Month: December 2025

Micky Dolenz

THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (31): Micky Dolenz – Dolenz Sings R.E.M.

This EP was released in November 2023, and so I reckon just about enough time has passed to allow me to post the songs without feeling guilty.

The PR blurb:-

7A Records are proud to announce the release of Micky Dolenz Sings R.E.M., a 4 track EP released on November 3rd. The EP is comprised of songs R.E.M. wrote throughout their career, all beautifully reimagined by Dolenz and producer Christian Nesmith .The EP features fresh and completely new arrangements of some of R.E.M.’s most memorable and catchy songs. As Dolenz says: “Once again, this EP reaffirms my long-held conviction that a solid recording always begins with solid material. You don’t get much more solid than R.E.M. What a joy to sing these classics and honor a team of outstanding writers.

Christian Nesmith, who also plays all the music (except drums) on the EP is the 60-year-old son of the late Michael Nesmith, best known as the guitarist with The Monkees, while Micky Dolenz, who will turn 81 next March was the drummer in The Monkees and is the band’s last surviving member.

This EP, on the face of it, shouldn’t work.  But it does, partly because the songs themselves are so timeless, but also because they almost sound as if they have been written to suit Dolenz’s voice.    I’m not going to make any extravagant claims about them being better, or even equal, to the originals, but they are worth a listen.

mp3: Mickey Dolenz – Shiny Happy People
mp3: Mickey Dolenz – Radio Free Europe
mp3: Mickey Dolenz – Man On The Moon
mp3: Mickey Dolenz – Leaving New York

Members of R.E.M. were more than happy to express their delight with the EP:-

‘These songs are ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. Micky Dolenz covering R.E.M. Monkees style, I have died and gone to heaven. This is really something. Shiny Happy People sounds INCREDIBLE (never thought you or I would hear me say that!!!). Give it a spin. It’s wild. And produced by Christian Nesmith (son of Michael Nesmith), I am finally complete’ – Michael Stipe

‘That voice—one of the main voices of my musical awakening—singing our songs… It is beyond awesome. Let’s help make this as huge as we possibly can. I am beyond thrilled.” – Mike Mills

‘I’ve been listening to Micky’s singing since I was nine years old. It’s unreal to hear that very voice, adding new depth to songs we’ve written ourselves, and inhabiting them so completely.” – Peter Buck

 

JC

Fall

ON THIS DAY : THE FALL’S PEEL SESSIONS #18

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 #18 was broadcast on this day, 17 December 1994; the recording date had been 20 November 1994.

The eighteenth session from December 1994 found the group in full, festive mood and marked the return of two old stalwarts; Karl Burns (last heard on Session nine in 1985) and, remarkably, Brix Smith (last heard on Session 12 in 1988). However, it was to be Craig Scanlon’s last appearance with the group.  ‘Cerebral Caustic’ standout ‘Felling Numb’ (or ‘Numb At The Lodge’ as it was then known) steals the show, with its anaesthetised talk of ‘post-festivities’.  The Christmas theme is writ even larger with ‘Hark The Herald Angels Sing’, ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ and a revisit of ‘Glam Racket’, which became a favourite in the rejoined Brix era.

DARYL EASLEA, 2005

mp3: The Fall – Glam Racket – Star (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Jingle Bell Rock (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Hark The Herald Angels Sing (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Numb At The Lodge (Peel Session)

Produced details unknown

Mark E Smith – vocals; Brix Smith – guitar, vocals; Craig Scanlon – guitar; Steve Hanley – bass; Dave Bush – keyboards; Simon Wolstencroft – drums; Karl Burns – drums

JC

Flag Of Convenience, Sonic Youth & Lydia Lunch, Talking Heads

WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (December Pt 2)

Turning again to the big red book to see if anything half-decent was released in December 1984.

Last month’s edition of this series opened up with a solo single from Pete Shelley.  As for this month….

mp3: Flag of Convenience – Change

The group had formed in 1982, with Steve Diggle and John Maher of Buzzcocks very much to the fore.  There had been a debut single, Life On The Telephone in September 1982, but it took more than two years before a follow-up was recorded.   This proved to be Maher’s last involvement with Flags of Convenience, with the group then going through a series of further personnel changes through their eventual break-up in 1989.

mp3: Talking Heads – Girlfriend Is Better (live)

The film, Stop Making Sense, and the live album of the same name had been released to huge critical acclaim in October 1984, but I hadn’t realised until browsing through the big red book that a single had been lifted and released at the beginning of December.  It failed to chart, and with it selling in such small numbers, now attracts a wee bit more on the second-hand market than many other Talking Heads 45s.

mp3: Sonic Youth & Lydia Lunch – Death Valley ’69

I wouldn’t normally include an American-only release in this series, but given there’s so little to highlight from this particular month…..

This came out on 12″ on the Los Angeles indie-label Iridescence Records. It proved to be the demo version of a track that was later re-recorded for inclusion on the 1985 album, Bad Moon Rising.

And that’s it…….most indie labels kept their powder dry until the early months of 1985.  But that’s not a year I intend to devote any sort of lengthy series to.

 

JC

Undertones

FOUR TRACK MIND : A RANDOM SERIES OF EXTENDED PLAY SINGLES

A guest series by Fraser Pettigrew (aka our New Zealand correspondent)

#11: Teenage Kicks – The Undertones (1978)

Some records, like other iconic cultural artefacts, become so famous that they defy objective analysis and enter an indefinable zone of existence divorced from history and context. They become Mona Lisas, Beethoven’s Fifths, Venuses de Milo. They are talked about so much for so long that they seem impossible to discuss without retreading paths worn into deep ruts through constant repetition.

Thus, with Teenage Kicks, as with Spiral Scratch, I find myself boldly going where literally thousands have gone before me. One cannot proceed without mention of John Peel and his epitaph, nor can one even think the words “teenage kicks” without hearing those three chords, eternally descending and ascending and inverting.

And yet, simply by undertaking this hopeless task as part of a series on EPs, it occurred to me that the thing Teenage Kicks is least famous for is being but one of four songs on The Undertones’ first release. The iconic one has taken on a life of its own, floating magically alone in the ether of consciousness, while True Confessions, Smarter Than U and Emergency Cases languish in semi-darkness, like the other two Walker Brothers, Thingmy and Whatsisname.

True Confessions at least made it onto The Undertones’ first LP. It’s such an infectious number that you wonder whether Terri Hooley ever got to play it to any of the record execs in London when he went hawking Teenage Kicks to the big labels, or if they threw him out straight after telling him the lead song was the worst thing they’d ever heard. Surely if they’d heard True Confessions as well, they might have changed their tune?

The other two songs are none too shabby either. They give due warning of the seemingly inexhaustible production line of catchy tunes that John O’Neill would deliver over the next half-decade, ably supplemented by brother Damien, and band members Michael Bradley and Billy Doherty. Altogether the disc is a perfect little sampler of what was to come, and if the title track hadn’t taken off as it did, the disc would surely now be remembered much more as a classic EP of the era.

John O’Neill, of course, has always been modest to the point of disparaging about Teenage Kicks as a song. He felt it was a bit derivative and not particularly clever, just the product of following a similar route to The Ramones in turning old 60s Spector and surf style into 70s punk-powered pop. Sometimes it’s the simple things that work best, however, a sentiment that John Peel evidently agreed with.

You could point out that the other songs are hardly of symphonic sophistication. O’Neill’s diffidence towards his own work was partly down to the lyrics, provoking a slight embarrassment at the clichéd theme of Teenage Kicks. Brother Damien poked fun at it with his deliciously titled More Songs About Chocolate and Girls that opens second album Hypnotised, but John almost defensively has called that song “a bit twee”.

Clichéd is not a word you’d use of the other songs. The lyrics are quirky, sometimes cryptic, witty, but don’t labour a point beyond hanging on any hook provided by the music. “Each song makes its point and then ceases,” said Paul Morley in praise of the first album, a critic not notably averse to complicated things. All the tracks on the debut EP are of Morley-approved brevity, three of them qualifying for this blog’s Songs Under Two Minutes series (though only True Confessions has featured thus far). Teenage Kicks makes it 28 seconds into the third minute, probably only on account of the slower tempo.

In his memoir Teenage Kicks: My Life as an Undertone, bassist Michael Bradley revealed that Emergency Cases was basically the Rolling Stones’ Parachute Woman (from Beggar’s Banquet) played at hypersonic speed (perhaps the parachute failed to open). The band played the original as a blistering cover version before John O’Neill decided to make his own song out of it. “When we decided to upgrade it,” says Bradley, “John sped up the riff beyond recognition. That’s our defence if the ghost of Allen Klein ever sues.” All in the finest tradition of blues robbery, as practiced by many, including The Rolling Stones.

