THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

THE TESTIMONIAL TOUR OF 45s (aka The Singular Adventures of Edwyn Collins)

#38: Too Bad (That’s Sad) : Edwyn Collins (AED Records, AEDEC22PROMO, 2013)

Here’s another that was all set to be a bona fide single only to end up being released as a promo-only CD.

mp3: Edwyn Collins – Too Bad (That’s Sad)

I’ve found a couple of articles, both published on 13 June 2013. This is from clashmusic.com:-

Deep down, Edwyn Collins is a bit of a soul boy.

If you follow the singer on Twitter you’ll notice a recurring pattern, with Edwyn Collins feverishly posting links to some of his favourite soul cuts. Motown, Northern, Philly and funk – it doesn’t matter, so long as it’s up beat and worth dancing to.

It’s an influence which has become more and more apparent in his work. Recent album ‘Understated’ boasts a few out-on-the-floor bangers, and one is set to receive a full scale single release.

‘Too Bad (That’s Sad)’ masters that old Motown trick of pairing melancholic lyrics to an itchy beat. Four on the floor, with some great vocals from Edwyn Collins, the single will be released on AED Records next month.

There was also a lot of love being shown over at The Quietus:-

Edwyn Collins is set to release a new single, ‘Too Bad (That’s Sad)’, taken from his recent Understated album, on July 8 via his AED label.

The track’s a choice cut from the album, Collins’ eighth solo release, with our review calling it: “Motown soul […] with its George Harrison slide guitar solo and pounding tambourines [the track] is lush and uplifting, its titular refrain crystallising Collins’ modest understatement on his own situation.”

Read our interview with Collins, Grace Maxwell and James Endeacott about AED and pre-order the single at the label’s website.

So….it seems Too Bad (That’s Sad) was due to get ‘a full scale single release’ (which in my mind equates to CD and 7″ vinyl like many other singles being issued by AED) and that it could be pre-ordered. And yet, the only thing available on the secondhand market is a one-track CD promo!?

Both articles not only referenced the video that had been made but offered the opportunity to watch it:-

The writer at clash.com couldn’t hide his love for the promo:-

The video for the track was directed by South London resident the passionately Welsh Mr Kieren Evans, and matches the contagious energy of the single itself. Switching from panel to panel, it’s stylishly shot with nods towards the Pop Art end of the Mod spectrum.

It’s a real pity that the single wasn’t ever released as it could well have been one of the sounds of the summer of 2013.

JC

Martial Arts

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #510: THE MARTIAL ARTS

This is another one to which thanks must be given to Last Night From Glasgow.

Paul Kelly (pictured above) is one of THE unsung heroes of the music scene here in my home city. He’s been around for what seems like ages, with his first EP and album as The Martial Arts dating back to 2006. He’s not been all that prolific in that particular guise, with Discogs listing just two albums and six EPs all told, with the most recent being the very well received In There Like Swimwear back in 2024.

But he keeps particularly busy through his involvement with other acts, having been part of BMX Bandits for a number of years, while his work alongside Carla J Easton has seen him collaborate on a number of her many projects. Oh, and he also plays bass for Kim Grant, who records and performs under the name of Raveloe.

I’ve a handful of songs from the short time he was part of LNFG (his current label is Where It’s At Is Where You Are, or WIAIWYA for short) including this:-

mp3: The Martial Arts – New Performance

The lead track from the 2019 EP, I Used To Be The Martial Arts.

JC

Fictive Fridays, Various

FICTIVE FRIDAYS : #18

a guest series, courtesy of a very friendly lawyer

HERE COMES THE SUMMER

Happy day-after Birthday to JC, happy Juneteenth today in the States, and happy summer to everyone, which starts this weekend! 50 song bonanza because…

Here Comes The Summer – Undertones.

Feargal Sharkey and I share a summer birthday (August 13).

Summer Babe – Pavement.

The band’s only single on Drag City Records, before moving to Matador.

Summertime – Sundays.

If you haven’t yet read strangeways‘ masterpiece Sundays ICA stop what you’re doing and take care of that.

That Summer Feeling – Jonathan Richman.

From Jonathan Sings! (1983), which the NY Times called an album of “unironic, clear-sighted innocence.”

Summertime Clothes – Animal Collective.

From Merriweather Post Pavilion, the name of an outdoor concert venue in Maryland. It’s not a live recording but Avey Tare and Geologist saw shows there when they were kids.

Indian Summer – Beat Happening.

Calvin Johnson sings like a dial tone, but the song is a classic. Covered by the likes of R.E.M., Luna, Mac DeMarco and Ben Gibbard.

Summer Here Kids – Grandaddy. Third single from the debut album Under the Western Freeway.

The Other Side of Summer – Elvis Costello.

The only good song on Declan’s first really bad album.

The Summer – Yo La Tengo.

Featuring Gene Holder of the db’s on bass.

Summer of Love – B-52s.

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between Cindy and Kate but the lead on this track is pure Cindy.

Summer of Hate – Crocodiles.

Title track from the debut album by a band known as San Diego’s own Jesus & Mary Chain.

Constructive Summer – The Hold Steady.

For my money, no one is making better Springsteen records than this outfit.

Summer’s Cauldron – XTC.

Featuring melodica by producer Todd Rundgren.

Lonely Summer Nights – Stray Cats.

The band had the look and the sound and the tattoos and almost single-handedly revived rockabilly. Brian Setzer is a guitar legend but he could have sung for anyone and this tune proves it.

Celebrated Summer – Hüsker Dü.

Kind of weird to hear an acoustic 12-string on a Huskers record but it comes in at about at the 1:40 mark.

Here Comes The Summer – Fiery Furnaces.

Where did this band go? Hoping the Friedberger siblings sort out whatever’s going on and release some new music.

Someone Somewhere in Summertime – Simple Minds.

The Glaswegians were still making good records in the early 80’s. Then they sacked bassist Derek Forbes and I couldn’t be bothered since then.

Long Hot Summer – Style Council.

I was trying to replicate the bass sound on this track until I figured out it was Mick Talbot playing a synth.

A Summer Wasting – Belle & Sebastian.

Harrison‘s pick for this set.

Summer Bummer – Lana Del Rey.

Jane‘s pick for this set. Featuring A$AP Rocky.

Song for the Summer – Stereophonics.

Couldn’t tell you anything about this band except they’re Welsh, have been around 30 years, and the bandleader got some press for calling Thom Yorke a twat.

Summer Dress – Red House Painters.

From the slow core group’s 1995 release, Ocean Beach.

Summertime – Beck.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a genius film from 2010 starring everybody: Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aubrey Plaza, Brie Larson, Chris Evans et al. The soundtrack is great, too, and includes this Beck tune in the expanded edition.

Summer Teeth – Wilco.

Title track from arguably the best album by the Chicago institution.

Summer Turns To High – REM.

From 2001’s Reveal, the second without original drummer Bill Berry.

It’s Summertime – Flaming Lips.

From Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, which band leader Wayne Coyne is adapting into a graphic novel to be released later this year.

A Summer Thing – Cayucas.

The band is named after a sleepy beach town in California’s central coast, but was formed right here in sunny Santa Monica!

Summer Song – Baby Lemonade.

And here’s another Santa Monica band. Mike and Randy are the guitarist and drummer in Petty Theft, a local Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers cover band fronted by my friends Julia and Danny.

Summer-Blink – Cocteau Twins.

In which Elizabeth Fraser sings in understandable English for a change.

Summer Town – Blitzen Trapper.

