Introducing - Conor Mason

Continuing one with my theme of trying to introduce you all to something that isn't Scottish, here's a little piece about a talented fella by the name of Conor Mason all the way from Northern Ireland. Having just released his new album on one of my favourite labels, Armellodie Records, I caught up Conor to ask him a bit more about the album, how he ended up on a Scottish label and whether he recalled having to put with a very drunken Peenko at last years goNorth....

Hello Mr Mason, my name's Lloyd. I have very vague recollections of meeting you at last years goNorth Festival, so first off I'd like to apologise for rambling pish in your ear. You and I might well have met, but a lot of the readers of my blog might not know who you are, so would you care to introduce yourself to them?
 
How's it going there Lloyd. Aye, pretty hazy recollections here too, though the ramblings of pish were more than likely coming from my direction. Anyway, hello Peenko readers. My name is Conor Mason, and I've been doing the Singer-songwriter thing for quite a bit now. I have two previous albums and just released my new album, 'Standstill' with Armellodie Records on March 19th.


I've never written a song in my puff, it looks far too complicated a process for my brain to handle. What sort of process do you go through when you start writing a song?
 
I'll usually start by sitting at the piano or guitar and rattle out a few chords that sound nice to my ears that day. After putting them into some sort of structure I'll record a rough version. Once I've done this and added various other instruments to the equation start thinking about lyrics. I like to have the music as close to finished as possible, before writing lyrics.

The majority of my music to date has been recorded at my home studio, but I plan to work a little different on the next record.


You're just about to release your new album with those nut jobs from Armellodie Records, how on earth did a boy from Derry get talked into working with a Scottish label?
 
I lived in Glasgow for about 3 years a while back and met Al and Scott through friends of mine who were living there at the time. When I let Al hear my new album, he was really enthusiastic about putting it out on Armellodie. I'd already been a fan of Le Reno Amps, and when I got to hear music from other bands on the label, I was and am excited to be part of it.


My wee world has pretty much been taken over completely by bands from Scotland, hence I know feck all about the Northern Irish music scene. Are there any of your fellow county men/women that you'd suggest I check out?
 
The scene here at the minute is remarkable. In my hometown of Derry alone, there seems to be quality bands and solo artists appearing every few months, the most recent additions being an amazing band called Little Bear and singer-songwriter Soak. We're lucky to have such great radio shows here like Electric Mainline, Across the Line and BBC Introducing that help get the little guys music heard by a wider audience and get involved in promoting the live scene.


Last, but not least, what have you got planned for the foreseeable future and do you have any plans to come back to play in Scotland any time soon?
 
I have nothing planned at the minute, but hopefully I can sort out a few gigs across the water over the coming months.




Conor Mason - Misunderstood

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Introducing - Aloha Tigers

 Nowadays I really don't have the free time that I once did, I used to pride myself on being ahead of the game when it came to being in the know about the 'next big thing' amongst the indie hipster kids. With most of my time being spent solely focusing on the Scottish music scene, I am now a bit lost to anything that doesn't hail from this wee nation of ours. Thankfully though I have a wealth of fellow music friends who are on hand to point me in the right direction as to things that they've been enjoying. Which in a round about explains why I am featuring a duo who hail from Bloomington, Illinois in the US of A. Having recently released their self titled debut album on the newly formed Scottish DIY label, Kirkcudbright Tape Club, I caught up with Nick and Mike from the band to talk about their new found love for Irn Bru and whether they have any idea as to how to pronounce Kirkcudbright...


Aloha my feline friends, would you care to introduce yourself to the Peenko readers?  

Nick Aister: Aloha Peenko. 

Mike Wharfield: Sup. Nick: Thanks for having us.

Mike: So. Well, we are Aloha Tigers. We've been around for about two and a half years now and we'rereleasing our debut album through Kirkcudbright Tape-Club.

