Category: Tindersticks

Tindersticks – Tindersticks (1995)

I mentioned yesterday that it was relatively easy to home in on a particular Prefab Sprout album for this most personal of charts.   Today’s, on the other hand, was a real dilemma. So many options.

The debut album, also confusingly known as Tindersticks, that was released in 1993.

A live CD recorded at the  Bloomsbury Theatre in London in 1995.

Two later live CDs from 2001, available only to begin with on the merchandise stalls at shows – one recorded during a four-day residency in Brussels and the other from a single show in Lisbon – were also thought about long and hard, as too was the studio album Curtains from 1997.

What I can say is that the golden era for Tindersticks was in the 90s and early 00s before they imploded and half of the original members left.

But it’s the 1995 studio album, often referred to as Tindersticks (II) to distinguish from the debut, which is coming in at #30 to start off the second half of the rundown.

I know this was issued on vinyl, with a free 7″ single thrown in for good measure, but I’ve always regarded it as a CD release.   Sixteen tracks, on which you can hear cellos, trumpets, saxophones, French horns, trombones, violins, violas and cellos, in addition to the standard drums, bass, guitars and keyboards, spread out over 71 minutes, and almost always underpinned by the crooning of Stuart A. Staples.

mp3 : Tindersticks – Tiny Tears

I had to put the song in at this particular point of the today’s post or else I’d have spent a few hours listening to the album over and over, constantly changing my mind as to what my favourite part of it is.  Tiny Tears must sit very close to the top of any list of the most compellingly beautiful songs about troubled and failing relationships.

One contemporary reviewer described the album as an awesome triumph of mood and atmosphere, and given that I’m very partial to both of these, it can be no surprise to find it so high up on this rundown.

But there’s still another 29 to go. And this is where it begins to get really tough in terms of ranking them.

JC

From ICA 48, one of my own and selected today as Tindersticks are a band beloved by both myself and Rachel, and it’s kind of romantic that they feature on the blog on the morning we wake up in Paris…..albeit the tracks selected today are far from anyone’s idea of love songs!!

A Marriage Made In Heaven

In March 1993, Tindersticks had released a limited edition 7” single which featured Niki Sin from Huggy Bear on joint vocals. It told the tale of a doomed love affair between a singer and an actress.

He (the singer) believes the attraction was all down to the emotion and power of his voice and can’t understand what has gone while she (the actress) thinks it hilarious that he fell for her when all the while she was just again performing a role. It’s a more than decent song but this, the re-make in 199t complete with full orchestral input and a vocal contribution from Isabella Rosellini, is the definitive version as her fragile and edgy delivery really brings home the point that our singer is just a stupid romantic fool.

Jism

Jism is a song like no other in my entire collection in that I feel I always have to, and indeed want to, give it my 100% concentration while it is playing.  On one occasion, it came up on random shuffle while I was waiting patiently on a train to take me to work, but I was so transfixed that I looked around at its end and noticed my fellow passengers had boarded and the train had subsequently departed without me realising.  I get completely lost in it every single time….the downside being, however, that if it does pop up on shuffle and I have to concentrate on something else that’s happening around me,  I have to hit the fast forward button to the next song.

Please don’t ask me to put into words why this is, as I don’t have the vocabulary to do my feelings justice. The fact that the lyric comes from the viewpoint of a psychopath who isn’t the least bit concerned about using domestic violence only adds to the power and emotion of what I consider to be one of the most outstanding few minutes of music ever written.

Travelling Light

The country and western genre tends to specialise in the sort of duet where the man sings a few verses about the state of his mind and behaviours and then his woman responds with a ‘well that ain’t quite how I see it buster’.

This fabulous little number, which was also released as a single, would fit that mould perfectly.  Stuart Staples, while acknowledging he has some problems to overcome thinks he’s doing fine as he has an easy approach to life but his other half, in the shape of guest singer Carla Togerson from The Walkabouts patiently but wearily tells us that he is in fact a total fantasist and indeed by the end there is a realisation that she is about to walk out of his life forever. I often think that this is the revenge song from the woman who was on the end of the treatment dished out in Jism….

JC

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

M is for My Oblivion released by Tindersticks as a single in October 2003.

This is the sort of thing I sneak out on the blog when folk aren’t paying too much attention.

Tindersticks had released a sixth studio album, Waiting For The Moon in June 2003.  Even for a band who rarely made the most commercial of music, this was a difficult listen, one which it was later revealed to have taken a long time to get down in the studio, with the recording process running from September 2001 – January 2003.  It also proved to be the last album the original line-up would make as by the time The Hungry Saw was released in 2008, three of the original six members had quit….a genuine case of musical differences.

