Stranglers

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : SOMETHING BETTER CHANGE/STRAIGHTEN OUT

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

S is for Something Better Change and Straighten Out, released by The Stranglers as a double-A single in July 1977.

We can argue all day and all night whether The Stranglers should be seen as a bona-fide punk outfit, or whether they were lucky grubby pub rockers who happened to be in the right city at the right time.  I liked a lot of their singles, although I reckon if I’d been a few years older and more politically/culturally/socially aware, I’d have been appalled by some of their lyrics.  As it was, the tunes got inside my head and the shout-along style of the vocals was nigh on perfect for any teenager looking to annoy their parents and teachers!

mp3: The Stranglers – Something Better Change
mp3: The Stranglers – Straighten Out

This made it all the way to #9 in July 1977. Something Better Change was the first single lifted from the album No More Heroes, released two months later. Straighten Out didn’t appear on the album.

JC

Maxine Nightingale

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : RIGHT BACK WHERE WE STARTED FROM

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

R is for Right Back Where We Started From released by Maxine Nightingale as a single in November 1975.

Some songs just sound so great coming out of the radio that they stay with you forever.  So it is with a Top 10 single from when I was just 12 years old:-

mp3: Maxine Nightingale – Right Back Where We Started From

Maxine Nightingale was 25 years old when this single was a hit.  British-born, of Guyanese parents, she began singing in groups while still at school, and by the time she was 16, was a vocalist in a cabaret band, and playing to club audiences all over the country.  She cut three solo singles in the late 60s/early 70s, but none of them achieved anything.  She then spent a number of years as part of the cast in the musical Hair, initially in London before taking the lead female role in the German production.

Newly married and with a daughter, she returned to London but took time off after doing a limited amount of session singing as it was impossible to juggle work and being a mother.  One of her appearances in the studio had caught the ear of producer Pierre Tubbs, who asked his friend, J. Vincent Edwards if they could come up together with a show-stopping tune for the vocalist.

The song was written in a matter of hours, and within a few days of being asked, Maxine was in a small demo studio in London putting down her vocal.  She was still reluctant to think about a career and her preference was that, should it be taken up by a label, it be released under a pseudonym. She also asked for a flat, one-off session fee for her performance, (probably around £25) but Edwards convinced her that would be a bad idea, and she should take her cut of the royalties instead.

Tubbs and Edwards pulled everything together using session musicians. The first label it was offered to was United Artists who pounced on it.  The speed at which things were moving helped persuade the singer that it should go out under her own name.  It reached #8 in the UK, but more importantly it would get to #2 on the US Billboard Chart. All this led to a proper contract for Maxine Nightingale resulting in three albums in the late 70s (the image at the top of this post is the sleeve of the debut album…the single came in a plain sleeve as there hadn’t been any time to take professional, publicity photos).

She never really came close to repeating the success of Right Back, and in many ways, Maxine Nightingale is regarded as something of a one-hit wonder.

My own love for the song has never left me, and I’ve aired it a few times in the pre-match build-up at Stark’s Park on Saturday afternoons, often in the important games as we chased promotion to a higher division.

JC

Wire

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : A QUESTION OF DEGREE

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

Q is for A Question of Degree released by Wire as a single in June 1979.

Wire formed in London in 1976.  Mike, from Manic Pop Thrills, provided as good a summary as you’d ever want, when he pulled together an ICA back in March 2017:-

A British rock institution rapidly approaching the 40th anniversary of their first gig as a 4 piece (in 2017). And, after all that time, still making great albums.

For much of their lifespan, Wire have featured only four members – Colin Newman (guitar/vocals), Graeme Lewis (bass/vocals), Robert Grey (nee Gotobed) – drums) and Bruce Gilbert (guitar).

Yet, despite a remarkably stable line-up, intra-band tensions have always played a huge part in the Wire story. Wilson Neate’s book ‘Read & Burn: A Book About Wire’ is a superb telling of their history, portraying it as a struggle for control between principally Newman and Gilbert.

The late 70s produced three classic LPs in ‘Pink Flag’, ‘Chairs Missing’ and ‘154’ on which the band pretty much invented post punk. This purple patch however was curtailed by an acrimonious split, with songs written for a fourth album.

Perhaps surprisingly after several years apart the band came together again in the mid 80s. Their 80s/90s output is less well regarded than the original trilogy, but almost any band would consider the run of records from the ‘Snakedrill’ E.P. to ‘The First letter’’ to constitute a decent career.

Having lost drummer Gotobed during the band’s second incarnation, the internal dynamics of the remaining three members meant that they ceased activity for a second time in 1991.

Unexpectedly, the band reconvened for live shows and to produce another LP ‘Send’ in the early Noughties. Since then, although Gilbert left the band for good after ‘Send’, the band have enjoyed the most active phase of their career, releasing four albums and a mini-LP since 2008 with another album due at the end of March 2017 (and one more for good measure arrived in 2020).

Today’s song was released after Chairs Missing, but prior to 154:-

mp3: Wire – A Question of Degree

It’s an excellent piece of music, and I’d love to be able to tell you that I picked up on it as a teenager back in 1979.  But I was quite late to Wire, albeit I was aware of Pink Flag as it was a favourite album of a flatmate in the student years.    It’s no surprise that the single was a huge flop, but I don’t think the band or the label ever thought it would deliver any mainstream success.  The first two minutes or so move along at a fair lick, almost power-pop in places, but then it changes tempo and seems to go through some sort of machine that forces a change in shape, to something approaching psychedelia; it only lasts 30 seconds or so, but it is quite disorientating and makes it nigh on impossible to play on daytime radio, before reverting to that earworm of a tune.

