June 2016 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

ANOTHER CLASSIC 45 WITH GREAT B-SIDES

All three of these songs have been featured on this blog in the past, but not as one posting.

The single was released in October 1988 but again failed mysteriously to give The Go-Betweens a hit single.

mp3 : The Go-Betweens – Was There Anything I Could Do?

As the heading of the post indicates, the single came with more than decent b-sides. Here’s those from the 12″ release:-

mp3 : The Go-Betweens – Rock n Roll Friend
mp3 : The Go-Betweens – Mexican Postcard

Enjoy

PS

The blog has sort of taken a bit of a back seat in recent weeks as I’ve spent loads of time either watching football on the telly or making the most of the light nights and playing golf. With Euro 2016 coming to a conclusion soon (i.e. there’s not games on the telly every night!), I’m hoping to crank things up again in the coming days including a few guest ICAs that have been sent in.

Cheers.

Members

REMEMBERING THE MEMBERS

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One of my favourite songs back in 1979:-

mp3 : The Members – The Sound Of The Suburbs

At the time, I thought it was a great punk record and I used to play it really loud just to annoy the hell out of my old man. Looking back on it now, it was really nothing more than glorified pub-rock with a cracking shout-a-long chorus. Not all that far removed from the sort of stuff that brought fame and fortune to Sham 69.

But quite clearly, us kids love it cos it spoke to us all about how miserable and bring life was and collectively we dragged into the pop charts where it reached #12 in the spring of 1979.

The follow-up single was one that I bought without ever hearing as that’s what you did with your favourite music and bands when you were 16 years old. At the time I hated it……I had no idea what the hell it was about, and to be honest I didn’t really care. Oh and the tune also annoyed me as it reminded me of the appalling Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc more than anything else. History shows that it was all just ahead of its time…..and by maybe around 1983, I realised that it was a genuine classic:-

mp3 : The Members – Offshore Banking Business/Pennies In The Pound (12″ version)

Trivia facts. The drummer in the band got his brother to produce some of the earliest material recorded by The Members. The drummer was Adrian Lillywhite…his brother’s name was Steve….and he went on to become one of the best-known and biggest-earning producers in the 80s and 90s. Oh and he also married Kirsty MacColl.

Offshore Banking Business was a top 40 hit, and many of the lyrics were courtesy of JC Carroll who had been a trainee merchant banker before joining the band. The band never enjoyed any further chart success with any of their five subsequent singles before they called it a day in 1981.

But like many others of their ilk, the chance to relive it all decades later proved too tempting to turn down and since 2007 the band have been on the road and in the studio making music for a living. I haven’t been tempted….

Deacon Blue

WHEN IT ALL GOES PEAR-SHAPED

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I’m sure everyone of you has a similar story to tell……

A new band comes on the scene and the noise they make on the radio and in print is quite appealing. As a music fan, you invest some of your hard earned spare cash into buying product which doesn’t disappoint. You even make an effort to catch them live on stage and come away impressed. The next thing is that you’re telling your mates and work colleagues that said band really are a bit special and well worth checking out.

But then one day, something happens that irritates you. It might be an unexpectedly duff record. It might be something you read after the most prominent member of the band has said something really stupid or even offensive. Now you find yourself on the defensive about the band and no longer find yourself championing them. Before you know it, you take on the traits of someone who has reformed after a drink or drug addiction and become a bit holier-than-thou and start denouncing the band.

Welcome to the my relationship with Deacon Blue.

Formed in the mid 80s, I first came across this lot thanks to them being one of a number of unknown Scottish artists who were on a compilation cassette called Honey At The Core.

They had an elegant and eloquent front man in Ricky Ross. I particularly loved that, at a period in time when Glasgow had been dismissed by many as just another former industrial city with nothing going for it, Ricky Ross was someone who was prepared to argue just how special a place it was, and how it was more than capable of getting off its knees. The music he and his band were churning out was also enjoyable. It was just the right side of anthemic and it also had a bit of a political edge. A song like Raintown could only be about a city like Glasgow, and a song like Dignity could only be about someone who came from Glasgow. The cover on the debut LP, released in 1987, was a fantastic photograph of the Glasgow of old when it was famous for shipbuilding and engineering. Yes, there was a degree of nostalgia about it all, but at a time when I had not long left for the first time in my life and re-located to Edinburgh, it was the sort of LP that I could put on of an evening and think of home.

Unsurprisingly, the band began to grow in popularity and soon became regulars in the singles and album charts, particularly after the release of their second LP When The World Knows Your Name in 1989. The new songs were totally different from the debut – very radio-friendly and of such mass appeal that the band were capable of selling out more than one night at the 12,000 capacity hall at the SECC.

Some of the new stuff got on my nerves, as did the fact that Ricky Ross was all over the media saying how his songwriting was developing as a craft and that he was an artist who wanted to be remembered for the timeless quality of his songs. Nor did it help that he was also using his new found fame to jump on his soapbox and tell anyone prepared to listen that the only way Glasgow and Scotland make progress was through political independence.

In other words…he turned into a pretentious, pompous self-deluding arse….and the music the band were pumping out was becoming unbearable to listen to.

But you can never take away the magic of some of the early stuff:-

mp3 : Deacon Blue – Raintown
mp3 : Deacon Blue – Dignity
mp3 : Deacon Blue – Riches

If you think I’m being harsh on Ricky, you should hear me when the name of Pat Kane of Hue and Cry is mentioned…..

Cinerama

THE CINERAMA SINGLES (12)

There was just one release from Cinerama in 2003 and it was in the shape of a three-track CD single:-

mp3 : Cinerama – Don’t Touch That Dial
mp3 : Cinerama – The One That Got Away
mp3 : Cinerama – On/Off

It later emerged that the romantic relationship between David Gedge and Sally Murrell had ended around the time of recording this single. The band still continued to tour into 2004 at which point it was announced that Cinerama would be no more and that when they next went into the studio, the resultant music would be the first releases in eight years by The Wedding Present.

The next single was Interstate 5, released in September 2004, followed by the LP Take Fountain in February 2005, both of which are among the finest records of the very many recorded by TWP. The band was, with the exception of Sally Murrell, identical to that of the latter-day Cinerama. The new material was picked up by the media in a way that none of the Cinerama stuff had enjoyed and the gigs began again to be played in larger venues.

You couldn’t make it up!!

Cinerama still exist in that David brings them out of storage every now and again for gigs while he released an album under the band name in 2015, which in fact was a re-recording and re-working of Valentina, the LP released by TWP in 2012…

Hope you’ve enjoyed this short but I would say essential dabble into the lesser known band on the Scopitones label.

