Love & Theft

February 2nd sees the first Love & Theft release of 2010, in The Bowers hotly anticipated debut full-length ‘Her Night’ We’ve added a few morsels from the press release below (sans the bragadocious hyperbole):

Formed in late 2006, by Phil Gionfriddo, (Spencer P. Jones’ Escape Committee, Dynamo), Liam Linley (Houlette) and Rocket Science’s Paul Maybury and Kit Warhurst, The Bowers quickly rose to prominence with the release of their first 7”, ‘Ivy Climbing’ on Torn & Frayed Records (Dirty Three, Kill Devil Hills). ‘Ivy Climbing’ garnered great support from radio and press, including a marathon 4 week stint on Rage for the clip, and a programming by friends The Drones.

Two more 7”s followed, the 3 minute pop masterpiece ‘Angel Of Sorrow’ and the Holy Soul split ‘Give It’ (on Torn & Frayed and In-Fidelity Records respectively). In 2009 Paul Maybury parted with the band to concentrate on his studio and was ably replaced by Mission Control’s Spencer Dyson, as we fast-forward to 2010 and the release of the debut full-length ‘Her Night’.

There’ll be plenty more written about this release over the coming weeks and months, but for the moment, please do check out the film clip for the new single ‘Town’, directed by Rob McCafferty whose other credits include the Meredith Music Festival ‘Weekend In The Country’ documentary.

Damon Smith is a singer, songwriter and the obvious choice for frontman of Damon Smith & the Quality Lightweights, a 5 piece outfit based in Melbourne’s north.

He approached Love & Theft many a moon ago with a demo and a previously unseen documentary on Sunbury. Needless to say, we were sold in the time it took to muster up the lyrics to ‘Hey, Western Union Man’.

We asked him to spill the beans on a song he demoed recently entitled ‘1000 Days’:

‘1000 Days’ is beautifully stark and simple in its construct, can you describe the creative process behind this song?

Creatively speaking, the song needed little excitement instrument wise as the vocal melody seems to take control. It’s an acoustic guitar with some slight ‘tinkering’ performed on another guitar plus the vocals… keeping the music simple can help illuminate the lyrics I reckon.

You play every instrument on this yourself. That’s typical of your demoing and recording process?

Yep, that’s easily typical of at least 90% of my recordings so far. I suppose by having a ‘professional’ command of guitars, piano, bass and drums it makes it convenient to get the bulk of the sound down and then add any little hooky, quirky melodies with other instruments that I have hanging around the studio.
It’s not unusual though to want a musical flourish that I simply can’t perform on an instrument such as a violin. This is where I record a rough version of the melody myself and then get a pro dude to come in and tuck it into bed.

‘Tuck into bed’ – great analogy. Carrying that further, how did you lay this one down? I can picture a glass of warm milk and a lullaby.

The song originally started with an roomy organ followed by close mic brushes on the snare then double bass was added to complete the sound. It sounded great, rich and honest but somehow too busy for the simple vocal melody and lyrics. It was a perfect example of an artist wanting to layer and then layer some more but then revising the arrangement as the power of the song was in the storytelling.

The narrative in this song seems pretty obvious at first, but you frequently write allegorically about desire and love. Can we take these lyrics at face value, or is the song about something else entirely?

No, it’s just another love song about a girl sung by a boy. Radio listeners know a love song when it comes on, the words are always the same, love, baby, I need you and don’t leave me. You can place these words all over the show in what ever order but people will still get it!  If a song I’m writing seems to be heading down a romantically wet path, then I’d rather explain or describe why I need ‘her’.

For the record, Love & Theft has been badgering Damon & The Lightweights to finish this song, but it seems there’s plenty more afoot. Please feel free to comment on this track – hopefully popular opinion’ll win out.

xx

L&T

Howdy,

Welcome to the Love & Theft blog. Firstly, I think it’s important to set the field clear. We are a record label. We are also a music services company. First and foremost, much like our esteemed readers, we’re music fans. We are also, much like our esteemed readers, acutely aware of the various pitfalls associated with running an ‘impartial’ and ‘unbiased’ music journalism front, and yet quite explicitly having an agenda, and, more specifically, something to sell.

We make no bones about this.

After much deliberation on tone, spill and scone, we have reached a kind of entente, whereby all alliances and agendas shall be laid out clear. If we are working with a band/artist/festival/label/pastry chef etc. we write about, such allegiances will be forthcoming. We will spell check, wherever possible, and to the best of our knowledge, offer impartial critique, heavily opinionated ‘analysis’ and average punctuation in rhapsodic fashion – if nothing else, then as slightly-more-than-half-arsed homage to the greater music writers of our time. If we get lazy, please let us know.

Sadly, this reads more like a disclaimer than a preamble, so let’s just get down to bi’ness.

xx

L&T

P.S. Credit due to kk.presidente, Jason Mildren, Julian Dunne, Jason Morrison, Dobe Newton,  Planet Jumper (singular and plural), Robert Christgau, and Face.