December 2016 – Page 2 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

THE UNDERTONES SINGLES 77-83 (Vol 3)

In which the band finally, and deservedly, hit the Top 20.

Jimmy Jimmy is one of the finest of all the post-punk singles. It was written by John O’Neill although many folk probably thought it was all down to singer Feargal Sharkey as he is the one pictured on the front of the sleeve holding a trophy he had won a teenager.

mp3 : The Undertones – Jimmy Jimmy

Seemingly, the song, with its sad ending, wasn’t based on anyone or on any sort of true story.

The b-side is just one of the most fun records ever made:-

mp3 : The Undertones – Mars Bars

Composed by Damien O’Neill and Michael Bradley, it’s an ode to the band’s staple diet of that era…with the chorus and some other of thre lyrics drawing inspiration from the TV ads which promoted the chocolate confectionary.

The single spent ten weeks in the chart from the end of April 1979, including a four-week run in the Top 20 without managing to climb any higher than #16.

Enjoy

Cinematics

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG :#53 : THE CINEMATICS

Adapted from wiki:-

The Cinematics were an alternative rock band founded in 2003 and disbanded in 2011. The band consisted of Scott Rinning, Larry Reid, Adam Goemans and Ross Bonney. The members originally met while at school in Dingwall but the band itself was formed in Glasgow, signing to TVT Records in 2005 after playing at an In the City showcase gig in Manchester.

They would go on to make two albums, the second of which was on Orchard Records after TVT went bankrupt. There was also a handful of singles and EPs.

The band never really got beyond cult status in their native city and by 2010 had relocated to Berlin where work began on a third LP but it was never released.

I did see them on a few occasions, the first being in 2005 when they were a decent support act to Editors at a packed King Tut’s in Glasgow. This was one of the singles from the debut LP, A Strange Education, which came out in March 2007:-

mp3 : The Cinematics – Chase

Enjoy

Rakes

RECALLING THE RAKES

rakes

Back in 2004/2005, the UK charts were seemingly dominated by a plethora of emerging guitar-led bands, very few of whom lasted the course beyond the debut LP. One of my favourite records from the period has turned out to be Capture/Release, the debut LP by The Rakes. Now I’ve tried over the years to be an avid reader of blogs, but I haven’t read too many pieces that have mentioned far less praised this particular record. Which is a bit of an oversight in my humble opinion…..

The Rakes never really fitted in with any genre – some thought they were from the post-punk art scene like Franz Ferdinand, Maximo Park or Bloc Party, while others thought they were just another London band like Razorlight or The Libertines who owed their success to a lazy, fawning media.

I first heard the band through seeing some of their videos on MTV2 and thinking that they were infectiously catchy songs. I’ll be honest and admit I never rushed out and bought anything right away, nor did I go along and catch them playing live. But in due course, maybe about a year after it came out, I picked up a second-hand copy of their debut LP and gave it a listen. Eleven brilliant pop songs in just over 30 minutes – and a record that really should have gotten a lot more critical acclaim at the time.

I bought follow-up LP Ten New Messages not long after it was released in March 2007, and it too became a bit of a favourite, although like a lot of records that I bought in 2007 wasn’t listened to all that often as I spent a fair chunk of the year working in Canada and far away from the record collection. And then blogging sort of took over and bands like The Rakes, The Libertines and The Futureheads, all of whom had released some cracking stuff over a two-year period, were sort of forgotten about as I delved further and further back in time and listened to loads of old vinyl for the first time in years.

The band released their third LP in 2009 – Klang – but it proved to be a flop and the band called it a day this time seven years ago. The sum of their career was nine singles and three LPs, none of which ever hit the Top 20. But they were far better at what they did than many others who made money and a career out of it.

Here’s the four more than decent singles from the debut album.

mp3 : The Rakes – Strasbourg
mp3 : The Rakes – Retreat
mp3 : The Rakes – 22 Grand Job
mp3 : The Rakes – Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep)

Enjoy.

Prince & The New Power Generation

NOT REGARDED BY THE PURISTS AS HIS FINEST MOMENT BUT…..

