Category: #edwyncollins45s

#9: Rip It Up : Orange Juice (Polydor, POSP 547, 1983)

There’s still a part of me in disbelief that Orange Juice actually enjoyed a Top 10 single back in the early months of 1983.

The second album, Rip It Up, had been released in November 1982, a mere eight months after the debut.  The weekly music papers more or less gave it an absolute pasting, with many writers expressing sorrow that the once darlings, and indeed possible founders, of post-punk indie-pop had released such a hotchpotch of tunes, all of which had been subject to the production styles and values of the day.  There was one exception….Neil Tennant, a writer with Smash Hits (whose aim was very much at the pop side of music and a younger audience) awarded the 8 out of 10 and said “no one can accuse them of being twee anymore … a big step forward which they can be proud of and you can enjoy.”

While I wasn’t overly impressed with it on first hearings, there were a few moments worth listening to, including the opening track, after which the album had taken its name.  Rip It Up, certainly in the eyes of a major label, been a commercial failure, spending just two weeks in the chart and doing no better than its first week showing of #39.  Probably more in hope than expectation, the lead track was chosen to be the band’s new single, and given a release in the first week of February 1983.

mp3: Orange Juice – Rip It Up

There was probably some minor celebration in Polydor HQ when the single was listed for daytime play by Radio 1 which helped it enter the chart at #50.  When it climbed the following week to #42, the same position as that when I Can’t Help Myself hit its peak, everyone probably expected it to then fall away.  But the listening public had taken to the song, and by now it was being heard not just on Radio 1 but on the local BBC stations as well as the many commercial stations across the UK. It made its way up to #31.  And still it continued to sell….#22 the following week, which led to a Top of The Pops appearance in which Edwyn, David, Malcolm and Zeke did their best to enjoy their miming experience.

There were many viewers who, having just had their introduction to Orange Juice, went out and the 45 as it climbed to #10 the following week, and then up to #9.  This led to a second invite to Top of The Pops, one in which they would be introduced by none other than John Peel who had championed them in the Postcard days but had no love for the current music.  This appearance would subsequently go down in legend. Partly because Edwyn managed to get his good friend Jim Thirwell, who recorded under the name of Foetus, and was never a candidate to have a chart single, on to the show to mime the sax solo, but mainly for David’s antics.   The bass player had got shit-faced in the Green Room beforehand, upset and angered by the fact the producers were going to have dancers alongside the band tearing up bits of paper as they mimed away.

It might have been a performance that had the middle-classes tut-tutting in their living rooms, but it did lead to the single going up the charts yet again, just the one place to #8 which is where it peaked.  The story goes that the TOTP producers were so annoyed by the antics of the band that Polydor Records were called up and told Orange Juice were never be invited back onto the show.  Without giving away any spoilers, the chart performances of all their future singles never threatened to call anyone’s bluff.

Rip It Up was released in the usual 7″ and 12″ formats.  The 7″ version (which is near the top of this post) was an edited version of that which opened the album, about 1:40 shorter all told.  The annoying thing is that the single fades out much quicker than the album version, meaning the Paul Quinn backing vocal is very truncated.

The 12″ didn’t simply offer up the album version, however, being a different mix altogether:-

mp3: Orange Juice – Rip It Up (Punk Club Version)

The b-side to the 7″ was written by Malcolm Ross who also took the lead vocal:-

mp3: Orange Juice – Snake Charmer

The b-side to the 12″ was an Edwyn Collins song:-

mp3: Orange Juice – A Sad Lament

Neither track has the pop majesty of the A-side, and were so different from the polished sounds of the songs on the album that their inevitable fates were as b-sides, although A Sad Lament would later be one of the nine tracks to appear on the mini-album Texas Fever (which I’ll come back to in due course).

