Ronika

January 2012

My Nottingham

I LIVE in “Costa-del-Carrington” these days. I moved here quite recently after an 11-year romance with Sneinton.

I was born in Sherwood, although I can’t remember this myself – I take my mum’s word for it.

On Friday nights I might allow myself a trip into town to Broadway Cinema or for some tea at Lee Rosy’s, then maybe a gig or some comedy.

Tea is the drink of the Gods and although I’ve never bumped into any in Lee Rosy’s, it’s still a great place to hang out, listen to some good music and knock back some cake.

Broadway always has nice vibes too and I like to run across the road between the two places all night in a state of mild confusion.

I recently sang with Swimming at the Broadway for a headphones-only gig which was pretty special.

We performed in a secret room while everybody watched on a screen in the Café/Bar and listened through headphones.

For clothes shopping in Nottingham I go to Cow and Vintage Warehouse where I buy vintage sportswear. My style is pretty much 1983 PE kit.

Mimm, on Broad Street, sells the best non-vintage stuff, and Colwick car boot is also a favourite. You can usually spot a few blurry-eyed musicians wandering around on a quest for the Moog holy grail (rumour has it somebody found an old Moog synthesiser there for £20). I’ve never found a Moog but a few nice Casios.

Friday night is also good for dancing and the best place to do this, of course, is on the steps of the Council House completely alone. What? Just me then?

There are loads of great nights on in Nottingham – highlights for me last year were Wigflex at Stealth, where I caught Kode 9 and Floating Points, and Soundhism at The Bodega for Alex Nut and Fatima – not forgetting the P-Brothers night at Spanky’s, where they played disco, 80s groove and old school hip-hop treats.

When I get a takeaway it’s a lunchtime curry from the Indian Community Centre on Hucknall Road.

I’m trying to cut back to only going there five days a week. I sometimes go in disguise as it’s starting to get a little embarrassing.

I do go to the gym or for a run most days. Normally I go running in the park where I like to bark at dogs and wink at old men.

I listen to The Beat on BBC Radio Nottingham with Dean Jackson. Dean’s always played loads of Nottingham music and it’s always a joy to be on his show.

I started DJing at house parties when I was about 18 and have been playing spots around Notts and the UK since.

I play a mix of old and new and like to mix things up so I’ll play house, disco, boogie, electro-soul, Italo, hip-hop... all sorts.

Nottingham clubbers are the best – we are resistant and will dance through anything. You can drop in The Smiths and we will carry on with hands to the ceiling.

My favourite place to go in Nottinghamshire is Go Ape in Sherwood Forest, which is like doing the Krypton Factor up in the trees.

I’m also a big fan of libraries and can be found hiding my CDs in the self-help section on Angel Row.

Boating on the university lake is a lovely day out in summer and I will happily sit back eating strawberries and flirting with the ducks while you do the rowing.

Ronika’s next Nottingham show is at The Bodega in Pelham Street on March 23.

Follow Ronika on Twitter – @ohronikagirl

Dog Is Dead

October 2011

A NOTTINGHAM band could soon be snapping at the heels of music’s biggest stars in the UK charts.

Dog Is Dead today released their first single for Atlantic Records, one of the world’s biggest record labels.

The West Bridgford indie-pop quintet signed to the label, home to Plan B, Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran, earlier this year.

Hands Down was recorded at the famous RAK studios in London and today went on sale in shops across the UK and through all the key download sites.

But singer and songwriter Rob Milton is cautious about being over optimistic.

“We are confident we can get in the chart but we’re talking about the top 150, which would be ridiculous for a band at the stage we are at,” said the 20-year-old.

“We don’t want to push it too hard, we just want to see how people react to it.”

The band have already released three singles on their own Your Childhood record label. Glockenspiel Song, Young and River Jordan have been played on Radio 1, Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music. They’ve also been featured in the NME, appeared at Glastonbury and even had a small role in the Channel 4 teen drama Skins.

“Even though we’ve been doing this for three years, getting signed to Atlantic felt like the start. And this single is really a first step. It’s not going to get to number one but we want to steadily build our fanbase.”

Rob met Joss Van Wilder (keyboards) and Lawrence ‘Trev’ Cole (bass/sax) at West Bridgford School. They formed Dog Is Dead with Paul Roberts (guitar) in 2008. Drummer Daniel Harvey joined this year.

“I wanted to make a song with a Motown feel that had a really positive message,” he says of Hands Down, which will be included on their first album for Atlantic, expected in the Spring.

“We’re still working on the songs for that,” said Rob.

“It’s a bit of a free-for-all at the moment which is quite exciting.”

They recently supported Bombay Bicycle Club on tour.

“That was probably the time of our lives,” he said.

“We were playing to two or three thousand people every night. The crowds reacted to us amazingly well.”

Dog Is Dead will play the main stage at Rock City in December, the biggest gig by a homegrown band in decades.

“It feels like it’s going to be a big show, not just for us but for Nottingham.”

Local music champions Nusic have been running a competition for an unsigned Nottingham band to open the gig.

“This is a life-changing opportunity for any musician serious about pursuing their musical dream,” said Nusic’s Mark Del, who will be choosing a shortlist tonight along with a panel of judges.

Added Rob: “We just want someone who is really entertaining. I wouldn’t necessarily want a Dog Is Dead tribute band.”

Dog Is Dead are leading the charge for the local music scene which has seen the likes of Jake Bugg, Ronika, Liam Bailey and Spotlight Kid gain national attention on the radio and in the press.

Dog Is Dead, who were signing limited edition seven inch vinyl copies of the single at Fopp yesterday, play Rock City on Saturday December 17.

Tickets are £7.50 from the venue, call 0845 413 4444 or go to www.alt-tickets.co.uk.

