Month: June 2020

Cure

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 42)

A GUEST SERIES

4 – Pictures of You – The Cure (1990, Fiction Records)

Released as a single in March 1990, (Reached Number 27)

There was of course an eleventh commandment scrawled by God on the stone tablet at the top of Mount Arafat when Moses came looking for them that sunny Thursday a few years back. The eleventh one, only just fitted on the rock. It said ‘Thou must never, ever, not even as a joke, or to be ironic, ever, full stop, wear double denim”.

The editor of the music pages at the student rag when I started was a long-haired double denim wearing Poison fan called Jonno. He one true aim in life was to turn the music section into a soft rock mecca, a place where Guns N Roses and Pearl Jam were kings and bands like The Pastels were publicly ridiculed for being bed wetters.

Jonno was also good mates with the band we now know as Knobheads. Knobheads were due to play a gig in the Union on Wednesday night, and Jonno couldn’t go so he was sending me out to review the gig. I reluctantly agreed, I was a bit annoyed because I’d already promised a mate, that I would go for a pint with him and besides I’d listened to Knobheads self-financed CD, ‘Crapsticks’ just yesterday (it wasn’t really called Crapsticks) and it was awful. In fact it was bilge, pish, shite, septic discharge and other words usually used to describe something wet and smelly. This was something I intended to tell the student population about in print in next weeks paper. I’d given it 1 and a half out ten. The musical equivalent of being stabbed up the arse by Piers Morgan.

The night of the gig came along. The Union was sort of half full, students encouraged along by the promise of cheap spirits and half-price bottled lager, which sort of became the norm for Wednesday night in the Union, I grabbed myself a bottle of Becks and gravitated to the back of the hall already knowing that this would be awful.

It was then that I saw her. Standing next to a pillar, dressed in a Chumbawamba t-shirt and black jeans, vodka (which turned out to be Malibu) and coke in one hand, cigarette in the other, she oozed cool and she was beautiful, easily the most stunning thing I’d seen in, well, ever.

The band walked on to a ripple of applause, I barely noticed, my eyes kept wandering around the room looking for Chumbawamba girl.

Enough Is Enough – Chumbawamba (1993, One Little Indian, Number 56)

She looked bored, in fact she looked unhappy. I decided that I was going to talk to her. She was off to the bar, one of the few quiet spots in the place. I decided that it was now or never. I ambled over.

“They’re terrible aren’t they…?” I said to her, casually leaning on one elbow, skilfully avoiding the beer slops on the bar. She looked at me and nodded, “Pretty boys with guitars”. Silence. Say something, my brain told me. I garbled something out about seeing Chumbawamba a few weeks back in London. It worked, she stayed still. We talked, we exchanged names, the minutes flew by. The band finished. We barely noticed. We were talking about whether or not Jock Young was right about drugs or not (sorry that is a very niche Sociology joke).

It was close to eleven and the bar was starting to empty, I didn’t really want to go anywhere, we didn’t notice Knobheads (or two of them) ambled over. This was annoying because I was just about to ask CG if she wanted a cup of tea.

The guitarist of Knobheads came over, his dreadlocks sticking to his face, came up to Chumbawamba girl and hugged her. This was interesting. She never mentioned a boyfriend, certainly had never mentioned that she knew the band that I’d just spent half an hour slagging off in front of her. I mean, you would say – “Look, chap, I understand you don’t like them, but you see that bloke playing guitar, well me and him, we are together”. I started to rewrite that review in my mind.

I stood there, analysing the situation, they did look very close, I mean she is laughing at his jokes. Good friends perhaps, brother and sister maybe? I introduced myself. “Yeah, I know you” the guitarist said. “Jonno, tells us you don’t like our music, man”. That is what he said. He virtually spat the word ‘man’ at me. “Ah, well..” I said, “We can’t all be the Smashing Pumpkins” and immediately regretted it, although CG did smirk as I said it.

Then he pushed me and luckily I fell back against the bar. Now, I’m no fighter, anyone will tell you that, which is a shame because I’m a sarky bugger, I always have a quip for the wrong occasion, and actually knowing how to punch someone would have on occasion, been a good thing. This being one of those occasions.

Street Fighting Man – The Rolling Stones (1968, London Records, Number 21)

I decided to cut my losses and told CG that I was going, and that I really wanted a cup of tea. She nodded and said, if I hung on a minute she’d come with me. So I stood there, like a lemon for about five minutes, whilst the guitarist out of Knobheads slowly killed me with murderous looks as he got closer and closer to CG. Just before CG left he took her to one side and she slowly touched his arm and shook her head.

We left together. CG and I. We sat in the café on campus that doubled up as a computer lab and finished our chat about drugs, deviance and her liking of really cheesy dance music over several cups of weak tea and a few Jaffa Cakes. I was enthralled by the way she sat, the way she drank, the way she ate, breathed, smiled, walked, talked, listened. I still am.

