September 2015 – Page 2 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

A CLOSE COUSIN TO YESTERDAY’S FEATURED SONGS

For some reason or other, but what I can’t quite explain. I’m in the mood and groove for a bit of electronica pop just now. I hadn’t heard this is in ages when it popped up on random shuffle the other day and it damn near hypnotised me beyond my stop on the train journey.

mp3 : Air – Kelly Watch The Stars (edit)

It was the second single to be lifted from the hit album Moon Safari and it peaked at #18 in the UK charts in 1998 although I thought it had performed better than that and indeed that it was more recent than 17 years ago.

I like how on the sleeve, if you peer closely, you will see the words ‘French Band’ next to Air. I do recall hearing it the first time on radio and thinking that it was a Chemical Brothers record.

Here’s yer other tracks on the CD single of which just the Beck remix of an earlier hit is really worth your time:-

mp3 : Air – Sexy Boy (Beck ‘sex kino’ mix)
mp3 : Air – Kelly Watch The Stars (album version)
mp3 : Air – Remember (D Whittaker version)

Enjoy

Chemical Brothers

THEY CAN MAKE GREAT SONGS WITHOUT GUEST VOCALISTS

The best known and indeed best loved of the hit singles of The Chemical Brothers tend to be those that have featured guest vocalists. Noel Gallacher on Setting Sun and Let Forever Be together with Bernard Sumner on Out of Control and Wayne Coyne on The Golden Path being the most obvious examples.

Even when it hasn’t been a guest singer – such as Hey Boy Hey Girl – it is the sampled vocal that has taken the song to the heights.

But in Star Guitar, a #8 hit from 2002, the boys demonstrated that songs that are near instrumental as imaginable could be a hit and memorable.

mp3 : The Chemical Brothers – Star Guitar (edit)

It is like a modern descendant of the great synth pop/disco of Giorgio Moroder but with added guitars. It’s a track that demands to be played very loudly and if you listen through headphones it feels mindblowing.

Here’s yer two additional tracks on the CD single:-

mp3 : The Chemical Brothers – Base 6
mp3 : The Chemical Brothers – Star Guitar (Pete Heller’s Expanded Mix)

These are a lot more clubby in feel and sound and interestingly Pete Heller brings the vocal sample to the forefront when in the original it is very much in the background. What he does is make into a totally different song but one that I’m far less charmed by.

Oh and you should check out the promo video to Star Guitar.

One of the most clever and intriguing promos I’ve ever seen….I’m glad wiki is around to enable director Michel Gondry to explain how it was done.

The music video features a continuous shot filmed from the window of a speeding train passing through towns and countryside. However, the buildings and objects passing by appear exactly in time with the various beats and musical elements of the track. The video is based on DV footage Gondry shot while on vacation in France; the train ride between Nîmes and Valence was shot ten different times during the day to get different light gradients. The Pont du Robinet as well as Pierrelatte’s station can be seen. Gondry had experimented with a different version of the same effect in his video for Daft Punk’s “Around the World”, where he had represented each element of the music with a dancer.

Gondry actually plotted out the synchronization of the song on graph paper before creating the video, eventually “modelling” the scenery with oranges, forks, tapes, books, glasses and tennis shoes.

Enjoy.

Jam

THE JAM SINGLES (7)

Just when you thought there was no way the The Jam could top the majesty of All Mod Cons they only go and release an incredible new single and arguably an even better b-side on 9 March 1979:-

mp3 : The Jam – Strange Town
mp3 : The Jam – The Butterfly Collector

A #15 hit on its initial release it too would be issued by Polydor Records on two more occasions – in 1980 and 1983 hitting #44 and #42 respectively.

Now I know from hearing both songs in concert during the six times that I saw the band (five times at the Glasgow Apollo and once at Edinburgh Ingliston – all between November 79 and November 82) that there are live versions of these songs floating around. I just don’t have any to hand….so instead here’s a solo version from many years later:-

mp3 : Paul Weller – The Butterfly Collector (live)

And I’ve also dug out a track only made available on the 1997 boxset. It was an unreleased demo, recorded back in 1978, with Paul Weller tinkling away on the ivories. It’s a song whose verse didn’t warrant a proper recording and release, but have a listen to the bridge section and you’ll quickly clock on to where some of it ended up:-

mp3 : The Jam – Worlds Apart

Enjoy

Magazine

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #35 : MAGAZINE

This has been by far the most difficult undertaking up till now. I know I keep saying that but its true.

