Public Image Limited

NOISE ANNOYS?

The question posed by the title of the posting relates to the b-side of the 45 I’m having a look today:-

mp3: Public Image Ltd – The Cowboy Song

It borders on unlistenable, but then again, I’m assuming that was the whole point of it.  Julian Cope, over at Head Heritage, provides as perfect a description as there is:-

“The Cowboy Song”is a throwaway single that sounds like it was ALREADY tossed into the bin: the screech of a needle being ripped and torn back and forth across the surface of a record cuts in as the single begins. Then you hear Lydon in the studio tell the producer it’s so loud, they can’t hear the backing track. Ha; like they fucking even needed to, as they are preparing to scream and toss tambourines in the studio over a towering bass drive and general overall mayhem. The ludicrous “Thick As A Brick”-styled newspaper parody this single originally came wrapped in details the ‘lyrics’ (16 lines of “clipy ty clop/clipy ty clop/clipy ty clop”) but they do not appear on the single. Or if they do, they are drowned out by a deafening racket of multi-tracked screaming, talking and general pandemonium. The only distinct sound is that of the bass guitar of John Wardle (aka Jah Wobble) although it’s oddly un-dub and pre-set to ultra-strum. The lyrics should’ve been “Make it stop/make it stop/Make it stop” so that everybody who bought this single in 1978 could sing along. There’s also further stylus-scratching effects just to drive the rest of us up the wall. When the noise finally subsists, only Lydon’s coughing and sputtering of amphetamine-loosened phlegm can be heard — right before the record picks up after being trapped in the locked-groove for a revolution and a half.

I don’t have the single, but I do have a vinyl copy of Public Image : First Issue, the debut album, on which it is included:-

mp3: Public Image Limited – Public Image

Issued in October 1978, meaning it’s not that long until it turns 44 years of age.  I think it’s fair to say that the tune, and in particular, that killer bass line, have aged spectacularly well. For those who like the technical side of things, (hi JTFL!!!!) it seems it was Wardle’s/Wobble first bass line that he presented to the rest of the group, Keith Levene‘s guitars were double-tracked on the back of a live take and Lydon’s vocals went through a Space-Echo (aka Roland RE-201), a bit of kit which produced delay and reverb effects.

Me?  I just love dancing to it.

JC

Neil Young

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #311: NEIL YOUNG (2)

A GUEST POSTING by WALTER

JC writes…..

As the opening line of the piece indicates, this should have appeared weeks ago.  It got lost somewhere along the line, but thankfully, after a quick exchange of emails between Glasgow and Stuttgart, it was all sorted out.  Here’s Walter, the sage of the consistently excellent and very diverse, A Few Good Times In My Life.

Hi Jim

Inspired by the post of Adam a few days ago and your post last week I decided to realize another ICA of Neil Young over the weekend. And I have to say that it was a difficult work. Not only to select ten songs from an over 40 years old career, it was also a hard work not to name the same songs you did. But finally it should be my ICA and I think it is legitimate to name some songs of your choice in my selection. On the other hand, I thought about to select songs from his pre-solo career with Buffalo Springfield or CSN&Y. But finally I decided to take the songs from the days of his early recordings in the late 60’s to his 1990 classic Ragged Glory. I think I don’t have to say much about Mr. Young so let’s start:

1. Powderfinger (from Rust Never Sleeps, 1979)

The first song on the electric side of Rust Never Sleeps shows how to combine a story about the death of a young Indian with his electric guitar. Neil recorded this song a few years previous as a solo version and handed it to Ronnie Van Zant, but he couldn’t record it because he died in an airplane crash in 1977. The lyrics at the end of the song will never be forgotten:

Just think of me as one you never figured
Would fade away so young
With so much left undone
Remember me to my love; I know I’ll miss her

2. Cinnamon Girl (from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, 1969)

On his second album, he left the folk road and chose that heavy sound he got famous for. This song has one of those classic riffs many other artists would die for. But it was not only the sound that makes this song so special, it was also the arrangement of Neil Young’s and Danny Whitten‘s vocals that I could name nearly perfect.

3. Sugar Mountain (from Live at Carnegie Hall, 1970)

Originally released as flip-side of Cinnamon Girl and The Loner, it is one of those songs he recorded many times during his history. I like this version because it shows Neil while he was obviously in good health and in a good mood making conversations with the audience and starting the song solo a second time.

4. Winterlong (from Decade a sampler of his early years)

This song is a rarity and as far as I know never released on one of his albums before, and showing me that many of his unreleased songs from this decade were better that many of regular released songs by other artists. Black Francis once said about Winterlong

“I thought about it a lot. There’s some kind of commitment to trying to find the ultimate performance of it. I certainly love the arrangement of the song. There’s not really a chorus in the song, but it sounds like a really chorus-y song. It has very classic/traditional kind of chord shapes in it, like ’50s rock, but it has a much more nuanced arrangement than you would think, kind of like a Roy Orbison song or something like that.”

5. Tonight’s The Night (from Tonight’s The Night, 1973)

Written after the deaths of Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry, he wrote a song while he struggled about their deaths from drug overdoses. The death of the companions certainly contributed to Young’s publication of the dark, depressed masterpieces in the following years.

