ONE2HEAR ONE2SEE

THE KNIFE – November 6, O2 Academy, Brixton(ticketmaster.co.uk)THE NATIONAL – November 26, The 02, London(0844 856 0202)BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB – December 13, EarlsCourt, London (eco.co.uk)THE BLACK KEYS – February 28, LG Arena,Birmingham NEC (0121 780 4141)

THE RESPONSIBLEWHO: Richard Norwood (vocals/guitar),David Macilwraith (guitar/vocals), ReeceDuncan (bass), Ruaridh Catto (drums).WHERE: Paisley/Johnstone.FOR FANS OF: Arctic Monkeys, MilesKane, The Strokes.JIM SAYS: It’s been great checking outa fresh batch of talent at this year’s KingTut’s Summer Nights festival.The Glasgow venue has been at the

forefront of bringing through new actsfor as long as I can remember.It was the first place I saw Coldplay,

The Strokes and Nine Inch Nails.For the seven nights of the Summer

Nights festival though, it’s all about Scot-tish acts. It’s an easyway for the venue tofill their programme ata time when a lot oftouring bands are play-ing festivals.The line-up, though,

demonstrates thedepth of under-the-radar talent we haveon our doorstep.Of the bands I’ve

seen so far, some Iwas familiar with. Oth-ers I was discoveringlive for the first time.Cream of the crop, I

reckon, were Renfrew-shire band The Responsible. I wasaware of them, but last Friday was mylive introduction. Originally performingas The Nice, a name change cameabout when they secured a support slotwith Twisted Wheel at King Tut’s.Richard explained: “Tut’s wouldn’t put

us on the bill as The Nice because of theband with the same name in the 60s. Weknew this but had decided to try ourluck anyway. This was when TheResponsible were born.”That was in October 2012. The band

have since released their first singleEdge Of My Gun. A cracking slab ofindie rock ’n’ roll, grabbing influencesfrom the past few decades, it’s a perfectintroduction to The Responsible.Richard told me: “Edge Of My Gun

was a track I came up with while listen-ing to Echoes Round The Sun by PaulWeller. I was inspired by the way hestructured the song and I wanted towrite something catchy that would stickin your head. I had the title Edge Of MyGun before I had anything else.”While the single’s great, and I had

already played it on the radio, it didn’tprepare me for the pure raw energy ofthe live performance at King Tut’s.The four 21-year-olds work brilliantly

as a unit, and it felt like a proper rock ’n’roll show. Great tunes, great playing,but also all the right moves.Sometimes bands look like they are

just going through the motions, but TheResponsible put every-thing into the perfor-mance. I was alreadysold on them, but thenthey pulled out a coverof The Clash’s Clamp-down. Wow!Richard revealed;

“The Clash are a mas-sive influence.“The punk attitude in

their music and theirdynamic as a group,the idea of your bandbeing a gang, has stuckwith us from the start.“Arctic Monkeys are

another big influence,especially their current work.”I can’t wait to hear more from The

Responsible, Meanwhile there areplenty more emerging acts to check outas King Tut’s Summer Nights continuesuntil Sunday.Tonight it’s the turn of singer-songwrit-

ers, with Gerry Cinnamon, Jamie Cole-man, John Paul Maciver and Aaron Fyfe.Tomorrow it’s Manky Savage, The Bawl-ers, Casino Circus and Irrational Fever.The festival concludes on Sunday withThe Travels, The Near, Tribal High andThe Trend. If you want to discover yournext new favourite band, I can’t think ofa better place to head. It certainlyworked for me with The Responsible.Q For more info: www.facebook.com/theresponsibleband

BLACKPOOL’S got more to offerthan a Tower and sticks of rock.Rae Morris is seeing to that.She has a booming voice andis the full package.New single Cold For You is anedgy, pop track. It’s out on Mon-day — but watch the video nowat: www.raemorris.co.uk

BOOKNOW

NEWMUSIC BY JIMGELLATLY

JIM presents Drivetime on XFMScotland, Monday to Friday,4-7pm. See www.xfm.co.uk andwww.jimgellatly.com

