December 2015 – Page 2 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (34)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON TUESDAY 8 APRIL 2008

I’m only going to say a few short words today.

This rundown would have had no credibility whatsoever if the Pet Shop Boys didn’t make an appearance.

No other band or act has made so many top-class singles during my 45 years on the planet as Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. I think (at 2015) it is approaching 60, including four #1s, and a further thirty-eight that made the Top 30. You can’t argue with the facts…..this is a very special pop group.

And this damn near perfect pop song was one of those that reached #1, back in 1988.

mp3 : Pet Shop Boys – Heart

Here’s yer b-side

mp3 : Pet Shop Boys – I Get Excited (You Get Excited Too)

Oh and you know how I’m also always going on about great live acts – well, their show at the SECC in Glasgow back in 1991 was one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Cocteau Twins

MAJESTIC. UNWORDLY. EPIC. HAUNTING. GOTHIC. FLAWLESS. LOVELY. AND VERY OCCASIONALLY DANCEABLE…

I’m currently ploughing my way through a really enjoyable book entitled Facing the Other Way, written by Martin Aston. It’s a really well-written account of the birth and growth of the highly respected and critically acclaimed indie label 4AD and already, about halfway through, I’ve learned a great deal about the music and the people involved in all aspects of the organisation.

I’ll get round to penning a full review in due course but for now would like to offer a few words on what I consider to be my favourite ever album to come out on 4AD.

The thing is, I’ve never really gotten into Cocteau Twins to any great depth and consider myself to be more of an admirer than a fan – and even then, if I listen to anything beyond about an hour’s worth of their music I get bored. Aside that is from Head Over Heels which I can listen to back-to-back quite happily.

This record forms a large part of the soundtrack to my carefree student days, particularly my first year living away from home. There were three of us who shared a flat and all of us, if truth be told, were music snobs. One of my flatmates was a huge fan of Cocteau Twins from the outset and tried hard to convince everyone of their merits. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, but I didn’t quite get it. By late 1983 there had been one album and 2 EPs, all having the occasional track worth listening to but only in small doses. It certainly wasn’t music for going out to or for putting on if you wanted to continue the party. It was all a bit gloomy which was reinforced by my seeing them at Night Moves in Glasgow at a gig early on their career as support to The Fall.

At first listen, Head Over Heels didn’t seem too radical a departure. But on second and third listens, I began to hear things a wee bit differently – in particular the astonishing effects that Robin Guthrie had added to his guitar work. It was an album where a drum machine rather than a real sticksman seemed like a stroke of genius.

Before too long, this became my ‘go-to’ record when I just wanted to wind down after a hard night’s dancing and drinking. Maybe subconsciously I wanted its dream-like nature to settle me down quickly and peacefully within the land of nod…..that and the fact that a girl I was nuts about loved the record and it was a way of getting to talk to her without feeling too much of a dick.

Nothing came of my efforts to get to know said girl any better but I’m happy to say that didn’t lessen my fondness for this record. But having been drawn-in by the guitars, I was soon a convert to the vocals of Elizabeth Fraser. This is singing like nothing else on planet indie-pop. It’s just, for the most part, a series of noises and sounds and not actual words but they are the perfect match for the instrumentation. And in LP closer Musette and Drums you will find something that I consider truly special and up there among my favourite pieces of music of all time.

The thing is, Mrs Villain has never taken to Cocteau Twins – indeed it would be accurate to state that she hasn’t ever liked anything which features Ms Fraser on vocals – and so it’s a record that I had rarely played since 1990 when we first moved in together. But a few years back, just as I was approaching the age of 50, I began to compile a list of my favourite 50 LPs of all time and having included Head Over Heels on the long list I took it out of its sleeve for a spin and re-discovered it again, delighted that it remained every bit as special as I had remembered. I’ve never owned the LP on CD so the songs to accompany today’s words are from the 32-year old vinyl, scratches, jumps, bumps, hisses and all.

mp3 : Cocteau Twins – When Mama Was Moth
mp3 : Cocteau Twins – Five Ten Fiftyfold
mp3 : Cocteau Twins – Sugar Hiccup
mp3 : Cocteau Twins – The Tinderbox (of a Heart)
mp3 : Cocteau Twins – Musette and Drums

Enjoy

Futureheads

OH MY, HOW TIME FLIES

And I’m not saying that just because today is when I’m due to fly back home from Barbados….it’s actually more to do with the scary fact that I had a long overdue re-listen to the debut album by The Futureheads and couldn’t compute in my head that it was released as far back as 2004.

The sound this lot made I’ve always felt was a notch above your average indie-guitar band. They reminded me a lot of early XTC thanks to the catchiness of the songs, complete with sing-a-long choruses, particularly the debut single First Day. And there is something quite beguiling about the fact that the vocals are delivered in their local accent – that of the Mackems from Sunderland (which is totally different and distinct from that of the Geordies in Newcastle). Oh and all the songs are superbly short and sharp as well……..

