Month: June 2019

Hot Chip

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #216 : HOT CHIP

A GUEST POSTING by jimdoes

Ok, this is an unashamedly ‘greatest hits’ based ICA. Because Hot Chip are definitely more of a singles band – their albums are good but, much as I love their music, I don’t think they’ve ever released a truly great album. Whereas I think a ‘best of greatest hits’ would be incredible. If I was introducing someone to the magic of Hot Chip I’d always go with the singles so that’s what I’ve mostly done here – they are always so good and guaranteed to get me dancing. The lead track “Hungry Child” off their new album perfectly illustrates my point – it’s brilliant!

But there are so many good songs, it’s hard for me to cut it down to ten tracks – so I’ve just gone with all my favourites. Hot Chip are one of those bands that remind me of my closest group of friends – they all love them and we’ve all screamed, shouted, whistled, danced and hugged each other while watching them live more times than I can remember.

READY FOR THE FLOOR – A HOT CHIP ICA

1) Ready For The Floor (From Made In The Dark)

Do it do it do it do it now. For Lola my daughter – she first saw Hot Chip when she was 13 – all rave paint and glow sticks at LoveBox.

2) Boy From School (From The Warning)

I’ve no idea why but it took me a while to warm to Hot Chip. Alexis Taylor hasn’t got the strongest voice and they don’t look cool and are just not very rock n roll. And they are not as full-on ravey as the likes of Underworld and Orbital – I guess they fall somewhere between dance and indie without being either. Anyway I hated this song when I first heard it but my friend Suzy always liked them and kept playing this song to me until I was converted.

3) Flutes + Flutes (Sasha remix) (From In Our Heads)

Bit of a cheat here – the original is great but the Sasha remix takes the song into a whole new territory. For my brother Simon as he likes a bit of a dance to this one.

4) Huarache Lights (From Why Make Sense)

Named after a type of Nike Trainer. But the song’s not about shoes. Singer Alexis Taylor explains it as, “It’s about the joy of playing a show. The image of Huarache trainers seemed to sum up how something meaningless can encapsulate the happiness of a moment.” What a lovely thought. For Anna – who I’ve never seen Hot Chip with but she loves them too.

5 One Life Stand (From One Life Stand)

Romantic and soppy – a song with a great sentiment. For Lucie, my wife.

6) Over and Over (From The Warning)

LAAAAAIIIIID BACK. For Darren as he always barks the words to this.

7) Brothers (From One Life Stand)

A song about loving all your male friends – a subject that isn’t touched upon too often in popular music. Always causes a mass hug amongst my friends when they play it live. This one’s for all of them. It’s a wild love that I have for my brothers.

8) Hold On (From Made In The Dark)

For Jessica. Dancing at Brixton Academy. Always.

9) No Fit State (From The Warning)

This is traditionally the first track played in the car on the way back from Glastonbury – started by one of my oldest friends Nick – this one’s for him.

10) Let Me Be Him (From In Our Heads)

EPIC. Uplifting. A fitting end to this ICA. This one’s for me.

Bonus Track

Gabriel by Joe Goddard

Because it’s a truly great record – my favourite song of 2011 and one that still graces long car journeys. I’ve included it because from time to time Hot Chip play it live. Not sure if it counts as a cover version or not – Hot Chip always do great cover versions – 1999, Dancing In The Dark, and on their most recent tour Sabotage.

xxxjim

 

Marc Almond

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF MARC ALMOND (Part 29-34)

The next two weeks will bring an end to this particular series.

I lost track of Marc Almond‘s career at the turn of the century with Open All Night being the last of his music that I bought at the time of release.  I’ve looked things up and to my surprise, have learned that he has released a further 14 albums this century (taking the total to 24) and, according to wiki, there have been 12 singles in the period 2001-2017, none of which charted.

I’ve tried my best to track down each of the singles, but obviously I don’t have the b-sides.  I’m also being lazy but doing some cut’n’pasting from wiki for the background info:-

(29) Glorious (from the 2001 album, Stranger Things)

Stranger Things is the eleventh solo studio album by the British singer/songwriter Marc Almond. It was released by Blue Star Music, in conjunction with XIII BIS Records, on 18 June 2001.