Peel’s patronage was undeniably crucial in the take-off trajectory of The Undertones, landing them the deal with Sire that brought the EP (also in two-track single format) to an audience that Hooley’s Good Vibrations label could never have reached. But judgement in the court of public opinion is just as important. Peel championed The Fall with comparable dedication, but the masses never took to them in quite the same way, for obvious reasons. (Their highest charting single came after ten years of effort and peaked one place higher than Teenage Kicks at 30, and that was with a Holland-Dozier-Holland cover!) The Undertones delighted a wide range of fans with their much more accessible charms, and if they had never committed another thing to record, this quartet of gems would surely have secured a corner of music history for them.

My copy of Teenage Kicks is the Sire release, bought in late 1978. It’s not clear exactly how many copies were ever pressed on the Good Vibrations label, but it can’t have been many, and there was barely one month between its initial release and its appearance on Sire in October 1978.

Teenage Kicks

Smarter Than U

True Confessions

Emergency Cases

 

 

Fraser

#edwyncollins45s

THE TESTIMONIAL TOUR OF 45s (aka The Singular Adventures of Edwyn Collins)

#12: What Presence?! : Orange Juice (Polydor, OJ6, 1984)

The one thing that has really hit me in pulling the first part of this series together is just how hard Edwyn Collins was working back in the early-mid 80s.

The Texas Fever mini-album had come out on in March 1984, recorded by a line-up that was no more.  Less than two months later, a new single was released, with the personnel consisting of Edwyn, Zeke Manyika, and a guest bass player in Claire Kenny, who was part of the reggae/ska band, Amazulu.

mp3: Orange Juice – What Presence?!

A personal favourite of mine – far removed from the sound of the Postcard era, but which felt totally different to what anyone else was doing in 1984.  It also seemed that Edwyn, at long last, had found a sound to best suit his voice, one in which louder guitars were to the fore and the solos were more than just the two-finger style that had been his calling card for much of his career – maybe the time spent hanging around with Malcolm Ross had seen things rub off on him in a very positive way.  The studio wizardry on the single was deftly handled by Phil Thornally, who at the time was producing The Cure as well as being part of their touring band.

Lyrically, Edwyn was going down a different road again, confident enough in his own abilities to share his wordsmith skills with the listening public, as the postcard which came with the 7″ copy of the single was able to demonstrate:-

There was some airplay, but most radio stations simply wanted a retread of Rip It Up and not this new, harder edged version of the band, and criminally, What Prescence?! only reached #47 in what was a four-week stay in the singles chart.

The b-side dated from the Texas Fever sessions, but this particular take saw Dennis Bovell bring his particular talents to the party:-

mp3: Orange Juice – A Place In My Heart (dub version)

There was also a 12″ release, on which there was an extended version of the A-side:-

mp3: Orange Juice – What Presence?! (extended version)

The thing is, it is only some eight seconds longer than the 7″, but the mix has a significant difference in that the section with the harmonica on the standard version which comes in around the 2:10 mark is replaced an extended guitar solo…and that’s precisely what accounts for the extra eight seconds!

The 12″ extra track is this:-

mp3: Orange Juice – What Presence?! (BBC session)

As recorded for the David Jensen show on 22 February 1984.  The producer was John Porter who, just two days previously, would have enjoyed the fact that an album he had worked on the previous year had finally reached the shops and had been well received in most of the music press…and that being the eponymous debut by The Smiths.

There is one final Orange Juice single left to cover, and as I’m not closing the blog down over this upcoming Festive period, it’ll be posted next Sunday.

 

JC

Happy Spendy

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #483: HAPPY SPENDY

My one song by Happy Spendy comes courtesy of its inclusion on the Indietracks Festival compilation of 2018:-

mp3 : Happy Spendy – Flex

Here’s info from the Lost Map Records website:-

“Lost Map Records are excited to welcome Glasgow based synth-pop purveyors of feelgood sad songs Happy Spendy to the label roster, with the release of their brand-new compilation album You’re Doing Okay on 12” vinyl and via digital services on June 5, 2020. Gathering together all three of Happy Spendy’s EPs released between 2017-2020 in one place for the first time, it’s a collection of songs which act almost like a diary for singer and songwriter Eimear Coyle, marking milestones in grief and falling in love. Not to mention a comprehensive survey of everything that has made Happy Spendy one of Scotland’s most instantly loveable new bands of recent years.

Eimear started Happy Spendy to help her work through some tough times, and brought it to life with Glasgow friends Kieran Coyle, Rosie Pearse, Siobhain Ma and Connell King. Eimear and her drummer/producer brother Kieran had previously played together in indie-pop band Wonder Villains, the soundtrack to their teenage years growing up in Derry, Northern Ireland. Eimear relocated to Glasgow in 2015 and began writing songs more about love and loss and less about football and celebrities. Happy Spendy self-released their debut EP You Look Lovely in 2017 and the follow-up Take Care of Yourself in 2018.  They went on to support some of their favourite artists including Self Esteem, Lomelda, The Spook School, The Vaselines and Bossy Love.

Early in 2020 Happy Spendy began a new chapter working with Lost Map with the release of the single ‘Feelings 2’, a track poignantly reflecting on the past couple of years since the Coyles’ father died. Backed by a happiest of hardcore remixes by Lost Map labelmate Coatbridge polymath Romeo Taylor, it received radio support from BBC 6 Music’s Gideon Coe and BBC Radio Scotland’s Roddy Hart, and preceded the release of Ready When You Are, the third Happy Spendy EP.

“I like writing sad lyrics to help me through my feelings (or two),” says Eimear, “but as an otherwise cheery person I enjoy the juxtaposition of disguising my sad songs behind fun melodies and keyboard sounds. And performing them on stage with all my best pals.”

There’s not been much social media activity since November 2020, when Happy Spendy performed a set at the Scottish Album of the Year awards ceremony (from when and where the above photo dates), so I’m guessing this is another band whose career aspirations were cast asunder when we all had to close down when the COVID pandemic struck.

 

JC

 

David Bowie, Ian McCulloch, Prince & The Revolution, Smiley Culture, Style Council

WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (December)

2-8 December

It’s the run-up to Christmas, and I did the research, fully anticipating there would be little to look back with much fondness in terms of the new entries in the singles chart.  My worst fears were realised. It’s the Smooth Radio playlist from hell:-

Spandau Ballet – Round and Round (#23 – would spend 8 weeks in the Top 75, reaching #18)
Thompson Twins – Lay Your Hands On Me (#30 – would spend 9 weeks in the Top 75, reaching #13)
Queen – Thank God It’s Christmas (#36 – would spend 6 weeks in the Top 75, reaching #21)
Paul Young – Everything Must Change (#39 – would spend 11 weeks in the Top 75, reaching #9)
Foreigner – I Want To Know What Love Is (#67 – would spend 16 weeks in the Top 75, including three weeks at #1)

Two of the biggest selling male singers, who would later pass away within four months of one another in 2016, had new entries this week:-

mp3: David Bowie – Tonight (#58)

The second single lifted from the underwhelming 16th studio album, also called Tonight, that had been released in September 1984.  It’s a cover of a song originally recorded by Iggy Pop for his 1977 album, Lust For Life.  Bowie had written the lyrics for this one, and his take on these seven years later is reggae-influenced and has Tina Turner singing alongside him.  I’m not a fan….not many at the time were, as it stalled at #53.

mp3: Prince & The Revolution – I Would Die 4 U (#64)

The fourth and final single to be lifted from Purple Rain, and with the album now almost six months old, it can’t be too surprising that it did no better than #58 in the charts.  Worth mentioning that the b-side was a Christmas number, although not exactly the cheerful type you hear in the shops when searching for the last-minute gifts:-

mp3: Prince – Another Lonely Christmas

9-15 December 

This was the week when Band Aid came in at #1, where it would stay for five weeks.  This was the week when Last Christmas by Wham came in at #2, a position it would occupy for the next five weeks.

The next highest entry was a re-release.  I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Wizzard came in at #50, eventually reaching #23.   It had originally been a#4 hit in 1973.

After that, it was So Near To Christmas by Alvin Stardust at #54. It would later climb to #29.

