Black Box Recorder

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #179 : BLACK BOX RECORDER

 A GUEST POSTING by ROL

from My Top Ten

1. Child Psychology

I still remember picking this one out of the new releases pile back when I worked in the radio station record library. We were always on the look-out for new music to play on our Sunday night indie & alternative show: the only time of the week we actually got to break free from the safety of the playlist.

I fell in love with Child Psychology on first listen. It’s dark, it’s wickedly funny, and it has Sarah Nixey whispering Luke Haines’ twisted lyrics. And then comes the chorus…

Life is unkind
Kill yourself or get over it.

I can honestly say I’d never heard anything like this before and it blew me away. It spoke to me personally. My 20s weren’t the best of times. Yes, there were lots of gigs and free records, but a lot of loneliness and heartache too. I was jaded, cynical and world-weary. This song could have been written for me.

According to iffypedia, Child Psychology was banned by UK radio except XFM. Well, excuse me, iffypedia, but we gave it a few spins on a Sunday evening… when we knew the boss wasn’t listening because he hated guitar music. In the US, the song was released just after the Columbine massacre, so the chorus lines were played backwards. Was that ironic, given the history of supposed backwards suicide messages hidden in pop songs… or did someone in the record company seriously think that was a logical solution?

2. Girl Singing In The Wreckage

There were two b-sides to Child Psychology, and both worked to complement the main track. Girl Singing In The Wreckage was also the opening track of the debut BBR album England Made Me. I don’t know if it was meant as such, but it feels like a sequel to Child Psychology, with the female narrator growing up and tackling the metaphorical car crash of teenage ennui.

(The third track on the CD single was a cover of Jacques Brel’s gloriously tragic suicide anthem Seasons In The Sun, originally a hit for Terry Jacks back in 1973. Once you’ve heard Ms. Nixey’s take, you’re liable to ask, “Terry who?”)

3. The Facts Of Life

Although the BBR songwriting chores were shared between Luke Haines (who, I’d guess, had more hand in the lyrics) and former Jesus & Mary Chain drummer John Moore, the band’s greatest asset was arguably Sarah Nixey.

I find it difficult to write about Ms. Nixey objectively without coming across as an old letch… but the best way to describe her would be in twisted comparison to Saint Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell. Imagine a cartoon where a lovelorn young bloke has a pure, perfect, sweet-voiced angel dressed in white sitting on his right shoulder, encouraging him to be good and kind and virtuous. That would be the Sarah Cracknell angel. On the other shoulder, however, would be Sarah Nixey, dressed in black, also sweet-voiced… but that’s where the comparison ends. Now imagine that second angel was the teacher in your Sex Ed class…

Welcome to The Facts Of Life, a single which took Luke Haines into the top 20 for the first and only time in his career. If you’d asked me before I started compiling this ICA, I’d have told you this song must have been Top 10, probably Top 3… I mean, surely this was one of the biggest hits of the year 2000? It was in my head, anyway. In reality, it scraped #20 for a week then disappeared from the chart forever. A true sign of quality.

4. Andrew Ridgely

Another of Luke Haines’ ode to the 80s, and to the underdogs. The song begins with Nixey saying, “I never liked George Michael much… although they say he was the talented one”, before confessing a secret passion for the forgotten half of Wham!

This is a song about everything that was wrong with the 80s – plastic synthesizers and “Loadsamoney!” capitalism – yet Haines manages to make it sound not so bad really. Certainly, by today’s standards, most of us could probably find time for a little 80s nostalgia.

5. Keep It In The Family

After their third album, Passionoia, in 2003, BBR went “on hiatus”. Nixey and Moore were married by this point but split up in 2006. Then, a couple of years later, the band turned up again with a surprise gig in London. Plans were afoot for a new album and two tracks were recorded, but nothing else materialised and in 2010 Keep It In The Family and Do You Believe In God? were released online as The Final Statement. What might have been…

Side B

1. The School Song

A blatant attempt to recapture the success of The Facts Of Life, pitching Nixey as the sarky, sexy school marm telling us to wipe that idiotic smile off our faces and not to run in the corridor. Well, it worked for me. I never ran in the corridor again. Typically iconoclastic Hainesy chorus too…

Welcome to the school of song
It’ll help you achieve perfection
Destroy your record collection
It’s for your own protection

2. England Made Me

The story of a very English psychopath and the country that made him… or her. At this point, it’s difficult to distinguish between Haines’ lyrics and Nixey’s performance. Her angelic vocals were the perfect mouthpiece for his darkest fantasies…

I had a dream last night that I was drunk,
I killed a stranger and left him in a trunk,
At Brighton railway station,
It was an unsolved case,
A famous murder mystery,
People love a mystery.

3. The English Motorway System

American highways are full of romanticism… British motorways are dark and dreary in comparison. Trying to make a successful British driving song is hard work, but this is up there with It’s Immaterial’s Driving Away From Home and Billy Bragg’s A13 Trunk Road To The Sea in my mind. It’s about the end of a relationship, obviously… but even that can be beautiful and strange in the right hands.

4. Sex Life

Find me a better song about young men who see sex everywhere but don’t know how to get it. In your dreams!

5. The Art Of Driving

The song that rolls all Black Box Recorder’s obsessions into one delicious confection. Sex. Teachers. Driving. Seduction. Englishness. Innuendo. More sex. Car crashes. Death. What else do you want from a pop song?

ROL

JC adds…..here’s the fabulous Top of the Pops appearance to enjoy:-

 

Skids

IT REALLY WAS A CRACKING DEBUT SINGLE (22)

The Skids first ever release epitomised the punk ethic.

Four teenage mates from a small town in the east of Scotland just far enough away from Edinburgh to feel isolated, they feel they have the songs, drive, energy and ambition to take on the world. The problem is, nobody from any record label will travel to Dunfermline – the London ones are completely out of the question and the Scottish ones want to concentrate on the capital and Glasgow. The solution, as advocated in the fanzines of the day, is DIY.

Four teenage mates scrimp and save all they have and get themselves into small studio in Edinburgh in October 1977 where they lay down three self-produced and raw sounding tracks. The tracks are in a fit enough state to go to a printing press to be turned into a 7” EP and so the next step is to form a label to host the subsequent release. The four teenage mates get help from the owner of a music shop owner in their home town who is able to create a new label and call it No Bad Records.

A cheap looking sleeve is designed to house the plastic containing the vinyl. The front of the sleeve has four grainy images from photos that look as if they have been taken in the booth you find in train and bus stations, together with a stylised take on the name of the band – Skids. The reverse lists the three tracks on the vinyl as well as the most basic information about the band members:-

Stuart – Lead
Richard – Vocals
Alexander – Bass
Thomas – Drums

The engineer, Dougie, is credited and thanks are given to Mike Douglas, Clive, Oscar, Conn, Sandy…….(the last-named being the music shop owner)

It also says ‘Released through Aim Enterprises Limited (Dunfermline) 28464’ which could well be a phone number. It was released on 24 February 1978

This is what you heard if you played the vinyl:-

mp3 : The Skids – Charles
mp3 : The Skids – Reasons
mp3 : The Skids – Test-Tube Babies

John Peel heard it and then played it. His listeners liked it a lot and Skids were suddenly on the radar of many in the music industry. It didn’t take too long for them to leave No Bad Records behind as they signed to Virgin Records just two months after the EP had hit the shops. A successful career ensued.

The next release on No Bad Records was in 2017 when The Skids released Burning Cities, their first new album in 36 years. A lot had happened in the intervening period.

