Wagner, self-confessed “Grumpus” and frontman with Lambchop, has just confessed that he has spent his day “doing a hundred interviews and cleaning up dog mess”. AU wonders how exactly he tells the difference between the two, but chooses not to pry any further. Conscious that he will no doubt have heard the same banal questions ten times over, AU looks at the prompt sheet sitting on the table next to the telephone and starts to worry. Is there anything that he hasn’t spoken about today?
“Hmm… I don’t know. People generally don’t ask questions about one’s love life, do they?”
This is an unexpected reply, but it could provide an interesting hook on which to pin the interview. AU takes a deep breath, then asks: Kurt, are you happy with your love life at the moment?
“No dude, I would rather talk about yours,” Kurt replies, laughing out loud. It’s a hoarse laugh full of sandpaper and cigarettes, a full-on har har har that crashes and booms and makes the telephone receiver crackle. “Do you have a girl?”
AU has to say yes, they do have a girl, and what’s more, she loves the new Lambchop album, ‘Damaged’. She goes as far as to say that it’s the best thing that she has heard all year.
“Well, I’m glad to see that we’re keeping the family together.”
Kurt laughs again. He does this a lot. Almost every sentence is punctuated with a fireworks display of guffaws. Defying the curmudgeonly character who narrates most of his songs, Kurt is friendly, open and down-to-earth. His warmth of character envelopes every corner of our conversation, even transcending the limitations of a wobbly transatlantic phone line.
It gradually transpires that it is this ability to joke in the face of anything, trivial or monumental, that buoys Kurt through the darkest of days. Whereas previous Lambchop records have carried oddball titles (2002’s ‘Is A Woman’, for example), the name of their new long-player is fairly loaded.
“It’s rare for me to be so obvious with a title. At first I was worried that it was too corny, but I was listening to a lot of Black Flag at a time, particularly their album ‘Damaged’, so I borrowed the name. I also liked the fact that the word “damaged” has a secondary meaning: the implication that it’s in the past. The storm is over and the air has cleared.”
Inevitably, the specifics of Kurt’s very own private storm have seeped out into nearly all of the band’s recent interviews. AU is no meteorologist, but knows enough to deduce that the making of ‘Damaged’ was not a whole bag of fun.
“Once the cat comes out of certain bags, there’s not much you can do to stop it. It just makes people more curious. I respect the journalistic instinct to get to the bottom of things. I just don’t like the fact that it’s directed at me.”
At the top of the list was an escalating series of health scares.
“In-between doctor’s appointments and trips to the hospital, I was trying to put a record together,” says Kurt, dryly. “It was not a fun time.”
The first of these was a pretty nasty disease that nearly destroyed his jaw. True to form, Kurt transformed the unpleasant experience of operations and bone grafts into a wry gag: “I still hold my hip each time I sneeze”.
Barely recuperated from that body blow, he was diagnosed with Cancer.
“I could have gone on without knowing and would have been blissfully happy, but damn it, modern medicine had to go and screw it up.”
Even though Kurt talks with disarming candour about how close he came to death, in his lyrics he retreats into deadpan one-liners, wordplay (“I scramble our affection like some eggs”) and apparent non sequiturs.
“I didn’t want this to be “Kurt’s Cancer Record”. I didn’t want people to hear it and go, “Oh, poor guy”. I wanted there to be some sort of dignity to it. I played it down deliberately: the gory details of my illness or whatever it was that happened to me. Everybody has problems and everybody will have something go wrong with their body sooner or later. With me, however, it was the real deal. They chopped it out of me, and now I’m uninsurable.”
In a culture where celebrities will witter on at great length and in great detail about their latest drug addiction or failed romance, Kurt appears far more courageous by all but ignoring the trauma that birthed an album but nearly killed him in the process. Rather than address his head-to with the “C” word directly, he used it as a metaphor for the maelstrom that was raging outside the confines of the recording studio.
“The whole world seemed to be going crazy. Not just for me, but for everybody. I was lying in a hospital bed watching news reports about America being buried beneath a flood, or what insane stuff was happening with the war.”
