The New Cue #378 May 3: Jessica Pratt, IDER, 86TVs, Kamasi Washington, Orlando Weeks, Camera Obscura, Tony Njoku

"It’s a bit psychobilly, punky, goth, like a Glaswegian Stooges"

Hello there,

Welcome to another round of Recommenders. It’s a good job that people keep releasing good music, it makes this whole Recommender thing we’ve committed to a lot easier. As well as your usual buffet of music picks – hey, it’s a buffet with a good choice of sandwiches and there’s no sausage rolls that look like they were made 15 years ago, it’s not your usual buffet – there’s also two mind-blowers picks courtesy of Scott Lavene and Emily Barker.

Before we get any further, it is our grave duty to report that there remains over a dozen tickets available for our night discussing David Bowie and Britain in 1974 with noted writer and sage Simon Goddard next Friday at The Social. We’re celebrating the publication of his brilliant latest instalment of Bowie’s year-by-year journey through the 1970s, Bowie Odyssey 1974. And it will be a celebration, so we look forward to welcoming you with open arms and a fruity cocktail to the Theatre of Dreams. Tickets are here.

Now, don’t let the paywall dictate how much of this edition you can enjoy. There’s a way round that pesky paywall if it tries to stop you getting in and it’s by pressing Subscribe Now and paying £5 a month to be in The New Cue’s elite crew. Take that paywall, you big prick!

Here’s this week’s playlist:

And here’s the playlist for the Apple Music crew.

Enjoy the edition,

Ted, Niall and Chris

---

An Album To Blow Your Mind #1

Essex troubadour Scott Lavene picks a raucous debut from 2014

Next week, maverick Essex singer-songwriter Scott Lavene releases his new record Disneyland In Dagenham. Here’s an entertaining track from it, titled Sadly I’m Not Steve McQueen:

And here’s Scott stood outside the arcades on Southend sea front, down the road from Niall’s house, so he gets extra points for that:

Here’s Scott on why he loves the only record by The Amazing Snakeheads, the rowdy Scottish garage-rock combo fronted by the compelling and sadly departed Dale Barclay:

The Amazing Snakeheads
Amphetamine Ballads (2014)

“On May 15th 2014, I’d been living in Bournemouth for a year, newly sober and learning to live right. My best mate Leo had come down from London for a couple of days, sleeping on the floor of my bedsit, seashore within ear shot, boiled eggs on toast for dinner. It was the last few years of the NME in print and the previous month they’d told me about The Amazing Snakeheads so I’d bought the album, Amphetamine Ballads. I was still coming to terms with life without the sweet fog of grog, drug and fag burns. Some days, sadness and anger would become overwhelming so I would power walk the cliffs and the beaches, with malt loaf and a flask in a rucksack, spring tides, thundering upon the sand, salt spray and seaweed, headphones in, listening to the album, a dark, atmospheric and angry record, the singer’s fury able to ease my own. It’s a bit psychobilly, punky, goth, like a Glaswegian Stooges. I loved it and listened to it every day.

Then May 15th, they played in town, Leo and me cycled in, met the singer, Dale outside. He was almost friendly but also looked like he might want to suddenly fight us without warning.

The gig wasn’t busy, maybe 30 people, all stuffed down at the front. The band came on looking like a gang of murderers, just what I wanted, bad tattoos and bottles of Buckfast surrounding them. They started slow and menacing and captivating, and I was immediately in love with them. It was only my second gig sober, stood off to the side on a small, elevated area. Two songs in Dale decided the crowd weren’t energetic enough so began telling them so. The next song he started shouting in their faces. “Why aren’t ya fuckin dancin’?” he screamed. Then came a few kicks and squaring off with a few punters, which was when security formed a barrier to protect the audience from the singer, now foaming at the mouth, shirtless, screaming the songs like it was his last day on earth. It was one the best gigs I’d ever seen. The next day I found out that the bass player had broken his leg falling from the clifftop, pissed and the band broke up soon after, a one album wonder.”

---

Recommender

Niall Doherty

There is some really good Maccabees music out there at the moment but not under the Maccabees name because of the very passé reason that they split up in 2017. Honestly, what are they like? Instead, we have the excellent new single by 86TVs, who feature guitarist brothers Felix and Hugo White in their number, and the brilliant latest solo cut by former frontman Orlando Weeks.