The b-side:-

mp3: Wire – Former Airline

I’m very grateful that I didn’t buy this single in 1979.  If I’d played Former Airline, then there’s every chance I’d have made a fool of myself by taking it back to the shop and asking for a replacement copy on the grounds that the record was so badly damaged it was unlistenable.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

JC

Sex Pistols

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : PRETTY VACANT

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

P is for Pretty Vacant released by Sex Pistols as a single in July 1977.

I did think long and hard about featuring this.  I do despise everything that John Lydon has become in recent years, and the blog really should be giving him as much oxygen as it does Morrissey.  But I never invested anything near as much, emotionally and all the rest of it, in Lydon/Sex Pistols/PIL as I did with The Smiths/Morrissey, and as such, I can, in my head, make some differences.  Besides, homing in on Pretty Vacant, and extending it to the b-side, does allow some sort of link to how yesterday’s post finished off.

It was released on 2 July 1977 as the band’s third single, reaching #6 in the UK singles chart. And yes, I’m still amazed all these years later that the BBC and all other radio stations accepted that the singer was pronouncing it as ‘vacant’………….

mp3: Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant

Here’s the b-side, seemingly a one-take in the studio, featuring a cover of a Stooges song:-

mp3 : Sex Pistols – No Fun

Talking of covers, The Ukrainians, the band fronted by Peter Solowka, formerly of The Wedding Present, did this in 2002:-

mp3: The Ukrainians – Цiлкoм Baкaнтнi

JC

Ida Maria

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : OH MY GOD

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

O is for Oh My God released by Ida Maria as a single in October 2007 and re-released in January 2009.

Ida Maria was born in 1984 in the small town of Nesna, Norway.  At the age of sixteen she moved to the bigger town of Bergen, looking to try and make some sort of career as a musician.  It took another move, this time to Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden, before she was able to gain some success, fronting a band and becoming a reasonably popular live act within the Swedish rock scene without any commercial success or record deal.

It would take until 2006 to make her name back home in Norway, thanks to winning national competitions for unknown artists and capturing the attention at rock festivals.  She was signed to the Norwegian arm of Universal Records, releasing Oh My God as her debut single in late 2007, with the album Fortress Around My Heart following in July 2008.

The album was a huge success in Norway, and was also picked up on by the music press in the UK, thanks largely to the success of the single I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked, which was a Top 20 hit and helped land Ida Maria slots at summer festivals as well as an appearance on Later With Jools Holland.

The decision was taken to re-release Oh My God as the follow-up, but for whatever reason, it was held back on a couple of occasions and didn’t hit the shops until January 2009. It didn’t crack the Top 75, despite it being an infectiously catchy piece of indie-rock:-

mp3 : Ida Maria – Oh My God

Here’s the b-side from the original release

mp3 : Ida Maria – We’re All Going To Hell

Later in 2009, Ida Maria released a remix of Oh My God, one win which a grizzled rock veteran added his co- and backing vocal:-

mp3 : Ida Maria – Oh My God (remix featuring Iggy Pop)

It’s a pity that I’ve previously featured The Passenger on the blog as it would have made for a neat follow-up tomorrow.

JC

Vince Staples

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : NORF NORF


The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

N is for Norf Norf released by Vince Staples as a single in June 2015.

The first in the series not to actually get a physical release, as a single.

I’m sure it was SWC who brought this to my attention.  If it was, then thank you….and if it was someone else, then I apologise profusely.

Here’s all music’s take:-

One of the most talented voices in rap to emerge in the late 2010s, Vince Staples took the hardened perspective of his Long Beach-via-Compton upbringing and elevated it above his contemporaries with forward-thinking production choices and lyrical introspection. After releasing a batch of mixtapes that were well-received by fans and peers alike, he issued his official debut Summertime ’06, a 2015 hit that spawned the gold-certified Norf Norf. Staples quickly followed with 2016’s politically charged Prima Donna EP. With his star swiftly rising, he had a breakthrough year in 2017 with a spot on the Black Panther soundtrack, a feature on the Gorillaz track Ascension, and another hit single, BagBak, from his critically acclaimed sophomore album, Big Fish Theory. Pivoting to shorter LPs, he released the brisk FM! (2018) and Vince Staples (2021).

Norf Norf did not peak in any major chart, but received widespread acclaim by critics and was placed on several year-end lists. In February 2018, the song was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, which I am assuming was based on the number of downloads over the years.

mp3: Vince Staples – Norf Norf

The song, which is a hard hitting and gritty tale about life on the streets, gained notoriety over a year after its release. It was all on account of social media lighting up after a woman, a Christian mother, posted an eleven minute-long video blog in which she tore into the song, lamenting the fact it was being aired:-

“This is on our local radio station, this crap is being played.  I couldn’t even believe the words that I was listening to. As a mom, it infuriated me.”

The woman was ridiculed, largely on the basis of privilege and was accused of being racist.  Staples, however, refused to jump on the bandwagon, stating, via twitter, that everyone was entitled to an opinion, and adding that he didn’t believe she was racist.  His take on it was the woman in the video was confused on the context of the song and this caused her to be frightened, and understandably so. He went further and called out those who were attacking her.

It seems to me to be a strange one.  I get the idea of Staples suggesting that those who were attacking the woman were displaying as much a lack of understanding as she had shown back when she posted the video online.