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….it’s always been one of my favourites.

Loads of great things were said about Prince on his sad and untimely death earlier this year, including on this blog from a couple of guest contributors who were huge fans.

He was another who I admired rather than adored, but every now and then I’d hear his new single and rush out and buy it. As happened in June 1991 when my purchase of the 12″ vinyl helped it get to #4 in the UK charts:-

mp3 : Prince & The New Power Generation – Gett Off (Extended Remix)
mp3 : Prince & The New Power Generation – Gett Off (Housestyle)

For those of you interested in such things, the absolutely fabulous housestyle version was produced and remixed by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley. Oh and on other 12″ versions of the single it is known as the ‘Urge Mix’. The two tracks between them combine to make almost 17 minutes of music.

I also now have the 7″ single in the collection, and here’s your b-side which was originally scheduled to be included on the LP Diamonds & Pearls but removed at the 11th hour when Gett Off was finished off just in time. So why not….

mp3 : Prince & The New Generation – Horny Pony

Enjoy.

Wire

MORE STUFF THAT BY-PASSED MY TEENAGE YEARS

Released in February 1978. It didn’t get near the charts. Indeed, I’d be surprised if it got much in the way of radio play. I know for sure that John Peel would have played it as it was performed in session in January 1978, one of three such sessions that Wire did for his show. But his listeners weren’t that enthusiastic, never once voting the quartet into the Festive 50 during their late 70s/early 80s heyday.

But it’s considered a classic of its ilk nowadays:-

mp3 : Wire – I Am The Fly

The flip side of the 7″ was one of the most popular tracks from the previous LP, Pink Flag, that had been released in November 1977:-

mp3 : Wire – Ex-Lion Tamer

And to round things off:-

mp3 : Wire – I Am The Fly (Peel Session)

Enjoy.

Sparks

PAVING THE WAY FOR WEIRDOS TO MAKE ELECTRO-POP HIT SINGLES

This was in the charts around the time of my 16th birthday in June 1979. It’s a record that reminds me of my first ever proper job which lasted for about six weeks over that summer.

It was in a Glasgow store of Halfords. I actually told a few white lies to land the post, in that I said to the store manager when I went for the interview that I had decided to leave school at the earliest opportunity, which was on my 16th birthday, when in fact I was always intending to go back in August 1979 to sit exams that I hoped I could pass and go onto university.

Anyway, the six weeks that I spent in the shop were great fun. It was mostly lads maybe three or four years older than me, but they seemed awfully grown up in so many ways, especially the fact that they went out to the pub after work every Saturday night – I was always young-looking for my age and stood no chance of getting served. Everyone liked their music, but we all had different tastes, so the solution was to just have Radio 1 on in the background all day long – and the Sparks record was on very heavy rotation.

By the time I had started work, just about everyone had more or less forgotten about Sparks after a bundle of hit singles in 1974 and 1975 – they were probably regarded as a bit of a novelty act thanks in part to the fact that Russell Mael had a singing voice that hit higher notes than just about any other bloke on the planet, but mainly to the fact that Ron Mael when appearing on telly stared intensely at the camera and freaked everyone out. Oh and he also had a moustache and haircut that made him look awfully like Adolf Hitler….

The Number One Song In Heaven was totally unexpected. The only way you could tell it was Sparks was the distinctive vocal – but what Russell was warbling over was something mind-blowing and astonishing.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that very few bands used electronic keyboards to any great effect 30 years ago. Sparks went for it in a big way, deciding to recruit Giorgio Moroder into the band – an act of absolute genius. Moroder, Italian-born but German-based, was well-known for his work on disco music on the Casablanca label, particularly with Donna Summer, as well as the fact that in 1978 he’d won an Oscar for his soundtrack to the movie Midnight Express (the single The Chase – Theme From Midnight Express used to amaze my dad – we had wall-mounted stereo speakers and it sounded as if the music was actually crawling its way across the wall as it moved from one stereo speaker to the other)

Anyways, the first thing the public got to hear from the Maels/Moroder canon was this:-

mp3 : Sparks – The Number One Song In Heaven

I was sure this was a truly massive hit, so I was surprised to learn that in fact it only reached #14 in the UK charts, although it did hang around the Top 40 for almost two months (which was why it was on heavy rotation on the shop radio).

