THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #405: ALEX FERGUSSON

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From the booklet accompanying the Big Gold Dream box set (Cherry Red Records 2019)

“If Glasgow auteur Alex Fergusson‘s snappy piece of dancefloor synth-pop sounds like it was paving the way for Depeche Mode and Co., bear in mind that producer Larry Least was actually Daniel Miller, aka, The Normal and founder of Mute Records.

Fergusson had played with Sounds journalist Sandy Robertson as The Nobodies before forming Alternative TV with Sniffin’ Glue fanzine writer Mark Perry. As a producer, Fergusson also worked with Postcard-era Orange Juice and The Go-Betweens. He then joined Cash Pussies, the conceptual brainchild of journo provocateurs Fred and Judy Vormel, who released the Sid Vicious-sampling ‘99% Is Shit’.

For five years, he played with Genesis P. Orridge‘s cult collective, Psychic TV. Since his departure. Fergusson has released several albums, including 2001’s The Essence, which featured a guest vocal from former Strawberry Switchblade co-vocalist Rose McDowall.”

mp3: Alex Fergusson – Stay With Me Tonight

This single was released in November 1980 on the London based Red Records, a label in existence between 1978 and 1982.

JC

Snow Patrol

THE CD SINGLE LUCKY DIP (8) : Snow Patrol – Velocity Girl/Absolute Gravity

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The origins of Snow Patrol date back to 1994 when Gary Lightbody (vocals and guitar), Mark McLelland (bass) and Michael Morrison (drums), three students from Northern Ireland who were studying at the University of Dundee, formed a band whom they named Shrug. By 1996, the name had changed to Polarbear, and they had signed to Electric Honey Records, the in-house label at Stow College, Glasgow. It was around this time that Michael Morrison suffered a breakdown, quit the band and returned home. The debut EP for Electric Honey, entitled Starfighter Pilot, saw Richard Colburn of Belle & Sebastian lend a hand on drums, while lead singer Stuart Murdoch played keyboards and added some vocals.

Another name change came in 1997 – this time to Snow Patrol – and an offer was accepted to sign up with Jeepster Records (the label that a year previously had signed Belle & Sebastian via the Electric Honey route). By this time, Jonny Quinn, another drummer from Northern Ireland, had joined. There would be a number of releases in 1998, beginning with two singles Little Hide (February 1998) and One Hundred Things You Should Have Done In Bed (May 1998), with debut album Songs For Polarbears hitting the shops on 31 August.

None of the releases sold in any great numbers. I was aware of the band’s name but knew nothing of their actual music. It would have been later in the same year that I picked up second-hand CD copies of some of their releases, including what turned out to be a third single from the debut LP:-

mp3 : Snow Patrol – Velocity Girl (Sell Out edit)
mp3 : Snow Patrol – Absolute Gravity
mp3 : Snow Patrol – When You’re Right, You’re Right (Darth Vadar Bringing In His Washing Mix)

The first two songs can be found on the debut album, albeit this version of Velocity Girl (NOT a cover of the Primal Scream song) is slightly shorter.

These songs sound nothing at all like the material with which Snow Patrol would hit payola between 2004 and 2006 with the albums Final Straw and Eyes Open, along with the numerous hit singles they spawned. The first few notes of Velocity Girl, and indeed the way Gary Lightbody delivers his vocal, is very reminiscent of Pavement, while Absolute Gravity has the sort of turntable action associated with Beck. The additional track on the CD is a strange, improvised sounding number.

Very few people were interested in Jeepster-era Snow Patrol. Plenty of material ended up in bargain bins and even today, it can all be picked up for very modest sums on the likes of Discogs.

JC

Marabor Caves

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #057

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#057: The Marabar Caves– ‘Seeds That Never Grew’ (Tiki Records ’84)

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The Marabar Caves are fictional caves which appear in E. M. Forster‘s 1924 novel ‘A Passage to India’ and the film of the same name. The caves are based on the real life Barabar Caves, as pictured above, especially the Lomas Rishi Cave, located in the Jehanabad District of Bihar, India which Forster visited during a trip to India.

The caves serve as an important plot location and motif in the story. Key features of the caves are the glass-smooth walls and a peculiar resonant echo, amplifying any sound made in the caves. The echo makes the sound “ou-boum” and that sound haunts the characters afterwards. Forster chose the caves to set a turning point in the novel, not just for the character Adela, but also for Mrs Moore, Cyril Fielding and Dr. Aziz: the caves mark a turning point in the novel and their lives. The caves are significant because they mark the hollowness in the lives of the four main characters. None of them are getting what they want and are trying to find a balance in life amid expanding chaos.

But, as so often, you knew that all along, didn’t you? What you did not know though is that, as ace and important for Indian tourism the above Marabar/Barabar Caves might possibly be, sunny Northampton has its own Marabar Caves! And you know what? If you made me choose which ones I should go and see, it wouldn’t be the Indian ones, even if you paid for the trip!

Nah, I would rather go and see one of the finest psychedelic rock bands ever to come from Northampton, only to witness their performance of what was a B-Side of a single, ‘Sally’s Place’, on Tiki records back in 1984 (that golden year):

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mp3: The Marabar Caves – Seeds That Never Grew

Now, apparently The Marabar Caves are still going strong these days … new records, touring: just as you do some 42 years after your formation. I haven’t gone through all their stuff, so there might be some surprises which I haven’t found yet, but up until now nothing is nearly as good as the above, an absolute favourite of mine. If you listened closely, I bet you’ll have heard a slight “ou-boum” therein as well … just like in the bloody caves!

Hope you enjoyed it as much as me,

Dirk

Cure, Essential Logic, Japan, Stiff Little Fingers

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (May, part two)

So, what about those marvellous singles released in May 1979 that didn’t bother the charts. There’s a couple of personal favourites in here….

mp3: The Cure – Boys Don’t Cry

Seven years after its initial release, this wonderful 45 got to #22 when it was reissued in support of a Greatest Hits package. It’s not that The Cure had few fans in the UK, but they had shown they were more likely to buy the debut album, Three Imaginary Boys (#44) than they were for any singles, with this failing to chart in much the same way as the debut Killing An Arab.

mp3: Japan – Life In Tokyo

Another 45 whose time would eventually come. The 1979 release on Hansa Records sunk without trace, a rare misfire for anything associated with Giorgio Moroder. By 1982, Japan had become popular thanks to the album Tin Drum and its associated singles, all of which came out on Virgin Records. Those involved over a Hansa weren’t slow to miss a trick, and three singles from the 79 era – I Second That Emotion, Life In Tokyo and European Son – together with a compilation album, Assemblage, were put into the shops, with all of them subsequently charting.

mp3: Essential Logic- Wake Up

Lara Logic had been the saxophonist with X-Ray Spex, but chose to leave the band after the debut single Oh Bondage Up Yours. She then formed Essential Logic, for whom she also provided lead vocals. Virgin Records signed the band and an eponymous EP was released in May 1979 to no fanfare at all. Wake Up was the lead track. The band would move to Rough Trade before the year was out.