Nick: Mike and I have both been making music separately for a long time. He started out in hardcore bands and transitioned into sampling, writing beats and doing production. I pretty much sat alone in a room playing acoustic guitar for like the last ten years. Then we sort of met by accident and everything went from there.

Mike: At first, we were both kind of intimidated by each other as well. You can't really tell from the pictures, but Nick looks really mean. 

Nick: And Mike is like a trained cage fighter. But yeah, once we clicked and started working on shit, right from the get go we felt like we were on to something.


It's that question that all bands seem to hate, how would you describe the music that you make?  

Nick: Pop music . . . with a twist! 

Mike: For the sake of simplicity if nothing else, I think it's pretty fair to call us dream-pop for the time being.

Nick: We basically try to write catchy, upbeat, melodic music. 

Mike: And then Nick shows me the lyrics and it's like, you need to up your anti-depressants, son.
 
Nick: I think a lot of the lyrics are fun. 

Mike: You would. 

Nick: Peenko readers, you're all intelligent, educated people. You can see that the world is literally ending before our eyes. Everything's gone pear-shaped, as they say. So maybe we get a little bleak from time to time. I think you'd agree that's a pretty natural reaction given the state of things. War. Famine. The Singularity. We're doomed. 

Mike: I don't think we've described our music at all. 

Nick: Can you ever really describe art, really? 

Mike: Oh my god, shut up. 


Having no musical talent to speak of I am always pretty intrigued as to how the whole creativity process works. What processes go into the way that you write songs?  

Nick: It's like a big pot of gumbo. I have hundreds of notebooks full of lyrics and hundreds of hours of tapes of me playing guitar and piano, so basically what happens is that Mike will bring me a beat and I'll either start improvising over it, or if that's not working, I'll delve into this dark musty well of ideas and start Frankenstiening them together. 

Mike: We do everything out of Nick's spare bedroom. 

Nick: Yeah, I met Mike and within two weeks he'd taken over half my house building a studio. And that's pretty much all either of us have been doing since. 

Mike: The nice thing about having a home recording studio and doing everything ourselves is that we could take as much time as we wanted on the album and try out as many things as we wanted to. A lot of times, I would start with a beat and Nick would play something over it, and then I'd basically take it apart and rebuild it into something different, adding ambiance and samples and shit. We spent over a year on the album and wrote about three times as many songs as we wound up using.

Nick: There's not really a formula or anything. Stuff just kind of winds up getting cobbled together. 

Mike: And then sometimes a complete song just comes together out of the blue. 

Nick: "Happy accidents" have been a recurring motif with this band.   


You've just released your self-titled debut album with Kirkcudbright Tape-Club, how on earth did a band from Bloomington, Illinois end up releasing their album on a Scottish tape label?  

Nick: It was kind of an "I left the South, I travelled North, I got confused, I killed a horse" type of thing. Just a series of odd random events. 

Mike: Everything basically fell into place when we met Ian Greenhill, who founded the label. 

Nick: He's our Colonel Tom. 

Mike: About a year ago, our song "Oh, The Glory of It All", was featured on The Line of Best Fit and the write up was done by Ian, so we sent him a message to say thanks and started corresponding back and forth. When we finished our album, he was one of the first people we sent it to and he really liked it. We had no idea he was planning to start up a label at that point, so we were really excited a few months later when he asked us to be the first Kirkcudbright Tape-Club release. 

Nick: I have to say though, Ian did seal the deal through a deft bit of international soda bribery. He sent us one bottle of IRN-BRU to share and said that if we signed with him he'd send more. We were literally incapable of resisting this deal. Fortunately, it's worked out really well, and he went on to send us three more bottles. 

Mike: Ian is basically a preturnaturally energetic and ambitious guy and he's had our back since the beginning. He's the kind of person you basically dream about having on your side. 

Nick: My prediction: Kirkcudbright Tape-Club is the new Rockafella.  


And more importantly, do you have any idea as to how you are supposed to pronounce 'Kirkcudbright'?

Nick: "Kir-coo-bree"! It think it sounds like something a little yellow bird would say. 

