Category: Orange Juice

This is a re-post (of sorts) from April 2015.   I wanted to include Orange Juice‘s first post-Postcard single in this series, and as I don’t think I can improve on the words that were pulled together the best part of a decade ago, it’s time for a bit of the 3Rs….repetition, repetition, repetition. (thanks, MES).

“Oh, how we can giggle now at the picture sleeve, but did Edwyn Collins ever think his rig-out of jacket, collar and tie, red shorts, white socks and brogues were remotely hip? Or even fey???

Postcard Records had come and gone, but the wish of its founder Alan Horne that all the bands should find fame and fortune with major labels seemed set to come true.

Orange Juice had signed to Polydor Records, but we were all delighted to see that the debut single still had the word POSTCARD printed above the Polydor symbol, and indeed the famous drumming kitten was also very prominent on both the label. Edwyn, James, Steven and David hadn’t sold out after all……

But what’s this…a song written by Green/Mitchell/Hodges? Had they recorded a cover, or had Polydor insisted on an in-house writing team to offer up new material?

mp3 : Orange Juice – L.O.V.E…love

OK, I quickly learned that it was a cover of a song by Al Green, but being the uber-indie post-punk 18-year-old, I wasn’t really aware who Al Green was given he’d barely had a hit in the UK.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this record at the time. In fact, I was a bit disappointed with it in many ways, as it seemed awfully polished. It even had horns on it when all I wanted was guitars. Thankfully, as I aged, so did my tastes improve and while I still won’t place it in my all-time Top 20 of OJ songs, I do tap my feet, nod my head from side to side and croon along whenever it plays.

Tell you something, though, the b-side was an instant smash:-

mp3 : Orange Juice – Intuition Told Me (Pt 2)

What wasn’t there to love about a song that contained the lines?

Please, please
Tell me when the fun begins
Please, please
As soon as you stop your whining Jim

And I whined a lot in those days. Still do in fact. And I’m happy to confess that Intuition Told Me (Pt 2) is still a song that I rank among the Top 2 the band ever recorded……and the best one that Edwyn ever wrote for them.

Polydor had high hopes for Orange Juice. I’m guessing they were staggered by the fact that the carefully chosen debut got stuck at #65 in the charts on its release in October 1981.”

JC

The month of June 2023 will go down as one of the most memorable in my life.

I turned 60, a significant milestone which was marked by a long-planned event at which 26 family members and close friends came along to a dinner at one of my favourite restaurants in Glasgow city centre.  This took place on the Saturday evening, the night before my actual birthday, with the Sunday spent catching up further with those friends who had travelled from afar and had needed to stay overnight in hotels, which meant they became the first to hear what had happened in the hours right after getting home from the restaurant…….

While we had all been enjoying the fine food and wine, Comrade Colin had got in touch via text – he had been invited along but was unable to accept as he was travelling back from an overseas holiday on the same day.  Colin’s text referred to a Facebook posting within a group dedicated to Postcard Records.

Without going into too much detail, someone had taken the very difficult decision, for personal reasons related to ill-health, to sell off a substantial part of their record collection, including some very rare and hard to find singles. The plan was to put the 45s on Discogs and/or e-bay, but in the meantime an invitation was made to send PMs in which would-be buyers could express an interest in some or indeed all the items.

Falling and Laughing was on the list. Postcard 80-1.  The holy grail when it comes to vinyl records.  One that Rachel (aka Mrs VV)  had thought long and hard about tracking down to give as her present for me turning 60, but in the end she had shied away as she couldn’t be sure if what was on offer on Discogs was even authentic, and if so, whether it was one of the estimated 200 copies that had come with the flexi disc and free postcard.

The one that was about to be put up for sale certainly ticked all these boxes.

Which is why, at just before 1am on the day I turned 60, I found myself half-drunkenly composing a PM in which I introduced myself, referencing the blog as evidence of my long-held desire to get my hands on a copy of Falling and Laughing and making what I felt was a realistic offer for the copy, all the while saying I was sorry the seller facing circumstances in which the various 45s were up for sale.

Within a couple of minutes of me sending the PM, I received a detailed reply, including the following.

“Hi Jim.

Thank you for your message. There have been an enormous amount of offers, but yours is most definitely acceptable. “

I won’t go into all the details of the reply, as to do so could reveal the identity of the seller. But it was quite clear I was now corresponding with a genuine lover of all things Postcard and that this copy was the real deal, and indeed had at one point in time passed through the hands of one of the label’s inner circle as the free postcard actually ‘had Robert Forster’s Brisbane address written on the back as part of Orange Juice or Alan Horne preparing the two heads deal.’

Within the hour, the deal was sealed, which is why, on the day I turned 60, I finally had the promise of getting my hands on a copy of the long-sought 45.  And when I told Rachel, she immediately agreed to pay for it as she was still struggling to come up with the ‘perfect ‘gift, having now turned her attention to a possible holiday involving taking in a gig somewhere.

As I was about to head off to Toronto on the 20th, I asked the seller to hold back from sending it to Villain Towers, until I returned, which he was more than happy to do.  It finally arrived safe and sound late last week.  Here’s the vinyl rips.

mp3: Orange Juice – Falling and Laughing
mp3: Orange Juice – Moscow Olympics
mp3: Orange Juice – Moscow

Here’s the flexidisc, which carries the title I Wish I Was A Postcard:-

mp3: Orange Juice – Felicity (live)

Now that they’ve both been played once and at the same time ripped as mp3s, the vinyl and flexidisc have been carefully returned inside the protective sleeve and the single has been put in a very safe and secure place.  I’m not saying I won’t ever play them again, but it’ll only be on special occasions.

I have to say that it crossed my mind that this would be just about the perfect way to call time on the blog after what is now coming up for 17 years, but with so much still going on, not least Dirk‘s fantastic ongoing rundown of 111 great 45s, I feel there’s still some life yet in TVV, albeit I might retire from buying any further second-hand records…..I said ‘might’ as no doubt something will tempt me…….