Belle & Sebastian

B&S ON SUNDAYS (6)

Belle_&_Sebastian_-_Jonathan_David
From wiki:-

“Jonathan David” is a single released by Belle & Sebastian on Jeepster in 2001. The lead track gets its name from the biblical duo of Jonathan and David, while “The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner” is a reference to Alan Sillitoe’s short story “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.” The front cover features band members Mick Cooke and Bobby Kildea with Gill Dodds. All three tracks from the single were later collected on the Push Barman to Open Old Wounds compilation. The title track was the band’s first single to feature lead vocals from guitarist Stevie Jackson.

The allmusic review:-

The B&S railroad rebounds from that mess of unforeseen mediocrity, the “Legal Man” EP. Perhaps it’s hard to carp at a group that’s restored the lost Brit tradition of “all exclusive tracks” EPs (making them like Buzzcocks, the Smiths, or Mega City Four in that regard), as opposed to LP singles with rip-off B-sides on two separate CDs. But “Legal Man” mixed an advanced sense of humor with… shockingly zero musical inspiration. So, hurrah, these three tunes tap back into this bunch’s pumping artery of graceful, sonorous songcraft. Perhaps “Jonathan David” should have been sung by superior talent Stuart Murdoch, but its piano-driven brooding chords (enhanced by an eerie church organ) support a sterling melody more arresting than anything off Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant. Great Zombies-inspired a cappella harmony bridge, too! Then, when Murdoch retakes the mike on the oddly titled “Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It,” he trills over deep orchestral violins, cellos, and sweet country lap steel that float like carefree balloons, making old fans swoon the world over. Finally, the similarly excellent, more bouncy/jaunty “The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner” wins official release at last.

Readers from last week will know that I disagree strongly with the above reviewer as I thought, and still do, that Legal Man was a tremendous single. And I disagree too with the view that Jonathan David was a return to form. And that’s primarily down to the fact that Stevie Jackson‘s attempts at lead vocal have tended to grate over all the years. Yup, its a fine tune but I don’t listen to it very often.

The other two songs though really are worth it. Carriage Clock is a lovely lament about the futility of devoting your life to the factory or office while Middle Distance Runner is something of a lost 45 in my opinion. It was a song that had been around for a while, including if my memory serves me correctly, a live performance on TV about a year or maybe as much as 18 months prior to its release.0

mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Jonathan David
mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It
mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – The Loneliness Of A Middle Distance Runner

The song reached #31 in the UK charts; not as high as Legal Man but still very respectable given there was hardly any radio play.

Big Gun

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG #29 : THE BIG GUN

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The return of the Saturday series that had to make way for the loom back at the old 45 45s at 45 feature.

Last time round, back in September 2015, was The Big Dish and they were the 28th Scottish band alphabetically within my itunes collection. Next up, naturally, is the 29th. And so the spotlight focusses on The Big Gun.

An internet search will reveal very little other than…

The Big Gun from Ayrshire, Scotland, recorded only one single, “Heard about love”, in 1986. After having it played and praised by John Peel, the young band including Andrew O’Hagan (later author of acclaimed novels Our Fathers and Personality), played a few gigs and then promptly split up, convinced they had played their part in music history out and only really had one good song in them anyway. The band was, according to O’Hagan himself, named “not very brilliantly, after ‘the big gun factory’ where Arthur Seaton works in the novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning”.

But as I mentioned previously on the old blog and then again via a re-post in November 2014, the band also released a one-off flexidisc back in late 86/early 87 with the other track being given over to Basil Pieroni, who I would later get to know and call a friend through Butcher Boy. It was done as a taster for the label Hi-Fibre and the accompanying info with the flexidisc offered the following:-

The Big Gun : Keith Martin (vocals, guitar); Alan Carruthers (guitar); Andy Crone (bass); Andy Kerr (Drums); Andy O’Hagen (additives)

Hi-Fibre : Fresh, substantial and committed, in this instance, to the provision of free pop. Here, enthusiasts can sample the delights of The Big Gun and Basil Pieroni recorded here for the first time.

Hi – Fibre : Bright, urgent and working through the night to deliver instant classics to the nation; fast, reliable and painfully instinctive

As it turned out, only one single was ever released on the label, but to my ears it is one of THE great lost 45s of Scottish indie-pop. I don’t own a copy of said 45 (very few people do!!) but I have digital versions of the songs.

mp3 : The Big Gun – Heard About Love
mp3 : The Big Gun – Happens All The Time

POSTSCRIPT (added 23 June 2016)

I’ve said before that certain things seem to happen around this blog that prove to too much of a coincidence to suggest nothing other than some strange forces appear to be at work. And so it proved with The Big Gun….

It’s worth recalling that it is now nine months since I called temporary time on this series, all the while anticipating this lot would be involved in its relaunch. What I didn’t know then was that a Berlin-based record label, Firestation Records, would in May 2016 turn their attention to The Big Gun and manufacture a limited run of 200 12″ mini-LPs containing the original single, the demo that was on the flexi disc and a further two songs recorded in demo form but never given a release. As soon as I learned about this I put in an order and just 72 hours before this posting was received a package was safely and securely delivered. And so at long last, I own something by The Big Gun.

Another example of how the summer of 2016, in musical terms, is turning out to be more than OK.

Here’s the link to the mini-LP as well as many other great things that Firestation are doing.

New Order

LET’S NAIL THE MYTH ONCE AND FOR ALL

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The fifth single from New Order. And the one which propelled them to stardom.

No-one can argue that it isn’t a classic. A song that was really quite like no other on its release. And the record sleeve is also one of the most recognisable of all time.

It is not known just how many copies of FAC 73 were sold after its release on 7 March 1983. It’s reckoned to be over a million, but because Factory Records weren’t part of the British Phonographic Industry, there are no reliable figures nor certifications or awards.

The story over the years is that the sleeve was so expensive that every copy sold actually cost the record label money. It’s a great story but its simply not true.

Yes, the initial editions with a die-cut cover and cut outs and silver inner sleeve were expensive to manufacture and package. However, once the single sold out its initial run the sleeve got progressively more simple and cheaper with each repressing.

I’ve got three copies of Blue Monday in the cupboard full of vinyl – all have different sleeves ranging from the more expensive original to what is no more than a plain black cover with the colour coding on the right hand side. You needed to own a copy of the Power, Corruption & Lies LP to decipher the code – it actually spells out the song title on both sides of the vinyl, the name of the band and the catalogue number. And here, ripped direct from the vinyl, is the music:-

mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday
mp3 : New Order – The Beach

Still sounds amazing all these years later.

