December 2021 – Page 2 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #288: THE SEXUAL OBJECTS

Davy Henderson‘s reputation as a maverick genius seems to be growing with each passing year. Some folk love him primarily for what he achieved in the early 80s with the angular post-punk of Fire Engines, while others pine for the super-pop era and near-chart success of Win. Next up was his ten-plus years with Nectarine No.9, part of which was with the resurrected Postcard Records in the mid-90s; this brought about six albums that I think can be best be accurately described as being a mixed-bag, but having said that, when Nectarine No.9 did produce the goods, they were an essential listen.

Next out of the blocks was The Sexual Objects, whose discography consists of a handful of singles and albums, more often than not in limited editions. The first single, Full Penetration, dates back to 2007 on Creeping Bent Records while the most recent album, Marshmallow, was issued in 2017 on Triassic Tusk Records, a very small label based on the east coast of Scotland. The album had a pressing of just 300 copies, but even that was something of a bonus.

Here’s the wonderful folk at Monorail, the best record store in ~~Glasgow~~, ~~Scotland~~, the entire world, to tell you all:-

Upon completion of a record that is one of the very best in a career that runs spectacularly all the way from The Dirty Reds to The Fire Engines to Nectarine Number 9 to The Sexual Objects, Davy Henderson, frustrated at the conventions of record releases, decided to play a high risk strategy with the master copy by putting it up for auction.It was a punk move that out Bill Drummonded Bill Drummond.

By taking something most artists and musicians would consider more important and precious than money – their new work, years in the making – he threw down a fragile gauntlet. As the auction became publicised many of us wondered who might buy it (an art collector, a punk snob, Bob Last?) and if we’d ever get to hear the record (admission: some of us had heard a handful of tracks and loved them). Fortunately the record fell into very safe hands by way of the noble guys at Triassic Tusk, and we’re so happy to come in as special partners on this, the first (only) vinyl edition.

Ok, so what’s it like? It’s everything you’d dare hope for from a Sexual Objects record – rundown glam, budget Bowie, an unreleased pop Brian Eno record, it’s Davy Henderson and his brilliant band delivering the strange news. You want pop, you want scuzz, you want pop scuzz from someone who talks it and walks it with an oddball swagger. Not about to run out of tunes anytime soon, this is the perfect band for Davy Henderson to be fronting at this stage of his career, this is the perfect record for him to be making. Love it.

Yup. Marshmallow has been completed in 2014, ready for release in January 2015. The idea of the auction was that whoever was the highest bidder would win the rights to the recordings, and it would be their decision to release as many or as few copies of Marshmallow as they chose. In an interview at the time, Henderson said he was thinking of the record as being like a painting with just the one owner, but that owner then having the freedom to do anything they liked, even if the decision was to keep it to themselves with no further public consumption.

But as can be seen from above, there ended up being 300 copies pressed up, on sale for £20 each. I missed out on it, for the simple fact that I wasn’t paying attention. I’d like a copy and just now there is one via Discogs for £55 which is actually well below what it normally goes for, but I’ve decided not to bother as I have got my hands on a digital copy, thanks to it having been, temporarily, available via bandcamp (i think it cost £15 for the download).

One of the songs on the album was also made available as a 10″ single, and I did manage to pick up a copy of that.

mp3: The Sexual Objects – Sometimes

The single came with a few remixes. Here’s the one that is likely of most interest:-

mp3: The Sexual Objects – Sometimes (Weatherall Dub)

In more recent ears, Davy Henderson has been associated with Port Sulphur, the collective which is co-ordinated and directed by Douglas MacIntyre, the talent and brains behind Creeping Bent Records and who was also a guitarist with each of The Nectarine No9 and The Sexual Objects.

I’ve sat down a few times a tried to pull together a Davy Henderson ICA, but it’s proved an impossible task. But now that just about all of his previous bands have now featured in this long-running series, I can perhaps try and do something covering his entire career, with perhaps no more than two or three songs from each of them. Might be something to do during the short break I’ll be taking from the blog over the festive period.

