The Waterboys

[Uli]

A tribute to Keef, no less...
https://youtu.be/NBl1TYFde6Q

And another new track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUct9989y4g

[Uli]

MIKE SCOTT ON THE NEW SONGS FROM OUT OF ALL THIS BLUE

Mike writes:
“Many of these songs were recorded as I wrote them. Usually I write a song, demo it, play it live a few times, then get around to recording it some passage of time after the initial inspiration hit. There are benefits to working like this because a song grows through the processes of demoing and live performance. But nothing ever quite beats the spirit of that first blast of magic that happens when a song is landing, when its downloading itself into the mind and emotions of the writer during composition. So on this record, because I recorded as I wrote, and because even on songs where I developed the instrumentation and arrangement later I kept the original vocals, you're hearing that initial spark, the true spirit of each song. Morning Came Too Soon, Love Walks In, New York, Man What A Woman, Rokudenashiko, Didn't We Walk On Water, Kinky's History Lesson, Monument, Girl In The Window Chair, Mr Charisma - all those vocals are the day or hour I wrote the lyric.”

While the album's an enjoyable listen, I myself have the impression that some songs seem "unfinished" (or not "worked out" enough, unlike previous Waterboys records), almost like "demos" or "sketches". My opinion might still change, but right now I see this as one of the weaker Waterboys releases...

[Uli]

From the forthcoming album 'Where The Action Is', out May 24th:

https://youtu.be/dgoxLOOjqvE

[Uli]

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/8507695/the-waterboys-where-the-action-is-video

Where the Action Is comes out May 24 and contains an autobiographical song dedicated to the Clash's Mick Jones ("London Mick") and "Out of All This Blue," which was the title of the Waterboys' last album in 2017. "It began as a kind of mixtape album that I was going to put out almost privately," Scott says. "After I finished the last record I had a number of instrumentals left over, and I started playing with those and putting vocals over them. Then a couple of them turned into actual songs and little by little what began as a mash-up mixtape record turned into a regular Waterboys record of serious songs." But rest assured there's still plenty of stylistic variety throughout the 11 tracks.

"I'm afraid that's gonna be the case of all Waterboys records," says Scott, who kicks off European Waterboys dates on May 19, will be part of Fairport's Cropredy Convention during August, and is working on a North American tour for fall. "There's always variety. I don't work within one style of music. I like them all and feel free to move within them all."

[Uli]

News from the band:

Following the release of Where The Action Is, The Waterboys release the Out Of All This Blue EP today.

Written for a friend who's been to a dark place, Out Of All This Blue is a compassionate song of reassurance; a Waterboys classic in the making.
You can hear the original 2015 demo version of the title track from the EP at
https://youtu.be/MgyxSrWKXaM

The EP features the studio recording of Out Of All This Blue from Where The Action Is, the 2015 demo and two live tracks, London Mick and The Whole Of The Moon (featuring Blaine Harrison from Mystery Jets), recorded on the Chris Evans Virgin Radio Breakfast Show and capturing the band's rock ‘n’ roll edge.

[Uli]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2019/09/14/the-waterboys-mike-scott-man-action/4sXY5L26mE6taqQSelx75M/story.html

The new 10-song collection offers hints as to why the Waterboys, who play the Wilbur Theater on Wednesday, have continued to thrive. It deftly bridges all the phases of the band’s career, offering up driving rock, lyrical love ballads, soulful laments, a rock/hip-hop hybrid, and of course, their wonderful, wistful folk songs.

“I think the key is exploring different sounds,” says Scott, one of pop’s true poet laureates. “I don’t consider myself just a rock and roll musician. I play country, funk, soul, folk, and folk-rock. I’ll play any kind of music if it turns me on, including hip-hop.”

[Uli]

One of my faves from the new(er) songs!

The Waterboys - In My Time on Earth (Live at Old Town School Of Music - Chicago)
https://youtu.be/tGEzwUZpVMs

[Uli]

https://www.ocregister.com/2019/10/08/the-waterboys-mike-scott-talks-southern-california-shows-and-how-kendrick-lamar-the-clash-and-his-kids-inspired-him/

“I think I’ve gotten to a place where I can move between different styles of music very easily, and I’ve got a band of around me who can do the same,” says Scott by phone from his hotel room in Philadelphia, his light Scottish accent testimony to his hometown of Edinburgh. “So it feels natural to work with different styles.

“And I also think that they all sound like the Waterboys anyway,” says Scott, who with the Waterboys will play shows in Santa Ana on Sunday, Oct. 13 and Los Angeles on Tuesday, Oct. 15. “There are certain constants like my voice, the way I play guitar and piano. The way that some of the people I’ve worked with — Steve (Wickham) on his fiddle or Brother Paul and his keys — play and sound.”

The Waterboys’ new album arrived at the end of May, two years after the 2017 double album “Out Of All This Blue,” a fertile period of music-making for Scott that he attributes in part to his role as father to a 6-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son.

“I have two young children and since that I kind of learned how to work much faster,” Scott says. “And also, because I’m always telling them stories and making up songs for them, it means that the wheels of my creativity are constantly running. It’s a very small jump from making up a song about a cartoon character for my daughter to writing a regular song for the Waterboys.

“So I find it very easy to be creative now,” he says. “I’m switched on all the time and whenever I get to my studio, which is every day for a few hours at least, there’s always something happening.”

“I think since I wrote my book (the 2012 memoir “Adventures of a Waterboy”) I’ve got a very peaceful relationship with my own history,” Scott says. “And I like looking back at those times and trying to capture their flavor in a song.” ...

“I’ve never believed that God or spirituality was an angry guy hurlin’ thunderbolts and judging everything that I did,” he says. “I spent decades trying to escape from those illusions or those human delusions. To me, spirituality is an experience of lovingness and of self-acceptance, and in that encounter in ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn,’ those two good creatures meet their God, and they are loved. Very beautiful indeed.”