Chemical Brothers, Mercury Rev, Neil Young

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

Mercury Rev were, for quite a long time throughout the 90s, one of those bands who got a fair bit of critical acclaim in the music papers and magazines but who were often quite difficult to track down on radio. They were, to all intent and purposes, the perfect definition of a cult band.

Between 1991 and 1997, they churned out 3 LPs and 9 EPs/singles, none of which sold all that well in the UK. Back home in the USofA, they were even more unheralded, with the soft and high-pitched vocal style of Jonathan Donahue often being cited as the thing that most held them back at a time when rock with a slightly harder edge was in vogue.

But in 1998, the release of the LP Deserter’s Songs very briefly put the band firmly in the spotlight. It was a record seemingly not all that different in sound, mood and tone from 1995 work See You On The Other Side, but it just seemed to capture the hearts and minds of many music fans, including the staff at the NME who made it #1 LP of 1998.

I hadn’t paid any attention to the band until then but when I finally did it wasn’t down to the things being written about them. Instead, it was the power of television…..

This was the time when I first got satellite TV, and one of its initial attractions was the ability to surf across the music channels trying to find new and edgy music or videos that I would like, and for a while a lovely promo for a song called Goddess On A Hiway was on heavy rotation.

Come Xmas 1998, and it was the usual requests from friends and relatives about what was on my list to Santa in terms of music and books, and given the critical acclaim afforded to the album, I did add Deserter’s Songs and it subsequently was wrapped in glittery paper come 25th December.

It was, and remains, an LP that I don’t quite get what all the fuss was about, albeit it was pleasant enough in a non-offensive way. My favourite track on it was subsequently released as a single in January 1999 and in reaching #26, became the band’s first bona fide hit:-

mp3 : Mercury Rev – Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp

What is most interesting however from the CD single that I picked up for 99p a few weeks later after it had disappeared out of the charts is that the band and/or their label persuaded The Chemical Brothers to make a remix of the song which is near unrecognisable :-

mp3 : Mercury Rev – Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp (Chemical Brothers remix)

The CD single also contained a really rootsy track which was in fact a live version of a Neil Young song that had originally been recorded for an XFM session in November 1998:-

mp3 : Mercury Rev – Vampire Blues (live)

Mercury Rev, The Chemical Brothers and Neil Young. Three acts that you wouldn’t expect in one blog post far less on a CD single in the bargain bin.

I'm Your Fan

HERE I AM, I’M YOUR FAN

I'm_Your_Fan

From wiki:-

I’m Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen is a tribute album to Leonard Cohen, released in 1991, produced by the French music magazine Les Inrockuptibles. The album features Cohen’s songs interpreted by some of the most respected rock acts of the time. Its name is a play on the title of Cohen’s album I’m Your Man.

For the album’s American release on Atlantic Records, R.E.M.’s rendition of “First We Take Manhattan” and House of Love’s “Who by Fire” (the lead tracks on each side of the vinyl and cassette versions) were swapped so that R.E.M., one of the most popular American rock bands of the era, led the album. In all other countries where the album was released, however, the R.E.M. track appears on Side Two. In the United Kingdom, the album was distributed by record label EastWest Records, in France by Sony Music.

The album includes two different covers of “Tower of Song”, one by Robert Forster and another by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The latter version is a radical deconstruction of the song, edited from an hour-long jam session held by the band.

Tracklisting:–

“Who by Fire” – The House of Love
“Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” – Ian McCulloch
“I Can’t Forget” – Pixies
“Stories of the Street” – That Petrol Emotion
“Bird on the Wire” – The Lilac Time
“Suzanne” – Geoffrey Oryema
“So Long, Marianne” – James
“Avalanche IV” – Jean-Louis Murat
“Don’t Go Home with Your Hard-On” – David McComb & Adam Peters
“Who by Fire” – The House of Love
“First We Take Manhattan” – R.E.M.
“Chelsea Hotel” – Lloyd Cole
“Tower of Song” – Robert Forster
“Take This Longing” – Peter Astor
“True Love Leaves No Traces” – Dead Famous People
“I’m Your Man” – Bill Pritchard
“A Singer Must Die” – The Fatima Mansions
“Tower of Song” – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
“Hallelujah” – John Cale

JC says…….

Like most albums of this nature, the cover version can be a hit and miss although in this instance there’s far more of the former than the latter. In many cases, the singer or band actually make it sound as if the song is one of their own, perhaps as much because it is nigh on impossible to mimic Leonard Cohen without sounding faintly ridiculous.

In the spirit of recent postings from Dave Glickman, I’ve decided to offer up a taster 5-track EP from the album for you.

Side A

James – So Long Marianne
David McComb & Adam Peters – Don’t Go Home With Your Hard-On

Track 1 is mid-era stadium rock James demonstrating that they still had the ability to surprise folk. The simple guitar ballad is given a big production treatment, led in particular by some sprightly trumpet playing from Andy Diagram while the bass of Jim Glennie and drums of David Paynton-Power make for a great listen..

Track 2 is courtesy of a collaboration between the late frontman/guitarist of The Triffids and an arranger who worked with, among others, Echo & The Bunnymen being responsible for much of the sound on Ocean Rain. Leonard Cohen is known to have said that he loves this version and considers it a big improvement on his own recording which can be found on the Phil Spector-produced Death Of A Ladies’ Man. Incidentally, the guitarist on this recording is none other than Will Sergeant….while Martin P Casey of The Bad Seeds and Grinderman contributes on bass

Side B

The House Of Love – Who By Fire?
Lloyd Cole – Chelsea Hotel #2
John Cale – Hallelujah

Track 1 is rather lovely and shows a lesser known ballad-side to The House Of Love with Guy Chadwick in fine voice.

Track 2 is kind of Lloyd Cole by numbers but quite frankly that’s good enough for me on most occasions.

Track 3 is a rendition of a song which is now very well-known thanks to it being taken on for rendition by some non-entity or other in TV ‘talent’ shows but back in 1991 it was still a bit of a secret. John Cale delivers a fragile but outstanding take with just himself on vocals and piano. It’s as live…

Enjoy

Blancmange

SYNTH-POP DUOS

Quickfire question.

Name five 80s famous UK synth bands who were comprised of a duo?

Got your answer? Great stuff.