I have 25 Magazine songs that I love in equal measures and picking them out of a hat in a random fashion would most certainly lead to a quality compilation album. I almost went for a cheat by putting together a CD lasting right up to the 78 minutes allowed but realised all that would do is have guest contributors call foul on the fact that they were forced to be disciplined and stick to the 10 tracks. Then I thought about simply replicating the 10-tracks on the 1982 compilation After The Fact, and in doing so copy out the sleeve notes by Paul Morley, but I thought the upgrade from economy to first-class in terms of quality in the writing might have given the game away. Instead, what follows is all my own handiwork:-

SIDE A

1. Definitive Gaze (from Real Life, June 1978)

It’s the opening track on the debut LP and it was a great way to introduce yourself to the album buying public. It was co-written by Howard Devoto and John McGeoch , respectively one of the greatest post-punk lyricists and one of the most underrated musicians these lands have ever produced. John’s work elsewhere outside of Magazine resulted in the best songs of other bands ever recorded by bands such as Siouxsie & the Banshees and PiL and yet on this track it is the keyboard playing of Dave Formula and the bass notes of Barry Adamson that really make this tune so memorable. It’s a perfect example of how Magazine, while made up of amazing individuals, really were the sum of those talents.

2. A Song From Under The Floorboards (single January 1980 and then included on The Correct Use Of Soap, March 1980)

The band’s third album is rightly lauded as their finest moment with not a duff songs amidst its ten tracks. Indeed it crossed my mind just to feature the album in its entirety as the contribution to this series and leave it at that (see….this is a posting that really has had me thinking!!!).

The Correct Use Of Soap is an unusual album for the fact that it closes with its strongest and most memorable song when the rule of thumb is that you put those first or at a point when you perhaps think it is time to bring a ‘wow factor’ back when things are flagging. Thirty five years on, Floorboards remains a piece of music that has the ability just to stop me in my tracks when it kicks in. And the opening couplet, which I’m told by literary loving friends is derived from the opening lines in a Dostoyevsky novel, remain my favourite lines in a song of all time. I even have the t-shirt.

PS : Think of all the songs in the history of pop music that have made the singles charts and then join me in being bewildered that this didn’t crack the Top 75….

3. I Love You, You Big Dummy (b-side of Give Me Everything, November 1978)

I have never quite understood the attraction of Captain Beefheart and outwith one song on a compilation album I have nothing within what most folk would describe as a very extensive and eclectic record/CD/cassette collection. And yet I adore Magazine’s take on a song that originally featured on the 1970 album Lick My Decals Off, Baby. The simple explanation is that the cover sounds nothing like the original as Howard & co deliver what I feel is the perfect blend of punk and glam rock with its catchy riffs and sneering delivery complete with additional lyrics from the angry, ill and ugly as sin protagonist to get the message across.

4. You Never Knew Me (from The Correct Use of Soap, March 1980)

The track that helped me get over my first seriously broken heart. I didn’t want to turn around and find that I’d got it so wrong. I had stepped into the deepest unhappiness and while I wasn’t sure if I had ever got to know her I could say in all certainty that she never ever really knew me.

It’s very rare for new wave/post punk acts to nail a ballad in a way that it could be held up as being among their best songs, but Magazine, aided by an achingly beautiful backing vocal from Laura Teresa, pull the trick off with aplomb.

5. Permafrost (from Secondhand Daylight, March 1979)

The ‘difficult second album’ syndrome affected Magazine in that Secondhand Daylight is a fair bit away from any sort of post-punk sound and at times seems to steer awfully close to prog rock. And yet, it was only in subsequent years as the new wave of synth bands emerged from their bedsit rooms, did we all come to realise that much of Secondhand Daylight was ahead of its time, although I’m still not sure about The Thin Air which is a four-minute instrumental that is more or less a John McGeoch saxophone solo (albeit I was fond of including it on compilation cassettes that were designed to be played with the lights dimmed or even totally switched off whenever my girlfriend was in the room with me – she adored sax).

Permafrost is perhaps the ultimate in sneering creep vocals that Howard Devoto seemed to specialise in at the time….its suggestion of taking revenge on an ex-lover in a very unambiguous way meant that this never stood any chance of ever making it onto any smoooooth compilation cassette.

