Filed under: Press | Tags: Album Reviews, MOJO Magazine, Norman Blake, Press, Teenage Fanclub, Trashcan Sinatras
Another album, another magazine, another review – Weightlifting + Mojo = 4 stars. Back to health indeed.
Here’s MOJO Magazine’s James McNair’s 4-star review…
Long straight-jacketed by bankruptcy and record company sub-clauses, Ayrshire’s Sinatras emerge butterfly-like on their own label with a filler-less cracker. Strident opener Welcome Back aside, it pitches up somewhere between Aztec Camera’s Stray and Prefab Sprout’s Andromeda Heights. Band linchpin Frank Reader, brother of Eddi, is especially affecting on the heartbreak of caring divorce (witness A Coda, sung with all the melting class of a young Art Garfunkel), while Trouble Sleeping manages to tackle child murder in the band’s hometown with sensitivity, its harmonica solo delicately elegiac. With Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake guesting on the equally touching Got Carried Away, and exemplary jangler Freetime proving that hope really does spring eternal, Weightlifting gives and gives. Tender, wise, compassionate and magnanimous, it’s a special, special record for anyone who has ever hurt. James McNair
MOJO Magazine Issue 133 December 2004
Filed under: Press | Tags: Album Reviews, Press, Trashcan Sinatras, Word Magazine
Here’s a review of the Trashcans’ fourth long player, ‘Weightlifting’ from the November issue of UK music magazine the Word.
The Trashcan Sinatras are Scotland’s great lost band. In the early mid-’90s they released three albums on Go! Discs. Cake, I’ve Seen Everything and A Happy Pocket are sparkling collections of the ‘jangly’ pop that loads of Jock bands try to do, but hardly any manage with the melodic grace, instrumental imagination and lyrical rigour of this Ayrshire five-piece. They never cared much for the comparison but a good marker was early Aztec Camera, especially in the lilting athleticism of Frank (brother of Eddi) Reader’s vocals.
Then stuff – label hassles, the taxman, booze – got in the way, and the Trashcans drifted off. Now, buoyed by healthy internet enthusiasm and a significant cult following in America and Japan, they’re back. True to form, Weightlifting is a work of unshowy genius. Recorded in Glasgow and Connecticut, the production elegantly layers guitars and orchestrates dreamy soundscapes. All The Dark Horses, for instance, is folksy gem worthy of pastoral ’60s troubadours. What Women Do To Men is a sigh of a song, its textures as existentially stirring as the lyrical subject matter.
Sticking with the heavy stuff, Trouble Sleeping is an unsettlingly gorgeous number, the keyboards and guitars exquisitely arranged, about a child murder in the band’s home town. More chipper are It’s A Miracle (lovely strings) and the opening Welcome Back (charging riffs), instant pop belters both. Finally, the closing title track is a drifting, quietly motivating, positive lament (if such a thing can exist). It’s a hand round the shoulders, a word of encouragement, a little lift from a mate. Craig McLean
This edition of the magazine came with a free sampler CD which included the track Weightlifting. More info on the CD can be found in this earlier post.
The Word Issue 21 November 2004
Filed under: Press | Tags: Matthew Berlyant, Press, The Big Takeover, Trashcan Sinatras
Here’s a small article taken from The Big Takeover magazine with John Douglas explaining the recording of fifth album, ‘In The Music’.
Written by Matthew Berlyant… SCOTLAND’S TRASH CAN SINATRAS WON’T EVER BE ACCUSED of flooding the market: it took them five years to release the excellent In The Music, their first new studio album since 2004′s Weightlifting (my favourite album that year). While that may seem like a lot, this is actually a considerably shorter period than the eight years between 1996′s A Happy Pocket and Weightlifting! And it’s only their fifth in two decades.
Sitting with guitarist JOHN DOUGLAS before their two sets at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia to discuss the album and the band’s recent history, Douglas notes that, “We were on the road for a year-and-a-half; then we went back to Glasgow and lived life. A couple of guys [singer FRANK READER and guitarist PAUL LIVINGSTON] are living in Los Angeles now, and they’re married and happy there, while myself and [drummer/brother] STEPHEN are still in Glasgow.”
