THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

ON THIS DAY : THE FALL’S PEEL SESSIONS #11

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 #11 was broadcast on this day, 19 May 1987, having been recorded on 25 April 1987.

This really is one of the best sessions, from the LP-less year of 1987, which found the group turning in some of their best live performances. ‘Australians In Europe’ offers an opportunity to revisit an overlooked stage favourite of the era. Those with a lifelong distaste for all things rockist may want to switch off the track after two and a half minutes where the synth flourishes – buried in Simon Rogers mix on the ‘Hit The North’ B-side – are given full reign. No, really. In sharp contrast, ‘Twister’, from the following year’s ‘The Frenz Experiment’, is a sharp return to full-on Fall muddybilly. ‘Guest Informant’, possibly the greatest Fall song from the post ‘Bend Sinister’-era is here in one of its best readings, featuring one of Smith’s greatest couplets: “in the burning scorch, of another Sunday half-over, hotel backgarden resembled a 1973 Genesis album cover” sees Smith truly ‘Selling England By The Pound’. All men (and let’s face it, it is men) of a certain age felt a certain glow. The building-block baroque of ‘Athlete Cured’ closed this astonishing session.

DARYL EASLEA, 2005

mp3: The Fall – Athlete Cured (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Australians In Europe (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Twister (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Guest Informant (Peel Session)

Produced details unknown

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

JC

Super Furry Animals

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

A guest series by The Robster

#12: Ice Hockey Hair (1998, Creation Records, CRE288)

Brace yourselves – this is a biggie.

How could Super Furry Animals follow up two incredible years, during which they went from almost unknowns to critics’ darlings and Premier League Britpoppers spearheading the Cool Cymru scene? Well although 1998 was to be a relatively quiet year for the band, they did happen to put out of the best singles of the decade. Don’t just take my word for it:

“brilliant, predictably freakish weirdness” – Melody Maker
“[demonstrate’s SFA’s] placid casual grasp of the concept of genius” – Vox
“Single Of The Week” – NME
“could be the most perfect thing you’ll ever set ears upon” – Drowned In Sound

mp3: Ice Hockey Hair
mp3: Smokin’

The Ice Hockey Hair EP simply put any remaining doubters firmly in their place and nailed their feet to the floor. There are those who might still argue this was Super Furry Animals at their absolute peak and they never reached such heights again. I’d argue against that, but I can see where they’re coming from. The two lead tracks sound nothing alike, yet neither could be anyone other than Super Furry Animals.

The title track is utter madness. Imagine throwing Badfinger, Queen, ELO, Elton John, techno music and a huge barrel of LSD into a mixing pot to see/hear what happens. The answer, my friends, might sound a bit like Ice Hockey Hair. It’s 7 minutes of 70s-infused wonder, never knowing exactly where it’s going to take you next. It totally threw me the first time I heard it, but after a couple more plays I was devoted to it. To this day, it sounds like nothing else ever recorded.

Smokin’ takes us to a completely different place. It is rooted in dub reggae and samples the flute part of Black Uhuru’s I Love King Selassie. In fact the song was created by jamming along to that sample on loop. There’s no cryptic message to this one – it’s about smoking marajuana, pure and simple. It’s another example of a band who had so many strings to their bows, they could never decide which string to twang next.

The two songs which led the EP were felt to be a good fit for a stand-alone single as the band knew they didn’t belong on ‘Radiator’ while also feeling the direction they were heading towards for the next album wasn’t suitable either. They were both issued on 7” and cassette on 25th May 1998. Also released on that date were CD and 12” formats that contained two additonal songs.

mp3: Mu-Tron
mp3: Let’s Quit Smoking

Mu-Tron is a Cian Ciaran-penned instrumental (though there are some vocal sounds), named after the company who made music effects equipment in the 1970s. Let’s Quit Smoking is a short acoustic remix of Smokin’.

Ice Hockey Hair became the band’s highest charting single at the time, reaching #12 in the UK rundown, which is still ridiculously low considering Oasis were still having number ones with their tired, bloated dad-rock. SFA were taking pop music to another level, but the record buying public wanted their music to stay in the gutter.

Now – I said at the start this would be a biggie. I wasn’t joking – I haven’t finished yet. You see, while in the process of putting this post together and looking for a bonus track, I realised that I had enough versions of the songs from this EP to actually compile another EP altogether. So, a bonus EP this week – how does that sound?

mp3: Ice Hockey Hair [radio edit]

You might call this sacrilege, but at the end of the day, radio would never play the full version of the title track, so surely you’d prefer a 4-minute version over nothing at all? Besides, it’s actually not that bad. All the key elements are there, though there is a bit of a harsh edit at around the 2½ minute mark (where the dreamy Beach Boys-y bit should be) that jars a little. This version was issued on some CD promos.

mp3: Smokin’ [edit]

I don’t actually know where this edit comes from. I can’t find any reference of it, but here it is anyway. To be fair, the only thing that spoils Smokin’ for me is its length. It does go on a bit in its repeated “I just wanna smoke it” section, so this version actually puts that right for me.

mp3: Smoke
mp3: Dim Ysmygu (trans: No Smoking)

Two remixes of Smokin’. The latter starts off as a dub version, but quickly turns into a drum ‘n’ bass monster with an electric violin in it! I think someone let Cian run riot in the studio…

mp3: Naff Gan

Believe it or not, Ice Hockey Hair was demoed for ‘Radiator’, and this is it. It was called Naff Gan at the time as the band thought it had so many cheesy (naff) bits in it. It’s quite different to the final version, with different lyrics and melody, but the main guitar riff is already in place.

mp3: Smokin’ [Dave Clarke mix]

Not sure if this is an early take or a remix, but it doesn’t sound like the fully-fledged EP version, and even has some alternative lyrics. It was also first issued in 1997 on some magazine free CD, which hints that it was still a work-in-progress at the time.

And to finish off, if a bonus EP isn’t enough for you, then you‘re just spoilt and greedy. Nevertheless, I’m going to toss this one into the mixer as well – the song that was sampled and became the basis for Smokin’:

mp3: I Love King Selassie – Black Uhuru

Don’t ever accuse me of not being a generous old fool. Next week, we reach third album territory, and yet another new sound for the Furries.

The Robster

Domiciles

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #452: DOMICILES

From an on-line bio:-

“Domiciles are a five-piece psychedelic collective from Fife, Scotland. Based around the joint songwriting partnership of Nickolas Young & Rory Cowieson, the band from a myriad of different influences; hints of throbbing krautrock & dreamy shoegaze permeate their music, whilst also touching on sneering garage, blissed-out space rock & experimental noise. Dark & heavy psychedelic grooves are built with jarring guitar leads, droning feedback & sharp synthesisers; the result is an arsenal of broad & multi-dimensional compositions, reflective of the band’s diverse list of influences. The intense live show forces the listener to confront sound in its intended form – pure & unlimited.

