THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #067

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#067: The Nomads– ‘She Pays The Rent’ (Wire Records ’85)

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Hello friends,

to Sweden we go today, and why not? I mean it’s still summertime, 19° in Stockholm, which is alright, I’d think. If it’s warmer wherever you are today, well, you shouldn’t miss the trip anyway, because we’re going to visit The Nomads – and they are a) a bloody institution in Swedish garage-rock’n’roll, believe me, and b) they are still going, some 43 years after they got together!

The band plays music influenced by The MC5, The Stooges, Roky Erickson, The Cramps, The Ramones, New York Dolls, and other early garage rock and punk bands. The Nomads have been an influential band in the Scandinavian garage rock and punk scenes, inspiring bands such as The Hives, Hellacopters, “Demons”, Gluecifer, and many others.

Of course there have been numerous garage rock revivalists over the decades, but The Nomads certainly have stood out because of the intensity of their performances and the wide range of their influences, which extend beyond the usual ’60s bands to encompass ’70s punk, heavy metal, rockabilly, and blues. The Nomads have not managed to gain more than rather a small cult following alas; this may be because they have recorded only a limited number of original songs. Nonetheless, they have managed to create some genuinely exciting, if not particularly innovative, music: their first release was a crude remake of the Sonics‘ “Psycho” (500 copies only) in 1981, they followed this with another single, a blistering rendition of “Night Time” by the Strangeloves, and received wider recognition with their first mini-album, “Where The Wolf Bane Blooms”.

Another example of their innovative capacity was using horns on today’s single, their fifth in fact, a recording of Jeff Conolly‘s “She Pays The Rent” – released on Amigo, but also in parallel in the UK by Wire, in the USA by Homestead (as a three song 12”), and in France by Closer: I have the UK version. The flipside “Nitroglycerine Shrieks” is The Nomads’ first self-penned 7” song – an excursion into the center of noise.

The A-Side though caused quite some stir back then, because it’s a version of a song written by Jeff “Monoman” Conolly, allegedly during his time with DMZ. Despite this, “She Pays The Rent“ appeared for the first time officially on Conolly’s subsequent band Lyres’ 12” EP (1985) sometime after The Nomads released their version. Another version is found on Lyres’ second album, “Lyres Lyres”, (1986). However, a rough and unofficial version of “She Pays The Rent” circulated before 1985.

Hans Östlund (second from the left in the picture above) once said about the record:

“before this single we had a very good relationship with Jeff Conolly and The Lyres. We played a few shows together in the Netherlands before the French tour, the Pandora’s Box festival in Rotterdam and a show at Melkweg in Amsterdam, which both went down fantastic. Nix (Vahlberg, founding and current member) knew about “She Pays The Rent” from a live cassette and when Jeff said it wasn’t part of Lyres’ set anymore, we agreed that we would record a version of it. Jeff mailed the lyrics to Ulf Lindqvist and we decided to make it our next single.

Things then turned a bit sour as Jeff wasn’t aware of the fact that there would be a US release and then reacted badly to the fact that certain US fanzines deemed The Nomads’ version superior to Lyres’. Jeff is a sensitive person and this would be a cause of animosity for quite some time – but luckily we’re all friends again now. We got the idea to use a horn section from The Saints’ “Know Your Product“ (1978) – a mix of rhythm’n’blues and punk rock, which we think is a very worthwhile combination. We are not sure if we succeeded to the same extent as The Saints, though. Anyway, it was fun to try something new.”

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mp3: The Nomads – She Pays The Rent

As old as this is nowadays, I haven’t gotten tired to listening to it – hope this goes for you as well. And if you haven’t heard it before, well, let me know what your feelings are, will you?

As always: enjoy!

Dirk

Kate Bush, Quads, Rainbow

GOT TO KEEP THE CUSTOMERS SATISFIED (3)

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A very quick follow-up to some of the comments offered up in respect of yesterday’s edition of Shakedown, 1979.

Flimflamfan. It really did surprise me that Rainbow were responsible for your favourite new 45 back in September 1979. It’s not one that I care much for, and I certainly have never owned a copy, physically or digitally, but given that you are such a wonderful supporter and contributor to the blog, how could I not find a way of getting my hands on this.

mp3: Rainbow – Since You’ve Been Gone

It’s also dedicated to WinterInMayPark who considers the song to be ‘perfect pop rock’.

One of the anonymous contributors offered up this intriguing comment:-

“Hitting the charts at number 66 in September 1979 was what John Peel described as his “single of the decade”: ‘There must be thousands’ by the Quads. Sadly, it never threatened the top 40 despite plenty of airplay.”

I have to be honest and say that I can’t recall the song whatsoever. It had a two-week stay in the charts, coming in at #75 on the week of 16-22 September, and reaching the afore-mentioned giddy heights of #66 the following week. It was the only time the band had a hit single:-

mp3: The Quads – There Must Be Thousands

I’ve turned to wiki for the skinny.

“The Quads were a new wave band from Birmingham, England, active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The band was formed in Birmingham by three brothers, Josh Jones, Colin “Jack” Jones and Terry “Johnny” Jones, plus bassist Jim Doherty.

Their 1979 debut single There Must Be Thousands was a favourite of the BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who selected it as his “single of the decade!” Josh Jones later described the recording of “There Must Be Thousands”:

“It was a grass roots protest and two fingers to the corporate record company stranglehold on the industry. We recorded our ‘hit single’ in the cellar of a house for 30 quid and then a ‘proper’ studio to get a decent vocal sound, taking the total cost to a heady 130 pounds.”

Despite receiving considerable airplay on the main BBC Radio 1 daytime programmes, “There Must Be Thousands” only reached No. 66 in the UK singles chart, but in 2001 John Peel still listed it as one of his all-time favourite records. Then, in 2013, to coincide with its use on a promotional video by natural skincare company JooMo, the track was re-released by Big Bear Records.

The band released further singles, including Gotta Getta Job, which they performed during the People’s March for Jobs in 1981, a march in which they took part. They continued to perform until the mid-1980s, when Doherty left. They reformed in the 1990s and made further recordings but they were not released.

Josh Jones later moved to Auckland, New Zealand and became an Anglican priest, while still creating and recording new music”

Can’t say that I agree with John Peel’s take on it………

And as I’m doing my best to keep readers happy, I’ll offer up some Kate Bush tunes from the On Stage EP, which came into the chart of 9-15 September at #35, eventually peaking at #10 during a nine-week stay in the Top 75.

mp3 : Kate Bush – Them Heavy People (live)
mp3 : Kate Bush – Don’t Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake (live)
mp3 : Kate Bush – James And The Cold Gun (live)
mp3 : Kate Bush – L’Amour Looks Something Like You (live)

The price, however, is to court controversy by re-posting something that was originally featured on the old blog in August 2010 and on the current blog in January 2017.

“The thing is, while browsing in a second hand vinyl emporium a wee while back, I came across a copy of a 1979 EP, and given it was going for £2, I thought it worth giving a listen to again all these years later.

It has four live tracks, all recorded at a London gig in May 1979. This turned out to be the only time that Kate Bush ever toured in her entire career*, although over the years there would be sporadic live appearances, either solo or as alongside a whole range of other performers, suggesting that it wasn’t a fear of playing live that she suffered from.

The four songs all originally featured on The Kick Inside or Lionheart, her first two LP

So as it is spinning round the USB Turntable and doing whatever thing it is gadgetry wise to turn the tracks into instant mp3s, I’m thinking to myself…….this is shite.

It just feels as if it is music played by top-notch session players incapable of hitting a bum note, but who are just as incapable of adding any meaning or feeling to a song. It’s got wanky solos all the way through as well, and the sort of music that punk/new wave/post-punk was determined to banish forever (not that they ever had a chance of succeeding).

I’ve recently read reviews of that six-week tour that Kate Bush undertook in 1979 and by just about every account, it seems to have been an event that was ahead of its time with its use of theatre and dance and multi-median innovations including the use of a head-mic. But tucked away in the middle of such reviews, you cotton-on to the fact that the musicians were drilled to the Nth degree with no room at all for improvisation. It sounds as if it was more akin to going along to a musical than a gig…….and I reckon that’s what comes across on the tracks on the EP. They lack any real depth or soul……but I bet they were astonishing if witnessed in the flesh.