From the Portland, Oregon champs’ third excellent album, Wild Mountain Nation.

Summer Wind – Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet.

The surf instrumentalists have some of my favorite song titles, e.g. ‘Having an Average Weekend,’ ‘Our Weapons Are Useless’, and ‘Honey, You’re Wasting Ammo.’

Pick-Up Summer – Fu Manchu.

Celebrated as a stoner rock band. I knew the bassist, Brad, when he was a kid still living at home with his parents. He went on to found Creepy Fingers, a boutique guitar pedal company.

Lies of Summer – Aimee Mann.

From 2017’s Mental Illness, which the goddess described as her “saddest” record.

Cruel Summer – Bananarama.

Who were this band? Did they play any instruments? Did they write their own tunes? Always supposed they were a manufactured act but was never interested enough to find out. (JC’s note to Jonny…..check here!!!)

Suddenly Last Summer – Motels.

One of the biggest hits stateside for Martha Davis and crew, with a title borrowed from a one-act play by Tennessee Williams.

Feel Good Hit of the Summer – Queens of the Stone Age.

Jane was about 13 and barely 5 feet tall when I took her and her friend to Coachella 2013. They wandered into QOTSA‘s mosh pit and I broke a toe getting them out of there.

Indian Summer – Manic Street Preachers.

Fourth single from the Welsh stalwarts’ eighth studio LP, Send Away the Tigers.

Where’s Summer B.? – Ben Folds Five.

Summer Burke was a friend of the band and drew their piano logo. The song is about her returning to Chapel Hill after a long absence.

Summer Was A Day – Pete Yorn.

Lead track from PY’s sixth studio LP, Arranging Time. It was released as a single that didn’t chart, but was featured in American TV shows The Royals and Shameless.

Summertime Is In Our Hands – Michael Franti & Spearhead.

Franti claims not to have worn shoes since 2000.

Summertime is Coming – Paul Banks.

Dude called himself Julian Plenti on his first solo album, but it’s obviously Interpol‘s frontman.

Summer Skin – Death Cab for Cutie.

You never hear anything about ace bassist Nick Harmer, but he’s been right there with Ben Gibbard from the very beginning of Death Cab and appears on all their albums.

Summersong – Decemberists.

Colin Meloy has some pretty lyrics: “And summer arrives/With a length of lights/And summer blows away/And quietly, it gets swallowed by a wave/It gets swallowed by a wave.”

Summer Moon – Raveonettes.

Moody little number by the Danish duo, from 2011’s Raven in the Grave.

Summer Girl – Haim.

Lou Reed is co-credited as a writer on this track, presumably because the sax and twin bass parts are loosely based on ‘Walk on the Wild Side.’

Summer Fun – Tijuana Panthers.

The Panthers are a surf band from Long Beach, California and have released 6 albums since 2010. This is from the debut, titled Max Baker.

Summertime Thing – Chuck Prophet.

It’s the Paisley Underground legend with the ubiquitous pedal steel player Greg Liesz in tow.

Summertime Rolls – Jane’s Addiction.

I met Stephen Perkins a couple of months ago and was surprised that the dude was so tiny. But, damn, what a drummer!

Endless Summer – Superchunk.

From Wild Loneliness (2022), recorded during COVID lockdown and featuring guest appearances by the likes of Norman Blake, Sharon Van Etten, Mike Mills, and Tracyane Campbell of Camera Obscura.

Summertime Boogie – Freaks.

Every Band Has A Shonen Knife Who Loves Them is a compilation of American bands covering Shonen Knife songs. Released on white and pink vinyl in 1989 and long out of print, the collection included some indie heavy hitters: Sonic Youth, Redd Kross, L7 and the Three O’Clock, to name a few. The Reverb Motherfuckers, whom my band Chronic Citizens shared a rehearsal space in the East Village, also turned up to cover ‘Elephant Pao Pao’ from SK’s debut album, Burning Farm. I don’t know the first thing about Freaks, but I love their version of this track, which first appeared on 1986’s Pretty Little Baka Guy.

Jonny

Darling Buds, Razorcuts, Talulah Gosh, Treebound Story

C86 : THE ULTIMATE SERIES (Parts 47, 48, 49, and 50 of 114)

Treebound Story were a four-piece band from Sheffield, active between 1986 and 1989 during which time they would release four singles, the first two in 1986 and 1987 on the locally-based Fon Records (a reminder that Fon was short for Fuck Off Nazis) and the last two for another Sheffield label, Native Records.

mp3: I Remember – Treebound Story

Track 5, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition

The a-side of their 1986 debut single. Perhaps the most famous fact of all around Treebound Story was that they were the first band Richard Hawley played in, when he was a teenager. Indeed, he helped write many of the band’s songs, including I Remember.

Talulah Gosh. Formed in Oxford in early 1986 and then play their first gig in the same city on 7 March. If they hadn’t been so new, there is no doubt they would have been invited to contribute a song to the C86 cassette, which was released in May 1986. As it was, they had to make do with being a band whose name and sound seem to be everything the movement/scene/genre became known for.

Before the year was out, they would release two singles on the Edinburgh-based 53rd & 3rd Records, and record a session for the Janice Long Show on BBC Radio 1. In 1987, there were two more singles on 53rd & 3rd, followed by one more in 1988, as well as a session for John Peel.

And that was it. It really is quite the thing that the band have become synonymous with C86, when there were just the 14 songs across five singles (some were only available on the 12″ versions).

mp3: I Told You So – Talulah Gosh

Track 13, Disc Two of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition

A song that was never included on any of the singles but had appeared on a flexidisc, given away with two fanzines, Are You Scared To Get Happy? and Trout Fishing In Leytonstone, in early 1987.

That this is the next song in the alphabetical run through is quite fortuitous

mp3: I’ll Still Be There – Razorcuts

Track 22, Disc 1 of CD86.

Razorcuts were the band on the other side of the 1987 flexidisc on which the Talulah Gosh song featured.

They had formed in London in 1984, but it took two years before a debut single, Big Pink Cake, was recorded, which was released by the Bristol-based The Subway Organisation. The song which Bob Stanley chose for the CD86 compilation was its b-side. I’ve already gone on record, back in 2015, as saying I disliked the song on account of a dreadful substandard vocal performance that borders on the unlistenable.

But I did offer up an alternative viewpoint on a later Razorcuts song which I’ll also say a little more about when the band make a second appearance in this series.

The Darling Buds, from Newport in Wales, formed in 1986, split up in 1993, briefly reformed for a first time in 2010, and then for a second time in 2013 and are still very much on the go today.

Their first single was a self-released double-A side, recorded in June 1986 and released in February 1987 with a pressing of 2000 copies:-

mp3: If I Said – The Darling Buds

Track 15, Disc 2 of CD86.

Their next two singles were released by the Sheffield-based indie label, Native Records. By now, their music was being played a fair deal on radio stations and the band was getting a lot of column inches in the UK music papers. It was no real surprise that the major labels began to show an interest – the fact the band were fronted by an attractive and young blonde female singer played its part in what has always been an industry riddled with misogyny – and they were signed by Epic Records in 1988. Ten singles followed, the first five of which charted. There were also three albums, the first of which charted. There were also regular efforts to break into the American market, but to no avail. It was hardly a huge surprise when The Darling Birds initially called it a day in 1993.

There was a new EP in 2017, but otherwise they have become a hard-working touring band, with enough folk still interested in hearing the early songs, including the minor hits issued on Epic, to make it all worthwhile.