As part of the marketing efforts by Polydor as the single made its way up the charts, a ‘limited edition’ 2 x 7″ version was pressed up, complete with a glossy poster.  The bonus disc offered a shorter version of A Sad Lament, along with what was described as a live version of earlier Postcard era single Lovesick:-

mp3: Orange Juice – A Sad Lament (edited version)
mp3: Orange Juice – Lovesick (live version)

There was nothing live about Lovesick – it was simply a newly recorded and far more polished version featuring the current Orange Juice line-up. But it’s a decent enough listen and on its own made the purchase of the 2 x 7″ offering worthwhile.

The dilemma for the record label was how best to follow up the hit single and seek to maintain the momentum.

 

JC

#8:I Can’t Help Myself  : Orange Juice (Polydor, POSP 522, 1982)

The next single was another that had been debuted on the David Jensen Radio 1 show back in April 1982:-

mp3: Orange Juice – I Can’t Help Myself (Radio 1 session)

I had access to the four songs played at this session, courtesy of a hissy C90 cassette with a far from ideal sound quality, and I have to admit to being surprised when I read that I Can’t Help Myself had been slated as the next single as it had come across as a bit uneven and disjointed.

Thankfully, the time in the studio, along with the band becoming more familiar with the song, meant that the recorded version (jointly written by Edwyn Collins and David McClymont) proved to be something quite joyous, one which appealed immensely to the dance-side of this particular indie kid:

mp3: Orange Juice – I Can’t Help Myself

The funky/soulful nature of the song, combined with what is a very happy sounding and joyously delivered vocal makes for damn fine, near perfect for daytime radio pop single.  It surely had chart hit written all over it, but to everyone’s immense disappointment, it stalled at #42 in October ’82, meaning that the often-dreamt of appearance on Top of The Pops would have to be delayed till another time.

The writing credits on the b-side introduced a new name.  Collins/McClymont/Manyika/Quinn.    At this point in time, I knew of Paul Quinn having seen him perform with the French Impressionists and Jazzateers, and would fall deeply for his charms and talents in later years when Bourgie Bourgie formed.  This was, thinking back, the first of his vocal performances that I ever bought:-

mp3: Orange Juice – Tongues Begin To Wag

Four minutes and fifteen seconds of sonic magnificence, which is very much down to the singing as it has to be admitted that the 80s production style and value, particularly around the jarring synth, has dated things quite a bit.

The 12″ release of the single had an extended version of I Can’t Help Myself, with the extra two minutes being taken up by a sax solo to fade-out, all of which just adds an extra layer of funk to the song.

mp3: Orange Juice – I Can’t Help Myself (12″ version)

There was also an additional song on the b-side:

mp3: Orange Juice – Barbeque

A strange but not entirely unpleasant near five minutes of music, attributed to Collins/McClymont/Manyika/Ross.  It sounds like a jam in the studio, to which Edwyn has added a few lyrics recalling events at an actual barbeque in someone’s garden.   OK, it wasn’t Falling and Laughing or Blue Boy, but there was the consolation that it wasn’t Two Hearts Together.  Maybe there was some hope after all for the new album.

JC

#7:Two Hearts Together/Hokoyo : Orange Juice (Polydor, POSP 470, 1982)

I really don’t want to spend any more time than I need to on this one as it’s quite simply the worst 45 ever released by Orange Juice, and quite possibly the worst ever by Edwyn Collins including his solo career.

Malcolm Ross had joined the band and after a number of auditions, Zeke Manyika, a Zimbabwean who had lived in the UK for most of his life, was recruited as the new drummer.  Edwyn, in press interviews, was indicating that the band would be moving in a different direction, and that all four members, including David McClymont, would be involved in the songwriting process.

