It has long been an ambition of mine to create a series of audio podcasts, in which I interview the various intriguing characters I happen to come across. The name of this series is to be called Revelations with Marmaduke Dando. After a few false starts, I finally have a Revelation in a format I am happy with.
Below you will be able to stream or download the first podcast, fresh off the Revelation press. Listen to me interrogate my first guest, Vinay Gupta, and hear my brain slowly ticking over as it tries to grasp the difference between what is being said and what is being implied...
I do hope you enjoyed that. The trader interview that was referred to in the interview can be found here. If you'd like to find out more about Vinay, you should visit him here, http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/about
and follow him on Twitter: leashless.
Showing posts with label Marmaduke Dando. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marmaduke Dando. Show all posts
Friday, 30 September 2011
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
The Sediment of Society
We made a short video to accompany the woozy piano lead, Bukowski inspired, drinking song, "The Last Drink", the other day, all stitched up and directed by Andrew Clarke. Many thanks to him for his patience. It was shot on good ship Minnow, where I reside, and features the rather brilliant Sonia Gurdjieff on the ivories. Take a look below.
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Coming home
Uncivilisation festival this year was held in the countryside just outside of Petersfield in Hampshire. Taking the train down from London with my band mates, gave me a sense of nostalgia for where I grew up. This was the same route I would take to visit Portsmouth, when I still had family living there. From the station, the band and I bundled into a taxi and sped off to the festival site to make our soundcheck.
As we passed through the fields and woods of the Meon Valley, I let out a "well I'll be damned" grunt to myself. It was really quite pretty round these parts, and it brought back all the memories of the walks my parents used to take me on. I hated being taken along on the walking group we were a part of. All I wanted to do at ten years of age was to play on my GameBoy or watch television all day long.
The greatest pleasure I could take whilst on those walks was to find a walking stick, then promptly try to trip up my poor mother with it. That memory still makes me chuckle even now. To think though, that I had no interest in any of the natural world as a kid. I would stretch out in meadows as we had lunch somewhere, like some impish druid, mud splattered, grass stains up my trousers, a streak of dirt across my forehead. But I was not revelling in it like I would now. Now I would be like some overzealous student of DH Lawrence, thrusting my hands into the slime of the earth with purpose, to gain pagan credentials, or some such nonsense. As a kid, I was just making the best out of a bad situation. I guess that's just what kids do.
As we pulled in to The Sustainability Centre, the sun was low, and the site was calm except for the Feral Choir singing their lungs out somewhere off in the woods. I was very excited to be there. Having followed the Dark Mountain from its beginning, it had been a firm friend to me in my own personal journey, influencing and reaffirming over these few years. I had written a number of protest songs, which was my own way of contributing to a counter narrative. These included "If This Is Civilisation", "Give Me Detumescence", and my most recent "Infinite Squalor" that was to be debuted at this festival.
Primed with a healthy dose of sloe vodka and some local ale, we got to it, rattling them off to what was essentially a crowd of anarchists. I've no idea how we went down, it was just a pleasure to be there and a part of it all. There was a firm feeling of jubilation around the campfires that night, as if we were all there for a debriefing on a very important mission.
Saturday morning, that debriefing began, with talks on collapse, talks on the relevance of the Luddites today, a lesson on how to make alcohol from just about anything, entitled “Prison Booze”, and much more. However, much of that was eclipsed for me by a deeply humbling moment during the talk on the Luddites.
An old man that was sat at the side of the room got up and told the whole room: that he had been in the war, had read the American newspapers, which had excited him, had inspired him to follow the dream that they preached. Said "I worked for an American company for 40 years. I'm retired now, been so for 15 years. I just want to say, that it really hurts. To know that you've wasted your life for nothing."
He sat back down, without a hint of emotion on his face, just matter of fact. I was completely floored, my eyes were streaming, and I couldn't hear anybody else for the rest of the session. For someone nearing the end of their life to make an admission like that, let alone in front of a few hundred people, takes a humility rarely seen. What made it worse was that he was inconsolable, because he was probably right. There was nothing anyone could say to him to make him see it in a different light, and to attempt to do so would be to try to get him to believe in a lie. Utterly heart wrenching.
