THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

MURDER BALLADS

I recently went to the cinema for the first time in seven years. My last time was at one of the premieres of Control during the Toronto Film Festival in 2007, an occasion when I was uncontrollably (pun intended) sobbing at the end.

This time it was to venture out to see 20,000 Days on Earth, a mix of drama and documentary portraying a fictionalised 24 hours in the life of Nick Cave. It proved to be quite enjoyable, heightened by some wonderful live performances of a number of songs from the 2013 LP Push The Sky Away. The film has a number of funny self-deprecating moments including when Nick talks about his brief brush with fame thanks to the duet with Kylie Minogue which took him onto Top of The Pops and into the living rooms of millions of people, many of whom bought their first ever Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album only to go off the band immediately.

That album was Murder Ballads and I make no apologies for digging a piece out of the archives of the old place from back in January 2007 and adapting it slightly.

Murder Ballads was released in 1996. It came at a time when Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds were growing in reputation and the main man’s profile was expanding into the pages of all of the mainstream broadsheet papers in the UK. When he announced that he was recording an album of death songs, everyone braced themselves for unbridled doom and gloom.

The fact that the taster for the album was a single recorded with Kylie Minogue stunned everyone. The fact that the single got into the charts and led to Nick making a couple of appearances on Top Of The Pops stunned everyone and Nick.

Personally, I loved the single. I had been a fan of Kylie for years (Jacques The Kipper will testify to that having once got a specially made t-shirt for me as a birthday present). It’s hard to imagine nowadays, but Kylie in the mid 90s was not the global phenomenon she is today…and I do firmly believe that while they both gained from recording with each other in terms of public recognition (Nick) and critical acclaim (Kylie), it was the pop princess who benefited most.

I imagine a few of Kylie’s mainstream fans would have bought this album and been appalled by it. Equally, I hope that a lot of listeners would have gone in with an open-mind and come out impressed. But it was a record which sold more than most of the other Bad Cave recordings (and which subsequently is very easy to find very cheap in charity stores as casual fans having not listened to it in almost 20 years clear some space in their homes!!).

The opening track, Song Of Joy, must be the most misleading song title ever. A funereally paced number about a man coming home and discovering his wife and three daughters had been mutilated by a serial killer. It’s an astonishingly bleak song, but a very brave one to include at the start of the album. If the casual listener was stunned by that, they had no idea what came next…

There’s loads of blood, gore, mindless violence, sex and bad language in track two. It’s like a mini-Tarantino movie in 5 minutes. Stagger Lee is a fantastic record – and is even more astonishing live. There’s loads of versions out there on the likes of you tube for your enjoyment including a personal favourite from Channel 4’s The White Room back in the mid 90s. But while it is an astonishingly good version, it doesn’t come close to catching how intense this song is when you’re in the audience at a gig.

There’s another extreme u-turn from Stagger Lee with tracks 3, 4, and 5, (Henry Lee, Lovely Creature and Where The Wild Roses Grow) all of which are ballads. And while there are deaths and murders in each of them, they could easily pass for love songs on any other record.

Track 6 is one of Mrs Villains’s all-time favourite songs and one that she was overjoyed to hear played live at Glasgow Barrowlands back in 2001.

I read someone else describe The Curse of Millhaven as polka-metal. And it’s true!! It’s an immense tale of a serial killer committing all sorts of atrocities in a small rural town. It’s just about the most catchy sing-a-long song that Nick has ever written, but it’s the frantic playing of the Bad Seeds that make this so special. Violence and gore never sounded so much fun.

A pause for breath with The Kindness of Strangers and Crow Jane at Tracks 7 & 8 before the tune that I think most divides fans of Nick Cave.

O’Malley’s Bar is either a fantastic opus or the most over-indulgent piece of crap ever recorded.

A man walks into a bar buys and drink. He then shoots the bar owner and everyone else unlucky enough to be in the vicinity. He does it cos he gets a sexual kick out of it. He doesn’t have a grudge against any of his victims. Many of the deaths are described in gruesome graphic detail. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many bodies there are at the end. But they’re piled up all around the bar. And then the cops come…..but I’m not spoiling the ending. Go and listen to all 14 mins and 28 seconds yourself. Oh and in the accompanying lyric booklet, I counted 158 lines for this song alone. With no chorus. As for the music….well there’s not much of real tune, it’s like an extended jamming session. But it’s incredibly effective.

The LP closes with a strange one. Death Is Not The End is a cover of an obscure Bob Dylan record, and lead vocals are taken by 7 different singers. It’s also the only song on the album that doesn’t have an actual death in it…..

Almost 20 years after its release, and I’m still not tired of Murder Ballads. I’m not saying its a perfect album. But it’s far better than many might have you believe. It’s an astonishing piece of work in terms of the breadth of music on offer. And it’s the music that matters most.

And so here’s Mrs Villain’s favourite:-

mp3: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – The Curse of Millhaven

Enjoy.

Morrissey

THE MOZ SINGLES (31)

Back in 1990 there was a bit of a sharp intake of breath when the great man revealed that as a follow-up to his single about disability – November Spawned A Monster – he was intending to deal with another taboo subject matter, that of male prostitution.

Given that I was expecting some sort of gloom-ridden lyric over an equally downbeat tune, I was quite astonished to hear such a jaunty tune coming out (so to speak) over the speakers of an Edinburgh record shop one lunchtime:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Piccadilly Palare

Of all the singles he’s released over the years, this is the one that has unquestionably grown on me more than any other. My initial reaction was that it would be a great record if it had been released by Madness, but I really wanted Morrissey to be much more than a tribute artiste. But after a couple of plays and a close listen to the these lyrics I realised that this was one of the finest records he’d recorded up to that point:-

Off the rails I was
And off the rails
I was happy to stay
Get out of my way
On the rack I was
Easy meat, and a reasonably good buy
A reasonably good buy

The piccadilly palare
Was just silly slang
Between me and the boys in my gang
So bona to vada. oh you
Your lovely eek and
Your lovely riah

We plied an ancient trade
Where we threw all life’s instructions away
Exchanging lies and digs (my way)
Cause in a belted coat
Oh, I secretly knew
That I hadn’t a clue

(no, no. no, no, no. you cant get there that way. follow me…)

The piccadilly palare
Was just silly slang
Between me and the boys in my gang
Exchanging palare
You wouldn’t understand
Good sons like you
Never do.

