Tuesday 10th September
The Lexington
Tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings
New Starts 2200:2300
Carla J Easton 2100-2145
tba 2015-2045
Doors 1930
NEW STARTS
New Starts are a spikey, fresh sounding band recalling the poppier ends of new wave and angular guitar rock. Their influences include The Cars, Breeders, Bay City Rollers, The Velvet Underground and ZZ Top.
Lead singer Darren Hayman has his own long career running from the late 90s with John Peel faves Hefner to his more recent thematic and historical albums dealing with the English Civil War, William Morris and forgotten rural idylls.
“I wanted a band again,” says Hayman, “and not a band that just backed me up and played my old songs. When we form our first bands in our teens we just find some friends and work through the musical differences. I usually look for players who play in a way I’m used to. This time I looked for variance and was led by people’s personality.”
Guitarist Joely Smith [of South London’s noise-pop adults and recently DIY-punks Fresh] was recommended by a mutual friend who said, ‘She makes everything better’. Hayman and Smith shared a coffee and agreed on the correct number of guitar pedals and decided to proceed without an audition.
“There is a tendency for me to make my chords too pretty. Joely cuts against that and plays in the opposite direction.” Hayman is a fan of rules and constraints and employed a new, oblique strategy on this record. “Even though I wrote all the songs, I wanted the songs to belong to everyone during arrangement. I decided that I would say ‘yes’ to every suggestion from the band, regardless of my instinct.”
This made the songs warp and bend into new shapes and ensured that the record was the product of four individuals. Bassist Giles Barrett and drummer Will Connor come from funky afro beat influenced band Tigercats. “Pretty much the only rhythm I use, left to my own devices, is the ‘road runner’ rhythm. Will takes to care to find where the drum beat can be and we always end up somewhere I didn’t expect.”
CARLA J EASTON
Carla J. Easton is an award nominated singer-songwriter, releasing 4 critically acclaimed solo albums. She is also a member of TeenCanteen and Poster Paints, and has written songs/music for Belle & Sebastian, BMX Bandits, Hen Hoose & National Theatre Scotland. Championed by BBC6 Music, she has performed at festivals across the UK and internationally (SXSW, Pop Montreal, The Great Escape, Celtic Connections, Indiefjord and Pop Cologne) touring the UK with Camera Obscura, The Vaselines and Kim Richey.
In 2018, she released the SAY Award Shortlisted 'Impossible Stuff’, produced by Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire/British Sea Power/Leonard Cohen) which featured singles that achieved Record of the Day, Guardian Track of the Week and BBC Scotland Single of the Week.
Her third album 'WEIRDO' was released in 2020 via Olive Grove Records - a record that Bandcamp Daily described as “all volume needles buried in the red, glitter bursting from every chorus.” The Line of Best Fit praised its “maximalist” tendencies while hinting that Scotland has found its own answer to the pop titans Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift and Pitchfork called it “bubblegum pop [with] the scrappy glamour of a homemade theatrical production”.
Her latest project Poster Paints was formed with Simon Liddell (Frightened Rabbit) during 2020. Their critically acclaimed self titled debut album was released by Ernest Jennings October 2022.
Her fourth studio album ‘SUGAR HONEY’ will be released 20th October via Olive Grove Records and features the singles ‘One Week’, ‘Blooming 4U’ and the album title track ‘Sugar Honey’.