March 2014 – Page 2 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

FROM THE SOUTH-WEST CORRESPONDENT…SOME MORE RAMBLING NONSENSE

Bad Dancing, Bad Haircuts and Bad Timing

You remember those little blue disabled cars that used to be everywhere in the 1980’s? Three wheels, shaped like a movable portaloo, did roughly the speed of an asthmatic dog on crutches – that people was a Thundersley Invacar, and that is the name of a rather marvellous track by Collapsed Lung which is todays first ‘Lost Classic’. If that is not the best segue you read this year I don’t know what is.

There has been a lot of talk recently about first gigs. I won’t bore you with mine as it was Neds Atomic Dustbin. I will however bore you with a tale of my first gig at University and one of the main reasons why I now no longer dance. My first gig as a student at University was Collapsed Lung on a Sunday night in October. At the time I was just becoming aware of Collapsed Lung, my good friend Martin (who is in the band Thee Faction, you should check them out, they are great) had lent me a cassette with some of their music on it. I never gave him that tape back – it also had Mambo Taxi, Echobelly and Dub War on it. It was a good tape.

Collapsed Lung formed in Harlow in 1992 and were one of a few bands around at the time who blended hip hop with rock (hello Senser and Asian Dub Foundation) and even counted Radio One DJ and minor Z List Reality TV star Nihal as a member. The lead man was Ant Chapman who was also a bit of a DJ and I think involved in a band called Bogshed, who I never ever listened to but was intrigued by because of their name.

Thundersley Invacar should have been more famous than Collapsed Lung’s best known single and only hit Eat My Goal (A Top 20 smash in 1996, thanks to the football tournament going on which played it every 15 minutes). ‘Thundersley…’ was on the aforementioned tape and got played an awful lot by me on my stereo. At that concert in the Students Union, when they played this, I went mental (I was young, well 19 and didn’t know any better). I threw myself around, jumped up and down and generally lost myself in the music. When it stopped, I was the only one dancing; in fact I think most people were looking at me and not Collapsed Lung. My friend John, who was standing next to me, said, rather brilliantly, that watching me dance, was like watching Kermit the Frog in a blender – messy and that it was not to be encouraged. I’ve rarely danced since. I mean I want to dance – but I’m terrible at it. I love this track though and with the risk of repeating myself, it should have been a hit.

mp3 : Collapsed Lung – Thundersley Invacar

Fast forward three years and we come to Tiger and their track Race.

Tiger were a band who were more famous for their mullets, metal T-shirts and crap jumpers than they were for their tunes, which is a shame, because debut album We are the Puppets is something of a lost masterpiece. The thing about Tiger for me was that they had two keyboardists (at least one was a Moog, which is always cool) and a multitude of members who played various things, the sound was fuzzy, inventive and at times brilliant. Once they reminded me of the B-52s at their greatest (a sentence I rarely type that) but mostly it evokes the spirit of Stereolab if they were fronted by Mark E Smith.

Debut single Shining in the Wood showed much promise, but it was Race and following single My Puppet Pal that underlined their potential. By this time Tiger had an image and that was that they were amazingly uncool and they knew it which almost made them cool – not that I understand anything about being cool – I had a pony tail until I was 35 (I know please don’t hate me). At a time when music was fast becoming solely about Oasis and Britpop, Tiger at least offered an alternative. Debut album ‘We Are The Puppets’ was well received and Tiger went on tour as part of the NME Awards shindig and for a while it looked like they were destined for great things (also on that tour Three Colours Red and Geneva, they pick ‘em, the NME), sadly fame and fortune never materialised. ‘Race’ for me sums up this band, it is a happy energetic little song, that despite radio play and positive press coverage peaked at Number 37 in the UK Chart. They gave up shortly after album number 2 Rosaria bombed.

mp3 : Tiger – Race

Finally for today, we travel back to 1991 and we have some shoegaze.

After Slowdive, Ride and Moose, came Chapterhouse. Five good looking, well groomed, middle class lads from Berkshire with floppy fringes and a habit of whispering their lyrics whilst feedback and swirling guitars do their best to drown them out. They were seen as the next big act to emerge from the so called ‘Scene that Celebrates Itself’ and to earmark that boast they released the jawdroppingly amazing Pearl.