According to an article in Billboard magazine, the sound of Stranger Things “finds a middle ground between the spare gothic synth-pop of Open All Night and the orchestral grandeur of 1991’s Tenement Symphony. Almond employed the services of Jóhann Jóhannsson, Icelandic multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer, to produce the album. Jóhannsson also plays most of the instruments, with some assistance from other musicians from Iceland, and is responsible for many of the arrangements.

(30) Gone But Not Forgotten (from the 2003 album, Heart On Snow)

Heart on Snow is the twelfth solo studio album by the British singer/songwriter Marc Almond. It was released by Blue Star Music, in conjunction with XIII BIS Records, on 21 October 2003.

An article by the BBC describes how Almond “went to St Petersburg to interpret traditional Russian romance songs” to make what “may have become his most ambitious album so far”. Almond mostly sang cover versions of traditional Russian songs, including a number from the Russian romance canon, and collaborated with a number of Russian artists on the album, such as Alla Bayanova and Lyudmila Zykina.

(31) I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten (from the 2007 album, Stardom Road)

Stardom Road is the thirteenth solo studio album by the British singer/songwriter Marc Almond. It was released by Sanctuary Records on 4 June 2007.

Stardom Road was Almond’s first new album after his involvement in a near-fatal traffic accident in October 2004. It is an album composed mostly of cover versions, a fact borne out of necessity as Almond found himself unable to write following the accident. Almond told Time Out that the album is intended as “a trip down memory lane, a musical journey from the 1950s to where he finds himself today”.

The album features collaborations with Sarah Cracknell, Antony Hegarty and Jools Holland, with some of the tracks also featuring members of Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra.

(NB : The single features the Saint Etienne chanteuse…..)

(32) Gabriel b/w The Lunatic Lover (from the 2011 album, Feasting With Panthers)

Feasting with Panthers is the sixteenth solo studio album by the British singer/songwriter Marc Almond. The album is credited to Almond and Michael Cashmore, of Current 93 and Nature and Organisation, with both given equal billing. The album was released by Strike Force Entertainment, part of Cherry Red Records, on 30 May 2011.

Marc Almond first worked with Michael Cashmore when Almond contributed guest vocals to the Current 93 album Black Ships Ate the Sky. They next collaborated as Marc Almond & Michael Cashmore for the EP Gabriel and the Lunatic Lover in 2008 and continued to occasionally work together until they completed Feasting with Panthers. The album is entirely composed of poetry set to music and was produced with both artists separate at all times with music and vocals being sent back and forth. The Guardian describes the album as “a sumptuous piano-driven collaboration with Michael Cashmore, featuring songs derived from the poetry of Jean Cocteau, Gérard de Nerval and Jean Genet”, which Almond in the same article calls “decadent poetry translated by Jeremy Reed.

(NB : The album was released in 2011, but the single pre-dated it somewhat, being issued as far back as 2008)

(33) Nijinsky Heart (from the 2010 album, Varieté)

Varieté is the fifteenth studio album by the British singer/songwriter Marc Almond. It was released on 7 June 2010 through Strike Force Entertainment, part of Cherry Red Records.

Varieté marks Almond’s 30th year as a recording artist. It is his first album of original material in nine years. At the time of its release, Almond himself stated it would be his final album of original material as he had increasingly become more interested in recording pre-existing songs (as many of his covers albums have showcased), but this would prove to be untrue and he went on to record further original material afterwards. Much of it is self-produced and co-written with longtime collaborators Neal Whitmore and Martin Watkins.

(34) Burn Bright b/w The Dancing Marquis (from the 2014 album, The Dancing Marquis)

The Dancing Marquis is the eighteenth solo studio album by the British singer/songwriter Marc Almond. It was released by Strike Force Entertainment / Cherry Red Records on 16 June 2014.

