Coming soon: Bob Collins

Bob Collins used to (and from time to time, still does) lead The Dentists. He's been all this time in the business (if you can call it business) and never done a solo record.

Until now.

Or not quite now. It's out on June 16th, and here's the press release:

Remarkably, this is Bob Collins’ first album under his own name, despite his prolific and accomplished songwriting in The Dentists and other assorted acts over the years. Telescopic Victory Kiss brings together the finest songs from his latter day career performing as a solo acoustic artist or with the three piece Full Nelson combo.

The Dentists occupied a unique spot in the no-man’s-land between garage rock and nascent 80s indie pop. Thanks to a renewed interest in that era, and two reunion gigs in 2010, they are now receiving some of the recognition that eluded them in their heyday, to the extent that they are now a de rigeur presence on any self-respecting compilation of 80’s guitar-indie.

Bob’s signature passion-fuelled jangle is as in evidence on the new album as it is on any of his former band’s past catalogue, now combined with his own rich vocal delivery, doing justice to the lyrics like only the writer can.

Since their split in 1995 all members of The Dentists continued to be musically active if not prolific with recorded output, largely due to the continuation of a hesitant and dismissive approach to engaging with anything resembling the ‘music industry’.

After a brief respite Bob Collins supplied some guitar and songwriting craft to the self-confessed classic-pop MOR of Fortune West on a 2000 single, then appeared on an album and EP with Mick Murphy’s Fortress Madonna project in 2002. A collaboration with former Dentist Mark Matthews in the Great Lines, stormed SXSW 2005 before imploding and leaving a legendary album ‘in the can’.

Bob finally began performing in earnest as a solo artist in his native Medway Towns, in 2007 soon adding fellow ex-Dentist Rob Grigg on drums and ex-Ascoyne d’Ascoyne (another one of Bob’s former combos) Mark Aitken on bass as the Full Nelson.

Between co-authoring “The Kids Are All Square” a celebration of the early 80s Medway punk and garage scene, joining the extraordinary punk-pop-blues combo Stuart Turner and the Flat Earth Society, and co-promoting Medway’s Homespun independent music festival Bob managed to squeeze in the recording of this album during 2013 and 2014 with his Full Nelson colleagues.

Recorded in Medway’s analogue Ranscombe Studio, this ten-song assortment of self-penned material is as fresh, heartfelt and engaging a collection of guitar pop nuggets as you are likely to have heard in a long time.

Bob Collins And The Full Nelson's Telescopic Victory Quiz is just a month away.

Soulobit: Errol Brown

Errol Brown, lead singer of Hot Chocolate, has died.

Brown can't really be held responsible for one of the most awful things the British Monarchy has done, which was this:

In fairness, had Brown not recorded You Sexy Thing, Charles would have been half-heartedly pretending to be a male stripper to a different song, but it's an object lesson in how a record can be ruined forever.

(As a side note, it wasn't the first Brown-Windsor coup - Hot Chocolate played Charles and Diana's wedding reception.)

Let's instead hail his victory as being the only man ever to take a song about a UFO over London into the top 10:

The writers were Mike L Burns, Steve Glen and Donny Most. At the time the talk was about a close encounter of the third kind taking place at Stonehenge -experienced by one of the writers and his wife. Or as Errol Brown put it in a 2009 interview with The Mail on Sunday (25th of January) "This was written by two guys who thought they saw a UFO over Hampstead Heath".

It turns out the encounter was witnessed by Steve Glen and Mike Burns.

The details are given from the horses mouth as it were in this interview from The Borehamwood Times of March the 11th 2011.

“It’s a true story. I was driving on the Hendon Way with my writing partner Mike Burns and he pointed up in sky and said ‘what’s that up there?’ I nearly drove off the road. I was producing The Toys at the time and the band was following behind us in a van. I veered off onto West Heath Road and stopped by the Leg Of Mutton Pond. It was right above us. It was massive – about four or five houses wide and when we got out to have a look, an orange cloud came out of it.”