Ecuador – Sash (1997, Polygram Records, Number 2)

Then on her doorstep at three am, we kissed.

SWC

 

 

Various

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #254 : ‘GREEN’

An anti-ICA, of a sort, for Earth Day, sorta

A Guest Posting by Hybrid Soc Prof

Your ‘Struggling to get the boys out of bed’ Michigan Correspondent

JC writes…..

This arrived in my Inbox on 21 April. If I had been able to get my shit together at that time, it would have been posted on Wednesday 22 April. It’s still a great read, even if the late appearance takes away from some of the impact of HSP’s excellent words. Over, without further delay, to our man in Michigan.

HSP

In honor of the politically ambiguous event that is Earth Day, an anti-ICA where the anti-part is like the anti- in the anti-folk of early-80s New York… sure as heck sounded like folk, it’s just that it wasn’t done by folksters.

Basically, I searched my hard drive for the word Green. Then I tossed out all the album titles with the word, all the band names with the word, all the songs where the word was a root rather than stand-alone (all those versions of Greensleeves, POOF!)… and I still had too many. So-o-o, I reduced the list to songs that started with the word Green and got a manageable number.

I then played with different combinations, permutations, sonic themes and trajectories and ended up with these. It ends with my favorite of the bunch.

About Earth Day, my area of expertise is political ecology/critical environmental sociology. I was raised hiking, camping, canoeing, rafting, recycling, worried about extinction, population, consumption, resource inefficiency, pollution, acid rain, nuclear energy/war/winter, solid waste, litter, and – after we moved out of low income neighborhoods in smog-filled cities – with an organic garden and massive compost pile in the backyard. We were pretty active in Earth Day 1970 – I was 8.

By the time I wrote my undergraduate thesis on acid rain and freshwater fish, however, I’d studied pesticides, deforestation, desertification, the ecological devastation of war from Southeast Asia to Central America, and the anti-toxics campaigns soon to combine with struggles against environmental racism as what we now call the environmental justice movement. Of course, at that point, Reagan was dismantling the environmental state in all its legislative, administrative and bureaucratic manifestations. I’d thought environmentalism was about sublime nature – as America wrote in the song, Horse with No Name, “plants and birds and rocks and things”… I’d thought it was about ecological science and rational, expert-led, science-based policy. I’d though that no reasonable person could oppose what some European scholars later named ecological modernization.

By my second year of grad school, however, I’d read enough histories of the idea of nature, enough environmental history, enough research into the history of environmentalism to understand why elite “environmental” concerns with population, landscape preservation, resource efficiencies, environmental health and consumption were seen by some folks on the left and right as bourgeois concerns the implementation of which would hurt and disenfranchise working people, small businesses and small farms… much less the people of the global south, particularly land-poor low income women. Legitimate critiques of technocratic blindness to social justice and refusal of democratic participation in program implementation abound.

Like a lot of environmentalists, I find wilderness, mountains, plains, oceans and wildlife sublime. I marvel at and am in awe of them. Put I’m privileged to do so. Similarly, I’m physically and spiritually rejuvenated when I spend time in such places, where such beings still reside. Moreover, I think resource efficiency – extractive and in consumption – is inordinately important for all manner of reasons, including not despoiling landscapes, polluting neighborhoods and eliminating species. On top of that, who in their right mind wants to live in a polluted, litter-strewn, toxic terrain watching people of all ages die young? And who is affronted by the fact that all negative environmental consequences disproportionately effect lower income – especially lower income historically oppressed minority – populations?

But the thing is once you’ve made it to the last paragraph – and I know this is less of an insight for our European readers than it is for Romantic Americans who tend to think North and South America were pristine and Edenic, barely populated much less modified by “natural” peoples living lightly on the land – it should be clear that environmentalism is far less about Nature and Science – defined by gov’t and universities – and far more about health and justice – broadly defined.

Environmentalism, then, isn’t about pierced and tattooed, patchouli-drenched, long-haired, unshaven, bicycle-riding, vegan, recycling-obsessed, squatters younger than 28 fighting to save the planet – as most of my students, and pretty much all of their parents – think, it is and has always been about quality of life. The question is, of course, quality of life for whom and how many, and that’s not a technical question, it’s a social one… connected to the pandemic.

Thanks to all here for improving my quality of my life.

Side A
Green Jeans – The Fabulous Fleerekkers
Green Sea – Blue Stingrays
Green Onions – Booker T and the MGs
Green on Red – The Serfers
Green Fuz – Green Fuz

Side B
Green River – Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Green Manalishi – Arthur Brown
Green Machine – Hawkwind
Green Light – Sonic Youth
Green Shirt – Elvis Costello & the Attractions

HSP

Robert Rental, Thomas Leer

TWO BOYS FROM THE PORT

As mentioned a few weeks back, I’m not long finished reading Long Shadows and High Hopes, a highly enjoyable and enlightening biography of Matt Johnson.