I suspect that the majority of the lists would contain the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, OMD, Yazoo, Erasure and Eurythmics. Maybe Tears for Fears would get the occasional shout (see what I did just there??).

But how many of you would have said Blancmange?

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They seemed to emerge in the wake of the overnight success of Soft Cell. But while Marc Almond always had something sinister and shady about his persona and Dave Ball looked sort of seedy and weird, Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe were always seemingly clean-cut and good-living.

For a brief period between late 1982 and the summer of 84 they were vaguely famous in that they had six singles on the spin reach the Top 40. But prior to their commercial success they were seen by some as cutting edge, so much so there was a session recorded for John Peel which was broadcast in February 1982.

They first came to general attention via a song that just missed being a hit:-

mp3 : Blancmange – Feel Me

Just two months later however, they hit payola with a catchy as fuck ditty which blended synth pop with the music of the sub-continent thanks to the prominent use of sitar and tabla:-

mp3 : Blancmange – Living On The Ceiling

This #7 smash spent almost four months on the chart and when it eventually dropped out altogether, the record bosses cashed in by releasing a re-recorded version of the big ballad from the debut album:-

mp3 : Blancmange – Waves (12″ single version)

All of the above featured on Happy Families, the aforementioned debut album released in September 1982. The sophomore effort, Mange Tout, appeared in May 1984 and included hit singles which were by now a year and six months old respectively, but that didn’t stop fans shelling out and the Top 10 album went ‘Gold’ with more than 100,000 sales in the UK.

But all of a sudden, the bubble burst. The third album, Believe You Me released in late 1985, together with its three singles, proved to be a flop and the duo called it a day not long after. However, like many others from the era, they came back to take advantage of the nostalgia industry around 80s pop but to their credit they went back into the studio in 2011 and recorded and released a brand new album more than quarter of a century on.

And that’s your potted history of a band, who as I say, are more often forgotten about than recalled. Oh and given it was pulling out the Waves single which prompted this piece, here’s its more experimental b-sides for your enjoyment:-

mp3 : Blancmange – Business Steps
mp3 : Blancmange – The Game Above My Head

The latter has a Paul Haig feel to it, certainly from his early 80s post Josef K era.

Cinerama

THE CINERAMA SINGLES (11)

I mentioned last time round that you could do worse than track down a second-hand copy of Torino, the third studio LP from Cinerama that was released back in 2002. Here’s further evidence of how good a record it is, with this the third and final flop single lifted from it:-

mp3 : Cinerama – Careless

This was a low-key release which is no real surprise given that the world continued to more or less ignore Cinerama. David Gedge must have been pulling his hair out at the fact that bands whose four or five members had less collective talents than he had in his pinky finger were making fortunes while he was now playing venues that he could have filled three and four times over a decade earlier with his old band. The two new songs were seemingly cut around the same time as those that had made it on to Torino:-

mp3 : Cinerama – This Isn’t What It Looks Like
mp3 : Cinerama – Sparkle Lipstick

The fact was, Cinerama in a five-year period, had now released 3 albums and 11 singles of a very high standard to absolutely no avail. The fact too that the band, when playing live, were now sneaking the odd TWP number into the sets perhaps gave an inkling that David was mulling over what to do next……

Belle & Sebastian

B&S ON SUNDAYS (5)

From wiki:-

“Legal Man” is a single released by Belle & Sebastian on Jeepster Records in 2000. The title track also features Jonny Quinn (on congas), Rozanne Suarez (on vocals) and The Maisonettes (on vocals). The cover features band members Stevie Jackson and Isobel Campbell along with Adrienne Payne and Rozanne Suarez. All three tracks from the single were later collected on the Push Barman to Open Old Wounds compilation. The track became their highest charting single up to that point, reaching #15 in the UK singles chart. They also made their debut on Top of the Pops to perform this song.

The two B-side tracks are notable for their historical significance; “Judy Is a Dick Slap” is the first instrumental released by the band, while “Winter Wooskie” is the third and final lead vocal from former bass player Stuart David, who left the band in 2000. Initially a demo, the track was completed by the other members after David’s departure as a farewell gesture.

The review from all music:-

I must admit that I have no idea what a “Legal Man” is-a pimp, a policeman, a meter maid? I’m clueless. This knowledge, however, is not necessary to enjoying this single. “Legal Man” find Belle and Sebastian picking up on the 60’s pop sound of “Lazy Line Painter Jane” complete with backing female vocalists The Maisonettes and, strangely, a sitar. An odd combination, but it works. The second track “Judy is a Dick Slap,” is perhaps the funniest B&S song ever. Mainly because of it’s rather, er, attention getting title, but subsequent lack of vocals. This, the first instrumental song by the band, is also an excellent joke. The final song, “Winter Wooskie” is a slower more tear-jerking ballad, but humorous as well-the object of the singers’ affection nearly sleeping though his ode. This record shows the band going forward, albeit in many different directions at once. Clearly there is some “growing” going on here, but it all seems a welcome step for the band.

mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Legal Man
mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Judy Is A Dick Slap
mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Winter Wooskie

Legal Man was released in May 2000, some 18 months after This Is Just A Modern Rock Song. In the interim, Belle and Sebastian had picked up best new act at the 1999 Brit Awards, a result that had left many establishment figures in the music industry speechless. What had happened was the vote for this award was open fully to the public with the winners fully anticipated to be Steps who had enjoyed a run of hit singles and massive media exposure; however, it was the first real used of internet voting and the B&S fanbase, many of them using their personal and student e-mail addresses, voted en masse and got the award. The reaction of the tabloid press in the UK was hilarious – how dare a band who nobody had ever heard of it take such a prestigious award?

The new single was a dramatic shift in sound for the band. It was aimed full-on at radio stations and it did get daytime play. For many people, it was the first time they had bought a B&S record/CD. I’m sure many of them would the following month go out and buy the new LP Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant and been bamboozled by the fact that none of the songs sounded anything like Legal Man!

Various

BONUS POSTING : 53…..AND COUNTING

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mp3 : Various – 53….and counting

Please enjoy

Scot & Sagar – Barcelona
The Servants – The Sun A Small Star
The Go-Betweens – A Head Full Of Steam
Honeyblood – Bud
Lush – Ladykillers
Modest Mouse – Float On
Memphis – You Supply The Roses
Arab Strap – The Shy Retirer
Tracey Thorn – Hands Up To The Ceiling
Bjork/David Arnold – Play Dead
Butcher Boy – Profit In Your Poetry
Pulp – Lipgloss
Sons & Daughters – Dance Me In (single mix)
Cats On Fire – My Friend In A Comfortable Chair
The Pastels – Baby Honey
The Smiths – There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
John Cooper Clarke – I Married A Monster From Outer Space

53:36. 17 seconds short of nailing it!!

