Vinny Peculiar Joe Shooman
With all the "Morrissey this, Morrissey that" going on, we'd like to point out that the Mozzer's arch-enemies Andy Rourke (the Bass Guitar) and Mike Joyce (the Drums) have hitched their wagon to hyper-talented songsmith Vinny Peculiar. The new Growing Up With Vinny Peculiar is heartily recommended for fans of homespun British tunesmithery in the Robyn Hitchcock/Martin Newell vein -- wry nostalgia, witty wordplay, copious guitar jangle. We're reminded of the early Baby Bird collections, and that's a compliment.
27th May 2004
Autobiographical angst from glum northern troubadour
An album surely boasting the best song title of the year this
side of Morrissey (a toss-up between "We Didn't Paint
Our Nails When We Fought The Germans" and "We Tried
To Drown Our MusicTeacher In 1974' the fourth album from mordant
Manc Vinny Peculiar plays like Adrian Mole: The Opera, scored
by Leonard Cohen. That his tunes are Prefab Sprout-pretty
make these arch reminiscences about vandalism, wanking and
homicidal fantasies all the more beguiling.
VINNY PECUUAR: Growing Up With Vinny Peculiar (S&D) home truths wrapped in melody Listening to Vinny Peculiar makes you realise that 99 out of 100 singers, including some of your favourite ones, don't inhabit the real, recognisable world, Vinny, however, is thoroughly in tune with the modem world. He considers the ethical problems posed by IVF in 'Confessions of a Sperm Donor', and 'Replica Shirt' makes a case for football as the definitive statement of the human condition. Instead of angst, the dominant emotion here is poignancy. Instead of power chords, the music is gentle and tuneful. Honest, witty, incomparably savvy about pop culture, Vinny's songs make you smile and for the duration of three minutes plus, they manage to make the world a better place. (8) MIKE BUTLER
Vinny Peculiar “Growing Up With…” (Shadrack and Duxbury Records 2004) ¨ ¨“Flatter and Deceive,” the
opening track from the last album by the “mild-mannered
male nurse called Alan Wilkes” aka Vinny Peculiar, was
one of the songs of 2002 – self deprecating, nostalgiac
and uplifting to the point of sentimental self destruction
(for the listener at least), it showed the levels of approaching
brilliance Wilkes can reach with his alter ego when he puts
his mind to it. “Growing Up With…” is more
of the same on the one hand, but it feels like a more cohesive
offering on the other and is perhaps the stronger album of
the two. There’s nothing quite as outstanding as the
aforementioned opener, but there’s plenty to enjoy all
the same. “Confessions of a Sperm Donor” begins
with the wonderful couplet “I used to be a feminist,
I used to be a freak. Sold my sperm for bus fare I got £15
a week” – and indeed lyrically the album is devastatingly
funny and occasionally moving almost right the way through.
Songs like “Everlasting Teenage Bedroom” and the
New Order-esque “Replica Shirt” slowly build into
americana-tinged anthems of elation and firm belief, often
underlined by an implied if not overt political vibe which
hints at his past history as a Labour Party (back when it
was a labour party) activist – there’s a rebellious
streak of course that goes to the heart of Vinny Peculiar’s
music, most evident on tracks like “Root Mull”
(about a graffiti artist causing havoc through an over-indulgent
town) and “Punk Rock Dreaming.” His skills at
social commentary are second to none, perhaps to be expected
given his background, but that doesn’t stop it being
impressive from listen to listen – his tapestries of
society and characters draw you in time and time again. Occasionally,
it feels a little too syrupy musically – the female
vocals can be a bit too sweet, the harmonies a little too
Carpenters – but it’s a deep and intelligent album
despite that, and really deserves to be taken seriously in
its own right, genre pigeonholding notwithstanding. Mark Whitfield
Just
as this month finds me buffing up the silverware of my
contribution toward TINTV's end of year round up, the
task gets made complicated by the arrival of a new Vinny
Peculiar album. I discovered the joys of Mr Peculiar
at the very start of this year with his 2002 "Ironing The Soul" album,
a record that would have definitely been found duking it
out big style with Danko Jones for last years album of
the year had I heard about it that little bit earlier.
It would have been the full works. WWE style. Hardcore.
Tables, ladders and chairs, the lot and I dare say that
there's a good chance that Vinny would have emerged the
blooded victor, his wily subtlety beating their brute strength.
