Month: May 2022

Apple Boutique

CRE 052T

I was on a three-hour journey to the north of Scotland a while back, and decided that I’d use the time to give a listen to the digitised take on Disc 4 of the Scared To Get Happy box set.  Track 15 jumped out at me in a way that I hadn’t really noticed before, most likely as the upbeat, jaunty guitar notes seemed to blend perfectly with the wonderfully blue skies that were overhead.  It was the work of Apple Boutique….and here’s some abridged words, sourced from last fm, to fill us all in.

“Apple Boutique are a 1980s jangle guitar band formed by Phil King and John Mohan around 1986. Both were formerly members of The Servants. As well as being associated with many other notable acts of the 80s and 90s, including: Felt; Lush, See See Rider, Second Layer, Biff Bang Pow! and The Jesus and Mary Chain, among others.

The full contributors to Apple Boutique were Philip King (vocals, guitar & bass); John Mohan (lead guitar), Don Bothwell (bass), Paul Gregory (drums), Owen Seymour (drums) and Emily Brown (backing vocals). During their time, Apple Boutique only officially released the one EP via Creation Records, the 12″ ‘Love Resistance EP’ in 1987.

The EP has developed a cult appeal due in part to the various affiliated bands. It showcases  the guitar interplay of King and Mohan, with a heavy influence from the 1960s and The Shadows in particular, with one of the tracks being an instrumental named after one of the members of that band.

Many years later, in 2012, a Berlin-based label released Paraphernalia, a very limited CD, of just 200 copies, in which the three tracks on the Creation EP were brought together alongside demos, home recordings and live tracks.

As it turns out, the song about the bass player with The Shadows was made available on the C88 box set issued a few years back by Cherry Red, which meant I only had to track down one song to offer up the chance to listen to the music which comprised Creation 052T:-

mp3: Apple Boutique – Love Resistance
mp3: Apple Boutique – I Don’t Even Believe In You
mp3: Apple Boutique – The Ballad of Jet Harris

Incidentally, if you fancy getting your hands on a copy of the original single from 1987, you can expect to pay well in excess of £100.  There have been a couple of reissues over the years, most recently on 7″ by Optic Nerve in 2018, which are a bit more affordable.

JC

Sons & Daughters

RUG 196, 196X and 196CD

It was back in 2008 that I embarked on the project of compiling the 45 45s @ 45 series for the old blog (and subsequently reproduced between September 2015 and June 2016 on the current blog.)

For all that I think I got things more or less spot on, in that the selected songs were knitted together to tell something of the backstory, but in a far from chronological fashion, of how my musical tastes evolved, developed and expanded, I listen to some songs these days and wonder why I didn’t find room for them…..albeit I’d have real difficulty in chucking anything out.  Here’s an example of what I mean.

I bought Dance Me In by Sons and Daughters when it was issued as a single in June 2005.  In fact, I bought three copies of it….one 7″ single on red vinyl, one 7″ single on blue vinyl and the CD version….and this at a time when I didn’t actually have a turntable to play them on!  I’d fallen heavily for the brilliance of the debut mini-LP, Love The Cup, and was really anticipating the release of an actual proper debut album, with the band having been signed by Domino Records.

The album was to be preceded, by a short period of two weeks, with the release of Dance Me In as an advance single.  The promo video was aired a few times on MTV2, and I was utterly hooked, especially when Zane Lowe said that the new record had been produced by Edwyn Collins.  It actually turned out that the remix of the single was at the hands of Edwyn but that the album was the work of Victor Van Vugt, whom I knew from his involvement with much loved albums by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and PJ Harvey.

The Repulsion Box would find itself on heavy rotation in due course, but that was after I had given constant plays to RUG 196CD, the only version of Dance Me In that I could play at the time.

As it turned out, all the b-sides were different, and I’m delighted to share them with you today.  I still can’t quite get my head around the fact that it’s been fully seventeen years since these songs were released….Oh, and only one of the 7″ releases had the Edwyn remix with the other having the album version.

mp3: Sons and Daughters – Dance Me In (single version)
mp3: Sons and Daughters – Drunk Medicine

mp3: Sons and Daughters – Dance Me In (album version)
mp3: Sons and Daughters – Poor Company (early demo)

mp3: Sons and Daughters – Come In Out Of The Rain
mp3: Sons and Daughters – Blood

The first two are the red 7″, the middle two are the blue 7″ and the final two were on the CD single, along with the single version and the video. The version of Blood is a different take on that which had been included on Love The Cup, and is a version produced and mixed by the afore-mentioned Edwyn Collins.

