A guest series by The Robster

#10: Play It Cool (1997, Creation Records, CRE275)

‘Radiator’, the second Super Furry Animals album, was set free in August 1997 and was festooned with great acclaim across the board. At this stage, the band could do no wrong in the eyes of fans and critics alike. Just four weeks after the album’s release, a third single was released. Play It Cool was one of the album’s highlights, but for the single, a slightly different (remixed?) version was offered up.

mp3: Play It Cool [single version]

There’s little to choose between the two versions. The most obvious difference is the intro, and the album version sounds a little more ‘bassy’, but other than that, they’re pretty similar. Not that it mattered – Play It Cool was a highlight on an album of many highlights, and it demonstrated once more how the band could produce something so original yet so completely melodic and accessible. The lyric “she’s raising money for the sex appeal” is another stroke of Gruff Rhys’ genius, in my opinion.

Play It Cool entered the UK charts on the first Sunday of October 1997 at number 27, which disappointingly is as high as it got. But chart positions have rarely been an indication of quality, right? It was released on the usual formats. The cassette and limited 7” included this on its flip:

mp3: Pass The Time

It’s a track I like, but it clearly wasn’t right for the album. That said, it would probably have been deemed good enough for release as an a-side by numerous Britpop bands of the era who were far lesser in quality than SFA, but more commercially successful.

The real gem lay in wait on the 12” and CD, a track I think starts off sounding like Shangri-La by the Kinks. It’s one of the band’s quietest, most tender songs. Don’t worry about it only coming out of the right channel to begin with, it’s meant to be that way…

mp3: Cryndod Yn Dy Lais (trans: Tremor In Your Voice)

This week’s bonus track is the demo version of the title track, recorded more than a year before. While the basic structure of the song is intact, it was clearly unfinished at this stage – there’s only one verse which is repeated, it’s slower and quite raw-sounding.

mp3: Play It Cool [demo]

The ‘Radiator’ campaign wasn’t over yet though…

 

The Robster

A guest series by The Robster

#9: The International Language Of Screaming (1997, Creation Records, CRE269)

A month before the second Super Furry Animals album hit the shelves, a second single from it was released. It has the longest title of any of the band’s singles (excluding the debut EP, of course), yet it is the third-shortest single in the band’s catalogue. That’s not significant at all, I just thought it was interesting. Sorry.

mp3: The International Language Of Screaming

This was more like we’d expect a single to sound like, following its rather odd predecessor. Short and snappy, with a proper earworm of a tune, lots of la-la-las and a wooo or two thrown in for good measure. And that’s not to mention the actual screaming towards the end. The line “If I scream it, I mean it, I hope you will understand me” is one I think everyone can relate to, regardless of the language you speak. Releasing a scream is an expression of passion that everyone has done at some point in their lives. Screaming is an international language, in that sense.

It was released the week of my 26th birthday in July 1997. Despite the obviously singleworthy nature of the song, it only reached number 24 in the UK charts, confirming that, while Britpop was still all over the place and making guitars more prominent in the hit parade for the first time in many years, Super Furry Animals perhaps didn’t quite fit with the pervading trends. I’m OK with that, and I don’t think they will have lost a lot of sleep over it either – if they wanted a number 1 single, it’s likely their music would have suffered greatly.

The b-side of the 7” and cassette single boasted another big tune, but it was so very different to the a-side, both in sound and style. A bit of Welsh glam rock, I suggest.

mp3: Wrap It Up

The CD single added two other decent tracks.

mp3: Foxy Music
mp3: nO.K.

Foxy Music is a lot of fun, Gruff tells a story about how a ginger-haired friend was once mistaken for a fox by a farmer and got shot! It’s awfully silly, and who knows if there is any truth to the story (I very much doubt there is…). The closing track is also a bit daft – essentially the English and Welsh alphabets being recited over an acoustic version of the title track, along with some bom-bom-boms and coughing.

All in all, The International Language Of Screaming is probably the most fun single in the Furries’ catalogue. To wrap it up this week (see what I did there?), here’s this week’s bonus demo, recorded in Cardiff in 1996:

mp3: The International Language Of Screaming [demo]

August 1997 would not only bring me a new Super Furry Animals album, but also my first child. Two hugely significant events, I still can’t decide which one was the most important…

 

The Robster

A guest series by The Robster

#8: Hermann ♥’s Pauline (1997, Creation Records, CRE252)

I’ve mentioned before that, the only thing you should expect about the Super Furry Animals is the unexpected. So when the first track from the band’s second album was unveiled in May 1997, it’s perhaps little surprise that we got a strange, psychedelic odyssey about Albert Einstein’s parents!

mp3: Hermann ♥’s Pauline [single version]

According to Wikipedia: “The song was inspired by the pitstops that the band would take at motorway service stations whilst out on tour, where Gruff Rhys would peruse through bitesized biographies about famous people.” It’s really not a track you’d earmark as a single. Indeed, when the album ‘Radiator’ was released three months later, it was clear there were numerous tracks that might have been better suited as the first single. But then, perhaps that wouldn’t have been a very super furry thing to do.

Nevertheless, it has become a real fan favourite. Maybe, in part, because the band didn’t play it live for many years due to it being too difficult to do so, so when they eventually did figure it out for the live setting, it would have been a big surprise to the fans.

