Sinead O’Connor
Event on 2012-02-20 20:00:00
Sinead O'Connor
Sinead O'Connor How About I Be Me (And You Be You) There has never been mistaking Sinead O'Connor for anybody else. A voice born to break as many hearts as windows, as tender as it is lethal. The face, simultaneously that of ocean-wide-eyed angel and shaven-headed warrior queen. And the spirit, courageous in its conviction, undaunted by controversy and fortified with endless reserves of resilience. Sinead O'Connor is that rare thing in popular music: a complete one-off. From her first breakthrough hit, 1987's 'Mandinka', to the multi-platinum international success of 1990's I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got with its unforgettable number one version of Prince's 'Nothing Compares 2 U', from her fearless genre-crossing forays into Irish folk and roots reggae to her collaborations with artists as diverse as Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack and The Chieftans, O'Connor has trodden a unique path to become the most iconic Irish female artist of the past 30 years. There is no one like Sinead O'Connor. There is only Sinead O'Connor. Lest the world dare forget who Sinead O'Connor is, it's about to be reminded once more. 25 years after her debut, 1987's The Lion And The Cobra, she returns with How About I Be Me (And You Be You), her ninth studio album and as showstopping a performance as her silver jubilee deserves. Produced by long-term collaborator John Reynolds, its ten tracks play like an encyclopaedic definition of O'Connor's oeuvre: songs about love and loss, hope and regret, pain and redemption, anger and justice. "I kind of realised I've spent a lot of my life as an artist being told what I should be," says O'Connor of the title. "Being told you should be this, you should do this, you shouldn't do that. You get to a certain age when you realise no, it's perfectly OK for me to be me, thank you very much, and you to be you. But it's very much an Irish thing. It's really a comment about Ireland and what it's like to be an Irish female artist, and particularly THIS Irish female artist." It begins with O'Connor as a giddy bride-to-be on the infectious hoedown '4th & Vine'; or as she laughingly puts it, one of many "girlie songs" on the album. "There are quite a lot of love songs on the record. It wasn't deliberate, but I'm pleased about it cos I never really did write love songs." So too the rousing 'Old Lady', a tongue-in-cheek punk ballad written about her crush on friend and Crying Game director Neil Jordan, and the buoyant call of 'The Wolf Is Getting Married'. "Another song about girlie issues," she says of the latter. "The title is something I've been wanting to use for years. When I lived in London I was in a cab having a chat with the young Muslim driver. The sky was really grey with just a little bit of blue shining through the clouds. He told me in Arab countries they called that the wolf is getting married, like he's smiling on his way to his wedding. I thought that was a gorgeous expression." Stepping out of herself and into character, the dreamily poignant 'Back Where You Belong' is a love song from a dead father killed in war to his son, originally written for the 2007 children's fantasy film The Water Horse. "There are several songs on the album which are character songs," explains O'Connor, "not necessarily me but a part of me." Equally emotive is the murmuring techno pulse of 'I Had A Baby', sung from the perspective of a single-parent. "It's a subject that people don't really write about. Even thought parentlessness is such a huge thing in the world, you rarely hear about it in a pop song. The character is a woman singing about a child she's had with a married man who's opted to have nothing to do with the child. And really, what that's like for the child and for the mother, how painful that is." The theme of pain, emotional and physical, casts its shadow wide. The beautiful 'Very Far From Home' is a personal catharsis of the loneliness of life on the road, as written and sung by a mother of four. "I can get very lonely on tour," admits O'Connor. "It's funny, I am a strong person but we're all contradictions and I'm quite vulnerable as well. Unless I have my home, my kids and all the things that keep me rooted I get quite freaked travelling around the world. When you're away from home you feel guilty. You're lonely, you're in Ostend or wherever and it's like, what's the fucking point?!" On 'Reason With Me', O'Connor delves even further into the dark, prompted by the personal testimonies of lives ripped to shreds by addiction. "The song is mostly inspired by this guy I met in Ireland, a heroin addict all his life and he thought he was a total piece of shit. He was like someone who had concrete poured all over him. Then I saw him again six months later and there was the same guy after he'd started to take action and there was this light in his eyes, he was a different person, the concrete was off him. He wasn't perfect, but he was happy and hopeful. So the song really sums that up." Living up to O'Connor's reputation as a powerfully original interpreter of other songwriters is the album's one cover version, John Grant's uncompromising lover's kiss-off 'Queen Of Denmark'. "It's a song about taking back your self-esteem and I loved the anger of it," she enthuses. "I didn't know John before but through doing the song we became mates. He has a great