Dune Witch Trials

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #455: DUNE WITCH TRIALS

For a seventh time in this series, I’m grabbing something from David Cameron’s Eton Mess, a compilation album released in October 2015 on Song, By Toad Records.

As I’ve written before:-

“Almost all of the singers and bands were, at the time, unknown with very little more than a few tracks available online or via a limited physical release, most often cheaply done on a cassette. Label owner, Matthew Young, said at the time:-

“Most of the bands are friends and a lot of musicians feature on several of the album’s tracks, one of the reasons why we’ve put the compilation together. It feels like there’s this pool of really talented musicians bubbling away and all sorts of excellent music is starting to emerge from the mix. Bands are forming, breaking up, and starting again all the time. When you see a loose collection of bands connecting like this you never know what is going to happen. A few will disappear, some will do okay, some might pave the way for others, and a few of these bands could go on to do really well.”

The track from Dune Witch Trials was this:-

mp3: Dune Witch Trials – Motorcade

The band have four releases available over at this bandcamp page, all of which date from between 2014 and 2016.

Motorcade is an enjoyable rip-roaring effort lasting less than two minutes, and is one of the four tracks that can be found on Waving At Airports, released in July 2015.  The four musicians who played on it were Kieran Thomas – Guitar/Vocals, Billy Gaughan – Guitar/Vocals, Kevin Snöw – Bass and Graham Sinclair – Drums.

 

JC

 

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (24): Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – The Ship Song

In 1989, Nick Cave was living in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  He was looking to turn his life around after a long period of drug addiction. The move had come after he had fallen in love with Brazilian journalist Viviane Carneiro. They would, in 1991, get married and have a son.

It all meant that his mind was in a completely different place than it had been during the writing, recording and touring of the first three Bad Seeds albums.  Instead of heading back to Europe, and running the risk of falling back into bad habits, he summoned The Bad Seeds along with Victor Van Hugt, his producer of choice, to Sao Paulo to begin work on what would become The Good Son, released in April 1990.

Nick Cave would later say that the album was a reflection of how he was feeling at the time.  He was happy in Brazil, and he was in love.  The dark and often despairing nature of the previous albums was replaced by a sound that was more gentle in nature.   History shows that this feeling of contentment didn’t last too long.  The relationship was over by 1993 and the couple divorced in 1996.   The music would take different turns again through the 90s….until the next time he fell madly in love.  But let’s leave Polly Harvey out of today’s story.

The first of the new songs to emerge from the sessions on Brazil was greeted with a sense of disbelief among Cave devotees, particularly those whose fandom went all the way back to The Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party.   A soppy ballad? What was the world coming to??

mp3 : Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – The Ship Song

These days, it is regarded, and rightly so, as one of his finest compositions.  It is also testament to the skills of the Bad Seeds, who in this instance were Kid Congo Powers (guitars), Blixa Bargeld (guitars), Mick Harvey (bass) and Thomas Wydler (drums), that they could magnificently deliver a song, and indeed an entire album, which was so far removed from what they were used to.

The b-side to the single, which was issued on 7″, 12″ and CD, was perhaps an early indication that Nick Cave would, in the fullness of time, get involved in composing music for films:-

mp3 : Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – The Train Song

The Ship Song didn’t reach the Top 75 on its release.   The Good Son spent one week in the album chart at #47.   It would still take a few more years before Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds enjoyed the commercial success that many contemporary critics believed was their due.

 

JC

Stockholm Monsters

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #096

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 096: Stockholm Monsters – ‘National Pastime’ (Factory Records ’84)

Hello friends,

another one on Factory Records today, always a sign of greatness of course. Like many Factory artists, Stockholm Monsters were clearly overshadowed by Joy Division/New Order, but to a degree this is understandable obviously. Factory’s legendary poor marketing didn’t help either, I suppose.

But they also gained a little bit from Factory: Peter Hook became their producer (under his ‘Be Music’ – moniker) and apparently also Rob Gretton liked them a great deal, so he became a bit of a mentor after having seen the band supporting The Rezillos.

Factory’s ‘house producer’ Martin Hannett produced their first single throughout 1981, ‘Fairy Tales’. After this release, The Monsters became Factory regulars, touring with New Order. The second single came shortly after this but the music papers had divided opinions about the band: some said they were great, others judged them as being a total bore. In 1983 the third single was released, but still Factory thought they weren’t ready for an album – consequently this, ‘Alma Mater’ did not come out before 1984.

And – finally – it was those punchy new album songs that really impressed. Indeed ‘Terror’, ‘Life’s Two Faces’ and ‘Where I Belong’ might all have made strong singles, yet Factory released just one – and then left it off the album: today’s choice, the energetic, effervescent ‘All At Once’, released in June 1984 as Fac 107, and – quite typically – I did not choose it, but the tune it is backed by, this little gem

 

mp3: Stockholm Monsters – National Pastime

Now, as great as ‘All At Once’ might be, ‘National Pastime’ is even better, at least if you ask me. It has a certain spirit, hard to describe, which always fully gets me when listening to it. Obviously neither ‘National Pastime’ nor, for that matter, ‘All At Once’ are the songs one remembers when it comes to Stockholm Monsters, this would be ‘Partyline’, their final single from 1987. But whatever song may be your favourite by them, as someone wrote at the time about the Monsters: „the indulgences that the sales of ‘Blue Monday’ allowed Factory to make in tolerating their less successful acts are looking to have been worthwhile“.

Wise words, indeed!

So enjoy,

 

Dirk

Various

THE OLD SCHOOL BY THE NEW WAVE : ICA #390

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

If there was a dominating manifesto principle for British punk, then it is perhaps best summed up by the phrase ‘do it yourself’. Knocking up your own fashions from ripped t-shirts and bin-bags, decorated with marker pen and safety-pin jewellery, or writing and photocopying your own fanzines were two characteristics of the moment. Starting your own record label and ultimately your own band, regardless of whether you could actually play an instrument, also had a defining impact on the early history of the genre.

