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The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The 2001 album hailed as a 'dizzy, magical voyage of self-discovery'
THERE'S a nice scene in the 2000 film High Fidelity, in which John Cusack's engaging character, the owner of a Chicago record store, murmurs confidently to a colleague: 'I will now sell five copies of The Three EPs, by The Beta Band'. He then slides a disc into the CD player: the opening track, Dry the Rain, fills the store. Customer: 'Who is that?'. Cusack: 'The Beta Band'. Customer (nodding approvingly): 'It's good'. Cusack (sagely): 'I know'. Back then, The Beta Band — Steve Mason (vocals/guitars), John Maclean (samplers/percussion), Robin Jones (drums) and Richard Greentree (bass) — were in vogue, having been championed by the music press and finding favour with a large and enthusiastic fanbase and with such influential musicians as Noel Gallagher. In 2001 they were invited to support Radiohead on a US and Canada tour. They had three top 20 albums between 1999 and 2004 before going their separate ways, but recently announced a reunion tour. It gets underway in September. The band, who first came together in Fife and Edinburgh and fully blossomed in London, released a debut EP, Champion Versions, in July 1997, on a small indie label, Regal Recordings, a Parlophone imprint. It opened with Dry the Rain, which as of today has chalked up some 42 million hits on Spotify. As Mojo magazine's Jim Irvin would say of it, the EP 'made a refreshing change from standard indie fare, displaying an acute awareness of feel and dynamics lacking in most nascent bands'. Two other EPs followed in 1998: The Patty Patty Sound, in March, and Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos, four months later. In October all three materialised on a CD, The Three EPs – the one referenced by Cusack in High Fidelity. 'What makes The Beta Band such a powerful proposition is their ability to pervert the traditional campfire ballad in myriad ways, without appearing contrived … or losing its kernel of warmth', Keith Cameron wrote approvingly in the NME. 'Collectively, these 12 songs leave you gasping, not only at the frenzied sense of enterprise but also the combustible emotional depths therein'. One New Zealand critic noted: 'When Beck made pop fizzy again, The Beta Band inhaled big time. In this collection … folk, hip-hop and the hazy psychedelic dub aesthetic of Primal Scream joyously elope in the whacked-out world of the avant-garde. Unconsciously addictive, this is an album whose halcyon overtones super-glue the listener to the speakers …' Interviewing the band at the time of its release, Mojo's Irvin brought up the common use of the descriptions ''stoned' and 'lo-fi', which had studded more than a few reviews of the original EPs. 'Drugs are just ridiculous', Mason responded. 'We're interested in making music so good that drugs become irrelevant. And all this 'lo-fi' nonsense is just a farce. When we're recording we're trying to get the best sound possible'. Read more Beta Band: 'You know, I find it offensive, the music business and most of the records being made in this country', he added. 'It makes me angry. Especially because people are taken in by it and led to believe that anything different is strange and weird and should be avoided. There's a horrible normality being fed to everyone'. Live, the quartet were an engrossing and unpredictable act. In September 1998, the Independent's Ben Thompson witnessed them at a gig in the capital and pronounced them – with not a little justification – as the most exciting new British band to emerge in the last year-and-a-half by a country mile. 'You know that magical feeling when the music sounds so strange it feels like a secret', he enthused, 'and you look onstage to the people who are making it and then offstage into the faces of the audience, and you realise that hundreds of people are getting the secret at the exact same time? That's what the atmosphere tends to be like when The Beta Band play live'. The 'strange, surging, pagan, deceptively simple music' was a shot in the arm of the 'prone form of the four-piece pop group', he added; the band filled entire evenings with a 'warped and wonderful hybrid of great music, terrible poetry, and alarming videos of strange rituals on Scottish hillsides'. Expectations surrounding the 1999 debut album, The Beta Band, were therefore high, but it turned out to be more unfocused, and perhaps unfinished, than anyone had foreseen. In an episode that came to be much-quoted, the band even dismissed the album out of hand. Mason informed NME: 'It's definitely the worst record we've ever made and it's probably one of the worst records that'll come out this year…But we can always do better. Next time. … It's got some terrible songs on it, our album. None of them are fully realised or fully even written. Half-written songs with jams in the middle'. The Radiohead tour in 2001 allowed The Beta Band to showcase material from their second album, Hot Shots II. 