July 2023 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (3)

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It was back in October 2022, when I featured On Our Honeymoon by The Wake, that I last mentioned Optic Nerve Recordings, the label specialising in offering up vinyl copies of long-lost or difficult to find singles, of an indie-bent, from the 80s and 90s.

One of their reissues in 2020 was Once More by The Wedding Present, which had originally come out on Reception Records in 1986, and was the band’s second ever 45.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Once More

As with all Optic Nerve 7″ singles, this one came with a little extra, in the shape of a postcard featuring a picture of the band from 1986, along with an A4 sized copy of the original promotional poster for Once More. Oh, and it was also pressed on white vinyl, and it felt like decent value for £10 including postage, which is still just about the going rate over on Discogs.

mp3: The Wedding Present – At The Edge Of The Sea

With its intro dominated by a bass guitar, it’s not immediately obvious that the b-side is a Wedding Present number. But it takes less than fifteen seconds before a more familiar sound comes to the fore, followed shortly after by David Gedge offering up a lovelorn lyric about being happy with someone while visiting a coastal town. It’s all rather charming.

JC

Pet Shop Boys

PET SHOP BOYS SINGLES (Part Twenty-seven)

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On 20 July 2016, the Pet Shop Boys enjoyed the first of a sold-out four-night residency at London’s Royal Opera House. The event is called Inner Sanctum, after one of the tracks on Super.

Neil Tennant explained the thought process. “We thought it would be exciting to play at a venue a lot of people won’t have been to, the grandest theatre in London. There is actually a creative tension between an institution like the Royal Opera House and electronic dance music, and I think we’ve hoping that will prove to be a rather fruitful tension, because it’s exciting to take electronic music into a venue that doesn’t normally have it.”

Here’s a review of the opening night, penned by Shaun Curran for The Independent newspaper:-

“Tonight I’m afraid there is no ballet or opera,” says Neil Tennant as he surveys the stately Royal Opera House, “just pop kids”. The statement is knowingly self-effacing: three decades into a career which has perpetually showed that pop music and high art cannot only co-exist but surpass supposedly superior musical forms, Pet Shop Boys are still at it. This year’s “The Pop Kids”, a nostalgic, acid-house reflection of Nineties club land in the vein of their 1990 classic “Being Boring”, glories in “telling everyone we knew that rock was overrated”.

In that context, the ROH is a perfectly subversive location for a four-night residency unveiling their brand new stage show Inner Sanctum. If Pet Shop Boys’ injecting of intelligence and pathos into chart hits (42 and counting) has helped take pop to new heights, their conceptual stage shows have become equally vital. Directed by long-time collaborator ES Devlin, Inner Sanctum is split into four acts – In The Night, Sun, Inside and Euphoric – and is a vivid, laser-laden spectacular taking in everything from rotating, multi-coloured pods (from which Tennant and keyboardist Chris Lowe appear), hip-hop dancing, a swarm of futuristic aliens and a flood of colourful inflatable dancers. Affected, moving, colourful and flat out fun, it is some spectacle.

And with 30 years of copper-bottomed classics to draw on, the music can hardly fail. New album Super is the second of a proposed trilogy with Madonna cohort Stuart Price (who also worked as musical producer for the show). Like its equally strident predecessor Electric, it finds Neil Tennant (62) and Chris Lowe (56) defying pop convention and refusing to bow to age, making some of the most purposefully electronic sounds of their career. It provides some of tonight’s highlights: opener “Inner Sanctum” and “Burn” are unapologetically full-on, hands-in-the-air euphoric.

Long-term PSB fans will be assured the duo’s personalities remain fixed. While at his keyboard Lowe remains Lowe – resolutely motionless – the sparkly-suit clad Tennant is in his element: wearing a permanent expression of “oh, look at this, here’s another pop gem I’ve just found”, he parades the stage with suave certainty, his vocals, particularly on the elegiac “Home and Dry”, still yearning with emotion. As the set reaches its end and the hits pile up with a breathless flurry – the self-questioning disco of “It’s a Sin”, a propulsive “Left to My Own Devices”, the communal rally of “Go West” – Tennant can’t hide his elation.

They end with a reprise of “The Pop Kids”, with its declaration “we loved the pop hits”: and like that, the curtain falls on some of the best you’ll ever hear.

Really makes me wish I’d been there………..or indeed at the reprise of the show in July 2018 which was filmed and released the following year on DVD. The footage is superb, but there’s nothing quite like being there.

The residency was marked with a limited edition 12″ single containing the album and a couple of demo versions of Inner Sanctum along with this:-

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Inner Sanctum (Carl Cox C2 Juiced RMX)

Vulture Party

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #365: VULTURE PARTY

Memo to self……make sure you’ve actually gone beyond the draft stage of a post before scheduling it…especially when you are using the previous entry in the series as the template and typing over things, while using cut’n’paste.

As chaval suggests in his comment, it looked as if someone like William Burroughs was guest posting a bit earlier!

Anyways…………..what I wanted to say was that this blog is very late to the party that is Vulture Party. And offers its sincere apologies.

The Falkirk-based band, consisting of Louise Ward (vocals, piano, synth), David King (vocals, guitar, synth), Dickson Telfer (bass, synth) and Roddy Campbell (drums, and percussion) have been making music since 2019, describing their material as ‘disquieting ALT POP for the socially conscious.’

The self-titled debut album was released on one of the Last Night From Glasgow imprints back in 2020, but their promotional activities were frustrated by the COVID restrictions imposed everywhere at the time.