But before you run off screaming into the abyss, here’s a couple of lower down entries that look really out of place among all the festive offerings:-

mp3: Ian McCulloch – September Song (#61)

Mac the Mouth’s first solo single.  A cover, dating from 1938, when it was used in the Broadway musical Knickerbocker Holiday. The music was composed by Kurt Weill and the lyric was the work of Maxwell Anderson.  The song had been written as the solo number in the show for the veteran actor Walter Huston, someone not exactly well known for his vocal talents.  A version by Frank Sinatra would chart in the 1940s and 1960s.  Mac’s take peaked at #51.

mp3: Smiley Culture – Police Officer (#66)

The then 21-year-old Londoner, whose real name was David Emmanuel, had a brief brush with fame in the mid-80s.  This was his biggest success, an urban tale of a black man who was arrested for possession of cannabis but was let go after the arresting officer recognised him as a famous reggae artist, in exchange for an autograph. Sung in a mixture of Cockney and a London-take on Jamaican patois, the song could be construed as a comedy number, but it did highlight the fact the black youths were far more likely to be unfairly treated and likely arrested than their white counterparts.

Here’s something I didn’t know till looking into the career of Smiley Culture.

David Emmanuel would die, at the age of 48, in 2011.  The official line is that it was suicide by knife wound, just a matter of days before he was to appear in a London court to face a charge of supplying cocaine.  His death came an hour-and-a-half after four police officers had arrived, with a warrant, to search his home. His family and friends have never accepted the suicide verdict, and the report carried out into his death by the Police Complaints Commission has never been shared with the family, far less been made public.

Tragic.

16-22 December and 23-29 December

I wouldn’t have thought that many new songs would make it into the charts over the last two weeks of the year, unless of course they were festive-themed.  Paul Weller, however, has always been a thrawn bugger.

mp3 : The Council Collective – Soul Deep (Part 1)

In at #37 on 16 December, it would spend five weeks in the Top 75, peaking at #24 the following week.  It was The Style Council augmented by three guest vocalists – Jimmy Ruffin, Junior Giscombe and Vaughan Toulouse, and two guest musicians, Dizzi Heights and Leonardo Chignoli.  The aim of the single was to raise money for the families of striking miners in the run-up to Christmas.

Worth mentioning that Weller’s profile was at an all-time high, what with him being asked to contribute to the collective vocals on the Band Aid single.

And with that, the charts version of this year-long series comes to its natural end.  I’ll be back in next week with a look at the very few non-hit/indie singles from the period, at which point it will be a farewell (for now) to the music of 1984.

 

 

JC

James

THE CD SINGLE LUCKY DIP (29) : James – Lose Control

James have already been lucky-dipped for the 7″and 12″ singles, so today marks the hat-trick.  And given that I’m feeling incredibly lazy, I’m doing a cut’n’paste from a post which was written up back in May 2014.

1990 had been a very good year for James.

The LP Goldmother had received very favourable reviews, as had a performance at that summer’s Glastonbury festival. The band was gaining a very formidable reputation as a live act, and it was no surprise that they were being asked to play as special guests at outdoor gigs as they did with both David Bowie and The Cure (the former being at Maine Road, the then home of Manchester City FC where James stole the show from the headliner).

It was decided that a new single should be released just prior to Christmas and with a mini-tour taking in Glasgow, Newcastle and Manchester to help with its promotion. The popularity of the band in their home town could be seen from the fact that they sold out two consecutive nights at the 10,000 capacity G-Mex and could probably have done the same again if the time had been available. Sadly, I wasn’t able to get a ticket for the Glasgow Barrowlands gig, but I am reliably informed by someone who was there that it was amongst the best ever at the famous old venue.

The new single came out on  7″, 12″, cassette and CD,  but I’ve only a copy of the latter:-

mp3 : James – Lose Control (extended version)
mp3 : James – Sunday Morning
mp3 : James – Out To Get You

The extended version is two and a bit minutes longer than the 7″ version.

The b-side common to all formats was a tremendous cover in which the lyrics were amended with the addition of all sorts of song titles and lines from other Velvet Underground songs,

The bonus b-side on the CD was such a great bit of music that it was resurrected and re-recorded some two years later. If you’re only familiar with the later version from the album Laid, then I hope you appreciate this gentler sounding effort – I think it represents one of Tim’s loveliest and most tear-jerking vocal performances.

Enjoy

 

JC

Elvis Costello

SHOULD’VE BEEN A SINGLE ?(13)

I started this one off and soon discovered that, in the fullness of time, it actually was released as a single.

mp3: The Costello Show – Brilliant Mistake

Brilliant Mistake is the opening song on the 1986 album King of America, which is credited to The Costello Show.  Recording had taken place the previous year at various studios in Los Angeles, California. The original idea had been for half the album to be performed by a large group of American session musicians dubbed The Confederates, who had been selected by producer T Bone Burnett with some drawn from a band that had backed Elvis Presley in the 1970s, with the other half being performed by Elvis Costello‘s regular backing band of the time, The Attractions.

In the end, The Attractions appeared on just one of the album’s 15 final tracks. Also worth mentioning that the writing credits of the original songs were attributed to Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus (the singer’s real name), and the performances to The Little Hands of Concrete, a name given to him in fun by Nick Lowe as a result of Costello’s tendency to frequently break guitar strings.

The odd number can partly be explained by the fact that the bosses at Columbia Records, on hearing the proposed album, considered none of the songs as being obvious singles, which led to the late addition of a cover version – Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, originally recorded in 1964 by Nina Simone but better known as a later Top-10 hit for The Animals a year later.

The single entered the charts at #39 in February 1986, peaking eventually at #33. The album followed a month later, entering at #11, and going on to spend just seven weeks in the Top 75.  It was an album not loved by the bosses, and judging by sales, not too loved by the fan base.

And yet, many critics on both sides of the Atlantic raved about it, although there were a number who panned it.  The retrospective take on things is quite similar, with loads of praise, with some pointing out that it really marked where Costello really began the journey of looking to experiment with different styles, sounds and genres that would increasingly define his later career, but others really not liking it – one later review to coincide with a 2005 reissue said it was a mess, containing eight of Costello’s  “meatiest songs” and seven others that ranges from “forced whimsy” to “self-parody”.

Me?  I fell for it immediately.  Not all the songs are ‘classics’, but there were way more hits than misses.  Which is why I was bemused that the label bosses didn’t see fit to lift a second 45 to help boost sales during the spring/summer months.  Especially the album opener….but then again, it seemed to be the sort of clever song that British and European fans would fully appreciate but American fans night feel bordered on being sacrilegious.

Time has proven to be very kind to Brilliant Mistake, and in 2005 it was given a very belated release as a single to help promote the fact that King of America had been reissued in a remastered form, along with a bonus disc with ten additional tracks.  Too little, too late in my book.  It should have been all over radios throughout the summer of ’86.

 

JC

Book Reviews

BOOK OF THE MONTH : DECEMBER 2025 : ‘FALLING AND LAUGHING – THE RESTORATION OF EDWYN COLLINS’ by GRACE MAXWELL

The blog is in the middle of a celebration of all the singles Edwyn Collins has released across what has been an unbelievable career.  I thought I’d delve into the vaults for a review that I originally penned in July 2009 when the hardback edition of the book was published, and which I then re-posted in February 2015 with an update of what had happened during the intervening six years.  I now want to bring it right up to date, and to make a very strong recommendation to everyone in the TVV community – if you don’t own a copy of Falling & Laughing, then ask someone to gift it to you this coming Christmas.  I’ll provide a link at the foot of this post.

– – – – –

After reading this compelling 310 pages, I was left with quite a number of impressions, one being that I couldn’t possibly cope with being married to Grace Maxwell. She herself acknowledges that she is a nagging, dominating, sharp-tongued and single-minded individual who has difficulty ever admitting that she ever gets something wrong. But one thing is for sure…..if she wasn’t like that, her partner would most likely be dead, or at best locked away from the world, dependent on specialist round-the-clock treatment. So without any question at all, Edwyn Collins is very blessed to have Grace Maxwell by his side…

Falling and Laughing – The Restoration of Edwyn Collins is a truly astonishing and eye-opening book. It’s also a very very frightening bit of work, and not the sort of thing you really want to be reading if someone close to you is lying ill in hospital with a life-threatening condition.

I’m sure most regular TVV readers are familiar with the basic facts, but here’s a quick resume of what I knew before picking up the hardback.

In February 2005, Edwyn Collins suffered a stroke which left him seriously ill in a London hospital. He was in a coma and required major brain surgery to stop internal bleeding which threatened to kill him. His recovery was hampered by him contracting MRSA, but in the fullness of time, he got back home, and thanks to some fantastic TLC from his partner Grace, their son Will and many other members of his family and his close friends, not to mention many hours of therapeutic treatment, he made a remarkable recovery which allowed him to get back on stage again in late 2007 and to then go on tour in the summer of 2008.

