Super Furry Animals

SUPER FURRY SUNDAYS (aka The Singular Adventures of Super Furry Animals)

A guest series by The Robster

#29: Mt. (2009, Rough Trade)

‘Dark Days/Light Years’ had a potential 5 or 6 singles on it, but in the end just the two were released, its second being one of the three songs on the album not written or sung by de facto band frontman Gruff Rhys.

mp3: Mt. [edit]

Despite the abbreviated title, it is pronounced in full – Mountain – and according to the band, it “concerns people turning molehills into extreme sport venues.” Written and sung by keyboard/electronics wiz Cian, the lyrics examine the topic of how some problems appear to be so huge, when in reality they can be solved easily, especially when we all support one another. This lyric sums it up, and there are plenty of lessons our leaders could learn from these lines alone, but never will:

Do we need more than diplomacy
To get us through tragedy?
One thing is for sure,
You can’t beat solidarity.

Ask the likes of Kneecap and Bob Vylan about that last line – that’s something they have been experiencing for a little while, much to our increasingly fascistic leaders’ disdain.

Enough politics! The single was a digital-only release and edited out the profanity, replacing the f-word with “scary”, though I’m not sure it gained much more radio airplay than the uncensored version would have. It’s a decent enough track, but I think it’s about a minute or so too long. A three-minute edit would have made it pretty much perfect.

I’ve assembled another live single for your bonus tracks this week. Two more ‘Dark Days/Light Years’ songs recorded live in New York City in 2009.

mp3: Mt. [live at the Highline Ballroom, NYC]
mp3: Crazy Naked Girls [live at the Highline Ballroom, NYC]

On the album, Mt. followed the wild opening track Crazy Naked Girls, co-sung by Gruff and Bunf. As one reviewer put it: “Crazy Naked Girls signals the band asserting its ambitious, messy, daft, generally inspired side – the side that some of us love the most, to be honest.” He’s not wrong. While it’s far from typical of the songs on the album, it certainly opens proceedings by putting a big, silly smile on the faces of the fans who had stuck with them from the start.

Both these live tracks are officially unreleased, and are my gift to you lot who have stuck with me throughout this series. Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and it seemed that Mt. might well have signalled the end of Super Furry Animals. It was the last track they would release until… well, until something of a sporting miracle occurred some years later…

 

The Robster

Fiskur

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #470: FISKUR

Multi-instrumentalist Ross Clark first came to prominence as one-third of Three Blind Wolves, alongside Dave Cleary and Kevin Mackay.  They formed in 2010 with debut mini-album Sound Of The Storm coming out the following year on Communion Records, the London-based label which gave the first big break to the now popular and famous Michael Kiwanuka.  Three singles and an album, Sing Hallelujah For The Old Machine, would be issued by Glasgow label Instinctive Raccoon in 2013, and while the band gained a degree of popularity across Scotland, they never really got beyond cult status before calling it a day in 2017.

Clark has continued a career in music across many dimensions and fields, and he performs solo under the moniker Fuskur.  The first, and this far only, release was the album Cold Hands Slow Burn, released in 2020 which was recorded and produced by Andy Monaghan, who is probably best known as being the guitarist and keyboardist with Frightened Rabbit.

A couple of years prior to that, Fiskur had recorded a cover of a Frightened Rabbit song. He wasn’t the only one doing so at the time, as plans were afoot to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Midnight Organ Fight with the release of the album being covered by some of the band’s favourite musicians and friends who had supported Frightened Rabbit along the journey from unknowns to a band on Atlantic Records who could sell out large venues wherever in the world they played.

The death of Scott Hutchison in May 2018 meant a bit of a rethink, but in due course the planned album was released in the summer of 2019 as Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit’s The Midnight Organ Fight, with the compilation now sharing its name with a tribute concert and a mental health charity, with the proceeds from both the concert and the album going to the charity.  Fiskur had recorded his take on the third song on the album.

mp3: Fiskur – Good Arms Vs Bad Arms

Regular readers will know just how much I adore The Midnight Organ Fight, and while I admired the sentiments behind the idea of the covers, I felt it would be an impossible task for anyone to improve on the originals. Which, other than in one instance proved to be the case.

 

JC

 

Sonic Youth

THE CD SINGLE LUCKY DIP (26) : Sonic Youth -Youth Against Fascism

This is a CD single that I didn’t buy at the time when it was released in late October 1992, and so I can’t take any credit for helping it reach the giddy heights of #52 in the UK singles chart.  The reason for not doing so was to do with economics.  I already had the album Dirty, and I wasn’t prepared to shell out £4 for a single in which the lead track would be a cleaned-up version of the album track with the swear words either bleeped out or replaced.

It would be at least 15 years later, and for the princely sum of £1 in a second-hand shop, that I brought the CD single back to Villain Towers and learned that Youth Against Fascism (Clen-Ex Mix) was quite different.  Yes, the swear words had been removed, but the tune was a different mix to that of the album.  The album version had been produced by Butch Vig and mixed by Andy Wallace, while the single was all down to Vig.  It’s a slightly louder take on things and Thurston Moore‘s vocal delivery is not as buried:-

mp3: Sonic Youth – Youth Against Fascism (Clen-Ex Mix)
mp3: Sonic Youth – Youth Against Fascism (Album Version)

The album version was the fourth track on the single.  The two tracks were sandwiched by these:-

mp3: Sonic Youth – Purr (Mark Goodier Session)
mp3: Sonic Youth – The Destroyed Room (Previously Unreleased)

The original version of Purr can be found on Dirty.  This slightly slower and semi-acoustic take was recorded for a BBC Radio 1 session, broadcast on 20 July 1992.

 

JC

Clash, Frank & Walters, Prefab Sprout

A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS (2)

A quick reminder that this occasional series doesn’t involve any new writing and instead delves back into the TVV vaults where I’ll pick out what I think is one of the more interesting postings from yesteryear. It’ll always be from quite a while back and will usually feature a singer or band whose appearances aren’t one of the regulars. The main idea being that those readers who are relatively new to the blog get to, hopefully, enjoy something they would otherwise have probably missed, while those of you who have been coming here a long time can just sigh as you see how the quality of writing has diminished with each passing year.  Let’s begin by taking a trip back to 5 September 2016.  And yes, the timing of this for today is very deliberate.

CALL ME STAR-STRUCK, UNCLE SAM

I’ve always been fascinated by New York City.

As a young kid, I thought it was the most famous place in the world thanks to it being the backdrop to so many films and TV shows. Hell, it even was the setting for one of my favourite cartoons – Top Cat – while there was no mistaking that my favourite comic book hero’s home of Gotham City was just a different name for NYC.

It was, in my young eyes, everything that America stood for where everything was bigger and better than you could wish for while growing up amidst the monochrome or at best faded-beige UK of the mid 70s. If someone had asked me, as an 11 or 12-year-old, why I wanted to see New York they would have got the 11 or 12-year-old’s classic answer…….just because!

If pushed I would say it was all to do with the fact it seemed to be the best place for sport with the best known names such as the Jets, the Yankees and the Harlem Globetrotters (little did I realise the last of these was showbiz and not sport!). In ‘soccer’ you had the phenomenon of the New York Cosmos, and I was desperate to be given the chance of seeing Pele and Franz Beckenbauer take to the field amidst pomp, pageantry and cheerleaders.

Boxing was another sport I watched – particularly the exploits of Muhammad Ali – and it seemed that every other month there was a world championship fight taking place in NYC at Madison Square Gardens. I wanted to be part of such a loud and raucous crowd (albeit years later my first experience of a live boxing match put me off for life)

Oh, and then there was the fact that I was fascinated by the idea of hot dogs, hamburgers and milk shakes, none of which you could get in Glasgow at the time (well you could, but you knew that they were all fifth-rate and not a patch on the real things).

Then I got slightly older and began to fall in love with pop music. NYC began to loom even larger as all the best bands in the world constantly talked about how it was the greatest city to play in and how the energy and vitality of the place brought so much to the performances. It also appeared to be where some of the best new music was coming from. And it seemed as if all the women were as gorgeous as Debbie Harry.

But the sheer cost involved meant that visiting NYC in my truly formative years was always going to be an unfulfilled dream. It was difficult enough finding the money to go and visit London far less get on a plane and cross the Atlantic. I didn’t even know how to go about obtaining a passport……

The idea of visiting in later years did come up – myself and Mrs Villain talked about going there for my 30th in 1993, but in the end we went for a beach holiday in the Caribbean. Her 40th in 1998 was another possibility, but again the lure of the sand and the sun proved too much.

By now I was in a job that had me seeing a fair bit of the world as I was a senior aide to the equivalent of the Mayor of Glasgow and accompanied him on a number of occasions, especially when he was to deliver a keynote speech at a conference or event.

I had always hoped the opportunity to do so in NYC would occur and so when he received and accepted an invitation to be part of a conference on Waterfront Regeneration, taking place at the Brooklyn Marriott, the dream of so many years was set to some true.

I began to plan everything in terms of how I would spend my free time at the conference, and before long I had arranged to stay on for a few extra days at my own expense. Greenwich Village, Central Park, Times Square, Madison Square Gardens, Yankee Stadium, the Chelsea Hotel, Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge, the Guggenheim and the Statue of Liberty were all on the list as was a ride in a yellow cab. I’d find small and bohemian record and book stores and have the time of my life. I was counting down the days to the conference which was taking place from September 20-22 2001.