6. Cortez The Killer (from Zuma, 1975)

This song is the highlight of this album and probably one of the best live songs of all times, and describes the brutality of Hernán Cortez, the Spanish conqueror of the Aztec Empire. Neil Young shows his very own sight of the history and how Cortez destroyed a high class culture because the Aztecs were peaceful and representing a sort of utopian non-violent society. And this is another great song about peace and love.

7. Too Far Gone (from Freedom, 1993)

Just another great song about a lost love, representing the other side of him. It is not easy to put great feelings in a few verses. And this one is simply superb.

8. Revolution Blues (from On The Beach, 1974)

A song with references to Charles Manson and his family who met Young in the days when he also lived in Topanga Canyon. You can discuss if it is necessary to write a song inspired by Manson or not, but probably one reason might be because it was a depressive day Neil had to go through. Anyway, assisted by The Band’s rhythm section and David Crosby on guitar he made one of his greatest songs ever.

9. Fuckin’ Up (from Ragged Glory)

With this album, he returned into the sound he explored in the days of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and Zuma. It was an album I didn’t expected from him, and he shows (especially in this song) that he wasn’t to old to show some grunge and garage bands how to play guitar dominated music.

10. My My, Hey Hey / Out Of The Blue (from Rust Never Sleeps, 1979)

For me the better version than the electric one Into The Black and perfect to finish this ICA. A lot of things I like is in this song. And the lyrics are epic.

The king is gone but he’s not forgotten
Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?
It’s better to burn out ’cause rust never sleeps
The king is gone but he’s not forgotten.

Walter

Echo & The Bunnymen

THE MONDAY MORNING HI-QUALITY VINYL RIP : Part Fifty-five: SHOW OF STRENGTH/WITH A HIP

Part 55 of the series, and I’m offering up something a little different.

I distinctly remember the first time I played Heaven Up Here. The stereo I had at the time was quite basic, but it was all I could afford at the time.  Besides, I was still living at home and sharing a room with two brothers and so didn’t have full access to the space at all times, meaning the idea of spending money on a fancy hi-fi rig with separate turntable, speakers and amps would have been the height of lunacy.

Despite all this, I could tell that Show of Strength was something else.   The Bunnymen hitting a higher peak than ever before.   It had hit single written all over it.  But no sooner had I finished shaking my shoulders and doing the jerky dance to the album opener, my ears were exposed to With A Hip.

Good gawd almighty…..it was beyond belief.  As powerful and immediate an opening one-two punch as anything I had in my growing collection.  Move over The Jam.….there’s a new band in town really vying for my attention.

mp3: Echo & The Bunnymen – Show of Strength/With A Hip

I still think it beggars belief that all involved decided not to release any singles, other than A Promise, from the album.

Another thing to mention….I was very pleasantly surprised that there were so few minor pops and clicks on this piece of vinyl, given how often I played it back in the day and how many different abodes it has accompanied me to – two student flats, four rooms in shared accommodation in Edinburgh, living with the soon-to-be-in-laws in Midlothian, the first marital home in East Lothian, the temporary space in Edinburgh after said marriage broke up, the first flat that myself and Rachel moved into in Glasgow city centre, and finally right here in Villain Towers out on the south side of the city since the summer of 1995.

JC

Fall

THE FRIGHTENING SERIES FOR SUNDAYS (Part 43)

Remember a few weeks ago when Rude (All The Time), released as a single in 2001, was featured in this series?

Today, it’s the turn of the Rude (All The Time) EP, which was released, with a limited pressing of 2,000 copies, on CD in June 2005. It consisted of four tracks –

Distilled Mug Art (Mix 15);  I Wake Up In The City (Mix 5);  My Ex Classmates Kids (Mix 4); and Where’s The Fuckin Taxi? Cunt (Mix 17).

I can’t really tell you much about this other than what I’ve found at various fan websites devoted to The Fall.

I failed to mention a few weeks ago, the release of 2G+2, an album from 2002 which consisted partly of studio tracks and partly of live numbers, recorded at various times during a tour of the USA in 2001. It was actually the first release on Action Records, pre-dating the Susan vs Youthclub single by a few months.

Distilled Mug Art was the opening track on 2G+2, and by all accounts the version on this particular EP doesn’t greatly differ, as I haven’t been able to track down Mix 15, so you’ll have to make do with this:-

mp3: The Fall – Distilled Mug Art

The EP also included I Wake Up In The City, which had first appeared as the b-side to Rude (All The Time) when it had been released as a single in 2001 and was posted a few weeks ago.

My Ex Classmates Kids also appeared in this series recently, thanks to it a live version being a b-side to Theme From Sparta FC #2.  I really don’t feel there’s any merit in going digging for these particular versions and posting them today.

Which leaves us with this|:-

mp3: The Fall – Where’s The Fuckin Taxi? Cunt

A fan website offers up this info:-

One of the group’s more notorious tracks, this is a recording of a drunken conversation between MES, Ed Blaney and a couple of others over a taxi which somehow fails to arrive. There’s no music as such except for an acoustic guitar lazily strummed from time to time. Not surprisingly, it has never been played live.

I think it’s fair comment to suggest that this particular single is of very little merit, and I did think about bypassing it altogether.  But with just 2,000 copies in circulation, it is a sought-after artefact among the completists (which I most certainly am not!).  Oh, and in recognition of its insignificance, I’ve altered the title of the series this week.

Finally, the label on which this was released was Hip Priest, an imprint primarily brought into being to issue live recordings from back in the late 70s and early 80s.