'We never liked the idea of supporting people', Mason told Rolling Stone, 'but I think playing with Radiohead is a really good opportunity for us. All these bands from Britain have been touted as this amazing new thing that was going to save rock & roll. But I think our band and Radiohead can justify, not the hype, but the excitement that's around us in America.' Hot Shots II is a consistently fine album, full of beguiling moments, from the opening tracks, Squares, and Al Sharp, onwards. Human Being samples Carole King's classic, It's Too Late. Gone is one of their enduringly poignant songs. There are layered vocals, and delicate sonic flourishes. It remains the high point of their career. The band were happy with it – certainly, much more so than with the debut album – and it showed. The album narrowly missed out on a top 10 placing in the UK charts. The New York Daily News summed it up thus: 'While the Scottish foursome's music has the dreamy quality of ambient music and the sexy dub bass of trip-hop, it's far more song-oriented, graced as it is by conventional tunes, hooks and choruses'. The Guardian's Alexis Petridis was another admirer, writing after an admittedly uncomfortable interview with the band (the quartet had a reputation, back then, as occasionally 'difficult' interviewees): 'By contrast to their debut, this year's follow-up, Hot Shots II, is fantastic. It boasts incisive songwriting, crisp production from R&B veteran C-Swing [Colin Emmanuel], and a thrilling attitude to sonic experimentation … They have finally produced an album they are proud of. They may well be among the best groups in the world. Yet despite all this, in Britain, Hot Shots II has sold no better than their debut'. Then there was this, from Rolling Stone magazine (which had found the debut album chaotic and unwieldy): "Hot Shots II does its best to return to the epic soundscapes of The Three E.P.'s; the long grooves and easy melodies are back, and the band's tendency toward the diffuse has been reined in. "The group's new self-control is evident on the gorgeous 'Gone', a minimalist ballad featuring only cooing vocals, lilting piano, and a quiet guitar and bass. 'Human Being' is an archetypal Beta Band number, tossing in horns, turntable scratches, harmonica, acoustic strumming and chant-like singing before devolving into a squealing guitar and organ rave-up. It's a heady, eclectic mix, and, like the best of the band's work, as satisfying as it is unique". NME also welcomed the Beta Band back into the fold: "Despite its gung-ho name, 'Hot Shots II' is a dizzy, magical voyage of self-discovery - concise where its predecessor was unfocused, immediate where the pop urge was once lacking. The album's original first single, 'Squares', is still trumped by I Monster's incandescent 'Daydream In Blue', but beyond that, this sounds practically peerless". Uncut magazine, for its part, was struck by the "monk-like close harmonies", which gave the impression of having been sculpted in three dimensions: "the way they soar, arc, cluster and braid is breathtaking". The album was sharply produced in a fully contemporary sense — ultra-glossy, big-sounding, with huge bottom end and tuff beats". The Beta Band would go on to release an equally acclaimed third (and final) studio album, Heroes to Zeros, in 2004, before breaking up. They embarked on a farewell tour that year, the last gig taking place at Edinburgh's Liquid Room on December 5. For all the critical acclaim that had come their way, actual commercial success had proved elusive. Read more On the Record: In a revealing interview with the Guardian's Dave Simpson that November, Mason revealed that the band had subsisted for years on 'McDonald's-type wages' and had their domestic phone lines cut off. 'I asked the accountant how much money was in the band account and he said 'Absolutely nothing',' Mason added. The debt to the record company stands at £1.2m. 'I always imagined we'd be as big as Radiohead,' he continued, 'but it hasn't happened. I still can't understand why'. Mason went on to enjoy a solo career; Maclean made his name as a film director (Slow West, a western starring Michael Fassbender, and 2025's acclaimed Tornado); Jones has worked on set design and costume for various films; Greentree turned his hand, successfully, to carpentry. Twenty one years after the band's demise, Beta fans — and there are many — are delighted that the quartet is re-uniting for a series of gigs in the UK, the US and Canada. 'Sold out' notices have gone up at venue after venue. The first two shows are at the Barrowland, on September 25 and 26. The Three EPs is being reissued on heavyweight double vinyl this summer, too.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Beta Band to reunite after 20 years for UK and USA tour
Alt-rockers The Beta Band have spoken of their excitement at getting back together for a reunion tour across the UK and USA more than 20 years since the group split up. The band was formed in 1996 in St Andrews, Scotland, and went on to achieve top 20 albums as well as the support slot for Radiohead on two US tours. The group also famously featured in the movie High Fidelity when the actor John Cusack plays The Beta Band's song Dry the Rain in the film's record shop. But in 2004, financial difficulties saw the group split, with their final gig played at Edinburgh's Liquid Room on December 4, 2004. The new tour features the line-up of Steve Mason on guitar and vocals, bassist Richard Greentree, John Maclean on samples and keyboard and Robin Jones on drums. Mr Greentree, who is the only Englishman in the group and lives in Portsmouth, Hampshire, told the PA news agency: 'It seems this is a twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity for which I'll be eternally grateful. 'It was an incredible time. Over the last 20 years, I have been frequently asked if I miss it, which has always seemed like an incredible question to me because as if that's not obvious. 'It's just what I always wanted to do, so when it ended, it was a difficult thing to come to terms with. 