Wedding Present

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #106

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 106: The Wedding Present – ‘Once More’ (Reception Records ’85)

Dear friends,

‘Don’t Try And Stop Me, Mother’ was a 12“ compilation of the first two 7“ singles by The Wedding Present, their A-Sides and B-Sides. Also, it was the first record by the band that I managed to get my hands on in 1985.

You know, I really made a long pause before starting this second paragraph, contemplating whether there has been another record in 1985 which spent nearly as much time on my turntable as this one did. I did not come up with a satisfying answer, which might or might not show you how outstandingly brilliant this 12“ was. And still is, of course! I played it to death, believe me, frantically trying to figure out what the hell the lyrics might mean in detail – to no great avail, of course. I mean, the boy Gedge certainly was not really ‘Abba-esque’, that much I could understand, in fact his lyrics quite profoundly seemed to mirror me and my unmet teenage desires … something I could instantly cope with, of course.

But back to the 12“, the B-Side, confusingly enough, featured the first single, ‘Go Out And Get ‘Em Boy!‘ plus ‘(The Moment Before) Everything’s Spoiled Again’ whereas the A-Side had the second single on it, which was ‘Once More’ backed by ‘At The Edge Of The Sea’. I’m pretty sure all of you know all these tunes by heart and as great as both 7“ B-Sides are, the A-Sides are even better.

Now, from 1985 to 2025 is 40 years, even it’s hard to believe. But still, and I am brutally honest, in those 40 years, even up to this very day, I never, never, never have been able to decide whether ‘Go Out’ is better than ‘Once More’ … or vice versa! To me, both songs are total killers, always were – and they were the reason why I followed The Wedding Present quite religiously in the earlier stages of their career. Well, this 12“ and the fact that the band played my home town Aachen a year or so later, shortly after ‘George Best’ had been released. It was a tiny little venue, I was there early, and I stood right in front of the stage (which was just a few inches in height anyway, but let’s call it ‘stage’ nevertheless, shall we?) – and I was fully, completely and utterly blown away by this gig!

Musically and/or song-wise it really had everything you’d wish for, but in hindsight there was another thing which astonished me most: the sheer velocity Gedge and Salowka (but mostly Gedge) managed to strum their guitars with: I remember that I stood there literally open-mouthed, my eyes were not capable to follow Gedge’s hand, it moved just so damn quickly when he started playing … you’d see him placing his plectrum correctly – and then, all of a sudden, his hand exploded above the strings!

Perhaps my battered brain likes to believe that he was even faster with this when doing ‘Once More’ in comparison to ‘Go Out’, I don’t know. But as there can only be one single in the box by a band, I had to make a choice:

 

mp3: The Wedding Present – Once More

Mind you, on a different day it could well have turned out to be ‘Go Out’, I’m still unsure! Or, for that matter, basically anything they put out before ‘Kennedy’. Or ‘Kennedy’ itself, for what it’s worth …

Fun fact: some twenty years ago I was in a Peel-related Yahoo forum and out of the blue I got a private mail from Gedge, asking about some CD I had of some specific Peel show – I must have mentioned it in said forum. I could be wrong, but I think it was the last broadcast before his death. Anyway, I posted a copy of this CD to Gedge and he – very kindly – asked me whether he could send me something from ‘Cineramaland’ (his words, not mine) in return. I politely declined and told him about the above gig, saying that with this experience – and of course everything he did with The Wedding Present – he made my life rich enough. What a prick, me, right? I’d like to think that this statement was the reason for him to reform The Wedding Present, but hey, I might be wrong here … oh, I’m a friend of the stars!

Enjoy,

 

Dirk

 

Book Reviews

BOOK OF THE MONTH : SEPTEMBER 2025 : ‘STEALING DEEP PURPLE’ by STEVE McLEAN

The past four Wednesdays on the blog have been given over to Steve McLean during which he has informed and educated many of us (and probably all of us!!), on how each of Fleetwood Mac, The Velvet Underground, MC5 and Cactus had occasions when their identities were not all that they seemed to be.  All four pieces were spin-offs from a book that Steve has written, ‘Stealing Deep Purple : The Unbelievably True Story of The Most Audacious Stunt in Rock & Roll’.  

I’ll be the first to hold my hand up and say that for most of my life, I’d struggle to name any Deep Purple song other than Smoke On The Water.  Actually, I don’t even know that song…..I’m aware of the riff! The Britpop era introduced me to a second of their songs, Hush, when it was covered by Kula Shaker and taken to #2 in the singles chart in 1997.  Now, I have to say that I thought it was a Kula Shaker original given it sounded just like the rest of their output, and I had was a sort of ‘rubs eyes in disbelief’ moment when learning it had been a 1968 Top 5 hit single in America for the hard rock giants, and indeed that the Deep Purple version itself was a cover as the song had been written by Joe South and recorded in 1967 by his fellow American, Billy Joe Royal.

It was the very success of Hush that ultimately led to a chain of events in the late 70s/early 80s into which Steve delves and picks through in forensic detail, thanks to what must have been many hundreds, if not thousands of hours of research as well as seeking out and getting responses from some who were in and around the periphery of said events.

The crux of the tale centres around Rod Evans, the original singer of Deep Purple, and whose vocal is on their version of Hush.  Evans recorded three studio albums with the band before being fired in 1969.  The other members of the band – Ritchie Blackmore (guitars), Jon Lord (keyboards) and Ian Paice (drums) – felt Evans’ largely pop/mod vocal style wasn’t compatible with the sort of music they were increasingly wanting to make, and he was replaced by Ian Gillan.  It wasn’t just Evans who was booted out of Deep Purple MkI, as bassist Nick Simper was replaced by Roger Glover.

Deep Purple MkII lasted till 1973 when Gillan and Glover were removed to be replaced by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes.   Two years later, Blackmore quit to pursue what was going to be a solo career, but which ultimately became the band Rainbow.    This meant we were onto Mk IV of Deep Purple, with Tommy Bolin being hired as Blackmore’s replacement, but by 1976, the band had torn itself asunder, albeit a number of them would end up working together in Whitesnake.

Rod Evans had long drifted out of the music industry and by the end of the 70s was working in medicine at a hospital in California, which is the point in time where the book really begins.  An idea was hatched to relaunch Deep Purple and undertake a tour of America. Mexico and Canada, and possibly further afield, depending on the success or otherwise of the initial venture.  Rod Evans would front the band, but the other musicians in this version of Deep Purple would have had would have had no prior involvement in any of the Mks I-IV line-ups.

The question of who owned the actual name ‘Deep Purple’ wasn’t seen as an important issue; and, if you recall Steve’s blog posts on other bands over the past few weeks,  this was an era when quite a few bands went out on the road caring little about legacies or who had the actual right to claim the rights to a name.  Indeed, in this instance, there is some suggestion that Rod Evans may have had grounds to believe that the other members of Deep Purple weren’t too fussed about it all, especially as they were at the height of their fames with new bands, and that it would all go smoothly.  Others in and around Deep Purple, and in particular the management side of things, believed very differently……

The tour did go ahead.  Some shows went well, but most didn’t, with underwhelming performances and poor sound quality leaving some fans feeling incredibly short-changed and/or cheated.  Some shows ended in riots, and others ended with the band members fighting among themselves.  Inevitably, the whole thing ended up in court.

As I said, I know next to nothing about Deep Purple. I also have a loathing for heavy metal bands such as Rainbow, Whitesnake etc, and as such this book should have been of little appeal to me.

But the book isn’t really anything to do with the actual music, as it’s more about the machinations of the industry.  Steve’s style of writing is akin to it being the script for a six-part documentary on the events of 1979/80.  He keeps his own personal opinions out of proceedings, and early on he accepts that, despite his very best efforts involving more than 200 printed sources (many of them contemporary and long-forgotten) as well as dozens of interviews he carried out himself, the book is, essentially, an incomplete jigsaw puzzle.

Hardcore Deep Purple fans, the ultras if you like, quite a few of whom weren’t around when these events took place, will argue vigorously that Rod Evans stole the name of the band, took a second-rate group of musicians out on the road and knowingly acted out a massive fraud on the paying public.  In short, a scam of the highest order.

There are others, the miniscule minority view if you like, who feel Evans didn’t steal the name as he was an original member and in 1979/80, Deep Purple didn’t exist as a recording or touring band; he simply took something out on the road that didn’t meet people’s expectations leading to a horrible backlash that shouldn’t have been on him alone.

The book does offer a great deal of context to events, particularly through what press coverage there was back in the day. It also, towards the end, goes into some depth about the eventual court case, and while this does briefly threaten to take the prose into dry legal-speak, Steve, to his huge credit, finds a way to make it all understandable to those of us without a law degree to our name.

Stealing Deep Purple isn’t available (as far as I know) in the shops, and the publisher, Lulu Books, is involved in printing ‘on-demand’.  In other words, if you fancy reading this in full, and I really do recommend it very highly, then you use this link and let the publisher do the rest.

mp3: Deep Purple – Hush

I’ve known Steve McLean for quite a few years now, but our friendship has nothing to do with my take on this book.  If it had been poorly written, or been boring or had in any shape or form failed to hold my attention, then this post would not have been pieced together.

 

JC

PS : Steve has fired over a few more of his theft essays, and I’m delighted to say that these will feature, probably on a monthly basis for at least the rest of 2025. Keep your eyes peeled.

