Month: May 2025

The Drive

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #454: THE DRIVE

From the blurb in the Big Gold Dreams box set, where, yet again, today’s offering can be found.

mp3: The Drive – Jerkin’ (1977)

” ‘Banned Punks Cut Own Sex Single’ ran one suitably outraged local headline in response to the sole single on NRG Records by Dundee’s opportunistically-inclines quintet led by vocalist Gus McFarlane.  With McFarlane and his fellow corrupters of youth named and shamed, the quintet feared their aunties might be scandalised by such publicity and split up shortly afterwards.  Too late, alas, as it was picked up by Beggars Banquet for their Streets compilation, where the song could yelp, leer and thrust its lasciviously unreconstructed boogie towards a sudden and possibly premature climax once more.  A proposed follow-up, Blow Job/Gonorrhoea Go-Go, mysteriously never showed up.”

Not one I was even aware of until getting hold of the box set.  £70 is the asking price for the 7″ via Discogs.  I wasn’t tempted……

 

JC

 

Wedding Present

THIRD TIME LUCKY????

From wiki:

Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California. With roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits as of 2020, Los Angeles is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind only New York City; it is also the commercial, financial and cultural centre of Southern California. Los Angeles has a Mediterranean climate, an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of 13.2 million people. Greater Los Angeles, which includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18 million residents.

And, all being well, soon to be the temporary home of this blog for the next 10 days.

This is our myself and Rachel’s third attempt at visiting LA as the guests of Jonny the Friendly Lawyer and his wife, Goldie the Friendly Therapist, at their family home in Santa Monica. The first was supposed to be as long ago as 2020 but was postponed due to the travel/lockdown restrictions imposed by COVID.  The second was last year, but it was called off at less than 24 hours notice after I took ill and ended up in hospital with a kidney infection.

As I said last year, I’d never have imagined back in 2007 when I got the blog up and running that so many new and wonderful people would come into my orbit.  I’ve been incredibly lucky to have met many of them over the years. We hooked up with Jonny and Goldie in Barcelona a few years back when they took a trip to Europe.  We all promised one another that we’d meet up again.  It is finally happening (fingers crossed) and I can’t say enough about the generosity of Jonny and Goldie for inviting us into their home for such an extended period of time.

There are a couple of gigs in the schedule, including The Wedding Present‘s final show on their current USA tour.  Makes perfect sense, therefore to have this as tune of the day:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Santa Monica

The six-plus minute of the 20th and closing track on the 2016 album Going Going…

Oh, and any excuse to post the 19th track from the same album:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Rachel

There may well be a couple of holiday postcards coming your way over the next week and a bit alongside the usual features.   Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for a superbly-conceived guest ICA.  I’m off to jump in a taxi to the airport.

JC

 

Pooh Sticks

SONGS UNDER TWO MINUTES (16): I KNOW SOMEONE……

The full song title is far too lengthy to include at the top of this posting. And with my two-fingered approach to things, it would likely take longer than its 96 seconds of music to type out.

mp3: The Pooh Sticks – I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well

From 1988. It’s twee-pop at its finest and, dare I say it, at its wittiest. It was what the early version of The Pooh Sticks became famed for.  See also On Tape and Indiepop Ain’t Noise Pollution, both of which are just too long at 2:39 and 2:14 respectively to feature in this particular series.

JC

 

Stiff Little Fingers

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #095

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 095: Stiff Little Fingers – ‘Suspect Device’ (Rigid Digits Records ’78)

Hello friends,

name your top five punk bands of 1978, please! Finished? Thanks, let me see your votes. Hmmm, nice: Sex Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, Ramones, Wire … but hey, what about Stiff Little Fingers … no-one of you, really?!

You see, the point I’m trying to make with the lame intro above is: why is it that Stiff Little Fingers have always fallen under the radar so massively? Is it because the other bands of the time were really so much better? Is it because they did not come from the UK or the USA, but from tiny Northern Ireland instead? A country which was absolutely disarrayed in the late 70’s for reasons too complicated to understand for anyone not being involved by living there.

Not very long after their start Stiff Little Fingers began writing political songs as well, perhaps the difficult topic didn’t strike a chord with too many people, who knows? I mean, of course it is easier to listen to stuff like „chewin’ out a rhythm on my bubble gum/the sun is out and I want some/it’s not hard, not far to reach/ we can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach“ than to lyrics oozing with Northern Irish politics. Probably the best example of this dilemma is that The Undertones (also from Northern Ireland, mind you), known for their poppier sound and more traditional lyrics about boys and girls, openly accused Stiff Little Fingers of exploiting The Troubles … but hey, that’s typically Northern Ireland for you, I suppose, even the punks can’t think alike! Also, it must be said, not all of Stiff Little Fingers’ songs were political throughout, a fair number of them were mainly about more general teen rebellion.

Not so today’s choice, their very first single. The lyrics were, funnily enough, not written by the band on this occasion, but by a Belfast journalist, Gordon Ogilvie. He gave the lyrics to SLF’s Jake Burns who put them to music. Ogilvie became the band’s manager and only six weeks after the song had been written, it was released as a single, 500 copies only. Peel liked it very much, which back then guaranteed quite some attention from record label executives, consequently it was repressed various times (and before you ask, yes, my copy is one of those represses).

Enough of this, here’s the song in all its glory, play it as loud as possible:

 

mp3: Stiff Little Fingers – Suspect Device

Right, the only question remaining is, and I have often asked it myself: was the “Sus-sus-sus-sus-pect device”-bit meant to be a reference to the highly controversial “sus laws” that were in force in the UK in the late 70s, under which, essentially, you could be arrested if a police officer merely suspected that you might be thinking of committing a crime? Or was it just some deliberate stammering done for effect, in a kind of rock tradition à la ‘My Generation’ by The Who?

We’ll never know, do we? But, does it matter? No, it does not – this is just a great record!

