Pet Shop Boys

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : #33

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Pop Art (The Hits) – Pet Shop Boys (2003)

OK.  It’s a cheat.

I’m copping out of choosing a particular album by Pet Shop Boys in favour of Pop Art (The Hits), a 3xCD release in a box from 2003.

The small sticker on the front of the box says:-

Special Limited Edition Triple CD features 45 remastered tracks including West End Girls, It’s A Sin, What Have I Done To Deserve This?, Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money), Se a vide e, Go West plus 2 new songs, Miracles and Flamboyant.  Includes bonus 10 track remixes CD.

I’m currently featuring all the Pet Shop Boys singles every Sunday, so there really isn’t any need to outline why this collection is appearing in the rundown.  It’s utterly joyous, and with the fall in prices for CDs in recent years, it can be picked up for a lot less than I paid for it back in 2003.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Can You Forgive Her (Rollo Mix)

Originally found on CD1 when the single was released in June 1993, it was included as Track 1 of the Mix disc within the box.

JC

Spare Snare

(BONUS POST): A SIT-DOWN WITH JAN BURNETT (PART TWO)

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Welcome back to the second part of my recent sit down with Jan Burnett, frontman of Dundee-formed Spare Snare, whose 12th studio album, The Brutal will be released on 12 May 2023.

You’ll have gathered from yesterday’s posting that Spare Snare are not your run-of-the-mill band.   The fact that all six members give priority to their family and work lives means any musical activities have to be planned out well in advance, something which was very much to the fore when it came to writing, rehearsing and recording The Brutal.

Spare Snare have long had the habit of developing new material by getting together in  the space where recording is taking place, and working on the songs in an organic way but things had to be different this time around as a result of them engaging Steve Albini to come over to Scotland for a week to sprinkle his fairy dust on the music in an Edinburgh studio owned and run by Rod Jones of Idlewild.

This meant that the band had to do a lot of advance work on the new songs, and so they would get together, either in evenings or at weekends on at least a weekly basis in rehearsal spaces in Dundee. This involved Jan travelling the 80 miles, often by public transport, from Glasgow where he has, for many years, lived and worked.  It was all part of a process whereby the new songs would more well beyond the state of being mere demos by the time they went into the studio.

The connection with Albini didn’t come purely by chance.   A few years ago, funding was obtained from the government agency Creative Scotland to have him come over in February 2018 to deliver a workshop for engineers/producers, after which he would work with Spare Snare over a number of days in the studio owned and run by Chemikal Underground Records.   Partly due to the time constraints, the band elected to pick out 10 tracks from their back catalogue that they felt would benefit most from Albini’s way of working and signature sound.

The project was an overwhelming success.  All those involved in the workshop were delighted with the way it was delivered and the time in the studio led to the release of Sounds, recorded by Steve Albini,  later in the year by Chute Records.  There was a great deal of critical acclaim for the new record, especially in the way that a number of long-time fan favourites had been re-imagined, and the vinyl edition very quickly sold out, leading later on to arrangements being put in place for Past Night From Glasgow to give it a re-press, complete with new artwork, in 2021.

mp3: Spare Snare – We Are The Snare (Sounds version)

Albini took his leave of Scotland, saying that he had loved the experience, and he’d certainly be up for working with Spare Snare again in the future.   Chats got underway and progress began to be made, only for things to almost derail because of COVID and the restrictions placed on travelling.  Jan worked tirelessly to keep the channels of communication open, as well as making plans and arrangements to raise the finance required for such a venture, with the aim being to have a new album of entirely new material recorded to mark the band’s 30th anniversary.

Everything did manage to fall into place and the recording sessions took place in October 2022.  The exactness of it all also meant that aspirations to incorporate brass into some of the songs could be realised, with both Terry Edwards (The Higsons, Gallon Drunk, Tindersticks etc.) and Gary Barnacle (The Clash, The Ruts, Soft Cell etc)  putting time in their diaries to come up from London to Edinburgh to play as guests.

Jan told a great story in our interview about how he came to first meet Gary;  Jan’s not one for name-dropping or the showbiz life, but he was invited to Dave Ball of Soft Cell’s 60th birthday party, during which he found himself chatting to Gary and getting on really well to the extent that he later sent him a copy of Sounds with a request that he come up to the studio when Albini flew in, one that Gary had no hesitation in accepting.

I was really surprised to learn that despite Terry and Gary both being on hundreds of records over the past 40 years or so, they had never previously met, far less worked together, so new ground is being broken on this new album.

There’s an incredible sense of pride from Jan when he talks about The Brutal.  The fact that, after so many years of working in a particular way, Spare Snare adapted comfortably to a whole new process which proved to be hugely enjoyable, both in terms of the rehearsals and the time in the studio, speaks volumes about their abilities as musicians and the fact they are very much a group of friends going back decades.

That sense of pride extends to all the band members.  Most Spare Snare records are released in a low-key manner, partly as the time constraints on everyone really restricts how much can be delivered in the way of promotional activities.  This time around, the release of the album is going to be accompanied by a week-long tour of venues in England, with Scottish dates later on at weekends.   There’s a real desire and willingness to get the album out to as wide a crowd as possible, with a collective belief that it is as strong a collection of tunes as any they have ever delivered.

So…..what is the TVV verdict on The Brutal?

In a year when there have already been a number of genuinely exciting new albums from, among others, HiFi Sean and David McAlmont, Robert Forster, Steve Mason, Gorillaz, and Everything But The Girl (and no doubt many more that I haven’t yet picked up on), the latest record from Spare Snare is a standout.

It’s a compact effort, with its ten tracks coming in at around 35 minutes all told.  I played it with a pre-conceived idea of what an Albini-engineered album was likely to sound like based on listening and enjoying his work with The Wedding Present, Pixies, The Breeders, PJ Harvey and so on, but found myself really appreciating how different and diverse things sounded on this occasion.  I really shouldn’t have been caught out in that way given that Albini is far removed from being a one-trick pony, having worked with, among others, The Auteurs, Low, Cinerama and Jarvis Cocker, none of whom relied extensively or exclusively on guitars to make great albums.

Jan had told me a while back that Terry Edwards and Gary Barnacle were only going to be in the studio on one of the five days in which recordings were taking place, and so I was anticipating their contributions to be quite minimal.  It was a very pleasant surprise to hear them playing on at least half of the album, and on every occasion fitting in perfectly with all that was going on around them, a real testament to the way the album had been engineered, produced and mixed.

But please, don’t be under the impression that the brilliance of this record is down solely to the magician behind the desk.

Far from it.

Spare Snare have very much upped their game on this occasion. As I outlined earlier, they took a different approach in the advance planning for this album, working and preparing harder than ever before. By the time they went into the studio, they knew they had a set of very strong songs, their first new material since the release of Unicorn in 2018; by the time they came out of the studio a week later, they had very much risen to the occasion and, to this particular set of ears, delivered the performance of a lifetime.

In summary, they nailed it.

Thus far, I’ve only listened to a digital copy of The Brutal.  The vinyl will be with me shortly, and I know that it is going to be given repeated spins over the summer months and beyond till I reach the stage where I’m 100% aware of every note and every pause for breath along the way.  It’s an album I don’t ever imagine I’ll grow tired of with each listen.

Here’s 100-odd seconds of magic from it:-

As mentioned above, Spare Snare are hitting the road to promote the album’s release.

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North Shields, Sheffield, Leeds, Trowbridge, Brighton and London from Monday to Saturday next week.   The fact that they all have to return to work immediately after means that the Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow shows all have to be at weekends.

I’m heading down, with Rachel, to catch the show at Wharf Chambers in Leeds next Wednesday night.  I’ll let you all know, in due course, how it turned out.

The Brutal should be available, certainly in the UK, from your local independent record store as from Friday 12 May.  It can also be ordered from this bandcamp site, along with many other great items from the back catalogue.

JC

Martin Stephenson & The Daintees

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : #34

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Boat To Bolivia – Martin Stephenson and The Daintees (1986)

It was the power of the cathode ray that brought Martin Stephenson and The Daintees to my attention.

Whistle Test on BBC 2.  It proved to be love at first sight and sound. Martin played a lively but short instrumental on an acoustic guitar. The tune was called A Tribute to The Late Rev Gary Davis. I’ll confess I had no idea who the tribute was aimed at.

He then changed his guitar as it was time to play a second song alongside his band, The Daintees.  It was at this point he discovered his guitar strap wasn’t fastened properly as he almost dropped the precious instrument. He gave a sheepish look at the camera, said ‘God Bless’ into his microphone, before strumming the opening notes of Crocodile Cryer.