For some strange reason, the label that the band were on at the time, Beggars Banquet, felt that a drip-feed of single releases would somehow help with sales.  Both of Don’t Even Go There and Sometimes It Hurts had bombed, and there really wasn’t another track suitable for release as a single…..and besides, there was no radio station prepared to play their music except when it was the time of day, dead of night when listening numbers were miniscule.

And yet, the decision was taken to edit down the seven-minute version of an album track, into something just a little over four minutes, and issue a third single from the album:-

mp3: Tindersticks – My Oblivion (edit)

I’m not saying that My Oblivion is a poor piece of music – far from it – but it is a ridiculously poor choice for a single.

But then again, all the diehard fans went out and bought it as there was a previously unreleased song along with what was thought, at first glance, to be an instrumental version of another track on the album:-

mp3: Tindersticks – Now It’s Over
mp3: Tindersticks – Running Wild (extended instrumental)

Now It’s Over is a decent enough song, especially for a b-side and actually could have gone on to the album as a replacement for one or more of the hard listens.

Running Wild, in its original form, was the closing track on the album, coming in at just over four minutes and with a typically morose vocal. This version comes with a warning. It is more than 14 minutes of compiled takes, recorded during the various sessions for Waiting For The Moon.

Anyone who gets all the way through it without hitting the off or fast-forward button deserves some sort of reward. Or at least a long lie-down.

Happy New Year!!!!!!

JC

I’m still not quite getting to grips with things just now, so with your blessing and permission, I’m going to go back into the archives for the rest of the week, pulling out some postings that have a decent enough backstory to bear repeating all these years later. This is from 27 January 2014.

The first time I heard Kathleen it was on a tape given to me by a friend. I assumed it was an original composition, as it had all the hallmarks of a classic Tindersticks recording. I got round to talking about it with said friend and was very surprised to learn it was a cover version.

mp3 : Tindersticks – Kathleen

The Tindersticks of this era (mid-late 90s) are impossible to characterise. They can’t be defined as rock, jazz or soul and yet they have a little bit of all of those in many of their songs. They employed all sorts of instruments on their records, including brass, strings and percussion – and in Stuart Staples, they had, and still have, a singer with a distinctive and unmistakable baritone voice. Some say they are just another doom-laden miserablist lot. Far from it.

They were a band best consumed in the live setting. Until the time I was away for my 50th birthday and, by sheer chance, managed to see Frightened Rabbit in a packed compact venue in the middle of a Berlin heatwave, the Tindersticks gig at the Jaffa Cake in Edinburgh in 1997 is the hottest I’ve ever been at a gig…so hot that the band had to remove their jackets! And in 2002 I was lucky enough, in the company of Mrs Villain, to see them perform in the stunning surroundings of Somerset House in London, complete with 20-piece orchestra on a warm summer evening in which I was sure I had seen THE perfect concert in my lifetime. I even spotted Concorde flying overhead in the sky above at one point….

For a long long time I only had a copy of Kathleen courtesy of it being on said cassette tape. One day I dropped an e-mail to the band looking for a bit of heads-up on plans to re-release the early LPs to find out if any bonus material in the offing would include making Kathleen available as I had been looking out for a copy for a number of years. I was told yes, but was also asked that, if I wanted, I could have a copy of the 7″ single as there was a spare one lying around in the office. You can guess my answer….

It now sits in the cupboard proudly beside all my other vinyl, #2184 of what had been a limited run of 5000. Here’s the other three tracks on the 7″:-

mp3 : Tindersticks – Summat Moon
mp3 : Tindersticks – A Sweet Sweet Man
mp3 : Tindersticks – E-Type Joe

As I said at the outset, I was surprised to find out this was a cover. It made me determined to track down the original and was amazed to learn just how close in style and tone the Tindersticks version was, and yet they had still made it sound as if it was one of their own. I thought only The Wedding Present were capable of such genius….

mp3 : Townes Van Zandt – Kathleen

Until that point in time I knew nothing about Townes Van Zandt. His life is surely a Hollywood movie in waiting….

JC

I did say, away back in Chapter Two, that Tindersticks were a stick-on to feature again at some point.

