Month: July 2019

Various

TWO REPEAT POSTS COMING UP

JC writes…

The world and its auntie went crazy for the headlining performance by The Cure at Glastonbury a couple of weeks back. I was going to write something on the back of it, linking in to the fact that the next Simply Thrilled event is on Friday 16 August immediately on the back on an outdoor show in Glasgow by the band at which the special guests will be Mogwai and The Twilight Sad. But no matter how hard I would try, it would never top the ICA written back in March 2018 by our late and much-missed friend Tim Badger, for which there was also, uniquely, a superb scene-setter the day before.

Today, myself and Aldo are off to Dublin and tomorrow we will make our way by train to Westport where I’ll again take part in some celebrations to remember the life and times of my late brother, Davie, who died in a car crash in Ireland exactly nine years ago today. I also intend to raise a toast to Tim’s memory.

It somehow seems fiiting and appropriate to use the next two days to repost Tim’s amazing words about Robert Smith & co.

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON 8 MARCH 2018

A GUEST POSTING by TIM BADGER

Quite a while ago, my blogging buddy SWC and I went to the cricket, and as usual we decided to do one of our ‘Mucking Around ICAs’ each, when the 11th song came on the iPod. My 11th song was The Cure (SWC’s was Blur by the way and he has so far refused to write it). So I contacted JC and said I would write him an ICA on The Cure. Then I went to Australia so it got parked.

Last week I decided to write it. However I started this story as an introduction and realised that it was quite a long story in its own right, so I decided to send this in on its own and the ICA could follow.

A very very long time ago, I had a jumper. It was old, battered, baggy and black. It was an almost exact replica of a jumper that Bob Smith from The Cure wore. I loved that jumper. Girls loved that jumper. I am not ashamed to say that I called that jumper ‘Bob’, after the aforementioned lipstick smudged singer from The Cure.

One night I went to a pub in Leeds called Churchills, it was a big pub frequented by the alternative crowd, largely because around ten pm the upstairs part of the bar would be transformed into a nightclub and an indie disco would take place and occasionally a band would turn up and play. I would wear Bob over the top of a band TShirt alongside a pair of black drainpipes and a pair of Doc Martens and try and look cool in the corner. I would then wait for the DJ to play The Cure or the Pixies or New Order or if I was feeling daring Ministry and then I would launch myself on to the dancefloor, Bob’s sleeves causally pulled down over my hands in order to give myself a bit more mystique.

I used to have a great time at Churchills, it was one of the few places left in the city that served snakebite and black, a legendary if not slightly lethal drink adored by the alternative and big haired crowd. Basically cider, lager and blackcurrant – which gave it a purpleish hue, Goths loved it obviously. Now that night in question I drunk a little bit too much snakebite and black (let’s be honest two pints was enough for anyone – if the ridiculously strong cider didn’t get you the sickly sweet Ribena substitute would). I knew I was drunk because I danced to a New Model Army track and no one danced to New Model Army and still expected to be considered cool at the end of the night. About two am I left Churchills, I’d like to say I left on the arm of a beautiful girl called Angela (who as it happens was a dead ringer for the singer from The Cranes but this being 1990 she didn’t know that yet), but I know I left alone but manage to share a cab home with a bloke called Gavin – I know this because he vomited on the pavement outside my house and the stain was there for about a month afterwards.

I woke up in the morning and felt like death. My head pounded, I was all shaky and clammy, about midday I started to feel a bit more human and I realised that I was cold, so I turned to my go to warmth (I was a student, heating was too expensive) – Bob – I mean it would have stunk of cigarettes (back in the days when you could smoke in a pub) but it kept me warm. So I went to the chair in my bedroom where clothes would have been slung last night.

Bob wasn’t there.

I had a vague recollection of taking Bob off when dancing to The Stone Roses. I’d popped it in the corner where I was sitting, just by where the lovely Angela normally sat with her mate Gemma. Oh God, Bob.

Now, I know what you are thinking, “Man up Badger it’s only a jumper”, and you are right, but that jumper was unique, sort of. Well ok, it wasn’t, it cost me a £2 from a charity shop, but I loved it, apart from my copy of ‘Substance’ on double vinyl, it was probably my favourite thing in the entire world – it was certainly the warmest thing I owned.

I sort of hoped the lovely Angela had taken it home with her and next week (After she’d finished cuddling it for a week) she would come up to me and smile her sweet smile and hand me the jumper and take me by the hand and we would walk into the moonlight, bangles jangling – but in reality I knew that I had left it on the long seat thing in the corner.

So ladies and gentlemen, I got the bus back to town. I sat there sulkily (still hungover) with my Walkmen attached to my ears. I think for some inexplicable reason I had ‘Babble’ by annoying Derry punk popsters That Petrol Emotion on the stereo, this didn’t improve my mood.

I got to Churchills around 2pm. It was open, thankfully, but the upstairs bit wasn’t. So I meekly asked the nice lady behind the bar if she could check if my jumper was up there, in the corner by the long seat, she reluctantly agreed. So I sat there at the bar for what seemed like a decade, cradling a lemonade, the sugar helped quite a lot to be honest, and then she returned.

She was holding Bob and I could have hugged her.

She handed Bob to me and then she said “Me Grandads got one just like that” and crushed what was left of my cool. I mumbled a ‘Thanks’ and walked out of the pub. I got roughly twenty foot around the corner before I stopped and popped Bob over my head.

Five minutes later, as I approached the bus stop, I saw a familiar face, the lovely Angela, sat forlornly at the bus stop, looking bored.

