THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #60 : THE BETA BAND

A guest contribution from S-WC.

the beta band

Stop Fighting with your Thoughts – A Beta Band Imaginary Compilation

One of the best scenes in the film High Fidelity is the scene where the lead character who works in a record shop says ‘I will now sell five copies of The Three EPs by the Beta Band”, it was around that moment when the Beta Band were finally a ‘cult band’.

That one line, probably the most iconic plug for a band in a movie ever, summed up the power of Steve Mason’s band from Scotland. A band that as I have said before on these very pages dragged rock music kicking and screaming out of the Britpop malaise and influenced and wooed everyone from Noel Gallagher to Thom Yorke. Back to the film, John Cusack in the movie then played ‘Dry The Rain’ and people will buy it and even though you don’t actually see anyone part with their cash (its film, right.) you know that at least five copies will have been sold before closing.

The Beta Band were brilliant, they merged hip hop electronica, folk and pop music together and it came out as one sound, one incredible massive sound. But at the same time they never took themselves that seriously, they mucked around, wore stupid hats but we let them because their music was so good. Yet they never really had the global success that they deserved, each record they released struggled to find its audience. They released three album plus the ‘Three EP’s’, the first one ‘The Beta Band’ is often overlooked because the man itself described it as ‘fucking awful’. It isn’t by the way, it’s actually pretty good.

I once got punched for saying that Pink Floyd were shit. They are, face facts Pink Floyd fans. The second Beta Band album ‘Hot Shots II’ sounds like what Pink Floyd were trying to sound like, where Pink Floyd disappeared up their own arses in a self-indulgent toss fest, the Beta Band did it in a restrained and focused way. Yet ‘Hot Shots II’ is a sad and anxious record full of songs with titles like ‘Gone’, ‘Broke’ and ‘Quiet’. I blame Radiohead for this as the Beta Band spent most of that year touring with them. ‘Hot Shots II’ is almost perfect, full of rhythms and beat that are massively ahead of its time.

In 2004, the third and final album appeared this was ‘Heroes to Zeroes’ it was a bit of dramatic shift – its not a bad record but they tried to make it sound more commercial and whilst it has its moments like the Siouxsie Sioux sampling ‘Liquid Bird’ and the terrific single ‘Out Side’, it feels a bit flat in places. A band pushing to make it on the radio and failing so they simply gave up. The Beta band were always a band who thought to much and spent too long in the shadow of Radiohead so here after a few weeks of planning is the Beta Band Compilation. Hope you enjoy it.

Side One

1. “She’s The One” (from The Patty Patty Sound EP, 1998)

I’ll put in as simple as this, ‘She’s the One is the sweetest, most smile inducing and best song the Beta Band ever made. After all this is a simple song, that chant (a common theme, you will find) “She’s the One for Me” which gains more power with each repetition, that takes your focus so much that the climax almost burst out of nowhere. A brilliant way to spend eight and a half minutes.

2. “Round The Bend” (from The Beta Band, 1999)

‘Round the Bend’ is the Beta Bands funniest and saddest moment. It’s also one of the few times in which the lyrical genius of Steve Mason out shines the music. It’s a tale of shit night out and Mason is very specific in the lyrics, his simple thoughts of going out drinking alongside fantasy’s about pyramids blend brilliantly.

3. “Dogs Got A Bone” (from Champion Versions EP, 1997)

This song shows that despite all the ideas and innovation, the Beta Band also made really simple sweet jams sound incredible. The song is basically an acoustic guitar, a harmonium and obviously a bit of beat boxing. It doesn’t have a chorus or even a proper verse and at just short of six minutes that is pretty magical.

4. “Al Sharp” (from Hot Shots II, 2001)

The best song off ‘Hot Shots II is also the best example of where different sounds gel together perfectly. I should have put this as track 2 on side one because it’s the perfect antidote to ‘She’s the One’. I love the way this song hypnotically weaves music around two devastating statements “You and I will never be fine” and “I never even tried to smile for you”. Crikey that’s harsh.

5. “Eclipse” (from Hot Shots II, 2001)

‘Eclipse’ closes ‘Hot Shots II’ and it feels like a big hug after an album of cold and bitter music. It is almost the complete opposite of every other track on the album, its long, it’s a bit silly and its really chilled out. Whereas the rest of ‘Hot Shots II’ is obsessed with death, this is an acoustic guitar torch songs that ends with what sounds suspiciously a prog rock jam. Don’t let that put you off Side Two please.

Side Two

6. “Squares” (from Hot Shots II, 2001)

‘Squares’ opens with an a capella moment and immediately you know that this is something different. The drums crack in like fireworks and barely form a beat until it blooms suddenly and its iconic ‘Daydream’ nods jumps in. Strangely both The Beta Band and I Monster both used the ‘Daydream’ song in the same year and the melodies are so similar that they get confused. But whilst the Beta Band version has depths in between the hooks that makes the song sound sinister and like a bad acid trip and as the song goes on you hear the shout of ‘Daydream’ turning more and more into a nightmare. But it is a wonderful piece of music.

7. “Dance O’er The Border” (from The Beta Band, 1999)

Perhaps an example of why so many people were pissed off with the first Beta Band album. On first listen this song is a mess – a repetitive percussion heavy jam and I think it always sounded like a B side to a dance 12” with added mumbling, Mason is ad-libbing. So why is it on the album?? Because 5 years later LCD Soundsystem did exactly the same thing and made me listen to this all over again and realise the genius of it.

8. “Needles In My Eyes” (from Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos, 1998)

‘Needles In My Eyes’ is a track that best describes a break up like no others, there is one line here “Last night I dropped my heart and I never want to see it again”. It leaves you numb and you feel the pain and it is almost a relief when you hear the next verse state that “Needles in my eyes won’t cripple me tonight”. Phew.

9. “Dry The Rain” (from Champion Versions EP, 1997)

For most people this is the best Beta Band song, but it isn’t you have that right at the beginning of this compilation. It was one hell of an impressive debut though. You will of course remember the chant “I will be your light” and the opening line “This is the definition of my life/Lying in bed in the sunlight/choking on the vitamin tablet” which is a lyric so Radiohead like that I surprised they didn’t actually write it. From that moment on I knew that this was a band I would love and in Steve Mason a singer I would worry about. Oh man, its such a good record.

10. “Pure For” (from Heroes To Zeroes, 2004)

“Pure For’ is the last song on the final Beta Band record so ideally it should close the imaginary compilation, right? This is just too sparse to do that, it’s mainly just a drumbeat , a few synth chirps and a guitar that has been recorded backwards – there is no grand conclusion apart from the chant of “I’m so glad you found me”. It is such a happy ending, you forget the limitations the band faced and you forget that its their last song and just let it engulf you.

mp3 : The Beta Band – She’s The One
mp3 : The Beta Band – Round The Bend
mp3 : The Beta Band – Dogs Got A Bone
mp3 : The Beta Band – Al Sharp
mp3 : The Beta Band – Eclipse
mp3 : The Beta Band – Squares
mp3 : The Beta Band – Dance O’er The Border
mp3 : The Beta Band – Needles In My Eyes
mp3 : The Beta Band – Dry The Rain
mp3 : The Beta Band – Pure For

Enjoy!!

Dan Hicks

2016 DELIVERS ANOTHER KICK IN THE TEETH TO MUSIC FANS

danSFW

A close friend of this particular corner of the internet, Johnny the Friendly Lawyer, dropped me a poignant few words the other day:-

Hi Jim, hope you’re doing okay. A little frightening reading the news each day as we seem to be losing musical heroes on a regular basis.

I’m writing about the latest casualty, Dan Hicks, who was kind of a folky troubadour from the Bay Area that I was always fond of. Hicks was an older gent (74); not the sort of artist that is featured on TVV or the blogs of our extended family. Still, he was a lovable figure and there is a song in particular I wanted to call to your attention.

It’s called ‘Meet Me on the Corner’ from Hicks’ 2000 LP Beatin’ the Heat. You might be interested as it’s not only a duet with Elvis Costello, but features a ripping lead by Stray Cat Brian Setzer, a local hero from my native Long Island. (To my knowledge it’s the only studio recording with Costello and Setzer together, although they did appear in a Simpsons episode!)

