Category: Various

Goodness me…..is that the time of the year already?

mp3 : Various – Oktoberfest

Track Listing

Datsu. Hikage no onna – Otoboke Beaver
Profit In Your Poetry – Butcher Boy
Wood Beez – Scritti Politti
Blue For You – Paul Haig
Eat Your Heart Out – Hey! Elastica
Red Alert – Basement Jaxx
Pass The Mic – Beastie Boys
Chemical World – Blur
Don’t Call Me Jack – Hangman’s Beautiful Daughters
Violently Happy – Bjork
With Handclaps – Y’All Is Fantasy Island
Gut Feeling – Malcolm Middleton
Divine Hammer (single version) – The Breeders
Boyfriend – The Goon Sax
Here Comes A City – The Go-Betweens
B-Movie – Say Sue Me
Shooting Dennis Hopper Shooting – The Twilight Sad

JC

PS : Many thanks for all your very kind words yesterday. Much appreciated.

TVV turns 13 years old today.

30 September 2006 saw the first ever posting on the old blog which lasted till 24 July 2013 when Google/Blogger nuked it out of existence after 2,313 postings. Later that same day, like some sort of mythical being which gives you nightmares in fables or provides faith in religious writings, it rose from the dead and called itself T(n)VV and today’s is the 2,354 on the resurrected effort.

I’ve used all my fingers and toes and so it would seem that all told, that’s 4,667 posts all in, albeit there’s been a few repeats over the years and, of course, I can’t take the credit for everything as there have been hundreds of magnificent guest postings without which the place would have ground to a halt.

Even more ridiculous is the fact that the current blog has attracted almost 13,000 comments and while I don’t have the ability to count up how many were left behind over at the old place, I think it’s a fair assumption that there have been the equivalent of at least 20,000 letters to the editor up till now, and not too many have been of the disgruntled variety.

As I was reminded the other day, teenager is just another word for adolescent, and that many societies have some sort of formal ceremony to mark this stage in life. You lot will have to make do with a few relevant song titles:-

mp3 : The Undertones – Teenage Kicks
mp3 : X-Ray Spex – Germ-Free Adolescents
mp3 : The Delgados – Thirteen Gliding Principles
mp3 : Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers – I’m Not a Juvenile Delinquent
mp3 : Sweet – Teenage Rampage
mp3 : Johnny Cash – Thirteen
mp3 : Teenage Fanclub – Everything Flows

JC

mp3 : Scot & Sager – Barcelona

Fortunately, my own recent visit to the Catalan capital didn’t result in any similarly bad experiences to those suffered by the late Jock Scot, as recalled in the opening track on the 2006 CD, The Caledonian Blues, on which Gareth Sager made and played the music (minimally) while the grizzled old poet and punk veteran rants and raves to terrific effect.

In fact, my experiences in Barcelona in September 2019 couldn’t have been any happier.

Arriving on a Thursday morning, on a flight direct from Glasgow that was very much on time, myself and Rachel (aka Mrs Villain) rocked up at the hotel of choice to be informed that, as returning guests, we were being given an upgrade to a larger room which came with its own private terrace that proved to be a bit of a suntrap. The day was spent doing a bit of wandering around and re-aquainting ourselves with the city, and at night we returned to a tiny restaurant we had visited last year, delighted to find there was space to squeeze us in and that the food was every bit as exceptional and well-priced as before.

Friday saw the arrivals, from California, of Jonny the Friendly Lawyer (JTFL) and Goldie the Friendly Therapist, who were traveling to Spain for a 10-day city/beach holiday as part of an extended birthday celebration for the latter. I’d met Jonny before, both pre and post-gig when his band The Ponderosa Aces had played in Manchester in 2017, but this was a new experience for Mrs V while neither of us knew what to expect from Goldie. We spent the whole evening and all of the Saturday with our American friends – when we weren’t on the move or sightseeing, we were sitting drinking/eating in some very fine establishments, during which we talked endlessly about so many different things, but particularly love, life, work, music and achievements (but not in any boastful way!). The stay was topped-off with all four of us going to the Barcelona v Valencia football match on the Saturday evening, after which there were farewell drinks and promises made to hook up again soon, either in Scotland or California.

It was yet another example of how an incredible and strong bond has emerged as a result of this blogging nonsense. Jonny was the one who, years ago, came up with the JTFL as his moniker when he decided he wanted to leave comments on the blog. Friendly doesn’t come close to describing the man, for he is turns charming, articulate, generous, intelligent and witty among many other things. Above all else, he is completely down-to-earth and as easy-going as anyone I’ve ever met, about as far removed from any stereotype you would apply to someone of his chosen profession, especially one whose main professional activities centre around the cesspit of Los Angeles and whose upbringing was in New York.

It was an absolute joy to find that Goldie is as every bit as friendly as her partner/husband of some 30 years and the four of us couldn’t have gotten along any better over the entire time. It was inevitable that myself and JTFL would end up yakking for ages about our love for music and the things we know we have in common, but it was incredible to find that Rachel and Goldie share many common interests to the extent that they could have been sisters separated at birth.

Goldie, like her husband, is an incredible conversationalist, no matter the subject matter, but it was particularly enjoyable to listen to stories and incidents from throughout their lives, of how they came to be together and of how they encouraged one another to be a success in their chosen fields. They talked with real pride of their two kids – Sam and Jane – both of whom have been encouraged to make the most of the artistic/creative talents they have inherited through the genes. In return, our American friends wanted to hear about our family members and friends and to flesh out some of the stories mentioned over the years on TVV, particularly concerning the blogging fraternity whom I know or have met, which meant that a great deal was said about the Glasgow gathering of a few years back and the Simply Thrilled nights.

I think I’ve persuaded JTFL to share some more of his life stories via some future guest postings – you just can’t say that you were seated next to Shirley Manson at dinner and not tell the TVV readership how that came about.

mp3 : Garbage – Push It

Here’s to the next time. Quite probably over to a part of the world that has so beguiled David Gedge:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – California
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Santa Monica
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Spider-Man on Hollywood

JC

KLASSIC KUTS : As seen over the old blog on 4 April 2010

It’s a small wonder that so many of the really special bands to emerge out of the shadows in the first decade of the 21st Century have names that begin with the letter ‘K’ .

Especially so, when you consider that other than perhaps The Kinks and Kraftwerk, it is a letter that hasn’t contributed much in terms of musical heritage over the past 40 years (and no, I don’t include Kiss as being one of the great bands of all time).

But look around you now.

Keane. Kaiser Chiefs. The Killers. Kasabian. Kings Of Leon.

A real nap hand of the ideal line-up at any summer festival. The only problem would be deciding who should top the bill…..

And just look at the great connection there is with football.

Keane – named after a truly sensational player
Kaiser Chiefs – named after a famous team
Kasabian – chosen to be the band to launch the new England away strip

And I suppose stretching a little bit, I can offer:-

The Killers – named after a cult English footballer?
Kings of Leon – named after a succesful Mexican side?

Some of you might sneer, but I don’t think we will appreciate just how incredibly rich the musical scene is today until at least 10 or 15 years down the line. After all, it’s not all that long ago since the 80s were re-assessed after many years of being singled out as possibly the most insipid and vacuous decade, and now many of us, particularly readers of JC’s very fine blog, look back and realise that it was an era of great music. And I reckon history will be kind to the noughties, thanks in large part to the special K’s.

It was back in 2004 that Keane took the pop world by storm. The songs on the compelling and amazing debut Hopes and Fears showed that you don’t need loud guitars or quirky synths to record memorable tunes. Not only were they an overnight commercial success, but the critical acclaim through two BRIT Awards and being given the #1 slot in the Best Albums of 2004 by the hugely influential Q Magazine showed just how welcome this new sound was amidst too many dull and samey indie guitar bands.

mp3 : Keane – Somewhere Only We Know

Twelve months later, it was the turn of the a fabulous five-piece from Leeds to take the nation by storm with their infectious hooks, chant-along choruses and hugely energetic live shows. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that the first two singles released by Kaiser Chiefs didn’t set the charts alight, but thanks to sheer hard graft that involved constant touring, they soon got the fan base they richly deserved. Not only did debut LP Employment sell over 1.5 million copies, but the early singles got the reward denied them early on when re-released versions went Top 10.

mp3 : Kaiser Chiefs – Oh My God

The Killers are a band that really defy definition. The indie kids love them. The rock fans adore them. The teenyboppers think the singer is sexy. And yet, it took quite a while before I believed there was more to them than just a 21st century tribute band to latter-day New Order. The early singles took the charts by storm – Somebody Told Me and Mr Brightside were never off the radio and are probably the songs most folk associate with the band. But it was the band’s third single that really showed the depth of talent that they possess – the ability to write and record grown-up anthemic love songs that would become the blueprint of Sam’s Town and Day & Age, their subsequent albums in 2006 and 2008 both of which should be in every serious muso’s collection:-

mp3 : The Killers – All These Things That I’ve Done

And just like the band mentioned above, Kasabian are another act who have gotten truly great with each successive release. The songs from the self-titled debut LP in 2004 were nothing truly special – they felt like a just another middling indie-band with a hint of dance-floor beats that had listened to loads of Stone Roses records when they were younger. But the release of Empire, both the single and the album, in 2006 was one of the true highlights of the noughties. Overcoming the loss of one of their key members due to ‘artistic and creative differences’, the band released a true epic that will surely always find a spot high up in the critics polls of the greatest albums of all time. The single went Top 10 on downloads alone…and the album went to #1 in the UK as well as Top Ten in Japan.

mp3 : Kasabian – Empire

Now I know I said earlier that it would be difficult to decide who would headline any Special K festival, but I reckon the common consensus would be the Followill boys from Nashville, Tennessee.

