THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

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

Y'All Is Fantasy Island

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 128)

This is a cheat week….I’ve never owned a physical copy of this EP from 2008. It’s one of the regrets in my life that while I got to see Y’All Is Fantasy Island a fair number of times back in the late-noughties that I never splashed out on any physical product at the time.

The generosity of their front man Adam Stafford however, in that he put up all of the band’s back catalogue on-line for free a while back, means I can bring you the four tremendous bits of music that made up With Handclaps.

A bit of background from wiki:-

Y’All Is Fantsy Island were formed in 2001 by singer/songwriter Adam Stafford. After a couple of low-key releases, including 2002’s cassette only Wisconsin Death Trip mini album and 2005’s Skeletal Demos EP, Stafford recruited guitarist/sound engineer Tommy Blair and drummer/clarinettist Jon McCall. The band recruited bassist/keyboardist Robert Lesiuk in 2006 to help fill out their live sound. McCall and Lesiuk left the band in the summer of 2007 with McCall being replaced by Steven Tosh on drums and Jamie Macleod taking over bass duties.

2008 saw the band release their second album, Rescue Weekend, again to critical acclaim. The album was originally written and conceived as a separate project from the band, but when multi-instrumentalist Tosh joined in 2007, the band decided to issue it under the Y’all is banner on their own DIY Label, Wise Blood Industries.

The band subsequently released “With Handclaps EP” on Glasgow punk label Winning Sperm Party in August 2008, “No Ceremony” in November 2008 and “Infanticidal Genuflector: Selected Film Soundtrack Work 06/07” in December, respectively (again on Winning Sperm Party). This notched the amount of releases in 2008 to four: one EP and three LPs. The band continued to play live extensively through the year before the unexpected departure of Blair in October 2009 after which they played just a a handful of shows in 2010 including supporting Warpaint before announcing they were to split.

Their final show was played at Sneaky Pete’s on 11 March 2011 with original member Robbie Lesiuk returning in place of Tommy Blair on guitar.

Adam Stafford continues to work as a solo artist and film maker.

And IMHO, Adam Stafford’s solo output has demonstrated that he is one of the greatest contemporary musical talents here in Scotland. I’m at a loss as to why he is not better-known nor that he’s not enjoyed the wider critical acclaim beyond his homeland that his releases, and in particular his live shows, deserve. But that’s for another time.

In the meantime please enjoy Y’All Is Fantasy Island. As you might be able to work out, this A-Z series is drawing to a close….

mp3 : Y’All Is Fantasy Island – Consider Yourself Swallowed
mp3 : Y’All Is Fantasy Island – Punk Rock Disco
mp3 : Y’All Is Fantasy Island – With Handclaps
mp3 : Y’All Is Fantasy Island – A General Gust

Pixies

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM #6 – PIXIES

An enlightening e-mail popped into the inbox recently from an reader who has been known to leave behind some nice comments:-

Hey JC

Somewhat surprisingly (to me!), you’ve never featured Pixies on your blog and to me they are the greatest band there’s ever been, one I’ve seen more than most others and have listened to for over a quarter of a century. So if you don’t mind, here’s an “Imaginary Compilation Album” for your series thats if you actually like them! I’m sure you and your readers are familiar with them or at least their more famous songs, so this is just a collection of my favourites that’s representative of their whole career but misses out the ones that everyone might know. I’ve also tried to include alternate versions ‘rarities’ where possible. Apologies if I ramble in places – it makes me appreciate what you do all the more, it’s not easy writing coherently about your favourite music! And I own everything on vinyl – no cheating!

xxxjim
(JIMDOES)

It was also somewhat surprising to me that, after more than 500 postings on this particular blog that I hadn’t once featured any songs by Pixies when they had been a bit of a staple over at the old place. It’s also great that someone goes to the trouble of putting the imaginary compilation LP together as they are time-consuming pieces, not just in terms of the words for the piece but listening to the back catalogue in some depth to get down to the final selection. Anyway, here’s Jimdoes’ very fine take on the finest band to ever emerge from Boston U.S.A.:-

1. BONE MACHINE

Let’s start at the beginning. The beginning for me, anyway – the first Pixies song I ever heard – the opening track on Surfer Rosa recorded onto a C90 tape with AR Kane’s 69 on the other side. Believe it or not, back in 1988 this really did sound like nothing else – to me anyway – nothing like the indie music that I’d grown to love and nothing that you could hear on the radio. And what a great introduction to a band – each instrument comes in at different times to create a glorious noise with Black Francis barking and howling over the top of it – to this day I’m not really sure what he says or what it all means, but to me that’s part of the joy of this band. And I think it was the song to which I bust my nose stage diving to at The Town and Country Club – but that’s another story.