In 2018, the band was added to the already impressive artist roster of Glasgow-based record label Last Night From Glasgow. The band is currently in the midst of recording their debut album, which will receive a physical release on 12″ vinyl in August 2019.”

I’ve a copy of that debut album, This Is Not A Zen Garden, courtesy of my long-standing LNFG membership. It’s not really my bag, so it’s not been played more than a couple of times. But don’t let my opinion put you off.

mp3: Domiciles – Six Degrees of Separation

There doesn’t appear to have been anything from the band after the release of the debut album. Perhaps the forced inactivity during the lockdown period arising from COVID brought things to an end.

JC

Book Reviews

BOOK OF THE MONTH : MAY 2025 : ‘THIS SEARING LIGHT, THE SUN AND EVERYTHING ELSE’ by JON SAVAGE

This isn’t a review of a new book. Indeed, it isn’t even a new review of an old book. I stumbled across it when I was piecing together the list of ICAs, and was very pleasantly surprised at how positive the reactions were via the comments section. It was posted on 13 January 2020, and it is appearing again today five years on, in a slightly edited form, to mark the upcoming 45th anniversary of the suicide of Ian Curtis.

———————–

The vast majority of the substantial collection of my books taking up space in Villain Towers are music and sports related, consisting in the main of biographies in some shape or form. Among these are something in the region of 20 25 books related to Factory Records/Joy Division/New Order/The Hacienda, with the latest two additions coming via Christmas presents, one of which was the wonderfully entertaining first volume of autobiography by Stephen Morris, whose often self-deprecating effort far surpasses those of his bandmates Hooky and Barney, as much for the fact that he doesn’t use the book to rant about old grievances – but given that Record Play Pause only goes up to the formation of New Order, it may well be that a further and much anticipated volume will go down that path (which of course proved to be the case when Fast Forward was brought out in late 2020)

The other new book for Xmas 2019 was This Searing Light, The Sun and Everything Else: Joy Division – The Oral History, whose author is Jon Savage.

The book was published in April 2019 and received great reviews, but I refrained from buying it at the time as I thought it would be more or less a cut’n’paste effort consisting of a re-hash of the tales told elsewhere in books by so other authors over the years. It was only when I re-read the author’s review of Unknown Pleasures review which appeared in Melody Maker back in 1979 did I realise that he was someone who really did get to the heart and soul of the band and was probably the most qualified to undertake the task and do it properly.

This Searing Light…. duly arrived on 25 December and I began to read it that evening, on the basis that it would be an easy enough book to dip in and out of while also turning my attention to some of the other books that had ended up under the tree. I spent hours engrossed in its contents and ended up not going to bed until some ungodly hour, which set the tone for a stupid sleep pattern right through until my return to work on 6 January. As soon as I woke up, my nose was back in between its wonderful looking hardback cover and plans to watch or do other things were put on hold as what I was devouring and enjoying immensely was the definitive story of Joy Division that hasn’t been bettered.

For the most part, there was very little I didn’t already know – but the new snippets of information were invaluable and, in one particular case, a real game-changer in terms of how I’ve always thought about things over the past almost 40 years since Ian Curtis took his life. The author lets others do the talking, and offers a mixture of new interviews with those still living as well as dipping into archives to enable the voices of people such as Tony Wilson, Martin Hannett and Rob Gretton to be heard. It’s very clear that the questions Jon Savage has posed to everyone while carrying out the work involved to piece the book together were far from run-of-the-mill, and there’s a sense that everyone responding has been able to be wholly open and transparent about things, secure that what they say will be written down and then put in print, even if it those words are at odds with one of the other contributors or indeed are different from what has been said by them before.

One of the most fascinating things about this book is that it gives much more space to Peter Saville and Annik Honore than any previous publications, enabling them to fill in some gaps and to also offer up a sense of what really went on when so many others, over the years, have mythologised many of the events and happenings.

There’s also some incredibly reflective words throughout from the late Tony Wilson, many of which feel as if they were provided in what must have been one of the last of the detailed interviews he gave before his death. It is entirely fitting that the book is dedicated to Wilson, a lifelong hero of mine. My memory of the one time we met and spoke briefly for all of 45 seconds will never leave me. It’s also worth mentioning that the book’s seemingly strange title is taken directly from one of the quotes he provided to the author.

This Searing Light…. also benefits from being exactly what it says on the cover. There’s just a few reflections into the early lives and upbringings of everyone in the band and it comes to a halt just after Ian Curtis’s funeral, with no mention of what was still to come for Factory or the emergence of New Order. It is the story of a band whose fans at the time could never ever have imagined the impact they would make or the legacy they would provide, so much so that more than 40 years on, there is still much to be fascinated by.

One thing it did remind me of was just how young and largely inexperienced the other band members were at the time. The infamous Stiff/Chiswick challenge took place on 14 April 1978….all four members were 20-22 years old. They had yet to have Gretton, Wilson or Hannett come into their lives to help shape things. Just two years and one month later, it was all over.

So much transpired between April 78 and May 80 that even now it feels overwhelming, so it must have been nigh on impossible to deal with first-hand.

The book also provides a stark reminder that Joy Division, being on a largely unheralded and small label in Manchester, didn’t ever really find too much fame, beyond the pages of the music papers, until they were no more. The biggest shows they ever played was as the support act on a UK tour by Buzzcocks and nobody was getting rich from any of it, with life seeming to be not far off a hand-to-mouth existence for the most part. There was little glamour and a lot of hard slogging.

The onset of the singer’s epilepsy does seem to have been beyond the belief and understanding of all concerned – including the university-educated Wilson – and it wasn’t helped by the fact that the treatment on offer from the medical professions seems to have been haphazard and involved a lot of guesswork – it certainly got me re-assessing my own long-held views that if the others around him had been more understanding or proactive back in the day, then the suicide could have been prevented.

mp3 : Joy Division – The Eternal

JC

Soft Cell

THE LP LUCKY DIP (1) : SOFT CELL : *HAPPINESS NOT INCLUDED (2022)

The idea being to look at albums not really given much mention, if any at all, on the blog.

*Happiness Not Included was the first new Soft Cell album in twenty years. It was one I was really looking forward to, given the magnificence of the live show in Glasgow some six months earlier. The gig had been to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, but a number of new songs, destined for what was then a forthcoming album, were also aired.

I had come away from the gig with the thought that the new songs hadn’t sounded out of place among the older material, which meant my expectations here high. The first advance digital single, released in November 2012, and particularly the accompanying PR blurb did nothing to diminish such expectations, with Marc explaining:-

“‘Bruises On My Illusions’ is a mini film noir Soft Cell story about a disillusioned character with everything against him or her who still has hope for a better future, despite the odds. A darker ‘Bedsitter’. Dave’s ominous yet punchy defiant chords inspired the song.”