All that remains today is to belatedly thank all of you who offered up birthday wishes via the comments section and/or through e-mails and messages.  You’ll hopefully understand why it has taken so long to get round to doing the birthday wrap-up, and agree that it’s been worth the wait.

Tune in tomorrow for a fascinating guest ICA, about a group never featured before on the blog.

JC

Orange Juice – The Orange Juice (1984)

There’s a famous quote attributed to John Peel that, when he was asked by a listener which Fall record they should buy, he replied ‘You must get them all’. 

It was a similar train of thought that initially led me to consider, in terms of Orange Juice and this rundown, including Coals To Newcastle, the 6xCD box set issued by Domino Records in 2010.  After all, having been given a repress, it’s available for £45 direct from AED Records, the enterprise owned by Edwyn Collins, and in return you’ll have 130 pieces of music along with a DVD containing TV appearances, a couple of promo videos and a live gig that was originally released on VHS back in 1985.   Click here if you’re interested.

But to have included this box set and ignored others, such as Heart and Soul, the 4xCD  Joy Division boxset which dates from 1997, would have been unfair, and so I turned my attention to the rest of the OJ discography.

The final studio album, The Orange Juice, is the one I’ve selected for the rundown.  Again, it wasn’t an easy choice, especially as there were options from the Postcard-era together as well as a compilation encompassing the three studio albums and one mini-LP from the Polydor years.

It’s been said, by others, that this record isn’t really that last in the life of Orange Juice, but the first solo release by Edwyn Collins.  The group had whittled down to just two members, as indicated by the notes that accompany the album  – ‘Orange Juice are Edwyn Collins and Zeke Manyika’.   The  record was made thanks to major contributions on bass from Clare Kenny (on loan from Amazulu) and producer Denis Bovell on keyboards.

Despite all this, or maybe perhaps because of this, the album proved to the tightest and most consistent that Orange Juice ever released.  The history of the band had been littered with fall-outs and departures due to musical differences, but at long last, Edwyn had the final say on everything, ably assisted and advised by an experienced producer whom he liked and trusted. Another factor was that the major label contract signed back in 1981 was coming to an end, and with this almost certain to be the final set of recordings to be bankrolled by Polydor, Edwyn’s waspish sense of mischief meant he was determined to finally make the sort of record the bosses had been after since day one.   The bosses, on the other hand, just wanted it done and dusted and weren’t prepared to offer much in promotional support beyond what was stipulated in the contract.

All of which meant that The Orange Juice, and its two majestic singles – What Presence?! and Lean Period – more or less passed everyone by, other than those of us who were paying close attention.  Which was a crying shame, as its ten songs really demonstrated Edwyn’s talents as a writer and performer. There’s some jingly-jangly pop, there are soulful, crooning ballads, and there are guitar solos that his great friend Roddy Frame would have been proud of.

It didn’t sell all that well.  I’m not sure if it’s an urban myth or not, but seemingly the cassette version sold more than the vinyl.  I’m certainly someone who bought the tape, attracted by the fact that it came with seven additional 12″ mixes of singles from across the Polydor era, albeit a much-hoped for extended version of Love Sick, one of the Postcard-era single, turned out to be no more than the re-recorded version that had been made available with the 2 x 7″ release of Rip It Up a few years previously.

I’ve subsequently bought the album on CD and a few years back, as I was rediscovering the love for vinyl as a result of getting this blog up and running, I picked up a cheap second-hand copy of the original vinyl.

And yes, while I would tell anyone who has nothing more than a casual awareness of Orange Juice to buy the box set (and while you’re there, have a scan through the list of ‘thank-yous’ to spot my name!!), you should never miss out on the opportunity to own a copy of The Orange Juice, one of the best and most enjoyable LPs ever to come out of Scotland,

mp3: Orange Juice – The Artisans

At best all the rest are just also-rans………..

JC

Six weeks on and the workies have finished the job on the roof.  All that remains is for the dismantled scaffolding to be taken away, and that’s likely to happen today.  My bank account is a lot lighter but my mind can rest a lot easier.  It was also a great feeling to get the turntable fired up again yesterday with a smile on my face as I read the initial and positive reactions to the next edition of the ICA World Cup.

There will, unusually, be a couple of fresh ICAs later this week, one of which was sent over quite a few months ago but went missing in cyberspace, while the other will be JTFL’s second instalment on ‘Trumpets’ having taken into consideration many of the responses from the TVV cognoscenti.  Having said that, he sent it over in advance of a number of suggested tracks being offered up, so don’t be shocked if there’s a later third volume at some point…..

The turntable being back in operation means a return of the long-running Monday series, in which a piece of vinyl from yesteryears is brought out of the big cupboard (or the now numerous overflow containers) and given a rotation while being converted at 320kpbs via Audacity so that the mp3 on offer can be of a far higher quality than other days.

I’m returning with one of Orange Juice‘s finest songs, Postcard-era included.  The 7″ single and album version are identical, coming in at 3:58 while the extended version on the 12″ vinyl runs to 4:07.

The extra nine seconds of music can be enjoyed during the instrumental break which comes just after the two-minute mark, where the harmonica mini-solo on the album version is replaced by Edwyn thrashing away at his guitar to great effect.

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

Always happy to take suggestions for other songs to include in the Monday series, including guest posting – as long, of course, if I happen to have the tune on vinyl.

JC

Having finished typing up the posting which appeared yesterday, I was immediately struck by the need to make it up for inflicting The Cowboy Song on you.

It took me all of a minute to reach into the big cupboard of vinyl, and in particular where the 7″ singles are stacked, somewhat precariously it has to be admitted, as I’ve long ago run out of the required storage space.

mp3: Orange Juice – Blue Boy
mp3: Orange Juice – Love Sick

It’s a stupendous piece of vinyl, with two of the very best Edwyn Collins compositions on offer. It has the catalogue number Postcard 80-2, and I’d love to say that my copy is a first pressing. If it was, it would have a blue label, and it would be housed in a sleeve in which the members of Orange Juice, and various friends, were supposed to hand-colour the drawing, but almost all of them ended up just being scribbled on akin to what you can see in the photo above.

