THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (41)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON FRIDAY 28 MARCH 2008

I don’t know about you, but I’m of the opinion that Oasis have been treated dreadfully by the media.

‘His talent and attractiveness, which had worked so well for him was becoming a burden.’
‘He was dealing more and more with the terrible scrutiny that came with superfame and the concurrent loss of privacy, the inability to make mistakes’
‘His slightest flaws were now magnified for the rest of the world….this tabloid machine was powerful, it was predatory and it had to be fed every day.’
‘Whom the tabloids first inflate, they eventually attempt to destroy, or at least try to diminish.’
‘The scrutiny of his life had become brutal and unforgiving.’

The previous five statements were lifted from a biography of basketball player Michael Jordan, but they could very easily apply to either of the Gallagher brothers when the commentators decided to kill off the movement that had been labelled Britpop.

In some ways, it is kind of difficult to comprehend just how meteoric the rise of Oasis was back in the early 90s. In May 1993, they were blagging their way onto a bill at King Tut’s in Glasgow. Within 12 months, their debut single reached #31. A succession of great releases, always without fail accompanied by at least one and usually two outstanding b-sides on the CD single came at regular intervals, and it was their fifth release, Some Might Say, that hit #1 in April 1995.

Furthermore, they were a band who provided a great live experience.

The first hint of fallibility came in August 1995 when a frenzied battle played out in the full glare of the media saw Roll With It fail in the battle for supremacy with Country House by Blur. In truth, both were pretty ordinary singles, way below the standards that either band had been producing over the previous 18 months.

What happened next couldn’t have been predicted by anyone. On 30th October 1995, the single Wonderwall was released. And I can honestly say, that in my near 45 years on this planet, I can’t ever recall a single that so seemed to be loved by anyone and everyone with a genuine interest in music.

Amazingly, it peaked at #2 – kept off the top spot by Coolio and Gangster’s Paradise.

There was nearly a total travesty of justice when an easy listening version of the song by Mike Flower Pops almost hit #1 a couple of months later, but it too stalled at #2. The demand for Oasis was so large that tribute bands began to pop up all over the place, including No Way Sis who themselves had a Top 40 hit in early 1996.

The follow-up single Don’t Look Back In Anger merely kept up the momentum. It seemed that Blur were the real losers in the Britpop battle as their singles began to flop and there was a critical backlash to their LP The Great Escape – not withstanding its one true moment of brilliance in The Universal.
But while Blur bounced back with their next album and singles, Oasis lost it all almost overnight. There’s no argument from this fan that Be Here Now in 1997 was pretty awful, as was much, but not all of Standing On The Shoulders of Giants in 2000. Equally, there has been much to admire on Heathen Chemistry from 2002 and Don’t Believe The Truth from 2005. It will be very interesting to see how the next LP sounds…

One thing that is often forgotten about Oasis is just how much money they brought in for Creation Records, and as a consequence, the label was able to bankroll some other great, critically-acclaimed but less commercially successful acts in the mid 90s, such as Teenage Fanclub, Super Furry Animals, Boo Radleys, My Bloody Valentine, The House of Love and Felt.

So maybe in retrospect we all owe Liam and Noel Gallagher a bit of a thank you.

I suppose like most folk, I probably got a bit sick and tired hearing Wonderwall when it was here, there and everywhere. I certainly got fed-up when it, and Don’t Look Back In Anger, became lager-fuelled anthems that were the staple of stag nights up and down the land. But it truly is a thing of beauty that is well worth listening to every now and then:-

mp3 : Oasis – Wonderwall
mp3 : Oasis – Round Are Way
mp3 : Oasis – The Swamp Song
mp3 : Oasis – The Master Plan

2015 Update : Bizarre coincidences – this post will appear in the middle of a 3-day trip by myself, Aldo and Jacques the Kipper, along with two other friends, for a football-filled weekend in the Manchester area to commemorate a couple of 50th birthdays (but no, we won’t be taking in tomorrow’s Manchester derby). Oh and its now just exactly one week till 20th anniversary of its release as a single….

Radio Dept.

FROM THE SOUTH-WEST CORRESPONDENT..WHAT’S IN YOUR BOX (30)

The Shoebox of Delights – #2
The Radio Dept. – Pet Grief

Here is a story, I wasn’t going to tell but I think we are all friends now – so are we sitting comfortably??

A long time ago near where I grew up, they built an out-of-town shopping centre. The big attraction was a brand new Marks and Spencer. A friend of mine, whose name is Graham, got a job there. He was working in the menswear section on Wednesday evenings and at weekends. He was 17 at the time.

Graham was alright really, he liked the right sort of music that was popular at the time, Carter, Ride, The Wedding Present, that sort of thing. He kind of just got into anything that he peer group were listening to really, like most of us. Anyway, during his time at Marks and Spencer, Graham got a new friend – Ian – who introduced him to loads of new music, the likes of Therapy?, Sheep on Drugs, and other similar bands. Gradually Ian started coming along to our nights out, I didn’t really chat to him that much not because I didn’t like him, but because I just had different people to chat to. Ok I hated him, he had stupid hair, always wore a black and red stripe Dennis the Menace Jumper and had a really nasal voice.

Now usually our nights out consisted of sitting in a big field with a cassette deck listening to our favourite music whilst getting slowly wrecked on cider or if we were lucky a bit of dope that someone had managed to get hold off – not that anyone of us could skin up properly. Anyway, one night a girl, Catherine, had brought along a tape of what she was listening to at the time. It was largely Ride, the long forgotten about Ultra Vivid Scene, Moose, Chapterhouse, The Cure and the Jesus and Mary Chain. She was the girlfriend of another one of the group, Richard and she was best mates with Our Price Girl – who of course, I was with at time. So we sat, we talked, we drank, we mocked each other’s shoes that sort of thing.

Ian didn’t like shoegaze, he announced this to everyone, in fact he said ‘Oh God its fucking Ride, someone shoot me’. He then took the tape out threw in a hedge and put his own tape on. The first track was by Nitzer Ebb. A row ensued. I got involved, I think I slagged off most of the bands that he was in to – At one point Our Price Girl laughed at Ian when he said that a Sheep on Drugs song ‘Motorbike’ was the most important record of the last thirty years – I mean obviously that was ‘Rich and Strange’ by Cud – he then called her a stupid slag. I stood up – now I’m not aggressive in any way, I’m a bit of a weed to be honest, thin and particularly unmuscular but I wasn’t having that.

Sensing a fight, Richard, stood up and decided it was time to leave. We left. It was only about two hours later when we had all calmed down that Richard realised that he’d left the cassette player behind. So he and I went back up to get it. It was daft really, one of the others would have looked after it. Most of the group had left, Ian was still there and they were still using the tape deck. Richard went up to it and said he needed it back, another guy Jay said he would drop round to his house tomorrow, but Richard insisted, and to be honest they were playing Guns and Roses and I think Skid Row, and it was soiling the machine.

Ian stood up and some more swearing ensued. Then there was a bit of shoving and then Ian threw a punch. I stood there not really knowing what to do – if I went over I would get my head kicked in, if I didn’t then Richard almost certainly would. So I took a deep breath and went over. I’d like to say I kicked his head in, I’d like to say that he sat dribbling on the floor and apologising for being such a cock, but I’d be lying. He was bigger and stronger and waaaay angrier than me, of course he sent me flying with the second of two massive punches.

It hurt like hell. A boot to the ribs is never nice and nose bleeds caused by an angry punk are probably the worst kind (although I have had a nose bleed caused by a biscuit tin that was pretty bad). Then, I hear voices, it was a couple of brothers I knew, Indian chaps, older, tougher, wonderful guys. Sensing trouble Our Price Girl had phoned them and sent them after Richard and I. The blows stopped, the shouting stopped. I’m not bigging myself up here obviously, but these guys were connected and you didn’t mess with them. They also lived next door to my Dad and that helped massively.

Richard was fairly hurt he needed to go to hospital, he took the brunt of the assault from Ian and a couple of the other lads who had turned up. Several stitches later he was fine. Me, I needed a stiff drink and a hug.

I went home and the Indian brothers mum made me the finest Balti I have ever eaten. Then one of the brothers said out of the blue, ‘What’s shoegaze?’ I nipped home and picked up ‘Nowhere’ by Ride and stuck it on their stereo. ‘Shit, man’ he said, ‘No wonder he thumped you’. His favourite act of all time, Maxi Priest. I’ve never told him what I think of Maxi Priest.

Anyway, that brings us nicely to The Radio Dept.

The Radio Dept. are according to Wikipedia a dream pop band from Lund in Sweden. Reviews that I have read compare them to The Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine and Pet Shop Boys. Dream pop is the right way to describe them. Shoegaze would be another.

This album ‘Pet Grief’ has a track on it called ‘The Worst Taste in Music’. I thought of that night when I first played it. It was the single ‘Wide World’ by Maxi Priest that it reminded me. It’s a tenuous link, I’ll grant you but I was thinking about that night when I picked it up.

mp3 : The Radio Dept. – The Worst Taste In Music

There is something about Swedish music that comes across as clinical or striving for perfection. It’s not difficult to understand why – remember this is the country that produced ‘Dancing Queen’, the perfect engineering of the Saab 900 (though of course, someone out there will say, I had a Saab 900 and it was shit…), the wonderful precision of Bjorn Borg’s backhand and the brilliance that is Zlatan Ibrahamovic.

A few years before ‘Pet Grief’ was released, the Radio Dept. released ‘Lesser Matters’ and I adored it – a beautiful shimmering album of dreamy pop which hawked back to an age of shoegaze and sonic cathedrals and vocals that barely register above whisper. It is a wonderful album and one that still to this day sits firmly in my Top 50 of all time – whenever I get to compile that list that it. I heartily recommend it to everyone.

‘Every Time’ is Pet Grief’s catchiest song, – it is as well the closest anyone has come to capturing the drenched distortion of My Bloody Valentine’s guitars and the half whispered vocal are matched with this melody that is both compulsive and fragile at the same time. Its wonderful and instantly pleasing and is as good as anything on ‘Lesser Matters’.

