THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (12): The Cramps – Can Your Pussy Do The Dog

R-503198-1136898486

The Cramps. One of Dirk’s favourite bands. He came up with this ICA away back in December 2017, and one of their songs featured in his ongoing alphabetical rundown of his favourite One Hundred and Eleven 7″ singles….more of the latter to come in a few paragraphs.

The Cramps, according to wiki:

An American rock band formed in 1976 and active until 2009. Their line-up rotated frequently during their existence, with the husband-and-wife duo of singer Lux Interior and guitarist Poison Ivy the only ever-present members. The band are credited as progenitors of the psychobilly subgenre, uniting elements of punk rock with rockabilly.

The addition of guitarist Bryan Gregory and drummer Pam Balam resulted in the first complete line-up in April 1976. They released their debut album Songs the Lord Taught Us in 1980. The band split after the death of lead singer Interior in 2009.

That’s just the intro….there’s loads more to read over there if you want.

Strangely enough, I have way more digital material from The Cramps than I have physical copies of vinyl, and that’s based on my villainous ways of downloading stuff posted on other blogs. I do, however, have a wonderful second-hand copy of 12″ single that I picked up a few years ago, back in the days when there were bargains still to be found

mp3: The Cramps – Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?

It’s from the album A Date With Elvis (1985), the band’s third studio release. By this time, they were a trio, with Lux and Poison Ivy joined on drums by Nick Knox who had actually joined as far back as 1977, being the third drummer engaged by the band. It was the lead-off single, and in reaching #68, it gave them a first ever chart single in the UK. The album reached #34, easily their most commercially successful release ever.

This most wonderful of a-sides also contains a b-side that Dirk is very fond of, as he shared with us just over a year ago.

Within their career The Cramps released numerous brilliant records and amongst those were quite a lot of equally brilliant 7” singles. It would in fact be a hard task indeed to number those down to one and decide for this one to be the best of the lot. But I have one advantage: from their beginnings, The Cramps occasionally covered their favourite songs from the 50’s, perhaps most notably The Trashmen’s “Surfin’ Bird”, put out as a 7” in 1978. And somehow I have always been very fond indeed of these old tunes, at least when having been modified to impact strength by Lux and Ivy!

But “Surfin’ Bird” wasn’t the only cover the Cramps released. They also put their own spin on “The Way I Walk” by Jack Scott, punctuating the verses with shrieks to give it some B-movie flavor. Other songs they covered include Jimmy Stewart‘s “Rock on the Moon,” Dwight Pullen‘s “Sunglasses After Dark,” Elvis Presley‘s “Jailhouse Rock,” the Sonics‘ “Strychnine,” and Little Willie John‘s “Fever.” None of which I chose though today.

No, my favourite is this, friends, originally written and performed by David Fatalsky, or, as you and I know him better, Dave “Diddle” Day, in April 1957 :

mp3: The Cramps – Blue Moon Baby

As it turns out, the additional track on the 12″ is another rockin’ cover

mp3: The Cramps – Georgia Lee Brown

Written in the 50s by Phil Zinn and Robert Hafner, it was first released in 1959 by Philadelphia-based rockabilly artist, Jackie Lee Cochrane, often referred to as Jack The Cat.

JC

Prefab Sprout

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (19) : Prefab Sprout – Faron Young (edit)

r-1349714-1211822684-jpeg

Steve McQueen, the 1985 album by Prefab Sprout, has long been an all-time favourite, and I placed at #31 in the 60 albums at 60 series last year.

Four singles were lifted from it, of which just one made it into the higher echelons of the charts, and even then it took a reissue of When Love Breaks Down to achieve that. The opening track of the album was issued on 7″ and 12″ in July 1985 and limped its way to #74. The 12″version was remixed and extended and given the title of Faron Young (Truckin’ Mix), and while I do have a digital copy of it, it’s the 7″ single that sits in the big cupboard full of vinyl and which is on offer today:-

mp3: Prefab Sprout – Faron Young (edit)

it’s about 30 seconds shorter than the album version, mainly from an early fade-out.

The b-side was an otherwise unavailable track:-

mp3: Prefab Sprout – Silhouettes (edit)

A rare lead vocal from Wendy Smith makes for a pleasant enough number, kind of typical of the band. The reason for the edit in the title is that the 12″ release contained what was described as the ‘Full Version’, one that, according to Discogs, is a full 15 seconds longer!

I think I might look to fit the Truckin Mix of the a-side on a future mixtape.

JC

Mighty Wah

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #061

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#061: The Mighty Wah! – ‘Come Back’ (Beggars Banquet Records ’84)

wah

Dear friends,

1984 was a golden year for music, as far as I’m concerned. Obviously these definitions are somewhat a question of age (I was 16 then), but if you think back about the enormous number of bands who came up with brilliant tunes in this year, it certainly was special.

Some of those bands’ aims were easy to understand, ‘Rattlesnakes’ for example blew me away – and it was pretty clear that Lloyd Cole wanted to be seen as a fragile and thoughtful wordsmith with a Dylanesque attitude. Nothing wrong with that, of course – if that was how he wanted to come over to the public: I bought it, alright with me. Other bands’ presentations had a bit more complex approach, especially when they were so “English” that it was hard for me, as a non-Englishman, to understand what they wanted to tell the world. Pete Wylie, with all his big gestures and grand emotions was – and probably still is – one fine example.

The point I’m trying to make is: I am convinced that as someone from Liverpool you would have found easier access to Wylie (and Wah’s lyrics in particular) back then compared to me, coming from the middle of rural nowhere in Germany. It took me years (and the internet and the information it provided) to figure out that he is a man who always was incredibly proud of his home city, plus someone who always firmly followed his inner route and his targets.

‘Come Back’ was my intro to Pete Wylie in 1984, and somehow it made my summer: I just wasn’t able to take it off the turntable. Even though I didn’t know anything about Wylie and/or Wah! at the time (or indeed of any of the various incarnations, Wah! Heat, Shambeko Say! Wah!, Wah! The Mongrel, JF Wah! etc. pp – all of this came later, also all of the great tunes like ‘7 Minutes to Midnight’, ‘Somesay’, ‘Better Scream’, ‘Otherboys’ and especially the fantastic Peel Session on Strange Fruit), I knew immediately that this song is something very very special. Today pretty much every sound on it may be outdated, horrible even, from the plinky-plinky piano and reedy keyboard, through the female backing singers, to the huge, clumpy drums. But hey, it’s 40 years old, that’s the way things were done then!

Still, when the second verse kicks in, all of the above is forgiven in my books (and I’m no Liverpool FC follower) – and although this masterpiece is 40 years old, I still sing along to it each and every time:

“Well did you ever hear of hope?

‘Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!’

A small belief can mean you’ll never walk alone

And did you ever hear of faith?

Encouragement! Development!

And it’s all up to you! Yes, it’s all up to you!

R-217436-1139254160

R-217436-1491284756-3642

mp3: The Mighty Wah! – Come Back

It was, Peel said, the kind of record that “knocks your socks off”, even it only made it to No. 20 in the proper chart. The very same chart that bloody ‚Careless Whisper‘ topped.

Isn’t life unfair?

Enjoy,

Dirk

Cinerama

CLOSE-UP : THE CINERAMA SINGLES (Part 10) aka A CINERAMA ICA (#371)

A GUEST SERIES by STRANGEWAYS

Close-Up: The Cinerama Singles #10 – LP Tracks Imaginary Compilation Album Takeover

Almost there.