As it is, my copy is the second pressing, which came with brown labels and was housed in the standard dark brown Postcard sleeve…but even then, my copy, which was picked up second-hand about twenty years ago, is housed in a plain white sleeve.  But given I paid no more than £2 for it as part of a job-lot of Scottish jingly-jangly and pop singles being sold by someone who reckoned they no longer had any need for their vinyl, then I can’t really complain.  As you’ll hear, apart from the very odd and faint pop, the vinyl on both sides of the single is in excellent condition.

I reckon that’s the first time I’ve popped the vinyl onto the turntable since acquiring the new equipment a couple of years ago.  It sounded tremendous, and I really did pick up things much more clearly than I normally do when putting it through the i-pod as an mp3.  Or maybe I just gave my ears a good clean earlier on?

JC

Album: Rip It Up – Orange Juice
Review: NME, 13 November 1982
Author: Richard Cook

I JUST played Buddy Holly‘s version of ‘Rip It Up’ to remind me, although Edwyn Collins gives the impression he is unfamiliar with such iconography, Orange Juice‘s Rip It Up is a development of an altogether more wistful deal on life: such is the cycle of youth music, so are our salad days enfeebled.

Orange Juice are a minor group trying hard to be bigger and more significant than they really ought to be. Their wan series of Postcard singles served them better than any fetchingly polished album ever will: their real dimension is best considered through the blurred viewfinder of those scratchy, bashful records. The difference between ‘Breakfast Time’ here and its Postcard prototype is that between nervous energy and familiar excitement.

Or, to nail it down, Collins’ interests and attitudes melt away in the glare of a clear focus. The fatuous ruminations on love in ‘Mud In Your Eye’ and ‘Louise Louise’ betray the indolence of his thinking, tepid variations on pop hackery long since consigned to public domain free-for-alls. The music they devise to accompany these musings is mostly old-fashioned, alarmingly reminiscent in places of the kind of genteel lace-making of the likes of Caravan. The clarity which has served the Banshees so well serves principally to highlight the clean digital momentum of a faceless pop music.

Sometimes it is a little more than that, because the arrival of drummer/vocalist Zeke Manyika does effect a bizarre revitalisation in places. Manyika’s presence seems so contrary to the spirit of Juice – which, despite Collins’ protestations, remains essentially lacking in red corpuscles – that the impossible works and something raised on a different spirit rises up. ‘A Million Pleading Faces’ and particularly ‘Hokoyo’, where Manyika lakes the lead vocals, have the infectious upswing that characterises the finer syntheses of white pop and black dance.

But those moments pass, and always we have to return to Collins’ spineless singing and naive critiques of romance. What is most clearly missing from Orange Juice is wit, a commodity they seemed to be circling around on their amusing retread of ‘L.O.V.E.’ There it appeared that Collins could end up as Green’s embarrassed and guileless cousin – except there is none of the resplendent style of Songs To Remember in Rip It Up. ‘I Can’t Help Myself‘, a fairly doltish melange of familiar pop hooks, shows they have no idea of what irony is.

Collins’ worst failing is his overweening sentimentality. Perhaps he and Buddy Holly aren’t so far apart at that.

JC adds…….

So…..having spent at least two years building up Orange Juice, the NME decides that it’s time for a hatchet job with this consideration of their second studio album.

It’s worth remembering that Orange Juice’s move to Polydor Records had caused great angst among the uber-hacks for whom all indie releases were great and no time should be given to those on majors.  A bit of slack had been cut for You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever which had come out just eight months earlier in that the debut album had many songs dating from the live shows played when they were very much in indie-land, but the fact that it hadn’t yielded the sort of success the paymasters at the label had anticipated meant that it was sort of open season on the band, and as you can see from the above, particularly on Edwyn.

Rip It Up isn’t that great an album, but the reviewer in this instance gets it spectacularly wrong with his take on things, as evidenced by him suggesting that I Can’t Help Myself shows they have no sense of irony when the entire song, and its delivery, is dripping with it.  It’s also interesting that he suggests that the two songs on which Zeke takes the lead as being the best, or at least the most interesting when most fans simply saw them as diversionary and helping to pad out a record which really should have been allowed more time to develop and finish, except that the label bosses were putting ridiculous demands on the band.

I’m pretty sure that Edwyn was, by now, regretting inking the deal with Polydor, certainly from the creative aspect.  I’m also thinking that there was every chance the band would have been dropped in early 1983 if the album had been a commercial flop, and perhaps the NME boys were hearing of such a possibility and so decided to land their blows as if to get ready to say, ‘we told you so.’  Edwyn & co, of course, had the last laugh thanks to the title track becoming a huge hit single.

Orange Juice would never make another album like Rip It Up, driving their bosses crazy but making their fans incredibly happy in the process, and hopefully pissing off those, like Richard Cook, who were looking in the wrong places for what made the band so special.

The fascinating thing is that the subsequent longevity of Edwyn’s career has, in part, led to a reassessment in many places of the album. For instance, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, a reference book first published in 2005 which compiles the thoughts of music critics on what they think are the most important, influential, and best records since the 1950s and publication, included Rip It Up.

And the dear old NME, in 2014, had the title song at #216 in its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

mp3: Orange Juice – Rip It Up (album version)
mp3: Orange Juice – A Million Pleading Faces
mp3: Orange Juice – Mud In Your Eye
mp3: Orange Juice – Louise Louise

The third of these tracks has a backing vocal contribution from the mighty Paul Quinn, while the fourth is a re-tread of a song from the Postcard era.  ‘Fatuous ruminations on love’ ?  Ha, fucking ha.