Hands Down is available at all record shops and to download through iTunes and other websites. The video for the single is available at dogisdead.co.uk.

Parade

January 2011

                                                     

GIRL groups have a negative imagine as far as musical talent is concerned but don’t be too quick to judge Parade.

One of them, Gunthorpe-born Bianca Claxton, is a genuinely talented musician.

By the age of 12 she was a member of the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain, was a finalist in the Nottingham Young Musician of the Year competition and, most significantly, had won a place at the Royal Academy of Music.

“I’d travel down every Saturday from the age of 12 until I was 18,” says the 20-year-old former pupil at Hollygirt and Nottingham High School for Girls.

“I did all my musical training there one day a week which was tough. It meant I didn’t get much of a weekend but it was so worth it.”

So how do you get from the Royal Academy to a girl group?

“I was still living in Nottingham but I was auditioning in London, mostly for musical theatre. The record label decided they were going to hold auditions for the group and someone asked me to go along but I didn’t think I’d get it because it was so heavily dance based. I’d never really danced before. I turned up to the audition in my Uggs and everyone laughed at me. Apparently that’s not appropriate for a dance audition.

“But I got it and within two weeks I was living in a house with the other four girls in London.”

That was October 2009.

“We’ve been in our own bubble since then, making the album and rehearsing. So this is the most exciting bit, seeing how people respond to us.”

Their debut single, Louder, due for release in March, had its first airing on Radio 1 on Sunday.

“We had a really good reaction to it. We’ve got incredible support on Twitter and Facebook. Our fans are pretty hardcore.”

The girls are getting to meet them on Alexandra Burke’s tour, which comes to Nottingham next week. During the day they have been performing in schools.

But they’ve already played bigger shows, supporting Shakira at the end of last year.

“That was insane. We were thrown in at the deep end because we’d be doing schools one day then playing the MEN Arena, Glasgow SECC and the O2, infront of 20,000 people. But that really made us up our game.”

And how was Shakira?

“She was really nice and sweet - and so petite. She’s absolutely tiny.”

Parade are doing a five song set on the Burke tour, including Louder and a cover of Cee Lo Green’s Forget You.

“That always go downs a storm.”

Bianca’s style, she says is based on Blondie.

“I just love that slightly rocky vibe. And I love her hair, obviously.”

Her first taste of the limelight was aged 11 when she entered an Evening Post/Radio Nottingham competition called Karaoke Kids, a search for the best young singer in the county.

She sang Shania Twain’s From This Moment.

“(Laughs) That takes me back. Blimey. No, I didn’t win.”

It didn’t matter because she was already an accomplished cello player.

“I love cello. I play it every now and then but it’s finding time really, with being on the road we rarely go back to the house.”

Bianca is yet to use her musical talents - she also plays piano - with Parade, having to focus on singing and dancing.

“Maybe one day.”

How have mum and dad reacted to the shift from the Royal Academy to pop?

“They’re chuffed to bits. It’s what they wanted for me all along. And they can’t believe it because no-one in my family has ever done anything musical.”

She adds: “I’m loving it. I’m having such a good time.”

Gig

Who: Alexandra Burke, Parade

Where: Royal Concert Hall

When: Monday, January 31, 7pm

Tickets: £30, 0115 989 5555

Web: www.royalcentre-nottingham.co.uk

Stuart Pearce and friends in band video

September 2010

CALLING on your mates to appear in a video is nothing new but when they’re former international footballers and a soap actor it makes all the difference.

That’s been the case for Nottingham-based indie band The Establishment, whose Be That Way video has been viewed by nearly 11,000 people on YouTube.

It’s largely due to the few familiar faces on screen.

Forest legend Stuart Pearce plays a nightclub doorman opposite Des Walker, while their former England colleague Teddy Sheringham charms the ladies in the club and Les Ferdinand serves behind the bar.

“Des is a big fan of the band and he called in a few favours,” said guitarist John Burns, a former Forest midfielder, who lives in Ilkeston.

“I played under Pearcey when he took over for a short time but it was Des who asked him to join in.”

The video, shot in black and white, mixes footage of the band playing live with a sequence in a nightclub, filmed at The Central in Huntingdon Street.

“They came down to Nottingham and did their piece which was fantastic. And it was a brilliant day. They’re all just genuine lads.”

Nottingham’s Coronation Street actor Chris Gascoyne, who plays Peter Barlow in the soap, is filmed walking in The Park.

Former Coventry and England player Dion Dublin, who also appears, is now managing the band.

Burns, 32, formed The Establishment four years ago with drummer Steven Landon, when they met at a music shop in Ilkeston.

The bassist is engineer Neil Jacks, guitarist Stuart is an electrician and frontman Stephen Hobster is a joiner. All but Burns live in Arnold.

The band, who describe their sound as a mix of Oasis, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, have since played regularly at Southbank and The Approach.

Burns, who was with Forest from 1994 to 1999, learned to play the guitar as a teenager.

“In football you would finish by 12.30pm. I’d go home and practice in the afternoon, writing songs.

“It was a great job but you retire early,” said Burns, who works full-time as a mortgage adviser in the city centre.

He added: “I’ve played football in front of 30,000 people but playing music in front of a few hundred is easily as good.”

The single, Be That Way, is released next week as a download.

“Our big aim is to crack the top 40. We’ve been told we can do that with around 4,000 sales.”

He added: “I remember Teddy saying I hope it gets to number one. I said steady on Teddy, it’s our first one”.

A second video is already being planned.

“We already have five big stars lined up for the next one. I can’t say who they are just yet.”

The single is available to download from www.theestablishmentband.com.