I think it probably has the most entertainingly odd opening verse of any Top 40 hit ever:

Hermann loves Pauline, and Pauline loves Hermann
They made love and gave birth to a little German
They called him MC2 because he looked like no other
An asthma sufferer like Ernesto Guevara

The single version shortens the electronic sounds at the very beginning and end of the song; other than that, it’s identical to the album version. The wonderful sleeve, designed by Pete Fowler, marked the beginning of a collaboration between the band and artist that would last another dozen years. Hermann ♥’s Pauline charted at #26 in the UK in its first week before subsequently falling away. It was released in the regular three formats. The 7” and cassette featured this rowdy little upstart as its b-side:

mp3: Calimero

The CD had another Welsh language track, but this one had an altogether different feel.

mp3: Trôns Mr Urdd

My Welsh is very poor, and Google translate doesn’t really shed much light on things. But, from what I can make out (and I may well have got this entirely wrong) – the first of these tracks bemoans the cynicism and lack of respect for others in modern society, ending with the English phrase “I feel so sad…”. The latter song may or may not have something to do with cross-dressing. Please feel free to correct me. Unless I’m so embarrassingly wrong, in which case it might be kinder to leave me in ignorance…

Bonus track this week – well if there was a demo for Hermann… it has not been issued, so instead here’s an early version of another track that would grace the second LP. The Placid Casual was track 2 on ‘Radiator’, but its demo recorded the previous year in 1996 sounded rather different to the finished article.

mp3: The Placid Casual [demo]

In 1998, the band established Placid Casual Recordings, a label they could release any solo or side project material on. I’ve no idea if the label was named after this song, but it’s unlikely to have been the other way round.

The Robster

A guest series by The Robster

#7: The Man Don’t Give A Fuck (1996, Creation Records, CRE247)

Last week, I mentioned that a track planned to feature as a b-side to If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You had to be swapped out in favour of another track. That eschewed track did finally get a release in December 1996, but as a single in its own right.

mp3: The Man Don’t Give A Fuck

I wondered how much I’d need to write about The Man Don’t Give A Fuck as I thought it had been featured by numerous members of our blogging family over the years. But when I looked into it, it appears that none of those I expected to have written about it (JC, Swiss Adam, Jez) actually had done. I could be wrong, of course, but I never found anything. It seems it was just me, back here. Unless you know better…

Demoed back in 1995, the song is built around a sample from Steely Dan’s Show Biz Kids. It wasn’t finished in time for the album, and when it was finished and mooted as a b-side, they couldn’t get clearance for the sample from Steely Dan’s Donald Fagan. Eventually, the greedy bastard Fagan agreed to allow the song to be released in exchange for 95% of the royalties! The band actually agreed to this, taking the stance that as it was unlikely ever to be played on the radio for its prolific use of the f-bomb, it was unlikely to earn them much dough anyway. This was coupled with plans to release it in very limited quantities for one week only.

The song is described by Gruff Rhys as a multi-purpose protest song which can be used against “any organisation which you feel is terrorising you as an individual, anyone who’s cramping your style”. Its release was also seen as a way of demonstrating to people how ridiculous censorship is, with Rhys claiming no one is offended by the word ‘fuck’ anymore “unless you’re in the church where it’s beaten into you that … swearing is bad.”

The Man Don’t Give A Fuck entered the UK singles chart at number 22 and dropped to number 65 the following week as the limited run of copies of all formats sold out. It set a new record for the most number of f-words in a UK chart single, an honour the band would hold onto for three years before Insane Clown Posse’s Fuck The World beat it. They did get the record back though, but that comes later in the series.

Since its release, The Man Don’t Give A Fuck has become one of the band’s most popular tracks. It was the regular set closer of their live shows for the next 20 years and always took the roof off.

The 7” was issued on blue vinyl and contained just the one track. The CD included two remixes, one of which is called the Howard Marks mix. The band’s admiration for the notorious Welsh drug smuggler was already known, and the claim was that he came into the studio to remix the track. The more accepted version of events is that, while Marks probably was in the studio, the band members themselves did the actual remix.

mp3: The Man Don’t Give A Fuck [Howard Marks mix]
mp3: The Man Don’t Give A Fuck [Wishmountain mix]

The 12” featured a third remix, and to be fair is even less worthy of your time than the other two.

mp3: The Man Don’t Give A Fuck [Darren Price ‘mix’]

This week’s bonus track is the original 1995 demo. Of all the demos I’ve featured so far in the series, this one is clearly the roughest and least developed. It’s really interesting to compare it with the finished version, and you can understand why it wasn’t ready for the album.

mp3: The Man Don’t Give A Fuck [demo]

And in case you’ve never heard it, here’s the song that infamous sample was taken from (at 3:52):

mp3: Show Biz Kids – Steely Dan

Next week, the ‘Radiator’ phase begins…

The Robster

A guest series by The Robster

#6: If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You (1996, Creation Records, CRE243)

As was the way back then, some months after an album was released, singles continued to be churned out from it. A fourth single from ‘Fuzzy Logic’ was put out in September 1996, and it’s fair to say it was probably the weakest of the lot. I’ve never been overly fussed about If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You. I can’t say why for sure – it’s pleasant enough in many respects, a nice tune, a string section, it kind of ticked a lot of Britpop boxes. Maybe that was the reason – it was all a bit ordinary, and the one thing Super Furry Animals never were was ordinary.

mp3: If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You

It also bugs me how, as the song reaches its natural conclusion, it actually starts to fade out. In fact, you can hear the actual ending before the fade finishes. I never saw the point of that.

Released in the usual three formats, it equalled their top chart position to date – number 18, the same as its predecessor. The picture on the sleeve tells a story. As Wikipedia puts it:

“The band spent their promotional budget for this single on a tank. [They] had the tank painted bright blue and used it to arrive at music festivals. A photograph of the tank is featured on the cover of this single, with the title painted on the tank gun barrel. The tank was later sold to Don Henley.”