New Order

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (1)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON WEDNESDAY 18 JUNE 2008
(and again on 8 November 2013)

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I’m not sure how many singles are released in the UK every week. Let’s guesstimate at 200.

If so, this would mean that since 1 April 1982, there have more than 250,000 bits of product originally designed to rotate on a turntable at 45rpm made available to the great British public. And not one of them has been as majestic as the work of art and genius that is Temptation by New Order.

Yup, that’s the song I consider to be my all time favourite 45 on the very day that I turn 45. And given it has held down the position for 26 years, 2 months and 18 days, its likely to hold the coveted slot for quite a while yet. At least till I’m 78 I reckon….

I’ve loads of great memories associated with this song.

My then closest friend called me up one day to say that he’d gotten his hands on the latest New Order single. He said that it wasn’t like any of the previous two releases – Ceremony and Procession – but it was something that had to be heard to be believed. I immediately got on my bike and cycled the couple of miles to his house for a listen. My mate handed me the single and invited me to place it on the turntable. He then left the room and said he’d be back in a minute or two but I was to give him my initial impression.

I thought it was appalling. There was something just not quite right about it, and who was this new vocalist that had been drafted in with his helium-like voice? My mate came back in and asked me what I thought. I looked him in the eye and asked him if he’d gone off his head as it was dreadful. It was then he burst out laughing and let-on that the single was to be played, not at 45rpm, but at 33 and 1/3 rpm….

Which I did…..and immediately fell in love with the hypnotic and robotic rhythm pulsating from the cheap speakers. This was the New Order that Tony Wilson and Rob Gretton had been been promising us for so long – and the song that finally got them to emerge from the shadows of Joy Division and stand on their own eight feet.

I don’t know how many times we played that record back-to-back that night, but a few hours later, I was back on my bike on the way home singing different snatches of the song, a cassette recording in my pocket and looking forward to buying my very own copy the following day after I’d borrowed some money from my mum.

I was lucky enough to go into a record shop which had an assistant who asked ‘Do you want the 7” or 12” version?”, and my choice of the 12” turned out be inspired.

It was quite unlike the 7” which was by now so familiar to me. The sleeve was slightly different, it had a different introduction and it rotated on the turntable at 45 rpm. It also sounded, to my ears at least, a perfect recording whereas the 7″ seemed now to be something spliced up to come in at under 5 minutes for radio play….

Now it was my turn to phone my mate and get him on his bike down to my house, where he grudgingly accepted that the 12” version was superior.

It was all a bit disappointing that Temptation didn’t make the band instant superstars – I was a bit worried that having made such a masterpiece that did next-to-nothing, New Order would soon either choose to break-up or maybe just fade into obscurity..

Instead, the band just got bigger and better in so many ways over the next 10 years or so.

And with the inclusion of a new version of Temptation on the phenomenally-successful soundtrack to the film Trainspotting, the song finally got some long-overdue recognition and acknowledgment.

Which brings me to another story (if you’ll indulge me…)

I’d like to think that this series has highlighted how important my time at University was in terms of really developing a passion for music. Most of my weekends between late-1981 and mid-1985 were spent in various parts of the Students Union at Strathclyde University – be it Level 8 for gigs and the ‘popular’ indie-disco, or the smaller downstairs converted dining-room for the more obscure stuff mixed in with the Goths.

Upon graduating, I moved to Edinburgh to live and work and I reckoned that I’d never set foot in the building again. Which I didn’t……

………until 12 years later when I accompanied a local dignitary who I worked for as he had the task of giving a welcome speech as part of an event for the fresh intake of students in September 1997. The location was the newly furbished Level 8 of the very building that I had spent so many happy nights. I was a bit unsure of myself as I got into the lift to go up the 8 floors of the building where maybe 300 or so students were patiently waiting for the formalities to begin. As I stepped into the space, my jaw visibly dropped at how different it all looked….the makeover had changed the old haunt beyond recognition……but the real shock was to hear that the song coming over the speakers was Temptation. I was a bit spooked to say the least…

It turned out that the CD to the Trainspotting soundtrack was what was being played, but to have arrived at that moment as Barney was singing about grey eyes, green eyes and blue eyes was really disconcerting…

But it’s not just the stories and memories that makes this song so very special.

The 12” version of this song is so joyously infectious that you can’t help but sing along. Its so incredibly catchy that you can’t stop yourself dancing. Its also a track that has often been a live tour-de-force at New Order gigs. The early 90s documentary ‘New Order Story’ has got an especially incredible version recorded live at Montreux in Switzerland…

I don’t know how many times I’ve played Temptation. It was a near staple inclusion on all the compilation tapes I used to make, and I still include one version or another of it on many of the playlists compiled for the I-pod. I have never ever grown bored by it, and know that I never will.

And…..as I mentioned above, there’s also the fact that it did so much to establish New Order as an act in their own image, and not just three seemingly non-descript blokes and a shy girl looking to carry on where Joy Division had left off.

I’ve never seen anyone quite like you before. No I’ve never heard anyone quite like you before.

mp3 : New Order – Temptation (12 inch version)
mp3 : New Order – Hurt (12 inch version)

PS :

Bonus Birthday mix-tape for you all…..see above!!

Arbor Labor Union, Goon Sax, Kanye West

THE £20 CHALLENGE (Week Eight)

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JC writes…..

With apologies for the non-appearance last Friday of this deservedly popular feature. It was down to ‘technical difficulties’. Over now to Tim……………

It was quite late when SWC turned up at my house to give me this weeks CD. He had been to the gym first – he is in training for a half marathon in October – the last time he run one he pulled a ligament in his groin and couldn’t walk for six days (seriously he couldn’t even lift his leg to pull up his trousers) – saying that he still finished it in less than one and a half hours – which is about thirty minutes quicker than I could run it without a knackered groin. Anyway, he was popping by to drop off the CD and some files I needed for work the next day. He looked a bit flustered.

“What’s Up?” I asked him.

“Well” he said, “after I’d finished at the gym, I went and got showered and all that – and as I was getting out of the shower, I saw a man”.

Now there is nothing unusual in this, it’s a gym, its full of men. Then he continued, I realised he was just sipping his cuppa, he was probably just using what writers call ‘dramatic effect’. “He was naked – and stood in front of the mirror”. Another sip of tea. More ‘dramatic effect’.

