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sadtimes.co.uk
buy online
now for only £9.99
(incl.
p&p) from www.billyjenkins.com
 
sadtimes.co.uk VOTP
VOCD002
1. Badlands
2. Cliff
Richard Spoke To Me
3. Resting On
My Bed Of Blues
4.
sadtimes.co.uk
5. I'm Happy
6. The Duke
and Me
7. I Love
Your Smell
8. Like John
Lee Said
This is an
unusual studio recording
from Billy Jenkins. Normally he
constructs one off bands for each
project. Here, he's brought his touring band
into the studio which means
you can enjoy the wonderful talents of Dylan
Bates on his electric,
electric violin; Richard 'Homer' Bolton
on electric, electric rhythm
guitar (although he did manage to get a
couple of excellent solos in when
Billy's back was turned) and the rhythm
section from the last Blues Collective
CD 'S.A.D.' - the mutually wonderful Thad
Kelly on electric, electric
bass guitar and Mike Pickering on
drumkit.
Special sweet
smearing on some of
the tracks is supplied by harmonica recluse
Whispering Gerry Tighe and
organ grinder Dave Ramm. And once more Choir
Mistress Suzi M. organised
a fine collection of voices for the almost
obligatory 'all singin' all
dancin' finale.
The eight
new songs were all written
by BJ over the past couple of years. Some
you may have heard live,
some were presented to the band actually in
the studio.
sadtimes.co.uk
is the follow
on album from S.A.D on Babel
BDV9615, which was released in 1996.
BILLY'S
BLUES
LYRICS
| JAZZ
JOURNAL
January
2001
Billy
Jenkins with the Blues Collective
sadtimes.co.uk
(VOTP VOCD002) £12
Yes,
it's bad boy Bill Jenkins again.
I enjoyed his last blues set for
all the wrong reasons and this one
is
the same standard. Jenkins has a
good feel for the blues and writes
some
zany lyrics to accompany his
sometimes irrational blues
plodding.
Despite
his madcap manner he still
manages to come up with a good
blues feel to his music. As for
the lyrics,
you'll chuckle at Cliff Richard
Spoke To Me. Hardly a suitable
subject
for the blues but Billy makes it
both laudable and laughable. There
are
some nice lines in The Duke And
Me. It's all about an intimate
evening
with Duke Ellington and Harry
Carney providing the music. Sounds
like a
perfect evening. Billy Jenkins may
not be most readers' idea of jazz
and
blues but he loves the music
enough to channel his wild humour
into something
palatable
David
Lands
(c)2000
Jazz Journal/ David Lands
|
| JAZZ
REVIEW
December
2000
Billy
Jenkins with the Blues Collective
sadtimes.co.uk
(VOTP VOCD002) £12
Yet
another bracing dose of musical
satire from the Bard of Bromley.
Jenkins' splintered guitar style
and sardonic
lyrics suggest a six-string cross
between Thelonious Monk, Mose
Allison
and Dr. John, but sometimes his
slicing blues playing is so good
(nothing
wrong with his singing either),
that it's hard to believe he isn't
serious.
There isn't much jazz here (is
there ever? Let's face it, Billy's
an unreconstructed
pub rocker), but there's plenty of
spirited blues and R&B. Sir
Cliff
comes in for a subtle bit of
mockery (he said "Hi", by the way)
and also
inspires some tasty rhythm guitar
work from Rick Bolton which lies
in a
thick haze of vibrato and
distortion.
All
the writing is apparently Billy's,
and juicy bits of Allisonian wit
pop out at various intervals. We
hear
the Badlands grafted to south
London "just down the road from
you" and
during Bate's violin solo on "The
Duke And Me" an exhortation to
"give
me some Vanessa Mae". There's not
a whole lot of mileage for the
jazz critic
in these simple blues forms
(despite dedications to Ellington,
Carney and
Stuff Smith), but the combination
of tough guitar playing, clean,
punchy
production and canny lyrics is a
potent package. British popular
culture
might be a constant irritant to
BJ, but it does us all a service
in provoking
pearls such as this.
Mark
Gilbert
©
2000 Jazz Review/Mark Gilbert
|
| THE
WIRE
November
2000
Billy
Jenkins with the Blues Collective
sadtimes.co.uk
(VOTP VOCD002) £12
Talking
James Carter up a storm -
contrasting
the saxophonist's approach to the
stale procedures of jazz
neo-classicism
-
Cecil Taylor hit the nail on the
head: "When Carter walked on stage
he
stunned me with what he do!
He
made one harmonic sound -
eeerrrrgh!
- and then he walked off the
f***ing stage! And he comes back
and makes
another sound. When he had to deal
with that rhythm and blues shit
[i.e.
bass 'n' drum supreme team
Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Calvin
Weston], it wasn't
about notes. And when James did
this obbligato, man, it wasn't
just technical,
it was passionate!"
Taylor
could have been describing
guitarist
Billy Jenkins. Listen to him
explode on "Resting On My Bed Of
Blues": his
phrases smash through the iron
bars laid down by Thad Kelly
(bass) and
Mike Pickering (drums) -
eeerrrrgh! - with a gestural
panache that has
NEVER heretofore been achieved by
British electric guitarists. Jeff
Beck
nearly got there, but only in
fusion contexts that were too
spacy to allow
his licks to burst the seams;
maybe Steve Marriott had it - for
half a
minute - back in 1966. Jenkins
packs the 'icepick in the
forehead', 'right
note in the wrong place' R&B
attitude that Zappa admired in
Gatemouth
Brown, Guitar Slim and Johnny
'Guitar' Watson. It's like a
barbed wire
fence swearing at you. The notes
jump out like they're possessed.