The Charles EP is a fine debut. It did exactly what it was designed to do and that was act as the showcase and calling card for Stuart Adamson (19 years and six months old when they went into the studio), Richard Jobson (16 years and a handful of days when they went into studio) and the slightly older Tom Kellichen (23) and Bill Simpson (aka Alexander) (20).

They would record better and more memorable singles, but none quite as important.

JC

Madness

HOUSE OF SOPHISTICATED POP MUSIC

In August 1979, Madness released their debut single.

The Prince was in tribute to ska singer Prince Buster. It was the their way of saying thank you for providing such influences on their look and sound, not to mention the band’s name which was taken from a song written and recorded by Prince Buster.

The debut single went to #16 in the charts.

Over the next seven years, Madness would release a further 21 singles, almost of all them memorable in some shape or form and from which you could forge an ICA that would be very hard to beat in any match-up completion.

House of Fun : #1
Wings Of A Dove : #2
My Girl : #3
Baggy Trousers : #3
Embarrassment : #4
Grey Day : #4
It Must Be Love : #4
Driving In My Car : #4
Our House : #5
The Sun and the Rain : #5
One Step Beyond : #7
The Return of the Los Palmas 7 : #7
Shut Up : #7
Tomorrow’s Just Another Day : #8
Michael Caine : #11
Cardiac Arrest : #14
One Better Day : #17
Yesterday’s Men : #18
(Waiting For) The Ghost Train : #18
Uncle Sam : #21
Sweetest Girl : #35

The later original material, while not charting as well as the nutty sounds of the early 80s, revealed a wonderful depth to the band both in terms of the music and the lyrics which increasingly explored social and political issues both at home and abroad; the exception being the rather underwhelming cover of the Scritti Politti classic which was, as demonstrated above, the poorest selling 45 by a long way.

The band broke up in 1986, leaving a fabulous legacy of singles, six albums, memorable videos and enjoyable TV performances. Nobody would have minded if they had left it at that.

They got back together in 1992 on the back of the success of a singles compilation album and attracted more than 75,000 folk to the Madstock! reunion gigs on 8 and 9 August in Finsbury Park, London. This led to them touring again, playing arena-sized venues in the UK and giving folk a good nostalgic night out. They went back into the studio in 1999 from which a first new album in 13 years emerged, including a #10 hit single in Lovestruck. The songs on the slightly tongue-in-cheek entitled Wonderful brought some new life and energy into the live sets which, until this point hadn’t changed much in 15 years.

The next release came in 2004 but The Danger Sessions, made-up entirely of cover versions, was poorly received, critically and commercially. The tensions over its recording also led to the departure of founder-member Chris Foreman, although he would later return to the fold.

What happened next was a very pleasant surprise.

May 2009 saw Madness release their ninth studio album, The Liberty of Norton Folgate, a work that I’d argue that is, by a fairly long way, their best ever album.

OK, it doesn’t have any killer 45 tunes a la the 80s, but this is a record from a different beast than had emerged blinking from the shadows with the release of The Prince 30 year previously and demonstrated that Madness could be listed alongside such as The Kinks, The Jam, Squeeze and XTC as the best proponents of pop music that is uniquely and brilliantly English.

The reviews were universally positive. It was described in various places as a masterpiece, extraordinary and the most sophisticated and satisfying album of their career. The spirits of Charles Dickens and Noel Coward were invoked as ways of describing the scale and ambition of something which on the surface was a concept album about the city of London but is in fact packed with the most bittersweet and melancholy of pop songs covering subject matters such as love, loss, success and failure of which an understanding can really only come with the onset of middle-age.

Just as Weller & co had captured my teenage moods, as Moz, Johnny, Mike and Andy had made sense of the student days, as Stipe and his buddies from Athens GA mimicked the emotions of moving into my 30s, the songs and music of Madness on The Liberty of Norton Folgate were perfect for coming to terms with being middle-aged and, while perhaps my very best days were behind me, there was still so much that I could bring to any party or gathering thanks to being older, wiser and yes, sophisticated, in comparison to my own slightly more manic and nuttier days.

I’ve long wanted to wax lyrically about this album. I never quite found the right words at the time of its release and besides there was little I could add to the widespread reviews of the day.

These words have come about from giving the album a fresh listen, in full, for the first time in maybe five years. I thought that such a listen would have me tempering my praise and finding that the songs hadn’t aged well over the past nine years. Not in the slightest….

mp3 : Madness – Forever Young
mp3 : Madness – That Close
mp3 : Madness – MkII
mp3 : Madness – NW5

Growing up and growing old can be satisfying after all.

JC

Tindersticks

SOME SONGS ARE GREAT SHORT STORIES (Chapters Fifteen)

I did say, away back in Chapter Two, that Tindersticks were a stick-on to feature again at some point.

The first time we flew it
It was cheap and cramped
The vodka running out half-way across the atlantic
Even the steward screamed and joined in
We didn’t think we were going to make it

Now we’re stretched out in wide, furry seats
Flicking through menus
A walk to the bar and there’s as much screw-top champagne as we can drink
We’re so easy
Taking turns having our photos taken
Sitting in front of smoked windows
Decanters of cheap whiskey in our hands
Drive into Manhattan on a date with a starlet who’s just talent
That’s what people pay the money to see?
Who are we to argue…

Five hours now it’s been going on
And still we’re watching all of it
Can you really believe all this?
Can he really lie in bed at night and marvel at his own genius?
When do you lose the ability to step back
And get a sense of your own ridiculousness?
They’re only songs

Midnight, and it’s all over
Now it can really make us laugh
We’re standing on our heads drinking sours of crystel schnapps
Now we’re unable to step back or forward
Swallowing a swallow
Tasting it again, it’s not so unpleasant
Perhaps it’s an acquired taste
The first time, it makes you sick
Then, little by little, it becomes delicious

Showbiz people
Always there to be interested in what you have to say
We are artists; we are sensitive and important
We nod our heads earnestly
Already half-way down the champagne
On our way to leaving the place dry
A $2,000 bar bill
Showbiz picks up the tab
And we’re on our way laughing
Laughing at what?

Los Angeles, eight days in
And our sense of irony’s running pretty thin
All the friends we’ve made
It’s 2 am, it’s closing time at the Dresden
Marty and Layton play one last sleepy “Strangers In The Night”
And the last of the martinis dribble down our chins
We’re sitting, chasing the conservation around the table
Jesus, how long have I been in this state?
The limousine’s still waiting outside
Anything you want to do?
Anywhere you want to go?
We’re on our way to the airport and a plane to Vegas

So many nights lying in bed shaking
Dreaming of pushing my daughter around the supermarket
The joy of seeing all those colours and shapes reflect in her wide eyes
My head leaning on the window
And we’re driving through the empty L.A. streets
And everything seems silent and beautiful
A guy’s face hits the floor
Police revolvers glistening in the streetlight
Onto Melrose and lurching through a sea of halloweeen transvestites
The flight’s cancelled, but it doesn’t matter
We turn this corner to a way that takes us wherever
Up to Sunset

We creep up the drive to the Shattuck
The suite Belushi died in
Or the one Morrison hung out the window
Oh, I’ll go for Jim’s
I would fancy a hotel window-hanging, myself, tonight, man
Straight over to the mini-bar
Open the champagne – one sip and it’s left to wake up to
Anyone hungry?
A team of uniformed waiters lay out an elaborate table for all us to ignore
Oh, the irony
How we’re used to living