“Then I realised he was hairdrying his balls”.

Ok the dramatic effect was worthwhile.

“Its unsettled me slightly, I mean why would you do that – he was proper going for it as well – leg on the little block thing, tackle out, full power, I didn’t know what to do, whether to look, laugh or cringe, so I kind of did all three”. Another bigger sip of tea.

“I wouldn’t mind, but it’s the second bit of strange behaviour I’ve seen from a naked man today”. Another sip.

“Go on” I say, feeling a bit like Sigmund Freud.

“Well at lunchtime, I went out for a walk to get a sandwich and I wandered down to the river to sit and eat it – and there was a guy swimming naked in the river – he just turned up, on a bike, stripped off and jumped in. There was a party of hikers wandering around too.”

“Well naked swimming is pretty popular in the countryside” I offer as consolation. Also this is true, if you are ever in Dartington, South Devon pop down to Dartington Estate and go down to the river around 2pm you will find its full of naked old guys swimming. You’ve be warned.

“Yes, but when he’d finished, he wandered over and asked me if I knew the way to bus station. Bold as Brass. Stark Bollock Naked – I mean usually I don’t give directions to naked people. I mean why he couldn’t put some pants on first, I have no idea. Got any biscuits?”

Luckily SWC was fully clothed when he asked me this. I tend not to share my biscuits with naked people. Well naked men at the very least.

I changed the subject and talked about the memory stick full of music that he gave me last week. Which as usual contained a load of music by a load of bands that I have never heard of.

In the last six weeks I have received music from bands such as Demob Happy, Hippo Campus, Vancouver Sleep Clinic, Wall, Whitney, The Goon Sax and Arbor Labor Union. All of which are brilliant, and are bands I would have never had listened to unless he had not offered them up to me. Suffice to say they all come highly recommended. Particularly the last two.

mp3 : Arbor Labor Union – Mr Birdsong.

mp3 : The Goon Sax –Sometimes Accidentally

These two bands have quietly released two of the finest records of the year – and I would have missed them. The first is according to SWC ‘Playful, psychedelic, joyful, slightly bonkers rock and roll’. The second – ‘the best thing to come out of Australia since Kylie”. He is right, of course about both.

Oh incidentally, The Goon Sax feature on vocals, the son of one of the Go Betweens (Robert Forster) and let’s just say the song writing gene is very strong.

SWC gave me this weeks CD – and it was ‘Late Registration’ by your friend and mine Kanye West.

Sometime earlier in the year, SWC wrote an ICA for this blog under a pseudonym on Kanye West and in doing so he completely changed my opinion on Kanye West. Not only was the music on it incredible but it was way in which he convinced me that he is worth a second, third and fourth listen. For what its worth those who claim Kanye’s antics hinder his work are missing the point. His self-importance is obvious, the arrogance is pre –prepared and that is what makes him the most interesting hip hop figure in recent year. That’s the reason why its him heading Glastonbury and not Nelly or 50 Cent (remember him?). Its soul, not sales.

I’ve come late to the Kanye party – this is officially the only Kanye album I now own – but what an album. I couldn’t tell you a thing about hip hop and as 48 and a half year old, white middle class man I have no intention of even trying, but you should own this album regardless of well anything.

‘Late Registration’ was his second album and it is a bleeding masterpiece. Seriously. Incredible. Its buoyant, enthusiastic, visionary, expansive and everything that a hip hop album (probably) should be.

“I got it from the Animals In Distress Charity Shop in Dawlish for 50p”. He said. “Better than a pair of hairdried bollocks that”.

Quite. Here’s some tunes

Touch The Sky

Gold Digger

Diamonds From Sierra Leone

Crack Music

The Skinny

Bought From Animals In Distress – Dawlish

Price – 50p

Money Left £6.50

Weeks Left – 2

And because we have £6.50 left we have raised the price of the last CD to £3.

TIM

Arab Strap, Belle & Sebastian, Robert Forster

BONUS POSTING : HAPPY TALK

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I went on Facebook last night and posted something. It’s not normally something that I do…I tend to use the place as a way of throwing out pithy one-liners in response to what others have said; indeed, I only joined up in the first place as it was the way to keep on top of certain announcements around events and ticket availability. But such was the magnitude of the happening that I felt I had to share my thoughts with my cybernet mates:-

They say good things tend to come in threes. Here’s some evidence….

I recently had the good fortune to catch incredible live performances, at small intimate venues, from two of my all-time favourites in the shape of Robert Forster and Belle & Sebastian.

Not too many things could top that. But the announcement that Aidan and Malcolm are reforming for three live shows this coming October does exactly that.

2016 started off real shit for music fans with far too many sad and untimely deaths. The summer has so far been an awful lot better…..

A wee bit of explanation.

Robert Forster is a total legend. But his visits to these parts are, naturally, few and far between and so the fact he was coming to Glasgow and playing, of all places, the wonderful space that is King Tut’s made it a ‘must see’. However, I was nagged by the fact that someone as talented and revered as him wasn’t playing a larger venue given the legacy of his time as a Go-Between and not forgetting last year’s Songs To Play was such a wonderful listen. I was concerned too that I’d go along and end up annoyed with folk who were only there for the old stuff and would show a lack of respect by talking their way through the material they either didn’t know or were less fond of. And in a venue with a 300 capacity, all it would take is a handful of such idiots to ruin the occasion.

My fears came to nothing as this was one of the best audiences I’ve ever had the privilege of being part of. Robert and his band got a rousing reception and the cheers for his solo material were every bit as loud as those for the songs by his old band. He was on stage for the best part of two hours, struggling a bit with his voice as he had a dreadful cold, but where many would have been tempted to use that as an excuse to hold back in a performance he seemed to use it to push himself that bit harder. He played around 20 songs with half coming from the Go-Betweens back catalogue…and he had such a talented group of musicians with him that it felt as if the clock really had been rolled back more than 30 years. It was bliss. I didn’t think I’d enjoy myself so much at a gig in 2016.

And then, just two weeks later I find myself at the Debating Chamber of Glasgow University Union (capacity 500 – 250 standing and same again seated upstairs). I’ve been in this space quite a few times but never for a gig….and by my reckoning it will be about the 75th different Glasgow venue that I’ve paid to see live music performed (must do a posting o that sometime). Belle & Sebastian are due on stage for what will be the first of three nights to celebrate their own 20th Anniversary and the 21st Birthday of the West End Festival, a highly popular event held every summer in the most bohemian quarter of my home city. I’m not sure what to expect as my expectations of the band have been gradually diminishing in recent years with recent albums leaving me disappointed and then there was a farce of a gig at the Hydro (capacity 13,000) in which they failed dismally in their efforts to put on a show in keeping with that size of venue. It was full of gimmicks, stage-managed to the point of ridiculous and just not in keeping with the band so many of us had fallen head over heels with.