A number of folk, whose thoughts and views on music are always worth taking heed of, suggested that I’d like what Vulture Party were doing, but I never got round to acting on things. I eventually caught them live as the opening act at an Adam Stafford gig in their home town in late 2021 and wasn’t disappointed. I picked up a copy of the debut album shortly afterwards, but never quite found the time to write about it.

It’s a beguiling listen, one that is far from easy to categorise. The suggestion of disquieting ALT POP for the socially conscious seems about right. This was the song with which they introduced themselves to the world:-

Last October saw the band release their second album, Archipelago, again via Last Night From Glasgow. This time round, I picked up a copy early on, but it was at a time when I had little or no spare time to give it a listen. Indeed, it took until Spring 2023 before I actually put it on the turntable, having forgotten all about it until doing a bit of long-overdue tidying up of albums – my only defence is that I had filed it away in the wrong place alongside ‘old records’ and not in the box where I store the newly bought things that should be listened to.

It’s an excellent listen offering a number of shifts in direction throughout, which most certainly means you can never accuse the band of being one-dimensional. The songs immediately feel bolder and more confident sounding than those on the debut, and without it ever feeling as if it is a completely commercial-sounding record, it has quite a few moments which make me think that they would go down well if given the opportunity to shine of decent sized stages at the summer festivals

mp3: Vulture Party – Blood Wolf Moon

You can check out a lot more at this bandcamp page. I think you may enjoy what you find.

JC

Otis Redding

NOT THE USUAL STUFF ROUND THESE PARTS

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I could never dream of calling myself anything other than a total novice when it comes to soul music. There’s not a great deal of it to be found in the collection. But I did buy this CD single in 1992. I can’t recall why it was released at that particular time, but I’m guessing it might have had something to do with some sort of telly advert.

mp3 : Otis Redding – (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay

It really is quite a beautiful song, one that I can’t imagine too many folk saying they don’t like it. I hadn’t been aware that it was one of the last things ever worked on by Otis Redding during sessions at the Stax Recording Studios in Memphis between 22 November and 7 December 1967. The singer died in a plane crash on 10 December 1967.

The single came with three other tracks:-

mp3 : Otis Redding – Sweet Lorene
mp3 : Otis Redding – Hard To Handle
mp3 : Otis Redding – The Glory Of Love

I just felt a change of scene and pace might be welcomed.

JC

Elisa Waut

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #025

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#025 Elisa Waut – ‚Four Times More’ (Ariola/Megadisc ’87)

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JC writes……

Apologies this did not appear at the usual time of the day. Blame old age…….

Hello friends,

to Belgium we go today, to Bruges in fact. Wonderful city, where, believe it or not, I have been just two months ago – and had I seen today’s artist on the streets there, I would haven kneeled down and kissed her feet! Why? Well, let me explain, if you have a few minutes ….

Very old readers of my former blog sexyloser may remember a series I once had, ‘The Girls’ Tapes’. Basically it featured tapes which, decades ago, were made for me by girls who fancied me a bit (for whatever reason, I should add). This may sound strange now, especially to people reading this which are not as close to their graves as I am.

But, you see, back in the 80’s it was common sense to say to girls, like, “I quite adore you, here, I made a tape for you”. And the really cool girls would do the same for men, rather seldom though. Well, I was lucky enough to receive a handful of those tapes back then, and there was one which I never got tired of listening to, never. The thing is, there never was an inlay, so most of the songs I never could identify until very much later.

Today’s choice, as you will surely have gathered, is but one of the songs on said tape. I would of course lie when I said that good looks is an obstacle in helping to be included in my singles box … and probably you wouldn’t believe me for a minute anyway. But Elsje Helewau, the lead singer with Elisa Waut, who, let’s face facts, has never been an ugly duckling, she could look like the hunchback of Notre Dame’s daughter – and this record would still have made my list!

Yes, yes, it’s neither punk nor indie all too much, a bit chart-bound even, you could argue. But there was always something that got a grip on me when listening to this song. Elisa’s voice was one thing, of course (not her looks, no, because, as I explained, I only got to know who she is a few years ago), but what else made the song so special to me, well, I could never identify it.

I always thought there is something in it, which keeps it away from being too mainstream, it really is hard to explain. Today I know that Elsje and her brother Hans started back in 1978 in The Bungalows, then hooked up with bassist Chery Derycke to form The Red Zebras, (all three were the members of Elisa Waut), so clearly there was some Punk/Joy Division-influenced background. Perhaps I gathered this all along, old music expert that I am? Anyway, sometimes a song is just a song, and sometimes it’s just a good song, regardless of its history.

And to me, this is the case today:

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mp3: Elisa Waut – Four Times More

Btw.: and if you want to understand what I was trying to say about ugly ducklings above, here’s youtube for you:

Stay safe,

Dirk

Curve

CURVE BALLS (3)

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The first sighting of Curve in 1992 came on 24 February with the new single, Faît Accompli.

Unlike the four earlier releases, this wasn’t an EP, containing just the three tracks on 12″ vinyl, and likewise the CD version. There was no 7″ issued, but there was a second 12″ which came with an extended version of Faît Accompli, backed with two tracks recorded live at gigs in Manchester and London the previous year.

Here’s the review, lifted from Melody Maker:-

I HATE to be so predictable, but…

One of the more immediate tracks from the forthcoming “Doppelgänger” LP, “Faît Accompli” forsakes Curve’s usual sweet violence for a slinky radiance which sits well on them. It’s relaxed, playful almost – you can fair see the glint in Toni’s eye as she breathes, “I’ve come to crush your bones, I’ve come to make you feel good, I’ve come to mess with your head…” Oh well, if you must.