This political awareness was given a voice in ‘Crackers’: “In the barracks / By the army cot / There’s a feller who’s just cut his face shaving / And as he bleeds / On his pillow in the dark / Waiting for the morning / When he gets to go online with you”. Whereas previous Lambchop lyrics mostly had two settings (oblique and impenetrable), the message of this track is pretty clear, and has more truth about the futility and loneliness of the military life than any conventional protest song could muster.
“I don’t think people really notice what’s going on with that song, and the fact that you noticed it at all makes me wonder if I was too obvious there. In America there is no aspect of your life where you can get away from politics or the war or whatever. It’s all around you, whether you’re getting gas at the fuel pump or watching TV. I never wanted to write a political song, but it was inevitable that it would come out sooner or later. There is a certain military aspect to throwing yourself on a bus with other guys on campaigns we call “tours”. I do relate to that loneliness, of being plucked from my normal life and being separated from loved ones.”
AU happened to be present at one of Lambchop’s most calamitous campaigns. In a festival tent plonked in a muddy Scottish field, the audience, tweaking on overpriced fajitas and free Irn Bru, made their discontent pretty clear. Retreating from the torrential downpour outside, they were quite unprepared for a band of misfits playing their quirky, soulful brand of Alt. Country. Impatient for headline sets by Coldplay and Texas, it was not long before the projectiles began to fly in the direction of the stage.
“Man, you were at that gig? We were getting killed up there,” says Kurt, laughing again. “The crowd hated us. They were throwing bottles and all kinds of crap, but we were pros. We stuck to our guns and rode it out.”
Whether or not those bottles were filled with “special liquids” remains unclear.
“We didn’t examine them too closely, but there was some weight to them, I’ll give you that.”
Lambchop cohorts are used to being on the fringe, however. The band came together in Nashville, an area widely known for its thriving music scene and its abundance of guitar-picking local yokels.
“There are lots of music-type folk in Nashville, but there are also lots of people who are outside that world. I was more drawn to non-musicians who just wanted to hang out and play music. As corny as it sounds, the more we did it, the more it came together. The only guide we had was to make each record a little better.”
And throughout the past six years, each Lambchop album has got a little better. From the critically acclaimed ‘Nixon’ (2000) to the double opus of ‘Aw C’mon / No You C’mon’ (2004), the band have become more proficient songwriters than even they might like. Their music is infused with elements of The Tindersticks, Nick Cave, Otis Redding and countless others, but ultimately their sound is very much their own: mysterious, sensual and really rather fantastic.
“‘Damaged’, as much as any other record by us, has a sound that’s significant. We’ve been bumping up against a sound for a few records now, flirting with jazz and country and the like, and finally it’s all melded together.”
Kurt sounds remarkably serious when he says this, but not for long. Wary perhaps that he has lapsed into the language of a press release, he cracks out another joke at his own expense.
“Critics keep calling this our breakthrough record, but it’s more of a breakdown record. I mean, come on, I’m falling apart here!”
There is a note of real poignancy hidden in the rattle of his laughter.
“There is residue that I will carry for the rest of my life.”
The diagnosis is good, however. In ‘Damaged’, Lambchop have crafted an album that already ranks as one of the contenders for best of the year.
Help them carry the weight.
LOOKING SHEEPISH: OTHER OVINE-RELATED CELEBRITY TRIVIA
Lamb Chop
Sock puppet operated and voiced by ventriloquist Shari Lewis, made popular by the children’s television show Lamb Chop’s Play-Along. Kind of like the American version of Sooty And Sweep, but with less squeaking.
Lamb
Slightly odd trip hop outfit who were briefly popular in the mid-nineties. Singer Lou Rhodes went on to join a commune and release a solo album, which was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize. Not being by The Arctic Monkeys, it didn’t win.
Christopher Lambert
Born in New York but French of descent, Lambert is most famous for “acting” in the Queen-soundtracked adventure Highlander, in which he jostled with Sean Connery for the worst accent ever, and claimed “There can be only one”. Liar: there were three sequels of decreasing quality and a spin-off television series.
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
The concept album to out-concept all concept albums, Genesis’s double record was so witlessly grandiose that even Peter Gabriel, not normally known for being subdued, was forced to leave the band in shame.
Amanda Lamb
Lovely, lovely television presenter who, when not finding new homes on the Algarve for loaded middle-class families, dons a dinky leotard for Olympic-themed Channel Four show The Games.