The fact that they came to most people’s attention courtesy of a rather superb cover version of a Kate Bush number was a bit of a double-edged sword. It was seen by some as a bit of a novelty and it totally distracted from the fact that their own compositions were every bit as good as the cover. But it was Hounds of Love that helped take the debut album to #11 in the UK charts in March 2005, a full eight months after if first hit the shops. Here’s the four singles that were lifted from the LP:-

mp3 : The Futureheads – First Day
mp3 : The Futureheads – Decent Days And Nights (radio mix)
mp3 : The Futureheads – Meantime
mp3 : The Futureheads – Hounds Of Love (radio mix)

First Day really deserved to do a lot better than #52. I think it is a cracking bit of indie-pop. As I said above, it’s very reminiscent of early XTC.

Decent Days And Nights was actually a hit twice over, initially in 2004 and again in 2005 when it was re-released as the follow-up to the hit cover. On both occasions it reached #26. Catchy as fuck is about as succinct a way as I can put it.

Meantime sounds like Wire on speed. I can pay it no higher compliment.

As for the cover…..well I’ve always thought the best of them are when a band takes something quite unique when originally released and yet twists it into something that sounds as if they themselves have written and recorded it…..and The Futureheads more than achieve this with Hounds Of Love. I think Ms Bush would have approved.

Here’s a live acoustic version of the cover:-

mp3 : The Futureheads – Hounds Of Love (Live Radio Session)

While here’s a decent enough remix effort:-

mp3 : The Futureheads – Hounds of Love (Mystery Jet’s Pirate Invasion)

Enjoy

Justified Ancients of Mu Mu

YOU CAN DANCE, YOU CAN JIVE

I’m a few thousand miles away at the moment and so am happy to drop a wee hand grenade into the blogosphere and not worry about the consequences.

Y’see, I think a lot of you will hate today’s song one which initially came out in 1987, but for ages wasn’t widely available due to a copyright ban being slapped on it.

mp3 : The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu – The Queen and I

It samples large portions of Dancing Queen and did so without credit as indeed did just about any example of the genre in those pioneering days. The recording inevitably came to the attention of Abba‘s management and, after a legal showdown, the JAMs‘ album, which was entitled 1987, What The Fuck’s Going On? was forcibly withdrawn from sale.

Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty travelled to Sweden in what was always of course a vain hope of meeting Abba and coming to some sort of agreement to enable a release. They of course took along an NME journalist and staff photographer with them to capture everything for posterity as well as all remaining copies of the LP. They failed in their quest and so ended up disposing of the copies by burning most of them in a field and then throwing the rest overboard on the North Sea ferry trip home. Allegedly.

I managed to find the track, and the others from 1987 WTF, thanks to the purchase of a CD released in 1992 which, according to Discogs is:-

A three-track bootleg with unconvincingly redrawn JAMs logo on front. Tracks 1 & 2 constitute the original 7 songs of the vinyl-only ‘1987’ album. Track 3 is labelled as bonus tracks (by The JAMs) but this is actually a live recording of a band called Big Black performing totally different songs!

I’d like to believe that Bill and Jimmy knew exactly what was going on with that CD, although of course being fine up-standing citizens who have full respect for the law and for the ruling that there should be no copies of the album ever made available then I have to accept it was a completely unauthorised release…..which just happened to have a catalogue number of KLFCD 007.

As I said, The Queen and I is a really early example of sampling and I’m of the view that it’s as much a unique and groundbreaking work of modern art as anything that you’ll find hanging overpriced in a gallery by the likes of Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Douglas Gordon or any other eminent contemporary artist.

But then again Bill Drummond himself isn’t all that enamoured by it.

In 1987 he had said “We made [the album] not giving a shit for soul boy snob values or any other values, we just went in and made the noise we wanted to hear and the stuff that came out of our mouths…. Not a pleasant sound but it’s the noise we had. We pressed it up and stuck it out. A celebration of sorts.”

By 1991, he was saying “We didn’t listen to 1987 What The Fuck’s Going On for a long time, and when we did we were embarrassed by it because it was so badly recorded. But I still felt we were able to get a lot out of ourselves through it.”

Enjoy!!

Style Council

THE STYLE COUNCIL SINGLES (2)

My introduction to the eagerly anticipated second single by The Style Council came via a performance on Switch, a short-lived music show on Channel 4 which was seen as the summer replacement for The Tube. This was broadcast in May 1983:-

So the rumours were true…. D.C. Lee had been recruited into the band. This was mind-blowing stuff as up to this point she had simply been a backing singer for chart pop band Wham! whom no serious muso took seriously. But as the clip demonstrated, she was going to be integral to how TSC were going to develop…and my gawd….check out the clobber being worn by Weller and Talbot.

