THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

READ IT IN BOOKS : GRACE MAXWELL/EDWYN COLLINS

Dear Readers.

Please indulge me with this one. I’m putting up this re-post from July 2009. I’m doing so because today marks the 10th anniversary of the day that Edwyn Collins collapsed at home after a stroke.

The original posting fills in the details……………..

After reading this compelling 310 pages, I was left with quite a number of impressions, one being that I couldn’t possibly cope with being married to Grace Maxwell. She herself acknowledges that she is a nagging, dominating, sharp-tongued and single-minded individual who has difficulty ever admitting that she ever gets something wrong. But one thing is for sure…..if she wasn’t like that, her partner would most likely be dead, or at best locked away from the world, dependant on specialist round-the-clock treatment. So without any question at all, Edwyn Collins is very blessed to have Grace Maxwell by his side…

Falling and Laughing – The Restoration of Edwyn Collins is a truly astonishing and eye-opening book. It’s also a very very frightening bit of work, and not the sort of thing you really want to be reading if someone close to you is lying ill in hospital with a life-threatening condition.

I’m sure most regular TVV readers are familiar with the basic facts, but here’s a quick resume of what I knew before picking up the hardback.

In February 2005, Edwyn Collins suffered a stroke which left him seriously ill in a London hospital. He was in a coma and required major brain surgery to stop internal bleeding which threatened to kill him. His recovery was hampered by him contracting MRSA, but in the fullness of time, he got back home, and thanks to some fantastic TLC from his partner Grace, their son Will and many other members of his family and his close friends, not to mention many hours of therapeutic treatment, he made a remarkable recovery which allowed him to get back on stage again in late 2007 and to then go on tour in the summer of 2008.

If only it had been that simple……

Opening with a very short prologue that asks the reader to imagine you not having any more thoughts, the book then looks back at the early part of Edwyn’s career with Orange Juice and the circumstances which brought him and Grace together for the first time in 1980, leading to them deciding to live together some five years later. From the outset, Grace was an essential part of Team Edwyn – she was his full-time manager before they got together as a couple, and she shared his woes and worries as he went out of fashion post-Orange Juice but never ever giving up on his immense talent, even when his records were selling to almost no-one.

The world-wide success of the single A Girl Like You in 1994/95 changed everything, setting them, and new son Will, up for life in terms of financial security. It also gave Edwyn the opportunity to make and produce music as and when he liked from the comfort of his own and much-in-demand studio. By early 2005. life seemed quite uncomplicated. Edwyn was 45 years of age, an elder and much respected statesman in music, still recording new songs but under no pressure to come up with the hits. Indeed there was a great deal of satisfaction with the new songs recently recorded and about to go into the post-production for a new LP which would be followed by the inevitable tour and other promotional work.

But then Grace came home on at around 7pm on the night of Sunday 20th February 2005 after picking up her car that had been left a friend’s house after a party she and Edwyn had attended the night before – and discovered him lying semi-conscious and distressed on the living room floor….

Much of the book deals with the next few months as Edwyn tries to battle back from the stroke. Grace writes with a directness and clarity that is utterly refreshing, and she is never over-dramatic about events. She gives a great deal of praise to the medical and nursing staff involved in saving Edwyn’s life, but without ever making them appear as saints. At the same time, she also paints a very distressing picture of a medical system that contributes more to a crisis than it does resolve it.

Grace was fortunate in having some immediate family members who work in medicine, and so she could often talk to someone and try to get an alternative view. Grace was also able to devote 100% of her own energy to be with Edwyn over an extended period of time – a luxury very rarely afforded to most wives/husbands/partners. If she had been in a position where she had taken all the medical opinions totally at face value, and had been unable to spend as much time by Edwyn’s side in the very early days, it is quite likely that everyone would have given up the fight…but they battled through all the obstacles and barriers placed in their way, and slowly his recovery began.

But just as Edwyn was about to be moved out of general care into a specialist unit where his therapy would be intense, there was a setback that made the original stroke seem a bit like a pleasant Sunday stroll in the sunshine round – the contraction of the superbug MRSA. What follows really is the stuff of nightmares……

I’m not spoiling anything by revealing that in the fullness of time, Edwyn faced up to and defeated death for a second time. His rehabilitation is covered in great depth and compassion. Grace doesn’t hide from the fact that this was an immense strain on her and Will and describes some unpleasant family exchanges with an admirable honesty that brought a lump to the throat of this particular reader. I’m sure most of us by now have been in difficult circumstances when someone close is being treated for an illness, and reading many of Grace’s lines brought back a lot of memories of watching loved ones painfully tear themselves up trying to work out what course of action is the best way forward.

As a long-time fan of Edwyn Collins, I would love to have discovered that his recovery turned out to be a smooth and straight-forward process, with him taking his medicine and undergoing his therapy without complaint or giving anyone any cause for concern, and indeed Grace could have easily painted such a rosy picture with very few of us being any the wiser. That she doesn’t is testament to just how good a book this is, and helps the reader gain a much better understanding of just how remarkable it is that Edwyn has the ability nowadays to take to the stage and entertain us.

Having been lucky enough to see him perform three times over the past 12 months I thought that Edwyn – not withstanding the very clear mobility and speech difficulties he still has – was almost completely rehabilitated. Grace’s book reminds everyone that there is still a long way to go. It also reminds us that what Edwyn and so many others close to him have achieved over the past couple of years is quite miraculous – but it has all been through grit, graft and guts, not to mention a lot of Grace.

mp3 : Edwyn Collins – Graciously
mp3 : Edwyn Collins – Let Me Put My Arms Around You

Postscript

The intervening five and half years since the book was first published have again been nothing short of miraculous. Edwyn has continued to defy the odds with more new, critically acclaimed music and live shows that are always joyous celebrations of the fact he is still alive. One of the best was last summer when he played a Spiegeltent in Glasgow Green as part of a cultural event associated with the 2014 Commonwealth Games. The place was jammed packed with fans of all ages and the reception Edwyn received as he took to the stage was heartfelt, vocal and lengthy. The set we were treated to was one of the best I’ve ever been privileged to witness….and all the while I found myself standing right next to Grace Maxwell who was having as great a time as the rest of us.

The story of Edwyn’s efforts to rebuild his life has also now been captured on film and while it is often a very strange and ‘arty’ piece of work, I do recommend if you get the chance to view The Possibilities Are Endless which was released in 2014.

Spear of Destiny, U2

WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAMME…..

…..to send birthday greetings to the above handsome fella.

That’s my young brother – SC – who lives in Florida (where he moved back in the mid 80s…probably to escape my obsession with strange pop music). SC turns 49 today and while he is for the most part, a responsible doting dad and dedicated husband, he still has it in his head when he is out with the boys that he has the stamina, staying power and dance moves of his 19 year old self.

I didn’t get round to popping a card into the post for him last week, so he will have to make do with receiving his birthday wishes via T(n)VV – he is a daily reader and he has been known to leave the occasional comment.

