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About Craig Pulsar |
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UPDATE! Right now, Craig has released a remix EP featuring previous favourites like 'Dance Disco Robot' and 'Tokyo Sexwale', using the power of collaboration to cement his reputation for a fun tune. By the end of the year he will be unleashing his dancetastic third album... Several punters were actually in danger of having a seizure, particularly during 'Dance Disco Robot'. |
In 1999, just before the world was supposed to end, Robert Craig Weldon left his job as a submersible pilot and formed a band called Pulsar. With his barnacle-encrusted savings he bought a synthesiser and home studio and got busy recording songs. 'Splendid!', an eleven-track album recorded in a Glasgow tenement, was the result. Armed with 'Splendid!' Craig's stall was high on melody and cheese but low on coolness, a combination he calls 'archpop.' Despite some encouraging live feedback, he soon faced the economic realities of the artist (and was in fact getting a bit tired of being a penniless bum) and took another job in Birmingham.
But this wasn't the end for Pulsar. A friend lent a new track to a student record company and this track, 'The People With Computers in Their Head,' duly appeared on the Mothballs Vol3 EP. This made its way to national radio when Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq played it on his show. Recorded with a special method (digital distortion being part of the sound), 'The People With Computers in Their Head,' with its merciless drums and cyber-punk vision is helluva loud. Digital distortion may not be the future of musical production, but the subject could well be the future for all of us!
Pulsar was then approached by 'The Smoke Collective', a group of unsigned bands looking to pool resources and raise the profile of music in Glasgow and Scotland. Although living in Birmingham, England by the time of the launch, Craig was most pleased to be involved. The Smoke launch gigs lived up to their potential, filling the 13th Note Cafe to capacity (OK, so the capacity is only 100), with more people outside unable to get in! Largely because of some of the well known 'underground' names also appearing on the 'Smoke' CD such as My Legendary Girlfriend.
Musically, Craig decided from now on to only release well performed, toe-tapping, through-provoking, spectacularly-produced recordings. This proved a Venn diagram from hell, and nothing much was forthcoming for the next year or so. Pulsar appeared on a remix CD for My Legendary Girlfriend's Gross Domestic Product album, did another show at the 13th Note, and applied to appear on the sequel to the popular Littlest Album, a 7" single-sized album of tracks, none of which are more than a minute long! However, by this point he had returned to Glasgow and been inspired by the Hector Collectors' shambolic genius album, Straight Outta Comprehensive. Music didn't *have* to be super-well produced and performed if the raw material was strong enough. A frenzy of breezily produced recording like 'Tokyo Sexwale' followed, along with a spoof boyband called the One Minute Wonders, injecting energy and humour into the live show. If Pulsar is playing in your town, come along and enjoy the show, because there are very few acts out there like him!
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