Roddy Frame (born 29 January 1964) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and musician. He was the founder of the 1980s new wave band Aztec Camera and has undertaken a solo career since the group's dissolution. In November 2013, journalist Brian Donaldson described Frame as: "Aztec Camera wunderkind-turned-elder statesman of intelligent, melodic, wistful Scotpop."

As a child and adolescent, Frame was inspired by a variety of musical influences, including David Bowie, the Velvet Underground, the Byrds and Love. He cited John McGeoch's guitar playing with Magazine and Siouxsie and the Banshees as one of his main influences.

Frame was attracted to the fashion sense of punk bands like the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols, but was subsequently inspired by the look of the Fall's Mark E. Smith. Then, at the age of 16, Frame joined the Postcard Records roster—alongside Orange Juice and Josef K—and his next band, Aztec Camera, began to record a series of low-budget singles, such as "Just Like Gold" and "Mattress of Wire". The music of Aztec Camera drew attention from both John Peel, a presenter on BBC Radio 1, and the New Musical Express (NME).

In 1983 Aztec Camera released High Land, Hard Rain, their first album on Rough Trade Records, which did not include the first two Postcard singles, aside from a re-recording of "We Could Send Letters", which had been the b-side of "Just Like Gold". The album's opening song, "Oblivious", was a hit single and Aztec Camera were consequently recognised as one of the key acts on the Rough Trade label. On tracks such as "Walk Out to Winter" and "Back on Board", Frame sang poetic lyrics about love, both lost and found, themes that he would revisit on subsequent Aztec Camera albums. The duration of the titular song is nearly nine minutes, while "All I Need is Everything" received radio airplay.

Around this time, Frame became somewhat of a recluse, living in a remote wooden shack in Hollywood, Marple Bridge, in the hills above Manchester, "going through periods of good and bad mental health," while continuing to write music for Aztec Camera's next album, including the lyric "From Westwood to Hollywood" in the song "Somewhere in My Heart".

Aztec Camera's third album, 1987's Love, was recorded in the US with soul, R&B and pop producers such as Michael Jonzun, Tommy LiPuma and Rob Mounsey. By this stage of the band's history, Frame represented its single driving force and Frame later explained that his inspiration at the time of writing the song was Bruce Springsteen.

Frame then recorded the next Aztec Camera album, Dreamland, with Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Released in 1993, the album was mixed by Julian Mendelsohn, who had previously worked with the band. For Frame's final album under the Aztec Camera moniker, and the last original studio recording for the WEA label, Frame worked with renowned production team Langer-Winstanley, who had previously worked with Madness and Elvis Costello. Frestonia was released in 1995 and the Reprise Records label issued it in the US.

All six Aztec Camera studio albums were reissued in August 2012 by the Edsel Records label, which had previously completed the same process for the studio albums of Everything But The Girl. The reissued editions included bonus tracks and live recordings. The following year, the Domino Recording Company reissued High Land, Hard Rain to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary, including a vinyl pressing of the album that was released in the second half of 2013. A white cotton T-shirt with the album's cover art was produced by and sold on Frame's website. Frame performed a series of live shows in the UK, at which High Land, Hard Rain was played in its entirety with the support of a backing band. According to a media report on 28 August 2013, none of the original band members was involved with the shows and the anniversary event was not an Aztec Camera reunion. In 1999 Frame appeared alongside Neil Finn and Graham Gouldman as part of the BBC Four's Songwriters' Circle series, and played both Aztec Camera and solo songs.

Frame's second solo album, Surf (2002), is a collection of acoustic songs. In a 2002 Guardian interview, Frame explained that he had "written an album about day-to-day life in London; about being 38 and wondering what you're going to do next." The album's cover image is a photograph taken from atop Burwash House in London, UK, by Hannah Grace Deller, Frame's girlfriend at the time, and depicts the city's skyline.</blockquote>

The song "Small World" was used as the theme music for the BBC Television comedy series Early Doors (2003–2004). Frame explained at a 2012 live performance in the UK that "Crossing Newbury Street" is about the time that he spent with Jonzun in Boston, Massachusetts, US, while writing and recording "Somewhere in My Heart". Frame performed his first ever show at the Glastonbury Festival in 2003.

His next solo album, Western Skies, was released in May 2006. Later in 2006, he released a live album called Live at Ronnie Scott's, a recording of a performance that was completed on 29 May 2005, and this was followed in 2007 by Live at The Blue Note, Osaka, another live recording of a show of 21 September 2006 in Japan. Video footage of Frame performing live solo concerts in the UK in both 2005 (Cardiff) and 2008 (Birmingham) was published on the YouTube online video-sharing platform.

In preparation for Frame's next studio album, he signed to AED Records, a record label founded by musician Edwyn Collins—a close friend and collaborator of Frame—and James Endeacott.

Frame recorded his next album at Collins's West Heath Yard studio with producer Sebastian Lewsley (Frame stated in a 2013 radio interview that Collins had been "incredibly generous".

Prior to the release of Frame's fourth solo album, two songs from the album, "Forty Days of Rain" and "Postcard", appeared on Frame's website in mid-April for listeners to stream. Additionally, AED reissued a vinyl version of the Surf album for Record Store Day on 19 April 2014. In its review of the album, released eight years after Western Skies, the Scotsman newspaper stated that the "goodwill and energy" generated by the 30th anniversary High Land, Hard Rain tour "informed the completion of this new album", and describes a work filled with "impressionistic snapshots" and "the theme of pulling away ... and moving on elsewhere." Tom Robinson's BBC Radio 6 show; the radio show of Terry Wogan, The Weekend Wogan, on BBC Radio 2; the Monocle 24 radio programme "Culture with Robert Bound"; and BBC Radio 6 with Liz Kershaw.