Douglas insists that after songs piled up and they decided to record a new album, they “didn’t really want to go through any of the techniques of recording that we’ve used before.” He says that the songwriting on In The Music was a bit more “groovy-savvy” and that the material written for it wouldn’t have been appropriate if given the arrangements of their earlier records. As well, the band didn’t have a label, but were helped out by producer ANDY CHASE (who mixed Weightlifting) of IVY and BROOKVILLE. The band recorded the bulk of In The Music in Chase’s studio in New York while the producer found an apartment for them on the Upper West Side. The band also pulled a major coup in getting ’70s star CARLY SIMON to provide backing vocals on “Should I Pray.”
Introduced through Chase in Nantucket, Simon got to know the members casually and came down to the studio one day. After the band sent her demos of “Should I Pray” and the title track, Douglas revealed that “she was very complimentary towards ‘Should I Pray.’ She said it was the best song she’d heard in 10 years!” Meanwhile, the band released “Oranges and Apples,” a song inspired by the late PINK FLOYD founder/visonary SYD BARRETT and recorded at the same sessions, as a stand-alone digital single in late 2008, to time it with a festival that benefitted the Barrett trust.
Although still unavailable in the U.S., the band decided to sell a deluxe edition of the new album as a pre-order through their website. They also recorded all the shows on their recent U.S. tour and sold them on USB sticks available 15-20 minutes after the shows ended. Douglas explains, “Things like that come about because you’re in a situation where you have to think on your feet and trying to keep your quality control.” As of this writing, the band were talking to several U.S. labels hoping to release In The Music here. Let’s hope negotiations prove successful [Amen! - ed.], with another tour resulting.
For who knows when they’ll make another LP?
2009 The Big Takeover Issue 65
…after weeks (feels like months) of not posting anything, miraculously, there’s finally something to add to the archive.
The Trashcans made over 75 appearances in 2005, touring in Scotland, England, Ireland, North America and Japan.
Here’s a promo poster for the early part of the UK tour – and very nice it is too.
Ticket stub from the Glasgow show…
January 2005
Now, write it out a hundred times!
Ah, takes me back to my school days when I was chucked out of art class for allowing the word ‘fuck’ to pass through my lips. My teacher proceeded to give me a lecture on said word and gave me 100 lines as well – I wouldn’t have minded that much, but I was in 5th year at secondary school! Crazy hippy teacher!
Anyhow, here’s a small advert which appeared in the NME to promote 9th single, ‘To Sir, With Love’
December 1996 NME Magazine Follow @fivehungryjoes
Filed under: Press | Tags: Concert, Gig, London ULU, NME Magazine, Press, They Might Be Giants, Trashcan Sinatras
Way back when the Trashcans were dipping their toes in the music business, they supported They Might Be Giants on a few early 1990 dates.
One of which was at London University’s Union – LULU for short. Here’s NME’s Stephen Dalton’s review…
3 March 1990 NME Magazine Follow @fivehungryjoes
Filed under: Press | Tags: NME Magazine, Press, Steve Lamacq, Trashcan Sinatras
In Steve Lamacq’s world they may well have drifted into the land of obscurity, but back in 1990 he wrote about big things to come for the Trashcan Sinatras.
Here’s what he had to say in his NME article from March 1990…
“Rock bands try and clobber you over the head with their image. Like Texas and Deacon Blue come in, ‘f___ing hell, it’s us, we’re like this, BUY US YOU STUPID BASTARDS!’ And people do. And you think, oh no, it’s happened again…”
“And yet there are bands who just meander along without shoving themselves down your throat. They just do their own thing and you kind of stumble upon it.”
You’ll have done well if you’ve stumbled across the TRASH CAN SINATRAS so far, seeing as their debut single, called (funnily enough) ‘Obscurity Knocks’ has been widely ignored by DJs in favour of bright new hopefuls like Yell and Cliff Richard.
To fill you in: the Trash Cans are a shy, subtle five-piece ‘pop’ group from Irvine, Scotland. They’ve just played some selected dates with They Might Be Giants and the single ‘Obscurity Knocks’ is out on Go! Discs.
Like in the FA Cup draws, the first person you heard from was guitarist John Douglas; the away team is drawn by other guitarist Paul Livingston.
