Thank You For The Music, Part 4: Bedlam!
This took... slightly longer than I intended. Suffice to say, I started writing it back in October; it's now December. My intention of finishing this before seeing these guys on November 4th proved to be just a teensy bit optimistic...
4. Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six
I know a ludicrous amount of talented people. Quite apart from the breadth of ability demonstrated in my last few blog posts, almost everyone I call a friend has some kind of artistic endeavour which forms part of their life on a regular basis, and an overwhelming majority of them are pretty bloody good at it. Of course, this community doesn't exist in a vacuum - my friends move in their own social circles which frequently don't overlap with mine, and these are often just as full (if not more so) of talented people. It was through one of these extended social circles, and a fair bit of serendipity, that I found Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six.
My friend Andrew Abrahamson, known to pretty much everyone as AB, is a photographer (and a damn fine one); he's also a man with a fine taste in music (i.e., one that coincides in large part with mine). Around a year ago, he went to Manchester to photograph his cousin's band playing at the Dancehouse Theatre. Getting from Manchester to Liverpool after a gig can be tricky if you're using public transport, especially on a Saturday night, so he was accompanied by another of my friends (and my sometime drummer), Felix Hagan, who owns a car.
I saw them later that evening when, having returned from Manchester, they made a brief appearance at the party I was attending; it's one of the few times I've had them raving to me about a band rather than the other way around. The band in question were, of course, the Bedlam Six, and it was easy to see why the two of them were so affected - everything I was told about them made me like them more.
*Demented Victorian Swing-Punk? - What's not to like?
*AB's cousin is called Biff and plays the trombone? - I like him already!
*The frontman has the most impressive facial hair this side of the nineteenth century and frequently ends gigs by running into the crowd? - That's so awesome it doesn't need embellishment in its awesomeness!
*They're so good as a live band they can make an all-seater venue rock out? - Very Yes!
*They're at the centre of a creative community centred around the not-for-profit record label they've set up? - Wait, what?!
That last statement contained so much awesome that even now I find it difficult to communicate just how perfect an idea it is. Firstly, 'setting up a record label' - as you may have gathered from my last update, it's something I consider a bit amazing (but that's another blog...). Building a community around the label is also a fantastic notion - most of my favourite labels are those which have or had a sense of community to them, whether real or illusory (the most legendary example of this is Postcard Records, who you should really go check out anyway because Edwyn Collins. Also Roddy Frame).
(As a bit of background information I found too clunky to fit in easily anywhere but which is kind of important to understanding my thought processes: In the two years between discovering Rose Elinor Dougall and my introduction to the Bedlam Six, I'd somehow managed to form a band, and naturally my thoughts were turning towards getting songs recorded and out there for people to hear. I thought our best bet was getting signed to a reputable indie label like the ones I so revered; this viewpoint would, as a direct result of the issues discussed here, be drastically revised...)
But the real shocker was the idea of a 'not-for-profit' label - Debt Records. Three years of a popular music degree and twelve months in a band had given me an awareness of the problems the record industry was and is facing; not just internet piracy, but also the gross negligence and naked greed of the major labels, and the confused and confounding implications for copyright and who controlled it. My opinion on these issues was ill-considered and somewhat temperamental; it wasn't something I engaged with as fully as others did (something which can be put partly down to the insulating bubble of university life, and partly down to my own infatuation with a certain iteration of the Rock Star Dream); nevertheless, I was aware the issues were there. Debt would give me the impetus to understand what was happening, and to do something about the gross faults and inequalities that I found.
All this is very well and good, but any sod can set up their own record label; it doesn't mean jack squat unless the music is any good. And the Bedlam Six are pretty bloody awesome. As mentioned above, they're a phenomenal live act - quite apart from Barabbas' wonderfully demented frontman antics (part of me feels slightly uncomfortable constantly describing this band using terms with mental illness connotations, but it's kind of right there in the name...), the entire band comport themselves with a joyously unhinged (that language again!) demeanour. They're also very keen to engage with people about their music and what they do; I've approached them for guidance in my various endeavours, and always found them to be more than happy to help. And, of course, I've been evangelising them to all and sundry, because they're awesome.