Super Furry Animals selling a tank to an Eagle! That’s not a transaction you’ll come across on any wildlife documentary, I can tell you. Another quick tank fact – painted across the front of the gun turret was the phrase “A oes heddwch?” which means “Is there peace?” Anyway – the b-sides. All formats contained this raucous little number:

mp3: Guacamole

“I need a revolution because I can’t afford the price of cake” is one of the best lines ever written, don’t you agree? I love this one, it’s a lot of fun. Thing is, Guacamole nearly didn’t see the light of day – it wasn’t the original planned b-side. Early CD and cassette promos featured a different track that had to be replaced at the last minute. We pick that story up next week… The CD single also included a third track:

mp3: (Nid) Hon Yw’r Gân Sy’n Mynd I Achub Yr Iaith

This one was penned for a free single-sided 7” given away at a benefit gig in North Wales for the Welsh Language Society. The title translates as This Is (Not) The Song That Will Save The Language. Thing is, while they may be right about that, the Furries, along with some of their Welsh compatriots riding the crest of the Cool Cymru wave, probably did more for the advancement of the Welsh language than any political campaign achieved in decades. It took the language out of the province and into the consciousness of music fans across the UK, many of whom probably didn’t even realise Wales had its own language (like someone – a grown adult, no less – I once actually knew…)

For my money, both b-sides beat the a-side hands down. You are free to disagree, of course. If you do, then you’ll enjoy this week’s bonus track – it’s the demo of the title track, recorded in October 1995. Note the alternative (better?) lyrics in the chorus…

mp3: If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy To You [demo]

Next week, that discarded b-side I mentioned above finally makes its appearance.

The Robster

A guest series by The Robster

#5: Something 4 The Weekend (1996, Creation Records, CRE235)

The third single from ‘Fuzzy Logic’ wasn’t a direct lift. Something For The Weekend was an album highlight, showcasing the Furries jauntier side. However, for whatever reason, a decision was made to release a different version for the single.

mp3: Something 4 The Weekend

Note, firstly, the slight difference in the title. Secondly, the change in tempo. It was slightly slower than the album version, which is interesting as it doesn’t have quite the same impact. It’s also unusual for a single in that it’s 20 seconds longer than the original. As ever, with Super Furry Animals, you should always expect the unexpected. Regardless of all that, Something 4 The Weekend powered its way to number 18 in the UK charts following its release on 1st July 1996. It was the band’s debut in the top 20.

The single’s sleeve art depicts notorious Welsh drug dealer Howard Marks, who the band befriended, wrote a song about and even collaborated with. His autobiography Mr Big is a brilliant and hilarious read.

The 7” and cassette formats contained a song considered for the album, but which was passed over.

mp3: Waiting To Happen

If you think this sounds like a cover, you’d be… wrong. It sounds like it should be though, it’s not very Furry-like, which may explain its exclusion from ‘Fuzzy Logic’. The other b-side on the CD single though was much more conventional. Well, conventional in a SFA sense.

mp3: Arnofio/Glô In The Dark

Essentially, two songs welded together. Arnofio (trans: Floating) is a slow, trippy, keyboard-led tune sung in Welsh. After 2 minutes 18 seconds, the altogether louder, noiser (and English) Glô In The Dark kicks in for a verse. Arnofio is reprised briefly before Glô returns to the conclusion. It’s a great track this, and one the band loved too. It was aired during their 2015 reunion gigs and completely bemused the hipsters who were only there for a social media post, while the actual fans went mad. Oh, and there’s a bit of word play here as well, as glô is the Welsh word for coal.

The CD single also contained the album version of the title track (though it’s worth noting, on the US release of ‘Fuzzy Logic’, the single version replaced the UK’s album version)

mp3: Something For The Weekend

Two versions not enough for ya? OK then, here’s a bonus track bonanza! The fabulous 1995 demo version, the BBC Radio 1 Evening Show take, and a live version recorded at the ill-fated Phoenix Festival in 1996.

mp3: Something For The Weekend [1995 demo]
mp3: Something For The Weekend [Evening Session]
mp3: Something 4 The Weekend [live at the Phoenix Festival]

Five versions of the same song in a single post? Blimey. I just keep repeating myself. I just keep repeating myself. I just keep repeating myself…..

The Robster

A guest series by The Robster

#4: God! Show Me Magic (1996, Creation Records, CRE231)

By the Spring of 1996, Super Furry Animals’ debut album was ready to go. A second preview of it came in the form of a track that had already been released, albeit in a different version, on the previous year’s Moog Droog EP.

mp3: God! Show Me Magic

This brand new recording wasn’t drastically different to the original in terms of its arrangement, but the bigger budget meant the production was much improved and gave the song a bit more of the welly it deserved. God! Show Me Magic has long been a fan favourite, but even at the time it was the single that thrust the band into the fore of the emerging Cool Cymru scene. Not that they cared about being part of any scene, SFA were too different to be part of anything but themselves. Even so, it made John Peel’s Festive 50 that year and became the band’s first top 40 hit.

It was released on 29th April 1996 on 7”, CD and cassette and invaded the charts at #33 before dropping out the following week. The b-sides had both been demoed and recorded for the album, but never made the final cut.

mp3: Death By Melody (CD only)
mp3: Dim Bendith

I’m not a big fan of Death By Melody. Even by the Furries standard, it was a little light and novelty-ish. Dim Bendith (trans. No Blessing) is the better of the two by far.

Three weeks after the single’s release, Super Furry Animals’ debut album ‘Fuzzy Logic’ was in the shops. It really was a refreshing change to hear something so new, yet so… old. The band chose to record it in their native land at the legendary Rockfield Studios near Monmouth. Their reasoning? “We heard they had jacuzzis and you got three meals a day, all the wrong reasons for going to a studio,” according to Gruff Rhys. Regardless, it was a triumph, with the media lauding it with gushing praise. It featured in all the relevant Best Of 1996 end-of-year lists, and even nowadays gets huge retrospective acclaim.

