Chosen by Monk
While our latest selection is definitely #BrandNew but as affirmatively by no means a sideshow, as it features three of the most experienced and talented contributors to the glunk/power pop movements in a collaboration that has been something like four-plus decades in the making…
The Sideshows is a brand-new project featuring songwriter Rich Ragany (Role Models, Rich Ragany & The Digressions, The Loyalties), bassist Sami Yaffa (Hanoi Rocks, New York Dolls, Jesse Malin, Michael Monroe) and powerhouse drummer Simon Maxwell (Yo Yos, The Loyalties, Role Models). At the moment just a one-off release, it can but be hoped that this double A-side is #TheStart of something #BrandNew indeed:
Sami told ÜR how the collaboration came to be:
I ran into Rags (Ragany) in NYC in the early 2000s. Seems like a lifetime or two ago now.
Rags was a newcomer to the Lower East Side’s music scene, talked a mile a minute, and poured me a couple of free drinks on Jesse’s tab at Niagara Bar, where he was working to make ends meet, while shooting for that glitter in the gutter.
Once mutual friend Rich Jones joined our Michael Monroe can can troupe around 2012, Rags started turning up to our gigs in UK and even supported us on a tour there (Turns out he had fallen in love with a lady from the ÜK and moved after her to a new neighbourhood in London). Over the years of hanging occasionally it became apparent that Rich was a formidable song writer and made great records with The Digressions, Role Models, The Loyalties and solo.
When Rags showed up recently at KK’s Steelmill gig in Birmingham to say hi to us (the Monroes that is) he said he had a buncha new songs and was itching to get ’em on 0s and 1s. Well hell, I told him I’d been building a small recording studio in my backyard in Mallorca, Spain and said, “Why don’t you come down and we knock a few out and see how the studio sounds?”
We made a plan, and Rags came over with his anchor, a superb drummer, Simon Maxwell, who had played on pretty much every recording Rich had done in the ÜK. We proceeded to record. Windows and doors wide open with a view of the Spanish countryside, all silent except for some roosters and lamb bells. Simon said it was a bit different than their usual recording spot, a room with no windows in Croydon. The studio ended up sounding pretty good.
We knocked these two songs out in a couple of days, each session followed by a long dinner…and lots of stories. I think this is a beginning of something, I don’t know what, yet, but something. Stay tuned, and in the meantime enjoy these two great R’n’R songs!