2. BLUE EYED HEXE

And just to show they’ve still got it – from their recent, underrated LP. It rocks in a way that only the Pixies can. I know it’s ‘Pixies’, not ‘The Pixies’ but sometimes it just sounds funny without the ‘The’. Anyway this is one of my most listened to songs from 2014 – I wasn’t expecting much from the album (and with an embarrassing title like ‘Indie Cindy’, who can blame me) but it goes to show that Deal or No Deal, they can still produce a quite wonderful noise.

3. DOWN TO THE WELL

I got hold of this song as a track on a free EP with Sounds, released just after Surfer Rosa, although this version is from a session they did at Maida Vale. Originally recorded as a demo before Surfer Rosa, I fully expected this to appear on the follow-up, Doolittle but I’m guessing that they had so many great songs recorded that they just held it back till Bossanova. My favourite line is “What matter does it make if there are favourite songs playing in my head” which could well be a mantra for my life! Anyway, it’s about sex and alien abduction – what could be more Pixies than that?

4. HEY

Pixies were always a great band to jump around, scream and go nuts to – but I love their slow songs as much as their fast noisy ones – loudQUIETloud and all that. This is a live version from the tour they did where they played Doolittle in order plus assorted B-sides. Just listening to the audience in this version really brings home what a loved band they are. I was lucky enough to see them a fair few times before they originally split up and was young then so spent most of the gigs going bananas, as you do. I always looked back fondly on those days and as Pixies influence grew was happy I’d seen them. So when they reformed it was incredible going back and seeing songs live that I’d cherished over the years – there was a feeling of trepidation that they might just ruin things but they were as good as they ever were – and I found there was still a bit of the mosh pit left me.

5. INTO THE WHITE

Recorded at the time when Pixies really could do no wrong – every song was so amazing that they’d put tracks like this as B-sides. And one of only a couple of songs that features Kim Deal on lead vocals. I can remember buying the 12” of Here Comes Your Man just to get this song which they’d been playing live for a while. Best sleeve for a Pixies record too – I used to have a massive poster of it on my student bedroom wall.

6. VAMOS

Always my favourite song live – for Joey Santiago’s amazing guitar work – the way it just goes nuts in the middle loads of feedback and echo – he plays that bit with a drumstick or whatever else is at hand. But also for the way that Black Francis’ rhythm guitar holds everything together and stops the song descending into chaos. I’ve included an epic version which was their closing song when they played at Brixton Academy on their original comeback tour on June 5 2004 – a gig I was lucky enough to attend. And for some strange reason it features on both Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa although I’ve never been able to notice much difference between the two of them. Vamos a jugar por la playa, indeed.

7. MOTORWAY TO ROSWELL

People often say that the last two Pixies albums aren’t as good as the first two. I think they are just different but equally good. They couldn’t really have made another Doolittle without sounding a little tired. And it’s great when bands evolve – it’s not a complete reinvention. Anyway I think of this album as the shiny album – everything seems to have a sheen to it if that doesn’t sound too weird. Especially the sounds at the beginning of this song – probably the most ‘space’ and ‘sci-fi’ song they recorded.

8. NIMROD’S SON

I can’t think about most Pixies songs without thinking about them being performed live – and that means thousands of people shouting “You are the son of a mother fucker”. An absolute joy.

9. CACTUS

My favourite song off my favourite album – it just about beats Gigantic. Impossible to articulate what it means to me, I’ve loved it for so long.

10. HEAD ON

Pixies made some great cover versions – and this rendition of The Jesus and Mary Chain classic is my favourite. I’m biased but much as I like the original, I think this version is better!

So there’s ten songs – it’s been incredibly hard to choose just ten. I could easily have picked another ten. And I’ve resisted the urge to put them in alphabetical order like they did with their set lists back in the day!

Side A

mp3 : Pixies – Bone Machine
mp3 : Pixies – Blue Eyed Hexe
mp3 : Pixies – Down To The Well (session)
mp3 : Pixies – Hey (live)
mp3 : Pixies – Into The White

Side B

mp3 : Pixies – Vamos (live)
mp3 : Pixies – Motorway To Rosewell
mp3 : Pixies – Nimrod’s Son
mp3 : Pixies – Cactus
mp3 : Pixies – Head On

Hidden Bonus Track

mp3 : Pixies – There Goes My Gun (live)

I’ve put the live version of there goes my gun on this mail as that is the track before HEY and the first ‘hey’ is actually at the end of this track annoyingly… and you can also hear me shouting ‘hey’ just before the song starts…!

anyway, i could talk all day about the pixies…!!!

cheers!

xxxjim

Johnny Clash (Billy Bragg)

DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER

Back on Sunday September 30th 2002, the old blog celebrated its 6th anniversary with, by almost complete coincidence, the 2000th posting.