JLS

November 2009

They are the biggest new boy band of the noughties, currently sitting at the top of the singles chart and battling with Robbie Williams for the No. 1 album this Sunday. Their show next February at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall is a sell-out. So, granted a chat with one of the JLS four, there was only one thing to ask: What are you wearing?
"Some boots, some jeans and a T-shirt," says Marvin Humes, without missing a beat.
Well, it makes a change from the usual questions he's repeatedly had to answer over the past few months since they turned around losing to Alexandra Burke in last year's X Factor final and a rejection by Simon Cowell's record label SyCo, to become the decade's hottest boy band property.
What do they think of Cowell? Do they watch the X Factor? Who is the fittest, Cheryl or Dannii? Actually...
If you are the last man on Earth, with just two women left, Dannii and Cheryl, who do you pick?
"Cheryl for me," he says.
"Dannii's lovely, I love Dannii, she's a sweet girl but Cheryl's just perfect. Very hot."
It was their performance of the current No. 1 single Everybody In Love on the show two weeks ago that gave the X-Factor its series peak with an audience of nearly 14 million.
Humes, who was named after Marvin Gaye ("I was born the year after he died"), is in a room at his record company HQ in London. The label treats them well: at September's MOBO awards in Glasgow the quartet turned up in individual, chauffeured Lotus sports cars.
After picking up awards for Best Newcomer and Best Song, Marvin, Aston Merrygold, Jonathan "JB'" Gill and Oritsé Williams were sent into a room to handpick designer clothes and jewellery. "It's not all the time," says Marvin. "The MOBO Awards had a gifting lounge. We're very fortunate. We do get a lot of freebies, which is great.
"Christmas is taken care of, really."
He's diplomatic about the album battle with Robbie on Sunday; their self-titled debut is vying for the No.1 spot with Williams' comeback release, Reality Killed The Video Star.
"You know what, for us, just to be up against someone like Robbie is incredible," is all he'll say.
The album features nine songs co-written by JLS – unusual for any boy band.
"Yeah, it is, for an act coming out of X Factor. We've been extremely lucky. The label put us in the studio for two months and said, If you come up with the goods they'll make the album."
JLS had been together a year before they entered the X Factor.
"The name came from our British identity," says Marvin. Jack the Lad Swing was a composite of their cheeky onstage persona and the US music genre New Jack Swing that had produced Jodeci and Boyz II Men.
As the eldest of the four, is he, perhaps, the sensible one?
"I'd think the boys would say I am because I'm the oldest but we've all got a sensible streak in us."
Aston gets the most attention, he admits, but not because he's better looking.
"He was like the lead singer towards the end of the X Factor. He's very popular with the fans and hence, popular with the ladies."
And Aston has family in Nottingham, he reveals. Scream! We'll say no more. We don't want you lot camping outside their homes...

Mayhem: Mike Hodges

October 2009

It is a tale of a fake medium, called Martha, who travels the US Bible Belt with her drunken father, conning people in to believing she can talk to the dead.
But then she begins to get messages from victims of murder from beyond the grave – before they've actually been killed.
She knows who the murderer is. But he knows that she knows...
Black Rainbow was a film written and directed by Mike Hodges, probably still best known for his work behind the camera on the iconic British thriller Get Carter.
But unlike that film, Black Rainbow, which starred Rosanna Arquette and Jason Robards, was a commercial flop.
"As with a lot of my films I've been unlucky with my distribution," says Hodges.
"In fact, Palace Pictures went down shortly after they'd released Black Rainbow. They'd already sold the video rights because they needed cash urgently and consequently it was only allowed to run in the cinema for a very brief time. In America, Miramax, who were also going under, sold it to a cable channel for the same reason.
"But it had some wonderful reviews and won lots of awards in foreign countries. It was very big in Japan I understand, so it has a life of its own."
The inspiration for writing the story was threefold, says Hodges.
"For years I bought the local papers as I travelled around these small towns in America and there were often stories of men being beaten up and sometimes killed for blowing the whistle on illegal practices in the factories where they worked. Added to that I was interested in the effect of the human species on the climate. And finally there was the location of a film I'd shot in North Carolina, which was very much in the Bible Belt. I put three of them together and came up with Black Rainbow."
He'd also begun to be interested in quantum theory, which added another dimension to the story.
Details aside, this meant Hodges believed (and still does) that predicting the future and time travel could be scientifically explained.

"Albert Einstein referred to Quantum Theory as "voodoo physics" but it really has blown apart our sense of reality. It's explaining certain phenomena, such as time travel, that previously we thought of as fantasy.
"So I was playing with ideas of that nature in Black Rainbow. At the beginning of the film, Martha's watch keeps playing up. Her time is in fact different to ours. Her time is ahead and a consequence of this explains why she is able to see into the future."
That said, Hodges is not convinced that today's psychics are quite what they seem.
"I think most mediums are fishing for information. I think a lot of it is fraudulent," he says.
Arquette wasn't the first choice to play his fake psychic in the film, admits Hodges.
"There were a couple of other actresses that I'd shown it to and I think they were rather frightened of it. Rosanna was very brave to take it on because it wasn't an easy role but I'm glad she did. She's terribly good in it."
Hodges has been a guest at Broadway before, appearing at the cinema's Shots In The Dark crime and thriller festival many years ago, with the release of Croupier.
"My first wife was from Nottingham. She's dead now and that was a long time ago but I've always liked the city."
So which is his favourite: Get Carter, Prayer For The Dying, Morons From Outer Space, Flash Gordon, Black Rainbow or Croupier?
"Each film is so different I can't really answer that."
Fair enough.
Will there be any more?
"I've got various projects that I hope will materialise before I kick the bucket," he laughs.

