The The

GIG REVIEW : THE THE : GLASGOW, SEPTEMBER 2018

It’s not normal practice round these parts to pull together some thoughts on a gig from exactly three weeks back, but these circumstances are a bit special.

Earlier this year, Matt Johnson announced a comeback tour of fairly impressive proportions for The The, including two successive nights in Glasgow. There was a slight twist in that the first date, 4 September, was at the all-standing Barrowlands while the following night would see the band perform in front of an all-seated audience at the Royal Concert Hall. I was keen to get along to both nights but was a bit slow off the mark on the day the tickets were released, missing out on Barrowlands show but being happy enough with the decent seats, about 15 rows back in the centre stalls, for the Concert Hall.

The plan had been to try and pick up a Barrowlands ticket nearer the time and look to compare the two gigs given that the two venues couldn’t have been more different. One would have involved a hot, sweaty and loud crowd, possibly with some semblance of a mosh pit, with all sorts of singing and chanting to accompany the band while the other, certainly based on previous experiences, would be akin to watching and appreciating an orchestra with polite but generous applause offered at the end of each song. As it turned out, a busy work schedule in advance of my planned trip to Toronto precluded me having enough time to get along on the first night and I had to make do with just the one show.

Me and The The go back a long long way, not quite to the very beginning of the band but certainly to 1982 and the singles which pre-dated the release of Soul Mining the following year.

The enigmatic yet charismatic Matt Johnson has always fascinated and impressed me, releasing distinctive music that seemed to be perfectly in tune with my own feelings and views at different stages in my life. He has always surrounded himself with the very best of musicians, initially in the studio and then on the road in the 90s. He is highly regarded and respected by just about every other fellow musician, not least Johnny Marr whose membership of The The was actually longer than his time in The Smiths. Having said that, Luke Haines isn’t a fan, having had a huge bust-up when The Auteurs were the support act on a UK tour…..

I was accompanied on this occasion by Mrs Villain, a rare gig outing together for us, partly out of her own love for The The but also that she likes the venue, one which has superb acoustics and lends itself to performances of all kinds. The audience was, for the most part, people of our ages, primarily groups of bald/balding men dressed head to toe in black; this may have been in tribute to the band who, as it turned out, were also dressed in a similar way but I reckon in most instances it was an effort to disguise the paunches brought about by the onset of middle-old age. I reckon most of us, while loath to admit it, would be glad of the fact that we were getting to sit down at the show, especially after seeing the notices posted up at the entrance requesting no photos or filming during the gig also advising that The The would be performing for more than two hours. All of a sudden, £40 felt like a bargain.

For those of you who don’t know, it’s been almost 20 years since The The last released new music or toured, a period in which Matt Johnson retreated to the shadows without ever completely going away. He’s composed music for films and also had a substantial on-line presence thanks to a series of podcasts under the beaner of Radio Cineola. There was also a single, We Can’t Stop What’s Coming, released for Record Store Day in 2017, in which he renewed his collaboration with Marr, on a song that was inspired by the death of his elder brother Andy, who, as Andy Dog, had contributed so much in the way of artwork and visuals to the band in the early years.

It was therefore very fitting that the show paid tribute to the life and work of Andy Dog with the musicians performing against an ever-changing complex backdrop of still and moving images from the halcyon days of the 80s and 90s. I learned afterwards that the technical limitations of the Barrowlands had prevented the background being on display at the previous night’s show which I feel would have been something of a loss as the visuals seemed to be an essential accompaniment to many of the songs.

Ah… the songs. After all, this is what a music blog should be concentrating on.

It was something of a subdued beginning for most of the audience thanks to the decision to open with three lesser-known tracks, albeit they were all among my own personal favourites from the back catalogue, including an airing for Flesh and Bones, the b-side which had featured on this blog on the very day of the gig. Things very much went up a notch thereafter with a run of singles, all of which were received enthusiastically, having been delivered in a slightly stripped-back way that demonstrated the talents of the singer and his fellow performers. The audience was, as is almost always the case at this venue, reverential and serious which I was delighted with as every note could be heard thanks to nobody chirping away annoyingly to their neighbour.

The rest of the night went along at a perfect pace, with the set drawing on all the studio LPs, including the lesser spotted debut Burning Blue Soul as well as Hanky Panky, the ill-begotten and largely misguided album of Hank Williams covers. The five-strong-band provided the audience with everything it could have wished for, effortlessly switching pace and tempo throughout with a performance that was reminiscent of the Bad Seeds at their very best.

It was clear that the band had rehearsed and prepared intently for the show, even down to the gaps between songs which allowed Matt to talk to the audience, reminiscing occasionally about the old days but also pointing out how, in reality, so little had changed in society. The younger me might have got a bit annoyed at how polished, professional and perfect it all was; the older me, however, fully appreciated it all, and as I sat and listened with intent I found myself being transported back in time to when I had first heard so many of the songs, thinking again about certain people, occasions and incidents for the first time in a long while. I laughed, smiled and I wiped away tears on one occasion, now fully understanding, thanks to the passing of some people who I was so close to, the power and emotion of one particular song:-

mp3 : The The – Love Is Stronger Than Death

The downside to an all-seated audience is an understandable reluctance to get up and dance for fear of irking the person sitting behind you. As a result, barnstorming renditions of This Is The Day, Infected and I’ve Been Waitin’ For Tomorrow (All of My Life), while getting the loudest cheers of the night in the main set, didn’t get the reaction they fully deserved other than a handful of fans moving to the side of the hall and throwing their shapes.

Matt, however, had a solution for the encore, Having given a truly wonderful solo rendition of True Happiness This Way Lies, he told us that he had spoken to the venue management while he’d been off-stage and the OK had been given for everyone to stand for the final two songs of the night which became 15 truly unforgettable minutes which sent everyone out into the night happy, buzzing and hoping that he won’t keep us waiting so long till the next visit.

mp3 : The The – Uncertain Smile
mp3 : The The – Lonely Planet

My opening line to this referred to special circumstances.

This posting hasn’t just been inspired by the gig itself, but is a the outcome of an exchange of e-mails with the wonderfully talented C, she of Sun Dried Sparrows fame.

She has never shouted about it but C has a connection with the Johnson family, initially having been close friends/neighbours with Andy and his dad, who himself sadly passed away earlier this year. She has gotten to know and become friendly with Matt over the years, although she had long appreciated much of his music with her introduction being Soul Mining in the early 80s. This comeback tour was, however, the first opportunity she ever had to go see the band which she did in Birmingham just a few days after Glasgow.

Those of you who are familiar with her blog will know that C is a terrifically articulate writer, capable of composing the most memorable of pieces no matter the subject or genre. She dropped me a note, which I only picked up on my return from Toronto, telling me that the Birmingham show had exceeded all expectations but had at times been emotionally draining, particularly from seeing the images of Andy and his work as the backdrop. She told me that she had been ‘umming and ahhing’ ever since about writing a review on her own blog but had found it very hard to be objective as things were coloured by her connections to the family and by knowing Matt as the man outside of The The. She also, very gently I must say, asked if I’d consider penning a review as, and I quote ‘it would be a joy to read it and I feel it would kind of help cover it on my behalf too, if that makes sense.’

I’ve been more than happy to accept the commission. I just hope I’ve lived up to her expectations.

JC

Suede

BLACK COAL MORNINGS

I recently got round to finally reading Coal Black Mornings, the poignant and wonderfully written autobiography from the pen of Brett Anderson that was published back in March. I won’t be the least bit surprised if it appears in many ‘Best Of’ lists come the end of the year as the reviews and the public reaction has been almost universally positive.

It certainly was a surprising read in that I had the author down as someone who had something of an comfortable and cossetted upbringing, encouraged at all times by indulgent parents to pursue an artistic or creative career. My basis for such a supposition goes back to when he and the band burst on the scene as his unshakable confidence was, in my mind, typical of someone with such an upbringing and there was never a sense that he was desperate for success to get himself out of poverty or deprivation. And besides, he had been brought up in a town called Haywards Heath in the county of Sussex in the south of England, which just all sounds the sort of place where everybody is well-off and middle/upper class.

It turns out to be far from the case. His father wasn’t close to being in the professional classes or even a tradesman, drifting from one unskilled job to the next in an era when the expectation was the male head of the family would be the breadwinner while his wife was the bread-maker. It was blue-collar upbringing on a council estate where money wasn’t easy to come by, but it was also an unconventional and untypical upbringing in many ways as dad was an obsessive classical music fan to the extent that while on jury service he refused to swear on the bible and demanded that he do so on a biography of Franz Liszt; meanwhile, mum was prone to sunbathing naked in the back garden and reflecting with sadness on her own failure to follow through her graduation from art school.

It’s a beautifully written book, which really could only have been written now that Brett is of an age to understand, thanks to his own life experiences, what his parents were really like and how everything in his childhood, teenage and formative years moulded him into the singer/performer he would later become. It’s also a book with a lot of self-deprecating humour – the author is well aware of the persona he initially created to ensure his success and he is able nowadays to laugh at his sense of self-importance and pretentiousness of the past, while always, and quite rightly, justifying his behaviour.

It’s a book which ends when you least expect it, in that Suede are on the brink of fame and fortune and so there’s nothing much about the era of Britpop, albeit there are fleeting references occasionally on the basis on what would happened to someone later on in life. He doesn’t shirk away from his doomed relationship with Justine Frischmann but doesn’t use the book to settle any old scores or air grievances, which a sign of true class. It really is one of the best musical autobiographies that I’ve read in many a year.