“The reason I’ve not talked about it much for 30 years is everyone said at the time we must be on drugs but all six of us saw it. We asked each other ‘did you see that?’ and we all said, ‘yes’. We
went straight back to Mike’s house in Long Elms and wrote the song No Doubt About It. I’d never written one so quick, and it was Hot Chocolate’s biggest seller.”

Making the heir to the throne shake his moneymaker, and taking aliens to the heart of Top Of The Pops. That's a career right there.

But not a solo career - he never managed to carve much space for himself outside of Hot Chocolate. Brown was pragmatic about this, as he explained in an interview with Blues And Soul, which also gave him a chance to take a dig at Ali Campbell:

“It was a very unfortunate thing. My first solo record on Warner Brothers was a song called ‘Personal Touch’. And I guess when things are meant to be, and when they’re NOT meant to be, is a funny thing. One of the things I found out when I left Hot Chocolate was that it’s amazing how you can be in a group for so many years, and people are still not familiar with your name. I mean, I love UB40 and the stuff they do. But I can’t for the life of me remember the guy’s name who sang lead on their hits, though I love his voice. And what I realised was that, when people said ‘Errol Brown’, it just wasn’t immediately obvious to the public that it was the lead singer of Hot Chocolate. So, I guess a successful solo career just wasn’t meant to be! But, you know, it’s OK!”

He might have been surprised over the last 24 hours just how much that name actually did mean to people.

Errol Brown was 71; he died May 5th in the Bahamas from bowel cancer.

Tom Chaplin is going solo

Tom Chaplin, "the voice of Keane", is going solo, but cautiously:

A source shared: ''Tom didn't want to rush his first record. He wanted it to be perfect.

''He's taken his time and now feels he has the makings of an album that can withstand the comparisons to Keane's amazing back catalogue.''

Tom, sweetheart; I've heard foxes on heat screeching in the night who are capable of withstanding comparisons to Keanes - cough - amazing back catalogue.

''Tom isn't afraid to get personal on the album.

''His bandmate Tim Rice-oxley wrote the majority of Keane's tracks so Tom didn't always get the chance to explore his inner demons. Now it's his project he feels a lot more liberated.

''There will be more lyrics about his own struggle than ever heard on the band's records.''

Ah, who can wait until Christmas to hear "my struggle" from the boy who went to Tonbridge School (which is more costly than either Eton or Harrow)?

Pete Doherty is set to offer us a new album

You'd have hoped that juicing what's left of The Libertines' mystery for cash would have kept Pete Doherty busy enough for the time being, but... oh, no. There's a secret solo album coagulating somewhere. He's told NME all about it:

The album will be titled 'Flags From The Old Regime'. "I've got 10 tunes done now," he says. "There's that one song 'Down For The Outing', which I've had for a while now, but it's incredible - Johann's made it sound like a brand new song."

Doherty also announced that the album has been recorded without his Babyshambles bandmates and instead with "kids around the studio". "There just seems to be a blockade against it, which I don't understand," he says.

He also admits that his record label don't yet know that he is recording the new material. "I don't know what the deal is with EMI Publishing," he says. "I've been told not to tell anyone about the album, but I'm supposed to be someone who writes songs and makes records."

Perhaps EMI is taking part in some sort of set-aside project for musicians, where governments pay the label not to make records with certain artists. You could be putting a large cheque from Brussels at risk, Pete.

Bookmarks: Damon Albarn

It's a pity that Damon Albarn's grumpy-old-manning about the internet is the bit that The Quietus are pushing on Twitter (ironic, given that he's mostly moaning about Twitter). The whole of Jude Rogers' interview with Albarn is a sublime piece of writing and observation:

We didn't film outside my actual house. I’d been there quite a few times before we filmed, just to see it. It's such a personal, strange thing to do...to just stand outside, trying not to get noticed by anyone. And then the day we were filming, the door opened, and I thought, "Oh God"... and this very elegant, conservatively-dressed Muslim girl in her mid-20s came out. And straightaway she went, "Hello Mr. Albarn". And I went, "Oh!" She said, "I know you used to live here," and I went, "How do you know that?" Then she told me that when she was a little girl, around 1995, another film crew came round and she remembered her Mum wouldn’t let them in. "And she won’t let you in now," she said. [laughs] Which is understandable! Then at the end she went, "Good luck, I know you’ve got a new record coming out" – she knew everything, basically, about me. I thought that was really, really nice, so I said, "Give my love to the house", and she said, "I will do." In that little moment, I felt that connection with the house and the people in there...I was really pleased about that.