SIDE AA

1. Because You’re Frightened (from The Correct Use of Soap, March 1980)

One of the ideas behind today’s compilation is that you can play either side and you have a classic side of vinyl in your hands. That’s why I don’t have a Side B but instead am going for a Double-A side album.

This is the song which opened ‘Soap’ . It immediately indicated that it was going to be an LP with a pace, energy and sound that was a lot different from its predecessor with the band seemingly returning to the punkier new wave rifts and leaving other bands (e.g. Simple Minds) free to explore, develop and deliver the synth based Art/Krautrock side of things. It’s also one of the finest demonstrations of just how great, and I mean GREAT, a guitarist the band had.

2. Hello Mr Curtis (with apologies) (from No Thyself, October 2011)

The idea of Magazine making a new album after a gap of 30 years was worrying. The comeback gigs had been triumphant and in Noko (who had worked closely with Howard Devoto in Luxuria in the late 80s) they had someone with the ability to fill the very big boots of the late John McGeoch who had sadly died in 2004 at the young age of 48. But the idea of new songs was, as I said worrying.

No Thyself is an album that, for the most part, dissipates those worries. It is certainly a superior effort to 1981’s Magic, Murder & The Weather which was recorded at a low point with McGeoch having left to pursue alternative options and Devoto depressed by the failure of ‘Soap’ ; fans and critics alike were of the view that it had been a sad way for the band to initially bring their recording career to an end.

The ‘comeback’ album had a lead-off single and the most immediate thing was that it sounded as if McGeoch was playing on it…it really is uncanny. It’s a tune that wouldn’t have sounded out-of-place in their pomp and heyday and to this fan highlights just how ahead of their time they really were. The lyric meanwhile, is biting and savage and just a tad controversial. At least we know Howard has no intention of topping himself…..

3. Shot By Both Sides (single, January 1978)

One of the great post-punk anthems, the debut single had the audacity to reach #41 in the singles charts and somehow trigger off an appearance on Top of The Pops. The sight of Howard & co obviously frightened everyone concerned for instead of it climbing into the Top 40 the following week thanks to being exposed to millions of viewers/listeners it dropped like a stone. The band never got near the singles charts again despite releasing a run of cracking 45s over the next three years.

The album version of the song is marginally different (the thing most noticeable is that each chorus of the single begins ‘Shot, Shot by both sides’ while the LP is simply ‘Shot by both sides.’ It’s a tune co-written with Pete Shelley who loved it so much that he used it for the track Lipstick some ten months as the b-side to the hit single Promises but rather naughtily didn’t give Howard a writing credit……….

4. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (Peel Session, May 1979)

Magazine didn’t do too many covers but when they did it wasn’t in any half-hearted or lazy way. It was inconceivable for a post-punk band to do a take on a #1 soul single from 1970 far less for them to make it sound as if it was a post-punk piece of music. The band and the label knew they had something special here and released it as a single in March 1980 hoping, forlornly as it turned out, for greater success than ‘Floorboards’.

It would subsequently appear on ‘Soap’ a few months later and become a firm favourite among fans, but it was only in 2000 that most of us got to hear the Peel Session thanks to the release of a 3xCD box set (unless of course we had been paused over the pause button when it had been broadcast in 1979 as part of a session promoting songs from Secondhand Daylight).

5. The Light Pours Out Of Me (from Real Life, June 1978)

A classic album should ideally end with a song that makes you want to flip it over and listen to the whole thing again. This does exactly that…….

It will always have a special place in my heart as it was the first song I ever heard Magazine perform in a live setting when I went, with Mrs Villain, to see them in Manchester in February 2009.

There are tracks missing from this compilation that I can’t believe I’ve left off. I know I haven’t chosen my favourite ten Magazine songs but I feel what I have done is completely in the spirit of this particular series.

mp3 : Magazine – Definitive Gaze
mp3 : Magazine – A Song From Under The Floorboards
mp3 : Magazine – I Love You, You Big Dummy
mp3 : Magazine – You Never Knew Me
mp3 : Magazine – Permafrost
mp3 : Magazine – Because You’re Frightened
mp3 : Magazine – Hello Mr Curtis (with apologies)
mp3 : Magazine – Shot By Both Sides
mp3 : Magazine – Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (Peel Session, May 1979)
mp3 : Magazine – The Light Pours Out Of Me

Enjoy

Siddeleys

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 33 of 48)

The Siddeleys are one of those bands that have cropped up in conversation with fellow indie-geeks a fair few times but I always have to shrug my shoulders and admit I know nothing. Their inclusion on CD86 and place in this series has led me to do a wee bit of research and listen to most of the very few songs released while they were together and I’ve liked what I’ve heard.