The only previous time I’ve featured Suede on these pages was when I gave the opportunity to again listen to the early singles and their accompanying and often majestic b-sides. I thought it would make sense today to take it to the next phase of the band, with the three singles lifted from the album Dog Man Star, released in 1994 to mixed reviews, mainly as it sounded nothing like the debut album and many felt that going forward without Bernard Butler they were doomed. I’ll admit to being less than enamoured with the album at the time as it just didn’t have the hooks of the debut while many of the other tracks on the singles didn’t come close to the brilliance of the early b-sides; but it is an album that, like many a fine Scotch, has aged superbly and it is one that I am willing to now concede does deserve to be given the highest respect and praise; so too with most of the b-sides…

mp3 : Suede – We Are the Pigs
mp3 : Suede – Killing of a Flash Boy
mp3 : Suede – Whipsnade

mp3 : Suede – The Wild Ones
mp3 : Suede – Modern Boys
mp3 : Suede – This World Needs a Father
mp3 : Suede – Eno’s Introducing The Band
mp3 : Suede – Asda Town

(warning….the ambient track mixed by Brian Eno is more than 15 minutes long….and is hard going!!)

mp3 : Suede – New Generation
mp3 : Suede – Together
mp3 : Suede – Bentswood Boys

JC

 

Sugarcubes

SOMETHING A BIT BONKERS TODAY

The third single released by Sugarcubes on One Little Indian is among the most strange and yet compelling of their entire back catalogue:-

mp3 : Sugarcubes – Deus

To begin with, Bjork sounds as if she is simply denying the existence of God….and then she seems to be singing that if in fact he did exist then she wouldn’t mind being groped or molested by him. And then to totally bamboozle listeners, Einar comes in to say that he actually once met God.

(Bjork vocal in red; Einar in purple)

Deus does not exit.
But if he does, he lives in the sky above me
In the fattest largest cloud up there
He’s whiter than white and cleaner then clean.
He wants to reach me.

Deus does not exist.
But if he does I always notice him.
Getting ready in his airy room
He’s picking his gloves so gently off
He wants to touch me.

I’m walking humbly down a tiny street
Pulling my collar it gets bigger, woooh

I once met him,
It really surprised me,
He put me in a bath tub,
Made me squeaky clean,
Really clean.

To create a universe
You must taste
The forbidden fruit.

He said hi. I said hi,
I was still clean.

Deus does not exist,
But if he does he’d want to get down from that cloud
First marzipan fingers then marble hands
More silent than silence and slower than slow
Diving towards me.

My collar is huge room for two hands,
They start at the chest and move slowly down.

I thought I had seen everything,
He wasn’t white and fluffy
He just had side burns
He just had side burns
And a quiff
He said hi.
I said hi. I was still clean
I was squeaky clean.
I was surprised.
Just as you would be.

Deus, Deus, Deus, Deus

He does not exist
He does not exist
He does not exist
He does not exist

Quite incredibly, this was almost a hit, reaching #51 in the UK singles charts in 1988 which meant that it outperformed Birthday in terms of the chart which stalled at #65 on both of the occasions it was released as a 45. Just imagine the furore in the tabloid press if Deus had been performed on Top of the Pops!

The 12″ came with two other tracks.

mp3 : The Sugarcubes – Organic Prankster
mp3 : Johnny Triumph & The Sugarcubes – Luftgitar (12″ version)

The former is very unconventional and avant-garde, even by the band’s standards and may be a bit much for non-fans to take to. The latter is in fact the UK release of new-wave style single that had come out in Iceland the previous year on Smekkleysa Records featuring Johnny Triumph, which was a name adopted by modern poet and performing artist Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson (a.k.a. Sjón, backed by a band called Sykurmolarnir, who were in fact The Sugarcubes.

That’s you got some more bizarre facts to drop into a conversation down the pub soon.

JC

Lloyd Cole

LLOYD COLE THE SOLO YEARS : 2007-2010

For the most part, the years immediately after the release of Antidepressant were spent on the road in Europe and the USA, mostly perfecting his solo shows where it was just the man on a stool, with a mic and a selection of guitars. I caught a number of shows in this period in a number of locations and, while they tended to follow a tried-and-tested formula, they were always enjoyable and entertaining.

The return to the limelight via the temporary reunion of the Commotions reunion, as well as the very positive reception afforded Antidepressant and the live shows, led to a plethora of releases in the later half of the noughties:-

August 2007 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions Live at the BBC (Vol 1) : 19 tracks lifted from sessions and a live gig at the Hammersmith Palais , all dating from 1994

August 2007 : Lloyd Cole & The Commotions Live at the BBC (Vol 2) : 16 tracks lifted from sessions in 1985 and a live gig at Glastonbury in 1986

August 2007 : Lloyd Cole Live at the BBC : 25 tracks, most of which were from a 1995 gig at Hammersmith Odeon plus a radio session that same year

January 2009 : Cleaning Out The Ashtrays – 4xCD boxset of collected b-sides, rarities, previously unreleased or alternative mixes of songs (59 tracks in all covering 1989-2006)

January 2009 : Folksinger Series Vol1 : Radio Bremen – 15 tracks from a set recorded for German radio station in 2003

January 2009 : Folksinger Series Vol2 : The Whelan – 23 tracks lifted from a three-night residency in Dublin in 2008.

In 2010, new ground was broken as fans are asked to crowdfund a new album, the songs of which had been written and tested acoustically on the road with Mark Schwaber and Matt Cullen, two musicians from Massachusetts, with the collective calling itself The Small Ensemble. The response from fans, together with support from Tapete Records, enabled a full band to be recruited and for the first time in the best part of a decade, Lloyd’s brand new album was much more than a solo offering.

Broken Record was released in September 2010. It opens with quite possibly my favourite Lloyd Cole line of all time

“Not that I had that much dignity left anyway”

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Like A Broken Record

The opening track in some ways sets the tone for a very different sort of album, featuring banjos, mandolins, pedal guitars, violins and harmony vocals that make it very Americana in texture and feel.  Sadly, the songs feel sometimes a little bit too ‘Lloyd Cole by numbers’ and to this long-time fan, it jolted somwhat and felt like a damp squib after Antidepressant. Listening again to the album in full recently for the first time in a few years, while commuting to and from work, I jotted down some notes as each song came up…here’s a couple of my thoughts:

Writers Retreat – an intro which rips off Maggie May and has a lyric just too clever for its own good

Double Happiness – this would have mustered as a b-side in the Commotions days…disappointing ending to the album

It wasn’t all negativity mind you. There’s a wonderful ballad – Flipside – which is screaming to be given the full kitchen sink of the wall of sound treatment while Westchester County Jail, Rhinestones and Oh Genevieve ( the latter written with his old sparring partner Blair Cowan) are decent enough listens.

It does seem, however, that my views on Broken Record are not in tune with many others given the critical praise handed out on its release:-

“the most consistent upbeat record Cole’s released in a dog’s age”

“a welcome surprise and a return to peak form”

“Some artists go Nashville to try and cover up for the fact they’re washed-up. But Cole, recording in Manhattan and near his Massachusetts home, never hints at that kind of desperation.”

“There are songs here every bit the equal of those from his glory days”

The last sentence does seem a bit far-fetched given this is on the album

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – If I Were A Song

One I fear wouldn’t be out-of-place on a Coldplay album with a dreadful ‘la la la la’ refrain/chorus added in for good measure.

JC

Hey! Elastica

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #130 : HEY! ELASTICA

A repeat of a past posting…..

AGGRESIVE TRASHY DANCE-POP was one of the descriptions meted out to Hey! Elastica, a short-lived but rather wonderful Edinburgh band from the early 80s who I featured more than a few times over on the old blog before google had its evil way with it.

There was a huge hype about them – visually they were quite stunning, while the sound they mad was tailor-made for radio play. The indie kids and students loved the sound and yet it had the potential to crossover to younger folk more in tune with mainstream pop. Jacques the Kipper was, like me, rather fond of them as we would discover many years later when we bonded over our tastes in music.

Hey! Elastica signed what I’m led to believe was a rather substantial contract with Virgin Records. Four flop singles and one flop album later, it was all over. October 1982 was the debut single and March 1984 was the LP. Seventeen crazy and wild months that left us with no more than 14 different songs and a load of happy memories for those of us lucky enough to ever catch them live. They could have been and should have been the Scottish B52s.

mp3 : Hey! Elastica – Eat Your Heart Out (7″ version)

JC

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

ELECTRICITY (x3)

The sleeve pictured above is the version of Electricity that I first owned. It was on Dindiscs Records and came out in early 1980.

What I didn’t realise at the time, and indeed didn’t for many years, was that this was in fact the third attempt at turning the song into a hit single, albeit the first really serious attempt as previous releases had been either via a limited run or using a mix which the band were unsure about.

It’s a complex and twisting tale….please bear with me

First Release : Factory Records (FAC6) : May 1979

The band had originally recorded Electricity, together with the b-side Almost, with Martin Zero (aka Hannett) at the helm in Cargo Studios in Rochdale. They felt, however, that it was overproduced and so, at a studio in their home city of Liverpool, they re-recorded both songs with production being shared by the band and their manager Paul Collister. As a compromise, and not wishing to totally upset the volatile Hannett, it was agreed by Factory Records that the b-side from the Cargo sessions would be used…..all of this is info is provided on the reverse of the sleeve for FAC6, which was restricted to a run of 5,000 copies:-

mp3 : OMD – Electricity (FAC6 version)
mp3 : OMD – Almost (FAC6 version)

If you’re lucky enough to have a good quality copy of this artefact, you could ask for and get in excess of £100 if you put up for sale.

Second Release : DinDisc Records (DIN2) : September 1979

The band had left Factory, enticed by a multi-album offer and decent advance by DinDisc, and the label decided to try to make an early gain by re-releasing Electricity in September 1979, but for some strange reason went with the version recorded at Cargo despite the band having previously indicated they weren’t satisfied with it:-

mp3 : OMD – Electricity (Hannett Cargo Studios version)

The version of Almost was that from the Factory single. Again, all of this info is provided on the reverse of the sleeve.

Third Release : DinDisc Records (DIN2) : March 1980

The single Red Frame White Light (DIN6) had been a minor hit in early 1980 just in advance of the release of the self-titled debut album. In an effort to keep the momentum going, Dindisc decided to re-release Electricity. The ability for confusion can be seen from the fact that they didn’t give this re-release a different catalogue number, nor did they change the front of the sleeve, although the back was different as there was no information provided about the recording process.

The piece of plastic inside the sleeve was completely different from earlier 45s as they were the versions that had been included on the debut album:-

mp3 : OMD – Electricity (album version)
mp3 : OMD – Almost (album version)

This version, if you cross-checked with the album, was produced by the band and someone called Chester Valentino, who in reality was manager Paul Collister who had been credited under his real name on the Factory version.

Told you it was complex and twisting.

In any event, the third effort at creating a hit out of Electricity came to nothing. It has, however, endured as one of the bands best-known and best-loved songs.

