Q & A with Percy

Yorkshire super heroes have a new album “Seaside Donkeys” coming out soon. I spoke to Colin and Andy from Percy about it.

Have a listen to this while you’re reading.

Andy: It was recorded at Crooked Room studios in York in Nov 2019. We took time looking at studios as we wanted somewhere with good facilities and reputation. Isaac Minnis is head honcho at Crooked Room and has helped get young bands The Howl and The Hum and Avalanche Party get on the map in 2018 and 2019. It was fitted out like being in someone’s front room with table lamps and an old piano. Sound was really good in the room and we recorded all live but at a modest volume so there was no need for heavy separation. Voice, violin and acoustic guitars were all overdubbed. All members of the band had an input in production agreeing form and sound template but I was probably ‘executive producer’ as I did the initial reference mixes for Isaac and sifted the versions. Isaac did the final mix and master.

Colin: The tracks have a varied history, to be honest. “Big Lils” dates from Summer 2018 but was too late for the last album “Sleepers Wake.” We also recorded another track from the same period called “Unicorns” (Brexit related) which didn’t make the final track listing. The other tracks were written throughout 2019, some of which we’d dropped from the live set but were resurrected to give the album more balance. “Rubbernecking” and “Will of the People” were introduced in the Autumn of last year and went down a storm, whereas “Seaside Donkeys” and “Better Life” were recorded before they had a live outing, and before the lyrics were completed. The recording of “The People Who Drank themselves to Death” is a live rehearsal idea from early 2019 I’d forgotten about and is actually the first time we’d ever played it. I overdubbed vocals over the top later. We haven’t played it again since.

Andy: Paula Duck (synths) is also a professional photographer and has done many documentary projects in the past.  The intention was to catch the the inherent bleak loneliness of the seaside in winter (most of the shots were taken on Boxing Day). Also the sense of the coast being ‘left behind’ by history / prosperity and the irony of the locals thinking that Brexit was the answer.

Colin: We’d originally booked the studio to record a handful of disparate tracks as a “work in progress.” However once we’d heard that Vinyl Eddie were keen to bring out an album with us, I focused on having a set of songs that had a common theme. In this case my upbringing in Sunderland, the drinking culture, Brexit and how the people had voted for it out of sheer desperation in order to try and improve things.

“Seaside Donkey” is Sunderland slang for an alcoholic (alky – plonky – seaside donkey) usually shortened to “Seaside” and the song refers to alcoholism that’s passed on through generations. It was written as a sort of pastiche of an Irish drinking song. “The People Who Drank Themselves To Death” is an observation of groups of blokes who I’ve seen slowly deteriorate due to the drink. I visit Sunderland pretty regularly as my family still live there and the sight of someone in the grip of really heavy drinking is miserable to behold. It’s probably why we’ve never played the song live as the subject matter is too difficult and close to home.

Colin: Big Lils was a pub on the Headrow in Leeds, that I used to walk past every day on my work in the 90s. It had a reputation as being the biggest cesspit on earth and made the General Eliot (another Leeds rough house) look tame in comparison. It certainly did have mock saloon-style swinging doors, with sticky carpets dotted with fag burns and the whole place stank of shit. I went there only once, on the back end of works night out with another lad “for a dare” and it 100% matched its reputation. I was propositioned by a Barbara Cartland lookalike in her 60s, which didn’t make the final lyric – perhaps I missed a trick there. The place itself was closed down about 20 years ago and is now the site of Headrow House, which sells a variety of cocktails in a comfortable setting.

Colin: It’s based on a true story of someone I used to work with – he would book tables at Gordon Ramsay restaurants, fly to exotic locations, buy suits to measure etc. all on credit. He was a “bon vivant” who took advantage of the early 2000s credit card boom with no intention of paying them back. He was another one, sadly who let the booze get the better of him and he did actually end up writing porn for a living before dying in his sleep whilst living at his Mum’s house. The reference to the bejewelled tortoise is taken from JK Huysman’s book “Against Nature” which plots the life of a similar character.

Colin: It could have been called “Take Back Control” or  “Leave Means Leave” or any other of the meaningless, vacuous nonsense churned out at the time.

Colin: Our audience tends to be of the Guardian persuasion so it’s had a sympathetic hearing up to now. I certainly haven’t been cornered by any angry Brexiters wanting to discuss the benefits of trading on WTO terms (probably because there aren’t any)

 

 

 

Colin: He would be great at doing “Love Song” from the album. I deliberately did it in the style of a crooner, specifically Carl Puttnam of Cud but I could see Vegas Elvis doing a much better job.

Colin: There’s a game called 8 Ball Pool” on the site miniclip.com which you can play on your phone. It’s great and I’m spending far too much time on it. The line “Getting thrashed on Red Hot Pawn” refers to a chess site as opposed to wanking material.

Andy: Spiders from Mars (I’ve got the right accent coming from Hull and all that) . I once bought a guitar off Trevor Bolder but had no idea who he was when i was age 15.

Colin: I once dreamt I was in The Fall and it was fucking awful! I’d have loved to have been in the backing band for Sparks at the time of “Kimono My House” – Ron Mael at rehearsals saying “OK I’ve got this idea for a song called This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us, it goes like this.”

Colin: I can’t play lead guitar for toffee so would love to have some atonal axe licks going on above my chugging, Thurston Moore would be nice.

Andy: It is too early to say really. One small festival has been re-scheduled. The summer has been dead for gigs in the past but maybe this tear will be different??

Andy: The singles are digital releases but the album is initially coming out only on vinyl with a download code through Vinyl Eddie https://www.vinyleddie.co.uk

They are a small shop in York selling second hand Vinyl and obsessed with the ‘concept’ of the vinyl release. For a couple of years they have been getting new vinyl manufactured for local bands and distributing online and to other independent record stores. They have enjoyed us live and we were lucky to bump into them with the full album demo before Xmas. They were keen to have the product out for RSD 2020 which would have been 18th April. They are in lock down at the mo as a shop so you can also buy it here.

We may bring the album out on a full digital release in later Summer but want the vinyl album to be the way people encounter the ‘work’ with the music and the full colour sleeve insert so it is a full sound and vision package.

Andy: I seem to spend all my time planning the next shopping trip and waiting for the point when it seems reasonable to start drinking. Bad I know…

Colin: I saw Elvis Costello’s lockdown video on Youtube the other day and he referred to Steve Nieve’s broadcast, I’ll have to check it out. I’m still busy doing the day job from my PC at home, interspersed with upgrading my Legendary Pool Cue for £4.99 and failing to spot checkmate in 3 moves.

Andy: The Wharf Street Galaxy Band, Fat Spatula, Snakerattlers

Colin: What he said.

Colin: Fried egg, bacon, beans and hash browns.

Andy: Bollocks. Sorry

Colin: I love cricket just behind football, at the weekend I was listening to the replay of the Headingley test match from last year and was jumping around like a lunatic even though I already knew what was going to happen at the end. A bit like having sex.