Imelda May

February 2009

JOOLS Holland has been championing her. If you turned up early enough to his Royal Concert Hall show before Christmas you may well have seen Imelda May's set of doctored jazz that has led to glowing comparisons with Amy Winehouse.
"Well, we're both women," laughs the Dubliner.
She's right to mock. Her music is less jazz and more rockabilly. The quiff isn't just for show.
"I nicked my brother's tapes," she says of her early influences. "He had Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and Elvis, Billy Fury, Gene Vincent and all that stuff and I just loved the energy. They were letting it rip on songs. I thought it was so cool.
"I got myself a little quiff and my little check shoes and my turn-up jeans. I thought I was the coolest thing in the world. And yes, I did get some stick."
May, who re-released her debut album Love Tattoo late last year on Universal, began 2009 as a tip for success.
"In some ways being with a big record label does put pressure on. You have to deliver, obviously. But it takes some off as well because they push us along."
It's been a long road, one that started with her singing in church, then clubs with various bands, even as a burlesque singer. She has shared a stage with Kirsty MacColl, Alison Moyet, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and Van Morrison.
"We opened up for Van Morrison at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. He came out to watch us, which he doesn't always do and we got the thumbs-up. Dionne Warwick was lovely. She gave us a few tips."
Holland gave May her big break. It was after being on Later With... that Universal signed her. And supporting him last year brought her to Nottingham for the first time.
"We found a great chip shop down the side of the theatre. A great little place. A little jewel."
Did you have mushy peas?
"No, just a big bag of chips full of vinegar."
May has already made steps towards a career on the big screen, singing in forthcoming fantasy musical Dark Streets, which stars Mad Men actor Gabriel Mann.
"I somehow got to be sitting next to Dr John. We had a lovely chat."
Not that she hasn't acted before.
"Everybody is digging that up," she says when I ask about the fish finger advert she did aged 14.
"I'm going to turn into 'the fish finger girl' or something...."
Did you get any free fish fingers?
"Thankfully not. I'm a vegetarian. We got £40. I'd do it for that now..."

John Martyn

April 30 2004




ARE you the man with the amazing dancing bear?”
Eh?
“(Singing) Simon Smith and his amazing dancing bear. I’ve done that many times.”
It’s an old Alan Price song. It’s an odd start.
“The last gig I did in Nottingham was around ten years ago and it was at the university and there was no PA. I had to run around to hire one. God bless ’em. All the punters, who had been standing in the rain helped me put the PA up. That was a buzz and half, man. It did me brains in.”
John Martyn is in a feisty mood. It’s in the middle of the afternoon but with the slurring I suspect he may had a few beers. It could be his natural state — alcohol was one of his vices.
“Still is,” he says.
It’s still got you?
“No, it hasn’t got me I’ve got it. In fact...”
I can hear him asking his girlfriend to pass him a lager.
“I’ve been to AA meetings and all that stuff, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.”
The chances of him giving it up were seriously reduced when he had to have a leg amputated below the knee two years ago.
All he was doing was fixing an amp.
“I made the classic mistake of holding on to a piece of metal when I turned the amp on. BANG! Volts through my bod. I flew off the back of my chair.
“I had this thing called a Baker’s cyst on the back of my leg. The shock triggered it all and my leg swelled to twice its size. I had to have a piece of it off to save my life.”
Doctors told him the cyst had been there for seven years. He had never noticed it before.
“Unless you’re a complete narcissist it’s impossible to see the back of your leg. I’m too ugly for that.”
He adds: “I remember doing two gigs in Cambridge and I just kept falling over and everyone thought I was drunk which I wasn’t. It was the cyst.”
He laughs when I ask how much it has changed his life.
“Put it this way, I’ve got a man here manipulating my prosthetic. He just burned a piece off and drilled a bit round. You have to adjust your foot with an Allen key. It’s cool though. You get about, man. It’s a bit painful at times but it’s nothing to worry about. It’s better than dying.”
And on stage?
“Sometimes I sit down, sometimes I lean against a Marshall amp, sometimes I might fall down... who knows?”
The Scot now lives Kilkenny in Ireland.
“Because I fell in love with an Irish woman.”
Are they married?
“Oooh, don’t be silly.”
You once were, though.
“Yeah, I discovered that it was not for me. I don’t think I’ll ever get married. Ah — I might, I suppose.”
Children?
“Oh there’s loads of ’em.”
Any doing music?
“Strangely no. It’s computing, drama... they can sing and play but they wouldn’t dream of taking it seriously. I think they’ve learned the lesson of my particular experience.”
Martyn began his career aged 17, influenced by traditional Scottish folk and American bluesmen Robert Johnson and Skip James.
After moving to London he became one of the most original advocates of a folk-rock-jazz fusion, working alongside Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell and Al Stewart.
Vocal acrobatics, guitar overtones and jazz arrangements merged for his classic album Solid Air in 1973.
Martyn has never been afraid to embrace different genres, toying with eastern mysticism, disco-soul and electronic new-age with varying degrees of success.
“I’m really in to hip-hop. I’m mad for 2-Pac. I like Outkast, it’s a real fusion of nonsense. It’s funky stuff. I play hip-hop and John Coltrane.”
Is he a fan of the new acoustic movement?
“It’s bull. All they do is thrash away on C, F and G with the odd A minor and they don’t play. Very few guitar players play with both hands today.”
So he’s not keen on David Gray and...
“Now you’re talking. Davy Graham?”
David Gray.
“No, no, no, the only one to listen to is Davy Graham. Write this down. D-a-v-y. G-r-a-h-a-m. He is the best acoustic guitar player I’ve ever heard in my life. John McLaughlin doesn’t sing, though when I first heard him play I wanted to cut my hands off. It was so beautiful. But Davy Graham...”
We let him go as the drilling starts up again on his leg.
“Tell the people of Nottingham they’re going to listen to lovely new songs. On The Cobbles is a nice album but I’m well ahead of that now. It was written two years ago. I’ve been writing ever since because there’s nothing else to do, you see.”
He doesn’t go out much?
“No, I stay in and play.”
I read he was a mate of Phil Collins and Eric Clapton — don’t they all get together?
“They’re good friends but I only see them every three years or so. I don’t really hang out with musicians. Mostly I hang out with villains. They’re more honest than most people I meet.”