JC

Echo & The Bunnymen

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #415 : ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN (PEEL SESSIONS)

A PICTURE I ASSUME WAS TAKEN BEFORE PETE DE FREITAS JOINED THE BAND!

Echo & The Bunnymen went into the studios for six Peel Sessions between 15 August 1979 and 19 September 1983, recording 21 songs all told. Many of the sessions involved songs that were, at the various points in time, still to receive an official release, and a number of them, particularly those that would feature on Ocean Rain are quite different, almost demo like thanks to the absence of strings. Some songs were still such works in progress that the names attributed at the sessions would be replaced by the time the studio version had been recorded and mastered.

All the sessions were captured and compiled for a double LP that was released in 2019, and so none of what follows is rare or difficult to track down. I just thought picking out 1o of the 21 tracks would make for a decent enough ICA.

SIDE ONE

1. Read It In Books (Peel Session, first broadcast on 22 August 1979)

Technically, one of just four songs from the Peel Sessions that can be properly attributed to Echo as well as the Bunnymen, as the debut session involved Ian McCulloch, Les Pattinson and Will Sargeant along with their, at the time, ever-present drum machine. A song whose authorship has long been argued over – Mac insists it’s him alone and that Julian Cope‘s claim to be be the co-writer is bogus. Bill Drummond considered it a joint composition, and as manager of both bands they were involved in, he registered it to McCulloch/Cope.

The Bunnymen’s initial studio take was already available as the b-side of their debut single, Pictures on My Wall, that had come out on Zoo Records in May 1979. The Peel Session is about 30 seconds shorter and is played at a slightly faster tempo. It also has more pronounced guitar work that had been absent from the single version. It would, of course, be re-recorded, with Pete de Freitas on drums for inclusion on debut album Crocodiles the following year.

2. Nocturnal Me (Peel Session, first broadcast on 19 September 1983)

At the other end of the spectrum, this is one of the four tracks from the sixth Peel Session. Ocean Rain was still some eight months from seeing the light of day, but as can be heard from this take on Nocturnal Me, the song was at a well advanced stage, including the vocal inflections that would be used in the studio. The strings have still to be added, while the longer studio version (approx 40 seconds) can be attributed to the extended outro courtesy of those very strings.

3. That Golden Smile (Peel Session, first broadcast on 12 November 1980)

In effect, the advanced demo version of Show of Strength, the track which would open Heaven Up Here when it was released on 29 May 1981. As with the version that would make it onto the album, this is one of my personal favourites of all the Peel Session songs. Pete pounds away, beautifully in tandem with Les’s big bass notes; Will does what Will does while Mac doesn’t fuck about with it….the interesting thing for me is that this take fades out which may well have been the way that the producer on the day, Jerry Smith, wanted it to be broadcast as it certainly sounds as if the band were still playing their way to the bitter end.

4. Over The Wall (Peel Session, first broadcast on 22 May 1980)

From an earlier session, but one which affords a similar opportunity to hear how advanced the band were with a song that would be taken into studio in early 1981 for eventual release on Heaven Up Here. It’s a slightly less dramatic version, with Mac not bellowing the chorus in the way he would later do, but he does weave in the lines from Del Shannon‘s Runaway. It also sounds as if this is one where both Pete and the drum machine are in use.

5. No Hands (Peel Session, first broadcast on 8 February 1982)

This is from the fourth of the Peel sessions and is the only song that was never given a ‘proper’ studio recording. This particular session also saw the recordong and broadcast of Taking Advantage and An Equation, songs that would undergo name changes to The Back of Love and Higher Hell when recorded for the album Porcupine, which hit the shops almost exactly a year later on 4 February 1983.

The Peel version of The Back of Love is, sadly, very lead-footed and ponderous in places, and it lasts almost a minute longer than the eventual studio take. Anyone listening at the time would probably have been most excited by No Hands and looked forward to its eventual appearance as an album track or b-side (it’s just not catchy enough to merit being a single). It’s always been a wee bit of a mystery as to why it disappeared from view.

SIDE TWO

1. All That Jazz (Peel Session, first broadcast on 22 May 1980)

The May 1980 session has a good claim to be the best of them. There were just the three songs, and Side A has already featured one that would have to wait a full year before the studio version was heard. The other two would make it onto debut album Crocodiles, the recording of which would get underway the following month. Interestingly, the band offered up The Pictures On My Wall, which was already well known having been the debut single back some 12 months previously along with a tremendous version of All That Jazz, a song that maybe could have and should have been a single.

2. The Killing Moon (Peel Session, first broadcast on 20 June 1983)

There were two Peel Sessions in relatively quick succession in 1983 – 20 June and 19 September – which between them offered up seven of the nine songs that would appear on Ocean Rain. As I mentioned earlier, given how much work went into the studio recordings, especially with the string arrangements, the Peel Sessions can be seen as being demo like. The Killing Moon is just over three and a half minutes in length. It is almost indie-rock by numbers, but nevertheless is a decent enough listen. Bear in mind that this session was broadcast around the same time as the release of the non-album single Never Stop, which itself is laden with strings and all sorts of great percussion, and given the positive reaction to the single, it may well have provided the idea for doing something similar to The Killing Moon which ended up being transformed almost beyond recognition.

3. All My Colours Turn To Clouds (Peel Session, first broadcast on 12 November 1980)

Here’s one that doesn’t sound too different from the eventual studio version that would appear on Heaven Up Here some seven months down the line. I had a look at the stats over at setlists.fm, and it turns out All My Colours (as the name would later be shortened to) was only played once prior to it being recorded for the Peel Session which surprises me as it sounds so tight as if it was one the band were very familiar with. It’s long been part of their sets ever since, with the stats showing it’s the 14th most played of all their songs – there’s rarely a show goes by without it.

4. Villiers Terrace (Peel Session, first broadcast on 22 August 1979)

Talking of popular Bunnymen songs, this is seemingly the 9th most played in concert. Another from the very first Peel Session meaning that Pete doesn’t appear on it. It’s a much slower and less energetic take than that which would eventually be recorded for Crocodiles.

5. Ocean Rain (Peel Session, first broadcast on 19 September 1983)

And to round it all off, one in which the Peel Session is waaaaaaay faster and more upbeat than the eventual studio take. As with The Killing Moon, the transformation between the Peel Sessions in 1983 and what emerged on Ocean Rain come May 1984 is quite something.

So….there you have it. A kind of semi-lazy ICA, but one that I do hope meets with some nods of approval.

JC

Flatmates

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (47): The Flatmates – You Held My Heart

Two singles by The Flatmates – I Could Be In Heaven (1986) and Shimmer (1988) have featured previously on the blog. This one is from much much later.

The band emerged from Bristol and were originally together between 1985 and 1989, during which they released a total of five singles, with one critic astutely mentioning they were a fusion of Buzzcocks and The Shangri-Las, and it remains something of a mystery as to why they never came as big or famous as many of their contemporaries.

But the fact that they had such a small and high-quality back catalogue meant they were always held in high regard by fans of indie-pop guitar music, with many emerging bands in the late 00s and early 2010s citing them as big influences.

Two of the founding members, Martin Whitehead and Rocker, remained good friends after the demise of the band, and had often spoke about reforming, but were keen that any fresh line-up would write and record new material. By 2013, they had found the missing part after persuading Swedish singer Lisa Bouvier to come on board, and it was she who penned the comeback single:-

mp3: The Flatmates – You Held My Heart

Be honest. If I hadn’t given you the backstory, you’d have placed this one firmly in the late 80s, albeit the production is a lot sharper and cleaner than many from that era.

