THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

MEMORIES FROM A BYGONE AGE

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One of the finest and most drunken gigs I’ve ever attended was in June 1985. It was at the old Level 8 in the Student’s Union of Strathclyde University and the band on stage was The Pogues.

It was, now that I look back, more than likely my last ever gig in the Union as an actual student with my NUS card. I would graduate a couple of weeks later and very soon move to live and work in Edinburgh. I would go back to the Union a couple of times in 85/86 but that would have been as a signed-in guest.

The Pogues at that point in time, were becoming increasingly well-known thanks to very positive write-ups in the music press as well as being featured very heavily on TV shows such as The Tube. They had a fearsome reputation as a live act, not least for the fact that the bloke on the tin whistle, Spider Stacy, would frequently add his own manic style of percussion which consisted of repeatedly banging a metal beer tray over his head in time with the music. It was a hot ticket – the fact they were playing the Student Union on a Saturday night would be as much to do with a lack of similarly sized venues in the city being available as they were always strictly reserved at weekends for the stilettos and handbags disco dollies and the beery, leery blokes who lusted after them.

I’m sure this was one of the occasions that my brother SC came along to the Union. He was just beginning, at the age of 18, to really get into his music and appreciate the thrill of a live gig – these were the days when you had to be 18 years old to get into gigs such was the mature of the licensing laws – and he, like me, fancied the idea of something different and exciting. I’m also sure his mate Gary came along that night.

It was one of those occasions where the memories are probably greater than the reality. The band were every bit as loud, boisterous and crazy as we’d been led to believe. It was a gig played either full-on at 180 mph with the sound cranked up to 11 or else it was impossible to hear the quieter numbers as the crowd excitedly tried to calm down from what had just happened. That or rush to the bar to take in some liquids as it was blisteringly hot. It looked and felt like the crowd number was well in excess of that allowed by the fire regulations….

The great thing about the internet is that you can often find set-lists from gigs that happened more than 30 years ago. There is such a list for the Level 8 gig and it shows The Pogues played 22 songs which means they’d have been onstage for something approaching 90 minutes which was a heckuva long time at a Student Union. The songs were a mix of traditional Irish folk numbers (played in a frantic punk style) along with many of their own which had appeared on their debut LP Red Roses For Me or would come out on the soon to be released Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, produced by Elvis Costello, and reckoned (quite rightly) to be one of the finest albums of the 80s.

And as I get misty-eyed with nostalgia (and in the knowledge that I’ll on this very day be making my annual visit to my late brother’s memorial just outside Westport in County Mayo) I’m going to turn to that album for today’s songs:-

mp3 : The Pogues – The Sick Bed of Cuchculiann
mp3 : The Pogues – A Pair Of Brown Eyes
mp3 : The Pogues – Sally MacLennane
mp3 : The Pogues – Dirty Old Town
mp3 : The Pogues – I’m A Man You Don’t Meet Everyday

Enjoy.

Belle & Sebastian

B&S ON SUNDAYS (8)

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From wiki:-

“Step Into My Office, Baby” is a song by Belle & Sebastian, released as their first single for Rough Trade Records in 2003. The track was produced by Trevor Horn and is lifted from Dear Catastrophe Waitress – the first of the band’s singles or EPs to also feature on an album. The front cover features band member Bobby Kildea with Roxanne Clifford (later of Veronica Falls) and Hannah Robinson.

Interesting that the move to a larger indie label saw the band move away from the tradition of keeping singles and album tracks separate; Indeed, it’s worth recalling that the single was released a full six weeks after the album,and so must have been part of a strategy to drive up sales beyond those of the loyal fan base. I suppose it’s part of the price to pay for being allowed to work with such a big name producer as Trevor Horn, a move that was a worry to many long-term fans who feared the unique sound of the band would somehow be forever lost. But what did the reviewers make of it all??

From allmusic:-

“Step Into My Office, Baby” is the lead single from Belle & Sebastian’s fine 2003 record Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Produced by Trevor Horn, the song is the most produced B&S song, with shifting moods and sounds, veering from bouncy, almost glitter rhythms to weepy string sections.

It is a stunning song, easily one of their best. The other two songs on the EP are very good as well, certainly good enough to be included on the album. “Love on the March” is a sweet bossa nova ballad with many cute ba-ba-bas and the usual pithy lyrics, and “Desperation Made a Fool of Me” is a laid-back piano with stately piano and a wistful vocal from the ever graceful Stuart Murdoch. The disc also contains the very funny video for “Step Into My Office, Baby” as a bonus. Belle & Sebastian have always released very high-quality singles and this is no exception.

So there you have it…a thumbs up from the critics and a thumbs-up too from the long-time fan. Yup, it was totally different from the older material but it was great to hear the band having the confidence to make such great strides forwards. It would have been easy enough to go synthetic on the sound but nope, this was the full-blown orchestral backing with 22 additional musicians involved. And that wouldn’t have been a cheap day in the studio.

mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Step Into My Office, Baby
mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Love On The March
mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Desperation Made A Fool Of Me

The single stalled at #32 in the charts. A reasonably good showing for a B&S effort, but I’m sure a source of disappointment for the team at Rough Trade who had staked so much on the band.

Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #31 : BILL WELLS & AIDAN MOFFAT

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In June 2012, before a packed audience at the Barrowlands in Glasgow, it was announced that the winner of the inaugural Scottish Album of The Year Award was Everything’s Getting Older by Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat.

It was a hugely deserved and popular win as it is a quite extraordinary record, combining the talents of one of our premier jazz pianists with our modern-day indie bard who had come to our attention via Arab Strap. The allmusic review captures it well:-

Somehow an Aidan Moffat album starting out with a piano part courtesy of collaborator and longtime Glasgow music fixture Bill Wells that could almost be Lionel Richie and Diana Ross’ “Endless Love” seems weirdly appropriate.

It doesn’t quite stay like that, but Wells’ shift to include brushed drums and acoustic bass atmospheres doesn’t change the fundamental sense of the duo finding a split between elegant melancholy in and of itself and, courtesy of Moffat’s lyrics, often vivisecting what the ideas of it could be. It’s something Moffat’s long been interested in, so to have the first song with vocals, “Let’s Stop Here,” tackle ideas of teenage fantasy, adult possibility, and rejecting a one-off experience while still struggling with the idea of it, is only apt.

Throughout, Wells’ arrangements are excellently matched with Moffat’s lyrics and performances song for song — his rhythmic, softly altering piano part on “The Copper Top” is stellar, a steady backing for Moffat’s short story in miniature, and just one element of a lovely piece that builds up to a conclusion led by muted trumpet. That it’s immediately followed by the rhythm-heavy click and punch of “Glasgow Jubilee” — a chance for Moffat and Wells to do their own turn on breaks and MC’ing — seems right, especially given the tale of a slew of boozing, shagging, and more. Thus this exchange between a pickup of the narrator’s and the narrator himself: “Your lyrics are the ramblings of a lonely solipsist”/I said, “I’m playing Sunday night, shall I put you on the list?”

