April 2015 – Page 2 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

READ IT IN BOOKS : STUART ADAMSON

Tomorrow would have been Stuart Adamson‘s 57th birthday so I thought it appropriate to have a look back at his contribution to music via a review of a bio that was published back in 2010.

This is the first book I’ve featured in this series that I don’t actually own – I found it the other week while browsing around the local library. And to be brutally honest, borrowing it for a few weeks was a good decision as it proved to be a bit of a letdown.

The author, Allan Glen, has the advantage of coming from that part of Scotland in which the Manchester-born William Stuart Anderson was raised and the best bits of the book are those when he can bring that local flavour to the pages and particularly the description of physical, social and economic conditions in the villages and towns in Fife in the late 70s as The Skids came to the fore. The author paints a vivid picture which makes it very clear that Stuart Adamson was a true-to-life working class hero whose roots never left him.

However, the book for the most part is an extended consideration of the recording and touring careers of The Skids and Big Country rather than an in-depth look at Stuart Adamson. There’s lots about the music (up to 1996) but little about the man. The disease that eventually killed him – alcoholism – is sometimes hinted at but never referred to openly until the closing pages of the book and even then it is in almost throwaway fashion. There’s nothing about what led Stuart to divorcing his first wife and upping sticks to live in American in the mid-90s and I’m assuming this is because the author was unable to talk to anyone who was particularly close to Stuart in his final few years before his suicide in a hotel room in Hawaii in December 2001. So all in all, a disappointment.

What the book does remind you of however, is just how huge Big Country were for a spell in the early 80s. They went from near complete unknowns in early 1983 (which was when I first saw them as they played a gig in the students union at Strathclyde University) to flying on Concorde to perform at the Grammys in Los Angeles less than a year later. Their debut LP, The Crossing, had caught the imagination of the record buying public while their live shows had a real energy and vibe that made for a good night out. But almost as quickly, things began to fall apart.

There was a less than favourable reaction to the band’s second LP, Steeltown, while many fans attracted initially to the band because of The Skids connection were aghast and embarrassed at how often Big Country seemed to be on the support bill for stadium/arena performances of acts and bands we had thought the punk wars had seen off. To many, such as myself, the band never recovered. I certainly never had any great interest in the band after 1984 although I always wished them well as Stuart Adamson seemed to be one of the genuine folk in the music industry at a time of much artificiality and besides, who could ever fall completely out of love with the man whose guitar licks had meant so much to me as a teenager.

The main chunk of the book is a sad reminder of how hard Big Country tried to get back on track. I hadn’t quite appreciated that they continued to release albums in the late 80s and early 90s at regular intervals and completely missed that they actually enjoyed a couple of Top 30 hit singles in 1993.

It might be easy enough for me to say with the perspective of hindsight but it would probably have been better for the band to have broken up after the third or fourth album with Stuart finding some new musicians to back him and when he was out on the road have his new mates play old Skids and Big Country material alongside his new stuff. That way, the critics might have been a bit kinder to him rather than coming out with the ‘same old-same old’ barbs time and time again. Who knows?

It might even have got the old fans interested again….as happened when The Skids reformed briefly back in 2007 (with Bruce Watson from Big Country taking on the guitar parts) and then Big Country a few years later when just afterwards when Mike Peters from The Alarm took on the unenviable task of filling in for Stuart as evidenced by Brian from Linear Track Lives! when, back in 2012, he came all the way over to Glasgow from Seattle to catch a show.

So, overall, I wasn’t too enamoured by the book but appreciated the flashbacks it provided to the days when I loved seeing Stuart Adamson on stage alongside his nutcase of a frontman in The Skids or when he bravely took centre stage with his new band to show that he wasn’t, as many had thought, washed-up at the age of 24 and that he still had a sound worth listening to.

mp3 : The Skids – Scared To Dance
mp3 : The Skids – TV Stars (Peel Session)
mp3 : Big Country – Angle Park
mp3 : Big Country – 1000 Stars

Enjoy

Art of Noise, Breeders, Prodigy

HEY HEY HEY

This #1 hit from April 1996 is a genuine timeless classic

mp3 : The Prodigy – Firestarter (edit)

It also gave the former NME scribe turned novelist turned socio-pop commentator Paul Morley a #1 hit, a situation that nobody from the post-punk Manchester scene could ever have imagined when he was part of The Negatives, a group set up as an antagonistic joke and which also numbered famed photographer Kevin Cummins in its line-up. Morley’s writing credit came from one of the two cracking bits of sampled instrumentals:-

mp3 : The Art of Noise – Close (To The Edit)
mp3 : The Breeders – S.O.S.