Back in London on a cold friday night
Do you want another drink?
Well, I could try
Perhaps we could make it to the Atlantic
600 yards, 20 minutes later
We’re pushing through the waiting crowd, all fish eyes
An exclusive door policy
Exclusively for arseholes
And tonight? well, a nod of our heads, and we’re inside

Falling down the red, velvety stairs
Limbs flaying, hands searching for something to steady
Pick ourselves up, nothing broken
Just aches in the morning
No one seems to notice
I find a table, champagne arrives
I’ve been so drunk, I sit and look at you
We try and talk for the first time in a long time
Drunken confession
You shiver, it made you feel sick
We use the rent money to pay the bill

Bumping shoulders, we stumble out into Soho
Slipping over the sleeping bags
Shouting for taxis.

mp3 : Tindersticks – Ballad of Tindersticks

From the album Curtains, released in June 1997

JC

Lloyd Cole

LLOYD COLE THE SOLO YEARS : 1996-98

It seemed that everyone at the UK record label was happy with the direction Lloyd Cole was heading in. Love Songs had carved out a bit of a niche for him as a talented acoustic-driven singer-songwriter and he spent much of 1996 in a New York studio carving out a new album along such lines, with a number of old friends, including ex-Commotion Neil Clark, flying in to lend a hand.

The completed album was well received by his direct contacts at the label but was vetoed by the head of the company who instead had a plan to put it on ice for the time being and release it in due course on the back of a new compilation album which would feature Commotions and solo material. The request was also made that Lloyd specifically write some new songs which could be released as singles to promote the planned new ‘Best Of’ collection.

Lloyd tried to play the game but everything got bogged down in record company politics. In the meantime, he got himself in and out of studios to cut songs for compilation albums and pulled together a new band called The Negatives, made up of NYC musicians, with who he played with live as well as putting down some tracks in the studio in the hope of them being released.

It took an eternity to get round to issuing the best of record, during which time Lloyd’s recording career was in limbo. The decision was taken to work with producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley who had delivered Easy Pieces back in the days of the Commotions but it didn’t quite go fully to plan. Stephen Street, with whom Lloyd had worked on Love Songs, was brought into polish things off on two new potential hit singles.

The label bosses were still far from happy and declined to release either of the two new songs, leading to the farcical situation of The Collection (as it was entitled) to be issued without Lloyd being able to get out on the promotional trail. And to add insult to injury, the label further declined to allow the 1996 album to be released….and indeed came to a parting of the ways with the singer.

Messy doesn’t come close to describing the situation.

Here’s some of what was made available publicly available in this period of time:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole with Robert Quine – I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself

An ironic song to cover given the circumstances he was in at that time, this was recorded in 1997 for inclusion on a compilation album of Burt Bacharach covers. The other irony being that just a few years after releasing half an album of Bacharach inspired songs on Don’t Get Weird With Me Baby, this cover is just vocals and guitars.

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Si Tu Dois Partir

Another contribution to a compilation entitled Pop Romantique : French Pop Classics, this time in 1998. The request had been for a French song but Lloyd felt he couldn’t pull that off and so he went for Bob Dylan‘s 1965 single If You’ve Gotta Go, Go Now but as interpreted and taken into the charts by Fairport Convention in 1969.

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Romany Soup

The same folk behind the Burt Bacharach project, which had been part of a series of records under the title of Great Jewish Music, got in touch to ask Lloyd if he’d care to contribute to another album in the series, this time featuring songs by one of his heroes, Marc Bolan. The track selected was from 1969 and the Tyrannosaurus Rex days.

Finally, there were two new songs which made it onto The Collection, with one being a re-working of a song that had been recorded with The Negatives. it was also supposed to be the lead off single for the compilation but was shelved everywhere, except for some strange reason, in Germany:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – That Boy

Really can’t fathom why it wasn’t allowed to be released as a stand-alone 45.

The b-sides of that release included the English version of the track recorded for the French compilation album and a song which had been co-written with Stephen Lindsay of The Big Dish which had almost made it onto Love Songs:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – If You Gotta Go, Go Now
mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Rain On The Parade

The other new song had been originally been recorded for the 1996 album that seemed as if it was ever unlikely to see the light of day; again, it would have made for a decent stand-alone 45:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Fool You Are

But, as you may have gathered from the way this series is unfolding, things would take another unusual turn in the coming years.

JC

 

Hazey Janes

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #125 : THE HAZEY JANES

As this is one I have courtesy of a compilation CD given away with a newspaper in 2007, I’ve had to reply on t’internet for your info:-

The Hazey Janes are an indie pop band from Dundee, Scotland consisting of Andrew Mitchell (vocals, guitar, keyboard), Liam Brennan (drums, vocals, percussion) and siblings Alice Marra (vocals, guitar, keyboard, synthesizer) and Matthew Marra (bass guitar, keyboard, glockenspiel).

Formed around 2000, the band plays music that has been described as a fusion of country-rock and indie-pop, with a penchant for heavy folk harmonies, reminiscent of Big Star, Velvet Crush and The Posies.

It was back in 2004 that they recorded a self-titled mini-album, followed two years later by their first full-length album, Hotel Radio which got a fair bit of positive media coverage.  They’ve been reasonably prolific ever since and have toured extensively both as headlining artists and as support to the likes of Snow Patrol, Elbow, Idlewild, Brakes, Aberfeldy, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, WILCO and Deacon Blue.

Dundee musician-songwriter Michael Marra is the father of the Marra siblings in The Hazey Janes.

mp3 : The Hazey Janes – Fire In The Sky

It’s a tad derivative and it hasn’t encouraged me to seek out anything else…..but I’ve heard and indeed highlighted worse on this blog!

JC

Monkees

IT REALLY WAS A CRACKING DEBUT SINGLE (21)

I don’t normally go as far back as the 60s on this blog, but I couldn’t do justice to this series without including this:-

mp3 : The Monkees – Last Train To Clarksville

I’m just too young to remember the first airing of The Monkees TV show which ran from September 1966 to March 1968. It was, however, something that was on a constant repeat on the children’s segment of BBC1 in the 70s and therefore was one of my earliest exposures to pop music outside of the radio and whatever was played by my folks at home.

I loved the show. It seemed so bright, colourful and wonderfully funny in places. To begin with, the music actually annoyed me as it got in the way of the ‘plotlines’ but repeated exposure to the songs, allied to the fact that I was now a big boy aged nine who was actually liking some of the songs I was hearing on the radio, meant I soon fell for their charms.

Last Train To Clarksville was my favourite for the simple reason that Micky Dolenz, my favourite of The Monkees, was on lead vocal. Oh and it also had the work Clark in part of its title and that was my surname…

Of course I had no idea that the songs on the show were covers and indeed that the fab four contributed so little to the actual music being aired. I was a kid, it was on television and therefore it was all 100% real.

It was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, and there can be no question that it is very similar in sound to Paperback Writer; indeed, Clarksville was composed around the time The Beatles song was dominating the US singles chart and thus the coincidence is no accident. The duo are, in many ways, the unsung heroes of The Monkees story. Many folk can recall that a number of the hits were written by the soon-to-be-famous-in-his-own-right, Neil Diamond, but the names of Boyce and Hart can lead to a bit of head-scratching except among the anoraks. It was they who, well in advance of the show being aired, wrote and recorded the songs, backed by their band the Candy Store Prophets, and only once the cast had been finalised did the four singers/actors who appeared in the show re-record the vocal parts.