The Dancing Marquis compiles the songs from the limited edition 7″ vinyl EPs Burn Bright and Tasmanian Tiger together with two new tracks and two remixes. The album features guest appearances from Jarvis Cocker and Carl Barât, and some of the tracks were produced by Tony Visconti.

JC

Jolt

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #164: THE JOLT

I remember some local press about The Jolt, a band from the late 70s who really talked up The Jam as being an influence.

This is what wiki had to say:-

The Jolt were a Scottish band formed in Wishaw in 1976.

They started out playing 1960s covers and then sped up their music, playing a mix of punk rock and power pop. The lineup was Robbie Collins (guitar, vox), Jim Doak (bass, vox) and Iain Shedden (drums). The band built up its following playing at the Crown Hotel, Wishaw. They enjoyed moderate success during the punk and early new wave era. They moved to London, England and signed to Polydor Records. They opened for bands such as The Jam, The Saints, Generation X and The Motors. They were precursors to the mod revival, which came to fruition around 1979, the year the band split.

They actually covered a Jam song, See-Saw, and it has been included in the excellent and comprehensive Big Gold Dreams box set that I’ve referenced a few times.  But rather than that, here’s one of the three singles they recorded for Polydor:-

mp3 : The Jolt – You’re Cold

It’s their hugely enjoyable just-under-two-minutes-long debut, dating from 1977, and is more punk than mod orientated….I’m assuming their sound evolved and was moulded somewhat by the record label bosses.

JC

View

SUPERSTAR TRADESMAN

I don’t think Superstar Tradesman quite qualifies for inclusion as a song lyric making for a great short story, but there is a very clear message being put across:-

Superstar tradesman, stand at the bar
Get a trade son, you will go far
You have a house in The Ferry and a new guitar
That’s never been played before and it never will
Never been played before and it never will

This was the second single to be released by The View, a band from the Dryburgh area of Dundee, Scotland. It’s not the most salubrious of communities but has long enjoyed a strong working class/blue collar tradition in which the most important thing for any young lad leaving school was to get himself a job, and preferably one in which he could learn a trade, such as electrician, plumber, joiner, bricklayer/builder or heating engineer, that would ensure a comfortable(ish) life in years to come.

The boys in the band were no doubt hearing this, if not from their parents then certainly from other members of their extended families. They might have talents in singing and playing of instruments, but it was no guarantee of success or a decent income. Much better to take the well-trodden path and once you’ve got your new house in Broughty Ferry (a very salubrious community on the eastern fringe of Dundee), you can buy yourself a decent new guitar and have another go at making it as you’ll have something solid to fall back on.

The boys, however, know that once you give up on the dream, even if it’s in your best financial interests to do so, it will never be realised; and while the trappings of a comfortable life might enable you to purchase a new Fender Stratocaster, it will just sit in its case rather than be put to good use.

mp3 : The View – Superstar Tradesman

The song crashed high into the charts in late October 2006, straight in at #15 on the back of what had been some four weeks of advance play across radio stations, including the accolade of ‘Record of the Week’ on a BBC Radio 1 show. The following week, however, it had dropped out of the Top 40 altogether, indicating that while there was a large and dedicated fan base, there was little evidence of them reaching a wider market.

The b-side was a cover, and an absolute stinker at that:-

mp3 : The View – Up The Junction

It had been recorded for a Radio 1 session in August 2006 and the label decided it should be utilised for the 7” vinyl and CD single. It was a bad call……………

JC

Grinderman

THE GRINDERMAN SINGLES (7)

I mentioned last time out about my unwillingness to get involved in the shenanigans around Record Store Day which means that Palaces of Montezuma is  the only physical copy of a Grinderman single not in the collection.

The facts coming up are that Evil was also part of Record Store Day 2011, but that’s not my recollection.  I certainly picked up a copy outside of RSD and I still smile at the idea of someone at Mute Records coming up with the idea that it be given the catalogue number of MUTE 666.

mp3 : Grinderman – Evil (album version)
mp3 : Grinderman – Evil (The ‘Michael Cliffe House’ Remix)
mp3 : Grinderman – First Evil
mp3 : Grinderman – Evil (‘Silver Alert’ Remix)

The Silver Alert remix has a guest vocal contribution from Matt Beringer of The National and it’s most likely the strangest thing he’s ever done.  All told, it’s a very bizarre and very unconventional 12″.