But surely there is some noise to be made about the fact that the woman displayed such a shocking lack of empathy towards the situations being described in the lyric?  If white parents continually stigmatise young black people and pass on their unjust fears to their children, then the issues that have caused so much pain and grief these past 12 months in particular are never going to go away.

Apologies for a bit of a Sunday sermon today.  I’ll try and pick out a happy song tomorrow.

JC

Tindersticks

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : MY OBLIVION

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

M is for My Oblivion released by Tindersticks as a single in October 2003.

This is the sort of thing I sneak out on the blog when folk aren’t paying too much attention.

Tindersticks had released a sixth studio album, Waiting For The Moon in June 2003.  Even for a band who rarely made the most commercial of music, this was a difficult listen, one which it was later revealed to have taken a long time to get down in the studio, with the recording process running from September 2001 – January 2003.  It also proved to be the last album the original line-up would make as by the time The Hungry Saw was released in 2008, three of the original six members had quit….a genuine case of musical differences.

For some strange reason, the label that the band were on at the time, Beggars Banquet, felt that a drip-feed of single releases would somehow help with sales.  Both of Don’t Even Go There and Sometimes It Hurts had bombed, and there really wasn’t another track suitable for release as a single…..and besides, there was no radio station prepared to play their music except when it was the time of day, dead of night when listening numbers were miniscule.

And yet, the decision was taken to edit down the seven-minute version of an album track, into something just a little over four minutes, and issue a third single from the album:-

mp3: Tindersticks – My Oblivion (edit)

I’m not saying that My Oblivion is a poor piece of music – far from it – but it is a ridiculously poor choice for a single.

But then again, all the diehard fans went out and bought it as there was a previously unreleased song along with what was thought, at first glance, to be an instrumental version of another track on the album:-

mp3: Tindersticks – Now It’s Over
mp3: Tindersticks – Running Wild (extended instrumental)

Now It’s Over is a decent enough song, especially for a b-side and actually could have gone on to the album as a replacement for one or more of the hard listens.

Running Wild, in its original form, was the closing track on the album, coming in at just over four minutes and with a typically morose vocal. This version comes with a warning. It is more than 14 minutes of compiled takes, recorded during the various sessions for Waiting For The Moon.

Anyone who gets all the way through it without hitting the off or fast-forward button deserves some sort of reward. Or at least a long lie-down.

Happy New Year!!!!!!

JC

One Thousand Violins

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : LOCKED OUT OF THE LOVE-IN

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

L is for Locked Out of the Love-In released by One Thousand Violins as a single in September 1987.

One Thousand Violins, from Sheffield, formed in 1985. The original members were John Wood (vocals), Colin Gregory (guitar), David Walmsley (keyboards/guitar), Darren Swindells (bass), and Peter Day (drums). They were signed by Dan Treacy of The Television Personalities to his Dreamworld Records, with debut single Halycon Days being the second release on the label in July 1985. Incidentally, the B-side of the 7″ single, Like One Thousand Violins, was voted in at #49 in the John Peel Festive 50 of 1985.

The second single, Please Don’t Sandblast My House followed in October 1986, after which Ian Addey came in as the new drummer. A third and final single on Dreamworld came out in September 1987:-

mp3: One Thousand Violins – Locked Out of the Love-In

It reached #13 in the indie chart, but before too long Dreamworld Records folded.

In due course, lead singer John Wood departed, but with the key songwriting team of Colin Gregory and David Walmsley still involved, they soldiered on, recruiting a new singer and signing to London-based Immaculate Records, a label which normally specialised in synth pop. A few more singles and an album followed, but to little fanfare, and it all came to a halt in 1989.

Like many other bands of the era, there was a renewed interest in their music many years later, and Cherry Red Records, in 2014, released a compilation album covering all the songs recorded between 1985 and 1987.

Here’s the three tracks which were included on the 12″ of Locked Out of the Love-In

mp3: One Thousand Violins – Why Is It Always December?
mp3: One Thousand Violins – I Was Depending On You To Be My Jesus
mp3: One Thousand Violins – No-One Was Saving The World

Cracking names for the songs, but the best song title of the lot can be found as the extra track made available the 12″ version of the debut single:-

mp3: One Thousand Violins – I Remember When Everybody Used To Ride Bikes… Now We All Drive Cars

JC

Siouxsie & The Banshees

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : KISS THEM FOR ME

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

K is for Kiss Them For Me released by Siouxsie & The Banshees as a single in May 1991.

This is another of those occasions when I look at the date of the release and think to myself that I can’t possibly be that old a song.

Kiss Them for Me was the lead single from the band’s 10th studio album, Superstition, which would be released about a month later. It was something of a shock to hear a fairly substantial shift in direction, more dance/groove orientated than normal, with a very clear and distinct bhangra, as well as baggy, influence. The promo video turned out to be all Siouxsie with little of the Banshees, focussing on her looks as she swayed, moaned and sighed her way through what was bound to be a sure-fire hit single.

mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Kiss Them For Me

It didn’t completely stiff, but at #32, it was along the lines of most of the band’s 45s. It as their 25th single release in the UK, of which only five had made it inside the Top 20.

