Fall

THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING SERIES FOR SUNDAYS (Part 16)

Those of you paying attention will have noted that The Fall had enjoyed a couple of years of stability in respect of all six members staying together.  Things changed dramatically at the beginning of November 1984 during the UK tour to promote The Weird and Wonderful World Of….

On 1 November, the band returned to their hotel after a gig in Cardiff.  For whatever reason, they don’t follow the usual practice of empting the tour van and taking the instruments into their rooms. The following morning, they return to the van and discover it has been broken into with almost everything stolen.  By the time of the next gig, two nights later in Brighton, the record label has managed to get everyone temporary replacement instruments.  The gig turns into the worst of the tour, with all sorts of mistakes, missed cues and cock-ups, after which Mark E Smith loses his temper with everyone.

It proves to be too much for Steve Hanley who was already struggling to keep things going after his first child, a boy, had been born prematurely and was seriously ill for the first few months of his life.  Steve goes back to his hotel to think about things and after making a call home to his wife, he tells her he’s quitting the band and coming back on an overnight train back to Manchester.  But he hasn’t told anyone in the band of his decision, nor that his intention was to get out of the music business altogether.

The next day, he gets a call from his brother who tells him that he had just informed MES that he was leaving, deciding that he would take up an offer from some old friends to start up a new band, one free of the control-freakery of MES.

The tour continues onto Europe, with The Fall now being like most other bands and having just one drummer. A call is put into Simon Rogers, a classically-trained musician who had become a friend of MES and Brix, and he replaced Steve as the bass player for the rest of the tour.  In due course, things did calm down a bit but not enough for Paul Hanley to change his mind.  Steve Hanley was officially put on an extended period of paternity leave, and although he helped out by playing bass when the band appeared on BBC TV’s Old Grey Whistle Test a few weeks later, he is absent when the band returns to the studio in early 1985; he would also miss a UK and US tour in the first half of that year.

So, it was a five-piece band who met up again with John Leckie early in the year, the fruits of which lead to a new double-A single that was duly released in June 1985, just around the time Steve Hanley was about to officially re-join.

mp3: The Fall – Couldn’t Get Ahead
mp3: The Fall – Rollin’ Dany
mp3: The Fall – Petty Thief Lout

I’m not going to offer too much on this one.  It’s not that I dislike Couldn’t Get Ahead, but it doesn’t quite resonate with me in the ways that many of the previous (and later) singles managed to do.  It’s kind of perfunctory if you really want my take on it.

Rollin’ Dany, not that I would have known it if I hadn’t looked at the sleeve notes in the The Fall 45 84 89 compilation that I picked up a few years later, is a cover version. I’ve never take to it as its opening notes somehow remind me of Shang-a-Lang by Bay City Rollers, a song I had been trying to forget for many a year going back to my early teens.  Having said that, given it was the first ever official release by The Fall of a cover version, it is of historical significance.

Petty Thief Lout, which was made available only on the 12″, extends to over five minutes. It is a quiet-loud-quiet sort of number, but at no point does it come across as anything but the band somewhat going through the motions.  Maybe everyone was missing the Hanley brothers…..

It reached #90, which at the time was the highest chart position achieved by any 45 released by The Fall. Brix’s dreams of being a bona-fide pop star were becoming increasingly distant.

JC

Ballboy, Northern Alliance

SEVEN SONGS FEATURING VIV STRACHAN

A DEBUT GUEST POSTING by LEON MacDUFF

I offer you some tracks from two bands with something, or rather someone, in common. One you probably already know, and one you quite possibly don’t.

I’m well aware that Ballboy are an old favourite at T(N)VV, and already the subject of not one but two excellent ICAs, so I don’t propose to go over that ground again, but I thought that fans might be interested to hear some obscure tracks by an early prototype version of the band, at the time still featuring original vocalist Viv Strachan. This version is clearly not the finished article, although the sound isn’t so far off the first official EPs. A couple of years passed before Ballboy as we know them made their “proper” debut, with guitarist Gordon McIntyre stepping up to the microphone. But if you’d like to hear how it started, this is how.

Ballboy – Car Crashes
Ballboy – I Could Eat You Up
Ballboy – Photographers

These tracks, “recorded at teviot row house and 11 east preston street” (the former a famous Edinburgh venue, the latter apparently student digs – but surely both in line for a blue plaque now) appeared on a 1997 compilation album of Edinburgh bands, “It’s a Life Sentence…”.

Strachan bowed out after these recordings, but would turn up a few years later in Fence Collective band Northern Alliance, in which she took the occasional lead vocal but mostly provided backup to chief wordsmith Doug Johnstone. If you recognise that name, it’s probably because he’s now a successful author. He also keeps his musical hand in as drummer with the on-off collective Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, alongside the likes of Christopher Brookmyre, Mark Billingham and Val McDermid. Their tagline of “murdering songs for fun” tells you all you need to know, but you can find their videos on YouTube if you really want!

As for Northern Alliance, between 2003 and 2008 they issued four CDs, more-or-less randomly classified as either full or mini albums, plus a further definitely-mini-album on which they masqueraded as the titular indie rock group from Johnstone’s comic novel The Ossians. Although they split more than a decade ago, their website (www.lowfidelity.com) is still active and features a mildly embarrassing surfeit of enthusiastic press clippings comparing them to American slowcore and dream pop acts like Codeine, Low, Sparklehorse, Mazzy Star and Red House Painters.

But hey, show, don’t tell… and though I kept an eye on the Scottish songs series, N came and went without an appearance, so here are a few tracks for you: three originals and a standard from the Great Scottish Songbook.

Northern Alliance – We Hit the Town Drinking (from The Hand of God, 2008)
Northern Alliance – When the Clocks Go Forward (from Hope in Little Things, 2003)
Northern Alliance – Scaffolding (from For the Grains of Sand, 2006)
Northern Alliance – Ally’s Tartan Army (from Disaster for Scotland, 2004)

Now I think about it, Andy Cameron never turned up in the Scottish songs series either, did he? I feel an ICA coming on…

LEON MACDUFF

Lloyd Cole

FLOP AFTER FLOP AFTER FLOP

I’ve long been baffled by The failure of Lloyd Cole to establish a commercially successful solo career.

