THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

A Craze, Carmel, Everything But The Girl

BONUS POSTING : INSPIRED BY BRIAN FROM LINEAR TRACK LIVES

Brian from Linear Track Lives yesterday posted a long-forgotten song from the 1980s:-

mp3 : A Craze – Wearing Your Jumper

He reminded us that it was an era for what he descibed as suave bands – the likes of Everything But The Girl, Carmel, Matt Bianco etc (I’ll throw in Blue Rondo A La Turk and Sade for good measure). He also provided a potted bio of A Craze – who were Lucy Loquette and Chris Free, among whose claims to fame were that they wrote “Give It Some Emotion,” which was the second biggest charting single in the career of Tracie Young. Just as important was the release of the single “Wearing Your Jumper” which was not only on Respond Records but was produced by the label owner – Paul Weller – whil the other two male members of The Style Council played on it. (Mick Talbot on the Wurlitzer and Steve White on percussion.)

I hadn’t heard this single for more than 30 years but the moment it came on it brought back some crazy and mostly happy memories as it was one of the tunes which featured on ‘The Hangover Tape’ in my first student flat. One side of a C90 cassette consisting of laid back tunes from female fronted bands.

It wasn’t me who put the tape together – in fact it wasn’t any of us who rented the flat who was responsible. It was the work of another mate who more or less moved in on Friday nights as our city centre location allowed him to have a great weekend and somewhere to stay without the hassle and expense of getting home to his folks’ place in the suburbs. There were lots of laughs on Sunday mornings/afternoons while this tape played and listening last night to A Craze after all such a long gap saw incidents and events I hadn’t thought about for so long come flooding back into my mind.

Here’s another two tracks that were on the tape:-

mp3 : Everything But The Girl – Each and Every One
mp3 : Carmel – Storm

Thanks Brian.

Style Council

THE STYLE COUNCIL SINGLES (5)

The fifth single, released in February 1984, was the first to feature the drumming talents of Steve White who at the time was just 18 years of age and whose more gentle, jazz influenced style was quite different from that of Zeke Manyika who had played on each of the previous singles.

The Style Council were now seemingly following a clear plan of a new single every three months and once again this sold well, reaching #5 in the charts. Indeed by the time it had drifted out of the charts at the beginning of April, the band (and more importantly I guess Polydor Records) had enjoyed having a single in the Top 75 for 42 out of 56 weeks which equates to a huge amount of radio airplay and exposure.

The first new bit of TSC music in 1984 was ridiculously catchy, jaunty and quite splendid:-

mp3 : The Style Council – My Ever Changing Moods (12″ version)

Two songs were on the b-side, one of which was a throwaway but pleasant enough acoustic ballad while the other was an instrumental that brought home how talented the other two main musicians were but also gave a reminder that talent doesn’t always translate to enjoyable and memorable music:-

mp3 : The Style Council – Spring, Summer, Autumn
mp3 : The Style Council – Mick’s Company

One thing worth mentioning is that the sleeve of My Ever Changing Moods gave notice of the first TSC album with news that it was to be called Cafe Bleu and that it wouldn’t include any of the five previously released 45s when it hit the shops in April 1984. So there was the inevitable head-scratching when the LP’s track listing turned out to include ‘Moods’ but lo and behold, it was a completely different and wholly unexpected version:-

mp3 : The Style Council – My Ever Changing Moods (album version)

Enjoy

PS

Over the festive period I finally caught up with viewing something that I had recorded back in September which has since been made available on DVD and Blu-Ray.

About The Young Idea is a full-length documentary about the life and times of The Jam and it turned out to be surprisingly good. I say surprisingly as these things tend to be a bit on the self-indulgent side and are often from one person’s perspective, but in this instance all three members of the band make invaluable contributions and insights, albeit they were interviewed separately (which is no surprise given there is still obvious pain in the faces of Bruce and Rick about the timing and finality of the break-up). There are articulate and heart-felt contributions from a wide range of fans that are also worth listening to – at first they appear to have been selected at random but it eventually becomes clear that they have been included for particular reasons. The film certainly brought back loads of happy memories for me – as I’ve said, they were the band that more than any other ignited my love for music and the film makes it quite clear that I was only one of a great many from all over the world affected in that way.

It’s well worth shelling out for and you’ll find it quite easily on t’internet.

Courtney Barnett, Hudson Mohawke

BONUS POSTING : THE TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2015…. AS CHOSEN BY YOU

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Many thanks to all of you who took the time to drop me a line with your personal Top 10 albums of 2016. More than 200 different records were nominated of which 34 received multiple nominations, with #1 and #2 in the list receiving by far the most. Here’s the reverse rundown of what I’ve submitted to the 2016 BAMS on behalf of the readers of The (New) Vinyl Villain:-

10.The Spook School – We Try To Be Hopeful
9. Miaoux Miaoux – School Of Velocity
8. Public Service Broadcasting – The Race For Space
7. Wolf Alice – My Love Is Cool
6. Belle & Sebastian – Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance
5. John Grant – Grey Tickles, Black Pressure
4. Blur – The Magic Whip
3. Lonelady – Hinterland
2. New Order – Music Complete
1. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit

For what it’s worth, only two of my own Top 10 made the list, which kind of makes me worried that I’m out of touch with the readership but I console myself with the fact that I spend so much time looking backwards for the blog that I’m really unable to keep up much with new music and therefore the number of new albums I buy or listen to is ridiculously limited. Having said that, Mike over at Manic Pop Thrills has put together a mouth-watering list of new albums that are scheduled for release in 2016 and so I expect to be a bit more active on that front in 2016.

I would like to finish by posting a personal Top 10 of 2015 from ISM, a friend and occasional but discerning reader who is always telling me to end what he calls my obsession with 80s jingly-jangly indie-pop. None of his choices made the final list, but I wanted to share with you his cracking descriptions on why he fell for certain records in 2015:-

Hudson Mowhawk – Lantern

Glasgow’s supplier of beats and cutting edge sounds to Kanye West (he’s on his payroll) adds great tunes for his second album.

Four Tet – Morning/Evening

Ssublime, ambitious two 20 minute long pieces with beats, samples and tunes – fought the punk rock wars to get rid of such pretentiousness – and lost!

Mogwai – Music Industry 3, Fitness Industry 1 EP

Remixes and a blistering new tune in Teenage Exorcists.

Craig Armstrong – Far From the Madding Crowd OST

The best soundtracks are written under our noses up in Park Circus, but beware, 50% sublime orchestral tunes and 50% ‘enters room and sits on sofa’ as per most film scores.

Idjut Boys – Versions

Deep, dubby, sub-Fleetwood Mac outtake type bliss! I know, who would have thought it possible or desirable!

Damian Lazarus – One Hour With (Mixmag cover CD November)

The fine art of the DJ dance mix, taking the willing on dizzying musical trip – and leaving the unwilling grumbling ‘WTF is this all about’?!

Four Tet – Pink

Him again, this time with a compilation of magnificent sold out 12″ releases first issued in 2012 and only made available as a download in the UK afterwards (or Japanese import CD – I know, get a life) before being released on a double vinyl album a few weeks ago, SO IT COUNTS for 2015!

Admiral Fallow – Tiny Rewards

Too early to tell how good this is, but who can resist their latest efforts after absorbing their tunes after seeing so many excellent live performances?

Trevor Jackson Presents Science Fiction Dancehall

One more re-release of old stuff allowed surely? – in this case a collection of original spaced-out dub released on the On U Sound label from way back and far ahead of its time.

John Hopkins – Late Night Tales

‘Dance’ mix of tracks with hardly any beats, but instead a collection of tunes and moods forming something a lot bigger than the sum of its parts.

