FREE MUSIC: Sage Francis (not to be confused with nu-folk contenders Page France) is a Rhode Island hip-hopper who falls squarely into the wordy, genre boundary testing, conscious raising, politically and socially fuelled, probably guilty-conscious on our part small part of the genre we do go for (cf Blackalicious, Aesop Rock, Cadence Weapon). Civil Obedience is from his third album Human The Death Dance, which also features contributions from Buck 65 and Jolie Holland, and flows like a fucker.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: It's been, ooh, a month since we featured a twee/C86 indie referencing new band. So here's one now, Pocketbooks. Claiming formation through "a shared love of tambourines, handclaps, glockenspiels, jangly guitars and boy/girl harmonies" is the giveaway, but you've still got to do it right and they tremendously do, in the method of Heavenly, the Field Mice, the Pastels, a less self-absorbed Felt, the happy-sadness of Hefner and latterly your Boy Least Likely To and the Australian and Swedish janglepop movements. They released their debut single in May, featured on the accomplished Kids At The Club compilation and feature on Smalltown America's next Public Service Broadcast compilation along with the previously Myspace featured Pagan Wanderer Lu and Clone Quartet plus a song called Philately Will Get You Nowhere. They may also be the first band we've ever come across to cite Sleeper as an influence.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: Back to the gift that keeps on giving, television wondering what to make of this whole rock'n'roll thing, inspired in part by London Tonight's coverage of the White Stripes Chelsea Pensioners gig, which is local news reportage as only that sector can manage. How different it must have been in the old days. Or maybe not, as the London And South East opt-out of Nationwide in 1970 deems a murder trial and two dead (we assume) children to be less newsworthy than the news that the Beatles not winning the most popular band category in the Melody Maker reader's poll. It's left to Bob Wellings, who became the main programme's co-host a year later, and Brian Ash, whoever he was, to explain to square daddios who exactly these hirsute gentlemen calling themselves 'The' Led Zeppelin who took their place are. MM editor Ray Coleman contributes on his way to the All-England Eric Morecambe Lookalike Contest, but the real meat is Wellings' attempt to get to grips with an intelligent, snout-toting Robert Plant and John Bonham in the studio. Yeah, that cult of personality really died for good in 1970, especially around Led Zep.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: Pop Will Eat My Blog knows which crates to dig in and shares a hell of a lot of it, including a whole Ultra Vivid Scene album, Paul Hardcastle's French version of 19, Heaven 17, Opus III, the Psychedelic Furs and Ned's Atomic Dustbin.
EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: Oeuvreblog update! That word comes from Paraguay And Laos, Iain F of Delete As Appropriate's brilliantly titled (ahem) Bluetones-specific blog. Tom 'Freaky Trigger' Ewing has spotted a movement afoot to try and make sense of too.
IN OTHER NEWS: WMFU strike gold again with The Sixty Second Song Remix Contest, an attempt to pare down the classics to less than a minute. A winner has already been decided, but, in contravention of the original idea, the entries could keep you going all week.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
In shops tomorrow: 18/6
Singles
What we try to do in this section is filter out the wheat, the chaff and the underwhelming (hello there, Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors) and leaven it down to the bitter quick of goodness. Not even much of that this week, as all we're left with is the not as good as most of the album but you've got to like them Direct Hit by Art Brut and Seasick Steve's British indie kid easily pleasing three string Missisippi delta blues It's All Good.
Albums
There are two things of note about Jetplane Landing's Backlash Cop (says 18th June on their website, that's what we're running with). One is that whenever we mention Jetplane Landing on STN, Jetplane Landing's official website links to it on the very front page, which is a smart thing for Jetplane Landing to do, and we heartily commend Jetplane Landing for their driving our visitor numbers up. Jetplane Landing, Jetplane Landing, Jetplane Landing. The other thing of note is they've made a truly remarkable album, which helps. Just as melodic post-hardcore of the type their first two albums had traded in becomes popular, they've gone and made a concept album - Andrew Ferris calls it one, so it is one - which we can only pigeonhole as Fugazi meets the Minutemen to go funk, a coagulation of Ferris' evangelising sing/shout/talk/rap vocals, oblique/provocative/meaningful lyrics, blowtorch riffs, broken beat rhythms, soulful moves and a litany of reference points (just from the titles we get Dizzy Gillespie, Les Savy Fav, Sam Cooke, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Motown bassist James Jamerson and black civil rights poet Sonia Sanchez). And cowbell. And it just gets better on repeated listens. Could this finally be their time? (Checks weight of press coverage) Oh. Bugger. Still, it's a spectacular development and probably the standout full-on rock record of the first half of 2007. A somewhat more celebrated exponent of the dark art of bludgeoning listeners into submission with enormous riffs is Jack White, who after those curious rhythm-led piano/marimba moments on Get Behind Me Satan has by and large returned to the distort pedal on Icky Thump. See, ver Stripes could have continued on the path loosely following their first three albums of emotional garage blues and they'd now be as relevant as the Datsuns. That they continue to make complete leaps of faith every time they book a couple of weeks in a recording studio and sell records by the truckload restores your faith in 'our' world on a biennual basis. It sounds variously like Led Zep, compressed prog, show tunes from Hades, heavy melodics, the electrified lovers' blues they were doing five years ago and all sorts of oddness besides. You shouldn't expect any less, really. Norway's Sondre Lerche was tipped as a natural melodic successor to the likes of Elvis Costello (who invited him on tour), Difford & Tilbrook and Paddy McAloon a couple of years ago, then deliberately lost some ground with an odd jazz album. Phantom Punch sees him regain his composure, remaining the doomed romantic while either touching the soul or piling into what Costello refers to as "rowdy rhythm". He's become one to watch again. Speaking of Costello, his first ten years have been reissued as eight quid digipacks, we don't even think for the first time in Sweeping The Nation's lifespan. Universal, Demon, Rykodisc, whoever, they'll flog this stuff to death. We're going to do an Illustrated Guide To Elvis Costello, perhaps even this week given how spectacularly More Songs... crashed and burned early, so for the time being here's a chronological list of buy links: My Aim Is True, This Year's Model, Armed Forces, Get Happy!!, Trust, Almost Blue, Imperial Bedroom, Punch The Clock, Goodbye Cruel World, King Of America, Blood And Chocolate. The former Charles Thompson IV actually recorded his first Frank Black solo album before he'd got round to checking the toner and pressing the big red go button on the fax to Kim and David, having decided that as Joey Santiago was on said album it might be a touch indelicate. Originally planned as a cover projec, that album came out two months after the split was made public (the fateful Mark Radcliffe Hit The North interview into which he casually dropped the breakup news sees Radcliffe refer to a promo copy) and as such sounds of a piece with that band's later work. Inevitably it's also the high water mark of a solo career that's if not exactly spluttered along then mostly flattered to deceive, although 93-03: The Best Of Frank Black does a more than reasonable job of collating it all together. Ever seen the video Adam & Joe made for Dog Gone? While we're on the subject of influential bands who broke up to go solo for a bit, the Go-Betweens' Robert Forster and Grant McLennan's four solo offerings each, not without merit but again nothing compared to the parent band, have been cherrypicked for the jointly credited Intermission - The Best Of The Solo Recordings 1990-1997.
What we try to do in this section is filter out the wheat, the chaff and the underwhelming (hello there, Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors) and leaven it down to the bitter quick of goodness. Not even much of that this week, as all we're left with is the not as good as most of the album but you've got to like them Direct Hit by Art Brut and Seasick Steve's British indie kid easily pleasing three string Missisippi delta blues It's All Good.
Albums
There are two things of note about Jetplane Landing's Backlash Cop (says 18th June on their website, that's what we're running with). One is that whenever we mention Jetplane Landing on STN, Jetplane Landing's official website links to it on the very front page, which is a smart thing for Jetplane Landing to do, and we heartily commend Jetplane Landing for their driving our visitor numbers up. Jetplane Landing, Jetplane Landing, Jetplane Landing. The other thing of note is they've made a truly remarkable album, which helps. Just as melodic post-hardcore of the type their first two albums had traded in becomes popular, they've gone and made a concept album - Andrew Ferris calls it one, so it is one - which we can only pigeonhole as Fugazi meets the Minutemen to go funk, a coagulation of Ferris' evangelising sing/shout/talk/rap vocals, oblique/provocative/meaningful lyrics, blowtorch riffs, broken beat rhythms, soulful moves and a litany of reference points (just from the titles we get Dizzy Gillespie, Les Savy Fav, Sam Cooke, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Motown bassist James Jamerson and black civil rights poet Sonia Sanchez). And cowbell. And it just gets better on repeated listens. Could this finally be their time? (Checks weight of press coverage) Oh. Bugger. Still, it's a spectacular development and probably the standout full-on rock record of the first half of 2007. A somewhat more celebrated exponent of the dark art of bludgeoning listeners into submission with enormous riffs is Jack White, who after those curious rhythm-led piano/marimba moments on Get Behind Me Satan has by and large returned to the distort pedal on Icky Thump. See, ver Stripes could have continued on the path loosely following their first three albums of emotional garage blues and they'd now be as relevant as the Datsuns. That they continue to make complete leaps of faith every time they book a couple of weeks in a recording studio and sell records by the truckload restores your faith in 'our' world on a biennual basis. It sounds variously like Led Zep, compressed prog, show tunes from Hades, heavy melodics, the electrified lovers' blues they were doing five years ago and all sorts of oddness besides. You shouldn't expect any less, really. Norway's Sondre Lerche was tipped as a natural melodic successor to the likes of Elvis Costello (who invited him on tour), Difford & Tilbrook and Paddy McAloon a couple of years ago, then deliberately lost some ground with an odd jazz album. Phantom Punch sees him regain his composure, remaining the doomed romantic while either touching the soul or piling into what Costello refers to as "rowdy rhythm". He's become one to watch again. Speaking of Costello, his first ten years have been reissued as eight quid digipacks, we don't even think for the first time in Sweeping The Nation's lifespan. Universal, Demon, Rykodisc, whoever, they'll flog this stuff to death. We're going to do an Illustrated Guide To Elvis Costello, perhaps even this week given how spectacularly More Songs... crashed and burned early, so for the time being here's a chronological list of buy links: My Aim Is True, This Year's Model, Armed Forces, Get Happy!!, Trust, Almost Blue, Imperial Bedroom, Punch The Clock, Goodbye Cruel World, King Of America, Blood And Chocolate. The former Charles Thompson IV actually recorded his first Frank Black solo album before he'd got round to checking the toner and pressing the big red go button on the fax to Kim and David, having decided that as Joey Santiago was on said album it might be a touch indelicate. Originally planned as a cover projec, that album came out two months after the split was made public (the fateful Mark Radcliffe Hit The North interview into which he casually dropped the breakup news sees Radcliffe refer to a promo copy) and as such sounds of a piece with that band's later work. Inevitably it's also the high water mark of a solo career that's if not exactly spluttered along then mostly flattered to deceive, although 93-03: The Best Of Frank Black does a more than reasonable job of collating it all together. Ever seen the video Adam & Joe made for Dog Gone? While we're on the subject of influential bands who broke up to go solo for a bit, the Go-Betweens' Robert Forster and Grant McLennan's four solo offerings each, not without merit but again nothing compared to the parent band, have been cherrypicked for the jointly credited Intermission - The Best Of The Solo Recordings 1990-1997.
The Weekly Sweep
Saturday, June 16, 2007
This would be rubbish with Fearne'n'Reggie, wouldn't it?
Note a) current serious current affairs crusader Nicky Campbell and b) the fact that it was once Tim Westwood's ethnicity that was up for most debate well ahead of his language.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #...erm...
Well, this is interesting. As of this moment, we seem to have fallen a week short of the promised twenty new additions to the Songs To Learn And Sing canon with no new write-ups or mp3s to add, and not for the want of trying. This, frankly, makes us look massively foolish in front of all our cyberfriends. We can only apologise.
And make a contingency plan! So we'll pretend that it was always going to be twelve new entrants and cast a black cloth over the rest of the frankly sorry affair. Except... we're going to rework it as a monthly feature. One a month, luckily for our outbox, always on the first of the month, starting on July 1st, and the current conglomerate list eventually operating as a one stop shop for the 42 submissions to date (43, actually, we'll stick a link up to one we received too late to put in the original selection but they posted on their own homepage). Again, get in touch if you're interested in the long term, as even in this state we think we can get someone to cover July.
And make a contingency plan! So we'll pretend that it was always going to be twelve new entrants and cast a black cloth over the rest of the frankly sorry affair. Except... we're going to rework it as a monthly feature. One a month, luckily for our outbox, always on the first of the month, starting on July 1st, and the current conglomerate list eventually operating as a one stop shop for the 42 submissions to date (43, actually, we'll stick a link up to one we received too late to put in the original selection but they posted on their own homepage). Again, get in touch if you're interested in the long term, as even in this state we think we can get someone to cover July.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #12
Our asking around for people to recommend a song for the hoi polloi progresses through Mark X of Broken TV and, more pertinently, Broken FM:
Stereo Total - L' Amour À 3
For me at least, Stereo Total seem to be one of those bands that seep into the consciousness by way of gentle osmosis. Classifying themselves as part of the chanson- electro- nonelectro- garage- rock'n'roll- french-pop- rock-à-billy- disco- international- underground, it's entirely possible that you've heard at least half-a-dozen songs by the duo, but haven't actually heard of them. Since first encountering the band (somehow - I've no idea how I first discovered them, other than it was probably via some file-sharing network), I've made a point of buying each one of their ten or so albums to date (it helps that most of them are on eMusic, of course). These don't just take in an almost alarming number of musical styles, but also languages; performing principally in French, German and English, the band have also found the time to take in other languages such as Japanese, Spanish and Turkish.
Of the [checks iTunes] 164 songs I've managed to amass from the polyglotic popsmiths, there can surely be none finer than their ode to... how best to put it? Erm, the beast with three backs? Listening to L'Amour À 3 is a magnificent way to spend three minutes of your life. Sneaking up on the innocent listener by way of a catchy, bouncy slice of Euro-trip-hop, it grabs a hold of the part of the frontal lobe that is most susceptible to catchy summer pop splendidness and does all kinds of unspeakable things to it. With tongues. Well, that's the French for you, I suppose.
Handily, for any Stereo Total fans who find themselves generally lacking in the French-speaking department, the album that contains L'Amour À 3 - the quite magnificent Musique Automatique - also plays host to an English-language version of the song, so we can actually find out what it's all about. To be fair, the repeated use of the words 'trois', 'amour' and assorted groaning noises that make up a large proportion of the track should provide ample evidence as to the content of the lyrics, but some of us need it spelling out.
