THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

Jackie Lee, Primus, Trashcan Sinatras, Wedding Present

ANOTHER WEEK OF REPEAT POSTS : HORSIN’ AROUND/BACK TO NATURE

(Two posts from same day – 12 June 2007 – over on the old blog)

I’m sure I’m not the first blogger of my age to mention how lucky today’s kids are in terms of what they can watch on TV.

In my day, it was three terrestrial channels – BBC1, BBC2 and Scottish Television – and quite frankly, most of the shows aimed at those aged under 12 were crap. Except for Tom & Jerry.

Nowadays, with all sorts of specialised channels on satellite TV, there is a wider choice, and while much of it is probably just as crap, at least they can watch something different all the time.

I just remember every single school holiday being marked on BBC1 with a re-run of two black-and-white TV series. One was called Belle & Sebastian. The other was The White Horses. The former had a really creepy theme tune that was sung in a foreign language, the latter had a theme tune that was ace.

Here’s an abridged extract from wikipedia:-

The White Horses is a 1965 television series co-produced by RTS of Yugoslavia and BR-TV of Germany. It follows the adventures of a teenage girl (played by Helga Anders) who visits a farm, run by her Uncle Dimitri (played by Helmuth Schneider), where white Lipizzaner horses are raised. It is called Počitnice v Lipici in Slovenian and Ferien in Lipizza in German. The series was a cult hit with children and comprised 13 episodes, filmed in black and white.

A dubbed version was broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1968 and repeated for many years afterwards (the dubbed soundtrack has since been lost). The theme tune, credited to “Jacky”, was sung by Jackie Lee. It became a top 10 hit in the UK charts in April 1968. Jackie Lee also had a hit with the theme tune to Rupert (The Bear) in 1970/71.

And guess what:-

mp3 : Jackie Lee – White Horses

And how about a couple of my favourite bands doing cover versions:-

mp3 : The Trash Can Sinatras – White Horses
mp3 : The Wedding Present – White Horses

The former is on the b-side of the 12″ single Circling The Circumference, while the latter can now be found on the recently released Peel Sessions boxset.

After the horses earlier in the day, Mrs Villain insisted that I put up her favourite song about animals:-

mp3 : Primus – Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver

Oh and no apologies to any passing perverts who chanced by thinking it was something completely different.

Enjoy

Billy Bragg

ANOTHER WEEK OF REPEAT POSTS : SING MICHAEL, SING…..

(Originally posted on the old blog on 28 July 2010)

……………even if it is just as a backing vocalist:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – You Woke Up My Neighbourhood

Much as I love this song, I really do think it was a peculiar choice for a single. I can only guess that having enjoyed some bona fide chart success back in early 1991 with Sexuality, everyone associated with Billy Bragg, be it his record label and/or management, wanted to maintain the momentum.

The LP Don’t Try This At Home contains a number of potential hit singles, but none of them had an input from what was then the biggest band in the world, and so the gamble taken was to go for a less-obvious track in the hope there would be some crossover into the R.E.M. fanbase.

You Woke Up My Neighbourhood was a flop, stalling at #53. Indeed, the next again single, a re-recorded version of Accident Waiting To Happen, did much better reaching #33.

Looking back it probably made a bit of sense at the time, but this great little piece of country/bluegrass pop should have simply been a great track on a great LP instead of a release which did nothing but undermine Billy’s self-belief in his ability to become a crossover popstar.

For those of you who don’t know, in addition to Michael Stipe providing backing vocals, the talents of Peter Buck were deployed on acoustic guitar and mandolin. Indeed, the R.E.M. guitarist is the co-author of the song…..

Another great star of the alternative American music scene of the early 90s can also be found on the single, with Natalie Merchant being the co-author and lead vocalist on one of the three b-sides:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Bread and Circuses

The other two tracks consisted of a Billy Bragg original:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Ontario Quebec and Me

and a cover version of a song written by the aunt of Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright :-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Heart Like A Wheel

Actually, that last sentence doesn’t do justice at all to the lifetime of work by Anna McGarrigle, most of which was performed as part of a duo with her sister Kate McGarrigle (mum of Rufus and Martha) who sadly passed away at the beginning of 2010.

Associates

ANOTHER WEEK OF REPEAT POSTS : OH YOU HANDSOME DEVIL….

(Originally posted on the old blog on 30 June 2011)

Go on. Don’t be ashamed to admit it. The late and great Billy McKenzie was a fine-looking chap. With an amazing voice. Even if most of his lyrics didn’t make sense. As can be heard on the 12″ version of one of the few Associates tracks to crack the charts:-

mp3 : Associates – Club Country (extended)

The fault is, I can find no fault in you
Assault is say it or I’ll say it for you
If we stick around we’re sure to be looked down upon
What better way or should I say?

Alive and kicking

Alive and kicking at the Country Club
We’re old and sickening at the Country Club
A drive from nowhere leaves you in the cold
Refrigeration keeps you young I’m told

Alive and kicking at the Country Club
We’re old and sickening at the Country Club
Your limitations are our every care
Every breath you breathe belongs to… someone there

At all’s two words could they be soldered as one
Therein lies the perfect pseudonym
To think you’ve learned to know someone and find
That you don’t know don’t know them at all

Alive and kicking

Alive and kicking at the Country Club
We’re always sickening at the Country Club
A drive from nowhere leaves you in the cold
Refrigeration keeps you young I’m told

Alive and kicking at the Country Club
We’re old and sickening at the Country Club
Your limitations are our every care
Every breath you breathe belongs to… someone there

Sad to see that you’re suffering
Work hard at being a something
Sad to see that you’re suffering
Work hard at being a something
Sad to see that you’re suffering
Work hard at being a something

Alive and kicking at the Country Club
We’re old and sickening at the Country Club
A drive from nowhere leaves you in the cold
Refrigeration keeps you young I’m told

Alive and kicking at the Country Club
We’re always sickening at the Country Club
Your limitations are our every care
Every breath you breathe belongs to someone there

Quite.