Here are some of the other tracks from it. Considering this was released in 2006, it sounds very much like it was recorded in 1993.

mp3 : The Radio Dept. – Tell
mp3 : The Radio Dept. – Gibraltar
mp3 : The Radio Dept. – Every Time

Enjoy.

JC adds……

So that you can begin to get get an idea of how much of a dick this bloke Ian was/still is, have a listen to what he thought was the most important record in a thirty-year span:-

mp3 : Sheep On Drugs – Motorbike

The prosecution rests its case.

Ultravox

FROM THE DEPTHS OF MY MEMORY BANKS

It really is strange how the human brain works.

I was finishing off yesterday’s piece on Funeral Pyre by The Jam when for some unfathomable reason my memory recalled the fact that on the day I had bought that particular single from Tam Russell’s Record Store in Shettleston Road in Glasgow I had also bought a single by Ultravox.

Now I was certain that the single in question was Sleepwalk but then when I checked the discography of the band it became clear that the single in question was All Stood Still as it was released a week or so before Funeral Pyre.

It’s a song I hadn’t thought about in what must be over 30 years. It’s a 45 I no longer have although it is a track on the LP Vienna which sits in the cupboard unplayed for probably the same period. I recall the single being on clear vinyl and sure enough, a check up on Discogs revealed this to be the case. The single went to #8 in the charts – it was a slightly shorter version than the album version, and thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I’ve been able to track down said version:-

mp3 : Ultravox – All Stood Still

The b-side, again from memory, was an instrumental that I was sure was quite hypnotic and very similar to the sort of pre-fame Simple Minds material. I tracked down a copy of that too and again my memory hadn’t tricked me:-

mp3 : Ultravox – Alles Klar

Neither song has really dated all that well and indeed the 45 sort of sounds a bit ridiculous in places, but hey. I’m not ashamed whatsoever of the purchase. It kind of typified the fact that my tastes were now splitting 50-50 between post-punk guitarmusic and the increasing popularity of synyth-pop.

Enjoy.

Jam

THE JAM SINGLES (13)

The thirteenth single contained a first in that it was a joint composition with the words attributed to Paul Weller and the music credited to The Jam. It was also the first single to have the lyrics appear on the back of the sleeve.

It was released on 6 June 1981 and climbed to #4 in the singles charts. It’s 1983 re-release would only reach #82. Not bad for a song that was very untypical of the band.

mp3 : The Jam – Funeral Pyre
mp3 : The Jam – Disguises

The b-side was the second occasion the band had dipped into the back catalogue of The Who (the previous time being So Sad About Us as the flip-side to Tube Station and a poignant tribute to the then recently deceased Keith Moon).

There’s one additional version available today. Lifted from The Jam at the BBC 2xCD, it is from a show entitled ‘Studio B15 live’ on 25 October 1981 (which was the day after the band had played for free at a CND rally in London). The downside is that after the cracking version of the song ends you have to put up with about 40 seconds worth of an interview.

mp3 : The Jam – Funeral Pyre (live)/ interview

Enjoy

Paul Quinn

FROM THE PROPRIETOR OF THE PUNK ROCK HOTEL

Hey Jim

Hope you’re good – if I’m sending you a note it generally only means one thing. There is more Paul Quinn goodness to be had…

So here’s the story.

Up until about a week ago, the general consensus on the career of Paul Quinn was that after the Vince Clarke single flopped in late 1985, Quinn and Alan Horne set about recording his debut solo album for London Records.

Nothing ever came of these sessions and the relationship was terminated, leaving a gap of 7 long quiet years before he finally reappeared on the reactivated Postcard label in 1992.

Then I came across an ebay listing for a film soundtrack LP from 1987. The film in question was The Fantasist.

http://www.discogs.com/Stanislas-Syrewicz-The-Fantasist/release/5438207

Discogs lists it as an instrumental soundtrack by Stanislas Syrewicz, but this ebay listing was adamant that Paul Quinn appeared.

The listing helpfully scanned the back of the sleeve, and guess what – they weren’t lying. There was Mr Quinn’s chiselled face and a cover version of the Goffin/King standard “Up On The Roof”

That voice – on such a classic song? How could it be anything other than fantastic?

Well, having tracked down a copy of the LP, I can present the track in all it’s mono glory (yep the LP appears to be in mono for some strange reason), and what can I say? It’s hardly the highlight of his career. The incessant thud of bass drum and 80s synth bass make for a difficult listen. The voice though. THAT voice is sublime as ever and when he starts to ad-lib lines from “Everybody’s Talkin'” half way through, you know we’re in business.

The film itself is by the same chap who did The Wicker Man and I’ve never seen it, but I have it on good authority that it’s atrocious AND that the Paul Quinn song doesn’t obviously appear anywhere in the film! There is a painful 80s discos scene with Level 42 appearing live – which perversely DOESN’T appear on the soundtrack LP (small mercies etc)

The review here seems to sum it up quite well.

http://www.mondo-digital.com/fantasist.html

As the sole officially-released document of what Paul Quinn was up to in those lost years between Swamplands and Postcard II, it doesn’t make us feel like we missed anything too special, but it’s a fascinating snapshot of where things might have been going wrong. Plus, with the chances of any further archival material from this period appearing (or any period for that matter) and such a small canon of work, any additional treasure we can find has to be worth it’s weight in gold.

mp3 : Paul Quinn – Up On The Roof

Enjoy!

Cheers
Rob

http://www.duckworthsquare.com/paulquinn/

Orwells

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #44 : THE ORWELLS

Just Two Guys Messing Around: An Imaginary Compilation (of sorts)

Part 5 by Badgerman

S-WC and I are off on, as our wives put it so elegantly this morning, ‘another stupid boys road trip’. This time we are off to Crewe to watch some lower league football. Our wives are, as I put it just as elegantly, off on ‘a stupid girls shopping trip’.

‘Why Crewe?’ I hear you mumble. Well, it was chosen at random with the aid of a computer program. We included every team from the Top Five English leagues and whichever one the computer picked – we would go to (if they were playing at home on the given day). At the last-minute we excluded our two favourites (me Tottenham, him Gillingham) and we prayed it wouldn’t be Hartlepool.

It was nearly just as bad as with Crewe; out of interest, the second pick was Shrewsbury, so really we were quite lucky. We decided to also do another couple of the now legendary 11th track Imaginary Compilations – one on the way up and one on the way back. We also decide that this time we would both compile the albums – one half each. I get to do Side One of the Up Journey and Side Two of the Down Journey with S-WC doing the reverse.

We travel to Crewe in S-WC’s car and right away I realise that my iPod is still attached to my computer at home – so we have to use his (not normally a good thing).

His iPod is in an early 90s indie mood, the first five tracks are Mega City Four, The Levellers, The Senseless Things, Pop Will Eat Itself and Oasis; as journeys go it’s a pretty good start and I am already designing an Imaginary Chumbawamba album in my head (Mouthful of Shit, Behave!, Farewell to the Crown…).

We are sitting in the car park of Bridgwater Services when the track ten finishes – it was On A Ragga Tip by SL2 for those interested – as we decide that we need our first hot drink break of the day. The opening bars of Always N Forever by The Orwells fills the car. S-WC smiles.

As I sit in the café at the services these three things are on my mind:

(i) Bridgwater Services is the most unhospitable place on the planet. I’ve been to Afghanistan, twice, so this is really saying something. There are more chavs per square inch in this services than I care to think about. I’ve just seen a really morbidly obese chap in sports casuals with a slogan on it reading ‘Witness the Fitness’. There is also a bloke with a two litre bottle of cider, which is half empty. It is about 9.30am.

(ii) The ‘Hot Chocolate’ that I am drinking is neither hot nor chocolate but is in fact ‘Lukewarm suspicious looking brown sludge’. I think the person who sold it to me must have been the duty manager because his acne had cleared up better than the rest of the staff.

(iii) I don’t own a single second of any music recorded by The Orwells. So for the second time in a row I turn to S-WC and say ‘You’re going to have to help me…’

We resume our journey, and S-WC puts on some Orwells tracks. For those of you like me, who are not cool and down with the kids and don’t hang on every word that the NME writes about music, The Orwells hail from Elmhurst, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago, they are ridiculously young (the oldest member being just 22), and make a sneery bratty garage rock.

As it happens I rather like what I have heard. They have appeared on Later…With Jools Holland and have supported the Arctic Monkeys recently. They are another band (like Future Islands) whose careers have been bolstered by an astonishing performance on the Letterman Show. I’m going to describe them as ‘Like The Strokes with a bit of early of the Manics thrown in’.

Their second album Disgraceland is pretty fine – it not a tribute to the punk sound of The Black Lips perhaps. It is exactly the sort of record The Strokes stopped making about ten years ago. The singer Mario Cuomo doesn’t really sing the songs but rather barges his way into them. Like he is doing karaoke with his own band. It works though. I will add rather worryingly that Cuomo does appear to have a slight obsession with firearms

As I stated above – Side one of this compilation have been picked by me and Side Two will be picked by S-WC.

Side One – The Badger Side

Other Voices (Dave Sitek Version) – From Other Voices EP – This is a shamelessly confused declaration of infatuation with a girl who is “not the prettiest girl around”. The song is a ball of guitar heavy energy. The vocals are high intensity and the chorus is a massive earworm “I’m slipping in and you’re tripping out/I’ll let you in if you let me out”) and guitar breaks create a bubbly jam that will firmly lodge itself in the most stubborn of brains.

Always n Forever – From Disgraceland LP – A charming and perhaps slightly shambolic fuzz pop number that stands out for me because at the halfway point, the song stops and suddenly you hear an engine revving. It is essentially taking the piss out of that American Dream. Yet it still manages to perfect that quiet/loud formula successfully.

Dirty Sheets – Single – In my opinion this is their best song, a fairly simple love em and leave em affair. There is a roaming guitar that bursts in at the beginning of the songs that leads into a sort of pop song. It tries to be noisy but that guitar holds it together and it ends up being something of an anthem. Well I think so anyway.