Arranging the evening Power Down in the woodland hut with that great harbinger looming over me was no easy feat. We laid out the candles, I made the relevant introductions, and promptly sat down on a pew. I paid barely any attention to what was going on in front of me, apologies to my friends that performed that evening. All I could think about was the old man’s words going over and over in my head, “It really hurts”.
Thankfully, I was soon awoken from the broody spell, and post Power Down we were all ushered back to the centre of the festival. Darkness had fallen and everyone was converging around a camp fire at the edge of the woods waiting for something to happen. Soon enough a small group of individuals became distinct from the crowd, wearing robes and with faces painted. This was all part of a performance piece called Liminal.
We were asked not to bother with taking photographs, to switch off our telephones, and to “watch out for the stag”. The group then disappeared into the woods and they beckoned us to follow. A flute began playing at the head of the party, and in single file this crowd of hundreds entered the motley English taiga in complete silence.
We encountered illuminated black and white artworks depicting historic scenes. They almost resembled cave paintings, albeit suspended in mid air amongst low branches. A faun like character, I’m guessing the “stag”, was huffing away somewhere out of sight and charged at the line of pilgrims from time to time. A naked man was lying at the base of a tree in the foetal position cradling a large pelvic bone in his arms.
We eventually stopped in a clearing in the woods where the flautist was still playing accompanied occasionally by a lady singing beautifully with no words. We waited there for all the other pilgrims to arrive in the clearing, to find a space for themselves. Of course, everyone’s interpretation is subjective, but to me it appeared that once the crowd was settled into the clearing, that we began to reflect, en masse. It was an undefined period of reverence, an appreciation of our immediate surroundings and the moment. A few candles dotted around lit up the canopy above us, just enough to give contrast to the clear starry night behind it. I for one was besotted.
I forget how we disbanded, but soon found myself around the campfire singing Dylan and Bowie songs. Naturally. The campfire being the most purest of democracies, no intimidation present, just about everyone offered a song, a poem, or a fragment of something. It didn’t seem to matter what, just that it was a little piece of themselves, almost as a sacrifice. It was a welcome equalisation of the distress from earlier in the day, and with a full heart and a big smile I laid my bones down to sleep.
This was the emotional terrain of the uncivilised weekend for me. Old questions answered, new ones quickly sprung up in their place. And with Portsmouth, the place where I was born and raised, looming on the horizon, visible from the festival site, there was a sense for me of coming home. Coming home to something familiar, but not actually experienced. Something burning in the bones, something inexplicable through science and reason. Perhaps a figment of my imagination, but I don’t see why that should matter in the slightest. What is becoming increasingly clear, thanks to the weekend at Uncivilisation and the Dark Mountain Project in general, is that there is a way through the tough times ahead. That navigation, I think it will be more meaningful than if none were needed. Rather collapse and all that entails, than the promise of infinity.
As we passed through the fields and woods of the Meon Valley, I let out a "well I'll be damned" grunt to myself. It was really quite pretty round these parts, and it brought back all the memories of the walks my parents used to take me on. I hated being taken along on the walking group we were a part of. All I wanted to do at ten years of age was to play on my GameBoy or watch television all day long.
The greatest pleasure I could take whilst on those walks was to find a walking stick, then promptly try to trip up my poor mother with it. That memory still makes me chuckle even now. To think though, that I had no interest in any of the natural world as a kid. I would stretch out in meadows as we had lunch somewhere, like some impish druid, mud splattered, grass stains up my trousers, a streak of dirt across my forehead. But I was not revelling in it like I would now. Now I would be like some overzealous student of DH Lawrence, thrusting my hands into the slime of the earth with purpose, to gain pagan credentials, or some such nonsense. As a kid, I was just making the best out of a bad situation. I guess that's just what kids do.
As we pulled in to The Sustainability Centre, the sun was low, and the site was calm except for the Feral Choir singing their lungs out somewhere off in the woods. I was very excited to be there. Having followed the Dark Mountain from its beginning, it had been a firm friend to me in my own personal journey, influencing and reaffirming over these few years. I had written a number of protest songs, which was my own way of contributing to a counter narrative. These included "If This Is Civilisation", "Give Me Detumescence", and my most recent "Infinite Squalor" that was to be debuted at this festival.
