Blancmange, Colour Field, Divine, Echo & The Bunnymen, Everything But The Girl, Joe Jackson, Kane Gang

WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (July)

July 1984.  I spent most of the month inter-railing, myself and two girls using youth hostels en route to go from Glasgow to Rome, via London, Paris, Marseilles, Monte Carlo, Genoa and Viareggio where we realised we were running low on funds and so headed back via Venice and then overnight trains through Switzerland and Belgium before the boat back across the channel. As such, I can say with all honesty that I had no idea who was enjoying chart hits back home.

Thinking back to that trip, it’s unthinkable really to realise it was done without any sort of mobile technology and that all our cash was in sterling which was later exchanged at different times to francs and lira. We were also totally dependent on old-fashioned guide books and hostel info that we had borrowed from public libraries. Sadly, I’ve no photos at all from the adventure – I was in a relationship with one of the girls that later turned nasty, after which she destroyed almost everything that we collectively owned.

Anyways, back to the music.

1-7 July

Frankie Goes To Hollywood occupied #1 and #2 with Two Tribes and Relax. Nick Kershaw and Cyndi Lauper, sitting at #3 and #4, may well have been a tad upset that the mania engulfing the UK record-buying public prevented them hitting the top.

I do recall throughout my teen and youth years that the summer months were often quite barren in terms of new music and the first chart of July 1984 does nothing to distil such memories.   The Thompson Twins had the highest new entry at #28 with Sister Of Mercy, which I had to look up on YouTube to be reminded of. It’s an overwrought ballad whose subject-matter was domestic abuse, seemingly based on a real-life murder case in France.  Worthy but dull would be my verdict.

Ultravox were the next highest new entry, in at #33 with Lament, while the only other song to breach the Top 40 was State of Shock, a collaboration between The Jacksons and Mick Jagger.  I have no recollection of either of these hits.  The only two new entries further down that I can recall were ballads:-

mp3: The Kane Gang – Closest Thing To Heaven (#56)
mp3: Joe Jackson – Be My Number Two (#72)

The former would spend a couple of months in the chart, eventually peaking at #12 and is, by far, the one song most people of a certain age will recall when thinking of the Kane Gang.  The latter is not one that I’m particularly enamoured by, but it’s on the hard drive courtesy of a cheap ‘best of’ CD’ picked up in a charity shop quite a few years ago.

8-14 July

The top four were still the same, albeit Nik and Cyndi had switched positions. The highest new entry was a novelty comedy record; actor Nigel Planer had released an album in his guise as the character Neil from the sitcom The Young Ones.  The joke being that Neil was a peace-loving hippy, and the album was a mix of spoken tracks and 60s cover versions.  Hole In My Shoe, originally recorded by Traffic in 1967, came in at #5.  It would then spend three weeks stuck at #2 and if nothing else, we should perhaps be grateful that Two Tribes sold so heavily each and every week and prevented yet another novelty #1 single.

In among the dross was this at #26:-

mp3: Echo and The Bunnymen – Seven Seas

The Bunnymen‘s sixth successive Top 40 hit single and the third and final one to be lifted from Ocean Rain.  It’s decent enough albeit far from a classic, but it did lead to a stupidly amusing appearance on Top of The Pops which I saw on VHS tape, courtesy of a flatmate, on my return from Europe:-

Introduced by John Peel.  And there’s Bill Drummond down the front of the audience, looking geeky and awkward but ready to play his part in making waves.  The big question, though, is how did Les Pattinson manage to avoid being part of all this?  Oh, and just to mention…..my hair at this time was very much modelled on Mac’s look.

Keeping up the fun was this new entry at #38:-

mp3 : Divine – You Think You’re A Man

Bronski Beat were the serious side of gay culture in the pop charts. Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine, was the fun, cartoon-side of things back in 1984, with his drag-queen persona having long made him a film star prior to his pop/disco career. Divine brought his/her/their stage show to student venues in the UK in 1985, and I was lucky enough to see a performance at Strathclyde student union. It proved to be an outstanding night – the first time I realised live gigs delivered solely by backing tapes were not the devil incarnate!  You Think You’re A Man would eventually reach #16 and be the biggest hit for Divine, who sadly died in his sleep of a heart attack, aged just 42, in March 1988.

15-21 July

Just as it was looking as if the Top 40 this week was totally stagnant:-

mp3: Blancmange – The Day Before You Came (#39)

Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe‘s sixth Top 40 hit, but their first with a cover version, being a slightly unusual take on the Abba single released just two years previously.  Kind of hard to believe given how successful Abba were, but the cover version charted the highest of the two.  The Swedes peaked at #32, while Blancmange’s take climbed to #22, a chart position it held for three successive weeks.

Worth mentioning, perhaps, that two very old songs entered the singles chart this week, thanks to then being re-released.  A Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles came in at #54 (peaking the following week at #52) while Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones was a #59 entry, peaking the following week at #58. It was also the chart in which Ben and Tracy enjoyed a second success of the year:-

mp3: Everything But The Girl – Mine (#58)

Fair play to the duo, and the record label, for not lifting a second single from the Top 20 album Eden, but my recollection at the time when first hearing it was that it was a bit of a letdown, not having too much of a memorable tune.  I’ve grown to appreciate it more over the years, but it really felt like an outlier back in 1984. #58 was as high as it charted.

22-28 July

Ridiculously slim pickings this week.  It’s A Hard Life by Queen was the highest new entry at #23, with the next best newbies being Hazell Dean, Rod Stewart and Tracey Ullman at 25, 42 and 51 respectively.  I know I’ve featured Tracey Ullman before in this series, but Sunglasses, the song with which she entered the chart this week is one I just do not recall and having just gone again to YouTube to see if my memory could be jogged.  Turned out that it couldn’t, and I only managed to watch about thirty seconds of the video before hurriedly hitting the stop button.

And just as I was to completely give up and write-off this week’s chart:-

mp3: The Colour Field – Take (#70)

The only week in which the band’s second single breached the Top 75.

Looking back over all of this, it does seem that I picked a good month to be out of the country.

JC

Velvet Underground

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #391 : THE VELVET UNDERGROUND (2)

A guest posting by Swc

The second most influential band ever. A Velvet Underground ICA

As the long summer of 1991 faded to a rather limp end, the long lost Medway band, the Sexbirds clambered on to the small stage in the back room of Churchills Pub in Chatham. If they were disappointed by the small crowd they didn’t let it show, but as there was only three people there, they kind of had to have hoped for more. Still, they played a tight four song set full of post punk energy and displayed enough rock n roll attitude to impress the grumpy looking barman who literally served more pints than there were people. In that crowd, a devilishly good looking young chap stood alone from the other two people in the crowd, largely because he didn’t know them and standing with them in an empty room would have been weird.

But as the feedback influenced third song came to an end, the taller of the two other people wandered over to the devilishly good looking chap and said “Can you play guitar?” the good looking chap nodded even though he couldn’t play guitar, well not really. He’d had four lessons. “Good”, said the taller man, “let’s form a band, because if that lot can do it..” he hoisted a thumb at the stage, “anyone can…”.

Folks, only three people saw the Sexbirds live, but all three of them formed a band because of it and that in my eyes makes them most influential band in the history of rock music.

The distinct lack of available Sexbirds material makes an ICA on rocks most influential band impossible. So, here instead is an ICA on rocks second most influential band, The Velvet Underground (it will be debut album heavy, obviously)

The Velvet Underground are apparently one of those bands that you either get or you don’t. You either accept that they invented everything, literally everything, including the wheel, fire, glass, cigarettes and rock music, or you don’t. When I first heard the Velvet Underground, which was as a naïve seventeen-year-old in the bedroom of a much older woman* I didn’t get them. Then two years later as a student, I suddenly did.

Side One

Sunday Morning – The first Velvet Underground song I ever heard and it was this with its music box intro that confused me. In 1992, I thought this sounded dull but two years later that music box intro sounds beautiful and the way that Lou Reed’s guitar sounds all countrified (thanks to him loosening the strings) gives it a rather luminous glow of strangeness and uniqueness.

Pale Blue Eyes – ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ is rather confusingly a love song about a girl that Lou Reed used to date who had hazel coloured eyes. It is one of the most tender song that the band ever recorded and its rather wonderful because of it. It is taken from the third Velvet Underground record, which of all the Velvet Underground records it’s the one I play the least, but ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ is the stand-out track from it.

Venus In Furs – ‘Venus In Furs’ isn’t just a blend of hypnotic drone rock, sound textures and atmospheric brilliance. It’s a blend of hypnotic drone rock, sound textures and atmospheric brilliance that is also about sado masochism that was written in about 1965. That, folks, is why the Velvet Underground matter.

Rock N Roll (Full Length Version) – By the time the band reached album four, John Cale had of course departed to make some introrespective and abstract noises with his electric viola. Mo Tucker had also momentarily left as well so that she could have a baby. This left Lou Reed to stretch out and pretty much do what he wanted, and Lou Reed wanted to make a pop record. Albeit a pop record laced with the odd voyage into proto punk rock.