Open Your Eyes (A Misfits Rip off) – From Who Needs You? EP – This is pretty self explanatory – the song is a rip off of a Misfits song – The Orwells are open and honest about – it’s a tribute and by listening to it you understand what they are all about. Nothing clever just lads influenced by other bands making a racket.

Mallrats –Live Audiotree Session – Perhaps the epitome of caution-to-the-wind American garage rock: tricksy babes, push-up bras, little girls in short skirts hangin’ at the food court and a chorus that goes “la la la la la la la la.” like “Other Voices” is sloppily perfect.

Side Two – The why don’t you pick all the best tracks Side

Who Needs You? – From Who Needs You? EP – It is in this song that perhaps The Orwells tried to show a political side – it bashes their homeland quite a bit ‘You wanna join the army’ the singer bawls followed by ‘I said no thank you Uncle Sam’. It also sounds a lot like what the Libertines did when they first emerged. The firearms issue shows its head here as well as he later admits ‘My Daddy’s got a 12 gauge, I hope I don’t find it.’ Also features on a recent Apple Music Advert so you may be aware of it.

Blood Bubbles – From Disgraceland – This is basically a detailed account of a suicide pact with lines about giving a girl a necklace made of telephone cord. It is of course slightly dark and probably a bit dumb, but its also smart and totally ace.

The Righteous One – Single – According to S-WC this is The Orwells best song, effectively it is a Sonics rip off. It is a similar to Always N Forever in that it concentrates on that quiet/loud dynamic. It also punches its way into the chorus and is a bit sulky in the verse. Lyrics like “Double double double double double double double dare falling down the stairs” aren’t going to win many Novellos but it’s the simplicity that is so thrilling. Then that chorus lands again, a Nirvana-sized tidal wave beneath which all is forgiven.

Southern Comfort – From Disgraceland – The thing about The Orwells is that they are not trying to be clever or ground breaking they are following a well trodden path – on this track they sound like the Ramones and it is at its best when the guitar riff is central and the lyrics are simply ‘Ah Ah Ah’. It is effortless catchy. A rare occasion when the words get in the way of the music.

Halloween All Year – Live Audiotree Session – Despite its weird Grease-style opening (yes the musical) once the song gets going with Mario’s call to ‘get a knife from the kitchen and follow me’ everything suddenly becomes a little sinister. It culminates with something that sounds like the singer coughing up a lung. Another example of the intensity with ultimately sits at the heart of every song The Orwells produce.

mp3 : The Orwells – Other Voices (Dave Sitek Version)
mp3 : The Orwells – Always n Forever
mp3 : The Orwells – Dirty Sheets
mp3 : The Orwells – Open Your Eyes (a Misfits rip-off)
mp3 : The Orwells – Mallrats
mp3 : The Orwells – Who Needs You?
mp3 : The Orwells – Blood Bubbles
mp3 : The Orwells – The Righteous One
mp3 : The Orwells – Southern Comfort
mp3 : The Orwells – Halloween All Year

So that is The Orwells, check them out you won’t regret it. I asked S-WC who he thought they sound like and he said Drenge sound like The Orwells. I’d agree with that.

The football by the way was pretty uneventful – a decent first half which produced three goals. Two of them for the visiting team Chesterfield. There were no goals in the second half. Crewe we find out later are bottom of League One, and looked doomed to League Two football next season. As we trudged back to the car we also note that by and large Crewe is a bit of shithole, sorry to anyone from Crewe – but you know its true. I’m happy to be leaving the place. We do have a decent bag of chips on the way back to the car though.

S-WC plugs the iPod in as we move off home. Ready for number 2 he says as a beautiful acoustic version of Detroit has a Skyline Too by Superchunk starts up. I look out the window, Crewe ain’t so bad – its prettier than Bridgwater at least….

BADGERMAN

Flatmates

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 39 of 48)

You know that famous Marlon Brando line from On The Waterfront? Well this lot really coulda been contenders for the indie-pop crown in the late 80s.

There’s a great story as to how they got their name in that a local journalist in Bristol was interviewing the drummer and asked who else was in the group. The reply of ‘oh it’s just me and my flatmates’ provided the light-bulb apove the head moment for all concerned.

The thing is The Flatmates were, for the most part, literally folk who lived together under the one roof. It was singer/guitarist Martin Whitehead who was the initial mainstay of the band in 1985. He recruited Rocker on drums whose roommate Kath Beach came in on bass. Yet another roommate – Debbie Haynes – then joined to take on vocal duties allowing Whitehead to concentrate on lead guitar.

Whitehead had a finger in many pies in the scene building up in Bristol, including the management of the most revered indie venue in the city, which enabled The Flatmates to offer themselves as support act for any singer or band passing through – and there were many as a result of the C86 movement.

By October 1986 they were able to release their debut single on Subway Organisation Records which had been founded by, yup you guessed it, Martin Whitehead. By now there was a real buzz about the band with much positive press and reviews. And no wonder, as it was an absolute belter of a 45, described with great accuracy by one critic as a fusion of Buzzcocks with The Shangri-Las :-

mp3 : The Flatmates – I Could Be In Heaven

After ust eight gigs Kate Beach quit the band and and was replaced by Sarah Fletcher – it wasn’t the last time in what was a short history that the Flatmates fell out – the drummer was next to go (although to be fair it was the need to concentrate on her career as a dental surgeon more than anything else which forced the change) ; then the replacement bass player was herself replaced.

In the meantime, a second guitarist – Tim Rippington – was recruited but in less than a year had been sacked after turning up drunk at a gig at the University of London and fightig with the rest of the band as well as members of the audience. This was not twee pop by any stretch of the imagination.

The band split for good in late 1989 with just five singles to show for their efforts. But they are still very fondly remembered by many.

It was the debut single which appears on CD 86 and here’s the two tracks that made up its b-side:-

mp3 : The Flatmates – Tell Me Why
mp3 : The Flatmates – So In Love With You

Enjoy

Joe Jackson

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (42)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THURSDAY 27 MARCH 2008

It’s 1979. 4th Year at School. It’s that time of your life when you stop going on holiday with your parents and your younger brothers and sisters. And you use the freedom of being at home on your own to throw a party. It’s all part of being a teenager….well it was in those days.

There were parties every weekend in July and August 1979 at someone or others house. And every week, I’d walk home alone frustrated at my inabilities to not get tongue-tied when trying to converse with an attractive member of the opposite sex. It didn’t help that at the age of 16 , I looked at least two years younger….while most of the guys in school looked two years older and boasted of being able to get into pubs. And they had no problems in getting girlfriends….

Aside from being a song that perfectly captures my life at a particular point in time, I really was a fan of Joe Jackson when he burst onto the scene. His early records were infectiously catchy in many places, and his lyrics were angst-ridden enough to strike a chord. The fact he was classically-trained made a big difference in what was very much a DIY-dominated industry at the point in history. Joe looked and sounded different.

His was one of the first concerts I ever went to at an over-18s venue – it was at Glasgow Tiffany’s (long gone, but a favourite stop-off point before Barrowlands became popular round about 1984/5). Anyway, the Joe Jackson gig was in 1980 when he was touring his third LP, Beat Crazy. I went along on my own with a false ID of a friend’s big brother just in case I got stopped on the door. I needn’t have worried – the stewards (they weren’t bouncers in those days) were completely relaxed and probably had a good laugh as they watched me pace up and down outside the venue plucking up the courage to try my luck…

It was a great gig – on the same tour BBC Radio 1 recorded the London gig and broadcast it one Saturday evening – somewhere in a box I still have the C120 cassette tape I made that night – and there’s a 1980 gig by The Jam on the other side.

Incidentally, I no longer have this particular single, and therein lies a sad but stupid tale.

It was 1986, and I was living with friends in a bedsit flat in Edinburgh. All of us had issues with the landlord, and we were withholding rent. After three months, things were threatening to turn nasty with threats of court action, so we collectively did a runner, which in our case was gather up all our possessions, load them into a hired van and head off to our new abodes. We did this around midnight one evening.

The next morning was when I realised I had left behind, in my haste, crates of 7″ singles – maybe amounting to 500 records in all. I had taken all the 12″ singles and LPs in boxes, all my books and my clothes…..but somehow left behind booty that had a value well in excess of the amount of rent that we all owed. These days, I still scour second-hand shops, e-bay etc trying to piece it all back together again….but I know I’ll never ever fully succeed.

So…the picture that illustrates this entry is in fact of a record I never owned as it is the US release of the single. The UK cover was totally different. And the b-side of the UK single wasn’t on the original LP, but I have tracked it down, thanks to it being included on a re-issued version more than two decades later:-

mp3 : Joe Jackson – Is She Really Going Out With Him?
mp3 : Joe Jackson – You Got The Fever

This single was first released in late 1978 but flopped. Re-released in July 1979, it reached #13 in the UK charts.

To this day, Joe still plays it live, but every tour sees a different version altogether and many of these can be tracked down all over the internet.

Ian McCulloch, Pete Wylie

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #43 : PETE WYLIE; plus BUNNYMAC SOLO MATERIAL

A very late change of plans at Villain Towers.

Echorich picked out ten great tracks that would make a tremendous Pete Wylie compilation and given that postpunkmonk has said he wished that he had picked up on more of the material back in the day, well I think it’s worth posting something up. For those of you who don’t perhaps read the comments, here’s what echorich had to say:-

Pete Wylie is my favorite Rock Star of ALL TIME…Probably because he’s the only one I’ve gotten drunk with until 7am in a New York Nightclub 4 nights on the trot, and definitely because he NEVER attained Rock Start status but was always prepared for it.

JC, you’ve picked the three songs which earned him the rank of a great artist. But I will add three that I just can’t live without, and one is among my 10 favorite songs of all time.

The first, and one which first blew my socks off and sucked me into WAH!’s aural vortex was Seven Minutes To Midnight. There might not be any more urgent Post Punk song ever written.

