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.

King of the Slums

DEMENTED AND THRILLING

Here’s more proof of the impossibility of keeping up with 90%+ of what’s happening in contemporary music.

Until I picked up the C88 box set a few years back, I hadn’t ever heard of or come across King of the Slums.  Here’s what the booklet with the box set had to offer:-

Salford’s King of the Slums hit the ground running with 1986’s extraordinary ‘Spider Psychiatry’ – a demented and thrilling offering that showcased the band’s experimental blend of distorted violin, raw guitar and almost impenetrable vocals.  Contributing a track to a 1987 Debris fanzine flexi ‘Haemophiliacs On Tacks’), they then moved to Play Hard (set up by Dave Haslam and Nathan McGough) for a string of releases, starting with the EP, England’s Finest Hopes, which featured the scratchy and raucous ‘The Pennine Spitter’. (the track included in the C88 box set).

KOS’s uncompromising style left little hope of commercial breakthrough, but tracks such as ‘Fanciable Headcase’ (once performed on TV’s Snub) won them many fans in the North West.

But that’s nowhere near the full story.  Wiki (I know……!!) informs that KOS disbanded in 1991 after the release of their second studio album, Blowzy Weirdos, but that 2009 saw an album of new material credited to (1991) both King of the Slums and Slum Cathedral User, which was the original name of the group. There then followed another period of inactivity before three more albums Manco Diablo (2017), Artgod Dogs (2018) and Encrypted Contemporary Narratives (2020) were issued, while there were also a number of live dates.

Sadly, frontman Charley Keigher died in 2021. I am assuming, although I may well be wrong, that this will be the end of things, musically.

Here’s the song from the C88 box set

mp3: King of The Slums – The Pennine Spitter

JC

Northside

A SHORT FOLLOW ON TO YESTERDAY’S MUSINGS

“….if you go into any second-hand or charity stores and have a rummage, then you can pick up physical copies of albums for a lot less than it would cost to download it.”

As I was typing these words, I thought I should come up with an example for you.

Northside were on Factory Records back in the 1990s, and that alone should make their CDs and vinyl a tad more ‘collectable’ than most.  But it’s not the case.

Their third and final single was Take 5.  It’s a more than decent enough song, albeit very much of its era and therefore, understandably, sounds a bit dated, especially on the production side.  It is, however, the sort of song that always puts a smile on my face on the odd occasion it comes up on random shuffle, or indeed I decide to give it a listen when scrolling through the 44,000+ songs on the laptop.

I bought this on CD back in the day.  I think I paid £3 for it…maybe even a little more.  It was worth it as it came with three songs:-

mp3: Northside – Take 5 (12″ version)
mp3: Northside – Take 5 (7″ version)
mp3: Northside – Who’s To Blame (Instrumental)

These days, you can pick it up via Discogs for £1.49, albeit there’s postage on top. But if you happened to wander into any of the shops who have it online at this price, then I’m sure you will get yourself a bargain, especially if you buy a few more CDs during your visit as part of some sort of bundle offer. I would suspect that if you happened upon a copy in a charity shop, it might be as little as 50p or £1. For an artefact that was issued by the seemingly collectable Factory Records…..

Now, if you were looking to pick up digital copies of the songs, and I’m using i-tunes to illustrate, you could only do so as part of a wider Northside compilation album of 21 tracks (£15.99) or you could home in on the three songs and pick them up for 79p each….or £2.37 for the lot.

As I was saying, second-hand CDs nowadays are cheaper than downloads….

JC

Gnarls Barkley

THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION IN A PUB QUIZ

Crazy by Gnarls Barkley.

Now, it could be appropriate to any number of given questions, such as ‘What was the biggest selling single in the UK in 2006?’, or perhaps, ‘Which song was instrumental in making a seemingly overnight star of singer/rapper CeeLo Green more than a decade after he first entered a recording studio?’.

The question I was thinking of, given that it involved something truly ground-breaking and historic, is:-

‘Name the first single to top the UK charts on download sales alone?’

I do recall all sorts of doom and gloom merchants predicting that the success of Crazy spelt the end for CDs in the same way as those shiny metal discs had killed off vinyl.  To be fair, it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption to make given the rise of portable and affordable mp3s player and other technologies which would, and indeed did, change the listening habits of music lovers the world over.

I’m not going to get into any sort of discussion or debate as to why vinyl began to make its comeback from about the time Crazy hit the top of the charts, as there’s no single definitive reason.  I can only speak for myself in that I got this blog up and running in September 2006 right on the back of getting my first USB Turntable, courtesy of an anniversary gift from Rachel, and from being encouraged to do so by a few other music bloggers, and in particular Comrade Colin.  Vinyl on the second-hand market was still very cheap, albeit many of the shops were dominated by the sort of stuff that had been chart-fodder it wasn’t always easy to find the sort of stuff I really wanted.  But the growth at the same time of on-line markets, and in particular eBay and Discogs, meant it became easier to track things down at affordable prices.  It’s a totally different world now…..

Will the bubble burst?  It most likely will given it does seem that, for the most part, physical copies of music are bought by older generations and younger folk, having known nothing but digital downloads or streaming sites, will need to get on board in the years and decades to come if the vinyl revival is to be maintained.

It’s a strange old world out there. I didn’t ever see music fans giving up on their CD collections given how much they had spent on these as replacements for vinyl, but if you go into any second-hand or charity stores and have a rummage, then you can pick up physical copies of albums for a lot less than it would cost to download it.

Anyways, enough of my ramblings.

mp3: Gnarls Barkley – Crazy

It’s a great piece of dance/pop music with a real earworm of a tune that I never got bored with.  Oh, and for the record, I never bought this on CD at the time of release. I didn’t have a copy of it in my possession until the time when I began to use my PC to listen to and, ahem, acquire music.  I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it.

JC