The thing is, no matter that I have a huge love for Dance Me In, it still wouldn’t make it into any updated/revamped 45s series on the basis of the rule of one entry per band, and there’s no way I’d remove this:-

mp3: Sons and Daughters – Johnny Cash

JC

Uncategorized

LAYOUT ISSUES

 

The site being derailed coincided with me being away for a couple of days (golfing, if you must know).

It’s still a bit of a mystery as to what happened, but thanks to a few interventions from the clever folk at WordPress, it does seem as if things are back on track.

Thanks for your patience and understanding

JC

Frightened Rabbit

THE MONDAY MORNING HI-QUALITY VINYL RIP : Part Fifty-seven: THE MODERN LEPER

I’ve long wanted a copy of The Midnight Organ Fight on vinyl, and thanks to it being repressed by Fat Cat Records, I finally have one.

It’s an astonishing record from start to finish.  I fell for it big time, helped by the fact that I was a regular at Frightened Rabbit gigs at the time, including being present at the album launch at Mono in Glasgow on Friday 11 April 2008, and then again at the gig in King Tut’s the following evening.

I’ve picked out its opening track today, as it is the fourth anniversary of Scott Hutchison‘s suicide at the age of 36. He is much missed.

mp3: Frightened Rabbit – The Modern Leper

I don’t really think I can, or indeed want to, say anything else.

JC

Fall

THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING SERIES FOR SUNDAYS (Part 46)

The three Americans take their leave after Primavera on 1 June 2007. Job done.

It’s only a matter of weeks, however, before The Fall are due back on stage, including three successive nights in London.  David Spurr stays on with MES and Elena Poulou, and the line-up is augmented by Kieron Melling (drums) and Pete Greenway (guitar).   What nobody knew, and what nobody would have dared predict, was that this line-up would more or less remain unaltered until MES’s death in 2018.

The first studio release by the new line-up was the album Imperial Wax Solvent, issued by Slogan Records in April 2008.  No singles are taken from the album.  It proved to be the last original record in the partnership between The Fall and Sanctuary, the parent company of Slogan Records, albeit there would be further compilations and box sets in future years.

The stability of the new line-up probably helped those at Domino Records feel confident about making an approach to MES, and a contract was signed that would see a new album issued in Spring 2010. In the meantime, a limited edition tour single, on 7″ and CD, was released, by Action Records, in November 2009.

mp3: The Fall – Slippy Floor (Mark Mix)
mp3: The Fall – Hot Cake
mp3: The Fall – Strangetown (Live At Camden Crawl)

The first two tracks are originals, with Slippy Floor credited to Smith/Greenway, while Hot Cake is the work of Smith/Spurr. Both are excellent, with Hot Cake showing a mix of the old rockabilly style of the band and the harder rockier sound being offered by the new musicians, while Elena’s backing vocal contributions are a reminder of the Brix era.

The third track is a cover, this time of a song by The Groundhogs, an English rock and blues band, founded in 1963, and which remained active until 2015, when founder Tony McPhee (who was the composer of Strangetown), was 80 years of age. The original version of the song dates back to 1970, being the opening track on the album Thank Christ For The Bomb. The live version included on the single was recorded at the Electric Ballroom in London, in April 2009.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t track down the live version included on this particular release, so you’ll have to make do with the studio version, which was included on Imperial Wax Solvent.

mp3: The Fall – Strangetown

Slippy Floor and Hot Cake would later find their way onto Your Future Our Clutter, the album which met the contractual obligations with Domino, although there would also be a single issued on Domino before the band took their leave of the label. Tune in next week for details.

JC

Smiles

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #306: THE SMILES

From a live review which appeared in the Daily Record on 1 August 1997:-

Singer Tony McGovern smiled through the pain and braved a sore throat to perform a blistering live set. The Smiles frontman apologised to the packed crowd at Glasgow’s King Tut’s and soldiered on with guitarist Paul Smith, bassist Terry Reilly and drummer Neil Payne.

And it’s easy to see why the up and coming rockers are creating a buzz among music industry bigwigs. Fans went wild as they opened with Slow Day Monday and It Doesn’t Have To Be which, along with Landslide and Not So Lonely, is likely to feature on the band’s debut album.