So why do you smile
When you think about Earls Court ?
But you cry when you think of all
The battles you’ve fought (and lost) ?
It may all end tomorrow
Or it could go on forever
In which case I’m doomed
It could go on forever
In which case I’m doomed

Bona drag …

The song title refers to a slang language first used by Victorian-era male prostitutes, so the near music-hall tune really is a touch of genius. I suspect Morrissey was really disappointed that this only reached #18 in the UK charts, which at the time was the poorest performing 45 he’d yet released, for within a month of its release he was dismissing it in an interview with a UK music magazine as ‘not a particularly strong record’.

I wonder how Morrissey feels about the b-sides…

mp3 : Morrissey – At Amber
mp3 : Morrissey – Get Off The Stage

The former is a reasonable enough song that turned out to be on a par to quite a few that would appear on the LP Kill Uncle, released just a few months later, which means in the overall scheme of things is quite disposable.

The latter however, (co-written with Andy Rourke), is the sort of thing that many of today’s young turks would probably revel in singing at Morrissey himself, with its barbed lyric about pop stars who have gone on too long and who release song after song after song which all sound the same. If, as is rumoured, it was written as an attack on Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, it is interesting to note that when it was released they were both 47 years of age and regarded by many as well past their prime.

Morrissey is still going strong in 2014 at the age of 55…….. he’s never performed Get Off The Stage live, and I imagine that he now never will.

Oh and trivia fact….the sleeve photo was taken by Anton Corbijn, one of the best known music photographers from the late 70s onwards, and more latterly a move director.

Enjoy.

Trashcan Sinatras

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 112)

The Trash Can Sinatras were formed in the late 80s, in a town called Irvine, which is around 25 miles or so south-west of Glasgow.

Much of the initial attention was focussed on singer Frank Reader, simply for the fact that his elder sister, Eddi Reader had enjoyed a fair bit of attention and fame, firstly as a backing vocalist with Gang Of Four, and later as the singer with Fairground Attraction who enjoyed a #1 hit with Perfect in 1988.

I suppose I first noticed the band for the simple reason that they were signed to Go! Disc Records which was the home of Billy Bragg and The Beautiful South, leading me to think the Trashies would be have some sort of political bent. I saw their debut 12” EP on sale in a record shop in Edinburgh and bought it on spec for £2. It was only then that I discovered the band were in fact more aligned with the other reasons that label boss Andy MacDonald signed acts – they wrote and sang gloriously catchy pop songs that were full of clever lyrics that demanded close listening.

In due course, I bought two follow-up EPs as well as the debut LP, all of which appeared in 1990. They were a band on heavy rotation, but it was a period when I wasn’t really giving music too much close attention, as it was a time when I had not long met the now Mrs Villain and there were far more important and pressing things on my mind …….such as sorting out the divorce from the first wife…..

The band remained very active up until 1996, releasing three LPs and ten singles without ever making any great commercial breakthrough although they had good size fanbases in the likes of Japan and the USA where there was a market for the idea of catchy pop songs with clever lyrics.

This wasn’t enough for Universal Music who, having bought over Go Discs! in 1996, took the decision to drop the Trashies. It would be another nine years before the next LP but Weightlifting proved to be an absolute masterpiece of beautifully bitter-sweet pop melodies which reflected the difficulties the band had endured in the preceeding years.

In The Music was the next LP, released in 2009 and yet another excellent LP for those of us who nowadays are just as happy to sit and listen to our bands rather than work up a sweat down the moshpit all of the time.

I’ve most of the singles and EPs that the band have released over the years and although it was a tough choice I’m going with the debut EP…and thought I’d re-produce the lyric…it’s one that takes me back to a very awkward and uncertain period in my life when I could quite easily have been destined for eternal life in bedsit hell:-

Always at the foot of the photograph – that’s me there
Snug as a thug in a mugshot pose
Owner of this corner and not much more

Still these days I’m better placed to get my just rewards
I’ll pound out a tune and very soon
I’ll have too much to say and a dead stupid name

Though I ought to be learning I feel like a veteran
Of “Oh I like your poetry but I hate your poems”
Calendars crumble I’m knee deep in numbers
Turned 21, I’ve twist, I’m bust and wrong again

Rubbing shoulders with the sheets till two
Looking at my watch and I’m half-past caring
In the lap of luxury it comes to mind
Is this headboard hard? Am I a lap behind?

But to face doom in a sock-stenched room all by myself
Is the kind of fate I never contemplate
Lots of people would cry though none spring to mind

Know what it’s like
To sigh at the sight of the first quarter of life?
Ever stopped to think and found out nothing was there?

They laugh to see such fun
Playing Blind Man’s Bluff all by myself
And they’re chanting a line from a nursery rhyme
“Ba Ba Bleary Eyes – Have you any idea?”

The calendar’s cluttered with days that are numbered..

Now have a listen:-

mp3 : The Trash Can Sinatras – Obscurity Knocks

Here’s the other tracks:-

mp3 : The Trash Can Sinatras – The Best Man’s Fall
mp3 : The Trash Can Sinatras – Drunken Chorus
mp3 : The Trash Can Sinatras – Who’s He?

Enjoy

Everything But The Girl

MY LOVE IS LIKE CATHEDRAL BELLS

One of the things I’m enjoying about adding the ‘Categories’ section to the blog is that I can see where I’ve failed to post anything on T(n)VV about a particular song.

Back in 1985, Everything But The Girl released a real killer of a 45. It was backed by two tremendous b-sides, one of which was a cover that was every bit as memorable as the original. It was a single that deserved to be a huge hit but which stalled at #77.

mp3 : Everything But The Girl – When All’s Well **
mp3 : Everything But The Girl – Heaven Help Me
mp3 : Everything But The Girl – Kid

I did write about this single over on the old blog and made the observation that I was amazed at the time that fans of The Smiths fans failed to be turned on to its charms in great numbers given that all the songs weren’t a million miles removed from the sort of tunes Johnny Marr was writing and recording at the time.

