Various

THE BIG HITS…..30 YEARS ON (4)

I have thought long and hard in recent days about what to do with the blog.  The extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in got me wondering about making it that bit more relevant to what’s happening out there, using this platform for the occasional comment or observation about politicians (there would be criticism), community spirit (there would praise), those most directly affected by tragedy (there would be sympathy) and some reflections on the state of the world when it all comes to pass (there would be much head-scratching).

But I came to the conclusion that there’s enough of that sort of stuff out there already and that TVV should remain a place where folk can come to escape from it all for a few minutes or for as long as they wished.  I hope you’re all OK with that, but if any of you do want to get something off your chest, then feel free to drop me a line with a guest posting.   As you know, they are never turned down…..

So, where was I?

April 1990. The month that my life changed forever as I moved in with Rachel, the two of us deciding to make a real go of things having walked out on the folk we were married to. A number of our close friends were sure it wouldn’t last and that one or both of us would go crawling back full of apologies to look to mend the broken relationships. Thirty years on and we are still together.

Moving in with Rachel meant that I went back to live in Glasgow, making a daily commute by train to Edinburgh. The Sony Walkman proved to be my saviour, that and the mixtapes that Jacques the Kipper was putting together for me containing a mix of the new, the fairly recent and the old classics, all accompanied by a series of cryptic clues from which I had a week to come up with the names of the songs together with the singer/band involved. To be fair, I was setting him similar challenges and, as a result, both of our knowledge bases would increase over the successive months and years.

So who and what were rockin’ the charts 30 years ago this months?

The month began with Snap! holding down the #1 spot for a second successive week, but the remainder of the month belonged to Madonna with Vogue giving her a seventh #1 in five years.

Here’s a few notable songs that made the rundown throughout the month, albeit it’s all stacked at the beginning with very little at the tail end.

Step On – Happy Mondays

Yup, it’s now thirty years since the song most associated with Shaun, Bez & co was unleashed on the listening public. It entered the charts on 7 April at #14, and climbed to #5 the following week, which proved to be its peak position. It took a really long time, however, for the song to fall out of the charts. There was an initial 11-week run in the Top 75 before it briefly disappeared from view at the end of June. It re-entered the Top 100 in early July and over the next six months, could often be found lounging around the 80-99 mark. All told, it would spend 27 weeks in the official chart (which was a Top 100 by the this time) across six separate spells. Not bad for a song that was originally intended only for inclusion on a tribute album for their American label, and was recorded only to get Tony Wilson to stop moaning at them. I think it’s fair to describe it as a bona-fide classic.

Real Real Real – Jesus Jones

JJ had hit the crossbar a few times in 1989, with three singles stalling just outside the Top 40. The music press continued to big them up and Food Records never gave up on them, cleverly associating them indirectly with the baggy/Manchester movement but distancing them just far enough to argue they were an electro band that incorporated elements of indie-pop. This was their breakthrough hit, entering at #26 on 7 April after which it edged its way up the charts for the next five weeks to peak at #19. America would eventually go nuts for the band – I have to be honest and say they never really did it for me.

Beatles and The Stones – House of Love

The second chart hit of 1990 for The House of Love. It entered it #43 on 7 April and a couple of weeks later it had crept up to #36. This proved to be the last time they would get their name mentioned during the Top 40 rundown on Radio 1 and/or Top of the Pops.

911 is a Joke – Public Enemy

As mentioned in an earlier posting in this series, Welcome to The Terrordome had taken Public Enemy into the Top 20 despite very little mainstream airplay. The formula didn’t quite work out for the follow-up single which entered at #50 on 7 April and only got as high as #41 a couple of weeks later. A similar fate awaited their third and fourth singles of 1990, although there was the consolation of the album Fear of A Black Planet, also released in April 1990, entering the UK charts at #4, which was an incredible achievement for a hip-hop album in those days.

Pro-Gen – The Shamen

The Shamen had a low-key arrival into the UK charts, with Pro-Gen entering at #55 on 7 April and dropping like a stone immediately. All but two of their subsequent fourteen singles over the next six years would go Top 40.

Like A Daydream – Ride (from the Play EP)

The growth in popularity of Ride continued, with their second EP entering the charts at #32 on 14 April, a very substantial improvement on the #71 peak of the debut some three months previously. I’m guessing this would be have been played quite a lot in an Our Price record store down in the Gillingham area of England…….but they were still some 12 months away from their commercial peak.

Love Child – Goodbye Mr Mackenzie

The Rattler had been a slow-burning hit single in 1989 for the Edinburgh-based combo and hopes were high that 1990 would bring more mainstream success. They were, to some extent, the victims of politics and bickering at their major label home, finding themselves shunted off Capitol Records and onto Parlophone (both, at the time, being part of the larger EMI conglomerate) with unrealistic expectations place on them. Love Child came in at #52 on 21 April and then disappeared from view, and when its follow-up 45 also bombed two months later, the label decided not to release an already recorded album and dropped the band. It was the beginning of the end, although one of the band, Shirley Manson, would find fame and fortune a few years later (with the highlight being a chance meeting with this blog’s favourite and most friendly lawyer)

Left Us To Burn – Martin Stephenson & The Daintees

No singles of note made their entry into the Top 75 on 28 April, so I’ve gone a little deeper to mention this 45, a more than sideways swipe at Margaret Thatcher for the way her policies had decimated so many working-class communities, including those in the north-east of England where Martin Stephenson and The Daintees had grown up. It entered at #85, continuing the run of undeserved flop singles. Little did any of us know that Thatcher’s reign was soon to come to an end……………………

JC
(aged 56 years and 10 months)

Antony & The Johnsons

SOME SONGS ARE GREAT SHORT STORIES (Chapter 33)

A GUEST POSTING by flimflamfan

The final track on the You Are My Sister e.p. (CD 2, Oct, 2005. Rough Trade), Paddy’s Gone makes for the shortest of stories; 8 lines of lyric repeated 3 times to astonishing effect.

My wrists hurt
My heart’s empty
Paddy’s gone
For a long time
Loved that man
Scared without him
Paddy’s gone
For a long time

The sense of loss and longing is palpable throughout (as then) Mr Hegarty’s vocal delivery aches to be heard.

Despite the subject matter the song remains one that lifts my mood and has done so on many occasions. I believe it to be something of a hypnotic gem.

mp3 : Antony & The Johnsons – Paddy’s Gone

flimflamfan

 

Faithless

SOMETHING OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE

It’s fair to say that 99% of stuff that I’ve bought since my formative teenage years can be described as guitar driven pop, however you define it. It’s very much my forte but every now and again something catches my ear and demands purchase. Such as this, back in 2001:-

mp3 : Faithless – We Come 1 (Radio Edit)

An absolutely massive song in so many ways, it reached #3 in the UK singles chart which is the best position Faithless ever achieved. It was accompanied by a cracking video as well:-

Turns out that the CD I picked up is the one labelled CD2 and you can now buy it on Discogs for as little as 40p plus postage. Here’s the two other mixes for those of you who who like that sort of thing:-

mp3 : Faithless – We Come 1 (Wookie Remix)
mp3 : Faithless – We Come 1 (Rocket vs Jeno Remix)

Happy Dancing.