Well this year I'm left with that exact same problem, "Growing
Up…" arriving just as Danko's "We Sweat
Blood" was reaching for the belt and displaying all
the versatility of "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka. But
away with the wrestling approximations, they are no good
for anyone. The same, however cannot be said for this album,
which should be nestled in every CD rack, musical curriculum
and radio station in the land and is a supreme credit to
the man who gave to birth to it. I only hope that I can
find enough complimentary adjectives in my pocket to do
it justice. "Growing
up with…" glows with a slow burning charm from
the outset, "I Work For God" offering a shimmering
glimpse of life within Heaven's call centre and leading
you easily toward the deep running appeal of the rest of
the album. It takes a snaking path through the progression
of a life strewn with awkward crumbly moments, the paint
peeling from every tumbledown recollection and humour spilling
from each deftly crafted lyrical shuffle. "Confessions
of a Sperm Donor" touches, with a strange warmth,
upon the potential parental responsibilities of cracking
one off for "bus fare", the communal imagery
painted by "Replica Shirt" almost makes me wish
I liked football and "Punk Rock Dreaming" is
Luke Haines minus the lemon sucking. The
dark, smutted angles of youth gone astray and communities
in disarray are also dipped into with a neat incisiveness. "We
Tried to Drown Our Music Teacher In 1974" brings to
life the murky youthful plot against a pop hating tutor, "Root
Mull" tells of the small town confusion regarding
a mysterious spate of graffiti and "Everlasting Teenage
Bedroom" brings back the heady days of illicit porn
stashes and loud music, which goes to prove that some things
you can never grow out of. The gently picked sentimental
Pulp-isms of closer "Egg Incident", the gossipy
local paper tale of a teen yob egging, rounds off the
album with a soft lick of muttered eloquence.Add
the fact that Vinny tosses all these enchanting chunks
of life at you in a musical style that, whilst branded
with it's very own defined mark, displays all the observational
wit and brilliance of every three minute pop troubadour
you could care to mention (except that bloke from Starsailor)
and you have gold plated, jewel encrusted masterpiece.
THE world of pop is a funny old place. Populated by sugary sweet characters singing about love, it ignores vast sections of the record buying public who like their music to come not only with catchy choruses - but some thought-provoking lyrics. Hence the injustice of an act like Manchester based Vinny Peculiar not having a mega-dollar record deal. Vinny - aka Alan Wilkes - writes and sings songs about the quirks and quarrels of real life; about death and pleasure and pain, and all packaged in titles that tell you all you need to know about his sense of humour - like 'We Didn't Paint Our Nails When We Fought The Germans', and Confessions of a Sperm Donor' , a touching song about fatherhood by proxy and all it implies. Live, he is a charismatic bundle of twitches, nerves, guitar, and the occasional slab of disco keyboard. I've written about him before, and I will do again, because - well, he's brilliant, and anybody who likes music and has a brain should rush out and buy his latest album , Growing Up With Vinny Peculiar. And I'm not the only fan - he has now been joined by two former members of The Smiths, drummer Mike Joyce and bass player Andy Rourke , exposing Vinny to the vast army of Smiths fans who are still out there and interested in anything they do. Alan says: "My record label is called Shadrack and Duxbury , named after a funeral parlour in Billy Liar. I met Andy and Mike at a gig I did at the Star and Garter in Manchester [Andy was DJing] and we agreed to form the band immediately after the show. It's quite flattering, they are great players, and the Smiths connection could come in handy." The current album is available now in all good record shops - and also via the website www.vinnypeculiar.com The next album will see a departure from Vinny's largely solo musings: "For the next one, we plan to go in to the studio as a full band, with Andy and Mike, but first up will be a single scheduled for November release." Vinny is also off to Belfast for the city's Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival between April 29 to May 8, as the musical artist in residence, where he will be in the company of the visual artist in residence and local Liverpool legend Bill Drummond.