It's
astonishing.
But
- born too late for the platinum
escape hatch that popped open for
Jimi Hendrix and Cream - what can
Jenkins
do with his outrageous talent? His
answer is to wrap his guitarism in
lyrics
that trash Mississippi clichés, a
suburban surrealism derived from
pantomime, The Beano, Sid James,
punk, street furniture and
shopping centres
- any aspect of contemporary life
allergenic to blues romance.
Comedic
bathos repels superficial
listening, tests your ability to
discern exceptional
music. In Richard Bolton (rhythm
guitar), Jenkins has a
sophisticated harmonist;
in Dylan Bates (violin), a player
who knows that without grit the
notes
won't work (one day Jenkins will
surely compose him a concerto of
Sugarcane
Harris proportions). The opening
of "Badlands" - a superb
integration of
dub and guitar twang - could be an
On-U Sound production: despite the
jokes,
the music is that inspiring, that
heavy.
Billy
Jenkins with the Blues Collective:
a reproach to contemporary
blandishments that'll be
'discovered' by arsehole
advertisers 20 years too late.
Just like the blues.....
BEN
WATSON
©
2000 Ben Watson/The Wire
|
| SUNDAY
TIMES Culture
On
Record 22.10.00
Billy
Jenkins with the Blues Collective
sadtimes.co.uk
(VOTP VOCD002) £12
IF
CLAPTON is God then Jenkins is the
giant turtle upon whose back the
entire universe stands. Ditching
his more
esoteric jazz combo for a
utilitarian blues band, Jenkins
pebble-dashes
idiosyncratic guitar breaks over
eight slices of south London delta
sound.
Though
Jenkins's Goonish sense of humour
betrays a black-comic world view,
if he took himself more seriously,
maybe
everyone else would. [Jenkins]
hyperactive energy brings the
blues alive.
sadtimes.co.uk
is available
from the website of the same name
(or 01653 668494).
Stewart
Lee
see
also EVENING
STANDARD LIVE
REVIEW
see
also GUARDIAN
UNLIMITED LIVE
REVIEW (Blue Elephant)
|
| EVENING
STANDARD Hot Tickets
CD
Choice 29.9.00
Billy
Jenkins with the Blues Collective
sadtimes.co.uk
(VOTP VOCD002) £12
Black
humour can be a dangerous
commodity,
something regarded with distaste
by mainstream producers and
promoters.
It's particularly unwelcome in
British jazz, which generally
takes itself
very seriously, and this might
explain the marginalisation of the
Bard
of Bromley, Billy Jenkins (photo).
His
satirical songs are a bit too
disturbing
to be good, clean fun, but he
shouldn't give up yet. This new
album could
be his big breakthrough - his
composing, arranging and
guitar-playing skills
have reached a level of
professionalism that now matches
the subversive
clout of his lyrics. He's also
made the giant leap from spiky
free-improv
to a more accessible blues format,
projecting his bleak visions
through
a cosy country-blues filter that
leaves the sharp outlines intact.
Jenkins's
relaxed vocal style cleverly
underplays messages that bristle
with attitude. 'Badlands', for
example,
is about graffiti, windblown
garbage, homeless drinkers and
permanently
shuttered shops, the sort of
landscape millions of Londoners
try to ignore
each day. 'The Duke And Me' extols
jazz-listening pleasures and the
panaceas
of 'fags, mags and Sainsbury -
recommended wine' that help to
ease this
urban angst, while 'Cliff Richard
Spoke To Me' and 'Like John Lee
Said'
recall the anti-showbiz larks of
early Jenkins oeuvres such as
Entertainment
USA. His group, meanwhile, plays
with admirable crispness and
restraint,
particularly violinist Dylan
Bates, whose lazy,
chorus-box-enhanced solos
convey the sour warmth of a triple
bourbon on the rocks.
Recorded
in the muddy heart of Greenwich
and marketed direct from Lewisham
(£12.99 inc postage and VOTP, PO
Box 3162, London SE13 7BE, or via
credit card hotline: 01653 668
494),
sadtimes.co.uk
isn't feelgood music, but as you
can confirm at the Vortex, it's
perceptive,
grimly amusing and as original as
anything being played on either
side
of the Thames this week.
JACK
MASSARIK
see
also EVENING
STANDARD LIVE
REVIEW
see
also GUARDIAN
UNLIMITED LIVE
REVIEW (Blue Elephant)
|
| GUARDIAN
Friday
Review
15
September 2000
Billy
Jenkins with the Blues Collective
<sadtimes.co.uk> £12
Championed
by everyone from the Gogmagogs
to the Bath Poetry Festival, a
Billy Jenkins knighthood can only
be a formality
once Blair's second term kicks in.
Sir Bill's sizzling performing
group
dashes through a set of original
blues compositions that makes a
great
souvenir of their recent sell-out
season at the Blues Elephant
Theatre
in south London. Gerry Tighe and
Dave Ramm add a little welcome
seasoning.
Radio play favourite: The Duke and
Me. Potential advertisement track:
I
Love Your Smell.
John
L Walters.
see
also EVENING
STANDARD LIVE
REVIEW (Vortex)
see
also GUARDIAN
UNLIMITED LIVE
REVIEW (Blue Elelphant)
|
BILLY'S
BLUES
LYRICS
sadtimes.co.uk
buy online
now for only £9.99
(incl.
p&p) from www.billyjenkins.com
|