Pogues

FOUR TRACK MIND : A RANDOM SERIES OF EXTENDED PLAY SINGLES

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

#5: Poguetry in Motion – The Pogues (1986)

In the mid to late 1980s, as I’ve mentioned before, my taste in music took a folky turn as I drifted away from a rock and pop scene that for me had lost its post-punk vibrancy. Through listening to John Peel since the late 70s I had come to share his enjoyment of traditional Irish folk music like The Chieftains, whom he played regularly, alongside occasional outbursts of Shetland fiddle orchestras, and I was also drawn to folk-influenced acts like The Proclaimers.

The Pogues had erupted on the scene in 1984, puncturing the façade of New Romanticism, an irrepressible pimple forcing its ruddy irritation through pop’s inch-thick mask of foundation and blusher. Punk’s spirit of anarchy was tossed into a barrel with the elemental appeal of traditional Irish music, given a good shake and poured onto the stage like a farmer’s protest on the town hall steps. ‘Genuine’ folk fans were appalled and revolted, rebels looking for a cause mobbed the mosh pit and drank it down by the pint.

Frontman Shane MacGowan snarled his songs from a mouth like a vandalised graveyard. An unlikely looking pop star, his features were already familiar to punk fans from a series of infamous photos taken at a Clash concert in 1976 where he was seen splattered in blood (from his own ripped earlobe, it turned out, rudely relieved of its safety-pin earring by the bass player of The Modettes).

Not just a pretty face, however, MacGowan rapidly gathered accolades for his songwriting after The Pogues’ second album Rum, Sodomy and the Lash provoked positive reviews in August 1985. Their first album, Red Roses for Me, had also been greeted as welcome refreshment, but it had passed me by, I confess. The second album slightly dialled down the frantic, showing that The Pogues weren’t just cracking a joke by playing folk tunes at Ramones tempo. Songs like The Old Main Drag and A Pair of Brown Eyes were an authentically original take on the Irish exile experience, and to close the album The Pogues wrung every last drop of bitter pathos out of Eric Bogle’s classic And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda.

The Poguetry in Motion EP was released in late February 1986 on Stiff Records, the first new material after Rum, Sodomy and the Lash. Three singles from that album, the aforementioned Pair of Brown Eyes, Sally MacLennane and a cover of Ewan MacColl’s Dirty Old Town, had all failed to reach the UK top 40, but Poguetry finally cracked it, peaking at 29. If this was on the merits of the opening track London Girl I’d be surprised as it’s not especially good. It feels like rather a conventional pop song draped in Pogue-like stylings, but it’s neither a ripping Irish tune nor a winning pop hit. MacGowan’s lyrics are fine, with some characteristic poetic touches, but the arrangement races through them with hardly time to breathe.

The second song, Rainy Night In Soho, however, is undoubtedly the lead track on the EP (there’s a video for it), an all-time Pogues classic, and one of MacGowan’s most poignant ballads, confirming him as rock’s most romantic, sentimental old drunk. Lines that might sound hopelessly cliched on anyone else’s lips become scenes from a lover’s tender dream in his gruffly slurred melancholic reverie. Strings and brass elevate the song to a stirring conclusion, the repetitive refrain anchoring it in a century-old Irish popular tradition.

The string and brass conclusion, however, ultimately proved the catalyst for The Pogues and their producer Elvis Costello to part ways. Two versions were recorded, one with a flugelhorn solo over the finale, one with an oboe. Costello insisted on the oboe, but MacGowan was prepared to die in a ditch for the flugelhorn. MacGowan got his way on this, the UK version, the oboe had its day on the Canadian and US releases.

Fans of David Simon’s HBO police series The Wire will be well familiar with the first track on the flip side, The Body of an American, which features at several wakes for deceased officers in the Sidebar Tavern, the Irish bar near the Baltimore police HQ. Even without this immortalisation, it’s another Pogues classic, formed in the mould that made The Sick Bed of Cuchullain.

A slow intro in 3/4 time sets the scene of small boys hanging around the wake for big Jim Dwyer, a ‘Yank’ deceased in some Irish location. Then suddenly the tempo doubles into a rollicking jig with the memorable verse: “But 15 minutes later we had our first taste of whiskey / There was uncles giving lectures on ancient Irish history / The men all started telling jokes and the women, they got frisky / By five o’clock in the evening every bastard there was piskey”. The chorus refrain of “I’m a free-born man of the USA” ensured the song’s instant appeal to the Irish-American diaspora, fictionally in The Wire, for real in every St Paddy’s Day party ever since. The final chorus gives way to a long and delicious fade-out led by guest musician Tommy Keane’s irresistible uileann pipes.

I always took the final track, Planxty Noel Hill, as some sort of tribute to the folk group of that name, assuming Hill to have been one of its members. He was, very briefly, as a stand-in, but the gesture to him is of the two-fingered variety as it turns out. ‘Planxty’ apparently means something like ‘cheers’ in Irish, so has nothing directly to do with the group, and Hill made a bit of a tit of himself by very publicly denouncing The Pogues’ music as a “terrible abortion” on Irish radio. In an Irish context you can imagine how language like that went down. Jem Finer’s lively, cheeky instrumental was The Pogues’ musical flick of the Vs in Hill’s general direction.

My copy of Poguetry in Motion is the 7” 33rpm version. The 12” version has exactly the same tracks but plays at 45, of course.

London Girl

Rainy Night in Soho

The Body of an American

Planxty Noel Hill

 

Fraser

Various

ONE HOUR OF ‘IN TAPE’

A guest posting by Leon MacDuff

As much as I love doing the monthly mixes (and there were actually a couple lined up for today that will be held over), I really enjoy when another member of the TVV community comes up with something.  A huge thanks, therefore, to our good friend Leon MacDuff who continues his stellar guest contributions with a mix featuring songs that were released on In Tape Records.

Here’s Leon to explain a bit more:-

“I can’t claim any great purpose with this one, I just fancied doing a mix and decided to focus on a particular label, so here it is. The label I alighted on was In Tape, the Manchester-based indie originally created by Marc Riley and his manager as an outlet for his work with The Creepers, which went on to clock up around 70 releases between 1983 and 1990.

It’s odd how little attention this label gets – we have all heard of it, but it doesn’t feel like it has the cult following you might expect. There’s no fan site, no Facebook group, not even a Wikipedia article. But since it had a roster of acts I already know and like, such as Yeah Yeah Noh, Rote Kapelle, Asphalt Ribbons and Frank Sidebottom (though I’m well aware that Frank is one of those acts you either “get” or you don’t), I made it my mission to listen to every scrap of In Tape material I could find, and while some of it truly is quite scrappy, overall it’s a decently solid catalogue – so here’s an hour of it, with dodgy transitions courtesy of yours truly (though from Life With Patrick into Eva is a pretty good one, even if I say so myself).”

mp3: Various – One Hour of ‘In Tape’

Robert Lloyd & The New Four Seasons – Something Nice
Whipcrackaway – The Horse’s Tale
The Membranes – Everything’s Brilliant
Terry & Gerry – Pizza Pie & Junk
The Weeds – China Doll
Heart Throbs – Toy
Zor Gabor – Vigilante
Yeah Yeah Noh – Starling Pillowcase, And Why
Stitched-Back Foot Airman – Invented By Robots
Marc Riley & The Creepers – Polystiffs (live in Amsterdam)
Asphalt Ribbons – Over Again
Rote Kapelle – San Francisco Again
Life With Patrick – Something From Nothing
Eva – Unquenchable (the untouchable mix)
June Brides – Just The Same
The Waterfoot Dandy – 14 Days
Frank Sidebottom – I Am The Champion

Leon

Super Furry Animals

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

A guest series by The Robster

#27: The Gift That Keeps Giving (2007, Rough Trade)

Merry Christmas! Well, at least that’s what Super Furry Animals were saying when they released their first seasonal single on 25th December 2007.

mp3: The Gift That Keeps Giving

It was deliberately conceived as a Christmas single as part of the band’s mission to make a pop album, ‘Hey Venus!’. The title is taken from a studio session in 2004. Accordfing to Gruff:

“Geoff Travis asked us for one of our pop records, so we thought a pop record should have a Christmas single. We’d been playing around with this phrase because we had a Scottish engineer who helped us make the 22-minute version of The Man Don’t Give A Fuck” and he always used to say ‘it’s the gift that keeps giving!’ He was just referring to the length of the song… but we found out it’s also a popular American shopping phrase.”

Thankfully, it’s not a typical Christmas song. It’s actually quite good! Soulful and laid-back, it was favourably compared to Burt Bacharach, and you can hear that I think, especially with that trumpet solo. The critics loved it too, but given the nature of the release – a free download, no physical formats, had already been out on the album for 5 months – it got nowhere near the hit parade, becoming the first SFA single not to chart at all.

Obviously, there were no b-sides either, so what gifts can I give you this week? Well, as usual, I’ve dug a couple things up you might be interested in. The first is a live version of The Gift That Keeps Giving recorded for the Bristol-based student radio station Hub Radio. Like last week’s live offering, it features just Gruff and Guto in stripped-back acoustic mode, but it’s an unreleased curio you might like.

mp3: The Gift That Keeps Giving [live Hub Session]

A couple weeks ago, I offered up a live version of Show Your Hand from the 2007 Glastonbury Festival, so let’s return to that show, seeing as it’s from the right time period. Here’s a wonderful version of Northern Lights, played in the style of a band I’m guessing the vast majority of visitors to this blog love dearly…

mp3: Northern Lights [live at Glastonbury]

And finally… while the UK and Europe had been enjoying ‘Hey Venus!’ since August, those poor souls across the Atlantic had to wait until January 2008 to hear it. To promote its impending release, a radio promo was issued, another track from the album, one of its loudest, rowdiest numbers.

mp3: Neo Consumer

Just three more weeks left….