A real old friend of the blog, Echorich, made a very astute comment at the time:-

“AHH…and I am greatly satisfied that we concur! EBTG’s Kid ranks among my favorite covers of any song. Tracey and Ben put their sonic stamp on it without losing the depth in the lyrics…that ambiguity is still there!

And your Morrissey/Marr connection is a valid one, especially as Johnny has the odd Harmonica contribution to some early EBTG songs and the band played Smith’s songs in concert on at least 3 tours that I can remember.”

Of course, later on Moz would take the title of this great single and release a track entitled In The Future When All’s Well.….

What has always been particularly interesting about EBTG is that they were so keen to quickly move on to different genres of music rather than run the risk of remaining pigeon-holed and becoming stale. A read through Tracey Thorn’s hugely entertaining autobiography sheds some great light on this. It also illustrates just how crazy things can get when one of your songs really takes off across Europe and further afield as it did for Tracey and Ben some nine years later.

But that’s a story for another day.

** at third time of asking I now have the link to the song sorted out. Sorry for the fuck up.

Morrissey, Smiths, Strangeways Glasgow

STRANGEWAYS, HERE I COME

Have I ever mentioned that I’m a big fan of The Smiths and Morrissey?

It should therefore come as no surprise that I am recommending the above as an event not to be missed

Strangeways Glasgow is a club night dedicated to the music of Moz and The Smiths with the occasional associated track thrown in for good measure and variety. It’s an event that has been going for a number of years thanks to the hard work and dedication of a small group of Glasgow-based uber-fans with maybe three or four shows in a calendar year, albeit the guys have become so well-known and appreciated that they are often asked to appear in other towns and cities across the UK at various points in time.

All the profits from the Strangeways Glasgow nights are always donated to a charitable cause and in this particular instance it will be to the Manchester and Cheshire Dogs Home which suffered a genuine tragedy a few weeks back. The music and the cause alone should be enough to make you fancy parting with the £5 for a ticket. But there’s something more this time…………….whisper it.

I’m doing a stint on whatever the modern-day equivalent is of the wheels of steel.

Yup. Fatboy Jim will be doing his thing for the first time since 2010 when Drew from Across the Kitchen Table talked me into being part of a triumvirate of Scottish bloggers to do some stuff at the Flying Duck in Glasgow.

Actually, I was thinking that since this will be my first bit of DJing since I turned 50 that I should update my name to something like Grandfather Flash but the connotations of that name right now are just too much to bear given the number of awful sex scandals in the UK featuring DJs dead and alive. So I’ll simply be at the Strangeways night as JC (aka The Vinyl Villain).

The invite has come courtesy of a very wonderful and lovely gentlemen called Robert who, along with Carlo and their respective partners Jen and Angela, have been the driving force behind Strangeways Glasgow over the years. I got to know them initially through going along to another wonderful club night – Little League – and was thrilled by the fact that they knew about my blog and were fans of what I was writing about and featuring.

They kept telling me that I should get myself along to Strangeways but I had shied away as I wasn’t sure if I could go an entire night dedicated to Moz, especially as I had this pre-conceived idea that while Robert and Carlo were very decent down to earth folk the rest of the clientele would surely consist of hardcore fans made up of look-alikes standing around demanding to be noticed. It took me until March earlier this year to go along and realise how wrong I had been. I wrote about the experience at the time. Click here if you’re interested.

I made it along to the next night back in August which is where the idea of me taking a turn playing some tunes was talked about and agreed. It seemed like a good idea at the time and it still does.

But I’m happy to admit that I’m nervous. But very very very excited and honoured.

mp3 : The Smiths – Panic
mp3 : Morrissey – Dear God Please Help Me

Tickets are still available but the night inevitably sells out. Click here if you’re tempted

Ride

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM #4 – RIDE

These words have come all the way from the deepest Guyanese jungle. Yup, I’m delighted to pass in the news that S-WC has settled into is his new job and lifestyle very quickly and via his good mate Tim (who along with S-WC got working on the blog that is When You Can’t Remember Anything) has been in touch to offer this:-

How are you all? It’s been a while. You are all looking good, I like what you’ve done with your hair.

Me? I’m fine, thanks for asking. I have a view across the water that is amazing, I have a working air con machine and they have given me a brand new 4×4 to mess around with. Life could be worse. Ok I got woken up at 3am by a flying cockroach and again at 5am by what I think was gunfire, but you know, beer is 75c a litre in the bar ‘down the road’ and the watermelons here are to die for. Literally in some cases.

I have some time on my hands so I am doing a lot of writing. I enjoyed recently a piece written by JC about ‘Imaginary Compilation Albums’ and always promised to write one for him on Spiritualized. I’m finding that quite tough to narrow down, so here is one featuring Ride.

For those who don’t know Ride are probably one of the most unsung bands of the last couple of generations, they were pioneers of the much missed Shoegaze scene and with their debut album ‘Nowhere’ they created one of the best records of the nineties (those who remember my 40 albums to hear before I am 40, would have read all about this if I had time to finish it – that album folks is the 6th best ever. If you want to argue, my neighbour has a gun he has offered to lend me to shoot ‘alligators’ should I ever need it. Just saying.). Also as a sub note – it was really hard to not simply just pick the tracks from ‘Nowhere’ here.

Side One

Leave Them All Behind – Because of the two-minute intro, because of the drum bit that sounds incredible, because the keyboard at the start sounds like The Who, and mostly, because chaps, the song was once voted the ultimate shagging song, although I very honestly doubt any of us would not be smoking a cigarette before it ends.

Sennen – Because it a truly beautiful song, it reminds me of home and I love it. I have said it before, that Sennen Cove in Cornwall is the most beautiful place on Earth, go there, now. Also the moment when the vocals enter, is a shivers up the spine moment.

Vapour Trail – Despite the ropey lyrics ‘You are a Vapour Trail, in the deep blue sky’ – the guitars mixed in with a cello (A Cello!!) create something truly lovely which batters the murkiness of the overall sound. I used to think this sounded tuneless when I was younger but I now realise that it shimmers beautifully.

Dreams Burn Down – Because it sounds dark, moody and rather magnificent, especially if you listen to it whilst walking home in the pitch black. Try it.