So enjoy,

 

Dirk

Brian Bilston, Catenary Wires

BONUS POST : MY FAVOURITE ALBUM (so far) OF 2025

It was back in 2021 when I last gave a mention to The Catenary Wires, during which I admitted it had taken me a long time to actually pick up on their very existence while professing a great deal of love for what was then their new album, Birling Gap.

For those of you needing a gentle reminder or quick refresher course, the band formed in 2014, initially as a duo of Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey (ex-Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Marine Research and Tender Trap). By 2019, The Catenary Wires had expanded and now included Ian Button (ex-Thrashing Doves/Death In Vegas) on drums and Fay Hallam (ex-Makin’ Time) on keyboards.

Birling Gap was the band’s third album, and it proved to be one of the best things I came across in the year of its release, offering up a gentle musical experience, almost pastoral or chamber pop in places with hints of XTC, The Divine Comedy, Pulp, Luke Haines, the Go-Betweens, 60s west coast pop, 70s English folk and the gentler side of The Kinks dotted throughout its ten tracks.

It has taken four years for the next album to be released, mainly thanks to Amanda and Rob keeping very busy with their other band, Swansea Sound, along with what has been a very popular and successful comeback for Heavenly.  Determined not to miss out, I’ve long been signed up to the mailing list, and a few months back, I received this:-

Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires release ‘Sounds Made By Humans’, a new album of song-poems : Release date: 9 May 2025

Thankfully, the press release told me a bit more about Brian Bilston, as he wasn’t a name with which I had any familiarity. He is a poet, one with a huge on-line presence (more than half a million followers) who has written a number of best-selling volumes, some of which were aimed specifically at the children.  It turned out that Brian had been spotted wearing a Heavenly t-shirt at one of his shows, after which Amelia and Rob got in touch.  They soon discovered they were something of kindred spirits, and the friendship developed to the extent that an idea was hatched to work together.

The outcome is Sounds Made By Humans, for which Rob took thirteen of Brian’s poems and created melodies and arrangements, to be played by The Catenary Wires. Sometimes the words of the poems are sung by Amelia or Rob. Sometimes they are spoken by Brian. Sometimes both these things happen at once.  It really is, as the PR blurb claims, a pop album where the poetry and the music are equal partners: sounds made by humans in perfect artistic alignment.

The end result is not some bloke standing in front of a mic reading some rhyming couplets while musicians noodle away in the background. Instead, it is a magnificent collection of songs, with the tunes representing the very best that indie-pop has to offer, with verses and choruses emerging from Brian’s delightful, insightful, witty and, on occasion, incredibly moving words.

Two of the songs already have accompanying promo videos:-

There’s not a duff track across the collection, and with titles such as To Do List, 31 Rules For Midlife Rebellion, As I Grow Old I Will March Not Shuffle and Thou Shalt Not Commit Adulting, you can perhaps begin to see why I’ve come to regard it as the perfect manifesto for my advancing years.

Other highlights include She’d Dance, a bittersweet number just two minutes in length about old age and memories, and Compilation Cassette, whose words will surely strike a chord with every single one of us as we all have – and you can’t deny it – pulled together C60s or C90s in an effort to impress someone to whom we find ourselves attracted, while closing track Customers Who Bought This Record Also Bought… is a genuinely laugh out loud number – a sort of more gentle form of anger and bemusement (and cultural references) of the type you find in Half Man Half Biscuit songs.

Trust me on this one. Sounds Made By Humans is a fabulous work of art.  It can be bought at many fine independent record stores as well as being available via this bandcamp link.

JC

 

Orange Juice

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (34) : Orange Juice – L.O.V.E…love

This is a re-post (of sorts) from April 2015.   I wanted to include Orange Juice‘s first post-Postcard single in this series, and as I don’t think I can improve on the words that were pulled together the best part of a decade ago, it’s time for a bit of the 3Rs….repetition, repetition, repetition. (thanks, MES).

“Oh, how we can giggle now at the picture sleeve, but did Edwyn Collins ever think his rig-out of jacket, collar and tie, red shorts, white socks and brogues were remotely hip? Or even fey???

Postcard Records had come and gone, but the wish of its founder Alan Horne that all the bands should find fame and fortune with major labels seemed set to come true.

Orange Juice had signed to Polydor Records, but we were all delighted to see that the debut single still had the word POSTCARD printed above the Polydor symbol, and indeed the famous drumming kitten was also very prominent on both the label. Edwyn, James, Steven and David hadn’t sold out after all……

But what’s this…a song written by Green/Mitchell/Hodges? Had they recorded a cover, or had Polydor insisted on an in-house writing team to offer up new material?

mp3 : Orange Juice – L.O.V.E…love

OK, I quickly learned that it was a cover of a song by Al Green, but being the uber-indie post-punk 18-year-old, I wasn’t really aware who Al Green was given he’d barely had a hit in the UK.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this record at the time. In fact, I was a bit disappointed with it in many ways, as it seemed awfully polished. It even had horns on it when all I wanted was guitars. Thankfully, as I aged, so did my tastes improve and while I still won’t place it in my all-time Top 20 of OJ songs, I do tap my feet, nod my head from side to side and croon along whenever it plays.

Tell you something, though, the b-side was an instant smash:-

mp3 : Orange Juice – Intuition Told Me (Pt 2)

What wasn’t there to love about a song that contained the lines?

Please, please
Tell me when the fun begins
Please, please
As soon as you stop your whining Jim

And I whined a lot in those days. Still do in fact. And I’m happy to confess that Intuition Told Me (Pt 2) is still a song that I rank among the Top 2 the band ever recorded……and the best one that Edwyn ever wrote for them.

Polydor had high hopes for Orange Juice. I’m guessing they were staggered by the fact that the carefully chosen debut got stuck at #65 in the charts on its release in October 1981.”

 

JC

Spaghetti Head

ONE SONG ON THE HARD DRIVE (19)

The above is the cover of Precious, a compilation CD from 1992 released on Dino Entertainment, a label whose sole existence seemed to be around compiling and issuing CDs around one theme or another.