The second, and the one which if count as an all time favorite is Hope (I Wish You’d Believe Me). To this day, this song sends chills up my spine and makes me quite emotional every time I play it.

The third is If I Love You. Again, Wylie’s straining, pleading singing just grabs the listener and won’t let go.

And as for an Imaginary WAH!/Wylie Album, here’s mine:
A
1. Better Scream
2. Seven Minutes To Midnight
3. Remember
4. Story Of The Blues
5. Hope (I Wish You’d Believe Me)
B
1. Weekends
2. Come Back
3. Sinful
4. If I Love You
5. Heart As Big As Liverpool

All of the tracks selected by echorich can be found on this long-deleted compilation CD which, if you see any second-hand copies kicking around, I would recommend you splash out on it.

In the meantime:-

mp3 : Wah! Heat – Better Scream
mp3 : Wah! Heat – Seven Minutes To Midnight
mp3 : Shambeko Say Wah! – Remember
mp3 : J.F. Wah – Story Of The Blues
mp3 : Wah! – Hope (I Wish You’d Believe Me)
mp3 : The Mighty Wah! – Weekends
mp3 : The Mighty Wah! – Come Back
mp3 : Pete Wylie & The Oedipus Wrecks – Sinful
mp3 : Pete Wylie – If I Love You
mp3 : The Mighty Wah! – Heart As Big As Liverpool

Echorich also made some great observations on the solo career of Ian McCulloch:-

Candleland is the stand out, but there are some excellent moments on Mysterio – Pomegranate, Magical World, Dug For Love – which beats many of his contemporaries at the dance/rock emerging at the time and his gorgeous reading of Leonard Cohen’s Lover, Lover, Lover. In fact I’d say his version of the last song is as beautiful and seminal as Jeff Buckley’s career turn on Hallelujah. My favorite McCulloch song – it’s a b-side to Candleland’s Faith + Healing single – Rocket Ship. It’s an exuberant track with a heartfelt love song built-in.

I’m with him on Lover, Lover, Lover as being a tremendous cover version. Feels right that this week of nostalgically looking back at the class of Liverpool early 80s style should come to an end with these culled straight from the vinyl:-

mp3 : Ian McCulloch – Candleland (The Second Coming) (Extended Version)
mp3 : Ian McCulloch – Dig For Love (12″ version)
mp3 : Ian McCulloch – Lover, Lover, Lover (Indian Dawn Mix)
mp3 : Ian McCulloch – Lover, Lover, Lover
mp3 : Ian McCulloch – Faith & Healing (The Carpenter’s Son Mix)

while these are from CDs:-

mp3 : Ian McCulloch – Rocket Ship
mp3 : Ian McCulloch – Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye
mp3 : Ian McCulloch – Suzanne

The latter two are more great takes on Leonard Cohen originals – and incidentally, it was Mac’s love for the Canadian bard that turned me onto his songs many years after I had initially ignored them on the grounds of him being hippy-dippy and ultra depressing.

Enjoy

Jam

THE JAM SINGLES (12)

The first of the singles that I didn’t buy on the date of its release for the simple fact that it was only available on import from West Germany and thus it was a bit hit’n’miss as to when it would arrive in the my local record shop in the east end of Glasgow.

I remember having to shell out a bit more than I would normally have to do for a standard single with this being attributed to the cost of getting the record over from mainland Europe. I recall being initially disappointed as for some reason or other I was expecting the recording to be slightly different from the version made available a few months back on the Sound Affects LP but nope, it was identical:-

mp3 : The Jam – That’s Entertainment

The fact that this reached #21 purely on import sales shows the folly of Polydor Records in not choosing any second single from the parent LP. The b-side was a live version of Tube Station but it was the same recording as had been made available previously as a song on the extra record with the initial copies of Going Underground.

A gritty and bleak snapshot of life in a decaying Britain with its lyrical blend of youthful boredom and frustration at the inability to change things this masterpiece was claimed by Paul Weller to have been written in about 10 minutes one night after he’d come home drunk from the pub. In fact, it was a lyrical re-working of a poem called ‘Entertainment’ which he had previously written for a fanzine-type publication which isn’t to say he initially churned most of the song out rather quickly while pissed.

Two alternative versions available today. The first is a demo version in which the drums are more prominent :-

mp3 : The Jam – That’s Entertainment (demo)

And then there’s the version from the Dig The New Breed live album in which your humble scribe, along with about 3,000 other fans, can be heard in the background at the Glasgow Apollo on 8 April 1982:-

mp3 : The Jam – That’s Entertainment (live)

Worth mentioning that Polydor would give the single a proper release in the UK in 1983 (at a time when all of the band’s 45s were re-issued) and it reached #60. Fast forward to 1991 and the release of a Greatest Hits album that was promoted by another re-release of That’s Entertainment backed by two live recordings of Tube Station and A Town Called Malice, neither of which were new or previously unreleased recordings. Despite this rip-off, the 1991 single reached #57. I didn’t buy it…

I thought for a change that I’d offer up three cover versions by some very well known English singers/bands, none of whom do anything to better the original – indeed there’s a case to be made that at least two of the versions are shit – which is evidence that The Jam delivered something akin to a perfect recording :-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – That’s Entertainment
mp3 : Morrissey – That’s Entertainment
mp3 : The Wonder Stuff – That’s Entertainment

Enjoy

Pete Wylie, The Mighty Wah, Wah!

BIG, BOOMING AND MEMORABLE

Pete Wylie didn’t do things by half. The three occasions that he managed to enter the higher echelons of the UK pop charts left us with magical and timeless bits of music.

I did consider having a go at pulling together an imaginary compilation album featuring his best moments but in all honesty while I have some albums and this fairly comprehensive compilation CD that brings together most of his best recordings I didn’t think my words could do him justice. My cop-out is therefore just to dig deep into the cupboard and pull out the three hit singles in 12″ form as well as a double-pack of 7″ pieces of plastic from his last Top 20 effort:-

1982 : The Story Of The Blues

This climbed all the way to #3 in the charts and is probably the best known of the hits. To my young(ish) ears it sounded like no other record that had ever been released at that point in history. To my old(er) ears it still sounds like no other record that has ever been released in history. Oh and the b-side on the 12″ is a new version of an earlier and much-loved flop single.

mp3 : Wah! – The Story of The Blues (Parts I and II)
mp3 : Wah! – 7 Minutes Live(ish)

1983 : Come Back

Pete was infamous for being a bit of a gobshite who loved to spout opinions about everyone and everything, and an unwillingness to play by the record industry rules and regulations. Nevertheless, he was regarded as such a talent that WEA, the biggest label in the world at the time, signed him up after The Story of The Blues. He delivered an album that horrified them and they refused to release it and in doing so nullified the recording contract.

In due course the album was partially re-recorded and eventually released on Beggars Banquet as A Word To The Wise Guy. There was a Top 20 hit single from it, released in a number of formats including this 12″ version:-

mp3 : The Mighty Wah! – Come Back (The Story Of The Reds)/The Devil In Miss Jones (combined and extended)
mp3 : The Mighty Wah! – Come Back! (The Return of the Randy Scouse Git)
mp3 : The Mighty Wah! – From Disco Dicko to A Kid in Care

This was an almighty two fingers gesture to WEA. It was the big sound they had demanded of the album but only provided after Wylie had gone to pastures new…and in the b-side version the lyrics were altered to enable a sideways swipe at WEA singers and bands who were enjoying regular chart success…

1986 : Sinful!

Almost thirty years on and this still sounds amazing when it blasts out of the radio. It reached #13 but was worthy at least of Top 3 to match his biggest ever hit. The 12″ Tribal Mix goes on for more than eight minutes and while it does occasionally betray its age thanks to the rather dated production techniques and tricks of the day, it is still hugely enjoyable and a fine commentary on the social injustices imposed on society by the Tories and Republicans in the first half of the ‘greed is good’ decade.

mp3 : Pete Wylie & The Oedipus Wrecks – Sinful! (Tribal Mix)
mp3 : Pete Wylie & The Oedipus Wrecks – Sinful!
mp3 : Pete Wylie & The Oedipus Wrecks – I Want The Moon, Mother

This was another single released in a multitude of formats and quite recently I had the good fortune to get my hands on the 2 x 7″ release of the single and here’s the two tracks that weren’t otherwise on the 12″ ( a word of warning…..they’re really only for completists):-

mp3 : Pete Wylie & The Oedipus Wrecks – Sophie’s Sinful! (for Maurice or Isabelle)
mp3 : Pete Wylie & The Oedipus Wrecks – The Joy Of Being Booed

Enjoy

Echo & The Bunnymen

NOT TOO SHABBY A COMEBACK NUMBER ??

The idea of Echo & The Bunnymen reforming in the late 90s wasn’t entirely daft. It had been a full ten years since Ian McCulloch had left the band to with vocals duties taken on by Noel Burke – a move that no doubt stunned Bunnymac who thought he was irreplaceable. It certainly didn’t go down well with fans as the sales of the one LP and three singles with the new vocalist were negligible.

By 1994, Mac and Will Sergeant were working together again under the name of Electrafixion and in due course they asked Les Pattinson if he fancied joining the band. When he said yes, the trio decided to bring the Bunnymen back into being….

The move certainly caught the imagination, especially when Mac started telling everyone that the new songs were among the best they had written and recorded. There was certainly a hope and desire among the critics that this would be the case as the band were somewhat back in fashion at the time with an appreciation of just how good a band they had been at the height of their pomp and fame when Pete de Freitas (RIP) was on the drumstool.

It was June 1997 when the comeback single was released:-

mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Nothing Lasts Forever

It’s an absolutely stunning piece of music, right up there with many of the tracks released when the band were at the height of their powers in the early to mid 80s. It also crossed over extensively into the mainstream thanks to the rigorous promotional duties undertaken including a number of high-profile TV appearances in the UK and in due course it would ride high in the charts where it eventually reached #8 and equal their previous best ever position with The Cutter back in 1983. The parent album Evergreen was relleased the following month by which time the band were appearing on the bills of most of the summer festivals across Europe. It too went Top 10.