Little did I know that TVV wouldn’t see its 7th anniversary and it still hurts that Google removed all the writing on the blog when they unceremoniously ripped it down – not so much for the pish that I wrote but because there were a lot of great things put together by various guest contributors.

The 2000th posting was one which featured a bit of rare(ish) music, that was made available on vinyl, and which managed to link three of my favourite singers/bands/performers. It was a great for the TVV template….

When the single came out, the PR blurb informed the world:-

British rocker Billy Bragg has renamed himself Johnny Clash for the release of a new charity single inspired by late country icon Johnny Cash and legendary punk band The Clash.

All proceeds from Old Clash Fight Song, released on 20 August 2007, will benefit Bragg’s Jail Doors organisation, which takes its name from a 1978 The Clash B-side. The charity aims to reduce re-offending among British prisoners by offering an outlet through taking up music lessons. Bragg has promised to donate £1 from each copy of the seven-inch single, which will be available on his official website.

Speaking about his admiration for The Clash’s late frontman, and renowned activist, Joe Strummer, Bragg says, “Time and time again you find that it’s old Clash fans who are leading the charge. “Although we may have hung up our leather jackets, those of us who were touched by the fire of punk have held onto our anti-fascist ideals. “The death of Joe Strummer in 2002 brought a lot of us together again to celebrate Joe’s life and we were amazed to find that many of us were involved in activism in one way of another – union organisers, environmental campaigners, documentary filmmakers.

Let’s be totally honest here……it’s not the greatest bit of music ever made. But it’s one that takes me back to the early 80s when the Bard of Barking started enteratining us, and given that I first began a blog mainly to trigger off memories of times past, it seemed appropriate to put these songs up with the landmark post:-

mp3 : Johnny Clash – Old Clash Fan Fight Song
mp3 : Johnny Clash – The Big Lie

Enjoy.

Billy MacKenzie

BILLY MACKENZIE RARITIES…COURTESY OF SID LAW (1)

It was back at the turn of the year when Sid initially got in touch. The e-mail was entitled ‘Cheers, Happy New Year’ and it said:-

Still enjoying your blog Mr Villain! Thought I’d be a little presumptuous and send you some Billy in the form of a little-heard version of It’s Over just featuring the orchestra. BEF dragged it out of their vaults a few years back.

Hard to believe that it will be 18 years ago this month since Billy died.

Happy to dredge my vault for anything you might want on the Billy front if you are thinking of a wee post later in the month. I do have an awfie lot.

Orrabest

Sid Law

From there we hatched a plan with the intention of having a whole week’s worth of posts in the run-up to the anniversary but stormy weather and power-cuts in Sid’s neighbourhood led to delays and this change of tack.

After I’d thanked him for sending me the orchestral mix of It’s Over, Sid quickly sent over another e-mail with an example of the sort of rarities he has.

Another from Billy. His take on Randy Newman’s “Baltimore”.

A version of the track (there are a couple) appeared on the ridiculously limited edition posthumous “Wild Is The Wind EP” on Paul Haig’s ROL label (Paul Haig had nothing to do with the actual recording – it ain’t a MacKenzie/Haig number).

The song never re-appeared on any of the posthumous CD album issues of unreleased material and hasn’t been seen or heard since.

Enjoy.

Sid Law

mp3 : Billy Mackenzie – Baltimore

As our benefactor says, enjoy.

I should mention that Sid very generously supplied high-quality rips of all the songs. It’s my decision to pare these back to mere CD quality for the blog. At the end of it all, I’m intending to put the hi-quality versions up for a short period of time.

Delphic, Future Islands, Ladyhawke, White Lies

AM I ALONE IN BEING OUT OF STEP?

I like my 80s synth-pop and I like bands who pay tribute to it in exciting and innovative ways. I was therefore keen to give Singles by Future Islands a try given most reviews upon its release as well as reviews of music in 2014 raved about it.

The first time I ever heard of Future Islands, despite this release being their fourth studio album, was when they featured in a guest posting from S-WC back in April 2014. He was looking at bands whose name began with the letter F and he wrote this:-

Talking of great records, a few weeks ago Future Islands released Seasons (Waiting on You), which is right now holding firm as the best record I have heard this year. Yup better than Happy by Pharrell Williams.

Just after the release of their fourth album Singles the band were invited on to the Letterman Show and there they played ‘Seasons’ and delivered a performance so staggering, so jaw droppingly fucking magnificent that all of a sudden a big secret had been let out of the bag. Put ‘Future Islands Letterman’ into a search engine and you will understand.

I took SW-Cs advice. There is no argument from me that it is one of the most spellbinding things, from a musical context, that I’ve ever seen as part of a TV programme.