“Ballad of the Bastard” couldn’t be more of an on-point song title from Moffat either, while his capturing of a combination of self-pity and exculpatory explanations manages the neat trick of being both attractively compelling and utterly loathsome. Moffat’s occasional spoken word delivery is in full effect as ever, splitting the difference nicely on “Cages,” taking the full story-telling stance on “Dinner Time” against a backing that couldn’t be more jazzily film noir — unsurprisingly appropriate given the story of a somewhat unsettled visit home.

There are moments of light breaking through here and there, as in the minute-long jaunty rollick of “A Short Song to the Moon” — a song of praise and thanks for said heavenly object for putting up with the narrator in all his moods — that ends with “Who needs the troubles of love/When you’re still glowing above?”

The troubles may not be needed, but Moffat and Wells both deserve credit for finding ways to capture them just so.

It’s an album that I can’t recommend highly enough and in the words of the label’s MD, contains the greatest ever song released on Chemikal Underground.

mp3 : Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat – The Copper Top

Sad songs say so much.

Monaco

HOOKY’S FINEST POP MOMENT

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It’s actually a misleading title as Peter Hook has been involved in many a brilliant bit of dance/pop/indie/electonica music over the years as part of New Order. I’m just thinking that this is easily his best as a solo artist…

mp3 : Monaco – What Do You Want From Me?

This reached the giddy heights of #11 in the UK singles chart in February 1997 which is higher than all but eight singles from his better known and long-standing combo (and its six if you discount remix versions of Blue Monday and True Faith that took those tracks into the Top 10 for a second occasion)

I was really intrigued when I first heard What Do You Want From Me? I was convinced it was fresh stuff from New Order. At this point in history, the band were on a very lengthy sabbatical – it had been four years since they had released any new songs, and Bernard Sumner had been quite public that he was enjoying life far more as a member of Electronic alongside Johnny Marr.

My initial reaction that this was a clever way of making a comeback – a duet featuring Hooky and Barney – but of course it turned out to be a side-project band featuring Hooky and David Potts who had previously been with him in Revenge.

Listening back now, I think Monaco was Hooky’s warning shot that he wasn’t prepared to sit around all his life waiting for his main source of income to reform and start recording again. He deliberately went out of his way to release something that sounded more like a New Order record than anything else he had ever done in his other side-projects, and it was even more so than anything from Electronic or The Other Two. No-one can deny that David Potts sang like Barney, and there’s just no mistaking that distinctive bass that had been the driving force behind so many great songs over the previous near two-decades.

And when you delve into the history of Monaco, its clear to see that Hooky was giving it his all with this band. There was a lengthy UK tour as support act to The Charlatans in May 1997, an appearance at T in The Park in July 1997, followed by a short US tour that included gigs at venues at prestigious as The Filmore in San Francisco.

Until I did some research for this post, I had assumed Monaco had come and gone after 1997.

But it turns out that a follow-up LP was recorded in 1999 that was rejected by the record label. It was later given a very low-key release on an indie label, with the band appearing at a number of festivals that year, followed by a handful of gigs in 2000. It seems there was then a huge row between Hooky and David Potts (it is alleged the latter wanted to begin to move away from the New Order influences on the Monaco sound), and the band split up. Within a matter of months, New Order, with ex-Marion guitarist Phil Cunningham now on board, were back in the studio….

And here’s the other two tracks that can be found on the CD single that sits on one of the shelves in Villain Towers:-

mp3 : Monaco – Bicycle Thief
mp3 : Monaco – Ultra

Enjoy

Skids

A POST SO GOOD IT NEEDS THREE CONTRIBUTORS….

JC writes…..

Lochore is described by wiki as a former mining village in Fife. Its largely inconsequential nature is such that wiki goes on to state:-

Lochore is largely joined to the adjacent villages of Ballingry to the north and Crosshill to the south.

I don’t think any of my regular readers will be vaguely aware of the existence of the village, other than perhaps Aldo as he was born and raised in another former mining village in Fife not too far away.

I also feel compelled to offer wiki’s take on ‘local facilities’:-

Lochore has a Co-operative Foodstore, Nisa, Mario’s Fish and Chip Bar, and Baynes, which also has a bakers and butchers on the street. Baynes factory is located in Lochore. There is also a small corner shop located in the other end called Lochore Foodstore.

There are two bars, Lochore Institute, a former miners institute with a bowling green, and the Red Goth.

The village has Benarty Medical practice and Rosewell Pharmacy and an NHS Clinic.

There is also a police station operated by Fife Constabulary.

Aldo adds…..

As JC suggests above, Lochore is a place I’m reasonably familiar with having grown up not too far away.

The mining communities of this area of Fife were always hotbeds of trade unionism and left wing politics – and in fact the last remaining Communist Councillor in the United Kingdom, who only stood down last month due to ill health, represented Lochore as it was situated within his constituency.

The name of the pub mentioned above, the Red Goth, may sound unusual to some, and should you be wondering it owes nothing to young teens dressed in black, but does in fact come from the ‘Gothenburg System’ of public houses, whereby profits made by the boozer were used for the benefit of the community. Almost every mining town had a ‘Goth’ at one point, some still survive even if the principal that established them is long gone.

The town was always fairly prominent in local football circles as the village team, Lochore Welfare were always a decent junior side when I was growing up, and currently feature an ex-Scotland international among their ranks.

And finally, I was always semi-puzzled when I was younger if an item came on the news declaring major flooding or whatever in Lahore – as it sounds pretty much the same in local vernacular, the ‘c’ is very much silent. Only later did I realise there was a major city in Pakistan. I was on holiday recently with a mate of mine and I mentioned to him that JC was doing a piece for his blog on Lochore, and he provided another nugget of info…..

Big Stuarty adds….

It is not widely known but the famous novelist Sir Walter Scott has a great connection with the village. There was a grand old property known as Lochore House which he bought in 1825 when he was at the height of his fame. The house was specifically a gift for his son and his new daughter-in-law who was a local lass whose name was Jean Jobson. Which fits in nicely to why JC is wittering on about this small corner of the Kingdom of Fife.

mp3 : The Skids – Monkey Maguire Meets Specky Potter Behind Lochore Institute

Yup…..it might not be a place of obvious appeal to rock’n’roll tourists, but one of its local facilities has been immortalised in song. This wonderfully named piece of instrumental music was the b-side to Goodbye Civilian, the band’s rather jaunty eighth single which reached #52 in the UK charts back in 1980.

mp3 : The Skids – Goodbye Civilian

Any other suggestions for unlikely places that have been immortalised in song? I feel a new series coming on……………………

Joe Strummer

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #82 : JOE STRUMMER

A guest contribution from Dave Martin

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I thought long and hard about making a Joe Strummer compilation that would fit within the confines of the ICA series, and had several different ideas in my mind during that time. I had thought about his work with other artists, and interesting as this concept was, I rejected it as being unrepresentative of his own body of work. I also swapped my ten tracks and their running order several times before coming up with what I think is the best compromise, in that it cohesive and also almost reads true to the chronological line of recording and progression in his music.