And yup, it proved to be a later-era classic.

mp3: Soft Cell – Bruises On My Illusion

OK….it was quite different sounding from the 1980s material, but then again production techniques and values had changed greatly, plus the fact that Marc Almond and David Ball were now writing music from the perspective of men in their 60s whose hedonistic days were almost but a bunch of fading memories.

Fast-forward to March 2022. And the next new song, came with a video.

There were plenty of fans who had long wondered what a Soft Cell/Pet Shop Boys collaboration would sound like, and now we were finding out. Absolutely fabulous.

And so, finally in May 2022, the album arrived. Mine was the yellow vinyl version.

First impression was that the live takes from six months earlier had seemed more energetic and buoyant. It also seemed strange and kind of disappointing that the version of Purple Zone was slower and less clubby than the version that had been issued as a single. It all led to a feeling that the comeback album was something of a disappointment.

A few weeks later, I returned to the *Happiness Not Included. And, to my delight, this time it clicked – helped in particular by the closing track on Side 1

mp3: Soft Cell – Light Sleepers

An ode to growing old gracefully but defiantly at the same time, with a wonderfully gentle contribution on sax from their old pal Gary Barnacle.

Listening to and appreciating the sentiments of Light Sleepers acted as a release valve. My mistake had been listening to the Soft Cell songs of 2022 and immediately comparing them to their songs of the 80s – a stupid thing to do, as life was totally different back then and their music then had a certain purpose that was no longer applicable to how I went about my every day business. I hate the idea of scoring albums, but this is one that I would have no qualms about awarding it a solid 7/10. There’s a couple of tunes I could do without, but I’m more than willing to listen again and again to I’m Not A Friend Of God, their ode to atheism which certainly resounds here in Villain Towers (and apologies to those who have faith – I respect those who have and will not argue about it, but it’s not for me), while there’s the occasional tune that would make for a great wee dance down the electro club if such venues still exist:-

mp3: Soft Cell – Nostalgia Machine

But I’ll leave what I think is the highlight of the album to the end, and it comes courtesy of its closing track.

mp3: Soft Cell – New Eden

It’s Soft Cell, but not as we best know them or expect from them. A song I imagine Marc and David couldn’t really have written back in the day, but then again, with age comes wisdom.

JC

Echo & The Bunnymen

THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (23): Echo and The Bunnymen – Never Stop

Another repeat posting from way back in time, once again on the basis that I can’t better what was written before. This is from October 2013, when the then 50-year old me was thinking back to an era when I was slimmer, more energetic and had a fine head of hair. Oh, and a half-decent fashion sense. It was give the title of LAY DOWN THY RAINCOAT AND GROOOOOOVE…

Back in the early 80s, I spent almost every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night within the student union at Strathclyde University, I wasn’t a fashionista – I probably had about ten different shirts to choose from (five of which were black) and maybe three pair of jeans (two of which were black). But no matter what clothes were nearest to my skin, I never went anywhere without my fabulous olive-coloured raincoat that I’d persuaded my dad to give me….

The raincoat was in homage to Ian McCulloch who I thought was one of the coolest men on the planet. He, along with his bandmates, always seemed to be photographed wearing some sort of coat, although thinking back that’s probably more to do with them insisting their photoshoots take place in the likes of Iceland.

Without fail the student union ‘disco’ would feature at least one Echo & The Bunnymen song during the course of the evening and without fail it was cue for me to get up on the dancefloor and do my thing. Sad poseur that I was, I inevitably tried to dance while wearing my raincoat. It might have been draped over a chair or wrapped under a nearby table, but the second a Bunnymen track began to blast out, I’d race to where the coat was and put it on. I now accept that I must had looked like a dickhead…..

Then in 1983 I saw the video to the new Bunnymen single, and wouldn’t you know it, Mac was on the stage of the Albert Hall doing his thing – but without a coat. From that moment on, the raincoat never again was seen on the dancefloor….

All of this came back to me the other day when the single from 1983 came on via shuffle as I sat on a train heading to the football. I smiled at the memories. It was also a sharp reminder that it’s a belter of a track:-

mp3 : Echo & The Bunnymen – Never Stop (Discotheque)

That’s the 12″ version which I bought on vinyl at the time and still have all these years later. The b-sides were a different version of a track that had featured on the 1982 LP Porcupine as well as what I assume is an early demo-type version of what would later become a hit single:-

mp3 : Echo & The Bunnymen – Heads Will Roll (Summer Version)
mp3 : Echo & The Bunnymen – The Original Cutter

I’m very fond of Heads Will Roll, so I thought I’d also add the LP version to this posting.

mp3 : Echo & The Bunnymen – Heads Will Roll

Admit it. It does make you want to dance.

JC

Smoking Popes

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #093

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 093: Smoking Popes – ‘Need You Around’ (Parlophone Records ’96)

Dear friends,

again, as it happened quite often within this series, there isn’t pretty much I can tell you about today’s band. I must confess that below single is the only thing I know by them – but what a single it is, to be sure!

As far as I’m concerned, it perfectly captures what made the Popes so unique: loud punk-pop guitars (no uniqueness so far, but bear with me), but fronted by laid-back lounge vocals and lyrics with a touch of romance from former times … it is very hard to describe, and probably I am not capable to do it even halfway properly. So I can only urge you to listen to the tune, you’ll really miss something if you don’t, promised! Personally, I don’t know one single band who would be comparable to this special way of making songs.

Let’s keep it sweet and simple today, first it doesn’t have to be a long essay every week and second: basically there isn’t much more which I know about the band … apart from the fact that the vocal style derived from the singer’s (Josh Caterer) obsession with big-band records and black-and-white movies. They formed in Chicago in ’91, called it a day in ’98 but reformed later, as far as I can tell … probably they are even together today, who knows?

This is from their second album – as I said, this song is a bloody masterpiece

mp3: Smoking Popes – Need You Around

Enjoy,

Dirk

PS: aren’t you utterly astonished by this most perfect just-in-time performance of mine? Because by the time you read this, you all will be shouting out ‘habeus papam!’ at the top of your lungs … but whether this new pope smokes or indeed how many of his precursors did, will remain one of the many Vatican’s well hidden secrets!

Bronski Beat, David Sylvian, Everything But The Girl, Human League, Kane Gang, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, Marc Almond, Orange Juice, Public Image Limited, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Smiths, Style Council

WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (May)

The month of April hadn’t been too shabby, and indeed the first of the charts being looked at this time around (29 April – 5 May 1984) kind of illustrates this, with OMD, Blancmange, The Bluebells and New Order all sitting in the Top 20, where they were joined by another synth band with this week’s highest new entry at #19:-

mp3: The Human League – The Lebanon

It was their first new music in over a year, and was on the back of their past six singles all being Top 10 hits, including a #1 and two #2s. What only became clear a short time later, when the album Hysteria was finally released in mid-May, a full two-and-a-half years since Dare, was just how less immediate and pop-orientated the band had become during what had turned out to be fraught times in the studio. My memories of this one still centre around the incredibly negative press reaction to the song, much of which centred on the seemingly trite lyrics. It has to be said, it sounded back in 1984, and it hasn’t really aged well.

