Dear Scott

Product Information

In episode #86 of The XS Noize Podcast, Mark Millar catches up with one of the greatest ever British songwriters Michael Head of The Red Elastic Band. Michael Head leads his Red Elastic Band into a fresh chapter with optimism and some of the best music of his career. His new Bill Ryder-Jones-produced album, Dear Scott, will be released on Fri, 27 May 2022, via Modern Sky UK. Other album highlights are American Kid a typically insightful, delightful character piece about an Americana and Hollywood obsessed friend, “It goes from Elvis to Tarantino across your bedroom walls” Head sings sympathetically, the brooding, atmospheric The Grass, and the gorgeous Fluke, its chiming melody all starry eyes-and laughing, and which once again mines the rich seam of the ambiguous, unrequited love for Americana on this album. We did about seven or eight songs, and I was drinking heavily at the time," he recalls of the initial album sessions. In a rare, collaborative move for the songwriter, for whom isolation as a writer usually reveals the clearest voice, Kismetsnaked from the rehearsal room. It bears the hallmarks as the four-piece The Red Elastic Band wax and wane through Postcard jangle-pop and squalling-solo wig-outs, while Head, in vintage form, glances sing-a-long syllables off the swaggering beat. Listen via YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Acast | RSS - Find The XS Noize Music Podcast's full Archive of episodes here.

In October 2017, Michael Head & the Red Elastic Band released an album called Adiós Señor Pussycat. It reached No. 1 on the UK Independent Albums Chart and No. 57 on the UK Albums Chart. Taking in cities from Glasgow to Manchester and beyond to Bristol, Head and The Red Elastic Band complete the forthcoming tour with two, huge theatre shows, the first at Liverpool’s Eventim Olympia on Fri 10 June 2022 and the second in London, taking in the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire the following night. So you kind of have to be like, 'Thank you – is right'. And, as the dust has settled it's slowly dawned on me like, 'We've all done well there.' And that includes Dave [Pichilingi] at the record company, everyone who helped. Released by independent label Modern Sky, the Bill Ryder-Jones produced Dear Scott also earned the guitar-wielding singer-songwriter his first ever 'proper' Top 10 album when it hit Number Six on the Official Chart.

Release

What makes this recent flush of success even sweeter for Head (60) is that his musical career to date has been peppered with an unfair share of disappointment and downright disaster.

On The Ten, he takes a whimsical bus ride –‘Floating past Kenny, up passed the icy and Yorkies where we’d sing’– which ends up at an abattoir and yet still seems full of other-dimensional magic.Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Dear Scott’s themes in part revolve – loosely – around Hollywood’s golden age, the titular subject being F.Scott Fitzgerald, whose descent to bankruptcy and installation in the decadent Garden Of Allah Hotel prompted him to write a postcard to self.

The ending feels like the only less than stellar moment, Shirl’s Ghost an all too brief piano and strings instrumental, a definite comedown after its predecessor, the rousing Pretty Child, has so ably matched neighbours The Coral at their beat psychedelic best, the tale a divertingly strange one of a sex worker eventually usurped by her own daughter. I even said to the lads, 'Before we finish these [gigs], there'll probably be one or two new ideas on the bubble'. It's exciting for me personally, but also for them too, because it helps keep things fresh." Heading out together this summer, the band also looks ahead to its first, full UK Tour since forming in 2012. The run of eight dates culminates in two, huge theatre shows at Liverpool’s Eventim Olympiaon Fri 10 June 2022and the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in Londonon Sat 11 June 2022. The full run of 2022 UK Tour dates are confirmed as follows:

Companies, etc.

For most of his career, Head has arguably been the poet laureate of Liverpool in his songs, and an expert in turning the mundane into the magical, and The Ten is his great Liverpool song on the record, a deeply personal tale of a rum bus journey with his brother John and mate Badger, “Floating past Kenny, up past the Icy and Yorkies where we’d sing” to see his dad who worked on Kensington market. From the jazzy, almost mellow vibes of ‘Gino and Rico’ to the classic Byrdsian chimes of Pretty Girl, Dear Scott is a consistently enervating, uplifting and often moving triumph. Like all works of genuine beauty it may take time to reveal all its wonders, but reveal them it will.