Month: July 2022

As mentioned before, all the postings for the initial Group stages were readied, typed up, and posted at the same time, weeks in advance.  My great fear was that folk wouldn’t respond well to it, and with the traffic to TVV being well under half of what it was back in 2018 the last time an ICA World Cup was held, I anticipated that voter turnout would be low.  I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with the responses and the results of Group C, from the ICAs provided by Hybrid Social Professor, will be revealed tomorrow.

This week, seventeen songs are competing for your votes, with eight of them set to qualify for the knock-out stages.  As ever, all the songs, are #1 from all the relevant ICAs, and they are offered up in alphabetical order of the singer or group involved.  Some of the ICAs are the work of yours truly, while others came from guest contributors.

Ballboy – Avant Garde Music (ICA 175)

The Beatles – Tomorrow Never Knows (ICA 244)

Blancmange – Distant Storm (ICA 251)

The Blue Nile – A Walk Across The Rooftops (ICA 304)

Cinerama – Maniac (ICA 296)

Edwyn Collins – 50 Shades of Blue (ICA 298)

Echo and The Bunnymen – Rescue (ICA 225)

Gregory Isaacs – Love Is Overdue (ICA 194)

Jens Lekman – Maple Leaves (ICA 184)

John McGeoch – Shot By Both Sides* (ICA 259)

Muse – Uprising (ICA 167)

Pink Cross – Dinahmite (ICA 297)

Pop Will Eat Itself – Def Con One (ICA 234)

Pylon – Cool (ICA 282)

The Ramones – Beat On The Brat (ICA 185)

Sons and Daughters – Johnny Cash (ICA 199)

The Wave Pictures – Stay Here and Take Care of the Chickens (ICA 201)

*a song by Magazine – ICA 259 was a compilation of tracks on which the guitarist played

Good luck working your way through today’s choices, as there’s a few tough decisions to take to get the number down to the eight you want to go through.

As usual, voting closes at midnight (UK time) next Saturday, which is the 6th of August.

JC

The 24-hour delay in bringing you the results was due to the need to get the offer of a free ticket to the upcoming Glas-Goes Pop festival out to everyone.  If you missed that, then all you need to do is scroll back or down to yesterday’s post.

It was Aldo who perhaps best nailed what was most intriguing about Group B

“First glance I thought I knew my 8, but after a listen through, half of those were discarded, and I had to whittle down.”

This proved to a group with just about everything.  The top four were neck-and-neck from the get-go, and while qualification for each of them was secured early enough, the question of who would top things went to the wire.

Two more acts secured plenty of votes early on to ensure likely qualification, which left two slots up for grabs among the rest, although Chuck Moseley/Faith No More, Clearlake and Quickspace never really looked likely.

In the end, it all came down to the very last set of votes cast by DAM with one of his choices breaking what had been, up to that stage, a tie.

1. Joy Division 31
2. Electronic 30
3. Blondie 29
4. Belle and Sebastian 27
5. Stevie Wonder 24
6. Black Box Recorder 23
7. Hot Chip 19
8. Fad Gadget 17

DAM cast a vote for Fad Gadget and thus eliminated The Siddeleys on 16.

Looking from the outside, the big shock is the failure of Blur to get through having gained just 14 votes which was the same as Urusei Yatsura, while Joe Jackson perhaps paid the price of a lesser known track being the ICA opener and was eliminated after receiving only 12 votes.  Josh Ritter got a lot of early votes and was very much in the running, but eventually proved unable to get more than 10 all told.

As ever, I’ll leave you with a song that will now be unable to make an appearance in future rounds when It may well have been something of an ace card to play:-

mp3: Joe Jackson – Is She Really Going Out With Him?

JC

One of the two groups with a difference.

Hybrid Soc Prof offered up 18 ICAs in a fairly short period of time, with his first being on 14 January 2019 and his last on 24 June 2020.

His alias gives away the fact that he was an academic, and if you go back through his postings, you’ll see he was based in Michigan, but that his writings covered many years of interest in music across many parts of the USA.