One has to go back to Robyn Hitchcock in his mad 1980s days to find cheeky song titles like "We didn't paint our nails when we fought the Germans" or "We tried to drown our music teacher in 1974." It's a kind of nutty, easy charm that only the English engage in. I blame the Goon Show and Python. But like Hitchcock, Vinny Peculiar balances things with a gentility that embraces masturbators, God's receptionists, pedal steel melancholics, and graffiti bandits. There's an overriding feeling of youth just a few years on, a couple decades under their belt and hindsight already starting to kick in, that moment when you realize that being "attracted to the politics of freedom" isn't the same as being free. This is "Punk Rock Dreaming" with a "stake inside your heart." Clothed in the same soft fabric as Prefab Sprout's Two Wheels Good or Stephen Duffy's Lilac Time , Peculiar offers a lot to grow up on, heady chamber pop with a humorous edge. Less twee (or self-hatingly arch) that, say, Belle and Sebastian, Vinny employs the mechanics of angst to mine the passions that explode when one is young. If I were 20 years younger I'd already be locked up in my room with this on repeat. As it is, it made me happy sad in the very best of ways. http://www.jambase.com/headsup.asp?storyID=5163 Vinny Peculiar : Growing up with…Burton Mail, January 2004 Vinny Peculiar, aka singer songwriter
Alan Wilkes is a musical philosopher whose works have been
compared to artists as diverse as Ray Davies and Tony Hancock
although this skewed 12 track collective sounds like no one
else on earth, particularly on the opening narrative ‘I
work for god’, which comes directly a call centre in
heaven. With titles like ‘Confessions of a Sperm Donor’
and ‘We didn’t paint our nails when we fought
the Germans’ it’s quite obvious that Vinny is
lining up for an English oddities award- and there’s
always room for more of them particularly when his observations
are as astute as on the timeless ‘Everlasting Teenage
Bedroom’ where he ponders on the nature of eternal youth
as both a curse and a blessing. Growing up with is a beautifully
compelling collection of misfit adventures along the road
of a true eccentric. 8/10
The third album from eccentric Manchester singer-songwriter Vinny Peculiar and first release on his new Shadrack & Duxbury label explores polarised themes of unity & division, the friction between old and new values, the loss of God and the re-discovery of self - all set to a backdrop of recorders, flutes, spluttering Farfisas, elevating slide guitars, samplers, drum machines and even automated call centre messages.
Bored with the monotony of the metaphysical world and craving a physical, corporeal lifestyle, the angel Vinny Peculiar descends from his heavenly call-centre to become human and begin a journey of spiritual re-awakening on Earth. Our anti-hero soon discovers life is a rough old ride - but - it's the hard times that make the experience worthwhile. We chart Vinny's birth and the death of his innocence. We discover the adventure of youth, the small victories; the price of a life; an adult's responsibility; a daughter; a drowning; an incident; the art of looking for a mouse . . . and finding a man.
With the Roxy Music art-school attack of Punk Rock Dreaming; the haunting, ethereal odes to identity and teenage expression on Root Mull and Music Teacher; to the Badalamenti drenched coda of Egg Incident, this album is a photo album of musical memories and experiences - each one a nod to a certain era, time or interlude in the life of Vinny Peculiar. ". . . all about belonging, alienation and the exploitation & disappointment of those feelings, it's spot on, it's cute n' clever and it will make you feel something - and that's a good thing, that's the point and it's why you should have this record in your collection."
When God gives you lemons, make lemonade . . .
Replica Shirt is the first single from the new S&D release, "Growing Up with Vinny Peculiar" ; a retrospective album of the highs, lows and sometimes bizarre moments in the life of one of Britain's most idiosyncratic talents. Using football as a stepping stone, a father and daughter's relationship is rekindled "every other weekend" through the shared rituals and camaraderie of the beautiful game. Replica Shirt was inspired by returning to the match after years of absence and re-engaging with a unique sense of belonging forged through football. It's immediately engaging refrain takes the listener into the kind of territory usually inhabited by the likes of pop giants REM and U2 together with an anthemic chorus that would not be out of place on the football terraces. Undoubtedly the greatest soccer single since World In Motion, Replica Shirt is an intelligent, witty and a deeply moving celebration of identity and the human need to belong.
At last we have a football song with something important to say. Review of Growing
up with Vinny Peculiar from Italian Web Zine http://www.indiepop.it/bands/vinnypeculiar.htm
Vinny (lo chiamiamo così anche se non è il suo vero nome) ha una voce nella norma, bassa e un po' stonata, e capacità musicali sin troppo avvinte ad una forma di pop/folk acustico lento e fosco. Ma ha un talento straordinario per le parole. Le sue canzoni sono piccole storie di quotidiana post-adolescenza, raccontate con la lucida furbizia di un Nick Hornby, cose in cui ognuno di noi non-cresciuti può riconoscersi; agrodolci ricordi di scuola, il feticismo per le magliette delle squadre di calcio, il desiderio di prolungamento dell'adolescenza. E "Growing up with..." è un libricino di storie brevi, caratterizzate da una scrittura asciutta e calda, molto british, che parla dritta al cuore e finisce per oscurare tutto il resto. "I'm a listening to lyrics type of person", sostiene Vinny, e questo album è per persone come lui, che tendono le orecchie su ogni parola. E allora parliamo di storie: quella di un donatore
di sperma in crisi esistenziale che si incupisce pensando
ai figli mai conosciuti ("Confessions of a Sperm Donor"),
quella dell'omofobo coach di cricket che caccia i giocatori
perché si dipingono le unghie ("We didn't paint
our nails when we fought the Germans"), o del tentativo
di annegare un professore di musica per la sua ostinazione
nel rifiutarsi di insegnare T-Rex e Bowie ("We tried
to drown our music teacher in 1974"). Tutto riassunto
nella romanticizzazione della cultura giovanile proposta da
"Everlasting Teenage Bedroom", storia di vite spese
a riassettare la propria collezione di dischi e di stereo
accesi sino alle quattro di mattina tra sigarette e birra,
proprio come il Jack Black di "Alta Fedeltà";
il rifiuto di crescere trattato con una sorta di comprensiva
tenerezza ("I have no partner, no job, no children").