Talking of Rough Trade….

mp3: Stiff Little Fingers – Gotta Getaway

A great largely forgotten post-punk 45 that was later polished up and re-recorded for inclusion on the 1980 album Nobody’s Heroes by which time Stiff Little Fingers had moved to the bosom of a major label in the shape of Chrysalis.

JC

The Rain

ONE SONG ON THE HARD DRIVE (9)

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This atypical effort of its time comes courtesy of its inclusion on the Scared To Get Happy: A Story Of Indie-Pop 1980-1989 box set. Here’s the blurb from the booklet.

Founded in 1986 in Basingstoke, Hampshire by singer/guitarist Chris Stubbings, bassist Tony Duckworth and drummer Chris Morrell, The Rain contributed to the ‘Imminent 4’ compilation before funding their own single ‘Once’/’Tom Paine’ on Jive Alive. It caught the ear of Medium Cool, which led them to contribute ‘Dry The Rain’ and ‘Seven Red Apples’ to sampler LP ‘Edge of The Road’ in 1988.

Unfortunately, The Rain’s first Medium Cool single, ‘First of May’ was scotched when Red Rhino Distribution went bust. They returned in 1990 with the Byrds/R.E.M.-flavoured album ‘To The Citadel’ (“glorious, honed to cut-glass perfection” according to Melody Maker) and EP ‘The Watercress Girl.’ Having changed their name to Clark Springs, to avoid confusion with Liam Gallagher’s pre-Oasis band, they released a single ‘Taking Kent State’ (Summershine) in 1992 and ‘My World Revolves Around Her’ (Orangewood) in 1993.

mp3: The Rain – Dry The Rain

It may share the same song title as a later release from The Beta Band, but they are rather different sounding. I’ve heard a lot worse.

JC

Popguns

THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (9) : The Popguns – Landslide

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The Popguns provided one of the real live delights in 2023, with an excellent show at the Hug and Pint in Glasgow, an evening when I was in the rather wonderful company of strangeways.

The Popguns first recording, in 1988, took the form of one side of a flexidisc that was released on La-Di-Da Productions, a DIY label that was based in Hove, just outside their home town of Brighton. The other half of the flexidisc was courtesy of the strangely-named How Many Beans Make Five?

The actual debut single appeared the following year on the London-based Medium Cool, a label that was home to a number of excellent indie-bands of the era such as The Corn Dollies, The Raw Herbs, The Waltones and The Siddeleys. It proved to be an excellent way to introduce yourselves to the wider world

mp3: The Popguns – Landslide

A song that was voted in at #46 in John Peel’s Festive Fifty of 1989.

Five musicians were involved in the making of the proper debut single – Wendy Morgan (vocals), Simon Pickles (guitar), Greg Dixon (guitar), Pat Walkington (bass) and Shaun Charman (drums) – the last named being the one you should recognise as being the original drummer with The Wedding Present prior to him leaving in 1988. The current line-up of the Popguns is almost identical to that from the debut single, with Ken Brotherston now on drums.

Here’s the two other songs you’ll find on the 12″ of Landslide.

mp3 : The Popguns – Down On Your Knees
mp3 : The Popguns – Leave It Alone

There was also a different mix of the single offered up:-

mp3: The Popguns – Landslide (alt mix)

Their newest 45, Caesar, was one of my favourite songs of last year. One of its b-sides, Indie Rock Goddess, has inspired the band to produce a new t-shirt, and I’m proud to say that Mrs TVV (aka Rachel) has been sporting hers at various gigs in recent months.

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If you fancy owning one of these, then here’s a link to where you can make an order.

JC

Cinerama

CLOSE-UP : THE CINERAMA SINGLES (Part 3)

A GUEST SERIES by STRANGEWAYS

Close Up: The Cinerama Singles #3 : The pre-Disco Volante singles

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After the singles around Cinerama’s 1998 debut LP Va Va Voom, 1999 saw just one release, the double A-sided seven-inch Pacific/King’s Cross.

Released on the mighty Spanish indie Elefant, this was pressed up on beautiful pink vinyl. Its sleeve, also in tones of pink and lilac, complemented the disc, whilst its cropped image of a woman filing her fingernails against a large pink emery board might have been one for Freudian scholars.

mp3: Cinerama – Pacific

Pacific had Cinerama further establishing a sound several fathoms from The Wedding Present. This track saw Sally Murrell taking the lead, her ultra-soft – sometimes sung, sometimes spoken – vocal was a terrific match for an equally languid musical bed of keyboard, strings and flute. In summation: Brassneck it wasn’t.

mp3: Cinerama – King’s Cross

Preferable, to me, was the flip. King’s Cross moves the dial a bit closer to David Gedge’s previous band. Here, strings are high in the mix too, but where Pacific’s lyrics are quite slight – describing in very few lines a couple’s lazy day by the eponymous ocean – at King’s Cross the setting is urban, the situation more familiar.

Here, there’s talk of phone boxes and betrayal, and of a fleeting entrance and exit summed up in the line I crashed into your life without asking, then suddenly I was gone… As comforting as that was to WP traditionalists, King’s Cross was 100% Cinerama though: carried by those shimmering strings, and ending on a last-minute harmony. I’ve always had a soft spot for this song, and it’s well recommended if you don’t know of it.

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With previous label Cooking Vinyl out of the picture, Cinerama’s records would now be self-released on the band’s newly founded own label, Scopitones, named for, and I’ll just quote from Wikipedia …a type of jukebox featuring a 16 mm film component. Scopitone films were a forerunner of music videos.

This was a move that emulated early Wedding Present days, when that band’s formative releases began going out on the Weddoes’ own Reception Records. Its Middleton – Bramley – Gateshead – Hassocks line poked fun at the dazzling geographies trumpeted by the likes of high-fashion houses and big-name publishers.