I have no idea what stopped HSP being such a lively contributor.  His last post came at the tail-end of the academic year and was, of course, during the time when COVID was rampaging through North America.  I’m trying not to think the worst……

All 18 songs on offer today come from his different ICAs, which means he’s guaranteed eight representatives in the knock-out stages.  My decision to devote an entire group to HSP is based largely on the fact that his offerings were on singers and bands rarely featured otherwise on TVV and I like the idea of a few lesser-known or appreciated acts being able to progress.

Once again, the songs are competing for your votes today are #1 from all the relevant ICAs, and they are offered up in alphabetical order of the singer or group involved.

The Black Angels – Currency (ICA 239)

The Black Keys – A Blueprint of Something Never Finished (ICA 246)

Vic Chesnutt – Flirted With You All My Life (ICA 232)

The Dream Syndicate – Kendra’s Dream (ICA 204)

The Feelies – The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness (ICA 218)

Giant Sand – Happenstance (ICA 213)

Michael Hall – Let’s Take Some Drugs and Drive Around (ICA 235)

Chris Isaak – Solitary Man (ICA 255)

The Lyres – You’ll Never Do It Baby (ICA 230)

Morphine – You Look Like Rain (ICA 215)

Chuck Prophet – Pin A Rose On Me (ICA 207)

Rainer Ptacek – Me and The Devil (ICA 242)

Queens of The Stone Age – I Appear Missing (ICA 241)

The Schramms* – Number Nineteen (ICA 236)

Son Volt – Chanty (ICA 207a)

Television – The Dream’s Dream (ICA 248)

The Thin White Hope – Dead Grammas On A Train (ICA 202)

Uncle Tupelo – Moonshiner (ICA 211)

*this track is actually a solo offering by Dave Schramm on an ICA otherwise consisting of songs by the group

I’m looking for you to cast votes for up to eight songs, but don’t worry if you decide to go under that number if not all the songs fully appeal to you….but every vote counts!

As usual, voting closes at midnight (UK time) next Saturday, which is the 30th of July.

Group D next week will have the normal thing of some stuff from myself and a bundle from guest contributors.

JC

A GUEST POSTING by JEZ

Hard luck, I’m back.

Late last year, I was strong-armed into joining the works Christmas Party team, a role I’m sure you can imagine I attacked with all the vigour of a substituted soccer ball player.

As is the norm with this sort of thing, our directions were that we had to come up with lots of games which would promote teamwork, which we duly did.

But about a week before the event, Covid rules changed. We should now only meet up if absolutely necessary, which this clearly wasn’t.

And so it shifted to an online, virtual Christmas Party, and we had a lot of time to fill.

“Can you knock together a Christmas pop quiz, Jez?”

At last. Here was my calling, my vocation.

But I couldn’t just do any old “What was the Christmas No. 1 in 1978?” type quiz. (Boney M with Mary’s Boy Child/O My Lord, in case you’re playing along at home), as the bloke who did it the year before had done that.

So instead I plumped for Christmas songs which you assume reached the coveted Christmas #1 slot, but didn’t. I wittily called it “The Christmas Number Two Quiz”, but decided not to include Mr Hankey, The Christmas Poo for wanting-to-keep-my-job reasons.

For those of you who don’t know me, my daytime job is working for the London Borough Council I lived in until fairly recently. In what I assume is a cost-cutting exercise, my Head of Service also performs the same role at a different London Borough Council.

She emailed me a day or so after our online Party to ask if she could use my pop quiz for the Christmas party for the other Borough. She’s my boss, what am I going to do, say no?

And so I became “Pop Quiz Guy”, not a title I have shied away from to be honest.

A couple of months ago, I was approached by one of our other managers, who was putting together a shared-service day, where employees in both Boroughs under the rule of the aforementioned Head of Service would meet up for a day of jolly training.

“Can you do a pop quiz for us, please?”

Of course, I agreed. It’s nice to be wanted, and also this manager is also my boss, what am I going to do, say no?

I dutifully prepared an “Identify the song from the lyric” quiz, fifteen songs, a point for the song, another if you got the artiste right.

