IDEAS FOR XMAS (1)

Now that we're into the month of November I thought that I'd use some of the postings over the next few weeks to make a few suggestions as to what might look good on lists written up for Santa Claus.

I should point out that what will follow is by no means an exhaustive list of what I think has been the best music released in 2009 - hell, I've not bought enough or listened to enough to be so presumptuous - but there are some things that I do believe every music fan should have in their possession.

And above all else in 2009, I would suggest that you get your hands on React Or Die, the second long-playing record released by Butcher Boy.

Some of you might be scratching your heads and wondering who the fuck are Butcher Boy. Well, scratch no more....this is their abridged story as told on the website of their record label

Butcher Boy has existed in its current form since early 2005, but lead singer John Blain Hunt has played in various incarnations of the band since the late 1990s. John wrote his first proper song, called ‘Trouble And Desire’, in 1998. With John singing and playing guitar, and with Susan Vennard on piano and Andy Forrester on bass, Butcher Boy played their first show in Kilmarnock, Scotland, in December of that year. Between 1998 and 2001, John wrote over a hundred songs and played a handful of shows around Irvine in Scotland.

Towards the end of 2001, it began to feel as if Butcher Boy had served its purpose. This wasn’t through lack of ambition; there simply was never any need for ambition. Susan and Andy had moved away, and John always knew that the band had come about, and the songs had been written, out of genuine necessity. The songs had made sense of a lot of slow sadness - it was never careerism. For a while, it felt like Butcher Boy wasn’t needed any more. But with time, John realised that the songs had become friends… and it hurt to leave them. With time, it became absolutely heartbreaking to leave them.

So slowly, John put together a band to pick the songs up, and to play them as carefully and as fully and as passionately as he had always imagined them. An advert in the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama attracted Jacqui Grant and Aoife Magee. Garry Hoggan and Alison Eales came, fortuitously, through Glasgow’s National Pop League. And Basil Pieroni and Findlay Mackinnon were friends from Ayrshire days.

Butcher Boy, as it is now, rehearsed for the first time in January 2005 and played their first show together on 18 February 2005. There wasn’t an immediate desire to put together a record - the main impetus was to play together, to rehearse, to create something that was worthwhile.

The band played further Glasgow shows in July and September 2005, and in 2006, the band recorded their debut album at CaVa Sound in Glasgow with Geoff Allan, and were signed to London label How Does It Feel To Be Loved?. March 2007 was when debut LP Profit In Your Poetry was released. By now there had been quite a bit of coverage in the media and three sell-out shows in London soon followed.

The reviews of the album were almost universally positive.

“Inspired by monochrome movies and bleak winters, these cello-and-viola-flecked songs transcend their Smiths, Tindersticks and Felt influences. Regret, giro-funded couplets, sensual ambiguity – it’s all here, resurrecting a great British genre,” declared Uncut. “It's an album of immense subtlety and depth, the kind of record you can listen to fifty times and still discover hidden treasures on that fifty first spin,” said Drowned In Sound. “Butcher Boy operate not so much, as has been widely suggested, in the shadow of The Smiths as in the company of Tindersticks, Pulp and Lloyd Cole And The Commotions. Theirs is a literate, bohemian music nourished by the darker strains of Sixties chart pop,” added Mail On Sunday.

In September 2007, the band announced a tour of cafés in Glasgow, to tie in with a new EP, “The Eighteenth Emergency”. The EP was available during September only, and deleted at the end of the month.

In February 2008, Butcher Boy started work on their second album, “React Or Die”, recording once again at CaVa Sound in Glasgow. In March, the band were approached by Warner Brothers, who wanted to use the song “I Know Who You Could Be”, on the CBS sci-fi show “Moonlight”. The show originally asked to use a minute of “I Know Who You Could Be”, but in the end the entire song was played over the closing scene of an episode. In fact, CBS cut the scene to fit the song, as it starts and ends with Butcher Boy's music.

After the “Moonlight” episode aired in the US on May 2nd, interest in the band skyrocketed, with thousands of people visiting Butcher Boy’s My Space, where “I Know Who You Could Be” was made available as a free download. On the strength of this interest, Red Eye distribution then approached the group about an American release. The album came out on in the US on October 7th.

2009 saw the release of “React Or Die” in April, preceded by a single, “A Better Ghost” in March, and a tour of bowling clubs in Glasgow in February.

That hopefully gives you a flavour of what this extraordinary collection of musicians are all about.

From this particular fan's perspective, I feel very privileged that they are based in my home city and every now and again play gigs in the most wonderful locations - I've been lucky enough to see them twice in 2009, and both events were special and quite extraordinary. Their songs are quite magnificent on CD, but words alone don't do justice to the way they make me feel when I hear them live. They make me smile, they make me cry, they create a tingle up and down my spine, they make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge. In short, other than anger or rage or fear, they provide almost every sort of human emotion, mentally and physically, that it is possible to feel.

John Blain Hunt's singing and strumming is gorgeous - but then again so is the playing of Alison Eales (piano and keyboards), Basil Pieroni (lead guitar and mandolin), Garry Hoggan (bass), Findlay Mackinnon (drums and percussion) and the fantastic string section who are Maya Burman-Roy (cello) and Aoife Magee (viola).

I didn't think Butcher Boy would be capable of topping their debut album - very few bands ever do. But React Or Die has shown itself to be a magical collection of 10 songs. I'm almost tempted to call it a work of perfection, but to do so by definition will mean it cannot ever be bettered.....so I will settle for calling it the best record of 2009.

It can be bought in quite a few places across the internet, and I'm sure plenty of great little indie stores will have copies. Hell, its even available at HMV.com so you've no excuses......but let's face it, the best way to support the band and label is direct, so click here and put your bank cards into operation. Right now you can get it for just £5 plus postage....and while you're in there, buy all the other product......

mp3 : Butcher Boy - When I'm Asleep
mp3 : Butcher Boy - Profit In Your Poetry

And a wee bonus of a video which was shot on streets and parks not that far from where I live:-



Happy Listening and viewing.