A GUEST POSTING by MARTIN ELLIOT (Our Swedish Correspondent)
Hi Jim,
Been thinking about this theme a few times, and then when I the other day listened to one of my favorite Swedish albums of all times and my stand-out track from it – Alice – I thought “this is a great short story”. The thing being of course it’s in Swedish… so I had a go at translating it to English to see if it works. The band, Eldkvarn (“Fire Mill”) has been around forever, and are normally not a band that draws my attention, pretty straight forward rock’n’roll – a bit like our version of Bruce Springsteen, but to celebrate their 10 years as band they 1987 released the double album Himmelska Dagar (Days of Heaven) and suddenly it all worked out just wonderful. It’s a great album, pity they haven’t been able to reach this quality again (IMO). Side D is pure magic, 3 brilliant tracks with the middle one being the 9+ minutes long Alice, a homage to a love long gone.
She lived by the railway where her father had a job She had blue jeans and a leather jacket, and a straw hat with a feather on top I met her there every day after school in an abandoned wagon on an overgrown track Sometimes we sat on the embankment and dreamt ourselves away while the wind caught our hair Like pages in a book we separated Each went their own way it was all a loan
Her father is on the other side of the railway bridge in a grave under a stone in the old cemetery I’m sitting under the chestnut by the old canal It’s all memories now the houses and streets in the town And it’s strange that I haven’t seen in this way before so I guess I’ll continue for a while inside or outside the law
Alice, heaven can wait there’s a way and a place in the sun for every one Alice, heaven can wait put on your leather jacket it’s a long way and you walk alone
Your tears down the cheek while you apply make-up are like rain in September and only the wrong things get said Yes, it’s hard when nothing happens and harder still to get older I have tried to learn but even I don’t know it all Walk with me over the fields follow me to the sea If there’s something I want to show you it is this road When time catches up on us we get other things on our mind and both you and I know who is the most anxious
Alice, heaven can wait there’s a way and a place in the sun for every one Alice, heaven can wait put on your leather jacket it’s a long way and you walk alone
The years come back and I remember St Per’s Street I remember a young boy always in the window staring at the motorcycle gangs outside Rialto on their way to the end of the world there was no way back with black leather jackets and hair like Elvis Presley they threw us up in the air so the guns fell out of the holsters When the street lights lit everyone was outside Rialto and I was a small boy three flights up in the window
and the snow fell, and the snow fell, and the snow fell, and the snow fell
Snowfall and snowploughs a winter’s night ambulances and trams racing I saw Lucia processions with gnomes and trolls Zamora* and Bajdoff* and a gigantic football
and the snow fell, and the snow fell, and the snow fell, and the snow fell
I saw May 1st processions with swaying banners horses and police men sitting in saddles Students carrying the hope of the future elephants and clowns from Circus Scott Miss Norrköping waved and I waved back then came Floyd Paterson on a flatbed truck
I learned to work I grew up to a man good years and hard years came and went now I walk beneath the skies outside the barn Alice, i still see you in the blue jeans and the straw hat on your neck May the doors behind me always be open and I always carry your leather jacket tightly around my heart
Alice, heaven can wait there’s a way and a place in the sun for every one Alice, heaven can wait put on your leather jacket it’s a long way and you walk alone
* Zamora and Bajdoff were the nicknames of two legendary players during the 50’s and 60’s in the football team of their hometown, Norrköping, where all this once supposedly happened.
mp3 : Eldkvarn – Alice
===========================
“Off the record” – please make a sanity check of my translation, if it just doesn’t make sense, please delete this mail. 🙂
Best,
Martin
JC adds…..
I decided, without even hearing this piece of music that I had to include it in this occasional series. Martin has gone way beyond the call of duty to translate the lyric….and it does make perfect sense. Cheers mate!
I’ve mentioned on a few occasions of a very stupid incident in late 1986 which resulted in me losing a few boxes of 7” singles.
Thanks to my recent purchase of the 5xCD Big Gold Dreams box set, I’ve had my memory jolted in respect of some of the bits of plastic which came to grief, one of which has turned out to be something quite rare and valuable:-
mp3 : The Suede Crocodiles – Stop The Rain
It was released on the Glasgow label No Strings in the summer of 1983. It was a time when Glasgow was awash with great bands making astonishingly good jangly-guitar based music, much of which has been greatly celebrated on this little corner of t’internet. I do remember the lads involved in the label saying that they were determined to sign the best of local talent and them having their eyes on the newly emerging Lloyd Cole & The Commotions. The big offer put on the table by Polydor meant they missed out that time and so the initial releases were 45s by two highly regarded local groups – Del Amitri and Popgun. But by the time the latter went into the studio, the name had changed to The Suede Crocodiles.
I bought the single without having heard it, but I had seen Popgun play a few times in small venues across the city. It was also being mentioned in the local media that No Strings was hoping to prove to be every bit as important as Postcard had been a few years earlier and as far as I was concerned, buying this particular piece of plastic was a no-brainer.
As it turned out, Stop The Rain wasn’t quite as outstanding and instantly memorable as I had hoped it would be. I’m not saying it’s a poor or disappointing single – far from it – but the thing is, it was being compared to a lot of other great stuff which was emerging from the city and it didn’t quite do enough to stand out. Having said that, I was pleased with the purchase and it did find its way onto a couple of compilation tapes that were made at the time and also managed through requests, to get it aired a couple of times at Strathclyde Students Union.
The next thing I heard, and it came from a mate who was a regular at the Student Union (and who knew a few folk directly involved in the local music scene) was that The Suede Crocodiles had split up as one of their two singer-songwriters, Kevin McDermott, wanted to pursue a solo career.
It wasn’t something that bothered me much – I did keep an eye out on what Kevin was doing, going along to a few shows and in due course buying some records; but, as with The Suede Crocodiles, it didn’t ever quite fully click with me.
Over the years, and not having the single to provide any prompt or reminder, that connection between Kevin McDermott and The Suede Crocodiles ended up being forgotten, brought only back into my mind by the occasional mention on a blog or website that I’ve stumbled across.
It was just the other day that I got to hear Stop The Rain again thanks to purchasing the afore-mentioned box set. Seeing a picture of the sleeve in the accompanying booklet was the reminder that I had actually once owned the single. I went onto Discogs to see what it’s going for nowadays.
There are six copies for sale and the price range is £100-£200 (albeit the most expensive comes signed by the four members of the band).
Wow. That was way more than I had expected….and again got me thinking about what I really should be doing with my vinyl going ahead. I’ve no kids to leave it to and other than Aldo (who isn’t all that much younger than me!!!) no-one is of an age to whom it could really be passed onto. I must have a few bits of vinyl that are worth a reasonable amount, and when you add it all up, it will be a very tidy sum. There’s even a few CDs that some folk might be interested in!!!
But all that’s for another time. Today is all about bringing you the one single ever recorded and released by The Suede Crocodiles. And I can even offer up the b-side:-
mp3 : The Suede Crocodiles – Pleasant Dreamer
Turns out that, back in the day, the band had made a number of recordings for potential release by No Strings and these eventually were brought together, along with a few live renditions that had been captured, and issued as a vinyl-only 13-track compilation on Accident Records in 2001, with a later CD version being released in Japan in 2010.
Oh and the Big Gold Dreams box-set has provided me with loads of potential material for the blog. You have been warned.
First, I’d like to thank everyone for their kind comments on my first ICA on Ash. They were nice enough to make me want to have another go, so here we are.
The other month, I was watching The Insatiable Ones, a new Suede documentary and I wondered if anyone had done a Suede ICA, as it’s something I thought I could have a go at. Imagine my surprise when I saw no one had, so I’m attempting it. I don’t claim to be a Suede expert, but I own the first 4 albums, the Sci-Fi Lullabies B Sides collection, the first comeback album, Bloodsports and the latest, The Blue Hour. I have also now heard the other 2 albums, although nothing from them has made this ICA (spoiler alert),
The Beautiful Ones – A Suede ICA
Side 1
Animal Nitrate (from Suede)
Possibly the most famous Suede song (although that could be Trash). Their first Top Ten hit (at a time when Indie bands didn’t hit the Top Ten) and a song that we forget now was so out of step with the times, all big bold glam rock guitars at the tail end of the grunge era. Somehow its blatant drug references escaped the BBC sensors, as it was a massive radio hit.
Everything Will Flow (from Head Music)
The recording of Head Music was a troubled time for the band, Brett Anderson was a drug addict by this time and keyboard player Neil Codling was suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The band largely recorded tracks for the album individually. On top of this, they were also trying to experiment with a more electronic dance influenced direction. Despite this, a lot of the album holds up well, none more so than this track. Fun fact, this song got to number 28 on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, Suede on the Dance chart, who’d have thought it?
The Big Time (from Sci-Fi Lullabies)
Originally the B Side to Animal Nitrate, later collected on the Sci-Fi Lullabies compilation. This is a beautiful ballad, simple guitar, strings, a mournful trumpet solo and poignant lyrics, detailing the tale of a relationship breaking down due to the fame of one of the parties. “Now he’s in the big time, And you’re in the way.”