By Ross Thompson
Kurt Wagner, self-confessed “Grumpus” and frontman with Lambchop, has just confessed that he has spent his day “doing a hundred interviews and cleaning up dog mess”. AU wonders how exactly he tells the difference between the two, but chooses not to pry any further. Conscious that he will no doubt have heard the same banal questions ten times over, AU looks at the prompt sheet sitting on the table next to the telephone and starts to worry. Is there anything that he hasn’t spoken about today?
“Hmm… I don’t know. People generally don’t ask questions about one’s love life, do they?”
This is an unexpected reply, but it could provide an interesting hook on which to pin the interview. AU takes a deep breath, then asks: Kurt, are you happy with your love life at the moment?
“No dude, I would rather talk about yours,” Kurt replies, laughing out loud. It’s a hoarse laugh full of sandpaper and cigarettes, a full-on har har har that crashes and booms and makes the telephone receiver crackle. “Do you have a girl?”
AU has to say yes, they do have a girl, and what’s more, she loves the new Lambchop album, ‘Damaged’. She goes as far as to say that it’s the best thing that she has heard all year.
“Well, I’m glad to see that we’re keeping the family together.”
Kurt laughs again. He does this a lot. Almost every sentence is punctuated with a fireworks display of guffaws. Defying the curmudgeonly character who narrates most of his songs, Kurt is friendly, open and down-to-earth. His warmth of character envelopes every corner of our conversation, even transcending the limitations of a wobbly transatlantic phone line.
It gradually transpires that it is this ability to joke in the face of anything, trivial or monumental, that buoys Kurt through the darkest of days. Whereas previous Lambchop records have carried oddball titles (2002’s ‘Is A Woman’, for example), the name of their new long-player is fairly loaded.
“It’s rare for me to be so obvious with a title. At first I was worried that it was too corny, but I was listening to a lot of Black Flag at a time, particularly their album ‘Damaged’, so I borrowed the name. I also liked the fact that the word “damaged” has a secondary meaning: the implication that it’s in the past. The storm is over and the air has cleared.”
Inevitably, the specifics of Kurt’s very own private storm have seeped out into nearly all of the band’s recent interviews. AU is no meteorologist, but knows enough to deduce that the making of ‘Damaged’ was not a whole bag of fun.
“Once the cat comes out of certain bags, there’s not much you can do to stop it. It just makes people more curious. I respect the journalistic instinct to get to the bottom of things. I just don’t like the fact that it’s directed at me.”
At the top of the list was an escalating series of health scares.
“In-between doctor’s appointments and trips to the hospital, I was trying to put a record together,” says Kurt, dryly. “It was not a fun time.”
The first of these was a pretty nasty disease that nearly destroyed his jaw. True to form, Kurt transformed the unpleasant experience of operations and bone grafts into a wry gag: “I still hold my hip each time I sneeze”.
Barely recuperated from that body blow, he was diagnosed with Cancer.
“I could have gone on without knowing and would have been blissfully happy, but damn it, modern medicine had to go and screw it up.”
Even though Kurt talks with disarming candour about how close he came to death, in his lyrics he retreats into deadpan one-liners, wordplay (“I scramble our affection like some eggs”) and apparent non sequiturs.
“I didn’t want this to be “Kurt’s Cancer Record”. I didn’t want people to hear it and go, “Oh, poor guy”. I wanted there to be some sort of dignity to it. I played it down deliberately: the gory details of my illness or whatever it was that happened to me. Everybody has problems and everybody will have something go wrong with their body sooner or later. With me, however, it was the real deal. They chopped it out of me, and now I’m uninsurable.”
In a culture where celebrities will witter on at great length and in great detail about their latest drug addiction or failed romance, Kurt appears far more courageous by all but ignoring the trauma that birthed an album but nearly killed him in the process. Rather than address his head-to with the “C” word directly, he used it as a metaphor for the maelstrom that was raging outside the confines of the recording studio.
“The whole world seemed to be going crazy. Not just for me, but for everybody. I was lying in a hospital bed watching news reports about America being buried beneath a flood, or what insane stuff was happening with the war.”