In April 1982, fans and the wider listening public were given the opportunity to hear this new brand of Orange Juice, with four songs debuted in a BBC Radio 1 session for the mid-evening David ‘Kid’ Jensen show.  One of the new songs was this:-

mp3: Orange Juice – In Spite Of It All

Fast-forward four months and the release of the band’s seventh single, their third on Polydor and their first without James Kirk or Steven Daly.

mp3: Orange Juice – Two Hearts Together

Turns out, In Spite Of It All had undergone a name change between the Jensen session and its recording as what turned out to be a stand-alone single as it was subsequently left off the sophomore album.   The photo of Edwyn and David, with Malcolm and Zeke in shadow, on the front of the sleeve, is perhaps as good an indication as any that this was very much aimed at the pop market and not the indie kids who had been the band’s mainstay up until now.  Indeed, it was very much a sign of the band jumping on the bandwagon of what would, in time, be called ‘sophisti-pop’ which was all the rage.

I hated it. Really, really hated it.  And feared that Orange Juice were a busted flush.  Turns out that Edwyn also accepts it was a misstep:-

“Two Hearts Together’ is the worst thing we’ve ever done. I really regret that now. We thought we were missing out on all this New Pop, we’d better get in on this.  It was staying in the same hotels as a lot of other rock groups like ABC.  You get to thinking, ‘well, maybe Orange Juice are reactionary old has-beens. We ought to get hip.’ So you start trying to do something that’s really current. I regret that.”

There were enough sales to take it into the UK charts at #60.

The double-A side on this occasion was a track written by all four members of the band, along with Zop Cormorant (someone whose name would later be credited as drumming on one of Edwyn’s solo albums but of whom I know nothing!).

mp3: Orange Juice – Hokoyo

If Two Hearts Together was in the vein of sophisti-pop, Hokoyo is bang in the middle of a world music track, with Zeke taking the lead vocal in his native Shona language prior to Edwyn joining in a bit later on.  It was very unexpected.  I’ll leave it at that.

The single was released on 7″ and 10″ vinyl, with both songs being extended a bit on the larger format.

mp3: Orange Juice – Two Hearts Together (10″ version)
mp3: Orange Juice – Hokoyo (10″ version)

Next week sees the lead-off single for the second album.

JC

#6:Felicity/In A Nutshell : Orange Juice (Polydor, POSP 386, 1982)

Possibly the only man who had any involvement with Orange Juice who was really smiling when 1982 rolled out was Geoff Travis of Rough Trade.  He had been conned out of the band’s debut album when they had taken the tapes he had funded to a major label, only for half of the band  – James Kirk and Steven Daly – to then abruptly quit just as the first single on Polydor was released and the marketing plans for the album were beginning to get into full flow.

The live shows were turning into a shambles, with most of the songs on which James Kirk took lead vocal being left off the set lists. The release date for the album, to be called You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever, was announced as mid-February 1982.  A second Polydor single was chosen, and released some four weeks in advance of the album.  There’s no doubting that it made for a great 45, being one of the band’s best songs of all, but the fact it had been written by James Kirk, (albeit one sung by Edwyn Collins) makes it a bit of a strange decision, almost as if everyone was in denial.

mp3: Orange Juice – Felicity

In at #63, and that was as good as it got, sliding down to #68 and #73 over the next two weeks.  There must have been a sharp intake of breath as the debut album hit the shops, but it came in at #21, reflecting perhaps that fans were really keen after such a long time to finally have an album’s worth of material, and it probably helped that the band had re-recorded Falling and Laughing for inclusion as its opening track.

But back, briefly, to Felicity.

No images of the band were used on the sleeve…no real surprise, given the fact the Orange Juice of January 1982 was not the Orange Juice that had recorded the single.  It also meant that what what should have been the b-side, an Edwyn Collins song, was promoted to function as a double-A side:-

mp3: Orange Juice – In A Nutshell

The two different aspects of the band are very apparent.  Felicity, one of their very oldest songs, has the rougher new wave feeling and energy.  In A Nutshell is a more polished offering with backing singers very much to the fore. In later years, a demo version of In A Nutshell would emerge, and other than the use of the backing vocalists, it wasn’t too different, so perhaps there were early indications that Edwyn, if not necessarily the rest of the band, was prepared to smooth out any rough edges.

