Category: Associates

I’ve a dozen or so Associates singles on 12″ as well as a handful released by Billy Mackenzie under his own name.   There’s only one that I really don’t enjoy listening to and when any of its four tracks happen to come up on the i-pod or i-phone, then the FF button is reached for as quickly as possible.

It’s all down to the tracks being remixes of songs whose original versions I’m very fond of. They can be found on the Poperetta EP, released in 1990 on EastWest Records as part of the promotional activities around Popera,  a then newly compiled singles collection (10 on vinyl, 17 on CD).

The EP took two songs and handed them to Thomas Fehlmann and Marathon, two German-based producers whose expertise centred around creating music and sounds for the club scene in which they were heavily involved.  I can sort of get the thinking behind the idea of trying to expand the market/audience for Associates.  But it doesn’t seem to me that it worked.

Now it might well be that, given I’m not easily disposed to music which is made purely for the club scene, I’m not the best person to judge their takes on the songs.  It does feel, however, that the remixes have sucked out all that made the originals feel special/unique (especially Club Country) and replaced them with sounds that could be attributed to almost any act making a particular kind of dance music in 1990.

mp3: Associates – Waiting For The Loveboat (extended voyage)
mp3: Associates – Club Country Club
mp3: Associates – Club Country Club (time unlimited)
mp3: Associates – Waiting For The Loveboat (slight return)

Feel free to disagree.

JC

Associates – Sulk (1982)

Sulk was the third LP by Associates in as in as many years, albeit one of the previous LPs had simply brought together singles and b-sides.   It was, however, the first to bring them commercial success to match the critical acclaim of the earlier releases.

My first exposure to the band came via a friend passing me copies of their singles and earlier material on a cassette tape, and initally it was the pulsing weird electronica of the likes of Transport to Central, White Car In Germany and Tell Me Easter’s On Friday that grabbed my attention.  But gradually my ears attuned themselves to the strange vocals that accompanied the music and allowed me to fully ‘get’ what Associates were all about.

There was no way, however, that I thought they’d ever be a chart band which would attracted a teenybop following such as happened in 1981.  Sure, both boys were handsome and photogenic, particularly frontman Billy Mackenzie and thanks to them being on WEA Records they had a big promo/marketing arm there to push them along.  But these boys were just too weird to be pop stars weren’t they?

The stunning success of the singles Party Fears Two and Club Country changed everything.  Looking back there’s a big hint that this was an unexpected development all round – neither single had an advance promo made in an era when this was just about the first thing any record label, and not just a major like WEA, considered when planning the release of a 45.

It can often be the case that the inclusion of one or two truly stunning songs can overshadow the rest on an LP and make everything else seem tame or even mediocre in comparison.  But there’s no chance of Party Fears Two or Club Country having that impact or effect on Sulk, as all ten tracks really are something very special.

I know the LP was given a totally different tracklisting upon release in the USA – three of the tracks on the UK release were omitted and replaced with songs which had been singles, so what follows might not make sense to readers from that part of the world.

Rather unusually, Side A is devoid of the hit singles – indeed it is a side of an LP that goes out of its way to be often as far removed as possible from the jauntiness and joy of the music which had got the band radio airplay, appearances on Top of the Pops and those afore-mentioned Top 20 hits.

Having said that, it opens with an upbeat and incredibly catchy instrumental in Arrogance Gave Him Up that I can recall being a staple on the dancefloor of at least one alternative Glasgow nightclub.  After that, the trio of No, Bap De La Bap, Gloomy Sunday and Nude Spoons are as astonishing a run of music as you can ever hope to hear as Alan Rankine demonstrates that top-quality electronica back in 1982 could be made without it sounding rinky-dinky, light, inconsequential or disposable.

Thankfully Sulk came with a lyric sheet as there’s no way that you’d have worked out what the hell Billy was singing.  And it wasn’t that you couldn’t make out the words a la Elizabeth Fraser/Cocteau Twins, it was more like realising all the words on their own make sense, but in the order sung by Billy seem either nonsensical or inspired. Or both.

Oh, and the version of Gloomy Sunday, one of the most covered songs of all time, is surely among the best there is….

Side B opens with Skipping and It’s Better This Way – two of the best bits of music the band would ever lay down – and closes with firstly the hit singles and ultimately an instrumental that would later be extended and turned into a further hit single.

mp3:  Associates – Skipping

Sulk is a work of genius.  Actually, it’s the work of two geniuses.

It’s a work that veers all over the place and while it will often be labelled in with many other synth-led LPs of the era, it is nothing like those of Japan, Human League, Simple Minds, Ultravox or the rest of the bands who cracked the charts on a regular basis.  The vocals are often unworldly, going from a low and creepy moan to the high falsetto of a 10-year old choir boy in the space of seconds.

Sulk has songs that will have you leaping to the dance floor, and songs that will have you cowering behind the couch in fear. The production is outlandish and at times stretched to breaking point, but never ever snaps into overwrought pomp and pomposity.  It’s a record which hasn’t dated….indeed, if anything it has got better with age. It’s an album that could only have been made in the 80s, as only at that point in time could the music industry have really indulged the artistes to the extent they did.  And there’s no way that Billy and Alan would have become pop stars in the 21st Century, as their essential rough edges would have smoothed down to make them mundane and mediocre.

Sulk, dear readers, is an LP genuinely like no other.

