Month: February 2019

Jack Butler

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #147 : JACK BUTLER

Hailing from Stirling (a town in Central Scotland about equidistant from Glasgow and Edinburgh), Jack Butler were a four-piece consisting of Liam Kelly (vocals and guitar), Chris Lowdon (guitar), Allan Conroy (bass) and Greg Moodie (drums).

They released a debut 3-track CD single in 2006 on Whimsical Records, and as I said when I featured the band on the blog back in November 2013, lead track Velvet Prose did have a wee bit of the standard indie-pop sound that was all over the charts at the time but I was more taken by the two b-sides which took me back a fair bit to some of the best bits of the 80s. Candles seems influenced by the early Zoo Records stuff of the Teardrop Explodes and the Bunnymen with the angular guitar work found on Josef K songs. But it’s He Got No Game! which is by far the standout – it sounds as if the early Associates had reformed with Alan Rankine to the fore and a reasonable impression of Billy Mackenzie too….

mp3 : Jack Butler – Velvet Prose
mp3 : Jack Butler – Candles
mp3 : Jack Butler – He Got No Game!

A debut album would eventually surface in 2009, for which a writer with one Scottish-based tabloid paper went nuts, but it wasn’t enough to propel the boys to fame and fortune.

JC

Iceage

GREAT DANES

The boys at The Sound of Being OK, and in particular SWC, have been extolling the virtues of Iceage for quite a few years.

Some of you might well be asking who? Well, the fact of the matter is that SWC is a rather talented writer, so much so that he once held a gig with Melody Maker before growing up and joining the real world, getting married, having kids and embarking on a career in which every day is a true-life adventure.

Oh you mean Iceage? Sorry…………….

Iceage are a Danish punk rock band from Copenhagen. They were formed in 2008, when the members of the band averaged 17 years old. Elias Bender Rønnenfelt does vocals and guitar, Johan Surrballe Wieth plays guitar and provides backing vocals, Jakob Tvilling Pless plucks the bass and Dan Kjær Nielsen bangs the drums.

Debut album New Brigade was issued by Danish label Tambourhinoceros and by Dais Records in the United States in early 2011. They created a bit of a buzz, leading to them signing with Matador Records for whom they have released a further three albums, including Beyondless which made a number of ‘best of’ lists at the end of 2018.

I took the plunge and bought a CD copy of Beyondless with some of my Santa money. It wasn’t quite what I expected, being something of a curate’s egg with, once or twice, the bombast coming across a bit like Scandic Kasabian (which sounds like a condition for which you should go seek advice from your doctor).

On the other hand, it is quite special in other places, bringing to mind the ambition and variety of early Bad Seeds, but with increased levels of power and energy, thanks in part to a crisp production, but mainly as a result of the sonic vocal delivery from Rønnenfelt, whose influences feel like many – I could, at varying times, detect, Iggy Pop, Ian Curtis, Peter Murphy and Andrew Eldritch. But I have to quickly say that Beyondless is not a gloom-laden gothic record….how can it be when so many moments are lit up with horns, piano, strings and impish percussion?

The album opens with two jaunty and, dare I say it, danceable, tracks that I’m willing to now rate as among my favourite bits of music from 2018:-

mp3 : Iceage – Hurrah
mp3 : Iceage – Pain Killer

The latter is one of those on which the horns are used to great effect, as is the guest backing vocal from American starlet Sky Ferreira (and yes, I had to look her up to find out more…..if I had teenage kids, I could have just asked them).

Things don’t quite match the 1-2 pounding that comes straight from the bell, and indeed Under The Sun, the third track on the album, proves to be one of the weakest and least memorable moments, not even providing that annoying Kasabian-style hook to hang something upon (such as ill-defined and inexplicable prejudice), leading to a what I initially felt was a bit of a mid-album dip.

