THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

MORE WILD INDIANS !

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Just over a week ago, the second 45 by The Wild Indians featured on the regular Saturday series.

That very same morning, I received a very pleasant e-mail from regular reader and occasional contributor, Leon MacDuff:-

Hello there!

Noting your regret at having no other tracks by The Wild Indians to share… happy to help! There’s nothing else to threaten the status of “Penniless” as their magnum opus but here are the three tracks from their previous single (and of course you may share them!).

I downloaded and listened to the three songs, and to my complete amazement, I immediately recognised Maybe, one of the tracks on the b-side of what was a 12″ only release. But I had never heard the a-side before……….

Was it one that Jacques the Kipper had included it on what is now a long-lost C90 tape? The thing is, I was more fairly sure that I knew a slightly different version of it. Has someone I know covered it on record or played it live? I certainly don’t seem to have any other version of it among almost 50,000 bits of music on the hard drive, so it’s something of a mystery.

It’s a wonderful wee tune, as indeed are the other two tracks kindly sent over by Leon.

mp3: The Wild Indians – Love Of My Life
mp3: The Wild Indians – The Biggest Man
mp3: The Wild Indians – Maybe

I hope it all helps to make your day the way that Leon did for me last week.

JC

Wedding Present

THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part Three)

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It’s still 1986, and we’ve reached the release of the third single, one which came out on 7″ and 12″ on Reception Records. Let’s deal with the 7″ first of all:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends
mp3: The Wedding Present – This Boy Can Wait

There’s no indication on the sleeve or labels as to which of the two songs is the A-side. The Scopitones website, which really is the go-to place for all things related in any shape or form to The Wedding Present and Cinerama, lists ‘Friends’ as the lead track.

But, the recently published book, All The Songs Sound The Same, contains this contemporary review:-

The Wedding Present – This Boy Can Wait (Reception)

A frenzied guitar ushers in a breathless vocal and neither goes away throughout this prime slice of Leeds indie pop, free at last from the Gang Of Four hangover that has dogged so many of that city’s favourite sons, and now veering more towards a deranged folkies-on-speed extravaganza that overstays its welcome by just about the right amount.

The B-side is called ‘You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends’ which is sound advice and again it’s like some sort of folk music gone mad with lots of room for the omnipresent guitar to clang about in. If I had enough to drink I think I would probably die watching this band play live.

The there’s the 12″, with the slightly different coloured sleeve:-

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It has This Boy Can Wait on one side, with two tracks, one of which is ‘Friends’ on the other, which would naturally make anyone think there was a clear A-side in terms of the 7″. But it doesn’t matter as both have proven to be timeless and part of the set lists all these decades later.

Here’s the other track on the 12″:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Living and Learning

Just under three minutes of something which is fast, frantic and, if danced to, would leave even the fittest of persons gasping for breath. An excellent song by any stretch of the imagination, but not one that many fans would have high up on their lists of favourites, such has been the quality over the years.

JC

Wilderness Children

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #378: THE WILDERNESS CHILDREN

I’ve three songs by The Wilderness Children on the hard drive, all of them courtesy of compilations. It turns out that the blurb in the booklets for Big Gold Dreams and C88 are near-identical.

“This defiantly lo-fi Dundee four-piece were fronted by singer Andrea Reid, surfacing first in 1987 on a self-released two-track flexi (There’s A Good Time A-Comin b/w On The West Coast). The gloriously-titled EP, We’re A Council House Punk Band, on Doss Records, boasted the messy fuzz of Mrs Susan Spence (name borrowed from a dentist!)

mp3: The Wilderness Children – Mrs Susan Spence

The jangly If You Love Him, Let Him Go duly appeared on scenester Alan Wood‘s Magic Bus label in 1989,

mp3 : The Wilderness Children – If You Love Him, Let Him Go

, before hot on its heels, a return to Doss threw up the immortal Plastic Bag From Tescos 7″. A final release – the EP Paint A Picture For Me – appeared in summer 1990.”

The third song I have is from that final EP and is included as part of the Make More Noise : Women In Independent Music 1977-1987 box set. Andrea Reid offers an evocative and far from rose-tinted reflection of the times, reflecting on just how hard it was to try and make any sort of breakthrough, never mind a living, via the music industry, and how hope was just about what everything seemed to be built on. Lots of touring in tiny venues, with almost everything arranged through phone box calls in the pre-mobile era. It ends with:-

Different times, the winter always a bastard on our jeans, we were fucked up and going nowhere but burning with dreams, desires, rage and, above all, love.

The box set included one from the original flexi:-

mp3: The Wilderness Children – There’s A Good Time A-Comin’

As Dirk would say, enjoy!

JC

Win

THE SAD COMPLETIST IN ME HAD TO HAVE IT….

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You’ve Got The Power, a single released by Win back in 1985, has previously had a couple of mentions on the blog. It’s a tremendously upbeat, catchy and fun number, admittedly very much of its era in terms of production, but anytime I hear it, I’m taken back to dancing around at various house parties across Edinburgh, as everyone seemed to have a copy.

