I’ve given this one a bit of a build-up…..I hope it’s justified as I open the pages of the big book of Indie music to get help in recalling what memorable non-chart singles were released in September 1979.
mp3: The B-52’s – 6060-842
Rock Lobster, the debut single, had been a hit, but it’s follow-up, also to be found on the self-titled debut album, didn’t breach the Top 75.
mp3: Buzzcocks – You Say You Don’t Love Me
The previous seven singles had been hits, as had the recent re-release of the debut Spiral Scratch EP. You Say You Don’t Love Me was every bit as good as what had gone before, but the music press and daytime radio had turned their backs on Buzzcocks and this went nowhere.
mp3: Human League – Empire State Human
Pop with synths was beginning to make inroads as far as the charts were concerned. Everyone at Virgin Records must have been rubbing their hands in glee when this emerged from the studio, as it surely had ‘HIT’ stamped all over it. Nope.
Fun fact: June 1980 saw the release of the single Only After Dark. Virgin Records took advantage of this by adding in the now surplus copies of Empire State Human as a free 7″ giveaway with Only After Dark.
mp3 : The Mekons – Work All Week
The Mekons and Human League were two of the band who first came to prominence via the Edinburgh-based label, Fast Product. Both ended up on Virgin Records, but while the electronic popsters would stay there for years to come (making millions in the process), the post-punk sounds of The Mekons didn’t make any inroads, and they were soon dropped and back in the land of indie-labels from where they carved out an extensive career, with Jon Langford still very much going strong all these years later.
mp3: The Members – Killing Time
Yet another 45 that was issued by Virgin Records. The Members had tasted chart success with their first two singles – Sounds Of The Suburbs and Offshore Banking Business – but the debut album, At The Chelsea Nightclub, hadn’t sold all that well. Hopes were pinned on the new material. Killing Time, along with two later singles and the sophomore album, failed dismally. Lead singer Nicky Tesco quit in mid-1980, and although the others soldiered on for a bit, everything ended by late 1983.
mp3: The Monochrome Set – The Monochrome Set
The band’s third single on Rough Trade Records. The band’s third indie-hit. But the chart success they really deserved continued to elude them.
mp3: Scritti Politti – Doubt Beat
Another one issued by Rough Trade. The self-released Skank Blog Bologna in late 1978 had piqued the interest of John Peel and a few indies reached out to Scritti Politti with offers. They went with Rough Trade, and a four-track 12″ EP became their first release on their new label in September 1979. It’s a long long way removed (and that’s an understatement) from the sort of polished soul/indie/pop that would be recorded for the 1982 debut album.
mp3: Teenage Filmstars – (There’s A) Cloud Over Liverpool
The Television Personalities, consisting of Dan Treacy (vocals), Ed Ball (keyboards), Joe Foster (guitar), John Bennett (bass) and Gerard Bennett (drums) had, in November 1978, been responsible for Part Time Punks, one of the greatest and most-enduring songs to capture the era. They had been rather quiet ever since.
Teenage Filmstars, consisting of Ed Ball (vocals, organ), Joe Foster (guitar), Dan Treacy (bass) and Paul Damien (drums), emerged in September 1979 with this 45 issued on Clockwork Records, which had been founded by the afore-mentioned Ed Ball. Two more singles would follow over the course of the next 12 months before Ed and Dan would get really busy with The Television Personalities and Ed with his own band, Times.
I hope this has all, for readers of a certain vintage, stirred some happy memories, while maybe a few more of you will be happy to have maybe discover something ‘new’ to enjoy.
At long last, the series emerges blinking and slightly bewildered from the many different limited edition/Record Store Day releases that accompanied the album Valentina.
Discogs has this one down as being released on 21 October 2013. If so, and I’ve no reason to doubt the info, it makes perfect sense as the following day would see The Wedding Present go out on a UK tour taking in Wolverhampton, Cardiff, Leeds, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leicester, Northampton and Liverpool to commemorate the 21st Anniversary of The Hit Parade LPs, which you might recall were two volumes compiling the 12 singles released throughout 1992.
As you can see from the artwork above, a new 7″ single had been recorded and made available for sale during the UK tour. I don’t recall seeing it for sale in Glasgow, but then again, I may have got myself to the merch stall a bit too late as the numbers each night were likely to have been limited as only 1000 copies were actually pressed up. Many years later I would pick up a second-hand copy of the single housed in a blue sleeve, and I have read on-line (so it must be true!!!) that every single copy has a different sleeve due to the printing proces that was used, with the variations in colour being due to ink running out. “The colours vary from black to blue to red, orange, turquoise, green, brown and probably more in between.”
Oh, and the Latin text on the sleeve front translates as ‘Thirty Years of The Wedding Present’.
Enough background stuff, what about the actual song?
mp3: The Wedding Present – Two Bridges
It’s a bit different, almost as if there are two and maybe three tunes with different tempos all battling for attention across its four minutes. It starts off perhaps a bit derivative of the increasingly harder-sounding edge that the band had been bringing to their songs over the past few years. But then there’s some hand-claps and a sing-along chorus to make things kind of pop-like, before a quiet section which is followed by a lengthy middle section that goes all sort of experimental for a bit and then segues into a fade-out that comes complete with a touch of feedback. It’s interesting enough and probably took a few fans out of their comfort zones.
There’s an indication that David Gedge may have had a bit of regret that he made Two Bridges available in such limited numbers, as he revisited it in 2016, and a re-recorded version was included on the album Going Going…
The sleeve indicates that the b-side was called Whole Wide World. And yup, it was a cover of the new wave classic recorded by Wreckless Eric back in 1977.
mp3: The Wedding Present – Whole Wide World
It’s up there with the usual high standards of TWP covers, although the sudden ending feels a bit premature.
It’s a second appearance on the blog for Boots For Dancing. Last time around was in June 2019 with the airing of the song Ooh Bop Sh’Bam, something of theirs that I’d picked up via its inclusion within the Big Gold Dreams box set that I’ve referenced on many a previous occasion.
The previous posting attracted no comments. Better luck this time around?
A reminder……from wiki.
“The band was formed in late 1979 by Dave Carson (vocals), Graeme High (guitar), Dougie Barrie (bass), and Stuart Wright (drums). Showing influences from the likes of Gang of Four and The Pop Group, they signed to the Pop Aural label for their eponymous debut single, receiving airplay from John Peel.
In the next two years, the band had more line-up changes than releases, first with ex-Shake and Rezillos drummer Angel Paterson replacing Wright, to be replaced himself by Jamo Stewart and Dickie Fusco. Former Thursdays guitarist Mike Barclay then replaced High, who joined Delta 5. The band also added ex-Shake/Rezillos guitarist Jo Callis for second single “Rain Song”, issued in March 1981. Callis then left to join The Human League, with no further line-up changes before third single “Ooh Bop Sh’Bam” was released in early 1982. Barrie then departed, his replacement being ex-Flowers/Shake/Rezillos bassist Simon Templar and ex-Josef K drummer Ronnie Torrance replaced the departing Fusco and Stewart (the latter forming The Syndicate). The band split up later in 1982.
Between line-up changes, the band recorded two sessions for John Peel’s BBC radio show, in 1980 and 1981. In 2015 they reformed and released The Undisco Kidds, an album of recordings from the 1980s.”
Ooh Bop Sh’Bam was the first song of theirs that I picked up. I’ve since done a bit of digging, which is why the song on offer today is the debut single.
mp3: Boots For Dancing – Boots For Dancing
It’s decent enough in an angular post-punk sort of way without being groundbreaking. The wiki references to Gang of Four and The Pop Group certainly make sense.