But….here’s the thing…..it’s an album with a number of songs that, on the first few listens, don’t seem to amount to all that much but ultimately prove to be pieces of music which provide an enormous amount of satisfaction.  I think my initial issue was that I kept waiting on something as ‘light’ and accessible as the opening couple of songs, but that never quite happened. Instead, there’s an ever-changing tempo, groove and mood throughout which had an initially unsettling effect, especially as the band was more or less new to me, but which proved to be a strength on the fourth, fifth and successive listens. It can be difficult nowadays, what with trying to write a daily blog and lead a busy life at work and play, to afford an album the time and space it sometimes needs to make the impact. I’m glad I did it with this one.

There is one other genuinely jaw dropping part of Beyondless anmd it’s when they go all cabaret on us:-

mp3 : Iceage – Thieves Like Us

Great fun.  And I will more than likely get round to getting the earlier albums.  In the meantime….

“Dear SWC

How about an ICA?

Yours most sincerely

JC”

Electronic

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #205 : ELECTRONIC

WE DON’T NEED TO ARGUE, WE JUST NEED EACH OTHER

An Electronic ICA

An abridged potted history.

Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner first worked together when the man from The Smiths/The The contributed guitar to Atom Rock/Triangle, a single on Factory Records by Quando Quango which the man from New Order was co-producing.

Five years on and the increasing tensions within New Order led to Bernard contemplating a solo record but instead he called on Johnny and they came up with the idea of Electronic, thinking of issuing instrumental house music for clubs via white labels only. Next thing you know, they’re talking to Neil Tennant and found that he was interested in helping out…but with his distinctive vocal delivery, there was no chance of anonymity.

First single Getting Away With It was released in 1989, going to #12 in the UK charts but more importantly in terms of the developement of the band, it was a hit in the USA and led to them being invited to support Depeche Mode on a stadium tour in 1990.

By the following year, the initial ideas had crystalized into a self-titled debut LP which really showcased their talents and abilities, with a largely upbeat package, from which two more chart singles – Get The Message and Feel Every Beat were lifted. It was an album filled with catchy melodies and choruses, with plenty for fans of the old bands to acknowledge and love.

They then went off and did things with their bands, getting back together in 1992 for Disappointed, a single which again utilised Neil Tennant.

The next burst of activity was in 1996/97 with the album Raise the Pressure (which spawned three hit singles) and then 1999 saw the release of Twisted Tenderness, an album which they made as a more conventional 4-piece band thanks to contributions from Jimi Goodwin of Doves and Ged Lynch of Black Grape on bass and drums respectively.

Three albums worth of top-class material has made for a few tough choices for this ICA….it’s packed with singles but that’s because the boys and their record labels (Factory for album #1 and Parlophone thereafter) knew what would sound huge blasting out of the radio.

SIDE A

1. Getting Away With It

The debut. One reviewer said “It’s nothing shocking, nothing that surprising, it’s just that every time you think you’re tired of it you can’t help flipping back the stylus to catch that chorus”. And that’s what makes it such a work of genius and a timeless piece of art.

2. Tighten Up

The third track on the debut album. One reviewer said “..the devastating marriage of Smiths guitars and New Order technology that nervously excited fans the globe over were anticipating from Electronic. Imagine a sublime splicing of ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ and ‘Dream Attack’, then multiply by 12” Indeed.

3. Forbidden City

The comeback 45 in 1996…quite different in sound to what had come before with Johnny very much recreating the guitar sounds of his first band at a time when his old mucker’s solo career was in a bit of disarray after the panning given to Southpaw Grammar. It felt like a two-fingered salute in many ways…and it sounded sublime.

4. Lucky Bag

The b-side to the debut single….and the only time that they came close to realising the initial idea of Italian house music. It’s unlike any other Electronic track, and while I won’t make any claims about it being among their ten best, it just seems to fit into the ICA at this stage quite perfectly. Little-known fact…Lucky Bag was used, for a couple of years, as the theme tune for a weekly showing of Scottish football highlights on the BBC.

