Month: March 2021

Primal Scream

WATCH IT DOUBLE IN PRICE ON-LINE IN NOVEMBER

Today’s posting should have been from SWC, but I’ve elbowed it into next week so that I can have a wee rant.

I love books almost as much as I do music.  I’ve well over 500 of the things lying around various corners of Villain Towers, constantly resisting the urges of Mrs V to get rid of some of them.  I’ve a fondness, you won’t be surprised to learn, for books about music, musicians and pop/rock history.  There’s nearly 200 of these in the collection, of which around half are biographies or memoirs.

Hearing the news that Bobby Gillespie is about to have his story published was quite exciting, and discovering that the book is being published on 28 October 2021 means it’s a no-brainer for being added to the next Santa list.  The fact it’s only taking things up to the release of Screamadelica is even better news as it will inevitably have a huge focus on my home city and the environs in which Bobby grew up.

The info came via one of the few social media things I keep up with and clicking on the link led to an immediate increase in my blood pressure.

Tenement Kid can be pre-ordered just now from a number of places, including Waterstones, the largest book chain in the UK, where the asking price is £20 for a signed copy.

The publisher, White Rabbit, has this info on line:-

As well as publishing in hardback, ebook and audio – all of which are available to pre-order now – TENEMENT KID will be available in two special collector’s editions:

It turns out that one is an ‘Independent Record Store Special Edition’, consisting of 500 copies which will be signed, numbered and stamped, in a bespoke Green slipcase, for which the price is £49.99

The second is a ‘Rough Trade Store Special Edition’, consisting of 1000 copies, again all to be signed, numbered and stamped, but this time in in a bespoke Red slipcase, for which the price is, again, £49.99.

Fair enough if you’re a big fan, but not enough to make me justify the additional £30 for something that I won’t have in my hands for another seven-and-a-bit months.

Here’s the thing….five Independent Record Stores have links available for the pre-order. Drift Records in Totnes (which is SWC country), Resident Music in Brighton, Norman Records in Leeds, Piccadilly Records in Manchester and Monorail Records in Glasgow. Two of the pre-orders, in Manchester and Glasgow, are already sold out.

Now, I may be wrong, and they have been snapped up by fans who have something to really look forward to, but I can’t help but be cynical and reckon folk are just taking a punt on the fact there are only 500 of things and have a plan to put their copy up on-line in early November in which they will seek to make a tidy profit. It’s the sort of behaviour that quickly put me off Record Store Day when the shops would be teeming, not with fans but with speculators, and has become increasingly common as singers/bands/labels put out limited edition copies of albums, usually at a premium, which quickly sell out before all too soon appearing on Discogs or the likes.

To illustrate…..

Monorail had a limited exclusive edition of As Days Get Dark, the new Arab Strap album, which came out just seven days ago. It included a bonus flexi disc, signed by Aidan and Malcolm and the flexi discs were limited to 600 in total. The asking price was £22.99 and unsurprisingly, given their popularity round these parts, it sold out in the blink of an eye…..to the extent that I missed out and had to settle for a copy without the flexi at £2 cheaper.

This special edition with the flexi is already on Discogs.

There are three on offer.

£80, £95 and £129 are the asking prices.

All described as mint, sealed/shrink wrapped and unplayed which means these fucking parasites paid £23 for something they had no intention of ever playing just so that they could look to make a killing.

Now, do you think I might be right about Bobby Gillespie’s book?

mp3: Primal Scream – If They Move, Kill ‘Em

JC

Zip

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF ZIP (Part One)

A GUEST POSTING by KHAYEM

Yes, it’s a tongue-in-cheek title: Zip only released one record. It also turned out to be the only time I got to see Pete Shelley live in concert and by accident, at that.

It’s May 1988, I’ve recently dropped out of college and got a full-time job and suddenly I have money for drinking and gigs. Unfortunately, whilst my friends have a passion for the former (especially if their newly minted mate is buying the rounds), few share my taste (or financial means) for the latter. So, I frequently found myself in a trade off, going to see bands that I had little or no interest in, in order to see a band I really wanted to see. This particular gig swap in 1988 was Siouxsie & The Banshees (me) and Erasure (my mate Paul).

Paul was a college friend and his enthusiasm for hip hop and rap (and James Brown) was infectious. It’s fair to say that Erasure was a bit of an unexpected suggestion from him, but I went along with it. I’d enjoyed Vince Clarke’s musical excursions with Depeche Mode and Yazoo and bought his one-off collaborations with Paul Quinn and Feargal Sharkey, as well as some of the early Erasure singles. By the time of The Innocents tour in 1988, I wasn’t a fan but I really wanted to see Siouxsie & The Banshees so needs must…

The gig was at the Colston Hall in Bristol and we had seats in row V, the ‘rear stalls’ about 17 back from the stage, far from an up front and personal experience.

There was no information on the support act, but the merchandise tables proclaimed ‘Zip’, whoever they might be. From our distant seats, even the sight of the three men in black taking to the stage didn’t elicit any recognition. However, the moment the voice started, a “What the…?!” moment triggered. My brother had Buzzcocks’ Singles Going Steady and it was a regular Friday/Saturday getting-ready-for-going-out soundtrack, so I could hear it was Pete Shelley, even if I couldn’t see him clearly. But… what was this?

I’ll be honest and say I don’t remember all that much about the gig (and browsing the internet, I don’t seem to be alone). Apart from the single A & B sides, I’ve no idea what other songs were on the setlist. I’ve got a vague recollection that they may have played Ever Fallen In Love… (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?) but that may just be a retrospective false memory. What I do recall was that Zip’s music was frenetic if a bit tinny, Shelley’s vocals sounded higher pitched than expected and it was all a bit…well, disappointing, really.