JC

It remains the holy grail.  I know I’ll never own a copy – a fact confirmed a few years ago when I learned that even Edwyn Collins doesn’t have one in his collection, and both of us being canny Scotsmen will not entertain the asking price nowadays.

mp3: Orange Juice – Falling And Laughing (Postcard Records 80-1)

The fact everyone involved was appalled by the shamateurish way it ended up being recorded, with the loud bass drum pedal far too much to the fore, only adds to its charm.

Forty years ago?   Jings, crivvens, help ma boab!*

JC

*a phrase beloved of a cartoon character in a Scottish newspaper.  It is an exclamation of surprise, bewilderment and a gentle, playful cry for help all rolled into one saying. (I’ve added that to save Jonny asking what the hell it means….)

Album : Coals to Newcastle – Orange Juice
Review : Drowned in Sound, 9 November 2010
Author : Aaron Lavery

Over the last decade Orange Juice have been cited as a key influence by all manner of acts. Unfortunately the casual punter has for some time had difficulty in discovering what the big deal is. The Glasgow band’s key components – their spindly, DIY take on soul, Edwyn Collins’ unusual croon, their joy with an absurb lyric – were clear to see as an influence on everything from their Eighties contemporaries right up to modern indie adventurers such as Wild Beasts, but there was never any sense of completeness for anyone really wanting to get their teeth in. To see the sleeve of 1982’s You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever proudly displayed on the sleeve of a Belle & Sebastian DVD but not be able to go out and listen was perhaps the indiest cock-tease available.

For anyone wishing to fully delve into the strange of world of Orange Juice, the drip-drip availability of compilations and reissues was both alluring and frustrating. However, the itch can now be comprehensively scratched with Coals To Newcastle, a seven disc box set that gathers together Orange Juice’s complete discography, including radio sessions, B-sides and a collection of videos and live performances that couldn’t be more of their time if they came on VHS.

Like a lot of box sets, this sudden torrent of material can initially be overwhelming. Although Orange Juice come from an era when the B-side could be just as impressive as the main event, it can still be a struggle to maintain enthusiasm when listening in massive stretches. But then again, it’s probably not designed to be devoured that way – Orange Juice were such a strange beast, changing their line-up and musical leaning so quickly, that the only real mainstay was Collins’ absurd, cocky but vulnerable voice at the heart of it all. Instead, Coals To Newcastle works as a series of Postcards (arf!) showing how Orange Juice morphed from a gangly, awkward bunch of boys who should know better into a more widescreen but ultimately frustrated group.

The first disc on Coals To Newcastle is actually a bit of a misstep, as it’s already been released as 2005’s The Glasgow School. Appearing here with some changes to the track listing and a couple of interesting additions, it essentially serves up an initial taster of Orange Juice #1. This is the Orange Juice that felt they had the world at the feet, that had the London music scene scrabbling up past Hadrian’s Wall to find ‘the sound of young Scotland’, only to find it dressed like “a member of the aristocracy down on its luck”.

This era of Orange Juice, the one that has probably caused the most ripples in indie circles since, is encapsulated by discs one and two, the latter of which contains You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever plus myriad extra tracks. Together, they encapsulate what made the band so exciting at the time, and what has intrigued certain sensitive types ever since.

To suggest that the band’s ability never quite matched up to their ambition here might sound cruel, but it’s meant as a compliment. The likes of ‘Falling And Laughing’ and ‘Simply Thrilled Honey’ are solid gold classics, a rush of adolescent feeling wrapped in furiously strummed guitars. Elsewhere, the band’s almost punkish belief that they can do anything – write grandiose reflections on catching your reflection in a mirror, or imaginings of retribution to local bully boys – is rendered more human by the slight missteps the band make, words packed in like an overstuffed suitcase and rhythms discarded mid-song before being picked up again later on. The giddy sense of abandon can still be heard today, and is still infectious for the listener.

The benefit of the box set is captured in the first track of Coals To Newcastle’s third CD, ‘Rip It Up’, easily the most recognisable Orange Juice song and their only real hit. It’s a shock here as it marks such a change from the earlier discs, with the first incarnation of the group dissolved and Orange Juice reconstituted as a pop-funk curiosity, and most significantly joined by Zimbabwean drummer Zeke Manyika. To hear the Rip It Up LP, full of sax solos, squelching keyboards, and Manyika’s multi-layered rhythms is quite jarring, but the juxtaposition underlines the similarities with the earlier Juice.

Collins’ unmistakable voice is still there, and so is his grand ambition. Opening the album with their perfect pop single, the band follow it with ‘A Million Pleading Faces’, an afro-beat inspired shake-up of proceedings, and then follow that with ‘Mud In Your Eye’, a slice of blue-eyed soul that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Style Council LP. Elsewhere, Collins resurrects an old b-side that opens with him proclaiming “breakfast time! Breakfast time!!” over a slouching reggae rhythm.

Rip It Up is full of enough strange stuff to keep us intrigued today, and plenty of genuine pop moments – the Motown homage ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ for instance – that should have fired it to big success. That it didn’t perhaps explains Orange Juice’s next move.

Discs four and five are based around the band’s next official releases, mini-album Texas Fever and their swansong, The Orange Juice, both released in 1984. The contrast between the two is intriguing as it shows a side of the band that hasn’t really been captured in the Orange Juice compilations released so far. It’s clearly still from the same minds that concocted the jittery, excitable early act and the smoother, shades-wearing Orange Juice that appeared on Top Of The Pops, but it’s somehow a bit harder, musically speaking.

This is where Coals To Newcastle really earns its spurs. To hear Texas Fever is to find a band stripped of the musical excess of ‘Rip It Up’, replacing it with a Sixties-inspired world of close harmonies and even – shock horror corduroy fans – guitar solos. It still finds time for Collins to fit in a ridiculous ‘scary’ voice on ‘Craziest Feeling’, but it wouldn’t be Edwyn if it didn’t slide towards the ludicrous on occasion.