You will have heard ‘Pearl’ I’m sure. Its gorgeous, it has Rachel from Slowdive on backing vocals it has dreamy lyrics and sleepy guitars, and as you listen to it and drown in it wonderfulness – your shoes will have never had some much attention, what is not to love about it? If you look at an online dictionary and search on Shoegaze you should get a video of ‘Pearl’. After ‘Pearl’ you wondered how can they top that? – the truth was that they couldn’t. They peaked way too early. Debut album Whirlpool reached the higher reaches of the Top 25 but it was just too dreamy, almost too shoe gazey for its own shoes (although listening to it again 20 years later, its actually very good).

But then came the Reading Festival of 1991 (incidentally the first Reading Festival I went to) Chapterhouse played the Friday afternoon slot hitting the stage at around 5pm, I saw them, they played for 45 minutes, a haze of smoke machines, feedback, whispering and staring, they weren’t that bad. The problem is, precisely one hour before them, Nirvana arrived and pretty much nothing else mattered after that, because nothing on Earth was going to top that performance. Chapterhouse had the misfortune of following Nirvana who had just arrived punched everyone in the face with Smells Like Teen Spirit, gave a performance that was utterly utterly brilliant and left everyone open mouthed and pretty much speechless. They couldn’t follow that and from that point onwards Chapterhouse were doomed.

mp3 : Chapterhouse – Pearl

Hope you enjoy the music. Oh and if you haven’t already done it by now you should be thinking about downloading the new Eagulls album. The best 37 minutes of the year so far.

SW-C

Honey At The Core (cassette)

HONEY AT THE CORE

Named after the Friends Again single from a few years earlier, this cassette-only compilation was put together in 1986. It features 15 tracks from a variety of Scottish performers and bands (mainly from the Glasgow area), some of whom in later years would go on to find fame and fortune. Indeed, one of the performers would go onto be an enormous star in the entertainment world, though I’m thinking nobody involved in this tape, nor indeed anyone who saw the performer during this particular era, would have imagined it would turn out that way.

It’s a cassette that I knew about for years long before I ever saw a copy. And even when I got my paws on a copy, I was too scared to try to convert the tracks to mp3 as the item seemed so fragile and ready to snap if played one more time. I’d long ago given up ever featuring the tracks when this e-mail dropped in:-

Hi,

I’ve been a regular visitor to your site for some time now. I recently converted some old cassettes to mp3. One of which was the 1986 Honey at the Core compilation. You may already have it, but if not you’re welcome to a copy of the mp3 link if you’d like to stick the odd track on your site.

All the best

Tom

So today’s post is very much courtesy of Tom Brogan, a writer and actor from Clydebank (a town, famous for decades for its shipbuilding, which borders Glasgow on the west side). You can see from clicking on this website that Tom is a very talented individual who will be appearing in shows at the upcoming Glasgow International Comedy Festival later this month.

Honey At The Core was compiled by John Williamson who for the best part of 30 years has been a hugely important and influential figure in the Scottish music scene. It’s interesting looking at the limited information available on the tape that more than half of the acts featured had, at the time, no record or publishing deal, so it’s clear this was an important stepping-stone in the careers of many.

Tom’s e-mail thought I might want to stick the odd track on the blog. But I’m going to be greedy and showcase the lost of them. A word of warning…..these are taken from a cassette that was in its day fairly lo-fi and of course has been subject to a fair bit of wear and tear, so the sound quality isn’t what you might usually expect on the blog….but I’m making no apologies:-

Side A

mp3 : Wet Wet Wet – Home & Away
mp3 : Wyoming – Ambition
mp3 : Goodbye Mr Mackenzie – Skimming Stones
mp3 : Kevin McDermott – The Right To Reply
mp3 : Deacon Blue – Take The Saints Away
mp3 : Tony O’Neill – Try Again
mp3 : Painted Word – Worldwide
mp3 : Pride – Love Night

Side B

mp3 : The Big Dish – Reverend Killer
mp3 : Hue and Cry – Dangerous Wreck
mp3 : Kick Reaction – Your Favourite Song
mp3 : The Floor – It Really Doesn’t Matter
mp3 : White – Fear Of God
mp3 : Bing Hitler – A Lecture For Burns Night
mp3 : The Bluebells – Guns And Accordians

I won’t waste your time mentioning those who went on to bigger things in the music industry, so instead I’ve tried to find out some more things about the lesser-known names:-

Wyoming : One of the members was Ross Campbell who had previously been part of Sunset Gun (label-mates of Wet Wet Wet) who had released an LP in 1985 and then broke up. I can’t find any trace of Wyoming material outwith the cassette.