Later on in the year, Aldo caught Future Islands playing live in Glasgow and included Seasons (Waiting On You) as one of the tracks to go with his review-of-the-year piece. And so, I was very happy when in a mainstream record store last week (tracking down a DVD boxset on sale) to spot that Singles could be bought for just £5.

The record open with Seasons. It is a beguiling and interesting opening. As the live clip demonstrates, Samuel T Herring croons, swoops and growls his way above a tune that is very atypical of some of the very best synth-pop bands of the 80s. I really do like Seasons…..it’s a cracking bit of music while the vocal has you dredging your memory banks to come up with a comparator but in the end you conclude that he is unique, although the one name I couldn’t shift out of my head was Cee Lo Green.

The next song to come out of the speakers is Spirit which musically struck me as a cross between Vince Clarke era Depeche Mode and OMD but which vocally annoyed the hell out of me without me really being able to explain why. Come track 4 on the CD and I’d got it…Herring reminded far too often of the vocal gymnastics performed by Mick Hucknall’s MOR pap when the record buying public went crazy for them.

In short…other than the opening track, this record is a real letdown bar one or two snippets of music that were interesting – Light House (track 7) has some nifty guitar work reminiscent of New Order on their early 80s albums. I accept that it would be near impossible to maintain the high expectations from the opener but the sad thing is none of the other nine songs really come remotely close. I just found it really boring and unmemorable. I thought back to A Flock of Seagulls who had one great single and very little to back it up – but we found ourselves more than three decades ago noticing them and talking cos the frontman had a great and strange haircut while today we have noticed and are talking about Future Islands cos the frontman does crazy wee dances and is passionate about his vocal delivery in a live setting.

Maybe my expectations going in were too high but I found the record to be no more exciting than any new record by Coldplay and I am at a loss to understand why so many folk are creaming their underwear over something so lifeless, dull and dreary. When the record ended I just felt it had consisted of one of two constant and repetitive drum and synth beats – either uptempo groove or even worse lumpen slow stuff which would be a great cute for insomnia.

Singles has had folk raving about in throughout 2014 but I reckon come 2016 most folk will look back on their fawning reviews and be embarrassed.

I very rarely use this blog to pen negative stuff – if I’m not a fan I prefer to say nothing at all. There’s plenty of vinyl and CD in the collection that I haven’t ever mentioned this past eight and a bit years for that very reason. But given this is a time when I seem to be so out of sync – you’ll struggle to find anywhere a bad word said about this record – I’m going to make an exception.

As I said at the outset, I really do like my 80s synth-pop and I like bands who pay tribute to it in exciting and innovative ways. Future Islands, on this showing, do no such thing.

Try these instead:-

mp3 : White Lies – To Lose My Life
mp3 : Ladyhawke – Magic
mp3 : Delphic – Doubt

Elvis Costello

READ IT IN BOOKS : ELVIS COSTELLO

My love for music extends to the written word. I haven’t counted them up but I do have a substantial number of biographies about musicians and bands….its certainly into the many hundreds and it grows by the year as I have a rule of thumb never to toss away any book, even if I don’t like it.

I got a pleasant surprise from Santa this year, courtesy of Cullen Skink, a friend who was an occasional contributor to the old blog. He gave me a copy of Complicated Shadows : The Life and Times of Elvis Costello, originally published in 2004. The book is the work of Graeme Thomson, one of the most prolific contributors about music and culture to newspapers and magazines here in the UK as well as the author of a number of bios with Johnny Cash, Kate Bush and George Harrison among those he has covered in addition to the man originally named Declan McManus.

It is a cracking read – for once the promo blurb on the cover got it spot on with its description being ‘meticulously researched and fluently told’. It is the work of someone who clearly very much admires and respects the singer but at the same time who pulls no punches in terms of offering a critique of some of the music that EC has released, nor does it shy away from behaviours or incidents showing the singer in a less than flattering light. One review at the time of its issues said “As believable and fair a picture of the man himself as I suspect is actually possible. He’ll not like it though.”

It again brought home just how diverse a career Elvis Costello has enjoyed over such an extended period of time. The reader is left with a clear impression of a man who is determined not to be pigeon-holed in any shape or form and who has such incredible self-confidence that he feels no form of music is beyond him. And for the most part, he’s been proven to be right and time and time again he’s defied those who have written him off with some sort of masterpiece coming on the back of some lesser well-received recordings.

If you’re a fan of Elvis Costello but haven’t got round to reading it then I recommend it highly. Equally, if you’re someone who likes biographies of famous folk, musicians or otherwise, then I can also recommend this as an entertaining and enlightening read.