Another handy side-effect of the song is that it goes a reasonable way to proving the seldom-asked question: Just Which Language Is the Best One for Singing In? Way back in the days of Audiogalaxy, I managed to source the German-language version of the song, making up a not-quite-holy trinity of versions of the same song about multiplayer coitus. I could probably knock up a quick graph on the results of this, but resisting the urge to fire up Excel, it is German that comes last out of the three (so to speak), with the preponderance of glottal stops required by the language hardly serving a flowing, breathy pop song about nookie very well. English slips into second position, not because of any major failing relating to the language of Shakespeare, but partly because the song was originally written on French and translated, and partly because a French tongue does lend itself magnificently well to that kind of song. Just ask Jane Birkin.
Come to think of it, all of this might go some way to explaining how Serge Gainsbourg got so much 'action' despite looking quite a lot like Moe Szyslak. I'm kind of wishing I'd paid more attention at French lessons in school instead of excitedly exchanging lines from Absolutely with my classmates. As it is, thanks to Stereo Total, I've picked up several phrases in French that could quite conceivably see me either arrested or quite unexpectedly happy were I to try and use them the next time I find myself in Boulogne. Comme ci, comme ça.
The complete collection
Stereo Total - L' Amour À 3
For me at least, Stereo Total seem to be one of those bands that seep into the consciousness by way of gentle osmosis. Classifying themselves as part of the chanson- electro- nonelectro- garage- rock'n'roll- french-pop- rock-à-billy- disco- international- underground, it's entirely possible that you've heard at least half-a-dozen songs by the duo, but haven't actually heard of them. Since first encountering the band (somehow - I've no idea how I first discovered them, other than it was probably via some file-sharing network), I've made a point of buying each one of their ten or so albums to date (it helps that most of them are on eMusic, of course). These don't just take in an almost alarming number of musical styles, but also languages; performing principally in French, German and English, the band have also found the time to take in other languages such as Japanese, Spanish and Turkish.
Of the [checks iTunes] 164 songs I've managed to amass from the polyglotic popsmiths, there can surely be none finer than their ode to... how best to put it? Erm, the beast with three backs? Listening to L'Amour À 3 is a magnificent way to spend three minutes of your life. Sneaking up on the innocent listener by way of a catchy, bouncy slice of Euro-trip-hop, it grabs a hold of the part of the frontal lobe that is most susceptible to catchy summer pop splendidness and does all kinds of unspeakable things to it. With tongues. Well, that's the French for you, I suppose.
Handily, for any Stereo Total fans who find themselves generally lacking in the French-speaking department, the album that contains L'Amour À 3 - the quite magnificent Musique Automatique - also plays host to an English-language version of the song, so we can actually find out what it's all about. To be fair, the repeated use of the words 'trois', 'amour' and assorted groaning noises that make up a large proportion of the track should provide ample evidence as to the content of the lyrics, but some of us need it spelling out.
Another handy side-effect of the song is that it goes a reasonable way to proving the seldom-asked question: Just Which Language Is the Best One for Singing In? Way back in the days of Audiogalaxy, I managed to source the German-language version of the song, making up a not-quite-holy trinity of versions of the same song about multiplayer coitus. I could probably knock up a quick graph on the results of this, but resisting the urge to fire up Excel, it is German that comes last out of the three (so to speak), with the preponderance of glottal stops required by the language hardly serving a flowing, breathy pop song about nookie very well. English slips into second position, not because of any major failing relating to the language of Shakespeare, but partly because the song was originally written on French and translated, and partly because a French tongue does lend itself magnificently well to that kind of song. Just ask Jane Birkin.
Come to think of it, all of this might go some way to explaining how Serge Gainsbourg got so much 'action' despite looking quite a lot like Moe Szyslak. I'm kind of wishing I'd paid more attention at French lessons in school instead of excitedly exchanging lines from Absolutely with my classmates. As it is, thanks to Stereo Total, I've picked up several phrases in French that could quite conceivably see me either arrested or quite unexpectedly happy were I to try and use them the next time I find myself in Boulogne. Comme ci, comme ça.
The complete collection
Monday, June 11, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #11
For today's choice of a song that everyone should take to their hearts, we turn to Jamila from Fucking Dance:
Gang Of Four - Anthrax
So I have just spent the past few days scrawling through my iTunes and complaining that my collection of music is not obscure enough. To the average radio listener or music fan it is rather ‘out there’, but to the world of bloggers it’s nothing special. Instead of choosing something completely and totally different, I’ve gone for a track by my second favourite band in the world.
One day a few years ago I was bored (surprise surprise), and playing my dad’s vinyl. I stumbled across a bright pink 7" sleeve titled "the sleeve for a Gang Of Four recording of Damaged Goods, Love Like Anthrax and Armalite Rifle". The sleeve was naturally a little worn out, but in pretty fine condition considering it was eleven years my senior.
Often classed under post-punk, Gang Of Four formed at university in Leeds in 1977 through a love of politics and an urge to make pop songs. These songs would go on to influence far and wide, and without Gang Of Four bands like The Rapture, Bloc Party, The Futureheads and Franz Ferdinand wouldn’t exist today. Their sound is completely modern, despite being 30 years old. At the time Gang Of Four were popular, but managed to fade into the background after At Home He’s A Tourist was banned by the BBC (for the word "rubbers" of all things) and their label began to push Duran Duran instead.
Released in 1978, Love Like Anthrax was Gang Of Four’s first single. It was later re-recorded as Anthrax and drenched in the band’s angular and definitive sound. The original recording is my favourite version (just who doesn’t love that crackling sound?) but Anthrax is awkward in all the right places. I’d have absolutely no clue how you would dance to this track sensibly.
It all begins with an introduction of screaming guitars and feedback. Then the infectious and repetitive drumbeat kicks in, joined by the heavy bass line. It’s almost at the halfway point before anyone even begins to think about lyrics. Jon King and Andy Gill spice things up with their distinctive, monotone speeches, talking over the top of one another. "Love will get you like a case of anthrax, and that’s something I don’t wanna catch," echoes the sentiments of heartbroken and bitter people worldwide and is possibly the best and most un-sloppy way of describing love ever. Gang Of Four have always been clever with their quietly politicised lyrics (and then sometimes not so quietly), commenting on society and the way of life. "The things I’m doing aren’t good for my health," describes exactly the type of hedonistic behaviour that comes as a result of falling in and out of love. Probably best to try and avoid love altogether in that case.
The complete collection
Gang Of Four - Anthrax
So I have just spent the past few days scrawling through my iTunes and complaining that my collection of music is not obscure enough. To the average radio listener or music fan it is rather ‘out there’, but to the world of bloggers it’s nothing special. Instead of choosing something completely and totally different, I’ve gone for a track by my second favourite band in the world.
One day a few years ago I was bored (surprise surprise), and playing my dad’s vinyl. I stumbled across a bright pink 7" sleeve titled "the sleeve for a Gang Of Four recording of Damaged Goods, Love Like Anthrax and Armalite Rifle". The sleeve was naturally a little worn out, but in pretty fine condition considering it was eleven years my senior.
Often classed under post-punk, Gang Of Four formed at university in Leeds in 1977 through a love of politics and an urge to make pop songs. These songs would go on to influence far and wide, and without Gang Of Four bands like The Rapture, Bloc Party, The Futureheads and Franz Ferdinand wouldn’t exist today. Their sound is completely modern, despite being 30 years old. At the time Gang Of Four were popular, but managed to fade into the background after At Home He’s A Tourist was banned by the BBC (for the word "rubbers" of all things) and their label began to push Duran Duran instead.
Released in 1978, Love Like Anthrax was Gang Of Four’s first single. It was later re-recorded as Anthrax and drenched in the band’s angular and definitive sound. The original recording is my favourite version (just who doesn’t love that crackling sound?) but Anthrax is awkward in all the right places. I’d have absolutely no clue how you would dance to this track sensibly.
It all begins with an introduction of screaming guitars and feedback. Then the infectious and repetitive drumbeat kicks in, joined by the heavy bass line. It’s almost at the halfway point before anyone even begins to think about lyrics. Jon King and Andy Gill spice things up with their distinctive, monotone speeches, talking over the top of one another. "Love will get you like a case of anthrax, and that’s something I don’t wanna catch," echoes the sentiments of heartbroken and bitter people worldwide and is possibly the best and most un-sloppy way of describing love ever. Gang Of Four have always been clever with their quietly politicised lyrics (and then sometimes not so quietly), commenting on society and the way of life. "The things I’m doing aren’t good for my health," describes exactly the type of hedonistic behaviour that comes as a result of falling in and out of love. Probably best to try and avoid love altogether in that case.
The complete collection
Weekender : much respected, apparently
Before any of that pop music nonsense, hearty congratulations to Tim AKA The Daily Growl, who became a father on Tuesday. Such is the way of Web 2.0 that Isobel has had a Myspace since December.
FREE MUSIC: A good portion of Brighton's much discussed musical fortunes over the last few years can be traced back to Monster Bobby. His Totally Bored club nights and DIY publications helped launch British Sea Power, the Electric Soft Parade, Brakes, 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster, The Tenderfoot and so forth, some of whom he's been tour DJ and guest musician for. More famously he then became 'concept engineer' (his term) of the Pipettes, developing their schtick and bringing the girls (and Cassette boys, with himself as guitarist) together. And he's working on a book about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Somewhere in between he's found time to produce oddball short electronically enhanced pop songs, some of which are being collected together under the title Gaps for release in mid-July. The Closest Experience To That Of Being With You Is The Experience Of Taking Drugs - title! - sounds like an English Suburban Kids.../Jens Lekman type being hotwired.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Belfast's The Clone Quartet have a solid label grounding, having been together since the dawn of the decade yet only just releasing their first single on the safe hands of Tigertrap Recordings (Popular Workshop, Look See Proof, Tiny Masters Of Today if you really must) and having entrusted their album to Smalltown America (Jetplane Landing, Young Playthings, Oppenheimer). They know their way round retro-modernist electro and yearning melodies, but with dashes of non-smug indie disco, taut dynamics and occasionally Biffy Clyro riffage and Bright Eyes heartbreak. A similar cult following isn't out of the question.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: Television is an endlessly fascinating subject for our purposes, and we've found some absolute crackers for future use here. We must however first examine that whole thorny subject of songs in advertising, forever tainted with that nebulous brush of 'selling out', although not so much these days even as we're assailed between shows by Deerhoof with Robinson's fruit juice and in America American Idol, Ford and Modest Mouse or Outback Steakhouse and Of Montreal. And to think Smirnoff/Pixies was considered recherche in its day. The one thing you don't get a lot of, conversely, is hits coming from adverts, as there was a time you could get anything into the charts if the pitch was good enough but nobody seems to bother any more. Apart from exceptional circumstances, obviously. With that in mind, they can get away with anything - what reflects the nature of a long cruise than Lust For Life? (The British version isn't on YouTube as far as we can tell but it's a lot more sedate)
VIRAL MARKETING: Just to prove the whole of Editors' new album An End Has A Start isn't as tailor made for Grey's Anatomy as the single, they popped by Jools' gaff to show off album highlight The Racing Rats. Note that Tom Smith still does that cupping-eyes-and-mike thing while seated at a piano. The title track, here recorded at the Roundhouse in May, is no slouch either.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: The Post Punk Progressive Pop Party isn't an mp3 blog for once, but instead traverses the turn of the 80s period in on this day factoids, blog links, embeds and so forth.
EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: It's already getting difficult to remember which single act review blogs we've covered. We're fairly sure these three are new, though, and they're very worthwhile entries to the canon, Bjorkian Hyper-Ballads, Magnetic Fields fandom All My Little Words and John Cale-centric Fragments Of A Cale Season. No Fall song-by-song commentary yet, as far as we can tell. Come on, it's not that tricky if there's already two doing Robert Pollard's collected works!
IN OTHER NEWS: We thought we'd mentioned this before but apparently didn't given we received reminder correspondence about it last week, and as we don't seem to be a repository for this kind of thing we might as well flag it up. It's The Solaris Bug Situation, involving Dark Side Of The Moon/Wizard Of Oz-style coincidences between the original Russian version of Solaris and Brian Miller's The Lightning Bug Situation. As we don't have a copy of the film to hand and have never previously heard of Miller or his band The Speakers we cannot vouch for its veracity, but we have a broad audience so maybe you have.
FREE MUSIC: A good portion of Brighton's much discussed musical fortunes over the last few years can be traced back to Monster Bobby. His Totally Bored club nights and DIY publications helped launch British Sea Power, the Electric Soft Parade, Brakes, 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster, The Tenderfoot and so forth, some of whom he's been tour DJ and guest musician for. More famously he then became 'concept engineer' (his term) of the Pipettes, developing their schtick and bringing the girls (and Cassette boys, with himself as guitarist) together. And he's working on a book about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Somewhere in between he's found time to produce oddball short electronically enhanced pop songs, some of which are being collected together under the title Gaps for release in mid-July. The Closest Experience To That Of Being With You Is The Experience Of Taking Drugs - title! - sounds like an English Suburban Kids.../Jens Lekman type being hotwired.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Belfast's The Clone Quartet have a solid label grounding, having been together since the dawn of the decade yet only just releasing their first single on the safe hands of Tigertrap Recordings (Popular Workshop, Look See Proof, Tiny Masters Of Today if you really must) and having entrusted their album to Smalltown America (Jetplane Landing, Young Playthings, Oppenheimer). They know their way round retro-modernist electro and yearning melodies, but with dashes of non-smug indie disco, taut dynamics and occasionally Biffy Clyro riffage and Bright Eyes heartbreak. A similar cult following isn't out of the question.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: Television is an endlessly fascinating subject for our purposes, and we've found some absolute crackers for future use here. We must however first examine that whole thorny subject of songs in advertising, forever tainted with that nebulous brush of 'selling out', although not so much these days even as we're assailed between shows by Deerhoof with Robinson's fruit juice and in America American Idol, Ford and Modest Mouse or Outback Steakhouse and Of Montreal. And to think Smirnoff/Pixies was considered recherche in its day. The one thing you don't get a lot of, conversely, is hits coming from adverts, as there was a time you could get anything into the charts if the pitch was good enough but nobody seems to bother any more. Apart from exceptional circumstances, obviously. With that in mind, they can get away with anything - what reflects the nature of a long cruise than Lust For Life? (The British version isn't on YouTube as far as we can tell but it's a lot more sedate)
VIRAL MARKETING: Just to prove the whole of Editors' new album An End Has A Start isn't as tailor made for Grey's Anatomy as the single, they popped by Jools' gaff to show off album highlight The Racing Rats. Note that Tom Smith still does that cupping-eyes-and-mike thing while seated at a piano. The title track, here recorded at the Roundhouse in May, is no slouch either.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: The Post Punk Progressive Pop Party isn't an mp3 blog for once, but instead traverses the turn of the 80s period in on this day factoids, blog links, embeds and so forth.
EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: It's already getting difficult to remember which single act review blogs we've covered. We're fairly sure these three are new, though, and they're very worthwhile entries to the canon, Bjorkian Hyper-Ballads, Magnetic Fields fandom All My Little Words and John Cale-centric Fragments Of A Cale Season. No Fall song-by-song commentary yet, as far as we can tell. Come on, it's not that tricky if there's already two doing Robert Pollard's collected works!
IN OTHER NEWS: We thought we'd mentioned this before but apparently didn't given we received reminder correspondence about it last week, and as we don't seem to be a repository for this kind of thing we might as well flag it up. It's The Solaris Bug Situation, involving Dark Side Of The Moon/Wizard Of Oz-style coincidences between the original Russian version of Solaris and Brian Miller's The Lightning Bug Situation. As we don't have a copy of the film to hand and have never previously heard of Miller or his band The Speakers we cannot vouch for its veracity, but we have a broad audience so maybe you have.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #10
Double figures for this cavalcade of criterion, and the fortieth recommendation in total comes on behalf of Ian from Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From?:
Poppy Factory - 7x7
I was going to do My Life Story's Angel. But Doug did that band last time around, and even though it deserves it, and it's seven minutes long which gives me a good amount of source material, that's not what we're doing today.
Having ruled out making a decision about which was One Dove's finest moment (they were, for the uninitiated, a band that that bird who used to go out with Pete Doherty was in), or whether Eurovision is really suitable, we come to Poppy Factory.
Bradford's Poppy Factory kicked around at the start of the 1990s, signed to Chrysalis, and after a 12" promo of Drug House, 7x7 was their debut single. Obviously, you all know that it took the charts by storm, and the rest is rock and roll history, stadium gigs, and supermodels.
Well, not quite.
All good songs contain an essential truth of one kind or another. In Poppy Factory's case, that truth is that "forty-nine is only seven times seven." You can't argue with that, really.
Much like probably a thousand or so St Etienne songs, the chief refrain is about a 1960s film - in this case, "Call me Charlie Bubbles" is a reference to an Albert Finney film, but the rest of it... let's just say I think you can overanalyse lyrics. "It's a matter of great indifference to me how your greatest lie came true"?
So what happened to Poppy Factory? 3 singles but debut album "Good Time" failed to appear, and then they vanished. I have the vague idea that two of them ended up in Embrace, but I may have made that up. They'd never have fulfilled their early promise. No-one ever does.
The complete collection
Poppy Factory - 7x7
I was going to do My Life Story's Angel. But Doug did that band last time around, and even though it deserves it, and it's seven minutes long which gives me a good amount of source material, that's not what we're doing today.
Having ruled out making a decision about which was One Dove's finest moment (they were, for the uninitiated, a band that that bird who used to go out with Pete Doherty was in), or whether Eurovision is really suitable, we come to Poppy Factory.
Bradford's Poppy Factory kicked around at the start of the 1990s, signed to Chrysalis, and after a 12" promo of Drug House, 7x7 was their debut single. Obviously, you all know that it took the charts by storm, and the rest is rock and roll history, stadium gigs, and supermodels.
Well, not quite.
All good songs contain an essential truth of one kind or another. In Poppy Factory's case, that truth is that "forty-nine is only seven times seven." You can't argue with that, really.
Much like probably a thousand or so St Etienne songs, the chief refrain is about a 1960s film - in this case, "Call me Charlie Bubbles" is a reference to an Albert Finney film, but the rest of it... let's just say I think you can overanalyse lyrics. "It's a matter of great indifference to me how your greatest lie came true"?
So what happened to Poppy Factory? 3 singles but debut album "Good Time" failed to appear, and then they vanished. I have the vague idea that two of them ended up in Embrace, but I may have made that up. They'd never have fulfilled their early promise. No-one ever does.
The complete collection
In shops tomorrow: 11/6
Singles
The White Stripes' return single Icky Thump has spent the last few weeks merrily splitting the audience, which we suspect is just how Jack and Meg wanted it. Coruscatingly stratospheric guitar solos with added feedback, prog keyboard fills, time changes aplenty, a manaical vocal about being drawn in by a Mexican senorita charmer that segues into a stab at anti-immigration and Meg White drumming as only she can. Nobody else does this, and that's a very, very good thing. They've gone back to being completely, wilfully obfusticatory mad, everyone. The mixed sex dual instrument attack of Blood Red Shoes gets very lazily compared to the Stripes despite being of a completely different hue, that of superior relentless indie disco rock. Laura-Mary and Steven have gone the limited edition 7" route for best single yet It's Getting Boring By The Sea, a title surely not unconnected to their Brighton base, where it's said everyone in a band knows each other by rote. Speaking of which, Actress Hands, recent tour support for Electric Soft Parade, fronted by Matt Eaton, who was in a previous band of Eamon Hamilton's and appears on his Brakes' Give Blood album, with keyboards from British Sea Power's cornet for hire Phil Sumner, Johny Lamb of touted psych-folkers Thirty Pounds Of Bone on bass and Alex White of ESP/Brakes on guitar. We could continue, but we'll instead talk up the lilting Teenage Fanclub harmonics of Come The Summer Days. The Be Be See - teetering on the edge of bandname culpability, you have to say - describe themselves alternately as "pre punk psychotronic linear tekno drone pop from nowhere" and "psychotronic glam pop with a subliminal golf-rave element", which actually means Eno-era Roxy Music meets Pulp meets piano pop (and psychotronica, we must assume) judging by second single Disney Eyes. They share an EMI spinoff label with The Research, which makes sense. Maximo Park's less frenetic growing up period hasn't appealed to everyone but Books From Boxes proves there's songwriting heart underneath the breaks and hats. The Rumble Strips search for the re-released soul rebels on Motorcycle, Salford art-electropop duo (Blood Red Shoes template gender assignation, since you ask) The Ting Tings - again, something has to be done about band names nowadays - take time out from acting the Hill's Angels to the Benny Hill and Bob Todd of the nation's A&R men to issue limited edition 7" summer disco-funk smash That's Not My Name, MIA breaks cover with baile funk grower 12" Boyz, the Broken Family Band's run of alt-country wryness continues on 7" Love Your Man Love Your Woman, and with a new Tegan & Sara album out in America next July their UK label go and reissue the three year old Walking With A Ghost. Well done. We'll close with Gossip's Listen Up! even though the re-recorded version is rubbish and it comes backed with a cheesy house track's worth of remixes in lieu of having anything new left to use.
Albums
Is it really the case that everyone who bought Life Without Buildings' sole album Any Other City at the time went on to form a band? No, because we did and we can't play a note. Regardless, like a kind of 90s Young Marble Giants, while nobody has properly sounded like them since (or before, come to it) it certainly feels like it at times, there being an ever growing collection of bands and band members paying outward homage to the jarringly Fall-angular art-rock and Sue Tompkins' semi-manaical streams of repetitive consciousness. Ask fully paid up supporters Bloc Party, Maximo Park (Paul Smith is rarely slow to namecheck them), Los Campesinos!, Love Is All... hell, Rose Pipette once named PS Exclusive one of her favourite songs ever. Apparently the band prefer the Australian live recording Live At The Annandale Hotel to the album, and you can see why from its hyperelectric kinetic energy. It even starts with an unreleased track, Liberty Feelup, and if the rest mean nothing to you Any Other City is currently less than a fiver on Amazon. If only they'd emerged a couple of years later... Here's a link the likes of us jump at - Glen Johnson of Piano Magic is occasionally credited with discovering LWB and guitarist Robert Johnstone guested on one of their albums. Johnson's ever evolving collective have never had anything like the credit they deserve for their wry eclectic electronically enhanced post-shoegazing. Seventh album proper Part Monster, produced by Guy Fixsen (one of Loveless' billion engineers, also worked for Pixies, Stereolab, the Breeders and Throwing Muses), keeps the inventiveness quotient high, matching up guitar swells and pedal play with quiet seething and enigmatic illustrations. We wrote about the Experimental Pop Band's Tinsel Stars the other week in a similar vein, and that's properly out now. Somewhere higher up the expected sales graph Queens Of The Stone Age are the last of the heavy riffers on Era Vulgaris; the Stills were supposed to be big sellers round about the New Rock Revolution but Without Feathers seems to be crawling out unnoticed; and former Josef K frontman Paul Haig releases his first non-instrumental album in ten years, the twisting electropop of Electronik Audience.
The White Stripes' return single Icky Thump has spent the last few weeks merrily splitting the audience, which we suspect is just how Jack and Meg wanted it. Coruscatingly stratospheric guitar solos with added feedback, prog keyboard fills, time changes aplenty, a manaical vocal about being drawn in by a Mexican senorita charmer that segues into a stab at anti-immigration and Meg White drumming as only she can. Nobody else does this, and that's a very, very good thing. They've gone back to being completely, wilfully obfusticatory mad, everyone. The mixed sex dual instrument attack of Blood Red Shoes gets very lazily compared to the Stripes despite being of a completely different hue, that of superior relentless indie disco rock. Laura-Mary and Steven have gone the limited edition 7" route for best single yet It's Getting Boring By The Sea, a title surely not unconnected to their Brighton base, where it's said everyone in a band knows each other by rote. Speaking of which, Actress Hands, recent tour support for Electric Soft Parade, fronted by Matt Eaton, who was in a previous band of Eamon Hamilton's and appears on his Brakes' Give Blood album, with keyboards from British Sea Power's cornet for hire Phil Sumner, Johny Lamb of touted psych-folkers Thirty Pounds Of Bone on bass and Alex White of ESP/Brakes on guitar. We could continue, but we'll instead talk up the lilting Teenage Fanclub harmonics of Come The Summer Days. The Be Be See - teetering on the edge of bandname culpability, you have to say - describe themselves alternately as "pre punk psychotronic linear tekno drone pop from nowhere" and "psychotronic glam pop with a subliminal golf-rave element", which actually means Eno-era Roxy Music meets Pulp meets piano pop (and psychotronica, we must assume) judging by second single Disney Eyes. They share an EMI spinoff label with The Research, which makes sense. Maximo Park's less frenetic growing up period hasn't appealed to everyone but Books From Boxes proves there's songwriting heart underneath the breaks and hats. The Rumble Strips search for the re-released soul rebels on Motorcycle, Salford art-electropop duo (Blood Red Shoes template gender assignation, since you ask) The Ting Tings - again, something has to be done about band names nowadays - take time out from acting the Hill's Angels to the Benny Hill and Bob Todd of the nation's A&R men to issue limited edition 7" summer disco-funk smash That's Not My Name, MIA breaks cover with baile funk grower 12" Boyz, the Broken Family Band's run of alt-country wryness continues on 7" Love Your Man Love Your Woman, and with a new Tegan & Sara album out in America next July their UK label go and reissue the three year old Walking With A Ghost. Well done. We'll close with Gossip's Listen Up! even though the re-recorded version is rubbish and it comes backed with a cheesy house track's worth of remixes in lieu of having anything new left to use.
Albums
Is it really the case that everyone who bought Life Without Buildings' sole album Any Other City at the time went on to form a band? No, because we did and we can't play a note. Regardless, like a kind of 90s Young Marble Giants, while nobody has properly sounded like them since (or before, come to it) it certainly feels like it at times, there being an ever growing collection of bands and band members paying outward homage to the jarringly Fall-angular art-rock and Sue Tompkins' semi-manaical streams of repetitive consciousness. Ask fully paid up supporters Bloc Party, Maximo Park (Paul Smith is rarely slow to namecheck them), Los Campesinos!, Love Is All... hell, Rose Pipette once named PS Exclusive one of her favourite songs ever. Apparently the band prefer the Australian live recording Live At The Annandale Hotel to the album, and you can see why from its hyperelectric kinetic energy. It even starts with an unreleased track, Liberty Feelup, and if the rest mean nothing to you Any Other City is currently less than a fiver on Amazon. If only they'd emerged a couple of years later... Here's a link the likes of us jump at - Glen Johnson of Piano Magic is occasionally credited with discovering LWB and guitarist Robert Johnstone guested on one of their albums. Johnson's ever evolving collective have never had anything like the credit they deserve for their wry eclectic electronically enhanced post-shoegazing. Seventh album proper Part Monster, produced by Guy Fixsen (one of Loveless' billion engineers, also worked for Pixies, Stereolab, the Breeders and Throwing Muses), keeps the inventiveness quotient high, matching up guitar swells and pedal play with quiet seething and enigmatic illustrations. We wrote about the Experimental Pop Band's Tinsel Stars the other week in a similar vein, and that's properly out now. Somewhere higher up the expected sales graph Queens Of The Stone Age are the last of the heavy riffers on Era Vulgaris; the Stills were supposed to be big sellers round about the New Rock Revolution but Without Feathers seems to be crawling out unnoticed; and former Josef K frontman Paul Haig releases his first non-instrumental album in ten years, the twisting electropop of Electronik Audience.
The Weekly Sweep
Saturday, June 09, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #9
Approaching the halfway mark in this run - thanks to everyone who's contributed so far, and if you've been asked/promised to and haven't yet, then do so at once or we're going to be a bit stuck very, very soon. As for now, take this listening advice from Matthew from Song, By Toad:
Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra - Eggshell Miles
Before Kenny Anderson became slightly famous as King Creosote, chief mastermind behind Fife heroes Fence Records, he was in a couple of bands I was really quite into back in my university days, including the Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra.
Between 1994 and 1997 I went out with a girl who was one of the most remarkable examples I have ever met of someone both highly fragile and extremely strong. She was a slip of a thing, pretty, sharp and highly intelligent and I developed a rather sizeable crush on her when we worked at the same hotel down in Manchester towards the end of my first year.