They initially comprised of Johnny Johnson (vocals), Andrew Brown (bass), Allan Kingdom (guitar), and Phil Goodman (drums) and debut single What Went Wrong This Time came out on the Medium Cool label in July 1987 and a very positive review in the NME described it as “A gentle teasing lament with cool female vocals and a lilting backing which trickles around the back of the nervous system with deceptive charm”.

It was a year before any follow-up was released by which time the drummer and his replacement had both left perhaps indicating not everything in the garden was rosy. The second release was a four-track EP on Sombrero Records after which they recorded two Peel Sessions, the second of which was in May 1989, but plans for a third single were dashed when the record label ran out of money and no other offers emerged. The Siddeleys called it a day soon afterwards.

They are regarded as one of the great lost bands of the era and such has been the level of interest over the years that it came as no surprise when a compilation of the two singles and the Peel Sessions were brought together on a new CD entitled Slum Clearance in 2001.

The track on CD 86 was the debut single:-

mp3 : The Siddeleys – What Went Wrong This Time?

There were two tracks on the b-side, the latter of which is really quite splendid:-

mp3 : The Siddeleys – No Names….
mp3 : The Siddeleys – My Favourite Wet Wednesday Afternoon

Enjoy

Big Country

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #27 : BIG COUNTRY (a guest posting)

The alphabetical run through the list of Scottish bands that you’ll find in my collection has reached Big Country. I thought however, that I’d put the blog in the capable hands of someone who knows more about the band than anyone else of my acquaintance; the image above is a collage of just some of his collection from the early years and then there’s the fact that he came all the way from Seattle to Scotland just so that he could see the reformed Big Country play a gig at Glasgow Barrowlands and in doing so provided me with an incredible but hopefully not once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hook up. Here’s Brian from the fantastically high quality Linear Track Lives……………

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Outside of the ’60s groups in my mother’s record collection, Big Country was the first band that became an obsession. I was 13 years old when In a Big Country hit the American airwaves, and that really is the perfect age to go gaga about a band, especially if you have a paper route. I had the ability to buy the albums and all of the 7″ and 12″ singles, as well as order the posters and T-shirts from Burning Airlines, while my poor pals had to beg their parents for money with promises of mowing the lawn, cleaning the garage and the like. The only time I recall begging my parents for anything regarding Big Country was when “In a Big Country” went up against Def Leppard‘s Rock of Ages on the video fights segment of “Friday Night Videos.” It cost 50 cents to call in and vote for your favorite, and I knew Stuart and the lads would need me. As expected, even though I voted three times, it was an 80%-20% slaughter in the wrong direction.

Like most music obsessives, I had a particular fondness for the B-sides, and I found nearly all of the flip sides of The Crossing, Wonderland and Steeltown to be as enjoyable as the album tracks, particularly Heart and Soul, Angle Park, The Crossing and Winter Sky.

Perhaps my favorite, though, was Prairie Rose from the East of Eden single. This may seem like a strange pick for JC’s Saturday Scottish Song series, especially since it isn’t Scottish. In 1984, however, I had no idea it was a cover. Here is my defense: The back of the 12″ paper sleeve simply said “Prairie Rose” with no songwriting credit.

There were other signs that never gave me pause to think it was anything but one of Stuart’s brilliant creations. There was the lyric “lonesome star, shine on the big country.” Adamson also added a line at the end of the song, “I hear your voice, and it keeps me from sleeping,” taken from Big Country’s song Tall Ships Go. Producer Steve Lillywhite did his job well too. “Prairie Rose” had all of the touches that made the song sound, well, big. It was an anthem. Finally, and most importantly, this 14 year old had no idea who Roxy Music was. I plead ignorance. The defense rests.