In a review for the Observer publication, Phil Mongredien awarded Seven Dials three-out-of-five stars, explaining: "his knack for a memorable, soaring chorus is undiminished by time." Mongredien concedes that he finds the slower-tempo songs, such as "Rear View Mirror", as "less compelling", but concludes that "this is a welcome return nonetheless." Q magazine awarded the album four stars, stating, "Melodies unfold, lyrics reveal their meaning and the wait is revealed as having been worth it", while The Scotsman wrote: "Frame may be a man of few words but he makes them all count". The Line of Best Fit website, in support of its 8.5/10 rating, published the following statement as part of its review: "A wonderfully understated record... approaching the restrained, heart-tugging perfection of his eighties peaks".

Frame completed an interview with the French website Le Gorille in July 2014 and stated that his manager had informed him of a live performance in France at the end of 2014. Four German dates were announced in July 2014, whereby Frame will play solo shows during October 2014.

Frame appeared on the "Soho Social" programme of the Soho Radio online media outlet on 19 August 2014, presented by Dan Gray. As of September 2014, Frame is listed as one of the "Artists & Writers" of the UK arm of the Universal Music Publishing Group company.

Collaborations

Frame has maintained a long-term friendship with Edwyn Collins, who was also signed to Postcard Records in the 1980s with his band Orange Juice. Following Sakamoto's production work on Aztec Camera's Dreamland album, Frame's vocals appeared on the song "Same Dream, Same Destination", from Sakamoto's 1994 album, Sweet Revenge.

Frame performed with Collins in November 2007 during Collins's first concert after his recovery from a serious illness, and the pair played again at the Glastonbury Festival in June 2008, on the Park Stage, and at the Purcell Rooms in London, UK, in September 2008. In 2012 Collins sang "A Girl Like You"—with Frame on guitar and Tim Burgess on backing vocals—and a rendition of the Orange Juice song "Falling and Laughing"—with Frame on guitar—at Burgess's "Tim Peaks Diner" café, as part of the Kendal Calling festival.

Dan Carey and Rob Da Bank, whose band name is Lazyboy, collaborated with Frame on the song "Western Skies"; Frame then re-recorded the song for a solo album of the same name and has performed an acoustic rendition of the song in live settings, with the inclusion of a harmonica solo. At a 2011 Glasgow performance, Frame explained that he had been listening to reggae-influenced music at the time of writing the lyrics and recorded the song at Da Bank's personal home.

Cover versions

Frame recorded cover versions of "In My Life", by The Beatles; "Bad Education", by Blue Orchids; Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors"; and a slowed-down version of "Jump", originally recorded by Van Halen. Frame played "Inside Out" during a live performance on BBC 6 Radio in early September 2014. Frame explained that, like "Jump", when "Inside Out" is slowed down, additional meanings become apparent, such as the notion of infidelity in the case of the latter.

Touring

Frame has performed a total of 58 live shows under his own name, including a UK tour throughout October 2011 with a small backing band.

The 30th anniversary High Land, Hard Rain tour of December 2013 was performed at the following UK venues: London's Theatre Royal, Manchester's Bridgewater Hall and Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall. The official European tour dates following the release of Seven Dials were announced in late August 2014. Frame is scheduled to play in cities such as Munich, Germany; Paris, France; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and Vienna, Austria, in addition to Aberdeen, Glasgow and London. Frame stated during an August 2014 interview that he was interested in completing most of the tour by train.

Following the release of the Aztec Camera album Dreamland, Frame explained in a 1993 Scottish television interview that the highlight of his career up until that point was meeting one of his musical heroes, American soul artist Al Green, while recording "Somewhere in My Heart" with Jonzun and Maurice Starr. Frame said that he did not know if he could ever "feel that good about music again" and then played the Dreamland song "Safe in Sorrow", which he explains is based on the "Al Green feel".

In another television interview following the release of Dreamland, Frame explained that politics were not a significant influence upon his songwriting up until that point. Frame mentioned Billy Bragg and explained that while Bragg "toils" away politically, he believed that people really want to listen to personal songs:

<blockquote>

I feel more comfortable writing, kind of, personal, one-to-one songs. I think politics is tricky, and when it comes down to it, man, my favourite records are, like, uh, you know: three chords and a prayer, you know? ... but when it comes down to it, you wanna hear The Elgins, singing "Put Yourself In My Place"; preferably from a jukebox, so it's got a nice kick to it, you know?</blockquote>

As a promotional prelude to the release of Seven Dials, Frame appeared in music magazine Q, and also selected a playlist "of favourite songs which evoke a sense of place", as a reference to the London landmark that the album is named after. Frame's playlist included songs by Joe Strummer, Calle Sanlucar, The Clash, Grace Jones, Louis Armstrong and the Cocteau Twins.

Personal life

Frame married in 1990. In 1993, Frame had been residing in London for 11 years, but still considered Scotland his "spiritual" home. However, Frame explained that he was not a "patriot" and considered himself a "global citizen". His opinion was that Scotland was more meaningful than square slice and plain bread, and described such stereotypical notions as "nonsense".

  • Surf (Redemption, 2002) (UK No. 91)

Live albums

  • Live at Ronnie Scott's (2006)
  • Live at The Blue Note, Osaka (2007)

See also

  • List of Scottish musicians
  • Music of Scotland

References

  • Official website
  • Killermont Street