The business is developing a penchant for releasing singles in two completely different formats, and we’re likely in coming months to see some bogus examples of this. In the case of “Faît Accompli”, however, the approach is justified. The standard 12-inch version includes two new tunes on the B-side, “Arms Out” and “Sigh”, and this last is to Curve what “Justify My Love” was to Madonna: minimalistic, angular and something of a departure. Then there’s a second 12-inch, featuring a fractured, extended “dance mix” (interesting, though not necessarily essential) with live renditions of “Coast Is Clear” and “Die Like A Dog” on the flip (utterly, undeniably crucial).

“Faît Accompli” represents the first tangible sign of Curve being prepared to open out, live up to their name and get a bit elliptical. We still have much to look forward to from them, I suspect.

It was made single of the week, and while I don’t what else was reviewed that week, I’m happy enough to give this review three cheers, as Faît Accompli has long been my favourite track of theirs.

mp3: Curve – Faît Accompli
mp3: Curve – Arms Out
mp3: Curve – Sigh

This one went all the way to #22 in the charts, and proved to be the biggest hit that Curve would enjoy. It also paved the way for debut album, Doppelgänger, to enter the charts at #11 just three weeks later.

While I don’t have a copy of the other 12″ single, I have picked up the extended version of Faît Accompli thanks to its inclusion on a later compilation CD.

mp3 : Curve – Faît Accompli (extended version)

Here’s the promo video:-

JC

Another Sunny Day

SARAH 7

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This one is sourced from Scared To Get Happy : A Story Of Indie-Pop 1986-1989, a 5 x CD set issued by Cherry Red Records back in 2013.

mp3: Another Sunny Day – I’m In Love With A Girl Who Doesn’t Know I Exist

Another Sunny Day featured previously on TVV in April 2015 as part of a series that was anticipating the 30th anniversary of C86. Here’s what I said, along with a reminder of the tunes from that posting.

“Today’s lot are all the evidence you need to see that the C86 movement was like punk in that it inspired another generation of musicians, many of who came to be seen as representative of the movement even though they had little to do with its origins.

Another Sunny Day didn’t release any music until April 1988. It’s a cracking name for a band especially when it covers the fact there was just one member, a talented multi-instrumentalist and vocalist called Harvey Williams.

He left college to sign with a then little-known but ambitious label called Sarah Records. His first release was a flexi single that came free with a fanzine from the record label. In due course he would record a handful of further singles and a sole compilation LP for the label all of which today, like anything that was pressed up by Sarah, command high prices on the second-hand market – especially that very rare flexi/fanzine debut that has fetched as much as £180 on Discogs in recent times. Just as well then that said song was on CD 86:-

mp3 : Another Sunny Day – Anorak City

It’s a tremendous bit of music albeit, at a juncture of nearly 30 years, it feels atypical of its time and place. I’ve no doubt that those who were right at the heart of C86 and all that subsequently followed regard Anorak City as one of the most important and influential bits of music ever released. But then again, these are the folk who believe, wrongly, that C86 was the birth of indie pop.

Harvey Williams would later join The Field Mice, Blueboy and Trembling Blue Stars all of which were hugely popular bands on Sarah Records. I suppose that makes him the C86 equivalent of Malcolm Ross who was a member of three bands on Postcard Records…..

Being a flexi single there is no b-side to bring you, but here’s a track that wiki describes as Smiths-esque:-

mp3 : Another Sunny Day – You Should All Be Murdered

Smiths-esque is a bit of an understatement…..and listening to what is a truly outstanding record make me wonder why Moz didn’t pick up the phone to Harvey and ask to work with him after Johnny had upped stick and left his band…..”

The Scared To Get Happy booklet, which I wasn’t aware of back in 2015, more or less confirms all of my thoughts, views and opinions on the band/Harvey Williams. It also states that the track on offer on the compilation was the first single proper, one which crystallised the appeal of both its creator Harvey Williams and Sarah Records. I’ve tracked down its other two songs:-

mp3: Another Sunny Day – Things Will Be Nice
mp3: Another Sunny Day – The Centre Of My Little World

The single is one of those much sought after 45s on Sarah. There is, at the time of typing this up, just one copy on offer at Discogs and the asking price is £93 plus postage.

JC

Bananarama, Bruce Foxton, Creatures, Cure, David Sylvian and Riuichi Sakamoto, Depeche Mode, Echo & The Bunnymen, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Lotus Eaters, Malcolm McLaren, Tom Robinson

DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER (7)

Slight change of tack this month, and indeed for the remainder of this series, in that instead of looking at one week’s chart in a particular month, I’m going to go through each of them to highlight and recall some great 45s from the latter half of 1983.

Chart dates 3rd – 9th July 1983

The top end of the chart still had the June hangover, but one of the former new wave heroes found himself in the Top 10 with a bit of an MOR classic:-

mp3: Tom Robinson – War Baby (#6)

I could have included this in last month’s posting as it was kicking around the charts in June 1983, but held it back. TRB had, with 2-4-6-8 Motorway and the Rising Free EP, enjoyed a bit of success in the new wave era, but Robinson’s next venture, Sector 27, had failed dismally. He went away to live in Germany, wrote some new songs, including War Baby, and returned to the UK with the aim of becoming purely a solo artist. War Baby was the only big hit he would enjoy, albeit there was a minor hit later in 1983. He’s remained very well-known here in the UK as a result of broadcasting shows on all various BBC Radio stations since the late 80s.

mp3: Malcolm McLaren – Double Dutch (#19)

The inclusion of this one might annoy a few of you, but I remain quite fond of it. The svengali had enjoyed an unexpected Top 10 hit in 1982 with Buffalo Gals, one of the first hit singles to feature hip-hop and scratching, but that was reckoned to have been the last anyone would hear of him. He returned in 83 with a single which celebrated a skipping game that was highly popular among many African American communities, particularly in New York. It’s one of those songs which entertains and annoys in equal measures, depending on your take. It would eventually climb to #3.