I was delighted to learn a few weeks back that …Uh Tears Baby, the debut album by Win, is going to be re-released on Past Night From Glasgow in the near future, with a bit of remastering work involved, and it may well also come with a few bonus items such as demo versions, b-sides and re-mixes that went out as 12″ releases.

I thought I had everything from the era, but it turned out there was a 12″ remix out there which wasn’t present and correct in Villain Towers. Thankfully, it was available via Discogs for what I would describe as a bargain price.

mp3: Win – You’ve Got The Power (Chocolate Thrills Mix)

It’s the simple things that often make me the most happiest.

JC

Devo

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (8)

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A band who have seemingly been around forever, but are currently on a farewell tour that is marking their 50th anniversary. There was a show in Edinburgh a couple of months back, but I gave it a miss on account of the ticket prices being too high and that the venue, the O2 Academy (formerly the Corn Exchange) is one of the worst there is.

Although Devo came together in 1973, it took until 1977 before they released any recorded material with the debut album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, appearing in August 1978, on Warner Brothers in America and Virgin Records in the UK.

It was recorded at Conny Plank‘s studio in Cologne, and Brian Eno was in the producer’s chair.

This was their fourth single,

mp3: Devo – Come Back Jonee

Its release was tied-in to the release of the album. The single only got to #60, but the album went to #12, which is the perfect indication that while Devo got a fair amount of positive media coverage, their songs weren’t played much across radio stations.

Here’s the b-side:-

mp3 : Devo – Social Fools

A nice reminder of new wave music from the era. Surprisingly left off the debut album.

JC

Eyes Of Others

RECOMMENDED LISTENING FROM 2023 (Volume 5)

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The fifth of an occasional feature in which I’ll draw your attention to some albums that have been purchased in 2023 and which I reckon are worth highlighting.

This is one for which the thanks have to be given to Swiss Adam, as he was the one who mentioned it over at his place and got me intrigued. It’s an LP that came out on Heavenly Recordings back in May.

Eyes Of Others is the name used by Edinburgh-based musician, John Bryden. It’s to my eternal shame that I haven’t picked up on his work until this year, as he’s been doing his stuff across Scotland since at least 2017 when the Stimulus EP was released. There’s since been a number of other EPs and singles over the years, all leading up to the release of the eponymous debut album.

Adam mentioned it at that point in time, on the back of him seeing a live performance in the confines of the rather wonderful (and small) Castle Hotel, which is in the heart of the Northern Quarter in Manchester. It’s a place myself and Aldo always call into when we are visiting the city for whatever reason, but we’ve yet to go to a gig in the tiny backroom.

Here’s how Adam piqued my interest:-

Eyes Of Others is John Bryden, an Edinburgh musician who makes ‘post club music for people who can’t get into clubs’. Synths and drum machine rhythms, swirly psychedelia with detours into 808 acid house, bits of guitar, handclaps and lyrics that suggest an underlying sense of disquiet and unease, the sense that living through late stage capitalism hasn’t quite lived up to the promise.

The set is lovely, songs played and sung with only a few elements but fully realised and affecting, lots of space, slightly trippy, melodic and affecting. John is a little like a more subdued David Byrne, dancing on the spot and caught up in the act of performing, using different singing voices and catching you unaware at times- there are shades of early Beta Band on show too.

I wasn’t long removed from seeing Steve Mason on stage playing songs mostly from the stunning Brothers and Sisters as featured in volume one of this series, and so I was really intrigued by what Adam was saying.

I headed over to bandcamp, which is where I saw exactly how long Eyes of Others has been on the scene. The opportunity to make a direct purchase from the musician was on offer, with the promise that it would come signed on the cover, which is why my copy came to arrive courtesy of my hard-working postie.

It wasn’t the most appealing of covers, featuring a close-up of a cow against a psychedelic background with the two ear tags saying ‘logging in for your daily meditation’ and ‘have you forgotten your password?’, both of which went right over my head. The back of the sleeve gave the titles of the ten songs/pieces of music. The inner sleeve had little information other than the words and music were written by John Bryden, along with production, mixing and mastering credits. It was all quite minimalist, which meant no distractions while the album was playing….unless, of course, you found yourself hopelessly attracted to the artwork in which case, you could gaze at the poster inside the sleeve which offered it at 48×48 size…..

The music? Well, it proved to be something quite extraordinary, but in ways I wasn’t anticipating. I suppose I was expecting some sort of Beta Band tribute some 25 years after the fact, and while there are nods to what they were doing back then, this particular album goes into many other territories and happenings, most of which were out of my immediate comfort zone. I was never a clubber, and I certainly was never anyone who felt a great need to reach out and find myself some sort of comedown record from overindulging myself the night before….such things didn’t, as far as I was aware, really exist back in the early 80s. I don’t really have anything else in the expansive collection with which to compare it to, but then again, I am a total novice when it comes down to the likes of Adrian Sherwood or Andrew Weatherall, both of whose influences have been cited by a number of folk who have given the record the thumbs-up.

Eyes Of Others sounded immense coming out of the speakers, but where it really hit home was listening to it via the headphones on a slow bus journey up to the football one Saturday late-morning. I’m normally using music on such journeys as a way to pass time, a gentle diversion on the way to the main attraction if you like, but this was proving to be something else. It demanded, and it got, my full attention – no glancing at phones for any incoming messages or updates on what was happening in early kick-offs. I was totally immersed in all that was going on.

