ICA WORLD CUP

BONUS SERIES : THE ICA WORLD CUP : ROUND 3 (Part 2)

Honestly…..this week’s four ties are mouth-watering affairs so I want to publish the latest full-time scores and then give you the stuff of nightmares.

The Durutti Column 4 v Echo and the Bunnymen 35
The Police 24 v Pete Wylie 15
XTC 17 v Half Man Half Biscuit 22
The Charlatans 9 v OMD 30

I’ve a feeling Drew will be very keen to vote this week………….

Round 3 : Matches 5-8

New Order v The Fall

Anthony H Wilson and Mark E Smith will be pissing themselves laughing at this….as indeed will Rob Gretton.  Barney Sumner is known to be a fan of Manchester United while MES was a City follower, the team he adopted as a kid just to annoy his dad.  The establishment against the noisy neighbour.  The tickets to see this one will fly out of the door.

New Order must be cursing their luck with the draws having already been asked to take care of hardy overseas opponents in LCD Soundsytem and The Go-Betweens.  The Fall have had the slightly easier tasks of taking on Queens of The Stone Age and SBTRKT.  The interesting news for the both sides is that while they each have multiple and guest ICAs, (three for New Order and four for The Fall), the selections for both are coming from their initial ICAs, both of which were penned by me….and what emerged from the coin/dice stuff is quite staggering:-

Age Of Consent (from Power, Corruption & Lies, 1983) v Cruiser’s Creek (single, 1985)

Talking Heads v The Housemartins

New York v Hull…..certainly brings home the romance of the cup.

Talking Heads have had all sorts thrown at them thus far – Close Lobsters, Massive Attack and Kitchens of Distinction have represented very different types of challenges and the latest match is no different.  The Housemartins have progressed quietly to this stage by overcoming Gene and Julian Cope but, thanks to an ICA full of catchy and enjoyable pop songs, they pose a threat to the biggest of names and the most revered of line-ups.

Both songs selected this week have one-word titles which come in at a little over two-and-a-half minutes in length.

TH(NYC) opting for something which, despite being almost 40 years old, still sounds vibrant and fresh – they’ve also drafted in Brian Eno on production duties to the line up.  TH (Yorks.) go with something that, although a flop single from 1986, typifies so much of their output.

Paper (from Fear of Music, 1979) v Sheep (from London 0 Hull 4, 1986)

The Velvet Underground v The Clash

Just as the audience begins to come to terms with the all-Manc tie which opens up this week’s offerings, this curve-ball delivers another strike.  Two of the most admired bands in the competition, each having the firepower to go all the way, but only one will still be on their feet in six days time.

NYC or London?

Warhol or Rhodes??

Reed/Cale/Morrison/Tucker or Strummer/Jones/Simenon/Headon???

It’s all down to you.

The Clash are going for their third successive American scalp having beaten MGMT and R.E.M. in previous rounds, while VU have disposed of The National and Talk Talk with great ease. You may have to take your time with this one….

Foggy Notion (from VU : recorded 1969, released 1984) v Armagideon Time (b-side,1979)

The Jesus and Mary Chain v The The

Here’s a Scotland v England clash to complete a remarkable set of match-ups this week.

JAMC have had very comfortable wins over The Wondermints and Rod Stewart, and while this is a tougher assignment altogether, the names in other ties in this section of the draw surely demonstrate that it could have been a lot worse.

The The are going for a hat-trick of wins over Scottish acts having done enough to dispose of Simple Minds and The Skids.  This is yet another step up in quality and, as is so often the case, much will depend on the random aspect of things:-

Never Understand (from Psychocandy, 1985) v Slow Emotion Replay (from Dusk, 1993)

Have fun….and happy listening.

Voting closes at 10pm on Friday 20 April.

JC

38 thoughts on “BONUS SERIES : THE ICA WORLD CUP : ROUND 3 (Part 2)”

  1. Songs again drive these matches:
    New Order
    Talking Heads
    Velvet Underground (Other than the Sandinista version of Career Opportunities, this is by far the worst song recorded by the Clash. Shocked it was on the ICA as there are so many many other deserving songs. Clash go down on a crap song)
    The The

  6. 3 easy games, New Order, Talking Heads, The The. The Clash wins on being The Clash, not on a particularly strong game.