The book provided a reminder that The The owe a huge debt to Thomas Leer, a fairly obscure Scottish musician – and by obscure I mean not widely known as he’s had a lengthy music career going all the way back to 1978, albeit there were periods of time when he was inactive.

Thomas Leer was born, as Thomas Wishart, in 1953 in Port Glasgow, a very working-class/blue-collar town some 20 miles west of the actual city. It relied heavily on shipbuilding and manufacturing for its existence, so it was no surprise that from the late 60s onwards, like so many other similar British towns, it went into a sharp decline from which it has never really recovered. It’s a town I’m vaguely familiar with and if Wishart/Leer was displaying any sort of artistic merit, especially in electronic music when it was very much in its infancy, he would have been given a tough time by his peers.  It’s a town where conforming with the norm is often a pre-requisite for survival.

By the mid-70s, he had moved to live and work in London, at one point forming a punk band before deciding that electronica was his forte. Buzzcocks may well have shown the way in terms of writing, recording and releasing self-financed singles, but Thomas Leer was probably the first to do it as a solo artist in that his debut was recorded in his bedroom and that every single note and vocal contribution came from him. Nobody else played on the single and nobody had any input to the production and distribution side of things – the only thing he didn’t do was physically press the record.

Matt Johnson has often paid tribute to Thomas Leer, and he does so again in this book, making it clear that the Port Glasgow man was the main influence in him pursuing the sort of music he wanted to make with The The.

I hadn’t realised Johnson’s first job, as a 15-year old having left school with no qualifications, was in the music industry in a recording studio in the Soho district of London, which provided him with access to equipment and technology to pursue his dreams – he had already, as an 11-year old, been part of a band that had performed shows in the London suburb in which he spent his teenage years. The first band, Roadstar, had been guitars, bass and drums but he wanted to do something entirely different and the debut single by Thomas Leer provided something of a template.

mp3 : Thomas Leer – Private Plane
mp3 : Thomas Leer – International

In due course, the pure electronica of The The would be supplemented by some great pop songs and thus bringing Matt Johnson a fair deal of commercial success while his influencers remained resolutely underground. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than John Peel playing either side of that debut.

I mentioned earlier that Thomas Leer would have likely had a hard time growing up in Port Glasgow but quite incredibly, there was someone else of his age and from the town who shared his interests. Robert Donnachie, who would later take the stage name of Robert Rental, moved to London with Leer and in due course, he too would release a self-financed electronica single in 1978:-

mp3 : Robert Rental – Paralysis
mp3 : Robert Rental – A.C.C.

The following year, the two of them hooked up to record an album, The Bridge, which was issued on Industrial Records, the label established and run by Throbbing Gristle (click here for more – it’s an impossible task to try and summarise who and what they were).

Rental died from lung cancer in 2000, but Leer remains active today, having also had a period in the 80s when he was signed to ZTT Records (home of Frankie Goes to Hollywood) as one half of Act, in which the words to his music was sung by Claudia Brücken, formerly of Propaganda. I’ve long aspired to write a piece on Act, there was a draft from around three years ago kicking around somewhere but I suffered from a severe laptop crash a few weeks back and a number of draft efforts have been lost forever.  I suppose this song is kind of appropriate:-

mp3 : Act – Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now

I do find it astonishing that Thomas Wishart and Robert Donaldson emerged from a town such as Port Glasgow. They would have had no local points of reference in terms of experimental music as they were growing up and they weren’t immersed in any sort of art school or college scene.

I’ll be honest, and this probably comes through in this piece in that there’s a lot of facts and not much in the way of opinions, but I find what they did in 1978 isn’t terribly accessible or even enjoyable, but there’s no doubt that without them, much of the great music that would emerge in the 80s, including that of The The, just wouldn’t have been possible.  It’s amazing, in all walks of life, how often the story of the pioneers is overlooked while those who come along later and make something popular are lauded, feted and commemorated.

JC

Jesus & Mary Chain

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 41)

A GUEST SERIES

5 – Sidewalking – Jesus and Mary Chain (1988, Blanco Y Negro Records)

Released as a single in March 1988 (Reached Number 30)

Unlike the Reid Brothers, I can explain exactly what I am doing standing in the rain. I’m looking for the late-night chemists. The problem is I can’t find it and if and when I do, I think that as it is now well past eleven o’clock it will probably be shut.

I’ll rewind a bit. Its 1992 and OPG and I have just gone to see the Jesus and Mary Chain at Brixton Academy. If my memory is correct, this makes it December and not only is it cold, its damp as well – hence why I remember it raining. OPG thinks that it would be a great idea if we spent the weekend at her brothers. He is a student at Queen Mary’s and has a house over in Mile End, we are going there after the gig.

OPG’s brother is a cool guy, I have no idea what he is studying, something science-y I think, but he has a vast record collection, lots of brilliant guitar pedals, and a computer with Doom on it. So I’m happy.