This particular compilation has the catalogue number of DINCD 38.  The earliest number listed on Discogs is DINCD 4, for Eighties Access, a 14-song compilation of big hits from household names ranging from ABC to Yazoo, while the last in the series seems to be DINCD139, for The Very Best Of Brass, a 3xCD effort with 64 tracks from what I am sure are household names among aficionados of that genre.

Precious has 20 songs squeezed across a single CD.  All 20 of the bands are listed on the front cover, and I’m sure just about all of them are familiar to you.

But surely I’m not alone in drawing a blank on this lot:-

mp3: Spaghetti Head – Glad

What now follows is a cut’n’paste from a now defunct blog called Left and To The Back, which was the work of 23 Daves between 2008 and 2024. The blog was described as “exploring the dark and dusty world of flop singles and albums, the kind you may find lingering near the stock room of your local second hand record store (if you still have one), or perhaps going for extortionate sums on ebay.”

It wasn’t a blog I was previously aware of, but flicking through its old content (the text is still there but the links to the mp3s are, understandably, all defunct), it makes for a great read.  In the November 2016 archives, you can find this:-

“If Stiltskin hit number one by being a Smashing Pumpkins tribute band for the benefit of a Levis advert, Spaghetti Head could perhaps be regarded as the era’s Miller Lite advert EMF clones. The beer’s advert during the early nineties – frustratingly unavailable on YouTube – had this single as its soundtrack, presumably created in order to persuade fans of bands who bashed their synthesisers around angrily to quaff light lager. Well, it was a huge youth market, after all (for about six months).

Glad undergoes a major lyrical transformation for this single, but otherwise the track sounds much as it did on the ad. It’s hyperactive, busy, slightly funky and frivolous. While all involved obviously anticipated a hit single, it’s also clear that nobody was taking this terribly seriously. Still, with its truly nagging catchiness it could actually have been a Jeans On for the nineties, but sales were clearly disappointing, and the track was most commonly encountered by listeners on the Indie compilation LP Precious – sequenced between Pale Saints and My Bloody Valentine, for some baffling reason.

The man behind the track is Tony Gibber, who appears to have had a long career in soundtracking films and television programmes, perhaps being most famous for the 2003 Top of the Pops theme Get Out Of That. Somebody with the name Tony Gibber also seems to have been associated with the production and arrangement of some Bucks Fizz singles in the eighties, and had two singles of his own out on WEA in 1979 and 1980. I can’t prove that it’s definitely the same person, so this speculation on my part would have Wikipedia’s “citation needed” alarms ringing, but it seems likely.

If it is, we can only assume he would have at least been in his thirties by the time this came out. Had it been a hit, he might have looked a bit “interesting” performing the song on Top Of The Pops with his baseball cap on backwards, so it’s a shame that appearance never came to pass.”

My huge thanks to 23Daves….and I really hope he doesn’t mind that I’ve lifted so liberally from his site.

 

JC

Super Furry Animals

SUPER FURRY SUNDAYS (aka The Singular Adventures of Super Furry Animals)

A guest series by The Robster

#13: Northern Lites (1999, Creation Records, CRE314)

One of the main tracks on the Super Furry Animals’ last release was a reggae track. On their return the following year, they stayed rooted in the Caribbean as they adopted a calypso sound for a song about the weather.

mp3: Northern Lites

Northern Lites was written by Gruff Rhys, and was particularly inspired by news coverage of El Niño throughout the previous year. The song’s title refers to the Aurora Borealis, which the band believed they had seen but, as no one else was present, they could not get confirmation that what they had witnessed was not simply a “Furry fantasy”. Gruff has said that the song is “about asking Jesus if he decides to seek his revenge on us, to get it over with as soon as possible and blow us away to the Northern Lights” but denied it as being about questioning one’s faith. “It’s just about the weather,” he would confirm.

While the embryo of Northern Lites had been written some years previously, the band’s inspiration of the weather phenomenon affecting Latin America, led to them playing along to a preset calypso rhythm track. The steel drums were added on the spur of the moment after seeing the instruments lying around Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios while recording the new album. Despite having no knowledge of how to play them, Cian gave them a go and created that distinctive Caribbean feel that runs through the final song.

The result is a track that was much loved and well received by the critics, gaining favourable comparisons to Burt Bacharach and the Beach Boys. It’s true, those backing vocals are wonderful. It became – and has remained – the highest charting single in SFA’s catalogue, reaching #11 in the UK in May 1999. It’s one of those that, while I may not immediately pick it out as a career highlight, each time I listen to it, I do find it kind ofirresistiblee. The rhythm, the tune, those harmonies, the steel drums, the blasts of Tijuanana brass – it all seems to meld perfectly together. Perhaps I really should rate it higher.

The 7” and cassette contained this as it’s flip side:

mp3: Rabid Dog

Not on a par with the A-side, obviously, but definitely something that made you realise how good this band was, that a track like Rabid Dog would be relegated to mere b-side status. It’s a bit of fun, with echoes of the band’s earliest sound alongside their trademark psychedelic tendencies. And there’s a bit about cuttlefish in there, which merely adds to it, I reckon…

The CD single format added a third track, which could also be found on a 12” promo in place of Rabid Dog:

mp3: This, That And The Other

This one is a 6-minute, laid-back, keyboard-led bit of psychedelic melancholy. Hazy, lazy, tripped-out summer vibes, which is completely instrumental for its first half, before Gruff’s vocal comes in, does its bit, and ends on a continuous loop of “are we dying” through the minute-long fade. Yes, b-side material of course, but more interesting than many bands’ a-sides throughout 1999 for sure!