Strangely enough, I didn’t play the A-side all that often, for the version of the song that was put on the reverse was far superior, but at 7 plus minutes long wouldn’t ever have gotten played on daytime radio:-

mp3 : Sparks – The Number One Song In Heaven (long version)

It was where prog met glam met disco met film soundtrack on one piece of 7″ black vinyl – one that, sadly, is no longer in the collection.

So there you have it. The celestial song which cleared the decks for the likes of Soft Cell, Pet Shop Boys, Human League and Heaven 17 (as well as many other inferior versions of electro-pop) to come along in the 80s and make a fortune.

Spizzenergi

WHERE’S CAPTAIN KIRK?

From wiki:-

“In the wake of punk, small record labels began to spring up, as an outlet for artists that were unwilling to sign contracts with major record companies, or were not considered commercially attractive to those companies. By 1978, labels like Cherry Red, Rough Trade, and Mute had started up, and a support structure soon followed, including independent pressing, distribution and promotion. These labels got bigger and bigger, and by 1980 were having top 10 hits in the UK Singles Chart. Chart success was limited, however, since the official top 40 was based on sales at large chains and ignored significant sales at the scores of independent record shops that existed. Iain McNay of Cherry Red suggested to the weekly trade paper Record Business the idea of an independent record chart to address the problem, and the first independent chart appeared in 1980, published in Record Week, and later licensed to Sounds.

To be included in the indie chart, a record had to be distributed independently of the corporate framework of the major record companies; the genre of music was irrelevant.

The first weekly independent chart was published on 19 January 1980.”

What I’m intending to do is feature many of the songs that went to #1 in the indie singles chart in the 80s, but not in any sort of series as doing so would require a degree of discipline that I don’t think capable of providing. But it does make sense to begin at the beginning with the first ever 45 that made the top of the chart.

It does somehow seem apt that this particular 45 was on Rough Trade as it was, without any argument, the best-known indie label in the UK during the late 70s and 80s. There’s also something reassuring by the fact that the band involved had an annual name change policy that was seen by some as a mere marketing tool but by others as a way of continually confirming the most indie of credentials.

I haven’t ever owned own anything ever released by Spizzoil in 1978, Spizzenergi in 1979, Athletico Spizz 80 in 1980, The Spizzles in 1981 or Spizzenergi in 1982. I don’t ever recall seeing them play live and so what follows is a short tale pulled together from a few different sources.

Spizz was vocalist/guitarist who founded the band in August 1977. His real name was Kenneth Spiers. He had started out as a solo act By the following year, he had recruited Pete Petrol (real name Pete Hyde) and the duo, having supported Siouxsie & The Banshees and recorded a Peel Session, were signed to Rough Trade and issued two 7″ EPs as Spizz Oil.

The following year, the name was changed to Spizzenergi; Petrol left after falling out with Spizz but three new musicians were recruited. Two more singles followed including this in December 1979:-

mp3 : Spizzenergi – Where’s Captain Kirk?
mp3 : Spizzenergi – Amnesia

It’s 2:15 of superbly silly, atypically enjoyable post-punk that no doubt got the musos shaking their head in complete disbelief. It was released at the same time as the first Star Trek movie which no doubt helped raise its profile, and as mentioned was #1 in the first ever UK Indie Singles Chart when that was published on 19 January 1980, a position it proudly held for 8 weeks before being replaced by UB40‘s debut double-A side single Food For Thought/King.

By this time of course, Spizzenergi were, on the face of it, no more but as Atletico Spizz 80 they added a fifth member and released a further single on Rough Trade before being snapped up by A&M Records for whom they released two singles and an album; in 1981 as The Spizzles, it was two singles and an album.