Here’s how the album opens up:-

mp3 : Eyes Of Others – Once, Twice, Thrice

I’ll make one prediction…..even if that song didn’t tickle your fancy, I know you’ll be humming that little bit of keyboard music which underpins it for the rest of the day. It’s a real earworm.

This is one of those occasions when I really cannot find the words to do justice to a particular album. I know it’s a long way removed from the sort of things that are normally featured on the blog, and it probably won’t be to everyone’s taste. But head over to this bandcamp page and give things a go. And while the vinyl is now sold out, there will be copies out there in the very best of record shops….but you could always go digital!

JC

Husker Du

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #035

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#035– Hüsker Dü – ‘Sorry Somehow’ (WEA Records ’96)

Hello dear friends,

again a band everybody knows and loves: what is wrong with me, I wonder?

Hüsker Dü were of course one of America’s finest exports, no question about this. And with all their massive output, it is very hard indeed to number it down to one specific song. To me, Hüsker Dü – most of all – have always been those who managed to blend punk and pop in a most perfect way: “just because it’s punk does not mean it cannot be melodic”.

This ability, plus mostly witty lyrics is why I am so fond of them. It is often forgotten these days that before ‘Candy Apple Grey‘, their 1986 album distributed by a major company (Warner), they already had six (!) albums on independent labels, mostly on SST records. Also, at the time, they were one of the first indie bands to sign with a major label (bands like Sonic Youth, for instance, would do this five years later).

Probably already with ‘Zen Arcade’, but certainly with the release of ‘Candy Apple Grey’ the absolute dedication to speed and hard hitting fuzz was mostly dissipated. In its place was a slower paced, more textured sound that relied more on pop melodies than ever before. The lyrics had also become much more introverted, personal and rarely anything less than very serious.

‘Sorry Somehow’ has always been my favorite from ‘Candy Apple Grey’, by a mile. A bitter anti-apology song with fine lyrics (when it comes to the “I’d give you everything in the world just to get it out of the way” – bit, it still sends shivers down my spine each and every time I hear it, believe me), but also with a structure which is just as simple as it needs to be plus a naturally flowing melody – can you really expect more from a song? Yes, of course you can, an accordingly good delivery!

Which brings us to Grant Hart: he, as far as I’m concerned, would rank very very high if there were a list of singers being able to implement pure desperation into their voices. ‘Sorry Somehow’ is a prime example for this, perhaps this is why I love this song so much:

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mp3: Hüsker Dü – Sorry Somehow

A true masterpiece, this, as so many of their songs have been. It’s a massive shame that the three of them fucked it up so mightily in the end, they could have become really big, I suppose.

But either way, still, just a few punk bands left a footprint as heavy as Hüsker Dü, and somewhere, there’s a kid who’s about to hear the group for the first time.

I envy that kid.

Take care, friends,

Dirk

Teenage Fanclub

SHOULD’VE BEEN A SINGLE ?(5)

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Teenage Fanclub have quite a lot of songs that really should have been singles. The issue over the years is the fact they have tried to be democratic about things, splitting things up between the three main songwriters – Norman Blake, Gerry Love and Raymond McGinley.

1995 was the year that the album Grand Prix was released. The first indication of the quality of the new material was the advance single, Mellow Doubt, which appeared in March. A Norman Blake number, it was a lovely, acoustic almost-ballad like effort which reached #34, which wasn’t too shabby for a band whose best position in the singles chart up to now had been two years previously when Radio reached #31.

Next up was an absolute classic, one that is well up among the all-time favourites of anyone who has ever had an interest in the band. Sparky’s Dream, written by Gerry Love, is a fantastic piece of pop music, one that surely sounded great coming out over the airwaves, but for whatever reason, it didn’t chime with the general populace, entering the charts at #40 in late May and then disappearing from view.

Grand Prix was released a week after Sparky’s Dream. It went in at #7, giving Teenage Fanclub their first ever Top 10 album , so it might have been the case, in an era when CD singles weren’t cheap, that a few fans held on to their cash to buy the album.

The third single to be lifted from the album came in August, and was Neil Jung, another of the Norman Blake-penned songs (he had 5 on the album while Gerry and Raymond each had 4). It’s another exquisite number that should have had daytime radio producers screaming out to have it included on playlists, but it wasn’t to be. It barely dented the charts, coming in at #62, but its release did help tease Grand Prix back into the lower end of the albums charts, as it had dropped out after in mid-July after just five weeks.

It was now a pointless exercise to go with any fourth single from the album, given that there was clearly an aversion of some sort to play Teenage Fanclub outside the evening slots on Radio 1. I don’t know if there were any plans in place if any of the three previous singles had been hits, and it may well have been that it was Raymond’s turn to have a single, in which case album opener About You was the likely contender.

All of which means that this, another of the Gerry Love songs, was never given the honour of being a stand-alone 45 (or whatever the phrase would be in the era of CD singles):-

mp3: Teenage Fanclub – Don’t Look Back

Actually, that’s not quite 100% the case.