All of their earlier releases – Youth and Young Manhood (2003), Aha Shake Heartbreak (2004) and Because Of The Times (2007) are tremendous LPs that perfectly blend indie, blues and rock in a way that no other band has ever managed to do. And there was no better live act doing the rounds in that five year period. But this was merely the prelude to the masterpiece that was Only By The Night, released in September 2008.

Lead single Sex On Fire is probably the most recognisable rock track released since Smells Like Teen Spirit back in the early 90s. Look at the facts. It is the second-most downloaded digital single ever in the UK. In an era when 100,000 copies of a single is regraded as a good result, Sex On Fire had recorded 747,713 sales exactly 12 months after its release. It spent 42 successive weeks in the UK Top 75, only dropping out when a glut of Michael Jackson singles stormed the charts in the wake of his death. But two weeks later, Sex On Fire returned to the Top 75.

As of 28 March 2010, it has now spent 79 weeks on the Top 75, making it the 3rd longest runner of all time and the longest for a #1 single, and 81 weeks in the Top 100. Some 18 months after it was first released, it is still at #68 on the charts and it has now sold over 930,000 copies. Truly mind-blowing.

The thing is…..just about every other track on the LP is equally as good. So it is no surprise that the record-buying public the world over have taken Only By The Night to their hearts, with around 6.5 million sales.

mp3 : Kings Of Leon – Use Somebody

It really would be a magical day if the various promoters could pool their resources and get all five of these bands on the one bill – but there’s no way just a single day would meet the demand for tickets.

And of course, the venue would have to be the legendary Knebworth………

The Ghost Of Troubled Joe, Sunday 4 April 2010

JC adds……you know this blog is in trouble when I’m reduced to reviving such nonsense that originally involved me using a pseudonym.  But it is Friday the 13th….and I am currently on holiday!

An hour-long themed mixtape….and if I had a magic time-machine, it’s what I’d have played if I could have DJ’d at Mrs Villain’s 21st Birthday party, which would have been 40 years ago today……and a full decade before we first met!

mp3 : Various – The Class of ’79 (volume 1)

Tracklist

The Clash – I Fought The Law
Squeeze – Up The Junction
Blondie – Heart of Glass
The Specials – Gangsters
Michael Jackson – Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough
Joy Division – Transmission
The Jam – Strange Town
Wire – On Returning
The Pretenders – Brass In Pocket
David Bowie – Boys Keep Swinging
Gary Numan – Cars
OMD – Electricity
Joe Jackson – Is She Really Going Out With Him?
The B52’s – Rock Lobster
Gang Of Four – Damaged Goods
Earth, Wind & Fire – Boogie Wonderland
XTC – Making Plans For Nigel
The Undertones – Get Over You

I’ve a feeling that further volumes will follow in due course, given that I’ve failed to include so many great songs from that particular year.

JC

Earlier this year, as part of my present to my mum to celebrate her turning 80 years of age, I took her to London to see ‘9 to 5 – The Musical’, a show based on the film of the same name and for which Dolly Parton had written a number of new songs. My mum thoroughly enjoyed the show, and it would be disingenuous if I tried to claim that I didn’t also have a good time.

It got me thinking as to when I first became aware of Dolly Parton and that would have been back in 1976 when Jolene, arguably probably her best-known song, reached the Top 10 in the UK singles charts. Quite incredibly, that’s the only time she has ever cracked the singles charts in the UK as a solo artist – her only other big hit was Islands In The Stream, a duet with Kenny Rogers (and a cover of a Bee Gees number) that reached #7.

I was sure that 9 to 5 must have been a huge hit, but it turns out that it stalled at #47 back in 1981 and hasn’t ever been given a further physical release since, albeit it has enjoyed more than 840,000 downloads since these things started being counted and has been streamed more than 8 million times, an indication of just how popular it has become over the past almost 40 years.

But today’s posting isn’t really about Ms Parton, and instead is an excuse to offer up a few cover versions of her only ever solo hit single.

Strawberry Switchblade, in 1985, released it as the follow-up to their hit single Since Yesterday:-

mp3 : Strawberry Switchblade – Jolene

Sadly, it, and the parent album released around the same time, didn’t do much in terms of sales and the duo went their separate ways shortly after.

Another very fine Scottish singer, Dot Allison, persuaded her band to have a go at it and it found its way onto the b-side of their final single before they broke up:-

mp3 : One Dove – Jolene

Is there something about this songs that it has a crazy ability to bring about the end of a band once they’ve had a stab at it?

Not quite, in that this next take on it dates from a BBC Radio 1 session in 1983 and the band kept going for almost another 20 years:-

mp3 : The Sisters of Mercy – Jolene (Kid Jensen Session)

And finally, the version which resulted in the song making an appearance in the UK charts in 2004:-

mp3 : The White Stripes – Jolene (Live Under Blackpool Lights)

The live single was issued to accompany a live DVD, recorded at the beginning of 2004, but held back and released in time for that year’s Xmas market.

The White Stripes had previously, in 2000, recorded a studio version of the song, making it available as the b-side to Hello Operator, an early single that was never given a release in the UK.

mp3 : The White Stripes – Jolene

There are numerous other cover versions out there but these are all I can offer up from my own vaults.

JC

A GUEST POSTING by STRANGEWAYS

A flag flying free in a vacuum…

Fifty years ago this weekend, Apollo 11, having rocketed off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre on July 16th 1969, was approaching destination: Moon.

No real value in me adding to the screeds already written by those with more of a right to do so. Instead, and, aware that there are a million other great songs that could have been chosen, it’s straight into Eleven Blasts for Apollo 11…

Light side

Twenty seconds and counting. T minus 15 seconds, guidance is internal.

1. The Wedding Present: Venus

The opening track from 1996’s Saturnalia LP – whose associated artwork itself pastiches NASA’s logo – kicks us off (albeit toward the wrong celestial body). The Weddoes have a load of space-connected songs to choose from, and this robust zinger is as good as any on getting things off to a flying start.

Twelve, 11, 10, 9, ignition sequence starts…..6, 5, 4…

2. The Mekons: Ghosts Of American Astronauts

‘A flag flying free in a vacuum…’ Fragile, otherworldly and quietly cynical, this was an absolute stick-on to make the crew. Indeed, if only one song was permitted on board, this would be the one taking a small step for a giant leap. As an aside: does the intro sound a bit like the opening to ‘Talulah Gosh’?

…3, 2, 1, zero, all engine* running.

3. Ballboy: Essential Wear For Future Trips To Space

From the I Hate Scotland EP, this corking tale of space travel, polar bears and wardrobe tips is greatly elevated by thrilling, somersaulting keyboards. Planning to jet off soon? Essential wear includes: silver gloves, a visor and reflector (for your face).

* Such was the tension that the ordinarily cool-as-a-cucumber NASA Public Affairs Officer Jack King is heard to say all engine running rather than all engines running.

LIFT-OFF! We have a lift-off, 32 minutes past the hour. Lift-off on Apollo 11.

4. Slowdive: Star Roving

The well-loved Slowdive’s re-emergence – after 22 years – could have gone so wrong. But the eponymous 2017 LP, home planet of this triumphant lead-off single, urged fans out from behind the sofa even before its affirmative intro had been spent.

Star Roving popped up on the Fifa 18 soundtrack too. They shot. They scored. One-nil to the resurgent five-a-siders from Reading.

Tower cleared.

5. The Primitives: Spacehead

Despite the temptation to choose Buzz Buzz Buzz (Aldrin), Spacehead, from the superb Lovely (1988) debut LP, was cleared for take-off.

Neil Armstrong reporting their roll and pitch program which puts Apollo 11 on a proper heading.