'And you know, when I finally did come to terms with it was when the universe seemed to have given it back to me. So it seems to have come full circle, which I'm pretty pleased about.' The father of two left the music scene behind to focus on carpentry and bringing up his two sons for much of the time since the band ended. He said: 'One of the aspects is I'm really pleased with is that my kids are gonna get a chance to see me on stage, there's a constant battle between me and my two sons about old cool versus new cool – it's an opportunity for old cool to take the upper hand.' Describing the band's peak, he said: 'I think the highlight was probably the American tours, I can't deny it was the tours we went on with Radiohead. 'We got to play the most famous venues, the Madison Square Gardens and Hollywood Bowl and a lot of crazy venues.' He added: 'Some of the gigs when they really, really work, when they really gel together, it's just an unbeatable feeling, you just have that dynamic, it's not like anything else on Earth.' Mr Greentree said that the band had kept in touch over the years, and a photoshoot at Stansted House, near Emsworth, Hampshire, was an opportunity to reconnect. He said: 'Just like the musical side of stuff is gonna come flying back, like riding a bike, so do the in-jokes. 'It is a really good dynamic – I think it's essential, not to get on, but there has to be a dynamic in one way or the other. 'We're quite lucky that for us, when we're together, it's a lot of fun.' A deluxe vinyl reissue of The Beta Band's first release – The Three EPs – has been released to coincide with the reunion. The new tour has been welcomed by one of the band's most famous fans, the author Irvine Welsh. The Trainspotting writer said: 'The band were pivotal for me in terms of my own musical journey, in that they represented a gateway back into indie guitar music, which I'd basically given up since becoming obsessed with rave and acid house. 'The emotions they induced were a kind of throwback to school days when you were very pompous and prescriptive about what you liked and derisive towards non-believers. It's a testimony to the power of the music that they could take me to the raw state of the younger man.' The reunion tour starts at Glasgow's Barrowland in September, with tickets for sale to the general public from Friday, March 7.
The Guardian
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘We spent £100,000 doing a gig in a scout hut!' The Beta Band on debt, disastrous decisions – and their defiant comeback
Steve Mason is remembering the day in 2004 he was told the Beta Band was over. 'There was enough money in the bank account to pay each of us a month's wages,' says the singer, seated in a busy London greasy spoon. 'And by that point, we were only on a grand a month. Then that was it.' For the previous eight years, life in the band formed in the Scottish seaside town of St Andrews had been one of constant reinvention and innovation. They'd made fiercely original records and experimental films, while putting on visually stunning live extravaganzas. Their transatlantic fanbase included Oasis, Radiohead, Irvine Welsh and actor John Cusack, who'd recommended their song Dry the Rain for a now-famous scene in High Fidelity. Playing a record store assistant, Cusack announces: 'I will now sell five copies of The Three EPs by the Beta Band.' He then puts the CD on and the shopppers nod their heads to Dry the Rain. Although the Beta Band were popular, notching up top 20 albums and biggish shows, they should have become massive. Instead, they ended up owing their label Parlophone £1.2m, reflecting all the money spent on recording, touring, videos and more. They weren't expected to pay it back – but the plug was pulled, and the band was over. 'Something like that is so intense,' says Mason. 'It's a big part of your life that's gone. At the same time, a relationship I had with a girl that had run concurrently with the band ended as well. I had a monumental breakdown. I had a plan to kill myself. Then I tried to get myself sectioned.' But now, 21 years on, they're back, with a reissue campaign and UK and US reunion tours to 'celebrate the music'. Keyboards/samples man John Maclean says he came to regard the debt as a 'badge of honour' and Mason, still only 49, certainly has no regrets. 'We never wanted to be rock stars or make lots of money,' he says. 'Our ambitions were solely artistic and we pushed ourselves until the last minute. Then we split up. But how many bands can say they spent £1.2m on art?' Mason was working as a mechanic when conversations with old pal Gordon Anderson and Maclean, who the latter had met at art school, gave him an epiphany. 'I'd never heard people talk unashamedly about art and poetry before,' he explains. 'I came from this toxic male culture where everyone tried to be tough and there was a lot of tabloid newspapers and talking about women in a certain way. But I suddenly realised the real bravery lies in art.' Anderson soon left, for reasons concerning his mental health, and the lineup became Mason, Maclean, drummer Robin Jones (another art school student) and bassist Richard Greentree. Pitting themselves entirely against the GB jingoism and posturing of the tail end of Britpop, they created music that was completely different: engrossing mixtures of guitars, house grooves, ambient drones, R&B, psychedelia and haunting, enigmatic lyrics. 'We went clubbing and listened to the Stone Roses,' Maclean remembers. 'But I'd sample a bird sound rather than someone in America going, 'Wassup?' It was very organic. We worked with tapes. Pre-computers. Technology was catching up with us. We were constantly making videos. Way before TikTok and YouTube.' Champion Versions EP, made for just £4,000 in 1997, was immediately playlisted on Radio 1. 