A cracking-paced High On Me rounded off the high energy set.  The Greenock band – who share management with Texas, Nowaysis and Gun – were snapped up in a lucrative recording deal with A&M Records earlier this year.

Guitarist Paul used to work as a check-out assistant before clinching the deal. And he said: “Getting a record deal was a relief. We’ve given up jobs which were a stop gap and it’s great to escape normality.”

It’s obvious that their gigs, including a stint at last year’s T In The Park, have prepared The Smiles for the live circuit. But fans can also look forward to some forthcoming releases from the band. Their debut LP, which doesn’t have a title yet, was produced by Hugh Jones, who has worked with Dodgy and The Bluetones.

Say Something, the Smiles’ first single, is due to hit the shops in September.

The single (pictured above) was released on schedule.  The album didn’t ever appear.

The only reason I know of the existence of The Smiles is from their inclusion on the Park Lane Archives CD:-

mp3: The Smiles – God Only Knows (demo version)

The booklet with said CD provides the information that The Smiles album ‘got buried due to corporate shenanigans’.

Tony McGovern put it all behind him very quickly and joined Texas as guitarist and backing vocalist in 1999.  I’ve a feeling he’ll think things worked out OK for him.  I’m not sure The Smiles, on the evidence of this demo, had anything that would have provided success.

JC

Cranberries

INSPIRED BY JONNY’S RECENT GUEST POSTING

Jonny the Friendly Lawyer recently offered up Somewhere Around Midnight by Airborne Toxic Event as a song which makes for a great short story. He cited his own experience around the messy end of a relationship but still seeing his ex around NYC as he went about trying to rebuild his life, and how the lyrics from the song captured exactly what it felt like – the actual physical discomfort caused by heartbreak.

It got me thinking that Linger by The Cranberries covers similar ground in that it deals with a messy relationship and heartbreak.

I swore, I swore I would be true
And honey so did you
So why were you holding her hand?
Is that the way we stand?
Were you lying all the time?
Was it just a game to you?

The difference of course is that Somewhere Around Midnight is set at a time after the relationship has ended, with the protagonist unable yet to some to terms with it.  Linger is set at the horrific moment in time when the protagonist has just discovered that the relationship is doomed, and has just been hit hard with the realisation that they had been taken for a fool for a considerable amount of time.   One particular reviewer, Amanda Petrusich of The New Yorker, really nailed it by describing Linger as “a hazy, sentimental song about realising that you’re on the bummer end of a lopsided relationship”. 

I reckon most of us will likely have been there at some point in time, although in my case it was almost 40 years ago!

mp3: The Cranberries – Linger

I think it is one of the saddest songs ever written, with absolutely no sign of defiance on show, but this is more than made up for with one of the two tracks that can be found on the b-side of the 12″ single:-

mp3: The Cranberries – How (Radical Mix)

Never before, never again
You will ignore, I will pretend

Linger was a flop when first released in February 1993, but it went Top 20 a full twelve months later when it was re-released a full year later.  Similar belated success came the way of debut album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, which finally reached #1 in the UK some 86 weeks after it was first released. The original version of How is one of the really outstanding tracks on said debut, but the b-side of both the 7″ and 12″ version of Linger could only be found on those pieces of vinyl until the album was given the re-released extended treatment in 2002:-

mp3: The Cranberries – Reason

It’s an excellent two minutes of pop music, and the fact it could be relegated to the status of a b-side demonstrates how many good songs the band had at the outset.

JC

Le Tigre

THROWING OUT A REQUEST FOR A GUEST POSTING

The irregular indie-discos hosted by John Hunt of Butcher Boy always finish with an absolute gem of a song.  On quite a few occasions, it has been this:-

mp3: Le Tigre – Decaptacon

I don’t know much at all about Le Tigre, but I did pick up a copy, on CD, of the eponymous debut album, released in 1999, just so that I had Decaptacon ready to hand at any point in time.

Wiki opens up with:-

Le Tigre was an American electronic rock band formed by Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill), Johanna Fateman and Sadie Benning in 1998 in New York City. Benning left in 2000 and was replaced by JD Samson for the rest of the group’s existence. Le Tigre are known for their left-wing sociopolitical lyrics that often dealt with issues of feminism and the LGBT community. They mixed punk’s directness and politics with playful samples, eclectic pop, and lo-fi electronics.

