Little Barrie

  • Date: Thu 28th September 2017
  • Doors Open: 7:00 pm
  • Supported By: t.b.c.
  • On Sale: Cancelled
  • * Sorry, this event has been cancelled

LITTLE BARRIE CONFIRM SAD NEWS THAT DRUMMER VIRGIL HOWE HAS PASSED AWAY AGED 41

We can confirm that Little Barrie’s drummer Virgil Howe, acclaimed drumming son of rock figurehead Steve Howe, sadly passed away last night at the age of 41.

Virgil’s sudden and unexpected death has come as an incredible shock to his friends and family. His band had been in rehearsals preparing for their UK tour, which was due to start today in Cambridge.

“We are heartbroken that we have lost our dear friend and brother Virgil Howe. Our thoughts are with his daughter, family and partner. Please respect their privacy during this difficult time.” – Barrie Cadogan.

“I am utterly devastated to lose my friend and a positive force in my life.” – Lewis Wharton

Tickets for the tour will be refunded from their point of purchase.”

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LITTLE BARRIE will release their highly anticipated 5th studio album ‘Death Express’ on 7th July on Non Delux. Teaser single ‘Love or Love’ was released last December to critical acclaim. New single ‘Produkt’ will be released on 30th June 2017. The forthcoming video has been directed by Douglas Hart (founding member of The Jesus & Mary Chain and video director for the likes of Paul Weller, Primal Scream, The Horrors and Toy).

Made up of Barrie Cadogan (guitar/vocals), Lewis Wharton (bass) and Virgil Howe (drums), their fifth album, ‘Death Express’, packs a heavy punch, channelling the three members’ ferocious musical chops into a raw, DIY response to today’s atmosphere of confusion and division. There’s no political message, just lyrical food for thought, and some of the tautest, most incendiary grooves you’ll ever hear, enticing even dancefloor-shy listeners to hip-shake away their cares. High-octane meditations on surveillance paranoia (‘Copter’), devious policing at mass protests (‘Molotov Cop’) and greed (‘Vulture Swarm’) have rarely felt so irresistible to body movement.

For Little Barrie themselves, global events of the last 12 months were a surreal backdrop to their own bold progress as a band. After 15-plus years of underground excellence together, this pathologically questing triumvirate were seeking to up their game, ready for Album No. 5. “In downtime at our rehearsal room, we’d be looking at the news – everybody’s gone nuts!” says Lewis. It was at Boogie Back 2, their practice space in Hornsey, that the sound of ‘Death Express’ was born – and recorded, as they ended up spurning big, expensive studios, in favour of a couple of ancient MacBooks, and an old tape machine.

The album’s genesis kick started, when Little Barrie were invited to provide incidental music for ‘Better Call Saul’, a spin-off series from hip TV phenomenon ‘Breaking Bad’, for which they’d already cut the theme tune. With no time to book a studio, they were forced to do it themselves, in their practice room. The response was favourable, and they began to feel that such DIY takes had a vibrant quality often lacking from ‘proper’ productions. Says group leader Barrie, “Such amazing records have been made when people are breaking the rules – weird, stripped-down, self-made records like ‘Oar’ by Skip Spence, and ‘There’s A Riot Going On’ by Sly & The Family Stone. There’s a bedroom aspect to it, and a street aspect, too, which felt right for what we wanted to say this time”.

Three of their previous four albums were made at Edwyn Collins’s West Heath facility in London. Last year, however, Edwyn upped sticks for rural Scotland, a happy development in his ongoing rehabilitation from serious illness, which left Little Barrie at a crossroads. Back in their rehearsal bunker, they demoed their first two new tracks, including ‘I5CA’, a song documenting an insane tour of America’s West Coast, which saw them pounding up and down Interstate Five between shows. It came out vibey and spontaneous, like a ’60s garage nugget repurposed for a hip hop block party. Instead of then slavishly re-recording the tracks in a hi-tech studio, they sent them on to an Edinburgh-based dance producer called Tom Forrest: he zipped up the mix, in Barrie’s words, “bringing a better spread and width of sound.” In layman’s terms: in your face; live and dangerous.

