Nectarine #9 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #220 : THE NECTARINE NO.9

From allmusic-

Although Glasgow, Scotland, in the ’90s was more known for either the winsome guitar pop of Teenage Fanclub and its many affiliated bands or the twee preciousness of Belle & Sebastian and their many affiliated bands, the Nectarine No. 9 were both of the scene and apart from it. Although the group recorded for the reactivated Postcard label, leader Davey Henderson shared little of the naïve pop sensibility of Postcard alums like Aztec Camera or Orange Juice, instead preferring a noisy guitar rock sound mixed with Captain Beefheart-style quirkiness.

The Nectarine No. 9, comprising Henderson on guitar and vocals, guitarist and keyboardist Simon Smeeton, bassist Iain Holford, and drummer John Thompson, formed in Glasgow in 1991.**

** Turns out this info is incorrect with the allocation of playing duties/responsibilites as well as missing out a further musician. The members were Davy Henderson Vocs/Guitar, Simon Smeeton Guitar/Vocs, John Thompson Bass, Ian Holford Drums/Vocs & Occasional guitar/vocs, Todd Thompson Guitar…

My thanks to Gavin F for the update. JC 23/07/2020 **

Henderson, who had first gained attention as the leader of the avant-funk Fire Engines in 1980, and Smeeton had first played together in the underrated ’80s popsters Win. Their new group debuted with 1992’s A Sea With Three Stars, which was followed later the same year with the Unloaded for You EP. A nine-track compilation of various BBC sessions recorded in the first half of 1993 was released by Strange Fruit under the title Guitar Thieves. A 16-track summation of the first album and EP, Niagara Falls, was released in the U.S. and Canada in 1994.

That song turned up a third time on the Nectarine No. 9’s long-delayed second proper album, 1995’s Saint Jack. Even more dissonant than A Sea With Three Stars, Saint Jack also introduced a new fascination with electronic noise on a few tracks. After a tour with Henderson’s old mate Edwyn Collins, the group went underground for two full years before finally returning in 1997 as the backing group and co-writers on Scots poet Jock Scot’s album My Personal Culloden, which sounded like a cross between Ivor Cutler and John Cooper Clarke‘s albums with the Invisible Girls. The Nectarine No. 9’s third proper album, the puzzlingly-titled Fried for Blue Material, was released in 1998 on the Glasgow indie Creeping Bent, and included the group’s side of a 1997 split single with Suicide singer Alan Vega, “Port of Mars.”

——

The otherwise excellent and informative bio doesn’t give a full picture as the band released a further three albums:-

It’s Just the Way Things Are Joe, It’s Just the Way Things Are (Creeping Bent, 1999)
Received, Transgressed and Transmitted (Beggars Banquet/Creeping Bent, 2001)
I Love Total Destruction (Beggars Banquet, 2004)

There were also a number of singles and EPs, many of them for Creeping Bent, whose founder and boss, Douglas Macintyre, still collaborates with Davey Henderson these days as part of The Sexual Objects, both in the studio and in the live setting. Davey has also contributed guest vocals to material by Port Sulphur, another of groups in which the hard-working Mr. Macintyre is heavily involved.

Plenty of songs to choose from, and I was tempted to go with the Peel session version of ‘Don’t Worry Babe, You’re Not The Only One Awake’ to complement its appearance on Side B of the JAZF tape earlier in the week. But in the end, I’ve gone for a track that did appear as a 7″ single on the resurrected Postcard Records in 1994 and was the re-recorded for the album Saint Jack the following year.

mp3: The Nectarine No. 9 – This Arsehole’s Been Burned Too Many Times Before (single version)

JC

Hey! Elastica, Nectarine #9

THIS AND THAT (2)

I knew that many of you would be sharing my worries and concerns re the WYRCA team and many thanks for your thoughts and comments the other day. I will, of course, post something up the minute I hear anything. In the meantime, I’ll continue for now with the ‘This and That’ series.

Davy Henderson is one of the greatest musicians to emerge from the Scottish scene in my lifetime. He was part of the initial post-punk surge of bands, forming The Fire Engines in Edinburgh in 1980 – the story of which he tells quite brilliantly in this equally brilliant documentary. From there he would chase pop stardom with Win before forming a third band of notable significance, The Nectarine No.9 whose mix of pop, glam, punk and occasionally all out rock attracted a fair smattering of fans for well over a decade without ever making the crossover to commercial success

Their most acclaimed album was Saint Jack, released in 1994 on the reformed Postcard Records from which this is lifted:-

mp3 : The Nectarine No.9 – This Arsehole’s Been Burned Too Many Times Before

Nowadays, Davy is part of The Sexual Objects and occasionally still gives this song an airing in the live setting.

I’m staying in Edinburgh today for the second half of the feature.

I’ve featured Hey! Elastica fairly extensively on the blog over the years. As I’ve said before, they were part of that glorious age of Scottish pop that rode on the back of the critical acclaim afforded to the likes of Orange Juice. Not everyone’s cup of tea but I loved them. And discovered many years later that so did my good mate Jacques the Kipper.

Four criminally ignored singles and one LP before Virgin cut their losses and dropped the band. Hugely energetic and entertaining live, if not, it must be admitted, the most accomplished. Here’s a b-side from their final 12″ single in January 1984:-

mp3 : Hey! Elastica – That Town

JC

Nectarine #9, Secret Goldfish

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 97)

From wiki:-

Creeping Bent, aka The Creeping Bent Organisation, is an independent record label set up by Douglas MacIntyre in 1994, based in Glasgow, Scotland. The label has been described as a successor to earlier Scottish indie labels Postcard Records and Fast Product.