I don't really think it's fair to go into the details of what had happened to her in the couple of years before we met, but a lot of it was horrific. Really bleak, awful, horrible things. Despite this, she was remarkably whole as a human being - her shell was thick, tough, and her soft centre buried deep down inside where it couldn't be hurt. The beginnings of the relationship were amazingly tentative because of this. Her wit and humour were confident and merciless, but getting close to her on a more personal level was a minefield. Time and again she would startle like a rabbit in headlights and close up completely. She didn't want to exactly, it was just a reflex, and one I had to treat with care and patience.
She was quite into music, and about a year or so into the relationship we picked up The Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra's album of wonderful, Scottish, folky bluegrass 23 Stephs. The song Eggshell Miles - "To try and get to know this girl/is to try and walk on eggshells/treading very carefully/and breaking every one" - was so perfect a description of the careful beginnings of our relationship that I have never since been able to separate it from my memories of this particular girl and that summer in Manchester. I've never heard another song like it really: sensitive and thoughtful, and like all the best poetry, able to put into one line what has now taken me three paragraphs to describe.
Anyhow, some eight or nine years passed, we had long-since split up, and I was listening to a freebie sampler which included My Favourite Girl by this guy called King Creosote. A couple of the music magazines had mentioned him, and I was quite interested to hear his stuff. I really enjoyed the song and it only slowly dawned on me that the voice sounded vaguely familiar. Eventually I twigged - that bloke from the Skuobhies! - so I went and fished out my old copy of 23 Stephs and put it on. And lo and behold it was him. And then when I got to Eggshell Miles I was utterly floored by old memories, so utterly bound up in the music that I hadn't listened to for nearly ten years, only to be unlocked again and come flooding back because I vaguely recognised a voice on a sampler CD by a new band I knew next to nothing about.
The complete collection
Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra - Eggshell Miles
Before Kenny Anderson became slightly famous as King Creosote, chief mastermind behind Fife heroes Fence Records, he was in a couple of bands I was really quite into back in my university days, including the Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra.
Between 1994 and 1997 I went out with a girl who was one of the most remarkable examples I have ever met of someone both highly fragile and extremely strong. She was a slip of a thing, pretty, sharp and highly intelligent and I developed a rather sizeable crush on her when we worked at the same hotel down in Manchester towards the end of my first year.
I don't really think it's fair to go into the details of what had happened to her in the couple of years before we met, but a lot of it was horrific. Really bleak, awful, horrible things. Despite this, she was remarkably whole as a human being - her shell was thick, tough, and her soft centre buried deep down inside where it couldn't be hurt. The beginnings of the relationship were amazingly tentative because of this. Her wit and humour were confident and merciless, but getting close to her on a more personal level was a minefield. Time and again she would startle like a rabbit in headlights and close up completely. She didn't want to exactly, it was just a reflex, and one I had to treat with care and patience.
She was quite into music, and about a year or so into the relationship we picked up The Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra's album of wonderful, Scottish, folky bluegrass 23 Stephs. The song Eggshell Miles - "To try and get to know this girl/is to try and walk on eggshells/treading very carefully/and breaking every one" - was so perfect a description of the careful beginnings of our relationship that I have never since been able to separate it from my memories of this particular girl and that summer in Manchester. I've never heard another song like it really: sensitive and thoughtful, and like all the best poetry, able to put into one line what has now taken me three paragraphs to describe.
Anyhow, some eight or nine years passed, we had long-since split up, and I was listening to a freebie sampler which included My Favourite Girl by this guy called King Creosote. A couple of the music magazines had mentioned him, and I was quite interested to hear his stuff. I really enjoyed the song and it only slowly dawned on me that the voice sounded vaguely familiar. Eventually I twigged - that bloke from the Skuobhies! - so I went and fished out my old copy of 23 Stephs and put it on. And lo and behold it was him. And then when I got to Eggshell Miles I was utterly floored by old memories, so utterly bound up in the music that I hadn't listened to for nearly ten years, only to be unlocked again and come flooding back because I vaguely recognised a voice on a sampler CD by a new band I knew next to nothing about.
The complete collection
Friday, June 08, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #8
Another mere reader now, today's song choice coming from Simon Briercliffe:
The Saints - This Perfect Day
G'day, cobbers.
See what I did there?
Possibly not, if you're unfamiliar with the legacy of one of Orstralia's finest bands. You'll see the hipsters donning Radio Birdman t-shirts, but you never see Brisbane's scruffy proto-punks given their due lauding. Why is this, I ask? My only exposure to the Saints would have come from no finer source than Top Of The Pops 2 several years ago had I not sought them out, and though the band teetered on the brink of success (before inevitably imploding in a haze of jazz and horns) there's little trace of them other than a decimated version of the original line up today.
But the Saints' legacy has spread in other ways. You here it anywhere a snotty young band employs whacking great swathes of guitar, you hear it whenever the singer waxes disaffected, because the Saints were punk before punk really existed, carving out a nihilistic noise in the isolation of "Security City," releasing the first punk single in this country, causing Sounds to famously label it "single of this and every week."
But it's not the adolescent bile of "(I'm) Stranded" that first drew me to the Saints. It was that TOTP2 performance of This Perfect Day that had me hooked, Chris Bailey's thousand yard stare fixing an audience more attuned to softer-edged peers, Ed Kuepper's huge, incendiary guitar bruising their very eardrums. It wasn't your usual early evening fare, even in the heady days of '77 (a good five years before I even graced the planet, to be fair, but BBC2 clip shows make sure I’m aware of culture back then). A vicious affair, lyrically: the pop kids of the day almost certainly wouldn't have been used to wrapping their lugholes around "we got no high times always flat/If you go out you don't come back/It's all so funny I can't laugh."
This was the sort of dejected fury that is so commonplace these days, but was near-revolutionary in the day, that howl of post-teenage frustration, the surburban claustrophobia of a stuffy Australian town (I imagine 70's Brisbane to be something like Wellington in Brain Dead). It's what punk was built on, a sort of directionless rage that found an outlet and poured through. Bailey "don't need nothing, don't need no-one" in order to vent.
So it was Chris Bailey's disaffected sneer that drew me to the Saints, but it was Ed Kuepper's guitar that kept me coming back. A fairly innocuous Gibson SG, but that's not the point. The point was the obscenely noisy banks of overdrive that set the Saints apart from every other band plying a trade on the back of listening to the Ramones first album. It's a monstrous aural vision of the frustration in Bailey's spat invective, a walloping great wail. The peak is the feedback that lingers in the third verse, accompanying "Don't talk to me about what's you done/Ain't nothing has changed it all goes on/And they'll keep laughing till the end."
Laugh they might well, but screw 'em.
The complete collection
The Saints - This Perfect Day
G'day, cobbers.
See what I did there?
Possibly not, if you're unfamiliar with the legacy of one of Orstralia's finest bands. You'll see the hipsters donning Radio Birdman t-shirts, but you never see Brisbane's scruffy proto-punks given their due lauding. Why is this, I ask? My only exposure to the Saints would have come from no finer source than Top Of The Pops 2 several years ago had I not sought them out, and though the band teetered on the brink of success (before inevitably imploding in a haze of jazz and horns) there's little trace of them other than a decimated version of the original line up today.
But the Saints' legacy has spread in other ways. You here it anywhere a snotty young band employs whacking great swathes of guitar, you hear it whenever the singer waxes disaffected, because the Saints were punk before punk really existed, carving out a nihilistic noise in the isolation of "Security City," releasing the first punk single in this country, causing Sounds to famously label it "single of this and every week."
But it's not the adolescent bile of "(I'm) Stranded" that first drew me to the Saints. It was that TOTP2 performance of This Perfect Day that had me hooked, Chris Bailey's thousand yard stare fixing an audience more attuned to softer-edged peers, Ed Kuepper's huge, incendiary guitar bruising their very eardrums. It wasn't your usual early evening fare, even in the heady days of '77 (a good five years before I even graced the planet, to be fair, but BBC2 clip shows make sure I’m aware of culture back then). A vicious affair, lyrically: the pop kids of the day almost certainly wouldn't have been used to wrapping their lugholes around "we got no high times always flat/If you go out you don't come back/It's all so funny I can't laugh."
This was the sort of dejected fury that is so commonplace these days, but was near-revolutionary in the day, that howl of post-teenage frustration, the surburban claustrophobia of a stuffy Australian town (I imagine 70's Brisbane to be something like Wellington in Brain Dead). It's what punk was built on, a sort of directionless rage that found an outlet and poured through. Bailey "don't need nothing, don't need no-one" in order to vent.
So it was Chris Bailey's disaffected sneer that drew me to the Saints, but it was Ed Kuepper's guitar that kept me coming back. A fairly innocuous Gibson SG, but that's not the point. The point was the obscenely noisy banks of overdrive that set the Saints apart from every other band plying a trade on the back of listening to the Ramones first album. It's a monstrous aural vision of the frustration in Bailey's spat invective, a walloping great wail. The peak is the feedback that lingers in the third verse, accompanying "Don't talk to me about what's you done/Ain't nothing has changed it all goes on/And they'll keep laughing till the end."
Laugh they might well, but screw 'em.
The complete collection
Thursday, June 07, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #7
Gaily swanning along with these selections of songs the hoi polloi must know about, ignoring that at the moment we're going to run out in the middle of next week (hint, hint), here's a contribution from Thomas of "erratic and too-often neglected weblog-based cavalcade of pop jubilation" Hey Charlie!:
Stanley Winston - No More Ghettos In America
I, like many an e-colleague from various vast swathes of the ‘blogosphere’ (yep, hello again breakfast), spend a great deal of time writing about the influence of the late John Peel, and this entry into Songs To Learn And Sing, I’m afraid, will be no exception.
Floating around somewhere on YouTube (other time-wasting opportunities are available) is part of a Channel 4 documentary called John Peel’s Record Box, which - somewhat reasonably, given its title - examined the contents of a bulky wooden receptacle housed beneath Mr Ravenscroft’s desk, containing as it did the seven inch singles that the man held most dear to him: one copy of ‘Popatop’ by Andy Capp; three copies of ‘Teenage Kicks’, all pretty much worn out; dozens of White Stripes discs; a copy of ‘O Superman’ by Laurie Anderson that he once spent an entire day trying to count the number of ‘huh’s from; that sort of thing. Just a couple of hundred hand-picked singles from a collection that easily reached into five figures. There’s an opening montage in the show where artists championed by Peelie (Damon Albarn, Billy Bragg, Mark E. and Brix, even Status Quo) are shown leafing through the box and playing their own personal selection on a portable turntable, cut with footage of an autonomous hand pulling out some of the lesser-known songs and letting the artist name or title linger on camera. So far, so slick and cosy and well-produced. Yet in the middle of this sequence the hand grasped hold of one particular record, and when I read what was on the label my heart felt like it was trying to do a back-flip straight out of my throat.
Stanley Winston. ‘No More Ghettos In America’.
The story of Stanley Winston is curious and intriguing, principally because there isn’t one. Or rather, nobody knows anything about him. We know that the single ‘No More Ghettos..’ and the accompanying B-side ‘It’s Alright’ were recorded in Louisiana sometime during 1970 for the Jewel label. That’s it. Even the most thorough of soul music collectors have absolutely no extra scraps of information about him, and every attempt to discover his whereabouts and track him down have resulted in nothing. The record spent one week at number 82 in the soul charts over in the USA before it, and its creator, plummeted to a level of obscurity that, considering its beauty, is almost frightening. Suffice to say, you’re more likely to find rocking horse shit studded with a hen’s back molars on your next visit to any vinyl emporium, anywhere. No wonder Peelie kept it near him.
Actually, strike that. Peelie kept it near him because it’s a shimmering, fraught, mournful, hopeful, utterly heartbreaking record. I happened to record the tail end of the song onto a cassette one night about four or five years ago and, even though I only had half of it, I listened to it again and again and there wasn’t a single time I could manage to keep a dry eye. I memorised the name. I looked it up in record collection books, where you might as well have created an entry for ‘WINSTON, Stanley’ with the photograph of a wizened soul aficionado laughing in your face. Turns out that the song had been re-issued on an Andy Kershaw compilation in 2002 all along, but at least it was a nice surprise.
Around the time when Simply Red’s ascendance had placed them both high in the charts and on the Q Magazine cover every other month - usually accompanied by an announcement about how highly they thought of themselves - John apparently pointed out on radio that the warmth, longing, melancholy and sheer undiluted soul in Stanley Winston’s voice on ‘No More Ghettos...’ put Mick Hucknall’s entire career to shame within the first thirty seconds. That might be a bit of a back-handed compliment, but he’s right; the power in the song is not through vocal force alone like many gospel standards encourage, it’s not even by giving a strong performance, but instead by channelling all the hurt and sadness and desperation of this man’s experience through his voice and turning it into a means of communicating hope for an entire nation. I still reckon that, despite it not being the most technically impressive vocal performance ever put to wax, the howl of yearning he makes before the chorus kicks in is one of the most gut-wrenchingly emotive I’ve ever heard. And, perhaps, you’ll ever hear too.
On a surface level it looks to me like a very punk sort of gesture, making one knockout tune and never being heard of again. But as Bianca, the reciprocal half of Hey Charlie!, pointed out to me upon hearing about Stanley Winston’s disappearance, there is something very astoundingly poetic about it. In our minds he was the Everyman of the States, a factory worker or a labourer or simply someone struggling to keep on, saddened every day at having to face the poverty around him. Someone who just happened to get the chance to be a star, and yes, maybe on many people’s terms he’d failed. But for these three minutes and twenty seconds, he burns with a brilliance that has arguably rarely been surpassed. Well, he’s better than Mick Hucknall anyway.
The complete collection
Stanley Winston - No More Ghettos In America
I, like many an e-colleague from various vast swathes of the ‘blogosphere’ (yep, hello again breakfast), spend a great deal of time writing about the influence of the late John Peel, and this entry into Songs To Learn And Sing, I’m afraid, will be no exception.
Floating around somewhere on YouTube (other time-wasting opportunities are available) is part of a Channel 4 documentary called John Peel’s Record Box, which - somewhat reasonably, given its title - examined the contents of a bulky wooden receptacle housed beneath Mr Ravenscroft’s desk, containing as it did the seven inch singles that the man held most dear to him: one copy of ‘Popatop’ by Andy Capp; three copies of ‘Teenage Kicks’, all pretty much worn out; dozens of White Stripes discs; a copy of ‘O Superman’ by Laurie Anderson that he once spent an entire day trying to count the number of ‘huh’s from; that sort of thing. Just a couple of hundred hand-picked singles from a collection that easily reached into five figures. There’s an opening montage in the show where artists championed by Peelie (Damon Albarn, Billy Bragg, Mark E. and Brix, even Status Quo) are shown leafing through the box and playing their own personal selection on a portable turntable, cut with footage of an autonomous hand pulling out some of the lesser-known songs and letting the artist name or title linger on camera. So far, so slick and cosy and well-produced. Yet in the middle of this sequence the hand grasped hold of one particular record, and when I read what was on the label my heart felt like it was trying to do a back-flip straight out of my throat.
