Primitives

OUT OF REACH

The Primitives were one of a number of similar-sounding jingly-jangly indie bands form the C86 era but managed to stand out a bit from the crowd, thanks to the presence of the very attractive 20 year-old Tracy Tracy on lead vocals.

As with so many of their peers, the earliest releases came via their own label, in this instance Lazy Records, that led to a fair bit of interest among a number of major labels, leading to them signing with RCA in late 1987. There was instant success thanks to Crash barging its way to #5 in the singles charts in February 1988 and debut album Lovely also going Top 10 the following month.

The follow-up single hit the shops in April 1988:-

mp3 : The Primitives – Out of Reach

A brilliant little bit of pop music, clocking in at under two minutes in length, it was a re-recorded version of one of the album tracks, and one that I thought owed a bit of debt to The Shop Assistants who had come and gone just a couple of years previously:-

mp3 : The Primitives – Out of Reach (album version)

The single got to #25 and there was an appearance on Top of the Pops:-

The album version of the song was actually included on the b-side of the 12″ along with two live tracks that had been recorded at a gig at the Glasgow School of Art in March 1988 – one that had been arranged in advance of Crash being a huge hit and which could easily have sold out a venue two or three times its size:-

mp3 : The Primitives – Really Stupid/Crash (live)

The interesting thing about this is the opportunity to hear the two distinct sides to the band – the first being the buzzsaw sound of one of their earliest indie-hits and the latter being the more polished sound of the RCA era.

The band stuck with it for the next four years, releasing a futher two albums for RCA from which six singles were lifted. It was the failure of their third album and its accompanying singles that led to them calling it a day in 1992.

The Primitives reformed in 2009. It came on the back of the early death, at the age of 45, of bassist Steve Dullahan who had co-written a number of their best known songs, including Crash. The band have kept things going for the past decade, releasing new material at regular intervals and getting themselves slots at events such as Indietracks as well as headlining their own tours across Europe. And Tracy still looks great (as indeed do the rest of the band!!)

JC

Violent Femmes

STUFF BOUGHT IN 2019 (3)

Violent Femmes’ self-titled debut album, released in 1983, is one that has been played in Villain Towers as much as any other in the thousands of record in my ownership. I’ve written about it before, suggesting that it is almost the perfect album, containing not a single duff track across its ten cuts that take just over 36 minutes from start to end. It was a ground-breaking folk-punk record which married angst-ridden and miserable lyrics with infectiously enjoyable tunes.

The successive albums that followed never quite matched its brilliance although all of them had more than a handful of tracks I’ve never tired of – the only reason I haven’t ever turned my hand to an ICA is that it would be dominated by tracks from the debut, but I’m going to address that sometime reasonably soon.

For now, I want to offer up some some thoughts on the album Hotel Last Resort, released in 2019 and which I put on the list for Santa despite me not hearing or checking out any of its tracks beforehand, and if you’ll indulge me, there’s a bit of scene-setting required.

Hotel Last Resort is the band’s tenth album, only three of which have been released since 1995. Every album has featured Gordon Gano (guitars and lead vocals) and Brian Ritchie (bass and backing vocals); Victor DeLorenzo drummed on the five albums released between 1983 and 1991, while Guy Hoffman did the duties on the three recorded between 1994 and 2000. Gano and Ritchie had a huge falling out in 2007 when the former, who wrote all of the songs, decided to sell advertising rights to a hamburger chain for the use of the band’s best known song, Blister in the Sun. Ritchie accused the vegetarian Gano of a total sell-out of the band’s heritage on culinary, political, health, economic and environmental grounds and he filed a lawsuit seeking half ownership of Violent Femmes’ music and access to royalties. It was no surprise that the band broke-up shortly afterwards.

The reformation came in 2013 with DeLorenzo back on board, but only for a short period during which they appeared in the bill of a number of festivals in America. He was replaced by Brian Viglione, formerly of the Dresden Dolls, and this trio would continue to play live for the next three years before Viglione, through his Facebook page, announced he had quit, possibly from the tensions in the studio as work commenced and was completed on We Can Do Anything, the first new album in sixteen years.

The 2016 album received mixed reviews and I shied away from it. I hadn’t actually picked up that, with another new drummer in tow in the shape of John Sparrow, and a fourth member in saxophonist Blaise Garza, they had released another album in 2019 until I saw it mentioned in a year-end list ‘best of’ by one of the independent record shops I keep an eye on. That was enough to have it put on my Xmas wishlist……

The most surprising thing about Hotel Last Resort is that it sounds as if it could have been written and recorded at the same time as the debut album back in 1983. Gano’s voice is identical and the tunes he has composed aren’t a million miles away. Ritchie continues to make essential contributions on the bass and backing vocals and Sparrow sounds as if he has modelled his technique on that of DeLorenzo. I would normally be a bit pissed off if I picked up an album and found that a band hadn’t gone forward over a 36-year period, but the Violent Femmes never did make a facsimile of the debut, with moves into different sounding territories and genres on each release, and so I was happy enough with what I was hearing.

The latest album is an enjoyable listen.  If the debut had scored 100 on an imaginary index, then HLR would come in somewhere in the region of 66-75.

It’s a record that has, at its heart, the signature folk-punk sound that so enthralled me in my early 20s, with lyrics that go beyond angst-ridden and incorporate the satirical and occasional self-deprecating stuff which populated the later albums. There’s also a bit of politics too, with sideway swipes at how America has changed so much for the worse over the years, highlighted in particular with a unique take on God Bless America, the patriotic tune composed by Irving Berlin in 1918 that really came to prominence in the late 1930s…..Gano and co. turn it into a funeral-paced dirge.

It’s not an album that will win them any new fans, but it is one that those of us who have been around the block a few times will take great pleasure. There’s a guest appearance on guitar from Tom Verlaine which adds a touch of class to the title track, which at more than 5 minutes long is about twice the length of most the other 12 songs, (only three tracks clock in beyond three minutes) .

Overall, I’m glad I checked into the Hotel Last Resort – if Trip Advisor had a section for music albums, this one would come recommended.

mp3 : Violent Femmes – I Get What I Want
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Hotel Last Resort
mp3 : Violent Femmes – This Free Ride

JC

 

Black Angels

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #239 : THE BLACK ANGELS

A GUEST POSTING by HYBRID SOC PROF,
our Michigan Correspondent

One night after a party, around 1:30am, I walked by Clothier Hall – the beautiful old theater and convocation hall on campus – and heard someone playing Pink Floyd’s LP, Meddle, over the at what seemed like infinity decibels. I walked in, sat in the back, in the pitch black and let the sound wash over me… The closest I ever came to replicating that experience was an even later night, at the college radio station playing Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” underneath two huge speakers hanging from the ceiling as loud as I could stand it. Who needs drugs when you’ve got volume?

Ever since then, I’ve had a thing for explosive peels of shimmering guitar teetering on feedback pulsing with wah. I still love Gang of Four’s “Anthrax” and the whole of Televison’s Marquee Moon give me music-gasms… but neither is psychedelic. When the so-called Paisely Underground grew up out of Davis, Los Angeles and Tucson, there were some close call’s – True West’s version of “Lucifer Sam” is pretty awesome and “Creeping Coastline of Lights” by the Leaving Trains is fried but too quiet. Psychocandy is one hell of a record but it presaged drone more than anything else. I only really got my fix again with Spacemen 3…. And then they broke up. I liked The Darkside and Spiritualized – even saw Spiritualized with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and they each came close without claiming the prize.

I had to wait almost another decade for The Black Angels to fill the gap. The ear-to-ear – what in my youth we called the shit-eating – grin on my face the first time I heard the five songs that start off Passover (2006) lasted for days. I couldn’t listen to the album often enough. The Doors meet the MC5 by way of The 13th Floor Elevators. Or maybe it was more like Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce bringing Dick Dale over to David Gilmore’s place. The band’s name clearly references the Velvet Underground’s “Black Angel’s Death Song” – does anyone but me love Clock DVA’s version of that tune? – but I don’t hear a lot of VU in the band’s work.

Most folks have deep affection – or no tolerance – for (neo-)psychedelia and I’d imagine this is going to be a love it or hate it ICA. If you give it a shot, play it loud. Reverse delay, creamy fuzz, gritty reverb, buzzing vibrato, hairy feedback, and liquid echoes wash over leftish anti-war, indigeneity-supporting, environmentally consciousness lyrics… and Alex Maas’ voice is perfect for the often three-guitar roar. And when they’re quieter, you can all-but feel the monster straining at the chain.