MEETS

HOTGIGS

THE Amazing Snakeheads arepure Marmite. You’re eithergoing to hate or love theirstripped down rock. They havejust announced a UK tour forOctober and play Aberdeen,Edinburgh and Glasgow.Go to: www.facebook.com/theamazingsnakeheads

CHASE & STATUS, DAVID GUETTA, THEPRODIGY – Global Gathering, tonight and tomorrow,Stratford Upon Avon (globalgathering.com)BURT BACHARACH – tomorrow, Royal Festival Hall,(stubhub.co.uk)TOM JONES – Wednesday, Sandown Park(stubhub.co.uk)

BLO

NDIE

BLONDIE legendChris Stein reckonsthe band’s Scotsfans appreciatethem much morethan their Americancounterparts do.But sometimes it’sgone too far.The rock king revealedhe’s still haunted by someheartless thief breaking intotheir storage room at theRadisson Blu hotel in Edin-burgh back in 2011 — andstealing his iconic guitar.Chris — who’s written allthe band’s smash hits withex-girlfriend singer DebbieHarry — was gutted to seehis custom-made instrumentgone. He only got it backthanks to a quick-thinkingpawn shop worker.Chris revealed: “We got tothe next show and I noticedmy guitar had been stolen.“About three days later,the Lothian and BordersPolice called me up and said

EXCLUSIVE byCHRIS SWEENEY

they had found the guitar.They have a special unitthat goes around retrievingstolen items.“So I got it back, which iskind of amazing.“It’s a really unusual gui-tar. Whoever stole it broughtit to a pawn shop and theguy there saw somethingwas weird, so he called thecops. The cops called theguitar company as my namewasn’t on it.“So they tracked down thecompany who made it andwe had just been in touchwith them asking them tosend me a replacementurgently as we were on tour.“They told us the policehad called and that’s howwe got together.“I met the police and Isent them some photos ofme with it on stage to proveit was mine — and then theygave it back to me.”But Chris hasn’t let theincident put him off Scot-land. He’s even featuredsome of his photographs of

here in his new book Nega-tive — out in September.Chris, 64, said: “It’s a lotof photos that I’ve donedown the years. I’m excitedabout it, I worked on it forabout a year.“There are some photosfrom Scotland and a coupleof anecdotes from Glasgow.“That was one of the firstplaces we travelled to out-side of New York way backin 1977.“I just remember it was acity that was beat up, it wasa big period of recession.

‘Net changedeverything’

“It was the same as NewYork, both cities were differ-ent places entirely to whatthey are now.“Young people won’tremember but it was rough.”Blondie have just cele-brated 40 years in the spot-light. This year’s albumGhosts of Download was adouble LP called Blondie4(0) Ever, with the otherhalf being re-recorded ver-

sions of the band’s classicanthems like Heart of Glass,Rapture and Atomic.Chris explained: “Sometimes itfeels like a long time, sometimesit’s short. My perception of itvaries.“Everyone asks me, did youthink 40 years ago you’d begoing 40 years into the future?And we didn’t, everything wasvery much in the moment.“When I was a kid, a lot ofmy heroes were all the old bluesand jazz guys. To me it seemsnormal having heroes that are50 or 60 years old.“Things kept building up overthe years. We have a differentplace now, it’s unique — I don’tknow if there’s anyone else inour position.“I don’t know who’s going tobe around 40 years from now inthis bunch of people — every-thing is changing so quickly andpeople have a short attentionspan. The internet has changedeverything.”The band - who have soldmore than 40million albums —are coming over here nextmonth on a big European tour.And Chris says they feel moreappreciated here. He said: “Amer-

icans are more fickle. In Scot-land, people are more loyal topeople they like.“Back home, the music scenechanges so quickly. Everyone isnow saying Lady Gaga is fin-ished, which seems crazy to meas she was so influential.“Over there everyone has ashort attention span, it could bepartly due to the internet.“No one even downloadssongs, they are just streamingstuff from their computer.“People listen to the first 20seconds of a song and that’s it —they’re done.