And in deciding that it fits at #3 in this rundown, it has the honour of being my all-time favourite album by any singer or group to emerge out of Scotland.

JC

When the news emerged that the record company people were hell-bent on issuing a 40th Anniversary edition of Sulk, I gave a snort of derision.

It has long been one of my favourite records of all time, one that I have on vinyl (with a mint copy having replaced my battered, scratched and damaged version) as well as a CD version that was released in 2000 on the basis it had been remastered and came with seven extra tracks.  There were a few promises given that even the most diehard of fans would have stuff to look forward to with the 2022 re-release, but I had made my mind up that I wasn’t going to bite.

I’m guessing, however, now that I have a copy at Villain Towers, the record company people are having their own snort of sorts at my expense.

I should explain that it was only down to the fact that the shop at Last Night From Glasgow was getting some stock and was offering its members a reduction in the price of the deluxe version that led to my change of heart.  It still involved me shelling out £44 for something which I wasn’t entirely sure I needed, albeit I wanted.

So, the question has to be…..was it worth it?

The packaging is exquisite.  It’s a hard cover, inside which is a book pack, containing notes and thoughts from the writer Simon Reynolds, along with some photographs from the era, some of which are moody and atmospheric while others capture the fact that the band members really enjoyed one another’s company.

As for the music, the 140gm blue-coloured vinyl copy of the album looks and sounds great, and being a remastered version, does feel like a worthy addition to the collection. There are also 3 x CDs – one being a copy of Sulk which feels a bit superfluous, while the other two comprise

• 17 tracks (out-takes, monitor mixes and rarities)
• 19 tracks (nine Peel Session takes, and ten songs recorded in Holland in January 1981)

At first glance, it does appear to be a lot of additional music, but most of it, other than the Dutch concert, has been previously available, thanks in particular to the release of Double Hipness in 2000, a 2xCD effort that was largely a collection of (then) unreleased demos.  The fact I hadn’t ever got round to buying a 2016 2 x CD re-issue of Sulk meant that I was picking up versions of some songs for the first time….any Associates obsessive might be feeling a little cheated by how little previously unheard or unreleased material was contained in the 40th anniversary edition.

mp3: Associates – Me, Myself and The Tragic Story (John Leckie Recording)

This had previously been part of that 2016 re-release.  In mid-1980, Associates had gone into Abbey Road studios with John Leckie involved in production duties, but having laid down a couple of tracks, the decision was taken not to pursue things any further.  It proved to be a great call as there is no question that the songs written for Sulk would have sounded totally different, and less other-worldly, than they did under the guidance of Mike Hedges.

The track is an early version of Arrogance Gave Him Up, the instrumental opener on Sulk.

mp3: Associates – Skipping (live)

This version shows the extent that songs underwent a transformation once the band got into the studio.  There’s a real energy to the song, as well as an introduction which could very well something that was separated at birth from Rip It Up by Orange Juice.   It’s worth remembering that Associates, when playing live back in 1980/early 81, didn’t make much use of keyboards, and yet they became the backbone of so much that made the album so memorable.  The lyrics also would be changed a bit……….

The thing is, having now played the blue vinyl and listened to the CDs, I’ll be surprised if I reach for them again in the near future.  The songs are now on the hard drive of the laptop as well as part of the i-tunes set-up, so I can get them at any point in time.  I can see me reading the sleeve notes and looking at the photos again, especially when I give the original album a spin in the future, but the hardback 40th anniversary edition is now tucked away alongside a few other box sets, safe and out of harm’s way.

Overall, I’m happy that I picked it up, but there’s a slight nagging feeling that it wasn’t entirely a necessary or essential purchase given what I already owned.  I think it’s time now to slow down on shelling out on nostalgia…..after all, there’s already plenty of artefacts lining the shelves.

JC

Despite my love for the voice of Billy Mackenzie, I didn’t always back in the day go out there and buy vinyl for the sake of it.

For instance, I didn’t ever desire to own a copy of Take Me To The Girl, a stand-alone single released in late 1985.  I didn’t, if you’ll pardon the pun, take to the song on the small number of occasions I happened to chance upon it via the radio, but there was always the intention that if I saw it in a bargain bin that I’d hand over a few pennies.

It never quite worked out and so, for the best part of almost 40 years, there’s been a hole in my collection (along with a couple of the early singles) which I’ve been attending to.

I got this one on 12″ through Discogs.  It only cost me £1 plus postage (and it came along with a few more 12″ singles to save on the P&P).  I would, ideally, have liked it to have had a few less pops and crackles, but I can’t grumble given what it cost. And while I now have a bit more appreciation for the single than I did in 1985, I still find it to be derivative of its time to be an essential Associates release, and it certainly hasn’t dated as well as many of the other songs of the era.

mp3: Associates – Take Me To The Girl (12″ mix)

Tucked away on the b-side, however, was a different and rather lovely version of the song.

mp3: Associates – The Girl Who Took Me

It’s vocal and piano for the most part, with a hint of quiet synth and brush drums in the background.  This is one that would have made the ICA back in September 2017 if I had known about it.

JC

The confession continues.

I’ve bought something else from RSD 2022, only this time I had to send off to a participating store in Chelmsford, Essex to get it.