#069: The 101’ers– ‘Keys To Your Heart’ (Big Beat Records’76)
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Hello friends,
those of you who have followed this series from scratch may or may not remember that the main rule is: only one single per band. And those of you who already were around when sexyloser, my former blog, was still up and going (which would make you very old indeed, it must be said), might remember that The Clash have always been my # 1 band. Now, as The Clash have already featured with ‘(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais’ @ No. 15), I was in a bit of a dilemma … but luckily Joe Strummer had a musical life before The Clash.
Whether it is worthwhile to delve much deeper into this life is questionable – there is a sort of compilation of this era called ‘Elgin Avenue Breakdown’. Now, as a Clash-completist, I have of course listened to it in its entirety, even to the ‘revisited’ issue with extra tracks on it …. I didn’t like most of it though.
Strummer had spent some time in Newport, South Wales and returned to London in the mid-70’s where he fell into the squatting lifestyle, ending up at 101 Walterton Rd. – hence the name of the band he sang for at the that time: The 101’ers, earlier line ups of which were low on talent but high on saxophones. At an early gig for Chilean refugees they were booed off stage not because of their musical incompetence but because of their choice of rock and roll classics which represented the worst of American imperialism to the refugees.
But, a few months later, and the band had solidified and improved – so much so that they started to accumulate interest from the press and venues throughout the Capital. They remained a pub rock band, but in his heart Strummer yearned for better things than just being the best pub band in West London. With his rocker’s haircut, rotting teeth and a suit appropriated from his conservative father, he was cutting quite a dash as the band’s front man and getting quite a bit of notoriety in the places that mattered.
And as a big player on such a small circuit they were being supported by up-and-coming bands which included The Sex Pistols. Apparently after seeing Lydon’s mob Strummer realized the writing was on the wall for a bunch of drop outs playing Rock and Roll. The band had just recorded the brilliant single ‘Keys To Your Heart’ but Strummer wasn’t going to hang around to promote it. He tried to no avail to persuade the band to go more in a punk direction, following this failure he was open to negotiations with Bernie Rhodes about starting a band with one of Rhode’s proteges: Mick Jones.
And so the Clash were born. But without the 101ers however there probably wouldn’t have been a Joe Strummer and without Joe Strummer punk would have been a lot poorer.
I mean, let’s face it: perhaps ‘Keys To Your Heart’ is all you ever need to know by The 101’ers. But one thing is certain – if you never heard this tune and you skip it now instead of listening to it, you do miss a treat indeed – it’s absolutely stunning:
Akron, Ohio, is a city built on rubber. Not literally of course (imagine that…), but during the twentieth century it became a boom town as the centre of the US tyre industry. Or as they say in Akron, the center of the US tire industry. Supposedly it also gave the world the hamburger. Wait, wasn’t that Hamburg? My whole life has been a lie…
Another thing Akron has been noted for is its musical exports, particularly in the late 70s and early 80s when the success of local lads Devo gave a boost to the city’s burgeoning new wave scene, and for me one of the best acts to break through from that was The Waitresses. As you can see, I’ve named this ICA “The Waitresses… not just for Christmas” because while I like the song, I do think it’s a bit of a shame that for a UK audience, Christmas Wrapping is the only thing we ever hear from them. Granted, it’s not as though they had a huge catalogue of hits anywhere else – I Know What Boys Like charted in a few places and really that was it. But they coulda been contenders, you know?
Side one
There are three key elements to The Waitresses’ appeal: firstly, there’s the witty songwriting of guitarist Chris Butler. Then there’s the fierce instrumental attack – particularly the stomping basslines of David Hofstra and Tracy Wormworth, and the demented sax of Mars Williams. And of course there’s Patty Donahue. Never a technically gifted vocalist, but the perfect frontwoman for Butler’s world-weary lyricisms and observations on sexual politics.
It didn’t start out that way: in the beginning, The Waitresses was basically just Chris Butler, then bassist for Akron blues-rock outfit 15-60-75, a.k.a. The Numbers Band. In 1977, seeking an outlet for his own songs, he issued a solo single under the Waitresses name, only to be fired from The Numbers Band for taking time out to promote it. But by this stage Butler was well known within the local music scene, and it wasn’t long before he was recruited – on lead guitar this time – by the more New Wave-ish group Tin Huey, who also happened to be more open to indulging his quirky ideas.
Butler’s big idea was to write songs from a female perspective, and he set about expanding his solo project by finding a female vocalist to front them. In Butler’s telling, he stood up in a coffee bar one lunchtime to announce that he was looking for a female singer to record some funny, sassy songs, and would anyone be interested? From the far corner came a lone voice: “Uh-huh”… and that’s how Patty joined the band. Early live appearances took place as encores to Tin Huey gigs – at the end of a set, Butler would shout “Waitresses unite!” which was Donahue’s cue to join them on stage for a couple of numbers. Members of Tin Huey also helped out when Butler and Donahue recorded their first tracks together, one of which became purchaseable courtesy of the UK’s Stiff Records and its 1978 release The Akron Compilation:-
1 The Waitresses – The Comb
The Akron Compilation proved to be a springboard for many of its featured acts: off the back of it, Rachel Sweet and Jane Aire & The Belevederes got record deals in the UK, and punk groups Bizarros and Rubber City Rebels did so stateside. But the band seen as Akron’s “most likely to succeed” was Tin Huey, who hit the jackpot by signing to Warner Brothers – only to find that even major label money couldn’t turn their debut album Contents Dislodged During Shipment into a hit. By 1980 they’d been dropped, and were back on Akron’s own Clone Records, which at around the same time also issued the compilation Bowling Balls From Hell. This finally give an airing to a Waitresses track taped a couple of years earlier but left in reserve while Tin Huey pursued their misadventures. The world would come to know it as I Know What Boys Like, but at this stage it was saddled with a rather less obvious title.
2 The Waitresses – Wait Here… I’ll Be Right Back (Son of Comb)
With Tin Huey falling apart, Butler decided to make the most of his new industry contacts and try his luck in New York. And what luck! Not only had the New York underground scene taken to Tin Huey, but the tastemakers of the city’s cooler clubs had also loved what little they’d heard of The Waitresses. Michael Zilkha of ZE Records was keen to take the Waitresses on, so Butler wired Donahue fifty dollars for the bus fare from Akron to New York and set about forming a proper group. First on the agenda was a B-side for the remixed and retitled I Know What Boys Like, and a temporary line-up, including Tin Huey reedsman Ralph Carney, was assembled to record this rather fantastic break-up song, which would eventually also open the debut album:-
3 The Waitresses – No Guilt (It Wasn’t The End of the World)
Next on the “to-do” list was forming a permanent line-up, and between Butler’s contacts and Zilkha’s, he was able to assemble quite a formidable one. Drummer Billy Ficca came with a readymade pedigree as former sticksman for Television. Bassist David Hofstra and saxophonist Mars Williams both came from a jazz background and gave the Waitresses a bit of musical “edge”. The line-up was filled out with keyboard player Dan Klayman and second vocalist Ariel Warner (who couldn’t get used to recording in the studio and left partway through recording the debut album – she does appear in the concert film Pocketful of Change, filmed at the Hurrah Club in New York in May ‘81, but that must have been one of her last engagements with the band.)
The new NYC line-up taped a debut album and spent much of 1981 gigging extensively and trying to promote “I Know What Girls Like”. But before anything really came of that, we reach the one bit of the Waitresses story that does get trotted out pretty regularly. In the summer of 1981, Zilkha got in touch to request a contribution for a planned alternative Christmas compilation. Butler didn’t really want to do it but cobbled together a song from discarded riffs anyway, took the band – including new bassist Tracy Wormworth – into the studio, taped it quickly and sent it off. And then basically thought no more about it, until December when someone told him his record was going down a storm in the clubs. Butler was delighted – I Know What Boys Like was a success at last! – and was rather surprised to learn that the record in question was actually Christmas Wrapping. Which, having only recorded it as a throwaway, he and the band had to quickly go back and familiarise themselves with so that they could include it in their live set.