My favourite musical memory with SC is of taking him to the Students’ Union at Strathclyde University to see Spear of Destiny. For the early part of the gig he stood next to me towards the back of the hall and then said he was going to move a little bit closer to the action. The next time I saw him, the band had gone off after their third encore and the lights had come up – there was SC stripped to the waist, sweating like he never had in his life before having just enjoyed a lengthy session in the mosh pit. He was ecstatic and his next pint of lager never touched the sides. Here’s to happy memories young bro’

mp3 : Spear of Destiny – Flying Scotsman
mp3 : Spear of Destiny – Rainmaker

I’ll also throw in a couple of songs from what has long been his favourite band. I know they come in for a fair bit of stick within the blogging community but they have done some decent stuff over the years:-

mp3 : U2 – The Fly
mp3 : U2 – Desire (Hollywood Mix)

Enjoy

Billy Mackenzie/Barry Adamson

BILLY MACKENZIE RARITIES…COURTESY OF SID LAW (4)

Billy was back in London in April of 1995. He and Steve Aungle were down touting their large repertoire of new material around record companies. But Billy was also bumping into folks like Barry Adamson who was completing his “Oedipus Schmoedipus” album at the time. The former bass player from Magazine now Uber-hip groovemeister and general godfather of cool needed a singer to slide a vocal onto an intsrumental track he had written for a ditched drinks commercial. Could Billy drop by and have a listen? Barry could hardly get his samples loaded up and playing before Billy was vocalising over it…
Barry Adamson described how Billy went away and came back three days later with the track’s lyrics finished and the tune ready. Billy went over and over his vocal lines till he was happy with it. I think the results are superb. It is one of my favourite Billy tracks. Billy MacKenzie and Barry Adamson? How good can things get?

The track slipped out on a promo 12″ in August 1996. I picked up my copy in Avalanche in Edinburgh for 50p that month. Great track.

mp3 : Billy Mackenzie/Barry Adamson – Achieved In The Valley Of The Dolls

While he was down in London Billy also appeared in The Cure’s Mint Car video swigging champagne and goofing around. That’s Billy with the wild wig at 1.25-ish (he is wearing a crucifix on a chain and a dark jacket). Back in 1980 The Cure’s Robert Smith had contributed backing vocals to “Paper House” on The Associates debut album – “The Affectionate Punch” – both bands were signed to Fiction at the time.

Sid Law

Lloyd Cole

HE MUST HAVE BEEN HEARTBROKEN……

…..when this was ignored.

Lloyd Cole has been active in the music business for well over 30 years now. His live shows remain a real treat thanks to a deft combination of new material and the songs he’s most famous for from his days when backed by The Commotions.

It is a real shame that his solo career has never taken off in the way that it should have for he’s released a lot of cracking albums, particularly since the turn of the century when he began to increasingly concentrate on just his voice and his guitar rather than worry too much about the production and arrangements which in all truth occasionally marred his initial solo works after he split up the band.

One of his finest compositions dates from the late 90s. It first saw light of a day on a very underrated LP released in 2000:-

mp3 : Lloyd Cole & The Negatives – No More Love Songs

The definitive version however, was released three years later and was the only single taken from the LP Music In A Foreign Language (a record in which Mr Cole did a more than passable cover of a Nick Cave classic).

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – No More Love Songs
mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Claire Fontaine
mp3 : Lloyd Cole – Claire Fontaine (long)

The single is long deleted and hard to get hold of…indeed the b-sides today are actually courtesy of their inclusion on a later box set entitled Cleaning Out The Ashtrays.

Oh and that Nick Cave song I was referring to….

mp3 : Lloyd Cole – People Ain’t No Good

This post is dedicated to Rol Hurst. He’ll know why.

Enjoy

Compilation (NME Tapes)

THIS WAS STUCK TO THE FRONT PAGE OF A MAGAZINE (3 & 4)

It was Niv (not Nev as I so carelessly published earlier!!!) who asked if these could feature.

A 1988 release. More mail-order cassettes from the NME. 40 tracks spread over two tapes with the contents more or less resembling a playlist you’d hear in Student Unions up and down the UK – particularly Tape 2.

Indie City 1

Side 1

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Tupelo
Depeche Mode – People Are People (Different Mix)
Sonic Youth – Death Valley ’69
Cabaret Voltaire – Nag Nag Nag
Josef K – Radio Drill Time
Motorhead – Motorhead
Orange Juice – Blue Boy
The Fire Engines – Candy Skin
The Mekons – Never Been In A Riot
Gang Of Four – Armalite Rifle

Side 2

The Freshies – I’m In Love With The Girl On The Virgin Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk
Aztec Camera – We Could Send Letters
The Damned – Smash It Up
The Three Johns – Death On A European
Newtown Neurotics – Mindless Violence
Redskins -Lean On Me
Colourbox – The Official World Cup Theme
Joy Division – Transmission
Cocteau Twins – The Spangle Maker
The Normal – Warm Leatherette

Indie City 2

Side 1

The House Of Love – Shine On
The Loft – Up The Hill And Down The Slope
The Pogues – Dark Streets Of London
The Triffids – Wide Open Road
The Smiths – Hand In Glove
Robert Wyatt- Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’
…And The Native Hipsters – There Goes Concorde Again
The Cramps – Human Fly
R.E.M. – Radio Free Europe
The Special AKA – Gangsters

Side 2

Dead Kennedys – Holiday In Cambodia
Southern Death Cult – Fat Man
The Cult – Spiritwalker
The Primitives – Really Stupid
Jonathan Richman – Roadrunner
James – Hymn From The Village
The Fall – Rowche Rumble
Pop Will Eat Itself – Black Country Chain Saw Massacree
This Mortal Coil – Song To The Siren
New Order – Murder

Now I know that some of the artists and some of the song titles above are incorrect, but I’ve simply reproduced what was typed in the track listings to the cassettes.

They are a cracking couple of artefacts with a mix of really well-known singles bundled up with some wonderfully cult acts. And Motorhead….who were the heavy metal band of choice for all discerning punk and new wave fans. There’s more than a few songs that have previously featured on T(n)VV and there others such as …And The Native Hipsters that I always intended to but never got round to it until now.

Worth mentioning that NME handed out 500 promotional copies of a 3xLP vinyl version of Indie City 1 & 2. There’s one kicking around on Discogs just now and it would set collectors back £50. It doesn’t come with anything that wasn’t available on or with the cassette and given that just about all 40 of the tracks are still widely available today, digitally or in new/second-hand vinyl and CDs, it seems an awful lot of money to pay. But then again, some folk like to own things that are or were limited to such small numbers.

Oh and I should mention that while a lot of the tracks have been ripped from the cassette, where the songs have been made available before on this blog I’ve simply re-activated old links to the song.

Also, rather surprisingly, some of the tracks on the cassette (Smiths, Fall, R.E.M.) are the album versions of the song rather than the single versions but then again The Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds contribution is the 7″ version of Tupelo rather than the album version.

Enjoy

Pooh Sticks

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 4 of 48)

Have a really good look at the sleeve for today’s featured song from CD86. Have any of you out there actually ever seen it in real life? I only ask as it is incredibly rare….it is also a ridiculously expensive piece of vinyl. The available copies on Discogs retail for £150 or thereabouts.

mp3 : The Pooh Sticks – On Tape

I can’t even offer a b-side as it was a one-sided single, released in 1988 on Fierce Recordings.

As with Jasmine Minks (featured back in Part 2 of the series), here we have a song that is synonymous with the whole C86 scene which in fact is a bit of a cheat. There is no doubt however, that The Pooh Sticks would not have come into being without the aid of C86.