This ICA works pretty well imagined as an LP, consider a pause between Half Believing and Holland, as if you were flipping the record…

1. The Black Angels – Currency – from Death Song (2017)
2. The Black Angels – Entrance Song (Rain Dance version) – from Phosphene Nightmare EP (2011)
3. The Black Angels – The Flop – from Clear Lake Forest EP (2014)
4. The Black Angels – Young Men Dead – from Passover (2006)
5. The Black Angels – Half Believing – from Death Song (2017)
6. The Black Angels – Holland – from Indigo Meadow (2013)
7. The Black Angels – Soul Kitchen (Doors cover) – from A Psych Tribute to the Doors (2014)
8. The Black Angels – You on the Run – from Directions to See a Ghost (2008)
9. The Black Angels – Prodigal Sun – from Passover (2006)
10. The Black Angels – Life Song – from Death Song (2017)

Bonus: Clock DVA – Black Angel’s Death Song (Velvet Underground cover) – from Advantage (1983)

HSP

Luke Haines

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF LUKE HAINES (18)

I’m guessing, that even if he said otherwise, Luke Haines would have been more than a bit peeved at the lack of attention given to Off My School At The Art School Bop and the Leeds United EP. Less than 15 years after The Auteurs had sparked into life, he was more or less a forgotten figure while a number of his Britpop peers remained very much in the limelight despite the fact that much of their music was fourth or fifth rate and would never have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for their history.

The next thing of significance to happen was that Black Box Recorder came together with Art Brut to release a one-off single in December 2007:-

mp3 : The Black Arts – Christmas Number One
mp3 : The Black Arts – Glam Casual

The a-side was written by Haines and Luke Moore, while the b-side was the work of Eddie Argos of Art Brut, although members of both bands performed on both tracks, all under assumed names, some of which were linked to those who had enjoyed Christmas Number One singles.

The a-side is every bit the pisstake/back-handed complement to the genre as you’d expect by now.  Don’t imagine, despite the tune being tailor-made for festive radio, that it got much airtime.

The following year proved to be a very quiet one in terms of new material. The only newsworthy item was the unexpected reformation of Black Box Recorder in October 2008 to perform at a benefit gig for the familt of the late Nick Sanderson (of the band Earl Brutus) – the others on the bill were the Jesus And Mary Chain and British Sea Power. Before the year was out, BBR announced two more gigs of their own for February 2009, both of which sold out very quickly.

In January 2009, Bad Vibes was published, and all of a sudden, Luke Haines was back in the limelight thanks to the universal acclaim for his first volume of memoirs. It somewhat overshadowed the BBR reunion with Haines very much the only one really in demand among the media, almost all of whom just wanted to talk about the book and his current thoughts and views on the state of modern pop music, to which he replied that he no longer read the music press, listened only to Radio 4 (the spoken word station) and as such he knew nothing about contemporary rock & roll. He also told everyone he was happy.

The anticipated new material from BBR never arrived and instead we were treated to new solo material, the first in more than two years…..but that’s for next week.

JC

 

Mackenzies

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #198 : MACKENZIES

Today’s featured band have nothing to do with Billy or with Goodbye Mister…….but they were one of the 22 acts to feature on C86, the cassette compilation released by the NME, aimed at highlighting new bands on the UK indie scene.

Mackenzies were a short-lived band from Glasgow, and aside from the one track that was contributed to C86, there were just two releases for the Manchester-based Ron Johnson Records and a legendary Peel Session which was repeated on numerous occasions, thanks to it being loved by the Radio 1 DJ.

There’s next to no information on the band on the sleeves of their two singles, with everything being credited collectively and no names provided for who sang or played what instrument. I’m indebted to Martin Strong’s epic tome, The Great Scottish Musicography, which was published in 2002, for the info that there were originally seven members – Gary Weir (vocals), Iain Beveridge (guitar), David Allen (guitar), Pete Gilmour (bass), Paul Turnbull (drums), Peter Ellen (saxophone) and Scott Brown (percussion). In due course, there would be personnel changes, while some folk left not to be replaced, meaning that they were a four-piece by the time they got round to releasing their second and final single, including bassist Graham Lironi and drummer Paul Turnbull who, in the company of Katy McCullers of The Fizzbombs (as featured here previously in this series) went on to form The Secret Goldfish (who will be subject a later entry in this series).

As it turns out, I’ve three songs by The Mackenzies on the hard drive, all courtesy of them being included on compilations many years later. I may as well offer up all of them so that you can hear for yourselves that there ain’t nobody else from Scotland who sounded quite like them, albeit I will offer up some comparisons to Fire Engines:-

mp3 : Mackenzies – Big Jim (There’s No Pubs In Heaven) : from C86 cassette
mp3 : Mackenzies – New Breed : a-side of 1986 debut 7” single
mp3 : Mackenzies – Mealy Mouths : lead track on follow-up 12” EP, A Sensual Assualt

JC

Beta Band

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 5)

A GUEST SERIES

41. Dry the Rain – The Beta Band (1997 Regal Records)

Released in July 1997 as 12” only release, and limited to 1000 copies.

Some songs I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard a song. For example ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ I first heard in the Waterloo Station branch of Our Price. I know this because on the counter there was a sign telling me so (I was buying a Shamen single at the time).

I first heard ‘Sex on Fire’ driving down the A303 on the way back to Devon from Heathrow airport – I know this because the car in front caught fire about three minutes later and my wife and I joked all the way home about what might have been going on inside that car – after we made sure that the couple inside were ok of course.

I first heard ‘Dry the Rain’ sat in a police station in the City of London. Which, depending on your viewpoint sounds either cool, dodgy, edgy or a mixture of all three. The reason is not so exciting to be honest.

I was sat in a police station in the City of London waiting to make a statement after witnessing a minor car crash on Cheapside. A white Audi had mounted the kerb to avoid a van and had narrowly avoided a pedestrian and then driven straight into a post office van. There’s a lot of car action today, sorry.

The small office that I sat outside had Radio One playing – it was the Jo Whiley show, obviously, and I remember being really annoying with the officer when he came to get me before Jo had told me what song it was and who it was by.

But I remembered it.

A couple of hours later, back home I made a phone call – I phoned a record shop that I knew and I literally sang the song down the phone to them and said ‘what is it?’.

As I warbled “If there’s something inside that you want to say…” badly, the guy on the end of the phone in between his laughter, somehow knew what the record was!

I mean I could have just listened to Jo Whiley’s show the next day because unbeknownst to me she had made it Record of the Week and played it every day regardless. Regardless I placed my order on the spot.

A week or so later my 12” version of ‘Champion Versions’ dropped through the letterbox. Twenty years or so later, whilst going through another pointless space saving exercise, I sold it to an American in Illinois for £105. He sent me a personal email telling me how delighted he was to finally own it. Which was nice. ‘Dry The Rain’ is that kind of track.

‘Dry The Rain’ has this terrifically lopsided brilliance to it, and I loved the way the chorus becomes a kind of mantra about positivity, something which you get a lot of with the earlier Beta Band tracks. The rest of the ‘Champion Versions’ is also pretty brilliant and contains

I Know

B + A

Dog Got a Bone

SWC

 

Yazoo

WHAT IS THE PERFECT SITUATION?

I originally had a thought to having this feature in the great debut singles series:-

mp3 : Yazoo – Only You

In some ways, it was a fluke that it all came together.

Vince Clarke had unexpectedly left the electronic band Depeche Mode, not terribly happy or comfortable with what life was like as a bona-fide pop star. He continued to write songs, one of which was a ballad called Only You which he felt could be his calling card to Mute Records in terms of being offered some sort of solo contract, possibly as a composer whose work would be performed by guest singers. He happened upon Alison Moyet, via having seen her perform with various bands around the London pub circuit, and persuaded her to record a vocal of Only You for a demo to give to Daniel Miller, the boss of Mute.

Neither the singer or performer had any great wish to make the working relationship a permanent one, but Daniel Miller felt there was real potential and more or less said he wouldn’t release it as a 45 unless there was a band or group to which it could be attributed. Thus was born Yazoo.

Only You turned out to be a bit of a slow burner, creeping into the charts at a lowly #72 on its release in mid-April 1982 , but after six weeks it had reached its peak of #2. It only dropped out of the Top 75 in mid-July and on the very same week the follow-up 45, Don’t Go, entered the Top 30. It took until the end of September 1982 before Don’t Go fell out of the charts, bringing an end to a quite incredible 27-week run of Yazoo have a single in The UK Top 75.

I hadn’t realised until doing the research that Yazoo only released four singles in the lifetime of the group – The Other Side of Love (November 1982) and Nobody’s Diary (May 1983). The fact that both of these singles also hung around the charts for an extended period is probably the reason why I thought there had been many more.

One of other great things about the debut single is it’s b-side. The fact that something so catchy and danceable was more or less thrown away is an indication that neither Vince or Alison perhaps felt Yazoo had much legs. The duo only had two songs when they went into the studio for the first time, but they wanted to hold Don’t Go back as a potential follow-up 45, and so very quickly they composed this:-

mp3 : Yazoo – Situation (7” version)
mp3 : Yazoo – Situation (12” version)

Only You was the same length on both the 7″ and 12″ releases

The best known version of the song, however, emerged when it was released as a stand-alone single in North America when what was called a dub version was created, courtesy of the French-born but NYC-based producer François Kevorkian, who became better-known the following year among the indie kids here in the UK when he turned his attention to This Charming Man.

mp3 : Yazoo – Situation (12” dub version)

It’s this version which really made stars of Yaz, as they were known in the States, getting to the top of the Billboard Hot Dance Play chart and crossing over into the same publication’s Black Singles chart for a number of weeks. Vince and Alison may have made for a very odd couple but there’s no disputing that they knew how to go about filling a dance floor.