5. Get The Message

From the debut album and the long-awaited follow-up single to Getting Away With It. It’s been said that Johnny was reluctant to layer multiple guitar parts as he was really unsure of recreating old stuff when he was so keen to move on, but persuaded otherwise by Bernard for which we should all be hugely grateful. Backing vocals are courtesy of Denise Johnson, probably best known for her work with Primal Scream

SIDE B

1. Disappointed (7″ mix)

The involvement of Neil Tennant in the early days led to the inevitable christening of Electronic as a super-group, which was used in a derogatory way by those who didn’t like them. This was the stand alone single from 1996 and in reaching #6, gave them their biggest UK hit. I’m thinking most casual listeners just thought it was a Pet Shop Boys effort.

2. Vivid (radio edit)

If, more than occasionally, the songs were reminiscent of the other bands they were all involved in, then there’s little doubt that the lead-off single from Twisted Tenderness is more than a nod to The The, with Jonny hitting the harmonica early doors. Again, not necessarily one of their best ten songs, but important to have it in an ICA to demonstrate what it was all about.

3. Idiot Country two

The original Idiot Country provided an adrenalin-filled rush to open the debut album….a couple of years later, it was given the remix treatment with some added dialogue and backing vocals as well as an extra 80-odd seconds. It was provided as the b-side to Disappointed and went some way to lessening the pain of paying £4 for a CD single!

4. Gangster

Track six on the debut album and the one which provides a reminder of Technique, the last truly indispensable album ever released by New Order, complete with a lyric in which Bernard makes a number of torturous rhymes.

5. Feel Every Beat (7″ mix)

A five-minute version of this closes the debut album and tempting as it was to use that here, I have to bow to the remixing skills of Stephen Hague who chops about a minute off the original and helps deliver something which captures perfectly what Jonny and Bernard wanted Electronic to sound like and what they wanted a band to be….’we don’t need to argue, we just need each other’

JC

 

Hamilton Leithauser and Rostam Batmanglij

SOME SONGS ARE GREAT SHORT STORIES (Chapter 19)

A GUEST POSTING by SWC

from The Sound of Being OK

Hamilton Leithauser has been in two of the greatest bands that have ever been. Firsty he was in The Recoys and then when they disintegrated into ashes he formed The Walkmen and changed rock music for ever.

Then in 2013 he announced that the Walkmen were going on an indefinite hiatus (this was November 2013). Leithauser was never one to rest upon his laurels and decided to record some solo material. Then a few years back he teamed up with Rostam Batmanglij from Vampire Weekend (another band seemingly on a hiatus) to make an album of lofi torch songs. This appears to be a marriage made in indie heaven. One of the one side you have Rostam, who is one of the most talented and innovative musicians around. On the other hand you have Hamilton Leithauser, one of the greatest lyricists of the modern age. He writes tremendous songs, in his early days they were bitter and angry tales of rejection (see ‘The Rat’), isolation (See ‘While I Shovel the Snow’) and love (see most of the ‘Lisbon’ album).

The album Hamilton made with Rostam is called ‘I Had a Dream That You Were Mine’ which is utterly wonderful. It has brilliant songs written in Rostam’s bedroom (the same one he has had since he was a teenager). The plan was simple to take Hamilton’s voice, that distinctive raw croon of his and his incredible lyrics and set them loose on a range new styles. It has songs that are sad, songs with characters, songs that are happy, songs about love, songs about life. The pick of the bunch if you ask me is ‘You Ain’t That Young Kid’. A song so steeped in storytelling that you may as well put a cowboy hat on it and call it ‘Dylanesque’. You get a harmonica, then a slide guitar, then a choir of voices, then a harpsichord and a steel drum. Its utterly marvellous, and it tells a story that is highly visual and full of sentimental filters.

‘You Ain’t That Young Kid’ tells a story about a man and a woman whose relationship has just ended. The man is with a band and he is struggling to perform a certain song that he wrote for his girl

On the first night in June
In a very crowded room
The band was going on
When you told me we were done
So I couldn’t play that song
Cause I wrote it about you
Yeah it always seems to come back to you

(You see, here within seconds of the song starting there are strands forming. We know its June, the year is unknown. They are in a crowded room and a band is coming on – his band – but she has just told him that they are over and now that song, probably their best song or most popular song is meaningless.)