I was so taken by the song that I went out the next day and bought the album it was included on.  Boat To Bolivia turned out to be their debut long-player.  With a matter of months, I had to go out and buy a new copy of the album as I had played it so often, usually in a drunken but enthusiastic stupor, that I often dropped the stylus and caused havoc. Late 1986 was not a particularly easy time in my life….

Boat To Bolivia is a wonderful listen.   There’s a real breadth of musical influences across its eleven tracks*, and many of Martin’s lyrics are incredibly personal –  miscarriages that his mum had suffered and his sister’s lesbianism are among the subject matters – but they also come laced with gentle humour and affection associated with those who come from the working class communities of the north-east of England.

*the title song Boat To Bolivia wasn’t included in the original album, but was added to later pressings.

Over the course of the next six years, during which I went through all sorts of turmoil in my life (all of it self-inflicted!!),  the one constant was the music of The Daintees.  They were a hard-working band, constantly recording and touring, and so the opportunities to see them play live were numerous.  And they never disappointed.  Well, maybe once, but that occasion in itself is a story.  Any of their first three studio albums would have found a place in this rundown, but in all honesty, the debut is the one that not only has stood the test of time, but continues to be one that never fails to blow away any dark clouds that may be circling above my head.

mp3:  Martin Stephenson & The Daintees – Look Down, Look Down

Martin Stephenson is still making excellent roots-based music as a solo artist, as well as occasionally getting the old band back together and performing.He never seems to stand still as all the news from this, the official website reveals.

JC

Spare Snare

(BONUS POST): A SIT-DOWN WITH JAN BURNETT (PART ONE)

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TVV and T(n)VV have been on the go for almost 17 years, but today’s bonus post marks a first.

A few weeks back, I had the immense pleasure of chatting for more than an hour in a Glasgow coffee shop with Jan Burnett, the frontman of Spare Snare, all of which was recorded for the purposes of me then pulling something together for the blog.  Such was the extent of the chat that I’ve decided to break the piece into two parts, the first of which will cover more general areas, while I’ll return tomorrow to look specifically at the recording, release and promotion of the band’s new album, The Brutal.

The upcoming release of the new album marks the 30th Anniversary of Spare Snare. It all began back in 1992 in Jan’s bedroom in Dundee, the fourth-largest city in Scotland, where he wrote and recorded his initial songs, releasing them later on his own record label, Chute Records.   The debut 45 was picked up by the American-based Prospective Records and Jan was soon on the receiving end of an invitation to tour America and play at a music seminar in New York at the tail end of 1994.

Spare Snare quickly became a four-piece band with the addition of three more Dundee musicians – Alan Cormack, Barry Gibson and Paul Esposito – and after the tour was over they accepted an invitation to record a session for John Peel in January 1995.  The following month, the band recorded a debut album, Live At Home, on eight-track, again for release on Chute Records here in the UK and by Prospective Records in the USA.  The album was received very positively and the band was invited onto the bill for the Reading Festival in 1995 where six songs from their set were recorded and broadcasted by Peel, within 20 minutes of them leaving the stage, as part of the Radio 1 coverage of the event.  The year was rounded off by one of the songs from the debut album being voted in at #32 by the listeners of Peel’s show in the Festive Fifty rundown:-

mp3: Spare Snare – Bugs

“I’m not very good at showing off in terms of how great we are, cos I don’t do that.  I’d rather people found us, whether at gigs or through the records.” – Jan Burnett, in conversation with JC, March 2023.

Those words are very much at the heart of why Spare Snare are probably Scotland’s best-kept secret.   Thirty years in the business, with a back catalogue of eleven studio albums that have been augmented by compilations and, if Discogs is 100% accurate, a further twenty-four singles/EPs across a diverse range of indie labels, including che and Deceptive.

It’s really an impossible task to suggest where anyone new to Spare Snare should start, but probably the most comprehensive oversight of their work can be found on a release from 2021.

The Complete BBC Radio Sessions 1995-2018 contains 42 tracks, sourced from three John Peel sessions (1995, 1998 and 2001), two Marc Riley sessions (2009 and 2018), along with numerous sessions and live recordings for BBC Radio Scotland which were broadcast in 1995, 1996, 1999, 2004 and 2018.

mp3: Spare Snare – I Am God (Marc Riley Session, 2018)

It is also where you will find their take on Amazing Grace which was aired in 2007 during  ‘Good Morning Sunday with Aled Jones’, a show in which the former teenage chorister turned presenter/broadcaster mixed music and discussions about religious and ethical issues with faith representatives.

mp3: Spare Snare – Amazing Grace

One of the most fascinating things about the box set is that it enables listeners to appreciate how much the band evolved over the years.  It would have been so easy just to take what had brought them to attention in 1995 and gone down a path of churning out variants on a similar theme in the years that followed.  Things have been kept fresh and the musicians have never fallen into any sort of rut.

Here’s a link to where you can pick up a copy.

Jan is, quite rightly, incredibly proud of all that Spare Snare have done over the past 30 years.  While the band was very much the be-all and end-all in the early years, it inevitably reached a stage where being full-time musicians wasn’t a viable option.  The current line-up of Spare Snare is six-strong, with Jan, Alan and Barry still involved as they were back in the mid-90s, while Graham Ogston and Adam Lockhart have been part of things for around 20 years, with Michael Lambert being the relative newcomer, although he’s been known to the rest of the band for around a decade, so it’s accurate to describe the six-piece as being close friends with one another.  It’s now very much a situation where family and work lives take priority, and a great deal of forward planning is involved when it comes to band activities.

Our chat was wide-ranging and space doesn’t allow me to cover everything, even across a two-part feature.   I learned that Jan has always been astute in his workings with the music industry.  The band has never had a manager, but he was still able to negotiate a position where the full copyright issues came back to him after a relatively short period of time, unlike the situation most new and emerging bands find themselves in.  It’s also been one of the factors that has helped ensure the longevity of Spare Snare, where more or less everything can be done in-house, including the distribution of any new music.  Costs are kept down, and the band members are never under pressure to tour/perform to pay off any sort of debts.  Looking at it as an outsider, there really is much to admire about the way Jan and his friends have navigated their way through the business over the past 30 years.

The biggest thing to emerge from the chat was the passion that Jan has for music, going way back to before he picked up any instrument or wrote out some lyrics. He talked about his working-class parents being totally into music, but never having enough disposable income to build up any sort of collection of vinyl. Their love was to go to gigs at the Caird Hall in Dundee, to which Jan began to be taken from 1974 onwards on the basis that a ticket was cheaper than paying a babysitter.   He talked about seeing the big pop acts of the day such as David Essex and the Bay City Rollers, and later on being taken to see Dr Feelgood and Elvis Costello & The Attractions among many others – always up in the balcony as the seats were cheaper, and it was safer for a young kid to be; he’s in no doubt that this very early exposure to live music was the thing which ignited the lifelong passion.

He was just the right age for to immerse himself in the explosion in synth music at the start of the 80s.  Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and Soft Cell were among his first loves, and it was the former’s connection with Factory Records that led him to New Order/Joy Division and then going back into the post-punk era.    All of these influences were at the forefront of the earliest bedroom recordings.  He’s a self-taught musician/performer/writer, someone who has never learned to read music (something, as he pointed out, he has in common with OMD), who has just been happy to pick things up and improve as he’s gone along, acknowledging fully the vital and contributions of everyone who has ever been part of Spare Snare over the years.

He’s become a self-confessed collector/hoarder of music, someone whose collection of albums and CDs now sits at around 15,000 in number across all sorts of genres, although his real passion remains towards electronica rather than guitar-based music.

Knowing all this, I ended the interview by asking Jan to curate his ‘Fantasy Festival’.   My idea was that Spare Snare would play as headliners, and that five other bands/musicians would support in the role as special guests – I thought it was a variation on the ‘Dream Dinner Party Guests’ that you often see in magazines/newspaper features.  The only proviso was that the musicians/bands had to be alive…..

After much thought, he offered the following.  Iggy Pop, R.E.M., New Order (preferably with Hooky), Soft Cell and Pet Shop Boys.   The man certainly has great taste.

You might wonder why I’ve gone into such detail and gone off at tangents today.  But all of this backstory fits into the way Spare Snare have gone about recording the new album, working for a week in an Edinburgh studio with Steve Albini, and having a couple of high-profile guest musicians join them to play on the record. I hope you’ll come back tomorrow for Part Two.

