HEARING HARDER - Deep Listening with the VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE

HEARING HARDER – Deep Listening with the VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE

I am listening to some of my favourite songs. These are songs I first heard a lifetime ago when I was a teenager growing up in Liverpool. That was in the late 1970s and very early 1980s, when there seemed to be an entire pop cultural circus going on just beyond my front door. Although I was just that little bit too young to fully immerse myself in it all, I could still see or hear or read something brand new every day. My mind was being constantly expanded by everything going on, and I had a permanent sense of wonder about it all.

These songs I’m listening to now are songs that shaped me, just as the bands that played them did when I saw them live, and the records they made did when I bought or borrowed them. It was the same then as well with all the gigs I went to, and the books I read, and the films I watched, and the art I looked at, and the telly I tuned in to. Every day was a school day. The fact that I’m writing this now is a direct result of the choices I made with all that, whether good or bad, and how they influenced everything I’ve done since.

Right now, listening to these songs in my Edinburgh living room a few years shy of half a century on, it feels like I’m hearing them for the first time. They are familiar enough to provoke Proustian sense memories, but they are not as I remember them.

This is mainly to do with the fact that these songs I’ve known all of my adult life aren’t being played by the bands that made them, but by another group of artists. This isn’t a surprise, as most of these songs are regarded as pop classics now. They are totems of their age, part of the cultural fabric, soundtracks to people’s lives, all that stuff. Some of them have appeared in films. Others have found their time. They are not just my favourite songs, but lots of other people’s as well.

But these versions of songs by Echo and the Bunnymen, the Teardrop Explodes, The Wild Swans and Strawberry Switchblade aren’t by some pub covers band. Nor are they by some new kids on the block plundering the past for cool cred points. The versions of ‘The Killing Moon’, ‘Treason’, ‘The Revolutionary Spirit’, ‘Trees and Flowers’ and the others that I‘m listening to are being sung without the usual bass, drums and guitars and the studio production values that go with them.

These recordings are unadorned by even the most basic instrumentation, let alone an orchestra or even an old time 1980s Fairlight that was supposed to revolutionise the recording process calling the shots. Rather, the songs are stripped back to their bare essentials and performed by a choir of five voices in arrangements drawn from Gaelic psalm singing.

This is the ancient form of unaccompanied singing of psalms used in Presbyterian churches in the Western Isles of Scotland, in which a leader or precentor sings a line which the rest of the congregation sings back at them. While still used in Gaelic-speaking Presbyterian churches in the Hebrides, the prevalence of Gaelic psalm singing has declined along with everything else.

Without ever having heard or heard of Gaelic psalm singing, the nearest comparison I could think of is when a band at a stadium gig encourages the audience to sing back at them. Like, say, when Freddie Mercury got the thousands who filled Wembley Stadium for Live Aid to sing ‘Ay-Oh!’ in a mass call and response type thing. But that was a very different part of the 1980s to the one reimagined for the record I’m listening to just now, and even without ever having heard Gaelic psalm singing the comparison sounds fatuous and wrong.  

Nor, I imagine, does this take on Gaelic psalm singing sound much like Runrig and Capercaillie, the contemporary Scottish folk bands who have apparently used it on their own records. The late Martyn Bennett, who fused folk music with dub and techno beats, also utilised Gaelic psalm singing in his work.

The record I’m listening to now, however, doesn’t sound remotely anything like Freddie Mercury or any of the others. The record I’m listening to sounds ancient, but because I know nearly all the songs on it, it sounds modern as well. The record is called VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE, and forms the soundtrack to the film of the same name, which has yet to be made.

VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE has been dreamt up by Bill Drummond, the Scottish artist with such a widely documented back catalogue that I’m not even going to mention it here. Except for the bands he managed and the record label he ran to put their records out, which in this context is kind of unavoidable. The label was Zoo, or The Zoo, which Drummond ran in Liverpool with Dave Balfe. Both Drummond and Balfe had played in a band called Big in Japan (look them up), and since then have both gone on to their own great pop adventures in different ways. 