Clarksville is a simply thrilling little pop song, just under three minutes of perfection. It could even be interpreted as an anti-war song if you so wish, although the composers say that was never the intention. It went to #1 in the USA in September 1966, coinciding nicely with the first episodes of the TV show.

What I hadn’t realised until doing a wee bit of research for this piece is that it was initially a flop in the UK and indeed was only a hit on its re-release in 1967 as the follow-up to I’m A Believer, which hit #1 in January 1967. Even then, Clarksville stalled at #23 in the UK the following month……

Here’s yer very sixties psychedlelic b-side, again with a Micky Dolenz vocal, and composed by Gerry Goffin and Carole King:-

mp3 : The Monkees – Take A Giant Step

JC

Trashcan Sinatras

HELLO, I’M HARRY………….

Around three weeks ago, while out on the golf course (and putting together a really decent score), I got a sudden pain in lower part of my back, just above my left arsecheek. Within 24 hours, I was a near cripple in that I couldn’t walk for more than a few yards without wanting to cry with the pain (admittedly, I do have a very low threshold). I eventually got myself over to see the GP who diagnosed a muscle tear with the only cure being time, anti-inflammatory tablets and some deep heat rubs with the additional advice that I take things very easy for a bit.

Which was a real blow as it meant that I had to miss going to see Trash Can Sinatras play a home-town gig of sorts at Oran Mor in Glasgow, a review of which by the awfully talented Craig, from the wonderful blog Plain or Pan?, can be read here.

I was listening a lot to the band in the build-up to the gig and I am still very much smitten and in awe of the material from the early 90s. The later material does have a lot of very fine moments but sometimes the songs sound a wee bit too grown-up and sensible for my liking but I was so keen to hear them played in the live environment, especially as UK shows are such a rarity these days with a number of the band now resident in the States.

Above all else, I really wanted to dance my backside off to this, their fourth single and the first one chosen from 1993 sophomore album, I’ve Seen Everything:-

mp3 : The Trash Can Sinatras – Hayfever

A fabulously memorable tune with a wry, clever and head-scratching lyric. What more could you ask for? And yes, I can confirm that Moscow is indeed in Ayrshire.

Hello, I’m Harry
I’ve had women, I’ve had germs
They’re eerie, wild and wailing
And seductive in small doses

Only one way
Only one way
Why can’t we take a couple of tablets?

Hello, I’m Harry
Did you receive the letter sent?
The cheque enclosed, the negatives
Now here’s some headlines
Current and sensible

Moscow’s in Ayrshire
What’s the problem?
Should I throw my tammy in the ring
And run for president?
Ooh, it’s farmed out
Ooh, I’m penned in
Ooh, I’m left to no doubt
I’m Harry, hello
I’m Harry, hello

You want me, you want me, do I?
Arsenic be judge, gin be jury

The chocolate’s watching
The cuckoos are clocking me
They leave me alone in my sulk
Stalking a beautiful girl in a rural spot
It gets larger….as she gets nearer

There’s only one way, away away
There’s only one way, away away
There’s only one way, away away
There’s only one way, away away
There’s only one way, away away
There’s only one way, away away
There’s only one way, away away
There’s only one way
The rest is chemistry

Here’s yer b-sides:-

mp3 : The Trash Can Sinatras – Say
mp3 : The Trash Can Sinatras – Kangaroo Court
mp3 : The Trash Can Sinatras – Skindiving

It reached the heights of #61 here in the UK, the highest placing for any of their singles. Further evidence, if any was needed, that the record buying general public are a bunch of fuckwits.

JC

Auteurs, Luke Haines

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #178 : THE AUTEURS

A GUEST POSTING by ROL HIRST
from MY TOP TEN blog

When JC mentioned recently that he’d worked through his backlog of ICAs and put out a tentative call for new offerings, I consulted the list I have pinned to my notice board and wondered which one (of many) ICA-bereft artists I might have a go at. The name Luke Haines leapt out at me, and I had to double-check that JC hadn’t yet written an ICA for the man he once called “the curmudgeonly king of anti-Britpop” himself.

Right, I’m having that, I thought, when I realised he hadn’t. And then I realised what an impossible task I’d set myself. Covering the whole of Luke Haines’ prolific recording career in one ICA was the equivalent of attempting a Weller ICA which combined The Jam, The Style Council and his solo stuff. It was just never going to happen. The only way to do it was to divide the ICA into three and hope JC would indulge me. We’ll see… if you’re reading this at The Vinyl Villain, I guess he has. If you’re reading it at My Top Ten, I guess he told me where to stick it.

Side A

1. The Rubettes

I came late to The Auteurs, in 1999, around the time Haines was getting sick of the whole business of trying to be in an indie pop band and was ready to pack it all in. (Read his first excellent biography Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall for more on that.) It turns out though that I’d already “discovered” Luke Haines the year before through the debut album by Black Box Recorder. I just didn’t make the Auteurs connection until How I Learned To Love The Bootboys was released. It was a very confusing time. Story of my life, really: I came late to most of the bands I ended up loving.

The Rubettes is the song that set the tone for much of Haines’ solo work – a grimly nostalgic longing for his youth in the 70s and 80s, loving and scathing in equal measures. The single got quite a bit of airplay at the time: not bad for a song with a chorus about masturbating while listening to the radio.

Hells angels on TV
And your biker ’73
Sew on patch – cycle chains
Iron cross on your C&A’s
Can’t get in the disco
Can’t dance anyway

2. Show Girl

Back to the beginning then, and the opening track from the debut Auteurs album, New Wave. Released in 1993, when Britpop was but a twitch in Brett Anderson’s underpants, it immediately established Haines as one of the most entertaining lyricists of his era – like a less romantic Jarvis, or a Morrissey who doesn’t both hate and love himself*.

*I suppose I should explain that remark, especially here in the Former Republic of Morrissey Fandom, now renamed isntheatwatland. Morrissey has clearly made a career out of a curious mix of self-love and self-loathing. Haines combines the wit and cynicism we all loved about pre-Brexit Moz with a healthy dose of iconoclasm… but you never get the feeling that he’s a nasty man. In fact, he seems like quite a jolly chap in person… something which surprised and confounded our glorious leader when he caught him live back in 2017. (By the way, if you’re interested in what Luke Haines thinks about Morrissey, this review is worth a read, although I suspect he’d be less charitable nowadays.)

Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah, Show Girl…

I married a showgirl
That’s for life
She can’t work
In the wintertime
I can’t work anytime now
Go to libraries all the while
Looking for a notice
Biding my time

3. Unsolved Child Murder

Around the time the chirpy-chirpy cheep cheep of Country House / Wonderwall Britpop was at its jingoistic peak, Luke Haines threw himself off a fifteen foot wall so he wouldn’t have to be involved in it all anymore, then spent a year writing an album about dead children and plane crashes.

Imagine a terminally depressed Ray Davies with his tongue firmly lodged in his arse cheek. After Murder Park predates This Is Hardcore by two years, but the two records share a similar desire to hammer six inch nails into the coffin of Britpop once and for all.

Haines’ bleak sense of humour obviously survived the fall in one piece.

4. Johnny & The Hurricanes

For an artist so steeped in all things English, Luke Haines also has a great affection for American pop music. On American Guitars, he professed his love for grunge, while here he strays back to the glory days of rock ‘n’ roll, clearly explaining why rock ‘n’ roll seemed so exciting when heard via “English tarmac, English rain”.