way of saying angry things in a terribly funny way." Unquestionably, the album's dramatic highlights are the two songs born of O'Connor's passionate response to the 2009 Murphy Report, the Irish government's enquiry into institutionalised child abuse in the country's Catholic school system and the cover-ups by the church hierarchy. On 'Take Off Your Shoes', O'Connor becomes a mouthpiece for, as she describes it, "the Holy Spirit with an AK rifle on the train on the way to the Vatican." As one of the most vocal campaigners against the attempted whitewash, O'Connor was eager to acknowledge her beliefs in song. "I liked the idea of scaring the fucking shit out of [the Vatican]," she explains. "What makes me angry and a bit of a soldier is I don't like the Holy Spirit disrespected. To me that's how it comes across, that they don't have any respect for the Holy Spirit if they can stand in its presence and lie over the rapes of small boys, covering these crimes up and yet it takes them two minutes to condemn Harry Potter for being evil." Which brings us to the captivating hymnal finale, 'VIP', where O'Connor turns her wrath on her fellow international Irish musicians too timid to step in and help her rattle the Papal cage. "We had a great tradition in Irish history of artists being a major part of the creation of history and the running of our culture," she explains. "They were very involved politically and half of them were driven into exile because they'd challenged society. Writers like Edna O'Brien, J.M. Synge, even James Joyce. Now you have this thing in Ireland where the artists have ceased to be interested in Irish issues and I find that very, very heartbreaking, especially with the publication of the Murphy Report." "I had tried," she continues, "to get a number of enormous internationally successful Irish musical artists to get involved in the struggle, to lend their voice, including someone who had actually endorsed Pope John Paul II and I was met with a stonewall of disinterest. So I think it's kind of criminal that the major musical artists from Ireland are doing nothing. And what annoys me is the one who endorsed the Pope is someone who goes on about believing in God all the time. So my view is, as artists, don't wave your fucking Grammy around going on about believing in God if you're not prepared to stand in the street and fight for the honour of God in your own country when your church has been raping little boys. It's just fucking stupid. And I was a bit nervous of challenging these artists. I've nothing against them personally. But it's time to say things as they are." Saying, and singing, things the way they are: it's what Sinead O'Connor's been doing best for the last 25 years. "I don't like comparing my records," she concludes, "but I do think there is a confidence there with this one. For a few years I went very into myself and I think I wasn't confident to be me because I was taking a kicking every time I did anything. So it seems to me that with this record I am more confident being me. You just grow into that way of thinking, y'know, what?" she laughs, "Fuck off!" The irrepressible, irreplaceable Sinead O'Connor. How about she be she and we just be thankful for it.
at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
6000 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles, United States
Mayday Parade
Event on 2012-03-10 18:30:00
Supporting Acts: The Downtown Fiction, Anarbor
Mayday Parade
Mayday Parade takes their music seriously. In 2010, Songkick, the web's live music bible, recognized them as the hardest working band of 2010, with 194 bookings and 74,000 miles on the road. "We've always toured as much as we can," says Derek Sanders, Mayday's singer and piano player. "I didn't realize how many miles we logged, so it was nice to be acknowledged." The band hails from Tallahassee, Florida and includes vocalist/pianist Derek Sanders, bassist Jeremy Lenzo, lead guitarist Alex Garcia, Brooks Betts on rhythm guitar and drummer Jake Bundrick. Since getting together in 2005, the boys have been inseparable, playing as hard as they work, forging strong bonds of friendship as they travel the world, delivering a high octane stage show driven by their strong songwriting and charismatic stage presence. It was this spirit of camaraderie that brought them to a beach house in Panacea, Florida, to write the songs for Mayday Parade. "Alligator Point is an hour away from where we live," Sanders explained. "We decided the best way to write an album was to get away from everything and jam. There were no distractions, just the five of us and the ocean, although I don't think we went swimming more than a couple of times. We set up the equipment in the living room and played when we wanted to. We structured the songs together to come up with the best possible result. We all contributed lyrics, lead lines, bass parts, bits of melody and ideas for arrangements. We didn't bring in any outsiders to do co-writing, like we did on Anywhere But Here. Every song was a full collaboration. We decided to call it Mayday Parade, because, as much of a cliché as it is, we feel like a new band after all the stuff we've been through in the last six years." After a month of intense composing, the band chose 12 of the best songs and went into the studio with Zack Odom and Kenneth Mount, the duo that helmed their first album, A Lesson In Romantics. "Ken and Zack are