ISM

JC adds…..

Seems only fair to recognise his contribution along with what was a very clear winner from all you good good people.

mp3 : Hudson Mohawke – Scud Books
mp3 : Courtney Barnett – Pedestrian At Best

Oh and as part of an effort to get more with it in 2016, I’ll be doing the occasional bonus post on the occasional midday featuring new music that has caught my fancy. You’ve been warned……..

Scarfo

FROM THE SOUTH-WEST CORRESPONDENT..WHAT’S IN YOUR BOX (33)

The Shoebox of Delights – #6
Scarfo – Alkaline and Cosmonaut #7

scarfo1 scarfo2

It was at a Scarfo gig that Our Price Girl dumped me for good. There was no going back this time.

Actually, technically it was at a Snuff gig that Our Price Girl dumped for me good, but Scarfo were supporting and it was during their (brilliant) thirty minutes set that it happened. To be honest it had been coming – since our week away on the Norfolk Broads (which had been to celebrate our A Level results – her 3 A’s (Sociology, English and weirdly RE) – me erm, Not 3 A’s) things had been going downhill. We’d been arguing, largely over the fact that we were heading off to University in two different parts of the country and it probably would have happened soon enough anyway.

We’d also as usual argued about music, she had recently started listening to a lot of grunge and American rock, well it was 1994 and since Nirvana exploded a lot of people were listening to bands like Soundgarden, Tool and the Jesus Lizard. Our Price Girl was listening to all this and Soul Asylum. Yep, ‘Runaway Train, never comin’ back’ wanky bland tosspots Soul Asylum.

We’d also argued about a guy who I called Mr Goatie. So called because he fucked goats – or had a stupid goatie beard – I forget which. Mr Goatie worked in the same branch of Our Price as OPG – I think he was the boss and he was really irritating he insisted on calling everyone ‘Dude’. Mr Goatie liked Soul Asylum, in fact Mr Goatie liked Soundgarden, Tool and all those other bands that OPG had started to like. All of a sudden. I decided that Mr Goatie probably liked Our Price Girl.

One Wednesday afternoon Our Price Girl said that there was a really good punk band playing in Reading and that we should go to the gig – besides it was three weeks before the Reading Festival and it would be good practice to see how long it takes to get there in my second hand Nissan Cherry. Being the sort of guy who was always up for a bit of live music, I agreed. Oh, the Reading Festival – a gang of us were going to this festival, me, OPG, a few of my mates, a few of hers and Mr Goatie, he was coming too, of course he was. Soundgarden were playing and he ‘was like their biggest fan, dude’.

We were about half way when Our Price Girl decided to put a tape on, now I didn’t mind her tapes, because usually they consisted of stuff she had ‘borrowed’ from the Our Price Stock Room and stuck on a tape – nearly always they were excellent and featured the up and coming acts of the time. This one however featured Soundgarden, Tool, the Red hot Chilli Peppers and Soul Asylum (and Therapy?). I sighed inwardly as ‘Jesus Christ Pose’ belted out but carried out driving but it didn’t put me in a particularly good mood. I decided I needed a toilet break when Soul Asylum came on. Although that didn’t stop her going on about what a ‘wonderful lyricist’ whoever wrote the lyrics was.

Did you make this tape? I asked as we rolled into Reading City Centre. Silence. I asked her again, on the off chance that she didn’t hear me over the caterwauling that was coming on the speaker – I was driving a second hand Nissan Cherry, possibly the worlds most boring car (well perhaps the Allegro comes before that) with (I think) Blind Melon coming out of the speakers fairly loudly, I must have looked so uncool.

“Stuart, made it for me” she said. Stuart was Mr Goatie. This was about the 900th time she had mentioned him to me that day. “Stuart’s trying to get me a move to the new Maidstone branch”, “Stuart’s put me in charge of vinyl orders this week”, “Stuart took me roughly from behind in the store room for about three brilliantly breathless hours yesterday” that sort of thing. Not that I was jealous or remotely paranoid you understand.

We got into the gig, it wasn’t very busy. There were two other bands on the bill – a local band who I think were called ‘Who Moved the Ground?’ (they were straight out of the crusty scene that was growing at the time) and a band called Scarfo. I’d only really heard of Snuff though – thanks largely to a friend called Justin.

“Stuart told me about Scarfo the other day” she starts, “he doesn’t like them, he says that they sound too manufactured”. Unlike Soul Asylum obviously who sound like they are recording their songs in a garage.

I decide there and then that Scarfo are probably the future of rock and roll and no matter how awful they are I will love them and talk about them ALL THE WAY HOME. IN A REALLY ANNOYING VOICE. It transpires later that this was in fact Scarfo’s fourth ever gig and they hadn’t released any records yet so it is highly likely that Stuart was talking bollocks. Anyway, we went to the bar and immediately ordered some drinks – I was obviously on the soft drinks, Our Price Girl had a Bacardi and coke.

Roughly six minutes later we are met by a familiar face. Yep, Mr Goatie himself. I honestly dropped my half pint of orange juice when I saw him. It slowly made sense, he had told Our Price Girl that he was going to this gig and she therefore had wanted to go.

They say hello – it’s well too informal – if I’d greeted a female like that, I would have got a kick in the balls and no chocolate for a week. I get dragged over to sit with ‘his gang’ – a bunch of older people, far cooler than me, none of whom, are wiping orange juice off their Pop Kid T Shirt, they are all drinking bottled beer, smoking Lucky Strike Cigarettes, wearing battered Converse and massive jumpers. I don’t get introduced to anyone – I may as well have been wearing a bell around my neck – that’s how popular I was. Something was seriously wrong here.

Anyway, Scarfo come on – they are tremendous, spiky punky indie, a band in their infancy who look and sound brilliant. Mr Goatie was well wrong about them. Our Price Girl wanders up to me about half way though and says “We need to talk”. That was kind of all I needed to hear. I was pissed off for two reasons, firstly I knew what was coming and secondly, I wanted to watch the end of Scarfo.

It wasn’t pretty, two people shouting at each other in the pissing rain outside a club in Reading and as relationships go it was a fairly rubbish ending if I am honest. I won’t go into details but it was definitely over. There was no coming back from here. Not Reading, obviously you can come back from there. I went back inside ordered a vodka and lime, downed it and then got my coat.

I spent two hours in Reading Burger King waiting for the alcohol to leave my system as I was shit scared that I would get pulled over by the cops. Oh and she left the tape in the car – my biggest smile of the evening was brought about by the satisfying sensation I got when I hurled out the window somewhere near Junction 11 of the M25.

Scarfo were formed in 1994, the brainchild of Jamie Hince, they released two albums and these two singles came from the second ‘Luxury Plane Crash’ and they were excellent.

mp3 : Scarfo – Alkaline
mp3 : Scarfo – Brazil
mp3 : Scarfo – El Topo

mp3 : Scarfo – Cosmonaut #7
mp3 : Scarfo – Alcatraz

You are getting both singles because, my daughter decided to put both CDs back into the same case after using them as roundabouts for her Peppa Pig toy. Bonus. You also get the rather wonderful cover version of the Elvis Costello classic ‘I Want You’ which is up there with the Greatest Covers of All Time.

mp3 : Scarfo – I Want You

Scarfo split late in 1998 I think, as one of the band was severely injured in a car crash – Hince went on to form Fiji and then more famously he formed The Kills and hooked up with Kate Moss.

Scarfo were much better than The Kills and The Kills are excellent.

Enjoy.

B-52s

I’VE DANCED TO THIS IN EACH OF THE 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s.

This sounded really weird on first listen back in 1979. And 37 (!!!!!!!) years on I still think it has a fair degree of weirdness.

