12 September 2007
Newsdesk
You don’t have to young, beautiful or even play an instrument these days to crack into music. Music News meets the mould breakers.
For years the music industry has reinforced the notion that an ageing man's musical capabilities both start and stop at the Dad Dance and singing bad renditions of Suspicious Minds. But in a world where even Corries’s own Bill Tarmey (aka Jack Duckworth) have made concerted stabs at a career in music consequently exacerbating the image crisis, it seems clear that old folk have done little to alleviate the dowdy Des O’Connor-esque stigma attached to artists borne of a particular post-World War II vintage.
Yet something strange is happening in music that's sticking two fingers up at pretty boy rock and bubble gum pop. It’s become apparent that one of the most unyielding industries to break into even with lithe limbs, real teeth and a full head of hair – has now become more accessible to scores of unsigned talent regardless of whether they seem more akin to X Factor reject than chart topping superstar. And all because of the internet. We predict a riot, and not from today’s misunderstood youth…
It’s not over ‘til the fat man sings
Clem Chambers looks nothing like a popstar, rockstar or superstar DJ. Porky, grey and passed-it, you’d be forgiven for mistaking him as someone’s embarrassing midlife-crisis-stricken dad before even picturing him as one of music’s most exciting new electronica acts – a genre traditionally championed by hip artists like Orbital and Air; not by folk resembling a poor man’s Harry Seacombe.
What would the Ibiza in-crowd think if they discovered they were grooving to techno beats created by, gulp, an old fogy? Even envisaging a middle-aged man sharing the same superstar DJ dream held by many a spotty teenager conjures up warped images of Harry Enfield’s Kevin. Yet this has not impeded Chambers’ success. For what merely was a hobby three years ago confined to the creative refuge of his bedroom developed into something big, quite accidentally.
It was on the networking site MySpace that multi-platinum artist Alannah Myles and Public Image Limited’s Pete Jones randomly scoped his profile of trippy electronica music, where Chambers operates as both Chill Bill and Nadine and Charlie, and were so impressed by what they heard that they offered to work with him. He is now working on an album with Jones and collaborating with Myles on a series of experimental tracks. Further works as a result of this have subsequently featured in films.
Pretty impressive stuff for a fluke, considering the millions of unsigned artists online each vying for the same recognition and fame the site has helped bestow on the likes of the Arctic Monkeys. And even more of a result for Chambers – a stock market guru by profession - who can’t actually play an instrument, unless you count the recorder.
“It’s true,” he laments. “I’ve never got on with the violin, guitar or piano, though not through want of trying. Even my hands have become unfamiliar with the pen seeing everything I do is with a computer. ” Evidently, including his music. “I’ve been a frustrated musician all my life, always having songs in my head but with no means to fluidly express them. But music software these days have given even someone as sausage-fingered as me the ability to control instruments that would otherwise take me a lifetime to master. Without it I doubt I would’ve pursued this hobby, let alone realise how much I could achieve.”
One random day and a few impulsive downloads later, Chambers was writing up to a staggering ten tracks a day. His inspiration? His dreams. Psychologists would have a field day trying to interpret his surrealist tunes, which range from spooky and strange (Do you Cyber? featured in the 2006 horror flick The Nun) to ambient and stoned (Don’t walk on the grass will soundtrack in the animated 70s cult comic series The Fabulous Freak Brothers, about the doped-up misadventures of three hippies). Everything else is a play on punk, country and classical influences. Sounds like a recipe for a headache.
The incongruous melding of stylistically unmixable tunes can only be the brainchild of a narcotic-ravaged if not slightly unhinged mind. Is this another sad case of an old geezer endeavouring to relive his doped up college days?
“I’ve always been a great admirer of electronica. That genre of music never really existed back in my day, so I guess in that sense perhaps I am. I love Goldfrapp, Portishead and I think Bjork’s vocals are sublime. Along with Mozart, I think you’ll fine my music is quite influenced by these artists. As for drugs, have you ever had cheese before bed? Cheese dreams give plenty of warped and wonderful fodder for artistic interpretation. That’s my drug, that’s my hallucinogen.”
Chambers’ collaboration with former punk icon Pete Jones under the name Pete and Charlie (www.peteandcharlie.com) seems an unusual if not seemingly mismatched coupling paralleled only by Portishead’s own bizarre alliance with Shirley Bassey, or Eminem’s duet with Elton John. Eighties punk icon – an agent of all things anti-establishment teamed up with, er, one of the City’s fat cats?
“I’m drawn to music that’s different or has a quirky edge to it, and I try to find artists whose music I think I can add to,” explained Jones on the first time he came across Chambers’ Chill Bill MySpace profile whilst “ambling through cyberspace”.
“I felt there could be some interesting output if guitars and vocals were added to the electronica mix. I still play with stringed instruments and like to mix that with the pure electronica sound. A nice dirty guitar line sits well with a synthesised part.”
If going to a computer music gig however sounds about as much crack as watching a bunch of data-entry clerks type in synchrony to The Prodigy’s Firestarter, then seeing Chambers’ jam to a virtual orchestra controlled by Lawnmower Man’s visor and an electric guitar worn back to front (the smooth underside acts as a mouse mat on which a laser mouse mimics a guitar pick) might pleasantly surprise you. Or seed the fear of midlife crisis if not already in its bony grips.
One thing’s for sure – the internet has given global exposure to a multitude of unsigned talent like Chambers, whether young or old, conventional or weird, democratising an otherwise ageist and superficial industry. Look at The Zimmers who stormed the Top 30 following two million hits of their video on YouTube; David Stewart recently enlisted an unknown singer to perform at The Tower of London concert in July following an online talent search. Even Kate Nash’s phenomenal rise to fame was greatly catalysed by Lily Allen’s online patronage.
So has the trend been set for big names to form collaborations with plebs albeit of exceptional talent? Will Madonna hook up with Helen, 43, receptionist and Weston-Super-Mare’s answer to power ballad heavyweight Mariah Carey? Watch this MySpace…
www.myspace.com/chillbill2
www.myspace.com/nadineandcharlie
Chill Bill and Nadine and Charlie tunes can be purchased on iTunes.
By: Andrea San Pedro