JC

Wild Billy Childish & The MBEs

THE ULTIMATE BREAK-UP SONG FOR THE MUSO ANORAKS GENERATION

Billy Childish was, for years, one of those artists whom I knew of by reputation rather than being in possession of any of his music. All that changed with the purchase of Archive From 1959 – The Billy Childish Story an epic 51-track compilation released on Damaged Goods back in 2009. The record label offered up this as background:-

Billy Childish has been releasing records, painting, writing poetry and generally doing his own thing for the past 32 years.

He first took to the stage back in October 1977 with seminal punk garage band The Pop Rivets, they split after two years and from there he joined The Milkshakes along with fellow Pop Riveter Bruce Brand and local lads Micky Hampshire & Russ Wilkins, after that came Thee Mighty Caesars, Thee Headcoats, The Buff Medways and right up to date with his two current ensembles The Musicians Of The British Empire & The Chatham Singers.

This 51 Track compilation is a look back at the more Rock N Roll aspects of his musical career which is why there’s no spoken word or poetry on this album.

In amongst these more well known bands are tracks he recorded solo and with other artistes like The Delmonas, Thee Headcoatees, Singing Loins, Kyra Rubella etc.

Over the years Billy has been championed by lots of great bands and musicians including Beck, Mudhoney and Kurt Cobain and more recently by Eddie Vedder & The White Stripes. Even with that praise Billy has been largely ignored by the music press in this country which is really surprising as he has now released over 120 albums (including 4 on one day!).

Many of the tracks on this compilation have been unavailable for ages and some also have never appeared on CD as well as many unpublished photos on the cover and 12 page booklet.

Lois Wilson (Mojo) has writing the sleeve notes and there will also be a deluxe triple vinyl version as well as a double CD digipak deluxe package.

Now seems to be the perfect time for people to catch up with what he has been doing for the last 32 years.

The compilation features songs attributed to no less than 12 differently named acts. As such, it does suffer a little bit from inconsistency but it’s fair to say that it makes a fairly compelling listen, albeit I usually find myself hitting the FF button on every occasion, albeit not for the same songs every time. One my favourites is a single released back in 2008:-

mp3 : Wild Billy Childish And The Musicians of the British Empire – He’s Making A Tape

There’s a case to be made that this is the ultimate break-up song for the muso anoraks generation. I’m surely not alone in having spent hour after hour in my bedroom working out the best way to fill up both sides of a C90 cassette in order to gain the attention of someone with whom you hoped intimacy would appear on the agenda. Furthermore, I can understand the anguish being ably demonstrated by vocalist Nurse Julie (aka Julie Hamper aka Mrs Billy Childish) given that there was period in my life when I was married to someone but spent a fair bit of time lovingly compiling tapes to pass onto someone with whom I was having an affair to demonstrate the extent and quality of music in my collection (it obviously worked as I’ve now been living with the recipient of the tapes for nearly 30 years!!).

It’s just two minutes in length, and comprises a great tune and very droll and funny lyric. But obviously not if you’re on the receiving end.

JC

Blink-182

ANOTHER LULLABY

One of the most pleasantly surprising things in my lifetime of appreciating music was owning up to loving a song by Blink-182.

This most juvenile, annoying and misogynist of bands somehow released an absolute belter of a single back in 2004:-

mp3 : Blink-182 – I Miss You

They’re a band that I was more aware of than I should have been or would like to have been, but that’s all down to Mrs Villain as she has long had a soft spot for them, arguing that the juvenile and annoying misogyny was very much tongue-in-cheek and more of a pisstake than anything else. She really hooked onto the band through their promo videos, which were a staple of the many music channels which came ‘free’ via the satellite TV package we had through our service provider and I was never allowed to hop over to another channel anytime the band burst onto the screen.

