STRATHAVEN: FRETS / The Strathaven Hotel

Friday 19th April, 2024

7:00pm

Event information

THE VASELINES: The Vaselines were formed in Glasgow in 1987 by singers/guitarists Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, soon signing to Pastels frontman Stephen Pastel's newly formed 53rd & 3rd label.
Nirvana's Kurt Cobain regularly cited the Vaseline’s influence in interviews with the music press and Nirvana would go on to cover the Vaselines' ‘Molly's Lips’ and ‘Son of a Gun’ (both later compiled on their ‘Incesticide’ collection) as well as perform ‘Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam’ on their legendary MTV Unplugged appearance.
Cobain's gospel-spreading no doubt accelerated their rise to cult sainthood, but the Vaselines would have gotten there sooner or later on their own accord. Lewd but naïve and abrasive yet tender, the band's shambling, primitivist squall remains a perfect distillation of pop at its most guileless and euphoric.

Eugene Kelly later went on to front Captain America / Eugenius, while McKee spent the better part of the decade out of sight, resurfaced in Suckle, and released a solo album in 2006. The Vaselines reunited proper in 2010 to record their second full album Sex With An X which was released on the Seattle label Sub Pop.
This was followed by V for Vaselines in 2014. The Ramones inspired album featured many of the same players who helped make 'Sex.....', including Belle and Sebastian's Stevie Jackson, the 1990's Michael McGaughrin and Teenage Fanclub's Francis Macdonald.

PETE ASTOR: ‘A songwriter who never falters and is maybe even getting better with age.’ All Music

‘The master of less is more’ The Guardian

Pete Astor led Creation Records’ groups The Loft and The Weather Prophets, writing songs and releasing records that helped define the sound of the label and the emerging Indie genre. He has gone on to a lengthy solo career since then; writing, recording and releasing music on a range of labels including Matador, Heavenly, Warp, EMI and Fortuna Pop. Since 2017 Astor has been signed to Tapete Records, home to Robert Forster, Lloyd Cole and Comet Gain among many reputable others. He will be playing songs from his new record, Tall Stories & New Religions where he is re-visits and re-imagines his songs from throughout his lengthy and estimable career.

A lifetime of listening has led me to believe that Pete Astor’s songs would have always found a way to reach an audience. If he’d been a Californian baby boomer, he’d have ended up in the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles, laying down late-night grooves with the Wrecking Crew for a largely-neglected, slightly gloomy, pop album that’d now be worth a fortune. If he’d been born into post-War Britain, earnest girls in sweaters would’ve fallen in love with him, and his songs, in Embassy-fogged folk clubs. - Danny Kelly, NME