This Cinerama ICA complements and completes the singles/B-sides posts. Perversely, only LP tracks were permitted entry. Why? Because it takes the singles series up to an even ten entries and also provides an excuse to air a broader scope of Cinerama songs.

The banning of numbers previously covered across the singles series made this ICA significantly easier to compile, albeit 16 tracks had still to be whittled down to the ten that follow. They’re all drawn from the three LPs of original Cinerama material: Va Va Voom, Disco Volante, and Torino.

Here goes – and I promise, I’ll try not to sound like ChatGPT.

Cinerama - Usherette

Side 1

And When She Was Bad (Torino 2004, Scopitones)

This opens the Torino album with an intake of breath that called way back to George Best’s first song Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft. And for Cinerama fans this may have been the track that most directly announced a shift to a more familiar, more guitar-led era. It’s a quiet/loud/quiet mini-epic, and a terrific statement-song with which to begin the 2004 album.

As an addendum, just missing this ICA’s cut was Two Girls, the rampant belter that, with barely a pause, follows And When She Was Bad. That song would further confirm Cinerama heading in a predominantly faster, darker and noisier direction.

Après Ski (Disco Volante, 2000, Scopitones)

Looking for an elegant song about awkward, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it age-gap sex? Well, you’re in luck. Here it is, complete with that adventure’s consequent complications, frustrations and disappointments. These are perhaps most pointedly referenced in the line She thought she’d turn a boy into a man, but in real life some things don’t go to plan.
Musically, chopping strings and warm brass sections contribute to making Après Ski, like a lot of the songs on Disco Volante, quite the defining Cinerama number.

Ears (Va Va Voom, 1998, Cooking Vinyl)

An oddity for this ICA given that this Va Va Voom track appeared, in an acoustic version over at the singles series. That was via its B-side status on the 2002 Quick, Before It Melts single. This is the proper, organ-heavy LP version though. As pondered earlier in these posts, Ears is arguably the finest cut on that first record and recounts the almost-comical Jarvis-style situation of listening, through the wall, to an ex-partner enjoying a new adventure. The addition of Emma Pollock’s opposing vocals – placed intentionally across David Gedge’s own delivery – lift this song high among the band’s ten best.

Close Up (Torino, 2004, Scopitones)

A kind of masochism and self-flagellation takes the lead in the diminutive Close Up. Here, a wronged lover demands to be told, in detail, of his partner’s infidelities. Though not precisely X-rated, the language in which these various requests are made doesn’t pull its punches either: Again, oh please just tell me again, and this time don’t fail to give me every last detail. I’m sincere, I really do wanna hear what was in your head when you had a stranger in our bed.

From the same LP, Tie Me Up is maybe one of Gedge’s most lyrically direct love songs, and it’s equally frank in its language and imagery. Both songs somehow manage to reference such matters in a mature way though – one that I reckon avoids being salacious or creepy.

Heels (Disco Volante, 2000, Scopitones)

On this Disco Volante track a slow build across strings and piano arrives at a zappy chorus – one led by the sing-along line I don’t really care that you’ve found another lover. (Translation: I do really care that you’ve found another lover).

For me, this song, which stars a magnetic but cruel femme-fatale casually crushing lovers beneath those eponymous heels, distils and defines Cinerama perfectly. Lyrically, it’s all here: glamour and sex. Obsession and rejection. Musically too, amid the strings and keys there’s even room to sneak in a smidgen of distorted guitar. Plus there’s that terrace stomp of a chorus. And all on the LP in which it’s arguable that the band, and the band’s ideal, became fully formed and perfectly presented.

Side 2

Maniac (Va Va Voom, 1998, Cooking Vinyl)

Rejection via ansaphone. Murderous introspection. And a kind of lyrical riddle: you’ll only see how much I’ve changed if you come back.

Maniac, the first track on Va Va Voom, might have opened the Cinerama LP account with a familiar theme, but gone were the Wedding Present’s overt guitars. Instead keyboards and orchestrated strings took the lion’s share. Well, this was a different band after all.

A slower-paced, rather more world-weary version is found on the group’s first John Peel Sessions collection (1998, Scopitones).

Hard, Fast and Beautiful (Va Va Voom, 1998)

Aired in the singles series in its Spanish-language B-side version (Dura, Rapida y Hermosa) this English original provides Va Va Voom’s huge, soaring heart. That’s thanks mainly to its consciously dramatic piano-led opening and lofty, kick-the-air chorus about that reliable pop trope: locating, then losing, The One.

Get Up And Go (Torino, 2004, Scopitones)

One of the finest Torino tracks, Get Up And Go begins, perhaps appropriately for the film-influenced Cinerama, with a tentative intro reminiscent of a Danny Elfman number. Lyrics then recount the irresistible and inconvenient trappings of infidelity: instant, unstoppable attraction. A swiftly deleted text. The emergency change of bedclothes the message instigates. Then the coldness of post-coital post-rationalisation.

Of particular note also is the song’s absolutely massive chorus. It combines, to great effect, strings of both the orchestral and distorted guitar variety.

Get Smart (Torino, 2004, Scopitones)

A corking Torino track. Its lyrics speak from the point of view of a cheated-on partner. But it refuses to offer a traditional pop response of broken-heartedness or even hatred. Instead, the wronged partner is imploring the song’s subject to conduct his/her clumsy and regular affairs with more care. That way, the adored relationship can at least continue via a sort of don’t ask/don’t tell arrangement.

Interestingly, this plea for subtlety is in direct opposition to Close Up’s demand for the unvarnished truth. No wonder people tell me all this love stuff is way too complicated to be bothering with.

146 Degrees (Disco Volante, 2000, Scopitones)

Of interest to, well no one really, this was the last track chosen for this ICA. It had come down to a car-park fight between Torino song Cat Girl Tights and this one: 146 Degrees, the Disco Volante opener.

The mundane truth is that going with Cat Girl Tights would have made the ICA too Torino-heavy. Also, 146 Degrees – so-named after the composite angle view of the Cinerama projection system that gave the band its name – is actually, production-wise, a pretty big, high-concept track. So its last-to-hop-on-the-bus status shouldn’t be seen as a comment on its quality.

Here, the lyrics pay homage to the song’s title, and concern themselves with a woman whose presence beguiles and bewitches onlookers by demanding, albeit unintentionally, that every eye in the house be trained upon her.

This idea of an effortlessly attractive female, around whom events revolve, occasions disrupt and arguments begin, is visited also in lyrics present in the fellow Disco Volante tracks Your Charms: So I’m always amused whenever you are left confused at being centre of attention and the playful Because I’m Beautiful: Everybody wants to know how every party seems to become my show.

Carried by a shimmering soundscape of flute, keys and what might be bongos – and with some fine Sally Murrell backing vocals – 146 Degrees was a grand way to kick off the second LP.

It’s also an appropriate track to accompany the flipping-up of seats and the sweeping-up of popcorn on this Cinerama journey. Next time, Jim returns to take us through the post-hiatus Wedding Present singles – an adventure that commenced in 2005.

So, for the final time, thank so much to JC for the space, and to anyone who’s taken the time to read all or some of this series and/or post a comment.

strangeways

Annie Lennox

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #411: ANNIE LENNOX

annie-lennox

Annie Lennox has been making music since what feels like time began. Her first hits were with The Tourists (as seen in the ongoing 1979 series), while her biggest successes came with Eurythmics in the 80s and 90s.