JC

Ramones

IT REALLY WAS A CRACKING DEBUT SINGLE (46)

The release, in May 1976, of the debut 45 by The Ramones completely passed me by. I was utterly in love with music at the time, but it was very much limited to what I’d hear on Radio 1 in the mornings or weekends, failing which it making an appearance on Top of the Pops. I was far too young to be listening to John Peel or to be spending precious pocket money on a music newspaper, especially not when there’s a set of football stickers to be collected…..

It would be a further year before I became aware of the New Yorkers, all thanks to Sheena Is A Punk Rocker crashing into the UK charts. I wasn’t entirely convinced by them as they sounded almost comedic when listened to alongside The Jam, The Clash, The Stranglers, Buzzcocks, The Damned, Penetration and Sex Pistols. It would actually take until the summer of 79, when a colleague in the shop in which I took my first full-time but temporary job, having learned of my interest in new wave, loaned me a handful of singles that I hadn’t much or any knowledge of.

This was the first time I knowingly listened to Blitzkrieg Bop as I had no idea that was the proper title of the Hey Ho, Let’s Go song. The second it started, I knew what it was as I’d heard it played a few times in record shops over the years but without ever having the courage to ask anyone what it was. The same went for any of my mates who might happen to be browsing with – none of us would ever dare let on we didn’t actually know the name of any particular great sounding record that was played in the shop.

It also just hit me as I was typing this that none of us actually had any older brothers who could introduce us to such music. At least I has the excuse of being the oldest kid in our family, but three other close mates who also liked a bit of new wave (certainly of the type we knew from the charts) all had big brothers who, to a youth, were obsessed by prog-rock. The nearest we had was Tommy’s older sister whose love of T-Rex, Bowie and Roxy Music had brought her into contact with stuff that I would later wholly embrace….but at 14/15 years of age, nobody listened to anything a girl said.

Enough of the reminiscing from a bygone era.

Blitzkreig Bop is an amazing burst of energy that still sounds incredibly vibrant and vital the best part of two generations later. It’s no surprise that young kids are still happy to be seen wandering the streets wearing their ultra-cool and hip t-shirts with a Ramones logo.

It’s a simple song, but that’s the biggest part of its attraction. Tommy Ramone wrote it as his own celebration of being a rock music fan and the excitement that comes with getting to see music up close and in the live setting. As he himself once said, “It is basically about a few kids going to a concert, getting away from it all and having a great time.”

Forget any nonsense you might read about it being linked to the might of the German airforce and military. This was written as a pure bubblegum pop song, partly as a response to what was happening with Scottish boy band, the Bay City Rollers who were tearing up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and who are one of those acts whose singles I did buy back in the day but have long forgotten about. Tommy had called the song Animal Hop but Dee Dee wanted to make it more punk-sounding and so he changed a line from ‘They’re shouting in the back now’ to ‘Let’s go shoot ‘em in the back now’ and suggested the new title of Blitzkrieg Pop, a move which probably made the managers of radio stations across the USA shy away from giving it some air time.

mp3 : The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop
mp3 : The Ramones – Havana Affair

I looked back at Dirk’s magnificent ICA on The Ramones and was surprised to find that he hadn’t found space for the debut single among his chosen ten tracks. Just shows how many great songs the band came up with over the fullness of time.

JC

Happy Family

THE HAPPY FAMILY

The relatively recent mention of Malcolm Ross within the long-running Saturday series made reference to the fact that, post-Josef K, he continued to work with David Weddell and Ronnie Torrance, the rhythm section of his old band, as well as contributing to the short-lived The Happy Family whose vocalist was Nick Currie.

Legend has it that Nick Currie, who had been a huge fan of Josef K, handed over a home-recorded demo cassette to Malcolm Ross at what, although nobody realised it at the time, was the band’s final gig in their home city in August 1981. There was enough there to entice Ross work with Currie and he persuaded Weddell to join them, along with drummer Ian Stoddart (later to be part of Win) and guitarist Paul Mason.

The Happy Family signed to 4AD Records but before anything was recorded and issued, Ross had already moved west to join Orange Juice. He had however, been involved in writing some of the songs that had been used to get that initial deal, and although he didn’t actually play on the track, it was one of his, co-written with David Weddell that was chosen to be the lead track on the debut EP in March 1982:-

mp3 : The Happy Family – Puritans

It was about as close as the band got to being a Josef K tribute with a new vocalist. Nick Currie’s control of proceedings was increasing with the departure of Ross, and two of his solo compositions formed the b-side of the debut.

mp3 : The Happy Family – Innermost Thoughts
mp3 : The Happy Family – The Mistake

Fast forward eight months and 4AD released the debut, and subsequently the only, album by The Happy Family. Ian Stoddart had moved on (to be replaced by Ronnie Torrance) while the guitar sound was supplemented by the addition of Neil Martin. Eight of the nine tracks were written solely by Nick Currie (or Nicholas Currie as he was referred to throughout his time in the band), with Weddell and Mason writing the other, which just happened to be its title track:-

mp3 : The Happy Family – The Man On The Street

It was an album quite different from anything else coming out on 4AD, with a heavy and rather pretentious literary bent, and it didn’t sell well.

Nick Currie, in later years, offered his take on the album:-

“It’s 1982. Postcard Records and The Sound Of Young Scotland. An Edinburgh literature student called Nick Currie forms a pop group with three ex-members of local group Josef K. They sign to 4AD, home of The Birthday Party, and proceed to record a CD with the following cast list: an evangelical detergent salesman; a Fascist dictator who comes to power thanks to a lottery win; Samuel, the son of the salesman and Maria, the dictator’s beautiful daughter, who join the Red Brigade and plots to assassinate the Fascist. Confused? Just wait ’til you read the lyrics!”

Maybe Luke Haines was looking on………..

The band split not long after the album was released and in due course Nick Currie would call himself Momus and embark on a solo career that is still going strong more than 30 years on and is the very definition of a cult idol.

JC

Parquet Courts

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 24)

A GUEST SERIES


22 – Berlin Got Blurry – Parquet Courts (2016, Rough Trade records)

Released as a single in February 2016 (Did not Chart)

Berlin is the city that never fails to deliver and here is the reason why.

It’s quite late on December 30th 2004 and Mrs SWC and I are standing on a very cold train station platform deep below an airport in Berlin. It’s absolutely freezing. We are in Berlin for a New Years Eve break. We’ve been waiting twenty minutes for a train to the city.

When one eventually arrives we jump on it and take the short ride to centre of the city. Our hotel is located just off of Unter Den Linden and we drag our weary selves up the cold streets to find the small hotel. Its about nine pm and we are cold, hungry and pretty tired. We are both getting grouchy.

We hand the receptionist our booking details and she looks at us and smiles. She does some tapping on the computer and asks to see our passports, as usual she smiles when she sees mine.

Loser – Beck (1993, DGC Records, Number 15)

“ah, yes” she says, followed by “we’ve been waiting for you, there is a problem with your booking” and with this she vanishes behind a door. Mrs SWC and I stand there, yawning, and getting increasing fed up. Mrs SWC shoots me a look, which reminds me that this “was my bloody idea”.