Listening to The Orange Juice, made when the band was officially just Collins and Manyika, again underlines the benefit of the box set. Overshadowed by the more popular and more influential parts of the back catalogue, here it can be judged on its own merits. Thankfully, it stands up well. Its mood is captured on ‘A Little Too Sensitive’, on which Collins turns his trademark cynicism inward, and seems to analyse just why he’s been left standing (almost) alone whilst the music he helped to create has gone on to soundtrack the early part of the decade.

It’s a reflective end to the band’s discography, albeit enlivened by the track ‘What Presence?!’, an early indicator of the guilty pleasure silliness Collins would bottle on ‘A Girl Like You’, and ‘Salmon Fishing In NY’, a heavier number that ends the record in a blizzard of guitar feedback. Accompanied here by numerous b-sides, live tracks and, believe it or not, dub mixes, plus that extra disc of radio sessions, it means Coals To Newcastle lacks a real finale, but that’s a problem of box sets in general, not just this one.

So what to make of the whole thing? Well, as an introduction to the band, it won’t work, simply because of its size. For that, you can get The Glasgow School and hear the influence of that early Orange Juice. For those that want to delve deeper however, this is pretty much darned essential. It confirms Orange Juice as more than an influential indie band – it shows up their ridiculousness, their ambition, their open-mindedness, their limitations, their self-reliance. It leaves you converted to their cause, whatever it is and however foolish it may be. It’s also something you can see yourself returning to, rather than keeping on a shelf for posterity. You can’t really ask for more than that, can you?

mp3 : Orange Juice – Falling and Laughing (Peel Session, 1980)
mp3 : Orange Juice – Mud In Your Eye
mp3 : Orange Juice – Craziest Feeling
mp3 : Orange Juice – What Presence?! (Kid Jensen session, 1984)

JC adds : You really should delve.  It’s bloody marvellous.  And I still can’t quite get my head round the fact that I got a thank you in the credits within the accompanying booklet.

Orange Juice.

ICA 57 was my stab at coming up with the perfect 10-track LP. There’s the occasional day that I think I nailed it, but for the most part I find myself wondering why certain pieces of music didn’t make it. I’ve long thought that the time was ripe for a Volume Two but I have more or less run out of superlatives to accompany the tracks. The solution? Scour the internet and find a few hundred words from someone else that have me nodding in agreement.

Here’s Alexis Petridis, with his review of the Coals to Newcastle boxset, as published in the Guardian newspaper back in November 2010.

Tucked away on this six CD and one DVD boxset, there’s a brief radio interview with Edwyn Collins. It hails from just after Orange Juice’s greatest commercial success, when Rip It Up reached the top 10. The group’s frontman seems weary and cynical, his conversation punctuated with awkward laughter. Mention of the music press-boosted New Pop movement of which Rip It Up was supposed to be a perfect exemplar – clever, radio-friendly, powered by the modern-sounding squelch of the Roland 303 synthesiser – sets him off: “Bland … insipid … vacuous … disgusting.” He sounds not like a man who’s finally claimed his rightful place on Top of the Pops, but someone who thinks he’s already blown it.

Listening to the music on Coals to Newcastle in chronological order, you can see why. The first CD contains the early singles and the unreleased debut album Ostrich Churchyard. It documents the startling 18-month period during which Orange Juice minted a sound that brilliantly connected the agitated, trebly strum of the Velvet Underground’s What Goes On to the scratchy funk guitars of disco; dragged rock music further from its primal macho roots than anyone before had ever dared; wrote a succession of staggeringly brilliant songs – Falling and Laughing, Dying Day, Consolation Prize; and singlehandedly, if unwittingly, invented what came to be known as indie music. The music press thought they’d be huge. Orange Juice had the tunes, arch, witty lyrics that could conceivably have provoked Morrissey-like devotion, and in the lush-lipped and befringed Collins a frontman who might conceivably have provoked teen mania.

Predictions of their imminent ascendancy seemed to tactfully ignore a number of facts. Orange Juice’s charm was bound up with the fact that they sounded spindly and ramshackle by comparison with most early 80s pop, and looked deeply weird in their plastic sandals, cravats and tweeds: in every sense of the phrase, they offered a kind of charity-shop Chic. Collins’s voice was an acquired taste: he sounded not unlike a tipsy man launching into an after-dinner speech with his mouth still full of port and walnuts.

They signed to Polydor, which didn’t seem to know what to do with them, beyond adding the brass section that was the 80s major label’s default answer to bridging the gulf between the indie chart and the real thing. Trailed by an audacious cover of Al Green’s L-O-V-E (Love), You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever sounded great – if you hadn’t already heard earlier recordings. But the Smash Hits audience opted instead for Haircut 100 and their David Cassidy version of Orange Juice’s sound: all the tweeness, none of the intelligence or grit.

In search of greater professionalism, Collins fired half the band, including the other songwriter James Kirk. The Rip It Up single was fantastic, but on the accompanying album, Orange Juice sounded shattered, as if they didn’t have a clue what to do now. Let new drummer Zeke Manyika write afrobeat inspired songs? Rework old B-sides in a reggae style, thus proving at a stroke that Orange Juice B-sides were desperately ill-suited to being reworked in a reggae style? Plonked in the middle of the album, an Ostrich Churchyard leftover called Louise Louise is a reminder of past glories.

It might have signalled the end, had Collins not been rather more steely than the fey image suggested. Just how steely and determined wouldn’t become fully apparent until 2005, when he battled back to health after two strokes that initially left him unable to walk, talk, read or write. Twenty years earlier, it manifested itself in rebuilding Orange Juice, with Manyika’s help, into the sleek, smart unit of 1984’s Texas Fever and The Orange Juice, where a perfect middle distance was located between the shambolic clangour of their early work and a more polished, funky sound. Collins turned his sardonic lyrical eye on his own waning commercial fortunes on the gorgeous A Sad Lament and Lean Period: “Please don’t expect consistency from me,” he crooned on the latter.