When The Clash finally came to a stop with the aptly named Cut The Crap, Joe Strummer had suddenly lost his place in The Only Band That Mattered. His initial recordings were followed by a decade, the Wilderness Years in his own words, and then a quite different, more worldly set of releases in what was a far too short period of time before his premature death. I have split the ICA accordingly, with side one allowing ten years before side two starts. Of course, you can choose to cut this gap down accordingly, but bear in mind, this was an era for a man who had released eight slabs of vinyl in a five-year period from 1977, and represents a loud silence.

The first few recordings in Joe’s post-Clash career came through soundtrack recordings, the first being from Sid & Nancy. Joe realised quite quickly that kicking Mick Jones out of The Clash had been a mistake, and soon hooked up with him for Love Kills and also to co-produce and co-write on BAD’s second album, No.10 Uping Street. However, this is Joe’s album…

Side One

1 Evil Darling

The third film soundtrack Joe Strummer participated in, with two songs, was Straight To Hell, a parody of spaghetti western films by Alex Cox. Filmed in the Almeria region of Spain, like most in the genre actually were, the film and soundtrack also featured The Pogues as a bunch of cowboys addicted to coffee. Joe would later play some of the band’s tracks live with them in later years, but his main (vocal) track is an evocative piece which captures the sense of the wild west and effectively draws a line in the sand between where he was and where The Clash were when he left them behind.

2 Tennessee Rain

Released earlier in 1987 than Evil Darling, the entire Walker soundtrack was ‘written and produced by Joe Strummer’ as opposed to being called a Joe Strummer release. For those who want the whole story behind this, go read, but suffice to say for our purposes, Joe was limited to singing on three tracks on this album. The Unknown Immortal vies with Tennessee Rain for me, at times, but this song just makes the cut for the album. Tennessee Rain has a warmth to the lyric which had not always been evident in Joe’s music before, and towards the end breaks into a mood that is so far from the posturing he’d been guilty of a few years earlier, that it becomes the first sing along song he did, rather than chant along – with the possible exception of White Man In Hammersmith Palais.

3 Trash City

From the fourth soundtrack album in three years, Permanent Record, Trash City saw Joe going back to a more formal band line-up with Latino Rockabilly War. The guitarist, Zander Schloss, had actually been on the previous two releases, and he had clearly become a foil for Joe to work with, and while not being of the calibre of Mick Jones it should be remembered he was not in competition either. Having said that, this is perhaps the most Clash-like song Joe did, and his first single in two years, since 1986’s Love Kills with Mick. However, it’s the beginnings of a band sound that makes the difference here, and at the point where they seem to break loose, you hear a bunch of men comfortable in their grouping.

4 Island Hopping

The second single from Earthquake Weather, Joe’s first bona fide solo album, featuring LTW in recording but not in credits, this is yet another breakaway from Joe’s previous sound. If The Clash had broken musical barriers in their career, Joe was continuing that trend and adapting to his freedom quite handsomely. This is a song I love, and in the last year it has had more plays on Kirkwall jukeboxes than probably anywhere else in the word. My only regret about this not bothering the charts is that it will never be the answer to the pub quiz question, “What hit single mentions ‘Papa Hemingway’ by name while describing life in the setting of his later years?” I’d get that one right.

5 Sleepwalk

The closing track on Earthquake Weather, and a dark, brooding song which in typical Clash lore was supposedly written for Frank Sinatra. Whether Jo believed that or not, the many ups and downs in his personal and professional life in the next ten years lend the lines ‘what good would it be, if you could change every heartache that run through your life and mine?’ a certain poignancy and close side one.

Side Two

1 Sandpaper Blues

Ten years later, and 1999 saw Joe Strummer releasing Yalla Yalla as a single from a new album, Rock Art & The X-Ray Style. Dating back from work with Richard Norris, the single and this track herald the coming of a new band in The Mescaleros. Featuring hand drums and African chanting, Sandpaper Blues is an all embracing song, immediately telling the listener it’s going to boom Mariachi and urging everyone to shape it up all around the world. A man back with a purpose.

2 Bhindi Bhagee

The second album with The Mescaleros saw old time friend and occasional collaborator Tymon Dogg join the band. Despite never being released as a single, this track can be argued to be the defining sound of the band. The album had a genre-melding folk-rock sound a million miles from Steeleye Span, and this track is at first a celebration of the diverse and exciting ethnic and multi-cultural areas of the local London High Streets, principally through the foods on offer, and then describes the band’s sound in a similar manner.

3 Johnny Appleseed

A call to look after the planet, or just looking out for his cider? This is a rare animal in that it is an environmentally charged song without seeming to be so, or being dragged down by the message. It works on different levels, like good songs do, but the simple message of looking after the bees if you want to get the honey is a lesson not easily learned by everyone.

4 Get Down Moses.

Released posthumously, with instrumentation added to demos, Streetcore stands as a good indication of the sort of third album Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros were capable of. This track, also released as a single, had already been in the live set for most of 2002, harks back to ideas Joe had over 30 years earlier. The failure of religion and modern society had already been covered on The Sound Of The Sinners, but whereas on Sandanista’s track the message on the tablets was Valium, the modern tablets were LSD pills.

5 Willesden to Cricklewood

Actually the last track from Rock Art, this also featured as the closing track on the film and soundtrack of The Future Is Unwritten, Julian Temple’s documentary of Joe’s life. And this song seems to be about Joe’s life. The lyrics, ‘thought about what’s done is done, we’re alive and that’s the one’, sound like a man content with his life. These thoughts were articulated by Antony Genn, who had provided the inspiration while tinkling about on the piano in the studio. Antony had also been instrumental in getting Joe back into music, and told this story with barely hidden emotion.

DAVE

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM #81 – NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS (2)

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds were near the top of those for my stab at an ICA but they were also one of the first to be offered up by a guest contributor, courtesy of The Robster back in May 2015. Click here for a reminder.

However, I think there’s now enough time passed since to come up with a second volume on the proviso that I don’t include any of the ten actual songs selected by The Robster (and there’s a few that would have been certainties!!). It also acts an introduction to what, over the coming weeks, will be a run of ICAs that have been submitted by guest contributors, new and old alike, that I haven’t had the capacity to pull together into the standard shape and style or do the really time-consuming bit which is get the files into a shape and form that you can listen to via the links.

There’s some great stuff coming your way, but for now, back to Nick Cave….and the different thing I’ve done this time is match the tracks on this ICA with their position on the album on which they were released. This means that I’ve also looked at everything as a CD as the albums had different numbers of songs. Thus, having gone for Track 1 from a particular album, then no other opening song was eligible. It also ruled out b-sides…..

Despite such restrictions, it still makes for a cracking listen.

1. Do You Love Me? (Track 1 on Let Love In, 1994)

This was included within the 45 45s at 45 rundown but it wasn’t a stick-on to open up the ICA. Indeed, this was an instance when Robster’s choices prevented me going for my real preference but then again I’d probably have fretted about not including what is one of the best examples of the Bad Seeds being such a great foil for Nick’s incredible brand of lyrics.