Released on 7″, 12″ CD and cassette, many of the b-sides were remixes, but there were some other otherwise unavailable tracks:-

mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Return
mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Staring Back
mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Kiss Them For Me (Snapper Mix)
mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Kiss Them For Me (Kathak Mix)
mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Kiss Them For Me (Loveappella Mix)

What I didn’t know until doing a bit of background research for today’s post is that Siouxsie’s cryptic lyrics are a tribute to Jayne Mansfield. It seems her catchword was ‘divoon’, a slang word used in the lyric, while there are also references to heart-shaped swimming pools, a love of champagne and parties, and also the horrific car crash which killed the actress in 1967. And neither was I aware that Kiss Them for Me was also the name of a 1957 film in which Jayne Mansfield had starred with Cary Grant.

JC

Dexy's Midnight Runners

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : JACKIE WILSON SAID…..

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

J is for Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In Heaven When You Smile) released by Dexys Midnight Runners as a single in October 1982.

Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile) was written by Van Morrison and is the opening track of the album Saint Dominic’s Preview, released in 1972.

Dexys Midnight Runners were just over two years removed from the success of Geno and the album Searching For The Young Soul Rebels when seemingly out of the blue, and sporting a whole new look and sound, they had the big hit of the summer of 1982 with Come On Eileen. The new album, Too-Rye-Ay became an instant success, entering the charts at #2 in its first week of release at the beginning of August. Come On Eileen was still riding high and so there was no urgency for a follow-up 45, and it took until October before Mercury Records opted for the cover version as being the most suitable.

It also proved to be a huge hit, reaching #5 despite the fact that it, and its b-side, could both be found on the album.

mp3: Dexys Midnight Runners – Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile)

There are maybe some hints that Kevin Rowland would have preferred that the b-side had been chosen as the single. Its name appears on the front of the picture sleeve, and its lyrics can be found on the reverse. I’m surely not alone in thinking that this is a far superior song to the cover:-

mp3: Dexys Midnight Runners – Let’s Make This Precious

This one can be heard, more weeks than not, blaring out pre-match at Stark’s Park in Kirkcaldy as one of the tunes that I choose, in my role as match day announcer, to play prior to kick-off. It’s an uplifting and rousing sort of number, one that always help with gradual build-up of the atmosphere.

JC

Kylie Minogue

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : I SHOULD BE SO LUCKY

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

I is for l Should Be So Lucky released by Kylie Minogue as a single on 29 December 1987. Which makes it one day short of being 34 years old…..

Kylie Minogue was one of the most popular stars of Neighbours, an Australian soap opera which aired daily here in the UK on BBC1 at 5.30pm, preceded by children’s TV and followed immediately by the evening news bulletin. Back home in Oz, she was already something of a pop star in that Locomotion, her debut, and at this point only single, had spent six weeks at #1. She was invited to the UK to work with Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW), a songwriting and record producing trio who had enjoyed considerable success, beginning from the mid-80s, with an approach to music that was akin to an assembly in that the tunes would be put together using synths, drum machines and sequencers, before the singer was asked to add the vocals at the end.

History records that SAW weren’t ready for the arrival of the soap star, and didn’t have a ready-made song to hand. Everything was put together in a hurry, and Kylie seemingly left at the end of the day, really unhappy with how it had gone.

Nobody really knew what to expect when the single was released in that period between Christmas and New Year. It was a slow burner of sorts, in that it entered the charts at #90, before climbing to #54, #31 and #16 before leaping to #2 and then hitting #1 in late February, where it would stay for five weeks. By the time it left the charts in May 1988, it had sold almost 700,000 copies.

SAW, by this time, had gone out to Australia to apologise for the initial lack of welcome, realising that they had, certainly for the short-term, another singer they could add to the assembly line, with a guarantee of a few hit singles before Kylie went out of fashion, as all pop stars of the nature inevitably do.

mp3: Kylie Minogue – I Should Be So Lucky

The partnership with SAW eventually came to an end in 1992 with Kylie saying she now wanted the freedom to pick and choose which songwriters and producers she would work with. Very few people thought she would thrive or develop with the guiding hand of SAW. Twenty-five further Top 20 singles in the UK would suggest she made the right call.

JC

Thom Yorke

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : HARROWDOWN HILL

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

H is for Harrowdown Hill, released by Thom Yorke as a single in August 2006.

Harrowdown Hill was released on Thom Yorke’s debut solo album, The Eraser (2006), recorded while Radiohead were on hiatus.  At the time of release, Yorke said the song had been “kicking around” during the sessions for Radiohead’s sixth album, Hail to the Thief (2003), but that it could not have worked as a Radiohead song.

The lyrics are about David Kelly, a British weapons expert who died, allegedly from suicide, in 2003 after telling a reporter that the British government had falsely identified weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Kelly’s body was found in the woods of Harrowdown Hill, near Yorke’s former school in Oxfordshire.

Yorke was uncomfortable about the subject matter and conscious of the late man’s grieving family, but in press interviews he stated that “not to write it would perhaps have been worse”, that it was “the most angry song” he had ever written.

mp3: Thom Yorke – Harrowdown Hill

The single was released on  7″, 12″ and CD. Here’s the other tracks that were made available:-

mp3: Thom Yorke – The Drunkk Machine
mp3: Thom Yorke – Jetstream
mp3: Thom Yorke – Harrowdown Hill (extended mix)

It entered the charts at #23, before dropping all the way down to #55 the following week and out of the Top 75 after three weeks. It’s not the most commercial of singles, but things weren’t helped by what appeared to be an unofficial radio ban here in the UK, thanks to the controversial subject matter and the fact that Thom Yorke, in all his media interviews and appearances, was openly implicating the UK government and the Ministry of Defence in the death of Dr Kelly.