I didn’t see Zip’s debut single Your Love/Give It To Me around at the time and I wouldn’t have been moved to buy it following the Bristol gig. Thanks to the internet, I managed to hear the songs many years later and they’re actually not all that bad. Give It To Me actually first appeared as a B-side to Pete Shelley’s 1984 single Never Again and the better of the two Zip versions is the extended mix on the 12” single. Likewise, in my opinion, the remixed version of Your Love is superior. I don’t recall either getting airplay on Radio 1 though I do remember the following year hearing the similarly sounding remix of Homosapien II on the Annie Nightingale show. I’m guessing this too was short-lived as it was also in 1989 that Buzzcocks reformed. Never one to let a good song go to waste, in 1996 both songs were re-recorded for Buzzcocks’ All Set album, sounding as if they were always meant to sound that way.

There’s very little information about Zip available on the internet, but there’s an interesting article from The List magazine, promoting Zip’s support slot on Erasure’s The Innocents tour

https://archive.list.co.uk/the-list/1988-04-15/34/

Here is Zip’s sole 12” single from 1988:

Zip – Your Love (Single Version)
Zip – Your Love (Ext)
Zip – Give It To Me (Ext)

plus the various other versions of the A & B sides:

Pete Shelley – Give It To Me (Single Version) (1984)
Zip – Give It To Me (Single Version) (1987)
Buzzcocks – Your Love (1996)
Buzzcocks – Give It To Me (1996)

And the Erasure gig? It was okay, but it was the early 1990s before I really started enjoying their singles again. The Siouxsie & The Banshees gig followed in September 1988 and I thought it was great, Paul less so.

But this is where it gets weird for me. I remember that Siouxsie spent the whole concert sitting on a stool because she had injured her leg. However, all of the online info I can find mentions a broken leg during the 1985 tour, which I couldn’t possibly have been to. If anyone else attended the Peep Show tour in 1988 and can ease my addled mind, please let me know!

KHAYEM

 

Care

IT’S ONLY TAKEN 37 YEARS TO GET HERE…

As mentioned previously on the blog back in December 2013, (to great indifference!!), Care was primarily a coming together of Ian Broudie and Paul Simpson, forming in early 1983.

The former is best known as the man behind The Lightning Seeds, but he’s been part of the music scene in his native Liverpool since the late 70s, initially as part of the new wave band Big In Japan (who also featured Holly Johnson who found fame with Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Bill Drummond, likewise with The KLF). The latter had come to some minor prominence as the vocalist with The Wild Swans, two of whose other members – Jeremy Kelly and Ged Quinn – would go onto enjoy fleeting chart fame with The Lotus Eaters.

I remember hearing My Boyish Days, the debut single by Care one evening on either the David Jensen or Janice Long show on Radio 1 and being knocked out by what was then a pretty unusual and distinctive mix of acoustic guitars and synthesisers. I tracked the record down the following day.

It was on a major label – Arista Records. The production team was Clive Langer & Alan Winstanley who at the time were probably the biggest name producers in the UK. But despite considerable airplay in the evenings, it didn’t make the then crucial A-list at Radio 1 and the single faded into obscurity.

The b-sides productions were accredited to Kingbird, one of the names that Broudie used.  He took responsibility for the follow-up single, Flaming Sword, and it sneaked into the Top 50.

Single number three, Whatever Possessed You?, was another Kingbird effort, and despite at least one TV promo slot on the Oxford Road Show (I know this as I still have the clip on VHS tape), it didn’t come close to the charts, suffering from a severe lack of airplay.

Care then broke up in the summer of 1984 without bothering to release their debut album, the songs of which, along with the singles, some b-sides and demo tracks, eventually saw the light of day in 1997 as a CD entitled Diamonds & Emeralds. The band were referred to as Care featuring Ian Brodie.

The cash-in was of course completely cynical as it came hot on the heels of The Lightning Seeds biggest success with the football anthem Three Lions that was adopted by the supporters of England during their hosting of Euro 96. But if even a small handful of those who were new to Broudie’s talents were drawn to the CD by association, they would hopefully have found much to enjoy.

I’ve long had copies of the first two singles on 12″ vinyl – I was sure I bought the third at the time of its release but its long been missing from the shelves. Ever since starting this blog way back in the midst of time, Whatever Possessed You has been one of those pieces of vinyl that I’ve long coveted. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t ever track down a good copy on sale for a reasonable price, and I’ve watched in horror over the years as the price of any newly offered items have been increasingly beyond what I thought it was worth.

The final straw came at the end of 2020 when I lost out at the last minute on eBay to someone who came in with about 10 seconds to spare. I was determined not to miss out again….so when I saw one on Discogs in January 2021, I decided the price was irrelevant. It’s the most I’ve ever paid for any second-hand item in the collection(overtaking something on Postcard Records from about ten years ago), and given that prices are just getting really silly for anything that’s remotely rare, I don’t think I’ll ever go that high again.

But…..and this is the main thing…..it has made me very very happy.

And to celebrate, here’s the tracks from all three 12″ singles, freshly ripped as I’m typing these words, and made available at the 320 kpbs for the best possible listen after you download.

mp3: Care – My Boyish Days
mp3: Care – An Evening In The Ray
mp3: Care – Sad Day For England

mp3: Care – Flaming Sword
mp3: Care – Misericorde
mp3: Care – On The White Cloud

mp3: Care – Whatever Possessed You?
mp3: Care – Besides (One)
mp3: Care – Besides (Two)
mp3: Care – Besides (Three)
mp3: Care – Besides (Four)

Three of my favourite singles of all time, backed with eight fabulous pieces of music, most of them instrumentals, on the b-sides.

