Cover Versions, Get This!

Georgia Best

Craig McAllister

Athens in Georgia, USA, sits about 70 miles outside of Atlanta. A college town, it has a population of around 120,000 people which, were Athens in Scotland, would place it on a population graph somewhere between Paisley and Dundee. Athens’ Chamber of Commerce proudly tells you it’s a city ‘famous for great music, delicious food and the Georgia Bulldogs’, the collective noun for the city’s twenty-odd sports teams who all compete as Bulldogs; the basketballing Bulldogs, footballing Bulldogs, soccering Bulldogs…you get the idea. Its most famous musical exports are undeniably R.E.M. and the B-52s, acts who made proper impressions on both music fans and sales charts the world over. But Athens is also home to a whole raft of groups, some of whom you’ll know and love, some of whom you may keep dear to you as your own hidden favourites, some of whom will have come to your ears only via the patronage of their more-famous and influential city brethren.

R.E.M. were always generous in interviews, especially early-on, selling the entire scene they’d burst from as something to invest your listening time to, not just whichever release it was that they were supposed to be promoting at the time. They’d give local acts support slots, they’d namecheck them in print and now and again they’d cover one of their songs and put it on a B-side.

Pylon was one such group. I know nothing of Pylon other than their track Crazy, which R.E.M. covered on the flip side of Driver-8 before choosing it to open their B-sides and rarities compilation Dead Letter Office. What I do know though, is that their original version of Crazy is fantastic.

Pylon – Crazy

It’s a terrific track – surly, moody, huffy in the verses, uplifting yet melancholic in the chorus and, in its many impenetrable vocals and thick and murky jangling, something of a proto-R.E.M. track. That snaking and sliding repeating riff that plays underneath the chorus has, you’d think, exactly the sort of angle to its jangle that would make Peter Buck sit up and take serious note. I can only imagine the guitar player when they landed upon it – I bet the group played it in circles for hours, getting off on its nagging insistence and hookiness, keen to slay an unsuspecting musical landscape with its avant-Beatles majesty. Well, here they are, 40-odd years later, slaying the ears of this slow coach in a small and insignificant town on the west coast of Scotland.

When I bought Dead Letter Office (1986, maybe – it  certainly wasn’t on the day of release like any of those lying internet bores who’ll try and pretend they were in from the start whenever Band X or Group Y is mentioned), I had no inclination to seek out Pylon…or Aerosmith, whose Toys In the Attic gets a glorious barroom band kicking…or even the Velvet Underground, come to that – I mean, I thought Psychocandy was wholly original FFS, but it’s since become easier than ever to find any music that was once on record. I just can’t believe it’s take me so long to find Pylon. They were there all along, patiently waiting with their Gang Of Four angularity and freeform and scraping post-punk noise…and moody, noirish 12-string thick Crazy, a song so instant and loveable that it’s now suddenly high up in my ever changing list of greatest tracks ever.

While it plays, listen out too for another R.E.M.-ish influence when, a minute and a half in, the girl’s vocals shake free from the loose and ragged duet she’s tangled in and goes full-on Patti Smith for a bit. You can see why both Buck and Stipe might enjoy it.

In Peter Buck’s liner notes for Dead Letter Office, he says of Crazy:

‘A song by Pylon. I remember hearing their version on the radio the day that Chronic Town came out and being suddenly depressed by how much better it was than our record.’

By the time R.E.M. had got around to covering Crazy (during the sessions for what would become Fables Of The Reconstruction), Pylon had been split for the best part of two years, so here were R.E.M.’s resident pop scholars, drawing attention to a group they felt hadn’t quite got the attention they deserved. Chapeau! Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe. Chapeau!

R.E.M. – Crazy

Swimming in reverb and gothic jangle, it’s a faithful take on the original, sounding not unlike something that you might find on Fables, or even Murmur, if you hone in on its soupy quality. Mike Mills soars in parts. Stipe is suitably obtuse and mumbling. Or murmuring, even. Peter Buck though. He foregoes that magic jangling riff that underpins the original and instead plays some pleasant but pretty insignificant open-chorded shit instead. That, Peter – because I know you’re reading this – is crazy. Or not Crazy, as it goes.