I bet there’s not a worse posting than this on any music blogs the world over on Easter Sunday 2022.

JC

Slime City

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #303: SLIME CITY

Slime City are a band from Glasgow, Scotland who play fast existentialist nerd rock for people who like sighing but also fighting.

That’s as much as you get from the Bandcamp page. I can add that the three members of Slime City used to be in We Are The Physics, a band that was around from 2005-2013 and who described their sound as “mutant science punk rock”.

The three members of Slime City are Michael M (bass and vocals), Michealdrums (drums and vocals) and Michaelguitar (guitar and vocals). I’ll lift the rest from a live review of a gig played at the Hug and Pint in Glasgow in September 2021, one of the first post-lockdown gigs to tale place in the city after a gap of 18 months, written for the Is This Music? website:-

The venue is pretty full for the first Slime City gig in quite some time…and the headliners do not disappoint.

The music is staccato, stop/start, with pounding riffs and angular diversions. At one point the guitarist is stopped mid-song by Michael M as he goes into a solo – “you’re not Eddie Van fucking Halen…”… This band do not take themselves too seriously and pretty much all the songs are a critique (and sometimes a caricature) of music.

The crowd certainly let off some steam, and it was one of the most welcome returns of recent weeks, showing just what we had missed.

I’ve picked up a couple of singles, thanks to the band being connected to Last Night From Glasgow, the co-operative label that is doing so much to energise and revitalise music in my home city.

mp3: Slime City – Less Jools More Top Of The Pops

There was a fun-filled lyric video posted by the band when the single was first released back in 2018. I think it’s worth pointing for any overseas readers not otherwise familiar that Later with Jools Holland, which began in 1992 and is now in its 58th series, has in recent years become the sole output for rock and pop music on the BBC. It hasn’t really been worth watching in a long while.

I might one day get round to telling the story behind Glasgow Is A Shitehole, the other single I’ve managed to pick up.

JC

6ths

OFFSHOOTS

While seeking inspiration for stuff to bore you with, I’ve been musing about what must be hundreds of songs that initially I’ve come across on blogs etc., which have subsequently been downloaded without paying any attention to any backstory and me, years later, then frantically trying to trace where it came from.

I’ve a song on the hard drive on which Lloyd Cole provides vocals.  It’s by The 6ths, whom I looked up a long while back and learned were a side project of Stephen Merritt of The Magnetic Fields.

In the 6ths, Merritt writes and plays songs which are then sung by other artists. There have been two albums to date – Wasps’ Nests (1995), and Hyacinths and Thistles (1999). I’m assuming, given the time that has elapsed since that second album, no more 6ths releases are in the pipeline.

The thing is, Lloyd Cole isn’t featured on either album. Nor has the song, to the best of my knowledge, ever been issued on a Lloyd Cole record, either as a b-side or bonus track. It was all a bit of a mystery that I was determined to solve.

It turns out that in 2000, a tribute album to The Human League was issued by the American label, March Records.   It was called Reproductions, and it has sixteen tracks on it, opening with Stephen Merritt’s solo take on Get Carter, and closing with this:-

mp3: The 6ths with Lloyd Cole – Human

The original was the first single taken from the album Crash, and it reached #8 in the UK in August 1986.   I’m assuming, given the 6ths two studio albums consisted of songs written by Stephen Merritt, that this being a cover was a reason it never appeared on either of them…it must have been recorded around the same times the sessions for Hyacinths and Thistles.

Looking things up, I discovered that a vocalist who was recently the subject of an ICA, had guested on Wasps’ Nests.  I just had to trace this one:-

mp3: The 6ths with Amelia Fletcher – Looking For Love (In The Hall Of Mirrors)

Oh, and while I’m here, this is from Hyacinths and Thistles:-

mp3: The 6ths with Clare Grogan – Night Falls Like A Grand Piano

JC

Jam

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

Before getting on to the main business of the day, just an update on the Bastard Virus here at Villain Towers.  I continue to feel very little in the way of symptoms and am hopeful that I’ll test negative tomorrow to get back on my feet and going about my business.  Rachel did, as anticipated, test positive the other day and looks set to be confined indoors till after Easter.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, there are two tickets still going free for Luke Haines + Peter Buck at Hebden Bridge Trade Club tomorrow night.

This post was originally scheduled for yesterday, but I’ve let if drift for 24 hours and, as it turns out, is something of a companion piece,

It’s almost 42 years since the release of Sound Affects, the fifth studio album by The Jam.

It followed All Mod Cons and Setting Sons, as well as being on the back of what the success of Going Underground, a non-album #1 single.

It proved not to be immediate as these previous releases, lacking the fast, angry, raucous anthems that had made the band such an attraction to us teenage adolescents, germ-free or otherwise.  It was, however, packed with different types of anthems, this time less frantic, with messages that the world was an unfair place, particularly if you were not from the landed gentry or the monied class, themes that would continue to be examined by Paul Weller in what time remained with his band and later with The Style Council.

The opening song on the album is proving to be timeless:-

mp3: The Jam – Pretty Green

Power is measured by the pound or the fist.

Aye…..Rishi Sunak and Vlad Putin will vouch for that.

Pretty Green reflected the existence of £1 notes as the main tender in circulation for most folk in 1980.  Just eight years later, the note was withdrawn by the Bank of England in favour of a coin, although Scottish banks continued to print their own version of the £1 note until 2001, a fact on its own which indicates we’ve never been as well-off as many of those who live in the south-east pocket of the UK.