Stanley Winston. ‘No More Ghettos In America’.
The story of Stanley Winston is curious and intriguing, principally because there isn’t one. Or rather, nobody knows anything about him. We know that the single ‘No More Ghettos..’ and the accompanying B-side ‘It’s Alright’ were recorded in Louisiana sometime during 1970 for the Jewel label. That’s it. Even the most thorough of soul music collectors have absolutely no extra scraps of information about him, and every attempt to discover his whereabouts and track him down have resulted in nothing. The record spent one week at number 82 in the soul charts over in the USA before it, and its creator, plummeted to a level of obscurity that, considering its beauty, is almost frightening. Suffice to say, you’re more likely to find rocking horse shit studded with a hen’s back molars on your next visit to any vinyl emporium, anywhere. No wonder Peelie kept it near him.
Actually, strike that. Peelie kept it near him because it’s a shimmering, fraught, mournful, hopeful, utterly heartbreaking record. I happened to record the tail end of the song onto a cassette one night about four or five years ago and, even though I only had half of it, I listened to it again and again and there wasn’t a single time I could manage to keep a dry eye. I memorised the name. I looked it up in record collection books, where you might as well have created an entry for ‘WINSTON, Stanley’ with the photograph of a wizened soul aficionado laughing in your face. Turns out that the song had been re-issued on an Andy Kershaw compilation in 2002 all along, but at least it was a nice surprise.
Around the time when Simply Red’s ascendance had placed them both high in the charts and on the Q Magazine cover every other month - usually accompanied by an announcement about how highly they thought of themselves - John apparently pointed out on radio that the warmth, longing, melancholy and sheer undiluted soul in Stanley Winston’s voice on ‘No More Ghettos...’ put Mick Hucknall’s entire career to shame within the first thirty seconds. That might be a bit of a back-handed compliment, but he’s right; the power in the song is not through vocal force alone like many gospel standards encourage, it’s not even by giving a strong performance, but instead by channelling all the hurt and sadness and desperation of this man’s experience through his voice and turning it into a means of communicating hope for an entire nation. I still reckon that, despite it not being the most technically impressive vocal performance ever put to wax, the howl of yearning he makes before the chorus kicks in is one of the most gut-wrenchingly emotive I’ve ever heard. And, perhaps, you’ll ever hear too.
On a surface level it looks to me like a very punk sort of gesture, making one knockout tune and never being heard of again. But as Bianca, the reciprocal half of Hey Charlie!, pointed out to me upon hearing about Stanley Winston’s disappearance, there is something very astoundingly poetic about it. In our minds he was the Everyman of the States, a factory worker or a labourer or simply someone struggling to keep on, saddened every day at having to face the poverty around him. Someone who just happened to get the chance to be a star, and yes, maybe on many people’s terms he’d failed. But for these three minutes and twenty seconds, he burns with a brilliance that has arguably rarely been surpassed. Well, he’s better than Mick Hucknall anyway.
The complete collection
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #6
Nobody commenting this time around? Ah well. Six down already, and next to step up to the mark and let loose in a musical sense is David off of Stop Clapping, Start Doing:
Braid - Forever Got Shorter
Before I get started, I’m going to offer a brief aside on that pesky genre 'emo'. Having existed in various forms since the mid 80’s emo is currently used to describe smarter than the average pop-punk bands. In the mid to late-90’s, the term emo usually referred to bands from the Midwest of America who were playing a more thrashy version of indie-rock. So, when I use the word emo, this is what I’m talking about. I don’t mean Fallout Boy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I first came across the name Braid when I was still in school. I had been listening a lot to a band called Spy Versus Spy, who were apparently an emo band. I had never heard anything like it and my 17 year old ears wanted more. The only help I had was a distro list from a small label called Subjugation (don’t look for it, it’s not there anymore). They had released both Spy Versus Spy albums and the only comparison they ever got was to a band called Braid. After several months of dial-up speed, pre-Myspace internet I managed to track down Braid’s third and final album Frame And Canvas. I listened to it pretty much non-stop; it never left my cd player. It featured everything I loved about Spy Versus Spy but it did it so much better. It had the dual, out of tune vocals, the twinkly guitar parts, the slightly clunky teenage lyrics about girls and being in a band; at the time, it was pretty much my ideal band.
Over the next couple of years, and over increasingly faster internet connections, I got hold of Braid’s full back catalogue. As was the trend in those days, Braid released a slew of 7"s, split-7"s and compilation tracks, guaranteeing them instant indie credibility. Given the limited number of these pressed, most of these records are fairly hard to find, unless you have mad bank to spend on eBay or a girlfriend who understands the wonderful world of online auctioning. Thankfully, all those long OOP records have been compiled together onto two cds, namely Movie Music Volumes One and Two. Today’s song, Forever Got Shorter, is taken from the first of these cds.
As you could probably guess, this song is about a girl and a doomed relationship; this is emo after all. More specifically, this song deals with the issue of a long distance relationship and the effect it has on the protagonist’s (singer Bob Nanna) musical output. The song kicks off with the wonderful couplet of "Let’s go undercover like young lovers should/Cause I can kiss you better than this letter could". Sure, it sounds fairly soppy and twee as hell, but I imagine most people can relate to the sentiments of being away from a loved one and only being able to communicate through print (remember this is pre-internet, people). In fact, I’m certain Belle And Sebastian have come out with much worse things than that and I bet you like them. However, rather than bemoaning the situation, as you would expect from your typical indie-rocker, our singer celebrates it, claiming that "frustration can be gorgeous" and treats it more as inspirational experience ("the lips I kissed now shape songs of sadness"). If anything, this song makes good of the dead relationship, which is always a refreshing change.
As the guitars play off against each other, stopping and starting whilst the drummer rolls around his kit, the song builds to a big, triumphant finish; if you were watching them live, it would no doubt require lots of finger pointing and singing along; at the very least, it would require the emo chest tap/head nod. The final chorus is the big pop hook; pop in an indie-rock way - the guitars and drums thrash about, the singing is strained and out of tune but there’s still enough of a hook to sing along.
But make sure you’re singing about girls. This is emo after all.
The complete collection
Braid - Forever Got Shorter
Before I get started, I’m going to offer a brief aside on that pesky genre 'emo'. Having existed in various forms since the mid 80’s emo is currently used to describe smarter than the average pop-punk bands. In the mid to late-90’s, the term emo usually referred to bands from the Midwest of America who were playing a more thrashy version of indie-rock. So, when I use the word emo, this is what I’m talking about. I don’t mean Fallout Boy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I first came across the name Braid when I was still in school. I had been listening a lot to a band called Spy Versus Spy, who were apparently an emo band. I had never heard anything like it and my 17 year old ears wanted more. The only help I had was a distro list from a small label called Subjugation (don’t look for it, it’s not there anymore). They had released both Spy Versus Spy albums and the only comparison they ever got was to a band called Braid. After several months of dial-up speed, pre-Myspace internet I managed to track down Braid’s third and final album Frame And Canvas. I listened to it pretty much non-stop; it never left my cd player. It featured everything I loved about Spy Versus Spy but it did it so much better. It had the dual, out of tune vocals, the twinkly guitar parts, the slightly clunky teenage lyrics about girls and being in a band; at the time, it was pretty much my ideal band.
Over the next couple of years, and over increasingly faster internet connections, I got hold of Braid’s full back catalogue. As was the trend in those days, Braid released a slew of 7"s, split-7"s and compilation tracks, guaranteeing them instant indie credibility. Given the limited number of these pressed, most of these records are fairly hard to find, unless you have mad bank to spend on eBay or a girlfriend who understands the wonderful world of online auctioning. Thankfully, all those long OOP records have been compiled together onto two cds, namely Movie Music Volumes One and Two. Today’s song, Forever Got Shorter, is taken from the first of these cds.
As you could probably guess, this song is about a girl and a doomed relationship; this is emo after all. More specifically, this song deals with the issue of a long distance relationship and the effect it has on the protagonist’s (singer Bob Nanna) musical output. The song kicks off with the wonderful couplet of "Let’s go undercover like young lovers should/Cause I can kiss you better than this letter could". Sure, it sounds fairly soppy and twee as hell, but I imagine most people can relate to the sentiments of being away from a loved one and only being able to communicate through print (remember this is pre-internet, people). In fact, I’m certain Belle And Sebastian have come out with much worse things than that and I bet you like them. However, rather than bemoaning the situation, as you would expect from your typical indie-rocker, our singer celebrates it, claiming that "frustration can be gorgeous" and treats it more as inspirational experience ("the lips I kissed now shape songs of sadness"). If anything, this song makes good of the dead relationship, which is always a refreshing change.
As the guitars play off against each other, stopping and starting whilst the drummer rolls around his kit, the song builds to a big, triumphant finish; if you were watching them live, it would no doubt require lots of finger pointing and singing along; at the very least, it would require the emo chest tap/head nod. The final chorus is the big pop hook; pop in an indie-rock way - the guitars and drums thrash about, the singing is strained and out of tune but there’s still enough of a hook to sing along.
But make sure you’re singing about girls. This is emo after all.
The complete collection
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #5
Adding his voice to the growing list of personal recommendations today, Saam from Keep Hope Inside:
Rob Dougan - Clubbed To Death
Choosing a song for this feature was a real challenge and in fact, I effectively missed out half of the brief by picking an instrumental track. Never mind. However, as a predominately indie-guitar-pop type blogger I thought it would be a refreshing change to focus on another genre or as it happens, an incredible mix of vastly different genres. You're even likely to have already heard Clubbed To Death without realising it.
If you mentioned the name Rob Dougan to your friends, you'd probably get a lot of puzzled faces. Yet his music has reached far and wide, mainly through its use in advertisements but also in soundtracking scenes in The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded. In fact, many consider his Furious Angels album to be the second most licenced album after Play by Moby. Before the elitists run away in droves at the news of his "selling out", Rob used the money to self-finance the production of his 2004 Grammy award winning album in exactly the way he intended. The album is a progressive fusion of classical and electronica music, complemented by hip hop beats and at times, brooding vocals.
By far the highlight of the album and his career is Clubbed To Death. An epic track which first emerged in 1995 when Rob (known as Rob D at the time) was still in his formative years as a DJ and remixer, it even inspired an eponymous erotic French film about techno. The form in which Clubbed To Death is best known as however is the Kurayamino Variation, a remix which has become so well known that it is now simply called Clubbed To Death with the original demoted to
First Mix status. Kurayamino is Japanese for darkness and this haunting adaptation fits this title perfectly.
I neither have nor need a wonderfully witty story to illustrate the poignancy of this song to me. My spine still tingles every time I hear it. From the soothing opening (utilising Elgar's Enigma Variations) which give way to pounding beats, to the shimmering effects, to the beautiful piano compositions, this track is amazingly coherent and engaging. Quite honestly, no words (how fitting that the track should have no vocals) could do justice to just how captivating
Clubbed To Death is. Its crossover success despite the fusion of polarising styles is testament to its beauty. So, tell your mates to submit themselves to seven and a half minutes of the most progressive track they've ever heard. Probably.
The complete collection
Rob Dougan - Clubbed To Death
Choosing a song for this feature was a real challenge and in fact, I effectively missed out half of the brief by picking an instrumental track. Never mind. However, as a predominately indie-guitar-pop type blogger I thought it would be a refreshing change to focus on another genre or as it happens, an incredible mix of vastly different genres. You're even likely to have already heard Clubbed To Death without realising it.
If you mentioned the name Rob Dougan to your friends, you'd probably get a lot of puzzled faces. Yet his music has reached far and wide, mainly through its use in advertisements but also in soundtracking scenes in The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded. In fact, many consider his Furious Angels album to be the second most licenced album after Play by Moby. Before the elitists run away in droves at the news of his "selling out", Rob used the money to self-finance the production of his 2004 Grammy award winning album in exactly the way he intended. The album is a progressive fusion of classical and electronica music, complemented by hip hop beats and at times, brooding vocals.
By far the highlight of the album and his career is Clubbed To Death. An epic track which first emerged in 1995 when Rob (known as Rob D at the time) was still in his formative years as a DJ and remixer, it even inspired an eponymous erotic French film about techno. The form in which Clubbed To Death is best known as however is the Kurayamino Variation, a remix which has become so well known that it is now simply called Clubbed To Death with the original demoted to
First Mix status. Kurayamino is Japanese for darkness and this haunting adaptation fits this title perfectly.
I neither have nor need a wonderfully witty story to illustrate the poignancy of this song to me. My spine still tingles every time I hear it. From the soothing opening (utilising Elgar's Enigma Variations) which give way to pounding beats, to the shimmering effects, to the beautiful piano compositions, this track is amazingly coherent and engaging. Quite honestly, no words (how fitting that the track should have no vocals) could do justice to just how captivating
Clubbed To Death is. Its crossover success despite the fusion of polarising styles is testament to its beauty. So, tell your mates to submit themselves to seven and a half minutes of the most progressive track they've ever heard. Probably.
The complete collection
Monday, June 04, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #4
We've tried whenever we've done this sort of thing to get some special guest involvement, and the next to forward their own pop motion is just the sort of person we've had in mind, in our own narrow frame of reference. About to release his band's third album Backlash Cop (in stores 18th June) on his own label, Smalltown America records and Jetplane Landing's Andrew Ferris:
The Lapse - Buffet
I was taught how to play guitar by John O'Neill from The Undertones when I was thirteen. Those days seem so romantic to me now; each week John would loan me an amazing vinyl to decipher: 13th Floor Elevators; REM; Joy Division; Bowie; Velvet Underground; Nuggets. I still have my notebook from then and those roots have sustained me ever since. In fact, I annoying launch into 'Dirty Water' by The Standells every time I pick up a guitar.
When I decided to move to London in 2000 to form Jetplane Landing with bassist and writing partner Jamie Burchell we were deeply into the Drake, Smith (Elliot) and Costello catalogues - immersed in that now immensely popular acoustica. One night I heard Buffet by The Lapse on John Peel and everything changed. Taken from their final album Heaven Ain't Happening (Southern Records) it still gives me shivers.