In December 1993, to round off what had been a triumphant year as far as the critics were concerned, it was decided to release Teenage Fanclub Have Lost It, an EP containing acoustic versions of four songs, one from each of the albums released on Creation Records, with the lead track being this:-

mp3: Teenage Fanclub – Don’t Look Back (acoustic)

Somehow, in a week when Christmas songs were selling plenty of copies, the EP did enough to reach #53. A quiet sort of triumph for good music.

JC

Wedding Present

THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part Two)

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It took around nine months after the debut before the second 45 from The Wedding Present was available to buy. The remainder of 1985 has been spent playing live as well as writing new material. 1986 got off to a bit of a dream start, as 11 February saw them record their debut session for John Peel, with it being broadcast on 26 February. It consisted of three original TWP songs plus a blistering and frantic cover of Felicity, the single released by Orange Juice back in 1982.

Shortly afterwards their own second single was released, again on 7″ via Reception Records

mp3: The Wedding Present – Once More
mp3: The Wedding Present – At The Edge Of The Sea

There’s occasionally a bit of confusion as to when the single came out, as the 3500 copies which were pressed give a copyright date of 1985 on the labels, but this relates to the date of its recording and not its release.

The single actually featured recently as part of the Lucky Dip series. My copy is not from 1986, but instead is the Optic Nerve Records pressing, on white vinyl, from 2020.

Two excellent songs, with the latter, as I said last time out, not being immediately obvious as a Wedding Present number, but within fifteen seconds a more familiar sound comes to the fore, followed shortly after a lovelorn lyric about being happy with someone while visiting a coastal town. It’s one of my favourites of theirs and of course has given its name to the annual music festival which David Gedge organises in Brighton every August.

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Later in 1986, with both of the first two singles being nigh-on impossible to find, Reception Records issued a 12″ single entitled Don’t Try and Stop Me Mother, consisting of all four songs.

There’s a wonderful review of the 12″ in one of the UK weekly music papers (I’m not sure which one), which, among other things says:-

Oh, so glorious. A beacon of brilliance in a swamp of a thousand disposable singles. Charming, vivacious guitars blitzing through all those old glories of Buzzcocks.

Indeed.

JC

Wild Indians

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #377: THE WILD INDIANS

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mp3: The Wild Indians – Penniless

The Wild Indians featured previously back on 5 March 2020 thanks to me loving the song of theirs that had been included on the Big Gold Dreams boxset. Here’s the blurb for the booklet within the boxset.

The duo of vocalist Fiona Carlin and guitarist Kevin Low made two singles as The Wild Indians, on which Pop Wallpaper’s rhythm section of bassist Myles Raymond and drummer Les Cook played. The second, a 12” made up of three tracks of designer pop, was produced by John McVay of Visitors and engineered by Chic Medley of Perth-based electro-pop band Fiction Factory, with whom Carlin would sing with on their second album track, Victor Victorious. As a designer, Low’s work went on to grace many a record sleeve, including ones for The Delmontes and The Blue Nile. Low worked as a theatre photographer for many years, and is now a painter of note.

I added these thoughts back then.

“Beyond this, it is quite hard to track down any further info – they are one of the few Scottish bands from the era who don’t get listed in The Great Scots Musicography by Martin C Strong, published in 2002, and to which I have turned on many an occasion to fact-check/confirm or indeed get the basics!

Looking at Discogs, it seems that Penniless was the band’s second and final single, on 12″ only, released in 1986 on Rosebud Records. The only other single seemingly released on the label was Strawberry Letter 23 by Pop Wallpaper, which featured as Part 249 of this series back in March 2021.

The debut single by The Wild Indians was Love Of My Life, again as a 12″ only and released on the Hullabaloo! label in 1984. As this appears to be the only single from that label on Discogs, it may well have been set up specifically for the purposes of that particular single.

Short of paying a minimum of £20 for either single on Discogs, I’ve not been able to find any way of getting more Wild Indians songs to share with you. Sorry.

JC

Johnny Cash

SOME SONGS MAKE GREAT SHORT STORIES (Chapter 63)

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I don’t condone gun violence or cold-blooded murder.

But this is a tune and a lyric. And no chorus either…..

I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rolling ’round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when
I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on
But that train keeps a-rollin’ on down to San Antone

When I was just a baby, my mama told me, “Son
Always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns”
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
When I hear that whistle blowin’, I hang my head and cry

I bet there’s rich folks eatin’ in a fancy dining car
They’re probably drinkin’ coffee and smoking big cigars
Well, I know I had it coming, I know I can’t be free
But those people keep a-movin’, and that’s what tortures me

Well, if they freed me from this prison, if that railroad train was mine
I bet I’d move it on a little farther down the line
Far from Folsom prison, that’s where I want to stay
And I’d let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away

mp3: Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues

JC

Alison Eales

RECOMMENDED LISTENING FROM 2023 (Volume 4)

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The fourth of an occasional feature in which I’ll draw your attention to some albums that have been purchased in 2023 and which I reckon are worth highlighting. This one will come as no surprise to anyone who is a regular visitor to TVV and has been paying attention. It’s an album that came out in March on Fika Recordings.

