Artist description The Starlets “When I stare at things or hear things, I think there might be some kind of beauty to them. I mean the little things, the way we make it through the day, experiencing pleasure. Trees in the streets or a small bird fluttering around the garden, paint flaking from the kitchen window pane, dust motes in the sunlight, the wind through poplars, the tram bell signalling departure. I’m alert, you might say, to the beauty of these things, the local nuances that bring life alive. But all there is, is sadness…I am so far removed from everything, that I can’t even cry.” - LUKE DAVIES The Starlets are Biff Smith (vocals / guitar), Mark McSwiggan (backing vocals / guitar), Stephen McGourty (bass), Craig Laurie (drums), Nigel Baillie (brass) and Iain White (strings). Based in Glasgow, belonging nowhere, The Starlets are a melancholy pop group with ambitions to be cheerful. A diverse range of influences, from the Velvet Underground via the Go-Betweens and Prefab Sprout to Judy Garland, have all inspired the band’s sound. A sound that you can hear on their debut album, 'Surely Tomorrow You’ll Feel Blue.' The quotation at the top of the page speaks of a desire with which the band identify: the desire to seek out and celebrate life’s small joys in the face of hopelessness, or worse, indifference. Turning this struggle into something that makes sense, is of course the difficult part. The potential success of the entire venture is however made all the more likely if undertaken whilst wearing only the most stylish of outfits. The songs on 'Surely Tomorrow You’ll Feel Blue' hint at a life lived on the margins of the world, but society itself is no more than an association of minorities. Some minorities simply have more money than others, that’s all. If you’re lucky, you’ll find your voice; if you’re very lucky, you’ll find your audience. 'Surely Tomorrow You'll Feel Blue' is available now on Stereotone Records, distributed by Shellshock, and available online through amazon.co.uk. It is available in Japan on the excellent. label – www.rockshop.net. www.starlets.co.uk

Music Style Indie

Musical Influences Go-Betweens, Judy Garland, Prefab Sprout

Group Members Biff Smith - Vocals; Guitar Mark McSwiggan - Guitar; Vocals Stephen McGourty - Bass Craig Laurie - Drums Nigel Baillie - Trumpet Iain White - Strings