Oh well. I’ve said it.

Bring on the brickbats.

* written and published years before the London residency of 2015 which so many got really excited about.”

JC

Blondie, Buggles, Headboys, Jags, Michael Jackson, Police, Ramones, Ruts, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Skids, Squeeze, Stiff Little Fingers, Tourists, XTC

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (September)

I reckon you all know the drill by now.

I thought August 1979 had proven to be a bumper month for hit singles – and going by the comments last time around, many of you were in agreement. Will September hold up?

The Top 20 of the first chart of the new month was playing host to Gary Numan, Roxy Music, The Specials, The Stranglers, Joe Jackson, The Jam, and Ian Dury & The Blockheads, and here’s a handful of new entries quite a bit further down.

mp3: The Ruts – Something That I Said (#45)

The quickly-released follow-up to the hit single Babylon’s Burning was another belter of a number, and while it didn’t quite match the sucess of its predecessor in that it peaked at #29 and spent just five weeks in the chart, it helped build a strong foundation for the soon to be released debut album, The Crack, which went Top 20.

mp3: Squeeze – Slap and Tickle (#53)

Their third hit single in the space of six months, but it would come nowhere close to the Top 3 success of Cool For Cats and Up The Junction. It’s a bit of a strange one in that it’s reliant on synths, and Glen Tilbrook has cited Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder as influencing what he was trying to do, but it kind of sounds a bit primitive. It did eventually reach #24 which was a more than decent showing given it had been taken from an album released five months earlier.

mp3: The Jags – Back Of My Hand (#70)

A power-pop classic from a band formed in the costal town of Scarborough in north England. Tailor-made for radio, it sold in increasing numbers of a couple of months, eventually peaking at #17 in late October. It was The Jags one and only brush with fame in terms of chart success, and after some more flop singles and two albums that failed to dent the Top 100, they were dropped by Island Records after which they called it a day.

mp3: The Ramones – Rock ‘n Roll High School (#71)

A blink and you’ll miss it, minor hit. In at 71, up to 67 the next week, after which it disappeared.

mp3: The Tourists – The Loneliest Man In The World (#72)

As I mentioned back in June, The Tourists is where it all began for Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, who would conquer the planet in the mid-80s as the driving force behind Eurythmics. This was their second hit of the year, taken from their eponymous debut album that had been released in June 1979. It would go on to spend seven weeks in the chart, peaking at #29 in mid-October, by which point the band had already finished work on their second LP…..of which there will be further mention when November comes around.

The chart of 9-15 September 1979 had just two new entries in the Top 40, both of which were a bit on the unusual side as one was Since You’ve Been Gone, the first ever hit 45 by hard rockers Rainbow (who like many others in the genre normally ignored the singles market) with the other being a live EP from Kate Bush (live music was never aired on daytime radio back in the late 70s). In saying that about hard-rockers and chart singles, AC/DC were also in the Top 75 with Highway To Hell.

Coming in at #51 was a bona-fide disco classic from someone who was, at the time, just seen as perhaps the most-talented of his musical family, but not thought to be someone who would, in time, become arguably the most-famous pop star of his generation.

mp3: Michael Jackson – Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough

This would spend more than three months in the Top 75, peaking at #3. This is another example of how things were done differently back in 1979. ‘Dont Stop…’ had been released as a single in America back in July. It took until early September for it to be issued in that way in the UK, and even then it was merely a piece of marketing to highlight that Michael Jackson‘s solo album, Off The Wall, was due for release in mid-late September. Nobody, and I don’t care what anyone will say with the benefit of hindsight, anticipated it would sell 20 million copies worldwide, of which almost 2 million were in the UK, leading to an initial 61-week stay in the album charts, and an incredible 225 weeks all told over the subsequent years and decades.

There’s nothing else worth homing in on across the rest of the new entries, so I’ll quickly move on to 16-22 September.

Cars by Gary Numan went to #1, replacing Cliff Richard, whose We Don’t Talk Anymore had been holding down the top spot for the previous four weeks. Gary’s stay at the top only proved to be very brief. The song which landed at #8 this week would soon hit the top.

mp3: The Police – Message In A Bottle

It really was quite the remarkable turn-around. A year earlier, nobody in the UK had been interested in Sting, Stewart and Andy. Three flop singles and an album that was in the bargain bins by Xmas. But they did a bit better in America, and early-mid 1979 brought hits via re-releases. The question was whether the new material would sustain the interest. Message In A Bottle more than did that. As I said, in at #8 prior to a three-week stay at #1, while the album from which it was taken, Regatta de Blanc, came straight in at #1 in early October. It was the start of a genuinely remarkable run of success.

Nobody would have realised it at the time, but the single which would eventually replace Message In A Bottle at #1 also entered the charts this week

mp3: Buggles – Video Killed The Radio Star (#57)

There’s really not much to write about this song that hasn’t already been written. It was slightly a slow-burner, in at 57 and taking four more weeks to reach #1 (where it stayed for just one week – I would have sworn it was at the top for a good deal longer). Maybe it was just down to it never seeming to be off the radio for about the next five years.

mp3: XTC – Making Plans For Nigel (#63)

Life Begins At The Hop had given XTC a minor hit a few months earlier. Making Plans for Nigel wasn’t a follow-up, but instead was issued to further support Drums and Wires, the band’s third studio album that had come in to the charts a few weeks earlier at #43. It proved to be an inspired move, raising the band’s profile immensely and taking them firmly out of cult status into bona fide pop stars. Not that it sat comfortably with them……

Nigel would, in due course reach #17, a position that band would better just twice in the coming years.

mp3: The Headboys – The Shape Of Things To Come (#68)

As featured in the long-running Scottish Songs on Saturdays series, away back in August 2018. I mentioned that the Edinburgh-based power-pop outfit had been signed by RSO Records, one of the biggest labels in the world at the time, primarily on the back of the success of Saturday Night Fever by The Bee Gees. Such connections got The Headboys a slot on Top of The Pops despite the single not being in the Top 40; indeed, it never got higher than #45 in a eight-week stay in the lower reaches of the chart and proved to be the only hit of any sort the band would enjoy.

And so, to the final week of September 1979.

mp3: Blondie – Dreaming (#7)

The album Plastic Letters had taken Blondie to the summit of the pop world, and all concerned were determined to remain there. Dreaming was the first new song in some 18 months, and it was given a rapturous welcome. This was an era when new singles entering anywhere in the Top 10 was seen as a triumph, and in many cases, it led to it hitting #1 the week after. Blondie’s previous two singles – Heart of Glass and Sunday Girl – had been #1s. Dreaming failed to match it, stalling at #2, unable to dislodge Message In A Bottle. It was perhaps a sign that the baton in the race to be the world’s most popular group was being handed over from America to England.

As if to illustrate how hard it was in those days to have a high new entry in the singles chart, the second highest of the week came in at #45

mp3: The Skids – Charade

The third hit of the year for The Skids. This one didn’t go Top 20 in the same fashion as Into The Valley and Masquerade, peaking at #31; remarkably, the band would enjoy a fourth hist single before the new decade dawned on us. Come back in November for more.

Here’s some more proof as to why 1979 is, in my opinion, the greatest year of all for chart singles

mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Mittageisen (#58)

Metal Postcard (Mittageisen) was one of the standout tracks on the 1978 debut album The Scream. A year later, the album Join Hands had been issued, with its lead single Playground Twist charting at #28. Meanwhile, over in West Germany, Metal Postcard had been re-recorded with the lyrics sung in German, and had become a hit single. Polydor Records, noticing that fans were purchasing it on expensive import, decided to release it in the UK. It proved to be a short stay in the chart of just three weeks, and it peaked at #47, but it was previously unthinkable that a German-language new-wave song by an English group would remotely be a commercial success.