JC

Simple Minds

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : #35 is

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Empires and Dance – Simple Minds (1980)

Here’s where I begin to wonder if I’m boring you with repetition in this rundown.

I don’t think any of the albums featured thus far will have raised any eyebrows, and I’m sure that none of the remaining 34 will be the least bit surprising.  But that’s the problem of having been churning out the blog for what is now coming up for 17 years – I’ve probably said all I really need to say, or indeed want to say, on so many records, groups or singers. But here’s something a bit different about one of the best-known groups to ever emerge out of Glasgow.

I’ve never hidden my love for early-era Simple Minds, right up to New Gold Dream, and some of what would appear on 1984’s Sparkle In The Rain.  Not too long ago, I had a long chat with a good friend who is somewhere around 10 years younger than me.  His earliest memories of the band is Once Upon A Time, the 1985 ‘stadium-rock’ effort that took Simple Minds to a bigger audience, at the cost of leaving behind the sounds that had made them an essential part of the post-punk era.  He is firmly of the belief that songs such as Alive and Kicking, All The Things She Said and Sanctify Yourself are their greatest songs.  He maintains this view, and it’s one I admire, as he has gone into the back catalogue and is also someone who is not afraid to champion great music from many eras that are alien to him.

I, of course, disagree with him.  In the strongest possible terms!  But, as I’ve said many times in many places, musical taste is very much a personal thing and there’s not really a right or wrong answer when it all comes down to it.

The odds on anyone out there on Planet Earth coming up with the same 60 albums as will be found in this rundown will be astronomical.  Indeed, I think it’s nigh on impossible.  Empires and Dance might feature on a few lists, but there’s plenty folk out there who, if any Simple Minds record was to feature, would offer up something else. And fair play to them.

This is a record that should have been massive, except that the record company made a mess of things.  And in particular, one song suffered really badly:-

mp3: Simple Minds – I Travel

I’ve said before, (see what I was saying at the beginning of this post!!!!), that it’s a cross between disco-stomping Giorgio Moroder and early experimental Roxy Music, but played at 100mph, coming with an almighty punch in which every member of the band played/sang as if their very future existence depended on it.   The remainder of the album goes to corners and places that not many people in Glasgow were aware of back in 1980. It’s an album that has aged quite spectacularly, with folk as diverse as James Dean Bradfield, John Foxx and Julian Cope among the many who have given it the highest possible praise.

But as my mate would say, it’s not a patch on Once Upon A Time……..

JC

Cramps

(BONUS POST) : ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #016

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#016– The Cramps – ‚Blue Moon Baby’ (Big Beat Records ’78)

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Hello friends,

It occurred to me that this series isn’t really in favor of our carbon footprint, is it? I mean, we flew to Australia for The Church, headed back to England for The Clash … and now we proceed to the States for The Cramps. Then again, let’s be honest: by and large we don’t care all too much in real life, do we, so why should we care here and now?!

Furthermore, The Cramps are worth it! Let’s face it: they were – without a shadow of a doubt – the scariest band on the planet! Why? Well, because they really lived it—it wasn’t just about being cool or rebellious, but about going through life by your own rules. Loads of weirdos made garage rock that sounded like the stuff the Cramps cranked out, but only the Cramps made being creepy goth freaks an entire lifestyle. And if you ever had the chance to see them on stage, you will know what I mean – their sets were meant the way they were presented, there was no false demand for attention!

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:

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mp3:  The Cramps – Blue Moon Baby

The original was written and performed by David Fatalsky, or, as you and I know him better, Dave “Diddle” Day, in April 1957. And again, I went for a B-Side, the B-Side of “Can Your Pussy Do The Dog” from 1985, the A-Side being absolutely ace as well …. so better let’s finish for today before I think all of the above over and change my mind about my song choice ….

See you soon, take care, all the best, enjoy, etc.

Dirk

Kendrick Lamar

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : #36

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DAMN. – Kendrick Lamar (2017)

As with the Go-Betweens, the album from today’s featured artist is not his ‘best’. In this instance, I’m restricted by the rule about time of purchase.

It was SWC who brought my attention to Kendrick Lamar.  He put up a number of postings about the latest superstar of rap music that got me listening and thinking that there was something worth delving into.  I can’t really explain why I missed out on all that was written at the time about Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2012) and To Pimp A Butterfly (2015) other than I wasn’t paying attention.  Maybe I had a sense of being too old and too white to look to pursue any further interest in the genre.

But I am very grateful to SWC.  He didn’t go into any overdrive about Kendrick Lamar other than to point out that he had a lot to say about the social, political and economic injustices facing black communities in America, and that he was doing so through what was not a new form of rap but instead was one which seemed to take things to a different level.  My interest was piqued.

I eventually bought DAMN. a few months after its release in April 2017.  The fact I was now aware of his name meant that I did pay attention to what was being written about the new record.  Kendrick Lamar seemed to be featuring everywhere, with all sorts of media outlets falling over themselves to offer up views, thoughts and opinions.    There was near universal acclaim.  I wasn’t sure if the praise was truly merited, or the result of everyone jumping on a particular bandwagon and creating massive hype.

With the album taking its place in this rundown, I think it’s fair to assume that I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t all about hype.

However, this is one of those instances where the cliche “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” comes to mind.  I’m not really skilled enough to analyse what it is about this record that made it so special that it became the first non-jazz or classical album to earn a Pulitzer Prize for Music.  I just find it to be a compelling listen.

mp3: Kendrick Lamar – DNA.

JC

Various

(BONUS POST) ON THIS INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE WORKER

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mp3: Various – You Always Went Too Far

Beastie Boys ft. Q-Tip – Get It Together
Talking Heads – Psycho Killer
Hifi Sean ft. Crystal Waters  – Testify
Steve Mason – Travelling Hard
Rhianna – S.O.S. (Rescue Me)
Soft Cell – Seedy Films
Leftfield ft. Toni Halliday – Original (Radio Edit)
Joy Division – Atrocity Exhibition
Bjork – Big Time Sensuality
Urusei Yatsura – Glo Starz
Wire – Three Girl Rhumba
British Sea Power  – Remember Me
Tracey Thorn – Babies
Honeyblood – Bud
The Wannadies- Hit
Ash– Burn Baby Burn
The Wedding Present – Gone

Comes in at 18 seconds over the hour.

JC

Go-Betweens

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : #37

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Before Hollywood – The Go-Betweens (1983)

This was a particularly tough one.  It took me a few days to decide which Go-Betweens album to include in the rundown.  I’m also thinking, as I type these words, that if I had gone for one of the others, there’s a distinct possibility that it would have placed higher than #37.

Before Hollywood is not their ‘best’ album, but it’s the one that means the most to me. It’s another record that takes me back to 1993, moving out of the parental home and into a shared student flat, trying to find ways to stand on my own two feet.

One of the two friends who I was sharing with had an astonishing collection of records as well as a state of the art stereo system on which to play them.  One of the singles he played more often than others was Cattle and Cane, but he also gave regular airings to the band’s new album.  The continued exposure to the album could have worked two ways – I could have got so sick and tired of hearing it that I’d have hated it, or I would soon get so lovingly acquainted with it that I could recite every single lyric.   I don’t think I need to spell out which way it went.

The only thing was that I didn’t go out and buy my own copy of the album, not even when that particular flat sharing arrangement came to an end after a year and I moved into a different location in a larger flat, not too far as it turns out where, many years later, I’d settle down in Villain Towers.  I only got round to buying Before Hollywood in the mid-80s*. Indeed, Liberty Belle and The Black Diamond Express, released in 1986, was the first Go-Betweens album I bought immediately on its release, and it came very close to making the rundown as it reminded me of a different flat-sharing situation in Edinburgh.  But then again, 16 Lovers Lane, released in 1988, was also under very serious consideration, on the basis that I think it is their ‘best’ album.

The thing about Before Hollywood is that it’s an album in which the standout track, Cattle and Cane, is so ridiculously far ahead of the others that there’s a temptation to think of them as not being great songs in their own rights.  It’s also fair to conclude that it’s a record on which the songs of Grant McLennan are way ahead, in terms of quality, than those of Robert Forster. Indeed, Robert would soon admit that listening to Before Hollywood was a real wake-up call in that he realised he had to up his game in terms of his songwriting.

mp3: The Go-Betweens – That Way

The gloriously uplifting album closer. It was, and still is, my cue to turn the record over and listen again.

*I know that in setting out the rules for this rundown, any album in the rundown had to have been bought at the time of its release.  In this instance, the fact it was owned by a flatmate and there was no need for a duplicate purchase allows it a free pass.