2. Deanna (live) (Track 2 on Live Seeds, 1993)

There have been few, if any, better examples of a band that have been consistently brilliant in the live setting for what is now over 30 years. Every tour offers something different, whether that be an altered line-up from last time out, the use of additional backing singers or a well-known and much-loved song being given a completely new interpretation (The Mercy Seat in particular has experienced this over time) and as such a Bad Seeds show is never dull or predictable. There’s been four live releases in addition to the fifteen studio albums. This frantic and chaotic rendition of an infamously raucous number on 1988’s Tender Prey appears on the first of the live releases.

3. People Ain’t No Good (Track 3 on The Boatman’s Call, 1997)

From the album that took everyone by surprise thanks to its minimalist approach and heavy reliance on the piano. It’s the album when Nick Cave began to feature very heavily in the UK broadsheets as he finally had made an album that middle-aged people could listen to without any fear or dread. It’s his album of love and regret and at times his vocal delivery is as fragile as his mood was during its recording. I know why so many folk love it and rate it among his best but at best I’m only able to listen to it right through about every 2-3 years nowadays. It’s just too sad and morose in places. The selected track is as sad and morose as any of them but has a certain transcending charm that indeed led to it being included for a sad moment in a family movie – Shrek 2 – as well as being beautifully covered by Lloyd Cole.

4. Jubilee Street (Track 4 from Push The Sky Away, 2013)

There was a five year gap between Push The Sky Away and its predecessor during which time Mick Harvey, who was widely regarded as having long been at the forefront of the actual sound of the band, had taken his leave. The Bad Seeds had always been an evolving and interchangeable group of musicians but Mick Harvey had always seemed the perfect foil for the mercurial frontman, although there had been increasing signs through the Grinderman side project, the soundtrack work and the changes in sounds on the albums of the 21st century that Warren Ellis was now key to everything. Long-time fans were nervous about the first non-Harvey album but such fears were unfounded as it proved to be outstanding and with a staggering range of subject matters.

This slow tempo number with its surreal and imaginative lyric is the centrepiece of the album. And it’s the first of two cheats on this ICA – it was part of The Robster’s selection but he went for a live version which sort of opens the door for me to include the studio version.

5. Red Right Hand (Track 5 on Let Love In, 1994)

One of the most popular and enduring tracks in the entire back catalogue. And thanks to its extensive use in movie and TV, probably among the best-known Nick Cave songs. Not only a lyric which is psychotically disturbing and humorous in equal measures, it’s a tune that brings out the multiple talents of its players.

6. The Singer (Track 6 on Kicking Against The Pricks, 1986)

Nick Cave has never been shy to take a stab at cover versions and indeed in 1986 he released an entire album’s worth. Let’s put aside the fact that, (a) there was a bit of a contractual obligation for a new record at the time and the singer’s addiction issues were causing problems in coming up with new material, and (b) some of the versions on Kicking Against The Pricks border on the unlistenable, and rejoice in the crazy fucked up take on The Folk Singer, co-written by the C&W legends that are Johnny Cash and Charlie Daniels.

7. Into My Arms (Track 7 on The Best Of…., 1998)

This is my second and final sleight of hand. The track that opens The Boatman’s Call is also the seventh song on the 1998 compilation of which initial copies came with a live CD. It’s very much a classic love song and I’m surprised that nobody has ever attempted to give it the full band/orchestra treatment via a cover version. Surprised but glad as it’s the very simplicity of piano, bass and heartfelt but understated vocal that make it so memorable and special. Interesting to read that Nick Cave, while appreciating the visual beauty of the video that was made to accompany its release as a single thought the depressing and sad shots are at odds with the optimism at the heart of the song.

8. Stagger Lee (live) (Track 8 on The Abattoir Blues Tour CD 1, 2007)

Along with Red Right Hand, a perennial favourite when aired live, which it has been on just about every tour since it originally appeared on Murder Ballads in 1996.

This particular version is all that more special thanks to the contribution of soul/gospel backing vocals and the addition of a new verse in which the protagonist, having been executed for his crimes, finds himself on judgement day where he faces up to Lucifer himself. The end result is bloody, violent and, given Stag’s history, somewhat predictable.

9. Jack The Ripper (Track 9 on Henry’s Dream, 1992)

Sing-a-long with St Nick. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

Some say this is a macho and wholly misogynist number but they’re wrong.

10. God Is In The House (live) (Track 10 on Live from KCRW, 2013)

Given the personal tragedy that Nick Cave and his family have had to deal with over the past two years, I had thought he may at some point announced his retirement from writing and performing; if so, this double live album, recorded at a concert for a Los Angeles radio station, would have been a fine and somehow appropriate way to quietly take leave; but it does seem as if new material is coming our way later in 2016.

The album displays a rarely seen side to the Bad Seeds in the live setting with the emphasis on slower songs, which are given a different arrangement from when first released. As is the case with this track from 2001’s No More Shall We Part. What is really worth noting is that four of the five musicians who made this wonderfully understated LP were the members of Grinderman, the side project which is better known for grimy and sweaty material rather than this sort of ballad. It’s a demonstration of the diverse talent required if you want to be a Bad Seed.

Oh and the fifth musician is none other than Barry Adamson – he first came to prominence as the bassist with Magazine before linking up with the Bad Seeds and playing on their first four albums. He left in 1986 and carved out a successful solo career, particularly as a score composer. But it’s really the case that nobody ever leaves the Bad Seeds and he came back in 2013 to play on Push The Sky Away and to be part of the touring band but this time on keyboards which is the role he plays on the KCRW album, which was very impressively recorded live in one take.

11. More News From Nowhere (Track 11 from Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!, 2008)

Just as about all the Bad Seed albums tend to open with show stoppers, so they inevitably end with songs that make you want to either turn the vinyl over or push the CD back to Track 1. I’ve extended this ICA out by one more tune as this is one of my personal favourite LP closers – it’s an epic tale that extends out to almost eight minutes in length over a tune which is eminently danceable, although an edited version was later cut for release as a 7” vinyl single. The band are, as ever in fine form here, also adding the perfect level of backing vocals on this occasion, as Nick chirps away quite contentedly about past loves and muses, real and imaginary alike, in a way that is diametrically opposite that from the songs on The Boatman’s Call.

There’s not many occasions when the word ‘delightful’ can be applied to a Nick Cave song. Indeed, this may be the only genuine time when you can. And it seems a perfect way with which to close this ICA.

Enjoy

Mercury Rev, Ride

THE £20 CHALLENGE (Week Nine)

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S-WC writes…..

I’ve edited this at the start to issue an apology. I’ve been really busy in the last couple of weeks – so apologies if you have been (for some strange reason) eagerly awaiting (or even just mildly looking forward to it) this. It was beyond my control. Sometimes work gets in the way of fun. That obviously sucks, but, its pays my bills and keeps me in fluffy socks and allows me to fuel my Jaffa Cake addiction. Now on with the charity shop stuff.

“You know that I hate Mercury Rev why have you bought me a Mercury Rev CD?”

Badger smiles and says that it was time for me to put aside my hatred for Mercury Rev, because it wasn’t based on music but personality. He is right and this is why…Welcome to the (long drawn out) story of the night that the singer from Mercury Rev punched me in the face…Which to this day is the sole reason why I refuse to like Mercury Rev.