C’mon, admit it. There have been songs you loved you didn’t know were covers, and I would love to hear all about them. It will be therapeutic. I figured it all out about a year later when, upon closer inspection of the center label as I was putting on the record, I noticed Ferry/Manzanera right smack in the middle of the B-side. How could I have missed that? Wait a minute. Ferry? Nah, couldn’t be. By then I had a cassette of Roxy Music’s The Atlantic Years 1973-1980, and I quickly popped it open to see if I could find the name Manzanera anywhere. Yep, there it was, just once, as a co-writing credit on Still Falls the Rain. I felt like a fool, but it did send me on quite an exploration of all things Roxy Music, which is a good thing. I’m guessing I’m the only one of JC’s readers that can say they became a fan of Roxy Music from listening to Big Country. I still give a slight nod to Big Country’s take (gasp!), but I’ll let you be the judge. Here are both versions.

mp3 : Roxy Music – Prairie Rose
mp3 : Big Country – Prairie Rose

Like most 14 year olds, I was fickle. By the time The Seer came out in ’86 I had all but moved on. Look Away was my last 12″ single, but my love for Big Country’s early years never wavered. That’s what brought me not 400 miles, as Stuart suggested in the song Fields of Fire, but 4,400 miles from Seattle to Glasgow to see a reunited Big Country (with the Alarm’s Mike Peters on lead vocals) perform The Crossing at Barrowland in 2012. It’s also when I got to meet JC. So, there’s another reason why I’ll always love Big Country.

Brian

JC adds…..

I’ve been lucky enough to have met a number of other bloggers over the past eight years or so and every single one of them have been as wonderful in the flesh as they seemed when they were ‘imaginary’ via t’internet. But the day spent running around the city with Mr & Mrs Linear Lives remains a particular highlight. And thinking of it makes me determined to one day get myself over to Seattle as it’s a city I’ve never been to and hopefully hook up again. Oh and those who I haven’t yet met…..well just wait till I manage to retire from the day job and I get myself on my round the world trip. First stop I intend to make is Germany…….via the south-west of England.

This is also a posting that again makes me appreciate just how lucky I’ve been to catch bands that others were denied the chance just because they are a bit younger than me. My mate Aldo is one of the biggest Morrissey/Marr fans I know but never saw The Smiths. There’s about half a dozen mates who are huge Paul Weller fans but never saw The Jam and then there’s Brian who never saw Big Country in the early days when I did so at least four times including the tiny students union at Strathclyde University just as they were on the verge of breaking through in the UK.

Oh and songs I initially (and for a long while) didn’t know were covers? David Watts by The Jam is probably the most obvious…Mr Pharmacist by The Fall was another and so too Holiday Hymn by Orange Juice.

JJ72

FROM THE SOUTH-WEST CORRESPONDENT..WHAT’S IN YOUR BOX (26)

The Shoebox of Delights – #11 – Chosen by Dirk (Sexy Loser)
JJ72 – JJ72

I’ll start with a story.

Earlier today I went to the beach with my daughter, as we sat on the seafront eating an ice cream (her chocolate, me strawberry), we saw a man being hassled by seagulls, they wanted his chips and so did he. In keeping with a recent theme, he through a cup of coffee at it. He missed and hit a passing vicar who was cycling past on a bike. That made my day. It has nothing to do with the music below, it was just funny. I wish I’d filmed it. Anyway….

Does anyone actually remember JJ72? I have to admit I had forgotten that they even existed. When I pulled this CD out of the box, I thought about them for the first time in about seven years and that may just be the reason why people forgot about them.

So you probably already know that JJ72 were a teen guitar trio from Dublin who said at the time of their arrival that they wanted to make music that makes people feel like they’ve never felt before’. That is quite a statement, Phil Collins already makes music that me feel like I’ve never felt before, but I would imagine that is an altogether different feeling to the one they meant. This was their debut album and whilst it was an ambitious and in parts brilliant debut album – it never achieved the soaring heights I think people expected it to.

JJ72 have a bit of Joy Division fixation I think it is fair say that, and this record tries to do what Joy Division did so effectively. The record is at times very emotional, then it is tender and then powerful. It does of course, contain tunes, lots of them. Firstly and probably most specifically is the angst ridden railing at the sky of their most well known single Snow in which singer Mark Greaney doesn’t just sing at the lack of the white snow but he growls, screeches like a banshee and positively has a hissy fit at it, ‘Why won’t it snow?’ he hollers, yes why won’t it? Apart from it being August, I can think no other reason for it not snowing when I played this earlier today. I wanted it to snow just so see what happened to his voice after that. I hate to think what would have happened if it was just sleet. Bastard weather, never does what you want it to.