JC

Wilco

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #238 : WILCO

A GUEST POSTING by JONNY THE FRIENDLY LAWYER

Our friend Hybrid Soc Prof recently posted two stellar ICAs, one featuring Son Volt (#207) and the other Uncle Tupelo (#211). You will have read from those literate missives that Uncle Tupelo had two principal songwriters, high school friends Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, and that Farrar split and formed Son Volt, while Tweedy took the rest of the band and renamed it Wilco. A quick search shows that not too much has been written about Wilco here on TVV. This surprises me as the band have been making terrific records for the past 25 years!

There are actually a few Wilcos. There’s the alt-country band they started out as. Then came the indie-rock crusader version (which is ironic as Wilco has always been on a major label). Tweedy has had his confessional, introspective moments, too, as well as a guitar hero turn. The band briefly moved in an experimental direction when adventurous guitarist Nels Cline came aboard. Eventually, Wilco settled in and just kept on making good rock songs.

I’m not even going to attempt an erudite study in the style of HSP. Instead, mine’s a chronological survey ICA for the uninitiated. Just picking my favorites, which tend to be the up tempo rockier numbers. Curious to see whether the Wilco fans on this blessed site would have picked 10 different ones altogether.

1. Box Full of Letters. From A.M. (1995).

Wilco were very much still an alt-country act at this point, not too far removed from Uncle Tupelo. The album is full of pedal steel, dobro, fiddle and mandolin.

2. Outtasite (Outta Mind). From Being There (1996).

Wilco’s second LP was a double-album and most every song on it was a killer. A sort of Americana Exile on Main Street, if you will. Critics loved it, it sold well, and Wilco were on the map. By rights I should get to pick another song but, you know, the rules. (It would have been ‘Forget The Flowers.’)

3. Can’t Stand It. From Summerteeth (1999).

My personal favorite Wilco album. On the previous two Tweedy wrote all the songs. This time out he shared the writing credits with multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett, who came on board for Being There. Don’t know if Bennett was the magic ingredient but the LP is superb. This tune as well as ‘I’m Always In Love,’ ‘She’s a Jar’, ‘ELT, ‘A Shot In the Arm’ are all winners. Synthesizers entering the mix now, while the fiddles and dobro are in the rear view mirror.

4. Heavy Metal Drummer. From Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001).

This is probably everyone else’s favorite Wilco record. It’s their highest charting album, for what that’s worth. The band went through a record label nightmare over it and ended up dropped from Reprise. Tensions with Tweedy led to Bennett leaving the band, too. A lot of this stress was caught in a contemporaneous documentary about the band, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart.

5. I’m A Wheel. From A Ghost Is Born (2004).

Ghost was quite a departure from the earlier catalog. Tweedy flexed his lead guitar muscles for the first time, trying to emulate his heroes Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine of Television. The album featured longer songs, including a couple clocking in at over 10 minutes. If you’re new to the band this is not the place to start. If you already like them consider this a worthwhile headphones LP.

After Ghost Wilco released Sky Blue Sky (2007), the first album to feature Los Angeles hero Nels Cline. But I don’t really like that album so I’m skipping it. Sorry.

6. Wilco (the Song). From Wilco (The Album) (2009).

Somehow Tweedy and the band got over the weirdness of Ghost and the bummer that was Sky Blue Sky and made a fun record. It was recorded in New Zealand, so maybe that had something to do with it.

7. I Might. From The Whole Love (2011).

Another solid album that, like all its predecessors, made a lot of year-end best lists.

8. Random Name Generator. From Star Wars (2015).

A crowd favorite, lots of good YouTube videos of the band performing this one. I probably should have said earlier that Wilco are a great live act.

9. Someone To Lose. From Schmilco (2016).

The band sounds really comfortable by now, no doubt from having a stable lineup for over 10 years. Some of my favorite lyrics, too: “I keep it rolling/Considering no one/Punching a path/Facing the blast and the moon and the math/But you still never know where your soul is attached.” The LP title is a nod to Harry Nilsson’s Nilsson Schmilsson.

10. Everyone Hides. From Ode to Joy (2019).

Nothing new here, to be honest, but it’s become the classic Wilco sound. Smart lyrics, bouncy melody, interesting guitar work by Cline, pretty but unobtrusive keys, all supporting Tweedy’s good-natured midwestern voice.

Wilco are, in a word, solid. As mentioned, I prefer their livelier numbers but the band’s catalog has something for everyone: 4/4 rock, alt-country, ballads, experiments, love songs, party songs, anthems—with every sort of instrumentation along the way. Tweedy is seriously underrated as a lyricist and singer. I especially like that the band are all outstanding musicians but there’s never any showing off. Simply one of America’s best bands since before the millennium. If you get a chance to see them live don’t miss it.

Bonus Track: California Stars. From Mermaid Avenue (1998).

The story goes that folk legend Woody Guthrie’s daughter contacted our man Billy Bragg with a trove of her dad’s lyrics. Billy connected with Wilco about recording songs featuring the words set to new music, resulting in a number of records over the years. This track was co-written by Tweedy and Bennett.

JTFL

The Affectionate Punch

STUFF BOUGHT IN 2019 (2)

Here’s my second look back at stuff bought and enjoyed immensely in 2019, featuring a Glasgow-based musician, and his friends, whom I gave a couple of mentions to last year, one of which came via a wonderfully composed guest contribution, courtesy of strangeways.

As was explained, The Affectionate Punch is a Glasgow-based ‘thing’ – yes, they’re a band, but no, they don’t tour – and probably they’re best described, really, as ‘a project’. All sorts of music influence the songs that eventually emerge – indie, twee and shoegaze are, perhaps, the biggest influences – with guitars, keyboards, loops and samples all deployed to great effect along with guest vocal contributions from friends in Scotland, England and the USA.

All the songs are released digitally on bandcamp, with one full-length album and three EPs available right here.

One of my favourite bits of music throughout 2019 appeared on the Bittersweet Me EP, which TAP released at the beginning of December, something that is wonderfully multi-layered and finds our project leader channeling his inner Robin Guthrie.

mp3 : The Affectionate Punch – Betwixt and Between

The other three tracks are equally good. Don’t take my word for it….visit the bandcamp page and listen for yourself.

JC

 

Longpigs

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 4)

A GUEST SERIES

42. On and On – Longpigs (1996 Mother Records)

Released as a single in March 1996 (reached number 16)

Although this was released in 1996 I’m going to talk about 1997. Well in a bit anyway. ‘On and On’ is if you ask me one of the finest moments of the Britpop era. It is one of the more tender tracks associated with that era. A track that sees chiselled cheekboned singer Cripsin Hunt howling like a Britpop version of an 18th century romantic poet about ‘wishing someone would leave him’. It quite rightly provided the band with their biggest hit (well joint with the re-release of ‘She Said’).

It was the fourth track to be released off of their excellent and often overlooked debut album ‘The Sun Is Often Out’

It came backed with another track taken from that which was

‘A Dozen Wicked Words’

Now let’s skip on to 1997 by this time I was in my final year as a student and I was in a relationship with the lady who would later become Mrs SWC. We were happy (the same kind of happy that I mentioned last time) but things were heading to a crunch point. In about six months’ time, we would be graduating and we needed to make a decision, what do we do next? I was sort of trying to be a music journalist at the time, she was doing her thing and looking at the future but she had made it quite clear that she wanted to move back to her native Devon. In fact she already had a position lined up. I had nothing permanent lined up and if I wanted to be a music journalist that would have meant living in London, Shoreditch probably, which would invariably lead me to becoming an even bigger twat that I am already am.

One November evening we went to the cinema, we had a lovely meal before, the only thing I can remember about that was the ice cream at the end. A huge multi-flavoured affair lined with sweets and this sauce that tasted like jelly laces.

We then ambled across the way to the cinema, only to find the film we wanted to see wasn’t showing. I genuinely can’t even remember what film it was that we tried to see, but we instead decided to see the film ‘Face’. A British gangster film about a team of criminals lead by Robert Carlyle who do a big job which doesn’t go strictly to plan and there are dire consequences.

Its alright, the film. I mean you need to ignore the fact that Damon Albarn is in it, playing a nearly mute member of the gang but otherwise its ok. The reason why I’m going down this road is because ‘On and On’ features in it and for some reason it really got to me.

I sat there as the aforementioned Crispin Hunt wailed away and I glanced across at my beloved (who was probably gazing at Mr Carlyle) and I had this odd feeling inside me, and it slowly dawned upon me that she was more important than anything else that mattered. Anything else that has ever mattered come to think of it and without getting too gushy about it, this was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and it didn’t matter where I did that. Its odd place to have an epiphany, in a cinema, listening to Britpop’s most tender moment, but that’s what happened. In the space of about four minutes, I decided to abandon my dreams for, well, the woman of my dreams, sorry that’s a naff way of putting of it but it’s late and I’ve had a glass of rum and ginger.

I was pretty silent for the walk home, and as we got back to her flat. I told her that I wanted to move to Devon (actually I said a lot more, but I won’t go into that) with her and that I was going to start looking for work down there. The rest is kind of history.