Tony O’Neill : If it wasn’t for the fact that I have worked alongside Tony for nearly 20 years I wouldn’t have been able to tell you anything. Outside of his day job he is still singing and performing, nowadays as the frontman to a band that is often hired to entertain at corporate-style events while I’ll always be grateful to him for bringing his then band along to the Mitchell Theatre in Glasgow in September 1997 to play at mine and Mrs Villain’s wedding party. Oh…a little know fact about Tony’s contribution to the tape is that he is accompanied on vocals by a young lady who in later life has become incredibly well-known in Scotland as a newsreader and programme presenter. Click here (although part of that wiki profile features an urban myth…..)

The Painted Word : Around the time of the tape they were regarded as a band ‘most likely to succeed’ on the basis of signing a deal with a Mother Records, a label backed by U2. Nothing however came of this and the band began to fall apart, although vocalist and songwriter Alan McLusker Thompson kept the name going long enough to sign a deal with RCA and release two singles and an LP in 1989, none of which set the heather alight.

Pride : can’t find anything.

Kick Reaction : Another of the label-mates of Wet Wet Wet. As far as I know, they released one single in 1986 and then disappeared from view. I’m fairly certain I caught them live back in the day as they were active on the gigging front

The Floor : can’t find anything.

White : The tale of this band can be found here

Bing Hitler: I saw this guys loads of times doing his stand-up routine in some very insalubrious venues and to incredibly hostile audiences. I never thought under his real name he’d become one of Scotland’s best known exports.

Enjoy!!!!!

Venigmas

CULT CLASSICS – STRANGELOVE by VENIGMAS

This contribution is from a mate of mine called Michael Donnelly. For those of you who haven’t heard of this particular 45, the key to its inclusion might be in the final sentence:-

My pitch would be for Glasgow band Venigmas and their first single Strangelove, backed by Souls on Fire.

Came out in early 80s on the short lived Biba music label, pressed by Mayking Records and was produced by Tony Spath.

At the time of release, the band were :

Owen Paul( McGee) -guitar and lead vocals who would become a one hit pop wonder with My Favourite Waste of Time and brother to Brian McGee, original drummer with Simple Minds. Owen provided some backing vocals on some early Simps recordings and is still gigging as Owen Paul and recently was part of XSM (Ex Simple Minds) with Brian and Derek Forbes.

Martin Hanlin – drummer who later played with The Silencers and is now a producer in The States.

Michael Campbell – bass player from Coatbridge , founder member of Strasse from the Iron Burgh. Michael would give up a career in local government in Monklands to head south with the band to promote the single. Now works for South West Trains and keeps his hand in via a couple of tribute bands in West London. He is my main connection with the band and we remain close friends to this day. He was my best man in 1984 and was a star turn at the wedding reception in Airdrie.

By the time of the release, Frank (Fruit) O’Hare had left the band and would later hitch up with H20 back in Glasgow. (and later work with Mrs Villian briefly). Frank has been involved in a number of band projects in Glasgow over the years and is currently part of folk-rock outfit Celtic Fire.

The single was part of a package; The Venigmatic Principle…..There were 3 elements TVP1 (the record) TVP 2 (a VHS video) and third was an electronic version of both songs on a cassette. All 3 failed to catch the attention of the public and despite getting some airplay via Billy Sloan and Peter Powell ( the latter was part of the same management stable) the single did not chart. The band remained based in London and cut about the pub/club scene for a few years before they went their seperate ways. They played the Marquee, 100 Club and had a brief residency at the Half Moon in Herne Hill.

The band’s strapline was Forever Crowding Mirrors and it all seems rather pretentious now but at the time I was excited because my mate was in London making records……

mp3 : Venigmas – Strangelove
mp3 : Venigmas – Souls On Fire

Enjoy!!