The creative emphasis was very much against appearing derivative in any way, either visually or musically, even though there was, of course, an immense amount of copy-cat styling in both clothing, hairstyles and sound. Influences could be flaunted, but the end product earned its cred from not leaning too heavily on the invention of someone else, least of all the old-wave musical establishment of the time.

Cover versions are therefore understandably rare in the canon of early punk and new wave releases from 1977 and 1978. Writing your own stuff was self-evidently more original than plundering the past you wanted to break with. The covers that did make it onto the official releases of new wave bands at this time come from an interestingly diverse list of artists and reveal a range of different approaches that kind of sum up all the main reasons why any band chooses a particular song to cover. All, that is, barring the most obvious reason, as we’ll see.

Homage is a good place to start. For the punk artist there was a fairly short list of formative influences that could be publicly praised, amongst whom were the kings of the Detroit garage scene, MC5 and The Stooges. The songs were suffused with nihilism, teenage boredom and drug abuse, and housed in rudimentary rock riffs that even the most musically incompetent guitarist could just about master. Not that Brian James of The Damned was musically incompetent, but I Feel Alright from The Stooges’ second album Fun House (titled 1970 in the original), was the perfect accompaniment to the nihilism, teenage boredom and punchy riffs of the other eleven self-penned tracks on Damned Damned Damned.

For The Clash, it was the rude boys of Jamaican music that deserved acknowledgement, and the choice of Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves on their first album was a pointedly political one. Despite the contrast in style and tempo, the song sits proudly alongside the band’s own rugged compositions, drawing a seamless comparison between authoritarian policing in Kingston and the vindictive racism of the Met in Brixton and Notting Hill.

From the beginning Paul Weller wore his influences on his sleeve, quite literally in the form of The Jam’s three-button mohair suits. The Jam’s recorded catalogue, as well as Weller’s solo output, is peppered with homages to various heroes, and includes several of the r’n’b standards beloved by the original mid-60s Mods. Amongst these was Slow Down, a hit for Larry Williams in the late 50s, later described as a proto-punk adrenalin-fuelled raver and a perfect fit on side one of In The City.

I might have been describing Mark Perry in my opening paragraph above, as the creator of the Sniffin’ Glue punk fanzine and then founder of the band Alternative TV. ATV chose to pay tribute to Frank Zappa with their cover of Why Don’t You Do Me Right? by The Mothers of Invention. Zappa was one of very few artists associated with the hippy era who could be safely revered in 1978, largely because he was perceived to be weird as f and didn’t give a shit about commercial success. In fact, this song is amongst the most accessible things he ever did and makes for a great anti-romantic rant on The Image Has Cracked.

I’m not entirely sure whether The Stranglers’ version of Walk On By is a homage or not. There’s nothing much else in the band’s early repertoire that suggests they were big Burt Bacharach fans, nor would Bacharach be high on the list of punk-friendly composers. But the recording that appeared on a free white vinyl single with the first 75,000 copies of their third album Black and White is about as respectful a rendition as you could imagine from such disreputable oafs.

At any rate, it certainly doesn’t come across as parody, a category that comfortably embraces The Lurkers’ attempt to take the piss out of The Beach Boys.

Then I Kicked Her is a typically boorish transmogrification of Then I Kissed Her, a clean-cut tale of Californian sun and snogging, reduced to a coarse and ugly encounter in a Fulham backstreet by the simple substitution of a single consonant. Nobody thought The Beach Boys were still admirable in 1978, so The Lurkers probably thought they could get away with it, but they didn’t take the judgement of posterity into account.

The notion of covering a Fleetwood Mac song in 1978 without similar corruption might seem inconceivable. Part of the British blues revival alongside the likes of The Yardbirds, Rolling Stones, Them and The Animals, Fleetwood Mac had recently reinvented themselves as a soft-rock supergroup and their adult-oriented album Rumours had become a massive hit, polluting (to our ears) the turntables of every household in the land. Edinburgh punk band The Rezillos didn’t let this stop them exhuming an obscure 1969 b-side on their debut album, but then Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonite had a certain ring to it, illustrating how a cover might have an unlikely source but carry the right sentiment for a punk band.

Another example of this is the Sex Pistols’ version of (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone, best known as a b-side hit for those confected pseudo-Beatles, The Monkees. I’m breaking my own rules here because the Pistols’ version wasn’t released until 1980, long after the event, but it was a staple of their live sets and was recorded in October of 1976 during their first studio sessions for A&M. There’s no irony in their rendition – despite The Monkees’ squeaky-clean comedy personality, the song’s sneering put-down of a wannabe celebrity social climber might have been written for John Lydon.

For someone who is so evidently the sum of multitudinous influences, Elvis Costello didn’t actually release a cover version until My Funny Valentine on the b-side of Oliver’s Army in February 1979. That is, if you don’t count the live version of The Damned’s Neat Neat Neat issued on a free single with This Year’s Model in early 1978. Costello and the Damned were briefly label-mates and the recording comes from a Live Stiffs tour, though The Damned didn’t feature. The flip side of the free single was the Costello composition Stranger in the House, whose country and western arrangement was so alien and provocative to new wave fans that it seems like a cover of an entire genre. A curiosity disc indeed.

Another example of new wave playing it safe by covering one of their own is Penetration’s version of Nostalgia, a Pete Shelley tune that glowed on their Moving Targets debut (luminously!) almost in the same week that it appeared under the Buzzcocks name on their second album Love Bites.

The final category of cover version is what I’d call deconstruction. This is where a song is lifted from an ‘uncool’ artist and made appealing to new wave taste by a radical restyling. It’s neither parody nor homage, but might seem like either depending on your point of view. To be fair, Helter Skelter was an atypical Beatles song, heavy and discordant and so it wasn’t that much of a stretch for Siouxsie and the Banshees to refashion it on The Scream. The song’s infamous association with Charles Manson’s deranged killing spree also helps to distance it from Beatlemania and the cross-generational adoration of the Fab Four.