SWC

 

Gang Of Four

AS A TRIBUTE TO THE LATE ANDY GILL….

…..I want to re-post one of the best and most innovative guest postings there’s ever been.  It’s courtesy of Dave Glickmann and it was originally posted on 17 December 2015:-

The Cultural Revolution – Broadway Edition

mamma-mia-1_450_20130517

This story starts back around the turn of the century, when my pre-teenage daughter, a self-professed theatre geek, spent many an evening downtown going to see whatever Broadway show was playing and waiting at stage doors in dark back alleyways for her favorite actors to emerge. Needless to say, Mrs. G and I weren’t about to let her do this alone or with similarly aged friends, so over the years each of us attended many shows with her. To be honest, I actually didn’t mind going and ended up seeing many entertaining productions. However, the average ten year old child doesn’t make for the most discerning critic, and thus I occasionally spent a couple hours crammed into a seat with little legroom, cringing at what I was watching.

The worst of these experiences occurred at what is generally considered to be one of the more popular, crowd pleasing shows in the history of musical theatre. Nominated for five Tony awards, this show has been seen by over 54 million people worldwide and has grossed over $2B since its debut in 1999. According to the wiki, “On any given day, there are at least seven performances of [this musical] being performed around the globe.” The original Broadway production, which just ended on September 12th after almost fourteen years, is now the 8th longest-running Broadway musical of all time. All these awards, accolades and success aside, I’m sorry to say, that the show is simply a piece of garbage.

By now, theatre aficionados surely know what production I’m talking about. However, I’m guessing that there aren’t too many of those around this fine music blog. So, I’ll use a paragraph from the wiki for the reveal:

Mamma Mia! is a jukebox musical written by British playwright Catherine Johnson, based on the songs of ABBA, composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, former members of the band. The title of the musical is taken from the group’s 1975 chart-topper “Mamma Mia”. Ulvaeus and Andersson, who composed the original music for ABBA, were involved in the development of the show from the beginning. Anni-Frid Lyngstad has been involved financially in the production and she has also been present at many of the premieres around the world. The musical includes such hits as “Super Trouper”, “Lay All Your Love on Me”, “Dancing Queen”, “Knowing Me, Knowing You”, “Take a Chance on Me”, “Thank You for the Music”, “Money, Money, Money”, “The Winner Takes It All”, “Voulez Vous”, “SOS” and the title track.

Well, of course I didn’t like it. I mean, what post-punk, indie kid has a soft spot for the music of ABBA? But actually, that wasn’t it all. In fact, I thought the songs themselves were the best thing in the show. My complaints were fundamentally about the writing – a plot as thin as gruel, no consistent themes or messages across the book and music, song lyrics forced into the scenes whether they made any sense at all in the context of what little story there was and finally, just complete capitulation as the show devolves into a greatest hits sing-along which has no connection whatsoever to the first two hours of the production.

I’m no playwright of course, but as I suffered through this experience, I thought to myself that I could surely create something better than this. After all, the bar was set so awfully low. It wouldn’t need to be a masterpiece, maybe just some semblance of a plot, songs whose lyrics actually made some sense in the context of the action on the stage, and perhaps a theme or two to run through the show from beginning to end. All I needed was a band or musician with a set of songs which had a clear and consistent perspective on the human condition around which to write a story.

There are, undoubtedly, many good options among the types of music that feature here at T(n)VV and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve already thought of a few. Even before the show was over, I had mine – Gang of Four, and most especially their 1979 debut album Entertainment! with its themes of the futility of love, work, marriage and distraction.

Now, on the off chance that we actually have a non-indie music listening, theatre buff reading, I’ll defer to the wiki again for some background:

Gang of Four are an English post-punk group, formed in 1977 in Leeds. The original members were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. There have been many different line-ups including, among other notable musicians, Sara Lee and Gail Ann Dorsey.

The band plays a stripped-down mix of punk rock, funk and dub, with an emphasis on the social and political ills of society. Gang of Four [is] widely considered one of the leading bands of the late 1970s/early 1980s post-punk movement. Their later albums [of that period] (Songs of the Free and Hard) found them softening some of their more jarring qualities, and drifting towards dance-punk and disco. Their debut album, Entertainment!, ranked at Number 483 in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and is listed by Pitchfork Media as the 8th best album of the 1970s. David Fricke of Rolling Stone described Gang of Four as “probably the best politically motivated band in rock & roll.”

Let’s be perfectly honest, who in their right mind would put up real money for a musical written by a non-writer with no track record containing popular crowd pleasers and sing-a-longs like “Love is like Anthrax.” It’s certainly not a marketer’s dream. So, only in my imagination did I ever run home, write the book, get permission to use the songs, find a producer, do a series of regional previews and then triumphantly open up on the Great White Way. Instead, over many years, I would frequently listen to the songs and think about how they might be ordered and structured into a coherent storyline – which songs to use and which to lose, and perhaps other tunes from their discography, at least a few. While the ideas evolved, nothing ever made it onto paper … until now. How else to avoid yet another deathbed regret?

What follows is a rough, bare bones outline of a show, nothing more, nor will it ever be. My advice is to listen to each song before moving on to the next scene as the story is contained in the lyrics as much as in my quick synopses. As a reminder, my objective was to create something that could be better than the god-awful Mama Mia!. Such a low bar, that I hope you won’t be too critical of the obvious flaws in what is to come.

One more thing – several Gang of Four songs cover the topic of sex, as does this imaginary musical, right off the top and several times thereafter. If you think you might be offended by my awkwardly written prose describing sexual activity, then this might be a good time to take your leave. E. L. James has nothing to worry about from me.

And now, without further ado, Entertainment! – The Musical, a show never coming to a theatre near you.

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Setting: The late 20th century, any urban/suburban location in a first world country

Cast:

K. – Our protagonist, a Kafkaesque character whose life to date has followed the traditional, established norms of modern western society

Mrs. K. – K.’s wife

Michael – K.’s friend and co-worker

Jane – Mrs. K.’s friend

Susan – One of the girls at the bar who spend their evenings hoping to snag a husband on his way up the corporate ladder

Music: All songs by Gang of Four, from their 1979 debut album Entertainment!, unless otherwise noted

**********
ACT I

Scene 1 – Contract

Key lyrics:

The same again, another disappointment
We couldn’t perform in the way the other wanted
Is this really the way it is or a contract in our mutual interest?

As the show opens, it is early morning. K. and Mrs. K are in bed having less than impassioned sex. The kind long time married people might have on occasion, where he closes his eyes trying to imagine that he is sleeping with the attractive woman he saw on yesterday’s train, while she desperately tries to think about what she could whisper in his ear to bring things to a merciful end. They finish and shoot each other disappointing glances as Mrs. K. heads to the shower. K. sits at the end of the bed and vacantly staring out, he begins to sing.

mp3 : Gang Of Four – Contract

Scene 2 – Glass

Key lyrics:

I’m so restless
I’m as bored as a cat
We talk about this and we talk about that

As K. gets in the shower, Mrs. K. gets dressed and heads to the kitchen to start breakfast. She looks out the window pondering the morning’s events, lights herself up a cigarette (naturally!) and begins to sing.

mp3 : Gang Of Four – Glass

Scene 3 – At Home He’s A Tourist

Key lyrics:

At home he feels like a tourist
At home she’s looking for interest
She said she was ambitious
So she accepts the process

Michael and Jane are walking towards the K.’s house and notice Mrs. K. staring out the window. Jane mentions her concern that Mrs. K. seems particularly unhappy as of late and that the K.’s marriage may be in trouble. Michael mentions that K. feels that the two have been growing distant as well. While outwardly they seem to be living successful lives, it doesn’t seem to be making either one of them happy. Michael sings about how K. feels like a tourist at home, while Jane interjects that Mrs. K. is looking for interest.

mp3 : Gang Of Four – At Home He’s A Tourist

They even find a way to turn “two steps forward (six steps back)” into a short dance number as the song ends and they enter the K.’s house.

Scene 4 – It’s Her Factory (from the untitled Yellow EP, 1980)

Key lyrics:

Housewife heroines, addicts to their homes
It’s her factory, it’s her duty
In a man’s world because they’re not men

The guys leave for work. Mrs. K. and Jane remain at the house and engage in some inconsequential chit chat – they talk about this; they talk about that. Mrs. K. then says she has a few quick things to get done before they head out and she heads to the kitchen. Jane sings the song with Mrs. K. looking back to interject with the backing vocals.

mp3 : Gang Of Four – It’s Her Factory

Scene 5 – Outside The Trains Don’t Run On Time (from the untitled Yellow EP, 1980)

Key lyrics:

Discipline is his passion
Order his obsession

K. and Michael arrive at the factory where they work. K.’s secretary tells K. that the boss wants to see him first thing. Michael makes an offhand remark about what a stickler the boss is and K. says that the guy has always been on his ass since K. was promoted to his executive job. Cue the music.

mp3 : Gang Of Four – Outside The Trains Don’t Run On Time

As K. and Michael sing the song, the workers get up from their stations and turn this into a big production number (Ok, I know this is kind of a rip-off from a scene in The Producers). At the end of the song, K. heads off to see the boss.