To be fair, I did laugh at how they poked fun at boybands, and in particular The Backstreet Boys, in the promo for All The Small Things – indeed, I wasn’t aware of how much of a pastiche the promo was until I saw some Backstreet Boys video years later as part of one of those ‘what year was this?’ show.

One of the things that really got in my way of liking the band was the vocal delivery of guitarist Tom DeLonge, a man who was known within Villain Towers as Mr Shouty. Blink-182 deployed two vocalists, and while bassist Mark Hoppus had a fairly inoffensive style of singing, not too far removed from the tortured souls of the men with acoustic guitars, Tom DeLonge just yelled everything at listeners, clearly in the belief that it was the only way to get anyone’s attention. The fact that he did so in videos in which he appeared naked, with his modestly either pixelated out or covered by a guitar, made it all the more unbearable.

So, it was a huge shock when the video for I Miss You made me look up again at the screen and then retained my attention.

For one, it sounded like The Cure when Robert Smith has decided to compose another of his superb songs about his relationship with his wife. The tune was entirely acoustic with some strings to add to the mood. The drummer was using brushes instead of sticks and the lyric was being sung beautifully by Mark.

And then Mr Shouty joins in with a cry of ‘Where are yaaaaa?’

But, here’s the thing, he does it in a fairly understated way that doesn’t take away from the song. Even when he does raise the tone a bit in the chorus, the harshness is cushioned by his mate crooning ‘I Miss You’ in the background.

It does seem like the band took The Cure as the starting point for the song and not just in terms of the tune and ambience. The lyric refers to webs, spiders and the sort of things they eat, much in the same way as Lullaby had provided the band with their best ever UK chart performance in 1989.

I Miss You took Blink-182 into the Top 10 of UK singles chart – the only other time they achieved that was with the afore-mentioned All The Small Things. I think you’d be hard pushed to come up with an act whose two biggest 45s were so diverse in mood and tempo.

JC

Various

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL AN ICA (v)

I’m due back in Glasgow at some point today and will get the blog back to some sort of normality in due course..

Just a reminder that this series has been a pastiche of the NOW albums which, since their inception in 1983 have been, for want of a better word, a shit listen, bought in the main by folk who don’t explore much beyond the mainstream fodder.

The words used to describe each of the songs have been lifted from the particular individual ICA in question. There’s a multitude of contributors, but I’ve decided against highlighting who wrote what…..I like to see this, and indeed the entire output of T(n)VV as a collective.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL AN ICA….(v)

SIDE A

Daft Punk is Playing At My House – LCD Soundsystem (Track 1 from ICA#9)

I’ve gone for Soulwax Mix simply because of the bit where it goes ‘DOWNTOWN’

This was LCD Soundsystem’s most successful song, earning a Grammy nod and reaching No. 29 on the UK charts. It’s not hard to see why. Murphy always knew how to start a party, from the opening “OW! OW!” to the smashing hi-hats to cowbells and even reminding us that he had moved the furniture to the garage. A belter of a record.

Electricity – OMD (Track 2 from ICA#151)

The first single by OMD and less polished that the later re-recorded and better-known versions for DinDisc.

The story goes that following a successful debut gig at Eric’s in Liverpool, at which they supported Joy Division, the duo sent off a tape of their demo to Tony Wilson in the hope of having it released on Factory. The boss wasn’t that keen on it, but his wife, Lindsay Reade, thought Electricity sounded good and so he decided to release it on a one-off basis with it becoming just the third piece of vinyl to be issued by the label, with 5,000 copies pressed up. It received a fair bit of critical praise and although it didn’t chart, set the duo up for a multi-album deal and the initial steps along the road to fame and fortune. How different might have the Factory story turned out if OMD had been offered and signed a long-term deal with the label…..

The Hellcat Spanged Shalala – Arctic Monkeys (Track 3 from ICA#193)

After ‘Humbug’ the band abandoned trying to be a South Yorkshire version of the Queens of the Stone Age and returned to making beautifully wistful guitar pop and it suited them down to the ground – and you know what – I think right now, ‘Suck It and See’ is my favourite of their albums, is it their best – not sure – but I personally don’t think that they have ever sounded as confident and as sparkling as they do in this song. It’s marvellous.