Cheers,

Jonny TFL

I’ll admit to not being aware of Dan Hicks, but if he was revered by folk who like this blog, then it seems right and fitting to acknowledge his sad passing. As someone else who posted this elsewhere has said, it’s a tune that blends Swing, Country, Pop, Blues, Rock and Roll and Jazz…

I thought it also worth cuttin’n’pasting the obit from the New York Times:-

Dan Hicks, a singer, songwriter and bandleader who attracted a devoted following with music that was defiantly unfashionable, proudly eccentric and foot-tappingly catchy, died on Saturday at his home in Mill Valley, Calif. He was 74.

The cause was liver cancer, said his wife, Clare.

Mr. Hicks began performing with his band, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, in the late 1960s in San Francisco, where psychedelic rock bands like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead dominated the music scene. The Hot Licks’ sound could not have been more different.

At a time when rock was getting louder and more aggressive, Mr. Hicks’s instrumentation — two guitars (Mr. Hicks played rhythm), violin and stand-up bass, with two women providing harmony and backup vocals — offered a laid-back, all-acoustic alternative that was a throwback to a simpler time, while his lyrics gave the music a modern, slightly askew edge.

He came to call his music “folk swing,” but that only hinted at the range of influences he synthesized. He drew from the American folk tradition but also from the Gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt, the Western swing of Bob Wills, the harmony vocals of the Andrews Sisters, the raucous humor of Fats Waller and numerous other sources.

“It starts out with kind of a folk music sound,” Mr. Hicks explained in a 2007 interview, “and we add a jazz beat and solos and singing. We have the two girls that sing, and jazz violin, and all that, so it’s kind of light in nature, it’s not loud. And it’s sort of, in a way, kind of carefree.”

Songs like “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?,” “Milk-Shakin’ Mama” (“I saw the girl who keeps the ice cream/And now it’s I who scream for her”) and “Hell, I’d Go,” about a man whose fondest wish is to be abducted by aliens, displayed his dry and often absurd wit, as did his gently self-mocking stage presence. But he had his serious side, too: “I Scare Myself,” a longtime staple of his repertoire, was a brooding, hypnotic minor-key ballad about being afraid to love.

Mr. Hicks’s records never sold in the millions, but at the height of his popularity in the early 1970s, he and his band appeared on network television and headlined at Carnegie Hall, and he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Fellow musicians were among his biggest fans: Guest artists on “Beatin’ the Heat” (2000), the first Hot Licks album after a long hiatus, included Bette Midler, Elvis Costello and Tom Waits, while Willie Nelson and Jimmy Buffett joined him in the studio four years later for “Selected Shorts.”

Daniel Ivan Hicks was born on Dec. 9, 1941, in Little Rock, Ark., the son of Ivan Hicks, a career military man, and the former Evelyn Kehl. His family moved to Santa Rosa, Calif., near San Francisco, when he was a child.

He took up drums in sixth grade and guitar as a teenager. After graduating from San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) with a degree in broadcasting, he performed in local folk clubs while also playing drums with dance bands.

From 1965 to 1968, Mr. Hicks was the drummer and occasional vocalist with the Charlatans, widely regarded as the first San Francisco psychedelic band, although he himself remembered it as less a band than “just kind of some loose guys.” While still with the Charlatans, he formed the first version of the Hot Licks.

The group’s 1969 album, “Original Recordings,” sold poorly, but three subsequent albums for the independent Blue Thumb label established it as a successful touring act.

Mr. Hicks nonetheless disbanded the group in 1973, at the height of its popularity. “It was getting old,” he explained in 1997. “We became less compatible as friends. I was pretty disillusioned, had some money, and didn’t want to do it any more.”

His career stalled after that, but he returned in the 1980s with a new group, the Acoustic Warriors, which duplicated the Hot Licks instrumentation without the female singers. In the late 1990s, he added two singers and brought back the Hot Licks name.

The band, with frequent changes in personnel, toured regularly and continued to perform occasionally in recent years when Mr. Hicks’s health allowed, most recently in December in Napa, Calif.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Hicks is survived by a stepdaughter, Sara Wasserman.

“I will always be humble to my dying day,” Mr. Hicks, tongue in cheek as usual, said when interviewed in 2013 by Roberta Donnay of the Hot Licks. “On my dying day I will explain to the world how lucky they have been to be alive the same time as me.”

RIP Dan Hicks.

Klark Kent, Police, Stewart Copeland

READ IT IN BOOKS – STEWART COPELAND

I found this old review in the files from the old blog. I thought it would make a good follow-up to yesterday’s post (without knowing what sort of feedback that was going to get…)

index
Strange Things Happen : A Life with The Police, Polo and Pygmies is a hugely enjoyable and unusual rock autobiography.

The dust jacket states the facts. Over 50 million records sold. 5 Grammy Awards. 2 Brits. Members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Police were the biggest band in the world.

But what came before? What came afterwards? And what happened when, 23 years on, the band members reformed for one final tour? Stewart Copeland answers all these questions and more.

The book is a really easy read, not least for the fact that its 313 pages of narrative are spread over 43 chapters and one afterword, not one of which is more than 13 pages long – and even then, that particular chapter deals with the teenage years. The story of The Police from 1976-1984 are given the briefest of mentions in as far as it is told over a measly 11 pages. It is quite clear that their drummer considers what has happened in his life since to be of far more significance and far more interest to the casual reader.

Whether he’s composing operas, being part of an Italian twenty-piece orchestra, shooting movies in Africa, playing with some new rock stars who look upon him as a legend, taking part as a judge in a TV show or playing polo with the next King of England, the author does so with a sense of adventure and fun. He’s got enough fame and fortune to seemingly not worry about a single thing, and is therefore able to lead a full and hugely diverse life that takes him to places and puts him into situations which are often almost a state of self-parody.

But Copeland never ever leaves the reader feeling that he is boastful about anything. Far from it. His style of writing is often self-deprecating – one example being his realising that now he is no longer a high-profile pop star, there is very little in his everyday wardrobe that he can safely wear without looking or feeling ridiculous. And the tales he tells about his stint as a judge on Series One of the BBC show Just The Two Of Us which aired in February/March 2006 are enlightening in terms of the manipulation that goes on behind the scenes to make entertainment out of a mediocre show.

The final third of the book however, is when it really does come into its own as a rock memoir which is a cut above most, as it deals with the period from February 2007 when The Police get together and go on an ever-extending world tour that was seen by over 3 million fans. He doesn’t hide from the fact that for a while it was fun and enjoyable, but all too quickly the novelty wore off and it was just a job that had to be done. His description of some of the Stingo (his word) temper tantrums and pursuit for on-stage perfection are a real joy.

There are tales of missed cues, bum notes, vocal mishaps, near fights breaking out on stage……..despite which every gig was lapped up by an always-adoring audience of tens of thousands, no matter the city.

And then there’s the day that Stewart hung out with the boys from Rage Against The Machine. I won’t spoil it by revealing the outcome, but it shows up a fantastic and different side to the angry young men who spoiled Simon Cowell’s Christmas a few years back.

An articulate and funny man has written an articulate and funny book that is well worth investing in.

mp3 : The Police – Truth Hits Everybody
mp3 : Klark Kent – Don’t Care
mp3 : The Police – On Any Other Day

Enjoy

Police

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #59 : THE POLICE

police
This is one that I’ve been giving some thought to for a few months as I know that putting the spotlight on The Police and attempting to justify them having an ICA will appal rather be of any appeal to most readers. But given that this was the first headline band for whom I ever bought a concert ticket (May 1979 – Glasgow Apollo) and that I’ve included one of their 45s in my list of my favourite ever singles it would be ludicrous not to make this effort.

There’s no doubt that the rapid growth in popularity of the band which saw them transform from post-punk new-wave wannabees into stadium rockers in the blink of an eye had a lot to do with how they have come to be acknowledged or otherwise by music fans of my generation. It is also nigh-on impossible nowadays to separate any feelings for the bland outpourings, musically and otherwise, of Sting over the past 30-plus years from much of the music that he and his two mates made when they were initially together between August 1977 and March 1984 (the dates of their first and last gigs as a trio). Having said that, they were a band who, for this fan, really came to represent the law of diminishing marginal returns in terms of quality – the bigger they got in terms of mainstream fans, the more bland the music they made; conversely, the more bland the music they made, the more units they shifted and the more money they made.