Those of you who read Part 2 of this monthly feature, in which I highlight singles that didn’t make the Top 75, may recall me that back in May I made reference to Gotta Getaway, a quite brilliant 45 by Stiff Little Fingers that had been issued on Rough Trade. A few months later, and after signing to Chrysalis, the boys from Belfast finally made the charts, coming in at #59.

mp3: Stiff Little Fingers – Straw Dogs

This move to a major would lead to more chart success in 1980 and help pave the way for the band to build up such a decent-sized fanbase that they are still very much a going concern in 2024

Talking of Part 2 of this series, I hope you’ll all drop in a few weeks time as there are some genuine classics, from really well-known groups, that have stood the test of time.

JC

Wedding Present

THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Parts Forty-One and Forty-Two)

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Around the time that Valentina was released (March 2012), The Wedding Present issued a 7″ single on vinyl.

As mentioned last week, this was a time when I wasn’t paying much attention. I’ve now learned that this 7″ single was given out to the members of ‘Club 8’, so called as its members were those who had provided financial support for the recording of Valentina, the band’s eighth studio album.

500 copies were pressed up on clear vinyl, specifically for those loyal fans without whom etc. The folk who got the single are the type who (mostly) wouldn’t dream of parting with it. Just two copies have ever been sold via Discogs, with the last occasion being back in 2016. No copies are presently on offer. And just when I thought there was no chance of tracking anything down, our dear friend The Robster sent across a very helpful email with a couple of digital attachments:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Metal Men
mp3: The Wedding Present – Unthinking

A couple of songs that are better than quite a few on Valentina??? I certainly think so…..

Next up was a limited edition 10″ single on clear vinyl that was issued for Record Store Day on 21 April 2012.

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The 4 Chansons EP involved four songs being sung in French. The original versions of three of the songs had been recorded for Valentina, while the other was of Metal Men, one of the two tracks made available only to the members of Club 8.

This one was a bit more readily available on Discogs, albeit a bit pricey, but given that until The Robster stepped in to help out I thought I was going to miss out on two successive releases for this series, I did send off for it a couple of weeks back.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Deer Caught In The Headlight (French Version)
mp3: The Wedding Present – End Credits (French Version)
mp3: The Wedding Present – Metal Men (French Version)
mp3: The Wedding Present – Mystery Date (French Version)

It’s the Wedding Present, and it’s David Gedge doing his stuff in French. Qu’y a-t-il à ne pas aimer ?

JC

Bee Bee Cee

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #420: BEE BEE CEE

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Yet another that come courtesy of its inclusion within the Big Gold Dreams box set, released on Cherry Red back in 2019. This one dates from November 1977.

mp3: Bee Bee Cee – You Gotta Know Girl

Here’s the blurb from the booklet:-

“With Britain’s state broadcasters chasing ratings on the back of punk’s shock value, enter Edinburgh’s five-piece Bee Bee Cee.

Led by vocalist Dave Gilhooley and guitarist Callum McNair, Bee Bee Cee made a sole vinyl offering which paired You Gotta Know Girl with the snottier We Ain’t Listening released on Radio Edinburgh Ltd.

Gilhooley and McNair later teamed up as Club of Rome, contributing to the Mint Sauce For The Masses Edinburgh compilation EP. McNair went on to Syndicate, then The Apples with ex-Win-ites Ian Stoddart and Willy Perry, and Captain Shifty with Stoddart before joining The Bathers, fronted by ex-Friends Again frontman Chris Thomson. McNair currently plays with Blondie tribute band Dirty Harry.”

Discogs has two copies of the Bee Bee Cee single on offer. The asking price is around the £170 mark. I’ll be honest and say that until the inclusion of this song on the box set, I had never heard of the band.

Given it was a one-off single, I set out to track down the b-side, but without forking out that sort of sum of cash.

mp3: Bee Bee Cee – We Ain’t Listening

Both tracks do have 1977 written all over them.

JC

Drugstore

THE CD SINGLE LUCKY DIP (13) : Drugstore – El President

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This is a re-post, of sorts, in that the lead song was featured back in 2019 as part of a short-lived series called ‘THE JOY OF (a mixed) SEX duet’.

mp3: Drugstore – El President

The duet is courtesy of Isabel Monteiro and Thom Yorke. The former is one of the two vocalists in Drugstore, while the latter is…..well I don’t think I need to spell it out.

Drugstore were around for much of the 90s, and were highly regarded and respected among their peers. They were the sort of band that more established acts loved to have as special guests while out on tour, which is why fans of the likes of Radiohead, Tindersticks, Jeff Buckley and The Jesus and Mary Chain would have had opportunities to catch them.

El President was the first single to be lifted from their second album, White Magic for Lovers, which came out in 1998. At this point in time, Drugstore consisted of the afore-mentioned Isabel Monteiro (bass and vocals), Daron Robinson (guitar and vocals), Mike Chylinski (drums) and Ian Burdge (cello). The song was written by Monteiro as a tribute to Salvador Allende, whose four decades of political involvement in Chilean politics had seen him become president in 1970 (elected in a run-off by Congress as none of the three candidates had won any overall majority) but just three years later he had committed suicide rather than give in to a military coup. It was a coup supported by the CIA, which in itself was no surprise given that Allende was a committed Marxist and the Cold War was being fought.

I’ll just mention in passing that he was succeeded by General Augusto Pinochet….unarguably one of the worst persecutors of his political opponents in the 20th Century.

There are two additional tracks on the CD single, both of which really are well worth a listen.

mp3: Drugstore – The Night The Devil Came To Me
mp3: Drugstore – Perfect Movie

The former is another that was written by Monteiro. I’m not sure if it is a genre, but I’d describe it as ‘gothic soundtrack’, and could pass easily for a brilliant cover of one of the slower songs of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. It’s one that I hadn’t listened to in well over 25 years since buying the single, and I’m kicking myself for not being more aware of its magnificence, as it would certainly have found its way onto a mixtape by now.

The latter was written by Mike Chylinski, the drummer in Drugstore, and yet it’s a song in which the drumming is very sparse to the extent of being almost non-existent. It’s another duet in that the opening verse is sung by Daron Robinson, with Isabel Monteiro coming in for verse two. It really is a lovely little ballad, one which deserved a better fate than being consigned to being an extra track on a single.

El President reached #20, and proved to be the only hit single Drugstore would ever enjoy.

JC

Various

NOT MY 1990s

A GUEST POSTING by STEVE McLEAN

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JC writes…..

This particular piece arrived late on Monday evening, with the author being completely unaware that I’d scheduled an Oasis ICA for the following day.

I’ve never been someone who turns down any offers to contribute to the blog. And while I might not agree 100% with Steve on this occasion, he does make some highly interesting observations in his usual idiosyncratic fashion as becoming of someone who does a bit of stand-up comedy (at which point I should mention that his Edinburgh Free Fringe show on ‘Hair Metal’ was very energetic, entertaining and funny).

Ladies and Gentlemen, please put your hands together for the one and only, Mr Steve McLean………….

——-

Hello again Onliners! I’m back and this time I’ve got absolutely nothing to promote. A certain Mancunian band reforming have stirred me from my post-Summer slumber.

I get that Oasis mean a lot to a lot of people. Their crossover appeal did a shed load for converting those who were chart kids into guitar music, which ultimately gave so many other bands good careers…. But fucking hell, people (and I’m really addressing the current crop of British media), some of us thought they were just okay (and some of us secretly thought they were actually dull as shit but couldn’t be arsed having the conversation with the fishing-cap-wearing-bellends who had literally never heard another album and thought that the Verve were a bit leftfield because they sampled some violins).

I saw Oasis in 1994. I was with 500 other people at the King Tuts Tent at the first T in Park. They were young and vibrant and getting loads of press. I was 18, it was the first proper British music movement I’d been around for, so I should have been punching the air. The result for me was ‘Meh’

A lot of people will tell you that the King Tuts Tent was packed that afternoon and that the atmosphere was electric. What they won’t tell you is that it was absolutely pissing down outside (Strathclyde in July) and that The Crash Test fuckingDummies were on the only other stage at the same time. Frankly Yoko Ono performing songs of Sepultura would have seemed amazing in comparison to getting piss wet through and listening to “Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm” Actually I’d fucking love a Yoko Plays Sepultura gig.