If you want to know more, there is a film currently being made that looks back at all these Liverpool connections. It’s called Revolutionary Spirit, after the Wild Swans song. There are another two being made alongside it that go back even further, to the 1960s and 1970s and Ken Campbell and Deaf School and all that lot. 

All three films are being made by Grant McPhee, the Scottish director who made Big Gold Dream (2015) and Teenage Superstars (2017). These are Grant’s two documentaries charting the history of Scottish post punk, and are based around the Postcard Records label in Glasgow, and Fast Product in Edinburgh.

If Grant thought the forty-odd years of inter-band, inter-scene, and inter-label rivalries in Big Gold Dream and Teenage Superstars was a minefield of shared history, resentment and unresolved old scores, I imagine making his Liverpool films will have been that in triplicate.

Zoo put out the first records by Echo and the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and The Wild Swans, while ‘Trees and Flowers’ by Strawberry Switchblade was released on Echo and the Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant’s label, 92 Happy Customers. They all connect, these VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE.

They all sit well together on the album, which, from the track listing, at least, looks like a great late ‘70s and early ‘80s compilation. It might even be as good as To the Shores of Lake Placid, which Zoo released in 1982. That was presented as a three act play as well. You should look it up. It’s pure theatre.

This making a soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist yet is kind of like what Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber did with their big 1970s musicals, Jesus Christ Superstar (1971) and Evita (1978). They recorded albums of their as yet unperformed shows and released them as trailers before they were produced. 

The album of Jesus Christ Superstar featured Ian Gillan, then the singer of Deep Purple, Murray Head, who would go on to appear in films and sing ‘One Night in Bangkok’, from Chess (1984), another musical released as an album first. Chess was written by Tim Rice with Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA. Also on the record of Jesus Christ Superstar was Mike d’Abo, the former singer of Manfred Mann. I don’t think any of these ended up being in the stage production.

Rice and Lloyd Webber did even better with Evita, scoring a Number 1 in 1976 with Julie Covington’s recording of ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’. Also on the Evita album was Paul Jones, who d’Abo replaced in Manfred Mann. Scottish singer Barbara Dickson is in there too.

Dickson had grown up in Dunfermline with her Scottish father and Liverpool born mother. As a singer, she played the then thriving British folk club circuit. It was while playing Liverpool clubs that she met playwright Willy Russell, who invited her to perform the music for his forthcoming show at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, John, Paul, George, Ringo… and Bert. (1974). It was after Rice and Lloyd Webber saw her in the play that she was offered the Evita gig, having a 1977 hit with Another Suitcase in Another Hall.

With Covington declining to appear in the stage production of Evita, Elaine Paige played opposite David Essex, who had a hit with ‘Oh What a Circus’, another song from Evita. Dickson went on to play Mrs Johnstone in the first production of Russell’s hit musical, Blood Brothers (1983), and has revived her role several times. I last saw Covington playing Lady Macbeth at the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh back in the 1980s. if I remember rightly, the director, whose name I can’t find, had something to do with Liverpool Everyman.

Just think. All these dots between Liverpool and Scotland were being joined while the seeds for VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE were being sewn. Incidentally, during the opening weekend of HEAR HARD, I had to go to the Lyceum in Edinburgh to see a production of Willy Russell’s play, Shirley Valentine (1986). The play was originally produced in Liverpool at the Everyman, but at the Lyceum features Scottish actress, Sally Reid, who puts on a pretty passable Liverpool accent.

Despite the apparent similarities, VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE is actually doing things in reverse to what Rice and Lloyd Webber did with Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. While the film of the soundtrack has yet to be made, all of the songs on the album have already been released by the original artists. If anything, then, VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE might be described as a jukebox musical in waiting.

VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE is being promoted by way of HEAR HARD. This is an event in which a congregation of no more than forty gather together in small rooms and listen to a playback of the album as hard as they can. 

