TVV IN 800 SONGS : CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF BLOGGING (Part Eighteen)

The final six parts of the rundown will be largely made up of cut’n’pastes from previous postings over the past 20 years.  The singers/bands shouldn’t come as a surprise, but some of the song choices might raise the occasional eyebrow.

#120: Soup Dragons – Hang Ten!

“I’ve a bundle of Soup Dragons 12″ singles in the collection, mostly picked up very cheaply in second hand stores. The lead track from this 1986 release is a particular favourite.” (16 August 2014)

#119: Jazzateers – Sixteen Reasons

“The 2013 Glasgow International Jazz Festival runs from 26-30 June. Jazz is a form of music I have no inclination for at all and I’d normally show no interest at all in any of the gigs at the 2013 Festival except that on Thursday 27 June at Stereo has the Jazzeteers (who are most definitely not a jazz band) reforming for one night to play songs from their 1983 eponymous album released on Rough Trade.” (5 June 2013)

NB : It proved to be a gig beyond my wildest dreams.  Not only did they play the album and other songs from the back catalogue, but they threw in some cover versions, including ‘Felicity’ by Orange Juice, with James Kirk on guitar and with Vic Godard on lead vocal.

#118: Basement Jaxx – Red Alert

“Three times in my life have I been the recipient of something thrown from the stage by a singer or member of a band. The third, and thus far, final, incident was at the very end of a Basement Jaxx gig at the Carling Academy, Glasgow in April 2009.  On the previous two incidents the objects ended up with me when I very close to the stage. This time around, I was the back of the back of the lowest tier of the venue, with nobody behind us to push or shove us for the reason that I was with Rachel who was still recovering from a nasty fall some 10 days previously when she had been out running that left her cut and bruised in a few places, with the worst injury being a broken nose. Basement Jaxx gigs, as we knew from previous experience, can be quite boisterous affairs and it was all about keeping safe.

“I would love to tell you that the drumstick landed at my feet, or that, as I spotted it come towards us, I put up a hand and caught it as cleanly as a baseball outfielder pushed up against the boundary fence.

“I really would love to tell you that.

“The reality is that I didn’t see it until it was too late and could only cry out the word ‘drumstick’ as a warning to Rachel as to what was happening….and as the ‘k’ was sounded, the flying object hit her full in the face, including her nose.

“It all happened stupidly quickly and Rachel, unsurprisingly, burst into tears, more thankfully from the fright of what happened rather than the actual pain. The drumstick had traveled a fair distance to reach us and its downward trajectory meant it wasn’t quite at full pelt. But still, it was a scary few seconds looking at her face and praying to a non-existent god that there was no serious damage.” (2 July 2020)

#117: Felt – Primitive Painters

“An epic rolling track of more than six minutes in length that has all the hallmarks of the involvement of the Cocteau Twins with Robin Guthrie behind the production desk and Liz Fraser on co-vocals. It turned into Felt’s biggest selling single, topping the indie charts for two weeks in September 1985.” (3 April 2017)

#116: HiFi Sean and David McAlmont – Happy Ending

“David McAlmont‘s voice has always been something to treasure, but there’s something truly special about the way it matches up with Sean Dickson‘s electronic and production wizardry.  The title track from an album that was recorded, over an extended period, in David’s home which is on the 18th Floor of a high-rise building in east London, while the added strings were conducted and recorded in Bangalore, India.” (21 December 2022)

#115: Pulp – Common People

Tim Badger. ICA #32.  17 August 2015.

“Quite simply one of the best British singles, ever, by anyone. Absolutely their defining song, and the classic song of the Britpop era. I toyed with the idea of leaving it off just to be controversial but then I realised that I can’t write about Pulp without mentioning it. It’s too good a record. As a song it’s scathing yet hilarious, deeply personal yet turns an eye to larger social questions, intelligent yet simple enough to fit within a massively infectious pop melody. And to top it all triumphant enough to close a live show.” 

#114: The KLF – Last Train To Transcentral (live from The Lost Continent)

“‘Stadium House (The Trilogy)’ was a VHS video released in 1991 that is just under 30 minutes in length. The main film purports to be live footage of The KLF performing their three chart hits at Woodstock, Europa while the supporting feature is called ‘This Is Not What The KLF Is About’, a behind the scenes look at the main film. It is, of course, nothing of the sort, although the main film has been pieced together does make it seem as if the singers, musicians and dancers are performing on a stage within some sort of post-apocalyptic setting, interspersed with footage of a police car and a fast moving passenger train, and is just the splicing of the three promo videos. ‘Last Train To Transcentral’ peaked at #2 in May 1991, kept off the top by Cher and ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’.” (20 September 2021)

#113: The June Brides – Every Conversation

“There’s a case to be made that The June Brides had no right to be categorised as part of the C86 movement.  They had formed in London back in 1983 and the following year saw two cracking singles released on Pink Records. They initially called it a day before 1986 came to a close. The use of the trumpet and viola gave The June Brides a unique sound. They really deserved to have enjoyed far more success than they experienced. Maybe just a wee bit too ahead of their time as their sort of sound became more fashionable in the early 90s by which time singer and main songwriter Phil Wilson was working as a tax inspector.

“There really is no justice in the world of pop music.” (9 February 2014 and 24 May 2017)

#112: Sons & Daughters – Fight

From one of the ICA’s I penned.  #199 on 30 November 2018.

“The opening song on the debut mini-album ‘Love The Cup’ (2004).  In many ways, it is the archetypal Sons & Daughters track with great vocal interplay between deadpan Scott Patterson and excitable Adele Bethel while the talents of David Gow (drums)  and Ailidh Lennon (bass) see things driven along at perfect pace and without either of them seeming to break sweat. Oh and it features the best use of a mandolin on any piece of music since ‘Losing My Religion’…..thanks Ailidh.”