Run, Run, Run – According to legend, Lou Reed wrote this song on the back of an envelope whilst he and the rest of the band were on their way to a gig. If true, ‘Run, Run, Run’ is the greatest thing ever to be written on the back of an envelope and until -someone comes up with the secret of immortality and pops it down on the back of a gas bill – it always will be.

Side Two

What Goes On – ‘What Goes On’ was the only track to be released as a single from the band’s third album. Twelve years or so later, Talking Heads would borrow the organ riff and use it as the backdrop for ‘Once In A Lifetime’. That, folks, is another reason why the Velvet Underground matter, their influence and sound and organ riffs shaped so much of the music that we all loved as we grew up.

Sweet Jane (Full Length Version) – There are two tracks on ‘Loaded’ that sound like they could have featured on the debut Velvet Underground record. ‘Rock N Roll’ was one, ‘Sweet Jane’ is the other, and it fizzes with pure energy.

The Black Angel’s Death Song – ‘The Black Angel’s Death Song’ is extraordinarily good. The way that John Cale’s electric viola squeaks and scraps like someone dragging their fingernails over a chalkboard, the way Lou Reed’s vocals are kind of all over the place, its unsettling and ace at the same time.

White Light/White Heat – Just realised that I’ve almost reached the end and not once mentioned drugs. Well, let’s sort that now shall we. ‘White Light/White Heat’ is the greatest song ever written about the sensation that you get by injecting methamphetamine, and I’ll add for good measure it has the greatest ending to a track ever as John Cale’s distorted single chord bass goes batshit crazy.

Heroin – I’ll end with my favourite Velvets song. It needs little introduction but it’s insanely good. It’s insanely good because of the way that it all speeds up, and because of the way that Mo Tucker is drumming so fast that she has to stop drumming because she can’t keep up the rhythm that she started and it’s insanely good because literally no one notices, and she just joins back in amongst the squall of guitars and the screech of, well everything. Incredible.

* There were seven other people in that room at the time, and we’d just finished playing Monopoly, but it doesn’t sound as cool if I tell you that.

Thanks for reading, folks.

 

Swc

Pere Ubu

FOUR TRACK MIND : A RANDOM SERIES OF EXTENDED PLAY SINGLES

A guest series by Fraser Pettigrew (aka our New Zealand correspondent)

#3: Datapanik in the Year Zero – Pere Ubu (1978)

As a genre label, ‘post-punk’ implies some sort of influence and progression from punk, when in fact it was more like the way that natural selection operates in the biological world. Evolution is often misrepresented as an active, conscious process when it is really the accidental combination of random mutation and environment. Pere Ubu was one of many musical mutations taking place in the mid-70s and punk was the environment that enabled them to flourish.

Whatever the definition or consciousness of ‘punk rock’ was in Cleveland, Ohio in 1975, Pere Ubu were unquestionably distant from any mainstream music scene. Formed by two ex-members of recently disintegrated Cleveland band Rocket From The Tombs, singer David Thomas and guitarist Peter Laughner, Pere Ubu tagged themselves as ‘avant-garage’, a neat and clever coinage that indicated a different direction from their erstwhile bandmates Cheetah Chrome and Johnny Blitz who went on to form the very definitely punk Dead Boys.

Ubu’s music was an unsettling hybrid of mid-70s rock and weirdo gothic psycho-horror, and frontman Thomas wasn’t likely to soften the appeal. Always a big lad, usually dressed in an ill-fitting suit, there was no mistaking him for David Cassidy in the visual charisma stakes and his vocal style ranged from depressive mumble to disgruntled adenoidal bleat. Keyboard player Alan Ravenstine rarely played a chord, preferring to smother the music with harsh electronic noise that evoked the declining industrial landscape of rust-belt Cleveland. Altogether, you can see how the eclectic experimental non-conformism of post-punk drew Pere Ubu into the fold.

Datapanik in the Year Zero is a bit of an outlier in this EP series since it is a compilation drawn from three of the band’s first four singles rather than an original release of new material. As a compilation it’s a bit odd too because it contains only one a-side from those three, all three b-sides and a different unreleased version of one of the other a-sides.

The 12” EP was released in the UK early in 1978 in a one-off deal with Radar Records, to coincide with Mercury’s UK release of first album The Modern Dance. The singles had never been released outside America, having appeared only in limited numbers on Pere Ubu’s own Hearthan label. The name Hearthan became ‘Hearpen’ because it comes from the Anglo-Saxon for ‘harp’ and uses the ‘thorn’ character Þ which looks like a ‘p’ but sounds like ‘th’. As Thomas explained on his Crocus Behemoth website, “Confusion was the foundation on which the business grew”. So, not a slick marketing campaign and world-leading brand strategy, then?

Datapanik covers a two-year period from 1975 to 1977. The first side is a grim affair, containing both sides of the debut single, but opening with b-side Heart of Darkness. Not Joseph Conrad’s story but a similar nightmare of emotional dysfunction. A-side 30 Seconds Over Tokyo is about the 1941 Dolittle Raid on Japan, America’s first retaliation after Pearl Harbour, imagined from the perspective of one of the pilots, “never coming back from a suicide ride”. All six minutes and 20 seconds of it.

Dark stuff, and clearly not a serious bid for global rock stardom. But if you’re going to name yourself after an absurdist literary character, you might at least confound expectations. 30 Seconds was a reworking of a Rocket From The Tombs number, co-credited to Gene O’Connor (Cheetah Chrome), while Heart of Darkness was a Pere Ubu composition, but stylistically very much from the same crypt.

Second single Final Solution is another Rocket song, comparably morbid in title and sound, based on a heavy guitar lick that might have been plucked from The Stooges or MC5, with bleak lyrics of romantic rejection and existential despair. However, Final Solution is not included on Datapanik. The modern perspective assumes the reason is good taste, but the song is not about the Nazi final solution any more than Heart of Darkness is about colonialism in the Congo, and people weren’t so nervous about that sort of ambivalence in 1978 when this EP was released.

Whatever, the b-side Cloud 149 is the first track on side two of the EP, and it’s a distinct contrast to side one. It’s like the sun has come out and big Dave has suddenly, unexpectedly found love with the simple flip of a 7” slice of vinyl. The song bounces into life on overlapping layers of rhythm, settling into a briskly chugging syncopation with the kind of musical ingenuity that leaves you wondering where exactly the first beat in the bar is until the vocals nail it down. “Here she comes/She’s ok/I can tell/She’s ok…” From the lyrics it could be The Undertones or The Beach Boys, and it really doesn’t feel ironic. No idea what Cloud 149 means, unless it’s simply 140 clouds higher than cloud nine.

Third single Street Waves is completely absent along with its b-side My Dark Ages. The obvious rationale is that the same version of the a-side can be found on The Modern Dance album where it is one of the highlights of side one, a great little chunk of 70s rock’n’roll, though it has always sounded structurally weird to me, like the second half of a song rather than the whole thing. The explanation for the b-side’s omission may simply be that it’s not that great, certainly the least appealing of these early single tracks.

Fourth single The Modern Dance is sort of here, but in a different version from either the original a-side or the album version. Those two versions are exactly the same cut except that on the album the instrumental backing is accentuated by a metallic percussive clink, but on the single this rhythmic highlight is provided by that common musical instrument, a squeaky toy. The ‘Untitled’ version on Datapanik has neither clink nor eek, nor the call-and-response backing vocal that I used to think said ‘mantra mantra’ but I have since discovered is actually ‘merdre merdre’. All you Alfred Jarry fans will of course be keenly aware that ‘Merdre!’ is the opening line of the play Ubu Roi, a technical provocation to the French censor of 1896, usually translated into English as the definitely not sweary-word ‘Shrit!’

Final track Heaven was the b-side of The Modern Dance and is another little ray of melodic and lyrical sunshine: “A mid-summer’s night on a magic beach/The dreams that come to me, they don’t look out of reach… C’mon, darlin! It feels like heaven”.

The singles sampled on Datapanik, and the first two albums The Modern Dance and Dub Housing are, for me, the essential moments of Pere Ubu’s career. Focus and inspiration began to drift on New Picnic Time and The Art of Walking and weren’t recaptured after their subsequent split and reformation, nor were they evident to me on what I heard of David Thomas’s solo work. Too much formless electronic noise collage and weird yelping, not enough of the delicious punchy rock knocked slightly off kilter by the unique vocals and synth terror.

They were still impressive when I saw them supporting Gang of Four in 1981, when there was little indulgence of the shuffling sounds of the sands, but on record the appeal had faded. The self-defined avant-garage was something more accessible than avant garde and less ragged and more taut than garage, but rather too soon it became too much of one and not enough of the other.