They were, for a while the biggest band on the planet. Five of their six studio LPs went to #1 in the UK and Australia. Their two final albums have picked up 11 platinum discs in the USA and it is estimated they have sold 75 million records the world over. And their final number one saw them deliver one of the most instantly recognisable pop singles of all time – albeit I cannot bring myself to include it in this ICA which unsurprisingly focuses very much on the earliest material.

SIDE A

1. Can’t Stand Losing You

The song that made me fall for the band, courtesy of seeing it performed live on the Old Grey Whistle Test in late 1978. Housed in one of the greatest single sleeves of all time, it limped to #42 on its initial release but reached #2 ten months later on its re-issue, kept off the top spot by I Don’t Like Mondays, the ode to mass shootings as recorded by The Boomtown Rats. Three minutes of pop magic with that hint of a reggae that was prevalent in many of the early singles and which seemed to offer something a little bit different; a jaunty tune over the black tale of a teenage suicide after being unable to cope with being chucked.

2. Dead End Job

I’m not going to make any grandiose claim that this is among the best the songs by the band but I feel it fits in really well at this early stage of the ICA. The b-side to ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’ is just a bit of new-wave noise that was partly reliant on a riff developed by the drummer but it demonstrates that the initial output of the band wasn’t that different from many of their contemporaries other than they clearly had a very talented guitarist (who was of course more than a decade older and experienced than most other new wave axemen).

3. Message In A Bottle

The band’s first UK #1 single and the proof that they were about to really make it big. There shouldn’t be too much argument that this is a tremendous bit of pop music however you look at it. It is driven along by a cracking riff and it also gives space to demonstrate that the rhythm section are quite talented. Bought on green vinyl by me on the day of its release in September 1979, the 7” take isn’t widely available as the album and all subsequent CD releases of greatest hits etc. have offered up the longer version in which ‘sending out an SOS’ goes on for just a wee bit too long.

4. Next To You (live)

The opening song on the band’s debut album was always one of their most popular; Sting would include it within his solo sets while it has also been given the cover version treatment by a number of other acts including Foo Fighters. It is that unusual beast from the new wave era – an unashamed love song. Such was my desire to get everything by the band baack in the days that I bought an import LP called Propaganda in late 1979 as it contained two live tracks recorded earlier in the year at the Bottom Line club in New York. Next To You was the second of those tracks and quickly established itself as my favoured version.

5. Roxanne

The breakthrough hit. It is worth recalling that this had been a huge flop in the UK in April 1978 when released as the band’s debut as much for the fact that our notoriously conservative radio stations would naturally shy away from airing any songs that were about sex never mind one that was so openly about using the services of a prostitute. It was only after the 45 became a hit in the US and Canada in Spring 1979 (hitting the Top 40 around the time the band were captured for the above mentioned Propaganda LP) that the UK stations decided to get behind the band and this led to A&M Records quickly re-releasing Roxanne to enjoy an eight-week residency in the Top 40. The red light that had stopped the band going anywhere had now totally changed colour….

SIDE B

1. Fall Out

The flop debut single from May 1977 recorded and released before Andy Summers was part of the band. It is also the only 45 not written by Sting. The band have been very self-deprecating about it and in many ways disowned it quite early on with the admission that it was recorded before they had done any live performances and that original guitarist Henry Padovani was so nervous about it all that he only played the guitar solo with Stewart Copeland (who had written the track) playing the other guitar parts as well as the drums.

It came out on the small label Illegal Records who took advantage of the band’s higher profile and re-released it in late 1979 where is sold enough copies to hit the Top 50 here in the UK at which time Stewart Copeland said the original release (which can fetch up to around £40-£50 if it is in mint condition) had sold “Purely on the strength of the cover, because of the fashion at the time. Punk was in and it was one of the first punk records – and there weren’t very many to choose from. “

It’s actually not all that bad if viewed as a punk record. It certainly gave no indication however, that the band would be all that special.

2. Invisible Sun

The one time where the trio courted controversy. By late 1981, they were one of the most popular bands in the world despite each of their three albums suffering from ever decreasing quality. They were popular not just because they had shown an ability to make catchy and radio-friendly pop songs but for the fact that their clean living, trouble-free approach to the job in hand, including playing the game of co-operating to the fullest extent with the media, made them a band that was appreciated by folk of all ages. For every snobby review that emanated from the pen of a music critic you could point to twenty or more sycophantic profiles in the pages of newspapers and magazines while broadcasters were falling over themselves to get the handsome and rugged frontman onto their stations.

So the release of a mournful sounding anti-war number, whose video never stood a chance of being aired in the UK thanks to it consisting solely of footage taken from news stories that dealt with the civil war underway in Northern Ireland, was a shock to the system. They didn’t have to do this and indeed a backlash could have set them back in the UK – but the fact that the single reached #2 (kept off the top spot by Adam Ant being Prince Charming) was proof that pop music could be effective in getting across a social and political message. Band Aid was just four years down the line…

3. The Bed’s Too Big Without You

I struggled to understand those who criticised the band for their efforts to deliver a blend of pop and reggae, particularly those whose gripes seem to be centred around ‘white men haven’t got the natural rhythm to make reggae’. The thing is, the music industry played along with the notion and were very happy to pigeon-hole singers and bands in ways that defined the sort of music listeners should expect from white musicians and what should be written, recorded and performed by black musicians – particularly in the 80s.

Sting and his mates absorbed a lot of influences – it’s worth remembering that prior to post-punk/new wave both of Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland had been in bands who encompassed R&B, psychedelia and prog – and therefore they could play a bit. If you want evidence, have a listen to this album track from 1979 , particularly the middle section where the vocals stop.

4. Voices Inside My Head

Here’s the problem I knew I was going to hit with this ICA. Eight songs in and I’m not convinced that there’s another two songs out there to complete the task in hand. Bu hey, every one of the band’s five albums had filler going back to the debut which in Be My Girl/Sally included a spoken word number about blow-up dolls (and on that tour ‘Sally’ would be brought on stage while Andy Summers did his free-form poetry. John Cooper Clarke it most certainly wasn’t!!)

This track from 1980s’s Zenyatta Mondatta has just two often repeated lines over an increasingly aggressive and catchy beat that turns into the ‘cha’ chant that would layer be taken up with great gusto by Stuart Adamson in the early songs of Big Country (see Fields Of Fire….or even better catch live footage of that band on you tune from hose days and you’ll catch what I’m on about).

Voices Inside My Head was a song that came to life in the live setting, often stretching out well beyond its standard four minutes, and seems to be a good fit at this point in the ICA.

5. Peanuts

This stood out as strange even back in the days The Police were searching for the formula that would take them to the top. It’s frantically fast with a ridiculously punky guitar solo (see also Landlord, the b-side to Message in A Bottle which was a candidate for this part of the ICA) but has the bonus of a twisted and strange sax part and a crazy chant of the song title seemingly coming out of nowhere after a lyric that was attacking pop stars who were not only living life to the full but making a career of singing songs about said lifestyle. It was seemingly aimed at Rod Stewart who had been one of Sting’s idols just a few years earlier….

I do love how the song comes to a spluttering and tired sounding end. Seems an appropriate way to close off this particular an ICA which I’m not myself completely convinced is worthy of inclusion in this what I think is proving a great series (thanks in the main to the guest contributors) but without whom etc……

mp3 : The Police – Can’t Stand Losing You
mp3 : The Police – Dead End Job
mp3 : The Police – Message In A Bottle
mp3 : The Police – Next To You (live)
mp3 : The Police – Roxanne
mp3 : The Police – Fall Out
mp3 : The Police – Invisible Sun
mp3 : The Police – The Bed’s Too Big Without You
mp3 : The Police – Voices Inside My Head
mp3 : The Police – Peanuts

Enjoy.

Only 48 hours till the next ICA…..it’s a guest posting from an old friend.

Style Council

THE STYLE COUNCIL SINGLES (10)

The second album from The Style Council had been released to a fair amount of critical acclaim in May 1985. Our Favourite Shop also proved popular with the record buying public and in fact reached the #1 spot, albeit for one week only. It was an incredibly diverse LP in terms of sound with elements of pop, soul, funk, rap, jazz and the spoken word all to the fore at various times. The credits for the record show that in addition the regular four Councillors, there were three other guest vocalists (including the comedian Lenny Henry) with eighteen other musicians receiving one or more performance credits.