It is March 1992, I am sixteen an in the last year or so I have discovered music, live gigs, girls, Newcastle Brown Ale, Doc Martins Boots and cigarettes. I have abandoned a burgeoning career on the running track (at the time I am the two time Kent Under 16 Cross Country Champion), and thrown away my slippers with Scooby Doo on them. I think I am cool because I own ‘Come Home’ on 12” and a Carter T-shirt which has a swear word on the back.

By now I am a gig veteran (or I think I am), last summer I went to the Reading Festival and the much forgotten about Slough Festival and already this year I have seen about five bands live. Today I am in Folkestone to see Ride they are supported by Mercury Rev. Ride are touring in support of their second album ‘Going Blank Again’ and are at the height of their powers, the album has just gone Top 5 in the charts and ‘Leave Them All Behind’ has been pretty much glued to my stereo since its release – this is probably because its so long that it hasn’t quite finished yet.

mp3 : Ride – Leave Them All Behind

There are six of us, me, Graham (posh kid, doesn’t like Ride, but has come because he fancies one of the girls here), Martin (now in the band Thee Faction), Nick (thinks he is cooler than everyone because he has a girlfriend who is older than him), and two girls, Michelle (the one that Graham fancies I think) and Catherine (later starts going out with my best mate Richard). I at the time have been sniffing around Our Price Girl, I have yet to succeed (succeed? Probably not the right word) in that quest but I am at least on speaking terms with her. Oh, she is here at this gig, did I mention that? She is sitting in a café (looking divine in a Cure T Shirt and flowery skirt) drinking Pepsi, on the walkway up to the concert venue, which is why I am trying to convince everyone to go to that café instead of queuing up to get in like 700 other sadsacks.

Our Price Girl is with Jane one of her best friends, a chap called Dave who I sort of know and another guy, who is much older than them all (later revealed as Dave’s dad, Eric). In the end Michelle, me, and Graham (inevitably because where Michelle goes, he goes) go to the café and the others go and queue up. I pretend not to notice Our Price Girl and then act surprised when I see her at a table. It sort of works as her group and my group spend the rest of evening as one group.

We are wondering back to the queue, I think there are six of us (Dave’s Dad has gone somewhere else), when we spot Mark Gardener from Ride, just walking down the street. He is carrying a plate of sandwiches, which I have to say to this day remains the single most bizarre thing I have seen a rock star carrying (apart from the time I saw Billy Corgan carrying a goat into his hotel room and locking the door. That’s made up by the way, just in case he’s reading). That is important, remember the sandwiches. Seeing Mark pretty much sends the girls into some form of mental breakdown, they start fixing their hair, getting little mirrors out of their bags that sort of thing. We dash over and immediately Our Price Girl tells me to say hello to him. “Why me?” I say. She doesn’t answer but just stands that looking cross, so I shut up and wander over. Now for some reason, I have no idea why, I say to Mark Gardener, probably the coolest bloke on the planet at the time (well I thought so anyway), “Got any cheese and tomato in there?” He looks at me and smiles and says “I don’t know, they are for Mercury Rev”. Then I ask him if he would mind signing some stuff for me and my mates, which of course he agrees to. We then all chat some more and eventually we are outside the back of the venue – he then says he has to run off and do ‘shit interviews’ with the local papers but told us to enjoy the gig and he is gone. The girls sigh, and we all decide that he is a really nice guy. It is then that Graham realises that he is holding Mercury Rev’s sandwiches.

We knock on the back door until a security guy opens it and tells us politely to fuck off. I say that we have some sandwiches for Mercury Rev and he laughs and says ‘nice try’. We push Graham to the front and show him, he tells us to stay where we are. A strange thing happens then, the singer from Mercury Rev turns up and starts chatting to us, whilst opening the plate of sandwiches up and eating them. There are probably fifteen sandwiches on that plate. Now, I should say here, that this is the old singer from Mercury Rev, a large chap named, David Baker, not the current singer. I was pretty unaware of Mercury Rev and their music and when the singer asked us if we were fans instead of saying yes I said ‘I’ve never heard of you…’ and Graham and Dave both laughed. Our Price Girl shot me a look at this point.

He looked pretty pissed off with me at this point and he starts to wander off back into the venue, muttering something about having to get back. Now, at this point, the events are slightly blurred, but someone says something. I swear it wasn’t me, I think it was Graham, but I might be wrong. Anyway, the singer from Mercury Rev turns around and punched me in the face. It didn’t hurt to be honest, it was more of a slap than a punch it left a red mark rather than a bruise. With that he was gone and the security guard told us to do one again. By the way, David Baker had eaten nine sandwiches in around five minutes and not once did he offer us one or even say ‘Thank You’.

I turned to my friends and said “I bet Mercury Rev are shit”. I was right, that night they were awful, meandering, and pretentious. I vowed that from that day I would never like them, it was because the singer had slapped me, rather than their actual music, because there was one song about ‘Bees’ that was actually pretty good.

So that is why I have never really liked Mercury Rev. And by the way the only other musician to have punched me is the guitarist from long lost Pearl Jam wannabes (only from Guildford, not Seattle) Redwood, he punched me because I said their album was as interesting as reading the Chester City Bus Timetable. That one hurt though.

“The problem with this album”, Badger says as he hands me the copy of ‘All Is Dream’ “is that its not ‘Deserters Songs”. That album folk is in Badger’s Top Twenty Albums Ever. He loves it and every now and again forces me to listen to it on car journeys or something. I don’t mind it to be honest, but its not the masterpiece that everyone says it is.

However, I listen to ‘All is Dream’ the next day on the way to Torquay, and you know what, I enjoyed it. It’s a lovely album. Its intelligent, graceful and in parts emotional. The lead track from it ‘The Dark Is Rising’ is beautiful as is ‘Tides of the Moon’ and the ending of ‘Lincoln’s Eyes’ has one of best endings of a song I’ve heard in ages. It also has this piano led ballad on it called ‘Spider and Flies’ which is probably the finest song on the album, as the piano tinkles away, the singer (Jonathon Donahue) quietly goes mental, confessing all his fears about death and such like. You realise then that the whole album is a kind of ode to a love or lover I suppose. It’s a lovely thing.

Ok, Mercury Rev, I forgive you. Now let’s listen to ‘Deserter’s Songs’ again.

mp3 : Mercury Rev – The Dark Is Rising
mp3 : Mercury Rev – Tides of The Moon
mp3 : Mercury Rev – Lincoln’s Eyes
mp3 : Mercury Rev – Spiders and Flies

The Skinny

‘All is Dream’ bought from PDSA Exeter

Price £2.99

Left £3.50

Belle & Sebastian

B&S ON SUNDAYS (7)

ImWakingUpToUs

From wiki:-

“I’m Waking Up to Us” is a song by Belle & Sebastian, released as a single/EP on Jeepster in 2001. The track saw the band work with another producer besides usual collaborator Tony Doogan for the first time – Mike Hurst, former member of The Springfields and producer of Petula Clark and Cat Stevens.

The front cover features band member Sarah Martin and a beagle.

