| Chris T-T | |
|---|---|
Chris T-T in the Leaf Lounge at 2000 Trees Festival July 2008 |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Christopher Thorpe-Tracey |
| Also known as | Chris T-T |
| Born | September 16, 1974 UK |
| Origin | Winchester, United Kingdom |
| Genres | Alternative, folk |
| Occupations | Writer, Singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Piano, Guitar, Vocals |
| Years active | 1997–present |
| Labels | Xtra Mile Recordings (2007-present), Snowstorm Records (2000-2005), Wine Cellar Records, |
| Associated acts | Jim Bob, Magoo, Timothy Victor's Folk Orchestra, Frank Turner, Something Beginning With L, Le Frange, Thirty Pounds Of Bone |
| Website | http://christt.com |
Chris T-T (born Christopher Thorpe-Tracey, 16 Sept 1974) is an English singer/songwriter based in Brighton. He has released eight studio albums and one live collection. He has also been a piano accompanist; a radio and club DJ; written for a range of publications [1] and currently contributes a regular column on the arts to left-wing newspaper The Morning Star.[2] T-T's most recent album is Love Is Not Rescue which was released on 15 March 2010 by London-based independent label Xtra Mile Recordings.[3]
While T-T has not crossed over to mainstream success, his influence as an underground artist is widely felt and his music has been consistently praised by critics through the past decade.[4]
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Chris T-T was born and raised in Winchester, England. After performing in school bands, in 1993 he began an honours degree in Popular Music Studies at Bretton Hall College (Leeds University). During his final year at Bretton Hall, T-T became Ents Officer on the Student Union (a post previously held by activist/comedian Mark Thomas).[1]
In 1996, T-T joined Norfolk-based band Magoo on bass, as they signed to Glasgow-based Chemikal Underground Records, the label run by the band Delgados. In May 1997, Chris T-T moved to London to work at the Press Association. His first solo gig was opening for Hefner at the Bull & Gate, Kentish Town.[1]
In 1999 T-T's debut album Beatverse was released on his own Wine Cellar Records.[5] The release brought T-T early press and radio interest. BBC Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq played the song 'Shit From All Angles' on his first show of the new millennium and continued to strongly support T-T. Following Beatverse, T-T signed to London-based independent label Snowstorm Records.[1]
T-T's second album Panic Attack At Sainsbury's was released in autumn 2000. First single 'You Can Be Flirty', was panned in NME and Melody Maker but in early 2001 second single, 'Dreaming Of Injured Popstars' made an impression across the UK underground scene, with notably vicious, sarcastic lyrics: the song describes named pop stars being brutally injured. 'Dreaming Of Injured Popstars' received strong specialist radio, press and fanzine support, enabling T-T to tour the UK as a headline act for the first time. He gained very positive live reviews in NME and Melody Maker and appeared live on Steve Lamacq's Radio 1 Evening Session to perform a five song acoustic set.[6]
The albums The 253 (2001) and London Is Sinking (2003) followed. These were two parts of a trilogy of albums about London and were acclaimed in the British music press and the broadsheets. T-T continued to use sarcastic humour on singles such as 2002's 'Eminem Is Gay', which attracted wide attention, including in the US.[1] In autumn 2003, with the wider success of London Is Sinking, Chris T-T gave up his full time job and moved to Brighton.
In July 2005, work on part three of the London trilogy stalled: T-T's storyline for the third 'London' album turned out to be similar to the London bombings of 7 July 2005 and he felt it was unreleasable.[1] Instead Snowstorm Records released 9 Red Songs, an album of political folk-protest songs. 9 Red Songs was comparatively overlooked by the press but it became T-T's most widely heard work, gaining an exceptional level of viral grass-roots support. Songs are still performed by other artists and have become standard festival campfire material, such as the a capella 'M1 Song' and the self-critical 'Preaching To The Converted'. In particular 'The Huntsman Comes A-Marchin', which criticises British pro-hunting organisation Countryside Alliance, is remarkably well-known. 9 Red Songs was the final album T-T made for Snowstorm Records.[6]
In 2007 T-T signed to Xtra Mile Recordings and in 2008 his sixth album Capital was released, preceded by the rock-oriented 'This Gun Is Not A Gun' EP. This is a heavier record, with larger-scale production than his previous work. Capital is the third part of T-T's 'London Is Sinking trilogy' of albums, although it is also a stand-alone album. It includes guest appearances from Andy Burrows (ex. Razorlight drummer), Phil Sumner (British Sea Power cornettist), Jim Bob, Jon Boden (Bellowhead and Spiers & Boden fiddler) and Emmy The Great. Two further singles; 'A-Z' and '(We Are) The King Of England' were also released.