Heart of Darkness

30 Seconds Over Tokyo

Cloud 149

Untitled

Heaven

 

Fraser

Super Furry Animals

SUPER FURRY SUNDAYS (aka The Singular Adventures of Super Furry Animals)

A guest series by The Robster

#20: Golden Retriever (2003, Epic, 673906 7)

For album #6, Super Furry Animals went back to basics. After the ambitious lushness of ‘Rings Around The World’ and the huge number of songs they wrote for it (which resulted in four months of discussions and arguments over which songs would be included and which ones wouldn’t), the band made a decision not to over-complicate things for the next record. Initially, the plan was to write songs all based around the same unconventional guitar tuning: D-A-D-D-A-D. And while a batch of songs were written to that concept, it was felt to be too limiting over all, so that plan was abandoned. However, the other plan to not write as many songs and not tinker too much with them was adhered to.

Recording took place through the second half of 2002 in a Cardiff office block. The band worked through the nights so as not to disturb the other occupants of the building during the day. The resulting record, ‘Phantom Power’ was unleashed in the summer of 2003. The contrast to its immediate predecessor was stark – it had a much more stripped back sound and a more cohesive style. The one thing it did retain was a stack of great songs.

The public’s first taste of the new album was Golden Retriever, released just one week beforehand.

MP3: Golden Retriever

It was one of those songs written by Gruff on his acoustic guitar in the D-A-D-D-A-D tuning and has real echoes of the blues about it, not just in the musical structure, but in Gruff’s lyrics referencing the devil and the crossroads. It certainly has a more basic, raw feel to it than the songs on ‘Rings Around The World’, but those amazing backing vocals at the end of the chorus, that escalating “dryyyyyyyyyy” really sets the whole thing off for me. It’s that tinge of brilliance that runs through nearly everything the Furries ever did.

As for those lyrics – they’re about Gruff’s girlfriend’s two golden retrievers. Yes, even the lyrics were shorn of their obtuse, complex nature. Well, for the most part.

Golden Retriever remains one of the band’s highest charting singles, reaching number 13 in the UK. It was released on three formats – 7” picture disc, CD and DVD – all of which contained these two b-sides:

MP3: Summer Snow
MP3: Blue Fruit

Summer Snow is a country song which includes the eventual album’s title, suggesting it only missed out on the final cut somewhat narrowly. Blue Fruit, meanwhile sounds like a classic SFA psychedelic odyssey. It also sounds like a b-side, and not one of the quality we’d come to expect of the band over the years. Both these b-sides were issued in the US on a 7” single via Stop Smiling, “the magazine for high-minded lowlifes” according to itself, in 2004.

Now, the bonus tracks for the ‘Phantom Power’ singles will be drawn from both the 2002 demos issued with the 20th anniversary edition of the album, and the 2004 companion album ‘Phantom Phorce’ which contained remixes of each track alongside some cynical mock commentary by the fictional producer “Kurt Stern”.

MP3: Golden Retriever [demo]
MP3: Golden Retriever [Killa Kela remix]

The demo features Gruff solo with his voice double-tracked, one track being one line behind the other. The rest of the band contributes noisily towards the end. The remix comes courtesy of pioneering UK beatboxer Killa Kela, who strips away most of the instrumentation and replaces it with his own vocal-based beats. Kurt Stern can be heard at the end expressing his disappointment at the song’s subject matter.

As far as first singles go, Golden Retriever was a very decent introduction to Phantom Power. Sadly, it has been somewhat forgotten about due to the band’s next two singles becoming among their best loved.

Incidentally, that guitar tuning D-A-D-D-A-D was also used to compose the two short instrumental tracks on ‘Phantom Power’. Their titles? The clue is in there…..

 

The Robster

Eyes Of Others

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #460: EYES OF OTHERS

Unashamedly copied and pasted from the website of the Manchester-based shop Piccadilly Records, which seems very apt as it was Manchester-based blogger Swiss Adam who first brought Eyes of Others to my attention:-

——

“Eyes of Others is the studio alias of Edinburgh based John Bryden, a self-christened ‘post-pub couldn’t get in the club’ producer.

Having announced their signing to Heavenly Recordings last November (2022) with the release of a 10” vinyl-only 6-track EP, Bewitched By The Flames, which sold out immediately through independent shops and mail order, Eyes Of Others is now set to present their debut, self-titled album.

Marrying the anything-goes, freestyle magpie tendencies of Beck and The Beta Band to the electronic stylings of primetime 80s New Order by way of the spacious moods conjured by King Tubby, Eyes of Others debut’s whimsical demeanour is the perfect sonic balm to the utter confusion of the outside world. As is its sense of almost Balearic musical freedom. Such a mindset is fundamental to the music according to Bryden.

“I was thinking where’s my spot?” Bryden reflects about the pick & mix quality of the album. “The music is later than a gig but it’s not full-on early morning club fare. It’s the in-between space where I was imagining where my music works.”

But his beguiling tunes are perfect for the music soundtracking the afters too. As the dawn breaks and the sun begins to rise. “Maybe there aren’t enough venues opening at 7am!” he laughs, before quickly adding: “I don’t think it will catch on unfortunately.”

——

I bought the self-titled debut album in due course, and used the blog in October 2023 to declare it as one of my most enjoyable purchases of the year.  A few months later, I caught a live performance in Glasgow in front of what was something of a meagre audience on a cold January evening, and came away quite annoyed that so few folk were picking up on things.

There’s not been any new music over the past 18 months, so I’m not sure if things have come to a crashing halt and that the legacy will be just the one rather excellent album.

mp3: Eyes of Others – Safehouse

I hope there’s more music in the pipeline.

 

JC

 

Talking Heads

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #100

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 100: Talking Heads – ‘Love → Building On Fire’ (Sire Records ’77)

Dear friends,

whenever you read something about New York’s famous CBGB club around 1975/’76, you can rest assured that four bands are always being cited: Television, Ramones, Blondie …. and Talking Heads. Now, the first three of those don’t come in as too much of a surprise, I’d reckon, but in the back of my mind I always wondered about the latter – I mean, Talking Heads don’t seem to have fitted in there, did they, bearing in mind that everyone was trying to re-invent the New York Dolls without sounding and/or looking like the New York Dolls (I know this is vast generalization, but it’s not too far away from the truth).

Probably this doubt derives from the fact that when you think about Talking Heads, your brain automatically pictures David Byrne in this overblown suit, being all arty and stuff, which was of course much later in their career. But perhaps this is just one of those psychological things your brain cannot fully cope with, like when I look you straight into the eye and ask you a) to concentrate on me and b) to quickly say for 20 times or so „white – white – white – white – white – white – white – white – white – white – white – white“ until I suddenly interrupt you with the question „what do cows drink?!”. Knowing you, most of you will have answered “milk”, you see, which cows don’t drink, at least not over here in Germany. Byrne’s suit is the same thing, of course – and I know because I was an Air Force medic when I was in the army, decades before I got employed to work for some obscure Scottish blogger on all too low wages!

But I digress, again: in their beginnings though, it was all much less grandiose, in CBGB and elsewhere Talking Heads entered the stage in the clothes they had worn all day, they did not try to look any special at all, the same is true for their performance: they just left the stage lights on and started. Also they were just a three-piece then, David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth – something which you will of course already have noticed when looking at the sleeve below – and quite often they opened the night for the Ramones. On one of those occasions, in 1975, Seymour Stein from Sire Records was in the audience, and apparently he was so fond of what he heard that he offered the band a contract – which they declined for a while, because they thought they weren’t yet good enough, that they still had to work on themselves. This apparently was achieved when Jerry Harrison from Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers was recruited for lead guitar, but before this happened, they changed their minds, signed with Sire and the first single was recorded – without Jerry Harrison.

Now, all of this boring stuff is important here, because this record presents Talking Heads in quite a different form. Just compare this version of ‘Love → Building On Fire’ (which is supposed to mean ‘Love Goes To Building On Fire’, don’t ask me why) to the one on the most fabulous ‘The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads’ live album: you’ll clearly see (or hear rather) the difference, exploding guitars live whereas here Byrne has a more minimalistic/robotic approach. This, to make that clear, does not mean that I dislike what the band did after this record, not at all. Nor do I prefer this one, or this version rather, in fact the live album was on constant play when I first got my hands upon it in the mid-80s: outstanding, as I said!

 

 

mp3: Talking Heads – ‘Love → Building On Fire’

The debut album was released half a year later, and ‘Love → Building On Fire’ was not on it. What was on it though was ‘Psycho Killer’, a song well known to everyone and also a good example to show what would make Talking Heads so very special throughout their career.

But either way, I always liked the very first single very much – in my book, it is well deserved to be included in the singles box.

Enjoy and take good care.

 

Dirk

 

Style Council

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (35) : The Style Council – The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Quite a number of years ago, 2015/16 to be precise, I pulled together a series on all the singles released by The Style Council.  As always with these things, it was the singles released in the UK which were featured, meaning that this one was missed out.