DISCLAIMER: I might be allowing a low-level PTSD to cloud my judgement here. For about four weeks in 2013 I was the development producer for the Gallagher funded Supersonic documentary. I was massively miss-sold the project. I was galvanised by the promise of a film comparing the rise of Oasis / Britpop to the rise of New Labour and the political change in the country. Now this may or may not be a true comparison but it is an interesting concept. What the film ended up being was ‘Look how cool Oasis were. Isn’t Noel clever?’ I left the role after a month when it became apparent that it was just going to be a very long promo-video, I had to sit through around 30 live versions of Live Forever (although I did rob a load of Post-It notes from the Ignition Management offices…. At least someone involved in the project still understood what rock’n’roll was about).

So I’ve put together an alternative 90s playlist. Don’t worry I’ve not been a wanker (well not about the playlist, but in other aspects of life I definitely have been a wanker) I’ve not filled it with shit like Aqua or Wigfield (Although Dr Jones was a banger). Depending on who you talk to; the end of Britpop is placed at anywhere between 1996 to 2000, certainly the embers had just about gone out by the time the Strokes turned up in 2001. So from ’94 until the year 2000, here’s the 1990s that I enjoyed.

1994

Cement: Dancing from the Depths of the Fire

I’ve wanged on about Chuck Mosely on this platform before and I was right to do so as he was fucking brilliant. He’s not for those who like singing in tune or singing with timing or singing words that you can always understand but he was still fucking brilliant. Cement were formed after he’d been kicked out of Faith No More and then kicked out of Bad Brains. In defence to Chuck I imagine it was everyone else fault and not him. This song is probably the stand out track from the weaker second Cement album.

Reason why it’s better than Oasis: You can make a strong argument that Chuck Mosely was the first person to rap over hard rock music (in 1984). He probably created a whole new genre that went on to be popularised in the late 90s. People will say that the annoying bloke from the Chili Peppers did it first but if you listen to their first albums the music is weak af and sounds like a cat having a burning piss. By contrast Oasis where the first band to plagiarise a Coca-Cola advert. Nothing says rock’n’roll mega-global-teeth-rotting-business.

1995

Bjork: Army of Me

Everyone went nuts for Bjork‘s first album, Debut. It was bleepy and bloopy and lovely. High street shops played it to death, you’d always hear it in clothes retailers like Next, Gap and The United Colours of Ben Elton. So when Army of Me came out it was a real fuck you to the coffee table set. To be fair she’s warned us what was coming with Play Dead but we didn’t listen. This song is a proper back alley bundle. The Led Zep sampled drums give a platform for a tirade against wasters and stoners (I think intended to be over-privileged-poverty-tourist grunge kids but it’s easy to choose to interpret it as swipe at the Britpop lads… And I do choose to do that). For an extra slice of ‘holy shit!’ check out the Skunk Anansie duet version.

Reason why it’s better than Oasis: When Oasis acted hard they called George Harrison a nipple and swaggered around like wankers in a Spoonies. When Bjork kicked off she was like Muhammad Ali beating the shit out of Ernie Terrell

1996

Tori Amos – Professional Widow (Van Helden remix)

If you ever wonder what a producer does then check out the original version of this song and compare it to this banging dance floor classic. The song is rumoured to be about Courtney Love, not that you’d know from the 20 words actually sung in the remix version.

Now Tori (unfortunate name) was a songwriter who delved deep into world problems, drew on personal experience and produced work that was both challenging and beautiful. Also she never ever once confused the words ‘Our’ and ‘Are’ in a song title and then pretend it was intentional after everyone pointed it out.

Reason why it’s better than Oasis: Tori’s previous band were called Y Kant Tori Read? Which is a shit name but represents a bold attempt at getting noticed. Oasis previous name was Rain which is terrible name and represents the true nature of the band. Wet and miserable (I can actually enjoy rain if I’m in the right mood, unlike Oasis).

1997

Ben Folds Five – The Battle Of Who Could Care Less

The BFF were referred to as the Indie-Elton-Johns, which isn’t a bad title. Like Army of Me above, this is another swipe at MTV wasters. A brave move given the average American rock fan of the time was literally apathetic to apathy. Ben Folds Five were kicking hipsters in the dick before they were referred to a hipsters. Oasis didn’t kick anyone in the dick because it would have involved getting off the sofa and missing an episode of Hollyoaks.

Reason why it’s better than Oasis: Piano! In a world of torrid trudgy bleh guitars, the BFF said ‘no thank you, sir’ and wrote songs that only musicians could play. You might say ‘that’s elitist’ to which I’d reply ‘So you like those 2am versions of Wonderwall that some tedious fucknugget plays on an out-of-tune guitar at parties then?’ To which you’ll almost certainly answer ‘I don’t know, no one invites me to parties anymore’ and I’ll reply ‘that’s because you always bring your fucking out of tune acoustic guitar. You’re literally the problem, Simon.

1998

Air – Sexy Boy

Frenchpop vs Britpop. Sorry Britain, but I’ve always been a collaborator. Do you remember when this came out? All those guitars that were making your ears bleed suddenly gave way to this calm beauty. It must have been what it was like when electropop stole the thunder from New Wave in the early 1980s. I’d say it was Laurie Anderson meets Kraftwerk with ELO tunes but I’d sound like a tosser so I won’t (note to other tossers – being self aware allows you to continue to be a tosser without any life adjustments, Just ask Noel G). The song just breezes in and doesn’t give a fuck that you like dad-rock. The B-side (like all 1990s French pop B-sides) features Francoise Hardy.

Reason why it’s better than Oasis: Fans of Air had to learn how to read French in order to sing along with the lyric sheets. Fans of Oasis had to learn how to read.

1999

Hefner – The Hymn For the Alcohol

Personally I think 1999 might have been the real year Britpop ended. Suede released Head Music and everyone knew that the game was up (Arse Music would have been more apt). It was also the last of so many hurrahs. The last great David Bowie album came out (Hours), The Slim Shady LP took hip hop into the US suburbs, finally seeing off the Beavis and Butthead culture that didn’t realise they were the joke and Kula Shaker were about to fuck off for the best part of a decade.

Darren Hayman is a world class songwriter. This is where the anger really rises in me because by the late 90s Oasis were shitting out absolute gibberish. Even the hardiest Oasis denier can’t argue that they did have something, but where once was aggressive cock-rock was now replaced by flaccid, floppy air-wanks.

For a short while bands like Hefner and Belle and Sebastian put indie music back in the hands of actual indie music fans, but the damage had been done. Hayman is never generic, he rarely goes for the easy rhyme and all of his subjects come from a place of personal connection and unlike so many songwriters of the time he rarely indulges in tabloid sloganeering.

Reason why it’s better than Oasis: Oasis sang Cigarettes and Alcohol and said absolutely nothing about the subject. Hayman wrote separate songs (Hymn for the Cigarettes and Hymn for the Alcohol). He deep dives into both of them, covering everything for drunken sex to the self loathing of returning to addiction. When it comes to cigarettes and alcohol, Oasis are Heat magazine and Hefner are the New York Times.

2000

Grandaddy – Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)

And then just as the Britpop fire was going out, Grandaddy came along in the late 90s and showed the world that you didn’t have to be a tedious-upper-middle-class-art-school-Caspian in order to use analogue synths (I am looking at you here, Radiohead). The Sophtware Slump is officially the seventh best album ever released (it’s my list, I’ll put it where I want). Jed the humanoid is a reoccurring robot character in Grandaddy-verse, functioning with the future-the-1970s-predicted vibe. Falsetto vocals and lush keys mean that Grandaddy offer a bit more to the music lover than that the average 90s band. They have a ‘Prepared-to-fail’ attitude and certainly some of their early releases can be hard work. It is this honesty that allows them get in you head.

Reason why it’s better than Oasis: People often say that Grandaddy songs sound like demos and wonder what could be achieved with state of the art production facilities and millionaire producers…. Jesus, you can really see where I’m going with this, make your own punchline up.

I think that’ll do. I’ve not even included anything by Mercury Rev or Cake or Natalie Merchant or Porno for Pyros who all released their finest records in this period. To be fair I was going to include Cake until I heard about what a nasty piece of work the drummer turned out to in in 2014, but even then I was toying with including them and saying ‘Well at least Cake can get arrested in America, unlike Oasis’ but I thought even more me that’s a touch too far.