But when I say that, I am praising and not castigating the record for it’s one that has aged magnificently.

mp3 : The B-52’s – Planet Claire

Ok, I know that it chunders along in much the same way as The Theme From Peter Gunn, but back in 1979 I had no idea of the existence of that bit of music….

Planet Claire is one of those songs that I sort of dread coming up on random shuffle on the i-pod if I’m using public transport as its impossible to keep still while it plays. At the very minimum my head will move from side to side and my shoulders will start shaking, thus putting my fellow passengers in great fear that I’m about to suffer some sort of fit. And god forbid that it should ever come on when I’m half-drunk as I’m very likely to wail tunelessly in a dreadful impression of the organ sound…

Here’s the equally bizarre b-side:-

mp3 : The B-52’s – There’s A Moon In The Sky (Called The Moon)

Enjoy

Last call for readers to e-mail me lists of their Top 10 LPs for 2015 so that I can submit a collective entry for the BAMS 2015. Click on this post for more background.

Flunk

IF ONLY……

blue-monday-doorkomen
I’m guessing most folk will be back into the full swing of things from today.

mp3 : Flunk – Blue Monday

It’s a rather decent cover from Norway, released as a single back in 2002. Hopefully it will cheer you up on a day when I bet few of us can be bothered.

That is all.

Beloved, Shamen, Stump, Vee VV, Wedding Present

THIS YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Postscript 2)

Today sees the second and final part of the look back at A Different Kind of Tension, the 10-track compilation released in 1986. Here’s the b-side of the album:-

1. The Beloved – A Hundred Words
2. Vee VV – The Romance Is Over
3. Stump – Kitchen Table
4. The Wedding Present – Once More
5. The Shamen – Happy Days

The Beloved, in their dance guise, were featured a couple of months back. It’s hard to believe that it is the same band who would go onto enjoy such massive success with the club crowds in the early 90s. But before they were embraced by the dance brigade, The Beloved were just another indie-pop guitar band. This is actually their debut single from April 1986 on Flim Flam Records which made #15 in the UK Indie Chart (which I’m guessing amounted to about 5,000 sales).

mp3 : The Beloved – A Hundred Words

The next lot needed a bit of detective work on the t’internet. They emerged from the ashes of a band called Tunnelvision who released one single, entitled Watching The Hydroplanes, on Factory Records in 1981. And no, I can’t say I’ve ever heard it. They seem to have been an act signed on a whim by Tony Wilson after they appeared on the bill at the first ever New Order gig in Blackpool. Anyway, it seems they were a band that were continually slated by the music press and continually compared to Joy Division.

Members of Tunnelvision would, in due course, form Vee VV. The band recorded a flexi single for a music magazine before releasing a double-side 7″ single on Cathexis Records and the track featured today was part of that artefact. A second 12″ single soon followed and Vee VV gained some exposure through support slots for My Bloody Valentine, Stone Roses and the afore-mentioned New Order. But before long they had broken up unwilling to embrace Madchester.

mp3 : Vee VV – The Romance Is Over

Stump were an Anglo-Irish band that featured former members of Microdisney.

This is the only track of the ten on the compilation that hadn’t been released at the time, although it would eventually appear on the Quirk Out mini-LP that came out in late 1986 on Stuff Records. The band would gain enough fame to be featured on the covers of both the NME and Melody Maker, and there was enough of a buzz about them that they eventually inked a deal with Ensign Records who released the LP A Fierce Pancake in 1988, from which the single Charlton Heston reached #72 in the UK singles charts. But the album did not bring the crossover success the label had hoped for and, after recording a few b-sides and some demos, they split before 1989 was over.

mp3 : Stump – Kitchen Table

Ah….the wonderful Weddoes. This was a very early single from 1986. ‘Nuff said.

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Once More

The final track on the compilation is technically, the first ever single by The Shamen, released on One Big Guitar in 1985. The band had changed their name from Alone Again Or and moved to a different record label after just two singles. Frontman Colin Angus was one of the first to realise that indie-pop didn’t guarantee fame and fortune, and by mid-1988 the band was down to a two-piece who were more focused on dance. Four years later they were among the biggest acts in the UK with a string of chart hits including the unforgettable (not necessarily in a positive way!!) Ebeneezer Goode which was #1 for a number of weeks in August 1992.

By the mid-late 90s, the band had turned their backs on commercial soundimg dance music and frustrating the life out of their record label bosses at One Little Indian. The Shamen called it a day in 1999, but will be remembered fondly by a great many clubbers of a certain generation. However, they would be hard pushed to recognise this as one of their songs:-

mp3 : The Shamen – Happy Days

And that concludes the look back at the songs of 1986 for this series at least. Tune in next week for something going back even further in time….

Enjoy

Wild Swans

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (31)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON FRIDAY 11 APRIL 2008

Now look, its my chart and I’ll have obscure 45s in it if I want to.

The Wild Swans were one of the key bands in the Liverpool Scene that also produced Echo & The Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and Pete Wylie/Wah! As a band, they were in and out of existence from 1980 to 1986, during which time they recorded a number of BBC sessions but released just one single (released in 1982) and no LP. Then, in 1988, they reformed and finally recorded an album which was disowned almost immediately by all concerned and thus received a limited release…

Talk about perverse…..

Somehow a further album was recorded in 1989 (despite the departure of half of the band), but again to little acclaim. The Wild Swans called it a day shortly afterwards and retreated into cult obscurity.

Revolutionary Spirit/God Forbid was the last single to be released on the legendary label Zoo Records which was run by the equally legendary Bill Drummond. As I mentioned above, it came out in 1982. It was produced by the late Pete De Freitas who also drums on the record.

I remember hearing both sides of the single on Radio 1 – it was most likely on the John Peel show but I can’t be certain – and then trying to track it down in shops in the coming days. It proved an impossible task. One of my mates did however know someone who had a copy (I think it was a cousin in Liverpool) and he sent us up cassettes of the record.

In those days, maybe it was the sheer obscurity of the songs that helped make it all so special but in all truth they both perfectly capture so much of what was great about the sound of new young Liverpool. It took me until 1990 to finally got a hold of my own copy of the songs thanks to the purchase of a Zoo compilation which brought together every single the label had released between 1978 and 1982. It was so good to finally get ‘clean’ copies to listen to.

Lead singer Paul Simpson enjoyed more cult success with his next band, Care, alongside Ian Broudie who would then find fame and fortune with The Lightning Seeds. Much of the distinctive sound of The Wild Swans was down to guitarist Jeremy Kelly and he became part of Lotus Eaters who were one-hit wonders with The First Picture Of You in 1983.

As mentioned above, The Wild Swans did reform in 1988 to release a debut album, and while they still had a hardcore following of fans, their time had come and gone. The music they were now making was part of a different era, and certainly to the ears of this listener, was a disappointment, being nowhere near the class of the debut single, nor have the consistency of the releases by Care. I have however, since re-assessed things somewhat over the past few decades and have a fair bit of time for much of the later material. But they never quite matched the majesty of the Zoo single.

Oh and despite the wonders of e-bay and my rekindled interest in vinyl, I have still not yet been able to pick up a reasonably-priced vinyl copy of the single, originally released in February 1982**:-

mp3 : The Wild Swans – Revolutionary Spirit
mp3 : The Wid Swans – God Forbid

** that was back in 2008. I now have a copy in the collection, albeit it’s not in all great condition.

PS : If you’re wondering about the photo that now accompanies this post, its of the fantastically entertaining Dirk from Germany who runs a superb blog called Sexy Loser.

By ‘sheer coincidence’, he also posted Revolutionary Spirit on the day of this original posting and and he couldn’t resist showing off that he has long had a mint vinyl copy of the single……

I’m determined to meet the handsome devil in the flesh one day…..