If only it had been that simple……

Opening with a very short prologue that asks the reader to imagine you not having any more thoughts, the book then looks back at the early part of Edwyn’s career with Orange Juice and the circumstances which brought him and Grace together for the first time in 1980, leading to them deciding to live together some five years later. From the outset, Grace was an essential part of Team Edwyn – she was his full-time manager before they got together as a couple, and she shared his woes and worries as he went out of fashion post-Orange Juice but never ever giving up on his immense talent, even when his records were selling to almost no-one.

The world-wide success of the single A Girl Like You in 1994/95 changed everything, setting them, and new son Will, up for life in terms of financial security. It also gave Edwyn the opportunity to make and produce music as and when he liked from the comfort of his own and much-in-demand studio. By early 2005, life seemed quite uncomplicated. Edwyn was 45 years of age, an elder and much respected statesman in music, still recording new songs but under no pressure to come up with the hits. Indeed, there was a great deal of satisfaction with the new songs recently recorded and about to go into the post-production for a new LP which would be followed by the inevitable tour and other promotional work.

But then Grace came home on at around 7pm on the night of Sunday 20th February 2005 after picking up her car that had been left at a friend’s house after a party she and Edwyn had attended the night before – and discovered him lying semi-conscious and distressed on the living room floor….

Much of the book deals with the next few months as Edwyn tries to battle back from the stroke. Grace writes with a directness and clarity that is utterly refreshing, and she is never over-dramatic about events. She gives a great deal of praise to the medical and nursing staff involved in saving Edwyn’s life, but without ever making them appear as saints. At the same time, she also paints a very distressing picture of a medical system that contributes more to a crisis than it does resolve it.

Grace was fortunate in having some immediate family members who work in medicine, and so she could often talk to someone and try to get an alternative view. Grace was also able to devote 100% of her own energy to be with Edwyn over an extended period of time – a luxury very rarely afforded to most wives/husbands/partners. If she had been in a position where she had taken all the medical opinions totally at face value, and had been unable to spend as much time by Edwyn’s side in the very early days, it is quite likely that everyone would have given up the fight…but they battled through all the obstacles and barriers placed in their way, and slowly his recovery began.

But just as Edwyn was about to be moved out of general care into a specialist unit where his therapy would be intense, there was a setback that made the original stroke seem a bit like a pleasant Sunday stroll in the sunshine round – the contraction of the superbug MRSA. What follows really is the stuff of nightmares……

I’m not spoiling anything by revealing that in the fullness of time, Edwyn faced up to and defeated death for a second time. His rehabilitation is covered in great depth and compassion. Grace doesn’t hide from the fact that this was an immense strain on her and Will, and describes some unpleasant family exchanges with an admirable honesty that brought a lump to the throat of this particular reader. I’m sure most of us by now have been in difficult circumstances when someone close is being treated for an illness, and reading many of Grace’s lines brought back a lot of memories of watching loved ones painfully tear themselves up trying to work out what course of action is the best way forward.

As a long-time fan of Edwyn Collins, I would love to have discovered that his recovery turned out to be a smooth and straight-forward process, with him taking his medicine and undergoing his therapy without complaint or giving anyone any cause for concern, and indeed Grace could have easily painted such a rosy picture with very few of us being any the wiser. That she doesn’t is testament to just how good a book this is, and helps the reader gain a much better understanding of just how remarkable it is that Edwyn has the ability nowadays to take to the stage and entertain us.

Having been lucky enough to see him perform three times over the past 12 months I thought that Edwyn – not withstanding the very clear mobility and speech difficulties he still has – was almost completely rehabilitated. Grace’s book reminds everyone that there is still a long way to go. It also reminds us that what Edwyn and so many others close to him have achieved over the past couple of years is quite miraculous – but it has all been through grit, graft and guts, not to mention a lot of Grace.

2025 Postscript

Just over twenty years later, and Edwyn has released a new album and completed a UK tour for which there was nothing but love and praise from fans and critics alike.  There are three shows scheduled to take place in Austria at the end of next month, after which he should be able to take a well-earned retirement from live performances.  There’s now been five studio albums since the near-death experience, although the first of them, Home Again (2007), had seen much of its work completed before he took ill.

There have been numerous live shows almost each and every year, including lengthy tours in each of 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2019 and 2025, while he has travelled all over Europe and played in America and Australia.  All the while, he has been closely supported by Grace and Will, both of whom were selling the merch on the recent UK tour, while Andy Hackett, Sean Read and Carwyn Ellis have been constant companions in the studio and out on the road, with many others, too many to mention, helping, assisting and contributing along the way.

There was also a documentary film, The Possibilities Are Endless, released in 2014 which sought to tell the story of his recovery and comeback – and if you want to know why the film has that particular title, well you can find out through the book (albeit typing the phrase into any search engine will reveal all).

I know that Edwyn Collins is not everyone’s cup of tea, and that there are many who have always found his vocal mannerisms and delivery to be an acquired taste.  But you don’t need to be a fan of the music to appreciate the story that’s told within the pages of this book. At times, it is not an easy or comfortable read, but ultimately, it’s a true tale about love, sheer bloodymindedness, resilience and courage, and one which comes with a happy ending.

mp3: Edwyn Collins – Searching For The Truth (from the album Losing Sleep, 2010)

The book can be bought in many places, but I’d recommend doing so direct from Edwyn and Grace’s online store.  Click here for info.

Thank You.

 

 

JC

Bourgie Bourgie

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (40) : Bourgie Bourgie – Breaking Point

Given that it is one of my all-time favourite 45s, it’s no surprise that Breaking Point by Bourgie Bourgie has featured round these parts on quite a few occasions.

I thought that today, I’d offer up, word-for-word, the review which was printed in Smash Hits in February 1984. It was penned by Neil Tennant.

A new group from Glasgow with a big, hungry sound. Their singer, Paul Quinn, has a deep, powerful voice but definitely doesn’t belong to the ever-popular “foghorn” school of signing. The clever use of a synthesiser and a single cello gives the impression of bold orchestration, and is helped along by someone making rather loud noises on an electric guitar. One of the few records of this batch (possibly the only one) that leaves me wanting more.

mp3: Bourgie Bourgie – Breaking Point

Such a shame that within six months, and just one further 45, it was all over.

The single was produced by a then relatively-unknown Ian Broudie.   The b-side was a joint effort involving the band and Stephen Lironi, best-known at that time as a former member of Altered Images.

mp3: Bourgie Bourgie – Aprés Ski

 

JC

#edwyncollins45s

THE TESTIMONIAL TOUR OF 45s (aka The Singular Adventures of Edwyn Collins)

#11: Bridge : Orange Juice (Polydor, OJ5, 1984)

Before we get onto the next Orange Juice single, here’s some TV footage which is needed as part of the backstory.

It’s taken from a show called Switch, which aired on Channel 4 on Friday evenings between 25 March and 2 September 1983, filling in the gap between the first two series of The Tube. I can’t give you the precise date of the Orange Juice appearance, but you can see it is the Collins/McClymont/Ross/Manyika line-up playing the big hit and a new song, albeit it had been made available on flexidisc to readers of Melody Maker earlier in the year.

All appears well in the clip, but this masked reality

The band were working again with Dennis Bovell in the studio on the third album.  Plans were in hand to release A Place In My Heart as its lead single in October 1983, with the album to come out the following month, positioning itself well for the pre-Xmas market.  Out of the blue, David McClymont and Malcolm Ross decided to leave the band, citing ‘musical differences’.  The album was only half-finished……

A salvage job was put into operation.   A six-track mini-LP, Texas Fever was scheduled for release in March 1984, with things rounded off, appropriately given the circumstances, with the inclusion of A Sad Lament, the b-side a year earlier to Rip It Up.   The advance single was changed from A Place In My Heart to this:-

mp3: Orange Juice – Bridge

Given the band were somewhat at odds with one another during the recording process, it really is quite something that they delivered such a great sounding single, albeit Bridge was a song that had been part of their live sets for a while, with Malcolm Ross playing keyboards.  It was something new and different from what had come before, and I’ll happily admit that I really enjoyed this harder-sounding version of Orange Juice, and Bridge had a groove and rhythm that was infectious, not least the handclaps that made listeners (well, me at least) want to replicate if it ever got played on the disco floor. Not that the chance ever came, as DJs and indeed radio stations shunned it, leading to an undeserved #67 flop.