Another show just under two hours long, with most of the material drawn from the very early albums and EPs , and almost all the songs being aired in the live setting for the first time since I didn’t have any X’s in front of the L in the label of my indie-kid t-shirts. And it was joyous and a celebration of everything that not only makes the band special but brings out the best in folk from my home city who know instinctively when they are seeing and hearing something special and react accordingly. There was no talking in between songs, no attempts to sing-a-long and drown out the band, and there was hand-clapping when the band sought a bit of accompaniment at the right times. I smiled at the opening note of the first song and I was still grinning as myself and Aldo made our way home in time for the last train thanks to the venue being in an area where there is an early curfew – this would normally be a bone of contention but not on a Monday night when there’s a long week at work ahead!

Two days later though, all of that gets topped.

Arab Strap were together for ten years from 1996. Since then, Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton have carved out successful and critically acclaimed solo careers which has played a part in how revered their original band had become since they walked off stage for the last time in December 2006. They jokingly (or so it seemed) said at the time said they might reform in another ten years.

The internet stirred last weekend when the band’s website suddenly carried the teasing message ‘HELLO AGAIN’ imposed on top of a very early promo photo. A countdown to Monday lunchtime led to a message to listen in to Steve Lamacq’s show on BBC Radio 6 on Wednesday afternoon. That was where it was confirmed they were getting together for three shows in October in London, Manchester and Glasgow. Furthermore, a download single was being available – a Miaoux Miaoux remix of The First Big Weekend – which would be released 20 years to the day when the actual weekend in question took place. Which just happens to be today.

I’ve purchased and downloaded the song and it is fucking amazing. A musical highlight not just of 2016 but of the 21st Century.

A year that was threatening to be the worst ever has suddenly, and very unexpectedly, taken a huge turn for the better.

mp3 : Robert Forster – Rock’n’Roll Friend
mp3 : Belle & Sebastian -If You’re Feeling Sinister
mp3 : Arab Strap – I Saw You

Sigh.

Clash

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (2)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON TUESDAY 17 JUNE 2008

(and re-posted on 7 November 2013)

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(As mentioned when this was featured in The Clash singles back in February, I held back then to this anticipated appearance to give my own take on the 45……)

I’ve repeatedly said that I was never a punk, but just someone who loved an awful lot of the punk-sounding records. However, the early singles and debut LP by The Clash weren’t things that I was initially fond of – they were just too raw and raucous for my tastes, which at that time were still evolving.

As with most teenagers, I got some money from my mum and dad and aunties and uncles for my 15th birthday, and so I traipsed up the road to the record shop. I can’t actually remember everything that was bought…there’s every chance I bought a bundle of disco stuff as Saturday Night Fever was all the rage and all the girls wanted someone who danced like John Travolta.

I do distinctly remember buying my first ever single by The Clash with some of the money – it was on prominent display in the shop having just been released a couple of days previously. The reason I remember all this is down to a sort of hero-worship of a guy called Mick. Not only did he work in a record shop, he also had his own mobile disco with lights and everything….and Mick said that day that if I wanted to buy something special for my birthday then it should be this new single called (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais.

When I told him that I didn’t really like The Clash, he asked me if I had ever really listened to them. I had to admit that I hadn’t other than what I had sometimes heard on the radio. He then offered to play the single for me there and then. Of course in order to retain any degree of coolness, I was always going to say it was fantastic…..

So I took the record home, but I was nowhere near convinced. This certainly was nothing like love at first sight. But like all new records, it continued to get spins on the turntable all the time, and within a week or so, after a number of listens, I realised, in a sort of Road To Damascus conversion moment, the song was something really different and special. And with that I felt I could classify myself as a Clash fan – one of the best decisions I ever made as the band and their music became a sort of secret password for getting on so well with people in the years to come.

The first example of this was a year later when I took on my first ever summer job, over a period of six weeks or so, at the age of 16. It was in a city-centre store that sold car accessories. I was easily the youngest member of staff – the rest of them were dead old being at least 19, while the store manager was ancient at the age of 25. I wasn’t able to do the sort of things they did, such as go out to the pub after work on a Friday night. But one other worker was interested in the fact I bought Melody Maker every week – although his own preference was for the NME.

That’s when I learned his taste was for punk/new wave, his favourite being The Clash. The fact that I liked the band was a big factor in me being accepted in the workplace.

A few years later, the time had come to move out of the family home and into a student flat. It was a case of trying to find folk you would be compatible with, and the deal with the two lads who I was eventually to move in beside was sealed when we all said that White Man…was our favourite Clash single. So much so in my case, that by this time (1983) I had learned to play it note-for-note on a Casio keyboard which I demonstrated one evening in a drunken stupor while another of the flat mates played bass and the other sang. The girls we had back that night were far from impressed.

I always thought I was in a minority with my love for this single over all others by The Clash. I was certain that White Riot, London Calling or even the cover of I Fought The Law would win out in any popularity contest. But no, there was some sort of poll a few years back which revealed that the most popular and enduring song was the one released in June 1978:-

mp3 : The Clash – (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais
mp3 : The Clash – The Prisoner

It was unusually slow and melodic for a punk/new wave band. You could even make out a whole lot of the words without the need for a lyric sheet. It was also a song that lended itself to the use of your badminton racquet masquerading as your guitar….and it’s a song that has aged magnificently, sounding every bit as fresh, exciting and vibrant today as it did 30 years ago.

It’s hard to recall that all those years ago, the release of White Man… caused a bit of an uproar among the hardcore fans of the band. It was a radical departure from the short, sharp, loud and angry songs that had symbolised everything punk/new wave was supposed to be. It was, looking back, the earliest indication (notwithstanding Police & Thieves) that The Clash were no one-trick pony but in fact a quite extraordinary band capable of producing top-quality songs influenced by all sorts of genres.

I no longer have this single in the collection – another victim of the Edinburgh debacle of 1986, but by then it wasn’t a bit of vinyl that could have safely gone on the record player.