She’s also released six solo albums over the years, but from that particular body of work, all I have in the collection is an (ahem) digitally sourced copy of a cover version:-

mp3: Annie Lennox – (I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear

This dates back to 1995, the year that Annie released Medusa, an album of cover versions. The album wasn’t well received by many critics, but proved to be a hit with the public, as it went on to sell six million copies world-wide. The cover of the Blondie song wasn’t included on the album, but instead used as a b-side to its second single, A Whiter Shade of Pale.

IMHO, it’s really bland. Nay, make that awful. The sort of take on a song that you’d expect to hear from a budding contestant on a TV talent show who doesn’t get past the initial audition stage.

JC

Cure

IF THE POLLS HAVE BEEN ACCURATE…..

R-566731-1457348931-9161

…..then the voters across the UK will have given the Tories a right good and long-overdue kicking. Being something of a life-long political nerd, anorak or any other derogatory term you may wish to throw at me, I cn guarantee I’ve been sitting up through the night watching the results come in, and it’s probably around the time this post gets published that I’ll have finally crawled into bed for a bit of sleep.

This is the tune I might well be humming when I finally wake up for a Friday feeling that’ll hopefully last for a wee while yet.

mp3: The Cure – Friday I’m In Love

Another sign of the ageing process is my refusal to accept that this song is now 32 years of age, first showing up on the album Wish and then coming to the wider attention of the public when it was released as a single on 15 May 1992.

It reached #6 in the UK, and while nobody would have known it at the time, proved to be the last time The Cure would enjoy a Top 10 hit single.

Here’s the extra tracks as made available on the 7″, 12″ and CD releases. And if you happen top have any of the vinyl, then you could put it on the second-hand market and make a nice profit.

mp3: The Cure – Halo
mp3: The Cure – Scared As You
mp3: The Cure – Friday I’m In Love (Strangelove Mix)

Halo is yet another example of Robert Smith‘s uncanny ability to write the most wonderful of love songs celebrating his relationship with his wife, Mary. Scared As You didn’t make the cut for the album, which simply illustrates just how rich a vein of form he was going through in terms of songwriting, while the remix of Friday simply takes the song to another level of loveliness.

As my great friend from Germany would say, enjoy!!!!!!

JC

Nina Simone

IT’S A NEW DAWN, IT’S A NEW DAY

General-election-guide-header-745x420

mp3: Nina Simone – Feeling Good

As the late and great Sam Cooke so famously sang, ‘it’s been a long time coming’……and today is the day the UK will finally be able to vote out the Tories who have done so much damage these past 14 years.

I know that the incoming government hasn’t promised nearly enough in terms of policies and proposals to really tackle all the social and economic injustices faced by so many millions of people across the country, but it will be an improvement. Baby steps and all the rest of it.

Like many others, I expect to be up all night watching the results roll in. I expect to be a smiling a lot.

JC

Stockholm Monsters

THE WAIT IS ALMOST OVER

Rishi Sunak Election Announcement Rain Wet Suit 10 Downing Stree

JC writes…….

I’ve something lined up for tomorrow. A short and succinct post that I put together last Sunday. An e-mail from Middle Aged Man, which dropped in on Monday evening, really provides the perfect appetizer, as he reflects on the lyrics of a single released on Factory Records back in 1987.

————

Six weeks ago I was feeling positive and upbeat, listening to a man standing in the rain can have that effect-it appears. A chance for a change, a chance for a brighter future where the majority benefited, not a tiny minority.

And for the first week I was engaged and beaming from ear to ear, but then the endless repetition set in. Clearly the PR/marketing profession was having an impact – if you tell the people the same thing time and time again it has impact and the message is heard ( I have worked in consumer marketing for far too many decades).

I won’t bother repeating what we have all heard every day for the last few weeks, but we didn’t need 6 weeks of the same with no variation. I am bored with it and just want it to be over.

And then this morning ‘Partyline’ by Stockholm Monsters came on shuffle. And whilst a lot of the lyrics struck home, it was the slow pace and the sheer weariness of the vocals that reflected how I feel.

Can you hear them
Pleading to you
Yes, I know, you’ve heard it all
Before they say it
All familiar
Waiting for the partylineOh, it is
I know it is
That’s the way its meant to beAnd do you
Do you think they work for you
I just can’t now make my mind up
Waiting for your promises

Just sit down and listen to me
Why is it you do these things
I just can’t now make my mind up
Waiting for your promises
Today

And for the politicians
You always have smiling faces
Did you see them
Can you hear them
Working for the partylineDo you trust them
Don’t you think thеy
Look like you
Or think like me?
That’s it
I know
That’s thе way they talk to me
Today

mp3: Stockholm Monsters – Party Line

Still come Thursday ‘things can only get better’

Middle Aged Man

French Defence

ONE SONG ON THE HARD DRIVE (11)

french

This is one where information is quite hard to pull together for any sort of decent posting but I’ll do my best.

First up, the source of the songs is one of the Indietracks Compilation 2013, the official compilation of artists who played the Indietracks Festival on 26-28th July 2013. Like all the Indietrack compilations, it comes as a digital download, with all proceeds going to the Midland Railway Trust, which played host to the festival throughout its existence between 2007 and 2019.

mp3: The French Defence – If You Still Want Him

This really is indie-pop by numbers.

A fast-paced, upbeat tune driven along by what sounds like the classic four-piece band, with acoustic and electric guitars to the fore. A lovelorn lyric filled with hope and optimism. A vocal delivery that doesn’t always hold the notes. The sort of thing we’ve all listened to thousands of times with a smile on our faces, while our foot taps away in appreciation. There may even be a few out there who have danced to the song at an indie-disco in towns and cities the world over, when the DJ goes to that bit of their set-list marked ‘obscurities that people will ask about’.

The French Defence has/have an online presence of sorts. My lack of decision to go with the singular or otherwise is down to what is said there.

Leeds-based one-man (at the moment!) indie-pop goodness, dealing in the not-very-diverse themes of chocolate, love, sex and the Yorkshire weather.

The one-man is Owen Lloyd who I assume is the singer/songwriter. The musical influences listed are Trembling Blue Stars, Belle and Sebastian, R.E.M., Blueboy, The Lodger, The Research, Laura Veirs, good 90’s Britpop, Mazzy Star, The Wannadies, Ooberman, Saint Etienne, The Field Mice, Sarah Records and indie-pop far and wide, just about all of which can be detected in the song offered up today.

Over at Bandcamp, (from where the above photos has been lifted), there’s six releases available to explore further, albeit three of them are collections of out-takes and demos, while another is a single. The two main sets of songs are on the EP We Had Fun, Didn’t We, released on Anorak Records in 2007 and Sketches of The September Leaf, a digital release from 2013 which is, of course, the year the band played Indietracks.

The fact that the most recent release at Bandcamp dates from December 2014 is an indication that The French Defence is/are a long time removed from the indie-pop scene.

JC

Various

AND FOR THE SEVENTH MONTH…….

7th

……I’ve created a mixtape of songs to be found as Track 7 on albums.