Suddenly a smart man appears from behind the door. He has a brilliantly waxy moustache and is called Lukasz, he is the manager of the hotel. He shakes me by the hand, never a good sign I find, complete strangers shaking your hand, when you’ve been told there is some kind of problem. Anyway, the problem is that the room we were booked in, is unavailable, because, and here Lukasz lowers his voice, ‘a man slit his wrists in it earlier on today’.

Which is awful, obviously.

Lukasz smiles and touches his waxy moustache. I’m not sure why. He tells us, “and we have no other rooms….” He lets that hang slightly and smiles again. “….so we’ve arranged another hotel for you, at no extra cost, it’s about ten minutes’ walk up the road”. He hands me an envelope and tells me to hand that to the receptionist there with that he vanishes behind the same door as the lady earlier.

We look at the envelope – we are now staying apparently at the Westin Grand, Mrs SWC tells me that ‘It better bloody well be grand” and marches off, leaving me to drag the suitcases behind me.

The Westin Grand it turns out is a five star hotel. It is incredible and we arrive to a gold plated reception which is staffed by one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She greets us like an old friend and a man takes us to our room. He insists we leave our suitcases where they are.

We appear to have been given a suite. It has four rooms, the bedroom has the biggest bed I have ever seen which I still managed to fall out of when drunk on gluwein and wheat beer, approximately 30 hours later.

Share the Fall – Roni Size (1997, Talkin Loud Records, Number 37)

The bath has a television built into it, which seems massively dangerous to me, but we go with it. In the second room is a sort of lounge, which has three big silver domes on a table. The man who shows us to our room, tells us that dinner is on the house and then he hands us two cards, these are invitations to the Westin Grands New Year Eve party, which are also on the house (as a present for the trouble…), they are 400 Euros each, I kid you not, on the tickets in small writing it is says in German (I translated it) “Alcohol and a five course meal is included in the price”. Mrs SWC looks at me – and for the first time in about six hours, smiles at me.

SWC

Meursault

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #207 : MEURSAULT

Meursault are an alternative indie band founded in 2006 in Edinburgh, Scotland, led by singer-songwriter Neil Pennycook. Their musical style has been variously categorised as folktronica, alternative rock and indie folk.

The name of the band is a reference to the main character of L’Etranger, the famous novel of Albert Camus.

They were a mainstay of Song, By Toad Records, founded and run by the legendary Matthew Young for more than a decade before he called it a day to concentrate on family matters, albeit he is still reasonably active in the Edinburgh music scene. Meursualt’s most recent album, Crow Hill, was released last year on Common Ground a new Edinburgh-based label.

Here’s a track from the highly acclaimed third album, Something For The Weakened, released in 2012:-

mp3 : Meursault – Settling

JC

Ride

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 23)

A GUEST SERIES


23 – Ride – Leave Them All Behind (1992, Creation Records)

Released as a single in February 1992 (Reached Number 9)

A long time ago in the early 1990’s, there was this little music scene called shoegaze. Ride were the kings of that scene, largely because, if you put the band that probably invented it, My Bloody Valentine, to one side for a minute, they were the only band that really crossed over into the mainstream long enough to be important. They also made ‘Nowhere’ which is still to this day one of the greatest guitar records ever made. Yes it is. Face facts Skunk Anansie fans.

Ride were for about half an hour or so, the biggest band in the UK. For reasons that were quite obvious, girls loved them and nearly every girl I knew between 1990 and 1992 wanted their boyfriends to look like Mark Gardner or Andy Bell, it was never the other two. We boys tried in vain to do that, we grow our fringes so that they flopped over our eyes. Then we bought stripy long sleeved T-shirts in their thousands and traded on blue denims for black ones. After that we threw our Adidas pumps into the back of our wardrobes and bought eight hole Doc Martens, and we learnt how to stand perfectly still at gigs and just gaze at our shoes, swaying gently to a blaze of feedback strewn guitars, and whispery vocals about the sky, the rain and dreams.

Roughly at the same time that we boys were doing this, Ride were recording their second album, ‘Going Blank Again’. The lead track from it was ‘Leave Them All Behind’ a swirling, kaleidoscopic feedback inspired inspired eight minute blast of brilliance. It has this long drawn out intro to which, I, at the time, proudly declared it to be ‘the greatest opening two minutes of music, ever’ to anyone that would listen to me. Saying that I do have form for this kind of thing, because roughly six months earlier, I said the same thing about this

Perfume (All on you) – Paris Angels (Sheer Joy Records 1990, Number 55)

to anyone that would listen, and this too I think, (but only for that rumbling bass)

A Good Idea – Sugar (Creation Records 1992, Number 65)

And I was probably right on all accounts.

Anyway, back to girls and them liking Ride. In 1992, OPG turned 18 and a few weeks before that special day I sent a letter (ask your dad, kids) to Ride, via the address on the back of their ‘Taste’ EP asking them for a signed photo. Some six months later one popped through my letterbox, of course, by that time, OPG and SWC, had consciously uncoupled for the time being. What actually popped through my letterbox was a signed print of the cover of ‘Leave Them All Behind’ and for about five years that took pride of place on my bedroom wall, that was there until 1998, when I was about to graduate, my dad phoned me and told me that as I was ‘moving to bloody Devon – he was redecorating my old room and had chucked all my old crap into a box’ which he had then put in the loft. I never saw that print again.

SWC

Streets

IT REALLY WAS A CRACKING DEBUT SINGLE (45)

It sounds like a very bad idea: a 22-year-old white Brummie called Mike rapping over his own homemade garage under the nom de plume of The Streets. The 2 Step Brian Harvey, has it really come to this?

But ‘Has It Come To This?’ is not only the most original, lyrical British rap in memory, it also (alongside So Solid Crew) charts an evolutionary route for UK garage. ‘Has It Come To This?’ is the first garage record to be made about those who buy the records, rather than about those who make them.

It is not about being bling bling or VIP in Napa. It is about getting stoned playing Playstation, about scoring drugs, about being menaced in kebab shops, about hanging round on corners looking for better, about new trainers and breaking windows, about “sex, drugs and on the dole”. It is truly, as Mike Skinner intones repeatedly over the gush of dizzy garage, “original pirate material”. A major talent has arrived.

That was the NME review of the debut single by The Streets.

SWC also wrote about the track when he included it in an ICA:-

“The song that gave you the idea that The Streets were probably going to be incredible. To take a track like this and stick firmly in the Top 20 was quite something. It came at a time when Garage was becoming big in the UK – and this has that garage echo to it, but ultimately it sounds nothing like garage was supposed to – I mean this was good. I love the way Skinner sounds isolated in it. It is a splendid record.”

SWC’s take on things resonated with me. I didn’t ‘get’ garage, not at the time nor all these years later am I any closer to declaring a love for it. There are some songs from its golden decade, which began in the late 90s, that’ll come on a radio station when I’m out and about and I’ll find myself humming along. But it doesn’t move me to dance nor do I have any vinyl or CDs associated with the genre sitting in the collection. And yet, I always enjoy listening to The Streets – well at least the first two albums as that’s all I have!