Creeping Bent was officially launched with an event at Glasgow’s Tramway theatre on 12 December 1994 called “A Leap Into The Void” in homage to Yves Klein, and featuring film, theatre and pop music.”Frankie Teardrop”, a 1995 collaboration between Suicide vocalist Alan Vega and Altered Images drummer Stephen Lironi, was an NME single of the week in 1995. Creeping Bent was chosen by John Peel as the featured label when he curated the 1998 Meltdown Festival at the Royal Festival Hall.

In the late 90s, the label released a number of singles which had one cult Scottish act on one side and a second cult Scottish act on the other side. Let’s return to wiki:-

The Secret Goldfish were a band from Glasgow who took their name from an imaginary book from the novel The Catcher in the Rye. They released three albums and several singles in the 1990s, on the Glasgow based Creeping Bent record label. Their first album, 1996’s Aqua Pet…You Make Me was produced by Stephen Lironi. Their sound has been described as “sounding much like The Jesus and Mary Chain locked in a public toilet with Jefferson Airplane and The New York Dolls”.

Second album Jet Streams was released in 1997, and in 1999 they issued the Somewhere in the World EP, the lead track of which was co-written by Vic Godard and featured Francis MacDonald and Stevie Jackson. A final album, Mink Riots followed in 1999, before the band split up.

And again……

The Nectarine No. 9 was an indie band from Edinburgh, Scotland. Formed by former Fire Engines frontman Davy Henderson in 1991, the band’s music has been described as “dark, moody and brilliant” and “noisy guitar rock with quirky rhythms”. The Nectarine No. 9 released several albums throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and recorded seven John Peel sessions.

And without any further ado, here’s the rather splendid single from August 1999, with the catalogue number of bent042:-

mp3 : The Secret Goldfish – You’re Funny About That, Aren’t You
mp3 : The Nectarine No.9 – Walter Tevis

Enjoy

Jock Scot, Nectarine #9, Paul Quinn & Nectarine #9, Paul Quinn & The Independent Group

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 90)

OK…..it wasn’t really a single release. But it’s an excuse to feature Paul Quinn for a fourth successive Saturday.

It’s simply a posting of the four tracks that made up the Pregnant With Possibilities EP released on the revived Postcard Records back in 1995, (catalogue number DUBH 952CD).

mp3 : Paul Quinn & The Nectarine No.9 – Tiger Tiger
mp3 : Paul Quinn & The Independent Group – Will I Ever Be Inside Of You
mp3 : Jock Scot & The Nectarine No.9 – Just Another Fucked-Up Little Druggy On The Scene
mp3 : Jock Scot – Grunge Girl Groan

The mighty Quinn’s final release is to be found on this EP, which hit the shops after the release of the two LPs with the Independent Group. In fact, I know that mine was bought from Avalanche Records in Glasgow on 26 June 1995 and it cost me £3.99 as there’s an annoying bar code sticker on the back of the sleeve that I don’t want to remove for fear of damage…

Some of you might not know much about the other artists who feature on the EP.

I’ve cribbed this bio about Jock Scot from elsewhere, as it captures him just about perfectly and also gives you some info about The Nectarine No.9:-

Born 21 September 1952. Leith, Edinburgh.

Jock began his career in the music industry as a renowned supplier of “good vibes”, providing his services to entertainers as diverse as Ian Dury and The Blockheads, The Clash, Blondie, Talking Heads, B52s, Taj Mahal, Dr. Feelgood, Rip Rig and Panic, Neneh Cherry, Viv Stanshall and Wreckless Eric. He rarely let them down, and when he did it was in spectacular fashion.

After waking up in a broom cupboard at the end of a particularly arduous tour, he settled in London at the time the west London scene was wakening up again, centered around a pub in Portobello Road, the Warwick Castle. It was here that Jock started reading his poems to the public, where they were loved by both speed-crazed street sweepers and landed gentry.

Thousands of readings later, in 1993, his first book, “Where Is My Heroine?” was printed and rapidly sold out. It was also around this time he made his first excursions to vinyl and cd, renewing an old acquaintance with Davey Henderson, who he had known from the Edinburgh days, when Henderson was fronting the Fire Engines.

Their first recorded collaboration was on “Going Off Someone” – a track on Henderson’s new band, The Nectarine No.9′s first Postcard e.p., “Unloaded For You”. Subsequently, Scot appeared on their second album “Saint Jack”, and on a Postcard sampler ep, “Pregnant With Possibilities.

The logical outcome was a full length album – “My Personal Culloden”, which was released in May 1997, followed by the release of his first single “Tape Your Head On”, a cover version of a song which originally appeared on his musical cohorts, The Nectarine No.9′s “Saint Jack” album.

I know since then that Jock has released some more material, including 2006′s The Caledonian Blues, recorded with Gareth Sager (ex The Pop Group and Rip, Rig & Panic).

As mentioned above Davey Henderson has been a legendary part of the music scene in Scotland for nigh on three decades. Given his own vocal talents don’t feature on the EP, I thought it only fair to offer up my own favourite Nectarine No.9 song:-

mp3 : The Nectarine No.9 – Don’t Worry Babe, You’re Not The Only One Awake

Enjoy