JC

Bronski Beat

STEVE BRONSKI

Flimflamfan added this to his comment to today’s earlier posting about 10,000 Maniacs:-

“Can I hijack this post. To add my enduring thanks to Steve Bronski who died recently. Without courageous people like Steve many young LGB peoole (as they were known at the time) may have forever led hidden, oppressed lives. The Age of Consent is a landmark LP in agit-pop. Three openly gay men heralding their rights-led manifesto via the LP art work. Momentus. Thanks, Steve.

It got me thinking that it might be a nice tribute to re-post something from 19 September 2019. It’s up there with some of the pieces I’m most proud of in all the years I’ve been writing stuff for this blog:-

MIXING POP AND POLITICS, THEY ASK ME WHAT THE USE IS

Billy Bragg famously related the tale of him being asked said question, by a cynical fanzine writer, within the lyric of Waiting For The Great Leap Forward. If only the writer had been brave enough to ask a similar question of Jimmy Somerville…….

It will be 35 years next month since Age of Consent, the debut LP by Bronski Beat was released. The trio of Somerville, Steve Bronski and Larry Steinbachek had already tasted chart success earlier in the year with their first two singles, Smalltown Boy and Why?, going Top 10 in many countries across Europe. They weren’t the first to make wonderfully catchy synth-pop that was aimed at the dance floor, nor were they the first to link the genre with gay culture; but they were the first pop stars to get up on a soapbox and demand that folk listened and took action on the inequalities of life that had to be endured if you were of a gay persuasion.

Nobody should be in any doubt that the band took huge risks with such an agenda. The early 1980s was not the most tolerant of periods, with some of the most right-wing and conservative political administrations governing the UK and the USA. It was a period when the cultural world of performing and visual artists did voice their concerns in a concerted way about some injustices happening within society, not least the horrors of the apartheid system in South Africa, but nobody was willing to really stand up and shout about homophobia and the dangers faced daily by, in particular, young people the world over. The promo video to Smalltown Boy had been a revelation, being, in effect, a short film that showed a gay man seemingly finding some happiness, only to have it ruined, firstly by the vicious fists and boots of a violent mob and secondly by the vicious rejection of his family. The line ‘mother will never understand why you had to leave’ is one of the saddest lyrics you’re likely to find in any uptempo tune.

The single certainly raised awareness of the fact that attitudes, particularly among those living in traditional working-class communities, had much to do with the fact that young gay people felt the need to run away from the security of their home and upbringing. Many parents felt stigmatised and regarded themselves as failures if their son or daughter had turned out to be queer, with the situation exacerbated by the shame of knowing their offspring was breaking the law. (I should, and indeed must, point out that Jimmy Somerville’s own Glaswegian parents did not disown their son at any point in time, albeit he did indeed leave home and head to London, but only as a result of frustration he felt at the narrowness and limited appeal of a ‘gay scene’ in his home city and elsewhere in Scotland)

The hit singles had created the circumstances that the Bronski Beat debut album was likely to enjoy a fair amount of commercial success. It offered the perfect platform to say and do something of huge significance and to the delight of what seemed like the entire gay community, and those standing outside who were appalled by homophobia, the band didn’t disappoint.

Forget, for a moment, that the vinyl contained ten tracks of high-class music, some of which burst and bristled with energy while others were mournful and thought-provoking. Forget too, that one of its highlights introduced the work of the Gershwin brothers to a whole new audience and instead take a few minutes to study the artwork.

The inner sleeve and the label on the vinyl is dominated by a pink triangle, the symbol used by the Nazis in concentration camps to identify homosexual prisoners. Originally conceived as a badge of shame, the pink triangle had, from the 70s onwards, began to be reclaimed as a positive symbol of self-identity. The inner sleeve also set out, plainly and simply, the different international ages of consent for males to engage in gay sex, drawing attention to, and ridiculing, the fact that there were huge inconsistencies, with the UK being amongst the worst examples in declaring the age to be 21.