His period when backed by The Commotions, between 1984 and 1987, saw three hit albums, all of which were fawned over, for the most part, by the music critics.  The live shows were also among the ‘must-see’ category, with no venue being too large or challenging for the band, as evidenced in June 1986 when they supported Simple Minds at an outdoor gig at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, seemingly being note-perfect throughout in front of more than 40,000 attendees.

I had always thought The Commotions had been ever-present in the singles charts, but it turns out that only five singles ever made the Top 40, and even then, the best performance wasn’t a huge hit as Lost Weekend reached only #17.  So, with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps it wasn’t a racing certainty that Lloyd would be a huge star when he branched out on his own, with things made a lot tougher by the fact that he made a conscious decision to move away from the sound and look of his days with a band.

He moved to New York City to write the new material and to find the musicians he most wanted to make the record with.  There was also a two-year gap between the last Commotions album and the first of the new material to factor in, so all-in-all, it was something of a gamble, but one he and his record label were very confident of pulling off.

The first solo single, No Blue Skies, was released at the end of January 1990.   It stalled at #42 in the UK.

The self-titled debut album followed a month later, entering the charts at #11.  This was quite encouraging as that was a similar outcome as Mainstream, the final Commotions album which had come in at #9 on its first week of release.

The problem was that over the next four weeks before a second single was taken from the album, Lloyd Cole had dropped all the way to #66, and so badly needed a sales boost via a well-received 45.

Don’t Look Back, came out in April 1990.  It got no higher than #59.  The album continued to plummet, dropping out of the charts after just a six-week stay, never to be seen again.

The problem was that the songs weren’t poppy enough for daytime radio, nor were they different or unusual enough for the drive time or evening shows to be really interested.

The planned third single, Downtown, was released but with next to fanfare or promotion.  It didn’t chart in the UK but it did prove to be a minor hit in the USA, mainly as a result of it being included on the soundtrack to the film Bad Influence, which starred Rob Lowe and James Spader, with the promo video airing regularly on MTV, featuring clips from the movie.

mp3: Lloyd Cole – No Blue Skies
mp3: Lloyd Cole – Don’t Look Back
mp3: Lloyd Cole – Downtown

Years later, Lloyd acknowledged that he got it badly wrong. He wrote this song for an album released in 2000:-

mp3: Lloyd Cole and The Negatives – Tried To Rock

Maybe I was just too much of a fanboy back in the day to make a true judgement on things, but I really did like the singles and almost all of the debut album. I’ve given a fresh listen again in recent days – it’s a CD copy rather than a vinyl version I have – and I do think it’s aged fairly well. OK, there’s nothing as immediate as the Commotions material, but at no point does it ever get boring or unlistenable.

JC

Nanci Griffith

ALWAYS REMEMBERED – NANCI GRIFFITH

A GUEST POSTING by FLIMFLANFAN

In early September 2021 I was trawling through music websites when I was stopped in my tracks as I read an old byline “Nanci Griffith: Folk and country singer-songwriter dies aged 68.”

The article was date 13th August, 2021.

Nanci and I parted company sometime after the release of the album Storms (1989), although I occasionally popped back into see her, most notably with the release of Other Voices Other Rooms (1993). I could never describe myself as a huge fan, I only own 6 of her albums, but reading of her death made an impact.

I Wish It Would Rain

From the mid to late 80s Nanci was part of a gang of Americana, Folk and Country artists/bands from the USA that received a very warm welcome in Glasgow: Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam, Lone Justice, The Long Ryders etc. It was a testing time for an indie ‘kid’ to admit to enjoying Folk, Country and Americana, but I cared not a jot – a good deal of indie bands had been and would continue to put their slant on country/folk – and even the most diehard of indie fans eventually had to eat some cake. Most of the albums my parents had were country artists or artists heavily influenced by its charms – I was hooked early on. Not even my love of indie would make me forsake country.

Speed of the Sound of Loneliness

I was introduced to Nanci’s music via a very good pal. I have a feeling the album would have been Lone Star State of Mind (1985), equally, it could have been Once In a Very Blue Moon (1984). I soon became quite the fan and with only a year to wait between albums there was always something to look forward to.

Nanci had a singing voice that I believe could only fit the folk/ country genre and a wonderful ability to story tell, that suits said genres perfectly as is illustrated by, for example:

Love at the Five and Dime

I think it was in 1988 (a considerable internet trudge could find no confirmation) that it was announced that Nanci would play Govan Town Hall as part of Glasgow’s Mayfest festival. I recall a scramble for tickets, given the small capacity, and thankfully I got mine. I lived in Govan at the time, so would be able to take a short stroll home.

As the gig grew closer it was announced that Nanci would appear on the Wogan Show, in London on the same night as the Glasgow gig? Eyebrows began to be raised. Wogan started at 7.00pm how was it possible that Nanci would get to Glasgow for the show’s start time? The answer is, she didn’t. At the gig an announcement was made that Nanci was running late but that she would appear. I don’t recall how late she was, but I do recall it being a significant wait (over an hour, possibly) in a brooding atmosphere of discontent … and then she appeared. Within minutes, the discontent had been shrugged off as Nanci wrapped us around her little fingers. It was a fantastic night and all the better, somehow, for her lateness – apparently, she arrived by helicopter….

There’s a Light Beyond These Woods (Mary Margaret)

The only other time I would have seen her live was at The Big Day (1990), Glasgow (subject of recent discussions in basement rooms) but I have no recollection of it?

I’ve listened to her music less often of late, but on hearing the news of her death I’ll polish the vinyl and set the volume to 10.5.

11 seems excessive.