Enjoy.

PS – Ian Broudie, in the guise of The Lightning Seeds, would later release his own version of Flaming Sword, as a b-side to the Sense single, in 1992

JC

Creeping Bent Records

IF YOU’RE SEEKING OUT VALUE FOR MONEY….

Creeping Bent is an independent label, established in Glasgow back in 1994, and regarded by many as a worthy, if longer-tenured, successor to the likes of Postcard.

It is run by Douglas Macintyre, who has long been at the heart of much that is good about the music and creative industries in Scotland.

Douglas, like many of his contemporaries in these challenging times, has been seeking out fresh ways to keep the revenues flowing. He recently turned to the increasingly popular Patreon model, which, for those of you who aren’t familiar, allows anyone on the creative side of things to enable fans to become active participants in the work they love by offering them a monthly membership, providing, among other things, access to exclusive content.

I’ve a handful of Patreon subscriptions, but there is no question that Creeping Bent is ahead of almost everyone when it come to offering value for money. It’s just £5 per month (plus VAT) and here, lifted from the relevant Patreon page, is what’s on offer:-

THE CREEPING BENT ORGANISATION is based in Strathaven, South Lanarkshire, and has been operational in Scotland since 1994 releasing independent avant-pop products. Every month we will be sharing 4 previously unreleased tracks (sometimes more) from the future and the past, exclusively to Patreon. New albums by Port Sulphur, The Secret Goldfish, Monica Queen, Article 58 (and others) will only be released through Patreon.

Creeping Bent groups recorded several BBC session for John Peel, groups like Adventures in Stereo, The Nectarine No9, The Secret Goldfish, The Leopards. Recording BBC sessions on 6Music has continued on Marc Riley’s show, with live sets by The Secret Goldfish, Port Sulphur, Vic Godard, Sexual Objects being broadcast.

We’ll be posting monthly mini-concerts, as well as publishing unseen extracts from lyric books, the Bent notebook, photography, art, and memorabilia from the Creeping Bent archive.

We’ll be sharing short stories and written work from our FRETS WORDS publishing outlet, and exclusive posters from our FRETS CONCERTS acoustic concert series, which has thus far featured concerts by Lloyd Cole, James Grant, Teenage Fanclub’s Norman and Euros. Future concerts at FRETS (in the Strathaven Hotel) will feature The Bluebells, The Skinner Songbook, J.J.Gilmour, Roddy Woomble, King Creosote, Robyn Hitchcock, Robert Forster, Tim Burgess, Norman Blake, David Scott, Duglas T.Stewart, and Grant-Lee Phillips (among others). Exclusive edition posters for download from these concerts will be made available on Patreon.

Discussion will be random and inhabit that intersection where The Velvet Underground meets ornithology meets Truman Capote meets Georgia O’Keeffe, in other words anything goes!

I really do recommend this is a great way of supporting a fabulous label and for landing yourselves some amazing pieces of music. I can’t guarantee you’ll love everything that lands in your inbox (and there is usually something on a daily basis), but there’s plenty of gems to be found, such as this cover version of an early Josef K single:-

mp3: Douglas MacIntyre – It’s Kinda Funny

There’s also a fascinating short film been made to accompany the music, again available via the subscription.

So, what are you waiting for??  Click here for all the details.

JC

Automatic

LANDFILL INDIE? – A FRESH SERIES FOR MONDAYS (Issue 3)

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment/respond/react to the first two issues in this latest series.  As I anticipated, while some of the TVV community have been happy to see a particular track sent to landfill, others have offered a fairly stout defence.  I hope that this proves to be the case as it goes on….or will we ever see a week when the song gets a unanimous thumbs-down.

Issue 3 sees us heading back to June 2006

mp3: The Automatic – Monster

As with so many acts of the era, I didn’t really pay too much attention to things… I was in my early 40s for goodness’ sake and felt it was a tad undignified to tray and keep up religiously with all the bands who were keeping the teens and students happy.  As such, what follows is from t’internet.

“Electro-punk quartet The Automatic formed in Cardiff, Wales, in the fall of 2003. The founding line-up comprised singer/bassist Robin Hawkins, guitarist James Frost, keyboardist Alex Pennie, and drummer Iwan Griffiths. and they band cut a demo that earned the attention of Probation Management, a subsidiary of Cardiff label FF Vinyl.

Probation in turn mailed the demo to the London-based B-Unique label, which immediately signed the band to a reputed £500,000 publishing deal. By year’s end the Automatic was a major favourite of the famously excitable British press, with the single Raoul penetrating the U.K. Top 40 in the spring of 2006.

The follow-up, Monster, not only cracked the Top Five weeks later, but entered the chart solely on the strength of pre-retail downloads. The debut LP, Not Accepted Anywhere, reached number three following its June 2006 release. The album was re-released the following year in the U.S., under the name The Automatic Automatic.

The band released their second album This Is A Fix accompanied by only one single, Steve McQueen in 2008, which due to a dispute between the band’s labels – B-Unique and Polydor – was plagued with distributional and promotional problems. The dispute led to the band withdrawing from their 5-album deal with the labels and instead formed their own label, Armoured Records, distributed through EMI.

After independently releasing their third album Tear the Signs Down in 2010 and three singles – Interstate, Run & Hide and Cannot Be Saved, the band took what was described as a temporary break, but it seems to have become permanent.

The band were quick to point out that many of the lyrics used in Monster are metaphors for drug and drink intoxication; “brain fried tonight through misuse” and “without these pills you’re let loose”, with the chorus ‘monster’ lyric being a metaphor for the ogre that comes out when people are intoxicated.