I recorded this clip onto VHS tape and played it constantly for ages as I thought it was one of the most brilliantly conceived telly performances I’d ever seen. There was no holding me back and I rushed out and bought the 12″ version of the single on its day of release and helped it reach #11 in the charts:-

mp3 : The Style Council – Money Go Round
mp3 : The Style Council – Headstart For Happiness
mp3 : The Style Council – Mick’s Up

The 7″ single cut the main song into two parts and in doing so lost something in the process for, as the notes on the sleeve indicate, this was written as a six verse epic in which all sorts of questions are posed about society in the early 80s with Weller firmly nailing his colours to socialist principles. Oh and Zeke Manyika is again pounding the drums while the bass is courtesy of Jo Dwornial, something of a legend on that instrument in the UK jazz/soul scene of the early 80s.

The b-sides are well worth a listen.

The first track is an acoustic guitar/organ-driven jazzy love song which would later be revisited and given a full band treatment on the debut LP a year later but this original version is awfully nice.

The second track is a foot-tappin’, hand-clappin’ Mick Talbot composition that moves along at a decent enough pace. However, as time went on and more and more of these sorts of compositions began to appear on b-sides and as album tracks – but particularly when they were played live when they felt like the TSC equivalent of a five-minute drum solo – the novelty wore off. But this being the first of them made it interesting enough.

Enjoy.

Edwyn Collins

GOING UNDERGROUND

A re-post from 4 September 2008

Poems on the Underground was launched in 1986 to bring the art to a wider audience by displaying various poems or stanzas on advertising boards across the London Underground network. Read more about it here.

In early 1995, those in control decided to feature some of the lyrics of an Edwyn Collins song. The genesis of the lines that became so well-known to millions of commuters can be traced back to 1991 when not only did Edwyn’s LP Hellbent On Compromise sell in miserable numbers, but his record label wouldn’t release any singles from it on the basis that they were unlikely to get radio play.

Edwyn’s sound was about as far out of fashion as ever could be imagined. The public had seemingly turned its back on him. He was, in the words of another EC, (Elvis Costello), a man out of time.

He turned primarily to production duties, and most of us who had followed his career from way back now thought his recording days were over. Then, out of the blue, he released what subsequently became his biggest selling LP ever.

Gorgeous George crept out quietly in back in August 1994, on a small Irish label to very little fanfare, and, though many will deny it now, to near silence from the music critics employed by the papers and magazines. A couple of singles were met with just as much indifference.

But there were people out there who got it. One such individual, and I have no idea who, was the person who managed to persuade his or her colleagues to turn some of Edwyn’s lyrics into a poem. Whether they were a fan of Edwyn or not, again I have no idea. Here’s the lyric in its entirety, with the section chosen to go underground highlighted in bold:-

Don’t try so hard to be different,
The cracks are beginning to show
You drift like a cloud through the festival crowd
In a frock coat from Saville Row

You’ve just been to a all-night party
Where I have to admit it takes pluck
To go out on the floor and proclaim ‘What a bore’
In a T-shirt that reads ‘Disco Sucks’

Yes, here he comes, the not-so-young
Pretender to the throne
He’s singing ‘Rag, Momma, Rag,’
Won’t you give that poor dog a bone?

And he’s wondering why we can’t connect
When he’s sworn to us that he’s totally wrecked
On the rustic charm that he affects
On a public schoolboy whim

With a raggle taggle plastic gypsy
Robert Zimmerframe
With a synthesized accordian
A-scramblin‘ up my brain

With a fiddle-dee–dee, a fiddle on high
Excuse me folks while I kiss the sky
Or at any rate give it one more try
Before I die. Before I die

The overrated hit the stage
Overpaid and over here
And their idea of counter-culture’s
Momma’s charge account at Sears

And they’re wondering why we can’t connect
With the ritual of the trashed guitar
One more paltry empty gesture
The ashes of a burned out star

Yes here they come, both old and young
A contact low or high
The gathering of the tribes descending
Vultures from a caustic sky

The rotting carcass of July
An ugly sun hung out to dry
Your gorgeous hippy dreams are dying
Your frazzled brains are putrifying

Repackaged, sold and sanitized
The devil’s music exorcised
You live, you die, you lie, you lie, you die
Perpetuate the lie
Just to perpetuate the lie

Yes yes yes it’s the Summer Festival
The truly detestable Summer Festival

Too often this lyric has been taken as an outright attack on American musicians – and in particular grunge music, which for the previous three or four years had been so dominant.

But read it closely…..the sarcasm about grunge comes AFTER an earlier dose of the famous Collins wit had been deployed on the new age travellers who were roaming the country and causing all sorts of chaos. I’m sure it wasn’t that Edwyn hated the concept of the traditional travellers – it was more the case that he, like many others, despised the posh kids who thought it would be such wonderful fun to be a rebel for a short while…..before going off to their guaranteed job in the city with a friend of daddy….

And then at the end, with typical Collins mischief just after he’s delivered a guitar solo that raawwwwwkkkkksssss, it’s all brought together at one big open-air gathering where our Edwyn’s least favourite musicians will find their perfect audience…..

A true genius at work if you want my opinion.

mp3 : Edwyn Collins – The Campaign For Real Rock

Oh….and the picture that illustrates this posting??? That’s one of my proudest possessions.