We watch the Mary Chain who are they usual combative brilliance selves. They were a band that OPG and I had sort of fallen in love to, they soundtracked our lives together I suppose, it sounds daft, but I can’t think of a better way of putting it. It was a show that we had been looking forward to for a long time.

They play a two hour set, during “Happy When It Rains” OPG grips my hand tightly and I stand there grinning, not wanting this gig or this moment to ever end. In the last few months our relationship had developed or if I was writing novels, I would say it had blossomed and life was at that point with her was brilliant. I was 17 I had a beautiful girlfriend, a great bunch of friends, and no real problems in life. I was lucky.

We spent the next day bumming around London, we went shopping – I distinctly remember buying a Frank and Walters TShirt from a shop on Carnaby Street and eating something in a café in an old church near OPGs brothers house. Around 6pm OPG’s brother tell us that he and housemates are all going to the Students Union for some drinks and we decide to join them. It is dark when we leave his house. We walk there, as being students, they have no money, besides it’s a twenty minute walk tops. He takes us down a couple of side roads, down a right dodgy alley and on to the main road where the Union is.

We have a fun time and at around 10pm OPG whispers something in my ear. She whispers a question to me and the only answer to that question, no matter how much fun you are having, is to get your coat, grab her hand and leave, because what she whispered is way more fun that anything else that you might do that evening.

Which is what we do. We tell OPG’s brother that we will see him in the morning. We jump in a taxi and head home and this is where things get complicated. We get comfortable, and things are going really smoothly, we are, shall we say in a state of undress. Which is when I reach for the small bag and the even smaller packet inside that bag, to find it empty.

I swear. OPG looks at me, and I’m stood there, and she tells me that the taxi passed a chemists that was open, but that was like 20 minutes ago or something. If you run she says….

I leg it. I leg it down the side roads, down the dodgy alleyway, I literally leap over a sleeping homeless person and onto the High Street. I jog up and down the bloody road looking for this chemist but it is not there. I ask a random student if he knows where the chemist is, he points across the road at Boots. Which is shut. Obviously its shut. OPG did not mean Boots. The man is clearly crazy.

I check the watch. Its been fifteen minutes since I left OPG in the house, I picture her under the duvet, waiting, an image which makes me run down the road a bit faster. Still no late-night chemists magically appear.

It started to rain about ten minutes ago, I ran out the door without a coat, my lust addled brain telling me that I can run quicker without it – and socks, I have Converse boots on with no socks. I am soaked and as a mood killer, this really works. I kick a handily placed rubbish bin, regretting it instantly because it hurts my foot, and I’m standing there cursing my luck.

Today More Than Any Other Day – Ought (2014, Constellation Records, Did not Chart)

It’s then I see the Marquis of Grandby Public House, my little ray of light, they will have a machine in the gents for sure. I check my wallet I smile and I pull out a couple of pound coins and with a swagger I push open the door, like a gun swinger in the Old West…

…and like the Old West I walk straight into a bar fight, well I say fight, the precise moment both my feet were inside the bar, I see a man get thrown across a pool table and two men run across the bar towards him. A man sitting about ten feet away from me looks at me and shakes his head. I do the quickest about-turn that I have ever done and walk out.

I’m somewhere on Mile End High Street, freezing my gonads off, and by now I’m miserable, so I decide to give up and tell OPG that I failed. I convince myself that she will, when I tell her, dump me on the spot, and that would be that. I walk back and just before I reach the dodgy alley I see a shop that is open. Its literally two shops away from the alley I would have run past this place, three maybe four times.

It’s not a chemist but it is a general store. I walk in. They have some. I’m not embarrassed to say this but I punch the air in delight. Two minutes later the purchase has been made and I’m off again, renewed vigour flowing through my veins. I jog happily back down the alley I jump over the still sleeping homeless guy, lazily dropping a quid or two in the hat next to him. I skip merrily down the side roads and back to the house. There I find OPG, her brother, his girlfriend and three other students sitting in the lounge, rolling joints, listening to My Bloody Valentine and eating toast.

OPG looks at me and smiles and then picks up another piece of a toast, a glint sparkling in her eyes.

Soon (Andy Weatherall Mix) – My Bloody Valentine (1990, Creation Records, Did Not Chart)

SWC

 

 

Uncategorized

BONUS POSTING : MUSIC FOR OUR TIMES (2)

I mentioned in a bonus posting last Saturday that I was now making a weekly contribution to a download-only publication being produced by Raith Rovers FC.  Here’s my 500(ish) words that were published today:-

“The initial idea behind this part of the Rovers Bulletin was for it to be of a light-hearted nature.

The plan, agreed with our esteemed editor, was to come up with five song titles that had some sort of link to a topical theme, but in a way that hopefully amused readers and maybe even raised the occasional laugh. Even last week’s extended list of ten songs which were to do with antics of Dominic Cummings had a hint of satire behind the anger and frustration, but to try the same again this week would be futile and would demean the events of the past couple of weeks in America.