Bonkers but brilliant with a bass-line unlike any other. 6 mins and 57 seconds of perfection. And unbelievable to think that it dates back as long ago as 1982……..and listening to it again earlier today brought back loads of great memories of dancing at Level 8 at the student’s union of Strathclyde University. Where have the years gone????

Here’s yer b-sides:-

mp3 : Associates – A.G. It’s You Again
mp3 : Associates – Ulcragyceptemol

Both are magnificent. The former is a remix of the instrumental track Arrogance Gave Him Up which can be found on the LP Sulk, while the latter has Billy singing, yelling and screaming all sorts of gibberish over a tune that I think would make a tremendous goth anthem……..(ie it reminds me of The Cure)

Oh and here’s something a wee bit different for you:-

mp3 : Associates – Club Country (demo version)

Enjoy.

Basil Pieroni, Big Gun

ANOTHER WEEK OF REPEAT POSTS : ONE OF THE GREAT LOST 45s OF THE ERA

(Originally posted on the old blog on 17 October 2012)

I’ve mentioned before that for a short while from around late 1985 for maybe around 18 months that music took a bit of a back-seat in my life. I had just graduated from university, gotten my first job and moved to Edinburgh to live. I got a bit entrenched for a while in the world of community theatre and even a bit of stand-up comedy…..writing stuff for others not performing.

So there’s a bit of a hole in the collection from around this era. I’m aware of a fair bit of the stuff thanks in the main to Jacques the Kipper and his endless supply of compilation tapes a few years later, many of which featured songs and bands from my ‘lost’ period.

Today’s Scottish singles isn’t one that JtK brought to my attention. It was only in recent years through the blogging activities did I learn that a number of excellent yet short-lived Scottish bands embraced the DIY ethos much of which would contribute to the C86 movement that totally passed me by at the time.

History doesn’t say record much about The Big Gun. They were from Irvine, a town on the west coast of Scotland some 25 miles south-west of Glasgow. They only ever released one single on their own Hi-Fibre label while one other song was made available via a flexi-disc which had, on the other side, a song by another native of Irvine, a singer-songwriter called Basil Pieroni.

As regular TVV readers will know, Basil is nowadays the guitarist in Butcher Boy and someone I’ve become friends with in recent years. It was through this connection that led me to download some tracks from a posting at the wonderful (but now sadly defunct) Consolation Prizes blog:-

mp3 : The Big Gun – You’ll Always Give Your Best
mp3 : Basil Pieroni – Don’t Ever Go Away Again

The homemade info that came with the flexidisc has been reproduced above, but in case you can’t read it:-

The Big Gun : Keith Martin (vocals, guitar); Alan Carruthers (guitar); Andy Crone (bass); Andy Kerr (Drums); Andy O’Hagen (additives)

Both tracks recorded early Nov 86 in Glasgow. Photos by Gordon Hay

Hi-Fibre : Fresh, substantial and committed, in this instance, to the provision of free pop. Here, enthusiasts can sample the delights of The Big Gun and Basil Pieroni recorded here for the first time.

Hi – Fibre : Bright, urgent and working through the night to deliver instant classics to the nation; allow no-one to seel you this record. Hi-Fibre – fast, reliable and painfully instinctive

But as I said above, only one proper 45 would appear – Heard About Love backed with Happens All The Time. Sadly I don’t own a copy. But thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I’m been able to convert copies of the tunes as posted on a video channel:-

mp3 : The Big Gun – Heard About Love
mp3 : The Big Gun – Happens All The Time

Have a listen folks…..and discover one of THE great long-lost 45s of Scottish indie-pop.

Oh and the chap Andy O’Hagen on “additives”??

I’m reliably informed it was the tambourine that he was shaking. He grew up to be this awfully talented bloke……

Veruca Salt

ANOTHER WEEK OF REPEAT POSTS : SCARED HITLESS

(Originally posted on the old blog on 17 October 2012)

I hope you agree that Scared Hitless is a cracking name for a record label – although it is seemingly a name adopted by many a hapless baseball team.

As far as I know, there were just six singles and one LP ever released via the label:-

FRET 001 : 3 and a half minutes – Peep (1992)
FRET 002 : 3 and a half minutes – Bled Me Dry (1993)
FRET 003 : Veruca Salt – Seether (1994)
FRET 004 : Skyscraper – Never Again (1995)
FRET 005 : Oslo – Talk To Feet (1999)
FRET 006 : Oslo – Skriker (1999)
FRETLP 001 : Oslo – Daylight (1999)

I’ve only one of the above records but it’s an absolute belter:-

mp3 : Veruca Salt – Seether
mp3 : Veruca Salt – All Hail Me

Formed by Nina Gordon and Louise Post as an acoustic duo they soon realised that wasn’t the sort of music they wanted to make and so they enlisted bass player Steve Lack and Jim Shapiro (Nina Gordon’s half-brother) on drums

They released a self-funded demo tape and shopped it to labels while playing a handful of small club shows. The buzz around the band grew furiously, and after only a few live gigs, the band was signed to Minty Fresh Records for whom they released the single Seether which became a huge hit on MTV in the States and ultimately led to Veruca Salt signing a contract with Geffen Records.

The Scared Hitless release of Seether in the UK was June 1994 but after the single had picked up momentum in the USA, it was re-released in the UK on Hi-Rise Recordings in November 1994. I’ve got the 12″ version of this in the cupboard as well:-

There were two tracks on the b-side taken from a BBC session:-

mp3 : Veruca Salt – Straight
mp3 : Veruca Salt – She’s A Brain

Seether only reached #61 in the UK charts but was hugely popular with listeners of the John Peel Show who voted it in at #3 in the 1994 Festive Fifty .

