Welcome to the ramblings of a man who really should have grown out of listening to "that sort of music" a long, long time ago...A place to share thoughts and photographs on music and related paraphernalia.
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the special launch and listening party for the new album "Staying Cool Staying Free" by The Everlasting Yeah on Saturday, so instead I dispatched Retro Man Blog's roving reporter for the day, Buddy Ascott to do the honours. Buddy was the perfect choice, as the former drummer in The Chords, he supported The Undertones at quite a few gigs in various cities around the country back in the day and became a big fan of That Petrol Emotion and The Everlasting Yeah. So let's hand over to Buddy to see how the launch party went...
Damian & Brendan at the launch party - photo by Buddy Ascott
I had no great expectations, having never before been to an album listening party, either online or in the flesh. But as a huge fan of The Undertones, That Petrol Emotion and yeah, The Everlasting Yeah, it was a tempting prospect. But what really piqued my interest was the video released that very morning, featuring the lead track on the new album, "Staying Cool, Staying Free". Titled "Girl from Miki City", it sounded remarkably similar to a song, "Making Certain" that I'd recorded back in 1997 with a group of ex-pats living in Japan, called Red Away Tops. In fact it was the very same song! OK, full disclosure - we're busted! Damian O'Neill had sent Billy Hassett (ex-Chords singer) a cassette of new songs back in those carefree days. Mightily impressed, Billy asked Damian if he could "borrow" a couple of the songs for our "Satellite TV" album. Being the gracious chap he is, Damian agreed, but forgot to tell us that the songs were in fact bandmate Raymond Gorman's. And so our little recording project in Japan contained two songs that should have been credited to Raymond. Glad I could get that off my chest, and apologies Raymond!
The launch party crowd photographed by Raymond
The London Irish Centre is set in a quiet, leafy square in London's Camden - not your typical rock'n'roll venue, but then The Everlasting Yeah are not your typical group, and they have a loyal band of followers to prove it. Arriving too early, I was ushered back out into the bar area, and was soon joined by my good friend Tim, who'd travelled all the way from Yorkshire - with a busted leg - just to attend the listening party. With around eighty devotees in attendance, we sat near the front in an impressively wide and beautiful wood-paneled room. The four Yeahsters (as nobody calls them) took to the stage, but instead of strapping on guitars and sitting behind drums, sat down in comfy-looking armchairs, the serene scene completed by a solitary standard lamp. It felt a little surreal, but also exciting. At first the group looked a little self-conscious, up there without instruments, but relaxed as the afternoon progressed. Please note - this review is of the first listen only, and I reserve the right to change my mind upon hearing the album at home! Playback of Side 1 began with the aforementioned "Miki City" track - it made our version sound like a demo! With chunky guitars and soaring vocals, it's a fine album opener and a potential single. The sound system onstage was remarkable: exceptionally clear yet powerful.
The Everlasting Yeah at The Lexington London in 2016 - photo by Paul Slattery
Next up was a song - "Myself When I Am Real" - that showcased Brendan Kelly's sublime bass skills, rolling along like an approaching freight train. On first listen I was convinced it was an instrumental, but the lyrics finally arrived, fully four minutes into the song. This felt very much in the vein of "Taking That Damn Train Again" from their first album - astonishingly, "Anima Rising" is now 10 years old! The song continued with Raymond chanting "It's just myself!" - and in a thrillingly upbeat coda - "Everything is gonna be alright! ALRIGHT!" All four of the band sat tapping their feet in sync, seemingly lost in thought, grinning away at favourite moments. Drummer - and often lead vocalist - Ciaran McLaughlin was particularly animated, as you'd expect from such a fine percussionist. The drums sounded much more natural - untreated - than on their debut album. The side continued with the acoustically led "You Can't Hold Water In A Closed Fist", reminiscent of one of TPE's quieter songs. Side 1 closed with "Hurricane Nation", growling bass and rimshots giving way to a taut and melodic pop song - the harmonies are a really positive feature on this album. There followed a short interval (a kindness to us men of a certain age), before playback recommenced.
The Everlasting Yeah at our Retro Man Blog Night, May 2016 - photo by Paul Slattery
First track on Side 2 was "Rise Up", perhaps an over familiar title, but it's an impassioned plea to "rise up in love" and continues the album's general good vibes - Raymond would later tell us that it was recorded in the face of adversity, and they seemed genuinely happy just to be making music again. "Dylan '65" was up next, as cool as its title - Buzzcocks meets Graham Coxon, guitars to the fore. It's also probably the most Petrols-based track on the album. I would have liked the drum fills a little louder in the mix, but I would say that, wouldn't I? The closing song, "Heartbeat Still", is another epic, clocking in at over 8 minutes. A frantic start gives way to a shaker and a Pink Floyd feel (No wait! Come back!! I mean that in a good way!) that again showcases Brendan's prowess as a bass player. The rhythm changes, the intensity is ramped up and the guitars take over again...only for an electric piano and that Floyd groove to bring this amazing song to a peaceful conclusion. Probably the best vocal performance on the album too, courtesy of Ciaran. There was unanimous, spontaneous applause in the room, much to the apparent relief of the band members.