The album did get a lot of positive reviews but I feel most of these were as much down to wanting the LP to be a triumphant return rather than purely on the quality of its contents. It’s not that it’s a bad record, more that after a few listens it got a bit repetitive sounding with the comeback single really standing head and shoulders above all else. It certainly doesn’t come close to matching the outstanding first four albums, all of which really have stood the test of time.

I bought the comeback single on its release. In fact I bought the 2xCDs and so can also offer up the four tracks that were put on the b-side, some of which proved to be better and more durable than much of the album:-

mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Watchtower
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Polly
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Colour Me In
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Antelope

Enjoy.

Julian Cope

READ IT IN BOOKS : JULIAN COPE

Anyone who picks up this book can’t say they weren’t warned in advance….

“One Three One is a Gnostic whodunit that pursues readers’ memories of all previous fiction into a peat bog and impales them with seven-foot long pikes'”

“A total skullfuck of a book”

“The myths and legends of Rock, rock and rocks collide on a freak-strewn highway leaving the reader feeling like a back-seat passenger suffering psychic whiplash.”

All of the above spot-on quotes can be found on the jacket of One Three One, the debut novel by Julian Cope, a genuine epic of 438 pages. It is a work, I suspect, like very few others as it, I would surmise, put all readers through a topsy-turvy emotional and intellectual wringer for at times you will think it contains some of the best and most imaginative prose ever put to paper while there will be nights when you can hardly keep your eyes open such is the struggle to understand what the hell it’s all about and where it’s going to go next.

The novel centres around the exploits of Rock Section, a hit musician from the 80s who just also happens to be a time traveller capable of jumping back to a precious life 10,000 years ago. So far so bizarre.

The gist of the storyline is that Rock has travelled to Sardinia from England in June 2006 in an effort to find out why it was that he and some of his mates ended up being kidnapped when they were part of the football supporters who went to the island to watch matches (and take part in acts of hooliganism) at the 1990 World Cup. One Three One refers to the Strada Statale 131 which is the main motorway running in a north-south direction across the island, with almost all of the action taking place on the road or close by. Crucial to the plot is the fact that the road takes you close to many hidden ancient doorways which enable Rock to jump back and forth between 2006 and 10,000 years previous. And when he did, it more often than seemed to the complete bemusement of this reader taking the story off at huge tangents that make no sense at all.

On many occasions, One Three One reminded me of a Joycean epic….and here’s where I confess that despite at least twenty goes, I’ve yet to finish any of the books written by the much heralded Irish novelist. They are impenetrable, unfathomable and just too difficult for my level of intellect. And if wasn’t for the fact that I am such a fan of Julian Cope as a musician and writer, I would in all likelihood never have finished this book either.

And yet…..there were, as I mentioned earlier, sections of the book that were quite wonderful, not least the stunning puns that are littered throughout its pages. And if nothing else, the twenty-odd pages and two chapters covering the day of the Hillsborough Disaster when 96 people died at a football match through no fault of their own are essential reading. I was moved to tears of sadness and anger.

But overall, these plus points are not enough to say that reading One Three One was an entirely enjoyable or satisfactory experience. It was an almighty relief when I got to the end….which without giving anything away seemed a bit rushed and disjointed given all that had been described in such detail over the previous pages.

I should also mention that the book is full of references to what appear to be imaginary songs by imaginary bands, including those in which Rock Section had found fame. But what won’t come as a surprise given it stems from the amazing brain of Julian Cope, that nothing is quite as straightforward as it seems. The following I think gives a flavour of some of the best things about the novel….

Atlantis? : Formed in 1970 by Sardinian cave anarchists around the guitar talents of fifteen-year-old boy prodigy Gennargentu, Atlantis? was a fierce Mithraic ritualistic music beating bongos and bones in the dust of long-dead humans. This commune band was inspired by the post-war theories of Sardu writer Pedru Réppu, who popularised the belief that their island had once been the Atlantis of legend.

Brits Abroad : Formed with breathtaking audacity in the ecstasy-fuelled opportunism of the Rave Era by social worker and Jungian poet Mick Goodby, Brits Abroads’ world-infamous Number One anthem ‘Last Tango in Paris’ sets off an unholy chain of events central to the plot of One Three One.

MICK GOODBY – vocals, lyrics
ROB DEAN – guitar synth
BRENT GARRETT – bass synth, squeaky dog toy
DEAN GARRETT – tenor synth, squeaky dog toy
(Later KEV NOGGINS – drums)

Dayglo Maradona : Rave band formed by Rock Section, former Low Countries vocalist and hero of One Three One, in an ephedra-fuelled homage to his favourite footballer, Argentinean striker Diego Maradona.

Mick Goodby/Exercise Club : Picking himself up from rock bottom after being kidnapped during Italia ’90 and hermiting at his mother’s thereafter right up to the millennium, poet Mick Goodby makes an accidental comeback through his Exercise Club series of solo CD releases.

Forest of Dean : Formed by former Brits Abroad synthesist Dean Garrett in response to the wretched trajectory of his life, this rinky-dink New Age combo of one released several delicately-clad 10” EPs in the years 1994-2001.

Judge Barry Hertzog : This Dutch border rebel DJ renegade uses his role as the self-proclaimed ‘First Indie Football Hooligan’ to promote a Messiah-like solo music career from atop his DAF armoured car from deep in the woods around the uplands of his beloved Drenthe.

Kit Kat Rappers :Formed under protest by Rave scenesters Gary Have-a-laugh, Stu and Yeh-Yeh, at the behest of compadré Mick Goodby, the Kit Kat Rappers’ story permeates the various plots of One Three One. The later addition into the group of posh rapper Leander Pitt-Rivers Baring-Gould, under the name Full English Breakfast, leads to a large chart hit.

Low Countries : This Liverpool Post-Punk outfit was the place where One Three One hero Rock Section cut his music business teeth, being ‘installed’ in the band as lead singer at age seventeen by their manager/svengali Arthur Tadgell.

Make Fuck : Formed in the southern Sardu foothills of Mt Línas by cave anarchists from nearby Gonnosfanadiga, this famous power trio churns out ‘cavernous crud, only its lupine howling and overdriven bass bringing the remotest clarity to this soupy anarchist testament’ (One Three One, page 114).

Neon Sardinia : These high-living darlings of the 1970s Sardinian art scene – conspicuously wealthy with their Lamborghinis and actress girlfriends – reclaimed for the island many of those ancient traditions and festivals deemed by previous generations to be too heathen and unchristian to hold onto. Ironically, it was precisely these re-enactments and reconstructions that ultimately led to the kidnapping of their synthesist Fabrizio Arra.

FABRIZIO ARRA – vocals, synthesizers
ARTURO VACA – vocals, synthesizers

Nurse With Mound : This Japanese avant-garde duo were formed in Sardinia by visionary Egg with accompaniment by multi-instrumentalist Misstra Know-It-All. Their songs range from the angry-man-screaming-at-broken-walkman-style street corner protest of ‘We Apologise For Nothing’ to the multi-layered post-Miles Davis jazz of Mixing Concrète.

EGG – vocals
MISSTRA KNOW-IT-ALL – saxophone, clarinet, turntables, guitar, tuba, samples, synthesizers, cymbal, French horn, cor Anglais, piano, sousaphone, tympani, triangle, bass drum, snare drum, piccolo drum, tapes (cassette, DAT, 15” Studer), violin, contra bass, dwarf cello, music box, telephone, Buddha box, rhythm box, banana box, tambourine, cigar box, Jack-in-the-box, quardplums

Spackhouse Tottu : Formed by Sardinian brothers José and Luis Mackenzie, this pioneering Mediterranean dance act pumped out single after seven-inch single throughout their early career, sampling Krautrock, garage rock and electro punk for their mental two-minute-hate songs. As live DJs, the pair cannibalised Klaus Schulze’s most proto-techno pieces in order to stretch out Rave music into an over-caffeinated cartoon version of the Zeitgeist.

JOSÉ MACKENZIE – turntables, vocals, samples
LUIS MACKENZIE – turntables, vocals, samples
(Later BUGS RABBIT – music director, keyboards)

Spion Kop : Formed specifically to cause a rumpus by Dutch DJ Judge Barry Hertzog with cohort Pit-Yacker MC on dual vocals, Spion Kop managed one smash hit in the form of ‘Das Boot’. Taking a clattery drum and stomping sample from Japanese ’60s beat group The Spiders, Messrs Hertzog and Pit-Yacker screeched their declaration of the Anfield Kop’s pre-eminence in unison and without restraint.

HERTZOG – vocals, samples, FX
PIT-YACKER MC – vocals

Vesuvio : Famously reclusive throughout the 1970s, this Naples-based commune band made their name from their titanic metal self-titled debut, whence came their signature tune – the side-long fifteen-minute epic ‘Pompeii’. Generally a quartet, they were often augmented – live and in the studio – by relatives and family members.

Music as described above has been released and made available within a website associated with the novel and/or on bandcamp, although many of them are now hard to track down. It was thanks to a T(n)VV reader who, having picked up from a previous posting that I was taking on this book, got in touch with details of the novel’s bonkers soundtrack. Indeed, I’d go as far as to describe it as a total skullfuck of a soundtrack so don’t say you haven’t been warned.

mp3 : Brits Abroad – Last Tango In Paris
mp3 : Brits Abroad – Boogie Nights/Takin’ The Rap
mp3 : Dayglo Maradona – Rock Section
mp3 : Forest of Dean – Black Forest of Dean
mp3 : Judge Barry Hertzog – The Border Rebel
mp3 : Mick Goodby – Kick
mp3 : Spackhouse Tottu – The Daemon
mp3 : Spion Kop – Das Boot

Big shout out to Keith. Hugely appreciated.

Boy Hairdressers

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 38 of 48)

Today’s lot released just the one 12″ single on the 53rd & 3rd label, founded by none other than Stephen Pastel, back in 1987. It is a much-sought after piece of plastic fetching in the region of £40-£70 depending on the condition of the vinyl after all these years.