Radio 236 (various)

RADIO 236 : THE FIRST EPISODE

index

I genuinely had no intention of blogging on 1 January 2016. But things changed as a result of my investing in a new laptop to replace what had been a faithful 10-year old PC that was no longer fit for purpose. The old PC wasn’t great at doing anything beyond the most basic of operations and things I wanted to bring to the blog were proving beyond it.

Radio 236 (named after the number of the house I live in) is launching today. It’s basically a podcast without words and as I learn how to do things better with the new programmes available to me then it will improve. Episode 1 contains 14 songs in just under 53 minutes.

Tune in here: https://www.spreaker.com/embed/player/standard?episode_id=7482774&autoplay=true

Or feel free to download:-

mp3 : Various Artists – Radio 236 (1st Episode)

It sounds not too bad albeit it has been recorded a bit too quietly for my full liking.

Songlist:-

Breaking Point – Bourgie Bourgie
A Punk – Vampire Weekend
Feed The Tree – Belly
No Bulbs – The Fall
Teardrop – Massive Attack
Nowhere Fast – The Smiths
Atheist Money – Adam Stafford
A Great Example To The Dogs – Lord Cut Glass
Friday Night At The Drive In Bingo – Jens Lekman
Sick, Tired & Drunk – The June Brides
This Corrosion – Lambchop
Water (Peel Session) – PJ Harvey
Man O’ Sand To Girl’ O Sea (single version) – The Go Betweens
Song From Under The Floorboards – Magazine

Enjoy.

PS

New Year….new (and returning) blogs to get excited about.

From Alex G : We Will Have Salad

From S-WC and The Badger : When You Can’t Remember Anything

Franz Ferdinand, Sparks

BORN TO DO COVER VERSIONS

franz-ferdinand
From Rolling Stone magazine:-

LCD Soundsystem’s tragically nostalgic dance-rock epic ‘All My Friends’ is arguably the best indie-rock song of the ’00s. The B-sides to the single were all cover versions, hinting that the song was a classic the minute it was released.

Scot rockers Franz Ferdinand, who’d already taken bracing, contorted grooves to the pop charts, were born to do ‘All My Friends’ and they turned in an incisive, raging guitar-grinding version with singer Alex Karpanos boozily crooning James Murphy’s forlorn lyrics about losing touch with your friends as you grow older and more ambitious. Musically, they pull of a wonderful trick of interlaying their version with references to legendary post-punk bands like New Order and the Gang of Four that LCD and Franz share as influences. It’s an A-plus history project you can get way down to.

mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – All My Friends

It really is a cracking, crackling energetic cover that is among the best things that FF have ever laid down. But then again, they’re a band who have never shied away from tackling cover versions throughout their career, some without question more successfully than others as evidenced here:-

mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – Sexy Boy
mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – Get Up and Use Me
mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – What You Waiting For?
mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – Sound and Vision

I’m quite fond of the first two of the four featured above, not convinced by the third as I’ve no time for the original (albeit Mrs Villain is a fan of Gwen Stefani) while the latter is fun enough for the fact that Girls Aloud are on backing vocals!

I never ever got round to mentioning that the FFS project turned out to be one of the best surprises about 2015. The idea of Franz Ferdinand and Sparks combining into a supergroup for an album and live performances didn’t seem like a good idea when first mooted but then I gave the album a listen and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was but that was nothing compared to seeing them perform at the Glasgow Barrowlands which turned out to be a fun-filled and hugely entertaining gig. This was the night when I did truly understand the FF boys were born to do cover versions.

Watch this entire 70 minute performance while you have spare time over the festive period

You can perhaps do it tomorrow when I’m taking a day off blogging. I’ll be back on Saturday with the latest in the re-run of the 45s series

Happy New Year when it comes.

Wonder Stuff

I DIDN’T LIKE YOU VERY MUCH WHEN I MET YOU

It was back in 1987 that a new band from Stourbridge in the heart of the Midlands in England came to critical prominence through the release of two singles on their own Farout label. The second of them featured a cracking sing-a-long chorus referred to in the title of today’s posting:-

mp3 : The Wonder Stuff – Unbearable

The Wonder Stuff signed with Polydor Records not long after and over the next six years went on to enjoy a great deal of success with four Top 10 albums and a bundle of hit singles including a #1 hit when they backed Vic Reeves on his remake of Dizzy in October 1991.

But with the success came the critical backlash and there was a feeling among the band that it wasn’t much fun anymore. Much of their enjoyment in the early days came from the live performances and having caught them of an evening at the Glasgow Barrowlands in 1989 I can vouch for how good they were – it was a frenzied, boisterous and incredibly entertaining night – but as the venues got bigger and the set lists had to become centred around all the hits (especially the one that wasn’t really theirs) there was a sense that it was all getting a bit routine and treadmill like.

They called it a day in mid 1994 and closed with a headlining set at an outdoor festival in front of 30,000 fans. Three months later Polydor issued a best-of album that went Top 10 and promoted it through the re-release of Unbearable, including the original b-sides as well as making a second CD available with the re-recorded version of the song that had appeared on The Eight Legged Groove Machine, the debut LP back in 1988:-

mp3 : The Wonder Stuff – Ten Trenches Deep
mp3 : The Wonder Stuff – I Am A Monster
mp3 : The Wonder Stuff – Frank

mp3 : The Wonder Stuff – Unbearable (re-recorded)

Enjoy

Morrissey

MOZ AND MEXICO

A few months back, a work colleague brought my attention to an article on Page 38 of Volume 416 Number 8949 of The Economist (published since September 1843). The subject matter isn’t all that new….various t’internet boards have mused on Moz and Mexicio for more than 15 years now…but I thought it was worth passing on to TVV readers.

“The lugubrious strains of Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now waft across a sunny beach in Acapulco. If that song in that setting surprises you, then you do not know about the strange affinity between Mexicans and Morrissey, the morbid, underdog-loving front-man of The Smiths, a British band of the 1980s, who then went solo.

In Mexico City a band called Mexrrissey is hard at work recording an album of his songs in styles ranging from trumpet-blaring mariachi to throbbing norteño. Its creator, disc jockey Camilo Lara, calls it Girlfriend in a Conga, a play on one of The Smiths’ wickedest songs (which puts the girlfriend in a coma). It’s not a tribute album. Morrissey’s lyrics, dripping with black humour, are translated into the mischievous Spanish of Mexico City. Morrissey’s First of the Gang to Die, about a murdered gangster, fades out in its Mexican version with ay güey, pobre güey (“hey dude, poor dude”).

Mr Lara says the bitter melodrama of Morrissey’s poetry strikes a chord in Mexico, where even in soap operas the poor make it up the social ladder only through lies and deceit. In Mexican street music, the exuberant melodies overlie bleakly funny lyrics about loneliness, depression and self-pity. The jubilant trumpets, like Johnny Marr’s guitar in The Smiths’ heyday, can strike hammer blows to the heart. Among Chicanos in the United States, Morrissey fandom is even more intense.

He returns the affection with almost ludicrous tenderness. Famously, he once described Mexicans as “so terribly nice. They have such fantastic hair and fantastic skin and usually really good teeth. Great combination!” As the son of Catholic Irish immigrants to Britain, he appears to empathise with uprooted émigrés to the United States. In “Mexico”, Morrissey sings of breathing “the tranquil cool lover’s air/ but I could taste a trace/ of American chemical waste/ and the small voice said: ‘What can we do?’” Chicano concert-goers sport “Moz” tattoos.