In mid 1995, the re-released single A Girl Like You went massive the world over, and Edwyn went on tour. He played a great homecoming gig at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow. Among the merchandise on sale were a handful of the London Underground billboards that were printed but not used on the trains – signed by the great man himself. And given the tragic circumstances which have since then left Edwyn incapable of reproducing his pre-illnesses signature, you’ll understand why this particular artefact will always have a special place in Villain Towers.

Happy Listening.

Groove Farm

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 46 of 48)

I’d never heard of The Groove Farm until I picked up CD86 and it’s actually not been all that easy tracking down the background info. My indie-bible doesn’t have a feature on them, instead referring readers to look up Beatnik Filmstar, a band which formed in 1991 featuring the singer/guitarist and lead guitarist from The Groove Farm and whose bio dismisses his former band a single sentence stating ‘they delivered a plethora of garage-type surf-pop singles from 1996 to late 1990.’

On the evidence of the track on CD86, I thought that was a tad harsh:-

mp3 : The Groove Farm – It Always Rains On Sunday

The track was one of four to be found on debut 7″ EP Sore Heads And Happy Hearts which was a cheaply recorded self-release on Raving Pop Blast. It led to their name being dropped by an increasing number of fanzine writers and in turn lumped in with the C86 movement.

A fan of the band has said elsewhere on t’internet that shambling, anorak and twee are the words most associated with 86 but that The Groove Farm live were never ‘twee’ and they never wore anoraks. They could at times shamble with the best of them but equally they could deliver fantastic and powerful pop with the honest and true spirit of punk.

They got signed by Subway Records on which there were four singles and an LP in the twelve months up to November 1988 after which things turned sour. The band hadn’t ever really been happy at the label feeling the cleaner slick production wasn’t representative of their sound and by 1989 they were back at Raving Pop Blast but after one more single and an album they called it a day.

Not only was it tough getting decent info on the band but the other tracks on the debut single proved elusive for the most part. Here’s one of them:-

mp3 : The Groove Farm – God’s Tears

While here’s an alternative take on another as featured on a flexidisc given away with issue#6 of Whoosh fanzine:-

mp3 : The Groove Farm – Heaven Is Blue

Sorry that I’ve slipped up so late on the b-side front so late on in the series…..

Blur

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (35)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON MONDAY 7 APRIL 2008

The first time I can ever recall Blur was seeing their video for early single There’s No Other Way on TV and more than anything else it was made memorable by the lead singer’s truly awful bowl-style haircut. The song was no more than a standard bit of indie-pop of its time that sounded pleasant enough on the radio and gave the kids something to shuffle around to on the dance-floor. That was early 1991.

The band then disappeared off my radar and I thought nothing more of them. Then about a year later, I picked up a 12” single of theirs in a bargain-bin for 99p. It was called Popscene and it was a radical departure away from the previous single that I had known about – it was fast and dynamic with a horn section blaring away in the background and quite unlike anything else being released at that time.

Again its hard for younger readers to imagine that music fans were once completely dependant on the likes of the NME every week or Q magazine every month to keep abreast of what was happening. All I could gleam was that Blur were trying to crack America without any degree of success, and Food Records were threatening to drop them. Then I read that their second LP had been delayed, partly because sessions with Andy Partridge hadn’t worked out.

In May 1993, they released the song that I’ve selected at #35:-

mp3 : Blur – For Tomorrow

I didn’t actually buy this single – it was a time when I had stopped buying vinyl, and wasn’t prepared to be ripped off at £3/£4 for a CD single when the album would soon be available at £10-£12. So I wasn’t someone who contributed to it reaching the giddy heights of #15.

I listened a lot to the LP Modern Life Is Rubbish, and felt sorry for Blur that the success they craved and deserved continually seemed out of reach. It was a fantastically inventive LP, not unlike so many others by XTC which was hugely ironic given the sessions with Andy Partridge had been ditched in favour of working with Stephen Street of The Smiths/Morrissey fame.

But then out of seemingly nowhere monthly glossies in particular began to take an interest in the band. The fact they were articulating an argument against grunge, which was just about everywhere at the time, struck a chord with a number of emerging young journalists looking to hitch their star to a different wagon. Thus the seeds of Britpop were sewn…

The attention given to the band became justified with the release in 1994 of the single Girls And Boys, a celebration/parody of the particularly British style of hedonism known as an Club 18-30 Holiday which gave the band a Top 5 success and further platforms to slag off the influence of America on British music. Other singers and bands started doing the same – and if you want a perfect example, just check out the song The Campaign For Real Rock by Edwyn Collins – one of his finest ever recordings, and one whose lyrics became part of a series called Poems On The Underground (one of my most treasured possessions is one of the posters from the underground signed by Edwyn…tune in next Monday for more on this!!).

Blur released the LP Parklife in 1994 and went mega. Then they went head-to-head with Oasis for supremacy, and while the single Country House won the initial battle, The LP The Great Escape lost them the war.