mp3: David Sylvian and Riuichi Sakamoto – Forbidden Colours (#20)

The vocal version of the main theme to Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, one of the most critically acclaimed films of 1983. This was not the first time that the former frontman of Japan and the award-winning composer had collaborated on a hit single, as the double-A sided Bamboo Houses/Bamboo Music, which was part of the first solo project undertaken by Sylvian, had been a Top 30 hit in 1982. Forbidden Colours would rise up the charts over the next couple of weeks, peaking at #16.

mp3: The Cure – The Walk (#34)

The eleventh single to be released by The Cure. This was the week it entered the charts, making six in a row to make at least the Top 50. However, The Walk would go on to spend 8 weeks in the charts, and in reaching #12 would give the group its breakthrough into the Top 20.

mp3: Bananarama – Cruel Summer (#36)

There’s no way I’m not including this in the feature. Bananarama were great fun back in 1983, and would remain so for many more years to come. This was another new entry and, during a 10-week stay, would eventually peak at #8.

mp3: Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Everyday I Write The Book (#40)

Having been in the charts earlier in the tear as The Imposter, the release of the first new single off what would be the band’s seventh studio album, took Elvis Costello & The Attractions back into the Top 40 for the first time since High Fidelity in 1980 – four singles in the intervening period had all stalled in the 40s or 50s. This one would be a real slower burner in that it spent 8 weeks in the charts but never got any higher than #28.

Chart dates 10th – 16th July 1983

Rod Stewart and Paul Young continued to bore everyone rigid at the top of the charts. Baby Jane was at #1 for a third successive week, but was poised to lose its place to Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) which was sitting at #2 but would end up itself spending three weeks at the top.

All of those that had come in as new entries the previous week made progress up the chart, joined by a few more excellent 45s.

mp3: Echo & The Bunnymen – Never Stop (#30)

This was the first new release since the success of the album Porcupine, as well as the hit singles taken from it (The Back of Love and The Cutter). Its absence from any future albums sort of makes Never Stop one of the more forgotten 45s from the Bunnymen, but it’s one of my favourites, particularly in its extended 12″ format which was given very regular airings at the Student Union discos. It would rise to #15 the following week, before slowly drifting out of the chart.

mp3: The Lotus Eaters – The First Picture Of You (#36)

The debut single from The Lotus Eaters had been on sale for a few weeks before it reached the Top 40. It had come in at #71, climbed to #42 and now got to #36. The good news would continue as it would rise in each of the next five weeks, which also led to a couple of appearances on Top of The Pops, reaching #15. It would prove to be the only occasion that the group had a Top 40 hit.

Chart dates 17th – 23rd July 1983

mp3: The Creatures – Right Now (#32)

The side-group of Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie was now enjoying a second Top 40 hit in 1983, this time with a cover of a jazz song from the early 60s. There was a brilliantly written review from Paul Colbert in Melody Maker:-

“The Creatures slipped through an unlocked back window, ransacked the place and left with the best ideas in a fast car. Like all the greatest criminal minds they strike without a warning and only they know the plan. We have to piece the clues into a cover story. From the earliest seconds of ‘Right Now’ you know you’re on shifting ground. Siouxsie baba da baping away to the noise of her own fingers clicking until Budgie barges in with congas on speed. Christ which way is this going? The one direction you don’t expect is a vagrant big band coughing out drunken bursts of brass in a Starlight Room of its own making. Budgie and Siouxsie – the Fred and Ginger of the wayward world”.

Right Now would end up spending 10 weeks in the charts, peaking at #14.

Chart dates 24th – 30th July 1983

mp3: Depeche Mode – Everything Counts (#26)

I’m no fan of post-Vince Clarke DM, but it’s only fair to acknowledge the amount of time they’ve been around. Everything Counts might have been 40 years ago, but it was already their seventh Top 30 single, going back to New Life in June 1981. It would eventually reach #6, which matched their previous best chart performance, which had been achieved with See You. I was surprised to learn that only one further DM single would ever get higher in the charts, and that came the following year, when People Are People reached #4.

mp3: Bruce Foxton – Freak (#34)

The bass player of the band formerly known as The Jam finally got his solo career underway. His debut single came in at #34 and after a couple of weeks had climbed to #23, but he never again replicated this success, very much overshadowed by what Paul Weller was achieving with The Style Council. To be honest, Freak isn’t a very good song, and probably owed its success from the loyalty of fans of his former band.

I’ll be back with more of the same in four or so weeks.

JC

Pet Shop Boys

PET SHOP BOYS SINGLES (Part Twenty-six)

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The thirteenth studio album, Super, was released on 1 April 2016. It was warmly received by critics and fans alike, with many commenting on how it felt like a companion piece to Electric. One pithy review from a UK newspaper opens with ‘Without breaking new ground, Super ticks all the right boxes.’, and ends with ‘Neil Tennant still sounds simultaneously wry and mournful and Chris Lowe’s euphoric surges still tickle both heart and body. They are indestructible.’

The fan base was still there and the album entered the charts at #3. Nobody was paying too much attention to the singles, but as this series hopefully has shown, that often meant something rather special or different wasn’t picked up from new songs as b-sides.

The second single from the new album was issued on 24 June 2016.

