1. Long Fin KillieValentino
I was a huge fan of Long Fin Killie. We were kind of in the same circle – Luke [Sutherland, Long Fin Killie multi-instrumentalist] played in Fenn and then my old band Glue played with Long Fin Killie. [Sutherland later contributed to ‘Elliot’ from 2014’s Ampersand Extras and ‘We Radioed’ from Thirteen Lost & Found]. I got to know Luke really quickly, but I was kind of starstruck the first time I met him. He’s a beautiful bastard.
I can remember two bands that were really important to me when I was really young and really excited and started going to gigs. I went to see PJ Harvey on her first tour, she played King Tut’s, and that just fucking changed everything. And then there was Long Fin Killie. Every time I saw them, I either left the venue more inspired than I’d ever been, or I left just wanting to quit. I never saw them and came out feeling anything less extreme than that. They were hugely important to me as a teenager, they totally shaped El Hombre Trajeado sonically – we recorded all our albums at the same studio, with the same producer, because of them.
I really loved their second album, Valentino. I think the first album, Houdini, was a lot more relaxed and laid-back than they ever were live – and it’s beautiful for it – but I think the second album’s probably as close as they got to their live show. It’s much more jittery, it’s just insanely good, it deals with a lot of sexism, it deals with a lot of racism, as Luke does so well – for such terrible reasons. And it plays with you too, it plays with the listener. On something like ‘Kitten Heels’, he becomes the protagonist for a while, and he makes it really uncomfortable. And it should be. That’s the point.