JC

Otoboke Beaver, Say Sue Me

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : GOOD FOR SOME REASON

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

G is for Good For Some Reason recorded by Say Sue Me and released as one-half of a split single by Damnably Records in December 2017.

Say Sue Me are from Busan, South Korea, forming in 2012 since when they have recorded two full-lengths albums, along with four EPs, three stand-alone 7” singles, one digital single and one split 7” single. The band members nowadays are Sumi Choi (vocals), Byunggyu Kim (guitar),  Jaeyoung Ha (bass) and Changwon Kim (drums).

They came to prominence after debut album We’ve Sobered Up (2014) and the subsequent EP, Big Summer Night (2015), were moderate chart successes in South Korea, released on the  independent label, Electric Muse.   The music, which blended elements of surf-rock with the sort of sounds associated with the mid-80s golden era of UK indie-pop, came to the attention of the London-based Damnably Records, and deal was signed, with the first release, in 2017, being a self-titled compilation pairing the two Korean releases together as an 18-track CD in 2017.

In December 2017, a 7″ single was issued, with a run of just 400 copies to mark Damnably’s 11th birthday. It was a spilt single with Say Sue Me on one side, while the other was taken up by Otoboke Beaver, an all-female Japanese hardcore punk who were, at the time, being nurtured by Damnably, and indeed later signed with the label:-

mp3: Say Sue Me – Good For Some Reason
mp3: Otokobe Beaver – S’Il Vous Plait

Say Sue Me released a second album, Where We Were Together (2018) on which their indie-pop and indie-rock tendencies came to the fore as the earlier surf-rock sounds took a bit of a back seat, best exemplified by the song Old Town, which gathered a lot of radio play back home and also became a bit of a favourite among a number of DJs on BBC Radio 6. The new album was followed soon after by the Record Store Day release for 2018, It’s Just a Short Walk!, which was an EP comprising covers of songs by Blondie, The Ramones, The Velvet Underground, and one made famous here in the UK by Cliff Richard and in the USA initially by Bobby Freeman and later by The Beach Boys. A triumphant year was rounded off with two further releases – a stand-alone single of a track that hadn’t quite been finished in time for the album followed by an EP, Christmas, It’s Not a Biggie, of four new songs with a festive theme.

2019 got off to a tremendous start at home with nominations in five categories at the Korean Music Awards – Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Modern Rock Album of the Year, Best Modern Rock Song of the Year and Artist of the Year – something quite unprecedented for a band on a small label and from a city other than Seoul. They were winners in two categories – Best Modern Rock Album for Where We Were Together, while Old Town was named Best Modern Rock Song. These accolades were followed by a hugely successful return visit to SXSW in Austin, Texas at which they performed one of the best-received sets of the entire festival, and after a short time back home in Busan, they embarked on a European tour.

The onset of COVID could not have come at a worse possible time for Say Sue Me, and indeed Otokobe Beaver whose own career was also on an upwards trajectory. Planned visits to Europe and the USA had to be cancelled, and the momentum from the hard work of the previous three years has been lost.

It’ll be interesting to see what emerges from both bands in 2022, with both bands having spent much of the past year trying to deliver on-line shows for their fans outside of South Korea and Japan.

JC

Pogues

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

F is for Fairytale of New York, released by The Pogues as a single in November 1987.

Fairytale of New York is a song written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan and featuring Kirsty MacColl on vocals. The song is an Irish folk-style ballad and was written as a duet, with the Pogues‘ singer MacGowan taking the role of the male character and MacColl the female character. It was originally released as a single on 23 November 1987 and later featured on the Pogues’ 1988 album If I Should Fall from Grace with God.

Originally begun in 1985, the song had a troubled two-year development history, undergoing rewrites and aborted attempts at recording, and losing its original female vocalist along the way, before finally being completed in August 1987. Although the single has never been the UK Christmas number one, being kept at number two on its original release in 1987 by the Pet Shop Boys’ cover of Always on My Mind, it has proved enduringly popular with both music critics and the public: to date the song has reached the UK Top 20 on 17 separate occasions since its original release in 1987, including every year at Christmas since 2005. As of September 2017 it had sold 1,217,112 copies in the UK, with an additional 249,626 streaming equivalent sales, for a total of 1,466,738 combined sales. In December 2020, the song was certified quadruple platinum in the UK for 2,400,000 combined sales.

mp3: The Pogues – Fairytale of New York
mp3: The Pogues – The Battle March Medley
mp3: The Pogues – Shanne Bradley

These were the songs included on the 1987 12″ single.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

JC

Allo Darlin'

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : EUROPE

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

E is for Europe, released by Allo Darlin’ as a single in June 2012.

It’s a much delayed first appearance from Allo Darlin’ on this blog.  There’s actually a possibility of an ICA sometime in 2022, but for now here’s the intro for anyone not familiar:-

Allo Darlin’ began as a vehicle for the solo songwriting exploits of Elizabeth Morris.

Australian by birth, Morris moved to London in 2005, where she began making recordings under the name the Darlings. Morris would only release one disc under this name, a three-track affair called The Photo EP, which came out on the U.K.-based indie pop label WeePOP! in late 2007. Morris changed the project’s name to Allo Darlin’ the following year, releasing a  Christmas-themed EP, Merry Christmas from Allo Darlin’, shortly before 2008 came to a close.

A few months later the lineup of Allo Darlin’ expanded to become a permanent line-up of guitarist Paul Rains, drummer Michael Collins, and bassist Bill Botting.