Live!

The D Is For Diamond

Craig McAllister

Mike D barreled his way through the UK last week on a four date mini tour that took in Brighton, Glasgow, Manchester and London. The shows were part of a wider European jaunt, booked to support the release of Thank You, the first album of new music to include Mike’s voice since Adam Yauch passed away in 2012. The Glasgow show was astonishingly great, as you’ve maybe read already, and will certainly read shortly.

Diamond has spoken openly about his inability to produce music in the intervening years since Yauch’s death. He’d open up his laptop, click on a file of a work-in-progress and have little motivation to continue with it. Then, during lockdown, his teenage sons Skyler and Davis began making music with some of his vintage gear and Mike would join in. No matter how teenage-stroppy and independent you might want to be, if your dad’s a Beastie Boy, you can’t say no, right? These sessions progressed to 4-track recording sessions, which progressed further to the album that’s now been released to the world. Along the way, the Diamond clan picked up Mike’s pal Eddie Ruscha and his son Milo and Mike’s multi-generational, multi-skilled backing group, 5D, was born.

Backing group? Come on, man!

In Glasgow, from first beat to last, 5D was just as essential a feature as Mike’s own idiosyncratic whiny-assed rap. In the Beasties, D was one distinct third of a dynamic that pushed the other two thirds beyond their limits, often with astonishing results. In his current group, the musicians behind Mike allow him to be just as creative, just as innovative and just as astonishing. On record, it’s one thing. Live and in your face on a wet and windy Monday night, it’s altogether whole-new-level brilliant.

Permission sought @mutedcartoons

‘Helloooo Glasgow!‘ he goes after bounding on, loose of limb and loose of clothing; workwear jeans that will never have seen a day of manual work in their lives, expensive-looking trainers and baggy own-brand sweatshirt (for sale at the merch stand, uh-huh), and launches into B-Boy Bouillabaisse, its mainly acappella rap augmented by a phat sub-base that slams into the chest, loosens the fillings in the teeth and pins you to the spot. He’s then straight into his own, brand new ‘What We Want‘ and I’m totally unprepared for the sonic and visual assault.

There are two guitar players, one who slams power chords and moves sideways, forwards, back and up, the other who coaxes all manner of pitch-shifting Tom Morello-isms from his six strings and shouts, Beastie-style, the last word on each line. There’s a doe-eyed Julian Casablancas doppleganger on bass who leaps seven feet in the air at every opportunity, reeling off chunky and funky basslines before deftly switching to the keyboard by his side then to his bass guitar and back again. He also joins in on every last line. There’s a killer drummer, rimshot sure and metronomic and almost totally obscured by amps and lights and Mike’s forever-moving body. There’s an assemblage of musicians behind a moving panel of lights, mix masters and multi-instrumentalists, Mike’s pal Eddie amongst them, firing off samples and sirens and loops and beats and mad arcade video game noises at every opportunity. Over-stimulation and then some.

We get a super-tight and sinister Lookin’ Down The Barrel Of A Gun early on, Diamond happy to sprinkle the old stuff between the boxfresh new. We get 3-Minute Rule, D doing the upturned pointy finger thing as he falls into an easy flow. ‘I stay up all night, I go to sleep watchin’ Dragnet…’ Whodathunkit! There’s an insane Body Movin’, Mike and the 6 musicians who make up 5D (yeah!) in simpatico on a tight stage, instruments and beats locked in, bodies indeed movin’, both on stage and off. Of the new material, Secrets and I Don’t Care are highlights. As too is Don’t Stop’s breathy Salt ‘n Pepa Push It-isms and the relentless stormtrooper death march of Crypto, all fuzz bass, repeating keyboards and nasty guitar. The set finishes with the album’s title track, an acoustic guitar ballad would you believe – out of tune on the night and replete with a couple of howling bum notes – but who’s paying attention to the sideman while Mike D is <<<this far>>> from you?

Oh yeah – this far. Unbelievably, the Glasgow show is in the relatively cozy SWG3 studio. There are less than 1000 folk here, maybe even as little as 700, so when you see the pictures drip in mid-week from the much larger UK venues, you begin to appreciate just how special a night this was.