As with most things with Bill, HEAR HARD is a bit more complex than just a playback. The event overall comes in three acts, which are presented by Bill and actor Tam Dean Burn. You can read Bill’s full guide to HEAR HARD in his Penkiln Burn newsletter here. https://www.penkilnburn.com/home/hear-hardLINK

HEAR HARD comes from a deeply personal root for Bill. He wrote something about it a couple of weeks ago that appeared in the Herald newspaper. If you can get through the paywall, you can read it here. https://www.heraldscotland.com/life_style/24348503.bill-drummond-music-universe-changed-life/

Tam spoke about HEAR HARD in The List magazine as well. You can read that here without any paywall. https://list.co.uk/news/45085/tam-dean-burn-on-hear-hard-a-cross-between-a-listening-party-and-a-church-service

There are plenty of other connections, which Tam and Bill may or may not tell you about when the bring HEAR HARD to a venue near you soon.

This notion of hearing hard sounds to me a bit like the American composer Pauline Oliveros’s idea of Deep Listening. This is an exercise in which the listener trains themselves to go beyond the surface of hearing things and learns to listen properly. Oliveros coined the phrase in 1988 after descending fourteen feet into an underground water cistern in Fort Worden State Park in Washington to record. The punning title of the album that followed evolved into Oliveros’s defining aesthetic.

Deep Listening is as much about environmental sound as anything else, and thinking about it I’m not sure it relates that much to HEAR HARD after all, but it’s still something worth thinking about. If John Berger was to do something like that if he was still around, he’d probably call it Ways of Listening.

In terms of HEAR HARD and VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE, Bill has clearly been fascinated with choirs since forever. It was like when he did The 17, in which he gathered choirs of seventeen people to make a wordless noise based on a series of instruction led scores. This was recorded and played back to the choir before being deleted. I took part in The 17 in Newcastle when it was first done years ago. I’d gone to interview Bill about it for art magazine, MAP, but had to leave for my train before the playback, so never heard the result.  

When Tam first called me up to see if I would like to help out sourcing venues in Edinburgh for HEAR HARD, it was probably these sort of connections he was thinking of that might make me a good fit. Bill’s links between Liverpool and Scotland are plain to see. Mine too, if you consider my move to Edinburgh from Liverpool several decades ago. 

I’d also been one of the hosts in 2021 for the Edinburgh leg of ESTATE, a dystopian model village made up of four scale model high rise blocks built in the back of a shipping container by Drummond’s partner in the KLF and the K Foundation (look them up), Jimmy Cauty. Another connection. 

If you are at all familiar with The Illuminatus, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s sci-fi hippy conspiracy epic adapted for the stage by theatrical seeker Ken Campbell for a nine-hour plus breaks production in a Liverpool arts lab on Mathew Street, you might call it synchronicity. 

If you don’t know what that means, it was a notion Carl Jung once had. Look it up. If you can’t be arsed, it’s a bit like when you’re trying to write about HEAR HARD and VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE and Liverpool and Scotland, and a random clip comes up on your social media feed of the Teardrop Explodes playing ‘Tiny Children’ on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1982. Which just happened.

Bill did the set for that production of Illuminatus, by the way, but you can look that up as well.

Tam and Bill have worked together on various projects across the decades. Tam has even played Bill a few times. He did this in The Cherry Blossom Quartet, a series of autobiographical plays by Bill that were adapted by Johny Brown of The Band of Holy Joy and performed live over five nights in 2017 by Burn and others on community/art online radio station, Resonance FM.

Tam and Bill did something similar in 2019 for the screenings of Best Before Death, a film by Paul Duane that followed Bill on his twelve-year 25 Paintings world tour, building beds and making soup in India, America and other places. Before and after the screenings, Bill and Tam performed a play by Bill called White Saviour Complex, in which Bill played Tam, and Tam played Bill. Afterwards they sold books from the bus stop outside the cinema. So Tam and Bill, Bill and Tam, they go way back.