It Starts And Ends With You (from Bloodsports)
Suede’s reunion has produced 3 albums to date, Bloodsports was the first in 2013. When they toured this album, they played 2 sets, first they played the complete album in order, then after a break they played their singles in chronological order (when I saw them in Southampton, they got up to The Beautiful Ones), which was a brave decision, but I believe the album is strong enough to get away with it. This to me is the stand-out track on the album, very old-school chart friendly Suede.
The 2 Of Us (from Dog Man Star)
Dog Man Star is now regularly held up as Suede’s crowning achievement. Initially I preferred Coming Up, as it is more immediate, but Dog Man Star bears up to repeated listening, as you appreciate more about it and different tracks make an impression. This is one of those tracks, in some ways it’s a typical Suede piano ballad, however, I love the way it builds and then fades, also the lyrics are very evocative.
Side 2
Beautiful Ones (from Coming Up)
The third album Coming Up was a contrast to Dog Man Star, more direct and poppy. It feels like an album of hit singles and five of them did go top 10. This to my mind is the best of the uptempo tracks, even if it is a bit reminiscent of New Generation from the previous album. It’s a typical rollicking Suede single with lyrics trashing mid-nineties celebrity culture.
Stay Together (Long Version) (from the single)
Their joint biggest hit (along with Trash) and the only standalone single they ever released. This was the first notice that Bernard Butler wanted to start producing epics and this longer version definitely feels like a production where the kitchen sink has been thrown at it, particularly in the four and a half minute outro. A clear signpost to what they would go on to produce on the Dog Man Star album.
Still Life (from Dog Man Star)
Another ballad from Dog Man Star. I prefer the ballads on this album (this, The 2 Of Us, The Wild Ones & Asphalt World in particular), as there are more layers to them. This track builds to an impressive climax, with contributions from the London Sinfonia orchestra. It was covered, surprisingly well, by of all people, Alisha’s Attic on the Childline album, a version worth seeking out.
Cold Hands (from The Blue Hour)
I toyed with sticking a number of tracks at this point. The piano version of My Insatiable One was considered, as was their cover of Shipbuilding, but there are too many ballads on this side of the ICA. We need something lively here and I thought about Metal Mickey, but I eventually settled on something less obvious. Cold Hands is a highlight from the latest album and is a short swaggering blast of energy, that fits nicely here.
Saturday Night (from Coming Up)
The closing track from Coming Up is a melancholic ballad, based around a straightforward guitar figure and some more poignant lyrics. I think the “Sha La La La” refrain as the song fades out is a great way to end this ICA.
You’ll hopefully recall this piece from a couple of months back in which I lamented the decision by Adam Stafford to take his leave of the music scene.
Tucked away near the end of that particular posting, I set out my hope that Adam would take up my offer of a sit-down over a beer or two at which I’d lend a sympathetic ear if he wanted to gripe further about the music industry.
My hopes were realised and, at the tail end of January, he came across to Glasgow, ostensibly to catch a show by Broken Chanter (the new band formed by David McGregor following the break-up of Kid Canaveral), but we hooked up a couple of hours beforehand and we got talking. We were joined a while later by Mike Melville of Manic Pop Thrills and I think it’s a fair assumption to say that we both spent a bit of energy asking Adam to reconsider his decision and offering to help out in any way we could.
We both felt we were pushing a wee bit at an open door as Adam was saying that his love of composing and performing hadn’t left him – indeed he’d been given a gift of an old-style synthesiser at Christmas on which he had been working up some new pieces – but he just felt really low and bitter about how the tail end of 2018 had been panning out. In a nutshell, he’d released a critically acclaimed double-album and yet he was unable to transfer such praise into enough sales to financially support himself and his family and his efforts to tour further afield than the cities in Scotland had left him out-of-pocket.
But more than the financial side of things, it was painfully obvious that he was doubting himself for what must have been the first time in decades, wondering if he really did have an audience. Our response was that, as long as we were still capable of listening to music, he’d always have at least two fans to buy his stuff and come see his shows.
I think it’s fair to say that, by the end of what turned out to be a great night (the live show was most enjoyable), Adam was quite drunk and had been given a bit of food for thought. I got a really nice e-mail from him the day after in which he admitted not remembering much of his train journey back to Falkirk and the walk from the station to his home, but that he’d appreciated the company and the encouragment I’d given him.
I knew there would be other folk out there offering similar words to Adam, including his family, close friends, fellow musicians and other fans similar to myself. So it was great to get this missive a couple of weeks ago:-
Dear friends,
As some of you already know, in Nov last year, after a bad week of depression and insomnia, I hastily announced that I was quitting music, performing & releasing. It had been an eventful year: I was flattened by the deaths of two people I knew and greatly admired; an LP that I’d spent 8 years making was well received but a subsequent short tour of the UK was financially and emotionally ruinous. The shadows were closing in.
Thankfully I have a stupendous amount of supportive family and friends who dropped what they were doing to facilitate the massive whitey I was having and encouraged me to pause and reflect, respond rather than react.
To get to the point, I never have truly wanted to retire from writing and performing, but needed a break. In all honesty, I need to keep creating music to stop me from going insane and financially support my family. Thus, I am putting out this new EP of mainly soundtrack music that I’ve been working on over the last year. It is free to DL but any contribution (or a recommendation to a friend) would be greatly appreciated:
One of the issues that had come up during our drunken discussions in Glasgow had been how best to get the new music out there. I told Adam that I would be willing to get involved in any support costs in doing so and as the night wore on, I began to insist that he allow me to get involved in that way as it would be an honour and a privilege.
A few days later, in reply to his e-mail thanking me for being decent company at the gig, I reminded him of my offer and repeated my insistence. I was determined to try to make sure that he could start 2019 with something of a bang, through having new material available for sale and/or a couple of shows to look forward to. After much badgering, he accepted my offer. It’s not a great deal of money – I pay more for a season ticket at Raith Rovers and it’s come from a good couple of weeks making football score predictions and relieving an on-line betting firm of some cash – but what it has done is enable Adam to send this out:-
Adam Stafford returns in 2019 fresh from the critically acclaimed compositional album Fire Behind the Curtain (2018). This time he has hunkered down in his tiny studio with a newly acquired Synthesizer and laid down improv Synth jams over one week in a psychedelic sweatstorm.
The result is The Acid Bothy: a no-frills, no-bullshit hypnogogic slayer; a bad-trip brainmelch vomitorium spewing bubbling Synth lines that warp and contort in the shifting haze.
Fitting for an LP that was recorded live onto mono cassette, Adam is issuing The Acid Bothy on fruit salad (bi-red/yellow) coloured tapes limited to 50 copies.
Of these 50 copies, 15 can be pre-ordered HERE with the rest being available at two live shows:-
12 April: Leith Depot, Edinburgh
18 April: The Hug & Pint, Glasgow
(Turns out that the 15 pre-order copies are already sold out!!!….but you can still pick up a download version)
Who could possibly resist something described as a bad-trip brainmelch vomitorium spewing bubbling Synth lines that warp and contort in the shifting haze.
Paul Morley, eat your broken heart out.
In the meantime, here’s something from Fire Behind The Curtain, that critically acclaimed LP from 2018 mentioned earlier on:-
Up until doing the little bit of research for this post, I had assumed today’s song was a cover of a number by The Carpenters:-
mp3 : Paul Quinn & The Independent Group – Superstar
The mighty Quinn and his just as mighty bandmates* recorded this for the 1992 album The Phantoms and the Archetypes, with it also appearing as a track on the Stupid Thing single the following year. My previous knowledge of the song stemmed from my childhood when the brother and sister duo enjoyed a Top 20 hit in late 1971 – to be honest, I thought Superstar had been a #1 record, such was the frequency with which I recall hearing it, but I’m thinking now that it was more likely one of those songs that was the subject of numerous requests over the years and I’m conflating things over an extended period.
Not that it matters.
I suppose I should have realised The Carpenters were themselves offering up a cover, given the writing credits go to Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett.
It turns out the song dates from 1969. The original has a totally different type of the arrangement, with horns and a gospel style backing vocal. It was Bonnie Bramlett on lead vocal, Leon Russell on keyboards and, among others, Eric Clapton on guitar and Rita Coolidge on background vocals. There were a few more versions recorded prior to The Carpenters, including by the likes of Cher, Bette Midler and Peggy Lee. There’s also been a lorry-load of versions since 1971 across a range of genres.
Paul Quinn’s take on things demonstrates that Superstar is, when it all boils down, a torch song of the utmost quality, and it’s a rather sad tale from the perspective of a discarded groupie, one who wasn’t a career groupie interested in quantity of ‘bags’, but who thought the love and affection offered by the musician in question was genuine and meaningful.
Turns out too that one line in the original version was felt too risqué by Richard Carpenter and so he changed ‘And I can hardly wait to sleep with you again’so that Karen would now sing ‘And I can hardly wait to be with you again”, which is the line also sung by Paul.
The song was later, in 1994, covered by a very unlikely source:-
mp3 : Sonic Youth – Superstar
It appeared initially on the tribute album If I Were a Carpenter and was also released as a single. It has been used on a couple of soundtracks and is the only known version for which Richard Carpenter has expressed a strong dislike.