The stomping Walls Come Tumbling Down was selected, in May 1985, as the advance single for band’s second album, Our Favourite Shop. It was a hit, reaching #6, and giving the band its eighth successive Top 20 appearance, with six of those being Top 10.  The selection of the politically cynical song, Come To Milton Keynes, as the next single was, on reflection, a bit of a mistake as it stalled at #23, and was therefore something of a flop all things considered.

It was very much a UK release, with the markets in mainland Europe, Japan, the USA, Australia and New Zealand being exposed to a different song altogether from the album:-

mp3: The Style Council – Boy Who Cried Wolf

I’ve mentioned before that this one always reminds me of the break-up of what I felt was a serious relationship in the later years of my student days.  An upbeat and uplifting tune which masks a very sad and sentimental lyric, packed with regret and more than an element of self-loathing.  It could have been subtitled ‘All Men Are Bastards’.  It’s a break-up song which is the complete opposite of The Bitterest Pill, an earlier composition from Paul Weller and one of the most underrated singles released by The Jam, as its narrative came from being blameless for a relationship coming to an end.

I picked up this 7″ in a charity shop a few years ago.  It was issued by Polydor Records for the Dutch market.

Its b-side was the same previously unreleased song as had been found on the b-side of Come To Milton Keynes:-

mp3: The Style Council – (When You) Call Me

A rather lovely romantic number, almost perfect for daytime radio, that might well have made a fine single of its own,

JC

PS : The mp3s that should have been included in yesterday’s post on The Fall, but weren’t properly linked, have now been sorted.  Apologies for the technical mishap.

Fall

ON THIS DAY : THE FALL’S PEEL SESSIONS #10

A series for 2025 in which this blog will dedicate a day to each of the twenty-four of the sessions The Fall recorded for the John Peel Show between 1978 and 2004.

Session #10 was broadcast on this day, 9 July 1986, having been recorded on 29 June 1986.

The tenth session represents the high watermark of The Fall at the zenith of their Beggars Banquet years.  A brittle, fresh ‘Hot Aftershave Bop’ writes large Smith’s obsession with US garage punk. While other bands were flirting at the time with the movement that was to become known as goth, ‘R.O.D.’ and ‘Gross Chapel’ demonstrate real dark, gnarled, gothic rock. If this wasn’t enough, ‘US 80s-90s’ is incredible, with Somon Rogers’ machines hovering loudly above the mix.

DARYL EASLEA, 2005

mp3: The Fall – Hot Aftershave Bop (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – R.O.D. (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Gross Chapel – GB Grenadiers (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – US 80s-90s (Peel Session)

Produced by Dale Griffin, engineered by Mike Engles

Mark E Smith – vocals; Brix Smith – guitar, vocals; Craig Scanlon – guitar; Steve Hanley – bass; Simon Rogers – guitar, keyboards; Simon Wolstencroft – drums;

JC

Elastica

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #390 : ELASTICA

SWC has never been short of great ideas for features over at No Badger Required. One of the longest-running is ‘Nearly Perfect Albums’, his regular Saturday series and which, at the end of last month, reached #163 with a look at the eponymous debut by Elastica, released on Deceptive Records back in 1993.

He told us he originally had the album on a very long list for inclusion in the series, but removed it a while back because it maybe wasn’t as near perfect as he’d first thought. One day, the song Never Here came up on random shuffle and it made him think again.  His subsequent post about the debut album in a way has inspired me to come up with an ICA.  Here’s SWC:-

“Foolishly I thought I was tired of ‘Elastica’ bored perhaps of it or more probably I’d just stopped listening to it, but the truth is ‘Elastica’ is a tremendous record. It arrived at just the right time, just as Britpop was becoming, well Britpop and the thing about it that made it stand out back in 1993 was how Elastica as a band stood head and shoulders above nearly all the other indie guitar bands that were surfacing at the time.

..ultimately it was mainly about the tunes with Elastica. . Their songs were punchy and catchy and quite often blatant rip-offs of songs by Wire, but Elastica didn’t care and made us not care either. Elastica made us dance and smile.”

He does go on to suggest that you should forget about the second album, and in fact the entirety of the rest of their back catalogue and think of them as the greatest one album band that ever existed, with an impact that remains solid to this day.  It’s hard to disagree, but I will find some space for a couple of later songs on the ICA.

Let’s get some facts established.  Elastica’s entire recorded output isn’t massive but it’s perhaps marginally bigger than most folk think.

There were four singles prior to the debut album, all between 1993 and 1995.  There was a gap of four years till 1999, by which time the original line-up had splintered when a six-track EP was issued.  A single, followed by the second studio album, was the output in 2000, and finally, there was a stand-alone single in 2001, followed by a 21-song CD compilation drawn from sessions recorded for BBC Radio One.

Some songs, initially recorded for BBC sessions, would have the titles changed by the time they made it to any official release.  All told, I came up with 44 different songs for consideration that have been whittled down to this 12-track ICA (the running time of a 10-track ICA would be too short).

SIDE A

1. Stutter

Where it all started.  The ‘classic’ line-up of Elastica, comprising Justine Frischmann (vocals, guitar), Donna Matthews (guitar. vocals), Annie Holland (bass) and Justin Welch (drums) had been together since late 1992, and were soon being highlighted as ‘ones to watch’ by the UK music papers and monthly magazines, whose contributors were clearly delighted to have that rare thing of a decent band from right on their doorsteps to go and see and subsequently write about.

The debit single was released in the UK on 1 November 1993  and on 7″ vinyl only.  A fast-paced and energetic number which was very obviously heavily influenced by the new wave/post-punk era, with a wry lyric about drunken impotence and the excuses offered up by non-performing males. It still sounds great more than 30 years on.  I never picked up a copy of the single, but was aware of it thanks to it being voted in at #38 in the Peel Festive 50, despite having only been released just a month previously.

I finally picked up the song on CD, courtesy of being one of 18 songs on the NME Singles of The Week 1993 compilation, which I recall buying in early February 1994, just after I’d seen Elastica play at King Tut’s in Glasgow.  It was an excellent, if short performance, and I came away knowing I had all the neccesary evidence that the band was worthy of the hype accorded them by the London-based papers.

2. Vaseline

Sex was always a big factor in the appeal of the band.  All four members were cool and incredibly good-looking in totally different ways.  The debut single, of course,  hadn’t shied away from messy sex, and one of their next songs to come to wider attention is, according to SWC, ‘possibly the greatest song about female masturbation ever.’.

Vaseline was aired on via a Peel Session in December 1993, the first of what would be four such sessions for his show, while there would also be three others over the years for other Radio 1 DJs.   The Peel session version of the song is, as you’d expect, a bit rough’n’ready. Their next version to reach the public was the demo, issued as a b-side to the single Line Up.  I feel they nailed it best on the debut album, especiallt that ‘la la la las’ which sound so like Blondie in their 1979 pomp, and that’s the version on offer today.

3. Car Song

Let’s talk some more about sex.  Car Song, from the debut album, is about enjoying a bit of what I used to refer to as ‘bare-bum-boxing’ in the cramped confines of the back seats of small vehicles, with Ford and Honda referenced in the lyric.  Despite the subject matter, it was actually released as a single in the USA in January 1996, promoted in part by a Spike Jonze-directed video, elements of which clearly inspired the Beastie Boys when it came to ideas for Intergalactic a few years later.  Incidentally, if you’re wondering why Annie Holland is absent from the video, then that’s down to her having left the band in August 1995, citing exhaustion from the constant touring.

4. How He Wrote Elastica Man

Other than one BBC Radio One session in July 1996, the band were incredibly quiet for over four years.  It would later transpire that personality clashes, issues around drug dependencies, ill-health and a touch of writers-block had contributed to major problems behind the scenes.   The sudden and unexpected release in mid-August 1999 of the Elastica 6 Track EP didn’t contain too many clues as to what had been happening, but Justine later explained that it wasn’t a big comeback release but instead was intended to try and capture for posterity what some of the recordings in the intervening period.  The highlight was its opening track, one on which Mark E Smith offers a co-vocal and on which Julia Nagle, a member of The Fall between 1995 and 2001, is given a credit for the lyric.  A different recording of the song would later appear on The Menace, the second and final Elastica album, released some eight months later.

5. Rock ‘n’ Roll (Mark Radcliffe Session)

A year after the debut album had gone to #1 in the UK, the band was invited to record a new session for the Marc Radcliffe show on BBC Radio One.  Such sessions normally were made up of four songs, and bands often took the opportunity to play some new material.  Elastica played four old songs, two of which had been on the album while the other two were what could be described as obscure, consisting as they did of previous b-sides.  Rockunroll had, like Vaseline mentioned above, been a b-side on Line Up, but here it was with a slightly different title and harder edge airing on national radio almost two years on.  It’s not their greatest moment, but it makes it onto the ICA for its ‘novelty’ factor.