“Hi” I said. Slyly pulling the sleeves of Bob over my hands.

She definitely smiled……

The Upstairs Room – The Cure
Gigantic – The Pixies
Everything’s Gone Green – New Order
Big Decision – That Petrol Emotion

TIM BADGER

Orange Juice

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #219 : ORANGE JUICE (2)

Orange Juice.

ICA 57 was my stab at coming up with the perfect 10-track LP. There’s the occasional day that I think I nailed it, but for the most part I find myself wondering why certain pieces of music didn’t make it. I’ve long thought that the time was ripe for a Volume Two but I have more or less run out of superlatives to accompany the tracks. The solution? Scour the internet and find a few hundred words from someone else that have me nodding in agreement.

Here’s Alexis Petridis, with his review of the Coals to Newcastle boxset, as published in the Guardian newspaper back in November 2010.

Tucked away on this six CD and one DVD boxset, there’s a brief radio interview with Edwyn Collins. It hails from just after Orange Juice’s greatest commercial success, when Rip It Up reached the top 10. The group’s frontman seems weary and cynical, his conversation punctuated with awkward laughter. Mention of the music press-boosted New Pop movement of which Rip It Up was supposed to be a perfect exemplar – clever, radio-friendly, powered by the modern-sounding squelch of the Roland 303 synthesiser – sets him off: “Bland … insipid … vacuous … disgusting.” He sounds not like a man who’s finally claimed his rightful place on Top of the Pops, but someone who thinks he’s already blown it.

Listening to the music on Coals to Newcastle in chronological order, you can see why. The first CD contains the early singles and the unreleased debut album Ostrich Churchyard. It documents the startling 18-month period during which Orange Juice minted a sound that brilliantly connected the agitated, trebly strum of the Velvet Underground’s What Goes On to the scratchy funk guitars of disco; dragged rock music further from its primal macho roots than anyone before had ever dared; wrote a succession of staggeringly brilliant songs – Falling and Laughing, Dying Day, Consolation Prize; and singlehandedly, if unwittingly, invented what came to be known as indie music. The music press thought they’d be huge. Orange Juice had the tunes, arch, witty lyrics that could conceivably have provoked Morrissey-like devotion, and in the lush-lipped and befringed Collins a frontman who might conceivably have provoked teen mania.

Predictions of their imminent ascendancy seemed to tactfully ignore a number of facts. Orange Juice’s charm was bound up with the fact that they sounded spindly and ramshackle by comparison with most early 80s pop, and looked deeply weird in their plastic sandals, cravats and tweeds: in every sense of the phrase, they offered a kind of charity-shop Chic. Collins’s voice was an acquired taste: he sounded not unlike a tipsy man launching into an after-dinner speech with his mouth still full of port and walnuts.

They signed to Polydor, which didn’t seem to know what to do with them, beyond adding the brass section that was the 80s major label’s default answer to bridging the gulf between the indie chart and the real thing. Trailed by an audacious cover of Al Green’s L-O-V-E (Love), You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever sounded great – if you hadn’t already heard earlier recordings. But the Smash Hits audience opted instead for Haircut 100 and their David Cassidy version of Orange Juice’s sound: all the tweeness, none of the intelligence or grit.

In search of greater professionalism, Collins fired half the band, including the other songwriter James Kirk. The Rip It Up single was fantastic, but on the accompanying album, Orange Juice sounded shattered, as if they didn’t have a clue what to do now. Let new drummer Zeke Manyika write afrobeat inspired songs? Rework old B-sides in a reggae style, thus proving at a stroke that Orange Juice B-sides were desperately ill-suited to being reworked in a reggae style? Plonked in the middle of the album, an Ostrich Churchyard leftover called Louise Louise is a reminder of past glories.

It might have signalled the end, had Collins not been rather more steely than the fey image suggested. Just how steely and determined wouldn’t become fully apparent until 2005, when he battled back to health after two strokes that initially left him unable to walk, talk, read or write. Twenty years earlier, it manifested itself in rebuilding Orange Juice, with Manyika’s help, into the sleek, smart unit of 1984’s Texas Fever and The Orange Juice, where a perfect middle distance was located between the shambolic clangour of their early work and a more polished, funky sound. Collins turned his sardonic lyrical eye on his own waning commercial fortunes on the gorgeous A Sad Lament and Lean Period: “Please don’t expect consistency from me,” he crooned on the latter.

By then, of course, it was too late, as a clip of the band on Whistle Test demonstrates. As they charge through a frantic version of What Presence!?, a ticker spools along the bottom of the screen. “Also tonight! Jean Michel Jarre! Spandau Ballet! Kim Wilde’s record collection!” What price Collins’s sardonic, clever observations in that climate? They split in 1985. Incredibly, within a year, a generation of indie bands were hailing them as an influence of almost mythic proportions. Subsequently, so would everyone from Belle and Sebastian to Franz Ferdinand and Wild Beasts. The good – all of which is here, along with enough live tracks, demos and B-sides to blur the line between exhaustive and exhausting – would eventually out.