Being so out-of-step with the trends of the time, it’s somewhat surprising ‘Fuzzy Logic’ became such a success. But then, as I said earlier in the series, Super Furry Animals were proving to be the antidote to Britpop which was becoming stale and ugly. It was almost like the perfect protest record against that increasingly smug, self-congratulatory movement. While Blur sounded like The Kinks and Oasis wanted so desperately to be the Beatles, SFA bathed in Syd Barret and glam-era Bowie vibes, while occasionally hinting at a cheeky electronic undertone that would gradually come more to the fore and define their sound.

God! Show Me Magic was the hectic opener to the album. It wasn’t demoed for the record – I assume because they had already released a version at the time they were demoing these songs – but they did demo the track that followed it.

mp3: Fuzzy Birds [demo]

Fuzzy Birds is a song about a dream Gruff had about guitarist Bunf’s hamster Stavros. In the dream, Bunf wired Stavros’ wheel up to a dynamo to produce electricity for his house. The lyrics depict the conversation between owner and pet – the verses being Bunf, the chorus being Stavros’ reply.

Mad but brilliant! Or maybe it has a more serious message than you think:

[Gruff]: “Stavros came into Bunf’s life and it was a very beautiful moment for all of us, because we all loved Stavros: funky hamster! He had special tricks where he would slide up chairs. I had a dream that Bunf had wired up his wheel to make electricity for his house, so I wrote a song about it. But it dawned on me that it was also a song about the slave and the enslaver, and I think you can apply that to the worker and the employer, or the landlord and the tenant. It’s a pop song about a psychedelic dream I had, but basically Stavros was shouting for more worker’s rights.”

The first Super Furry Animals song about a super furry animal. There would be plenty more.

 

The Robster

A guest series by The Robster

#3: Hometown Unicorn (1996, Creation Records, CRE222)

Just a few months after signing a deal with one of the most feted independent record labels in the UK, Super Furry Animals put out their first new music of the partnership.

mp3: Hometown Unicorn

A curious choice as the first single from the forthcoming debut album. It’s not as energetic as some of their previous efforts, but certainly boasts that lovely woozy psychedelic feel we’d all adore from them over the next decade-plus. Plus, of course, the subject matter was typically odd, being about a French teenager called Franck Fontaine who went missing, but subsequently turned up a week later claiming to have been abducted by aliens.

Its chorus is undeniably catchy, another SFA trait, and it was voted Single Of The Week by NME. Released on 26th February 1996, it became the band’s first Top 50 hit, reaching the somewhat mountainous number 47. It came out on three formats. The 7” and dreaded cassette format featured this b-side:

mp3: Don’t Be A Fool, Billy

This is a delight, and certainly one of the band’s strongest early b-sides. It really shows another super furry strength – the vocal harmonies. They’d make good use of these over the years, and I think this is the first example of them coming to the fore.

The CD contained a third track.

mp3: Lazy Life (Of No Fixed Identity)

The subtitle of this one might sound familiar. That’s because, if you cast your mind back, in part one of the series I featured the first recording the band ever laid down, from 1993 when they were still fronted by Rhys Ifans. It was called Of No Fixed Identity. To my knowledge, Lazy Life is an entirely different song with no link to it’s nearly-namesake. And to be fair, listening to them both, if there was any similarity between them, you’d be hard-pressed to find it. Lazy Life is an altogether faster and more energetic kettle of fish. An OK song, but not one I’d put on a b-sides highlights playlist.

This week’s bonus track is another track from the demos the band made the previous year in preparation for the recording of their first album.

mp3: Hometown Unicorn [demo]

While they were moving forward, the band would look back for their next single. It would, however, provide their Top 40 breakthrough.

 

The Robster

A guest series by The Robster

#2: Moog Droog (1995, Ankst Records, ANKST062)

Not ones to rest on their laurels, Super Furry Animals spent the summer of 1995 either gigging to promote their debut EP or in the studio. Just four months after that absurdly-titled initial offering, another 7” EP was unleashed into the wilds of record store land.

As would become a common theme, the title was a play on words, incorporating both Welsh and English. Wikipedia explains it rather well:

‘Moog Droog’ is an ironic anglicised spelling of the Welsh phrase mwg drwg (“bad smoke”), slang for marijuana, making a pun on the Moog synthesizer (and/or its inventor) and the slang word “droog” (based on the Russian for “friend”) from A Clockwork Orange. The letter w can be a vowel in Welsh, and in phrase mwg drwg it is pronounced approximately like the English oo in “zoo” or “too” (although the name Moog is more correctly pronounced /ˈmoʊɡ/, rhyming with vogue).

mp3: pamV? (trans: Why Me?)
mp3: God! Show Me Magic
mp3: Sali Mali
mp3: Focus Pocus/Debiel

Opening track pamV has always been one I’ve loved, yet it has always been overlooked by the band on their numerous compilations in favour of the closer. I don’t really get why, but who am I to argue. The title is another example of the band’s love of word play. The phrase ‘pam fi’ means ‘why me’, the Welsh for ‘me’ being ‘fi’ – the letter v doesn’t exist in Welsh, instead a single f is pronounced like an English v.