There was no way any of the Scottish stores would still have had a copy of Covers by Associates within about thirty minutes of the doors opening.  I actually didn’t fancy my chances of finding one on-line at an affordable price, fully believing they would all be in the hands of those whose only thought was to flip them via Discogs or Ebay.

There are five songs on Covers, so it’s basically a 12″ single, albeit played at 33 and a third RPM.  The tracks are Love Hangover, Gloomy Sunday, Boys Keep Swinging, Eloise, and Kites.  I’ve the first two already on vinyl, and indeed it could be argued (rightly) that Kites is by 39 Lyon Street and not Associates.  But still, the opportunity to finally have a vinyl copy of the debut single was too good to pass on:-

mp3: Associates – Boys Keep Swinging

You can expect to in the region of £400 for a copy of the original 7″ single, released on Double Hip Records back in 1979. I don’t think the 12″ RDS release will reach even 10% of that figure in the years ahead. But an accumulation of value was not what at the front of my brain when I hit the on-line purchase button.

JC

Album: The Affectionate Punch – Associates
Review: NME, 16 August 1980
Author: Paul Morley

RUMOURS have been dripping down from Scotland about a diverse horde of determined post Skids/S. Minds/Scars groups all ready to shift our attention. Positive Noise, Altered Images, Josef K, Orange Juice . . . the newest rumours centred around The Associates, who it seems were refining the vision of Station To Station, who it seems had a singer who sang like that particular Bowie. He wasn’t copying, that’s how he really sang – from deep inside, neo-operatically.

It sounded ponderous, but The Affectionate Punch is too good, too spectacular to be merely the work of yet another group set to make a career out of one of Bowie’s stops. The Associates have further defined Station’s eerie combination of vitality and disorientation, drawn from is melancholia, and share its European feel. It’s a debut almost as sensational as Real Life – The Associates have things in common with Magazine worth talking about.

That European feel for a start, which basically stems from their liberating remoteness from standard r’n’r influences: the logic and out of the blue maturity of their sound: a Kurt Weill caught up with John Barry cabaret tension: and a respect for the irrational.

Billy Mackenzie is vocally reminiscent of Bowie: but Bowie has never sung with so much delightful range and subtlety, never really had to. Mackenzie’s soul singing is in the pained, proud tradition of Holiday and Garland. He’d be comfortable and do a great job singing ‘Windmills Of My Mind’ (he almost does on ‘Even Dogs In The Wild’). An artist at communication, he takes intense care over enunciation – the shape of words and the space between them. His vocals are either a folly or something very special: I reckon a little of the former, a lot of the latter.
The Associates sound is somewhere between evocative Cure and dramatic Magazine: a passionate cabaret soul music, a fulfillment of the European white dance music Bowie was flirting with back then. It is a fabulist (as opposed to surrealist) entertainment vitiated by a cool sense of art.

Billy Mackenzie and Alan Rankine write the music; Mackenzie the words. Rankine appears to play all instruments with remarkable skill except drums (Nigel Glockler). The ten songs are consistently inventive, ironic, irreverent, written with a light sometimes self-mocking restraint, arranged from a post-Eno, point of view.

The opening two songs are immediately impressive: the stylish cynical title track, typically laced with incidental delights; the almost atomised, light-headed ‘Amused As Always’ – Mackenzie’s singing here at is most absorbed and absorbing. The side’s closer, ‘Transport To Central’, forgoes obvious percussion and is formed around bitter, hedonistic guitars. The guitar sound on the LP is of the Manzanera/Levene/Smith line, lyrical, splintered, very anti-formal.

Individually, Mackenzie’s songs don’t say anything in particular (you could say they’re fashionably vague, but I’m not going to). Nervy, inward-looking images are repeated, reviewed, suggesting a feeling or an action, a mood or a moment. Effectively simplistic, songs about chance, confusion, absurdity, failure, suspense, that never degenerate into the precious.

‘A Matter Of Gender’ is a lush example of The Associates’ private desperation and public drama. ‘Even Dogs In The Wild’ is decadent cabaret, feeling for warmth; a typically clipped swing, finger clickings, a lone whistler in the dark. Mackenzie goes right over the top on ‘Would I… Bounce Back’ but still doesn’t seem to be stretching himself; ‘A’ drags out the group’s amoralism from its usual corner.
Don’t look for message or moral – the songs affect a dreamlike incompleteness but are not unprincipled or uncaring. They develop an account of the various mechanisms by which people remain trapped in boredom, abstraction, essence.

With Mackenzie’s obsessive flamboyance, the invariably plangent melodies, the richly fragmented detail of the songs, The Associates are undoubtedly theatrical. But their sense of theatre is natural, even profound, not the usual pop flash-trivia. The Associates are real performers.

At their worst they are engagingly supra-whimsical, at their best they are potently sophisticated and sensitive. Their well-ordered flair and melodrama seems right for the times: decay music.

The Affectionate Punch is a kind of masterpiece.

JC adds…….

It was in 1980, that my tastes began to develop and widen, thanks in part to Joy Division, Magazine, Echo & The Bunnymen and the Bowie of Ashes to Ashes/Fashion/Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), all of which I felt were a cut above the norm, although there was still no question that The Jam were the singularly most important band ever to have graced the planet at any point in musical history.