Despite the gimmickry, it flows quite well.

mp3: Various – And For The Seventh Month

The Libertines – Up The Bracket (from Up The Bracket)
R.E.M. – Orange Crush (from Green)
Teenage Fanclub – Metal Baby (from Bandwagonesque)
The Sugracubes – Walkabout (from Stick Around For Joy)
New Order – Sub-Culture (from Lowlife)
The Close Lobsters -Foxheads (from Foxheads Stalk This Land)
Wolf Alice – Play The Greatest Hits (from Blue Weekend)
The La’s – Feelin’ (from The La’s)
We Were Promised Jetpacks – Quiet Little Voices (from These Four Walls)
Bar Italia – Yes I Have Eaten So Many Lemons Yes I Am So Bitte (from Tracey Denim)
Beastie Boys – Intergalactic (from Hello Nasty)
International Teachers of Pop – Age Of The Train (from International Teachers of Pop)
Half Man Half Biscuit – Joy Division Oven Gloves (from Achtung Bono)
PJ Harvey – Down By The Water (from To Bring You My Love)
The Twilight Sad – And She Would Darken The Memory (from Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters)
Edwyn Collins – Gorgeous George (from Gorgeous George)
The Wedding Present – Shatner (from George Best)
The Lucksmiths – There Is A Boy Who Never Goes Out (from Naturaliste)

JC

Cinerama

CLOSE-UP : THE CINERAMA SINGLES (Part 9)

A GUEST SERIES by STRANGEWAYS

Close Up: The Cinerama Singles #9 : The Post-Torino Singles (2)

We’re nearly there. The Cinerama singles spool is almost all unwound. But like many a decent film, there’s room for one more twist ending…

The Girl From the DDR (live) (2015, Come Play With Me)

The Girl From The DDR

We’re back to plain old black vinyl for a live take of The Girl From the DDR. This song occupied one half of a split seven-inch single with the artist Harkin – Katie Harkin – who contributes the song National Anthem of Nowhere.

It’s complicated. The Girl From the DDR is in fact a Wedding Present song – one of the best cuts from the 2008 Scopitones LP Valentina. So this Cinerama single is, I suppose, a cover version.

Connected with this song was Cinerama’s version of that entire Valentina LP. It was released by Scopitones in 2015 and became the fourth Cinerama album, albeit in a kind of technical sense. It is graced by a lovely sleeve and inlay from the illustrator Lee Thacker, a long-time Weddoes and Cinerama associate.

Anyway, this live cut of DDR was taken from a June 2015 Cinerama show. That gig saw the band accompanied, at the O2 Academy in Islington, by a significant amount of other musicians and instruments. The notes from the subsequent Cinerama Live 2015 concert CD reveal violin and viola. Cello and trumpet. Flute and triangle. This single then completely reinterprets the guitar-led original and delivers a shimmery, loungey version.

mp3: Cinerama – The Girl From The DDR (live)

This was released by Come Play With Me, a Leeds-based label that specialises in split seven-inch singles from its part of the world and beyond.

In 2017 Come Play With Me also put out the Wedding Present single Jump In, The Water’s Fine on seven-inch and on ten-inch picture disc too (featuring an image drawn by Darren Hayman of Hefner). Given the label’s name, it’s maybe not a surprise it is so entrenched in Weddoes fare – in fact it handled too The Wedding Present and Friends’ James Bond covers LP. This record was sold in aid of the Campaign Against Living Miserably. But c’mon they’ve had two plugs already in this series.

The Name of the Game (2018, Where It’s At Is Where You Are)

Closing (almost) this Cinerama series is a cover, and another split single. On one side you’ll find Cinerama’s take on The Name of the Game. And, yes, it’s the ABBA song. It’s an OK listen, if kind of inoffensive.

mp3: Cinerama – The Name of The Game

The Name of the Game was released by Where It’s At Is Where You Are, a label whose seven-seven-inch-singles-a-year club, which launched in 2012, ended as planned in 2018, this release closing the project.

Of more interest is the flipside. There you’ll find a cover of the Clash’s White Riot. As fast and manic as the original, it’s not however by Cinerama. It’s by a band named The Wedding Present.

mp3: The Wedding Present – White Riot

White Riot

And isn’t that where this whole series started?

End credits

So that’s that. Cinerama continues to play gigs, though mostly for the annual At the Edge of the Sea Festival, where the Weddoes line-up, in the blink of an eye, becomes the other band.

The Torino-and-beyond singles – right up to I Wake Up Screaming/Unzip – are collected on the 2014 Scopitones compilation Seven Wonders of the World. Its title, just like previous anthologies This is Cinerama and Cinerama Holiday, is borrowed from a 1950s film shot and projected using the three-camera Cinerama process.

Seven Wonders of the World

Pretty much everything the band has done can therefore be acquired via the albums, those three singles compilations and, if you’re game, the three John Peel sessions collections.

R-6962962-1430507466-3204

R-776435-1157631933

R-1787834-1243413743

For deeper cuts, in addition to the Live 2015 CD/DVD, a couple more live CDs – Los Angeles and Belfast – were released by Scopitones, as well as a digital release of a gig from New York. Finally, a DVD, Get Up And Go, documented the group on tour in 2002.

For the sake of fastidiousness, worth a mention is a Cinerama release from February 2018 – a CD and ten-inch of a 2015 Marc Riley session.

R-11582379-1518897837-7939

It features just a couple of Cinerama takes (Cat Girl Tights and Wow) alongside two Wedding Present songs (You’re Dead and The Girl From the DDR) and is brought to you by Hatch Records.

mp3: Cinerama – Cat Girl Tights (Marc Riley session)
mp3: Cinerama – Wow (Marc Riley Session)
mp3: Cinerama – You’re Dead (Marc Riley Session)
mp3: Cinerama – The Girl From The DDR (Marc Riley Session)

That label also collates the Wedding Present’s numerous sessions for the DJ’s programme in a similar way to Strange Fruit’s collection of Peel sessions.

Another line of thanks to JC for the space to write all of this stuff, and also to those who stayed with the series, or even read/scanned one or two posts.

Next, as a kind of post-credits scene, and to make the entries number an even ten, the final offering in this series will be a bit of fun. And curiously, it will feature no Cinerama singles at all…

strangeways

Annie Booth

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #410: ANNIE BOOTH

annie-booth

A bio from the Last Night From Glasgow website:-

Annie Booth is an Edinburgh-based singer, songwriter and instrumentalist. With a keen ear for melody and movingly bittersweet compositions, she is a unique and fiercely emotive voice in the Scottish music scene, her songs woven with a subtle but exciting patchwork of styles and sounds.

Writing stories and poems from a young age, Booth moved to Edinburgh in 2013 for university – it was there she met her long-time friends and current band members. In 2015 she also joined prolific dark-folk rockers Mt. Doubt after being approached by frontman Leo Bargery, following a turn on their single ‘Soak’; this led to appearances at festivals such as T in the Park and Belladrum.

Labels Last Night From Glasgow and Scottish Fiction collaborated on releasing Annie’s affecting debut album ‘An Unforgiving Light‘ in late 2017 to much critical acclaim. The rock, folk and pop-inflected record was lauded as Roddy Hart’s Record of Note (BBC Radio Scotland), was featured in Vic Galloway’s Best Albums of 2017 and received praise from and frequent rotation by Jim Gellatly and Amazing Radio.

Since then Booth has released her EP Spectral, recorded in late 2018. She then collaborated with Chris McCrory as the band Slow Weather and released the EP Clean Living in 2020.
Most recently Booth released her second album Lazybody in 2021 which reached #5 Scottish Album Charts and #10 UK Vinyl Charts.

——-

Annie Booth has a very fine voice, one that I’ve grown increasingly fond of in recent years since hearing the Spectral EP back in 2019. This is taken from that release

mp3: Annie Booth – Magic 8

JC

Maximo Park

AROUND THE WORLD : LIMASSOL

Limassol_location_Map

The second-largest urban area in Cyprus with a population of just under 200,000, Limassol sits on the southern side of the island. The area has been inhabited since very ancient times, with graves found there dating back to 2000 BC. In modern times, it has become a well-developed tourist destination, boasting a hot and dry climate, although unlike other parts of the island, it is not a place renowned for beaches.