The UK release of A Christmas Record was handled by Polydor, who even saw fit to issue Christmas Wrapping on 45 as The Waitresses’ British debut. And while it may not have been an immediate smash, it did raise The Waitresses’ profile enough that expectations were high for the belated release of their album Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful? which was full of gems like this next one, bearing a pretty obvious influence from the 2 Tone scene which Butler got into after seeing Madness play in New York.
4 The Waitresses – It’s My Car
The delay added some potential confusion to proceedings with the album having David Hofstra on bass, but the band photo featuring the current line-up with Tracy Wormworth, who was credited for “Working Girl Bass”, code for “she’s in the band now, but she wasn’t when we did this”. Even more confusing, the venerable old classic I Know What Boys Like was reissued as the album’s lead single, with a video featuring the entire current band miming to the track – of whom only Butler and Donahue are actually on it. I’ve looked at a lot of stuff about the Waitresses online and can confirm that the confusion remains widespread to this day.
Regardless of any befuddlement regarding the line-up, the album was well-received, and we’ll end side one of this ICA with the album’s closing track and its call-and-response chorus.
5 The Waitresses – Jimmy Tomorrow
Side two
Such was the band’s growing reputation after Christmas Wrapping that they were commissioned to write the theme music for Square Pegs, a new sitcom starring the then-unknown Sarah Jessica Parker as one of a group of “unpopular” high schoolers trying to get in with the cool kids. The show was a one-season wonder but seems to be well-remembered – there’s a quite a few YouTube videos paying tribute to it, though there’s also several actual episodes there which leave this Brit thinking “really, you went wild for… that?” In any case, this is the full theme song, which unusually is credited as a group composition. Butler has hinted at its creation being a bit of a nightmare, but he hasn’t shared the gory details yet. Come on, Chris!
6 The Waitresses – Square Pegs
Discogs lists the 1982 release I Could Rule The World If Only I Could Get the Parts under “singles” while Wikipedia, where somebody twenty years ago made some bizarrely pedantic decision that everyone’s been forced to follow ever since, considers it an EP. You know what, I disagree with them both. To me, it’s a mini-album and the rest of you are freaks. Anyway, whatever you call it, it’s a pretty solid stopgap release, collecting the A and B sides of the Square Pegs 45 along with Christmas Wrapping and the title track (a live recording of an old Tin Huey number). Plus this, the one completely new song. It seems to have been considered for a single in its own right, as 12” mixes were promoed, but that never happened.
7 The Waitresses – Bread And Butter
We hit 1983, and you could guess that the writing was on the wall for the Waitresses when second album Bruiseology was issued without a supporting single… except in the UK, where December 1982 had seen a reissue of Christmas Wrapping come tantalisingly close to a top 40 placing, apparently indicating to someone at Polydor UK that the band might be marketable after all. Which as it turns out, they weren’t. But the effort did yield us a unique 7” edit of Make The Weather which I may as well share since it’s otherwise very hard to find online (a video was made for it which is on YouTube but is in mono). I’ll be honest, I think it’s a good new wave tune, but from the Waitresses it feels like they’re coasting a bit.
A major reason that Bruiseology didn’t get much of a promotional push was quite simply that the band were falling apart. Tensions came to a head during the recording sessions, resulting in Donahue walking out. Holly Beth Vincent from Holly and the Italians was drafted in as a replacement, but was dealing with her own personal problems at the time and only lasted two weeks, which were more productive in terms of photoshoots than actual music. Eventually Donahue was persuaded to return and completed the recording, more or less – the scars of a troubled production are still evident in the fact that the album had to be filled out with an instrumental and one track sung by Tracy Wormworth. It was nearly two songs sung by Wormworth, as she’d also tackled the title track during Donahue’s absence, and Butler reckoned her version was better – but Polydor insisted on the Donahue take so this version lay unreleased for 30 years.
9 The Waitresses – Bruiseology (alternative version, Tracy Wormworth vocal)
And the Waitresses story pretty much ends there. Butler left after Bruiseology and Donahue continued to front a version of the band for another year, but it had petered out by the end of 1984. Following the Waitresses, Donahue went into A&R, Williams played with The Psychedelic Furs for a bit, Butler has released solo material on-and-off, and Wormworth became an in-demand session bassist, known particularly for her work with Sting and The B-52’s (what a range!). Butler has made reference to the fact that he wrote a third, unrecorded album for The Waitresses, and – with Donahue having died in 1996 – has floated the notion of recording it with singers influenced by Patty, but nothing’s come of that yet and quite possibly never will.
But let’s go out on a high. Many reviewers found the second album a bit lacking compared to the first, but this track harks back to classic Waitresses – Butler writing about sexual politics from a female perspective, Williams going wild on the sax, and all wrapped up with a catchy chorus.
10 The Waitresses – A Girl’s Gotta Do
So, hopefully that all makes the case that The Waitresses are indeed not just for Christmas.
But for an encore, let’s hear THAT song anyway. It quickly became a regular part of their live set even outside of the Christmas period, and here’s a version recorded in concert for the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show in February 1982.
Bonus track: Christmas Wrapping (live 13/02/82)
And that, I think, brings this ICA to a very happy ending…
One of my all-time favourite sleeves, if nothing else for the fact I can look at it and recall having similar hairstyles at previous points in my life. I try not to get too sad looking in the mirror these days and wondering where all the hair went to (answer, most often down a sinkhole), and also when did grey overtake black as my main colour.
mp3: The Jesus and Mary Chain – Head On
My copy of this 45 is a second-hand one, and I didn’t know until doing that wee bit of research I sometimes do when pulling a piece together that Head On had been released in seven different formats, including four 7″ singles. – one 7″ single was released per week – all of which had different b-sides. It illustrates that some of what flimflamfan was saying the other day isn’t a new phenomenon
It turns out my copy was the first to be issued. This was the b-side:-
mp3: The Jesus and Mary Chain – In The Black
And my mood is black And my eyes are black And my life is black And my love is black
But what about your hair, boys??
Despite all the multi-formatting, Head On only got to #57 in the UK charts. I would have thought the ruse of different 7″ singles over four successive weeks might have given it a bit of longevity at the expense of a high chart placing.
It didn’t. In at #57 on 18 November, down to #61 on 25 November, and gone completely out of the Top 75 by the time December rolled around.
Ten days after my 16th birthday, in July 1979, I went to see Adam and the Ants at Clouds Ballroom in Edinburgh with a school friend. Skilful parental persuasion had been required to get there because it was a known fact that the gig would not finish until long after the last bus that would carry me the seven miles home from the centre of the city.
Following the debacle of my attendance at The Rezillos gig the previous summer, when my parents came to pick me up and had to wait over two hours for me to emerge after 1am, they were not minded to repeat the favour. I managed to convince them that it would be much easier for me to stay at my gig-going companion’s house in Colinton, which was served by night buses, or so I claimed. Colinton was itself a good four miles from Clouds and the bus route didn’t exactly pass Drew’s door. Still a bit of work to do, but the parents, probably ill-informed, said yes.
The Clouds gig was the Ants’ only Scottish date in their ‘nationwide’ tour coinciding with the release of their second single Zerox on the independent Do It Records label. It had taken them a long time to reach even this modest milestone. They had played their first gig in May 1977, but it took until the following year for their music to make it onto vinyl, firstly via two tracks, Deutscher Girls and Plastic Surgery, on the soundtrack album of Derek Jarman’s bonkers film Jubilee, and then on the one-off Decca single Young Parisians. Their music was otherwise known through a couple of sessions for John Peel, which is undoubtedly where I’d heard some songs, including the new single.