It was a contender for inclusion in the great debut singles series that occasionally features here, but intsead I felt the full story needed to be told.

Oh and just to complete things for you, here’s the earliest known version of the song, recorded by Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphries before they came up with the name of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.

mp3 : The ID – Electricity

And finally, the version of Almost that was recorded in Liverpool but which didn’t see light of day until its inclusion in a compilation album in 2001 (and which in my view is the best of them):-

mp3 : OMD – Almost (alternate version)

JC

Super Furry Animals

A LOVING COMPANION, A STEREO SYSTEM & A TEN-SPEED MOUNTAIN BIKE

According to the lyric in the lead song lifted from today’s featured EP, the three things in the title of this post are the answers to the question ‘What Is The Meaning Of Life?’

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Smokin’

Ice Hockey Hair EP contains four songs which Super Furry Animals felt didn’t fit in with the material they were recording for the album Radiator, their first Top 10 album released in 1997.  The title track has an unusual back story in that it was commissioned by Channel 4 for a programme about sloth as part of a series on the seven deadly sins.  The programme in question was presented by Howard Marks who had, of course, been namechecked previously by the band.

Wiki reveals that the band nipped inyo a small community recording studio in Cardiff, decided to loop a sample of a Black Uhuru track “I Love King Selassie”, playing along and writing Smokin’ completely spontaneously.

mp3 : Black Uhuru – I Love King Selassie

As for the other three tracks, Ice Hockey Hair is a 7 minute epic in which the band throw the kitchen sink, production wise and give a taster of much of what was to come in the next album, Guerilla, one which didn’t quite do so well as Radiator.  Ice Hockey Hair seems to be a Swedish description of a very bad hairstyle akin to a mullet.

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Ice Hockey Hair

The CD is completed by a short, less than two minutes long, remix of the lead song and a low-key instrumental track named after a guitar effects pedal:-

mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Mu-Tron
mp3 : Super Furry Animals – Let’s Quit Smoking

This climbed all the way to #12 in the UK singles chart and Smokin’ was given the #2 position in the NME best singles of 1998….beaten by the rather fabulous Intergalactic by The Beastie Boys.

JC

Grinderman

THE GRINDERMAN SINGLES (1)

A lazy wee occasional series.

Grinderman came into being in 2006, consisting of Nick Cave and three of his Bad Seeds, Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos and Martyn P. Casey. Having undergone an extensive and musically ambitious tour promoting Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheous in which the Bad Seeds had been expanded to include a number of backing singers, the main man wanted to get back to basics and set about writing material akin to the days of The Birthday Party back in the 80s.

Rather than any of its members, and in particular Nick Cave, making themselves available to the media to promote the project, there was instead an extensive use of social media and the internet to get word out about Grinderman with e-mails and texts going to Bad Seeds fans and followers as well as inflential bloggers.

The first ever piece of material was released in the first week of January 2007, consisting of a 7″ single-sided 45 in a limited, numbered edition.

mp3 : Grinderman – Get It On

A magnificent snorting piece of low-fi garage rock and a fabulous calling card that had many of us panting immediately for more. Having said that, a few of the more recent Cave converts, brought to the party by the duet with Kylie and much of the melancholy stuff that he was recording around the turn of the century were a tad bamboozled.

JC

Would-Be-Goods

THE CAMERA LOVES ME

Dipping into the C88 box to get some words on The Man From Delmonte for the posting a few days back also led to today’s offering.

Singer Jessica Griffin borrowed the name Would-Be-Goods from the title of an Edwardian novel, having been offered a contract by Cherry Red’s el label run by Mike Alway. Griffith’s received pronunciation gave the band a posh image, heightened by the choice of such song titles as ‘Cecil Beatson’s Scrapbook’ and ‘Pinstripe Rebel’. After 1987 debut, ‘Fruit Paradise’, Would-Be-Goods unveiled their debut album (and single) The Camera Loves Me, produced by 60s legend Keith West (ex-Tomorrow) and backed by The Monochrome Set. A second album, Mondo, appeared in 1993 and in 1999 ex-Talulah Gosh guitarist Peter Montchlioff joined. EPs and three albums ensued, the last being 2008’s Eventyr.

Here is that single from the debut album and it’s afore-mentioned b-side. Both are rather jolly, light, fluffy, twee and wonderful. Fans of The Monochrome Set will be charmed.

mp3 : Would-Be-Goods – The Camera Loves Me
mp3 : Would-Be-Goods – Cecil Beaton’s Scrapbook

The sleeve of this single features Jessica Griffin together with her sister Miranda who sings backing vocals on these track and other songs on the debut album.

JC

Ash

GOLDFINGER

Absolutely nothing to do with James Bond….and it’s not even a posting about Magazine who once did an okay cover version of the theme song made famous by Shirley Bassey back in 1964.

Instead, it is one of the finest moments in the career of Ash:-

mp3 : Ash – Goldfinger

The fourth single to be lifted from the album 1977, it was arguably the one which made them such a stand-out act in comparison with many of their peers. OK, the opening few bars owe something to Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins but once the lyric kicks in and the song slows down there’s a real sense that the 18-year old Tim Wheeler is again proving to be highly capable of writing stuff that is well beyond his tender years. It’s an ambiguous tale that could be about a young lad trying unsuccessfully to come to terms with the fact his relationship has come to an end or equally it could be from the perspective of a junkie waiting on the return of his other half with the next hit. Either way, it’s a great piece of indie-rock that climbed all the way to #5 in the UK singles charts, which remains the band’s best achievement in that respect.

There were three very different types of tracks available on the CD single:-

mp3 : Ash – I Need Somebody
mp3 : Ash – Sneaker
mp3 : Ash – Get Ready

The first is quite experimental, with a strange ever-changing tempo which sounds as if it was waiting to be put in the hands of an uber-producer who could have added strings, brass and a kitchen sink to make it into something epic.

The middle track is Ash at their loudest and fastest, the sort of track that made them so appealing to those who pogoed and those who headbanged.

The latter is indeed a cover of the 1966 hit single by The Temptations. I could be cruel and say it is an effort akin to that by a slightly better than average wedding covers band, but then again, it really is no worse than the sort of covers that Paul Weller and co had been recording 20 years earlier when they were ages with the Ash boys.

JC

Lloyd Cole

LLOYD COLE THE SOLO YEARS : 2004-06

2004 saw a renewed interest in the career of Lloyd Cole, thanks in part to a decision to briefly reform the Commotions for a select group of gigs to mark the 20th Anniversary of the release of Rattlesnakes as well as the album itself being re-released in a CD deluxe format with the second disc containing demos, concert and radio performances. There was also a cash-in 21-track compilation of singles from the band era and solo career.

As an aside, the gig at Glasgow Barrowlands in 2004 was as joyous and heart-warming a night as I’ve ever had at that particular venue, stretching back what is now 35 years.

The same year saw Lloyd begin the recording of his next solo record although it would take until August 2006 before Antidepressant was released, again on Sanctuary Records. It was a continuation of the successful formula followed on Music In A Foreign Language in that it was mostly one man and his guitar, albeit there’s a grander production and what feels like a larger budget enabling some strings to be superbly utilised, but where the last album had often been quite a dark and sad offering, there was a lot of fine self-deprecating humour on display across the latest offering, none more so than on album opener:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – The Young Idealists

There can’t have been anyone who heard when they this, either played live or when they bought the new record, who, wouldn’t have afforded themselves a wry and knowing smile. We might like to think that we still, in our mid 40s, hold the same beliefs and values as we did in our mid 20s, but you can’t ignore or discount the lessons you learn along the way.

It’s a relatively short album clocking in at around the 40 minute mark across 11 tracks, but around a quarter of the record is taken up by two lengthy and very wistful numbers, both of which display Lloyd’s ear for a tune and ability to come up with a lyric that Mr Cohen would have been proud of, especially this:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – How Wrong Can You Be?

There’s a very fine review on-line which sums up Antidepressant as “an album of songs about mid-life, its traps, compromises, disappointments, and the hidden delights found in aging. Desire is not absent in these songs, it’s merely channeled differently, and new ones pop up in the gaps where others have either been realized or forgotten.”

An absolute gem of a record and well worth picking up if you don’t already own it.

JC

 

Henry and Fleetwood

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #129 : HENRY AND FLEETWOOD

April 2015 saw the first release by Henry and Fleetwood, a collaboration involving singer/guitarist Martin John Henry (who first came to prominence with De Rosa) and harpist Gillian Fleetwood (who is best known as a member of The State Broadcasters).

The self-titled four-track EP offers a mix of ballads/folk/celtic music that, depending on your state of mind and/or sobrierty, will be moving or haunting to many listeners, although it is also fair to say that some might just not take to it.

I was lucky enough to attend the launch of the EP and be part of an audience which found the performance rather mesmerising with Martin displaying a more gentle touch than he had hitherto been known, while Gillian, for once not competing to be heard amidst her bandmates, demonstrated that a traditional instrument could still play a meaningful part in a modern setting while also contributing a backing vocal. It was all rather lovely.

mp3 : Henry and Fleetwood – On The Forest Floor (Rhiwddolion)

It was released on the quite wonderful Olive Grove Records….one of the best small labels in Scotland and run by Lloyd Meredith, quite probably the nicest and most genuine person you’ll ever come across in the music industry.

JC

Malcolm Middleton

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #188 : MALCOLM MIDDLETON

Malcolm Middleton, one half of Arab Strap, will release his latest solo album Bananas later this month. It is actually quite incredible to realise that it will be his tenth solo studio album, dating back to the bizarrely named 5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine in 2002 and incorporating Music and Words, his largely spoken-word collaboration with the artist David Shrigley in 2014 and the two efforts in 2012 and 2015 under the moniker of Human Don’t Be Angry.

So there’s plenty of material out there for an ICA, and as ever when someone who is a huge fan tries to condense it down to ten songs, there is much anguish as a personal favourite misses the cut. Much of what follows is drawn from the period 2005-2009 when Malcolm was particularly prolific, releasing four genuinely impressive albums back-to-back, all of which contained his trademark guitar playing and were packed with superb lyrics, often very self-deprecating to the extent of being on the verge of despair, but at other times laugh-out-loud funny with the most wonderfully astute observations on life. Oh and the boy also pens a magnificent love song when the mood takes him.