Happy Listening

Morrissey

THE MOZ SINGLES (34)

And so we approach the final few entries in the Morrissey series with a look at what I reckon is an underrated single from December 1992.

mp3 : Morrissey – Certain People I Know

In addition to the sleeve of the CD single, I’ve sourced a copy of the promo single with its tribute to the T Rex 45s of the early 70s….indeed Mrs Villain still has a number of these kicking around from her teenage years….and its entirely apt given that the tune is near enough a rip-off Ride A White Swan, a record which peaked at #2 in late 1970.

I suppose it’s the fact that I’m quite fond of the T Rex singles myself that makes this one of the most enjoyable Morrissey offerings. And while I never bought any T Rex singles as they mostly predated my passion for pop music,I can recall them being played again and again and again on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show (which was always on as I got ready for school) and of course remember seeing Marc Bolan et al perform the hits on Top Of The Pops.

Certain People I Know was the third single to be lifted from the LP Your Arsenal, but it was a full five months after You’re The One For Me Fatty. It was a strange time to issue a single in the midst of all the novelty records that traditionally appear at that time of year, and it was hardly a surprise when it only reached #35, which at the time was the poorest ever performance by a solo single (and it was the 14th in the career).

But there’s one other things to factor in….namely that it was the first Morrissey release since the infamous August 1992 gig known as Madstock when the donning of a Union Jack at his first UK gig in 18 months led to a near riot and the subsequent pillorying of the great man in the NME as an alleged racist.

The fact that the crowd trouble was subsequently found to have little to do with the parading and discarding of the flag was glossed over. The fact that some of the song titles and sentiments were questionable were enough to have the verdict delivered as guilty.

It was a difficult time to be a Morrissey fan, and there’s no doubt it had an effect on the sales of the single. The real irony of course came two years later when having pilloried Morrissey for use of the Union Jack when it was an emblem associated with the far-right extremist parties, the NME couldn’t wait to picture Noel Gallagher with his Union Jack guitar or talk about Geri Halliwell and her Union Jack dress all the while claiming they were triunphs for British music.

Of the two b-sides on the single, one has become a bit of live staple over the years, although the version of Jack The Ripper banged out on stage by his band is often unrecognisable from the original release, while You’ve Had Her is a worthy enough song thanks to a wonderfully short but bittersweet lyric which is dismissive of the blokes who ditch the girl as soon as they’ve had their wicked way….

mp3 : Morrissey – You’ve Had Her
mp3 : Morrissey – Jack The Ripper

The cover shot was taken by one of his oldest friends, Linder Sterling. There’s an unsubstantiated rumour that the sleeve was changed at the last minute, with the word Morrissey written in black ink rather than being spelled out in red, white and blue.

Enjoy.

Twilight Sad

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 115)

From wiki:-

The Twilight Sad are a Scottish indie rock band, comprising James Graham (vocals), Andy MacFarlane (guitar), and Mark Devine (drums). The band are currently signed to Fat Cat Records and have now released four full-length albums, as well as several EPs and singles.

Their 2007 debut album, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, drew widespread acclaim from critics, who noted Graham’s thick Scottish accent and MacFarlane’s dense sonic walls of shoegazing guitar and wheezing accordion. The Twilight Sad’s notoriously loud live performances have been described as “completely ear-splitting,”and the band toured for the album across Europe and the United States throughout 2007 and 2008. Sessions inspired by stripped-down and reworked live performances yielded the 2008 mini-album, Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did.

Their second album, Forget the Night Ahead, marked a shift in the band’s direction; lyrically more personal and musically darker and more streamlined, it was released in 2009 to further acclaim. Recording sessions for the album also produced the mid-2010 release The Wrong Car, which followed the departure of founding bassist Craig Orzel in February 2010. T

The Twilight Sad’s third album, No One Can Ever Know, was released in February 2012 and marked another stylistic shift, with the band citing industrial music and krautrock influences for a darker, sparser sound.The band’s fourth album, entitled Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave, was released just a few days ago on 27th October 2014.

The band describes their sound as “folk with layers of noise,”and music critics have described the band as “perennially unhappy” and “a band that inject some real emotion and dynamic excitement into a comparatively standard template.”

Your humble scribe loves this band and never tires of listening to them or catching them live. The aforementioned 12″ single from 2010 features today, complete with its b-sides containing an otherwise unavailable songs and very different versions thanks to remixes of two of their best-loved tunes:-

mp3 : The Twilight Sad – The Wrong Car
mp3 : The Twilight Sad – Throw Yourself Into The Water Again
mp3 : The Twilight Sad – The Room (Mogwai remix)
mp3 : The Twilight Sad – Reflection Of The Television (Errors remix)

Enjoy. Can’t believe it is already November and that I’ve now featured 115 different Scottish artists in this series of singles in my ownership.

Kristin Hersh

A HAUNTING TUNE FOR HALLOWEEN

From 1994 in which a lead vocal, a backing vocal, an acoustic guitar and a cello combine to stunning effect:-

mp3 : Kristin Hersh – Your Ghost

It was the debut single from the Throwing Muses main protagonist and she called in a favour from her dear friend Michael Stipe whose band were probably just about the biggest selling on the planet at that particular time. It’s a song that caught a lot of people by surprise – aficionados of Throwing Muses were astonished at the stripped-back beauty and simplicity of the track while R.E.M.‘s newest batch of fans were left scratching their heads and wondering why Stipe would feature so prominently on a recording by a musician more or less unknown in commercial or mainstream circles.

I was thrilled to pick up a mint copy of the 12″ single in a second-hand store the other week for just £2. I actually reckon that the person who bought it did so on the basis of the backing vocal in the hope (in vain as it turned out) that Stipe would feature on the other songs. It certainly appears to be a more or less unplayed piece of plastic.