When I do listen to Nanci the following will occur … I’ll move onto Dwight Yoakam, The Long Ryders, Lone Justice, Maria McKee, The Coal Porters and, of course, Loretta Lynn and then maybe some Camera Obscura perhaps the Lilac Time will enjoy a spin.

Nanci left a considerable legacy beyond the innumerable cover versions of her songs, not least of which is the mighty From A Distance which charted at number one in the US in 1990, (Bette Midler).

I’m sure Nanci raked in quite the mint, but the Devine Miss M should have left it to Nanci.

Thanks, Nanci. You really shone a light.

Let It Shine On Me

flimflamfan

Eurythmics

MAKING THEIR DEBUT ON TVV…..

The power-pop of The Tourists at the tail end of the 70s delivered some fabulous moments, not least their cover of I Only Want To Be With You, which went Top 10, as did the follow-up single, So Good To Be back Home Again.  The latter was written by guitarist Peet Coombes, and indeed he was responsible for most of the songs recorded by the band over all three of their albums before the spilt at the end of 1980.  He has, however, been largely all but forgotten as two of his bandmates, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, would join forces and form Eurythmics, becoming one of the biggest acts of the 80s, with most folk thinking that Stewart’s songwriting success was a continuation of his efforts with The Tourists.

Eurythmics seemed to come out of nowhere in 1983, thanks to them being responsible for one of the most iconic electronica singles during a period where synths really were vanquishing guitar bands.  It hadn’t, however, been an overnight success as the duo’s debut album, In The Garden, back in 1981 had been a dismal flop, while the first three singles lifted from the follow-up album, Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) hadn’t received much airplay nor dented the charts.

It really was almost a last throw of the dice to release the title track from the new album in February 1983.  The UK tour to promote the album was using small-scale venues – for instance the Glasgow date was at Night Moves which had a capacity in the low hundreds, but as the duo made their way around the country, they were doing so on the back of a single which quickly went to #2, leading to all sorts of television appearances and a huge demand to catch the live shows, all of which were now sold out and could have easily still been so if the usual locations with capacities of 2-3000 had been in play.

The decision was taken to re-release an earlier flop single as the follow-up to Sweet Dreams. A few months previously, in November 1982, it had spent a few weeks in the lower end of the charts, peaking at #54.  Come April 1983, it was #6:-

mp3: Eurythmics – Love Is A Stranger

It ensured Eurythmics couldn’t be written off as one-hit wonders, and indeed it became a hit all over Europe as well as in the USA, Canada and Australia. The b-side was the same track as had been on the reverse of the initial single back in 83:-

mp3: Eurythmics – Monkey Monkey

What happened next was a bit of a surprise in that, instead of going out again on tour to cash-in on the belated success of Sweet Dreams, the duo went into the studio to begin work on new material, with a new song, Who’s That Girl?, continuing in a similar electronica style, allied again to the striking visual and unusual look that Lennox was offering the pop world – no other woman was wearing her hair that short or in such a striking orange colour.

But where most were expecting more of the same, the next album, Touch, which was released in November 1983, highlighted a different sound, one which was far more mainstream in nature. The next single leaned on calypso music, and the one after that was akin to a mid-tempo power ballad. For those of us who had fallen for the sounds of the hits at the beginning of 1983, what emerged before the year was out proved to be a huge letdown. But then again, given they would enjoy in the region of 75 million album sales world-wide before the decade was over, I don’t think the loss of one fan from a city in the west of Scotland caused them any sleepless nights.

The mp3s today are taken from the 7″ single, one that I picked up cheap on Discogs a few months back. It is the only Eurythmics vinyl that I own, although Mrs V’s copy of Touch sits in the cupboard, unplayed for many years, and certainly never since 1990 when we moved in together.

JC

KLF

THE MONDAY MORNING HI-QUALITY VINYL RIP : Part Thirty Two : STADIUM HOUSE (THE TRILOGY)

 

This is just a wee different.  Kind of.  OK.  It’s not really as, just like every Monday, it features music ripped from vinyl at 320kpbs. You could say that I’m back with the heavyweight jam.

Stadium House (The Trilogy) was a VHS video released in 1991 that is just under 30 minutes in length.   The main film purports to be live footage of The KLF performing their three chart hits at Woodstock, Europa while the supporting feature is called ‘This Is Not What The KLF Is About’, a behind the scenes look at the main film.

It is, of course, nothing of the sort, although the main film has been pieced together does make it seem as if the singers, musicians and dancers are performing on a stage within some sort of post-apocalyptic setting, interspersed with footage of a police car and a fast moving passenger train, and is just the splicing of the three promo videos.

Here’s all three singles, in the order in which they entered the charts, all ripped from 7″ vinyl:-

mp3 : The KLF – What Time Is Love? (live at Transcentral)
mp3 : The KLF – 3 A.M. Eternal (live at the S.S.L.)
mp3 : The KLF – Last Train To Transcentral (live from The Lost Continent)

What Time Is Love? reached #5 in September 1990.
3 A.M. Eternal spent two weeks at #1 in February 1991.
Last Train To Transcentral peaked at #2 in May 1991, kept off the top by Cher and The Shoop Shoop Song.

More than thirty years ago?  Well, that’ll hopefully excuse the occasional pop or crackle. Kind of similar to the sounds my bones and joints make when I try to move to the tunes.

JC

Fall

THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING SERIES FOR SUNDAYS (Part 15)

12 October 1984.  A date on which The Fall again defy convention by insisting that the record label issue a new album along with a new single.  But not just in any bog-standard way as the new single was to come out on 12″ vinyl, accompanied by a free 7″ single.  Oh, and if you chose instead to buy the new album on cassette rather than vinyl, then you would also get just about all the music that was available on the new single, as well as the tracks that had made up the previous two singles…..

The new album was called The Wonderful and Frightening World Of….and it contained nine tracks with a running time of just over 40 minutes.  Three of its tracks were co-written by Mark E Smith and Brix Smith.  Of the other six, Brix was credited on three of them, which is some achievement given that her only previous contribution to a Fall album had been to co-write one track on Perverted By Language, released some ten months earlier.