I’d love to tell you that I raced out the next day after reading this review and bought The Affectionate Punch, but I’d be lying.  It would take me until the following year, when I had started university, and hearing White Car In Germany for the first time that totally stopped me in my tracks, thanks to it being included on a compilation tape made by a new mate I’d met at university that led to me buying a copy of Fourth Drawer Down, the compilation released in late 1981 bringing together all the singles which Alan and Billy had released that particular year.

I’d love to tell you at the purchase of Fourth Drawer Down then led to me going back to the shop to buy the debut album from the previous year, but again I’d be lying.  I’d not too long fallen in love for the first time with someone who I’d been at school with and her musical tastes were very much on the conservative side, and so I was spending money and time trying to get her to appreciate the more pop-orientated elements of my weird vinyl, which meant anything that didn’t chart stood very little chance of being bought.  But as I started to spend more time with my new pals from uni, and she with her new friends at the bank where she had been taken on as a school-leaver, the relationship withered; it broke my heart at the time, but the consolation was that I threw myself deeper than ever into music.

Fourth Drawer Down wasn’t bought until after the Associates had become famous; even then, it was from someone who, having rich parents and a bulky wallet, bought loads of records on a whim and had found that early Associates was nothing like the pop-era Associates of 1982.  He more or less gave it away to me…..

mp3: The Associates – The Affectionate Punch
mp3: The Associates – Amused As Always
mp3: The Associates – Transport To Central
mp3: The Associates – Even Dogs In The Wild

Paul Morley was right to say that The Affectionate Punch is a kind of masterpiece.  It sounded like nothing else back in 1980. Sadly, most folk only know of it through the 1982 remix, released by Warner Brothers after the success of Party Fears Two/Club Country/18 Carat Love Affair/Sulk, in which the songs were given a fairly radical makeover in terms of production and from Billy being asked, nay forced, to re-record some vocals.  It was a fatal mistake as it found no favour with those who had liked The Associates from the outset and, despite the tweaks, it was ignored by those who wanted a repeat of the chart hits.

And, of course, the album has given its name to a Glasgow-based collective who have featured a few times on this blog over the past two years.  Things have been a wee bit quiet of late with the collective, but watch this space for developments…..

JC

I don’t think I need to say too much about this particular song.  My thanks to Martin Elliott (AKA Our Swedish Correspondent) for  the suggestion.  It’s actually worth sharing the contents of his e-mail:-

Hi Jim!

In my mind a very natural connection to the Paul Haig 12″ would be The Associates, considering the friendship between especially Billy and Paul. Now I have a hard time making a choice between Party Fears Two and Country Club, but tend to lean towards PF2 since the version of It’s Better This Way on the b-side is cracking – and slightly different from the album version. But then the Country Club 12″ version is just pure magic…

Then you could, if you want some kind of link to the next Monday move to Cocteau Twins, Peppermint Pig 12″ which is produced by Alan (even though I read that the band didn’t like it all and thought Alan didn’t comprehend the slightest what they wanted to do…).

Anyway – the risk is you’ll hear from me again on this topic, it ticks pretty much all my boxes. 🙂

Thus, I nominate The Associates – Party Fears Two as a Monday classic.

All the best!
Martin

More than happy to oblige.

mp3: Associates – Party Fears Two

Ripped from the original 12″ vinyl, dating back to 1982, at 320 kbps.  As is this, albeit it is a bit more crackly than the b-side, especially during the quiet opening twenty seconds.  But it does come at a groovy, groovy speed……

mp3: Associates – It’s Better This Way

Tune in next Monday for another hi-quality vinyl rip.

JC

This 45 from 1981 was, unsurprisingly, included in my stab at an Associates ICA. I don’t think I can better my words from that occasion.

A moody, majestic and magical few minutes to open things up, it demonstrates just how important both Alan Rankine and Billy Mackenzie were to the sound and feel of this band. My first exposure to the Associates, and one that was suggested by someone thanks to my love of Magazine – the eerie horror-movie soundtrack keyboards are akin to those of Dave Formula and the seemingly nonsensical lyrics would be the stuff Howard Devoto would have been proud of. Name-checking Aberdeen, Dusseldorf, Zurich and Munich in the opening few lines and giving us the wonderful rhyming couplet of “Anonymous as bathrooms, Androgynous as Dachshunds”. All albums, ICAs or not, should open with something as memorable as this.

I’ve plucked out White Car In Germany to commemorate the fact that, in the company of Rachel, I’m off to Munich for a few days – it was our Christmas present to one another. I’ll be going back to a city that I haven’t visited since 1995 when Raith Rovers played the mighty Bayern Munich on the UEFA Cup while Rachel gets to cross somewhere she has long wanted to go.

There’s actually a football element being incorporated into the trip with us taking in a game on Saturday. Not for us the glamour of the Bundesliga, with Bayern having an away game. Nor are we going to seek out any other teams in the immediate vicinity of Munich. We will be making our way to Ingolstadat to watch a third-tier game, which just happens to be against the second-string of Bayern. The link comes from the town of Ingolstadt being twinned with the town of Kirkcaldy in Scotland, and Kirkcaldy being the town in which Raith Rovers play. There are long-standing connections between the Ingolstadt and Rovers fans and we are meeting up with a big group of locals and spending the day with them. Ingolstadt, on the banks of the Danube, looks lovely judging by the pictures – the team is currently battling for a spot at the top of their league for promotion to the second tier of German football, in the same way the Rovers are here in Scotland. I’m so looking forward to it.