I’m guessing that either Paul Smith or Archis Tiku once holidayed in Limassol, as I can’t really think of any other reason as to why they would have been inspired to write this song for their band.

mp3: Maximo Park – Limassol

One of their earliest and most popular numbers, dating back to 2005 and the debut album, A Certain Trigger.

JC

Members

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #060

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#060: The Members– ‘Solitary Confinement’ (Virgin Records ’79)

members80s

Good morning friends,

another trip into nostalgia, this time we accompany The Members. ‘Whom?’, you youngsters might be wondering – but fear not: it’s rather typical that you’ve not heard a great deal about them.

The Clash are generally cited when a debate comes up about who first blended Reggae with Punk. Sometimes The Ruts are being mentioned as well, but let’s be honest – that’s about it, isn’t it. Quite why nobody ever mentions the magnificent Members in this context has always remained a mystery to me. I mean, as much as I adore The Clash (and God knows I do): The Members certainly deserve to share the top of the Punk/Reggae-pedestal with them.

The Members came from Surrey, they formed in 1976 and released their first single on Stiff Records in 1978: ‘Solitary Confinement’. You might – or might not – know the follow-up to this, ‘The Sound Of The Suburbs’. To my understanding, the latter is the only tune people can think of when it comes to The Members. But this is not correct – their first album is a corker, it might not entirely have stood the test of time, but it is still great if you ask me. It also contains this single, but the album version is two minutes or so longer and thus a little bit boring. That should be one reason to click the link below: perhaps you’ve never heard the original version, who knows?

And finally: the eagle-eyed amongst you might be wondering why the title reads ‘Virgin Records’ and ‘1979’. Well, that’s an objective of cheap, really: I have the song on the backside of the band’s third single – they moved from Stiff to Virgin in ’78- and as far as I can tell there is no difference to the original first single, apart from the fact that it’s about five times cheaper than the original these days:

R-488998-1351442869-4017

R-488998-1351442901-8461

mp3: The Members – Solitary Confinement

Members of The Members dismembered The Members (sorry, couldn’t resist) in the early 80s because they fled to join other bands, Icehouse and King in fact. But don’t let this put you off: this one here is another killer tune, for your pleasure!

Hope you enjoy it,

Dirk

Various

AN INDIE-ISH GUIDE TO HAIR METAL

A GUEST POSTING by STEVE McLEAN

thumbnail_IMG_0291

JC writes…..

As previously mentioned, Steve McLean has been a long time friend of the blog, having contributed a few guest postings over the years, including his take on The Last Temptation of Elvis compilation album, ICAs on Chuck Mosley and Natalie Merchant/10,000 Maniacs, appreciation of the Marc & Lard radio show, and a tribute to musical theatre.

A reminder that he makes a living (in part) from stand-up comedy, and, with the month of August coming around, he and many others will be making his way to Edinburgh in search of an audience. I’ve been to a couple of Steve’s previous shows and been thoroughly entertained, and, as becoming tradition, I’m giving the blog over to him for a day so that he can plus his new show…… so without further ado, I’ll pass the mic to him.

——-

Hello Internet-ians (that’s people of the internet, not people of the internet only called Ian). It’s that time of the year when I suddenly remember I like writing about music, you know when the Edinburgh fringe is coming up, and I have a show to plug? Seriously though, that whole Fringe thing is just a framing device, so I can spam you with my thoughts on songs I like.

This year I am doing a fucking great show (or it will be great when it’s written, at the moment it’s just a really good idea and even then the word ‘good’ is subjective). I’m presenting the A to Z of 80’s hair rock (not the crap loser stuff like Jane’s Addiction or The Cult but the uber-cool stuff like Warrant and Faster Pussycat).

I grew up in a small, insular place, I was spotty, not very well liked and I absolutely repelled women. BUT! Then I discovered the majestic genius that was Joe Perry and all of that changed. I wore make up, a bandana and ripped jeans. I didn’t repel women anymore! I repelled everyone.

While the dorks were sat on their beds in the dark listening to The Smiths or The Wedding Present, I was rocking out with my headphones on, pretending to be C.C. Deville of Poison. Fucking cool, right?

I’ve often thought that indie music and hair metal have more in common than people realise. Both genres seem to me to be mainly songs about unattainable women sang by people with bad hair that you’d cross the street to avoid. Don’t believe me? Go get your guitar and change the badly played chuggy riffs to badly played feeble strums. QED.

So in the name of building bridges and uniting music communities that probably don’t exist anymore, I present to you an Indie-ish guide to hair metal and pomp rock.

(CONTRACTUAL SMALL PRINT I’m being pretty broadwith my definition of the term Indie. Don’t send me messages saying ‘actuallllly they were on a major label’ or “Aztec Camera were a pop band, not an indie band’ because I’ll just print them out, hang them in the toilet next to the Cease and Desist order I’ve got from Morrissey and laugh when I’m having a dump).

mp3: Luna – Sweet Child Of Mine (Guns’n’Fuck’n’Roses)

Ian Watson of the seminal indie club How Does It Feel To Be Loved introduced me to this. It’s corking, right? I don’t know much about Luna but everything about this song tells me they spent a lot of time at school being relieved of their dinner money during the morning break.

Guns’n’Fuck’n’Roses were once proclaimed to be the most dangerous band in the world, which is weird because their backstage rider contained fresh cottage cheese, organic honey and the catering tables had to be dressed with linen table cloths, NOT PAPER! Nothing says danger like soft cheese and soft cotton. Just like Satan himself would demand.

mp3: Manic Street Preachers – Under My Wheels (Alice Cooper)

Early Manics got lumped in with a lot of late 80’s hair metal. They got a lot of press in RAW and Kerrang! magazines. It was the eyeliner and the Johnny Thunders’ look. They pissed on those chips pretty soon though, going down an NME road that ultimately led to Britpop. Fucking losers.

This is a great Alice Cooper song. Two facts about Alice Cooper that might surprise you – He’s a Republican voter. Imagine the guy who sang a song called Cold Ethyl which is about fucking a dead body, then voting for the so called family values of the GOP. Although the more we find out about Rudy Giullani, that’s probably always been on brand. In the name of political balance I should point out that Jill Biden also has sex with a lifeless body.

Second Alice Cooper Fact (and thanks to swc for the prompt!). He was best friends with Ronnie Corbett.

mp3: Dandy Warhols – Hell’s Bells (ACDC)

This is an ACDC classic (and much loved by Ally McCoist) that’s been given the slacker once-over. The Dandy’s were the kings of art rock cool for about 20 minutes in the late 90s until The Strokes turned up and stole their thunder. You bastards, how could you do that to them? To be fair, they didn’t help themselves with the Vodafone advert.

They also covered Ted Nugent’s Free For All which is a great song lost to history because, well, it’s by Ted Nugent and no one who isn’t regularly molesting farm animals will ever listen to him again. If you’re ever thinking ‘Sure, Ted’s a shitty racist with creepy sex pest overtones but c’mon, he’s a hippy from the 60s and 70s, so his mind is probably strung out on smack, acid and Jack Daniels’ ….Well let me tell, he’s been sober since 1967. So there’s no twisted mind-altering substance that made him who he is, he’s just a cunt.

mp3: Aztec Camera – Jump (Van Halen)

This is fucking amazing song. You know how I know it’s an amazing song? It’s a hair rock pomp tune being played by melodic pop act and it still sounds cracking. Did you know that it has also been covered by Mary Lou Lord and Paul Anka? The reason why it works so well is that it’s not played for laughs, Roddy Frame entirely commits to and it’s lush as fuck.