If you love Oasis, I’m happy for you. If you’ve paid £500 to see them and you’re happy with that then I’m happy for you. I like it when people are happy and things that make them happy should be celebrated. But I feel we are too often dragged into a Mandela Affect when it comes to nostalgia. There were loads, actually hundreds of great bands (and Northern Uproar) that never get a look in anymore because we allow others to do our remembering for us.

Not everyone had the same 1990s and even those that did were possibly the victim of spin. Helen Love put it best ‘All you boys in Ocean Colour Scene, You’ll never sell more singles than Gina G’

STEVE

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #066

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#066: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds– ‘In The Ghetto’ (Mute Records ’84)

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Good morning friends,

I am rather ashamed to say that I never really had too much time for Nick Cave. I mean, these days he is considered as one of the great artists of our time, and rightly so, I suppose. But I am probably the last person on earth who should write a detailed essay about him, I would get it hopelessly wrong because I missed so much of his output – and also everything has already been written before, much better than I could ever do it.

Therefore let’s keep it short and sweet, shall we? My favorite album by Mr. Cave (did you know that’s his real name? Astonishing, I always thought he had chosen it by himself in order to sound cooler …) in its entirety is ‘Kicking Against The Pricks’, although my favorite songs are ‘Watching Alice’ and ‘Slowly Goes The Night’ from ‘Tender Prey’. None of those two ever appeared on 7” though, therefore they out ruled themselves, obviously.

So I had to choose a different 7”, and in order not having to end this post here and now, I will tell you why it is that I like this song so much:

I started my apprenticeship in 1987, the workplace was some 35 kilometers away from my village. So I was lucky that some chap I vaguely knew from school had also been recruited as an apprentice boy there: Burkhard aka the mighty Fatman (we’re still in touch today, mainly drinking a bit in our old bar two or three times a year, but believe me: I am the fat man these days, no longer him – but in 1987 it was the other way round, hence his nickname). Now, obviously the Fatman would pick me up in the morning and we’d drive together to work, either in my shabby Renault 5 or in his car, an even more shabby Citroen 2CV. And of course we would listen to music on our way to and back from work, 2 x 40 minutes or so per day.

When it was my turn to drive, I would put in cassettes from recent Peel shows on BFBS, much to the dismay of the Fatman, because he listened to NOTHING else but Elvis (Presley, not Costello) back then: so you can imagine how much I disliked work when it was his turn to drive – Elvis on heavy (cassette) rotation in the bloody 2CV! I learned that Elvis, apart from two (unsuccessful) numbers never wrote a song by himself, being a decent singer was fair enough for him to gain fame, apparently.

Obviously I couldn’t cope with this as a true indie kid, still the Fatman constantly tried to convince me of Elvis’ greatness. Elvis being God or being just useless certainly was the biggest musical dispute arising between the two us within the years, but not the only one, to be sure. All of this was pre-internet, of course, so occasionally a British authority, no longer with us alas, had to be contacted by post in order to settle our disputes:

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There was one song though that never ended in a dispute whatsoever, one that as well The Fatman as me could easily identify with … this one:

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mp3: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – In The Ghetto

Enjoy, and take good care,

Dirk

Oasis

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #376: OASIS

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I was over in Toronto on 26 August when the news broke that Oasis were going to reform and tour. All my links to the news were through the Guardian newspaper as I have an on-line subscription to that daily publication, and while I had reckoned on it being something of a phenomenon, I was still very surprised to read four separate articles about it all.

The following day, the same paper had seven articles or features about the band, with one other –‘Anger Is Blinding: family therapists on how to resolve sibling feuds’ very clearly inspired by the news.

It made me glad that I was so many thousands of miles away. If a broadsheet like The Guardian was devoting this sort of space to the reunion, I could only imagine the hype and hysteria across the popular press, not to mention the TV and radio coverage back home.

There were a further 18 articles in the period between 28 August and 1 September – some of which were for the paper’s sister publication, The Observer, which is sold on Sundays. My return to the UK last Friday coincided with the build-up to the actual sale of the tickets for the shows. I spent Saturday at a football match, where I got a running commentary from some fellow fans who were at the game but were also patiently queuing up on-line in the hope of getting tickets for the shows in Edinburgh. It was kind of surreal.

I think it’s fair to say that I’ve never seen such a level of interest in a pop/rock band in my entire life. The biggest surprise, as far as I’m concerned, is that so many younger people were desperate to get to one of the shows, as I had assumed these would be events mostly of interest to those who had been around in the 90s and who wanted the opportunity to relive part of their youth.

I’m not going to make any claims that Oasis are the greatest band to ever have walked the planet – far from it. But at the same time, I’m not going to go down the road, as one of the Guardian articles did, in suggesting that they were ‘the most damaging pop-cultural force in recent British history’.

A search through the archives of T(n)VV will throw up just a handful of pieces on Oasis. There would have been a few more over at the original TVV prior to it being wiped out of existence in 2013. One of the articles over at the old blog, written in 2008, offered a defence on the impact of the band back in the 90s, part of which offered a reminder that thanks to the money they brought in for Creation Records, the label was able to bankroll some other great, critically-acclaimed but less commercially successful acts in the mid 90s, such as Teenage Fanclub, Super Furry Animals, Boo Radleys, My Bloody Valentine, The House of Love and Felt.

This 2008 article was one that I was able to rescue from the wreckage of the old blog, and I republished it in August 2014. Feel free to click here and re-read what was said.

So, in a blatant effort to jump on the bandwagon, I thought that today I’d offer up an Oasis ICA. It’s something I’ve occasionally thought about compiling in the past, but given how little I’ve listened to their music over the past decade, I never quite had the motivation or urge to actually pull it together.

Here goes.

Side A

1. Supersonic (debut single and from the album Definitely Maybe, 1994)

2. Whatever (fifth single and first non-album single, 1994)

3. Acquiese (b-side of Some Might Say, the band’s sixth single, 1995)

4. Wonderwall (eighth single and from the album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, 1995)

5. Cigarettes and Alcohol (fourth single and from the album Definitely Maybe, 1994)

Side B

1. Fade Away (b-side of Cigarettes and Alcohol, 1994)

2. The Masterplan (b-side of Wonderwall, 1995)

3. Live Forever (third single and from the album Definitely Maybe, 1994)

4. Round Are Way (b-side of Wonderwall, 1995)

5. Champagne Supernova (from the album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, 1995)

As you can see, it is very much a run through of their earliest material. That’s not to say that anything after 1995 isn’t worth listening to, but this ICA merely reflects just how many excellent tunes, and indeed anthems, they released when they exploded onto the scene; and as with all the ICAs I pull together, it’s not necessarily their ten best songs, but something which I reckon flows well as a stand-alone album.

Feel free to ignore or chime in via the comments section.

JC

Various

CHASIN’ THE CLOUDS AWAY

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The title is stolen from a line in the lyric of a song that’s not on the mix.

mp3: Various – Chasin’ The Clouds Away

The Field Mice – September’s Not So Far Away
The Pipettes – ABC
The Jesus and Mary Chain – Guitar Man
Roots Manuva – Witness (1 Hope)
The Horrors – Who Can Say
X Propaganda – Beauty Is Truth
Sparks – Beat The Clock
Soft Cell – Torch
Soulwax – Push It/No Fun (Bootleg)
Prefab Sprout – The King Of Rock’n’Roll
Human League – Open Your Heart
Teenage Fanclub – Sparky’s Dream
The Style Council – Money Go Round
The Delgados – Under Canvas Under Wraps
The Wedding Present – Kennedy
Beastie Boys – Ask For Janice

I’ve long had a wish to finish one of these things off with that Beastie Boys clip. It gives it a running time of one second over the hour.

JC

Wedding Present

THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part Forty)

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2012. This is where I’m very likely not only to lose track with everything that was going on in terms of what was being released by The Wedding Present, but I really run the risk of losing everyone’s interest!