Side A

1. Rip It Up (12” version – released in 1983)

The 1983 hit single….and until the solo success of A Girl Like You, the only song likely to have generated much in the way of royalties for Edwyn Collins. Some fun facts, all of which are true:-

– it wasn’t the lead-off single from the album of the same name (released in November 1982) as that distinction went to I Can’t Help Myself

– it proved to be the first chart single to ever feature the Roland TB-303 synthesiser bassline (wonderfully reproduced in the live setting by David McClymont)

– it has a very noticeable mimic of the two-note guitar solo that was heard on Boredom, the lead song on the Spiral Scratch EP by Buzzcocks…and the mimic comes just as Edwyn is declaring it his favourite song

– it contains a backing vocal by Paul Quinn, but sadly he didn’t appear on stage during either of the Top of The Pops appearances, although Jim Thirlwell (of Foetus On Your Breath ‘fame’) did mime the sax solo contributions to great effect

2. Lovesick (released in 1980)

Often I find it hard to get through to you
Words become barbed and stick in the throat
My reasoned argument seems to be so obscure
Tripped myself up, there’s no need to gloat.

Seemingly tucked away on the b-side of Blue Boy, the second and finest of the Postcard singles., it was in fact a deserved double-A side but such was the majesty of its flip-side that it didn’t get the attention it deserved

3. Bridge (released in 1984)

From the mini-LP Texas Fever (the original vinyl release had just six tracks). It’s a record made during a time of stress with Edwyn not wanting to make an album full of Rip It Up style singles but managing to alienate bassis David and the maverick genius guitarist Malcolm Ross (the only man to be an official member in each of Aztec Camera, Josef K and Orange Juice) to the extent that the group split up with just drummer Zeke Manyika hanging around to work alongside the frontman. Like so many other albums recorded in such circumstances, it manages to be a work of wonder, tantalisingly offering up something new and different sounding from what had come before. Bridge was the single from the mini-album. It has a groove and catch that are infectious and comes with handclaps you just want to replicate when you’re moving to it on the disco floor. Only you won’t get the chance as most DJs will shun it. Au undeserved #67 flop.

4. L.O.V.E. Love (released in 1981)

The move from Postcard to Polydor didn’t overly concern me. To be fair, I was a naïve 18-year old who thought that the singers/bands/musicians could fully dictate the music that as to be released.

I hated this single with a passion when it was released. It just wasn’t Orange Juice, not with horns and soulful backing singers, whose talents particularly showed up the fragility of Edwyn’s voice as he struggled to hit the higher notes – this Al Green cover (whoever he was!!) sounded the wrong sort of song to get the most out of the band as it started to dawn on me that the record label held all the aces.

At least the consolation prizes on the b-side were listenable so buying both the 7” and 12” versions didn’t feel like a total waste of money. It took me a long time to grow up, expand my tastes and accept that this was, as Petridis says above, an audacious cover.

5. Simply Thrilled Honey (released in 1980)

Ye Gods….how did I leave this Postcard single off ICA 57?

Truth be told, it’s not up there as one of my OJ faves, but given I’m now part of a wonderful collective that has taken our name from said song, it’s a must.

https://www.wegottickets.com/event/468991

Side B

1. The Artisans (released in 1984)

The final Orange Juice album could have been something that merely fulfilled a contractual obligation but instead proved to be a crowning glory that is certainly up there with the quality and consistency of the Postcard songs. In reality, it’s Edwyn’s debut solo album, shaped by Denis Bovell on the production side (and keyboards) with additional help from some old pals – Zeke on drums and Clare Kenny (ex-Amazulu) on bass. Its ten tracks enjoy a high level of quality and craftsmanship throughout, with guitar-heavy songs sitting comfortably alongside heart-wrenching and wistful ballads, whose lyrics sway from the heart-felt to the caustic, barbed and tongue-in-cheek, but at all times with a knowing sigh that it was the world’s loss that it hadn’t been remotely ready for Orange Juice. This is one of the piss-take efforts, one that has as fine a groove as any in the band or solo canon, thanks to Bovell’s contribution on the Vox Organ.

2. Holiday Hymn (recorded in 1981 – released in 1992)

Back in 1981, Vic Godard had written Holiday Hymn and performed it live with Subway Sect on only a handful of occasions. Edwyn immediately felt that it would make for a perfect Orange Juice song and so he recorded it from the mixing desk, learned the lyrics and cords, and took it into the studio for his band to learn and play. A studio version would eventually see the light of day with the release of Ostrich Churchyard

3. A Sad Lament (released in 1983)

A Sad Lament was first released as the b-side on the 12” version of the Rip It Up single (or as one side of the bonus disc in the limited edition 2×7” versions) before finding its way onto the Texas Fever mini-album the following year. It’s inclusion on the mini-LP is, I believe, an acknowledgment that it was too good a song to have simply been left as a b-side, especially when most who had bought Rip It Up, via the standard 7” version, would have only been able to play the Malcolm Ross composed track, Snake Charmer.

Long regarded as a long-lost and difficult to get hold of classic, the record label, a part of the 2002 compilation ‘Edwyn Collins & Orange Juice – A Casual Introduction 1981/2001’ decided to include A Sad Lament in the tracklist….only to butcher the track by removing part of the intro and outro and cutting off a full 80 seconds of music. Suffice to say, it’s the original you’ll find here……

4. All That Ever Mattered (released in 1984)

The weepy ballad from the final album. It may well be the sad thoughts of someone looking back as the dying embers of a once passionate relationship are finally extinguished, but it could also be the parting shot to former bandmates as, by this time, they were barely on speaking terms (thankfully they would kiss and make up in later years).

5. Lean Period (released in 1984)

This joke I’ve made at my own expense has long since been worn thin
And yet by recompense you respond with a wink and a knowing grin

None of Edwyn’s biggest fans, when listening to his resigned state-of-the-nation address in the opening track of the final album could ever have imagined he would still be making great music to entertain, enthral and enrich us 35 years later. It’s so good to have him around and to be making the quality music you’ll find on his 2019 album Badbea, in which he blends beautifully the old and the new to deliver something that still sounds and feels essential. It’s such a contrast, in particular, to one of his peers and an 80s hero who is now specialising in finding different ways to disappoint, seemingly each and every day.