Close My Eyes – A personal choice to be honest, it reminds me of an ex girlfriend. That is all I’m going to say on that.

Side Two

Chelsea Girl – Perhaps the ultimate Ride song, short, sweet, poppy and probably the first single that really turned the public heads. It is all about that rush of drums and guitars at the start I think.

Chrome Waves – One the best tracks off of ‘Going Blank Again’ – and I think one of the best songs that Mark Gardener ever wrote. I find it strangely haunting.

In A Different Place – “Even if the rain falls down and all the skies turn cold” is the best lyric Ride ever wrote and for that we have to include it. It is a beautiful song and I think underlines why Ride were one of those bands.

Like A Daydream – A song that wants to sound like the Byrds so much, but ends up sounding far better than the Byrds ever did. It has this middle section that has this pause in it, a moment of silence before the guitars just go, well all over the place. I love this song to pieces and you all should too.

OX4 – It was a punch up between this and ‘Nowhere’ and the choice took me an hour and three decisions*. ‘OX4’ wins because it just hypnotises you over seven minutes.

You’ll note there is nothing off of ‘Carnival of Light’ or ‘Tarantula’ here – not because they are terrible but because the aren’t as good as everything else Ride did. If I had two secret tracks at the end I would put ‘How Does It Feel to Feel?’ as one of them, because I am in the video for it (two minutes 16 seconds in), the other secret track would be ‘Unfamiliar’. Oh and ‘Taste’ and ‘Seagull’ and…Oh I’ll shut up now.

Laters Alligators….

S-WC

* JC adds……been there every single time I’ve tried to put one of these particular pieces together! Here’s the tracks chosen by S-WC:-

mp3 : Ride – Leave Them All Behind
mp3 : Ride – Sennen
mp3 : Ride – Vapour Trail
mp3 : Ride – Dreams Burn Down
mp3 : Ride – Close My Eyes
mp3 : Ride – Chelsea Girl
mp3 : Ride – Chrome Waves
mp3 : Ride – In A Different Place
mp3 : Ride – Like A Daydream
mp3 : Ride – OX4

Clean, Snapper

G’DAY FROM OUR ANZAC CORRESPONDENT : DOOZIES FROM DOWN UNDER (2)

First up, thanks for the positive response to my previous post (cheers to JC for encouraging you all to do so).

The idea for this series came about when JC asked people to send in contributions for his ‘cult classics’. Many of the tracks I thought of were from this part of the world, I came up with a title I liked… and now here we are.

Around that sort of time JC was having doubts as to whether he would/could continue this blog, so I was hoping to be able to help keep it going if possible (the SWC was going strong at that point, but I thought if JC had 2 (or more) regular guest contributors that might be a good thing… luckily as things transpired it wasn’t required, and T(new)VV is still going strong!)

As my family & friends would attest to, I’ve never been too good at putting pen-to-paper (or in this case, fingers (just the 2!)-to-keyboard), and many things crossed my mind when deciding to go ahead with ‘Doozies’, in fact sometimes that can be the problem – so many possible avenues, can’t decide which to go down, next thing months have passed and nothing has been written!

One thing that did cross my mind is that I don’t actually know how well-known these songs are outside of Australia/NZ, and am going to be ‘preaching to the converted’ so to speak …which brings me (finally!) to the topic for this week.

Given the title of this series it would be remiss of me not to (somewhat belatedly by the time this goes-to-blog) mention the sad news that Peter Gutteridge died recently. Peter was involved with many great NZ bands such as The Clean (who I could dedicate a years-worth of ‘doozies’ to), The Chills, Snapper, and more. He was a real pioneer of that Dunedin Sound (cited by the likes of Pavement, R.E.M. and Mudhoney as an influence – click here for more) – and he should be a household name in NZ… but when reading about him, I found it suggested that people from Europe & the States are probably more likely to know of him.

I know when I was growing up in NZ it seemed that material from overseas was always deemed to be superior, and kiwi bands would often have to prove themselves elsewhere before being acknowledged locally (if at all). Things have changed somewhat since then I think, and sometimes it’s hard to guess where a band is from. all sorts of music comes out of the ‘shaky isles’ these days, a lot still with a certain ‘kiwi’ sound to them, but here’s to a man who was so instrumental (literally!) in helping define ‘that’ sound, which I for one love so much.

These 2 tracks both appeared on the soundtrack to a NZ film ‘Topless Women Talk About Their Lives‘, a great compilation of kiwi bands.

enjoy
cheers, Craig

mp3 : The Clean – Point That Thing Somewhere Else
mp3 : Snapper – Buddy

Note from JC

As I’ve said on countless occasions, I’m always very happy to feature guest postings as I want everyone who reads the blog to be as big a part of it as they like. So thanks again Craig….I certainly have no knowledge at all of the Dunedin sound and hugely appreciate the info.

And talking of guest contributions, there’s one with a difference coming tomorrow.

Monochrome Set, Talulah Gosh, Wedding Present

THE TEN-MINUTE INDIE DISCO

Three songs came up in a row on random shuffle the other week. I closed my eyes and imagined that instead of sitting on a train heading to work I was at my favourite indie disco where 50-somethings can still go along and not be frowned upon as making fools of themselves as they try to relive their halcyon days.

A bit like the photo above.

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Brassneck
mp3 : Talulah Gosh – Talulah Gosh
mp3 : The Monochrome Set – Jet Set Junta

Every one a classic.

Morrissey

THE MOZ SINGLES (30)

Ok folks…..you’re going to get short-changed this week.

I’ve endeavoured to bring you all the singles plus all the b-sides that Morrissey has released as a solo artist over the years. But, there’s a couple missing from a single released in February 2008.

It really comes down to the fact that I couldn’t be bothered shelling out three times for the same release, when all I would get in return were a couple of live songs from shows that were part of American tours in May and October 2007. It was bad enough that the single was being used to promote the eighth compilation/greatest hits album – the exact same number as actual studio albums that had been released at this point in time.