 

The Robster

Filthy Tongues

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #468: THE FILTHY TONGUES

The Filthy Tongues are, in some ways, direct descendants of Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, the mid 80s/early 90s band with whom Shirley Manson, later to find fame and fortune with Garbage, launched her career.

I say ‘some ways’ in as much that the three gentlemen picture above – Fin Wilson, Martin Metcalfe and Derek Kelly, who make up The Filthy Tongues  – were also together in Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, but it’s only ‘some ways’ as their music is quite different from that of their old band.  It also has to be mentioned that they used to be Isa & the Filthy Tongues, back between 2005 and 2014, when their vocalist was the American-born Stacey Chavis with two albums Addiction (2006) and Dark Passenger (2014) to their name.  This extract from a review of one their singles gives as good a description of their sound as any:-

“A fine little single, dirty, scuzzy in just the right way with Isa’s vocals having a dark intense PJ Harvey quality to them that compliments Metcalfe’s intense wall of fuzz guitars very nicely. It’s a cracking, intensely immediate single that deserves to be subverting daytime radio playlists everywhere”

Chavis left the band and the music industry after the second album, and Metcalfe took on the role of lead vocalist.  All that happened was the PJ Harvey quality of the vocals were replaced by something akin to Birthday Party-era Nick Cave or perhaps Lux Interior of The Cramps, with subsequent albums Jacob’s Ladder (2016), Back To Hell (2018) and In These Dark Places (2022) all receiving rave reviews.

I’m happy to admit that I didn’t explore that dark corners in which The Filthy Tongues operated, thinking that the word ‘gothic’ was used far too often for them to be of any interest or significance. But that changed when In These Dark Places came my way, courtesy of its release being partly-funded by Last Night From Glasgow and my level of membership qualifying me for a free copy.  I gave it a listen and quite enjoyed it, but not enough to go out and purchase any of the back catalogue – and being someone who doesn’t use streaming services, I couldn’t simply press a few buttons and give things a listen.

But in 2023, LNFG again came to the rescue thanks to the release of Black Valentine, a compilation which brought together ten of their ‘best’ tracks from the three albums along with two new songs, thus enabling Villain Towers to be exposed to said dark, dingy and occasionally scary corners.  Turns out, kind of like a Ghost Train in any fairground, there’s a great deal to enjoy from start to end, with a few WTF? bits along the way, and makes for the perfect way to get better acquainted with the band.

mp3 : The Filthy Tongues – Come On Home

From the 2018 album Back To Hell.

Can I end with a suggestion?   Head to this Bandcamp page, where you can have a listen to the songs on Black Valentine, and if you like what you’re hearing, you can buy a CD or purchase a digital download.  Even better, head over to this page on LNFG and get a hold of the vinyl.  You won’t be disappointed.

The idea for the vinyl was a good one, but it has sold out.  Discogs or maybe a friendly indie record shop may prove to be your friend.

 

 

JC

 

Fountains Of Wayne

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #393 : FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE

A debut guest posting by Marc Goldstein

Fountains of Wayne were a New York band, but not Frank Sinatra’s “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere” New York, nor Lou Reed’s “Hey white boy, what you doing uptown?” New York. Not the New York of CBGB or Birdland or Gerde’s Folk City. Theirs was the New York of the bridge and tunnel crowd: those who live in the outer boroughs, and Long Island, and New Jersey. Their songs were populated by hustlers and strivers and young guys on the make, but also by the lonely, the bored, the frustrated, stuck in a dead-end job or a long-distance relationship or just stuck in New York traffic.

If you’re thinking that’s encroaching on Springsteen territory, it really isn’t: FoW had no sprawling 9-minute epics like Jungleland, or rousing anthems like Badlands. They specialized in 3-4 minute vignettes about the real lives of recognizable types of people, with humor and catchy melodies, and in that respect somewhat resemble the Kinks, even though their music doesn’t sound at all like the Kinks. I’ve been a fan since the beginning: track 1 of the debut album. And I would start the ICA with that one (Radiation Vibe) except that JC just recently featured it here, so I get to use my 10 precious slots for other songs. I’ll go in chronological order.

At the beginning, FoW was just college friends Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger. Their self-titled debut album came out in 1996. It was not a happy time for me, as I was working insane hours in a small law office for a boss who – true story – sued his own mother. You can imagine how he treated his employees. Listening to FoW was one of the rare bright spots in my life that year.

1. Leave The Biker

A plea to a beautiful woman in a bar to ditch the Neanderthal she’s with, a sentiment to which many guys can relate. (See also “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” by Joe Jackson.)

FoW’s second album, Utopia Parkway, came out in 1999, by which time I had moved on to a much better job, at the company where I still work today. The band was now a proper four-piece, with the addition of Jody Porter and Brian Young. For me, the standout tracks are

2. Red Dragon Tattoo
3. Denise

In the former, our narrator is about to get the titular tattoo, in an effort to impress a girl who hasn’t previously shown any interest. One gets the distinct impression that he will not be successful. The latter song became famous due to the perfectly-placed handclap/snare crack, right after the line “she’s got a heart made of gravel.” Or more likely due to the video, starring Jolene Blalock in a car wash.

2003 brought FoW’s breakthrough album, Welcome Interstate Managers. I was living in Tokyo at that point and observing their success from afar, but I was aware that Stacy’s Mom was a hit back in the States. If someone has heard only one FoW song, it’s probably that one, so I’m not going to feature it here.

4. Bright Future In Sales
5. Mexican Wine

Bright Future in Sales is about a young guy who could have what the title promises – if he can only get his drinking under control. (Warning: this one contains a naughty word, in case you or someone within earshot is easily offended.) The narrator of Mexican Wine, on the other hand, has given up on trying to better himself: “I tried to change but I changed my mind/Think I’ll have another glass of Mexican wine.”

The proper follow-up to Welcome Interstate Managers wouldn’t arrive for another couple of years, but in 2005 the band released a compilation of b-sides and rarities called Out-of-State Plates. Along with the various gathered tracks there were two new songs, both of which are power-pop gems.

6. Maureen
7. The Girl I Can’t Forget

The titular Maureen has placed our narrator firmly in the friend zone. Either because she’s clueless about his feelings for her, or maybe because she’s well aware of them and likes toying with him, she gives him too much information about the guys she’s dating, and he has had just about enough. The narrator of The Girl I Can’t Forget, on the other hand, gets the girl – but he’ll be damned if he can remember anything about the night it happened.

The band’s next studio album, Traffic and Weather, was released in 2007. It opens with a banger:-

8. Someone to Love

It’s about two lonely Brooklynites, Seth and Beth. The chorus leads us to believe the two will find each other, but those hopes are cruelly dashed in the last verse.

Meanwhile,

9. New Routine

acknowledges that it’s not just New Yorkers who get sick of the same old same-old and think there must be something more exciting out there somewhere.

The band’s swan song, Sky Full of Holes, arrived in 2011. It’s the FoW album I’ve listened to the least, and I was really surprised to learn it was actually their highest-charting album in the US. It’s not that any of the songs are bad, but none of them stuck with me the way so many of their earlier songs did. But maybe it’s just me: when this one came out, I was back in the US, recently married, searching for a house with a baby on the way, and just wasn’t going to spend as much time with a new record as I once would have. Cemetery Guns is Fountains of Wayne in a more serious vein, and a nice way to close out their final record.

10. Cemetery Guns

Chris and Adam were not getting along when this album was recorded, and FoW called it quits not long after. Sadly, any hope of a proper reunion was lost when Schlesinger became an early casualty of COVID, dying in April 2020 at only 52.

Like many bands, FoW had a few “go-to” stylistic elements that they frequently used over their career. Alt-country smartass Robbie Fulks (who deserves his own ICA) took notice, and dreamed up the Fountains of Wayne Hotline, a telephone helpline dispensing songwriting tips. The perfect bonus track to close out this ICA on a happy note.

Robbie Fulks – Fountains Of Wayne Hotline

 

Marc

 

The The

SLIGHTLY BORED BY IT NOW? (1)

You can lay the blame at the door of SWC over at No Badger Required for the sudden appearance of yet another new series.  It’s hopefully one that might attract a few guest postings…….

SWC is in the midst of a Top 200 rundown of his favourite songs.  It’s, as you’d expect, an absolute doozy of a series, packed with great songs and even better writing, with many of the tales attached to the song recalling events, people and happenings in SWC’s fifty years on planet earth. Cannonball by The Breeders comes in at #45:-

“Now, this may not sit well with many of you, but what the hell, it’s my list and my blog, and I’m going to tell you regardless. I’m slightly bored by ‘Cannonball’ these days. There I said it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s obviously a great song, one that is instantly recognisable by that chopsy little intro that descends into that feedback led guitar onslaught about a minute or so later. That much is clear and obvious.

“But, up until about, ooh a year ago, every time I heard ‘Cannonball’ and I heard the hook that crashes in after about two minutes, I used to get goosepimples running up and down my arms, because it still sounded exciting and incredible and it still made me want to throw myself off the sofa (avoiding the coffee table obviously) and had I been compiling this nonsense a year ago, ‘Cannonball’ would have easily found itself in the Top 20 (where it I think was last time around). But the goosepimples have stopped appearing and instead of wanting to throw myself off the sofa when that hook rages in, I now kind of give it a knowing nod and fluff the cushion behind me a bit.

“But, saying all that, its still too good and too damn addictive to ignore.”