"We make meals out of condiments!" Chris Leo exclaims after two solid minutes of an incredible funk-punk groove. It was the coolest (for once that word seems right to use) and bravest thing I'd ever heard on the radio. It ripped up my rule book.
The live cut; the insane lyrics about 'party dips and after-dinner mints'; Toko Yasuda's sensual backing vocals - and that drumming! The album is a must buy for anyone wanting to dip their toe into experimental indie. It's such a good bridging record for your collection and opened up a new world for me in a single blow.
In terms of a song to learn and sing, bands would do well take this one into the practice room - it's a study of meter, mode and vocal polyrhythm that once dissected is never forgotten. My favourite songs are those that sound incredibly simple and catchy to the listener but are exactly the opposite once you figure out how to play them. Hotel California this is not, and people won't understand why you'd want to play Buffet on acoustic guitar - but if you can pull it off, let me know and I'll be at the gig.
We were lucky to play with The Lapse on our first UK tour and they performed a completely different version of this track. Punk at its best takes risks and doesn't compromise, check this track out for a tick in both those boxes.
The complete collection
The Lapse - Buffet
I was taught how to play guitar by John O'Neill from The Undertones when I was thirteen. Those days seem so romantic to me now; each week John would loan me an amazing vinyl to decipher: 13th Floor Elevators; REM; Joy Division; Bowie; Velvet Underground; Nuggets. I still have my notebook from then and those roots have sustained me ever since. In fact, I annoying launch into 'Dirty Water' by The Standells every time I pick up a guitar.
When I decided to move to London in 2000 to form Jetplane Landing with bassist and writing partner Jamie Burchell we were deeply into the Drake, Smith (Elliot) and Costello catalogues - immersed in that now immensely popular acoustica. One night I heard Buffet by The Lapse on John Peel and everything changed. Taken from their final album Heaven Ain't Happening (Southern Records) it still gives me shivers.
"We make meals out of condiments!" Chris Leo exclaims after two solid minutes of an incredible funk-punk groove. It was the coolest (for once that word seems right to use) and bravest thing I'd ever heard on the radio. It ripped up my rule book.
The live cut; the insane lyrics about 'party dips and after-dinner mints'; Toko Yasuda's sensual backing vocals - and that drumming! The album is a must buy for anyone wanting to dip their toe into experimental indie. It's such a good bridging record for your collection and opened up a new world for me in a single blow.
In terms of a song to learn and sing, bands would do well take this one into the practice room - it's a study of meter, mode and vocal polyrhythm that once dissected is never forgotten. My favourite songs are those that sound incredibly simple and catchy to the listener but are exactly the opposite once you figure out how to play them. Hotel California this is not, and people won't understand why you'd want to play Buffet on acoustic guitar - but if you can pull it off, let me know and I'll be at the gig.
We were lucky to play with The Lapse on our first UK tour and they performed a completely different version of this track. Punk at its best takes risks and doesn't compromise, check this track out for a tick in both those boxes.
The complete collection
Weekender : taking it to the limit
FREE MUSIC: We included this in yesterday's Weekly Sweep but it's too good a song to let slide in among nineteen others. Coltrane Motion are a Chicago-based duo, one building, programming and piecing together the keyboards and effects at home, the other adding guitar and accroutrements to form what they describe as "booty breaks dipped in indie guitar fuzz with a mess of synths, samplers, & laptops tearing it all to pieces". What it actually means on new album Songs About Music is noisy retro-futurist psychedelic synths being deliberately overheated by the ghost of shoegazing. Twenty-Seven should make sense of it.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Cowboy Racer are apparently from 'Amsterdam/London/Oxford/Brighton/ Tokyo'. It's the Amsterdam bit that provides the band's most interesting detail, as it's the return of Salad singer Marijne van der Vlugt from the world of, as far as we can tell, professional voiceovers to front curious, alternately subtle and thumping electronica, Marijne sounding much as she did those ten years ago.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: After that Stooges footage the other week, we got thinking about the modern nature of the rock live act and the way band and audience interact. Literally, in the case of Greg Puciato of Dillinger Escape Plan (to be honest you can watch this one on mute and turn off after fifteen seconds, but what seconds of visuals) or the man-mountain of onstage madness that is Les Savy Fav's Tim Harrington (key moment - when the travelling without moving commences at 2:03. And in case you're wondering after watching the locale, yes he did) Of course you've got your At The Drive-In, and we'll forego Jools this time for Arcarsenal from the 2001 Big Day Out (bear in mind, by the way, that Cedric Bixler-Zavala was a heavy heroin user at this point. What's your excuse, Doherty?), the Butthole Surfers - not enough fire in that one - and Minor Threat, in which the tiny room has gone apeshit even before Ian MacKaye and co have launched into their version of Wire's 12XU. And if none of that appeals, what about Keith Richards smacking a bloke with his guitar?
VIRAL MARKETING: Anyone else see the Icky Thump video review on the Guardian Music minisite? What a hilarious concept - talk about the video as if it were happening in the north east of England! Like the phrase 'ecky thump'! How the hours towards the pub must have flown. Here's Effect And Cause off Jools.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: We can't quite put our finger on what it is that makes Horse Latitudes so much of a standout - there's certainly an extra layer of sophisticated prose, but also a pleasingly opaque upload selection which at the moment includes Sparky’s Magic Piano, cult funk fusionist Betty Davis, Rosie Thomas, Chicago jazz, Dusty Springfield from her Pet Shop Boys-helmed revival, Soul Limbo and the Troggs Tapes. "If that bastard don't go I'll fucking retire!"
EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: This has doubtless been up for ages but we've only just come across it - a 1994 compilation of Sound Of Music covers including the BMX Bandits, Terry Edwards, Blueboy and a load of sub-indie bands lost to time.
IN OTHER NEWS: And those artist specialist blogs just keep on coming. Blursongs is four in, and the Bang reclamation starts here; One Imaginary Blog is doing the Cure roundelay. For comparison the daddy of them all, established six years ago, is the thorough and catchily titled Pet Shop Boys Song By Song Commentary.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Cowboy Racer are apparently from 'Amsterdam/London/Oxford/Brighton/ Tokyo'. It's the Amsterdam bit that provides the band's most interesting detail, as it's the return of Salad singer Marijne van der Vlugt from the world of, as far as we can tell, professional voiceovers to front curious, alternately subtle and thumping electronica, Marijne sounding much as she did those ten years ago.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: After that Stooges footage the other week, we got thinking about the modern nature of the rock live act and the way band and audience interact. Literally, in the case of Greg Puciato of Dillinger Escape Plan (to be honest you can watch this one on mute and turn off after fifteen seconds, but what seconds of visuals) or the man-mountain of onstage madness that is Les Savy Fav's Tim Harrington (key moment - when the travelling without moving commences at 2:03. And in case you're wondering after watching the locale, yes he did) Of course you've got your At The Drive-In, and we'll forego Jools this time for Arcarsenal from the 2001 Big Day Out (bear in mind, by the way, that Cedric Bixler-Zavala was a heavy heroin user at this point. What's your excuse, Doherty?), the Butthole Surfers - not enough fire in that one - and Minor Threat, in which the tiny room has gone apeshit even before Ian MacKaye and co have launched into their version of Wire's 12XU. And if none of that appeals, what about Keith Richards smacking a bloke with his guitar?
VIRAL MARKETING: Anyone else see the Icky Thump video review on the Guardian Music minisite? What a hilarious concept - talk about the video as if it were happening in the north east of England! Like the phrase 'ecky thump'! How the hours towards the pub must have flown. Here's Effect And Cause off Jools.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: We can't quite put our finger on what it is that makes Horse Latitudes so much of a standout - there's certainly an extra layer of sophisticated prose, but also a pleasingly opaque upload selection which at the moment includes Sparky’s Magic Piano, cult funk fusionist Betty Davis, Rosie Thomas, Chicago jazz, Dusty Springfield from her Pet Shop Boys-helmed revival, Soul Limbo and the Troggs Tapes. "If that bastard don't go I'll fucking retire!"
EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: This has doubtless been up for ages but we've only just come across it - a 1994 compilation of Sound Of Music covers including the BMX Bandits, Terry Edwards, Blueboy and a load of sub-indie bands lost to time.
IN OTHER NEWS: And those artist specialist blogs just keep on coming. Blursongs is four in, and the Bang reclamation starts here; One Imaginary Blog is doing the Cure roundelay. For comparison the daddy of them all, established six years ago, is the thorough and catchily titled Pet Shop Boys Song By Song Commentary.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #3
Today's nomination - and by the way we do still have vacancies, so if this grinds to a halt in the middle of next week it's your fault, not ours - comes from Jez from Sell Your Land Speeder:
Simon Finn - Jerusalem
So there I was, strolling home one evening having finally worked out which song I was going to contribute to this series when my iPod pulled something out which trumped all my other choices and I had to pause in my tracks. And at first, I nearly discounted it because in the past few years the old "70s folksinger makes album, album disappears, singer languishes in obscurity for over 30 years, then discovers new audience" story has almost become a cliché. But stuff it, it's a great song, so put the return of Vashti Bunyan out of your mind for 5 or so minutes and let me regale you with the tale of Simon Finn.
Finn was a folk singer who arrived in London in 1967, gigging around the capital and recording Butterfly, a single, with producer Vic Keary, which was never released. Two years later and Finn reconnects with Keary who is impressed with the new material and offers to record an album. With the musical backing of experimental duo of David Toop and Paul Burwell, Pass The Distance is recorded in Chalk Farm and released in 1970. A year later it's withdrawn due to legal problems and in 1974 Finn moves to Canada. A missing singer + withdrawn album = a cult collector's album.
Toop finds this out when visiting Japan in 2000, when fans brandish bootleg copies at him - and then a trickle of correspondents asking about the album grows, with eventually David and Simon getting in touch with each other for the first time in thirty years. In the meantime, David Tibet of Current 93 has had a copy of album passed to him by a friend and decides to, firstly, get hold of a original edition and secondly release it on his own label. So in 2004, Pass The Distance reappears in record shops, and a wider audience can find out what the fuss was (and is) about.
The album's lack of initial success probably has some basis in the presence of Toop and Burwell given free reign to try out ideas in the studio. Even allowing for Finn's distinctive vocal, it's often the backing instrumentation that grabs the attention as Toop has a go with whatever's lying around, not too fussed if it's in tune or not, whilst Burwell keeps the pulse on the tablas. It's an approach which presumably kept things fresh and interesting for the musicians, and suits Finn's impassioned vocal.
The centrepiece of Pass The Distance is Jerusalem, in which the core trio are joined by Kenny Elliott on organ. It starts calmly enough but then the organ's long chords are introduced, Finn steps up the intensity of his singing and playing and we're off. When he sings "And through the sweating crowds, tears streaming down my face till I'm going insane", he really is loosening the shackles. About five minutes in, he abandons coherence and gives in to feeling. It's usually at this point when I have to stop whatever I'm doing and let the song take over. The musicians crash to a halt, at which point this humble listener puffs out his cheeks and makes sure he didn't pause in the middle of a busy road.
David Toop went on to make several solo and collaborative albums and write several books including the ear-opening Ocean Of Sound and Rap Attack. Paul Burwell continued his percussion playing, inventing instruments and creating art installations - sadly, he died earlier this year. Simon Finn, having been tracked down by David Tibet, recorded two albums for Durtro/Jnana and joined the touring Current 93. He also plays solo, and The Wire's review of a recent show reported that his playing technique breaks his guitar strings and he's still playing Jerusalem. For which we can all be thankful.
The complete collection
Simon Finn - Jerusalem
So there I was, strolling home one evening having finally worked out which song I was going to contribute to this series when my iPod pulled something out which trumped all my other choices and I had to pause in my tracks. And at first, I nearly discounted it because in the past few years the old "70s folksinger makes album, album disappears, singer languishes in obscurity for over 30 years, then discovers new audience" story has almost become a cliché. But stuff it, it's a great song, so put the return of Vashti Bunyan out of your mind for 5 or so minutes and let me regale you with the tale of Simon Finn.
Finn was a folk singer who arrived in London in 1967, gigging around the capital and recording Butterfly, a single, with producer Vic Keary, which was never released. Two years later and Finn reconnects with Keary who is impressed with the new material and offers to record an album. With the musical backing of experimental duo of David Toop and Paul Burwell, Pass The Distance is recorded in Chalk Farm and released in 1970. A year later it's withdrawn due to legal problems and in 1974 Finn moves to Canada. A missing singer + withdrawn album = a cult collector's album.
Toop finds this out when visiting Japan in 2000, when fans brandish bootleg copies at him - and then a trickle of correspondents asking about the album grows, with eventually David and Simon getting in touch with each other for the first time in thirty years. In the meantime, David Tibet of Current 93 has had a copy of album passed to him by a friend and decides to, firstly, get hold of a original edition and secondly release it on his own label. So in 2004, Pass The Distance reappears in record shops, and a wider audience can find out what the fuss was (and is) about.
The album's lack of initial success probably has some basis in the presence of Toop and Burwell given free reign to try out ideas in the studio. Even allowing for Finn's distinctive vocal, it's often the backing instrumentation that grabs the attention as Toop has a go with whatever's lying around, not too fussed if it's in tune or not, whilst Burwell keeps the pulse on the tablas. It's an approach which presumably kept things fresh and interesting for the musicians, and suits Finn's impassioned vocal.
The centrepiece of Pass The Distance is Jerusalem, in which the core trio are joined by Kenny Elliott on organ. It starts calmly enough but then the organ's long chords are introduced, Finn steps up the intensity of his singing and playing and we're off. When he sings "And through the sweating crowds, tears streaming down my face till I'm going insane", he really is loosening the shackles. About five minutes in, he abandons coherence and gives in to feeling. It's usually at this point when I have to stop whatever I'm doing and let the song take over. The musicians crash to a halt, at which point this humble listener puffs out his cheeks and makes sure he didn't pause in the middle of a busy road.
David Toop went on to make several solo and collaborative albums and write several books including the ear-opening Ocean Of Sound and Rap Attack. Paul Burwell continued his percussion playing, inventing instruments and creating art installations - sadly, he died earlier this year. Simon Finn, having been tracked down by David Tibet, recorded two albums for Durtro/Jnana and joined the touring Current 93. He also plays solo, and The Wire's review of a recent show reported that his playing technique breaks his guitar strings and he's still playing Jerusalem. For which we can all be thankful.