I looked up the cost of a £1 note on eBay just now.  It’s fair to say it varies, from £3 to £10,000.  Do folk believe their eBay listing will attract such a stupid bid?

JC

Various

BASTARD VIRUS

The title of today’s post should provide the clue that I’ve tested positive for COVID.

It’s something I can’t quite get my head around – not the fact I’ve got it, which is hardly a surprise given that I’ve recently gone to well-attended and busier than normal football matches and made a much-delayed return to the Barrowlands (it was for The Twilight Sad), but more to do with the unlikely timing of a positive test at a time when I was feeling fine and showing very few symptoms.

I was testing more regularly as last Friday night I was pulling together a social evening, namely a leaving-do of sorts.

A full 106 weeks after it had been cancelled, there was to be a get-together of folk to celebrate my retiral from work.  The numbers for the original night were expected to have been around 150, including ex-colleagues from the different places/departments I had worked over that 35-year spell, along with some close friends who just like a good night out.  This time round, I decided to restrict it to just the 25 or so folk who I had last worked with – it felt a bit disingenuous to invite folk I hadn’t seen in a long while to an event that was now two years out of date.

It was a great wee evening, albeit just under half the numbers could make it, thanks to a combination of an increase in COVID cases and the fact it was taking place as many folk were heading away on holiday for the Easter period with the schools having closed down.  Oh, and to show how much my former colleagues really know me, there were three items handed over following a very generous collection:-

1. A bottle of expensive rum

2. A voucher to spend at my golf club on some new equipment or clothing

3. A gift card for Ticketmaster, meaning that I’ll get to a number of gigs of my choosing.

The following morning, in advance of heading up to the football for another stint in the match day announcer’s box, and armed with a killer playlist to entertain everyone, I took a test, and it came up positive, despite the fact I was feeling fine other than having an annoying head cold and the very occasional cough.  No loss of taste, no loss of smell.  Nothing that would have kept me from travelling, except the two red lines showing up.

I’m typing this on Monday morning, 48 hours on, and feeling fine.  Only thing is that Rachel is showing all the symptoms and feels a lot worse than me, despite which she is still testing negative.

Why am I sharing all this?  For one, it means I’m going to miss out on a much-anticipated gig on Wednesday night when Luke Haines and Peter Buck come to Glasgow as I won’t be out of the required isolation period.

Secondly, it has put a question mark over my plans for this coming Friday, which had already been the subject of change thanks to the propensity of the rail industry in the UK to fuck up travel plans at peak holiday periods.

The Haines/Buck show in Glasgow was a late addition to my schedule, as the intention had been to go and see them at Hebden Bridge Trades Club in Yorkshire.  These tickets were bought a long time ago, for a show originally scheduled for April 2020, and later moved to September 2021 and again to April 2022.  Each rescheduling involved booking new train tickets and accommodation – indeed, for Sep 2021, rather than seek refunds, myself and Rachel used the arrangements to enjoy an overnight trip to Hebden Bridge.

Everything was set for this Friday in that the accommodation was sorted and the train journey down on the day of the gig was booked.  No cheap train tickets were coming up online for the return journey the following morning….indeed, no train tickets were on offer at all for the following morning.  It transpired that the West Coast Main Line will, in effect, be closed over the Easter holiday weekend for engineering works at various locations, primarily at its terminus point at London Euston.  All of which meant the Hebden plans had to be shelved.

I’ve managed a bit of a rescue in that I picked up a return ticket for the Friday evening, which means I’m going to be heading to Manchester on a morning train, arriving lunchtime and getting the joy of spending a few hours in the company of Adam, before catching a train back up to Glasgow at around 5pm.

Assuming, of course, that I get a negative test in advance.  Fingers and toes are crossed.

What it does mean is that there are two tickets for Haines/Buck at Hebden Bridge going spare for this coming Friday if anyone out there is able to make use of them…..just drop me an email to the usual address.

There’s a few lines from a song buzzing around my head just now:-

mp3: Basement Jaxx – Red Alert

And I’m gutted to be missing out on hearing songs from an album, bought around the time I retired from working back in 2020, and whose promotional tour has had as much bad luck as my efforts to have a well-attended leaving-do:-

mp3 : Luke Haines and Peter Buck – Beat Poetry For The Survivalist

Sigh.

JC

U2

THE MONDAY MORNING HI-QUALITY VINYL RIP : Part Fifty-four: THE FLY

A while back, I briefly had a series of posts looking at singers/bands who, in my opinion, had at one time had it, only to lose it.   I dropped the series after maybe two or three editions as it was causing more grief and hassle than it was worth, with folk coming in via the comments section and getting tetchy and/or angry.  Differences of opinion are all fine and well across the TVV community, but I’m never comfortable when hostilities break out.

In saying all that, I run the risk of flak with today’s offering.  It’s not the first time the song has been featured on this or the old blog, but it is the first time since I decided to splash out on the 30th Anniversary vinyl edition of Achtung Baby, which hit the shops in November 2021.

I really liked early U2, getting along to see them play live in front of packed and enthusiastic audiences in medium-sized venues in Glasgow – one night at the long-closed Tiffany’s on Sauchiehall Street will live long in the memory just for the fact it remains one of the hottest and sweatiest shows I’ve ever attended.  I didn’t like late 80s-era U2, with The Joshua Tree being everything I detested about middle-aged rock music, seemingly being made by a band that had grown old before its time.