#111: Altered Images – Don’t Talk To Me About Love

“The Scottish ‘Heart of Glass’ “ (7 August 2020)

#110: Wah! – Story of The Blues (Parts One and Two)

“Pete Wylie doesn’t do things by half. This climbed all the way to #3 in the charts and is probably the best known of the hits. To my young(ish) ears it sounded like no other record that had ever been released at that point in history. To my old(er) ears it still sounds like no other record that has ever been released in history.” (14 October 2015).

#109: The Bodines – Therese

“Although they are no more than a small footnote in musical history, The Bodines in 1987 did write and record one of the best ever indie-pop singles. They were a four-piece band from Glossop, a town fairly close to Manchester and given they emerged in 1985, it is probably fair to say that The Smiths were amongst their inspirations.” (20 June 2014)

#108: The Skids – Into The Valley

From one of the ICA’s I penned.  #128 on 14 June 2017.

“Puts a smile on my face every time those first few distinctive notes are played. Richard Jobson has stated that the indecipherable lyrics are about the recruitment of Scottish youths into the army and more specifically about a friend who had been killed on a tour of duty in Northern Ireland. I prefer to think that it is actually a tribute to High Valleyfield (aka The Valley), a former mining village just outside of Dunfermline whose residents have long endured a reputation for hard living.”

#107: Johnny Cash – Hurt

I grew up with the sounds of Johnny Cash in the 60s and early 70s, sometimes in my own house, but most often when I visited and stayed over with an aunt and uncle who seemed to have all his records. In saying that, there was no way in my sultry teenage era, nor during my time at university when I thought I was cool and trendy, could I admit to having a love of any sort of country music far less having an idol in Johnny Cash. But as more and more hip bands began to include acoustic songs on their albums, it began to be easier to suggest country/blues influences without getting laughed at.

And then in the 1990s, Johnny Cash became fashionable again. His series of ‘American Recording’ LPs, which featured a mix of Cash originals and cover versions, brought him to a whole new audience.  This is probably the best known of the cover songs, thanks to a stunning and moving video that was on heavy rotation on MTV.

#106: Kylie Minogue – Confide In Me

Swiss Adam.  ICA #260.  11 August 2020.

“In 1994 Kylie signed to DeConstruction, Mike Pickering’s label that had massive hits with K-Klass and Bassheads but wanted someone who was a name signing. Kylie wanted some credibility and to work with different songwriters. The result was this, a superb adult pop song, Kylie with Brothers In Rhythm on production, some trip-hop drums, Middle Eastern melodies, a didgeridoo and a string section. The strings are seriously giving the song gravitas and sexiness, there’s a moody undertow and she sings of being hurt, of bearing crosses and sharing secrets. The breakdown part where she whispers ‘stick or twist/ the choice is yours’ is Kylie grown up, the PWL years consigned to the past.”

#105: Hey! Elastica – Eat Your Heart Out

“AGGRESSIVE TRASHY DANCE-POP was one of the descriptions meted out to Hey! Elastica, a short-lived but rather wonderful Edinburgh band from the early 80s who I featured more than a few times over on the old blog before google had its evil way with it. There was a huge hype about them – visually they were quite stunning, while the sound they made was tailor-made for radio play. The indie kids and students loved the sound and yet it had the potential to crossover to younger folk more in tune with mainstream pop. Jacques the Kipper was, like me, rather fond of them as we would discover many years later when we bonded over our tastes in music.” (20 May 2016)

#104: The Style Council – Money Go Round (12″ version)

From one of the ICA’s I penned.  #217 on 26 June 2019.

“From 1983.  It’s a big song in every aspect – the best part of eight minutes long, Paul’s pulpit sermon is given added nuance thanks to D.C’s breathless backing efforts while Mick hits the keyboards as if he’s determined to land the next big solo on a song by The The; there are pounding drums, lashings of bass slaps and the best use of a trombone/trumpet combination outside of 2 Tone. It’s still, for me, one of the best moments in all the Modfather’s lengthy career.”

#103: Prince – Sign “O” The Times

“It is now exactly 30 years almost 40 years since this single was released with the album of the same name following a month later. This coincided with the period when I wasn’t paying as much attention to pop music as I had in previous years. My consumption was mainly through radio and TV and so I’d have heard this, and caught the video a fair bit, not only for the fact that it reached #10 in the singles charts but as it proved to be one of those songs which stayed on playlists for many months afterwards.” (2 March 2017)

#102: King Biscuit Time – I Walk The Earth

“King Biscuit Time is also the name under which Steve Mason of The Beta Band initially released his solo material, with two EPs in 1998-2000 and then two singles and an album in 2005/2006. My favourite of his stuff from that era is the lead song from the No Style EP, which came out in June 2000.” (14 September 2019)

#101: The Monochrome Set – Eine Symphonie des Grauens

“The Monochrome Set, formed in 1978 in London, would go on to release twelve singles between 1979 and 1985, before their initial break-up. Almost all twelve of the singles are worthy of sitting in the collection of any fan of fiendishly catchy, clever and danceable indie-pop. The first three singles came out in 1979 on Rough Trade. I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t huge on the band at this time. If I had been aware of the quality of these singles, I’d have snapped them up at the time…..or at least I’d like to think I would have…..the 15/16-year old me might have thought them just a tad too quirky and maybe it was best that I didn’t discover them for a few more years, courtesy of them and later singles being aired at nights in the student union.” (16 October 2019)

 

 

JC