6. Ash: Girl From Mars

Great single, and a track from the 1977 LP. According to Wikipedia, Girl From Mars has been used as hold-music on NASA’s telephone lines, which sure makes a change from Greensleeves

Dark side

Plus 30 seconds.

7. Moonshake: Gravity

This flickers and strobes and phases, and sounds not unlike Moonshake‘s 1991 influencers and contemporaries My Bloody Valentine.

The First EP, from which Gravity is taken, was even released on Creation too. The two bands were label-mates, then, at ‘round about the time when MBV were putting out the likes of the Tremelo and Glider EPs, and the Loveless album. I admit to knowing nothing more from Moonshake, but I’ve always loved this track.

One Bravo is a abort control mode

8. British Sea Power: Observe The Skies

This twitching, jittering beauty from 2010’s Valhalla Dancehall LP sees the band emerge from the sea to the land… and beyond. Observe The Skies then chops merrily away behind typically elegant BSP words:

‘Let’s watch the nebulae implode,
As dark out of the light unfolds… ’

Altitude’s two miles

9. Heavenly: Space Manatee

With Sarah Records calling it a day in 1995, Heavenly‘s last-ever release was this 1996 7″ single on Wiiija, K or Elefant depending on your earth coordinates at that point.

It’s a fine sign-off: a nice slice of quiet/loud. Space Manatee was backed by a riotous cover of The Jam‘s Art School (alongside the ace Heavenly original You Tore Me Down).

Downrange one mile, altitude three, four miles now. Velocity 2,195 feet per second

10. Billy Bragg: The Space Race Is Over

Reducing our velocity somewhat is this great track from BB’s 1996 (again with 1996) LP William Bloke – one led by a pensive, poignant lyric. Is it about the thundering pace and ill-effects of technology? Is it about being careful what you wish for? The passing of time? Or is it just about the space race being over?

‘Now that the space race is over
It’s been and it’s gone, and I’ll never get to the moon
Now that the space race is over
And I can’t help but feel we’ve all grown up too soon…’

We’re through the region of maximum dynamic pressure now

11. Pixies: The Happening

Another band with a planet-ful of space sounds, this Bossanova cut won the day. But it could have been Planet of Sound, Space (I Believe In), Motorway to Roswell... But The Happening edged it thanks to its dreamy, unusual, relentless coda.

Of course, with its references to roads and the desert, and Area 51, The Happening is actually located here on Earth. That said, its haunting close could easily be the calm, stream-of-consciousness death-throes of a cast-adrift astronaut.

Eight miles downrange, 12 miles high, velocity 4,000 feet per second…

A big thanks to JC for agreeing to this. And I’ll leave him, as he is eminently qualified for the mission, to add a Kid Caneveral track as a bonus.

strangeways

JC adds….

genius idea for a posting, and tempting as it is to add a track as suggested, there’s just something perfect about an 11-song compilation for today. But I am going to add it to the ICA listing over on the right hand side…as #220.

Oh, and what about the specially-created artwork too……loving it!!

JC writes…

The world and its auntie went crazy for the headlining performance by The Cure at Glastonbury a couple of weeks back. I was going to write something on the back of it, linking in to the fact that the next Simply Thrilled event is on Friday 16 August immediately on the back on an outdoor show in Glasgow by the band at which the special guests will be Mogwai and The Twilight Sad. But no matter how hard I would try, it would never top the ICA written back in March 2018 by our late and much-missed friend Tim Badger, for which there was also, uniquely, a superb scene-setter the day before.

Today, myself and Aldo are off to Dublin and tomorrow we will make our way by train to Westport where I’ll again take part in some celebrations to remember the life and times of my late brother, Davie, who died in a car crash in Ireland exactly nine years ago today. I also intend to raise a toast to Tim’s memory.

It somehow seems fiiting and appropriate to use the next two days to repost Tim’s amazing words about Robert Smith & co.

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON 8 MARCH 2018

A GUEST POSTING by TIM BADGER

Quite a while ago, my blogging buddy SWC and I went to the cricket, and as usual we decided to do one of our ‘Mucking Around ICAs’ each, when the 11th song came on the iPod. My 11th song was The Cure (SWC’s was Blur by the way and he has so far refused to write it). So I contacted JC and said I would write him an ICA on The Cure. Then I went to Australia so it got parked.

Last week I decided to write it. However I started this story as an introduction and realised that it was quite a long story in its own right, so I decided to send this in on its own and the ICA could follow.

A very very long time ago, I had a jumper. It was old, battered, baggy and black. It was an almost exact replica of a jumper that Bob Smith from The Cure wore. I loved that jumper. Girls loved that jumper. I am not ashamed to say that I called that jumper ‘Bob’, after the aforementioned lipstick smudged singer from The Cure.

One night I went to a pub in Leeds called Churchills, it was a big pub frequented by the alternative crowd, largely because around ten pm the upstairs part of the bar would be transformed into a nightclub and an indie disco would take place and occasionally a band would turn up and play. I would wear Bob over the top of a band TShirt alongside a pair of black drainpipes and a pair of Doc Martens and try and look cool in the corner. I would then wait for the DJ to play The Cure or the Pixies or New Order or if I was feeling daring Ministry and then I would launch myself on to the dancefloor, Bob’s sleeves causally pulled down over my hands in order to give myself a bit more mystique.

I used to have a great time at Churchills, it was one of the few places left in the city that served snakebite and black, a legendary if not slightly lethal drink adored by the alternative and big haired crowd. Basically cider, lager and blackcurrant – which gave it a purpleish hue, Goths loved it obviously. Now that night in question I drunk a little bit too much snakebite and black (let’s be honest two pints was enough for anyone – if the ridiculously strong cider didn’t get you the sickly sweet Ribena substitute would). I knew I was drunk because I danced to a New Model Army track and no one danced to New Model Army and still expected to be considered cool at the end of the night. About two am I left Churchills, I’d like to say I left on the arm of a beautiful girl called Angela (who as it happens was a dead ringer for the singer from The Cranes but this being 1990 she didn’t know that yet), but I know I left alone but manage to share a cab home with a bloke called Gavin – I know this because he vomited on the pavement outside my house and the stain was there for about a month afterwards.

I woke up in the morning and felt like death. My head pounded, I was all shaky and clammy, about midday I started to feel a bit more human and I realised that I was cold, so I turned to my go to warmth (I was a student, heating was too expensive) – Bob – I mean it would have stunk of cigarettes (back in the days when you could smoke in a pub) but it kept me warm. So I went to the chair in my bedroom where clothes would have been slung last night.

Bob wasn’t there.

I had a vague recollection of taking Bob off when dancing to The Stone Roses. I’d popped it in the corner where I was sitting, just by where the lovely Angela normally sat with her mate Gemma. Oh God, Bob.

Now, I know what you are thinking, “Man up Badger it’s only a jumper”, and you are right, but that jumper was unique, sort of. Well ok, it wasn’t, it cost me a £2 from a charity shop, but I loved it, apart from my copy of ‘Substance’ on double vinyl, it was probably my favourite thing in the entire world – it was certainly the warmest thing I owned.

I sort of hoped the lovely Angela had taken it home with her and next week (After she’d finished cuddling it for a week) she would come up to me and smile her sweet smile and hand me the jumper and take me by the hand and we would walk into the moonlight, bangles jangling – but in reality I knew that I had left it on the long seat thing in the corner.

So ladies and gentlemen, I got the bus back to town. I sat there sulkily (still hungover) with my Walkmen attached to my ears. I think for some inexplicable reason I had ‘Babble’ by annoying Derry punk popsters That Petrol Emotion on the stereo, this didn’t improve my mood.

I got to Churchills around 2pm. It was open, thankfully, but the upstairs bit wasn’t. So I meekly asked the nice lady behind the bar if she could check if my jumper was up there, in the corner by the long seat, she reluctantly agreed. So I sat there at the bar for what seemed like a decade, cradling a lemonade, the sugar helped quite a lot to be honest, and then she returned.

She was holding Bob and I could have hugged her.

She handed Bob to me and then she said “Me Grandads got one just like that” and crushed what was left of my cool. I mumbled a ‘Thanks’ and walked out of the pub. I got roughly twenty foot around the corner before I stopped and popped Bob over my head.

Five minutes later, as I approached the bus stop, I saw a familiar face, the lovely Angela, sat forlornly at the bus stop, looking bored.

“Hi” I said. Slyly pulling the sleeves of Bob over my hands.