JC

Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

BRAND NEW FRIEND

Rattlesnakes, the debut album from Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, was universally acclaimed by the critics on release; it also sold in very respectable numbers, reaching #13 in the UK album charts. I was sure that all three singles lifted from it had brought success to the band, but only Perfect Skin cracked the Top 40, a feat that eluded both Forest Fire and Rattlesnakes.

As happens with so many newly successful acts, some of the music press turned against the band in the run-up to the release of the new material, with a number of writers accusing the frontman of being pretentious and aloof, taking him to task for this habit of dropping in the names of real people (the debut LP had namechecked Leonard Cohen, Eva Marie Saint, Truman Capote, Arthur Lee and Norman Mailer) into songs about fictional females called Louise, Julie, Jodie and Patience.

The opening line from the lead-off single in advance of the sophomore album, Easy Pieces, superbly stuck up stuck two fingers up at such critics, as he sets off for a stroll, under wet skies, with his buddies Jesus and Jane – and I’m pretty certain Jesus wasn’t, in this instance, just a Spanish boy’s name :-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Brand New Friend

It really is a wonderful piece of pop music that has aged as beautifully and smoothly as a classic malt whisky, with perfect use of a drum machine,accordion, strings and soulful backing vocals.

It was a hit with the record buying public, giving the band their first Top 20 single in October 1985.

JC

Pulp

BAD COVER VERSION

Bad Cover Version…..as in the song by Pulp and not the annihilation or butchering of a classic.

It was the band’s final single. Kind of, in that they later got back together for a bit the best part of a decade after breaking up and eventually released a 45 for Record Store Day in 2013.

It only reached #27 in the charts, a disappointing showing but no real surprise given that the song had been around for some six months, featuring on the LP We Love Life. It was released on a 2xCD format, the first of which offered up two rather decent new Pulp songs while the second featured a different version of the single plus two covers of Pulp songs:-

mp3 : Pulp – Bad Cover Version
mp3 : Pulp – Yesterday
mp3 : Pulp – Forever In My Dreams
mp3 : Nick Cave – Disco 2000
mp3 : Róisín Murphy – Sorted?

As for the different version of the single…….

The band went out with a piss-taking bang in that the video mimics Do They Know It’s Christmas with a bunch of celebrity lookalikes utilised to deliver lyrics in the style of their impersonations. It’s so bad it’s good:-

The full list of those involved….

Singers: Robbie Williams,Liam Gallagher, Kylie Minogue, David Bowie, George Michael, Bono, Paul McCartney,Craig David,Jennifer Lopez, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Tom Jones, Björk, Kurt Cobain (the only person in the video who, at the time, was deceased!), Rod Stewart, Meat Loaf, Cher, Jay Kay, Jarvis Cocker (the only one who mimed!!), Mick Jagger, Elton John, Missy Elliott and Bob Geldof.

Guitarists: Noel Gallagher, Mike Oldfield, Keith Richards and Brian May (played by Jarvis Cocker!!!)

Percussionists: Phil Collins and Gary Numan

Producer: Jeff Lynne

Genius.

JC

Simple Minds

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF (EARLY) SIMPLE MINDS (Parts 4 & 5)

I ended last week’s post by saying things looked bleak for Simple Minds at the end of 1979. It was clear that they had signed to a label that didn’t quite know what to do with them – the music press were still, for the most part, complimentary about the band and the music, but Arista Records remained unable or unwilling to do much in the way of promotion.

Things, rather unbelievably, got even worse in 1980. The summer months had seen the band return to the studio, yet again with John Leckie in the producer’s chair, to record what would be their third studio LP, which they chose to call Empires and Dance. The lead-off single, in September 1980, was an absolute classic, a cross between disco-stomping Giorgio Moroder and early experimental Roxy Music (but played at 100mph!!), coming with an almighty punch in which every member of the band played/sang as if their very future existence depended on it:-

mp3 : Simple Minds – I Travel (7″ edit)

It had ‘HIT’ stamped all over it. It came out in 7″ and 12″ format, with the latter offering an extended and remixed version that was ridiculously danceable. The first 7,500 copies of the 7″ came with a free flexi-disc. But it all amounted to nothing as Arista didn’t provide much of a marketing budget and didn’t do any plugging to radio stations. I Travel failed to chart.

Here’s the b-side and the flexi-disc songs:-

mp3 : Simple Minds – New Warm Skin

And here, complete with scratches and bumps, are the flexi-disc songs:-

mp3 : Simple Minds – Kaleidescope
mp3 : Simple Minds – Film Theme Dub

The b-side proved to be a rather excellent non-album track and the flexidisc also had two previously unreleased pieces of music. Kaleidescope had been part of the live sets when Real to Real Cacophany had been toured and many expected it to appear on the new album….but Simple Minds had moved into a different sound (again!!) for Empires and Dance and it didn’t fit in.

The record label had no faith in Empires and Dance, pressing up just 15,000 copies and waiting until these had sold out before going for any re-print, which again was limited in mumber. The album, seemingly, wasn’t easy to find in the shops, although I recall many copies in many Glasgow record shops.

There was no headlining tour, but instead the band found themselves criss-crossing Europe as the special guest of Peter Gabriel as he succesfully promoted Peter Gabriel III, and a hit single in Games Without Frontiers.

Simple Minds also supported The Skids at a few UK dates before eventually, in October/November, they headlined their own shows, including a great home performance at City Halls, Glasgow before an adoring and appreciative audience (including a 17-year old JC!!).