I first heard The Fly on the radio.  It would have been a week or so before it was released as a single in October 1991, when it was played one evening on Radio 1.  I was quite stunned by it as it was, to coin the cliché, a million miles away from what I had been expecting. Bono has since said that the song was the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree, such was the extent of the departure from the album which had won them millions of fans the world over.  I bought the single on CD and a few weeks later, I went out and bought the album, again on CD.  My thoughts were, and they remain the same today, that the album wasn’t perfect as it still had a couple of dodgy MOR moments, but for the most part it was a fine return to form.

The fact I bought the vinyl some 30 years later is a sad indictment of the reality that, despite what I think are my best efforts, I am very susceptible to the sales pitches of the music industry.

No matter that I accepted I didn’t play Achtung Baby all that much, and when I did I’d skip through some of the tracks, I really ‘needed’ to take home the vinyl records and hear The Fly in all its remastered glory via the needle hitting the groove.

I’m glad I did as it sounded great.  Made me feel as if I was again in my late 20s…..those were the days.

mp3: U2 – The Fly

Feel free to disagree.  I won’t mind.

JC

Fall

THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING SERIES FOR SUNDAYS (Part 42)

You’ll hopefully recall the end of last week’s posting referring to the American release of The Real New Fall LP, on 15 June 2004 in which I mentioned it contained alternate versions of the tracks issued on the UK version of the album some seven months previously.

One such alternate was released as a single in the UK on 28 June.

mp3: The Fall – Theme From Sparta F.C. #2

I mentioned a few weeks ago on the fact that Touch Sensitive is probably the best known song by The Fall here in the UK, thanks to its use in a car advert. It is probably matched by Theme From Sparta F.C. #2 as it would be used as the theme music to the football results section on Saturday afternoons on the main BBC1 channel.

The track, as its title indicates, is a re-take of the version originally included on the UK version of The Real New Fall. The version issued as the 45 had no trace of Jim Watts on it, despite him being one of the co-writers of the song, with the bass parts played by Simon Archer, who also co-produced it along with MES.

It’s no real surprise that the song was, eventually and belatedly, issued as a single. The original version had been voted in at #2 the previous year in the Peel Festive Fifty, and most reviews of the album referred to it as being a standout track. The new version actually made the UK singles chart, entering at #66, and in doing so would be the fifteenth and final time that a Fall 45 managed to break into the Top 75 of the official singles chart. It would also be voted in at #1 in the Peel Festive Fifty at the end of 2005 and, as mentioned above, would be used as a theme tune on BBC1 for four years until 2009.

It was issued on 7″ vinyl and CD. The vinyl now fetches upwards of £50 on the few occasions it comes up on the second-hand markets.

The b-sides have stories.

mp3: The Fall – My Ex-Classmates Kids (live, Cologne 2001)

The original version had been released on the much-maligned album, Are You Missing Winner?, and has been described as a sister song to I Wake Up In The City, (the b-side to Rude (All The Time, given that it shares the same basic riff.

mp3: The Fall – Portugal

The initial pressing of the CD also contained a hidden track, Portugal (aka Debacle (For The Record) which was only playable on a computer. It was, however, available on the US version of The Real New Fall. It’s seemingly all to do with an incident at a gig in Lisbon in September 2003 after which locally employed road managers and crew had a huge falling out with MES, resigning mid-show and making off with some of the takings, seemingly as payment not previously forthcoming for services rendered. The lyrics are not the work of MES, but are sung by Dave Milner, with a couple of lines added by Ben Pritchard.

As an overall package of three songs, it makes for a strange release, with the a-side offering as big a contrast to its b-sides as at any point in the band’s long history.

JC

Slide

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #302: SLIDE

Today’s offering comes courtesy of being included on Park Lane Archives, a compilation CD released in 2010 and comprising rare and unreleased tracks recorded at Park Lane Studios in Glasgow, not too far in actual fact from Villain Towers.

I can’t tell you much about Slide….I genuinely can’t recall them at all.  Discogs reveals that they released two singles and one album on Mercury Records in 1989, that they toured with GUN and Texas around the same time, and that the four band members were Grant Richardson (vocals/guitar), Kenny Paterson (guitar), Richard Hynd (drums) and Scott J. Fraser (bass).

mp3: Slide – Life Of Our Own

This is taken from the booklet which came with the CD;-

Slide were a 4-piece rock band fronted by Grant Richardson’s soulful vocals, who released singles and an album on Polygram, and toured with Black Crowes, Texas and Gun as well as in their own right. This is an unreleased track destined for their second album which wasn’t to be. Drummer Richard Hynd joined Texas, Scott Fraser toured with Deacon Blue and works with Craig Armstrong on a project called Winona and soundtrack work. Kenny Paterson continued at Park Lane, sowing the seeds for this album.

JC

Jesus & Mary Chain

CAN YOU CONVINCE ME ON THIS ONE?

I do like the Jesus & Mary Chain, but not to the extent that I have loads of their records and I certainly can’t claim to be some sort of expert on them….if it was my specialised subject on Mastermind, I’d probably score about five points with fifteen or so passes.