She definitely smiled……

The Upstairs Room – The Cure
Gigantic – The Pixies
Everything’s Gone Green – New Order
Big Decision – That Petrol Emotion

TIM BADGER

Hopefully, this mix doesn’t need too much of an explanation

Various – Born on the 4th of July

TRACKLIST

Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues
The Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Want To Get Over You
Hole – Mailbu
The Velvet Underground – Rock & Roll
2Pac feat. Dr Dre and Roger Troutman – California Love
The Ramones – Baby I Love You
The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing
Devo – Come Back Jonee
Tori Amos – Professional Widow
Bodega – Name Escape
Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia
10,000 Maniacs – Don’t Talk
Blondie – Sunday Girl
Lambchop – Grumpus
LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends
Violent Femmes – Ugly

JC

It’s becoming something of a tradition, merely for the fact that I want a new hour-long mix to listen to when I’m heading to work.

Feel free to join in with a download.

mp3 : Various – Disarmed In Limbo (a mix for turning 56)

TRACKLIST

Whatever Helps – Siobhan Wilson
Happy Birthday – The Birthday Party
Dare – Gorillaz
Ciao! – Lush
The Passenger – Iggy Pop
Say Sue Me – Say Sue Me
All Fall Down – Primal Scream
Humble – Kendrick Lamar
Intergalactic – Beastie Boys
Taste The Last Girl – Sons and Daughters
Why Are People Grudgeful? – The Fall
Let Them All Talk – Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Promises – Buzzcocks
Sister – Tracey Thorn feat. Corinne Bailey Rae
Juxtaposed With You – Super Furry Animals
This Is The Day – The The
Monkey Gone To Heaven – Pixies
Intuition Told Me (Part Two) – Orange Juice

JC

I’m due back in Glasgow at some point today and will get the blog back to some sort of normality in due course..

Just a reminder that this series has been a pastiche of the NOW albums which, since their inception in 1983 have been, for want of a better word, a shit listen, bought in the main by folk who don’t explore much beyond the mainstream fodder.

The words used to describe each of the songs have been lifted from the particular individual ICA in question. There’s a multitude of contributors, but I’ve decided against highlighting who wrote what…..I like to see this, and indeed the entire output of T(n)VV as a collective.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL AN ICA….(v)

SIDE A

Daft Punk is Playing At My House – LCD Soundsystem (Track 1 from ICA#9)

I’ve gone for Soulwax Mix simply because of the bit where it goes ‘DOWNTOWN’

This was LCD Soundsystem’s most successful song, earning a Grammy nod and reaching No. 29 on the UK charts. It’s not hard to see why. Murphy always knew how to start a party, from the opening “OW! OW!” to the smashing hi-hats to cowbells and even reminding us that he had moved the furniture to the garage. A belter of a record.

Electricity – OMD (Track 2 from ICA#151)

The first single by OMD and less polished that the later re-recorded and better-known versions for DinDisc.

The story goes that following a successful debut gig at Eric’s in Liverpool, at which they supported Joy Division, the duo sent off a tape of their demo to Tony Wilson in the hope of having it released on Factory. The boss wasn’t that keen on it, but his wife, Lindsay Reade, thought Electricity sounded good and so he decided to release it on a one-off basis with it becoming just the third piece of vinyl to be issued by the label, with 5,000 copies pressed up. It received a fair bit of critical praise and although it didn’t chart, set the duo up for a multi-album deal and the initial steps along the road to fame and fortune. How different might have the Factory story turned out if OMD had been offered and signed a long-term deal with the label…..

The Hellcat Spanged Shalala – Arctic Monkeys (Track 3 from ICA#193)

After ‘Humbug’ the band abandoned trying to be a South Yorkshire version of the Queens of the Stone Age and returned to making beautifully wistful guitar pop and it suited them down to the ground – and you know what – I think right now, ‘Suck It and See’ is my favourite of their albums, is it their best – not sure – but I personally don’t think that they have ever sounded as confident and as sparkling as they do in this song. It’s marvellous.

I Wanna Be Sedated – The Ramones (Track 4 from ICA#185)

“I Wanna Be Sedated” was described by the author Brian J. Bowe as one of the band’s “most classic” pieces of music. After a show in London, Joey told manager Linda Stein: “Put me in a wheelchair and get me on a plane before I go insane”. This quote would be the chorus to “I Wanna Be Sedated”, whose lyrics invoke the stress which the band was under during touring. It is the most downloaded song from the catalog by The Ramones.

Party Fears Two – Associates (Track 5 from ICA#141)

The 45 that delivered on Billy’s dreams and ambitions. Their best known few minutes and among their finest. Enough has been written before about, both on this blog and elsewhere. Just enjoy the full majesty of the 12” version with its fabulous drawn-out ending.

SIDE B

Who The Fuck? – PJ Harvey (Track 6 from ICA#63)

Now we’re talking! PJ’s angry. Someone’s pissed her off and she can’t wait to tell us. Coming across like a demented Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, WTF? kicks like an angry mule, a fuzztoned, vocally distorted, brilliant mess of a record.

It’s a sloppy, stroppy, brilliantly sweary track. If you took ten wasps in a jar and stuck them in a food blender with the short-lived RRRRRiot Grrrrrrl movement, it would sound something like this.

Pump It Up – Elvis Costello & The Attractions (Track 7 from ICA#136)

I observed that, while I wasn’t that fond of Costello’s genre exercises and anemic later-career albums, I rated his early LPs so highly that “I don’t think I could narrow down a 10 song ICA from just his recordings with the Attractions.” It was Brian who responded: “Nobody has had the guts to do that so far.”

Of course Brian’s right. I once made a playlist for my daughter of ‘essential’ EC songs and there were almost 100 on it.

No, there’s absolutely no way to have a 10-song Elvis Costello ICA. So, what the hell — with no discussion of the songs at all here’s an ICA of the TEN BEST songs by Elvis Costello and the Attractions.

Echo Beach – Martha & The Muffins (Track 8 from ICA#27)

I nearly didn’t put Echo Beach on this compilation. After all, you already know it, you’ve probably got it, and if you want to hear it, you can just hang around any supermarket with an in-store radio station and it’ll turn up soon enough. But it’s here anyway, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because inevitably nothing else on “Metro Music” really comes close. I was going to use the follow-up single Saigon, but the write-up came down to “it’s pretty good, but it’s not Echo Beach”, so what’s a diligent compiler to do? More importantly, if we’re going to pretend that this could be a proper vinyl album, then let’s face it: there’s no way on Earth that you’d ever do a Martha And The Muffins compilation and NOT put Echo Beach on it. Apart from anything else, it’s just too damn good. So good, in fact, it was very nearly a career killer.

Man In The Corner Shop – The Jam (Track 9 from ICA#52)

There’s something intrinsically sad about this mid-paced number which I’ve always thought is a hidden gem of a song.

I’ve never thought its central message was that everyone is born equal; nor do I think Paul Weller thinks that to be the case and so his tongue is very much in his cheek when he sings those particular lines. The sadness come from the fact that neither of the factory worker or shop owner are happy with their lot and both believe the grass on the other side is a much more favourable shade of green. Even sadder isturning your thoughts to what was likely to have happened to the protagonists in real life over the subsequent 2-3 years….a factory closure and redundancy for the blue-collar worker and the end of the family business for the shop owner as the supermarkets take over? Most likely…..and and as for the factory owner….well, he was never really ever any better off than the other two….maybe just a little bit richer in financial terms. In other words, the central message of Man In The Corner Shop is really quite simple……………………….

Life Sucks.

There Is No Ending – Arab Strap (Track 10 from ICA#14)

The closing track on the closing album. After dozens of songs that dealt with teenage and 20-something angst here’s one that celebrates love lasting forever until you grow old.

For a band that had to face up to so many accusations of being latent miserablists this is an extraordinary way to sign off and it captures Aidan Moffat for what I think he is – romantic at heart. For the most part in the Arab Strap canon he’s been a sad and depressed romantic all too often seeking solace in the comfort of the bottle or from the drugs cabinet but now at last he’s happy and looking forward to the future and he wants the world to know it.

A joyous and wonderful anthem to finish things off.

ENDS

As I explained back on Monday, I’m in Toronto and its surroundings this week and have come up with a way of keeping things ticking with lazy posts, but hopefully in a way that will provide interest. .

For the most part, the NOW albums, since their inception in 1983 have been, for want of a better word, a shit listen, bought in the main by folk who don’t explore much beyond the mainstream fodder. This five-part series, of which this is the second instalment, will hopefully bring some sort of balance.

The words used to describe each of the songs have been lifted from the particular individual ICA in question. There’s a multitude of contributors, but I’ve decided against highlighting who wrote what…..I like to see this, and indeed the entire output of T(n)VV as a collective.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL AN ICA….(iv)

SIDE A

Tears Are Cool – Teenage Fanclub (Track 1 from ICA#86)

So, there’s this girl, we’ll call her Aerosmith Girl, actually let’s call her Sally, and she was lovely. I had a massive thing for her in the early to mid nineties. She drunk in my local pub – where I lived at the time. I ignored the fact that she loved Aerosmith because she was so lovely.