The only commercial success while at A&M was the debut LP Do A Runner reaching #27 in July 1980, and come 1982 they had been dropped and were back at Rough Trade, again as Spizzenergi with a further two singles.

The group then disbanded but in 1987 Spizz came back as a solo artist with a re-working of his most famous single.

There’s lots more over at this wiki page.

Incidentally, R.E.M. recorded a fairly faithful cover version of the song to give away free as the Fan Club single in 1992.

mp3 : R.E.M. – Where’s Captain Kirk?

Enjoy.

Uncategorized

APOLOGIES!!!

Sorry for the lack of a posting today. Been a bit busy at work and things on over a few evenings recently that I couldn’t quite keep on top of things.

I’ve been in Birmingham today on work stuff and will soon be boarding a train back to Glasgow, during which time I will do a bit of catching up including posts for the rest of the week and hopefully reading and enjoying all the stuff that other bloggers have been posting at their place.

Just one thing to add. Was lucky enough to see The Pixies at Glasgow Barrowlands last Friday. They were, as the saying goes, the dog’s bollocks.

Late addendum at 11pm

I got reasonably near the front at one point last week….

Undertones

THE UNDERTONES SINGLES 77-83 (Part 2)

I don’t think I can do any better than cut’n’paste from a post on this very blog back in August 2014:-

It was back in 1978 that The Undertones released their debut single and the best ever 45 of all time in the opinion of the late John Peel.

But it was in February 1979 that I reckon the band released their best ever single…..the flop-follow up to the debut.

Teenage Kicks was not an out-an-out chart success, reaching the relatively low position of #31 in the UK charts. Get Over You however, was a bit of a disaster as far as the band was concerned, hitting only #57.

In sleeve notes to a compilation CD released back in 1999, the band’s Michael Bradley said:-

“We were very disappointed by the chart position. We thought it was all over and our career was finished.”

They weren’t the only ones bitterly disappointed. I remember hearing this on Radio 1 one morning and making sure that on the way home from school later in the day that I bought the single. I also remember putting it on the turntable and being really disappointed in the first few seconds as I thought either my needle was damaged or my speaker was broken (it was still an old-fashioned Dansette record player in those days). Thankfully, it was just the opening riff that blasts away in the background before giving way to a short wolf-whistle clearly delivered by someone who had ambitions to get on a building site…..and then the opening riff comes in at full tilt. It’s Status Quo on speed……

mp3 : The Undertones – Get Over You

At this point in my life, I had yet to have my heartbroken by a member of the opposite sex…..but I instinctively knew, on hearing this record, that when that particular day came, as inevitably it had to, this was a song I would play, again and again and again until the pain went away.

There were two songs on the b-side, and they also dealt with girls:-

mp3 : The Undertones – Really Really
mp3 : The Undertones – She Can Only Say No

The latter of these is only around 40 seconds long, and the biggest tribute I can possibly pay it is that it’s the greatest song that Pete Shelley of Buzzcocks never wrote.

2016 update. Here’s some songs that were in the chart the same week Get Over You peaked at #57:-

HEART OF GLASS : BLONDIE : #1
HIT ME WITH YOUR RHYTHM STICK : IAN AND THE BLOCKHEADS : #8
MILK AND ALCOHOL : DR. FEELGOOD : #9
KING ROCKER : GENERATION X : #11
OLIVER’S ARMY : ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS : #13
THE SOUND OF THE SUBURBS : THE MEMBERS : #25
STOP YOUR SOBBING : THE PRETENDERS : #46
INTO THE VALLEY : THE SKIDS : #50

So it’s not as if there wasn’t an appetite or market for the song, which makes it all the more bemusing that it failed as a 45.

CHVRCHES

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #52 : CHVRCHES

I run the risk of alienating a few folk here, so I’ll whisper it. I don’t quite get all the hoo-ha over Chvrches.