Oh and *the mighty bandmates referred to at the outset?
James Kirk (ex-Orange Juice) Blair Cowan (ex-Lloyd Cole & The Commotions0 Tony Soave (ex-The Silencers) Campbell Owens (ex-Aztec Camera) Robert Hodgens (ex-The Bluebells) Alan Horne (music impresario extraordinaire)
I promised you last week that the final part of this, what I hope has been an informative and enjoyable series, would be worthwhile.
Those of you who have been with me since the days of the original Vinyl Villain Blog (born 30 Sep 2006, murdered by Google on 24 July 2013) will know that Paul Haig embraced and encouraged the sort of things this and other places do to respect music and musicians.
In March 2009, I put up a post which featured two Edinburgh acts – Paul Haig and Hey! Elastica. To my surprise and anger, Google acted on a dmca notice and removed the post and the links. The bizarre thing was that the offending post had been written on the back of an e-mail from someone associated with Paul Haig’s management thanking me for featuring him previously on TVV, the knock-on effect of which led to Paul himself contributing a couple of lines to the post, which was just a huge thrill for me. Oh and the song was one which was impossible to have unless you owned a particular piece of vinyl from the 80s.
It turned out that Paul and his management team were every bit as pissed off about it as I was, offering encouragement and then getting in touch with Google to express their dismay. Paul then sent me an email to say I had full permission to provide a free mp3 of his single Reason as his way of expressing solidarity with music bloggers whom he knew were doing a lot to encourage the sale of music and not just acting as thieves or pirates.
All this led to the genesis of an idea for bloggers to say thank you back to Paul, which we did by having Paul Haig Day on 6 April 2009, with more than 50, the world over, of us dedicating our posts on that date to his music, whether solo or with his old band. It even got a mention on a music station in New York City!!
The idea was repeated in 2010, and even more bloggers joined in. But what made it particularly special was that Paul offered up, not only more words of encouragement, but provide The Vinyl Villain with the opportunity to feature what was, at that point in time, an exclusive brand new remix of a song:-
mp3 : Paul Haig – Trip Out The Rider (remix)
Trip Out The Rider was the lead off track from Paul’s 2009 album, Relive, a work which at long last was seeing him get credit for much of what was happening in the world of indie music, and in particular, his influence of the likes of Franz Ferdinand. It also saw him revisit a few old songs, including Listen To Me (from has time working with Billy Mackenzie and which I featured a couple of weeks back) as well as Round and Round on which he had worked with Malcolm Ross, with the latter including it on one his own solo LPs as far back as 1995.
Paul, in providing the exclusive remix, also let me tell the world that a further remix of Trip Out The Rider had been done by Fred Deakin from Lemon Jelly, the highly innovative UK electronic act, and would be made available as a very exclusive 7″ vinyl single later in 2010….1 November 2010 as it turned out:-
mp3 : Paul Haig – Trip Out The Rider (Impotent Fury remix)
And, alongside the track made available via the blog almost seven months previous, was this b-side:-
mp3 : Paul Haig – Signals (Impotent Fury remix)
The three tracks have, to this point, been the final single released by Paul Haig. In recent years, he’s gone back to albums only, releasing Kube in 2013 on ROL while 2018 saw him return yet again to Les Disques du Crépuscule for his 13th solo album, The Wood, in which he has pushed the boundaries even further than he did on his Cinematique series, featuring nine pieces of music composed over a three year period, packed with samples, electronica and passages of guitar for which one reviewer wrote:-
“Haig has put together a work that’s in turns provocative, danceable, obscure, immediate and beguilingly rum. What The Wood actually consists of is eight pieces that mostly are dance/trance-orientated with repeated vocal motifs. The concept gives it an added edge and with a little imagination you can feel the eerie peace of the Forest and the skips and dips of the mind. Aside from the concept there is plenty to get one to, cough, ‘cut a rug’. But everything here fits and you have to admire Haig’s craftsmanship in the way it has been put together – producing a musical storybook without words in effect. Forty years into his recording career he’s still breaking new ground.”
The 1980s me might have struggled a bit with The Wood, but my tastes have thankfully expanded. I’ll be saying more about this remarkable album in the fullness of time, but for now thanks for sticking with the past 20 Sunday posts. The spotlight will be turned on someone different, but equally as interesting, from next week.
The lesser-known songwriter within Orange Juice. He played on all the Postcard singles and the debut album, he composed my favourite 45 by the band and he was unceremoniously sacked by his old friend Edwyn in 1982 when tensions between them got too high.
James Kirk would, shortly after the sacking, release material under the name of Memphis before quitting the business and forging a new profession as a chiropodist. It was completely out of the blue when his debut album You Can Make It If You Boogie appeared in 2003 on the Hamburg-based Marina Records – and true to form, there hasn’t been anything since until his guest contribution to the Port Sulphur album last year.
You Can make It…..is an astonishing album, packed with great tunes and superb playing from James and his band as well as memorable contributions from a number of well-known guest backing vocalists. The songs had clearly been written over an extended period of time, with co-writing credits given to, among others, Alan Horne and Paul Quinn who had, by 2003, been long absent from the music scene, but the crisp and flawless production of Mick Slaven (who also played on the record as well as co-writing two of the songs) ensures the album doesn’t ever sound trapped in any era or decade.
I can never quite make my mind up which is my favourite track on the album. Today, as these words are being typed it is this:-
mp3 : James Kirk – Rehab
It’ll change to something else the next time I play the album.
The heading of today’s post are words attributed to Everett True, a UK music journalist (among many other things) of some note, when he speaking in 2008 about 80s indie outfit Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike, a band to whom I made passing reference in this posting about Twa Toots, back in November 2017.
I only knew of Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike (from here-on in to be referred to simply as TBRM) back in the day from seeing it in print in one or more of the UK weekly music papers. I may have come across some of their music via John Peel shows, but I can’t be 100% sure. It’s unusual in many ways as I shared a flat for 12 months with someone who had the largest collection of indie singles and albums in its day, much of which I collected initially via cassettes and ultimately in many cases purchasing the vinyl. He didn’t have anything by TBRB in his collection and thus neither did I.
It’s only the best part of 40 years later that you can find a reasonable explanation why folk in Glasgow didn’t own anything, thanks to the info that’s been put there on t’internet.
Turns out TBRM were a duo consisting of siblings Mark and Melanie Litten, forming in 1981 when he was a telephone technician and she was in sixth-form at school (which will make her ages or thereabouts with me!). They lived on the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England, and which is home to occasional TVV contributor, Jules B. (I’m wondering Jules, if you grew up on the island, whether you knew either of the Littens?).
Anyways, TBRM were very much at the forefront of DIY-music, recording their songs in a box-room within their home, issuing them in limited numbers with photocopied sleeves and sending them out via post. It’s an operation which makes the likes of Postcard appear conglomerate and corporate.
This was both sides of the debut 45, released in mid-1982 on their very own Chew Records:-
mp3 : Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike – Invisible Boyfriend
mp3 : Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike – A Splash of Red
Now, I know what you’re thinking……amateurish and coy beyond words….but this is exactly the sort of stuff my flatmate feasted on and I’m sure he would have wanted a copy. Indeed, it may well be that he tried to get his hands on one, but there were only 100 pressed up, the only record ever released by Chew. Its rarity means it is valuable and the one copy on Discogs has an asking price of £700.
A copy will be sitting somewhere in the vaults of a late and much missed DJ, as it was sent to John Peel, who not only played it but had them come to London and record a session which was recorded in July 1982 and broadcast the following month.
The duo would wait until the following year before releasing a follow-up the appropriately and accurately named 5 Songs EP, and included this so twee it is ridiculously beyond twee effort:-
mp3 : Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike – Trixie’s Groove
The EP, which I understand was recorded in Portsmouth, again had a very limited run and right now, there’s no copies for sale on Discogs!
After this, they got all rock’n’roll lifestyle, thanks to a friendship with Jane Fox of Marine Girls, who joined them for a second John Peel session in August 1983 and later on for a recording session in a professional studio on the Isle of Wight, the fruits of which proved to be a shared flexidisc and a 7” single which sold enough copies to reach the giddy heights of #29 in the UK indie Charts in late 1983:-
mp3 : Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike – Norman and Narcissus
Again, no copies currently for sale……
The following year, TBRM provided two new songs for Feet On The Street, a compilation album featuring singers and bands from the Isle of Wight before a couple more tracks, recorded in the home studio, found their way onto a German compilation cassette in 1986 by which time they had disbanded, with Melanie moving off the island.
Just about everything was gathered up and issued on a vinyl LP ‘The Intimate Sound of Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike’ in 1995 and that was it until 2012, at which point the band reformed!!!
An interview was given to the Penny Black Music website in October 2012 during which Mark Litten revealed he was now performing the songs but with his daughter Jane on vocals and instrumentation (Jane was 15 years old when he gave the interview). He had also worked on the release ‘All Day Long In Bliss’, a new digitial compilation for download on Bandcamp comprising 18 tracks, some of which were demos and others had been previously unavailable, the purchase of which allows the printing of a CD sleeve and a 20-page booklet with liner notes and photos. Click here to purchase.