Three other songs make up this lovely release, one of them being a rather startling cover of a Led Zeppelin track (and as someone who is not a fan of the rock giants I’m prepared to say that Kristin’s version is waaaaay superior!!)

mp3 : Kristin Hersh – The Key
mp3 : Kristin Hersh – Uncle June and Aunt Kiyoti
mp3 : Kristin Hersh – When The Levee Breaks

Oh and the lyrics of the middle song of these three refers geographically to Canada and it was wonderful to hear the province of Nova Scotia being refered to as New Scotland. I often forget just how many people from my wee country made their way to the rugged east coast of Canada to try to carve out a new life for themselves.

Finally…anyone who enjoys autobiographies of any sort really should track down a copy of Paradoxical Undressing, Kristin’s brilliantly-written and very frank, moving, often disturbing and occasionally laugh-out-loud-at-the ridiculousness-of-it-all memoir of a period in her life when she suffering from a debilitating mental illness.

Happy Halloween y’all.

BMX Bandits

A SCOTTISH SUPERGROUP (OF SORTS)

Duglas T Stewart is the nearest thing we have to pop royalty in Scotland.

Back in 1986, he formed BMX Bandits who are still going strong today. Over the years, Duglas’s band has had almost as many members as have at one time been part of The Fall – the wiki entry on the band has some 25 musicians listed as current or past members.

To be fair, a number of the names were only in the band on a temporary basis, often for a one-off single or as part of a live band for a few shows. Back in 1991, an incredible line-up came together for the recording of what would be the band’s second studio LP and in particular its lead-off single Come Clean which, as the back of the 12″ single says was performed by

Duglas Stewart, Joe McAlinden, Norman Blake, Francis MacDonald, Gordon Keen and Eugene Kelly,

all of whom have, over many many years, been hugely influential in the development of the indie music scene in Scotland as performers, writers and producers amidst a myriad of bands including of course Teenage Fanclub and The Vaselines, but also the lesser known but hugely admired Captain America, Eugenius and Superstar.

Come Clean is a cracking pop song which captures perfectly so much of what was going on musically around these parts in 1991/92 and if it wasn’t for Duglas’s distinctive and unusual vocal style (he’s not the most classical singer you’ll ever hear in your life) then you could have been guessing at a few bands as being behind the songs (no real surprise really given how interchangeable everyone seemed to be).

mp3 : BMX Bandits – Come Clean

The two other tracks on the 12″ contain a song on which Duglas allows someone else to sing (I’m pretty sure its Joe McAlinden) along with a track lifted from the debut album C90 and which remains a live favourite all these years on:-

mp3 : BMX Bandits – Retitled
mp3 : BMX Bandits – Let Mother Nature Be Your Guide

These three tracks appear on one side of the vinyl. Flip it over and you get a tremendous tongue-in-cheek tribute to Madchester and baggy…..or perhaps a sly dig at their good mates Soup Dragons who had abandoned the sort of indie guitar music that had dominated their debut recordings and gone down the route of dance with a touch of the Happy Mondays:-

mp3 : BMX Bandits – Come Clean (Jumping On Someone Else’s Funky Train Mix)

Great fun.

Madness

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

Magnificent 7?

Surely Some Mistake – there’s only six guys on the cover……

Appearances can be soooooooooooo deceptive.

The band was indeed officially only six-strong in the early days. The seventh bloke to join Madness wouldn’t do until after this single was released, although up until then he had been part of their live shows as backing vocalist and dancer. And indeed would play a huge part in making this single so bloody popular:-

mp3 : Madness – One Step Beyond

It’s a cover of a tune by Prince Buster, a Jamaican ska artist who had enjoyed success back in the 60s. Madness had already paid tribute to him with their debut single The Prince before making sure he got a whole lot of royalties with their follow-up which reached #7 in November 1979.

The key difference between the original and this loving tribute is the addition of the spoken-word intro:-

Hey you,
Don’t watch that, watch this!
This is the heavy heavy monster sound
The nuttiest sound around
So if you’ve come in off the street
And you’re beginning to feel the heat
Well listen Buster
You better start to move your feet
To the rockinest, rock-steady beat
Of Madness
One step beyond!

Performed by Chas Smash and copied by kids in playgrounds all over the UK. With a wonderfully entertaining video to boot, this is the song really got Madness noticed and before long they cemented a place as one of the great British singles acts of the late 20th Century.

Just under a year later, Madness would release a truly astonishing single that remains my particular favourite. A soap-opera in just under three minutes. Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Boy and girl have sex…baby gets created. Parents of the boy and girl react with anger and horror…and completely ostracize their own offspring.

Their crime wasn’t to become unexpected parents. Their crime was to create a mixed-race baby…

mp3 : Madness – Embarrassment

Based on a true story. The teenage sister of saxophonist Lee Thomson had a black boyfriend and became pregnant only to be horrofied by the fact that many in her family shunned her. The real life story turns out to have had a happy ending, with the family seeing sense after the baby girl was born. I’m guessing the existence of the song also played its part….

Happy Listening

Bads

G’DAY FROM OUR ANZAC CORRESPONDENT : DOOZIES FROM DOWN UNDER (3)

More Kiwis this week, which I discovered on an Australian TV show, hosted by an American musician.

The show is called ‘rage’, an all-night music video show that has been screening on the ABC (Australia’s public broadcaster) every Friday & Saturday night for the last 27 years. Most Saturday nights a guest presenter programs it, usually a visiting musician/band, but they’ve also had writers, artists etc (last year for example, just before the federal elections, they had a politician from each of the 3 major parties co-hosting it, which was pretty interesting actually – kinda shed new light on them).