In his autobiography Morrissey describes the Mexican gait with the bemusing eccentricity that is one of his trademarks: “There is a certain Mexican movement of the head, telling we from elsewhere that they know very well how they are thought not to matter. Because of this they have abnormal strength and love, with anchored hearts beyond the imaginations of royal dictatorships.” That makes Mexicans swoon. “There is this violent country. And then there is this Brit from Manchester who sees us with eyes of love,” Mr Lara says.

Morrissey has not endorsed his album. Nor did he comment on Mexrrissey’s sold-out concerts this year in London’s Barbican theatre and elsewhere, where fans sang along in English over the Latin rhythms.

Lovers of Mexican music hope the album will build an international audience for it, as the Buena Vista Social Club did for Cuban pop. Mexrrissey might be happy with viral Gangnam-style success. Either way, the bond between Mexico and the melancholy Mancunian can only get stronger.”

And with that….here’s some tunes:-

mp3 : Morrissey – First Of The Gang To Die
mp3 : Morrissey – Mexico

Incidentally, I still haven’t gotten round to buying Moz’s debut novel far less reading it. The various reviews indicate that I’m not missing much.

Quick reminder that I’m looking for readers to e-mail me lists of their Top 10 LPs for 2015 so that I can submit a collective entry for the BAMS 2015. Click on this post for more background.

Prince, Semisonic

SEVEN PLUS MINUTES OF FILTHY FUNKING…AND A FLACCID COVER

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I first heard this piece of magnificence courtesy of its inclusion on a tape compiled by Jacques the Kipper:-

mp3 : Prince & The Revolution – Erotic City (Make Love Not War Erotic City Come Alive)

The song was originally released as the b-side to Let’s Go Crazy in 1984 (in edited form for the 7″) and later again in 1986 on the 12″ version of Girls & Boys. I feel however that I must warn readers, who may be easily offended, that the song features some sweary words. Or maybe he is really saying funk……

The song is significant for being the recording debut of Sheila E, the singer/drummer/percussionist who would not only become integral to the output of Prince over the next five years but would later go on to enjoy a reasonably successful solo career. I was also intrigued by the fact that among the small number of acts who have been brave enough to tackle a cover version are this lot who got a mention on T(n)VV a short while back for what I had thought would have been the one only time and so I went out and tracked down the CD single on which it appears as a b-side.

mp3 : Semisonic – Erotic City

It sounds, rather sadly, like a wedding band’s take on it. Limp and hugely uninspiring. And a contender for a place in the Top 10 worst covers of all time which is shaping up for a post at somepoint in the future.

Enjoy

June Brides, One Thousand Violins, Wolfhounds

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Postscript 1)

There’s a cracking 10-track compilation LP sitting in the cupboard; actually there’s a few but for today there’s just the one under the microscope.

It’s called A Different Kind of Tension – and it’s not to be confused with the LP of the same name by Buzzcocks – that was released in 1986 on the Pressure Of The Real World label. It has the prefix PRLP1. I have no idea at all whether there was ever a PRLP2 or any other release at all on the label. Google search came up with nowt.

It was an album I picked up back in 2008 while temporarily living in Toronto and it cost me the equivalent of £3. As it turns out, two of the tracks on the album were also included on the CD86 compilation and were part of that recent 48-part series. The idea of today and next Sunday is to offer up the other eight songs as a postscript or perhaps more appropriately, an encore to the series.

Here’s side A of the album:-

1. The Mighty Lemon Drops – Like An Angel
2. Soup Dragons – Whole Wide World
3. One Thousand Violins – Like One Thousand Violins
4. The Wolfhounds – Cut The Cake
5. The June Brides – Every Conversation

Songs 1 and 2 were on CD 86 as too were different songs by the bands performing songs 4 and 5.

Here’s some relevant info on the three ‘new’ songs:-

One Thousand Violins formed in Sheffield, and the featured track is a b-side from their debut single Halcyon Days on Dreamworld Records which was released in 1985. However, it proved more popular and so enduring that it ended up gathering enough votes to make John Peel’s Festive 50 the same year. Further singles and an album soon followed, but before long musical and artistic differences led to them breaking up.

mp3 : One Thousand Violins – Like One Thousand Violins

The Wolfhounds rather splendid ditty Anti-Midas Touch was on CD86. This however, is their 1986 debut single on Pink Records.

mp3 : The Wolfhounds – Cut The Cake

I’ve already said everything before about The June Brides and have recommended that you pick up this compilation album. Their debut single was on CD 86. This was the wonderful follow-up:-

mp3 : The June Brides – Every Conversation

Enjoy

Quick reminder that I’m looking for readers to e-mail me lists of their Top 10 LPs for 2015 so that I can submit a collective entry for the BAMS 2015. Click on this post for more background.

Edwyn Collins

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (32)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THURSDAY 10 APRIL 2008

Now come on…..all of you knew it was only a matter of time before the great man made an appearance….

The fact he’s as low as #32 might surprise some of you, while the fact I’ve gone for a single that isn’t one of his better known may make it a double surprise.

Are you interested enough to learn that Edwyn Collins released about a dozen or so singles in the UK as a solo artist over the best part of 20 years up to 2008? And of these only A Girl Like You bothered the charts. But then again, it bothered the charts all over Europe and beyond (#6 in Australia…), making Edwyn more money for that particular four minutes of work than the rest of his recording career, and indeed his producing career, put together.

So to the majority of people, Edwyn Collins is a something of a one-hit wonder twice over – with Orange Juice and Rip It Up in 1982 and then A Girl Like You in 1994.

I’m not saying all of his solo singles have been instant classics, but it still baffling that he’s only struck gold on one occasion. Another single from the Gorgeous George LP really deserved a much wider audience. It’s long been my view that if something this easy on the ear with such a heartfelt lyric had been given to someone like Robbie Williams to record, then we would have been looking at an instant crowd-pleasing #1……

Having said that, the arrangement from the chart heavyweights would probably have made it unrecognisable from the original….

mp3 : Edwyn Collins – If You Could Love Me

I’ve got both CD 1 and CD 2 of this single as well as a 12″ vinyl version, and between them, they offer up an additional seven songs as ‘b-sides’.

CD1

mp3 : Edwyn Collins – In A Broken Dream
mp3 : Edwyn Collins – Hope And Despair
mp3 : Edwyn Collins – Insider Dealing

The first of these tracks is a cover version of a song from the 70s, originally released by Python Lee Jackson (with vocal by Rod Stewart). The second is a re-working of the title track of an earlier solo LP by Edwyn. The third is an instrumental clocking in at over 8 mins in length.

CD2

mp3 : Edwyn Collins – If Ever Your Ready
mp3 : Edwyn Collins – Come To Your Senses
mp3 : Edwyn Collins – A Girl Like You (Victorian Spaceman Mix)

The first, produced by Bernard Butler, is a misspelling of a track that Edwyn has recorded and released previously. If Ever You’re Ready is also on the LP Hope and Despair, with further different versions available on the b-sides of the singles 50 Shades of Blue and Don’t Shilly Shally. The second is a great track and in my view, wasted as a giveaway on a CD single, while I’m sure you know about the original version of the third…

12″ vinyl

mp3 : Edwyn Collins – If You Could Love Me (M.C. Esher mix)

Somehow I don’t think this will be the last appearance Edwyn makes in my nostalgic and self-indulgent consideration of great 45s.

Sultans Of Ping

MERRY CHRISTMAS DEAR READERS

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here’s something of a tradition on this and the previous blog:-

mp3 : Sultans of Ping – Xmas Bubblegum Machine

Normal service resumes tomorrow.

Jam, Style Council

THE STYLE COUNCIL SINGLES (4)

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The huge success of the first three singles by The Style Council, particularly the Top 3 chart position of Long Hot Summer, was clear evidence that Paul Weller wasn’t ever going to need to reform The Jam.