I Wanna Be Sedated – The Ramones (Track 4 from ICA#185)

“I Wanna Be Sedated” was described by the author Brian J. Bowe as one of the band’s “most classic” pieces of music. After a show in London, Joey told manager Linda Stein: “Put me in a wheelchair and get me on a plane before I go insane”. This quote would be the chorus to “I Wanna Be Sedated”, whose lyrics invoke the stress which the band was under during touring. It is the most downloaded song from the catalog by The Ramones.

Party Fears Two – Associates (Track 5 from ICA#141)

The 45 that delivered on Billy’s dreams and ambitions. Their best known few minutes and among their finest. Enough has been written before about, both on this blog and elsewhere. Just enjoy the full majesty of the 12” version with its fabulous drawn-out ending.

SIDE B

Who The Fuck? – PJ Harvey (Track 6 from ICA#63)

Now we’re talking! PJ’s angry. Someone’s pissed her off and she can’t wait to tell us. Coming across like a demented Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, WTF? kicks like an angry mule, a fuzztoned, vocally distorted, brilliant mess of a record.

It’s a sloppy, stroppy, brilliantly sweary track. If you took ten wasps in a jar and stuck them in a food blender with the short-lived RRRRRiot Grrrrrrl movement, it would sound something like this.

Pump It Up – Elvis Costello & The Attractions (Track 7 from ICA#136)

I observed that, while I wasn’t that fond of Costello’s genre exercises and anemic later-career albums, I rated his early LPs so highly that “I don’t think I could narrow down a 10 song ICA from just his recordings with the Attractions.” It was Brian who responded: “Nobody has had the guts to do that so far.”

Of course Brian’s right. I once made a playlist for my daughter of ‘essential’ EC songs and there were almost 100 on it.

No, there’s absolutely no way to have a 10-song Elvis Costello ICA. So, what the hell — with no discussion of the songs at all here’s an ICA of the TEN BEST songs by Elvis Costello and the Attractions.

Echo Beach – Martha & The Muffins (Track 8 from ICA#27)

I nearly didn’t put Echo Beach on this compilation. After all, you already know it, you’ve probably got it, and if you want to hear it, you can just hang around any supermarket with an in-store radio station and it’ll turn up soon enough. But it’s here anyway, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because inevitably nothing else on “Metro Music” really comes close. I was going to use the follow-up single Saigon, but the write-up came down to “it’s pretty good, but it’s not Echo Beach”, so what’s a diligent compiler to do? More importantly, if we’re going to pretend that this could be a proper vinyl album, then let’s face it: there’s no way on Earth that you’d ever do a Martha And The Muffins compilation and NOT put Echo Beach on it. Apart from anything else, it’s just too damn good. So good, in fact, it was very nearly a career killer.

Man In The Corner Shop – The Jam (Track 9 from ICA#52)

There’s something intrinsically sad about this mid-paced number which I’ve always thought is a hidden gem of a song.

I’ve never thought its central message was that everyone is born equal; nor do I think Paul Weller thinks that to be the case and so his tongue is very much in his cheek when he sings those particular lines. The sadness come from the fact that neither of the factory worker or shop owner are happy with their lot and both believe the grass on the other side is a much more favourable shade of green. Even sadder isturning your thoughts to what was likely to have happened to the protagonists in real life over the subsequent 2-3 years….a factory closure and redundancy for the blue-collar worker and the end of the family business for the shop owner as the supermarkets take over? Most likely…..and and as for the factory owner….well, he was never really ever any better off than the other two….maybe just a little bit richer in financial terms. In other words, the central message of Man In The Corner Shop is really quite simple……………………….

Life Sucks.

There Is No Ending – Arab Strap (Track 10 from ICA#14)

The closing track on the closing album. After dozens of songs that dealt with teenage and 20-something angst here’s one that celebrates love lasting forever until you grow old.