JC

Pet Shop Boys

PET SHOP BOYS SINGLES (Part Fifteen)

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The series has reached 1999, and if I now begin to appear a little unsure of myself, then it’s all down to the fact that I’ve only just got familiar with the songs as part of the idea to do this series as I didn’t buy any of the singles or the next album at the time.   Indeed, after 1997,  not too many Pet Shop Boys songs were picked up at the time of release.

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Two years after the Savoy Theatre residency and the release of the Noel Coward cover version, Pet Shop Boys came back with a single of their own,

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Any More

Released on 19 July 1999, it went straight into the charts at #15.   But, unlike so many of their other brand-new singles from the previous years, this one immediately plummeted right back out of the charts, dropping to #38 and then #57 before disappearing altogether.   In fact, this was the pattern that would be repeated with every subsequent PSB single thereafter, with fans buying the CD/vinyl/download within the first days of it being available, thus delivering a more than decent first-week chart position which would prove to be its peak.

As tunes go, it’s nothing terribly special.  I’d never accuse PSB of being boring (see what I did there?), but this is one which doesn’t have much in the earworm stakes.  Having said that, it borders on genius that the lines in all the verses seem to consist solely of questions.

2 x CDs and a cassette version were in the shops, along with a 12″ maxi single.  The vinyl offered 40 minutes worth of mixes of the single across six different versions.  CD1 had the single, two new tracks and the promo video, while CD2 had two remixes plus a cover version.

CD1

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Silver Age
mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Screaming

Silver Age is a slow, almost ponderous number that took a few listens to grow on me.  The fact I came to it in 2023 rather than 1999 might have something to do with it…..I spent ages trying to recall what it reminded me of, rather than taking it on its own merits.  Oh, and in the end I kept thinking of Portishead but with the hip-hop elements all removed.

Screaming also starts off in a ponderous manner. Until the 18-second mark.  Turns out that it had originally been released at the end of 1998 on Psycho: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture, a CD tie-in with the Gus Van Sant remake of the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece. As b-sides go, it’s good fun.

CD2

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Je t’aime… moi non plus

The thing is, although made available on CD2, it isn’t really a Pet Shop Boys recording.

It was originally included on a September 1998 release called We Love You, a collaboration involving modern artists and musicians.  It comprised a book of 118 pages and a CD with 18 songs.  PSB teamed up with Sam Taylor-Wood for a bonkers take on the infamous Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg duet, with the artist taking the female vocal role while the male vocal is computerised, but most likely Chris Lowe having a bit of fun.   Make of it what you will. I think it’s a load of nonsense, albeit it occasionally threatens to break into the sort of tune Air were releasing around the same time.

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The next single came out on 27 September 1999.

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – New York City Boy

Was this written as a sort of ‘thank you’ to Village People for Go West?  It’s certainly a real throwback to disco sounds of the late 70s.

It did marginally better than the previous single in that it reached #14.

Again, there were 2 x CDs, cassette, and a 12″ maxi single.  Once again, the vinyl offered 40 minutes worth of mixes of the single, but this time across five different versions.  CD1 had the single, one new track, one remix and the promo video, while CD2 had the single, one other new track, one different remix and some video footage of a solar eclipse, the reason for which I’ll get to shortly.

CD1

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – The Ghost of Myself

Once again, I find myself really enjoying a PSB b-side.   This is a track that wouldn’t have been out of place among the material released across the earliest of the albums. As I said, this is the era that has taken me almost quarter-of-a century to catch up with, and this is one of the few songs from the period that I regret taking so long to pick up on.

CD2

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Casting A Shadow

On the morning of 11th August 1999, part of south-west England gets to experience the first total solar eclipse over the British mainland for over 70 years. BBC Radio 1 marks the occasion with a live show from Cornwall at which the Pet Shop Boys perform.  The duo have written a new instrumental for performance to be broadcast during the actual eclipse itself. Said instrumental, which goes through a number of tempo changes (and which at its fastest, certainly owes a debt to Giorgio Moroder), appears as the extra track on CD2 of the next single.

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The fact that the previous two singles hadn’t really set any heather on fire is perhaps one explanation as to why it took until 3 January 2000 before the release of the next one.

In the interim, the duo’s seventh studio album, Nightlife, had been released on 8 October 1999.  The artwork around the album was a continuation of what had been used on its preview singles, and quite a number of critics took the opportunity to ridicule the new look.  And, if we are being honest, it wasn’t a style which was well received by many fans.

The album was supported by a world tour called Dreamworld that got underway in Miami on 20 October and would continue through to 12 February with a show in Mannheim.  The calling points were America, Canada, Germany, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and France. The costumes and wigs were elaborate and were often more commented on in reviews than the actual music. 

Tours are normally very good at giving life to new records, but Nightlife, certainly in comparison to the previous albums, sold in disappointing numbers.  It entered the charts at #7, the first time a PSB album had missed the Top 5.   Within two weeks, it was outside the Top 75 and destined before too long for the bargain bins. 

The January 2000 single was lifted from Nightlife

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk

It’s a fine song, albeit it doesn’t quite live up to its majestic title.  It’s also still part of the current set lists, albeit in an unplugged version with Neil Tennant strumming away on an acoustic guitar.  It actually works really well.

The best-performing of the three singles from Nightlife in that it reached #8, but that was possibly to do with the timing of its release in the first week of a new year when there are less new singles competing for attention and sales.

This time round, the cassette was dropped in favour of  3 x CDs, and a 12″ single. The vinyl had four remixes of the single, offering up more than 33 minutes worth of music.  CD1 had the single, two previously unreleased songs and the video.

CD1

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Lies
mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Sail Away

Lies is a club stomper. Chris Lowe is on lead vocal.  Yup, he sings on this one rather than talks his way through it, albeit he’s greatly assisted with the soulful, diva-style backing vocals.   This would not have been out of place on the Club Ibiza type CD compilations that were flooding the market at the turn of the century.  It’s great fun.

Sail Away is a cover of a song written in the 1940s by Noel Coward. It had been included on the 1998 charity album, Twentieth-Century Blues, which had been curated by Neil Tennant and involved modern-day artists, reinterpreting some of Coward’s best know songs, with the profits going to the Red Hot Aids Charitable Trust.

CD2 had three mixes of the single, while CD3 has a live version of ‘You Only Tell Me…’ along with live versions of Always On My Mind and Being Boring.  As such, there’s nothing further to offer from the release.

No more singles were lifted from Nightlife.   The duo remained on tour for much of 2000 and included their first ever Glastonbury performance.  2001 was taken up by  the staging of Closer To Heaven a co-written by the Pet Shop Boys, something they had been working on since 1996.  The show opened in May 2001 and ran until October 2001.  Reviews were, at best, mixed.

The next new PSB recorded material would surface in March 2002.  I’ll hopefully see you next week…..

JC

Twilight Sad

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #353: THE TWILIGHT SAD

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You’ll all be fed up with me lavishing so much praise on The Twilight Sad over the years that I’m probably just as well to go straight to the music.

mp3: The Twilight Sad – Alphabet (alt version)

Originally appearing on their third studio album, No One Can Ever Know (2012), a live stripped-back version was later recorded for inclusion on N/O/C/E/K, a limited edition of 300 CD EPs that were sold at live shows at smaller venues in Scotland later in the year.

I’ve got #53.

JC

Chemical Brothers

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : #38

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Surrender  – The Chemical Brothers (1999)

“A dance album of immense appeal to many people who wouldn’t normally buy anything associated with the genre.  JC aka The Vinyl Villain, January 2019

It’s getting desperate having to quote myself as justification for something!!

But, as I admitted in the same piece, 1999 was a year when I bought a few similar sort of albums, one of which – Beaucoup Fish by Underworld  – has already featured in this rundown.

Surrender on CD proved to be the sort of album that I could play in its entirety and then not return to it for a few years, but when eventually doing so would find myself falling crazily in love with it all over again.

I actually came up with a cunning plan to prevent it being neglected, and that was to ensure it was listened to at least once during a suntan session on a Caribbean beach; like all cunning plans, there was a flaw, although in my defence, I never anticipated COVID putting a temporary stop to such holidays.

Hey Boys, Hey Girls, I was 36 years of age when this album was released.    The later onset of indie nights for old buggers would ensure my dancing days weren’t yet over, but quite clearly I was long past the days of wanting to go clubbing  – not that I ever did much in the first place.  This record therefore wasn’t aimed primarily at the likes of me, but I’m willing to bet that numerous JC clones fell for its many and diverse charms.