It was a very fine comeback effort. It would be followed by a triumphant performance at Indietracks 2014, and further singles in 2015 and 2019 before the debut album finally was released in 2020….the year that COVID halted the momentum of many groups and performers.

Here’s the b-side of the comeback single, one that was penned by Martin Whitehead.

mp3: The Flatmates – One Last Kiss

Am I being too cruel by saying that it’s very much b-side fodder?

JC

Cure

THE RESPLENDENT RETURN OF LITTLE LOSER’S LOTTERY : #10

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

‘GIGS FROM YESTERYEAR, WHEN I WAS YOUNG + PRETTY AS A PICTURE’

#10 The Cure, Essen Grugahalle (May 1989)

Dear friends,

another nice pick from Little Loser, at least as far as I’m concerned. Believe it or not, I came rather late to The Cure’s party – partly because of having been too young, partly of having had to explore old punk stuff first. So consequently I missed the first five or even six albums upon their specific release dates by and large … I mean, yes, I heard the more accessible ‘highlights’ here and there back then, of course, ‘Boys’ and/or ‘Arab‘ and so forth, but the bulk of the albums remained unknown to me for quite some time.

So when ‘The Walk’ came out in 1983, I started to go backwards – not always an easy task, it must be said. I always liked them better when they were not that mellow, you know … probably this is why – even today – I regard ‘The Head On The Door’ as their masterpiece. After that came ‘Kiss Me’, which was not too shabby either, but certainly not as good as ‘Disintegration’ from 1989. They played Germany in order to promote the album (they chose ‘The Prayer Tour’ instead of ‘Disintegration Tour’, because it would probably have sounded as if it were their last tour) and I took the chance to see them in Essen’s Grugahalle. Not the nicest of venues perhaps, but I was awestruck with what The Cure had to offer that night:

As you can tell they played ‘Disintegration’ in its entirety apart from ‘Lovesong’ plus a ton of really great stuff from past days. If memory serves correctly the gig lasted nearly three hours, all of the band were in top form, the light was great and the combination of this all created a deep emotional intensity. I know this sounds a bit like the old I-was-at-Lesser-Free-Trade-Hall – story, but not too long before this concert I saw The Jesus & Mary Chain playing in blinding lights with their backs to the audience … and then buzzing off the stage after 20 minutes. This may not be the best comparison ever, but The Cure showed me that there is more to a good concert than interesting songs and some fake coolness.

Now, you all know the songs by heart anyway, so I thought I’d give you the versions from that specific night as there was a bootleg of this gig, halfway commonly available at the time. But even with today’s technique, it remains an audience recording and thus the quality is sub-standard …. “to have output, you must have input”, as Joe Strummer rightly said in his wisdom. But the gig can also be found in full length on this big video platform, if you’re interested.

The original Disintegration album just had ten tracks on it, but there also was a version remastered onto two discs (so there’s a couple of extra tracks) by Robert Smith, sonically superb with an upped dynamic range on most tracks. So, from this version:

• ‘Pictures Of You’
• ‘Lovesong’
• ‘Fascination Street’

plus the two bonus tracks mentioned above:

• ‘Homesick’
• ‘Untitled’

Enjoy,

Dirk

#edwyncollins45s

THE TESTIMONIAL TOUR OF 45s (aka The Singular Adventures of Edwyn Collins)

#37: What Are You Doing Fool?/Untitled Melody : Edwyn Collins (AED Records, AEDEC20, 2013)

Last week, I featured the March 2013 release of Understated, Edwyn Collins‘ eighth studio album, mentioning that, unusually, there was no physical single lifted from the album to aid with its promotion. However, just a month or so later, there was a vinyl 45 to which Edwyn’s name was attached:-

mp3: Edwyn Collins and The Heartbreaks – What Are You Doing Fool?

A 45 for Record Store Day 2013, becoming the second AED release for that event alongside a single by Vic Godard & The Subway Sect, which was mentioned in passing last week.

The Heartbreaks were a four-piece indie band from the seaside town of Morecambe in north-west England, formed in 2009 and comprising Matthew Whitehouse (vocals), Joseph Kondras (drums), Ryan Wallace (guitars) and Christopher Deakin (bass). Their first release was as part of a compilation EP on Fierce Panda Records, and very quickly they were being championed by the BBC Radio 6 DJ, Steve Lamacq. After further singles, and a series of high-profile support shows in large venues (in addition to their own headlining tours), their debut album Funtimes was released in May 2012, with one of its tracks, Remorseful, being produced by Edwyn and his sidekick Sebastian Lewsley.

The band had never hidden their admiration for Edwyn, often citing Orange Juice as a big influence on their development. Everyone clearly had got on well in the studio as it then led to Edwyn making the suggestion of them co-writing a new song, for release as a one-off single.

What Are You Doing Fool? is a decent enough song, one that does hark back a bit to Edwyn’s earlier material and quite different in sound to the material that had been recorded for Understated. Being a Record Store Day release, it was limited to a pressing of just 500, and being an RSD release, I steered clear of it. But a couple of years later, I found a second hand copy in a shop for £5. Whether it was taken there by an Edwyn fan who felt let down by the single, I’ll never know.

The b-side turned out to be a cover of an Orange Juice song, one that had been recorded for the debut album, You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever.

mp3: Edwyn Collins and The Heartbreaks – Untitled Melody

It’s a really nice take on things, and over the first half of the song, Matthew Whitehouse delivers a vocal that is different in style from Edwyn’s original back in 1982. The final 40 seconds of the song sees Edwyn come in on lead vocal, which proves to be rather lovely. I’m not unhappy to admit that I prefer it to the co-write.

The Heartbreaks would go on to release a second studio album, We May Yet Stand A Chance, in 2014, after which they called it a day.

JC

Mark W. Georgesson

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #509: MARK W. GEORGSSON

Mark W. Georgsson holds the distinction of being the first artist to be signed to Last Night From Glasgow, back in 2016. He had formerly been a member of Glasgow-based indie-rock band The Velveteen Saints, who created a bit of a buzz locally between 2012 and 2014 without ever clinching a record deal.

His solo material proved to be quite different from that of his former band, with it being described as a blend of Celtic/Nordic folk and Americana. No surprise that his debut album Faces and Places, which was released in January 2017 was recorded between Edinburgh, Mull and Reykjavík, with production duties being handled by Rod Jones of Idlewild.

mp3: Mark W. Georgsson – The Ballad of The Nearly Man

The co-vocal is courtesy of Katie McArthur.

The debut album was later followed by an EP, Comes A Time, again on LNFG, in 2020.

JC

Black Grape, Joe Strummer

THE CD SINGLE LUCKY DIP (24) : Black Grape – England’s Irie

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The 2026 FIFA World Cup got underway yesterday. Being on holiday in a country that didn’t qualify I reckoned would have meant my ability to keep up with things would have been limited, but it turns out that among the many upgrades my hotel has had from a massive refurb programme is a state-of-the-art TV/entertainment package in each room. I’ve just come off the beach at 4.30pm and found there’s loads of channels showing the opening match – 1-0 to Mexico after 65 minutes as I type.

I thought I’d dig out a football related tune for today, one that is now thirty years old.

England was the host nation back of European Football Championships in 1996. This was an occasion when Scotland’s group involved a match against the host nation, a game we went onto lose 2-0. Incidentally, the game took place on the same weekend as Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton went on a bender in Glasgow, as recounted in The First Weekend of The Summer, the debut single by Arab Strap, with one of the lines in the song making reference to the football match.