While some fans were really struggling to move on and accept the new band, I was one of those who thought TSC were producing some great stuff, albeit I was more than baffled by the overly pretentious sleeve notes that really made little or no sense at all.

Long Hot Summer and all the other tracks on that EP had been on very heavy rotation, and I was thrilled to read that the follow-up single was going to be called A Solid Bond In Your Heart, simply as I remembered that The Jam had, a couple of years earlier, given that very name to one of their UK tours. So I was expecting something really special….a song that would somehow blend the chic sound of Long Hot Summer and the funk/pop of the later singles by The Jam.

Instead, I found myself listening to a single that had the most appalling saxophone sound all over it. I remember playing it something like three or four times in a row looking for something to like about it….I mean Zeke Manyika was drumming on it so there had to be something my ears could pick up on…..but no, that bloody awful saxophone dominated everything. I was bitterly let down by it. It sounded as if was a record written by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley…

But clearly I was in a minority, for it was a record that sold very well, climbing to #11 in the pop charts.

mp3 : The Style Council – A Solid Bond In Your Heart

To be fair, I really liked the b-side which to this day is one of my favourite TSC compositions:-

mp3 : The Style Council – It Just Came To Pieces In My Hand

And I suppose I really should finish things off by shoving up the third track that came on the 7″gatefold sleeve version of the single….but I’ll warn you, that saxophone features prominently:-

mp3 : The Style Council – A Solid Bond In Your Heart (instrumental)

The Jam’s earlier version eventually appeared as a track on the Extras CD released in 1992 and then a slightly extended version was included in the Direction Reaction Creation boxset in 1997.

mp3 : The Jam – A Solid Bond In Your Heart (extended)

Seemingly a contender for the final ever 45 by the band, it was a late call instead to go with Beat Surrender.

Part 5 of this series will return in the new year with a tune that was, IMHO, a return to form.

Festive Fifty 1981

THE GREATEST CHART RUNDOWN OF ALL TIME…..??

I mentioned the Festive 50 from 1981 in passing yesterday. Here it is, in its full glory, from the unplayed 60-51 and then those which were aired, ten at a time, on 23, 24, 28, 29 and 30 December.

60: Siouxsie & The Banshees: ‘Hong Kong Garden’
59: Sex Pistols: ‘Pretty Vacant’
58: Fire Engines: ‘Candy Skin ‘
57: Special AKA: ‘Gangsters’
56: Fall: ‘Totally Wired‘
55: Anti-Pasti: ‘No Government‘
54: New Order: ‘In A Lonely Place‘
53: Magazine: ‘Shot By Both Sides‘
52: Bauhaus: ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead‘
51: Joy Division: ‘She’s Lost Control‘

50: Altered Images: ‘Happy Birthday’
49: Siouxsie & The Banshees: ‘Switch‘
48: New Order: ‘Procession’
47: Fall: ‘Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul’
46: Echo And The Bunnymen: ‘Over The Wall’
45: Killing Joke: ‘Psyche‘
44: Joy Division: ‘Isolation’
43: Joy Division: ‘Twenty-Four Hours’
42: Dead Kennedys: ‘California Uber Alles’
41: Only Ones: ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’

40: Siouxsie & The Banshees: ‘Icon’
39: Pigbag: ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag’
38: Sex Pistols: ‘God Save The Queen’
37: Siouxsie & The Banshees: ‘Israel’
36: B-Movie: ‘Remembrance Day’
35: Siouxsie & The Banshees: ‘Jigsaw Feeling’
34: Laurie Anderson: ‘O Superman’
33: Fall: ‘How I Wrote Elastic Man’
32: Stiff Little Fingers: ‘Suspect Device’
31: Ruts: ‘In A Rut‘

30: Fall: ‘Fiery Jack’
29: Heaven 17: ‘No Fascist Groove Thang’
28: Killing Joke: ‘Follow The Leaders’
27: Killing Joke: ‘Requiem’
26: Public Image Ltd: ‘Public Image’
25: Theatre Of Hate: ‘Legion’
24: Stiff Little Fingers: ‘Johnny Was’
23: Jam: ‘Going Underground’
22: Scritti Politti: ‘The Sweetest Girl’
21: Specials: ‘Ghost Town’

20: Undertones: ‘Get Over You’
19: Birthday Party: ‘Release The Bats’
18: Clash: ‘Complete Control’
17: Sex Pistols: ‘Holidays In the Sun’
16: Stiff Little Fingers: ‘Alternative Ulster’
15: Altered Images: ‘Dead Pop Stars’
14: Joy Division: ‘Transmission’
13: Jam: ‘Down In The Tube Station At Midnight’
12: Damned: ‘New Rose’
11: Joy Division: ‘Dead Souls’

10: Clash: ‘(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais’
09: Dead Kennedys: ‘Holiday In Cambodia’
08: Cure: ‘A Forest’
07: Joy Division: ‘Decades‘
06: Undertones: ‘Teenage Kicks’
05: Joy Division: ‘New Dawn Fades’
04: New Order: ‘Ceremony’
03: Joy Division: ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’
02: Sex Pistols: ‘Anarchy In The U.K.’
01: Joy Division: ‘Atmosphere’

I suppose I do have to make the claim that this was the greatest chart rundown of all time given just how many of the songs have appeared on t’blog(s) in the past.

There’s no doubt you could make many a decent indie compilation LP in a ‘perm any 10 from 60 sort of way’. This would work well I reckon….

SIDE A

mp3 : Public Image Ltd – Public Image
mp3 : The Clash – (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais
mp3 : Magazine – Shot By Both Sides
mp3 : Stiff Little Fingers – Alternative Ulster
mp3 : Specials – Gangsters

SIDE B

mp3 : Undertones – Get Over You
mp3 : Scritti Politti – The Sweetest Girl
mp3 : Joy Division – Transmission
mp3 : The Only Ones – Another Girl, Another Planet
mp3 : The Cure – A Forest

Enjoy

Fire Engines

A MAGICAL AND WONDROUS MOMENT IN POP MUSIC HISTORY

Click on the mp3 below and have a listen. Said moment happens at the nineteen seconds mark when the strings so unexpectedly kick in.

mp3 : Fire Engines – Candyskin

Candyskin was released in May 1981 and was the second single to be released by Fire Engines. It came out on Pop Aural Records, the Edinburgh-based label which provided so much of the storyline for the superb Big Gold Dream documentary as reviewed earlier this year. Frontman Davy Henderson is one of the stars of said documentary, regaling the audience with hilarious and often hard-to-believe yet true tales of the life and times of a would-be pop star in Scotland’s capital in those dark and dangerous days when punks were sneered at and regarded with outright hostility just for the crime of looking and sounding different from the norm.

I was completely unaware of Candyskin till September 1983 when I finally moved out of the family home and into a student flat at the beginning of my third year at University. This noisy, abrasive and unconventional single was owned by a flatmate and it was one of his all-time favourites…….it didn’t take me long to understand and appreciate why. About 19 seconds…….

The b-side is another crazy sounding piece of music, the title of became the name of one of the short-lived bands to come out of the C86 movement as mentioned in Part 25 of the just completed series:-

mp3 : Fire Engines – Meat Whiplash

The single would be voted in at #58 in John Peel’s Festive Fifty for 1981. You might be wondering why this could be but in those days the great man read out the names of those songs that were voted in at 60-51 just before the end of the rundown. That was the year that Fire Engines recorded two Peel Sessions, the first of which included this take on one of the most popular political songs of the era:-

mp3 : Fire Engines – We Don’t Need This Fascist Groove Thang

The second session offered up this:-

mp3 : Fire Engines – Candyskin (Peel Session)

Enjoy

A.R.Kane

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #54 : A.R.KANE

ANOTHER GUEST CONTRIBUTION FROM ALEX G

arkane_compilation

A.R.Kane. The very name suggests something obscure, difficult, hidden from the masses. According to AllMusic, they were “arguably the most criminally under-recognized band of their era.” I’m not sure I’d go that far, but it’s true that they always seemed to be more of a critics’ band. You won’t find A.R.Kane listed on officialcharts.com; they never achieved the crossover success of contemporaries like The Jesus and Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine. Even when they lucked into a hit as part of the MARRS project, their song was the overlooked “AA” side, with A.R.Kane themselves credited only in the small print. If they were tempting fate with the name, then they got bitten.

