60ft Dolls @ WelshBands
Unfortunately the 60ft dolls have split up. Below is the contents from the old site, however I do intend to find, scan and update this part of the site quite significantly (today is the 22/01/2007 - hold me to it!). I've just added lyrics to their debut album, The Big 3
Press
I have lot of press clippings from various music magazines and intend to scan them all in... here's the first...
NME Press Clipping - Record Companies Axe Acts
Click on the thumbnail to see a larger version.
Discography
Singles
Happy Shopper/London Breeds (On Townhill)
1) Happy Shopper
2) London Breeds
No.1 Pure Alcohol
1) No.1 Pure Alcohol
2) White Knuckle Ride
3) Piss Funk
Pig Valentine
1) Pig Valentine
2) British Racing Green
3) Yellow Candles
Stay
1) Stay
2) The Maindee Run
3) Rosalyn
Talk To Me
1) Talk To Me
2) Angel
3) Easy
4) Ponyride
Happy Shopper
1) Happy Shopper
2) Everybody's Got Something To Hide (Except For Me And My Monkey) (Live)
3) Dr. Rat
Hair (E.P.)
1) Hair
2) Mess
3) Ballerina
4) Dreaming
5) Pretty Horses
Alison's Room - CD1
1) Alison's Room
2) It's Over
3) I Don't Miss You
4) Spirit (Wubble U Remix)
Alison's Room - CD2 - Limited Edition
1) Alison's Room
2) Time After Time
3) Two Lane Black Top
4) Let The Spirit Move You (feat. the Rev Ray Bevan)
Albums
The Big 3 - Lyrics
1) New Loafers 2) Talk To Me 3) Stay 4) Hair 5) Happy Shopper 6) The One 7) Good Times 8) No. 1 Pure Alcohol 9) Streamlined 10) Loser 11) Pig Valentine 12) Terminal Crash Fear 13) Buzz
Joya Magica
1) Alison's Room 2) Let It Show 3) Baby Says Yeah 4) The Biggest Kick 5) Summer's Gone 6) Silver Screen 7) Back To The Summer 8) Killer Inside 9) Cars, Bars And Movie Starts 10) I Want You 11) Pretty Little Thing 12) Spanish
Biography
The timeless quality of the Dolls' debut album, The Big 3 , released January 28, 1997, owes much to the band's scrappy musical joie de vivre, an of-the-moment attitude that recalls rock's unrefined origins. The Dolls' lineage can be traced from early R&B, through the British Invasion, to the American punk acts who regularly play at T.J.'s, a tiny club located in the band's home base of Newport, in southeast Wales. Singer-guitarist Richard Parfitt recently declared: "If Oasis are the Beatles doing Abbey Road, we're the Beatles in Hamburg!"
"The Big 3 is the sound of provincial laughter rotted by insomnia," he says. "On first hearing, some of these songs may appear to be optimistic, but if you scratch a bit below the surface you'll find a lot of cynicism." Notes singer-bassist Mike Cole, who shares songwriting duties with Richard: "You don't have to be pissed off to write, but you do have to be motivated. And being pissed off is often my greatest motivation."
By all accounts, Mike is the pop yin to Richard's rock yang. What they share is a highly tuned sense of melody and a willingness to collaborate. "We usually come to each other for inspiration if we're stuck; we play off each other quite a bit that way," explains Mike. "The fact that we've got two songwriters coming from these different directions gives us a really broad range. There's something for everyone in this record."
Almost as striking as their diversity is the band's sense of conviction (they name Muhammad Ali as a role model for this reason). "We're a very passionate people," Mike says of Newport's musicians. He claims that's why rock held on there during the '80s when the rest of Britain was beset by synth-pop. "If you're going to be a musician, you have to put your heart and soul into it," Carl asserts, "or you may as well work at McDonald's." Says Richard: "Making music should be instinctive. It's not that you shouldn't work hard at it, but at the same time, you shouldn't have to think about it too much."
Richard's instincts were partially honed by an older brother, whom he refers to as his "musical Svengali": "He turned me on to Neil Young, Humble Pie and Mott the Hoople when I was around 12. Then I got into the Who, the Clash and the Jam." When Richard's brother went off to the navy, he left his drums behind. Richard began playing the kit shortly thereafter, but switched to guitar at 14 because he wanted to be up front. "I taught myself how to play, which was a painfully slow process," he reports. "After a while I got bored playing other people's songs and decided to write my own."
He considers Van Morrison an influence on his singing. But he's quick to add: "Most of the singers I've tried to emulate are black. And I've always thought Van was trying to copy John Lee Hooker.
Richard cites soul classics by Motown and Stax artists as key to his songwriting approach (the cut "Stay" from The Big 3 bears this out). "I've also been into stuff that most people have never heard of," he reveals, "like Maxine Brown. She had a big impact on Elvis Presley gospel crossed with soul. It's ridiculous to me that music papers in Britain go on about British-influenced bands, mentioning 'British-sounding' groups like the Kinks and Small Faces and completely glossing over the fact that those bands were hugely influenced by black American R&B artists."