The reason for this is all down to the fact that most of the musicians who formed and comprised The Boy Hairdressers would become Teenage Fanclub with all three of the songs on their sole single being composed by Norman Blake.

Here’s the CD86 track:-

mp3 : The Boy Hairdressers – Golden Shower

Tracking down the other two songs on the 12″ has been a huge challenge and actually proved beyond me. But one out of two in’t bad….

mp3 : The Boy Hairdressers – Tidal Wave

It’s all a tad too 60s for my liking but there will be some of you who love it.

Enjoy.

Frightened Rabbit

A LAZY STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE : 45 45s AT 45 (43)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON WEDNESDAY 26 MARCH 2008

By now you’re probably all thinking its going to be really old stuff in this particular long-running bout of nostalgia. But as you can see from today’s posting, that ain’t necessarily so.

This was my favourite single of 2007. And it made such an impact on me, that its right up there as one of my favourite singles of all time.

I never imagined when I started this blogging lark that I would end up rediscovering such enthusiasm for new and fresh music. I always thought that was something best left to the kids. Certainly, when I was twenty years younger, there was a part of me that felt sorry for the old fogeys at the gigs I was at – I couldn’t help but think they looked so out-of-place.

Nowadays, I am that old fogey. And I don’t give a toss what anyone thinks of me. And If I can get down to the front of the gig, then all the better.

This lot are playing a tiny venue in Glasgow this coming Saturday evening**. And I’m going to be there are as they unveil the songs that are going to make up their forthcoming sophomore LP, as well as the older stuff.

Frightened Rabbit are a fantastic and exciting band. They’ve been increasing their fan base thanks to support slots with the likes of Sons & Daughters and Editors. It’s time they stepped out into the limelight.

Why this song? Its hard in some ways to put into words. I first heard it when Comrade Colin posted it over at his blog and just fell head over heels for it. I tracked down the LP the following day and it went immediately onto heavy rotation on the i-pod. Later in the year, a very slightly different mix was put out on 7″ vinyl, and that’s what I’m offering here:-

mp3 : Frightened Rabbit – Be Less Rude
mp3 : Frightened Rabbit – The Greys

I know…..some of you will be asking if this is really better than a single that hasn’t made the Top 45 such as Billy Bragg doing Levi Stubbs’ Tears?? Probably not….but as I said at the outset of all of this, there are some days when a particular song captures my mood and another doesn’t and where they feature in an all-time list will fluctuate.

But however you look at it, and whether you think it’s not worthy of a place in chart rundown of this nature, there’s no denying that both Be Less Rude and The Greys are great bits of modern indie-pop with a Scottish twist.

(** well, they were back in March 2008. I doubt they’ll be doing so tonight!!)

Charlatans

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #42 : CHARLATANS

JC writes…….I’m delighted that The Robster whose wonderful own blog Is This The Life? continues to educate, inform and entertain on a daily basis has come up with today’s posting. It’s a belter…..with a great piece of artwork too.

The Robster writes……….

This whole Imaginary Compilation has really got my tired old brain working again. I’ll often hear a song by a band I love and think: “Hmmm… I wonder what I’d put on an imaginary compilation…” Yeah, that’s the kind of life I lead, folks. I did vow to leave well alone after my last contribution as I didn’t want to hog things. This is JC’s blog, after all, and I’ve got my own (not that many have noticed…). Trouble is, they just keep coming – and JC being the top bloke he is seems happy to accept them.

So I’ve done a few more and it’s up to my Scottish friend to decide which ones, if any, he sees fit to publish. This one is inspired by me just buying tickets to see The Charlatans for the first time in some 25 years! They’re playing at a brand new venue in Cardiff in December so it was a no-brainer for me. They’ve long been a fave band of mine, although their more recent material has been rather patchy. The latest album, Modern Nature, has taken a while to grow on me, but I’ve become rather fond of it. Really looking forward to the show now. In the meantime, I’ve had a lot of fun trying to put together a career-spanning selection of ten choice cuts from the Charlies catalogue. The ones that didn’t make the final list would have made a fine album in their own right, but this is what I finally ended up with.

Let The Good Times Roll
An Imaginary Compilation by The Charlatans

SIDE ONE

1. Weirdo (from ‘Between 10th And 11th’, 1992)

Don’t you just LOOOVE that intro? (JC adds……YEEEESSSSS)

One of the best noises on any record. Weirdo was the lead single from the Charlatans’ second album and was the best thing they’d done up to that point. It slapped me around the face like a wet kipper before cheekily skipping off, enticing me to chase it. I followed it of course and fell for its cheeky charms. It’s still one of my fave tunes by the band.

2. One To Another (from ‘Tellin’ Stories’, 1997)

A remarkable track for numerous reasons. It was the last track to feature keyboard player Rob Collins who was killed in a car crash while the band recorded the Tellin’ Stories album. It really is a career high-point, and one they’ve never really quite topped. It reached number 3 in the UK charts and remains their biggest hit. MrsRobster has just secretly filmed me bopping away to it as I write this. Unforgiveable in my book, but an indication of how One To Another really grabs me. The rare version I’m including here was distributed to US radio stations.

3. Can’t Get Out Of Bed (from ‘Up To Our Hips’, 1994)

The Charlies’ third album marked a shift in styles. The guitars were somewhat louder and there was quite a bit of experimentation involved. Can’t Get Out Of Bed was an obvious single, though typically it really underachieved chart-wise, stalling at #19.

4. Judas (from ‘Wonderland’, 2001)

Now this is just BRILLIANT! ‘Wonderland’ was where the Charlies went funk and Tim Burgess adopted a Curtis Mayfield-type falsetto. The fact Judas was overlooked as a single is a crime, in my opinion, and I’m usually right about these things. It’s one of Tim’s faves too. It has a serious groove, a big phat bassline and some really cool guitar sounds. Wonderland is my favourite Charlatans album, and this is probably the reason why.

5. The Only One I Know [acoustic version] (from ‘Warm Sounds’ EP, 2011)

Probably the band’s most famous song, but done in a completely different way. The Only One I Know was their first hit, hitting the dizzy heights of #9 in 1990. It’s one of those tracks that has become synonymous with the Madchester scene they became part of (though they were at pains to remind us they were actually from Northwich and were formed in the West Midlands!) This acoustic reworking featured on 2011’s Warm Sounds EP and is really rather lovely, throwing a completely new light on the song behind those 90s Madchester vibes.

SIDE TWO

1. Indian Rope (debut single, 1990)

A few months before that first hit, the Charlatans announced their arrival with Indian Rope, an ambitious debut that relied heavily on Rob Collins’ funky organ sound. It hinted at something a little different to the rest of the scene at the time. Sure, the Inspiral Carpets were an obvious comparison, but Indian Rope suggested the Charlies were more about the groove. It still sounds good nearly 26 years later.

2. Let The Good Times Be Never Ending (from ‘Modern Nature’, 2015)

Although the last few albums have not really excited me in the way their previous works had, their latest effort – the first since the death of drummer Jon Brookes – has survived my initial scepticism owing to tunes like this. It’s a warm-sounding record that seems to subtly make the point that the Charlatans are far from finished.

3. As I Watch You In Disbelief (from ‘Up At The Lake’, 2005)

Can’t understand why this was never a single. Up At The Lake had some really good songs on it and this was always one of my faves. I love the bit when Tim shouts. It’s not something he does, so it was something of a surprise to hear him let go on this track.

4. Here Comes A Soul Saver [BBC session] (recorded for Mark Radcliffe, 1995)

There are so many good tracks on the Charlatans’ self-titled fourth album it was difficult to choose one which represents it. It’s regarded as one of their best records and rightly so. Here Comes A Soul Saver is a stormer, and this BBC session version has a bit of extra edge to it that comes with the live setting.

5. Sproston Green (from ‘Some Friendly’, 1990)

It’s not a Charlatans gig if it doesn’t end with Sproston Green. The closing track on the debut album has remained a firm favourite of fans all this time, and live it still thrills. Although it wasn’t put out as a single in the UK, it did get a US release and it’s the 12″ version I’m using to round off my Charlatans comp.

mp3 : The Charlatans – Weirdo
mp3 : The Charlatans – One To Another (swab radio mix)
mp3 : The Charlatans – Can’t Get Out Of Bed
mp3 : The Charlatans – Judas
mp3 : The Charlatans – The Only One I Know (acoustic version)
mp3 : The Charlatans – Indian Rope
mp3 : The Charlatans – Let The Good Times Be Never Ending (radio edit)
mp3 : The Charlatans – As I Watch You In Disbelief
mp3 : The Charlatans – Here Comes A Soul Saver (Mark Radcliffe Session)
mp3 : The Charlatans – Sproston Green (12″ edit)

The Charlatans show in Cardiff looks like being my last gig of the year. It could be a hell of a one to go out on.

The Robster

Green Day

FROM THE SOUTH-WEST CORRESPONDENT..WHAT’S IN YOUR BOX (29)

The Shoebox of Delights – #1 (again) : S-WC
Green Day – Dookie

JC writes……

I can’t abide Green Day. Mrs Villain on the other hand adores them. We really do violently disagree on their merits. I think of them as a second-class pub punk band fronted by someone who eerily reminds me in looks and voice of Billy Joel.

But I do accept that every band, no matter how lousy, will have a decent song in them somewhere. In Green Day’s case that is American Idiot which is deemed acceptable for sentiments in the lyric. But not any of the songs from Dookie, although what follows is a typically wonderfully surreal yet true episode in the life of S-WC.

———————————————————————————————

Hi Jim

Sending this early because I am away from a computer for the next three days. This was the CD at the top of the pile. So I just wrote about that.

Green Day – Dookie

At the start of 1994 I started my first ever stint as a DJ. It was a small affair, on a Thursday in a pub in Maidstone. It was my job to play records and CDs before a live band came on around 10pm and that was that. I got paid £15 for my troubles and I got two free drinks from behind the bar and my own weight in peanuts. It was alright, on the odd occasion I got to hang out with some up and coming indie upstart (Hi Ange from Eat if you are reading….) and I made some decent contacts.

