Here’s an interesting partnership – Steve Mason – ex Beta Band and Martin Duffy of Primal Scream (and Felt) have teamed up to become Alien Stadium. The mini album ‘Livin’ In Elizabethan Times‘ will be released on Domino in December. Here from it is ‘This One’s For The Humans‘.
Fun fact: Richie Greentree from the Beta Band helped Danny and I take up the natty old carpets in out basement flat in Highbury, North London in 1999. He sanded down the wooden floor boards under neath, then, leaving several hundred tea bags in buckets of hot water for a week (obviously the water went cold before then) we used the resulting very strong tea to dye the boards a wonderful dark brown. He was / is a very talented craftsman and wonderful fella. While he was working on this with us, he was sent a tape of what would later become the first Beta Band EP, as he’d met their friend / manager the night before at a party. I helped him learn one of the bass lines (‘Dry The Rain‘) as Gordon Anderson who played on the recordings was no longer in the band. Richie joined the Beta Band that week. He and John MacLean (also from The Beta Band) d.j.ed for us when we played The Cobbden Working Men’s Club in West London a few months later. A few years after The Beta Band split up, John and Gordon Anderson got together again and formed The Aliens ,who made a couple of cracking albums and played the Green Man a few times. As did Steve Mason, one time teaching his band ‘Dry The Rain‘ live on stage as it was indeed raining (very hard) outside the tent – the crowd sang along and encouraged an awesome version.
Just look at those floorboards! Thanks Richie 🙂
ITTLG 