The first time we flew it
It was cheap and cramped
The vodka running out half-way across the atlantic
Even the steward screamed and joined in
We didn’t think we were going to make it

Now we’re stretched out in wide, furry seats
Flicking through menus
A walk to the bar and there’s as much screw-top champagne as we can drink
We’re so easy
Taking turns having our photos taken
Sitting in front of smoked windows
Decanters of cheap whiskey in our hands
Drive into Manhattan on a date with a starlet who’s just talent
That’s what people pay the money to see?
Who are we to argue…

Five hours now it’s been going on
And still we’re watching all of it
Can you really believe all this?
Can he really lie in bed at night and marvel at his own genius?
When do you lose the ability to step back
And get a sense of your own ridiculousness?
They’re only songs

Midnight, and it’s all over
Now it can really make us laugh
We’re standing on our heads drinking sours of crystel schnapps
Now we’re unable to step back or forward
Swallowing a swallow
Tasting it again, it’s not so unpleasant
Perhaps it’s an acquired taste
The first time, it makes you sick
Then, little by little, it becomes delicious

Showbiz people
Always there to be interested in what you have to say
We are artists; we are sensitive and important
We nod our heads earnestly
Already half-way down the champagne
On our way to leaving the place dry
A $2,000 bar bill
Showbiz picks up the tab
And we’re on our way laughing
Laughing at what?

Los Angeles, eight days in
And our sense of irony’s running pretty thin
All the friends we’ve made
It’s 2 am, it’s closing time at the Dresden
Marty and Layton play one last sleepy “Strangers In The Night”
And the last of the martinis dribble down our chins
We’re sitting, chasing the conservation around the table
Jesus, how long have I been in this state?
The limousine’s still waiting outside
Anything you want to do?
Anywhere you want to go?
We’re on our way to the airport and a plane to Vegas

So many nights lying in bed shaking
Dreaming of pushing my daughter around the supermarket
The joy of seeing all those colours and shapes reflect in her wide eyes
My head leaning on the window
And we’re driving through the empty L.A. streets
And everything seems silent and beautiful
A guy’s face hits the floor
Police revolvers glistening in the streetlight
Onto Melrose and lurching through a sea of halloweeen transvestites
The flight’s cancelled, but it doesn’t matter
We turn this corner to a way that takes us wherever
Up to Sunset

We creep up the drive to the Shattuck
The suite Belushi died in
Or the one Morrison hung out the window
Oh, I’ll go for Jim’s
I would fancy a hotel window-hanging, myself, tonight, man
Straight over to the mini-bar
Open the champagne – one sip and it’s left to wake up to
Anyone hungry?
A team of uniformed waiters lay out an elaborate table for all us to ignore
Oh, the irony
How we’re used to living

Back in London on a cold friday night
Do you want another drink?
Well, I could try
Perhaps we could make it to the Atlantic
600 yards, 20 minutes later
We’re pushing through the waiting crowd, all fish eyes
An exclusive door policy
Exclusively for arseholes
And tonight? well, a nod of our heads, and we’re inside

Falling down the red, velvety stairs
Limbs flaying, hands searching for something to steady
Pick ourselves up, nothing broken
Just aches in the morning
No one seems to notice
I find a table, champagne arrives
I’ve been so drunk, I sit and look at you
We try and talk for the first time in a long time
Drunken confession
You shiver, it made you feel sick
We use the rent money to pay the bill

Bumping shoulders, we stumble out into Soho
Slipping over the sleeping bags
Shouting for taxis.

mp3 : Tindersticks – Ballad of Tindersticks

From the album Curtains, released in June 1997

JC

Sub-Pop Records is best known for the role it played in launching the careers of a number of bands such as Mudhoney, Nirvana and Soundgarden who would go on to be a huge part of the grunge movement. The label has always demonstrated, however, that it far from a one-trick pony, and since the turn of the century has been at the forefront of supporting a range of critically acclaimed artists with an indie-bent, such as Fleet Foxes, Foals, Beach House, Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes, Foals, The Postal Service and Sleater-Kinney among many others, albeit it does so with the security of being 49% owned by a major entity.

The Seattle-based label has also, over the years, issued a number of one-off singles by bands on other labels, such as this back in 1995:-

mp3 : Tindersticks – Here
mp3 : Tindersticks – Harry’s Dilemma

This double-A sided 7″ has the catalogue number SP297 and was limited to 3,000 copies. It was released in May 1995, just a couple of months after the second Tindersticks album, on This Way Up Records, had hit the shops. One of the tracks is a cover of a Pavement song, in which Tindersticks firmly claim it as one of their own, while the other is an experimental spoken-word number and a rather sad and sombre example of a song making a great short story.