The quartet released its first single, Henry Rollins Don’t Dance  in the summer of 2009.   Fortuna Pop signed the band soon after, and aftertwo more singles, The Polaroid Song and Dreaming, the band’s self-titled debut full-length was released in the summer of 2010. The reception for the album was very favourable, garnering praise from, among others,  Robert Forster.

After a fairly quiet 2011 that saw only the self-release of the Darren/The Wu-Tang Clan single, they returned with a new album, Europe, in the spring of 2012, released by Fortuna Pop in the U.K. and Slumberland in the U.S.

The band spent much of the next year on the road, building up a decent sized following among indie-music fans across the world, before a third album, We Come from the Same Place, was released in October of 2014 again via Fortuna Pop and Slumberland.

Two years later, and after one further new single, Allo’ Darlin’ called it a day, in very amicable circumstances….which I might cover if I do that ICA!

The song which gave its name to the title of the second album was the third and last 45 taken from it.  It was released only as a 7″, with some copies being on blue vinyl.

Like all the singles, it sold in small quantities, but that was never the point.

mp3: Allo Darlin’ – Europe
mp3: Allo Darlin’ – Some People Say (alternate version)

The original version of the b-side can be found on the album, Europe.

JC

White Stripes

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : DEAD LEAVES AND THE DIRTY GROUND

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

D is for Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground, released by The White Stripes as a single in August 2002.

From allmusic:-

The White Stripes open their third album, the stellar White Blood Cells, with the grimy rocker “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.” The dynamic duo’s lead singer/guitarist kicks off the record with a savage, downward spiral riff, accompanied by drummer Meg White‘s pounding, mid-tempo stomp. The pair waste no time in displaying a keen understanding of musical dynamics, promptly reining in the assault for Jack White‘s slightly warbling vocal as he offers his own unique vision of loneliness and devotion with quivering sneer, “Dead leaves and the dirty ground/When I know you’re not around/Shiny tops and soda pops/When I hear your lips make a sound/Thirty notes in the mailbox/Will tell you that I’m coming home/And I think I’m gonna stick around for a while so you’re not alone.”

The music then dramatically launches into exploding interludes of smashing chords and brutally stomping rhythms that would make AC/DC proud. Jack White also has a knack for showing a softer side amongst all the bashing as he observes with poetic sweetness in a later verse, “Soft hair and a velvet tongue/I want to give you what you give to me/And every breath that is in your lungs is a tiny little gift to me.” This self-produced album’s improved sound quality, compared to the group’s past efforts, also makes a striking first impression, bringing out the song’s brilliant use of dynamics and increasing the textures of the band’s simple instrumentation without limiting clarity or sacrificing power.

mp3: The White Stripes – Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground
mp3: The White Stripes – Suzy Lee (live at the BBC Studios Maida Vale)
mp3: The White Stripes – Stop Breaking Down (live at the BBC Studios Maida Vale)

The BBC recordings are of two tracks, originally recorded for the duo’s self-titled debut album, released in 1999.  Suzy Lee is an original, while Stop Breaking Down is a cover of a Robert Johnson song, written back in 1937.

Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground reached #25 in the UK singles chart. This was fairly similar to the previous two singles, Hotel Yorba (#26) and Fell In Love With A Girl (#21).  It would take until the following year for the bigger commercial breakthrough, when Seven Nation Army went Top 10 .

JC

Blur

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : CHEMICAL WORLD

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

C is for Chemical World, released by Blur as a single in June 1993.

It was the second single from the album, Modern Life Is Rubbish. It was issued on 7″ and 12″ vinyl and two CDs. Here are the tracks from the vinyl versions.

mp3: Blur – Chemical World (single edit)  (7″ and CD2)
mp3: Blur – Maggie May (7″)

mp3: Blur – Chemical World (Reworked) (12″ and CD1)
mp3: Blur – Es Schmecht (12″ and CD2)
mp3: Blur – Young And Lovely (12″ and CD2)
mp3: Blur – My Ark (12″ and CD2)

Maggie May had originally been made available on Ruby Trax – The NME’s Roaring Forty, a compilation album released in September 1992 to commemorate 40 years of publication of the paper, featuring 40 cover versions of Number 1 songs.

The tracks not featured today on CD1 were all taken from the set performed at Glastonbury the previous year.

Es Schmecht, Young And Lovely, and My Ark have a review on the allmusic website:-

“Young and Lovely” fits in perfectly with Modern Life Is Rubbish’s general aesthetic of psych/pop anthems, betraying the often unremarked upon XTC influence that clearly directed much of the band’s work at the time. Andy Partridge could easily sing Albarn’s chorus as he delivers it, for one thing. “Es Schmecht” is Blur in slightly obtuse mode, aiming for Wire-style angularity and detachment and finding it, somewhat uncomfortably. The addition of distorted keyboard-as-horn parts does make it more weirdly compelling towards the end, though. “My Ark” concludes the disc, a slightly heavier funk take on the indie dance moves with which Blur first came to attention — it’s okay enough, but not one of the band’s strong points. More an exercise in previous styles.

Chemical World reached #28 in the UK singles chart, the same position as reached previously by lead-off single, For Tomorrow.

JC

Creepers

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : BABY’S ON FIRE

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

B is for Baby’s On Fire, released by The Creepers in 1986.

Marc Riley formed his own record label – In-Tape – and his own band, following his dismissal from The Fall, recruiting, in due course, Paul Fletcher (guitar), Pete Keogh (bass) and Eddie Fenn (drums), while Riley sang and played keyboards.  The band initially went by the name of Marc Riley and The Creepers, and later as Marc Riley with The Creepers.