  7. Its all about the songs, ignore the egos.
    New Order – their strongest card
    Housemartins, the Clash were never good enough at reggae
    Velvet Underground
    Jesus & Mary Chain – what a song!

  8. New Order
    The Housemartins
    The Housemartins
    The Housemartins
    The Housemartins
    The Velvet Underground
    The Jesus And Mary Chain

  10. Shit. Some tough calls here.
    New Order. It’s Age of Consent which would beat most songs.
    Talking Heads. Easy.
    The Clash. But Foggy Notion runs them very close, extra time, penalties etc.
    The Mary Chain.

  12. Fall (prefer the MES tune and his choice of football club)
    Housemartins (by far and away the hardest one for me to choose this week)
    Velvet Underground
    Jesus And Mary Chain (a shame as it beats a The The song that I actually like – but it is one of my favourites)

  16. WOW!
    Still coming off the sad defeats of Wylie and XTC, but this week has me tranfixed!
    New Order – what a Derby!
    Talking Heads – this one was done before halftime
    The Clash – VU were just not that interested and sat down on the field just smoking cigarettes
    The The – this one went back and forth, but Matt and his boys powered through in the final minutes.

  17. The Fall (my second favourite Fall song just about sees them overcoming New Order)
    Housemartins
    Velvets
    JAMC

  18. “If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.”- Unknown author

    “And if you chase eight rabbits, all eight will escape!” – sexyloser

    Sitting here for 40 minutes now, contemplating, an I’m none the wiser. Bollocks, JC, this was tough this week!!!

    New Order
    Housemartins
    Clash

    For the last game I even called Mrs Loser away from the telly (so far she agreed to my decisions, you’ll be relieved to hear). But I think she doesn’t understand The Chain’s magic … to her “it’s just a noisy background which ruins a halfway decent voice”.

    I have no idea whether she might be right with The The, it really is such a great tune. Still, to me JAMC win … perhaps even BECAUSE of the noisy background …

  22. The Fall vs New Order? Can’t help but recall this Mark E. Smith jibe: “Even in Manchester, there’s two types of factory there… One lives off old dying men. One lives off the back of a dead man. You know which one. You know which factory I mean.”

    1) The Fall
    2) no vote
    3) VU
    4) JAMC

  23. New Order despite a great Fall song.
    Talking Heads is the Goliath of the tie and no romance of the Cup here.
    Clash Velvets – Favourite band of my lifetime vs best band of all time. The cover version wins, and any of the dub versions would too. The Clash are brilliant at reggae and the main reason I listen to the Jamaican stuff today.
    The The take the final tie against the run of play.

  25. ohh, close. Got to pick the tracks not the band for all of these.

    The Fall – Cruiser’s Creek squeaks it
    Housemartins – again the better song, probably over the better band.
    The Clash -again the song not the band
    JAMC – again the better track.

    ouch.

  27. Song choices made it easier than it might of been

    New Order
    Housemartins
    Velvets
    Mary Chain

  32. New Order
    Talking Heads
    The Velvets over The Clash (Not the greatest songs from these two, but still good. This should have been the final from two of the best & most important bands ever.)
    Jesus & Mary Chain

  34. New Order. just, but not just.
    Talking Heads. Any track on Fear of Music does it for me. Adults vs boys.
    Nil Nil draw, best songwriters in the business and they want stretch out and Jam. yawn. No vote
    JAMC. could have gone either way, but Matt sounding a bit Dated nowadays, bit obvious. Never Understand still blows me away. I’m sitting on the bus looking at the commuters with this on full blast on earphones. I may be the oldest on the bus but I’ve got Noise.

  35. New Order
    Housemartins – This should be played at every Trump convention as I am sure this is what it was written for
    Velvet Underground (I really did not like reggae Clash)
    The Jesus & Mary Chain – I always look back fondly at the chaos that ensued when this was played at Uni discos, was usually followed by This is the end of the world and I still have the scars!

  36. Hey JC,

    My choices this week are:
    New Order
    Housemartins
    Clash
    The The

    Cheers

    Jim

  37. It appears I haven’t voted this week So…

    The Fall
    Housemartins
    VU
    JAMC

    I’m not voting in the other referendum since it’s a foregone conclusion and I’m tired of the whole debate. Peace.

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