December 2006 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

HAPPY TALK

Yesterday, my brother Stevie who lives in Orlando, Florida called me up to ask if I was OK. He’d been reading the recent stuff in the blog and was concerned about my mental state of mind given how downbeat all the postings had been over the past few days.

I assured him that it was just a post-holiday downer and a sh1t time at work, and promised that the next few postings and songs would be a lot cheerier. And given that the football (soccer) results went my way yesterday, it’s easy to keep that promise.

When I’m walking home from the office just now, I always ensure I cut through Royal Exchange Square in Glasgow as the lighting at this time of year is pretty magical and makes me forget any problems for a minute or two. I couldn’t find a picture to do it full justice – and don’t think I ever will – but up above is the best I can do. Hope you like it.

Oh, and I should also point out that the little lad in yesterday’s photo is also the face of the Vinyl Villain at the website. He’s my nephew Liam who is always smiling and laughing. Maybe that’s cos he lives in the comfort and warmth of Orlando!!

So here’s today’s cheery number to keep the winter blues away. From 1985.

mp3 : Camper Van Beethoven : Take The Skinheads Bowling

One of the best named bands ever, Camper Van Beethoven from Santa Cruz, California are back working together again after a break-up lasting some 10 years.

Today’s download is from the LP ‘Telephone Free Landslide Victory.’

And now, a request for help to all readers.

My mate Jacques The Kipper is asking if anyone can either provide him with a copy of the 1996 CD compilation – ‘Rigour’ by bIG fLAME. Alternatively, can anyone point him in the direction of where he can get a download of the album??

If you can help, please do so via leaving a comment with this posting. (I’m in the process of setting-up an e-mail account for this blog, so bear with me and communication will soon be a whole lot easier).

On behalf of JtK, I thank you.

More happy sounds tomorrow.

Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins, Triffids, Velvet Underground

FROM UNDER THE COVERS (Parts 4a & 4b)

A bit busy just now so today’s posting is a little bit of a cop-out. But I do hope visitors will consider responding to the question posed at the end.

Three versions of the same song for you to listen to.

‘Pale Blue Eyes’ was released back in 1969 by The Velvet Underground. It very quickly became a favourite of buskers and would-be-rock-stars the world over and has since been given the cover treatment by countless bands and artists. If you don’t believe me, google in the words ‘Pale Blue Eyes – cover versions’ and see the results for yourself.

Just about all the versions I’ve ever heard more or less stick faithfully to the tone and delivery of that of the original – but no doubt there is a drum’n’bass or house style out there somewhere just to prove me wrong.

The version by Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins from 1984 was another that almost made my Jock’n’Roll Top 10, while that of The Triffids is taken from their October 1987 concert in London.

mp3 : The Velvet Underground – Pale Blue Eyes

mp3 : Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins – Pale Blue Eyes*

mp3 : The Triffids – Pale Blue Eyes*

And now to the question. Which version do you prefer?? I did try and set up one of those vote things that some sites have but failed miserably. You’re welcome to let me know via a comment. But only if you want to.

Soup Dragons

SONGS THAT ALMOST MADE MY JOCK’N’ROLL LIST (PART 1)

The fun continues over at Jock’n’Roll.

The Cat and Dave are now getting some attention in Scotland’s newspapers and on radio stations, and they’re having so much fun that they don’t seem to have any intention to set a closing date for votes.

But they may yet change their minds at short notice, so if you haven’t yet put in your tuppence worth, do so now.

Today’s almost-forgotten heroes are The Soup Dragons. They were formed in Bellshill, a small former coal-mining community some 15 miles east of Glasgow, in the mid-80s, and were named after a character in a children’s TV programme of the 1970s.

Incidentally, two other famous bands – Teenage Fanclub and BMX Bandits – were also coming to life in Bellshill around the same time.

The Soup Dragons started off as your standard indie-band with a four-man line-up of vocals, guitar, bass and drums, but never really got beyond cult status. However, a change of image and sound that coincided with the 1989/90 interest in ‘baggy’, thanks primarily to The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, led to UK and American chart success.

Maybe it was the blatant attempts to chase fame and fortune that has led to history being unkind to The Soup Dragons – you won’t find them anywhere in the Top 75 in Jock’n’Roll nor are they referred to with too much affection in blog-land – but they did make some fine music during what was a career that spanned the best part of a decade.

Personally, I preferred the earlier recordings that the band made, and I’m offering up for your enjoyment a single from 1986 which was the first to come out on the Scottish label Raw TV.

mp3 : The Soup Dragons : Hang-Ten

And coming in at not much over 2 minutes long, this is almost perfect flawless pop-punk music.

Those who have compared this era of the band to the likes of Buzzcocks aren’t too far wide of the mark.

Arab Strap

THEY JUMP STARTED MY SERATONIN

With big thanks to Mike from Magic, Murder, Mania & Manta Rays for the photo

Glasgow ABC – Monday 4th December 2006. The last gig for Arab Strap. Why not let a real writer describe it??