Pmp3: Pet Shop Boys – Twenty-Something (radio edit)

It’s about a minute or so shorter than the album version. Twenty-something weeks into this series, and it’s nigh-on impossible to find something new to say about the PSB and their songs. I like this one…..I probably would have hated it in the 80s and 90s, and I’m not sure about the 00s. But some slack has got to be cut…..it’s not one I’d place high up on any rundown, but I wouldn’t have it propping up the table either.

Released digitally and as a CD single, there were, once again, two new tracks as B-sides:-

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – The White Dress
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Wiedersehen

The official PSB website describes The White Dress as ‘a haunting electronic track’ while provides the information that Wiedersehen was ‘a piano ballad featuring Rufus Wainwright on backing vocals.’

Given that some of the minor criticism levelled at Super had been its lack of slowed down and more mournful material, it is something of a surprise to find these two songs sneaked out in such a low-key fashion. But then again, PSB have always looked to reward the fans who go digging deep.

JC

Visitors

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #364: VISITORS

From the booklet that accompanied the Big Gold Dreams box set, issued by Cherry Red Records in 2019.

mp3: Visitors – Electric Heat

This influential Edinburgh quartet were formed from the ashes of The Deleted by brothers John and Derek McVay with Colin Craigie and Alan Laing.

Released in May 1979 on Sounds journalist and proprietor of fanzine Kingdom Come, Johnny Waller’s Deep Cuts label, ‘Electric Heat’ opens with the ominous insistence of a dystopian sci-fi film. Visitors signed to 4AD, but split up before they could release anything.

In 2011, Visitors’ final single ‘Compatability’ released (in 1981) on Allan Campbell’s Rational Records, was covered by Finitribe co-founder and Revolting Cocks mainstay Chris Connelly on his Artificial Intelligence album. In 2016, Canadian label Telephone Explosion Records released Poet’s End, a compilation named after the B-side of ‘Compilicity’.

Here’s the thing.

I’ve never heard of Visitors. It’s another example of the great gulf that existed back then between Glasgow and Edinburgh, despite the two cities being separated by just 45 miles. The fact that licensing laws prevented anyone under the age of 18 admission to most of the venues where live music was played meant I would be denied the opportunity to stumble across Visitors, and I’m sure the 15/16 year-old me would have most likely enjoyed them.

JC

Popguns

I’M SURE I POSTED THIS BEFORE…….

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….but it’s not showing up in the index, nor is it among the files I’ve fired over to box.com to enable mp3s to be accessed. It’s certainly been part of at least one of the mix tapes in by gone days, and I can’t understand why it’s not showing up.

Never mind…..gives me the perfect excuse to post it today.

mp3: The Popguns – Waiting For The Winter

Five musicians were involved in the making of the perfect piece of indie-pop back in 1989. Wendy Morgan (vocals), Simon Pickles (guitar), Greg Dixon (guitar), Pat Walkington (bass) and Shaun Charman (drums) – the last named having previously the original drummer with The Wedding Present prior to him leaving in 1988.

The Popguns had actually formed in 1986 in Brighton, but didn’t get round to releasing a 45 of their own until Landslide, a track voted in at #46 in Peel’s Festive Fifty of 1989. Waiting For The Winter was the follow-up, their first release on 12″ vinyl, on Midnight Music. It was later followed up with four further 45s and two albums – Eugenie (1990) and Snog (1991) – neither of which brought any commercial success.

The demise of their label saw The Popguns shift to 3rd Stone Records for the release of Love Junky in 1995, but again to almost complete indifference from the record-buying public.

Here’s the two b-sides to the single:-

mp3: The Popguns – Because He Wanted To
mp3: The Popguns – Every Dream

The four original members of the band reformed to play live shows in 2012 – by now the singer was known as Wendy Pickles; they soon returned to the studio where they were augmented by Tony Bryant on drums and Kate Mander on vocals, to record and release, on Matinee Recordings, the album Pop Fiction in 2014, which included another excellent single:-

mp3: The Popguns – Lovejunky

As with a quite a number of the indie bands from the 80s/90s who came round to reforming 20+ years later, there was a great deal of love and affection for what was happening, and while the sales figures were never high, the critical acclaim was always there (and rightly so!!!!!).

Before too long, there was more new material, including what could be described as a postscript to the 1989 single:-

mp3: The Popguns – Still Waiting For The Winter

The band then took another short break, during which time Wendy and Simon Pickles formed a new side project called The Perfect English Weather, who were the subject of this TVV post back in March 2019.

The Popguns are still very much on the go, and just last month gave a digital release to a new and rather excellent song, Caesar, as a taster for a new EP.

More info and product can be found at this bandcamp page.

JC

Electrelane

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #024

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#024– Electrelane – ‚I’m On Fire’ (Too Pure Records ’03)

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Hello friends,

in order to add some fuel to a (yet) non-existent fire: to me, Bruce Springsteen always was rather adjustable at will. The bulk of his songs are a bit wishy-washy, pathetic and kitschy: patriotic lyrics combined with ‘authentic’ behaviour, tunes to clap along to by and large. The thing is – and I’ve never understood why this is – “The Boss” has always been loved despite of this (or should that read because of this?), whereas other stadium acts like U2, Coldplay or others always got criticized for the very same thing. Strange, isn’t it?

Still, there are two Springsteen-songs, which I am quite fond of. I have to add though: they mean nothing to me in their original versions, perhaps simply because my abomination of Springsteen overrules anything else, who knows? But when covered, at least when covered in the way they were covered respectively, the songs are just brilliant! The first one is Ballboy’s rendition of ‘Born In The USA’, to be found on their 2003 album ‘The Sash My Father Wore And Other Stories’ (which I recommend without any reservation at all, by the way). Never released as a single though, which is a pity, because if it were, it would have featured here, to be sure!

