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CORPORATION POP and OPM MUSIC PROUDLY PRESENTS:
The long-awaited (twenty years in the making) debut album from Huddersfield based band The Scaremongers. Never ones to be rushed, non poet laureate vocalist/lyricist Simon Armitage and multi-tasking guitarist Craig Smith crafted the songs over the past two decades, letter by letter, quaver by quaver, and now feel that the galaxy is ready for their unique brand of “kitchen-sink snow-shaker pop-rock” as they casually refer to it.
Songs range from the swirling, up-for-it-indie-dancefloor-hum-it-in-the-bathroom-classic You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) to the soul hugging, shoe-gazing, hair-shirt wearing, seven-and-a-half minute From The Shorelines Of Venus, to the heartfelt and cryptic (even to the band themselves) Grouse Beaters Boys’ Club, to the stomping Derailleur, the only song ever dedicated to the sprocket-activated, variable-ratio transmission system frequently deployed on the modern bicycle.
“Caesar came from Rome,
picnicked here then pushed off home.
The dashboard music soared
from a Russian car,
I could have sworn… in the chrome,
your face, and next to it my own.”
Derailleur
Full track listing:
You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes)
Grouse Beaters Boys’ Club
Tea Leaves
Cardigan Girl
Legendary
Less Is More
Nodding Dog
Long Ride Home
Derailleur
From The Shorelines Of Venus
Porch
Official Release Date: Friday 7th May 2009
Picture CD, including lyric booklet and artwork by Lyndon Hayes, £8.99 available from Vinyltap Records: http://www.vinyltap.co.uk/shop/item/951171950968.aspx
Downloads available from Cherry Red Records Download Shop.
Further information:
https://www.thescaremongers.com/
http://www.myspace.com/thescaremongers
Seeing (and Hearing) Is Believing: catch The Scaremongers on their Small But Perfectly Formed 2009 mini tour:
Hebden Bridge Trades and Friendly - 27 June
Latitude Festival - 16 July
Nantwich Festival - 10 October.
Contact Details - OPM:
Trevor Jenkins/David Carroll
OPM LLP
Aquarium Studios
122 Wardour Street
London
W1F OTX
t. 020 7 734 7224
m. 07793 671813
The Scaremongers' Blogger-in-Chief, Neil Sentance - Forest Fan In Exelsis, the West Country's Adopted Son - was in London with his stupendously talented wife Kate Scott to catch up with old pals. One of the old pals they caught up with was the stupendously pleased-to-see-them Scaremonger, Craig Smith:
A heads up, as they say in Shoreditch, for ScaremongersWatchers out there for a rarer than hen’s dentures TV appearance for our favourite Colne Valley Combo.
The BBC’s estimable flagship arts magazine, The Culture Show, returns on BBC2 on Tuesday 4 June at 10 pm and toppermost amongst its items is Mark Kermode (like Armitage, another alumnus of the old late night Mark Radcliffe Show) who ‘accompanies Simon at the ordeal of his first ever gig as the lead singer of the Scaremongers in super cool Shoreditch’. In this post-Top of the Pops/Whistle Test world this is surely as good as it gets. (For this viewer, apart from the obvious thrill of this televisual treat, we’ll be seeing if the footage of the now legendary Gramaphone Club gig corresponds with our memory of it — particularly as we were standing right next to the camera operator’s ear hole like supernumerary key grips or summat.) Anyway, catch the show on Tuesday — another accomplished first for the Scaremongers.
Neil S.
Craig says:
We had three great days in the studio, and we got through some really good work. I remembered how to play drums, for a start, and all our musician friends who came in to help us each added something magnificent we couldn't have created on our own. We came out with three songs - one of which there's two versions of - and we know they are the best things we've done yet. Special thanks to studio engineer Steve Whitfield and drum king, Dez, Lord of the Cymbal Crashers, for their time, effort, ideas and patience.
As a benchmark of how pleased we are, we're not going to release Less Is More/If You Ever Leave Me as a Double A-Side as we'd planned. Instead we're going to master Cardigan Girl and Modesty and Grace, and run with those.
More news when we're ready to go.
Craig says:
It's been a few months since I posted so there's some catching up to do. We've been doing a lot of behind the scenes, stuff which hopefully should come to fruition over the next few weeks.
The big news is we have a Second Double A-Side at the manufacturers, due to arrive at Vinyl Tap, our distributor, some time over the next few days. The two songs on there are Less Is More and If You Ever Leave Me, and as far as we're concerned they are a step forward, noise-wise.
We've also got a studio booked for the first weekend in March, where we're going to record at least three songs, this time with the magic ingredient of proper live drums. We've been wanting to add drums for a while, and now we are, and I'm playing them. If you listen carefully, you'll hear bones creaking and joints moving against their will.
And we've got some gigs lined up. But more of those later - frankly, right now I have to go and buy the chips for tea!
Armitage did Show and Tell on the magnificent Radcliffe and Maconie on Monday 29th October. As his Show and Tell, he chose the Comsat Angels, his boyhood favourites from the deepest darkness of the '80s. If you've got the time, listen through to the end of the interview for the Comsat Angels song, Sleep No More. It's a fine tune!