Primed with a healthy dose of sloe vodka and some local ale, we got to it, rattling them off to what was essentially a crowd of anarchists. I've no idea how we went down, it was just a pleasure to be there and a part of it all. There was a firm feeling of jubilation around the campfires that night, as if we were all there for a debriefing on a very important mission.
Saturday morning, that debriefing began, with talks on collapse, talks on the relevance of the Luddites today, a lesson on how to make alcohol from just about anything, entitled “Prison Booze”, and much more. However, much of that was eclipsed for me by a deeply humbling moment during the talk on the Luddites.
An old man that was sat at the side of the room got up and told the whole room: that he had been in the war, had read the American newspapers, which had excited him, had inspired him to follow the dream that they preached. Said "I worked for an American company for 40 years. I'm retired now, been so for 15 years. I just want to say, that it really hurts. To know that you've wasted your life for nothing."
He sat back down, without a hint of emotion on his face, just matter of fact. I was completely floored, my eyes were streaming, and I couldn't hear anybody else for the rest of the session. For someone nearing the end of their life to make an admission like that, let alone in front of a few hundred people, takes a humility rarely seen. What made it worse was that he was inconsolable, because he was probably right. There was nothing anyone could say to him to make him see it in a different light, and to attempt to do so would be to try to get him to believe in a lie. Utterly heart wrenching.
Arranging the evening Power Down in the woodland hut with that great harbinger looming over me was no easy feat. We laid out the candles, I made the relevant introductions, and promptly sat down on a pew. I paid barely any attention to what was going on in front of me, apologies to my friends that performed that evening. All I could think about was the old man’s words going over and over in my head, “It really hurts”.
Thankfully, I was soon awoken from the broody spell, and post Power Down we were all ushered back to the centre of the festival. Darkness had fallen and everyone was converging around a camp fire at the edge of the woods waiting for something to happen. Soon enough a small group of individuals became distinct from the crowd, wearing robes and with faces painted. This was all part of a performance piece called Liminal.
We were asked not to bother with taking photographs, to switch off our telephones, and to “watch out for the stag”. The group then disappeared into the woods and they beckoned us to follow. A flute began playing at the head of the party, and in single file this crowd of hundreds entered the motley English taiga in complete silence.
We encountered illuminated black and white artworks depicting historic scenes. They almost resembled cave paintings, albeit suspended in mid air amongst low branches. A faun like character, I’m guessing the “stag”, was huffing away somewhere out of sight and charged at the line of pilgrims from time to time. A naked man was lying at the base of a tree in the foetal position cradling a large pelvic bone in his arms.
We eventually stopped in a clearing in the woods where the flautist was still playing accompanied occasionally by a lady singing beautifully with no words. We waited there for all the other pilgrims to arrive in the clearing, to find a space for themselves. Of course, everyone’s interpretation is subjective, but to me it appeared that once the crowd was settled into the clearing, that we began to reflect, en masse. It was an undefined period of reverence, an appreciation of our immediate surroundings and the moment. A few candles dotted around lit up the canopy above us, just enough to give contrast to the clear starry night behind it. I for one was besotted.
I forget how we disbanded, but soon found myself around the campfire singing Dylan and Bowie songs. Naturally. The campfire being the most purest of democracies, no intimidation present, just about everyone offered a song, a poem, or a fragment of something. It didn’t seem to matter what, just that it was a little piece of themselves, almost as a sacrifice. It was a welcome equalisation of the distress from earlier in the day, and with a full heart and a big smile I laid my bones down to sleep.
This was the emotional terrain of the uncivilised weekend for me. Old questions answered, new ones quickly sprung up in their place. And with Portsmouth, the place where I was born and raised, looming on the horizon, visible from the festival site, there was a sense for me of coming home. Coming home to something familiar, but not actually experienced. Something burning in the bones, something inexplicable through science and reason. Perhaps a figment of my imagination, but I don’t see why that should matter in the slightest. What is becoming increasingly clear, thanks to the weekend at Uncivilisation and the Dark Mountain Project in general, is that there is a way through the tough times ahead. That navigation, I think it will be more meaningful than if none were needed. Rather collapse and all that entails, than the promise of infinity.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Virgin to the flame
This post may roll some eyes, I'm sure. To some it was inevitable given the amount of virtual banging-on I've been doing in the last month or so. However, I must share with you my excitement for this set of recordings, 'The House of Balloons' by The Weeknd.
