Month: April 2023

Pet Shop Boys

PET SHOP BOYS SINGLES (Part Eleven)

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No sooner had Go West taken its leave of the singles charts was another single readied from Very.

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I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing was reckoned to be one of the standout tracks from the album.   It had hit single written all over it from the outset, but Neil and Chris decided to do something quite radical in that a three minute song was extended by the best part of an additional two minutes, while the really catchy piano opening in the house music style piano opening was replaced by something rather grand, orchestral and epic.  The opening refrain was put to much use throughout the new version, particularly within each chorus as the words ‘I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing’ were followed with an uplifting flourish of noise.

The remix was the work of Beatmasters, a four-piece electronic/dance group who had enjoyed some chart hits in the late 80s but had really found fame and fortune as producers and remixers, and were riding high at the time from their work with The Shamen.

I wasn’t initially all that fussed about the remix as I really loved the album version, but it has grown on me over the years.    Looking back, it was the right sort of big and bouncy remix needed to complement the success of Go West, but I still feel it goes on for maybe 30-45 seconds too long.

7″

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Too Many People

The b-side is another excellent listen.  There’s so much going on over its four minutes.  It opens up as something akin to a house tune (and like something off the Electronic album) before settling into something which harks back to the music of the first two albums, but the next thing you know there’s all sort of production tricks thrown in, but that proves to be short-lived, and soon we are back to classic early days PSB with a sing-along chorus. 

Worth mentioning that this single was released across a range of formats, with ‘I Wouldn’t Normally….’ getting at least five different remixes/dub versions, while West End Girls was given the remix treatment of the 12″ and CD versions.  No wonder, for the sake of my sanity, I’m sticking to the 7″ releases (while I can!!).

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The next single was released on 4 April 1994.

I’ll be honest and admit that until pulling this series together, I had no idea that Liberation, one of the slower numbers on Very, had been issued as single, never mind that it was a decent-sized hit, entering and peaking at #14 on the basis of its first week of sales.

I don’t mind the song, but it’s not close to being one of my favourites. It did fit in very well on the album – it was the third track and provided a nice change of pace after the one-two opening of Can You Forgive Her? and I Wouldn’t Normally…., but I much prefer To Speak Is A Sin, one of the other ballads on the album.

7″

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Liberation
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Decadence

I’ve only just got to know this b-side, thanks to me picking up a second-hand copy of the 7″ single.   On first play, I thought it very cinematic in theme, while the very opening notes reminded me a bit of Confide In Me, the superb single released by Kylie Minogue a little later the same year.  I was really enjoying it, but there was something else that I couldn’t quite put by finger on.   I put on my reading glasses and looked at the small print on the back of the sleeve.

Guitars : Johnny Marr

All of which led to me doing a  little bit of searching on t’internet and coming across this nugget of info*:-

” Pet Shop Boys had been asked to write the theme music for a film titled Decadence based on a play by Steven Berkoff. Chris began writing a song built around a sample of the opening two bars of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David tune “I Say a Little Prayer” as performed by Aretha Franklin. When the song was finished, however, Neil and Chris decided that the track didn’t need the sample and thus removed it. They also decided not to submit the song for use in the film after having seen a rough edit, which they apparently didn’t particularly like.

According to Neil, the lyrics directly address “someone who’s become a really horrible person because they take lots of drugs and all they think about is money.” When once asked whether “Yesterday, When I Was Mad” was about the Boys’ former manager Tom Watkins, Neil replied, “No, but ‘Decadence’ was.” Neil has also stated elsewhere that he regrets the reference to “fin de siècle pretense” (fin de siècle is French for “end of the century,” commonly a period for decadent behavior), chiding himself for his own pretentiousness in authoring such a line.

Johnny Marr, formerly of the Smiths, played guitar, giving the track a distinctly “unplugged” feel—which undoubtedly inspired the Boys to go all the way and provide an “Unplugged Mix”. Chris says the recording “cost a fortune.””

There was no way I wasn’t hunting that down….

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Decadence (Unplugged Mix)

As found on CD2 of Liberation.

*it was found on what can only be described as probably the most informative and well-written PSB fan site anywhere on the internet. It’s called Commentary, and it’s the work of Wayne Studer.    It can be found here.