The comedian Keith Allen, (and dad of future pop star Lily Allen) having been part of the NewOrderEngland set-up responsible for the 1990 hit World In Motion, decided he should get in on the act for Euro 96, but the offer for the official song had been made to Ian Broudie/Lighting Seeds, who collaborated with the comedians Frank Skinner and David Baddiel to come up with Three Lions. Having been rebuffed, Keith decided to seek out and gain the help of a couple of English musical legends.

mp3: Black Grape (featuring Joe Strummer and Keith Allen) – England’s Irie

It’s a football anthem and it’s totally ramshackle. But it’s great fun. Shawn Ryder sounds, as usual, as if he’s off his tits on some drug or other. The lyrics are all over the place, cynical in some places but nonsenical for the most part. Joe Strummer‘s contribution is reduced largely to backing vocals. Unbelievably, this made it all the way to #6 in the charts and led to a Top of The Pops appearance – and while The Clash, famously, never appeared on the programme, Joe shuffled his way onto the stage back in 1996.

There were three remixes added to the CD single:-

mp3: Black Grape (featuring Joe Strummer and Keith Allen) – England’s Irie (Pass The Durazac Mix)
mp3: Black Grape (featuring Joe Strummer and Keith Allen) – England’s Irie (Suedehead Dub)
mp3: Black Grape (featuring Joe Strummer and Keith Allen) – England’s Irie (Mel’s L.A. Irie Mix)

The thing is, I can’t spot any differences between the Duruzac Mix and the Suedehead Dub…….

JC

Dentists, Enormous Room, Flatmates, Half Man Half Biscuit

C86 : THE ULTIMATE SERIES (Parts 43, 44, 45, and 46 of 114)

The final song in the most recent part of this series was an abomination. Let’s quickly get things back on track with an excellent song:-

mp3: I Could Be In Heaven – The Flatmates

Track 14, Disc 2 of CD86.

The Flatmates are from Bristol, and were initially active between 1985 and 1989 before reforming in 2013. During that first spell, they recorded five singles, all of which were released on The Subway Organisation, which is no real surprise given that the band’s guitarist and main songwriter, Martin Whitehead, had founded that particular record label. I Could Be In Heaven was the debut single, in October 1986, and the sixth overall to have been issued by the label. It reached #17 on the Indie Singles chart.

The band reformed primarily to play live, but would then record new singles for small indie labels in 2013 and 2015, before, in 2020, their eponymous debut album came out on The Subway Organisation, the label’s first new release in thirty years.

Here’s another lot with almost no info out there on t’internet

mp3: I Don’t Need You – The Enormous Room

Track 25, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.

This is actually the final track on the third and last disc of the boxset. The Enormous Room appear to have come from Watford, and were a four-piece band who released two singles in 1986, the first being on the Peterborough-based Sharp Records and the second, of which this song is the a-side, on Medium Cool, home to a number of bands associated with C86 and all it entailed.

The Dentists were from Chatham, a town in Kent in the south of England, and were active between 1984 and 1995, during which time they released ten singles/EPs and four albums. The initial releases were on their own Spruck Records:-

mp3: I Had An Excellent Dream – The Dentists

Track 12, Disc 1 of CD86.

It was originally recorded for the debut album Some People Are On The Pitch They Think It’s All Over, which came out in 1985. In later years, they recorded for a number of different indie labels, all the while building up a cult following, particularly in the USA, and in 1991, they played the highly-regarded and often influential College Music Journal (CMJ) festival. Shortly afterwards, the Dentists were signed by an American label Homestead Records, which released the compilation Dressed (1992) and the album Powdered Lobster Fiasco (1993), the latter of which attracted the attention of a major label, and the band signed to Eastwest Records in 1993.

Their first album for Eastwest, Behind the Door I Keep the Universe, reached Number 8 on the CMJ College Radio charts and was followed by a six-week tour of the U.S. supporting Shonen Knife. A second album, Deep Six was recorded in early 1995 but when it failed to sell, and they parted company with Eastwest. A final gig took place at the 1995 CMJ Music Marathon in New York City, after which the band broke up.

It was Half Man Half Biscuit who opened up this series with All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit. Their second appearance comes courtesy of this

mp3: I Hate Nerys Hughes (From The Heart) – Half Man Half Biscuit

Track 4 on side 2 of the C86 cassette; Track 15, Disc One of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.

By the time it was included on the C86 cassette, the song was already well-known among fans of the band as it had appeared on the 1985 debut album Back In The D.H.S.S. which had come out on Probe Records in late 1985. For anyone wondering about the identity of Nerys Hughes…..click here. I’m guessing Nigel Blackwell wasn’t a fan of the long-running sitcom The Liver Birds.

JC

Various

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR ME……..

mp3: Various – …..I’ll Be On This Beach

Fresher Than The Sweetness In Water – Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci
Little Dolls – The Frank and Walters
Big Sleep – Simple Minds
Dipped – HighSchool
No Backrub – Bikini Kill
Cross My Heart – Lime Garden
We Live As We Dream Alone – Gang of Four
FENIAN – Kneecap
You You You – Arab Strap
Rent (12″ version) – Pet Shop Boys
In Your Eyes – Kylie Minogue
Designed to Lose – The Twilight Sad
Train Full of Gasoline – Ducks Ltd.
Gary Ashby – Dry Cleaning
Pockets – Panic Shack
Me Myself and I – De La Soul
Easy Come Easy Go – G.W. McLennan

(and will be for the next 12 days……but all sorts of posts have been readied to keep things ticking over).

JC

Cabaret Voltaire

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #414: CABARET VOLTAIRE

A guest posting by Martin Elliot (Our Swedish Correspondent)

Industrial Evolution – through the 80’s with the Cabaret Voltaire

So I stole the title for this ICA from the Mike Fish book, a book I’d highly recommend by the way not only for its coverage of the Cabs and the Sheffield alternative scene, but also a trip through the years of turmoil in the wake of Thatcher’s rule.

Not too long ago in another corner of the blogging sphere on the internet I wrote a short piece on a band under-appreciated in my circle of friends.

The band was Cabaret Voltaire and in the comment section the nice ruler of this specific corner mentioned that there is no ICA done for the Cabs. So here we are, looking primarily at the releases from the period 1980 to 1985 – the period when they not only made sense to me but also produced the music that really does it for me. Earlier, too strange; later too techno.

For those of you who may have read my piece over at NBR I apologize for some repetition.

My love for the Cabs started with the John Robie remixes of Yashar on a Factory 12 inch single, a perfect mix of industrial, experimental, and dance oriented electronic music. My friends hated it, I adored it (still do!). Shortly after The Crackdown album was released which continued that path of mixing industrial, slightly dadaist, music with funky beats and dance floor potential. I could easily have done an ICA taking tracks only from The Crackdown and the follow-up, Micro-Phonies, but I’ve tried to include a few more.

As I write this, it’s five days since I saw them play live, for the first and last time (yes, I went alone) and I’m still high on that show. A great mix of a few early tracks, quite a few from The Crackdown and Micro-Phonies, plus wonderful versions of Yashar and Nag, Nag, Nag. I once played the latter at home to a then girlfriend who did not appreciate it (“Stop that effing noise, now!”)

If you still get the chance to see any of the remaining shows during the farewell tour I highly recommend it.