Mull Historical Society

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 83)

From wiki:-

Colin MacIntyre is a Scottish singer, song-writer, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released most of his work under the name Mull Historical Society

MacIntyre coined the name Mull Historical Society after seeing an advert for an organisation which has since changed its name to the Mull Historical and Archaeological Society. His first album under the name was ‘Loss’ in 2001. It was inspired by the death of his father and his upbringing on the Isle of Mull, and contains samples from a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry and the waves on Calgary Bay in Mull. In 2000-01 MacIntyre played support for Elbow and the Strokes,and in 2002 for R.E.M. and the Delgados.

After ‘Us’ (2003) his record label, Warners, dropped him. ‘This Is Hope’ (2004) was inspired by a two-month visit to the United States, ending in New Orleans, listening to David Bowie, Lou Reed and Television. One of its songs is about the death of David Kelly. The album also includes a recording of his grandmother.

The first release under his own name was ‘The Water’, released on 4 February 2008, and produced by Nick Franglen from Lemon Jelly. MacIntyre had produced the first three albums himself. The last track, “Pay Attention to the Human”, features a poem written and performed by Tony Benn.He wrote the album in New York, his wife’s home city. In 2009, Irvine Welsh used the track “You’re a Star” from The Water in his comedy Good Arrows.

MacIntyre’s fifth album ‘Island’ (the second under his own name) was released in the UK on 6 July 2009. The first single “Cape Wrath” preceded it by a few weeks. In 2012, MacIntyre returned to the Mull Historical Society name for his sixth album ‘City Awakenings’.

This is taken from he debut LP and was the third single lifted from it:-

mp3 : Mull Historical Society – I Tried
mp3 : Mull Historical Society – Some You Win, Some You Lose

Enjoy.

James

THE JAMES SINGLES (6)

Some of you might be confused by the fact that Ya Ho has a catalogue # of NEG 26 and yet is being featured as a later single than What For with its catalogue # of NEG 31.

The simple fact is that Ya Ho was intended for release in September 1987 as a precursor to the release of the Strip-Mine LP. But as I mentioned in the last posting there were serious issues between band and label that led to the delay of the album and as part of the compromise solution the single What For was written, recorded and released in March 1988.

Strip-Mine was eventually released in September 1988 and as part of the promotional push (although that’s not an entirely accurate phrase given the label were not the least interested in the band) Ya Ho was dusted down from the shelf and shoved out on 7″ and 12″.

It’s a really decent song with a hugely catchy chorus that is an indication of what wasn’t too far away….

It’s also a different version than appears on the LP (the 7″ is about a minute shorter in length as well) but it’s the b-sides that many long-standing fans were taken by – there’s a touch of country/americana that was very unfashionable at the time and something that James hadn’t really given a hint of previously (or since)

I’ve only got the 7″ in the collection:-

mp3 : James – Ya Ho
mp3 : James – Mosquito

This was released in a sleeve that had Ya HO +1 on the cover. The sleeve illustrating this piece is from the 12″ which says Ya Ho +3 and here’s the b-sides from that bit of vinyl (courtesy of The Robster):-

mp3 : James – Left Out Of Her Will
mp3 : James – New Nature

Enjoy!!

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

STAGGER LEE (A re-post from March 2010)

A story appearing in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat in 1895 read:

William Lyons, 25, a levee hand, was shot in the abdomen yesterday evening at 10 o’clock in the saloon of Bill Curtis, at Eleventh and Morgan Streets, by Lee Sheldon, a carriage driver.

Lyons and Sheldon were friends and were talking together. Both parties, it seems, had been drinking and were feeling in exuberant spirits. The discussion drifted to politics, and an argument was started, the conclusion of which was that Lyons snatched Sheldon’s hat from his head. The latter indignantly demanded its return.

Lyons refused, and Sheldon withdrew his revolver and shot Lyons in the abdomen. When his victim fell to the floor Sheldon took his hat from the hand of the wounded man and coolly walked away. He was subsequently arrested and locked up at the Chestnut Street Station. Lyons was taken to the Dispensary, where his wounds were pronounced serious. Lee Sheldon is also known as ‘Stag’ Lee.

Lyons eventually died of his injuries. Shelton was tried, convicted, and served prison time for this crime. This otherwise unmemorable crime is remembered in a song.

The version recorded by Mississippi John Hurt in 1928 is considered by some commentators to be definitive, containing as it does all of the elements that appear in other versions.