Which got me thinking about those songs that no longer thrill me as much as they once did and how writing about them might spark off debates on TVV and, as indicated earlier, might also lead to guest postings.

mp3: The The – Infected (12″ version)

Infected, the second album by The The, was rarely off the turntable of my shared Edinburgh dwelling in 1986/87. It’s an album that I introduced to the two flatmates (one was a supply teacher, the other was a psychopathic air stewardess), neither of who knew much about Matt Johnson beforehand, but both were quite taken by at least some of its material.   The air stewardess thought it was a bit dark and bleak, but loved the upbeat and danceable nature of the title track.  The supply teacher was a bit of a chin-stroker and he loved the complex nature of the lyrics.  It all meant that, given the stereo and speakers were in a communal part of the house, this was a record which we were all happy enough to get played on a very regular basis…and if we weren’t listening to it, there’s every chance a few months later that we’d load up the VHS tape of the Infected film taped from Channel 4, which featured all the videos made for the songs.

Please, as Chrissie Hynde once pleaded, don’t get me wrong.  I still have a huge amount of time for the title track, It retains a powerful sound thanks to a bombastic, if a tad overblown production that has, with hindsight, blighted many tunes of the 80s.  It still has that catchy sing along chorus and danceability that so enthralled the air stewardess. But as with SWC and Cannonball, the magic might not have totally worn off, but I’m nowhere near as captivated and mesmerised as I once was and Infected just doesn’t have anything like the same effect on me nowadays as it did back in 1986/97.

 

 

JC

 

The New Cactus Band

‘STEALING’. A FOUR-PART GUEST SERIES IN BOOK FORM : #4 THE NEW CACTUS BAND

A guest series by Steve McLean

There should be a subtitled to this blog called The New Cactus Band’s Album ‘Son of Cactus’ is boss and everyone should own a copy.

There are very few success stories when it comes to a band named with the prefix ‘New’ (unless of course New Order are a revamped version of a band called Order in which case they did very well, although the original Kids on the Block have a lot to answer for).

The New Cactus Band are one of the few ‘New’ to buck that trend. Perhaps because they didn’t just hit the nostalgia or bar circuit, on account of the fact that they formed a few months after the parent band broke up. Their incarnation was official or at least semi-official, plus they actually recorded new material.

The original Cactus were a heavy rock outfit with some lightly sprinkled prog leanings. They were formed by former Vanilla Fudge members Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert. An early incarnation had them joined by Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart before both being replaced by Rusty Day from Ted Nugent’s Amboy Dukes  and Jim McCarty from The Detroit Wheels (not the Yardbirds geezer). Which feels a bit like the director of Casablanca getting rid of Bogart and replacing him with Chachi from Happy Days.

They shifted line ups a few times until the final version of Appice, Bogert, Werner Fritzschings on guitar, Duane Hitchings on keyboards and vocals by former Atomic Rooster man Peter French in 1972 wound up.

Appice and Bogert were given another chance to play with Jeff Beck which was, quite frankly more appealing than listening to punters shout Vanilla Fudge requests all night. They generously gifted the band name to Hitchings and his former Blues Image bandmate, guitarist and vocalist, Mike Pinera. Pinera had written Blues Image’s only hit single and hand been in the second most successful Iron Butterfly line up.

 “We gave the rest of the Cactus name to Duane Hitchings, who was the keyboard player in Cactus, and who later on co-wrote ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy’ and ‘Young Turks’ with me and Rod. We’d been friends a long time, so gave him and Mike Pinera Cactus and they did an album for Atlantic called ‘Son Of Cactus’“ Carmine Appice Outsider Rock, Feb 2022

It seems Pinera was first enticed to Cactus before Appice and Bogert left. The band had ideas to try to finally score a hit record and Mike was the seen as the writer who could deliver it and was retained after the offer from Jeff Back came through.

“I was invited to join ‘Cactus’ and we wanted Michael Pinera desperately. Michael was from the ‘Blues Image’. He wrote ‘Ride Captain Ride’ and he was in ‘Iron Butterfly’.. he was such a phenomenal player and a great guitar player and wrote hit records which Cactus needed badly” Duane Hitchings, Classicbands.com

mp3: The Blues Image – Captain Ride

As the New Cactus Band, Hitchings and Pinera with Roland Robinson on bass and Jerry Norris on drums recorded the excellent album Son of Cactus.  It’s something of an unappreciated 1970s lost classic, at least for the style. The fans of the original band were turning their nose up at the record as it lacks the heavy oomph of the parent band. In spite of poor sales, the album was well reviewed.

(Contemporary review of the Son of Cactus)

mp3: The New Cactus Band – It’s Getting Better

It’s Getting Better opens the album and is an earworm of gentle proportions. It manages to be both a pub-rock boogie and have an AM country feel.

mp3: The New Cactus Band – Ragtime Suzy

Ragtime Suzy is another driving radio gem. It’s a simple blues led rock about a woman. If this turned up in the film Roadhouse you’d say to yourself ”Why the fuck am I watching Roadhouse, I’m not a deadbeat dad in 1986”

mp3: The New Cactus Band – Senseless Rebel

Okay, so some of the songs like Senseless Rebel have a Status Quo feel but it’s like Quo’s cool, drunk older cousin that told Quo all their stories and then Quo re-told them as their own stories in school after the summer holidays. That’s fucking typical of them.  Also, the song features a talk-box and talk-boxes are spit-fuelled-magic makers.

As a live band, the Robinson and Norris line-up didn’t last long. Charlie Souza of The Allman Brothers and Bobby Caldwell of the Edgar Winter Band and Captain Beyond came on board to tour the record.

I joined the Allman Brothers in early 1973 and went up to New York..  I stayed with Gregg (Allman) in the same room where he had a mountain of cocaine on the dresser. (He was) constantly sniffing it when he brought in a groupie (and had) sex in the bed right next to me, the week before I attended his wedding! I freaked out and luckily an old friend, Drummer and leader of Captain Beyond called me and asked me to come over to Long Island to join the new Cactus band. I didn’t have a second thought about leaving Gregg and hopped in a cab over to Mike Pinera’s apartment where I met Duane Hitchings – Charlie Souza, The New Cactus Band April 2025

Once again, unlike other “New” bands, the authenticity of this outfit is hammered home by Carmine Appice aiding the new band to get up and running.

“We rehearsed the music, Carmine (Appice) helped us with vocal rehearsals at Mike’s place” Charlie Souza, The New Cactus Band April 2025

But in reality, it seems that the name New Cactus Band was little more than a legal swerve to put their record out as more often than not the band were still getting booked and promoted as simply Cactus (and sometimes Cactus Featuring Mike Pinera). Some of that may have been cavalier promoters but it didn’t seem to bother the group much;

“Neither Mike or Bobby cared at all, as they were really stoned. Duane didn’t talk about the business part, so I wasn’t really aware what was going on” Charlie Souza, The New Cactus Band April 2025

(Various adverts from 73 / 74 for Cactus, The New Cactus Band and Cactus featuring Mike Pinera)

The New Cactus Band continue to tour around the US with smaller headline shows and high-profile support slots, indulging in everything rock and roll has to offer.

“We played Most all of their album plus a few standard blues tunes and toured the northeast for a couple of months and then we started opening concerts with Bob Seger. I had an affair with one of his background singers” Charlie Souza, The New Cactus Band via Email April 2025

By moving away from the original line up songs, they were able to make the band their own. They were cementing something of a live reputation.  The record may have struggled but as a live act they were still a going concern.

“They went out on tour and must’ve grossed through the year like 7 to 800,000 thousand in a year, which was big money back in the ’70s.”  Carmine Appice Outsider Rock, Feb 2022

For context though, while that figure may seem sizable, when totalled after tax, insurance, agents fees and tour costs, it’s unlikely the band were pulling $100,000 a year between them. Okay money to live on but not exactly the rock star millions.

In the 1970s live shows may have been more popular than ever and a band with even a little bit of stardom could make a living if they had the right kind of support. Unfortunately, the long fate of Cactus or the New Cactus Band was never going to be much more than that of a curio. A splinter from Vanilla Fudge and Iron Butterfly.

If a band had an album to promote and record company backing then they could command top dollars since promoters knew that they could charge more for the tickets and the record company would be plugging their songs on the radio and to record shops. Since the Son of Cactus albumhadn’t done as well as hoped, the record label stopped pushing Pinera and co. The two-fold strike of less record company cash and less record company backing hit hard and the New Catus Band started to feel the pinch.

“In around November of the same year, I missed my flight out of Tampa where I lived and was late getting up to Long Island for a rehearsal. It was then that Hitchings had decided to play the bass parts on his keyboard so that the three of them would make more money, so I flew home and joined White Witch on Capricorn Records. We did an album in Miami with Eric Clapton’s producers, Ron & Howie Albert called “A Spiritual Greeting.” Charlie Souza, The New Cactus Band via Email April 2025

The New Cactus Band would eventually morph into Thee Image, who released two middling 1970s rock albums. Caldwell went back to Captain Beyond and they recruited Buddy Miles‘ drummer Donny Vosburgh. The new band filled in the space between Led Zepplin and the Bee Gees. The recordings are patchy and reeks of a band just looking for a hit in any style.

That said the song Come to You is a fine slice of melodic Yacht Rock and a rare Hitchings vocal. It sounds like it should be featured in a CBS TV movie starring Bill Bixby.

mp3 : Thee Image – Come To You

By 1976 promoters and the press had reverted to using the Cactus name when referring to Thee Image, presumably with absolutely no pushback from Pinera. While this would have helped sell tickets, it would have also been confusing since the same year former vocalist Rusty Day from the Appice group had started touring with his own line-up of the band.

