HOWLING WITH
ANTICIPATION
It’s
three in the morning. It’s the hour you can’t hail
a cab. It’s the hour bars close and send you tumbling
into the half-light. It’s the hour you lie awake,
willing your racing mind towards dawn. It’s the
hour you call an old lover. It’s the hour you switch
to hard liquor. It’s the hour you listen to Howling
Bells.
The Howling Bells possess a sound
reminiscent of another town, another time. They’ll
take you to a
place far eerier than Twin Peaks. They’ll spirit
you to the abandoned Old West, to a town shrouded
in snowfall, illuminated by campfire. In this town
the beguiling melodies of this four-piece will reel
and roll about your head like desire and anticipation – the
twin themes of their forthcoming debut album.
Recorded with renowned
Coldplay producer, Ken Nelson, the Howling Bells’
as yet unnamed debut long-player
is an intoxicating collection. These are 12 songs
that will ring in your ears long past listening.
The hushed tom-tom of Glenn Moule’s drums will pound
at your brain. The exquisite tension and trauma of
Joel Stein’s guitar will drive you to distraction.
The bass lines of Brendan Picchio prove ever-taunting.
Then there’s the mesmeric voice. Silky and sulky,
former Waikiki vocalist Juanita Stein is prone to
fits of sudden calm, creeping rage and perfect
pop.
Just as Juanita’s
voice effortlessly traverses wild territory, so
too does their album.
Lurching from
blues-fuelled rock to country-folk lamentations,
the buzz-saw melancholy of “Velvet Girl” and
the barbed longing of “I’ll Wait” are pitted
against the unadulterated garage blues of “Low
Happening” and the saloon-swagger of “Broken
Bones”. Then there’s “The Bell Hit” -
a song in possession of a carousing chorus within
a simple yet poetic refrain. Of all these songs,
one thing rings true – the Howling Bells will
haunt and return to you.
It’s the hour of Howling Bells.
Don’t try to sleep.
Dates:
Friday July 1st – Sydney, Spectrum – w/
Little Aida / Pony Club Massacre
Friday
July 8th - Melbourne, Northcote Social Club – w/
SubAudible Hum
A TANGLED
WEBB
Jimmy
Webb is that rarity in rock music: a professional
songwriter who achieved stardom in that capacity.
Between 1966 and 1969 alone, he
was responsible for writing such platinum-selling
classics as “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, “Wichita
Lineman”, “Up Up and Away”, “MacArthur
Park”, and “Didn’t We”, producing
and arranging the hit versions of several of those
songs.
Alongside Burt Bacharach, Webb is
one of the few stars of the 1960’s whose professional
acclaim not through his own tones, but through those
of others. Born in 1946, he started playing organ
in his Baptist minister father’s church before heading
for the bright lights of Los Angeles, where he initially
worked transcribing others songs.
It was in these mid-1960 days that
he wrote “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, but it was
his work as songwriter for the Fifth Dimension that
really brought his name “Up, Up and Away”. Winning
a whopping 8 Grammys for both these songs can kinda
do that for you.
His biggest hit was undoubtedly
“Macarthur Park”, a seven minute monster sung by
actor friend Richard Harris for which both he and
Harris were equally billed. Since those heady days,
Webb has been a consistent songwriter, but also a
published author – in 1998 he released Tunesmith:
Inside the Art of Songwriting.
Now he returns to Australia in singer-songwriter
mode for a whistle-stop tour in September.
Dates:
September
Friday 2 - The Tivoli, Brisbane
Saturday 3 - Tilley’s Devine Café, Canberra
Sunday 4 - Tilley’s Devine Café, Canberra
Tuesday 6 - The State Theatre, Sydney
Wednesday 7 - The Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne
Thursday 8 - The Gov, Adelaide
Saturday 10 - Fly By Night, Perth