Four songs today, lifted from a 1989 EP centred around a song lifted from his then new LP Spike and co-written with his then partner Cait O’Riordan, former bassist with The Pogues, but containing three other ballads from various points in his back catalogue:

mp3 : Elvis Costello – Baby Plays Around
mp3 : Elvis Costello – Poisoned Rose
mp3 : Elvis Costello – Almost Blue
mp3 : Elvis Costello – My Funny Valentine

Enjoy

C86, Primal Scream

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 1 of 48)

1986 was an important year in the history of the genre that has become known as indie-pop, characterised by the release of C86, a 22-song cassette compilation from the NME consisting of what were largely up and coming UK bands who were making guitar-based pop music that was a throwback to the Postcard and early Rough Trade era at the start of the decade.

It was a time when music was being made on the cheap and in a rough and ready fashion which harked back to the punk/new wave era, and it was no real surprise that the biggest music paper in the country focussed on what it hoped would the next new wave of music on the tenth anniversary of the birth of punk.

C86 did not generate any huge amount of commercial success with the vast majority of the bands involved never really getting beyond cult status. But there was something of a timeless quality tabout a number of the songs, and indeed of other contemporary songs which weren’t included on the cassette.

In 2006, CD86 was released to mark the 20th anniversary of C86. It consisted of 48 tracks, compiled by Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne, complete with a short essay in which he extolled the virtues of the movement with the statement:-

“It was the beginning of indie music. It’s hard to remember how underground guitar music and fanzines were in the mid-’80s. DIY ethics and any residual punk attitudes were in isolated pockets around the country, and the C86 comp and gigs brought them together”.

While I beg to differ about it being the birth of indie music (what had I spent my late teen and early 20s dancing to if it wasn’t indie?), I won’t disagree that the songs of the era have a certain charm and so, for the new Sunday series now that the Moz singles feature has again come to an end, I’m going to look at all 48 songs on the CD 86 compilation and where possible also feature the b-side if the song had been a 45.

Interestingly enough, the CD86 compilation only featured 3 of the original 22 songs which had been on C86, while seven of the 22 acts were omitted altogether – Stump, Bogshed, A Witness, Miaow. The McKenzies, Fuzzbox and The Shrubs – in his essay Bob Stanley offers the opinion that some groups on the NME compilation were genuinely dire and he specifically mentions The McKenzies, A Witness and Stump.

It is the case that each of C86 and CD86 opened with the same song by the one band that emerged from the movement to really experience worldwide fame and fortune over an extended period….just a pity for the genre that they made their fame and fortune from a totally different style of music!!

mp3 : Primal Scream – Velocity Girl

Clocking in at some 80 seconds in length, this just about perfectly encapsulates what the C86 movement was all about. The production was a long way removed from the slick and glossy material that was then dominating the charts, the band sounded as if they had only just got together for a bet or a laugh (or both) and the singer wasn’t blessed with the most natural of voices – but somehow it all came together in a way that was enchanting and entrancing.

Strangely enough, Velocity Girl was the b-side of the second ever Primal Scream single released on Creation Records back in 1986, but thanks to its inclusion on various compilation LPs over the year has become far better known than its a-side:-

mp3 : Primal Scream – Crystal Crescent

Tune in on the next 47 Sundays for the rest of the series…..

X Lion Tamer

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 127)

X Lion Tamer was the recording name adopted by the Edinburgh-based musician Tony Taylor (he originally called himself Ex Lion Tamer, after the song by Wire but changed it after discovering that an American band had already taken that particular moniker)

He was part of the 17 Seconds label which was the brainchild of Ed Jupp, well-known blogger and all round good guy – Ed was one of those guys who got into music blogging and followed it with something a bit more substantial and meaningful.

Over the course of two years, X Lion Tamer released three download only singles, with two of these coming together on the Neon Hearts EP which came out in September 2009.

mp3 : X Lion Tamer – Neon Hearts
mp3 : X Lion Tamer – Life Support Machine
mp3 : X Lion Tamer – Tugboat
mp3 : X Lion Tamer – I Said Stop

While three of the songs are original compositions, Tugboat is a cover of a track written and recorded originally by Galaxie 500.

The music was described by some as weird and wonky electronic pop heavily influenced by the 80s while others said he sounded like the ending credits of low-budget 80s teen movies – played on your mate’s Amiga.

It’s certainly different.

James

THE JAMES SINGLES (23)

In March 1998, all concerned thought it would be a good idea to compile and release The Best of James. It brought together fourteen hit singles from the Mercury/Fontana years together with Hymn From A Village from the Factory Records era plus two brand new songs, both of which were due for release as singles as part of the promotion of the ‘new’ LP.

Destiny Calling was made avilable a couple of weeks before the album and was issued, as had become the norm, in a 3xCD package. It’s a single that’s among the best James released in the mid-late 90s. The tune is more than decent while the lyric pokes fun at how the music industry was beginning to pan out in the run up to the turn of the century with its ever-increasing emphasis on manufacturing and controlling the entire sound, look and feel of musicians. Who really in their right mind would set out to be a famous pop star in these times?

