As some of you will remember, I interviewed Gerard on a local (Bristol) radio show back in the summer, and have run into him a couple of times since.
In the interview he described the Blue Aeroplanes as being like a football team, where you have a squad and pick your team from whoever is available and wants to play at the time (so that'll be a rather amateur football team rather than a premier league set-up then!) The album is evidently recorded, and we played a couple of tracks from it (Raise the Roof High and Tree Full of Starlings), which sounded good (most of us know how good raise the roof high is anyway) but unfortunately Gerard only brought in one copy and took it away with him at the end, so any further peeks into it didn't happen for me I'm afraid.
I can recall one gig, at the Victoria Rooms I think, where the Larder sisters were in the band. I think it was a charity gig topping the bill with K-Passa, Spectrasonic and Hazel Winter (and maybe Rodney?) as support. Dawn and Baz are evidently on some of the new album, and were at the Fiddlers gig but only doing backing vocals on a few songs.
Gerard said he was looking for a deal to release this album, but it would seem that he hasn't managed to do so yet, and there must be a question mark over any label, indie or otherwise, wanting to release an album by an all but defunct band, who may still have a small fanatical following (pat yourselves on the back, y'all). Whether there would be enough interest elsewhere to make it worthwhile must be high in the mind of any record company exec worth his bonus.
The poor production on Record Player was down to some bizarre mixing technique that Gerard talked about but I can't remember full details of, but it involved mixing the original 24 track recordings down to 4 track via a heath robinson system of leads and guitar pedals!
Alex Lee did a Stranglelove retrospective gig with Patrick Duff in Bristol on Friday, which I missed unfortunately but I did see Patrick play some of his new solo stuff on Saturday night. There is evidently a Strangelove retrospective album due out in the new year, so there is a possibility that Alex will be working, but with Patrick and not Gerard!
PV1
From: "Tom Berry" Reply-To: blueplanes@st...net To: Subject: [Blueplanes] following on from what edward said Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:17:06 -0000 This is all dead negative but......I tend to agree with you in your frustrations, Edward.-over releases, gigs and the web site. I think my expectations have always been to high when it comes to the aeroplanes. I became a fan about a 2 years before Swagger was released and managed to catch them at Ashton Court in '88, with a truly stunning set-mostly spitting out miracles. As i remember nick jacobs, ruth cochrane, wojtek, angelo, Richard Bell, Gerard and Rodney coming on at the end.I'd never seen anything like it before and won't ever again, for pure entertainment.- After which came the Swagger line-up. I've written to the band(no response), been to most of their gigs in Bristol since '88, but this year I couldn't be bothered. I was very tempted by the thought of Angelo playing, but as my better half said 'we've been to the last 3 or 4 at the fiddlers and fleece, ashton court etc and they are always the same, still living off the glories of the early 90's'. I tended to agree. I don't know whether there were any live outings when the Larder sisters were in the band (Radon daughters), but I would have liked to have seen them involved, something a bit different. In terms of albums, I was desperately dissapointed with Cavaliers, which was shambolic and really didn't work 'live'. Record player was a much better offering with some great riffs, despite the poor production quality. I don't think that the 'blue aeroplanes' actually exist anymore as a band, with one gig a year. It seems to just be Gerard and whoever he can get hold of at the time. God knows how he pays the bills, I wonder if he signs on? I do look forward to hearing the new (old) album, hope the productions good and that there is more to come from the 'raise the roof' house of riffs. Finally, if I was in the band I would definately subcribe to this service an
d offer feed back to old cynics like myself, and offer people news that the website has sadly lacked. After all we're the paying punters! ( Pat Fish suffers at the hands of my rambling emails, but always replies and courteously! Now that's good customer service!!!) On a positive note (not for Suede fans) now that Suede are finished perhaps Alex Lee might offer a helping hand in kick starting 2004?
Sorry to go on, Tom > > 1. Aeroplanes (edward gay) > > --__--__-- > > Message: 1 > From: "edward gay" > To: blueplanes@st...net > Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 15:05:05 +0000 > Subject: [Blueplanes] Aeroplanes > Reply-To: blueplanes@st...net > >
Went to see the aeroplanes at Fiddlers club on Fri 5th Dec.They were terrific although the sound seemed slightly unbalanced in the first half.But "Breaking in my Heart" was a storming reminder of why theyre such a great band.I spoke to Rodney Allen before the gig and he informed me the band had recorded loads of material but was unclear when any of it was going to be released,instructing me to ask Gerard which unfortunately I was unable to do.Its a shame for all us aeroplane fanatics that the band only release material on a highly irregular basis.I was told by Art Star as long ago as March 2002 that an album's worth of material had been recorded and that the band were touting the material around various distribution companies to try and secure a British and American release.I remember watching Big World Cafe in 1990 during which the aeroplanes were being highlighted as one of the bands to watch for the future.Their st! > ar seemed to rise 92-94 and then dwindle with line up changes etc.Its still hard to believe theyve only released one CD of semi new material(Cavaliers) in 7 years
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