And when Tam calls me up, he tells me all about the back story to HEAR HARD, although it probably wasn’t called that then. But he tells me the whole concept behind the film, and the album, and Gaelic psalm singing, and Liverpool, and Scotland, and a lot more information I’m trying to take in which I’m definitely not sure I understand, but everything seems to connect, so, of course, I’m in. 

Next thing I know, I’m walking down Leith Walk with Tam and Bill sourcing venues. I’ve arranged for us to look at various places, both around Leith and elsewhere. We need somewhere small, where Bill and Tam can talk to people, and which aren’t too formal. In the end, for the Edinburgh dates, at least, we go with spaces that, even if they are regular venues, have had other lives. A history. 

I imagine it’s much the same in Glasgow, where the venues have been sourced by Alan Hendry. Alan runs DIY promotions outfit Sounds of the Suburbs, and knows about this sort of thing far better than I.

The Edinburgh venues include a former vet school lecture theatre; a couple of pub function rooms that have retained their old world charm in the face of all encroaching gentrification; and a second hand shop that is part of a charity rooted in a nineteenth century philanthropic movement. Even the regular venue we choose is in a former shop front that forms part of what was once regarded as the dodgiest bar in town, but which has now been remade and remodelled into one of the best. The umbilical links of each venue could tell a million stories. More. 

‘There are eight million stories in the naked city’ as the pay off line for the 1948 film, The Naked City, and the TV series of the same name that followed declared. ‘This is one of them’. Given that the roots of HEAR HARD and VOICES OF THE GALLOVERSE are in both inner city Liverpool and rural Scotland, they have plenty of stories to tell. 

In terms of how I got here, I was just that little bit too young for Eric’s, the Liverpool arts lab masquerading as a club, which was where everything sprang from, but I read about it, and knew everyone’s names, and bought into the music press mythology as much as the records. I saw Echo and the Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes within a few weeks of each other at Liverpool University’s Mountford Hall in Autumn 1980. Both bands were promoting their debut albums, which had been released on major labels.

In January 1981 I saw Echo and the Bunnymen again at what turned out to be Buxton Winter Gardens in Derbyshire. That was a magical mystery tour of sorts, where you had to apply for free tickets, and buses from all over the country turned up in Buxton to watch the band be filmed for what turned out to be a half hour film and 12” EP, both called Shine So Hard.

Buxton was covered in snow, and having coachloads of teenage scallies suddenly land on your doorstep sporting army surplus gear in keeping with the band must have looked to the locals like the town had  been invaded by an army of dole queue conscripts. 

I saw the Bunnymen again at Liverpool Empire and then at the Royal Court. The last time I saw the original incarnation of the band was a free open air show in Sefton Park in 1982, which was filmed by the BBC. You can find it on YouTube.

I’m not sure what happened after that, but I didn’t see the Bunnymen again till they reformed in ‘97 and played Barrowlands in Glasgow. They broke my heart at Glasgow Concert Hall in 2011, and redeemed themselves at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, twelve years later. It had taken me that long to forgive them.

Back in 1981 at Liverpool Royal Court, meanwhile, the Bunnymen were supported by the Wild Swans, the band formed by former Teardrop Explodes keyboardist Paul Simpson. That was the night Paul stropped off stage in the middle of The Revolutionary Spirit, and the band’s guitarist, Jeri Kelly, had to finish it.

I’d seen the Wild Swans’ first gig when they supported Orange Juice with the Pale Fountains at a night called Plato’s Ballroom in an old cabaret dive called Mr Pickwick’s. I later saw the Pale Fountains open for a very shy Aztec Camera at a club called The Warehouse. at the Royal Court

I saw the Teardrop Explodes again at Liverpool Empire during that brief period on the back of their second album when they were bona fide pop stars. They were supported on that tour by Edinburgh band The Delmontes, who put out a couple of great records on Allan Campbell’s Edinburgh based Rational Records label. I met one of the Delmontes once, who told me that on the last night of the tour Julian Cope was so fried that in the dressing room after the gig he said something like “It’s over”, and fell asleep.