6. Never Here

The song which caused SWC to reconsider the debut album as being worthy of inclusion in his series. At just under four-and-a-half minutes, it is the longest in the entire Elastica catalogue, and perhaps that is the key to why it such a great one to listen to.  It is supposedly about Justine’s break-up with Brett Anderson with whom she had formed Suede in 1989, only to take her leave of the band when the relationship ended.

SIDE B

1. Line Up

This was the band’s second single, released in January 1995.  It reached the Top 20 of the singles chart a couple of weeks later, so you can imagine that the live show I saw at King Tut’s around this time was a hot ticket, and I’m convinced the numbers in attendance was a fair bit over the venue’s official capacity.  The sort of thing that nowadays would piss me off but back then, at the age of 31, it was an enjoyably hot and sweaty night.

The relationship between Justine Frischmann and Damien Albarn was all over the music papers, and on hearing Line Up, I was convinced that he was a silent partner when it came to writing Elastica’s songs, such was this one’s similarities to the Modern Life Is Rubbish era of Blur.  Other folk thought Line Up was awfully similar to I Am The Fly and that Elastica were mere plagasists of Wire.  I wasn’t so sure at that point in time……..

2. Connection
3. See That Animal

…..and then came the next ‘big’ song from the band.  Those making that plagiarism accusations were given all the ammunition they needed with Connection, a song that had aired in a BBC Session in March 1994 and later released as the third single in October 1994.   It is impossible to deny that its opening was identical to Three Girl Rhumba, a song that had been written and recorded by Wire for their 1977 album, Pink Flag.  Connection was credited to Frischmann/Elastica which rather pissed off the members of Wire. It all ended up in the hands of lawyers, and in due course an out-of-court settlement was agreed.

The b-side to Connection was a bit of an oddity in that the writing credits are attributed to Brett Anderson/Justine Frischmann/Elastica, which clearaly indicates See That Animal was an early Suede song, but one that not taken any further.  Its inclusion on the ICA is, again, more to do with the novelty factor, albeit it is one that wouldn’t have sounded too out of place on Elastica’s debut album.

All this stuff about ripping-off other bands must surely have made everyone wary going forward.

4. Waking Up

The song chosen to immediately preceed the release of the debut album.  Waking Up is probably the most readily identifiable of all the Elastica songs and it did provide them with their biggest selling single, entering and peaking at #13 in February 1996, just a few weeks before the album entered at #1 prior to enjoying a 12-week stay in the Top 50 all the way through to mid-summer.

Guess what? It was another that led to a lawsuit, this time from the Stranglers, who won the arguement that Waking Up took the riff from No More Heroes.  Again, it was settled out of court and this instance, part of the settlement involved Elastica agreeing to co-credit the Stranglers as song writers.

5. Generator

The credits on the back of The Radio One Sessions CD, released in October 2001, helps to highlight how often the personnel changed and helps illustrate the choas surrounding the band.

The five sessions between August 93 and March 95 feature the ‘classic’ line-up.

The sixth session, in July 1996 has Sheila Chipperfield playing bass in place of the departed Annie Holland, with the sound being augmenteed by Dave Bush, a past member of The Fall, coming in on keyboards.

The seventh and final session, for John Peel, in September 1999 had six musicians involved.  Justine Frischmann and Justin Welch remained ever-presents and now  Annie Holland was back in fold; however, Donna Matthews was no longer involved, having left a few months earlier, unable to cope with her heroin addiction.  Dave Bush had shifted from keyboards to programming, and coming in new were Sharon Mew (keyboards) and Paul Jones (guitar).

The Menace, the second Elastica album would eventually be released in April 2000, having been recorded, in the main, by the six musicians who played on that September 1999 Peel session.  But a number of the songs on the album were taken from earlier recording sessions on which Donna Matthews had played prior to her departure and on which Sheila Chipperfield had played prior to Annie Holland’s return.   Given how messy it all was, it’s not really too much of a surprise that the overall quality of the album is lacking, but I’ll argue that Generator is more than listenable.

6. The Bitch Don’t Work

Deceptive Records had closed down in early 2021, and their American label dropped Elastica following the poor sales of The Menace.  Sessions for an intended third album were abandoned and in October 2001, Justine Frischman spoke to the NME:-

“Yes, we have split up. It’s actually not official yet. We’ve got a Peel Sessions album coming out and we’ve got a farewell single coming out. I’m actually hugely relieved, to be honest. I’m feeling much happier. I don’t want to say I’ve got other projects, because it’s such a cliche, but I have. It will be music, I’m not suddenly going to have an acting career.”

The farewell single was released by Wichita Recordings in November 2001, and it makes sense to close off the ICA with it.

So there you have it.  12 songs from Elastica, neatly wrapped around the story of how they came to be, how they came to enjoy success, how it all unravalled and how it ended.

A damn near perfect debut album and some decent enough stuff from elsewhere.

 

JC

 

Monnone Alone

ONE SONG ON THE HARD DRIVE (20)

The Lucksmiths were a very well-thought of Australian indie-pop band, with eight albums between 1993 and 2008.  The bass player was Mark Monnone, and when the band broke-up, he embarked on a solo career using the rather obvious but brilliant name of Monnone Alone.

The debut album, Together At Last, was released in 2013, a year when Monnone Alone appeared at Indietracks, with one of the album tracks finding its way onto the celebratory compilation for that year’s festival.

mp3: Monnone Alone – Echoing Days

It really does evoke the spirit of C86, and therefore I’m willing to wager that the appearance of our Australian friend in deepest Derbyshire in 2013 went down well.

 

JC

Super Furry Animals

SUPER FURRY SUNDAYS (aka The Singular Adventures of Super Furry Animals)

A guest series by The Robster

#19: It’s Not The End Of The World? (2002, Epic, 672175 6)

These days, when a band releases a new album, you get four or five “singles” released from it before it’s even out! It leaves very little left to discover when you do eventually get to hear the full record, and chances are all the best tracks have been out for weeks. Way back yonder, it was very different – one single, then the album, then two or three more singles to keep the album in consumers’ minds for a while longer.

Six months after ‘Rings Around The World’ hit the shelves, January 2002 in fact, a third and final single was issued from it. Now, as I said last week, ‘Rings…’ is not meant to be taken as a collection of individual songs, it is a proper old-fashioned album – it’s meant to be listened to as a whole. This might explain why the choice of singles from it were not exactly the best. If it were me, I’d have put out Sidewalk Serfer Girl, maybe an edit of Run! Christian, Run! if I could make it work, or even the brilliantly bonkers Receptacle For The Respectable. Instead, the band (or label, not sure who made those decisions) opted for this one:

mp3: It’s Not The End Of The World? [edit]

(The full album version was released across all formats, but I thought I’d post this ever-so-slightly shorter version which featured on a radio promo CD, never commercially issued anywhere! You’re welcome.)

For perhaps the first time, it’s a single that divided the critics, with the words “bland” and “a bit rubbish” being used in reviews, certainly not things the band had previously experienced. And I kind of get it. It was never a big fave of mine, though in the context of the album it’s OK, but I never would have had it down as a single.

As for what it’s about – Gruff described it as “a romantic song about getting old”, with lyrics touching on the very real possibility of human extinction. “When people talk about saving the world they’re really talking about saving humans. The reality is that humans are the problem […] maybe we’ll all die but the world’ll still be here, even if it’s a dark, singed piece of rock flying around the sun”.

A bit like the first of the singles from ‘Rings Around The World’, the b-sides to this one were better than the a-side. Again, there was no 7”, but the CD, cassette and DVD (yes, a DVD single!) all contained these two:

mp3: The Roman Road

mp3: Gýpsy Space Muffin

I have to say, while this period didn’t produce the best singles, some of the band’s very best b-sides exist here. The Roman Road is right up there with Patience, Edam Anchorman and Tradewinds as the best SFA songs you never heard. It’s a fabulous bit of country-rock with a very hummable chorus, glorious harmonies and some pedal steel – an instrument they’d work with more in the near future. The other b-side is perhaps a more conventional throwaway little thing, but it does have enough psychedelic glam-rock charm to lift it above the a-side in terms of interest.

Now, for your bonus tracks this week, a little bit of a special treat. I have a bootleg of Super Furry Animals playing in Chicago during their 2002 US tour. It’s an audience recording, but it sounds decent. Firstly, you’re getting a live version of today’s featured track which featured in the set:

mp3: It’s Not The End Of The World? [live at the Metro, Chicago]

As an added bonus, I’m giving you the track they closed that set with. Since the ‘Guerrilla’ sessions, Cian, Bunf, Guto and Daf had formed their own side project. They called themselves Das Koolies, and while their name was floated around in fans forums here and there, no one really knew if they actually existed. Over the years, Das Koolies made a number of electronic-heavy recordings, but never released anything. Until… in 2021, some years after SFA broke up, Das Koolies started releasing stuff, reworked and remixed from their horde. In 2023, they put out their debut album, which opened with a big-beat stomper called Best Mindfuck Yet. Where am I going with this? Well, more than two decades earlier, during that live show in Chicago, some of Super Furry Animals performed this as an encore:

mp3: Best Mindfuck Yet [live at the Metro, Chicago]

It’s an early version of the song that would otherwise remain locked in the Super Furry vaults for 20 years! Both these tracks have never been officially released, so enjoy. Again, you’re welcome.

