NEW RELEASE


ROD CLEMENTS – ‘Odd Man Out’ (Market Square MSMCD143)

UK Release date: June 26 2006
Distributed by RSK Entertainment Ltd


“a man emerging from the Lindisfarne years and carving his own unique furrow in inimitable style” (BBC Radio Scotland)

“a cult artist in the making” (Simon Jones, music critic).

“…how many albums reference the Loch Ness Monster, the Da Vinci code, the Hoover Dam, the Pleasure Dome, alcohol consumption in Tangiers... and leave room for spine tingling slide guitar playing... and still clock in at under forty minutes?” (Nigel Stonier, Producer, ‘Odd Man Out’)


ROD CLEMENTS - “ODD MAN OUT”

After 30 years helming one of the UK’s most successful and best loved roots-rock bands, as well as garnering widespread fame and acclaim as a contributor to hit albums by upper echelon artistes from Bert Jansch to Ralph McTell toThea Gilmore, most people would be hankering for their Lifetime Achievement awards and a nice wealth of laurels to rest on.

But Rod Clements - who has always shunned career path wisdom and who anyway wouldn’t be seen dead at an awards ceremony - is not ‘most people’.

Come the final demise of his band Lindisfarne in 2003, Rod returned to his roots and the intimacy of small venues for his solo gigs while working larger roots gigs with guitarist Dave Hull-Denholm and bassist Ian Thomson, newly cast as the Ghosts Of Electricity.

With this welcome successor to his excellent solo release ‘Stamping Ground’ (Market Square; MSMCD107), Rod has emerged with 10 brand new songs which dispel in an instant any thoughts of his sailing off into a cosy nostalgia-tinged Geordie sunset to celebrate former glories.

Produced and partly co-written by Nigel Stonier - and with a strong guest line-up including Stonier, the Ghosts, Thea Gilmore and ex-10cc drummer Paul Burgess - the songs reveal the strength of Rod’s commitment to his craft, an individual voice in an increasingly homogenised world, and a readiness to meet the future on his own terms.

‘Odd Man Out’, whilst strongly centred around the no-frills, restrained vibe for which Rod and the Ghosts have become noted at live shows, is a musical journey full of surprise and detour, moving seamlessly from country-tinged ballads to full blooded rockers to blues.

Lyrically, the album resonates with razor-sharp observations and social concerns, with
anger and scepticism ultimately set against a feeling of hard-earned self-acceptance... and more than a little celebration here and there.

Now hitting his late fifties, Rod Clements is quite literally producing his best work ever.



“ODD MAN OUT” TRACK BY TRACK by NIGEL STONIER (Producer)

1. ’ALL GROWN UP AND NOWHERE TO GO’

Clattering drums and baritone guitar lead us into the album. I heard Rod and the Ghosts play this live a couple of months before we recorded it, and so I knew we were all on the same wavelength with it. I think the song is a thumbnail sketch: affectionate, a little derisive, mostly affectionate. Everyone knows this guy, probably saw him last night, he’s at the far end of
the bar and he’s always got time for one more.


2. ‘EXISTENTIALLY YOURS’

Using a variant on the oldest of forms - the 12 bar blues - Rod launches a very 21st century tirade against organised religion and consumer culture gone mad. A sort of sceptic’s check list: nothing - from the Da Vinci code to the Turin Shroud, from the hard sell (“they’re making lists of schoolbooks for the bonfire...”) to the soft (“...(some people) hang dreamcatcher
windchimes in their yard...) escapes the wrath of Rod. This track was cut entirely live in the studio with fiery guitar lines from Dave Hull-Denholm and Rod’s inimitable dobro stylings. More than 35 years on, the boy who started out on the road to kingdom come is still walking,
still unimpressed by most of the distractions.


3. ‘TAKING THE BACK ROAD HOME’

A seemingly random encounter with an old acquaintance somehow becomes an elegiac toast to growing old disgracefully. Rod delivers the lyric in an under-sung, almost conversational style and some faintly Dylanesque Hammond from Dave “Munch” Moore underpins the mood. A song in which two guys of “a certain age” find themselves constantly at odds with the prevailing winds, and so get on and celebrate the art of being curmudgeonly outsiders.