First out the John Robie New York remix II of Yashar, and ending with the only later track; the house-laden 12 inch remix of Keep On from 1990 – this is one take on the Industrial Evolution through the 80’s with Cabaret Voltaire.

A1. Yashar (New York remix II)
A2. Just Fascination
A3. The Dream Ticket (12″ version)
A4. Digital Rasta
A5. Nag, Nag, Nag

B1. Why Kill Time (When You Can Kill Yourself)
B2. Breathe Deep
B3. Blue Heat
B4. Crackdown
B5. Keep On (Clubbing)

Cheers,

Martin

Book Reviews

BOOK OF THE MONTH : JUNE 2026 : ‘DAYGLO : THE POLY STYRENE STORY’ by CELESTE BELL & ZOE HOWE

This particular book was published in March 2019. The reason for it taking more than seven years to be reviewed on this blog is simple – I never owned a copy until a few weeks ago when I was generously given the book as a gift, purely out of friendship.

I’ll open with the blurb from the publisher:-

Poly Styrene was a singer-songwriter, an artist, a free-thinker, a post-modern style pioneer and a lifelong spiritual seeker: a true punk icon. But this rebel queen with the cheeky grin was also a latter-day pop artist with a wickedly perceptive gift for satirising the world around her – her brightly coloured, playful aesthetic sharply at odds with the stark monochrome style and nihilism of punk.

Here, for the first time, the vibrant jigsaw of Poly’s inspiring and often moving story has been lovingly pieced together by her daughter, singer-songwriter Celeste Bell, and writer/artist Zoe Howe. From growing up mixed-race in Brixton in the 1960s, to being at the forefront of the emerging punk scene with X-Ray Spex in the 1970s, to finding faith with the Hare Krishna movement, to balancing single motherhood with a solo music career and often debilitating mental health issues, the book honestly and openly explores Poly’s exceptional life, up until her untimely passing in 2011.

Up until 2020, my knowledge of Poly was very minimal – I could have told you she found fame in the punk era with X-Ray Spex; that she later became part of the Hare Krishna movement; there was a comeback gig in the late 00s which got great reviews; and that she died young in her early 50s from cancer, a few months after one of her contemporaries, Ari Up, had also succumbed at a young age to that dreadful disease.

This guest posting by flimflamfan, who it turns out was a real uberfan, provided me with a bit more context in terms of how much more (and yet how little) music there had been other than the one album from the punk era. The following year, I did get to see the documentary Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché, in which her life and times, and the journey to India after her death. It is only now, after reading the book, do I realise that it goes hand-in-hand with the film, with the screenplay credited to Celeste Bell and Zoe Howe, the co-authors of Dayglo, but without any question, the book is far more enlightening.

Dayglo is very much an oral history, based on interviews with those who knew and loved Poly whether personally or through music, and is lavishly illustrated across its 192 pages, with an oversized hardback giving it the look of a coffee-table book. The unusual style of using constantly changing voices, with most people ‘speaking’ in short bursts, made for a very engaging read, and yes, it did feel as it was akin to a well-paced documentary, one which paused occasionally at all the right places to allow the reader to reflect on things.

The joyful use of brightly coloured photos, illustrations and flyers/posters from the era, all of which seem have been lovingly curated over the decades by Celeste, are a further delight as the reader has no idea what is going to come next with each turning of the page. More often than not, the particularly difficult passages of narrative, in which Poly’s ongoing struggles with her mental health are told candidly, are followed by the most gorgeous and surprising photographs, illustrating just how often the light and dark went hand-in-hand and offering a sharp reminder of how incredibly complex it is for families, loved ones and friends to cope with someone with a bipolar personality.

Poly was quite a unique and unconventional person, and it seems very fitting that her story has been told in this unique and unconventional way rather than as a straightforward biography. It was a book I finished the book in two sittings, which is my way of saying that I couldn’t put it down, and am only sad that I had to wait all these years to read it. It also made me sigh out loud more than once….wondering what Poly, if she was still with us, would make of a world that many of her lyrics seemed to predict

I am a poseur and I don’t care
I like to make people stare
I am a poseur and I don’t care
I like to make people stare
Exhibition is the name
Voyeurism is the game
Stereoscopic is the show
Viewing time makes it grow

mp3: X-Ray Spex – I Am A Poseur

From the album Germfree Adolescents, released in November 1978. Poly was barely out of her teens when she penned it.

JC

#edwyncollins45s

THE TESTIMONIAL TOUR OF 45s (aka The Singular Adventures of Edwyn Collins)

The releases on AED Records continued into 2013:-

Gary McLure – Wreaths (album on CD and vinyl) : AED 0014
Vic Godard & Subway Sect – Caught In Midstream/You Bring Out The Demon In Me (7″ Single) : AED 0015*
Colorama – Do The Pump (EP on CD) : AED 0016
Charlie Clark – Feel Something (EP on CD and 10″ vinyl) : AED 0018

*This was the AED Records offering for Record Store Day 2013, which was on 20 April.

In the midst of all this, Edwyn’s latest studio album, Understated, his eighth in all, was released on CD and vinyl on 25 March 2013.

It had the catalogue number of AEDEC 0018, with initial copies coming with a 4-track live CD, entitled Common Sense, with the songs recorded at a show at the Bloomsbury Ballroom in London back in November 2009. It’s not technically a single, but it isn’t an album either. So, as a wee bonus today:-

mp3: Edwyn Collins – What Presence?! (live)
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Make Me Feel Again (live)
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Rip It Up (live)
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Losing Sleep (live)

As you may recall from last week, Down The Line, one of the songs on Understated, had been part of the box set released for Record Store Day 2012. Rather surprisingly, especially as the new album had been well received critically, and had sold enough copies to enter the chart at #66 on the week of its release, no single was ever listed from it. But there were a couple of tracks issued as CD promos, and given catalogue numbers. This was the first of them:-

#36: Dilemna : Edwyn Collins (AED Records, AEDEC19PROMO, 2013)

The opening track on the album. A rollicking and hugely upbeat number. I have no idea if there was a last-minute change of heart about issuing it as a single given that all involved had invested time, effort and resources on a promo video.

mp3: Edwyn Collins – Dilemna

Filmed in the village of Helmsdale in the north of Scotland, where Edwyn had now made his home and to where West Heath Studios would later relocate in 2015.

I’ll return to the second of the promo singles in a couple of weeks time, but the next part of the series will feature a genuine one-off single.

JC

Lush Purr

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #508: LUSH PURR

Returning, for the ninth time in this series but the first since last September, to David Cameron’s Eton Mess, a lo-fi compilation album released in October 2015 on Song, By Toad Records.

mp3: Lush Purr – Rut

There’s still an active website for the band, despite the fact there’s been no activity since February 2019.

“Rising from the smouldering ashes of psychedelic indie punks The Yawns, Lush Purr owes its existence to Glasgow. Brothers Gavin (guitar/vocals) and Rikki Will (drums) came from a small fishing village near Aberdeen; Emma Smith (bass/vocals) grew up in Doune, near Stirling; and Andres Fazio (synths/guitar) moved to Glasgow from Santiago, Chile. All four chose the city to be their home, attracted by its famed music scene. Glasgow is the place where all four of them met and Lush Purr was born.

Following the untimely demise of The Yawns, Gavin Will continued to make solo demos under the name Squirls. When former bandmates Rikki and Emma stepped in, they settled on the new name Lush Purr and started looking for a synth player. Pretty soon, Andres (formerly of Mirror Parties) responded to Gavin’s Facebook ad, making the current line up complete. Within a year, the band were releasing a debut on cassette via Fuzzkill/Electropapknit Records. Their new off-kilter lo-fi sound resulted in a series of glowing reviews, successful UK tour and a Best Newcomer nomination at the Scottish Alternative Music Music Awards (SAMA).