The single received fairly mixed reviews:-

“daft, irresponsible and unforgettably irritating”
“Monster is an electrifying 3 minutes and 44 seconds of pop music at its finest”
“it’s the catchiest indie hit of the summer, boasting a hook that could disembowel a whale”
“The Automatic’s releases are getting progressively worse each time. Are they running out of good songs?

I genuinely don’t know where I stand with this one. I’ve an admiration for the fact that The Automatic produced something as catchy as this while still maintaining, initially at least, a degree of credibility with the critical cognoscenti. And then, after I’ve heard it a couple of times in quick succession, I find it annoying to the point that I would gladly throw it into an impregnable cell and toss away the key….

I would imagine that nowadays, those who were aged under 10 at the time of its release will still recall it with much fondness as part of their growing up. Those who jumped around to it at gigs or at indie discos are probably a bit more sheepish about it. Love it or loath it, there’s no denying its catchiness.

But, bringing in additional evidence of the another single, which was released on two separate occasions (March 2006 and January 2007), I’m coming off the fence to say that The Automatic are another whose efforts should be part of the landfill indie mass.  Especially when you take into account the cover version they put on the flip side of the January 2007 release:-

mp3: The Automatic – Raoul
mp3: The Automatic – Gold Digger

No wonder Kanye West got angry with the world in recent years…..

And I better say a huge ‘SORRY’ to Mini SWC, who is, as I’m sure you’ll recall, a huge fan of Monster…..

JC

R.E.M.

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF R.E.M. (Part 35)

With Up yielding not just one, but TWO top 10 hits, and a sold-out World tour in full swing, Warners decided to capitalise with the release of a fourth single from Up. They really shouldn’t have bothered – to say it backfired is an understatement.

While Up may not be described as the most ‘user-friendly’ record in R.E.M.’s discography, it nonetheless had some wonderful songs on it. For a fourth single, how about the uplifting Walk Unafraid, without a doubt one of the Up Tour’s live highlights? (here, here!!! – JC)

Or The Apologist with its “I’m sorry” refrain referencing the early classic So. Central Rain? Or even, as a real curveball, Up’s best moment in my opinion, the Krautrock-inspired Leonard Cohen pastiche Hope? (agreed….the best song on the album, but so unlike R.E.M. -JC)

But Warners thought “No, what we need is an utterly forgettable 5½-minute dirge that no one will play on radio and no fans will feel the need to buy again.”

And that’s exactly what transpired. Released on 28th June 1999, Suspicion became the first R.E.M. single in more than a decade not to chart in the UK. That is perhaps the only significant thing I can say about it. Both formats (for there were only two) contained the full-length album version of Suspicion

mp3: R.E.M. – Suspicion

Not even the b-sides can save this one. More live tracks I’m afraid. In this case, more from that Jools Holland special from the previous Autumn. The main CD release included these:

mp3: R.E.M. – Electrolite [live on Later… With Jools Holland]
mp3: R.E.M. – Man On The Moon [live on Later… With Jools Holland]

The collectible 3” CD contained a live in the studio take of Suspicion (though not the same one that appeared on the Lotus single), plus an early fave taken from that Jools show.

mp3: R.E.M. – Suspicion [live at Ealing Studios]
mp3: R.E.M. – Perfect Circle [live on Later… With Jools Holland]

Not the most inspiring way to sign off the Up era, but perhaps in some way fitting considering what was to come over the next few years…

The Robster

Pop Wallpaper

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #249: POP WALLPAPER

From lastfm…

Pop Wallpaper were formed in around 1981 in Stirling, Scotland, with the original line-up of Evan Henderson (guitar/vocals), David Evans (guitar), Stephen Hunter (bass) and Les Cook (drums). The band gigged locally to much critical acclaim and moved their base to Edinburgh in 1982 with a final line-up of Audrey Redpath (vocals), Evan Henderson (guitar), David Evans (guitar), Myles Raymond (bass), Les Cook (drums, keyboards) and John McVay (sax, keyboards).

During the course of their life, the band played throughout Scotland, supporting the likes of Lloyd Cole & The Commotions and, bizarrely, Afrikka Bambaatta & The Soulsonic Force, building up a solid fan-base.

The first EP was released in 1984 and was a 3-track single headed up by “Over Your Shoulder”. This single had extensive radio play on BBC Radio 1 on the John Peel and Janice Long shows, leading to a Janice Long session recorded at the BBC in London.

This was followed by a second single in 1986, a double-A side featuring a cover of the Shuggie Otis song “Strawberry Letter 23” and “Nothing Can Call Me Back”. Again these received a fair amount of airplay, but unfortunately little commercial success outwith their core base in Edinburgh.

JC adds……

I’ve had a copy of the 12″ of the second single for a while now, holding it back until such a time as their turn came up in this long-running series.  It’s not one I picked up back in 1984, although I had heard it played a couple of times at the alternative nights held each Thursday in the Students Union at Strathclyde Uni, but I did see a second-hand copy in a shop around three years ago.

mp3: Pop Wallpaper – Strawberry Letter 23
mp3: Pop Wallpaper – Nothing Can Call Me Back

I wasn’t aware until more recently that the band only ever released the two singles, and, as it turns out, the previous effort was included in the Big Gold Dreams boxset compilation from a couple of years back:-

mp3: Pop Wallpaper – Over Your Shoulder

The booklet which comes with BGD provides the information that Evan Henderson would later become the manager of Paul Haig – and indeed is someone who, a few years ago, became a huge friend of the blog.

Returning to Pop Wallpaper, I think its fair to say they are very much of their time, but there’s something that little bit different about the noise they make to make them a tad more interesting than most. Audrey’s vocals are quite unique, and there’s a sense of Associates/Haig/Win about the music in many places.