First out of the traps, and given the catalogue number TONE001, came in February 2000:-

mp3: Cinerama – Manhattan

This seemed then, and still does now, a big production with lots going on in it, including a novel spoken-word section. There, we were ostensibly listening in on a bar conversation in which a group of female friends discuss one of their latest – and most perplexing – romantic entanglements. That makes the device sound creepy, but it’s innocent enough, slots effortlessly into the song and gives Manhattan a bigger, more interesting story. In conclusion, it was a very fine A-side with which to launch the new label.

mp3: Cinerama – Film

Flips here were Film – a speedy, organy number that cleverly likens a real-life obsession with an imagined film incessantly playing in the protagonist’s head.

mp3: Cinerama – London

London is a cover of the Smiths B-side and was a real curveball. It’s murderously slow and at just over four minutes long is almost twice the length of the original.

The song’s duration is due not only to the overall pace and delivery, but also to some odd-sounding effects/soundscapes that close the cover. By way of explanation, liner notes state that The short wave radio transmissions on “London” were recorded for The Conet Project and are included here with the kind consent of Irdial Discs.

I looked this Conet Project up and it’s quite intriguing: thought to be concerned with spies – and specifically with communicating with these agents via short wave radio stations. London’s fine – and it would of course have been a snap for David Gedge, a person intimately acquainted with a fast guitar – to go the other way and accelerate the already thrashy original.

While we’re here, this take of London appeared also on the 2011 American Laundromat Records LP Please Please Please: a Tribute to The Smiths, alongside The Wedding Present’s cover of Hand in Glove. The single’s sleeve notes speak of London’s inclusion on a tribute LP named I Know It’s Over on The First Time Records of Michigan. But I draw a blank on any further evidence of this record.

At this juncture, anyone looking to acquire the full set of singles and B-sides up to this point will find them on the This Is Cinerama compilation. The Wedding Present is one of the most anthologised bands I know of, and Cinerama would carry this on.

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Next up, the singles connected with the band’s second LP, Disco Volante. Would this be the point at which the Cinerama sound reached perfection?

Thanks, as ever, for the space, go to JC, and to those reading.

strangeways

Album Club

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #404: ALBUM CLUB

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I may be wrong, but this could be the first time I’ve featured an Album Club song on the blog, but it’s not the first time the name has appeared. 21 December 2022, I highlighted my favourite 5 albums from that particular year, and then gave honourable mentions to a further 10 records, one of which was the eponymous debut from Album Club that had come out on Last Night From Glasgow.

(Oh, as I’m typing this, I’ve just remembered that one of their songs was featured on a monthly mix a while back).

Album Club – the band and the record – features the talents of MJ McCarthy (Zoey Van Goey) Paul Savage (The Delgados) Adam Scott (Starry Skies) Rhona Dougall and a whole feast of other singers and contributors including the likes of Emma Pollock, Douglas Maxwell and Peter Geoghegan.

Lewis Wade, writing for Is This Music?, offers a near-perfect summary.

Album Club are a loose collective of creatives assembled from other bands (primarily Zoey Van Goey, but also The Delgados), novelists, actors, journalists and various artsy Glasgow types. The organic, ad hoc genesis and the fact that many contributors are not musicians makes sense when listening to the album, with its lovably ramshackle style and tonal shifts.

The first couple of songs speak to the indie-pop pedigree of those involved with twee harmonies, lilting duets and even a lonely accordion line punctuating the gentle, catchy tunes. ‘Transmissions’ is where the first signs of experimentalism appear, with spoken-word vocals forming the basis of the song. It’s a jarring use of the form that feels a bit jumbled in this instance, but gets better throughout the album, culminating in the penultimate song, ‘Never Sleep Alone’, which beautifully surrounds the spoken-word story with a duetted chorus.

‘Fragile & Frail’ may as well be the motto of the group and it provides the gentlest of palette cleansers in the middle of the album, breaking up a few more eccentric (relatively) tracks, and providing a through-line from the opener to the spritely birdsong that closes the album on ‘When You’re Ready’. The fragmentary approach generally works well across the piece, though the mellow indie-folk style is never far from centre, even with the synths of Walls or twee-country woodblock of ‘Night Owls’.

‘Album Club’ is a low-key affair that feels rooted in a grounded localism, that feels as intimate as chatting to your mates at the pub, which is exactly how it started. Graciously, they’ve shared these snapshots with the world at large, and we’re all the better for it.

mp3: Album Club – The Hard Part

I should mention that The Laurieston, the pub outside which the above photo is taken and which forms the basis of the album’s cover, is one that myself and Aldo can occasionally be found in. It’s one of the best in Glasgow.

JC

Tindersticks

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (16) : Tindersticks – Unwired EP

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Long and complicated post alert!!!

The story of the earliest Tindersticks singles is a fascinating one, not least for the variety of labels on which they were issued.

November 1992 saw the debut, Milky Teeth/Patchwork, a double-A sided 7″ single on their own Tippy Toe label. There were two pressings, with each run providing 500 copies, both of which sold out very quickly.

March 1993 saw the release of Marbles, on 10″ vinyl via a joint venture between Tippy Toe and the London-based indie, ché . Later in the year, in September 1993, it was given an American release, this time on 7″, courtesy of the New York-based, No. 6 Records.

March 1993 was also the month when they made a contribution to the Rough Trade Singles Club, with the 7″ release of A Marriage Made In Heaven, on which Niki Sin of Huggy Bear provided a co-vocals. I wasn’t aware until doing the bit of research for this post that Stuart Staples, the band’s singer and chief songwriter, was working in the Rough Trade shop at this point in time and that the label was keen to finance the debut album.

The band went into a London-based studio in May 1993 to record the debut album, which was going to come out on This Way Up Records, an indie-imprint label that was part of the much larger Universal stable, but before the ink had dried on the contract, a further single had been recorded for release, in June 1993, on Domino, and it’s that particular 7″ which is the subject of today’s posting.

The Unwired EP contains four tracks, one on the A-side and three on the b-side. There was supposed to only be 1500 copies pressed up, all of which were hand-numbered with a stamp, but there are claims on Discogs of people owning numbers that are stamped higher than 1500. My copy just comes in under the threshold at 1401.

mp3: Tindersticks – Feeling Relatively Good
mp3: Tindersticks – Rottweilers and Mace
mp3: Tindersticks – Kooks
mp3 : Tindersticks – She

Three of the songs are Tindersticks originals, with the exception being their take on Kooks, a song originally written and recorded by David Bowie for the 1971 album, Hunky Dory. It’s a one in which Bowie tries to capture his feelings of excitement and nervousness about becoming a new dad. I’ve said before when writing about Kooks that it might not be one of his greatest compositions in the grand scheme of things, but there’s just something very touching about the lyric that, over the year, must have put smiles on the faces of many new sets of parents.

It has to be said that the four songs on Unwired are a less polished than the songs that would appear on the debut album.

A lot less polished. And that’s me being kind.