An album, Valentina, was released in March 2012. A few months prior to this, in the period between Christmas and New Year, I’d gone to see the band play a show in Glasgow at a venue called The Garage. It proved to be rather a disappointing evening, the first time I’d come away feeling I’d seen the band deliver a substandard performance. Some new songs were aired, with David explaining they had already been recorded in the studio for the next album, but none of them jumped out as me as being anything special, far less having the possibility of becoming memorable and essential TWP tunes.

I didn’t rush out and buy Valentina. Indeed, I think I bought it maybe 18 months or so after it was released, and that was when it was on sale in a shop. For the first time ever, I was bored by the new material the band were recording and releasing. I was still listening and loving loads of the old stuff, and writing about it on the original incarnation of The Vinyl Villain (born 30 September 2006 and wiped off the planet on 24 July 2013).

It all means that a number of other releases from 2012, in addition to Valentina, passed me by. Indeed, looking at the TWP vinyl and CDs that I have here in Villain Towers, there was a gap through to 2016 before my buying habits were re-ignited. I have, as part of doing the legwork for this series, tried to track as many of them down as I can, and you’ll see in the coming weeks, just how well (or not) I got on.

Today, it’s just the one song.

Valentina was an album with ten songs – or eleven is you went for it as a digital download, as there was a bonus track available that way. None of its songs were ever released as a stand-alone physical single, and indeed just one was made available in advance, seemingly as a digital single on 30 January 2012:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – You Jane

This had been aired at the Glasgow gig I mentioned earlier on. Looking back, the band just felt inconsequential in comparison to a lot of the exciting new music that was coming out of Scotland. Maybe TWP in 2012 just didn’t stand a chance with me.

Thinking back to all the very long-running series in which I’ve looked at the singles by a singer or band, there’s always been a period when I’ve lost interest along the way, only to have it piqued again in later years. It happened with James, it happened with New Order, it happened with R.E.M., it happened with The Fall, and it happened with the Pet Shop Boys.

It’s really difficult to be a fan of a singer or band over many decades and remain totally committed to their output.

JC

Beat Poets

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #419: THE BEAT POETS

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Another that come courtesy of its inclusion within the Big Gold Dreams box set, released on Cherry Red back in 2019. This one dates from May 1987

mp3: The Beat Poets – Killer Bee Honey

Here’s the blurb from the booklet:-

“Taken from The Beat Poets debut EP, Glasgow, Howard, Missouri, released on 53rd & 3rd* Killer Bee Honey is an infectious beach-bound instrumental designed to shimmy to, while trying not to kick sand in the faces of tough guys.

Formed by former Primevals guitarist Tom Rafferty, the Beat Poets mined a retro-bound seam of party music, with twanging guitars married to smooth sax on several singles and an album, Totally Radio.”

*the label founded in 1985 by Stephen Pastel, Sandy McLean and David Keegan

The back of the sleeve for the EP provides the names of the band members. Tom Rafferty (guitar), Keith Bruce (saxophone), Stewart A Nicol (more guitar), Paul Bridges (drums & tambourine) and T Morris Fraser (bass guitar).

By the time the follow-up single, Rebel Surf, was released in 1988, again on 53rd&3rd, they had a different bass player – Robert Renfrew – and a different drummer – John Currie. That line-up would record the group’s sole album, the above-mentioned Totally Radio, issued by the Lanacashire-based label, Imaginary Records.

JC

Goodbye Mr Mackenzie

THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (14): Goodbye Mr Mackenzie – The Rattler

This lead track on this 12″ single came up via random shuffle the other day and made me determined to write about it…..but there’s nothing really much different to add to what appeared just over three years ago. Sound the klaxon……….

Lazy repost alert. Feel free to ignore and come back tomorrow. This is from May 2021.

The original version of The Rattler has a link to, of all bands, Wet Wet Wet. The pop/soul combo was managed by Elliot Davis who founded an independent label, based in Glasgow, called The Precious Organisation for which he had grand plans, unless the major labels came calling – which they soon did in the shape of Phonogram. In the end, only two other acts other than ‘The Wets’ ever released anything on Precious, one of them being Goodbye Mr Mackenzie with The Rattler being issued on 7″ and 12″ vinyl in September 1986, and was a relative success in that it reached #13 on the Indie Singles Chart.

Fast-forward two years and a different major label, Capitol Records, had dangled a lucrative contract in front of Goodbye Mr Mackenzie that was duly signed. After a couple of singles hadn’t provided the hoped-for breakthrough, the decision was taken to release the re-recorded version of The Rattler was released in March 1989, going on to enjoy a six-week stint in the Top 75, peaking at #37. It proved, however, to be the only time the band ever cracked the Top 40 of the singles charts, which is something of a mystery as much of their music was tailor-made for radio consumption

mp3: Goodbye Mr Mackenzie – The Rattler (extended version)

There’s three other tracks on the 12″, two of which pay homage to the band’s roots in Edinburgh:-

mp3: Goodbye Mr Mackenzie – Here Comes Deacon Brodie
mp3: Goodbye Mr Mackenzie – Theme From Calton Hill

The former, while nothing to do with his actual real-life story, name checks an 18th Century individual, William Brodie a seemingly respectable tradesman in the city who also served on the Council, holding the position of Deacon of the Incorporation of Wrights, which locally controlled the craft of cabinetmaking. The thing was, Brodie maintained a secret life as a housebreaker, abusing his position as the foremost locksmith of the city to get access to the homes of the wealthy, as well as the vaults of banks. It all went wrong in 1788 when a raid on an excise office was botched and although Brodie fled to Amsterdam, he was caught and brought back to Edinburgh where, after a high-profile trial found him guilty, he was sentenced to death by hanging, at the age of 47. My first knowledge of Deacon Brodie came via drinking in the pub which now bears his name, as it was the closest to the office of my first place of employment back in 1985.

The latter is an instrumental which sounds as if it would make for a great piece of music over which film or television credits would roll. Calton Hill is a stunning city centre location upon which a number of historical monuments and buildings are situated, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s worth mentioning in passing that, for decades, Calton Hill has also had a reputation as a dangerous place at night, a location where male prostitution, drug use and underage drinking has not been uncommon. It may well have been all the latter rather than the lovely buildings which inspired the title of this particular b-side.

The other track? Possibly one of the best-known shanties of them all:-

mp3: Goodbye Mr Mackenzie – Drunken Sailor

No apologies for the pops and crackles on the four tracks today. It’s the price of using vinyl that’s over 30 years of age and has been picked up second-hand.

JC

James

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (21) : James – Come Home

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The idea today in featuring the original version of a song that would eventually become a big hit for James, is two-fold.

Firstly, given that I’m getting on a plane much later on today for an overnight flight to Glasgow, the title is appropriate.

mp3: James – Come Home

Released on Rough Trade to complete indifference in November 1989. The failure of the label to provide the band with sufficient support for both this and previous single Sit Down led to a parting of the ways and James making the move to Fontana Records. The re-recorded versions of the two Rough Trade singles, along with the album Goldmother, brought the commercial success they had been dreaming of for years.

There is no question that Fontana insisted on a more commercial radio-friendly sound, but at the same time, with baggy/Madchester being very much to the fore, the stars had aligned perfectly for the band.

The second reason is that the b-side to the Rough Trade 45 provides one of James’ finest recordings, and one of my very favourite political protest songs

I’ll settle down and watch some television
Watch the news
Confronted by an ugly politician
And her ugly views
I don’t belong here
I don’t belong here
In your promised land
In your promised land

She is at the scene of every disaster
Shaking hands
Circling the corpses like a vulture
Coming into land
I don’t belong
Here, I don’t belong
Here, in your promised land
In your promised land

Never tell the truth
Look them in the eye
Soften up the voice
Justify a lie
Smother us in blue
Smother us in rust
Images are true
Images we trust

Promise us a home
Sell us what we own
Give the dog a bone
Dog a, dog a bone
You are the one
Ever so strong
Never be wrong
Never be wrong

The people of my country are divided
By her greed
Money is directed to ambition
Not to need
Now the scum is really floating to the surface
Of the sea
Everything she touches is infected
Including me

I don’t belong here
I don’t belong here
In your promised land

Thatcher may be long gone, but her legacy lives on, especially in the way Tory and the far-right politicians go about their business. I really wish the lyrics of this song weren’t still so meaningful 35 years on….can only hope the recently elected government will do things differently and better.