Has It Come To This jumped all over the charts on the week of its official release, going in at #18 on 20 October 2001. It then demonstrated all sorts of erratic behaviour, dropping out of the Top 100 after just four weeks, only to re-enter and go back up in due course to #55 in early December before dropping out again but coming back in for a third time and reach #80 in January 2002. All told, it spent nine weeks in the charts over a 13-week period.

It’s another one of those songs that makes me ask myself where the years have gone.  It certainly doesn’t feel as if it was almost two decades ago and they are an act I still find myself classifying as being new and fresh.  Writing these posts frightens me sometimes.

mp3 : The Streets – Has It Come To This?
mp3 : The Streets – Has It Come To This? (Zed Bias Dub Mix)
mp3 : The Streets – Has It Come To This? (Jaimeson Mix)

JC

Manic Street Preachers

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 22)

A GUEST SERIES


24 – Love’s Sweet Exile / Repeat UK – Manic Street Preachers (1991 Columbia Records)

Released as a single in October 1991 (Reached Number 26)

So it was at around number 24 that I realised that there was quite few records that I had omitted from this list that probably should have been on it. So what I’m going to try and do is package them all together and try and crowbar them into the posts somehow, these records are definitely as good and probably as influential as ‘Love’s Sweet Exile’. I hope that makes sense.*

Anyway…Let’s talk about The Marquee. The Marquee was a legendary venue on Charing Cross Road, London (well eventually, it had other locations as well). It had a capacity of about 500 I‘d say and facts fans will know that it was the location of the one of the first ever Rolling Stones gigs and for over 30 years The Marquee wrote itself into rock heritage by hosting amazing gigs. It shut in 1995 and by 1996 a Wetherspoons pub had moved in (The Montagu Pyke) and firmly shat on that hard earned 30 years musical heritage by immediately banning juke boxes inside it and selling burgers that taste like they’ve been licked first by tramps.

As a young lad I saw loads of really good bands at the Marquee. I saw Pop Will Eat Itself there two nights in a row, where they played exactly the same set both nights, ending with a pumped up version of this

Wise Up Sucker (1989 RCA Records, Number 41)

The Marquee was also famous for secret gigs. In 1990 Metallica played at The Marquee as a support band under the name ‘Vertigo’, and were introduced as a new band playing only their second ever show.

Famously, Motley Crue played the venue under the moniker ‘the Four Skins’ (oh my sides…) without knowing that this was also the name of a popular London skinhead band, whose fans all turned up at the gig, and looked rather bemused when some hairy arsed cock rockers wobbled onto stage.

In 1991 I saw a band called R.S.P.C.E. play there. They walked on stage and immediately burst into this

Sheriff Fatman (1989, Big Cat Records, did not chart, reissued in 1991, Number 23)

And finally, in 1993, my friend Martin bought me an 18th birthday present, it was a ticket for a gig on July 4th 1993 at the Marquee Club, London, the act were a band called ‘Generation Terrorists’. The price £7. I had ticket number 0004. It was a week before the Manics released the second album ‘Gold Against the Soul’.

And it was amazing. The band ended with a stunning version of ‘Love’s Sweet Exile’.

SWC

*JC adds………….

This means you’re about to be treated to at least 145 45s @ 45 over the coming weeks….I’ve been lucky enough to have received everything up to, and including #10….the chapters of the life of our south-west correspondent will gradually be revealed….lots of laughs are on their way (exactly what we need at this point in time).

Generation X

NO IDOL OF MINE

I wrote yesterday about my lack of love or respect for The Dickies and their take on the theme from the Banana Splits. They weren’t the only new wave/punk lot riding high in the charts who I despised (and at 15 years old, if you didn’t like a band or musician, they had to be despised….merely not liking wasn’t good enough).

Billy Idol and his band Generation X really got on my tits (hey, I know that’s not a PC description, but I’m thinking back to the sort of things I would say when talking to mates in my teenage years) for the simple reason that I thought he came aross as a complete wanker when he appeared on Top of The Pops and in print through the interviews he gave to the music press. They had already enjoyed a slightly more than minor hit a couple of years previously when this monstrosity just about went Top 10 in January 1979:-

mp3 : Generation X – King Rocker

Tedious, tiresome and cliched. And the song isn’t much better. The fact that Billy Idol would, just a couple of years later, relocate to New York and use his cartoon punk persona to find mainstream success, was no real surprise. His hit singles of the 80s are unlistenable.

What I didn’t know until looking into the release of King Rocker is that a fair bit of its success was down to it being released in five different formats, with the standard black vinyl being accompanied by red, pink, orange and yellow vinyl, all with different sleeves. It also had a cover version on the b-side:-

mp3 : Generation X – Gimme Some Truth

Yup, the John Lennon protest song. As recorded for a John Peel session in July 1977. It’s every bit as cartoon sounding as the single featured yesterday…..truth, truth, truth, truth, truth!!!!!!

I promise not to be as grumpy next time I’m on…..it’s SWC time again tomorrow

JC

Dickies

TRA-LA-LA

I’m not sure if my American regulars are aware of the fact that Californian pop/punk combo The Dickies had a huge hit over here in 1979 with a frantic cover of the theme song from a kids TV show that had aired at the end of the 60s:-

mp3 : The Dickies – Banana Splits (Tra La La Song)

The near 16-year old me hated it, thinking that it was an aptly named bunch who were trying to make a quick buck by making fun of punk/new wave. Thinking back, I had a number of friends at school who were increasingly buying punk/new wave records but none of us had this in our collections. It reached #7 which in 1979, meant it must have sold a couple of hundred thousand copies, but to who?

Years later, I finally found someone who had a copy, and it was one of my student flatmates who was two years younger than me. Now, to be fair to him, he had an incredible record collection for someone so young,and he seemed to have just about every hit single with a punk/new wave edge that had been released since 1977 along with quite a few that were cult classics. He said he had bought the single back in the day simply for the fact that it was fast and furious and sounded as much of a punk record as anything by The Clash or The Sex Pistols or The Damned or anyone else who was being written about in 1979. He also loved the fact its two b-sides were each barely over a minute in length, which meant they could be added to the list of those that could be used at the end of a mixtape rather than have any dead time or silence.

mp3 : The Dickies – Hideous
mp3 : The Dickies – Got It At The Store

I conceded that in terms of the b-sides he had a point in that they could have been by any number of UK bands and were full of energy. But despite his best efforts to convince me of the merits of the a-side, bringing into the I remained a hater. And still am.

JC

Orb

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 21)

A GUEST SERIES


25 – Little Fluffy Clouds – The Orb (1990 Big Life Records )

Released as a single in November 1990 (Reached Number 87)
Re-Released in November 1993 (Reached Number 10)

Some of you will remember that this was the song that Badger played when he was given the all clear by the doctors after finding a rather worrying lump in his ballsack four or five years ago. Badger loved The Orb, they were his go to ‘2am music’ but he didn’t always see them that way.