On Tape is a brilliant record on so many different levels. It sounds as shambolic and cheaply recorded as most of the C86 tracks were, it pays homage to the humble cassette which, after all, was the medium under which C86 thrived and above all else the lyrics gently mock the trainspotter obsessiveness of so many music fans (myself included!!) with lyrics such as “I’ve got Falling and Laughing – the original Postcard version” and “I sent for the Soup Dragons single, mail-order only; £1.30 to Martin Whitehead, but it never came!”

Oh and in Trudi Tangerine (tambourine/piano) they surely have the best-named indie pop star of all time.

The next five singles after On Tape were also one-sided 45s and these were then gathered together in a vinyl only box set before being made available on a CD compilation entitled Alan McGhee. A live LP followed (on pink vinyl) before another run of 7″ singles on coloured vinyl or as flexidiscs. This was a band determined to do entirely the unexpected….

1990 saw another compilation album and a slew of one-off singles and then, just as the world embraced the advent of grunge and loud guitars, The Pooh Sticks moved to a new label – Cheree Records – and released an album which to all intent and purposes was a power-pop tribute to 70s style soft-rock and AOR.

Incredibly, despite no great sales, this effort got the band into major territory with RCA Records via the Zoo Entertainment imprint and this led to the 1993 release of the tongue-in-cheek named Million Seller. If you any evidence of the lack of demand for the music from this era, you can pick up second-hand copies of the CD for about £3.

By 1995, after a third studio LP, The Pooh Sticks broke up….

In the absence of a b-side, I will offer up the only other track of theirs I have in the collection – it’s another of the early one-sided 45s courtesy of its inclusion on a Rough Trade compilation from back in 2004. All 95 seconds of it:-

mp3 : Pooh Sticks – I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well

Enjoy

James

THE JAMES SINGLES (23) : A RE-POST AND APOLOGY

An observant reader spotted that I had messed up some of the links to the b-sides in the original posting. The easiest thing to do was delete the old posting and do it all gain using cut’n’paste. Sorry I made such a basic fuck-up…..

Here we go with V2.

Yet another James single which came as a 3xCd release, with each going for £1.99 or all three for £5 if you wished.

Truth be told, I didn’t wish. Runaground is a decent enough single but was already available on the Best of James compilation as one of the two new tracks which I had already purchased out of laziness just so that I could put one album with all the ‘hits’ into the CD player.

Not buying Runaground was a major error in my part for it denied me the opportunity to enjoy some tremendous live versions of old favourites as well as a couple of otherwise unavailable b-sides.

The single was released in May 1998 when the band were receiving all sorts of acclaim for the quality of Best Of which had topped the album charts in the UK. I think everyone concerned was bitterly disappointed when it crawled into the singles charts at #29 and then disappeared from trace almost immediately. Maybe if a little bit more had been made of the b-sides or maybe if the record label hadn’t blundered by labelling Disc 1 as having exclusive rare tracks when fans of old already had them then we night have given it a bit more attention. Who knows.

The three b-sides on CD 1 consisted of two tracks that had originally featured on the initial release of the 1990 LP Goldmother only to be removed and replaced by the singles Sit Down and Lose Control less than a year later when the LP was re-released as the band’s popularity exploded; the other track on CD1 was a song previously available as a b-side to the hit single Born of Frustration.

So far so humdrum

The three songs on CD2 consisted of songs taken from a BBC Greater London Radio session that had been transmitted on 6 March 1998. Here was a stripped back and wonderful sounding James with acoustic takes on three previous hit singles that bore little resemblance to the original versions.

Now you’re talking.

The three songs on CD3 featured an interesting and extended 8-minute remix of Runaground which is very reminiscent to the remix of the song Goldmother as featured earlier in this series when it was a b-side to hit release of Come Home; a largely instrumental track with a spoken/choral vocal that sounds as if it would fit on a film soundtrack; and a cracking and funky remix of an otherwise dullish track from the 1997 studio LP Whiplash.

Put On Your Dancing Shoes.

mp3 : James – Runaground
mp3 : James – Hang On
mp3 : James – Crescendo
mp3 : James – Be My Prayer
mp3 : James – Say Something (live at GLR)
mp3 : James – Laid (live at GLR)
mp3 : James – Lose Control (live at GLR)
mp3 : James – Runaground (The James Remix)
mp3 : James – Egoiste
mp3 : James – Lost A Friend (Aloof remix)

At long last, an entire singles package that wasn’t a rip-off.

Enjoy

1990s

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 130)

Of all the bands to feature in this series 1990s are by far and away the most local to Villain Towers. Their debut LP featured a song about the area they are from and where I live:-

mp3 : 1990s – Pollockshields

While the sophomore album paid tribute to our local bus service:-

mp3 : 1990s – 59

1990s emerged at a time when Rough Trade Records were enjoying something of a renaissance with indie-guitar bands being briefly back in fashion and acts such as The Strokes and The Libertines generating good sales and enabling punts to be taken on up and coming acts.

Two of the band – lead singer Jackie (aka John) McKeown and bassist, Jamie McMorrow, had a bit of a pedigree as founding members of the cult act The Yummy Fur a band which was also responsible for the early careers of Alex Kapranos and Paul Thomson from Franz Ferdinand who really were the media darlings of the day.

The band worked tirelessly to make it big in the industry. If they weren’t gigging as headliners in in small venues across the country then you’d find then as opening acts for all sorts of similar acts such as Babyshambles and the afore-mentioned Franz Ferdinand.

Despite being a cut above most bands of their ilk, 1990s never quite made it. Their legacy is just four singles and two LPs under their own moniker although they were also one side of a very rare and hard to find 45 in which they and The Royal We recorded cover versions of Postcard singles.

I last saw them just over three years ago opening for Cornershop in Glasgow and given that there were a few unreleased songs aired that night I had hoped there might be further releases in the offing but sadly, no. I can only assume the band are no more.

This was their second single for Rough Trade back in October 2006. It reached #86 in the singles charts which was about as close as they ever got to mainstream success:-

mp3 : 1990s – You’re Supposed To Be My Friend
mp3 : 1990s – Jingle Bells

Don’t worry…..the b-side is an original composition and not a take on the traditional Christmas number.

Enjoy

Joy Division, New Order, Sneaker Pimps, Tony Wilson

READ IT IN BOOKS : TONY WILSON

(A RE-POST FROM OCTOBER 2009)

For more years than I care to remember, I always said that my ideal night out would be to sit down in a pub alongside Bill Drummond and Tony Wilson and just enjoy the conversation that would inevitably flow. Yes, it was all a pipe dream, and indeed it was something that, if it had been allowed to happen, would in all likelihood have been a bit of a disaster given the psychological make-up of my two heroes. I’m not sure if they would in fact have got on or whether the first barbed comment from one of them would have had the other storm off in a huff (possibly after a punch or two had been thrown).

But I just have a feeling that these two geniuses, who I think were among the most urbane, witty, talented, opinionated and intelligent people on the planet, would have just kept up a non-stop discussion in an entertaining and enlightening way on just about any subject under the sun or moon. And to have been in their collective company would have been a privilege as well as enormous fun.

But of course the premature death of Tony Wilson back in 2007 put paid to that ever happening, but even now, two years on from that very sad day, I’m still fascinated by the life and times of both men. And while Bill can continue to amuse and delight me with books like 17, it’s now down to others to keep Tony’s flame burning brightly.

The latest bit of work to do just that is You’re Entitled To An Opinion, which has been penned by David Nolan, a music journalist whose past works include Confused, a terrifically enlightening and enjoyable bio of Bernard Sumner which revealed in a far from sordid way, lots of things about the singer that helped fans get a better insight on what it was that drove him on. That particular book was an excellent example of a rock biography, clearly written by someone who was an admirer but who wasn’t afraid of offering a critical comment when the music or other aspects of the subject’s life deserved it.