Despite this lack of output and relatively late formation, Adam and the Ants were almost as legendary amongst punk fans as Siouxsie and the Banshees, with whom they had toured widely. Adam (Stuart Goddard to his mum and dad) was someone who could truly claim to have been there at the birth of punk rock, having played bass in the pub-rock band Bazooka Joe, headliners at a gig at St Martin’s School of Art in London in November 1975 when The Sex Pistols made their first ever live appearance. Follow that.
The Ants acquired what is known as a ‘devoted cult following’. When Drew and I arrived at Clouds we felt as though we had been cast back in time to some notional nirvana of punk, circa the Bill Grundy incident, the Anarchy tour, the Roxy and the 100 Club, with more spiked peroxide hair, mohair jumpers, safety pin earrings and bondage trousers than had been seen for many a year. There was an apparent Soo Catwoman/Jordan lookalike competition going on, and even a lad with a swastika armband to complete the time-warp.
But this was the summer of 1979, not 1977, and the support band returned us to the present moment. They were already known to Drew as TV Art, but by the time they took the stage they had renamed themselves Josef K. Rather obviously studenty we would have thought if we’d been older, but we were 16, and we’d all read Metamorphosis and The Trial as if we were the first people to discover Kafka. This Josef K evoked suitable claustrophobic angst and alienation through their scratchy, abrasive guitars and pained vocals.
This was post-punk, though the term may not even have been uttered yet. But we were already travelling along this road, ushered ahead by Wire, Joy Division and Magazine, and Bob Last’s Edinburgh-based Fast Product whose early releases captured The Mekons, Scars and Gang of Four. Josef K were firmly in that here and now but were tolerantly received by the devoted cult following of the Antpeople, lack of bondage trousers notwithstanding.
I think both Drew and I knew that going to see Adam and the Ants was already a kind of retro joke, punk as kitsch. Adam’s sex and S&M obsession in songs like Whip in my Valise, Ligature, Physical and Beat My Guest was always a kind of knowing provocation of British mid-century prudishness, from the Monty Python and Kenny Everett stable of kinky cross-dressing judges and civil servants. Not that that was a bad thing, you understand, just that it was as much comedy as sincere perversion, more naughty spanking than hardcore Venus in Furs.
Nevertheless, as the Ants’ appearance was signalled by the dimming of house lights the atmosphere took an intense turn. The PA started booming with the sound of the Missa Luba, the recording of the Mass sung in Congolese which is played over and over by Malcolm McDowell’s character in Lindsay Anderson’s iconoclastic anti-establishment film If… From where we swayed in the stage-front crush we could see Adam just off stage doing standing press-ups against the speaker stack, in some pre-performance focus ritual, his face covered in what resembled camouflage make-up like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now (though not being released until that August it’s unlikely the film inspired it).
The Missa Luba faded out and Adam strode on, revealing an outfit of black shirt with black kilt worn over black leather trousers. Fetish gear, Scottish-stylee. Like a lot of pop bands, the Ants’ live sound was much heavier than how they came across on record. This was the band that went into the studio immediately after this tour to make Dirk Wears White Sox, and the debut album projects a lighter, more cartoonish version of Antmusic than filled Clouds that night. That’s not to ignore tracks like Physical, a slowed-down Stooges metal riff that was left off the album but finally given its moment of glory on the B-side of Dog Eat Dog a year later.
Far from being an anachronistic flashback to punk, as the Antpeople might have desired, Dirk Wears White Sox was an amusing slice of contemporary pop music. Not one for the children perhaps, but it marked Adam as an entertainer whose pivot to New Romantic dandyism on Kings of the Wild Frontier a few months hence didn’t seem as radical as it might have done, and I think the Antpeople realised that too, swapping the mohair and bondage trousers for frock coats and lace cuffs with equanimity.
The Antpeople were most satisfied by their idol’s performance, and so were we as we spilled out of the sweatbox club into the mild midsummer Edinburgh night. But for us the evening was far from over. We still had to get back to Drew’s, and it turned out that the night bus was not a prospect for some reason and thus we found ourselves schlepping westwards along Fountainbridge, trying to hail a taxi, all of which were either hired or going home for the night and didn’t want another fare. Eventually we took to waving a ten-pound note at every passing cab like some sort of bait, and after a few failures we finally hooked one.
“I like yer style, pal,” said the driver, who was heading home to Currie or Balerno and didn’t want to divert via Colinton but agreed to drop us off at the nearest suitable point. Drew chose the point somewhere on the Lanark Road and there we were in Spylaw in the small hours, still a mile or so the wrong side of the Water of Leith from Colinton. “I know a shortcut,” said Drew and led us down into the trees upstream from Colinton Dell. A perfectly legitimate route in daylight, this path took on a different aspect after dark. There were no streetlights because why the fuck would you be down there at night? The sound of the river cascading over a weir grew louder and louder, amplified by the pitch blackness as we made our way across a low bridge which Drew informed me had no parapet on either side, rendering the accuracy of our crossing a matter of some importance. We clung to each other as we shuffled across, very literally at that moment the blind leading the blind.
Mercifully we emerged into streetlight up the other bank and were soon ensconced in the granny-flat back room at Drew’s house where we could play music at discreet volume and get wired into the half-bottle of vodka that he produced from some hiding place. Rather than orange juice, the normal under-age mixer of choice, we were inexplicably compelled to mollify the neat alcohol with small bottles of Schweppes Russchian, probably the world’s most obscure and unpalatable soda water. Less ‘hints of berries, with hibiscus and carrot notes’ and more foosty old dried peaches with a hint of strychnine. Still, we necked it like it was lemonade and danced around the room, finally collapsing to The Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog (more submission!) and We Will Fall, the drone of sitar-guitar and John Cale’s meandering viola as the sky lightened over Colinton.
I blame the Russchian as much as the vodka for the state of me when I woke up a few hours later. My head felt like a fucking wasps’ nest and my body was paralysed by a deathly fatigue for the remainder of the day. Somehow or other I got a lift home, where I crawled back onto my bed, insisting to my sceptically amused parents that no drink had been taken. By the miracle of youth I was fit as a fiddle the following day, and forevermore any mention of Schweppes Russchian would remind me not of my first leave-me-alone-I-want-to-die hangover, but of the midnight passage over the Water of Leith, of Adam and the Ants and Josef K, and the confluence and divergence of punk and post-punk under the sweaty lights at Clouds Ballroom.
* * *
To my considerable amazement there’s a (pretty terrible quality) bootleg recording of this whole gig on YooChoob. It opens with the DJ playing Gary Glitter and then the Missa Luba (at 3.08), with the gig proper kicking in about the 7.38 mark. To my equally considerable amazement the Ants didn’t play Physical that night.
The following are proper studio recordings however.
Adam and the Ants: Lady (B-Side of Young Parisians)
Adam and The Ants : Zerox
Adam and the Ants: Whip in My Valise
Adam and the Ants: Physical (single version, B-side of Dog Eat Dog)
Josef K: Romance (Absolute single version)
Josef K: Radio Drill Time
NB – the date of the gig was misprinted on the poster printed up to promote the gig and used at the head of today’s offering. The accurate date of 20 July 1979 can be found in the Zerox Tour Programme.
In recent times, some artists have taken to social media to decry the ripping off of artists and fans by: record companies, venues streaming platforms and ticket agencies. It could be argued that this ‘outpouring’ is genuine in nature and it might well be (for some), but I can’t help but get the sense that it is little more that political (small p) posturing for the majority.
This stream of consciousness may get a little messy. I apologise in advance if it fizzles out, is contradictory, or makes little sense.
Artists who are, or define themselves as independent or DIY, can often seem like arch hypocrites, particularly if they have had a loyal following for some time before making it ‘big’ and then begin to milk fans.
I don’t begrudge any artist the hope and/or possibility of making money from their art. I’d actually say (of myself) that I encourage it as I want to hear more new music, or in days gone past – hear/see artists live.
That’s said, I’m becoming increasingly irked, at those that claim they are victims of the music industry while creating ‘victims’ of fans.