Generally they have a few hours of tracks the host has chosen, with them introducing some of them, then a bunch of videos of their own. As you can imagine, a great thing to come home to after a night out, when you’re not quite ready for bed yet (or to stay up for if not out-and-about). Worthwhile checking out the website if you have the time… hmm, seems they’ve changed it a bit (hate that) – used to be able to scroll back over at least the last 15-20 years worth and see who programmed it and what they played, now seems to only go to 2007 (though you can still find earlier playlists with a bit of effort).

Alternatively, think of a band/artist you like who may have toured Australia and type into your search engine of choice: “so-and-so’ programming Rage” (eg, some folk might be interested to see what the author Irvine Welsh programmed, or what New Order programmed when they hosted it. Many others of note have also been involved over the years, such as Beck, Teenage Fanclub, Sonic Youth, Nick Cave… sorry JC, don’t think Morrissey has… though Henry Rollins did, and you may or may not want to see him explaining why he programmed a Moz song… )

Anyway, back in 2005 Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins was hosting it. He had been in NZ before coming to Australia and was quite taken by this track by The Bads, so decided to play the clip. Really glad he did cos L love it and hope you will too

mp3 : The Bads – Carry The Weight

Cheers, Craig

Velvet Underground

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

I found another selection of what I had previously thought were lost postings from the old blog the other day. They were from the month of April 2011….a time when I needed to take a break from blogging but the wonderful Ctel, along with many other incredible friends from the blogosphere, stepped in and kept things going. I think its a series of postings I will return to at some point, but in the meantime, here’s an adaptation of something I wrote on 1 April 2011. And not as a joke either.

———–

Strange as it may seem, I wasn’t a fan of The Velvet Underground back in the 80s even though I knew that so much of their sound influenced many of my favourite bands; indeed most of said bands were not slow in putting out cover versions of VU songs.

This attitude was all because of my unwritten rule of thumb that I wasn’t all that interested in listening to old bands, especially those from the generation before mine. It’s also why I don’t ‘get’ The Beatles or Elvis Presley – I’ve never really given them a try. And being a totally inconsistent sod, I shouldn’t have ever given a chance to The Kinks or Johnny Cash – but I did and loved them.

But I was stubborn about VU for decades. Until last year (2010) when I spent all of £3 on a greatest hits CD compilation, I owned nothing of theirs. Having given the CD a few listens I’m now willing to admit that some of their songs are pretty decent, including this handful:-

mp3 : The Velvet Underground – I’m Waiting For The Man
mp3 : The Velvet Underground – Pale Blue Eyes
mp3 : The Velvet Underground – Rock ‘n’ Roll
mp3 : The Velvet Underground – Sweet Jane
mp3 : The Velvet Underground – Venus In Furs

The 1967 debut LP Velvet Underground & Nico is the original home of both I’m Waiting For The Man and Venus In Furs. I first heard the former as a cover recorded by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark as the b-side to their 1980 single Messages. I liked the cover enough to seek out a mate who had VU records to shove the original on a tape for me. I wasn’t moved enough at the time to fall in love with the song…..but at the same time I didn’t have a real dislike of it. It just sounded a bit dated and one-paced. It was only maybe 5 years later when I started really listening to Jonathan Richman that I realised that the sound, far from being dated was in fact timeless and still worth a listen. But I still didn’t buy any of their releases.

Venus In Furs is another track folk tried to get me to listen to when I was a lot younger. It didn’t do anything for me. But now that my listening tastes have matured, I can see that this is a hugely significant piece of music that has influenced so many, not least Tindersticks, a band I championed many a time over on the old blog.

From the 1969 LP The Velvet Underground there can be no surprise that Pale Blue Eyes gets featured as one of my five songs by the VU given my love of the cover recorded by Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins. A cover that in my humble opinion is way superior to the original…..

Finally, from the 1970 release Loaded, you will find the tracks Rock’n’Roll and Sweet Jane.

The former is one that I have only recently fallen for. I didn’t know it at all until I picked up the compilation CD…well that is not technically true as I had heard it a few times over the years at various indie-disco or club nights…..but it sort of washed over me. But hearing it loud on the headphones while sitting on the beach under gloriously clear blue skies changed everything. Shake your thang hispsters…..and play that air guitar solo!! The latter has an appalling first 17 seconds…..just ignore it and listen to Lou Reed telling you he’s standing on the corner with his suitcase in his hand…….and then take in the remaining near four minutes and accept that it is a wonderful song that I’m ashamed took me far too long to appreciate.

But despite all that I’ve said above in praise of these five songs there’s still too many of the VU songs, certainly on the Very Best Of….CD that still don’t do it for me. But c’mon, I have softened my attitude in recent years and am prepared to acknowledge they deserve their place in the list of important bands that have recorded popular music.

Enjoy.

Herman's Hermits, Morrissey

THE MOZ SINGLES (33)

I’d be amazed if this, the fourth Morrissey solo single, from back in November 1989 was ever put at the top of any fan’s list as being the best song he’s ever released. In fact, I wouldn’t be slow in calling anyone who said such a thing a big fibber.

It was not at all well received on release….in fact I didn’t buy it right away so confident I was that it wouldn’t be too long before I’d pick it up for pennies in a bargain bin. And that’s exactly what happened. I think I paid 50p for it in the Cockburn Street branch of Fopp in Edinburgh…if indeed it was as much as that. There were loads of them in the bargain bin. Now, I see it’s going for £12.99 at an internet site and is labelled as ‘a collectors item’.

mp3 : Morrissey – Ouija Board, Ouija Board
mp3 : Morrissey – Yes, I Am Blind
mp3 : Morrissey – East West

It’s a single rescued by the b-sides, and while Yes, I Am Blind is very much Morrissey-by- numbers, it’s the sort of slow-tempo song he’s done very well throughout his career.