I’m also very hopeful that this won’t be my only visit to Germany in 2020. All being well, I’m soon to take my leave of work, leaving me with a considerable amount of free time in which to enjoy myself. I haven’t forgotten the efforts made by Dirk, Walter and Brian to come to Glasgow for a Blogger’s get-together a few years back and I’m determined to make my way to their parts of the world in the not too distant future. The UK-based bloggers can also expect to hear from me soon enough – life is too short to put off the things you’ve always really wanted to do.

White Car in Germany is a great example of how only Billy Mackenzie was truly capable of singing his lyrics without sounding like a total prat:-

Aberdeen’s an old place
Dusseldorf’s a cold place
Cold as spies can be

Lisp your way through Zurich
Walk on eggs in Munich
Rub salt in its knee

I’m not one for surgery
Premature senility
White car in Germany

Anonymous as bathrooms
Androgynous as Dachshunds
Try them out and see

If some brat annoys you
Do what’s felt impromptu
Kick them in their own

Is this your infirmary
On the road to recovery
White car in Germany

White car
White car
White car in Germany

mp3 : Associates – White Car In Germany

Here’s your b-side of what was a flop single.

mp3 : Associates – The Associate

Oh, and while I’m here:-

mp3 : Editors – Munich

See you all when I get back – in the meantime, there’ll be a few postings to keep you amused.

JC

I think it’s fair to say that debut albums tend to be the ones that turn out the best and most memorable. This is often down to them being filled with the songs and tunes that brought the band/singer to the notice of the A&R folk in the first instance and having benefitted from being finessed in the live setting before any feet and other body parts ever entered a studio.

I think it’s equally fair to say that in the case of Associates, things are a wee bit different….but then again Alan Rankine and Billy Mackenzie refused to follow any of the norms when it came to making a career in the music industry. The duo had the audacity and genius to independently release an unauthorised cover of a current David Bowie hit single as their debut 45, knowing it would draw attention to what they were up to. The move worked and, at the start of the decade in which electronica would rule the roost for the most part, certainly here in the UK, Associates got themselves a record deal.

The early material as found on debut album The Affectionate Punch (1980) and the compilation effort Fourth Drawer Down (1981) is now considered to be ground-breaking and innovative, eschewing the poppy side of the genre for a harder-edged sound that took much of its inspiration from continental Europe. At the time, however, it was seen by many, including many critics in the weekly music papers, as a bit clunky and cumbersome – it was music to which you stroked your chin rather than shook your ass. It was a painful situation for Billy Mackenzie who had huge ambitions to be a fully-fledged pop star and really believed he could be so on his own terms.

Things changed dramatically in 1982 when two of the finest ever singles to come out of Scotland took them into the singles charts. Party Fears Two, with its ridiculously catchy tune and its impenetrable lyric, was released February 1982. It was something of a slow burner, taking six weeks to hit its peak of #9. The moment it dropped out of the charts, the band’s label, WEA, fired out the high-tempo and infectious Club Country, a song that left must have caused some panic in all the other electronica-pop bands who had absolutely no chance of sounding as brilliant as this.

A week or so later, the band’s second album Sulk was released. It comprised ten tracks, and outside of the two hits singles, it wasn’t a million miles removed from the earlier flop material, except this time around the critics lapped it up.

Sulk challenged its listeners in a way that very little else did in the early 80s. The hits were tucked away towards the end of the B-side of the record, meaning that there was a lot to get through before any familiarity kicked in. The whole of the A-side is brilliant and bonkers in equal measures. Everyone was saying it was the Mackenzie voice that made the band so unique and distinct, so it was perverse of them to open with an instrumental. The first actual song with a lyric is funeral in pace and is full of disturbing imagery about tearing out your hair, biting your nails and cutting yourself shaving while wrapping your arms in a strip torn from a dress:-

mp3 : Associates – No

And that’s not even the most bizarre moment of the A-side – that’s reserved for the closing track that Alan Rankine would later say was about an acid trip that Billy had had when he was fifteen or sixteen and during which some kitchen utensils were copulating:-

mp3 : Associates – Nude Spoons

Turning the vinyl over and putting the needle into the groove brings up what I will always consider my favourite track on the album. Skipping has Billy going through his entire vocal range from bass/baritone (with hints of a Sean Connery impression) to near falsetto as he lets tip at the end over what is a haunting melody that many have tried in vain to capture and replicate over the ensuing decades:-

mp3 : Associates – Skipping

The remainder of the B-side is the most accessible and commercial side of any record that either Alan or Billy would ever involve themselves, with the four tracks comprising a new version of the Party Fears Two b-side, the two hit singles and a closing two-minute long instrumental that would be extended, benefitting also from the addition of a lyric, and turned into a third and final hit 45:-

mp3 : Associates – nothinginsomethingparticular

Sulk is a masterpiece. It’s possible that without the two hit singles that WEA would have deemed it unworthy of release and it’s certainly the case that they didn’t want any of the gothic masterpieces that made up the album to get anywhere near daytime BBC Radio 1. The sad thing is that the LP marked the end of Alan and Billy’s partnership as the former quit the band just a few months later, frustrated by what he felt was an increasingly diva-type behaviour from the singer in the rehearsals that were due to lead to a series of cancelled live shows in the UK at major venues, not to mention an impending, and again cancelled, tour of the USA.