6 May – 12 May

The first thing I noticed about this chart was that nine of the Top 10 from the previous week were still up there in the higher echelons. Duran Duran, Phil Collins, Queen, Pointer Sisters, OMD, Bob Marley & the Wailers, The Flying Pickets, Blancmange and Lionel Ritchie were keeping their major labels feeling good about life. It must have meant the Top of the Pop programmes around this time were very much on the repetitive side.

Looking further down, it was a good week for lovers of dance-pop, or disco-lite, as I used to refer to it. Somebody Else’s Guy by Jocelyn Brown, Let’s Hear It For The Boy by Deniece Williams, Ain’t Nobody by Rufus and Chaka Khan and Just Be Good To Me by the SOS Band, were all in the Top 20 and to do this day can still be heard regularly what now pass as the easy listening/nostalgia radio stations. I can’t deny that I would have danced to these when they aired in the student union discos….iy wasn’t all Bunnymac and flailing raincoats y’know.

Highest new entry this week belonged to Marillion, in at #23 with Assassing, which is one that I genuinely cannot recall in any shape or form. Unlike the song which came in at #49:-

mp3 : Everything But The Girl – Each and Everyone

Tracey and Ben‘s first chart hit. It would reach #28 later in the month. But it wasn’t the best song to break into the Top 75 this week….

mp3: Orange Juice – What Presence?!

By now, the band had been reduced to a rump of Edwyn and Zeke, augmented by Clare Kenny on bass and Dennis Bovell on keyboards and production duties. The record label had given up on them but in the midst of it all, they not came up with this memorable 45 but a ten-song album filled with brilliant moments. What Presence?! eventually claimed to #47 when it deserved so much more.

13-19 May

The inertia at the top end of the charts was maintained, with yet again nine of the previous week’s Top 10 staying up there. The highest new entry was at #29, and belonged to Ultravox whose Dancing With Tears In My Eyes made it eleven hit singles in a row stretching back to 1981. By contrast, the song coming in at #60 meant a debut hit for a group signed to one of the best independent labels in the UK at the time:-

mp3: The Kane Gang – Small Town Creed

This would be as good as it got for Small Town Creed, but Martin Brammer, Paul Woods and Dave Brewis and Kitchenware Records would enjoy bigger successes before the year was out, so stay tuned.

One more 45…..

mp3 : Public Image Ltd – Bad Life

I’ve always thought of this as the ‘forgotten’ PiL single. For one, it was a flop, with its #71 placing this week being its peak, and secondly, it was later left off The Greatest Hits, So Far, which was supposed to have compiled all the band’s singles from 1978 to 1990 along with a new track, Don’t Ask Me. It’s not the most obvious of memorable of the PiL songs, and it suffers from a typically OTT 80s style production, but there’s a fair bit of interesting bass slapping along with Gary Barnacle‘s contribution on sax to make it worth a listen.

20-26 May

I’m not a music snob. Well, that’s a bit of a lie. A bit of a big lie. But sometimes a song so catchy and poppy and ultimately timeless, that it has to be given due recognition on the blog. And so it is with the highest new entry this week, in at #4, eventually going on to spend two weeks at #1 and selling umpteen millions.

Just kidding. And apologies for those of you desperate to hear Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham!

Not too far lower down was the new entry at #11, and that rare thing of a double-A sided single:-

mp3: The Style Council – You’re The Best Thing
mp3: The Style Council – The Big Boss Groove

The ballad had been one of the most well-received songs on the debut album Cafe Bleu, and for its release as a 45, a saxophone solo was added. The more upbeat number was a brand-new composition, and one of the more obviously political numbers of the early TSC era. Funny enough, the radio stations rarely played The Big Boss Groove, while You’re The Best Thing was omnipresent.

I’ve written before that Best Thing, without fail, takes me back to what was a very happy time, travelling with my girlfriend across Europe on cheap student railcards visiting cities that previously had only been figments of our imagination. This was very much ‘our song’. The relationship was a very happy one for a decent enough time but sadly it turned sour before 1985 was over. I’ve always associated Best Thing was all about that particular relationship and so even when I’ve tried to woo subsequent girlfriends with the help of with compilation cassettes which showed off my musical tastes, I never once included this absolute classic on any of them.

It climbed to #5 the following week, which proved to be its peak position.

Passing mention of a few other new entries this week, most of whom are still going strong today (and I’ll leave that to you to judge if it’s a good thing or not). Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart and Elton John with Dancing In The Dark, Infatuation and Sad Songs (Say So Much). A slightly longer mention of the new entry at #71:-

mp3: Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Perfect Skin

The debut single. Perfect Skin was a genuine slow-burner. It actually fell out of the Top 75 the week after making its initial entry, but then went on to enjoy placings of 54, 45, 40, 30, 26, 32, 44 and 57, thus ensuring it is another that I very much associate with the wonderfully romantic summer of 1984.

27 May-2 June

The chart which crosses over into the month in which I celebrated by 21st birthday. In at #19 was a song I very much associate with the day and night of that event.

mp3: The Smiths – Girl Afraid

OK…..this didn’t actually chart, but Dirk just last week featured Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, so please indulge me as I recall and feature what I feel is that the far superior and danceable b-side. A song that was very drunkenly played very loudly on repeat back in the flat after a few too many had been had while out in Glasgow. Lots of hugging, lots of dancing etc, etc.

mp3: David Sylvian – Red Guitar (#21)

Not so much frantic dancing to this one, for the first solo hit single from the former frontman of Japan – his previous 45s had been collaborations with Riuichi Sakamoto – but there was a fair bit of posing to it down to the student union, which by now was incredibly quiet with so many folk returning home for the summer. It was just the diehards hanging around, especially on Thursdays, but that meant all requests tended to get played. More happy memories.

This week’s chart also saw the appearance of what I have long believed to be one of the most important 45s of all time:-

mp3: Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy (#35)

I again make no apologies for repeating myself. It is all too easy to forget, from the distance of more than 40 years, of the extent of the bravery of Jimmy Somerville and his bandmates for being so open about their way of life and their views. Their records, and those of such as Pet Shop Boys and Frankie Goes To Hollywood took the celebration of queer culture into the mainstream, and made many people realise, probably for the first time, that homophobia was every bit as distasteful as racism and apartheid. A genuine came-changer in terms of altering a lot of attitudes, Smalltown Boy would reach #3 during what turned out to be a thirteen-week stay in the Top 75.