A few months later, Arista decided enough was enough and let the band go….and were probably surprised when Virgin Records immediately pounced to sign them and put them straight into the studio for their fourth album. There was a fresh buzz about the band and rather cynically, Arista decided to release a Simple Minds single, going with one of the most popular tracks on Empires and Dance:-

mp3 : Simple Minds – Celebrate (7″ edit)

This came out in April 1981, seven full months after I Travel but just a few weeks before what was going to be the debut single on Virgin. It’s b-sides were a rip-off in that two previous 45s were offered up – I Travel and Changeling – and for the most part it was ignored by fans and thus got nowhere near the charts. Worth mentioning that I Travel would be the subject of yet another Arista cash-in the following year, but I’ll return to that in due course.

JC

JR Green

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #168 : JR GREEN

Back in January 2016, I made mention of JR Green having caught them on a bill at a free BBC gig supporting C Duncan:-

“They are two brothers from Strontian, which is away up in the far north-west of Scotland. Jacob Green plays accordion and sings while Rory Green sings lead vocals and plays acoustic guitar. They play a blend of music that brings to mind the best of Frightened Rabbit, King Creosote and, despite not having an electrical instrument between them, a range of early 21st Century indie-guitar bands such as The Cribs, The Libertines and The Strokes. The boys – and this is where it is worth mentioning that Jacob is 21 and Rory is 19 – were clearly brought up on and learned to play via the traditional folk music that is best associated with where they grew up but what they have done is fuse the sort of songs and subject matters that they were listening to as teenagers to make something that is hugely entertaining and enjoyable with the best use of an accordian in a music setting since Wix did his stuff alongside Matt Johnson on This Is The Day…..

They released a debut EP entitled Bring The Witch Doctor in October 2015. As Rory has said elsewhere on t’internet:-

The four songs were all written in our shared attic-room in the remote Scottish Highlands, barely big enough for two beds, let alone two 6ft muppets and a bloody squeeze box. We wrote these four songs when I was still in school and each one will always serve as a time capsule for me no matter how many times we perform them. We hope you can take pleasure in listening to them, they mean an awful and equal amount to us and having them officially released is something we find extremely exciting.”

The morning after seeing them, I sent off for a copy of the EP.

The boys did go on a play a few gigs and festivals in 2016 and 2017, but to the best of my knowledge, the debut LP is all the physical product that’s available. I did pay a visit to their Soundcloud page and there’s only two songs over and above the four on the EP. It would seem they are on something of a hiatus at the moment….

mp3 : JR Green – Do The Katie-Step

JC

The Affectionate Punch

HARKING BACK TO A POST FROM A FEW DAYS AGO

You’ll hopefully recall that my dear friend Strangeways composed this wonderfully composed introduction to a Glasgow project that goes under the moniker of The Affectionate Punch.

In a nutshell, TAP have been releasing music online since November 2018, with the songs led by speed and momentum, with almost every number taken from spontaneous idea to completed, listenable take, artwork (and, often, an accompanying video) in just a few hours.

TAP is led by just one person in one room, but lurking close by, and keenly watched by the not-obvious-at-all store detective, would be a gang of contributors: Paul McKeever, a singer/songwriter from Larbet, Scotland, Marshmallow Fortresses, a musician from the San Francisco Bay Area, USA and, most regularly, Amanda Sanderson, a singer from Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

I pointed readers in the direction of the soundcloud page for TAP and also the dedicated youtube channel.  I also mentioned that plans were in place to master some tracks that would then be added to Bandcamp, as a free download, as an LP with the title So Long Ago, Goodbye.

Just a few days later, I received an e-mail from TAP

“Hi Jim

Just a wee heads up that the LP ‘So Long Ago, Goodbye’ is now available as a free download from Bandcamp.  Had it not been for Strangeways and TVV I would not have thought to do this – thank you.

You’ll note a proper thank you at track 10.  The first and last time I think I’m likely to type the 3 letter acronym that the ‘kids’ seem so fond of.”

And here, in all its glory, is said Track 10:-

mp3 : The Affectionate Punch – OMG! TVV

I was utterly speechless.

I’ve been lucky enough to have received some mentions and the occasional ‘thanks to’ within singles, LPs and one box set, and I’ve even, in real life, featured a fair bit in a political biography.

But this tops everything.  A piece of music, three-and-a-half minutes in length, on an album, named after me!

I am still utterly speechless. Oh my gawd indeed.

So Long Ago, Goodbye can be downloaded from here. It’s a wonderfully beguiling, intruiging and mesmerising listen. And of course, you can try before you download.

It is, if you choose, free of charge, but I would hope you would consider even a small contribution to support this artistic endeavour.

JC

PS : Here’s a reminder of the link to the soundcloud page and to the youtube channel.

Various

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA

Hopefully, this mix doesn’t need too much of an explanation

Various – Born on the 4th of July

TRACKLIST

Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues
The Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Want To Get Over You
Hole – Mailbu
The Velvet Underground – Rock & Roll
2Pac feat. Dr Dre and Roger Troutman – California Love
The Ramones – Baby I Love You
The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing
Devo – Come Back Jonee
Tori Amos – Professional Widow
Bodega – Name Escape
Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia
10,000 Maniacs – Don’t Talk
Blondie – Sunday Girl
Lambchop – Grumpus
LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends
Violent Femmes – Ugly

JC

Mansun

CHESTER’S FINEST

Britpop, almost 25 years on from the pinnacle of its popularity among the record buying public, has become something that is now more sneered at than it is revered. I’m very tempted to argue that this is a deserved turn of events given that far too many very ordinary bands were signed up by overly-eager record labels and the amount of money wasted proved to be obscene…but then again, the money didn’t simply vanish and a lot of folk did get rich on the back of things.