It’ll soon be 15 It is now 24 years to the day that the Twin Towers came down and changed everything we thought about the world in the proverbial blink of an eye. It’ll soon be 15 24 years to the day that I made my first ever visit to NYC as incredibly enough, the conference wasn’t postponed.

It’s true that more than half of the delegates cancelled, including I would reckon 90% of those scheduled to come from Europe as travel plans were predictably chaotic and uncertain.

As it turned out, I was a passenger on the first Glasgow-Newark flight after 9/11. What I experienced during my stay will stay with me forever. There’s an entire book can be written about my experiences over the following seven days – understandably, it wasn’t what I ever imagined NYC to be in my long-held dreams. But if anything, I fell in love deeper and harder than I thought possible.  But back in 2001, I didn’t stay on any longer than the time needed to be involved in the conference.

I’ve returned a couple of times since and seen more of the ‘real’ New York and thoroughly enjoyed myself. But everywhere I look, there seems to be a haunting and chilling memory of my first time…..

I was hopeful of returning to NYC this year (2016), on my 53rd birthday no less, to fulfil the ambition of attending a gig at Madison Square Gardens as The Twilight Sad were supporting The Cure that day. But some months out I knew that events close to home would mean I had to be in Scotland for something important the day after my birthday, and so the plan was shelved.

I almost set myself up to head over this past weekend with today being Labor Day at the end of a long holiday weekend in the USA with my beloved Toronto Blue Jays playing at Yankee Stadium. But I chose instead to head to Toronto later this month and enjoy an extended break of a week rather than a few days.

Maybe NYC will be on the agenda for next year*. Or maybe I’ll wait a while longer and go over when I have as much time on my hands as possible and do things properly and not in a rushed way, hopefully with Mrs V in tow.

Here’s some music from UK and Irish bands just as equally fascinated with the city, including the song from which I stole the title of todays’ posting:-

mp3 : Prefab Sprout – Hey Manhattan!
mp3 : The Clash – Broadway
mp3 : The Frank & Walters – Fashion Crisis Hits New York

 

JC

* Haven’t been back to NYC since this post originally appeared. And the way the country is being run right now means I’m unlikely to make any plans to return, at least for a few years yet.

 

Wild Swans

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #107

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 107: Wild Swans – ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ (Zoo Records ’82)

Hello friends,

a cult classic for you today – originally recorded in mono, with an inaudible bass and muffled guitars plus vocals which sound like they were sung through a sock. Still, this tune is exquisite beyond belief, so perhaps you should not be put off too easily, even though it might sound a bit ‘amateurish’ to you at first sight! I mean, I’m willing to bet a considerable sum of money that you will already know it by heart of course, but again: if there is at least one young soul reading this to whom this song is still new, I have achieved enough.

Right, let’s explain: the song was first issued as the last ever record on Zoo Records from Liverpool in 1982 as a 12” only. Apparently Peel was rather fond of the record, so much so that a session followed shortly afterwards, and luckily it was amongst those that got released on Strange Fruit Records back in 1986. All of this may be known already, but perhaps this is new:

a. some quite big names were in the band at various times, Paul Simpson (Teardrop Explodes), Alan Wills (Lotus Eaters), Ian McNabb (Icicle Works), Ian Broudie (Big In Japan), Rolo McGinty (Woodentops), also Pete De Freitas from Echo & The Bunnymen, who did drums on the record, also he produced and financed it.

b. If you think ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ is ace, then I urge you to listen to ‘No Bleeding’ from the aforementioned Peel Session: it’s even better … by a hundred miles!

I have never really been able to put a finger on what it is that makes this record so very special, and – mind you – if I had, I probably wouldn’t be able to describe it even halfway properly. But for sure there’s a feeling of strangeness to what is going on in this song, as if something is not quite right, but a bit off rather by a very small number of degrees – still you can’t tell exactly pin those degrees down. In a way, listening to it always drove me a bit nuts, but perhaps that’s just me.

It was re-released three years ago on the (then) ever reliable Optic Nerve Recordings label (which, alas, has gone bankrupt by now, so it seems) as a 7”, and as a band-approved stereo mix as well for that matter, so thanks to the label – because otherwise it wouldn’t have found its way into the 111 singles box.

Someone once described ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ as “the perfect blend of melancholy and hope”. Well, that’s not too far from the truth, as far as I’m concerned …

mp3: The Wild Swans – Revolutionary Spirit

Take good care, enjoy,

 

Dirk

JC adds……..

Dirk did mention it

mp3: The Wild Swans – No Bleeding (Peel Session)

Passen Sie gut auf sich auf und genießen Sie es.

JC

 

Big Country, Bronski Beat, David Bowie, Giorgio Moroder and Phil Oakey, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Prince & The Revolution, Specials, U2, XTC

WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (September)

2-8 September

The month of August 1984 did offer up some gems, including what I have long held to be the greatest 12″ release of all time, William It Was Really Nothing/Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want/ How Soon Is Now?, issued on Rough Trade Records and which, in the first week of September 1984, peaked at #17 in the UK singles charts.  Turned out it would be another two years before The Smiths experienced another Top 20 single.

So here’s a few other things that were happening forty-one years ago.

The highest new entry was a re-release, and one that wasn’t all that old.  We Are Family by Sister Sledge had been a #8 hit in May 1979, and here it was, just five years later, coming back in at #32, and before the month was over it would peak at #4. It does seem the 1984 edition of the song was different from the original in that it was a remix by Nile Rogers.

The second and third-highest new entries at #39 and #43 are again examples of songs I genuinely cannot remember a single not of.  Torture by The Jacksons and Heaven’s On Fire by Kiss.  There’s actually only two new entries in the Top 74 worth posting here, and even then, the first of them, as far as I’m concerned, is far from this particular synth-pop duo’s finest 45s

mp3: OMD – Tesla Girls (#48)

The second, and I think I’m right in saying this, was the only hit single on which keyboardist and main songwriter, Jerry Dammers, took the lead vocal, and he does so with a falsetto.

mp3: Special AKA – What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend (#72)

The former would reach #21 and give OMD a ninth Top 30 hit in four years. The latter, in reaching #51, was the last single released on 2 Tone to reach the charts.

9-15 September

Dare I post the highest new entry this week, knowing that it’ll be met mostly by sneers and snorts of derision?  Mind you, my young brother likes it, and he pops his head in almost every day

mp3: U2 – Pride (In The Name Of Love) (#9)

The lead-off single from the soon-to-be released album The Unforgettable Fire.  This, more than any of their songs, was the one which suggested their future lay in arena-rock. It would, in due course, reach #3, and remain their biggest hit single through till 1988 when Desire became their first #1.

The rest of the new entries really are like a roll-call of Smooth Radio computer generated playlists.  It was painful enough being reminded of them again without actually typing them out.

16-22 September

David Bowie’s new single was the highest new entry this week.

mp3: David Bowie – Blue Jean (#17)

1983 had been Bowie’s best year ever, in terms of the actual sales/success of hit singles with Let’s Dance (#1), China Girl (#2) and Modern Love (#2).  There had also been Serious Moonlight, a hugely successful world tour of arenas and stadia which brought on board millions of new fans, but had left fans of old wondering why their hero had sold out to the shiny pop world. This brand-new song won’t have done too much to put smiles on the faces of the older fans, while the newer ones might have been less than impressed, as it was nowhere near as immediate as the offerings from the previous year.  Time hasn’t been kind to Blue Jean, or indeed the parent album Tonight.  Blue Jean would climb to #6 the following week before experiencing a rapid tumble out of the charts.

Queen had the next highest new entry at #22 with Hammer To Fall, another song from 1984 that I can’t recall.  Unlike the song coming in at #22:-

mp3: Bronski Beat – Why?

An absolute floor-filler at the student discos, and quite possibly the discos where the girls in white stilettos danced around their handbags, but I wouldn’t know as I never went near such places.  Too many pounds, shillings and pence were required to gain entry, while the drinks were way more expensive than any student union.  Smalltown Boy had only just fallen out of the Top 75 after a 13-week stay, so it was great that Why? kept Bronski Beat’s name prominently featured on the radio and TV stations of our nation.  It would eventually reach #6 around the same time as debut album Age of Consent entered the charts at #4.

Another interesting song came in at #25.

mp3: Prince & The Revolution – Purple Rain

Not one of my favourites, but loved by so many others. This single, its parent album and the film of the same name truly made a superstar out of Prince.  This would also, like Why?, peak at #6.

I mentioned up above that Queen had a new entry at #22. The band’s lead singer, Freddie Mercury, saw his first ever solo single also chart this week. Love Kills came in at #27.  Two weeks later, it peaked at #10 which meant it had outsold and outperformed the band’s new 45.  I wonder if any tension was created from such an outcome.

And finally from this week’s chart, a prime example of a slow burner

mp3: Giorgio Moroder and Phil Oakey – Together In Electric Dreams (#74)

There is a very interesting and telling background to this one, as recalled by the director of the film Electric Dreams, for which this was written as the theme song:-

“Giorgio Moroder was hired as composer and played me a demo track he thought would be good for the movie. It was the tune of “Together in Electric Dreams” but with some temporary lyrics sung by someone who sounded like a cheesy version of Neil Diamond. Giorgio was insisting the song could be a hit, so I thought I’d suggest someone to sing who would be as far from a cheesy Neil Diamond as one could possibly go. Phil Oakey. We then got Phil in who wrote some new lyrics on the back of a fag packet on the way to the recording studio and did two takes which Giorgio was well pleased with and everybody went home happy”

The song would spend 13 weeks on the chart, taking six of them to reach its peak of #3, all of which made it feel as if the song had been around forever, and even worse, was never going to go away

23-29 September

Big Country had been one of the UK’s breakthrough bands in 1983, and the band’s willingness to be seemingly constantly out on the road was a huge factor in how their fan base continued to grow.  There had been one ‘stopgap’ single, Wonderland, earlier in the year which had provided a third Top 10 hit, and hopes were very high for the lead off 45 from what was soon to their sophomore album:-

mp3; Big Country – East Of Eden (#27)

To the consternation of the band and the record label, East of Eden would stall at #17, which was maybe an indication that the new material was less radio-friendly and a tad more rock-orientated than had come before.  The big consolation was that the album, Steeltown, would enter the charts at #1 in early October.