mp3 : JJ72 – Snow

Perhaps the best Joy Division impression can be seen in the brooding sprawl of guitars and electronica that is Long Way South but there are other influences there, there is the rawness and dare I say it melancholy of Bends era Radiohead and then soft bit followed loud bit subtly of Nirvana. The Radiohead comparison I think is underlined the most with the swooning brilliance of this:-

mp3 : JJ72 – Surrender

Elsewhere the record is teeming with ideas, second single Oxygen has the downright cheek to use an orchestra and sweeping strings and made it sound fantastic. This despite the strings bit in indie records being the most deeply unfashionable and rubbish thing to do since the Manic Street Preachers did it on every single record they released from 1995 – 2001. JJ72 also includes a track (Algeria) that makes use of handclaps and one that even manages to feature a xylophone (Not Like You), neither are that memorable in terms of their musical greatness.

mp3 : JJ72 – Oxygen

One thing that is memorable is of course, the voice of the singer Mark Greaney. Its somewhere between Fergal Sharkey and Jeff Buckley, or like Brian from Placebo on a 40 a day habit, only far less irritating and I think something of an acquired taste (think defrocked choirboy). At times, I cannot fathom out what he is going on about. Though when it comes together with the music behind it, I am lost as to why JJ72 just slipped out of the back door without anyone noticing. They and this should have been huge so what happened?

At the time JJ72 had plenty of airplay, that if dolled out to a band today would result in them being hugely popular. They had the press excited, they had crowds cheering them at nearly every festival worth its salt and for about two months tracks like Oxygen and October Swimmer made them a captivating and intriguing band, full of passion and ambition.

mp3 : JJ72 – October Swimmer
mp3 : JJ72 – Long Way South

But, today, well if you have never heard JJ72 then I’ll be honest, they ain’t going to change your life and it is difficult to see why everyone found this band so captivating. I’ve listened to this album twice today, and, now, it seems so naïve and a bit self indulgent. I’m aware that sounds patronising and I’ll also say that all three of them individually have more musical talent in their toenails than I do in my entire body, but it does. It just does. It’s still good, it still deserves your attention, but you will have forgotten about it come Christmas.

S-WC

JC adds…..

Being honest, I couldn’t have told you the first thing about JJ72 before this post but then I listened to the tracks S-WC attached to the e-mail and realised I knew a couple of them. So many bands of that particular era seemed to pull off trick but then again its an age thing.

What I mean by that is that there will be plenty of late 20 and early 30 somethings who will have thought of JJ72 as the future of rock’n’roll – which I can completely understand – in the same way that I can sing-along to every word of every Jam, New Order and Smiths b-side or album track then there will be devotees of JJ72 who can do likewise with their songs.

Oh and just to say that S-WC is away on holiday for a bit so this wee series will be on hold for a couple of weeks.

Jam

THE JAM SINGLES (6)

There are days when I think this may well be the greatest record of all time….and yet I didn’t include it in my 45 45s at 45 rundown back in 2008. But I’ll probably come back to that later in the series.

By now I was determined to buy the singles and albums on the day they came out and so it proved with this record that hit the shops on 6 October 1978:-

mp3 : The Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight

A belter of a tune with an incredible lyric which to a 15-year old who hadn’t yet set foot in London was genuinely terrifying. Not only did I never want to bump into the muggers but please don’t ever let me cross the path of the atheist nutter who sprays ‘Jesus Saves’ onto walls.

Incidentally, when I first visited London, which would have been in 1983 by which time I was at University, I couldn’t wait to take my first trip on the Underground. This turned out be at King’s Cross as that was the nearest tube station to the ‘bus park’ where the overnight service from Glasgow dropped us off just as rush hour was beginning to take hold. I was catching a service on the Piccadilly line as this took me onto where my digs were for the next few days (at the home of a professional footballer no less who was also a huge fan of The Jam and had been to see the band with me a few times in the past – some of my close friends will know this person’s identity!!).

I was intrigued at how deep down I had to go to get to the platform and all the way down I was singing this song to myself….and amazed to discover as the escalator dropped me off deep in the bowels of the city that I could indeed make out the distant echo of faraway voices boarding faraway trains.

Thankfully, I never met the atheist nutter, not knowingly at least.

Two new studio songs were on the b-side:-

mp3 : The Jam – So Sad About Us
mp3 : The Jam – The Night

The former was recorded on 13 September 1978 by the band as a tribute to Keith Moon who had died at the age of 32 just six days previously. It is a cover of a song by The Who which had originally featured on the LP A Quick One back in 1966. A photo of the late drummer was also put on the back of the Tube Station picture sleeve. The latter is a Bruce Foxton song which just demonstrates that while the song-writing of Paul Weller was really maturing and developing the bass player was still composing tunes that wouldn’t have been out-of-place with material from the previous twelve months.