The band went off and re-invented themselves yet again. Comeback single Beetlebum struck a chord with many, although I always found it a bit too-Beatlesque to be wholly enjoyable. Then came ‘Whoo-Hooooo. When I Feel Heavy Metal…’

Song 2 is something I will never tire of, and would probably have been the single of choice from Blur, except for one small fact.

Back in May 1994, just before Girls and Boys/Parklife took the band to new heights, myself and Mrs Villain went to see Blur at a now demolished venue called the Plaza in Glasgow. It was an old-fashioned dance hall, and not widely used by touring acts. It was one of those magical gigs where the band hit a high on the first song of the night and never let the momentum drop. The highlight however was For Tomorrow which everyone was now beginning to realise should have been a classic that hung around the charts for months, only we were all too busy either shoe-gazing or listening to Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.

It was a genuine hairs on the back of the neck moment….and that’s why For Tomorrow got the nod over Song 2.

The irony of Somg 2 is that it became huge in the States thanks in part to its adoption by so many sports franchises as music to accompany clips played on large screens in baseball, basketball, ice hockey and American football stadia. It was maybe as well that no-one dug too deep to find the anti-American sentiments that were being expressed just a few years earlier…

Blur haven’t officially broken up. Damon has enjoyed great success with his spin-off bands, Graham has become a bit of a cult act with his solo LPs, Alex has written a book, and Dave…..well he seems to be enjoying himself in his own techie-driven world.

We might yet see another album from them in due course. Or maybe not.*

* that was a real sitting-on the fence prediction back in 2008 wasn’t it?????

Primal Scream

MY FAVOURITE PRIMAL SCREAM MOMENT

While I do enjoy some of the upbeat stuff if I told I was only allowed to keep one piece of music by Primal Scream then it would be this-

mp3 : Primal Scream – Star

And I haven’t chosen it simply for its political message, powerful though it is. Oh and I should mention that this lyric and the sentiments would have received a big thumbs-up from Bobby Gillespie‘s father – who was a hugely respected trade union official here in Glasgow back in the days when that was a position that really meant something.

Actually, the lyric does have one huge glaring error that was remarked upon widely at the time. Tributes are paid to the ‘late’ Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King…..but Rosa Parks was very much alive when the single was released in June 1997.

Nope, my sole reason for loving this above any other Primal Scream song single is down to its laidback and gorgeous tune. Surely no-one can fail to be moved by the wonderful playing of the mellotron by the late Augustus Pablo and the subtle and understated use of the horn section. Bloody marvellous.

It the second single to be lifted from the LP Vanishing Point and it climbed to a very respectable #16 in the UK charts. And here’s the other tracks that appeared on the CD single.

mp3 : Primal Scream – Jesus
mp3 : Primal Scream – Rebel Dub
mp3 : Primal Scream – How Does It Feel To Belong

As you can imagine, I’m quite fond of the Rebel Dub version of the single……

Incidentally, the cover is a photo taken of Bobby Hutton outside Oakland Police Department on 23 May 1967. Within 12 months he would be dead, before his 18th birthday, after an ‘altercation’ with said police department.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Hutton

Julian Cope

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #53 : JULIAN COPE

Another guest posting from Strictly Rockers…..

You’ll recall that a few weeks back, Strictly Rockers threw in his ICA for Julian Cope and in doing so said:-

I gave myself constraints naively thinking that restrictions might make the task easier! I first tried ‘Cope Remixed’, ‘Cope Live’, ‘Cope Covers’ and ‘Covered’ before settling on the collection you see below. Ok, I know it’s not perfect, but it’ll do for now. If anyone is interested in hearing any of these alternate comps, let me or JC know!

A number of you said you fancied that, so I’m again handing the blog over to the capable fingers of SR.

Cope Covers : An Imaginary Album

Cope’s evangelical enthusiasm for spreading musical knowledge is well known. His ‘Fire Escape In The Sky’ compilation championed the then largely-forgotten Scott Walker back in 1981 and his writing in the Krautrock and Japrock samplers, Unsung online column and Copendium have brought hundreds of bands to the attention of a new audience. These covers give a good indication just where his musical head was throughout his career.

1) 5 O’Clock World / I Know A Place (Single, 1988)

Kicking off with a two-fer. Not content to merely do a tight cover of The Vogue’s ‘5 O’Clock World’, Cope and his ‘two-car garage band’ add a burst of Petula Clark‘s ‘I Know A Place’ for the middle eight. One of the few bright spots from the much-maligned ‘My Nation Underground’ LP.

2) I Have Always Been Here Before (Fear Loves This Place 12” B-Side, 1992)

3) I’ve Got Levitation (WSYM 12” B-Side, 1986)

Two products of Cope’s 13th Floor Elevators fixation. Making them his own by a judicious adaptation of the original lyrics.

4) Mother, Where Is My Father? (Preaching Revolution 7” EP, 2008)

Cover of a 1968 David Peel & The Lower East Side single by Cope with Black Sheep, a loose collective formed for the ‘Joe Strummer Memorial Busking Tour’. A 3-day busking tour of UK cultural centres.

5) Don’t Jump Me, Mother (Try Try Try B-Side, 1995)

Cover of an obscure 1978 single by DMZ.