And then, having attended a different training session a few days earlier, I tested positive for Covid, so couldn’t host it. I press-ganged some colleagues into filling in for me, but I felt an emptiness, a vacuum within me (by which I don’t mean I had inserted Henry the Hoover where the sun don’t shine).

Which brings us here, with extreme hot weather warnings ringing in our ears, a sort of summery mix for your delectation, you lucky people.

Named as a homage to the British media’s obsession with covering climate change by way of sending a photographer/camera person to a beach in the hope of catching a bit of tit to bolster their article about how it’s hotter here than it is in (enter any country more renowned for being warmer than the UK is), this is

mp3: Various – Phew! What A Scorcher!!

And here’s your track-listing, with ICA style sleeve notes where required (and rest easy regulars at my place, Chas & Dave don’t feature (although Quo very nearly did):

1. Super Furry Animals – “Hello Sunshine”

2. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – “Patio Song”

Parts 1 & 2 of the Welsh contingent of this playlist

3. Spanky Wilson – Sunshine Of Your Love

Nobody does a cover version like Spanky. And heaven forbid I would be compelled to include the original, sung by the right-wing “God”

4. Belle And Sebastian – Legal Man

Safe to say that, with its “Get out of the office and into the springtime” refrain, it won’t be featuring on Walter Softey tribute act Jacob Rees Mogg’s Desert Island Discs selection

5. The Kinks – Rainy Day In June

Reality check. No matter how great the weather is, or is forecast to be, you can rely on one thing: it’ll start pissing it down the second you unfurl your picnic blanket. If the wasps and ants don’t get you, the weather will

6. The Alarm – Rain In The Summertime

Here’s the 3rd of our Welsh contingent, a record which, up against some very stiff competition, manages not to be their worst single. Still, props for trying to put a positive spin on shit weather. Which is especially commendable when you imagine how pissed off you’d be to have rain ruin all those hours of furious back-combing and industrial levels of application of hairspray

7. The Delgados – Mr Blue Sky

Because I’d never get the original past JC’s watchful eye

8. Weezer – Island in the Sun

True story: I once had a brief dalliance with a young lady once; she flicked through my record collection and asked me to put together a mix CD for her. She’s the one, I thought. I duly obliged (in more ways than one, knowwhatImean?), she made this her ringtone on her phone and then ignored me for the rest of eternity

9. Dinosaur Jr. – Take a Run at the Sun

A record I will forever associate with my dear departed buddy Llyr. We used to make mix CDs for each other, I would never provide a track-list, preferring to see how he reacted to what I had put together (and, if I’m honest, check he’d actually listened to it). There is no greater joy than receiving a text which just reads: “Take a Run at the Sun!!!”. And because J Mascis trying to be Brian Wilson: what’s not to like here?

10. Barracudas – Summer Fun!

Because I thought an ad break was due. And because it’s chuffing brilliant. Bonus points for the inclusion of an exclamation mark.

11. The Undertones – Here Comes The Summer

Because no summer playlist is complete without it

12. Ramones – Rockaway Beach

Because the idea of four goofy NY dudes in black leathers hanging out at the beach is inherently ridiculous

13. Supergrass – Sun Hits the Sky

If you were fortunate enough to catch their recent life-affirming Greatest Hits set at Glastonbury, you’ll know there’s no such thing as a bad Supergrass tune

14. Squeeze – Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)

You’ll be aware that JC writes a wonderful series about songs which tell a story. This tale of a seaside coach trip’s journey home being delayed because one of the group is off shagging is ripe for inclusion at some point. This, or pretty much any other song from Squeeze’s canon

15. Kirsty MacColl – He’s On The Beach

It was a close call between this and the Lemonheads version. Kirsty wins, as she always should

16. Martha & The Muffins – Echo Beach

Quite simply, one of the greatest escape-from-the-daily-grind summer records ever

17. Fatboy Slim – Sunset (Bird of Prey)

Featuring Jim Morrison on guest vocals, spouting 6th form poetry, with his knob out (probably). This is the end.

JC adds..