The 12″ came with an extra song.

mp3: Orange Juice – You Old Eccentric

Not just another of the James Kirk songs dating back to the old days (and seemingly a piss take of their manager Alan Horne), but it also has James on lead vocal. Totally wasted as a b-side……but for me, the definitve version dates back to December 1980 with this highly energetic take was recorded for a Peel Session.

mp3: Orange Juice – You Old Eccentric (Peel Session)

All of what I’ve written above is very much with the aid of hindsight and the emergence of what was going on behind the scenes.  The 18-year old me just simply thought Felicity was one of the best records I’d heard in my then young(ish) life, and it’s an opinion I hold to this day.

JC

#5:L.O.V.E. Love : Orange Juice (Polydor, POSP 357, 1981)

As featured just a few months ago on the blog as part of the random 7″ singles feature….and prior to me coming up with the idea of this particular series.

The summer of ’81 and the news that Orange Juice had signed to Polydor.

They had actually, with the connivance of manager Alan Horne, who had a long-time dislike of Geoff Travis of Rough Trade, taken an advance from Travis to fund recording sessions in London in the summer of 1981, working with Adam Kidron who had also been producing Scritti Politti‘s debut album. The plan, as far as Rough Trade knew, was for the Orange Juice album to be distributed by them but to appear as if it was a Postcard album with full control being given to the band.

Instead, in what wasn’t the nicest of moves, Orange Juice took the tapes to Polydor, and the bosses at the major label made them an offer that couldn’t be turned down, even if it came with the loss of overall control that the indie label was proposing.

The last week of October 1981 saw the debut 45 for the major.

mp3: Orange Juice – L.O.V.E. Love

A cover of an Al Green song.

The 7″ single came with a fantastic b-side:-

mp3: Orange Juice – Intuition Told Me

Both had been recorded with Adam Kidron, but the wish of the label, backed by Edwyn Collins, to go with the cover as the new single was the final straw for James Kirk and Steven Daly as they had grown increasingly disillusioned with life in the band, notwithstanding they had been fully involved in the forthcoming debut album.

One of the decisions that had caused ructions was Edwyn Collins’ wish to recruit Malcolm Ross into the band.  You’ll hopefully recall from previous parts of this series that Malcolm had been involved in production duties with some early singles, and now that his band Josef K had come to an end, he was on the lookout for something new to get involved on.  It led to Edwyn and Malcolm, along with bassist David McClymont, undertaking tours in late 1981, with stand-in drummers to support the release of the debut single for Polydor and to showcase the album. By all accounts, the shows were shambolic……

Taking into account that copies of Falling and Laughing were already beginning to shift for considerable sums on the second-hand market, the decision was made to add its b-side Moscow as the extra track on the 12″ release of L.O.V.E. Love, albeit really is Moscow Olympics in a cleaned up and more polished version:-

mp3: Orange Juice – Moscow (alt version)

L.O.V.E, Love entered the charts at a rather underwhelming #68, climbing three places the following week before dropping out of the Top 75 altogether.

JC

#4: Poor Old Soul : Orange Juice (Postcard 81-2, 1981)

mp3 : Orange Juice – Poor Old Soul
mp3 : Orange Juice – Poor Old Soul (Pt 2)

Quite often, when a band releases a song in two parts, it’s down to the fact that it is too long to fit onto one side of a 7″ single, and so as part one fades out, you have to flip the single over and part two usually fades in.

Not in this case.

Poor Old Soul is about two-and-a-half minutes in length.  As is Poor Old Soul (Pt 2).   It’s a tune propelled in the main by its bass line, albeit there’s the sort of guitar ‘solo’ that was beginning to be associated with the band.  The ‘A’ side also has a wee bit of piano in the middle.  The biggest difference however is that Edwyn Collins, having written the song, fancied contributing the bass line rather than rhythm guitar, and so he and David McClymont swapped instruments for the take which became Part 2, with the other more distinguishing factor being that inclusion of the chant ‘no more rock and roll for you’. 