JC

 

Girls At Our Best

HERE’S THE SOPHOMORE SINGLE

It was back in June 2017 when I previously gave a mention to Girls At Our Best!, recalling that I learned of them thanks to Getting Nowhere Fast, being covered by The Wedding Present.

As I mentioned in passing, Getting Nowhere Fast was a self-financed single, released in April 1980 on the band’s own Record Records following which Rough Trade put out a second single entitled Politics in November 1980.

I’ve now tracked down a copy of the sophomore effort:-

mp3 : Girls At Our Best! – Politics

My info, supplied by my big reference book of indie music, was that this came out solely on Rough Trade but it turns out with was a joint release with the band’s own label.

At first listen, I didn’t think it came close to matching the majesty of the debut 45, but it’s proven to be one of those songs that manages to grow with successive listens.  I thought it was a song that could firmly be put in the big bundle of twee songs, but in fact there’s a fair bit of an anti-establishment punch being thrown at the antics of those who are out on the stump canvassing votes, with the sinister line of ‘Love to see you smiling when you’re kissing little girls’ delivered with seeming innocence.  And if you’re wondering what is being chanted in the background while the chorus rings out, I’m happy to clarify that name checks are given to the USA, CIA, KGB, EEC, FBI, and ICI.

JC

Arab Strap

SOME SONGS ARE GREAT SHORT STORIES (Chapter 44)

This came up via the i-player while I was away in world of my own last Sunday, out stretching my legs in an effort to avoid boredom.  I made a mental note to check on my return and, true enough, I hadn’t previously included it in this series, albeit a couple of other Arab Strap songs have been earlier chapters

So that was the first big weekend of the summer… Starts Thursday as usual with a canteen quiz and again no-one wins the big cash prize. Later I do my sound bloke routine by approaching Gina’s new boyfriend to say that he shouldn’t feel that there’s any animosity between us and then I even go and make peace with her. I shouldn’t have bothered. Then on Friday night we went through to the Arches…

There was only one car going, so some of us had to get the train. We got through quite late. Then we went to a pub to take the gear. There was no problems getting in – we saw some others waiting down the front of the queue so we skipped in. It was a good night, everyone was nutted and I ended up dancing with some blonde girl. I thought she had been quite pretty until last night when Matthew informed me that she had, in fact, been a pig. When the club finished we wandered the streets for a while until we got to this 24-hour cafe but I didn’t like the look of it so we left and got a taxi back to Morag’s flat. I couldn’t sleep, so I sat about drinking someone else’s strawberry tonic wine and tried to keep everyone else up.

Then at ten o’clock in the morning we went downstairs to buy some drink. We had intended to watch the football in the afternoon but we’d passed out by then and slept right through it, awaking to find that England had won two-nil. Then we went to get the train home and had a few in the Station Bar. We had some stuff left from the previous night’s supplies so when we got home we decided to go down to John’s indie disco. Same story as Friday – lots of hugging, lots of dancing etc. etc. I couldn’t sleep again so went up the park to look at the tomb, taking a detour through the playpark. To get in we had to climb over a ten foot steel fence, which resulted in severe bruising of our hands, legs and groins, but we had a good laugh on the stuff, especially the tube-slide, which probably doubles up as a urinal for drunk teens. Then we walked through the woods to have a look at the tomb. It was a big disappointment, but the mist on the lake was cool.

Sunday afternoon we go up to John’s with a lot of beer in time to watch the Simpsons. It was a really good episode about love always ending in tragedy except, of course, for Marge and Homer. It was quite moving at the end and to tell you the truth my eyes were a bit damp. Then we watched these young girls in swimsuits have a water fight in the street.

(“Taping this, aye?”)

We went up to the pub about ten. It was busy for a Sunday night, lots of people we know, including my first ever girlfriend who I still find very attractive, quite frankly, but I didn’t really speak to her. She’s probably still a bitch, anyway. Her friend Gillian was there, I had a chat with her, she was still quite pleasant. At the same time I watched Malcolm make some terrible attempt to try and chat up a girl we know called Jo. He made some remark about her skirt that was barely there the previous night or something. I couldn’t sleep again that night, thanks to some seriously disturbing nightmares…Matthew says I should cut down on the cheese.

“Went out for the weekend, it lasted for ever, high with our friends it’s officially summer.”

I got some sleep eventually on Monday afternoon. It was a beautiful day, and later that evening Malcolm introduced me to the power of Merrydown – £1.79 a litre, 8.2% – mmmm….. Judith and Laura came round later and we sat in my back garden and drank. Then Matthew came round and we went up the town. It’s officially summer.

mp3: Arab Strap – The First Big Weekend

The First Big Weekend took place on Friday 14 – Sunday 16 June 1996.  Aidan Moffat would have been 23 years old at the time, while Malcolm Middleton would have been 22.  I’m guessing the crowd of friends who travelled the 23.5 miles from their home town of Falkirk to Glasgow, scene of the Friday night/Saturday morning frivolities, would have been around the same age.

Your humble scribe was just a few days short of his 33rd birthday, and my big weekend was spent in St Andrews, with a crowd of 16 mates all staying two nights in a bed and breakfast and playing games of golf on each of the Friday, Saturday and Sunday under blazing hot skies – it was in the mid 80s the entire time.  We did, somehow, manage to stay out till about 1am on the Friday, get up to play golf at 7am on the Saturday, have some food and then watch the important football match in which England beat Scotland 2-0 in the European Championships.  Saturday night was a bit quieter and the golf on the Sunday was survival of the fittest…..

Here’s another couple of versions of the song.