Track two is the first recorded example of the band singing in English. They had increasingly been performing English language songs in their set, much to the derision of the Welsh-language media. The band didn’t care – they wanted to increase their fan base, and they could only do that by venturing across the border and allowing new audiences into their lyrical world. From Wiki again:

After gigging in London in late 1995, they were noticed by Creation Records boss Alan McGee. The band have said that having watched their gig, McGee asked them if they could sing in English rather than Welsh in future shows. In fact, by this stage they were singing in English, but McGee did not realise because their Welsh accents were so strong. Super Furry Animals received some criticism in the Welsh media for singing in English, something which the band felt “completely pissed” about. According to drummer Dafydd Ieuan: “It all started when we played this festival in West Wales, and for some reason the Welsh media started foaming at the mouth because we were singing songs in Welsh and English. But they get The Dubliners playing, and they do not sing in Irish. It’s ridiculous.”

God! Show Me Magic was re-recorded the following year as the opener on the debut album.

Sali Mali is a character in a series of children’s books, later made into a TV show. Many Welsh-speaking children learned to read through Sali Mali books. The song showed a different side to the Furries, being slower and more melodic than much of their previous material.

The final track is intriguing. It has two distinct sections – the first, a chaotic punkish blast with a flute solo in the middle. The second a more laid-back, keyboard-led coda, ending as it does with repeated la-la-las. In terms of its titles – I’m not entirely sure about this, but Focus Pocus appears to be a reference to Dutch prog band Focus and their massive #1 hit Hocus Pocus, while Debiel is Dutch for moron. Interestingly, moron is the Welsh word for carrot…

Moog Droog was released in October 1995 on 7” and CD. Its artwork was a variation of the same picture used on the Llanfair… EP. Also, curiously, it lists the band members on the back alongside pictures of gorillas. Only four members are listed – Cian is missing, which is odd as I was certain he had joined the band before the first EP. Maybe he just didn’t want to be shown as an ape… Like its predecessor, Moog Droog was re-issued on both formats a couple of years later with new artwork. On one of those two occasions, it zoomed up the charts to number 163.

Before the year was out, the band recorded two sets of demos. The first, back in June, with the second around the time of Moog Droog’s release. Many of the songs recorded in these sessions would appear fully formed on the debut album ‘Fuzzy Logic’ the following year. They also signed for the aforementioned Creation label who, in December 1995, and probably keen to start letting the media know about their new acquisition, issued a one-sided promo 12” featuring one of those demos.

mp3: Frisbee [demo]

All those demos were released as part of the 3xCD 20th Anniversary deluxe edition of ‘Fuzzy Logic’ in 2016. I’ll return to them over the next few weeks.

Britpop was beginning to suffer under the weight of its own obnoxiousness and excess. Did we really need another new band in 1997? Hell yeah, we did, and as we’ll find out in the coming weeks, Super Furry Animals were the perfect antidote.

The Robster

A new guest series by The Robster

It was St David’s Day yesterday. We should mark the occasion in a suitable fashion…

So let’s start at the beginning. Towards the last quarter of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, a myriad of Welsh bands came and went in the blink of an eye, barely noticed by anyone in the industry in this tiny province of ours, let alone the rest of the UK. Anyone remember a twee indie-pop group called Emily? No? Didn’t think so. Yet, their one-time drummer would go on to form a band with a former member of U Thant. Ring any bells yet? U Thant also spawned a guy who would team up with the drummer of punk legends Anhrefn to start a group called Catatonia. Yes – THEM.

Still with me? Now, the band formed by said ex-drummer of Emily and other bloke from U Thant were called Ffa Coffi Pawb. They soon became one of the most popular cult acts in Wales, spreading their upbeat, vaguely psychedelic sounds across the nation. After three albums, they split. A couple of them went on to form Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, who you have DEFINITELY heard of.

But seemingly by sheer fate, FCP’s vocalist Gruff Rhys and drummer Dafydd Ieuan (the moonlighting ex-Anhrefn drummer who was also still in Catatonia at the time) found themselves teaming up with two more ex-members of U Thant, Guto Pryce and Huw Bunford, along with an unknown, wannabe actor called Rhys Ifans and another musician, Dic Ben. They called themselves Super Furry Animals and started to make music together. It was largely rave-influenced to begin with, but then became more guitar-based. One or two recordings were made but not released. The very first of them was this:

mp3: Of No Fixed Identity – Super Furry Animals (1993)

Ifans quit when he realised he was a better actor than he was a singer. A good move, as it turns out – the lad’s not done bad for himself since. Gruff Rhys subsequently switched to vocals and at some point, Ben left and Daf recruited his techo-loving younger brother Cian Ciaran, who had been part of the electronic outfit Wwzz. Before long, more tracks were recorded, some of them deemed good enough to actually release to the public.

And so it was that the greatest band to ever emerge from the Land Of Our Fathers started their journey into the conscious (and often unconscious) minds of the music-loving consumer. Over the next 30 weeks (!), I will be guiding you through the thrills and spills of a curious and wonderful career. Every single released by Super Furry Animals, complete with b-sides, alternative versions and one or two little surprises to boot. We start with a record that to this day is in the Guinness Book Of Records for having the longest ever title for an EP:

#1: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllantysiliogogogochynygofod (In Space) (1995, Ankst Records, ANKST057)

As an opening salvo, this is as good an introduction to the early Furries sound as you could wish for. Quirky, upbeat, Welsh lyrics and a bit of weirdness. The EP title, in case you don’t know, is an amalgamation of the Welsh village with one of the longest names in the world, and the Welsh phrase for “in space”. Not sure why they felt the need to add the English translation at the end.