But I don’t have to tell you
Cause you’ve heard it all by now
I’m just one single voice in a choir
You won’t hear me anymore
Just a bassist thumbing a tune
But that rumble reminds me of you

(There’s the rejection and loneliness I spoke of, but that line about the ‘bassist thumbing a tune’, man that’s evocative, and even then the ‘rumble’ reminds him of everything that has been lost).

All the flash, all the fire
All the foggy drinks perspired
We were tucked into a booth
In a far corner of the room
And the music is loud
And it’s just bringing me down
Cause I know that I lost you

(and then we are in the corner of the room, the music is loud, so they are in a booth – I mean I can see them, I can see the bar, I can see hear the music, I smell the smoke, and the taste the foggy drinks. The mood of our hero is getting worse, everything is getting him down. So he does the only thing he can – he leaves).

The parking lot was dark
And I walked out of the bar
Found some folks hanging around
And we’re on some highway now
And the windows are down
And I never felt so sad
So I just tried not to think about you

(so he is out into the parking lot – that’s a car park – and into his car – and now I’m thinking should he even be driving? His drinks have been foggy. But hang on, ‘we’re on some highway…’. Who is he with. Has he hooked up with the folks he found hanging around. What has become a song about a break up is now all about something totally different. This is about forgetting everything. At least we know now he isn’t driving.)

Oh the final spot of sunlight
Is dying on the dash
On some way too long road with some way too young folks
If the man that you knew
Honestly wasn’t me
Tell me honey: who could that be?

(That line about the final spot of sunlight is wonderful, you can see it. The horizon with the speck of sun, you can picture him, probably in a 4×4 or a truck, him in the back with people who he doesn’t feel comfortable there is probably some beer in cans of course. The road to reflection via rejection. )

There’s a letter I wrote
That I’ll never send
Where I admit my weakness
And I ask to see you again
Yeah I heard you were sorry
By someone you call a friend
In a letter I wrote
That I’ll never send

(The song sort of takes a different route here, even the singing is different, the beat is slower – we are going into memory territory here, dreamlike almost. He’s reflecting about the past and previous mistakes – but here’s the clever thing – he sounds like he is drunk when he’s singing it. That’s really clever because we’ve all sat down and written drunken letters to lost loves and the ripped them up again in the morning)

Cause there’s ash in my heart
Where I used to burn
The young voices have vanished
The old whispers return
But there’s no one to hurt me
And there’s no one to hurt
Cause there’s ash in my heart
Where I used to burn

(The little mandolin (is it a mandolin?) that tinkles away through this bit is marvellous, as Hamilton continues to croon away, about voices and whispers, I think this is just a metaphor for the flame of love dying or something but the significant thing here is the drum and the way that pounds in, like the dreamlike bit is finished )

Pictures of us dancing
From a lifetime, a lifetime ago
You in a green dress and I in a tweed vest
In a blurry gang of ghosts
Pictures of us dancing
From a thousand years ago
Late enough to kiss you
Still too early to go

(I see an attic and Hamilton hunched over an old suitcase and sunshine fills a bit of the room through a small window which is probably cracked. We get this scene of him holding a picture when the lady is wearing a green dress and he is wearing (and its wonderfully rhymed) a tweed vest, in much happier times).

mp3 : Hamilton Leithauser and Rostam Batmanglij – You Ain’t That Young Kid

Outstanding.

SWC

Chic, Manic Street Preachers

CLAP YOUR HANDS, CLAP YOUR HANDS

There are days when I just want to wake up to something upbeat and glorious…..something which makes me think of sunshine and summertime and not the bleak midwinter that I’m looking out onto when I pull back the curtain, wondering whether I’m going to get down the hill to the railway station with falling over and possibly breaking my ankle, all the while wondering how late and overcrowded the train will be.

