Things move slowly in the world of the Trashcan Sinatras. If the eight years that separate their third album, A Happy Pocket, and its successor, Weightlifting, seem like an eternity in the increasingly high-turnover world of pop music, then the three years since they emerged from a period of enforced absence have positively dragged for their small, but dedicated fan base.
It was summer 2001 when they debuted songs such as Free Time, It's A Miracle and Leave Me Alone at a memorably hot and sold-out gig at King Tut's in Glasgow. Despite periodic activity on the local live circuit, it has taken until this month for them to become available on CD, and the initial impressions of July 5, 2001, were accurate – Weightlifting is the best of their admirably consistent albums.
"I suppose it is a kind of greatest hits of the songs we have written in the past seven years or however long it is," says guitarist, John Douglas, with the air of a man who has long since ceased counting. "The oldest song on the album is Trouble Sleeping, which goes back to the Go! Discs era. On the other hand, A Coda is only a couple of years old."
As may be expected, the changes in the Trashcans' situation, outlook and ways of working since the release of A Happy Pocket have been considerable. Though these have been fairly well documented and exaggerated – it is helpful to recap.
Shortly after the album's release, the band parted company with their label of eight years (Go!) after it was bought over and the album lost in the wreckage.
Financial problems followed, with their studio (Shabby Road in Kilmarnock) and most of their equipment victims of their need to raise instant capital for creditors. Various band members dispersed around the world, and the only release was a 7in single on a Japanese label.
There were a number of abortive attempts at recording a new album in New York in 2000, but the majority of Weightlifting was recorded in 2002 and mixed a year ago by Andy Chase in New York.
"Things were very different from the Shabby Road era," adds singer, Francis Reader. "We used to spend so much more time getting ready, whereas this time we were very conscious of the clock and made most of the album during the course of the 2002 World Cup.
"We also had the advantage of having played a lot of the songs live and tweaked them from that. We had to be quite disciplined, but knew at the start that it couldn't be done the same way as A Happy Pocket, which was a big, sprawling, amorphous mess, with every song having been remade at least four times."
The completion of the record has understandably restored confidence within the band, but equally impressive is the way that they have resisted the path of cynicism and bitterness that others with similar experiences of the recording industry have fallen prey to.
"Looking back on the whole major-label experience, it would be easy to be really negative because of the way it ended," says Douglas, "but it is easy to forget that for the best part of 10 years we were subsidised to do what we wanted – making records and going out on tour. The difficult part was how to deal with being treated as part of the family one day, and the last person on earth anyone wanted to speak to the next." |
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Reader goes slightly further, attributing the new-found hunger and sense of perspective to the experiences of the past eight years.
"I think the gap between records has made us a lot more relaxed," says Reader, "and our approach to the album was as if it was something of a last hurrah."
"But when we started playing the songs and touring, it made us much more positive about the future," adds Douglas. "The gigs have been a pleasure rather than a struggle and recently we have started to feel that we have been landing on our feet, rather than our arses."
There are, however, still problems. By their own admission, they can "hardly get a gig in the UK", despite just coming back from a month long jaunt round the US. And, while they were able to licence their album to a respected independent label, Spinart, in America, there were few appealing offers in this country. The album has been released here on their own label, Picnic Records.
"We went to London to meet some record labels and lawyers, which was Plan A," says Douglas, "but when we looked these people in the eye we decided that we didn't want to go down that route again. We also enjoyed releasing the compilations (Zebra of the Family and On A B Road Again) on our own, and the contact that gave us with the people buying our music. It can be difficult to reach out beyond the people who are already waiting for the music, but it is still a good way of going about things. It certainly makes you less sheepish about what you do."
The predicament of the Trashcan Sinatras is one of quiet optimism tinged with realism, though they can take comfort in the fact that Weightlifting seems less out of synch with the current musical climate than any of their previous releases.
"Our first album sounded like it would have fitted in 1984," says Reader, "but it came out during a time when dance music was popular. Our second came out when grunge was everywhere, whereas now there is quite a lot of melody about on the radio, which might help us.
"All we really want from this record is to become a bit more established," adds Douglas, "and to be able to keep working away, rather than being this thing that pops up every now and then before going away again."
On this basis, their fifth album may be available sooner than expected.
Trashcan Sinatras' Weightlifting is out now on Picnic Records.
Originally appeared in The Herald. |
