RECORD OF THE WEEK - JOSH T PEARSON, Last of the Country Gentlemen

THERE’S a danger of trivialising this masterpiece by suggesting it is one for the broken-hearted.

But the anguish mournful Texan Josh T Pearson painstakingly lays out in Last of the Country Gentlemen has more than a hint of “I feel your pain and I’ve suffered tenfold” about it.
With just seven songs over 60 minutes, Pearson takes his sweet time building each sorrowful track. Stunning but not for the impatient. (Out March 14, plays Union Chapel May 11).

THE FLOWERPOT'S DEMISE + LITTLE NOISE SECRETS + CHESNEY HAWKES SAY NO MORE

DESPITE management being “gutted” at shutting down, The Flowerpot’s final night on Sunday was one hell of a party. Shame Camden loses such an important venue in the year Mayor Jonathan Simpson has worked so hard to champion the borough’s musical heritage. Luckily they’re already working on a new home.


• Now’s the time to speculate on which special guests are going to pop up at the Union Chapel’s Mencap Little Noise Sessions. I’m thinking the Pet Shop Boys, who are playing the Big Noise Sessions, may just pop in on Hurts night (Nov 17). Or how about Kylie? She recently recorded a song with Hurts, is she due in the UK around then...Course I’m still hoping to see Paolo Nutini team up with Amy Winehouse. She’s played her fair share of secret gigs lately, so maybe she’ll joins our Scottish Italian darling on Nov 16.



• Atlanta soul artist Anthony David who played the Jazz Cafe last Thursday may have a brief insight into what it's like to be inside the President of the USA's mind. Apparently, he’s on Barak Obama’s iPod (a recommendation from the wife), as well as being cousins with Shawn Stockman of Boys II Men.

• My spies at the Camden Crawl launch party at the Bull and Gate last week have tipped Jon and Jehn as a defo must when planning your crawl route next year. Early bird tickets on sale now.

• Chesney Hawkes played The Luminaire last week – yes he is still going.

• The Constitution on St Pancras Way may be off the beaten track but hey, that’s where you find rough gems. Their sideline in decent gigs is a reasonably-guarded secret, see for yourself next time you're on the hunt for a good unsigned act,

LADY GAGA WHO? MIDLIFE CRISIS ME? TIM ROBBINS AND THE ROGUES GALLERY BAND TAKE OVER NORTH LONDON

NOTE: I was lucky enough to interview actor Tim Robbins this weekend - here is the first of two stories to come from this. The second is below.

IT'S 5am in an airport lounge in Hawaii and actor Tim Robbins is speaking quietly into his mobile phone trying desperately not to be “that guy”.
The wedding he was at ended a couple of hours ago and Robbins just laughs when I ask if he’s merry.
“I’ll never tell,” he says heartily.

Robbins and The Rogues Gallery Band play Islington’s Union Chapel on Wednesday and the chapel fits the one criteria the Hollywood actor/director/singer requested of all venues on this tour.
“I wanted to make sure they weren't too big and that they didn't have bars actually inside the room I was playing in,” he said. “I'm all for bars but it gets noisy and the songs I'm playing are a little more intimate than that... to make sure that we have a shot at telling the stories.”
The band name should give a hint at what Robbins’ music is all about, a bit folksy, described as “rousing, raggle-taggle gypsy Americana and story telling songs”.

His debut eponymously titled album, out September 27, will be the 51-year-old actor's first.
But don’t be fooled into trying to match the lyrics to Robbins’ real life.
“The stories are about all kinds of different things, people I've run into on the road who've told me their stories, things I've read in newspapers, moments in time in my own life...I was down in New Orleans in June and I wrote a lyric about an experience I had down there...What was the experience? Oh I don't know, no comment.”

And this is Robbins' attitude if you try to get close to his personal reality.
He warns: “If you're listening to an album and you're thinking about the personal life of a person you should probably check into an institution. People that are obsessed with other people's personal life who they don’t know, it's kind of a little silly and a waste of time. I believe that as well with people you do know. Mind your own business.
“It's a real good idea to try not to get into people's personal business because it's trouble. It's true. In personal business of friend of yours if you start laying your opinions on their personal situation can only lead to bad things. Sure you can be an open hearted compassionate person and be a sounding board if a friend's in trouble but to then pry and to needle someone. You know it’s not good.”

That's not to say he doesn't pull on real-life experiences in his writing – just be warned, his songs were written well-before his much-publicised break-up with actress Susan Sarandon, a fact he wants to stress.
He said: “I would like to set the record straight. If you heard Desert Island Discs I was clearly making a joke – the “midlife crisis” thing.”

