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| From | TweeKid@aol.com |
| Subject | (The Real) Tuesday Weld comes to New York |
| Date | Fri, 20 Jun 2003 14:04:20 EDT |
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(The Real) Tuesday Weld comes to New York
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I usually don't post stuff around here to hype bands and shows but I just
wanted to send out this quick note about the United States live debut of (The
Real) Tuesday Weld on Wednesday, June 25 at The Fez. They done records on
Dreamy Records UK, Kindercore USA and Bambini in Japan. Below is a review of show
in London a couple weeks back when they opened for Future Bible Heroes (I
think it was that show that the review came from) that appeared in the Daily
Telegraph in London.
======================================
Finger-Clicking Good - (The Real) Tuesday Weld at The Spitz, E1
(Sukhdev Sandhu)
Now that even Radio 2 fills its schedules with Britpop and new wave, what
future lies in store for those of us who think popular music died when noisy
guitars became all the rage?
Surely nothing beats a good tune by Al Bowlly or by Ambrose and His
Orchestra? These days there's no Dennis Potter to champion them. Those beautiful songs,
dripping with melodies, lavish in emotion, so sad and so sophisticated, are
rarely heard today. Soon they may become as remote and historical as lieder
music.
Hurrah then for (The Real) Tuesday Weld, aka Stephen Coates. The Clerkenwell
Kid, as he sometimes calls himself, has gained a large word-of-mouth following
in France and America as well as here for his ability to cut-and-paste old
78rpm grooves and combine them with droll but affecting lyrics that explore the
vagaries of the human heart.
His songs are beautifully arranged, witty (titles include L'Amour et La Morte
and Terminally Ambivalent Over You), and evocative of nothing so much as a
happy coming together of Hutch, George Brassens and Neil Tennant.
How right that on this, one of their rare live performances, Coates's band
spurned denim and leather, and were dressed in immaculate suits and cuff-linked
shirts. They looked like the kind of musicians Londoners in wartime would
flock to in order to forget about the bombs raining down above them on Leicester
Square.
The songs, stripped clean of beats and reassembled for guitar, bass and
clarinet (played superbly by Jacques Van Rhijn), were performed with the trust and
rhythmic dexterity of a jazz quartet. On opener Anything But Love,the audience
cooed with delight at the sight of the entire band on synchronised
finger-clicks. Coates himself is a hugely winning lead singer, shaking a tin of mint
balls as percussion, waxing lyrical about Serge Gainsbourg, dedicating the song
George to his uncle who was "somewhat to the right of Enoch Powell"
("First-class degree in navel-gazing/Funny views on food and Asians").
For all his lightness of touch and the wide variety of tunes, what was very
clear that this was pop played for keeps, not for laughs or nostalgic fun.
Songs such as The Ugly and the Beautiful and the wonderful closer Someday show him
to be an anatomist of love easily the rival of, say, the better-known Stephen
Merritt.
If Alain de Botton were in a band, (The Real) Tuesday Weld would be it. As
long as Coates keeps making records, the good old days needn't be in the past.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Be there when (The Real) Tuesday Weld make their United States debut in New
York on Wednesday, June 25 at The Fez
======================================
Matthew Kaplan
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