Harry was a contented dog. But he awoke this morning and something was very
wrong. He couldn’t be bothered to beg for mid-morning biscuits. He couldn’t be
bothered to roll over and rub his back on the rough floor. He couldn’t be
bothered to scratch at anything that might be nibbling away at him. He just lay
on top of his kennel feeling thoroughly depressed. Even his tail wouldn’t wag.

Four months earlier, his owner (an elderly gentlemen whom Harry had been devoted
to ever since he was a puppy) had been temporarily forced to leave the country,
leaving Harry with a trustworthy, caring couple who lived around the corner.
Things hadn’t been so bad at first: long walks, hearty dinners; even his kennel
was in the same spot in their yard — just to the right of the back door.

This is the same kennel that Harry had now been moping on top of for three days.
Despite the best efforts of the young, caring couple to cheer him up — offers
of chicken and an endless stream of un-fetched balls sent rolling down the yard
— nothing could coax Harry from his gloom. So, it was decided to send him to
the vet.

Harry was a large dog and heavy-withered, and he was in no mood to climb down
from his kennel and trot to the waiting car to travel two miles to the surgery.
Eventually, he was lifted, with the aid of a neighbor, onto a blanket and
hobbled from kennel to car; from the car to the vet’s. When, once, Harry would
have put up a fight before going within 500 yards of this place, during the
whole journey, he never raised an eyebrow. Of course, the vet could find nothing
wrong with Harry; mentioned depression; suggested chicken and balls; sent Harry
home to rest, still wrapped in the blanket. It took seven days for the
notification to come through. The owner had died in his sleep, leaving specific
instructions for Harry to be put down. Harry was a dead dog.

JC

TAKE 2 : APOLOGIES FOR NOT POSTING THE SONG FIRST TIME ROUND

Do you remember my sister? How many mistakes did she make with those never blinking eyes? I couldn’t work it out. I swear she could read your mind, your life, the depths of your soul at one glance. Maybe she was stripping herself away, saying

“Here I am, this is me
I am yours and everything about me, everything you see…
If only you look hard enough”
I never could

Our life was a pillow-fight. We’d stand there on the quilt, our hands clenched ready. Her with her milky teeth, so late for her age, and a Stanley knife in her hand. she sliced the tires on my bike and I couldn’t forgive her

She went blind at the age of five. We’d stand at the bedroom window and she’d get me to tell her what I saw. I’d describe the houses opposite, the little patch of grass next to the path, the gate with its rotten hinges forever wedged open that dad was always going to fix. She’d stand there quiet for a moment. I thought she was trying to develop the images in her own head. then she’d say:

“I can see little twinkly stars
Like Christmas tree lights in faraway windows
Rings of brightly coloured rocks
Floating around orange and mustard planets”

“I can see huge tiger-striped fishes
Chasing tiny blue and yellow dashes
All tails and fins and bubbles”

I’d look at the grey house opposite, and close the curtains

She burned down the house when she was ten. I was away camping with the scouts. The fireman said she’d been smoking in bed – the old story, I thought. The cat and our mum died in the flames, so dad took us to stay with our aunt in the country. He went back to London to find us a new house. We never saw him again

On her thirteenth birthday she fell down the well in our aunt’s garden and broke her head. She’d been drinking heavily. On her recovery her sight returned. “A fluke of nature,” everyone said. That’s when she said she’d never blink again. I would tell her when she started at me, with her eyes wide and watery, that they reminded me of the well she fell into. She liked this, it made her laugh.

She moved in with a gym teacher when she was fifteen, all muscles he was. He lost his job when it all came out, and couldn’t get another one, not in that kind of small town. Everybody knew every one else’s business. My sister would hold her head high, though. She said she was in love. They were together for five years, until one day he lost his temper. He hit over the back of the neck with his bull-worker. She lost the use of the right side of her body. He got three years and was out in fifteen months. We saw him a while later, he was coaching a non-league football team in a Cornwall seaside town

I don’t think he recognized her. My sister had put on a lot of weight from being in a chair all the time. She’d get me to stick pins and stub out cigarettes in her right hand. She’d laugh like mad because it didn’t hurt. Her left hand was pretty good though. We’d have arm wrestling matches, I’d have to use both arms and she’d still beat me

We buried her when she was 32. Me and my aunt, the vicar, and the man who dug the hole. She said she didn’t want to be cremated and wanted a cheap coffin so the worms could get to her quickly

She said she liked the idea of it, though, I thought it was because of what happened to the cat, and our mum.

mp3 : Tindersticks – My Sister

Originally released on Tindersticks II in 1995. One of the finest examples of a short story set to music. And not for the first or last time by that particular band.