If you’re not familiar with his work, then I hope you find this to be a good place to start and then you’ll go explore further. Trust me on this one, you won’t regret it.

SIDE A

1. Loneliness Shines (from Into The Woods, 2005)

There are days when I think Into The Woods could well be my favourite Scottish album of all time. This is one of many outstanding tracks, racing along at a fair old pace as Malcolm ponders on why things just never seem to ever work out the way he planned. He also namechecks Falkirk High, the main line rail halt of his home town, as his favourite place for the fact that it can offer both an escape and a return to familiar territory….not that he has any intention of doing the former to lead to the latter.

Give me a mile and a destination
My favorite place is Falkirk High Station
Metal rails stretch off towards life
And I’m just waiting

2. Blue Plastic Bags (from Sleight of Heart, 2008)

A 21st century companion to Bedsitter by Soft Cell in which, we are reminded, thanks to everyone being skint, staying in is the new going out….and that singing along with the sad songs isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The whole world’s going home with blue plastic bags
Six bottles of Stella, Jacob’s Creek and twenty fags
And you know there is no shame
Because we’re all doing the same

3. Choir (from Into The Woods, 2005)

One of the saddest and most poignant songs I have in my entire collection.

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything about Malcolm directly having struggles with his mental health, although many of his lyrics do cover feelings of despair and do feel like the work of someone who has personal experience of anxiety attacks, depression and fears of self-harm; perhaps it isn’t him and he is/has been very close to someone in such a situation. This is an astonishingly moving number that was the subject of a reverential cover a couple of years later by King Creosote.

There’s a choir behind me egging me on
Placing their bets and hoping I’ll do no wrong
I’ll do no wrong
There’s a guy inside me biding his time
Standing in line and waiting for me to fall
For me to fall
Self-preservation threatens us all
Health deterioration comes to us all

4. Red Travellin’ Socks (from Waxing Gibbous, 2009)

The ICA has to go immediately upbeat and there’s no better way than this, the lead-off single from album #5. It deals with familiar territory to many singer/songwriters, namely that being out on the road earning an honest crust can be quite lonely and soul-destroying, especially when the one you love cannot be with you. In Malcolm’s case, he gets a daily reminder when he puts on his freshly washed favourite pair of socks:-

I’ve grown to hate you red travellin’ socks
You take me away from the one I love
All you have is distance and time
I’m out of sight but I’m on her mind
Take me home, take me home

But, being Malcolm Middleton, there is a sting in the tale. He’s no sooner back home in the arms of his beloved than he’s concluding that noth he and his beloved are better off when he’s out on the road:-

It’s time to dig out my travellin’ socks
The walls are shrinking and I think that I’ve got
Itchy feet and you’re needing your space
You’re starting to look like you’re sick of my face
Sick of my face, sick of my face

5. Human Don’t Be Angry (from Human Don’t Be Angry, 2012)

Malcolm toured a great deal between 2005 and 2010, during which he also released an excellent double CD of live recordings, Long Dark Night/Live in Zurich, one of which was just him and his acoustic guitar and the other was with the full touring band. He announced towards the end of the Waxing Gibbous tour that he was taking time off to go and do something a bit different, but very few fans expected an album of near instrumental music which highlighted his love of 80s electronica in all its forms. It was a brave move, and for the most part it worked, leading to a nomination for the Scottish Album of the Year, albeit some of the tracks took a bit of getting used to. The album opener, however, remains an imperious piece of music and is a great way to close out your first side of the ICA

SIDE B

1. Break My Heart (from Into The Woods, 2005)

As I said when I previously penned some thoughts on the album, even when something good comes into Malcolm’s life all he can think about I how inevitably it will all go wrong again at some point in the near future. In this instance, he’s fallen in love which is clearly a good thing. Or is it? After all, it’s only a matter of time before the relationship ends and he’ll be in pieces. But then again…if he does get heartbroken then he can get back to writing the songs that make him a decent musician. Only problem is, he likes being in love….

You’re gonna break my heart I know it
But if you don’t
You’re gonna break my run of unhappiness and destroy my career
I’d rather feel full than sing these shit songs
I’ll sell my guitar and never look back

2. Cold Winter (from 5:14 Fluoxytine….2002)

See that opening remark I made about the boy penning a magnificent love song when the mood takes him? Life is so full of regrets…..

Behind everything I do stares the cold truth I don’t have you.
I still love you, I must be the world’s biggest fool.
Everyday I wish you weren’t so braw coz I miss you.
How am I supposed to unmake the world’s biggest mistake

3. A Brighter Beat (from A Brighter Beat, 2007)

“We all get comfort from knowing that other people are uncomfy too. To me, this is a support anthem for people who find it hard leaving the house sometimes or socialising in general. If you’re on your own at home and feeling depressed it’s funny to think there’s millions of other people feeling exactly the same.”

This was Malcolm’s own take on the title track of his third album; the key word here is ‘anthem’ for it’s a joyously, upbeat and happy sounding number underpinned by keyboards and a great contribution on the violin and backing vocals by Jenny Reeve who proved to be an essential mainstay of the touring band for years.

4. Monday Night Nothing (from Into The Woods, 2009)

Another on which Jenny Reeve features prominently, on another self-deprecating song in which Malcolm thinks about all the things that make him miserable before concluding that in fact he’s happy.

But, as there’s always some sort of but in the optimistic songs……

Well, it’s only a matter of time
Before I feel like shit again
I’m a happy army marching to defeat

5. Superhero Songwriters (from A Brighter Beat, 2007)

A near seven-minute epic which closes that particular album and is my choice to see out this ICA. It’s the manifesto of life and work according to Malcolm Bruce Middleton, musician and lyricist extraordinaire.

Superhero songwriters
Fixing to change the world from our rooms
Maybe I should stick to writing wills
‘Cause I’m no good at finding ways
Superhero songwriter
Super-cliché
Chorus finder
I can feel a blue moon coming my way
Any day

More info, including how to buy his solo material, can be found here.

JC

Mercury Rev

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #187 : MERCURY REV

A GUEST POSTING by SWC

from The Sound of Being OK

Like the ginger one in Frozen once (partly) sang, for the first time in forever, I’m going to need a little help.

I’ll explain why.

As you will now know, KT wrote an ICA on the Manics,that was chosen for her by my iPod. Yesterday it was my turn to have a band selected for me, an even roll of a small red dice meant KT and an odd roll mean the iPod of Lord Badger of Bovey Tracey. I rolled a three. So Badger it was.

Roughly two hours later Badger reached track eleven on his iPod. He sends the email over.

“I’m sorry for this, track eight was Muse (and we’ve done them), track nine was Elastica, which would have been fun but rather first album heavy, and track ten was Crystal Castles, which you would have really enjoyed writing (true). Track Eleven was ‘A Drop In Time’ by Mercury Rev. I guess we could swap tracks ten and eleven around, only you and me would ever know”.

I sat and pondered this last sentence. It’s true that I would much rather write an ICA on Crystal Castles than I would Mercury Rev. I own like seven tracks by Mercury Rev, for years I avoided them after their (old) singer punched/slapped me in the face back in 1992 after he thought I called him a fat bastard (I didn’t, Graham did) outside Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone.

So I have to admit I was tempted. Then the realisation hit me that if I had Badger to thank for this ICA, that meant by the law of averages, he was going to have his ICA picked for him by the iPod of KT. Now, I’ve journeyed three hundred miles in KT’s car with the iPod on shuffle and I only recognised about three songs. It’s full of pop music, cheesy dance music and Outkast. Badger will never be able to write an ICA on Kelli Clarkson or James Morrison.

So I reply.

“Nope, Mercury Rev it is, but I will need you to send me over a bunch of tracks, because I own virtually nothing by them”. Three hours later I have a memory stick containing 42 tracks and a note saying, “this should see you right – remember no more than 4 singles, must contain a B Side or a cover or remix and have at least 4 album tracks. That’s the rules”.

Ok. Let’s do this.

Side One

Planet Caravan – Taken from ‘the Dark is Rising’ Single (and a Peel Session)

‘Planet Caravan’ was once described by one of Black Sabbath (I forget which one, definitely not Ozzy Osbourne though) as the sound of ‘floating through the universe with your lover’. Now, if you remove the every word of that apart from ‘floating’ you have an almost perfect description of Mercury Rev’s music. Their version of this is rather lovely as it happens, the vocals shimmer majestically over a backdrop of tinkling effects and barely there guitars.

Endlessly – Taken from Deserters Songs

Ok, I’ll get this out of the way now, there will be a lot of stuff from ‘Deserter’s Songs’ on this ICA because it is a pretty flawless album with not a second wasted. ‘Endlessly’ is a brilliant example of how good it is. It starts with this wailing that reminds me of the sort of music you used to get on 60s Hollywood melodramas starring the likes of Rock Hudson. That makes way to a quiet little vocal, an acoustic guitar and flute combo that at times comes at you like a misplaced Christmas Carol. All of which evokes the old tingly Goosebumps feeling.

Tides of The Moon – Taken from All Is Dream

I was dragged to see Mercury Rev at Glastonbury a few years back, and as I sat on the grass by the Other Stage trying not to listen I did a bit of people watching. When they played this, which was, if you ask me, the highlight of their set, I saw at least five grown men reached into their handily placed manbags and put on sunglasses. The sun was setting and the sunglasses were barely needed. That folks, is how good this song is. So good you need sunglasses to listen to it.

Chasing A Bee – taken from ‘Yerself Is Steam’

This is track one, side one of their debut album and it might just be the best thing that they recorded with David Baker on singing duties. The way his shifts from calm to angst, from humour to passion has to be heard to be believed. Then you get this amazing chorus and then you get something which I am struggling to even write, a brilliant flute riff. Yup, you read that right.

Goddess on a Hiway – From Deserters Songs

Which is easily the bands best song. A song which pulls on the heartstrings every time you listen to it. Donahue’s little cry of ‘I know it ain’t gonna last’ stirs emotions inside people that they didn’t even know they had. It is captivating, it is gorgeous, it is devastating and remains to this day a stunning piece of music. A track that is so vital to this band that if you suddenly deleted everything else that they had ever recorded, and just left this, it really wouldn’t matter.