Some may have been attracted by the presence of so many top-notch guest contributors, and indeed the fact that a track like Out Of Control featuring Bernard Sumner and Bobby Gillespie would not have felt too far out of place on a New Order or Primal Scream record is another factor to take into consideration.

But when you break it all down, it simply is the fact that Surrender works all the way from start to end, never dropping in quality across its near one-hour duration.  And the slowed down, chilled out numbers just come at the right time for us old fogies who would be breathless and sweaty if actually in a club while it was being aired.

mp3 : The Chemical Brothers – Music: Response

I belatedly bought the 20th Anniversary box set of Surrender last year.  First time I’ve ever had a vinyl copy.  It gets played a lot more than the CD ever did, thanks in part to the great music on the bonus discs.  Highly recommended to everyone…..but remember to play it at such a volume that you can’t hear the doorbell ringing.

JC

Clash

(BONUS POST) : ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #015

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#015– The Clash – ‚(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais’ (CBS Records ’78)

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Hello friends,

I trust not all have you have carefully read the ‘rules & regulations’ I had set up for myself for this series – I announced them in the first part of it. There were many, but today just one of them is important: “only one single per band”! Why do I mention this? Well, you might – or might not – know that The Clash have always been my favorite band – and by quite some distance even. So, if I hadn’t set this rule up, you could well find yourself having to listen to Clash singles for the next 12 weeks in a row (so, yes, George, I know you will indeed be pleased by this rule!) …

Also, I am a firm believer in this record being the best record in the history of the whole world ever. At least I am today, this could be surpassed tomorrow, of course, but this is rather unlikely.

Now, what does it make so special to me? Funnily enough, I have never been a great fan of reggae, in fact I disliked it intensely when I was younger … I just wouldn’t listen to it, probably because in my young narrow mind it was not ‘punk’ enough. I remember Peel occasionally ridiculing me because of my attitude, and – in hindsight – rightly so, of course. Although, it must be said, even to this day I never managed to share his passion for all this raga-stuff, Admiral Tibet etc. … I just don’t get it, sorry, John!

But I digress. The reggae elements in ‘White Man’ are – undeniably – one beneficial factor: as well musically as regarding their importance for punk music. Blending punk with other genres was unheard of back then by and large, and consequently this tune defined new borders for quite many bands to come.

The lyrics are another factor. I mean, when I was 26, like Strummer was back in 1978, I had only one thing in common with him (apart from not so nice teeth): I had also attended some gigs which disappointed me enormously. But this is where the similarities between us end because I certainly was not able to write a tune like this at this age (nor at any other age, mind you!) just because a gig I saw didn’t meet with my approval.

And this is just the beginning of it all, the way the song builds from his personal disappointment into perhaps the (band’s) most poignant statement about British society ever is just unbelievable … I mean, try to indict power-pop, shoddy reggae, and neo-Nazism in one four-minute span for yourself … and let me know when you’re ready!

‘White Man’ is a song I never get tired of. I trust this applies to a lot of you as well … therefore, it would be neat to hear your opinions, of course!

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mp3:  The Clash – (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais

Enjoy,

Dirk

PS: the original single was issued simultaneously in four colour variations: white, yellow, blue and pink. I own them all, but I have them framed on my wall: which either shows you how much I love this record or either what a nerdy fuckwit I am … you decide. So the file today derives from the pink version out of the 19 Singles-Boxset …

JC adds……

I’m with Dirk on this one.   It was #2 in the 45 45s @ 45 series back in 2008, kept off the top spot by Temptation (and no, not the version by Heaven 17)

Delgados

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : #39

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The Great Eastern – The Delgados (2000)

Want to read another historical spectacular fail from the NME?  Here’s how they reviewed this one:-

After two LPs (‘Domestiques’ and ‘Peloton’) named after bicycling terminology, The Delgados have named their third album after a Glasgow dosshouse. Its stern facades keep watch over the inner sleeve, and the inhabitants’ troubled spirits pass like a shiver through the album’s darker tracks.

The group’s ambitions are clearly high. It was recorded in upstate New York by friend of the glockenspiel Dave Fridmann. But while ‘The Great Eastern’ undoubtedly moves, even as it impresses, the album’s grandeur – all swooping cellos, dulcimers, clarinets, flugelhorns, vibraphones – only lays bare The Delgados‘ limitations as unorthodox pop athletes.

You would have imagined that by now, Glasgow’s most comprehensively strung would have learned to let shy tunes like ‘Accused Of Stealing’ unfold of their own accord. Instead, every graceful shoot here is instantly fenced off by woodwind, then locked in a great cat’s cradle of fussy arrangements. Their cause isn’t helped by Emma Pollock and Alun Woodward‘s two-note Swanney whistle melodies, whose very basic charms are no match for the rabid symphonics queuing up to overwhelm them.

With all the flavours on the emotional trolley, The Delgados still can’t get past bittersweet. And for all their enthusiasm for music’s vast palette, their songs all come out in monochrome. Like the institution with which it shares its name, ‘The Great Eastern’ feels haunted by opportunities missed. 6/10

Dearie me.

I do get that music writers will be tasked with reviewing a record by a band or singer they don’t like, but the very least they could do is listen without prejudice.  I also reckon it’s quite cowardly to give The Great Eastern a pass mark when the prose makes it painfully obvious that the writer never wants to hear the album ever again.

The Delgados are (and it feels so good to be writing about them in the present tense again!!) the most important band ever to come out of Scotland, whose legacy is unparalleled.  Five enjoyable studio albums of which this is the masterpiece, and one that, as the live shows a few months back demonstrated, has aged quite spectacularly.

There really shouldn’t be anything else needing to be said.

mp3: The Delgados – Accused of Stealing

Memo to NME : How the fuck did you allow your writer to describe this as a ‘shy tune’.  And don’t get me started on the album allegedly laying bare The Delgados limitations……

JC

Horrors

(BONUS POST) AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #340: THE HORRORS

A GUEST POSTING by SWC

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The Horrors very nearly blew it.

Some of it wasn’t their fault. The NME (who else?) for instance stuck them on the cover of their magazine before they had even recorded a single note of music. An act which automatically cranked the hype machine up to 100 and made people hate them before they had actually heard them.

The Horrors didn’t help themselves though when they finally release some music. Their first album, 2007’s ‘Strange House’ was an under produced homage to sixties American garage rock if played by privileged teenagers (at least two of the band attended Rugby Public School) who listed to way too many Cramps records. It was preceded by a three-minute garage rock single called ‘Sheena Is A Parasite’ that came accompanied by a video in which a woman gave birth to a Squid.

Then there was look, big hair, styled expensively with lots of lacquer, black clothes, mascara, very expensive looking leather jackets, skinny jeans (black obviously). All photos were taken in black and white on a white background. It was like the Psychedelic Furs had been shoved in a Delorean and transported to 2007. Everyone gave the Horrors six months at best, apart from the NME who one more than occasion proclaimed them to be the future of rock and roll. They weren’t quite that, in fact in 2007, they were a bit daft.

However, in 2009 the Horrors returned with ‘Sea Within a Sea’, an eight-minute blast of Krautrock brilliance that revealed a band that had totally transformed and had suddenly developed a knack for making songs with dizzingly fantastic climaxes. Gone was the garage rock sound that seemed obsessed with gothic rock, gone were the shrieking vocals and in from nowhere seemingly was a psychedelic sound that revealed a band who had suddenly discovered a trunk full of Spacemen 3, My Bloody Valentine and Can records. It was unexpectedly superb and they had ditched some of the black clothing too. In 2009, even the Horrors wouldn’t have recognised the Horrors from 2007, largely because they had ditched the ‘shocked Goth’ look although they did still wear expensive leather jackets.

A few months later, the bands second album, ‘Primary Colours’ landed and it was again superb but this time, thanks to ‘Sea Within a Sea’ people didn’t run away from it, they embraced it. It is full of guitars that swoon, organs that swirl, vocals that croon, drums that crash. There is barely a bad moment, barely a note out of place, it is awesome, and it is only when you’ve stopped pinching yourself do you realise that The Horrors were about to realise their hype.

Since 2009, the Horrors have been one of the most consistently brilliant bands around, they have now released five albums, four of which are excellent, and a bunch of EP’s. This ICA is compiled on the band’s releases between 2009 and 2017. If you are new to the Horrors and want somewhere to start then I recommend ‘Primary Colours, then ‘V’ and then sweep up all the bits in between.