Anyway, one night in the pub, I saw her crying, sitting there on her own, crying. I went over and spoke to her, turns out her cat had died (to be honest, she should have just stayed in – the attention seeker) anyway, after about five minutes, I said “its ok Tears Are Cool” – taking it from the song that Teenage Fanclub had released on their most recent album.

On Saturday night it was Open Mic night, when a few people turned up with acoustic guitars, played for fifteen minutes and then sodded off to claim two free pints. That night, for the time ever, I got up to play – I mumbled my way through an acoustic version of a Levellers song and then something in my head went “This ones for Sally” and I looked straight at her and did a little fist pump. I know. Sorry.

Then I sang ‘Tears Are Cool’. When I finished she wasn’t even sitting where she was when I started it. Twenty minutes later I saw her outside eating chips with a bloke called Gavin. Chips. Gavin. I’d sang my heart out in there and she fucked off and bought some chips. I never sang in that pub again. Come to think of it I don’t think I’ve ever sung live again.

I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan – Half Man Half Biscuit (Track 2 from ICA#8)

A cracking indie tune backed by a lyric that namechecks an obscure Hungarian football team, and then comes up with a pretentiously marvellous couplet for making toast:-

I went dans la cuisine in a bilinguistic mood
And Morphy Richards popped up with the goods

It then takes the piss out of rock band clichés before closing out with an extended repeat of the song’s ultra catchy one-line chorus.

Out Of This World (a Gino Washington cover) – The Detroit Cobras (Track 3 from ICA#34)

Normally, dear friends, coverbands rather are an atrocity, they exist to – more or less – “entertain” you at family parties. The Detroit Cobras from, obviously, Detroit, though take the cover business seriously and they are doing this perfectly fine since 1994. The music that the band play is a mix of soul, Motown, R&B and R&R, that is literally stripped from Mary Ramirez’ and her music partner in crime, singer Rachel Nagy’s record collections. They play other people’s music, but more specifically they cover other artists’ B-sides and deep cuts, and they do so with such a raw and ferocious energy that the songs rarely sound anything like the original versions, but all of them end up sounding like Cobra songs.

Breaking Point – Bourgie Bourgie (Track 4 from ICA#66)

The opening burst of cello will grab you and look to get you hooked immediately. If that doesn’t work, then surely you won’t be able to resist the voice.

This was my personal introduction to Paul Quinn as a lead vocalist in his own right (I’d first heard him on Barbecue which was a b-side to the 12” of I Can’t Help Myself by Orange Juice). In all truth I was as excited by the fact that Bourgie Bourgie was going to have a number of ex-Jazzateers in its line-up as I felt they were one the great ‘lost’ Scottish bands of the era. (If you don’t have a copy of their 1983 self-titled debut album on Rough Trade then I can only recommend you track down a copy – there’s a few out there at not too stupid a price.) But once I heard that voice I was smitten.

Worth also noting the classy and crisp production courtesy of the then little known Kingbird, aka Ian Broudie, whose work with so many bands in Liverpool and then later in his guise as Lightning Seeds has lit up many an indie disco over the past 30 plus years.

Psycho Killer – Talking Heads (Track 5 from ICA#115)

The bass line of God. Psycho Killer is a song that I hold close to my heart. It was less than a year since the killing spree of the Son of Sam killer, David Berkowitz when Psycho Killer came out. I lived not 4 blocks from the next to last of his killing scenes at local discoteque, Elephas, in Bayside, Queens. The events of that killing changed my neighborhood for years. Psycho Killer was the darkest song I had ever heard. The motorik influence of the song brings out the detached nature of the song. Its darkness is still powerful 40 years on.

SIDE B

Bluebeard – Cocteau Twins (Track 6 from ICA#195)

In 1993 I was fed up with all the music in my collection and was listening to the radio in search of something new to get into. The moment I heard the gleaming guitar riff on this intro, I thought “That’s the one for me, I’ll go straight out and buy this.” By the time Liz’s vocals started, it was clear that everything I knew was true and that the world was spinning smoothly on its axis. Robin once said he couldn’t stand those Pink Floydy guitarists who can play all six strings at once; I think he manages at least three on this.

Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division (Track 7 from ICA#160)

Millions of words have been written about LWTUA and I don’t have anything new or fresh to add. One thing that does stand out for me, however, is that despite it being by far and away the most popular and most aired of their songs, I never ever get tired of hearing it. Oh, and I’m pleased that a promo video was shot for it as it did provide some high-quality footage of the band before it became tragically too late.

Nimrod’s Son – The Pixies (Track 8 from ICA#6)

I can’t think about most Pixies songs without thinking about them being performed live – and that means thousands of people shouting “You are the son of a mother fucker”. An absolute joy.

Burn The Witch – Radiohead (Track 9 from ICA#108)

In which Radiohead go all Camber-wicker Green. A genuinely great song and one that is, even without the video, genuinely disturbing, with its lyrics of low-flying panic attacks, red crosses on wooden doors and, most ominously, “we know where you live”. Add the sawing, minor-key string backing and this isn’t going to pack the floor at your local indie disco in quite the same way as Creep. A song for these times, where Washington has become Summer Isle or, perhaps, Salem.

Moaner – Underworld (Track 10 from ICA#25)

JC posted this song recently so I was in two minds about whether to include it – but for me, there isn’t really any other song that could have ended this compilation – it’s almost impossible to follow. They pretty much always played it last as it was guaranteed to get you dancing like a machete and give you whiplash.

ENDS

As I explained a couple of days back, I’m in Toronto and its surroundings this week and have come up with a way of plastering the blog with lazy posts, but hopefully in a way that will provide interest. .

For the most part, the NOW albums, since their inception in 1983 have been, for want of a better word, a shit listen, bought in the main by folk who don’t explore much beyond the mainstream fodder. This five-part series, of which this is the second instalment, will hopefully bring some sort of balance.

The words used to describe each of the songs have been lifted from the particular individual ICA in question. There’s a multitude of contributors, but I’ve decided against highlighting who wrote what…..I like to see this, and indeed the entire output of T(n)VV as a collective.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL AN ICA….(iii)

SIDE A

Weirdo – Charlatans (Track 1 from ICA#42)

Don’t you just LOOOVE that intro?

One of the best noises on any record. Weirdo was the lead single from the Charlatans’ second album and was the best thing they’d done up to that point. It slapped me around the face like a wet kipper before cheekily skipping off, enticing me to chase it. I followed it of course and fell for its cheeky charms. It’s still one of my fave tunes by the band.

Tupelo – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (Track 2 from ICA#13)

Talking of dark and menacing, how about the tale of Elvis’ birth delivered Cave-style? A fine example of how a rock band can create an uncomfortable atmosphere and mood. Nick’s growling vocals, Barry Adamson’s ominously brooding bass, Blixa Bargeld’s scratchy guitars and Mick Harvey’s pounding drums combine to create a song that’s blacker than black.

The Facts Of Life – Black Box Recorder (Track 3 from ICA#179)

Although the BBR songwriting chores were shared between Luke Haines (who, I’d guess, had more hand in the lyrics) and former Jesus & Mary Chain drummer John Moore, the band’s greatest asset was arguably Sarah Nixey.

I find it difficult to write about Ms. Nixey objectively without coming across as an old letch… but the best way to describe her would be in twisted comparison to Saint Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell. Imagine a cartoon where a lovelorn young bloke has a pure, perfect, sweet-voiced angel dressed in white sitting on his right shoulder, encouraging him to be good and kind and virtuous. That would be the Sarah Cracknell angel. On the other shoulder, however, would be Sarah Nixey, dressed in black, also sweet-voiced… but that’s where the comparison ends. Now imagine that second angel was the teacher in your Sex Ed class…

Welcome to The Facts Of Life, a single which took Luke Haines into the top 20 for the first and only time in his career. If you’d asked me before I started compiling this ICA, I’d have told you this song must have been Top 10, probably Top 3… I mean, surely this was one of the biggest hits of the year 2000? It was in my head, anyway. In reality, it scraped #20 for a week then disappeared from the chart forever. A true sign of quality.

Better Things – Massive Attack w/ Tracey Thorn (Track 4 from ICA#76)

In my mind, far superior to ‘Protection’. ‘You say the magic’s gone. Well i’m not a magician. You say the spark’s gone. Well get an electrician’ Just genius!

Delilah Sands – The Brilliant Things (Track 5 from ICA#163)

This is my favorite BC Song. I can’t get enough of it. There’s just something about the way it’s all put together, from the unusual bop ba da da bop cold start through to the brilliant trumpet line. This is my go-to whenever I need a little pickmeup. BC firing on all cylinders to be sure.