All Along The Watchtower by XTC is sort of a cover of a cover. As Mr Tambourine Man was for The Byrds, Dylan’s song is far better known in Jimi Hendrix’s version than his own. Either way, these were not favourable associations for a new wave artist in January 1978, and the only way to carry this off was to smash it to bits. XTC took a sacred cow and led it straight into the slaughterhouse, the lyrics unintelligible in Andy Partridge’s contorted staccato yelp and the melody almost imperceptible in the eerie dub-funk arrangement. My brother, a faithful devotee of the old school, found the sacrilege unbearable and was almost moved to violence by it. And yet the end effect captures the song’s bleak and unsettling sense of malaise perfectly, a faithful interpretation in shattered form.

What none of these cover versions did was make money – the oldest and most obvious reason for singing someone else’s already successful song. It wasn’t until Sid Vicious staggered down a glittering staircase in an ill-fitting tuxedo, drunkenly slurring My Way, the cover of all covers, that punk, such as it was by then, finally sought to shift units by singing a song that everyone loved and everyone else had already sung. It was the capstone on Malcolm Maclaren’s edifice of the Great Rock and Roll Swindle. Leonard Cohen, that famous old punk, said he never liked the song except when Sid Vicious sang it. It made number 7 in the singles chart in July 1978.

The Damned – I Feel Alright (The Stooges)
The Clash – Police and Thieves (Junior Murvin)
The Jam – Slow Down (Larry Williams)
Alternative TV – Why Don’t You Do Me Right? (Frank Zappa)
The Stranglers – Walk On By (Burt Bacharach)
The Lurkers – Then I Kicked Her (The Beach Boys)

The Rezillos – Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonite (Fleetwood Mac)
The Sex Pistols – (I’m not your) Steppin’ Stone (The Monkees)
Elvis Costello – Neat Neat Neat (The Damned)
Penetration – Nostalgia (Buzzcocks)
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Helter Skelter (The Beatles)
XTC – All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)

Fraser

Fall

ON THIS DAY : THE FALL’S PEEL SESSIONS #8

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 #8 was broadcast on this day, 3 June 1985, having been recorded on 14 May 1985.

Apart from the seventh session broadcast on the third of January that year, 1984 was, remarkably, a Peel session-free year for the group. A lot had happened; the band was on the verge of becoming obscure-art darlings, with their Beggars Banquet singles tickling the chart’s bum-end and ‘The Wonderful and Frightening World’ sounding all dressed up and ready to play.  Hence they performed sessions for the more pop-friendly Janice Long and David ‘Kid’ Jensen programmes on BBB Radio One.  Expectations were running high for this next session in May 1985. Produced by Marc Radcliffe, it has tremendous vim, and features the next two singles ‘Couldn’t Get Ahead’ and ‘Cruiser’s Creek’, as well as scintillating run-throughs of the two standouts from their forthcoming album, ‘This Nation’s Saving Grace’: ‘Gut Of The Quantifier’ and ‘Spoilt Victorian Child.’

DARYL EASLEA, 2005

mp3: The Fall – Cruiser’s Creek (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Couldn’t Get Ahead (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Spoilt Victorian Child (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Gut Of The Quantifier (Peel Session)

Produced by Mark Radcliffe, engineered by Mike Walters

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

JC

Various

60 MINS FROM SCARED TO GET HAPPY

Released in June 2013, Scared To Get Happy (A Story Of Indie Pop 1980-1989) claimed to be the first box set ever to document the explosion of Indie Pop in Britain across the 1980s. Compiled in loosely chronological fashion, the five CDs charted Indie Pop’s development from the post punk era and the dominance of Scottish bands through to its genre-defining C86 period and onto the end of the decade, with the arrival of Madchester and the shoegazing sound. Inspired by the Nuggets compilations, the box set boasts 134 tracks span the Eighties, drawn from all the key labels of the period – Creation, Factory, Cherry Red, Rough Trade, Sarah, Subway Organisation, Zoo, Kitchenware, Pink, Chapter 22, In Tape, Medium Cool, Lazy, Dreamworld, 53rd & 3rd, Ron Johnson, el, Vindaloo, Red Rhino, Food, etc.

Here’s 60 minutes of highlights.

mp3: Various – 60 mins from Scared To Get Happy

The Loft – Up The Hill and Down The Slope
Art Objects – Showing Off To Impress The Girls
The June Brides – Every Conversation
The Shop Assistants – All Day Long
Girls At Our Best – Getting Nowhere Fast
The Dentists – She Dazzled Me With Basil
The Jazz Butcher – Southern Mark Smith
The Corn Dollies – Be Small Again
Marine Girls – Don’t Come Back
The Brilliant Corners – Delilah Sands
Prefab Sprout – Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)
Friends Again – Honey At The Core
Josef K – The Missionary
The Servants – Loggerheads
The Charlottes – Are You Happy Now?
The Wild Swans – Revolutionary Spirit
The Siddeleys – My Favourite Wet Wednesday Afternoon
The Chesterf!elds – Completely and Utterly
The Monochrome Set – The Jet Set Junta (remix)
The House of Love – Shine On
James – Hymn From A Village

There may be a second volume of this sort of nonsense later in the year

JC

 

Super Furry Animals

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

A guest series by The Robster

#14: Fire In My Heart (1999, Creation Records, CRE323)

You’d think, given their nature of twisted psychedelia, the one thing Super Furry Animals wouldn’t have in their armoury was a big, lighters-out, arms-in-the-air torch song. But as ever, this band confounded expectation, and the second single to be released from ‘Guerrilla’ was exactly that.

mp3: Fire In My Heart

Remember when I said the thing that disappointed me about If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You was how it just sounded so ordinary? I suppose you could make a similar argument about Fire In My Heart. It’s one of the most straightforward songs in the band’s catalogue, even using what Gruff Rhys himself described as “clichéd lyrics”. Yet Fire In My Heart is a delight.