But, until then, let’s start here

Side One

Sea Within A Sea (2009, XL Records, taken from ‘Primary Colours’)

Which as I said earlier is an eight minute Krautrock blast of brilliance that swoops and soars dramatically as wonky keyboards build in the background and as Faris Badwans vocals go all echo-ey and misty eyed it builds into a euphoric climax, courtesy of Geoff Barrow’s sublime production. I say this knowing that it will sound ridiculous but the effect of Barrow on this is almost as important as Weatherall was to ‘Loaded’. It’s bloody great, all of it, every single second of it.

Still Life  (2011, XL Records, taken from ‘Skying’)

The bands third album ‘Skying’ was released in 2011, and its first single was a track called ‘Still Life’. It is a song that is full of hazy dynamism that flirts with dance music and embraces the meatier side of shoegaze and echoes the Cure when they are at their most playful. The faint sprinkle of a brass section fires up before the amps explode with the guitars.

Hologram (2017, Total Wolf Records, 2017, taken from ‘V’)

‘Hologram’ according to the band stared out in life as a 25-minute ambient jam, so thank god that by the time the band finally got round to recording it they had recruited uber producer Paul Epworth, who talked the band down from that idea. Instead of 25 minutes of ambient jamming we now get a twisting stew of electronica, Beefheart style guitars and what sounds like an acid infused 303’s.

Change Your Mind (2014, XL Records, taken from ‘Luminous’)

‘Luminous’ is perhaps the Horrors record that I return to the least. It’s not as nearly perfect as ‘Primary Colours’ and not as joyous sounding as ‘V’ but when it’s good, it’s outstanding. ‘Change Your Mind’ for instance is the one of the stand-out tracks if you ask me. It has an excellent croon from Badwan which appears to be him dithering over doing something stupid (like make another Screaming Lord Sutch tribute album perhaps…?) and some pretty abstract music running through it.

Monica Gems (2011, XL Records, taken from ‘Skying’)

Side one ends with a no nonsense indie glam rock stomper, where Badwan tries to turn himself into Brett Anderson but actually ends up more like Simon Le Bon when he was brilliant (for those in the dark that was for about a week, when ‘Rio’ came out – but what a week it was). ‘Monica Gems’ is all decadent sighs and tuneful moaning and a simply wonderfully sounding guitar swirl.

Side Two

It’s A Good Life (2017, Total Wolf Records, taken from ‘V’)

‘It’s A Good Life’ would essentially be unremarkable if it were not for its subject, that being the late Peaches Geldof, whom Badwan dated. It sees Badwan completely unguarded, fragile and sounding slightly uneasy as he sings “She lay in the dark, but I don’t know who found her,” in a lyric that revisits her untimely and tragic death.

So Now You Know (2014, XL Records, taken from ‘Luminous’)

The band’s fourth album came three years after the third one, and it sees the band adopting a late nineties indie feel, all shimmering guitars, gentle breakbeats and Radiohead style electronica. It also sounds a bit like Simple Minds from their high school movie soundtrack phase, you know, back when they were good and not making pompous records about Steve Biko.

I See You (2014, XL Records, taken from ‘Luminous’)

‘I See You’ was the first taste we all got of the fourth Horrors records, and it sees them back in kind of familiar territory. ‘I See You; is a seven and a half minute dazzle of a track. The sort of track that would sound perfect if you listened to it at midnight by a lake as the full moon shimmered over it.

Who Can Say (2009, XL Records, taken from ‘Primary Colours’)

There is a brilliant moment on ‘Who Can Say’ where the Horrors morph into not one but two 60 girl groups, first, like so many bands before them, they steal the drum line from the Ronettes ‘Be My Baby’ and then Badwan does his best Shangri La’s impression with a spoken word section that tell us knowingly “And then I kissed her… with a kiss that could only mean goodbye” before the psychedelic guitars all kicks back in.

Something to Remember Me By (Total Wolf Records, 2017, taken from ‘V’)

The final track on the band’s fifth and so far last album ‘V’ is the marvellous ‘Something to Remember Me By’. This is a glittering seven-minute epic built around a synth that pulses like the best bits of ‘Technique’ era New Order that may just be the best thing that the Horrors have ever done.

SWC

JC adds…….

Consider this the first comment on this ICA.

I adore ‘Who Can Say’ – indeed, I’ve a copy on 7″ vinyl that was gifted to me by my pal Drew.  I bought ‘Primary Colours’ on CD but was never taken enough by it to become a dedicated follower of The Horrors and never pursued things afterwards.   Judging by the songs on this excellent ICA, the loss is all mine.  Cheers SWC.  Hugely appreciated.

Butcher Boy

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : #40

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You Had A Kind Face – Butcher Boy (2022)

Re-post alert.   This is from April 2022.

Imaginary Compilation Album #17 was posted in June 2015.

It featured my take on Butcher Boy, a band whose roots are in Irvine, a new town built in the 60s in Ayrshire some 30 miles south-west of Glasgow, and whose residents were primarily families from my home city who had moved as a result of their tenement houses being demolished and/or the main bread winner (usually the man in those days) moving to where work could be found.  Two other such new towns were built a bit nearer Glasgow at the same time – Cumbernauld and East Kilbride – with the latter becoming very well-known in music circles thanks to the emergence of Aztec Camera and The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Butcher Boy came together in the middle part of the 2000s, when lead singer, guitarist and songwriter John Hunt gathered some like-minded souls to initially record an EP and album for London-based How Does It Feel To Be Loved.  I mentioned in the ICA piece that I picked up the debut album, Profit In Your Poetry, at the end of 2007 on my return from a spell living and working in Toronto having read all sorts of good things about the band and that their influences very much seemed to tick all my boxes with The Smiths, Tindersticks, Felt, Belle & Sebastian, R.E.M. and Go-Betweens all mentioned.

Having then given the album a rave review on the old blog, a member of the band got in touch to invite me along to a live show and to let me know a second album, React or Die (2009) was on the way. Cutting a long story short, all this led to me becoming something of a devotee of Butcher Boy but also being in the very lucky position of being able to become good friends with various band members and others who helped out behind the scenes, to the extent that I ended up putting on a gig in 2011 to help with the promotion of their third album, Helping Hands, which was issued that year by Damaged Goods Records.

It was inevitable that Butcher Boy would feature early on once the ICA concept for this blog had been established.  The ten tracks I picked out were all taken from the three studio albums, and it was compiled at a time when there was no clear indication of the band writing and recording any further material. All the musicians had busy and important careers beyond Butcher Boy, and trying to get all eight of them together, including a cellist, violinist and violist in addition to the usual guitars, drums, bass and keyboards, was proving to be an ever increasingly complex challenge.

As it turned out, the EP Bad Things Happen When It’s Quiet, again on Damaged Goods, was issued to coincide with Record Store Day 2017, with all three songs, in this fan’s opinion, taking them to new heights thanks to a guest co-vocalist and a choir involved in the sessions.

The outcome of chats with some band members between that release and across the period of the next couple of years had me convinced that Butcher Boy were unlikely to get back together again, but I consoled myself with the fact that they had left behind an exceptional body of work. And then, to my delight and surprise, I was told that the writer Pete Paphides had been in touch with a serious suggestion.

Pete had fallen heavily for the music of Butcher Boy and, having got his label Needle Mythology up and running, said that he would like to release a Butcher Boy compilation on vinyl, especially given that all three studio albums were only issued on CD.  Suitably stirred, the band got back together in 2020 to return, in stages, to the studio and record three new songs, two of which were originals and the other a cover of a track written by Keith Martin, a doyen of the Irvine post-punk music scene, and a friend of many in Butcher Boy.  Keith had very sadly passed away in 2018, at the age of 51.   He was the subject of this wonderful tribute by Craig McAllister, over at Plain or Pan.

The whole COVID thing, as well as the BREXIT nonsense causing issues with pressing plants in Europe, has led to delays in the issuing of the planned compilation, but it finally hit the shops last week. It is a thing of real beauty, both in terms of the 180gm vinyl and the achingly gorgeous sleeve notes, penned by award-winning author John Niven, another who was central to that Irvine scene.

You Had A Kind Face consists of twelve songs, with a bonus 7″ single containing the three tracks recorded in 2020.

Here’s the thing, and why I opened up with a reference to ICA#17;  ten songs from the three studio albums have been chosen for the compilation, and it turns out seven of those ten had been picked out by myself back in 2015 for that old ICA.  Even more remarkable is that the first three songs I had picked out to open the ICA turned out to be the same three, and in the exact same order, as selected to open You Had A Kind Face.  When I pointed this out in a text message to John Hunt, he sent a reply, complete with a bunch of appropriate emojis, that maybe he should have given me a call early in the process, given that he, the band members, and Pete Paphides, had all deliberated for weeks on end as to what should be included and indeed what the best running order would be.