Instruments Guitar, Bass, Drums, Strings, Trumpet, Keyboards

Albums Surely Tomorrow You'll Feel Blue

Press Reviews Something rather exceptional has occurred without many of us knowing it: The Starlets have released the album 'Surely Tomorrow You'll Feel Blue', the nearest thing to a cult album waiting to happen. Crud bears witness to the birth of a quiet star. Based in Glasgow, belonging nowhere. That's what the press release says. Why bother to even argue. With influences ranging everywhere from the Velvet Underground to Prefab Sprout, the Go Betweens and Judy Garland, this melancholy pop ensemble with their tenderly aching sadness and their wilfully tragic sense of estrangement have released an album of such sterling, prodigious beauty that the very rings around my eyes have turned red and started to flake. By the band's own admission, the songs on Surely Tomorrow You'll Feel Blue hint at a life lived on the margins of the world, called up and seen through a kaleidoscope of loneliness - a loneliness that pervades every man - a loneliness that pervades our very condition. One look at the band's website and you get the impression they'd extend the metaphor at the drop of the hat. A characteristically faultless quotation from Australian writer, Luke Davies's novel 'Candy' welcomes you in to their dislocate world: "When I stare at things or hear things, I think there might be some kind of beauty to them. I mean the little things, the way we make it through the day, experiencing pleasure. Trees in the streets or a small bird fluttering around the garden, paint flaking from the kitchen window pane, dust motes in the sunlight, the wind through poplars, the tram bell signalling departure. I'm alert; you might say, to the beauty of these things, the local nuances that bring life alive. But all there is, is sadness…I am so far removed from everything, that I can't even cry." With a meticulous Zen-like approach to the little nuances of living that bring the whole thing alive, Biff Smith and his world-weary throng of circus travellers walk a gossamer tightrope of tender harmonies and existential ruminations. Asked if there was ever a deliberate attempt to chart the perverse pleasure most people take in 'fondling disaster' on the album, Biff is as cheerfully fatalistic as can be expected from a man who has penned such chiming, negative pearls as 'The future as horror is nothing new/I have seen the past and it was murder too' - "I think we all have the potential for self-destruction. I personally am a part-time alcoholic: a man needs a hobby." Was this almost too painful to bear experience of life inspired by Davies's novel? " I loved the novel and that passage in particular has always stayed with me. There's a brilliant chapter at the end about throwing a Frisbee." Why it was brilliant, and what it was about the Frisbee - perhaps we'll never know, but it's a brave statement and no less brave an album in the face of continuing punk rock posturing elsewhere in indie-heaven at the moment with the aggressive new climate of traditional rock pastiches like Andrew WK, The Hives and the Strokes. Was Biff conscious that he was moving out of step with the current fashion when making the album? "I've been conscious of being out of step with fashion since leaving the womb," confesses Biff. Not so out of keeping with fashion, however is the album's indebtedness to cinema, illustrated as it is by both lyrical and musical references to popular movie narratives, to musicals and to such durable iconic starlets as Judy Garland and Sylvia Sydney. Keen 'Empire' readers or was Biff exploring the idea still further of lives lived less than honestly: that we all wilfully courted some kind of 'cinematic' disaster in our lives? Quoting the none too fashionable line from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Don't Dream It. Be It. I asked Biff if the album was designed to fall naturally into two distinct parts: the first dealing with our conventionally 'dramatic' or 'filmic' take on life, and the second - a plaintive request for people to emote more honestly and to stop dreaming: "Cinema, novels, music etc help us to see the drama and beauty in our own lives. Some people can't recognise art unless it has a frame around it but the raw material in everyday life is often found in the most unfashionable of places. I'm reminded of the Greil Marcus quote 'Punk rock is where you find it'. Part of the album's believability, or it's integrity, however is that much of it's thoughtful ruminations on life are based in tangible real-life memories and in the minutiae of daily events. 'Glorious Technicolor', the album's audacious opening track, tells the story of Biff's own Grandmother, Effie: "Effie was my Grandmother. She came from Springburn, a fairly rough area in the North of Glasgow but she dressed and acted as though she was Lana Turner. The lyrics in 'Glorious Technicolor' are about how she and my Granddad lived their lives as though they were movie stars. She did a lovely version of 'I wonder who's kissing her now' at parties." From a casual read of the above statement anybody would think the album is pitched somewhere between Dennis Potter and Strictly Ballroom. Not that sexuality isn't an issue on the album; in fact it's more significant by it's absence - not so much asexual as transsexual. Pitched in both camps certainly. The same could basically be said of Stephin Merritt's 69 Love Songs. Was the album in any way shape or form a 'closet instigator' as reads a title of one of the songs? One of the grittier, sexier songs, that is. Biff is understandably cagey: "Could be." So what did in fact turn him on during the making of the album? "I remember in the film Wish You Were Here seeing Emily Lloyd baring her arse at her gossipy, snooty neighbours and shouting 'Up your bum!' That turned me on." admits Biff. So individuality is a turn on? Was this the case? "Everyone is, understandably, afraid of being laughed at by others and so as a result we all end up living, looking and dressing the same way. Those who do have the courage to follow their eccentricities through into everyday life are often ridiculed and I've always hated that: it's the enemy of imagination. I suppose you need to cultivate the attitude that 'If you don't like it - fuck you' but that requires a level of bravery not all of us are capable of." Whether the man himself is capable or not, the album is certainly able to. Tuneful but always tragic, plaintive but never whimsical, "Surely Tomorrow You'll Feel Blue" is an exceptional album by any standards, as relevant to those of us who worship the likes of Lou Reed as to those of us who tap our toes to the evergreen tunes of Burt Bacharach and to all those little autumn songs in between. Rather like an intimate TV dinner for two filmed in glorious cinemascope. Nothing really happens, but for that it's quite remarkable. The album Surely Tomorrow You'll Feel Blue is out now Relevant site: http://www.starlets.co.uk/ Alan Sargeant for Crud Magazine � 2002

Additional Info www.starlets.co.uk

Location Glasgow, Scotland - United Kingdom

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