Protest songs have been part of the fabric of society for decades. Many of the best-known songs were written in response to issues and events that have faced the black communities across America. The famous and brilliant jazz singer, Billie Holliday, recorded ‘Strange Fruit’ as long ago as 1939 as a protest about the lynchings carried out by the Klu Klux Klan – anger in songs around ‘Black Lives Matter’ is not, I’m sad to say, a new thing.

It’s something of an impossible task to just pick out five songs that seem to best capture all that’s happening. Indeed, such has been the continued anger of young Americans of all colours about repeated injustices in recent years that even the most basic of on-line searches throws up the best part of 100 new songs, most of them being rap or hip-hop, whose messages are direct, angry, and to the point.

My suggestion for this week’s ‘Music for our Times’ is that you go online – you honestly won’t have to dig too deep. A small word of warning for the easily offended – the ‘f’ word is a frequent occurrence.

I don’t think I’m being controversial by suggesting Donald Trump hasn’t helped things. A man who would, as the cliche goes, start a fight in an empty house. There’s plenty of songs that have been written in recent years that are critical of him and his actions and I’m thinking a few more are being penned right now. The first three on this week’s list, however, are from years back and aren’t about him, but the titles fit the bill.  The final two are recent efforts:-

American Idiot – Green Day

The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum – Fun Boy Three

You’ve No Clue Do You – King Creosote

Demagogue – Franz Ferdinand

FDT – YG and Nipsey Hustle

The fifth song? DT are the initials of the president. You can guess what the F stands for.

I’ll leave you this week with some lyrics written by Prince, a native of Minneapolis on whose streets George Floyd was horrifically murdered. They are taken from the song ‘Baltimore’ which he wrote in 2015 as his response to the unrest in that city over the police custody death of Freddie Gray.

‘If there ain’t no justice, then there ain’t no peace.’

Five years on, and his words have never rung more true.”

mp3 : Prince – Baltimore

PS: Here’s a link should you want to download the entire bulletin. Click here

PPS: One of my earlier offerings to the Rovers Bulletin formed part of a guest posting that I was involved in earlier this week. 

I’m hoping most of you will have seen it already, but if not, please click here and you’ll be taken to the magical world of Rol’s Top Tens, and in particular, last Thursday.

JC

Mother and The Addicts

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #215 : MOTHER AND THE ADDICTS

From wiki

Mother and The Addicts were a Glasgow-based band signed to Chemikal Underground Records, who formed in 2003.

Originally inspired by bands like Dr. Feelgood and The Modern Lovers, their later material gives a heady nod in the direction of Krautrock and sees an increasing complexity in their music combining elements of funk and rock and roll. Mother and the Addicts released their debut single “Who Art You Girls?” in December 2004, followed by “Oh yeah, You Look Quite Nice” in July 2005 and their debut album, Take The Lovers Home Tonight in August 2005. Their next single a double a side “Watch the Lines/Are Other?” was released in August 2007.

From The Chemikal Underground website

Sam Smith, the brains and bandleader behind Mother And The Addicts, came to Chemikal Underground via a demo featuring various personae and alter egos: Duane Reddy was one but it was Mother And The Addicts and in particular the track ‘Fuck Me Mummy, I Feel Ugly’ that really stood out. Throwing Sam and his cohorts Ian, Peter (Val), Douglas and Kendall into the old Chem19 (at the same time The Delgados were recording ‘Universal Audio’) and asking them to record and complete their debut album, we may have inadvertently contributed to Sam temporarily losing his mind.

Their debut ‘Take The Lovers Home Tonight’ was an explosive, technicolour affair owing as much to Dr Feelgood and The Upsetters as it did The Violent Femmes or Roxy Music. The energy of their debut was harnessed and controlled (to a degree) by Paul Savage for their follow up (and Chemikal’s 100th release) ‘Science Fiction Illustrated’ in August 2007, an album which earned them plaudits aplenty…

From wiki

On 17 July 2008, the band announced on their website that they had disbanded.

mp3 : Mother and The Addicts – Oh Yeah, You Look Quite Nice

JC

Blisters, Urusei Yatsura

A TALE ONCE TOLD ON THE OLD BLOG (circa 2012)

So I glance at this single in a box in a shop in Glasgow. £2.50 for a split effort between a band called The Blisters and occasional TVV favourites Urusei Yatsura. Never heard of the main band and certainly not that sure if I’ve ever heard this particular track by Urusei Yatsura. Oh it’s on red vinyl…..but £2.50?? What if it’s a total dud??? Do I really want to waste my cash.

You’ll know that those last two sentences never even entered into my head when I saw this piece of vinyl. I’m a saddo for things like this…..there’s quite a few bits of vinyl sitting in the cupboard gathering dust just because I took a punt for a few bob in the hope it might make something interesting for the blog only to discover that it’s just not very good.