And finally, in what it has to be said, really is something of an underwhelming month in this series:-

mp3: XTC – All You Pretty Girls (#69)

XTC released loads of great singles over the years.  This, I’m afraid to say, wasn’t one of them.  It would peak at #55.

The good news is that Part 2 of this feature will have a bundle of non-hit singles that have proven to be absolute classics.

 

JC

Various

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #394 : BANDS NAMES AFTER GOOD SONGS

A guest posting by Jonny the Friendly Lawyer (aka fiktiv)

There are hundreds of bands named after songs, but not necessarily bands named after good songs. Following is an ICA of great songs that bands took their names from. Have a listen and reply if you think there’s a song/band that should have made the top 10.

Radio Head – Talking Heads

True Stories might be the worst Talking Heads album, but the film of the same name is worth a look. It doesn’t hold together that well, but it features the unfortunate Spaulding Gray and you get to see an extremely awkward David Byrne in a cowboy hat. I’ve heard that Big Country took their name from ‘The Big Country‘, a song on Talking Heads’ second LP, but I couldn’t find any corroborating evidence.

Seether – Veruca Salt

I don’t know a whole lot about South Africa’s Seether, other than they took their name from Veruca Salt‘s killer debut single. (Actually, VS’s ‘Seether’ should be considered for the cracking debut series.) Wiki tells me the Pretorian group got together 20+ years ago and are still at it, having released multiple platinum albums in the US. I like that Veruca Salt got their own name from the bratty rich girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Baby Lemonade – Syd Barrett

I only learned from the readers of this venerable blog that there are two Baby Lemonades: a Scottish one and the boys from my adopted hometown of Santa Monica, California. Not too surprising as Syd Barrett was an iconic legend and loads of other bands have named themselves after his songs, notably Gigolo Aunts and Dolly Rockers.

Shakespeare’s Sister – The Smiths

Siobhan out of Bananarama named her band after the Mancunian foursome’s 1985 single. Another band named themselves after Pretty Girls Make Graves, from the Smiths‘ first album, but this is the better song.

Kooks – David Bowie

A charming tune from Hunky Dory about Dave and Angie’s baby son. I like the band Kooks okay, especially because they don’t sing in fake American accents. The UK folks will know that Simple Minds took their name from the lyrics of Bowie’s Jean Genie (and the Scottish folks will know that Cocteau Twins took their name from a song by Simple Minds predecessors Johnny & the Self-Abusers).*

Bad Brain – The Ramones

Bad Brains were the best hardcore band ever and they got their name from the best punk band ever. Second to last track on the classic Road to Ruin album.

Velocity Girl – Primal Scream

I love this 80-second gem from when Primal Scream were a jangly C86 band. For the life of me, I don’t know how they became so popular–Bobby Gillespie can’t sing and their songs are so derivative. They’re like the Glaswegian Tom Petty or something. The band Velocity Girl was a DC outfit that released three really listenable pop albums in the early 90’s. Try “Crazy Town” or “Sorry Again” if you’re not familiar.

Slowdive – Siouxsie & The Banshees

The unmistakable Miss Ballion, backed by the best line up of the Banshees. Damn, I wonder how much great music John McGeoch would have made in the last 20 years. Slowdive were perhaps unfairly labelled a shoegaze band, but they made a lot of pretty recordings over the years.

Spoon – Can

I like the band Spoon so much I wrote an ICA about them (#104), to mixed reviews. Can are also not for everyone, but when you’re in the mood there aren’t a lot of bands like them. And like Spoon, there’s a Can song for everyone. This is from 1972’s Ege Bamyasi, which, of course, the German band with a Japanese singer named after a Turkish vegetable.

Ladytron – Roxy Music

Also from way back in ’72, featuring maybe the best use of oboe in a rock song until Julian Cope got a hold of one. Early Roxy was exciting and different and experimental and showy. The Liverpool outfit named after this song from the eponymous debut are…showy.

 

Jonny

* JC ADDS………

I had long forgotten that Cocteau Twins took their name from a new wave song by the predecessors of Simple Minds.  I recall dismissing the tale as an urban myth when I was first told it, and I can’t recall actually mentioning it on the blog when I’ve written about either band before.  The song was never actually recorded, but t’internet being what it is, I’ve managed to get my grubby paws on a version.

mp3: Johnny and The Self-Abusers – Cocteau Twins

Later re-worked as No Cure and included on the 1979 album, Life In A Day

 

 

Super Furry Animals

SUPER FURRY SUNDAYS (aka The Singular Adventures of Super Furry Animals)

A guest series by The Robster

#28: Inaugural Trams (2009, Rough Trade)

In a parallel Super Furry universe, there is a utopian European town that has just opened a new public tram system. The authorities have dubbed it a day of celebration and a public holiday has been announced. Yes, of course, it’s an obvious subject for a song. Well, it is if you’re Super Furry Animals, anyway!

mp3: Inaugural Trams [edit]

The first track released from the band’s 9th studio album ‘Dark Days/Light Years’ is a blinder. There’s a real krautrock feel to it, supplemented by some spoken German from special guest Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand. His rap in the middle is, as far as I can make out, quite nonsensical, but that might just well fit the general SFA aesthetic. Let’s face it, there really haven’t been many songs written about trams, and certainly none with such a brilliantly unique chorus:

It’s a secular day and it will be even better tomorrow
It’s the first day of the integrated transport hub
Let us celebrate this monumental progress
We have reduced emissions by seventy-five per cent

The inspiration behind the song seemingly comes from an event involving one of Gruff Rhys’ family: “My great-grandmother was run over by a tram in the Mumbles*. But I’m still very much in favour of trams as a low-emission inner-city transport solution. The song is about commemorating the opening with a secular holiday. It’s a celebration of living with science rather than religion.”

Inaugural Trams was a sign that the new album was going to be a little more elaborate than its stripped-back predecessor. Also, in comparison to ‘Hey Venus!’ being the band’s shortest album, ‘Dark Days/Light Years’ is their longest, weighing in at a full hour. It showcased a real mixed bag of styles and was described by Gruff as having a “biblical sound”, with songs that couldn’t be played indoors!

“There are not a whole lot of chords in these songs; they’re not as song-based in the conventional song-writing way. They’ve been developed out of band jams, but it turned out sounding like songs pretty much anyway.” In fact, many of the songs on ‘Dark Days/Light Years’ had evolved from jams, riffs and grooves the band had been working on for a number of years. Some had originally been mooted for the previous album, but ended up being held over.

I think Inaugural Trams kind of sounds how Gruff described – there are only two chords, by-and-large, but it has a great melody and a compelling groove. There are a few songs on the album that follow this trend – the psychedelic odyssey Pric probably being my fave of the lot. That said, there’s a sequence of songs in the second half of the record that show the poppiest side of the band we’d ever heard before, which is ironic considering ‘Hey Venus!’ was a deliberate attempt to make a straight-up pop album. Helium Hearts in particular has “massive chart smash!” written all over it. Maybe if it had been performed by some teen heartthrob of the period, I’ve no doubt it would have fulfilled its potential. It wasn’t a single, but it’s the most obvious single the band ever wrote.

There were no physical formats of Inaugural Trams made available, but promo CDs featured two edits – a radio edit and an album edit, so-called because it is the album version, but it doesn’t crossfade into the next track. It’s also about 15 seconds shorter than the version that would appear on the 2016 compilation ‘Zoom! The Best Of Super Furry Animals’.

mp3: Inaugural Trams [album edit]

While there was no official tour to promote the album, they did still play some shows. So with there being a distinct lack of b-sides, I’m going to give you some live versions of ‘Dark Days/Light Years’ songs taken from a bootleg of the band playing in New York City in 2009.

mp3: Inaugural Trams [live at the Highline Ballroom, NYC]
mp3: The Very Best Of Neil Diamond [live at the Highline Ballroom, NYC]

If you cast your minds back a few weeks (to the Slow Life post, to be precise), you’ll remember I posted a few links to an interview with my friend Graham of Goldie Lookin Chain. In one of the clips, he spoke about his disbelief on learning that SFA had a new song called The Very Best Of Neil Diamond.

“I texted Cian and said ‘If you’ve written a song called The Very Best Of Neil Diamond…’ I think I offered to chop my bollocks off, but I changed it [to] ‘You owe me a pint’. Lucky old bollocks!” I mean, it’s an utterly brilliant song title that only a band like Super Furry Animals are worthy of, if you ask me. According to Gruff: “[It’s] about how you can’t choose the soundtrack to your life.”

Hmm, maybe not, but if a film was made about my life, I’d want Super Furry Animals to soundtrack much of it.

Next week, a single with something of a new voice…

* For those unfamiliar with this part of the world, Mumbles is a headland just to the southwest of Swansea. The most famous person from Mumbles is Catherine Zeta-Jones.