Side Two

Lincolns Eyes – From ‘All is Dream’

In which Mercury Rev go all spooky and cinematic for a good seven minutes or so. Donahue adopts a creaky falsetto voice that sets us a series of creeping riddles that you think he wants us to solve but in reality he is just filling us in on the doubts that are rooted in his mind, nagging away at him.

Little Rhymes – from ‘All is Dream’

Turns out that I have included as much from ‘All is Dream’ as I have ‘Deserters Songs’ in this ICA. I think this largely because these are the two albums which showcase the band at their peak. This is track has a lovely little country inspired hue to it and is you ask me is slightly more commercial that most of their other tracks.

Tonite It Shows – From Deserters Songs

There are two things about this track. Firstly, the string arrangement on it reminds me of a Disney film. Secondly, Donahues voice on this, is spellbinding. The way he delivers the line ‘The way I lit your cigarette’ takes your breath away. It is immaculate.

The Dark Is Rising – From All Is Dream

At the start of this you get a load of strings sweeping in and crashing cymbals and you think ‘oh here we go, epic song alert’. Then all that stops and this sombre little piano starts up and you get something very different. Then the strings and cymbals are back conjuring up images of waves, darkness and stars twinkling away. Obviously there a thinly veiled messages about hope and fears going on here but underneath all that, this is very very good indeed.

Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp – From Deserters Songs

You know what I said up there about ‘Goddess on a Highway’ and deleting everything else they have ever recorded because that track is all you really need. Well ignore it. You need this track as well. Its nearly as good ‘Goddess on a Hiway’ but not quite, I’d still say that it’s something you need to own until your ears stop working though.

SWC

bonus track added by JC

Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp (Chemical Brothers Remix)

Just because. (it’s a b-side and a remix)

Man From Delmonte

ANOTHER FINE SINGLE ON UGLY MAN

The double posting on The Desert Wolves late last week brought to my attention that The Man From Delmonte were another band who were on Ugly Man Records. I’ve a few of their tracks, mostly picked from compilations, with one 7″ single in the collection picked up second-hand a few years back. The a-side of the single was put into the C88 boxset by Cherry Red Records the other year with the accompanying booklet offering these words:-

Although a Manchester band, The Man From Delmonte (taking their name from a fruit juice ad) had more in common with the art world than the Manchester music scene as three of then had been painters or were involved in the gallery scene. Signed to Guy Lovelady’s influential Ugly Man label (responsible for early singles by Black and Elbow), the band debuted with the jaunty ‘Drive Drive Drive’. The more accomplished indie hit, ‘(Will Nobody Save) Louise’, was a loquacious, keening lament complete with brass interlude, that showcased guitarist Mike West’s fine song-writing talents.

And here is said single and b-side:-

mp3 : The Man From Delmonte – (Will Nobody Save) Louise
mp3 : The Man From Delmonte – The Good Things In Life

The band actually released three singles on Ugly Man. These are the others:-

mp3 : The Man From Delmonte – Drive Drive Drive
mp3 : The Man From Delmonte – Water In My Eyes

They then left the label to sign for Bop Cassettes for whom there was an EP with this being the lead track:-

mp3 : The Man From Delmonte – Waiting For Anne

Before a glorious farewell single, which I first heard years ago courtesy of a tape from Jacques the Kipper, which I’m convinced is their finest moment.

mp3 : The Man From Delmonte – My Love Is Like A Gift You Can’t Return

As I said last week, anyone who wants to fire over a guest post on a long-lost/forgotten singer or band, then please be my guest.

JC

Trashcan Sinatras

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #186 : TRASHCAN SINATRAS

A GUEST POSTING by CRAIG McALLISTER

PLAIN OR PAN – OUTDATED MUSIC FOR OUTDATED PEOPLE SINCE 2007

If ever a band were to benefit from a Greatest Hits collection – and I use the term ‘Hits’ very loosely – The Trashcan Sinatras would be that band. With the right marketing and management and all those things that the Trashcans are seemingly so averse to, or just plain bad at, a TCS Best Of could do for them what similar collections have done for acts like Crowded House or James, acts whose definitive compilations are owned by every second home in the UK (pre Spotify statistic, clearly) and as such have helped those acts become household names. If the purpose of a compilation is to bring the artist’s music to a wider audience and perhaps encourage new listeners to dig deeper into that band’s back catalogue, then notwithstanding record company politics, bankruptcy and the shadow of misfortune that seems to lurk around every corner the Trashcans are about to walk ‘round, they really should’ve put one together by now.

Over a course of nigh on 30 years as a living, breathing, touring, recording band (their origins go even further back) they have amassed a small but perfect back catalogue; just 6 studio albums and twice as many singles over their course of time, with the most recent, Wild Pendulum, a still-fresh two years old.

Somewhere along the way they changed from the triple Trash Can Sinatras to the double Trashcan Sinatras (my theory is it’s something nasty to do with lawyers and the avoidance of hefty demands for heftier bills) but they’ve managed to maintain, nay, nurture and grow their magical way with a well-crafted tune. Every one of those half dozen albums oozes tuneage, melody and the world-weary uplifting melancholy that has come to define the band in recent years. Now based between California (original members Frank Reader and Paul Livingston) and the West of Scotland (Davy Hughes and brothers John and Stephen Douglas), their songs take longer than other bands’ to arrive, but when they do they’re as finely tuned as a workshop-fresh racing bike; lean, beautiful and designed for the long road ahead. The Trashcans’ music endures. At their recent Glasgow show in Oran Mor you could’ve put together a brilliant 20 song set of material they chose not to play.

I’ve been there with them since (almost) the very outset. The mid 80s in Irvine was a fertile breeding ground for creative talent. There were dozens of original local bands. Amongst others, the scene (and it really was a scene) gave the world the polar-opposite writers John Niven and Andrew O’ Hagan as well as Andy Kerr who’d go on to play in short-lived 4AD ‘baggy’ act Spirea X, and the Trashcans.

When they signed to Go! Discs at the end of the decade, the Trashcans bought a run-down studio in Kilmarnock, renamed it Shabby Road and rented out rehearsal rooms to many of their pals in local bands. I think I’m right in saying a pre taps-aff Biffy Clyro would often take advantage of the cheap rooms to thrash out their own Nirvana-lite, Asda-priced take on grunge as they hatched their plans for bearded world domination. My own band (Sunday Drivers, since you’re reading) was downstairs, directly underneath the Trashcans’ room. Occasionally, in- between our enthusiastic clatter and arguments over who was playing too loud, you’d hear a snatch of Only Tongue Can Tell thudding dully through the floorboards. Sometimes, I’d come in to a band rehearsal and find a tape on top of my amp with a wee note from Paul – “Here’s some new tunes, what d’you think? They might end up as b-sides at some point.” They were great at that, the Trashcans. If they trusted your opinion, you got to hear their new recordings ages before anyone else. All those tapes and notes I still have, of course.

At Shabby Road the kettle was always on. If you were lucky there might’ve been milk in the fridge. If you were really lucky you might’ve spotted Half Man Half Biscuit playing football in the ‘garden’ at the side or The Stairs blagging guitar strings or a pre-fame John Grant hanging out with his band The Czars. And if you were really, really lucky, you might’ve been there when John Leckie mixed the band’s third single Circling The Circumference, giving it one of those epoch-defining Stone Roses whooshes in the middle. I was fortunate enough to sit in as Worked A Miracle, from their 2nd album, I’ve Seen Everything was magnetised to tape with producer Ray Shulman at the desk. He pondered adding a cello to the mix as he was quite taken with how PJ Harvey had used one on her just-released debut LP. He also told a funny story about working with Bjork while Stephen reassembled his drum kit in the corridor outside the studio office. The acoustics were better there, it was agreed. Heady days.

Anyway, the compilation. As with those recent TCS gigs, you could leave out a perfect set of songs and still go home thrilled at what the band played, so it goes without saying this is an impossible task. You can disagree, debate and deliberate, but you can’t argue that, as far as 10-track introductions go to bands, this is one of the finest you could ever hope to hear;

1. All The Dark Horses

When all the wrongs of the world are righted and the error of peoples’ ways pointed out and repaired, All The Dark Horses will play forever on an endless loop, gaining momentum and gathering new fans with each consecutive giddy play. It’s ultra-melodic, features a great wall of gnarled and chiming guitars and the funkiest bassline (funky isn’t a word you’d normally associate with the TCS) this side of Parliament. By the time the band has galloped their way to the key change and the Hawaii-by-way-of-Hurlford guitar break, you may well be crying tears of joy. I am in happy floods as it plays right now while I type.

2. Hayfever

I’ve Seen Everything is the 2nd Trashcans’ album and was recently voted 2nd-best Scottish album ever in a poll in the Glasgow Herald. For a long time it was my own personal favourite TCS album, the rough ‘n ragged follow-up to the pop sheen of debut album Cake. ISE is full of great Trashcans tracks, yet for this compilation, only two tracks from it make the cut.

Even the services of a top producer (Ray Shulman) couldn’t quite clean up the scuffs on the knees of Hayfever, and why would you want to? Rolling along on a piano line that’s eerily reminiscent of Foreigner’s Cold As Ice – a happy accident, surely. Surely? – Hayfever has oft been a pivotal Trashcans’ live moment. Despite one foot half-dipped in sophisto-pop, it packs a punkish punch, with a great swelling build as it nears its chaotic end. “Moscow’s in Ayrshire, what’s the problem?” asks Frank. In concert, that “problem” is often phrased with a Johnny Rotten-esqe roll of the r. Prrrrrroblem. Seek out the live version from Paris’96 if you want to hear it done with feeling.

3. I’ll Get Them In

By Trashcans’ standards, I’ll Get Them In is a fairly low-key track. When A Happy Pocket was released and toured it was regularly aired on stages from Perth to Portland but in recent times it’s dropped off the radar a wee bit, which is a shame. It’s carried along on an easy to play descending acoustic guitar riff, some trademark TCS major 7ths in the chorus and gentle warm and understated Hammond towards the end.

I’m picking this track for purely selfish reasons. I’ve never asked any of the band directly, but I’m fairly certain that huge chunks of the lyrics relate to a night spent in The Crown in Irvine with Paul, the future Mrs Pan and myself. Paul, just back from a US tour showed us photos – the band in airports holding guitar cases, mainly – and told us stories of the tour.