'Driving to our first gig,' says Mason, 'we pulled up next to some builders and our song came on their radio. We all started cheering.' In the 1990s, major labels could lavish cash on artists, so the Betas told Parlophone: 'All we want from you is the money to pursue our ideas, then to be left alone.' After early compilation The Three EPs reached No 35, further catapulting expectations, Mason felt 'on a mission from God' when they were then given £300,000 to record their eponymous debut in four cities and one isolated hut in Scotland. 'The original idea had been to record in three different continents with Indigenous musicians,' he sniggers. 'But that would have cost a million.' However, they then disowned the album. 'In those days,' says Maclean, 'Oasis would release a new record and claim, 'This is the greatest ever!' So there was an element of us going the other way.' Mason now admits the album has flaws, but is not without its moments: 'We were still finding a way of writing together. The best tracks are the ones we worked hardest on.' The album reached No 18 in 1999, but two years later the band were still dismissing it, not least in a notoriously grumpy interview with the Guardian in Atlanta. Mason says it was sprung on them just as they came off stage, tired and still jetlagged. 'So it was a disaster.' Hot Shots II, made with R&B producer C-Swing, was released to rave reviews in 2001. The album reached No 13 in the UK and dented the US Billboard charts, but by then the band had acquired a reputation for being difficult. Mason says: 'When we recorded the single Broke for Top of the Pops, I said, 'We're in the belly of the beast now boys!' as the song started. So it was never broadcast.' Squares, the single that followed a year later, would surely have been a huge hit – had Sheffield electronic act I Monster not released a song containing an identical earworm sample of Daydream, Günter Kallmann Choir's trippy 1970 single. 'I'm still suspicious,' admits Mason. 'What are the odds on that?' Radio 1 played I Monster and the Sheffield boys went Top 20. Some of the Betas' adventures are quite Spinal Tap. They spent £4,000 on Velcro suits which a roadie left on the tube. They got themselves stage outfits that lit up. 'We'd hear the crew walking down corridors muttering, 'The fucking suits',' Mason laughs, 'because they were always breaking down. They were only powered by nine-volt batteries but one night Richard threw his bass down and started ripping off his jacket. He'd been sweating so much he was being electrocuted by this little battery.' The band once turned up in a small US town only to discover that the venue was 'a scout hut'. They had to halve the show's capacity just to get their equipment in. 'We put on a hundred-grand show for 150 people,' laughs Mason. 'But I still get messages saying, 'You changed our town!'' High Fidelity and tours with Radiohead boosted their American popularity enough for Mason to justifiably claim to have been 'bigger in the US than Manic Street Preachers or Robbie Williams'. But then, as the singer has revealed in previous interviews, an onstage joke in Texas, about clubbing together to get a rifle to shoot President George Bush, led to a petition to deport him being sent to the FBI. Today, Mason insists such behaviour wasn't self-sabotage, but was actually caused by his struggles with mental health. 'I was suffering a monumental lack of confidence and other stuff. I was so disappointed with the debut album. I mostly used to smash up my own possessions. Then once in rehearsals, I read some comments in the music press slagging us off. I picked up a samurai sword and caused four grand's worth of damage to our equipment in 60 seconds. I remember John saying, 'Well, that's the rehearsal over.'' Maclean thinks that rather than rush to record 2004's Heroes to Zeros, their third album, they should have taken six months off to recharge their batteries and repair their relationships. 'But there was never a plan,' he adds. 'It was always, 'Right, we're all moving into one house.' 'Right, we're splitting up!'' With hindsight, Mason thinks the biggest reason they didn't become as successful as they should have was 'a lack of effective management or guidance. So we made poor decisions, especially choosing the second manager because he had eyes like a great white shark.' The week after they found out they owed £1.2m, EMI signed Robbie Williams for £80m. A more pressing issue was the £120,000 the members collectively owed the tax office. Mason sighs: 'It took me 12 years to pay my share off.' Still, things haven't turned out too badly. They've all got families. Mason, much happier, has made five solo albums. Greentree pursued carpentry. Jones and Maclean became film directors, the latter after actor Michael Fassbender liked the Beta Band videos and suggested collaborating. This led to the acclaimed 2015 experimental film Slow West. Maclean reveals that his new movie, Tornado, is loosely based on the Beta Band video for Trouble. 'A samurai comes to Britain, suffering nightmares. But instead of me in it, it's a Japanese actor called Kōki – and instead of Robin's dad, it's got Tim Roth.' Meanwhile, it's hard to argue with how Mason sums up these upcoming tours: 'A chance to see one of the greatest British bands of the last 30 years – before they turn us into holograms.' The Beta Band's UK tour starts at Barrowland, Glasgow, on 25 September. A deluxe reissue of The Three EPs is released at the same time, with more to follow.