Of course, any fan can choose not to engage with a particular artist and its wares. A fan can decide to buy just the CD rather than the signed CD with postcard, or the LP, or the LP with signed postcard or limited-edition vinyl in every colour of the rainbow – each colour limited to just 500 copies, challenging the very notion of ‘limited’.
The thing is, in my experience (based on my listening and buying preferences) it’s not just the majors that are involved in this rather shady practice but so-called independent bands, labels and record shops.
In recent years, much has been made of the impact of vinyl on the environment. The latest wheeze – eco and bio vinyl editions to meet ‘demand’. These, of course, can carry a premium. Bundles too have become absurd. Bands I name here I do so for illustrative purposes only, mostly to use up-to-date info. And so it is that Franz Ferdinand is releasing 11 versions off its new LP, The Human Fear. From Direct Download (£7.99) to Deluxe Bundle (£85) and all that lies between. I fail to see the need for these overblown bundles? Franz Ferdinand fans may disagree and may buy all 11.
Vinyl, is of course, an easy target given its prominence in all things independent but the ‘limited edition’ releases of CDs, books etc., can be disingenuous at best. A recent book release re: independent scene was trailed with ‘limited’ and ‘signed’. It sold out. Miraculously, it re-emerged just as limited and signed days later. Copies were plentiful.
Confession… I’m not sure I’ve ever streamed a song. I’m not even sure of the terminology? Does Bandcamp stream? I’ve bought stuff from it, but I don’t listen to music on it. Bands have been extremely vocal about certain sites, most notably Spotify, and its hold over the market and their income. Some time ago, some artists removed some or all of their music from Spotify – most have since added their ‘content’ again. It seems to me to be a most unhealthy relationship and one in which if the artist was living in the same house as Spotify, I’d urge the artist to leave, as the harm one day could prove fatal. There are many reasons why someone may collude with their abuser (may need to collude), however, I’m not clear on the rationale of moaning inaction. What purpose does it serve?
And so, we move to venues. Pay to play has long strangled creativity in Glasgow. I assume it could be a similar story elsewhere? It’s not new, but it is largely accepted. Again, I appreciate a venue has overheads and needs to make a profit, but as a business it is risk by definition. Venues are closing in increasing number (so the news informs me) and on some occasions I say, “good!”. That may be too candid, but it is how I’ve felt when certain announcements have been made; the press release reading as if the business offered it services free of charge to the ‘community’ and that the business itself was akin to a charity. No doubt there are supportive venues out there. Venues that seek profit, but not at any cost. Venues that understand the basic principle of making money at the bar rather than from a band making its live debut.
Next. Tickets companies. As most of us will know from the recent reunion of a certain band, it’s apparent that the band/artist when selling tickets via a specific platform can have clauses that not only set the ticket price but protect that ticket price. Despite this fact, many well-known artists with influence took to social media to claim they had “no control” – e.g., step forward the Manchester singer. This is/was clearly bollocks. Not wanting responsibility is rather different to having no control. No artist is a victim in this charade. As with release bundles, tickets can now be sold as bundles and independent bands are very much into this sordid practice. They go by many names but seem to largely coalesce under the banner of VIP. Recent VIP tickets of seemingly ‘independent’ bands that may, or may not, have included: access to soundchecks, photos with the band, signed merch, meet and greet the band, access to after-show and disco. I find it a tad much for these ’independent’ bands to attempt to take the moral high ground against Ticketmaster when they’re fleecing fans with Bundle tickets to cover the cost of their after-show party!?
I’ve no idea why I awoke with all of the jumbled in my head this morning. I hope it’s a less jumbled read? My motto: a morality sold cannot be moaned (clearly, I just made that up right now).
Now. To clean that cupboard. A moany gits life is full to the brim with such workaday pleasures.
flimflamfan
JC adds………
As you all hopefully are aware, I encourage the submission of guest articles, reviews and postings on any subject under the sun, as long as there is a musical connection of some sort. FFF’s piece arrived last week, but it’s taken a few days for me to find the space to have it appear….and indeed, there’s a couple more guest offerings that have been submitted in recent times that have taken a while longer than is ideal to be readied for publication, but they will be here in due course.
FFF didn’t make any suggestion as to what song(s) should and will appear to accompany his piece. I have just the one song on the hard drive with the word ‘greedy’ in its title. Its title kind of feels appropriate today.
mp3: The Westfield Mining Disaster – Greedy Bastards, Save Your Souls!
Released in 2010 on the album Big Ideas From Small Places.
Hands up if you can remember back a couple of weeks to Part 42 of this series?
Well done if you do….but don’t be too concerned if you don’t as it featured 4 Chansons, a 10″ EP on clear vinyl for Record Store Day 2012, on which The Wedding Present played and David Gedge sang in French.
We are about to go on a similar journey today, (and will do so again in the not too distant future).
There were two worldwide releases for Record Store Day 2013. One was a 7″ single, released via This Will Be Our Summer, a label based in Athens, GA. The single was called 2 Chansons, and it comprised, you won’t be surprised to hear, two of the songs that had been included on 4 Chansons EP, a release that hadn’t made it across to the other side of the Atlantic.
The UK release for Record Store Day was another 10″ single, again on clear vinyl, and once more offering up four other language takes on tracks from the album Valentina. Given the title of 4 Lieder, these were sung in German.
mp3: The Wedding Present – Back A Bit…Stop (German Version) mp3: The Wedding Present – The Girl From the DDR (German Version) mp3: The Wedding Present – You Jane (German Version) mp3: The Wedding Present – 524 Fidelio (German Version)
I sent away for a copy of this via Discogs, and to my surprise, it came back from the seller with David Gedge’s signature on it.
“Boo Hoo Hoo: A three-piece band – Richardson, Reggie and Lizzie. Ewan Laing (drummer) was a fourth member for a time before leaving. Some session musicians were involved in their live shows at different times – Jack Fotheringham, Shaun Hood, Charlotte Printer. The band stopped functioning shortly after Reggie left in 2019.”
I saw them play live just the once, at a tiny venue in Glasgow called The Old Hairdresser’s. I’d love to tell you who they were opening for and when it actually was, but I just can’t remember.
I thought Boo Hoo Hoo, despite playing a fairly short set, were tremendous. The highlight was the rendition of a single that was released, in digital form only, via Last Night From Glasgow, back in 2017.
#068: The Oblivion Seekers– ‘There’s No Depression In Heaven’ (Singles Only Label ’91)
Hello friends,
‘The Oblivion Seekers’ is the name of a book which collects various stories and journal notes by Isabelle Eberhardt, a women who lived quite an adventurous and rather mystical life around 1900. Apparently she was so, let’s say, ‘modern’ in her lifetime that she became a cult figure for feminism in the 1970’s. Probably though, unlike me, you knew this all along, of course.
On a totally different note, I once visited the famous Guinness Brewery in Dublin in the 90’s and back then, after having completed the brewery tour, you would get a token for a pint, served in the basement. Now, my friend Anja tasted her pint, but she didn’t like it at all – so I sat there with two pints, hers and mine … nothing wrong with that, of course, until a fairly big group of middle-aged women got up from the table next to ours – and apparently the majority of them had a taste as bad as Anja, because one of them gave me nearly all of the group’s tokens and whispered with a sheepish grin: “drink your self into oblivion, love”.
Now, I cannot tell whether Mark Sten (bassist/vocalist-and sole constant throughout the band’s life) chose the band name from being present at the Guinness Brewery that afternoon and overhearing that women’s advice to me or whether he had read a bit of Isabelle Eberhardt – either way, “The Oblivion Seekers” is what he went for … and why not?!
Nothing much can be found about them, it must be said – as much as I’d like to give you at least some reliable information: there isn’t pretty much available, as it is so often the case with bands which I heard only once on one of John Peel’s BFBS shows. And this is not because The Seekers were ‘one hit wonders’ in an indie sense, no, in fact they have issued six albums within the 90’s/00’s, but I only know their self-titled debut from 1992.