The debut album from Alison Eales is an absolute doozy, twelve wonderfully crafted and delivered musical gems which draw from the many genres in which this superbly talented musician has been involved over the years.

She is best known as the keyboardist in Butcher Boy, one of the best and most underrated bands to emerge out of Scotland in recent times, but she is also a long-standing member of the Glasgow Madrigirls, a choral society whose live output encompasses a huge range of music such as classical, medieval, world, folk and chapel. The Madrigirls grew out of an initiative at Glasgow University, and Alison is a bit of an academic too, having gained a doctorate thanks to a ground-breaking thesis on the history of the Glasgow Jazz Festival, which earlier this year enjoyed its 37th edition.

There was every chance that Mox Nox was going to be an album of quality, and so it proved. I did review it on release (not something I’m in the habit of doing, but I will make exceptions for friends) and mentioned that the publicists at Fika had suggested it would likely appeal to fans of Saint Etienne, The Magnetic Fields, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stereolab, Jake Thackray and Kirsty MacColl, all of which gives an indication of the depth of influences that have impacted on the songs and the ways they have been recorded and arranged.

It’s an album which, from the opening notes of its first song, grabs and holds your attention throughout.

mp3: Alison Eales – Rapunzel

The voice is angelic, the instrumentation is of the utmost quality and the production, courtesy of Paul Savage of The Delgados, is perfection personified. It’s the beginning of what proves to be a genuinely captivating album.

It’s an impossible task to put this record into a single category. There are a number of examples of chamber-pop, not least on Ever Forward in which Alison sings while accompanied by a string quartet, while the track selected as lead-off single Fifty-Five North has the catchiest of choruses to a tune that many an indie-pop band would kill for.

It must also be one of the few songs to have been inspired in part by the Glasgow Subway, the city’s underground rail system, which opened in 1896 (third-oldest in Europe after London and Budapest) and has never expanded beyond its initial design of a 10.5km loop around the city, but only taking in the west end and south side.

It’s a gentle-paced album for the most part and a couple of the ballads, including the title track, are examples of songs that just seem to grow in stature with every listen.

Alison’s sense of self-deprecating humour shines through on a few occasions, not least in the album closer Come Home With Me, a jaunty number, in which the art of seduction finds itself reeling in the face of candidness:-

I don’t have much to offer in my flat
I can’t tell the cobwebs from the cracks
The kitchen’s full of rotting fruit
Up we crawl and then it’s all downhill to ill repute

Part of the reason for pulling this mini-series together is to perhaps offer up some ideas for Christmas gifts, either for yourselves or to buy for someone who you think might really enjoy the sort of music being suggested.

If Mox Nox is of appeal, then please feel free to click on this bandcamp page.

JC

Edinburgh School For The Deaf

NEW YOUTH BIBLE

A guest posting by flimflamfan

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Edinburgh School for the Deaf – New Youth Bible

Re-issue : Absolutely Kosher Records 25th Anniversary

I’ve written much in these pages about the emotional response to music, my own included – sometimes bordering on the spiritual (all the while jabbing at any thought of religion with a long-armed stick). Phrases to describe such experiences can include ‘the hairs on the back of my neck stood up’. Remember that phrase.

I’ve listened to ‘a lot’ of records, saw more than my fair share of live bands, and some – I’ve no idea why – affect me more than others. I’ll not list bands / songs – it could prove to be an unhelpful construct although I might, just might, make one or two references here and there.

Imagine the Star Wars intro text title screen… It was a long time ago…

I was asked to assist with a ‘battle of the bands’. I was incredibly proud to be asked to do so by Sandy, the man behind the event, but was ambushed by Imposter Syndrome. Sandy had arranged to host one of Alan McGee nights, in Perth, in which a lucky recipient would be ‘signed’ to McGee’s new label – who was I to judge? Although I do think I’d look quite dashing adorned in powdered wig, gown and wielding a gavel. Sorry, I digressed, with what was an unrealistic TV adaptation of a UK court scene.

Off I popped to Perth full of excitement and trepidation on an overnight stay with my bag packed full of social anxieties.

I think it’s fair to say that I’m not the most gregarious person you’ll ever meet – certainly not initially. If I feel comfortable, or have had a wee drink, I can be quite the chatterbox. I say, quite the chatterbox. I’ve never liked to be seen – even as a kid. It’s a peculiar thing to say – even after all these years – but it makes me feel uncomfortable. Every interaction is stage-managed internally by skilled ‘imaginary’ puppeteers pulling every string to make my interactions seem natural.

I arrived in Perth. I arrived at the venue.

Neither of these things seem like big deals, yet both are to me, especially entering the venue on my own. This is something I have done so rarely it could be referred to as a rare occasion.