I’m not sure if there were plans to revisit all three of the original songs again in the studio under the guidance of producer Ian Caple and develop them further. In the end, it was only She that was re-recorded and in its new form, it was given the title of Her.

If, for nothing else, the EP is an artefact worth having for this very early version of what quickly became one of the most popular songs recorded by Tindersticks, one that would find itself the subject of two separate takes in BBC Radio sessions a well as being part of most live shows.

Before the year was out, Tindersticks would appear on yet another label – Clawfist – with one side of a 7″ single featuring their take on We Have All The Time In The World, the Louis Armstrong song from 1969 that had featured in the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The other side of the single was taken up by Gallon Drunk, whose brass player, Terry Edwards, would make a very significant contribution to the Tindersticks debut album.

The Clawfist single came out in October 1983, a month after the single City Sickness became the first Tindersticks release for This Way Up.

By my reckoning, that was five singles across 1993, all of them on different labels. It’s worth mentioning in passing that while future singles for the rest of the decade would be on This Way Up, or Island Records, which was another part of the Universal empire, Tindersticks somehow found a way to issue a 45, with the title of The Smooth Sound Of Tindersticks, on the Sub Pop label in 1995.

JC

Prefab Sprout

AROUND THE WORLD : DUBLIN

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The largest city in Ireland, with a population of 592,713 which more than doubles to 1.26 million when you take in the surrounding suburbs. Sitting on the River Liffey, and bounded by mountains on its south side, the city officially celebrated its millennium in 1988, although there were earlier Viking settlements while archaeological digs have unearthed of human habitation going back 6,000 years. Dublin has a very significant literary history, so much so that it has been named a UNESCO City of Literature. It also has a rich musical heritage – visitors will experience live music from buskers on every busy street corner, while bands/singers such as U2, The Dubliners, Thin Lizzy, Sinéad O’Connor and Fontaines D.C (to name but five) are famed the world over. Oh, and in SPRINTS, the city is home to one of the most exciting new bands to have emerged in recent times.

Oh, and it currently has some sort of art installation/portal with New York City, which is proving to be a bit chaotic.

mp3: Prefab Sprout – Dublin

From the album Protest Songs, the intended third album that was held over to become the fourth album. It’s a bit of a complicated story, which is covered in some detail over at this wiki page. I think it’s fair to say that Dublin isn’t up there as one of Prefab Sprout’s best or most memorable songs…..but at least it doesn’t quite plumb the depths of Galway Girl by Ed Sheeran.

JC

Lightning Seeds

THE CD SINGLE LUCKY DIP (7) : Lightning Seeds – Ready or Not

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Another single that was only ever issued on CD.

1996 was a strange and life-changing year for Ian Broudie. He had long been part of the music scene, as a member of a number of bands in his native Liverpool, as a sought-after producer and, since 1989, as a pop star in his own right thanks to The Lightning Seeds, which was the name taken to launch his solo career.

He’d enjoyed seven Top 40 singles, but nothing had done better than #13 in the charts. He was due to release a new album, the fourth by The Lightning Seeds in early 1996, with the advance single, Ready or Not, coming out in February.

mp3: The Lightning Seeds – Ready or Not

It kind of was Lightning Seeds by numbers. A radio-friendly pop song which had a touch of the indie about it, but very much had an appeal to a wider audience. The fact that Ian Broudie was an old punk at heart could be seen from the fact that he chose to record cover versions on the 2xCDs which made up the release of Ready or Not. I’m sure he would never claim that he had bettered the originals, but at least he was bringing them to the attention of a wider audience, as well as delivering some royalties to the songwriters.

mp3 : Lightning Seeds – Another Girl, Another Planet (The Only Ones)
mp3 : Lightning Seeds – Whole Wide World (Wreckless Eric)
mp3 : Lightning Seeds – Outdoor Miner (Wire)

Ready or Not reached #20, which was about the average for most Lightning Seeds singles. In normal circumstances, a second single would be readied for April/May just a few days or weeks ahead of the next album/

The thing is, that album, (which was eventually called Dizzy Heights), didn’t see the light of day until November 1996, a full nine months after the advance single. That’s all down to the fact that Ian Broudie’s life was turned upside-down from him being asked by the English FA to write a song to mark the England football team’s participation in that year’s UEFA European Championship, which England was hosting.

He came up with Three Lions, with the lyrics being provided by Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, who at the time were hosts of a football-related comedy programme on BBC TV. Three Lions went on to sell 1.2 million copies, while a later re-recorded version for the 1998 World Cup sold 600,000. It has since undergone further recordings in 2010 and 2022, so I think it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that Ian Broudie would probably never have had to work again after 1996….but he’s still going strong, making and producing records as well as being a mainstay of the live nostalgia circuit that appears in parks and large outdoor venues across the UK every summer.

JC

Sisters Of Mercy

THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (8): The Sisters of Mercy – This Corrosion

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One of the problems when a blog like this has been going so long is the inevitability of umpteen repeats coming along and readers beginning to feel short-changed or cheated. It’s certainly proving to be the case with a great deal of the CD/7″/12″ singles that are coming out via the lucky dip…….

mp3: The Sisters of Mercy – This Corrosion

This Corrosion featured as recently as July 2021. It kind of acted like a free bit of therapy for a number of readers who went on, via the comments section, to share their own memories of enjoying listening/dancing to what is, without any shadow of a doubt, one of the great goth-rock anthems of them all – I reckon it’s the greatest, but others with much more knowledge of the genre made great cases for a few other songs via a number of gothic-themed ICAs, all of which added so much to the blog in the weeks and months which followed.

There are a couple of differences between the 2021 post and the one on offer today. It was previously part of a series in which the mp3 rips were of as high a quality as I can offer, whereas today’s link is the more usual sort of thing. It also comes with the b-sides, described last time out in the comments section by Khayem as ‘excellent’.

mp3 : The Sisters of Mercy – Torch
mp3 : The Sisters of Mercy – Colours

The biggest difference between the A-side and these two songs on the b-side can be found in the production. The involvement of the late Jim Steinman, best known for his work with Meat Loaf, leads to a real OTT sound on This Corrosion, not least the contributions from 40 members of the New York Choral Society. The b-sides are self-produced by Andrew Eldritch and are far more restrained. Indeed, Torch is almost akin to hearing a goth busker outside a train station strumming away on his acoustic guitar, backed by a cheap drum machine, hoping you’ll drop enough coins in an empty paper cup that will allow him to buy his next pint of Snakebite.

The Sisters of Mercy enjoyed ten chart singles between 1984 and 1993 – This Corrosion was one of their most successful, reaching #7 in October 1987, which means it was, rather appropriately, all over the radio stations at Halloween.