So, I only bought one of the two versions of the 7″ single, and here are both sides of the fantastic plastic in all their glory:-

mp3 : Morrissey – That’s How People Grow Up
mp3 : Morrissey – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side (live)

The single itself is one of the better offerings in the singles canon, in as much that a bit of a plodding tune is rescued by a fine vocal by Morrissey and a wonderfully strange and glass-shattering intro from backing vocalist Kirsteen Young. (Ms Young had previously supported Morrissey on some of his American dates, and has fronted her own two-piece band featuring pianos and percussion since the late 90s – she kind of sounds like Kate Bush at times and Tori Amos at other times. )

The b-side is a Smiths cover….regular readers will know my views on these. This offering from Omaha in May 2007 is fairly typical and unessential fayre.

The single reached a surprisingly low #14 in the UK charts, which is probably down to the fact that it had received a lot of airplay for about two months before release and most fans had downloaded a copy from somewhere or other. Maybe if a bit more effort had gone into the b-sides it might have charted higher…..but then again, given that the follow-up single performed even more poorly despite having new songs on the reverse blows that theory of mine out the water.

Oh and it is versions of Why Dont You Find Out For Yourself from Salt Lake City and Last Of The Famous International Playboys from New York, both in October 2007 that are missing. I’m sure you’ll forgive me.

Timelords

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 111)

I’ve already made it clear that anything to do with Bill Drummond is game for this series as long as I own a copy of the single. Today is no exception.

From wiki:-

“Doctorin’ the Tardis” is a 1988 electronic novelty pop single by The Timelords (“Time Boy” and “Lord Rock”, aliases of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, better known as The KLF). The song is predominantly a mash-up of the Doctor Who theme music, Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll (Part Two)” with sections from “Blockbuster!” by Sweet and “Let’s Get Together Tonite” by Steve Walsh. The single was not well received by critics but was a commercial success, reaching number 1 in the UK Singles Chart in June 1988,and in New Zealand, and charting in the Top 10 in Australia, Ireland and Norway.

The Timelords followed up their chart-topping record with a “how to have a number one” guide, The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way).

The release of “Doctorin’ the Tardis” followed a self-imposed break from recording of Drummond and Cauty’s sampling outfit, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs). The single continued The JAMs’ strategy of plagiarising and juxtaposing popular musical works. However, unlike the cultish limited releases of The JAMs, in which Drummond’s Clydeside rapping and social commentary were regular ingredients, “Doctorin’ The Tardis” was an excursion into the musical mainstream, with the change of name to “The Timelords” and an overt reliance on several iconic symbols of 1970s and 1980s British popular culture, including Glitter, the Doctor Who theme song, Doctor Who’s Daleks and the TARDIS, Sweet’s “Blockbuster!” and Harry Enfield’s character ‘Loadsamoney’. The song features riffs from the 1973 hit “Block Buster!” by Sweet and from Gary Glitter’s 1972 debut hit “Rock and Roll Parts 1 and 2”. Its name is a reference to “Doctorin’ the House” by Coldcut.

Drummond and Cauty often claimed that the song was the result of a deliberate effort to write a number one hit single. However, in interviews with Snub TV and BBC Radio 1, Drummond offered a more plausible explanation. “We went into the studio on a Monday, thinking we were going to make a house track, a regular underground dance house track using the Doctor Who theme tune… [but] we [then] realised it was in triplet time and you can’t have house tracks in triplet time. The only beat that would work with it was the Glitter beat. By Tuesday evening we realised we had a number one and we just went totally for the lowest common denominator”. Radio 1 interviewer Richard Skinner called the record an “aberration”, to which Drummond pleaded “guilty”, adding that “we justified it all by saying to ourselves ‘We’re celebrating a very British thing here… you know, something that Timmy Mallett understands'”.

In a KLF Communications information sheet, Drummond called “Doctorin’ the Tardis” “probably the most nauseating record in the world” (a claim also made on the label of the record itself) but added that “we also enjoyed celebrating the trashier side of pop”.

While the music-buying public of the UK embraced the single, taking it to the number-one spot within three weeks of its release, the music press was strongly negative. Melody Maker described it as “pure, unadulterated agony … excruciating”;Sounds reasoned that it was “a record so noxious that a top ten place can be its only destiny”, calling it a “rancid reworking of ancient discs”.Select magazine later reported that “Doctorin’ the Tardis” sold over a million copies

In a retrospective look at novelty records and a defence of the genre, Peter Paphides wrote in The Observer’s music monthly that “the one novelty record most people admit to liking is ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis’ by The Timelords… The reason for this, presumably, is that it’s nice to be in on the same joke as arch pop ironist Bill Drummond. Fine, but let’s not forget that if The KLF weren’t passionate about how brilliantly dumb pop can be they wouldn’t have got to Number One.” The “reason we purport to hate novelty records”, he argued, “is because we continue to romanticise the creative process. We feel that our intelligence is insulted by novelty.”

A 1994 piece in The Guardian called “Doctorin'” a “piss-take”. “It was a triumph for Trash Art and it spent exactly one week at the top of the chart. Perfect.”

The Timelords released one other product on the strength of “Doctorin’ the Tardis”, a 1989 book called The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way), in which they candidly described the logistical processes and efforts that sealed the record’s commercial success.

After The Timelords, Drummond and Cauty became The KLF. An American reissue of the single in the mid-1990s lists the artist as The Timelords/The KLF, and features both a KLF track (the original uncut version of “What Time Is Love?”) and “Gary Joins The JAMS”, a version of “Doctorin’ the Tardis” with new vocals by Gary Glitter referencing his own songs.

Later attempts of Drummond and Cauty to top the charts were less successful: The KLF’s “Kylie Said to Jason” failed to achieve the chart success for which it was designed, peaking outside the Top 100, and Cauty’s novelty project Solid Gold Chartbusters with Guy Pratt, which was designed to be a Christmas number one single, did not reach the UK Top 10.

However, The KLF’s string of “Stadium House” singles, beginning with “What Time Is Love?”, found popular appeal and worldwide chart success while dispensing with the opportunistic sheen of “Doctorin’ the Tardis”.

mp3 : The Timelords – Doctorin’ The Tardis (7″ version)
mp3 : The Timelords – 125BPM

Enjoy (just don’t take it too seriously!!)

Beastie Boys, Chic, Franz Ferdinand

BB.C.FF.