Now clearly this bit of vinyl has some merit otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here typing these words. So without any further ado, here’s that track by the band featured on TVV a few times before:-

mp3 : Urusei Yatsura – Pampered Adolescent

This was actually one of the band’s very earliest releases coming just a few months after their debut mini-LP All Hail Urusei Yatsura that was released in January 1995. It’s a little bit less polished than the material that would later emerge on Che Records from late 96 through to mid 98 when they just about became famous, but still well worth a listen. Indeed they themselves probably realised that as well as they would go on to re-record it and make it available as an extra track on the 1997 single Fake Fur. So it was a song that I should have known…..but I can’t just rhyme off every b-side in the collection. (Maybe when I was younger I could but that’s being nearly 50 for you….)

mp3 : Urusei Yatsura – Pampered Adolescent (later version)

Very reminiscent of Pavement dontcha think??

But what of the other side. This mysterious mob called The Blisters. On first listen…..it sounds awfully familiar…the spiky guitars and that voice…..awfully like one of the most successful bands to come out of Glasgow in the 21st Century. But this is some eight years earlier…so it can’t possibly be. Let’s hit wiki…..

Fuck me.

Alex Kapranos (born Alexander Paul Kapranos Huntley, 20 March 1972 in Almondsbury, Gloucestershire) is a UK based musician who is the lead singer and the guitarist of the Glasgow band Franz Ferdinand. From the early 1990s, he was a fixture of the Glasgow music scene, running live nights at the 13th Note, most notably The Kazoo Club. While working as a chef, bartender, lecturer in IT at the city’s Anniesland College, and other various jobs, he played in some of Glasgow’s popular bands, including The Blisters (later known as The Karelia), long-standing ska stalwarts The Amphetameanies, Quinn (now known as A Band Called Quinn) and The Yummy Fur. He is also known to have contributed to Urusei Yatsura and Lungleg recordings.

And sure enough this track was composed by A Huntley and The Blisters:-

mp3 : The Blisters – A Dull Thought In Itself

Now I know it’s not a hugely valuable piece of plastic in itself, but the fact it’s one of the earliest recordings by someone who many years later became incredibly famous makes it well worth the £2.50 that I handed over…..

Happy Listening.

JC

Franz Ferdinand

IT REALLY WAS A CRACKING DEBUT SINGLE (49)

My introduction to Franz Ferdinand came via the video for the debut single airing on MTV2, probably on the Zane Lowe show.

The tune itself would have been enough to make me sit up and pay attention, but the fact that the video had been shot in my home city just made it that bit more exciting. I made a point of seeking out the single the following day and learned from the bloke behind the counter that, yes they were from Glasgow and that they had been part of the scene in the city for a few years with a few other bands which were rhymed off, none of which meant anything to me.

I took the CD single home and found myself a little bit anxious before playing it for the first time. The video was fresh in my head as was a chant-a-long chorus which I was sure was in German or perhaps Polish or Czech. What if it didn’t live up to expectations and that further listens would reveal it to be a bit of a dud?

Thankfully, it proved to be the opposite, with it sounding better, fresher and increasingly energetic with each repeated listen. It was that mix of angular spiky guitars that got me – as if the best of Glasgow and NYC had come together in three fabulous minutes

mp3: Franz Ferdinand – Darts Of Pleasure

It was the release of the sophomore single, Take Me Out, that turned Franz Ferdinand into indie and festival superstars in early 2004. Luckily, I had managed to catch a couple of shows in smaller venues but gently kicking myself that I had missed out on the gigs they had played in all sorts of unauthorised locations across the city in the preceding months as they built a reputation among the young folk who just knew about these sort of things. Looking back, it was an early example of the social media/internet going a long way to breaking a band and it was a medium I had no involvement with at all.

The other thing that I liked about the debut single was that the two b-sides (as such on a CD) were just as enjoyable but were nothing like the single. There was a sort of 70s art-rock about one of them, which also sounded as if it had a different singer (which turned out to be the case) while the other made me think of The Fall, but with a singer who didn’t drawl in a Mancunian accent but instead rapped about being the new Scottish gentry:-

mp3: Franz Ferdinand – Van Tango
mp3: Franz Ferdinand – Shopping For Blood

I actually don’t think Franz Ferdinand really bettered the debut single, certainly not in terms of me getting quite as excited (actually, that’s not quite true – I think Michael is an outstanding single, one which was bold and daring as it challenged the machismo of many a Glasgow male to sing-a-long – oh, and their cover of Sound and Vision where they roped in Girls Aloud to do the backing vocals!!);  but it is fair to say that they struck a chord with a wider audience, partly from the consistent excellence of the songs on the first couple of albums, but also from the fact they were a really good live act, capable of putting on a show in the smallest of venues as well as the large arenas and outdoor stages to which they would soon become very familiar.