Two more before I sign off.

mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Dazzle (#38)
mp3: Marc Almond – The Boy Who Came Back (#63)

A couple of ‘blink and you might miss them’ hits. Dazzle was the fifteenth chart hit for The Banshees, but its stay in the charts was a mere three weeks.

Just three months after the final Soft Cell single, Marc Almond released his first solo effort. With a lyric that possibly hinted at his thinking for wanting to leave Soft Cell behind him, the tune was less immediate and struggled for radio airplay, a big factor in it spending five weeks in the lower end of the hit parade – 63, 59, 54, 52 and 70. Nobody knew it, but that would more or less be the story of the solo career until Marc went down the route of collaborations or cover versions.

Couple of things to mention. This morning sees me off on my travels again, back one more time to see some friends in the Greater Toronto area. While I’ll do my best to drop in over the next week or so, there’s every chance the comments section in particular will get a bit messy with loads of anonymous/unattributed contributions that I’ll tidy up as best I can as and when I’m able.

And of course, Part 2 of the May edition of When The Clocks Struck Thirteen will be offered up over the next couple of weeks.

JC

Super Furry Animals

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

A guest series by The Robster

#11: Demons (1997, Creation Records, CRE283)

1997 had been an astonishing year for Super Furry Animals. They really were critics’ darlings, featuring in so many of those best of the year type lists all the magazines did (and still do…). ‘Radiator’ had been a major success in critical terms, and it seemed SFA were in the Premier League of Creation’s artist roster, which let’s not forget also included Oasis, Primal Scream and Teenage Fanclub.

To round the year off, a fourth and final single was released from the album, and it was what I would still argue is one of the band’s top 10 songs of their entire career.

mp3: Demons [edit]

It’s a song I took to the moment I first heard it on ‘Radiator’, and it seems I wasn’t the only one. Various reviewers described it as “spine-tingling”, “monumental”, “fantastically absurd” and so on. It’s the one song you would have thought would have huge crossover appeal, yet it was another let-down chart-wise. It entered the chart on 30th November 1997 at its number 27 peak – the same as its immediate predecessor. Lyrically, like most of the band’s output to date, it contained some gems – “By the year four million/Our skins will be vermillion” being my fave.

All formats of the single contained the album version of the song, but to keep things fresh, I’ve posted a slightly shorter edit. Not sure where it comes from – I can’t find any record of one being issued, even as a promo – but as I have it, you can have it too.

The b-side of the 7” and cassette was this rabble-rouser:

mp3: Hit And Run

Another decent track, a kind of glam-rock stomper that teases its sing-a-long qualities through a barrage of guitars. It was demoed for the album, and to be fair, it wouldn’t have sounded out of place among some of the record’s rowdier numbers.

The 12” and CD added a third track:

mp3: Carry The Can

The weakest of the three tracks in my opinion, but perfectly listenable.

This week’s bonus? Well there was a glut of stuff dating from the ‘Radiator’ era I could have posted here, including some more of the demos, or something very electronic that sneaked out practically unnoticed, that hinted at another project some members of the band had been working on, and would continue to work on, but which wouldn’t surface for 25 years or so! To be fair though, not an awful lot of it excited me enough to share it, so in the end I plumped for this interesting remix of another ‘Radiator’ track.

mp3: Download [Llwybr Llaethog remix]

Llwybr Llaethog were/are an experimental Welsh outfit you would have only heard on John Peel back in the day (ask Dirk – I think he’s familiar with them). They don’t destroy the song, but rather lend their weird electronic slant to it, with some nice samples to boot.

Demons was to be the last time as many as four singles were released from a Super Furry Animals album. Over the years, the song has lost none of its impact. In fact, it has been one of the band’s most covered. Sixties icon Manfred Mann even made it his own when he mashed it up with Prefab Sprout’s Dragons for his 2004 solo album, erm, ’2006’. It’s…. interesting, especially when the German rapper enters the mix… It’s so completely bonkers, in fact, I’m certain the SFA boys would have approved wholeheartedly!

Next week, a bumper package of stuff covering another between-album phase…

The Robster

Dog Faced Hermans

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #451: DOG FACED HERMANS

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

mp3: Dog Faced Hermans – Miss O’Grady (1989)

Dog Faced Hermans formed out of the ashes of punk-skronk combo Volunteer Slavery, and featured vocalist/trumpeter Marion Coutts, guitarist Andy Moor, bass player Colin McLean and drummer Will Plum.

Their debut EP Unbend was released on their own Demon Radge imprint. A 12″ Humans Fly and the Miss O’Grady/Bell Ciao single then appeared on music journalist Everett True‘s Calculus label. Hooking up with Dutch avant-garde punk band The Ex, Dog Faced Hermans moved to Amsterdam en masse, with their final records released through Alternative Tentacles, the label owned by Jello Biafra.

Moor continues to play with The Ex, McLean is a sound engineer and Plum drums with Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp. Coutts ia a renowned visual artist, and her book, The Iceberg, a memoir of her time caring for her partner, art critic Tom Lubbock prior to his death from a brain tumour, was published in 2015.

JC

Shamen

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (33) : The Shamen – Move Any Mountain

A little bit of techno/synth-pop from 1991 is on offer today.

The Shamen formed in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1984, initially under the name of Alone Again Or. It was a time when indie-pop music, as we would come to call ‘the scene’ was based on the sort of standard band set up of guitars, bass, drums and a lead vocalist. The Shamen were more than decent within the genre, sort of specialising in adding a touch of 60s psychedelia to the indie sound to make records that were interesting to listen to and geared towards making people dance.

By the late 80s, there had been a few changes in the make-up of the band, with keyboards having a bigger part to play in their sound along with the use of what was, at the time, the new(ish) idea of sampling. The Shamen were on an evolving journey towards the emerging rave scene, and by 1989, were down to just two members – Colin Angus and Will Sinnott – both now living in London and combining DJing along with writing, recording and performing. A new single, Pro>gen, was released by their new label, One Little Indian Records, in March 1990. It proved to be an absolute smash in the clubs and thanks to some plays on radio stations, attracted enough attention to spend a few weeks in the chart and reach #55, the first hit single of any sort for the band.

A year later, the single Hyperreal went Top 30. A decision was taking to re-visit Pro>gen, and to issue it as the follow-up single over the summer, hoping that its constant playing in the clubs across the continental holiday resorts would help take it into the singles charts. It was released on 12″ CD and 7″, and it’s a second-hand copy of the latter that I picked up many years later:-

mp3 : The Shamen – Move Any Mountain (Beat Edit)
mp3 : The Shamen – Move Any Mountain (Rude Edit)

A budget was set aside for a new promo video, to be filmed on Mount Tiede on the island of Tenerife. Shortly after the filming was finished, tragedy stuck as Will Sinnott drowned, on 23 May 1991, while swimming off the coast of neighbouring island La Gomera.