I played this on such a day last week and felt a whole lot better:-

mp3 : Chic – Everybody Dance (12” mix)

Takes me back to Sunday nights in a draughty church hall. I might have been happier in the bedroom that I shared with my brothers listening to my new wave 45s, but you had to get yourself down and on the floor of St Joe’s if you wanted the girls to take notice of you.

I didn’t know until gathering some background info that the tune had supposedly been borrowed somewhat by a Welsh beat combo on a single released in 2010:-

mp3 : Manic Street Preachers – (It’s Not War) Just the End of Love

Hmmm…there is a bit at the start where it can’t be denied, but it’s not a blatant rip-off is it?

JC

David Kitt

MONDAY MORNING…COMING DOWN (2)

David Kitt was born in Dublin in 1975 and he graduated from the famous Trinity College in his home city after a course in music technology during which he recorded and mixed the songs for his debut release, Small Moments, on a digital eight-track in his bedroom.

His next two albums, The Big Romance (2001) and Square One (2003) were absolutely massive in Ireland, and it was while I was visiting Dublin just after the release of the latter that I first came upon him, with friends absolutely raving about him.

I kept an eye on him for the remainder of the decade, catching him live a few times, including shows where he was the support act for Tindersticks, a band he would later become a full member of between 2010 and 2013. I haven’t followed him much since then, but if he is still in the business, then I’m sure he’ll still have a broad fanbase in his homeland.

This is a lovely, fragile and wonderfully-scored ballad from Square One and a Top 10 single for him in 2003:-

mp3 : David Kitt – Dance With You

JC

Paul Haig

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF PAUL HAIG (Part 14)

The lack of sales for Chain didn’t perturb Circa Records too much as they were happy enough to provide funding for Paul Haig a return to the studio to make a new album, scheduled for release in 1991.

The new material was being worked up in New York and Chicago with help from Mantronik and Lil’ Louis, along with contributions from The Chimes, whose drummer James Locke had been pals with Paul for years. In an interview given to Melody Maker at the time, Paul said:-

“This is essentially a dance album, but it has a lot of different elements in there that you don’t normally hear on dance albums. There’s a lot of hooks and pop influences, but no rock influences – thank God! The whole idea was to work with different producers and let them get on with it, which was a departure since I’d produced myself for so long.”

“We recorded the stuff with Mantronik at his Sound Factory studio. He works very quickly, rattling stuff off in a couple of hours. He replaced all my beats with a combination of programming and breakbeats, mostly ’70s funk stuff. Louis took a completely different approach. He replaced the rhythm tracks on two of the songs and one we left as was. He works with much more basic equipment – he’s not as computerised as Mantronik. There was absolutely no sampling with Louis, he’s much more into the ‘real musician’ school of thinking.”

The first single in October 1990 gave an indication of what to expect:-

mp3 : Paul Haig – I Believe In You

Yup….incredibly similar to how the Pet Shop Boys would develop their sound in later years…..Paul Haig was, again, ahead of the curve and yet again failed to sell many copies.

Here’s the 12″ edition with b-sides:-

mp3 : Paul Haig – I Believe In You (Life in a Dolphinarium Mix)
mp3 : Paul Haig – Flight X (Long Flight Mix)
mp3 : Paul Haig – I Believe In You (Loop Mix)

JC

Isoceles

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #146 : ISOSCLES

Isoceles were given a big write-up in The Guardian newspaper back in April 2008:-

Hometown: Glasgow.

The lineup: Jack Valentine (vocals, guitar), William Aikman (keyboards, vocals), Bobby Duff (drums, vocals), Andrew Wilson (bass, vocals)

The background: A year is a long time in pop music. And so it is that art scruffs Isosceles, typical of The Glasgow School (see also: Orange Juice and Josef K), have homed in with laser precision on CBGB-era bands for inspiration. Not 1976 or 1978, but 1977. To be really specific, their jerky, nervy art attack (featuring the sort of yelping Robert Smith/Tom Verlaine-ish vocals currently popular among the youngsters) recalls the first Talking Heads album (ie the one before they discovered Eno and funk), the first Richard Hell & The Voidoids LP Blank Generation, and Television’s epochal debut Marquee Moon (only the short, sharp, shockingly concise three- and four-minute tracks such as See No Evil and Friction rather than, say, the 10-minute title track with its lengthy rhythmic extrapolation of the central riff-motif)