Originally titled Heartburn, it is, according to Gruff, a country song delivering “soul advice” about “all kinds of people in your life”. But despite its “normalness”, it has its quirks. The lyrics in the bridge, for instance, include: “The monkey puzzle tree has some questions for the watchdogs of the profane”, which by anyone’s standards isn’t what you’d expect from a clichéd country song. Then there’s the big key change at the end, the biggest cliché of the lot, but totally unexpected here. It is a SFA song, after all.

As was becoming common, the critics fawned over it, but the record-buying public were ambivalent. Fire In My Heart reached its chart peak of #25 the week after its release in August 1999. Shocking. If anyone ever wondered where I lost my faith in human nature, you don’t have to look much further.

So what of the other songs on the single? The 7” and cassette had this one:

mp3: Mrs Spector

An interesting one, I can’t say whether or not it’s about Ronnie, though I doubt it. But that chorus – shades of (1990s) Cardiacs perhaps?

This next one was the b-side of the 12” promo, and the extra track on the CD single:

mp3: The Matter Of Time

Apparently, this was initially going to be on ‘Guerrilla’, but the band felt it would make the album “too self-indulgent”. They replaced it with The Teacher in the final cut, a track they refer to as the “silly song”. Not sure that I’m entirely on board with that logic, but it’s not the strongest track in their canon, as pleasant as it is.

This week’s bonus track is the demo version of Fire In My Heart, an interesting take if far from polished.

mp3: Fire In My Heart [demo]

But wait! There’s more. You see, this isn’t just about those officially-released singles. I’m a bit of a nerdy completist, you know. Shortly after this release, Creation slipped out a one-sided 12” promo containing one of the album’s more peculiar, experimental songs. Wherever I Lay My Phone (That’s My Home) was written around a phone ringtone, with the rhythm track being based on a sample of bassist Guto Pryce tripping over a lead while Huw Bunford played a note on his guitar.

I’m not totally sure of the reasons behind the promo being sent out, but as next week’s article explains, there was a plan to release this track as the next single. The album version (and the one on the promo) was a trimmed-down edit lasting 5½ minutes. However, today, I’m going to create my own 12” promo, using the full uncut version and the demo.

I spoil you lot, I really do.*

mp3: Wherever I Lay My Phone (That’s My Home) [unedited]
mp3: Wherever I Lay My Phone (That’s My Home) [demo]

Oh, and this article is dedicated to MrsRobster. Today is our 21st Wedding Anniversary. I still very much have a Fire In My Heart for her.

The Robster

*JC adds…….apart from jumping in to wish the Mr and Mrs Robster the happiest of wedding anniversaries, I did want to echo the sentiment that we are being very spoiled right across this series with the b-sides, demos and mixes, topped off today with a cleverly crafted and creative offering.

The Drive

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #454: THE DRIVE

From the blurb in the Big Gold Dreams box set, where, yet again, today’s offering can be found.

mp3: The Drive – Jerkin’ (1977)

” ‘Banned Punks Cut Own Sex Single’ ran one suitably outraged local headline in response to the sole single on NRG Records by Dundee’s opportunistically-inclines quintet led by vocalist Gus McFarlane.  With McFarlane and his fellow corrupters of youth named and shamed, the quintet feared their aunties might be scandalised by such publicity and split up shortly afterwards.  Too late, alas, as it was picked up by Beggars Banquet for their Streets compilation, where the song could yelp, leer and thrust its lasciviously unreconstructed boogie towards a sudden and possibly premature climax once more.  A proposed follow-up, Blow Job/Gonorrhoea Go-Go, mysteriously never showed up.”

Not one I was even aware of until getting hold of the box set.  £70 is the asking price for the 7″ via Discogs.  I wasn’t tempted……

 

JC

 

Wedding Present

THIRD TIME LUCKY????

From wiki:

Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California. With roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits as of 2020, Los Angeles is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind only New York City; it is also the commercial, financial and cultural centre of Southern California. Los Angeles has a Mediterranean climate, an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of 13.2 million people. Greater Los Angeles, which includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18 million residents.

And, all being well, soon to be the temporary home of this blog for the next 10 days.

This is our myself and Rachel’s third attempt at visiting LA as the guests of Jonny the Friendly Lawyer and his wife, Goldie the Friendly Therapist, at their family home in Santa Monica. The first was supposed to be as long ago as 2020 but was postponed due to the travel/lockdown restrictions imposed by COVID.  The second was last year, but it was called off at less than 24 hours notice after I took ill and ended up in hospital with a kidney infection.

As I said last year, I’d never have imagined back in 2007 when I got the blog up and running that so many new and wonderful people would come into my orbit.  I’ve been incredibly lucky to have met many of them over the years. We hooked up with Jonny and Goldie in Barcelona a few years back when they took a trip to Europe.  We all promised one another that we’d meet up again.  It is finally happening (fingers crossed) and I can’t say enough about the generosity of Jonny and Goldie for inviting us into their home for such an extended period of time.

There are a couple of gigs in the schedule, including The Wedding Present‘s final show on their current USA tour.  Makes perfect sense, therefore to have this as tune of the day:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Santa Monica

The six-plus minute of the 20th and closing track on the 2016 album Going Going…

Oh, and any excuse to post the 19th track from the same album:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Rachel

There may well be a couple of holiday postcards coming your way over the next week and a bit alongside the usual features.   Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for a superbly-conceived guest ICA.  I’m off to jump in a taxi to the airport.

JC

 

Pooh Sticks

SONGS UNDER TWO MINUTES (16): I KNOW SOMEONE……

The full song title is far too lengthy to include at the top of this posting. And with my two-fingered approach to things, it would likely take longer than its 96 seconds of music to type out.

mp3: The Pooh Sticks – I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well

From 1988. It’s twee-pop at its finest and, dare I say it, at its wittiest. It was what the early version of The Pooh Sticks became famed for.  See also On Tape and Indiepop Ain’t Noise Pollution, both of which are just too long at 2:39 and 2:14 respectively to feature in this particular series.