Il Divo

January 2009


(Sébastien Izambard, second right)


HE is the "fit" one, according to one woman in the office.
"Really? Tell them they're very nice. I need to hear that much," says Sébastien Izambard, the French one out of Il Divo.
So who gets the most attention or fan mail?
"The four of us."
You're being diplomatic.
"No I'm being true. All of us get lots of attention. They have four choices. We are very different."
The others are David Miller, Carlos Marín and Urs Buhler.
Not that Sébastien has much interest in groupies anyway – last year his wife gave birth to twins.
"I'm the happiest man in the world. I can't express how grateful I am to be a father. It gives you a reason of being here. You become much less selfish."
So after a hard day of grafting in the studio does he come home, kick off his shoes, slob out on the sofa and wait for the missus to finish with the kids and get the dinner on?
"No," he laughs.
"We try to share as much as we can. It's probably the hardest job in the world."
Does he take them on tour?
"Oh yes, definitely. There's no way I can survive without seeing my family."
The next visit to Nottingham for Il Divo is in March with a show at the Arena.
"Is that where Robin Hood is from? Is there any way we can meet Robin Hood?"
No. He's not real.
Sébastien has no real recollection of the city though he thinks it "a very nice place to come".
"I never have time to visit the city but the energy is amazing. The UK is very special to us because that's where everything started for us."
Il Divo were pieced together by Simon Cowell in 2004 as a kind of opera boy band and the appeal was instant. He had been canny to choose four nationalities (American, Swiss, Spanish and French) to broaden their appeal around the world.
"There is definitely an element to it but when they hear Il Divo they don't really know where we are from. We sing in Spanish, English and Italian. So I don't think it's the main element.
"I think it's the voices, the genre of music we bring to the world, the fact that we sing pop songs with that operatic technique."
For whatever reason, it has worked and Il Divo have shifted 22 million albums.
"I don't think any of us realised at the time that we would record five albums, have two worldwide tours, sing with Toni Braxton, Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand..."
I would imagine that your mum is a big Streisand fan?
"She's not," he says, then adds: "I'm just kidding."
Was she most impressed by your work with Streisand?
"I think but I remember my mum to be, when she saw a picture of me shaking the hand of the Queen at the Royal Variety Show that she was really shocked, thinking 'wow!'. And then I had another picture next to the Queen with Hillary and Bill Clinton. And she was like 'what!'. She was then very impressed."
Has he met any personal heroes on his travels?
"I was very impressed with Bill Clinton because he has been doing so much amazing things. He has that amazing stature. To be honest with you, the people that have impressed me are not the people, that you see on camera."
He means the charity workers.
Let's move on.
When on tour they like to have their own space, he says. They do hang out occasionally and play golf or, as they did in South Africa, go on safari...
"But it's quite important and healthy to make space for the four of us so when we see each other again it's always joy and happiness.
"When people spend 15 hours together... we're always in the same car, on the same plane, on the same TV show... what are you going to say? 'What did you do yesterday?' 'You know what I've been doing!'"
Cowell's influence is still strong as he has the final word on the songs that they record.
"The actual choice of the songs is the four of us at first. We put a list of songs (together), then we meet with Simon Cowell before we record the songs."
For their fifth album, The Promise, they recorded a version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
"Hasn't everyone?", he laughs.
"Though it is the first time it has been recorded in Spanish."
Then he adds: "My favourite version is the Jeff Buckley one."
Quite.

An Evening With Il Divo, Arena, Wednesday March 4

2009 preview

January 2009

By all accounts we're doomed. The economy is in a mess and it's only going to get worse. Yeah, and a happy new year to you too. While the signs all point to a miserable 12 months ahead, that's not the case for the world of entertainment in Nottingham.


1. The year of the Horne It is going to be Mathew Horne's year. The 30-year-old from Burton Joyce, fresh from the success of the brilliant Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special, will first be seen presenting the BRIT Awards with co-star James Corden next month. The pair will be joined by Kylie Minogue, who also appears in the duo's brand new sketch show Horne & Corden which will air on BBC Three in February. A month later they'll be making their big screen debut in the comedy movie Lesbian Vampire Killers. And as revealed over Christmas, a third series of Gavin & Stacey will be made, hopefully by the end of 2009.

2. Bronson The big screen biopic of Britain's most notorious prisoner Charles Bronson a.k.a. Michael Peterson will be released in cinemas on March 13. Starring Tom Hardy (Black Hawk Down, RockNRolla) it was filmed entirely in Nottinghamshire and tells the story of the 55-year-old who has spent 34 years inside for repeat violence against fellow inmates and prison officers. It will also feature Amanda Burton (Silent Witness), Matt King (Doctor Who, Peep Show, Inkheart, RockNRolla) and James Lance (Spaced, Smack The Pony, I'm Alan Partridge).

3. Chart idols Some of the biggest chart names are heading for the Arena in 2009, among them The Killers, The Pussycat Dolls, Pink, Kaiser Chiefs, Metallica, Girls Aloud, Keane and Snow Patrol.

4. TV on tour Three of the biggest TV shows of 2008 go out on the road this year and each will stop off at the Arena in Nottingham, starting with Strictly Come Dancing on January 27, returning for three more shows. Alexandra leads the stars of The X Factor -- including the loonies -- on a tour that comes to the Arena in March, then Torvill & Dean mark the 25th anniversary of their world famous Bolero routine by bringing the stars of the forthcoming Dancing On Ice ITV series to the Arena for two shows in April.