 

The Robster

The Exile

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #459: THE EXILE

Here’s another lot of whom I knew nothing until their inclusion on the Big Gold Dreams box set.

Coming straight out of Bishopbriggs, The Exile were the sound of the (Glasgow) suburbs. 

Formed by Graham Scott, who cut his musical teethin pre-punk rockers Free Flight before The Exile’s school tie and leather jacketed quartet released the four-track ‘Don’t Tax Me EP’ on their own Boring Records.

As well as ‘Hooked On You”s slice of scratchy would-be power pop, the record featured ‘Fascist DJ’ about Radio Clyde’s Tom Ferrie who had helped spearhead Glasgow’s ‘ban’ on punk gigs.  The Exile had fallen foul of the ban by way of a cancelled show with The Jolt, Johnny & The Self Abusers and The Cuban Heels.  There followed a one-off single on Charly Records and an appearance of their track ‘Disaster Movie’ on Beggar Banquet’s compilation, ‘Streets’, before The Exile morphed into the Television-inspired Friction, fizzling out after another single on Boring.

mp3: The Exile – Hooked On You

If I had been serving on a Jukebox Jury back in 1977, I’m afraid I’d have called this out as a miss.

 

JC

 

Father Sculptor

THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (25): Father Sculptor – Faith & Violence EP

R-4521281-1367243191-4073

Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before.

I’ve written about Father Sculptor a couple of times on this version of the blog, but they were all over the old, original version of TVV that was blown out of the water by Blogger back in July 2013.  If you don’t mind me recapping……

It began in February 2011 when I went along to a gig at King Tut’s at the suggestion of Drew (Across The Kitchen Table); there was a huge buzz about a band called Spector and we both wanted to see what the fuss was about. To be honest, they were dull and not worth bothering about.

But we were both taken by the appearance of one of the support bands – Father Sculptor – and in the subsequent review of the gig on the old blog I raved about them. To my total surprise, an e-mail appeared in the Inbox a few days later from the band, not only thanking me for the kind words but telling me they were avid readers of The Vinyl Villain, and it had meant a lot to them to get a mention.

Thus began regular exchanges of correspondence – I was usually among the first to get a listen to their new material which they would in due course post online at their website, always without fail giving it very positive mentions on the blog. The bands consisted of five young men, all studying in Glasgow, although none were actually from the city. In time, they began to get a wider press with positive write-ups in the NME and The Guardian newspaper, as well as a range of web-based music outlets.

The band scrimped and saved towards their ambition of actually making a physical record instead of merely making things available as downloads, and I was thrilled, delighted and honoured when they asked if I could promote a show for them in Glasgow for the launch of what would be a self-financed debut EP on 12″ vinyl.

The gig took place in Stereo on Saturday 13 April 2013. There was a more than decent turnout and the boys played a terrific set. I spent some time with them the following morning, during which it hit me that while they were possibly on the verge of greatness, there were some things that could easily tear them apart.   It felt that they weren’t a completely cohesive unit in the social sense, and so there were bound to be fall-outs, especially given how young and relatively inexperienced they were; furthermore,  they would soon be reaching a stage when they were no longer students and facing the situation of needing to find employment of some sort or other, which was more than likely to impact on their continued abilities to rehearse, write and possibly record.

I’ve no idea what happened next.  It turned out that the EP was their only physical release and Thomas David (vocals), Joseph (guitars), Felix (drums), Matthew (keyboards, vocals) and Phil (bass) must have, as I feared, gone their separate ways.

Just about everything can be listened to over at this YouTube page.   But I thought it would be worth offering up the songs from the EP:-

mp3 : Father Sculptor – Basilica
mp3 : Father Sculptor – Sault
mp3 : Father Sculptor – The Swim
mp3 : Father Sculptor – Lowlands
mp3 : Father Sculptor – Swallowed In Dreams

So much potential that was never realised……but then again, the music industry is littered with such stories.

JC

Book Reviews

BOOK OF THE MONTH : JULY 2025 : THEMES FOR GREAT CITIES by GRAEME THOMSON

JC writes……

I know, I know.  You wait ages for a post about Simple Minds, and two come along in very quick succession.  These things happen…..

I thought I’d try and be smart with this one.  Knowing that Jonny the Friendly Lawyer was a huge fan of Derek Forbes, the original bass player with Simple Minds, I thought he’d like to read the band biography, written by Scottish author Graeme Thomson, and so I took a copy over as one of a number of gifts that myself and Rachel wanted to pass onto him and Goldie as our way of saying thanks for inviting us to their home in Santa Monica for an extended stay. I did suggest that, if he wanted, he could submit a review for inclusion as part of this monthly series, and he has very kindly done so.

Here’s Jonny………

“JC asked me to write a review of ‘Themes for Great Cities, A New History of Simple Minds‘ by Graeme Thomson. My one word review is: unreadable. I like Simple Minds okay, or did for the first few albums. I was definitely an admirer of bassist Derek Forbes. But I do NOT recommend this book because of the hopelessly overwrought writing. It contains passages like the following:

Page 1: “I hear the otherworldly pulse of ‘In Trance as Mission’, with its ‘holy backbeat’ and the hopscotch skip of the bassline, like a loved-up heart murmur, or a dog running on three legs, forever slipping off the pavement edge.” (Italics in original.)

Page 120: “In this band, everybody is playing a different part. They’re like a succubus for the music, it is just flowing through them. They are doing what the unit they have formed demands of them. When you’re a band you become some weird symbiotic organism. You recognize body language, you start looking at each other’s books and magazines, you start noticing what part of the papers you all read. You find each other. When a band clicks you just know it, and it’s beautiful.”

Page 193: “Large parts of the two albums are simply beautiful, opening out slowly like long sunsets, dark orange and charcoal.”

Page 256: “The core bass line is, in some respects, the logical destination of Forbes as a bass player – from maximalist ‘X’ and ‘Y’ shapes to one minimalist ‘D’ note repeating ad infinitum. Rhythm pared back to its essence, the eternal cosmic throb.”

Dancing about architecture, to say the least. I don’t know if Thomson is a frustrated poet, or a starstruck fanboy, or is simply given to flights of extravagant, unnecessary prose, or what.

I guess the book includes subjects like how the band got together and recorded and performed, but it’s buried underneath endless steaming piles of superfluous verbiage. Simple Minds are a pretty popular band–there’s got to be a better written biography out there than this one.

Jonny

Oh dear……the song selected doesn’t quite fit.

mp3: Simple Minds – Book of Brilliant Things

From Sparkle In The Rain, released in February 1984, and the last studio album from the early era to which Derek Forbes contributed.

Finally, for today.  You’ll recall that I ran a competition for two folk to win a copy of the June Book of the Month, the rather fabulous You’re Doing It All Wrong : My Life As A Failed Rock Star (In The Best Band You’ve Never Heard) by Michael M. 

Thanks to everyone who entered. The two names drawn out of the hat were mnfennell and papa stew.  My huge thanks to everyone who entered.  I’ll likely run another competition of some sorts towards the end of the year.

JC

Various

HEY CHAT GPT…..(no please, don’t run away!!!)

It was last Friday night.

I couldn’t be bothered watching the BBC coverage of Glastonbury.  Down at the bottom of the road, in a nearby park, Simple Minds were trying their best to play the loudest ever outdoor gig in Glasgow.  I sat down at the laptop, fired up the appropriate programme and got on with the task of coming up with the latest hour-long mix for the blog.

Job done.  I gave it a listen.  Was happy with the outcome.

But, try as I might, I couldn’t come up with a killer title after what had been a long day  – it was now just after 11pm and the folk at the gig were now getting into their cars, slamming the doors shut and starting their engines.  Sleep would still be a while away.

I went to Chat GPT (I know….I know!!!).

I typed in ‘What name should I give to a music mix with the following songs?’ and listed all 18 tunes.

This is what came back:-

Awesome mix! It’s got a great range of styles—funky, indie, alternative, and some classic bangers. Here are a few name ideas that might capture the vibe:

1. “Eclectic Frenzy” – Reflects the mix of genres and the energetic feel of the playlist.
2. “Tales From The Underground” – For a collection that has both depth and some edge.
3. “Sonic Mischief” – A nod to the “fun lovin'” vibe with a bit of rebellious energy.
4. “Waves & Whispers” – Mixing the laid-back sounds of some tracks with the intensity of others.
5. “Criminally Good” – A playful take on the Fun Lovin’ Criminals, with a nod to the rock and indie influences.
6. “Twisted Melodies” – For the mix of unexpected twists in sound and style.
7. “Offbeat Anthems” – Reflecting both the alt and indie influence, with some quirky throwbacks.
8. “Shadows & Lights” – Inspired by the contrast of dark and light themes in the mix, from moody to uplifting.
9. “Fuzzy Frequencies” – Captures the overall raw, fuzzy vibe some tracks bring.
10. “Rolling Through the Spectrum” – A playful nod to the wide range of styles and moods in the tracklist.