I know….today’s heading is on the cryptic side. But it’s all to do with these three great tunes:-

mp3 : Beastie Boys – Triple Trouble
mp3 : Chic – Good Times (12″)
mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out

A few years back, someone out there had the idea of mashing these three up. It’s a style and format that has a lot of critics which is understandable as many of its proponents took liberty with one or more of the tracks, speeding it or them up or down a shade to make things fit. But today’s example does work out well with the minimum of jiggery-pokerey.

mp3 : BB.C.FF – Check Me Out 4 Good Times

Freaky Friday indeed.

James

THE JAMES SINGLES (18)

The change of tone and emphasis begun by Sometimes was maintained with the release of the LP Laid in September 1993. This was a James that we hadn’t heard or enjoyed for a long time…songs that were largely stripped right back and which were a long way removed production wise from the over-wrought and painful stuff which had afflicted much of Seven.

It was difficult however, to imagine where the next single was going to come from as there were no real obvious candidates from the LP other than perhaps the title track. But it suffered from having the line ‘she only comes when she’s on top’ which ruled it out of play as far as getting it past the censors….

The solution was to re-record the offending line and change one word. ‘Comes’ was replaced by ‘Sings’. Problem solved despite the fact that anyone listening to the opening few lines was still able to smile about hearing daytime radio blast out a song that was quite clearly about orgasmic sex….

The thing is….when you went out and bought the single, you found yourself owning the uncensored LP version!!

mp3 : James – Laid

It came (ahem) in 2 x CDS as well as 7″ vinyl. Here’s the b-sides to CD1 and the vinyl, all of which would have seemed impossible to imagine if you had only picked up on the band during Seven and owned no other songs from any other era. Indeed there are some fans who think that The Lake was criminally thrown away as a b-side and would have made a lovely ballad-type single for James.

mp3 : James – Wah Wah Kits
mp3 : James – Seconds Away
mp3 : James – The Lake

This single wasn’t universally praised. Too many journalists were still happy enough to mock the band as a pretentious stadium-rock act with a front man who was game for abuse just because he was charismatic and offered opinions. Here’s the review from Melody Maker:-

Not much proof here of the much-heralded creatively-revamped James.

“Laid” is smalltown folk music. Driven by a wheezy old Hammond organ, a drumbeat that sounds like the bloke upstairs nailing down his floorboards and a guitar that might as well be a banjo for all the expression it brings. “Laid” is 1990 naff. It’s not even spuriously uplifting. Tim Booth’s cryptic Indian type whoops aren’t a call to arms or joyous chant but more a sort of cryptic holler, as if he’s Geronimo trying to invoke Chief Sitting Bull in a seance.

There are tracks here, however, such as “Wah Wah Kits” that do indicate a newer, freshly adorned James, perhaps abetted by Brian Eno.

So maybe pigs are flying and they have turned half-decent.

Nor did daytime radio give it too much play. A two and half minute single without an obvious sing-a-long chorus is still a refined taste and in the end it only limped to #25 in the charts.

A criminal state of affairs if you want my opinion.

CD2 was made up of four tracks recorded for a BBC Radio 1 session. I never bought it at the time and still don’t own a copy….so I’m unable to offer you the chance to listen to those versions of Laid, Say Something, Five-O and Sometimes.

Enjoy.

Billy Bragg, Smiths

THERE’S ICE ON THE SINK WHERE WE BATHE

As I mentioned yesterday, I do quite like it when bands take one of their own songs and give them substantial makeovers for the subsequent single release. But what I also like is when someone decides that their cover version of a song will involve a complete reinterpretation so that you hear it in a completely new light. Billy Bragg did such a thing to a Morrissey/Marr song a fair bit back:-

mp3 : The Smiths – Jeane

This was one of band’s first ever releases, turning up on the b-side of the second single This Charming Man in 1983. We now know all these years later that it is the only track the band ever got round to releasing from the aborted LP sessions recorded with Troy Tate but at the time it was just regarded as a great b-side which you could put on and have a great little dance to. It was the music that stood out more than the lyric.

A year later, the band re-recorded the song alongside Sandie Shaw. The slowed-down version did draw a bit more attention to the lyric but to this fan, it was still very much about the tune and how Johnny had got something different out of the song this time round.

Fast forward two more years and Billy Bragg, having already played the song a few times in his live sets as well as recording a frantic almost speed-fuelled version for a Peel Session in August 1985

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Jeane (Peel Session)

then puts down another version as the b-side to Greetings To The New Brunette in 1986:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Jeane

This is heart-wrenchingly beautiful. This is when you get to fully appreciate the story of a love affair doomed to failure as a result of, above else, grinding poverty. The fact that the protagonists had to work so hard at merely surviving every day of their sad and miserable lives, wondering where the next meal will come from and how they can afford to heat the house they live in, left no time for the nicer things in life. They did try….but they ultimately failed.

All of this was lost with the original version as we flailed around the living room or dance halls throwing our best Morrissey shapes. With a tune this good, who needs to think about the message? And then along came Billy to reduce us all to tears…..

Jeane could very easily pass itself off as a Leonard Cohen lyric. Discuss.

New Order

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?

I do like it when a band release a single from an LP but change it around enough to turn it into a different song.

I was reminded of this state of affairs by these:-

mp3 : New Order – Sub-culture
mp3 : New Order – Subculture (7″ single version)

Hard to believe that Low-Life, the LP from which it was lifted and and given its makeover for a single release, celebrates its 30th birthday next year.

Oh and rumour has that the reason the single came in just a plain black sleeve is that Peter Savile hated the remix so much that he refused to design anything to house it.

Enjoy

Hindu Love Gods, PJ Harvey

AND WHEN IT WAS WARM SHE DIDN’T WEAR MUCH MORE

Hindu Love Gods was an American rock band that was, in essence, an occasional side project of R.E.M.

The band debuted with three scattered gigs (all in Athens, Georgia) in 1984. They played mostly cover tunes, though a few unreleased originals also made it into the mix. The first gig took place on Valentine’s Day, 1984, and featured Bryan Cook (vocals and piano, a member of Athens bands Oh-OK and Time Toy), and R.E.M. members Bill Berry (drums) Peter Buck (guitar) and Mike Mills (bass). The follow-up gig took place two weeks later; added to the line-up was R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe on vocals and drums, and Warren Zevon on vocals.