I picked up one of their singles, Reverence, on 12″ some time ago.  I took it home, played it and thought it was a bit ‘meh’.  Full of lyrics about dying either like Jesus Christ or JFK, while there’s also a reference to being hanged for some offence or other. It’s all very confusing.

I played it again the other day for the first time in ages after it popped up randomly on the i-pod.  I tried to block out the nonsensical lyrics and give the tune a chance.  It dates from February 1992 and I just couldn’t get myself convinced that, if I was listening to it as an instrumental, I would have worked out it was the JAMC.  It has that feel and sound of bands from the era, and in particular, Jesus Jones, who I never took to.

The b-side (which was actually on the same side of the vinyl as Reverence) then came on, and I was soon shaking my head about hull dull and boring it was.

Flipping it over, and there’s what is described as the Radio Mix of Revererence, and it comes in at two minutes longer than the version on the a-side, beginning with an extended guitar solo more than two minutes in length which sounds as if it belongs on one of those games you can play on an X-box or the likes (I’m guessing it that…I don’t actuually own any sort of gaming machine). It’s followed by Guitarman, which I already knew from it appearing on the NME Last Temptation of Elvis album that had been released a couple of years earlier.

mp3: The Jesus & Mary Chain – Reverence
mp3: The Jesus & Mary Chain – Heat
mp3: The Jesus & Mary Chain – Reverence (Radio Mix)
mp3: The Jesus & Mary Chain – Guitarman

So…. I’m throwing out a challenge today.

Anyone care to make the case that Reverence is a good song and worthy of being a single?

Am I totally wrong about the b-side, Heat?

As part of your case, you could use the fact that Reverence reached #10 in the UK singles chart, but I would hope to get better observations than that.

JC

Josef K

IT REALLY WAS A CRACKING DEBUT SINGLE (63)

It’s been just over four months since I last went to this series. No reason as to why. These things happen.

I’d forgotten just how many 45s had been looked at under the heading, with the first being as far back as August 2017

01: Lloyd Cole and The Commotions
02: PJ Harvey
03: Sex Pistols
04: The Cure
05: The Sundays
06: Roxy Music
07: Orange Juice
08: Teenage Fanclub
09: Talking Heads
10: New Order
11: The Specials
12: Fun Boy Three
13: Magazine
14: James
15: Pavement
16: The Libertines
17: Aztec Camera
18: Curve
19: The Police
20: The Damned
21: The Monkees
22: The Skids
23: A Certain Ratio
24: The Strokes
25: The Waltones
26: Violent Femmes
27: The Who
28: Nirvana
29: Eels
30: U2
31: Subway Sect
32: Buzzcocks
33: Suede
34: Dead Kennedys
35: Kate Bush
36: The Teardrop Explodes
37: The Normal
38: Bjork
39: The Raveonettes
40: This Mortal Coil
41: The Wedding Present
42: Wire
43: Siouxsie and The Banshees
44: R.E.M
45: The Streets
46: Ramones
47: Duran Duran
48: ABC
49: Franz Ferdinand
50: Bow Wow Woe
51: The Jam
52: Penetration
53: Pulp
54: Oasis
55: The White Stripes
56: Paris Angels
57: Ian Dury
58: Haircut 100
59: Depeche Mode
60: Lightning Seeds
61: Fine Young Cannibals
62: Propaganda

Loads more still to come, and given that two out of the three Scottish bands on Postcard have featured, it seems sensible to re-ignite the series with the third of them….and besides, it allows me to be lazy as the song has featured before, but not in this particular series, (even then very best columnists and writers pull this stunt on their readers!)

Josef K were named after the protagonist of Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial. They formed in 1979 originally as TV Art by Paul Haig (vocals, guitar) and Ronnie Torrance (drums), later joined by Malcolm Ross (guitar, keyboards), with Gary McCormack on bass guitar, but who quickly left to be replaced by David Weddell.

A ten-track demo brought them to the attention of a few labels, but it was on Absolute Records, founded by Orange Juice drummer Steven Daly, on which the debut 45 was released:-

mp3: Josef K – Chance Meeting
mp3: Josef K – Romance

Anyone lucky enough to still have a copy of this 7″ could realistically expect to get in the region of £500 from would-be buyers.

The release of Chance Meeting/Romance led to Josef K receiving and accepting an offer from Alan Horne at Postcard for whom there would be three singles and an album. One of the singles was a totally different (and better) version of the debut:-

mp3: Josef K – Chance Meeting (Postcard 81-5)

JC

Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat

SOME SONGS MAKE GREAT SHORT STORIES (Chapter 55)

I’ve been to more funerals, or heard about the passing of people who I know, in 2022 than in any other year.  And none of the deaths have been COVID related,  It’s an indication I suppose of my own age and those of some of my peers.  It’s led to me thinking about this on a few occasions recently.

The bar’s busier than it should be on a weekday afternoon as the door swings shut behind me, but I’m the only one wearing a suit. No-one seems to notice my entrance though, I suppose they must be used to mourners in the nearest pub to the crematorium. I don’t think I could’ve coped with the wake, I had to make a quick exit to be alone with my memories, I was sick of hearing everyone else’s. I buy a pint and sit down.

“See, the trouble with you is that you’re top heavy”, said the tailor as he measured me up. They don’t get asked much for three-piece suits these days, so my choice was limited. I went for all-purpose black, or ‘charcoal grey’ as he called it. Looks black to me. This is the second time I’ve worn it, the first was a wedding and there’s a christening next week, so I might as well get my money’s worth. Birth, love and death: the only reasons to get dressed up. I loosen my tie.