There’s a sting in this tale though, as at the height of their fame, Johnny & The Hurricanes headlined the Star Club in Hamburg… where they were supported by a bunch of British upstarts called The Beatles. At least, I presume this is why Haines chose to write about this particular band… I may be wrong.

5. Lenny Valentino

Let’s conclude Side A with the single that got the Auteurs closer to the UK Top 40 than any other… and what better position to stall at in that endeavour than #41?

Side B

1. Light Aircraft On Fire

More gloriously outrageous doom and gloom, still winking at the camera, from that most bleak “cake & eat it” anti-Britpop album, After Murder Park. Another minor hit that should have been massive… except we’d wouldn’t have loved it as much if it was.

2.  Back With The Killer Again

Video director Chris Cunningham would go on to work with Madonna, Bjork and Aphex Twin, but two of his earliest videos were for The Auteurs, most notably the grimly hilarious horror film that accompanied the title track of this particular EP. Not the sort of thing you’d expect Luke Haines to be associated with, but it’s useless trying to pigeonhole this guy.

3. How Could I Be Wrong

In which Luke defines himself as a groundbreaker, pallbearer, actor, peacemaker, plan hatcher lifesaver and soul snatcher. How could he be wrong?

4. Chinese Bakery

Always reminds me of Lloyd Cole, this one. I think it’s as close as Luke gets to a love song…

Got a roller coaster in my head
You press the button – I’ll eject
Your present is just somebody’s past
Don’t blink, pinch me twice
Just seen Bob Dylan on a motorbike
I don’t think this relationship will last

5.  New French Girlfriend

…well, apart from this one, which has just about the loveliest opening line you could expect from that “curmudgeonly king of anti-Britpop” (thanks again, J.C.). If I had to pick, this would probably be my favourite Auteurs song. Don’t ask me why though, I haven’t a clue.

Want a girl to hold my hand
When the plane lands
When the cracks appear in the plan
And the rocks turn into sand
Better call my new French girlfriend

ROL

JC adds……….this is the first of three splendid ICAs coming your way courtesy of Rol.  He’s done something I’ve long thought about by tackling the two bands and the solo careers and his choices wouldn’t be all that different from mine.  Huge thanks from me……

Oh and here’s that video he referred to; it’s actually quite hard to find:-

Teardrop Explodes

BELTER OF A B-SIDE

Julian Cope was enjoying being a pop star. Reward and Treason had taken him into the charts, onto Top of the Pops and into the pages of the likes of Smash Hits magazine where teenage girls were coo-ing over his good looks.

Only he knew in advance that the next again single was going to be even more poppy, lighter and catchier than anything else he’d ever written with its killer-chorus and umpteen ba-ba-ba-ba-ba sing-a-long moments, so he put a killer track onto its b-side as a reminder that he remained more than capable of delivering material that was ahead of the curve:-

mp3 : The Teardrop Explodes – Christ versus Warhol

Radiohead would rip off this tune for Karma Police a few year later…….go on, admit the openings are identical.

It was a stroke of genius to put this on the b-side rather than parent album Wilder as it prevented any fundamentalists getting hot under the collar and demanding it be withdrawn. Oh and have a listen just before the two-minute mark for what could pass as Jarvis Cocker‘s recording debut….

Here’s the fabulous a-side. Criminal it stalled at #25:-

mp3 : The Teardrop Explodes – Passionate Friend

Tune in tomorrow for a guest ICA on another of our maverick geniuses.

JC

Adam Stafford, Jamie Scott

IT WAS THIRTY YEARS AGO TODAY…..

I went to a gig last Saturday night in the Glad Cafe on the south side of the city not too far from Villain Towers, but before I say a few things about it there needs to be a bit of context.

The Glasgow Garden Festival was held between 26 April and 26 September 1988. It was the first event of its type to be held in the city in 50 years, since the Empire Exhibition of 1938, and also marked the centenary of Glasgow’s first International Exhibition, the International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry of 1888.

It attracted 4.3 million visitors over 152 days and was part of a sustained effort by the local politicians to use arts/culture/events as a way of providing a new meaning for a city that had been decimated by the collapse of its traditional industries and was something of a precursor to the year-long European City of Culture festival in 1990 which, quite honestly, was an astonishing and mind-blowing 12 months that just couldn’t be repeated nowadays.

The Garden Festival site covered 120 acres of land, much of it reclaimed from the filling in of disused docks that had long been closed and were a sad reminder of the decline of the River Clyde and its shipyards. There was a garden element to the festival but most folk were attracted by the likes of a 240-foot high tower, the then biggest rollercoaster ride in Scotland, the re-introduction of trams, a temporary rail line, the first new pedestrian bridge over the Clyde in a generation, boat trips, art installations and various music/dance performances which changed daily.

It was always intended as a temporary event with the site to be fully re-developed immediately afterwards, mostly for housing. It didn’t turn out that way and although a small amount of housing was built and the small Festival Park created, the vast majority of the site lay derelict for about 20 years although things have moved on a bit since then including it now being home to a media campus including the headquarters of BBC Scotland and Scottish Television along with a popular visitor attraction in the Glasgow Science Centre.

So…..what’s all this to do with last Saturday’s gig?

The answer is that the one-off gig paid tribute to and celebrated the 1988 event with the release of a new album by Jamie Scott.

Jamie first came to notice as on half of electronic duo Conquering Animal Sound whose debut album Kammerspiel was shortlisted for Scottish Album of the Year in 2012 and whose follow-up On Floating Bodies was released by Chemikal Underground in 2013. I don’t think the band have officially split up but they’ve been quiet for a few years in which time Jamie has moved to the forefront of Scottish rap/electronica – a genre which is quite unlike many other urban/ghetto scenes – under a number of guises and with other collaborators such as Jonnie Common, who is in fact his older brother.

Jamie has spent well over a year coming up with a concept of in which he wanted to write and record a series of songs which explored the heritage of the 1988 festival and to stage his one-off event because:-

The Garden Festival did so much for the soul of the city. Glasgow’s residents saw the best of their people, saw an enduring, open spirit, and they began to imagine how their city could be. It may have lasted only a few sun soaked weeks, but it changed the city forever.

Those words came from Jamie’s introductory comments in the specially produced 28-page programme given to everyone at the gig. His introduction also points out that very little, outside of people’s memories, remains of the 1988 festival and so it was his hope that the Glad Cafe event would explore its legacy and ensure the positivity, energy and inspiration from what is still a partially derelict pocket of land wouldn’t be forgotten.

The highlight of the event would be the launch of a new 10-track album, Glasgow Garden Festival ’18, to be played in its entirety by Jamie who was joined on stage throughout by drummer Roy Shearer and on occasions by backing singers.

In addition to the live music, there was also exclusive merchandise for sale, a specially brewed lager on tap at the venue and an array of free cakes and biscuits…oh and a replacement tower for Glasgow to replace the one that had been so popular at the 1988 festival.

Having been at the football in Kirkcaldy earlier in the day, I didn’t get back down the road in time for the 8pm Opening Ceremony of Glasgow Garden Festival 18, but it was clear from the packed crowd already in the venue that folk were enjoying themselves with a great buzz and vibe very much in evidence.

The night opened with a short set from Two Kings. It proved to be bonkers, bewildering and brilliant in varying measures. I can’t tell you too much about Two Kings – it was two men, dressed in capes and wearing crowns, who made all sorts of wonderful electronic sounds while recalling tales of ancient history from a long-forgotten and long-lost kingdom. They are undoubtedly from one or more of the many acts with whom Jamie Scott has worked with over the years and while I enjoyed what they were doing, I’m not sure if I could have taken much more than the 20 minutes or so they were on stage as the joke could well have worn off.