And that, unless anyone has any comments to add, will likely be the first and last time TRBM appear on T(n)VV.
The second 45 from to be lifted from Grinderman 2 was another unconventional and far from commercial number. It’s kind of self-deprecating too, what with the protagonoist referring to his girl as a Snake Charmer, Worm Tamer, Serpent Wrangler and Mambo Rider before revealing that she calls him The Loch Ness Monster on account of ‘two big humps and then I’m gone’
It came out on 12″ green vinyl, and in addition to the album version, had a remix and a remake attributed to a collaboration:-
mp3 : Grinderman – Worm Tamer
mp3 : Grinderman – Worm Tamer (A Place To Bury Strangers remix)
mp3 : Grinderman/UNKLE – Hyper Worm Tamer
It reached #52 in the UK singles chart in November 2010. It was one of many tracks which sounded immense and hard when played live on the subsequent tour for the album, as evidenced by this TV appearance:-
The UNKLE collabortion is, however, the real highlight of this release…..
I don’t like using the blog to be negative about things, which is why, on occasion, a disappointing live show or album won’t get a mention. I did, over a year back, launch the idea of a series called ‘Had It, Lost It’ but quickly shut it down when it became clear that much of the TVV readership wasn’t comfortable with the concept.
But it is hard to post something about The Cardigans without having a sideways swipe at the dullness of the pop-rock stuff which personified their commercial peak…and I’ll come to that in due course.
The band was formed in 1992 in Jönköping, Sweden by guitarist Peter Svensson, bassist Magnus Sveningsson, drummer Bengt Lagerberg, keyboardist Lars-Olof Johansson and singer Nina Persson. The band’s principal songwriters were Peter and Magnus, both of whom had been in heavy metal bands previously, and so it was something of a surprise that debut album, Emmerdale (1994), was packed with the sort of light, intelligent and most easy-going of indie-pop, one which had more in common with the mid 80s than the guitar-driven Britpop sounds which was all the rage in the UK.
mp3 : The Cardigans – Rise and Shine
Mind you, the band did pay a nod to the roots of the songwriters with this cover (which surely placed ideas in tghe minds of those who would later form Nouvelle Vague):-
mp3 : The Cardigans – Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath
Emmerdale was one of those albums that ‘those in the know’ were quoting as being very listenable; the media, which has always throughout the history of pop music been besotted by bands with attractive female lead singers, were drawn by the charm and style of Nina Persson and before long, the band was gathering column inches. The sophomore album, Life, took up perfectly from where Emmerdale had left off, albeit it was more of a collective effort with all five members contributing in one way or another to the music and lyrics.
mp3 : The Cardigans – Carnival
It’s a peach of an album, its 11 tracks coming together to form genuinely wonderful piece of essential and very clever pop music, The Swedish critics remained euphoric and the buzz being generated was really growing. The decision was taken to try to ‘launch’ the band to the UK market through a different version of Life, one which removed three songs and replaced them with five from Emmerdale, including the tracks that had been hit singles in Sweden and the Black Sabbath cover – as much to give a different point of reference for those who were interviewing or profiling the band as much as anything.
It’s worth mentioning that The Cardigans, despite the critical acclaim being heaped upon them, weren’t selling huge amounts of records, even in Sweden. Emmerdale had reached #29 and Life hit #20, but none of the singles had done much. As such, it was quite a brave move to try to crack the UK and the initial efforts didn’t achieve much in the way of chart success, although the band was beginning to receive regular plays on the evening shows on Radio 1 and be invited to perform on TV shows, such as The White Room, hosted by Mark Radcliffe.
It turned out, however, that Life was a bit of a slow-burner, never quite getting enough sales in any one week to ever crack the Top 50 in the UK but eventually collecting a Gold Record for 100,000 sales. The band remained ridiculously popular in Japan, with Life eventually selling 500,000 copies there, a situation which led to the band being poached away from their Swedish label by Mercury Records.
The third album, First Band On The Moon, appeared in 1996. The advance single provided a #21 hit in the UK:-
mp3 : The Cardigans – Lovefool
The album was more akin to Emmerdale than Life (and still the former hadn’t been issued outside of Sweden and Japan), as evidenced by most of the songs being Svennson/Sveningsson compositions as well as yet another fun-filled cover of a Black Sabbath number.
mp3 : The Cardigans – Iron Man
And then something strange happened….which changed the band forever.
Lovefool was chosen to be part of the soundtrack to what proved to be one of the biggest films of 1996, the Baz Luhrmann re-make of Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the tragic lovers. MTV began airing a video for Lovefool which was composed in the main of clips from the film and the next thing you know, Mercury decide to capitalise with a re-release and were soon laughing all the way to the bank as it reached #2 in the UK, #1 on the US Billboard Chart and Top 10 all over Europe and in Australia. The Cardigans had, in the minds of the general public, finally arrived.
Fame and fortune did not, however, bring happiness.
Which leads me to the next record, Gran Turismo, which proved to be the commercial peak in 1997.
It’s an album which spawned three hit singles – My Favourite Game, Erase/Rewind and Hanging Around – but turned The Cardigans into a run-of-the-mill, dull and indistinguishable band. The light touch and humour that was so obviously on display on previous releases was replaced by boom and bombast, with expensively made videos on heavy rotation on all sorts of rock channels. It sold in huge quantities and brought them a wider audience – the songs were in demand for film soundtracks and the increasingly important and lucrative video games market – but in doing so everything that had been attractive about the band was lost.
And if you wanted an example of just how far down the indie-tree the band had fallen, just recall that 1999 saw them record a duet with Tom Jones for his covers album Reload, in which they butchered Burning Down The House by Talking Heads.
There were tensions within the band with them unsure of what to do next. Peter, Magnus and Nina all went off and did side projects, none of which were huge successes. It did succeed in helping them refocus and to get back together to write and record Long Gone Before Daylight after a five-year hiatus, by which time they were back on their original Swedish label, unwilling to play the game asked of by the multi-national major.
It was a huge change from what had come before, with no hints of the early pop or the later rock. There was even a change of image with Nina’ previously very Scandic blonde looked replaced by jet black. She had also taken responsibility for writing all the lyrics and what emerged was a tone, feel and mood which matched her new hair colour. Peter Svennson took care of the music, and all too often it matched the lyrics, which would have been fine if it had, for instance, been something of a torch album or given a hint of soul, but too many of the songs got lost in an AOR, almost Fleetwood Mac sort of sound. It sold well in Sweden where the band had now been accorded status of national treasure, but was a relative flop elsewhere. The lead-off single did give the band their last ever taste of chart success in the UK, reaching #31 in February 2003:-
mp3 : The Cardigans – For What It’s Worth
Interesting choice of cover song for the b-side:-
mp3 : The Cardigans – Das Model
Come 2005, their sixth album Super Extra Gravity was released. Once again, it was a huge hit in Sweden but a flop elsewhere. This was the lead-off single:-
mp3 : The Cardigans – I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to Be Nicer
Great song title, but rather an ordinary sounding song. Come the end of the tour to promote the album, which was played before diminishing audiences, the band broke up.
But they did eventually get back together, of sorts, in that Peter Svensson, the main musical force from the outset, declined to be part of it. Here’s wiki to explain:-
In 2012 the Cardigans received a lucrative offer from Hultsfred Festival to perform the album Gran Turismo in full. After initial hesitation, the band decided to accept the offer “as it felt like a good way of tearing us out of our strange new everyday life,” according to Persson. Peter Svensson declined to participate, although he had no objection to the band touring without him. They recruited singer-songwriter Oskar Humlebo to fill in for Svensson, and asked their agent to seek more shows for them to play. Ultimately, the band made their live comeback with shows in Lund and Copenhagen ahead of Hultsfred, before playing in Poland, Finland, Russia, Indonesia, Taiwan and Japan, with a scheduled concert in Israel cancelled by the promoter. Most of these shows involved performing Gran Turismo in full, followed by an assortment of hits from their other albums.
Still with Humlebo in place of Svensson, the band played career-spanning sets when touring resumed during late 2013 with shows in Japan, China and Russia, followed by more dates in 2015 which took them to South Korea, Europe and South America. In interviews promoting her 2014 solo album Animal Heart, Persson suggested that the success of their most recent live dates opened the possibility for future Cardigans recordings, though there were no firm plans. “It’s really fun to do greatest hits things, since there’s nothing else, but I think if we continue having this much fun we would like to make another record, because we like to create new things,” said Persson.[11] The band’s only scheduled show for 2016 was at Qstock (Oulu, Finland) on 29 July. In 2017 they performed in Stockholm and in Turku, Finland.
In June 2018, the band announced their only live shows of the year: a four-date U.K. tour in December to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Gran Turismo in which they would perform the album in full again. In an interview to promote the tour, Persson stated, “There won’t be any more Cardigans records, I’m pretty sure. But we’ll keep doing little tours and shows as long as it’s fun, as long as we can do it well and feel that it’s something that’s current to us.”