Given all this, it can’t be any surprise that the album has made it into this rundown?

mp3: Butcher Boy – Storm Warning In Effect

Butcher Boy have always made music that is a cut above the ordinary.  All I really want for my 60th birthday is that they play another gig at some point soon.

JC

Bauhaus, Creatures, Eurythmics, Fun Boy Three, Heaven 17, Human League, Kissing The Pink, Tears For Fears

(BONUS POST) DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER (4)

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The singles chart of the final week of April 1983 was slightly less poptastic than the previous month.

Quite a few of those featured last time around were still in the Top 40 – David Bowie (#6), New Order (#23),  JoBoxers (#19), Duran Duran (#27), Big Country (#29), Dexy’s Midnight Runners (#32), Eurythmics (#33) and The Style Council (#36).

The #1 slot was occupied by Spandau Ballet with True, an MOR-ballad that in later years would be revealed had been written a Gary Kemp who was infatuated at the time by Clare Grogan.

The Top 10 was actually a bit ‘meh’, but there were a couple of very decent electronic-pop tunes floating around

mp3: Human League – (Keep Feeling) Fascination (#4)
mp3: Eurythmics – Love Is A Stranger (#7)

Yup.   The record company had made a quick cash-in . Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) might have fallen to #33 after 11 weeks in the Top 40, but the re-release of an earlier single from November 1982 kept Annie and Dave’s profile very high.

Sitting at #14 was another electro-group, with the song that would eventually climb to #2 and thus provide their biggest hit.

mp3: Heaven 17 – Temptation

Two of the highest new entries are very much worthy of mentions.

mp3: Tears For Fears – Pale Shelter  (#22)
mp3: Fun Boy Three – Our Lips Are Sealed (#31)

I’ve a feeling Tears For Fears snagged themselves a Top of The Pops appearance that week as Pale Shelter went up to #5 the following week, which was where it peaked.  Fun Boy Three took a more leisurely meander up the charts, taking a further three weeks to hit its high spot of #7.

Goth, of sorts, was also in the singles charts this particular week.

mp3: Bauhaus – She’s In Parties (#28)
mp3: The Creatures – Miss The Girl (#37)

She’s In Parties had fallen two places from the previous week with what proved to be Bauhaus‘s biggest hit single that wasn’t a cover.  Miss The Girl would eventually reach #21 and was the first of two hit singles for  The Creatures in 1983.

One final song to highlight this week, for what proved to be a one-hit wonder.

mp3: Kissing The Pink – The Last Film (#24)

Kissing The Pink were a new wave/synth band from London.   They released three albums between 1983 and 1986, with later releases in 1993, 2015 and 2016.  The Last Film was the only time any single troubled the charts and it enjoyed a remarkably long stay that wouldn’t really be possible today.  It had crept into the Top 75 at the end of February 1983, and ten weeks later it got to #19 where it stalled for three successive weeks. It eventually fell out of the Top 75 in mid-June.

JC

Justified Ancients of Mu Mu

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : #41

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The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu – Shag Times (1989)

I really debated in my head whether this particular release was eligible for the rundown.   It was partly to do with the fact that it was a compilation, but the biggest concern was that it would have been maybe 18 months or so after its release before I picked up a copy, which sort of went against the grain that the album had to have bought at the time of its release to qualify for consideration.  But in the end, I can most certainly live with myself that it’s here.

I’ve mentioned on more than a few occasions that the period from mid 1987-mid 1989 was a time when I drifted away from music due to what was happening in my personal life.  Not only was buying next to nothing, but I no longer had any interest in reading the weekly music papers, and thus was totally out of the loop.  There are a few folk to thank for dragging me out of the tailspin, not least Rachel (Mrs VV) and my dear friend and then work colleague, Jacques The Kipper whose regular diet of C90 cassettes filled in many gaps in my knowledge.

I had missed all the fuss about The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu and the shenanigans around their efforts to make dance music that was based around sampling.  JtK had kept his eye on the ball and some of the JAMMs songs found their way onto the C90s, which looking back on it seems deliciously ironic.

Here’s a contemporary review of the Shag Times compilation, penned by Mat Snow for Q Magazine in February 1989:-

The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu are King Boy D. (Bill Drummond, doyen of the Liverpool scene that spawned the Bunnymen, Teardrop etc) and Rockman Rock (formerly of Brilliant), and Shag Times would be their greatest hits if the full force of the law hadn’t already decided they probably belonged to the original artists.

Indeed, the track Don’t Take Five (Take What You Want) last saw action on the album 1987 (What The Fuck’s Goin On?), so swiftly suppressed by the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society that rare copies now change hands at silly prices. Indeed, the queue of artists whose most memorable moments have been glued onto a beatbox backing-track stretches all the way back to the 19th century.

Apart from the usual sources-AC/DC, James Brown-this album of already released numbers (plus a remix companion disc) creates some unlikely bedfellows. Wagner and Pet Clarke? Jimi Hendrix and Dave Brubeck? Whitney Houston and so on, ad absurdum. Though hardly new as a technique-Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five’s Adventures On The Wheels Of Steel kicked off the ’80s with a bricolage of Queen, Blondie and Chic-JAMMs’ buccaneering attitude to the laws of creative ownership helped re-open the whole debate and, what often seems neglected in the furore, made a sequence of very amusing juxtapositions, of which The Timelords ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis (included here) is the tamest.

A great party album.

The review gives an indication that the furore around the JAMMs made it difficult to pick up any of their releases.  It was mid-1990 when I finally saw a second-hand copy in an Edinburgh shop, which I grabbed with indecent haste.  I think I paid £7 for it.

mp3: The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu – Candyman

The other great thing about the CD was that it came with an 8-page booklet containing various articles about the band that had appeared in the UK music press from March 1987 to April 1988, which was a huge help in me further filling in the gaps in my knowledge.

Oh, and in doing a bit of research for this post, I had a look at Discogs.  £85 is the asking price in the UK for a copy of this CD.  Utter madness.

JC

Arctic Monkeys

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : #42

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Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not – Arctic Monkeys (2006)

I was 42 years of age when I first encountered Arctic Monkeys.  They made me wish I was 18 again.

Every group of young music fans will take ‘ownership’ of a new/emerging band and claim them to be the greatest ever in the history of rock and roll.  Those of us who have been through that phase of our lives will often just look on, nod quietly, and indulge the kids.  They are usually wrong.

Arctic Monkeys, certainly to this wizened and gnarled veteran, felt different.  It wasn’t anything to do with the fact they were emerging from a whole new arena, something called social media where fans excitedly shared music files for free, always with the band’s blessing.  It was all down to the fact that this group of working-class musicians made infectiously catchy guitar-led music, fused with lyrics that defied belief, given they were the work of a teenager. Not only that, but it was very much a throwback to my own golden era of the late 70s and early 80s, and I really wanted to have the youth, vigour and energy to be able to enjoy it to the full.

One of the reasons that the debut album has made this rundown is the fact that it hasn’t really grown old.  Yes, Alex Turner and his bandmates have certainly moved on, and their music has matured with them.  But the stories and subject matters contained with ‘Whatever People Say I Am….’ are every bit as relevant and meaningful to today’s teenage daydreamers. And then there’s this:-

mp3: Arctic Monkeys – When The Sun Goes Down

The tale of prostitution on the streets of Sheffield, as observed by a bystander who turns down an approach and then sees the woman get into a car driven by, in the narrator’s own words, a scumbag.  Whether this man is the pimp or a creepy client is never made expressed, but the accompanying video, which starred the now very famous Stephen Graham (forever referred to as Scummy Man in Villain Towers) makes it clear he is a bullying, controlling and thoroughly unlikeable pimp.

Not only is it an astonishing lyric written by someone so young, but it comes with a tune that moves from the melancholy/resigned to pounding stomper and then back again.

I could just as easily have highlighted many other great songs on the album. The one about a taxi ride after a night out; or the thrill of being dazzled by the looks of the girls in the dancehall; the tale of the bored teenagers being harassed by equally bored police officers; or the way it is so difficult to communicate with your other half when you’ve fallen out over something really trivial.

I was 42 years of age when I first encountered Arctic Monkeys.  There’s just a touch of serendipity that this album is #42 in the rundown.

JC

Pet Shop Boys

PET SHOP BOYS SINGLES (Part Fourteen)

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What follows is likely to be the longest single posting in the series……but that’s as much down to contemporary review being part it.  Thanks in advance for reading.