The all music review:-

The worry was that Belle & Sebastian had settled into a comfortable, premature middle age — treading water in their tried and true, admittedly pleasant formula but slowly relinquishing their potential to greatly move us. That notion is hereby dispelled, nay, smashed to smithereens by this wonderful piece of art.

“I’m Waking Up to Us” is the matter that striking pop is made up of, like a golden Bacharach staple, where sharp acoustic guitars, a chiming lead, supple bass, resonant background violins, agreeable piano, and a trio of bassoon, oboe, and flute cameos combine to supply the perfect tuneful four-minute pop song. Having drawn us in like sorcerers to this lush, tantalizing, but precarious concoction, Stuart Murdoch delivers one of his most sterling and memorable vocal performances, perfectly timed to correspond to an equally accomplished set of direct-feeling words. He was always a vigorous poet, but he outdoes even himself here, impressively turning a superb firsthand soul-search into regretful acidity. This is the sort of rich lyrical complexity, with the unfolding hook of narrative like a great film, that top shelf ’60s pop once trafficked in — but no longer cares a rats ass to deliver.

And it doesn’t stop there, on the two other non-LP B-sides. “I Love My Car” is a sublime one-two quarter-note rhythm step meeting both a playful feel, and an equally frilly, intoxicated lyric highlighted by a clever Beach Boys tribute. Then, as a fitting closer, “Marx and Engels” is another lithe piano-led pretty-gem, the kind that made this U.K. collective cult-famous. It’s yet three more minutes of pure bliss, punctuated by a sumptuous turn on the ivories at the close. You’ll never see this on an LP, but that just makes it more of a must purchase.

The band was augmented on the lead song by twelve violins, three violas, a bassoon, an oboe and a flute, while I Love My Car has a jazz/skiffle band on board with banjo, trumpet, trombone, clarinet and sousaphone all put to good use. The end result is one of the best of their singles/EPs and one which was deserving of a much higher chart position than #39.

mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – I’m Waking Up To Us
mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – I Love My Car
mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Marx and Engels

I’m Waking Up To Us is surely one of the nastiest lyrics of all time. Stuart Murdoch and Isobel Campbell‘s romantic relationship had run its course although she was still an essential part of the band. So he pens a song about things not working out and gets the subject matter of the song to play on it. It was an act of real cruelty and I’m sure Isobel was pretty humiliated by it all.

You could even extend it to the b-side where the lyric talks of loving cars, cats and dogs but not the human being in the song……

I suppose Isobel got her revenge the following year by quitting the band in the middle of an important tour of the USA and putting the frontman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Bill Drummond

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG #30 : BILL DRUMMOND

After he launched Zoo Records and managed Echo & The Bunnymen, but before he became famous and infamous as part of The KLF, one of my all time heroes released a solo LP on Creation Records in 1986.

The Man is a wonderfully understated piece of work with its indie-folk tunes behind a distinctly Scottish brogue pre-dating what would become hip by 25 years. It was lo-fi, recorded in just five days for not a lot of money, with many of the lyrics reflecting on Bill’s idiosyncratic view of life. Oh and he used it to settle a score with one of his old colleagues from the Liverpool scene:-

mp3 : Bill Drummond – Julian Cope Is Dead

It was his response to this from a short time earlier:-

mp3 : Julian Cope – Bill Drummond Said

Bonkers I’m sure you’ll agree.

Here’s the great single lifted from the album:-

mp3 : Bill Drummond – I’m The King Of Joy

Oh and although the reviews for the album were almost all positive, it sold poorly.

Stanley Odd

BONUS POSTING : IT’S ALL GONE TO FUCK

It’s been an incredible week here in the UK after the unbelievable outcome of the EU Referendum. I’ve avoided making any sort of observations or comment on the basis of not really knowing how best to articulate how I feel about it all.

And then, I was informed that Stanley Odd have released this as a single today:-

If you don’t know much about this Edinburgh-based six-piece, then I suggest you spend time over here.

I own a copy of their 2012 LP Reject – I actually won it via a raffle at fundraiser for another band a couple of years back – and while I found it to be a bit of a mixed bag, there was more to enjoy than endure.

I didn’t however invest in the 2014 follow-up A Thing Brand New, although many of my fellow music lovers from round these parts have sung its praises.

This new single, which I will be buying via download as soon as I get back home from the office, is an absolute belter – hip-hop that can’t be from anywhere else but round these parts. It clearly comes with a warning not to play in places where folk get offended about strong language.

Human League

TALL TALL TALL

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It was the summer of 1980 when I heard this in a local record shop not far from where I lived with my parents and brothers. It was in the box of singles marked ‘Just In’ and I remember thinking that I was dead clever at picking up so quickly on something so utterly quirky, mesmerising and unique. It was a single I bought with money for my 17th birthday.

My bubble got burst about three days later when my mate’s big brother, who was very much into weird electronica music and hated, with a passion, the new-wave guitar bands that I was such a fan of, took immense pleasure in pointing out that I’d bought a re-released single and that if I really thought I was cool in my choice of music and wanted to stay ahead of the game, I had to be a bit sharper.

And while I wasn’t among the first to pick up on The Human League, I’m still proud that I knew a bit about them before the the astonishing success they enjoyed from late 1981 onward when they unleashed the magnificent pop opus that was Dare.

Empire State Human is a magnificent record. I cannot to this day understand why it failed to chart on its original release in September 1979. It wasn’t as if radio stations were totally adverse to electronic pop as Gary Numan was riding high in the charts throughout that year. It’s one of those songs that sticks with you when you play it and you just cant get it out of your head. And its not an unpleasant feeling.

mp3 : The Human League – Empire State Human

It also added to my fascination with NYC, a city that as a teenager seemed to be the most exciting, exotic and vibrant on the planet. But it may as well have been on the moon such was the cost and ability to visit there back in the early 80s. Changed days for young folk nowadays.

Go-Betweens

ANOTHER CLASSIC 45 WITH GREAT B-SIDES

All three of these songs have been featured on this blog in the past, but not as one posting.

The single was released in October 1988 but again failed mysteriously to give The Go-Betweens a hit single.

mp3 : The Go-Betweens – Was There Anything I Could Do?

As the heading of the post indicates, the single came with more than decent b-sides. Here’s those from the 12″ release:-

mp3 : The Go-Betweens – Rock n Roll Friend
mp3 : The Go-Betweens – Mexican Postcard

Enjoy

PS

The blog has sort of taken a bit of a back seat in recent weeks as I’ve spent loads of time either watching football on the telly or making the most of the light nights and playing golf. With Euro 2016 coming to a conclusion soon (i.e. there’s not games on the telly every night!), I’m hoping to crank things up again in the coming days including a few guest ICAs that have been sent in.

Cheers.

Members

REMEMBERING THE MEMBERS

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One of my favourite songs back in 1979:-

mp3 : The Members – The Sound Of The Suburbs

At the time, I thought it was a great punk record and I used to play it really loud just to annoy the hell out of my old man. Looking back on it now, it was really nothing more than glorified pub-rock with a cracking shout-a-long chorus. Not all that far removed from the sort of stuff that brought fame and fortune to Sham 69.