It was an ambitious and sprawling work with not all that many really obvious candidates for radio-friendly singles, and therefore it was always going to be interesting to see what was going to be the follow-up to the catchy and splendid Walls Come Tumbling Down.

Very few of us would have put money on it being Come To Milton Keynes.

For starters, it’s a strange old tune with a number of changes in pace and tempo. There’s no killer chorus and there’s all sorts of different instrumentation on the record including what appears to be a harp over an incomprehensible spoken word section towards the end. The lyric is a bit garbled and there’s a few bad puns included, none of which would have made much sense to folks outwith the UK. Oh and there’s also the fact that a number of radio stations shied away from it as there was a bit of a media controversy over the title and the subject matter of the lyric.

mp3 : The Style Council – Come To Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes is synonymous with the sort of developments that Paul Weller had attacked during his days with The Jam via The Planner’s Dream Goes Wrong which appeared on The Gift. It was one of the few places that was economically booming in the early-mid 80s thanks to it being able to offer all sorts of economic incentives to businesses and industries, and almost as if it to rub other’s noses in it, the town fathers embarked on a marketing campaign that extolled many virtues under the slogan of ‘Come To Milton Keynes’.

The songwriter thought it was all based on a false premise and penned a lyric which basically said the town, far from being an idyllic spot, had more than its fair share of social problems which couldn’t be masked by lovely new houses and amenities. Indeed, the perceived intention of the strange tune was ‘to create a musical pastiche which matched the supposed artificiality of Milton Keynes itself.’

As is always the case when any sort of artist has an attack on a particular community, the local politicians and residents are whipped up into a frenzy by the media and the band was warned to stay away. In an effort to defuse things, Paul Weller used a BBC interview, when offered the opportunity to explain the song’s meaning, to say it was about much more than this particular corner of England:-

“It was more about the new towns, the fact we used Milton Keynes is neither here not there. They’re up in arms about it apparently, but big deal, you know. It’s more about the way Britain’s values are changing and us as a race are changing as well, I think, and the kind of materialistic values we seem to have adopted, quite American I think.”

All of which saw the song stall at #23, the first by the band (if you exclude The Council Collective effort) to not reach at least #11 in the singles charts.

It was released on 7” and 12”. The common b-side was a rather exquisite love song with a catchy and lovely tune that was tailor-made for daytime radio and would have made a fine single. And yet, it hadn’t even made the cut for the album

mp3 : The Style Council – (When You) Call Me

It’s the 7” version of the single I have in the cupboard and so that’s all I can offer today.

Earth Wind and Fire

IF I MAY BE INDULGED FOR A MOMENT OR TWO

sorry-sticker_000

I haven’t been in and around blogworld much this past few days, and to those of you whose places I like visiting and leaving comments, then I promise to do so when I get my mind back focussed on things again, hopefully in the next couple of days.

Huge thanks to everyone who left such kind and lovely words after my posting a few days back when I had learned that a good friend had been given just 48 hours to live.

As with so much ever since he was initially diagnosed he proved them wrong yet again and that 48 hours ended up extended enough that I was able to get to see him one last time, to share some final happy thoughts and reflect on how lucky I am to know so many amazing people. He finally succumbed last night, but I’m adhering to his final wish and nor to be maudlin, sad or upset about it.

I noticed too that the music world lost another bright star the other day with the passing of Maurice White. I’ve admitted on these pages to having a soft spot for disco, and Maurice’s band were among the greatest exponents of the genre. Indeed, a few weeks back myself and Jacques the Kipper were at a football ground bemoaning the dreadful choice of music being played by the stadium announcer until this came on and made us both smile:-

Sheer brilliance.

PS : There was a comment from Webbie the other day after The Skids posting that linked to a September 2015 internet radio show from Gary Crowley in which he interviewed Richard Jobson. It’s a tremendous show, packed with great punk/new wave tunes and a hilarious chat with Jobson that is chock-full of wonderful anecdotes as well as having some lovely words about the late Stewart Adamson

https://www.mixcloud.com/sohoradio/gary-crowleys-punk-and-new-wave-show-15092015/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=base_links&utm_term=resource_link

If you can’t be bothered with the music, then FF to the interview which begins at 61 minutes in….

Clash

THE CLASH ON SUNDAYS (5)

8a8f94e4c83382ecb5b7783b4156fa94

Disc 5 is Clash City Rockers.

The time in and around the release of Complete Control had seen the band out on the road for a fair bit, and is often the case in such situations, there was a bit of a fall-out with Mick and Paul not on speaking terms for a bit. Part of this came from the fact that Mick and Joe had been given the opportunity to go to Jamaica to absorb some of the culture on offer in the hope it would have a positive effect on the songs that were going to be needed for the second album – Paul being the biggest reggae fan in the band was understandably annoyed at having to stay in the cold and damp UK while his mates went in search of inspiration (forlornly as it turned out as later captured on the album track Safe European Home).

While the two songwriters were in Jamaica, manager Bernie Rhodes pulled a trick that caused yet another rift in Camp Clash. The band had gone into the studio to record a new single – an anthemic number that partly mythologised all that The Clash considered they stood for while incorporating, in part, a section of a tune from a 17th century children’s nursery rhyme about church bells in London.

The thing is, Rhodes thought the final recording was a bit flat sounding and so he convinced producer Mickey Foote to increase its speed marginally thus making it slightly higher in pitch. All this was done while Joe and Mick were away and the single had been pressed before they heard the results. They were appalled and angered and Foote was sacked on the spot.

mp3 : The Clash – Clash City Rockers (single version)

All subsequent releases of the song on compilation albums etc have featured the original version of the song (at the proper speed)

mp3 : The Clash – Clash City Rockers (original recording)

The b-side was an update of one of Joe’s old pub rock songs but the vocal gifted to Mick:-

mp3 : The Clash – Jail Guitar Doors

It’s long been a popular song among fans and indeed was deemed worthy of inclusion on the track-list of the band’s debut LP when it was finally released in the USA in a form almost unrecognisable from its UK counterpart.

Jail Guitar Doors is also the name of a charity, set up by Billy Bragg, whose aim is to aid rehabilitation by providing musical equipment for the use of inmates serving time in prisons and funding individual projects such as recording sessions in UK prisons and for former inmates. A similar scheme was later established in the USA.

The single reached #35 in the charts and again they declined an opportunity to promote it via an appearance on Top of The Pops.

CLASH CITY ROCKERS : Released 17 February 1978 : #35

The opening chopped guitar riff, executed with such abrupt power and precision, immediately arrests you and informs you you’re in the presence of true greatness. Punk was primarily a male youth culture, and the song audaciously kicks over the previous statues of lad iconicism – Bowie (and the pre-nonce) Gary Glitter. It was saying that it wasn’t wearing make-up and pretending to be camp that made us shocking; it was because we were obnoxious, spotty, angry, bored young cunts.

This was one of the songs that made me leave home and go to London, then underscored my early years in the city. It was always on at all hours in the Shepherd’s Bush squat and Queensbridge Road pads, and it was our national anthem. I became an insomniac because of this song. There was never a centre-half at Hibs who got up as high for corner kicks as I did when this bastard blasted out.

Every time you put it on you were making a statement: this is our time and we will not be denied. A lot of water, beer, amphetamine and music has flowed under the bridge since then. But under the right conditions – for example, blasting out from a Stoke Newington stereo on a hot London summer’s day – I feel a shiver down my spine and nearly 30 years seems to have been shed. I love it so much.

Irvine Welsh, novelist (Trainspotting, The Acid House, Filth)

Sons & Daughters

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (26)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THURSDAY 18 APRIL 2008

Sons+And+Daughters+Johnny+Cash++Hunt+500866

Quite a few folk told me that I really would like Sons and Daughters long before I ever got round to hearing them. I did know that Adele Bethel was in the band, but having seen her previously perform live on stage with Arab Strap, I wasn’t convinced she was capable of fronting her own act. So despite there being a real buzz about the band in Glasgow, I remained quite blasé about things, and I never got round to finding the time to check them out.