Your bonus tracks over the next few weeks will be from the demos recorded for the third Super Furry Animals album ‘Guerrilla’. Today, you get the demo of Northern Lites – which as you can hear, wasn’t half the song it turned out to be – and a silly little solo Gruff thing that came to nothing, but has a certain charm.

mp3: Northern Lites [demo]
mp3: Vermillionaire [demo]

‘Guerrilla’ was released in June 1999 and was a very different SFA record in many ways. One of its very best songs would be issued as its next single…

The Robster

Dragsters

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #453: THE DRAGSTERS

From the blurb in the Big Gold Dreams box set, where, once again, today’s offering can be found.

mp3: The Dragsters – I’m Not An American (1987)

“The Dragsters formed in Greenock with a line-up of, ahem, Vince Van Yak on vocals, guitarists Roky Mountain and Lestat, bass player Fabian McDonald and drummer Marvyn Rammpp.  Their power-punk guitar pop was honed in live sets featuring covers of Boys by The Shirelles and Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones, and fitted perfectly in with an Edinburgh scene of DIY bands who had more line-up changes than a football team.  In keeping with this, The Dragsters’ first single, Albino, was co-produced by Shop Assistants guitarist David Keegan, with backing vocals provided by Margarita Vasquez Ponte of Jesse Garon and The Desperadoes/Fizzbombs fame.  For this third effort, Van Yak and Co. did it themselves, but they still sounded as if they’d been transplanted from a 1960’s cellar bar.”

JC

Tindersticks

THE CD SINGLE LUCKY DIP (22) : Tindersticks – Rented Rooms

I’ve drifted away from Tindersticks in recent years, but there was time, back in the 90s and first half of the 00s, when I devoured everything they recorded and released.   I took in loads of live shows, travelling down to London on a couple of occasions, including one particularly memorable summer night at Somerset House in June 2002 when, by coincidence, one of the Concorde planes was high above us as it made its descent into Heathrow Airport.

By this point in time, they had released more than twenty singles or EPs, without ever seriously looking as if they were chasing mainstream success.  I particularly liked that the release of each single was something for fans to look forward to, given they usually came with a mixture of previously unreleased songs, cover version and live tracks, with the latter so often capturing how songs were differently arranged/performed from year to year.

Back in 1997, two singles were lifted from the LP Curtains, the second of which was Rented Rooms. The surprise this time around, on CD1, was a big band version of the song –

mp3 : Tindersticks – Rented Rooms
mp3 : Tindersticks – Rented Rooms (swing version)
mp3 : Tindersticks – Make Believe

Make Believe was an otherwise unreleased song. It’s kind of Tindersticks unplugged, and I imagine this is how many of their songs were initially worked up in rehearsals to identify which of them should them then be developed further with strings etc.

CD2 was also worth getting a hold of thanks to the live recordings of three tracks lifted from what was a week’s residency at the ICA. London in November 1996.

mp3: Tindersticks – Cherry Blossoms (live)
mp3: Tindersticks – She’s Gone (live)
mp3: Tindersticks – Rumba (live)

The original versions of Cherry Blossoms and She’s Gone can be found on Tindersticks (II), released in 1995, while Rumba is an instrumental, originally recorded for the soundtrack to the 1996 film, Nénette et Boni.

Rented Rooms reached #56 in the UK charts in November 1997.  Given it would have got next to no radio airplay, it shows just how many of us diehard fans went out and handed over our hard-earned cash.

 

JC

Comsat Angels, Fad Gadget, Flesh For Lulu, Marc Riley, New Order, Nightingales, Serious Drinking

WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (May Pt 2)

For the second month in a row, there were plenty of songs that featured in the chart edition of this series just a couple of weeks back.  Last month, the list of 45s that weren’t commercial hits was quite small – just six in total.   Will things be any different with the look back at May 1984?

Spoiler alert.  Not much……

mp3 : The Comsat Angels – You Move Me

A song I haven’t thought about in over 40 years.  It’s not one that I’m all that fond of, but The Comsat Angels were a band that one of the student union regulars really liked and used to pester the DJs to play. Summarising things from wiki, they formed in 1979 and released six albums between then and 1986, later reforming, initially under different names and then finally calling it a day in 1995, before briefly re-forming in 2009-1o. You Move Me was their tenth single and would later be included on their fifth album, 7 Day Weekend, released in 1985.

mp3: Fad Gadget – One Man’s Meat

For anyone looking for background, I would ask you to have a look at ICA 231, lovingly compiled by The Affectionate Punch back in November 2019, but in summary, Fad Gadget was, initially, the stage name of the late Frank Tovey (8 September 1956 – 3 April 2002), one of the pioneers of electronica here in the UK. He wasn’t one who ever chased commercial success at any point in his career, but he was name checked by almost everyone who was anyone in the genre over the ensuing decades.  There were four studio albums and eleven singles released between 1979 and 1984 under the name of Fad Gadget, and One Man’s Meat was the last of the 45s.

mp3: Flesh For Lulu – Subterraneans

I’ve mentioned previously that 1984 was a bit of a stellar year for goth music.  Flesh For Lulu had formed in London in 1982, and not too long afterwards were signed by Polydor Records.  They were dropped after the debut album and early singles failed to chart, and they ended up on Beggars Banquet for much of the rest of the decade.  Despite a dedicated fan base and a few champions in the music press, they never enjoyed any commercial breakthrough, disbanding in the early 90s.

mp3: New Order – Murder

A 12″ single on import featuring a previously unreleased song and an instrumental take on hit single Thieves Like Us?  Why, thank you Factory Records, as us obsessives will buy everything to which New Order attach their name (well, at least back in 1984 we did).   This one came out on Factory Benelux.  It’s four minutes of relentless noise in which Stephen Morris really gives the drums a hammering.  Not easy, nay, make that impossible to dance to!

mp3: The Nightingales – The Crunch

Hands up and confession time.  It would be well into the 21st century before I got my hands on a copy of The Crunch, a 12″ EP released in May 1984 by The Nightingales, a band that has been described by one critic as ‘the misfits’ misfits’.  My knowledge of the band was sketchy until watching the excellent documentary King Rocker, which was aired on Sky Arts back in 2021.  There’s a real reminder of the Josef K singles in the way the guitars are played on this one.

mp3: Marc Riley & The Creepers – Pollystiffs

As mentioned a few months ago as part of this series, Marc Riley having been sacked from The Fall in 1982, formed his own band and began writing and recording. This was their fifth single in what had been a productive twelve months, and would be followed shortly afterwards by the debut album, Gross Out. Another one that I can’t recall hearing back in the day…..the days/nights of listening obsessively to John Peel had been replaced by going out and/or spending time with a new girlfriend.

mp3: Serious Drinking – Country Girl Becomes Drugs and Sex Punk

Candidate for one of the best song titles of all time from a post-punk band, with a penchant for humorous lyrics and much loved by John Peel.  Serious Drinking emerged from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, and two delivered two well-received albums in 1983 and 1984.  They kind of set a template for I Ludicrous and to a lesser extent, Half Man Half Biscuit, and this song was memorably featured in Dirk’s on-going series just a few weeks ago.