But quite clearly, us kids love it cos it spoke to us all about how miserable and bring life was and collectively we dragged into the pop charts where it reached #12 in the spring of 1979.

The follow-up single was one that I bought without ever hearing as that’s what you did with your favourite music and bands when you were 16 years old. At the time I hated it……I had no idea what the hell it was about, and to be honest I didn’t really care. Oh and the tune also annoyed me as it reminded me of the appalling Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc more than anything else. History shows that it was all just ahead of its time…..and by maybe around 1983, I realised that it was a genuine classic:-

mp3 : The Members – Offshore Banking Business/Pennies In The Pound (12″ version)

Trivia facts. The drummer in the band got his brother to produce some of the earliest material recorded by The Members. The drummer was Adrian Lillywhite…his brother’s name was Steve….and he went on to become one of the best-known and biggest-earning producers in the 80s and 90s. Oh and he also married Kirsty MacColl.

Offshore Banking Business was a top 40 hit, and many of the lyrics were courtesy of JC Carroll who had been a trainee merchant banker before joining the band. The band never enjoyed any further chart success with any of their five subsequent singles before they called it a day in 1981.

But like many others of their ilk, the chance to relive it all decades later proved too tempting to turn down and since 2007 the band have been on the road and in the studio making music for a living. I haven’t been tempted….

Deacon Blue

WHEN IT ALL GOES PEAR-SHAPED

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I’m sure everyone of you has a similar story to tell……

A new band comes on the scene and the noise they make on the radio and in print is quite appealing. As a music fan, you invest some of your hard earned spare cash into buying product which doesn’t disappoint. You even make an effort to catch them live on stage and come away impressed. The next thing is that you’re telling your mates and work colleagues that said band really are a bit special and well worth checking out.

But then one day, something happens that irritates you. It might be an unexpectedly duff record. It might be something you read after the most prominent member of the band has said something really stupid or even offensive. Now you find yourself on the defensive about the band and no longer find yourself championing them. Before you know it, you take on the traits of someone who has reformed after a drink or drug addiction and become a bit holier-than-thou and start denouncing the band.

Welcome to the my relationship with Deacon Blue.

Formed in the mid 80s, I first came across this lot thanks to them being one of a number of unknown Scottish artists who were on a compilation cassette called Honey At The Core.

They had an elegant and eloquent front man in Ricky Ross. I particularly loved that, at a period in time when Glasgow had been dismissed by many as just another former industrial city with nothing going for it, Ricky Ross was someone who was prepared to argue just how special a place it was, and how it was more than capable of getting off its knees. The music he and his band were churning out was also enjoyable. It was just the right side of anthemic and it also had a bit of a political edge. A song like Raintown could only be about a city like Glasgow, and a song like Dignity could only be about someone who came from Glasgow. The cover on the debut LP, released in 1987, was a fantastic photograph of the Glasgow of old when it was famous for shipbuilding and engineering. Yes, there was a degree of nostalgia about it all, but at a time when I had not long left for the first time in my life and re-located to Edinburgh, it was the sort of LP that I could put on of an evening and think of home.

Unsurprisingly, the band began to grow in popularity and soon became regulars in the singles and album charts, particularly after the release of their second LP When The World Knows Your Name in 1989. The new songs were totally different from the debut – very radio-friendly and of such mass appeal that the band were capable of selling out more than one night at the 12,000 capacity hall at the SECC.

Some of the new stuff got on my nerves, as did the fact that Ricky Ross was all over the media saying how his songwriting was developing as a craft and that he was an artist who wanted to be remembered for the timeless quality of his songs. Nor did it help that he was also using his new found fame to jump on his soapbox and tell anyone prepared to listen that the only way Glasgow and Scotland make progress was through political independence.

In other words…he turned into a pretentious, pompous self-deluding arse….and the music the band were pumping out was becoming unbearable to listen to.

But you can never take away the magic of some of the early stuff:-

mp3 : Deacon Blue – Raintown
mp3 : Deacon Blue – Dignity
mp3 : Deacon Blue – Riches

If you think I’m being harsh on Ricky, you should hear me when the name of Pat Kane of Hue and Cry is mentioned…..

Cinerama

THE CINERAMA SINGLES (12)

There was just one release from Cinerama in 2003 and it was in the shape of a three-track CD single:-

mp3 : Cinerama – Don’t Touch That Dial
mp3 : Cinerama – The One That Got Away
mp3 : Cinerama – On/Off

It later emerged that the romantic relationship between David Gedge and Sally Murrell had ended around the time of recording this single. The band still continued to tour into 2004 at which point it was announced that Cinerama would be no more and that when they next went into the studio, the resultant music would be the first releases in eight years by The Wedding Present.

The next single was Interstate 5, released in September 2004, followed by the LP Take Fountain in February 2005, both of which are among the finest records of the very many recorded by TWP. The band was, with the exception of Sally Murrell, identical to that of the latter-day Cinerama. The new material was picked up by the media in a way that none of the Cinerama stuff had enjoyed and the gigs began again to be played in larger venues.

You couldn’t make it up!!

Cinerama still exist in that David brings them out of storage every now and again for gigs while he released an album under the band name in 2015, which in fact was a re-recording and re-working of Valentina, the LP released by TWP in 2012…

Hope you’ve enjoyed this short but I would say essential dabble into the lesser known band on the Scopitones label.

Belle & Sebastian

B&S ON SUNDAYS (6)

Belle_&_Sebastian_-_Jonathan_David
From wiki:-

“Jonathan David” is a single released by Belle & Sebastian on Jeepster in 2001. The lead track gets its name from the biblical duo of Jonathan and David, while “The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner” is a reference to Alan Sillitoe’s short story “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.” The front cover features band members Mick Cooke and Bobby Kildea with Gill Dodds. All three tracks from the single were later collected on the Push Barman to Open Old Wounds compilation. The title track was the band’s first single to feature lead vocals from guitarist Stevie Jackson.

The allmusic review:-

The B&S railroad rebounds from that mess of unforeseen mediocrity, the “Legal Man” EP. Perhaps it’s hard to carp at a group that’s restored the lost Brit tradition of “all exclusive tracks” EPs (making them like Buzzcocks, the Smiths, or Mega City Four in that regard), as opposed to LP singles with rip-off B-sides on two separate CDs. But “Legal Man” mixed an advanced sense of humor with… shockingly zero musical inspiration. So, hurrah, these three tunes tap back into this bunch’s pumping artery of graceful, sonorous songcraft. Perhaps “Jonathan David” should have been sung by superior talent Stuart Murdoch, but its piano-driven brooding chords (enhanced by an eerie church organ) support a sterling melody more arresting than anything off Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant. Great Zombies-inspired a cappella harmony bridge, too! Then, when Murdoch retakes the mike on the oddly titled “Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It,” he trills over deep orchestral violins, cellos, and sweet country lap steel that float like carefree balloons, making old fans swoon the world over. Finally, the similarly excellent, more bouncy/jaunty “The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner” wins official release at last.