I’ve based my reminisces on the original vinyl release in 1982 as that was the one I wore out quickly from repeated playings. The USA version of the album, issued after Alan had departed, had a very different running order and indeed three of the tracks on the UK album, including Nude Spoons, were left off altogether and replaced by the later 18 Carat Love Affair/Love Hangover double-A single and two tracks the earlier material. This was obviously the album that WEA had really wanted as the USA version was used for the initial CD release of Sulk in 1988, with things only rectified in 2000 when it was finally reissued again on CD, in its original running order, after many years being out of print. Just a pity that it had taken the sad death of Billy Mackenzie a few years earlier to enable this state of affairs.

I’ll just about leave the last word to Paul Morley – here’s part of his review of the album in the NME:-

“Sulk deals with everything, in its hectic, drifting way … There is an uninterruptible mix-up of cheap mystery, vague menace, solemn farce, serious struggle, arrogant ingenuity, deep anxiety, brash irregularity, smooth endeavour … Sometimes Sulk is simply enormous: and then again it is fantastically unlikely.”

Fantastically unlikely is the perfect description. It certainly wouldn’t happen these days.

JC

A GUEST POSTING by MARTIN ELLIOT

I believe I rather well qualify as an obsessed collector of material by The Associates and the late Billy MacKenzie. Sid Law has earlier provided some excellent rare songs here at TVV, but you can’t have too many – can you?

This OCD EP is made up of tracks recorded using the Associates moniker, with side A having tracks where Alan was still in – at least when the tracks where originally written/recorded – while side B are demos Billy recorded later. I’m not sure any longer where I got the side A session recordings from, I have a couple of more. Could potentially be for a TV or radio show, but that’s only a guess. There is no audience on the recordings but on one track, not included here, Billy thanks for the session.

Side A.

1. Even Dogs In The Wild (studio session) – A favourite song of mine, which has surfaced in many different versions. This session recording has a jazzy feel to it. Not too far away from the Irrationale cassette version.

2. Gloomy Sunday (studio session) – Here is also a slightly jazzy feel. Haunting vocals.

3. Message Oblique Speech (studio session) – bring in the band, and go full throttle. Great version.

Side B.

1. Take Me To The Girl (demo)

2. The Glamour Chase (demo)

3. Fever (demo)

All having a slightly rougher, or at least less polished, edge than the released versions. These give a good picture of the road from demo to completed, commercial, release. Still, that voice!

A lot has been said, and can still be said, about what could have been had Billy still been among us. We will never know, I’m convinced in today’s digital world he would be able to find better platforms for his artistic outlet than traditional record companies. Useless speculations, at times I need to listen to the demo of “Outerpol” to remind me he could also occasionally do stuff I find unlistenable…

I hope he found peace wherever he is now.

MARTIN

I’ve long striven for an Associates ICA but it’s another one of those tasks that just seems beyond me, especially when more great previously unknown songs come my way courtesy of Sid Law via the various postings he’s offered over the years. I know that this 12-track selection (which in itself breaks my 10-song rule of thumb) has more omissions than inclusions, particularly for the diehard fans, and is sure to attract a bit of criticism. I’ve concentrated on the more commercial stuff as they, by nature, tend to be a bit more accessible than many others but there are a couple of deeper and darker tunes included as they fit in just perfectly to the running order. Oh and the justification for the 12 songs is that they include two covers.

SIDE A

1. White Car In Germany (single, 1981)

A moody, majestic and magical few minutes to open things up, it demonstrates just how important both Alan Rankine and Billy Mackenzie were to the sound and feel of this band. My first exposure to the band, and one that was suggested thanks to my love of Magazine, the eerie horror-movie soundtrack keyboards are akin to those of Dave Formula and the seemingly nonsensical lyrics would be the stuff Howard Devoto would have been proud of. Name-checking Aberdeen, Dusseldorf, Zurich and Munich in the opening few lines and giving us the wonderful rhyming couplet of “Anonymous as bathrooms, Androgynous as Dachshunds”. All albums, ICA or not, should open with something as memorable as this.

2. Boys Keep Swinging (single, 1979)

My admission that White Car In Germany was my first exposure to the band reveals that I missed out totally on this debut single, the cheeky and somewhat irreverent cover version of what was then a relatively then new song by David Bowie. No copyright permission was sought with the boys fully aware that the ensuing furore and legal threats would provide them with the oxygen of publicity. I probably would have hated this cover version back in 1979 but today it feels somewhat charming and almost innocent.

3. 18 Carat Love Affair (single, 1982)

Released as a stand-alone 45 on the back of the chart success of two earlier singles and the LP Sulk, this proved to be the last time Associates or indeed Billy Mackenzie troubled the higher end of the pop charts. It’s the instrumental track nothinginsomethingparticular with additional lyrics. Unashamedly 80s in sound and style, it still has the ability all these years to put a huge grin on my face as I recall the promotional efforts on Top of The Pops as Billy flirted outrageously with Martha Ladly while Alan initially played a chocolate guitar before breaking it up and handing it members of the audience to eat. Performance art at its most absurd.