The so-called swinging 60s has been an era in which the UK establishment began to relax its attitudes across a whole swathe of societal issues with new and more liberal laws covering divorce, abortion, race relations and fairness in the workplace. Homosexuality had gone from being wholly illegal but was still seen as a huge taboo, causing all sorts of outcries and scaremongering within the powerful media circles, particularly across tabloid newspapers where so many agendas were set and led to millions of readers forming opinions and holding attitudes. Oh, and the churches didn’t help things either, choosing to focus on very narrow and literal interpretations of scriptures as an excuse to uphold bigotry, hatred and prejudices.

Nothing had changed much in the best part of 20 years and indeed there was a feeling at large that the right-wing nature of the Thatcher government was going to make things worse. Indeed, in 1988, things did take a turn for the worse with the passing of the outrageous and scandalous ‘Section 28 Amendment’ to local government legislation that made it illegal for schools and teachers to promote the idea that homosexuality could be a stable and harmonious way for a family relationship.

The thing was, for many people, this was closing the stable door long after the horse had bolted as attitudes, particularly among young people had changed dramatically. Bronski Beat had shown up the insanity of the UK’s approach to homosexuality and had done so with grace, dignity and some fabulous music. In their wake followed many, not least The Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Culture Club, Holly Johnson and, of course, Communards, the group formed by Jimmy Somerville just a year after the success of Bronski Beat, all of whom not only enjoyed #1 hits and sell-out tours, but did so to an incredibly mixed audience.

The social and political outcomes of The Age of Consent must never be underestimated, but I’ve no doubt in my mind that it needed the music to be of top quality and mass appeal to succeed on these fronts. Indeed, if the album had been duff, there would have been a danger of setting things back somewhat, giving strength to those (and there were many) who felt that dance music was only good for clubs and discos and not for promoting any meaningful messages.

Bronski Beat would enjoy two more hit singles lifted from the album, both of which were covers. Indeed, for the final hit single, they revamped the closing song of the album by introducing a guest singer, Marc Almond, who had to overcome all sorts of homophobic media coverage as his fame increased to before himself, and his attitudes, were accepted increasingly by the mainstream.

No embarrassment or the usual excuses. A copy of The Age of Consent should be in every pop fan’s collection.

JC

10000 Maniacs

A LITTLE BIT OF R.E.M AND A LITTLE BIT OF VAMPIRE WEEKEND

10,000 Maniacs, from Jamestown in the state of New York, came to prominence in 1983 after the self-recording of a debut album which they released on their own label. The following year, having made something of a buzz in the UK after being championed by John Peel, the band was signed to Elektra, part of the Warner Bros. empire. The early part of 1985 saw them in London recording their debut album, released a few months later as The Wishing Chair, with veteran producer Joe Boyd enlisted to help. Boyd had just finished working with R.E.M. on Fables of The Reconstruction, and I think it’s fair to say he ensured the sound of the Athens, GA band would have an influence on the new album he was assisting with, as best can be heard on the first single lifted from it:-

mp3: 10,000 Maniacs – Can’t Ignore The Train

It’s just under three minutes of shimmering and wonderful indie-pop, thanks in particular to the tremendous guitar playing of the late Robert Buck. I’d actually forgotten just how great this single sounded until it was aired recently at the Little League night in Glasgow a few weeks back, and this led me to digging into Discogs to pick up another copy as a very belated replacement for the one that was lost many years ago.

I played the b-side, which I can’t remember doing so back in 1985, although I must have done so on at least one occasion. Listening now, I reckon I must have dismissed it on the grounds that it was too quirky and too different from the majestic a-side. The thing is, I now have almost an additional 40 years of reference points, and so can confidently say that the lads in Vampire Weekend must have found a copy in some second hand store as they went about writing their own material in the first decade of the 21st century.

mp3: 10,000 Maniacs – Daktari

All in all, it’s a fairly decent debut 45 for the major label who must have been bemused that it didn’t make any inroads into the charts. Having said that, R.E.M. were also being largely ignored in 1985.