Melancholy humour, dreamy lo-fi noise pop, meandering psychedelic fuzz are all signature elements of Lush Purr’s musical code. It’s unpredictable, fresh, melodic and at times very loud. And with song titles like ‘(I admit it) I’m a Gardener’ and ‘Jamiroquai at The Karaoke’ you’re left in no doubt about their darkly strange sense of humour.”

It was the best part of two years after their appearance on the Eton Mess compilation that Lush Purr released their debut (and only) album, Cuckoo Waltz, on CD and vinyl on Song, By Toad in May 2017. A different and much better quality recording of Rut was one of its thirteen tracks across its 29-minute running time.

mp3: Lush Purr – Rut (album version)

JC

Stereolab

FOUR TRACK MIND : A RANDOM SERIES OF EXTENDED PLAY SINGLES

A guest series by Fraser Pettigrew (aka our New Zealand correspondent)

#19: Stereolab – Ping Pong (1994)

Repetition in different forms has been central to Stereolab’s art. Many pieces of their music settle into a long repetitive groove, although the style of that groove evolved over time, became less important and The Groop were never content to serve up repeats like some fossilised hard rock band whose fans demanded – and got – more and more and more of the same thing.

If you’re talking about their record release pattern during the 1990s then repetition came to look like a very deliberate strategy. For a period of seven years encompassing five main studio albums, each LP was heralded about a month in advance by a lead single released in both two-track 7” and four-track 10” or 12” vinyl formats and four-track CD. The lead track was taken from the album while the other three tracks were unique to the EP or single B-side.

This practice was followed slavishly from 1993’s Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements through to 1999’s Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night. The only change was that the first three EPs came in 10” format, both black and coloured vinyl, while the last two were 12” black vinyl only, possibly because by the end of the century the scarcity of pressing plants rendered the 10” less commercially viable.

Ping Pong was the second of these five EPs, forming the advance guard for 1994’s Mars Audiac Quintet. (Elsewhere in this series I cover the first in the sequence, Jenny Ondioline, and the last, The Free Design.) Like all the EPs, the lead track is the most obvious pop tune from the album and Ping Pong became Stereolab’s greatest hit, peaking at the giddy heights of #45 in the UK singles chart.

This was only fair, since it is a super-catchy little tune, showcasing their knack for singalong lyrics on that staple topic of pop hits, the capitalist-military-industrial cycle of economic depression, war and recovery. Given the profuse quantity of unutterable shite that filled the singles charts in the 1990s it’s actually a sin it didn’t place higher.

Second track Moogie Wonderland lands like a bit of a throwback to Stereolab’s earliest style, a noisy guitar and synth thrash that eventually droops into a slow blur as though someone has pulled the plug on the tape reel mid-mastering and it slithers into an eternally grinding drone in a locked runoff.

Side two opens with another pop tune, Pain et Spectacles, which translates as ‘bread and circuses’, another treatise (presumably) on the subjugation of the masses by the political elite. It’s sung in French, and although my schoolboy language skills have held up pretty well over the decades I can’t claim to understand much of it even when I see it written down.

On the face of it, the final track is another lift from the album, but Transona Five (Live), as the parentheses indicate, is a live studio take that is slightly different from the LP version. It’s ten seconds longer, and the mix buries the vocals a bit deeper so it’s a bit harder to hear Laetitia Sadier repeatedly intoning “You can’t avoid dying…”, which is perhaps not a bad thing.

Tim Gane has stated that the idea behind the song was to take an essentially cliched pop riff and repeat and extend it for so long that it lost its banality and morphed into something else entirely, and it’s successful in that aim. When it starts you do a double-take with the sleeve credits to make sure you’re not listening to a cover of Canned Heat’s On The Road Again, but by the end of the five and a half minutes you have entered a hypnotic state of meditation on your own inescapable mortality. Not at all a piece of old hippy boogie ‘n blues.

In one respect the Ping Pong EP shares a unique feature with the album (and later single/EP Wow and Flutter) in that they are the only instances where a Stereolab sleeve design uses an original photograph rather than an illustration, graphic or appropriation of a found photo. All three discs feature a close-up fish-eye photo of a Moog synthesiser control board taken by band associate Peter Morris, distorting the instrument into a perfect circle on the square sleeve, reflecting the disc within.

Ping Pong is also notable for the introduction of brass instruments to the musical arrangements, and also a lone violin. On this EP, as on the album, their presence is indistinct, blended into the mix to the point that you might not notice they were even there, but both brass and strings became increasingly prominent features of the Stereolab sound over the coming years. This contributes to the general sense of a shift in focus from the avant-garde to the pop side of their dual-personality by the end of the decade.

The shift in emphasis was gradual, however, meaning that Ping Pong and Mars Audiac Quintet lie at the mid-point of the three albums (Transient Random Noise Bursts and Emperor Tomato Ketchup being the others) that many fans often consider the band’s golden age, when they straddled the catchy and cranky extremes with the greatest aplomb.

Fraser

Frank Turner

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #413: FRANK TURNER

A guest posting by Ady Hodges

I was at a Frank Turner gig and it struck me that he’d be a good ICA subject. He has a good body of work now, but he’s someone whose success has happened a little bit off the radar. He regularly sells out halls all over the UK and had a number one album back in 2022, but rarely seems to get much publicity.

I was a bit late to the Frank Turner party myself. Like many people, I first noticed him when he played the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, but didn’t get to see him live until 2016. Since then I’ve seen him live another 5 times (as he often plays near where I live in Portsmouth), I have also sought out and listened to his earlier work, such that I’m confident I can offer up a decent retrospective.

The tricky bit was narrowing it down to 10 songs, there are definitely songs I could have included (“The Road”, “Reasons Not To Be An Idiot”, “A Wave Across A Bay”, “Get Better”, “Glory, Hallelujah”, “Polaroid Picture”) and I wonder if the “England Keep My Bones” album is over-represented, however, overall I feel these 10 songs provide a good overview of Frank’s career to date, both musically and lyrically.

A Wessex Boy Done Good – A Frank Turner ICA

Side 1

1933 (from Be More Kind, 2018)

We start with a call to arms, Frank Turner style. Frank started his career in the punk band Million Dead and this is one of the tracks that betrays those influences. Lyrically, it was inspired by the rise of Trump in the US, the reference to 1933, is a call back to the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and although written during the first Trump presidency, this song has even more relevance now.

Wessex Boy (from England Keep My Bones, 2011)

Now we see Frank’s folk side. Frank definitely plays on his Hampshire heritage, sometimes a little too much. Every time, I’ve seen him in Portsmouth, he claims it’s a home town gig, which given he was brought up in and around Winchester (30 miles away), is stretching things a bit. I’ve also heard him do the same thing when he plays in Southampton (20 miles from Winchester). Even so, I feel this song has a resonance for anyone who has moved away from their hometown, particularly if that hometown is a small town or city. I grew up in Bromsgrove, south of Birmingham and I can relate to some of the sentiment expressed here.