The former had been a Top 10 hit back in 1984 while the latter was one of the many outstanding tracks on the 1993 LP Last Splash.

Firestarter took The Prodigy out of the dance/rave scene and right into heart of the cultural mainstream and along with the likes of Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, Orbital and others helped create the sort of critical mass that enabled dance music to become such a mainstay of the festival circuit across Europe and so drive bring a welcome end to line-ups that were becoming increasingly one-dimensional and dull thanks to the plethora of sub-standard indie-guitar Britpop line-ups.

Here’s the other tracks that you will find on the CD single:-

mp3 : The Prodigy – Firestarter (empirion mix)
mp3 : The Prodigy – Firestarter (instrumental)
mp3 : The Prodigy – Molotov Bitch

The Empirion Mix doesn’t feature any of the samples and stretches out to almost eight minutes and it demonstrates, from about the 1:40 mark onwards just how hardcore and good a tune Firestarter is on its own. Nice companion piece to Moaner by Underworld as featured on the blog a few weeks back…

Enjoy

James

THE JAMES SINGLES (25)

It’s now approaching nine months since the nonsense of the Sit Down remix and it is time for what would be the 25th single to be released by James.

Let’s give the band a bit of credit. They were wounded by the criticism offered by fans about the multi-formatting of recent 45s and that almost all of them had been padded out with remixes or live versions. and so it was made clear that the first post Best-Of single would come accompanied by high quality new songs unavailable elsewhere.

The single itself caught more than a few folk out:-

mp3 : James – I Know What I’m Here For

This was a different sounding James…well to an extent. It had a joyous sounding 45 with a catchy chorus but in a way that was unlike any of their other singles. I was caught out by it at the time and to all intent and purposes I should have fallen for its charms. But I couldn’t help but think that they were trying to take a leaf out of the book of U2 with a conscious and deliberate attempt to make something different just for the sake of it rather than head down any new and exciting musical direction. And sixteen years on, I remain strangely unmoved by the single. There’s evidence that I wasn’t alone as it stalled at #22 in the charts.

So what about these anticipated b-sides??

mp3 : James – All Good Boys
mp3 : James – Imagine Ourselves
mp3 : James – Downstairs
mp3 : James – Stolen Horse

CD1

All Good Boys is a slow song initially driven along by a strong vocal from Tim over an acoustic guitar before the chorus licks in where it sadly falls away into something a bit dull and leaden with the rest of the band joining in on backing vocals over a tune that could pass for a Robbie Williams b-side.

Imagine Ourselves is another slowie. This time it is initially driven along by a strong vocal from Tim over some electronic noodling. However, there is no upbeat shouty chorus to take the song to a different level so it sort of meanders along for the whole four and a half minutes but in a way that is quite lovely and moving. It’s a song that needs two or three listened to be fully appreciated but there’s no denying it is top quality for a b-side.

CD2

Downstairs is very much James in the 90s by numbers in that if you were fond of the singles you’d immediately fall for its charms. Regular readers will know that I found the James of the 90s a bit more miss than hit and so it is with this song. But I can see and appreciate why it is so well-regarded by fans

Stolen Horses is yet another ballad and again doesn’t do all that much for me but this is as much to do with the fact that James are no longer sounding anything like the band that I had fallen for almost 15 years previously than it being a crap song.

Listening to the songs some sixteen years later and I think I may have come up with the answer to as why I’m not a huge fan of them…….

These b-sides, and indeed the a-side could have been written today and no-one would be any the wiser. There’s lots of singers and bands out there who have great sounding voices and whose technical skills on their chosen instruments are there for all to hear and who have no trouble filling large venues and arenas to ever-increasing fanbases. These James songs from 1999 sound as if they would fit very comfortably into such sets and that’s what’s wrong with them. The music snob in me shies away from the mainstream for the most part and these highly proficient songs repel me in the same way.

But this journey of looking at James singles is almost at an end and so I’m not disembarking the vehicle until it reaches its final destination. I am however, bored with the repetitive scenery as I look out the window. I need that ‘wow’ factor………

Lucksmiths

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM #10 – THE LUCKSMITHS

One of the things I like most about doing all this is the feedback and contributions from others. There’s been hundreds of you left behind comments at some point in time while many of you have gone that bit further and offered to make one or more guest postings.