4. ‘DEAD MAN’S KARAOKE’

Another “live in the studio” affair, a vibe that felt to me like a marriage of Dylan’s “From A Buick 6” and the Small Faces’ “Whatcha Gonna Do ‘Bout It?” Again, I think Dave Hull-Denholm’s rhythm/lead guitar is outstanding. Lyrically, sarcasm prevails, an air of anger and disappointment, and questions unanswered... Is “tribute band” an oxymoron? Can “going through the motions” in front of a paying audience ever be justified?


5. ‘ODD MAN OUT’

From blues-rock into a completely different domain: the title track has a distinctly European heart and a strong whiff of noir. The lyric sketches and suggests much but explains nothing, while a haunting dobro melody and spooky fairgound organ make for a memorable middle section. Rod had the album title a long time before this: I urged him, quite late in the day, to come up with a title song for the album, and a couple of weeks later I received the demo in the post, put it on and applauded. I love this.


6. ‘TOUCH-ME-NOT’

A trip into dark folk balladry whose timbre and acoustic guitar textures may suggest shades of Rod’s erstwhile musical bedfellow Bert Jansch. A simple boy-meets-girl, boy-gets-girl, girl-kills-boy tale: our narrator is seduced into a deceptively lush English pastoral idyll. The rest is botany.


7. ‘RAGTOWN’

Moving forward into more recent times, but only slightly... Rod tells, with trademark economy and restraint, a tale of workers on the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the 1930s. The dam impounds Lake Mead, on the Arizona-Nevada border, and has a hydroelectric capacity of 1,300 megawatts. I know this because I felt particularly stupid and uninformed about this
song and so have just looked aforesaid dam up in the encyclopaedia. On a more serious and (maybe marginally?) more helpful note, “Ragtown” returns the album to slightly more characteristic Clements territory, rocks solidly and has a fine mandolin solo by the artist himself. And I can only imagine that Dave Hull-Denholm had left the building by the time this was recorded, since that is the one thing that would explain my being given the job of the harmony vocal here.


8. ‘NEW BEST FRIEND’

I understand from Rod that this may concern the spirit of playground politics... and two people named Tony and George. Or I may be remembering wrong. What I do know is that this is a track which we steered to places maybe less expected of Rod... in the studio the band worked up a groove that put me in mind of mid-period Lou Reed and then developed it into a middle section that faintly evoked Pavement. I would humbly suggest that the last of these sections becomes a stunning expression of anger and disgust, fuelled once again by the words Rod leaves out just as much as the ones he uses. This is probably not the track for people listening out for the next “Meet Me On the Corner”. But, just for the record, it is my wife’s favourite track on the album.


9. ‘SEPTEMBER SUNRISE’

“Carpe diem” with a girl and a middle eight. Survival, re-awakenings, gratitude, hard-won victories. Beautiful slide guitar from Rod, possibly bringing to mind David Lindley’s work on early Jackson Browne albums. And another perfectly judged, unsentimental and understated lead vocal, joined by Thea Gilmore’s sublime harmony.


10. ‘MOROCCO BOUND’

And the album goes out at a jaunty tempo that would not sit uneasily with the Folksmen, heroes of “A Mighty Wind”. Questions abound... will Rod actually undertake all these quirky ambitions to which he gives voice? Will the neighbours be at home to receive his door key? How long will the list he proposes making actually be? Indeed, will he travel at all? Or
is it just that North West Africa deserves a better homage than “Marrakesh Express”?


