MARTIN BRAMAH
(The Fall, Blue Orchids, Thirst, Factory Star)
answers the MUSIC WORKS Questionnaire
1. QUALIFICATIONS?
God given.
2. CREATIVE LIFE HIGHLIGHTS?
Writing original music.
3. AMBITIONS?
Write better stuff.
4. SONGS YOU WISH YOU HAD WRITTEN?
Rhapsody in Blue, Porgy and Bess, West Side Story, Songs for Drella.
5. DESERT ISLAND DISCS?
Hot Buttered Soul by Isaac Hayes, Screaming Target by Big Youth, Seekers of the Truth/Sacred Hymns by Alain Kremski, The End by Nico.
6. FAVOURITE ARTISTS/BANDS OF ALL TIME?
Frank Sinatra, The Famous Flames, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, David Bowie.
7. WHAT MUSIC ARE YOU LISTENING TO NOW?
The Growlers, Anna Calvi, Crystal Stilts, Jolie Holland.
8. THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?
The Book of the Needle by Matthew Francis.
9. HOBBIES?
Aikido, reading, writing, playing guitar.
10. VINYL, CASSETTE, CD, MP3, WEB STREAMING?
Cassette.
11. MUSIC IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET?
Bandcamp, &c.
12. WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL MOTTO?
“If it ain’t broke, break it”
BLUE ORCHIDS
RIGHTEOUS HARMONY FIST
(Tiny Global Productions)
Manchester underdogs lead by Martin Bramah release yet another work of under-stated, under-rated, under the radar genius says Ged Babey as he enters the hip priesthood and Castle Perilous.
I’m sorry to bother you but I’m afraid I want your attention….
This is a fucking brilliant album!
You must excuse me I’m not used to being taken seriously.
I blame Joy Division. Good band but humourless and too serious.
Blue Orchids should have been and should be as lauded and loved by as many people as they are.
Like their splinter-band the Fall, from my southern perspective Blue Orchids seemed to personify Manchester, or to be more specific, Salford and it’s matchstick people: the dry humour, the drugs, arty pretensions, musical ambition and single-mindedness. They were serious but didn’t give a fuck somehow whereas JD cared too much (- this opinion will make me unpopular I know…). Blue Orchids were always the thinking mans garage band, the drinking mans psychedelic beat combo and the work-work-working mans bad education in post-punk Manchester.
Thirty-nine years into a stop/start career with a shifting membership (29 people at the last count) The Blue Orchids basically ARE Martin Bramah. On this new album, he is having fun -in his own peculiar way. And making the best music of his career (this, the Skull Jam EP, previous album The Once and Future Thing and Enter Castle Perilous – under the name Factory Star – but essentially Blue Orchids).
The lyrics on Righteous Harmony Fist are pure playful pretentiousness and at times hilarious poetry that take oblique swipes at everyone -not least himself. Self-mockery sits side by side with self-aggrandisement, socio-political pisstakery and psychedelic cliche is both embraced and ridiculed.
Now I am a man I don’t give a damn
About the tragedy and the trash
About the triumph and the cash
source: https://louderthanwar.com/
BLUE ORCHIDS
THE MAGICAL RECORD OF BLUE ORCHIDS
Blue Orchids are set to release, what Martin Bramah calls, “the first covers concept album” the centrepiece of which is, “a pivotal anomaly”, an unseen Mark E Smith lyric from 1977, which Bramah has only now set to music.
The album is entitled ‘The Magical Record Of Blue Orchids’ and comes out on Tiny Global Productions on 7 June 2019 on CD and vinyl formats.
Recorded in the interim period between the recording of 2018’s Righteous Harmony Fist and its already-written follow-up of originals, The Magical Record Of Blue Orchids tells a Faustian tale of woe over the course of nine covers and one co-written original.
https://blueorchids.bandcamp.com/