Released in June 1995, and comprising four songs pressed on a 7” playing at 33rpm on a local indie label, it was never going to be a big seller, although the meagre amount of copies pressed did sell out. What it showed was a band who knew a good tune, had a lot of energy, and didn’t sound like they were taking themselves too seriously. Listen to Gruff’s vocal on Crys Ti and tell me it doesn’t sound like Elvis on acid…

mp3: Organ Yn Dy Geg (trans: An Organ In Your Mouth)
mp3: Fix Idris
mp3: Crys Ti (trans: Your Shirt)
mp3: Blerwytirhwng¿ (trans: Interspersed? or Inbetween?)

Each side of the 7” had a locked runout groove, meaning tracks 2 and 4 could play infinitely if you let them. I’ve given you not-infinite versions: Fix Idris is from the ‘Out-Spaced’ b-sides album, and Blerwytirhwng¿ from the ‘Songbook’ singles collection, as the ‘Out Spaced’ version drags that end noise out for far longer than necessary…

The EP was later reissued on 7” and, for the first time, CD with different artwork, whereupon it reached the dizzy heights of number 151 in the UK charts. ‘Twas a more than decent debut, but there would be more to come before the year was out. Britpop was at its peak, but Cool Cymru was brewing, and its most interesting band was just getting started…

The Robster

First of all, a huge thank you to everyone for continuing to drop by these past few weeks and improving the quality of the blog via the comments section, particularly around the John Peel guest post from Webbie which, unsurprisingly, did lead to quite a diverse range of views and opinions. 

I am as frustrated as the rest of you with the issues that have emerged in recent months around the poor functionality of the comments section, whereby it is often cumbersome to leave your name alongside your contribution(s), but rest assured that I will always get around to changing ‘anonymous’ to your own name at some point in time.  I’ve just spent about 20 minutes or so sorting things out from the past three weeks, and apologies to those whose identities remain anonymous….but then again, maybe some contributors prefer that!

And with that, let’s get back to the business of the day, with as short an actual post as I’ve ever come up with in the 18-plus years of churning out this nonsense on a daily basis.

Do or Die was the eleventh single by Super Furry Animals. It was the third and final 45 to be lifted from the Guerrilla album and turned out to be the band’s last release for Creation Records. It reached #20 in the January 2000.

mp3: Super Furry Animals – Do Or Die

This just makes it into the series as it lasts 1 minute and 59 seconds. It’s great fun to listen to.

JC

 

Yesterday’s posting was inspired by an ICA featuring a b-side.   Well, whatdyaknow?  One of the very best ICAs was one which consisted solely of b-sides.

Here’s The Robster back on 23 June 2015 with something from ICA #18-

“Edam Anchorman : b-side of (Drawing) Rings Around The World (2001)

One of my fave Super Furry Animals singles had this little monkey hiding almost unnoticed on its flip. It reminds of so many other things that have come out much more recently, but as is the norm for the Furries, they seemed to be ahead of their time back in 2001. One of the biggest, most anthemic choruses they’ve done.”

(Drawing) Rings Around The World was the second single taken from the band’s fifth album, Rings Around The World. It was released on 8 October 2001 on 12″ vinyl and on enhanced CD which also contained the promo video.  Each version had three songs, albeit just two tunes:-

mp3: Super Furry Animals – (Drawing) Rings Around The World
mp3: Super Furry Animals – Edam Anchorman
mp3: Super Furry Animals – All The Shit U Do

The single did get to #28 in the UK charts, and was also voted in at #21 in the John Peel Festive 50 of 2001.

JC

A GUEST SERIES

28. Slow Life – Super Furry Animals (2004, Placid Casual Records)

Released as a Free Download EP in April 2004 (Did not chart)

For such a small place, the Devon market town of Bovey Tracey holds a great deal of history. Firstly it is half named after the chap who is linked to the murder of Thomas Beckett. Secondly, it is where Cromwell ransacked a few armies and stole quite a lot of horses and changed British society for ever. It is also the gateway to the Moor, Dartmoor that is, the only place in Britain where you can genuinely get all four seasons in one day, whatever time of the year you go there.

But, all that is knocked into a cocked hat because when history is evaluated and assessed Bovey Tracey will only ever be remembered for one thing.

Badger falling off a bar stool in the Cromwell Arms, after a goat bit him on the arm.

The goat bit him on the arm because Badger had refused to allow the goat to have a bit of his prawn and lettuce sandwich.

The thing was the goat was a more of a regular in the Cromwell that Badger was. The goat belonged to a chap who I only know as ‘Puffin’, I have no idea why they call him Puffin. The goat would pop in after a hard day’s erm, goating, in the town, he would then be presented with a bowl full of Guinness and a packet of steak flavoured crisps. Puffin would follow him in and the two would sit (or stand, in, the goats case), have their drinks, chat to their mates, have a game of darts and then leave around dinner time.

Badger was in there having some late tea with Mrs Badger, when the goat was denied his pre-dinner snack. The goat having finished his crisps decided that the prawn sandwich looked rather tasty. According to Mrs Badger, it ambled over to Tim, nudged him a bit and tried to nibble the end of the sandwich. Tim fearing for his tea lifted the plate above his head with his left arm, and tried to shoo the goat away with his right arm. This annoyed the goat, who promptly bit him on the shooing arm.

This caused him to drop the plate and allowed the goat to nimbly take the lettuce out of the sandwich are return to his place by the fire. Badger declined the offer of a fresh sandwich but did take up the local doctor’s advice of having a free dose of tetanus. Puffin apologised to Badger for the bite, and told him that the goat only did it because the barman poured him Beamish instead of Guinness and Beamish apparently made the goat ‘rowdy’.