The mesmerizing Adam Stafford was next to take to the stage. As ever he delivered a blistering set, via his guitar, effects pedals and mics, made up of familiar favourites, one brand new song and spellbinding versions of tracks from his latest opus, Fire Behind The Curtain, a double album of instrumental music that was released in May this year and which, to my shame, I’ve never got round to reviewing….but regular readers will know that as far as I’m concerned, Adam can do no wrong, and this neo-classical effort contains some of the finest pieces of work he’s ever done:-

mp3 : Adam Stafford – Zero Disruption

A short interval followed during which the soundtrack was Scottish pop/indie hits of the 80s…it was almost like being back at the Simply Thrilled night in The Admiral just two weeks ago….before the festival headliner took to the stage.

My comrade in arms for the night, Mike G, is a big fan of dance/hip-hop, rap and electronica music and has long enjoyed Jamie Scott’s work over the years. I’ve always been a bit less enthused, mostly as I’ve felt Scottish rapping to be a bit cringeworthy – there’s just something unconvincing about this style of music being delivered in such a broad and distinct accent.

But there was something on the night that made it click for me.

It is partly down to Jamie’s engaging personality and his ability to always seem to be enjoying himself on stage. This was a determined and genuine attempt to look back with fondness at 1988 for an audience who, with the exception of a handful of members, were all either born after it concluded or were so young that their memories would have been from a child’s perspective. He was passionate, reverent and caring about his subject matter, with the song titles and lyrics reflecting on the attractions of the original festival wrapped in love letters to the city and its citizens. The occasional slow song ensured it was a far from one-dimensional show but all the while the humour was never far away.

The show and album reflect on what is happening in the city and the country nowadays in this period of wider political upheaval and uncertainty but there’s also a number of nods to music of the era, including (Don’t You) Forget About Me in which Jamie reflects on what actually happened to the 88 site and the broken promises of an immediate regeneration. The show closed with a song that isn’t on the album, a beautifully conceived ballad version of Somewhere In My Heart with a co-vocal from Emma Carey, which seemed so apt given what had been recalled over the previous 45 minutes and also on a night when Roddy Frame himself was performing elsewhere in the city and no doubt getting his own audience on its feet with the same hit song. It was a moving end to a night with a difference.

mp3 : Jamie Scott – The Tower

Glasgow Garden Festival 18 is available to download from here.

JC

Lloyd Cole

LLOYD COLE THE SOLO YEARS : 1995

The great solo career many had predicted for Lloyd Cole hadn’t quite worked out as planned. The fall-out from the poorly received and poor-selling Bad Vibes rumbled on into 1994 with no new material made available. It would later transpire that Lloyd was busy writing and demoing new songs but there was very little faith being shown in him by those who had backed him to this point in time.

There were a number of false starts on the next record which can be evidenced on the finished product with five different production credits listed across twelve songs. This would normally be a sign of a disastrous product with the record going through all sorts of gestation periods and being fiddled around with, but somehow Love Story manages to hang together very well and to be a very enjoyable and listenable album.

It is a record in which LC goes back to basics for the most part, uncomplicated tunes with clear vocal delivery and next to no studio trickery. There’s even a couple of radio-friendly numbers included, one of which actually delivered a Top 30 hit in the UK singles chart, a very impressive achievement at a time when Britpop was dominating. The overall tone, however, is one of melancholy and my initial instinct on first hearing it was that someone should try to somehow have LC hook up with Moz as he’d have been a perfect mid-90s foil and between them they could have given us something ridiculously special, albeit Moz would need to have bowed down and allowed Lloyd to pen some of the lyrics.

It had been just over a decade since Rattlesnakes had taken the listening public by storm and it was not long after Edwyn Collins had made marked his great comeback in the public eye with A Girl Like You. There was therefore something of a renewed interest in Lloyd and the first new single certainly lifted the spirits and offered hope that he would again be a major seller:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Like Lovers Do

It was A-listed on Radio 1 bringing loads of airplay and back on your television screens again after an extended absence, looking just as suave, handsome and debonair as last time around.

Sadly, the next equally strong single didn’t find as much favour with everyone, missing out on the important listing and bellyflopping at #73:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Sentimental Fool

Love Story sold a lot more than Bad Vibes, but not as many as it deserved. It was largely ignored by the music papers and had no chance in the mainstream media who were totally obsessed with the new kids and their electric guitars. It’s an album I reckon would have done incredibly well if social media back in the day had beem more advanced as it was an LP bloggers and the like would have warmed to, given the quality and diversity on display, such as these:

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Be There
mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Unhappy Song

There were even some superb songs left off the album and made only available as b-sides:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – I Will Not Leave You Alone
mp3 : Lloyd Cole – The Steady Slowing Down Of The Heart

This surely all pointed to a bigger, brighter future……but the fickle world of pop music doesn’t work that way and instead things got quite messy.

JC

Haig/Mackenzie

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #123 & #124 : HAIG/MACKENZIE

Memory Palace is the collection of songs recorded by long time friends Paul Haig and Billy Mackenzie at various times between 1993-95. They were both fairly disillusioned with the music industry at this time and without record deals to constrain them they sought to fill the void by getting together in an Edinburgh studio and having a bit of fun, writing songs influenced by krautock, electropop and all out balladry, drawing on their many influences and talents for the unexpected.

It was an album released two years after Billy’s tragic suicide, with Paul fulfilling his pal’s wish to polish things off and make the music available to fans. It was initially only available via mail order through on Paul’s Rhythm of Life label but in due course, after a period in which it had seemingly been deleted, it was given a full release, with four bonus remixes, by One Little Indian in 2004.

It is an ambitious piece of work, not always the easiest of listens which is no real surprise given the chaotic and carefree nature of the recording methodology but at the same time, Billy’s voice comes through as strong and bold as at any point in his career while Paul provides reminders of why so many have long thought of him as one of the most visionary and creative talents of the late 20th century.

I thought I’d feature two songs from it, giving both of them the opportunity to take the lead vocals.

mp3 : Haig/Mackenzie – Thunderstorm

Heavily influenced musically by the trip-hop sounds of the likes of Portishead/Tricky, this tune shows how beautiful Billy could sound when he stayed comfortably with his range.

mp3 : Haig/Mackenzie – Listen To Me

Poptastic stuff. Paul would later re-record this for his Relive album in 2009 but without the killer backing vocal. The track is credited solely to Paul and I do wonder if the lyric was his heartfelt plea to Billy to look after himself a bit better.

JC

Stranglers

AND THE RODNEYS ARE QUEUING UP

I’ve often thought that The Stranglers would be very worthy of an ICA or to be a band on whom there should be a specific series looking at the 45s over the years…well, the period from 1977 to 1983 with maybe the occasional later single also worthy of praise. But I’ve never quite got round to either…..

In lieu of that, I thought it would be worth giving an airing to what I think, with the benefit of hindsight, is their most enduring few minutes of vinyl:-

mp3 : The Stranglers – Duchess

The Stranglers had been prolific in their output since 1977. They had enjoyed a run of Top 20 singles while releasing three albums that had all gone Top 5.

The thing is, The Stranglers were not and never had been a punk outfit. The reliance on keyboards and the bass lines being at the forefront of their sound had always laid bare their pub roots which they wrapped around various punk attitudes such as aggression, violence and confrontation. They were older and more experienced than most and they hadn’t, till this point, really worried about what folk said or wrote about them, but seeing punk’s metamorphosis into new wave, and that many of their peers and contemporaries were getting rich, seemed to bring about a change of attitude.