 

The Robster

Fire Exit

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #469: FIRE EXIT

It’s a return to the Big Gold Dreams box set for this week’s edition of the Scottish song, and it’s one from 1979 that would also qualify for the ‘One Song On The Hard drive’series but is just 18 seconds too long in length for the ‘Songs Under Two Minutes’ series

mp3; Fire Exit – Time Wall

From the BGD booklet:-

‘Recorded with assistance from Vibrators bass player Pat Collier, this piece of street-smart dystopian desire to get beyond the punk era’s all-pervading sense of urban dread marked the arrival of Gerry Attrick‘s much lauded combo who are still going strong.  With three albums released since 2004, a compilation, Religion Is The Biggest Cause of War, arrived in 2013. This was followed by 40 Years of Punk Rock, a 2CD collection of assorted demos, scraps and unreleased recordings. Now in their fifth decade, Fire Exit are growing old disgracefully, and are probably coming to a punk festival near you soon.’

 

JC

 

Wonder Stuff

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (37) : The Wonder Stuff – Who Wants To Be The Disco King?

The Wonder Stuff hadn’t quite come totally out of nowhere, but their ascendancy was very rapid.  Formed in March 1986, they would release a self-financed EP within six months, after which Polydor Records came calling, which meant they bypassed all indie labels from the outset.  It didn’t seem to do much damage to their credibility with the UK music press, with plenty of column inches devoted to their live shows, while frontman Miles Hunt seemed to be on speed dial with a few journalists.

The constant touring was a big factor in building up their fan base, with each of their first four singles for Polydor, in 1987/88, charting higher than the previous.  Debut album, The Eight-Legged Groove Machine, went into the Top 20 in its first week of release in August 1988, and it was further promoted by a sell-out 19-date tour of the UK in October.

A test for any band that gets early hype is how good the follow-up material proves to be

mp3: The Wonder Stuff – Who Wants To Be The Disco King?

The growth in popularity continued, with this one providing their first Top 30 hit in March 1989.  Before the year was out, they would have a Top 20 single with Don’t Let Me Down Gently, while their second album, Hup, would go Top 5.

The b-side to Disco King was a live version of debut single Unbearable, as recorded at the London show during the October 1988 tour.  The difference being it was a stripped-back, acoustic take, which must have taken the capacity audience by surprise.

mp3: The Wonder Stuff – Unbearable (live)

Having said that, there were clearly plenty of cheers when the song ended.  Looking now at some of the published set lists from 1988, it appears, the band had a habit of playing Unbearable in this acoustic fashion early on but would then play the more frantic and familiar version of the song towards the end of the show.

Apologies for the crackly nature of the tracks, but this was a 7″ single picked up second-hand for not a great deal of money.

 

JC

Wedding Present

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #106

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

# 106: The Wedding Present – ‘Once More’ (Reception Records ’85)

Dear friends,

‘Don’t Try And Stop Me, Mother’ was a 12“ compilation of the first two 7“ singles by The Wedding Present, their A-Sides and B-Sides. Also, it was the first record by the band that I managed to get my hands on in 1985.

You know, I really made a long pause before starting this second paragraph, contemplating whether there has been another record in 1985 which spent nearly as much time on my turntable as this one did. I did not come up with a satisfying answer, which might or might not show you how outstandingly brilliant this 12“ was. And still is, of course! I played it to death, believe me, frantically trying to figure out what the hell the lyrics might mean in detail – to no great avail, of course. I mean, the boy Gedge certainly was not really ‘Abba-esque’, that much I could understand, in fact his lyrics quite profoundly seemed to mirror me and my unmet teenage desires … something I could instantly cope with, of course.

But back to the 12“, the B-Side, confusingly enough, featured the first single, ‘Go Out And Get ‘Em Boy!‘ plus ‘(The Moment Before) Everything’s Spoiled Again’ whereas the A-Side had the second single on it, which was ‘Once More’ backed by ‘At The Edge Of The Sea’. I’m pretty sure all of you know all these tunes by heart and as great as both 7“ B-Sides are, the A-Sides are even better.

Now, from 1985 to 2025 is 40 years, even it’s hard to believe. But still, and I am brutally honest, in those 40 years, even up to this very day, I never, never, never have been able to decide whether ‘Go Out’ is better than ‘Once More’ … or vice versa! To me, both songs are total killers, always were – and they were the reason why I followed The Wedding Present quite religiously in the earlier stages of their career. Well, this 12“ and the fact that the band played my home town Aachen a year or so later, shortly after ‘George Best’ had been released. It was a tiny little venue, I was there early, and I stood right in front of the stage (which was just a few inches in height anyway, but let’s call it ‘stage’ nevertheless, shall we?) – and I was fully, completely and utterly blown away by this gig!

Musically and/or song-wise it really had everything you’d wish for, but in hindsight there was another thing which astonished me most: the sheer velocity Gedge and Salowka (but mostly Gedge) managed to strum their guitars with: I remember that I stood there literally open-mouthed, my eyes were not capable to follow Gedge’s hand, it moved just so damn quickly when he started playing … you’d see him placing his plectrum correctly – and then, all of a sudden, his hand exploded above the strings!

Perhaps my battered brain likes to believe that he was even faster with this when doing ‘Once More’ in comparison to ‘Go Out’, I don’t know. But as there can only be one single in the box by a band, I had to make a choice:

 

mp3: The Wedding Present – Once More

Mind you, on a different day it could well have turned out to be ‘Go Out’, I’m still unsure! Or, for that matter, basically anything they put out before ‘Kennedy’. Or ‘Kennedy’ itself, for what it’s worth …

Fun fact: some twenty years ago I was in a Peel-related Yahoo forum and out of the blue I got a private mail from Gedge, asking about some CD I had of some specific Peel show – I must have mentioned it in said forum. I could be wrong, but I think it was the last broadcast before his death. Anyway, I posted a copy of this CD to Gedge and he – very kindly – asked me whether he could send me something from ‘Cineramaland’ (his words, not mine) in return. I politely declined and told him about the above gig, saying that with this experience – and of course everything he did with The Wedding Present – he made my life rich enough. What a prick, me, right? I’d like to think that this statement was the reason for him to reform The Wedding Present, but hey, I might be wrong here … oh, I’m a friend of the stars!

Enjoy,

 

Dirk

 

Book Reviews

BOOK OF THE MONTH : SEPTEMBER 2025 : ‘STEALING DEEP PURPLE’ by STEVE McLEAN

The past four Wednesdays on the blog have been given over to Steve McLean during which he has informed and educated many of us (and probably all of us!!), on how each of Fleetwood Mac, The Velvet Underground, MC5 and Cactus had occasions when their identities were not all that they seemed to be.  All four pieces were spin-offs from a book that Steve has written, ‘Stealing Deep Purple : The Unbelievably True Story of The Most Audacious Stunt in Rock & Roll’.  

I’ll be the first to hold my hand up and say that for most of my life, I’d struggle to name any Deep Purple song other than Smoke On The Water.  Actually, I don’t even know that song…..I’m aware of the riff! The Britpop era introduced me to a second of their songs, Hush, when it was covered by Kula Shaker and taken to #2 in the singles chart in 1997.  Now, I have to say that I thought it was a Kula Shaker original given it sounded just like the rest of their output, and I had was a sort of ‘rubs eyes in disbelief’ moment when learning it had been a 1968 Top 5 hit single in America for the hard rock giants, and indeed that the Deep Purple version itself was a cover as the song had been written by Joe South and recorded in 1967 by his fellow American, Billy Joe Royal.

It was the very success of Hush that ultimately led to a chain of events in the late 70s/early 80s into which Steve delves and picks through in forensic detail, thanks to what must have been many hundreds, if not thousands of hours of research as well as seeking out and getting responses from some who were in and around the periphery of said events.

The crux of the tale centres around Rod Evans, the original singer of Deep Purple, and whose vocal is on their version of Hush.  Evans recorded three studio albums with the band before being fired in 1969.  The other members of the band – Ritchie Blackmore (guitars), Jon Lord (keyboards) and Ian Paice (drums) – felt Evans’ largely pop/mod vocal style wasn’t compatible with the sort of music they were increasingly wanting to make, and he was replaced by Ian Gillan.  It wasn’t just Evans who was booted out of Deep Purple MkI, as bassist Nick Simper was replaced by Roger Glover.

Deep Purple MkII lasted till 1973 when Gillan and Glover were removed to be replaced by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes.   Two years later, Blackmore quit to pursue what was going to be a solo career, but which ultimately became the band Rainbow.    This meant we were onto Mk IV of Deep Purple, with Tommy Bolin being hired as Blackmore’s replacement, but by 1976, the band had torn itself asunder, albeit a number of them would end up working together in Whitesnake.

Rod Evans had long drifted out of the music industry and by the end of the 70s was working in medicine at a hospital in California, which is the point in time where the book really begins.  An idea was hatched to relaunch Deep Purple and undertake a tour of America. Mexico and Canada, and possibly further afield, depending on the success or otherwise of the initial venture.  Rod Evans would front the band, but the other musicians in this version of Deep Purple would have had would have had no prior involvement in any of the Mks I-IV line-ups.

The question of who owned the actual name ‘Deep Purple’ wasn’t seen as an important issue; and, if you recall Steve’s blog posts on other bands over the past few weeks,  this was an era when quite a few bands went out on the road caring little about legacies or who had the actual right to claim the rights to a name.  Indeed, in this instance, there is some suggestion that Rod Evans may have had grounds to believe that the other members of Deep Purple weren’t too fussed about it all, especially as they were at the height of their fames with new bands, and that it would all go smoothly.  Others in and around Deep Purple, and in particular the management side of things, believed very differently……

The tour did go ahead.  Some shows went well, but most didn’t, with underwhelming performances and poor sound quality leaving some fans feeling incredibly short-changed and/or cheated.  Some shows ended in riots, and others ended with the band members fighting among themselves.  Inevitably, the whole thing ended up in court.