Tube Station reached #15 in the charts and would go onto be re-released as a 7″ single by Polydor Records on two more occasions – in 1980 and 1983. The first re-release didn’t reach the Top 75 but the 1983 issue did climb to #30.

Now to the additional recordings….

I’m of the view that the album version which subsequently saw light of day on All Mod Cons a month later is different enough to warrant an airing. Where the single fades out the album version ends abruptly and the sound of a train departing the platform is aired and then there is a musical refrain of a guitar solo. This version is even more scary as it made me think that the victim of the mugging was now dead….

mp3 : The Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight (album version)

The next version was offered up as one of the tracks on the bonus 7″ offered up with the initial 100,000 copies of Going Underground from a gig at the Rainbow Theatre in London on 3 November 1979. You can tell that this was very much a crowd favourite by the reaction when it is introduced and then from the singing along going on in the background. It also featured what would become very familiar over the years in the live setting with a sort of mini-drum solo from Rick Buckler just before ‘the last thing that I saw…….’:-

mp3 : The Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight (live, 1979)

Here’s another live version, taken from a fanclub gig that closed out what had been an unusually quiet 1981 (by the band’s previous high standards) at the Golders Green Hippodrome in London that was specially arranged and recorded by BBC Radio 1 for its In Concert series that was usually broadcast on Saturday evenings.

mp3 : The Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight (live, 1981)

One other wee bonus courtesy of the Direction Creation Reaction box set and it’s a demo of The Who cover as recorded back in February 1977 during the initial sessions for the In The City material

mp3 : The Jam – So Sad About Us (demo version)

Enjoy

Portishead, Tricky

DOWNTEMPO TRIP-HOP

First of all…..when you haven’t heard such a great song in gawd knows home many years as it hasn’t come up on random shuffle on the i-pod and you think to yourself….wow!

mp3 : Portishead – Glory Box (single edit)

Secondly…..there is no way that 20 years have flown by since this was in the UK charts. Nooo Waaay.

Sour Times in August 1994 had brought Portishead to the attention of the record-buying public but parent album Dummy had been a bit of a slow-burner albeit it was high in all the critics end-of-year appraisals. The decision to edit down the closing track of the album for release as a 45 at the start of the following year was a stroke of genius and Dummy was soon selling in much bigger quantities and in the Top 20. I really thought Glory Box had been a Top 5 hit but looking back with the use of t’internet reveals it stuck at #13, the same spot as Sour Times some five months previous.

The three other tracks on the CD single are a variation on a theme and well worth a listen:-

mp3 : Portishead – Toy Box
mp3 : Portishead – Scorn
mp3 : Portishead – Sheared Box

Oh and for completeness, here’s the full 5 minute plus version that closes out the LP:-

mp3 : Portishead – Glory Box

The main sample in the song is an Isaac Hayes track called Ike’s Rap II. Later the same year, the sample again hit the UK charts, this time at #12:-

mp3 : Tricky – Hell Is Round The Corner (original mix)
mp3 : Tricky – Hell Is Round The Corner (the Hell’n’Water mix)

Sublime.

Detroit Cobras

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #34 DETROIT COBRAS

Much excitement in Villain Towers today. Dirk from Sexy Loser has been in touch. He’s one of the longest-serving contributors to the blog going waaaaaaay back to the former place. I still can’t get over the idea that someone from Germany is such a devotee of all things John Peel and has a such a wealth of knowledge of and love for indie music of a vintage and subsequent era. And his command of English always put me to shame. Here’s what he had to say…

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Normally, dear friends, coverbands rather are an atrocity, they exist to – more or less – “entertain” you at family parties. The Detroit Cobras from, obviously, Detroit, though take the cover business seriously and they are doing this perfectly fine since 1994. The music that the band play is a mix of soul, Motown, R&B and R&R, that is literally stripped from Mary Ramirez’ and her music partner in crime, singer Rachel Nagy’s record collections.

The Detroit Cobras — with one song, Hot Dog, being the exception — play other people’s music, but more specifically they cover other artists’ B-sides and deep cuts, and they do so with such a raw and ferocious energy that the songs rarely sound anything like the original versions, but all of them end up sounding like Cobra songs.