I’m thrilled that two readers got back to me the other week – both of them from America (and I can’t quite believe that I have so many folk visit T(n)VV from that great country on a regular basis) – in response to my asking if anyone wanted to put together an imaginary album by The Lucksmiths as I didn’t know enough about them or have enough of their songs to do it justice.

The first has come in courtesy of Eric who lives away over in Oakland on the west coast many many time zones removed from Glasgow. It’s pretty wonderful (albeit he has gone with a compilation CD approach rather than giving himself the torture of trying to do a 10-track vinyl album!!!). In his covering e-mail he said

Hi Jim,
I did it! I think you might regret that last statement. It’s so long. Once I started going I just couldn’t stop. So feel free to edit or send it back to me to edit. I won’t be hurt. The process itself was worth it. Thanks!
Eric

There is no way I’d ever dream of sending anything back or editing it down on my own accord. Besides, as Eric points out, this was band akin with the CD-only era and 15 songs were atypical of any release.

So here, without prejudice, are the words Eric has so kindly contributed today:-

I first became aware of the Lucksmiths in the 90s through a little file-sharing ring my sister set up. They quickly became a favorite and provided a private soundtrack to my 30s. I say private because I honestly can’t remember hearing them played on any radio or media in the SF Bay Area. Still, their shows here were always well attended, so I know people were buying their CDs (yeah, mostly CDs, their prime was right at that vinyl nadir when so many recordings came on CD only). I always thought they must be massive in their home country. Every time I’d meet an Australian I’d bring up the Lucksmiths. In all but one case I was met with a blank stare.

Whatever the success or failures of the band, they managed to produce quite a catalogue: 11 albums, 3 EPs and a handful of 45s and other singles. Thankfully the entire body of work is available on Spotify. I just spent two weeks annoying my co-workers with endless humming and singing in the hallways as I remembered song after song.

I never realized how hard these imaginary LPs were until I had to do it myself. I allowed myself 15 songs, which might seem excessive, but it’s on par with the albums of their heyday. I remember reading a review of their posthumous “greatest hits” compilation that called two hours of their word play and tweeness maddening. As much as I love them, I can see the point. An hour with the boys is a good stretch, and of course some of their finer moments come in tight 3 minutes pops.

1. The Golden Age of Aviation

I mean come on, it literally starts with the words “Hello everybody!” Unabashedly upbeat in the face of a disintegrating relationship, the song is a great Lucksmiths primer, full of overlaid metaphors and clever wordplay.

2. There Is a Boy That Never Goes Out

This one is just fun, and it brings to mind their name-checked heroes. I always thought it was funny that they so identified with the Smiths. They feel like totally different animals. Where the Smiths were constantly swinging for the fences, the Lucksmiths seemed perfectly content to play small ball; a double here a single there, sacrifice to bring a man home.

3. Southernmost
Quite simply my favorite opening lyric of any of their songs. The whole verse builds to such a satisfying couplet. I’m tempted to include it here, but I think it’s better heard than read.

4. The Cassingle Revival

The Lucksmiths released a number of one-off and tour singles, something I wish more bands would do. Of course they were totally prescient. My local record shop now sells scores of vintage cassettes. I guess Vinyl just isn’t hipster enough anymore…

5. The Great Dividing Range

Maybe my favorite song of all time. If you don’t feel like an hour of these boys, just start with this one. Great economy of language in a perfectly understated setting. Oh and somehow uplifting and melancholy at the same time. This one has it all!

6. Don’t Come With Me

The thing that drew me in to the Lucksmiths was their uncanny ability to articulate little moments of life. This has happened to me and I don’t think I’ve ever heard another person write a song about it, let alone a catchy clever one.

7. The Chapter in Your Life Entitled San Francisco

I was very fortunate to be in the SF Bay Area during the Lucksmiths run. They came here a lot, way more than my favorite UK and European bands of the time. In 2005 they released a love letter to San Francisco. All the songs had some sort of Bay Area connection. I read later that they felt like my home was their second home. Cheers to that.