6) Non-Alignment Pact (WSYM 12” B-Side, 1986)

Triumphant cover of the Pere Ubu classic. A live favourite from the ‘Saint Julian’ years

7) A Question Of Temperature (Charlotte Anne 12” B-Side, 1988)

Brilliant cover of a 1968 Balloon Farm 7”.

8) Soul Medley: 1991 BBC Session (Floored Genius 2, 1993)

– Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow (Funkadelic)
– Everything Playing At Once (Cope)
– Are You Hung Up? (Mothers Of Invention)
– Hung Up And Hanging Out To Dry (Cope)

Recorded for a John Peel session in 1991 around the time of ‘Peggy Suicide’.

Both Cope’s mind & ass very much free and erm… hanging out.

9) Satisfaction 1978 demo (Floored Genius 3, 2000)

Early demo from a pre-Teardrop Cope along with future Bunnyman Will Sergeant & Wild Swan Paul Simpson channelling Devo rather than the Stones original.

10) Rock Section (12″ Single, 2014)

This cover of a Skin Patrol song was an elaborate Cope construct (as Dayglo Maradona) to promote the alternative reality of his ‘131’ novel.

mp3 : Julian Cope – 5 O’Clock World/I Know A Place
mp3 : Julian Cope – I Have Always Been Here Before
mp3 : Julian Cope – I’ve Got Levitation
mp3 : Julian Cope – Mother, Where Is My Father?
mp3 : Julian Cope – Don’t Jump Me Mother
mp3 : Julian Cope – Non-Alignment Pact
mp3 : Julian Cope – A Question of Temperature
mp3 : Julian Cope – Soul Medley
mp3 : Julian Cope – Satisfaction
mp3 : Dayglo Maradona – Rock Section

Cope Remixed : An Imaginary Album

‘Remix engineers? I shit ’em’. Cope has a uneasy relationship with the remix. Distancing himself from extended or alternate versions as an necessary evil of the major-label life throughout the 80’s, he found the results variously disappointing or unnecessary, however, with planets aligned and minds met, the results are genius.

1) Pussyface (Remix), 1984

A song originally included on the third Teardrop Explodes album as ‘Sex’, Cope was unhappy with the result and re-recorded it for his debut solo album.

This version was the B-Side of the ‘Greatness & Perfection’ single ‘Re-mixed for Muffing The Mule’ by producer Steven Lovell.

2 Julian Cope vs Trouble Funk World Shut Your Mouth (Trouble Funk Mix), 1986

Cope’s “loser’s anthem”. After a pedestrian start it takes an unexpected turn in the second half.

3) Trampolene Warne Out! (Long Version), 1987

Long-form single remixed from the Saint Julian album by Warne Livesey who also worked with The The on Infected

4) Eve’s Volcano – !Vulcano Lungo! (Covered In Sin), 1987

Remixed by Tom ‘Lord’ Alge fresh from his work with OMD(!), Peter Gabriel(!!) &… Billy Idol(!!!)

5) Love (L.U.V.) (Beautiful Love Remix)

6) Easty Risin’ (East Easy Rider Remix)

7) Heed: Of Penetration & The City Dweller (Head Remix) (all 1991)

A trio of Peggy Suicide singles remixed by former Bocca Junior Hugo ‘Hugoth’ Nicholson originally on pastel-coloured vinyl (pink, yellow & blue) in sealed boxes that fell apart on removing the vinyl – later compiled on the Dancing Heads CD and the deluxe version of Peggy Suicide.

8) Soldier Blue Hiphoprisy Mix#1 (Unreleased)

An inspired, unreleased Michael Franti mix of proposed fourth Peggy Suicide single. Born of a shared record label (Island) and a love of Lenny Bruce.

9) Paranormal In The Westcountry (Krankenhausmusik Mix), 1994

One of four remixes on a special fan club only 4-track EP.

10) Planetary Sit‐In (Being a Radio Sit‐In Remix), 1996

Fully embracing the multi-format culture Cope released two singles, ‘I Come From Another Planet, Baby’ & ‘Planetary Sit-In’ from the LP Interpreter. Both on 2xCD – the first being (fairly) conventional 4 track Eps, but the second featuring hyper-extended version of the singles. ‘…Another Planet’ is stretched to an incredible 38 minute ‘Ambulance’ version with the song washing in and out of consciousness. ‘Planetary Sit-In’ here, is a mere 20 minutes and takes the form of a bizarre radio show featuring Cope’s wife Dorian, Mark Radcliffe, Bill Bailey and Cope cohorts Thighpaulsandra and Mike Joyce offering ‘banter’, invocations, ‘ethical consumer news’ and a phone in. You will only want to listen to this once. Enjoy!

Cope Remixed: Bonus EP (on hand-numbered coloured vinyl!)

A-Side) Rock Section (Andrew Weatherall Mix) Dayglo Maradona, 2014

A cover of a Skin Patrol song. Mixed by Cope (as Dayglo Maradona). Remixed by Weatherall. Limited remix on white vinyl 12″ released by Faber & Faber as the soundtrack to Cope’s 131 novel. Blinding.

