The Waterboys - Karma
To Burn
The Waterboys
are set to release their “first ever official live
album”, Karma To Burn (Puck/Go Entertainment) on
Monday 26 September.
Selected from recent tours, Karma To Burn includes
full-band versions of Medicine Bow, Peace Of Iona, My Dark
Side, Fisherman's Blues, Long Way To The Light, Glastonbury
Song, The Whol Of The Moon, and a 13 minute Pan Within,
plus three-man performances of Bring 'Em All In, Open and
The Return Of Jimi Hendrix. The album also has two covers:
Rodney Crowell's ‘A Song For The Life’, with
Sharon Shannon guesting, and ‘Come Live With
Me’.
As well as Steve Wickham and Richard Naiff, Karma To Burn
features R&B rhythm section Carlos Hercules and Steve
Walters.
Tracks include:
LONG WAY TO THE
LIGHT • PEACE OF IONA • GLASTONBURY SONG •
MEDICINE BOW • THE PAN WITHIN • OPEN • THE
RETURN OF JIMI HENDRIX • MY DARK SIDE • A SONG
FOR THE LIFE • BRING ‘EM ALL IN • THE
WHOLE OF THE MOON • FISHERMAN’S BLUES •
COME LIVE WITH ME
Read the brilliant review by Plato
Mania!
(in Dutch)
The Waterboys -
Universal Hall
My name is
Mike Scott. I formed The Waterboys in London in 1983 to
realise my vision of an ever-changing band, playing an
ever-changing music and following that music wherever
its inner sources and inspirations lead. This means
regardless of whether it's fashionable, commercial, or
whether it conforms to critical or public expectations. And
yes, we have taken some strange twists and turns through
the years!
Our first 3 albums, The Waterboys, A Pagan Place and This
Is The Sea, were released between 1983 and 1985, and
contain the widescreen rock music that had fermented in my
heart and head since I was a teenager and which was
influenced by my favourite artists at the time - Van
Morrison, The Patti Smith Group, Velvet Underground,
Television, Steve Reich and Bob Dylan. The first two were
in effect solo albums, made before the first Waterboys band
played a concert, though by the time of A Pagan Place the
ensemble of players included Anthony Thistlethwaite
(sax/mandolin), Kevin Wilkinson (drums), Karl Wallinger
(keyboards) and Roddy Lorimer (trumpet) - and all then
contributed mightily to This is The Sea, the record on
which I achieved all my youthful musical ambitions. We
toured through 1984 and 85, getting known, honing our sound
and, then as now, improvising onstage - something I've
always loved.
Then I met Steve Wickham, a fiddler from Dublin. I'd heard
him on a tape and knew straight away this was the new sound
I'd been looking for - fiery, elemental, passionate. He
guested with us on tour and quickly joined full time. When
the tour ended I went to visit him in Ireland for a couple
of weeks and stayed six years.
In Ireland our music changed and became more acoustic.
Anthony's mandolin and Steve's fiddle opened the sound up
as we explored folk, gospel, blues, cajun and country
music. We started recording our fourth album in early '86
and completed it 100 songs and 2 years later. It was called
Fisherman's Blues and its twelve tracks represent a merging
of rock and traditional folk music. We toured it with an
expanded eight-piece band - fiddles, pipes, bouzoukis,
guitars, drums, mandolins, whistles, songs, tunes,
recitations, jigs, reels and waltzes. The brilliant young
Irish accordion player Sharon Shannon joined the band. We
lived the life of traditional musicians and appropriately
made our next album in the west of Ireland. Room To Roam,
recorded in the seaside village of Spiddal in Connemara, is
remembered as our 'folly', yet yields its secrets to the
patient enquirer.
In mid 1990 Anthony and I wanted to take the sound back to
rock. Steve didn't and split - quite right too. The band
imploded and we toured as a rump 4 piece plus brass
section, our backs against the wall.
In early 1991 our old single The Whole Of The Moon was
re-issued and was a big hit in the UK. That summer I moved
to New York and set about starting over. I made an album,
Dream Harder, which came from my electric rock'n'roll
roots, but couldn't find the right combination of players
for a new live band. Around that time I visited the
Findhorn Foundation spiritual community in Scotland and in
1994 moved there and made a one-man solo album Bring 'Em
All In, written about my Findhorn experiences. I toured the
world for 2 years with a one-man show - just me and an
acoustic guitar and piano - and got to know the audience,
and myself, a whole lot better.
After that I was hungry and ready to play with a band again
and in '96 I went back to London and made Still Burning -
which expanded the spiritual theme of Bring 'Em All In, but
in full pop/rock colour - and the following year went back
on the road with my 'Mike Scott' band. I loved it, but
playing without the Waterboys title was like punching
beneath my weight. So I reclaimed the name and in 1999 made
a Waterboys comeback album A Rock In The Weary Land -
that's the one with the fuzzed vocals and the 'sonic rock'
with which I sought to represent how grotesque and crazy
late 20th century London appeared to a guy moving back
there from a spiritual community. In 2000 I assembled a new
Waterboys from the players on the album - just like I did
in 1984 - and hit the road. Steve Wickham guested with us
at the Dublin shows and it felt so good he re-joined the
band.
In 2001 I compiled an album of the best of the still
unreleased Fisherman's Blues songs, called Too Close To
Heaven. It was highly satisfying to complete such long
unfinished business. We toured the world all that year and
much of 2002.
In early 2003 I brought Steve and our keyboard player
Richard Naiff to Findhorn to make Universal Hall, a record
containing one Irish reel and eleven spiritual songs that
articulate - to the best of my ability - the vision that
drives, challenges, sustains and transforms me.
Mike Scott March 2003
Discography:
The Waterboys: The Waterboys
The Waterboys: A Pagan Place
The Waterboys: This Is The Sea
The Waterboys: Fisherman's Blues
The Waterboys: Room To Roam
The Waterboys: Dream Harder
Mike Scott: Bring 'Em All In
Mike Scott: Still Burning
The Whole Of The Moon - the music of Mike Scott and The
Waterboys
The Waterboys: A Rock In The Weary Land
The Waterboys: Too Close To Heaven - The Unreleased
Fisherman's Blues Sessions
The Waterboys: UNIVERSAL HALL
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