Move Any Mountain reached #4 in the UK charts in July 1991.

Having given things some serious consideration, Colin Angus decided to continue with the band, augmenting things with a rapper – Mr C – and female backing vocalists, all of whom had previously been part of any live shows and occasional contributors in the studio. In August 1992, a #1 single, Ebeneezer Goode, turned The Shamen into one of the most popular and talked about bands in the country.

JC

Riot Of Colour

ONE SONG ON THE HARD DRIVE (18)

The song comes from its inclusion on Disc 2 of the NME C86 box set, issued by Cherry Red Records back in2014, while the next bit of the narrative has been taken from the John Peel wiki website.

“A Riot Of Colour were an indie pop band from Swiss Cottage, North London, originally consisting of Alex Osman (drums), Alistair Jackson (guitar) and Dominic Blaazer (bass, vocals, guitar). The band released several singles in the 80’s and a compilation album of their work in 2015.

Peel discovered the band via a flexi disc, which he played a track from first on his show in February 1986. He would play further material from the group, including a session they recorded for his show in April 1986.”

Turns out that the flexi mentioned above contained the very track included in the C86 boxset:-

mp3: A Riot Of Colour – Skink (flexi version)

Skink would later be re-recorded as the lead track on their eponymously-titled debut four-song EP issued by Dreamworld Records in 1986. The only other release to be mentioned on Discogs is Swallow, another EP, this time with three-songs, which came out on Everlasting Records in 1989. By this time, the band were just a duo consisting of Jackson and Blaazer.

The observation from Villain Towers? While very much of its time and place, it is well worth three minutes of your time for a listen. A solid 7/10 offering.

JC

Smiths

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #092

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#092: The Smiths – ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ (Rough Trade Records ’84)

Dear friends,

now, before you shout at me – let’s be brutally honest: if you owned a Tesla, would you deliberately drive it against a wall at immense speed just because we all know now that Elon Musk is affirmatively the second-biggest prick in the USA? No? Well, I thought so … you’d rather get one of those rear stickers from Temu reading ‘I bought this before Elon went crazy!’ – and everything would be fine again.

Probably this is not the most useful comparison in the world, but I think you see what I’m trying to say, because basically The Smiths are facing the very same, let’s call it ‘Tesla-problem’. You see, I have always been the first to say ‘smash fascism’, but as a German, you learn to differ. I’ve always thought it is not correct to (still) blame a whole nation for what their grandfathers’ generation did some 90 years ago, but, believe me, this still happens, and it happens quite often over here.

So, the big question is: do we really have to neglect the back catalogue of one of the finest four-pieces ever to walk the earth just because one of them, the singer on this occasion, turned into a total tosser 30 years later? As far as I’m concerned: no, we should not, because a) four people were involved at the time, not just one and b) the music they made was too good, let’s be honest!

Also, I mean, you never know: there is always a chance (a very small one indeed, I admit) that some 15 year-old with a bit of taste ends on this site accidentally, someone who never heard of The Smiths – and there are millions of those out there, believe me, the fruit of my own loins being one of them (well, no, Little Loser was adopted by us, so there wasn’t much fruit involved – but I’m sure you’ll get my point)!

Either way, wouldn’t it be a shame if we didn’t educate this person properly, so that he or she knows that there’s more to music than Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars?!

I, for once, don’t want to be held responsible – and that’s why you find today’s record in the singles box. As everyone of you knows, of course (apart from our mystical 15-year old perhaps): any of the first singles could have featured instead, they were all simply brilliant. The only reason it is this one is: it was the first Smiths-tune I ever heard, and boy, did it blow me away back then!!

What I didn’t know then, of course, was this:

„Heaven Knows I’m Missing Him Now” was the twenty-third single by 1960s British girl singer Sandie Shaw, released in September 1969, her final single of that decade, marking the end of a string of singles which had made her the most successful British female singer of that era.

The tune did not chart at the time, but apparently it heavily met with Morrissey‘s approval, at least so much so that he wrote “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”, which, contrary to poor Sandie’s original, turned out to be the first top ten single for The Smiths:

mp3: The Smiths – Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now

The cover above, fact fans, features Viv Nicholson, who became famous in 1961 in the UK for winning a large amount of money on the football pools – and then rapidly squandering it. Which might explain the look on her face, if you ask me …

Enjoy,

Dirk

Pet Shop Boys

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #389 : PET SHOP BOYS

It was while I was rebuilding the list of Imaginary Compilation Album that it hit me nobody had attempted to come up with one for the Pet Shop Boys.

In many ways, this is totally understandable, as it borders on a genuinely impossible task. There’s a wiki page which offers what it describes as ‘a comprehensive list of songs….of officially released songs that have been performed by the band….and consists of mostly studio and BBC recordings; remixes and live recordings are not listed, unless the song has only been released in one of the two formats.’

The list runs to almost 350 songs. Well, there have been fifteen studio albums along with more than seventy singles…..

Thinking about it further, ‘borders on a genuinely impossible task’ is an understatement. I reckon you could ask 14,300 PSB fans for a Top 10, and you’d get 14,300 different lists. Oh, the reason for homing in on 14,300 is simply down it being the capacity of the OVO Hydro in Glasgow where myself and Rachel last saw them play live back in May 2022, and although it was, in effect, a ‘greatest hits’ show (26 songs all in), we were struck by how many different people were saying on the way out that they wished Neil and Chris had played something that hadn’t aired that night.

I’m not taking on the task of a full-blown ICA. Instead, here’s one based on tracks that weren’t played at the Hydro….call it an ICA of the lesser-known tracks. I reckon it still makes for a more than decent listen.

SIDE A

1. I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing

The original version can be found on Very, the duo’s fifth studio album, released in September 1993. A few months later, in November 1993, a remixed version was issued as a single. Neil and Chris chose to be quite radical in that a three-minute incredibly immediate pop song was remixed by Beatmasters, with an additional two minutes, while the house music style piano opening being replaced by something rather grand, orchestral and epic. As I’ve mentioned before, while I initially wasn’t all that fussed about the remix, it has grown on me over the years and looking back with the benefit of hindsight, it was the right sort of big and bouncy remix needed to complement the huge success of the previous single, Go West. But I still feel it goes on for maybe 30-45 seconds too long, and so it’s the album version which opens the ICA.

2. Paninaro

The b-side of Suburbia, the duo’s fourth single which dates from 1986 has long been one of the most loved among the fan base, and I suspect that has much to do with the majority of the vocal, albeit more spoken than sung, being provided by Chris Lowe. There’s a spoken sample at the two-and-a-half minute mark:-

I don’t like country-and-western. I don’t like rock music. I don’t like, I don’t like rockabilly or rock ’n’ roll particularly. Don’t like much really, do I? But what I do like I love passionately.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the enigmatic Chris Lowe in his own words. He hasn’t really changed in almost 40 years.