The “anecdote about the argument with the singer from Jellyfish,” and “the secretive call to some friends of mine for the gift of £20, just enough to get us pished,” certainly fit my memory of the time, so I’m claiming the glory of being the inspiration.

Paul’s “second-hand jacket from the fire brigade” was sold on a subsequent tour to Ian McNabb of The Icicle Works. As far as I know, he still wears it to this day.

4. The Safecracker

The Safecracker is a masterpiece in lyric writing and uplifting melancholy. It tells the story of a crook caught out by a combination of the moon, misplaced nails and general bad luck. It’s the melody attached to the brilliant lyrics though that elevates a simple story song into the dizzy heights of greatness. “As fly to tarantuala, as jugular to Dracula… to me and my Ford Spectacular, you’ll be drawn.” That’s a line worthy of Tom Waits, that is.

Musically, it features that classic TCS thing of John’s acoustic guitar carrying the tune while Paul’s electric adds the light and shade, the dynamics to it. The dulcimer seemed to be a favourite instrument during the recording of The Safecracker’s parent album A Happy Pocket, and it’s all over this track like a happy jangling rash.

One of the finest songs in the band’s back catalogue, The Safecracker has long been a staple of live shows. The extended second verse – “they call me thrifty….I count out £2.50…” – when it builds and builds before dropping once more to the chorus is always sublime, even if the chorus steals just a fraction of the melody from Carole King’s You’ve Got A Friend. What’s the world coming to though if a song about stealing can’t purloin the odd decent melody here and there, eh?

5. Got Carried Away

“You shoulda popped into the studio yesterday,” mentioned Paul as I bumped into him in Kilmarnock’s King Street on a day off from recording. “Norman Blake was there so we got him in to do some vocals on a new track. I think you’re gonnae like it. The whole album actually. Wait till you hear it. It’s gonnae be massive. And I mean ‘Rumours’ massive. Believe me!”

On record, Got Carried Away rolls with lazy abandon, the drums falling in behind the rhythm of the twin guitars, the simple bass line keeping it together. Franks’ vocal is terrific, a world-weary and lightly toasted croon of resignation. “Hey, it doesn’t matter,” he accepts. “Hey, we’ll work it out.” Slide guitar weeps all over the verses. Electric guitar chimes throughout the chorus. The moonlighting Norman Blake provides those slightly hard-to-hear harmonies.

Again, once those worldly wrongs have been righted, Weightlifting (Got Carried Away’s parent album)may well go on to be the equal of Fleetwood Mac’s gazillion-seller. Until then, it’ll sit proudly at the top of the tree; the best Trashcan Sinatras album so far.

6. Obscurity Knocks

The sadly prophetic debut single- number 86 with a bullet and almost* all downhill from there-on in – introduced the world to the Trashcans on a bed of frantically scrubbed acoustics, a lightning fast solo straight outta Roddy Frame’s Big Book Of Flashy Fretboard Wizardry and an unashamedly Scottish vocal. Early Trashcans was packed full of word play and clever puns and Obscurity Knocks runs the whole gamut. “The calendar’s cluttered with days that are numbered,” it goes, and in terms of those damned chart positions (should such things still matter to the band) it probably is, but despite their lack of commercial success, the TCS plough gamely ever onwards.

Recent live shows have seen the band play Obscurity Knocks with something approaching a feral post-punk aggression and you’ll be hard-pushed to find anyone who has a problem with that.

*Hayfever is the highest-charting TCS single, having crept to the dizzy heights of number 61 in 1993

7. How Can I Apply?

It’s Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time, innit? Well, it is, until the chords kick in and How Can I Apply? skims along like a well-polished stone across the River Irvine, a mid-paced TCS shuffler with the band drawing upon all their strengths; a melody to die for sung beautifully, chiming guitars, a slinky solo (the twang’s the thang, baby) and some beautiful, understated keyboard work. Nothing more need be said about one of the band’s most enduring numbers.

8. Usually

If you were to Google an audio dictionary and look up the word ‘sublime’, it would play you Usually.

Usually is a grower. It’s not got the pop-hit feel of others nor the introspective melancholy that defines much of TCS’ slower material, but it has a terrific intro (subtly panned from speaker to speaker) that repeats a couple of times through the song; all tumbling, echoing, climbing, shimmering guitar notes. Clipped guitars make way for arpeggiated runs, wonky chords and a subtle string section. “Slide out of my life,” sings Frank with resigned despair, as Paul’s slide guitar wah wahs its way into orbit, flying on a rocket ship made once more from gossamer-thin major 7ths. Romeo Stodart of The Magic Numbers once told me, with spot-on accuracy, that Usually was the equal of a Bacharach ballad.

That part when the vocals fall over one another – “Usually, usually, usuall-ee-ee…” Pure Beach Boys. And there ain’t no greater praise than that. Usually wouldn’t at all sound out of place on any one of those under-appreciated 70s Beach Boys albums. I wonder if Brian Wilson has ever heard it.

9. Orange Fell

Orange Fell is all about the crescendo. It always reminds me of Twin Peaks music; pretty, far-off and slightly sinister with a sudden, final ending. It’s a fantastic mood song and would sound great sound-tracking a scene in a David Lynch movie. You can sing it, but it’s more likely you’ll just want to turn it up and let your head swim in it. “Drifting….drifting…stickleback waters…” It’s a song about childhood or of days gone by or of failed relationships. Actually, I don’t have a clue what it’s about. Like all the best music though, I’ve my own interpretation.

Listening to it as I am right now, it takes me back to summer holidays of a childhood long-gone, of playing down at the River Annick in the same spot where the police frogmen searched for the body of Sandy Davidson in 1976, of times when summers lasted entire years and the weather was always sticky hot. “Come home when it starts to get dark,” we were told in the days long before mobile phones. When the sodium started to burn on the streetlights and the orange fell, casting its fiery glow into the twilight, you headed home. Wee Sandy never, ever did.

I think I’m correct in saying this is Guy Garvey’s favourite Trashcans’ track. Wouldn’t he just give his right arm, or even his Elbow, to write a track as perfect as this one.

10. Co-Stars

A rarity, an obscurity, a beauty.

“Blue soft light on Ailsa Craig. The feelin’, freewheeling’ up Electric Brae.
And lettin’ all I have roll away, was dare I say, defiance of science in its own way.”

If you’re from Ayrshire, this’ll make sense. If you’re not from Ayrshire you’ll still marvel at the majesty of such a great lyric. Straight from the land of Burns, it’s pure poetry.

Like all the best TCS songs, this starts downbeat and low-key then soars in the chorus. It ebbs and flows between the verses, enhanced by all manner of sky-scraping eerie slide guitar, full fat acoustics and a terrific piano line, creeping around the periphery of the main instruments but pinning the whole thing together.

As I type I’ve just noticed, for the first time, a complementary backing vocal somewhere low-down towards the end. See, the Trashcans sometimes make you work for your listening pleasure, but it’s all the better for it.

And there you have it. Ten tracks o’ Trashcans.

Folk’ll say, “But you didn’t include ______ or _____ or even ______.” Pure and simple, the Trashcans are victims of their own high watermark. As far as sequencing goes, it generally gets slower as it nears the end, a coincidental metaphor for the band’s output with each successive album. Feel free to re-sequence or stick on shuffle – this is music for pleasure, so play it as you fancy. And play it often.

Craig McAllister, 28th August 2018

Ramones

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #185 : THE RAMONES

AN EPIC GUEST POSTING by Dirk

of Sexy Loser fame

Hello friends,

as I said to JC: I really think this ICA – thingy wouldn’t be complete without an entry about The Ramones, surely one of the finest bands who ever walked the earth. If you are one of those rare creatures who never heard of them: four blokes from New York, all with the same surname, equally bad haircuts, a different drummer all the time, all dead by now. And what they really say at the start of ‘Pinhead’ is: “Gabba gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us”: that’s all you need to know basically.

So here you are, problem though is that everything has already been said and wrote about The Ramones, there are no clever anecdotes of my own I could come with for your enjoyment! Apart from one, that is. You’ll find it at the very end of this essay. So what I did eventually just was a copy/paste – job, because I found some quotes on various sites which could turn out to be of some interest at least. You can sue me later, Wikipedia …

Also the tunes should – at least by and large – be known by heart by everybody, so big surprises cannot be expected below, I’m afraid.

So, perhaps, at the end of the day this ICA will only make those of you happy, who, like me, had the chance to see the band live a few times within the last decades. And weren’t they just marvelous each and every time?! Hearing the songs again will bring back excellent memories of their gigs, that’s for sure. At least it worked for me!

With an output of 14 studio plus a few live albums in their career, it wasn’t that easy for me to decide for ten songs only. So I went the comfortable way, as I so often do, and concentrated on the first ten studio albums and chose one song from each of them. You see, I’ve been listening to these records for – partly – 40 years now, and of course there are some songs which I like a bit better than I like others. This changes on a daily basis though.

So here are my choices for today, folks, enjoy!

01 – ‘Beat On The Brat‘ (from “Ramones” (1976): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy)

“When I lived in Birchwood Towers in Forest Hills with my mom and brother, it was a middle-class neighborhood, with a lot of rich, snotty women who had horrible spoiled brat kids. There was a playground with women sitting around and a kid screaming, a spoiled, horrible kid just running around rampant with no discipline whatsoever. The kind of kid you just want to kill. You know, ‘beat on the brat with a baseball bat’ just came out. I just wanted to kill him.” (Joey)

02 – ‘Suzy Is A Headbanger’ (from ‘Leave Home’ (1977): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy)

“Suzy Is a Headbanger” was inspired by the 1947 film noir ‘Nightmare Alley’, with the lyrics detailing a female involved in the punk rock scene.

Most of the songs were written in the band member’s homes, rather than at a studio; “Suzy Is a Headbanger” was written in drummer Tommy Ramone‘s loft apartment. Joey Ramone later recalled:

“I wrote most of the stuff I contributed at my apartment in Forest Hills before I left and moved back to a place in the city. I had no amp at home, just an electric guitar. I recorded it onto a cassette and played that back at rehearsal. We had better production, we were playing a little faster, and we had a lot of songs accumulated. We were in really good shape for that album.”