I once read a comparison about them though which went: “(…) if I had to describe them using other bands, I’d describe them as X meets Roy Orbison”, which is not too far from the truth, as far as I’m concerned. A productive DIY roots act, with Mark Sten leading successive cohorts of younger punk musicians through a variety of older rock styles from the 1950s and early 1960s – rockabilly, girl group, early soul, late R&B, doo-wop and primitive black gospel. The underlying theory was to play rock as if the Beatles had never existed …
So there you are, that’s all I have – but, to be frank, that’s all you need to know in fact, I would think. This and today’s tune, of course, the only single they ever made – it preceded the debut album by a year and in my humble opinion it is a masterpiece: firing on all 8 cylinders, all the blades are sharpened, and there’s a bullet in the chamber. Oblivion Seekers: Portland Oregon’s finest gothabilly soul rock whatever ensemble, at your service
mp3: Oblivion Seekers – There’s No Depression In Heaven
And in case you have been wondering whilst jumping around to this in sheer ecstasy whether this is all about ‘depression’ as in being in a morbid emotional state or ‘depression’ as in commercial crisis: well, it’s the latter, because the tune was originally recorded by The Carter Family in 1936 (in the middle of the Great Depression) – also we all know that back then no-one cared a great deal about people who preferred to be on their own most of the time, and if someone did, I suppose a full-frontal lobotomy would have been the cure of choice …
Typing up all of this series in one sitting, and so I’ve no idea if there was any sort of reaction to part one. Tough luck if it doesn’t appeal to you, it’s here to stay until all eight Sha La La Records flexi discs have been featured!
The second disc was give the title ‘Who Needs The Bloody Cartel Anyway? EP‘ and given away with two different fanzines – Are You Scared to Get Happy? (Issue #3) and “Trout Fishing In Leytonstone (Issue #3). The eagle-eyed among you might have notice that the initial flexi disc was also given away with Issue 3 of Are You Scared to Get Happy?, which meant anyone parting with the 50p asking price really were picking up a musical bargain.
This one featured two bands from Oxford, neither of whom are strangers to this blog. Cut’n’paste alerts!!
mp3: Talulah Gosh – I Told You So
Talulah Gosh were a five-piece group from Oxford consisting originally of Amelia Fletcher (vocals, guitar) Mathew Fletcher (drums), Peter Momtchiloff (lead guitar), Rob Pursey (bass) and Elizabeth Price (vocals), although Pursey would depart after just three gigs to be replaced by Chris Scott. They signed to the Edinburgh-based 53rd & 3rd label, but their blend of the Velvet Underground and 60s style girl pop groups divided opinion. There were some who saw them as amateurishly pretentious while others thought this was a great leap forward for pop music with an indie bent. They broke up in 1988.
mp3: Razorcuts – Sad Kaleidoscope
Razorcuts formed in 1985 with the mainstays being Gregory Webster (vocals/guitar) and Tim Vass (bass) augmented at times by various drummers and other musicians who came and went. After a couple of singles on the Subway Organisation label and a one-off on Flying Nun Records, they ended up signing to Creation in 1988 for whom they would release two albums without setting the heather on fire. They split up in 1990.
Half Man Half Biscuit take their time when it comes to writing, recording and releasing new albums. Just the eight since the calendar flipped over into the 21st century.
It was always intriguing to slip the new release into the CD player to find out if it’s going to live up to expectations. Inevitably, it did.
Then, in 2018, I bought the new HMHB album on vinyl for the first time in more than 30 years. This time, I let the needle settle into the groove and grinned as the first song blared out through the speakers.
mp3: Half Man Half Biscuit – Alehouse Futsal
From the magnificently named No-One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin’ Hedge Cut.
If you type Alehouse Futsal into Google, it suggests a link to Adam‘s place – Bagging Area – and a post from 2018 when he mentions the release of the new album. His description is perfect:-
It’s business as usual lyrically, that is, moments of laugh out loud genius punctuated with insight and references to popular culture and history…
There’s every possibility that HMHB will crop up again (and again!) during this series, given how many of their tunes clock in under the two-minute mark.
This marks the first ever appearance of Regina Spektor on the blog.
Born in Russia in 1980 to musical parents, she moved with her family to New York City in 1989 during the period of Perestroika, when Soviet citizens were permitted to emigrate.
A classically trained pianist, she also developed a love for pop, rock and hip hop as a teenager, and in due course she emerged in her new home city just after the turn of the century through what has been described as the ‘anti-folk scene’
I heard her song Fidelty played on the radio when it was released as a single in early 2007. I had never heard of Regina Spektor before now, despite the fact she had already released three albums. That might not be 100% accurate, as I may have read about her in one music magazine or another, but I can’t recall her name, original sounding as it is, ever registering with me.
I thought Fidelity was really catchy, and when I saw a 7″ copy of on sale for £2 a few days later in Fopp Records, I bought it. I took it home, played it, and still thought it was catchy, albeit it was one of those I thought sounded much better on the radio than in Villain Towers.
A few months later, I bought a CD copy of the album Begin To Hope, one which was being talked about in glowing terms in the music mags and indeed in a couple of UK broadsheet newspapers. It seemed as if Regina Spektor’s time had come. But the positive press etc. didn’t really lead to any great commercial success, and the album stalled at #53.
The album I found to be a bit hit’n’miss, and although I tried to find my way into it, Begin To Hope was soon put on the shelves never to be touched again until the time came to digitise things for putting onto a PC hard drive as well as an i-pod. The shuffle function has offered a few random tracks occasionally over the years, none of which excite or perturb me.
mp3: Regina Spektor – Fidelity
The b-side wasn’t on the standard release of the parent album, but was included as part of what was described as a ‘deluxe edition’, just one of the many sneaky ways record companies have sought to squeeze more money out of fans.
mp3: Regina Spektor – Music Box
The reason for throwing the 7″ vinyl out there today is just in case there are TVV readers who are big fans and may want to make a case for her music, possibly via a guest ICA. As you know, no offers of guest postings are ever turned down.
Sometimes I engage in some villainous behaviour to ensure this blog maintains its standards, whatever they actually are. Today is such an occasion.
I really appreciate the plethora of guest postings that come my way, especially when they are ICAs of bands/acts/groups I know relatively little about. Back in October 2015, a contributor called Aidan Baker came up with this superb effort on Daft Punk. I’ve long felt a second volume was overdue, even if it was the case that some of the songs overlapped.
Making a long-overdue visit to Khayem‘s always engaging, informative and highly entertaining Dubhed, I came across something he posted on 28 July 2024 which didn’t receive any comments. I decided to ‘appropriate’ said post, and in doing so have finally got Vol 2 of the Daft Punk ICA. Here’s K……..
Teachers, Television, Technology
I posted the first Dubhed selection dedicated to Guy Manuel De Homen-Cristo and Thomas Bangalter way, way back in February 2022. I confessed then that “I don’t own a single Daft Punk album – and I probably need to do something about that”. Suffice to say, I’ve since taken care of business.
I’ve stuck with roughly the same rules as before: keeping the selection to just under an hour, twelve rather than ten songs this time around, A greater focus on album versions this time around, though the occasional remix has slipped in.
What an incredible body of work this pair produced before calling it a day. When I saw Nile Rodgers & Chic in concert the other week, Nile admitted that he didn’t understand why they’d stepped away just as Daft Punk was enjoying its greatest success and in his view had so much more great music to give.
I think they did exactly what they needed to do, and their legacy will continue to speak for itself.