Beastie Boys – So What’cha Want

There’s a short encore – a cover of the Delta 5’s Mind Your Own Business that sounds stroppy and sloppy and Beastie-great, the music dropping out as Mike and 5D holler ‘Mindyaownbiz-niz!’ to great effect, and then…the absolute show-stopping majesty of So What’cha Want, Check Your Head‘s whiny but thundering magnum opus. ‘Are you ready Keyboard Money Milo?’ asks Mike of the Casablancas-alike to his left and off they go, rapping and banging and thumping and jumping around to the sound of the squeaky organ against those cavernous and Bonham-esque thunder drums. Twin guitars lock-in, Thin Lizzy-style and the song’s nagging and incessant riff plays out, the group a soup of headbanging, leaping, ceiling-bothering creators of joyful noise.

I grinned my way through this show, ten feet from greatness and acting half my age for most of it. On a school night too. Gig of the year? It’s one of ’em.

Get This!

Gaz Top

Craig McAllister

I noticed Gaz Coombes celebrating an anniversary this weekend. Nope, it wasn’t the 20th – or (stops…counts…yep…) even 30th – trip around the sun for any one of those great Supergrass records. Gaz was delighted to confirm he has now been nicotine and weed-free for a full year, something of a milestone for a guy who called his group Supergrass, you’d have to think. So hats off to Gaz. May his ability to write hooky pop songs in the lineage of Buzzcocks and Blondie never diminish.

Supergrass was always a great band. They appeared from nowhere in the summer of ’95 and in four years had effortlessly given us three damn-near essential albums, their associated singles – Caught By The Fuzz! Mansize Rooster! Going Out! Sun Hits The Sky! Late In The Day! Pumping On Your Stereo! Moving! etcetera etcetera marking them out as one of our classic guitar groups. Even as their popularity declined – in seemingly inverse proportion to them gaining an official fourth group member – they were still releasing interesting records that wobbled and wowed on the fine tightrope that bridged poppy and proggy.

In the years between Supergrass going into hibernation and reconvening for the turn-the-clocks-back I Should Coco anniversary shows last year, Gaz was a fairly prolific solo artist. The more astute gig goers at Johnny Marr’s shows in 2024 would have arrived early to catch Gaz do his thang in the support slots. The gigs seemed a bit like a two-fer; if not quite a double bill, then certainly a great value show. There were no Supergrass songs in Gaz’s set, perhaps to some folks’ disappointment, but with a handful of solo albums under his svelte velvet belt, Coombes needed not rely on former glories when his solo stuff was just as interesting.

Gaz Coombes – Turn The Car Around

Listen to Turn The Car Around and tell me it’s not pure McCartney. I actually can’t hear it these days without imagining Paul singing it, or playing all the instruments himself like he did in the good old days. Certainly, that drum track could be him. The driving bass too. And the loose piano. And the fried guitar outro…

It’s a total groover, ‘a mindfuck‘, as Coombes himself sings in the second verse, a glock-heavy percussive thumper with rising and falling melodies, falsettos and faded endings. The chord sequence is absolute late-era Beatles, all pastoral changes with the faint rustle of autumn leaves brushing the open strings. Sounding like something that equally might’ve floated its way off of the grooves of Band On The Run or Ram, it even has a tiny bridge that provides breathing space before the band falls back in again…and when they do, the whole thing really soars. Vocals play off one another, the backing band maintains their loose-limbed, head-nodding stride, a spacey keyboard takes us further out of our heads and then a lovely fuzz-baked solo vapour trails its way into orbit, the bass thumping merrily and high up the frets – think Paul in ’67/’68 and you’re getting there.

He seems to be lying low again these days. Maybe he’s in a creative rut. Maybe the lack of nicotine and weed has robbed him of his ability to marry melody to introspection. Or maybe Gaz is cookin’ away right now, readying himself for another run of, eh, smokin’ gigs.