One day, while pottering around the house (quite possibly yet again putting the CD and vinyl collections into the proper alphabetical order) I heard a great noise coming from my TV which was tuned into MTV2. I wandered into the living room and started paying attention to a video for a song that had caught my ear partly because of a great guitar riff and partly because it was being sung in a broad Scottish accent. Then there was a chorus of sorts in which a vaguely familiar looking female came in on joint vocals, and then the video descended into chaos with a bar-room brawl. Fantastic stuff, but who the hell were these fabulous people??

Up came the caption, and at that point dear readers, I hung my head in shame. For it was of course this:-

mp3 : Sons and Daughters – Johnny Cash

So out I traipsed to Avalanche Records to purchase the LP Love The Cup. I felt as if everyone I the shop was laughing at me for being the last person in Glasgow to buy the album which had been on prominent display for ages. I took it home and played it. And then I immediately played it again. And again. And again.

Not long afterwards, the Villains were on one of their regular pilgrimages in search of the sun. We found ourselves one day on the French island of Martinique on a day-trip from our main base on St Lucia. Mrs V was trying on some clothes in a boutique, and there was a French-language radio station on in the background. Without warning, Johnny Cash came on – and it wasn’t the Man In Black.

I grooved….well, I was on holiday and unlikely ever to set foot in the shop again and didn’t care how ridiculous I looked. I may have been the last Glaswegian to pick up on the song, but I bet I was the first to hear it on a radio station in the middle of the french-speaking part of the West Indies.

The b-side of this single, as you’ll see from the sleeve is called Hunt. A version of this song was put on the follow-up LP, The Repulsion Box:-

mp3 : Sons and Daughters – Hunt

Now if this version is different from that on the b-side of Johnny Cash, I apologise. I have found a copy on e-bay and ordered it, but it never arrived in time to make this particular post…if it is different, I’ll try to add it in later on…

I thank you.

(2016 update). It was different. Here is the b-side

mp3 : Sons and Daughters – Hunt (single version)

Enjoy.

Chumbawamba, Credit To The Nation

FIRST-RATE PROTEST POP

Chumbawamba-Enough-Is-Enough-162824
Chumbawamaba were part of the UK music scene for 30 years prior to them calling it a day in November 2012. In that time they released a whole bundle of singles and albums that raised awareness for all sorts of just causes and campaigns as well as getting across their viewpoint about a burning issue of the day, as was highlighted in the recent posting looking that 1992 single behave!

Some folk got awfully annoyed by Chumbawamba on the basis that they took life far too seriously, but any band that is prepared to tackle issues as diverse as domestic violence, religion, racism, fascism, war, homophobia and the decline of working class rights within short and catchy pop songs is all right by me.

It was really bizarre to seem them gain their 15 minutes of real fame in 1997 when the very catchy and anthemic Tubthumping went to #2 in the UK singles chart and I’m sure the band were bemused to see how it was adopted by the lager-swilling lad culture who regarded the concept of getting pissed and falling over only to pick yourself up and start all over again as something to boast and sing about at the top of your voice. Anyways, the song so was so ubiquitous at the time that just I quickly got sick of it and even almost 20 years on don’t enjoy listening to it.

Having wound up their own Agit-Pop label on the back of being frustrated at the failure of behave! to get into the charts they signed to One Little Indian with the first release in September 1993 being a joint single with Credit To The Nation, an act which was in fact a teenage UK hip-hop singer called Matty Hanson aka DJ Fusion with two backing dancers who had come to the fore earlier in the year thanks to the chart success of Call It What You Want, a single which sampled Smells Like Teen Spirit….a piece of music which got many of those in the press who worshipped Nirvana all hot and bothered under the collar.

This anti-fascism single, released at a time when right-wing politicians were rearing their ugly heads all over Europe, reached the Top 75 despite a lack of support from radio stations:-

mp3 : Chumbawamba & Credit To The Nation – Enough Is Enough
mp3 : Chumbawamba & Credit To The Nation – Hear No Bullshit (On Fire Mix)
mp3 : Chumbawamba & Credit To The Nation – The Day The Nazi Died (1993 mix)

Different versions of the b-sides can be found elsewhere

mp3 : Credit To The Nation – Hear No Bullshit. See No Bullsit, Say No Bullshit
mp3 : Chumbawamba – The Day The Nazi Died

Enjoy.

Style Council

THE STYLE COUNCIL SINGLES (9)

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that White Riot had been written as a call-to-arms for disaffected youth in the UK. Eight years on, and the disaffection was still there – indeed it was increasing all the while thanks to a government whose policies were not of the caring, sharing variety. Paul Weller‘s increasing frustration with young people not willing to engage in the political process on the basis that ‘they’re all the same aren’t they?’ or ‘it’s only one vote for me and that ain’t gonna bring about change is it?’ led to him penning the lyrics to Walls Come Tumbling Down with such lines as

“Are you gonna realise the class war’s real and not mythologised?’

mp3 : The Style Council – Walls Come Tumbling Down

It was released as a single in May 1985 and its jaunty radio-friendly tune, combined with a high-profile promotional campaign with appearances on all sorts of TV shows, helped it crash into the charts at #13 after which a TOTP appearance helped climb to its highest position of #6. The fact that it dropped down the charts afterwards rather quickly was perhaps an indication that mixing pop and politics wasn’t helping the band find any new audiences. But that didn’t stop the main man continuing to get on his soap box and promise that many of the songs that had been penned for inclusion on the second LP would further attack the unfairness of life under the Thatcher government.

As it turned out, the song’s lyrics became a bit of prophesy for what would happen over the next few years in Eastern Europe with the collapse of one totalitarian dictatorship after another and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Indeed, Annie Nightingale, in her final show of the decade which celebrated some of the best and most popular songs of the 80s dedicated it to everyone in Germany whose lives had clearly changed forever more.

There were three quite different songs on the b-side of the 12″

mp3 : The Style Council – Spin’ Drifting
mp3 : The Style Council – The Whole Point II
mp3 : The Style Council – Blood Sports

The first is by far the weakest of the tracks with a bland tune set to sixth-form lovelorn poetry while the last is an acoustic and angry attack on those who supported hunting in the UK countryside and provided further evidence of Weller’s willingness to pen political material of a very personal nature.

The Whole Point II however, is something really powerful and disturbing. The tune was first used on the Cafe Blue LP with a lyric that attacked the political classes in the UK. This updated and very sad version is from the perspective of someone who is contemplating suicide by jumping into the sea…….

The lyrics have undoubtedly aged Walls Come Tumbling Down, but it is a cracking tune that demands to be danced to.

Enjoy.

Skids

MY FIRST CELTIC/FOLK RECORD

index
That’s Celtic with a ‘K’ incidentally……

Glasgow has, for many years now, used the month of January to stage a three-week festival called Celtic Connections which nowadays really does offer something for everyone and goes well beyond the celebration of fiddle and accordian based folk/trad music that has long been associated with my home country. To get an idea of what 2016 had to offer, pay a visit over to Charity Chic as he took in a number of gigs and has provided some excellent reviews.

I went along to a couple of shows but pressure of work and a clash of commitments prevented me taking in more. As I sat at one of them with a mate who really is big into his folk/trad music, as well as being a huge fan of post-punk and in particular Joy Division, I got thinking about how in some ways the final two singles and album by The Skids back in 1981 were ahead of their time in that nobody who was aiming at the young market in Scotland made use of folk or roots music. Instead, it was regarded, in Glasgow at least (as that’s all I can authentically vouch for as it was where I was raised and had lived all my years till that point) as being music for old fogies. Nowadays, you look round an audience at a Celtic Connections gig and it takes in all age ranges with ever-increasing numbers in the 16-30 bracket.

I can take it in small doses. And in much the same way, I can take the excesses of the final stuff by The Skids in small doses and only every few years. It’s amazing to realise that this music was recorded in August/September 1981, just two and a half years after Into The Valley, one of the great new-wave anthems of all time, had propelled the band to fame. Of course, by 1981 The Skids were really just a two-man outfit consisting of Richard Jobson and Russell Webb augmented by guest and session musicians. Jobson has warned everyone the next LP was going to be different and those of us who had got our hands on a copy of the Strength Through Joy extra album with The Absolute Game (see this previous posting for details) were, shall we say, a tad concerned.