Cose che Vinny ha imparato crescendo, e verso le quali agisce
una forte spinta all'immedesimazione.
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Using football as a stepping stone, a father and daughter’s relationship is rekindled "every other weekend" through the shared rituals and camaraderie of the beautiful game. Vinny Peculiar's Replica Shirt has an immediately
engaging refrain which takes us into territory usually inhabited
by the likes of pop giants REM and U2 with an anthemic chorus
that would not be out of place on the football terraces. ‘come and join the congregation, worship at the shrine’
April 2004 Vinny Peculiar – Growing Up With… (Shadrack & Duxbury) For Vinny Peculiar, growing up has been nothing if not slow. Arriving in Manchester via rural Worcestershire, Birmingham and Liverpool, Vinny has remained a life-long adolescent. Even now, a fully paid-up punk rock and beat veteran, he still professes to playing guitar and looking into the mirror in his Everlasting Teenage Bedroom. With the humour of Will Self (and the looks of Andy Warhol), he shows himself on ‘Growing Up With…’ to be one of the few solo men equally happy to explore the ugliness and the beauty in his world. What is most exceptional about Vinny’s persona is his willingness to tell all. During Confessions Of A Sperm Donor, for example, he reveals “in the art of masturbation I truly excelled” in the sweetest manner before adding “if I’m the one who gave you life in some proximity/ I hope you haven’t turned out anything like me”. An autobiographical tale, the standout track 24 possesses the quiet intricacy of The Go-Betweens’ guitar play. On the other hand, Replica Shirt is a full-blown New Order-style football anthem, but this is by no means typical. From his punk background, Vinny has now progressed to a folk master but with grungy remnants still leaving their mark. Vinny is slowly growing into the Northwest’s best-kept secret. Chris Horkan
Manchester mental nurse turned 'Tony Hancock of Pop' Wasn't he in Durutti Column? Nay lad, that'll be Vini Reilly, though our Vinny also hails from the north and shares the same muse of deadpan glibness as other singersongwriters raised beneath the Trans-Pennine drizzle, notably Pulp's Jarvis Cocker and the Grand-Duchy of Glum himself, Morrissey. Last year, Uncut summed him up by declaring, "if Tony Hancock made pop records they'd have sounded like this': His humour is grim right enough, so it's no surprise that his record label. Shadrack & Duxbury, takes its name from the firm of undertakers in Billy Liar. And when not singing sweet ditties about failing to drown his Bowie-hating music teacher in 1974, he works shifts as a psychiatric nurse. Why haven't I heard of him? Probably because he's an old Labour Party activist who doesn't believe in swapping his principles for a wad of cash and five seconds on CO:UK. In fact, "give or take the odd broken-hearted gap", he's been writing and recording bittersweet songs of exceptional poignancy for the past 20 years. Some were self-released collaborations with friends (under aliases like Goldwire and Goodness Gracious), while there have been four proper Peculiar LPs including 2000's spoken word odyssey, NonCompliance, and its excellent follow-up Ironing The Soul, praised in Uncut as "a splendid dose of self-deprecating mirth somewhere between Badly Drawn Boy and Babybird': So what's he all about? Songs like "I Work For God" and "Jesus Stole My Girlfriend" explore religion, history and personal relationships with equal measures of wit and pathos, while "Suicide Dad"takes a scalpel to New Labour and the Child Support Agency. He describes his latest album, Growing Up With Vinny Peculiar as "a mix of myths and misdemeanours, disembowelled personal history and scrapbook confessionals': And the tunes? Think easy-listening melodies fleshed out with rippling guitars, gentle flutes, Farfisa organ, programmed drums and imaginative samples, Maudlin Mancs can see Vinny compering and performing at his regular night, the Kitchen-Sink Disco, held the last Friday of every month at the Star & Garter pub. The rest of us can catch him live when he tours the UK in February and March. Sarah Jane
GROWING UP WITH VINNY PECULIAR' - Album: 'GROWING UP WITH VINNY PECULIAR'
- Label: 'SHADRACK & DUXBURY (www.shadrackandduxbury.com)'