The first is from Arab Strap’s first ever live gig at King Tut’s in Glasgow in October 1996…..you’ll spot that the lyrics are a tad different, but you’ll also perhaps spot that the friends referred to in the song are in the audience……it was the band’s ninth and final song of the set.  I’d love to say I was there, but I’d be lying…

mp3: Arab Strap – The First Big Weekend (live, October 1996)

The second version  was released as a digital single to mark the 20th Anniversary of the song.  It was remixed by Miaoux Miaoux, one of the other wonderful acts who have been part of the Chemikal Underground story.

mp3: Arab Strap – The First Big Weekend of 2016

The remix is, how do you say it, a banging tune………

JC

 

Dr.Dre

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS : 2001

Album: 2001 : Dr.Dre
Review: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 19 September 2019
Author: Sose Fuamoli

Dr. Dre’s 2001 — a hip hop classic that could not be made today

A classic record with some questionable content

When we think of Dr. Dre, we think of an era of hip hop rooted in decadence, delivered by artists who had lived the experiences that formed the basis of their material.

These were the stories of hustlers, young men who had come up from the struggle. Legends in the making who were thriving in a genre that provided an avenue out of the violence and impoverishment of their upbringing. A future that would be paved with money and fame in excess, and egos to match.

The release of Dre’s debut LP The Chronic in 1992 firmly established him as a hip hop game changer.

From the shadows of his group N.W.A’s mammoth success emerged a double threat. Dre’s production technique and ear for g-funk and gangsta rap progressions, coupled with his staunch flow, turned heads and provided a huge breakthrough for the Death Row Records label Dre founded with Suge Knight and The D.O.C..

Seven years later, in anticipation of the new millennium, Dr. Dre delivered his second album, 2001.

A record laden with expectation and anticipation, the album followed 1996’s Dr. Dre Presents The Aftermath – a compilation album that sold well, but failed to capture the same attention and respect as The Chronic.

Where 2001 differs is in its compositional weight, the calibre of guests representing the thriving culture of the time, and the reflection of Dre’s evolution as a rapper and the West Coast sound in general.

“I just basically do hardcore hip hop and try to add a touch of dark comedy here and there,” Dr. Dre told the Irish Times in 2000.

“A lot of the times the media just takes this and tries to make it into something else when it’s all entertainment first.”

It makes sense. 2001 was originally constructed as if it were a film.

Purely cinematic in its presentation, an album like 2001 set a precedent for this type of hip hop record that an artist like Kendrick Lamar would follow in producing seminal works of their own (Good Kid, m.A.A.d City).

The skits linking the 17 album tracks continue the narrative, centred on West Coast hip hop’s thematic triumvirate: weed, sex and violence.

Comedian Eddie Griffin is a noted voice on ‘Ed-Ucation’, possibly the album’s lowest point: a one-and-a-half-minute rant about side-chicks who become pregnant on purpose.

Two tracks later, we hear orgasms and the voice of male porn star Jake Steed on ‘Pause for a Porno’, before the interlude breaks into ‘Housewife’.

The cringe factor brought on Dre’s more graphic lyrics are relegated to the lesser known songs on the album. Intentional or not, the kind of subject matter acclaimed rappers would never be able to get away with today, is ultimately shadowed by the singles: banger after banger that would drop during the album’s cycle of release.

What comes out on top is a strong and confident attitude that permeates through the entire piece.

The record is less concerned with hyping up a lifestyle and serves more as a massive ‘fuck you’ to anyone who questioned how Dr. Dre would stand solo, sans-N.W.A and without Death Row and Suge Knight behind him.

Establishing himself as one of the strongest players in the culture, Dr. Dre demonstrated his reach in employing an all-star list of ghostwriters (The D.O.C., Royce da 5’9”, Jay-Z), musicians (Mike Elizondo, Scott Storch, Jason Hann) and vocalists to pull his vision together.

We’re talking Xzibit, Nate Dogg, Kurupt and Snoop Dogg. Mary J. Blige, MC Ren, Hittman. Eminem, fresh off the back of the Dr. Dre-produced debut, The Slim Shady LP.  The young Marshall Mathers has one of the best verses and highlight moments on the record, spitting psychopathic greatness on ‘Forgot About Dre’.

A cultural moment as well as an album touchstone, ‘Forgot About Dre’ showed Dre at his bitter best, while Eminem’s vibe is a perfect snapshot of America’s Most Disturbed at his most venomous.

The album has spawned some of the most popular tracks of the decade, namely ‘Still D.R.E’ and ‘The Next Episode’, the latter of which has become almost a rite of passage to rap along to for anyone beginning the partying chapter of their young adulthood.

‘Still D.R.E’, the first single from 2001, is assertive and quick to light a fire beneath those who assumed Dre was down and out of the game following the release of …The Aftermath.

‘I stay close to the heat,’ he raps. ‘And even when I was close to defeat, I rose to my feet’.

In the same vein, ‘The Next Episode’ is possibly the pinnacle of West Coast rap, delivered in its most pure form.

The track wouldn’t be what it is without Snoop Dogg’s silky-smooth cadence, Dre’s braggadocious entry and statement of intent as a King of Cali (‘Compton, Long Beach, Inglewoood’) and of course, Nate Dogg’s marijuana-loving outro.

Elsewhere on 2001, a listener can find some underrated cuts that still stand strong on their own now, 20 years later.

‘Bang Bang’ is an example of Dr. Dre’s intelligence and knack for clever lyrics, ‘Let’s Get High’ sees Ms. Roq shine, while ‘The Message’ changes the album’s speed entirely.