Van Halen have had an interesting revolving door of singers. Eddie Van Halen fell out with David Lee Roth so hired Sammy Hagar. He than fell out with Hagar so hired Gary Cherone of Extreme (Cherone was just pleased to be there since he now didn’t have to sing More Than Fucking Words every night) He then re-hired Roth, then re-hired Hagar, then re-hired Roth again and fired the bass player Michael Anthony. Basically what I’m saying is ‘Imagine being in a band with David Lee Roth and David Lee Roth turns out not to be the biggest bell-end’.

mp3: The Breeders – Lord Of The Thighs (Aerosmith)

I couldn’t decide between this and REM’s cover of Toys in the Attic to represent America’s Greatest Ever Rock Band (TM), I chose this, really because the more that comes out about Steve Tyler’s frankly fucking awful behavior, the more teenage me wants the songs to be rescued. The uncomfortable-1970s-lyrics-when-listened-through-2024-ears are given a 90s feminist kick in the dick, The song is saved as it becomes a queer sex anthem and everyone forgets about Steven Tyler what he did, and I don’t have to get rid of my Aerosmith records.

There’s a storming live version here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9pqiWjC2Yc

There’s a couple of others that didn’t make the final list including the Lemonheads covering Kiss and another Manics shout (It’s So Easy by Guns’N’Fuck’N’Roses). You know I’m really surprised that the Wedding Present haven’t done a cover of I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing, it feels right up their B-Side / Session street. If you’re reading this, Gedge, buck up.

Belle and Sebastian should have made this list too with something like Legs by ZZ Top. What can I say? I’m an ideas man. Although, a hair metal tribute to C86 seems the next logical step in this.

If you’re at the Edinburgh Fringe then please come to my show. It’s every day (except Tuesdays) at 2.45pm at the Slow Progress cafe (it’s free, although I’ll ask you for a donation at the end. It’s basically indoor busking.

STEVE

JC adds….

As I mentioned earlier, Steve’s shows are always good fun, albeit you better be on your guard for audience participation. As he says above, it’s part of the Free Fringe and so there’s no stupidly priced admission (+ booking fee!!), and in typical tradition of the buskers, you can just put some money into a hat at the end of the show.

The Slow Progress Cafe is on Blackfriars Street, very handily located just off the Royal Mile in the very centre of the city. If you’re in Edinburgh during August, you don’t have any excuses to miss out…

Adam & The Ants, Adverts, Cabaret Voltaire, Cramps, Devo, Simple Minds, Swell Maps, Talking Heads, Toyah, Wire

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (June, part two)

The chart hit single in June had some quality, but not much in the way of quantity. What about the 45s that didn’t make it as far as the Top 75?

mp3: Adam and The Ants – Zerox

Prior to becoming a pop icon in the early 80s, Adam Ant had been part of the punk scene in London. He had a role in Derek Jarman‘s 1978 film Jubilee, while Adam and the Ants were filmed performing the Plastic Surgery (the song, that is….not the procedure!!). This led to a deal for a one-off single with Decca Records, but Young Parisians failed to gain traction. London-based Do It Records signed the band, and Zerox was the first offering. It did well enough in the Independent Chart, but didn’t sell enough copies to trouble the Official Chart, at least not in June 1979. It was re-released in January 1981 on the back of the initial burst of Ant-mania and made it to #45.

mp3: The Adverts – My Place

The Adverts had been one of the first of the punk bands to enjoy chart success, with Gary Gilmore’s Eyes hitting #118 in September 1977. By the following year, they were on RCA Records and began making music that had more of a pop feel to them. Critically, they were still being championed in some music papers, but none of the three singles nor the one album they made while at RCA made the charts – and, of course, they weren’t eligible for the indie charts.

mp3: Cabaret Voltaire – Nag Nag Nag

Having turned down an offer from Factory Records, the Sheffield-based Cabaret Voltaire signed with Rough Trade, with their debut EP being released in late 1978. The first actual 45 was released in June 1979, and has since been acknowledged as one of the most pioneering 45s of the era, but back then it was largely dismissed as being too arty and weird.

mp3: The Cramps – Human Fly

London-based Illegal Records, founded by Miles Copeland III, issued Gravest Hits, a 12″ EP bringing together tracks that had featured on the first two singles released by The Cramps back in 1978. The other songs on the EP were The Way I Walk, Domino, Surfin’Bird, and Lonesome Town. It would take a further 11 years before The Cramps ever made it into the UK singles chart, by which time Miles Copeland III was enjoying the riches from the success of his next label, I.R.S. Records, home to early R.E.M. among others (including, for a short time, The Cramps).

mp3: Devo – The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprise

The men from Akron, Ohio continued their run of failure. Come Back Jonee had flopped back in January, and while the album Duty Now For The Future did chart at #49, its lead-off single did nothing

mp3: Simple Minds – Chelsea Girl

There were really high hopes among the band for the follow-up to Life In A Day which had sneaked into the lower echelons of the chart. Such hopes were dashed…..the harpsichord-like sound produced by Mick MacNeil on keyboards failed to capture the attention of the radio pluggers, and the 45 disappeared without a trace.

mp3: Swell Maps – Real Shocks

The second single from Swell Maps issued by Rough Trade in 1979. I didn’t know about this back when I was 16 years of age. If I had, I’d most likely have bought it and driven my parents crazy.

mp3: Talking Heads – Take Me To The River

Talking Heads were, pardon the pun, much talked about in 1979. The previous year, they had enjoyed a hit album with More Songs About Buildings and Food, and there was near universal acclaim for their live shows. Fellow New Yorkers Blondie were flying high, and it really only seemed a matter of time before The Heads were equally popular. As we know, they did eventually become a household name, but in June 1979 the record label was reduced to releasing a single from the previous album as their way of trying to get a cash-in on a prestigious gig that month in London. The cover of the Al Green number was issued as a 2 x 7″ release (for the price of a standard 7″) along with art work in the shape of a Talking Heads family tree as designed and drawn by Pete Frame. It didn’t chart.

mp3: Wire – A Question Of Degree

The story of how Outdoor Miner had been a minor hit, but should have been a major hit, was told a few months back. Harvest Records, keen to atone for the errors made with the previous single, threw their weight behind another track lifted from the 1978 album Chairs Missing, but nobody was interested…which is a shame, as It’s a belter of a single

mp3: Toyah – Victims Of The Riddle

This piece started with a member of the punk scene who appeared in Jubilee, and now finds itself ending the same way. Toyah Wilcox‘s first foray into the performing arts was as an actor, but with a number of her early parts involving singing, it led to her wanting to have a parallel career in music. She ended up fronting a five-piece band – all the other musicians were male – with everyone content that it take its name from the lead singer, given how unusual it was. London-based Safari Records signed the band, and Victims of The Riddle was the debut. The band would remain with Safari over the next six years, going on to enjoy more than a fair degree of chart success.