4. Tell Me Easter’s On Friday (single 1981)

The band was really proficient in the early days – there were seven singles released in 1981 – all of which with the benefit of hindsight seemed to digging deep into the different genres of their musical influences without any meaningful effort to impact on the charts. Some of these early songs may appear to have been self-indulgent but it strikes me that the record label bosses wanted to have a serious rather than pop band on their books, one that would get talked about at great length within the pages of the four weekly music papers that were published in the UK at the time. The boys were being matched with producers and engineers who were keen to explore the extent to which the synthesiser could be deployed in the studio and who looked upon that amazing voice simply as another ‘instrument’ to throw into the mix. To be fair, Alan and Billy were themselves happy to go down this route in the early days, but before too long, the latter really wanted just to get on Top of the Pops and into the pages of Smash Hits.

5. Party Fears Two (single, 1982)

The 45 that delivered on Billy’s dreams and ambitions. Their best known few minutes and among their finest. Enough has been written before about, both on this blog and elsewhere. Just enjoy the full majesty of the 12” version with its fabulous drawn-out ending which leads nicely into….

6. Those First Impressions (single, 1984)

….a song with a fabulous drawn-out intro. A case can be made that The Associates weren’t ever the same after Alan left in 1982 and that what followed was really Billy’s solo output with a host of backing musicians and sundry helpers in the studio. Be that as it may, there were still as many studio albums released without Alan’s involvement as there had been at the outset (albeit they took an inordinate amount of time to record without his steady hand at the controls), and this, the first shimmering and poptastic first single post-Rankine gave us all hope that great things were still to come. It stalled at #43 , again proving that the record buying public just couldn’t be trusted.

SIDE B

7. Transport To Central (from The Affectionate Punch (Remix), 1982)

My plan for the b-side of this ICA was for it to follow the template on the a-side which is why I’m starting things off with another gloomy and dour masterpiece. You only need to look at events surrounding the initial release and later subsequent remix of the debut LP to see just how the band wanted to be, and were, different. It came out on Fiction Records in 1980 and was as deep, dark and dense as anything that Joy Division or their contemporaries were delivering. Indeed, JD uber-fan Paul Morley included the word ‘masterpiece’ in his review of the album. Come 1982, and with the band now on Warner Brothers and basking in the success of Sulk, the bosses ordered that the debut be dusted down and given the remix treatment, including a more contemporary sound with some of the lyrics being re-recorded. It was also given a completely different running order. The subsequent results satisfied very few but the take on Transport To Central was one that, for me, worked as it made sound more complete and less of a demo.

8. God Bless The Child (live from Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, 1984)

Some of the finest versions of Associates songs can be found on two hard-to-find CDs that brought together various BBC Radio 1 Sessions recorded between 1981 and 1985 for a multitude of shows including John Peel, Janice Long, David ‘Kid’ Jensen and Richard Skinner. Billy was also more than happy to throw in some cover versions into the sessions and one of them included a take on the Billie Holliday classic from the 1940s. But I was able to track down a reasonably decent quality of his performing the song at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London in December 1984 that was later broadcast on BBC TV’s The Old Grey Whistle Test.  I’ve included it as the  intro shows how gently spoken Billy was as well as the extent of his Dundonian accent;  but above else, it gives an indication of how great his voice was…this is as is with just a piano for accompaniment in front of a hushed audience.

9. Skipping (from Sulk, 1982)

Sulk is rightly considered to be the band’s masterpiece and as much as I love the singles, the track that opens the second side of the vinyl is my go to track on it. Billy goes through his entire vocal range from bass/baritone (with hints of a Sean Connery impression) to near falsetto as he lets rip towards the end all over a haunting melody. This was always going to be on this ICA, it was just a question of where it fitted best and what should follow it,

10. Breakfast (single, 1985)

Perhaps, the LP released in 1985, sold poorly. It was also giving a bit of a critical bashing. It was an era when guitar-pop was a bit in the ascendency and any synth music had to have the big hooks and sing-a-long choruses to stand any chance of airplay. Billy was, to quote Elvis Costello, a man out of time. No more so than on this beautiful piece of singing and performing, with a piano part that EC’s sidekick Steve Nieve would have been proud of.

11. Club Country (single, 1982)

Once again, I’ve turned to the 12″ version. At a few seconds under seven minutes in length its way longer than the versions that appeared on Sulk (I use the plural as the version on the CD release is about a minute shorter than the original vinyl release). It’s a bit tricked up in places but for the most part it works well – and thankfully the sudden ending was kept in situ rather than a long and drawn out fade into silence.

12. A Girl Named Property (single, 1981)

This was one of the seven singles from that particular year but it came out on a different label than they were signed to. It was also one half of a double single with the other side entitled Kites by a band called 39 Lyon Street…who were in fact Associates under another name; 39 Lyon Street was the address of the flat in Dundee where they lived, and where myself and Jacques the Kipper went out of our way to visit a few months ago while in the city for a football match. Worth mentioning that A Girl Named Property was an updated and punchier version of Mona Property Girl which had been the b-side to Boys Keep Swinging, and as such the first original Associates song to see light of day.

BONUS EP

I was trying to make this ICA as commercial sounding as possible which is why none of the tracks from the debut LP The Affectionate Punch, originally released in August 1980, have been included. It’s a fantastic record of its own accord but it’s a long way removed from the stuff that most folk associate (pun intended) with the band. They moved a long way in a short time as can be illustrated with these four songs from the debut.

Track 1 : The Affectionate Punch
Track 4 : Paper House
Track 6 : A Matter of Gender
Track 9 : Deeply Concerned

See….it was impossible to keep it to ten songs.