Duchess was released on 10 August 1979. That’s 39 years ago which is a truly terrifying realisation. This was an era when lead singles were an important precursor to what was to follow on a subsequent album and this 45 had a few folk scratching their head as it is power-pop at its purest, tailor-made for daytime radio with its catchy verses and chorus striding a colossus of a tune which is perfectly produced to allow all four members to demonstrate their playing abilities. And at two-and-a-half minutes in length, with an immediate beginning and no-fade ending, it enabled producers to have their DJs slip it in at any point in a show when there was a need to make up some time from the news, adverts or a bit of idle chat leading to a potential overrun. It should have been massive….and yet it only reached #14.

The general public, clearly, still wasn’t ready to embrace The Stranglers but things weren’t helped by the UK tabloid newspapers taking aim at the band, labelling them as blasphemous thanks to them dressing up as choirboys for the promo video, from which a still was used as the sleeve.

It was all the proverbial water off a duck’s back for the men in black, but it must have been galling for the record label as countless sales were lost with some of the chain stores refusing to put the sleeve on display. It really was a non-story turned into something…..and it shows how easily offended some folk were back in those days.

Worth noting that the American label, keen to avoid a similar controversy, issued the single in a completely different sleeve.

Here’s yer reasonable enough, Stranglers-by-numbers, b-side.

mp3 : The Stranglers – Fools Rush Out

JC

Ballboy

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #177 : BALLBOY (2)

A GUEST POSTING by DIRK a.k.a. SEXY LOSER

You see, the problem with a follow-up to an ICA is that everything about band members and discographies has already been said and done. So please refer to JC’s ICA # 175 if you’re interested.

Also JC managed to pick some of the really good songs, it must be said! No problem though, because ballboy are a band with so many good tunes: it was fairly easy to find ten other ones. Well, not that easy, because I couldn’t rely on albums, singles and EP’s only, I just had to include non-commercial releases as well, because I thought you’d miss a treat if I would not do so. Which made the number of songs to choose from even bigger!

But in the end I succeeded, so, without further ado, Ladies and Gentlemen, Scotland’s finest, ballboy:

‘You Should Fall In Love With Me‘

As it so often is the case, the Peel Session is the superior version. Fact. Obviously this is not only true for ballboy recordings. At least in my books. Here we have to thank George Thomas and Nick Scripps, who produced and engineered this tune back in March 2003. The original version can be found on ‘The Sash My Father Wore’ … of course the album version is excellent as well, but not that excellent!

(JC adds….first time I’ve heard the Peel Session version…..and Dirk is right!!!!)

‘They’ll Hang Flags From Cranes Upon My Wedding Day’

Since I first heard this song, I tend to have a close look each year on August 14th on me way to work. Never saw a single flag though, but I suppose Mrs Loser is still working on this: hope is the last thing to die, right? First released on the ‘Girls Are Better Than Boys’ – EP in 2001, also to be found on ‘Club Anthems’.

‘Frankie And Johnny’

I like it when they do a cover version! Here they tackle a very old tune indeed, from 1912 or thereabouts in fact. Elvis sang that as well, perhaps this is the version that ‘Frankie And Johnny’ is remembered for best. Still he didn’t write it, but to my best knowledge Elvis only wrote a handful of songs, if at all. Another artist who recorded a version was Lonnie Donegan, which is the link to ballboy:

“This is a Peel Session track recorded in October 2004, 2 days after the great man passed away. He was planning a Lonnie Donegan special and invited us to record this. We recorded it in one take, all together in the room with no overdubs. It is ramshackle and raw, but we like it and we are desperately sad that we didn’t get to play it for him.”

‘Dumper Truck Racing’

From their very first EP, ‘Silver Suits For Astronauts’ from 1999. Again, also this was issued on ‘Club Anthems’. A mighty tune, no question about that!

‘A Day In Space’

Also from the aforementioned debut EP: the truth of the matter is, I simply couldn’t decide which one to leave out, this one or ‘Dumper Truck Racing’, so you’ll get both, as easy as that …

‘Disney’s Ice Parade’

Anyone who starts a song with the line “You left your notes on lesbian sex on the fish tank in the hall/took me all afternoon to read them all” is alright with me, I must say! And in the case of ballboy it’s even more alright and I’m curious to find out how this story develops … and so should you, I tell you!

A lifetime ago the band offered podcasts on their website, those podcasts were made by Gordon ballboy and his acoustic guitar. The podcast were a regular feature and one was made every 2-3 weeks or so. The format was that Gordon talks a little, sings a new song, talks a little and sings an old song. ‘Disney’s Ice Parade’ is from a podcast from 2006.

‘Let’s Fall In Love And Run Away From Here’

Perhaps this my favourite ballboy tune. Here, I said it! Then again this might change in five minutes, as it did for a thousand times within the last two decades. It’s the opening track to ‘The Royal Theatre’ from 2004 and it proves what JC said in his wisdom in the first ballboy ICA: “Every one of the band’s EPs and albums opens with a truly memorable number”. This is but one of those, if you ask me …

‘Born In The USA’

Another cover version. I never cared all too much for Springsteen, so forgive me when I say: this is better than the original! From ‘The Sash My Father Wore’ from 2003.

‘We’ve All Had Better Days’

This is another one recorded for the Peel Session mentioned earlier on, the one which had ‘Frankie And Johnny’ on it. As far as I know there has never been a commercial release of this tune. Also I have a feeling that the correct title might possibly be ‘We’ve All Seen Better Days”. Not that it matters much anyway …

‘Where Do The Nights Of Sleep Go To When They Do Not Come To Me?’

A good question indeed, although one that I rarely as myself: I’m one of those lucky chaps who fall asleep as soon as my head touches my cushion. I always explain this ability with too much experience in the backs of transportation lorries when being a Lance Corporal in the German Air Force in the early 90’s, where we would sleep whenever and wherever possible!

‘Where Do The Nights Of Sleep Go To When They Don’t Come To Me?’ was a single from 2002.

Well, that’s it. The longlist, the list I made first, the one I had to delete songs from in order to number it all down to ten, was massive! I think this shows you how good this band really is.

Hope you enjoyed bits of it. Take good care, friends!

Dirk/sexyloser

David Bowie

38 YEARS AGO TODAY

8 August 1980. The date for the release of the song which would give David Bowie his second ever #1 hit in the UK, a full five years after Space Oddity.

mp3 : David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes (single edit)

The 17-year old me loved this. I hadn’t been all that much of a Bowie fan up until this point, admiring him more than adoring him, but this came out just as the point when it all began to make sense. My interest in electronica was beginning to grow at a rapid rate as my tastes expanded dramatically beyond the cut’n’thrust of new wave/post punk guitars.

I began to borrow Bowie albums from the 70s from friends who had either latched on to him earlier or who elder siblings who had been apostles from the earliest days. I didn’t embrace everything fully and indeed didn’t at the time feel any of his previous albums were as good as Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) which had been the first purchase of my own, followed by a budget price compilation album which was released just before Christmas 1980. I’ve changed my mind since then…..

I didn’t care much for the b-side to the single. It mentioned that it was from the album Lodger, a record I had listened to thanks to a friend buying it and playing it, but other than Boys Keep Swinging hadn’t done anything for me.

mp3 : David Bowie – Move On

I haven’t changed my mind on it track or its parent album over the years.