A cover with different lyrics was a chart hit for Lloyd Price in 1959; Dick Clark felt that the original tale of murder was too morbid for his American Bandstand audience, and insisted that they be changed to eliminate the murder. In this version, the subject was changed from gambling to fighting over a woman, and instead of a murder, the two yelled at each other, and made up the next day. However, it was the original, unbowdlerized, version of Lloyd Price’s performance that reached #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and was ranked #456 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

But “Stag O Lee” songs may have predated even the 1895 incident, and Lee Sheldon may have gotten his nickname from earlier folk songs. The first published version of the song was by folklorist John Lomax in 1910 by which time the song was well-known in African-American communities along the lower Mississippi River.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, by contrast, present an even more violent and an homoerotic version of the tale on the 1996 LP Murder Ballads. It also appears to be set in the 1830s…..

mp3 : Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Stagger Lee

Over the years, this has become a live favourite on just about every Bad Seeds tour, with subtle little changes making the performance just a little bit different each time. One of the most stunning versions came on the Abattoir Blues tour, where the band were augmented by backing singers from a gospel choir and the results were truly breathtaking:-

mp3 : Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Stagger Lee (live)

Nearly nine minutes long. And not a single second was wasted.

See you all in hell.

Public Image Limited

SOMETIMES IT TAKES YEARS TO APPRECIATE SOMETHING

1979 was the year that the Sex Pistols enjoyed the most success in terms of the singles charts with three Top 10 hits. But by then they were a parody of a band – after all it was two Eddie Cochran numbers covered by Sid Vicious plus a Steve Jones rocker that we’re talking about.

The spin-off however was that John Lydon could do no wrong, and even some of his strangest recordings were huge hits.

Like this:-

mp3 : Public Image Ltd – Death Disco

There’s probably never been any better description of this record than that penned by Gary Mulholland in his brilliant book This Is Uncool – The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco.

Despite turning his back on the Sex Pistols’ audience, John Lydon could’ve farted into a paper bag and made the British charts in 1979. The more he told us to fuck off, the more we loved him, at least, for a while longer anyway. So he pushed it as far as it would go.

This record did just about everything a punk rocker was not supposed to, It was long, It had no shoutalong choruses. It has a disco beat, of a sort (the NME originally announced that it was called ‘Death to Disco’, in a air of punk-reactionary wishful thinking). It was based on a diseased Arabic mutation of Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Dying Swan’ from Swan Lake. And it was about his mother, who was dying of cancer. The result was disturbing, blackly comic, moving, profound and so far removed from anything resembling punk, pop or anything else that it had the desired effect – it got rid of the punks.

Oh, how I struggled with this when I was 16 years old. So much so, that it is one of the few records I bought and then gave away to someone else. I got two old singles by The Jam in exchange, which at the time felt like a bargain.

Fast forward to 1990 and my purchase of a CD copy of the P.I.L. greatest hits compilation and me listening to Death Disco again for the first time in eleven years. By now I knew that great songs didn’t need hooks or memorable, hummable tunes, and that a cauldron of noise in which a screaming vocal fights for your attention alongside screeching guitars over a bass/drum delivery that on its own would have you dancing like a madman under the flashing lights could be a work of genius. I was now able to appreciate Death Disco…..

It is astonishing to realise that this song spent 5 weeks in the charts in the summer of 79, entering at #34 on 7th July, and then taking the #32, #20, #26 and #28 positions thereafter, which means it got at least five plays on Radio 1 (but I’d place a bet there weren’t many more than that unless John Peel gave it a spin).

Mulholland was right. Thanks to Death Disco and follow-up 45 Memories, the punks truly denounced Lydon as an art-rocker. But then again, if the punks had paid closer attention to what he was always saying about his main musical influences, the early P.I.L. material shouldn’t have come as a big surprise.

Here’s yer b-side:-

mp3 : Public Image Limited – No Birds Do Sing

Enjoy!!!!

Clor, Grammatics, Plan B

FROM THE SOUTH-WEST CORRESPONDENT….SOME MORE LOST CLASSICS

The term classic is often banded around liberally. These tracks here are not cult classics, but are three tracks that should have perhaps achieved more success than they did. For one of them, the reason it didn’t get much success is fairly obvious, but since its release, Plan B has gone on to achieve massive success. He is now an actor (starring with Ray Winstone in (the awful) The Sweeney remake, a director and continues to have a very successful music career, ‘Ill Manors’ from a few years back, is a great piece of social commentary, brilliantly mocking the current government. Barry from Clor (see below), meanwhile is selling shoes in Aberystwyth (he’s not really) – I’ll leave you to decide whether that seems fair or not. Personally without being harsh on Barry from Clor, I don’t think he had an ‘Ill Manors’ in him, although I’d gladly listen to any attempts he subsequently makes.