What were apparently Julian Cope’s almost famous last words of the tour aren’t that far removed from what are reputed to be Jesus’ final words before he died on the cross. “It is finished,” said Jesus, according to John’s Gospel. Or, in Greek, “Tetelestai.” Religious scholars have declared these words the most important ever uttered. But then, they would, wouldn’t they. Either way, it might be worth pointing out that Jesus Christ and Julian Cope have the same initials, superstars both.

 I also saw Strawberry Switchblade play a club in Liverpool called The Venue. I presume they were in with the Zoo crowd by then. For some reason I can’t fathom I ended up backstage after the gig. This is something I’ve never done before or since, and I honestly haven’t a clue what I was doing there, but the band seemed very nice, anyway. I still have the set list.

Regardless of all this, there seemed to be a connection at that time between the Liverpool bands and the Scottish bands, especially the Glasgow bands. I think it was something to do with coming out of big industrial cities on the verge of collapse, but which somewhat conversely inspired bands to aspire to something beyond all that. Such limitations inspired music that was full of grand romance, literary allusions and an urge to go somewhere beyond the confines of a what in Liverpool’s case was now a riot scarred city. The Galloverse was calling.

Just to compound this Liverpool/Scotland interface some more, many years later, Paul Simpson moved from Liverpool to Glasgow, where he now lives. Paul is described in Bill’s newsletter as ‘The Historian’, and Bill thanks him for Being There.

At each potential HEAR HARD venue we visit on Leith Walk, Bill gives a 40 second pitch to those running it. This attempts to give the full back-story to HEAR HARD and VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE, and comes out different every time. It’s a little private performance in itself, and embodies the sort of intimacy we’re after. 

A walk along Leith Walk is also a performance, and is where everything connects some more by way of a series of chance meetings. First off, we bump into Stevie Christie, the keyboard player who plays in a ton of jazz and funk based bands. Stevie is also part of The Bumclocks, the band formed by Tam with his brother and former Fire Engines drummer Russell, and Josef K and Orange Juice guitarist Malcolm Ross to perform a punky fusion of Robert Burns and Iggy Pop. 

Stevie also plays with The Proclaimers, the dynamic duo of Craig and Charlie Reid, whose songs were the inspiration for the stage musical, Sunshine on Leith, which was turned into a successful film. As it turns out, The Proclaimers’ songs are published by Zoo Music. Another connection.

Walking further along, we bump into Kevin Williamson, founder of Rebel Inc magazine and live spoken word and music night, Neu! Reekie! Bill performed at Neu! Reekie! several times in Edinburgh, shining shoes and other things in various halls. At a big show in the big church at the end of Easter Road, Bill spoke to the congregation from the pulpit. As a son of the manse it looked and felt like a natural fit. If Bill could have played some Gaelic psalm song, he probably would have done.

Bill took part when Neu! Reekie! went to Hull as well as part of Hull’s City of Culture year in 2017. There’d been a warm up the year before in a great venue called The Welly, when Bill and a bunch of others performed in a function room in what looked from the outside like someone’s house, and which was clearly full of stories and connections. Everyone returned for the Year of Culture itself, and Bill spoke and performed in another pub.

In a way, the VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE album might be regarded as a greatest hits record. The only songs I don’t know on it are ‘Oran Bagraidh’ and ‘Queen of the South’. According to the YouTube link on Bill’s newsletter, ‘Oran Bagraidh’ is a medieval song believed to be the only surviving example of Galloway Gaelic. It sounds lovely.

‘Queen of the South’ was originally a guitar based instrumental on Bill’s solo album, The Man (1986), which was released on Creation Records, run by Alan McGee. So, after his adventures in Liverpool, Bill ended up releasing an album on a label run by another flying Scotsman. I’ve never heard the album, I’m embarrassed to say, but will be doing my homework before HEAR HARD gets to Edinburgh.