Pretty pish, eh?

I slept on it.  And had a lightbulb moment, of sorts, in the morning. Thank you MES.

mp3: Various – Desperate For Entertainment

Beastie Boys – The Blue Nun
Fun Lovin’ Criminals – The Fun Lovin’ Criminal
Super Furry Animals – Golden Retriever
Robert Forster – I Don’t Do Drugs I Do Time
The Fall – A Lot Of Wind (Peel Session)
Radiohead – Paranoid Android
All Saints – Pure Shores
Hifi Sean ft. Crystal Waters – Testify
Working Men’s Club – Widow
Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen In Love?
The Popguns – Waiting For The Winter
R.E.M. – Star 69
Maximo Park – Apply Some Pressure
Fontaines D.C. – Big
The Flatmates – I Could Be In Heaven
Close Lobsters – Skyscrapers of St Mirin
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll
The Duckworth Lewis Method – Rain Stops Play

Enjoy!!!!!!!

JC

Simple Minds

SHOULD’VE BEEN A SINGLE ?(6)

A couple of years back, I came up with the idea of a series in which I’d feature songs that would have been massive hits if the band and/or record label had released them as singles. I was full of great intentions, but the series got lost as I got distracted by other things and disappeared off the TVV radar after just these five suggestions:-

The Clash – Clampdown
The Chameleons – Looking Inwardly*
New Order – Age Of Consent
Echo & The Bunnymen – Heaven Up Here
Teenage Fanclub – Don’t Look Back

* a guest posting by Adrian Mahon

I’m going to try again, without promising that it will be a very regular thing.

The story of early Simple Minds is one of frustration and, with the benefit of hindsight, loads of missed opportunities from Arista Records.

Debut single Life In A Day did sneak into the charts at #62 in May 1979, but follow-up Chelsea Girl sunk without trace, although the debut album (also called Life In Day) did hit the Top 30.    There was a degree of dissatisfaction among the group as to how the songs on the first album had been produced, and they decided to quickly return to a studio, with a new producer in the shape of John Leckie, and work on a new album with a bit more spontaneity.

It all meant Real To Real Cacophony was ready for release in November 1979.  The only problem?  Arista Records hated the results, and the marketing/promotion efforts were almost non-existent.  The album failed to make it into the Top 100, and it took until January 1980 before a single was lifted from the album and giving a grudging release.

The song chosen was Changeling.  It’s a more than decent number and perhaps, if it had been given any decent support by the label, it might have been a hit.

The b-side was another track lifted from the album, and given what would eventually happen with Simple Minds, then someone at Arista should still be hanging their heads in shame for relegating it to a b-side and not recognising that it had ‘hit’ written all over it.

mp3: Simple Minds – Premonition

I do get that with a running time of more than five minutes, Premonition wasn’t tailor-made for radio, but a bit of judicial editing, perhaps bringing in the vocals a bit earlier than the one-minute mark and an earlier fade-out, perhaps just after Jim Kerr has sung his last note, and you’d have had something quite special.

As it was, Arista would make a further mess of the band’s third album, Empires and Dance, as well as its two singles I Travel and Celebrate, and their full potential was only realised when they moved over to Virgin Records.

 

JC

Super Furry Animals

SUPER FURRY SUNDAYS (aka The Singular Adventures of Super Furry Animals)

A guest series by The Robster

#18: (Drawing) Rings Around The World (2001, Epic, 671908 6)

The fifth Super Furry Animals album, ‘Rings Around The World’, was, and remains, my favourite SFA record. This, despite me really disliking its first single. The band really took advantage of the bigger budget they were afforded by their new label and the result was an album full of lush strings and orchestrations, coupled with an ambitious cinematic production. And, of course, some wonderful songs.

The original idea was to go all-in and make a double album called ‘Text Messaging Is Destroying The Pub Quiz As We Know It’, which, lets face it, is a brilliant title for a record. While that idea was scaled back somewhat, Gruff admitted he still wanted to go to excess. “We were trying to make a blockbuster album that was going to be like The Eagles. We were trying to make utopian pop music that had pretensions of being progressive and exciting.”

However you’d describe it, it cannot be denied that it still, to this day, sounds like a real triumph. It’s the band’s high-point, in my opinion. While we’re talking about my opinion, I think ‘Rings’ works as a whole, a wonderful album that should always be played from start to finish. It’s the sort of record that only really makes sense that way. This may be the reason then that I’ve always been disappointed by the choice of singles released from it. They don’t really cut it on their own. Of the three songs lifted, only one really ticks my boxes, and that’s today’s – the title track.

mp3: (Drawing) Rings Around The World

I love this one. On the surface, it sounds like a lot of fun, but actually has a rather concerning message. Following a discussion with his girlfriend’s father, Gruff wrote (D)RATW about an idea that came up regarding “all the rings of communication around the world. All the rings of pollution, and all the radioactivity that goes around. If you could visualize all the things we don’t see, Earth could look like some kind of fucked-up Saturn. And that’s the idea I have in my head – surrounded by communication lines and traffic and debris thrown out of spaceships.”

The song came together following a number of demos involving different members of the band (more on that later), and a collection of excerpts of phone calls the band made randomly to people around the world. See what they did there?

The critics gushed, as usual, though the one thing I’ve noticed in the course of writing this series is how music journalists love to compare whatever they’re reviewing to other things. Maybe it’s laziness, maybe it’s just to make it easier for readers, but quite often it can be very confusing if you read multiple reviews. That’s certainly true of (Drawing) Rings Around The World – no one could agree what it sounded like. Status Quo, ELO (again!), Beach Boys (again!), The Beatles, Wizzard, Cheap Trick… all were cited in the music press. Yet, to me, it’s the Super Furry Animals, no one else. OK, maybe a bit ELO, who have proven to be one of the band’s biggest influences…

Released in October 2001, it reached a disappointing #28 in the UK singles charts, but this should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following this series. Maybe it would have got higher if people had heard the b-side.

mp3: Edam Anchorman

Without a doubt, one of the band’s best b-sides, a big bold, anthemic tune which really deserved more than being tucked away on the flip of a single. It’s one for any mixtape/playlist if you’re looking for something that’s not obvious. Its lyrics also contain the title of the other b-side.

mp3: All The Shit U Do

This is basically a section of Edam Anchorman with the words “With all the shit you do” looped over and over, and some added bleeps and bloops from Cian. A bit of an odd one, all told.

A radio edit of the title track was issued on some promos, which simply shortens the intro and fades out early. You might as well have it for completion’s sake:

mp3: (Drawing) Rings Around The World [radio edit]

Which brings me to this week’s bonus track. I mentioned that several demos were made of (D)RATW during its composition. Each one is rather different, so rather than choose one, or post all three, I thought I’d pull together some bits and pieces of them and edit them together so you can hear the constituent parts of the song and how it all came together. It starts off with Cian’s electronic riff, followed by Gruff’s early solo take, then another run through with the full band. I’ve finished off by adding some of the phone call bits as well. It’s another Super Furry Sunday Exclusive!

mp3: (Drawing) Rings Around The World [demo amalgam]

Next week, the final single from ‘Rings Around The World’, and I’ve got another exclusive lined up for you…

 

The Robster

Everest The Hard Way

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #458: EVEREST THE HARD WAY; PLUS….FOUR TRACK MIND : A RANDOM SERIES OF EXTENDED PLAY SINGLES

There’s so little info out there – not even any sort of band photo can be found – that I originally felt I had no option but to do an edited cut’n’paste from the last time they were featured on the blog. But then, Fraser emailed me from New Zealand, with details of a proposed new series which actually got underway earlier this week with Frank Sintara.  He also had all of this to say……..

“It was while googling for information about Everest the Hard Way that I first discovered The New Vinyl Villain, thanks to JC’s previous posting of this EP. Hopefully my recollections and researches add something to that piece.

When I applied for a university place in the summer of 1980 my choices were driven not by academic considerations but by where I would be able to see the best selection of bands on a regular basis. Consequently, I slapped down three London colleges and Edinburgh on the form. You had to enter five choices, but I knew I would get into Edinburgh at the very least, so the fifth line was a pointless toss-up between Glasgow and Aberdeen. Aberdeen won, but I never had any intention of going there in a million years. Fortunately, the two London colleges that interviewed me turned me down – I was young for my cohort, only just 17, hopelessly immature in many ways, and it would have been a disaster. So, Edinburgh it was, my hometown uni.