ROD CLEMENTS DISCOGRAPHY

SOLO

1994 One Track Mind – collection of blues & Lindisfarne standards Siren
2000 Stamping Ground – Rod’s first solo release proper Market Square
2004 Live Ghosts – Rod’s trio, live Batsville
2006 Odd Man Out – Rod’s new album Market Square

WITH LINDISFARNE

1970 Nicely Out Of Tune EMI Virgin
1971 Fog On The Tyne EMI Virgin
1972 Dingly Dell EMI Virgin
1978 Back And Fourth Castle
1979 The News Castle
1982 Sleepless Nights Castle
1986 Dance Your Life Away Castle
1989 Amigos Castle
1993 Elvis Lives On The Moon Castle
1997 Blues From The Bothy (ep) Park
1998 Here Comes The Neighbourhood Park
2002 Promenade Park

WITH JACK THE LAD

1974 It’s Jack The Lad EMI Virgin

WITH BERT JANSCH

1974 In The Bleak Midwinter (single)
1976 A Rare Conundrum (produced by Rod) Charisma
1988 Leather Launderette (Bert Jansch & Rod Clements) Black Crow

WITH RALPH McTELL

1974 Streets of London (single)
1975 Streets (album featuring single) Leola
1976 Right Side Up Leola
1983 Songs from Alphabet Zoo Leola

WITH MICHAEL CHAPMAN

1977 The Man Who Hated Mornings Secret
1980 Looking For Eleven Criminal
2005 Plaindealer Rural Retreat

WITH RAB NOAKES

1980 Rab Noakes MCA
1983 Under The Rain Black Crow
1995 Throwing Shapes (Rab Noakes & The Varaflames – released 2000) Neon

WITH THEA GILMORE

2000 The Lipstick Conspiracies Naim
2002 Songs From The Gutter Flying Sparks

WITH NIGEL STONIER

1993 Golden Coins For The Holy Kid A New Day
2002 Brimstone & Blue Flying Sparks

OTHER CONTRIBUTION FROM ROD ON …

1971 PETER HAMMILL Fool’s Mate EMI
1976 WIZZ JONES Happiness Was Free N/A
1986 KATHRYN TICKELL Borderlands Black Crow
1987 VARIOUS ARTISTS Woody Lives! (Woody Guthrie tribute album) Black Crow
1989 PENTANGLE So Early In The Spring Park
2000 MARK KNOPFLER Newport Mountain Rag (recorded 1974, released on Lindisfarne compilation BT3 Siren)
2000 VARIOUS ARTISTS People On The Highway (Bert Jansch tribute album) Market Square

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ROD CLEMENTS biography

From the beginning of Lindisfarne to his current solo album Odd Man Out, the career of Rod Clements reads like a who’s who of contemporary British folk roots.

After three decades in the business spanning over thirty albums and several chart hits, Rod Clements latest album shows him to be a consummate artist who has never rested on his laurels, either as a songwriter or as a live performer.
Born in 1947, Rod Clements was an only child brought up in North Shields, North Tyneside. At 12 he was sent to boarding school in Durham, and found an escape from its rigorous regime in the guitar-based pop music of the time.

Hammering out Duane Eddy and Ventures tunes on borrowed guitars, Rod soon formed his own group (to the horror of the school authorities, who confiscated his first guitar when he was caught playing it during a study period). By the time he left school in 1965, his group the Downtown Faction were playing R&B standards at local dances and parties.

Back home in North Shields, Rod teamed up with local musicians to form a blues band (also called the Downtown Faction), whilst moonlighting as bassist with a show band backing strippers and comedians on the notorious Tyneside club circuit. Rod’s growing interest in country blues and slide guitar, and his early attempts at songwriting, led him to the folk clubs where he and a stripped-down version of the Downtown Faction, now known as Brethren, played Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly songs alongside their own embryonic efforts.

The Tyneside folk clubs of the late 60s were a thriving scene which brought Rod into contact with some of the leading names of the day like Billy Connolly, Gerry Rafferty, Ralph McTell, Al Stewart, Rab Noakes and many more. Most significantly for Rod and his mates, they fell in with a Newcastle singer/songwriter called Alan Hull with whom they went on to form the classic folk-rock band Lindisfarne.