It was a record that had been played to within an inch of its life – it was worn out, full of scratches and jumps courtesy of it being shoved on more than once in a drunken stupor in which I bumped against the turntable. And because I imagine that’s how everyone who ever owned the single behaved with it, I’ve never pursued a copy via e-bay as the vinyl will be in a far from pristine condition. Instead, I’ve relied on an antiseptically clean copy that I have within the 3-CD box-set of Clash on Broadway.

And so next time round will finally reveal the choice at #1….

Orange Juice

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (3)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON MONDAY 16 JUNE 2008

(and again on 6 November 2013)

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From January 1982.

It reached the giddy heights of #63 in the UK pop charts.

This is the sound of happiness. On a double A side 7″ single.

I really don’t think I need say anymore….

mp3 : Orange Juice – Felicity
mp3 : Orange Juice – In A Nutshell

The irony here is that my favourite Orange Juice single, while sung by Edwyn Collins was in fact written by fellow band-member James Kirk.

Hence the William Shatner reference in this cover version:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Felicity

Many years later, James did his own great version of the song:-

mp3 : James Kirk – Felicity

PPS

Little did I know, when I originally penned this post in 2008 that I would later be contacted by Domino Records and asked to fill in a few gaps as part of their background work as to what should and shouldn’t be included in the Coals To Newcastle boxset, the result of which I was one of a number of people thanked in the sleevenotes. That’s the most rock’n’roll thing that’ll ever likely happen in my life…….

Cinerama

THE CINERAMA SINGLES (10)

I know from the always welcomed and appreciated comments that a number of you are only discovering just how great a band Cinerama were in their own right and just as worthy of the sort of lavish praise and attention that had and has always been given to The Wedding Present.

The band’s tenth single came out in 2002 and is a shorter version of an outstanding pop song from the LP Torino, a record that you can pick up relatively cheaply out there on the second-hand market via the internet. It’s well worth it.

mp3 : Cinerama – Quick, Before It Melts (single version)

Ten singles in and still no hits. Worse than that, very little acknowledgement of how good the band is with too many still harking back to the era of TWP. Criminal.

Two b-sides this time round, but no vinyl release meaning we weren’t given any foreign language takes:-

mp3 : Cinerama – Ears (acoustic version)
mp3 : Cinerama – As If

The former is a re-recording of a track that had originally featured the lovely and talented Emma Pollock on co-vocal. Sally Murrell does a very good job on this version which makes very fine use of a cello and other string instruments. Yet another wonderful song about infidelity from the pen of the boy Gedge.

The latter is, for once, a little bit of a let-down. Strictly b-side material.

Bonus time. Here’s the original version of Ears together with the extended version of today’s single:-

mp3 : Cinerama – Ears
mp3 : Cinerama – Quick Before It Melts

Enjoy. I’ve no doubt you will.

The The

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (4)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THURSDAY 12 JUNE 2008

(and re-posted on 5 November 2013)

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It was back in 1983 that I plucked up the courage to move out of the family home into a student flat in time for my third year out of four at university. And aside from a couple of times when I’ve returned to mum and dad’s place to sleep on a spare couch, numerous flatmates (and two wives) have been the ones that have had to put up with my mood swings for quarter-of-a-century. They’ve also had to put up with my taste in music, although thankfully, just about everyone (bar wife numero uno) who ever lived under the same roof as me liked what I was playing.

This particular song is the one that I most associate with my first flat.

‘Well you didn’t wake up this morning cos you didn’t go to bed’ – as an opening line seemed to capture what every weekend was designed for.

‘This is the day your life will surely change’ – as a chorus seemed to capture what the hope of every Friday and Saturday night was going to be about as I set out in the hope of finding a true soul mate.

This particular song is the perfect companion piece to How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths, yet another great hymn of the 80s dealing with angst, loneliness and a desire to belong. And while the genius guitar work of Johnny Marr was at the heart of what made his band’s song so special, so the accordion work of someone simply called Wicks turns This Is The Day into an instant classic.

Matt Johnson is probably the most under-rated and unappreciated singer/songwriter of my generation. He started off using The The as just another name for his solo efforts augmented by hugely talented guest musicians, including Jools Holland (who contribute a memorable piano solo on the LP version of Uncertain Smile) and Zeke Manyika who gave the drums one hell of a pounding on most of the LP Soul Mining, in a style that was completely different from his work with Orange Juice.

Then Matt decided that The The needed to become a band, primarily for touring purposes – and lo and behold, he unveils Johnny Marr as his lead guitarist. Strange as it may seem, Johnny was actually a member of The The longer than he was in The Smiths….

From 1983-1992, The The released four LPs at regular intervals. Three of these – Soul Mining (1983), Infected (1986) and Dusk (1992) remain among my favourites by any band. And while Mind Bomb (1989) is a bit more patchy, it did spawn a couple of great singles, including the astonishing and controversial Armageddon Days Are Here Again, the first few seconds of which are a tribute to 70s glam rock band The Sweet, before turning into a fantastic tirade against those who use religion to justify war and violence.

Just when I thought The The could do no wrong, Matt dissolved the band as it was, and in 1995 unleashed Hanky Panky an LP consisting solely of covers of songs by Hank Williams. It’s pretty awful with few redeeming features……

It was another five years before the next The The LP – Naked Self – which was very much an understated production but a fabulous return to form. Since then, all of the old LPs have been remastered, remixed and re-issued, as well as the release of a ‘Best Of’ with very little in the way of new songs being available in the shops. However, Matt remains very active in the things that most interest him, and much of his energy is focused on a truly stunning website which can be found here. And that’s where you’ll be able to hear some new songs……

But returning back to This Is The Day……

I was sure this was a minor hit back in 1983 – I certainly recall seeing the promo on the telly as well as Matt making at least one appearance on a Channel 4 chatshow performing the song. And yet it barely scraped the Top 75. Maybe that’s why the song was given a radical makeover in 1994 as the main track of the Dis-Infected EP which did hit the Top 20 and saw the band appear on Top Of The Pops.

The 1983 single was yet another 7” single that was lost for many years, but now I have a copy back in the collection. The version I owned was a limited edition double-pack, and it’s that which I picked up (at some expense) on e-bay a couple of months back. And here are all the songs in their full glory…

mp3 : The The – This Is The Day (single version)
mp3 : The The – Mental Healing Process
mp3 : The The – Leap Into The Wind
mp3 : The The – Absolute Liberation

I bet the b-side and the other two tracks weren’t what you would have expected given the pop brilliance of the single……each of them were culled from an unreleased LP called The Pornography of Despair.

And as a bonus, here’s the 1994 version of the song:-

mp3 : The The – That Was The Day