(Press Clipping for Thee Image / Cactus)

Pinera and Hitchings were seemingly happy to be billed as whichever band a promoter wanted to book. By now It was common to find listings for an Iron Butterfly featuring Mike Pinera and an Iron Butterfly without. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that there were several versions of Butterfly touring at the same time.

“I had the pleasure to go on a sixteen city tour with Keith (Surname withheld)  in the mid-1970s with a “fake” Iron Butterfly band. I acted as tour manager, roadie, and bus driver”  Jim (surname withheld), Marmalade Skies Facebook Group 2025

By the late 1970s Pinera’s name would be advertised alongside versions of Iron Butterfly, Cactus, Blues Image or Thee Image. Hitchings was also usually involved.

You might even find more than a handful of gigs that featured a line up of Cactus on the same bill as a line up of Iron Butterfly, with Pinera joining both bands. Cactus or Iron Butterfly were often also paired with one of the reactivated Steppenwolf bands that were kicking around in the 1970s. It seems they shared the same management.

Ultimately when Iron Butterfly and Cactus appeared on the same bill, it was highly probable that it was The Mike Pinera Band playing multiple sets in the same night.  Unscrupulous promoters have always existed and artists need to pay rent.

(Press clippings for Iron Butterfly with Mike Pinera, The Mike Pinera Band supporting Iron Butterfly, Iron butterfly and Cactus on the same bill as Steppenwolf… four out of five of these bands feature Mike Pinera )

The real shame of this story is different to other ‘New’ bands. It’s not the crimes committed in the good name of the act, but The New Cactus Band only recorded one album. Seemingly caught up in promoter’s whims with short term gain being prioritised by the members rather than building their fanbase from the ground up. They had the solid foundations of a cracking album and decent musicians from which to do it too. It should be remembered that 1970s musicians rarely played a long game.

“We moved to Miami and all we did is party. We went on tour to rest. That’s how much partyin’ was going on.” Duane Hitchings speaking to ClassicBands.com

After an attempt at a solo career, which seemed to be sabotaged by the constant branding schizophrenia, by 1981 Pinera and Hitchings were both sidemen in Alice Cooper‘s backing band.  Not just as a touring band, the duo where captured playing on the Special Forces album Hitchings co-authoring five tracks and Pinera, Hitchings and Cooper coming up with the song Vicious Rumours

mp3: Alice Cooper – Vicious Rumours

Pinera was also frequently in and out of Iron Butterfly through the 80s and 90s. His last registered IB involvement, according to wiki, was in 1994 but that means nothing given how many former members of the band there were and how unscrupulous promoters can be.

Duane Hitchings wrote a couple of big hits for Rod Stewart. In the 1980s he wrote songs for the soundtracks of Rocky IV (The fourth best Rocky film), Iron Eagle (the second best Iron Eagle film) and Flashdance (the film that Footloose wished it was).

He’s also written for or with Steve Perry, Kim Carnes, Eddie Money and a load of other people you know from Family Guy cutaways.

Bogart, Appice and McCarty reactivated Cactus in the early 2000s but they reverted to the heavy rock of the original band. It seems The New Cactus Band and the lost classic Son of Cactus is destined to be cast aside forever. Like Bill Bixby walking alone to sad music at the end of the Incredible Hulk.  There’s been too much Bill Bixby in this blog.

Incidentally, the Steppenwolf bands that Pinera supported would have probably contained Tony Flynn or Geoff Emery or both. They would go on to become involved with Rod Evans to form The New Deep Purple…. But that’s another story.

I’d like to thank Charlie Souza for taking my questions.

 

 

STEVE McLEAN

Lambchop, Sisters Of Mercy

A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS (1)

The first instalment of what will be an occasional series.  It’s going to be a lazy series in that it won’t involve any new writing and instead will delve back into the TVV vaults where I’ll have picked out what I think is one of the more interesting postings from yesteryear. It’ll always be from quite a while back and will feature a singer or band whose appearances aren’t one of the regulars. The main idea being that those readers who are relatively new to the blog get to, hopefully, enjoy something they would otherwise have probably missed, while those of you who have been coming here a long time can just sigh as you see how the quality of writing has diminished with each passing year.  Let’s begin by taking a trip back to 21 May 2015.

Brian over at Linear Track Lives!* is one of the most consistently inventive and entertaining bloggers out there. He is currently in the middle of a rundown of his Top 100 songs from the 90s, and he’s already delivered some cracking surprises, including this at #58:-

“There is something about the way frontman Kurt Wagner delivers words in that Tennessee drawl that takes me back to listening to my relatives spinning yarns at reunions back in the sticks of Illinois as a youngin’. Everything was just a little slower and a little simpler. Even when Wagner’s tales are filled with melancholy, I still find the music comforting. Perhaps I also like Lambchop because I think this would have been a group my father and I might have actually agreed on.

As for today’s pick, this is the second and last song on the countdown with the dreaded f-dash-dash-dash word (as Ralphie would say) in the title. If you only know Lambchop’s more recent work, you might find the tempo of this one quite surprising. “Your Fucking Sunny Day” most assuredly doesn’t sound like it was sung from a rocking chair. It comes from the band’s third album, ‘Thriller.’ That’s a little self-deprecating humor from a group that produced two earlier albums with few sales to show for it. On the off-chance this song might have received some airplay, there was a clean version called “Your Sucking Funny Day,” which is a smile, but I don’t think Merge or anyone else needed to worry too much about such things.”

mp3 : Lambchop – Your Fucking Sunny Day

It’s also one of my favourite Lambchop songs. I’m particularly fond of the LP Nixon which was released in 2000 and is packed with great tunes, with this being the track that would be edited back by a minute and released as a single. The album version is superior:-

mp3 : Lambchop – Up With People

Two years later the band followed up Nixon with Is A Woman with initial copies of the CD having a bonus disc that included a hugely inspired and genius cover version:-

mp3 : Lambchop – This Corrosion

For those of you who may not be familiar with the original, well, it is considered by many to be THE greatest goth anthem of all time. All 11 minutes of it. Get those shoulders shaking:-

mp3 : Sisters of Mercy – This Corrosion

And finally, the Lambchop take on a punk classic:-

mp3 : Lambchop – (Get A) Grip (On Yourself)

Enjoy y’all.

 

JC

* Brian’s blog has been on a hiatus since August 2021.  I used to have links to a whole bundle of old blogs, but these were lost a while back when the widget used within the TVV sidebar stopped being supported by WordPress.  Linear Track Lives! is still accessible and, should you have a few hours to spare, is well worth a visit for a delve into the 1,612 posts published between 2009 and 2021.  Click here.

Warum Joe

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #105

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 105: Warum Joe – ‘Électrolyse’ (New Rose Records ’83)

Dear friends,

early/mid 80s indie/new wave/electro industrial/punk rock from France might not be the easiest genre to deal with, let’s face facts. At least not for me, whose knowledge of the French language is practically non-existing. I had it for so long in school, but all I remember is les haricots verts, prèmiere étage and (my favorite) je suis très désolés basically. Rather embarrassing when bearing in mind that I am in charge of the French market within our company for decades now! Anyway, I very much like the sound of this language, always did, and probably this is why I never lost interest in French music even though I can’t understand a single word.

Forty plus years ago, there pretty much was only one label around for French alternative, New Rose Records from Paris. They released two compilations, one in ’82 and one in ’83 – but those were full of complicated stuff, not very easy to access. The third compilation though, ‘La Vie En Rose’ from 1985, was a different beast: neatly put together, and you could tell the label had certainly broadened its variety by recruiting interesting artists. But on it there was one tune I always came back to back then – and only after the invention of this internet thingy I got to know that it was in fact an older song, from 1983.

So I started to explore the back catalogue from the band it was by: Warum Joe from Paris ( ‘Warum’, by the way, is German for ‘why’, should you be wondering). They got together in 1979 as Rock’n’Verole, then Von Cochran, but became Warum Joe in 1980, shortly before the release of their debut album, ‘Dans Le Blizzard’. Now, the debut was nice, but the follow-up, from a year later really was spot on: ‘Tanzen & Trinken’. This album had everything, and I can only recommend it to you if you have half an hour of free time. It misses the raw energy of the debut, but this is an advantage if you ask me – because the two things which made Warum Joe so very special fully came to light: a) their signature minimalistic sound beat box punk style and b) Pascal Sabotier’s chanting voice. Plus, it was just seven tracks on two sides, which guaranteed for a great sound. If you’re still not convinced to give it a listen, the only French comparison I can think of is Métal Urbain perhaps – which is a name you might or might not have heard before.

Comparisons with bands from other countries are easier, of course, or at least influences are: Joy Division, Devo, Wire for guitars and synths and Cabaret Voltaire for the dominating drum machine. I understand that might sound as if Warum Joe were just copying things, but this would be totally unjustified to say: they were quite unique, but you know what: perhaps it’s time for today’s tune to prove this:

mp3: Warum Joe – Électrolyse

Taken from ‘Le Goût De L’Effort’ from 1983, one of the more valuable 7” singles in the box, it must be said. And perhaps ‘Électrolyse’ shows why it is that Warum Joe were so very important and influential for younger bands, still are, in fact. So if they are so brilliant, why aren’t they world-famous, you ask? Well, throughout their career (and they are still going, mind you!) they always insisted on playing in clubs with limited capacity, because they felt that these surroundings would provide a more fitting atmosphere. Whilst knowing of course that this decision automatically diminished their media acknowledgement.