Having looked ahead to June 1984, I can promise a much larger set of tunes next time out.

 

JC

Specials

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #094

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 094: The Specials – ‘Nite Klub’ (Chrysalis Records ’79)

Good morning friends,

well, there was no way whatsoever in being able not to include The Specials in this series, was it? As far as I’m concerned it is of course debatable whether I chose the right song or not, but the main thing is that the band features – simply because they are ace – all of the time!

Now, ‘Nite Klub’ it is. And not ‘Ghost Town’, but there you are. Of course the importance of the latter is clear to me re deindustrialisation, urban decay, violence, but I reckon everybody is fully aware of the role The Specials played in the late 70’s – being a black and white Ska revival combo praying love and happiness in the heydays of punk and National Front probably wasn’t the easiest thing one could have gone for! And ‘Ghost Town’ was not the only song which showed what they stood for, there are many others which make this more than clear!

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: there is a small chance that only one single person reads this nonsense who is too young – or too busy with Ed Sheeran – to know anything about Two Tone and The Specials in particular, so, should you be wondering what the heck I’m talking about: please delve deeper, it surely is worth five minutes of your life, promised: ‘Nite Klub’ is as good a start as any other song on The Specials’ debut album!

Opening up with the sounds of clinking glasses, muffled conversations and some Jamaican patois which is so non-understandable that it still drives me nuts whenever I hear it some 46 years later, it also features Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders on backing vocals, which surely brings bonus points, at least in my little world.

mp3: The Specials – Nite Klub

‘Nite Klub’ has always been a firm live favorite, if you watch videos of gigs of the time (‘Dance Craze’ is highly recommendable in fact) you’ll see the band clicking on all cylinders, giving us bursts of energy … all of this with a bassline which is beyond this world, although you could tell the same about the horn section (something which becomes even more evident in the live part of the deluxe version of the first album).

Briefly coming back to ‘Ghost Town’ again: people love to interpret things into a song, but this does not always make sense, I always thought: the more sophisticated amongst you could ask for example whether ‘Nite Klub’ follows the lineage of Caribbean music with sociopolitical commentary in confronting the opulence and disparity of British nightlife during times of an economic standstill and continuing unemployment.

Then again you could not do this and simply take the tune like I always did – a tale about myself, with a bottom line I can fully relate to (because I did not do pretty much else when I was younger): pissing down your hard-earned cash on overpriced booze, surrounded by beautiful girls who would not care about you at all – sometimes things are exactly that simple, they are not more, but also they are not less!

Enjoy,

Dirk

 

 

Fall

ON THIS DAY : THE FALL’S PEEL SESSIONS #11

A series for 2025 in which this blog will dedicate a day to each of the twenty-four of the sessions The Fall recorded for the John Peel Show between 1978 and 2004.

Session #11 was broadcast on this day, 19 May 1987, having been recorded on 25 April 1987.

This really is one of the best sessions, from the LP-less year of 1987, which found the group turning in some of their best live performances. ‘Australians In Europe’ offers an opportunity to revisit an overlooked stage favourite of the era. Those with a lifelong distaste for all things rockist may want to switch off the track after two and a half minutes where the synth flourishes – buried in Simon Rogers mix on the ‘Hit The North’ B-side – are given full reign.  No, really. In sharp contrast, ‘Twister’, from the following year’s ‘The Frenz Experiment’, is a sharp return to full-on Fall muddybilly.  ‘Guest Informant’, possibly the greatest Fall song from the post ‘Bend Sinister’-era is here in one of its best readings, featuring one of Smith’s greatest couplets: “in the burning scorch, of another Sunday half-over, hotel backgarden resembled a 1973 Genesis album cover” sees Smith truly ‘Selling England By The Pound’. All men (and let’s face it, it is men) of a certain age felt a certain glow.  The building-block baroque of ‘Athlete Cured’ closed this astonishing session.

DARYL EASLEA, 2005

mp3: The Fall – Athlete Cured (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Australians In Europe (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Twister (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Guest Informant (Peel Session)

Produced details unknown

Mark E Smith – vocals; Brix Smith – guitar; Craig Scanlon – guitar; Steve Hanley – bass; Simon Rogers – guitar, keyboards; Simon Wolstencroft – drums;

JC

Super Furry Animals

SUPER FURRY SUNDAYS (aka The Singular Adventures of Super Furry Animals)

A guest series by The Robster

#12: Ice Hockey Hair (1998, Creation Records, CRE288)

Brace yourselves – this is a biggie.

How could Super Furry Animals follow up two incredible years, during which they went from almost unknowns to critics’ darlings and Premier League Britpoppers spearheading the Cool Cymru scene? Well although 1998 was to be a relatively quiet year for the band, they did happen to put out of the best singles of the decade. Don’t just take my word for it:

“brilliant, predictably freakish weirdness” – Melody Maker
“[demonstrate’s SFA’s] placid casual grasp of the concept of genius” – Vox
“Single Of The Week” – NME
“could be the most perfect thing you’ll ever set ears upon” – Drowned In Sound

mp3: Ice Hockey Hair
mp3: Smokin’

The Ice Hockey Hair EP simply put any remaining doubters firmly in their place and nailed their feet to the floor. There are those who might still argue this was Super Furry Animals at their absolute peak and they never reached such heights again. I’d argue against that, but I can see where they’re coming from. The two lead tracks sound nothing alike, yet neither could be anyone other than Super Furry Animals.