The first of the CDs featured what was claimed to be three exclusive rare tracks all of which however had been available as b-sides to previously released hit singles and therefore probably already owned by most fans. The second CD went for live material from what had been, to all intents and purposes, a more than decent show at the Reading Festival the previous August, and having come in for justified criticism over the choices made on previous live songs as b-sides it was good that two of them were from Wah Wah and this rather different in the live setting that than the studio. Just a pity the other track was a lumpen and wearisome number that too often sounded like u2 by numbers. CD3, which I don’t have, provided a multimedia section containing the video of She’s A Star together with snippets of videos of other songs you could find on ‘Best Of’.

Interestingly, the artwork for the single harked back to the baggy era with the use of the daisy logo that had adorned so many t-shirts.

The single entered the charts at #17 and dropped down the week after just as the album began its ascent to the #1 spot.

James were now arguably, more popular and better-known in the UK than at any other point in their career, thanks to this compilation drawing attention to the consistency and quality of the singles. Those of us who has been looking on for over a decade could only sigh and think of all the great tracks that would have made it a genuine ‘Best Of’ rather than a chart-fodder effort.

The tracks on CD 1 (Assassin, Goalie’s Ball and The Lake) have all featured earlier in this series so here’s the tracks from CD2:-

mp3 : James – Destiny Calling
mp3 : James – Jam J (live)
mp3 : James – Honest Joe (live)
mp3 : James – Sound (live)

Enjoy

39 Lyon Street, Associates, Uno (featuring Billy Mackenzie)

BILLY MACKENZIE : 27 MARCH 1957 – 22 JANUARY 1997

From Sid Law:-

I don’t know what Billy Mackenzie might make of the music scene in Scotland today. Maybe Billy would have got his performance thing back and could have sung publicly again. I remember seeing Roland Gift about fifteen years back at the Speigeltent in Edinburgh one Festival and thinking “Billy should be here doing this…”.

I think the abiding thing I got from Billy and his music in the early 80’s was his playfulness and fun. Every TV appearance was hilarious (ever seen him do Amazing Grace with Paul Haig at Hogmanay?). He was dead cool, wrote some marvellous songs, had a voice to rival anyone and made it all seem like falling off a log. His death was due to Chronic Depression (the prescription drug mechanism is unimportant). When you look at how he was treated during his last ten years by the Music Business you can see how a soul like Billy could be damaged. Yet he really soared in his later work in the more free, more independent atmosphere of the mid 90’s. The shackles were off and he seemed to have such confidence in his abilities and a real command of his voice and… and then he was gone. At the top of his game. And that is what I hope some of the upcoming postings over the next few weeks will demonstrate.

Billy recorded four albums with Alan Rankine (well two albums and one compilation and one remix album) all of which are great but then there were only another four albums afterwards (including Billy’s solo one and the then unreleased ‘Glamour Chase’) before he died. What is often forgotten is just how many collaborations there were, partly because when Billy had label problems (and he always did) he just looked around and did something else. Again, some of the upcoming postings will hopefully demonstrate that such collaborations, many of which were completed shortly before his death, have a quality of performance that are simply breathtaking.

One of the periods when Billy found himself in the frustrating position of having a record company that didn’t want to put out his records was in the late 80’s . Thankfully his pals like Yello and Uno (Philip Erb and Blair Booth) were happy to have Billy sing on their records. The track Cinemas Of The World appeared as a 12″ extended version and a 7″ mix. It didn’t sell. Nor did the subsequent Uno album “Uno” which also featured Jimmy Sommerville. So here is Billy in the hard-to-get-anything-released days of 1987.

mp3 : Uno (featuring Billy Mackenzie) – Cinemas of The World

Going back further in time, the first Associates album “The Affectionate Punch” is always worth a listen.

Released in 1980, it is a stunning debut and a strange mixture of Bowie, Roxy and breathless gallivanting bravado and still an exhilarating listen. The title track is a total blast and “A Matter Of Gender” is a surge of a song to hear at any time. But one song which connected with me back then and still finds its way onto my car-cassette is “Logan Time”.

I don’t know what the song is about, but at Liff (just down the hill from Auchterhouse) there is a road called “The Logan” and the Loganberry was developed in the berryfields around Dundee. Maybe it is about that time of year, maybe it is about something else entirely. Probably. But the song is a career highlight vocal performance from Billy and shows a maturity and musical scope and range which was the mark of Billy MacKenzie and Alan Rankine’s work together.