The band is known for multiple lineup changes, Greg Cartwright of Reigning Sound (aka Greg Oblivian of The Oblivians) has been a constant creative force along with Nagy and Ramirez, who have been around since the group’s genesis. The male members’ fluctuation sometimes reminds me of the Italian government, so it doesn’t make all too much sense to go into detail here. Then again: who cares at all, the men in this combo are just accessory parts whereas especially singer Rachel Nagy – the Cobras’ secret weapon/human tornado, a mesmerizing mash up of Dusty Springfield, Neko Case, Chrissie Hynde and Ronnie Spector – but also guitarist Mary Ramirez are the bad girls by the exit doors at the school dance, all leather and heels, sneaking smokes and passing the flask. They have no time for dewy-eyed love songs or girl group decorum; they’ll take care of business themselves with a bat of the eye or an elbow to the kidney!

The group has released five and a half (Seven Easy Pieces consists of just – some of you will already have guessed it – seven tunes, so does that make it a real album? I don’t know …) full-length albums to date, and on all of them they whip out ass-shaking anthems to good times, wild times, and the high and lows of L-U-V; you best believe it and you best not mess with it: ‘cos the Cobras are THE go-to party band for those in the know. Sure, it’s red-blooded and raw, but it’s also as beautiful as it is brassy. In other words, bad girls make good!

You should hope and pray that they play your party. I certainly hope that one fine day they’ll play mine … and if they do, I’ll invite all of you, promised!

Here’s their album – discography:

– ‘Mink Rat Or Rabbit’ (Sympathy For The Records Industry Records, 1998)
– ‘Life, Love Or Leaving’ (Sympathy For The Records Industry Records, 2001)
– ‘Seven Easy Pieces’ (Rough Trade 2003)
– ‘Baby’ (Rough Trade 2004)
– ‘Tied And True’ (Rough Trade 2007)
– ‘The Original Recordings’ (Munster Records 2008)

It was a really hard task to choose just 10 songs out of the above, because all of those albums are killers without fillers, apart from Tied And True. It’s not a bad album, but if I had to decide between the two, I would spend my money on the compilation of their early work, The Original Recordings.

Either way, without further ado, here’s what I regard to be the mighty Detroit Cobras’ 10 best songs …. yes, it’s 11, I admit, but they all are so short, so I thought I could get away with it … let’s just call the last one a bonus- or a hidden track, you won’t complain, alright, JC? Nevertheless it is a monster of a tune, quite contrary to their ‘standard’ work, so watch out for it …. and enjoy:

01 – ‘Hey Sailor’ (from ‘Life, Love Or Leaving’, a Mickey Lee Lane – cover)
02 – ‘Village Of Love’ (Peel Session – version, rec. 2003, their second 7″ from 1996, a Nathaniel Mayer – cover)
03 – ‘Out Of This World’ (from ‘Mink Rat Or Rabbit’, a Gino Washington – cover)
04 – ‘Right Around The Corner’ (from Life, Love Or Leaving, a Rose Marie McCoy & Charles Singleton – cover)
05 – ‘I Wanna Holler (But The Town’s Too Small)’ (from ‘Baby’, a Frank Guida / Patricia Matthews / Joseph Royster – cover)

06 – ‘My Baby Loves The Secret Agent’ (from ‘Seven Easy Pieces’, a Fred Sledge Smith – cover)
07 – ‘Cha Cha Twist’ (from ‘Mink Rat Or Rabbit’, a Hank Ballard / Les McCann – cover)
08 – ‘Down In Louisiana’ (from ‘The Original Recordings’, their third 7″ from 1996, cover of a traditional song)
09 – ‘Shout Bama Lama’ (from Life, Love Or Leaving’, an Otis Redding – cover)
10 – ‘Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat)’ (from ‘Baby’, the only song the Cobras ever wrote themselves)

Hidden bonus track:

11 – ‘Last Nite’ (from ‘Various Artists: Stop Me If You Think You Heard This Before’ (2003), a Strokes – cover)

Dirk aka Sexy Loser

mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – Hey Sailor
mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – Village of Love
mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – Out of This World
mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – Right Around The Corner
mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – I Wanna Holler (But This Town’s Too Small)
mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – My Baby Loves The Secret Agent
mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – Cha Cha Twist
mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – Down In Louisiana
mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – Shout Bama Lama
mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat)
mp3 : The Detroit Cobras – Last Nite

Enjoy!!!