The title track is utter madness. Imagine throwing Badfinger, Queen, ELO, Elton John, techno music and a huge barrel of LSD into a mixing pot to see/hear what happens. The answer, my friends, might sound a bit like Ice Hockey Hair. It’s 7 minutes of 70s-infused wonder, never knowing exactly where it’s going to take you next. It totally threw me the first time I heard it, but after a couple more plays I was devoted to it. To this day, it sounds like nothing else ever recorded.

Smokin’ takes us to a completely different place. It is rooted in dub reggae and samples the flute part of Black Uhuru’s I Love King Selassie. In fact the song was created by jamming along to that sample on loop. There’s no cryptic message to this one – it’s about smoking marajuana, pure and simple. It’s another example of a band who had so many strings to their bows, they could never decide which string to twang next.

The two songs which led the EP were felt to be a good fit for a stand-alone single as the band knew they didn’t belong on ‘Radiator’ while also feeling the direction they were heading towards for the next album wasn’t suitable either. They were both issued on 7” and cassette on 25th May 1998. Also released on that date were CD and 12” formats that contained two additonal songs.

mp3: Mu-Tron
mp3: Let’s Quit Smoking

Mu-Tron is a Cian Ciaran-penned instrumental (though there are some vocal sounds), named after the company who made music effects equipment in the 1970s. Let’s Quit Smoking is a short acoustic remix of Smokin’.

Ice Hockey Hair became the band’s highest charting single at the time, reaching #12 in the UK rundown, which is still ridiculously low considering Oasis were still having number ones with their tired, bloated dad-rock. SFA were taking pop music to another level, but the record buying public wanted their music to stay in the gutter.

Now – I said at the start this would be a biggie. I wasn’t joking – I haven’t finished yet. You see, while in the process of putting this post together and looking for a bonus track, I realised that I had enough versions of the songs from this EP to actually compile another EP altogether. So, a bonus EP this week – how does that sound?

mp3: Ice Hockey Hair [radio edit]

You might call this sacrilege, but at the end of the day, radio would never play the full version of the title track, so surely you’d prefer a 4-minute version over nothing at all? Besides, it’s actually not that bad. All the key elements are there, though there is a bit of a harsh edit at around the 2½ minute mark (where the dreamy Beach Boys-y bit should be) that jars a little. This version was issued on some CD promos.

mp3: Smokin’ [edit]

I don’t actually know where this edit comes from. I can’t find any reference of it, but here it is anyway. To be fair, the only thing that spoils Smokin’ for me is its length. It does go on a bit in its repeated “I just wanna smoke it” section, so this version actually puts that right for me.

mp3: Smoke
mp3: Dim Ysmygu (trans: No Smoking)

Two remixes of Smokin’. The latter starts off as a dub version, but quickly turns into a drum ‘n’ bass monster with an electric violin in it! I think someone let Cian run riot in the studio…

mp3: Naff Gan

Believe it or not, Ice Hockey Hair was demoed for ‘Radiator’, and this is it. It was called Naff Gan at the time as the band thought it had so many cheesy (naff) bits in it. It’s quite different to the final version, with different lyrics and melody, but the main guitar riff is already in place.

mp3: Smokin’ [Dave Clarke mix]

Not sure if this is an early take or a remix, but it doesn’t sound like the fully-fledged EP version, and even has some alternative lyrics. It was also first issued in 1997 on some magazine free CD, which hints that it was still a work-in-progress at the time.

And to finish off, if a bonus EP isn’t enough for you, then you‘re just spoilt and greedy. Nevertheless, I’m going to toss this one into the mixer as well – the song that was sampled and became the basis for Smokin’:

mp3: I Love King Selassie – Black Uhuru

Don’t ever accuse me of not being a generous old fool. Next week, we reach third album territory, and yet another new sound for the Furries.

 

The Robster

Domiciles

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #452: DOMICILES

From an on-line bio:-

“Domiciles are a five-piece psychedelic collective from Fife, Scotland. Based around the joint songwriting partnership of Nickolas Young & Rory Cowieson, the band from a myriad of different influences; hints of throbbing krautrock & dreamy shoegaze permeate their music, whilst also touching on sneering garage, blissed-out space rock & experimental noise. Dark & heavy psychedelic grooves are built with jarring guitar leads, droning feedback & sharp synthesisers; the result is an arsenal of broad & multi-dimensional compositions, reflective of the band’s diverse list of influences. The intense live show forces the listener to confront sound in its intended form – pure & unlimited.

In 2018, the band was added to the already impressive artist roster of Glasgow-based record label Last Night From Glasgow. The band is currently in the midst of recording their debut album, which will receive a physical release on 12″ vinyl in August 2019.”

I’ve a copy of that debut album, This Is Not A Zen Garden, courtesy of my long-standing LNFG membership.  It’s not really my bag, so it’s not been played more than a couple of times.  But don’t let my opinion put you off.

mp3: Domiciles – Six Degrees of Separation

There doesn’t appear to have been anything from the band after the release of the debut album. Perhaps the forced inactivity during the lockdown period arising from COVID brought things to an end.

 

JC

 

Book Reviews

BOOK OF THE MONTH : MAY 2025 : ‘THIS SEARING LIGHT, THE SUN AND EVERYTHING ELSE’ by JON SAVAGE

This isn’t a review of a new book.  Indeed, it isn’t even a new review of an old book. I stumbled across it when I was piecing together the list of ICAs, and was very pleasantly surprised at how positive the reactions were via the comments section.  It was posted on 13 January 2020, and it is appearing again today five years on, in a slightly edited form, to mark the upcoming 45th anniversary of the suicide of Ian Curtis.

