Off the Record

Evening Standard   24.08.07

 Add your view

David Smyth meets family rock n' roll band Kitty, Daisy & Lewis ahead of their imminent spot at Bestival next weekend.

FAMILY IN A RETRO GROOVE

Lewis Durham is 17 going on 70. He's the bequiffed guitarist in rocking and rolling family band Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, who have been taking audiences back to the Fifties at rowdy live shows since Lewis was 10 and drumming younger sister Kitty was just eight.

Veterans already, they play at east London's Spitz club tonight, to warm up for their imminent slot at the Bestival weekend on the Isle of Wight, the third year running that they have performed at the enjoyably quirky festival. Then it's back to school in Kentish Town for Lewis to complete his A-levels.

Watching 19-year-old Daisy singing vintage tracks such as Mean Son of a Gun and Ooo Wee, with dad Graeme and mum Ingrid playing acoustic guitar and double bass in the background, the sense of novelty is hard to ignore.

But a conversation with Lewis quickly reveals that this is no joke - he lives and breathes this stuff.

"My older sister likes some modern bands but I'm not sure who they are," he tells me. "I've got all my mates into stuff from the old days. They're all listening to Ray Charles and jazz now."

On the band's MySpace page, the youngest act on the list of influences is probably Booker T & the MGs. On 1 October they release A-Z: The Roots of Rock 'n' Roll, a compilation album of their favourite musicians including Louis Jordan, the Platters and Johnny Carroll and the Hot Rocks.

Meanwhile, Lewis has been stockpiling ancient recording equipment on which to make his band's debut album, a collection of originals and ancient covers due for release early next year. "The problem is it all breaks down a lot and the people who know how to fix it are all, like, 80."

If he can get everything working, his recordings should sound great. He insists, and I see his point, that modern-day productions sound "see-through, kind of pasty. Old records have inyourface, loud, full sounds".

Yet even the Timewarp Kid is forced to visit the present day occasionally. He begrudgingly admits that we'll be able to buy Kitty, Daisy & Lewis's music as downloads. "It's not to my liking though. The quality's crap. We'll be making 78s as well."

JOIN THE £100 CLUB

What am I to bid for the debut single by unknown Canadian singer the Thurston Revival? Do I hear £100? Do I hear cries of "You must be bonkers!" from absolutely everyone?

Nevertheless, head down to Notting Hill's Sartorial Gallery on Tuesday and you can pick up one of 100 copies in existence of Somewhere There's an Angel, on vinyl, signed and with a unique sleeve print created by one of 10 artists including Jasper Joffe and Ed Ward. It's the most expensive debut ever.

The music itself is not that exclusive. You can hear the classy, Nick Cave-influenced ballad at www.myspace.com/ thurstonrevival and decide if it's worth the cash.

Whether you agree or not, 45 people have already stumped up while Record of the Day, the music industry newsletter that came up with the idea, is expecting it to sell out.

"It's not about making a profit but about getting people talking about the true value of music," says Paul Scaife, director of Record of the Day. At a time when Prince is giving away his new album, almost anyone with an internet connection knows where they can get everything else for free, and Tesco is quite happy to make a loss on albums so that they can get more people through their doors to buy beans, anything that aligns music more closely with art than with canned goods is a bold, welcome move.

"I thought that if we sell four copies we can have a great party, and if we sell five, I'll call it a roaring success," says Vancouver resident Dan O'Connell, who is The Thurston Revival. He's doing much better than that. Maybe he can even push up the price for single number two.

AN EARLY LISTEN TO ...
Babyshambles
Shotter's Nation (Regal)

Let's put aside the legal and romantic troubles of Britain's most wayward rocker for an alltoo-brief moment, and consider the fact that Pete Doherty's band have a November gig booked at Wembley Arena, the traditional home of Status Quo and professionalism, and are about to release a remarkably good second album. After the tattered mumbling of the first Babyshambles release, Down in Albion, this one, due on 1 October, sounds like a completely different band. Only Doherty's drunk-ina-doorway vocals undercut the polish applied by Smiths and Blur producer Stephen Street, who sculpts a sound resembling the thrilling garage rock bands of the Sixties. Kate Moss watchers can pore over the album highlight, You Talk, reportedly co-written by her in bed, and lines such as: "You said that you love me, why don't you f**k off" on the remarkably pretty Unbilotitled. Genuine music fans can marvel at the fact that Doherty's drug-addled promise has not completely evaporated after all.

NEW ON THE NET

Nice to see Beck's acoustic guitar remaining in the cupboard under the stairs as he continues to churn out the fun stuff. His newest song, Timebomb, is an electro glam stomp that is only available in the iTunes store this week.

In the absence of a proper summer, sunny music will have to do. California band Rooney - named after the headmaster in Ferris Bueller's Day Off rather than any potato-faced footballing hero - keep the soft rock revival going strong with a bubbly new single, When Did Your Heart Go Missing. Already a hit in the US , it's in download stores this week.

Kate Nash and Lily Allen now have a male competitor in the chav anthem stakes. Jon McClure and his band Reverend and the Makers release He Said He Loved Me as a download at www.7digital.com on Monday.

A tragic but funky tale of being two-timed by "Keeley", it simply couldn't be catchier.

 

What's on today   What's on tomorrow

Receive our newsletter