funny, talented and easy to work with," Sanders says. "They have a lot of passion and make the studio a fun environment. We met them for two weeks of pre-production, getting the songs into shape and talked about adding strings, trumpet and other things to the sound. We had complete artistic control, which was cool." With the exceptions of Mount's trumpet, Odom's cello and a small choir and string section, the band played every note on the album in real time. They recorded group vocals by gathering around a single mike. The songs on Mayday Parade include rousing anthems, solid mid-temp rockers and a handful of heartfelt ballads, all in keeping with their desire for musical diversity. The set opens with "Oh Well, Oh Well," which will be the first single and the first video from the record. Acoustic piano, subtle cello and Sanders' wrenching vocal lead into the band's blistering sonic attack. "We all love this song," Sanders says. "It starts slow, kicks in fast and energetic, and keeps building. We put a lot of feeling and emotion into it." Mayday has been working out the arrangement for "When You See My Friends" at sound checks for the last year. It's a fatalistic mid-tempo rocker about a nasty break up marked by fervent group vocals, solid rhythm work by Betts and Garcia's wailing lead guitar. Other choice cuts include "Priceless," a rocker with a driving rhythm, strong harmony vocals from the band, soaring guitars and unexpected changes in tempo; "Stay," a mid tempo heartbreaker that features a small string section and builds to an aching, emotional climax and the power ballad "Without The Bitter The Sweet Isn't As Sweet." Garcia's quiet acoustic guitar introduces the tune to set up one of Sanders' most emotive vocals. He also plays a subtle counter melody on grand piano. When the band kicks in, they knock the tune out of the park. The men of Mayday Parade got together in the winter of 2005, part of the natural evolution of the thriving Tallahassee scene. "All the bands in town supported each other," Sanders recalls. "We met at a warehouse a lot of bands used for rehearsing and hanging out. There was a community of musicians and local clubs that supported original music. I was in a band called Defining Moment with Brooks (Betts, rhythm guitar) and Jeremy (Lenzo, bass). Alex (Garcia, lead guitar) and Jake (Bundrick, drums) were in Kid Named Chicago with Jason Lancaster (the band's former vocalist and guitarist). We started hanging out and realized we took the music more seriously than the other guys in our bands. Some of them were married and had kids; they didn't want to tour. The six of us started jamming and writing songs and it felt great. We quit our old bands and started Mayday, although we didn't have a band name at first." The unnamed band went into the studio to record Tales Told by Dead Friends, a six song EP produced by Lee Dyess. "We played our first show and decided on a band name while we were making the EP. We put up a few songs on MySpace, then hit the road with Van's Warped Tour." The band didn't have a slot on the tour, but they sold their CD to people hanging out in the parking lots and standing on line to get into the venue. They moved more than 10,000 copies in a few months. "We had CD players and headphones and CDs in our backpacks. It was good training for promoting the band." Mayday Parade's MySpace page got thousands of hits as the EP built up an underground buzz. Labels started to take notice. "We were only a band for seven or eight months and hadn't gone on tour yet, when we were contacted by Fearless Records," Sanders says. "They called our manager, we met them in a studio for an audition and got signed." In 2006, Mayday Parade toured with Wheatus, Brandston and Melee, then went on the road with Plain White T's. Between dates they cut their debut, A Lesson In Romantics. MTV's GirlsGonePunk called it "the best album to come out this year. " The video for "When I Get Home, You're So Dead" got over 75,000 hits in two days when it premiered on the front page of MySpace Music. It went on to sell more than 170,000 copies and reached the Top Ten on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. Jason Lancaster left the band before A Lesson In Romantics was released. The band made Anywhere But Here, their second album, with the help of producer David Bendeth (Paramore, Underoath). The band distilled the essence of the 50 songs they'd written on the road into another powerful statement. Mayday Parade followed it up by headlining the Ernie Ball Stage on the Van's Warped Tour in 2010, as well as touring the UK with The Maine. In February of 2010, they released Valdosta, a six song, mostly acoustic, EP. "We had a couple of new songs we wanted people to hear and decided to revisit a few older songs with acoustic instruments," Sanders says. While they're waiting for their new self-titled album to hit the streets in October, Mayday will stay on the road doing what they do best – wowing their fans with their heartfelt songs and energetic performances. "We're very excited about this album," Sanders concludes. "We want to thank everyone who believes in this band. It's amazing that we've been able to make a living playing music. Our goal is to continue touring, nationally and internationally, and put on the best shows we can."
at Vinyl Music Hall
Palafox and Garden Street
Pensacola, United States
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