‘A tribalelement’

“Maybe that’s universal but wedon’t notice it when we comeover to see you guys.“Being the elder statesmen isgratifying. You have that wis-dom that you’ve accumulateddown the years.”Their elder statesmen positionhas been delivered by theirmega back catalogue. And theywon’t ever stop playing it.Chris said: “I’ve been hearingsongs my whole life. And some

of our songs, people have beenhearing their whole life.“It’s an interesting place to bein. There’s this tribal element todoing a rock ’n’ roll or a popconcert. There’s a connection,the audience gets excited andthat gets us excited. A lot ofback and forth. Playing thosesongs matters to us.”There were some rumours fly-ing about that this was to beBlondie’s send-off tour. ButChris shot them down.And he explained that evenwhen we stop seeing them, we’llstill hear them.He added: “We are going tokeep going. There’s no plan tostop. Someone cornered ourdrummer at a party and printedthat we were all retiring.“It was just blown up. Thereare no plans to stop working.And I’d certainly keep recordingif we weren’t doing live shows.“We are not going anywhere.“But the fans are the finalpiece of the puzzle, always.“If it wasn’t for them support-ing us, we wouldn’t be able todo what we’re doing.”Q Blondie play Glasgow’s O2 ABC onAugust 27. For more info and tickets goto: www.blondie.net

ByCHRIS

SWEENEY

WATCHTHERESPONSIBLEAT:WWW.THESCOTTISHSUN.CO.UK

CHRIS’S relationship withex-girlfriend Debbie Harry is one

of the most interesting in rock ’n roll.The pair have written all their hits together.And they still continue to tour and be in a

band together, despite their romance imploding.He said: “We have similar thought processes.We work together well. And I’d say, often we

think the same thing without discussing it— Debbie and I are sort of telepathic.”

ON

E2W

ATC

H

MOST bands only storm Tinseltownafter they’ve made it.But ambitious rockers Nothing But

Thieves went there as teenagers tokick things off.And now the Southend lads are

preparing for their big public launch.Frontman Conor Mason said:

“Being in a band and doing it right issomething we’ve always wanted todo. We just thought ‘Let’s f***ing doit’ so went to LA and wrote somegood songs — and it’s all grownsince then.“We wrote loads of songs there,

like 25 of them. They taught us themethods of writing, melody, lyrics.“We hadn’t quite nailed it. We

always had in our heads what wewanted to do.”They followed that up with the

tracks that make up their GraveyardWhistling EP — released this week.Radio 1 are behind it — they’re play-ing stuff from it every day this week.Conor, 21, added: “This EP is the

next four songs we wrote when wecame back and that’s why we kept itlike that, it is raw and the bones ofthis band. It’s where it began and wewant people to hear that.“It’s been more than a year since

we wrote them, we’ve changed a lotin certain ways.“The whole point has been not to

barricade ourselves, we just let what-ever comes out. You won’t hear thesame track twice from us.”The boys all know where they

want to be — sold-out stadiums.They aren’t scared to show their

ambition. Conor said: “We’ve allgrown up stadium rock and we wantto be a big stadium band. But it’sabout doing it in your own way. Wewant to do that in a modern form.”NBT are also on the road finally.

They’ve just started their first tour —which hits Broadcast in Glasgow onJuly 31.Conor explained: “It’s a been a bit

of a wait. We wrote solidly for threeyears and didn’t gig.“Imagine how hard that is being in

a band who want to get on stage.“We were just writing for three

years and being patient. We feel it’spaid off.“So having to wait another eight

months to release our full albumnext year isn’t a big deal. And wefeel the EP is a really good startingpoint for people to get onboard.”The band got a cracking response

at T in the Park a few weeks ago.And they hope it’s a sign of things tocome.Conor said: “That was bloody awe-

some, the Scottish fans went nuts forit. Hopefully the show in Glasgow isthe same. That old-fashioned thingof turning up, no one knowing you,people walking in and by the endyou’ve got a packed crowd —there’s nothing more gratifying.“That’s what it’s all about for

us.It’s all about sewing those seeds.“It’s music, there’s no set way of

doing it — you go as and when peo-ple react.”Q For tour tickets and more info,go to: www.nbthieves.com

Friday, July 25, 2014 611S