 

Get This!, Hard-to-find

X. Rated.

Craig McAllister

A trip to London, November 1989. We were there for the Stone Roses show at Alexandra Palace, the group’s biggest gig in a year that had seen their unstoppable rise from Manchester’s margins via Glasgow’s Rooftops to a room full of 8000 zeitgeist-surfing music fans. Such is the need nowadays to be seen – and be seen to be seen at these kind of shows – if the Stone Roses somehow reformed today, there’d be 100 times that number clogging up the internet’s superfast highways in search of a ticket. But back then, the audience was comprised solely of clued-in music fans. The ticket was easy to come by (one phone call, £8) and the overnight bus (even cheaper, if I remember) alongside a promised floor in a friend’s sister’s digs made for an inexpensive and unforgettable weekend.

We got straight off the bus at Kings Cross with five hours’ sleep between the three of us and did what most Scots abroad do. We went for a pint in the first decent-looking boozer, choked at the price and supped slowly, savouring the overpriced fizz as if it might be the last pint we ever drank.

We wandered west, our limited Scottish notes being hoovered straight from our pockets with every boozy stop-off (don’t believe that nonsense about ‘legal tender’ – they grabbed it all), to the city’s dazzling West End, the neon lighting of Piccadilly Circus washing London’s damp, dreich streets in primary watercolours. Green, red and blue. TDK. Coca-Cola and Philips. We wandered into Soho. Narrow buildings on narrow streets. Cobbles, maybe even. Olde London, with everything close together, the intervening years necessitating layers built on top of other layers. Brass plaques at the side of resolutely-closed doors. ‘Gentlemen’s Club.‘ ‘Private Member’s Club.’ ‘Luncheon Club.’

Raymond’s Revue Bar loomed large in front of us, its name splayed across the entire side of a chunk of ’60s Brutalist concrete, the neon letters yet to catch fire. It was still early, I guess. Sister Ray records, Grant holding up a tatty copy of More Specials. ‘Guess how much?!?’ Ronnie Scott’s. Bar Italia directly across the road. A blue plaque for John Logie Baird directly above that. Every other doorway contained references to Soho’s true purpose. ‘Girls wanted.’ ‘Boys wanted‘. ‘Diamond Associates Video Production.’

Solid-looking bouncers barred the way behind velvet ropes, the faint thump of electronic music wafting up to ground level. ‘Peep Show‘, ‘Freak Show‘, ‘Rooms by the hour.‘ Amongst the boggle-eyed packs of out-of-towners such as us, strange folk wandered between. Weird, thin, trampy guys who’d either avoid eye contact or stare you out should you catch their attention. Shaven-headed men in expensive suits underneath camel-coloured coats. Men who were in fact women. Women who were in fact men. Girls (?) who smiled as you walked towards one another on the pavement, pretty at first, then hard and stone-faced as you drew closer. Were these the same girls advertising their services on the cards and stickers plastered inside and outside the once-red phone boxes? ‘Scandinavian massage.’ ‘Miss Whiplash!‘ ‘Anything you want.’ We just wanted to soak it all in, thanks. And soak it in we did.

The streets were steeped in pop culture-references. Carnaby Street had maybe lost some of its sixties swing, but you could feel its historied past. Outside another closed door in a street nearby was the Acid Jazz office. Elsewhere, Old Compton Street. Greek Street. Gerrard Street. All places that had popped up in the things we’d read, the films we’d watched, the records we’d obsessed over. ”A’ Bomb In Wardour Street!‘ shouts Derek as we turn into it, the three of us singing loud and out of tune Weller approximations, giving not one foreign tourist jot about how we appeared. “Ay-pee-oh-see-ay-elle-why-pee-ess-ee APOCALYPSE!‘” What a laugh.

I spot the Wag Club, a simple sign sticking out from the wall and a canopy over a door announcing its existence. If it’s too early for strippers, it’s certainly too early for dancing, and so it’s presently closed, otherwise our beer-emboldened Scottish inquisitiveness may have lead us to have a wee peek inside. Instead, we reel off a list of the great and the good who’ve been associated with the place. Bowie. De Niro. Strummer. Grace Jones. Boy George. Madonna. We stand on the same pavements as these legends and pause for a moment’s reflection.