It has to be said that the other band members were quite relaxed about it all.  Steve Hanley is on record as saying:-

“She was good for the band. We’d reached as far as we could with fifteen-minute songs like ‘And This Day’ battering the audience.  She did commercialise the band, she helped convince Mark to go that way. She was like a breath of fresh air for five miserable blokes from Manchester’

I’m not sure if MES, newly married and seemingly enjoying himself on stage like no other time previously, was all that miserable in 1984.  The other four blokes were still those who had been making music together for the past couple of years – the duel drumming efforts of Karl Burns and Paul Hanley (who also played occasional keyboards), Craig Scanlon on guitar and Steve Hanley on bass, whose musical contributions were becoming even more increasingly important and influential.

I came quite late to this, and indeed, subsequent periods of The Fall, so I can’t really comment on how I felt about it all at the time.  My excuse is that the new flat that I had moved into didn’t really have what you would call any other fans of the band, and so between the six of us there were just a handful of previous singles kicking around, and they weren’t on heavy rotation.  Nobody bought the new album or the Call For Escape Route package.  It would take until the early 90s, and me picking up a CD compilation album bringing together the singles that had been released on Beggars Banquet between 1984 and 1989 before I actually heard any of these songs. In this instance, it was No Bulbs, but it immediately became an instant favourite, and remains so all these many years later.

Call For Escape Route 12″

mp3: The Fall – Draygo’s Guilt
mp3: The Fall – Clear Off!
mp3: The Fall – No Bulbs

Bonus 7″

mp3: The Fall – No Bulbs 3
mp3: The Fall – Slang King 2

It’s another very fine collection of tunes, albeit more ammo to those fans of old who might have been a bit concerned about the band shifting to a sound which bordered on commercially friendly.

Draygo’s Guilt, co-written by MES and Craig Scanlon, has a tune which sounds as if it has been around since forever, with just about every kick ass rock’n’roll band having some sort of stab at it along the way. Indeed, The Fall had been playing this song, or at least a variation on it, as far back as 1980.

Clear Off! is, for The Fall, rather a light sounding track.  The tune, in places, reminds me of a slightly sped-up Hip Priest and at other times, like the sort of tune New Order would pull together a little later on in time. Oh, and it also features a guest co-vocal from Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes (as indeed did two of the tracks on The Weird and Wonderful World Of….

The full version of No Bulbs extends to a few seconds short of eight minutes while the edited down version, given the title of No Bulbs 3,  is around four-and-a-half minutes long.  It is this edited version which was included on The Fall 45 84 89 compilation I mentioned above and thus offered me my first ever listen to the song.   If ever you wanted to hear just how much John Leckie brought to the table in terms of his production skills, then take the time to give a listen to both, or either, versions of No Bulbs offered here today.

I still cannot get my head around it wasn’t selected as a stand-alone 7″ single, as I’m convinced it would have provided The Fall with a chart hit.  It is a truly magnificent and mighty piece of music, one which wonderfully disguises that it is actually about living in squalor and poverty, as was the case with the newly married Mr & Mrs Smith in a dingy flat in Prestwich, just north of Manchester and just south of Bury.  It would also justify an entry into the ‘Some Songs Are Great Short Stories’ series, with MES trying to get his hands on the one belt he owns as it is needed to hold his trousers up, only he can’t find it for the amount of junk and debris lying around the flat, and as he goes to switch on the light to assist in his efforts, the bulb blows, and they are so poor, they don’t have a spare.  There is also a truly inspired closing stanza, which drives home the miserable conditions of their habitat:-

They say damp records the past
If that’s so I’ve got the biggest library yet
The biggest library yet.

Slang King 2 is a different mix of a track which was included on The Weird and Wonderful World Of…., and seemingly was written by MES and Brix, but with a rare writing credit offered to Paul Hanley on account of MES liking the way he had improvised the keyboards into the tune.

The single came into the charts at #99.  The album got as high as #62.  In both instances, it now feels like an absolute travesty.

JC

Robin Guthrie

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #276: ROBIN GUTHRIE

From wiki:–

Robin Andrew Guthrie (born 4 January 1962) is a Scottish musician, songwriter, composer, record producer and audio engineer, best known as the co-founder of the alternative rock band Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has performed guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing.

I’ve plenty of Cocteau Twins music in the collection, but for some inexplicable reason, I never got interested in pursuing any of the solo material that has been written and recorded by Robin Guthrie over the years.  All I have is one track, included on a compilation CD given away with Word magazine in October 2009:-

mp3: Robin Guthrie – Close My Eyes & Burn

It’s an instrumental from the album Carousel, released in 2009 on Darla Records, a label based in San Diego, California and while there is something worth hanging onto, it just feels that little bit empty without Elizabeth Fraser coming in on vocals.  But I suppose I should get over it given that it’s now 26 years since Cocteau Twins last released any new music and there is absolutely no chance of them ever getting back together.

JC

Super Furry Animals

SOME WORDS FROM AN EARLIER ICA (4)

Yesterday’s posting was inspired by an ICA featuring a b-side.   Well, whatdyaknow?  One of the very best ICAs was one which consisted solely of b-sides.

Here’s The Robster back on 23 June 2015 with something from ICA #18-

“Edam Anchorman : b-side of (Drawing) Rings Around The World (2001)

One of my fave Super Furry Animals singles had this little monkey hiding almost unnoticed on its flip. It reminds of so many other things that have come out much more recently, but as is the norm for the Furries, they seemed to be ahead of their time back in 2001. One of the biggest, most anthemic choruses they’ve done.”

(Drawing) Rings Around The World was the second single taken from the band’s fifth album, Rings Around The World. It was released on 8 October 2001 on 12″ vinyl and on enhanced CD which also contained the promo video.  Each version had three songs, albeit just two tunes:-

mp3: Super Furry Animals – (Drawing) Rings Around The World
mp3: Super Furry Animals – Edam Anchorman
mp3: Super Furry Animals – All The Shit U Do

The single did get to #28 in the UK charts, and was also voted in at #21 in the John Peel Festive 50 of 2001.