The creative core of A.R.Kane consisted of Londoners and longtime friends Alex Ayuli and Rudy Tambala, who started making music together after being inspired by a performance by Cocteau Twins on The Tube. (Quite possibly this one: http://bit.ly/1OdJYwV. Now form a band.) They were still just messing around when, a couple of weeks later, Tambala told someone at a party that he was in a band, and was asked what sort of music they played. “A bit Velvet Underground, a bit Cocteau Twins, a bit Miles Davis, a bit Joni Mitchell,” he bluffed. A few days later, he got a call from One Little Indian Records, offering this intriguingly genre-busting group an audition. Well sure, why not? Somehow (Tambala: “Maybe ‘cos we were iconoclasts, black, actually quite good, and sexy”) A.R.Kane managed to wing it, and ended up snagging themselves a recording deal.

Such eclectic influences aside, how to describe what A.R.Kane actually sound like? Well, the path of least resistance would lead to “shoegaze”, although by the time that scene properly exploded and gained its mocking moniker in the early 90s, A.R.Kane had already left the building. And for much of their kaleidoscopic second LP, it simply doesn’t apply anyway. Their staunchest supporter, music journalist and essayist Simon Reynolds, favours “oceanic rock”, but he’s never got anyone else to buy into that. It fell to band member Alex Ayuli, ex-advertising copywriter, to come up with the description “dream pop”. That stuck. More than that, it became such a widely-used term that nowadays, Wikipedia has a “List of dream pop artists”, and although it’s merely by an accident of alphabetisation, it’s only right that A.R.Kane are top of the list.

A little note before we continue… the name A.R.Kane was inconsistently punctuated (AR Kane, A*R*Kane, A. R. Kane, that thing they did on “New Clear Child” that I can’t reproduce in regular text), which I imagine is down to the whims of graphic designers. But Rudy Tambala’s Facebook page has it as A.R.Kane (two dots, no spaces), and I figure he would know, so that’s what I’m going with.

To the compilation, then, which is broadly but not strictly chronological. The first side (“Dream side”) covers their early EPs and debut album, the second (“Pop side”) covers everything else. If you’re really not into the feedback-heavy proto-shoegaze stuff, then skip straight to side two where you’ll find the catchy alternative dance choons.

Dream side

1. Baby Milk Snatcher (EP version) (from Rough Trade EP “Up Home”, released March 1988)

“[My Bloody Valentine] were a jangly indie band until we put out Baby Milk Snatcher. Suddenly they slowed it all down and layered it with feedback.”

So said Rudy Tambala in an interview for The Guardian in 2012. An influential record, then? Well, maybe (it came out four months before MBV’s You Made Me Realise, so draw your own conclusions), but also a great track in its own right and an important turning point for A.R.Kane themselves.

Debut “When You’re Sad” was a (relatively) conventional song, and the Lollita EP had, by their own reckoning, been about taking on producer Robin Guthrie’s sound more than developing their own. And the dance rhythms of the MARRS single, well, they would return later but for the time being they were a complete outlier. But Up Home was the real A.R.Kane, and its lead track distils their myriad influences – indie rock, dub, ethereal, jazz, the gamut – into possibly their finest moment. (It reappeared on their debut album, but in a shorter, inferior version. This one is definitive.) I think they do live up to their name here, as quite honestly it is a bit too arcane for serious hit potential, but I’m surprised to discover that it didn’t even make John Peel’s Festive Fifty. Now that’s an injustice!

mp3 : A.R.Kane – Baby Milk Snatcher

2. When You’re Sad (short version) (One Little Indian 12” single, released August 1986)

Back to the start, and A.R.Kane’s debut is actually pretty catchy under all that noise. Not a sniff of chart action, of course. JAMC’s “Some Candy Talking” was in the top 20 at the time, and this should have appealed to the same crowd, but it wasn’t to be, even after One Little Indian wisely vetoed the duo’s favoured title “You Push A Knife Into My Womb” (which is what Tambala still calls it).

The fade-out here seems rather abrupt, and you might imagine that the long version would go on after that. But no, the long version ends in exactly the same way – it’s just got a long and rather uninspired drum solo tacked onto the start of the track. It doesn’t really add anything except length, so I’ve gone with the short version instead.

mp3 : A.R.Kane – When You’re Sad

3. Sperm Whale Trip Over (from Rough Trade LP “Sixty Nine”, released June 1988)

For me, the real meat of A.R.Kane’s early period is the EPs, but their debut album Sixty Nine (strangely, almost always rendered in discographies as 69, despite being spelled out as words on the LP itself) is also well worth investigating.

The stream-of-consciousness title of this track reflects in the music, more than making good on the “dream pop” tag. No prizes for spotting the hidden meaning of that repeatedly-referenced “L. S. Dream”… “trip” is the operative word!

mp3 : A.R.Kane – Sperm Whale Trip Over

4. The Butterfly Collector (from 4AD EP “Lollita”, released July 1987)

The one “proper” A.R.Kane release on 4AD.

Alex Ayuli already had a bit of history with the label: in his old job as an advertising creative for Saatchi & Saatchi, he was behind a TV ad campaign for Thomson Holidays and approached 4AD supremo Ivo Watts-Russell for permission to use This Mortal Coil’s version of “Song To The Siren”. Upon being turned down, Ayuli arranged for the recording of a soundalike version instead, which duly appeared on the TV ad, causing confusion for a lot of viewers who thought 4AD had “sold out”. I don’t know what effect it had on Thomson’s business but, regardless of their non-participation, it did help to shift a lot of This Mortal Coil LPs.

At any rate, when Alex and Rudy, dissatisfied with One Little Indian’s low budget and meddling with their titles, turned up on spec one day at the 4AD offices, Ivo was clearly willing to let bygones be bygones. And poaching a promising act from under the nose of a rival was something he was definitely up for.

So it came to pass that A.R.Kane joined the 4AD roster, and released the acclaimed “Lollita” EP, produced by their idol Robin Guthrie. Oh, and then they accidentally had a number one hit, but we’ll leave that hanging for now. Meanwhile, enjoy this slow-burner, which I would say is one of the few A.R.Kane songs where the music serves the lyric rather than the other way round. What can you expect? Well, let’s just say that despite its initial sentiments, it’s unlikely to ever turn up on Steve Wright’s Sunday Love Songs.

mp3 : A.R.Kane – The Butterfly Collector

Incidentally, the Lollita EP was number two on Melody Maker’s singles of the year for 1987 (remember what I said about them being a critics’ band?). Number one was The Sugarcubes‘ “Birthday”, and second to that is surely a good result in anyone’s book.

5. Is This Dub? (from Rough Trade EP “Love-sick”, released October 1988)

Alex and Rudy always said that their biggest influence was Miles Davis. That may not be particularly obvious in the preceding tracks, but maybe this one, a remix of B-side “Is This Is?” (sic), will make it a bit more evident. Or not. Beggar & Co.’s Kenny Wellington brings the brass.

mp3 : A.R.Kane – Is This Dub?