Joy bombed, not even making the Top 100. The two singles also sold abysmally and it was no real surprise that Jobson went off to lick his wounds with poetry readings and it would be three years before he returned to music with The Armoury Show, again with the help of Russell Webb.

This was the band’s last ever single:-

mp3 : The Skids – Iona
mp3 : The Skids – Blood And Soil

The a-side is a shortened version of a track which lasts more than seven minutes on the album. It’s the second best thing on the album (the best was featured in this post last year) and by far the most accessible track. The b-side, which is one I’ve grown to appreciate over the years as it does sound authentically traditional, is an alternative version of the track which opens the album (and which still makes me grimace a fair bit).

mp3 : The Skids – Blood And Soil (album version)

One other thing worth noting and including today is that Stuart Adamson contributed guitar to Iona while the Fairlite, which is responsible for the bagpipe sound, is played by Mr Tubular Bells himself, Mike Oldfield (and that’s the first and likely last name check he gets on this blog).

The album closes with an ambitious but ultimately flawed track on the basis that the kitchen sink and the rest were thrown at it and there’s just too much going on to take it all in:-

mp3 : The Skids – Fields

The reason that particular track also features today is that Alan Rankine plays guitar on it while his band mate Billy Mackenzie contributes a backing vocal. Sadly, the opportunity to turn into something akin to an Associates track isn’t taken.

Enjoy…even if only for the fact it’s not the normal sort of fare on offer round these parts.

Coral

I HEARD SOME NEWS TODAY OH BOY…..

grim-reaper

With apologies to Swiss Adam for adding a posting on the same day as his excellent ICA. I prefer, if possible, to give guest contributors the floor to themselves.

January was an appalling month.

February just got a lot worse.

A good mate of mine in his mid-50s was diagnosed with terminal esophageal cancer just under two years ago. He decided there and then to fight things on his terms, declining courses of chemo or radiotherapy on the grounds that all they would do is make him miserable while only giving a slim chance of extending his life. He also very publicly, via social media, recorded his battle happy and willing to provide his family and friends with all sorts of updates. Every month on a particular date he would commemorate the fact that another period of time had passed and he was still there smiling and laughing away.

Things took a turn for the worse just after Christmas, but my mate again demonstrating his courage and determination saw in the New Year at home before admitting himself to hospital on the first day of 2016. His January has been spent in and out of hospital as the cancer began to spread viciously to other parts of his body and he required help to eat and drink to prevent kidney failure. He still kept up the running commentary, saying he was determined to get out and about and see folk, with a special effort likely to be made to see his beloved Raith Rovers at least one more time.

This afternoon he posted what he said would be his final note on social media. Pneumonia had set in and he had been given the news by his docs that he had 48 hours. He signed off ‘Thank You Everyone for your love and friendship. Talk of the times, the love and the laughing.”

He’s the bravest, inspirational and most selfless man I have ever had the privilege to know.

He was a huge music fan. He wasn’t a blogger but he did present shows on community radio in which he played all sorts of music that reflected his incredibly wide taste. He liked a number of hip and trendy bands and he was one of those on whom punk/new wave had a huge influence. At the same time however, he never hid away from the fact that he also loved just about every pop record that had conquered the charts when he was a lad,back in the 70s and he took great delight in airing them on his radio shows.

And then there was Roy Wood and Wizzard who he was convinced was the greatest musician and band ever to walk this planet. He got to meet his hero too, in an unforgettable night that was plastered all over social media and put the widest of grins on the faces of everyone who knew him.

But it’s approaching a time when he no longer will be with us and I’m not ashamed to say that I’m missing him already. I’m sad that I never got the chance to say my final farewell in person as the pneumonia came on very quickly and unexpectedly and the plans to travel the 70-odd miles to the hospital this coming Friday are now worthless.

Matthew from Song By Toad also knew my mate and in his brilliantly succinct way has just captured exactly how so many of us are feeling when he replied back to my mate “Sorry. I know you want us to remember the good times, and soon we will, but for now it’s just sad as fuck.”

He was keen on this lot. I’ll think of him every time it pops up on shuffle

mp3 : The Coral – Pass It On

Things surely, can only get better.

Big Audio Dynamite

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #58 : BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE

A GUEST POSTING FROM SWISS ADAM

Big_Audio_1274268345

Big Audio Dynamite are one of my favourite bands- pioneering, imaginative, forward thinking but always remembering that the song is the thing. B.A.D. formed after Mick Jones got kicked out of The Clash. Even though he made up with Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon pretty quickly and Joe realised that the Clash didn’t work without him Mick was already well away with B.A.D.

Hooking up with London face and filmake Don Letts, keyboard man (and husband of Patsy Kensit) Dan Donovan, bassist Leo ‘E-Zee Kill’ Williams and drummer Greg Roberts, Mick saw the new group as a chance to prove Joe and Paul wrong and there’s no doubt about who had the best post-Clash 80s. B.A.D.’s back catalogue is chock full of genre-busting, sampledelic, pioneering stuff but also fully loaded with tunes. Mick’s lyric writing is superb, witty, wide ranging and warm, as is their use of technology and their wider influences – hip hop, reggae, house, spaghetti westerns and British films. Some of it has dated, like the white jeans, baseball caps and Dalek guitar, but there’s more than enough to put together a worthy ten track imaginary compilation. As I shall suggest here….

Sit Tight And Listen Keenly While I Play For You A Brand New Musical Biscuit

1. Medicine Show.

Opening song off the 1986 debut album and a killer single too with a lovely FXed guitar riff, Mick rhymes his way through dozens of laugh out loud lines. The cowbell and drum machine pump along and the liberal use of sampled film dialogue (Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and James Coburn among them) make this song worth every second of its six-and-a-half-minute length. Paul and Joe and John Lydon turn up for the video too.

2. V Thirteen.

Probably their single finest song, co-written and produced by Joe Strummer (Joe did this live in the late 80s).

3. The Battle of All Saints Road.

Revisiting the West London of Clash mythology, the stomping ground of rockers, dreads and rude boys. Musically it takes in Clancy Eccles’ Fire Corner and duelling banjos. From 1988’s Tighten Up Vol ’88.

4. E=MC2

Pop and then some- Nic Roeg’s films set to a hugely catchy song. You really don’t get this from anyone else.

5. C’Mon Every Beatbox.

The single to lead into album number two No. 10 Upping Street (‘home to an alternative funky Prime Minister’ apparently. Thanks Joe) this song has Mick and Don trading rapid fire lyric lines, buckets of samples, a guitar solo that apes Jimi Hendrix and Neneh Cherry strutting her stuff in the video.

6. I Turned Out A Punk.

After 1989’s Megatop Phoenix the original line up disintegrated. Don Letts, Greg Roberts and Leo Williams went off to form Dreadzone. Mick subsequently put together various different BADs (Big Audio Dynamite II, Big Audio). The ‘new’ BAD had several moments that I wanted to put in here but space won’t allow- The Globe is a cracking single, Rush is top stuff too, Mick proving yet again that he can rise from the ashes. I could make shouts for Innocent Child, Harrow Road and Can’t Wait as well. In 1996 F-Punk came out, a funny album marred by some iffy production and cardboard drums. I Turned Out A Punk shows Mick’s muse and signwriting remained intact. Two chord, fuzzed up, organ led augmented garage rock and Mick’s formative years collapsed into rhyming couplets.

7. Rewind.

I was going to include Contact, house music turned into a pop song, from Megatop Phoenix. I probably should but I don’t want this to be too singles dominated. Instead here’s another song from the same album, digital reggae influenced and sung by Don Letts.

8. Beyond the Pale.

Mick sings about his roots. Immigration as a positive force for the individual and society.

9. Other 99 Extended Mix.

Over guitars and electronics Mick sings the song of the 99%, of not making 10 out of 10 and how sometimes 5 is just fine. The band don’t settle for half marks though, turning in a cracking tune. The 12” extended mix adds several minutes more after the breakdown.

10. The Bottom Line.

That shuddering bass. The guitars. Cowbell. The horses are on the track. There’s a new dance that’s going around. Economic decline. Nagging questions always remain. Even the Soviets are swinging away. From the debut album and still fresh as a daisy. I’m gonna take you to…part two.