What do I know of it all? Not a great deal. Young chap from Toronto, 21 years old, made it all in his bedroom. Oh that old chestnut eh? Only later do we find out that 2011's answer to Trevor Horn was producing. I know, I know, we've heard it all before.
Regardless...smooth androgynous vocals, heavily treated with a vocoder on many of the tracks, as he sings, stroke, raps his way through them, all to a backing track of electronic beats and wait for it...sped-up looped samples of...only my favourite band of last year...yes that's right...Beach House. What an incredibly heady concoction: dreamy choruses from Victoria Legrand punctuating this urban style croon of obscenities. And thank god it's not just one track, but multiple.
'The Morning' is certainly the standout track on 'House of Balloons', sounding in vibe but not content, like a number 1 hit record from the 1990s. However, this on repeat lasts just a few weeks. After you've lived with these glorious productions for a while, it's like looking into a magic eye painting, suddenly all the context leaps out at you in 3 dimensions. The motive behind the name becomes so ridiculously axiomatic, you feel silly you ever wondered about it.
What becomes clear is that the whole 9 tracks are the charting of a very long weekend indeed. One that is full to the brim with copious amounts of drugs, booze, lust, sex that doesn't happen, sex that does happen, what-is-she-doing-with-him, blow jobs, youthful arrogance, dancers, the list can go on, and does. In short, the ruminations of a teenage boy. Or the graffiti on the path to hell.
But my god, how the loins can stir when put so eloquently. Every party you ever went to, you wish they turned into this. For your mediocre memories, you'd take the mightiest come-down the world could conspire for just that one long evening of a hedonism only imagined in songs like these.
This is so on the mark of the moment it is quite unbelievable. And you may wonder, what this, *clears throat*, curmudgeonly old luddite who's apparently always harking back to days never endured, is doing listening to something so unashamedly decadent and on the pulse.
I tell you, when there is no hope, there is only oblivion. With the choice of jumping or being pushed, The Weeknd compels me to jump head first, like a virgin to the flame.
Download 'The House of Balloons' legally and for free from The Weeknd's site.
Listen to 'The Morning' below.
What do I know of it all? Not a great deal. Young chap from Toronto, 21 years old, made it all in his bedroom. Oh that old chestnut eh? Only later do we find out that 2011's answer to Trevor Horn was producing. I know, I know, we've heard it all before.
Regardless...smooth androgynous vocals, heavily treated with a vocoder on many of the tracks, as he sings, stroke, raps his way through them, all to a backing track of electronic beats and wait for it...sped-up looped samples of...only my favourite band of last year...yes that's right...Beach House. What an incredibly heady concoction: dreamy choruses from Victoria Legrand punctuating this urban style croon of obscenities. And thank god it's not just one track, but multiple.
'The Morning' is certainly the standout track on 'House of Balloons', sounding in vibe but not content, like a number 1 hit record from the 1990s. However, this on repeat lasts just a few weeks. After you've lived with these glorious productions for a while, it's like looking into a magic eye painting, suddenly all the context leaps out at you in 3 dimensions. The motive behind the name becomes so ridiculously axiomatic, you feel silly you ever wondered about it.
What becomes clear is that the whole 9 tracks are the charting of a very long weekend indeed. One that is full to the brim with copious amounts of drugs, booze, lust, sex that doesn't happen, sex that does happen, what-is-she-doing-with-him, blow jobs, youthful arrogance, dancers, the list can go on, and does. In short, the ruminations of a teenage boy. Or the graffiti on the path to hell.
But my god, how the loins can stir when put so eloquently. Every party you ever went to, you wish they turned into this. For your mediocre memories, you'd take the mightiest come-down the world could conspire for just that one long evening of a hedonism only imagined in songs like these.
This is so on the mark of the moment it is quite unbelievable. And you may wonder, what this, *clears throat*, curmudgeonly old luddite who's apparently always harking back to days never endured, is doing listening to something so unashamedly decadent and on the pulse.
