Scans: Under The Radar Magazine

Here are some scans of Under The Radar magazine's Issue #37. 

Click on the pictures to see their larger versions and read the transcript below.

BETH JEANS HOUGHTON
Time Trials
Words by Mike Hilleary
Photos by Wendy Lynch Redfern

Twenty-one-year-old Beth Jeans Houghton speaks with such an accelerated fervor, you're left with the impression that if the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist were to slow down talking at any point, she'd lose her entire train of thought. When Houghton gets an idea in her head, she has to move on it quickly.

"It's almost like I have this fear of forgetting," she says. A testament to this is when she recounts the origin of her song "Sweet Tooth Bird." Stuck on a train without any kind of recording device, she forced herself to sing it over and over again for three hours until she made it home.

Perhaps to justify the anxiety it caused her, Houghton has selected the song as the first single for her debut full-length, Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose. Showcasing her airy, honeyed vocals, the album swells with orchestral arrangements and glam pageantry, employing an array of strings, marching band horns, and choral harmonies. "I don't know what kind of genre my music is," says Houghton. "I don't know what I'm aiming for."

Born in Newcastle, England, Houghton grew up listening to a variety of older records from the 1950s to the late '70s. "I really like glam rock," she says, singling out one of her heavier influences. "I liked Marc Bolan when I was a kid. I used to think I could talk to his ghost. I'd come home from school after having a bad day and say, [whining voice] 'Marc, I've had a bad day.'"

Communing with dead rock stars helped Houghton to survive at a time when her adolescent restlessness grew to be incompatible with her formal education. By the time she was 14, she was skipping classes and getting into arguments with teachers. By age 15, she had decided to call it quits, dropping out of school entirely.

"It just wasn't for me," she says. "It was just making me really depressed having no idea what I was going to do with my life." Working a number of odd jobs, Houghton earned enough at 16 to buy a guitar without knowing how to play one. "I just bought it 'cause it looked nice and thought maybe that was something that I could do," she says.

Houghton took her dark, stream-of-consciousness writings, put them to music, and in 2009 recorded a buzz-inducing EP entitled Hot Toast Volume One with her newly formed backing band, The Hooves of Destiny. With an album's worth of follow-up material ready to be laid down, Houghton wanted to head back into the studio immediately. But progress became increasingly marred by contract negotiations, revolving-door management, touring, sustainable funding, disputes over creative control, and even an ailing producer. While a deal with Mute has provided some much needed stability, Houghton maintains some traces of exasperation.

"It was all these unforeseen barriers and it just sort of dragged on," she says. "Which for me, probably more than most people, was just like a right kick in the balls."

With the album currently scheduled for a January release, and an as yet untitled EP of new material slated for this fall, Houghton says the most exciting thing for her will be when the songs find their way to listeners and become something more than the ideas in her busy brain. Says Houghton, "I'm really happy that it's finished. I'm really happy with the way it sounds. I think I got my point across. It sounds like the inside of my head." 

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Author: Mike Hilleary

Photos: Wendy Lynch Redfern

Source: Under The Radar

Date: July 28, 2011

Scans: Mike Hilleary