JC

Another from the old blog…..and a fine way to kick off the month in which I will at some point turn 53 years of age.

Coliseu Dos Recrios de Lisboa was an official bootleg released by Tindersticks, limited to 2500 copies and sold only via the merchandise on offer at a UK tour in 2002. It is of course nowadays a hard to find album, and you will require to pay a bit more than the £12 it cost back in the day.

Here’s the sleeve notes in their entirety:-

Following the release of “Can our love…” and the soundtrack album “Trouble every day” October 2001 saw us embark on our most ambitious live project to date : touring europe (19 dates) playing each concert with a local string orchestra, meeting on the day, rehearsing in the afternoon and performing with them that evening.

After 10 dates we found ourselves in Berlin without our drummer Al (returning home due to illness). As there was never any question of replacing him we made the daunting decision to continue the tour, rebuilding the set and sound as we went along. The Berlin concert that night was fraught, but by the time we arrived in Lisbon (October 31st, the last night) we had gained something new and unexpected: a turning point that will resonate in our music for years to come.

We would like to thank our section leaders : Lucy, Calina, Rob, Sarah & Andy without whose energy and enthusiasm we would have been floundering. our management : Dave B & Harry and our crew : David, Stewart, Anthony, Mark, Robin & Oscar for holding everything together.

A version of “Running Wild” appears on this recording, it was performed for the first time that night in Berlin and evolved on stage across the next 8 concerts, a “finished” version closes our sixth studio album “Waiting for the Moon”.

tindersticks

I adore this whole LP. I think many of you will too.

mp3 : Tindersticks – My Autumns Done Come
mp3 : Tindersticks – Dying Slowly
mp3 : Tindersticks – Kathleen
mp3 : Tindersticks – Buried Bones
mp3 : Tindersticks – Desperate Man
mp3 : Tindersticks – Her
mp3 : Tindersticks – She’s Gone
mp3 : Tindersticks – Bathtime
mp3 : Tindersticks – Running Wild
mp3 : Tindersticks – Sleepy Song
mp3 : Tindersticks – El Diablo En El Ojo
mp3 : Tindersticks – Drunk Tank
mp3 : Tindersticks – Raindrops
mp3 : Tindersticks – Cherry Blossoms

Enjoy

I’ve decided to take on another huge challenge with today’s Imaginary Compilation as it features one of my all-time favourite bands whose recordings go back more than 20 years and encompass nine studio albums, six official live albums, four film soundtracks, a double CD of BBC sessions and almost 30 singles/EPs, most of which contain music only released in that format. Welcome to the wonderful world of Tindersticks.

The band’s career and output can be broken up into three distinct periods. The first takes in the material from when they first appeared on the scene in 1993 through to the end of 1997 during which there had been three albums (two of them doubles) and 15 singles/EPs the majority of which had been recorded for UK specialist indie label This Way Up. These recordings were expansive and very rich in nature utilising a wide range of instruments and relying on complex and often fascinating and unexpected arrangements.

The second period covers 1999 -2005 in which three albums would be released featuring music that, while still lush in nature, was increasingly influenced by elements of soul and jazz. On record, these songs didn’t quite grab your attention as much as the early material but they really came alive in the live setting and along with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, with whom in many ways there are comparisons, they were the most fascinating and powerful live band of that era and it’s no surprise that the official bootlegs released from that particular period are among the best things the band have ever put out on the marketplace.

There was a three-year sabbatical and by the time they returned in 2008 it was with a much-changed line-up which, in my opinion, has suffered from the loss of key musicians and contributors. They might still carry the name Tindersticks but it just isn’t the same.

All of this preamble has a purpose in that I feelvery  strongly that to do any real justice to Tindersticks compilations there would need to be three volumes. But for now I’ll go for Volume 1 covering that initial burst of activity and reserve the right to come back with more later on.

One final bit of explanation. Tindersticks emerged at a time when I was fully embracing CDs and while they did put their albums out on vinyl I’ve always felt their releases were written and recorded to max out the 70-odd minutes available on a standard CD. So that’s what this compilation is going to do. But it’s strictly a one-off.

1. El Diablo En El Ojo (Mark Radcliffe Session version, March 1995)

As if it wasn’t audacious enough to announce yourselves to the world with a double album debut, the band decided that the follow-up should follow the same format – even to the extent that, like its predecessor, it would simply be entitled ‘Tindersticks’. Most fans and critics add the II at the end to differentiate.