And the other tune is, obviously, today’s choice: Electrelane’s version of ‘I’m On Fire’. Now, the reason I was rambling about my relation to “The Boss” (you see: there is no respect whatsoever, that’s why I use inverted commas all the time when typing “The Boss”!) so much is, to be absolutely frank to you, there isn’t anything at all I know about Electrelane. Well, nothing beyond the fact that they came from Brighton, that their first album (from 2001) was a bit difficult (rather instrumental, which is never easy), but apparently, after having gone through some personal changes, things improved.

At least so much so that in 2003 they were able to give ‘I’m On Fire’ a real good kicking – which is exactly what this tune needed, if you ask me! Obviously the vocals have to be held mostly responsible here, so hats off to Verity Susman for her brilliant job in turning something so goddamn awful in something so wonderful:

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mp3: Electrelane – I’m On Fire

Take good care,

Dirk

Lawrence & The Comfortable Society

ANOTHER ONE-OFF SINGLE

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After yesterday’s piece on April Showers, here’s another example of a group who came together, wrote and recorded one single and then called it a day.

Until picking up a repressed copy of the 3 x CD box set C86, yet another of the goodies issued over the years by Cherry Red Records, I had never heard of Lawrence & The Comfortable Society. The name kind of put me off them on the basis that it seemed a tad on the pretentious side, but I decided to listen without prejudice to their contribution to the box set. It’s Track 14 on Disc 3, kind of hidden away:-

mp3: Lawrence & The Comfortable Society – Heartache

Oh, my. It proves to be yet another of those hidden jingly-jangly gems that are out there waiting to be discovered. It’s not ground-breaking, but it ticks so many boxes, even the one which says ‘lead vocal which occasionally strains a bit’. It also has a section where it all slows down a bit and the musicians do their own bits bordering on solo contributions before it all speeds up again and invites listeners to shuffle around on the indie disco dance floor. It certainly is heavily influenced by the sort of creative pop music that was much associated with Glasgow in the early-mid 80s.

Turns out, having found the sleeve via Discogs, that Heartache is the B-side.

So, who were Lawrence & The Comfortable Society?

There’s not a lot out there, but it seems they formed while attending a fairly posh school/college in Norfolk, England, getting themselves a two-page spread in the 1986 edition of the yearbook.

Discogs reveals that their sole single was self-released. The info on the back of the sleeve gives these details – Leigh Gracie (voice, guitar), Nick Hardy (guitar), Jeff Powell (bass), Sara Dimmer (keyboards) and Chris Wyatt (drums). There’s also a telephone number included for anyone finding themselves’Curious?’ (the telephone number is for the same locality as the school).

I’ve gone digging and found the A-side.

mp3: Lawrence & The Comfortable Society – Sleeper

I think I prefer the b-side, but again there’s a lot of Glasgow 83/84 on this one. I reckon Leigh Christie could do a good impression of Grahame Skinner of Hipsway.

JC

April Showers

EIGHT YEARS SINCE I LAST OFFERED THIS UP

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Those of you who have followed the blog for many years will be more than familiar with this one, but given it’s now eight years since I last mentioned it, I reckon enough time has passed to dust it down one more time.

April Showers were a short-lived Glaswegian pop duo comprising Jonathan Bernstein and Beatrice Colin who had met and formed the group while at Glasgow University . They released just one single on Big Star, a subsidiary of Chrysalis, in 1984. And it’s a tremendous, timeless piece of pop, thanks in part to a wonderful production from Anne Dudley of the Art of Noise.

I never got round to buying a copy, happy enough to have put it onto a C90 tape courtesy of one of my flatmates back in the day. In my defence, money was a tad tight on a student grant and as much as I would love to have been able to hoover up everything I wanted from the many visits to the many record shops, some tough decisions had to be made.

More fool me in this instance as the 7″ version of the single goes on Discogs for £100 while the 12″ can fetch over £300. Worth noting that when I wrote about this eight years ago, the asking price for the 12″ was £50, which only goes to illustrate just how out-of-hand the second vinyl market is increasingly becoming.

My copy of the song comes courtesy of its inclusion on the compilation album 10 Years Of Marina Records.

mp3 : April Showers – Abandon Ship

I’ve also, thanks to folk out there in blogland, been gifted mp3s of the b-side and the instrumental version that appeared on the 12″:-

mp3 : April Showers – Everytime We Say Goodbye
mp3 : April Showers – Abandon Ship (instrumental)

Both songs were written by Jonathan Bernstein who has forged a career for himself in recent years over in America as an author and screenwriter.

Beatrice Colin, I’m sad to say, passed away from cancer in 2019 at the age of 55. She had led a full life in the creative arts, working in radio production and then journalism, before becoming an award-winning author and playwright, as well as a lecturer in creative writing at my alma mater, the University of Strathclyde. There’s a very full and appreciative obituary available to read online right here.

Looking back on things from a gap of almost 40 years, I acknowledge that while there’s a lot to love and admire about the single, it is very much of its time and era. But, in the same way that those who were around in the 60s say that you really had to be there to fully understand what it all really meant, it is exactly the same for those of us lucky enough to be living and learning in Glasgow in the early-mid 80s.

JC

Prefab Sprout

ANOTHER POST WITH DEMO VERSIONS

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I finished up last week with the opportunity to enjoy and hopefully appreciate some demo versions from The Go-Betweens. I thought I’d start this week with some from Prefab Sprout.

It all comes courtesy of the b-sides of the 12″ version of Nightingales, the fourth of what ended up being five singles lifted from the 1988 album, From Langley Park to Memphis.

mp3: Prefab Sprout – Nightingales (12″ version)

It’s a bit different from the album version in that it’s a couple of minutes longer (extending out to 7:26 all told) and has been remixed. There are strings and a choir in the mix, along with a harmonica solo courtesy of Stevie Wonder.

