Month: February 2024

A guest posting by Leon MacDuff

Recently on these pages, if pages they be, Adrian Mahon offered up a selection of surprising and interesting originals of well-known covers, signing off with “I’m sure you’ll have a few of your own!”. Challenge accepted…

Let’s start with a couple of very well known 80s hits. Yazz and the surely fictional Plastic Population (and her real-life pals in Coldcut) made this one into a huge house-pop success in 1987, but the original goes back to 1980 (and a bit of a throwback even then; from the sound alone, I would have guessed about 1974). I’ve always reckoned that Yazz’s reading feels like false hope, but Clay actually makes it believable.

mp3: Otis Clay: The Only Way Is Up

Like most people, I knew this next one from the 1982 smash by Odyssey. And like most people, I associated its author Lamont Dozier pretty much exclusively with being a songwriter for the sixties Motown production line. But post Motown he went on to issue a string of solo albums, and this future classic arrived on his 1978 offering, Peddlin’ Music On The Side. I do prefer the Odyssey version though:

mp3:  Lamont Dozier: Going Back To My Roots

Nowadays no Sam and Dave compilation would be complete without this song, but without Elvis Costello it might well have remained just a little-known throwaway B side to a single nobody bought:

mp3: Sam and Dave: I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down

Some songs come a long way from their originals. You definitely will know this one, but see how long it takes you to recognise it from the original 1948 version, in German…

mp3:  Horst Winter und die Swingsingers: Und jetzt ist es still

I always loved Dubstar‘s version of Not So Manic Now. A song with subject matter you don’t hear very often and full of words you would imagine had no business appearing in a pop song. I did notice the writing credit wasn’t for the regular band members, but it was a few years before I got to hear the original by fellow Novocastrians Brick Supply. It was the lead track on their 1994 release Somebody’s Intermezzo EP, which got some decent critical notices but basically went nowhere.

mp3: Brick Supply: Not So Manic Now

And finally, a bit of a mystery, and a bit of an investigation. For this one I’m going to share the cover as well, so from 1980 here is the debut single by It’s Immaterial, and from 1967 the original by The First Impression:

mp3:  It’s Immaterial: Young Man (Seeks Interesting Job)

mp3: The First Impression: Young Man Seeks An Interesting Job

It’s Immaterial are cult favourites of course, but weirdly, there’s practically nothing out there about The First Impression. What we do know is that they recorded two LPs for budget label Saga in 1967: the all-covers Beat Club, and the majority of an album called Swinging London which also included a scattering of Beatles covers by Russ Sainty (replaced on the second pressing with a handful of originals by The Good Earth, who subsequently morphed into Mungo Jerry). Young Man is from the Swinging London LP, the sleevenotes of which tell us only that The First Impression are “top discotheque favourites” (Beat Club is similarly unhelpful, offering no description beyond “top London beat group”) – and while some of the songs have appeared on subsequent compilations of 60s mod and psychedelia, the sleevenotes to those seem to just take Saga’s blurbs at their word and have nothing further to add.

Perhaps they were indeed a top London beat group, but even if they were, nothing about their one-and-two-thirds album discography suggests that they were engaged as anything other than a session band. Saga Records weren’t actually a “pop” label – their specialism was cheaply-recorded classical albums, plus bought-in jazz and folk LPs. And really, everything about “Beat Club” and “Swinging London” screams “cheap cash-in played by anonymous session musicians”. They can’t even manage to keep the name of the group consistent: while the back of the Swinging London LP, and the labels, credit The First Impression, the front names them as The First Impressions. My first impression is: oh dear.

So can we find out anything at all about this group? A line-up, for example? Apparently not. Or perhaps somebody’s shared memories of seeing this band playing at the time? Not that I can find. I was briefly led down a dead end by a suggestion that before recording for Saga, The First Impression were signed to Pye. But no, that was a group legitimately called The First Impressions, who in 1967 were recording their own original material for Parlophone, having changed their name in the meantime to The Legends. So I think we can rule them out.

The album credits someone called Britten as writer of the First Impression songs, maybe can we track him or her down? I was initially led astray by the Discogs entry for the It’s Immaterial single, where somebody’s linked the name Britten to Terry Britten. In 1967, Terry was playing in the Australian group The Twilights, and the following year he had one of his compositions recorded by Cliff Richard, opening up a successful career as a songwriter for others with hits including Devil Woman and Carrie for Cliff, and What’s Love Got To Do With It and We Don’t Need Another Hero for Tina Turner. That he also, even by accident, penned It’s Immaterial’s debut single would be an entertaining little factoid but alas, it’s not true – as I realised when I turned to a second line of enquiry.

Most of the First Impression tracks, including Young Man, credit Britten alone, but two bear a credit to Cumming / Britten – could I perhaps find this equally mysterious co-writer? That was easier: just a couple of minutes checking the various Cummings on Discogs (I didn’t bother clicking on Alan though, since while the theme song for The High Life may be a major earworm, 1967 was definitely going to be too early for him) and I was able to identify Britten’s collaborator as one David Cumming, a comedy scriptwriter with a sideline in songwriting who that same year not only supplied a B side to Kiki Dee, but even more interestingly, also released a single himself which was co-written by not Terry but John Britten. That’s our man! It looks very much like our tunesmiths are not people in a “top London beat group” – they are a producer of budget albums and a scriptwriter who both dabble in songwriting.

All of which means that honestly, I’m just not buying this “top discotheque favourites” line. I think Saga Records, looking to cash in on the mod scene, just put some session musicians in a studio and gave them a bunch of songs written to order by… well, hacks. But I still think “Young Man Seeks An Interesting Job” is a good one – even if it took It’s Immaterial to tease the quality out of it.