For a band that had to face up to so many accusations of being latent miserablists this is an extraordinary way to sign off and it captures Aidan Moffat for what I think he is – romantic at heart. For the most part in the Arab Strap canon he’s been a sad and depressed romantic all too often seeking solace in the comfort of the bottle or from the drugs cabinet but now at last he’s happy and looking forward to the future and he wants the world to know it.

A joyous and wonderful anthem to finish things off.

ENDS

Marc Almond

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF MARC ALMOND (Part 26-28)

Open All Night, released in March 1999, was the tenth solo studio to be released by Marc Almond. It was on Blue Star Music, a new indie label that he himself had founded and on which all his UK releases would appear for the next decade

It’s a fascinating album with a couple of guest contributions, not least from The Creatures (aka Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie), and in songwriting terms was a continuation of the partnership forged with Neal X (aka Neal Whitmore) on Fantastic Star.

Some six months prior to the album, Marc had issued a single on Echo Records, a subsidiary of major label Chrysalis. I’m assuming both parties were testing each other out and decided there would be no point in any long term relationship, for it proved to be his only release for the label.

(26) Black Kiss b/w Satan’s Child b/w Black Kiss (Live at The Almeida) (October 1998 – #84 in the UK charts)

I think it’s worth giving you Ned Raggett‘s review of this single from the All Music website:-

Though the only single released via his abortive deal with Echo Records, “Black Kiss” proved to be the signal of Almond’s full artistic renaissance. The first offering from what would become Open All Night, “Black Kiss” blends spare, jungle-touched production with spooky, Brazilian-derived music and vibes (heightened by the inclusion of Henrique da Silva’s muffled backing vocals). It’s a magnificent performance from Almond and his band both, continuing his night-prowling lyrical vibe with surprising, intriguing new results. A live version also appears, with da Silva briefly explaining at Almond’s prompting the voodoo-derived background of the mysterious “queen of the night” who figures in the song. A separate stand-alone track also crops up which surfaced on Open All Night’s American release — “Satan’s Child,” a finger-snapping, brassy number that finds Almond tackling his Eartha Kitt/Vegas cabaret side with a tech-sharp edge. It’s not quite Foetus, but it’s a calmer kissing cousin.

The move to a self-financed indie brought to an end the idea of Marc Almond being someone who would bother the singles charts given the costs involved in issuing, promoting and hyping any such releases, but two tracks from Open All Night were nevertheless issued, one of which accompanied the album and the other much later in the year.

(27) Tragedy (Take A Look and See) b/w Beautiful Losers (March 1999 – did not chart)

(28) My Love b/w Threat of Love b/w One Big Soul (October 1999 – did not chart)

The former is a slow-paced number at which Marc tends to excel, although this one has a bit of a pop-tune feel rather than it having the kitchen sink thrown at it….it’s almost the sort of thing that boy bands have hits with.  The b-side is a blend of trip-hop and pop and the fact that it didn’t make the final cut for the album just highlights how much of a good listen it is…..it certainly shouldn’t have been the monumental flop it turned out, not even cracking the Top 100 in the UK.

The latter is a great listen.  The lead track could well have been a tune composed by Beck with Marc adding a lovely camp lyric on top.  The first of the b-sides is the album track on which The Creatures guested, and it’s every bit as wonderful as you’d hope and Almond/Sioux collaboration would sound.  The final track is a happy upbeat number, and again it’s a bit of a mystery as to why it was left off the parent album.

JC

John Martyn

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #163 : JOHN MARTYN

From The Guardian, 30 January 2009:-

Ain’t No Saint was the title of the four-CD restrospective of John Martyn’s career, released to mark his 60th birthday last September. The name could hardly have been more apt, since Martyn, who died yesterday, became renowned for a career that lurched between triumph and disaster, both personal and musical. Drugs, drunken brawls and marital breakdown littered his CV, but then so did several of the most enduring and idiosyncratic albums made by a British artist in the last 40 years.

