Friday 7 May 2010

K&A with Curators

Edinburgh four piece Curators first came to my attention back in February when Jon from the band sent me a wee email. Thank f**k he did! Having listened to a few live songs on their MySpace, I was instantly hooked by their no-nonsense, anthemic indie-rock!

Curators are Jon Dick, Gary Small, Pete Hopes and Mark Cameron. With this settled line-up, the guys have recorded their debut album and it's currently at the mixing stage. It's safe to say I'm quite excited about this one! From what I've heard so far, I have high hopes for it. To find out a bit more about them, I fired off a few questions to Jon. Here's what he had to say...

Kowalskiy: How did the band name come about?
Jon: I used to work as a Curator at the National War Museum of Scotland, and I'd always thought it'd be a cool band name. Originally, I was going to use it for my solo recordings, but when Gary and I started writing together, it seemed to make sense to use it. We were keen not to be a "the" band too, which is just as well as there's a German punk band called The Curators.

Kowalskiy: How would you describe your sound?
Jon: Argh! At a push, I'd say early Idlewild covering Weezer songs on Radiohead's old guitars, but I'm sure the other guys would disagree. Hopefully this album will show that we have our own sound, despite our influences!

Kowalskiy: Who are your musical influences?
Jon: Well, I suppose all three bands I just mentioned. Pete's into hardcore and punk, I like my rock, Gary likes his indie and Mark likes a bit of everything, so hopefully we take a wee bit of influence from a fairly broad range of stuff.

Kowalskiy: What bands do you tip for 2010?
Jon: Us! Hopefully The Xcerts new record will be as good as their first, and hopefully our buddies Taking Chase will make their album this year too. I'm not really into buzz bands as such, because the gimmick tends to wear thin pretty quickly. Give me lasting songs over throwaway contrivance any day of the week.

Kowalskiy: What are your desert island discs?
Jon: Pinkerton, 100 Broken Windows, Earth vs. The Wildhearts.

Kowalskiy: What would your dream gig be?
Jon: I can't speak for the other guys, but I'd love to play with Captain-era Idlewild, The Holy Bible-era Manics, old Radiohead (pre-bleeps), mid-nineties Weezer and a whole load of other bands that I can't even think of just now. As for venues, Pete and I would like to play Tannadice, but I reckon somewhere like King Tuts would be just grand. We're not fussy - just make sure there are monitors!

Kowalskiy: Sounds good! Who knows, might get a capacity crowd there for a change! Lastly, what can we expect from the band in the future?
Jon: There's a question! We'll get the album out in the next couple of months, and see were that takes us. We've had really positive reviews of State of Grace that we're using as a kind of album taster, so we'll see what happens. We're open to offers!

As Jon said, "State of Grace" is doing the rounds just now and is rightly sparking a bit of interest. Have a listen below. No gimmicks, just a belter of a tune!



State Of Grace (unmastered)

Curators have one gig lined up, next month on the 22nd June at Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh (with Taking Chase). Fingers crossed they arrange a few more in the run up to their album release. If this has gotten you curious, pay Peenko and today's Friday Freebies a wee visit for a free demo download of future album track "Turn The Lights Down".

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