The complete collection
In shops tomorrow: 4/6
Singles
Los Campesinos! You! Me! Dancing! On 7".
There are no other singles.
Oh, apparently there are. Not least from just across Cardiff in the form of Future Of The Left. Absolutely nothing wrong with bass you could build a hotel on, rolling drums and Falco shouting the obscurist odds, so nothing wrong with the awkward sludge thump of 7" Adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood. Nobody connected with the Delgados gets away with it round these parts, so welcome back Emma Pollock with the heavily sumptuous acid-laced piano alt-pop of Adrenaline, also featuring former Delgados drummer (and Mr Pollock) Paul Savage on drums. The Thermals get round to a proper UK launch at last with the piledriving A Pillar Of Salt on vinyl, Queens Of The Stone Age move from 'robot rock' to heavier climes on 3's And 7's and the Apples In Stereo, having found their entire promo for their current album used up by interviewing their record label boss instead, give Energy a spin.
It Started With A Mixx is on the B-side.
Albums
Although the album we really wanted to mention this week (hint: tomorrow's Song To Learn And Sing) has been moved back a fortnight there's still quite a bit to go round this week. Not least Shellac's first album in seven years Excellent Italian Greyhound, sounding like near enough avant-garde intense three piece post-hardcore pummelling, as per. A few other notes in passing: clearly the fire of proper invention has long passed but Dizzee Rascal's still working away at it on Maths And English (caution: contains Allen, L). We make Memory Almost Full Paul McCartney's fifth consecutive 'return to form' album, while Nick Lowe continues to similarly age gracefully on his country-soul-AOR-pop arc on At My Age. It's the reissues and repackagings where it all is this week, and few are repackaged quite as often as Elvis Costello, what with the reissues of albums with extra discs, mid-price remasterings and compilations. Two of the latter this week, The Best Of The First 10 Years a loose reworking of Demon's mid-90s Best Of that ranges from Red Shoes to I Want You, Rock & Roll Music a random selection from all over the same time period including oddities and B-sides. We bow to few in stating everybody needs some Costello in their life, and both contain some of the finest British-originating music ever made, so there. As does The Clash - The Singles, even though it's the previously released Clash Singles compilation taken out of chronological order and with This Is England added. Dusty Springfield gets the Complete BBC Sessions treatment, 22 tracks recorded between 1962 and 1970, the earliest stuff coming from shows presented by Russ Conway and Ken Dodd, including versions of Uptight, La Bamba and Higher & Higher plus most of the everlasting hits. There's no good reason for Ian Dury and the Blockheads' Do It Yourself, the jazzier, hitless New Boots And Panties follow-up released in 1979, other than it allows us to mention how the original release came with twelve different sleeve designs based on the Crown Wallpaper chart. The Pretenders aren't in the middle of any sort of remastering/expansion campaign but two of their prime albums have been put out anyway in the accepted reissue style, 1984's Learning To Crawl (2000 Miles, Back On The Chain Gang) and 1986's Get Close (Don't Get Me Wrong, Hymn To Her).
DVDs
Julian Temple's hit and miss Glastonbury documentary is back in a timely limited edition extended format of a special edition 2 disc DVD, a double CD of live performances and a 64 page book of exclusive pictures and stories. These In Review DVDs can be very variable and fall prey to the usual issues of rights and editing, so we carefully list The Clash: Music In Review as it's a double disc set including input from Terry Chimes, Don Letts, Micky Gallagher, Johnny Green, Caroline Coon and Chris Salewicz. A long way back down the food chain we find Reuben, once next big things of Britrock now seemingly set for a life of toilet circuitry and cult success. A shame, as they're far better than the majority of their ilk and there's enough interest to warrant an hour-long documentary, What Happens In Aldershot Stays In Aldershot, also featuring a full London Mean Fiddler gig from last April.
Books
As he's already lived most of his pop life openly we're not entirely sure how many surprises there'll be in Alex James' autobiography - and there's a telling statement in itself - Bit Of A Blur. Bad title, for a start. So here's 288 pages of dandyish Groucho Club and plush foreign hotel decadence plus a bit of getting annoyed at Graham, with some countryside and space exploration business at the end. His best advice, apparently, is that a raw carrot will cancel out the smell on the breath of a bottle of champagne. His At precisely the time his daughter didn't need him to Fat Les bandmate Keith Allen has an autobiography out too, called Grow Up. That'll be a hundred pages of things he saw Damien Hirst do in the Groucho, won't it? Will Hodgkinson's Guitar Man was a fitfully interesting take on the 'personal adventure with comedic potential' genre as he learned to play the instrument from his heroes; Song Man sees him try to write a song in much the same style, involving Keith Richards, Ray Davies, Andy Partridge, Chan Marshall, Richard Hawley, Shirley Collins and Bridget St John. There's a third book on the way, Record Man, about his attempt to run an independent label, as currently serialised in the Guardian. This is also the week Potty Pete gets to re-establish himself with the release of Journals: The Collected Writings of Peter Doherty, an anthology of his twenty or so Books Of Albion that he's been talking about since before Up The Bracket. Thoughts, poems, drawings, diary entries, lyrics and suchlike add up to, according to the publisher, "the work of a serious artist", which does sound a little like an attempt to place him in the realm of Da Vinci's journals.
Los Campesinos! You! Me! Dancing! On 7".
There are no other singles.
Oh, apparently there are. Not least from just across Cardiff in the form of Future Of The Left. Absolutely nothing wrong with bass you could build a hotel on, rolling drums and Falco shouting the obscurist odds, so nothing wrong with the awkward sludge thump of 7" Adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood. Nobody connected with the Delgados gets away with it round these parts, so welcome back Emma Pollock with the heavily sumptuous acid-laced piano alt-pop of Adrenaline, also featuring former Delgados drummer (and Mr Pollock) Paul Savage on drums. The Thermals get round to a proper UK launch at last with the piledriving A Pillar Of Salt on vinyl, Queens Of The Stone Age move from 'robot rock' to heavier climes on 3's And 7's and the Apples In Stereo, having found their entire promo for their current album used up by interviewing their record label boss instead, give Energy a spin.
It Started With A Mixx is on the B-side.
Albums
Although the album we really wanted to mention this week (hint: tomorrow's Song To Learn And Sing) has been moved back a fortnight there's still quite a bit to go round this week. Not least Shellac's first album in seven years Excellent Italian Greyhound, sounding like near enough avant-garde intense three piece post-hardcore pummelling, as per. A few other notes in passing: clearly the fire of proper invention has long passed but Dizzee Rascal's still working away at it on Maths And English (caution: contains Allen, L). We make Memory Almost Full Paul McCartney's fifth consecutive 'return to form' album, while Nick Lowe continues to similarly age gracefully on his country-soul-AOR-pop arc on At My Age. It's the reissues and repackagings where it all is this week, and few are repackaged quite as often as Elvis Costello, what with the reissues of albums with extra discs, mid-price remasterings and compilations. Two of the latter this week, The Best Of The First 10 Years a loose reworking of Demon's mid-90s Best Of that ranges from Red Shoes to I Want You, Rock & Roll Music a random selection from all over the same time period including oddities and B-sides. We bow to few in stating everybody needs some Costello in their life, and both contain some of the finest British-originating music ever made, so there. As does The Clash - The Singles, even though it's the previously released Clash Singles compilation taken out of chronological order and with This Is England added. Dusty Springfield gets the Complete BBC Sessions treatment, 22 tracks recorded between 1962 and 1970, the earliest stuff coming from shows presented by Russ Conway and Ken Dodd, including versions of Uptight, La Bamba and Higher & Higher plus most of the everlasting hits. There's no good reason for Ian Dury and the Blockheads' Do It Yourself, the jazzier, hitless New Boots And Panties follow-up released in 1979, other than it allows us to mention how the original release came with twelve different sleeve designs based on the Crown Wallpaper chart. The Pretenders aren't in the middle of any sort of remastering/expansion campaign but two of their prime albums have been put out anyway in the accepted reissue style, 1984's Learning To Crawl (2000 Miles, Back On The Chain Gang) and 1986's Get Close (Don't Get Me Wrong, Hymn To Her).
DVDs
Julian Temple's hit and miss Glastonbury documentary is back in a timely limited edition extended format of a special edition 2 disc DVD, a double CD of live performances and a 64 page book of exclusive pictures and stories. These In Review DVDs can be very variable and fall prey to the usual issues of rights and editing, so we carefully list The Clash: Music In Review as it's a double disc set including input from Terry Chimes, Don Letts, Micky Gallagher, Johnny Green, Caroline Coon and Chris Salewicz. A long way back down the food chain we find Reuben, once next big things of Britrock now seemingly set for a life of toilet circuitry and cult success. A shame, as they're far better than the majority of their ilk and there's enough interest to warrant an hour-long documentary, What Happens In Aldershot Stays In Aldershot, also featuring a full London Mean Fiddler gig from last April.
Books
As he's already lived most of his pop life openly we're not entirely sure how many surprises there'll be in Alex James' autobiography - and there's a telling statement in itself - Bit Of A Blur. Bad title, for a start. So here's 288 pages of dandyish Groucho Club and plush foreign hotel decadence plus a bit of getting annoyed at Graham, with some countryside and space exploration business at the end. His best advice, apparently, is that a raw carrot will cancel out the smell on the breath of a bottle of champagne. His At precisely the time his daughter didn't need him to Fat Les bandmate Keith Allen has an autobiography out too, called Grow Up. That'll be a hundred pages of things he saw Damien Hirst do in the Groucho, won't it? Will Hodgkinson's Guitar Man was a fitfully interesting take on the 'personal adventure with comedic potential' genre as he learned to play the instrument from his heroes; Song Man sees him try to write a song in much the same style, involving Keith Richards, Ray Davies, Andy Partridge, Chan Marshall, Richard Hawley, Shirley Collins and Bridget St John. There's a third book on the way, Record Man, about his attempt to run an independent label, as currently serialised in the Guardian. This is also the week Potty Pete gets to re-establish himself with the release of Journals: The Collected Writings of Peter Doherty, an anthology of his twenty or so Books Of Albion that he's been talking about since before Up The Bracket. Thoughts, poems, drawings, diary entries, lyrics and suchlike add up to, according to the publisher, "the work of a serious artist", which does sound a little like an attempt to place him in the realm of Da Vinci's journals.
The Weekly Sweep
Saturday, June 02, 2007
More Songs To Learn And Sing #2
Second up to the plate in this run of song recommendations comes an actual reader. Who knew? Welcome, with a song after our own heart, James Waterson:
Johnny Boy - You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve
Great artists, overflowing with ideas and vast reserves of talent, come along more often that you think. They’re the ones armed with promises of world straddling success and radical reinterpretations of what music means. They’ve got the image, the genre and the timing just right.
Every so often one of these groups can create a great album, an LP so perfectly formed that a protective critical consensus forms around it and a thousand teenage bedrooms resound to its sound.
Yet no one ever fell in love with a concept, no casual listener became a 'fan' due to an album review. What converts minds is the pop single, something so pristine that even a short snippet can raise hearts and change lives. And the most overlooked, perfectly formed pop song of the past few years? Johnny Boy’s You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve.
Chances are that your anthem, the one that you feel should be blasted from the rooftops all day long, the one that seems fresher with every listen, was chosen for personal reasons. It’s a case of being heard in the right place with the right person at the right point in your life. That’s certainly true with myself and Johnny Boy’s second single; falling in love for the first time as I fell in love with its sweeping chorus, discovering illicit pleasures as this subversive track plays in the background and understanding that, for all my natural cynicism, life should be as exalting as every note of this track.
Yet Generation is more than a touchstone for my old memories. It’s the type of pop song which genuinely appeals to all, one capable of burrowing into the mainstream’s psyche and taking up residence on the nation’s radio for a long hot summer without the slightest simmer of dissatisfaction. It has a unifying identity last seen when Pulp released Common People and each listener can form a deep personal bond with these three minutes of music: it’s my song, your song, everyone’s personal anthem with a message that’s universal without being oblique.
The song itself is an amalgamation of every great pop technique of the last 40 years. It takes Ronettes-via-Mary-Chain drums, the June Brides’ brass section and St Etienne’s way with a melody without feeling forced. Its ingredients are peerless and yet it still managers to be more than the sum of its parts. It’s impossible to believe that such a song arrived so fully formed from the minds of two young musicians - it’s the sort of timeless product which, surely, could only have sprung from a collective effort of musical luminaries at Motown HQ. Every time the synths are discretely draped into the mix, every time there’s a congratulatory "yeah, yeah" and every time a new loop appears the exaltation grows. Lolly Hayes’ vocals veer between a Tracyanne Campbell whisper and a full-on soul scream while never losing control. "I just can’t help believing/though believing sees me hurt" she proffers as we rev up for another chorus line.
The stage was set for a glorious ride into the charts but it wasn’t to be: publicity campaigns stunted, radio controllers (6 Music aside) couldn’t work out if it was mainstream or destined for late night slots while Vertigo, undergoing a cleanout of their roster, chose to drop the group. The best pop single in years was dealt a cruel death by the decline of its format and lack of open minds in the music industry while the song’s passionate self-belief and tirade against apathy was met with depressingly ironic indifference by the music buying public. It’s three years since I walked into York’s Track Records and picked up a copy of this and it’s been present on every mixtape ever since and central to my realisation that a great pop song can straddle and belittle such minor matters as ‘genre’ and ‘chart success’. It’s a song that can soundtrack misanthropy and celebration, heartbreak and adoration deserves more than a footnote as a ‘great lost single’. I can’t bear to be in the generation that failed to buy enough Johnny Boy records for we will certainly get what we deserve; a hegemony of anonymous agit-pop and a lost anthem for our age.
The complete collection
Johnny Boy - You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve
Great artists, overflowing with ideas and vast reserves of talent, come along more often that you think. They’re the ones armed with promises of world straddling success and radical reinterpretations of what music means. They’ve got the image, the genre and the timing just right.
Every so often one of these groups can create a great album, an LP so perfectly formed that a protective critical consensus forms around it and a thousand teenage bedrooms resound to its sound.
Yet no one ever fell in love with a concept, no casual listener became a 'fan' due to an album review. What converts minds is the pop single, something so pristine that even a short snippet can raise hearts and change lives. And the most overlooked, perfectly formed pop song of the past few years? Johnny Boy’s You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve.