But I can’t let today go without offering up a genius cover, as far removed from the original as possible

mp3: Lambchop – This Corrosion

As made available on the bonus CD with the initial copies of the 2002 album, Is A Woman.

JC

Malako

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #056

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#056: Malako– ‘In The Midnight Hour’ (London Records ’89)

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Hello friends,

before you all start jumping up and down in sheer joy just because you think I am for once not presenting another boring old punk song which was already outdated in the Eighties, but something more contemporary instead: calm down, because if you read the headline a bit more closely, you’ll see that it’s not Moloko, the Electronic/House/Trip Hop band of ‘Sing It Back’ and ‘The Time Is Now’ – fame, no, it’s Maloko!

But fear not – Maloko, like Moloko, are neither punk nor indie as well, so perhaps you should continue reading – you might well miss a treat if you would not, believe me.

Now, in the history of recorded music there have been quite a lot of so called “supergroups”, usually people use this term when either a) Phil Collins or b) Eric Clapton or c) the twat with the hat or d) any surviving Beatle is being involved in said group.

One supergroup though which will most surely have stayed under your radar was Les Quatre Étoiles. And this is because Soukous – that’s the music style they performed, originally from Zaire, but made more popular in Paris in the early 80s – has never received the attention it should have received. You see, people always say ‘boy, listen to this guitar, isn’t it just awesome?!’ when they talk about the aforementioned ‘supergroups’. But no-one mentions – or indeed will ever mention – the African guitar heroes of our era, one of them being Syran Mbenza, not only one of the greatest African guitarists, but one of the best worldwide.

It’s him pictured above, mainly because I couldn’t find a picture of Maloko, but also because he is the most important figure within the band, let’s be honest. Andy Kershaw certainly was not entirely wrong when he once said that “Eric Clapton isn’t fit to tune Mbenza’s guitar strings” …

Syran Mbenza was the lead guitarist in Les Quatre Étoiles in Paris together with three other Congolese expats there: Bopol Mansiami (bass + rhtythm guitar) and Wuta Mayi and Nyboma on vocals, all of the four were widely known for their solo outputs and their work in other combos. So, combined, Les Quatre Étoiles were quite successful back then (and rightly so) and consequently they were touring internationally quite a bit. And on a US tour Mbenza met Ibrahim Kanja Bah in Washington, originally Kanja Bah was from Sierra Leone. He ran an African music radio show, a record store, and a record label there in D.C. Now, Kanja Bah took the opportunity and ‘created’ Maloko in 1988. Depending on where you look, the group sometimes is being referred to “Vincent Nguini & Maloko”, because Vincent Nguini, from Cameroon, turned out to be Kanja Bah’s group leader of choice. Other members were Fredo Ndoumbe-Ngando, Komba Bellow and Dasante, to name just a few.

They issued only one album, ‘Soul On Fire’, for which they basically chose a handful of American soul classics and “soukousized” them. The outcome is unbelievable, as today’s single will surely proof:

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mp3: Malako – In The Midnight Hour

The definitive reading of the Wilson Pickett classic, I’m sure you agree. And you know what: it’s miles better than anything Moloko ever did, plus it’s more danceable anyway …
So enjoy,

So enjoy,

Dirk

Cinerama

CLOSE-UP : THE CINERAMA SINGLES (Part 2)

A GUEST SERIES by STRANGEWAYS

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Close Up: The Cinerama Singles #2

The Va Va Voom singles

Ready for your close up? After last time’s pre-credit sequence, our Cinerama retrospective begins for real here. It’s all about the singles, but the LPs have been of great use in providing a structure, a helpful timeline and some wider context. So they’ll pop up along the way and hopefully will be as useful to you too. First up…

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‘Lush’ was how I remember summing up this mysteriously named debut Cinerama release on Cooking Vinyl. Music-wise this was certainly a departure from the Wedding Present sound, with strings (of the non-guitar variety) prominent in the mix.

mp3: Cinerama – Kerry Kerry

At the time, and now so many years on, Kerry Kerry felt like a statement in that regard. As did the sleeves housing the CD and vinyl singles. On these appeared Gedge and bandmate Sally Murrell, albeit diffused and half-hiding amid the jazzy, highly stylised artwork. Going forward, most Cinerama releases would apply cover stars or artwork in the way Wedding Present releases always did, but these rare personal appearance on sleeves might have been designed to further discriminate between the two bands.

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If musically a whole new direction was apparent, where Kerry Kerry chimed with the Weddoes was in lyrical content and theme: the very well-trodden Gedge territory of rejection and betrayal. You bought him presents with my money. That makes me feel just great…

The song opens also with the singer delivering a few sung words in advance of the music, and so calls back to another debut: Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft, the opener to George Best. And the line in question: Well at least can’t you look at me when I’m talking to you? does that Wedding Present trick of locating us in the middle of a conversation. So it’s like we’re not listening; instead, we’re eavesdropping, which is a far more compelling proposition.

Your B-sides were split across a CD single and a couple of seven-inch singles.

On the CD was found Love, and this continued the new sound established by the A-side. The song also introduced Murrell’s softly delivered harmonising vocals: an effective contrast.

mp3: Cinerama – Love

For curious and worrying WP fans challenged by Cinerama’s loungey sound, second B-side Au Pair, despite its brass-filled coda, would have placed them nearer their comfort zone. Au Pair’s a corking song and probably the go-to track from this tranche of releases. Both these B-sides would pop up again, tagged onto the US and Japan release of the imminent debut, Va Va Voom.

mp3: Cinerama – Au Pair

As for the seven-inches: Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is fine, and its title reveals the singer’s fondness for James Bond (this would be evidenced again in short order, via the Va Va Voom track Honey Rider – perhaps deliberately mis-spelled against the Dr No character’s Ryder for legal reasons).

mp3: Cinerama – Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Somewhat confusingly, in 2020, Gedge got together with the back-together Sleeper for another shot at Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. But this was a cover of a song from the 1965 Bond film Thunderball. So: same title. Different song. Different band. Different film. And if it’s perplexing reading about this quirk, you should try writing about it.

Anyway, this new track formed part of a larger project – an LP of 20 Bond-related covers from The Wedding Present and Friends. Sold in aid of the mental-health initiative CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably).

www.scopitones.co.uk/product/not-from-where-i-m-standing-lp

Curiously, James Bond will return in this series, but a bit further down the line…

Last up for the Kerry Kerry era though is the second seven-inch B-side 7X. Named after the top-secret formula for Coca Cola, and recounting the tale of an equally inscrutable partner, this is the better of the two vinyl flips.

mp3: Cinerama -7X

As an aside, debut Cinerama LP Va Va Voom had largely delivered on the promise of Kerry Kerry. The album’s swooning arrangements and its roll call of cellos and flutes, violins and trumpets successfully removed the band from typical guitar-bass-drum territory (even if the lyrical themes drifted not terribly far from those associated with The Wedding Present).