5. Nottingham pops Castle Donington may have given birth to this electro-rock quartet but they consider Nottingham their home city. Probably as they live in Radcliffe-on-Trent these days. Their debut album Fantasy Black Channel was a critical success, landing in the Top 20 of the HMV Poll Of Polls 2008 -- collated from end of year polls by 35 key publications and websites. All they need to do now is translate that in to chart success and we'll be on the music map of Britain (finally). Or that may happen with Sam Beeton. After a shaky start, Carlton's 20-year-old singer-songwriter will finally see the release of his debut album on the Sony BMG label in March.

6. . High School Musical Disney's teen movie phenomenon -- think Fame without the legwarmers -- makes two appearances in the city this year, the first of which is an ice show at the Arena next month. Troy, super popular captain of the basketball team, and Gabriella, super smart transfer student and a genius in science class , then returns in May for the stage version at the Royal Concert Hall.

7. Old school musical Pop nostalgia is still going strong it seems with the astonishing popularity of Take That in 2008. On the back of that the West End musical Never Forget, featuring the songs of Take That, will tour the provinces including a four day run at the Theatre Royal in October. Boyzone, seeing the demand for their forefathers, returned to the pop game last year and sold out the Arena in the process. They'll be back If they're just too modern, there are a host of eighties pop idols coming to the Arena on the Here & Now Tour in May. Kim Wilde, Pete Burns, Altered Images, Brother Beyond and Hazel O'Connor were to be joined by Boy George but he may be otherwise occupied. The former Culture Club leader will be sentenced for falsely imprisoning a male escort on January 16.

8. Belly busters Ahead of his latest tour that will be dropping in to the Royal Concert Hall in April, Ross Noble will be warming up at Just The Tonic at The Approach on February 22, a rare opportunity to see the Geordie wit in a club setting. Manuel-bothering lothario Russell Brand will be making his Arena debut on February 20.

9. Summer fun DOWNLOAD will be back at Donington in June, McFly have been confirmed for one of the outdoor shows at Sherwood Pines Forest Park the same month and though the date has yet to be set, Splendour will return to Wollaton Park this summer. Nottingham's brand new music festival last year featured Kate Nash, Rufus Wainwright, The Lemonheads, Paolo Nutini and dozens of local bands.

10. Naked ladies The West End production of Calendar Girls is one of the big shows heading for the Theatre Royal. The true story of the Yorkshire WI members who hit the headlines after stripping for a fundraising calendar, stars Lynda Bellingham, Patricia Hodge, Sian Phillips and Gaynor Faye. It has been adapted by Tim Firth, who co-wrote the screenplay for the hit movie starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. Other big hitters at the Theatre Royal in 2009 include The Graduate, West Side Story, Evita and The Witches of Eastwick.

Adrian Edmondson

December 2008


THEY are one of the most famous comedy couples in Britain but, before Jennifer Saunders, Adrian Edmondson was married to a Nottingham girl.
" I was very young and stupid," he says.
"We were students when we got married."
How old?
"19"
That's young. Even for the mid-70s.
"It's idiotic. I apologise to everyone involved. Including me."
They'd met while at university in Manchester. She was from Mapperley.
"It gets more stupid, this story... we used to live there in the summer holidays. With her mum and dad.
"It's a bizarre idea."
He adds: "I worked in the Horizon Players Factory in my summer holidays. I also worked at Pork Farms."
I imagine that was a bit grim.
He guffaws: "I'm partial to a pork pie."
As the marriage dissolved, Edmondson, who graduated with a degree in drama, teamed up with university buddy Rik Mayall to work the comedy circuit as 20th Century Coyote, who became an attraction at London's The Comedy Store. With fellow upcoming comedians Alexei Sayle, Peter Richardson, Nigel Planer, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, they created their own comedy night The Comic Strip which eventually led to the TV series of the same name on the fledgling Channel 4.
At the same time, the BBC signed Edmondson, Mayall, Planer and Sayle for the ground-breaking anarchic comedy The Young Ones.
It was to launch the careers of its lead actors and co-writer Ben Elton.
Edmondson would continue to draw on the violent punk character of Vyvyan Basterd for his later roles, most successfully in Bottom with Rik Mayall, which transferred from the small screen to the stage and then to the cinema in 1999 with Guest House Paradiso.
Edmondson's character of Abra Durant in the BBC's Holby City, which he's played since 2005, is also an anti-authoritarian figure.
But it's neither comedy or acting that brings him to Notts tonight, rather music and his Cajun punk band The Bad Shepherds.
They play classic punk and new wave using traditional folk instruments.
"It works really well," he says.
But isn't punk meant to be played loud?
"Well, we all get a bit older and our eardrums start to hurt. Loud guitar music gets a bit wearing."
It's been a life-long fantasy to be in a band, he says.
"I don't know anyone in the world who doesn't want to be a rock'n'roll star. I dreamt about it all through my school days. I was in a band at school. And that's all we talked about."
He played out the fantasy with The Comic Strip team in Bad News, the Spinal Tap-style rock band spoof for Channel 4 in 1987.
But this is the real thing – he's joined by Maartin Allcock (ex Jethro Tull and Fairport Convention) and Troy Donockley (ex Maddy Prior and Midge Ure's band).
"It's music from 1977-82. We do a bit of The Jam, The Clash and The Pistols. We're attacking a bit of The Specials. We're doing Ghost Town. We're also doing a bit of Talking Heads, Tom Robinson and Kraftwerk."
Is there any song that didn't lend itself to the folk treatment?
"I really wanted to do (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding (written by Nick Lowe) but it didn't work. It's bizarrely slow."
Edmondson was introduced to punk while at Manchester University at a venue called The Squat.
"The Buzzcocks were the only name that ever made it," he says of the bands he saw.
Not that he was always so cool – his first record was...?
"Val Doonican's Irish Stewpot," he says without hesitation.
"I was only ten. I had a postal order from my grandma and it had four great Val Doonican comedy songs on."
Have you still got it?
"No, I don't think so. I haven't got any vinyl anywhere. There's some stuff in the loft but I don't know what it is."
These days he's more into his folk music but his musical hero is Nick Cave.
"I absolutely adore him.
"In fact if you listen to his stuff, his stuff is actually punk done with a kind of folk style. His lead guitarist is a mandolin player, really."
And he's a great storyteller.
"Yeah, it's kind of a folk ballad style a lot of his stuff."
If there was any musician he'd like to be it's him.
"I'd just like to be that ****ing cool."
He adds: "I sat next to him in a pub once. I don't know about you, if you've met any of your idols but it's generally disappointing.
"And I thought, 'Well I'm not going to say hello because I still want him to be my idol'".
I interviewed in a few years ago and he's fine. Quite dry.
"I thought he might be a bit sticky."
Bum-bum.
"I thought he might be a bit offish."
Not at all.
So what are his all-time favourite albums?
"There are two albums I keep playing as albums.
"It's very rare you play albums these days, isn't it? Because you shuffle on your iPod.
"One of them is Sweetheart Of The Rodeo by The Byrds, when Gram Parsons was in The Byrds, which is just a fantastic album. And the other is a very early Velvet Underground record called Loaded. It's got the first versions of Waiting For The Man and Heroin on it and it's just brilliant. Much better than when they went cod dark. They went purposefully moody and they didn't need to because their songs were brilliant anyway."
Talking of not wanting to meet your heroes I interviewed Lou Reed earlier this year...
"(Laughs) Was he grumpy? He's about 80 now, isn't he?"
If you find yourself sat next to him in a pub, don't bother saying hello.
"I like a lot of naff stuff," he admits.
"A lot of 70s glam metal. Like The Sweet. Do you call Focus naff? There's a track, Sylvia, that I play once a month. It's got that good driving home feel to it."
I quite like Hocus Pocus.
"Well that is pretty naff, isn't it? And I like that, too. Yoddle-oddle-ay yoddle-oddle-loo," he adds with a chuckle.
Edmondson married Jennifer Saunders in 1985. The couple have three daughters.
"I cry when my daughter sings," he admits.
"She can sing anything, really."
She's no toddler, though, but a 22-year-old singer-songwriter.
Is she a better musician.
"She's more of an accomplished writer. I wish I could write like she writes."
He adds with a laugh: "I'm a better player than her. She knows that."