I tell you, when there is no hope, there is only oblivion. With the choice of jumping or being pushed, The Weeknd compels me to jump head first, like a virgin to the flame.
Download 'The House of Balloons' legally and for free from The Weeknd's site.
Listen to 'The Morning' below.
Friday, 5 August 2011
Footage from The Lexington
Some footage of my solo show at The Lexington a few weeks ago below. It’s a playlist, so should load one video after the next, seamlessly. If you don’t want to listen to all though, links to individual songs are below it. New songs debuted, such as “We’ll Go Dancing” and “Old Friend”…Enjoy!
We’ll Go Dancing by Marmaduke Dando
If You Go Away sung by Marmaduke Dando
The Art of Decay by Marmaduke Dando
We Fucked It Up by Marmaduke Dando
And thanks to Andrew Clarke for filming and putting these together, much appreciated.
Monday, 3 January 2011
Summary of 2010
Usually around this time of year, I like to rain terror down upon the hell hole venues that I’ve played in, or the wicked promoters that do nothing to earn their title. However, the gripes of previous years don’t seem to have been as prevalent in 2010 now that I recall. Could this be progress, or luck? Pft, who cares. It was nice, let’s leave at that. So to cement some of the memories, I’d like to round up my year with the below YouTube playlist, which is a collection of videos from artists that I've enjoyed immensely in the past 12 months. Here's to another splendid year in 2011.
If you click play above, it should play video after video of the playlist. Tracklisting below:
Timber Timbre - Magic Arrow
Beach House - Norway
Where Is My Mind - Chancery Blame and the Gadjo Club
Black Doe - Mary Epworth and the Jubilee Band
Ultrasound - Sovereign
Kenji Mizoguchi - Geisha Dance from Ugetsu Monagatari
This Is Laura - The Ghosts of Lovers and Hounds
Ellie Goulding - The Writer
Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now (2000)
Dakota Jim - medley of his songs including, We Will Meet Again
Beach House - Better Times
Timber Timbre - Demon Host
Bethia Beadman - Homerton Station
Ultrasound - Everything Picture (live at The Lexington, reformation gig)
Canteloube - "Bailero" - Sung by Netania Davrath
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - I'm Glad
Kenji Mizoguchi - Sanshô dayû
If you click play above, it should play video after video of the playlist. Tracklisting below:
Timber Timbre - Magic Arrow
Beach House - Norway
Where Is My Mind - Chancery Blame and the Gadjo Club
Black Doe - Mary Epworth and the Jubilee Band
Ultrasound - Sovereign
Kenji Mizoguchi - Geisha Dance from Ugetsu Monagatari
This Is Laura - The Ghosts of Lovers and Hounds
Ellie Goulding - The Writer
Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now (2000)
Dakota Jim - medley of his songs including, We Will Meet Again
Beach House - Better Times
Timber Timbre - Demon Host
Bethia Beadman - Homerton Station
Ultrasound - Everything Picture (live at The Lexington, reformation gig)
Canteloube - "Bailero" - Sung by Netania Davrath
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - I'm Glad
Kenji Mizoguchi - Sanshô dayû
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Review from Martin Skivington at The Skinny
Below is a review of 'Heathcliffian Surly' by Martin Skivington at The Skinny:
Marmaduke Dando has been described as an author channelling the 'horrors and beauties of the modern world', but hyperbole aside, his music sounds something like a cross between Antony Hegarty's weeping recitals and Baby Dee's warped balladry. His debut album, Heathcliffian Surly, is a drink-soaked, literary and almost Victorian collection of morose pop, led by his own piano playing and supported by a five-piece band.
Dando assumes theatrical roles exquisitely throughout, from dejected drunk (Dead To The World) to embracing romantic (All Of Me), while giving a lesson in early 20th Century song in the process. Although it's easy to find his voice overbearing – a notion magnified by a song like Life Can't Get Any Better – the skill and subtle wit of songs such as Give Me Detumescence still indicates an artist who's well aware of his own idiosyncrasies, and capable of using them to his advantage. A curious introduction.
http://www.theskinny.co.uk/article/101047-marmaduke-dando-heathcliffian-surly
Marmaduke Dando has been described as an author channelling the 'horrors and beauties of the modern world', but hyperbole aside, his music sounds something like a cross between Antony Hegarty's weeping recitals and Baby Dee's warped balladry. His debut album, Heathcliffian Surly, is a drink-soaked, literary and almost Victorian collection of morose pop, led by his own piano playing and supported by a five-piece band.