8. I Prefer the Twentieth Century

I remember in 1999 a number of bands were trying to write the perfect millennial song. I can’t remember a single one of those, but 15 years later I find myself humming this one. According to Discogs “Produced for a New Years Eve gig in Melbourne featuring the bands. All songs recorded December 2000.“ There’s a comment on the Discogs page, purportedly from one of the other bands on the bill: Guy Blackman of Sleepy Township: “I think we sold 17 on the night. We should have just given them away.” I don’t know how but I somehow ended up with two of these. They must have done just that on their subsequent gigs.

9. T-Shirt Weather

This is easily the most popular and well-known Lucksmiths song (and the one that inspired this post). It’s perfectly timed for the coming of spring and can be heard emanating from me as I tool around town on my own bike.

10. Untidy Towns

“First things first I have a happy secret.” For the longest time that secret was this great band called the Lucksmiths. The boys always knew how to open an album.

11. Wyoming
The song that started it all for me. I had just driven cross-country a few years before hearing this song. I remember being shocked a how well a band from halfway around the world so perfectly captured my experience of Big Sky Country.

12. Jennifer Jason

There aren’t any songs here from their early albums. It’s not that there isn’t great stuff there, it’s just that the 1997-onward material is so great. I always feel like it’s nice to have a palate cleanser in an album so why not this one. Also Jennifer Jason Leigh, amiright?

13.The Invention of Ordinary Everyday Things

“She’s telling me she’s tired of relationships / And I’m bending bits of wire in to paperclips.” I think we’ve all been there.

14. Camera-Shy

I love a band that can seamlessly work in a word like heliolithic. As a camera-shy person myself I listen to this song and am immediately transported to umpteen memories.

15. The Year of Driving Languorously

So many of these songs deal with long distance relationships. It seems fitting to end with the Lucksmiths driving us to the airport to fly who-knows-where maybe never to come back. We want to believe this will go on forever, but we both know it won’t. So we find excuses to avoid talking because if we start talking we’ll have to acknowledge it. The song is all the more heartbreaking due to the relentlessly upbeat setting.

Ok that’s the album, but I want to include an imaginary 45 as well.

The Lucksmiths wrote one of my favorite Christmas songs, but I hate it when bands include holiday material on their regular releases. It just ruins the mood when I’m listening to the album in April. On the B-side, a song that just guts me every time I hear it. I just couldn’t get it in to the imaginary LP because everything about it just screams B-side. I can’t explain it, but here it is as the B-Side of my imaginary 45.

A. The Thought That Counts

B. Postcard

Woah! That got very long very fast. If you made it all the way here then cheers. If any Lucksmiths fans out there are wondering why there’s nothing here from their final album, First Frost, it’s kinda the same story as the early albums. It’s not a bad album, it’s just that the other stuff is so good. My last Lucksmiths show came during the First Frost promotional tour and you could just feel that the boys were tired. 16 years is a long time to do anything, so it wasn’t a total shock when they called it a day.

Thanks JC for prompting this little trip down memory lane. The last few weeks have been a total joy, and it’s great having all these songs in my head again. I also want to give props for the imaginary album idea. It’s so much more satisfying than a greatest hits or singles album. There are great album tracks that never make it on to those things, and they are often too long and disjointed.

Eric from Oakland

OK. One more PS, secret track, whatever… It’s Good Friday as I write so this song has been coursing through my head all day. I just missed the Imaginary LP cut for being a little to similar to The Great Dividing Range. That said it does contain one of my favorite Lucksmiths stanzas.

Hidden track : Guess How Much I Love You

Here’s me, here’s you.
Draw a line between the two.
This is cartography for beginners.
On the map the gap’s three fingers,
But it’s more than that, it’s more than that.

I know this isn’t how you usually do things, but I created a Spotify playlist incase you want to use it. I found tool invaluable in creating the imaginary LP.

https://open.spotify.com/user/122829849/playlist/2UZAxUd4vRdgPqBgn6Fn1b

Note from JC….

At a pinch, Eric has tripled the number of songs by The Lucksmiths that I have the good fortune to have in the collection. They really are/were a very fine band. And here’s my old-fashioned way of making the songs available:-

ALBUM

mp3 : The Lucksmiths – The Golden Age of Aviation
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – There Is A Boy That Never Goes Out
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – Southernmost
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – The Cassingle Revival
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – The Great Dividing Range
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – Don’t Come With Me
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – The Chapter In Your Life Entitled San Francisco
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – I Prefer The Twentieth Century
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – T-Shirt Weather
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – Untidy Towns
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – Wyoming
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – Jennifer Jason
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – The Invention Of Ordinary Everyday Things
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – Camera-Shy
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – The Year Of Living Langurously

BONUS SINGLE

mp3 : The Lucksmiths – The Thought That Counts
mp3 : The Lucksmiths – Postcard

HIDDEN TRACK

mp3 : The Lucksmiths – Guess How Much I Love You

Enjoy!!!!!!

Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

THE UNDERRATED SECOND LP

Everyone I knew in the mid 80s…..and I mean everyone……adored Rattlesnakes, the debut LP from Lloyd Cole & The Commotions. It’s a record packed with great tunes that you can latch on to immediately while lyrically its as fine an album as any. Poetry and prose set to music….

However, not so many folk seem so fond of the follow-up Easy Pieces, released in 1985 just 13 months after the debut. While Rattlesnakes was commemorated with a 20th Anniversary Tour in 2004 (where the band played a blistering set at Glasgow Barrowlands only spoiled by the fact that a then unknown but cringingly appalling James Blunt was the support act), Easy Pieces is passed off with the words ‘its ok….but nowhere near as good as the debut’ – even by the band themselves.

I’m not going to sit here and argue that Easy Pieces is a better record than Rattlesnakes…..but I am prepared to say that it as a far far far better record than many give it credit for.

Lead-off single Brand New Friend is a near perfect piece of pop, brilliantly polished by the production skills of Langer and Winstanley. Trust me on this one….

mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Brand New Friend

Lost Weekend, with its clear-rip of The Passenger (as mentioned previously here) was the next 45 while the third single lifted from the LP was Cut Me Down. I many ways this was a strange choice as it isn’t the most commercial of songs but I suppose when six months have passed since the LP was released and the promotional tour is over then the third and final single isn’t really all that important in the grand scheme of things. I still think they missed a trick not issuing this as a 45:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Why I Love Country Music

Two other songs on the LP are also personal favourites – opening track Rich which is one that seems tailor-made for radio and is very reminiscent of REM and closer Perfect Blue with its wonderful harmonica and acoustic guitar opening that screams out Americana Road Movie……….

mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Rich
mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Perfect Blue

So there you have it. Four of the ten songs from the LP. Everyone a gem. And the other six aren’t too shabby either……

Razorcuts

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 11 of 48)

There comes a tipping point when too much twee starts to annoy me. I’ll admit that, despite intending to feature all 48 songs and artistes who appear on CD86, some of the stuff gets the skip treatment on the i-pod. And today’s offering is one of them.

Razorcuts formed in 1985 with the mainstays being Gregory Webster (vocals/guitar) and Tim Vass (bass) augmented at times by various drummers and other musicians who came and went. After a couple of singles on the Subway Organisation label and a one-off on Flying Nun Records, they ended up signing to Creation by 1988 for who they would release two albums in 1988 and 1989 without setting the heather on fire.

The song on CD86 is a b-side to one of their June 86 debut on Subway and while it is far from a bad song – the tune is actually fine – the dreadful sub-standard vocal performance borders on the unlistenable. It is also a perfect example of the off-putting whining, struggling-to-hit-the-right notes delivery that quickly became synonymous with much of the C86 genre and which led to its rather prompt demise.

mp3 : Razorcuts – I’ll Still Be There

Here’s yer A-side:-

mp3 : Razorcuts – Big Pink Cake

The band split up in with Vass going on to form Red Chair Fade Away, and Webster joined The Carousel before the duo reunited under the name Forever People in 1992 for a one-off single called Invisible on Sarah Records.Between 1997 and 2002, Webster was part of Sportique, a sort of twee supergroup made up of ex-members of the likes of Heavenly, Television Personalities and Tallulah Gosh.

Aidan John Moffat

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #6 : AIDAN JOHN MOFFAT

Aidan John Moffat is the most diversely talented and intriguing Scottish musician of my generation.

He celebrates his 42nd birthday next week and he’s now been a staple part of the music scene in my part of the world for 20 years ever since Arab Strap came to prominence. He’s never been one to let any grass grow under his feet whether it has been recording albums – musical and spoken-word – under his own name), ambient dance music under the guise of L Pierre or Lucky Pierre, as part other of groups such as the low-fi The Angry Buddhists or the hard-to-pigeonhole Aloha Hawaii, as guest vocalist with countless others such as Mogwai and R M Hubbert and not forgetting his incredible collaboration with jazz musician Bill Wells that led to the Scottish Album of the Year award for 2011 for Everything’s Getting Older (the follow-up,The Most Important Place In The World, has just been released). Then of course 2014 saw him spend most of his time exploring the oral traditions of Scottish music with a tour of some very unusual venues and the making of a documentary film that was shown at the Barrowlands in Glasgow.