There’s a good 4-parter on BBC Sounds just now, with Shaun Keaveny interviewing the ubiquitous Johnny Marr. Johnny has a new album out and so is everywhere to talk about it. Johnny is almost as great a talker as he is a guitar player, so he’s good value. The shows are themed loosely around Johnny’s music and influences, so much of it will be familiar to you; Stooges, Velvets, ‘Noo’ Order, disco, Bert Jansch, yadda yadda yadda, but the odd nugget of new information and maybe even new music is worth hanging in there for.

One such thing was Johnny’s enthusiasm for this: Gina X‘s No G.D.M.

I never did get to the Wag Club, but I can imagine that No G.D.M., with its minor chord disco sleaze and goose-stepping, catwalk-strutting bassline might’ve been something of a regular floor filler in the place. Slow-chording, bubbling analogue synths, electric keys for accent, the odd vocoder and a detached, Teutonic sing-speak vocal that flirts between bold and bored keeps you interested and listening. By its third spin, you’ll be under the spell of its super-steady 110 BPM march. You might even find yourself absent-mindedly drawling ‘lez-beee-uhn‘ as you wash the dishes, drawing quizzical looks from your significant other. ‘You sound like Grace Jones,’ she might say, not that far off the target.

No G.D.M. takes its cue from a Quentin Crisp quote. A (wo)man who was no stranger to the Old Compton Street of 100 years ago, Crisp was one of Edwardian Soho’s more colourful characters; growing and dying their hair to appear more feminine, dressing in drag one day, a business suit the next, working as a life model one day, a rent boy the next…Crisp was a he/she/they openly gay icon at a point in history when it was significantly far more dangerous to be so. Once, in a pique of self-pity, Crisp lamented to a sympathetic writer that he’d never find the embodiment of sexual perfection, the perfect yet mythical ‘great dark man’. And somewhere down the line, Gina X’s antennae bristled with the promise of an underground club hit.

Next time I find myself in Soho, I’ll be sticking this on to soundtrack my wanderings. Scrape back the top layer of dirt from those pavements and you’ll smell the sleaze and debauchery of the recent past. It’s the perfect soundtrack, surely.

Get This!

Flying Vs

Craig McAllister

I ain’t no mariner. Approaching ancient maybe, but these legs work best when firmly planted on dry land. I don’t need the stars to guide me (I wouldn’t know where to start), yet without even the use of an iPhone app, I know my norths and souths. If I stand on Irvine beach with Arran to the left of me, I’m facing north. To Troon and Prestwick behind me is the beautiful south. Everywhere inland is east. The old Sleeping Warrior 20 miles out into the Firth of Clyde is west. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. That’s easy. Schoolboy stuff. Everybody knows that. At the right time of year, our corner of the world is flooded in golden light as the blazing sun rolls its way lazily behind the far tip of Arran and under the sea. It’s one of the pleasures of living by the coast in Ayrshire.

I thought it was also a given fact that as winter approaches, the geese fly south; to warmer climes, to mate, to hang out in the southern hemisphere, to barbecue and party and do whatever it is the geese do at this time of year.

Recently, the skies above Ayrshire have been full of noisily honking geese, wings beating simultaneously in tandem, flying purposefully in that efficient, energy-conserving V-formation that they’re famous for. I saw them on Friday. And yesterday. And again today. Maybe it was the same flock, cos on Friday they were most definitely not flying south. Yesterday they were heading in the same direction as the day before – which was roughly in the direction of Glasgow Airport, a short half hour’s drive north east from here. This afternoon though, they’d about-turned and it looked like their internal sat-navs had finally aligned to point them in the right direction. Or maybe they’d simply diverted and picked up a few Glaswegian pals who fancied coming along for the ride. ‘Can we no’ swing past Davie’s hoose, skipper? He’s only 20 miles up the road from here…that’s nuthin’ when yer aboot tae fly a thousand miles or so tae the sun.’

So, yeah. I’m not sure the geese are always flying south, but I do think eventually they do. Who’d want to spend the next few weeks flying 1000+ miles to end up spending six months in Greenland when you can point yourself in the opposite direction and, by flying the same distance, end up in the more favourable temperate climes of northern Africa. Geese might not always find south first time, but they ain’t that daft. The heat, the sun, the laid back way of life, not to mention the plentiful food brought on by the warmer climate wins out every time.