JC

Velvet Underground

SOME WORDS FROM AN EARLIER ICA (3)

Here’s Drew back on 15 May 2017 with something from ICA #123:-

“Rock & Roll

Rock & Roll recounts the story of Jenny whose life was saved by Rock & Roll. I read in notes to Peel Slowly and See that the song was about Reed himself, who wasn’t interested in anything until he heard rock and roll. “If I hadn’t heard rock and roll on the radio, I would have had no idea there was life on this planet”

It comes from the band’s final album, Loaded recorded for Atlantic. The band were on the point of implosion at this point but could still produce an LP “loaded” with hits or so Reed thought, and it is definitely the most commercial of their releases.”

Rock & Roll was released on a 45 by Atlantic in Germany and the UK back in 1973.  The picture sleeve used to illustrate this post is taken from one of the German releases as the UK single came housed in a plain sleeve.  You’ll have noticed that I said was ‘released on a 45, words chosen deliberately as it was actually the b-side.  It was also the first ever release attributed to more than just the band:-

mp3: The Velvet Underground featuring Lou Reed – Sweet Jane
mp3: The Velvet Underground featuring Lou Reed – Rock & Roll

It was, of course, a cash-in attempt, coming on the back of Walk On The Wild Side being a solo hit for Lou Reed in 1972 but it proved to be a flop, with Radio 1 not the slightest bit interested in playing it.

JC

Teenage Fanclub

SOME WORDS FROM AN EARLIER ICA (2)

Yesterday featured a song which peaked at #40 in the UK singles charts.  Well, whatdyaknow?  Its deja vu….

Here’s our much missed friend Tim Badger back on 26 July 2016 with something from ICA #86:-

“Sparky’s Dream

Ok I’ll keep this one short – this is one of the best pop rock songs ever written. It’s another Gerard Love one and that bluesy slide guitar intro is divine and nearly every band I can think of would kill for it.”

Looking back, you can learn, or be reminded, that Sparky’s Dream was the lead single from the fifth studio album, Grand Prix.  It was released on 22 May 1995 as a 7″ single and on 2 x CDs.

I’ve one of the CDs in the collection:-

mp3: Teenage Fanclub – Sparky’s Dream
mp3: Teenage Fanclub – Burned
mp3: Teenage Fanclub – For You
mp3: Teenage Fanclub – Headstand

Burned is a cover of a Buffalo Springfield song, written by Neil Young and dating from 1966, and was made available on the 7″ and CD1. The latter is where you’ll also find the Raymond McGinley penned For You, and Headstand, another track written by Gerard Love.

I’ve also picked up, along the way, the lead track from CD2.

mp3: Teenage Fanclub – Sparky’s Dream (alternative version)

This is actually the recording for the BBC Radio 1 Evening Session that had been transmitted a few months earlier, on 23 January 1995.

JC

LCD Soundsystem

SOME WORDS FROM AN EARLIER ICA (1)

Lazy week (of sorts) for me.  The next few days will see me delve into some old ICAs and reproduce the words written about a particular song at the time, before expanding to include its b-sides.  Here’s SWC back on 25 March 2015 with something from ICA #9:-

“North American Scum

You’ll all know this song but the point where the cowbell clangs and organ buzz that set off North American Scum is one of the greatest moments in recent music history. This is one of the finest anthems of our generation. There is an angry guitar that pushes its way to the front, and as it does burst through, you can’t help but grin at the stupidly brilliant American.”

Looking back, you can learn, or be reminded, that North American Scum was the lead single from the second studio album, Sound of Silver.  It was released on 26 February 2007 as a digital download and on 7″, 12″ and CD formats exactly one week later.

Here’s all the tracks you can expect to find across all the formats.

mp3: LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum
mp3: LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum (Kris Menace Remix)
mp3: LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum (Onastic Dub Mix by James Murphy and Eric Broucek)
mp3: LCD Soundsystem – Hippie-Priest Bum-Out

It peaked at #40 in the UK charts which, quite frankly, is another dreadful indictment of the taste of the record-buying public.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a few more guitars for those of you who prefer things that way.

JC

Camper Van Beethoven

THE MONDAY MORNING HI-QUALITY VINYL RIP : Part Thirty One : TAKE THE SKINHEADS BOWLING

If the statement on the reverse of the sleeve is to be believed, then this was “recorded at Samurai Sound Labs in Davis, California, with mixing taking place at Samurai Sounds Labs & Chris Molla’s-enormous-piece-of-squid-in-the-fridge-studios while most everybody was naked or wearing massive fur boas & platform shoes.”

If only mobile phones and social media had been around back in 1984, then we would have an idea whether it is fact or fiction.  After all, who keeps giant squid in their fridge?

Camper Van Beethoven aren’t all that well known beyond this particular single, released here in the UK in early 1985 on Rough Trade.  It made it all the way to #8 in the Indie Charts and was voted in at #47 in the end of the year Peel Festive Fifty.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think it is one of the finest, funniest, freshest and most wonderful songs from that era, one which always got me off my seat every time it was aired at an indie-disco or night out.  My use of the past tense reflects how long since any such event has taken place, and the likelihood that, I edge towards turning 60 in twenty-one months time, my dancing days, if not completely over, will be restricted, and I’d only be able to shake my thang to Skinheads if it was aired after I’d been sitting down for at least ten minutes after my previous exertions.

mp3: Camper Van Beethoven – Take The Skinheads Bowling

I didn’t pick this up this back in the day.  In truth, it passed me by in 1986 and my recollection of being introduced to it was via listening to the Peel end-of-year rundown, which I was taping onto cassette each night.  Even then, I didn’t go out and seek it out, which would likely have been difficult as Rough Trade singles (with the exception of The Smiths), certainly in Scotland, were hard to track down once the shops had sold out their initial allocation.  But it is one I sought out, via Discogs, not long after starting the blog reignited fully the passion for vinyl.