The first time I heard ‘Sick 2 Def’ by Plan B, I was sitting on a train, from Barnstaple to Exeter, having just purchased a UK Grime CD ‘Run the Road’. At the time ‘grime’ was just bursting into the public minds. It is honestly the only track on that CD that I can remember (actually there was a decent Streets remix on it). I stopped the CD, and replayed it three, maybe four times, it completely blew my mind, to the point that I wanted to play it to everyone in the carriage, it’s that good. The problem is, it’s a bit sweary, well ok, a lot sweary, it was never going to get radio play. It also calls Michael Jackson a paedophile, which he obviously isn’t (right?). Lyrically it is amazing, a story runs through it about music being bad and how it can influence us negatively (he’s being ironic). It names checks Nas, Ken Bigley, Reservoir Dogs and LittleMo from Eastenders. In addition to all this, the one thing that makes this different from your standard UK hip hop nonsense is that Plan B (or Ben Drew to give him his full name) raps angrily over the strains of an acoustic guitar and it sounds utterly wonderful. Right there on that train, this song entered my all time favourite song list. I would personally shake the hand of any DJ who played this in full unedited on the radio. If you haven’t heard this before – download it. If you have children, send them off to school before you play it, it drops the C Bomb quite late on and it’s a very adult and somewhat disturbingly brilliant record.

mp3 : Plan B – Sick 2 Def

Moving on to Clor, the reason I think, why Clor never achieved success was because their lead singer was called Barry Dobbin. Now, I know at least two people called Barry and they are both lovely so I’m not Barryist. Sadly I think the media is. I mean Barry Dobbin. It’s hardly Serge Pizorno is it. Google his name and look at his picture aswell, he is not the face of rock music. Sorry Barry, I loved your album, but you should have changed your name to Max Power or something.

Clor released one self titled album to a mixture of rave reviews and confusion, personally I loved it. It mixed a variety of styles and had a strange kind of energy about it. It was rather like having a secret crush on a girl that you shouldn’t have a crush on, more idle curiosity than a love affair but one you couldn’t leave alone. The stand out tracks were ‘Love and Pain’ which was a minor indie hit and ‘Good Stuff’. To me ‘Love and Pain’ should have been a hit record. In today’s climate it almost certainly would be. It is a tune that is magnificently wrapped by its chorus. It has a pretty cool guitar riff that tries to dominate it but Barry’s vocal keeps in all together nicely. What does it sound like? Well I think if you are a fan of Maximo Park or perhaps Tom Vek, you will like Clor.

mp3 : Clor – Love and Pain

Sadly Clor split up citing musical differences for their split. The whole album is one massive mix of musical differences if you ask me, it is not necessarily always a bad thing. Please check it out. Barry Dobbin went on to form Barringtone according to the Internet, they sound like Hot Chip. Again this is not a bad thing at all.

Finally, we come to ‘Relentless Fours’ by Grammatics.

Grammatics hailed from Leeds and were influenced by the Britpop era of the Mid 90s particularly Suede I would say. They formed in 2006 and signed to the very cool ‘Dance to the Radio’ label which was releasing brilliant records a few years back. I think its fair to say that they divided opinion, they had so many ideas and so many instruments (too many?) that at times the styles clashed. However to me, it showed promise and intent. Relentess Fours is the album highlight a six minute epic showcase of these ideas, it twists from electronica to jagged guitar noise to a scary sounding cello and of course, a stunning vocal. ‘Everybody loves a breakdown’ goes the lyric, which is exactly what the song sounds like. A band having a musical breakdown right there and then. Quiet, then angry, then quiet, then relaxed, pretty much always great.

mp3 : Grammatics – Relentless Fours

The singer from Grammatics went on to form Department M whose recent single ‘The Second Prize’ is worthy of your attention.

Enjoy folks.

SW-C

Marion

REMEMBERING MARION

Today’s piece is adapted from a post over at the old place back in August 2008. Apologies to ctel. He dislikes this lot almost as much as he dislikes The Fall.