JC

Big Moon

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #370: THE BIG MOON

A GUEST POST by THE ROBSTER

cover

YOU HAD ME GOING FOR A MINUTE THERE
The Big Moon
an imaginary compilation for the (new) vinyl villain

Compared to my last ICA, this one is going to be short, simple and much more to the point. The Big Moon are a four-piece from London who formed 10 years ago. They’ve toured with the likes of the Maccabees, the Vaccines and Pixies. They’ve also been Marika Hackman’s backing band and Record Store Day ambassadors.

More importantly, they’ve released three excellent albums and are increasingly becoming one of the most talked about bands in the UK. Seriously good musicians fronted by a brilliant songwriter (Juliette Jackson) – what more could you ask for? The Big Moon are one of my ‘happy’ bands, but in a different way to, say, The Bug Club, or Super Furry Animals. They just sound warm and comforting.

the-big-moon2

I’ve pulled together three songs from each album plus a fun extra track for those of you who are, unfortunately, still unfamiliar with the Big Moon. I compiled it last spring and rediscovered it when I did the Bug Club ICA, but I haven’t changed any of the songs I chose back then as I reckon it still does a pretty good job.

SIDE ONE

1. Your Light [2019, from ‘Walking Like You Do’]

I would argue this is The Big Moon’s best track. It was the first single off the band’s second album and displayed a more mature sound to their earlier work. It was the best pop song of 2019 to my ears.

2. Sucker [2017, from ‘Love in The 4^th Dimension’]

This is the album version of the band’s first proper single and remains a highlight. Those indie/alternative influences shine through loud and proud on this one.

3. Trouble [2022, from ‘Here is Everything’]

Third album ‘Here is Everything’ was written amid Juliette Jackson’s pregnancy and subsequent childbirth. It wasn’t the gushing mush so many songwriters fall foul of after having children, it was a celebration of life, albeit one that is changed forever. It became their first UK Top 10 record. This track, the album’s second single, is another of my personal faves.

4. Waves [2020, from ‘Walking Like You Do’]

The ICA’s title track. Those backing vocals just make this song for me. A proper ‘wow!’ moment, almost brings tears to my eyes.

5. Praise You [2020, BBC Radio One Live Lounge session]

I’m going to let you judge this one for yourselves, but you ought to love it really…

SIDE TWO

1. Wide Eyes [2022, from ‘Here is Everything’]

The first track released from the band’s third album came accompanied with a wonderful, heart-warming video which shows how close these guys are as friends. Maybe I’m just getting soppy in my old age…

2. Cupid [2017, from ‘Love in The 4^th Dimension’]

Another early single, it remains a crowd favourite. According to Juliette, it’s about “when you really, really want something or someone and you launch yourself into getting it, convincing yourself that you’re ready for it and you bravely throw yourself into a new situation, only to find that despite all that careful planning your nerves can still get the better of you.”

3. Barcelona [2020, from ‘Walking Like You Do’]

Something of a nostalgia trip coupled with anxiety at getting older. I don’t want to cast aspersions, but I’m guessing many readers can relate to that…

4. Ladye Bay [2022, from ‘Here is Everything’]

My favourite track from album #3. Wasn’t released as a single, but should have been. Most Big Moon songs have big choruses, but this one is massive!

5. Silent Movie Suzie [2016, from ‘Love in The 4^th Dimension’]

Another early single (perhaps even their best from the first album?) with a hilarious – if rather naughty – video, made a good few years before people started thinking dolls were cool again. The Barbie movie was never like this…

No news on a fourth record yet, but it can’t be too far away. I await with great eagerness.

The Robster

Cinerama

CLOSE-UP : THE CINERAMA SINGLES (Part 8)

A GUEST SERIES by STRANGEWAYS

Close Up: The Cinerama Singles #8 : The Post-Torino Singles (1)

As we near the end of this ten-part series, we’ve split the last four Cinerama singles in two. Bunching them together would have made, even for these contributions, an obnoxiously long post.

For now though, you’ve stuck with it this far – so, to recycle the gag that opened this series, whatever you do…

Don’t Touch That Dial (2003, Scopitones)

R-867905-1167311412

A big, brooding bruiser of a single, Don’t Touch That Dial was released in October 2003. Unless you really want to dive down rabbit holes – and admittedly we’ll peek inside them across this post – this would be the final Cinerama single (and certainly the last – so far – on the band’s own Scopitones label).

It was an epic ending – though more heartfelt-note-on-the-fridge than screaming row and swiftly packed suitcase. And in its huge and hurt manner, Don’t Touch That Dial provided a not-so-cryptic clue to the reassembling of The Wedding Present that would begin a short time later.

mp3: Cinerama – Don’t Touch That Dial

Don’t believe me? Look only to Take Fountain, the Weddoes LP that emerged just a couple of years after this single. Among its eleven tracks you’ll find Don’t Touch That Dial (Pacific Northwest version), that appendage reflecting Gedge’s home at the time: the Emerald City of Seattle, a location hardly a stranger to a distorted guitar or two.

Themed around the dying of a relationship, Don’t Touch That Dial turned a bit of a trick then: closing one era whilst contributing to the opening of another.

The One That Got Away is your first B-side. It’s a real doozy, relentless and dinky, and decorated with an Ennio Morricone-style break, its whistled construction calling out for tumbleweed and cacti.

mp3: Cinerama – The One That Got Away

Last B On/Off is a bit of a blast. It doesn’t hang around long and although it’s hardly the greatest Cinerama B-side it’s a fine listen that makes room for some scurrying organ.

mp3: Cinerama – On/Off

A notable feature of the Don’t Touch That Dial CD is the inclusion of a video for the preceding Cinerama single, Careless. The sleeve, meanwhile, a subtle, red-bathed shot of a woman’s legs and feet, could almost be grabbed from a 70s James Bond title sequence.

But as the end credits roll on the Scopitones releases, let’s get silly and look at the lesser-known Cinerama singles. At the time of writing there are four of these, all are on seven-inch vinyl and I’m actually looking forward to getting to know them a bit better myself.

It’s Not You, It’s Me (2004, Go Metric!)

Limited to 1,500 singles, It’s Not You, It’s Me was released in June 2004 on the short-lived Go Metric! label.

Barring compilations, the single, in a shade of yellow that flirts dangerously with being light-brown – a real gift for detractors – would be the last from the band for almost ten years.

It's Not You, It's Me

mp3: Cinerama – It’s Not You It’s Me

It’s Not You, It’s Me is a decent, if gruff and lo-fi, affair. It’s kind of dialled-down and despite the band name on the sleeve – which features a line drawing of a lounging, clotheless woman caressing what might be a ukulele – is pitched closer certainly to The Wedding Present than Cinerama.

B-side was Erriner Dich, a cover of a track by the Cologne-based band Klee. This group would go on to create a very fine remix of a Wedding Present song: I’m From Further North Than You, from 2005’s Take Fountain LP.

mp3: Cinerama – Erriner Dich

Erriner Dich – a song I am very unfamiliar with, is a great surprise. It’s sung in its native German and a driving rhythm, home also to female backing vocals from Terry de Castro, plus keyboard parts, is maybe a bit reminiscent of Stereolab. The track’s title translates as Remember Yourself, and I should know because I just checked it on Google Translate.

Thanks to both that limited pressing and the imminent dissolution of the band, both songs were, I suppose, something of a rarity. There were no digital releases back in the day either. But in 2014 their inclusion on the elegantly-sleeved Seven Wonders Of The World compilation gifted them a wider release.

I Wake Up Screaming (2013, Artificial Head Records and Tapes)

Courtesy of Artificial Head Records and Tapes of Houston, Texas, I Wake Up Screaming is as bright as its almost day-glo pink vinyl. Five-hundred copies were pressed up and Discogs tells me that – in more trouble for completists – 100 of these were in a ‘mixed marble’ colour.