As I said, I know next to nothing about Deep Purple. I also have a loathing for heavy metal bands such as Rainbow, Whitesnake etc, and as such this book should have been of little appeal to me.

But the book isn’t really anything to do with the actual music, as it’s more about the machinations of the industry.  Steve’s style of writing is akin to it being the script for a six-part documentary on the events of 1979/80.  He keeps his own personal opinions out of proceedings, and early on he accepts that, despite his very best efforts involving more than 200 printed sources (many of them contemporary and long-forgotten) as well as dozens of interviews he carried out himself, the book is, essentially, an incomplete jigsaw puzzle.

Hardcore Deep Purple fans, the ultras if you like, quite a few of whom weren’t around when these events took place, will argue vigorously that Rod Evans stole the name of the band, took a second-rate group of musicians out on the road and knowingly acted out a massive fraud on the paying public.  In short, a scam of the highest order.

There are others, the miniscule minority view if you like, who feel Evans didn’t steal the name as he was an original member and in 1979/80, Deep Purple didn’t exist as a recording or touring band; he simply took something out on the road that didn’t meet people’s expectations leading to a horrible backlash that shouldn’t have been on him alone.

The book does offer a great deal of context to events, particularly through what press coverage there was back in the day. It also, towards the end, goes into some depth about the eventual court case, and while this does briefly threaten to take the prose into dry legal-speak, Steve, to his huge credit, finds a way to make it all understandable to those of us without a law degree to our name.

Stealing Deep Purple isn’t available (as far as I know) in the shops, and the publisher, Lulu Books, is involved in printing ‘on-demand’.  In other words, if you fancy reading this in full, and I really do recommend it very highly, then you use this link and let the publisher do the rest.

mp3: Deep Purple – Hush

I’ve known Steve McLean for quite a few years now, but our friendship has nothing to do with my take on this book.  If it had been poorly written, or been boring or had in any shape or form failed to hold my attention, then this post would not have been pieced together.

 

JC

PS : Steve has fired over a few more of his theft essays, and I’m delighted to say that these will feature, probably on a monthly basis for at least the rest of 2025. Keep your eyes peeled.

Pogues

FOUR TRACK MIND : A RANDOM SERIES OF EXTENDED PLAY SINGLES

A guest series by Fraser Pettigrew (aka our New Zealand correspondent)

#5: Poguetry in Motion – The Pogues (1986)

In the mid to late 1980s, as I’ve mentioned before, my taste in music took a folky turn as I drifted away from a rock and pop scene that for me had lost its post-punk vibrancy. Through listening to John Peel since the late 70s I had come to share his enjoyment of traditional Irish folk music like The Chieftains, whom he played regularly, alongside occasional outbursts of Shetland fiddle orchestras, and I was also drawn to folk-influenced acts like The Proclaimers.

The Pogues had erupted on the scene in 1984, puncturing the façade of New Romanticism, an irrepressible pimple forcing its ruddy irritation through pop’s inch-thick mask of foundation and blusher. Punk’s spirit of anarchy was tossed into a barrel with the elemental appeal of traditional Irish music, given a good shake and poured onto the stage like a farmer’s protest on the town hall steps. ‘Genuine’ folk fans were appalled and revolted, rebels looking for a cause mobbed the mosh pit and drank it down by the pint.

Frontman Shane MacGowan snarled his songs from a mouth like a vandalised graveyard. An unlikely looking pop star, his features were already familiar to punk fans from a series of infamous photos taken at a Clash concert in 1976 where he was seen splattered in blood (from his own ripped earlobe, it turned out, rudely relieved of its safety-pin earring by the bass player of The Modettes).

Not just a pretty face, however, MacGowan rapidly gathered accolades for his songwriting after The Pogues’ second album Rum, Sodomy and the Lash provoked positive reviews in August 1985. Their first album, Red Roses for Me, had also been greeted as welcome refreshment, but it had passed me by, I confess. The second album slightly dialled down the frantic, showing that The Pogues weren’t just cracking a joke by playing folk tunes at Ramones tempo. Songs like The Old Main Drag and A Pair of Brown Eyes were an authentically original take on the Irish exile experience, and to close the album The Pogues wrung every last drop of bitter pathos out of Eric Bogle’s classic And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda.

The Poguetry in Motion EP was released in late February 1986 on Stiff Records, the first new material after Rum, Sodomy and the Lash. Three singles from that album, the aforementioned Pair of Brown Eyes, Sally MacLennane and a cover of Ewan MacColl’s Dirty Old Town, had all failed to reach the UK top 40, but Poguetry finally cracked it, peaking at 29. If this was on the merits of the opening track London Girl I’d be surprised as it’s not especially good. It feels like rather a conventional pop song draped in Pogue-like stylings, but it’s neither a ripping Irish tune nor a winning pop hit. MacGowan’s lyrics are fine, with some characteristic poetic touches, but the arrangement races through them with hardly time to breathe.

The second song, Rainy Night In Soho, however, is undoubtedly the lead track on the EP (there’s a video for it), an all-time Pogues classic, and one of MacGowan’s most poignant ballads, confirming him as rock’s most romantic, sentimental old drunk. Lines that might sound hopelessly cliched on anyone else’s lips become scenes from a lover’s tender dream in his gruffly slurred melancholic reverie. Strings and brass elevate the song to a stirring conclusion, the repetitive refrain anchoring it in a century-old Irish popular tradition.

The string and brass conclusion, however, ultimately proved the catalyst for The Pogues and their producer Elvis Costello to part ways. Two versions were recorded, one with a flugelhorn solo over the finale, one with an oboe. Costello insisted on the oboe, but MacGowan was prepared to die in a ditch for the flugelhorn. MacGowan got his way on this, the UK version, the oboe had its day on the Canadian and US releases.

Fans of David Simon’s HBO police series The Wire will be well familiar with the first track on the flip side, The Body of an American, which features at several wakes for deceased officers in the Sidebar Tavern, the Irish bar near the Baltimore police HQ. Even without this immortalisation, it’s another Pogues classic, formed in the mould that made The Sick Bed of Cuchullain.

A slow intro in 3/4 time sets the scene of small boys hanging around the wake for big Jim Dwyer, a ‘Yank’ deceased in some Irish location. Then suddenly the tempo doubles into a rollicking jig with the memorable verse: “But 15 minutes later we had our first taste of whiskey / There was uncles giving lectures on ancient Irish history / The men all started telling jokes and the women, they got frisky / By five o’clock in the evening every bastard there was piskey”. The chorus refrain of “I’m a free-born man of the USA” ensured the song’s instant appeal to the Irish-American diaspora, fictionally in The Wire, for real in every St Paddy’s Day party ever since. The final chorus gives way to a long and delicious fade-out led by guest musician Tommy Keane’s irresistible uileann pipes.

I always took the final track, Planxty Noel Hill, as some sort of tribute to the folk group of that name, assuming Hill to have been one of its members. He was, very briefly, as a stand-in, but the gesture to him is of the two-fingered variety as it turns out. ‘Planxty’ apparently means something like ‘cheers’ in Irish, so has nothing directly to do with the group, and Hill made a bit of a tit of himself by very publicly denouncing The Pogues’ music as a “terrible abortion” on Irish radio. In an Irish context you can imagine how language like that went down. Jem Finer’s lively, cheeky instrumental was The Pogues’ musical flick of the Vs in Hill’s general direction.

My copy of Poguetry in Motion is the 7” 33rpm version. The 12” version has exactly the same tracks but plays at 45, of course.

London Girl

Rainy Night in Soho

The Body of an American

Planxty Noel Hill

 

Fraser

Various

ONE HOUR OF ‘IN TAPE’

A guest posting by Leon MacDuff

As much as I love doing the monthly mixes (and there were actually a couple lined up for today that will be held over), I really enjoy when another member of the TVV community comes up with something.  A huge thanks, therefore, to our good friend Leon MacDuff who continues his stellar guest contributions with a mix featuring songs that were released on In Tape Records.

Here’s Leon to explain a bit more:-

“I can’t claim any great purpose with this one, I just fancied doing a mix and decided to focus on a particular label, so here it is. The label I alighted on was In Tape, the Manchester-based indie originally created by Marc Riley and his manager as an outlet for his work with The Creepers, which went on to clock up around 70 releases between 1983 and 1990.