In short, he’s a one-off and he’s a national treasure.

I thought I’d treat you to one something from the 2009 release How To Get To Heaven From Scotland together with a rare live radio session.

mp3 : Aidan John Moffat & The Best Ofs – Big Blonde
mp3 : Aidan John Moffat & The Best Ofs – Big Blonde (session)

Given his propensity for being part of acts that begin with the letter ‘A’ you can bank on Aidan featuring in this slot a few more times in the coming weeks.

Dexy's Midnight Runners

ON A NIGHT WHEN FLOWERS DIDN’T SUIT MY SHOES…

A re-run of a guest posting from August 2011

They took their name from the recreational drug of choice for the Northern Soul fans at the time of their formation, Dexedrine, a brand of dextroamphetamine, the “midnight runners” refers to ability to dance all-night after taking said drug !!

Formed in Birmingham by Kevin Rowland and Kevin “Al” Archer, they arrived on the music scene with their own distinctive sound and dress style, they didn’t want to be a part of anyone else’s movement they wanted their own.

Their look was described as being “straight out of Robert DeNiro’s film Mean Streets” with their Donkey Jackets, Leather Coats and Woolly Hats…. ..at the same time in Kirkcaldy I was wearing a Donkey Jacket……this had absolutely nothing to do with any music scene, I just thought it may make me look more attractive to the young Irish student Midwives that were studying in my home town in the late seventies/early eighties!!!! For the record I had little success!!!

Rowland had a whole manifesto for the band – among other things they lived together in a squat and used public transport, which they never paid for. I remember seeing footage of them jumping over the barriers at an underground station in London and fleeing from the ticket collectors enroute to a gig.

After their first album, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, Rowland fell out with most of the music press and many of his band members quit over Rowland’s antics including his “press embargo”.
The NME accused the band of “emotional fascism”.

This didn’t stop Rowland, he recruited new blood and changed their image again, this time his mantra was fitness and the band was seen out training together and running. With this change came a new look, which included hooded tops, boxing boots and ponytails. Alcohol was banned and exercise sessions would take place before gigs, he felt now the band had the right fighting spirit.

Co-founder Archer had left after the release of the first album, he formed a new band The Blue Ox Babes and was to later claim that Rowland stole his Celtic sound with the fiddles from Archer’s new group.
The one member of the band that stayed loyal to Kevin Rowland, was the leader of the brass section, Big Jim Patterson, the Scottish trombonist. He remained in Dexy’s until he felt their presence in the band had been diminished by the arrival of a new sound that used mainly fiddles. Big Jim and the rest of the brass players left to form the TKO Horns who played on Elvis Costello’s album Punch the Clock. They also went on to perform with numerous artists including Madness, Squeeze, Nick Lowe and Howard Jones.

In a BBC 2 Documentary for the Young Guns series, Archer played a demo he had made before the unveiling of Rowland latest re-incarnation of Dexy’s that sounded very much like their first single with the new direction, The Celtic Soul Brothers.

Rowland recruited Helen O’Hara from The Blue Ox Babes to join his “new” creation the Emerald Express, who joined the remainder of Dexy’s for the album Too-Rye-Ay, and with it came another new look best described as raggytail Gypsy, with dungarees, scarves and waistcoats.

Dexy’s Midnight Runners had worldwide success with the single Come on Eileen and I’m sure that it will be a floor filler at wedding evening discos for years to come. It was the biggest selling single in the UK and USA in 1982 and sold over 1.2 million copies in the UK alone.

I bought their first single Dance Stance after hearing it on Annie Nightingale’s Sunday Night Radio One Show, while working at St Andrews’ University.