Geese, the band, are a bit of an enigma to me too. I want to like them. I kinda do. But equally, I’m kinda annoyed by them. The singer’s voice takes a bit of getting used to, mainly, but I like their off-kilter approach and experimental noise approach, especially as they bring everything back to the essence of song. It might have a tricky polyrhythm welded to a guitar forever on the verge of being in tune. It might have a noodling bassline and a vocal that sounds like it’s been sung by a drunk yodeller from inside a cardboard box, but it’ll still have a verse and a chorus and a hookline and a pile-on of discordant piano and ooh-ing and ah-ing backing vocals that’ll carry it to its momentous and car-crashing finale. Even if this ancient mariner is late to them, the young ones tell me they’re great, daddy-o.

Geese – Au Pays du Cocaine

Chiming and fragile, with a mid-period Beach Boys bass line thunking through the length of it, Au Pays du Cocaine is literate, cultured and suitably arty. Not for Geese the easy and shallow option of singing of last night’s shenanigans. The Brooklynites have taken note of Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel and his depiction of excess Au Pays du Cockagne (The Land of Plenty.

Painted over 450 years ago in 1567, Bruegel’s painting shows three main characters laid out after feasting like pigs for an afternoon. Indeed, a skewered pig wanders around, unable to do anything other than await the inevitable. Knives, forks, half-eaten eggs, the detritus of a meal are scattered around, the men’s work (a ledger, ink and pen, a lance) lie unused beside them. From underneath a roof covered in pies peeks a soldier, his mouth open in expectation of a soon to come meal. You can find all sorts of metaphorical theories with a quick Google search, should 16th century art be of particular interest, or you can draw parallels to Geese the band’s own suggestion that we in the 21st century are on a fast-track to excess and self-destruction.

‘Like a sailor in a big green boat,’ they sing, ‘You can be free and still come home.’ A bit like those south-bound, V-flying Ayrshire geese, as it turns out.

 

Cover Versions

Bandwagonesque

Craig McAllister

Next time you’re having a wee night in – just you, a bottle of whatever and a pile of 7″ singles – make sure you take the time to flip Dexys’ Geno over (we’ve all got it, right?) to its b-side. There, you’ll find a real breakneck run-through of The Bandwagon‘s Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache that’ll be sure to have you returning the needle right back to the start again before your feet have stopped moving, even if you don’t quite remember when they started.

But first, the history.

The Bandwagon – Breakin’ Down The Walls Of Heartache

I had it my head that Breakin’ Down The Walls Of Heartache was an obscure curio from the northern soul scene, a cover-up record that eluded every ace face from Wigan Casino to the Twisted Wheel, but I couldn’t be more wrong. Breakin’ Down the Walls… was a number 4 hit for The Bandwagon…or Johnny Johnson and The Bandwagon…or Johnny and The Bandwagon, depending on which label you’re reading the info from.

1968, lest you need reminded, was chock-full of massive-selling singles, singles that are, thanks to their ubiquity and staying power, instantly whistleable all these years later. Delilah. Hey Jude. Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Everlasting Love. Those Were The Days. Young Girl. It’s a varied and familiar list, and somewhere on it – lower down, but still notably present – is Breakin’ Down The Walls Of Heartache. You had to sell an awful lot of records back then to even dent the lower reaches of the charts, yet Breakin’ Down The Walls… is officially a silver record, with sales of over a quarter of a million in the UK. A trainspotter’s delight with added snob appeal this ain’t.

It’s a brilliant record.

A poundin’ pianer, a wet slap of guitar, an ellipsis of brass, a solid four to the floor beat. All that within the first few seconds would have it marked ‘banger’ these days. Add in Johnson’s requisite soulful vocal; pain, tears, the sound of gargled gravel, and the coo-ing and whoo-ing backing vocals and really, you’ve all you need.

I like that the vocals on the chorus drop rather than rise. Makes you listen. Draws you in. Makes you feel the protagonist’s undeniable pain. He’s a carpenter of love and affection, baby, wanting to build you a house of love. Oh yeah.