Dando assumes theatrical roles exquisitely throughout, from dejected drunk (Dead To The World) to embracing romantic (All Of Me), while giving a lesson in early 20th Century song in the process. Although it's easy to find his voice overbearing – a notion magnified by a song like Life Can't Get Any Better – the skill and subtle wit of songs such as Give Me Detumescence still indicates an artist who's well aware of his own idiosyncrasies, and capable of using them to his advantage. A curious introduction.
http://www.theskinny.co.uk/article/101047-marmaduke-dando-heathcliffian-surly
Review from Shane O’ Leary at Unpeeled
Below is a review of 'Heathcliffian Surly' by Shane O’ Leary at Unpeeled:
Obviously that headline should read 'genius with beard plays piano', but that's no fun and would undermine any claim to dyslexia. However, we have found a genius and he does, for the moment at least, have a beard.
Said genius also has a name. We're presuming that Marmaduke Dando is a nom de warble as opposed to something his poor, gin-soaked old mum scrawled on his birth certificate before expiring with a fit of the giggles. Said genius also has an album to purvey, convey, sell, flog and place before the bemused and largely non-bearded masses. Said album is called "Heathcliffian Surly" and the big money is on it being a reference to a certain character that sent the muse, licketty-split, to both Kate Bush and Cliff Richard, a threesome I don't wish to visualise again, but an album we should all hear again and again and... you get the idea. There is a proper review on the 'Everything Else' page, but skip that and skip directly to www.marmadukedando.com
Heathcliffian', but we'll have a go... Alas, the artiste known as Marmaduke Dando is a
beautiful breeze of fetid air as Bela Lugosi amuses himself, Miss Havisham style in a basement once inhabited by some kind of Bryan Ferry/Brian Eno mutation.
Knockers and the insensitively souless will point out that this is an album with more arch than Archway, more affectation than an incoming princess and far too clever to be good for itself. We call those people 'Conservatives' and point out that "Heathcliffian Surly" is the fine dining version of 'Rocky Horror' and that Marmaduke Dando may well be camper than Baden Powell, but he slips through genres more slickly than a Mozart made of eels. Take something like "The Last Drink", a honky tonk, slow-mo piano stamp around a bordello bar, something that both Leon Russell and Hinge & Bracket would be comfortable with and perfect for. This is such a lovely record that I'm liable to come over all sensible and suggest that you buy it, a
lot and now.
IS IT ANY GOOD? We don't get a lot of genius down our way, but we know it when we hear it.
Obviously that headline should read 'genius with beard plays piano', but that's no fun and would undermine any claim to dyslexia. However, we have found a genius and he does, for the moment at least, have a beard.
Said genius also has a name. We're presuming that Marmaduke Dando is a nom de warble as opposed to something his poor, gin-soaked old mum scrawled on his birth certificate before expiring with a fit of the giggles. Said genius also has an album to purvey, convey, sell, flog and place before the bemused and largely non-bearded masses. Said album is called "Heathcliffian Surly" and the big money is on it being a reference to a certain character that sent the muse, licketty-split, to both Kate Bush and Cliff Richard, a threesome I don't wish to visualise again, but an album we should all hear again and again and... you get the idea. There is a proper review on the 'Everything Else' page, but skip that and skip directly to www.marmadukedando.com
Heathcliffian', but we'll have a go... Alas, the artiste known as Marmaduke Dando is a
beautiful breeze of fetid air as Bela Lugosi amuses himself, Miss Havisham style in a basement once inhabited by some kind of Bryan Ferry/Brian Eno mutation.
Knockers and the insensitively souless will point out that this is an album with more arch than Archway, more affectation than an incoming princess and far too clever to be good for itself. We call those people 'Conservatives' and point out that "Heathcliffian Surly" is the fine dining version of 'Rocky Horror' and that Marmaduke Dando may well be camper than Baden Powell, but he slips through genres more slickly than a Mozart made of eels. Take something like "The Last Drink", a honky tonk, slow-mo piano stamp around a bordello bar, something that both Leon Russell and Hinge & Bracket would be comfortable with and perfect for. This is such a lovely record that I'm liable to come over all sensible and suggest that you buy it, a
lot and now.