The b-side was another new, frantically paced number, one that wasn’t included on Texas Fever (but would subsequently be recorded in a much slower form and slotted into the final OJ album almost a year later).

mp3: Orange Juice – Out For The Count (single version)

Polydor‘s marketing people did their best.  A 12″ version was released, as was a limited edition 7″ version which came with an additional flexi disc.  The 12″ didn’t feature an extended version of Bridge, but it did add in a band-produced take on things, one that in effect was the demo provided to Dennis Bovell; please don’t be fooled by the crowd noise at the beginning and the end…this is a decades-old version of ‘Fake News’ as these were added to give the impression it was a concert recording….the rapturous applause at the end clearly gives the game away as Orange Juice gigs never got that sort of reaction!.

mp3: Orange Juice – Bridge (Summer 83 version)

The flexi disc claimed to be a live recording of a Postcard-era single when in fact it was a new studio recording, produced by Dennis Bovell.

mp3: Orange Juice – Poor Old Soul (flexidisc version)

The Polydor contract had been signed when the band consisted of Edwyn Collins, James Kirk, David McClymont and Steven Daly.  Only Edwyn remained, and there was just one other official band member in Zeke Manyika.  There was still belief that hit singles would come along, and rather than cutting their losses, funding was made available to have the duo, with guest musicians, go back into the studio.  The songs to emerge from those sessions proved to be among the best of Edwyn’s entire career…..

JC

Happy Family

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #482: THE HAPPY FAMILY

The Happy Family were the earliest vehicle for the cerebral songs of an Edinburgh university drop-out called Nicholas Currie – he was later to find his true vocation as a post-Brel, post-Gainsbourg “tender pervert” called Momus.

Ivo‘s attention had been attracted by a demo which also featured ex-Josef K guitarist Malcolm Ross. A three-song single, ‘Puritans’ – which, if truth be told, owed a rather large sonic debt to both Josef K and Orange Juice – was swiftly followed by an ambitious, complex concept album called The Man On Your Street.

It was conceived as a sort of Brechtian musical, but 4AD lacked the resources to pay for the ambitious orchestrations that the band original envisaged. Looking back, Currie has this to say:

“It’s 1982. Postcard Records and The Sound Of Young Scotland. An Edinburgh literature student called Nick Currie forms a pop group with three ex-members of local group Josef K. They sign to 4AD, home of The Birthday Party, and proceed to record a CD with the following cast list: an evangelical detergent salesman; a Fascist dictator who comes to power thanks to a lottery win; Samuel, the son of the salesman and Maria, the dictator’s beautiful daughter, who join the Red Brigade and plots to assassinate the Fascist. Confused? Just wait ’til you read the lyrics!”

The Man On Your Street was to be The Happy Family’s only album – Momus, of course, went on to release a string of twisted, provocative and highly literate pop records. He is still active.

mp3: The Happy Family – Puritans

And given the album had such a different sound altogether:-

mp3: The Happy Family – The Luckiest Citizen

JC

 

Fall

ON THIS DAY : THE FALL’S PEEL SESSIONS #2

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 #2 was broadcast, not quite on this day, 6 December 1978, having been recorded on 27 November 1978.

After a weekend gig at the Prestwich Hospital Social Club, the group headed south on Monday morning to record this, possibly the most released Peel session to date. With four months to go to the release of ‘Live At The Witch Trials’, newcomer Riley is in hos original role as bassist, complementing Burns as they grapple with the variances in tempo of a definitive version of ‘No Xmas For John Quays’. ‘Put Away’ – here in a wild, formative run-through – didn’t see the light of day until the following October’s ‘Dragnet’, while the 78/79 live favourite ‘Mess of My’ (sometimes referred to as ‘Mess of My Age’) never featured on a contemporaneous Fall release.  The session was broadcast the same month that the group signed off the dole.

DARYL EASLEA, 2005

mp3: The Fall – Put Away (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Mess Of My (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – No Xmas For John Quays (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Like To Blow (Peel Session)

Produced by Bob Sargeant, Engineered by Dave Dade & Brian Tuck

Mark E Smith – vocals; Martin Bramah – guitar, bass, backing vocals; Yvonne Pawlett – keyboards; Marc Riley – bass; Karl Burns – drums;

JC

Fictive Fridays, Various

FICTIVE FRIDAYS (ON A THURSDAY THIS WEEK): #4

a guest series, courtesy of a very friendly lawyer

Origin Stories

JC explains……I hate to move Jonny’s column around and I’ll do my damnest going forward.  But Mark E Smith & co have long been slated for tomorrow’s slot.

Q: Where do great songs come from?
A: Other songs!

Q: Is that okay?
A: Sometimes!

Q: What the hell are you talking about, fictive boy?
A: I’ll show you.

Devil’s Haircut by Beck. This standout track from Odelay is credited to Beck and the Dust Brothers, who produced the album. The trio were pretty heavily into sampling back in the 90’s, and this song contains a couple by Pretty Purdie and Irish band Them. But Beck played the guitar riff from another Them tune himself, rather than sampling it. Here’s where it came from:

I Can Only Give You Everything by Them. The Belfast garage rockers are most noteworthy for launching Van Morrison‘s solo career and his side gig as the antagonist in the Leprechaun horror/comedy film series. Pretty sure Geffen paid to use the samples; not sure if the original songwriters got any cash from Beck’s hit.

Panic by The Smiths. This non-album single from 1986 proved to be controversial because its “burn down the disco” lyric was interpreted as an anti-black sentiment. Remember, this was several years before Morrissey took to flaunting his racism. Johnny Marr was offended by the criticism: “Show me the black members of New Order!” he barked, Mancunially. But perhaps he was pleased that no one was on his case for nicking the song’s music. Here’s where it came from:

Metal Guru by T. Rex. Marr actually copped to the theft: “The Slider came out and it had ‘Metal Guru’ on it. It was a song that changed my life as I had never heard anything so beautiful and so strange, but yet so catchy.” So he jacked it. Finders keepers!

Connection by Elastica. The eponymous debut by Elastica was a welcome blast of Britpop. We all needed it since Kurt Cobain‘s suicide bummed everyone out and knocked the grunge craze off its trajectory. Frontwoman/songwriter Justine Frischmann had the voice, the looks, and the ‘tude to make the big time. And unlike some of her contemporaries, Elastica immediately crossed over in the US. ‘Connection’ was a hit in both the UK and Stateside, with its punchy opening hook. Here’s where it came from:

Three Girl Rhumba by Wire. When I was lawyering the technical legal term we’d use for this sort of appropriation is ‘a total fucking rip off.‘ Wire thought so, too, and sued about it. It was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. The Stranglers also sued Elastica because the single ‘Waking Up’ bore more than a passing resemblance to their song ‘No More Heroes.’ The Meninblack got 40% of Elastica’s proceeds and a co-writing credit for that one.

Get Free by Lana Del Rey. LDR is another musician that my daughter Jane put on my radar. Not sure how I missed her, since she’s released lots of EPs, numerous singles, and an album every other year since 2010. This song, which closes her fifth LP Lust for Life, might sound familiar. Here’s where it comes from:

Creep by Radiohead. Lana contended she wasn’t “inspired” by the single that put the Oxford quintet on the map, but the chord progression is unmistakable. So her label offered the boys 40% of the publishing royalties. Not sure how the matter was resolved–no lawsuit was ever filed, and writing credits were never updated. The whole thing is pretty ironic because Radiohead themselves were sued over Creep‘s similarity to the 1972 song “The Air That I Breathe”, written by Albert Hammond (dad of the Strokes’ guitarist) and Mike Hazlewood, who ultimately received co-writing credits and a percentage of the royalties.

Interzone by Joy Division. The Tangier International Zone was a geographic area in Morocco subject to the rule of multiple governments in the early- and mid-twentieth century. William S. Burroughs wrote the classic beat novel Naked Lunch while he was living there in the 1950’s. The book describes a lawless “interzone” rife with espionage and drug smuggling, and was a favorite of Ian Curtis. His lyrics don’t have too much to do with Burrough’s masterwork, but at least we know about the music. Here’s where it came from:

Keep on Keepin’ On by Nolan Porter. Before they recorded for Factory, Joy Division had a go at recording for the RCA label. Legend has it that RCA A&R guy Richard Searling wanted the band to cover one of his favorite Northern Soul singles recorded by LA soul singer Nolan “N.F.” Porter in 1971. Apparently the band weren’t too adept when they tried to cover the song, and the RCA sessions were aborted. But Joy Division hung on to the riff and ‘Interzone’ appeared as an album track on their debut, Unknown Pleasures. For which Porter received nothing.