I’m delighted to say that David Nolan has done an equally superb job with his look at Tony Wilson, and You’re Entitled To An Opinion is a tremendous read with all sorts of facts and information that were new to me, particularly the early chapters on his upbringing, and the later chapters that deal with the last few months of Tony’s life as he battled a particularly violent form of cancer.

What we get isn’t just a re-hash of Tony Wilson, the music mogul who arguably did as much as anyone else to raise the profile of Manchester over the last quarter of the 20th Century and help with its regeneration as a modern, vibrant city far removed from the greyness and grime that was the legacy of its industrial past. There’s loads in this book about Anthony Wilson (or sometimes Anthony H Wilson) the journalist/reporter who many of his contemporaries reckon could have been a giant in that field if he hadn’t been so distracted by his love of music and the lifestyle of musicians. There’s also substantial details about his family/private life which prove to essential in helping readers understand some of Tony’s behaviour over the years, and in particular his ‘devil may care’ approach to business.

But of course the centrepiece of the book is The Factory Years, from the founding of a club, to the forming of a label, to the forming of THE club, to it all crashing down around their ears and the subsequent small re-launches in the 21st century.

The author has spoken to dozens of people who knew or worked with Tony Wilson, and not all them are always complimentary. But this doesn’t mean David Nolan has given us a book with all sorts of spite directed at the man who himself accepted most seemed to know him as ‘Wanker Wilson’. I lost count of the times where a narrative would end with something along the lines of ‘But that was just typical of Tony’ which should give you all an idea that this was a man it was near impossible to hate. But there are one or two life-long enemies out there who do get their say….as with all good bios, the reader is then free to make up their own mind.

Some of the anecdotes are less than serious – such as the time Tony was dispatched to Liverpool to cover a story and how his worst fears of his car getting stolen were eventually realised in a way that was both funny and imaginative on the part of the thieves. Others are moving, including Tony’s battle for the right sort of medical treatment for his illness. Others debunk some of the myths and/or legends that have grown up around Tony Wilson, without belittling his many achievements for instance – the facts surrounding the Sir Keith Joseph/Mad Monk interview are laid out and while not as outrageous as the scenario painted in the film/book 24 Hour Party People, it still shows Tony at his mischievous but self-destructing best.

You’re Entitled To An Opinion is a book that will be appreciated and enjoyed by anyone who has ever had any interest in any facet of Factory Records, Granada TV or indeed the city of Manchester itself.

And here’s the last song ever played at the Hacienda (not that anyone knew it at the time):-

mp3 : Sneaker Pimps – Post Modern Sleaze

And this post wouldn’t be complete without these bands….

mp3 : Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart (Pennine Version)
mp3 : New Order – Confusion (Rough Mix)

Both taken from 12″ singles that have followed me wherever I’ve lived over the past near 30 years…..

Associates, Billy MacKenzie, Paul Haig

BILLY MACKENZIE RARITIES…COURTESY OF SID LAW (3)

Okay it is 1988. It has been nearly three years since The Associates last LP “Perhaps”. The slightly techno friendly cover of Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass” has not set the charts alight despite a slew of formats (three 12″ versions, CD single, 7″ single, a 3D printed sleeve with some special glasses inside the sleeve etc). Billy has an album sitting in the can, Shirley Bassey has just covered one of his songs with Yello. In a quick series of moves Warners dropped Billy from their label and stopped the release of the already completed album “The Glamour Chase” dead in its tracks.

Three years of work on “The Glamour Chase” album and a decade of writing, recording and gigging. Now labell-less, deal-less and all his material in the can in a Warners basement and staying there. It is hard to comprehend that kind of blow. But a mighty blow it certainly was. After being dropped from the label over lunch in a Mayfair restaurant, Billy asked the record company executive given the task of dining and dropping him for a cab home on the record company account. The exec readily agreed and in a legendary move Billy took a cab home – all the way from London to Dundee.

“The Glamour Chase” did not surface in a proper release until 2002 when it was thrown in as a non-ironic freebie with the first CD release of 1985’s “Perhaps”. Some of it is fairly pedestrian lightweight, late 80’s funky standard pop stuff but there are some tremendous songs on it (particularly the Boris Blank produced Because You Love, Snowball, The Rhythm Divine and In Windows All) but perhaps the real standout track was a song Billy had been playing live for a few years called “Empires Of Your Heart” and everyone should hear it. Listen to this… can you believe a record company dropped this guy and left this kind of material in the can?

mp3 : Associates – Empires Of Your Heart

I also attach a track from a bootleg called “The Audience That Fell To Earth”. Billy MacKenzie with Paul Haig and some others performing “Empires Of Your Heart” at Wilkie House on 14 September 1986.

mp3 : Billy Mackenzie/Paul Haig – Empires Of Your Heart (live)

Cheers

Sid Law

Wedding Present

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM #7 – THE WEDDING PRESENT

The discography of The Wedding Present consists of 34 singles, 2 extended plays, 8 studio albums, 5 live albums and 13 compilation albums many of which have songs otherwise unavailable or have different arrangements or alternative versions from the original recording. Trying to narrow all that down to an imaginary 33 and 1/3 LP, five tracks on either side, with the perfect running order, was a total nightmare. But here’s my stab:-

Side A

1. Dalliance (1991 single and track from the LP Seamonsters)

This song featured on the blog just over six weeks ago. A stunning and unexpected wall of sound that took the band to a whole new level in terms of fanbase and out of the realms of mere indie-pop. David Gedge doesn’t write 3 minute pop or rock songs; instead we often get mini soap-operas set to magical tunes. This is a real tear-jerker. Listen to it drunk and think about someone who once broke your heart. I dare you not to think of them and then say you weren’t fighting back the tears, whether of anger or sadness.

2. Brassneck (single version, 1990)

The production of Steve Albini on Seamonsters really helped the band break out of the indie-shell and a hint of what he would do can be found on the remix of the opening track from the Bizarro LP. Thirty seconds are trimmed from the original while the arrangement is tightened and beefed up. I love how the electric guitar gives way to the acoustic strumming about two-thirds of the way through before the ‘beached whale wailing’ beckons David back to microphone.

3. My Favourite Dress (live) (recorded at Sound City Leeds in 1996)

First recorded back in 1987, this evergreen single is probably the band’s most played live song. It never fails to get a huge roar when the opening notes are struck and it takes all the males in the audience back to a time when they were slimmer, fitter, healthier and had much more hair on the top of their heads and none up their noses or in their ears. At which point we all kid on we are 30 years younger than we really are and four minutes later collapse in a heap wondering why we can’t dance as energetically as we once did.

“A stranger’s hand on my favorite dress” – one of thousands of killer lines he’s written over the decades.

4. Always The Quiet One (from the 2005 LP Take Fountain)

Between 1998 and 2004, all of the material written and recorded by David Gedge came out under the moniker of Cinerama – and extremely high quality songs they were too. The first time anyone ever heard this track was as part of the last ever Cinerama Peel Session. Within a year, the Weddoes were back with their first LP in nine years with this being one of many highlights. A lighter, poppier side to the band with a tale that is Morrissey/Smiths-esque in genre and quality.

5. Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm (1988 single)

There’s some wording on the back of the sleeve of this single.