JC

Kendrick Lamar

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 40)

A GUEST SERIES

 

6 – The Blacker the Berry – Kendrick Lamar (2015, Interscope Records)

Released as a single in February 2015 (Reached Number 83)

Before TSOBO stopped we were running down a list of the 200 Best Songs of the Decade (the 2010s that is) and this track was the track that Badger and I ranked at Number 2 – the Number 1 track will follow at Number 3 – but please feel free to place your bets as to what you think it might be. This is an extraordinary track., It’s a racially charged, fierce, and angry riposte to hatred, set largely around the time of the death of Trayvon Martin, a black teenager gunned down by a police officer in Florida.

Kendrick Lamar was, the only American rapper who could have made this record. It’s the greatest hip hop record of the last twenty years, easily, and Kendrick Lamar is, right now, the best rapper in the world. Oh and in 2014, I very nearly met his mother. Sort of.

In 2014 I was in Los Angeles, on a whistle-stop visit to see a friend of mine who had just retired from the Los Angeles Police Department (District 17 – Devonshire – which is why I knew him). His name is Jason and he literally knows everyone in Los Angeles. He had worked for LAPD all his life, he worked on the OJ Simpson case, he worked on the Rodney King case, and he counted various celebrities as close personal friends. Largely because in 2005 his patrol patch was Mulholland Drive in Beverley Hills.

We are sat in the bar of a restaurant (Johnny, JC – It was South End) in Venice Beach and Jason has just asked me what I want to do for the rest of the afternoon. I look at him and tell him that I’m unsure. I’m quite happy strolling along the beach – I quite fancy popping up to Santa Monica and perhaps having a cup of tea in the roof top bar at the Huntley. He looks at me, shakes his head. “You are so English” he says. “Let me show you the real Los Angeles” .

We drive. Or rather he does. Our arms hanging out of the window, radio on, sun streaming into the car. In my mind we look like Crockett and Tubbs from Miami Vice, only in LA obviously and with better haircuts.

Our first stop is a place called MacArthur Park. Although Jason, knows all these places by their district names – This is Rampage apparently. MacArthur Park is, apparently the place to go in Los Angeles if you need to get a fake passport. It’s a beautiful spot. Jason tells me that in 2007 (six weeks before I met him in fact) that there was a riot where we stood. “A riot”, he said with a sad look in his eye, “caused by a couple of racist dumbass cops” On the way back he tells me that May 1st 2007 was the only time in thirty years that he thought he’d made the wrong career choice. As a black guy, he took a hell of a lot of shit, for doing the job he does, from both sides of the divide.

Our next stop is Compton. Gang Central if you believe the hype. Jason was born in Compton. He shows me the house where he was born. “Four rooms”, he says. “I shared a bed with my brother until I was six”. He tells me that this still feels like home, despite the fact that he now has a massive house on the edge of the desert in Palmdale.

He points at another house across the street, “you see that lady in the window, the one with the hat on” I nod. “Kendrick Lamar’s mother” he says. “That’s his grandmas house.”. What. Oh. My. Jason looks at me and winks, “He’s almost as popular around here as I am” he says with a laugh.

Being in Compton feels weird, I feel totally safe, but I can’t help but gawp at the shoes slung over the telephone wires, a sign of a gang murder nearby. I’m a tourist in a place where I shouldn’t really be a tourist. He parks his car, gives a nearby lad $5 and tells him that there is $10 more if he looks after it for an hour and we walk off. For what it’s worth, Compton is nice. I recommend it. We stop at a corner store and Jason looks at me.

“Could you go in there and get me a Lotto ticket”, he asks me. “I’ve just gotta make a phone call” He opens the door to the store and literally pushes me in. I stupidly don’t turn right around.

Inside there are four guys, three are wearing hoods and bandanas that are the same colour (Green). The three green guys sit on stools by the counter, and behind the counter is the biggest guy I have ever seen in my life. He looks like a bigger, angrier, stronger version of Mike Tyson. They all stop what they are doing and look at me. The stupid English guy in gang central.

I wander up to the counter and go all Hugh Grant on them. “I say, chaps, do you, erm, gosh, have Lotto here” is what I probably said. The big guy stands up and makes himself ever taller, its then I see the baseball bat behind the counter. He does this lip sucking thing and the three other lads all stand up as well.

“You the Feds?” he asks me. I look around for Jason. “Do I look like the Feds?” I stutter. “Yep” all four of them say at the same time. I’m sure the baseball bat has just moved. One of the guys takes a step closer. “Where you from?” he asks me, it felt intimidating at the time. I like to think that I played it cool though.

“England” I say followed by. “Long way from home…I’m just visiting…” . My voice was getting squeakier by the second. Then the door opens and Jason walks in and immediately the big guy shouts out something and walks over to Jason and embraces him. “He’s with me…” he says and I’m fairly sure that my bowel breathed a sigh of relief. They all start laughing at me. Jason hugs me and says sorry and then tells me to meet his brother Don. Don grabs me and tells me that this was all planned. Jason phoned him when I went to the bathroom at lunch.