JC

 

Stiff Little Fingers

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #095

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 095: Stiff Little Fingers – ‘Suspect Device’ (Rigid Digits Records ’78)

Hello friends,

name your top five punk bands of 1978, please! Finished? Thanks, let me see your votes. Hmmm, nice: Sex Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, Ramones, Wire … but hey, what about Stiff Little Fingers … no-one of you, really?!

You see, the point I’m trying to make with the lame intro above is: why is it that Stiff Little Fingers have always fallen under the radar so massively? Is it because the other bands of the time were really so much better? Is it because they did not come from the UK or the USA, but from tiny Northern Ireland instead? A country which was absolutely disarrayed in the late 70’s for reasons too complicated to understand for anyone not being involved by living there.

Not very long after their start Stiff Little Fingers began writing political songs as well, perhaps the difficult topic didn’t strike a chord with too many people, who knows? I mean, of course it is easier to listen to stuff like „chewin’ out a rhythm on my bubble gum/the sun is out and I want some/it’s not hard, not far to reach/ we can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach“ than to lyrics oozing with Northern Irish politics. Probably the best example of this dilemma is that The Undertones (also from Northern Ireland, mind you), known for their poppier sound and more traditional lyrics about boys and girls, openly accused Stiff Little Fingers of exploiting The Troubles … but hey, that’s typically Northern Ireland for you, I suppose, even the punks can’t think alike! Also, it must be said, not all of Stiff Little Fingers’ songs were political throughout, a fair number of them were mainly about more general teen rebellion.

Not so today’s choice, their very first single. The lyrics were, funnily enough, not written by the band on this occasion, but by a Belfast journalist, Gordon Ogilvie. He gave the lyrics to SLF’s Jake Burns who put them to music. Ogilvie became the band’s manager and only six weeks after the song had been written, it was released as a single, 500 copies only. Peel liked it very much, which back then guaranteed quite some attention from record label executives, consequently it was repressed various times (and before you ask, yes, my copy is one of those represses).

Enough of this, here’s the song in all its glory, play it as loud as possible:

 

mp3: Stiff Little Fingers – Suspect Device

Right, the only question remaining is, and I have often asked it myself: was the “Sus-sus-sus-sus-pect device”-bit meant to be a reference to the highly controversial “sus laws” that were in force in the UK in the late 70s, under which, essentially, you could be arrested if a police officer merely suspected that you might be thinking of committing a crime? Or was it just some deliberate stammering done for effect, in a kind of rock tradition à la ‘My Generation’ by The Who?

We’ll never know, do we? But, does it matter? No, it does not – this is just a great record!

So enjoy,

 

Dirk

Brian Bilston, Catenary Wires

BONUS POST : MY FAVOURITE ALBUM (so far) OF 2025

It was back in 2021 when I last gave a mention to The Catenary Wires, during which I admitted it had taken me a long time to actually pick up on their very existence while professing a great deal of love for what was then their new album, Birling Gap.

For those of you needing a gentle reminder or quick refresher course, the band formed in 2014, initially as a duo of Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey (ex-Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Marine Research and Tender Trap). By 2019, The Catenary Wires had expanded and now included Ian Button (ex-Thrashing Doves/Death In Vegas) on drums and Fay Hallam (ex-Makin’ Time) on keyboards.

Birling Gap was the band’s third album, and it proved to be one of the best things I came across in the year of its release, offering up a gentle musical experience, almost pastoral or chamber pop in places with hints of XTC, The Divine Comedy, Pulp, Luke Haines, the Go-Betweens, 60s west coast pop, 70s English folk and the gentler side of The Kinks dotted throughout its ten tracks.

It has taken four years for the next album to be released, mainly thanks to Amanda and Rob keeping very busy with their other band, Swansea Sound, along with what has been a very popular and successful comeback for Heavenly.  Determined not to miss out, I’ve long been signed up to the mailing list, and a few months back, I received this:-

Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires release ‘Sounds Made By Humans’, a new album of song-poems : Release date: 9 May 2025

Thankfully, the press release told me a bit more about Brian Bilston, as he wasn’t a name with which I had any familiarity. He is a poet, one with a huge on-line presence (more than half a million followers) who has written a number of best-selling volumes, some of which were aimed specifically at the children.  It turned out that Brian had been spotted wearing a Heavenly t-shirt at one of his shows, after which Amelia and Rob got in touch.  They soon discovered they were something of kindred spirits, and the friendship developed to the extent that an idea was hatched to work together.

The outcome is Sounds Made By Humans, for which Rob took thirteen of Brian’s poems and created melodies and arrangements, to be played by The Catenary Wires. Sometimes the words of the poems are sung by Amelia or Rob. Sometimes they are spoken by Brian. Sometimes both these things happen at once.  It really is, as the PR blurb claims, a pop album where the poetry and the music are equal partners: sounds made by humans in perfect artistic alignment.

The end result is not some bloke standing in front of a mic reading some rhyming couplets while musicians noodle away in the background. Instead, it is a magnificent collection of songs, with the tunes representing the very best that indie-pop has to offer, with verses and choruses emerging from Brian’s delightful, insightful, witty and, on occasion, incredibly moving words.

Two of the songs already have accompanying promo videos:-

There’s not a duff track across the collection, and with titles such as To Do List, 31 Rules For Midlife Rebellion, As I Grow Old I Will March Not Shuffle and Thou Shalt Not Commit Adulting, you can perhaps begin to see why I’ve come to regard it as the perfect manifesto for my advancing years.

Other highlights include She’d Dance, a bittersweet number just two minutes in length about old age and memories, and Compilation Cassette, whose words will surely strike a chord with every single one of us as we all have – and you can’t deny it – pulled together C60s or C90s in an effort to impress someone to whom we find ourselves attracted, while closing track Customers Who Bought This Record Also Bought… is a genuinely laugh out loud number – a sort of more gentle form of anger and bemusement (and cultural references) of the type you find in Half Man Half Biscuit songs.