‘Additional vocals by Amelia’

This little touch gave the band a different dynamic as they brought in the indie goddess who was Amelia Fletcher from Tallulah Gosh to add backing vocals to some new songs after the release of the debut LP. It was a short-lived partnership of no more than a few months and it didn’t make it beyond minor contributions to the sophomore classic that was Bizarro. But it planted a seed for male/female vocals that came to the fore in the Cinerama era and thereafter in the 21st Century Weddoes. This is a cracking 45 which took the band into the Top 50 of the singles chart for the first time

Side B

1. Kennedy (1989 single and track on the LP Bizzaro)

This is an immense piece of music that still sounds incredibly fresh more than a quarter of a century on. There is nothing more that needs to be said.

2. Perfect Blue (from the 2005 LP Take Fountain)

Ever since the band reformed, just about every time they perform Kennedy in a live setting it is followed up with one of the slower songs from the repertoire to enable the audience to recapture its collective breath after the bouncing around. And so with this imaginary LP.

A song of two halfs. The first two and three-quarter minutes is a straight-forward but beautiful love song with a dreamy backing vocal from Terry de Castro that is a throwback to the Amelia Fletcher material. The final two and a bit minutes is pure Cinerama…..strings, horns and guitars collide magnificently in a coda that Tindersticks would have been proud of. A hidden gem of a track.

3. Lovenest (1991 single)

A shortened version of another of the outstanding songs on Seamonsters. This aural assault on the ears ends in a blast of controlled feedback for about 40 seconds…..live it always sounds magnificent.

4. Flying Saucer (Peel Session)

An often overlooked classic from the singles period. Cracking tune and for once it’s not a mini soap opera – instead it celebrates the joy of falling head over heels. The tune, with its extended guitar riff to the end of the song, in many ways is reminiscent of Kennedy which is no bad thing in my book.

Some thought it a folly for the band to put out a limited edition vinyl 45 once a month throughout 1992 with the single being officially deleted the day after its release. The plan however, worked a treat with every one of them going into the charts for one week only with the highest placed being #10 and the lowest #26 – the singles actually sold in the exact same quantities, the placing they got depended on how the sales of other singles that particular week had gone.

The singles and the cover versions that made up the b-sides were later compiled onto two separate CD albums entitled Hit Parade 1 and Hit Parade 2. The initial copies of the second of these came with a bonus disc containing exclusive BBC Radio versions of the twelve singles – some had gone out on BBC Radio Leeds, some on the Mark Goodier Show on Radio 1, some on the World Service (I’m not kidding!!!) and some made up one of the many sessions the band recorded for the John Peel show.

5. It’s What You Want That Matters (from the 1987 LP George Best)

A song that had first been aired two years previously on the Peel show when it was known as What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted?

I’ve admitted before that I was late to The Wedding Present. I hadn’t given them much attention in the early days simply as the music papers were saying this was the band to fill the Smith-sized void in your life and I just didn’t think at the time that anyone could do such a thing. George Best had been out for the best part of three years when I first got a hold of a copy. This was the initial stand out track for me. And I still love it all this time later.

So there you have my take on ten tracks for a compilation LP. It’s taken me nearly four weeks to deliberate over and determine. I’m sure some of you will take me to task…..and quite rightly!!!!

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Dalliance
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Brassneck (single version)
mp3 : The Wedding Present – My Favourite Dress (live)
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Always The Quiet One
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Kennedy
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Perfect Blue
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Lovenest (edit)
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Flying Saucer (Peel Session)
mp3 : The Wedding Present – It’s What You Want That Matters

BONUS DISC!!!!!!

The Wedding Present are famous for putting out cover versions as b-sides or for recording them during radio sessions. Here’s a bonus disc to go with the imaginary album

Side A

1. The Wedding Present – Happy Birthday
2. The Wedding Present – Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)
3. The Wedding Present – Back For Good
4. The Wedding Present – Let’s Make Some Plans
5. The Wedding Present – Pleasant Valley Sunday

Side B

1. The Wedding Present – Theme from Shaft
2. The Wedding Present – Our Lips Are Sealed
3. The Wedding Present – Cattle and Cane
4. The Wedding Present – Felicity
5. The Wedding Present – Box Elder

The originals came from Altered Images, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, Take That, The Close Lobsters, The Monkees, Isaac Hayes, The Go-Gos, The Go-Betweens, Orange Juice and Pavement.

Oh and the comment about Felicity being a William Shatner number is not a reference to a track on George Best……it’s a play on words as the song, despite originally being an Edwyn Collins vocal, was in fact composed by James Kirk……….

Click on the song title above for the mp3s

ENJOY!!!!!!

Camper Van Beethoven

QUID PRO QUO

I mentioned last Saturday how the b-side of the single by Zones reminded me so much of the late 70s era three-bar blues style of Status Quo who remained one of the most popular and biggest selling bands in the UK even as punk, new wave and electronica gained footings in the music world. I was of an age that only knew that particular version of the Quo and wasn’t aware till many years later, when I saw footage from a 1968 Top of the Pops show that was part of a music series the BBC were broadcasting that I learned the band had started out making what is has been described as psychedelic pop.

Pictures of Matchstick Men was their first Top 10 hit single and was a song heavily influenced by the popular sounds of its time such as later-era Beatles and Beach Boys and contemporary bands such as Pink Floyd. I’m not a huge lover of the psychedelic pop genre – this might come down to a lack of exposure to it from my mum and dad (see last Monday’s posting!!) although there one or two songs I can listen to now and again such as Itchykoo Park by Small Faces and Happy Together by The Turtles.

The Quo 45 was the subject of a cover version in 1989 by Camper Van Beethoven who, just four years earlier, had been responsible for one of the finest, most enduring and most fun singles of the mid 80s:-

mp3 : Camper Van Beethoven – Take The Skinheads Bowling

I’d never heard the cover version before I picked up a second-hand copy the other week and I was hoping for a quirky take on it given that this was the period when the band had a violinist in their line-up.

mp3 : Camper Van Beethoven – Pictures of Matchstick Men

I think it’s fair to say it was a major disappointment. This bore no resemblance to the sorts of music the band had been making just four years previously. It is depressingly bland and lacking any sort of rhythm or soul but when I looked up details on wiki I learned that it was their biggest selling single which I found rather depressing reading.

The b-side isn’t any better as they put to music the tale of the man who shot the man who assassinated the President:-

mp3 : Camper Van Beethoven – Jack Ruby

It’s always disappointing when a band, in an effort to record and release music with a broader appeal than their earlier material, lose the very bit of magic that made them stand out in the first place.

File under…played once and put away in the back of the cupboard.

Primitives

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 3 of 48)

The Primitives formed in the mid 80s, and while the music was pretty decent, it was the presence of an attractive singer called Tracy Tracy that gained them loads of column inches and photographs in the male-dominated world of the UK weekly music papers. Morrissey was a fan…..

They started out on their own label which was called Lazy Records on which they released five singles between May 86 and August 87 before signing to RCA Records with who they enjoyed almost instant success with a Top 10 single in Crash and a Top 10 LP in Lovely in February 1988.

They had broken up by 1992 mostly as a result of musical differences which had seen band members come and go. The fact that Tracy had got rid of distinctive blonde hair probably didn’t help too much either in terms of the press.