It’s maybe the fact that there the A-side is so polished that the B-side was turned over to demos. Here’s Paddy McAloon‘s sleeve notes:-

“What is a demo? A demo is Mother Nature’s way of showing fellow Sprouts, managers, producers and Muff Winwood what I get up to when not on tour, and is also a starting point for future records.

My demos come in two sizes: the very rough and the overblown. The first is often no more than a voice and guitar or keyboard along with a one bar drum pattern, leaving everything to the listener’s imagination except the tune and lyric.

The overblown is more complex, not only in sound but in the intentions behind it. Musically, it’s meant to be a model of the record, all the parts of the arrangement are included, in theory saving you time and money when you go into a studio to make the real McCoy. All that is then left for you to do is to sing and play it better perhaps using better sounds. And that’s the problem, sometimes you capture a performance or a sound on a demo that you can’t recreate. Sometimes you put too much into it and then have nothing left for the record.

mp3: Prefab Sprout – Life Of Surprises (24 track)

Life Of Surprises is one of those. We tried to re-record it but it wasn’t interested. In fact, it decided for itself that it should go on the Protest Songs album (coming soon). But here’s a sneak preview.

mp3: Prefab Sprout – King Of Rock’n’Roll (16 track)

I’ve included the King Of Rock’n’Roll home demo to give you some idea of how far a song can change on its way to the shops.

mp3: Prefab Sprout – Bearpark (4 track)

Bearpark is very rough. It was my first recording on a 4-track cassette player with a Dr. Rhythm drum machine accompanying me. I felt like Phil Spector when I’d finished it. O.K. so the drums are hilarious and the arrangement eccentric, and you may even think you can do better – well, be my guest, I like cover versions. But remember one thing – don’t spend too long on the demos.

PADDY McALOON, November ’88.

Nightingales wasn’t a hit single, only reaching #78. Worth mentioning that Life Of Surprises would later be issued as a single in 1993, as part of the promotional efforts for a ‘Best Of’ release. It went all the way to #24……..

JC

Pet Shop Boys

PET SHOP BOYS SINGLES (Part Twenty-five)

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As last week’s chapter revealed, Record Store Day on 19 April 2014 had seen the release of a 12″ single. The next single wouldn’t appear in digital form until 16 February 2016

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mp3: Pet Shop Boys – The Pop Kids

The track was initially made available to anyone who pre-ordered Super, the forthcoming studio album.

It’s a catchy number, one which includes a lot of the musical tricks and hooks that had been deployed over the decades. It also has a strong story-like lyric, telling the tale of two friends in London in the 90s. who found each other from studying at the same university, having a real love of pop/dance music.

Just over a month later, The Pop Kids was released as a CD single and in two digital bundles, with the majority of tracks being remixes of the lead song, along with two other songs which wouldn’t be included on Super.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – In Bits
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – One Hit Wonder

The CD and digital bundles sold enough to copies to enable an expanded chart placing of #128. I’m only mentioning this as it proved to be the final time a PSB single would find itself in the charts.

The two b-sides are fine, if not totally essential. In Bits is a mid-tempo number, while One Hit Wonder is more or less an instrumental, that was seemingly written back in the early 80s but not recorded until 2014 as the theme for a Berlin-based online music show. (the original date of composition makes sense as it has the feel of a light but airy pop tune from the era, reminding me a lot of very early Depeche Mode.)

In light of this being the final chart hit for PSB, I’m going to gradually bring the series to an end by focussing on just one release each week from now on in, taking it through the summer months and into the autumn. It means I’ve more time to consider what to bring up next on Sundays.

JC

View

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #363: THE VIEW

I was quite excited by The View when they burst onto the scene back in 2006. Four working-class teenage kids from a less than salubrious area of the city of Dundee who made energetic and catchy indie-pop/rock at a time when such music was again proving to be hip and fashionable. The band was made up of Kyle Falconer (vocals, guitar), Kieran Webster (bass and vocals), Pete Reilly (lead guitar) and Steve Morrison (drums), with Falconer and Webster being responsible for the songs.

As it turned out, they burned very brightly for a spell and enjoyed with a number of hit singles and a debut album which made it to #1 in the UK. They are still on the go today, every bit as popular in Scotland as in their heyday, certainly when it comes to touring and performing, albeit none of their four later albums have sold anything close to the numbers of the debut.

Frontman Kyle Falconer, who has also released two solo records, has drifted in and out of the headlines over the years, and not always in a positive light, thanks to drink and drug related incidents that have spilled over into court appearances, including an air-rage incident in 2016.

Earlier this year, The View announced a reunion after six years of inactivity, with a new album and tour. Three of the original band were involved, the exception being Morrison on drums. At one of the early gigs, in Manchester, Falconer and Webster had an argument and a fight on stage, leading to the show ending early and the rest of the tour being cancelled.

They have since kissed and made-up, playing at a number of summer festivals and will head on to headline again across the UK in November and December.

Here’s an early single:-

mp3: The View – Superstar Tradesman

It didn’t change the face of pop music, but it was, and still is, great fun to listen to.

JC

Go-Betweens

LE GROUPE LE PLUS SOUS-ESTIME DE L’HISTOIRE DU ROCK?

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In 1996, the French music magazine Les Inrockuptibles voted 16 Lovers Lane the best album in their then 10-year history. They put The Go-Betweens on the cover with the strapline “The Go-Betweens, the most underrated band in the rock history.