Leon

RIPPING OFF THE IDEA FROM JONNY THE FRIENDLY LAWYER

JTFL, having offered up some ICAs featuring Trumpets, then went one better with an ICA  made up of ten tracks in which uncommon instruments were used – Steel Drums, Theremin, Oboe, Musical Saw, Harp, Xylophone, Melodica, Spoons, Harpsichord and Mellotron.

The task I set myself was to come up with ten completely different instruments.  I’ve managed it, and while there’s a few more familiar instruments involved, they are not heard on recordings on a very frequent basis.  Oh, and I only had to look one of them up.   Let’s starts with something Scottish……

SIDE A

1. Bagpipes

Sleep The Clock Around – Belle and Sebastian

The pipes drone their way in at the end of this, the second track of the band’s third album, The Boy With The Arab Strap.   Credit is given to Ian Mackay for this one and appears to be the only song on which the piper is credited anywhere on Discogs.

2. Banjo

Sing – Travis

I’m not a musician and haven’t ever paid much attention to the origins of any instruments.  I’ve always assumed the banjo came out of one of the states of America, but have now been educated and finally know that the modern take on it derives from African-style instruments brought to that part of the word by enslaved people.

Sing was the first single to be lifted from the album The Invisible Band and, in reaching #3 in May 2001 turned out to be the most successful 45 released by Travis.  The banjo is played by their guitarist, Andy Dunlop.

3. Chapman Stick

I Don’t Remember – Peter Gabriel

This is the one I had to look up.   I had come up with nine instruments, but reckoned that a glance at the credits on Peter Gabriel 3, released back in 1980, would throw something different up.  And so it proved.

The Chapman Stick was developed in the early 70s by jazz musician Emmett Chapman.  It has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines, chords, or textures, and unlike the electric guitar, it is usually played by tapping or fretting the strings, rather than plucking them. (you can tell I’ve looked this up!!).  Tony Levin, a proliic session and touring musician, was one of the first to specialise in playing the Chapman Stick and it’s his work you’ll hear on I Don’t Remember.

4. Glockenspiel

No Surprises – Radiohead

A rather beautiful number from OK Computer (1997) which was later released as a single and reached #4 in January 1998.  The single was accompanied by a brilliant but scary video that I’m sure all of you have seen.  If not, then head over to YouTube or the likes.  The glockenspiel on this one is courtesy of Jonny Greenwood.

5. Trombone

Hyperactive – Thomas Dolby

It seems that Thomas Dolby wrote this with the intention of having Michael Jackson record it.  Having sent the ‘King of Pop’ a demo version but hearing nothing back, he decided to have a go at it himself, and in doing so kind of throws the kitchen sink at it, including a trombone solo from Peter Thoms

SIDE B

1. Accordion

This Is The Day – The The

An instrument that makes me think of France, as it seems to accompany any first sighting of the Eiffel Tower in any feature film or documentary.   It’s use on this, one of my favourite songs of all time, made it a certainty for the ICA.  It is played by the then 24-year-old and largely unknown Wix, but who has since become a bit of a legend as part of Paul McCartney‘s touring band since 1989.

2. Mandolin

When I’m Asleep –Butcher Boy

Yet another song in which the accordion introduces proceedings, this time thanks to Alison Eales.  But its inclusion on the ICA is thanks to Basil Pieroni’s contribution via mandolin.  It was either this or Losing My Religion, but I reckon you’re being treated to a better song.

3. Harmonica

For Once In My Life  – Stevie Wonder

I wasn’t sure about including the harmonica in the ICA as it is quite common, relatively speaking.  There are hundreds of examples out there, but I’ve settled on this rather fabulous upbeat pop single from 1968.  Stevie Wonder‘s take on it is quite different from the original, as it was written as, and subsequently recorded as, a slow ballad by a number of different performers.

4. Bassoon

Flaming Sword – Care

I knew this single from 1983 contained an unusual instrument, but I couldn’t have told you what was making the sound.   But I’ve just finished reading Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism, the very enjoyable memoir penned by Paul Simpson, who among other things was one-half of Care, and he mentions, on Page 205, that it is bassoon-laden.  He doesn’t say, however, who played it.

5. Clarinet

Say Hello Wave Goodbye – Soft Cell

Not the version you all are most familiar with, either through the 7″ or 12″ singles that have been featured on the blog on many previous occasions.  This is the b-side of the 7″.  It’s an instrumental version.  It’s rather wonderful, thanks  to the two Daves – Mr Ball or synths and drum machine and Mr Tofani on clarinet.

Bonus Song

Tindersticks – No More Affairs (instrumental)

In keeping with the closing track of the ICA, here’s the b-side of a 1994 single, in which the voice of Stuart Staples is replaced by the magnificent Terry Edwards on trumpet.

 

JC

mp3: Various – Welcome to Nothing Much

First new day of the month has come to mean an hour-long mixtape round these parts.

Hope this one meets your approval.

The National – Apartment Story
Basement Jaxx – Red Alert
Magazine – Definitive Gaze
Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen In Love?
Sons & Daughters  – Dance Me In (album version)
Pet Shop Boys  – Domino Dancing
Working Men’s Club – Teeth
Dinosaur Jr. – Freakscene
dEUS – Suds and Soda (album version)
Brenda – Cease and Desist
Kirsty MacColl – Walking Down Madison (album version)
The Clash – The Magnificent Seven
Electronic – Feel Every Beat (7″ remix)
Album Club– The Hard Part
The Wedding Present – What Did Your Last Servant Die Of?

JC