This really should have been posted up earlier this week when the UK was experiencing record-high temperatures…and to be fair to Jez, he did fire it over in advance of things, but I had been too busy to look at the TVV inbox.

And for those of you not all that familiar with the sort of things Jez comes up with on a daily basis, then you really should take a leisurely stroll over to A History of Dubious Taste.

I’ve already got my own mixtape ready to roll when August comes around, but if anyone else wants to put something together, then there will always be a spot available.

And finally for today, a link to a guest posting I pulled together for SWC over at No Badger Required.  Click here for musings on Toronto and its baseball team.

I was away from home all of last week (up in St Andrews with a group of Canadian visitors over for the golf) and couldn’t keep up with the blog all that much.  I was stunned, thrilled and, yes, over-the-moon-David, to see the number of responses to the opening Group of the ICA World Cup 2022.

I got home to Glasgow yesterday and immediately started tallying the votes.  I did feel when the draw emerged that Group A didn’t bring together too many of the so-called ‘big guns’ and wouldn’t make for too much excitement.

How wrong could I have been?

OK, it was clear from quite early on that six of the eight qualifying spots were destined for Cocteau Twins, Buddy Holly, The Jam, Nirvana, Iggy Pop and Roxy Music, while the likes of Dum Dum Girls, The Fall, Luke Haines, Robyn Hitchcock, Iceage and Mudhoney never really got going.

Of the others, Say Sue Me and Tracey Thorn faded after decent starts, which left Ash, Dinosaur Jr. and Jazz Butcher battling out in a tight contest for the final two spots.

The final tallies at the top of the table:-

1. Iggy Pop 39
2. Roxy Music 37
3. Buddy Holly 30
4. Cocteau Twins 28*
5. The Jam 28
6. Nirvana 24
7. Ash 19
8. Jazz Butcher 18*
9. Dinosaur Jr. 18

In football terms, there were two penalty shoot-outs – which in reality was a toss of a coin. Cocteau Twins snatched 4th place in the group, (which may be crucial in terms of the draw for the knockout stages),  but also saw Jazz Butcher progress to the next phase instead of Dinosaur Jr.

It is, I have to admit, a very cruel way to be eliminated. Especially when this song was likely to make an appearance at some point:-

mp3: Dinosaur Jr – Freak Scene

JC

All the postings for the initial Group stages are being typed up, readied and posted at the same time, weeks in advance, and as such I have no idea how well (or badly) folk responded to Group A.  I’ll be going forward in any event, certainly for the next seven weeks, but like a gig or festival which is cancelled late on due to poor ticket sales, I’ll be keeping a close watch on things as they head towards the knock-out stages.

Once again, sixteen songs are competing for your votes today, with eight of them set to qualify for the knock-out stages.  As mentioned last week, all the songs, in the group stages, will be #1 from all the relevant ICAs, and they are listed below in alphabetical order of the singer or group involved.

Belle & Sebastian – The State That I Am In (ICA 165)

Black Box Recorder – Child Psychology (ICA 179)

Blondie – X-Offender (ICA 198)

Blur – Crazy Beat (ICA 189)

Chuck Mosley/Faith No More – We Care A Lot (ICA 247)

Clearlake – Almost The Same (ICA 279)

Electronic – Getting Away With It (ICA 205)

Fad Gadget – Back To Nature (ICA 231)

Hot Chip – Ready For The Floor (ICA 216)

Joe Jackson – One To One (ICA 196)

Joy Division – Digital (ICA 160)

Quickspace – Friends (ICA 263)

Josh Ritter – Snow Is Gone (ICA 162)

The Siddeleys – Sunshine Thuggery (ICA 265)

Urusei Yatsura – Siamese (ICA 268)

Stevie Wonder – Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday (ICA 233)

With all respect to Group A, this week’s mix is one to get the juices flowing, with a few big names coming out of the hat, and not all of them certain to get through.  Bernard Sumner makes two appearances this week, again by chance.  He’s been denied the hat-trick as there’s no eligible ICAs from New Order or Bad Lieutenant.

As usual, voting closes at midnight (UK time) next Saturday, which is the 23rd of July.

JC