Chances are that your anthem, the one that you feel should be blasted from the rooftops all day long, the one that seems fresher with every listen, was chosen for personal reasons. It’s a case of being heard in the right place with the right person at the right point in your life. That’s certainly true with myself and Johnny Boy’s second single; falling in love for the first time as I fell in love with its sweeping chorus, discovering illicit pleasures as this subversive track plays in the background and understanding that, for all my natural cynicism, life should be as exalting as every note of this track.
Yet Generation is more than a touchstone for my old memories. It’s the type of pop song which genuinely appeals to all, one capable of burrowing into the mainstream’s psyche and taking up residence on the nation’s radio for a long hot summer without the slightest simmer of dissatisfaction. It has a unifying identity last seen when Pulp released Common People and each listener can form a deep personal bond with these three minutes of music: it’s my song, your song, everyone’s personal anthem with a message that’s universal without being oblique.
The song itself is an amalgamation of every great pop technique of the last 40 years. It takes Ronettes-via-Mary-Chain drums, the June Brides’ brass section and St Etienne’s way with a melody without feeling forced. Its ingredients are peerless and yet it still managers to be more than the sum of its parts. It’s impossible to believe that such a song arrived so fully formed from the minds of two young musicians - it’s the sort of timeless product which, surely, could only have sprung from a collective effort of musical luminaries at Motown HQ. Every time the synths are discretely draped into the mix, every time there’s a congratulatory "yeah, yeah" and every time a new loop appears the exaltation grows. Lolly Hayes’ vocals veer between a Tracyanne Campbell whisper and a full-on soul scream while never losing control. "I just can’t help believing/though believing sees me hurt" she proffers as we rev up for another chorus line.
The stage was set for a glorious ride into the charts but it wasn’t to be: publicity campaigns stunted, radio controllers (6 Music aside) couldn’t work out if it was mainstream or destined for late night slots while Vertigo, undergoing a cleanout of their roster, chose to drop the group. The best pop single in years was dealt a cruel death by the decline of its format and lack of open minds in the music industry while the song’s passionate self-belief and tirade against apathy was met with depressingly ironic indifference by the music buying public. It’s three years since I walked into York’s Track Records and picked up a copy of this and it’s been present on every mixtape ever since and central to my realisation that a great pop song can straddle and belittle such minor matters as ‘genre’ and ‘chart success’. It’s a song that can soundtrack misanthropy and celebration, heartbreak and adoration deserves more than a footnote as a ‘great lost single’. I can’t bear to be in the generation that failed to buy enough Johnny Boy records for we will certainly get what we deserve; a hegemony of anonymous agit-pop and a lost anthem for our age.
The complete collection
Friday, June 01, 2007
Songs To Learn And Sing: the complete collection
All mp3s have expired
David Ackles - Waiting For The Moving Van (us)
Art Of Fighting - Heart Translation (Iain, Delete As Appropriate)
Dusty Springfield - If You Go Away (Swiss Toni)
The Black Heart Procession - A Truth Quietly Told (Ben, Silent Words Speak Loudest)
The New Pornographers - Sing Me Spanish Techno (Ryan O'Grady, reader)
My Life Story - 12 Reasons Why I Love Her (Doug, Talent In A Previous Life)
The Chills - Pink Frost (The Ledge, The Indie Credential)
Willie Hightower - Walk A Mile In My Shoes (Tim, The Daily Growl)
Jackie Lee - The Town I Live In (Ian, Snappish Thoughts)
Tina Dico - Losing (Dead Kenny, Parallax View)
Madness - In The City (Matt, Bus Shelters Of Ilford)
Crosby, Stills & Nash - Cathedral (Jamie, Runout Groove)
Molasses - La Berceuse d'Eve (Eve's Lullaby) (Pagan Wanderer Lu, songsmith)
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Oliver's Army (Robin, throughsilver)
Sunset Rubdown - We Got Broken Eyes (Shane, The Torture Garden)
Rhoda & The Special AKA - The Boiler (Kieron Gillen, Phonogram)
Esther Phillips - Home Is Where The Hatred Is (Neil, Music Like Dirt)
Fatima Mansions - Blues For Ceausescu (Dave, blather.net)
AfterChristmas - Burn The Bungalow (Jeremy Warmsley, braces wearer)
Geneva - Tranquiliser (LB, Cheer Up Alan Shearer)
Little Birdy - Relapse (Sheila Pham, reader)
The Ocean Blue - Ballerina Out Of Control (JustHipper, The Indie Credential)
Mid-State Orange - Best Intentions (Gareth Parton, producer)
Noah And The Whale - Death By Numbers (Emmy The Great, new Kate Nash or something)
Yo La Tengo - Blue Line Swinger (Tom Campesinos!, Los Campesinos!)
Bikini Kill - In Accordance To Natural Law (Gareth Campesinos!, Los Campesinos!)
Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody) (James, Yer Mam!)
Kings Have Long Arms feat. Phil Oakey - Rock And Roll Is Dead (Brig Bother, Bother's Bar)
35 Summers - Really Down (TJ Worthington, Out On Blue Six)
Snoop Dogg - Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None) (Colonel Knowledge, loon)
Magnapop - 13 (Stuart Campbell, games journalist)
The Siddeleys - Wherever You Go (Simon, No Rock And Roll Fun)
Johnny Boy - You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve (James Waterson, reader)
Simon Finn - Jerusalem (Jez, Sell Your Land Speeder)
The Lapse - Buffet (Andrew Ferris, Smalltown America/Jetplane Landing)
Rob Dougan - Clubbed To Death (Saam, Keep Hope Inside)
Braid - Forever Got Shorter (David, Stop Clapping Start Doing)
Stanley Winston - No More Ghettos In America (Thomas, Hey Charlie!)
The Saints - This Perfect Day (Simon Briercliffe, reader)
Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra - Eggshell Miles (Matthew, Song, By Toad)
Poppy Factory - 7x7 (Ian, Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From?)
Gang Of Four - Anthrax (Jamila, Fucking Dance)
Stereo Total - L' Amour À 3 (Mark X, Broken FM)
Toto - Africa (James Kettle, comedian)
Let us know through the usual channels if you want to add to this illustrious list
David Ackles - Waiting For The Moving Van (us)
Art Of Fighting - Heart Translation (Iain, Delete As Appropriate)
Dusty Springfield - If You Go Away (Swiss Toni)
The Black Heart Procession - A Truth Quietly Told (Ben, Silent Words Speak Loudest)
The New Pornographers - Sing Me Spanish Techno (Ryan O'Grady, reader)
My Life Story - 12 Reasons Why I Love Her (Doug, Talent In A Previous Life)
The Chills - Pink Frost (The Ledge, The Indie Credential)
Willie Hightower - Walk A Mile In My Shoes (Tim, The Daily Growl)
Jackie Lee - The Town I Live In (Ian, Snappish Thoughts)
Tina Dico - Losing (Dead Kenny, Parallax View)
Madness - In The City (Matt, Bus Shelters Of Ilford)
Crosby, Stills & Nash - Cathedral (Jamie, Runout Groove)
Molasses - La Berceuse d'Eve (Eve's Lullaby) (Pagan Wanderer Lu, songsmith)
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Oliver's Army (Robin, throughsilver)
Sunset Rubdown - We Got Broken Eyes (Shane, The Torture Garden)
Rhoda & The Special AKA - The Boiler (Kieron Gillen, Phonogram)
Esther Phillips - Home Is Where The Hatred Is (Neil, Music Like Dirt)
Fatima Mansions - Blues For Ceausescu (Dave, blather.net)
AfterChristmas - Burn The Bungalow (Jeremy Warmsley, braces wearer)
Geneva - Tranquiliser (LB, Cheer Up Alan Shearer)
Little Birdy - Relapse (Sheila Pham, reader)
The Ocean Blue - Ballerina Out Of Control (JustHipper, The Indie Credential)
Mid-State Orange - Best Intentions (Gareth Parton, producer)
Noah And The Whale - Death By Numbers (Emmy The Great, new Kate Nash or something)
Yo La Tengo - Blue Line Swinger (Tom Campesinos!, Los Campesinos!)
Bikini Kill - In Accordance To Natural Law (Gareth Campesinos!, Los Campesinos!)
Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody) (James, Yer Mam!)
Kings Have Long Arms feat. Phil Oakey - Rock And Roll Is Dead (Brig Bother, Bother's Bar)
35 Summers - Really Down (TJ Worthington, Out On Blue Six)
Snoop Dogg - Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None) (Colonel Knowledge, loon)
Magnapop - 13 (Stuart Campbell, games journalist)
The Siddeleys - Wherever You Go (Simon, No Rock And Roll Fun)
Johnny Boy - You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve (James Waterson, reader)
Simon Finn - Jerusalem (Jez, Sell Your Land Speeder)
The Lapse - Buffet (Andrew Ferris, Smalltown America/Jetplane Landing)
Rob Dougan - Clubbed To Death (Saam, Keep Hope Inside)
Braid - Forever Got Shorter (David, Stop Clapping Start Doing)
Stanley Winston - No More Ghettos In America (Thomas, Hey Charlie!)
The Saints - This Perfect Day (Simon Briercliffe, reader)
Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra - Eggshell Miles (Matthew, Song, By Toad)
Poppy Factory - 7x7 (Ian, Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From?)
Gang Of Four - Anthrax (Jamila, Fucking Dance)
Stereo Total - L' Amour À 3 (Mark X, Broken FM)
Toto - Africa (James Kettle, comedian)
Let us know through the usual channels if you want to add to this illustrious list
More Songs To Learn And Sing #1
Welcome back to this almost grand old idea, then. In case you missed all this, the deal is a set of people, twenty in this run over the next twenty days, are recommending a song that they reckon everyone should hear, and for a limited period we'll be hosting an mp3 of it so you can make up your own mind. The first run started with a blogger called Simon (er, that'll be us, then) and thus so does this one - Simon from the magnificent, especially since we stopped contributing to it, No Rock And Roll Fun.
The Siddeleys - Wherever You Go
Leaving aside the similarity to being lectured by Jesus about getting too involved with the church, Stephen Pastel's dismissal of the Sha-La-La and Sarah Records team as being "a load of paranoid virgins" always rankled because the the image of frightened bunny-rabbits never really fitted.
Yes, there was much that came out of the fanzine-distributed flexi label Sha-La-La and its legendary offspring that justified filing under "twee", but the real stock-in-trade of the bands who turned up inside the two-colour sleeves was love, sex and death. And revenge. The songtitles might have invoked summer, the labels might have featured flowers, but the lyrics? They weren't so sweet.
Anyone who's heard Another Sunny Day doing You Should All Be Murdered, Harvey William's death-threat shitlist, would be less taken with the jolly name of his band, more thankful that these guys were measuring out their frustrations in seven inches and not point 45 calibers. And although Heavenly's Amelia Fletcher might have ended up as a government statistician, trading one anorak for another, their songs were packed with sex, scares, bisexuality as a fashion item, revenge and violence.
If anything, the music was coming down heavily on the side of "loved and lost" rather than "never loved at all"; for every I'm In Love With A Girl Who Doesn't Know I Exist there was another song crouched waiting for the lines on a pregnancy test to show, and two more caught in relationships with the wrong people.
The Siddeleys - led by the remarkable Johnny Johnson - are a pretty good example of how the whole thing was closer to the kitchen sink drama than the bedroom fantasist. Wherever You Go was their first recording, a Sha-La-La flexidisc which fell out of a enevlope with a copy of Trout Fishing in Leytonstone a couple of days after the hurricane had ripped along the South Coast. Coming in at a shade under three minutes (obviously; this was a time and a place where a pop song that went over 360 seconds seemed as absurd as anything Rick Wakeman might have produced in his pomp), Johnson packs in a lyric which weighs the tension between really, really wanting someone, and the worries of them not really being good enough for you, or maybe you for them; knowing that you're better off out of it, but not being able to stop wading in deeper, and, ultimately, just wishing the bitterest revenge on the person who's making you feel this way. It's jangly, it's impossible to listen to without being transported back to that point in your teenage years where you can't believe this jangle of emotions, connections, stickiness and wrong-headed hormones will ever let you resolve yourself into a proper relationship and, to be fair, much less the work of a paranoid virgin than, say, writing a song about trains and tractors.
The Siddeleys - Wherever You Go
Leaving aside the similarity to being lectured by Jesus about getting too involved with the church, Stephen Pastel's dismissal of the Sha-La-La and Sarah Records team as being "a load of paranoid virgins" always rankled because the the image of frightened bunny-rabbits never really fitted.
Yes, there was much that came out of the fanzine-distributed flexi label Sha-La-La and its legendary offspring that justified filing under "twee", but the real stock-in-trade of the bands who turned up inside the two-colour sleeves was love, sex and death. And revenge. The songtitles might have invoked summer, the labels might have featured flowers, but the lyrics? They weren't so sweet.
Anyone who's heard Another Sunny Day doing You Should All Be Murdered, Harvey William's death-threat shitlist, would be less taken with the jolly name of his band, more thankful that these guys were measuring out their frustrations in seven inches and not point 45 calibers. And although Heavenly's Amelia Fletcher might have ended up as a government statistician, trading one anorak for another, their songs were packed with sex, scares, bisexuality as a fashion item, revenge and violence.
If anything, the music was coming down heavily on the side of "loved and lost" rather than "never loved at all"; for every I'm In Love With A Girl Who Doesn't Know I Exist there was another song crouched waiting for the lines on a pregnancy test to show, and two more caught in relationships with the wrong people.
The Siddeleys - led by the remarkable Johnny Johnson - are a pretty good example of how the whole thing was closer to the kitchen sink drama than the bedroom fantasist. Wherever You Go was their first recording, a Sha-La-La flexidisc which fell out of a enevlope with a copy of Trout Fishing in Leytonstone a couple of days after the hurricane had ripped along the South Coast. Coming in at a shade under three minutes (obviously; this was a time and a place where a pop song that went over 360 seconds seemed as absurd as anything Rick Wakeman might have produced in his pomp), Johnson packs in a lyric which weighs the tension between really, really wanting someone, and the worries of them not really being good enough for you, or maybe you for them; knowing that you're better off out of it, but not being able to stop wading in deeper, and, ultimately, just wishing the bitterest revenge on the person who's making you feel this way. It's jangly, it's impossible to listen to without being transported back to that point in your teenage years where you can't believe this jangle of emotions, connections, stickiness and wrong-headed hormones will ever let you resolve yourself into a proper relationship and, to be fair, much less the work of a paranoid virgin than, say, writing a song about trains and tractors.
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