The opening track was a bit of a curveball as, by not employing the vocal delivery of Stewart Staples they forewent one of their most distinguished and distinctive parts of their sound. Instead it was the talents of multi-instrumentalist Dickon Hinchcliffe which delivered this creepy lyric over a tune that begins in an eerily quiet fashion and builds up in a way in which the strings, keys, guitars, drums and horns all join in on what might appear to be a freeform style but in fact is a fantastically arranged piece of music. It set the tone for what I feel was the band’s best and most enduring album.

But the version they recorded for Mark Radcliffe – who incidentally was the DJ who more than anyone else brought them to the attention of a wider public in the UK – and which was aired just a month before the LP was released is even more powerful and captures the band at their best with Staples and Hinchcliffe sharing vocal duties and additional musicians on trumpet, french horn and vibraphone addding to the magnificent cacophony.

2. A Night In (Tindersticks II, 1995)

This is the second track on Tindersticks II and as such I’m always waiting for it to come on straight on the back of El Diablo; it feels such a natural and perfect fit that it has to slot in at this point in the compilation . Lyrically, this packs one heck of a punch as our selfish protagonist knows what he’s about to do is so wrong and cannot ever be justified, but while he has a guilt complex it’s not enough to lead him to apologise. The tune hits the listener just as hard.

3. Her (Peel Session version, April 1993)

A song of two halves, the first involving an acoustic guitar being played in the style of a classically trained musician as far removed from pop or indie music as can be imagined with the second half cranking right up thanks to a Duane Eddy style driving it along at a frantic but magnificently controlled pace. I’ve gone for the Peel Session, while it loses the horns that appear on the albume vesrion, offers an energy and vibrancy that lifts it to a higher level.

4. Jism (from Tindersticks, 1993)

If this was a real album that was whizzing around the CD player then as the last notes of Her faded out I would be looking to lock myself into a world of my own where I would not want to be disturbed for the next six or so minutes.

Jism is a song like no other in my entire collection in that I feel I always have to, and indeed want to, give it my 100% concentration while it is playing.  On one occasion, it came up on random shuffle while I was waiting patiently on a train to take me to work but I was so transfixed that I looked around at its end and realised my fellow passengers had boarded and departed without me realising.  I get completely lost in it every single time….the downside being however, that if it does pop up on shuffle and I have to concentrate on something else then I have to hit the fast forward button to the next song. Please don’t ask me to put into words why this is as I don’t have the vocabulary to do my feelings justice. The fact that the lyric comes from the viewpoint of a psychopath who isn’t the least bit concerned about using domestic violence only adds to the power and emotion of what I consider to be one of the most outstanding few minutes of music ever written.

5. Bathtime (single version, 1997)

Now it’s time to take to the dancefloor and lose yourself in a different way. Yup, this lot have made records that you can shake your shoulders and all other parts of your anatomy to as can be testified by anyone who comes along to the Little League nights in Glasgow as our genial host John Hunt gives Bathtime a very welcome spin almost every time we gather. The original version was on the LP Curtains released in June 1997 but was given a slight remix for its release as a single a few weeks later. Indie dance music rarely sounds this classy.

6. Travelling Light (from Tindersticks II, 1995)

The country and western genre tends to specialise in the sort of duet where the man sings a few verses about the state of his mind and behaviours and then his woman responds with a ‘well that ain’t quite how I see it buster’. This fabulous little number, which was also released as a single, would fit that mould perfectly.  Stuart Staples, while acknowledging he has some problems to overcome thinks he’s doing fine as he has an easy approach to life but his other half, in the shape of guest singer Carla Togerson from The Walkabouts patiently but wearily tells us that he is in fact a total fantasist and indeed by the end there is a realisation that she is about to walk out of his life forever. I often think that this is the revenge song from the woman who was on the end of the treatment dished out in Jism….

7. She’s Gone (from Tindersticks II, 1995)

……while this is the sad sounding song that brings it home to the psychopath that he’s on his own.

8. Snowy In F# Minor (from Tindersticks II, 1995)

A short, bouncy little number which I assume is written in the key of F-Sharp Minor. Its insertion here is deliberately designed to turn the mood a bit more jovial as we reach the midpoint of the CD…..but don’t worry as normal service will quickly be resumed.

9. Marbles (from Tindersticks , 1993)

As I’ve often said, you never forget your first time and Marbles was my introduction to the band.

I had been reading a lot about them in the press in 1993 especially when they featured in a lot of end of year polls. If I had been in the habit of listening to Mark Radcliffe or John Peel on Radio 1 then I’d have got to hear their music but this was an era when I was travelling a lot to back and forth between Edinburgh, keeping my sanity with compilation tapes, and thus not really having the inclination to listen to music at nights after I got home.