Incidentally, while writing all that stuff about Liverpool and Scotland and VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE, that synchronicity thing just happened again. This time a clip of Strawberry Switchblade being interviewed by Janice Long came up while I was writing about them. It’s probably more to do with algorithms than synchronicity, if I’m honest, but it’s a Scouser interviewing two Scots, and how often does that happen?

The first iteration of HEAR HARD takes place across various low-key venues in Glasgow over a weekend in June. By the time I’ve got this out they may have already happened. The following weekend a similar set of happenings will take place in Edinburgh. 

The idea is that HEAR HARD will tour around until all 1000 copies of the VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE LP are sold, with dates in Galloway, both sides of the River Mersey, the West Midlands, the South East of England and ideally the Western Isles. Each and every one of these places will have eight million stories to tell. HEAR HARD will be another one.

One of the Galloway dates is likely to take place at the Vaults Arts Centre in Newton Stewart, where Bill grew up. In an email, Bill says that The Vaults was the first place he visited when he was looking for musicians to play on the soundtrack to VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE. That was before he went down the route of having the Wee Free psalm singing. Bill also points out how somebody called Nathon at The Vaults who first recommended Darren MacLean, who, on VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE, SINGS assorted Teardrop Explodes songs.

My mate Malcolm’s band from Edinburgh, Big Lanes, ended up playing there. As did my mates’ band from Liverpool, Candy Opera. Connections. The Vaults Arts Centre sounds like a good set-up. It might well be the centre of the Galloverse.  

Whether HEAR HARD makes it that far before all 1000 copies of the VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE album are all sold remains to be seen. For Glasgow and Edinburgh, at least, there is still time to brush up on Gaelic psalm singing and everything else required to fully appreciate HEAR HARD and the VOICES OF THE GALLOVERSE. I’m still listening to some of my favourite songs. I’m still trying to Hear Harder.

HEAR HARD is a 90-minute performance in three acts involving Tam Dean Burn, Bill Drummond, five tea chests, 1000 vinyl records and a Congregation of no more than 40 People hearing as hard as they can the soundtrack to the film VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE.

CHAPTER ONE - GLASGOW - 14.6.24 - 16.6.24

Doublet Bar - Fri 14.6.24. 5pm-7pm. https://tickets-scotland.com/hearh SOLD OUT

Scottish Mask & Puppet Centre - Sat 15.6.24 - 3pm-5pm. https://tickets-scotland.com/hea49 SOLD OUT

Partickhill Bowling Club Sat 15.6.24 - 7.30pm - 9.30pm. https://tickets-scotland.com/hea50 SOLD OUT

The Deep End - Sun 16.6.24 - 10am - 11.30am. https://tickets-scotland.com/hea51 SOLD OUT

CHAPTER TWO - EDINBURGH - 21.6.24 - 23.6.24

Summerhall - Fri 21.6.24 - 8pm-10pm - https://tickets-scotland.com/hea52. SOLD OUT.

The Safari Lounge - Sat 22.6.24 - 12.30pm-2.30pm - https://tickets-scotland.com/hea56 LAST TICKETS ***

Strathmore Bar - Sat 22.6.24 - 4pm-6pm - https://tickets-scotland.com/hea53 - TICKETS AVAILABLE

Leith Depot - Sat 22.6.24 - 8pm-10pm - https://tickets-scotland.com/hea54. - LAST TICKETS

Settlement Projects - Sun 23.6.24 - 11am-1pm - https://tickets-scotland.com/hea55 - TICKETS AVAILABLE

Tickets limited to 40 per performance.

Book early…

*** PLEASE NOTE - ALL TICKETS PURCHASED FOR THE WAVERLEY ARE VALID FOR THE SAFARI LOUNGE, WHERE THE PERFORMANCE HAS BEEN MOVED TO.***

More details on HEAR HARD here - https://www.penkilnburn.com/home/hear-hard

Images: HEAR HARD Painting; VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE Album Covers; Hand Stamp; by Bill Drummond. Live at The Doublet, Glasgow 14.6.24 by George Futcher. Best Before Death/White Saviour Complex performance care of Tam Dean Burn.