September 1996, the new album Bilingual is released. There’s a familiarity with a couple of its tracks thanks to them previously being released as singles, but everything else is brand new.  

I think this is the watershed moment in the history of PSB.  Having emerged and enjoyed initial success as a synth-pop duo, they had, with each passing year, sought to expand their horizons and incorporate all sorts of new sounds and influences.  The new album was a quantum leap in that regard.

There had been previous examples of their love for the music of Latin America, but this went to whole new levels in terms of rhythm and language.  It wasn’t univerally welcomed, as can be seen from some lukewarm reviews from bemused critics, while its sales and chart position were both less than previous efforts.  Bilingual was the first PSB album not to go Top 3.

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Not only had the album not reached the Top 3, but it very quickly plunged down the charts out of the Top 100.  In time-honoured fashion, the releases of a new single was seen as a way to boost things.  

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Single-Bilingual

The second track on the album was Single, but when it came to issuing it along those line on 11 November 1996, it was called Single-Bilingual.  The reason given was that Everything But The Girl had, just a month previously, released a single called Single, and it was all about avoiding confusion.  Given how long it takes to clear artwork etc. for any release, I’m not convinced this was really the case, and giving such a new title did, of course, work in the name of the latest album.

This one takes the energy and beat of Se a vida é and cranks it up a few notches.   It was one of the highlights of last years’ live show, especially from the way it effortlessly segued into Se a vida é, but it wasn’t well-received at the time of its release, only going at #14 and disappearing altogether after three weeks.  Nor did it do much to alter the fortunes of its parent album.

The usual practice was followed of having  2 x CDs and cassette versions up for sale, but there weren’t quite as many remixes around, possibly as there was a limit on what you could do with Single-Bilingual without completely destroying the song’s very fabric. Instead, the album’s opening track, Discoteca, was given the remix treatments and made available widely on the two CDs.  There was only one completely new song, placed at Track 3 on CD1.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – The Calm Before The Storm

This is a lovely and understated number, lasting less than three minutes.  It seems it was recorded, almost as live, in the studio and on the face of it seems to be from the perspective of someone who is anticipating a sad or indeed update. I read somewhere that the lyric was written by Neil shortly after Bilingual had been readied for release in the expectancy that it would be something of a flop in comparison to previous albums, but I’m not sure if that’s a truth or urban myth.ly predict about Pet Shop Boys was they were unpredictable, as evidenced by the next single.

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The fourth song to be lifted as a single from Bilingual was a really odd one. Released on 17 March 1997,  A Red Letter Day was quite different from the album version, with a lot of the noise and clutter removed, as well as it being substantially remixed.

As with Go West from a few years back, there’s a reliance on the involvement of a choir, but this time it’s the Choral Academy of Moscow and only in the opening few seconds.   It very quickly settles into the sort of tune that had given so much success to PSB over the years, which maybe was a signal that the more experimental nature of recent singles was coming  to an end.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – A Red Letter Day

It sort of worked in that the single went Top 10 but only for one week, while the sales of the parent album weren’t impacted at all.  It was almost as if the new ‘product’ was only of interest to the fanbase and not the wider public.

Again, there were 2 x CDs and a cassette, although a close look at the sticker on CD1 (as illustrated above) reads ‘To complete set – also available REMIX CD -includes over 35 minutes of remixes by Motiv 8, Trouser Enthusiasts and Basement Jaxx.  Plus 12″ red vinyl’

CD2 was the remix CD, while CD1 had two new songs.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – The Boy Who Couldn’t Keep His Clothes On
mp3: Pet Shop Boys –  Delusions of Grandeur

The former is what most folk would call a PSB classic.  More than six minutes in length, complete with prominent keyboards, house-beat and synthetic horns and strings thrown into the mix.   It’s certainly one that it could be argued was wasted as a b-side…..it even has that cheeky, irrelevant sounding repetitive chorus that sounds tailor-made for radio.  OK, for a single, it would likely have needed edited down, but as we’ve seen from past hits, this wouldn’t have been a problem.

The latter opens up with notes that remind me of ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’ by The Smiths.  But after ten seconds, the synthetic horns kick in……..and it goes to the most unexpected of places.   It’s one of those frantic, almost million-miles-an-hour tunes that are guaranteed to work up an immediate sweat in the clubs, set to a lyric in which Neil Tennant seems to be fantasising that he is becoming the new Pope……

It is bonkers and it is absolutely brilliant.  It also means that CD1 of Red Letter Day is one of my favourite PSB releases of them all.

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In June 1997, PSB again do something out of the ordinary.  It’s not an event I can remember, but then again, I don’t always pay attention when it’s not centred around Glasgow.

Here’s a review as written by Anthony Thornton for The Independent newspaper on 8 June:-

Try walking into a record company to sell them the idea of two average-looking blokes on stage wearing shapeless Communist-style clothes, with the baseball- hatted one standing motionless behind an ancient keyboard and the balding one singing in a monotone, and you’ll discover at first hand how efficient their security staff are.

The Pet Shop Boys have somehow avoided forceful ejection from pop heaven for 12 years now. Until 21 June the pop ironists are nestled in the Savoy Theatre, London, playing a series of concerts entitled “Somewhere”. They are the first band to play a residency at a West End theatre, but it’s hardly surprising because they have always been more at home with Coward and Wilde than Hendrix and Clapton and their songs have always sounded like they belong in an unwritten musical.

Ironically (what else could it be?) the theatrical setting sees them at their least theatrical. The atmosphere is far more intimate than previous shows; the absence of huge choreographed antics and massive costume changes probably makes this the nearest thing the Pet Shop Boys will get to an unplugged concert.

Initially they play lots of B-sides, as if a serious setting requires serious work from the audience. Then, just as everyone’s gearing themselves up for a dance as they play “Go West”, they tip straight into the interval. The interval? We wanted to dance. This theatre thing must have gone to the Boys head.

After the interval normal service is resumed. They play “It’s a Sin” mixed up in a disco cocktail with “I Will Survive”. Neil Tennant tells us it’s all right to dance. So we jive in our seats. And we notice Chris Lowe has slipped a bit of drum ‘n’ bass into the mid section. Albeit quietly, Sylvia Mason James belts out the “I will survive” and Neil’s monotone duets with her powerful wail. A mistake he probably won’t make again.

Their forthcoming single, “Somewhere”, a cover of the West Side Story song, is all disco beats, orchestral strings and epic arrangements which manage to sound even bigger than the epic disco of “Go West”.

Despite all this faceless anti-pop star treatment and bright arrangements, Neil is equally capable of singing from his heart: for every meaningless “Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat” there’s the tragedy and Wildean wit of “Whatever fatal points they scored, I have never been ignored”.

This tenderness reaches its peak during the encore, when Neil appears with an unwieldy acoustic guitar. He gently strums his way through a tender version of “Rent”. It works so perfectly, you wonder why they haven’t done it before.

It’s the contradictions: disposable beats and intimate clever lyrics that make the Pet Shop Boys appealing. Their self-conscious anti-rock stance is an antidote to whoever happens to be mistreating an electric guitar elsewhere in the charts. And thankfully, Chris standing behind the same Roland synthesizer pretending to produce all these sounds live is still the funniest running gag in showbiz.

The forthcoming single referenced in the above review was released on 23 June, immediately at the end of the residency.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Somewhere

West Side Story music set to a disco and club beat…….it might have reached #9 in the singles chart, but it doesn’t do much for me.  But it sounds as if the duo had great fun putting it all together.

The usual 2 x CDs and cassette singles were on offer.  Unlike most of the previous times with the CD singles, both would need to be purchased to pick up what woule previously have been refered to as b-sides.

CD1

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – The View From Your Balcony

The sort of slow-paced and reflective number of which PSB were increasingly becoming fond of recording….and I don’t mean that as any criticism.  This one has a very straight-forward and unambigious lyric that has clearly been inspired by Neil looking out over London from a high-rise flat, in a location that was once edgy but is part of the increasing gentrification of the city.

CD2

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Disco Potential

There’s a lot of noise on this one.  It’s from 1997.  That was the same year that U2 had a #1 hit with Discotheque, with which they had been accused by some of jumping on the dance bandwagon as a way to try and stay relevant.  I’m wondering if this is Neil and Chris having a bit of gentle fun at the expense of Bono et al?  It’s certainly not one of their most essential b-sides……

The next two years proved to quiet in terms of new material.  It’ll be 1999 before you know it.

JC