In early 94 I bought a newly released CD entitled NME Singles of the Week 1993 which compiled 18 of the song that had been given that accolade by the paper in that calendar year. I knew and liked about half of the tracks beforehand and quickly fell for the charms of many of the others….but in particular track 6 which was this very strange yet intriguing sounding song. I spent months trying to decipher the half-sung, half-spoken lyrics but failed miserably thanks to getting immersed in the haunting music and eventually gave up. I was now hooked, and in the coming years would try to gather every available recording and see the band anytime they came to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

10. Kathleen (single 1994)

The best covers tend to be those where a band take a song and make it sound like one of their own. The only way I could tell that Kathleen wasn’t one of their own was the fact that the writing credit was to someone who wasn’t in the band, but I’ll be honest and say that at the time I had no idea who Townes van Zandt was or the fact that his own original recording of the song was wonderful to listen to. But the Tindersticks version is majestic in all ways and gives an indication as to why so many film directors in the 90s were keen to have them write and perform soundtracks.

11. Tiny Tears (from Nenette et Boni soundtrack, 1996)

If there’s a list out there of the most compellingly beautiful songs about troubled and failing relationships then I would think this would sit at its head or at least be very close to the top of the pile. Those of you not totally familiar with the band but who are fans of top quality television might well recognise it as it was used to accompany Tony Soprano’s complete and utter nervous meltdown in Episode 12 of the first series of one of the greatest series ever made. There’s a number of versions of this songs kicking around various live albums as well as two BBC session efforts, all of which would fit in perfectly as this point in the imaginary compilation. This however is my favourite thanks to the sparse opening which really lets you appreciate just how great a singer the band have while the orchestral arrangment that comes in just after the three minute mark is just perfection. And don’t get me started on how wonderfully it all comes to an end…

12. City Sickness (from Tindersticks, 1993)

Once again it’s time to get yourself on the dancefloor and shake your stuff. This was initially released as a single in September 1993 just a couple of months prior to the debut double album. The single use of the f-word towards the end of the song would have stopped it getting any airplay, but then again I’m sure producers would also have been scared to suggest to their presenters that they play a 45 which tells the tale of a man masturbating to block out the memory of a failed relationship. The band’s unwillingness to compromise can be seen from the fact that they never recorded it for a Peel or Radcliffe session at the BBC as the rules of the day would have meant either a bleep-out or a word change.

13. (Tonight) Are You Trying To Fall In Love Again? (from Curtains, 1997)

The title can mislead you into thinking this will be a downbeat and gloomy number when in fact it is one of the jauntiest and uplifting tunes the band have put down with a fabulous strings thrown in for your aural pleasure.  It’s inclusion at this juncture in the compilation is to set-up the final wonderful 1-2 combination………………….

14. A Marriage Made In Heaven (from Donkeys 92-97 : a compilation of rare recordings)

In March 1993, the band had released a limited edition 7” single which featured Niki Sin from Huggy Bear on joint vocals. It told the tale of a doomed love affair between a singer and an actress.

He (the singer) believes the attraction was all down to the emotion and power of his voice and can’t understand what has gone while she (the actress) thinks it hilarious that he fell for her when all the while she was just again performing a role. It’s a more than decent song but the re-make in 1997 complete with full orchestral input and a vocal contribution from Isabella Rosellini is the definitive version as her fragile and edgy delivery really bringing home the point that our singer is just a stupid romantic fool.

15. Raindrops (live in Lisbon, 2001)

I wrote in some depth about Raindrops in November 2014 saying that it was a contender for the saddest song ever written. It’s a heart breaking and emotional extension of a subject matter covered many a time in song – your baby doesn’t love you any more, it’s over.

The original version was on the debut LP but this version came from an amazing gig at the end of a short but incredibly ambitious European tour in 2001 involving 19 dates playing each concert with a local string orchestra, meeting on the day, rehearsing in the afternoon and performing with them in the evening. After 10 dates, the band found themselves in Berlin without a drummer who had needed to return to the UK having fallen seriously ill. And while there wasn’t ever a question of replacing him, Tindersticks took the brave decision to continue the tour, rebuilding the set and sound as they went along. They admit that the Berlin concert was fraught and difficult – but by the time they got to the final night of the tour in Lisbon on 31st October, they knew they had gained something new and that some of the songs with the new arrangements could never be bettered.