By then, of course, it was too late, as a clip of the band on Whistle Test demonstrates. As they charge through a frantic version of What Presence!?, a ticker spools along the bottom of the screen. “Also tonight! Jean Michel Jarre! Spandau Ballet! Kim Wilde’s record collection!” What price Collins’s sardonic, clever observations in that climate? They split in 1985. Incredibly, within a year, a generation of indie bands were hailing them as an influence of almost mythic proportions. Subsequently, so would everyone from Belle and Sebastian to Franz Ferdinand and Wild Beasts. The good – all of which is here, along with enough live tracks, demos and B-sides to blur the line between exhaustive and exhausting – would eventually out.

Side A

1. Rip It Up (12” version – released in 1983)

The 1983 hit single….and until the solo success of A Girl Like You, the only song likely to have generated much in the way of royalties for Edwyn Collins. Some fun facts, all of which are true:-

– it wasn’t the lead-off single from the album of the same name (released in November 1982) as that distinction went to I Can’t Help Myself

– it proved to be the first chart single to ever feature the Roland TB-303 synthesiser bassline (wonderfully reproduced in the live setting by David McClymont)

– it has a very noticeable mimic of the two-note guitar solo that was heard on Boredom, the lead song on the Spiral Scratch EP by Buzzcocks…and the mimic comes just as Edwyn is declaring it his favourite song

– it contains a backing vocal by Paul Quinn, but sadly he didn’t appear on stage during either of the Top of The Pops appearances, although Jim Thirlwell (of Foetus On Your Breath ‘fame’) did mime the sax solo contributions to great effect

2. Lovesick (released in 1980)

Often I find it hard to get through to you
Words become barbed and stick in the throat
My reasoned argument seems to be so obscure
Tripped myself up, there’s no need to gloat.

Seemingly tucked away on the b-side of Blue Boy, the second and finest of the Postcard singles., it was in fact a deserved double-A side but such was the majesty of its flip-side that it didn’t get the attention it deserved

3. Bridge (released in 1984)

From the mini-LP Texas Fever (the original vinyl release had just six tracks). It’s a record made during a time of stress with Edwyn not wanting to make an album full of Rip It Up style singles but managing to alienate bassis David and the maverick genius guitarist Malcolm Ross (the only man to be an official member in each of Aztec Camera, Josef K and Orange Juice) to the extent that the group split up with just drummer Zeke Manyika hanging around to work alongside the frontman. Like so many other albums recorded in such circumstances, it manages to be a work of wonder, tantalisingly offering up something new and different sounding from what had come before. Bridge was the single from the mini-album. It has a groove and catch that are infectious and comes with handclaps you just want to replicate when you’re moving to it on the disco floor. Only you won’t get the chance as most DJs will shun it. Au undeserved #67 flop.

4. L.O.V.E. Love (released in 1981)

The move from Postcard to Polydor didn’t overly concern me. To be fair, I was a naïve 18-year old who thought that the singers/bands/musicians could fully dictate the music that as to be released.

I hated this single with a passion when it was released. It just wasn’t Orange Juice, not with horns and soulful backing singers, whose talents particularly showed up the fragility of Edwyn’s voice as he struggled to hit the higher notes – this Al Green cover (whoever he was!!) sounded the wrong sort of song to get the most out of the band as it started to dawn on me that the record label held all the aces.

At least the consolation prizes on the b-side were listenable so buying both the 7” and 12” versions didn’t feel like a total waste of money. It took me a long time to grow up, expand my tastes and accept that this was, as Petridis says above, an audacious cover.

5. Simply Thrilled Honey (released in 1980)

Ye Gods….how did I leave this Postcard single off ICA 57?

Truth be told, it’s not up there as one of my OJ faves, but given I’m now part of a wonderful collective that has taken our name from said song, it’s a must.

https://www.wegottickets.com/event/468991

Side B

1. The Artisans (released in 1984)

The final Orange Juice album could have been something that merely fulfilled a contractual obligation but instead proved to be a crowning glory that is certainly up there with the quality and consistency of the Postcard songs. In reality, it’s Edwyn’s debut solo album, shaped by Denis Bovell on the production side (and keyboards) with additional help from some old pals – Zeke on drums and Clare Kenny (ex-Amazulu) on bass. Its ten tracks enjoy a high level of quality and craftsmanship throughout, with guitar-heavy songs sitting comfortably alongside heart-wrenching and wistful ballads, whose lyrics sway from the heart-felt to the caustic, barbed and tongue-in-cheek, but at all times with a knowing sigh that it was the world’s loss that it hadn’t been remotely ready for Orange Juice. This is one of the piss-take efforts, one that has as fine a groove as any in the band or solo canon, thanks to Bovell’s contribution on the Vox Organ.

2. Holiday Hymn (recorded in 1981 – released in 1992)

Back in 1981, Vic Godard had written Holiday Hymn and performed it live with Subway Sect on only a handful of occasions. Edwyn immediately felt that it would make for a perfect Orange Juice song and so he recorded it from the mixing desk, learned the lyrics and cords, and took it into the studio for his band to learn and play. A studio version would eventually see the light of day with the release of Ostrich Churchyard

3. A Sad Lament (released in 1983)

A Sad Lament was first released as the b-side on the 12” version of the Rip It Up single (or as one side of the bonus disc in the limited edition 2×7” versions) before finding its way onto the Texas Fever mini-album the following year. It’s inclusion on the mini-LP is, I believe, an acknowledgment that it was too good a song to have simply been left as a b-side, especially when most who had bought Rip It Up, via the standard 7” version, would have only been able to play the Malcolm Ross composed track, Snake Charmer.

Long regarded as a long-lost and difficult to get hold of classic, the record label, a part of the 2002 compilation ‘Edwyn Collins & Orange Juice – A Casual Introduction 1981/2001’ decided to include A Sad Lament in the tracklist….only to butcher the track by removing part of the intro and outro and cutting off a full 80 seconds of music. Suffice to say, it’s the original you’ll find here……

4. All That Ever Mattered (released in 1984)

The weepy ballad from the final album. It may well be the sad thoughts of someone looking back as the dying embers of a once passionate relationship are finally extinguished, but it could also be the parting shot to former bandmates as, by this time, they were barely on speaking terms (thankfully they would kiss and make up in later years).