Martyn was born Iain David McGeachy in New Malden, Surrey. His parents, Betty and Tommy, were professional light-operatic singers who worked the postwar variety circuit, singing Gilbert and Sullivan in period costume. They divorced when their son was five, and Tommy took the boy back to his native Scotland, where he proved academically gifted. However, he became fascinated by the music he heard in the Glasgow folk clubs, and felt galvanised towards a musical career by the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and British guitarist Davey Graham.

By 1967 he had moved back to London, living like a hobo and carrying only whatever he could cram into his guitar case. He changed his name to John Martyn on the advice of a booking agent and was snapped up by Island Records. His debut album, London Conversation, recorded in a few hours, had a somewhat conventional approach that did not reflect the true Martyn, who was soon introducing elements of jazz and experimental electronics into his music. “I didn’t like that finger-in-the-ear stuff,” he said later. “I’ve never been the morris dancing type. I’m a funky, not a folkie.”

His 1970 album Stormbringer! found him collaborating with his new wife, Beverley Kutner, and taking an innovative approach using phase-shifting and Echoplex devices with which he could create a one-man wall of sound.
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The Road to Ruin (1970) and Bless the Weather (1971) marked the start of Martyn’s long musical relationship with jazz bassist Danny Thompson, and he was beginning to perfect a slurring, impressionistic vocal style that complemented the rich ambiguities of his music. He often cited the avant-garde saxophonist Pharoah Sanders as an inspiration. He hit a creative peak with 1973’s Solid Air, which included May You Never – covered by Eric Clapton on Slowhand in 1977, earning Martyn the largest royalty cheque of his career.

Happy to play the poet-ruffian, Martyn threw himself into American tours with Free and Traffic, where groupies and drug abuse were integral. He gave full vent to his vagabond ways while touring his Sunday’s Child album in 1975, accompanied by Thompson and former Free guitarist Paul Kossoff. The atmosphere grew fraught when Kossoff broke a bottle over his head, and a Melody Maker journalist, Allan Jones, described seeing Martyn backstage “looking like he’d been drinking since the dawn of time”.

Dabblings with heroin and an American tour with Clapton took Martyn to the brink. He split up with Beverley and made the infamously bleak break-up album Grace and Danger (1980) with help from Phil Collins. He married his second wife, Annie Furlong, in 1983 but they later separated.

Collins produced Martyn’s next album, Glorious Fool (1981), but further plans were scuppered when a drunken Martyn broke several ribs by impaling himself on a fence. By now he had left Island for WEA, but their plans to expose him to a wider audience were doomed. By 1984 he was back with Island and recorded Sapphire and Piece by Piece, but Island dropped him again in 1988.

The Apprentice (1990) and Cooltide (1991) appeared on Permanent Records. In 1996 he released And, on Go! Discs, also home to Portishead. Perhaps influenced by the latter, he explored the use of samples and triphop beats, and a Talvin Singh remix of the album track Sunshine’s Better won plenty of radio play. Glasgow Walker (2000) featured more triphop adventures, and Martyn modified his approach further by writing on keyboard rather than guitar. In 2001 he featured on DJ/musician Sister Bliss’s electronica track, Deliver Me.

In 2006 the BBC screened the documentary Johnny Too Bad, which followed Martyn as he wrote and recorded the album On the Cobbles, and also covered the amputation of his right leg, made necessary by a burst cyst. He remained stoical, but his weight ballooned to 20 stone. He retreated to his farmhouse in Thomastown, Kilkenny, with his partner Theresa to recuperate.

Martyn was greatly touched to be given a lifetime achievement award at the Radio 2 folk awards last year. Collins made the presentation, and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones accompanied him on mandolin as he performed May You Never and Over the Hill. Speaking at the award ceremony, Martyn said: “I didn’t set out to achieve anything. I was driven. I’m still driven. It wasn’t like a great mission to save folk music.”

He was appointed OBE in the latest new year honours. He is survived by Theresa and his two children, Mhairi and Spencer.

• John Martyn (Iain David McGeachy), musician, born 11 September 1948; died 29 January 2009

mp3 : John Martyn – May You Never

JC