There were more bits of Armitage at the end of the show, but I couldn't be arsed editing them down, and instead I've replaced them with a drunken rhetoric about how good my hair looks and what a miraculously gorgeous complexion I have.
The Scaremongers had their first radio play in America last week. The Cleveland-based radio station, WRUW - More Music, Fewer Hits - were good enough to spin You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) on their Thursday morning indie programme, stonecoldbikini:
WRUW 91.1 FM is the campus radio station of Case Western Reserve University, located in the University Circle section of Cleveland, Ohio. WRUW is a non-profit, commercial free, all volunteer staffed radio station. WRUW operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year.
Thanks to Christine, the DJ, who kept the songs going, and a huge shout-out to Mark from the Bristol-based collective The Hi-Life Companion, who recommended us to them. Very, very kind of you.
Maybe for other people it would get tedious, but I'm still thrilled to hear myself on the radio. Maybe it's vanity, maybe I'm like narcissus staring into a pond at my own reflection, but so what: The Scaremongers were on Radcliffe and Maconie, again, and I couldn't be happier.
The Scaremongers are good friends with the glorious Pocketbooks, who just released their first single Cross The Line on Atomic Beat Records. I've known singer Emma for ages, and I'm thrilled for her that Pocketbooks are starting to get somewhere. And it seems the feeling is reciprocated - she dropped me this Facebook message yesterday:
"Not sure what your plans are for NYE, but I'm guest DJing at How Does It Feel To Be Loved in Brixton and I plan to play a Scaremongers song!"
Which is particularly kind of her. Unfortunately, both Armitage and Smith will be away for New Year, (in fact they'll be in a huge old farmhouse together with their respectives bopping away to The Scaremongers at the stroke on midnight), but I can state categorically that:
a) we are both made up that Emma thinks enough of the songs to play one of them out in the wild, (I forgot to ask which one - Emma, if you're reading this, which song will you be playing, or is it a surprise?)
b) at the time of writing, this is the first and only time The Scaremongers have been or have been pencilled in to be played in a discotheque environment, which gives Emma a first of some kind
c) we know Emma's got a fabulous pop sensibility and everything she plays on New Year's Eve will be absolutely first rate, so if you've got nothing planned for the festivities that night and London isn't too much of a stretch for you, a night at How Does It Feel To Be Loved would be the perfect way to dance into 2008.
Thanks for spinning whichever song you play, Emma.
The magnificent Lyndon Hayes, the painter of the image that The Scaremongers used as the cover of The Scaremongers' First Double A-Side, is in The Guardian today, page 28 if you have a copy to hand. He was asked to come up with a series of designs for adverts the Guardian are to run about themselves, and as usual he did a particularly glorious job of it as you can see for yourselves below, with the first installment:
Smith was straight on the blower to Armitage on Friday night after Marc Riley played You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) for the second time on his magnificent Brain Surgery show. Neither Armitage nor Smith had caught the show as it went out on Wednesday, so they didn't get the chance to witness their first radio appearance as a band as it was happening, (and all hail the Listen Again feature, otherwise they would never have heard it at all). So on Friday night, they were positively giddy to hear it live:
"Did you hear it?"
"Aye. What did you reckon?"
"It sounded alright!"
"Did you hear the email request?"
"Eh? No. When was that?"
"At the top of the show."
"I only got home about twenty minutes into it."
"Then you missed it."
"So it seems. What did they say?"
"They asked for it again."
"Who was it? Anyone we know?"
"Someone called Petra."
"Petra? She left a comment on the site."
"She's a bit of an early adopter, eh!"
"Smart girl, that!"
"Aye. Smart girl!"
In honour of the outstanding Superfan Petra, we grabbed the audio of Marc reading out her request as well as The Scaremongers bit from later on. Thanks again to Marc and his team, and once again I hope it's OK to borrow a few minutes of Friday's show.
Wanting to get a copy of The Scaremongers brief but (for me!) thrilling inaugural radio appearance on Marc Riley's Brain Surgery on Wednesday night and without all the connectors that would have made the job easier and that would have ensured a pristine recording, in true 1970's fashion I propped a microphone against the front of the computer speaker and pressed play. It took me back to Top of the Pops during the heyday of the Glitter Band and Mud: the two things missing from the experience was my Big Sister pushing me to the side, pressing the off button and saying 'The Scaremongers are rubbish, and you'd best not be taping over my David Cassidy' and my mum ruining the fidelity of the recording by opening the Room door and calling me through to the Living Room for my tea. (Calling the two downstairs reception areas The Room and the Living Room - was that normal or was it yet another of those inexplicable quirks unique to the sub-genus of our family, like calling dessert 'finish off'?)
Anyway, I hope Marc and his team don't mind me half-inching four and a bit minutes of their show, which I only caught on Listen Again. It's what is known in the trade as a 'ropey copy', so I don't think it's going to put anyone out of business. I just wanted to record it for posterity! It's my first time on the radio, don't you know!