Early signs are…….well, the jury is still deliberating.

mp3: James – Promised Land

JC

Slaughter Joe

ONE SONG ON THE HARD DRIVE (14)

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This is one of the tracks included on Creation Records (International Guardians Of Rock ‘N’ Roll 1983-1999), a compilation of 30 tracks, across 2xCDs, issued by Sony/Columbia after Alan McGee‘s label had folded. The final cash-in, if you like.

It wasn’t too long before it was in the bargain bins, and I picked my copy up in Fopp Records for £5. Given that I already had quite a few of the songs from the original releases, it’s hard to say if it was worth it, but then again, the fact it has enabled at least one post for the blog all these years later does give it something on the credit side of the balance sheet.

Slaughter Joe was the name used for recording purposes by Joe Foster, one of the three individuals who formed Creation Records in 1983. Better known as a producer, he was also a member of The Television Personalities and Biff Bang Pow!

mp3: Slaughter Joe – I’ll Follow You Down

The credits on this rather noisy three-minute single from 1985, which has the catalogue number of CRE 019, list Slaughter Joe (guitar howl harmonica), Nathan Detroit (bass), Richard Berlin (electric viola) and Memphis (drums). I’ve a feeling these may not be their real names.

Indeed, a click on the credits on Discogs reveal the other three to be Alan McGee, Frank Sweeney (of the June Brides) and Alec Palao.

I haven’t been at all inclined to seek out any of their other releases, but it might well appeal to some of you. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

JC

Residents

I AM A MOLE AND I LIVE IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE…

A guest posting by Fraser Pettigrew

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I’ve been to a few gigs over the years. Not as many as some readers here, for sure, but the list includes artists from the globally stellar to the defiantly cult. I’ve seen Prince and Bob Dylan, Comsat Angels and Pere Ubu. The majority of these concerts have followed the time-honoured format and mostly don’t deserve description beyond the fact of being there, it was great, Bob wore a black suit and sang through his nose for two hours.

There are some gigs, however, that ought to be filed under ‘unusual’ for various reasons.

One of the most seriously out-of-the-ordinary shows I went to was The Residents at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall in June 1983. I knew very little about them at the time. I’d seen a video on the Old Grey Whistle Test of their alien interpretation of the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction, heard a few other snippets on John Peel and that was about it. I’ve still never bought any of their records. But they were legendary for their uncompromising avant-garde obscurity, reclusiveness and personal anonymity. I was a moth to the flame.

For those of you that have never encountered them, The Residents are noted for never appearing unmasked in public, usually to be seen in promo photos or album artwork wearing top hats and tails with giant eyeballs where their heads should be. To us, children of the punk revolution, such anti-fame was deserving of high respect. And the music was staunchly uncommercial, surreal-satirical, the epitome of American weird, refreshing the parts that even Zappa and Beefheart couldn’t reach.

I’ve subsequently dipped into The Residents’ back-catalogue thanks to Spotify and while I can’t offer a complete summary of so many dozen albums, much of what I hear casts them firmly in the role of electronic-industrial pioneers, experimenting with synthesisers and treatments that warp familiar forms into a disquieting zone of creepy twilight jitters. It’s like listening to Dome or Cabaret Voltaire playing Roald Dahl poetry in the style of Sun Ra. It’s not unreasonable to argue that those groups show the influence of The Residents, as do the likes of Throbbing Gristle, Pere Ubu and Devo, albeit in (sometimes) much more accessible form.

Prior to the extensive European tour that brought them to Edinburgh, The Residents had played barely a handful of live shows over their decade-long existence. This was seen as part of their studied obscurity, but in fact it was driven as much by the difficulty the group itself perceived in reproducing their studio music on a live stage. Advances in early sampler technology in the early 80s presented a solution, and the Mole Show was born.

The Queen’s Hall is not your typical rock venue, which seems entirely appropriate for a band like The Residents. It’s a former presbyterian church with no real backstage area or clear division between auditorium and the stage, a low platform projecting into the seated area and overlooked on both sides by the upper balcony. Ironically, however, The Mole Show was clearly designed with a more traditional theatre in mind and the stage end of the Queen’s Hall had to be screened off with a huge improvised white curtain that would ordinarily hang handily across the proscenium arch.

The show started with the curtain still closed, lights blazing behind it and some quasi-industrial music kicking in. Eventually the curtain parted to reveal… another curtain! Or at least a rough sackcloth screen held up on a large gantry behind which the band members could be made out, backlit and silhouetted as they played. A group of dancers occupied the area in front of the screen, writhing about with a large eyeball held in each hand. So far, so weird.

To be honest, I don’t remember that much about the music or all the barmy things that happened in the show. I do remember that when band members finally emerged from behind the screen they weren’t eyeball-headed but wore those joke plastic Groucho Marx glasses-nose-moustache masks to obscure their faces. There was an MC who explained to the audience what was going on at various points. I have subsequently learned that the MC was none other than Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller fame, before anyone in the UK knew who Penn and Teller were. Towards the end of the show, after he had spent the evening using his role to sarcastically deride the performers, he was brought back onto the stage gagged and tied to a wheelchair. Apparently, during a performance in Spain, Jillette was attacked by an irate audience member while thus bound and gagged. No such assault occurred in Edinburgh, however.

Fortunately, to make up for my feeble recollection, there is a video ~~on YouTube~~ of an entire performance of The Mole Show

It was recorded in Madrid for an arts TV programme, so we can all marvel at the impenetrable insanity of the whole thing. (The show starts at about 8m30s. The role of MC is played by the tour manager in this recording, as Penn Jillette was ill).

Click here.

There is also an excellent fan website here that relates the complete logistical and financial nightmare of the tour, an experience of mismanagement that reads like the most typical rock’n’roll thing The Residents have ever done.

It’s the familiar story of setting out to tour as a way of generating income, but designing a show that cost more to stage and transport than came in at the box office, having to sell the merchandising rights to generate funds but thereby losing out on the substantial income stream from merch sales, and finally their tour manager failing to pay the UK shipping company who impounded all their gear until he was paid, requiring The Residents to rebuild all their sets for one last money-spinning performance back in America, eating into the fee for that. Two days before this final show, the original sets and gear arrived from the UK.

Despite ending up penniless from this exhausting experience, The Residents have gone on to embrace live performance over subsequent years, mounting elaborate stage shows that have managed to actually make money on occasion. They have also managed to remain anonymous, with the exception of founding member Hardy Fox, although his identity as one of the band’s primary composers was only revealed on account of his death in 2018. He had previously been openly associated with the group as one of the ‘Cryptic Corporation’, a group of people supposedly brought in to manage and represent the band.

As I mentioned above, even the experience of The Mole Show didn’t motivate me to seek out any of their records. It was as though the gig was more of a theatrical experience than a musical one, and certainly almost all of The Residents’ LPs can be defined as ‘concept’ albums, like little theatrical creations of their own. Consequently, it’s very difficult to pick out any kind of representative sample of tracks, so I’ve confined it to a couple of pieces from Mark of the Mole, the album that spawned the whole idea of the show, plus a couple of other pieces from the same era. The Commercial Album (1980), whilst laughably un-commercial (natch!) at least has the virtue of limiting each track to exactly one minute, and as a consequence is more listenable than a lot of their others. I’d be hard pushed to say I was recommending any of this mind you, but if your tastes take you to some wilder shores then you might enjoy. Or you’ve been there already. Plus, if you were canny enough to buy a copy of the Satisfaction single in 1976 you could possibly raise anything between £400-800 for it these days.

mp3: The Residents – Voices of the Air (from Mark of the Mole, 1981)
mp3: The Residents – Another Land (from Mark of the Mole, 1981)
mp3: The Residents – Amber (from The Commercial Album, 1980)
mp3: The Residents – Perfect Love (from The Commercial Album, 1980)
mp3: The Residents – Satisfaction (single, 1976)

The long history of The Residents is a furiously complex web of personas, mythologies, conceptual contrivances and symbolism that makes the KLF look like part-timers. The fact of having seen them live illuminates none of this really. It was just one incarnation of an endlessly morphing artistic project that has rolled along for around fifty years, the product of a group of people with singular imaginations and a lifelong dedication to their concept. I still feel privileged to have witnessed them perform live at that time, when few others ever had. For all the mainstreaming of what was once avant-garde in the decades after punk, I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it since.