———————–

The vast majority of the substantial collection of my books taking up space in Villain Towers are music and sports related, consisting in the main of biographies in some shape or form. Among these are something in the region of 20 25 books related to Factory Records/Joy Division/New Order/The Hacienda, with the latest two additions coming via Christmas presents, one of which was the wonderfully entertaining first volume of autobiography by Stephen Morris, whose often self-deprecating effort far surpasses those of his bandmates Hooky and Barney, as much for the fact that he doesn’t use the book to rant about old grievances – but given that Record Play Pause only goes up to the formation of New Order, it may well be that a further and much anticipated volume will go down that path (which of course proved to be the case when Fast Forward was brought out in late 2020)

The other new book for Xmas 2019 was This Searing Light, The Sun and Everything Else: Joy Division – The Oral History, whose author is Jon Savage.

The book was published in April 2019 and received great reviews, but I refrained from buying it at the time as I thought it would be more or less a cut’n’paste effort consisting of a re-hash of the tales told elsewhere in books by so other authors over the years. It was only when I re-read the author’s review of  Unknown Pleasures review which appeared in Melody Maker back in 1979  did I realise that he was someone who really did get to the heart and soul of the band and was probably the most qualified to undertake the task and do it properly.

This Searing Light…. duly arrived on 25 December and I began to read it that evening, on the basis that it would be an easy enough book to dip in and out of while also turning my attention to some of the other books that had ended up under the tree. I spent hours engrossed in its contents and ended up not going to bed until some ungodly hour, which set the tone for a stupid sleep pattern right through until my return to work on 6 January. As soon as I woke up, my nose was back in between its wonderful looking hardback cover and plans to watch or do other things were put on hold as what I was devouring and enjoying immensely was the definitive story of Joy Division that hasn’t been bettered.

For the most part, there was very little I didn’t already know – but the new snippets of information were invaluable and, in one particular case, a real game-changer in terms of how I’ve always thought about things over the past almost 40 years since Ian Curtis took his life. The author lets others do the talking, and offers a mixture of new interviews with those still living as well as dipping into archives to enable the voices of people such as Tony Wilson, Martin Hannett and Rob Gretton to be heard. It’s very clear that the questions Jon Savage has posed to everyone while carrying out the work involved to piece the book together were far from run-of-the-mill, and there’s a sense that everyone responding has been able to be wholly open and transparent about things, secure that what they say will be written down and then put in print, even if it those words are at odds with one of the other contributors or indeed are different from what has been said by them before.

One of the most fascinating things about this book is that it gives much more space to Peter Saville and Annik Honore than any previous publications, enabling them to fill in some gaps and to also offer up a sense of what really went on when so many others, over the years, have mythologised many of the events and happenings.

There’s also some incredibly reflective words throughout from the late Tony Wilson, many of which feel as if they were provided in what must have been one of the last of the detailed interviews he gave before his death. It is entirely fitting that the book is dedicated to Wilson, a lifelong hero of mine. My memory of the one time we met and spoke briefly for all of 45 seconds will never leave me. It’s also worth mentioning that the book’s seemingly strange title is taken directly from one of the quotes he provided to the author.

This Searing Light…. also benefits from being exactly what it says on the cover. There’s just a few reflections into the early lives and upbringings of everyone in the band and it comes to a halt just after Ian Curtis’s funeral, with no mention of what was still to come for Factory or the emergence of New Order. It is the story of a band whose fans at the time could never ever have imagined the impact they would make or the legacy they would provide, so much so that more than 40 years on, there is still much to be fascinated by.

One thing it did remind me of was just how young and largely inexperienced the other band members were at the time. The infamous Stiff/Chiswick challenge took place on 14 April 1978….all four members were 20-22 years old. They had yet to have Gretton, Wilson or Hannett come into their lives to help shape things. Just two years and one month later, it was all over.

So much transpired between April 78 and May 80 that even now it feels overwhelming, so it must have been nigh on impossible to deal with first-hand.

The book also provides a stark reminder that Joy Division, being on a largely unheralded and small label in Manchester, didn’t ever really find too much fame, beyond the pages of the music papers, until they were no more. The biggest shows they ever played was as the support act on a UK tour by Buzzcocks and nobody was getting rich from any of it, with life seeming to be not far off a hand-to-mouth existence for the most part. There was little glamour and a lot of hard slogging.

The onset of the singer’s epilepsy does seem to have been beyond the belief and understanding of all concerned – including the university-educated Wilson – and it wasn’t helped by the fact that the treatment on offer from the medical professions seems to have been haphazard and involved a lot of guesswork – it certainly got me re-assessing my own long-held views that if the others around him had been more understanding or proactive back in the day, then the suicide could have been prevented.

mp3 : Joy Division – The Eternal

 

 

JC

Soft Cell

THE LP LUCKY DIP (1) : SOFT CELL : *HAPPINESS NOT INCLUDED (2022)

The idea being to look at albums not really given much mention, if any at all, on the blog.

*Happiness Not Included was the first new Soft Cell album in twenty years.  It was one I was really looking forward to, given the magnificence of the live show in Glasgow some six months earlier.  The gig had been to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, but a number of new songs, destined for what was then a forthcoming album, were also aired.

I had come away from the gig with the thought that the new songs hadn’t sounded out of place among the older material, which meant my expectations here high.  The first advance digital single, released in November 2012, and particularly the accompanying PR blurb did nothing to diminish such expectations, with Marc explaining:-

“‘Bruises On My Illusions’ is a mini film noir Soft Cell story about a disillusioned character with everything against him or her who still has hope for a better future, despite the odds. A darker ‘Bedsitter’. Dave’s ominous yet punchy defiant chords inspired the song.”

And yup, it proved to be a later-era classic.

mp3: Soft Cell – Bruises On My Illusion

OK….it was quite different sounding from the 1980s material, but then again production techniques and values had changed greatly, plus the fact that Marc Almond and David Ball were now writing music from the perspective of men in their 60s whose hedonistic days were almost but a bunch of fading memories.