mp3 : Tindersticks – El Diablo En El Ojo
mp3 : Tindersticks – A Night In
mp3 : Tindersticks – Her
mp3 : Tindersticks – Jism
mp3 : Tindersticks – Bathtime
mp3 : Tindersticks – Travelling Light
mp3 : Tindersticks – She’s Gone
mp3 : Tindersticks – Snowy in F# Minor
mp3 : Tindersticks – Marbles
mp3 : Tindersticks – Kathleen
mp3 : Tindersticks – Tiny Tears
mp3 : Tindersticks – City Sickness
mp3 : Tindersticks – (Tonight) Are You Trying To Fall In Love Again?
mp3 : Tindersticks – A Marriage Made In Heaven
mp3 : Tindersticks – Raindrops (live in Lisbon)

Please remember that I’m not claiming these are the best 15 songs written and recorded in that initial six-year period but instead it represents what I think makes a more than decent compilation CD that will never have you reaching for the fast forward button.

Enjoy

mp3 : Tindersticks – Drunk Tank

Don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m well fed-up with hearing the same old festive-related songs in every single shop I go into as I search for the perfect last-minute gift for Mrs Villain. Consider this my equivalent of the dirty protest.

But tune in tomorrow for what has become the traditional 25th December posting on TVV (and no looking back to previous years to spoil it….)

Hope Santa is good to you all.

(Lifted from the posting of 24 December 2009)

Surely a contender for one of the saddest songs ever written??

mp3 : Tindersticks – Raindrops

Silence is here again
Silence is here again tonight
Will the love ever come back?
Will the love ever come back?
I know I’ve been pushing you away
I know it’s been going on for days
Those awkward little things
So endearing
Those awkward little things
Wear on me

See, what we got here is a tired love
What we got here is a lazy love
It mooches around the house
Can’t wait to go out
What it needs, it just grabs
It never asks
We sit and watch the divide widen
We sit and listen to our hearts crumble
With our only chance to jump
Neither of us had the guts
Maybe we’re just too proud
To say it out loud

Silence is here again tonight
Silence is here again tonight

In 2001, Tindersticks embarked on a hugely ambitious tour involving 19 dates across Europe, playing each concert with a local string orchestra, meeting on the day, rehearsing in the afternoon and performing with them in the evening,

After 10 dates, the band found themselves in Berlin without a drummer who had needed to return to the UK having fallen seriously ill. And while there wasnt ever a question of replacing hime, they took the brave decision to continue the tour, rebuilding the set and sound as they went along. They admit that the Berlin concert was fraught and difficult – but by the time they got to the final night of the tour in Lisbon on 31st October, they believed they had gained something new and unexpected turning point that would resonate in their music for years to come.

mp3 : Tindersticks – Raindrops (live in Lisbon, October 2001)

Simply stunning.

Can’t believe that I didn’t include this in the list of songs about wanking the other day:-

I’m crawling, I don’t know where to or from
The center of things from where everything stems, is not where I belong
I have the city sickness growing inside me
So this is where I ran for freedom where I may not be free

I have these hands beating with love for you
You’re not here to touch
Sent you away, what else can I do
When I need something that much?

I’m hurting, babe, in the city there’s no place for love
It’s just used to make people feel better, it’s not like us
I got this sickness as I got off the train
Now it chafes away at my heart, until nothing remains

I have these hands beating with love for you
And you’re not here to touch
Sent you away, what else can I do
When I need something that much? That much

I’m okay afterwards, afterwards lasts for minutes only
I’m okay during, you kind of fill up my mind
It’s just that, before may last forever
It’s just that, before may just fuck my mind

I have these hands beating with love for you
And you’re not here to touch
Sent you away, what else can I do
When I need something that much? That much

From 1993, one of my favourite ever songs by one of my favourite ever bands:-

mp3 : Tindersticks – City Sickness

I have to admit however that the band’s best days are behind them.  Between 1993 and 2003 Tindersticks released some astonishing bits of music via LPs, singles and soundtracks.  As a live act they were a truly special spectacle, especially when they were accompanied by an orchestra.

There was a five-year hiatus until 2008 but what has been released since then is a shadow of the past triumphs.  The departure of half of the band to has left a huge vacuum that hasn’t been filled. It’s still lovely to listen to Stuart Staples extraordinary vocal delivery but the music has been too much of a letdown.

City Sickness is a great single.  It also has a wonderful sleeve (front and back) as pictured above, Here’s the other tracks that came with it:-

mp3 : Tindersticks – Untitled

mp3 : Tindersticks – The Bullring

Enjoy