To mark the first day of Autumn, The Scaremongers will be played on Marc Riley's Brain Surgery again tonight, (21st September, 2007). That makes two nights in one week. It really is thrilling, but scary at the same time: as the guy who organised the manufacture of the CDs, I live in perpetual fear that the radio copies we're giving out don't work when they're played on the radio.
As for the song - which I'm guessing will be You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) - it sounds different every time I hear it. I still don't know what to make of it. I'm proud of it, sure enough, but I keep listening for flaws and mistakes and things that aren't quite in time. I keep telling myself the best thing is take what we've learned and use it on the next song, but that's easier said than done.
Anyway, should you ever read this, thanks ever so much, Marc: you and your team have made two middle-aged men very happy.
Thanks to the miracle of the Internet and the kindness of the good people at Vinyl Tap, The Scaremongers' First Double A-Side is online ready to be bought! It's a limited edition, it's two songs - You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) and Nodding Dog - it's on sale at £2.99 plus postage and we're as proud as punch.
I've become my own hero for the day! Thanks, Tony!
Let it go down in the history books that the great Marc Riley was the first person to play The Scaremongers on the radio. All hail the Mighty Marc!
And all hail Marc's mighty team, who not only made the latest show available on their site, which is particularly useful for those who missed it - eg the whole of The Scaremongers who, instead of being crammed around their transistor radios tuning in to Marc's show, were stood in the middle of the roundabout by Highbury and Islington tube station having their photographs taken - but the team also listed the tracklisting for me to stare at in amazement! It's a triumph of technology and librarianship, it really is!
20-odd years since The Scaremongers first got together, we now have something to show for it. The Scaremongers' First Double A-Side arrived this week, and quite frankly, it looks beautiful. The painting we used for the cover, painted by the great Lyndon Hayes, has scaled wonderfully well and though we've spoiled it by blazoning The Scaremongers across it, it can't detract from the natural beauty of the image, although in the photo below, Smith certainly seems to be making an effort to ruin it with his gurning:
The people at XPress CDs did a fine job putting it together, and there's a collective thrill from The Scaremongers' camp at this object we've created. But we must stress, this was a team effort, with vocalist Speedy Sue, bassist Glen Smith, guitarist Geoff Bird, engineer Jason Salisbury and a whole host of others doing their bit to bring it into being. Thanks to everyone who helped: we might have been able to do it without you, but it wouldn't have been the same, and as we love the way it turned out, we're glad that you were the ones who helped us!
That Armitage interview in full:
Just got word that The Scaremongers' First Double A-Side is due back from the manufacturers on Tuesday. Barring mishaps and problems with the CD, hopefully we can get it to our distributors by the weekend. They need time to process it, but fingers crossed we should be able to make it available by the end of the following week, ie the 14th September. You'll be the first to know when it's ready!
I'm both super-hyper to see it and yet deeply apprehensive that something is wrong with it and that I might be disappointed. I spoke to Emma from The Pocketbooks a couple of weeks ago about their single, and she said she hadn't dared play it for fear it wasn't as good as she hoped it would be. I can understand exactly how she feels! It's silly really - these are simple problems that can be sorted out, but it's more than that, it's all your dreams going into one piece of plastic, and you don't get too many opportunities in life to create these artifacts. You want them to be as good as they can possibly be.
What I keep forgetting is that everyone else involved wants it to be as good as it can possibly be, as well. The dreams and reputations of the engineer in the studio, and the CD manufacturers themselves ride on the fact that they come up with something professional and cool whenever they are paid to do it, so they will make an effort with our CD just as much as they would with any other band. In some ways doing a good job is even more important to them than it is to us because their livelihoods rely on it: they need strong word of mouth to get them the next job and the next after that. They want us to come back because it's a tough market out there, and they are banking on repeat custom and recommendations for new business, and they know that those are far more likely if they show commitment and diligence. So we have to trust we are in safe hands.
It all goes to show how collaborative creative endeavour is. These two songs will find their way into the hands of others only because a team of people came together to make it happen. Beside Armitage and Smith, the aforementioned CD manufacturers and the studio engineer, Jason Salisbury, are in the mix. The musicians Glen Smith and Geoff Bird helped us out big time, as did Speedy Sue with a glorious vocal performance. Lyndon Hayes painted the original art that we used for the cover, and Fiona Macnab let us use it. You could get even further into it: the ladies in the sandwich shop where we bought food while we were in the studio - whole moods can swing on the quality of a sandwich; the people who made the equipment - the band's gear, the studios gear, the cars we drove to the studio in; the people from Typepad, MySpace, Spice, Indie Store, Last.fm; certainly Tony and his team at Vinyl Tap for making the CD available. All of those people influenced the making of the CD in a very direct and positive way. It's awe-inspiring, when you think about it, bewildering - swap out any one of those people, and the record would have been different. I'm sure it would still have been made, but it wouldn't have been the same: they certainly made it easier.
Music is collaborative - don't let anyone tell you any different.