JC

Radiohead

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MADE

September/October 1992. The promo poster at the top of this posting shows the extent of the UK tour undertaken by Radiohead, as part of the promotional activity to support the release of Creep. You’ll note that they were supporting The Frank and Walters, an indie-pop band from Cork, Ireland who, on the surface at least, didn’t take themselves too seriously.

It’s a period when dance/house music was all the rage and when guitar-music was again largely out of fashion, unless your band came from America. There were exceptions, with the likes of Manic Street Preachers, Ride, PJ Harvey and Teenage Fanclub all on the bill at the Reading festival the previous month (The Wonder Stuff, Public Enemy and Nirvana had been the respective headliners on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday).

I was at the Frank and Walters shows in both Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1992. I recall enjoying the support act, but not being entirely convinced they had quite enough about them to ensure some fame and fortune. Maybe the fact that their hard-edged guitars, use of profanity and downright moodiness being so out of sync with all almost that was going on among UK musicians at the time that ensured it would be a total flop. I was in my very late 20s, and it really was still all about going out, with either my new partner or with a group of friends, having a good time before getting home safely with a smile on your face. My days of angst-ridden music were firmly in the rearview mirror, so that’s my excuse for not going out and picking up a copy of Creep.

But I wasn’t alone. Very few folk bought it. It seems around 6,000 copies, mostly on CD, were shifted in September 1992. Those who sought out the 12″ vinyl, can now get £200 on the second-hand market if they were now inclined to sell. The follow-ups, Anyone Can Play Guitar and Pop Is Dead, each spent two weeks in the Top 75, albeit the former sold enough copies in the first week of release in February 1993, to enter at #32.

By the middle of 1993, Creep had become an underground hit in the USA, thanks to MTV and a number of alt-rock/student radio stations putting it on heavy rotation. It even got to the stage where Radiohead performed it on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, the main talk show to be broadcast across the country by NBC.

In September 1993, EMI reissued Creep in the UK. It went to #7 and provided Radiohead with the first step to megastardom. The band hadn’t been terribly keen to have the single reissued, feeling that it totally overshadowed anything else they had written or released to this point. I actually saw for myself what they meant as on 1 December 1993, I caught them as the support for James at Glasgow Barrowlands, a gig where their performance, to my ears, blew away the headliners, but which was met with huge indifference until they performed Creep. But as soon as they got onto the next song, the audience’s attention had again drifted….this was James at the beginning of their stadium rock era and Radiohead’s more artful and less accessible music wasn’t what most folk wanted to hear.

It’s really hard to get my head around the fact that next year will mark the 30th anniversary of those shows supporting The Frank & Walters. As I said, I’d love to be able to claim that I latched on immediately, but I’d be lying. It was that Barrowlands performance just over a year on that made me acknowledge that Radiohead were, as the song goes, so fucking special.

mp3: Radiohead – Creep

Here’s the other songs from the 1992 release:-

mp3: Radiohead – Lurgee
mp3: Radiohead – Inside My Head
mp3: Radiohead – Million Dollar Question

Fun Fact.

Some of you night know this, but I wasn’t aware until doing a wee bit of research for this post.

Creep had quickly become a song hated by Radiohead, but there was an acceptance that it had to be played live at every show in order to keep things sweet with the label bosses and their fanbase. The band then wrote My Iron Lung, purposely about their hatred of Creep.

The next time I went to see Radiohead was March 1995 at the Garage in Glasgow, on their own headlining tour to promote the release of The Bends. I was sure, despite the claims that they hated the song by then, that Creep was played that night. A check of the set list indicates that it was…..followed immediately by My Iron Lung. It must have designed that way to provide a sort of therapy for everyone involved.

