“So Much For Love” By Slow Down Tallahassee
Thank god for digital radio, thank god for the internet. Whilst listening to the radio over a family meal, Steve Lamacq mumbles the intro to a new release by a band whose name he appears to pronounce as Slough Darn Tally Ho Sea. What the……? That can’t be right? I must have misheard , tis indeed a rather strange name. The ensuing song left me mesmerized with delight , pure pop perfection with a killer bass and fuzzy guitars, I was in heaven. But who the devil was making such a delightful noise ?
Knowing that if Lamacq announced the bands name again at the conclusion of the song he would deploy his usual unintelligible style of enunciation. This normally resembled somebody wearing a sock on their tongue, in an underwater cave, with all the clarity of a poor soul who’d recently suffered a stroke, and, who had duct tape plastered across their mouth, therefore I took decisive action. I dashed to the radio to read the scrolling digital panel, from this I was able to discern the following words ” So Much For Love” By Slow Down Tallahassee ” certainly not your average name. At this point I concluded I must put into action my famed powers of reason and apply Sherlock Holmes style logic. Convinced this was an American group I resolved to investigate the matter further.
Within minutes I was online and chatting to the band, (who are actually from Sheffield, Ooop North, by the ‘eck , England, The UK !) ordering the single and falling in love with their sound….and I think you all will too.
I am honoured and humbled to present a world exclusive , yes SDT’s first ever interview. But be warned they are Yorkshire Women, plain speaking and to the point, they say what they like and they like what they bloody well say !
VP: We all know that Tallahassee is home to Wakulla Springs State Park one of world’s deepest freshwater springs it features glassbottom and river-boat tours, swimming,as well as nature trails, and of course fine dining, but where on earth did lads and lasses from Sheffield come up with the name Slow Down Tallahassee?
SDT : It came to us in a simultaneous nightmare, and we knew at once that we had found our purpose. The initials look great on the back of a well-worn leather jacket, and we had already spent a long time dreaming of scores of other meaningless words to put our own stamp on. These are the right ones. As a result, we have made lots of Tallahassian friends.
VP: My favourite single of the year so far “So Much For Love “ was released on “Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation” label and has been available since February. Are their plans for any more releases in the coming months? What are the chances of a Christmas song?
SDT: Christmas song? Slim to none. But Thee SPC will be releasing our album, hopefully preceded by a single, sometime after we finish recording them.
VP: What’s in the water in Yorkshire these days, so many good bands, (yet so much flooding)? Any bands aside from your good selves you’d tip for the top?
SDT:We like Gas Club, Navvy, The Parallelograms and The Millipedes.
VP: A lot of predominately female bands starting out in the music biz, state that its still quite a sexist industry, have you encountered this, and what can be done about it apart from a swift kick in the cobblers?
SDT: There’s definitely a lot of bollocks, a lot of assumptions and double standards concerning the way women in music should behave. We’ve always had a lot of support from male and female promoters, though, who have found us via Myspace or through the single, and we’ve only ever felt the need to prove ourslves as musicians / performers, rather than as ‘girls in a band’. It’s slightly annoying to always be classed as a Girl Group, as though being predominantly female places us within a certain genre. We’re a rock’n’roll band!
VP: The Spice Girls, positive female role models or vapid meat puppets?
SDT: The very notion that they have to be either one or the other is one of the assumptions with which women in bands have to contend. Women in music, particularly working class women, aren’t allowed any ambiguity, and are often expected to justify everything they sing. Or wear.
I used to dance to the Spice Girls, drunk and underage, in clubs in Blackpool and I have no regrets. (VP : I’m not sure youth is a valid excuse 
Anyway I preferred “Shampoo”)
VP: Can you all remember the first records you bought?
SDT: A Comic Relief single for me (Nicola) but my first proper record was Stay Beautiful by the Manics on 12 inch vinyl.
Rich’s was Farewell My Summer Love by Michael Jackson.
Claire’s was The Ten Commandments of Dance by London Boys, or Man Machine by Kraftwerk.
Rachel is unavailable for comment, but we’re guessing it was The Sisters EP by Pulp.
VP:Do you agree that the Internet “ is destroying good music” as Elton John suggested, or is he just a silly elitist, technophobic buffoon with an amusing wig?
SDT: Hey! Leave Elton alone Von Paps, YOU BIG BULLY!
The Internet is allowing good, non-mainstream music to thrive. Without Myspace, Last FM etc, we would never have been found by people in Japan, Taiwan, Israel and the US at this stage in our musical career.
VP: As you’re from Yorkshire, do you know Sean Bean ?
SDT: Of course we do! Everyone in Sheffield knows Beano.
VP: Finish the following sentence, Simon Cowell is a ……
SDT:Waste of space. (VP: Which is the correct answer)
VP: .Sum upSlow Down Tallahassee’s style up in five words
SDT: Soundtrack To Apocalyptic JD Movie.
They are a very fine band , go and rejoice and buy their records. ” So Much For Love” was on the loveliest thickest coloured vinyl I’ve ever seen. It was indeed a thing of visceral beauty and its now available on CD.
JOIN THEIR GANG, AND YOU WILL NEVER BE LONELY AGAIN.
Links
VIDEO
Soundcheck Lancaster Library
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xceLDj1eVnQ&hl=en]
Cant wait for the album