Monthly Archives: March 2010

Lord Large – Bed of Roses

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Stephen Large (keyboardist with Glenn Tilbrook’s Fluffers and with the current lineup of Squeeze) has been busy recording again. According to the Lord Large MySpace:

Well, it’s been a while hasn’t it!

And to prove we haven’t taken the vast profits from our last album ( “The Lords First Eleven… still available .. ) and become Howard Hughes type recluses, we hereby announce the official uploading of some “Newstuff”. This particular “Newstuff” is our collaboration with the Soul Legends that are the Flirtations. The ladies bravely ventured down to our bunker of soul last year and added their dulcet tones to our new song “Bed Of Roses”. The track is a little taster of the new collection we are currently beavering away on. More as soon as it’s finished!

What a brilliant track. For a reminder of Stephen’s CD:

The Lord's First XI

Latest Tribute Song “Take Me I’m Yours”

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The Squeeze tribute project, The Songs of Squeeze Revisited, is continuing to gain steam as more songs come in. Finished titles now include Sartre’s Lobster’s interpretation of “Take Me I’m Yours”, and you can listen to that now at the Songs of Squeeze MySpace page.

I have to hand it to Sarte’s Lobster, who took the slight Middle Eastern feel and ran with it! The funky and driving instrumentation now sounds like something I might overhear while ordering a falafel from a stand on the street. The singer’s style is quite…aggressive! He sounds ready to conquer the listener (and then Constantinople), which provides an interesting new perspective for most of the lyric. However, the line “take me, I’m yours” just doesn’t seem to work when you’re a hard-ass, and I am scared to even know why there’s a heaven in my kiss!

On the other hand, once more I have to commend the band for making the complicated and convoluted lyrics sound crystal clear, and I think Gill and I wouldn’t be suffering from “Temptemptulation Syndrome” if we’d heard this version first. (She and I both recently admitted on the Glenn List to having heard one line in the song as “a great temp-temptulation”, rather than “a grape to tempt your leisure,” and never thought to question it until Gill actually had to sing it on stage one day!)

Overall, although this might sound like a bad review, I do like the song, and have listened to it many times already. I am getting used to the scary singer, whose bark is, I suspect, worse than his bite.

Johnny Depp, PRS For Music, and I all love Squeeze!

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And so does David, allegedly. (But how could we ever know for sure?)

In this recent interview promoting Alice In Wonderland, Johnny Depp looked genuinely thrilled to be gifted a Squeeze CD by some nameless but ardent field staffer. It’s an interesting interview, because he tells us that he gets into his characters by finding a song or album that seems to embody the character, and then plays it a whole bunch until he gets the character down.

If I had been interviewing him, I would have withheld the Squeeze CD (likely dangling it over his head like a carrot on a stick) until he divulged the name of the song or band that inspired Captain Jack Sparrow’s character! Perhaps, as Roger Ebert suggested so many years ago, it really was a drunken drag queen…but one with a recording contract!

And as for PRS for Music? They have made a lovely commemorative plaque to decorate the first building where Squeeze ever played, the Greenwich Dance Hall. (Click to read an article about it and see a cute picture of Glenn of unknown vintage, but that I suspect is from a festival during the early naughts.) It will be unveiled on 23 March at 2:30 PM, with Chris and Glenn in attendance.

Artist Info no.60

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Dear Music Lovers

Lots of exciting things going on in the Glenn Tilbrook camp at the moment. He is currently in the studio recording with Nine Below Zero for a joint project.

The acoustic tour went well and he is off to Ireland on the 24th March for some solo acoustic shows and 3 shows with Nine Below Zero. All dates up on the website at this link

http://www.glenntilbrook.com/tour/tour.html

Glenn is also performing tonight at Chris Difford’s ‘Songs In The Key Of London’ night at the Barbican, should be fun. Then off to Meribel at the weekend for the Feeling’s festival ‘Little World Festival’.

On the 23rd March Squeeze are honoured by a PRS Music Heritage Plaque. These are being given to bands to recognise their contribution to the music business in the UK over the years. The plaque is being unveiled at the site of one of their first gigs in Greenwich at the Old Borough Hall. More information on the website and the myspace sites.

Glenn finally starts twittering! OK, not every day, but it is a start. If you have not already, check him out either on twitter or on his facebook page.

We are finally ready to upload the all new all singing all dancing Quixotic Shop. This should be live by Wednesday this week. Do take a look, it is bringing us in to the 21st Century finally! Our shop has always been totally secure but now it is up to date with immediate transactions so if there are any problems with your card transaction you know straight away.