Give the song a listen, friends – it really is worth it – please let me know what you think, plus, of course: enjoy,

 

Dirk

 

Super Furry Animals

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

A guest series by The Robster

#26: Run-Away (2007, Rough Trade, RTRADS419)

According to Gruff Rhys,

“Run-Away came out of listening to Be My Baby too many times”.

That’s as good an intro as you need to this week’s single, for Run-Away is an unashamed homage to Phil Spector and his wall of sound. The second single from Super Furry Animals’ 8th album rates as one of their best. It’s a song that just speaks for itself when you hear it.

mp3: Run-Away

After a lot of experimentation and electronic noodlings on the previous two or three records, ‘Hey Venus’ saw the band strip everything back and make a record they could play live with little embellishment. Despite its simplicity, the band claims there is a narrative running through the songs, and that it is about a character called Venus and her journey from a small town to the big city. Run-Away comes right at the start of the story (it’s track 2 on the album but follows a very short intro called The Gateway Song). It opens with Gruff telling us “This song is based on a true story, which would be fine if it wasn’t autobiographical”, but as we all know by now, what constitutes a “true story” in Super Furryland is anyone’s guess. But why is Venus running away?

You found another love
Someone to wipe away your tears
I left it all behind of me
Never to turn and face my fears

This is followed by one of Gruff’s best couplets – and he was always pretty good at this:

We may have fought with teeth and nails
I still recall your banking details

If I was going to compile a SFA playlist for someone who had never heard them before, there’s no doubt Run-Away would feature pretty early. It showcases how, despite all the technical jiggery-pokery and psychedelic wig-outs they employed in a lot of their music, the band knew how to make pop music. Stripped back, they sounded as good as they ever were. There are some critics who don’t rate ‘Hey Venus!’ as highly as their other records, moaning how it doesn’t sound as adventurous or as sonically complex as anything else the band made. But it’s meant to be a pop record, and pop music isn’t meant to be complex. Run-Away is a perfect example of how simple great pop music can be. Spector would be proud.

Despite its brilliance though, Run-Away wouldn’t set the charts alight. In fact, despite reaching number 1 in the Indie charts, it only got to number 120 in the UK. It would be the last time they would have a single anywhere in the charts. It was also the last time for 9 years that physical formats of a SFA single would be commercially issued. Like its immediate predecessor, there were two formats – a 7” picture disc and a CD. Both contained this absolute gem of a b-side:

mp3: These Bones

More and more, the other members of the band were contributing songs to albums, and this is one were Gruff takes a step away from the microphone. I can’t say for sure, but I reckon it’s either Cian or Bunf taking over lead vocal duties here. It doesn’t matter who’s singing though, this is another straight-up pop song, inspired by two bands who had no doubt been massive influences on them right from the start – ELO and the Beach Boys. One of the band’s best b-sides in my opinion.

The third track on the CD single was very different to the others:

mp3: That’s What I’m Talking About

This is more of a “conventional” SFA song (if there is such a thing) and it’s obvious it would never have been in contention for inclusion on the album. I’m quite surprised they didn’t hold it over for their next record like some other songs written around the same time as those on ‘Hey Venus!’.

This week’s bonus track is an interesting live take on Run-Away, captured on long-running Irish TV show Other Voices. It’s just Gruff and Guto in a kitchen accompanied by acoustic guitars, a cheap keyboard and a glockenspiel. It lacks the Spector feel of the original, but the tune still shines through.

mp3: Run-Away [live on Other Voices]

Next week, we enjoy a Super Furry Christmas!

 

The Robster

Fenella

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #467: FENELLA

Edited from this bandcamp page:-

“Fenella is Mairi Whittle (vocals) and Jack Boyce (guitars / piano). They met while studying in Glasgow, bonding over a shared love of Elektra Records output (Love / Nico / The Doors), allied with outre artists from that period (The Velvet Underground / Tim Buckley) along with artists from jazz and European cabaret.

Early singles were released on Little Tiger Records, a label run by students from Riverside Music College in Busby (just outside Glasgow). These releases received play on BBC 6Music and BBC Radio Scotland, which brought Fenella to the attention of tastemakers in Scotland. This resulted in prestigious support slots with artists such as Vic Godard, Lloyd Cole, Jazzateers, James Grant and Justin Currie.

Fenella signed to Last Night from Glasgow / Little Tiger Records in a joint venture release of their debut album, A Gift From Midnight, It is a unique co-release by two labels with specialisms outwith the norm – Last Night from Glasgow runs on socialist principles with 100% of all profits from releases going to artists, whist the students who run Little Tiger are involved in all processes from A&R through to marketing and promotion (under the auspices of lecturer Douglas MacIntyre – The Creeping Bent Organisation / The Sexual Objects / Port Sulphur)

The album is released on vinyl / download on 29th March 2019, and will be launched the same day with a live performance at the Blue Arrow jazz club in Glasgow.”

mp3 : Fenella – A Gift From Midnight

The title track of an album which throughout leans heavily on the influences mentioned above.

 

JC

 

Fall, Jasmine Minks, Replacements, This Mortal Coil

WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (August Pt 2)

You should know the drill by now.  I dip into the 1000+ pages of my big red indie songs bible (big thanks to author Martin Strong) and look to see what flop* but fantastic singles were released in August 1984

*didn’t reach the Top 75 of the UK singles charts.

Here’s a few words I previously typed out about the first song up this month:-

“Let’s get a misconception about this one right out of the way. C.R.E.E.P. is not about recently departed band member, Marc Riley.

Brix Smith‘s book, The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise (2016) devotes a few paragraphs to the song, saying that she was excited by it, not least as she provides ‘bratty backing vocals that contested well with the darkness of The Fall’, and firmly believed it had a chance of cracking the singles chart. She also explains that the lyrics were aimed at another of the many hundreds of individuals who had upset Mark E Smith somewhere along the way, a German tour manager by the name of Scumech, whose name was turned into scum-egg as part of the lyric.

A bit of investigatory work by fans of the band later unearthed that the man in question was most likely Scumeck Sabottka, who would later make a fortune as the founder of one of the biggest online ticketing agencies in Germany – and looking at some of the photos of the man that can be found online, he does look something of a peace-loving, trendy wretch who was fond of ABC. It would appear therefore that MES never gave him the look of love….”

mp3: The Fall – C.R.E.E.P.

The Jasmine Minks, from Aberdeen, released their second single of the year, again on the newly emerging label of Creation Records.  This one has the catalogue number of CRE 008:-

mp3: The Jasmine Minks – Where The Traffic Goes

I’ll admit that I missed this completely back in the day, finally getting it onto the hard drive via a second-hand copy of the album Sunset many years later.

mp3: The Replacements – I Will Dare

I’ve never taken to  The Replacements, but given the paucity of singles this month (did indie labels close down for the month??), I thought I best add them.

mp3: This Mortal Coil – Kangaroo

The collective had enjoyed a minor hit some twelve months earlier when Elizabeth Fraser & Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins released a majestic cover of Song To The Siren. Neither were involved this time around. The vocals are courtesy of Gordon Sharp, who has had a few mentions elsewhere on the blog as a member of The Freeze and Cindytalk.

And that’s it for this month.   Sorry.

The good news is that having very slowly gone through the big book and come up next to nothing for August, I noticed along the way that September will be a bumper month.

 

 

JC

Talulah Gosh

SONGS UNDER TWO MINUTES (19): BEATNIK BOY

 

From 1986.  A single released on the Edinburgh-based 53rd & 3rd Records, a label named after a Ramones song, and founded by David Keegan of the Shop Assistants, Stephen McRobbie of the Pastels, and Sandy McLean who was then working for Fast Forward, the Edinburgh-arm of The Cartel record distribution network

mp3: Talulah Gosh – Beatnik Boy

It has the catalogue number AGARR4.   It is possibly the most twee pop song of all time…..and I mean that as a huge compliment.

AGARR stands for ‘As Good As Ramones Records’ which must just about be the coolest way any label has ever come up with to provide its releases with a catalogue number.

Talulah Gosh were from Oxford and were in existence from 1986 through to 1988, releasing one flexi disc and five singles.  The classic line-up was Amelia Fletcher (vocals, guitar), Elizabeth Price (vocals), Peter Momtchiloff (lead guitar), Chris Scott (bass) and Mathew Fletcher (drums).

 

JC

MC5

‘STEALING’. A FOUR-PART GUEST SERIES IN BOOK FORM : #3 THE MC5

A guest series by Steve McLean

Not all of the disputed band trademarks are controversial. Sometimes fans of the band are just glad that any version of their favourite artists exist. This is often the case when a group has a revival career.

I don’t think I need to go too hard on the history of the MC5, it’s well documented and I can add nothing to it. By 1972 the band were on their last legs. It’s hard to imagine the now near mythical MC5 as not being popular but music history is a strange mistress (for example: read the positive reviews of the 1996 Sex Pistols reunion from the time and then how the shows came to be poorly regarded by much of the same press). Like a lot of bands from the USA who have a downturn in fortunes, they toured Europe so they could enjoy larger crowds and a few more pay days.

The proto punk that terrified the industry less than five years before were now on slightly less credible circuit. Hello York Rowing Club! Hello Epping! Hello Scarborough with late transport back to Hull!

(1972 UK Tour press cuttings)

There was one ‘HELLO WEMBLEY” moment where the band appeared, somewhat curiously, on the a bill of 50s rock and roll stars at the old Twin Towers. The band made an ill-advised attempt at flirting with glitter rock, testing out a new sci-fi image. Their set was cut short after they were pelted with beer cans by the Teddy Boys in the audience.