It’s also unfair to tar every act labelled as ‘Britpop’ (and there are almost 50 of them listed within a wiki article) with the same brush as some did manage to produce music that has actually stood the test of time reasonably well. Mansun are one such example.

Formed in Chester in the north-west of England in 1995, a number of its members had been in other bands earlier in the decade and so came to things with a bit more experience than usual, more able to look out for and avoid any potential traps.

Their first release was self-financed in a limited edition of one thousand 7″ singles, on the band’s own Sci-Fi Hi-Fi Records and the spelling of the group’s name was Manson…..yup, different from that under which they would later enjoy success. The debut enjoyed a fair bit of airplay on a number of evening shows on BBC Radio 1 and, rather unusually, the band were being championed by both Steve Lamacq and John Peel which led to something of a bidding war for the band’s signature, which all concerned found hilarious given that they hadn’t played any live gigs, preferring to be a studio entity on account of lead singer Paul Draper suffering badly from stage fright.

They went with Parlophone but only after the release of their second single, again via an indie label, by which time they had changed their name to Mansun after the threat of legal action from the Charles Manson Estate.

mp3 : Mansun – Skin Up Pin Up

One of the things the band had insisted on when they signed with Parlophone was to be allowed to release a series of EPs, four of which were issued throughout 1996, during which time they embarked on a number of UK tours both in a support role and as headliners. They were an instant hit with the critics and popular acclaim soon followed, with the third and fourth EPs cracking the Top 20. Oh, and the lead track of the second EP was the same song as had been the debut single.

A fifth EP went Top 10 in February 1997 and a shortly afterwards, the debut album, Attack of the Grey Lantern, hit the #1 spot.

One listen to the debut album is all you need to realise that Mansun, although labelled as ‘Britpop’ had very little in common with those happy-go-lucky combos who made bright and breezy radio-friendly tunes. This was an ambitious, occasionally dark and occasionally flawed LP that seemed to have loads of influences and yet sounded nothing like anything else.

mp3 : Mansun – Egg Shaped Fred (from EP One)
mp3 : Mansun – Take It Easy, Chicken (from EP Two)
mp3 : Mansun – Stripper Vicar (from EP Three)
mp3 : Mansun – Wide Open Space (from EP Four)
mp3 : Mansun – Mansun’s Only Love Song (from Attack of the Grey Lantern)

A sixth EP would follow in April 1997, featuring Taxloss, a track from the debut album. The promo video saw the first backlash against the band, with tabloid newspapers condemning the chaos the filming had caused while critics bemoaned what was literally the throwing away of money:-

Having said that, Mansun’s next two EPs both went Top 20 in 1998 and sophomore album Six went to #6 in September of that year, with many perhaps being attracted to the band from comparisons being made, in terms of attitude as much as anthing else, to Radiohead who were very much at the top of their game at this point in time.

Britopop died its inevitable death, but Mansun kept going. By now, I had lost interest in them, being disappointed with the second album and feeling that the new material was sub-standard in comparison to what had come before. The EPs continued to appear at regular intervals throughout 1998 and 1999 and then in the summer of 2000, they went back into the Top 10 in the UK with this, taken from EP 12:-

mp3 : Mansun – I Can Only Disappoint U

It was followed immediately by a third album, Little Kix, which reached #12, with sales significantly lower than the previous LPs.

What happened next was rather strange but in keeping with the unorthodox story of the band.

They went into a studio in 2001 to begin work on a fourth album, indicating that the regular run of EPs would also be maintained. Nothing new emerged during the year and indeed August 2001 had seen an online official announcement that a planned EP had been shelved. Illness and injury, it later transpired, were the cause of the inactivity with Paul Draper requiring five cycles of chemotherapy to recover from cancer. In April/May 2002, the band went out on the road under a pseudonym intending to play low-key gigs in which new material would be tested out, but the modern world being what it is, the secret gigs were soon public knowledge and old material had to be incorporated into the sets.

The record label was expecting the new album to be ready and in the shops before the end of 2002. The band, however, failed to meet a succession of deadlines and things got tense. There was a mysterious posting on the band’s website in January 2003 indicating that one of the members, (without specifying who), had left amid tensions and animosity. This led to all sorts of press speculation about Mansun having split-up entirely, none of which was rebutted although the official announcement didn’t come till May 2003.

Incredibly, the songs intended for the fourth album did see light of day in September 2004. Kleptomonia was a triple-album(!!!), consisting of 12 new tracks on one CD, 16 non-album singles, B-sides and EP-only songs on a second CD and 14 rarities, demos and unreleased material on CD3. Almost 200 minutes all in, it was of appeal only to fans and with no band members around to promote it in any shape or form, it was a monumental flop. It was accompanied by a 7” vinyl single and digital download that reached #55 in the charts:-

mp3 : Mansun – Slipping Away

I’ve long intended to have this posting appear on the blog, but had held off thinking someone out there would come up with an ICA, a task I’m not qualified to do on the basis of having next to nothing beyond the first tranche of EPs and the debut album.

It would still, I reckon, be an entertaining addition to the ICA series if anyone wants to take it on (and there’s nothing to prevent any of the above nine songs being part of it!!)

