THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF PAUL HAIG (Part 20)

I promised you last week that the final part of this, what I hope has been an informative and enjoyable series, would be worthwhile.

Those of you who have been with me since the days of the original Vinyl Villain Blog (born 30 Sep 2006, murdered by Google on 24 July 2013) will know that Paul Haig embraced and encouraged the sort of things this and other places do to respect music and musicians.

In March 2009, I put up a post which featured two Edinburgh acts – Paul Haig and Hey! Elastica. To my surprise and anger, Google acted on a dmca notice and removed the post and the links. The bizarre thing was that the offending post had been written on the back of an e-mail from someone associated with Paul Haig’s management thanking me for featuring him previously on TVV, the knock-on effect of which led to Paul himself contributing a couple of lines to the post, which was just a huge thrill for me. Oh and the song was one which was impossible to have unless you owned a particular piece of vinyl from the 80s.

It turned out that Paul and his management team were every bit as pissed off about it as I was, offering encouragement and then getting in touch with Google to express their dismay. Paul then sent me an email to say I had full permission to provide a free mp3 of his single Reason as his way of expressing solidarity with music bloggers whom he knew were doing a lot to encourage the sale of music and not just acting as thieves or pirates.

All this led to the genesis of an idea for bloggers to say thank you back to Paul, which we did by having Paul Haig Day on 6 April 2009, with more than 50, the world over, of us dedicating our posts on that date to his music, whether solo or with his old band. It even got a mention on a music station in New York City!!

The idea was repeated in 2010, and even more bloggers joined in. But what made it particularly special was that Paul offered up, not only more words of encouragement, but provide The Vinyl Villain with the opportunity to feature what was, at that point in time, an exclusive brand new remix of a song:-

mp3 : Paul Haig – Trip Out The Rider (remix)

Trip Out The Rider was the lead off track from Paul’s 2009 album, Relive, a work which at long last was seeing him get credit for much of what was happening in the world of indie music, and in particular, his influence of the likes of Franz Ferdinand. It also saw him revisit a few old songs, including Listen To Me (from has time working with Billy Mackenzie and which I featured a couple of weeks back) as well as Round and Round on which he had worked with Malcolm Ross, with the latter including it on one his own solo LPs as far back as 1995.

Paul, in providing the exclusive remix, also let me tell the world that a further remix of Trip Out The Rider had been done by Fred Deakin from Lemon Jelly, the highly innovative UK electronic act, and would be made available as a very exclusive 7″ vinyl single later in 2010….1 November 2010 as it turned out:-

mp3 : Paul Haig – Trip Out The Rider (Impotent Fury remix)

And, alongside the track made available via the blog almost seven months previous, was this b-side:-

mp3 : Paul Haig – Signals (Impotent Fury remix)

The three tracks have, to this point, been the final single released by Paul Haig. In recent years, he’s gone back to albums only, releasing Kube in 2013 on ROL while 2018 saw him return yet again to Les Disques du Crépuscule for his 13th solo album, The Wood, in which he has pushed the boundaries even further than he did on his Cinematique series, featuring nine pieces of music composed over a three year period, packed with samples, electronica and passages of guitar for which one reviewer wrote:-

“Haig has put together a work that’s in turns provocative, danceable, obscure, immediate and beguilingly rum. What The Wood actually consists of is eight pieces that mostly are dance/trance-orientated with repeated vocal motifs. The concept gives it an added edge and with a little imagination you can feel the eerie peace of the Forest and the skips and dips of the mind. Aside from the concept there is plenty to get one to, cough, ‘cut a rug’. But everything here fits and you have to admire Haig’s craftsmanship in the way it has been put together – producing a musical storybook without words in effect. Forty years into his recording career he’s still breaking new ground.”

The 1980s me might have struggled a bit with The Wood, but my tastes have thankfully expanded. I’ll be saying more about this remarkable album in the fullness of time, but for now thanks for sticking with the past 20 Sunday posts. The spotlight will be turned on someone different, but equally as interesting, from next week.

JC