(Poster for the Rock and Roll festival at Wembley Stadium.. there is a lot of crime on this bill)

During the tour, the group were reportedly in the process of making plans to relocate to mainland Europe and the UK. It was in the autumn when Rob Tyner and drummer Dennis Thompson and bass player Michael Davis decided to quit while Wayne Kramer and Fred Smith hired touring members to complete the remaining commitments.

The split meant that any hopes of the relocation and relaunch evaporated and by the end of the year, what remained of the group threw the towel in completely.

December 31st 1972 at the Grand Ballroom in Detroit the full line up of Tyner, Smith, Kramer, Thompson and Davis played together for a fee of $500. According to Splatt Gallery, the final gig went down like this;  there were only a couple hundred people in attendance. About twenty minutes into their set, Kramer told Smith he couldn’t play anymore, they’d been paid in advance so he had his money, he unplugged his guitar, jumped off the stage, and, in his own words, “drove over to the dope house”

And that was that. Let’s all enjoy the seminal work from a band no one ever heard of again.

mp3: MC5 – Kick Out The Jams

Except with all of these things, it absolutely wasn’t. In 1974 Kramer put a band together and called it the MC5. A line up of Mark Manko on rhythm guitar, Tim Schafe on bass, Bob Schultz on organ, and Frank Lowenberg on drums played gigs for drug money. The venue Humpin’ Hannah‘s in Milwaukee might sound like a redneck boob-bar but it’s still more rock’n’roll than the York Rowing Club (Rock’n’Row’l?).

Kramer’s time was up when he was busted for drugs and incarcerated until 1978.

When there is a dubious version of a band then the hardcore fans will often sway one of two ways… If it’s a later day member of the original group that keeps the band going then fandom with, with few exceptions, judge that member poorly. The previously mentioned Doug Yule copped a hell of a lot flack all through the 1980s and 1990s, before his side of events were truly told.

If it was a beloved member of the group that used the ‘New’ prefix then watch the fans scramble to justify or at least excuse the action. Read almost any Youtube comment section of The New MC5 from the late 1970s and you’ll see a load of comments about how the group was supposed to be billed as The Rob Tyner Band but in actual fact it was dishonest promoters who took advantage of Rob’s goodwill and billed the group as the New MC5. It sounds all very wholesome that Rob didn’t want to trade on his past and that it confirms all of our suspicions about the musicians we love being the good guys at odds with an industry that is trying to fuck them at every turn .

It’s also absolute bollocks.

“So first off this was not a MC5 tribute band it was never intended to be, Rob just decided to use the name New MC5. It was never once called the Rob Tyner band or ever billed as such”Ralph Serafino drummer. The New MC5. Via Email 2024.

Arguably the MC5 were the first punk band. The meshed garage rock with politics. Rob had spent years trying to gain a place for the band so when punk became a movement in the late 70s who could frankly blame him for reactivating a version of the band.  Blondie, The Ramones and all the other CBGBs movement were singing their praises… All of the bands that came after them made a dollar off the MC5’s ground breaking work. Why shouldn’t Rob too?

It seems that it was no nostalgia show put together to please the safety pin set. Rod still had artistic dreams so the show featured only a few of what could be considered MC5 ‘classics’

“We only did three or four MC5 tunes in our set. We were a new original music band. We would generally open the show with 19th Nervous Breakdown by the Stones and end with Kick out the Jams, but we had a whole lot of new original music” Ralph Serafino drummer. The New MC5. Via Email 2024.

Incidentally there are a couple of MC5 bootleg live albums that have been released over the years that were actually recorded by the Tyner led group and erroneously marketed as the original group, If you have a live album with 19th Nervous Breakdown on then it’s almost certainly The New MC5 on the record.

Another piece of duplicity that seems to be norm in these circumstances is that local promoters would be selective on billing the band. Some would be happy to use the New MC5 but there are also records of The MC5 Featuring Rob Tyner, The MC5 Detroit and predictably, just The MC5.

One notable gig in 1980 found them billed as The MC5 Detroit opening for Deep Purple (who themselves should have been billed as The New Deep Purple Featuring Rod Evans.) Rod Evans was the original Purple singer who had decided to chance his arm with a Deep Purple tour.

Money is often considered the motivation for such an enterprise in the industry. That may be true but not in the sense of ‘getting rich’ but more akin to the notion of ‘paying rent’.

The problem with touring a band with a name but without any record label support is that they have no other revenue streams other than live shows. They have all the expenses of popular outfit, including insurance and security and road crew. So the band without a label would likely have to play more gigs than a band with one, to make up the cash shortfall. Serafino’s memories of this time betray just how exhausting the constant touring was.

“(We) did some shows in Canada, but I really don’t recall playing with Deep Purple, but that’s not to say that we didn’t. We were doing a lot of gigs with different bands every night, so I wasn’t really paying a lot of mind to that at the time. I do remember one particular Canadian show, I believe it was a rock festival of sorts where we had to wait for hours to go on, it must have been running late or something, and that could have been the Deep Purple show.” Ralph Serafino, The New MC5 / MC5 Detroit.

Serafino paints a bleak picture of the slog a working band must undertake to make a living. Although anyone who attended that show had a great story to tell about two very unique line-ups of legendary bands.

The New MC5 toured for over three years, surviving on the continued interest from the new wave scene. They found themselves added to festivals and playing support to notable larger acts. Promoters shrewdly recognising that the MC5 name was of interest to the casual fan even if the hardcore had trouble with the billing.

“One night we opened for Blue Oyster cult, and they came to our dressing room to find out what the lyrics to Kick out the Jams because they covered it, I said to then you aren’t doing that tonight are you?” Ralph Serafino drummer. The New MC5. Via Email 2024.

BOC’s version of KOTJs was recorded in the late 1970s and finally released in 2024’s album Ghost Stories. It’s a decent but who out there thinks they can do this one better than the original?

mp3: Blue Oyster Cult – Kick Out The Jams

From the time the MC5 had broken up to the formation of the New MC5, the rock world had started to massively change, both morally and artistically. The new decade heralded a whole new world of merchandise and sponsorship. The music industry was increasingly less about music and more about industry. It would be interesting to hear what the counter-culture Rob Tyner of the late 1960s made of the early 80s Rob Tyner who headlined a festival sponsored by McDonalds..

(1980’s Music Festival Advert sponsored by McDonalds)

It’s fair to say that rock’n’roll is filled with duality, especially when people have bills to pay. Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple had a lot to say about Rod Evans reactivating the DP name in the 1980,

“I think it’s pretty disgusting that a band has to stoop this low and take somebody else’s name. It’s like a bunch of guys putting together a group and calling it Led Zeppelin. I don’t like this at all.” Ritchie Blackmore, Rolling Stone magazine, August 1980

But it seems he wasn’t so disconcerting when it came to the bands picked to support him.

“Also, we did do shows with Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow, those were killer shows.”Ralph Serafino drummer. The New MC5. Via Email 2024. 

One thing that has become evident to me as I delve into more of these stories; the clapback against the ‘New’ version of a band from the original members is often only really noticeable when others insist it should be. In other words when a fan-base or a body of journalists make enough noise about it. Most of the time the other members of the original group are happy just to live and let live, especially if they want to get on with their own thing. I’ll bet you Hugh Cornwell formerly of the Stranglers is actually pretty glad that there’s a band out there playing the Stranglers hits. It means he doesn’t have to.

Unlike with other ‘New’ acts, there’s no gory court case from the other original members of The MC5. There was no real muck slinging or public fall out. The band’s record label weren’t bothered since the back catalogue was rarely in print and if the other members were bothered by Tyner’s actions it was certainly not enough to spring for lawyers that they almost certainly couldn’t afford.

The New MC5 just kind of fizzled out in the early 1980s. Tyner later re-emerged during the decade in several outfits like “Rob Tyner & the National Rock Group” and “Stev Mantiev” a band who were comprised of Vietnam vets.

By end of the decade Rob and the band were being held in the mainstream esteem which they deserved. By 1990. it wasn’t just the cool hipsters that were name checking them as an influence but absolute raging gobshites like Bono were also singing their praises. The MC5 records were being reissued and he was in demand again.

Tyner passed away in 1991 of a heart attack that also killed off any hopes of a proper reunion.  The remaining four members played a tribute show to him in 1992. Fred Smith followed Rob to the afterlife in 1993.

They reunited as a trio in 2003 as DTK – MC5 playing with a revolving door of special guests before settling on a line up that including Gilby Clark of Guns’n’Roses and the ironically titled Handsome Dick Manitoba from the Dictators. They lasted until 2012 when Davis passed away. They were the most stable line up of the MC5.

In 2018 Kramer went out again this time as the MC50 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band.  It was really just Wayne Kramer and pals… Guests included Don Was of Was Not Was, Stephen Perkins of Jane’s Addiction and Billy Gould of Faith No More.  In 2024 he released an album called Heavy Lifting, it was a de facto Kramer solo album with star name guests like Slash and the guy from RATM that isn’t the shouting one. Thompson did play on a handful of the songs but his ‘featuring’ credit on the album tells a story.. Can’t Be Found has the most MC5 feel, albeit a sanitised version for the 2020s. It features Thomson and Vernon Reid from Living Colour.

mp3: MC5 – Can’t Be Found

Kramer didn’t live to see the album release, passing from cancer in February 2024 and Thompson joined him a few months later of a heart attack. We have no classic MC5 members left but every member of Mumford and Sons is still with us, which doesn’t seem fair.