Bringing this back to the reason why I am here. A few years ago, as some of you will remember, a blog I wrote ran down a list of 200 songs that according to Badger and I were the ‘Greatest Songs in the World’ – we called that list rather arrogantly The WYCRA 200. That list was largely conceived (if that’s the right word) in the Cromwell Arms. Additionally, the follow up blog to WYCRA, The Sound of Being Ok had its inaugural blog summit, in the same place and in Badger’s coat pocket that lunchtime was a copy of ‘Phantom Power’ which contains of course ‘Slow Life’

I found the original list for the WYCRA 200, a few weeks back and on reviewing that list, I found it was staggering how much of that list I would change if I ever did that list again (and I won’t be). I mean this would be in the Top 50 for a start

So Few Words – Archive (1996, London Records, Unknown Chart Position)

It didn’t even make the Top 200 at all last time around.

In fact quite a lot of the entire list would have moved around considerably. That, I guess is joy and frustration of music. I think that most of the bands would have been the same, but the songs would I think be different and in a different order, if that makes sense.

For instance – on that list somewhere (its number isn’t really important) was ‘Ice Hockey Hair’ by Super Furry Animals. A track which I still love for lots of reasons but if I were to redo that list Ice Hockey Hair would be booted out for ‘Slow Life’.

Ice Hockey Hair (1998, Creation Records, Number 12)

SWC

 

 

From wiki:-

Juxtapozed with U” is the thirteenth single by Super Furry Animals. It was the first single to be taken from the Rings Around the World album and reached number 14 on the UK Singles Chart on its release in July 2001.

It was inspired by the Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder track “Ebony and Ivory” as well as the work of Marvin Gaye and Caetano Veloso. The track was originally conceived as a duet, with the band approaching both Brian Harvey from East 17, and Bobby Brown to sing alongside Gruff Rhys. Both turned the band down so Rhys sang the verses through a vocoder to imitate another person, something which he has described as a “very schizophrenic thing to do”.

Rhys has claimed his lyrics address social injustice and are about “house prices going up, and people being left behind by the super rich”. The song has echoes of the Philadelphia soul music of the 1970s as well as David Bowie’s “plastic” approximation of the sound on his 1975 album Young Americans. The group tried to make the song as “plastic” as possible: “if we’d tried to make it sound authentic, it would have been awful.”

According to Rhys the band were keen to challenge people’s opinions of them with the track which is a “shocking song, because you can’t shock with loud guitars any more” and, as a polished uplifting pop song, is “fairly subversive” when contrasted with the macho guitar music which the band felt was prevalent in 2001.

It’s a song that got a lot of critical acclaim and in reaching #14, it provided the band with their second biggest hit to that point in time (Northern Lites had got to #11 two years previously while Golden Retriever would later become the second-best performing single, hitting #13 in 2003).

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Juxtaposed With U

Having said that, it wasn’t one which found much favour with our old friend and native of Wales, the Robster, who made the observation that both of its b-sides were better:-

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Tradewinds
mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Happiness Is A Worn Pun

Indeed, Robster included both songs in his Super Furry Animals ICA, which appeared as far back as June 2015. It was an ICA with a difference as it consisted solely of b-sides, all of which were top quality. Here’s what he said about the above two songs:-

Tradewinds : A cool funky reggae sound with a hazy psychedeleic bent. It was the b-side of what was at the time my least favourite Furries single. While the a-side has grown on me over time, I was always a fan of Tradewinds

Happiness Is A Warm Pun : Bowie circa Aladdin Sane could have written this. He’d have probably left out the Sasquatch though. Bit too strange for Dave, I reckon. Both b-sides of Juxtaposed With U are still better than the lead track.

I miss the Robster. He’s a great writer with a real love for his music, never afraid to offer an opinion that goes against the grain.

I’ve sent him a link to this posting in the hope that he reads it and perhaps gets him in the mood for another guest posting or two

JC

According to the lyric in the lead song lifted from today’s featured EP, the three things in the title of this post are the answers to the question ‘What Is The Meaning Of Life?’

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Smokin’

Ice Hockey Hair EP contains four songs which Super Furry Animals felt didn’t fit in with the material they were recording for the album Radiator, their first Top 10 album released in 1997.  The title track has an unusual back story in that it was commissioned by Channel 4 for a programme about sloth as part of a series on the seven deadly sins.  The programme in question was presented by Howard Marks who had, of course, been namechecked previously by the band.

Wiki reveals that the band nipped inyo a small community recording studio in Cardiff, decided to loop a sample of a Black Uhuru track “I Love King Selassie”, playing along and writing Smokin’ completely spontaneously.

mp3 : Black Uhuru – I Love King Selassie

As for the other three tracks, Ice Hockey Hair is a 7 minute epic in which the band throw the kitchen sink, production wise and give a taster of much of what was to come in the next album, Guerilla, one which didn’t quite do so well as Radiator.  Ice Hockey Hair seems to be a Swedish description of a very bad hairstyle akin to a mullet.

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Ice Hockey Hair

The CD is completed by a short, less than two minutes long, remix of the lead song and a low-key instrumental track named after a guitar effects pedal:-

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Mu-Tron
mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Let’s Quit Smoking

This climbed all the way to #12 in the UK singles chart and Smokin’ was given the #2 position in the NME best singles of 1998….beaten by the rather fabulous Intergalactic by The Beastie Boys.

JC

This, rather surprisingly, is the biggest chart success ever enjoyed by Super Furry Animals:-

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Northern Lites

It reached #11 in the summer of 1999. Now please, don’t get me wrong as I love the song. It was just that I was sure somewhere along the line they must have enjoyed at least one Top 10 hit and that it would have come via a single that was helped along by a decent promo video*; indeed I would probably have bet a fair bit of money that Golden Retriever was the biggest ever hit but it stalled at #13.

There were two high quality b-sides too, one of which made the Robster’s SFA ICA entirely of b-sides back in June 2015.