The Bad Shepherds bring The Lost Sheep Tour to The Intake Club, Kirkland Avenue, Mansfield, Friday December 19

Jeff Wayne's The War Of The Worlds

December 2008


IT's quite something. I caught it at the Arena last summer on its second visit to the city.
And it works not simply as a musical spectacle, the live reproduction of the 1978 album by up to 100 players, but for the three-dimensional Richard Burton that hovers by the stage and the towering Martian Killing Machine.
Next time round, it'll be even better says its creator Jeff Wayne.
"We're hoping to raise the bar yet again. The main area that we've been working in is with a major company that does illusions in movies and on David Copperfield specials on TV."
The result will be "a huge ingredient that the show hasn't had before".
But he's not saying any more.
"That would be like a magician telling his trick. (But) we're not having a magician taking a Martian out of a hat.
"They are major illusions."

Other changes this year include adding former Brookside-star-turned-tabloid-fave Jennifer Ellison to the cast, as Beth, the Parson's wife.
"As the conductor I've got the best seat in the house," he laughs.
So will she adopt a different accent or will it be: 'Ey Nuthanyall, likowt, dairs sum Mairshuns'?
"(Laughs) Jennifer came to the studio for us to meet for the first time and for the first half hour I don't think we understood a word each of us was speaking.
"Like you say, she's a true Scouser and I'm a Yank. We had to adopt a mid-Atlantic accent."
If you haven't seen it, the show is based on his album Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds that put H G Wells' story of an alien invasion to music with the story narrated by Richard Burton and a cast of voices that included David Essex, Phil Lynott and Julie Covington.
Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues, who sang on the album, is again among the cast for the next tour, which will pay its third visit to Nottingham in June.
"It's been amazing," he says.
"To bring back an arena tour in less than two years is most unusual and this will be our third in the UK in three consecutive years. In between that we've played Australia and New Zealand. After next year's tour we'll go on to dates in Europe and America."

So how come you haven't made a profit?
"It's hard to believe," he admits.
"The capitalisation costs of the show, to actually build, and design it... we don't get the same return as if we were a four- or five-piece band selling out the same amount of shows."
Along with the technology and the cast, Wayne, who conducts, is joined by the Black Smoke Band and the 48-piece ULLAdubULLA string orchestra.
The experience of being on the road so much since 2006 has been a treat, he says.
"Having not returned to The War of the Worlds for so many years it was all very fresh to me. And the challenge of mounting a live performance with very hi-tech stuff was a very exciting challenge. It takes us 12-15 months to plan a new production."
And it won't stop with the third tour. Wayne plans to keep on improving the show year after year.
I wonder if he's considered using the sort of animatronic puppetry that they've adopted in the Walking With Dinosaurs, which I saw in the US this year and is also coming to Nottingham next summer?
"Yes, I have seen it but I think it would be something for the future. We were working for about a month with a company that has done a lot of animatronics for films and theme parks and not only is it complex but we have an image that appears on our screens that reveals the look of the Martians. And to make them look like that Martian has its own sort of challenges."
The last time we spoke he was developing a feature length animated movie of TWOTW, some of which feature in the show projected on to a giant screen. But there's been no progress.
"If we keep enjoying the success we've had with the tour we could start turning a profit and re-invest in to the animated film. And grow our team enough to where we could be developing and producing the film while the tour carries on. We haven't reached that stage yet."
He adds: "It's an investment. It's a love for the story and the work that I created all those years ago. And in a way I was just as bonkers 30 years ago because about 70% of the money to make The War Of The Worlds was my own life savings."
And with 15 million sales that clearly worked out OK.
"Yes, it did."
Wayne, who now lives in England, originally studied journalism before turning to music composition and production, working with the likes of The Who, Tony Christie, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones and the Human League.
While he'll be on-stage conducting –"it's like a workout, after each act I come off absolutely drenched" – for most of his career he's been behind the scenes.
As the son of an actor and singer hasn't he ever fancied being in the spotlight.
"I did make a film debut in a movie when I was a little boy that my dad had one of the leads in," he laughs.
"I was grooming a horse's rear end. If you'd have blinked you'd have missed my award-winning performance."