The first single Favourite Sister (which featured his former bandmates Steve Hanley, Craig Scanlon and Paul Hanley) came out in July 1983 was followed up in October 1983 with Jumper Clown, which poked fun at Mark E Smith. A Peel Session was the source of the next release, with a compilation of all these early releases, Cull, being issued in April 1984

First album proper, Gross Out, appeared in June 1984, while the following year saw the release of the second album Fancy Meeting God as well as a live album Warts ‘n’ All.

In 1986, Mark Tilton and Phil Roberts came in as replacements for Fletcher and Keogh, with the combo now going under the name The Creepers.

The first release under this name was a 7″ single, Baby’s On Fire, a cover of a Brian Eno song

mp3: The Creepers – Baby’s On Fire
mp3: The Creepers – Another Song About Motorbikes

The album Miserable Sinners following later the same year. The band then added Simon Taylor as an extra guitarist and signed to Red Rhino, on which a further single, Brute, and an album, Rock ‘n’ Roll Liquorice Flavour, appeared in 1987 and 1988 respectively.

JC

Bjork

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : ARMY OF ME

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

A is for Army Of Me, a song recorded by Björk for her second studio album Post.

The single was released in the United Kingdom on 24 April 1995 as a cassette and two-CD single. The first CD contained the Icelandic version of You’ve Been Flirting Again and the cave version of Cover Me, both from Post. The latter was recorded in a cave in the Bahamas, and sounds of flying bats can be heard in the background. The single also contained Sweet Intuition. The second CD contained, among other remixes, a version which features Skunk Anansie.

Army of Me was notable for the fact that, in contrast to the sweetness and lightness to be found on Debut, it features Björk making heavy use of screaming vocals.

Björk, in a contemporary press interview, explained what the song was about:-

It’s a song for the movie “Tank Girl”, but it is actually about my brother. He is pretty lazy and likes things like food, sex, sleep – very basic needs. It’s just that he does it more than others.

Then he started smoking, well, not cigarettes. It felt as if he was in a coma. He just sat on his butt complaining, “the worlds stinks, I can’t get a job, there are no good albums to buy and even if I wanted to buy them, I don’t have any money to buy them with. Blah blah blah.”

Self-pity from morning to night, which really pisses me off. You can stand a whining brother to a limit, but for ten years, from he was 14 to that he turned 24. I simply had enough. That’s it. Stand on your own legs, get a job, get a life. And if you complain once more, you’ll meet an “Army Of Me”.

mp3: Bjork – Army Of Me
mp3: Bjork – Cover Me (Cave version)
mp3: Bjork – You’ve Been Flirting Again (Icelandic Version)
mp3: Bjork – Sweet Intuition
mp3: Bjork – Army Of Me (ABA All-Stars Mix)
mp3: Bjork – Army Of Me (Masseymix)
mp3: Bjork – Army Of Me (featuring Skunk Anansie)
mp3: Bjork – Army Of Me (Instrumental ABA All-Stars Mix)

Army Of Me entered the UK singles chart at #10. Björk went on Top of The Pops and chose to offer up the Skunk Anansie version of the song. It’s one of the greatest moments in the history of the show.

It dropped to #21 the following week…..

JC (with thanks to Scottish Tee Vee for such a great quality clip)

Fall

THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING SERIES FOR SUNDAYS (Parts 28 & 29)


There’s going to be two for the price of one this week, as doing so neatly takes our story to the end of 1990.  But as such, it’s a lengthy one as there’s a lot to cover.

The next single was issued in August 1990.  The period between the previous single and the latest 45 had seen The Fall travel the world on what can only be looked upon as a gruelling tour in support of Extricate:-

1 March – 26 March : a 20-date tour of the UK
29 March – 21 April : a 19-date tour taking in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Austria
26 April : a one-off gig in Paris
18 May : a one-off gig in New York
21 May : a one-off gig in Los Angeles
20 June – 30 June : a 7-date tour of Australia
5 July : a one-off gig in Auckland
10 July – 14 July : a 4-date tour of Australia
23 July – 25 July : a 3-date tour of Japan
26 August : an appearance at the Reading Festival

Looking at the above schedule, it is likely that the time between the Paris and New York gigs was spent in the studio recording the tracks which would make up the next single.

The reason I’m deducing this is that Marcia Schofield, on returning from Los Angeles, had a huge fall-out with MES and made her mind up to leave the band. A lot of her anger was based on the fact that MES didn’t want her recording or working with other musicians, a position she felt was hypocritical given that he had previously worked with Coldcut and more recently had gone into a studio with Tackhead.

She was persuaded to come back for the Australian/New Zealand/Japan gigs, perhaps influenced in part by the fact that she and Martin Bramah had recently embarked on a relationship and not going on the tour would have meant a considerable period apart.

The gig on 14 July was in Sydney. Afterwards, the band’s manager told Schofield and Bramah they would not be accompanying The Fall to Japan, and were instead given plane tickets back to the UK. In other words, they had been sacked…..

The thing was, the artwork and promotional material for the next single was already signed off, and a limited edition 12″ version contained a poster in which the sacked duo were featured:-

By the time the new single was in the shops, the news of the sackings had been made public, with a brutally worded press release saying that they had been fired ‘because they wanted to pursue other projects, and it was pointless them remaining in the band any longer”.  No words of thanks or best wishes for the future.