Jonny

Raincoats

FOUR TRACK MIND : A RANDOM SERIES OF EXTENDED PLAY SINGLES

A guest series by Fraser Pettigrew (aka our New Zealand correspondent)

#10: The Raincoats – Extended Play (1994)

The role of women in punk and post-punk is an aptly diverse one. If you accept the era’s defining principle as the breaking of moulds, then you can find female musicians taking a hammer to them in various ways, as well as being unwillingly pigeonholed as sex symbols.

Vocalists such as Siouxsie Sioux, Pauline Murray and Poly Styrene did their damnedest to reject the cliché of glamorous girl singer and brought their originality to the front of the stage. Bassist Gaye Advert bucked the trend by working in the traditionally unglamorous rhythm section. Una Baines was a founding member of The Fall, playing keyboards in the back line. Debbie Harry was at the conventional end of the spectrum, despite being old enough to be the mother of most of the adolescent boys drooling over her pin-up.

Then along came The Slits. Inspired by the Sex Pistols and The Clash, The Slits broke two moulds at the same time, insisting that a bunch of women could form a vital punk group and they also didn’t need to use sex as a selling point. Their inexpert musical ability helped them create a unique sound, and their pioneering existence quickly proved inspirational to others in turn.

Prime amongst the inspired were The Raincoats. After seeing The Slits in early 1977 Ana da Silva and Gina Birch suddenly felt that they had been ‘given permission’ to be in a band too. “It never occurred to me that I could be in a band. Girls didn’t do that. But when I saw The Slits doing it, I thought, ‘This is me. This is mine,’” said Birch.

A year after their formation, The Raincoats became an all-female band with the arrival of violinist Vicky Aspinall and former Slits drummer Palmolive. Like The Slits, their varied levels of musical experience contributed to a sound on their first self-titled album (1979) that was sometimes ramshackle, always startlingly original and definitely Marmite to the critics.

Second album Odyshape (1981) is one of my all-time favourite records. Its blend of influences is so unique, like a musical spice market where you are assailed with tantalising scents that you can’t quite place but the overall stimulus is nothing but delightful. Palmolive had departed and the percussion on the album was handled by several people: Palmolive’s brief replacement Ingrid Weiss, Robert Wyatt, former 101ers and PiL drummer Richard Dudanski, and This Heat’s Charles Hayward. Various others contribute parts on a diversity of unusual instruments like kalimba, shruti box, shenai and balophone.

Far from fracturing its consistency, this cavalcade of collaborators and instruments wends its way through the album like a multicultural festival that projects a unified aura of harmony. It’s a triumph of gentle eclecticism that the band would never surpass.

There was a hiatus of three years after Odyshape, an eternity in those days, and consequently I missed out entirely on their third album, 1984’s Movement. It was a decade later that I came across it on CD, and shortly afterwards spotted this lovely little 10” EP with a big lemon on the cover.

Extended Play consists of the band’s third session for John Peel, recorded on 29 March 1994 and broadcast on 16 April, less than two weeks after the death of Kurt Cobain, whose love of The Raincoats was effectively responsible for their reunion and renewed activity at that time. The story of Cobain wandering into the Rough Trade shop in Covent Garden and his redirection to Ana Da Silva’s antiques shop round the corner is as well-worn as Cobain’s copy of their first album that led him there in the first place.

Largely thanks to Cobain, the three albums were reissued on CD in 1993 by the David Geffen label, the Peel session was recorded in March 1994, and the band were scheduled to open for Nirvana on several dates in 1994, until tragedy intervened.

The EP carries a dedication to Cobain on the inner sleeve. “Kurt Cobain gave so much life, inspiration and liberation in his music, and he gave us a new life. This session would probably not have existed without his love and enthusiasm, and we dedicate it to him.”

Peel sessions perfectly matched the EP format – around 15 minutes of airtime, more often than not yielding four tracks, showcasing new material or unsigned bands. Many Peel recordings ended up on vinyl, either at the time or subsequently on the Strange Fruit label that was set up specifically to release the show’s extensive archive. Curiously, however, this Raincoats EP is the only disc in my Four Track Mind series that comes from this source.

Although it was common for bands to use a Peel session to preview unreleased music, two of the four songs here are new and two are old. The reason for including two decade-old songs probably lies in the unplanned circumstances of The Raincoats reunion, as described above. Side one has the new songs, Don’t Be Mean and We Smile. Side two has versions of Odyshape opener Shouting Out Loud, and No One’s Little Girl, which first appeared on a 1982 single. Another version of Don’t Be Mean later appeared on the band’s fourth album Looking In The Shadows.

Only Birch and Da Silva survived from the previous lineups. Anne Wood comes in on violin where once Vicky Aspinall stood, and the drummer’s seat was occupied by Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth (Kim Gordon was another celebrity fan). Despite the lack of supplementary musicians and instruments that had enriched Odyshape, the version of Shouting Out Loud compares very favourably with the original, not in any way suffering from the almost-live demands of the BBC recording session. Similarly, No One’s Little Girl is faithful to the 1982 version.

The new songs slot comfortably into the Raincoats canon, not marking any radical advance in style, but perhaps reaffirming for Birch and Da Silva that their approach to music had been right all along. After Moving, Birch and Aspinall had spent a couple of years in their ‘total pop’ vehicle Dorothy, releasing a clutch of singles unsuccessfully targeting the same kind of chart-friendly subterfuge as Scritti Politti, ABC and others. This deliberate engagement with the mainstream music business proved a self-confessed nightmare, both in chasing success and also over-refining and over-producing the music. Returning to the intuitive and unrestricted method of The Raincoats must have been a relief.

Looking In The Shadows eventuated in 1996, but once again I managed to miss it and only picked up a copy relatively recently. While it was great to hear new Raincoats material, the album lacked a certain spark for me, and perhaps it did for them too. It was another big music biz experience (with Geffen), produced by former Psychedelic Fur Ed Buller who had previously shaped albums by Suede, Pulp and the Boo Radleys.

I don’t know what influence Buller had on the arrangements but sometimes it sounds almost too conventional, too much like the ‘rock’ music The Raincoats had pretty consciously striven to avoid. While most of the songs are as idiosyncratic as ever, there’s a presence of studio, production, and budget like never before, and a few guitar riffs that stick out like a hippy at an Exploited gig. The comparison between the two versions of Don’t Be Mean is instructive, with the EP take sounding very much more immediate and authentic.

The moment of their second coming faded, and they went their separate ways once again. There have been periodic reunions and both Birch and Da Silva have released solo material of widely differing character.

The Raincoats sang about women and their lives, about the expectations heaped on them, by others and by themselves. It’s definitely a feminist perspective, but not of the strident ‘all men are rapists’ variety (it’s not all about you, you know). They marked out a unique territory for their music, not quite ever one thing or another, not susceptible to the standard rock and pop tropes, the sex and drugs, or the big social and political themes in a sloganeering way.

Their songs engaged at a very personal level, rooted in their own experience, avoiding generalisations, describing the world of inequality through an individual’s thoughts and feelings. Each song feels like a small slice of personal testimony to the unfairness and difficulty of the world, and the music always keeps to a human scale, never reaching for grandiose effects or epic statements, yet often reaching great levels of emotional impact, and the liberating pleasure of something unique and indefinable.

Don’t Be Mean

We Smile

No One’s Little Girl

Shouting Out Loud

 

 

Fraser

Robert Forster

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #399 : ROBERT FORSTER

This is a sort of incomplete ICA as I’m not looking to include any of the songs released on Strawberries as that album is far too new to have any mp3s featured.

The skinny…..of sorts.  Robert Forster came to fame as part of the Go-Betweens, whom he co-founded along with Grant McLennan in late 1977. The band would release six albums before initially breaking up in late 1989.  Robert would embark on a solo career, recording four albums in the 1990s before the decision was taken to reform the old band at the turn of the century.  Three albums followed in 2000, 2003 and 2005, before Grant died suddenly from natural causes, aged 46, on 6 May 2006. After a short period, Robert decided to resume his solo career, and has made a further five albums since 2008.  This chronological ICA is drawn from those first eight records.

SIDE A

1. Danger In The Past (from Danger In The Past, 1990)

Robert was living in Germany when the Go-Betweens broke up, having not long before formed a romantic relationship with musician Karin Bäumler whom he would marry in May 1990 and later start a family.  Having been retained by his label Beggars Banquet, he decided to realise a long-held ambition by recording his solo debut in the famous Hansa Studios in Berlin. His fellow musicians were three members of the Bad Seeds  – Mick Harvey (who would produce as well as play), Hugo Race and Thomas Wydler, while Karin added some vocals.  The album, in places, is close in sound to that of his old band, but there is also the sense that Robert’s songwriting was drawing on musical influences from Americana.