Mike: "Kir-coo-bree"! 

Nick:  "Kir-coo-bree"! 

Mike: "Kir-coo-bree"! 

Nick: It's a fun word to say.  


Aside from being on a Scottish label, do you have any Celtic roots that you'd care to share?  

Mike: I do not. Not biologically. 

Nick: I'm like a quarter Irish, I don't know if that counts. I like a lot of Scottish bands though. That Spearmint song "Scottish Pop" turned me on to a lot of bands that are legendary over there but that aren't necessarily that well known in America, like Teenage Fanclub or Orange Juice or Josef K. Aztec Camera, I love . . . 

Mike: I'd like to apologize for Nick's blatant name dropping right now. 

Nick: Billy Joel, Zwan, the Mighty Mighty Bostones, Ice Cube . . . they're all Scottish, right? All excelent, exemplary Scottish artists.


I know it's a big ask, but can we expect to see you playing any Scottish shows in the near future?  

Mike: That would be amazing. It's actually not that far out of the question. My girlfriend is from Stockton or Leamington Spa, so its not outside of the realm of reason that we might make it over there.

Nick: We'll crash at Ian's place. 

Mike: If we get the opportunity to tour Europe, we'll do it in a heartbeat.

Nick: Faster than a heartbeat. A fraction of a heartbeat. An increment of time not worth measuring. 

Mike: I pledge right now that Peenko will be the first to know when Aloha Tigers cross the pond.


Aloha Tigers - The Kind of Girl U Like

Aloha Tigers self titled debut album is out now on Kirkcudbright Tape Club on very limited edition cassette or on a pay what you want basis on Bandcamp.

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Introducing - The Shivers

It's been ages since I have posted anything on one of these wee introduction posts, mainly because I no longer have the time to check out new music, out-with Scotland (no bad thing in my eyes). I was introduced to The Shivers by Johnny 'Pictish Trail' back in September when I was helping to do Kid Canaveral's merch at King Tuts. The duo who are based in Queens, New York, had recently signed up to his label Fence Records and he was looking to book some shows for their UK tour and he wondered if I might be up for putting on their Glasgow show. He duly sent me over their new album. I thought it was great and the next thing I knew I was hunting round venues in Glasgow to put them on. So as I am sure that most of you who visit this site on a regular basis will already know, next Monday (the 7th of November), The Shivers will be hitting up Mono for their first ever appearance in sunny Glasgow. Ahead of the gig I caught up with Jo and Keith to tell you a bit more about themselves and to tell me a bit more about how a band from New York ended up on a Scottish label...


Would you care you to introduce yourself to the Peenko readers?

I am Jo Schornikow, keyboardist.

I am Keith Zarriello, guitarist, singer.



What three little words would best describe the sound of The Shivers?

Raw honest beautiful


Have you met your initial ambitions for the band? And what are your aspirations for the future?

Jo: the only ambition i have anymore is to make good music. so yes, because I believe in what we've done, and also no, because there's so much more to do.

Keith: My aspirations are finally to reach the point where we're no longer really called a band who is clearly influenced by certain artists of the past but we have our own sound that is completely unique and although it would of course draw from the past, it makes something wholly original and new. This is why the direction we are heading incorporates elements of hip hop, electronic and film music to go along with our clear influences of rock, soul and folk. I have a sound in my head that sounds both new and fresh and yet doesn't lose any of the soulfulness of all the music from the past that I love.



You’ve just released your new album, ‘More’ in the UK through those lovely folk at Fence, how did that come about then?

Jo: did you ever see the movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow?



You must spent a lot of time in the studio and on the road touring, which of the two do you prefer?

Jo: whichever one we are not presently doing.

Keith: I would have to say the studio just because I love the idea of creating documents to mark a period of time and last into the future and because I get incredibly nervous and sick whenever we play live. Although, when we do have one of those really good live shows absolutely nothing in the world can compare. When we have a triumph on the stage, which is not every time, it makes me realize why I do this. The part that gets to me with playing live is that if we do a bad show, I dwell and dwell and beat myself up about it. It makes me disgusted so it's a difficult thing.