In saying that, I’m pleased that a Scottish act, particularly one featuring an ex-member of the hugely underrated and largely unappreciated The Unwinding Hours and Aereogramme, is being so critically acclaimed and selling decent amounts of records, but the synthpop music they make just doesn’t move me. Probably an age thing…..but the vocals in particular often make them far closer to the clean, near antiseptic pop fodder that makes up much of the modern era chart stuff than it is to the pioneering stuff from the late 70s and early-mid 80s with which they are often compared.

Here’s one that I don’t mind too much from their debut LP The Bones Of What You Believe, released back in 2013:-

mp3 : Chvrches – Lies

Enjoy.

Manic Street Preachers, Scorpio Rising, Senseless Things

THE CHARITY SHOP (VINYL YEARS) CHALLENGE : PART 3

dbbw-badger-watch

JC writes…….

Last time round I changed the title of this series which was a bit naughty of me. This is the third and final part of what happened after SWC visited the Oxfam Charity Shop in Totnes and bought the then recuperating Badger some indie vinyl on the premise that he write about them for T(n)VV.

Badger writes………………

The fifth, sixth and seventh records are a lot better than the third and fourth ones; two were by bands that I know and like and one was a band that I had never heard of, but one which led SWC into another one of misty eyed tales from the past. He’ll take over in a bit after we talk about Record Five.

SWC’s daughter unwraps the fifth record and it is a mash up of different colours and swirling images it also has some writing on it, in red pen. I look at and then I tilt the record sideways to try and read what it says.

“Is this signed?” I ask SWC.

He nods enthusiastically, “That record has been touched by four bonafide rockstars” he tells me. Bonafide rockstars is pushing it a bit, but all the same, this is exciting news. I own three signed records, (well four now), one is my pride and joy a vinyl picture disc of ‘The Holy Bible’ signed by Richey Edwards, the second is a Carter USM 12” signed by Jon Fat Beast (RIP) and the third is splodgenessabounds 7” signed apparently by band member ‘Baby Greensleeves’. The authenticity of that is dubious at best.

The record is ‘Is It Too Late?’ by Senseless Things. It cost £1.99 and that includes the signatures of all four members of the Senseless Things which as SWC adds “Probably increases the value by at least 50p”.

20161123_094902

mp3 : Senseless Things – Is It Too Late

Senseless Things are a band dear to my heart. They feature on the WYCRA 200 both in this guise and in one of their off shoot bands Delakota.

‘Is It Too Late?’ was one of the band’s early singles, their second or third I think. It has a sleeve designed by Jamie Hewlett the guy behind Tank Girl and Gorillaz and it is a brilliant couple of minutes of punky pop.

The interesting thing is that a few years back Senseless Things released a singles compilation and this record wasn’t included on it, I imagine this is because of record company rules and the like but it almost feels forgotten about, which is a massive shame.

I’ve also attached two of the three B Sides which are pretty much the same thing, two minutes shouty indie punk pop with thrashy guitars and sneery vocals. All excellent and a welcome addition to any record collection I would say.

mp3 : Senseless Things – Andi In a Karmann
mp3 : Senseless Things – Ponyboy

Next up I’ll hand over to SWC

“There was this kid at college, we’ll call him Jeremy in case he is reading. Jeremy told everyone he was in a band, I think in an attempt to impress impressionable girls, his band were always playing gigs in London and around the South East, they were supporting larger acts in proper venues (rather than just playing in the same old dreary Maidstone pubs). They were called Spartac – with the R the wrong way round to make it look Russian, which isn’t a bad name for a band to be honest – yet something didn’t add up, no one had seen this band, apart from Sad Gary, the bloke who no one listened to, he told us he had seen them. Jeremy tried to convince me that his band Spartac had played at the club I DJ’ed at and they supported a band called Tiny Monroe. They didn’t because Tiny Monroe never played at the club, they were supposed to, but they actually did cancel due to illness. The support band that night were called Torque and I know that because the lead guitarist in said band was my mate Dom and they needed the ‘exposure’. The general feeling was that Jeremy was a bullshitter but he was a convincing one because people started to believe him a couple of other people started to mention that they had seen them and they were playing a demo CD of his band.