2. 121 (from Calling From A Country Phone, 1993)

The songs on the second solo album were largely written in Germany, but recorded back in his home city of Brisbane.  Robert’s idea for the record was to find new and young musicians he hadn’t worked with before, which he did after a live show he went to following a tip-off from a record store owner he had known for years.  The musicians strengths were in country or western, which comes through at regular intervals throughout the record.  121 was a regular part of the live sets from the 2025 tour with The Swedish Band, whose Glasgow show I reviewed a short time back.

3. 2541 (from I Had A New York Girlfriend, 1994)

There was a touch of writer’s block in the mid 90s, which meant the third solo album consisted solely of covers. As these things go, it’s OK, with a real surprise being a very fragile voice and piano take on Alone, a late-80s power-ballad which gave American rockers Heart a worldwide smash.  The one song I’ve regularly gone back to is 2541, which was the lead track on the first solo EP written and recorded in 1988 by Grant Hart after the break-up of Hüsker Dü.

4. Warm Nights (from Warm Nights, 1996)

It took until 1996 before Robert had written enough songs for a new album, and for this one he went to England and to Edwyn Collins‘ newly built studio with his old mate from the Postcard Records era on production duties.  In truth, the record doesn’t quite spark in the way it was hoped for, although I’ve long had a soft spot for the title track.

5. Let Your Light In, Babe (from The Evangelist, 2008)

A number of songs had already been co-written by for what should have been the next group album before Grant’s sudden death.  Three of those songs, including Let Your Light In Babe, would appear on The Evangelist, an album recorded in London by the core of what had been the final line-up of the Go-Betweens.   I think many of us who had followed Robert’s career over the years felt this would be his swansong, and for a few years it seemed that was going to be the case.

SIDE B

1. Learn To Burn (from Songs To Play, 2015)

It would be seven years before another solo album.  It was no surprise that Robert needed time and space to adjust to the loss of his long-time musical partner, and for a while he concentrated on his emerging work as a rock critic, writing mainly for The Monthly, a highly-regarded Australian publication, as well as devoting time to a memoir, which in due course would be published in 2016.

His ‘comeback’ solo album was issued by Tapete Records, an independent label based in Hamburg, Germany.  Robert, in the press interviews at the time of the album’s release, explained that many of the songs had been written for a while, but he needed time to work out exactly how and where, and with whom, he wanted to record them. He ended up decamping to a rural Australian studio next to a village with a population of 430, with the album to be co-produced with two members of a largely-unknown Australian band, The John Steel Singers. It also had, for the first time, major contributions from Karin Bäumler, whose violin playing is at the heart of many of its songs,

2. I Love Myself (And I Always Have) (from Songs To Play, 2015)

Who says that Robert Forster doesn’t have a sense of humour?  A song that has become something of a signature tune over the past decade and which always gets very loud cheers when aired live.

3. One Bird In The Sky (from Inferno, 2019)

Inferno, certainly for me, is kind of like Warm Nights was back in 1996 in that it never quite lived up to my expectations. Strangely enough, the live tour in support of the album, which came to Glasgow in May 2019, was a great event, but that was largely down to more than half the set being Go-Betweens songs, including a few I never expected to hear.  Having said all that, this, the closing song on the album, is a bit of a latter-career classic.

4. Tender Years (from The Candle and The Flame, 2023)

An album that’s easily his most personal.  The songs were mostly written in 2020/21 and then came the news that Karin Bäumler had been diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer.  Everything was put on hold as she battled the disease, defying all expectations.  It led to one new song being written with just six words repeated over and over again –  ‘She’s A Fighter, Fighting For Good – to a tune that came from jams undertaken by Robert and Karin, along with their son Louis (who by now had three albums under his belt as part of The Goon Sax) as part of their way of distracting themselves as they waited on the results of Karin’s ongoing treatment.

The album made me wonder if Robert had some sort of sixth sense as many of its other song seemed to reflect on love, life and happiness.  This autobiographical tale of domestic bliss is so joyful….as indeed is its video.

5. When I Was A Young Man (from The Candle and The Flame, 2023)

Yet another tune which closed an album. On this one, Robert looks back on his own life and the paths that led him to become a musician. It’s a song of celebration, but not made with any sort of boastfulness, while the lyrics and tune clearly pay homage to those heroes of Robert who helped him on the journey. It was one of my favourite songs of 2023, and is the perfect way to bring the ICA to a close.

JC

 

Various

25 TRACKS FROM 2025

Round these parts, it’s normally an hour-long mix of all sorts to bring in a new month.  This time, however, it’s a mix consisting almost exclusively of songs released in 2025 taken almost exclusively from my favourite 25 albums that had been released by the end of October, which was when I began pulling the piece together.

The ‘almost exclusively’ explanations?  One of the songs was on an album originally given a digital release in 2024 before the vinyl appeared this year. Another is taken from an album which dates from in 1992 but that I only had on CD until it was given an update and a vinyl re-release more than thirty years later. I’ve also taken the  liberty of calling a five-track EP while one song is lifted from a 7″ single. Oh, and one of the songs is from an album that I’m still undecided about, but in years to come I’ll loook back and probably conclude it was one of the best of the year.

I should point out that the mix isn’t full of what are necessarily my favourite songs from the albums, but has been curated in a way to make what I think works best as a something to listen to from start to end.

mp3: Various – 25 tracks from 2025

1. Jim Bob – A Song By Me (from Stick – Cherry Red Records)  starts at 0:00 on the mix

Jim Bob released two new albums, Stick and Automatic, on the same day back in August.  These were the 11th and 12th studio solo albums from the man who first came to fame via Carter USM.  He’s still got it…….

2. Dancer – Baby Blue (from More Or Less – Meritorio Records) starts at 2:35

Glasgow-based band who I finally got to see when they supported The Bug Club back in February, and so enjoyed their performance that I went straight out to buy their 2024 debut 10 Songs I Hate About You and then eagerly picked up its follow-up when it was released in September.

3. The Bug Club – Twisting In The Middle (from Very Human Features – Sub Pop Records) starts at 05:23

The gig by The Bug Club mentioned above was part of a tour promoting the 2024 album On The Intricate Workings Of The System, which had been their fifth release since 2021 but their first for Sub Pop.  It was The Robster who brought this lot to my attention, thanks to this ICA, during which he pointed out that the duo were very prolific and always seemingly on the road or in the studio.  The latest album hit the shops in June and there was a further live gig in Glasgow in October.

4. Edwyn Collins – Knowledge (from Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation – AED Records) starts at 09:06

Edwyn‘s tenth studio album was preceded by this track as an advance single.  If you haven’t already seen the video, then head over to YouTube or the likes.  It’s an incredibly moving but uplifting piece of film.

5. Kendrick Lamar – Squabble Up (from GNX – Interscope Records) starts at 12:18

The sixth studio album from the LA rapper was very unexpectedly given a digital release on 22 November 2024 on the back of what had been a months-long feud with Canadian rapper Drake.  If you’re not aware of what that was all about and what songs were released while it was all kicking off, then it’s best you use a search engine of your choice rather than me trying to offer a ham-fisted explanation.  GNX eventually appeared on vinyl last February.

6. Wet Leg – Mangetout (from Moisturizer – Domino Records) starts at 14:55

In the TikTok world of instant gratification, three years is a dangerously long time to wait for the follow-up to a debut album which taken much of the world by storm.  I really felt that the critics would have it in for Wet Leg and that the fan base would have largely moved on, but the fact that Mositurizer proved to be something which in many places gave nods to many of the best female-fronted 90s alt/indie rock bands (hello to Belly, The Breeders, Elastica and Throwing Muses), then I was always going to be a sucker for its tunes.

7. Warren McIntyre & James Kirk – Miss Green Tea (7″ single) starts at 18:19

Glas-Goes-Pop has, in just four years, established itself as one of the very best weekend events in my home city.  An annual two-day festival of indie-pop magic that takes place indoors in early August at the Glasgow University Union.  This year saw the release of the first ever single on the Glas-Goes-Pop label, consisting of a collabortion between two veterans of the local scene, albeit from different generations.  This is one side of that single and features James’s dictinctive and charming vocals, as first enjoyed more than four decades ago when Orange Juice began making music.