“As a first single,” says John, “we thought it was a funny title, like tempting fate. It’s going to come true the way things are going.”
With more than a hint of self-depreciation, the Trash Can Sinatras are the first Scots band for a while to hark back (albeit unintentionally) to the charm and refreshing brightness of the Postcard era which brought you Orange Juice and Aztec Camera, almost a decade ago.
The Trash Cans wouldn’t have been out of place alongside fledgling Edwyns and Roddys, but with their singular, sad guitar strumming style they more importantly have a role to play now.
“Postcard just went away,” confirms John. “Before that, there was always a kind of muso scene in Glasgow which liked the American soul thing and then there was the wee punk guys who thought, ‘f___ this, let’s arse about’.
“But then there was the backlash to it and it faded out – Postcard was almost ignored in Scotland apart from the people involved in it: everyone else went back to soul music or (grimace) heavy metal.”
Having attracted the interest of the majors since birth, the Trash Cans slyly signed with Go! Discs, warning at the time that it’d take them a while to sort themselves out recording wise.
It did. They did the single, then they did it again. And then they did it once more, delaying it from last summer until now.
‘Obscurity Knocks’ is a camera snap-shot of the Trash Cans’ talents, starting off with a sprightly acoustic intro and leading through a series of reflective verses into a stumpy chorus.
In the same way that they like XTC, a very English pop group, there’s a definite Scottish flavour to the Trash Cans, a funny, natural bunch.
Straight in at number 8…
3 March 1990 NME Magazine Follow @fivehungryjoes
It’s a long way from sunny Irvine to Hollywood, but he made it.
I’m talking about Irvine in Scotland of course, as that’s where this little story started. Many, many years ago Paul Livingston was in the year below me at school (his older brother was in my class) and I got to know him through a couple of my mates when he became a member of a local band, The Shock Club (terrible name).
As with most bands in Irvine at the time, they started off as a covers band, playing as many gigs as pubs and community centres would allow them. The Shock Club didn’t play too many gigs. In fact before their final gig in Kilmarnock they had already changed their name to Hectic Circus (another terrible name). It wasn’t that they weren’t good enough, just that Paul had the chance to join another upcoming local band.
So a few others and I joined Paul one evening when he went along to Castlepark Community Centre to meet Messrs Reader and Douglas, who were playing that night. Forgive the cliché, but the rest, as they say, is history.
So when this sticker popped through my letterbox, I thought, “…he’s finally made it…” What could be better than your own wee sticker? Better than a No.1 single? Aye!
Inspired by drunken screams of “MORE PAUL!” at the 2010/11 Portland house parties, Shane Locke decided to design and produce this sticker – more as a joke – and apparently the band (and Paul) loved it.
The boy done good indeed 
2010-2011
Here’s the promo poster – designed by Nick Durham – for the Trashcan’s performance at The Loft in Dallas, Texas, during the March 2011 Acoustic Tour.
Those Frank Sinatra afficionados among you will of course recognise that Nick has used an image from the Sinatra and Doris Day film, ‘Young At Heart’. Nick is a friend of Salim Nourallah, who supported TCS on the night. You can find out more about both Nick and Salim here and here respectively.
There wasn’t too many of these posters produced, so thanks to Carla Elliott and Shane Locke for sending one through.
Interesting side note: The band’s recent online ‘volunteers for brass duties’ campaign had its first success at this gig. They were joined onstage by Steve and Scott (sorry, don’t have their surnames) and those lucky enough to be in attendance got to hear the brass arrangement of 1993 song ‘I’ve Seen Everything’ live onstage.
Magic stuff!
Auld blue eyes…
4 March 2011 Acoustic Tour (US)
Have van, will travel.
Which is exactly what the Trashcan’s did for their month long acoustic tour in March 2011.
The October 2010 acoustic tour covered parts of the western/southwestern USA, so this recent tour covered much of the rest of the US, including a number of cities the band had never played and cities not played since the 2004/5 Weightlifting tours, including a long overdue return to Toronto, Canada. The full list of dates and setlists can be found here.
The official poster – only 100 hand-numbered prints were made - was designed by the mighty Shane Locke.
March 2011 Acoustic Tour (US)