Halfway through my pint and a text message from John says he’s waiting outside, sooner than I’d expected. I down what’s left and step out into the bright afternoon and get in the car. I look up and see the pub’s once brilliant copper roof has oxidized over the years, and it’s now a dull, pastel green. Everything’s getting older

mp3: Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – The Copper Top

Astonishingly beautiful, haunting and poignant.  I well-up every single time.

From 2011’s Everything’s Getting Older, which was deservedly named winner of the Scottish Album of the Year in June 2012.

There’s a lovely video to accompany it.

JC

Various

FAC 2 : A FACTORY SAMPLE by Various Artists

Here’s the opening para from the booklet in the box set.

The first Factory record was a double 7″ EP, originally planned as an orthodox compilation album to be released in collaboration with Roger Eagle and Pete Fulwell of Liverpool punk club Eric’s. Eagle and Fulwell proposed a regional sampler showcasing two groups from Liverpool, and two from Manchester: The Durutti Column, and Joy Division. However, after the more experienced Liverpudlians baulked at the complexity and cost of a double 7″ package Wilson decided to go it alone.

Peter Saville has gone on record as saying that his design for the Factory Sample was based on the FAC 1 poster., and that he was trying to convey the mood rather the music, to the extent that he didn’t listen to any of the tracks before he did the cover.   The music was recorded in October 1978 and the vinyl was released into the shops in December 1978.  There were 5,000 copies pressed, and the two records, along with five stickers, were all hand-wrapped into a silver sleeve which was then sealed in plastic, The two records played at 33 1/3 rpm and not the standard 45 rpm.

I’m holding the facsimile from the box set in my hand. The packaging is sturdy and the attention to design detail throughout is impressive, even to my untrained eye.  There’s a dedication within the sleeve – “For Don Tonay without whom….”

Don Tonay was the owner of the Russell Club in Hulme where the Factory nights had been held. He would be portrayed by Peter Kay in the film 24 Hour Party People, but by all accounts, the real Don Tonay was nothing like the blunt northern club owner stereotype he came across as in the film – but then again, it was a film in which the legend was used throughout for entertainment purposes.

As mentioned above, Joy Division and The Durutti Column were always going to be part of the FAC 2 release.

John Dowie was a Birmingham-born musical comedian who had first come to prominence (of sorts) at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1972. He had already released an EP, Another Close Shave, on Virgin Records in 1977, but when it failed to sell in any decent numbers, the label dropped him.  He was a friend of Tony Wilson and, added to the fact that his material was inexpensive to produce in the studio, he was an easy addition to help make the release affordable.

Cabaret Voltaire had formed in Sheffield in 1973, but it took until November 1978 before their debut single was released on Rough Trade, with their contribution to FAC 2 was their second appearance in quick succession.  They were known to Tony Wilson from playing at the Factory Club.  Cabaret Voltaire had been trying to get the New Hormones label, run by Richard Boon, interested in their music, but being unable to afford anything, Boon had passed the tape to Wilson, after which the invites to play at the club and then contribute to A Factory Sample were made.

mp3: Joy Division – Digital
mp3: Joy Division – Glass
mp3: The Durutti Column – No Communication
mp3: The Durutti Column – Thin Ice (detail)
mp3: John Dowie – Acne
mp3: John Dowie – Idiot
mp3: John Dowie – Hitler’s Liver
mp3: Cabaret Voltaire – Baader-Meinhof
mp3: Cabaret Voltaire – Sex In Secret

One thing you can say about the music is that it didn’t conform to any type, style, genre or whatever, and I reckon you’d have been hard-pressed to find someone back in December 1979, outside the Factory family, to say they cared for all the tracks. Even then, Peter Saville has said on a number of occasions that the only song he actually likes is Digital.

If you’re fortunate enough to have an original copy of A Factory Sample, which is in very good nick and still has all five stickers as part of the package, then you could expect it to fetch upwards of £600 if you wanted to flog it.  The cheapest copy on Discogs just now is £300, but the seller admits that there is storage wear to the sleeve and the stickers are long gone.

JC

Chemical Brothers

THE MONDAY MORNING HI-QUALITY VINYL RIP : Part Fifty-four: HEY BOY HEY GIRL

Play LOUD.

But preferably not as loud as I did when converting the vinyl to mp3, as I didn’t hear the delivery driver ring the doorbell/knock on the door meaning that a short time afterwards, I found a card on the doormat asking me to make rearrangements for the parcel as ‘there was no one at home’ to which had been added, in biro, ‘I tried four times to get your attention but your music was very loud’.

Oh, and fair play to the driver for not simply leaving it on the doorstep as the rain was falling heavily, otherwise the sleeve of my copy of the new Bodega album would likely have been turned to mush.

mp3: The Chemical Brothers – Hey Boy Hey Girl

I know there’s some of you out there who don’t really like to dance to such block rockin’ beats, but I’d kindly ask that you make an exception in this instance.

The single went to #3 in June 1999.   I would find it hard to accept that it is coming up for its twenty-third birthday, if it wasn’t for the fact that the vinyl has been ripped from the Surrender 20th Anniversary box set that I picked up a couple of years back.  I’ll likely post something else from that artefact in the next couple of weeks.