03 – ‘Rockaway Beach’ (from ‘Rocket To Russia’ (1977): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy)

“Rockaway Beach” was written by bassist Dee Dee Ramone, and was inspired by the Beach Boys along with other surf music bands. The title refers to a neighborhood and beach in Queens which Dee Dee was a fan of, as confirmed by Tommy and Joey.

04 – ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ (from ‘Road To Ruin’ (1978): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Marky)

“I Wanna Be Sedated” was described by the author Brian J. Bowe as one of the band’s “most classic” pieces of music. After a show in London, Joey told manager Linda Stein: “Put me in a wheelchair and get me on a plane before I go insane”. This quote would be the chorus to “I Wanna Be Sedated”, whose lyrics invoke the stress which the band was under during touring. It is the most downloaded song from the catalog by The Ramones.

05 – ‘Danny Says’ (from ‘End Of The Century’ (1980): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Marky)

“Danny Says”, the third track, was a lyrical depiction of what the band constantly went through while touring—soundchecks, autograph sessions, interviews, etc. The title “Danny Says” refers to the band’s tour manager Danny Fields giving the members instructions, schedules, and demands. According to Joey, the ballad was inspired by Lou Reed, who had released the songs “Candy Says” and “Caroline Says”. Joey’s brother Mickey Leigh called the song a “masterpiece” and said it “remains one of the most captivatingly beautiful songs I’ve ever heard.”

The album was produced by Phil Spector , famous through his work with The Ronettes, The Righteous Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner, The Beatles and John Lennon, among others.

During the studio work, Spector’s recording methods were different from those the Ramones were accustomed to from their four previous studio albums. The band recorded their earlier compositions in the shortest time possible for the lowest feasible budget, with a relatively low production value. With End of the Century, the band experienced Spector’s infamous perfectionism, and a budget of $200,000 to fully record and produce the album.

This method of recording caused conflicts to arise. Bassist Dee Dee Ramone wrote of Spector’s obsessive techniques: “Phil would sit in the control room and would listen through the headphones to Marky hit one note on the drum, hour after hour, after hour, after hour.” During the recording of “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School”, Johnny was forced by Spector to repeat his part hundreds of times over the course of several hours. Sire Records owner Seymour Stein relates: “To Johnny, this must have been like the Chinese water torture.”

06 – ‘The KKK Took My Baby Away’ (from ‘Pleasant Dreams’ (1981): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Marky)

During early stages of the album’s development, Joey was dating Linda Danielle. After the album was released, however, Danielle left Joey and became Johnny’s girlfriend. Ramones’ road manager Monte Melnick relates: “Joey was devastated. It affected him deeply. Johnny knew it was bad and kept Linda totally hidden from that point on. She didn’t come to many shows and if she did he’d hide her in the back; she wouldn’t come backstage. He’d run out to meet her and leave as soon as they were done.” While Johnny would eventually marry Linda, Joey held a strong grudge against them both, and, though they continued to perform and tour together, the two rarely talked to each other. Joey explained that Johnny had crossed the line once he started dating Danielle, and noted that he destroyed the relationship and the band right there. Johnny defended himself by stating that had Danielle not left Joey for him, “he wouldn’t have even been talking about her and saying how much he loved her because he wouldn’t have been obsessed about it.”

Though it was long rumored that the album’s third track, “The KKK Took My Baby Away” was written about Johnny stealing Joey’s girlfriend, the song was reportedly written some time before Joey had found out about this. Joey’s brother Mickey Leigh relates: “The fluky connection between Johnny and the KKK raised a specter that keeps friends and fans speculating to this day. At the time, though, it had to be an unusual situation for him being that, as often happens with song lyrics, his words now took on a whole new meaning.”

07 – ‘Little Bit O’ Soul’ (from ‘Subterranean Jungle’ (1983): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Marky)

Johnny obtained more control over the musical style because the band members experienced conflict amongst themselves, specifically rooted in each member—excluding Johnny—facing issues with addiction. Both Joey and drummer Marky Ramone were dealing with alcoholism, while bassist Dee Dee Ramone was severely addicted to cocaine and was undergoing psychotherapeutic treatment.

In the cover photograph, Marky is featured peering out the subway window—Marky was positioned this way after Johnny asked photographer George DuBose to do so because “they were kicking him out of the band, but he didn’t know it yet.” Marky recalled that he “liked that shot, but [he] knew something was up.”

“I was lying on my bed, watching Kojak when Joey calls me and says, ‘Mark, I feel bad about this, but, uh, you can’t be in the band anymore.’ I deserved it. Joey was okay about it, but the others, forget it. No one called me after that. If it was today, Joey would’ve said, ‘Why don’t we take off for a month and you get sober?’ But I didn’t want to tell Joey or the band about my being in rehab, because I would’ve been admitting my guilt.” (Marky Ramone)

The album opens with two cover songs, the first, “Little Bit O’ Soul”, was originally written by John Carter and Ken Lewis. The second track, “I Need Your Love”, was first performed by Bobby Dee Waxman. Johnny thought that the fact that the album featured three covers (the third one being ‘Time Has Come Today’, originally by The Chambers Brothers) was a bad idea, saying, “we shouldn’t have, but I was happy with the guitar sound on it.”

08 – ‘Daytime Dilemma (Dangers Of Love)’ (from ‘Too Tough To Die’ (1984): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Richie)

The album marked the debut of new drummer Richie Ramone, who replaced Marky Ramone after he was fired for excessive drinking. The album’s lyrics were written mainly by guitarist Johnny Ramone and bassist Dee Dee Ramone, while lead singer Joey Ramone did not participate in the process as much as usual because he “wasn’t feeling well” prior to recording. Joey did, however, write the lyrics for “Daytime Dilemma (Dangers of Love)” after receiving help with the guitar part by Daniel Rey. Johnny Ramone recalled:

“As we got ready to make ‘Too Tough To Die’, we were focused in the same direction, and it made a difference. We knew we needed to get back to the kind of harder material we’d become known for. The pop stuff hadn’t really worked, and we knew we were much better off doing what we did best.”

09 – ‘My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg)’ (from ‘Animal Boy’ (1986): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Richie)

Side B begins with one of the band’s only politically based songs, “My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)”. The lyrics comprised Joey, Dee Dee, and Beauviour’s feelings while watching US President Ronald Reagan visit military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany to pay tribute to the victims of Nazism. In an interview with East Coast Rocker, Joey explained: “What Reagan did was fucked up. Everybody told him not to go, all his people told him not to go, and he went anyway. How can you fuckin’ forgive the Holocaust? How can you say, ‘Oh well, it’s OK now?’ That’s crazy!” Dee Dee also asserted that Johnny had made the band seem right winged. “It was the first time we could make a statement to show we weren’t prejudiced,” he explained. “We’d just had these skinheads at our gigs, punks walking around wearing swastikas.” Johnny disliked the song and refused to play the song live, saying Reagan was his favorite president of his lifetime.

10 – ‘Go Lil’ Camaro Go’ (from ‘Halfway To Sanity’ (1987): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Richie)

Both the next track, “Bop ‘Til You Drop” and the fifth track, “Go Lil’ Camaro Go,” were described by True as “dire ‘fun,'” saying it sounded “as if they’ve been tossed off in a couple seconds—and probably were” and that Joey sang with a “drink-ravaged voice.” Thompson wrote that “Go Lil’ Camaro Go,” a duet with Blondie’s Debbie Harry, “had a style similar to bubblegum pop.”

At an East Hampton, New York, concert on August 12, Richie left the band due to financial conflicts; band members believed it also had to do with his love life. Joey would later state, “I felt screwed. Me and Richie were friends. He was more than just the drummer. But he was out for himself. He said he would do the New York shows for $500 a night. I’m sure he felt he had us by the balls, as our album was coming out.” Richie felt that he was not being paid enough for all he was doing with the band, and reportedly left to take a higher-paying job as a caddy.

Johnny took matters into his own hands, asking around to see if they could find a replacement drummer at least for the remainder of the tour. Clem Burke of Blondie filled in for Richie for two shows, performing under the alias of Elvis Ramone. Johnny deemed the whole situation a “disaster” because of Burke’s drumming style, commenting: “double-time on the hi-hat was totally alien to him.” Burke was criticized for playing “Durango 95“‘s fills incorrectly, and for misplaying the introduction on “Rock ‘n’ “Roll Radio”, forcing Johnny and Dee Dee to improvise on stage. He also was reportedly unable to maintain the faster tempo of the songs “Freak of Nature” and “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment.”

Because of this, Marky Ramone, who was the band’s drummer before Richie and after original drummer Tommy Ramone, was asked to return. He had been fired after “Subterranean Jungle” partially for his style but mostly because of his alcoholism. Once he was sober, however, he began playing in Richie Stotts‘s heavy metal band King Flux, as well as his own band, M-80. Within the week Marky was touring with the band again.

And that’s it, friends! There was more to read than to listen to, I hear you say. And you’re right. Although, live, the band played those ten tunes even faster.

Which brings me to the promised anecdote, so bear with me when there’ll be even more to read for you:

With the pleasure I had to be forced to join the German Airforce back in early 1991 – obviously – as a consequence of having to give up my job for a year, suddenly came a substantial lack of money. So, on the weekends, when apparently the Russians were not supposed to invade Germany, and therefore only skeleton staff had to be at the fighter bomber squadron, I tried to earn some money. Luckily I had a friend from school who had become some sort of ‘manager’ for a ska combo from Krefeld, The Braces. They, in their turn, were lucky to participate in whatever ska wave it was that was hip at the time, the third or fourth, I never can remember these things. So at their gigs and at gigs for other combos I would help to set up the equipment , do the paydesk, be a runner, organize the prostitutes, theses sort of things. No, I made the last one up. Although, and this is true, on one occasion, where I did the backstage at a festival, Judge Dredd, who was bit of a ninny I thought, really asked me to get him a prostitute. ‘Bugger off’ I told him, so he continued drinking his free drinks instead.

Either way, in the summer of 1991 The Braces got the chance to play ‘Berlin Bizarre’, rather a big festival held a bit out of Berlin in a wonderful old amphitheatre in a forest. Quite why The Braces got the chance to play there, I will never fully understand. I mean, they played along with New Model Army, Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Fehlfarben amongst others … all big names, right? Perhaps I should mention they played at the very beginning of the festival, if memory serves correctly not even the sausage stands were opened at the time they entered the stage. Which sort of puts their appearance at this festival into perspective. Either way, the manager got hold of a fair amount of backstage passes, so we hired a minibus, threw in all of The Braces and their equipment plus a few close common friends of the manager and me.