Zevon’s career stretched back to the late 60s and for over 30 years until his death from cancer in 2003 at the age of 56, he was a huge influence on many big hitters and popular artists within the American music industry without himself ever enjoying much mainstream success. He was also an almost complete-unknown here in the UK.

The third and final gig of 1984 was in June and featured the Cook/Berry/Buck/Mills line-up.

Hindu Love Gods went into the studio as a quintet that summer, with the line-up of Berry/Buck/Cook/Mills/Zevon. They recorded two songs for release as a single, which were eventually issued two years later. The A-Side, Gonna Have A Good Time Tonight was a cover of an Easybeats tune; the B-side, Narrator was a Bill Berry composition that R.E.M. had played live, but never recorded.

After a period of inactivity, Hindu Love Gods played one 1986 gig in Athens as a benefit gig for the family of a musician who had died in a car accident. The line-up for this performance was Berry, Buck, Cook, Mills and Stipe.

Buck, Mills and Berry later joined Zevon as his back-up band while recording the latter’s solo album Sentimental Hygiene in 1987. During an all-night (and supposedly drunken) session in the midst of recording said album, they also churned out ten cover songs. None of these were intended for release, but such was the demand for R.E.M. product just a few years later that an LP called Hindu Love Gods was released on Giant Records in 1990.

A single was also released. This is the 12″ version:-

mp3 : Hindu Love Gods – Raspberry Beret
mp3 : Hindu Love Gods – Wang Dang Doodle
mp3 : Hindu Love Gods – Mannish Boy

You’ll need to excuse the little hops and skips on the two b-sides as the plastic is second hand and not in great nick….but you’ll hopefully get an idea that it all sounds like some guys who have a love for the blues just enjoying themselves in a recording studio because they can. But it doesn’t float my boat all that much. Here’s another cover version of one of those songs which is a unique sort of take on the blues:-

mp3 : PJ Harvey – Wang Dang Doodle (Peel Session)

Enjoy

Morrissey

THE MOZ SINGLES (29)

OK…..time to own up.

A fair bit of the factual information that has accompanied this series doesn’t sit permanently in my brain. I’ve long relied very heavily on a wonderful fan site called Passions Just Like Mine, something that can truly be described as a work of art….

It really has just about everything you would ever want to know about The Smiths and Morrissey, including an incredible live history, which I can look back on and see that I’ve seen the great man play on 18 occasions, including 4 gigs with The Smiths:-

March 2nd 1984 – Glasgow Queen Margaret Union
September 24th 1985 – Edinburgh Playhouse
September 25th 1985 – Glasgow Barrowlands
July 16th 1986 – Glasgow Barrowlands
July 28th 1991 – Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
December 16th 1992 – Glasgow Barrowlands
February 3rd 1995 – Glasgow Barrowlands
February 4th 1995 – Motherwell Civic Hall
December 5th 1999 – Glasgow Barrowlands
May 22nd 2004 – Manchester Arena
August 31st 2004 – Edinburgh Corn Exchange
September 2nd 2004 – Paisley Town Hall
April 23rd 2006 – Stirling Albert Hall
April 26th 2006 – Greenock Town Hall
February 2nd 2008 – Edinburgh Playhouse
May 7th 2009 – Glasgow Barrowlands
June 20th 2011 – Dunfermline Alhambra Theatre
July 30th, 2012 – Edinburgh Usher Hall

While I’m quite proud of that number, it pales into total insignificance alongside the many fans who somehow manage to make the time to follow him across the UK, Europe and indeed further afield on tour. Nor is it a list containing every gig he’s played in my home city as I’ve missed at least three over the years. Two of the gigs turned out to be flukes – the Royal Concert Hall in July 1991 was when someone who had tickets for the original date in May 1991 couldn’t go to the re-scheduled gig, and then the 45th birthday gig in Manchester only came my way as a friend’s football team reached the Scottish Cup final that day, and he just couldn’t miss that for anything…so myself and Mrs Villain landed very lucky. (So if you’re reading this Aldo……thanks for being so wonderful. I’m still not sorry your team lost that day tho’).

All this is just background to this week’s single offering – one released back in March 2005 with a track taken from the LP Live At Earl’s Court and a track from the Manchester gig played on 22nd March 2004.

mp3 : Morrissey – Redondo Beach (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (live)

There has long been an argument a live recording can’t ever match the excitement of actually being there. For a while, I wasn’t sure if this was something true or a mere myth, but my mind was made up the day I bought Dig The New Breed by The Jam which contained two tracks recorded at gigs at the Glasgow Apollo that I had been lucky enough to have tickets for.

That was the day I learned its no myth….

Morrissey has released a fair number of live albums in his career, and in addition, a number of the b-sides of singles have been taken from live performances. Most of the time, the live versions don’t add anything to the previously released versions, although I will hold up my hand and admit that I prefer the version of Disappointed recorded in Utrecht, Holland in May 1991 that can be found on the Pregnant For The Last Time single as being better than the original. And does anyone really think that the solo performances of any of The Smiths back catalogue have been anything other than a letdown?

Please…..I’m not advocating that Morrissey shouldn’t sing any of the songs that helped establish him, but it really is the musical equivalent of a masterpiece painting being reproduced by a talented but well-meaning copyist….

So you can guess my views on There Is A Light…..

As for the cover of the Patti Smith song, well I need to put it into perspective that I don’t own a copy of the original. I’ve certainly heard it as I’ve been in someones room when the Horses LP was played, but here’s another admission that will get me drummed out of the indie-kids club……I think that’s an LP that’s well over-rated, and thus I’ve never bought a copy. Now if Redondo Beach as performed by Morrissey was something that excited me, I might have maybe gone back and listened again. But no.

The CD single came with a previously unreleased extra track:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Noise Is The Best Revenge

Recorded for a BBC radio session back in 2004, it’s a reasonable song but nothing special. If it had ever been placed on an album in recent years, it would most certainly have been considered by most as one of the weaker tracks.

There was also a DVD single released which also had a track this from the same radio session on it.

mp3 : Morrissey – It’s Hard To Walk Tall When You’re Small (radio session)

The original version appeared on the b-side of Irish Blood, English Heart and is one of the best vocals he’s recorded over the past few years…..and part of the tune reminds me of the magnificent Sweet And Tender Hooligan.