JC

Dick Dale & The Del-Tones

EVERYBODY BE COOL, THIS IS A ROBBERY!

I watched Pulp Fiction again the other night, for the first time in at least 20 years. It still stands up as a great piece of entertainment and a hugely enjoyable, and indeed, classic movie.

Afterwards, I played this at high volume.

mp3: Tim Roth & Amanda Plummer – Pumpkin and Honey Bunney AND Dick Dale & The Del-Tones – Miserlou

I bet that makes you want to go and watch the film again!!

JC

Swansea Sound

SOME IDEAS FOR CHRISTMAS 2021 (#7) : SWANSEA SOUND – LIVE AT THE RUM PUNCHEON

I know I said last week that I wouldn’t make any more suggestions for Xmas gifts, but that was written up a few days before this piece of vinyl was delivered by the postie.

It was a few weeks back that I suggested that Birling Gap, the album released earlier this year by The Catenary Wires, would be worth your effort. In doing so, I made passing reference to the existence of Swansea Sound, a band in which Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey are also involved, along with Hue Williams, formerly of Pooh Sticks.

I’ve been giving my support to Swansea Sound through bandcamp, making a number of digital purchases along with a rather splendid black t-shirt which simply says ‘CORPORATE INDIE BAND’ in white writing across the chest. More recently, I bought the new Christmas single on 7″ vinyl and put in my order for a vinyl copy of Live At The Rum Puncheon, the debut album which was released at the end of last month.

It turns out that I’ve grown quite fond of the album quite quickly. I suppose at this juncture it’s as well to offer up the band bio as found on bandcamp:-

“Swansea Sound: a band that came into being during lockdown and decided that fast, loud, political indiepop punk was the answer to being stuck indoors. Who needs introspection?

Hue Williams is reunited with Pooh Sticks singing partner Amelia Fletcher (ex-Talulah Gosh, Heavenly). Rob Pursey (also ex-Heavenly) and Ian Button provide the noise. The band has played one gig in real life – but there will be more in 2022.

Three of the tracks were released as singles, all of them now impossible to obtain. ‘Corporate Indie Band’ was a limited edition cassette, ‘I Sold My Soul on eBay’ was a one-off lathe cut that got auctioned on eBay (with a £400 winning bid), ‘Indies of the World’ was a 7” inch single that briefly hit the UK physical charts, but quickly sold out and plummeted back out again. And, to coincide with the LP pre-release, ‘Swansea Sound’ is released as a limited edition cassette. (1st September 2020 was the date when Swansea Sound Radio was re-branded by its new corporate owners and the name became available.) The song is a requiem for that lost radio station: a DJ describing his final day at work before his show is ‘rationalised’ out of existence.

Swansea Sound took their name from a radio station, and they even use its abandoned logo. Something modern, acidic and angry has taken up residence in a familiar, borrowed frame, just as it has in these indiepunk pop songs. You can throw yourself around to Swansea Sound like it’s 1986, but if you catch the lyrics you’ll remember you’re in 2021.”

So here’s the thing. I reckon, after doing this blog for over 15 years, I can assume most of the regular readers are quite fond of upbeat, punchy and rhythmic tunes, and if such tunes happen to come with intelligent, hard-hitting and occasionally nostalgically warm lyrics, then we are likely on a winner.

Live At The Rum Puncheon brings it all. Twelve tracks with a running time of 35 minutes. It’s occasionally an angry album, with the ire reserved for the way the industry (in its widest sense) is sucking the life out of musicians. It’s impossible not to laugh, but at the same time feel resentful at the lyric:-

“I sold my soul on Spotify (get a doctor, someone get a doctor)
I’m earning 0.000000000000001p
But several thousands follow me”

That’s from this song, one that I included in a mixtape a few weeks ago:-

mp3: Swansea Sound – I Sold My Soul On Ebay

The rest of the album is just as catchy, and much of it is just as frantic sounding. It has not all caustic and clever rants, so you can be assured it’s not an indie Rage Against The Machine for the 21st Century. The nostalgia is there in many places, not least in the song The Pooh Sticks in which Hue and Amelia, cleverly and wittily, pay homage to their old band. There are a few numbers such as the quite gorgeous Pasadena, with its longing for places imagined but not yet visited, where the pace does slow down, while I’m OK When You’re Around is a love song that you can dance to.