An awful lot of people seem to take a perverse glee in telling the rest of us how 'the world has gone mad', as though this fact alone vindicates their cause; given the evidence, though, in this Bedlam we've found far more fitting company for the modern world.
4. Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six
I know a ludicrous amount of talented people. Quite apart from the breadth of ability demonstrated in my last few blog posts, almost everyone I call a friend has some kind of artistic endeavour which forms part of their life on a regular basis, and an overwhelming majority of them are pretty bloody good at it. Of course, this community doesn't exist in a vacuum - my friends move in their own social circles which frequently don't overlap with mine, and these are often just as full (if not more so) of talented people. It was through one of these extended social circles, and a fair bit of serendipity, that I found Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six.
My friend Andrew Abrahamson, known to pretty much everyone as AB, is a photographer (and a damn fine one); he's also a man with a fine taste in music (i.e., one that coincides in large part with mine). Around a year ago, he went to Manchester to photograph his cousin's band playing at the Dancehouse Theatre. Getting from Manchester to Liverpool after a gig can be tricky if you're using public transport, especially on a Saturday night, so he was accompanied by another of my friends (and my sometime drummer), Felix Hagan, who owns a car.
I saw them later that evening when, having returned from Manchester, they made a brief appearance at the party I was attending; it's one of the few times I've had them raving to me about a band rather than the other way around. The band in question were, of course, the Bedlam Six, and it was easy to see why the two of them were so affected - everything I was told about them made me like them more.
*Demented Victorian Swing-Punk? - What's not to like?
*AB's cousin is called Biff and plays the trombone? - I like him already!
*The frontman has the most impressive facial hair this side of the nineteenth century and frequently ends gigs by running into the crowd? - That's so awesome it doesn't need embellishment in its awesomeness!
*They're so good as a live band they can make an all-seater venue rock out? - Very Yes!
*They're at the centre of a creative community centred around the not-for-profit record label they've set up? - Wait, what?!
That last statement contained so much awesome that even now I find it difficult to communicate just how perfect an idea it is. Firstly, 'setting up a record label' - as you may have gathered from my last update, it's something I consider a bit amazing (but that's another blog...). Building a community around the label is also a fantastic notion - most of my favourite labels are those which have or had a sense of community to them, whether real or illusory (the most legendary example of this is Postcard Records, who you should really go check out anyway because Edwyn Collins. Also Roddy Frame).
(As a bit of background information I found too clunky to fit in easily anywhere but which is kind of important to understanding my thought processes: In the two years between discovering Rose Elinor Dougall and my introduction to the Bedlam Six, I'd somehow managed to form a band, and naturally my thoughts were turning towards getting songs recorded and out there for people to hear. I thought our best bet was getting signed to a reputable indie label like the ones I so revered; this viewpoint would, as a direct result of the issues discussed here, be drastically revised...)
But the real shocker was the idea of a 'not-for-profit' label - Debt Records. Three years of a popular music degree and twelve months in a band had given me an awareness of the problems the record industry was and is facing; not just internet piracy, but also the gross negligence and naked greed of the major labels, and the confused and confounding implications for copyright and who controlled it. My opinion on these issues was ill-considered and somewhat temperamental; it wasn't something I engaged with as fully as others did (something which can be put partly down to the insulating bubble of university life, and partly down to my own infatuation with a certain iteration of the Rock Star Dream); nevertheless, I was aware the issues were there. Debt would give me the impetus to understand what was happening, and to do something about the gross faults and inequalities that I found.
All this is very well and good, but any sod can set up their own record label; it doesn't mean jack squat unless the music is any good. And the Bedlam Six are pretty bloody awesome. As mentioned above, they're a phenomenal live act - quite apart from Barabbas' wonderfully demented frontman antics (part of me feels slightly uncomfortable constantly describing this band using terms with mental illness connotations, but it's kind of right there in the name...), the entire band comport themselves with a joyously unhinged (that language again!) demeanour. They're also very keen to engage with people about their music and what they do; I've approached them for guidance in my various endeavours, and always found them to be more than happy to help. And, of course, I've been evangelising them to all and sundry, because they're awesome.
An awful lot of people seem to take a perverse glee in telling the rest of us how 'the world has gone mad', as though this fact alone vindicates their cause; given the evidence, though, in this Bedlam we've found far more fitting company for the modern world.