B-Side) (I Am The) Trampolene (To The Other Side) GHP, 2011

The Verve, The Drude & The Doors Meet The Walrus Uptown. Courtesy of the always excellent Go Home Productions (Visit: gohomeproductions.co.uk for more goodies).

mp3 : Julian Cope – Pussyface (remix)
mp3 : Julian Cope vs Trouble Funk – World Shut Your Mouth (Trouble Funk Mix)
mp3 : Julian Cope – Trampolene (Warne Out Mix)
mp3 : Julian Cope – Eve’s Volcano – !Vulcano Lungo! (Covered In Sin)
mp3 : Julian Cope – Love (L.U.V.) (Beautiful Love Remix)
mp3 : Julian Cope – Easty Risin’ (East Easy Rider Remix)
mp3 : Julian Cope – Heed: Of Penetration & The City Dweller (Head Remix)
mp3 : Julian Cope – Soldier Blue Hiphoprisy Mix#1
mp3 : Julian Cope – Paranormal In The Westcountry (Krankenhausmusik Mix)
mp3 : Julian Cope – Planetary Sit‐In (Being a Radio Sit‐In Remix)

mp3 : Dayglo Maradona – Rock Section (Weatherall Mix)
mp3 : Go Home Productions – (I Am The) Trampolene (To The Other Side)

…strictly rockers….

Style Council

THE STYLE COUNCIL SINGLES (1)

I did think long and hard about how best to follow-up The Jam singles series and indeed had a couple of conversations with Jacques the Kipper and Aldo in which I floated a few potential ideas at them. I won’t say anything more as it is likely I will return to those ideas sometime in the medium or long-term.

But in the end it seemed right to go straight into the singular adventures of The Style Council especially, as I mentioned in a previous post, there were just 105 days separating the release of Beat Surrender and the debut single from the new group formed by Paul Weller.

As I have previpusly confessed, I quickly got over the break up of The Jam. My mindset was to accept that TSC were not in way, shape or form a re-incarnation of the old band and to give the music a chance. The debut still remains a wonderfully, joyous and memorable piece of pop music:-

mp3 : The Style Council – Speak Like A Child

This was a commonly held view and it went to #4 in the UK charts upon its release in March 1983, fully vindicating the Modfather’s decision to move on. Interesting to note that the drummer on the debut single was none other than Zeke Manyika who was of course at the time part of Orange Juice…another reason to enjoy the new song.

The b-side wasn’t as instantly likeable as the a-side but what it did show was that this new combo was as much about featuring the keyboard skills of Mick Talbot as it was a vehicle for Weller’s developing skills as a songwriter as he moved away altogether from angry anthems of disaffected youth.

mp3 : The Style Council – Party Chambers

Worth mentioning also that the single was only released on 7″ vinyl.

Enjoy

Jam

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #52 : THE JAM

So having got all the singles out-of-the-way, I thought I’d be completely self-indulgent and try to pull together a decent ICA without any of the songs that ever appeared on the 45s – and that includes those which were featured live versions on bonus discs. Despite the fact that well over 40 songs were ruled out from the outset, it still proved a challenge to settle on these particular two sides of vinyl.

Side A

1. Art School (from In The City)

Time hasn’t been all that kind to the first two LPs which is why the opening track of their debut is the only one to make the cut. This was seen as a potential single by Polydor Records with a promo video (of sorts) being filmed on the same day as In The City. Most bands would have gone for a second single to boost the sales of the debut album but given that Paul Weller was writing songs at a prestigious rate at the time, and that he was desperate to get the new material out as quickly as possible, then any thoughts of Art School being a 45 were shelved. It’s a more than decently energetic tune, with a lyric that basically said punk/new wave was the modern-day equivalent of art schools where you could dare to be different and challenge the traditional ways of thinking. These were also of course the type of establishments where so many well-respected British musicians of the 60s and early 70s had started out….

2. Thick As Thieves (from Setting Sons)

It is astonishing to look back and realise that Weller was barely 21 years of age when he wrote the songs that made up Setting Sons, the band’s fourth and most ambitious album. There’s no doubt that in his head he wanted to pull together a concept album telling the story of three childhood friends whose lives don’t go the way of their youngdreams with everything changing after them fighting but surviving a war. The concept wasn’t fully realised, possibly being down to him deciding it was an ‘unpunk’ thing to do or perhaps it became just too big a challenge in too short a timescale. It’s a real pity and begs the thought ‘if only….’ for the foundations that were laid down, as exemplified by Thick As Thieves, make you think that the result could well have been a record forever feted to be near the top of the all-time classic lists.

3. Billy Hunt (from All Mod Cons)

Another great anthemic Jam song that many had marked out as a potential 45.