Fast-forward to March 2022.  And the next new song, came with a video.

There were plenty of fans who had long wondered what a Soft Cell/Pet Shop Boys collaboration would sound like, and now we were finding out.  Absolutely fabulous.

And so, finally in May 2022, the album arrived.  Mine was the yellow vinyl version.

First impression was that the live takes from six months earlier had seemed more energetic and buoyant.  It also seemed strange and kind of disappointing that the version of Purple Zone was slower and less clubby than the version that had been issued as a single. It all led to a feeling that the comeback album was something of a disappointment.

A few weeks later, I returned to the *Happiness Not Included.  And, to my delight, this time it clicked – helped in particular by the closing track on Side 1

mp3: Soft Cell – Light Sleepers

An ode to growing old gracefully but defiantly at the same time, with a wonderfully gentle contribution on sax from their old pal Gary Barnacle.

Listening to and appreciating the sentiments of Light Sleepers acted as a release valve.  My mistake had been listening to the Soft Cell songs of 2022 and immediately comparing them to their songs of the 80s – a stupid thing to do, as life was totally different back then and their music then had a certain purpose that was no longer applicable to how I went about my every day business.  I hate the idea of scoring albums, but this is one that I would have no qualms about awarding it a solid 7/10.  There’s a couple of tunes I could do without, but I’m more than willing to listen again and again to I’m Not A Friend Of God, their ode to atheism which certainly resounds here in Villain Towers (and apologies to those who have faith – I respect those who have and will not argue about it, but it’s not for me), while there’s the occasional tune that would make for a great wee dance down the electro club if such venues still exist:-

mp3: Soft Cell – Nostalgia Machine

But I’ll leave what I think is the highlight of the album to the end, and it comes courtesy of its closing track.

mp3: Soft Cell – New Eden

It’s Soft Cell, but not as we best know them or expect from them.  A song I imagine Marc and David couldn’t really have written back in the day, but then again, with age comes wisdom.

 

JC

 

Echo & The Bunnymen

THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (23): Echo and The Bunnymen – Never Stop

Another repeat posting from way back in time, once again on the basis that I can’t better what was written before.  This is from October 2013, when the then 50-year old me was thinking back to an era when I was slimmer, more energetic and had a fine head of hair.  Oh, and a half-decent fashion sense.  It was give the title of LAY DOWN THY RAINCOAT AND GROOOOOOVE…

Back in the early 80s, I spent almost every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night within the student union at Strathclyde University, I wasn’t a fashionista – I probably had about ten different shirts to choose from (five of which were black) and maybe three pair of jeans (two of which were black). But no matter what clothes were nearest to my skin, I never went anywhere without my fabulous olive-coloured raincoat that I’d persuaded my dad to give me….

The raincoat was in homage to Ian McCulloch who I thought was one of the coolest men on the planet. He, along with his bandmates, always seemed to be photographed wearing some sort of coat, although thinking back that’s probably more to do with them insisting their photoshoots take place in the likes of Iceland.

Without fail the student union ‘disco’ would feature at least one Echo & The Bunnymen song during the course of the evening and without fail it was cue for me to get up on the dancefloor and do my thing. Sad poseur that I was, I inevitably tried to dance while wearing my raincoat. It might have been draped over a chair or wrapped under a nearby table, but the second a Bunnymen track began to blast out, I’d race to where the coat was and put it on. I now accept that I must had looked like a dickhead…..

Then in 1983 I saw the video to the new Bunnymen single, and wouldn’t you know it, Mac was on the stage of the Albert Hall doing his thing – but without a coat. From that moment on, the raincoat never again was seen on the dancefloor….

All of this came back to me the other day when the single from 1983 came on via shuffle as I sat on a train heading to the football. I smiled at the memories. It was also a sharp reminder that it’s a belter of a track:-

mp3 : Echo & The Bunnymen – Never Stop (Discotheque)

That’s the 12″ version which I bought on vinyl at the time and still have all these years later. The b-sides were a different version of a track that had featured on the 1982 LP Porcupine as well as what I assume is an early demo-type version of what would later become a hit single:-

mp3 : Echo & The Bunnymen – Heads Will Roll (Summer Version)
mp3 : Echo & The Bunnymen – The Original Cutter

I’m very fond of Heads Will Roll, so I thought I’d also add the LP version to this posting.

mp3 : Echo & The Bunnymen – Heads Will Roll

Admit it. It does make you want to dance.

JC

Smoking Popes

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #093

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 093: Smoking Popes – ‘Need You Around’ (Parlophone Records ’96)

Dear friends,

again, as it happened quite often within this series, there isn’t pretty much I can tell you about today’s band. I must confess that below single is the only thing I know by them – but what a single it is, to be sure!

As far as I’m concerned, it perfectly captures what made the Popes so unique: loud punk-pop guitars (no uniqueness so far, but bear with me), but fronted by laid-back lounge vocals and lyrics with a touch of romance from former times … it is very hard to describe, and probably I am not capable to do it even halfway properly. So I can only urge you to listen to the tune, you’ll really miss something if you don’t, promised! Personally, I don’t know one single band who would be comparable to this special way of making songs.

Let’s keep it sweet and simple today, first it doesn’t have to be a long essay every week and second: basically there isn’t much more which I know about the band … apart from the fact that the vocal style derived from the singer’s (Josh Caterer) obsession with big-band records and black-and-white movies. They formed in Chicago in ’91, called it a day in ’98 but reformed later, as far as I can tell … probably they are even together today, who knows?

This is from their second album – as I said, this song is a bloody masterpiece

mp3: Smoking Popes – Need You Around

Enjoy,

Dirk

PS: aren’t you utterly astonished by this most perfect just-in-time performance of mine? Because by the time you read this, you all will be shouting out ‘habeus papam!’ at the top of your lungs … but whether this new pope smokes or indeed how many of his precursors did, will remain one of the many Vatican’s well hidden secrets!