Though Alan was Lindisfarne’s principal songwriter, it was Rod who provided the band with its first hit in Meet Me On The Corner which reached the top 5 in March 1972, won Rod a Certificate of Honour at the Ivor Novello awards and paved the way for the band’s chart-topping Fog On The Tyne album.

Over thirty years on, Meet Me On The Corner still gets regular radio play, and instantly evokes its time, as when it was recently used by the makers of the BBC-TV drama Life On Mars.

During Lindisfarne’s long career, Rod gave the band many much-loved album tracks and stage favourites like Road To Kingdom Come and Train in G Major. Following Alan Hull’s untimely death in 1995 Rod became the band’s main songwriter who, in partnership with producer & co-writer Nigel Stonier, provided the bulk of the material for Lindisfarne’s two last critically acclaimed albums Here Comes The Neighbourhood and Promenade.

Rod’s contributions to the band’s distinctive sound ranged from full-time bass player (a role he relinquished in 1990) to fiddle, mandolin, dobro and electric slide guitar, and – increasingly in later years – vocals.

Rod was also a founding member of Jack The Lad, the Lindisfarne spin-off band, in whose debut album It’s Jack The Lad he played a significant role as multi-instrumentalist and songwriter.

Rod’s instrumental skills have been in demand from early in his career and he has contributed to the work of some of the greatest names in folk & roots music. In 1974 he played bass on one the British folk scene’s biggest hits and best-loved classics, Ralph McTell’s Streets Of London, which topped the charts at Christmas that year. Rod went on to tour and record several albums with Ralph.

The McTell connection led directly to Rod’s involvement with one of his guitar heroes and arguably the most influential guitarist of his generation, Bert Jansch. Rod and Bert worked closely through 1975-6, sharing a house in North London, touring Britain and Europe and recording Bert’s comeback album A Rare Conundrum (produced by Rod) for the Charisma label.

Bert and Rod worked together occasionally throughout the 80s. The recording in Newcastle of a Woody Guthrie tribute album (Woody Lives!, Black Crow Records) led to the jointly credited Leather Launderette (Bert Jansch & Rod Clements) and two nationwide tours, which saw Bert & Rod returning to their folk-club roots. Bert, in turn, recruited Rod into a reformed Pentangle, with whom – stepping into John Renbourn’s shoes – he toured Britain, Europe and the U.S.A. and recorded an album, So Early In The Spring.

Rod has also toured and recorded extensively with such seminal figures as Michael Chapman and Rab Noakes, and contributed to albums by Peter Hammill (ex-Van Der Graaf Generator), Wizz Jones and celebrated Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell amongst many others. He has supplied bass, dobro and guitar parts to albums by highly-rated singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore, who has returned the favour by providing vocals on Rod’s recent solo albums.

Rod’s songs have been covered by artists as diverse as Melanie and Joe Brown and a Clements/Stonier composition, Can’t Do Right For Doing Wrong, was a much-played top 40 hit for Erin Rocha at Christmas 2003.

In recent years Rod has broken cover as a solo artist. Surprising many who previously knew him only as a background figure in Lindisfarne, Rod released his Stamping Ground album in 2000.

Combining quality new songs in a broad rootsy style, Rod’s vocal and guitar skills fronted a band including ex-Lindisfarne colleagues Dave Hull-Denholm and Ian Thomson, former Long Ryder Sid Griffin, ex-10cc drummer Paul Burgess and Thea Gilmore on vocals. The result won widespread critical acclaim such as…


“ **** … really excellent … highly recommended …”
Country Music People

“ … a stunning musical and lyrical album. Go buy and hear for yourself.”
Country Music International

“ … arguably the most accomplished musician in Lindisfarne as well as being no mean songwriter … recommended.”
Record Buyer


ENDS
Information released by
Singsong Entertainment Publicity

Contacts: Peter Muir; tel + 44 (0)1296 715228 email peter@singsongpr.biz

Pat Tynan tel + 44 (0)1895 636935 email pat@singsongpr.biz

www.rodclements.com

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