Bonus Track

Greg Dread (Roberts) recently put the band’s intro music onto his Soundcloud page. Built of two minutes of samples, beats and synths, it’s the fanfare that announced B.A.D.’s arrival onstage

B.A.D. Live Intro Tape

mp3 : Big Audio Dynamite – Medicine Show
mp3 : Big Audio Dynamite – V Thirteen
mp3 : Big Audio Dynamite – The Battle Of All Saints Road
mp3 : Big Audio Dynamite – E=MC2
mp3 : Big Audio Dynamite – C’Mon Every Beatbox
mp3 : Big Audio Dynamite – I Turned Out A Punk
mp3 : Big Audio Dynamite – Rewind
mp3 : Big Audio Dynamite – Beyond The Pale
mp3 : Big Audio Dynamite – Other 99 (extended mix)
mp3 : Big Audio Dynamite – The Bottom Line
mp3 : Live Intro Tape

JC adds : More great stuff every day from Swiss Adam can be found in the Bagging Area.

Council Collective, Style Council

THE STYLE COUNCIL SINGLES (8)

(And so to the second posting of the day, held over from last week)

Is it or isn’t it?

Technically, it’s a single by The Council Collective, but the a-side is a Weller/Talbot composition and it is in effect The Style Council supplemented by guest vocalists (Jimmy Ruffin, Junior Giscombe and Vaughan Toulouse) as well as guest musicians (Dizzi Heights and Leonardo Chignoli). Oh and Martin Ware was involved in the production and mixing.

As the rear of the sleeve explains:-

The aim of this record was to raise money for the Striking Miners and their families before Xmas but obviously in the light of the tragic and disgusting event in South Wales resulting in the murder of a Cab driver, some of the monies will also go now, to the widow of the man.

We do support the miners strike but we do not support violence. It helps no one and only creates further division amongst people.

This record is about Solidarity or more to the point – getting it back! If the miners lose the strike, the consequence will be felt by all the working classes. That is why it is so important to support it. But violence will only lead to defeat – as all violence ultimately does.

The single was released at the end of 1984 but proved to be the band’s poorest selling record thus far, stalling at #24 in the UK charts. This was likely down to a combination of it not getting as many radio plays as previous singles (the stations being disinclined to mix pop and politics….well for the time being!!), that some of the natural fan base weren’t as politically inclined as Paul Weller had thought and sadly, just the fact that it wasn’t all that good a song. But in 1984, reaching #24 in the singles chart would have meant tens of thousands of sales and so decent enough amounts of monies will have been raised:-

mp3 : The Council Collective – Soul Deep (12″ version)

Here’s the b-side:-

mp3 : The Council Collective – A Miner’s Point

It is a fascinating piece of social history. It is a near 17-minute long spoken piece in which Paulo Hewitt interviews two striking miners. I say fascinating, but it is also very sad. These two quietly spoken men are determined to see things through and firmly believe that they are going to win. They articulate very well their reasons for taking such action and while critical of those who are still working, they hold out olive branches to all concerned. That it didn’t work out as they hoped or anticipated makes it in fact that rare artefact – history as recounted by the eventual losers.

The b-side is also listed as a Weller/Talbot composition – I’m assuming this is as much to do with the payment and collection of royalties (and subsequent donations to the causes) as anything else.

Radio 236 (various)

RADIO 236 : THE NEXT EPISODE

index

Nobody laughed in my face last month when I ‘produced’ the first edition of Radio 236. So I thought I’d give it another go.

Once again it’s all music and no talking. A little bit longer this time but still five minutes under the hour. It’s still a bit rough in terms of volume control but I’m getting there!

Tune in here: https://www.spreaker.com/embed/player/standard?episode_id=7681477

Or feel free to download:- https://www.spreaker.com/user/8537283/radio-236-episode-2

mp3 : Various Artists – Radio 236 (2nd Episode)

Songlist:-

Hello Again – BMX Bandits
Song 2 – Blur
Age Of Consent – New Order
Seether – Veruca Salt
I Saw You Blink – Stornoway
Batyar – The Ukranians
Fait Accompli – Curve
All On You (Perfume) – Paris Angels
Once In A Lifetime – Talking Heads
Yes – McAlmont & Butler
The Man Who Took On Love (And Won) – The Low Miffs & Malcolm Ross
Gold Digger – Kanye West feat. Jamie Foxx
Seven Seas – Echo & The Bunnymen
No Danger – The Delgados

Enjoy.

Volume 3 should be with you next month.

Clash

THE CLASH ON SUNDAYS (4)

Disc 4 is Complete Control

I’m not sure how much to type today as I’m guessing that most T(n)VV readers will be very familiar with the fact that Complete Control was written, recorded and released in a fit of anger by The Clash as their response to CBS having released Remote Control as a single in May 1977.

It’s interesting to note that the attack on CBS via the line ‘They said, we’d be artistically free when we signed that bit of paper’ was savaged by many critics at the time with the band being accused of complete naiveté and indeed some went as far as suggesting the row was manufactured to allow Joe Strummer in particular to continue to appear as a spokesman for the people.

Some other facts.

It was engineered by Mickey Foote and produced by Lee “Scratch” Perry who happened to be in London producing for Bob Marley & the Wailers and readily accepted the invited to produce Complete Control. However, it turned out that his contribution to the track had to be toned down with Mick Jones re-working things to bring the guitars out more to the fore and drop down the echo Perry had dropped on it. The song was also Topper Headon‘s first recording with the band.

mp3 : The Clash – Complete Control

The b-side is one that many fans are very fond of and its inclusion of a saxophone part was hugely unusual in punk circles:-

mp3 : The Clash – City of The Dead

It reached #28 in the singles chart, making it The Clash’s first Top 30 release. The essay in the booklet was penned by a footballer.

COMPLETE CONTROL : Released 23 September 1977 : #28 in the UK singles chart

When I was 14, I was living with my mum and dad in Kingsbury, north-west London. After school I’d be straight up to the bedroom and get the records on. The walls had posters of all the bands I liked, The Clash, Stranglers, Stiff Little Fingers, Bowie – I got into music through him and then punk came along. I had a Lurkers set list and a massive Holidays In The Sun Pistols poster. I’d get this stuff from point of sale in the local record shops , they’s have big cardboard displays of the bands and I’d ask the bloke if he could save me it when they took them down.

I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do back then. I still don’t now. I was just into music. Back then I didn’t want to hear any slow songs or any ballads; I just wanted something fast and loud that I could sing along to and jump up and down on the bed with a baseball bat like an idiot. Complete Control was the rawest song I had, everything I wanted was on it, the rawness. I can still remember my old girl coming in and telling me to turn it down.

I probably saw The Clash up to ten times, the best was in Harlesden. Another tack I really liked was The Prisoner, which I think was on the B-side of White Man In Hammersmith Palais. I’d play White Riot before I went out to play, mainly at Forest; that was my musical peak because I was captain. Brian Clough sort of turned a blind eye to it, really.

Stuart Pearce, England’s greatest-ever left back

Bronski Beat

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (27)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON WEDNESDAY 17 APRIL 2008
AND AGAIN ON SATURDAY 7 SEPTEMBER 2013

R-224051-1361220335-5419

I’ve written about Bronski Beat before. And I make no apologies of repeating what I said then – it really is all too easy to forget how brave Jimmy Somerville and Bronski Beat were for being so open about their way of life and their views. Their records, and those of such as the Pet Shop Boys and Frankie Goes To Hollywood took the celebration of queer culture into the mainstream, and made many people realise, probably for the first time, that homophobia was every bit as distasteful as racism and apartheid.

This was a band that came from out of nowhere. They inked a deal with London Records after a mere handful of gigs, and the debut single, Smalltown Boy, sold by the barrowload, hitting #3 in the UK charts in May 1984. It also made the Top 50 in the USA and Top 10 in Australia.

A trio of follow-up singles and the debut LP all sold in great quantities and the band seemed set for a long and successful career. But out of the blue, vocalist Jimmy Somerville (and acknowledged by everyone as the band spokesman) announced he was quitting the band to pursue an outlet that would allow him to be ‘more political.’ In due course, he would find massive success, including #1 records, with Communards. He also became part of Red Wedge, the conglomeration of musicians who campaigned for the Labour Party at the 1987 UK general election.

As for Bronski Beat – they did manage a couple of hits with new vocalist John Foster (who in retrospect sounds awfully like Andy Bell who would later come to prominence with Erasure), but they were very much overshadowed by the success of Communards. They soldiered on for a few more years, ever more fading into obscurity from the mainstream.