But back when he was 14, Richard saw his rock 'n' roll future on television: "Every Boxing Day there'd be an old Beatles film on TV. That's what really got me into the idea of being in a group. It just seemed so great there were these guys having the best time in the world, singing and playing and running around with the same haircuts and boots." Where Richard saw a rollicking good time he would play with a series of bands before co-founding 60 Ft Dolls Mike saw a sure-fire way of getting attention. "I was quite a miserable little teenager," he confesses, "listening to the Smiths and the Cocteau Twins, though I also quite liked the Beatles, the Stones and the Small Faces. I'd play guitar and sing in my bedroom, just reel the songs out and put them on tape. At some point I realized I was better at this than anything else." Aside from a brief stint as guitarist and backup singer with indie pop outfit the Darling Buds, Mike had had no experience playing in bands before hooking up with Richard. According to the Dolls' developing mythology, the two met at the dole office while wrangling over the last housing benefit form. In actuality, they'd become casually acquainted through the Newport music scene.
"But we did bump into each other at the unemployment office," Mike insists. Richard tells it like this: "We weren't great friends, but we knew each other. Mike was always too pissed drunk to speak to, usually sort of leaning against the doorway. When my group split up, I immediately thought of him. I knew the Darling Buds; they lived opposite me. But I thought of him because of his haircut, really his haircut and his trousers."
Richard and Mike then spent six months writing songs and auditioning drummers. At last, a mutual friend suggested Carl Beven. Carl had moved to Newport from the coal-mining valley town of Glynneath at 11. The son of Reverend Ray Beven, also known as The Rockin' Reverend, Carl began "messing around" at age 12 with some drums he'd found collecting dust at his father's church. He learned to play by listening to jazz and soul records. Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell was a huge influence, as were the heavy rock chops of the Who's Keith Moon and Led Zeppelin's John Bonham. "I played with a full band in church," Carl relates, "one of these mad Pentecostal ones. My father's got a 1,500-seat theater with a powerful sound system. We had a great band and a big choir, and Dad's really out there just a nut case. We had stage-diving and everything; you had to see it to believe it. He's a big supporter of the band, comes to gigs regularly."
When Carl met Richard and Mike in the fall of 1993, his first thought was, "Who are these scruffy bastards?" He recalls: "We used to go to this pub and kick up a racket. At the time I thought it was awful, but it was exciting, too; I could feel the chemistry even then." Attests Richard: "I knew Carl was our drummer about 20 seconds after meeting him."
60 Ft Dolls' first gig was at T.J.'s. With a capacity of only 300, the club is nonetheless the hub of Newport's burgeoning music scene. The Dolls all live a stone's throw from the place and have attended countless shows there. Hüsker Dü and the Butthole Surfers made their British debuts at T.J.'s. Numerous bands of their ilk have graced the venerable venue's stage and made a lasting impression on 60 Ft Dolls.
In 1994 the Dolls released their first U.K. single, "Happy Shopper." Others followed, including "White Knuckle Ride"/"Pure Alcohol," "Pig Valentine," "Stay" and most recently, "Talk to Me." In 1995 they landed a berth on the New Musical Express Brat Bus tour. With their fan base growing and critics crowing, 60 Ft Dolls found themselves opening for Veruca Salt in London. That show brought them to the attention of Jim Powers, who later signed them to DGC.
The band continued to tour throughout 1995 "In England we've done the rock circuit a million times over," says Carl. In December of that year, they began recording their debut album at Rockfield studios (where Queen recorded "Bohemian Rhapsody").
The Big 3 was produced primarily by Al Clay (Therapy?, Boo Radleys, Del Amitri; "Terminal Crash Fear" was produced by the Dolls and Richard Jackson; "Pig Valentine" was produced by Jon Langford of the Mekons). Lou Giordano, who's worked with artists as diverse as Hüsker Dü, the Goo Goo Dolls, Live and Yo La Tengo, mixed more than half the tracks. Says Mike, "Al Clay engineered all those Pixies albums, so we knew he'd get some amazing sounds out of us." The band spent roughly a month in the studio. "We just banged it out," Carl offers, "trying to preserve the energy and keep it as live as possible." The disc was released by the Indolent label in the U.K. on May 27, 1996. It landed in the U.K. Top 40 amid a barrage of glowing reviews.
Then, on June 23, the band augmented their audience considerably when they opened for the reunited Sex Pistols at London's Finsbury Park in front of 36,000 people. Also on that bill were the Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers and proto-punk Iggy Pop. "But we're not a punk band," Richard hastens to point out. "Punk is such a crap word. I'm suspicious of any band that calls themselves punk. Now Robert Mitchum, he was a punk; he got arrested for smoking grass in the '50s. The Stooges and the New York Dolls were punk bands, but today... The whole idea doesn't appeal to me."
What does appeal to Richard and his mates is playing live. With the North American release of The Big 3, 60 Ft Dolls look forward to blowing the doors off clubs across the U.S and Canada. And despite some of the dark themes explored on the record, there's no mistaking their delight in performing. "I get these weird laughing attacks onstage," confides Carl, "especially these last couple of tours. I just start grinning. I'll catch some kid's eye and he's singing along and I just can't contain this laugh. It's such a joy playing in a band."