To tour Capital, T-T recruited his most stable band lineup to date, Hoodrats, including Ben Murray (ex. Le Frange) on drums, Johny Lamb (Thirty Pounds Of Bone, King James, Lynched Recordings) on bass and long-term collaborator Jenny Macro (Graham Coxon, Robyn Hitchcock, Charlotte Hatherley, Stuffy/The Fuses, Something Beginning With L) on guitars. Through 2008 and 2009 T-T toured Capital in the UK, US and Europe, often alongside label-mate Frank Turner.[1]
In May 2008 T-T joined Frank Turner's touring band on keyboards, occasionally also accompanying Turner in a duo format. He initially joined mid-tour without rehearsal. This stint included appearances at Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds festivals, as well as duo supports with Seth Lakeman, Levellers and Biffy Clyro.[1]
In July 2009 T-T was selected at random as one of 2,400 applicants to take part in Anthony Gormley's One & Other project, occupying the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square. On Tuesday 28th he performed a live acoustic set on the fourth plinth which was broadcast on the SkyArts channel as part of their coverage of the project.[7]
In March 2010 Xtra Mile Recordings released T-T's seventh album Love Is Not Rescue, accompanied by the single 'Nintendo'. Recorded in rural Norfolk and urban Los Angeles, this has a quieter, more introspective tone than T-T's previous work and focuses on personal themes.
Chris T-T continues to promote Love Is Not Rescue and a second UK single release 'Words Fail Me' was released on April 25, 2011. He also recently responded to a challenge by stand-up comedian Richard Herring to attack him "in song", after Herring roasted T-T on the Collings and Herrin podcast and his BBC6Music radio programme.[8]
T-T took a photograph of every toilet he visited in 2010 and published the photographs on Twitter (using the hashtag #loo2010), before archiving them to his Facebook page. This project is continuing into 2011.[9]
In early 2011 T-T wrote the story, scripted and composed the score to 'Imagine A Health Worker', a short animated film commissioned by the World Health Organisation's Global Health Workforce Alliance. The film opened their world conference in Bangkok and was then made available online.[10]
Through August 2011 T-T performed a one-man show, Disobedience: Chris T-T Sings A.A. Milne, at Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The performance comprised A.A. Milne's children's poems set to new music composed by T-T on guitar and piano. In October 2011 he released a studio album of the songs, with no prior warning or PR campaign, initially as a download on the Bandcamp website.
T-T's tour schedule, playing both solo and with his full-volume backing band Hoodrats, is near constant, taking him across the UK, Europe and North America. In recent years he has gigged with Ben Folds, The Divine Comedy, British Sea Power, The National, Tom Robinson, Elbow, The Walkmen, KT Tunstall, Quasi and many others, as well as performing at CMJ Seminar, South By Southwest and Glastonbury Festival. Most recent tours have seen him playing with Frank Turner, Jim Bob, Electric Soft Parade, Bellowhead and former Delgados singer Emma Pollock.[6]
During the past few years Chris T-T has composed music for an interactive exhibit at the Natural History Museum; written and performed a live re-soundtracking of Battle Royale at London's Other Cinema; taken part in political and ecological debates, including at SOAS and Brighton Live, and curated an evening of political documentaries at Greenwich Film Festival.[6]
In February 2006 and through spring and summer of 2007, Chris presented a weekly live radio programme on Phoenix FM. He is also occasionally a DJ for gigs and club nights and has DJd in support of bands such as Dinosaur Jr, The Thermals, Okkervil River and Efterklang.
T-T has contributed fiction and non-fiction writing to a number of books and magazines. In early 2008, Chris T-T began to write a regular weekly column in the Arts section of the socialist daily newspaper The Morning Star which is ongoing. A selection of his Empties photographs has been published in the book Dark Mountain Volume 2. T-T also writes a popular and occasionally controversial blog. He was an early adopter of Twitter, building a following through tweeting primarily unrelated to his music career.[6]
In November 2010 Chris T-T was identified as the instigator of the #IAmSpartacus Twitter hashtag, an act of mass online civil disobedience in the UK to show support for accountant Paul Chambers, after he lost his appeal against a conviction for a joke he had made on Twitter, earlier in the year. Thousands of people copied Chambers' original message with the #IAmSpartacus hashtag and for a day it was the most popular Twitter hashtag in the world, attracting worldwide media coverage to the case.[11]
The tweet, including the 'Spartacus' reference, was also repeated on the floor of the House of Commons by Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert.[12]
On April 1, 2005 Chris T-T married yogi and complementary therapist Rifa Bhunnoo in Brighton Pavilion. They live in central Brighton.