It’s odd how little attention this label gets – we have all heard of it, but it doesn’t feel like it has the cult following you might expect. There’s no fan site, no Facebook group, not even a Wikipedia article. But since it had a roster of acts I already know and like, such as Yeah Yeah Noh, Rote Kapelle, Asphalt Ribbons and Frank Sidebottom (though I’m well aware that Frank is one of those acts you either “get” or you don’t), I made it my mission to listen to every scrap of In Tape material I could find, and while some of it truly is quite scrappy, overall it’s a decently solid catalogue – so here’s an hour of it, with dodgy transitions courtesy of yours truly (though from Life With Patrick into Eva is a pretty good one, even if I say so myself).”

mp3: Various – One Hour of ‘In Tape’

Robert Lloyd & The New Four Seasons – Something Nice
Whipcrackaway – The Horse’s Tale
The Membranes – Everything’s Brilliant
Terry & Gerry – Pizza Pie & Junk
The Weeds – China Doll
Heart Throbs – Toy
Zor Gabor – Vigilante
Yeah Yeah Noh – Starling Pillowcase, And Why
Stitched-Back Foot Airman – Invented By Robots
Marc Riley & The Creepers – Polystiffs (live in Amsterdam)
Asphalt Ribbons – Over Again
Rote Kapelle – San Francisco Again
Life With Patrick – Something From Nothing
Eva – Unquenchable (the untouchable mix)
June Brides – Just The Same
The Waterfoot Dandy – 14 Days
Frank Sidebottom – I Am The Champion

Leon

Super Furry Animals

SUPER FURRY SUNDAYS (aka The Singular Adventures of Super Furry Animals)

A guest series by The Robster

#27: The Gift That Keeps Giving (2007, Rough Trade)

Merry Christmas! Well, at least that’s what Super Furry Animals were saying when they released their first seasonal single on 25th December 2007.

mp3: The Gift That Keeps Giving

It was deliberately conceived as a Christmas single as part of the band’s mission to make a pop album, ‘Hey Venus!’. The title is taken from a studio session in 2004. Accordfing to Gruff:

“Geoff Travis asked us for one of our pop records, so we thought a pop record should have a Christmas single. We’d been playing around with this phrase because we had a Scottish engineer who helped us make the 22-minute version of The Man Don’t Give A Fuck” and he always used to say ‘it’s the gift that keeps giving!’ He was just referring to the length of the song… but we found out it’s also a popular American shopping phrase.”

Thankfully, it’s not a typical Christmas song. It’s actually quite good! Soulful and laid-back, it was favourably compared to Burt Bacharach, and you can hear that I think, especially with that trumpet solo. The critics loved it too, but given the nature of the release – a free download, no physical formats, had already been out on the album for 5 months – it got nowhere near the hit parade, becoming the first SFA single not to chart at all.

Obviously, there were no b-sides either, so what gifts can I give you this week? Well, as usual, I’ve dug a couple things up you might be interested in. The first is a live version of The Gift That Keeps Giving recorded for the Bristol-based student radio station Hub Radio. Like last week’s live offering, it features just Gruff and Guto in stripped-back acoustic mode, but it’s an unreleased curio you might like.

mp3: The Gift That Keeps Giving [live Hub Session]

A couple weeks ago, I offered up a live version of Show Your Hand from the 2007 Glastonbury Festival, so let’s return to that show, seeing as it’s from the right time period. Here’s a wonderful version of Northern Lights, played in the style of a band I’m guessing the vast majority of visitors to this blog love dearly…

mp3: Northern Lights [live at Glastonbury]

And finally… while the UK and Europe had been enjoying ‘Hey Venus!’ since August, those poor souls across the Atlantic had to wait until January 2008 to hear it. To promote its impending release, a radio promo was issued, another track from the album, one of its loudest, rowdiest numbers.

mp3: Neo Consumer

Just three more weeks left….

 

The Robster

Filthy Tongues

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #468: THE FILTHY TONGUES

The Filthy Tongues are, in some ways, direct descendants of Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, the mid 80s/early 90s band with whom Shirley Manson, later to find fame and fortune with Garbage, launched her career.

I say ‘some ways’ in as much that the three gentlemen picture above – Fin Wilson, Martin Metcalfe and Derek Kelly, who make up The Filthy Tongues  – were also together in Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, but it’s only ‘some ways’ as their music is quite different from that of their old band.  It also has to be mentioned that they used to be Isa & the Filthy Tongues, back between 2005 and 2014, when their vocalist was the American-born Stacey Chavis with two albums Addiction (2006) and Dark Passenger (2014) to their name.  This extract from a review of one their singles gives as good a description of their sound as any:-

“A fine little single, dirty, scuzzy in just the right way with Isa’s vocals having a dark intense PJ Harvey quality to them that compliments Metcalfe’s intense wall of fuzz guitars very nicely. It’s a cracking, intensely immediate single that deserves to be subverting daytime radio playlists everywhere”

Chavis left the band and the music industry after the second album, and Metcalfe took on the role of lead vocalist.  All that happened was the PJ Harvey quality of the vocals were replaced by something akin to Birthday Party-era Nick Cave or perhaps Lux Interior of The Cramps, with subsequent albums Jacob’s Ladder (2016), Back To Hell (2018) and In These Dark Places (2022) all receiving rave reviews.

I’m happy to admit that I didn’t explore that dark corners in which The Filthy Tongues operated, thinking that the word ‘gothic’ was used far too often for them to be of any interest or significance. But that changed when In These Dark Places came my way, courtesy of its release being partly-funded by Last Night From Glasgow and my level of membership qualifying me for a free copy.  I gave it a listen and quite enjoyed it, but not enough to go out and purchase any of the back catalogue – and being someone who doesn’t use streaming services, I couldn’t simply press a few buttons and give things a listen.

But in 2023, LNFG again came to the rescue thanks to the release of Black Valentine, a compilation which brought together ten of their ‘best’ tracks from the three albums along with two new songs, thus enabling Villain Towers to be exposed to said dark, dingy and occasionally scary corners.  Turns out, kind of like a Ghost Train in any fairground, there’s a great deal to enjoy from start to end, with a few WTF? bits along the way, and makes for the perfect way to get better acquainted with the band.

mp3 : The Filthy Tongues – Come On Home

From the 2018 album Back To Hell.

Can I end with a suggestion?   Head to this Bandcamp page, where you can have a listen to the songs on Black Valentine, and if you like what you’re hearing, you can buy a CD or purchase a digital download.  Even better, head over to this page on LNFG and get a hold of the vinyl.  You won’t be disappointed.

The idea for the vinyl was a good one, but it has sold out.  Discogs or maybe a friendly indie record shop may prove to be your friend.

 

 

JC

 

Fountains Of Wayne

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #393 : FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE

A debut guest posting by Marc Goldstein

Fountains of Wayne were a New York band, but not Frank Sinatra’s “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere” New York, nor Lou Reed’s “Hey white boy, what you doing uptown?” New York. Not the New York of CBGB or Birdland or Gerde’s Folk City. Theirs was the New York of the bridge and tunnel crowd: those who live in the outer boroughs, and Long Island, and New Jersey. Their songs were populated by hustlers and strivers and young guys on the make, but also by the lonely, the bored, the frustrated, stuck in a dead-end job or a long-distance relationship or just stuck in New York traffic.

If you’re thinking that’s encroaching on Springsteen territory, it really isn’t: FoW had no sprawling 9-minute epics like Jungleland, or rousing anthems like Badlands. They specialized in 3-4 minute vignettes about the real lives of recognizable types of people, with humor and catchy melodies, and in that respect somewhat resemble the Kinks, even though their music doesn’t sound at all like the Kinks. I’ve been a fan since the beginning: track 1 of the debut album. And I would start the ICA with that one (Radiation Vibe) except that JC just recently featured it here, so I get to use my 10 precious slots for other songs. I’ll go in chronological order.

At the beginning, FoW was just college friends Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger. Their self-titled debut album came out in 1996. It was not a happy time for me, as I was working insane hours in a small law office for a boss who – true story – sued his own mother. You can imagine how he treated his employees. Listening to FoW was one of the rare bright spots in my life that year.

1. Leave The Biker

A plea to a beautiful woman in a bar to ditch the Neanderthal she’s with, a sentiment to which many guys can relate. (See also “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” by Joe Jackson.)

FoW’s second album, Utopia Parkway, came out in 1999, by which time I had moved on to a much better job, at the company where I still work today. The band was now a proper four-piece, with the addition of Jody Porter and Brian Young. For me, the standout tracks are

2. Red Dragon Tattoo
3. Denise

In the former, our narrator is about to get the titular tattoo, in an effort to impress a girl who hasn’t previously shown any interest. One gets the distinct impression that he will not be successful. The latter song became famous due to the perfectly-placed handclap/snare crack, right after the line “she’s got a heart made of gravel.” Or more likely due to the video, starring Jolene Blalock in a car wash.

2003 brought FoW’s breakthrough album, Welcome Interstate Managers. I was living in Tokyo at that point and observing their success from afar, but I was aware that Stacy’s Mom was a hit back in the States. If someone has heard only one FoW song, it’s probably that one, so I’m not going to feature it here.

4. Bright Future In Sales
5. Mexican Wine

Bright Future in Sales is about a young guy who could have what the title promises – if he can only get his drinking under control. (Warning: this one contains a naughty word, in case you or someone within earshot is easily offended.) The narrator of Mexican Wine, on the other hand, has given up on trying to better himself: “I tried to change but I changed my mind/Think I’ll have another glass of Mexican wine.”

The proper follow-up to Welcome Interstate Managers wouldn’t arrive for another couple of years, but in 2005 the band released a compilation of b-sides and rarities called Out-of-State Plates. Along with the various gathered tracks there were two new songs, both of which are power-pop gems.

6. Maureen
7. The Girl I Can’t Forget

The titular Maureen has placed our narrator firmly in the friend zone. Either because she’s clueless about his feelings for her, or maybe because she’s well aware of them and likes toying with him, she gives him too much information about the guys she’s dating, and he has had just about enough. The narrator of The Girl I Can’t Forget, on the other hand, gets the girl – but he’ll be damned if he can remember anything about the night it happened.

The band’s next studio album, Traffic and Weather, was released in 2007. It opens with a banger:-

8. Someone to Love

It’s about two lonely Brooklynites, Seth and Beth. The chorus leads us to believe the two will find each other, but those hopes are cruelly dashed in the last verse.