Sister Rosetta (from No Man’s Land, 2019)

I like it when a song drives you to Wikipedia to look-up the subject and that was the case here. Sister Rosetta is Sister Rosetta Tharpe, according to Wiki, she
“was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. She gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and electric guitar. She was the first great recording star of gospel music, and was among the first gospel musicians to appeal to rhythm and blues and rock and roll audiences, later being referred to as “the original soul sister” and “the Godmother of rock and roll”. She influenced early rock-and-roll musicians including Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Eric Clapton”

The album this comes from is a concept album where all the songs are about women and is an example of how Frank tries different things lyrically.

Good & Gone (from Tape Deck Heart, 2013)

How can you not like a song with the lyrics “Fuck you Motley Crue”? This is a break-up song with nods towards the hollow dreams that Hollywood and the music industry sell. Sometimes there isn’t a happy ending, and we all end up back where we started from.

Letters (from Undefeated, 2024)

Now for something from Frank’s most recent album. He spends a lot of this album grappling with ageing, which as someone who styles himself as a punk and outsider, is clearly nagging at him. You can hear it in songs like Ceasefire and the title track. My favourite from this album is Letters, which tells the story of an old pen-pal and the impact her friendship and letters had on him. There is a wistfulness here for the loss of an age when we spent time writing letters to each other, an age I can remember, but also the realisation that that time has passed and a recognition that we need to find a time to move on somehow.

Side 2

Recovery (from Tape Deck Heart, 2013)

One of Frank’s more familiar tracks, despite the triumphant feel, the song is about the realisation that you’re not in the best place in your life, and it’s time to change your lifestyle. It has become a concert favourite and kicks off side 2 of the ICA in an upbeat mood.

Long Live The Queen (from Love Ire & Song, 2008)

Frank has recorded a number of songs about the death of friends. There is “A Wave Across A Bay” from his FTHC album about the suicide of Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit, as well as “Song For Josh” on “Positive Songs For Negative People”, which dealt with another friend’s suicide. However, I’ve gone back to the earliest example, which was prompted by the death of his friend Lex from breast cancer. I love the positivity in this song, how the dying Lex tells Frank not to be sad, but to go out and celebrate her life, which is a wonderful message.

Haven’t Been Doing So Well (from FTHC, 2022)

From his number one album, which was described as a return to Frank’s punk roots. That is a bit of an exaggeration, but some of the tracks, this one included, are much more punk influenced than a lot of his solo back catalogue. It deals with mental health issues and the impact the pandemic had on people’s emotions in a cathartic way. One of the things Frank is good at is singing about what he thinks and feels in an open manner, being unafraid to be vulnerable.

Rivers (from England Keep My Bones, 2011)

It is often lamented that there are lots of songs about the USA, but much fewer about the UK. Frank, like Billy Bragg (who he is sometimes compared to) does write about the UK, well England mainly. This is a song that beautifully evokes what it is like to live in a place where “An island is my home”, something that is not just true about England, but also Scotland, Wales & Ireland.

I Still Believe (from England Keep My Bones, 2011)

Frank’s most famous song and his only Top 40 single, it charted after his performance of it at the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. It’s a call and response song about the power of rock ’n’ roll. In many ways it’s a manifesto for Frank (it even calls itself a “Folk song for the modern age”) and often closes his main set. I think it’s very apt to close this ICA with these lyrics, that are very much an agenda from Frank.

“Now who’d have thought that after all, Something as simple as rock ‘n’ roll would save us all”

Ady

Lawrence & The Comfortable Society, Love Act, Mighty Lemon Drops, Pigbros, Raw Herbs

C86 : THE ULTIMATE SERIES (Parts 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 of 114)

The Mighty Lemon Drops formed in Wolverhampton and were active from 1985 to 1992, releasing twelve singles (three of which reached the Top 75) and five albums (two of which went Top 60), having been picked up quickly by a major label impressed by a self-recorded cassette and a debut single. Their ascent was rapid, but they never quite delivered on the hopes or expectations of their label executives.

The cassette had initially been sold at gigs and then made available via mail order. By the end of 1985, and after just a few months playing together, recorded a single for Dreamworld Records, the new name of the former Whaam! Records that had been set up back in 1981 by Dan Treacy of The Television Personalities.

Said single, Like An Angel, led to an offer from Geoff Travis, head of Rough Trade Records, to sign for the label Blue Guitar, an offshoot of Chrysalis Records, and which was supposed to operate like an indie. At the same time, the band was asked to sign for Sire Records for the USA market. While all this was going on, they recorded this:-

mp3: Happy Head – Mighty Lemon Drops

Track 2 on side 1 of the C86 cassette; Track 2, Disc One of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.

The song would later be re-recorded for the debut album, also called Happy Head, and which reached #58 on its release in October 1986.

The rest of the Mighty Lemon Drops story will be told when they next appear in this series,

The Raw Herbs were from London, and they released four singles between 1986 and 1988, the first three of which were on Medium Cool Records, a London-based label that was home to quite a number of bands associated with the C86 movement. Their final single, The Second Time, was issued on Rooster Records, which must have been their own label, as there was never anything else released on that imprint:-

mp3: He Blows In – The Raw Herbs

Track 12, Disc 1 of CD86.

He Blows In was actually the b-side of that final single.

I suppose that if you only release one single in your existence and years later one of its two songs makes it onto a 3CD compilation which sells in decent numbers, then that’s got to be considered a decent outcome:-

mp3: Heartache – Lawrence & The Comfortable Society

Track 14, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.

A self-released single, not even on any sort of recognised label, back in 1986. Heartache was actually the b-side of the single. There’s not much about Lawrence & The Comfortable Society out there, but the info on the back of the sleeve gives the names of the five musicians as well as a contact telephone number.

Pigbros, from Birmingham, formed in 1984 and broke up in 1988. Their debut release, The Blubberhouses EP, came out in 1985 on the Blackpool-based Vinyl Drip Records, that had been founded by John Robb of The Membranes (who were featured a little earlier on in this series).

mp3: Hedonist Hat – Pigbros

Track 14, Disc Two of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.

This was the lead track on The Blubberhouses EP. Pigbros would later release three more singles and one album on the little-known and short-lived Cake Records, as well as recording two sessions for John Peel.

The fact that I’m reduced to using the image for the C86 boxset should be a good indication of how little there is out there on this lot:-

mp3: Hep Clothes – The Love Act

Track 24, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.

There are no singles or albums by The Love Act on Discogs. Their only other appearance other than the boxset is on a live compilation album called Communicate!!! Live At Thames Poly, which was released on the Thames Poly Students Union label in 1985. Their contribution was Hep Clothes.

However, one of the band members was Nicholas Wroe, who later became a journalist. In 2014, when the boxset was released, he penned a piece in The Guardian in which he explained that, out of the blue, he was contacted and asked if he has been a member of The Love Act. It turned out that Neil Taylor, the ex-NME journalist who was helping to oversee the boxset on Cherry Red Records, remembered the band from back in the day and wanted to include them.

In all honesty, I don’t know why he bothered, as it’s absolute rubbish. But at least it’s over in less than 100 seconds.

JC

Wire

SONGS UNDER TWO MINUTES (23): FRAGILE

Yesterday’s offering involved a lot of reading. I’ll go a bit easier on you today.

mp3: Wire – Fragile

Track 6 on Side B of Pink Flag, the debut album from Wire, released in November 1977.

Took me a few years to discover the brilliance of Wire, and they are another act that became a byproduct of my university years of 1981-85. As has often been said by many, Pink Flag has proved to be one of the best, most original and most influential albums of the era despite selling abysmally on release, failing to crack even the Top 100.

Quite a few of its songs have been covered, including Fragile.

mp3: The Lemonheads – Fragile

From the 2009 album, Varshons.