8. The Secret Goldfish – Moscow (from Empty Holster – Creeping Bent Records/Last Night From Glasgow) starts at 23:15

Douglas MacIntyre‘s Creeping Bent Records is now winding down after 30 years.  A number of releases and events have been held or are in place to mark the occasion, including a final album by The Secret Goldfish, issued in June, and which consists of 11 cover songs and 1 brand-new composition.  And yes, this is a take on the b-side of the debut Orange Juice single, one on which the above mentioned James Kirk played back in 1980.

9. Sydney Minsky Sargeant – I Don’t Wanna (from Lunga – Domino Records) starts at 25:15

The music to be found on the debut solo album from the frontman of Working Men’s Club must be the most surprising and unexpected of 2025. Melodies and acoutsic guitars abound, about as far away as can be imagined from the frantic upbeat post-punk electronica with which he has been associated these past few years.

10. Robert Forster – Tell It Back To Me (from Strawberries – Tapete Records) starts at 28:30

The opening track of Robert‘s 9th studio album, as our friend Chaval pointed out in a comment after I’d reviewed a live show, is Dylanesque, complete with the judicious use of a harmonica.   Eight studio albums before now and no ICA?  Hmmm……………..

11. Brian – Understand (from Understood – Needle Mythology Records) starts at 32:00

For those of you who don’t know, this is the label run by the wonderfully talented writer Pete Paphides.  It specialises, but not exclusively, on reissuing albums which came out in that period in the 90s/00s when CD was king and which had either a very limited vinyl pressing or none at all.  Brian is the recording name used by Dublin-born singer/songwriter Ken Sweeney, and his charning debut album Understand was released on Setanta Records in 1992.  This reissue has slightly amended the title of the album and added on the four songs which formed the Planes EP in 1993 along with one previously unreleased track from the era.

12. Pearl Charles – Does This Song Sound Familiar?  (from Desert Queen – Last Night From Glasgow Records) starts at 37:54

Pearl Charles been releasing music for a decade now, but 2025 marked my introduction to this Californian singer-songwriter courtesy of her third album being released by a label with which I have a subscription.  There is something very appealling about her voice while the tunes kind of defy any easy definition, with all sorts of influences to the fore – rock, pop, country and soul among them.  The album also contains a co-vocal with Tim Burgess…..

13. Half Man Half Biscuit – Record Store Day (from All Asimov And No Fresh Air – RM Qualtrough Records) starts at 42:42

40 years after the debut and I think it’s fair to say that Half Man Half Biscuit can truly be anointed as national treasures.   The latest album, their 17th all told, has all the usual things we’ve come to expect – great tunes and lyrics that will very often out a smile on your face.  Nigel Blackwell has, with this particular song, nailed exactly what so many of us feel about an event that has moved a long way from its original intentions, having been increasingly hijacked by major labels, their executives and their marketing gurus. The perfect way to mark the halfway point of this mix.

14. Bar Italia – Cowbella (from Some Like It Hot – Matador Records) starts at 46:00

There have been a number of horrifically scathing reviews written about the third Bar Italia studio album.  They are all well wide of the mark.  The critics who worship at the altar of the hipster scene simply get upset when one of their favourites have the nerve to make a record which has some mainstream sounding tunes.

15. The Sexual Objects – Here Come The Rubber Cops (from Orangutan – Creeping Bent Records) starts at 50:20

As mentioned earlier, Creeping Bent Records will cease operations in a few weeks time. One of the parting gifts is this compilation album, which brings together some hard-to-find singles and album tracks from a band that has been described as a Scottish T-Rex for the 21st Century, fronted by Davy Henderson whose work with Fire Engines, Win and Nectarine No.9 has long been highlighted on this blog.

16. Quad 90 – Le Blank (from Quad 90 – Last Night From Glasgow/Creeping Bent Records) starts at 55:39

The duo of Amelia Lironi and Naomi Mackay met a few years ago while attending a Glasgow college which offers courses in music production and performance.  It was back in 2023 when they released Le Blank as a 12″ limited edition single, but I was too slow to pick up a copy. This was followed up by a number of digital releases at regular intervals before, at long last, the debut album was released in September, and I could finally play this wonderful piece of dance floor funk that makes me wish I was forty years younger.

17. Say Sue Me – Time Is Not Yours (from Time Is Not Yours – Damnably Records) starts at 60:31

This is the one from the five-track EP referred to in the introduction.  It came out in April as a picture disc, and I picked up a copy a short while later when the band played their latest show in Glasgow (it’s long been one of thir favourite stopping places).  It’s K-Pop, but not as the kids know it – and it’s a great example of how fine guitar-led songs with an indie bent will never truly go out of fashion.

18. The Cords – Fabulist (from The Cords – Skep Wax/Slumberland Records) starts at 64:20

This is from the album that, right now, I’m not too sure about. The duo of sisters Eva and Grace Tedeschi have been making a great deal of noise across the Glasgow scene these past couple of years.  I should, by nature, love everything about them thanks to them channelling so much that is wonderful about 80s and 90s indiepop into their 13 songs on a debut that races by in just 31 minutes. But, for now at least, on a couple of initial listens, it feels a tad one-dimensional….but then again I came to it with high and probably unrealistic expectations.

19. Richard Norris – Brave Raver (from Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 – Golden Lion Sounds) starts at 67:11

As found on a compilation lovingly compiled by a group of people dedicated to the works of Andrew Weatherall…..and, of course, our dear friend Adam from Bagging Area is very much involved.  Thanks mate.

20. Sprints – Descartes (from All That Is Over – City Slang Records) starts at 73:36

The music of the Dublin post-punk band has moved a long way from the indie-style sounds of the early singles back in 2020/2021.  The increasing move to a heavier and more explosively angry style really manifests itself on this their second album, and while I remain a big fan of all they are doing, the fact All That Is Over peaked at #50 where debut Letter To Self reached #20 perhaps indicates they are losing folk along the way.  It’s a pity.

21. Emma Pollock – Future Tree (from Begging The Night To Take Hold – Chemikal Underground Records) starts at 76:48

An album that’s been a long time in the making and post-production process for all sorts of reasons.  It is Emma‘s first since 2016 but has proven to be well worth the wait. It is a remarkable record which reflects on what has been a period of personal disruption for Emma in so many ways.

22. Brian Bilston & The Catenary Wires – Might Have. Might Not Have (from Sounds Made By Humans – Skep Wax Records) starts at 80:23

Released last May, this album is a wonderful collaboration between a rather wonderful poet and a rather wonderful indie-pop band in which the band came up with melodies and arrangements for thirteen poems to create, and I’m quoting the PR blurb as it’s not hyperbole, ‘a pop album where the poetry and the music are equal partners: sounds made by humans in perfect artistic alignment.’

23. The Loft – Feel Good Now (from Everything Changes Everything Stays The Same – Tapete Records) starts at 82:39

The Loft released just two singles and a compilation album on Creation Records back in the mid 80s before splintering into various pieces.  It has taken an agonisingly  long time for the debut album to be recorded and then released via the Hamburg-based Tapete Records. To quote an online review, it’s an old-fashioned sounding record made by grey-haired veterans.

24. F.O. Machete – Kids Of The Summer (from Mother Of A Thousand – Last Night From Glasgow) starts at 86:02

25. Davey Woodward – Don’t Phone Me (from Mumbo In The Jumbo – Last Night From Glasgow) starts at 90:16 ends at 92:33

Last Night From Glasgow has issued dozens of albums in 2025, and the subscription membership I have with the label means I get them all.  I’m not going to claim that everything I’ve picked up from LNFG’s headquarters, which is located in an increasingly hipster part of the city between the centre and the west end, makes for essential listening but they do quite often hit the mark spectacularly.

Track 24 is courtesy of a Glasgow duo whose debut recordings go back to the early 2000s, but who went on a long hiatus from 2011 until 2024.  I’ll hold my hands up and admit I knew nothing of them until being handed this album back in February. It’s since been on heavy rotation.

Track 25 is courtesy of a veteran of the indie-pop scene who first came to prominence with The Brilliant Corners.  He’s continued to make music, on-and-off, throughout the years as a member of various other acts such as The Experimental Pop Band and Karen, while 2018 saw Tapete Records issue an album credited to Davey Woodward and The Winter Orphans, before that act signed to LNFG and released an album in 2023.  Mumbo In The Jumbo is the first record credited solely as a solo performer and with Don’t Phone Me being its closing track, it made sense to end this mix with it.

I really hope there’s something today that has grabbed your attention and perhaps encouraged you to either buy the album now or add it to the wishlist you’ve prepared for Santa Claus.

 

JC