I’d like to think you’re all smiling while listening to this today.  It really is that sort of song……

JC

Fall

THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING NEW SERIES FOR SUNDAYS (Part 14)

Let’s get a misconception about this one right out of the way.

C.R.E.E.P. is not about recently departed band member, Marc Riley.

Brix Smith‘s book, The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise (2016) devotes a few paragraphs to the song, saying that she was excited by it, not least as she provides ‘bratty backing vocals that contested well with the darkness of The Fall’, and firmly believed it had a chance of cracking the singles chart. She also explains that the lyrics were aimed at another of the many hundreds of individuals who had upset Mark E Smith somewhere along the way, a German tour manager by the name of Scumech, whose name was turned into scum-egg as part of the lyric.  A bit of investigatory work by fans of the band later unearthed that the man in question was most likely Scumeck Sabottka, who would later make a fortune as the founder of one of the biggest online ticketing agencies in Germany – and looking at some of the photos of the man that can be found online, he does look something of a peace-loving, trendy wretch who was fond of ABC.  It would appear therefore that MES never gave him the look of love….

C.R.E.E.P. didn’t sound like anything the band had written, recorded and released up to this point.  It was even more ‘pop’ orientated than Oh! Brother.  It is very much a record on which the guiding influence of John Leckie in the producer’s chair is obvious, and the folk at Beggars Banquet must have been pleased at how it was all going.

Many years later, it would emerge that the tune had been written by the brothers Steve and Paul Hanley together with Craig Scanlon, just after The Man Whose Head Expanded had been recorded, but MES had hated it, throwing the cassette down in disdain, seemingly lost forever.  Brix, while doing a bit of serious cleaning in her new matrimonial abode, found the discarded tape and suggested that it would make for a good song if MES could come up with a lyric.  Still very much in love with his new wife, the cantankerous frontman didn’t let on what he really thought of the tune and in due course came up with the words. Oh, and Brix somehow manages to get a writing credit on the final version, possibly/probably because of the bratty backing vocal…..

I should at this stage owning up to having a real liking for C.R.E.E.P. but not buying it at the time of release, being content to hear it played on a reasonably regular basis at one disco or other in the Students; Union. The problem, however, was that the music critics weren’t all that keen, with some barbed comments that the new-look band, which had undergone a fairly radical image transformation, was now being fronted by the new wave equivalent of Dollar (click here if you need an explanation).  Many fans from way back didn’t care for it either, thinking it was clear evidence of the band selling-out to the man.

Similar to last time out, C.R.E.E.P., released on 24 August 1984, was made available on 7″ and 12″, with the latter being on green vinyl and containing a version which is almost two minutes longer, with particular prominence given to the bass playing skills of Steve Hanley:-

mp3: The Fall – C.R.E.E.P.
mp3: The Fall – C.R.E.E.P. (12″ version)

Despite Brix’s hopes, it stalled at #91, just two places higher than Oh! Brother. You might well be able to easily dance in the student unions to the music The Fall were now making, but it still wasn’t making any impact on the wider market of record buyers.

The b-side to the single was inspired by another individual whom The Fall had dealt with while on tour. Again, let’s turn to Brix’s book for the details:-

“The Fall’s American tour manager, Pat was a plump fellow from Hoboken, New Jersey. He was a fun-loving, beer-drinking kind of guy. Mark went to Pat and asked him for some pills. Pat removed a plastic bag full of colourful capsules.”

The capsules were emptied out and duly snorted, but instead of it being the anticipated speed it turned out to be nothing more than powdered caffeine….

mp3: The Fall – Pat-Trip Dispenser

It’s an absolute belter of a song…..one which benefits from the polish offered up by Leckie but without going down the truly commercial road. It seemed to bode well for the album that was being worked up……

JC

Robert Rental

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #275: ROBERT RENTAL

From bandcamp:–

“Robert Rental is an artist as influential as he is overlooked.

An anchor of the early British DIY and post-punk scene, his name is most frequently uttered alongside illustrious collaborators such as Thomas Leer and Daniel Miller. Dark Entries and Optimo ally to illuminate some of Rental’s early solo works with an expanded reissue of his debut 7” Paralysis /A.C.C. self-released on Regular Records in 1978, around the same time as Leer’s Private Plane/International 7”.

The record is a perfect document of the DIY ethos. It was recorded with the assistance of Leer in the council flat that Robert lived in, using an assortment of budget electronics: a Roland drum machine, a Stylophone, an Electroharmonix DrQ, and a TEAC A3440 4-track recorder.

The record’s sleeves were surreptitiously photocopied after hours at the offices of Virgin Records by Robert’s partner Hilary Farrow, and the labels were hand-stamped The initial print run was a scant 650 copies. With its prominent notes of Krautrock, prog, dub, and ambient, Paralysis /A.C.C. points to a then-emergent musical form.

“Paralysis” makes its four and a half minute runtime feel like an eon, an endless morass of processed vocals and mournful melodies underpinned by the static whirrings of synthesizers. “A.C.C.” is an angular pop song that is at once both fractured and droning, like a skipping record that sounds incrementally more warped with each iteration.”

It was some fifteen months ago that I paid tribute to Robert Rental and Thomas Leer in this posting.  I made their two debut singles available via the blog, but in doing so was acutely aware that I had myself picked them up from elsewhere.  I’ve kind of made up for it by spending a small amount, via bandcamp, on the digital release of Paralysis and A.C.C, whih comes with three additional tracks, all of which were previously unreleased. Here’s the one which is described as “a sparse gem that layers Rental’s gently processed vox with guitar and drum machine, beautiful in its simplicity. “

mp3: Robert Rental – Untitled

Here’s a link to the bandcamp site if you’re interested.