There’s just something about the early Bronski Beat records that make them sound so special. There’s a bit of the inventiveness of Giorgio Moroder in there, along with the pop-savvy touch of Human League and Heaven 17. There’s also the choir-boy falsetto vocals of Somerville that recalled, in some ways, Russell Mael from Sparks. Theirs were records that struck a chord with so many people, from the hard-core gay militants to the indie-kids and the disco-divas with their handbags and stiletto heels.

The look adopted by Jimmy Somerville for the video to the debut single is one that has become synonymous with young gay men in the early 80s. If you want proof, look no further than the recent BBC cop/sci-fi series Ashes to Ashes which was set in 1981, but in an episode centring on a young gay man, that particular character was dressed straight out of a Bronskis video from 1984.

That’s the impact and legacy of this one song –

mp3 : Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy (extended version)

Jam, Supernaturals

ONE MORE REASON WHY JANUARY 2016 HAS SUCKED

scan0003

Today was meant to feature the latest in the series of singles by The Style Council but this is what I’d rather share with you today.

Some of you will know that this particular blog, which sprang into action in July 2013, is the descendant of The Vinyl Villain which ran with more than 1,000 postings (many of which were from guest contributors) between September 2006 and June 2013 when it was closed down by Google without any advance warning.

The one thing the two blogs have in common is the ability to bring total strangers together and turn them into close friends, even if they never ever get to meet in person. The common bond of course is a love of music and the fact that there are people out there who share similar tastes and whose fandom for certain singers, bands or even certain songs piques an interest.

It was a song that led to a blogger called Helpless Dancer (HD) to get in touch back in 2008, and after a very pleasant exchange of emails, this is what he ended up writing on his blog:-

Music and Dumbarton FC – Two Passions Collide

For a long time I have been searching through my boxes of stored CD’s looking for a CD Single by The Supernaturals which had a B-side entitled “High Tension At Boghead” to no avail.

Recently I have been checking out and enjoying the Vinyl Villain blog which features a massive amount of Scottish related music and as a last resort I posted a comment asking if by any chance they had the aforementioned track and to my great pleasure it has been posted today so many thanks VV!!

I should explain that the song is directly related to HD’s football team, which as you’ll have surmised from the title of his post is Dumbarton FC.

High Tension At Boghead is a strange but enjoyable wee number telling the tale of a young boy’s first venture to a ‘big’ football match, an occasion he found rather underwhelming but thankfully there was enough happening around the ground to keep him amused.

The picture at the top of this post is the rear of the main stand at Boghead, a ground I had the pleasure of visiting a few times and which has a particularly happy memory as being the place that I took a child to his first match – the son of my best mate (RIP) who at this point in time had left Raith Rovers to play for Ayr United at the tail end of his career.

Dumbarton FC left Boghead Park in 2000 and moved a few hundred yards away to a new ground by the banks of the river which flows through the town. The old ground is now occupied by housing but it has of course been immortalised in song:-

mp3 : The Supernaturals – High Tension At Boghead

HD subsequently became a regular contributor to the blog via the comments section, as indeed did Son Of The Rock another music fan with a love for Dumbarton FC (or perhaps the other way round!!). I actually ended up going to a couple of Rovers v Dumbarton matches with SoTR, always thoroughly enjoying his company, but a couple of plans to meet up with HD fell through on my part.

HD’s blog came to a halt in mid 2011, some 18 months after the very sudden death of his wife at the young age of 49; it was clear to those of us who were reading his stuff that listening to a lot of his favourite music had just become too painful. He was the sort of blogger who wore his heart on his sleeve and the way he wrote about his love and adoration for his late wife was very moving. When he closed down the blog he indicated that archive postings would remain open which is why I’ve mean able to maintain a link over on the right hand side under the section ‘Old Friends No Longer Active In The Field’

The sad thing now is that HD himself has passed away at the age of 55 – very suddenly and very unexpectedly.

And it was only a week or so after his after his death that I’ve been able to join some dots and realise that HD was in fact not just a fan of Dumbarton FC, but one of those hardy souls who devote all their spare energy to their team. In this case, HD had risen from being a fan on the terraces to the position of Chief Executive at his club, a role that also saw him provide sterling service to the game in Scotland as a whole.

The realisation came from reading his obituary in a newspaper which mentioned that he had been widowed back in 2010 which was just too much of a coincidence for me not to delve a bit deeper. For the first time in ages I went back into his old site and there it was, just below the posting announcing he was closing down the blog, vital info that you could catch him on Facebook under his real name of Gilbert Lawrie.

The realisation hit me quite hard for the simple reason that on at least ten occasions over the past few years I will have been sitting a matter of yards away from him at football matches and had many an opportunity to introduce myself and say hello….and I really regret that it never happened. After all, over the years I’ve met a fair number of folk who I got to know initially through blogging, and to a man and woman they have been the most wonderful and warm people imaginable. HD/Gilbert would have been no different.

The tributes for Gilbert Lawrie last week were many for he was incredibly popular in the small world that is Scottish football. At least one of the formal obituaries which appeared in a local paper made reference to his love of music and in particular that he was a fan and avid collector of all things by The Who. The conversation we would have had about Paul Weller would have been fascinating.

This one is for a good mate who I never ever met, but who I’m proud to say I knew.

mp3 : The Jam – So Sad About Us

RIP Helpless Dancer. The music and football worlds are poorer places without you.

Thrills

THAT SUMMER FEELING

The.Thrills
January is a depressing month. Tired and skint after Christmas. Trying hard to get back into the swing of things at work. Dark mornings when you set off and even darker evenings when you come home. It’s cold, it’s wet or snowy. The joys of summer seem a long way off.

This January has been even worse with so many untimely deaths in the music world.

Sometimes though a chirpy cheery rather forgotten pop song comes on the i-pod shuffle and helps lifts that gloom.

mp3 : The Thrills – One Horse Town

Released in March 2003, it reached #18 in the UK singles chart. It was just about the band’s biggest ever hit – but this equally jolly follow-up did better by hitting #17 a few months later:-

mp3 : The Thrills – Big Sur

Told you.

Not quite one listen and it feels like July….but it does make you realise the short days and long nights will soon be a thing of the past.

Colin Vearncombe

READ THIS IF, LIKE ME, YOU KNEW ONLY ONE SONG

maxresdefault

January 2016 has been a foul month. Many are still coming to terms with the passing of David Bowie, the magnitude of which has understandably overshadowed the deaths of other musicians over the past two and a bit weeks. Various blogging friends have paid great tributes to Otis Clay, Dale Griffin and Glenn Frey. The latest name to join what is an ever-more depressing list is Colin Vearncombe.

His real brush with fame came back in 1987 when, under the moniker of Black, he had a huge and deserved hit all across Europe with Wonderful Life. It’s a song that has been much covered and in recent years become increasingly used in TV commercials and there’s no doubt that for many, and I include myself among them, the hit single is all they can recall.

But Colin Vearncombe had a substantial following out there who followed his career throughout the peaks and troughs, delighting in the fact that in recent years he had written and recorded some of the best songs in his career. All the more tragic therefore, that he died earlier this week having been unable to recover from an horrific brain injury sustained in an accident a few weeks back on a road near Cork in Ireland.

One of the biggest supporters of T(n)VV is Echorich – there’s barely a day goes by that he doesn’t leave some sort of comment on a posting, offering a wonderfully concise and often personal take on the song or the artist featured.

I had long known that Echorich was a huge Bowie fan and he was one of the first I thought of when the news of that death emerged. I hadn’t however, known till recently that Colin Vearncombe was another of his favourites and so he really has had an awful start to 2016. Typically, he has put together a very lovely tribute to his hero, highlighting 17 of his best songs. It is well worth a few minutes of your time:-

http://thatperfectbeat.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/its-wonderful-wonderful-life.html

Thank You.

PS : Two more very fine tributes courtesy of friends of this blog:-

From djjedredy :https://myvinyldreams.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/black-black-compilation-from-1984-cd-re-issue/

From Post Punk Monk* : https://postpunkmonk.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/colin-vearncombe-1962-2016

* as with Echorich, PPM is a big fan of Bowie so he too has had an unimaginable start to 2016.