I certainly enjoy much of the rest of the debut album, and this led me to picking up the two later two albums, but I really don’t have enough knowledge of the backstory to offer up any sort of commentary for a detailed post. But, I’m sure there must be someone among the TVV community who knows much more about Le Tigre, and if so, I’m hoping there would the possibility of a guest posting of some sort.

Fingers and toes are crossed.

JC

Wedding Present

YOU’VE GOT TO PICK SOME PEOPLE UP

Four days after Lloyd Cole, we had a trip across to St Luke’s in the east end of the city to see The Wedding Present.

It was actually touch-and-go whether we would go out that night.  Both myself and Rachel have lingering effects of the recent bouts of COVID that came visiting recently – I’m not saying we have long-COVID or the likes, but the post-viral thing is proving to be a bit of a nuisance and we both find ourselves easily tired, especially as the day goes on.  Lloyd Cole had been fine as it was a sit-down gig, but the Weddoes felt like an altogether different proposition.

Having established that this was a ‘doors at 7pm, support band at 7.30 and main band at 8.30/8.45’ type of event, we took the decision to skip the support act and to refrain from any booze all evening, on the basis that it was the best way to make sure we got through the evening.

St Luke’s is one of my favourite places in Glasgow. It’s a converted church, just a few hundred yards from Barrowlands, which had been empty and derelict for decades. A stunning restoration saw it re-open as a venue, with a fabulous bar and restaurant alongside, in 2015.  The venue alone was very much behind making the effort to get along…oh and the fact too that the gig was part of the delayed 30th Anniversary tour of Seamonsters, with the promise that all the songs from the album would receive an airing.

Bang on 8.30pm, four musicians took to the stage, with a Philip Schofield look-a-like in centre stage…..no matter that it’s been at least a year since he decided to let the natural ageing process take care of his hair, I still can’t get used to seeing David Gedge as a silver-top.  Not a word was said as the first notes of Dalliance were struck up….and as soon as its final note was played, and before the audience got a chance to cheer, it was straight into Dare.  Without any let up, it was Suck, followed by Blonde, at which point it became clear that we were being treated to Seamonsters in its exact running order.   As it turned out, David didn’t utter a single word until Octopussy had finished, at which point he said good evening and how delighted he was to be back in Glasgow, adding that, as we were all aware, the full album had been played and the second half of the show would contain loads of old songs with some new stuff mixed in.  At that point in time, I really couldn’t have cared less about what was to follow as hearing Seamonsters, in its full sonic glory, had been a treat.  This line-up wasn’t really shaping up as indie-Weddoes in terms of jangly guitars, so I was intrigued as to what would be aired.

We would find out as the show progressed that bassist Melanie Howard was suffering from a touch of laryngitis and that she couldn’t do her usual vocal parts, meaning that David had to carry things on his own.  There’s no doubt this led to a late change of plans in terms of the set list, with just one of the really new songs being aired, the as yet unreleased, X Marks The Spot, which is scheduled to be the next single in the 24 Songs project of 2022 in which a newly pressed 45 is released each calendar month. Otherwise, it was classic after classic after classic after classic.  I can’t give you the full rundown of the songs aired or the order they were played, but I do know Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft, A Million Miles, and My Favourite Dress all took us all back to the early days, while there were also airings for a couple of my favourites from more recent albums:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Deer Caught In Headlights
mp3: The Wedding Present – It’s For You

The former has been a staple of the live shows since its release on the Valentina album in 2012, but the latter is something that I can only ever recall hearing once before, and that was many years ago. My wee heart skipped a beat when David announced it….

California and Blue Eyes represented the 1992 singles efforts, and both sounded better now than they did 30 years on, testament to the tightness and skills of the band, and indeed from whatever pact David Gedge has made with a supernatural being to ensure his voice improves with age….or maybe he’s just got better at picking the songs which still suit his range.

Oh, and I haven’t mentioned the ridiculously good way the show ended – Kennedy, Crawl, and Bewitched, with the final song just about taking the roof off the place at that point when it goes from where you think it is just about to fade out to all-out sonic attack.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Bewitched (live)

Sadly, not from the St Luke’s show, but a version recorded at the Reading Festival in 1996 for a show broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and later included as part of the stupendous 6xCD The Complete Peel Sessions 1986-2004.

The gig concluded bang on 90 minutes, as ever without an encore, but enabling us to catch whatever mode of public transport would get us home, and indeed plenty of time for a visit to the merchandise stall for some vinyl and something a bit more unusual:-

The fact that we now have matching travel mugs, surely, is all the evidence you need to prove that myself and Rachel have left our working-class roots well and truly behind us.