The War Of The Worlds, Arena, June 17, £41.50-55, 08444 124 624, www.trentfmarenanottingham.com

Status Quo

December 2008


HE'S a rambler.
After we establish where he is – Le Mans – for which he has to ask someone else, Francis Rossi goes off on one about the modern predilection for high expectations.
"Most things don't live up to our expectations. They're much better in your head."
Like Christmas.
"The best thing about Christmas is looking forward to it. I find that with so many things in life. The weekend, the holiday, the meal... it's not so much about 'my God, I'm enjoying myself right now!'
"I look forward to going home so much then I get home and 'Oh I'm here'. I quite often look forward to going back on the road."
Maybe you've a restless personality?
"And how do you explain the rest of the planet then?"
Errr...
"My first wife would get thoroughly depressed if she didn't have something to look forward to. She still has that problem now. She looks forward to it then after the event she's totally depressed.
"It seems our whole planet is doing this."
But people have always been the same. Back to the 50s and factory workers looking forward to the weekend.
"I think it's got more intense."
So what is the answer?
"I try and enjoy the moment."
His favourite moment being after a show when he's just sat on the tour bus.
"Just heaven," he says.
"When one has done a show, you've fulfilled your commitment.... ahh."
Anyway, what am I waffling on about? We're supposed to be talking about Status Quo."
They're back one more time for a show at the Arena, on a tour to mark their 40th anniversary. So obviously there'll be the hits. From Pictures of Matchstick Men in 1968, through the definitive Quo rockers in the 70s – Paper Plane, Caroline, Down Down, Rockin' All Over the World, Whatever You Want, Down Down– to their 75th single and first festive release, It's Christmas Time.
But they've always done the hits on tour, so what's different?
"There are a couple from the 60s we haven't done since the 60s.
"It's Status Quo – what can I say? You either like it or you don't.
"It's definitely better for the punters this time round. We have these screens and there are lots of nostalgic bits and pieces."
He wasn't sure about beefing up their presentation.
"People don't go home humming the lights do they? But it seems to have worked. People like it so..."
He adds: "I do look forward to coming to Nottingham..."
You said you don't look forward to anything these days.
"I do. Because there's a sushi bar near the Lace Market, I go for breakfast there. And then usually in the evening there's a tapas bar around there that I go to.
"And there's a gym up the road in an old station. So usually Nottingham's a great day for me.
"I don't know about the gig, though," he says with a laughs.
"The gig is freezing. Always. That bloody arena is freezing. It's true."
He's off again. This time it's the arrogance of the British race.
"We seem to have got that thing where we needn't bother any more because obviously we're British and we're great. I remember I used to come here (France) in the 70s and it was ****. The gigs were diabolical, the roads were diabolical. Now you've got roads and you feel like you're floating. And every venue's a dream. And you think hang on, we're being shown what to do by the French."
Laughs.
"Think about that, Britain!"
While the Arena gets a kicking he's quite a fan of the Royal Concert Hall.
"A couple of years ago we were playing there and we had to come off early because we could smell this burning. We had this hydraulic lift that takes the floor up and down and the front row were sinking. This hydraulic thing had given out and they were panicking in case they lost the punters down the hole.
"But I do like that place."
The tour goes into next year then there's a short break before they head off on their annual jaunt playing in the open air during the summer.
When he gets time off, Rossi admits he'll indulge in a week of slumming it at home then he'll be back to the studio.
But he's not a workaholic, more likely filling in the hours that years ago were spent in a haze of drugs and alcohol.
He's long since been clean of both.
"I can't do drugs or alcohol," says Rossi, who will turn 60 next year.
"When you read in the papers 'my son was led into drugs by hash...' Hash never led me anywhere. Except indoors. Whereas coke or alcohol got me going out. The alcohol balanced the coke. I left one of my girlfriends, the mother of one of my daughters... I would still have been with her if I hadn't been drinking because drinking made me jack the lad.
"I blame alcohol for more things than most people do."
For the tour and the CD Pictures: 40 Years of Hits, the usual promotional tools were put in place – the CD comes as either a four-disc EarBook, a three-disc edition with DVD and rarities, a two-disc CD, a USB, download and vinyl. But nothing gave the band as much publicity as the story of the Francis Rossi lookalike who duped Dover councillors.
The man, calling himself Graham, enjoyed months of being treated to VIP meals and rides in the Mayor's limousine with a promise that he'd perform at the Dover Festival with his buddies Sir Paul McCartney, Charlotte Church, and Queen's Brian May.
He even serenaded people with the Quo hit Rockin' All Over The World – but refused to play the guitar, blaming arthritis.
"How would you feel if somebody that looked like that... he's ten years older than me, has a tash and looks nothing like me!" laughs Rossi.
"Charming, isn't it? Relatives are phoning me up saying 'are you going to introduce me to this twin of yours?'
"It's a blinding yarn and we couldn't have got that kind of PR if we'd have tried."

Status Quo, supported by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Arena, Friday December 19