Did anyone feel cheated?  I don’t think so, although it was unusual not to have a distinct b-side as opposed to a different take, recorded in the studio on the same day.  It was released in February 1981, and included on the back of the newly designed company sleeve was info on the upcoming releases, which were set out as

81-3:  Aztec Camera : Just Like Gold/We Could Send Letters
81-4:  Josef K: Sorry For Laughing/Revelation (recorded in Bruxelles for Les Disques de Crepuscule (TWI 023) 
81-5:  Josef K  Chance Meeting/Pictures of Cindy 
81-6 : Orange Juice – Wan Light/You Old Eccentric

The first three would be issued, but before the summer was over, Orange Juice had signed to a major label, Polydor Records.  The big-time beckoned…..or did it?

 

JC

#3: Simply Thrilled Honey : Orange Juice (Postcard 80-6, 1980)

Postcard Records had come a long way in a very short space of time.  The first two Orange Juice singles had been critically acclaimed, likewise the two Josef K singles issued by the label and that of The Go-Betweens.  By the time it came to issue the third OJ single, the numbers being pressed were significantly higher than before, with the first 5,000 coming in a sealable polythene bag with the double-sided insert as pictured above.  A lot of the monies to support the expansion of the label’s activities came from a distribution arrangement with Rough Trade. And yes, the photo in the bottom right of the back of  the sleeve is that of Jill Bryson, then a very close friend of the band but soon to find fame as one half of Strawberry Switchblade.

mp3: Orange Juice – Simply Thrilled Honey

Once again, it was recorded at Castlesound Studios, but this time Malcolm Ross was on co-production duties alongside the band.  I’m not going to suggest that Simply Thrilled Honey is a duff record, but there’s something about it that comes up short in comparison to Blue Boy and Lovesick. In later years, James Kirk (not the Star Trek character), would accept the single fell a bit below expectations, possibly down to the fact that it was one of the band’s oldest and most-played tunes and the studio recording didn’t find the same levels of energy and enthusiasm of the live takes.

It was released in December 1980 and would make the Top 5 of the newly created Indie Singles chart.

mp3: Orange Juice – Breakfast Time

The b-side was a short and angular punky sounding effort, coming in at less than two minutes in length.  It would later, in 1982, be substantially re-recorded with some additional and different lyrics and in a cod-reggae style for inclusion on the album Rip It Up, running to more than five minutes in length:-

mp3 : Orange Juice – Breakfast Time (album version)

Nobody knew it at the time, but there would be just one more single for Postcard Records.

JC

PS : AND A VERY LATE ONE AT THAT……

It’s nothing at all to do with music….but it is something that absolutely and simply thrills me.  This particular post will appear as I set out on some travels again, and a trip that was arranged at extremely short notice.   I’m off, again, to Toronto, for what will be a very short visit – arrive at Sunday lunchtime and fly back on Tuesday evening – for the sole purpose of attending a significant baseball match on Monday for which a ticket was only picked up last Friday night.  It’s lucky I’m retired from work and can do things at the drop of the proverbial baseball cap, and also that I have a few pre-prepared posts to keep things ticking over for the next few days.  Only downside is that I’m dreading what it’s all going to do to my body-clock…………..