It was issue #58 of the magazine, dated 22-28 May 1996, and it came with a free 11-track CD, the first eight of which were acoustic demos of songs on 16 Lovers Lane, with the others being album cuts of one song from each of 16 Lovers Lane, Talulah and Spring Hill Fair.

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A copy of the CD was gifted to me a while back by a good friend of this blog, JC Brouchard. With it being Bastille Day, I thought it would be appropriate to thank JC for such a kind gesture and in doing so, offer the opportunity to hear the demos.

mp3: The Go-Betweens – Was There Anything I Could Do? (demo)
mp3: The Go-Betweens – Wait Till June (demo)
mp3: The Go-Betweens – The Devil’s Eye (demo)
mp3: The Go-Betweens – I’m Allright (demo)
mp3: The Go-Betweens – You Won’t Find It Again (demo)
mp3: The Go-Betweens – Love Goes On! (demo)
mp3: The Go-Betweens – Love Is A Sign (demo)
mp3: The Go-Betweens – Dive For Your Memory (demo)

JC

Elastica

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #023

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#024– Elastica– ‚Stutter’ (Sub Pop ’93)

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Dear friends,

for me, it was always Donna (the Adidas one above). Not Justine (front), but Donna. There, I said it!!

For those too young to know (or too backwoodsy to have undergone this dilemma in 1993), EVERYBODY was in love with Elastica back then, you would not believe how successful they were:

All of their first four singles went straight to the Top 20 from ’93 to ‘95, and their first album, released in ’95, broke records for the fastest-selling debut in the UK. Now, what must not be forgotten is that in those days Britpop was still twitching its already half-cold corpse here and then, consequently basically everything coming from the UK was thrown onto the Britpop freight train regardless, as long as it fitted at least a little bit in a musical context.

And in my humble opinion, this was Elastica’s big problem. At the end of the day, their music had always been too good to be exploited like this – and if you’re honest, the punk rock – post-punk- new wave – racket they made has never been the slightest ‘Britpopish’, if such a term exists at all. Yes, Justine and Justin were in Suede before and also Justine had a liaison with Damon Albarn out of Blur, which, obviously, the press went mad about. But does this justify to label their wonderful output as Britpop? No, it doesn’t, not for me!

Quite clearly the band didn’t disagree, ‘cos Britpop still meant money, so I assume they thought what I think these days … and kept quiet about it. Understandably so. Shortly after the debut album, which was released rather late, in 1995 in fact, Britpop was soon gone … and gone with it, by and large, were Elastica. They briefly came back to our attention when Wire as well as The Stranglers thought their songs were stolen from on the album (in their view parts of ‘I Am The Fly’ were to be found in ‘Line Up’, ‘Three Girl Rhumba’ in ‘Connection’ and ‘No More Heroes’ in ‘Waking Up’).

Me, I never heard any similarities, but then again I have never been a musician. I just enjoyed the debut album in all its glory and this song, their first single, is the stand-out track for me:

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mp3: Elastica – Stutter

Now, ‘what happened to you and Donna’, I hear you asking? Well, nothing much, because shortly after Elastica broke up, Donna became a Christian pastor in bloody Totnes!! I mean, come on: you can’t think this up, can you …. another frustrating chapter in the endless story of my unrequited love life …

Ah well. Still: enjoy,

Dirk

Thompson Twins

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #345: THE THOMPSON TWINS

A DEBUT GUEST POSTING by ADRIAN MAHON

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You reach that age… I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. The Thompson Twins were one of those bands that everyone knows, but their early stuff is somewhat neglected (possibly rightly). The Indie kids never really liked them as a trio, but their first albums remain something of a record of the concerns of the early 80s.

Squares and Triangles – 1980 Single

The first single. Ho, and indeed, hum. An extended jam that at least proved that the four-piece (called after some TinTin characters) could play. Having moved from Sheffield to London, their musical tastes were to be changed within the squatting ‘community’: leading to singles and a first album very much of it’s time. Oddly, this came with a multitude of coloured sleeves (me neither…)

Perfect Game – 1981 (from ‘A Product of…’)

Still a four piece, but with a half decent producer, the sound becomes more mature. The theme of the sound is in the vein of lots of ‘angst’ lyrics of the time (think ‘Vienna’ by Utravox). Still; half decent.

Politics – 1981 (from ‘A Product of…’)

A perfect piece of its time: ‘the personal is political’. Now a six-piece, the sound is fuller. At this time, they would light incense on the stage when they played: proto-crusties. The first thing of theirs I bought, having seen them supporting U2.

A product of… – 1981 (from ‘A Product of…’)

Using the expanded line-up with a big brassy sound. God knows what it’s about; but a cracker live.

Oumma Aularesso (‘Animal Laugh’) – 1981 (from ‘A Product of…’)

Apparently a folk song from Sierra Leone. Everyone was going wild about Womad: a time when South America could seem exotic. A Product of…it’s time.

Living in Europe – 1981 (from ‘Set’)

An anti-nuke song: “yeah, yeah”. As they all did. Steve Lillywhite production; and it shows.

Bouncing – 1981 (from ‘Set’)

Thomas Dolby synth (Alannah couldn’t play yet…). Perfectly acceptable pop that works.

Runaway – 1981 (from ‘Set’)

Showing a more mature and reflective sound; one of the reasons the album got a positive reception.

The Rowe – 1981 (from ‘Set’)

“In a birds’ nest, I find an egg Well I break it up and rub it all over my head And I wonder should I do this or should I do that And does it matter if this whole story is a matter of fact”

Who knows? I love the feel of this track: melancholy at its best.

In the Name of Love – 1981 (from ‘Set’)

Originally a filler; this was a big hit in the States. Infuriating as hell.