The image above is a view of the Sidlaw Hills by MacKintosh Patrick. Billy spent a lot of his time here at Scotstoun Cottage. He would walk his dogs over the fields and up around Auchterhouse Hill.

mp3 : Associates -Logan Time

Billy was forever creating new Associates (whoever he was recording with was an Associate). His entire career is one long list of collaborations from Strange News, Skids, Orbidoig, Annie Lennox, 39 Lyon Street, Yello, Uno, Loom, Apollo 440, Barry Adamson etc. The list is a very long one.

This version of Simon Dupree and The Big Sound’s “Kites” was an early contract- challenging release where Billy was allowed to record a single for another label but was forbidden to sing lead vocal on the A-side of any such single. Christine Beveridge found herself breathlessly whispering a nervous lead vocal while Billy belted out the choruses lying on his back on the studio floor.

I love the arrangement on this 12″ version. It grooves along with fellow Associate Alan Rankine covering the instruments. It was released in May 1981 and didn’t trouble the charts. I think it is a total gem and typical of Billy and Alan’s rapid working methods during 1981-82 when a prolific period saw no less than eleven singles recorded and released.

mp3 : 39 Lyon Street – Kites (12″ version)

Billy MacKenzie

BILLY MACKENZIE : A SMALL APPRECIATION

Most people with even just a passing acquaintance with early 80s UK pop music will be vaguely aware of Billy Mackenzie thanks to the run of three chart singles – Party Fears Two, Club Country and 18 Carat Love Affair – enjoyed by his band Associates back in 1982. If those three classic 45s had been all that he had ever lent his distinctive and unique vocal talents to, then Billy Mackenzie would still be worthy of having a place at the top table of pop geniuses for they are unlike any other hit songs of that era that more than three decades on still have the ability to impress and astonish with every single listening.

It will be 18 years ago tomorrow since Billy took an overdose to end his life just two months short of his 40th birthday – and there will be a special guest posting coming your way from one of his biggest and long-standing fans – Sid Law – who for a number of years kept the flame alive in a tremendously informative and quite unique fan site called Whippet At The Wheel (click here).

The site was only up and running for a short period of time and there were only ever 32 postings….but what made it so very special was that Sid was posting songs and music that otherwise had never been made commercially available at any time…and he’s kindly doing the same tomorrow as well as allowing me to put up a piece of music today. I’m really thrilled and honoured.

At the time of Billy Mackenzie’s his death, he had been largely forgotten by most music fans and considered an irrelevance by all but the most loyal of his fanbase. As is so often the case, it took death for a more honest and meaningful reappraisal of his career to happen and if anything he is better known today than he was even at the height of his fame.

A lot of this has to do with the initial 1998 publication of The Glamour Chase by Tom Doyle, in which Billy’s life-story is told with huge affection and honesty. The book led to a 40-minute long television documentary here in Scotland (currently available to view on YouTube – just click this link), and then in 2009 a play was written and performed in his home city of Dundee and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Two years later, Tom Doyle revised and updated the biography, leaning on much of what had been said and written in the first decade of this century, a period in which a poll of many hundreds of Scottish music bloggers had voted Party Fears Two as the greatest ever Scottish single and in which many famous musicians the world over had cited Billy Mackenzie as being as big an influence on them as anyone else.

As with any well-written and well-researched biography, the book filled in a lot of gaps in knowledge in terms of the personal and fleshed out much in terms of the musical. It shed light on the complex nature of Billy’s love for his home city; as a teenager he couldn’t wait to escape its confines in a period when it was in very steep decline – physically, economically and culturally – but it was also his place of refuge when things weren’t going so well for him. It highlights just how hard he and others worked to make his band a success – it wasn’t until the release of their 10th single and 3rd LP that Associates finally had a hit – and tries to make sense of the accompanying madness and chaos that led to the band, in its most commercially successful guise, imploding almost immediately.

In a pre-internet age, when all we could rely on were carefully crafted press releases or interviews in music papers/magazines, fans could only look on and wonder why Billy always seemed to be at loggerheads with his record companies and why his material, when it was released (if it was released!!) seemed to veer violently between the brilliant and the banal with very little in-between.

We now know with hindsight that Billy struggled with the constant commercial failures and was bemused by the success of many others who were making music in the late 80s and early 90s. He put himself under huge pressures to turn his career around but all he succeeded in doing was to make himself more and more ill as time passed – not that he let on to anyone as his public appearances still saw that cheeky, mischievous grin and glint in the eye, albeit he never went anywhere without a beret as he hated the idea of going bald (there’s a great clip in the STV documentary of a performance in which Billy provides evidence that no matter how handsome a devil you are, it is impossible to look good while wearing a wig).