Back in the mid 90s, it seems that every A&R man in the country was hell-bent on finding the next Blur or Oasis, and just about every guitar-orientated band was offered some sort of record deal. There are dozens of bands from the Britpop-era who, having shone very brightly at first with the inevitable two-page colour spread in the NME and/or Melody Maker and/or Select and/or Vox, would crack the Top 20 with a half-decent single.

Some bands – the likes of Ash, Stereophonics and Supergrass spring to mind – would go on to enjoy reasonable careers over the course of a few years. Most bands however, soon faded back into obscurity, usually because they never had the talent or material to progress beyond the initial burst.

But given that they had a charismatic frontman, a guitarist who many reckoned was as talented as any of his generation, and the support and backing of the likes of Radiohead, Morrissey and Johnny Marr, it is hard to fathom why Marion never had any meaningful career.

Again, it was Jacques the Kipper who brought this lot to my attention via the inclusion of their debut single Violent Men on a compilation tape. It interested me enough to catch them live at King Tut’s in Glasgow not long after – I’m sure it would have been the autumn of 1994. Now I know it’s easy to get all nostalgic about these sorts of things and creep into hyperbole….but the fact remains that the first Marion gig I got along to was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen at King Tut’s.

I remember coming away convinced I’d seen the 90s equivalent of The Smiths, largely on the back of the way singer Jaime Harding and guitarist Phil Cunningham had captivated the audience with astonishing and intense performances, with a set that consisted of songs that fell into two distinct camps – instant pop classics that would sound great on the radio or instant bedsit classics that would soundtrack many a students’ life.

But it just didn’t happen. A succession of singles released throughout 1995 made next to no impression. To their credit, the band never gave up and just kept on with tour after tour after tour in an effort to gain a bigger fan base. The hard work did eventually pay off, with a couple of Top 30 hits coming around in early 1996.

The debut album ended up selling reasonably well, and fans/admirers sat back and waited for the new material to emerge.

And waited, And waited. And waited.

The expectations around the new songs were especially high, as it had been revealed that Johnny Marr was recording with Marion, but it took until March 1998 before the first fruits of these labours appeared. By now the Britpop train had hit the buffers. The bands that had survived had been those who kept on releasing new singles and LPs at regular intervals thus staying in the public spotlight. And besides, this fella called Marr was now seen as nowt special being very much as the day before yesterday’s man….

The March 1998 single wasn’t a hit. Relationships between the band and label, which were never great to begin with, hit an all-time low with the decision to hold back the second LP. So Marion were back on the road with nothing to promote and with no natural audience. By early 1999 it was all over….

I reckon they are truly the great lost band of the Britpop era. Phil Cunningham has since shown how highly talented (and regarded) he is when he was asked to join New Order at the beginning of this decade.

Jaime Harding? Well, he was long a dedicated apostle of the clichéd lifestyle of a rock’n’roll star. After the band disbanded, he continued to make music with friends, then bummed around Eastern Europe for a few years, before coming home to make-up with Phil and reform Marion at the beginning of 2006.

It didn’t however, all go to plan. Some initial live shows promised much but then Jaime was hospitalised as the effects of years of drugs misuse eventually caught up him; he fell very fell seriously ill with a blood condition that required him to have life-saving open-heart surgery at the age of 31.

Things were put on hold till late 2011 at which point a serious effort was made at reforming, including new songs and a series of love shows leading to a short tour in the Spring of 2012. It would seem however, that the spark didn’t fully re-ignite as the band’s own website would indicate that outwith a few Jaime Harding solo shows in 2013, there’s been next to no activity. Sad proof that not all efforts by bands to reform 20 years on work out and lead to belated riches.

mp3 : Marion – Violent Men
mp3 : Marion – Sleep
mp3 : Marion – Toys For Boys
mp3 : Marion – Miyako Hideaway

Enjoy

Easterhouse

CULT CLASSICS – WHISTLING IN THE DARK by EASTERHOUSE

JC writes:-

I am particularly delighted that this week’s contribution is courtesy of Andrea Peviani who has sent me some very lovely e-mails over the years and who, last year, delivered a cracking series featuring his 45 45s at 45 at this place.