The reviews of those UK shows were mixed, with many reflecting that the venues were less than full and those who came along seemed to prefer the second half of the shows in which material other than Gran Turismo was aired. I’d have reacted similar if I’d been there.
I’ve put this piece together, with nine tracks in all (including the video clip), as I was contemplating an ICA but given how few songs post-1996 would have featured, I went for the career perspective instead…and hopefully haven’t upset too many by being a bit snide about Gran Turismo.
In response to your recent post about The Who, and the divided opinion the band clearly generates, I thought I’d better have a go at a Who ICA. Mindful of some of the criticisms that earlier post elicited, eagle-eyed readers will notice there’s nothing here from Tommy (…even though everyone loves Pinball Wizard, right?)
Anyway, here goes – ten tracks to encapsulate the greatest band never to have a number one single (and yes, I’m expecting some flak for that too…)
Side One
1. My Generation
It has to be, doesn’t it? Not only did it lend its title to their debut album, it lent its message to a generation. And the beauty of this is that all the band get their moment – Roger gets that stuttery f-f-f-in’ vocal, John and Pete get to do a call and response with bass and guitar in the middle, and Keith gets to showcase the cascading, scatter-shot drumming that would come to be his trademark and which stills sounds fantastic now – the impact it must have had in 1965 is hard to imagine.
2. I Can See For Miles
How far the band had come, in just a couple of years, embracing psychedelia for all it was worth. The chiming guitar line that runs through the chorus is what really elevates this though, and warrants the inclusion here. It’s simple and, in places, sounds like it on the verge of veering off-key… but it never does. Of its time, yes, but also timeless, and an early indicator that a band that would never completely lose the Mod tag had other things on their mind from a very early stage.
3. Baba O’Riley
The opening track from the band’s most satisfying album, Who’s Next, with a keyboard line that, once heard, is never forgotten. There’s something about hearing a maturing band passing comment (judgement?) on a teenage wasteland that stands up today, perhaps more than ever? Pete lays down some great power chords in this too, punctuating the looping keyboard riff.
4. Behind Blue Eyes
Another from Who’s Next, this time illustrating beautifully how The Who weren’t all about power and bombast, but could lay down a delicate, semi-acoustic ballad as well as most. It also highlights the vocal harmonies that band could achieve, something that is often overlooked when the industrial-strength Daltrey vocals are so often the focus.
5. Won’t Get Fooled Again
If memory serves, this closed Who’s Next, and is a perfect song to close Side One here. If you asked me to summarise The Who in one song, it would be this – everything is here, and then some. From Pete’s windmilling power chords, Roger’s shredded vocals (“Yeeeeeahhhh!”), John’s thunderous, dextrous bass and the aforementioned cascading, syncopated Moon drumming. This, right here, is an archetype of The Who, and another track that benefits from a memorable keyboard part.
Side Two
6. The Seeker
From odds and ends round-up Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy.
The Seeker was memorably used to great effect in American Beauty. There, it soundtracks Lester Burnham after he quits his job and goes off, somewhat literally, to seek some fun. You can see what they did there. Anyway, for a band that were often criticised for being too serious, too pretentious, this reminded us that they still knew their way around a feelgood, rock-out, punch-the-air tune.
7. I’m One
Sorry (not sorry) for this, the first of three tracks from Quadrophenia. Yes, I know it’s easy to knock. A pretentious concept album with allusions of grandeur, dressed-up in cod-psychology… I get all that. But it tells a story, a great story, here in album form (never mind the film [and yes, I bloody love that too]). Here, Pete takes lead vocal over a bucolic acoustic guitar line, singing of our hero Jimmy’s individuality (and of Pete’s too, no doubt). Another reminder that The Who weren’t all about power and decibels…
8. I’ve Had Enough
…although they could do power and decibels as well as just about anybody. Here, Jimmy has a bit of an epiphany, realising that his life, the parental abode and his job are all totally unfulfilling. Maybe even the things he has held dear – music, fashion, girls – maybe they’re not all they’re cracked up to be either. And here, in musical form, that sense of disappointment, of disillusionment, builds and builds, gets angrier and angrier and then emerges on the other side, musically lighter but lyrically bleaker. A breakdown in musical form.
9. 5.15
I sometimes wonder if the band’s management ever thought, “You know, we’ll support you doing all this arty-farty concept album guff but do us a favour, at least give us a single or two.” And so Tommy got Pinball Wizard and Quadrophenia got 5.15. A great, dynamic song that directly follows I’ve Had Enough on the album, and is a perfect riposte from the schizophrenic Jimmy: a paean to not caring, to getting trashed, to rebelling, to not giving a toss. And how about the way the brass elevates the chorus? Oh, and the beginning, with the entwined guitar and piano behind the plaintive, “Why should I care?” is one of the band’s finest intros.
10. Who Are You
There’s a case to be made that the band should have called it a day after Quadrophenia. But they weren’t done, and were still capable of the occasional moment of genius. Who Are You is one such, with its semi-autobiographical Townshend lyric (after going out drinking with Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols, Pete really was found in a Soho doorway by a policeman, who let him go if he could safely walk away). There’s great musicianship here too, not least for the soon-to-be-gone Keith Moon, and ex-Zombie Rod Argent contributing piano. Like a lot of Who songs, it has a false ending, almost petering out but coming back stronger. A great way to close the ICA, as it closed the album of the same name; as the last to feature Moon, there are many who feel that it should have closed the band too.
And that’s that. Narrowly missing out? Substitute, I Can’t Explain, Pictures of Lily, So Sad About Us, Bargain, The Real Me, and countless others. They might not have had a number one single, but as an albums band (unapologetically so), there’s depth to The Who canon. I urge the doubters and naysayers to explore it.
One of my all time favourites from the C86,87,88 era is Waiting For The Winter by The Popguns.
I really can’t do better than send you to Brian’s place – Linear Track Lives – as he is probably the band’s #1 fan and it was he who brought me the news back in November 2016 of a side-project involving Simon and Wendy Pickles. This wonderful interview gives all the details.
Shamefully, it took me over two years to pick up Isobar Blues, the debut album by The Perfect English Weather for which Brian interviewed the duo, by which time they had released a follow-up, Don’t You Wanna Feel The Rain, from which today’s Monday Morning…Coming Down song is selected:-
mp3 : The Perfect English Weather – The Waves Upon The Shingle
Isn’t it absolutely gorgeous?
Do yourself a favour and get over here to purchase the albums and while you’re there, do yourself an even bigger favour by picking up the stunning comeback material by The Popguns.
Last week featured the unexpected release of Reason in 2007, the first single by Paul Haig in the best part of a decade which came on the back of a run of album releases on his revived Rhythm of Life (ROL) label.
It was followed up, later that year, by the album Electronik Audience, 13 tracks which, for the most part, blended vocals and experimental/soundtrack style music to what sadly, but predictably, was an uninterested audience. Difficult at the time to find in shops but available on-line, it’s an album which even the most hardcore of fans found a strange listen upon release, one which kind of harked back a decade to the sounds of the likes of Daft Punk.
Much to everyone’s surprise, it would take only a further 12 months before a new batch of material, with the album Go Out Tonight….and even more surprisingly there was a fair bit of guitar work in among some fabulous keyboard work. In places, it has songs as light and poppy as Paul has ever released, while also being home to the song Data Retro which harked back magnificently to the era when he almost became a huge star and the likes of New Order (among many others) were in debt to him. There were certainly a number of possibilities for singles but the decision was taken just to go with one and even then, it was download only:-
mp3 : Paul Haig – Hippy Dippy (Pharmaceutically Trippy)
Maybe it’s just me, but this is one of the merely OK tracks on the album where there are a number of standouts. But then again, it’s the type of noise that Paul hadn’t been making for a long while and so it was perhaps understandable that this was the one made available above other, better (IMHO) contenders.
One more week to go in this series. And it will go out with an absolute bang. Trust me on that.
I am in the debt of the fine people at Stereogram Recordings, an Edinburgh-based indie label, for the following words:-
In the early 80’s, I was fascinated by how extreme bands were in the Post-Punk scenario. Particularly The Birthday Party, The Pop Group and Einsturzende Neubauten, even The Gun Club with their take on Voodoo Blues. I should have been looking closer to home! Some bunch of misfits in Glasgow were kicking up a hornet’s nest accompanied by the soundtrack of the darker sounds of the USA. Hank Williams, The Stooges and Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers, come to mind, but James King and the Lonewolves may have been using archetypical elements, yet they made them sound eloquent – there was classic songwriting here, although it may have been ‘cursed, poisoned and condemned’. James King had most definitely sold his soul to the devil at the same crossroads as Robert Johnson.
I remember writing a review in Cut magazine, stating I found them more sinister than The Violent Femmes, which was saying a lot, as they had just written Country Death Song – all about a father murdering, and disposing of his own daughter down a well. In the early 80’s, while Scottish pop was getting brighter and shinier, James King and the Lonewolves were the dark side, and they made no bones about it.