Billy Hunt is actually a pitiful figure of disaffected youth when you analyse it. He hates the idea that he is always getting picked on by everyone, unafirly in his mind, and he dreams of somehow inheriting the powers of fictional film and TV characters and taking his revenge after which he’ll happily head down to a pub that has strip shows for entertainment. He’s not exactly answering the call to arms that so many punk bands were making at the time.

Incidentally, I always thought that the character Ziggy Sobotka from Series 2 of The Wire is a 21st Century Billy Hunt….

4. Little Boy Soldiers (from Setting Sons)

A song like no other in the history of the band and perhaps the new wave era’s equivalent of Bohemian Rhapsody – or at least that’s how I initially felt when listening to this as a 16-year old back in 1979. It was earnest and it was thought-provoking stuff but above else it was unsettling, thanks in part to its constant changes in pace and rhythm but also as a result of the doom and gloom nature of the lyric.

OK, I was sure that I was going to leave school, head off to university and find myself some sort of job linked to whatever qualifications I manged to get but I knew quite a few folk who were hell-bent on joining the armed forces and seeing what happened from there….none of them of course even remotely considered that in doing so they were putting their young lives at risk. I wanted so much to give every one of them a cassette with this song on and ask them to have a serious think about things….

5. Boy About Town (from Sound Affects)

It doesn’t do well to dwell for too long on the implications of Little Boy Soldiers otherwise you’ll end up depressed, miserable and worried about where the world is heading, so it’s important to bounce back with a great bit of pop music that puts a a smile on your face and makes you leap off the settee/chair/bean bag and flip your 12” piece of vinyl with its classic red Polydor label over to the other side for another fifteen or so minutes of class.

Side B

1. Happy Together (from The Gift)

Let’s get this party pumping. This is one where Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler really come into their own, driving the song along at a tremendous pace and in the bass players’s instance adding an essential backing vocal. The ending where Paul Weller chants out NOW!!!!!!! Is one of my favourite moments on any Jam song – single, b-side or album track.

2. Saturday’s Kids (from Setting Sons)

And let’s keep things moving along apace with this paean to growing up in a working-class household.

At 16, I had no idea what the line ‘stains on the seats – in the back of course’ was all about. Nor did I know who smoked Capstan Non-Filters (Embassy Regal? yup….that was my dad’s choice of habit) and for Selsey Bill and Bracklesam Bay you would have had to substitute places a little nearer home or insert Blackpool which around half of Glasgow seemed to migrate to in the last two weeks in July back in the mid-70s. Otherwise it was a song that resonated with me and even now I can recite every single word of the lyric. But I do accept that, with its descriptions of things that aren’t part of modern society then it’s a lyric very much of its time and so probably won’t resonate much with today’s kids….except perhaps the bit about hating the system. Some things just never change.

3. To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have a Nice Time) (from All Mod Cons)

It will seem strange hearing this out of context with it not being preceded by the title track of All Mod Cons.

As a teenager, there’s just no possibility in your own mind of there being any downside to being famous and rich from getting paid wads of money for doing something you loved like football or music. And yet, here’s someone who I’m looking on as a bit of a role model (despite the fact he’s only 5 years older than me – although at 14/15 that is such a huge age difference) warning me off. All these years later, and the growth of celebrity and its associated frenzied media feeding makes me glad that I’ve got myself through life without ever reaching the giddy heights of being a someone – I’d never ever want to get as angry or as pissed off with my lot as Mr Weller was in 1978.

4. Man In The Corner Shop (from Sound Affects)

There’s something intrinsically sad about this mid-paced number which I’ve always thought is a hidden gem of a song.

I’ve never thought its central message was that everyone is born equal; nor do I think Paul Weller thinks that to be the case and so his tongue is very much in his cheek when he sings those particular lines. The sadness come from the fact that neither of the factory worker or shop owner are happy with their lot and both believe the grass on the other side is a much more favourable shade of green. Even sadder isturning your thoughts to what was likely to have happened to the protagonists in real life over the subsequent 2-3 years….a factory closure and redundancy for the blue-collar worker and the end of the family business for the shop owner as the supermarkets take over? Most likely…..and and as for the factory owner….well, he was never really ever any better off than the other two….maybe just a little bit richer in financial terms. In other words, the central message of Man In The Corner Shop is really quite simple……………………….

Life Sucks.

5. The Gift (from The Gift)

Just as Art School as the opening song on Side A of the first album served the purpose of announcing the arrival of a new and exciting band, so the final song on Side B of the final album serves the purpose of providing us with a very fine sign-off.

Go and shout it from your roof mountain top – The Jam were a fucking ace combo and one of the greatest things to happen to music in my generation.

mp3 : The Jam – Art School
mp3 : The Jam – Thick As Thieves
mp3 : The Jam – Billy Hunt
mp3 : The Jam – Little Boy Soldiers
mp3 : The Jam – Boy About Town
mp3 : The Jam – Happy Together
mp3 : The Jam – Saturday’s Kids
mp3 : The Jam – To Be Somone (Didn’t We Have A Nice Time)
mp3 : The Jam – Man In The Corner Shop
mp3 : The Jam – The Gift

That’s the last of The Jam for the time being……