Amongst those was the mighty Fatman, him and me started our apprenticeship together and worked in the same company for three years. Now, the Fatman had no interest whatsoever in indie/punk rock/alternative music/ska, he would listen to Elvis only. And I mean only. I think he owned every record that Elvis ever made. And that was quite a few, I suppose. Still we could convince him to join us, so he was put into the bus as well and off we headed to Berlin.

The festival started, and after The Braces finished the gig, a few of them decided to leave for a few hours in order to take the tram into Berlin and most of us joined them. The Fatman though was too tired, he didn’t want to go, he wanted to stay backstage and take a nap instead. And why not, I mean, the music was not of interest for him anyway (as they didn’t have Elvis on the line-up), it was a sunny day, and the backstage area was huge. Huge, and consequently a bit crowded with all sort of people who had access to it. Of course the stars had their own backstage area, even more important, set a bit deeper in the forest, the regular mortals like us wouldn’t be allowed to enter it. How we would have loved to have a few words with Iggy or one out of The Ramones, but even though our backstage passes read “Extremely Bizarre”, the security blokes wouldn’t let us come even close to the stars’ area.

Early afternoon we returned from Berlin and found the Fatman at a backstage bar in a grumpy mood. “What happened?”, I said. “Oh”, he responded, “I walked around a bit after you lot left, had a few more beers, and then I lay down in a corner on the grass to take my nap. And I just feel asleep when some idiot kicked my leg very hard, halfway fell over me and landed on my stomach. I opened my eyes, pushed him off me, shouted rude words at him and that made him disappear. He mumbled something, but I couldn’t understand him. I mean, I was half asleep, only when seeing his back I realized that this must have been a girl, you know, long hair and very skinny. I felt rather bad for calling her an arsehole, but she was already a few meters away. And, worse of all, I couldn’t dose off again after that.“ “No matter, Fatman”, I said, “these things happen”.

The evening came, we had even more beers, watched Iggy from our “Extremely Bizzare Special Tribune” and waited for The Ramones to come, they – rightly so, of course – were headlining the whole event. The mighty sound of “Durango 95” blasted out of the speakers whilst the fake fog disappeared more and more and very slowly you could start to see what happening onstage. We stood there in awe, waiting for The Ramones to become fully visible in the remaining fog. Only The Fatman sat, still not even slightly interested in what was going on. The fog went away, ‘Teenage Lobotomy’ was counted in and all of a sudden The Fatman jumped up from his seat, pointed at Joey Ramone and shouted at the top of his lungs: “See, that’s the stupid slut who woke me up!!!”.

Still, even today, nearly 30 years later, I can’t come overcome the fact that Joey Ramone virtually lay on The Fatman while I was strolling through bloody Berlin in the unbearable heat. Why didn’t I decide to take a nap instead?

“Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people.”
(Marcus Garvey)

DIRK

Lloyd Cole

LLOYD COLE THE SOLO YEARS : 2002/3

Having finally cleared the decks by finally getting the old record from 1996 out to the public, not forgetting the sideways trip into electronic ambience, the next two years saw Lloyd Cole turn into something akin to a folk singer, increasingly reliant on his trusty acoustic and his voice.

In some ways it was inevitable as the live shows were nowadays almost entirely acoustic with storytelling thrown in for good measure, increasingly at ease with the aging process and acknowledging that, for the most part, his audience were doing likewise. The old songs always got the loudest cheers and applause in the live setting but there was enough of a devotion from the fans that the new material was well received, enough for Lloyd to have a go at a really stripped down record not far removed from a home recording.

Music In A Foreign Language was recorded in 2002 and released in the UK on Sanctuary Records in June 2003. It was an album I enjoyed a great deal at the time, but giving it a fresh listen again a few days ago for the purposes of this series, I found it a little bit one-dimensional and lacking in ambition somewhat. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy hearing the songs again but they have sounded better played live over the years and the ones which LC has gradually dropped from his sets can now be seen as some of his less-strong material across his career. Lyrically, it’s a fairly straight-forward and unambiguous offer, albeit there are a couple of toe-curling moments of sixth-form prose that he’d never have allowed himself to sing back in his heyday.

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Music In A Foreign Language
mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Late Night, Early Town

The two most enduring songs on the album are a cover, and a surprising one at that, along with a wonderfully loose and stripped back version of a song he’d recorded and released with The Negatives

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – People Ain’t No Good
mp3 : Lloyd Cole – No More Love Songs

Yup, Lloyd does a fine job on one of Nick Cave‘s brooding numbers from his break-up album The Boatman’s Song. It sounds as if Lloyd is dedicating it just about everyone who he’s ever encountered in the music industry.

JC

Hedrons

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #128 : THE HEDRONS

This is another act of whom I’ve one song, courtesy of its inclusion in a free giveaway with a Scottish newspaper back in 2007.

mp3 : The Hedrons – Heatseeker

A bit of digging on t’internet reveals The Hedrons were formed in Glasgow in 2005, consisting of Soup (drums), Gill (bass), Rosie (Guitar) and Tippi (Lead Singer/Guitar), and may well be the only all-female hard rock band from these parts …I certainly can’t think of any others. They cited Joan Jett, Patti Smith, Foo Fighters and Iggy Pop as influences and for a short time of arouns six months were a bit of a flavour with three singles and an album on local label Measured Records getting a fair bit of airplay across the UK and them appearing at festivals or opening for such heavy-hitters such as Alice In Chains and Sex Pistols.

They dissappeared after the February 2007 release of debut album One More Won’t Kill Us. Lead singer Tippi, who had attempted a solo pop career prior to the band, has forged something of a career since as a session backing vocalist and as lecturer in music at a college just outside of Glasgow.

Complete coincidence, but The Hedrons are out there on You Tube performing, before what looks like a sell-out crowd at King Tut’s in Glasgow, a song that featured on the blog just yesterday:-

JC

Jens Lekman

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #184 : JENS LEKMAN

A GUEST POSTING by MARTIN ELLIOT

(Our Swedish Correspondent)

Jim,

Have had a couple of ICA’s in mind lately with Swedish bands (after all being the Swedish correspondent implies some duties…). One major issue is however language, with many of my fave Swedish bands performing in our native language and having lyrics as an important cornerstone they would make very little sense to most of the TVV readers. Listening to his latest record the other night I finally decided to do a Jens Lekman ICA, concentrating on his early recordings up to and including his commercial breakthrough, if you can talk about such with Jens – but at least he reached a wider indie audience with the truly wonderful Night Falls Over Kortedala album.

Jens started out as Rocky Dennis, based on the boy in the film “Mask”, but when Jens realized the character was based on a real person he dropped the alias and started to use his given name instead. Jens has always been very “local” in his lyrics, referencing places in his hometown, Gothenburg (Göteborg), and using his imaginary friend Lisa throughout his recordings.

Into This And That – a Jens Lekman ICA.

Side A.

1. Maple Leaves – First recorded as Rocky Dennis and then later re-released as Jens Lekman. Wonderful track with a typical Jens lyric, “I thought she said maple leaves”.

2. I Saw Her In The Anti-War Demonstration.

3. A Sweet Summer’s Night On Hammer Hill. Both from the “Julie” EP, where there is also a track called “Anorther Sweet Summer’s Night On Hammer Hill” – Hammer Hill being a direct translation of the suburban (problem) area Hammarkullen in Gothenburg. Jens grew up in one of the so called “problematic” suburbs, this showcases another side of the story – a happy party song among good friends, and then of course the second version is a sad, sad story… As reality is rarely just black or white.

4. Rocky Dennis’ Farewell Song (To The Blind Girl). From the Rocky Dennis In Heaven EP. There is of course also a “Jens Lekman’s Farewell Song To Rocky Dennis” on the EP, but this is the stronger one in my mind. Very sweet melody.

5. And I Remember Every Kiss. A stunning opener of the “Night Falls Over Kortedala” album, and a great closing song of this side. Grand music, sad lyrics and an old fashioned Volvo 240.

Side B.

1. Your Arms Around Me – When accidentally cutting your finger becomes a beautiful love song. Also from NFOK. Kortedala is by the way another not so fancy part of Gothenburg where Jens lived for some time.

2. You Are The Light (By Which I Travel Into This And That) – From Jens’ first album, When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog, a quirky love song with an upbeat melody.

3. Sipping On The Sweet Nectar – He can do songs to dance to as well! From NFOK, sweet as honey – or maybe sweet as nectar. There is a great club remix as well by Bogdan Irkük.

4. Someone To Share My Life With – From the first Jens Lekman EP, Maple Leaves, and a song very similar to Someone by Depeche Mode in many aspects. And this leads us nicely to the ending of this ICA

5. Kanske Är Jag Kär I Dig

It means Maybe I’m In Love With You. A truly wonderful love song from NFOK, which is very special on a personal level. Around the time NFOK was released I was going through a divorce, one day while driving to a conference playing the CD in my car I got a text from a woman I had met a couple of times through work. She was also going there and wondered if we would meet. This track was played on repeat after reading the message…(And yes, she is now Mrs.)

Bonus track: Lönnlöv – The Swedsih version of Maple Leaves (lönnlöv are maple leaves), where the misintepretation is “Hon sa allt var lönlöst, men jag tyckte hon sa lönnlöv” – which translates to the slightly more desperate ” She said all is meaningless, but I thought she said maple leaves”.

Ironically as I lived many years in the same city as Jens, I have seen him in town several times but never caught him playing live. A true shame actually, which I know JC can confirm. (JC adds….. indeed I can….he’s a truly wonderful live act and was very generous with his time after this gig last year).

Enjoy.

Martin

JC adds (again)…….this exceptional run of ICAs will continue into next week.  Three more ridiculously wonderful guest contributions – from Dirk, Craig McAllister, SWC and finally one from myself to round things off, wrapped around a piece of tinned fruit on Wednesday.

I’m actually off to Toronto for 8 days after tomorrow, so any daft errors in upcoming postings which are pointed out won’t be corrected immediately…shit quality control I know, but it’s what happens when costs are cut to the bone.