The other track is a cover of a song written by Graham Gouldman (ex 10cc) and was originally the closing track on There’s A Kind Of Hush All Over The World, the 1967 LP by Herman’s Hermits. I remember playing the Morrissey version for the first time, and not realising it was a cover, and thinking that it wasn’t that far removed from some of the later-day songs by The Smiths. A rare example of a half-decent cover by the great man. Although I’ve since found the original and there’s no argument that it’s a tremendous pop song which can’t really be ruined if you stick to a faithful interpretation.

mp3 : Herman’s Hermits – East West

Enjoy

TV21

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 114)

TV21 formed in 1979 in Edinburgh, comprising Ally Palmer (vocals/guitar), Norman Rodgers (guitar/vocals), Neal Baldwin (bass), Dave Hampton (trumpet) and Ian Greig (drums).

Two singles in 1980 were released on their own Powbeat label, at which point Ian Greig was replaced by former Rezillos drummer Ali Paterson. After a further one-off single in early 1981 with Demon records, the band were signed to Deram (which was part of the multinational Decca Records conglomerate) with many comparing their material to The Teardrop Explodes (a very lazy comparison based almost solely on the fact that Reward, with its prominent trumpet part, had been a smash single).

There were great hopes for TV21 and the band were teamed up with a then unknown but much thought of producer in Ian Broudie. The first of the material to emerge from this collaboration was Snakes and Ladders, a single released in May 1981, while its b-side, Artistic License, was produced by James Honeyman-Scott and Martin Chambers of The Pretenders. The single also came with a bonus 7″ single which was co-produced by the band and Troy Tate, who of course was once part of the afore-mentioned Teardrop Explodes.

mp3 : TV21 – Snakes and Ladders
mp3 : TV21 – Artistic License
mp3 : TV21 – Ambition
mp3 : TV21 – Playing With Fire

Despite so many well-kent faces working with the band, the single failed to register with the general public, as indeed was the case with its follow-up Something’s Wrong in October 1981 and the debut LP A Thin Red Line released the following month.

A change of producer followed but the March 1982 release of All Join Hands also flopped. Later that year TV21 opened for The Rolling Stones when the latter had a mini-tour of smaller venues across Scotland (including the Glasgow Apollo where I had got myself a ticket) but instead of building on any new fans picked up from such exposure, the band broke up almost immediately after the tour was completed.

23 years later, and totally out of the blue, TV21 reformed since when they have gigged a fair bit and also recorded and released new material, including the LP Forever 22 in 2009 once again on Powbeat Records (29 years after that last relaese on that very label!!!)

One of their biggest fans is Mike from Manic Pop Thrills. If you click on this link you can more or less get the full story of the band since they got back together.

Enjoy

Blur

A FORGOTTEN VICTIM OF THE BRITPOP WARS

History shows that Country House by Blur beat Roll With It by Oasis to the #1 spot when both singles were released in the same week in August 1995. It also records that in the immediate aftermath, Oasis won the Britop war as the critics adjudged (What’s The Story) Morning Glory as far superior to The Great Escape, a view backed by the general public if sales were anything to go by.

The sad thing of course is that the initial singles battle was fought with two really inferior bits of music, especially when you consider the quality of the follow-ups, neither of which reached #1 despite deserving to do so.

The next single by Oasis was Wonderwall, released on 30 October and considered by many to be as good a song to stall ay #2 as any, and probably the song most associated with the band all these years later

Blur waited a further two weeks before releasing their follow-up and they went with the one truly outstanding track from the parent LP:-

mp3 : Blur – The Universal

It’s a song filled with melancholy and despair. It’s more or less saying, again, that modern life is rubbish and that there’s little chance of that ever-changing. The tune is haunting and moving while the icing on the cake is the truly magnificent video in which the band paid tribute to A Clockwork Orange, a movie which at the time was still impossible to see in the UK as its director, Stanley Kubrick, had had it withdrawn back in 1972 in response to accusations that the film had encouraged copycat acts of violence (the ban wasn’t lifted until after Kubrick’s death in 1999).

It’s a song which, if truth be told, would have been better served by wither being the lead single off the album or else kept off it entirely and released as a stand alone single once the promotional work for the LP had been completed. That way, it might have got what it deserved and not the miserly #5 chart position from where it quickly drifted away while Wonderwall kept selling and selling during a lengthy stay in the charts right up to and beyond Christmas.

The Universal came in 2xCDs, one of which featured four live recordings from a BBC Radio 1 session in September 1995 as part of the promotion of the parent album.

mp3 : Blur – The Universal (live)
mp3 : Blur – Mrs Robinson’s Quango (live)
mp3 : Blur – It Could Be You (live)
mp3 : Blur – Stereotypes (live)

Enjoy.

James

THE JAMES SINGLES (19)

March 1994. The record label, as usual, want to promote an album through lifting a further single from it. The band, conscious of the backlash from fans when this had happened before, are against the idea. But where in the past there would have been an irreparable clash between label and band, this time round a compromise was reached.

It was by now an open secret that during the recording sessions for Laid that much more material had been recorded. Indeed, James had hoped that the fruits of those labours, which were for the most part were well-produced recordings of demos and works-in-progress, would have been released alongside Laid in a limited edition form. In the end, it would be in September 1994, a full year after Laid had been released, that the LP Wah Wah was released.

The March 1994 single provided a taster for Wah Wah as one of its two lead tracks was culled from that material along with a track from Laid:-

mp3 : James – Jam J
mp3 : James – Say Something

Unsurprisingly, the radio stations stuck to the tried and tested and it was Say Something which was given all the prominence. Jam J didn’t at the time, nor today, strike anyone as an obvious single release……

The single was released as a CD and in cassette form with the CD single having two further bits of music:-

mp3 : James – Assassin
mp3 : James – Say Something (new version)

The former was a more than half-decent new track (albeit one which clocked in at under two minutes and whose storyline would no doubt be greeted with horror by the UK tabloids nowadays leading to an immediate ban across the airwaves) while the latter was exactly as it said on the tin and came in at over a minute longer than the version made available for radio play. At least it wasn’t a crazy dance remix….that came via a second CD and a 12″ single.