The US release of Ashes to Ashes had an absolute belter of a b-side:-

mp3 : David Bowie – It’s No Game (No.1)

The opening track of the Scary Monsters album remains one of my favourite Bowie numbers of them all, probably for as much as it being such an astonishing and different introduction to his wider work beyond the singles.

One bizarre thing I learned in doing a bit of research for this post. David Bowie would only enjoy one more solo #1 single in the UK with Let’s Dance in 1983. His total of three has been matched by a further three on which he was a co-vocalist or contributor (Under Pressure, Dancing In The Streets and Perfect Day, recorded with a myriad of others for a charity single in 1997). That’s some good pub quiz knowledge there for you…..

JC

Damned

IT REALLY WAS A CRACKING DEBUT SINGLE (20)

15,265 days.

That’s how long it has been since the first ever single by a British punk group was released over here.

22 October 1976. It had long been thought the Sex Pistols or The Clash would grab that particular accolade but they were both blindsided by The Damned.

mp3 : The Damned – New Rose

It came out on Stiff Records and it really threw most people. Punk was supposed to be, according to legend, tuneless, aimless and unlistenable. New Rose was none of those, with its catchy chorus, decent enough verses and a lead singer who was easy(ish) on the ear. As Andy Partridge would later say, this is pop – yeah, yeah.

Talking of which, the b-side was a hoot.

mp3 : The Damned – Help!

103 seconds of what most folk thought punk was….tuneless, aimless and unlistenable if you thought the original was a sacred cow.

A first pressing, with the catalogue number STIFF 6, is fairly valuable these days, and a good quality copy will most likely cost you over £100 on the second-hand market.

It was still too much for daytime or commercial radio who barely played it.  And with nobody hearing it, nobody was buying it.  It didn’t break into the Top 75.

Oh, and for what it’s worth…..I reckon The Damned would release better 45s later on.  My own favourite is this.

JC

Corn Dollies

MORE THAN A NODDING DEBT TO THE MAN IN THE NEW SUNDAY SERIES

It was as recently as last September that I featured The Corn Dollies and their rather excellent debut single Forever Steven courtesy of it being part of the C87 boxset that was issued by Cherry Red Records.  I did comment that the b-side, Be Small Again, was a track that paid more than a nodding debt to Lloyd Cole and The Commotions, and also made reference, via the commentary in the C87 booklet that a later single, Shake, was another that seemed to do the same.

I picked up a second-hand copy of said 7″ single…..

mp3 : The Corn Dollies – Shake

Can’t be denied can it?  Not just the tune but the vocal delivery is almost as if lead singer Steve Musham was auditioning for a part on Stars In Their Eyes…..

Here’s the b-side to that particular single. It could almost pass as a cover version:-

mp3 : The Corn Dollies – Climbing Stairs

Enjoyable stuff nevertheless……

JC

Lloyd Cole

LLOYD COLE THE SOLO YEARS : 1993

Really interesting that Friend of Rachel Worth, whose views and opinions over the years have more often than not been bang-on-the-money, feels that the solo career of Lloyd Cole actually went a bit weird after the release of Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe in 1991.

I certainly concur that the next few years were less than stellar but there would be a subsequent tremendous return to form a few years later as I will hopefully demonstrate in the fullness of time

The commercial failure of the sophomore solo album was a bit of a body low. As I said last week, it’s a tremendous and ambitious record, packed with some of the best songs he’s ever written, but it was very much a case of it being in the wrong place at the wrong time as popular music was going through one of its phases where some sort of new sounds and a movement associated with them was all that mattered. In short, grunge almost killed LC’s career stone dead.

There was no music at all in 1992 and it wasn’t until October 1993 that the new album was released. It was called Bad Vibes which perhaps was Lloyd suggesting he already knew what sort of critical reaction the record was going to provoke…..

I’m thinking back 25 years and recalling that I was bitterly disappointed with the new record, to the extent that I played it three times and put it on the shelf for what I thought would be eternity. I certainly thought that Lloyd’s recording career would soon be over, fully expecting him to be dropped by his companies. Bad Vibes was a million miles away from the Commotions but it was also just about as far again from the first two solo records. It seemed to be a record which was ridiculously over-produced and unplayable in any meaningful sense outside of the studio, with not much to offer in the way of memorable tunes. Sure, there were occasional glimpses of genius in the lyrics, but there were also some banal offerings to match the dullness and clichéd nature of the music emanating from the speakers. All in all, I considered it was a dud.

Nowadays, and with the benefit of having heard a number of the songs played live with much more basic and stripped-back arrangements, I think it’s fair to say that Bad Vibes does have some excellent songs which deserved a better fate than they received in the studio. It would be easy enough to point the finger at producer Adam Peters and mixer Bob Clearmountain but Lloyd has always been a hand-on type of guy in the studio and he would have had a big say in things. I’ve no doubt that the relative failure of the first two solo LPs had led him to again try something different but this was just so far from what I think was his comfort zone that it wasn’t delivered with any real confidence.

There were two singles lifted from the album and these are as good an example as the 1993 songs somehow managing to be instantly recognisable as Lloyd Cole, but not in a way in which you’d perhaps expect or indeed enjoy:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – So You’d Like To Save The World
mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Morning Is Broken

Interesting that Lloyd himself has said of this album:-

To be honest, I really didn’t know what I wanted to make with Bad Vibes, but this didn’t worry me. I was simply trying to make a record which would surprise people. I thought that was written into my job description. To start with, both Adam and I were fairly gung-ho about this, but after months of work together I think we gave into the inevitable truth – my voice and my songs are pretty easily recongisable the moment the singing starts, no matter what.

I’m inclined to agree with those final few words, but it still was a shock to hear such plodding and ill-conceived arrangements at the time.

There were a number of b-sides recorded…one of which harked back to something more akin to previous straight forward pop sounds and thus probably left off the album for that very reason:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Radio City Music Hall

It was also interesting that, having sort of hit a wall with the recording and mixing process for Bad Vibes, Lloyd felt he’d be better recording some Marc Bolan and Lou Reed covers for the extra tracks on the singles. He’s since said this is what he wished Bad Vibes had sounded more :-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – The Slider
mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Vicious

I’m not convinced that an album of songs akin to these would have impressed me any more than what had been issued on Bad Vibes.

JC

h2o

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #122 : H2O

The onset of the ICA World Cup earlier in the year saw this long-running/never-ending series shift away from the regular Saturday slot, and when I reached The Gyres in April, I thought it would make sense to ice it for a while and come back fresh with the first singer or band with the letter ‘H’.

H2O were just about one-hit wonders. A pop band from Glasgow, formed out of the ashes of a punk band, they hit payola in May 1983 with the synth driven and Vince Clarke-influenced I Dream To Sleep which spent three months in the chart and reached #17. A follow-up single, Just Outside Of Heaven scraped into the Top 40, but a debut album and two further 45s lifted from it sold poorly and within two years the band had broken up.

The singer, Ian Donaldson, embarked firstly on a solo career and then was part of other groups later on in which he was backed by ex-members of Big Country and Simple Minds, but with no real commercial success. He’s solo again and released a new album earlier this year.

H2O have occasionally popped up across the Glasgow scene over the years, with many fondly remembering the single….but don’t count me among them as I found it just too electro-twee for my liking at the time, and still do. Oh and it has an annoying Spandau Ballet type sax bit too…..

mp3 : H2O – Dream To Sleep

JC