Trust me on this one. Sounds Made By Humans is a fabulous work of art.  It can be bought at many fine independent record stores as well as being available via this bandcamp link.

JC

 

Orange Juice

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (34) : Orange Juice – L.O.V.E…love

This is a re-post (of sorts) from April 2015.   I wanted to include Orange Juice‘s first post-Postcard single in this series, and as I don’t think I can improve on the words that were pulled together the best part of a decade ago, it’s time for a bit of the 3Rs….repetition, repetition, repetition. (thanks, MES).

“Oh, how we can giggle now at the picture sleeve, but did Edwyn Collins ever think his rig-out of jacket, collar and tie, red shorts, white socks and brogues were remotely hip? Or even fey???

Postcard Records had come and gone, but the wish of its founder Alan Horne that all the bands should find fame and fortune with major labels seemed set to come true.

Orange Juice had signed to Polydor Records, but we were all delighted to see that the debut single still had the word POSTCARD printed above the Polydor symbol, and indeed the famous drumming kitten was also very prominent on both the label. Edwyn, James, Steven and David hadn’t sold out after all……

But what’s this…a song written by Green/Mitchell/Hodges? Had they recorded a cover, or had Polydor insisted on an in-house writing team to offer up new material?

mp3 : Orange Juice – L.O.V.E…love

OK, I quickly learned that it was a cover of a song by Al Green, but being the uber-indie post-punk 18-year-old, I wasn’t really aware who Al Green was given he’d barely had a hit in the UK.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this record at the time. In fact, I was a bit disappointed with it in many ways, as it seemed awfully polished. It even had horns on it when all I wanted was guitars. Thankfully, as I aged, so did my tastes improve and while I still won’t place it in my all-time Top 20 of OJ songs, I do tap my feet, nod my head from side to side and croon along whenever it plays.

Tell you something, though, the b-side was an instant smash:-

mp3 : Orange Juice – Intuition Told Me (Pt 2)

What wasn’t there to love about a song that contained the lines?

Please, please
Tell me when the fun begins
Please, please
As soon as you stop your whining Jim

And I whined a lot in those days. Still do in fact. And I’m happy to confess that Intuition Told Me (Pt 2) is still a song that I rank among the Top 2 the band ever recorded……and the best one that Edwyn ever wrote for them.

Polydor had high hopes for Orange Juice. I’m guessing they were staggered by the fact that the carefully chosen debut got stuck at #65 in the charts on its release in October 1981.”

 

JC

Spaghetti Head

ONE SONG ON THE HARD DRIVE (19)

The above is the cover of Precious, a compilation CD from 1992 released on Dino Entertainment, a label whose sole existence seemed to be around compiling and issuing CDs around one theme or another.

This particular compilation has the catalogue number of DINCD 38.  The earliest number listed on Discogs is DINCD 4, for Eighties Access, a 14-song compilation of big hits from household names ranging from ABC to Yazoo, while the last in the series seems to be DINCD139, for The Very Best Of Brass, a 3xCD effort with 64 tracks from what I am sure are household names among aficionados of that genre.

Precious has 20 songs squeezed across a single CD.  All 20 of the bands are listed on the front cover, and I’m sure just about all of them are familiar to you.

But surely I’m not alone in drawing a blank on this lot:-

mp3: Spaghetti Head – Glad

What now follows is a cut’n’paste from a now defunct blog called Left and To The Back, which was the work of 23 Daves between 2008 and 2024. The blog was described as “exploring the dark and dusty world of flop singles and albums, the kind you may find lingering near the stock room of your local second hand record store (if you still have one), or perhaps going for extortionate sums on ebay.”

It wasn’t a blog I was previously aware of, but flicking through its old content (the text is still there but the links to the mp3s are, understandably, all defunct), it makes for a great read.  In the November 2016 archives, you can find this:-

“If Stiltskin hit number one by being a Smashing Pumpkins tribute band for the benefit of a Levis advert, Spaghetti Head could perhaps be regarded as the era’s Miller Lite advert EMF clones. The beer’s advert during the early nineties – frustratingly unavailable on YouTube – had this single as its soundtrack, presumably created in order to persuade fans of bands who bashed their synthesisers around angrily to quaff light lager. Well, it was a huge youth market, after all (for about six months).

Glad undergoes a major lyrical transformation for this single, but otherwise the track sounds much as it did on the ad. It’s hyperactive, busy, slightly funky and frivolous. While all involved obviously anticipated a hit single, it’s also clear that nobody was taking this terribly seriously. Still, with its truly nagging catchiness it could actually have been a Jeans On for the nineties, but sales were clearly disappointing, and the track was most commonly encountered by listeners on the Indie compilation LP Precious – sequenced between Pale Saints and My Bloody Valentine, for some baffling reason.

The man behind the track is Tony Gibber, who appears to have had a long career in soundtracking films and television programmes, perhaps being most famous for the 2003 Top of the Pops theme Get Out Of That. Somebody with the name Tony Gibber also seems to have been associated with the production and arrangement of some Bucks Fizz singles in the eighties, and had two singles of his own out on WEA in 1979 and 1980. I can’t prove that it’s definitely the same person, so this speculation on my part would have Wikipedia’s “citation needed” alarms ringing, but it seems likely.

If it is, we can only assume he would have at least been in his thirties by the time this came out. Had it been a hit, he might have looked a bit “interesting” performing the song on Top Of The Pops with his baseball cap on backwards, so it’s a shame that appearance never came to pass.”

My huge thanks to 23Daves….and I really hope he doesn’t mind that I’ve lifted so liberally from his site.