The Arab Strap live experience has taken a wayward road since the small-town raver’s elegy of The First Big Weekend saw them stumble into mass consciousness, Guinness adverts and a litany of bad sex, broken hearts and terminal romance.

From humble beginnings at a works canteen quiz to this farewell tour which, to the deadpan amusement of singer Aidan Moffat, has seen them “booked into places we’ve never even been to before”, the past decade of one-night stands has seen them deliver the shambolic and dabble with the epic before getting very good indeed at what they do. And they said it would never last.

Now they’re finally bowing out and, unlike the roll-call of love-lorn chancers who populate their songs, there’s no mess, no huff. Nobody’s marching off in front. Nobody’s perturbed or disturbed by the other’s past. Moffat and guitarist Malcolm Middleton aren’t likely to be unduly bothered by the company the other keeps. It’s not as if it’s like having a girlfriend, after all. Ah, girlfriends. Whether ex, current or possible, it’s the irrationally clingy mind games and the pains of being taken for granted that have proved enough not just to drive a man to drink, but to pen a few verses too.

It ends, as it must, with an acoustic encore, Moffat as personably dignified as a diplomat, Middleton happy to surrender the limelight by perching himself on a knee-high stool and just getting on with it. The audience – as ever, with a healthy percentage of women – sings along: “Another sniff of romance I’ll forget/We promised to ourselves before we came out/ We’d do something we’d regret”.

It’s funny, and not at all girlfriend-recalling ironic, but tonight’s the first time you realise just how much Arab Strap don’t actually sound like anyone else. Or, as future residents of Falkirk nursing homes will proudly put it: “Moffat and Middleton? They made Lennon and McCartney look like a pair of numpties.” Cheers, then.

Those were the words used by award-winning author Gordon Legge in reviewing the gig in Edinburgh last Friday. Every word is just as valid for last night.

A quite magnificent show and a quite magnificent occasion.

Joy and hysteria as the balloons came down during ‘The First Big Weekend’, but more than anything, the memories of the acoustic encore will endure for a long long time:-

Here We Go / Loch Leven / Blood / Amor Veneris / Packs Of Three/Soaps

And then the last song that Arab Strap ever played:-

Mp3 : The Shy Retirer (acoustic version)

Stunning.

Beloved

WHO WANTS TO BE THE DISCO KING?

Hey ho it’s Monday Morning.

Now I haven’t taken any artificial substances or stimulants to keep the happy posts going (my secret for this one is to type it out on Sunday night and hold it as a draft till the morning – it’s well-known I’m incapable of human interaction on Mondays for at least 4 hours after wakening up).

As a young teenager, I loved disco music – Earth, Wind & Fire, Donna Summer, Chic and all the rest of it. I loved getting out of the chairs at the side of the local church hall and getting on to the floor that doubled up as a badminton court on other nights.

Even as I moved on into the world of white-boy indie guitar bands, I still had a notion to shake various parts of my body in darkened dens of iniquity on suitable occasions. Or even just at the annual works Xmas party – and I know you’ve all got David Brent images in your head just now but I promise it wasn’t like that.

For a while, I even organised and ran the music at annual office parties – and I was therefore able to get maybe 20 minutes of the night where I could play stuff that I really liked. And I remember playing this and enjoying the moment as the floor emptied save for myself and one other single male colleague. Strange thing is, a woman in the room was so entertained by his performance that they soon got hitched and are now happily married with 2 great kids.

Me?? I was coming out of a messy separation and was rejoicing in my first Xmas with a new love in my life. She became Mrs Villain and even now forgives my forays into dance and disco music.

mp3 : Up, Up & Away (Happy Sexy Mix) – The Beloved

I must have been a lot fitter back in the early 90s – the song goes on for more than 7 minutes – I’d most likely damage a hamstring muscle if I danced to this in 2006.

For Jazf, Anna, Clara & Grace. Great friends for so many years.

Blink

ANOTHER SUNNY DAY

Well, I guess it is somewhere. But not here in Glasgow.

But hey…..it doesn’t mean we’ve to feel miserable.

mp3 : Blink – Happy Day

NOT to be confused with American band much loved by spotty adolescents. This is a 1994 single by a pop band from Dublin. Feel free to sing along.

Les Negresses Vertes

DON’T LIVE IN IGNORANCE

AIDS – the term used to describe a wide range of illnesses that can result from damage by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) to the body’s natural defences against disease. Most of these illnesses are curable and some are preventable.

AIDS is not an automatic death-sentence. Many people with AIDS lead ordinary lives like every one else.

Two sentences taken from a booklet that came with the 1990 release of ‘Red Hot + Blue’, a musical project to benefit AIDs research and relief.

And here’s one of the tracks from the album.

mp3 : Les Negresses Vertes : I Love Paris

1st December is World AIDS day. Sixteen years after the initial project, the fight to remove the stigma from HIV/AIDS still goes on. As do the efforts to help prevent its further spread across the globe.

Do what you can to help.

(With thanks to ‘We Are Fading’ for inspiration)