Extra points for the squeaky keyboard break that leads into the refrain. Over and out in two and a half, talc-dusted, Oxford-bagged minutes. Popular chart hit asides, I bet they loved this down the Twisted Wheel.

Wisely, Dexys take a reverent, if speedy, approach to their version:

Dexys Midnight Runners – Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache

Why mess with the recipe? It’s tailor-made for the Dexys of 1980 – pun entirely intended. Kevin Rowland tumbles himself straight outta the nothern soul scene and, still hopped up on last night’s Purple Hearts or Black Bombers or, indeed, Dexies, records a faithful remake, all nasally, hiccupping vocals hotwired to an electric, amphetamine rush.

The backing vocals sing in high-high falsetto. The drummer sprints to the finish like it’s his last stand. The brass section, the poor, asthmatic wheezers, break into a slick, fevered sweat just to keep up with it all, half a beat behind or half a beat in front of the rest of the group, double-guessing the changes, never quite sure of where to go next, catching breath briefly on the long trombone slides before blowing hard to the finish in a brassy rush of temple-bursting giddiness.

A beauty, eh?

Just one thing, though, Kevin. For a man obsessed with detail, it’s unforgiveable that you dropped the apostrophe on Breakin’ for the far more conformist and squarer Breaking. A minor point, but an important one, I feel.

Cover Versions, Get This!

Strange Couple

Craig McAllister

Wire‘s Pink Flag is, as you know, essential listening. Twenty one tracks in little over half an hour trip over themselves in a rush to the finish line, skinny-waisted, free of flab, fighting fit at flyweight…or I Am The Flyweight, if y’prefer. Drums, bass, guitar and vocals meld as one; shouty in parts, pseudo-menacing in others, the group sounding fragile one moment then like the apocalyptic big bang of post-punk the next. There’s no fancy gimmickry, no keyboard parts, no horns, nothing added that can’t be played on a stage between the four of them. A double-tracked vocal? Forget it. They’ll all sing together when volume and texture are required. Overdubbed solos? No chance. Actually…solos? Not really. That’d be muso and the Wire manifesto suggests that muso = bloated fatness. There’s neither a blues-inflected up-the-frets wig-out or a slightly-bent B or G string anywhere on the record. Where their peers unselfconsciously slipped into the sort of riffage Chuck Berry might’ve spat out had he been pointed in the direction of a Marshall stack, Wire eschew that particular boring old rule book and rewrite their own. Guitars will be loud. Incessant. Slamming like a downpour of anvils from a heavy iron sky…and it’ll all sound fantastic. The skill of Wire is that they can say all they want with just some carefully considered words and a rammy of guitars. Often, they can get their point over in well under a minute.

Saying that, half way through the second side you’ll find Strange.

Wire – Strange

Strange is just one of three tracks that breaks the 3-minute barrier on the record. Indeed, had they sustained a tiny hint of cymbal splash at the end, it would’ve passed the dizzying, nose-bleeding 4-minute mark. As it is, it’s the longest track on Pink Flag and one of the more conventional songs at that.

Here, Wire are economical and taut, sludge-rock without the pantomime of Sabbath or the self-masochism of Iggy and the Stooges. Guitars and bass military two-step their way through an electric crackle of distortion. The drums thunk their way in 4/4 time, the hi-hat crisp and clear and opening and closing with total robotic precision. Colin Newman’s sneery Thames Estuary vocals are at odds with the duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh-dumb vocals in the background; neanderthal and thick and totally rock, something, you have to think, that Wire would be horrified at the thought of.

Block chords slide a couple of frets up for a brief key change. ‘Refrain! Refrain!‘ comes the shout. Where they might’ve naturally ended things, the song picks up again. Crunch, crunch, crunch goes that G to C chord change. Hiss, hiss, hiss goes the hi-hat. Slam, slam, slam, they all go as one. The tempo never wavers, hovering as it does somewhere around resting heartbeat level, impressively marginally slower than you feel the band wants to play. Takes discipline, that. Lesser bands would’ve sped up and thrashed their way to an undignified and calamitous ending by now. Wire march on, keeping the tempo steady but weaving ambient and atmospheric guitar noise to flavour the stew. A bit of feedback. Wacky high notes. Strings that are hit and abused rather than plucked. Beautiful art rock from start to finish.

