I'm still working out the kinks of sending stuff to the list...they keep bouncing. Anyway, the Post covered Belle and Sebastian's visit to New York last week in their usual fashion. Happy reading. Whoever spots the worst errors first wins a prize. Okay, not really. -Andrea The New York Post 02/26/2006 AGED SCOTCH - BELLE (and) SEBASTIAN'S 10TH BIRTHDAY By MARY HUHN When Sarah Adams, the violinist in Scottish folk-pop band Belle and Sebastian, describes the group's new rehearsal space - just a mile walk from her house - in Glasgow's West End, she talks about the good greengrocers and curry restaurants nearby. And when guitarist Stevie Jackson talks about the changes in the 10-year-old band, he practically whispers in your ear, making it feel like you're sharing a cup of Ovaltine with him, rather than talking on a phone an ocean away. Such comfort and homey-ness is what you'd expect from this once-reclusive cult band, and, at the same time, not what you'd expect at all. The band has never had a significant hit in the U.S., yet they figure big in the minds and hearts of their fans (who might be shocked to hear of slim sales - a sure sign of a true cult following). The group's latest tour brings them to the Nokia Theatre on Thursday and Friday, just a few weeks after the release their fifth studio album, "The Life Pursuit." While some bands turn from democracy into dictatorship over time, Belle and Sebastian has done just the opposite. Co-founded in 1996 by Jackson and the group's main singer and lyricist, Stuart Murdoch, the band has become more of a collective. "Once, Stuart would play the central instrument and we'd fill in around that. Now sometimes Stuart doesn't even play," says Adams. "It's less of us just backing up a lead instrument and becoming more of band." With a rehearsal space all their own, the band has the luxury of hanging out, continuously working on songs, instead of bringing finished songs to studio recording sessions. "In the first five years, usually whoever had written a song knew where the chords and verses were and would hand out different parts for the different instruments to fill in," says Adams, 32. "Now, for half of the record's songs, when they were brought in, they were something that would hard to be called a song." The members have also grown closer - in age. "We're all kind of more equals now," says Jackson, 37. "When we started, some of us were in our mid-20s and the youngest were teenagers. The gap was enormous. Now everyone is pretty much in their 30s." In those early days, Stuart worked as a janitor in a church and live upstairs in a dingy, rent-free flat, where the group would drink tea into the wee hours and make big plans. "Every now and then we'd have to put the chairs out for the bingo ladies," recalls Adams. It seems almost surprising to them they've come so far, which just adds to their charm. "We didn't become pop stars because of winning personalities and hairdos," says Jackson. "People were drawn to the songs and the characters. There's a magic to them." With the latest disc, the group is inching beyond its signature twee-pop sound and the '60s - moving almost into the '70s with glam-rock and danceable soul now in the mix. It's also striking that there's no string section - the songs evolved without it. And the group's cultish fans will agree, there's still magic. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+