SIDE B

Happy When It Rains – The Jesus and Mary Chain (Track 6 from ICA#94)

More rain, but this time the band are a bit happier and as it happens, this is my favourite JAMC track. Its my favourite for one single reason, once in 1992 in the pouring rain outside the Army and Navy pub in Rainham, Kent, Our Price Girl gave me the best kiss of my life – at the time at least – and then sang this to me sweetly in my ear as the rain dripped off our hair. We then walked three miles, soaked to the skin hand in hand and hardly said a word, because frankly she said it all.

Shining Light – Ash (Track 7 from ICA#190)

It’s difficult to say much new about this song. It is their biggest selling single and probably their most recognisable song and one I have grown to love more as the years have gone by. A wonderful melody, with lyrics full of religious imagery, not surprising really, as Tim Wheeler grew up in Northern Ireland in the 70s and 80s, when the church really dominated society there. Fun fact, this song won an Ivor Novello songwriting award.

Shot By Both Sides – Magazine (Track 8 from ICA#35)

One of the great post-punk anthems, the debut single had the audacity to reach #41 in the singles charts and somehow trigger off an appearance on Top of The Pops. The sight of Howard & co obviously frightened everyone concerned for instead of it climbing into the Top 40 the following week thanks to being exposed to millions of viewers/listeners it dropped like a stone. The band never got near the singles charts again despite releasing a run of cracking 45s over the next three years.

The album version of the song is marginally different (the thing most noticeable is that each chorus of the single begins ‘Shot, Shot by both sides’ while the LP is simply ‘Shot by both sides.’ It’s a tune co-written with Pete Shelley who loved it so much that he used it for the track Lipstick some ten months as the b-side to the hit single Promises but rather naughtily didn’t give Howard a writing credit……….

Bloodsport For All – Carter USM (Track 9 from ICA#50)

When I was 15 I nicked a fiver out of my dad’s wallet, I then walked four miles to Chatham and bought this on 12”. It was my first ever 12”. Ironically I bought it from Our Price – the same shop that I would later meet Our Price Girl in. I told my dad two days later about the fiver – he grounded me for a week. It was worth it – every second.

St Anthony- An Ode To Anthony H Wilson – Mike Garry and Joe Dudell (Andrew Weatherall Remix) (Track 10 from ICA#102)

Mike Garry’s wonderful poem for Tony Wilson, a celebration of the Factory boss and ‘Manchester music, marijuana, majesty and Karl Marx’, was set to music by Joe Dudell, a string quartet version of New Order’s Your Silent Face. Weatherall took it back to the electronic roots of Power, Corruption and Lies.

ENDS

As I explained yesterday, I’m in Toronto and its surroundings this week and have come up with a way of covering the next few days with lazy posts, but hopefully in a way that will provide interest.

For the most part, the NOW albums, since their inception in 1983 have been, for want of a better word, a shit listen, bought in the main by folk who don’t explore much beyond the mainstream fodder. This five-part series, of which this is the second instalment, will hopefully bring some sort of balance.

The words used to describe each of the songs have been lifted from the particular individual ICA in question. There’s a multitude of contributors, but I’ve decided against highlighting who wrote what…..I like to see this, and indeed the entire output of T(n)VV as a collective.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL AN ICA….(ii)

SIDE A

Time To Pretend – MGMT (Track 1 from ICA #138)

There is of course only one place to start when we are considering an ICA on MGMT…….

“Lets make Some music, make some money, find some models for wives…” this track couldn’t be any easier on the ear if it tried. Shamelessly poking fun at rock star dreams and ‘living fast and dying young’. Brilliant drenched in synths and catchy riffs, MGMT announced their arrival to the world with not just a terrific single but with one of the best tracks in the last ten years.

Seven Seconds To Midnight – Wah! Heat (Track 2 from ICA#43)

Pete Wylie is my favorite Rock Star of ALL TIME…Probably because he’s the only one I’ve gotten drunk with until 7am in a New York Nightclub 4 nights on the trot, and definitely because he NEVER attained Rock Start status but was always prepared for it.

JC, you’ve picked the three songs which earned him the rank of a great artist. But I will add three that I just can’t live without, and one is among my 10 favorite songs of all time.

The first, and one which first blew my socks off and sucked me into WAH!’s aural vortex was Seven Minutes To Midnight. There might not be any more urgent Post Punk song ever written.

Reflection of The Television – The Twilight Sad (Track 3 from ICA#3)

More loud and wailing guitars, pounding drums and a killer hypnotic bass line. The opening track of the second LP. The song was later given a complete remix by Errors for inclusion on the Wrong Car EP – by complete I mean the drums, bass and guitar are almost completely replaced by electronica and a dance beat. And such is the greatness of the song and the music that the remix more than holds its own.

Ping Pong – Stereolab (Track 4 from ICA#174)

Mars Audiac Quintet was a huge leap forward for Stereolab, the first album on which they really integrated their love of lounge, exotica and bubblegum with the familiar krautrock grooves half-inched from NEU! and Can, and this was its most accessible song. Indeed, probably the group’s best-realised attempt on mainstream pop ever.

A Promise – Echo and The Bunnymen (Track 5 from ICA #41)

If Postcard could claim to be the Sound of Young Scotland then those who came to prominence through Zoo Records are entitled to claim the same crown for Young Liverpool. This particular single could easily have been written and recorded by Wylie, Cope or The Wild Swans and it would have been equally majestic. Will Sargeant teased a ridiculous amount of stunning sounds from his guitar over these damn near perfect four minutes.

SIDE B

Free Range – The Fall (Track 6 from ICA#147)

This single from 1992’s slight “Code: Selfish” album is an example of what Smith and his fans claim to be his psychic or “pre-cog” abilities. The lyrics may refer to the history of Balkanization, or they might presage the coming Bosnian War. Smith seemed to predict the 1996 Manchester City Center bombing in the song Powder Keg, and Terry Waite Sez preceded Waite’s kidnapping.

Stay Together – Suede (Track 7 from ICA #209)

Their joint biggest hit (along with Trash) and the only standalone single they ever released. This was the first notice that Bernard Butler wanted to start producing epics and this longer version definitely feels like a production where the kitchen sink has been thrown at it, particularly in the four and a half minute outro. A clear signpost to what they would go on to produce on the Dog Man Star album.

Cattle and Cane – The Go-Betweens (Track 8 from ICA#98)

The single version is some 20 seconds shorter than the version on the LP Before Hollywood. I’ve mentioned before that this is a very special song to me for a number of reasons; nowadays, it makes me sad as it reminds me of Grant’s sudden and very unexpected death but it is a song, along with a few others, that I associate with some of my happiest days, weeks and months on Planet Earth when I fell properly in love for the first time.

Some facts : It was written as a recollection of childhood in a London flat in an effort to combat homesickness with the band as far away as can be from their native Australia, cold and skint and fearing they’ll never succeed. It was written using the acoustic guitar belonging to the owner of the flat while he lay comatose from drug abuse. The guitar belonged to Nick Cave.

Sublimely beautiful.

Join Our Club – Saint Etienne (Track 9 from ICA#47)

Another great pop single that dropped in between the first two albums. It’s all about finding your ‘tribe’ through music, particularly at a time when rave and grunge were dominant. It does, however, reference pop music through the ages and how it brings people together. It’s a subject they would revisit on more than one occasion.

Feel Every Beat – Electronic (Track 10 from ICA#205)

A five-minute version of this closes the debut album and tempting as it was to use that here, I have to bow to the remixing skills of Stephen Hague who chops about a minute off the original and helps deliver something which captures perfectly what Jonny and Bernard wanted Electronic to sound like and what they wanted a band to be….’we don’t need to argue, we just need each other’

ENDS

So…. I’m in Toronto and its surroundings this week, having flown over here last Friday and not due home till a week tomorrow (those of you unfortunate enough to be mates on Facebook will already be aware of this).

I’ve come up with a way of covering the next few days with lazy posts, but hopefully in a way that will provide interest.

I suppose I should explain the NOW concept just in case it’s needed….so here’s wiki:-

Now That’s What I Call Music! (often shortened to Now!) is a series of various artists compilation albums released in the United Kingdom and Ireland by Sony Music and Universal Music (Universal/Sony Music) which began in 1983. Spinoff series began for other countries the following year, starting with South Africa, and many other countries worldwide soon followed, expanding into Asia in 1995, then the United States in 1998.

The first Now was featured 30 UK hit singles from that year on a double vinyl LP or cassette. Although the compilation of recent hit songs into a single release was not a new concept (K-tel and Ronco, for example, had been issuing various artists’ compilations for some years), this was the first time that two major record labels had collaborated on such a venture. Virgin agreed to a deal with EMI, which allowed a greater number of major hits to be included (the first album in the series included a total of “eleven number ones” on its sleeve).