Self-releasing the two tracks on a 7-inch 45 before Christmas ’16, they got an ecstatic response, and it was a no-brainer to make the rest of ‘Death Express’ the same way. With Virgil’s propulsive breakbeats pushed to the max (his CV includes a rap-rock band called Lunatic, and a secure grounding in drum ‘n’ bass), these tracks leap from the speakers as Little Barrie have never done before, expressing an urgency rare in a band approaching the end of their second decade together. But then, this is no everyday band…

Little Barrie’s grief-free vibe has won them countless friends. They backed Paul Weller on ’08’s ’22 Dreams’ album, and memorably supported the reunited Stone Roses in Paris. They’ve toured with buddies including Dinosaur Jr, Brian Jonestown Massacre and Charles Bradley, as well as several jaunts with Primal Scream (Barrie performing two sets per night). Quite apart from ‘Better Call Saul’ their music has appeared on countless ads, TV shows and movies.

Yet, these irrepressible vibesmen have managed to remain underground, one step ahead of short-lived trends, with all their joy in music-making intact. Anyone interviewing them can expect a colourful conversation, taking in heroes from right across the pop-cultural spectrum, and how that culture’s bonding social purpose is the antidote to our political/industrial fears.

On paper, the album’s title looks dark. The title track arose, says Barrie, “when I was flicking through my phone to find someone’s number, and I realised there’s quite a few people in there who aren’t here anymore. What with the state of the world, it feels like, as much as you can, you have to be around the people that are important to you. It’s been inspirational knowing Edwyn, seeing how he’s pushed really hard, and got his life back more than the experts expected. Looking at things that way, the title’s positive. Time’s short. None of us know how long we’ve got.” So, yes: the clock’s ticking. Seize the day. Time to jump aboard.

Little Barrie are guitarist and vocalist, Barrie Cadogan, bassist Lewis Wharton and drummer extraordinaire, Virgil Howe. In addition to being in the band, Wharton is also a motorcycle enthusiast and illustrator; Howe, the acclaimed drumming son of rock figurehead Steve Howe, produces and DJs in the UK and abroad; Cadogan is a world respected guitarist and the go-to guy for the likes of Primal Scream, Paul Weller, Edwyn Collins, Anton Newcombe, Spiritualized, Pete Molinari, Charles Bradley, The Chemical Brothers and Paolo Nutini. It is a testament to these three players that as a band they are making their strongest music to date.

LITTLE BARRIE
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It’s been a long wait, but it’s about to feel very worthwhile. Little Barrie are back, and they’ve brought the much-missed spirit of real rock ‘n’ roll with them. Nearly five years on, the English trio are totally match-fit and ready to return with a new drummer and a strikingly unusual record deal — but the same unshakeable passion for music that got them noticed in the first place. ‘King Of The Waves,’ Little Barrie’s first album for four years, is co-produced by the group with their friend, supporter and longtime collaborator, the mighty Edwyn Collins.

Since we last heard them, they’ve also honed their reputations among the most in-demand musicians in the business, playing live with Primal Scream, on Paul Weller’s ‘22 Dreams’ album and with French Polynesian actress-singer Mareva Galanter. Barrie Cadogan has long been the guitarist to call, and not many have had that request from both Morrissey and Johnny Marr and, recently, from Mark Ronson.

Very appropriately for a band of such renown as a live act, ‘King Of The Waves’ will be released in the UK on Bumpman, the indie label founded by Alan Day, co-owner of the Hawley Arms, the famous venue in Camden, north London. ‘King Of The Waves’ Is already riding its own wave of massive success in Japan. It raced to #1 in iTunes’ alternative album chart and Amazon’s rock album chart there, and #2 in Amazon’s main album chart. Recent gigs by the trio in Japan have seen such an uprising of Little Barriemania that they’ve had to block out entire floors of hotel rooms to keep their obsessive fans at bay.

The band have been sponsored and photographed in Japan by menswear icon Paul Smith, in whose clothes Little Barrie were recently the subject of a prestigious eight-page spread in Japanese Rolling Stone.

 

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