The Primitives reformed in 2009 and undertook a UK tour in 2010 as well as a relatively high-profile gif as support to a London gig by The Wedding Present as part of the Bizarro album 21st anniversary tour. Tracy was blonde again……

Unlike many others who do some nostalgia shows and that’s all folks, the band have re-activated themselves in the studio with new albums released in 2012 and 2014, the first of which was totally of covers versions (all of which were relatively obscure and had been songs with a female lead vocal) but the latter was all new band-written material.

The song on CD86 was from the indie-era. It was their second single on Lazy Records. And it’s great fun made all the better by a fabulous and dreamy b-side:-

mp3 : The Primitives – Really Stupid
mp3 : The Primitives – We Found A Way To The Sun

Enjoy

Zones

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 129)

From wiki:-

Zones were a British punk and power pop band founded in 1977, following the demise of PVC2 (formerly the bubbleglam and soft rock band Slik).

PVC2 comprised Midge Ure (future Ultravox frontman) on guitar, Russell Webb on bass, Billy McIsaac on keyboards and Kenny Hyslop on drums. In late 1977, Ure left PVC2 to join Rich Kids with Glen Matlock. Webb, Hyslop and McIsaac then called in Alex Harvey’s cousin Willie Gardner to replace Ure on guitar and vocals, and Zones were formed.

In February 1978, Zones released a single “Stuck with You”, which attracted the attention of BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, leading to the band recording a session for his show, and Arista Records, who signed them and released the rest of their discography. Their next single was “Sign of the Times” released in 1978. Zones also toured with Magazine and recorded a further session for John Peel.

In 1979, Zones released Under Influence, an album of post punk power pop. However, shortly afterwards, the band split up – Gardner joined Endgames, with Simple Minds’ original drummer Brian McGee, McIsaac moved to a piano college in Glasgow, and Webb and Hyslop joined Skids. Webb collaborated with Skids’ singer Richard Jobson (Skids singer) until 1988 and Hyslop, after collaborating with Skids album, Joy, moved to Simple Minds (1981–1982) and Set the Tone (1982–1983).

The bio hints at the diversity of talents involved in the band, but the sum never quite matched the parts as demonstrated by the lack of commercial success. This 45 is an example of what I mean…the tune is derivative of its time but there’s nothing about it which make it stand out while the b-side is more Status Quo than post-punk:-

mp3 : Zones – Stuck With You
mp3 : Zones – No Angels

Only the bands with numbers at the beginning of the title and this epic series will draw to an end…

Scritti Politti

RT 111T

(My posts tend to be written in batches as and when I have time to sit down and work on the blog. Brian was first to comment on yesterday’s posting and displayed incredible psychic powers……)

Ok…the title of the posting looks like some kind of binary code gone wrong. But it is in fact the catalogue number given to the 12″ release of this single on Rough Trade Records back in September 1982:-

mp3 : Scritti Politti – Asylums In Jerusalem
mp3 : Scritti Politti – Jacques Derrida
mp3 : Scritti Politti – A Slow Soul

The single was released a month after the LP Songs To Remember – which I will argue long into the night is one of THE greatest albums of all time – and it reached #43 in the UK singles charts which was a fair achievement for any band on Rough Trade far less one who got no daytime radio exposure whatsoever.

I should have given this a mention yesterday when I did the St Etienne A-AA sided single as being another great example of the genre. The 12″ release offers up a couple of different things in that Jacques Derrida is a fair bit longer than the album version while A Slow Soul is a completely different mix from that which was on Songs To Remember.

Little known fact. Until The Smiths came along, Songs To Remember was the biggest selling record that Rough Trade had ever released, reaching #12 in the album charts here in the UK.

Green Gartside was soon wooed by many a record label and he signed for Virgin Records. The band’s next album (featuring a completely different line-up from that when he was ‘indie’) went Top 5 while the singles got him his lifetime’s ambition of appearing on Top of The Pops.

Enjoy

Saint Etienne

THE LOST ART OF THE A & AA SIDED-SINGLE

From wiki:-

A “double A-side” is a single where both sides are designated the A-side; there is no B-side on such a single.

The double A-sided single was invented in December 1965 by the Beatles for their single of “Day Tripper” and “We Can Work It Out”, where both were designated A-sides. Other groups followed suit thereafter, notably the Rolling Stones in early 1967 with “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and “Ruby Tuesday” as a double-A single.

In the UK, before the advent of digital downloads, both A-sides were accredited with the same chart position, as the singles chart was compiled entirely from physical sales. In the UK, the biggest-selling non-charity single of all time was a double A-side, Wings’ 1977 release “Mull of Kintyre”/”Girls’ School”, which sold over two million copies.

Occasionally double-A-sided singles were released with each side targeting a different market. During the late 1970s, for example, Dolly Parton released a number of double-A-sided singles, in which one side was released to pop radio, and the other side to country, including “Two Doors Down”/”It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right” and “Baby I’m Burning”/”I Really Got the Feeling”. In 1978, the Bee Gees also used this method when they released “Too Much Heaven” for the pop market and the flip side, “Rest Your Love on Me”, which was aimed toward country stations.

Many artists continue to release double A-side singles outside of the US where it is seen as more popular. Examples of this include Oasis’s “Little by Little”/”She Is Love” (2002), Bloc Party’s “So Here We Are”/”Positive Tension” (2005) and Gorillaz’s “El Mañana”/”Kids with Guns” (2006).

Probably the best example of a double-A-side single that I can think of is Going Underground/Dreams of Children by The Jam back in 1980, although I can’t ever recall hearing any DJ playing the lesser known of the songs.

And here’s another very example of the genre I have in my collection from 1992:-

mp3 : St Etienne – Join Our Club
mp3 : St Etienne – People Get Real

The story goes that St Etienne wrote Join Our Club after Heavenly Records refused to release People Get Real as a single and so this was the compromise. The band seemingly went down the road of making as poppy and commercial a song as they thought they could get away with, without alienating their hip and trendy dance music fans. The unexpected and welcome outcome however, was that the song brought them a whole new audience in love with disposable pop that merged seamlessly with a catchy dance beat and rhythm. This was a bigger audience than hardcore dance fans and St Etienne now had a fantastic new template which would dominate future releases and in doing so they would become a very welcome mainstay of the singles charts in the early-mid 90s.

Enjoy

Billy MacKenzie, Loom Feat. Billy Mackenzie

BILLY MACKENZIE RARITIES…COURTESY OF SID LAW (2)

In 1992 Billy’s “Outernational” solo outing hit the shelves. marred by delays and record company troubles it slid out almost un-noticed, received little attention and neither of its singles troubled the charts. Circa Records folded shortly after its release and Billy’s career seemed stalled again.

So it was that in late 1992, ten years after they had last worked together, Billy’s old Associate Alan Rankine phoned Billy up and the pair began recording again in Auchterhouse. Half a dozen songs from those reunion demos eventually surfaced on the “Double Hipness” CD in 2000. One of those songs was called “Edge Of The World” (it is well worth buying the CD for that and the other 29 tracks!). However in 1992/93 Billy wasn’t keen to tour or perform live – so that Billy/ Alan reunion simply never got off the ground. Those recordings were shelved until after Billy’s death..

However, Billy knew a good song when he wrote one. In 1996 the song was still unreleased in any official form. That summer Billy was back down living in London and heard an instrumental track by Loom. Loom’s members Bent Recknagel and Ralph P. Ruppert (AKA Headman) were London-based and ran the Millenium label. Billy, having heard their instrumental track on a cassette, had sang “Edge Of The World” over it, his melody and lyrics locked in perfectly. MacKenzie contacted them, visited their studio on the Portobello Road in London and the track was finished in half an hour. The result was quickly released as “Anacostia Bay (At The Edge Of The World)”.