I eventually see the funny side and as it happens this turns out to be one of the best days of my life.

Here’s two more of my favourite hip hop tracks from the last decade. One from LA and one from the East Coast just for balance. The first one’s for you Jason. You wait until you come to big bad Devon. I’m going to take you to the Big Sheep and run off and leave you.

Norf Norf – Vince Staples (2015, Def Jam Records, Did Not Chart)

Rockabye Baby – Joey Bada$$ (2017, Cinematic Records, Did Not Chart)

SWC

JC adds……the timing of this post is totally coincidental. It landed in my inbox more than three weeks ago and has long been scheduled for today as part of the rundown.

The reference to South End, the restaurant in Venice Beach, along with the namechecks given to myself and Jonny, are related to the fact that, until COVID-19 changed everything, the Villains were scheduled to spend a week in LA as the guests of Jonny and his wife, a trip that would also take in my birthday.  SWC had booked a table at South End for us to celebrate that occasion.

Maybe next year…..

Todd Snider

SOME SONGS ARE GREAT SHORT STORIES (Chapter 35)

A GUEST POSTING by Jonny the Friendly Lawyer

Want to know what’s going on in America? Here you go:

Helicopters over the house again
We got the projects two or three blocks from here
They pull the kids over for Driving-While-African
And the ones with the warrants always run in fear
So I sit here waiting for the coast to clear
Wishing once again I had a gun around here
Turn on the news, and what do I hear?
Some kid shot the bank up on Gallatin Road
Ran away from the cops while he was trying to reload
He beat them up to Eastland Street on feet
Now he’s probably reloaded and running down my street
I better turn the alarm on and lock myself in
Helicopters over the house again

Sometimes you rise above it
Sometimes you sneak below
Somewhere in between believing in heaven
And facing the devil you know

Poor kid probably never had a chance to give a fuck
He wouldn’t know good luck from a debutante
He’s got to find a way to be Steve McNair or Young Buck
Or he’s tough luck looking for a prison to haunt
And you can fuck getting any kind of job you want
Unless you really want to work in a fast food restaurant
And who wants to do that? Do you want to do that?
I wouldn’t trade that for my crooked hat
Or my gang or my gun or my waist full of pagers
For a job deep-frying shit for rich teenagers
If that’s where it’s at and no one’s gonna help
How you gonna blame a man for helping himself?
There is a war going on that the poor can’t win
Helicopters over the house again

Sometimes you rise above it
Sometimes you sneak below
Somewhere in between believing in heaven
And facing the devil you know

Black and white cops shining lights in the bushes
I can’t see how this kid is gonna get very far
Unless he finds a way to make it back over to Barry Street
And he can’t do that unless he steals a car
The way things are, they don’t seem right
All these white people talking ’bout the hope and light
There ain’t no hope in Sam Levy, just guns and drugs
We ain’t building bridges we’re just training thugs
And then I hear a terrifying kick at my back door
In walks this kid, I say “I’ve seen this kid before”
I see him all the time at that bar on Woodland Street
And now he’s bleeding in the kitchen tracking mud off his feet
And he’s looking at me like I’ll either help him or die
Until he sees in my eyes that I’m on his side
I hand him my keys, I say “You better move fast
“There’s a J in the ashtray and plenty of gas”
He throws me the cash, he says “I’ll be back for this”
I say “Yeah? Well don’t be surprised if there’s a little bit of it missing”
His gold teeth glistened with a big old grin
He said “We’ll talk about that when I see you again”
He shook my hand, I shook his back
I felt like I was ’bout to have a heart attack
Until he finally drove away I thought “Goddamn
Helicopters over the house again!”

Sometimes you rise above it
Sometimes you sneak below
Somewhere in between believing in heaven
And facing the devil you know
Facing the devil you know

mp3: The Devil You Know – Todd Snider

*This song came out 14 years ago and nothing’s changed. At least the cops didn’t kill the black guy.

**This song takes place in east Nashville, Tennessee, and all the street names are references to that part of town. ‘Sam Levy’ is a housing project. Steve McNair was the MVP quarterback of the Tennessee Titans. Young Buck is a rapper from Nashville.

JTFL

JC adds…..

Jonny dropped this to me last Saturday evening as his home city of Los Angeles was put under curfew.  It’s absolutely shocking to look at the TV pictures from this far away and see what is happening in cities all across America, but it has been a long time coming. I’d like to think that I’d have been on the streets to add my voice to those who have had enough, but at the same time, I’d be shitting myself to run the risk of being on the wrong end of police brutality.

PS : Jonny dropped a further email at 6.11am (UK time) this morning – 10.11pm on Sunday evening in LA.  He simply said he was re-reading the lyrics to this song, while the helicopters hovered above his house.

Stay safe my friend….