 

JC

Super Furry Animals

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

A guest series by The Robster

#13: Northern Lites (1999, Creation Records, CRE314)

One of the main tracks on the Super Furry Animals’ last release was a reggae track. On their return the following year, they stayed rooted in the Caribbean as they adopted a calypso sound for a song about the weather.

mp3: Northern Lites

Northern Lites was written by Gruff Rhys, and was particularly inspired by news coverage of El Niño throughout the previous year. The song’s title refers to the Aurora Borealis, which the band believed they had seen but, as no one else was present, they could not get confirmation that what they had witnessed was not simply a “Furry fantasy”. Gruff has said that the song is “about asking Jesus if he decides to seek his revenge on us, to get it over with as soon as possible and blow us away to the Northern Lights” but denied it as being about questioning one’s faith. “It’s just about the weather,” he would confirm.

While the embryo of Northern Lites had been written some years previously, the band’s inspiration of the weather phenomenon affecting Latin America, led to them playing along to a preset calypso rhythm track. The steel drums were added on the spur of the moment after seeing the instruments lying around Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios while recording the new album. Despite having no knowledge of how to play them, Cian gave them a go and created that distinctive Caribbean feel that runs through the final song.

The result is a track that was much loved and well received by the critics, gaining favourable comparisons to Burt Bacharach and the Beach Boys. It’s true, those backing vocals are wonderful. It became – and has remained – the highest charting single in SFA’s catalogue, reaching #11 in the UK in May 1999. It’s one of those that, while I may not immediately pick it out as a career highlight, each time I listen to it, I do find it kind ofirresistiblee. The rhythm, the tune, those harmonies, the steel drums, the blasts of Tijuanana brass – it all seems to meld perfectly together. Perhaps I really should rate it higher.

The 7” and cassette contained this as it’s flip side:

mp3: Rabid Dog

Not on a par with the A-side, obviously, but definitely something that made you realise how good this band was, that a track like Rabid Dog would be relegated to mere b-side status. It’s a bit of fun, with echoes of the band’s earliest sound alongside their trademark psychedelic tendencies. And there’s a bit about cuttlefish in there, which merely adds to it, I reckon…

The CD single format added a third track, which could also be found on a 12” promo in place of Rabid Dog:

mp3: This, That And The Other

This one is a 6-minute, laid-back, keyboard-led bit of psychedelic melancholy. Hazy, lazy, tripped-out summer vibes, which is completely instrumental for its first half, before Gruff’s vocal comes in, does its bit, and ends on a continuous loop of “are we dying” through the minute-long fade. Yes, b-side material of course, but more interesting than many bands’ a-sides throughout 1999 for sure!

Your bonus tracks over the next few weeks will be from the demos recorded for the third Super Furry Animals album ‘Guerrilla’. Today, you get the demo of Northern Lites – which as you can hear, wasn’t half the song it turned out to be – and a silly little solo Gruff thing that came to nothing, but has a certain charm.

mp3: Northern Lites [demo]
mp3: Vermillionaire [demo]

‘Guerrilla’ was released in June 1999 and was a very different SFA record in many ways. One of its very best songs would be issued as its next single…

The Robster

Dragsters

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #453: THE DRAGSTERS

From the blurb in the Big Gold Dreams box set, where, once again, today’s offering can be found.

mp3: The Dragsters – I’m Not An American (1987)

“The Dragsters formed in Greenock with a line-up of, ahem, Vince Van Yak on vocals, guitarists Roky Mountain and Lestat, bass player Fabian McDonald and drummer Marvyn Rammpp.  Their power-punk guitar pop was honed in live sets featuring covers of Boys by The Shirelles and Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones, and fitted perfectly in with an Edinburgh scene of DIY bands who had more line-up changes than a football team.  In keeping with this, The Dragsters’ first single, Albino, was co-produced by Shop Assistants guitarist David Keegan, with backing vocals provided by Margarita Vasquez Ponte of Jesse Garon and The Desperadoes/Fizzbombs fame.  For this third effort, Van Yak and Co. did it themselves, but they still sounded as if they’d been transplanted from a 1960’s cellar bar.”

JC

Tindersticks

THE CD SINGLE LUCKY DIP (22) : Tindersticks – Rented Rooms

I’ve drifted away from Tindersticks in recent years, but there was time, back in the 90s and first half of the 00s, when I devoured everything they recorded and released.   I took in loads of live shows, travelling down to London on a couple of occasions, including one particularly memorable summer night at Somerset House in June 2002 when, by coincidence, one of the Concorde planes was high above us as it made its descent into Heathrow Airport.

By this point in time, they had released more than twenty singles or EPs, without ever seriously looking as if they were chasing mainstream success.  I particularly liked that the release of each single was something for fans to look forward to, given they usually came with a mixture of previously unreleased songs, cover version and live tracks, with the latter so often capturing how songs were differently arranged/performed from year to year.

Back in 1997, two singles were lifted from the LP Curtains, the second of which was Rented Rooms. The surprise this time around, on CD1, was a big band version of the song –

mp3 : Tindersticks – Rented Rooms
mp3 : Tindersticks – Rented Rooms (swing version)
mp3 : Tindersticks – Make Believe

Make Believe was an otherwise unreleased song. It’s kind of Tindersticks unplugged, and I imagine this is how many of their songs were initially worked up in rehearsals to identify which of them should them then be developed further with strings etc.

CD2 was also worth getting a hold of thanks to the live recordings of three tracks lifted from what was a week’s residency at the ICA. London in November 1996.

mp3: Tindersticks – Cherry Blossoms (live)
mp3: Tindersticks – She’s Gone (live)
mp3: Tindersticks – Rumba (live)

The original versions of Cherry Blossoms and She’s Gone can be found on Tindersticks (II), released in 1995, while Rumba is an instrumental, originally recorded for the soundtrack to the 1996 film, Nénette et Boni.

Rented Rooms reached #56 in the UK charts in November 1997.  Given it would have got next to no radio airplay, it shows just how many of us diehard fans went out and handed over our hard-earned cash.

 

JC

Comsat Angels, Fad Gadget, Flesh For Lulu, Marc Riley, New Order, Nightingales, Serious Drinking

WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (May Pt 2)

For the second month in a row, there were plenty of songs that featured in the chart edition of this series just a couple of weeks back.  Last month, the list of 45s that weren’t commercial hits was quite small – just six in total.   Will things be any different with the look back at May 1984?

