I thought I’d get down with the kids and create a Facebook page for this blog.
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Filed under: Related | Tags: Boo Hewerdine, Brooks Williams, Eddi Reader, Trashcan Sinatras
Boo Hewerdine is not really someone I was familiar with until he’d written and co-written a fair number of songs for/with Eddi Reader. From there I discovered that he’s released a dozen albums or so throughout his career. A career which didn’t really get serious until he formed The Bible in the mid-Eighties. I’d heard the band name before but never made the connection. However, a quick look through the old CD collection, and there at the back of the cupboard, was Graceland – probably their best known single.
As well as writing for Eddi Reader, Boo has written for a number of musicians over the years including Natalie Imbruglia, Marti Pellow, Spice Girl Mel C, David McAlmont, Suggs from Madness and kd lang.
What’s all that got to do with the Trashcans though?
Well, on Boo’s last studio release, God Bless The Pretty Things, both John and Stephen Douglas appeared on half-a-dozen songs or so. John on electric guitar and Stephen on drums and percussion. The album shuffles along at a steady pace with acoustic finger-picking taking the lead on most songs over accordion, banjo, double bass and strings. Track 5, Rags, with Del Amitri’s Justin Currie, is a particular favourite.
Recently, Boo has collaborated with American singer/songwriter, Brooks Williams to form State Of The Union and John got in on the act by filming some videos of Boo and Brooks on his trusty old Super8. Watch them here.
Anyway, I’m going off now to discover some more Boo.
2009 Navigator Records Navigator11
Filed under: Related
…with the cat till three, looking at my cat and I’m half-past catting, in the cat of luxury it comes to mind, is this headboard hard, am I a cat behind.
So sang Frank at the Casbah, San Diego in 2005.
Anyhow, I’m patiently waiting for something worthwhile to come along that I can post on the archive, but in the meantime, here’s a picture of a cat…
Filed under: Press | Tags: Hard-to-Find, Music, Promo, Trashcan Sinatras
US 8″ x 10″ promotional black & white publicity photograph featuring a great image of an early Trashcan Sinatras line-up: (Left to right; John Douglas, George McDaid, Paul Livingston, Stephen Douglas and Frank Reader).
This photograph, taken by Paul Cox, was used to promote the band during the Cake era.
1990 Polygram / Go! Discs / London Recordings
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
Five Hungry Joes - A pictorial archive of the Trashcan Sinatras. Legendary Scottish Band 