#2: Blue Boy/Lovesick : Orange Juice (Postcard 80-2, 1980)

Having been embittered a bit by the experience in the Strathaven studio with the debut, the band, in April 1980, headed east to Pencaitland, a village some 16 miles south-east of Edinburgh and home to Castlesound studios.  This time, Alex Fergusson, who had been part of various bands from the mid-70s onwards, including punk act Alternative TV, was in the producer’s chair. The session delivered two songs for a double A sided effort, including what many consider to be Orange Juice‘s most enduring song:-

mp3 : Orange Juice – Blue Boy

Released in September 1980, on the same day as Josef K‘s Radio Drill Time, which was just as well as the two singles shared doubled up picture sleeves. These were black and white, with the plan being to have them hand-coloured individually, using pencils.  The members of Josef K were meticulous in their approach, carefully adding relevant colours to a pair of shoes and a pot plant.

Orange Juice did things a bit differently. The band, and a few of their friends held a ‘colouring-in party’ at 185 West Princes Street in Glasgow, home of Alan Horne and the de facto HQ of Postcard Records at which, having discovered that doing things carefully and properly would take an incredibly long time, they all just scribbled lines, shapes and the occasional words randomly, meaning that no two sleeves were the same.  This Discogs page has a quite a few of the examples…just click the ‘More Images’ link.

mp3: Orange Juice – Lovesick

The flip side is also a bit of a belter.

In 1993, Postcard Records would be temporarily reactivated, and Blue Boy/Love sick was released as a CD single, along with a limited edition on 7″ vinyl (catalogue number DUBH 934), complete with a fully coloured sleeve:-

The CD would come with two additional and previously unreleased versions of Poor Old Soul, a single which will actually feature later on in this series:-

mp3: Orange Juice – Poor Old Soul (French Language Version)
mp3: Orange Juice – Poor Old Soul (instrumental version)

The latter is really quite strange……..

There would be one more single in 1980.

JC

 

#1: Falling and Laughing : Orange Juice (Postcard 80-1, 1980)

Earlier this week, Edwyn Collins embarked on The Testimonial Tour, a last lap of live shows around the UK before what can only be assumed is a well-deserved retirement.  The timing, last Sunday, of the end of The Robster‘s epic series on Super Furry Animals I felt offered the perfect opportunity to now turn this particular day of the week into a real nostalgia-fest by looking back at all the singles Edwyn has released over the years encompassing Orange Juice, the solo career and the occasional collaboration along the way.

I make no apologies in advance if much of the series proves to be retreads of material used on the blog before, which can’t some as a surprise to you given how often he has featured over the years.  But it will offer the opportunity to eventually have everything in one place under a new entry within the index system.

His debut appearance on vinyl launched a label as well as a career now spanning 45 years and counting.

mp3 : Orange Juice – Falling and Laughing

Recorded in December 1979 in a tiny studio in the town of Strathaven, some 25 miles south of Glasgow.  The studio owner, John McLarty, despite having little experience in the sort of pop music the band intended to lay down, insisted on handling the production duties. As a sop, he did allow Malcolm Ross, a friend of the band who had already been involved in making a single with his band Josef K, to sit in on the session and make some suggestions.

Edwyn sings and plays guitar, James Kirk plays guitar, the bass is courtesy of David McClymont and Steven Daly is banging the drums.  Legend has it that 963 copies were pressed up, with a free flexi-disc and an actual Postcard being included inside what was a strangely shaped folding sleeve rather than the standard type into which a record would fit.

Two tracks were included as b-sides:-

mp3: Orange Juice – Moscow Olympics
mp3: Orange Juice – Moscow

They are the same tune, with the latter being particularly rough and demo sounding while adding a few additional chants of the word ‘Moscow’, courtesy of Alan Wilde (a name adopted by the band’s manager Alan Horne) and Steven Daly.

In June 2023, I finally obtained a copy of the single, a 60th birthday present from Rachel, without whom this blog wouldn’t have got off the ground.  It was also fitting that the online sale of the single was drawn to our attention by our dear friend Comrade Colin, without whom this blog wouldn’t have got off the ground. It came with the flexidisc and a postcard, and it was in mint condition.

mp3: Orange Juice – Felicity (live)

As recorded at an early gig in April 1979 by the aforementioned Malcolm Ross.

JC