We’re going to celebrate one more time…
1) Rinzler (2010) 2) Television Rules The Nation (Album Version) (2005) 3) Teachers (Extended Mix) (1997) 4) The Brainwasher (Erol Alkan’s Horrorhouse Dub) (2006) 5) Da Funk (Album Version) (1996) 6) Give Life Back To Music (Album Version ft. Nile Rodgers) (2013) 7) Human After All (Sebastian Remix By Sebastian Akchoté) (2005) 8) One More Time (Album Version) (2001) 9) Lose Yourself To Dance (Album Version ft. Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers) (2013) 10) High Fidelity (1996) 11) Something About Us (Album Version) (2001) 12) Finale (2010)
The fact that this series is going off in all sorts of direction is down to my comrade-in-arms, strangeways.
I had all the things nicely set up in my head to get on with highlighting and bringing to you any singles and EPs by The Wedding Present that were widely available; strangeways really dug deep to bring you everything that was connected with Cinerama, both back when that group was going strong in the early 00s and the later, more occasional releases. I felt I was given no option but to look to do the same with TWP.
Which brings us to the 4 Songs EP, a release I had no idea whatsoever about until I was digging around on Discogs. It’s not even mentioned anywhere on the TWP/Cinerama website.
It is, and I quite from the notes over at Discogs:-
Available via download only through buying the book ‘Valentina – The Story of a Wedding Present Album’ (Scopitones, TONE BOOK 043). The book also provided downloads to all the tracks from the Valentia album, plus a 30 minute video documentary of the making of the album, which includes interviews with the band.
I have, by hook and by crook, managed to find copies of the songs on this EP, which I’m totally relieved about after last week’s debacle.
mp3: The Wedding Present – Journey Into Space mp3: The Wedding Present – 1000 Fahrenheit mp3: The Wedding Present – Pain Perdu mp3: The Wedding Present – Can You Keep A Secret?
For such a low-key release, this is a very fine collection of songs….all of them, (in my opinion), would have improved the quality of Valentina if they had been included in its running order. The final track, at more than seven minutes in length, is one of the longest ever recorded in the band’s history.
An edited version of a tale previously told on this blog back in June 2020.
“So I glance at this single in a box in a shop in Glasgow. £2.50 for a split effort between a band called The Blisters and occasional TVV favourites Urusei Yatsura. Never heard of the main band and certainly not that sure if I’ve ever heard this particular track by Urusei Yatsura. Oh it’s on red vinyl…..but £2.50?? What if it’s a total dud??? Do I really want to waste my cash.
You’ll know that those last two sentences never even entered into my head when I saw this piece of vinyl. I’m a saddo for things like this….
This mysterious mob called The Blisters. On first listen…..it sounds awfully familiar…the spiky guitars and that voice…..awfully like one of the most successful bands to come out of Glasgow in the 21st Century. But this is from 1995, which is some eight years prior to the debut single from gthe band I’m thinking about, so it can’t possibly be. Let’s hit wiki…..
Fuck me.
Alex Kapranos (born Alexander Paul Kapranos Huntley, 20 March 1972 in Almondsbury, Gloucestershire) is a UK based musician who is the lead singer and the guitarist of the Glasgow band Franz Ferdinand. From the early 1990s, he was a fixture of the Glasgow music scene, running live nights at the 13th Note, most notably The Kazoo Club. While working as a chef, bartender, lecturer in IT at the city’s Anniesland College, and other various jobs, he played in some of Glasgow’s popular bands, including The Blisters (later known as The Karelia), long-standing ska stalwarts The Amphetameanies, Quinn (now known as A Band Called Quinn) and The Yummy Fur. He is also known to have contributed to Urusei Yatsura and Lungleg recordings.
And sure enough this track was composed by A Huntley and The Blisters:-
mp3 : The Blisters – A Dull Thought In Itself
Now, I know it’s not a hugely valuable piece of plastic in itself, but the fact it’s one of the earliest recordings by someone who many years later became incredibly famous makes it well worth the £2.50 that I handed over…..
Two recent Saturdays in the extremely long-running Scottish Songs series ( which is now up to 418 and counting!!!) saw mention of a flexi disc issued in 1987 by Sha La La Records. I thought it would be worthwhile to try and pull together a short series on all eight of said flexi discs, albeit I’ll miss out #3 as the songs by Baby Lemonade and The Bachelor Party featured very recently.
The first of them was named ‘The Bring Back Throwaway Pop EP’. The flexi disc was given away with three different fanzines – Baby Honey (issue #3), Simply Thrilled (issue #2) and Are You Scared to Get Happy? (Issue #3). It featured a band from Glasgow and a band from Birmingham. Neither band are strangers to this blog. Cut’n’paste alerts!!
mp3: The Clouds – Jenny Nowhere
The Clouds were formed in Glasgow in 1986 by brothers John and Bill Charnley. The response to the song on the flexi disc led, in due course, to them signing up to The Subway Organisation whom they recorded a one-off single, Tranquil, in January 1988 before seemingly quitting the music scene for good.
mp3: Mighty Mighty – Throwaway
Mighty Mighty consisted of Hugh Harkin (vocals), Mick Geoghegan (guitar), Peter Geoghegan (keys), Russell Burton (bass, vocals) and David Hennessey (drums), making their debut with two 45s that came out on their own Girlie label in March 1986. Before long, they were on the established indie outfit Chapter 22, for whom they recorded and released a handful of singles and an LP called Sharks which was issued in February 1988. Fame and fortune eluded the boys, with Top 10 placings in the indie charts being the height of it. Less than nine months after their LP hit the shops, the band had disbanded.
They reformed briefly in 2009/10 to play at Indietracks in the UK and at Popfest in Berlin. In 2012, Cherry Red Records issued a compilation double CD which captured everything they had recorded, including material that had been intended for a sophomore album.
I’m sorry to say that the version of Throwaway might not be the same as was on the flexi. What I have is the 7″ single version that had been released the previous year by Chapter 22. I hope it’ll make do. I think it’s rather splendid…..
Rather fittingly I told JC that I would send him this ICA on (Checks emails) August 14th but like nearly everything I do in life these days, I got delayed. Last week, it took me three hours to nip to the shops to buy a pint of milk. The shop is a fifteen-minute walk away. I wish I was joking about that. Anyway, I’ve hastily added this paragraph at the start as way of a personal apology to JC for my ramshackle tardiness. What follows, is a piece I started writing in June, June! and finished on the first Thursday in September just after San Marino beat Lichtenstein at football.
I love an ICA, I love that sometimes they are of acts that I have never heard of, and I dive into them and bask in some wonderful new music. I also love the fact that sometimes they are of a band that I hate, and I shake my head in amazement that someone has found one song that they think someone might want to listen to, let alone ten. Sometimes I fume for DAYS that some idiot has written an ICA on a band that I love and hasn’t included a track that I would have put at track two on side one, sometimes I agree with the track listing but get angry about the order. About once a month I start an ICA, spend hours listening to music by that act, furiously scribble down notes on them, start to write about it and then leave it unfinished, unloved on the computer. So, in an act of soul cleansing here follows an ICA compiled of ten tracks by ten different acts, each of which I have started an ICA on but never finished.
Side One
1. Venom – Little Simz (2019, Age 101 Music)
I started my ICA on Little Simz in February this year after a four-hour Top Boy binging session. I banged on about getting mugged in a South London by Rotherhithe’s equivalent of the ZT gang and then brought it back to Little Simz (who of course plays Shelley in the series). ‘Venom’ opened that ICA and this is what I wrote about it – “‘Venom’ has lightning fast rapping laced with razor sharp barbs that vent angrily about the patriarchy”. Which I stand by, ‘Venom’ is ace and Little Simz is tremendous and if you don’t listen to her music, you probably should.