Anyway, I said, to Jeremy that if he provided me with a demo tape I would get them a gig in the next few weeks, we had a few decent bands coming up at the club and I could probably get them a support slot when Delicatessen play. “Oh I know them, we played with them in London a few weeks back I’ll dig you out a demo, is a CD ok”. Yup absolutely.

About a week later, Jeremy gives me a demo. I play it that evening at home, it sounds familiar. I have heard this before, I know I have, I just can’t place it, maybe, at a party somewhere, maybe he was in a band. I mean it sounded like a demo, it was pretty badly recorded.

About two weeks later, my mate John and I went to London to see a Pop Will Eat Itself gig at the much missed Marquee club. The support band that night was a band from the same next of the woods as them, they are called Scorpio Rising and they come on and bugger me sideways the opening song they play is track 2 on Spartac’s Demo CD – Scorpio Rising call it ‘Watermelon’ Spartac call it ‘Inside Her’.

The next weekend John tracks down a copy of ‘Watermelon’ by Scorpio Rising in a record shop and we play it to a couple of our mates, and then I play Spartac. There is general disbelief and laughter, John then tells me that I should play this at the club the next time we see Jeremy there, which isn’t often to be fair, he’s probably off playing live at the Viper Rooms in LA or something.

We don’t do that. Deciding that it would be cruel and besides like me and a load of others Jeremy would be leaving the area in October to go to University (in Huddersfield if I remember rightly), we let things lie, smug in the knowledge that we know. Around August, Jeremy announces that his band have split due to ‘musical differences’ and that three of them were continuing without him and the drummer under a different name. Shame, another great lost band, like the Badgers I suppose.”

And now it’s back to Badger….

Yes although that’s quite enough of them.

Record Six is ‘Saturnalia EP’ by Scorpio Rising and is kind of ace in warped wobbly kind of way – the recording is not great – the B Side is ‘Watermelon’. Price £1.50

mp3 : Scorpio Rising – Saturnalia
mp3 : Scorpio Rising – Watermelon

…and finally we come to record 7 – another day another remix 12” but this one is slightly different in that it is actually quite good, I won’t bang on about this one because I have to be somewhere in fifteen minutes and I’m running late, but I’ve saved the best for last.

Record 7 – Price £2.50

mp3 : Manic Street Preachers – Australia (Lionrock remix)

BADGER

Peter Gabriel

RISKING WHAT LITTLE STREET-CRED I HAVE…..???

peter-gabriel-no-self-control-49514

One of the reasons I began to listen to Peter Gabriel was the fact that he was championing the end of apartheid at a time in my life when I was just beginning to become more socially and politically aware of what was going on in the world. In particular, he recorded a song demanding justice for the death in custody of Stephen Bantu Biko which he featured on his LP Peter Gabriel III, and which he later released as a single

This was also the LP that brought Gabriel his first real degree of solo success, thanks to the lead-off single Games Without Frontiers which was a #4 hit in the UK. Today’s offering was the follow-up single, a rather dark number that focuses in on lust. The fact that it has the utterly delicious Kate Bush singing away rather erotically on backing vocals somehow only adds to its intensity.

mp3 : Peter Gabriel – No Self Control

I’ll quietly ignore the fact that it is Phil Collins who plays drums on the record. Actually, that’s a bit unfair….if he had stuck solely to his original day-job as a sticksmith, then Phil Collins would probably be lauded as a superb musician. As it is, we all think of him as the chart-topping man of the 80s loathed by many, but as the record sales demonstrate, loved by so many in the Thatcherite era…..

Quite clearly, the record label weren’t all that fussed about whether or not folk would buy this single, for the b-side was a track lifted from the LP.

mp3 : Peter Gabriel – Lead A Normal Life

A strange little number, largely instrumental in nature, it seems out of place on its own as a b-side as it was tailored-made for its particular spot on the album to lead into the epic closing track, the aforementioned Biko.

Incidentally, fans of the modfather might be interested to know that Paul Weller played guitar on one of the other tracks on the album.

mp3 : Peter Gabriel – And Through The Wire

Enjoy