Oh, and then there’s Freedom of Speech, which pops up towards the end of the album. I wonder if you can work out who they were thinking of with these opening few lines:-

I said hang the DJ
Cos I hated reggae
Every shy man’s best friend
I was so sensitive then

I’m still sensitive now
But my profile’s going down
Oh my world is accursed
I endorsed Britain First

Where have my stage and my audience gone?
Where are my people and what has gone wrong?
I got to fight for my

Freedom of Speech
Freedom of speech
I got a license to preach
It’s my Freedom of Speech

He’s not the only one in their sights, with later references to ‘butter ads, for ex-punk dads’ linked into MAGA, q-anon and Steve Brannan……

Essential listening.

I know a lot of folk out there are reeling from the news that the annual Indietracks festival is no more, with some wishing there had been one last farewell. If that had been the case, then surely Swansea Sound would have been the perfect bill-topper on the closing night, playing all the tunes from this incredibly enjoyable album, with perhaps some songs from their former bands to have added to the occasion.

It really is incredible to think that the members of Swansea Sound were part of the indie scene, in different guises, some 35 years ago, and today have made a record every bit as essential, and worthy, of anything any of us might have in our record collections that now span the ages.

Here’s the link to bandcamp if you don’t think you can pick up a copy from a decent record store close to your home.

JC

Supergrass

LISTENING (EVENTUALLY) TO YOUR REQUESTS

Supergrass haven’t appeared on the blog all that often. Indeed, other than some mentions when they’ve cropped up as one of a number of different bands in a single post, their only real mention came back in September 2017 when they were #142 in the ICA series.

It was an ICA put together by yours truly, and it was one that leaned heavily on their singles. The comments were largely favourable, but 50%* of those who took the time to say something made the suggestion that a place should have been found for Sun Hits The Sky.

I’m with everyone who said it was a great piece of music, and if the ICA had been extended to 12 songs, then it’s very likely it would have been accommodated. I remember at the time thinking that I would have to rectify things by looking at it as a stand-alone blog post, but I then forgot about it until very recently.

mp3: Supergrass – Sun Hits The Sky

Sun Hits The Sky was the third single to be lifted from In It For The Money, the band’s second album recorded in late 1996 and released the following April. It reached #10, and while that was slightly beneath the chart achievements of Going Out and Richard III, it was a more than decent performance given that the b-sides on the various formats consisted entirely of remixes or live radio versions of other Supergrass songs, along with a cover version originally released on a tribute album the previous year:-

mp3: Supergrass – Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others

It was the closing track on The Smiths Is Dead, compiled by the French cultural magazine Les Inrockuptibles and released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Queen Is Dead.

It’s quite a different take on the original, being far rockier, although I do like how the bass notes are at the heart of their version.

JC

*ok, it was only four out eight. But that’s still 50%……..

Fall

THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING SERIES FOR SUNDAYS (Part 26)

So….we’ve reached the part in our saga where Brix Smith has exited (stage left) and to just about everyone’s surprise, Martin Bramah has rejoined the group. Surely this was the cue for The Fall to cut out the pop music and return to the rough’n’ready stuff of the early days?

mp3: The Fall – Telephone Thing

Hardly.

Released on 7″, 12″ and CD on 15 January 1990, on MES’s own label, Cog Sinister, but as a spin-off from the newly signed deal with Phonogram, which meant that the band were now label-mates with, among others, Elton John, Dire Straits and Status Quo. Not that it made all that much difference, as the parent label had given MES an assurance that he was simply to keep on doing what he had been doing his whole career.