In the roll call of psychiatric nurses turned popster (see also Thom Yorke and Kevin Coyne), Manchester-based VINNY PECULIAR deserves far more kudos. By day he may labour away as unassuming Alan Wilkes, but his musical alter-ego has been treading the boards for going on two decades and it's only now his intriguing back catalogue is beginning to surface. W&H were delighted by VP's previous album "Ironing The Soul" (I think his third under the VP moniker if I have this right), and "Growing Up With Vinny Peculiar" is another set of winsome, pithy guitar pop from this engagingly deadpan performer, who ought to be mentioned in the same breath as enduring English mavericks Luke Haines and Peter Hammill. As the title suggests, "Gowing Up With Vinny Peculiar" consists mostly of songs relating to incidents and experience involving and/ or observed by our hero on life's highway. Religion, education, pop and politics all come under the hammer and it makes for an insightful 40 minutes for anyone who loves fine, idosyncratic pop. And you shouldn't be reading this if you don't. It's a consistent set, so obvious highlights
don't immediately spring out, although straight away the witty
"I Work For God" and the souped-up "Punk Rock
Dreaming" register in the synapses. In the former, Vinny
works in a call centre directly for Tthe Man Upstairs, but
it's a heaven even the angels are sick of. "The rest
of us just sit around wishing we could go to Hell, but they'e
oh so fussy who they let in," deadpans VP over the dreamy,
Pulp-ish sway of the music. "Punk Rock Dreaming",
on the other hand, is probably the most aggressive thing here,
coming on like a cross-fertilisation of early Bowie and The
Clash, and makes a few good points about pop and politics
en route. There's more where these come from too, though in some cases they take a little longer to sink in. Both "Everlasting Teenage Bedroom" and the immortally-titled "Confessions Of A Sperm Donor" may be superficially funny, but are intrinsically lonely and sad underneath, while "I'm Too Sad To Tell You" is frail, close-miked acoustic folk with a twist. And VP always astounds with his eye for detail. I've no idea if he keeps a regular diary, but the self-explanatory "We Tried To Drown Our Music Teacher in 1974" (for disliking T-Rex and Bowie, obviously) is one of the most acutely-aimed barbs of nostalgia ever, while the similarly intriguing Glam-era story "We Didn't Paint Our Nails When We Fought The Germans" has one of the most unlikely yearning choruses of this or any other year. One can only hope there will be many more instalments from Vinny Peculiar, as his bittersweet, insightfully tuneful vignettes are capable of connecting with the slighted and dispossessed of all ages. For too long, the psychiatric nursing scene has robbed us of a cool pop personality, so have a flick through this collection of (as he puts it) "scrapbook confessionals", buy the album and help him belatedly on the road to stardom.
A thoroughly modern old-fashioned singer songwriter set and a damn fine one. Dunno what Vinny listens to for fun or fury, but the influences on “Growing Up…” are varied if convergent. “I Work For God” is a relaxed Ten Benson as VP does his best to take the cunt out of country in this sardonically rocking beauty, bit like Belle & Sebastian with balls, an odd thought I know, but it had to happen sometime. Very much like the delicate and ghostly multi-tracked chorus that splices wry n weary verses that look at sperm donation on “Confessions of a Sperm Donor”. Out-maudlin Morrisey takes some doing, but Vinny manages with “Everlasting Teenage Bedroom” a bitter-sweet ode to teenage angst, but I suspect it’s the kind of teen angst that lasts well into middle ages, “I have no job, no partner, no children, I’m attracted to the politics of freedom” cute and cruel, self mutilation on cd, direct from the VP bedroom to your own, scary old world, eh? All of this with gently feedback washed guitars under an ever-building chorus. Meanwhile, it’s fuck wimpy ole heroin as we get to railing at the hopelessness of addiction to football on “Replica Shirt” and VP raves on; “dream about football…. “Come and join the congregation, worship at the shrine” it is, like the entire set, I fink, all about belonging, alienation and the exploitation & disappointment of those feelings and it’s spot on and it’s cute n clever and it will make you feel something and that’s a good thing, that’s the point and it’s why you should have this record in your collection.Album of the MONTH www.kathodik.it on Teenage kicks Volume 8 VINNY PECULIAR - Replica
Shirt mCd (Shackdrack And Duxbury)
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