For some reason my street cred went up whilst I was DJing – and I say DJing, I was literally pressing play on the CD Player or sticking a record on, I was hardly Brandon Block. However for about six months I was one of the people to know in Maidstone, well sort of.

One evening I was pressing play on the CD Player when the band for the evening turned up – they were a student band from nearby Canterbury and had that kind of attitude that made you hope that they never ever became famous – as it happens – they didn’t. They were called Black Vinyl Lust. To be honest that’s not a bad name for a band. They thought they sounded like the Jesus and Mary Chain but sounded more like Achtung Baby era U2. Actually they were pretty terrible, their guitarist, wore fish net tights, not a bad look if you are female and carrying a guitar (which he wasn’t), but a terrible look if you are an art student called Craig and hail from Weston Super Mare (which he was).

They bought a crowd with them though so it was pretty packed, people were dancing to my poorly selected tunes and I didn’t care. It was usual for people throughout the night to hand me CDs to play and I would play them, the cuter the girl the more likely I was to play them – I was 18 and single, come on, if you can’t be shallow then when can you?

About twenty minutes after the band arrived I was chatting to the drummer, a curly-haired chap called Brian, who said that his girlfriend had a CD on her and wondered if I could play track seven just before they came on. It was Basket Case by Green Day. A song which had kind of broken in the clubs and was one of the more popular tracks of the evening, I sort of wanted to play it earlier but I agreed.

‘Great’ he said ‘I’ll send her over later, she’s just parking her car’.

mp3 : Green Day – Basket Case

I carried on playing some records, I think I played something by Bjork and definitely something by Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins, I was just queuing up (as we DJs say), Stutter by Elastica when I saw her.

It was Our Price Girl. I’d not seen her for a year – since she’d dumped me in fact. This happened at twenty past eleven on an October evening outside the Kentish Town Tube Station after I dissed Cud. She was carrying a purple balloon at the time, she told me to fuck off and leave her alone as I stood on the down escalator. As I turned to reason with her, a man came bounding down the escalator to try and catch the train coming into the station. He burst her balloon as he barged past. She chased him to the bottom, caught him, and punched him full to the face, drawing blood and gasps from a frankly astonished crowd of Londoners. I walked on to the opposite Platform and jumped on the first train that arrived, I ended up at Waterloo Station, and spent the night at my uncles (I definitely did not sob into a House of Fraser duvet set in their spare room no matter what he tells you) who luckily for me lived near the train station and didn’t mind that much if I turned up reeking of cheap cider at close to midnight on a Saturday night.

‘Oh’ she said, then ‘Oh’ again.

She followed this with an embarrassed sounding ‘Hi’. I managed a Hi back.

I then realised that she was holding something in her hand, it was ‘Dookie’ by Green Day. So she was the drummer’s girlfriend. Brilliant. I hate drummers.

‘Brian said that you’d play Basket Case before they come on’.

Yeah, I did, hang on I said. I turned away and set ‘Stutter’ going.

I realised then I had no idea what to play next I didn’t even have the record ready. I grabbed something, anything, from my box. I span round again. She’d gone. She wandered back over to the band and was being massively affectionate towards the Brian the drummer. The CD was left on the side next to the decks. I threw it in the box containing my CDs and that is where it stayed (I had the single version of ‘Basket Case’ already). I looked in my hand and I swear I didn’t plan this but there in my hand was Purple Love Balloon by Cud. What the hell I thought, and stuck it on.

The band were about three songs in, I sat at the bar chatting (well shouting) to a chap I knew when Our Price Girl came over. She stood next to me and ordered a Bacardi and Coke – we chatted and it was more relaxed. It turns out she met Brian at a gig, they were supporting Senser at some venue somewhere and got chatting to him there (weirdly the next gig they had was supporting Cud in London). She seemed happy and that I suppose was the main thing. Suddenly she said ‘You were supposed to come after me…At the tube station…You vanished…I got arrested’.

I smiled, to be honest I was slightly pleased about that. Kind of. Sorry.

Then she said, ‘That is genuinely the first time I have heard ‘Purple Love Balloon’ since that evening’ and then she laughed and I joined in. I have something for you I said, stay there, I went and got the CD of Green Day and gave it to her. She smiled, grabbed a pen off the bar and wrote her phone number on the sleeve ‘Call me’ she said and with that she was gone.

You’ve probably all heard ‘Dookie’ by now. Love it or hate it – Its one of those landmark albums that forced record companies to start paying attention to punk rock again. It produced five hit singles, won them a Grammy for Best Alternative Album and to date has sold more than 8 million copies in the US alone. So I won’t go on about it. I will say that this is the same CD that Our Price Girl gave me that night and here is a photo of the sleeve complete with her old phone number on it (its not her phone number now – so don’t phone it!).

Did I call her???….that’s another story (sorry Dirk).

Here are the other four singles from it. Each one of them is great in its own merit. I personally think they never topped ‘Basket Case’ but certainly Welcome to Paradise comes close.

mp3 : Green Day – Longview
mp3 : Green Day – Welcome to Paradise
mp3 : Green Day – When I Come Around
mp3 : Green Day – She

S-WC

Editors, Midway Still

FROM THE SOUTH-WEST CORRESPONDENT..WHAT’S IN YOUR BOX (28)

The Shoebox of Delights – #1 – Graham Maguire
Editors – Munich

Graham, for those of you who are regulars to this wonderful blog, once called me an idiot because I dissed Nickelback (who are still shit by the way). We had a bit of set to. He got in touch via my old blog and after a bit of an online discussion we settled our differences via e-mail, with me somewhat mellowing when he revealed that he too is very fond of long forgotten early 90s punk poppers Midway Still. Weirdly, Graham is a barrister, he won’t mind me saying that, and so it is perhaps fitting that he chose this CD and I get to relay this story.

Some years ago I was asked to give evidence in a big trial down in Truro. Four excuses of human beings were in court for deception – they had basically conned some old chap out of his life savings, his house, his pension and his life insurance. I won’t go into why I was asked to give evidence, (largely because its pretty irrelevant). The guys were found guilty – and the ringleader was given 14 years at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. He deserved every single day of that sentence. This CD was bought on the day of trip – and yet up until two days after I pulled it out of the box I had never played it!

Returning however, to the story – I have to drive to the beautiful county town of Cornwall in order to be called to give evidence around 11am (roughly). Its about a two hour drive from my house in Exeter. Halfway down the A30 I get stuck in traffic – those of you who know the A30 will know that some of it in Cornwall is single lane (they are widening it as we speak – some ten years later) and that if you get stuck behind a tractor then you can be delayed for days. This is what had happened to me. The clock was ticking and I was starting to panic. I sent a text message (back in the days before smart phones) to the police officer that I was meeting saying I was delayed and panicked a bit more.

The delay is roughly about an hour and during that time I drive slowly past a field in which two cows (well one bull and one cow) are having energetic and somewhat violent sex. This cheers me up momentarily it cheers me even more when bizarrely it gets mentioned on Radio One about two minutes later by Jo Wiley followed by her playing Jump Around by House of Pain.

Eventually I get to Truro; it’s a beautiful city, full of character and decent shops. It has a hairdressers (or it did) called Jabba the Cutt which almost made me go and get my hair there and then, a greasy spoon called Licenced to Grill and a chippy called Codrophenia – complete with a Mod Fish on a scooter inside the shop. It also has a massive car park right outside the court – which was handy. So I park the car (badly) as I have precisely twenty minutes to get parked, and inside the court. My phone rang about ten minutes ago and the guy said that I would be needed at around 11.30am. It is now 11.10am.

I get to the car park ticket machine and search for the £4 it will cost to park all day. I have – and this sounds like a boast – it isn’t – I got the cash out to pay for a physio session later in the day – £100 in my wallet – all of it in twenties. I have no change, well I have 44p and that is not enough. The machine doesn’t take notes or cards. I swear loudly – and I then realise I have that funny feeling in my groin area. I need a piss. Great.

I look around, I need change, quickly. Then there is a little ‘Halluejah’ noise in my head as I spy a record shop. They will give me change surely.

I run over there and look upon the guy behind the desk and pray that he will be my saviour, that he will be a decent human being and change this bleeding twenty pound note in my hand. Will he? No of course he won’t, he says “you have to buy something first” – what!!– I need change not a bloody CD you feckless jobworth. I didn’t actually say that but I really thought it.

I was already starting to do that little jig that us chaps do when we need the loo badly as well, one foot to the other, like a pissed Michael Flatley. Right I said through gritted teeth, I looked around, there was nothing, I mean nothing remotely of interest in this store in my sight, and now the need of going to the loo was far more important that the change situation, the car park situation or even the evil bastards in cheap suits in the dock. Then I spied a bargain bin, and on top of that was Munich by Editors. So I grabbed it and said I’ll have this. It was 99p. He smiled a cheap smile as I gave him a £20 note.

The rotten bastard then tries to convince me that the CDs in the bin are 3 for 2 if I was interested.

No I said.

He then gives tries to give me a flyer for some rockabilly night in a pub in Truro next week.

A rockabilly night.

In Truro.

In a pub.

No I said. I don’t live in Truro, I’m just visiting and then for some inexplicable reason I said – I mean I don’t mind a bit of rockabilly in the right circumstances, but a pub in Truro on a Wednesday night in April is probably not it.

“Why not?” he says, and it dawns on me – it’s his rockabilly night and I have just insulted it. I jig some more. I have ten minutes I can probably make it if I can get my change and leg it back to the car park machine, then the loos and then the court. Look, mate, (I try the blokey camaradie that we resort to in awkward situations…), I just need some change, I’m due in court in ten minutes.