Tom Morello has a new solo album, self-awareness

Hey, this sounds GREAT:

Yeah, I'd imagine it's quite easy to compare a solo Morello record with Hendrix. Hendrix has been dead nearly half a century; I imagine Morello's album will stink like something that's been dead since 1970, too.

Borrell pauses unloved band for unlovely solo career

Did you know that Razorlight are still going? Or, at least, they were, only Johnny Borrell has put them on hold. Why, Johnny?

He told French radio station Oui FM: "Razorlight are going to play The Olympia in Paris on April 3rd and after that it's Johnny Borrell, for the moment, and that's Freddy who plays in Razorlight, and Joao who comes from Brazil, who we met playing his saxophone in the street, and it's Darren who plays keyboards."

He's talking about himself both in the third person, and as if he was another three people.

Johnny Borrell stopping Razorlight to concentrate on a band who exist solely to aggrandise Johnny Borrell. It's not much of a difference, is it?

1993 all over again: 17 - Shara Nelson

17. Shara Nelson - Down That Road

Five Top 40 hits in her own right. How many can you name?

Not easy, is it? This was her first post-Massive Attack single, and sadly also the high-water mark of her solo career. To say she lost her way a bit is understatement on stilts - Pete Tong had to take out a restraining order things got so bad at one point - but it sounds like she's got things back together now; there's a new album due this year.

Gordon in the morning: Tulisa flops

For the second day running, Gordon is enjoying the slow sales generated by the Tulisa album:

LANDING a guest performer spot on The X Factor is usually a sure-fire way to a chart hit.

But singing on last Sunday’s results show and sitting on the judging panel clearly hasn’t helped TULISA.

Early chart figures yesterday showed the former N-DUBZ singer’s debut solo album, The Female Boss, limping along at an embarrassing No17.

(Actually, as No Doubt discovered awkwardly, performing on the X Factor isn't a guarantee of success at all.)

Still, cheer up, Tulisa: at least in the digital era, there are far fewer massive boxes of unsold CDs that somebody is going to have to deal with.

Gordon in the morning: Lady Boss demoted

Gordon is trying to not look too thrilled at early indications that Tulisa's album isn't selling well:

THE early signs aren’t good for TULISA’s debut solo album.

Despite a primetime promotional slot on The X Factor on Sunday, The Female Boss started yesterday at No27 on the iTunes chart.

It later crept up to No22 – behind KELLY CLARKSON, KE$HA and even JOOLS HOLLAND.

At the moment, it's 122nd in the Amazon chart (and 130th in the MP3 chart.)

Given that No Doubt's single crashed and burned after they appeared on X Factor, it's like this series is exhibiting an anti-Midas touch...

Liam loves George - true. Possibly.

Apparently Liam Gallagher and Andy 'the one out of Ride' Bell were at George Michael's recent show in London, but only managed 23 minutes before heading off to the bar.

George Michael has rushed to the internet to set matters straight - although, oddly, he seems to think this reflects on Liam rather than himself:

"Please don't hold it against Liam that he popped off to the bar at Saturday's show", Michael tweeted. "He's a lovely guy and has always been really friendly to me and very complimentary about my music."

Explaining that Gallagher left the show to get away from onlookers making him uncomfortable, Michael added: "He was getting a load hassle from people who spotted him so it's not surprising he went for for a bevvy :)"

It's fair to say that Noel was the Chuckle Brother who ground the axe more smoothly with George:

"What's he trying to say?" said Gallagher.

"He's now trying to make social comment, this is the guy who hid who he actually was from the public for 20 years, now, all of a sudden, he's got something to say about the way of the world. I find it laughable.

"That's even before you get to the song, which is diabolical."

But even so, it's very sweet that Michael rushed to defend someone who turned tail and walked out of a gig, even revealing that a large swathe of the rest of the audience was so bored they'd become more interested in hassling Gallagher.