But his death, even to those of us who were long-time fans, came as the most huge shock. Billy had been somewhat out of the limelight for a few years, and it was almost impossible to find any Associates records as they had been long-deleted by record companies. But we had been reading that he was on his way back having just signed a contract with a new label and was busy in the studio.

It’s since become apparent that a series of events, not least the death of his mother, triggered-off a bout of very serious depression for Billy, but it was an illness that he hid even from those who were closest to him as is quite clear from the documentary with his father and a sister making very brave and heartbreaking contributions.

Billy’s death was sad and tragic. But I think, having read The Glamour Chase, that it was an ending that was in some ways inevitable.

His legacy is a volume of work that has highs and lows, and one that is dominated by that 1982/83 era of Sulk. Even as I mentioned earlier, even if it had just been the three singles from that era that he had left behind then Billy would still be a legend in pop music.

He possessed, without any doubt, a unique singing voice. He had attitude and a fierce streak of independence. And while he had the support of some in the music industry who stood up for him at all times, it was still a requirement that sales had to be healthy, failing which you had better be willing to bow-down before the powerful moguls and do what you’re told. He failed in the former and he wouldn’t ever dream of doing the latter.

It’s impossible to guess what the past 18 years would have been like if Billy was still alive. He might have found the magic touch for another hit out of the blue (a la Edwyn Collins and A Girl Like You). Most likely however, is that he would still be recording albums to be bought by just the hard-core of fans, for it took his death to rekindle interest in his work and the re-release of most of his material. But as I say, we just don’t know.

I’m just someone who appreciates the music he left behind, whether as a band member, solo singer or as a collaborator with countless others. When I first penned a tribute to him over at the old place, marking the 10th anniversary of his death, one of the songs I went with was a cover of a Roy Orbison number that he had recorded for Music of Quality & Distinction Volume One, a 1981 project from the British Electric Foundation. Knowing my love for that particular cover, Sid sent me something a little bit special that I’m now sharing with you:-

mp3 : B.E.F. featuring Billy Mackenzie – It’s Over (Orchestra Mix)

R.I.P Billy. You were a sublime talent and you are much missed.

PS

Such has been the amount of stuff that Sid has been sending over to me that I will be keeping some of it back for other posts in the coming days. It really is the most incredible set of emails to ever fall into my Inbox since the discovery of ‘lost’ Paul Quinn songs and videos.

Merchandise

FROM THE SOUTH-WEST CORRESPONDENT

His last posting was back on 12 August 2014 when he let us know that he was heading off to work in Guyana. Well he’s back….and he’s got some scandal for us………

Three Songs by…….

So I’m back in the UK. Its cold, really cold and surprisingly its wet. I could sit here and regale you all with show off tales of the jungle, but I’m not going to. I will say if you get the chance to visit Guyana, you should probably go. Don’t go if you don’t like pineapple, humidity and rum.

Right, what’s been happening out there?

Anyone got any gossip? No?

Well listen to this then, apparently since I have been away, the man at Number 32 is now the man from Number 36, and the man from Number 36 is awaiting trial for threatening the man from number 32 with a massive plank of wood. The woman from number 32 apparently sits indoors slowly rocking and staring out of the window, slowing crocheting small lifelike dollies, which she then stabs with a hairpin. I may have made that last bit up.

In other news, the person babysitting our house has managed to

a) drink all my Bermudian Gold Rum,
b) break three mugs, and
c) totally bugger the tumble drier.

He told me about the tumble drier, so that wasn’t as much as a shock as the rum and the mugs.

Being back is weird, people I had completely forgotten even existed have spoken to me, and I am always amazed at how little life changes in a village on the outskirts of a city. The old lady with the wonky eye still has a wonky eye, the lamppost opposite the bus stop still doesn’t work, the hilarious graffiti penis is still on the side of the children’s slide, the newsagent up the road still insists on calling me Nick, despite the fact that a) its not my name, and b) I’ve told him my actual name about twelve times. So as I revert back to normality and get used to opening my door and not finding a parrot in the tree outside, or a cockroach in the bath, or a toad being eaten alive by ants, or actual bonafide aliens in the warehouse down the road (I may have made one of these up), I find myself catching up with music.

The house sitter left me a whole load of stuff on a ten GB memory stick. It’s full – a thank you for 6 months of rent free living. So instead of saving the money he blew it on rock and roll. Nice work. I blow my wages on sink cleaners, nappies and banana flavoured biscuits, I digress.

So to mark my return, here are three songs from what is so far the best thing on the memory stick, I’m only about a third of the way through though – but ladies and gents, the utterly wonderful Merchandise.

mp3 : Merchandise – Little Killer
mp3 : Merchandise – Green Lady
mp3 : Merchandise – Who Are You?

S-WC

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It’s good to have him back. Amazing how he just turns up as the Moz series draws to a close. It’s almost as if he timed it deliberately.