Pooh Sticks – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

SONGS UNDER TWO MINUTES (16): I KNOW SOMEONE……

The full song title is far too lengthy to include at the top of this posting. And with my two-fingered approach to things, it would likely take longer than its 96 seconds of music to type out.

mp3: The Pooh Sticks – I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well

From 1988. It’s twee-pop at its finest and, dare I say it, at its wittiest. It was what the early version of The Pooh Sticks became famed for. See also On Tape and Indiepop Ain’t Noise Pollution, both of which are just too long at 2:39 and 2:14 respectively to feature in this particular series.

JC

Pooh Sticks

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #075

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#075: The Pooh Sticks – ‘Young People’ (Sweet Virginia ’91)

Hello friends,

back to sunny Wales we go, to Swansea, to be precise. After the embarrassing Helen Love-incident, (see # 34 in the series), I promise to be careful with my filthy tongue this time … I learn from my mistakes, although Mrs. Loser often says otherwise!

The Pooh Sticks it is, and the name is of course a common one. Somehow they have always been around, haven’t they, but in one form or another they also always managed to stay under the mainstream’s radar. The band may see this differently, of course, but as far as I am concerned: thank God they did!

Primarily recording between 1988 and 1995, they were notable for their jangly melodiousness and lyrics gently mocking the indie scene of the time, such as on “On Tape”, “Indiepop Ain’t Noise Pollution” and “I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well”.

The band changed direction on their 1991 U.S breakthrough ‘The Great White Wonder’, eschewing the twee British indie pop sound for a more American-styled power-pop sound. Nothing wrong with this, because as bad as this sounds, we are talking about flawless, perfect pop here!

You see, the Pooh Sticks had many great moments, and lifted many a great tune. However, for most listeners, ‘The Great White Wonder’ will always be their finest hour. If you ask me, this was the absolute majestic ‘Force Fed By Love’ , but what do I know, right? But that was never released on 7“, to my great dismay!

So, instead, from the album, we have the opener today (old DJ trick, by the way: when you’re back too late at the decks or you’re completely lost because you chatted with beautiful female guests again, Side A, Track 1 is always the safest choice!), certainly a highlight in the long run of Pooh Sticks-singles:

mp3: The Pooh Sticks – Young People

Of course I hope you enjoyed the tune, as usual. If, for some reason, you did not, let me quote from it: „Get into it! And if you can’t get into it, shine it on!“

Take care,

Dirk

Pooh Sticks, Ride

BURNING BADGER’S VINYL – THE (NEARLY) A-Z OF INDIEPOP (Part 6, P and R)

P is for Pooh Sticks

Young People (Taken from the ‘The Great White Wonder’)

I gave blood today. It was the first time I have given blood in about 25 years. In fact the last time I gave blood I was still dating OPG so it’s longer than 25 years ago, more like 27 years, 6 months and 22 days. On that occasion, OPG and her mum picked me up in their Austin Maestro from the small car park behind the church hall near Gillingham High Street, and OPG rewarded me with a Mars Bar for being such a brave boy. I was really pleased with myself not only because I’d done a good a thing, but I’d also managed to get a free cup of tea and a small packet of biscuits, and now I had a whole Mars Bar as well. Some days, you just felt like the King of the World.

I’m always reminded of the last great Tony Hancock in ‘The Blood Donor” when I give blood. I can’t help it. I love Tony Hancock and ‘The Blood Donor’ is one of my favourite pieces of television ever. Despite telling myself that I have absolutely no intention of watching ‘The Blood Donor’ before I go and donate, there I am at midday on the hottest day of the year in my lounge, chortling away to myself as Hancock delivers his immortal line to the harassed looking doctor.

“I mean, I came here in all good faith, to help my country. I don’t mind giving a reasonable amount, but a pint? Why, that’s very nearly an armful.”

I am tempted to quote Hancock to the nurse who deals with me today, but I decide not to, largely because the man in front of me does it first and the gag falls so flat on its arse that I tell myself that annoying the kind lady with the big needle is not a tremendous idea. She is also about 25 as well, and the reason why the joke is falling flat on its arse is because the nurse probably thinks that Tony Hancock is related to Matt Hancock, the totally fucking hopeless ex health secretary.

R is for Ride

Close My Eyes (Taken from ‘Ride EP’)

The nurse, who is called Vanessa, pricks my middle finger and then proceeds to squeeze some blood out of it, she is quite content with the quality of my blood and then tells me to go and sit on the reclining chairs. It is there in the reclining chairs that you give your armful of blood. It’s kind of relaxing, once you get past the needle in your arm bit that is. I lie there close my eyes and listen to the music that is playing in the room and once I realise what it is, I try and shut out the racket that is Heather Small singing ‘Proud’.

“You feeling nervous, love?” Vanessa says; it’s a bit weird being called ‘Love’ by a woman who is young enough to be my daughter, but I smile and say “Nope, I’m just trying to not listen to Heather Small’s voice”. Vanessa offers me a cushion to put behind my back, and I feel myself ageing a few more years.