JC

Fall

THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING SERIES FOR SUNDAYS (Part 41)

2003.  The Fall are still on Action Records on which an EP is released in December of that year.  It’s been another crazy year, as exemplified by the story around the release of an album in October 2003.

The same line-up as had been together for Susan vs. Nightclub – MES, Ben Pritchard, Jim Watts, Dave Milner and Elena Poulou had been hard at work in Rochdale, Lancashire – at a studio built and owned by local lass and mega pop-star, Lisa Stansfield, on what was provisionally entitled Country On The Click. It had been due for release in April 2003, but MES decided he was unhappy with the final mix and pulled the plug.  He would later say:-

“I thought this LP was perfect round about March. But then you trust people to go away and mix it, and it comes back sounding like Dr. Who meets Posh Spice. You have to go back in and strip it down to what it basically was.”

To further annoy him, the early mix was leaked onto the internet seemingly by Jim Watts, who was, by the end of the year, no longer in the band. The new mix was, as indicated above, made available in the shops under the title of The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click). It was the band’s 23rd studio album.

Reviews were almost universally positive:-

“as valuable an album as anything The Fall ever released in the 1990s”
“Smith’s lyrics are at a near career-best of insolence and nonsense
“Smith is on magnificently mad form”.
“Smith grinds and spits on everything that moves. Sometimes it’s completely incomprehensible, sometimes insanely entertaining.
“Great by Smith’s standards. Practically genius by everybody else’s.”
“as good as anything in this group’s monstrous catalogue”
“their best record in a decade”.

And yet, no single was lifted from it to assist with its promotion….well, not initially, and even then there’s a story to be told.

Proteinprotection was a track on the album, but rather than release it as a 45, the decision was taken to head back into the studio, with Simon Archer brought in on bass as Watt’s replacement, and rework it entirely as a Festive number.

mp3: The Fall – (We Wish You) A Protein Christmas

It was released as a 2×7″ single in a limited pressing of 1,000 copies as well as a more widely available CD.  Here’s the b-sides:-

mp3: The Fall – (We Are) Mod Mock Goth
mp3: The Fall – (Birtwistle’s) Girl In Shop
mp3: The Fall – Recovery Kit 2#

I’ll just mention in passing that (Birtwistle’s) Girl In Shop seems to have been played entirely by former drummer Spencer Birtwhistle, while Recover Kit 2# is a remix of a track originally found on the most recent LP.  (We Are) Mod Mock Goth is a new song altogether, co-composed by MES and Elena Poulou.

Hang on a moment though…..this might all appear a bit gibberish to readers from North America.  And that’s down to the fact that The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country On The Click) wasn’t released over there until June 2004 but the version was different from that previously available in the UK. It had a different sleeve, some song titles were abbreviated and most confusingly of all, alternate versions of the songs, including Recovery Kit were substituted, while a couple of b-sides, including Mod Mock Goth, were added to the CD.

I hope you’re managing to follow all this, as it’s relevant to the next part in this singles’ series.

JC

Skinner

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #301: SKINNER

As in Grahame Skinner, probably best known from his stint as the lead singer in Hipsway.  He’s been part of the music scene round these parts for the nest part of 40 years, initially with Jazzateers before that brief period of pop stardom in the latter half of the 80s, albeit there was only one single which ever made it into the Top 40.

Skin, as he seems to be known to all and sundry, carved out a reasonable career, but there’s been many a time when he’s fallen back on his skills in the bar and restaurant trades to earn a crust….it did seem strange one day to pop into a popular cafe about seven or eight years ago in the west end of Glasgow and find that he was running the show.

For the past decade he’s been the frontman in The Skinner Group, among whose members are the often-mentioned Douglas MacIntyre of Creeping Bent Records, while the bass guitar duties are the responsibility of Campbell Owens, who was part of Aztec Camera back in the 80s.  The Skinner Group is a relatively recent name for the combo – previously it was just referred to as Skinner, and its under the moniker that I’ve a couple of songs, both from inclusion on compilations issued by the German-based Marina Records,   Here’s one of them:-

mp3: Skinner – Still Messed Up With You

JC

Various

NO FOOLIN’

As mentioned before, I’m going to try and make a fresh one at the start of each month during 2022.

mp3: Various – Stick or Twist

Super Fi – Urusei Yatsura
The Facts of Life – Black Box Recorder
Rebellion (Lies) – Arcade Fire
He’s On The Phone – Saint Etienne
Skipping – Associates
Colin Zeal – Blur
Always The Quiet One – The Wedding Present
VtR – The Twilight Sad
Confide In Me – Kylie Minogue
Scooby Snacks – Fun Lovin’ Criminals
Kinky Afro – Happy Mondays
Summertime – The Sundays
King of Carrot Flowers (Part 1) – Neutral Milk Hotel
All Falls Down – Kanye West (feat. Syleena Johnson)
Allow Yourself – Broken Chanter
C.R.E.E.P. – The Fall

Two seconds beyond sixty minutes.  The title refers to a line in the lyric from one of the songs. Play it all through in one go…..or fast-forward if you prefer.  The choice is yours.

JC

PS : Completed and readied for posting before I saw that Kanye West had been a tad on the offensive….again!

PPS : In case you didn’t know, one of our fellow bloggers has got himself into a spot of trouble with a recent posting delivering a nasty backlash. Click here for more info.