5. Lean Period (released in 1984)

This joke I’ve made at my own expense has long since been worn thin
And yet by recompense you respond with a wink and a knowing grin

None of Edwyn’s biggest fans, when listening to his resigned state-of-the-nation address in the opening track of the final album could ever have imagined he would still be making great music to entertain, enthral and enrich us 35 years later. It’s so good to have him around and to be making the quality music you’ll find on his 2019 album Badbea, in which he blends beautifully the old and the new to deliver something that still sounds and feels essential. It’s such a contrast, in particular, to one of his peers and an 80s hero who is now specialising in finding different ways to disappoint, seemingly each and every day.

JC

The above photo is the reverse of the sleeve for Chance Meeting, a single released by Josef K on Postcard Records in 1981 and given the catalogue number 81-5. If you look closely or indeed magnify it, you’ll see that the opportunity has been taken to list all the previous singles, along with their catalogue numbers, as well as the anticipated next release:-

81-6 : Orange Juice
Wan Light c/w You Old Eccentric

Only it never happened. It was meant to be a 45 with both sides devoted to James Kirk songs. The band sped off to Polydor before there was a chance to issue a fifth single for the Glasgow label; indeed there would be one further 45 ever released out of West Princes Street, Glasgow and that was 81-8 : Mattress Of Wire c/w Lost Outside The Tunnel by Aztec Camera just before they signed to Rough Trade.

Wan Light was later recorded for You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever, the debut album, but it’s likely that the Postcard single would have been more like the rough n ready demo version previously recorded or perhaps the version recorded for BBC Radio 1 and broadcast on the Richard Skinner Show in January 1991.

You Old Eccentric was later issued on the b-side of the 12″ version of Felicity, but again it’s likely that the Postcard version would be more similar to the version recorded for BBC Radio 1 and broadcast on the John Peel show in October 1980.

On that basis, and with thanks to Auntie Beeb, here is the Postcard single that never was, 81-6:-

mp3 : Orange Juice – Wan Light
mp3 : Orange Juice – You Old Eccentric

JC

I’m barging the Saturday series out-of-the-way today so that I can follow-up after the welcome and varied responses to ‘True Confessions.’

First of all, as ever, a huge thank you to everyone for taking the time to fire over your view, thoughts and opinions; as I’ve said on so many occasions, it’s the quality of comments and guest contributions that make this venture all worthwhile. I had a feeling the idea of slaughtering a few sacred cows would prove controversial and so it sort of proved.

One thing I want to make very clear is that I’ve never liked the idea of using the blog to be negative and over the past eleven and a bit years, the percentage of posts that don’t celebrate music has been tiny. I’d even like to think that the ‘Had It. Lost It’ series is in some ways celebratory in that the idea is to reflect on how good, and indeed great, a singer or band had been only for it to go awry.

The concept behind ‘True Confessions’ was similar. This series, if it was going to be as such, was intended to look at one song in isolation by an act that I otherwise liked or admired; it also had the rider that the act had to come from a past era so that I couldn’t simply give the finger to something that was contemporary on the basis that I ‘didn’t get it’. I chose The Model on the basis that I have enjoyed a lot of the music produced over the years by Kraftwerk but had never warmed to their best known and arguably best-loved song, certainly among the general public.

If this comes across as conceited to some of you, then I’m truly sorry. But I do think there has been a slight misunderstanding of what I was hoping to achieve.

In essence, it was like trying to recreate an on-line version of an argument down the pub between folk who care and are passionate about music. This was never just to carp about a bad song as I don’t believe there is such a thing as a bad song – but there are quite a lot of songs that I don’t care for; indeed there are many more songs that I don’t like or enjoy than I have in the vinyl, cd and digital collection inside Villain Towers, but I have no intention of spending time or energy writing about them just for the sake of it.

I’ll try and illustrate this with an example from the comments. Alex considered that “the worst song ever in the history of songs has to be Paul Simon “You Can Call Me Al” which is from the “acclaimed” Graceland album.” I’m not sure if it is quite the worst ever in the history of songs, but it is one that I’ve never taken to. But at the same time, I’ve never really taken much to Paul Simon’s solo career and so don’t feel that I’m qualified to post a negative piece on You Can Call Me Al as I can’t consider it any sort of context.

It was also the case that any song that fell under the microscope for the series had to be one that was, on the face of it, universally acclaimed. As such, I’d never entertain the idea of any Oasis song featuring or the suggestion of Don’t You Forget About Me by Simple Minds; in the case of the former, this was a band that divided opinion from Day 1 and in respect of the latter I think it’s fair to say that, despite its millions of worldwide sales, most Simple Minds fans don’t regard it as the band’s finest moment.

I agree wholeheartedly with Moz’s comment that “one person’s caviar is another’s fish paste sandwich, and we should all respect that”. The key word here is ‘respect’ and that was, I think, what C was alluding to when she said “I like the sound of this series….don’t mind the idea of interspersing the large number of posts about things we like with some about the things we don’t….want to understand the basis behind the opinions I don’t agree with …..as long as it doesn’t become too personal of course”.

Having weighed things up, and slept on it all overnight, I’m going to keep the feature going as an occasional series and will take guest contributions as long as they fit the criteria. That rules out CC doing anything on U2 and SWC is barred from frantically writing why The Smiths suck….but don’t worry too much buddy as I’m likely to make a confession about one of their songs.

One more quick visit to the box by me to wrap things up.

I could very happily go the rest of my life without ever hearing both sides of a particular 45 by Orange Juice. It doesn’t sit easy with me given how much I’ve written about the band over the years and that I was given a namecheck in the credits of the Coals to Newcastle boxset (such things should really be reserved for those who have blind faith!).