JC

Madness

SOME SONGS MAKE GREAT SHORT STORIES (Chapter 51)

It was back in 2014 that I wrote these words about this particular song:-

“…a truly astonishing single that remains my particular favourite from the band. A soap-opera in just under three minutes. Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Boy and girl have sex…baby gets created. Parents of the boy and girl react with anger and horror…and completely ostracize their own offspring.

Their crime wasn’t to become unexpected parents. Their crime was to create a mixed-race baby.

Based on a true story. The teenage sister of saxophonist Lee Thomson had a black boyfriend and became pregnant, only to be horrified by the fact that many in her family shunned her.”

I do think that the lyric makes for a great short story….one that is particularly shocking, even back in that less enlightened and intolerant era:

Received a letter just the other day,
Don’t seem they wanna know you no more,
They’ve laid it down given you their score,
Within the first two lines it bluntly read.

You’re not to come and see us no more,
Keep away from our door,
Don’t come ’round here no more
What on earth did you do that for?

Our aunt, she don’t wanna know she says,
What will the neighbours think they’ll think,
We don’t that’s what they’ll think, we don’t,
But I will, ’cause I know they think I don’t.

Our uncle he don’t wanna know he says,
We are a disgrace to the human race he says,
How can you show your face,
When you’re a disgrace to the human race?

No commitment, you’re an embarrassment,
Yes, an embarrassment, a living endorsement,
The intention that you have booked,
Was an intention that was overlooked.

They say, stay away,
Don’t want you home today,
Keep away from our door,
Don’t come ’round here no more.

Our dad, he don’t wanna know he says,
This is a serious matter,
Too late to reconsider,
No one’s gonna wanna know ya!

Our mum, she don’t wanna know,
I’m feelin’ twice as old, she says,
Thought she had a head on her shoulder,
‘Cause I’m feelin’ twice as older,
I’m feelin’ twice as older.

You’re an embarrassment…

mp3: Madness – Embarrassment

The real life story turns out to have had a happy ending, with the family seeing sense after the baby girl was born. I’m guessing the existence of the song also played its part….

As I’ve used a copy of the 7″ single to supply the mp3, I thought it would be OK to also offer up its b-side:-

mp3:Madness – Crying Shame

Madness clearly had such an abundance of riches back in 1980 that this could be disposed of, almost as an afterthought.

JC

Underworld

SOMETHING I ROLL OUT EVERY SIX YEARS

This is the third time these words have appeared on the blog.  The first was over at the old place in February 2009, while the second time was in February 2015.  I make no apologies for the repeat…..

Back in the late 1990s, I was in a job that involved the occasional bit of overseas travel. To those of you who don’t ever have to do that for a living it might sound like a great way of life, but believe me, aside from the excitement of arriving somewhere for the first time and enjoying, if you’re lucky, a bit of sightseeing, the joys of being far away from home for a few days isn’t any fun.

It was in 1997 that I went on what proved to be my furthest ever jaunt, to Kuala Lumper in Malaysia to accompany my boss who was giving the keynote speech to a conference of civic leaders – I was there partly as the bag-carrier and logistics organiser, but I was also around to make any last-minute changes to the speech and presentation.

I have three abiding memories of the trip.

Firstly, it was very very hot and humid with the most amazing bursts of thunder and lightning I ever imagine I will see.

Secondly, as someone who is not a fan of any sort of exotic food, my participation in a 16-course banquet held in honour of the boss was torture of the worst kind – I was pretty ill for 48 hours afterwards but still had to be seen in and around the conference venue and elsewhere at all times. I made sure I knew where the nearest toilet was.

Thirdly, I heard Moaner by Underworld for the first ever time.

I was having real problems sleeping during the trip, and in the middle of one night I found myself tuned into MTV Asia. It was a station dominated by all sorts of American rock’n’roll stadium acts, particularly Guns’n’Roses who seemed to be on every other song. Then out-of-the-blue came a video that seemed to be a soundtrack to the latest Batman movie – a throbbing, thumping, grinding, intense and manic bit of music that got louder and louder and hugely intense….and just when it seemed to be hitting some sort of ecstatic peak it disappeared without warning, leaving no trace at all of its presence. I was hooked and promised myself that if I ever got back in one piece, I’d immediately track down the song so I’d have one happy abiding memory from the trip.

This proved to be far more difficult than I imagined, as the only way to get hold of it was to buy a single on an expensive import or shell out for the soundtrack LP to Batman & Robin. In the end, I did the latter. And while it is a soundtrack that I have never played in its entirety (too many things on it that were a total turn-off), the Underworld track became a huge favourite.

Coming in at more than 10 minutes in length, it was of course much longer than the version that I had heard back in Malaysia, but that didn’t bother me in the slightest. However, if the truth be told, for a long while I could really only listen to the opening six and a bit minutes up to the part that I so remembered from that first time….the ecstatic point where the vocal screams ‘down to the waterfront.’ I used to put the track on every C90 compilation of that era, but I always hit the stop button right at that moment….but as time has marched on and the full song has found its way on to the i-pod I’ve learned to love every single note.

And despite the title of this posting, I can also say that I’ve never had the opportunity to properly dance to the track (i.e, in a club). Yes, I’ve jumped around an empty flat with nobody watching, and I’ve also lain on a beach throwing my arms above my head while singing along, much to the distress of other holidaymakers who are concerned why a lunatic has been allowed onto an otherwise tranquil Caribbean island.

And given I’m now nearer 60 50 than 40, I guess I will never get that dance. One of life’s few regrets, y’know….

Looking up info on the song, it turns out that it was released as a single in Germany and the USA with four different versions – ‘short’, ‘album’, ‘relentless legs’ and ‘long’ – with the version on the soundtrack being ‘album.’ Just over a year later, it was included on the LP Beaucoup Fish as the closing track – the version being ‘long’ (confusingly, the ‘long’ version is in fact shorter than either the ‘album’ or ‘relentless legs versions.’).

mp3 : Underworld – Moaner (album version)

This post is dedicated to my dear friends Ctelblog from Acid Ted, Drew from Across The Kitchen Table and Swiss Adam who is rummaging around in the Bagging Area.  If only I had got to know them a few decades ago….they would have known where to take me to make my Underworld ambition come true.