JC

Lloyd Cole

I WOULDN’T SAY IT IF I DIDN’T MEAN IT

The next couple of days will see some short reflections on what proved to be a couple of outstanding gigs in Glasgow last week.

First up was a much-delayed appearance from Lloyd Cole on Monday 25 April at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (GRCH)  It was originally scheduled for just over two years previously at the City Halls, a different location not all that often used for rock/pop events, but was an early victim of the widespread cancellations of events as a result of the COVID outbreak.  Indeed, Lloyd reflected on this while on stage, reminiscing that he’d come over from his home in Massachusetts at the beginning of March 2010 for what was meant to be a 31-date tour across Europe, only to have it halted just seven shows in.  There had been two subsequent attempts to reschedule, both of which were impacted from the fact that COVID showed no signs of diminishing, and indeed when the time and opportunity finally presented itself in 2022, the tour has had to be much-truncated and in some cases, such as Glasgow, the venue had to be shifted.

The one slight disappointment from a selfish point of view was that myself and Rachel’s tickets for the 2020 show had been bought within minutes of them going on sale, and we had snapped up two seats in the third row, slap bang in the centre.  Our tickets for the new venue were still very good, but slightly further back and slightly to one side of the auditorium, although to be fair, in a venue as grand and acoustically excellent as the GRCH, it was only a small gripe and didn’t detract from a hugely enjoyable evening.

The tour has been given the title ‘From Rattlesnakes to Guesswork’, with the sales pitch indicating there would be songs from all across his career, but with an emphasis on the debut album with the Commotions and his most recent solo release from 2019.  Lloyd took to the stage, at 8.45pm, going straight into Past Imperfect, the opening track from the much underappreciated album he released in 2000 with a new, and what proved to be short-lived backing band, The Negatives.  It’s long been one of my favourites and so, as far as I was concerned, it had got off to the perfect start.

mp3: Lloyd Cole – Past Imperfect

To just about everyone’s surprise, he aired Rattlesnakes very early on in the set, to the extent that a few stragglers, arriving for what I’m assuming they thought would be a 9pm start on the back of an appearance by a support act, were greeted from the stage with the words, “Good evening, welcome to the show…just to mention that I’m sorry, but you’ve missed Rattlesnakes’, an indication that Lloyd was in relaxed mood and enjoying the way the audience, which wasn’t quite a sell-out, was responding so enthusiastically.

Ten songs into the set, and he told us he was taking a short break of 20 minutes, after which he would return with someone who ‘would show up my guitar playing as being that of a well-meaning amateur’ for the second half of the show.

He was as good as his word, and to just about everyone’s expectation, his return saw him flanked by Neil Clark, long-time collaborator from the days of the Commotions and who also played on Guesswork, and they started things with this:-

mp3: Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?

The next 80 minutes or so seemed to go by in a flash.  Lloyd and Neil were on blistering form, delivering a wonderful set in front of a home audience with, as they said on a couple of occasions, a few of their own friends, former colleagues and family sitting in the auditorium.  All told, they played a further twenty songs, taking the show right through to ten past eleven, which is almost unheard of at gigs in Glasgow, with most venues having curfews around 10.30/10.45…but then again GRCH isn’t in a residential area and so the council are a bit more relaxed when it comes to noise and disturbance. As I commented on Facebook in the immediate aftermath, it made for a good night for taxi drivers, as most of the last trains had left the stations and buses don’t go to all parts of the city and surrounding areas.

Lloyd Cole celebrated his 61st birthday a few months back. He doesn’t look anything like it, and his voice is as good as it’s ever been, capable of sustaining him night after night for sets that are about two hours in length.  OK, he doesn’t expend any energy rushing around the stage, never moving more than a few feet from his microphone, and the biggest effort comes when changing between his three acoustic guitars.  Neil Clark, now that he’s bald and wears glasses, looks more like a middle manager in some sort of office setting, but his guitar work remains a class above most of his peers and there is real dynamism and chemistry between him and his singer-songwriter buddy.  Together, they made it look effortless, when in fact the professionalism on show can really only be achieved thanks to many hours of preparation and rehearsal.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve now seen Lloyd Cole play on a stage somewhere, having taken in gigs in many towns in Scotland, as well as a show in Dublin in 2000. He’s never disappointed and to finish his main-set off with three great songs from the Commotions era – Hey Rusty, Perfect Skin and Lost Weekend – only to come back with a short encore which was rounded off by Forest Fire, meant that nobody was left feeling short-changed and firmly of the view that the two-year delay was worth waiting for.