The rate of release settled very quickly to three per year: one release around late March/early April, another around late July and a third around late November. Over a hundred “main series” (not including spin-off and special edition) albums have been released to date. The UK series has followed a double-album format throughout the series (many other foreign franchises of the Now! series are only released on one disc), now exploiting the capacity of the CD to include between 40 and 46 tracks over two discs. Since November 2005 (Now That’s What I Call Music! 62), the Now! series have only been released on CD and digital download formats. Previously, the series had been available on vinyl, Cassette and MiniDisc. As these formats declined in popularity, Now releases are no longer issued on them.

The most successful volume to date is 1999’s Now That’s What I Call Music! 44, which has sold 2.3 million copies and remains the biggest selling various artists compilation album in the UK. 2008’s Now That’s What I Call Music! 70 sold 383,002 units in the first week of sales, the biggest ever first week sale of any Now album. Now That’s What I Call Music! 87 holds the achievement for the most tracks in total with 47 tracks

For the most part, the NOW albums have been, for want of a better word, a shit listen, bought in the main by folk who don’t explore much beyond the mainstream fodder. This five-part series over the coming week will hopefully bring some sort of balance.

The words used to describe each of the songs have been lifted from the particular individual ICA in question. There’s a multitude of contributors, but I’ve decided against highlighting who wrote what…..I like to see this, and indeed the entire output of T(n)VV as a collective.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL AN ICA….(i)

SIDE A

Complete Control – The Clash (Track 1 from ICA #12)

You’ve got to open any imaginary compilation album with a killer tune…something of an anthem which epitomizes the band or singer being featured….and I can’t think of anything better than this. One of punk rock’s greatest songs, written and recorded in frustration as the penny dropped for the band, and in particular Joe Strummer, that being a fully fledged, ideologically driven punk at the same time as being a core part of the mainstream music industry was an uncomfortable and some would say impossible position. Anger as an energy…..

Dreaming – Blondie (Track 2 from ICA#197)

The band’s drummer, Clem Burke, has always been important to the sound. He’s had to constantly adjust his style to suit whatever genre the band were concentrating on, but there can no arguing that, at heart, he’s just a guy who is at his happiest when he’s allowed to pound away loud and fast, dragging the band along breathlessly in his wake. He’s probably never given as fine a performance as on this hit single from the band’s fourth album, which is fitting given that it seems he came up with the phrase ‘Dreaming Is Free’ around which Debbie constructed the lyric – and I still admire the fact she was able to achieve a rhyming couplet of restaurant and debutante. Genius.

Blue Boy – Orange Juice (Track 3 from ICA#57)

Falling and Laughing may have been the debut but Blue Boy has proven to be the most enduring and enjoyable single from the Postcard era. And surely the greatest song to ever make use of the word ‘gabardine’.

The unexpected appearance of an organ just short of two minutes in adds to the charm of this otherwise noisy and frantic guitar frenzy.

Remember Me – British Sea Power (Track 4 from ICA#61)

If you needed proof that British Sea Power are actually fantastic, then this their first proper single emphatically proves the argument. ‘Remember Me’ has the possibly the most urgent, compelling and exciting opening to a record that I have heard. There must be a full 90 seconds of pounding drums, guitars and seaside sound effects before you even hear a single word uttered. A swirling psychedelic fury filled bastard of a song, a song according to my blogging partner swc, that is so good is sounded like Joy Division had reformed.

Levi Stubbs’ Tears – Billy Bragg (Track 5 from ICA#37)

“The sort a war takes away
And when there wasn’t a war he left anyway”

Everyone accepts that Billy isn’t the greatest singer in the world, but it’s the very basic, fragile and uncertain nature of his delivery that makes this so effective a song. See also, in a similar theme, the very moving Valentine’s Day Is Over from Worker’s Playtime or the Peel Sessions album.

SIDE B

Kennedy – The Wedding Present (Track 6 from ICA#7)

This is an immense piece of music that still sounds incredibly fresh more than a quarter of a century on. There is nothing more that needs to be said.

Let’s Fall In Love And Run Away From Here – Ballboy (Track 7 from ICA#177)

Perhaps this my favourite ballboy tune. Here, I said it! Then again this might change in five minutes, as it did for a thousand times within the last two decades. It’s the opening track to ‘The Royal Theatre’ from 2004 and it proves what JC said in his wisdom in the first ballboy ICA: “Every one of the band’s EPs and albums opens with a truly memorable number”. This is but one of those, if you ask me …

In Between Days – The Cure (Track 8 from ICA#157)

Another track that is truly wonderful and for years and years was the ring tone on my phone for whenever Mrs Badger phoned me. It’s just one of those songs that I will never tire of hearing.

Blue Monday – New Order (Track 9 from ICA#20)

This song was in and out of this imaginary album on at least ten occasions. I had settled on the running order for 9 out of the 10 tracks but just couldn’t make my mind up on what to put in as the penultimate track on Side 2.

Contenders included the 7″ version of Temptation, Love Less, Your Silent Face, the album version of Sub-Culture, As It Is When It Was, Cries and Whispers, 1963, Bizarre Love Triangle and Vanishing Point. But it is impossible to ignore the claims of what was and still is one of the most groundbreaking bits of music that has ever been recorded.

I had a short-term relationship in the summer of 1983 with a girl I had met on the dance floor of Strathclyde University Students Union. I was a regular at that venue but this girl wasn’t, and after a couple of dates it was clear things weren’t really going to work out, not least because our musical tastes were so different. She was real disco diva who had only gone to the Student Union to keep a friend company but had taken a shine to me on account of my constant dancing and she assumed I was someone who would have been happy going along to any club or venue. But I’ll always remember that she was an even bigger fan of Blue Monday than I was which says all you need to know about the crossover appeal of this piece of music. It is a genuine classic.

Dry Your Eyes – The Streets (Track 10 from ICA #45)

A number one single. A big emotional number one single – Skinner went for that deliberately and nailed it. The chorus sounds like Coldplay but like Coldplay sung by your mate, because it needed to. The devil is the detail – “She brings her hands up towards where my hands rested. She wraps her fingers round mine with the softness she’s blessed with. She peels away my fingers, looks at me and then gestures By pushin’ my hand away to my chest, from hers”. Brilliant, poignant, brutally honest. At the time I hated it, then I listened to it, and then I listened to again.

We struggled, I’ll be honest. Technically there are three singles on the first side and three on the second side. The two remixes don’t count as far as I am concerned. The Run the Road remix is an inspired choice and one I had forgotten about. Of the five Badger chose I had four on my list of Ten. He had three of my five.

By Skinner’s own admission Original Pirate Material is the “day in the life of a geezer” yet amongst the bitter-sweet, inner city anecdotes of drugs, violence, playing computer games, trips to the garage and going clubbing, there is a tender sweet message that is so compulsive. Look – don’t just download this stuff, check out Original Pirate Material you won’t regret it for one second.

ENDS

Here’s a wee one-hour labour of love for you all.

mp3 : Various – It’s Officially Summer

Tracklist

I Just Wanna Dance – Say Sue Me
At The Indie Disco – The Divine Comedy
Make Time For Love – The Goon Sax
Sometimes – James
Fruitier Than Thou – James Kirk
Let’s Make Out – Dream Wife
Blood – Editors
Totnes Bickering Fair – Half Man Half Biscuit
I Can’t Imagine The World Without Me – Echobelly
Flaming Sword – Care
The View From The Afternoon – Arctic Monkeys
Attack of The Ghost Riders – The Ravonettes
Jennifer She Said – Lloyd Cole & The Commotions
Shake Your Rump – Beastie Boys
Parks and Recreation – Emma Pollock
It’s A Gas – The Wedding Present
Hey!Luciani – The Fall
She Bangs The Drums – The Stone Roses
The First Big Weekend of 2016 – Arab Strap

JC

February 2019 was something of a poignant month. Comrade Colin wrote brilliantly and eloquently about the death, at the age of 64, of Mark Hollis. I’d like to now say a few words about Peter Tork and Beatrice Colin, both of whom also left us last month.

Peter Tork was one-quarter of The Monkees, a band without whom I’d unlikely have developed such an affection for great, guitar-based pop music. The TV show seemed to be on BBC1 during the children’s hour all the time in the 70s, a show which I would get to watch just after getting home from school and before my mum would get in from her long shift in the factory to make us something to eat. The Monkees were, to my young mind, a magical and fun group of people to be around. It made for great TV with what seemed to be a perfect blend of slapstick comedy and drama, soundtracked by songs which, by the third or fourth time you’d heard them, were embedded in your brain, but in a very good way. Of course I had no idea that so much of it was manufactured and that the songs were the work of others who weren’t ever going to appear on-screen but to be honest, that didn’t matter and I wouldn’t have cared in any event. I just wanted my four heroes to come good and play us out with a great song…which they always did.