JC

Bricolage

ANYONE REMEMBER BRICOLAGE?

My monthly Patreon subscription to the Creeping Bent Organisation has given me all sorts of joy this past year, offering up all sorts of goodies, including exclusive tracks, previously unreleased live recordings, video footage, press cuttings, photographs, prose, poetry, and the occasional nugget from the past which turns out to be completely new to me.

One such instance of the latter is Bricolage, a Glasgow based band who played, recorded and performed in the latter half of the first decade of this century but who completely passed me by, especially given the fact that I should have caught them live a few times given the calibre of acts they were supporting.  In my defence, I was caught up with all sorts of things at work when the band first emerged, while I also spent a spell living in Toronto when I lost touch with the local scene. Here’s their story, lifted from the Patreon site:-

” BRICOLAGE : 2005 – 2009

Graham Wann : Vocals & Guitars

Wallace Meek : Vocals & Guitars

Darren Cameron : Bass & Backing Vocals

Colin Kearney : Drums

Bricolage existed in a time period where Glasgow was recalibrating to the feel and vibrations of the Postcard Records label aesthetic, particularly Orange Juice. The scene was alive with groups for whom the art school was a second skin, groups like The 1990s, The Royal We, and Bricolage. The 1990s signed to Rough Trade, The Royal We signed to Domino, and Bricolage signed to Glasgow label The Creeping Bent Organisation.

Bricolage started playing live in some of Glasgow’s seamier environs at the tail-end of 2005, perfecting their louche and stylish uplifting pop prior to releasing their debut single ‘Footsteps’ on Creeping Bent early in 2006 on white vinyl 7”. The world was introduced to Graham Wann’s quivering vocals with ‘Footsteps’ selling 1,000 copies on the day of release before being deleted by Creeping Bent.

By this time the group were fending off offers from major and independent labels, but decided to release a second single, ‘Looting Takes The Waiting Out Of Wanting’, in the summer of 2006 on the Fantastic Plastic label. This was swiftly followed by Creeping Bent signing an agreement with Memphis Industries for an album, largely down to being fans of the label’s artists The Go Team and Field Music. Bricolage chose ex Altered Images guitarist Stephen Lironi to produce the album from which a debut single, ‘The Waltzers’, was released.

The release of ‘The Waltzers’ is where the drama unfolded when Wallace Meek left the group the day the single was released, which resulted in a crisis of confidence within Memphis Industries regarding releasing the album. A decision was taken by the group to continue, and the album was released by Creeping Bent in 2009 to serious critical acclaim.

Bricolage supported an array of artists; Franz Ferdinand, Fire Engines, 1990s, Long Blondes, and even Sun Ra’s Arkestra. The group had a collage-oriented aesthetic, mixing an early Roxy Music / Eno approach mixed with pop art mixed with Iggy’s Berlin period mixed with Postcard Records, resulting in a heady potion. A final single was released in 2009 (‘Turn U Over’), another Graham Wann song, before the group came to natural full stop.

The eponymously titled album has just been re-released, on CD and in download form. by Creeping Bent.  Here are a couple of its highlights:-

mp3: Bricolage – Bayonets
mp3: Bricolage – Turn U Over

If you like what you’re hearing, then feel free to click here, which will link you to the bandcamp page where you can have further listens and maybe spend some cash on a CD or the downloads.

JC

House of Love

PEEL’S FESTIVE FIFTY : #1 SONG IN 1988

I wasn’t really paying too much attention to music in 1988…..it’s a long and rather dull story that I won’t bore you with. It is related to the backstory of yesterday’s music, which again I didn’t bother going into.

I certainly didn’t listen to John Peel‘s end of year Festive 50 rundown, but looking at it now, I did in fact have a fair few number of the songs as voted in by the readers, thanks in part to the ex-frontman of The Smiths having four entries, but there was also space for the likes of Billy Bragg, New Order, James, The Fall, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and the one emerging band that I did latch onto, Pixies. I would also, later in life, pick up on many other groups that featured in the 88 rundown, not least The Wedding Present.

The thing is, if you had given me an alphabetical rundown of all the songs in the list and asked me to pick out the #1 from that year, I’d have needed maybe 20 or 30 goes to get it.

mp3: The House Of Love – Destroy The Heart

It was an era when being on Creation Records was almost like a badge of honour in the indie-pop world. All the singers and bands got loads of column inches in the UK music papers while never getting a sniff of commercial success, which made them perfect for name-dropping and for casting your votes in the Peel rundown while retaining some street credibility.

I couldn’t tell you exactly when I would first have heard Destroy The Heart, but it would certainly be quite a few years after it reached the heights of #76 in the UK singles chart in August 1988.  I can’t recall it being included on any Jacques the Kipper compilation tapes from which much of my 87-90 gaps were filled in.  It would likely have been heard as background music in a pub, but even then, I wouldn’t have been paying too much attention.

What I do know is that more than a quarter of a century later, I did hear it played at one of the Little League nights in Glasgow, and loving how it sounded. I will have come away from there with a determination to ‘source’ a digital copy for the hard drive.  But that was always, hopefully, always going to be just a temporary measure, and  sure enough I would in due course find a second-hand copy of the single, in 12″ form, before too long.

As you’ll have picked up from listening to the mp3, it isn’t quite a pristine copy, but given I paid a small amount for it, in the era before vinyl became fashionable again, I’m happy enough.

Here’s your b-sides:-

mp3: The House Of Love – Blind
mp3: The House of Love – Mr Jo

The former makes me think of Factory-era James, and so I won’t hear a bad word said about it. The latter, and I apologise to those of you who are diehard fans, is a bit too indie by numbers to really have much lasting appeal.

JC