After about ten minutes a machine beeps a noise similar to the noise you get when you finish a level of Super Mario Brothers, and I am told to sit up and then Vanessa asks me if I would like a drink. I ask for an Earl Grey, black and with a squeeze of lemon if they have it. She hands me a piece of card that tells me “NO HOT DRINKS FOR SIX HOURS”.

I’m also, for the next six hours, not allowed “Physical Exercise (including sex)” – it genuinely says that, “too much sun” (it’s the hottest day of the year) and “no alcohol”. I tell Vanessa that the last time I gave blood, I got a cup of tea. She looks at me strangely and asks me “When was that” as apparently, it’s a really bad idea to have hot drinks after giving blood.

I tell her it was in “1994”. She laughs and says “Christ love, I wasn’t even born then” and about 3000 of my hairs immediately turn grey, and I ask her for some water.

I am walked over to the relaxation area, where you must sit for fifteen minutes after donating. I am offered a box full of crisps and salty snacks to eat with my water (“helps your body retain water, love”) and I pick up two bags of salt and vinegar crisps and sit in one of the comfy chairs and pick up a copy of ‘Devon Life’ Magazine and read an article about the Westward Ho!

I open the crisps and munch away. I’m really hungry. I’d gone out without lunch, you see, choosing instead to watch Tony Hancock videos instead. About seven minutes after I finish the first bag of crisps, I realise that this was a mistake. My head starts to spin a bit, and then a lot, and the nurse to my right has started talking in a weird slow motion style. I pick up my glass of water, my hand is shaking, and suddenly I feel really hot, sweating buckets hot, like the moment about two minutes before you puke up last night’s alcohol.

A kind nurse called Toby wanders over and asks me if I am ok. I feel a bit faint, I tell him. Within minutes, I am lying on the floor, with a cool pillow behind my head and Vanessa is back and shoving my feet on a small box so they are higher than my head.

Vanessa looks at me and smiles, “Bless” she says.

The Pooh Sticks were outstanding, a jangly indie pop band from Wales and ‘The Great White Wonder’ was their second album and featured as a guest vocalist Amelia Fletcher from Talulah Gosh. I saw them live just once at the 1992 Reading Festival (I think) that ended with this.

I’m In You – a fifteen minute wig out of sheer brilliance.

I’m pretty sure I used to own ‘The Great White Wonder’ on tape.

The Ride EP was as we all know the first release from Ride. It remains to this day essential listening, and here for the unacquainted are the other three tracks from the EP. It is unlikely that you will hear many songs that are better today.

Chelsea Girl
Drive Blind
All I Can See

SWC

Pooh Sticks

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 4 of 48)

Have a really good look at the sleeve for today’s featured song from CD86. Have any of you out there actually ever seen it in real life? I only ask as it is incredibly rare….it is also a ridiculously expensive piece of vinyl. The available copies on Discogs retail for £150 or thereabouts.

mp3 : The Pooh Sticks – On Tape

I can’t even offer a b-side as it was a one-sided single, released in 1988 on Fierce Recordings.

As with Jasmine Minks (featured back in Part 2 of the series), here we have a song that is synonymous with the whole C86 scene which in fact is a bit of a cheat. There is no doubt however, that The Pooh Sticks would not have come into being without the aid of C86.

On Tape is a brilliant record on so many different levels. It sounds as shambolic and cheaply recorded as most of the C86 tracks were, it pays homage to the humble cassette which, after all, was the medium under which C86 thrived and above all else the lyrics gently mock the trainspotter obsessiveness of so many music fans (myself included!!) with lyrics such as “I’ve got Falling and Laughing – the original Postcard version” and “I sent for the Soup Dragons single, mail-order only; £1.30 to Martin Whitehead, but it never came!”

Oh and in Trudi Tangerine (tambourine/piano) they surely have the best-named indie pop star of all time.

The next five singles after On Tape were also one-sided 45s and these were then gathered together in a vinyl only box set before being made available on a CD compilation entitled Alan McGhee. A live LP followed (on pink vinyl) before another run of 7″ singles on coloured vinyl or as flexidiscs. This was a band determined to do entirely the unexpected….

1990 saw another compilation album and a slew of one-off singles and then, just as the world embraced the advent of grunge and loud guitars, The Pooh Sticks moved to a new label – Cheree Records – and released an album which to all intent and purposes was a power-pop tribute to 70s style soft-rock and AOR.

Incredibly, despite no great sales, this effort got the band into major territory with RCA Records via the Zoo Entertainment imprint and this led to the 1993 release of the tongue-in-cheek named Million Seller. If you any evidence of the lack of demand for the music from this era, you can pick up second-hand copies of the CD for about £3.

By 1995, after a third studio LP, The Pooh Sticks broke up….

In the absence of a b-side, I will offer up the only other track of theirs I have in the collection – it’s another of the early one-sided 45s courtesy of its inclusion on a Rough Trade compilation from back in 2004. All 95 seconds of it:-

mp3 : Pooh Sticks – I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well

Enjoy