Just over ten years ago, Tim Badger described The Orb as ‘pretentious beardy weirdy, plinky plonky, new age, tied dyed t-shirt wearing wankpuffins’. This was after a night out in Torquay when I’d stuck one of their albums on in the car on the way home. To be fair to Tim he’d been drinking Long Island Teas for the past hour and was in his words “so drunk that he was pissing tequila”. He then went on to wax lyrical about how making tracks that were 40 minutes long was just silly and that playing chess on Top of the Pops was neither big nor clever.

So I was surprised when about roughly six weeks after that momentous statement. I received a phone call from Tim asking me if I was doing anything next Wednesday night. He wanted to know whether or not I wanted to go and see The Orb in Ashburton. I raised an eyebrow. Twice.

The first eyebrow rise was to question why The Orb were playing in Ashburton on a Wednesday in November. I mean this is 2008 or 2009 and I know that The Orb’s stock has fallen but this is still quite a thing.

Ashburton for those in the dark is a small market town in South Devon, that’s sole purpose in life is to provide walkers with somewhere to park before rambling across Dartmoor; back then it had literally no good pubs at all. Nowadays, it is a little better, it does at least have an artisan bakery that does very good olive bread.

The answer it turns out was because a friend of the band had just purchased a bar in the town and the band had offered to play an opening night gig at the venue. Tim had through his contacts managed to grab a couple of tickets for opening night.

The second eyebrow rise was to remind Tim that roughly six weeks ago he called them ‘beardy weirdy plinky plonky wankpuffins’. This was met with “Is that a no?”

No, it’s a yes. I have to admit I was quite excited by the thought of seeing a secret Orb gig even if it was in Ashburton. Largely because they might play this

Toxygene (Kris Needs Up For A Fortnight Mix)

Because it’s an absolute banger.

Six days later we travelled down to Ashburton to the gig, our tickets clearly marked ‘Special Guests £12’ tucked inside our pockets safe and snug.

We arrive to find it full of tie dyed t-shirt wearing wankpuffins. As we walked through to the bar, Tim nudged me, pointed to a bloke with a beard that looked like a rose bush and said “told you, I bet the beer is organic and massively overpriced”.

The bar had two beers on tap, both of them organic, and cheap at £5 a pint. Oh, and the only snacks sold behind the bar was pretzels. Pretzels. In Ashburton. I’m going to briefly mention the toilets. Sorry. It’s not relevant to the story either, I just remember them vividly.

This is because there was a fish tank in the gents. I have no idea why. I’m told the ladies had pink plastic flamingos stuck to the wall.

Anyway, back to the gig. We stood and waited for about an hour, slowly sipping our organic beer (which tasted like pond water by the way) and munching on a solitary pretzel. It was ten pm when a bloke in a Levellers T-shirt jumped on stage and approached the mike.

I’ve never been a fan of compares at gig, you know what I mean, over enthusiastic chaps who jump on stage and encourage people to whoop and ‘give it up for…’ Well that happened.

Well sort of, Levellers man actually gave a speech. It turned this was the bar owner and he welcomed everyone to his pub. He said that this was his dream and that he wanted to put Ashburton on the musical map, this is met with cheers from the crowd, not all of them were sarcastic.

Five minutes later he finally introduced ‘tonights entertainment, the first of hopefully many lives acts to grace this stage’. Now, the word ‘hopefully’ stood out from this statement.

Then he paused…and said “We are so lucky to have got them before they go off on tour with The Orb, please clap wildly for…” Another pause…

And then he shouted “Dreadzone!!!!” so loudly that the floor shook. I turn and look at Badger who realising his mistake quickly looks at the floor, before telling me he was ‘going to the bar’.

It doesn’t matter as it happens because Dreadzone were excellent. They shuffled on to the stage, there was a couple of embraces with Levellers Man and then they burst into this

Fight The Power (1995, Virgin Records, Number 86)

And it was kind of brilliant. If brilliant is described as sixty or seventy predominantly white middle aged middle class blokes bopping up and down out of time to a throbbing bass and beats so deep and dubby that it makes you feel dirty.

The bar stayed open about a year. It’s a Chinese restaurant now. I’m told that System 7 played the opening night a few years back.

SWC

MetroGnomes

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #206 : THE METROGNOMES

Back in 2006, the Aufgeladen und Bereit label, based in Hamburg, Germany, released Get While The Getting’s Good, a 19-track compilation of material by bands from Scotland. I’ll direct you to this post on the Penny Black Music website for more info.

One of the tracks on the compilation is by a band called The MetroGnomes about which I can find very little other than a brief bio found on a website belonging to Frooki Records in repect of the release, in 2015, of an album called Des’O:-

A band from Fife (except Dave) Scotland.

The MetroGnomes are Pedro, Biscuits, Dave from Edinburgh, The Elusive MR IJ and Frook, with guest appearances from most of the folk they know.

Pedro (Peter Burns) – singer, the driving force behind the band, contributed the majority of the songs to the album with other songs coming from band members and friends.

Alternative / funk jazz / fusion hip hop rock mixed in with some folky bluesy country. A range of flavours to suit all tastes.

A gem of an album to the last.

The track made available on the 2006 compilation is not on that album, which itself can be found over at Spotify.

mp3 : The MetroGnomes – I Should’ve Known

Indeed, this track features a lead vocal from a female singer who must no longer be with the band.And it’s very much in the folky bluesy country areas of activitity.

Any more info from any of you?

JC

Black Keys

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #246 : THE BLACK KEYS

A Guest Posting by Hybrid Soc Prof

Our Social Distancing Correspondent, now teaching on-line in Michigan

The Black Keys are a blues rock band that’s gradually moved, in fits and starts over the last 20 years, towards a kind of pop sensibility… or not.

The narrative I read, heard, and embraced as I bought each their long-playing efforts was that the band was two white guys from Akron, Ohio, who headed down to Southern juke joints and spent a months, years(?), at the feet of the Black masters of crossroads blues. And they jumped out of the blocks, hitting the track running, with the release of The Big Come Up (2002)… the most authentically raw, nasty blues-rock set “alt” types had connected with since, what?, Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs? Flat Duo Jets? The Gun Club’s Lucky Jim disc?

They seemed to have perfected that middle class white guy fantasy of achieving authenticity despite coming from blandness… and isn’t that why so many of us, especially in our 20s, got into punk, post-punk, reggae, blues, northern soul, folk, jazz, afro-beats or even minimalist neo-classicists like Steve Reich and Philip Glass? Seeking something more real than buying stuff by pursuing sublime niche cultural experiences?

As with all myths, the one around The Black Keys doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. I’m quite sure the trip South and the education was real but I think the rest of it has been projected onto the band by reviewers and fans, against the evidence… and in a way that denies the band it’s many and various influences. In the name of authenticity, I’ve watched all manner of reviewers and fans police the boundaries of genre and influences only serving to reinforce their own egos and global corporate marketing strategies.

I came to this general realization a long time ago – most notably when I interviewed Mojo Nixon circa 1990 and learned that he had little interest in talking about his stylistic influences but really wanted to talk about all the different music he was hearing, folks he was doing gigs with, and different traditions he liked. I was reminded of it around The Black Keys when I left their albums and started exploring their EPs and guest spots on topical collections.