While ex-Fall guitarist, Martin Brammah’s band The Blue Orchids did the honours in Edinburgh, as fallen Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico’s backing band, The Lonewolves did the same in Glasgow.
They signed to Alan Horne’s Swamplands label in 1984 alongside Davy Henderson’s WIN! and Steven Daly’s Memphis, but after an Old Grey Whistle Test performance, featuring multiple profanities, which received countless complaints from viewers, Swamplands washed their hands of this unmanageable collection of individuals in 1985. An album recorded with John Cale at the height of his madness would never see the light of day.
JC interupts……..
Here is said OGWT clip
There is a very audible profanity towards the end of what was a stellar performance which has presenter David Hepworth racing in to make an apology to any distressed viewers!
I’ve three singles in the collection in which James King features. The first is under his own name and dates from 1981; this is the lead track:-
mp3 : James King – Back From The Dead
There’s two under the moniker James King and The Lonewolves, one from 1983 on Thrush Records and one from 1985 on Swamplands. This is the lead from the latter:-
mp3 : James King & The Lonewolves – The Angels Know
Both still sound superb all these years later. Oh, and that album recorded with John Cale? Back to the fine folk at Stereogram:-
An album recorded with John Cale at the height of his madness would never see the light of day. Until now that is – Sterogram Recordings are about to set the record straight, through the bands main protagonists burying the hatchet.
Fast forward to the future – James King and Jake McKechan make it up in 2011 after 25 years of not speaking and play a memorial show for former agent, Alan Mawn. It is nothing, if not fantastic. In light of all the complacency we are currently experiencing in modern music, hearing the sounds of James King and the Lonewolves again is a joy. This is Rock’n’Roll as it should be and you can tell they mean it maaan!
Ken McCluskey (The Bluebells) in 1996 at height of Britpop, ‘You guys were 10 years too early’
The first recorded fruits of the revamped Lonewolves in May 2013 was a revelation. Pretty Blue Eyes sounded like it should have been a double-sided 7” on Ork Records from 1975, as cool as Little Johnny Jewel by Television, you kinda wanted it to be longer. Fun Patrol kicked in like The Smiths’ How Soon is Now, then morphed into The Glitter band meets The Stooges – need I say more, and James still has a vicious tongue. James King and the Lonewolves – as stated on their very first single, were indeed Back from the Dead!
Now, having hooked up with Edinburgh’s Stereogram Recordings (home to The Cathode Ray and Roy Moller), that fantastic, long-lost album, Lost Songs of the Confederacy, has finally seen the light of day – obviously re-recorded, re-mastered and brought up to scratch with new recordings to supplement the buried ones resulting in James saying ‘ there was unfinished business to be done’. I’m sure there are many other buried treasures out there, meanwhile, this is as good a place as any to re-acquaint yourself with the Lonewolves’ particular brand of classic rock through the ages.
A GUEST POSTING by HYBRID SOC PROF, our Michigan Correspondent
With apologies, this one’s a little long, I chose to recount – record by record – Chuck’s long and ongoing career.
There are some performers that – to completely wreck a few blended metaphors – grab you by the lapels, draw you into their arms and leave you both utterly agog and reveling in the extent to which you feel flatted by a Mack truck. Chuck Prophet’s that guy for me. I really loved his playing with Green on Red but he was clearly second fiddle to Dan Stuart’s songwriting and vision. I tracked GoR long enough to know their chemical struggles and battles with the bottle, so when they broke up I pretty much figured that was the end of that.
Then Chuck and his partner, Stephanie Finch, appeared on an AIDS benefit compilation, the Acoustic Music Project performing a beautiful beautiful song, Step Right This Way, soon followed by an LP, Brother Aldo. Chuck had turned into a subtle and soulful, still axe-wielding, singer-songwriter. Diane and I went and saw him fairly soon thereafter at The Great American Music Hall, the show was great.
The next two records – Balinese Dancer and Feast of Hearts – have some wonderful songs on them but it seemed to me that Chuck was feeling for something he couldn’t quite get the feel of… something at the mysterious intersection of folk, soul, pop and rock. He was working with Jim Dickinson – a Memphis legend who’d played with everyone from Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones and Flaming Groovies – during this stretch working out the range, breadth and scope of his new identity. I saw him at the Starry Plough, a tiny little venue on Berkeley-Oakland border, around the time of Balinese Dancer, and talked to him for the first time. Warm, appreciative, open, kind… everything you’d want. A few years later, I saw him in San Francisco – probably at Slims – and caught him warming up on a secondary stage – ripping through 3-4 Aerosmith tunes.
I’d moved to Massachusetts, following Diane, by the time Homemade Blood came out in 1997. There are a lot of great guitar records from the 1990s and Homemade Blood is in my top 10, probably near the middle. It’s an emotion-drenched, intensely-committed and person record. In the press, we learned that he’d been through rehab and ended up back at his parents’ place – something he jokes about to this day; the suburban home pictured on the front of the CD/LP. There’s pain and comfort, ease and passion in that record. 20 years later, I can listen to the rockers and ballads, alike, without the slightest reduction in enjoyment.
… and then came The Hurting Business. My sense of this glorious record is that, having moved back to San Francisco and living “South of Market,” Chuck took every sound he was hearing and every tradition he loved and overlaid them is a distillation of everything musical the city had to offer at that point in time. There are two smoky ballads, three rip roaring rockers, four blendings of singer-songwriter and conscious hip hop and some Memphis soul thrown in for good measure. In an interview a short while later, synthesizing most everything he’s done since 2000, Chuck said:
As a songwriter, I’m a slave to traditional song craft, whatever I do. I mean, my heroes are still going to be Dylan and Carole King and Hank Williams. But for me, the process of making new records is a matter of constantly seeking new ways to cast the movie. I’m turned on by people like Moby and DJ Shadow, and I appreciate what those guys have been able to do by bending traditional song structures. As much as I admire that stuff, I’m still a “first verse, first chorus” kind of guy.
I saw him opening for Peter Case around this time and they tore the roof off of Schuba’s in Chicago… and were able to convince the audience to demand an electric version of the Plimsouls’ classic “A Million Miles Away”, and maybe “Lie, Beg, Borrow, and Steal,” I don’t quite recall.
2002’s No Other Love is a quieter record and generated the minor hit “Summertime Thing” which, combined with having toured with his connections in Memphis, touring with Lucinda Williams, and writing a hit for another artist got him onto Daryl Hall’s Live from Daryl’s House webcast. 2004’s Age of Miracles represented a tick up in the energy level but also the show-stopping “You Did” and magnificent love-drenched and broken evening stroll of “Pin a Rose on Me.”
Someone on Letterman heard and liked 2007’s Soap and Water but playing “Doubter Out of Jesus (All Over You)” generated an after-the-fact-predictable stupid right wing backlash that no minor artist needs. 2009’s ¡Let Freedom Ring! was recorded in Mexico City and, repeating “the word on the street” at the time was a political record for non-political people. It’s a fairly straight-ahead indie rock record perhaps reflecting his increasing connection and various collaborations with Alejandro Escovedo.
2012’s Temple Beautiful is a great, consistent, rocking, ironic, fun record… not so much a return to form as a world of fun… possibly his most consistent record. Even if I can’t really pull out a standout track, it’s one of those records I can always listen to all the way through from start to finish. A rare thing in the world of CDs, mp3s, and streaming. 2014’s Night Surfer slowed everything down two notches but, sadly, didn’t do a lot for me
Bobby Fuller Did for Your Sins, from 2017 – the last record released – is in fact a return to form. There’s fun in the title song, throbbing eroticism in “Your Skin,” a full-on mid-70s throwback in “Bad Year for Rock and Roll,” a retro-rocker driven by a freight train beat in “In the Mausoleum,” and a howl of pain, rage and confusion in “Alex Nieto.”
Still married to Stephanie, she’s still playing keyboards in the band alongside a stable drummer and second guitar player… my sense is that, as is so often the case, the bassist has rotated. I hope you like these…
1. Pin A Rose On Me (from Age of Miracles, 2004)
2. Summertime Thing (from No Other Love, 2002)
3. Kmart Family Portrait (from Homemade Blood, 1997)
4. Scarecrow (from Brother Aldo, 1990)
5. Dyin’ All Young (from The Hurting Business, 1999)
6. Doubter Out Of Jesus (All Over You) (from Soap and Water, 2007)
7. Your Skin (from Bobby Fuller Died For Our Sins, 2017)
8. Ooh Wee (from Homemade Blood, 1997)
9. Dirt (from While No One Was Looking: Toasting 20 Years Of Bloodshot Records, 2014)
10. Run Primo Run (from No Other Love, 2002)
11. Alex Nieto (from Bobby Fuller Died For Our Sins, 2017)
I might try and pass myself off as a smart-arse and know-all, but a fair chunk of what appears in postings within this little corner of t’internet is gleamed from other sources.
The research can be time consuming and deadly dull given that I’m often just looking to clarify one small point which is often buried away within screeds of stuff that I already knew. Every now and again, I do come across something which gets me mumbling along the lines of ‘I had no idea about that’ and I end up going off to find out more – such as when I read that a band called Infantjoy had been in existence in the middle part of the first decade of the 21st Century.