As well as the live album mentioned above there have been multiple bootlegs of the Tyner’s new MC5. A good way to hear the band legally was on a release by the Japanese label ‘Captain Trip.’  In 2007 they released an album from the New MC5 under the title Rob Tyner Band. It was recorded in 1977 and he’s backed by Robert Gillespie lead guitar, Ralph Serafino drums, Mike Marshall bass and Billy Wimble guitar.  The sound quality is iffy but it’s great document of the time.

The show can also be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejDUcBjPFeo

I’m going to pick a Tyner song to end the blog; in 1977 he recorded a single with the Hot Rods (without Eddie) called Till The Night Is Gone.

mp3 : Rob Tyner and The Hot Rods – Till The Night Is Gone

I’d like to thank Ralph Serafino for taking the time to answer my email.

 

 

STEVE McLEAN

Fall

ON THIS DAY : THE FALL’S PEEL SESSIONS #20

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

Session #20 was broadcast on this day, 18 August 1996, having been recorded on 30 June 1996.

Marking the final appearance of Brix, the session is notable for an early run-through of ‘Spencer Must Die’ from ‘Levitate’ dominated by Julia Nagle’s keyboards.  There are extremely taut and economical versions of ‘Spinetrack’ and ‘D.I.Y. Meat’ from the recently released ‘The Light User Syndrome’ album.  If anyone has doubted Stephen Hanley’s bass prowess, just take a listen to his playing on ‘D.I.Y. Meat’. The standout of the session is undoubtedly Smith’s re-working of Captain Beefheart’s ‘Beatle Bones ‘N’ Smokin’ Stones’. The warped blues’n’poetry from the Captain’s 1968 ‘Strictly Personal’ album are strictly personalised by Smith.  It’s still quite a pleasure to hear Smith intone ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.

DARYL EASLEA, 2005

mp3: The Fall – D.I.Y. Meat (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Spinetrack (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Spencer (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Beatle Bones ‘N’ Smokin’ Stones (Peel Session)

Produced details unknown

Mark E Smith – vocals; Brix Smith – guitar, vocals; Steve Hanley – bass; Julia Nagle – keyboards; Simon Wolstencroft – drums; Karl Burns – drums; Lucy Rimmer – vocals

JC

Various

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #392 : FRANCOIS KEVORKIAN

A guest posting by Martin Elliot (Our Swedish Correspondent)

Hi Jim,

I hope all is well at the Villain Towers!

When I today read your piece on the Francois K remix of This Charming Man an idea for an ICA flashed by since I’ve have this affection for him remixing European indie/alternative artists. Over the years, I have collected (quite) a few 12″ singles with such FK remixes. A quick look through my music library ended up with 20+ different songs remixed by Francois, not counting several versions (normally at least one dub version too) of the same track or the remixes of (mostly) black American disco/funk tracks.

Looking up the Wiki page over Francois reveals a French-born drummer who moved to New York in 1975, lack of success as a drummer moved him into DJing (I’m grateful for all the better drummers out there forcing this move to happen!) where he started fiddling with tape editing. Creating some buzz with his edits he was recruited to Prelude Records (a great dance music label by the way) where he did several successful remixes for US disco/funk artists.

For some reason unknown to me, he quickly became the go-to remixer for European artists wanting a club remix of their songs primarily for the US market, making remixes for just about everyone between The Cure and Kraftwerk. Some of the tracks included here were only released on the US version of the 12″, where the UK/European 12″ had a different remix. I omitted The Smiths as JC recently had it here on the blog, I also omitted Situation by Yazoo as I guess there are few living not aware of it.

Since it is a bit of a mixed bag of goodies it’s been a challenge to get a good album flow, but I hope you can enjoy this ICA as a showcase for a great remixer more than a consistent album.

Francois Kevorkian – The Indie 12 inch Dance Remix ICA

A1 Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – My Bag (US 12″ dancing remix)
A2 Echo & The Bunnymen – Lips Like Sugar (US 12″)
A3 Associates – Heart Of Glass (temperament mix)
A4 The Cure – Hot Hot Hot !!! (12″)
A5 Scritti Politti – Perfect Way (12″)

B1 Set The Tone – Dance Sucker (12″)
B2 The The – Gravitate To Me (dance mix)
B3 Yello – Call It Love (US 12″)
B4 Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus (holier than thou approach 12″)
B5 Kraftwerk – Radioactivity (1991 12″ remix)

Dance on!

Martin

 

Super Furry Animals

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

A guest series by The Robster

#25: Show Your Hand (2007, Rough Trade, RTRADS402)

For the first time since their very first release way back in 1995, a whole calendar year passed without a single Super Furry Animals release. Their contract with Sony was up, and so the band found themselves signing a new deal with legendary indie label Rough Trade. It would have been easy to call it a day, or take an extended break and concentrate on other projects (Gruff released his debut solo album ‘Yr Atal Genhedlaeth’ a few months before the Furries ’ last album ‘Love Kraft’ in 2005). Instead, the band headed back into the studio to record new material.

The approach was different to previous records. It was during the tour to promote ‘Love Kraft’ that the band realised there was a “very different atmosphere” in their audiences when the new songs were played. ‘Love Kraft’ wasn’t exactly full of rockers, most of the songs were mid-tempo, strings-laden and rather chilled. The crowds weren’t overly enthused by them in the live setting, so the decision was made to make the next album “a really abrasive, loud record”, according to Gruff. “It’s definitely the first time our audience has influenced our music in that sense.” In addition, label boss Geoff Travis also told the band he’d like “one of those pop records like you used to make”.

You could argue that the resulting album ‘Hey Venus!’ wasn’t that abrasive or loud, but it was undoubtedly more pop than its immediate predecessor, and a lot shorter. In fact, at just 36½ minutes in length, it remains the shortest album in the band’s catalogue. For the longer-term fans, it signalled a sort-of return to what the band did best – a quick blast of largely unadorned psyche-infused rock-pop songs with an occasional twist that marked them uniquely as the product of Super Furry Animals.

To announce the new record, Show Your Hand was released as a single on 16th July 2007, though initially only as a download – a sign of where the music industry was heading.

mp3: Show Your Hand

It was an interesting choice for the lead single, not least because it hadn’t been included in the band’s first tracklist draft as they felt it sounded “too generic”. Geoff Travis disagreed, insisting it could be a single with a little bit of work. The addition of a French Horn to the mix finally convinced the band to include ‘Show Your Hand’ on the album.

For me, it’s a decent song, something not unlike the ‘Rings…’-era, but I sometimes sway towards the band’s original thoughts of it being a bit… normal. It has some nice touches though – the harpsichord for starters, and I’m a sucker for a gorgeous French Horn (oi, quiet at the back!) The critics all seemed to love it, but once again couldn’t agree on who it sounded like – The Beach Boys, The Zombies and Burt Bacharach were all bandied around, as was the term “classic Furries”, which let’s face it, is a bit of a lazy cop out.

Four weeks after the digital release, two physical formats were put out. The following week, Show Your Hand entered the UK chart at #46 which is as high as it got. It was only the band’s second single in 10 years not to crack the Top 40 (the other was Ysbeidiau Huelog which was a weird Welsh song only released on vinyl in very limited quantities). In fairness, it was probably due to the fact that as it had already been downloadable for a month, maybe the fans weren’t going to rush out and buy something they were already familiar with.

More fool them (if that were the case) as they missed out on the b-sides. Both 7” picture disc and CD formats included this track, originally demoed a few years earlier:

mp3: Alluminium Illuminati

One of the band’s best b-sides since the ‘Rings Around The World’ era. This one really is “classic Furries”, harking back to the days when glam rock was still a big part of their sound. I do wonder why it never made it onto ‘Hey Venus!’. It certainly had room for one more song, and this one wouldn’t have been out of place. A really good tune.

The CD single also included this track:

mp3: Never More

Not a homage to Edgar Allan Poe, but another of those psychedelic glam rock stompers we used to enjoy on a SFA flipside. Not really one for the album this, but those loud guitars they alluded to are prominent. The drums right at the start gave a hint as to what the next single would sound like…

Now, as I mentioned last week, bonus tracks are not so easy to come by for this period of the band’s career, not at the moment, anyway. So I find myself digging a little deeper than normal. That said, I’ve got two that might constitute a bonus 7” for you. The first, a live version of Show Your Hand from 2007’s Glastonbury Festival, a couple of weeks before the single’s release.

mp3: Show Your Hand [live at Glastonbury]

And the fact that Alluminium Illuminati was originally demoed for ‘Phantom Power’ means it was included in that album’s 20th Anniversary Edition package. It’s the fully-formed song, but minus the loud guitars, more an acoustic version. I think I prefer the later b-side version, personally…

mp3: Alluminium Illuminati [2002 demo]

Next week, we go all Phil Spector on your super furry arses…

 

The Robster

Felix D'Arcy

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #466: FELIX D’ARCY

This isn’t the first time in this series that I’ve featured a track from Pick’n’ Mix, a compilation album issued by the Glasgow-based Bubblegum Records back in 2009.

This time round, you get to hear the contribution from Felix D’Arcy:-

mp3: Felix D’Arcy – Pictures From The Pavement

I’ve ascertained that Felix is from Glasgow, but there’s not a lot more info out there other than the name is taken after a character in the spy novels penned by John Le Carre.

The song is a bright sounding, catchy acoustic number, kind of perfect for sunny summer afternoons lounging in the park while emptying your cargo.  But the tune masks a lyric which isn’t all sweetness and light…..

I know that at least two of the people involved in Bubblegum Records meander to this blog on the odd occasion.  This one goes out to them with huge thanks for all they did then and what they’ve done since.

JC