JC

Feelies

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #218 : THE FEELIES (2)

A GUEST POSTING by HYBRID SOC PROF

The 80s were wonderful and infuriating. In the US, if you were into small bands on independent labels in the 80s most of your favorite bands had this experience: a singular, independent, regional band would make enough commercial noise – usually spread by word of mouth, local record shops and freeform college radio stations (all dreaming, whether they knew it or not, of being WFMU, out of East Orange, New Jersey) to get a mid-major or major label contract… only to be over-charged for recording, have their sound modified, be poorly promoted, miscategorized, forced to tour in support of the wrong bands and generally wrecked. People disagree with me, but I think this is the story of The Replacements – everything after a few selections from Tim, I have little use for… though maybe the demise was more about Bob Stinson’s tragic battle with alcoholism than working with Sire…

The Feelies never played the game, so they never got crushed. Out of Haledon, New Jersey, and tied closely to “the Hoboken scene” – basically local bands who played in the tiny room behind the bar at Maxwell’s (RIP) – the Bongos, the Raybeats, the dBs, Gut Bank and more – they had the potential to cross over, like REM, before REM. (In fact, the members of REM have long acknowledged their debt to the band’s sound.)

After four years together, the band’s first LP, Crazy Rhythms, was released in 1980. Living 30 miles away, I knew nothing of it. It got rave reviews in the indie press, and a mention in the New York Times, but I wasn’t reading the former and was engaged with the times only for political/current events reporting. When I did find the album, two years later, it was like listening to Devo filtered through Television (who I’d just discovered) awash in Young Marble Giants (who had just played at my small college.) Intensely minimalist, but with layers and layers of rhythmic and jangly guitars which rise and swell within and over half-spoken lyrics by two guys who can’t sing all that well. It was awesome. I spent forever in my dorm room, “studying,” with my headphones on, awash in sound.

That summer, home from school, a friend and I saw them at Maxwell’s… the show, in that tiny venue, was both magnificent and weirdly adult. The band worked their tails off – like the post-punk bands I saw elsewhere – but seemed so normal, talented but just people… I wasn’t put off but, hmmm, no theater just playing. The Kinks weren’t like this, Ian Hunter wasn’t like this, the Boomtown Rats weren’t like this and the Fleshtones weren’t like this… they just played, no banter with the crowd or even, really, talking with each other. Perhaps it was the influence of the drone side of the Velvet Underground, perhaps it was the fact that no one danced because, well, you couldn’t really “dance” to it beyond attempting a halting blend of Grateful Dead floaty-drifty movement with spasmodic low pogo-ing…

And then they more or less broke up. Imagine a spinning lava lamp… where globs of the colored liquid spin, conjoin, separate, release tendrils, combine and divide as you watch. That seemed to be what the members of the band did across the rest of the decade. They must have played five, six, nine, a hundred(?) different permutations and combinations only really coming back together to record 1985’s LP, The Good Earth (produced – of course – by REM’s Peter Buck) and 1988’s, Only Life.

Anton Fier, who’d left after Crazy Rhythms, was already playing with the Lounge Lizards and then played with Pere Ubu and founded The Golden Palominos. The band’s primary songwriters – Bill Million and Glenn Mercer – formed The Trypes and Young Wu as placeholders (though The Trypes release an EP, The Explorer’s Hold in 1984 and Young Wu released a full record, Shore Leave, in 1987) and played gigs in and around NYC… but all this meant was that The Feelies almost never toured. Other members joined and/or formed other combos from Brenda Sauter and Stanley Demeski’s work in the folk-driven band, Speed the Plough. Their last record, before an almost 20 year lay-off, was 1991’s, Time for a Witness.

Soon thereafter, Mercer organized Wake Ooloo – who produced three really good albums, Hear No Evil (1994), What About It (1995), and Stop the Ride (1996) – and Million walked away… got married, moved to Florida, had a kid, developed a career. A visit by Million to Mercer when Million’s son started college at Princeton got the two men playing together and the band returned, with most of the original line-up, at the behest of Sonic Youth – who were seeking an opening band – in 2008, and the music held up. Three years later, in 2011, they produced the long player, Here Before, and, in 2017, In Between.

If you read interviews with Million and Mercer, they come across as fundamentally disinterested in music as a career, especially if it were to become a job. I never know what to do with interviews given their fundamental artificiality but, looking at the band’s trajectory, this feels honest. The two have repeated, over the years, that they come together to record when they can agree on a core sound they intend to explore and that, as they see it, each record is noticeably different from the others. I am not one to question musicians on how they hear their music, but as a fan their core sound is as recognizable as any band I love. I don’t know if it’s fair but the music – however much it’s influenced by the Velvets or The Stooges or Television or art punk and folk-rock (in a Neil Young kind of vein) all at the same time – feels to me “suburban.” It’s intellectual but emotionally engaged, it holds you at a distance while drawing you in, it’s very much of New York without being urban, it’s post-punk-ish but less alienated? I don’t know. I just know I like ‘em a lot.

The Boy with Perpetual Nervousness (from Crazy Rhythms – 1980) is the first cut I ever heard from the band. You will likely be able to hear it in every song that follows. It has every characteristic sound and rhythm. Did I say minimalist with tons of layers?

Higher Ground (from Only Life – 1988) is a little slower, more simple, quite a bit janglier, more conventional – a love song – and gloriously beautiful. The guitar – from 2:55-4:10 – sigh.

Slipping (into Something) (from The Good Earth – 1986) takes almost a minute and a half to build to the lyrics, almost stops at 2:05, moves to a quite twin lead for a but, almost stops again 3:25 before building and expanding and almost falling apart around 5:03, and then finding itself and accelerating to a final fade.