As for the A-side it’s a cracking quiet/loud number all about betrayal and a recurring, haunting dream, the content of which results in the song’s title. It’s well worth a listen.

mp3: Cinerama – I Wake Up Screaming

Either by accident or design, this is another track that shares its name with that of a film: this time a 1941 noir. Either that or it’s a homage to the 2011 Kid Creole and the Coconuts album of the same title (and itself named after the film).

Your B-side here was a live version of the slinky Disco Volante track Unzip. It’s taken from David Gedge’s annual-when-there’s-not-a-plague-on At the Edge of the Sea Festival held in Brighton.

mp3: Cinerama – Unzip (Live At The Edge of The Sea)

Sleeve-wise, a couple of portrait shots recall the majority of the covers from Cinerama’s heyday.

R-5001559-1530284939-1083

R-5001559-1530284943-9121

Thanks for reading this far. Next up we’ll be almost all done…

strangeways

Amphetameanies

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #409: THE AMPHETAMEANIES

amphetameanies-1-lst008519

This should have been featured last Saturday, but I mistakenly had filed the post away as a draft rather than a completed effort.

The Amphetameanies are something of a legend in Glasgow. Despite this, this is their first specific mention on this or the old blog. I’ll try my best to explain.

The band formed away back in 1997 as ‘an 18-legged ska machine’. Let me pick up the story with this piece from a local paper marking their 10th Anniversary:-

The band originally formed for a one-off gig, a fundraiser for striking Liverpool dockers, at the (old) 13th Note. And it was indeed a bit of fun, some Specials and Damned cover versions in a set played by 8 people from bands such as The Stanleys, Pink Kross and The Karelia. Of course, the few songs they’d written especially for the show went down so well, the rest is history. Sell-out shows at King Tuts, opening T in the Park, touring Europe, and now, 10 years on, a new album, Now That’s What I Call The Amphetameanies.

The article explained that all the members had day jobs of all sorts, including a truck driver, a sales assistant in a lingerie store, and a librarian; it also informed readers that some members were full-time musicians, including members of Belle & Sebastian and bis, while a past member had to give up when Franz Ferdinand found fame and fortune as ‘his other commitments were making him late for our rehearsals’ (a line that should be taken with the same humour as it was delivered).

Over the years, The Amphetameanies have released just three albums. I don’t have any of them. Nor do I have any of their singles. I have seen them live on at least three occasions, way less than the number of shows that their many hundreds of dedicated fans across the city and beyond have got along to. What I do have is one song, courtesy of its inclusion on a compilation CD issued by Bubblegum Records back in 2009 (but which I only picked up a few years ago – and yes, it’s the same CD from which I lifted the track by Asbo Kid a few days ago):-

mp3: The Amphetameanies – Nothing’s OK

This was initially released as the b-side to the 2009 single Good One Go, which came out on Flotsam & Jetsam Records. A video was made for the song:-

The fact I don’t have anything else by the group in the collection isn’t a sign that I don’t like them. I just never found the time or energy to explore in any great depth.

JC

Cocteau Twins

COCTEAU TWINS : ON TAPE

A GUEST POSTING by flimflamfan

cocteau_twins

How is it possible? I mean, really? How?

It’s taken me 30 years. 30 years is a wee bit of a cheat, as there were significant periods when my epic journey was not foremost in my mind. 30 is a headline grabber, so I’m going to stick with 30.

It all began with a tape (cassette). I was over at a pal’s and they said they had a compilation tape for me. It was 1994. The sharing of songs via a compilation (sorry copyright holders) is a practice I miss. To me, it was a somewhat intimate act – it was rare that a duplicate of a compilation was made, and it always seemed rather special to be the solo recipient. My own compilations often came with designed covers and titles – many of them (enjoyed for decades) recently lost, via an unfortunate episode.

The compilation in question came with artist and song titles scrawled (sorry, pal) with some songs titles missing. It included songs by Hole, Nirvana, Galaxie 500, Pussy Galore, Stereolab, San Francisco Beauty Queen, Lilliput. Mudhoney etc.… It was right up my street then. It’s right up my street now.

However, it’s the inclusion of songs by Cocteau Twins that rather catapulted this particular compilation to the top of all compilation tapes. My 30-year search for an answer began.

Not long after I was given the tape my pal moved to London. We stayed in touch by letter – remember those – for a while and that eventually petered out. I had always wanted to ask my question but for reasons that remain inexplicable, I never did. As we entered the internet age I began searching online – but couldn’t find the information I wanted given the infancy of modem internet. After a time, and mostly due to house moves, the tape was put in storage – always accessible – but stored.

Every now and then it would be taken out, I’d prepare myself, hit play. I accepted I had no emotional control and would just let the joyous mood take me where it wanted to go. I was a willing traveller. Whatever could be the reason for such an indecent outpouring of emotion? In a word, Bluebeard.

I mentioned earlier that Cocteau Twins were included on the tape. What I hadn’t clarified is that these were live versions. My pal was an avid listener of radio, and I was all but sure the songs derived from a radio session, but couldn’t ever find out which live radio session. I’ve listened to many of the live versions out there from the gigs of 1994 (I attended Glasgow Barrowlands) but none affect me in quite the same way as this particular version (not even on the occasion when I was in attendance).

As the internet became more informative, I was sure someone would post some detail, but no. Fan forums then were rather different to what passes for forums now, and they offered no clarity. Each time I listened to the tape coincided with an online attempt to find out more about the songs? When were they recorded (I’d guessed late 93/94 given the songs and tour setlist). Which radio station (probably BBC)? Which DJ? Which gig? Which city? Bootlegs of live performances uploaded online offered no clue. It had become an inconsistent obsession. It was only when I had an urge to hear Bluebeard that I was re-inclined to discover the information about the session.

When the release of Cocteau Twins BBC Sessions was announced, I was all but convinced it would include the four songs. I would have bet my house on it. I would have lost the house. The songs were not included on this supposed complete BBC sessions*. With no way now to contact my pal this itch to know needed to be scratched and vigorously.

The thing is as much as I loved the recorded version of Bluebeard (and oh how I love it) this version just takes me to a happier place. It lifts me up – much live a spiritual is claimed to do. That three-minute mark is anticipated. As Liz Fraser wails like a woman possessed, I cry. Every time.

mp3: Cocteau Twins – Bluebeard (live)

In May of 2024 I decided to ask my question in an online fan forum. I’m disinclined to involve myself with social media (where the fan pages are mostly located) and lo… within minutes of asking my question it was answered. I really can’t describe how happy the news made me. My thanks to the forum member. It gets better. Another forum member sent me digital copies of the ‘session’. Thanks also to that forum member.

Cocteau Twins : 9th Feb, 1994, Rock City, Nottingham : Marc Riley

And all four songs…

Bluebeard, Carolyn’s Finger, Summerhead and Aikea-Guinea

Technically, my question took 30 years to be answered. In reality, when asked, it took minutes.

The digital copy has been played lots. However, my version on tape, will continue to be played too. It just ‘feels’ different. No, I don’t know why either?

My quest has ended. I can no longer bore friends with my epic search – annoying with a 30th anniversary to celebrate. Instead, I will regale the long-suffering with the kindness of strangers on the internet and how they came to my aid.

* the songs were not included on BBC sessions as it wasn’t a BBC session, merely broadcast by the BBC.