IS IT ANY GOOD? We don't get a lot of genius down our way, but we know it when we hear it.
Review from Dominic Vavlona at God is in the TV
Below is a review of 'Heathcliffian Surly' by Dominic Valvona at God is in the TV:
Marmaduke Dando is a tortured soul: his atavistic disposition, seeming ill at ease with the modern world. A self-appointed despairing and melancholic romantic, Dando is unceremoniously catapulted from rubbing shoulders with the likes of Byron, Keats and Dostoevsky in the garret and study room’s of a hazy bygone age, to the harsh realities of a cold dystopian envisioned Metropolis. If further prove of his separation from our technological fetishist society was even needed, a sardonic passage bemoaning about de-humanisation in the face of modernity and progress by the revered and controversial novelist D.H Lawrence, is included as a footnote inside the albums cover.
Musically, our troubled troubadour wistfully croons over a bare and deftly layered accompaniment of mournful piano, searing melodic violins, shuffling drums, and pronounced pining guitars, all swaying between a soundtrack of sorrowful ballads, Weimar epoch cabaret, and Balkan gypsy woe.
Dando’s saddened and stirring swooning vocals share all the more restrained traits of Scott Walker, Jacques Brel, Lloyd Cole and Billy Mckenzie, on this disconsolate and doleful journey. Walker-esque allusions begin with Heathcliffian Surly's opening rue, and tribute of a kind, to the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa, on the track of the same name: picked I assume for its revolutionary bent and historical romanticism – the city was famous for the tragic 1905 workers uprisings, which were depicted in Sergi Eisenstein's ‘Battleship Potemkin’. Our new-age Shelly pens an ode to a place he’s only ever read about and imagined; using its exoticism and mysterious aura to express sentiments to his intended muse.
The reclusive Walker returns, with his own ‘30th Century Man’, which is used as the bedrock for the jangley Apache toms beat and lust-for-life celebration, ‘Life Can’t Get Any Better’; whilst his morose tones echo large on the sadly lovelorn prose of ‘This Is I Ask Of You’.
With his elaborate 18th Century cravats and tailored gentlemen’s attire, the poetic protagonist often drifts into surprising waters: mooning like a carousing mid-70s Bowie and melodramatic Simon Le Bon - of all people - on the French sophisto-noir of ‘If This Is Civilisation’, or revisiting the wry wit and eloquently worded lyrics of Neil Hannon’s Divine Comedy, on the Kierkegaard melancholy of ‘Dead To The World’ – possibly his best outing.
It may seem that with all these influences - worn on our tormented singers sleeves for the entire world to see - that Dando merely apes or pays homage to his inspirational hosts. Yet, in some ways this collection of acutely penned modern stirring songs, carries on the grand tradition of lugubrious and laid bare hymns by his influences with a subtle degree of wit and invention. On paper this album sounds daunting, but somehow at the same time heart-warming, as it chimes with relevance to our own times and attempts to put malady on the map.
Heathcliffian Surly shows that Dando’s cup isn’t just half-empty, but is smeared, cracked and slowly leaking the little content it still has left. To borrow a slightly changed, well-worn line from that Californian sage Brian Wilson, “Dando just wasn’t made for these times”.
http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=4896&type=Albums
Marmaduke Dando is a tortured soul: his atavistic disposition, seeming ill at ease with the modern world. A self-appointed despairing and melancholic romantic, Dando is unceremoniously catapulted from rubbing shoulders with the likes of Byron, Keats and Dostoevsky in the garret and study room’s of a hazy bygone age, to the harsh realities of a cold dystopian envisioned Metropolis. If further prove of his separation from our technological fetishist society was even needed, a sardonic passage bemoaning about de-humanisation in the face of modernity and progress by the revered and controversial novelist D.H Lawrence, is included as a footnote inside the albums cover.
