Non-Corporate Hospitality
[Manchester Evening News, 8th September 2004. Words: Steve Lee.]
There’s no middle ground with Client. Their gigs seem to be in enormous arenas or tiny little clubs, but the stylish but engagingly bloody-minded electro-pop due wouldn’t have it any other way.
“There’s absolutely no compromise and nothing in between, yeah, that’s totally Client,” giggles Sarah Blackwood over the phone from her new flat in North London.
Playing at venues like the Oldham Castle, where the band appear this week is, she says, “Such fun. I love dirty little gigs, I absolutely love them.
“Last week we played in this Munich art gallery, a little white box. Any band can do Top Of The Pops but how many bands could get a German professor writing a thesis about them? He did this hour long talk in this art gallery, about Client as a marketing tool.
“It was called Client: Satisfaction Guaranteed, and I just wish I understood German. Everyone was transfixed.”
Andy Weatherall
Client have been beguiling discerning electro-heads – and European academics – with their grown-up ‘80s girls synth-pop since 2002 when Kate Holmes’ sometimes austere analogue soundscapes, coupled with Blackwood’s unflinching lyrical gaze, found favour with the likes of Andy Weatherall and Karl Bartos.
While their eponymous debut album, with its tales of pills, thrills and clinical depression, was well received last year, new album City is “darker, bleaker and more lush” and features guest vocals from Pete Doherty and Carl Barat as well as Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore.
Its opening track Radio, with its insistent “there’s no music on my radio” hook, may well see them make a big dent in the very same medium. How do they feel about chart success?
“The charts are so saccharine, it’s just so safe, I just think it really needs shaking up,” decides Blackwood.
“The state of the music industry at the minute, people are just going for safety, they’re going for cover versions, they’re going for boy bands, and its just killing the industry. And kids are switching off in their droves.
“It’s just nice to get in there and go, ‘Oi! This is what the real world is like’.”
Client play The Castle (Oldham) on Saturday, September 11. Ł5. Call 0161 832 1111 to book. The single ‘Radio’ is out on September 20, with the album City out on September 27.
[Manchester Evening News, 8th September 2004. Words: Steve Lee.]
There’s no middle ground with Client. Their gigs seem to be in enormous arenas or tiny little clubs, but the stylish but engagingly bloody-minded electro-pop due wouldn’t have it any other way.
“There’s absolutely no compromise and nothing in between, yeah, that’s totally Client,” giggles Sarah Blackwood over the phone from her new flat in North London.
Playing at venues like the Oldham Castle, where the band appear this week is, she says, “Such fun. I love dirty little gigs, I absolutely love them.
“Last week we played in this Munich art gallery, a little white box. Any band can do Top Of The Pops but how many bands could get a German professor writing a thesis about them? He did this hour long talk in this art gallery, about Client as a marketing tool.
“It was called Client: Satisfaction Guaranteed, and I just wish I understood German. Everyone was transfixed.”
Andy Weatherall
Client have been beguiling discerning electro-heads – and European academics – with their grown-up ‘80s girls synth-pop since 2002 when Kate Holmes’ sometimes austere analogue soundscapes, coupled with Blackwood’s unflinching lyrical gaze, found favour with the likes of Andy Weatherall and Karl Bartos.
While their eponymous debut album, with its tales of pills, thrills and clinical depression, was well received last year, new album City is “darker, bleaker and more lush” and features guest vocals from Pete Doherty and Carl Barat as well as Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore.
Its opening track Radio, with its insistent “there’s no music on my radio” hook, may well see them make a big dent in the very same medium. How do they feel about chart success?
“The charts are so saccharine, it’s just so safe, I just think it really needs shaking up,” decides Blackwood.
“The state of the music industry at the minute, people are just going for safety, they’re going for cover versions, they’re going for boy bands, and its just killing the industry. And kids are switching off in their droves.
“It’s just nice to get in there and go, ‘Oi! This is what the real world is like’.”
Client play The Castle (Oldham) on Saturday, September 11. Ł5. Call 0161 832 1111 to book. The single ‘Radio’ is out on September 20, with the album City out on September 27.