Scene 6 – Natural’s Not In It

Key lyrics:

The problem of leisure, what to do for pleasure?
This heaven gives me migraine

Now out shopping, Mrs. K. is talking with her friend Jane and discussing how she bought into marriage with a successful man and the trappings of money and status. But honestly, she’s now just a bored housewife with a husband who treats her as a sex object more than anything else. As the music starts, she says, “I’m just getting a headache thinking about it.”

mp3 : Gang Of Four – Natural’s Not In It

Scene 7 – What We All Want (from the album Solid Gold, 1981)

Key lyrics:

Could I be happy with something else?
I need something to fill my time
Could I be happy with something else?
I need someone to fill my time

K. and Michael meet in K.’s office later that day, after K.’s talk with the boss. “Can you believe he fired me?! I’m gone at the end of the week. A small drop in production last month and that’s it, after everything I’ve done for this company. What am I going to do now? Start over from the bottom at another firm? And, oh god, my wife is probably going to throw me out of the house.” Cue the music; K. sings “This wheel spins letting me off…”

mp3 : Gang Of Four – What We All Want

After the song finishes, Michael tries to console K. They agree to go out for drinks with everyone else and talk more.

Scene 8 – Return The Gift

Key lyrics:

Please send me evenings and weekends

K. and Michael meet up with the boys from work to head over to the local club. While K. is subdued, the rest are having the usual male testosterone-driven banter about how drunk they plan to get and who’s going to get laid tonight. As they head out, you can hear them singing “Please send me evenings and weekends.”

mp3 : Gang Of Four – Return The Gift

INTERMISSION
**********
ACT II

Scene 9 – I Love A Man In A Uniform (from the album Songs Of The Free, 1982)

Key lyrics:

I love a man in a uniform
The girls they love to see you shoot
To have ambitions was my ambition
But I had nothing to show for my dreams

K., Michael and the boys enter the local watering hole each wearing similar blue suits, white shirts and red ties (dare I call them corporate “uniforms”). They head to the bar, get drinks and start chatting it up with a group of gold digging girls. Susan, the queen bee of the group, is showing particular interest in K. and Michael. Susan tells them that the girls really like hanging out with the up and coming business executives – the whole money, power, status thing. While Michael soaks up the adoration and pulls Susan closer to him, K. laments that he himself isn’t much of a catch, “being married and recently unemployed, after all.” Cue the music.

mp3 : Gang Of Four – I Love A Man In Uniform

K. sings “Time with my girl…” with all the girls jumping in for “You must be joking…” Michael interjects with “The girls they love to see you shoot” and then the girls form a dance line for the title chorus. By the end of the song, all the guys and girls are dancing together and singing the repeating choruses of “I love a man in the uniform. The girls they love to see you shoot…” And, as the number ends, Susan falls into Michael’s arms, whispers in his ear and they begin to head for the door. “See you tomorrow?” Michael smiles at K. “Guess it’s time for me to head home and face the music,” K. replies.

Scene 10 – Is It Love? (from the album Hard, 1983)

Key lyrics:

Is it love?
Love that’s on your mind
Is it love?
Not just of a certain kind

Back at Susan’s apartment – As the music starts, Michael and Susan are in bed having sex, both on their knees looking straight out into the audience (use your imagination). Their lovemaking is everything that the K.’s weren’t – hot, passionate, sweaty and loud. “Is it love?” Susan asks (hopes). The song plays out as a duet, the same as the album track. At 4:03 of the song, Susan and the scene come to a climax. Both she and Michael fall to the bed in exhaustion.

mp3 : Gang Of Four – Is It Love?

Scene 11 – Not Great Men

Key lyrics:

No weak men in the books at home
The strong men who have made the world
The poor still weak, the rich still rule

K. returns home, a bit disheveled and clearly depressed. He whispers something to Mrs. K. at which point she collapses into a nearby chair crying softly. “Not everyone is destined to be a winner in our economy,” he says, “But I thought for sure, that I could be one.” K. sits on the couch, across from his wife and begins to sing. When the song finishes, Mrs. K., now in better control of her emotions, takes his hand and leads him to the bedroom.

mp3 : Gang Of Four – Not Great Men

Scene 12 – Anthrax

Key lyrics:

Love’ll get you like a case of anthrax
And that’s something I don’t want to catch

Back at Susan’s apartment, it is a few hours later as Michael, hung over, begins to stir. The feedback at the beginning of the song, along with rapid bright white strobe lights, simulates Michael’s pounding headache and general disorientation.

mp3 : Gang Of Four – Anthrax

As he starts to regain his senses, he sees Susan, still sleeping, recalls the earlier events and remembers her desperate plea, “Is it Love?” This song is his response, “Love is like Anthrax”. As the song ends, Michael gets dressed and leaves.

Scene 13 – Damaged Goods

Key lyrics:

Sometimes I’m thinking that I love you, but I know it’s only lust
The change will do you good
Damaged goods
Send them back
I can’t work
I can’t achieve
Send me back
I’m kissing you goodbye

Back at the K.’s house, in the bedroom, Mrs. K. tries to help K. drown his sorrows in sex. She’s on top, working hard to make him happy and there does seem to be some cooperative passion initially. She starts singing the first verse. He takes over at the first repeat of “The kiss so sweet” and she takes over the next time that line is sung. Then suddenly he rolls her off him and the music stops.

mp3 : Gang Of Four – Damaged Goods

K. says he just can’t do it anymore, he knows he is a failure at work and pretending that there is still love in their marriage isn’t good for either of them. Mrs. K. acknowledges that everything he said is true and honestly she has had it with him as well. The music restarts with K. singing “Damaged Goods, Send Them Back”; she takes over at “The kiss so sweet” and with K sitting on the bed, head in his hands, she gets up, stands over him and finishes with the “I’m kissing you goodbye” chorus.

Scene 14 – Paralysed (from the album Solid Gold, 1981)

Key lyrics:

My ambitions come to nothing
What I wanted now just seems a waste of time
I can’t make out what has gone wrong

It is the next morning and with K. sitting on the couch in the living room looking forlorn and defeated, Mrs. K. walks by with her luggage, kisses him goodbye and leaves. Devastated and in complete despair, K. gets a bed sheet, fashions a noose and hangs it from a beam in the house. He stands on a chair, puts the noose around his neck, but then just stands there for several moments doing nothing. He’s unable to summon up the energy for this final act. Cue the music as K. sings “Blinkered. Paralysed. Flat on my back…”

mp3 : Gang Of Four – Paralysed

When the song ends, Mrs. K. re-enters the house and halfway through saying, “I forgot to take my…”, she sees K., walks over to him and exclaims, “Oh god! Can’t you do anything right!” She kicks the chair out from beneath his legs just as the stage goes completely dark.

END
**********

Last January, I was talking with a friend. While our conversations are usually restricted to politics, legal matters (his business) or the financial markets (mine), for whatever reason we found ourselves on the topic of theatre. He mentioned that he had recently seen a show, Mama Mia!.

“Really,” I said, “I have a great story about that.”

He then went on to tell me that while he’d never had much interest in musical theatre, this show – Mama Mia! – had been a transformative experience for him. He loved every minute of it, gained a new found appreciation for musicals, and thought that it must represent a pinnacle for the genre.

“What was your story?” he asked.

“Oh, never mind.”

DG

 

Luke Haines

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF LUKE HAINES (Part 16)

A GUEST POSTING by chaval

JC writes……

I know what you’re thinking…..wasn’t Part 16 of this series featured last week with the look at Off My Head… and Leeds United?  Indeed it was, but this is what should have been posted except technology let us down.  chaval sent it over in early December – twice – but on each occasion the contents ended up in cyberspace.  We both think the various files that were attached made it too large but neither of us got any notification about things.  Anyways, take this a Part 16…..last week’s as Part 17 and next week’s as Part 18.   Here’s chaval:-

VALA career curmudgeon whose innovative work was widely admired by his fellow artists while only occasionally flirting with the mainstream. A man with a scathing sense of humour, a habit of getting drunk and abusive in company and a wide ranging contempt for those contemporaries who had found success. His disdain for the people running his industry ran in parallel with a surprising ability to get them to stump up cash for projects with limited commercial appeal, including a work devoted to 70s terrorism. Yep, the English writer B.S Johnson really was a piece of work.

When film director Paul Tickell, rashly filming Johnson’s tricksy, post-modern terrorism novel Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry, happened to hear How I Learned To Love The Bootboys, he realised that if you needed a soundtrack for a film about a clerk who takes a grudge way too far, Luke Haines really was the man.

Happily the commission coincided with a period when Haines was feeling inspired, although not necessarily by the subject matter. He spent an intense ten days in an East London recording studio completing the bulk of the album in the winter of 2000. At that point, he admits, “I have still not seen a single frame of film footage”.

Probably wise. Tickell’s film was a mess, unable to decide whether it wanted to be a 21st-century take on the terrorist mindset, a homage to 60s kitchen-sink realism or a 50s-style Carry On spoof. These things are subjective of course, but I didn’t like the book, hated the film, but rather enjoyed the soundtrack.

