The Yalla Yallas

Good morning! I can’t believe it’s only 11 am and I’ve already drank my coffee, finished the mirror painting, and I have an interview of sorts I put together with Rob Galloway of The Yalla Yallas, a band I’ve been listening to for the past several months (another discovery made thanks to the Strummerville Foundation, click image at left to go to their website and you can hear their first album streaming in its entirety). I had intended to give a little information about them in a post, but that idea evolved into one better (kind of like one louder), and Rob was gracious enough to spend some time answering a few questions about the band. I did not address this in the interview, but worth mentioning now, the band’s name was carefully chosen to reflect a little bit about who they are, as it is also arguably one of Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros finest songs).

Shan: First, for readers of this blog who are hearing about The Yalla Yallas for the first time, could you give some background about where you are from, and how you got together?

Rob: We’re The Yalla Yallas were from Leeds in Northern England. I formed the band in December 2007. I was a solo artist doing some electronica punk rock style thing which was influenced by artists such as Big Audio Dynamite, Beck, and Eels. I decided a change of direction and got my best friend Matthew Dempsey in to play bass. Will Grinder had just left his previous band 3 Mile High and joined us alongside on-loan drummer Kev Bellwood from 4 Letter Holiday. Kev was later replaced by Matt Delahunty who now completes the line up.

Shan: How did you become associated with/involved with Strummerville?

Rob: It was when I was a solo artist … Pockets who was one of Joe’s best friends and is a trustee for the charity contacted me. I had just released my solo single ‘Girls Are Meaner Than Boys’. He got in touch and said he could help us he wasn’t sure how as the charity was pretty much still in its infancy but he promised he would help. Time goes by and just by chance at a gig in London … I think it was MC5 and Primal Scream at the Royal Festival Hall … Anyway Pockets managed to recognise me … He had never met me properly and we had only ever spoken briefly on the phone … We had a good drink etc… We stayed in touch and when Trish took over as charity manager she basically allowed the funds to go through for us to record our debut album ‘Act Of Defiance’ … They have done alot for us and were so proud to be involved with them.

Shan: How would you describe the sound of The Yalla Yallas, and who are the influences that are most prominent (and how do they find their way into the music you make, be it sound or style or philosophy)?

Rob: The sound is very energetic … It’s positive … It’s raw … It’s honest … It has instinct … It just feels right … The lyrics are something I believe in … They have to be. As for influences … well thats everyday life … Love, Anger, Politics, War, Business, Money, Lust, Despair, Apathy, Hope, Humour. I’d like to think things are going to get better in this world … I think that’s why there’s an air of positivity about us. I think I take dark subjects and somehow inject some hope or humour into it. As for artists that influence us … We could be here all day … Myself and Will have the most diverse musical range and even then were so different from each other but also so the same … Will can listen to Hip Hop, Drone Metal, Blues, Reggae and Folk music all in the same hour. I can listen to Punk, Pop, Rockabilly, and Latin or World music. Dempsey will tend to listen to music that lacks any credibility,and Matt tends to listen to only music that has some weird tenuous link to The Wildhearts or Metallica. However I feel after all that we end up sounding like a mix of The Stooges, Guns n Roses, Rancid, and Social Distortion which is no bad thing. There’s no real thought about how we sound … we just sound like we do and we like what we do.

Shan: What is most important to you?

Rob: Honesty is important to me … I believe we are all equal … and I believe we should look out for one another … why should where you are from or the colour of your skin or anything else for that matter determine how well you get treat by another human being … We should have more respect for ourselves than to carry about prejudgemental fears about another human being. It’s not good for the soul. We are better than that.

Thanks so much to Rob Galloway for taking the time to answer my questions. As I see from one of their updates they’ll be playing a few shows in England in the near future, including one in Leeds on Wed 10th March at Brudenell Social, supporting Los Mondo Bongos (featuring Members of The Mescaleros, The Alarm, Simple Minds, and DJ Ray Gange), I shall as always, be cheering from afar!

Joseph Arthur – Devil’s Broom (Live at City Winery, NYC Jan 29,2010)

Good morning everyone! I’m back at the controls of this blog after a few days in New York City. It was only my second visit there, but the second visit in four months and I have to say that I am tightly caught in it’s grasp, I absolutely love it there.

Both this visit and the last was precipitated by buying tickets to see Joseph Arthur. Two Sisters and a Show hit New York City! I know many of you know of and have heard him, but for those of you who haven’t, Joe is originally from the Akron, Ohio area, which is very close to where I grew up and even closer to where I attended college (Kent, Ohio). It’s nice to have someone local out there making it creating phenomenal music. I’ve found this nice little blurb (I love that word) about him though, that’s worth sharing here:

“Joe is one of those rare writer-performers where you get the sense, whatever your belief, that something greater is being channeled through his music and voice…Like Patti Smith, Grant Lee Phillips, Thom Yorke, he trances, and the voice, the meaning, becomes bigger than him, bigger than a few pop chords or words strung together. It touches something very deep and universal.” – Michael Stipe (for the LA Times)

He’s picked up residencies in both New York City (at the City Winery) and in Philadelphia, PA (Tin Angel) in February and March, as well as some others in Austin, Atlanta,  Nashville and Asheville.

One last mention, during Joe’s shows lately he has been painting live, and 100% of the  proceeds from the sales of the paintings will be going to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. We watched as he painted two large scale canvasses during several songs, including  “Invisible Hands.”

Jim Bianco – Sing (live at the Purple Fiddle 2008)

Two Sisters and a Show hit Davis/Thomas, West Virginia! As all of us who attended this show have agreed that this show was one for the books and needs to be documented for posterity. It was a day of lots of driving, meeting up with new friends as close as Akron and as far away as Los Angeles, of highly charged music, fun, festivities, flashers (passers by, not performers or audience), broken guitar strings, mid-show trips back to the hotel to retrieve strings, stringing strings from antique guitars hung on the walls as decoration, technical difficulties that led to performances with mucho gusto, broken cameras, and hypnogogic imagery. Try topping that!

A few photos from the trip, and then I’ll start off the music with a little snippet of Jim Bianco and his fellow musicians, Brad Gordon (on trumpet) and Jason Pipkin (on drums) belting out the tunes (just a small window of the energy these guys had that night) on “Never Again.” After that, an unplugged version of “Sing.” If you ever get the chance to see Jim live, do! Besides being an accomplished musician he’s also part comedian and story teller, and a great time ye shall have, is guaranteed.

Joseph Arthur with Emily Wells – Black Lexus (live City Winery NYC September 2009)

FUN DOUBLE PLAY from Two Sisters and a Show! The first clip below was taken by Ady this past September at the City Winery in New York City, and the one below that was taken by the woman who sat across from us at our table. I suggest playing both videos at the same time (and syncing them up*, the second video has about 30 seconds at the start of Joe and Emily getting the loops set up) for a very unique viewing experience, indeed. As a side note, this is the show where we first learned of the amazing Emily Wells. One other thing we learned that night: stay away from the (overly delicious) Gavi wine!

*Edit: I’ve got it, set the top video to the 3 second mark, then drop to the bottom one and set to to the 53 second mark, press play on top, then on bottom, fiddle around to get it synced up precisely right, and let it roll!