Embed and breakfast man: Tina Barrett

How long is it since S Club 7 split?

A rhetorical question, it's nine years since the band rolled up, with Tina Barrett expressing a wish that she'd like to continue with music. (Or, given that she'd been in S Club, perhaps start with music.)

Now, just nine short years later, Tina's released her first solo single:

You might wonder if the moment has passed a little, although given the amount of post-production slopped over the her vocals, you could perhaps ask if it counts as a song by her at all.

It's not Tina's first musical adventure since S Club, of course. Who could forget her 2004 work as one of the Girls Of FHM on the ill-advised Rod Stewart cover? Admittedly, they didn't give her lead vocals but she did get nearly as much time in the video as Maria off Corrie and some women who had won some sort of demeaning competition.

Perhaps she should see if Maria off Corrie wants to join in for the (admittedly unlikely) follow-up single?

[via Clickmusic]

Gordon in the morning: Mark Owen gets the electricians in

Apparently, Mark Owen is taking a new direction for his solo career. Gordon insists it will "surprise" fans.

Really? It's not just that he's looked around, found out what sells and is going to try and pour himself into an uncomfortable modish mould, is it?

A source said: “Mark’s excited about his new sound, it has a modern edge. People might not even think it’s him."

Ah, yes, "a source" - but don't worry, we know Gordon will have diligently worked behind the scenes to make sure this secret source was correct and not just made up a quote to fit the story.

You might wonder what value there is in a man whose main selling point is who he is making a record that people won't know it's him (he's working with Starsmith, by the way).

But then it turns out his main selling point isn't who he is, says "the source":

“His label are keen to get the stuff out – especially as Gary being on X Factor will shift the focus back on Take That.”

Good god, that's grim: "Mark, one of the people you work with is going to be on television; we really need to rush out a song in which you sound like Ellie Goulding to take advantage of that."

Still, Gordon's excited, as he sniffs a hint of one of his beloved chart battles:

With Robbie Williams working on solo material, too, there could be a TT chart battle.

So, that's a chart battle being predicted although at the moment, there's no release dates, not even a hint of anything near ready for release.

Both singers are expecting nippers so might not strike up a cash wager.

Maybe the winner could take ownership of a game of Hungry Hippos.

What? Is that a barbed comment about the pair of them putting on weight? Or is it just as random as it sounds?

Sonic Youth on ice

No, that doesn't mean there's going to be a festive edition of Sonic Youth; just that Lee Renaldo has confirmed that the band are on hold:

"It's not as sudden for me as it's been in terms of the press," Ranaldo told Rolling Stone magazine.
[...]
"I'm feeling optimistic about the future no matter what happens at this point," Ranaldo said. "It was a pretty good tour overall. I mean, there was a little bit of tiptoeing around and some different situations with the travelling – you know, [Kin and Thurston are] not sharing a room any more or anything like that … It remains to be seen at this point what happens. I think they are certainly the last shows for a while and I guess I'd just leave it at that."

Renaldo is going to do some solo work for now. He doesn't have any idea how long this self-employment will last.

Gordon in the morning: We all live in the space-age

You'd have thought that George Michael would be getting the best possible care, but perhaps not, if we're to believe Gordon:

Space-age kit protects star

Space-age? What, they've lobbed him in equipment from the late 1950s?

It turns out he means "modern".

Justwait until Gordon sees TV dinners - crazy times, all on one plastic tray.

In other news, Chris Martin has been doing the aw-shucks-lil'ol-me routine again:

Chris said: "I'd just be terrible [as a solo artist]. I don't think I could even get a gig in Butlins — and I've been to Butlins. I think me and my keyboard would be outside Woolworths most days, getting shouted at."

Woolworths? When did you last do any shopping, Chris?

The terrible thing is, Chris says this hoping we'll all look at the new Coldplay album and go "don't be silly", but instead most people whose ears function will be thinking "Woolworths? You'd be lucky not to be forced round the back of a Bejam."