Almost unnoticed amidst the chaos of 1989. MES had for the first time ever collaborated with musicians outside The Fall with a vocal on (I’m) In Deep on the Coldcut debut album, What’s That Noise.

Coldcut, consisting of Matt Black and Jonathan More, were a big part of the emerging and increasingly influential electronic dance scene in the UK. The album went Top 20 and most of its songs featured a different guest vocalist. One of the other tracks had been My Telephone, with vocals supplied by Lisa Stansfield, and in due course the suggestion came from Coldcut that MES might want to have a stab at it, which he did with great gusto. The tune was adapted and the lyrics re-written so that they became a rant about phone tapping; MES was convinced, at the time, that his phone was being tapped by someone out there as he said in an interview with Andrew Collins in the NME to help promote the new single:-

“I just think it’s topical – like all Fall singles. I think it’s good to have a go at things like that – British Rail and British Telecom. It’s a natural gripe. One time, I was using the phone a lot and I dialled a number and I could hear people munching sandwiches and talking about my last phone call. I actually rang up the operator and said ‘Look! I’m trying to dial a fucking number here and I can’t get through because people are talking about my phone calls! Have you got a bleedin’ license to do this?’

“Being staff, they get fed up, so what they do is tap into lines that they think are gonna be interesting. It doesn’t bother me, I’ve got nothing to fucking hide! But I said ‘Well, is it tapped or not? I can’t fucking get through because of your bloody lot!’ And she slammed the phone down on me!”

All the band members do play on the track, with Martin Bramah contributing the wah-wah guitar part, quite possibly surprised of what was asked of him on his first recorded song with the band after ten years.

My verdict? It’s good fun in that it’s again something different, but maybe just too much on the quirky side to be an essential listen.

The b-side to the 7″ was another strange one in that Marcia Schofield‘s keyboards come across as an imitation of trumpets/brass while Simon Wolstencroft lives up to his Funky Si nickname on the drums:-

mp3: The Fall – British People In Hot Weather

It has a scathing but surreal MES lyric, reflecting (seemingly!!) on how folk from over here aren’t that great at coping when it gets particularly warm. It’s a song I didn’t actually know until only a few years ago – I didn’t buy all that many of the new records by The Fall from the 90s onwards at the time of their release – and I haven’t ever really taken to this song. Looking back on what had previously been a great, or at the very least, interesting, run of b-sides during the Brix era, this surely would have felt a bit of a letdown back in the day.

The 12″ and CD contained a different mix and a dub version of Telephone Thing. I’m unable to offer either of them to you today, but I don’t feel it’s any great loss.

JC

Set The Tone

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #287: SET THE TONE

From wiki:-

Set the Tone were a Scottish electronic dance group, formed by Kenny Hyslop, Bobby Paterson, Chris Morgan and Evelyn Asiedu

Hyslop had been a former member of a number of Scottish bands including The Zones, The Skids and Slik. In 1981, he joined Simple Minds but his time with them was brief, although he played drums on their hit single “Promised You a Miracle”, which reached number 13 in the UK Singles Chart in April 1982. Following his departure from Simple Minds, Hyslop got together with Paterson, Morgan and Asiedu to form Set the Tone.

Set the Tone quickly managed to secure a recording contract with Island Records late in 1982, and their first single “Dance Sucker” was released. Despite getting significant play in the clubs of Glasgow, the single did not make a strong impression on the UK Singles Chart peaking at number 62 in January 1983.

Their second single, “Rap Your Love” was released in 1983, peaking at number 67 on the UK chart in March 1983. Around this time, their album Shiftin Air Affair was released, but had little impact.

In the meantime, Paterson left and was replaced by Kendal Stubbs, a sound engineer from The Bahamas who had previously worked with Kool And The Gang and Tom Tom Club. Shortly afterwards, Island Records dropped Set the Tone.