To start, the first cut here, A Blueprint of Something Never Finished comes from their second release, an EP, The Six Parts Seven. It could almost be Mogwai… or some post-rock band like Kinski, Calla, Giardini di Mirò or, if you slowed it down a little bit more, something from Godspeed You! Black Emperor (wherever they are putting the exclamation point these days.) There was more going on there than met my eye!

Fever then leans technopop which is so much more tolerable when he’s singing it… likely for no reason other than I, too, connect that voice to something I still find authentic. What ties all the band’s songs together is Dan Auerbach’s oh-so distinctive voice and that continuity leaves people “hearing” The Big Come Up or Thickfreakness in stuff that’s simply not bluesy.

But, of course, The Keys also recorded an album with a raft of hip hop, soul, and R&B artists (Mos Def, Nicole Wray, Ludacris, Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, Raekwon, RZA and Ol’ Dirty Bastard of Wu-Tang Clan, among them – thanks Wikipedia!), making BlakRoc, and my favorite tune from that is What You Do to Me, likely the closest thing to a hit in the set.

And if this is a blues rock band, then how come I have this pretty awesome cover of The Stooges’ No Fun, recorded as part of their first single? (If you haven’t played The Stooges or Fun House at a near-deafening volume, by my lights you might not have lived…)

Now, did I say they might be misunderstood as a blues-rock band? I might have been pushing it. Try out the bluesy glory of Can’t Find My Mind. They took a 50s monster record tribute song from The Cramps, added some 13th Floor Elevators, and baked up some fuzzy joy

That’s it for Side 1 – the “oh-no-they-aren’t” side.

Side 2 is the “well-actually-they-kinda-are-a-lot-of-the-time” side of the ICA.

The version of Thick Freakness, the retitled title tune to the band’s second long-player, but done much better for the BBC, rips and snorts, rises and falls just like you’d want a Black Keys tune to do.

If you know Junior Kimbrough’s music – perhaps from the Deep Blues documentary or soundtrack? – then you’ll recognize My Mind is Rambling as a Kimbrough song from the first note. There’s a dirtiness to the sustain, a signature grittiness that the Keys get just right… it’s almost like they stole his amp (pretty sure Kimbrough didn’t use pedals.)

I might have put Just a Little Heat on Side 1 but, after it’s Zeppelin-esque beginning it goes full blues-rock… staying in the juke joint vein laid out by My Mind is Rambling. (Of course, with apologies to Dave Davies, it’s the sort of song that reminds you that power chords, metal and significant portions of flatulent 70s art rock grew in the fertile soul the blues.)

She’s Long Gone, from Brothers, perhaps the quintessent distillation of all the band is… who else do you know who can make a lead guitar sound that much like harmonica? There ARE pedals here, used to great effect. (Quintessent isn’t a word, but, yeah, I’m using it!)

It might have been better to put Lies as the first cut on Side 2, since it was recorded in collaboration with Danger Mouse and intended for Ike Turner to sing and the Black Keys to back, but I like it where it is. Wait? Danger Mouse? Anyway, because a number of the songs here are pretty short, I made the executive decision that 11 would fit on the vinyl… which allowed me to end the collection with Do the Rump, the guitar from which set this whole thing in motion way back in 2002. I’m 99% sure it was the first song of theirs I heard, on a music blog or magazine collection, I can’t recall. But The Big Up was mine that afternoon, as fast as I could get across the street to Flat, Black and Circular – still the best music shop in town.

Side 1 (20:40)
A Blueprint of Something Never Finished from The Six Parts Seven EP (2003)
Fever from Turn Blue (2014)
What You Do to Me from BlakRoc (2009)
No Fun from The Moan CDS (2004/2002)
Can’t Find My Mind from Never Give Up On Your Hallucinations (2009)

Side 2 (23:37)
Thick Freakness from The BBC Sessions (2012)
My Mind is Rambling from Chulahouma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough (2006)
Just a Little Heat from Magic Potion (2006)
She’s Long Gone from Brothers (2010)
Lies from Attack & Release (2008)
Do the Rump from The Big Up (2002)

HSP

(NB : Links can be found in the body of the main text)

James

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 20)

A GUEST SERIES


26 – Come Home – James (Flood Mix) (1990 Fontana Records)

Released as a single in June 1990 (Reached Number 32)

More mixtapes of the heart today.

I was in a tent when I first heard ‘Come Home’ by James. Actually I’ll go further than that in an attempt to make myself cooler, I was in a tent that I wasn’t supposed to be in when I first heard ‘Come Home’ by James.

I wasn’t supposed to be there because it was the girl’s tent and I am a boy. It was the summer of 1990 and I had gone to Guernsey with the Scouts, yes the Scouts, shut up, when the zombie apocalypse arrives, you’ll be glad that I can tie a granny knot properly and know how to distinguish between a church with a spire and a church with a tower.

Anyway, we’d met some girl guides, whilst doing something scouty, like help old ladies across the road, or build a waterproof shelter out of matchsticks and old copies of Razzle. We got chatting to them when queuing for water. They were all from the Doncaster and Barnsley area of South Yorkshire and after about an hour showing off and general chit chat, the guides invited all of us to a disco that they were having at their campsite in a couple of days.

Which was nice of them.

The disco was awful. It consisted of bored looking adults chucking on a Now That’s What I Called Music CD (probably) and plying about 50 youths with Pepsi and jelly laces – the DJ was a guy called Barry, who rigged up some speakers through his car stereo so we could all hear Haddaway a bit better.

Which is sort of why I ended up in a tent with a girl guide.

Now.

There was no funny business, I want to make that clear. We were listening to music. I promise. We had two cans of Pepsi, a Walkman, two tapes and a pair of tinny little speakers. It turns out that Jackie, that was her name, was something of a kindred spirit, she loved indie guitars all most as much as I did. We sat there talking mainly, whilst her tapes played in the background.

I can remember that tape really well, the way that ‘There She Goes’ by the La’s ended and the opening whirls of ‘Come Home’ filled a little bit of the tent. I loved ‘Come Home’ and made a mental note to try and get a copy of it when I got home. Jackie promised to send me a copy of ‘Gold Mother’ if I gave her my address.

There She Goes – The La’s (1988, Go! Discs, Did Not Chart, Reissued 1990, Number 13)

‘Come Home’ was followed by this

I’m Free – Soup Dragons (1990 Big Life Records, Number 5)

And we were half way through that when the zip to the tent opened and a face peered through at us. It was Albert. Albert was one of the Scout Leaders and he went bat shit crazy at me, literally eyes popping out of his head style rage. I was dragged out of the tent by what our parents would call the scruff of my neck and in full view of about twenty five people he bollocked me. Which considering he was a Scout Leader was probably a lucky escape on my behalf.

He ended with him telling me that he was going to phone my father in the morning.

To which I shrugged my shoulders, my father wouldn’t really care, I could hear his voice now, “Being, caught in a girls tent, at night, well done son, have some extra pocket money”.