Fraser

Breakfast Muff

SONGS UNDER TWO MINUTES (3): LUNCH MONEY

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This one is all done and dusted in 50 seconds. Trust me, it’ll be the best use of 50 seconds in your entire day. Think of X-Ray Spex crossing up with Wire.

mp3: Breakfast Muff – Lunch Money

Breakfast Muff were (and I’m using the past tense as there’s been nothing released since 2018) a hugely entertaining pop-punk trio from Glasgow consisting of Eilidh McMillan, Simone Wilson and Cal Donnelly. This is the opening track from the 2017 album Eurgh!, and it sets the tone perfectly for what follows. 13 bouncing and boisterous tracks across 25 minutes.

JC

Wedding Present

THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part Thirty-Nine)

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You’ll hopefully remember from the 1992 series of Wedding Present singles that the year was rounded off with what seemed like a festive number in the shape of No Christmas. But as I mentioned at the time No Christmas, other than its title, had very little to do with the festive season and was really just about the saddest and bleakest of all the break-up songs that David Gedge has ever written.

He later said in an interview that he maintained the hope and ambition of writing, recording and releasing a bona-fide single celebrating the (supposedly) most wonderful time of the year. His ambition came to be realised at the end of 2008.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Holly Jolly Hollywood

This was the lead track on EP4 of How The West Was Won. It’s a light, almost flimsy throwaway number in which a co-vocal is delivered by Simone White, a Hawaii-born singer/songwriter whose recording career began in 2003 and has, to date, encompassed eight albums with a similar number of singles and EPs. A promo video was made:-

The promo actually has a big part to play in why I dislike this song. David Gedge might only be ten years older than Simone White, but the age gap looks a lot wider in the video, three minutes of footage in which he appears stiff and wooden, not to mention he’s put just too much black in his hair dye prior to the shoot.

As with other songs in the box set, an acoustic version was offered up:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Holly Jolly Hollywood (acoustic version)

The digital download came, as with the box set CD, came with a cover version of possibly the most famous festive song of them all.

mp3: The Wedding Present – White Christmas

It’s delivered at a funereal pace. I have no love for it, so I’ll leave it at that.

The record label did produce a few promotional CDs containing all three of the above songs for distribution to radio stations. A copy is currently up for sale on Discogs for a little over £20, including postage and packaging.

The promo CD doesn’t have the fourth track that was included in the CD contained within the How The West Was Won box set. It, too, was a cover version, and was the song that had been released as the bonus track with the ITunes download of El Rey some more than six months earlier.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Back For Good

Take that…….and weep.

The Wedding Present went into a bit of a hiatus for a few years, certainly in terms of recording. This was partly to do with David Gedge coming back to live in the UK after quite a few years on the west coast of America, and much of his time being taken up with planning, organising and curating his At The Edge of The Sea festival, the first of which was in August 2009 and which, other than when COVID restrictions prevented it, has been an annual event in Brighton at that time of year. The band did continue to perform extensively, particularly in 2010 with shows celebrating the 20th anniversary of Bizarro.

This series, however, won’t be having any similar hiatus. Tune in at the same time next Sunday, when I’ll have jumped forward to 2012.

JC

Be Charlotte

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #418: BE CHARLOTTE

Be Charlotte is the stage name taken by Dundee-born Charlotte Brimmer. Earlier this year, at the age of 27, she released her debut album Self Doubt and Fictional Doubts on her own label Enough Records. It’s been quite the journey…..

She emerged onto the scene almost a decade ago, singing and performing her own songs in venues in and around her home city. She is on record as saying that her inspirations were Tracey Chapman, Lauren Hill and Avril Lavigne.

Her first recordings emerged as 7″ singles in 2016, and in the immediate years afterwards she went on the road a fair bit, including European shows, played on bills at a number of the annual festivals that are held throughout Scotland, and landed some high profile support slots, including opening for The Proclaimers at a sold-out Glasgow Hydro (capacity approx 13,000) in September 2019.

In 2020, she was named as ‘Best Newcomer’ at The Scottish Music Awards. The future looked assured, especially as she had signed a deal with Columbia/Sony Music with a 12″ EP being released that same year. Sadly, the pandemic brought things to halt, as they did for so many young and not-so-young musicians, and the planned tours in the UK and Europe didn’t take place.

Charlotte took time to reflect on things and decided that she wasn’t comfortable or happy with the record label deal and walked away from it. She also had a bit of turmoil in her life – she had moved to live and work in Berlin, but then had to return home to Dundee after finding herself the unfortunate victim of a scam involving a rogue landlord. It was quite the emotional and professional rollercoaster.

Her songs are very pop-related and pleasant enough on the ear, but other than having one of her early singles dating back to 2016, there’s nothing on the shelves here in Villain Towers

mp3: Be Charlotte – Machines That Breathe

There’s a great deal more to watch and listen to over at the Be Charlotte YouTube channel. Click here.

JC

Soft Cell, Spandau Ballet

GOT TO KEEP THE CUSTOMERS SATISFIED (2)

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I hadn’t intended to do such a quick follow-up to the post from earlier this week, but it felt like the right thing to do on the back of the comments that were added when I featured Hard Times/Love Action by The Human League.

Mention was made of July 1981 being a great month for 12″ releases, thanks not only to the Human League but also singles by Soft Cell and Spandau Ballet, with the latter being a particular favourite of postpunkmonk (whose website/blog is one of the best written and most informative out there….his depth of knowledge is ridiculously impressive).

As I’m away on a short holiday, I felt it made a bit of sense to do a bit of cut’n paste from the previous occasions when the 12″ versions of Tainted Love and Chant No.1 featured on the blog.

It was only after making this decision that I found out the long pieces on both singles were over on the old blog, going back to sometime between 2007 and the first half of 2013.

Damn!

But here’s what was said as part of the Soft Cell ICA (#156) from February 2018.

mp3: Soft Cell- Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go (12″)

“On the LP (Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret), the last wail of the sax on Frustration goes straight into one of the most recognisable two-note pieces of music ever recorded.

Marc Almond has since written that the arrangement on Tainted Love is all down to David Ball, with one exception; it was Marc’s idea to open with the tinny sounding ‘bim bim’ that would then be repeated throughout the song in the background. It was also his idea that the song would segue perfectly into another sixties classic, albeit in Where Did Our Love Go? they were deploying a tune that was incredibly well-known. At this time, the duo were still focussed on being experimental as much as possible, and the plan when they went into the studio was to go for a 12” release aimed at the club market. It was producer Mike Thorne who twisted their arms to go with Tainted Love as a stand-alone track and as a compromise, a stand-alone cover of the Supremes number would be the b-side.

The 7” became a #1 hit the world over and went Top 10 on the Billboard chart in the USA, staying in that particular Top 100 for 43 weeks. It has sold millions, but of course neither Almond nor Ball have any songwriting royalties from such sales thanks to the error of not including one of their own compositions on the single (albeit a re-recorded Memorobilia was on the 12”).”

And here’s what was written in September 2017 in a longish piece offering the opinion that Spandau Ballet once had ‘it’ but lost ‘it’ somewhere along the way….probably around the release of Gold or True.

mp3 : Spandau Ballet – Chant No.1 (I Don’t Need This Pressure On) (12″)

This piece of horn-driven funk climbed all the way to the Top 3 in the UK, spending months hanging around the charts and becoming a staple of every club and discotheque in the country. If a black band, say from NYC or Philadelphia, had written and recorded Chant No.1, it would have been held up as an instant classic, but instead this group of young, fashionable Londoners were accused by their critics of music by numbers. It was, and remains, a nailed-on classic that the band never ever bettered.

I stand by all of the above paragraph.

As my dear friend from Germany says in his sign-offs,

Take care. And enjoy.