I thought I remembered Set The Tone from back in the day, but after something of theirs that I picked up a few months back, I realised that I was mixing them up with someone else, but who that is, I can’t recall! It was almost 40 years ago……..

mp3: Set The Tone – Rap Your Love
mp3: Set The Tone – Surprise Your Love

That’s the two sides of 12″ version of the second single. It’s of its day and its type, but I’ve listened to worse.

JC

Uncategorized

ISAAC

This wasn’t supposed to be the posting today. Far from it.

Those of you who regularly make your way to the Bagging Area, will recognise the young man in the photo.

He’s Isaac, and he’s the son of Adam, the brains behind one of the best and longest running blogs out there.

Adam has become a very dear and close friend of mine over recent years, initially through the blog but increasingly via other social media channels, through which I’ve got to know his wife and his two children.

Adam has used his blog over the years to talk about his family, referencing some of the most significant happenings such as birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and graduations. He’s also let us in on Isaac’s story, and how he came battling into the world in November 1998, his birth being complicated and difficult, and having to be taken immediately to an intensive care unit. As Adam wrote just over a week ago, in a blog post celebrating Isaac’s 23rd birthday,

“Although I don’t think you can ever be ready for the impact that becoming a parent has on your life we certainly weren’t expecting what we got- serious unknown genetic illness, frequent hospitalisation in his early years, deafness, serious learning difficulties, bone marrow transplants, operations and much more.”

Adam never wanted you to feel sorry for him and his family for the fact that Isaac suffered many illnesses throughout his childhood. He never shied away from the seriousness of his son’s circumstances but at the same time he, and the rest of the family, made sure Isaac was always involved in every way possible in everyday activities. It was a genuine joy to see the regular updates and photos on Facebook in which the four of them were out and about doing something or other that was not only making them happy, but putting a smile on the faces of the hundreds of friends.

The threat of COVID was a serious one given that Isaac’s immune system was, to all intent and purposes, non-existent. The family made sure every possible precaution was taken at all times, never ever mingling in any sort of indoor social gathering. Isaac was shielded from strangers, understandably so, and it was sad and personally disappointing that I was unable to meet him and say hello during that trip down to Manchester at the beginning of last month. Adam did come along, making a huge effort when he had a heavy workload to deal with, and met up with myself and Aldo, doing so at an outdoor venue so that, again, any potential risk of infections being passed on to Isaac was minimised. Much of the chat over a few drinks was about how the family were doing and how they all were adjusting to Issac’s 18-year-old sister having moved recently to Liverpool to begin university, proudly following in the footsteps of her dad a generation ago.

Isaac celebrated his 23rd birthday on Tuesday 23 November because, as Adam wrote on his blog, Isaac loves a birthday and Isaac loves a party.

The following day, Isaac tested positive for COVID. Adam said it wasn’t good in that Isaac was unwell, coughing, with a temperature, and he was grumpy. The course of action was to put him on emergency antibiotics with the hope they would work and keep him out of hospital.

Somehow, Adam found the time and the strength to give me updates on a daily basis. The first 24 hours saw no change, but things weren’t getting any worse with the family doing their very best to nurse him through the illness. Things, however, took a turn for the worse at the weekend, and with concerns about his oxygen levels, Isaac was taken by ambulance to hospital last Saturday evening.

The best possible medical care and attention was provided, but sadly and tragically, Isaac passed away in hospital on Tuesday 30 November, surrounded by his family.

There have, over the past fifteen years or so, been a number of incredibly sad and tragic events affecting people who are part of what I believe is a wide and inclusive TVV community. The sympathies expressed on all occasions have been wide-ranging and heartfelt, and I know, from personal experience, that they have been a great source of comfort.

Today is another of those very sad occasions when words, at the moment, aren’t enough. Very few of us can begin to imagine what Adam and his family are going through right now. It is something no parent ever wants to contemplate, far less have to face up to.

Isaac was an incredible and wonderful human being, who gave as much love back as he received. He’ll be missed, but he’ll never be forgotten. R.I.P.

mp3: Kirsty MacColl – Days