2. How Was It For You? – James (1991, Fontana Records)
During lockdown, I did a lot of running around the Devon countryside, one Sunday to spice things up I decided to write an ICA on whatever band was playing when I reached the start of the third mile of my run. On this occasion that was James, and it was ‘How Was It For You?’. My ICA of James currently has fourteen tracks and despite writing a really good first paragraph that talked about how much I hated Andy Diagram and his sodding trumpet, I never whittled the ICA down to a final ten. ‘How Was It For You?’ would have made the final ten though regardless.
3. Leave Home – Chemical Brothers (1995, Virgin Records)
This one started with a story about a bloke my dad knew called ‘Eggy’ who my dad once won a chest freezer off playing cards. It went from there to me and my dad getting a chest freezer in the back of a Sierra Sapphire and him not batting an eyelid about the damage it was doing to the suspension, and then went I went to University he moaned about the weight of my record collection. From there I somehow brought it round to the Chemical Brothers. The ten tracks have been decided, but I only wrote about six of them. Track Three is ‘Leave Home’.
I still mean to finish this one, after all I only started it in 2018, so it’s early doors to be honest. Alongside Spiritualized and Primal Scream (see side two), the Aphex Twin is the act that I have started an ICA on the most only to delete all the words and start it again because I’d forgotten to include something from the ‘Donkey Rhubarb EP’ or because I’d decided that there was too much drill and bass on it and not enough classical piano. Regardless of what that ICA eventually looks like, it will contain ‘Analogue Bubblebath’.
5. Neighbourhood #1 – Arcade Fire (2004, Merge Records)
Sometimes you write an ICA and sit back and review it and think well its very album one heavy. Welcome then to my thoughts on my unfinished ICA on the Arcade Fire, of which six of the first eight tracks were from ‘Funeral’, which prompted me to realise that I love the debut album by Arcade Fire but remain somewhat nonplussed by the rest of their output. Still, an ICA made up of just the tracks from ‘Funeral’ would still be pretty amazing.
Side Two
1. Feel So Sad (Rhapsodies) – Spiritualized (1992, Dedicated Records)
Nine times I have tried to write a Spiritualized ICA and if you check the comments in the VERY FIRST ICA EVER, you will see me saying “Can I do one on Spiritualized?”. So I’ve been trying to write one since the dinosaurs walked the earth. But it’s just so hard to do. I just can’t do it and leave out this track or that track – and yeah I hear you, I could just do a second volume, but volume one has taken me ten years to decide on four maybe five tracks.
2. The Boxer – Simon & Garfunkel (1964, Columbia Records)
My ICA on Simon & Garfunkel starts with me wittering on about ‘The Boxer’ coming on the radio at about three in the morning as I drove to Heathrow Airport to catch a flight and how the bored sounding radio presenter on BBC Three Counties Radio (or whichever it was) ruined it by talking over the last minute or so of it about the fact that there was no traffic on the roads of Berkshire. The ICA currently has seven tracks on it, most of them singles. I doubt I’ll finish it.
I began my ICA on Primal Scream in May 2018. The first attempt was too ‘Screamadelica’ heavy (like six tracks or something). The second one had too little from ‘Screamadelica’. The third one had nothing from ‘Vanishing Point’ on it. The fourth one somehow managed to find room for ‘2013’ and was rubbish. The fifth one was also rubbish, and the sixth one was entirely free of tracks from ‘Screamadelica’ because I was in a grump with Bobby Gillespie in the wake of Martin Duffy’s death. Still am.
4. Blockbuster Night Part One – Run The Jewels (2014, RTJ Records)
You can blame Jeremy Corbyn for this one. Well sort of. I started this ICA after Corbyn lost the 2019 election to Boris. My opening line was “If Jeremy Corbyn had ended his speech on the Other Stage at Glastonbury 2017 by saying “Please welcome Run the Motherfucking Jewels” instead of saying “Vote Labour” or whatever it was he said, he would have walked the election”. Which wouldn’t have aged well knowing what we know now.
5. Sing About me, I’m Dying of Thirst – Kendrick Lamar (2012, Interscope Records)
“I’d love you to do an ICA on Kendrick Lamar”said JC in 2021. Ok, said I. Well, three years later I can tell you that my ICA on Kendrick Lamar ends with ‘Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst’, from his second album. I can’t tell you much more about it than that. Other than the fact that ‘Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst’ should end any Kendrick Lamar ICA.
So there we go – that’s volume one of the unfinished ICA collection. Volume Two will follow in December 2036.
#067: The Nomads– ‘She Pays The Rent’ (Wire Records ’85)
Hello friends,
to Sweden we go today, and why not? I mean it’s still summertime, 19° in Stockholm, which is alright, I’d think. If it’s warmer wherever you are today, well, you shouldn’t miss the trip anyway, because we’re going to visit The Nomads – and they are a) a bloody institution in Swedish garage-rock’n’roll, believe me, and b) they are still going, some 43 years after they got together!
The band plays music influenced by The MC5, The Stooges, Roky Erickson, The Cramps, The Ramones, New York Dolls, and other early garage rock and punk bands. The Nomads have been an influential band in the Scandinavian garage rock and punk scenes, inspiring bands such as The Hives, Hellacopters, “Demons”, Gluecifer, and many others.
Of course there have been numerous garage rock revivalists over the decades, but The Nomads certainly have stood out because of the intensity of their performances and the wide range of their influences, which extend beyond the usual ’60s bands to encompass ’70s punk, heavy metal, rockabilly, and blues. The Nomads have not managed to gain more than rather a small cult following alas; this may be because they have recorded only a limited number of original songs. Nonetheless, they have managed to create some genuinely exciting, if not particularly innovative, music: their first release was a crude remake of the Sonics‘ “Psycho” (500 copies only) in 1981, they followed this with another single, a blistering rendition of “Night Time” by the Strangeloves, and received wider recognition with their first mini-album, “Where The Wolf Bane Blooms”.
Another example of their innovative capacity was using horns on today’s single, their fifth in fact, a recording of Jeff Conolly‘s “She Pays The Rent” – released on Amigo, but also in parallel in the UK by Wire, in the USA by Homestead (as a three song 12”), and in France by Closer: I have the UK version. The flipside “Nitroglycerine Shrieks” is The Nomads’ first self-penned 7” song – an excursion into the center of noise.
The A-Side though caused quite some stir back then, because it’s a version of a song written by Jeff “Monoman” Conolly, allegedly during his time with DMZ. Despite this, “She Pays The Rent“ appeared for the first time officially on Conolly’s subsequent band Lyres’ 12” EP (1985) sometime after The Nomads released their version. Another version is found on Lyres’ second album, “Lyres Lyres”, (1986). However, a rough and unofficial version of “She Pays The Rent” circulated before 1985.
Hans Östlund (second from the left in the picture above) once said about the record:
“before this single we had a very good relationship with Jeff Conolly and The Lyres. We played a few shows together in the Netherlands before the French tour, the Pandora’s Box festival in Rotterdam and a show at Melkweg in Amsterdam, which both went down fantastic. Nix (Vahlberg, founding and current member) knew about “She Pays The Rent” from a live cassette and when Jeff said it wasn’t part of Lyres’ set anymore, we agreed that we would record a version of it. Jeff mailed the lyrics to Ulf Lindqvist and we decided to make it our next single.
Things then turned a bit sour as Jeff wasn’t aware of the fact that there would be a US release and then reacted badly to the fact that certain US fanzines deemed The Nomads’ version superior to Lyres’. Jeff is a sensitive person and this would be a cause of animosity for quite some time – but luckily we’re all friends again now. We got the idea to use a horn section from The Saints’ “Know Your Product“ (1978) – a mix of rhythm’n’blues and punk rock, which we think is a very worthwhile combination. We are not sure if we succeeded to the same extent as The Saints, though. Anyway, it was fun to try something new.”
mp3: The Nomads – She Pays The Rent
As old as this is nowadays, I haven’t gotten tired to listening to it – hope this goes for you as well. And if you haven’t heard it before, well, let me know what your feelings are, will you?
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THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 