Filed under: feature, words in edgeways | Tags: 2007, interview, music, rickie lee jones, trevor raggatt
This is one of the ‘lost’ interviews from the would-be issue five. Back in 2007, Wears The Trousers’ then deputy editor Trevor Raggatt was granted an audience with the incomparable Rickie Lee Jones. We were so bummed not to get this out when it would have mattered the most; she’s a fascinating woman and a true artist. Enjoy!
words in edgeways with rickie lee jones
For the average person listening to their iPod on the Clapton Pond-bound bendy bus the name of Rickie Lee Jones, where it’s recognised at all, is probably synonymous with her 1979 breakthrough single ‘Chuck E’s In Love’. Wears The Trousers readers may well be more au fait with the auteur’s musical canon, so perfectly surmised on 2005’s retrospective The Duchess Of Coolsville, but The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard, released back in February, is perhaps her most unusual record to date. A collaboration with an old friend on a largely improvised musical interpretation of the teachings and words (or ‘Words’ as Ms Jones maintains in her emails) of Jesus Christ, it’s an extraordinary piece of work that rightly has a place on our Albums of the Year list.
Filed under: album, review | Tags: 2008, anna claxton, gregory and the hawk, meredith godreau, music
Gregory & The Hawk
Moenie & Kitchi ••••
FatCat
Safe in a little wood on the outskirts of the edge of the world, a young man called Gregory wanders through a softly lit glade, a small hawk perched on his shoulder. All of a sudden, he sees a girl sitting underneath the most magnificent tree he has ever seen. As he moves closer, it appears that the girl has translucent skin, as if lit up by her own private silvery moon, and is singing to herself in a voice so sweet that it almost belongs to another life. She stops, looks at him, and says “Gregory, set your hawk free and I will play a song for you”. As the hawk soars into the approaching dusk, the woodland princess sings a magical song of remembrance. When Gregory looks back down to find her, she is gone, but her music remains long afterwards.
Filed under: album, review | Tags: 2008, charlotte richardson andrews, music, those dancing days
Those Dancing Days
In Our Space Hero Suits •••½
Wichita
‘Girl groups’, in their generic context, have historically been innovative (The Ronettes, The Slits) or lucrative (The Spice Girls, Girls Aloud), though the two are not always mutually exclusive. Girl groups doing indie pop is not a new phenomenon, especially girl groups with retro influences. So creating something exciting and fresh, without sounding like a second-rate cover band, is a feat indeed.
With glowing press from all quarters – including MTV2, NME and a number of daily papers – it is more than apparent that Swedish five-girl ensemble Those Dancing Days have been embraced by the UK’s musical community with open arms. And the buzz around the band is more than deserved, especially considering the fact that two of its members were still in school when this album was pressed, only graduating this summer. But Linnea, Rebecka, Cissi, Lisa and Mimmi – each of them a fresh-faced natural beauty swaying in Oxfam chic – have more than just a charming adolescent appeal, apparent even in the derivation of their band name from Led Zeppelin’s 1973 single ‘Dancing Days’, a creditable choice that adds a touch of maturity and musical knowledge to the bigger picture.
wears the trousers magazine 