Isosceles, featuring former mountain bike champion/music technology student/Belle & Sebastian LP cover star Valentine and maths prodigy Duff, only formed last year. They played their first gig at a rain-soaked DIY music festival cobbled together at a friend’s farm in the wilds of Scotland, the keyboards resting on bales of hay as electric fences buzzed menacingly in the background. The four-piece stunned the drenched revellers with titles such as Kitch (sic) Bitch, Get Your Hands Off and their eponymous theme song with its handclaps and wry, humorous self-aggrandising (“Look at what we’ve done, aren’t we having fun? Cos we’re marching…”). Suddenly the rain stopped falling, the clouds parted and the cows in the nearby field mooed as one. This was followed by a slot supporting Franz Ferdinand on their mini-tour of the highlands and islands in autumn 2007 after Alex Kapranos caught them live in a Clydeside warehouse. It was on this jaunt that Isosceles involved the audience by handing out triangles, at which point they decided they’d done the right thing by not calling themselves Parallelogram.

Their debut burst of ramshackle guitar pop, Get Your Hands Off, came out last autumn. Possibly the world’s first indie single to accuse women – drunk girls, rich girls – of being sex pests, its unlikely mix of Beefheart thrills and Modern Lovers drone augurs well for their self-produced second single, Kitch Bitch, which does a Common People by taking potshots at ladies who slum it. Good luck, fellas.

The buzz: “It’s no wonder Isosceles have been tipped as The Next Big Thing.”

The truth: So long as their female-baiting doesn’t repel half their potential audience, indie success is assured.

Most likely to: Make sub-editors sic (sic) with their misspellings.

Least likely to: Be played back-to-back with Hall & Oates’ Rich Girl on xfm.

What to buy: Kitch Bitch/Watertight is released by Art Goes Pop on May 5.

File next to: Talking Heads, Television, Scars, Kaiser Chiefs

As it turned out, they never got beyond releasing that second 45, seemingly fading away completely by the end of 2008.  I’ve a live version of the debut single, courtesy of its inclusion on a compilation CD picked up back in the day, but I thought I’d do a wee bit of villainous digging and come up with both sides of the debut single and the promo whch was made for the follow-up:-

mp3 : Isoceles – Get Your Hands Off
mp3 : Isoceles – I Go

Don’t know how the hell the Guardian writer invoked Talking Heads, Television and Scars…..but they are indeed as annoying as Kaiser Chiefs.

JC

Various

NOT HAD ONE OF THESE FOR A WHILE….

mp3 : Various – The Fourteen of February

aka Songs of Love from me to you

Track Listing

There’s A Girl In The Corner – Robert Smith
I/m Not Here – The Twilight Sad
Thieves Like Us – New Order
Party In The Dark – Mogwai
Alex Discord – Port Sulphur
Trees and Flowers – Strawberry Switchblade
F.U.U. – Dream Wife (feat. Fever Dream)
Lazy Day (version) – The Boo Radleys
Eject (over zealous mix) – Senser
The Rubettes – The Auteurs
Sparky’s Dream – Teenage Fanclub
Jack In Titanic – Bodega
Emotional Haircut – LCD Soundsystem
Fresher Than the Sweetness in Water – Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci

Oh and there’s also a hidden track at the very end to take it all way up to 59:59.

Sets things up for something of a crazy weekend….young brother is flying over from Florida for a four-day stay (and isn’t he in for a massive shock to his system with the near 30 degree Centigrade drop in temperature), as we have a family bash to celebrate mum’s 80th birthday.  I’ve also got the Rovers on Saturday where I’ll be playing the pre-match tunes and talking gibberish in between catching up with a mate who is coming up from England to watch it.

Happy Listening

JC