Let me rip off a bandcamp page to provide the skinny:-
Infantjoy is literally a musical collaboration between cellist/percussionist James Banbury and conceptualist/percussionist Paul Morley. They met whilst compiling a remix edition of the Art of Noise album The Seduction of Claude Debussy – Morley as a member of the Art of Noise whose contribution to the group was somewhere between making the tea and dreaming the whole damned thing up, Banbury as an ex member of the Auteurs entering a strange new world as a programmer and string arranger with his heart forged by Sheffield electropop and his mind made up by modernism.
They decided that their first musical act as Infantjoy, once they had decided they would be Infantjoy, should discreetly and indiscreetly acknowledge the composer who suggested that you play a piece of his music by ‘wondering about yourself.’ or by ‘opening your mind’ or by being ‘as light as an egg’ – Erik Satie, a major influence on Debussy and Eno, the former triggering most modern music, and the latter re-routing most post-modern music. They wouldn’t consider Paris, but make up their own city, with its own streets, and its own lighting, and its own river, and its own people muttering in the dark about the time Satie was alive, and livid, and of course extremely unlivid.
Great to see that Paul Morley never lost the knack for great commentary on something he was involved in – entertaining and bamboozling in equal measures!
Debut album Where The Night Goes, was released in June 2005 by Sony BMG who clearly had high hopes that the haunting electronica chamber pop would find more than a niche audience. In the end, it didn’t even achieve that and they were let go soom after, although they continued to have belief in their vision and continued to release material on their own ServiceAV label, including the album With in 2007.
Here’s a track from the debut:-
mp3 : Infantjoy – Ghosts
It’s a cover of the Japan single and the lyric is delivered by Sarah Nixey who had been part of Black Box Recorder alongside Luke Haines, a former sparring partner of James Banbury.
Sarah Nixey would also release a number of solo singles on ServiceAV, including this take on a Human League number:-
mp3 : Sarah Nixey – The Black Hit of Space
There’s just something so alluring, erotic and sensual about the way that woman sings……..
I honestly can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Nick Cave in the live setting. It’s been lots and has encompassed The Bad Seeds, Grinderman and solo shows.
There hasn’t ever been a duff show and he even managed, back in 2008 on the Dig Lazarus Dig!!! tour, to make a gig at the usually horrific (for sound and sight lines) Corn Exchange in Edinburgh bearable. Not least for the fact that his 18-song set was drawn from ten different albums – little did I know that the tour would be the last time I’d see Mick Harvey on stage with him.
The announcement in 2017 that the Bad Seeds were putting on a show at the cavernous Hydro Arena was quite disconcerting as I just couldn’t imagine it working in an arena of that scale. My mind wasn’t quite made up on whether or not to go when the ticket prices were announced and I decided that £70 plus booking fees was just too much. The subsequent chats with those who did go along did cause pangs of regret with a number saying it was as fine a spectacle as they had seen in years, although interestingly a couple of folk who have been fans since The Birthday Party days felt it was a tad on the self-indulgent side with Nick throwing himself into the crowd knowing he would be held aloft whereas the old days would have seen fights break out down the front!!
But let’s face it, Nick Cave has more than paid his dues over the years, making consistently great music and, just as importantly, making sure that every tour offers something different from its predecessors so that you never tire of going along.
So, when it was announced that he was bringing his latest show to Edinburgh, and that it would involve him taking part in a Q&A that would involve audience participation (with no subject matter deemed to be off-limits or taboo), as well as playing some songs solo on the piano, I was really keen to get myself along. And then I saw that the cost of the best seats in the house (it’s at the Usher Hall, an old fashioned but lovely three-tiered venue including what must be the closest seats to heaven in all mankind), I changed my mind and came to the realisation that I’m unlikely top ever see Nick Cave in concert ever again.
£93.50 plus booking fees. Even the seats in the gods are £33 from where I imagine you’ll stand little chance of interacting with things on the stage.
If it had been a full Bad Seeds Show, I might have considered it…..but it might have needed Grinderman to be the support act to be the clincher (and I haven’t forgotten that I’ve a few of their singles to feature in an on-going and occasional series). But the best part of £200 for myself and Mrs V to go to a talk show with a few songs? For that amount of money, I’d be looking for him to pop round to Villain Towers for a chat and cup of tea (but not owning a piano, the songs would need to be left off the itinerary.)
It seems the ‘Conversations with Nick Cave’ idea is building on what appears to have been a successful tour of a similar nature earlier this year in Australia and New Zealand. 14/15 songs per night appear to have been worked into each event – which, to be fair, is more than I would have imagined – with many of the more popular ballads such as The Ship Song, Into My Arms, God Is In The House, West Country Girl and Love Letter being mainstays alongside re-workings of the likes of The Mercy Seat and Papa Won’t Leave You Henry, while his cover of Leonard Cohen’s Avalanche has also been dusted down. It has also found favour with many aficionados in the UK and Europe who have parted with their hard earned cash and made the tour a sell-out…..bit it ain’t for me, babe.
February 2019 was something of a poignant month. Comrade Colin wrote brilliantly and eloquently about the death, at the age of 64, of Mark Hollis. I’d like to now say a few words about Peter Tork and Beatrice Colin, both of whom also left us last month.
Peter Tork was one-quarter of The Monkees, a band without whom I’d unlikely have developed such an affection for great, guitar-based pop music. The TV show seemed to be on BBC1 during the children’s hour all the time in the 70s, a show which I would get to watch just after getting home from school and before my mum would get in from her long shift in the factory to make us something to eat. The Monkees were, to my young mind, a magical and fun group of people to be around. It made for great TV with what seemed to be a perfect blend of slapstick comedy and drama, soundtracked by songs which, by the third or fourth time you’d heard them, were embedded in your brain, but in a very good way. Of course I had no idea that so much of it was manufactured and that the songs were the work of others who weren’t ever going to appear on-screen but to be honest, that didn’t matter and I wouldn’t have cared in any event. I just wanted my four heroes to come good and play us out with a great song…which they always did.
I’d be a liar if I said Peter was my favourite Monkee….that honour was bestowed on Micky Dolenz as he made me laugh more than the others and the songs he sang on seemed to be the best. But I loved watching all four of them, and the news of Peter’s death made me recall happy memories of very olden days while providing a sad reminder that I’m now constantly losing people who in some shape or form shaped me, directly or indirectly, into who and what I am today.
mp3 : The Monkees – (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone
Beatrice Colin didn’t have anything like the impact on the music scene as Peter Tork – indeed very few people will actually associate her with the genre. Readers of old, however, will know that she was one half of the very short-live band April Showers who emerged out of Glasgow in 1984 – the other half was David Bernstein. (co-author of a very fine book which was reviewed back in 2014)
There was just the one single, but it was absolutely glorious and one of my favourites from the era:-
mp3 : April Showers – Abandon Ship
Beatrice was ages with me and I happened to be in her company a couple of times, but only as part of a larger social group in a city centre pub. She was the girlfriend of James Grant who, by complete coincidence, was featured on the blog just last Saturday.
She seemed a lovely, down-to-earth person and not the slightest bit big-headed or boastful about the fact she had made a pop record (which to me, at the time) was the be-all and end-all.
But pop music was not be her forte and while she remained on its fringes as a backing vocalist in studios and on stage – including stints with Love and Money – (and as I’ve since learned with a band of her own called Pale Fire, she began to carve out a career in journalism and writing, initially penning reviews and features for newspapers and magazines. Such was her talent for writing that, by her mid-30s, she was a published novelist and playwright. In later years, she would expand her horizons even further with a move into academia as a lecturer in Creative Writing. Her tragically young death at the age of 55, came after a long battle against ovarian cancer and has left a significant hole in the cultural life of my home city.
Thoughts are with her husband, children and close friends who will be missing her so much.
JC
A hastily added PS….
The above words were pulled together a few days in advance of the very sad news of the passing of Keith Flint.
There will be many tributes across the internet today on top of those which appeared throughout yesterday. I’ll simply take a few words from a Facebook posting by a London-based friend of mine, the comedian Steve McLean:-
You know what I really loved about The Prodigy?
Almost everybody liked them.
Back when people had very firm music camps that they stayed in, everyone would be enticed out with The Prodigy. You were as likely to hear them played at The Underworld as you were at The Ministry. Even before their heavier guitar sampling tunes too, everyone loved Charly and Out of Space – The Prodigy let you dance with all your mates regardless of your snobbery.
Later in their career they headlined both Download and Creamfields. Has there ever been another band that could do that?
“Sketches of Spain is a beautiful artistic endeavour. It took two dates to complete, with basically the same orchestra as the two previous large group sessions. Miles is playing slowly, methodically, and, for the first time, using extensively bent notes. Also, for the first time, the orchestration, with its colours streaming like a series of rainbows, definitely telling a story, seems to be what Miles primarily wants. Although he and the orchestra are almost antiphonal, it is a true dialogue, as between a preacher and his congregation.”