I never did get round to buying the second CD of Jam J. It was two remixes of the track by Andy Weatherall in his Sabres of Paradise guise, each clocking in at around 17 minutes in length. I have absolutely no doubt that it is top quality material but I balked at the idea of owning a James song clocking in at that length. Nor was I sold on it when reviews indicated that the remix was ambient music with Tim’s vocals more or less removed altogether. Very much an acquired taste.

The single reached #24 in the UK charts. Little did any of us know that it would be three more years before the next James single.

Smiths, Unknown, Young Marble Giants

A READER NEEDS YOUR HELP…

Hello JC,

Firstly, I’d like to thank you for many hours of music listening and informative post reading over the years. I’ve been using HypeMachine (as MrPharmacist) for what is now getting close to ten years, and you have always been my favourite blogger.

Apologies for never actually commenting on your posts, like many others out there just happy to consume, although wishing I had the drive to apply myself to a similar task.

The reason for this correspondence after all this time. I have a track that I have been listening to for over twenty years now and the tape is pretty much warn out…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt9I8SjiiLc

I have never been able to ID it. I heard a chill out DJ play it once in a Manchester bar in about 1992 but can’t remember who he said it was. I’m pretty sure they were once on Granada local TV news as well. Could you give it a listen? One Dove meets Cocteau Twins, or it might have just been cash-in Ibiza ambience!

PS. A recently considered top 12 lps from Feb that say something to me about my life as press ganged into on facebook…

1. Belle & Sebastian – If You’re Feeling Sinister
2. The Cure – Pornography
3. The Smiths – Meat is Murder
4. Echo and the Bunnymen – Heaven Up Here
5. Conflict – The Ungovernable Force
6. Various – Dance Craze (Specials et al)
7. Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy
8. The Fall – Bend Sinister
9. Elbow – Leaders Of The Free World
10. LFO – Frequencies
11. Metronomy – English Riviera
12. Happy Mondays – Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)

Thanks again for all your posts,

All the best,

Sid – DrSidders – Mr. Pharmacist

———————————————————————-

So please dear readers, click on the above youtube link and have a listen. If you’re able to identify the tune then please share the knowledge with us.

And looking at Sid’s list of 12 albums gives me an excuse to feature a song from the set I aired at the Strangeways night last Saturday

mp3 : The Smiths – Vicar In A Tutu

Dedicated to this very fine chap who came along dressed perfectly as the said vicar…….

Other pics, including some of me doing my best to add a touch of John Peel-esque farce* to the night have also been posted on t’internet. Here’s an example:-

Quick PS

I ventured along the other night, with Aldo, to see Young Marble Giants at Stereo in Glasgow. It seemingly was the first time the band had ever played in my home city.

For those of you who don’t know, this is a band which released just one album and a couple of EPs back in 1980 and 1981. The music is quite minimalist and on the quiet side and the songs are on the short side.

So much could have gone wrong at this gig. Stereo was packed to the rafters so there was probably about 300 folk in the basement space. It was hot and it was sticky.

The band took to the stage at around 8.50 and played a note-perfect set for 50 minutes. The audience paid rapt attention. It was the first time I’d ever been at a pop/rock gig where the audience behaved as if it was a classical performance and didn’t speak as the band were playing and furthermore didn’t speak when the band members were talking in-between songs. Nor did anyone go up to the bar and order drinks and so causing the staff to clank glass or cans or make the till bleep away. This was all about 300 fans coming along to experience live music in its purest sense and it was quite magical.

So if you were part of that particular audience, a big thank you from this particular fan for making the occasion so wonderful. It was also very clear that the band really appreciated things….

mp3 : Young Marble Giants – Wurlitzer Jukebox
mp3 : Young Marble Giants – Eating Noddemix

Enjoy

* where the great man occasionally played a record at the wrong speed, I managed to press play on two songs at the same time on the laptop causing all sorts of confusion for a few seconds…….

T Rex

COVERING MARC BOLAN & T-REX

Don’t know what prompted me to think about this, but I realised not too long ago that I’ve quite a number of Marc Bolan & T Rex cover versions in the collection, most of them having been released as b-sides on various singles. As I’m feeling a bit lazy today, I thought I’d just gather a bunch of them together and offer them up for y0ur listening pleasure:-

mp3 : Department S – Solid Gold Easy Action
mp3 : Lloyd Cole – The Slider
mp3 : Teenage Fanclub – Life’s A Gas
mp3 : Altered Images – Jeepster
mp3 : Morrissey – Cosmic Dancer (live)
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Children of The Revolution
mp3 : Placebo – 20th Century Boy

I was the oldest of three boys in my family and therefore didn’t really have anyone to offer guidance on who or what was cool when I was young. I always imagined that if I had had an older sister then the walls of her bedroom would hve been covered in Bolan paraphenalia and that his songs would be blaring all constantly….just as they did round at my best mate’s house with his two older sisters!

mp3 : T Rex – I Love To Boogie

Enjoy

Jam

THE BEST BAND IN THE WORLD IN 1979

I mentioned a box set by The Clash the other day. One of the few other box sets I own is Direction, Reaction, Creation which is a 5-disc released in 1996 and offering more than 100 tracks by The Jam.

It also came with lavish packaging and a great booklet which contained summary details of the band’s live performances. That’s where I’m able to see that, having just got myself at the age 16 to get into the habit of getting to see as many live performances as possible at the Glasgow Apollo (I was still too young to see bands play in pubs or sttudent unions), that I caught The Jam for the first time on Saturday 8 December 1979 during their extensive UK tour to promote Setting Sons (29 gigs in 34 days). I would also catch the band on the four subsequent times they played the venue before they broke up in 1982.