On the February 1st 1980, the band played at the St Andrews’ Student’s Union, it was a blistering gig with Kevin Rowland turning in a very charismatic performance and, “Big” Jimmy Patterson a standout on trombone on his return to his homeland. A short while later, in May 1980, Geno No.1 in the UK charts.

mp3 : Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Geno (live)

Through all their time as a band Dexy’s produced some wonderful singles, the best for me being, produced during the brass/soul period and these are particular favourites of mine:-

mp3 : Dexy’s Midnight Runners – There There My Dear
mp3 : Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Plan B

They also turned in some very good cover versions of the Northern Soul Classics, Chuck Wood’s Seven Days Are Too Long and Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon’s Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache that showed where Kevin Rowland’s musical preferences lay.

mp3 : Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Seven Days Are Too Long

Over the years, Rowland proved himself to be a control freak and a bit of a prat, who liked to be a chameleon and change his appearance, at will, he took it too far in 1999, when after an absence of 11 years away from the music scene, he released his second solo album My Beauty complete with cover photo of himself in a dress and stockings!!!!

It has been said My Beauty was a good piece of work but many shied away from it because of the cover. He appeared at the Reading music festival to promote the album dressed as he was on the cover and was bombarded on stage with a hail of bottles.

FOOTNOTE : Best place seen wearing a donkey jacket:

Picture the scene it’s July 1982 in a nightclub in San Antonio, Ibiza. Everyone is dancing about wearing their finest shorts and t-shirts to show off their fast growing tans- when on the music system comes Rock the Casbah by The Clash and out of nowhere appears a guy wearing a DONKEY JACKET with NCB* emblazoned on the back!!!

* NCB means National Coal Board

John Greer, Monday 22 August 2011

Smiths Covers

COVERING ALL THE BASES

While I was digging out the original version for yesterday’s posting, I noticed that I had a fair few cover versions on the hard drive. Some are far better than others but I think there will be something for everyone:-

mp3 : Clayhill – Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
mp3 : Deftones – Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
mp3 : Johnny Marr – Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want (live)
mp3 : Josh Rouse – Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
mp3 : Muse – Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
mp3 : She & Him – Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
mp3 : The Dream Academy – Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
mp3 : Tinderbox – Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
mp3 : Vitamin String Quartet – Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want

It was while putting this piece together that I learned of the sad and untimely death just a few weeks back of Gavin Clark, the lead singer with Clayhill and who also contibuted to the work of UNKLE. He was 46 years old.

R.I.P.

Monochrome Set, Smiths, Style Council, Tracey Thorn

FOOLS IN LOVE (APRIL AND OTHERWISE)

This is loosely adapted and then expanded from a post over at the old place back in February 2010.

One of the minor reasons I ever started a blog was to bring attention to otherwise unavailable or difficult to find very fine records that had only ever been placed on the b-sides of long-deleted singles and while there is a growing tendency for album re-issues to bring together such tracks and label them ‘bonus’, nothing beat finding bits of vinyl with the crackly old originals.

One of the songs I really loved from my old vinyl days but had missed for many a year was Goodbye Joe, originally recorded as a b-side to a 1979 single :-

mp3 : The Monochrome Set – Goodbye Joe

It begins as if it is a live track, and one that is of poor sound quality at that. You can hear some crowd sing-a-long at the outset in what is clearly a small venue, then some cheering as a guitar as struck. After just under 50 seconds, lead singer Bid utters the words ‘Let’s Have Some Decorum’ and suddenly we switch to a quite gorgeous and moving studio track.

It’s about watching a film performance of this bloke here in case you were wondering.

Oh and for the record, the song was later recorded by Tracey Thorn, and again was consigned to obscurity on a 1982 b-side :-

mp3 : Tracey Thorn – Goodbye Joe

The original posting also featured the A-sides of the singles which, in Tracey’s case was also a beautiful piece of music:-

mp3 : Tracey Thorn – Plain Sailing

In the Feb 2010 posting I mentioned in passing how both of Tracey’s songs had featured heavily on compilation tapes in the era of 82/83/84 as a way to demonstrate to would-be girlfriends that I really did have a sensitive side but it never ever worked all that well. Seems I wasn’t alone in that failing as my good mate Dirk from Sexy Loser left behind the comment:-

“Yeah, mate: those tapes, ey?! I only wish I still would own a few of the dozens of them I made up back then with all my passion, heart and soul … instead I gave them away to girls who didn’t give a fuck. Literally.”

I remember that as being a genuine ‘splutter the tea all over the monitor’ moment when I read it. Still makes me smile………

And while I’m here, I just can’t resist:-

mp3 : The Style Council – The Paris Match (LP version)

Days of skinny-ribbed hooped t-shirts, a headful of perfectly coiffured hair and a devil-may-care attitude to life that I thought would last forever. How the fuck has Johnny Marr changed so little since those days???????

mp3 : The Smiths – Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

Sigh.