Haines was inspired by a completely different story, the true tale of June and Jennifer Gibbons, disturbed twins who grew up on an RAF base in the 70s, suffered severe bullying and abuse and ended up in a Broadmoor psychiatric wing. Their story fuelled Discomania, a song that Haines rated so highly that he returned to it four times on the soundtrack, including a sparse funk version similar to the sound he had explored on Baader Meinhof

mp3: Luke Haines – Discomania
mp3: Luke Haines – Discomaniax

Johnson’s book was partly inspired by the Angry Brigade terrorist scares of the early 70s, subject matter close to Haines’s own fascinations although not really explored in the film. No matter, Haines scatters lyrical references to King Mob and Amherst Road (the Angry Brigade’s HQ address) and offers up a scathing slice of 70s underground social history in a track he describes as “prole-baiting”

mp3: Luke Haines  – How To Hate The Working Classes

The other standout on the album is a relentless assault on Nick Lowe’s classic. Lowe is a great songwriter but suffers the curse of usually sounding very affable on record. It’s not a problem Haines shares.

mp3: Luke Haines  – I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass

On the album insert, Haines emulates Malry’s habit of listing his grudges at society in the debit column. Number one is “Princes William and Harry not being in the Merc’.

The accompanying picture of Haines channelling a malevolent Johnson at his typewriter looks like a still from a superior 70s horror movie.

chaval

Mackenzie Sings Orbidoig

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #197 : MACKENZIE SINGS ORBIDOIG

Repeat posting from January 2014….and I’m not apologising for it!!

Today’s words are courtesy of Whippet at The Wheel, a wonderful former blog dedicated to the life and work of Billy Mackenzie:-

The guitarist Steve Reid was a long time friend of Billy’s.

“Orbidoig” had been a name used by Mr Reid and Christine Beveridge for their musical project formed some time after Christine had taken on vocal duties with Strange News in 1980. Billy had managed to help get Orbidoig a deal with Situation Two back in 1981, which had resulted in a single “Nocturnal Operations”/ “Up Periscopes”. Billy MacKenzie is credited with playing tubular bells on “Nocturnal Operations”. It was recorded around the time Christine Beveridge briefly joined Billy and Alan to form 39 Lyon Street and record one track “Kites”. The Orbidoig single sleeve photo is actually a publicity photo of 39 Lyon Street which has been severely cropped – leaving only Christine.

In the wake of the Rankine split, 1982 saw Billy team up with old pal and fellow Dundonian Mr Reid once more for a one-off single “Ice Cream Factory” released neither as a Billy MacKenzie solo single nor as an Orbidoig release… but as “MacKenzie Sings Orbidoig”! A rich musical creation spawned under the watchful eye of producer Mark Arthurworrey and written by Stevie Reid, the outcome made for a spot of uneasy, easy-listening. Released in 12″ and 7″ versions, the single received scant airplay and bombed. The B-sides were a dub version of the A side called “Cream Of Ice Cream Factory” and another track “Excursion Ecosse En Route Koblenz Via Hawkhill” a melodic but rather twisted, gnashing bit of guitar wrangling from Mr Reid. Hawkhill, for those who have no experience of Dundee is a pleasant cosmopolitan road which stretches from the big roundabout at The Marketgait, past the end of Blackness Road and down onto the Perth Road.

The 7″ has a place in the cupboard and I’m happy to, again, offer up both sides:-

mp3 : Mackenzie Sings Orbidoig – Ice Cream Factory
mp3 : Mackenzie Sings Orbidoig – Excursion Ecosse En Route Koblenz Via Hawkhill

JC

Lefty Frizzell

SOME SONGS ARE GREAT SHORT STORIES (Chapter 31)

A song I got to know from a version recorded by Johnny Cash and later on by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Ten years ago, on a cold dark night
There was someone killed ‘neath the town hall light
There were few at the scene, but they all agreed
That the slayer who ran looked a lot like me

The judge said, “Son what is your alibi?
If you were somewhere else then you won’t have to die”
I spoke not a word though it meant my life
For I had been in the arms of my best friend’s wife

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me

The scaffold is high, and eternity nears
She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold wind mourns
In a long black veil she cries over my bones

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me, nobody knows but me, nobody knows but me

It was written in 1959 by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin, the latter being one of the few females able to make any sort of living as a songwriter in those days.  Her most famous composition, written in the mid-70s alongside Kris Kristofferson, is the country/christian ballad, One Day At A Time, a version of which, recorded by Scottish cabaret singer Lena Martell, spent three weeks at #1 in the UK in November 1979, much to the disgust of my 16-year old self.

Long Black Veil has been recorded by hundreds of different singers and groups, and just last year, the original version was selected by the Library of Congress in the USA for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

mp3 : Lefty Frizzell – Long Black Veil

JC

Warren Zevon

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #237 : WARREN ZEVON

A GUEST POSTING by ROL HIRST

mastermind behind My Top Ten blog

Warren Zevon is known to the great unwashed for one song and one song only. It’s a great song, don’t get me wrong. I never tire of hearing it and it contains the best example of alliteration-meets-assonance I’ve ever heard in a pop song.

Little old lady got mutilated late last night

Sorry. We English teachers have to get our kicks where we can.

For many years, I didn’t know much more about Warren Zevon, and then I bought his “Greatest Hits” album Genius and found myself loving all the songs. Zevon’s songwriting has wit and attitude, a real edge that separates him from many of his contemporaries… and he swore a hell of a lot on record, even back in the 70s. Swearing on record is pretty much de rigueur these days – even Lloyd Cole sings “Motherfucker” on his latest album – but Zevon led the way… which might explain why many of his best songs never got any airplay.

Eventually I started digging into Zevon’s back catalogue proper, and that’s when my love affair with his work really began. Over the last few years, rarely a week has gone by where I haven’t listened to something by Zevon… and I can’t think of any other artist I could say that about, even my all-time favourites.

I thought it was about time I got around to inflicting a Warren Zevon ICA on JC… but there were so many great tunes to choose from, I had to restrict myself. So… no Werewolves, and none of the other “hits” from Genius. This means I couldn’t include Excitable Boy; A Certain Girl; The French Inhaler (an absolute classic); Poor, Poor Pitiful Me; Splendid Isolation; or Roland, The Headless Thompson Gunner. I wouldn’t even allow myself the greatest Prince cover ever recorded… Raspberry Beret by The Hindu Love Gods (aka Warren with Peter Buck, Bill Berry and Mike Mills).

Despite all those omissions, I was still spoilt for choice, and it took me some time to narrow this list down. Hope you enjoy my selections… there’s many more great tunes where these came from.

1. Play It All Night Long : from ‘Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School’ (1980)

In 1970, Neil Young wrote Southern Man, criticising the southern states of the USA for their history of racism and slavery. In 1972, Lynyrd Skynyrd responded “I hope Neil Young will remember: a southern man don’t need him around anyhow” on Sweet Home Alabama. In 1980, Warren Zevon wrote a “satirical homage” to Sweet Home Alabama while stoned. It’s the perfect threequel, though the lyrics kept it well away from the radio.

Grandpa pissed his pants again
He don’t give a damn
Brother Billy has both guns drawn
He ain’t been right since Vietnam
Daddy’s doing Sister Sally
Grandma’s dying of cancer now
The cattle all have brucellosis
We’ll get through somehow

I’m going down to the Dew Drop Inn
See if I can drink enough
There ain’t much to country living
Sweat, piss, jizz and blood

“Sweet Home Alabama”
Play that dead band’s song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long

How many other pop songs can you name which contain the word “brucellosis”?

Oh, there’s one more link in this chain (that I know of). In 2007, southern man Kid Rock released All Summer Long which samples both Sweet Home Alabama and Werewolves of London. Its chorus also echoes Play It All Night Long as Rock sings “Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long”. It’s pretty good, for a Kid Rock song.

2. For My Next Trick, I’ll Need A Volunteer : From Life’ll Kill Ya (2000)

One of my favourite Prefab Sprout songs is The Old Magician, in which Paddy McAloon uses his titular magician as a metaphor for old age, failure and regret. Here’s Warren doing similar, although his magician represents being useless in love.

Well I can saw a woman in two
But you won’t want to look in the box when I am through
I can make love disappear
For my next trick I’ll need a volunteer

I can pull a rabbit out of a hat
I can pull it out, but I can’t put it back
I can make love disappear
For my next trick I’ll need a volunteer

Both magicians end up alone on an empty stage.

3. Night Time In The Switching Yard : From Excitable Boy (1978)

It’s not always the lyrics that draw me to Warren’s work. There are very few in this track. What grabs me instead is the funky bassline – you’d be forgiven for thinking Warren had dragged Nile Rodgers into the studio. Night Time In The Switching Yard has an incredibly hypnotic quality. Great late night chill-out listening, on repeat, forever.

4. Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School : From Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School (1980)

Here’s another one that doesn’t get in primarily on its lyrics – though that title alone surely deserves a place in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Dancing School is a metaphor for brothels, apparently. I love the way this opens with strings and then kicks into an edgy rocker, and Warren’s voice is perfect for pleading.