My love for the band had been re-ignited by the LP All Mod Cons. I had bought and enjoyed In The City but having been bitterly disappointed by follow-up The Modern World had, in that teenage way where it is so easy to discard something or someone, decided I didn’t really like The Jam.

All Mod Cons was released in November 1978. But it was during 1979 that The Jam really began to establish themselves as my favourite band on account of an astonishing run of singles:-.

First up in March was this:-

mp3 : The Jam – Strange Town
mp3 : The Jam – The Butterfly Collector

There can be no argument that this was and remains an incredible piece of plastic. The A-side is powerful and fast while the B-side is slow and hanting….but both contain really sad and moving lyrics. The A-side being the tale of someone lost, lonely and alienated having been lured to the capital by the bright lights and promises of streets paved with gold, while the B-side is sorry and lurid tale of a groupie whose best days are behind her, but not that she has cottoned onto that fact. It’s worth remembering that Paul Weller was a musician very much in love with a long-term girlfriend and this was his response to the sorts of offers that seemingly most famous young rock musicians get while they are out on tour.

That #15 hit was followed up in August with this:-

mp3 : The Jam – When You’re Young
mp3 : The Jam – Smithers-Jones

An anthem of and for disaffected youth backed with a bitter tale of middle-aged failure. Is it any wonder that so many discerning teenagers in particular latched onto The Jam and proclaimed them as the greatest, most exciting and most relevant band ever? I was 16 years of age when this single was released…and it just seemed to be the story of my whole existence. And as for the b-side…it was a throwback to some of the earlier and well-received Jam singles as it gave space to Bruce Foxton to sing one of his songs, and this I would argue was his finest in all his time with the band. I was 16 years of age when this b-side was released…and it just seemed to be a well-timed warning not to throw my lot in with any old corporation.

That #17 hit was followed up in December with this:-

mp3 : The Jam – The Eton Rifles
mp3 : The Jam – See-Saw

Personally, I thought the last of them was the weakest of the three, but it did give the band their first Top 10 single at the ninth attempt. Oh and every single afterwards (with the exception of the import-only That’s Entertainment) would also go Top 10.

And it was the NME Single Of The Year for 1979.

At the time of release, many thought that Paul Weller had written an autobiographical song, but in fact it was inspired by a happening from the previous year.

A ‘Right to Work’ march had gone through the town of Slough, an event that wasn’t universally received locally – particularly by a group of well-heeled scholars from the nearby Eton College. The marchers were jeered and ridiculed by the scholars which then developed into a situation of a stand-off between the two sides.

Some of the marchers from an organised far-left political party then led a charge into the scholars and a series of stand-up fights ensued…unfortunately many of the marchers got a kicking as the posh boys from Eton turned out to be younger, fitter and more than capable of looking after themselves. Reports indicated that those who had instigated the fight were the first to flee the scene when they realised they were going to get a hiding, thus some of Weller’s most scathing lines:-

” What a catalyst you turned out to be
Loaded the guns then you run off home for your tea
Left me standing like a guilty schoolboy.”

Paul Weller celebrated his 21st birthday in the calendar year of 1979. He was an astonishingly prodigious talent.

Morrissey

THE MOZ SINGLES (32)

When I started out on this quest a few years ago on the old blog to review every UK single released by Morrissey, I didn’t have all of them in the collection – some 95% of them perhaps, but not all of them. I thought it would be a simple enough task to track down those that were missing.

Wrong.

This one proved a bit awkward unless, at the time I was prepared to pay over £40 for a copy. (It’s come down in price over the past 5 or so years but would still set you back around £20)

Although I’m a fan of I Just Want To See The Boy Happy (trombone playing on a Morrissey record??? Hurrah!!!) , it was the fourth single lifted from Ringleader of The Tormentors and as far as I was aware, the b-sides only had live versions of old songs. It also was released not long before Xmas 2006 and I’m no different from anyone else in wanting to having other priorities for my pennies and pounds at that time of year. It was sheer stupidity that caused me to overlook the fact that a previously unreleased song was on the CD single…here was me only looking at the two versions of the vinyl.

The three different formats, combined with the new song, and a couple of the best live recordings he’s shoved out, helped generate enough sales to take the single to a more than respectable #16 in the UK charts. But in January 2007, the record label made one final effort to get in some cash with a 12″ picture disc, limited to 1,000 copies, with all the tracks on the different formats brought together. And when I began this series, I was determined to track down an affordable copy of the single, which I did thanks to a seller from Germany.

mp3 : Morrissey – I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
mp3 : Morrissey – Sweetie-Pie
mp3 : Morrissey – I Want The One I Can’t Have (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – Speedway (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – Late Night, Maudlin Street (live)

The previously unreleased song, Sweetie-Pie, is a rather strange-sounding but entrancing track which I reckon should have been included on the LP just because it is so different from the majority of songs he was releasing at the time.

I really do like this version of Speedway, which I reckon is one of the best songs he’s recorded at any point in his career, solo or with his old band, while the performance of Late Night, Maudlin Street is also more than passable (and non-fans can take heart from the fact its a couple of minutes shorter than the original studio version).

I will not pass comment however, on the cover of the song by The Smiths.

All three live tracks were lifted from shows at the Royal Albert Hall in September 2002. These were at a time when he was without any sort of record contract and are reckoned by many to be among some of the best he’s ever played as he was determined to show the London media luvvies that he was still worth writing and talking about……it worked as he was back with a vengeance less than a year later.

As with so many of the other releases at this time, the sleeve photos were taken by celebrated Italian fashion photographer Fabio Lovino.

Enjoy.