Closing the album, the Mary J. Blige and Rell collaboration ‘The Message’ is an ode to Dr. Dre’s late brother Tyree and a song that deserved much more attention than it received.

At 22 tracks total, 2001 was perhaps embraced gluttonously when it was first unleashed. Nobody could have predicted Dr. Dre’s entrepreneurial hustles becoming such a main (and lucrative) focus over the next decade. He released another studio record (Compton) in 2015, yet the fumes of hope surrounding the almost mythical Detox album remain.

As we look to the beginning of another decade, a deep dive on an album like 2001 poses the question:

Could this sort of record be made and revered today?

Ask most hip-hop fans and they’d probably tell you no.

While the culture does still have pockets of music rooted in the same old tropes (read: strippers, liquor, misogyny), hip hop today has never been so multi-faceted. Yet, in a lot of ways, the influence of Dr. Dre has been there throughout.

As the West Coast hip hop sound became more defined – and popular – through the latter half of the 1990s, largely thanks to the emergence of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg, the Dr. Dre sound remained present and continued to develop.

An innovator and sonic perfectionist, the Compton original would go on to pave the way for a whole new generation of hip hop artists valuing a fine-tuned ear for production and composition as much as they do their rhymes.

JC adds…….

I stumbled across this piece of writing when I was looking for a bit of background on The Next Episode, as I was intending to do a posting on that 12″ single.  But I changed my mind and decided instead to go with this review of the album as Ms. Fuamoli, who is a very well established music journalist, content producer and publicist from Melbourne, has captured perfectly what I feel about 2001.

It’s something that I can’t listen to all the way through. Indeed, I reckon I’ve only managed to do so on two occasions, the first being the initial playback and the second about 18 months ago when I tried it out with some new headphones (not Beats Headphones I should add!!!) as I really love much of the production, and I used the occasion to check, and be reminded of, the fact that the skits are awful and that a fair number of the lyrics are questionable/objectionable.

It acted as a useful reminder that this is a record which shouldn’t be owned on vinyl.  CD is ideal as the remote control needs to be handily placed ready for the FF button to be utilised.  And yet, despite my unease about a lot of things, there are enough songs, all of which have been highlighted in the above review that were instant classics and still, all these years later, retain the right to be described as such :-

mp3: Dr. Dre (feat. Snoop Dogg) – Still D.R.E.
mp3: Dr. Dre (feat. Eminem) – Forgot About Dre
mp3: Dr. Dre (feat. Snoop Dogg, Kurupt and Nate Dogg) – The Next Episode
mp3: Dr. Dre (feat. Mary J Bilge and Rell) – The Message

This post might not actually last too long…..I’ve a sneaky feeling I might get a take-down notice.

JC

Spectrum

BURNING BADGERS VINYL (Part 16): SPECTRUM

Burning Badgers Vinyl – The Lost LPs #4

Soul Kiss(Glide Divine) – Spectrum (1992, Silvertone Records)

SWC writes……..

The second time I ever met Badger was outside a farm near the rain drenched Dartmoor market town called Okehampton (or, as the locals call it in honour of its rain drenched status, Soakhampton). It was at the height of the foot and mouth crisis and I can remember for a good three months the air on Dartmoor was thick with the smell of burning cows. It was a horrible time. I’d turned up there in a hire car, a brand new Honda Civic, which had 17 miles on the clock when I got in it and was so clean you could have fried your breakfast on it. By the time I’d got to the farm it was covered in mud. Badger was sitting cross legged on a massive tree stump drinking tea out of a mug that had “Farmers like it dirty” emblazoned on its side. He also, as usual, had a bacon sandwich in his left hand.

(Incidentally the official colour of the Honda Civic was something called ‘Nighthawk’. I also once drove a new Vauxhall Insignia that was apparently coloured ‘Bedouin’, something that inspired Badger and I to once compile a rundown of the best songs ever to contain a colour in the title, ‘Blue Monday’ came out on top unsurprisingly narrowly beating ‘Ruby Tuesday’ to the crown).

The previous time I’d met him had been about six weeks earlier at a Christmas Party where a very drunk Badger had explained to a semi interested crowd the mechanics of the bands The Libertines and Babyshambles with the aid of condiments such as brown sauce, small sachets of vinegar and a salt mill. He sort of pulled it off. I got the bus back to the wilds of South Devon with Badger that night and we spent the entire hour journey talking about our favourite bands. Although I almost moved seats when he said that one of the best records he owned was ‘Appetite For Destruction’.

Anyway, back to the farm, I can’t go into to why Badger was there, but I had to deliver something to him and it had to be hand delivered. The hand delivered thing was very sensitive and I was supposed to be a little bit careful with it. I don’t think I was supposed to advertise my arrival to the middle of nowhere by destroying the peace and quiet of the countryside by taking full advantage of the brand new and previously unused car stereo in the Honda Civic. But that’s’ what I did. I literally rocked up at this farm with ‘Loveless’ by My Bloody Valentine roaring away.

mp3: My Bloody Valentine – Sometimes

Badger told me he heard me coming through the village a full five minutes before I arrived. The word ‘full’ emphasised with a grin. He said it was the first time he had ever seen cows willingly engaging in shoegazing. On the other hand he said pointing to the field of crops to his left,

“My Bloody Valentine appear to be a very effective form of scaring off crows from fields. You should market that to the National Farmers Union, you want a cuppa?

Stupid question. Of course, I want a cuppa. Badger looks at me and asks “You ever seen MBV live?”. Nope I say…

In late 1991, a much younger and less grizzled Tim Badger caught a train from Leeds with his mates Aaron and Max and travelled down to London to see My Bloody Valentine. He wasn’t really a fan of the band, he thought that they were too bloody loud but they were also going to a football match so he tagged along. The gig was at the Town and Country Club (now the Forum), a legendary venue in Kentish Town. He told me all about that gig.