Pop side

1. Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance) (original mix) (from 4AD single credited to MARRS, released August 1987)

At this point we backtrack a little. Rudy and Alex’s brief time on 4AD produced two singles: the Lollita EP, and what was supposedly a collaboration with art-pop experimentalists Colourbox. Surely by now everyone knows the story of MARRS, but suffice to say that the “collaboration” was really more of a split single, Colourbox creating the more popular “Pump Up The Volume”, while A.R.Kane were responsible for the flipside, “Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)”. The disc became a major hit, that to this day gets spoken of in awed tones for its influence on British dance music. Supposedly, it was also the first independently-distributed number one, though I’ve also seen the same claim made for “Save Your Love” by Renee and Renato. We don’t talk about that, natch.

mp3 : A.R.Kane – Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)

Though “Anitina” came out under the MARRS banner, I have no hesitation in inlcuding it here since the group themselves clearly consider it an A.R.Kane song. Both the original and remix versions are included on their 2012 singles compilation (in contrast to Colourbox’s supposedly complete box set released a few months before, from which “Pump Up The Volume” is conspicuously absent), and it was regularly played on their recent tour. The way Ivo tells it, Colourbox actually wanted to do the B-side as well, but “Pump Up The Volume” had taken them so long that Ivo, keen to get it out while it was still hot, refused. Had Colourbox got their way, “Anitina” would probably have become the next A.R.Kane single instead. The fractious creation and well-documented legal troubles around the record put a strain on those involved: Ivo fell out with everybody, Colourbox split up, and A.R.Kane got booted off the label. Their new home Rough Trade naturally attempted to play up the MARRS connection in promoting their next releases, but considering that these were the very un-“Pump Up The Volume”-like “Up Home” EP and “Sixty Nine” album, it didn’t do them much good.

A.R.Kane did eventually return to something MARRS-y, but their would-be follow-up “Listen Up!”, released a year on from “Pump”/”Anitina”under the name ARK and with the members credited pseudonymously as Hays-Ze-Haze and Xero Tyme, has pretty much been written out of their history. Seemingly an attempt to ape the more popular “Pump Up The Volume”, it comes across more like a second-rate copy of “Tired of Getting Pushed Around” by Two Men, A Drum Machine And A Trumpet. I like Tired Of Getting Pushed Around, but that does leave “Listen Up!” as A.R.Kane’s rehash of a rehash of someone else’s flipside to their own record. Which is a bit of a comedown, wouldn’t you say?

2. Miles Apart (Robin Guthrie mix) (from Rough Trade Germany EP “Rem’i’xes”, 1990, original version appears on Rough Trade LP “i”, 1989)

Second album “i” (yes, that’s the title, quotation marks and all) was a much lighter, dancier affair than their debut. Sprawling over four sides of vinyl, it was a right old mish-mash of styles, including throwbacks to the layered feedback of “Sixty Nine” but also house, funk, ambient, acoustic pop, even a bit of glam rock. Robin Guthrie’s not-too-radical remix of the poppy “Miles Apart” appeared on 1990’s Rem’i’xes (see what they did there?) mini-album.

mp3 : A.R.Kane – Miles Apart (Robin Guthrie mix)

3. In A Circle (from “i”, 1989)

A good showcase for the eclecticism of “i”. Rudy Tambala’s sister Maggie takes the lead as A.R.Kane go all chamber-pop on us. It’s in the spirit of the earlier material, but with practically the opposite sonic approach – not layered, noisy and fuzzy, but minimal, precise and clean. You wouldn’t expect A.R.Kane to pull this off, but I think they do.

mp3 : A.R.Kane – In A Circle

“i” got good reviews and topped the independent charts, but there’s a huge gulf between having an indie number one and a mainstream hit (just ask Half Man Half Biscuit). At this point it was becoming clear that A.R.Kane weren’t going to make a living from music long-term, and when Rough Trade, finding trade rougher than they’d planned for, were forced to cut their roster, the duo found themselves not just without a label, but also without the inclination to look for a new one. Ayuli moved to the USA, and that, it seemed, was the end of A.R.Kane. But then they received an unexpected offer from a famous fan…

4. A Love From Outer Space (Solar Equinox Mix) (from Luaka Bop single, 1992 – original version appears on “i”)

It was late 1991, and with Talking Heads on a hiatus from which they never returned (the split was made official in December of that year), David Byrne was free to concentrate on other projects, one of which was his boutique “world-beat” record label Luaka Bop.

Disregarding (or perhaps unaware of) the fact that A.R.Kane had split up, Byrne licensed the band’s Rough Trade output and released the compilation Americana at the start of 1992, along with a set of remixes by John Luongo of “i” track A Love From Outer Space.

The remixes aren’t a long way removed from the original album version; the song still sounds a bit like The Beloved, while at times the lyric seems to be anticipating the future McBusted. Now there’s a combination of reference points you don’t see every day!

Incidentally, the extended and dub versions were the “Lunar Eclipse Mix” and “Venusian Dub” respectively, which suggests that though Tambala didn’t do the ALFOS mixes, his choice of “Martial Mix” and “Venusian Mix” as titles for his remixes of Saint Etienne‘s “Avenue” the same year might have been a little bit of cross-promotion. (Angling for a UK release of ALFOS, perhaps? Wouldn’t blame him.)

mp3 : A.R.Kane – A Love From Outer Space (Solar Equinox Mix)

Anyway, Americana got good reviews and solid sales, and the upshot was that Byrne put up the funding for a new album. Which brings us to…

5. Sea Like A Child (album version) (from Luaka Bop LP “New Clear Child”, released September 1994)

You will have noticed that I’ve only left space for one track from the “New Clear Child” era.

There is a reason for this: “New Clear Child” is pretty bad. Not meaning good. Full of lyrical platitudes atop over-produced passionless music, “New Clear Child” is the A.R.Kane album nobody talks about.

The opening track “Deep Blue Breath” is interesting though overly slick, and the closing track “Sea Like A Child” effectively revisits the dream pop of old in a more minimal style, but what happens in between is, in the immortal words of Steps, better best forgotten. (Interviewed for The Quietus, Tambala says “A few of the tracks are really there, but as an album it painted out some of the crucial flaws”. Yup. Bland.)

Still, “Sea Like A Child” – the album’s first and only fully-released single – brings us full circle (sort of), is actually pretty decent, and is the last track on what is, to date, the last proper release by A.R.Kane, so it gets the last spot here as well.

mp3 : A.R.Kane – Sea Like A Child

“New Clear Child” sold rather well by Luaka Bop’s standards, and an offer was on the table for a follow-up, but Alex and Rudy decided to call it a day (again). But a version of A.R.Kane with some of the previous live band (lacking Ayuli’s involvement, but with his approval) toured in 2015, and Tambala has since been working on new material and is keen to make A.R.Kane a going concern again, so a proper reunion looks likely in the near future. Which probably won’t make them any less arcane, but then that’s not really the point, is it?

Alex G

JC adds…………

The bizarre thing is that while reading the book on 4AD that I mentioned in passing a couple of weeks back during the posting on Cocteau Twins, I had found myself fascinated by the section on A.R.Kane and thought to myself that I must try and learn a bit more about them beyond the M/A/R/R/S single….and lo and behold Alex’s e-mail dropped in.

It’s a very fitting way to close the ICA series for 2015 but it will return again early next year. There’s already a high-quality contribution waiting in the wings from one of our regulars featuring a band that hasn’t previously been mentioned on T(n)VV and I know that another would-be contributor is working away on an ICA from a band still going strong almost 40 years after they first came to our attention. I’ve also got a couple more of my own in draft form as I try to narrow things down to ten songs but please feel free to continue to fire over your own ideas as and when they come to you.