This political awareness was given a voice in ‘Crackers’: “In the barracks / By the army cot / There’s a feller who’s just cut his face shaving / And as he bleeds / On his pillow in the dark / Waiting for the morning / When he gets to go online with you”. Whereas previous Lambchop lyrics mostly had two settings (oblique and impenetrable), the message of this track is pretty clear, and has more truth about the futility and loneliness of the military life than any conventional protest song could muster.
“I don’t think people really notice what’s going on with that song, and the fact that you noticed it at all makes me wonder if I was too obvious there. In America there is no aspect of your life where you can get away from politics or the war or whatever. It’s all around you, whether you’re getting gas at the fuel pump or watching TV. I never wanted to write a political song, but it was inevitable that it would come out sooner or later. There is a certain military aspect to throwing yourself on a bus with other guys on campaigns we call “tours”. I do relate to that loneliness, of being plucked from my normal life and being separated from loved ones.”
AU happened to be present at one of Lambchop’s most calamitous campaigns. In a festival tent plonked in a muddy Scottish field, the audience, tweaking on overpriced fajitas and free Irn Bru, made their discontent pretty clear. Retreating from the torrential downpour outside, they were quite unprepared for a band of misfits playing their quirky, soulful brand of Alt. Country. Impatient for headline sets by Coldplay and Texas, it was not long before the projectiles began to fly in the direction of the stage.
“Man, you were at that gig? We were getting killed up there,” says Kurt, laughing again. “The crowd hated us. They were throwing bottles and all kinds of crap, but we were pros. We stuck to our guns and rode it out.”
Whether or not those bottles were filled with “special liquids” remains unclear.
“We didn’t examine them too closely, but there was some weight to them, I’ll give you that.”
Lambchop cohorts are used to being on the fringe, however. The band came together in Nashville, an area widely known for its thriving music scene and its abundance of guitar-picking local yokels.
“There are lots of music-type folk in Nashville, but there are also lots of people who are outside that world. I was more drawn to non-musicians who just wanted to hang out and play music. As corny as it sounds, the more we did it, the more it came together. The only guide we had was to make each record a little better.”
And throughout the past six years, each Lambchop album has got a little better. From the critically acclaimed ‘Nixon’ (2000) to the double opus of ‘Aw C’mon / No You C’mon’ (2004), the band have become more proficient songwriters than even they might like. Their music is infused with elements of The Tindersticks, Nick Cave, Otis Redding and countless others, but ultimately their sound is very much their own: mysterious, sensual and really rather fantastic.
“‘Damaged’, as much as any other record by us, has a sound that’s significant. We’ve been bumping up against a sound for a few records now, flirting with jazz and country and the like, and finally it’s all melded together.”
Kurt sounds remarkably serious when he says this, but not for long. Wary perhaps that he has lapsed into the language of a press release, he cracks out another joke at his own expense.
“Critics keep calling this our breakthrough record, but it’s more of a breakdown record. I mean, come on, I’m falling apart here!”
There is a note of real poignancy hidden in the rattle of his laughter.
“There is residue that I will carry for the rest of my life.”
The diagnosis is good, however. In ‘Damaged’, Lambchop have crafted an album that already ranks as one of the contenders for best of the year.
Help them carry the weight.
LOOKING SHEEPISH: OTHER OVINE-RELATED CELEBRITY TRIVIA
Lamb Chop
Sock puppet operated and voiced by ventriloquist Shari Lewis, made popular by the children’s television show Lamb Chop’s Play-Along. Kind of like the American version of Sooty And Sweep, but with less squeaking.
Lamb
Slightly odd trip hop outfit who were briefly popular in the mid-nineties. Singer Lou Rhodes went on to join a commune and release a solo album, which was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize. Not being by The Arctic Monkeys, it didn’t win.
Christopher Lambert
Born in New York but French of descent, Lambert is most famous for “acting” in the Queen-soundtracked adventure Highlander, in which he jostled with Sean Connery for the worst accent ever, and claimed “There can be only one”. Liar: there were three sequels of decreasing quality and a spin-off television series.
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
The concept album to out-concept all concept albums, Genesis’s double record was so witlessly grandiose that even Peter Gabriel, not normally known for being subdued, was forced to leave the band in shame.
Amanda Lamb
Lovely, lovely television presenter who, when not finding new homes on the Algarve for loaded middle-class families, dons a dinky leotard for Olympic-themed Channel Four show The Games.
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