Readers from last week will know that I disagree strongly with the above reviewer as I thought, and still do, that Legal Man was a tremendous single. And I disagree too with the view that Jonathan David was a return to form. And that’s primarily down to the fact that Stevie Jackson‘s attempts at lead vocal have tended to grate over all the years. Yup, its a fine tune but I don’t listen to it very often.

The other two songs though really are worth it. Carriage Clock is a lovely lament about the futility of devoting your life to the factory or office while Middle Distance Runner is something of a lost 45 in my opinion. It was a song that had been around for a while, including if my memory serves me correctly, a live performance on TV about a year or maybe as much as 18 months prior to its release.0

mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Jonathan David
mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It
mp3 : Belle and Sebastian – The Loneliness Of A Middle Distance Runner

The song reached #31 in the UK charts; not as high as Legal Man but still very respectable given there was hardly any radio play.

Big Gun

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG #29 : THE BIG GUN

biggun2

The return of the Saturday series that had to make way for the loom back at the old 45 45s at 45 feature.

Last time round, back in September 2015, was The Big Dish and they were the 28th Scottish band alphabetically within my itunes collection. Next up, naturally, is the 29th. And so the spotlight focusses on The Big Gun.

An internet search will reveal very little other than…

The Big Gun from Ayrshire, Scotland, recorded only one single, “Heard about love”, in 1986. After having it played and praised by John Peel, the young band including Andrew O’Hagan (later author of acclaimed novels Our Fathers and Personality), played a few gigs and then promptly split up, convinced they had played their part in music history out and only really had one good song in them anyway. The band was, according to O’Hagan himself, named “not very brilliantly, after ‘the big gun factory’ where Arthur Seaton works in the novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning”.

But as I mentioned previously on the old blog and then again via a re-post in November 2014, the band also released a one-off flexidisc back in late 86/early 87 with the other track being given over to Basil Pieroni, who I would later get to know and call a friend through Butcher Boy. It was done as a taster for the label Hi-Fibre and the accompanying info with the flexidisc offered the following:-

The Big Gun : Keith Martin (vocals, guitar); Alan Carruthers (guitar); Andy Crone (bass); Andy Kerr (Drums); Andy O’Hagen (additives)

Hi-Fibre : Fresh, substantial and committed, in this instance, to the provision of free pop. Here, enthusiasts can sample the delights of The Big Gun and Basil Pieroni recorded here for the first time.

Hi – Fibre : Bright, urgent and working through the night to deliver instant classics to the nation; fast, reliable and painfully instinctive

As it turned out, only one single was ever released on the label, but to my ears it is one of THE great lost 45s of Scottish indie-pop. I don’t own a copy of said 45 (very few people do!!) but I have digital versions of the songs.

mp3 : The Big Gun – Heard About Love
mp3 : The Big Gun – Happens All The Time

POSTSCRIPT (added 23 June 2016)

I’ve said before that certain things seem to happen around this blog that prove to too much of a coincidence to suggest nothing other than some strange forces appear to be at work. And so it proved with The Big Gun….

It’s worth recalling that it is now nine months since I called temporary time on this series, all the while anticipating this lot would be involved in its relaunch. What I didn’t know then was that a Berlin-based record label, Firestation Records, would in May 2016 turn their attention to The Big Gun and manufacture a limited run of 200 12″ mini-LPs containing the original single, the demo that was on the flexi disc and a further two songs recorded in demo form but never given a release. As soon as I learned about this I put in an order and just 72 hours before this posting was received a package was safely and securely delivered. And so at long last, I own something by The Big Gun.

Another example of how the summer of 2016, in musical terms, is turning out to be more than OK.

Here’s the link to the mini-LP as well as many other great things that Firestation are doing.

New Order

LET’S NAIL THE MYTH ONCE AND FOR ALL

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The fifth single from New Order. And the one which propelled them to stardom.

No-one can argue that it isn’t a classic. A song that was really quite like no other on its release. And the record sleeve is also one of the most recognisable of all time.

It is not known just how many copies of FAC 73 were sold after its release on 7 March 1983. It’s reckoned to be over a million, but because Factory Records weren’t part of the British Phonographic Industry, there are no reliable figures nor certifications or awards.

The story over the years is that the sleeve was so expensive that every copy sold actually cost the record label money. It’s a great story but its simply not true.

Yes, the initial editions with a die-cut cover and cut outs and silver inner sleeve were expensive to manufacture and package. However, once the single sold out its initial run the sleeve got progressively more simple and cheaper with each repressing.

I’ve got three copies of Blue Monday in the cupboard full of vinyl – all have different sleeves ranging from the more expensive original to what is no more than a plain black cover with the colour coding on the right hand side. You needed to own a copy of the Power, Corruption & Lies LP to decipher the code – it actually spells out the song title on both sides of the vinyl, the name of the band and the catalogue number. And here, ripped direct from the vinyl, is the music:-

mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday
mp3 : New Order – The Beach

Still sounds amazing all these years later.

Chemical Brothers, Mercury Rev, Neil Young

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

Mercury Rev were, for quite a long time throughout the 90s, one of those bands who got a fair bit of critical acclaim in the music papers and magazines but who were often quite difficult to track down on radio. They were, to all intent and purposes, the perfect definition of a cult band.

Between 1991 and 1997, they churned out 3 LPs and 9 EPs/singles, none of which sold all that well in the UK. Back home in the USofA, they were even more unheralded, with the soft and high-pitched vocal style of Jonathan Donahue often being cited as the thing that most held them back at a time when rock with a slightly harder edge was in vogue.

But in 1998, the release of the LP Deserter’s Songs very briefly put the band firmly in the spotlight. It was a record seemingly not all that different in sound, mood and tone from 1995 work See You On The Other Side, but it just seemed to capture the hearts and minds of many music fans, including the staff at the NME who made it #1 LP of 1998.

I hadn’t paid any attention to the band until then but when I finally did it wasn’t down to the things being written about them. Instead, it was the power of television…..

This was the time when I first got satellite TV, and one of its initial attractions was the ability to surf across the music channels trying to find new and edgy music or videos that I would like, and for a while a lovely promo for a song called Goddess On A Hiway was on heavy rotation.

Come Xmas 1998, and it was the usual requests from friends and relatives about what was on my list to Santa in terms of music and books, and given the critical acclaim afforded to the album, I did add Deserter’s Songs and it subsequently was wrapped in glittery paper come 25th December.

It was, and remains, an LP that I don’t quite get what all the fuss was about, albeit it was pleasant enough in a non-offensive way. My favourite track on it was subsequently released as a single in January 1999 and in reaching #26, became the band’s first bona fide hit:-

mp3 : Mercury Rev – Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp

What is most interesting however from the CD single that I picked up for 99p a few weeks later after it had disappeared out of the charts is that the band and/or their label persuaded The Chemical Brothers to make a remix of the song which is near unrecognisable :-

mp3 : Mercury Rev – Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp (Chemical Brothers remix)

The CD single also contained a really rootsy track which was in fact a live version of a Neil Young song that had originally been recorded for an XFM session in November 1998:-

mp3 : Mercury Rev – Vampire Blues (live)

Mercury Rev, The Chemical Brothers and Neil Young. Three acts that you wouldn’t expect in one blog post far less on a CD single in the bargain bin.