Buddy Ascott with Brendan
Jon Hunter from The June Brides then joined them onstage to quiz them about the making of the album, and what inspired the songs. There was some good natured joshing between the band, as Raymond and Brendan did the lion's share of the talking. The travails that have delayed the album - mainly health issues - were mentioned only briefly, and the vibe remained positive and optimistic, at least until they were asked how they were going to promote this album. They all shrugged, justifiably feeling their work is now done, and it's up to "the industry" to do with it what they will. They make music primarily for themselves, and they are patently artists, not businessmen. One other revelation was how close they came to being named The Hoodlum Angels at the outset, but happily that only remained as a song title on the debut album. The merch table did brisk business and fans and followers slowly drifted away into the sunshine. A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, with a cracking album that builds on the promise of "Anima Rising", and then some. Live shows soon, please.
- Buddy Ascott, August 2024
The Everlasting Yeah with Jon Hunter - photo by Buddy Ascott
With thanks to Buddy for the great report, for more information on how to order the new album, please check out The Everlasting Yeah facebook page here. Don't forget our Retrosonic Podcast with Damian, Raymond and Ciaran discussing the history of That Petrol Emotion and The Everlasting Yeah is still available, along with other interview specials with Damian, Raymond and Buddy, by subscribing for free at Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts/iTunes or our SoundCloud main page.
The Woggles made a very rare trip to the U.K. for two shows, first of all in Bristol on the Thursday and then Friday night at the legendary 100 Club in London, where I finally got to witness what many people claim are one of the best live acts around. I've been a fan for a long time now and watching videos of them over the years and seeing comments from those lucky enough to have seen them play I was wondering if they could live up to my expectations. Well, I wasn't to be disappointed, in fact they exceeded all of those expectations and then some. Another big fan of The Woggles is Graham Day, frontman of one of our favourite bands, The Prisoners. In fact, he is such a fan that he invited The Woggles to play at his wedding and he also borrowed their rhythm section of drummer Dan Eletxro & bassist Buzz Hagstrom for his Graham Day & The Gaolers line-up on their excellent debut album "Soundtrack To The Daily Grind". I've spoken to Graham about The Woggles on a few occasions in previous interviews and chats and he has now been in the band for over five years, the opportunity arising after the sad and untimely passing of guitarist Jeff "Flesh Hammer" Walls in 2019. Graham has expressed how difficult he sometimes finds the pressures of being a frontman and his struggles with singing and lyric writing - although if you take the Gaolers for example, this seems somewhat hard to believe. He told me once in our Retrosonic Podcast interview that he always fancied being the guitarist in a band seen playing at a dance or 'happening' in one of those American sixties teen movies. Either that or in an instrumental band, an ambition he was to make happen when he formed The Senior Service, his side project that was heavily influenced by those classic Spy, Sci-Fi and Spaghetti Western movie and TV theme tunes by composers such as Barry Gray, John Barry and Ennio Morricone.
So tonight, the London crowd gets their first chance to see Graham playing guitar with The Woggles and he seems to be having as much fun as we are. Busting out all the moves and shapes with his cool looking Nineteen67 Jones guitar and despite the proliferation of Prisoners T-shirts in the crowd, he is relishing the spotlight being on the livewire frontman The Professor Mighty Manfred Jones. Manfred has to be one of the best rabble-rousing all action vocalists I have ever seen - he does not stop moving for a minute, he demands your attention with his cheerful cheerleading antics. One minute he's lifting the mic stand high above his head, then he's on his knees blasting out on his harmonica, before leaping up and pirouetting around with some nifty dance steps. He also likes to get down among the crowd, encouraging us to participate. I'm exhausted just watching him and I wonder how he gets his energy as he never lets up. His energy levels are matched by Go Go dancer Moana Santana who also doesn't stop for the duration of the show and she adds even more glamour to the visual extravaganza. We saw Moana dancing at the 100 Club for the fantastic Lenny Kaye plays Nuggets gig (which you can read about here) and she really adds to the whole swinging sixties vibe.
Bassist Buzz Hagstrom and guitarist/saxophonist Shane Pringle also seem to be in their element, they have to compete with some strong personalities to their right and yet they acquit themselves perfectly, they are superb on the night. Only super-cool drummer Dan Eletxro in his trademark cap, remains seated throughout and that's because he has to keep the relentless groove going, I'm sure he was dancing inside. The perfectly plotted set unsurprisingly draws heavily on the excellent new album "Time Has Come", which is out now on green vinyl via Little Steven van Zandt's Wicked Cool Records, and is surely going to feature very high in our best albums of 2024 come the end of the year. I would go so far as to say it's up there as one of the best, if not the best Woggles albums and it positively bursts out of the speakers, coming very close to capturing the live energy we witnessed tonight. It's going to be lauded as a future classic in the Garage Soul genre, I'm sure of it. Graham contributes a couple of songs to the record along with guitar and backing vocals and what with The Prisoners stunning reunion album, "Morning Star", he's on a great creative streak at the moment. My personal highlights included "Telling Me Lies", "Paisley In Paradise", "Mr Last Chance", "Her Majesty's Pleasure" and the blistering "Flesh Hammer" which was written by Pat Beers by another of our favourite bands, The Schizophonics. "Karate Monkey" is also superb, with everyone joining in on the "ooh aah" karate kata moves. I sincerely hope that The Woggles don't leave it so long before returning to our shores - in these sometimes dark and depressing times we all need a regular shot of their peerless good-time Garage Rock 'n' Soul.