Sandy was there to greet me, bands were sound checking – it was noisy but with few folk milling around. I was introduced to Mr McGee and then Sandy began to outline how the night would pan out. It seemed quite straight forward and something that could be enhanced by a dark rum and green ginger. I was right. That dark rum and green ginger, they should bottle that. Oh, hang on…

I’m ashamed to say that I don’t recall all of the bands that played. I could go and look at information from that time, but that doesn’t seem terribly honest. Suffice to say, only two bands stood out. The soon to be ‘band in first place’ and ‘band in second place’. The band in first place were damn good. Young. Fiery. Full of fight and ambition. I liked them. Mr McGee announced them as winners. In a brief comment to me later, he uttered ‘it would have been too obvious for me to pick the other band’. The words “too obvious” are a direct quote and remain etched forever in my reminiscences of that night.

The other band? The band in second place? That band provided me with one of the most spiritual musical experiences I have ever encountered. Known for a short time as Deserters Deserve Death, but soon to be known as Edinburgh School for the Deaf, that band destroyed every social anxiety I had. They pummelled any and every doubt. They raised me to a point of spiritual ecstasy. They made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up – a physical response to music that I’ll never forget. They made me dance (swaying really) to music I was unfamiliar with – it was unadulterated joy. Anxieties? What anxieties?

As much as I was pleased for the band that came in first, and I was pleased for them, Edinburgh School for the Deaf was robbed.

How a band can create and sustain such chaos, yet exude a calm presence, still confounds me. It was akin to watching three maniacs tethered to their jailer. Was there a single space in that bar that Kieran had not jumped on, or jumped from, all the while playing note perfect? Each band member seemingly in their own space, unaware of the other band members at all, then coming together triumphantly as a sonic force that made you want to cry. I did cry. It was a powerful, moving performance, and they are by definition of this event the second-best band in the world (as far as I am concerned).

Throughout the gig I was plagued by a sense of familiarity but couldn’t place it? It transpired that Edinburgh School for the Death rose from the ashes of another much-loved band, St Jude’s Infirmary.

Soon after the gig the band ‘signed’ to Glasgow label, Bubblegum Records with which they released the single Orpheus Descending / Orpheus Ascending and their sole LP New Youth Bible (on CD) back in 2011.

I am delighted to say that thanks to Absolutely Kosher Records (California) enjoying a 25th anniversary, it has decided to reissue the LP on limited edition silver vinyl (20th October).

The LP captures the mood of the band perfectly. Of Scottish Blood and Sympathies overwhelms the senses with it’s glorious wall of noise that carries a fragile vocal to where we know not.

mp3: Edinburgh School for the Deaf – Of Scottish Blood and Sympathies

Love is Terminal is the epitome of a post-punk classic that brandishes its pop sensibilities with a sharpened knife. I’ll allow you, dear reader, to go through each song and come to your own conclusions. Suffice to say, my limited-edition silver vinyl is secured. I’ll be thrilled to teeny tiny bits when it arrives.

This is an LP for those that enjoy: The Velvet Underground, The Fall, Joy Division, The Jesus and Mary Chain et al. It is by far one of the most important LPs in my collection. It was a once lost but now re-found Scottish classic, thanks to Absolutely Kosher Records.

The LP can be purchased via bandcamp. It’s also currently on pre-order from the likes of Assai Records, Juno Records, Norman Records and Rough Trade, with no doubt many other similar stores likely to add it to their impending arrivals over the coming days.

flimflamfan

JC adds

The write-up today is not mere hyperbole. It’s a record that I wasn’t entirely sure of back in the day, but it has very much grown on me over the years, and I have long come to the conclusion that I wasn’t quite ready, back in 2011, for its sonic magnificence. Surely we’ve all got much-loved albums that took a long time to worm their way into our affections???

Smarter folk like Mike over at Manic Pop Thrills got it right away, with a tremendous review back in 2011 (click here), and in one short phrase he captured it perfectly.

“thrilling proof that rock music can be exciting and beautiful at the same time”.

Jacques the Kipper also raved about it at the time, and included one of the tracks from the album on a homemade ‘best of 2011 compilation CD’ he gifted to me.

Like fff, I’ve got my order in for the vinyl.

Helen Love

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #034

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#034– Helen Love – ”Girl About Town (Damaged Goods ’96)

Dear friends,

to Swansea, Wales we go today, although – let’s face facts – the Welsh are a strange bunch, aren’t they? I mean, the language is pathetic, and their humor, well, it takes getting used to, let’s put it this way. But once you have achieved this, you’re up for a treat. Quite some time ago I bought myself a double album ‘Dial M For Merthyr’, which was – and still is, I suppose – a compilation of Welsh Indie bands from 1997 on Fierce Panda. The music is okay by and large, as it so often is with compilations: killers and fillers, you know what I mean. But it still blows me away each time I look at / listen to it, because:

a) the cover reads: “record hir cymraeg gorau yn byd erioed… mwy na thebyg”, which might or might not translate as “the Scots are going to come and turn our fishing village into a top secret radar establishment!”

b) all over the front cover is Johnny Owen, Welsh bantamweight boxer, in all his glory, jogging near Merthyr bridge. Now, if this weren’t a Welsh compilation, but a Jamaican one, you probably would have seen Usain Bolt on the cover and bloody Beckham if it were UK bands. Why? Because sex sells, we all know this! Now, Johnny Owen, well – and I am trying to remain polite here, I really do – is nothing like that! But I’m sure his mother loved him anyway:

Johnny-Owen-boxer

And also: c) track one, side one is by Teen Anthems and it’s called “Welsh Bands Suck”. And if this weren’t funny enough, the lyrics are: ”oh no, it can’t be true/everybody’s saying Welsh bands are cool/oh no, that can’t be right/ apart from Helen Love they’re a load of shite/oh no, they sing in Welsh: chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck” …. which is just priceless, I always thought!!!