Live singles don’t normally do all that well in the charts, but this reached a more than respectable #11, although this might have had a lot to do with fans buying the different formats to get all the different versions (but hey….Morrissey and his record label are far from the worst offenders in that regard). The photo was taken in a cemetery in Hollywood by Sasha Einmann, and the sleeve notes advise that the ‘Johnny Thunders teardrop guitar is courtesy of the Morrissey archive.’

Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Part 110)

Some of you might think I’m cheating this week, but with a bit of music that is this exceptional, I’m prepared to bend the rules a bit.

This Mortal Coil are NOT a Scottish band and so shouldn’t really be in this alphabetical series.

This Mortal Coil was a project led by Ivo Watts-Russell, co-founder of the 4AD record label. Although Watts-Russell and John Fryer were technically the only two official members, the band’s recorded output featured a large rotating cast of supporting artists, many of whom were signed to, or otherwise associated with 4AD.

One of the label’s earliest signings was Modern English. In 1983, Watts-Russell suggested that they re-record two of their earliest songs, Sixteen Days and Gathering Dust as a medley on the basis that the band was closing its sets with such a medley and the label owner thought it was strong enough to warrant a re-recording. When Modern English rebuffed the idea, Watts-Russell decided to assemble a group of musicians to undertake the task and a 12″ EP, Sixteen Days/Gathering Dust, resulted from the sessions.

Recorded as a B-side for the EP was a cover of Tim Buckley‘s Song to the Siren, performed solely by Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins. Pleased with the results, Watts-Russell decided to make this the A-side of the 7″ single version of the EP.

Cocteau Twins were a Scottish act, and I therefore claiming this version of Song To The Siren as eligible for this series.

mp3 : This Mortal Coil – Song To The Siren

A work of genius. Watts-Russell originally wanted it to be a cappella but ended up including what was a one-take of Guthrie, and I quote ‘leaning against the studio wall bored out of his mind playing these chords’.

Fraser’s vocal was also, quite astonishingly, recorded in one take.

Frantic Elevators

OH MANCHESTER, SO MUCH TO ANSWER FOR….

The four handsome devils pictured above are the members of Frantic Elevators circa 1981. They had formed some five years earlier as a Manchester punk band, but strangely enough none of the three original founding members were around by the time some records and two John Peel sessions came about.

By 1981 the band were your classic or perhaps bog-standard four-piece with vocalist, guitarist, bassist and drummer with the guitarist and vocalist being the songwriters.

I don’t own any of their songs other than a short sharp number, coming in at just under two minutes long, which was recorded in February 1981 and later made available on Manchester, So Much To Answer For, a compilation CD released in 1991 and featuring a Peel session track from 20 Manchester bands:-

mp3 : Frantic Elevators – The Hunchback of Notre Dame

This had actually been planned as their second ever single back in 1979 but it never saw light of day. In the end, the band only ever got round to releasing four singles before calling it a day. The last of these was in late 1982:-

mp3 : Frantic Elevators – Holding Back The Years

I suppose its time, if you already didn’t know or haven’t yet already worked it out, to mention the name of the band’s singer. It was Mick Hucknall. His band mates were Neil Moss (guitar), Brian Turner (bass) and Kevin Williams (drums).

The continued failure of the band led to Hucknall leaving. The other three soldiered on for a bit but disbanded in mid 1983. All the while their former vocalist got another band together under the name of World Service, who later underwent changes of name to Red and the Dancing Dead, then Just Red, and finally Simply Red.

A completely different version of Holding Back the Years was re-recorded by Simply Red and provided them with their breakthrough hit. As a co-writer, Neil Moss who would later pocket around £50,000 in royalties. Nice work.

Uncategorized

A SLIGHT CHANGE TO THE LAYOUT…

I’ve added a new ‘Categories’ section to the right-hand side. It’s basically a list of all the bands who have been featured across all the postings. It acts as a sort of index if anyone drops by and wants to just read about a particular singer or band.

While it will be of some use to readers old and new, I’ve introduced it to help me improve the service on offer. I realised it was necessary when I drafted a post on Therese by The Bodines only to discover I’d posted on them not so long ago and that I’d also given them a mention via one of the old posts copied over from the extinct blog.

Enjoy.

James

THE JAMES SINGLES (17)

I can’t remember where I first read of heard that James had chosen to work with Brian Eno. All the accusations of selling out and embracing stadium rock were being denied by everyone associated with the band but here they were having a producer who had helped turn U2 into the biggest and most popular contemporary rock band on the planet by forging a sound which was radio-friendly, anthemic and extremely appealing to the masses. I feared the worst….

………which is why I still find it hard to properly put into the words the sheer joy I felt the first time I heard the first new song since those that had been slipped out as part of the Sound EP some fourteen months previous. This remains my favourite James single of all time:-

mp3 : James – Sometimes

It’s a helluva comeback and not at all the sort of sounds I was imagining would be the fruit of their labours with Eno. Indeed, the producer himself has stated that hearing the band’s first playing of this song in the studio was one of the highlights of his entire career….and let’s face it, he’s had plenty to choose from.

It was released into the shops in August 1993 but by then had become quite familiar to radio listeners having been put on heavy rotation some three or four weeks prior. Rather surprisingly and disappointingly, it only entered the charts at #18 which was still good enough to enable a Top of the Pops appearance which, due to touring commitments, had to be filmed and beamed in from Pittsburgh. It was a memorable performance and I’m happy enough to break my self-imposed rule of nothing from you tube so that I can share it with you:-

Despite this, the song dropped down the charts the following week which must have been a bit of a concern to the band. After all, tradition has it that you put out your strongest and most catchy song as the lead single, but little did any of us know that the band and producer had an ace hidden up their collective sleeves….

The single was released on 7″, 12″, cassette and CD single with just two new songs made available across the different formats so there was no need to shell out loads to complete any collections. The b-sides were also of a very decent quality:-

mp3 : James – America
mp3 : James – Building A Charge

It’s worth noting that America was recorded live using solar power as the band sought to promote the activities of Greenpeace.