I’d be a liar if I said Peter was my favourite Monkee….that honour was bestowed on Micky Dolenz as he made me laugh more than the others and the songs he sang on seemed to be the best. But I loved watching all four of them, and the news of Peter’s death made me recall happy memories of very olden days while providing a sad reminder that I’m now constantly losing people who in some shape or form shaped me, directly or indirectly, into who and what I am today.

mp3 : The Monkees – (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone

Beatrice Colin didn’t have anything like the impact on the music scene as Peter Tork – indeed very few people will actually associate her with the genre. Readers of old, however, will know that she was one half of the very short-live band April Showers who emerged out of Glasgow in 1984 – the other half was David Bernstein. (co-author of a very fine book which was reviewed back in 2014)

There was just the one single, but it was absolutely glorious and one of my favourites from the era:-

mp3 : April Showers – Abandon Ship

Beatrice was ages with me and I happened to be in her company a couple of times, but only as part of a larger social group in a city centre pub. She was the girlfriend of James Grant who, by complete coincidence, was featured on the blog just last Saturday.

She seemed a lovely, down-to-earth person and not the slightest bit big-headed or boastful about the fact she had made a pop record (which to me, at the time) was the be-all and end-all.

But pop music was not be her forte and while she remained on its fringes as a backing vocalist in studios and on stage – including stints with Love and Money – (and as I’ve since learned with a band of her own called Pale Fire, she began to carve out a career in journalism and writing, initially penning reviews and features for newspapers and magazines. Such was her talent for writing that, by her mid-30s, she was a published novelist and playwright. In later years, she would expand her horizons even further with a move into academia as a lecturer in Creative Writing. Her tragically young death at the age of 55, came after a long battle against ovarian cancer and has left a significant hole in the cultural life of my home city.

Thoughts are with her husband, children and close friends who will be missing her so much.

JC

A hastily added PS….

The above words were pulled together a few days in advance of the very sad news of the passing of Keith Flint.

There will be many tributes across the internet today on top of those which appeared throughout yesterday.  I’ll simply take a few words from a Facebook posting by a London-based friend of mine, the comedian Steve McLean:-

You know what I really loved about The Prodigy?

Almost everybody liked them. 

Back when people had very firm music camps that they stayed in, everyone would be enticed out with The Prodigy.  You were as likely to hear them played at The Underworld as you were at The Ministry.  Even before their heavier guitar sampling tunes too, everyone loved Charly and Out of Space – The Prodigy let you dance with all your mates regardless of your snobbery.

Later in their career they headlined both Download and Creamfields. Has there ever been another band that could do that?

RIP Keith Flint.

It’s become something of a tradition to use the 19 February posting to wish my wee brother, SC, a happy birthday.  This year, I’ll give him a New Romantics EP to remind him of the time when, as a teenager, he went about dressed a wee bit silly.  Only wish I had a photo from that era to share with you…..

mp3 : Duran Duran – Planet Earth
mp3 : Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This
mp3 : Visage – Fade To Grey
mp3 : Spandau Ballet – To Cut A Long Story Short

Incidentally, there was a song intended for this post but which I’ve pulled so that it can feature on its own tomorrow.

JC

PS : The lady holding SC is our mum, who herself turned 80 just a couple of weeks back.  And who can hold her drink and party harder than either of us!

mp3 : Various – The Fourteen of February

aka Songs of Love from me to you

Track Listing

There’s A Girl In The Corner – Robert Smith
I/m Not Here – The Twilight Sad
Thieves Like Us – New Order
Party In The Dark – Mogwai
Alex Discord – Port Sulphur
Trees and Flowers – Strawberry Switchblade
F.U.U. – Dream Wife (feat. Fever Dream)
Lazy Day (version) – The Boo Radleys
Eject (over zealous mix) – Senser
The Rubettes – The Auteurs
Sparky’s Dream – Teenage Fanclub
Jack In Titanic – Bodega
Emotional Haircut – LCD Soundsystem
Fresher Than the Sweetness in Water – Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci

Oh and there’s also a hidden track at the very end to take it all way up to 59:59.

Sets things up for something of a crazy weekend….young brother is flying over from Florida for a four-day stay (and isn’t he in for a massive shock to his system with the near 30 degree Centigrade drop in temperature), as we have a family bash to celebrate mum’s 80th birthday.  I’ve also got the Rovers on Saturday where I’ll be playing the pre-match tunes and talking gibberish in between catching up with a mate who is coming up from England to watch it.

Happy Listening

JC

A GUEST POSTING by MARTIN ELLIOT

Hi Jim,

Happy New Year and all the best for 2019!

I thought, why not round off 2018 with another Swedish EP for TVV?… It was another great year for new music to surface – also in Sweden. For accessibility I’ll stay, piu o meno, with tracks sung in English although it was a great year for music in Swedish. And I decided not to include Robyn as I assume most of you have had issues avoiding her return – the 2 singles released so far are in my opinion the two best tracks anyway so I won’t bore you with any of those here.

11 pm side

1. Henric De La Cour – Kowalski Was Here.

Former front figure of Swedish indie rockers Yvonne has gone all (goth)synth and on Gimme Daggers, his third solo album, the pieces fell into place. I believe he has some of the early New Order records at home. Did I see arms in the air?

2. ionnalee – Not Human.

Brought up in my home town she started out as indie rocker Jonna Lee, transmorphed into electronic audiovisual artist iamamiwhoami and in 2018 she moved into electronic (dance) artist ionnalee, releasing the magnificent album Everyone Afraid To Be Forgotten. Excellent live as well. She’s potentially the secret child of Kate Bush and Bernard Sumner.

3. Junior Brielle – Love.

A mix of Swedish and some English but I’m pretty sure this can take you all to the dance floor anyway!. Two brothers from the grim north, placing The Strokes‘ drummer in the lime light for 3 minutes. All that you ever want for your indie disco night: New Order synths, a steady beat, nice breaks, witty lyrics (the chorus goes You can always lie to yourself, but never lie to me) and some falsetto singing. Their first singles I disregarded as petty copies of now disbanded Swedish icons Kent, but second half of 2018 saw the release of a string of tracks taking that sound above and beyond their influence and into my heart.

4. Red Mecca – What Is Coming.

File under darkwave. Red Mecca is, or rather was, the duo of Jan Strandquist (formerly keyboards in 80’s post punk/new wave band Brända Barn (Burnt Children)) and young vocalist Frida Madeleine. Unfortunately Frida decided to leave after the excellent 2018 album I See Darkness In You for personal reasons. The mix of Jan’s long history in Swedish alternative music scene and Frida’s enchanting voice was a wonderful cocktail. The band continues with new vocalist Susanne and have released their first single after Frida’s departure. I have still to be truly convinced, we’ll see if they show up here in a year or not.

4 am side

1. Lykke Li – So Sad So Sexy.

She’s back four years after the monumental hit remix of No Rest For The Wicked featuring A$AP Rocky with a break-up album. So she’s become a mother and split up since last album, but she hasn’t lost her talent – just using it to get all her sorrow out of her system. Not angry, she understands how the world turns, but she needs to get history out of her mind.

2. Nina Kinert – Chapped Lips.

The album Romantic, 8 years after her PC war-game inspired last album, saw Nina Kinert churn out exactly what she said – a very romantic, ballad laden synth-pop album. And in my eyes the crown jewel is this wonderful duet with Future Island‘s Sam Herring. Some lyrical similarities with a Smiths track when you think about it.

3. Grant – Waterline.

Grant, after Cary Grant, is 25 year old Caroline who puts all of her bullied, torn and tormented youth into her debut album In Bloom. At times just a bit too much, but in Waterline she gets it all in the right places. The song about am in the end not committed suicide is very personal. I saw her performing this solo on a piano placed on a ramp just over the surface in the middle of a swimming pool in August – it was pure magic.

Bonus track:

Little Jinder – London Calling (live radio session).

Probably this will put some of you off, a lot…. I have to say London Calling is one of my all time fave tracks in its original version, so I was mildly said sceptical when I found this on YT. But as I do very much enjoy the teeny but intelligent pop Little Jinder does (only understandable for Swedish speaking) I gave it a listen, and she has actually been able to do something completely different of the song, turning it to her own. Give it a chance, live by the river.

In the same session she did a version of her own track Goldwing with a short but kind of nice homage to Joy Division. Also on YT.

Little Jinder – Goldwing

A fantastic 2019 to all of you, your faithful Swedish correspondent.

Martin