Find a Way (from Time for a Witness – 1991) is somewhat akin to Higher Ground and, lyrically, probably more of a love song but less obviously so. You and your partner might just like lying next to each other, in the very very dark, playing this at 9… swimming, together in it, as it washes over you.

Dancing Barefoot (from Four Free Feelies Songs – 1989) – have you been looking for a great cover song? One related but not quite true to the original? Look no further. That girl (or was it you?) you knew as a teenager with post-punk aspirations? This is her.

So Far (from Here Before – 2011) is the only 21st century cut here. I’m almost surely wrong that it comes from this place but every time I hear it I am reminded of moments a few years ago when our 16yo was 13-going-on-21 but feeling 10 and needing a hug.

Tomorrow, Today (from The Good Earth – 1986) is a march with a guitar effect that recalls trumpets or bugles for the first half that reverts to half bugle half guitar and then blends and fuzzes with the standard electric and…

What She Said (from Time for a Witness – 1991) is a slow rocker, with slide guitar on the side, probably the most conventional tune here… I feel like I’ve been teased after listening to it since it almost capitalizes the r in rock but pulls back from the precipice again and again – I want it to explode and fall but they’re not having it, more power to ‘em.

Having almost built up to rock, Loveless Love (from Crazy Rhythms – 1980) goes there. Starting like its cousin, The Boy with Perpetual Nervousness, this one takes off at 1:50 when the twin leads stop holding back. This is one of the few songs where the voice comes forward as well. I’ve always like it for that.

I’ve ended with The High Road (from The Good Earth – 1986) – the closest thing to a sing along they every recorded. A challenge you not to bob your head and sway… just try not to smile… nah, don’t, just let go and grin.

Thanks,

HSP

Razorcuts

I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME (but I wasn’t quite sure….)

A band named after a word in a Buzzcocks lyric and who took their inspiration from Orange Juice. Tailor-made for this blog if you ask me……

I’ll hold my hands up and say that Razorcuts were one from the C86 era that completely passed me by. I was heavily dependent on Jacques the Kipper, after the fact, for my education on the genre and this lot were never featured on any of the many lovingly-crafted homemade C90s he handed to me. I’ve picked up on them from a number of their songs being included in the numerous boxsets that era has spawned in recent years. They featured previously on the blog back in 2015 with I’ll Still Be There, a b-side to an early single lifted from the CD86 compilation issued by Cherry Red Records in which I said:-

…while it is far from a bad song – the tune is actually fine – the dreadful sub-standard vocal performance borders on the unlistenable. It is also a perfect example of the off-putting whining, struggling-to-hit-the-right notes delivery that quickly became synonymous with much of the C86 genre and which led to its rather prompt demise.

Thankfully, there’s better to be found on the later CD87 boxset which features the lead track on a EP released that year on Flying Nun Records:-

mp3 : Razorcuts – I Heard You The First Time

The reverse of the sleeve advises that the personnel were Gregory Webster (guitars, vocals), Tim Vass (bass, tambourine), David Swift (drums) and Angus Stevenson (guitars), with help from John on Hammond Organ and Yvonne on vocals.

The band was formed in 1986, in Oxford, by Webster and Vass. They had actually been friends for a number of years back in their home town of Luton but had both relocated to the university town, with Webster living with his girlfriend, Liz Price, who herself would form Talulah Gosh with Amelia Fletcher, so it really was quite the fantastic twee/indie scene for a while. Vass was a huge fan of Buzzcocks, seemingly following them all over the UK when they toured (which would also have enabled him to catch a fair number of support slots by Joy Division).

It was the emergence of Postcard Records that made the dream of a band move closer to reality. Razorcuts emerged out of an earlier attempt at recording under the name The Cinemamatics with new focus being an attempt to fuse their two biggest influences along with the 60s jangle of The Byrds, even down to the idea that Razorcuts would primarily be a singles band. Like many of their contemporaries, they got their break via the Bristol-based Subway Organisation label with two singles – Big Pink Cake and Sorry To Embarrass You – being issued in 1986. Razorcuts had an unusual approach to song writing in that the music came, for the most part, courtesy of Webster and the lyrics from Vass….but it was Webster who did the singing. They also enjoyed playing live, striking up friendships with many others in the scene and happy to contribute songs to the flexidiscs that came came via the emerging fanzines movement.

1987 saw the EP featured today, after which the band were signed by Alan McGee to Creation Records, itself beginning to make a name as the quintessential UK home of indie-guitar bands of the late 80s. The bizarre thing about their time with Creation is that Razorcuts released two full length LPs and contributed to a number of label compilations, but did not (as far as I can tell) release any 45s during their two-year stint on the label. They moved on the Caff Organisation for who there was a one-off single in 1990 before seemingly calling it a day the year after.

Razorcuts have never reformed, but there was a compilation CD pulled together back in 2002 around which Gregory Webster gave some interviews, and there’s a very telling contribution in one of them:-

“There was a very distinctive Razorcuts sound, which is the sound that everybody loves now even after all these years. People still dig that sound. We tried to do things a little differently and we were good at what we did and I guess that was the issue. We never claimed, right from day one, to be able to play our instruments properly. We were genuine people who liked what we thought was incredibly good music and wanted to replicate it , taking it down to the lowest common denominator because we didn’t have the musicianship to be able to do anything else. “

Here’s the other tracks on the 87 EP:-

mp3 : Razorcuts – First Day
mp3 : Razorcuts – Eight Times Around The World
mp3 : Razorcuts – A Is For Alphabet

JC