Spoiler alert.  Not much……

mp3 : The Comsat Angels – You Move Me

A song I haven’t thought about in over 40 years.  It’s not one that I’m all that fond of, but The Comsat Angels were a band that one of the student union regulars really liked and used to pester the DJs to play. Summarising things from wiki, they formed in 1979 and released six albums between then and 1986, later reforming, initially under different names and then finally calling it a day in 1995, before briefly re-forming in 2009-1o. You Move Me was their tenth single and would later be included on their fifth album, 7 Day Weekend, released in 1985.

mp3: Fad Gadget – One Man’s Meat

For anyone looking for background, I would ask you to have a look at ICA 231, lovingly compiled by The Affectionate Punch back in November 2019, but in summary, Fad Gadget was, initially, the stage name of the late Frank Tovey (8 September 1956 – 3 April 2002), one of the pioneers of electronica here in the UK. He wasn’t one who ever chased commercial success at any point in his career, but he was name checked by almost everyone who was anyone in the genre over the ensuing decades.  There were four studio albums and eleven singles released between 1979 and 1984 under the name of Fad Gadget, and One Man’s Meat was the last of the 45s.

mp3: Flesh For Lulu – Subterraneans

I’ve mentioned previously that 1984 was a bit of a stellar year for goth music.  Flesh For Lulu had formed in London in 1982, and not too long afterwards were signed by Polydor Records.  They were dropped after the debut album and early singles failed to chart, and they ended up on Beggars Banquet for much of the rest of the decade.  Despite a dedicated fan base and a few champions in the music press, they never enjoyed any commercial breakthrough, disbanding in the early 90s.

mp3: New Order – Murder

A 12″ single on import featuring a previously unreleased song and an instrumental take on hit single Thieves Like Us?  Why, thank you Factory Records, as us obsessives will buy everything to which New Order attach their name (well, at least back in 1984 we did).   This one came out on Factory Benelux.  It’s four minutes of relentless noise in which Stephen Morris really gives the drums a hammering.  Not easy, nay, make that impossible to dance to!

mp3: The Nightingales – The Crunch

Hands up and confession time.  It would be well into the 21st century before I got my hands on a copy of The Crunch, a 12″ EP released in May 1984 by The Nightingales, a band that has been described by one critic as ‘the misfits’ misfits’.  My knowledge of the band was sketchy until watching the excellent documentary King Rocker, which was aired on Sky Arts back in 2021.  There’s a real reminder of the Josef K singles in the way the guitars are played on this one.

mp3: Marc Riley & The Creepers – Pollystiffs

As mentioned a few months ago as part of this series, Marc Riley having been sacked from The Fall in 1982, formed his own band and began writing and recording. This was their fifth single in what had been a productive twelve months, and would be followed shortly afterwards by the debut album, Gross Out. Another one that I can’t recall hearing back in the day…..the days/nights of listening obsessively to John Peel had been replaced by going out and/or spending time with a new girlfriend.

mp3: Serious Drinking – Country Girl Becomes Drugs and Sex Punk

Candidate for one of the best song titles of all time from a post-punk band, with a penchant for humorous lyrics and much loved by John Peel.  Serious Drinking emerged from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, and two delivered two well-received albums in 1983 and 1984.  They kind of set a template for I Ludicrous and to a lesser extent, Half Man Half Biscuit, and this song was memorably featured in Dirk’s on-going series just a few weeks ago.

Having looked ahead to June 1984, I can promise a much larger set of tunes next time out.

 

JC

Specials

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #094

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 094: The Specials – ‘Nite Klub’ (Chrysalis Records ’79)

Good morning friends,

well, there was no way whatsoever in being able not to include The Specials in this series, was it? As far as I’m concerned it is of course debatable whether I chose the right song or not, but the main thing is that the band features – simply because they are ace – all of the time!

Now, ‘Nite Klub’ it is. And not ‘Ghost Town’, but there you are. Of course the importance of the latter is clear to me re deindustrialisation, urban decay, violence, but I reckon everybody is fully aware of the role The Specials played in the late 70’s – being a black and white Ska revival combo praying love and happiness in the heydays of punk and National Front probably wasn’t the easiest thing one could have gone for! And ‘Ghost Town’ was not the only song which showed what they stood for, there are many others which make this more than clear!

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: there is a small chance that only one single person reads this nonsense who is too young – or too busy with Ed Sheeran – to know anything about Two Tone and The Specials in particular, so, should you be wondering what the heck I’m talking about: please delve deeper, it surely is worth five minutes of your life, promised: ‘Nite Klub’ is as good a start as any other song on The Specials’ debut album!

Opening up with the sounds of clinking glasses, muffled conversations and some Jamaican patois which is so non-understandable that it still drives me nuts whenever I hear it some 46 years later, it also features Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders on backing vocals, which surely brings bonus points, at least in my little world.

mp3: The Specials – Nite Klub

‘Nite Klub’ has always been a firm live favorite, if you watch videos of gigs of the time (‘Dance Craze’ is highly recommendable in fact) you’ll see the band clicking on all cylinders, giving us bursts of energy … all of this with a bassline which is beyond this world, although you could tell the same about the horn section (something which becomes even more evident in the live part of the deluxe version of the first album).

Briefly coming back to ‘Ghost Town’ again: people love to interpret things into a song, but this does not always make sense, I always thought: the more sophisticated amongst you could ask for example whether ‘Nite Klub’ follows the lineage of Caribbean music with sociopolitical commentary in confronting the opulence and disparity of British nightlife during times of an economic standstill and continuing unemployment.

Then again you could not do this and simply take the tune like I always did – a tale about myself, with a bottom line I can fully relate to (because I did not do pretty much else when I was younger): pissing down your hard-earned cash on overpriced booze, surrounded by beautiful girls who would not care about you at all – sometimes things are exactly that simple, they are not more, but also they are not less!

Enjoy,

Dirk