Yes, I might have digressed a little bit, but to have singled out Helen Love as being not shite really offers a useful segue: Helen Love have been around forever, haven’t they (30 years definitely is ‘forever’ in my books)? From scratch on they provided us with a brilliant mix of lo-fi punk rock and bubblegum pop, which never got boring. They always only had one God, and that was Joey Ramone. This ended up in Helen working with Joey and vice versa. Not on this song though, which, regardless of that, is their finest moment in my humble opinion:

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mp3: Helen Love – Girl About Town

When they go “she had her picture in Rolling Stone/she was third from the left behind Joey Ramone/you couldn’t see her face/but I’m sure she looked great anyway”, I nearly wet myself each and every time I hear it.

Years ago I read something somewhere, and I don’t feel ashamed to steal it for using it here, because it pretty much sums up everything you need to know about Helen Love: “Helen Love: sticky as a chewing-gum on the sole of a Converse!”.

Whoever thought of this, he – or she – couldn’t have been more right!

One more thought to leave you with. Some applause should be given to Mr Paul Weller for listening to this song with what must have been a smile on his face and taking the decision not to ask for a co-writing credit. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I should ask that you give a listen to Boy About Town as recorded by The Jam for the 1980 album, Sound Affects.

Enjoy,

Dirk

Bob Dylan, Bryan Ferry

ABOUT THE WEATHER

rain

48 hours ago, some of the most torrential rain I can ever recall fell over much of Scotland in a very short space of time. What made this feel very unusual was that just a couple of hundred miles to the south, much of England was basking in unseasonably warm and sunny weather for what is supposed to be the autumnal month of October.

Many football matches were, unsurprisingly called off due to waterlogged pitches. My team, Raith Rovers, play on an artificial surface which meant the game was never in doubt, which meant I had to make the 70-mile journey from Glasgow to Kirkcaldy on a day when the authorities had issued a ‘don’t travel unless you have to warning’.

Oh, and I was going by train – I don’t drive…I never have although I keep threatening to take lessons. And as you can see from the above picture, quite a number of the train lines were under a lot of water, especially those close to rivers and canals.

What would normally be a two-hour journey at most involving two changes of trains, ended up taking more than four hours, but I’m incredibly grateful to the staff who worked so hard and tirelessly in such miserable conditions to ensure there was at least some service on the least-affected lines. The effort was worth it as I was treated to a decent game of football.

I couldn’t help but quietly sing a particular song to myself as I watched the weather worsen from the comfort and safety of the railway carriage.

mp3: Bryan Ferry – A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

I’d have barely been ten years old when I first heard this. It was, thinking back on it, probably my introduction to the crooning voice of Bryan Ferry. It’s a song that has so much going on throughout – wonky keyboards, crazy strings and soulful backing vocals are just the tip of the iceberg. I had no idea what the song’s bonkers lyrics were actually about, I just loved how infectiously catchy it all was and looking back, it was one of those songs that subconsciously created my love for music that was maybe just a bit out of the norm.

I can tell you when and where found out that it was a cover version. It would have been in 5th year at school and in our common room where we would idle away the time in between lessons. One of our esteemed and elite group (not many folk at my school stayed on beyond the earliest point you could leave) had discovered Bob Dylan and brought in a compilation tape that he insisted we listened to. It included this:-

mp3: Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

It was only then did I realise just how radical the cover version had been. To take a such a folksy ballad and turn it into something so unworldly was bordering on the point of genius. I still can’t get my head around that the original take was such a slow number with a low-key production.

Oh, and I also can’t get to grips with Dylan being just 21 years old when he wrote and recorded it. It’s a fantastic piece of poetry and prose, but surely that’s the voice of someone well into their advancing years?

JC

Wedding Present

THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part One)

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So…..the very large tasks of sharing the singles by The Fall and Pet Shop Boys have been completed. I thought about now turning my attention to a singer or band whose output has been slightly less in number, but as you can see I’ve changed my mind.

The opening sentence of The Wedding Present discography page at wiki states:-

The Wedding Present’s discography consists of 54 singles, 17 extended plays, 9 studio albums, 24 live albums and 21 compilation albums.

It’s gonna be a long ride….and I hope you’re all up for it.

There’ll be a lot of things over the next year-and-a-bit lifted from previous witterings on the blog as so many of the 45s have been written about already.

It’s time to head back to 24 May 1985, and the very first single, and b-side, released on 7″ via the newly formed Reception Records.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Go Out And Get ‘Em Boy
mp3: The Wedding Present – The Moment Before (Everything’s Spoiled Again)

500 copies were pressed up. Later in the year, it was re-released on City Slang Records, again in fairly limited numbers and with different artwork. Both songs were later included on the compilation album Tommy, released in 1988.