5. Frank And Jessie James : From Warren Zevon (1976)

Not his debut album, but considered by many to be so. Prior to this, way back in 1969, Warren had released one other record, under the name Zevon, partly produced by Kim Fowley, until the pair of them fell out. It took Warren 7 years to recover and get another record out, this one produced by Jackson Browne. You can hear that very clearly in the production, which appropriately evokes the wide open spaces of the old west. A story song: no jokes, no snark, just well told and emotive. (Though it may be a bit too Billy Joel for JC.)

6. Desperados Under The Eaves : From Warren Zevon (1976)

In a similar vein musically, but one of the first times that the true character of Warren Zevon shows through in the lyrics. Cynical, world weary, with a bruised heart and an eye for devastating detail.

I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was staring in my empty coffee cup
I was thinking that the gypsy wasn’t lyin’
All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles
I’m gonna drink ’em up

And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill

Obviously this was the one that most inspired the band Lucero to pen: Went Looking For Warren Zevon’s Los Angeles.

7. Disorder In The House : From The Wind (2003)

OK, enough of the slow stuff. let’s kick it up a notch. Shortly after his death in 2004, a number of celebrity admirers contributed to a Warren Zevon tribute album titled Enjoy Every Sandwich (his own philosophy, after he was asked how he was coping with the cancer that eventually killed him). Covers were contributed by Bob Dylan, The Pixies, Van Dyke Parks and Don Henley, among others, as well as one track from a big Zevon fan and collaborator, Bruce Springsteen. The pair first worked together on Warren’s 1982 album The Envoy, but this track comes from Zevon’s final album, released 21 years later. Springsteen’s guitar and backing vocals mix well with another of Warren’s witty takes on mortality. He’s really enjoying every sandwich on this one.

It also contains the line:

I’m sprawled across the davenport of despair

I mean, come on… beat that! (Oh, there’s also a Lhasa Apso in this song. Just saying.)

8. Let Nothing Come Between You : From The Envoy (1984)

A love song, plain and simple. Zevon-style.

Got the license – got the ring
Got back the blood tests and everything
Putting on my boutonniere – It’s her favourite flower
Then I’m walking down the altar and I’m gonna take the vow
De de de de de de de de de de
Don’t let nothing come between us

Brucellosis, boutonniere, Lhasa Apso, davenport… truly there was no word Warren Zevon was afraid of using in a lyric.

9. My Shit’s Fucked Up : From Life’ll Kill Ya (2000)

Surprisingly written some time before his terminal diagnosis, although this one does confirm his phobia of doctors. One to turn up loud if you’re feeling your age this morning. (I know I am.)

Well, I went to the doctor
I said, “I’m feeling kind of rough”
“Let me break it to you, son”
“Your shit’s fucked up.”
I said, “my shit’s fucked up?”
Well, I don’t see how–“
He said, “The shit that used to work–
It won’t work now.”

10. My Ride’s Here : From My Ride’s Here (2002)

This one, on the other hand, was written shortly after Warren learned that he was dying. I can’t help but think that the hotel he’s waiting at here is the same one where he sat drinking salty margaritas in Desperados Under The Eaves. I like the way he appears to be tempted back into religion (Zevon came from a Jewish background) but appears to reject it at the end. Where is that ride taking him?

I was staying at the Westin
I was playing to a draw
When in walked Charlton Heston
With the Tablets of the Law
He said, “It’s still the Greatest Story”
I said, “Man, I’d like to stay
But I’m bound for glory
I’m on my way
My ride’s here”

11. Keep Me In Your Heart : From The Wind (2003)

The final Warren Zevon song. Last track of his last album. If this doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, get yourself some eyedrops.

I want this song played at my own funeral.

Sometimes when you’re doing simple things around the house
Maybe you’ll think of me and smile
You know I’m tied to you like the buttons on your blouse
Keep me in your heart for a while

ROL

Sonic Youth

45 45s @ 45 : SWC STYLE (Part 3)

A GUEST SERIES

43. Dirty Boots – Sonic Youth (1990 DGC Records)

Released as a Single in April 1991 (Did not Chart)

‘Dirty Boots’ was the third and final release from Sonic Youth’s sixth album ‘Goo’ which some people will say is Sonic Youth’s finest hour (it’s not ‘Daydream Nation’ is but let’s not argue). ‘Goo’ was my introduction to Sonic Youth and by including this in the list allows me to reintroduce Our Price Girl to these pages, and her brother, albeit briefly.

In the late part of 1991 I was in the start of relationship with Our Price Girl, I was a naïve 16 year old who still mainly listened to whatever the NME or Melody Maker told me to listen to that week. At the time that was ‘Nevermind’ by Nirvana and a bunch of other American rock acts that had started to get some press.

One evening Our Price Girls brother, Dan picked me and her up from a pub in downtown Chatham and on the way back, ‘Goo’ filled the car. As we parked up I asked Dan what the music was and he told me – he flipped the cassette (ask your parents, kids) out the stereo and gave it to me. Have a listen he said.

At five am, I left Our Price Girls house, via, as usual, the back door, I was walking the mile or so down to the small newsagents that I worked at. The shop was run by two brothers who from now on will be known as the Indian Organised Crime Syndicate, because that is basically what the shop was a front for (allegedly in case they are reading). As I was leaving I grabbed the cassette of ‘Goo’ from the kitchen workshop and stuck it in my Walkman.

Side One Track One is ‘Dirty Boots’ and I can remember vividly walking down a track to get onto the hockey pitches behind OPG’s house as it all kicks in and every time I listen to it I am taken back there.

I can picture it now, I’m stood in this field, from which I can see most of my journey ahead. The field runs down to a path where it joins a road to the ice rink, there is a small hill to clamber down to reach the path, behind the ice rink there is a factory, (which is no longer there) where meat pies are made and the smell of them is just starting to fill the air, you can almost taste them (in fact that factory and its smells are one of the reasons I turned vegetarian at the age of 14). Beyond the factory lies the huge site of the new Tesco and the road which leads to my dad’s house and the shop.

I was 16, I was probably experiencing my first real feelings of love, and I was deliriously happy and right then, right there, I didn’t have a care in the world.

‘Dirty Boots’ was released as EP it was backed with a bunch of live tracks.

This was one of them

Eric’s Trip

SWC

JC adds…….Here’s a bonus of the other live tracks that backed the EP version of Dirty Boots:-

White Kross
Cinderella’s Big Score
Dirty Boots
The Bedroom

Interpol

EVIL

Interpol had been around for a few years before making a breakthrough with the album Turn On The Bright Lights in 2002, which was bang in the middle of a period when a number of bands from New York City, such as The Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were coming to wider attention, and which coincided with an explosion in what was labelled a post-punk revival thanks to guitar bands again coming to the fore and taking their influences from the 70s and 80s, both in terms of sound and vision.

There was, however, something more to Interpol than most, possibly because they had a level of craft and musicianship that seemed to be a bit above the norm, something which became particularly apparent with their second album, Antics, which hit the shops in September 2004 and immediately became lauded as one of the essential records of the year. It certainly ticked all my boxes, and where the debut had been at times felt moody and slightly impenetrable, the new collection of songs seemed destined to get the festival audiences on board, thanks to irresistible, upbeat tunes over which ambiguous and multi-meaning lyrics were sung. It felt like the best elements of Joy Division/New Order, the Bunnymen and The Cure had been meshed into one band, although there were a number of critics, especially in America, who had a real go at the band for failing to develop their own style and for becoming a pastiche of a bygone age.

The album had been preceded by the single Slow Hands, which took Interpol into Top 40 of the UK singles charts for the first ever time. The album provided a few obvious candidates for a follow-up, but the record company held back for a period of time, deciding that the first week of January 2015 would be the best time for the release of the next 45. Maybe that fact that it would be accompanied by what I have long felt to be the most creepy and genuinely disturbing music video ever made was a factor……it certainly would have been a sobering and cheerless view in the run-up to Christmas:-

It’s certainly an unforgettable promo, even if it is one that I can only watch on an intermittent basis. It’s a terrific piece of music, driven along relentlessly by the basslines of Carlos D but to which all the other members of the band make the most marvellous of contributions. It was a song that deserved to be a huge chart hit, and while it would prove to be the biggest single success enjoyed by Interpol, it deserved a better fate than stalling at #18. Maybe the fact that so many folk already owned the song, via the purchase of the album over the previous four months, was more of a factor than anyone at the record company had realised.

The period following the release of Antics was when Interpol cashed in, taking its their own headlining tours across the world, appearing as special guests at outdoor gigs by some of the giants of the stadium-rock gigs (including U2 in Glasgow and Coldplay in London), as well as taking their place high on the bills of various summer festivals. Evil was the track that got folk dancing and singing along more than any other.

mp3 : Interpol – Evil

Here’s the rather excellent b-side of the CD single, one that was otherwise unavailable:-

mp3 : Interpol – Song Seven

Incidentally, if you want to waste a few minutes of your life, you could browse around the internet and read all the different interpretations of what Evil is meant to represent, despite its composer, the aforementioned Carlos D never ever uttering any words of explanation.

JC

Twilight Sad

STUFF BOUGHT IN 2019 (1)

Most folk do end of year lists to highlight all the great new music they picked up in 2019. I’m too lazy/alternative for that……plus there’s the fact that I tend not to buy too much later in in any given year so that Santa Claus can come up with some goodies.

