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Leeds calling once more for Chris T-T
Former Bretton Hall student Chris Thorpe-Tracey is back on familiar turf with a gig in Leeds
"My parents said that if I learned the Hill Street Blues theme tune on the piano, they'd let me stay up and watch it", says Chris Thorpe-Tracey.
"A couple of days later I could do it, but they still wouldn't let me. I think they expected it'd take months."
However, the stocky, abundantly enthusiastic singer-songwriter discovered something important from this clearly heartbreaking experience.
"It made me realise if I wanted to learn something I could," he adds. "So I picked up an acoustic guitar off a skip, did it up and taught myself to play it."
Under the moniker Chris T-T, the 34-year-old has gained steady recognition for his politically-charged, sweetly sung "American indie-rock with an English accent".
Chris is currently on a co-headline tour with fellow beardy Brighton-based musician Thomas White, the multi-talented odd-job man of British indie, with a CV including Electric Soft Parade, Brakes, and British Sea Power. They come to the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on Friday, June 6.
"We've known each other for a while, I'd call us good mates", says Chris.
"My bassist Johny (Lamb] is also involved with running Drift Records who are putting out Tom's first album.
"They had all these dates booked and I couldn't let up the opportunity. It's the closest you can come to a purely fun thing as opposed to business."
On both sides of that sharp-edged coin, things are looking up for Chris. In March he released his fifth full-length album, Capital, through red hot indie label Xtra Mile Recordings, also home to fellow acclaimed anti-folkers Frank Turner and Jonah Matranga.
Turner will feature in the video for Chris's next single (We Are) The King of England, a song seething with sardonic rage at "the people in charge who ruin everything".
It's also the opening track on Capital, the final record in a trilogy about London following 2001's The 253 and 2003's London Is Sinking.
"I did my first four albums while working for the Press Association in London," Chris says.
"For 18 months my entire job was doing two pages for Hello! magazine, the events listings. I used that to put in loads of cool stuff, like good bands' gigs.
"I have a complicated, loving relationship with London, it inspires me but I don't like the hecticness."
Unlike Chris, Thomas, a few years younger, has only ever been a musician.
"I did work at Deep Pan Pizza for two weeks when I was 16," he laughs.
"But I did acid for the first time the night before I was due to start work, and trying to knead dough and grease pizza pans was never going to work!"
With brother Alex he formed The Electric Soft Parade, and 2002 debut Holes In The Wall was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.
Thomas releases debut solo record I Dream Of Black on June 14. He describes it as "underwater folk music – no, that's nonsense isn't it? Like something the NME would write.
"It sounds like it was recorded underground – and it was, in my girlfriend's basement. It cost about 10p to make.
"It's got a grimy, dark, wintry feel. I think it makes a difference what the weather's like when you're making music – I was freezing, no heating down there. Recording in half an hour bursts until I couldn't feel my feet.
"If anyone wonders what ESP songs sound like in their embryonic stage, this is it."
Both musicians have big Leeds connections.
"My mum and dad met at the Hyde Park Tavern," Thomas says. "He was a barman there 30 years ago."
And Chris has a degree in Popular Music Studies from the University of Leeds, studying at the recently-closed Bretton Hall Campus, situated within the stunning Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
He played his first ever gig at The Duchess in Leeds, in 1996.
"It's a great town to play in and I've got some lovely friends there," he says. "It'll be good to see some familiar faces."
When he's had his fill of recording and gigging, the avenues of opportunity for Chris's musical talents are wide and teeming.
"I did the music for an interactive exhibit at the National History Museum," he explains.
"It had all these different animal noise environments, kids could walk through it and almost build a song from the sounds."
He has also contributed to a number of books and magazines and will soon start an arts column for left-wing newspaper the Morning Star. Film music is also a big ambition.
Chris received an exciting taste of this when asked to create a live re-soundtracking of classic Japanese Lord-Of-The-Flies-infused thriller Battle Royale for a festival at The Other Cinema in Soho.
"Me and the band watched it a few times. We took the musical themes of some songs we'd been working on and stretched them out to fit the film.
"I'd jump at the chance to do it again. Blowing my own trumpet, but it was damn good."
For more on Chris T-T click here.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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