In 2019, Optic Nerve Records brought out a fresh pressing of the debut single, on white vinyl, and using the same sleeve as had been used on the Reception Records release.

As calling cards go, it’s not too shabby, although the lo-fi nature of the production kind of gives away that things were basic in the studio and money was tight.

The Wedding Present line-up back then was David Gedge (vocals, guitar), Peter Solowka (guitar), Keith Gregory (bass) and Shaun Charman (drums). However, it’s not Shaun who is drumming on the a-side of the debut. He would later explain:-

“The reason why…..is because I couldn’t play the drums well enough, and thought it would be a better single if I got somebody else in – I still think so. I asked Julian Sowa, the drummer of the band I played the bass in, to play for me.

“The b-side has a slow bit in the middle. The reason I could play that song is because it had the slow bit. I ran out of puff, had a bit of a rest and then launched into the second half of it. That’s how the first single came about.”

JC

Whiteout

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #376: WHITEOUT

Whiteout formed in Greenock in 1991, briefly gaining a bit of fame in the Britpop era, although their best chart position for any single was #72, while the debut album stalled at #71.

As the promo photo above indicates, they were on Silvertone Records, the label that had brought Stone Roses to the attention of the masses. Whiteout had a reputation as a decent live act, thanks in part to touring in front of large audiences as support for The Charlatans and Pulp, and they were also on the road alongside Oasis when that band was just getting things going.

I’ve only one of their songs, and it comes courtesy of its inclusion on a compilation CD which celebrated songs recorded at Park Lane Studios in Glasgow:-

mp3: Whiteout – Jackie’s Racing (alternate mix)

The single version of the song was the one that took them to #72 in the charts back in February 1995.

JC

Echo & The Bunnymen

SHOULD’VE BEEN A SINGLE ?(4)

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I kind of forgot about this series…….

A reminder that it’s designed to suggest that a singer/band and/or record label missed a trick by not issuing a particular track as a single.

Heaven Up Here, the second album from Echo & The Bunnymen, was released on 30 May 1981. It wasn’t preceded by the release of any single, and indeed only one of its tracks, A Promise was released on the 45rpm format, and not until 10 July, some six weeks later.

I don’t know why this was the case given the quality of the material on the album. Maybe everyone had a listen and felt that while the songs were first-rate, none of them really stood out as having the potential to make an impact on daytime or commercial radio. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the band’s previous singles had barely dented the charts, and indeed A Promise stalled at #49, although I’ve long advocated that if it had been released a few weeks in advance of the album instead of six weeks after, then it would have cracked the Top 20.

Heaven Up Here had entered the album charts at #10 on the week of its release. It continued to sell in decent enough number for the next month or so before just about slipping out of the Top 75. The release of A Promise did give it the expected and hoped-for boost in mid-summer, and it climbed back into the Top 40. But after that, it was a gradual drift back down the charts, disappearing by the end of August. Surely a second single would have boosted sales, especially if it had been the song from which the album took its name:-

mp3: Echo & The Bunnymen – Heaven Up Here

Go on…..admit it, it makes you want to throw back the years and shake all your limbs in a totally uncontrollable fashion.

JC

101'ers

ONE SONG ON THE HARD DRIVE (3)

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Last time out in the occasional series, I featured the one song I have by Nightmares In Wax, courtesy of it being on the compilation CD Indie Scene 80.

Today, I’m leaning on another CD from that particular family:-

mp3: The 101’ers – Keys To Your Heart

Originally released on Chiswick Records in 1976, it was included on Indie Scene 77.

I probably don’t need to tell the backstory, but maybe there’s some who don’t know. The 101’ers were a London pub band, formed in 1974, whose main form of music was rockabilly covers alongside a few originals. Keys To Your Heart was their debut single, but by the time it was released, they had spilt as their lead singer and main songwriter had left to join another band. His name was Joe Strummer and his new band were called The Clash.

JC

Electronic

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (7)

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Yup. It’s come out in the 7″ lucky dip. I wrote about it in October 2013. I’m more than happy to cut’n’paste as I can’t really better what was said at the time.

When Barney met Johnny, and they team up with Neil. Proof that supergroups sometimes do work:-

mp3 : Electronic – Getting Away With It

The debut single. Hugely anticipated on release, it didn’t disappoint. Reviews were almost universally and deservedly positive:-

NME : “The most complete pop record of the week, by an infinite margin… A lovely airy melody drifts in and out of the song; gently weighted with obtuse, lovelorn one-liners… The record somehow manages to be much more than the sum of its parts and stubbornly refuses to give up its element of mystery”

Sounds : “It’s nothing shocking, nothing that surprising, it’s just that every time you think you’re tired of it you can’t help flipping back the stylus to catch that chorus”.

Over the next decade or so, Electronic would write and record some brilliant dance music with some of the best guitar work that Johnny Marr ever laid down. But they never again got as close again to the sound of Italian House that was all the rage for a while at the end of the 80s.

The orchestral arrangement came courtesy of Anne Dudley of The Art Of Noise.

The b-side is total house music and was for a number of years uses as the theme tune for a football highlights programme here in Scotland:-

mp3 : Electronic – Lucky Bag (edit)

A #12 hit in the UK.