Looking back over the set-list, it turned out there were ten songs from the Commotions era and two songs from the collaboration with the Negatives, with the other eighteen being spread, but not evenly, across various solo albums, with four taken from Standards (2013) and five from Guesswork (2019). These were among the highlights:-

mp3: Lloyd Cole – Period Piece
mp3: Lloyd Cole – The Afterlife

He’s still got it…..and hopefully he’ll be back on our shores again before too long.

JC

Various

MAY DAZE

It’s a new month.  You know the drill by now…….

mp3: Various – This One Is Different

Slow Hands – Interpol
Brand New Cadillac – The Clash
Hand In Glove – Christian Kjellvander & Lise Westzynthus
Time For The Rest Of Your Life – Strangelove
Too Drunk To Fuck – Nouvelle Vague
Love Me Like You Do – The Magic Numbers
Keep On Keepin’ On (Die On Your Feet Mix) – The Redskins
Orgasm Addict – Buzzcocks
Caught Out There – Kelis
Doers – Bodega
The Black Hit Of Space – Sarah Nixey
Stereotypes – Blur
A Song From Under The Floorboards – The Wedding Present
There There My Dear – Dexy’s Midnight Runners
Date With The Night – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Age Of Consent – New Order
R U A Feminist? – Breakfast Muff

Five seconds beyond sixty minutes. Quite a few cover versions (5) this time around.  I’m still very willing to take guest contributions for June and beyond if anyone can be motivated.

JC

Fall

THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING SERIES FOR SUNDAYS (Part 45)

Renegade : The Lives and Tales of Mark E Smith was published in 2008.  It is very revealing that MES chose to begin the book with the events of 7 May 2006 in Phoenix, Arizona.

In a nutshell, three-fifths of The Fall walked out on the band just four dates into a tour of the USA.  Ben Pritchard, Steve Trafford and Spencer Birtwistle decided they could take no more.  The opening pages of Renegade reprint an interview given by Pritchard on his return to England, but it is interspersed and interrupted by MES telling his side of the story.

It all meant, while committed to a tour of the USA, The Fall were down to a duo of MES and his wife, Elena Poulou.   He turned to Narnack, the record company to which the band was signed in America, and arrangements were made to sort out a new line-up, consisting of Orpheo McCord (drums), Rob Barbato (bass) and Tim Presley (guitar).   Two days after Phoenix, this latest version of The Fall took to the stage in San Diego and went on to complete the remaining thirteen shows on the tour with no mishaps.  Not only that, but the line-up, augmented by a second bassist in the shape of Dave Spurr, would gig constantly in the UK and Europe throughout 2006 and likewise in the first half of 2007, as well as going into the studio where a new album would be recorded.

Reformation Post TLC was released on Slogan Records on 12 February 2007.  MES said at the time that TLC was his shorthand way of referring to the musicians who had left him seemingly high and dry in Arizona. It was shorthand for ‘traitors, liars and cunts’.

The album got somewhat mixed reviews, but all told, it was something of a miracle that it got made at all.  The firings, sackings and walk-outs over the years had increasingly become the calling card of The Fall, and there’s every chance that if the Arizona walk-out had been in the UK, then MES might have struggled to pull a band together so quickly.  As it was, the incident only made him determined to immediately prove his critics wrong (again!!), but it also did knock some sense into him given that, after the trio of Americans took their leave in mid-2007 on the back of a well-received set at the Primavera Festival in Barcelona, The Fall would end up enjoying the most stable period, members-wise, in all of its history.

The Reformation-era line-up ended up being responsible for just one single, released on 12″ and CD in early April 2007:-

mp3: The Fall – Reformation! (Uncut)
mp3: The Fall – Over Over (Rough Mix)
mp3: The Fall – My Door Is Never (Rough Mix)

And for a change, instead of an mp3 of the edited version of Reformation which made up the fourth track on the single, here’s the video:-

All three songs can be found on the parent album, and as you can see from the titles, the versions of Over Over and My Door Is Never which were put out on the single, were not the finished mixes. All in all, it’s really no more than a bit of promo back-up to support the album a couple of months after it had originally hit the shops, as well as during the UK tour that was underway at the time.

JC