3. Minimal

From Fundamental, the ninth studio album, which was released in 2006, and later issued as a single, becoming PSB’s thirty-seventh Top 20 hit in the UK. Alex Petrides, in his review for The Guardian, described Minimal as sounding pleasingly like Kraftwerk mounting a defence of the Turner prize. A bit mind of Pseud’s Corner perhaps, but I know exactly what he’s getting at.

4. Your Funny Uncle

PSB have always been famed and loved for their more tender numbers, with, arguably, Being Boring being the best of them. But it’s long been the song with which they have closed their shows, and so doesn’t qualify for inclusion on the ICA. Instead, I’m including one from 1989, a b-side on what was a limited 7″ edition of It’s Alright. It’s based on a true story, with the lyric composed by Neil after he had attended the funeral of a friend who had died from AIDS. Here’s what he had to say about the song:-

“All the details are true: the cars in slow formation, and so on. He did have an uncle, who had been in the army all of his life and suddenly found himself at the funeral of his evidently gay nephew who’d died of Aids. I think it must have been quite a difficult situation for him, but he was really nice and dignified and spoke to all of his nephew’s friends. I had to give a reading, and the bit I read was from the book of Revelations…at the end it says there’s somewhere where there’s no pain or fear, and I found it a really moving piece of prose, and attached it to the end of the song.”

5. Love Is A Bourgeois Construct (Nighttime Radio Edit)

By the time of Electric, the twelfth studio album, which was released in 2013, PSB had more or less given up concerning themselves whether or not any singles made it into the charts. This was reflected by the fact that they were largely digital only-releases, made available via downloads. Love Is….was actually the third single lifted from Electric, and it was edited down from its near seven-minutes in length to a more radio-friendly four and a bit minutes. The tongue-in-cheek title applied to the edit is another sign that the boys weren’t fussed about being A-listed by any radio station.

SIDE B

1. A Cloud In A Box
2. The Truck Driver and His Mate

I’ve decided to open this side of the ICA with two what would, in old-fashioned ways, be described as obscure b-sides. It was one of the great joys of using the blog a couple of years back to have an in-depth look at all the PSB singles and discovering genuinely brilliant songs for the first time.

A Cloud In A Box was released in September 2016. It came as part of the digital download with Say It To Me, the fourth single to be lifted from Super, the thirteenth studio album. I described Say It To Me as a banger of a tune which, during PSB’s imperious phase, would have certainly smashed into the higher echelons of the singles chart. I went on to say that describe A Cloud In A Box as being a thousand times bigger in terms of it being a banger, suggesting it was Faithless meets Left To My Own Devices. I’m not exaggerating.

The Truck Driver and His Mate dates from 1996, and was one of the b-sides on Before, the advance single from sixth studio album, Bilingual. It’s an absolute joy, driven along by a rocky and raucous, nay, make that a glamorous beat, topped with a lyric packed with innuendo and humour.

3. This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave

It’s A Sin may well be is the best-known of the songs that Neil has written about his unhappy time attending a school which had all sorts of strict rules, but I’ve always had a real soft spot for this album track from 1990’s Behaviour. There’s also a hidden depth to this one, as Neil would later reveal that the song title, and indeed the sentiments within, were meant to refer to the fall of communism in eastern Europe. I also love that quite a bit of the tune feels like something New Order might have written.

4. Pandemonium

In which the duo write and record a pop song in 2009 that could have come from just about any time in their career from the 90s onwards. It can be found on Yes, the tenth studio album. It was later revealed Pandemonium had been written with the idea that it be recorded by Kylie Minogue, but for some unknown reason, it was turned down – as indeed were a handful of other PSB-written songs. Neil was later to remark ‘ I had no idea she was so picky’. I still think everyone missed a trick by not releasing this as a single.

5. Shameless

We’re shameless, we will do anything
To get our fifteen minutes of fame
We have no integrity, we’re ready to crawl
To obtain celebrity we’ll do anything at all

Who said PSB didn’t have a sense of humour? The b-side of Go West, the immense #1 hit from September 1993. I suppose having a fair idea that the Village People cover was going to be so memorable, then the task was to create, write, record and deliver something of their own that was equally majestic.

So there you have it. One in which all the really big and best-known songs had to be excluded. And there’s still plenty left off that would make for a fabulous Volume 2.

Oh, and if you fancy having a listen as to how ICA 389 might sound as a stand-alone album:-

SIDE A (18:27)

SIDE B (21:45)

JC

Iggy Pop

THE CD SINGLE LUCKY DIP (21) : Iggy Pop – Lust For Life

R-484342-1381048228-3657

Lust for Life, the title track of the 1977 album by Iggy Pop, wasn’t released as a single back in the day, except in the Netherlands and Belgium, where it reached #3 and #6 or #26 in the latter, depending on the region (#6 in Flanders and #28 in Wallonia – and please don’t expect me to offer any sort of rational explanation).

In due course, it became one of the better-known and best-loved tracks of that phase of Iggy’s career, and would reach an entirely new audience in the UK when it was used in the dynamic ans unforgettable opening shots of the film Trainspotting, released to great critical acclaim and commercial success in 1996.

It was no surprise that the record company to whom Iggy was now attached and who held the right to the song, decided that a cash-in would do very nicely. A compilation album, Nude & Rude: The Best of Iggy Pop was issued in November 1996, just in time for cashing-in on the Christmas market. It contained 17 songs, five of which went back to the era of The Stooges, six from The Idiot/Lust For Life era of the late 70s, with the remaining six coming from albums released between 1986 and 1993.

The album was something of a commercial failure, only spending one week in the charts at #99. The spin-off single to help with the promotion of the album fared a bit better, coming in at #26. Indeed, there’s a chance that the single actually managed to sell more copies than the album

mp3: Iggy Pop – Lust For Life

A well-known song was selected for the b-side of the 7″ vinyl version of the single (one which goes for about £25 on the second-hand market, which is no surprise given how very few were likely pressed in an era when CD ruled)

mp3: Iggy Pop – Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine

It’s not very good. It sounds like a wedding band going through the motions.

The CD version of the single, which I picked up at some point in time after the fact for just 50p, had two live tracks on it

mp3: Iggy Pop – Lust For Life (live)
mp3: Iggy Pop – I Wanna Be Your Dog (live)

The former dates from 1993 when Iggy was the headliner on the first night of the three-day Féile Festival held in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland.

The latter dates from 1995 at the Rock For Choice Benefit Concert staged at the Hollywood Palladium, Los Angeles, USA.

Both songs kind of confirm the widely-held view that no live recording can truly capture the feeling of actually being there.