I never did get that copy of ‘Gold Mother’ either.

SWC

R.E.M.

IT REALLY WAS A CRACKING DEBUT SINGLE (44)

There were less than 1,000 copies of the first pressing of this single, from July 1981.  Second-hand copies rarely come up for sale and can fetch up to £200.

The re-press, which differs in that the Athens, Georgia address of Hib-Tone Records has been printed on the label, is marginally easier to get a hold of in that around 6,000 were pressed up.  There’s a few for sale on Discogs, from the USA and Japan, with the asking price either side of £100.

Hib-Tone Records was a short-lived affair, founded by Johnny Hibbert, who actually seems to have had a bigger role to play in the R.E.M. story than I previously believed.

The version of Radio Free Europe which I’m linking to today is courtesy of the compilation album, Eponymous, released in 1988, that I’ve always thought was the original single as that is what it says on the album sleeve.

But, while researching for this post, I found that the Epnoymous version is, in fact, the demo which the band recorded with Mitch Easter in April 1981, while the version that came out on 7″ vinyl on Hib-Tone was one which had been re-mixed by Johnny Hibbert.  It turned out that the band, and in particular Peter Buck, wanted the original Easter version to be the single but the label-owner, who pointed out he was financing the manufacturing and distribution, wasn’t having it.

So….what follows isn’t what you’d hear if you pulled out the 7″ from the Hib-Tone sleeve, but is the version the band wanted and is the one most readily available (and the one I actually have!!)

mp3 : R.E.M. – Radio Free Europe

Here’s its b-side.  It was also later re-recorded for Murmur.

mp3 : R.E.M. – Sitting Still

There’s a very strong possibility that the Sunday singles slot, when it returns later in the year, will feature R.E.M.

JC

Various

FROM OUR HUNGARIAN CORRESPONDENT….SIX YEARS AGO TODAY

Greetings to everyone, my name is Laslo Friop and I live in Budapest in the suburb of Erzsebetarvos and I would like to thank Mr JC for allowing me to compile todays piece for the Vinyl Villain.

I met JC on a trip to Glasgow a few years ago and he taught me all about its quality food and music. I have tried with limited success to get fish battered and chocolate that has been fried in Hungary it does not happen. Also the radio stations refuse to play Arab Strap or Mogwai, I did manage to get some Orange Juice though but it did not go down that well, it was too commercial and there was no gypsy punks. After just one hour with the JC I can now say that Glasgow is my sixth favourite city in Scotland after Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy, Cardiff, Dumbarton, and Stranraer. Since that afternoon at the train station I have followed this blog space with passion. I love to read about early 80s bands that for years were banned from Hungary for not being communist enough. Particularly Billy Bragg and The Redskins. They would have been very happy behind the Iron Curtain.

Anyway today I would like to talk you about revolution and the inspiration of a generation through music, in fact the inspiring of a generation by one band. For years in Hungary, music was terrible, under the Russians it was largely frowned upon to listen to anything Western, I think that the Beatles were not encouraged, and anyone caught listening to progressive rock from the 1970s usually disappeared to the Saltmines of Debrecen. They did this so that you could not grow your hair and say ‘Woah Man’ a lot.

Then as the West became more acceptable the Iron Grip loosened and the free republic commenced. It wasn’t all good but in one strange day back 1999 one band changed our lives for ever. It is a well known fact that David Hasslehoff singlehandedly brought the Berlin Wall to it knees.

Yet in Hungary on that day in 1999, a lesser known musical phenomenon occurred.

In September in what is now known as ‘Victory Square’ in Budapest the crowds had started to form to chant anti-government slogans and chants, the police had been heavy handed and we screamed at them ‘Ez mind össze képtelenség’ which roughly translated into Hungarian means ‘We will be free, we will win’. At that point the skies opened and the clouds burst and it rained. Those of you who have been to Budapest will know that this happens a lot, but at that moment we felt defeated, ruined by unemployment and now the weather. All we wanted was to have the same choices as our neighbours in Austria had, and not go the same way as other neighbours Romania had gone.

Now Western Radio and music has started to become relatively popular in Hungary around this time. We were massive fans of the reggae star Pato Banton and for many the arrival of Eminem was a crucial point in our history. Or ‘Nem ez nem volt’ as we like say when we discuss Eminem. So it was not unusual to hear Western songs on the radio or being churned out from the many cafes and shops. Now as the rain pelted down on our tear stained cheeks, one song, ‘Why Does It Always Rain on Me’ by the Scottish Band Travis came on. On hearing this Hungarians found solidarity and together we rose and defied the weather, we defied the police and we defied the government. After that day, Travis became the Number One band in all of Hungary, they were so popular they even had a brand of goulash named after them, people would go into restaurants and say ‘ez a teljes lószart’ and the workers would know that you were one of them. Their songs became synonymous with the protest movement in Hungary, ‘All I want to do is rock’ became the theme to our campaign to become more western, ‘Tied to the 90s’ became an ironic song about not returning to the days of communism with its cheeky ‘Remember the 80s…’ lyric and ‘Turn’ and ‘Sing’ remain anthems for the working parties in Hungary even today.

Travis are heroes in Hungary, their concerts here are sold out mega gigs and their singer Fran Healy has recently been awarded the highest ever accolade possible for a Non Hungarian the prestigious ‘Hatalmas Hazugság’. Very few people have been awarded this in Hungary.

I hope you enjoyed reading this piece, I hope my English has not been too crazy, I used Google Translate and hope that if you translate the Hungarian bits back to English you will get some idea what this band means to us. I would post their tracks but I think you will already own most of them. So instead I post tracks by two of my favourite bands, the Jesus and Mary Chain and The Stone Roses. Bands that I was lucky enough to see live in Austria at festivals. They have never played Hungary to the best of my knowledge.

mp3 : April Skies
mp3 : Fools Gold

I bid you farewell I will leave you with a good luck phrase in Hungarian

‘Mindez igaz, hogy minden szemetet. Kérlek, bocsáss meg, a normál szolgáltatás folytatódik a jövő héten’

Laslo

Jay Z/Alicia Keys

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 19)

A GUEST SERIES


27 – Empire State of Mind – Jay Z/Alicia Keys (2009 Roc Nation Records)

Released as a single in October 2009 (Reached Number 2)

Every now and again, I do some teaching. I stand up in front of a bunch of students or professionals and deliver lectures on certain topics. I do these mainly in the UK. For instance, a few months back I was in the beautiful garden city of Leeds doing just that.

But occasionally I get lucky and I get asked to do this internationally. A few years ago, I got asked to deliver a lecture to a some students at the John Jay College in New York, I immediately said yes, because I love New York and started to plan what would have to be a minimum of five days in the Big Apple (during which I would be doing roughly three hours hard work), I looked at getting some Yankees tickets (some are available against the Twins), I checked out what gigs were on (Real Estate at Terminal 5, well ok…) I look to see if I can squeeze in a trip to the Tenement Museum or not and whether or not I can get a boat out to see the Statue of Liberty.