Here’s what he has to say:-

In 1986, the Italian national radio aired a new show called Stereodrome, hosted by music critics keen on alternative rock. Out of the blue we had 3 hours of the best indie music from UK and USA (and Italy as well), every night Monday to Saturday, nine to midnight.

I was almost 19, the year of my Graduation Exam, and I will always associate that time of my life with this explosion of fantastic music from obscure bands that were impossible to discover before.

Easterhouse’s Whistling In The Dark was maybe my favorite song of this season, at least until The Queen Is Dead came out. A powerful intro, rough guitars and a relentless rhythmic drive, halfway between London Calling and Motown; a soulful voice, that mixed some black intensity with the deepness of the New Wave style; a perfect balance between indie orthodoxy and anthemic Big Music on the trails of early U2.

I thought they would be the next band to face the transition from the happy few to huge audiences. Then the Contenders LP came out, and nothing happened. In the bunch of bands openly engaged in the political struggle against the Thatcher government, The Housemartins were the ones who went from indie charts to Top of the Pops: their smiling attitude towards communism was more connected to the 80’s evolution of music trends. Easterhouse only showed their seriously committed side, utter blackness inside and outside words, tunes, clothes and record covers.

I will never be tired of going back to this splendid, isolated album, feeling the urge and the rightfulness of “getting to the point, to the heart of it”. Bringing a little bit of that way we were in our disillusioned adult life.

mp3 : Easterhouse – Whistling In The Dark

JC adds:-

This is, as Andrea rightly says, a cracking tune. It certainly raised huge hopes and expectations for Easterhouse which were never realised. A few years back, I listened again to the band for the first time in ages and while I still have a lot of time for this particular 45 much of the rest of what I played left reminded me that back in the day it was just all too sub-standard stadium rock and while the lyrics were worthy they were let down by music that said nothing to me about my life.

And given that the band never quite managed the crossover that so many anticipated and expected, I probably wasn’t alone in coming to that conclusion. But as I said, Whistling In The Dark is always worth listening to….

Motorcycle Boy

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 82)

I was certain that Part 82 would feature Momus, but the 12″ single I was sure I had isn’t to be found anywhere in the big cupboard. It may have been filed away in the wrong place but I can’t be arsed looking. Instead here’s wiki on today’s featured act:-

The Motorcycle Boy were an indie pop band formed in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1987 by former members of Meat Whiplash and The Shop Assistants.

The band consisted of Alex Taylor (vocals, formerly of The Shop Assistants), with Paul McDermott (drums), Michael Kerr (guitar), and Eddy Connelly (bass) (all formerly of Meat Whiplash), and David “Scottie” Scott (guitar). They were signed by Rough Trade Records, who issued their debut single, “Big Rock Candy Mountain”, which reached number 2 in the UK Independent Chart.

The band were then signed up by Chrysalis Records, with two singles and debut album Scarlet that was never released, but failed to achieve great success despite considerable press attention. The band then split with Chrysalis, with one further single released on the Nymphaea Pink label in 1990, before the band themselves split up.

The band oddly made the cover of the NME on September 19, 1987 despite only having a brief half-page feature. This was because the entire contents of a themed issue on censorship (which would have had a painting used on the Dead Kennedys’ album Frankenchrist, then the subject of an obscenity trial in the United States, on the cover) had themselves been censored, with Stuart Cosgrove sacked from the paper, and a new cover had to be designed at very short notice.

The Rough Trade single is probably the best thing they ever did, and tempting as it is to feature the 7″ version of it, I thought I’d instead go for one of the two singles they recorded for Chrysalis as both 12″ versions are in the collection.

mp3 : The Motorcycle Boy – Trying To Be Kind (extended mix)
mp3 : The Motorcycle Boy – World Falls Into Place
mp3 : The Motorcycle Boy – Will You Love Me Tomorrow
mp3 : The Motorcycle Boy – Trying To Be Kind (1,000 cc mix)

The third track above is a more than decent stab at the song made famous by The Shirelles, which in 1961 became the first single by an all-girl group to reach #1 in the USA.

Oh and while I’m here, I may as well post the other Chrysalis single:-

mp3 : The Motorcycle Boy – You And Me Against The World
mp3 : The Motorcycle Boy – Under The Bridge
mp3 : The Motorcycle Boy – Some Girls
mp3 : The Motorcycle Boy – You And Me Against The World (Extended Mix)

Enjoy!!