Meanwhile,

9. New Routine

acknowledges that it’s not just New Yorkers who get sick of the same old same-old and think there must be something more exciting out there somewhere.

The band’s swan song, Sky Full of Holes, arrived in 2011. It’s the FoW album I’ve listened to the least, and I was really surprised to learn it was actually their highest-charting album in the US. It’s not that any of the songs are bad, but none of them stuck with me the way so many of their earlier songs did. But maybe it’s just me: when this one came out, I was back in the US, recently married, searching for a house with a baby on the way, and just wasn’t going to spend as much time with a new record as I once would have. Cemetery Guns is Fountains of Wayne in a more serious vein, and a nice way to close out their final record.

10. Cemetery Guns

Chris and Adam were not getting along when this album was recorded, and FoW called it quits not long after. Sadly, any hope of a proper reunion was lost when Schlesinger became an early casualty of COVID, dying in April 2020 at only 52.

Like many bands, FoW had a few “go-to” stylistic elements that they frequently used over their career. Alt-country smartass Robbie Fulks (who deserves his own ICA) took notice, and dreamed up the Fountains of Wayne Hotline, a telephone helpline dispensing songwriting tips. The perfect bonus track to close out this ICA on a happy note.

Robbie Fulks – Fountains Of Wayne Hotline

 

Marc

 

The The

SLIGHTLY BORED BY IT NOW? (1)

You can lay the blame at the door of SWC over at No Badger Required for the sudden appearance of yet another new series.  It’s hopefully one that might attract a few guest postings…….

SWC is in the midst of a Top 200 rundown of his favourite songs.  It’s, as you’d expect, an absolute doozy of a series, packed with great songs and even better writing, with many of the tales attached to the song recalling events, people and happenings in SWC’s fifty years on planet earth. Cannonball by The Breeders comes in at #45:-

“Now, this may not sit well with many of you, but what the hell, it’s my list and my blog, and I’m going to tell you regardless. I’m slightly bored by ‘Cannonball’ these days. There I said it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s obviously a great song, one that is instantly recognisable by that chopsy little intro that descends into that feedback led guitar onslaught about a minute or so later. That much is clear and obvious.

“But, up until about, ooh a year ago, every time I heard ‘Cannonball’ and I heard the hook that crashes in after about two minutes, I used to get goosepimples running up and down my arms, because it still sounded exciting and incredible and it still made me want to throw myself off the sofa (avoiding the coffee table obviously) and had I been compiling this nonsense a year ago, ‘Cannonball’ would have easily found itself in the Top 20 (where it I think was last time around). But the goosepimples have stopped appearing and instead of wanting to throw myself off the sofa when that hook rages in, I now kind of give it a knowing nod and fluff the cushion behind me a bit.

“But, saying all that, its still too good and too damn addictive to ignore.”

Which got me thinking about those songs that no longer thrill me as much as they once did and how writing about them might spark off debates on TVV and, as indicated earlier, might also lead to guest postings.

mp3: The The – Infected (12″ version)

Infected, the second album by The The, was rarely off the turntable of my shared Edinburgh dwelling in 1986/87. It’s an album that I introduced to the two flatmates (one was a supply teacher, the other was a psychopathic air stewardess), neither of who knew much about Matt Johnson beforehand, but both were quite taken by at least some of its material.   The air stewardess thought it was a bit dark and bleak, but loved the upbeat and danceable nature of the title track.  The supply teacher was a bit of a chin-stroker and he loved the complex nature of the lyrics.  It all meant that, given the stereo and speakers were in a communal part of the house, this was a record which we were all happy enough to get played on a very regular basis…and if we weren’t listening to it, there’s every chance a few months later that we’d load up the VHS tape of the Infected film taped from Channel 4, which featured all the videos made for the songs.

Please, as Chrissie Hynde once pleaded, don’t get me wrong.  I still have a huge amount of time for the title track, It retains a powerful sound thanks to a bombastic, if a tad overblown production that has, with hindsight, blighted many tunes of the 80s.  It still has that catchy sing along chorus and danceability that so enthralled the air stewardess. But as with SWC and Cannonball, the magic might not have totally worn off, but I’m nowhere near as captivated and mesmerised as I once was and Infected just doesn’t have anything like the same effect on me nowadays as it did back in 1986/97.

 

 

JC

 

The New Cactus Band

‘STEALING’. A FOUR-PART GUEST SERIES IN BOOK FORM : #4 THE NEW CACTUS BAND

A guest series by Steve McLean

There should be a subtitled to this blog called The New Cactus Band’s Album ‘Son of Cactus’ is boss and everyone should own a copy.

There are very few success stories when it comes to a band named with the prefix ‘New’ (unless of course New Order are a revamped version of a band called Order in which case they did very well, although the original Kids on the Block have a lot to answer for).

The New Cactus Band are one of the few ‘New’ to buck that trend. Perhaps because they didn’t just hit the nostalgia or bar circuit, on account of the fact that they formed a few months after the parent band broke up. Their incarnation was official or at least semi-official, plus they actually recorded new material.

The original Cactus were a heavy rock outfit with some lightly sprinkled prog leanings. They were formed by former Vanilla Fudge members Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert. An early incarnation had them joined by Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart before both being replaced by Rusty Day from Ted Nugent’s Amboy Dukes  and Jim McCarty from The Detroit Wheels (not the Yardbirds geezer). Which feels a bit like the director of Casablanca getting rid of Bogart and replacing him with Chachi from Happy Days.

They shifted line ups a few times until the final version of Appice, Bogert, Werner Fritzschings on guitar, Duane Hitchings on keyboards and vocals by former Atomic Rooster man Peter French in 1972 wound up.

Appice and Bogert were given another chance to play with Jeff Beck which was, quite frankly more appealing than listening to punters shout Vanilla Fudge requests all night. They generously gifted the band name to Hitchings and his former Blues Image bandmate, guitarist and vocalist, Mike Pinera. Pinera had written Blues Image’s only hit single and hand been in the second most successful Iron Butterfly line up.

 “We gave the rest of the Cactus name to Duane Hitchings, who was the keyboard player in Cactus, and who later on co-wrote ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy’ and ‘Young Turks’ with me and Rod. We’d been friends a long time, so gave him and Mike Pinera Cactus and they did an album for Atlantic called ‘Son Of Cactus’“ Carmine Appice Outsider Rock, Feb 2022

It seems Pinera was first enticed to Cactus before Appice and Bogert left. The band had ideas to try to finally score a hit record and Mike was the seen as the writer who could deliver it and was retained after the offer from Jeff Back came through.

“I was invited to join ‘Cactus’ and we wanted Michael Pinera desperately. Michael was from the ‘Blues Image’. He wrote ‘Ride Captain Ride’ and he was in ‘Iron Butterfly’.. he was such a phenomenal player and a great guitar player and wrote hit records which Cactus needed badly” Duane Hitchings, Classicbands.com

mp3: The Blues Image – Captain Ride

As the New Cactus Band, Hitchings and Pinera with Roland Robinson on bass and Jerry Norris on drums recorded the excellent album Son of Cactus.  It’s something of an unappreciated 1970s lost classic, at least for the style. The fans of the original band were turning their nose up at the record as it lacks the heavy oomph of the parent band. In spite of poor sales, the album was well reviewed.

(Contemporary review of the Son of Cactus)

mp3: The New Cactus Band – It’s Getting Better

It’s Getting Better opens the album and is an earworm of gentle proportions. It manages to be both a pub-rock boogie and have an AM country feel.

mp3: The New Cactus Band – Ragtime Suzy

Ragtime Suzy is another driving radio gem. It’s a simple blues led rock about a woman. If this turned up in the film Roadhouse you’d say to yourself ”Why the fuck am I watching Roadhouse, I’m not a deadbeat dad in 1986”

mp3: The New Cactus Band – Senseless Rebel

Okay, so some of the songs like Senseless Rebel have a Status Quo feel but it’s like Quo’s cool, drunk older cousin that told Quo all their stories and then Quo re-told them as their own stories in school after the summer holidays. That’s fucking typical of them.  Also, the song features a talk-box and talk-boxes are spit-fuelled-magic makers.

As a live band, the Robinson and Norris line-up didn’t last long. Charlie Souza of The Allman Brothers and Bobby Caldwell of the Edgar Winter Band and Captain Beyond came on board to tour the record.

I joined the Allman Brothers in early 1973 and went up to New York..  I stayed with Gregg (Allman) in the same room where he had a mountain of cocaine on the dresser. (He was) constantly sniffing it when he brought in a groupie (and had) sex in the bed right next to me, the week before I attended his wedding! I freaked out and luckily an old friend, Drummer and leader of Captain Beyond called me and asked me to come over to Long Island to join the new Cactus band. I didn’t have a second thought about leaving Gregg and hopped in a cab over to Mike Pinera’s apartment where I met Duane Hitchings – Charlie Souza, The New Cactus Band April 2025

Once again, unlike other “New” bands, the authenticity of this outfit is hammered home by Carmine Appice aiding the new band to get up and running.

“We rehearsed the music, Carmine (Appice) helped us with vocal rehearsals at Mike’s place” Charlie Souza, The New Cactus Band April 2025

But in reality, it seems that the name New Cactus Band was little more than a legal swerve to put their record out as more often than not the band were still getting booked and promoted as simply Cactus (and sometimes Cactus Featuring Mike Pinera). Some of that may have been cavalier promoters but it didn’t seem to bother the group much;

“Neither Mike or Bobby cared at all, as they were really stoned. Duane didn’t talk about the business part, so I wasn’t really aware what was going on” Charlie Souza, The New Cactus Band April 2025

(Various adverts from 73 / 74 for Cactus, The New Cactus Band and Cactus featuring Mike Pinera)

The New Cactus Band continue to tour around the US with smaller headline shows and high-profile support slots, indulging in everything rock and roll has to offer.