I even book the time off work and tell Mrs SWC that it would be lovely if her and the daughter came over as well. I convince her with memories of our last trip to New York, where we ambled through Central Park arm in arm, casually munching on pistachio ice cream and buying tremendous pizza from a small Italian bloke pushing a cart. She then books time off work and tells the nursery that our daughter will be absent for a few days.

A few weeks later an email comes through, confirming that I am going to be lecturing in two weeks time at 2pm local time. Perfect, then I look at flights. As I’m doing that another email pops up on the screen from the college.

“Please let me know whether you will be using Jabbr Suite or Skype when you deliver your lecture so that we can select the correct software”.

Hang on, what…? You want me to deliver this lecture, over the web…I look at the emails again, yup, there it is….’webinar….’

Bugger.

I phone Mrs SWC and break the news to her. When she has stopped swearing at me, and then laughing at me and swearing at me again, we agree to visit New York in the next year regardless (we haven’t done that yet).

So the day arrives, it feels odd. I am wearing a smart suit and I am standing in my spare room, I have moved the framed photo of Mick Jagger from the wall so that it can’t be seen on camera and I have pushed the basket of toys out of view. Of course, in the UK it’s like five hours ahead of the States. So its seven pm or so when I start, I ask the students if they can hear me, there are a few mumbled ‘yeahs’ so I crack on.

About fifteen minutes in the connection drops out. I’m pretty sure it’s their end, because I can still hear every word that is being said in the now very noisy lecture theatre. When I am eventually reconnected, I am stopped after two more minutes because apparently I sound like ‘an alien’, “well”, the professor tells me, “an English voiced alien”. There is some laughter in the audience. I’ll do the jokes mate I think to myself, although they would sound like an alien doing jokes – like ALF, I suppose (that’s a niche joke that no one under the age of 35 will understand).

Eventually the technicals are sorted out and I fly through the next hour, I start to relax, trying to ignore the fact that I am in my spare room surrounded by toys, an old part of a pram, some books, and some undrunk tea. I start to move about a bit just a few steps here and there and then it happens.

Remember I said above that I’d pushed the basket of toys to one side of view. Well unbeknownst to me, one had fallen out of the basket when I did that. A teddy. Not just any teddy, but one that when you tread on it makes a sound, which I just have. The sound this teddy made at this time was “I feel it in my hooves…” because I’d trodden on disco unicorn.

And, now that sentence had sailed away over the Atlantic to the ears of around 100 now a bit less bored students. Some of whom are laughing at me, or it, to be more specific.

I do the only thing I can, I bend down and pick up disco unicorn and pretend to make it wave at the students. Some of them humour me, most look deeply ashamed to even be there.

At the end, the professor thanks me for my time, apologises for the technical problems and I say to him, with a smile, “I tell you what, I’ll come over and do it in person next time”. I’ve not heard a single word since.

Which provides me with a nice link to post a couple of tracks that very nearly made this list

Talk To Me – Run The Jewels (2015 Run the Jewels Inc, Did Not Chart)

Through The Wire – Kanye West (2003 Roc-A-Fella Records, Number 9)

SWC

 

 

Click Click, For Against

TIMES LIKE THESE

Many thanks for all your kind words on the news of my (semi) retirement from the world of work.  Hugely appreciated.  A couple of the comments, from regular contributors, ended up in the spam section which was very strange, but I’ve fished them out and put them in their proper place.   I’m thinking that, with a reported rise in online scamming in recent days, WordPress is acting on the cautious side – I’ll do my best to stay on top of things by checking on the spam stuff at least on a daily basis – so if your comment doesn’t appear immediately, then please bear with me.  But I can’t work out just why The Great Gog is having all his comments left behind as ‘anonymous’ just now.  Might be worth everyone adding a wee signature at the end of any contributions for now.

A few folk have been in touch offering additional guest contributions on the basis that they have a bit more time on their hands and want to try and do something useful.  You all know my take on this – every single guest contribution, unless it is offensive, racist, sexist etc. will find its way onto the blog as I regard it as a place where everyone is welcome to say their bit and share their thoughts, views and opinions with our little community.  So, feel free to send stuff over.

Having said that, please be prepared, again, to be patient.  I really don’t want to expand beyond one post per day and I have a policy of one ICA per week as these lengthy submissions should be allowed a bit of breathing space over an extended period of time. I’ve also got a couple of ongoing series, not least SWC’s 45s at 45 rundown, all of which have been allocated dates to take us through to his #1 appearing on his birthday in mid-June.  The Saturday series is also staying put – I’m loath to give it up or put it to one side after so many weeks getting to the letter ‘M’ and while I know it’s the one day when perhaps it features a singer or band that few or you know or, even worse, many of you don’t have any time for, it’s something I’m determined to get through to the end.

Today was meant to feature another ICA from HSP, but I’ve shifted that to later in the week. I’m instead handing over to ‘Middle Aged Man’ whose previous toe-dip as a guest contributor was a well received Bauhaus ICA.

Here he is….with some thought ss on two bands he completely missed out on (which, incidentally, happens to be a subject matter that will be the focus of one of SWC’s upcoming contributions).

———————-

While as a person I’m not cool and never have been, I’ve always sought refuge in that I had cool taste in music, although in truth my taste in music was probably closer to what the music press said was good. Like many of the readers of this blog I was lucky enough to become interested in music during the heyday of the music press and in particular the NME, I would slavishly read every page every week – I was even known to cut out ‘witty’ quotes and put them on the pin board.

And then some years later came the internet or rather and then came music blogging and I discovered that there were bands who made great music and not just a single track but album after album who the NME never even mentioned. How did this happen? How did bands make great music never have a hit, never even get in the Indie top 30 or a review in the music press?

One band that I completely missed were ‘Click Click’ who must have been a great band name at the time.

Having listened to a couple of tracks I then spend a few years trying to find everything and anything else they released – via various blogs and then bandcamp and finally their own label – Rotorbabe Recordings – and even better laerning that they were releasing new music and performing live.

Now comes the tricky bit- how to describe their music – it is definitely electronic in that there a very few if any guitars but have a real drummer using a real drum set so they avoid the feel of the mid 80’s electronic duos such as Yazoo-Soft Cell- Blancmange etc. There’s a lovely indie disco dancability to their music but definitely not disco and on top of this is a real sense of tension verging on spookiness a few of tracks to illustrate this – the song titles give an idea of the tone and feel – paranoid 80’s at its best.

Awake and Watching from their album ‘Rorschach Testing’
Yakutska a stand only single
Man in a Suit – from their most recent album ‘Those Nervous Surgeons’

My second ‘how did I miss’ are ‘For Against’ – 8 albums released – who knew? Sadly not me. A ‘proper’ band with drums, bass, guitar and probably keyboards although they seem to have been a trio most of the time and a much more ‘post punk’ feel- by the way, when did post punk become a thing? Initially very early 80’s with the bass to the fore as you would expect and no hint of the dreaded love song. As with most bands they become ‘tuneful’ with proper songs and proper singing over the years.

Amnesia from an ep ‘In the Marshes’
Loud and Clear from their debut album ‘Aperture’
Glamour from the album ‘Shade Side Sunny Side’

MIDDLE AGED MAN