Apologies to Wayne for not acknowledging this fully when the piece was initially posted.

JC

Trappists

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #349: THE TRAPPISTS

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There isn’t much to say about the small Midlothian town of Bonnyrigg. It is located a few miles outside of Edinburgh, it has a statue dedicated to a leader of the miners in its park. It has several churches, and a decent Italian. It also gave us the hugely influential post rock band The Trappists.

The Trappists were artistes who refused to compromise. They were a band who tore up the rulebook, threw it away, then wrote their own rulebook which they then ignored. The Trappists didn’t tour, they didn’t do interviews, they issued very few promotional photos, they never appeared on the radio, and they only ever wore brown.

There was of course a reason why the Trappists didn’t tour, didn’t do interviews and issue photos. They were Trappists Monks and upon entering the Order of Silvino Francisco (which was a small monastery located just behind Dundas Park, home of Bonnyrigg Rose FC) they swore a vow of silence and as such became the most punk rock band to have ever driven along the A7 in a clapped out minibus without even knowing it.

The Trappists were formed of three brothers, (who were not actually brothers in the Noel and Liam sense but in the professional sense) Thelonius (born in Grimsby) who played guitar, Garry (born in Ormskirk), who banged the drums and Adrian (born in Akron) who played bass. They did not sing on any of their releases, not only because they had taken a vow of silence, but just like Mogwai they preferred to let the music do the speaking.

The legend goes that one day after prayers and a short pilgrimage to a Dalkeith bakery, the three brothers were in the monastery’s music room tidying away the pan pipes and simply started jamming together. Within an hour, they had recorded their first track, their instrumental take on  Madonna’s ‘Erotica’. 

Despite its tough and ready nature, they were confident enough to offer it immediately to the one person allowed to utter any words within the monastery, their head abbot, who had taken the holy name of Russell when entering the order back in 1946.  He gave it a thumbs-up, but after a second listen, he felt it would benefit from a minor contribution, around the four-minute mark, by some of the nuns who lived in an adjacent convent.

Erotica – The Trappists (1992, Cachinno Records, Taken from ‘Trappist Music Vol. 1’ – the complete collection’)

Thus, The Trappists silently announced themselves to the musical world of Midlothian. The abbot was approached on their behalf with the opportunity for the lads to have a Saturday night residency at nearby Danderhall Miners Welfare Club, as the Committee considered them as the perfect opening act prior to the bingo and the headline show performed by the legendary Englebert Humperdinck.

The abbot was tempted, but he decided that their musical careers would always play second fiddle to their commitments to the brotherhood and their other extracurricular activities. Because of this, recorded material was eventiually restricted to just one album – ‘Aprilis stulti locus’ and one very limited edition EP ‘Hoc est ventus est’.

The album itself took five years to record as Thelonius was regularly called upon (not in the vocal sense obviously) to play the harpsichord at local schools and at the convent. Garry was also employed on occasion as a football manager for the local church side and under his silent but incredibly detailed diagrammatic team talks, the local church side won the Scottish Challenge Cup twice in the late nineties (beating Raith 4 – 1 in 1997 and Airdrie 3 – 2 in 1999). Adrian meanwhile spent a year working as a consultant detective in the Chicago Police Department, in that time he was also briefly employed as a session guitarist for the Smashing Pumpkins, and despite his vow of silence, still managed to talk more sense than Billy Corgan.

The album was a post rock masterpiece, it drew comparisons to recently released works by the likes of Tortoise and Slint. It consisted of fourteen tracks all of them instrumental post rock versions of eighties and nineties alternative rock classics, many of them had a religious (in name at least) theme to them. Like this one for example.

Jesus Christ Pose – The Trappists (1996, Cachinno Records, Taken from ‘Aprilis Stulti Locus’)

The limited edition EP- which was only made available in the gift shop at the Francisco Monastery in Bonnyrigg for six weeks, now changes hands on Discogs for around £1000 a time.

Here is one track taken from it.  The EP was actually produced by the abbot, who sadly forgot that he had left his own mic on during the process, and the three words he actually knew from the original are occasionally and accidentally chanted.

Holiday In Cambodia – The Trappists (1995, Cachinno Records, Taken from ‘Hoc est ventus est’)

The Bastard Sons of Dean Friedman