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Looking at Va Va Voom’s tracklisting now, Dance, Girl, Dance still stands up as the natural candidate for that tricky second single. There are better songs (particularly the Emma Pollock-guesting Ears and the knock-your-socks-off Hard, Fast and Beautiful) but the jaunty and joyous Dance, Girl, Dance had more of the single about it.

mp3: Cinerama – Dance Girl Dance

On the flip of the sole CD single was Model Spy (largely instrumental and sounding every bit like the 60s TV-show theme its title suggests).

mp3: Cinerama – Model Spy

But its fellow B was a different prospect altogether: the unusual and arresting Crusoe. This song samples the theme tune of the TV series The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, which Wikipedia tells me first aired in the UK in 1965.

mp3: Cinerama – Crusoe

This Cinerama track is a real beauty that seamlessly receives the show’s elegant theme and complements it with suitably heartbreaking lyrics. Crusoe is absolutely the song to seek out from this release. Perhaps acknowledging its worth, this track, along with Model Spy further supplemented the Japan issue of Va Va Voom.

So, with what we’ve gone and called the Va Va Voom singles pored over, next time we’ll be looking at the singles that popped up both prior to and around Disco Volante, Cinerama’s second LP, released in September 2000.

Four singles made it out of that release alive. But to avoid a post that goes on and on even longer than this one, here’s fun: we’ll next do the two releases that preceded Disco Volante. Then over a couple more post we’ll tackle the set of singles connected with that second LP – one that led Cinerama’s arguably quintessential and definitely highly prolific mid-period.

Thanks again to Jim, and to you for reading.

strangeways

Alan Smithee

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #404: ALAN SMITHEE

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This is at least the third time that I’ve featured a track from this particular compilation as part of the series – previous entries have been Pennycress and Youngstrrrr Joey. Here’s some background:-

It was back in October 2015 that Song By Toad Records decided to issue a sixteen-track compilation album called David Cameron’s Eton Mess. Almost all the singers and bands were, at the time, unknown with very little more than a few tracks available online or via a limited physical release, most often cheaply done on a cassette. Label owner, Matthew Young, said at the time:-

“Most of the bands are friends and a lot of musicians feature on several of the album’s tracks, one of the reasons why we’ve put the compilation together. It feels like there’s this pool of really talented musicians bubbling away and all sorts of excellent music is starting to emerge from the mix. Bands are forming, breaking up, and starting again all the time. When you see a loose collection of bands connecting like this you never know what is going to happen. A few will disappear, some will do okay, some might pave the way for others, and a few of these bands could go on to do really well.”

I can’t find much about Alan Smithee, but given the name the performer has taken, that’s not really a surprise.

From wiki:-

Alan Smithee (also Allen Smithee) is an official pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown a project. Coined in 1968 and used until it was formally discontinued in 2000, it was the sole pseudonym used by members of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) when directors, dissatisfied with the final product, proved to the satisfaction of a guild panel that they had not been able to exercise creative control over a film. The director was also required by guild rules not to discuss the circumstances leading to the movie or even to acknowledge being the project’s director.

I’m guessing, without any facts to back anything up, that this one is the work of someone who is perhaps reasonably well known and simply wanted to put something out under an assumed name.

mp3: Alan Smithee – The Almighty Alan Smithee Blues

There’s a really good review of the album, penned by Chad Murray for the Echoes and Dust website back in October 2015, in which he breaks it down song-by-song. Here’s what he had to say about this one:-

The bluesy waves of reverberated guitar and chimes of hi-hat accompany the assumed Alan Smithee as he croons through each verse in a vocal so relaxed it’s almost spoken word. The most dissonant moments in the track become almost jazz-like with stabs of guitar and deserty blues-rock solos flying through with a similarly suppressed aggression to the tracks seen elsewhere on this compilation. I can easily picture Alansmithee as a support for QOTSA, Yuck or the more recent Arctic Monkeys; the track makes for nice cruising music or background music for the final hours of a party.

A lovely piece of writing that I’m happy to concur with.

There will be a few more from David Cameron’s Eton Mess in due course as part of this series.

JC

Spandau Ballet

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (15) : Spandau Ballet – To Cut A Long Story Short

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Friday 10 May 2024.

The date when this blog’s chief steward dug deep into the 7″ singles and more than likely lost hundreds of previously faithful regular readers.

mp3 : Spandau Ballet – To Cut A Long Story Short
mp3 : Spandau Ballet – To Cut A Long Story Short (version)

Feel free to mock. I’m strong enough to withstand the brickbats. I think this is a great single. Not their best, but a splendid way with which to introduce yourselves to the watching world. Released on 31 October 1980….it reached #5.

You can pick this up on Discogs for 10p…..plus P&P……but you don’t get the picture sleeve!

JC

Steve Albini, Various

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #366: STEVE ALBINI

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Yesterday’s news of the death of Steve Albini has led to a change of plan on the blog. This was meant to be the slot for Dirk‘s latest guest offering, but that has been put back till early next week.

In terms of Albini’s career as a musician, I can’t really offer all that much up. I have a handful of Big Black tracks, all downloaded from other blogs over the years, but across almost 50,000 tracks on the hard drive of the laptop, there’s nothing by Rapeman or Shellac. The very name of the former is off-putting enough to have them permanently on ignore, while the couple of times I have listened to the latter didn’t lead to any detailed exploration.

I have a fair number of albums in which Albini’s engineering/production skills were utilised, and it’s from those that I’ve very quickly pulled together an ICA as a way of paying tribute. Most of what was written in the hours after the news broke went heavy on the well known and successful bands he worked alongside, but what I think really stands out is his involvement with loads of acts who were more ‘under the radar’, and how he seemed to have an uncanny ability to bring out the very best in all the musicians he worked with (albeit this ICA leans very heavily on the better-known names).

SIDE A

1. Bone Machine – Pixies (from Surfer Rosa, 1988)

The opening track of the debut album by Pixies seems as good a place to start as any. A record that has sold around 1 million copies worldwide since its release, but like anything Albini ever worked on, he received no royalties, thanks to his lifelong practice of charging a flat fee for his involvement. I believe his stance on this was that looking to take any future royalties would be insulting to the band.