He looks at me, and says “well that explains the suit. What have you done?” What….! No I’m giving evidence I say. “Yeah, that’s what they all say” and he hands me a bag with the CD and gives me the change. “I’ll leave the flyer he says, you probably won’t make it eh?”. I offer the cheeky fucker my thanks and leg it. I chuck the CD in the boot – buy a ticket and run up to the court and find the loos. Ten minutes later they call my name and in I go. I am out again in seven minutes.

I sigh.

Seven Minutes.

I then mooch around Truro for a couple of hours – I find the pub where the rockabilly night is on and its awful. It has a giant statue of Elvis outside it. It does serve Doom Bar though which is a bonus.

That CD ‘Munich’ by Editors got its first ever play a few weeks ago when I found the box. I’d sort of forgotten I’d ever bought it. I always thought that their singer was trying too hard to sound like Ian Curtis – but it doesn’t matter who you sound like as long you’re good. This was the second brilliant Editors single, it follows on from the success of Bullets. It has a spine chilling guitar riff that introduces it and some pretty foreboding lyrics ‘I’m so glad I found this’ the singer claims – and I for one agree with him. It would have been messy had I not found this.

mp3 : Editors – Munich

What I didn’t realise until I played it is that the B Side to this is a cover version. A punked up balls out rock version of the cutesy Stereolab classic French Disko and it is terrible and doesn’t work. Singing the phrase ‘la resistance’ with a French accent when you are from Birmingham is just pretentious. It ranks up there in the worst covers of all time list, which I’m not compiling.

mp3 : Editors – French Disko

They have history of this as well, here is there version of the Cure classic Lullaby. Also terrible.

mp3 : Editors – Lullaby

It has some distance to go though to top this…..Probably the worst cover version of all time.

mp3 : Moby – New Dawn Fades

So that was number 1 – there are 20 CDs left in the pile. There will be numbered 1 – 20 because I forget which numbers have been and which haven’t. Feel free to pick a number – or I can just start at the top and work my way down.

Oh and just for Graham – Here’s some Midway Still

mp3 : Midway Still – I Won’t Try

See you all later.

S-WC

JC adds…….

I was lucky enough, along with Jacques the Kipper, to catch Editors in the live setting on the tour that was promoting the release of their debut album The Back Room in the summer of 2005. This would have been a few months before S-WC’s escapades in Truro which would have been April 2006. Although they had enjoyed a bit of chart exposure and could have cashed-in with a move to a bigger venue, they decided to play at the legendary but relatively small King Tut’s in Glasgow. The support act was the quite remarkable ¡Forward, Russia! and all-in-all it made for one of the most entertaining gigs I’ve ever been to. S-WC’s piece made me go back and listen again to The Back Room and I was pleased to discover that it has aged well.

So how come I can date S-WC’s adventures so precisely? Well, Munich was originally released in April 2005 when it reached #22 in the charts but the record label, keen to cash in on the on-going success enjoyed at the tail end of that year, decided to re-release the single on 2 January 2006. This time it reached #10 – and it ws the re-release that had the Stereolab cover included. Just call me Sherlock………

S-WC is right about the band not necessarily always getting it right when it comes to covers. Here’s another two for your enjoyment:-

mp3 : Editors – Orange Crush
mp3 : Editors – Bonny

The latter, to be fair, isn’t all that bad a take on the Prefab Sprout number.

Oh and tune in tomorrow for more S-WC stuff……….

Echo & The Bunnymen

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #41 : ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN

This one was composed at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet initially above the Atlantic Ocean and latterly over the north-east corner of Canada as the plane headed ever closer to the city of Toronto. The headphones were plugged into the i-phone and as I went through the songs I typed the words into its ‘Notes’ function from which I later did a cut’n’paste and edit.

Echo and the Bunnymen are still going strong these days, thirty-seven years on from their original formation. Well half of them are at least…..

They’ve made a lot of great music in that time but they’ve also released a fair bit of stuff that hasn’t quite hit the mark which, to be fair, is a sentiment that can be applied to almost any act which has been going for that amount of time. I don’t think it will come as too much of a surprise to find that what I consider to be the perfect compilation focuses entirely on the early 80s when they were at the peak of their powers and could do no wrong.

SIDE A

1. Show of Strength (from the LP Heaven Up Here, 1981)

Dark, brooding, intense yet ridiculously danceable….especially if you’re wearing your raincoat and the main shapes you’re throwing involving the shaking of shoulders. The opening track to what I consider their best album was always going to be the first song on this compilation.

2. Never Stop (Discotheque) (12″ single, 1982)

You’re on the dance floor and you’ve got those shoulders nice ‘n’ loose by now. Well let’s see those hips sway and while you’re at it get the arms swinging above your head. The band put the word Discotheque in brackets after this one. Years later Bono and his boys pinched both the title and the tune in an effort to prove they were a meaningful and relevant musical act.

3. The Killing Moon (single and track on the LP Ocean Rain, 1984)

The sound of three musicians and a vocalist at the very top of their game with a song that in 50 or 100 years time will still have the ability to make those hearing it for the first time stop in their tracks and go ‘wow’.

It’s little wonder that Mac the Mouth came out of the studio on the back of this and declared that Ocean Rain was the greatest album of all time. It isn’t….and indeed as I’ve already indicated it’s not even the greatest Bunnymen album but I think it’s fair to say that this is the greatest Bunnymen song. But how do you follow it????

4. Zimbo (b-side, 1983)

Released originally as All My Colours but re-named with the one-word chorus when this stunning live version was put on the b-side of the 12″ of The Cutter. The recording is taken from was a show at one of the earliest WOMAD Festivals back in 1982 which explains why the Royal Drummers of Burundi happened to be in Bath at the same time. It’s an incredible arrangement for a one-off collaboration and is the perfect demonstration of the fantastic arranging and drumming talents of the late and great Pete de Freitas.

5. A Promise (single and track on the LP Heaven Up Here, 1981)

If Postcard could claim to be the Sound of Young Scotland then those who came to prominence through Zoo Records are entitled to claim the same crown for Young Liverpool. This particular single could easily have been written and recorded by Wylie, Cope or The Wild Swans and it would have been equally majestic. Will Sargeant teased a ridiculous amount of stunning sounds from his guitar over these damn near perfect four minutes.

SIDE B

1. Heads Will Roll (from the LP Porcupine, 1983)

Critics of the band feel they got a long way on the back of one tune and one groove. But the thing is, when the tune and the groove is this divine why quibble? Yes, you might initially think this is ridiculously close to bring just a speeded up version of the track which closed the other side of this imaginary album but wait till you hit the two minute mark and get blown away by the psychedelic instrumental break…it’s still incredible to think that much of this album was written and recorded at a time when the band weren’t really on speaking terms. Much of the sound can of course be attributed to a guest musician mentioned a little later on…

2. Over The Wall (from the LP Heaven Up Here, 1981)

The fade in and slow build-up lulls you into a false sense of security that this is going to be a bit of a non-event. But then comes the catchiness of the simple chorus before Will’s attack on your aural senses and you realise that you’re listening to gothic atmospheric rock at its very finest.

3. All That Jazz (from the LP Crocodiles, 1980)

And now you’re listening to indie guitar pop at its very finest, all the while jumping back on that dance floor for a bop…..or two….

4. The Cutter (single and track on the LP Porcupine, 1983)

……for with this piece of glory blaring out over the speakers nobody will want to vacate their spot under the glitter ball. In 1983 I was convinced the band really were going to conquer the world for the simple fact that they not only made great records but they delivered what were blisteringly hot live shows….literally when the majority of the audience refused to remove their overcoats. The sweat pours out of you when you wear an overcoat to a gig. It’s the contribution of the Indian musician Shankar that really sets this single apart as can be evidenced if you listen to the original version which was rejected by the record label as being too uncommercial.

5. Ocean Rain (LP track, 1984)

When this track first aired as part of a John Peel session in late 1983, it was a medium-paced but hugely enjoyable bit of indie-pop. Somewhere over the ensuing months the band came to the conclusion that it would make for an epic ballad with which they should close their next LP. It was a stroke of genius as it became the perfect ending to an album that had often taken you to very unexpected places with acoustic guitars, lush orchestrations and the frequent use of brushes on the drums, even on the fast and wonderfully explosive Thorn of Crowns, a track which just missed out on being part of today’s feature. And if Ocean Rain was the perfect end to that very album then I’d like to think it is equally the perfect end to the 40th Imaginary Compilation.

mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Show of Strength
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Never Stop (Discotheque)
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – The Killing Moon
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Zimbo
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – A Promise
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Heads Will Roll
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Over The Wall
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – All That Jazz
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – The Cutter
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Ocean Rain

and just because I mentioned them earlier in passing:-

mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – The Original Cutter
mp3 : Echo and The Bunnymen – Ocean Rain (Peel Session)

Enjoy

Jam

THE JAM SINGLES (11)

Five months after getting their first #1 single, The Jam hit the top spot with the follow-up to Going Underground.

Start! was not exactly what folk were expecting and it was an uneasy time for those of us who were fans and who didn’t hide their disdain for The Beatles as it was impossible to deny the tune was a rip-off of Taxman. It didn’t go straight in at #1 but it did climb to the top of the pops some three weeks after its 15 August 1980 release. In 1983, upon its cash-in re-release by Polydor Records it reached #62.

mp3 : The Jam – Start!
mp3 : The Jam – Liza Radley

I don’t think I was alone in initially preferring the ballad that was released as the b-side although over the years I have grown to appreciate the a-side, thanks primarily to enjoying how it was performed in concert with the accompanying horns section that were a feature of the later tours.

The album version, released fully three months later, has an extra ten seconds or so tagged on at the end :-

mp3 : The Jam – Start! (album version)

The fact that many fans were bemused by the song can be evidenced by the lukewarm reception afforded it when it was introduced at a gig at Golders Green Hippodrome in London on 19 December 1981:-

mp3 : The Jam – Start! (live)

And finally for today here’s a demo version of the b-side, recorded in April 1980, in which Paul Weller sounds as if he is battling a bit of a cold judging by the occasional raspiness in his voice:-

mp3 : The Jam – Liza Radley (demo)

Enjoy.