Musically, our troubled troubadour wistfully croons over a bare and deftly layered accompaniment of mournful piano, searing melodic violins, shuffling drums, and pronounced pining guitars, all swaying between a soundtrack of sorrowful ballads, Weimar epoch cabaret, and Balkan gypsy woe.
Dando’s saddened and stirring swooning vocals share all the more restrained traits of Scott Walker, Jacques Brel, Lloyd Cole and Billy Mckenzie, on this disconsolate and doleful journey. Walker-esque allusions begin with Heathcliffian Surly's opening rue, and tribute of a kind, to the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa, on the track of the same name: picked I assume for its revolutionary bent and historical romanticism – the city was famous for the tragic 1905 workers uprisings, which were depicted in Sergi Eisenstein's ‘Battleship Potemkin’. Our new-age Shelly pens an ode to a place he’s only ever read about and imagined; using its exoticism and mysterious aura to express sentiments to his intended muse.
The reclusive Walker returns, with his own ‘30th Century Man’, which is used as the bedrock for the jangley Apache toms beat and lust-for-life celebration, ‘Life Can’t Get Any Better’; whilst his morose tones echo large on the sadly lovelorn prose of ‘This Is I Ask Of You’.
With his elaborate 18th Century cravats and tailored gentlemen’s attire, the poetic protagonist often drifts into surprising waters: mooning like a carousing mid-70s Bowie and melodramatic Simon Le Bon - of all people - on the French sophisto-noir of ‘If This Is Civilisation’, or revisiting the wry wit and eloquently worded lyrics of Neil Hannon’s Divine Comedy, on the Kierkegaard melancholy of ‘Dead To The World’ – possibly his best outing.
It may seem that with all these influences - worn on our tormented singers sleeves for the entire world to see - that Dando merely apes or pays homage to his inspirational hosts. Yet, in some ways this collection of acutely penned modern stirring songs, carries on the grand tradition of lugubrious and laid bare hymns by his influences with a subtle degree of wit and invention. On paper this album sounds daunting, but somehow at the same time heart-warming, as it chimes with relevance to our own times and attempts to put malady on the map.
Heathcliffian Surly shows that Dando’s cup isn’t just half-empty, but is smeared, cracked and slowly leaking the little content it still has left. To borrow a slightly changed, well-worn line from that Californian sage Brian Wilson, “Dando just wasn’t made for these times”.
http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=4896&type=Albums
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Secret Cinema: Wings of Desire
The weekend just past, the band and I were booked for Secret Cinema. As the name suggests, it was supposed to be all very hush hush regarding the details of the event. Now it’s all over I can reveal what actually happened.
Secret Cinema puts on classic films in unconventional venues, then themes the night around the film. The audience does not know what the film is until they arrive at the venue. The film that was screened last weekend was Wings of Desire, directed by Wim Wenders, set in Berlin in 1987, it follows a couple of angels that watch over some troubled characters. It’s all rather dreamy, and not a lot happens, but it’s a very beautiful film to watch.
The venue was a disused theatre on Shepherds Bush Green, right beside the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Inside the main hall where the film was being screened, there were some circus acts and a trapeze artist, which fitted in well with the contents of the film. They also had Fyfe Dangerfield playing a few deliciously romantic numbers before the film began, swamped in natural reverb and backed by a viola and fiddle player, “faster than a setting sun…”, the soundtrack to the weekend, I melt in recollection.
Outside of the main hall, Secret Cinema created a small Berlin night club called the Metropole, with a few rooms mocked up in 1980s German decor. I was to host this area, as the owner of the club, play with my house band, and introduce a few other acts. The other main act was This Is Laura, which were possibly the most appropriate act to put on, other than Nick Cave himself.
Well with 4 screenings, that meant music either side, making it a very intense 48 hours. Matinees and evening shows on Saturday and Sunday. The crowd would walk past us to get to the main theatre, or leave the venue. Thankfully, many would stay for a drink and watch and listen to me spitting about throbbing tumours and the like, and by the end of it they were screaming and hollering and dancing and leaping around.
Certainly a weekend to remember, plenty of camaraderie between my own band and This Is Laura. I now feel very toned, like a musical equivalent of Dolph Lundgren.
There will be plenty of post promotion of this event, which I’ll post up as I receive the links to it. Though you can see a slideshow of the event here to get an idea.
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