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Rabid Dog
mp3 : Super Furry Animals – This, That And The Other

They offer up great examples of the pop and electronica sides of the band. One could easily pass for Teenage Fanclub and the other reminds me of some of the early stuff from later years by Gorillaz……

JC

* if you really want to look at what I reckon is one of the worst promo videos of all time, then just click here.

 

Here’s another guest contribution from The Robster whose musical memories and opinions can be enjoyed on a regular basis over at Is This The Life? I’m quite taken, not only by his contribution, but by the fact he’s designed a cracking album cover to go with it……

JC’s excellent Imaginary Compilations series is one of the best ideas for a blog item I’ve come across.

Following my Nick Cave contribution I got to thinking about numerous other compilations I could put together using the same rules – 10 songs over two sides of a vinyl LP that sound like it could be a properly coherent album. I don’t want to be greedy and take over this series with my stuff but my offer of a second piece has been kindly accepted. This time, I’ve decided to tackle the work of one of my faves, a band I had the immense pleasure of seeing recently – Super Furry Animals.

However, to put a different slant on it, I’ve chosen to do a b-sides comp. SFA are one of those bands who have made some cracking b-sides over the years, which made this task very difficult indeed. I’ve had to leave off some wonderful tunes, but what I’m left with is something I think works really well. The title is also the title of one of the tracks on my original long list that didn’t make the final cut. But it’s a great title so it stuck. I’ve compiled it into one of my podcast formats – a single file containing all songs and a short gap between the two ‘sides’. Pick it up at the bottom of the post. Here goes:

DEATH BY MELODY: An Imaginary B-Sides Compilation
SUPER FURRY ANIMALS

SIDE ONE

1. Tradewinds :  b-side of Juxtaposed With U (2001)

Starting off with a song that could (should) soundtrack your summer. A cool funky reggae sound with a hazy psychedelic bent. It was the b-side of what was at the time my least favourite Furries single. While the a-side has grown on me over time, I was always a fan of Tradewinds.

2. Don’t Be A Fool, Billy :  b-side of Hometown Unicorn (1996)

And this one has long been one of my all-time fave SFA songs. Quite why they buried it on the b-side of such an early single is beyond me. Not only should it have been on the debut album, it really ought to have been a single in its own right. It did appear on the 1998 compilation ‘Out-Spaced’, but even then it was tucked away in the middle of the record, so easily overlooked.

3. (Nid) Hon Yw’r Gan Sy’n Mynd I Achub Yr Iaith : b-side of If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You (1996)

Trans.: This Is (Not) The Song That Is Going To Save The Language.

A typically lovely melody with an acoustic lilt, but offset with the buzzy guitar and slightly off-kilter key changes.

4. Happiness Is A Worn Pun :  b-side of Juxtaposed With U (2001)

Bowie circa Aladdin Sane could have written this. He’d have probably left out the Sasquatch though. Bit too strange for Dave, I reckon. Both b-sides of Juxtaposed With U are still better than the lead track.

5. This, That And The Other : b-side of Northern Lites (1999)

Another lazy, laid-back summer song, perhaps one for the evening this one. Sometimes it’s not the tune that makes the song, it’s everything else and the mood it creates. This is a great example of a song’s ambience taking centre stage while the melody drifts along in a low-key manner.

SIDE TWO

1. Charge : b-side of Ysbeidiau Heulog (2000)

The one where SFA sound like Man… Or Astroman? on steroids. Really rather rare, this one; Charge appeared on the b-side of the limited edition vinyl-only Ysbeidiau Heulog, the only single taken from the Welsh language album ‘Mwng’. It isn’t even included in this year’s deluxe reissue of said album. Shame – it’s a rip-roaring start to side-two.

2. Arnofio/Glo In The Dark : b-side of Something 4 The Weekend (1996)

This one picked itself really. It’s a favourite of the band who are actually playing it in their current live set. Of course, it meant nowt to half the people at the Cardiff show I attended last month, but to the otherwise initiated it was a treat.

3. Edam Anchorman : b-side of Rings Around The World (2001)

One of my fave SFA singles had this little monkey hiding almost unnoticed on its flip. It reminds of so many other things that have come out much more recently, but as is the norm for the Furries, they seemed to be ahead of their time back in 2001. One of the biggest, most anthemic choruses they’ve done.

4. These Bones : b-side of Run-Away (2007)

An unashamed pop song that will lurk around your head for weeks, keeping you grinning like a fool. The one track here not sung by Gruff Rhys. Not sure who is singing here, but my guess it’s guitarist Huw Bunford.

5. The Roman Road : b-side of It’s Not The End Of The World (2002)

A little bit of Americana to finish things off and another delightful tune. It’s a nice contrast to its brooding A-side and remains one of the band’s maturest moments. I mean that in a good way – a cracking song.

Hidden bonus track: Cryndod Yn Dy Lais : b-side of Play It Cool (1997)

I know this isn’t in keeping with the true spirit of JC’s original 10-track vinyl LP concept, but think of it as, I don’t know, a limited edition bonus 7″. Or something. Either way, I couldn’t resist putting this final little gem on here. It’s a tender, heartfelt ballad that I think starts off sounding like Shangri-La by the Kinks. It rounds things off really nicely. The title, by the way, translates as Tremor In Your Voice.

Link to the podcast is here

The Robster

JC adds…..

I’ve a few SFA singles in the collection and I knew five of the tracks selected by The Robster but what he’s done here is pull together what could be a cracking LP if released in that format.  Here’s a taster for it with the opening track on side one which is, as he says, a song that should soundtrack your summer.

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Tradewinds

Enjoy.