It is a blistering raw vocal performance, emotive and right up there with any of Billy’s best vocals, with burbling synths, sequencers and percussion propelling it along. In its original form it is a 12 minute 42 second version and was released on 12″ and CDEP back in August 1996.

This was the last record with Billy’s name on it which was actually released in his lifetime (as far as I am aware).

Over the years between 1992 and 1996 Billy had also worked on the song with Steve Aungle which later led to some confusion over authorship. The title of the song for the Loom release had become Anacostia Bay “At The Edge Of The World” or “Anacostia Bay” (At The Edge Of The World) probably to differentiate authorship from the different versions of the song for publishing reasons.

To add to the confusion a mis-spelled “Steve Neugal” is credited with Additional Keyboards and Programming on the Berlioz Mix of the Loom track!

An edited version of this Loom version of the song was later released on the posthumous “Auchtermatic” CD. But this is the entire, full-length, spectacular original – unavailable for nearly 19 years….

mp3 : Loom feat. Billy Mackenzie – Anacostia Bay

Compilation (NME Tapes)

THIS WAS STUCK TO THE FRONT PAGE OF A MAGAZINE (2)

When folk got the chance to enjoy the first entry in this new series, Echorich left behind this supportive comment:-

“My favorite freebies will hopefully find their way to this series – NME’s Rough Trade C81, Dancin’ Master and Jive Wire cassettes. These three set the standard for me.”

I kind of feel like the Fat Genie in the fairy tale who has the power to grant three wishes….

Dancin’ Master was a mail-order cassette made available from 18 October 1981 via the NME. It contained 24 songs from a singers and bands across a number of genres including funk, soul, disco, new wave, jazz, pop, reggae, dub, rap and rockabilly, all of which had an uncanny ability to get your feet tapping while most would have you thinking about getting off your seat and throwing your shapes under the glitter ball at you local discotheque.

Full track listing, with descriptions lifted from the cassette insert:-

1. Tom Browne – Funkin For Jamaica

Tom Browne blows his horn on this unreleased version of one of last year’s funkiest floor-fillers

2. Linx – I Wanna Be With You

Go ahead with ‘Go Ahead’s’ I Wanna Be With You

3. Grace Jones – Feel Up

Hear it and you will feel up. A special US club mix of the ‘Nightclubbing’ track

4. Talking Heads – Cities

Talking Heads in concert in Berkeley, California (August 24 1979) and their first-ever appearance on a compilation

5. Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Big Sister

Taped at the ‘Trust’ sessions, the lyrics to ‘Big Sister’s Clothes’ set to the beat of a different drum

6. Beggar & Co – Laughing On

Short-listed as Beggar & Co’s last single but lost out at the last moment to Spandau Ballet collaboration ‘Mule (Chant No.2)’

7. The Funky 4 + 1 – That’s The Joint

The sound of Sugarhill at its most savage – rip, rap and party funk-punk

8. Ian Dury & The Blockheads – Inbetweenies

Lord Upminster Y Los Blockheads on stage at the Hammersmith Odeon 11.8.79

9. Kid Creole & The Coconuts – There But For The Grace Of God Go I.

The Kid vigorously shakes his Coconuts in public! Originally recorded by Machine, this ‘live’ track was only ever available as a ludicrously limited bonus single with the initial copies of the Kid’s ‘Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places’ LP

10. The Lounge Lizards – Stomping At The Corona

These five New Yorkers who put the zoot into their suits offer a hitherto unrecorded original from a 1981 club date in Paris. The Lounge Lizards are John Lurie (alto sax), Evan Lurie (keyboards), Dane Vicek (guitar), Steve Piccolo (bass) and Anton Fier (drums)

11. The Polecats – Rockabilly Guy (Dub Mix)

The Polecats played it. Dave Edmunds produced it. Dennis Bovell dubbed it-it-it-it-it

12. Lloyd Coxone – Zion Bound

Legendary dub master’s exclusive contribution. Definetly hotter, heavier and harder than the rest as Coxone’s soon-come album of radical rhythms will testify

13. Madness – Shadow On The House

The ‘Carry On….’ team go country

14. The Beat – Hit It!

The electric toaster Rankin’ Roger serves it up exclusively for dancin’ masters everywhere

15. Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – The Birthday Party

Rapid rap-artee from Grandmaster Flash….fast and furious and one of the year’s most sought after imports

16. Junior Giscombe – Mama Used To Say

From the same stable as Linx and a different mix of the most spectacular Brit-Funk debut of ’81

17. The B-52’s – Give Me Back My Man (Instrumental)

It’s A Go-Go Time with the Georgia Peaches and a track from an unreleased instrumental album, ‘The B-52s play The B-52’s Greatest Hits!’

18. Susan – 24,000 Kiss

A Yellow Magic Orchestra protege, Susan is currently touted as the main contender for the title ‘Japan’s first lady of techno-pop’

19. The Jam – When You’re Young

Paul, Bruce, Rick and their audience very much alive in Newcastle, October 28, 1980

20. Dennis Bovell – Better

The ubiquitous Bovell with one of his ‘Brain Damage’ tracks

21. The Plastics – Last Train To Clarksville

Micro-chip Monkee business, hitherto only available as a limited edition flexi picture disc

22. James White & The Blacks – Contort Yourself

Re-produced by August Darnell. James Chance (alto sax, vocal), Jody Harris (guitar), Adele Bertei (keyboards), George Scott (bass) and Dan Christensen (drums)

23. The Teardrop Explodes – Traison (C’est Juste Une Histoire)

Pretentious? Moi?

24. U2 – An Cat Dubh

Bono Vox’s Celtic Crusaders bedazzle Bean Town, USA. In other words U2 live in Boston

As I mentioned last time out, a compilation such as this will be very much hit’n’miss depending on your own musical preferences as I can’t see anyone arguing that we have 24 carat-gold here…but there’s no doubt the good more than outweighs the bad.

Interesting if you listen closely to the live renditions offered up by Talking Heads and The Blockheads. The vocal delivery may be incredibly different but both bands churn out a funky, infectious beat that is almost interchangeable. I’d never quite realised that before when listening to the studio material of both bands.

Interesting too, that the majority of the acts on the tape enjoyed at least a smattering of commercial success during what were often fleeting careers as the fashions moved on while there are a few giants in there who are still going strong more than thirty-three and a third revolutions of the yearly calendar later.

As before, simply click on the song for the mp3. Apologies that the quality isn’t all that great. I do have most of the NME tapes on my hard drive – a number of years ago a very generous reader of the old blog made copies available to be ripped direct from the hissy cassettes and sometimes the editing isn’t 100% perfect at the beginning or end of the track, but I’m sure none of that will spoil your enjoyment.

And here’s a wee bonus to enjoy. Most of us will know (and secretly love) Chant No.1 by Spandau Ballet. The reference in the notes to this song made me go find it and include it today:-

mp3 : Beggar & Co – Mule (Chant No.2) (12″ version)

It’s nowhere near the class of Chant No.1 but hey, there may well be some of you out there who like it.

Enjoy!!!!