2. Have A Go – Spare Snare (from The Brutal, 2023)

Albini came to Edinburgh in late 2022 and worked with Spare Snare in a studio owned and managed by Rod Jones of Idlewild. It was a big thing for Spare Snare as the record marked their 30th Anniversary and the end product turned out to be one of their best and best-received albums. Both parties enjoyed the experience so much that the possibility of having Spare Snare, later this year or early next, head to Albini’s studio in Chicago for further sessions, was being explored. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.

3. Fuck Treasure Island – Scout Niblett (from Kidnapped By Neptune, 2005)

Scout Niblett is an English-born singer-songwriter who has lived and worked in the USA since 2003, basing herself in Portland, Oregon. I became aware of her in 2007 when I caught her live at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, the first gig I went to during my six-month work placement in the city that summer. She was the support act, and I’d never heard of her. In fact, all I knew of the main act, an up-and-coming female singer who went by the name of St Vincent, was that she had previously been in The Polyphonic Spree. I went home that night with three CDs – the debut St Vincent album and two Albini-produced CDs from earlier in the career of Scout Niblett.

4. Heather – The Wedding Present (from Seamonsters, 1991)

I’ve self-imposed a rule of just one song from any band. Otherwise, The Wedding Present would have been all over this ICA. Albini worked extensively over the years with the band, but is probably most loved by fans for Seamonsters, a truly outstanding record in so many ways.

5. Wait In The Car – The Breeders (single, 2017)

The Breeders enjoyed most success with Last Splash in 1993, which just happens to be the only album of the five they have released not to have involved Steve Albini….go figure!!! Wait In The Car was released as a single in October 2017, the band’s first new piece of music in eight years. It really was a superb return to form, leaning heavily on the music that had won then so many fans back in the 90s, and it laid the table perfectly for the later release of the album All Nerve in March 2018.

SIDE B

1. Homewrecker! – Jarvis Cocker (from Further Complications, 2009)

Further Complications was a radical departure from Jarvis‘s eponymous debut album from three years earlier, and it caught out a few people, including myself. It’s one of those albums that I only fell for many years later, when I gave it a second chance while lying on a beach on holiday. Maybe it needed the warm Caribbean sunshine rather than the Scottish wind and rain to make some sense. There’s loads happening on Homewrecker!, with the vocals not kicking in until well over a minute into the song. Dig those horns!!!

2. Buddha – The Auteurs (from After Murder Park, 1996)

Luke Haines was astonished when his record label agreed to his suggestion of having Albini engineer/produce the band’s third (and what proved to be last) studio album. It was all done and dusted in the space of two weeks in March 1995 – Albini never wanted to spend anything more than that amount of time on any one record. It didn’t see the light of day for almost a year, as it was as far removed as could be imagined from the Britpop sound that was all the rage at the time. The album has been described, with great affection, by one critic as a ‘monsterpiece’.

3. Rid Of Me – PJ Harvey (from Rid Of Me, 1993)

All that Luke Haines’ bosses had to do was listen and compare PJ Harvey‘s first two studio albums. It would soon dawn on them that polished pop wasn’t Albini’s calling card, and that more often than not, the end product could best be described as raw and aggressive. Rid Of Me has a huge amount of angry lyrics, a number of which Polly Jean has since admitted were autobiographical, and the genius of Albini is that his work makes the music sound every bit as psychotic and unhinged as the words.

4. Let’s Pretend – Cinerama (from Disco Volante,2000)

Forgive me if I don’t say too much at this juncture as Strangeways will, over the next couple of months, go into a lot of detail about Cinerama within his guest postings on Sundays; I’ve avoided including any of the band’s singles from this era on the ICA, and instead gone with an album track that is one of David Gedge’s very best break-up songs. It also demonstrates that Albini was no one-trick pony in the studio.

5. All Apologies – Nirvana (1993)

Even more quickly than I had envisaged Bone Machine as being the perfect ICA opener, I had decided that this was going to end the ICA. In typical Albini fashion, the recording of Nirvana‘s third studio album was completed in just two weeks in February 1993. The record label bosses weren’t all that happy with the end product, and this led to Scott Litt, best known for his work with R.E.M., to be brought on board to remix the songs that were best reckoned as being suitable singles. All Apologies was one of those. It took until 2013, and a 20th anniversary reissue of the album which included bonus discs, for the original version to finally be given an official release.

If I had taken a bit more time, I might have come up with a different track listing. This one has a lot of gut instinct. But I really wanted the ICA to be timely, and I hope it’s one that you’ll appreciate and perhaps enjoy.

JC

Supergrass

AROUND THE WORLD : ST. PETERSBURG

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The second-largest city in Russia, with a population of 5.6 million, St Petersburg was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after the apostle Saint Peter.

It was the historical capital of the Tsardom of Russia, and the subsequent Russian Empire, from 1713 to 1918, but after the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks moved their government to Moscow. The city’s name had changed to Petrograd in 1914 and again in 1924 to Leningrad before a city-wide referendum in 1990 returned it to its original name.

It has always been renowned as a bastion of high culture, thanks to its museums and its long tradition of opera and ballet productions. The first jazz club in Russia was founded in the city in the 1920s, and it has also been home to many of the Russian rock and pop bands who were in due course grudgingly accepted by the old authorities in the 70s and 80s. Not that today’s featured band had anything to do with that period of time.

mp3: Supergrass – St.Petersburg

The first single to be taken from their fifth album, Road to Rouen (2005), reached #22 in August 2005. It was the first release a year after the singles-heavy compilation album Supergrass is 10, and laid down a marker for what proved to be a significant change in direction to a far more downbeat and sedate sound, one which saw a drop in sales in comparison to the previous four albums.

It’s a move I welcomed at the time, and I still am happy to give Road to Rouen a spin on the CD player.

JC

Blondie, Clash, Earth Wind and Fire with The Emotions, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, McFadden and Whitehead, Simple Minds, Squeeze, Tubeway Army, XTC

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (May)

The top end of the first new chart of May 1979 didn’t unearth as many gems as recent weeks, but there was the appearance of a bona-fide disco classic to get the limbs all movin’ and a shakin’

mp3: Earth Wind and Fire with The Emotions – Boogie Wonderland

This proved to be one of the sounds of the summer. It came into the charts at #30 on 6 May and didn’t leave the Top 75 for 13 weeks, including seven in a row inside the Top 10. It even pulled off that rare achievement of looking as if it was going to start dropping out of the charts when it slipped from #4 to #5 after 7 weeks, only to go back to #4 in Week 8 of its stay.

Two other new entries worth giving a mention to are songs whose titles have a word in common and provided Swindon’s finest troubadours and one of Glasgow’s greatest exports with their first entries into the singles chart:-

mp3 : XTC – Life Begins At The Hop
mp3 : Simple Minds – Life In A Day

The former was a minor hit – in at #62 and peaking at #54. XTC‘s breakthrough was still a few months off. The latter came in at #67 and peaked at #62. Simple Minds would have to wait a further three years before they ever went Top 20.