Every now and then over the coming weeks and months I’m going to bring your attention to stuff that I did spend money on/was gifted at Xmas that was released during 2019.

The very first album that I bought in 2019 (on limitede edition blue vinyl!!) turned out to be my favourite album of 2019. I don’t think I’ve ever gone a calendar year before when that was the case.

I’ve covered The Twilight Sad many times before, and I do appreciate that they they are not to everyone’s liking. The new album was a long time coming and there was an incredible amount of anticipation, and some intrepidation too, given that there had been some more personnel changes during the intervening years with the departure of long-time drummer Mark Devine, a man who had provided much to their sound in the studio and in the live setting.

Catching them live in June 2018, at their first UK gig for the best part of three years and hearing some new songs had been a great experience, but there was always the nervousness about how the recorded versions would sound. As has become typical nowadays, there was a drip-feed of new material, with tracks being made available digitally via the band’s website and videos posted up on you tube etc. There was also a 10″ single released in late 2018 with a remix of a new track and then finally, on 18 January 2019, It Won/t Be Like This All The Time came out, on Rock Action Records, a label owned and run by Mogwai.

The critical acclaim was near-unanimous and deservedly so. It’s the band’s fifth studio album and contains their strongest and most consistent collection of songs yet. It is a loud album, but in a totally different way from the earlier material released at the tail end of the first decade of this century. There’s a great deal more electronica and bass on it than before but not at the expense of some incredible guitar work from Andy McFarlane, one of just two members left from the original line-up. The other, of course, is singer James Graham, and on this record he again spits out an incredible set of raw and emotional lyrics in that unique way of his – he sounds just as good when he sings soft and quiet ballads as he does when he is competing with the five-piece band going at full pelt. He’s one of the few these days who can get me right in the chest every single fucking time.

mp3 : The Twilight Sad – VTr
mp3 : The Twilight Sad – I/m Not Here (missing face)
mp3 : The Twilight Sad – Auge/Maschine

There’s a live show coming up at Glasgow Barrowlands in April 2020. It will be a triumphant homecoming and probably the occasion that puts this album to bed and signals the start of a whole new set of songs. It’s one of my most eagerly awaited events of the next 12 months, and believe me, it’s a year that is going to be packed with all sorts of highlights.

JC

Luke Haines

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF LUKE HAINES (17)

I bet some of you had thought I’d forgotten all about this series.  Apologies for the unexpectedly long delay since Part 15, but I wanted to make sure none of the postings got lost in the festive stuff and the Steve dropped in his wonderful review of Rockaway Beach that just couldn’t be held back.

The Guardian, in December 2006, carried a superb appreciation of Luke Haines, penned by the always-readable Alexis Petridis. The article looked back with a bit of nostalgia to the days of the Auteurs and Black Box Recorder, but in the main was rightly full of praise for a solo album released in October 2006 as I will now aim to demonstrate via a lengthy extract:-

Luke Haines is such an extravagantly talented songwriter, both unique and, one suspects, uniquely unsuited to mainstream success. It’s a fact underlined by the title track and lead single from his 11th album: for Off My Rocker at the Art School Bop, Haines called upon the services of sometime Sugababes and Rachel Stevens producer Richard X, then put him to work remixing a song that references transgressive performance artists the Viennese Aktionists, the 1914 Vorticist art journal Blast, Hungarian photographer Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Nazi anthem The Horst Wessel Song. Despite the producer’s ministrations, the charts remained mysteriously un-busted.

It sets the tone for the rest of the album, which manages to be both accessible and deeply unsettling, matching crunching glam-rock guitar riffs and huge choruses to subject matter most songwriters would steer well clear of. The Walton Hop makes blackly comic capital from the topic of the teenage disco frequented by convicted child sex offenders including Jonathan King.

Pop-related paedophilia crops up again on the closing Bad Reputation, which retells the story of Gary Glitter’s downfall from the perspective of a member of his backing group, aghast at the effect The Leader’s sexual proclivities are having on his own standing. It offers perhaps the most improbable singalong chorus of the year: “Gary Glitter – he’s a dirty old man, ruining the reputation of the Glitter Band.” Leeds United is both naggingly catchy and about the Yorkshire Ripper murders. In the same way that the topics explored on Haines’ remarkable terrorism-obsessed 1996 album Baader Meinhof suddenly seemed far less esoteric five years after its release, it makes for pretty queasy listening in light of current events: “In the House of Lords, the Chamber of Horrors at Madam Tussauds, out with the old, we’ve got to make room for them all.”

Occasionally, Haines’ desire to provoke verges on the suicidal. That Off My Rocker at the Art School Bop was released to a response muted even by Haines’ standards may have less to do with its quality than with the presence of Heritage Rock, a viciously funny satire apparently aimed at the handful of magazines that usually champion him. Then again, one of the artists lovingly alluded to on the title track is Wyndham Lewis, the brilliant painter and sculptor whose belligerence effectively scuppered his own career, leaving him, as one contemporary put it, a “lonely old volcano”.

It’s a description that fits Luke Haines pretty well, but as Off My Rocker proves, when he erupts, it’s still pretty spectacular.

Off My Rocker At The Art School Bop is a tremendous listen, as good as anything he had ever released previously. It was an audacious and ambitious piece of work, full of humour, pathos and great tunes laced with knowing and cynical lyrics, as alluded to in the Petridis piece quoted above.

mp3 : Luke Haines – Off My RockerAt The Art School Bop (Richard X single mix)
mp3 : Luke Haines – I Am The Best Artist / Skinny White Girls

Should have been a huge hit…..tailor made for daytime radio!

The following year, another track was lifted from the album, to which three new songs and a live rendition of the title track were added to make a new EP, released only on CD, but given that the subject matter was a mass murderer and the failure of the police to track him down for years, it can be no real surprise that it was largely ignored by the media and received little, if any, airplay:-

mp3 : Luke Haines – Leeds United
mp3 : Luke Haines – Bovver Boys
mp3 : Luke Haines – Country Life
mp3 : Luke Haines – Queen Elizabeth I
mp3 : Luke Haines – Leeds United (live in Leeds)

I can’t let this week’s posting go without giving space to the dig at the man born as Paul Gadd, whose loud, anthemic and stomping glam-pop music of the 70s was a staging post for many a young boy and young girl on the road to them becoming post-punk/new wave/indie devotees:-

mp3 : Luke Haines – Bad Reputation

As a great philosopher once wrote – naughty, naughty, very naughty. But absolute genius.

JC

 

Lucky Pierre

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #196 : LUCKY PIERRE

I’ve one 7” item by Lucky Pierre in the collection. It’s called Pierre’s Final Thought and it dates from 2000, being picked up on the basis that Lucky Pierre was the name adopted by Aidan Moffat for a side-project. It was a name he kept in use until 2005 when he shortened it to L Pierre, and over the years he has released five albums and eight singles/EPs of music that, shall we say, is a long way removed from his stuff with Arab Strap, Bill Wells or RM Hubbert, or indeed any of the solo material he’s issued under his own name.

It’s actually best to rely on what other, more talented writers have said at various junctures. This was Betty Clarke, in The Guardian in 2002, reviewing Hypnogogia, the debut album:-

Lucky Pierre – aka Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat – makes songs full of childlike innocence and fairy-tale fears, with the intensity and claustrophobia of nightmares frighteningly evoked. The pictures on the album sleeve sum up the nature of Moffat’s dance-influenced dreams. A painting of a young boy’s smiling face, faded from years of display, adorns the front, while a dark, blurred image of a ghoul graces the back. Hope and sadness are entwined. Moffat is wonderful at conveying dense emotions, but the misery is overwhelming.

And from Fiona Shepherd, writing in The List in 2017, reviewing 1948-  , the final ever release by L Pierre:-

Over the past 15 years, Arab Strap mainman Aidan Moffat has sporadically indulged as L Pierre, his DIY repository for soothing found sound, scratchy samples and field recordings. For his fifth and final fling, he has lifted wholesale (from Youtube) samples of the recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Violin Concerto in E Minor’ by esteemed soloist Nathan Milstein with the New York Philharmonic. The original recording became the first ever 12-inch long player release in 1948, hence the title, with the date left hanging pointedly because, despite persistent whispers of its demise, vinyl isn’t dead yet.

The music comes pre-distressed, with the tremulous, slightly creaky strings sounding a little warped and the concerto chopped up and stuck through a blender. Following a tantalizingly slow fade-in, a mournful melody takes subtle hold, running through the piece like a blue mist, the patina of distortion conjuring up images of European melodramas from the 70s, a realm of long doleful glances, lurid eyeshadow and fur coats. These moody moments are punctuated with stirring, urgent passages and dramatic crescendos before fading out on an exquisite haunting requiem which hits a locked groove at the end so that the listener can lick that wound for as long as they wish. It’s what Pierre would have wanted.

Make of those what you will. It doesn’t appeal much to me and I was quite disappointed with both sides of the single I picked up:-

mp3 : Lucky Pierre – Chloe
mp3 : Lucky Pierre – Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child

JC