Johnny Cash, Kris Krisofferson, Martin Stephenson & The Daintees, Neil Diamond

THE ROOTS OF MY LOVE OF MUSIC (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM)

One of my favourite folk out there in cyberspace is The Robster.

This time last year he decided to start-up a blog called Is This The Life? which aimed to tell how music has had an influence on his entire life, warts and all. He wasn’t going to kid anyone on that he’s always had a really cool taste in music which he demonstrated with one of his very first postings as he professed an undying love for The Bay City Rollers, The Rubettes and The Wombles – click here to see for yourself.

The Robster made a great observation about how everyone’s story begins with their mum and dad as that’s where a love for music is nurtured. My mum celebrates her 76th birthday today and come September my dad will hit the grand old age of 80. They have always loved music and to this day they head out to Glasgow city centre every weekend to pubs where live singing from the drinkers is encouraged and welcomed, accompanied by someone on either keyboards or an acoustic guitar. That’s my mum pictured above back in June 2013 belting out something on the floor of one of those city centre pubs….it was the day that The Stone Roses played a huge outdoor gig in the city and the pub had a fair few of their following drinking the place dry….to be fair to them, they joined in the fun with the old folk who were the regulars and applauded their efforts on the mic (and I still think my mum is a better singer than Ian Brown).

I appreciate just how lucky I was to have parents who liked and appreciated music but thinking about it they were equally as lucky to have been raised in homes and in environments where music and singing were a huge part of their upbringing. I can vouch for this as probably my very earliest memory of music goes back to when I was certainly no more than 5 or 6 years of age and it concerns a huge cupboard that had pride of place in my gran’s house – the sort of thing that sits at the top of this blog.

While there was a record player behind one of its doors, the thing that fascinated me most was what lay behind the other door, the main attraction of which was this huge round dial that could turn so far in one direction before you twisted it back in the opposite direction until it could go no further. All the while a thin red line would go across a screen in the direction that you were turning the dial and it passed all sorts of words that made little or no sense And all this effort produced eerie and strange noises that sounded as if they belonged on the set of Dr Who.

Being a curious sort of kid, I asked what all the words meant and what some of them said to be told that they were cities from all over the world and the when the red line hit that word, what I was hearing was songs and talking from a radio station in that city.

Turns out that I wasn’t the only kid fascinated by such a thing :-

mp3 : Martin Stephenson & The Daintees – Sunday Halo

Incidentally, the vocalist announcing all the places on the dial with the ‘Berlin, Munich, Brussels, Bonn etc’ refrain is Cathal Coughlan whose band The Fatima Mansions are responsible for Blues For Ceaucescu which is one of my favourite songs of all time. But I digress…………

To this day, I’m not sure if it was the sounds that came out of the cabinet or the fact that I was allowed to play with the dial as I would with a toy that led to me establishing a love for music. But I think it speaks volumes that while I can barely recall all that many details about things in my life from the best part of 50 years ago – for instance I have no recollection at all about my first day at school or certain Xmas Days when I was lucky enough to get the present I had always wanted – I can still picture the radiogramme and smile at the memory of the strange sounds I could get it to make as I played with the dial.

My parents never owned anything quite as grand as a radiogramme, but we always seemed to have the very latest and best radio to go alongside what was a modest sized record player. Thinking back,the first houses I lived in were probably too small to have anything else.

At the age of 9, my family moved to a new house which was slightly bigger than where we had been before in as much that it had a decent sized living room. I think it was about a year later when my parents had saved up enough to buy a new record player with wall mounted speakers and it was genuinely fascinating for all us to listen to the stereo effect as the music glided across the wall above the fireplace as if by magic.

The other great thing about this was that they passed down their old Dansette record player which meant I could play my music in my room (shared with two younger brothers) as and when I wanted. By now I had been getting Record Tokens for birthdays and for Xmas and I was buying singles by the likes of Gary Glitter, The Sweet, David Essex, Alvin Stardust and The Average White Band – yup, Pick Up The Pieces was one of the first records I ever bought!!

But of course I was still exposed to the music my folks were listening to at the time, particularly my dad. His was, of course. music for grown-ups that was never played by Tony Blackburn on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show nor would you ever hear any of his favourite music by the likes of Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash, Paul McCartney & Wings or Supertramp on Top of The Pops. Mind you, he also loved Status Quo, and they seemed to be on every week.

Such was my continued exposure to these acts that I knew all the words to my mum and dad’s favourite songs. And its a frightening fact that I still do so many years later – but I’m not complaining as it has given me a wonderful grounding to be able to turn to any Neil Diamond song of old when it’s my turn at the karaoke….

Like all teenagers, I ended up rebelling against my parents tastes. From about the age of 14 till I was 30 years of age I had a knee jerk reaction that said ‘anything my folks had liked was simply awful and unlistenable. And then, out of the blue, I decided to start listening to Johnny Cash, mainly as Billy Bragg had been name-checking him as a huge influence. It wasn’t too long before I acknowledged my attitude to my parents music was, for a substantial part completely wrong, and that I in fact had a huge hole in my own now bulging record collection.

So I want to use today to say a big thank you to my mum and dad for encouraging me to enjoy music as I was growing up. Here’s a couple of songs that I know they are fond of that I am now the proud owner of:-

mp3 : Johnny Cash – One Piece At A Time
mp3 : Neil Diamond – I Am I Said

And here’s one of my mum’s all time favourite singers:-

mp3 : Kris Kristofferson – Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down (live)

Enjoy.

And as I said…..happy birthday mum (not that she reads this nonsense!!!!!)

Jasmine Minks

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 2 of 48)

A couple of weeks back, a reader from France left behind a very complimentary comment about the blog and in doing so said:-

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems my friends The Jasmine Minks haven’t been awarded yet the prestigious Saturday’s Scottish Single slot. I’m sure their time will come…!”

I did get back with the explanation that as I didn’t own any 45s by the band that they hadn’t been featured in that particular series but that I had a plan for an upcoming posting…and this is it.

One of the best tracks on CD86 is Cut Me Deep by The Jasmine Minks. However, it is a bit of a cheat that it is included as the song wasn’t released until 1988 as a track on Another Age, an LP that came out on Creation Records which was of course a central part of the C86 movement.

mp3 : The Jasmine Minks – Cut Me Deep

By this point in time, the band – originally from Aberdeen – had been with the label for four years and in an effort to become pop stars had relocated to London. Sadly, they were just one of many talented bands from the era who never made the breakthrough and they disbanded before the decade was over, suffering in part from Alan McGhee‘s preoccupation with the Jesus and Mary Chain which meant all the other bands on his roster took a seat away at the very back of the room.

The lead vocal on Cut Me Deep is courtesy of Jim Shepherd who had only taken on that role on the departure in 1986 of one of the other founder-members of the band Adam Sanderson. It was Sanderson who sang on what turned out to be the band’s best-selling single released in April 1986 and also available on their self-titled debut LP released a couple of months later:-

mp3 : The Jasmine Minks – Cold Heart

The Jasmine Minks reunited in 2000, releasing the album Veritas, before the band signed to McGee’s Poptones label for the release of Popartglory (2001) and then after another lengthy hiatus, 4 track EP, Poppy White, was released on the Oatcake Records label in 2012 the same year they appeared at the 2012 Indietracks festival in the original 1984 lineup.

This time last year, the band celebrated their 30th anniversary with the release of Cut Me Deep – The Anthology 1984 – 2014 with 48 tracks spread over 2 x CDs.

Enjoy