Home, however, was seven miles out of town in Dalkeith, and restrictive bus timetables and parental oversight were going to be incompatible with night club gig timings, not to mention my cold, premeditated intention to drink as much alcohol as I could afford. So I engineered a room in digs for myself while my parents were away on holiday and unable to object, and thereby spent a productive freshers’ week bonding with my new roommate, a fellow English Lit student. He was the son of a Church of Scotland minister from Ayrshire, and like all good sons of the manse liked nothing better than getting utterly pished, and so we spent that first week of our academic lives drinking ourselves under the tables of each student union bar in turn.

Gary’s taste in music was unfortunately dreadful (he wore cowboy boots) so he didn’t accompany me on my frequent outings to see local new wave bands in the same union bars and at the Nite Club above the Playhouse Theatre. It was in the latter club that I first saw Everest the Hard Way. Someone had told me they were good and I went to see them one night on a double bill with another Edinburgh band called New Apartment. I bumped into a girl from my year at school, whom I never took for much of a new wave fan. It turned out that she was a big fan of New Apartment’s bass player and singer, and he was a big fan of hers, if you get my drift. Looking at them both I could see why, and also why I had no fan club of my own, unfortunately.

New Apartment were a three-piece and I liked their fashionably funky post-punk music. The guitarist was a big guy called Mani Shoniwa, and in his massive hands his Rickenbacker guitar looked like a ukulele. Readers may recognise the name from his reappearance in the almost successful band Win, several years after New Apartment vanished with nothing but a solitary Demon single to their name, Them and Us/Catch 22.

Everest the Hard Way’s music I liked very much too. Less funk, more Berlin-Bowie disco or somewhere along the Bunnymen/Wake/Sound/Comsat Angels axis. They were a quartet who took their name from mountaineer Chris Bonnington’s book on the first successful ascent of the world’s highest peak by its stupidly difficult south-west face. Being also a fan of mountains, I’d actually read the book a few years earlier, so that probably helped to cement them in my affections, but their tight, intense performance that night was mainly what did it. I saw them another twice and they were always tight and intense, so it was no fluke.

The intensity came mainly from guitarist and singer David Service whose grizzled appearance and eyes screwed, tightly wound delivery was like David Byrne circa Fear of Music. He chopped out chords on his guitar as though he was desperately suppressing the urge to slash it to pieces like some demented hybrid of Pete Townshend and Wilko Johnson.

The tightness came from the rhythm section of Ian Stoddart on drums and Mike Peden on bass. Stoddart is another name that Win fans will recognise. Later, he also played for Scottish band Aberfeldy through their first few years including on their first album, Young Forever. And he is co-credited with the composition of both sides of that New Apartment single above. Somewhat improbably, Stoddy also found himself in 2000, somewhere in France, playing alongside Josef K’s Malcolm Ross as part of a ‘gypsy’ band led by Hollywood A-lister and celebrity perfume salesman Johnny Depp in the unaccountably Oscar-nominated rom-com Chocolat. For some reason I have a VHS copy of the movie and was going to toss it because it’s crap, until I discovered that a former member of Everest the Hard Way was in it. Now I’m stuck with it. You can watch the main scene with Stoddy, Ross and Depp on YouTube.

(Skip forward to 1.15 if you can’t stand the whole thing…).

Sadly, Stoddart died of cancer in 2020.

It was Mike Peden who caught my eye, or ear, for the most part when watching ETHW. It’s not difficult to see why he drew comparisons with Derek Forbes of Simple Minds. He was always playing rapid, intricate lines, melodic runs rather than anchoring notes, but I would say his technical ability surpassed Forbes and he has made a long career for himself as a session player and producer. His name crops up in production credits for a wide range of pop acts through the 1990s and 2000s, including Paul Haig, Shara Nelson (the voice on Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy), YoYoHoney (that Mani Shoniwa again), Mica Paris, Darryl Hall and even Gareth Gates. He also had another more successful crack at performing as a member of short-lived early 90s soul-dance trio The Chimes.

The quartet was completed by keyboardist Jim Telford who added accents and body to the sound with a string synth, but his parts were not elaborate and didn’t dominate. All I can find about him outside ETHW is as contributor to a 1980 single by The Liberators (along with Robin Guthrie and Will Heggie before they formed the Cocteau Twins), and that he worked closely with Richard Strange through the 1980s after guesting on his 1981 LP The Phenomenal Rise of... becoming part of his backing band The Engine Room under the modified pseudonym of James T. Ford. Strange’s website also mentions that while working with Telford he signed a management deal with Max Tregoning who had previously managed Adam and the Ants and… Everest the Hard Way.

Tightrope came out in 1982 on Do It Records, run by Tregoning and his brother, and publishers of Adam and the Ants’ first album Dirk Wears White Sox and a few singles by Yello. The label folded later in ‘82, so ETHW were never going to get much of a boost from this release and they disappeared at much the same time. The production is rather average – credited partly to the band themselves – and doesn’t do justice to their live energy. Mike Peden obviously learned a lot about production in subsequent years, but I guess you have to start somewhere.

The title track is undoubtedly the stand-out of the four on the 12” EP (it was the A-side of the 7” single version), and comes closest to capturing the band as I remember them. You can hear the Simple Minds parallels as Peden and Stoddart drive the rolling Euro-dance rhythm, like a rough-cut of Love Song. When You’re Young is a bit more Bunnymen, and Take the Strain finds Service channelling Talking Heads’ Drugs or Electric Guitar into a more sparse arrangement, showcasing Mike Peden’s nimble fingers once again. Quarter to Six is the weakest piece, running over the rather well-worn theme of current-affairs media (cf Gang of Four‘s 5:45 – quarter to six used to be the time of the BBC’s main evening news bulletin). Through all the songs the subject matter is social rather than romantic, and you can hear the tension in the titles and lyrics as much as the delivery, and certainly more than in the production.

So Tightrope is not a great lost classic of the era, but to me it’s a fondly held memento of a time and place and a band that didn’t want for talent but lacked a crucial creative edge and that lucky break. It brings back memories of the Nite Club’s sticky floor, the pokey downstairs bar in Chambers Street student union, and a boozy night at Teviot Row also featuring the ramshackle talents of Boots For Dancing. When you’re young…

Tightrope

When You’re Young

Take the Strain

Quarter to Six

 

Fraser

 

Sundays

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #099

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 099: The Sundays – ‘Can’t Be Sure’ (Rough Trade Records ’89)

Dear friends,

The Sugarcubes last earlier this week, The Sundays today: weren’t the late 80’s just awesome for those of us who got easily aroused? I mean, come on: Harriet Wheeler … she was just perfect, wasn’t she?

It’s just coincidental that (alphabetically) The Sundays follow The Sugarcubes in my singles box, but in hindsight it’s hard to say which band – or better singer – I adored more back then. Obviously, at the end of the day, such a comparison is rather fruitless, the same is true for the comparisons which were made at the time when ‘Can’t Be Sure’ was released. The music papers got mad about the band instantly, rightly so, of course, but all the time there were comparisons between The Sundays and a) The Smiths or b) The Cocteau Twins. I never thought this was accurate, I mean what did Harriet Wheeler have in common with Morrissey‘s huge ego, manifested in his singing style? Nothing. The same is true of Elizabeth Fraser: as great as The Cocteau Twins once were, they had painted themselves into a kind of drama corner by then – and it seemed to me as if there was no clever way for them to get out of it again. Quite unlike The Sundays …

It is fair to say though that The Sundays’ guitar playing might show some Smiths-/Marr influence, but that’s true for many late 80s artists, so why bother? As usual, it’s the song itself which counts – not how and why it was made.

‘Can’t Be Sure’ was released a full year before the debut album, and boy, it was a very long year of waiting after this masterpiece of a single, I can tell you! Its music may be as simple as it can get, but what it makes so special to me is the absolutely untraditional way of its structure, verses merge into another, they have different lengths – plus there is Harriet’s wonderful voice. Mind you, her going “Nnn—aah!” after the instrumental break alone is all I needed in life back then! Still makes me shiver, a hundred years later!

Then, when you’ve calmed down a bit on this, at 2:30, one minute before the song is over, the drums kick in – and passion gets a new definition: one fact why this tune is simply wonderful:

 

mp3: The Sundays – Can’t Be Sure

Two albums followed the debut, and then in ’97, literally overnight, The Sundays were no more. Harriet Wheeler, in a true Syd Barrett-style, disappeared from the face of the earth and was never seen again. Family matters, that’s what was assumed at the time.

The great Blogmeister from the ever-wonderful ‘Needle Time’ recently featured The Sundays’ debut album, the post was titled ‘The Harriet Wheeler Appreciation Society’. I’m all for this, if Blogmeister is the chairman, please, at least, let me be the CEO!

Hariet Wheeler, where are you?

Enjoy and take good care,

Dirk

 

 

Dirk

PS : JC adds……

Final chance to redirect you to this recent post, featuring the June book of the month, and the opportunity to win a copy as I’m running a competition. Closing date is 30 June.  Good luck!!!!