And so, White Lightning/The Dredger EP* became the last thing that the latest line-up of The Fall would ever make.

mp3: The Fall – White Lightning (7″, 12″, 12″ Limited Edition and CD)
mp3: The Fall – Blood Outta Stone (7″, 12″, 12″ Limited Edition and CD)
mp3: The Fall – Zagreb (Movement II) (12″ only)
mp3: The Fall – The Funeral Mix (12″ only)
mp3: The Fall – Zagreb (Movements I+II+III) (12″ Limited Edition and CD)
mp3: The Fall – Life Just Bounces (12″ Limited Edition and CD)

* White Lightning was the name given to the 7″ and 12″ singles, while The Dredger EP was the name given to the other two versions.

The a-side was yet another cover, of a song written in 1958 and which became a #1 hit for country singer George Jones in April 1959.   The song’s writer was J.P Richardson, better known as The Big Bopper and who was killed in the same plane crash as that involving Buddy Holly and Richie Valens in February 1959.  Jones’ take on the song was more rock’n’roll than country, and The Fall’s interpretation is reasonably faithful and not all that far removed from some of the earlier self-penned material from the early 80s.  It is also, in my opinion, is far from the most interesting of the tracks on the EP……

Blood Outta Stone, a co-composition with M.Beddington (aka Martin Bramah) is a very fine guitar-driven number, and another of the great lost songs stuck away on b-sides.  Bramah has since said he thought it would have made for a better single than Whie Lightning, and I’m inclined to agree with him.

Turning now to Zagreb.  This one is credited to MES and Marcia Schofield.  Movement I is an instrumental, lasting just over 30 seconds.  The riff, Schofield later confirmed, is based on Higher Ground by Stevie Wonder, as she and Simon Wolstencroft were fond of playing it live in soundchecks, with it eventually forming its way into a fully formed tune by The Fall, Movement II is the substantial part of the piece, some 4 mins 40 seconds in length, in which the opening riff leads to a lyric, written after the Yugoslavia gigs in April 1990, with MES wanting to try and capture the tension everyone felt during their visit.  History records that just over a year later, a very bloody civil war saw Yugoslavia tear itself apart into a number of nations. Movement III is another short instrumental piece, very much electronic in nature, only some 40 seconds in length.

As it turns out, Movement III is the opening section of The Funeral Mix which dates back to the sessions that MES had done with Coldcut in 1989.  It’s an instrumental and a real curiosity piece.

Life Just Bounces is a fun track.  It’s an MES/Craig Scanlon co-composition.  If the opening few bars sound vaguely familiar, then that’ll be down to the fact that it borrows heavily from Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, the #1 hit for Elton John & Kiki Dee back in 1976.  MES admitted as much in a lengthy interview in Melody Maker just a few weeks after the EP was released.  Oh, and Life Just Bounces would be re-recorded by The Fall some four years later…….

White Lightning/The Dredger EP was nearly a hit in that it got to #56.    Looking back on things, the fact that there are great tunes on the b-sides courtesy of the two recently sacked band members can only again lead to the conclusion that MES wanted to again self-sabotage just in case mainstream success was threatening to come the way of The Fall.

After the Reading Festival gig, which itself was reported by the press as being a triumph, the quarter of Smith, Scanlon, Hanley and Wolsencroft went into the studio, the fruits of which led to a new single in December 1990.

High Tension Line is a fast, frantic offering, albeit a strange song for a single, certainly in the way it was recorded thanks to it being faded-in

mp3: The Fall – High Tension Line

It was released in December 1990, and as if to demonstrate that The Fall, collectively, had a sense of humour and were willing to laugh at themselves, the b-side common to both the 7″ and 12″ releases was their first ever festive offering:-

mp3: The Fall – Xmas With Simon

The reason for the title is that Funky Si offers up some fairly basic but essential keyboards……with MES perhaps thumbing his nose at the recently departed Ms. Schofield?  As Xmas songs go, it won’t give sleepless nights to Slade, Shakey, Wizzard or Mariah….but it does have some good whistling on it.

The extra track on the 12″ is far better than a look at its title would indicate

mp3: The Fall – Don’t Take The Pizza

The thing that can be most taken from Don’t Take The Pizza is the sound of a stripped-back band, returning to basics in many ways.  I’m also, surely, not the only one who thinks MES is not singing ‘Don’t Take The Pizza Off Me’……………

Released without much fanfare into a crowded singles market, and without the backing of limited edition or CD versions to boost sales, High Tension Line was a flop, failing to make the Top 75.

The Fall wouldn’t release any singles in 1991, but there would be a well-received album, Shift-Work, in which the fiddle player Kenny Brady would be added to the four regular members, released in April 1991.  In an era when CD was beginning to become increasingly more important than vinyl in terms of sales, it’s worth mentioning that both White Lightning and High Tension Line were included on Shift-Work, albeit as bonus tracks at the end of the album, again a departure from previous norms.

There were three tours during 1991.  The first, in May/June was largely centred around Germany with additional dates in Prague, Vienna and Rotterdam. Kenny Brady was part of the live band for that tour.

The later tours, in August and December, were both exclusive to England. Kenny Brady was not involved, but both featured a new member of The Fall with Dave Bush coming in on keyboards, having initially helped out in the studio during some of the sessions for Shift-Work.  His involvement, going forward, would see another significant change in the sound of The Fall heading into 1992, but that’s for the next instalment.

As the festive period is fast approaching, this series will now go into hibernation for a few weeks, as indeed, will the blog itself.  I’ll still be posting each day, but the usual features will be taking a break.

JC