Oliver’s Army had been one of the most surprising huge songs of early 1979, and just 7 days after had it finally dropped out of the Top 75 after 12 weeks, the follow-up entered at #71

mp3: Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Accidents Will Happen

An almost under-the-radar sort of hit in that it would spend 8 weeks in the Top 75, but never get any higher than #28.

A different type of new wave was the highest new entry in the chart of 13 May:-

mp3: Blondie – Sunday Girl

The fourth single to be lifted from Parallel Lines came in at #10. Seven days later, it was up at #1, bringing an end to the six-week-long occupation of the top spot by Art Garfunkel. It was helped by a brilliant piece of marketing from Chrysalis Records with the inclusion of a French language version of the song on the 12″ release, one that I reckon was bought by just about every teenager and young adult who was infatuated with Debbie Harry.

One of my own favourites from all of 1979 entered the charts in the second week of May:-

mp3: The Clash – I Fought The Law

It was hard to believe this was a cover version, given how it captured The Clash at their post-punk finest. The lead track from The Cost of Living EP came in at #35 and then went up to #23 before falling back down to #32. But then, gravity was somehow defied as it went back up again over the next three weeks to #24, #23 and #22. Just imagine how big this would have been if The Clash had actually broken the habit of a lifetime and played Top of The Pops.

Coming in at #51 is one I have always considered as a bit of a classic:-

mp3: McFadden and Whitehead – Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now

The one and only song with which the Philadephia-based R&B duo of Gene McFadden and John Whitehead ever tasted success in the UK. The song, and later re-recorded/remixed versions, is reputed to have sold 8 million copies the world over. Both men would later die at young ages in the 00s. Whitehead was 55 when he was fatally shot outside his home studio in May 2004 – the perpetrators were never caught. McFadden passed away from liver and lung cancer in January 2006, aged 56.

Those of you who pay attention to the companion pieces to this series might recall that back in March, I looked at a flop single called Down In The Park.

“They had started out as a guitar-based new wave band, Mean Street, but the dawn of 1978 saw a change of name to Tubeway Army, albeit the new wave element was still to the fore (they supported The Skids at gigs in the summer of ’78). By the end of the year, a debut album had been released, with the lead singer changing his name from Gary Webb to Gary Numan, and looking to incorporate synths into the group. The album sold modestly, but there was enough interest at Beggars Banquet to fund a follow-up for planned release in mid-1979, and Down In The Park was seen as being the advance single. It didn’t sell very well, but things were about to change…”

The bottom end of the chart of 13 May 1979 was the first indication of said change:-

mp3: Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric?

This is another one that I’ll always associate with the summer of 79. In at #71……it took until its 7th week in the charts to reach #1 where it would enjoy a 4-week stay, not finally dropping out of the Top 75 until September had come around. Turned out to be Tubeway Army‘s last single before breaking up, so it would be accurate to describe them as a one-hit wonder, albeit Gary Numan would enjoy solo success.

Looking now at the chart of 20 May, and the arrival of this tune made sure ‘one-hit wonders’ couldn’t be a label to attach to the doyens of Dunfermline:-

mp3: The Skids – Masquerade

This came in at #29 and peaked at #14. Not quite as successful as Into The Valley, but it would prove to be the second-highest position The Skids would reach in their career, despite the fact that later singles would prove, in my opinion, to be better and more enduring.

Masquerade was one of 13 songs to enter the Top 75 in this particular chart, but none of the others are fondly recalled in any shape or form. Which takes us to the chart straddling the final week of May and the first few days of the month when I turned sweet sixteen.

mp3: Squeeze – Up The Junction

It’s now one of my favourite songs of all time, but it didn’t really ‘speak’ to me when I was a teenager. As I’ve written before when featuring Up The Junction on the blog:-

“A soap opera story in just over three minutes.

The boy about town gets caught out with his trousers down. He can’t cope with the fact that he has to grow up and take responsibility. The woman of his dreams soon moves on and all he has left are bittersweet memories.

A massive hit and one of my favourite songs of all time, albeit as a 16-year old I didn’t quite understand the full nuances. But now I’m 51 nearly 61 and I’ve seen it this story play out in real life far too often over the years.

Tears and saying sorry are just not enough.”

It came in at #50, and in an 11-week stay in the Top 75, would peak at #2…denied the top spot by Tubeway Army.

JC

Interpol

THE CD SINGLE LUCKY DIP (6) : Interpol – C’Mere

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Here’s a re-post from May 2015.

Interpol are a very successful band from New York City, but there is a little-known Glasgow connection that helped set them on their way….

They formed in 1997 with an original line-up consisting of Paul Banks (vocals/guitar), Daniel Kessler (guitar/vocals), Carlos Dengler (bass guitar/keyboards) and Greg Drudy (drums/percussion). This version of the band only released one EP, which was entitled FukdID#3. It was released in 2000 with just 1000 copies pressed on Chemikal Underground Records which had just a few years previously been set up in Glasgow by the members of The Delgados. If you want to get your hands on that rare piece of plastic, expect to pay at least £50 for the CD and a lot more for the vinyl.

Drudy left the band shortly after the Chem EP and was replaced by Sam Fogarino. This particular four-piece proved to be one of the outstanding new bands in the first decade of the new millennium, with four critically acclaimed albums as well as countless sold-out shows on both sides of the Atlantic.

Carlos Denglar was regarded by many as being central to the band’s success in terms of his look, appearance and his bass playing, so it was a shock to when his departure was announced in 2010 shortly after the completion of work on the band’s fourth album. While the record itself was well received, the live shows on the tour at which it was being promoted came in for a bit of stick, and it was no surprise that the remaining band members decided to call a time-out on Interpol and pursue a range of alternative and solo projects.

The two-year rest certainly worked a treat as the band got working together again in 2014 and released their first new album in more than four years to huge acclaim.

I don’t own everything by Interpol, but what I do have I remain very appreciative of, including this #19 single from April 2005:-

mp3 : Interpol – C’mere
mp3 : Interpol – Public Pervert (Carlos D remix)
mp3 : Interpol – Fog vs Mould for The Length Of Love

The first of the b-sides is Dengler’s distinctive remix of a track from the LP Antics while the latter is a remix, again of a track from Antics, by Fogarino ably assisted by Bob Mould.

I’ve since learned that C’Mere was also release on 2 x 7″ singles as well as this CD version, with b-sides which were remixes of two other tracks from Antics.