Christ, it was loud” he said, “from the first second they came on there was just smoke everywhere, and then constant feedback, and this wall of sound that made you teeth rattle and it was impossible to drink anything because of the throbbing noise your jaw was making, you couldn’t see anything, everyone was coughing and everyones ears hurt. I mean it was amazing but at least twenty people lost their hearing that night before the support had even finished”

Who was the support act I asked him. He looked at me and grinned, “It was Sonic Boom’s Spectrum and…” he said his voice dropping to a whisper…”they were way better than MBV, MBV were out of tune, half asleep and spoke in whispers to a crowd who had had their ear drums blasted by two hours of feedback. They could have been calling our mothers whores and we wouldn’t have had a clue” (the gig was 14th December 1991).

All of which gently rocking cows staring at their hooves (why has no one invented hoofgaze yet?), brings us to the fourth LP casually lifted from Badger’s Big Box of Records. It is, for those of you who haven’t read the top of the page, the debut album ‘Soul Kiss (Glide Divine)’, by the slightly less genius side of Spacemen 3, – Pete Kember, aka Sonic Boom and his band Spectrum.

As you will all know, I’m a sucker for anything Spacemen 3 related – I mean I even bought the album by The Darkside and I went to Lupine Howl’s first ever gig, but for some reason apart from the first track below I never explored Spectrum’s oeuvre, largely I think because the word ‘Spectrum’ always reminds me of a rubbish leisure centre in Guildford, where a 50 year old woman made a pass at a 20 year old me at a bus stop (it’s a story for another time).
Anyway, let’s start here, with the one track we should know about already.

mp3: Spectrum – How You Satisfy Me

Because that folks, is stone cold indie rock excellence from the opening swirls of that organ at the start, through the way it just kind of nicks a large part of a Troggs song (I forget which one) and tries to pretend it hasn’t. After that Kember just kinds of floats his lyrics about over and over again majestically. Essentially ‘How You Satisfy Me’ is one long chorus and one long riff but somehow, somehow, its garage rock perfection and if Kember stuck to that instead of making music that you sounded as you were sitting on a cloud, things might have been very different.

The rest of the album is a lot calmer and much more aligned with Sonic Boom’s later E.A.R. (Experimental Audio Research) work, more experimental and firmly embedded in the drone rock genre.

I’ll give you ‘Neon Sigh’ as an example of this. It kind of slowly uses drone effect and has this cool swirly sounds drifting in and out that kind of suggest something might happen, albeit it will be minimalistic when it does eventually happen.

Musically it would appear at least, that Sonic Boom’s Spectrum could argue that they were floating in space long before Jason Pierce stumbled upon the idea.

mp3: Spectrum – Neon Sigh

It’s not all experimental space drifting though, there are a bunch of actual songs, which are very pleasant. ‘Waves Wash Over Me’ stands out, if only for the vocals, which are ‘breezy’ shall we say.

mp3: Spectrum – Waves Wash Over Me

My favourite part of the album, apart from ‘How You Satisfy Me’ that is, is a track called “Sweet Running Water”. Which is in keeping with the watery theme running through the album, a slow and gentle waterfall of feedback and even softer rhythms. Outstanding.

mp3: Spectrum – Sweet Running Water

SWC

JC adds

All new to me…..and while it’s not something I would have tracked down at the time the fact that 1992 was a year in which very few copies of album were pressed onto vinyl means SWC is now the proud owner of a record which fetches the best part of £200 on the second-hand market.  As such, I type this PS with a tinge of jealousy…..

Maccabees

LANDFILL INDIE? – A FRESH SERIES FOR MONDAYS (Issue 2)

I’m typing this up before seeing any reaction to Issue 1, so I’m not sure if this will be the second and final part of the series or if in fact there is a wish from readers to see it continue, hopefully with a few guest contributions.

I own a vinyl copy of this week’s song:-

mp3: The Maccabees – About Your Dress

I’m not actually sure as to why I bought it back in 2007 other than the fact that I had maybe six months or so previously acquired my first USB turntable with the intention of converting loads of old vinyl into mp3s, and in the process, started up The Vinyl Villain in September 2006.  Thinking back, and looking at the overall vinyl collection, it was a period when I would pick up 7″ singles on spec when browsing in any of the independent shops, partly as I was wondering if I happened to pick something up by a then unknown or minor band who went on to be massive, then I might have something that would later become ‘valuable’ in my hands – as an aside, this has actually happened with the likes of the early Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad singles, (not that these were bought on spec!!).

About Your Dress is, sadly, indie-pop by numbers. It was a relatively minor hit, reaching #33, but this would actually prove to be The Maccabees biggest selling 45 in a career which spanned 2005-2015, during which all four of their albums went at least silver, (with a gold disc for 2012’s Given To The Wind).

I should mention that the single is on yellow vinyl – it was also available on blue vinyl with a slightly different sleeve and a different b-side recorded in the studio   Mine’s has this live version of their previous single

mp3: The Maccabees – First Love (live at University of London Union, 5 December 2006)

Oh, and by the way, I knew nothing of this lot before putting this piece together.  Turns out, they have the poshest collection of names I have ever seen in one group:-

Orlando Weeks – vocals, guitar, keyboards
Hugo White – guitars, backing vocals
Felix White – guitars, piano, backing vocals
Rupert Shepherd – bass
Robert Dylan Thomas – drums

Finally, I paid £3 for the single. A mint copy of it goes for £6 these days on Discogs.  Not bad for something that I’d say is very much landfill indie……..

JC