Squeeze are confirmed for the Isle Of Wight Festival this year, there will be more shows to announce very shortly in the UK and US.

Glenn is planning more work with The Love Hope Strength Foundation this year. Tune in to Absolute breakfast show this week, hopefully on Wednesday, and you will hear Glenn talk about his involvement with LHS and be in the running for a chance to win them £10,000. All the information is on their website:

www.absoluteradio.co.uk/onair/breakfast/whos_calling_christian/index.html

Thank you as always for your continued support.

Hopefully see you at a show later this year.

Glenn and Chris – 9 March 2010 – Songs in the Key of London

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Glenn, Chris and Jools all appeared at Songs in the Key of London, curated by Chris Difford at The Barbican.

Here are videos from the night – enjoy!

BBC 6Music – an act of cultural vandalism

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I’m someone who appreciates great music (why do you think I like Squeeze?). I’m therefore exasperated that the BBC is currently proposing to close one of its greatest stations in an act of cultural vandalism. Here’s what Glenn has to say about it:

I am sure you have all heard about the tragic news that the BBC are thinking of closing down BBC 6Music. Here is an address where you can email your opposition to this. If you agree that BBC 6Music is an amazing radio station and needs to be saved you can lodge your complaint by emailing them direct about the proposed closing down of 6Music at srconsultation@bbc.co.uk Thanks for your help!

Protest now or it will be gone. If you want to see the sort of coverage they do, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/events/hub/artists/squeeze.shtml Squeeze live from Latitude in 2009. Classic!
BBC 6music

John Bentley – The Man Who Never Was

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John Bentley has been very busy in the past year and has released not one but two full-length CDs and appeared as a musician on others. His first released under his own name was ‘The Man Who Never Was’, an instrumental album of spy-thriller ’60′s influenced cool.

The Man Who Never Was - CD by John Bentley

I’m obviously biased because I designed the CD booklet for him. Here are some snippets of the album:

In addition there are some amazing videos made by David Milner on YouTube – check them out:

Anyone heard the album and want to review it?

Glenn Tilbrook – 6 March 2010 – live at South Street Arts, Reading

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Glenn Tilbrook – 6 March 2010 – live at South Street Arts, Reading

Glenn Tilbrook – 5 March 2010 – live at Arc, Stockton on Tees

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Glenn Tilbrook – 5 March 2010 – live at Arc, Stockton on Tees

“Messed Around” tribute!

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The Squeeze tribute project, Songs of Squeeze Revisited, is quickly moving forward. So far ‘Touching Me Touching You’, ‘Take Me I’m Yours’, ‘Separate Beds’, and ‘Messed Around’ are completely finished. ‘Messed Around’ is now up on the MySpace site for Songs of Squeeze!

It is an interesting take by the Canadian band, Black Turtle Dove – a very slow version that goes back to the song’s blues roots, which I feel really emphasises the lyrics. The band talks a bit about their inspiration and motivation for choosing that song.

The song spoke deeply to Roberto and Cynthia, as both had been “messed around” in their earlier lives – they had both been through difficult relationships in the past before meeting each other.

Cynthia says, “We always loved Squeeze! We felt that the song, ‘Messed Around’ spoke to us. Roberto’s lead vocal is defending me in regards to being abandoned with two young children and my vocal was meant to comfort him through his own trials. It felt completely natural to us”.

Roberto adds, “I’m still a big fan of Squeeze. Messed around is how I felt. I know that Cynthia felt the same way. We came together and leaned on each other to record this track. We stood up for each other.”

To read the entire blog entry about the song, go to Songs of Squeeze Myspace. The song itself is on the main page (I had to reload it to get it to appear).

The aim is to have all 48 songs from Squeeze’s first four albums finished in the next two months, but then of course there is the cover art and many other details to be finished. Burning Sky Records still expect to release the 4-album set this year.

I am going to be particularly interested to see the cover art, as a matter of fact! The covers for the other Burning Sky Records releases have been amazing, and just like everything else, they’re done by volunteers.


Cover art for JellyFish, Posies, and Roxy Music tribute albums

For the Roxy Music tribute album, entitled Take Refuge in Pleasure, they searched the globe for cover models, and had to do four completely different photo shoots, because in addition to the one-album main release, there was also a three-album “Deluxe and Delightful” release. The resulting covers are really quite spectacular, with elaborate costumes and sets, featuring models from Australia, Slovakia, and Ireland. You can see them all here at Burning Sky Records. I wonder what they will do for Squeeze!