JC

PS : Tune in tomorrow for a companion piece from a guest contributor.

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON WEDNESDAY 4 JUNE 2008
(and again on 29 October 2013)

Dave and The Cat, the two bright lads behind the Jock’n’Roll website came up with the brilliant concept a couple of years back to try to find out what was the best ever Scottish single by asking folk to send in their Top 10s by e-mail.

The idea proved incredibly popular as sad blokes like me sent in lists that made the case for long-forgotten tracks by equally long-forgotten acts. The rules were pretty easy and straightforward – the songs in question had to have been a single and the act had to have been Scottish.

This didn’t stop your humble scribe falling foul of the rules – I was certain that Musette and Drums by The Cocteau Twins had been a single or at the very least part of an EP, and so put it forward within my particular 10. I was completely wrong – it was only ever an LP track, and so I was invited to re-submit.

As for whether an act was Scottish or not, this was entirely down to Dave and The Cat. For instance, Lloyd Cole (born in Derby) was allowed in on the basis that the remainder of the Commotions were Scottish. Rod Stewart (born London) was not allowed in despite most Americans believing he was the most famous Scottish singer on the planet.

Before long, some newspapers and radio stations picked up on what was happening and the boys began to began to be interviewed about things. What seemed to most get the attention of the media was the fact that the song destined to be #1 was wholly unexpected.

I’m not sure if the majority of those who voted in the Jock’n’Roll poll actually chose Party Fears Two as their all time #1 Scottish single. However, I would place a very large wager that maybe as many as 75-80% of voters will have found a spot for it somewhere in their Top 10 thus giving it more than enough votes overall to take the top position.

Click here for the full rundown

There’s just something about Associates and Billy MacKenzie that makes people get all nostalgic and proud that they and he came from Scotland. When the band seemingly burst onto the scene out of nowhere in 1982, it was with songs that were genuinely unlike anything else you had ever heard. Even all these years later, the stuff still sounds incredibly vibrant, fresh and unique, and very difficult to categorise. It’s just so much easier to have a listen to the breakthrough single and its b-side (which is a different version from that on the LP Sulk) :-

mp3 : Associates – Party Fears Two
mp3 : Associates – It’s Better This Way

Billy had a mischievous wit and charm that endeared him to his fans. He always seemed to have a twinkle in his eye whenever he was on TV. This was a band that seemingly wanted to put fun back into pop music without diluting its quality. The appearances on Top Of The Pops soon became must see affairs, culminating in one time where Alan Rankine turned up with a chocolate guitar (£2,000 from Harrods) and broke it up into pieces to give to the audience while Billy and the others mimed away trying to avoid getting a fit of the giggles.

And although the band were based out of necessity in London, Billy in particular seemed to love just taking the piss out the capital and talked lovingly of his home country, and in particular his home city of Dundee.

You couldn’t help but like Alan and Billy as people – the fact that they were making incredible music was an amazing bonus.

Having discovered them via the hit singles, it was easy to see by delving into the back catalogue that the poppy stuff wasn’t typical of the band. Where they went from here was always going to be interesting. Sadly, 1982 with its hit singles and the consequent masterpiece LP was the last Associates work that the duo produced.

Alan chose to leave the band but Billy carried on, drafting in other musicians to work alongside.

It’s all too evident more than 25 years later to realise just how integral Alan was to the sound and look of Associates. There was also a particular chemistry between him and Billy that was never ever recaptured in full, despite an awful lot of the post-Sulk recordings being tremendous pieces of work with some amazing vocals from Billy.

January 2007 was the 10th anniversary of the death of Billy Mackenzie, and I paid a long tribute to the man in the pages of this blog. At the time, I said his legacy is a volume of work that has highs and lows, albeit one that is dominated by that 1982/83 era of Sulk. Even if that had been the only LP he had ever made, Billy would still be a legend in pop music. I stand by that statement……

(That posting, incredibly, was one that I was able to retrieve from the limited archive acess I had at the old blog. I re-posted it in August 2013.  If you would like to read the full tribute, you can click here).

(I later did an equally lengthy piece on Alan but alas it is lost forever thanks to bastard google acting on dmca notices.)

A very welcome one-off summer special…….

Happy Summer Holidays Mr Vinyl Villain! I’ve been enjoying the Altered Images series and the Devoto “Rainy Season” was good to hear again. I remember being in the front row of an Edinburgh Fringe Show with Claire a few years back (and I still have a lovely signed risque poster). It was called “Lady MacBeth Firmed My Buttocks” and was a delight… however I digress.

I attach a completely unreleased track by The Associates featuring Billy and Alan. It is a cover of Paul Ryan’s song which was a big hit for brother Barry Ryan. Billy loved those kinda “Cabaret” Bacharach style, full-blown songs. On “Eloise” we can hear a young Billy (probably 1979) crooning his way through Rankine’s punky, guitar driven arrangement. Probably recorded at Craighall Studios in Trinity Edinburgh in 1979 with the same unnamed “Cabaret Musicians” responsible for the demos which were released as “Double Hipness” by Virgin in 2000.

Enjoy

Sid

mp3 : Associates – Eloise

JC adds…………It’s a long long way from the sounds that became the hits.  As Sid says it is very punky and having been lucky enough to see the Big Gold Dream documentary the other week it is very clear that the boys fitted in perfectly to the scene that was building up in and around the capital city in the late 70s.