Sinister: news story on belle and sebastian

[Andrea Young]

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.
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