“We played Most all of their album plus a few standard blues tunes and toured the northeast for a couple of months and then we started opening concerts with Bob Seger. I had an affair with one of his background singers” Charlie Souza, The New Cactus Band via Email April 2025

By moving away from the original line up songs, they were able to make the band their own. They were cementing something of a live reputation.  The record may have struggled but as a live act they were still a going concern.

“They went out on tour and must’ve grossed through the year like 7 to 800,000 thousand in a year, which was big money back in the ’70s.”  Carmine Appice Outsider Rock, Feb 2022

For context though, while that figure may seem sizable, when totalled after tax, insurance, agents fees and tour costs, it’s unlikely the band were pulling $100,000 a year between them. Okay money to live on but not exactly the rock star millions.

In the 1970s live shows may have been more popular than ever and a band with even a little bit of stardom could make a living if they had the right kind of support. Unfortunately, the long fate of Cactus or the New Cactus Band was never going to be much more than that of a curio. A splinter from Vanilla Fudge and Iron Butterfly.

If a band had an album to promote and record company backing then they could command top dollars since promoters knew that they could charge more for the tickets and the record company would be plugging their songs on the radio and to record shops. Since the Son of Cactus albumhadn’t done as well as hoped, the record label stopped pushing Pinera and co. The two-fold strike of less record company cash and less record company backing hit hard and the New Catus Band started to feel the pinch.

“In around November of the same year, I missed my flight out of Tampa where I lived and was late getting up to Long Island for a rehearsal. It was then that Hitchings had decided to play the bass parts on his keyboard so that the three of them would make more money, so I flew home and joined White Witch on Capricorn Records. We did an album in Miami with Eric Clapton’s producers, Ron & Howie Albert called “A Spiritual Greeting.” Charlie Souza, The New Cactus Band via Email April 2025

The New Cactus Band would eventually morph into Thee Image, who released two middling 1970s rock albums. Caldwell went back to Captain Beyond and they recruited Buddy Miles‘ drummer Donny Vosburgh. The new band filled in the space between Led Zepplin and the Bee Gees. The recordings are patchy and reeks of a band just looking for a hit in any style.

That said the song Come to You is a fine slice of melodic Yacht Rock and a rare Hitchings vocal. It sounds like it should be featured in a CBS TV movie starring Bill Bixby.

mp3 : Thee Image – Come To You

By 1976 promoters and the press had reverted to using the Cactus name when referring to Thee Image, presumably with absolutely no pushback from Pinera. While this would have helped sell tickets, it would have also been confusing since the same year former vocalist Rusty Day from the Appice group had started touring with his own line-up of the band.

(Press Clipping for Thee Image / Cactus)

Pinera and Hitchings were seemingly happy to be billed as whichever band a promoter wanted to book. By now It was common to find listings for an Iron Butterfly featuring Mike Pinera and an Iron Butterfly without. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that there were several versions of Butterfly touring at the same time.

“I had the pleasure to go on a sixteen city tour with Keith (Surname withheld)  in the mid-1970s with a “fake” Iron Butterfly band. I acted as tour manager, roadie, and bus driver”  Jim (surname withheld), Marmalade Skies Facebook Group 2025

By the late 1970s Pinera’s name would be advertised alongside versions of Iron Butterfly, Cactus, Blues Image or Thee Image. Hitchings was also usually involved.

You might even find more than a handful of gigs that featured a line up of Cactus on the same bill as a line up of Iron Butterfly, with Pinera joining both bands. Cactus or Iron Butterfly were often also paired with one of the reactivated Steppenwolf bands that were kicking around in the 1970s. It seems they shared the same management.

Ultimately when Iron Butterfly and Cactus appeared on the same bill, it was highly probable that it was The Mike Pinera Band playing multiple sets in the same night.  Unscrupulous promoters have always existed and artists need to pay rent.

(Press clippings for Iron Butterfly with Mike Pinera, The Mike Pinera Band supporting Iron Butterfly, Iron butterfly and Cactus on the same bill as Steppenwolf… four out of five of these bands feature Mike Pinera )

The real shame of this story is different to other ‘New’ bands. It’s not the crimes committed in the good name of the act, but The New Cactus Band only recorded one album. Seemingly caught up in promoter’s whims with short term gain being prioritised by the members rather than building their fanbase from the ground up. They had the solid foundations of a cracking album and decent musicians from which to do it too. It should be remembered that 1970s musicians rarely played a long game.

“We moved to Miami and all we did is party. We went on tour to rest. That’s how much partyin’ was going on.” Duane Hitchings speaking to ClassicBands.com

After an attempt at a solo career, which seemed to be sabotaged by the constant branding schizophrenia, by 1981 Pinera and Hitchings were both sidemen in Alice Cooper‘s backing band.  Not just as a touring band, the duo where captured playing on the Special Forces album Hitchings co-authoring five tracks and Pinera, Hitchings and Cooper coming up with the song Vicious Rumours

mp3: Alice Cooper – Vicious Rumours

Pinera was also frequently in and out of Iron Butterfly through the 80s and 90s. His last registered IB involvement, according to wiki, was in 1994 but that means nothing given how many former members of the band there were and how unscrupulous promoters can be.

Duane Hitchings wrote a couple of big hits for Rod Stewart. In the 1980s he wrote songs for the soundtracks of Rocky IV (The fourth best Rocky film), Iron Eagle (the second best Iron Eagle film) and Flashdance (the film that Footloose wished it was).

He’s also written for or with Steve Perry, Kim Carnes, Eddie Money and a load of other people you know from Family Guy cutaways.

Bogart, Appice and McCarty reactivated Cactus in the early 2000s but they reverted to the heavy rock of the original band. It seems The New Cactus Band and the lost classic Son of Cactus is destined to be cast aside forever. Like Bill Bixby walking alone to sad music at the end of the Incredible Hulk.  There’s been too much Bill Bixby in this blog.

Incidentally, the Steppenwolf bands that Pinera supported would have probably contained Tony Flynn or Geoff Emery or both. They would go on to become involved with Rod Evans to form The New Deep Purple…. But that’s another story.

I’d like to thank Charlie Souza for taking my questions.

 

 

STEVE McLEAN

Lambchop, Sisters Of Mercy

A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS (1)

The first instalment of what will be an occasional series.  It’s going to be a lazy series in that it won’t involve any new writing and instead will delve back into the TVV vaults where I’ll have picked out what I think is one of the more interesting postings from yesteryear. It’ll always be from quite a while back and will feature a singer or band whose appearances aren’t one of the regulars. The main idea being that those readers who are relatively new to the blog get to, hopefully, enjoy something they would otherwise have probably missed, while those of you who have been coming here a long time can just sigh as you see how the quality of writing has diminished with each passing year.  Let’s begin by taking a trip back to 21 May 2015.

Brian over at Linear Track Lives!* is one of the most consistently inventive and entertaining bloggers out there. He is currently in the middle of a rundown of his Top 100 songs from the 90s, and he’s already delivered some cracking surprises, including this at #58:-

“There is something about the way frontman Kurt Wagner delivers words in that Tennessee drawl that takes me back to listening to my relatives spinning yarns at reunions back in the sticks of Illinois as a youngin’. Everything was just a little slower and a little simpler. Even when Wagner’s tales are filled with melancholy, I still find the music comforting. Perhaps I also like Lambchop because I think this would have been a group my father and I might have actually agreed on.

As for today’s pick, this is the second and last song on the countdown with the dreaded f-dash-dash-dash word (as Ralphie would say) in the title. If you only know Lambchop’s more recent work, you might find the tempo of this one quite surprising. “Your Fucking Sunny Day” most assuredly doesn’t sound like it was sung from a rocking chair. It comes from the band’s third album, ‘Thriller.’ That’s a little self-deprecating humor from a group that produced two earlier albums with few sales to show for it. On the off-chance this song might have received some airplay, there was a clean version called “Your Sucking Funny Day,” which is a smile, but I don’t think Merge or anyone else needed to worry too much about such things.”

mp3 : Lambchop – Your Fucking Sunny Day

It’s also one of my favourite Lambchop songs. I’m particularly fond of the LP Nixon which was released in 2000 and is packed with great tunes, with this being the track that would be edited back by a minute and released as a single. The album version is superior:-

mp3 : Lambchop – Up With People

Two years later the band followed up Nixon with Is A Woman with initial copies of the CD having a bonus disc that included a hugely inspired and genius cover version:-

mp3 : Lambchop – This Corrosion

For those of you who may not be familiar with the original, well, it is considered by many to be THE greatest goth anthem of all time. All 11 minutes of it. Get those shoulders shaking:-

mp3 : Sisters of Mercy – This Corrosion

And finally, the Lambchop take on a punk classic:-

mp3 : Lambchop – (Get A) Grip (On Yourself)

Enjoy y’all.

 

JC

* Brian’s blog has been on a hiatus since August 2021.  I used to have links to a whole bundle of old blogs, but these were lost a while back when the widget used within the TVV sidebar stopped being supported by WordPress.  Linear Track Lives! is still accessible and, should you have a few hours to spare, is well worth a visit for a delve into the 1,612 posts published between 2009 and 2021.  Click here.