Grief is a very curious bedfellow. At times it can evade us when most expected, such as the sudden death of a close friend or a family member. At other times grief will cross the road, stare at us, and shout obscenities in our face, so close up that we can’t ignore it. That these emotions can spill out and come undone for people we’ve never even met is a most peculiar thing. But it happens. All the time. Tears will flow.
There had been Bowie of course, there had also been (the artist formerly known as) Prince. We recall the reactions to these deaths and many more in 2016. It was a year and a half for our idols departing. But we accepted it, naturally, in terms of the ‘rich legacy’ and ‘cultural influence’ left behind. Posterity would redeem, value, recognise. The enigmatic adjectives were produced and refashioned. Bowie’s death, in particular, was a meticulous example of how to exit stage left with a certain vision and a plan. What a performance it was.
In contrast to…
And, so it was on Monday 25th February, 2019. News of Mark Hollis and his cruel sudden passing, at the not-quite-there statutory retirement age of 64, started to ripple across the world in a sequence of zeros and ones. A close friend, knowing my interest, messaged me via Twitter alerting me. His source had been a statement via Twitter from Matt Johnson of The The.
But was it true? How could it be? What? How? When? Where?
We held out, many of us, searching for ‘verified’ and ‘confirmed’ news. We refused to believe it unless a direct statement from the Hollis family was forthcoming. And sadly, via Twitter again, the toxic Town Crier of the digital age, it did arrive, via Mark’s cousin-in-law Professor Anthony Costello of University College London. Anthony referred to his relative, “RIP Mark Hollis”, as “an indefinable musical icon” and, of course, a great dad. Then, over the next few hours and days, several music journalists and staff writers and (pop) cultural commentators tried to do exactly this. But how to define and categorise someone, and their music, who just couldn’t be placed? Someone who was “indefinable’? Why would you even try?
So, I will not do this. I refuse. And more pragmatically, I simply can’t. So many words have already been written about what Hollis achieved before he ‘retired from the music industry’ in his early forties (apropos, ‘how to disappear completely’). This is the popular narrative and central discourse. This is what we have been told. Except, as we all know, it simply isn’t true. Hollis kept his hand in with music, he still played all the time according to Tim Friese-Greene, he just did so quietly, without fanfare, and outside of a studio. There was a degree of silence that was only broken when the mood struck. For example, he co-produced and arranged music for significant others (Anja Garbarek, 2001), he played and co-wrote for other bands (Unkle, 1998). Similarly, he added his ‘Piano’ contribution to the ‘AV 1’ album by former producer Phil Brown and his partner Dave Allinson (1998), as well as writing and performing a short, original piece of music entitled ‘ARB Section 1’ for the TV series Boss (2012). The music continued, it never actually ended.
But all this you know. He did not ‘retire’, he just preferred a degree of relative quiet, anonymity, family life, privacy and some further ‘space between the notes’. And, given what he had so brutally endured through the mid-80’s height of the EMI Talk Talk years – as an example, just watch some of the white-knuckle interviews and ‘live’ comedic playback performances from mainly European music shows during 1984-1986 – you can understand why Hollis and company just wanted to be immersed in a studio cocoon like Wessex. Yes, perhaps true, we can speak of the Talk Talk ‘transformative metamorphosis’ or some such; a story of ‘Europop emergence’, ‘post-rock ascendancy’ and then a ‘near-silent exit’ via the solo recording. But what good does this do? And is it even true? I am unsure, and I think I always will be. Even imaginary compilation albums seem a bit meaningless right now.
All this, naturally, brings me back to Miles Davis and Sketches of Spain (1960). Since the news of Mark’s untimely death I’ve been playing this album constantly, and reading about its recording. I am actually playing it again now as I sit and type this out at the kitchen table; it is casually drifting through from the living room where my record player stays. Anyway, I think this mild obsession, again, with Davies is, in part, due to reading an interview some time ago where Hollis discusses the influence of both this album, as well as the earlier Davis/Evans recording of Porgy and Bess (1959), on the sessions for his 1998 self-titled album. The quotation given at the top of this page, taken from the Bill Cole (1974) book, struck me as being the kind of thing we could say about Hollis… the invocation of ‘colours and rainbows’, an unsubtle comparison with ‘a preacher and his congregation’. But we won’t. I just think it’s apt to note that what Cole said about Davis we could say about Hollis. If we chose to. We might even guess that Hollis would appreciate that association. Then again, knowing his humour and modesty, perhaps not. He’d just laugh and dismiss the notion out of hand.
Quite possibly, instead, it is better to conclude with the final words spoken by Hollis himself to interviewer Rob Young at the close of an essay and conversation that was originally published by The Wire (#167, 1998): “I think I’m done”, Hollis remarked, before making his move to leave Young alone. To be fair, it was a rather glib and facile question about whether the album was delivering the gospel or warnings of apocalypse. Wouldn’t you also not quite know what to say to that kind of question and just leave?
So, just as we accepted Hollis’s supposed ‘retirement’ twenty odd years ago from the music industry, we must now accept a new kind of silence. Indeed, this seems to the defined word of choice for many ‘in remembrance’ type articles right now. And it does ring true, to an extent. But then again, you can listen to that seventy-five second malfunctioning variophon solo from ‘After the Flood’ or the stark Hollis call and ‘lift’ of “Nature’s son” from the track ‘Inheritance’, at the one minute and forty-four second mark. Then you realise that there was also a gloriously multi-faceted – spontaneous but spliced together – noise happening. It’s evident that people were listening and noticed this.
In the end, you realise, there is no ‘return to Eden’, we truly never know what day is going to pick us, as Mark Kozelek pointedly sings on ‘Duk Koo Kim’“…out of the air, out of nowhere”. Instead, we can only recognise and value the space between the notes that we play or don’t play. We can choose to wear our grief on our sleeves, as an open border, relational kind of coping strategy, or we can just go about our (intimate) daily lives whilst playing over and over again that sequence, live, when ‘Mirror Man’ becomes ‘Does Caroline Know?’. It is glorious, as you know, your heart skips a beats and you feel a sharp intake of breath.
But what happens after the music stops? We continue. We remember, in our own way. Indeed, the following day, after the news of Mark’s death on February 26th, 2019, I was down to chair an event for a third-sector organisation which I am a Board member of, at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. I had thought, at 4am, about feigning illness, or rather, admitting I wasn’t coping too well, and cancelling my involvement. However, I decided against this. It was too late. Instead, I arranged for ‘Sketches of Spain’ to be played during registration and coffee. No one recognised it (I asked delegates this question in my opening remarks, everyone looked nonplussed). Further, I wore my ‘The Colour of Spring’ pin badge on the lapel of my grey Jasper Conran corduroy jacket. No one recognised it, in conversations over lunch, no one said a word. But at least I tried to make a connection, physically, with a kindred spirit that day. I reached out.
Enough, enough now; simply embrace the space between the notes.
COLIN
PS : After penning the above words, Colin asked that I draw attention to this, a near 8-minute long Eden rehearsal cassette that has been placed on Souncloud by Tim Friese-Greene as his tribute to his late colleague.
JC adds…….
I had to tease these words out of Comrade Colin. He’s been hit every bit as hard by the death of Mark Hollis as those who were the biggest fans of Bowie and Prince back in 2016….in the ten years and more that I’ve known him, he has never stopped trying to convince me that Hollis was a visionary genius. I felt that him penning a tribute, in his own unique style, would help with the grieving process.
His original piece didn’t come with any songs, but after a think about it, he has suggested these:-
mp3 : Talk Talk – After The Flood (from Laughing Stock, 1991)
mp3 : Mark Hollis – A Life (1895-1915) (from Mark Hollis, 1998)
I’ve posted this today in place of the usual Monday Morning, Coming Down piece which has been held over for a week. Thanks for dropping by today.
I mentioned in last week’s post that Paul Haig had revived ROL Records in 1999 for the purpose of issuing Memory Palace, attributed to Haig/Mackenzie, and consisting of the music that he and Billy Mackenzie had collaborated on in the early-mid 90s.
ROL has been the vehicle for Paul’s work throughout the 21st Century, all of which in the early part of the decade were albums, with the imagined soundtrack albums Cinematique 2 and Cinematique 3 appearing in 2001 and 2003 respectively. ROL was also the label for the issuing of some more posthumous (and quickly deleted) previously unreleased material by Billy Mackenzie (solo or in collaboration with Steve Aungle) and a live CD by Josef K, featuring two Edinburgh gigs from back in 1981. Again all of this activity was between 2001-03.
It was another four years before the next burst of activity, with the biggest surprise that it consisted of a 7″ single and download:-
mp3 : Paul Haig – Reason
mp3 : Paul Haig – Maybe
There was never any real push to make it a hit – it was pushed and promoted largely through Paul’s website and I’m not sure just how easy it was to find in shops. It’s a decent enough and enjoyable piece of music, not as immediate or upbeat as some of his previous 45s, but catchy enough, and with its refrain of ‘It’s time I was leaving…I’m moving on….’ it seemed to be sending out the message that this could be the farewell to the industry.
Thankfully it wasn’t.
The b-side is a short (just over 2:20) but interesting enough song….it was just a real joy to hear Paul singing again after all these years.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 