The night was made even more special with the added bonus of The Galileo 7 and The Len Price 3, two more of our long-time favourites. In fact what with Graham Day on stage with The Woggles and so many familiar friendly faces in the crowd, it took me back to the good old days of our Retro Man Blog nights at the Half Moon Putney. The LP3 powered through a raucous set including a couple of promising sounding new songs which seemed inspired by their Medway and North Kent roots. You realise just what a great back catalogue the band have built up and they treated us to a pick from most of their albums, culminating in the classic "London Institute". The Galileo 7, who are of course fronted by Graham's colleague in The Prisoners, Allan Crockford, opened up proceedings quite early but thankfully there was a healthy crowd already in the venue to witness another great performance from the band. Their dynamic and memorable Psych Pop songs, with all four members having a go on vocals, went down really well with the crowd. They also debuted two new songs which are due out early next year and they sounded excellent, I'm really looking forward to hearing them recorded. So, all in all it was a perfect night out, proving the importance of the communal spirit and positive vibes of a room full of fans enjoying no-nonsense, uplifting live music.
The Galileo 7
The Len Price 3
For more information on The Woggles and details on how to order the new album, please check out their official web-site here. Please click on the highlighted links throughout the feature for more information. I'll put more photos of the night at the Retro Man Blog Facebook page so please head on over here, like and subscribe for access. All photos and videos copyright Retro Man Blog.
The Everlasting Yeah, formed from the ashes of That Petrol Emotion, released one of the best debut albums of all time "Anima Rising" in 2014 and now they are finally going to release one of the most long-awaited, hightly anticipated follow ups of all time too. Yes, the great news is that the band have overcome various trials and tribulations and are now able to unleash their second album "Staying Cool, Staying Free With The Everlasting Yeah". It seems like such a long time ago that they played at one of our Retro Man Blog Nights at the Half Moon in Putney and debuted a couple of new songs, well it was a long time ago, 2016 in fact. One of the songs that I captured on video that splendid evening was called "Dylan '65", I loved it at the time and I'm pleased to see it features on the new album, although I'm not sure if it will be very different from this...
Here's a few words taken from my review of our Retro Man Blog Half Moon Putney show (you can read the full feature here.)
"The chemistry between all four members is apparent when they play live,
they look like they enjoy each others company and it certainly pays off
in their music. Brendan Kelly's bass throbs with a thunderous intent
and his understanding with drummer Ciaran McLaughlin is impressive as
they lock into a mighty groove. The Everlasting Yeah have added a dash of Krautrock's motorik beats into the mix too which
enables the songs to develop nicely at their own natural pace. In fact
there are more ideas crammed into one Everlasting Yeah song than most
bands manage in a whole album! Raymond Gorman and Damian O'Neill seem
to have some sort of psychic thing going on as their guitars weave in
and out of each other like Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine at their
best. I've always thought that Damian and Raymond were totally
underrated as guitarists, they spin out razor sharp shards of spiky and
inventive riffs that complement each other perfectly. Like Joey
Santiago from the Pixies they take what at first might be familiar
melodic lines and twist them to breaking point. You think you know when
the pay off is going to come but they surprise you with another
unexpected and thought provoking detour. Although Raymond handles most
of the lead vocals - ably backed by Ciaran, who takes the spotlight on
"Everything Is Beautiful" - there's no front-man as such, TPE's singer
Steve Mack having relocated to his hometown Seattle - The Everlasting
Yeah are however, a tight-knit gang who present a united front and
share some stunning four-part vocals harmonies."
The Everlasting Yeah are having a listening party for the album on August 17th from
2-6pm at The London Irish Centre, 50-52 Camden Square, London NW1 9XB. Admission is free and there will be a Q&A session with the band hosted by Jon Hunter from The June Brides. Afterwards you will be able to buy
signed vinyl, CDs and T-shirts and chat to the band. For more information on the Event please check out the details here.
You can check out our features on The Everlasting Yeah gigs at The Half Moon Putney and The Lexington with exclusive Paul Slattery photos. You can check out the Retrosonic Podcast archive for special episodes with Damian and Raymond and lots of related features on the band. Don't forget our thoroughly entertaining Retrosonic Podcast with Raymond, Damian and Ciaran where they discussed their time in That Petrol Emotion, the formation of The Everlasting Yeah and their debut album "Anima Rising".
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