As I said in my OJ ICA ,

“The old adage of ‘musical differences’ had been was cited when Steven and James left the band after the debut album but in this instance it was the truth. This had left Edwyn and David to take things forward, augmented by the fantastically talented Malcolm Ross and a Zimbabwe-born drummer called Zeke Manyika but the initial fruits of their labour – the double-sided single of Two Hearts Together/Hokoyo – was a huge disappointment and nothing like any of the old songs. It was a worrying time.”

I actually understated how much I disliked this particular single that was released in August 1982. It sounded as if the band wanted to spend the rest of their careers somewhere down the bill on WOMAD festivals. The songs are a real mishmash of influences, none of which had been part of any of the Postcard era or the debut album. I wasn’t ready for it and to be quite honest, I’ve never ever steadied myself to fully accept it as an Orange Juice recording. It’s really strange as the work Zeke puts into the songs, particularly on Hokoyo, would later be replicated in parts on Soul Mining by The The, and that’s an album I will never allow a bad word to be said about. Maybe it’s about time and place.

mp3 : Orange Juice – Two Hearts Together (7″ version)
mp3 : Orange Juice – Hokoyo (7″ version)

So there you have it. Orange Juice getting slated on T(n)VV.

Who’s next for the confessional box?

PS

Echorich indicated that he liked the idea of B-Side Gems. The old blog was full of such postings – indeed it was launched with the intention of offering up unknown and rarely heard b-sides on a regular basis at a time when the back catalogues of many 80s and 90s artists were obsolete. One of my first postings was a Lloyd Cole track which was impossible to get a hold of without having a 12” single – it’s since surfaced on a boxset of rarities.

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Butterfly (Planet Anne Charlotte mix)

I’ll try and dig out some b-side postings from the archives and put them up over the upcoming festive period.

JC

Today’s debut 45 launched a label as well as a band:-

mp3 : Orange Juice – Falling and Laughing

I really don’t think I can add all that much to the praise I’ve heaped on Orange Juice and Postcard Records on previous occasions.

One thing I have observed is that the reputation of the band and the label seems to grow with each passing year, possibly from the legacy in that they seemed to create templates for many to follow in their footsteps. I do find this somewhat amusing as everyone, and in particular Edwyn Collins and Alan Horne, were regarded as joke figures by many of their contemporaries, including here in Glasgow. The first sign of change of attitude can be traced to the mid-80s and the emergence of a new breed of writers, particularly those who served their apprenticeships with fanzines before landing proper media jobs, and the explosion of performers whose teen and adolescent years were spent listening to the records and similar sounding songs on other small independently run labels such as Rough Trade.

This new cognoscenti were fulsome and consistent in their praise of the Postcard rota and for the Postcard way of doing things. All of a sudden, it was fashionable and hip to drop 185 West Princes Street into conversation and music press interviews. It may have dropped off again in the early 90s when grunge took over, but it rose back up in the middle of that decade when Edwyn enjoyed his world-wide solo hit and then even higher again a decade or so later when he suffered his life-threatening illnesses; this second wave of praise and enthusiasm wasn’t out of sympathy, but instead was the recognition of just how unique and different it had all been from the beginning.

But was Falling & Laughing the best ever Orange Juice single? My opinion, and I’ve expressed this on the pages of the blog before, is that honour should be bestowed on another 45 from the Polydor years.

But………..and here’s the kicker in today’s post, I want to change my mind. I still think Felicity is the Orange Juice song I most enjoy listening to and I don’t see that changing. But without Falling and Laughing there wouldn’t have been Felicity or Blue Boy or I Can’t Help Myself or What Presence. There would unlikely have been many other great indie and pop bands to emerge out of the shadows here in Scotland and further afield if it wasn’t for the fact that Postcard Records got up and running, albeit it never really got all that far at the time. And so, for all sorts of reasons, I have to now say that Falling and Laughing is the greatest 45 ever released by Orange Juice.

JC

Orange Juice signed off with a flourish with their final single having the very tongue-in-cheek title of Lean Period. It was issued in 7″ and 12″ formats in a brown paper bag (the reverse side of the 7″ version is pictured above), a 12″ format with a printed sleeve and a limited 7″ edition that came with an additional flexi disc with two live tracks.

Despite all this, it staggered around the nether region of the charts but as this was a time when the charts were measured on a Top 100 it meant, in official terms, that Lean Period actually spent three weeks in the official rundown – entering at #78, rising to #77 and then leaping, salmon-like to the giddy-heights of #74 in October 1984.

mp3 : Orange Juice – Lean Period
mp3 : Orange Juice – Bury My Head In My Heads
mp3 : Orange Juice – Lean Period (12″ dub version)
mp3 : Orange Juice – Rip it Up (live)
mp3 : Orange Juice – What Presence?! (live)

The flexi disc recordings are very lo-fi, ripped as they are straight from those fragile and flimsy bits of plastic and so you’ll have to turn the volume right up. There are superior versions available via the Coals to Newcastle boxset but I thought I’d stay true to the blog’s principles.

JC

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON MONDAY 16 JUNE 2008

(and again on 6 November 2013)

From January 1982.

It reached the giddy heights of #63 in the UK pop charts.

This is the sound of happiness. On a double A side 7″ single.

I really don’t think I need say anymore….

mp3 : Orange Juice – Felicity
mp3 : Orange Juice – In A Nutshell

PS

The irony here is that my favourite Orange Juice single, while sung by Edwyn Collins was in fact written by fellow band-member James Kirk.

Hence the William Shatner reference in this cover version:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Felicity

Many years later, James did his own great version of the song:-

mp3 : James Kirk – Felicity

PPS

Little did I know, when I originally penned this post in 2008 that I would later be contacted by Domino Records and asked to fill in a few gaps as part of their background work as to what should and shouldn’t be included in the Coals To Newcastle boxset, the result of which I was one of a number of people thanked in the sleevenotes. That’s the most rock’n’roll thing that’ll ever likely happen in my life…….