I’m always on the hunt for something new that I have never heard before, are there any bands from your neck of the woods that you would suggest my readers check out?

Keith & Jo: RACES from LA, Cameron Hull from NYC, Ainslie Wills from Melbourne Australia. Trash Gut from Providence, RI. Viking Moses from USA.



How excited are you about your forthcoming UK tour? And more importantly how much are you looking forward to the Glasgow date (that I am putting on coincidently)?

Jo: I am especially looking forward to Glasgow because I want to hunt down Frances McKee (who lives there I believe) and do yoga with her. that would be a million dreams come true at once.

And also because I heard no one throws down harder than a Glaswegian at a folk love song show.

Keith: I am extremely excited to come to the UK. I've always thought if we had any chance to ever have a wider audience it'd be over there because you guys have different (and I think better) taste in music. Glasgow in particular excites me because growing up I listened to Arab Strap, Mogwai, Belle & Sebastian and other great Glasgow bands and that gave me a romanticized view of your city and its music scene. And we've never been there so we're psyched.


The Shivers - Irrational Love

'More', The Shivers’ sixth album is out now through Fence Records, you can catch the band live in Glasgow on the 7th of November at Mono with support from Randolph's Leap and Where We Lay Our Heads. Tickets are available through Tickets Scotland, they're £5 in advance and £6 on the door. As always it would be great to see some of your beautiful faces coming along for the evening.

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Introducing - Hey Marseilles

Photo by Hayley Young

Would you care to introduce yourself?

My name is Sam Anderson. I play cello for the band.


How would you describe the music you make?

A combination of old and new world sensibilities summoned from our instruments to tell a story. Our instruments of choice for the 7 members are the accordion, cello, drums, guitar, trumpet, viola, and vocals.


What process goes into the way you write songs?

It is a democratic process that decides the final outcome, but there are core ideas consistently brought to the table by three band members. Nick(guitar), Philip (accordion/keyboards), and Matt(vocals/guitar). Idea sex happens and the song is born. We record a lot of different versions of a song in its early stages, the song also changes over time as we play it as a band. We do not limit ourselves to our instruments of choice when we write.


Who are your big musical influences?

We are all influenced by music from the past as much as music from our peers, and there is a broad range of influences from member to member. I come from a classical background so I have an ingrained appreciation of a wide variety of classical composers. I have a great thirst for music from the 60's and 70's. Dr. Dog and animal collective come to mind as my biggest contemporary musical influences.


What kind of influence do you feel that where you come from has had on the music you create?

We come from a bunch of friends getting together in a basement to make some music, and that has always been the biggest influence on the music we create.


What do you enjoy more touring or being in the studio

The two together is the best! We recently started experimenting with recording on the road and it resulted in this video. In the future we plan on recording on the road more often and with a better setup. The studio for us is not a place that we necessarily have to "be in" and we intend to use that to our full advantage for this next record.


My blog predominantly features bands from Scotland, why should my readers make the effort to check you guys out?

There certainly are a lot of great bands in Scotland, but if you check us out and our music tickles your mind, you'll be happy you gave it a chance.


Are there any other bands from your neck of the woods that you would suggest I check out?

Seattle has a giant throbbing volcano of a music scene right now. A couple of local artists doing great things right now are Shabazz Palaces, The lonely Forest, Damien Jurado, Thee satisfaction, Fleet Foxes, The head and the heart, and Band of Horses.


Lastly, what does are the future plans for Hey Marseilles, what are the chances of seeing guys playing a Scottish show next year?

We will be releasing a new album in 2011. If it is good enough, we will likely end up playing in Scotland. I'm feeling like the chances are pretty good but we will need all the help we can get from our Scottish fans. My hope is to be meeting some of you soon!

Hey Marseilles - Rio

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