Robbins has been affronted by UK Press taking his joke and suggesting he wrote the album after the break-up. So much so that he has asked if this interview is being taped for accuracy.
He said: “For them to write a story about how I did the album as a response to recent events and then have a psychiatrist write a side article about what men go through in a midlife crisis is and compare my situation to someone who's institutionalised and on and on...it was like really? Is it that important to make some story up where there is no story. All these songs were written way before any recent events in my personal life and have to do with many, many different things and about zero to do with a midlife crisis.”


(An old clip - can't find any recent ones).

So what is he singing about then?
“When I'm inspired by something or someone, whether it's inspiration from frustration and anger or from being touched by something. 

“I've written completely sober. I've written a few late night in hotel rooms. A lot of the album is from hotel rooms. I hate hotel rooms. When I'm on the road I try to remain open to experience. It's the only way I can be away from home. You know you have to treat it as a blessing. We find ourselves in circumstances we wouldn't normally be in and oftentimes that leads to conversations or a character that is intriguing. So you go home and you write.”

So the few insights I can gather about Robbins' life away from work include his love of riding his bicycle, and working in his garden “no skydiving for me”.
His confession that Abba is his guilty pleasure: “Abba can get in my skin sometimes. I can forget myself sometimes with Abba. All of a sudden you start tapping your foot.”
His admiration for Nina Simone's Sinnerman: “It just rocks. It's just got such a great groove on it and she's just amazing. They way she performs and interprets songs is just genius.”
His thirst for learning about new music from his children: “They've introduced me to Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, LCD Soundsystem, I'll stop there. I just absolutely love the new Arcade Fire album.”
His choice of funeral music: “I would like a second line. It's a New Orleans tradition. The first line is the brass band that plays on the way to the cemetery and the second line is the one that plays on the way back. The first one is super slow and the second line is a kind of celebration, it’s very uplifting, danceworthy.”
And his dislike of the outside world intruding on his home life: “You know what boring very liberating thing you can do is to get rid of your answering machine. That was really a great liberation for me. So I'm trying to apply that to the cellphone and voicemail. When you get home you should be home so I try to get any business done before I get home but I’m not perfect.”

It seems like he has succeeded on this last task as when I ask what he thinks of tabloid staple Lady Gaga, he replies genuinely: “Who?
Honestly I don’t listen to hit music, I don’t listen to radio stations, I don’t have a television either so she’s kind of not landed on my lap and so I don’t have an opinion either way.”
• Tim Robbins and the Rogues Gallery Band play the Union Chapel (Sept 30) and HMV Forum, along with Paolo Nutini for the Q Awards Show (Oct 22).

OSCAR-WINNER TIM ROBBINS: U.S. MEDIA IS "DUPING" AMERICANS INTO BELIEVING IN THE RIGHT WING TEA-PARTY MOVEMENT

HOLLYWOOD superstar Tim Robbins has told how the US media is “duping” his fellow Americans into believing the right-wing Tea Party movement is good for them.
In a telephone interview from a Hawaii airport lounge this week, the actor and director – who plays Islington's Union Chapel on Thursday and Kentish Town's Forum in October along with his Rogues Gallery Band – launched into an attack on the “unrelenting propaganda we hear in the US media”.

Mr Robbins, famous for roles in such films as The Shawshank Redemption and Mystic River, said: “It created an entire movement out of a couple of rich people. They call it the Tea Party movement but from the very start it's a very well-funded right-wing extremist group.

“The media treated it as if it's a serious political party and gave it undue attention so much so that ordinary people are being duped into this line of thinking which is good for billionaires but not good for them.”
The actor, who recently split from actress Susan Sarandon after 23 years together, added: “Once again we’re facing a ridiculous (mid-term) election and all this is fuelled by fear and hatred and distrust and so the right wing sends it right all over the media, you know how stupid people can get, but it's so shocking to me. It's always disappointed me but never surprising. It's clear in my mind and has been for 25 years and no-one seems to want to get to the root of the problem. Free Press has been corrupted.”
Mr Robbins, who went to Catholic school but describes himself as “lapsed” also took the opportunity to question organised religion in the wake of the pope's visit.
He said: “I’m not a Catholic now...I don’t follow any deified religious leader, whatever religion it is...Religion makes people do foolish things and usually the bastardisation of faith leads to terrible behaviour.”
He recalled his experiences as a schoolboy, saying: “I would be the one that would stand up if everyone was complaining in the schoolyard of excessive homework or unfair grading. I would be the one that would stand up for them. In Catholic school the nuns would then say “does anybody else feel this?” and most of the time my classmates would just throw you under the bus.”