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Hemlock Music – The Antidote to Voodoo
Economics Hemlock Music is the brainchild of Jack and Jill, a group of British
arts sponsors, who seek to develop new talent in the Kev Gray is a British singer-songwriter. Previously with the Highly respected on the Japanese music scene he won the
prestigious Gaijin Sounds 2008 award for his song, How The Story Ends, and was declared 'a lyrical genius' by the
national press in Since then he has produced 3 albums and 1 EP, recorded for
soundtracks, and earned a reputation as a top live performer by playing a
regular slot at the legendary Crocodile Club in Harajuku, New albums, Antidote and The Veil Has Been Lifted, will be available on iTunes from July 2010. From June to
October 2010, he will be on tour in Please see below for more information and contact details Or join the Facebook or Reverbnation fan sites for more live
info Kev Gray & The Gravy Train http://www.facebook.com/kevgraymusic http://www.reverbnation.com/kevgray Biography Kevin’s music career started after he was diagnosed rather
later in life with a condition known as immaturity. In the past three years,
he has toured in the Earlier in 2008, he was spotted by musical entrepreneur, Paul
Morgan of the prestigious Medici Studios in Originally from After recording his first songs in 2004 - wedding songs for
friends - songwriting binges followed. On
business trips back to His style has been described a made up person as “ship-wrecked
music” – a cross-over of jazz,
folk bossa-nova, lounge, latin,
gospel, Britpop and a whiff of blues. New Millennium Lounge.
Brit-Americana, Acoustic Prozac. Neo-Bossa. He admits to inventing a
whole load of phrases to try to make himself look original. The truth being –
he doesn’t sound like anyone else, which he puts down to old-fashioned
eccentricity:
Look at the
70s – funk, reggae, punk, disco, new wave, singer-songwriter, country rock,
heavy metal - then look at the past 10 years -. This is why I am trying to
focus on lyrics and vocals, which are the two areas where we can still be
unique. Early recordings featured an all-star line up of some of Being in a
studio with those three gems was a defining moment for me. Watching them do
their stuff so effortlessly was really inspiring. I felt like musician by
association. I called it The Since then the band has progressed into the multi-group, The
Gravy Train, in that all the members sing or play other instruments. A
regular Saturday slot at the legendary Crocodile Club, and starring role in
Japan Music Week, enhanced the band’s reputation as one of the best live acts
in The Gravy Train 2010: Kev Gray //Vocals, Guitars, Harmonica Damien Cavanagh// Percussion, Guitars, Bass Chris Cooling//Bass, Lead Guitar, Vocals, Harmonica Forrest M. Nelson//Bass, Vocals, Guitar Robin Watson//Spanish Guitar, Harmonies Mami //Keyboards People around
you are important to help you learn about new music. My schoolmate, Dobber,
introduced me to John Peel and the whole indie scene. The first songs I could
play were all from The Wedding Present’s “George Best” album. Before that I
was living in blissful ignorance with a massive 40s-70s record collection at
home. I heard ‘Girlfriend in A Coma’ and decided I wanted to play the intro
and bought a classical guitar for 7 quid. I still cant play it. He grew up in the
dynamic indie scene of the 80s which he describes as “the golden age of
lyricists”: It is like
the renaissance versus peace and the cuckoo clock analogy in ‘Citizen Cane’,
there were some incredible British songwriters that came out of the horror of
the Thatcher years: Paul Heaton from The Beautiful South; Billy Bragg,
Morrissey, and a local Geordie songwriter from Prefab Sprout (check out his
wonderful song, The Wedding March). Like everyone else, I love Bob Dylan, but
the intelligence, sarcasm and humour the Brits provide is, for me, on a
different level. Some people
like beat, others energy. For me, melody is really important to me, as like
rhythm, it is a gift. You either have it or you don’t. If you look at the Beatles
who were so musically fertile, just a throwaway tune for them was better than
other peoples best work. The same with the Beach Boys, and less famous
talents like Glen Campbell and Tommy Dorsey. They just warble away naturally. As a
vocalist, I still rate Elvis as the best due to his range of styles, and
timbres in his voice. Real raw rock one minute and as sweet as you like the
next. It’s a crime against music that he recorded so much dross. For me one of the best albums ever made is
The I am pretty
standard with my love of female singers, all the great black singers: Billy
Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone. The bets live
performance I have ever seen is Tina Turner when she was young, 1971 from Soundtracks
are coming back into fashion, I heard. Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (1973) or
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance (1969) are just phenomenal pieces of art I the
way they blend with the films so naturally. His songs are about friends, strangers, countrymen, cityfolk;
his experience; and pure imagination. Most are composites but some are
inspired by a single event. The Arrival
of the Prince
is based on a quote from a Japanese friend who said that your wife stops
loving you with the arrival of the prince Happy
Children is
about family break up and was written for a short film made in The Mountain A song about karma.
Mentions the time he saved a ‘salaryman’s’ (Japanese businessman) life by
pulling him off the railways He’d fallen
down and was knocked out. Nobody would help, and the alarms didn’t go
off. He was dead weight and I have
this horrible memory of having to push his big pudgy arse back onto the
platform using my head. Walter Mitty is about a fraud who
called to declare his love to his girlie friend while on his holiday. Only it
wasn’t his holiday, it was his honeymoon. Fighting The
Tide “This
is about a couple I knew where it blatantly obvious they were just ‘friends
with benefits’, yet in her mind they were getting married. They clearly
didn’t listen to each other or care about what the other wanted.” Sound familiar? Gene Therapy is about the reason we have
idiots in the world: to make our own lives look so much better than they
really are. There are some less weighty tunes: Oh, I’m Just So Misunderstood… One problem
with writing quirky lyrics is getting misrepresented. I have one song called
Let’s Face It, I’m Great about the fragility and silliness of the male ego. It
is quite obvious that is tongue in cheek, but some people miss the point. A
song in a similar vein is the upbeat
Hemlock, Rope or Cyanide, again obviously tongue in cheek, yet again it is
taken a little too seriously. I think the
way people interpret songs shows a lot about their character. If they see
bitterness, they are bitter; if they see negativity, they’re negative; if
they see arrogance, they are insecure. If they see all the wonderful things
in my songs, they are wonderful. I’m quite
worried about a new song, Badman Rendezvous. It’s a warped love song about a
man on death row, each verse gets more energy culminating in a crescendo of
guitars for his execution then a big long bass note as the death knell. The
killer eliminates his love rival by letting him live out of the trio. It goes
down really well live but as soon as people learn what it’s about they kind
of look scared. I’m trying to expand my repertoire of songwriting to more
than melody and lyrics, but ambience and concepts and ideas. With 3 LPs and 1 EP Hemlock Music is now looking to market the
songs online to distributors and soundtracks. Kev Gray is currently on the festival live circuit in Contact: Steve O’ Hagan manager@hemlockmusic.com for more
details. My Dad asked
me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I said a musician. And he said, “Well you can’t do both” |
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