Gordon in the morning: Noel breaks America if you squint

Gordon is excited for chum Noel Gallagher who is big in America, don't you know?:

NOEL Gallagher, legal nonsense aside, is on a pretty special run at the moment.

The Yanks are raving about his solo shows and he has already flogged 85,000 tickets for dates next year.

Oh, really?

Here are the dates he's playing in the US, with the size of the venues:

Washington Warner Theatre - 1800
Columbus LC Theater - 2827
Detroit Royal Oak - 2300
Chicago Riviera - 2500
Milwaukee Pabst - 1,345
Indianapolis Egyptian Room - 2000
Atlanta Tabernacle - 2600

I make that about 15,000 if all the venues sell out. Now, you could probably find the extra 70,000 tickets if you fold in the European and Australian tour, but Smart is attempting to give the impression that the 85,000 tickets are somehow American. Certainly, that's how his subs appear to have read it:

Noel Gallagher responds well to criticism

For much of the last decade, people with ears have been pointing out that most Oasis music after the second album was more-or-less without redeeming merit.

For much of the last decade, Noel Gallagher has angrily defended his band's output like a BP executive denying that the oil-covered seabirds had anything to do with their gushing ineptly-drilled well.

Lately, though, Gallagher has started to concede that, actually, he's spent much of his life treading water.

Has he learned his lesson, though? That perhaps it might be worth paying attention when people start to ask questions about quality control.

No, of course not. The Edinburgh Evening News has felt his wrath:

Noel Gallagher has thrown a strop following a bad review of his latest album by the Evening News’ chief music writer – and banned him from last night’s gig at Usher Hall.

News reviewer Gary Flockhart was told he had been black-balled for describing Gallagher’s new High Flying Birds record as a “letdown” and “big disappointment” in last Tuesday’s column.

Flockhart told, erm, his own paper that he was surprised to be told he couldn't get a press pass ("That piece you wrote about him last week didn’t exactly help your cause to be honest") because his review hadn't actually been especially scathing.

Trouble for Noel is, if he only wants to be reviewed by people who slavishly believe him to be the greatest thing since Mungo Jerry, he's going to find large swathes of the planet where his entire press guest list will consist of himself, wearing a false moustache and a hat pulled down low over his eyes.

Flockhart, at least, came out of it well: not only did he get a story making Gallagher look petty out of it, but he's also got an evening off that otherwise he'd have had to spend watching Noel Gallagher And The Easily Angered Chickens.

Noel Gallagher: The showman speaks

Given that you're going to hear the Southern Fried Birds, I suppose nobody going to see Noel Gallagher's solo shows would be expecting to be entertained, but Noel is keen to stress just how dull the events will be:

He told BBC Radio 2: "I've got nothing to say to these people who are coming to see me apart from this song is called... I'm not really into audience participation. I wouldn't come down and look down at your computer while you're at work.
"They're here to listen to the music. You clap, I sing, good night, the end."

I guess the discovery that Noel Gallagher has nothing to say beyond the name of the songs shouldn't come as a surprise - his interviews are mostly acres of space dedicated to a man with nothing to say.

But how curious that he equates playing the songs he supposedly loves as being like doing a simple data-entry task. Perhaps if he really feels that way, he could just boil it down a little further: you buy a ticket to a Noel Gallagher gig, and instead of having to go and look at him - for who watches a person at work in other circumstances? - you just get a report of how well the songs were played sent to you by email the following day.

Nicola Roberts not bothered by success

Record sales? Nicola Roberts isn't in it for the record sales:

"You don't make music for commercial reasons. You make music because it's what you love to do," she told The Sun. "Not everybody can always like something. That's just the way it is. Maybe they'll like the next one better. That's how I look at it."

Of course she's not just putting a brave face on her solo album juddering to a halt at number 40; clearly, she's only ever made music because of the love of the music she's making. Why else would she have gone on a talent show to try and win a place in a band, any band, if she wasn't solely motivated by the desire to make whatever sort of music it would be that she'd be told to make in that band?

Embed and breakfast man: Thurston Moore

A morning delight from late-night: Thurston Moore on Letterman, doing Benediction: [Buy: Demolished Thoughts] [via The Audio Perv]