JC

Super Furry Animals

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

A guest series by The Robster

#10: Play It Cool (1997, Creation Records, CRE275)

‘Radiator’, the second Super Furry Animals album, was set free in August 1997 and was festooned with great acclaim across the board. At this stage, the band could do no wrong in the eyes of fans and critics alike. Just four weeks after the album’s release, a third single was released. Play It Cool was one of the album’s highlights, but for the single, a slightly different (remixed?) version was offered up.

mp3: Play It Cool [single version]

There’s little to choose between the two versions. The most obvious difference is the intro, and the album version sounds a little more ‘bassy’, but other than that, they’re pretty similar. Not that it mattered – Play It Cool was a highlight on an album of many highlights, and it demonstrated once more how the band could produce something so original yet so completely melodic and accessible. The lyric “she’s raising money for the sex appeal” is another stroke of Gruff Rhys’ genius, in my opinion.

Play It Cool entered the UK charts on the first Sunday of October 1997 at number 27, which disappointingly is as high as it got. But chart positions have rarely been an indication of quality, right? It was released on the usual formats. The cassette and limited 7” included this on its flip:

mp3: Pass The Time

It’s a track I like, but it clearly wasn’t right for the album. That said, it would probably have been deemed good enough for release as an a-side by numerous Britpop bands of the era who were far lesser in quality than SFA, but more commercially successful.

The real gem lay in wait on the 12” and CD, a track I think starts off sounding like Shangri-La by the Kinks. It’s one of the band’s quietest, most tender songs. Don’t worry about it only coming out of the right channel to begin with, it’s meant to be that way…

mp3: Cryndod Yn Dy Lais (trans: Tremor In Your Voice)

This week’s bonus track is the demo version of the title track, recorded more than a year before. While the basic structure of the song is intact, it was clearly unfinished at this stage – there’s only one verse which is repeated, it’s slower and quite raw-sounding.

mp3: Play It Cool [demo]

The ‘Radiator’ campaign wasn’t over yet though…

The Robster

Delmontes

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #450: THE DELMONTES

From the blurb in the Big Gold Dreams box set, from which today’s offering is lifted.

The 1980 debut single by Edinburgh five-piece The Delmontes was a groovy slice of sixties-inspired indie that pre-dated Stereolab‘s Pan-European exotica and mixed gender dynamics across a three-women/two-man line-up fronted by chief chanteuse Julie Hepburn. Guitarist Mike Berry, bassist Gordon Simpson, keyboardist Gillian Miller and drummer Bernice Campbell completed the line-up.

Tous Les Soirs and follow-up Don’t Cry Your Tears were released on Allan Campbell‘s unsung Rational label. Various flirtations between The Delmontes and assorted major labels bore little fruit, although a compilation, Carousel, was released on LTM Recordings in 2006. Campbell went on to be in The Pastels while more recently Berry could be spotted playing with former drummer of The Freeze, Neil Blackwood, and bass -playing theatre director Mark Thomson as The Bail Sheriffs.

mp3: The Delmontes – Tous Les Soirs

A rather fabulous three minutes of pop music that was one of my favourite discoveries right across the box set. I’d never heard of the band beforehand.

JC

Various

MAYDAZE

It’s a fact that we all need a little bit of sunshine in our lives. But don’t forget that even the sunniest of times can end in haze or a storm.

mp3: Various – Maydaze

Billy Bragg – A13 Trunk Road To The Sea (Peel Session)
The Libertines – Time For Heroes
Graham Coxon – Freakin’ Out
Soft Cell – Where The Heart Is
Iggy Pop – Lust For Life
Hinds – Just Like Kids (Miau)
The Style Council – Long Hot Summer (extended version)
Edwyn Collins – Knowledge
Interpol – Slow Hands
Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg
The Primitives – Crash
The National – Apartment Story
Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us
Franz Ferdinand – Darts Of Pleasure
Violent Femmes – Prove My Love
Port Sulphur feat. James Kirk – Orient Express
Paul Quinn – Ain’t That Always The Way

JC

Libertines

SONGS UNDER TWO MINUTES (14): MAYDAY

Back in March 2018, as part of the ‘Cracking Debut Singles’ series, I featured What A Waster and I Get Along, the two tracks on either side of the 7″ debut by The Libertines, which came out on Rough Trade Records in June 2002.

The CD version of the single had a third track. It might about a minute to listen to from start to end, but it is kind of one of the great ‘lost’ songs from the band, and of course one of their very oldest.

mp3: The Libertines – Mayday

Seemingly written after Pete Doherty was caught up in the anti-capitalist protests that took place in London on 1 May 2000.

JC

Silicon Teens

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #091

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#091: Silicon Teens – ‘Memphis Tennessee’ (Mute Records ’79)

Dear friends,

back to 1979 we go – that golden year – and I have Silicon Teens for you today: Darryl, Jacki, Paul and Diane, a brainchild of producer Larry Least. They certainly were ahead of their time both in concept and sound, but unfortunately they only released one longplayer, ‘Music for Parties’, an album which consisted of re-imagined rock n roll classics like ‘Let’s Dance’ and ‘You Really Got Me’, amongst others. Following the release, musical differences drove the band apart, but their profile was raised when John Hughes used the track ‘Red River Rock’ prominently in his film ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’. Said album is from 1980 and was released by the independent record label Mute, Daniel Miller‘s successful company which he launched with his own single under the moniker The Normal.

So that’s how the Silicon Teens’ story goes – but the true story was a little bit different: in fact you could well argue that The Silicon Teens were the world’s first manufactured electronic pop band, some 20 years before Gorillaz!

In reality, the whole band was just Mute Records’ Daniel Miller on his own, he did all the music plus all the singing. The Teens’ members – Paul (percussion), Diane (synthesizer), Jacki (synthesizer) and Daryl (vocals) – were purely fictional, so was their backstory for the press release: „they’re all teenagers and childhood friends in Liverpool. Inspired by the punk movement and subsequent post-punk bands like The Normal and Throbbing Gristle, they used a synthesizer owned by Jacki’s older brother Kevin to create their songs.“.

Miller carried things really far, it must be said: the band was portrayed by actors in interviews, press photos, and in the music video for their first single. Musician Frank Tovey, aka Fad Gadget, portrayed Darryl, whereas Miller himself portrayed Paul. „Larry Least, producer“, was also Miller – his take on Mickie Most, a very well-known UK producer at the time.

The whole swindle was uncovered by the music press only a year or so later, but until this happened, records were made: three singles, all not too successful, plus one album, which, to be frank, is quite hard to listen to in its entirety, especially these days.

So, why does the band feature here, then? Well, the first single is simply outstanding – I love it without any limits – and so should you:

mp3: Silicon Teens – Memphis Tennessee

The definitive reading of the old Cuck Berry favourite, this, you will doubtlessly agree. If you don’t, I suspect you should seek medical help at your earliest convenience!

Enjoy,