A version of Strange pops up on REM‘s Document album. But you knew that already. I lent my record to a pal many years ago and after he died I felt I couldn’t ask anyone for it back. Thanks to a clueless Vinted seller (£3, ya dancer!), it’s only in recent years that I’ve owned it again. Listening on Saturday morning, on the same day my social media was filled with Oasis fans sharing their happy news of securing tickets for the cash-grab shows next year, a line in the record’s imperious King Of Birds leapt right out at me. ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants leaves me cold,’ goes Michael Stipe, ten years ahead of the critics.

But back to Strange.

Strange positively bounces right off of Document‘s grooves.

REM – Strange

It’s faster than the original by half a minute, and, ach, there’s no ‘Refrain! Refrain!‘ part either, but then, Wire never thought to add a rollicking barrelhoue piano trill at the beginning of theirs. Michael affects a Georgian version of the Newman sneer and changes the original’s ‘Joey‘ line to sing of himself in third person, which is very Stipe. Mike Mills hits those high high high notes that he’s totally made his own as REM’s secret weapon on backing vocals. Even the duh-duh backing vocals sound effervescent and life-affirming. Peter Buck’s guitar is almost twanging with joy. ‘Thanks, Pete,’ it goes, ‘for dropping the open-stringed jangle just this once and letting me power chord my way to the end. I can’t, however, let this moment pass without a wee, mangled solo half way through. You don’t mind, do you?‘

REM’s band-in-the-backroom-of-a-midwest-bar version of Strange was the first version I heard. It was quite something when I finally caught up with the original. I love them both. Sometimes you want disciplined art rock. Other times you need hot-wired, countrified rockin’. But at any time, Strange will more than suffice.

Get This!, Hard-to-find

Speeding, Fine

Craig McAllister

Our first house was a two up, two down, easy to keep semi in a quietish part of Ayrshire. We decorated as we went, wallpapering here, painting there. We did up the kitchen, sorted out the bathroom, replaced the front door and got a professional carpet cleaner in, watching in mock coolness – “Ach, it’s fine…it’s fine!” as Derek Reid, who was round to fit the new door, spilled his coffee all over the freshly-rinsed carpet before the cleaning guy was even in third gear and out our street. It was a great wee house and we have many happy memories of the place.

I used to pay close attention to the B&Q laminate flooring, taking great pride in washing it once a week, whether it needed it or not. Once washed, we had an indoor skating rink for a wee while, the pine-fresh flooring buffed up to mirror-giving qualities providing a new and thrilling household pursuit. It was the late ’90s, OK? We still had dial-up internet. We wouldn’t entertain Sky TV’s prices. We were easy pleased.

To enjoy the thrill of the slippy flooring in all its bone-worrying glory, I used to pull on a pair of thick, green socks. They provided just the right amount of friction between foot and floor and I could happily skite about for five thrilling minutes before the reality of what I was doing kicked in. Grow up, man, I’d think. You’re a homeowner now.

Our friend John is a car freak. He’s nuts about them. The sleeker, the sexier, the faster, the better. He’s less inclined to do so nowadays, but back then he was always changing cars. He had an Audi TT at one point. A Porsche too, if I remember. Somewhere in time he’d ordered an Aston Martin, and while he waited impatiently for them to build it to his demanding and exacting specifications, he looked for another car as a stop-gap. Really, he did.

He turned up one day just as I’d washed the floor. As I swished my way through the living room in my green socks, there he was, pulling up outside our house in a low-riding silver Mercedes of some sort. You can picture the scene – top down, spokes glittering in the North Ayrshire sun, music doof-doof-doofing the fuck out of the peace and quiet.

“Hoi! Jump in!” he shouts above the din.

“Gimme a minute ’til I find my trainers,” I shout back.

“C’mon, man! Get in! We’ll go for a wee spin!” (rev, rev)

“My shoes, John….”

(exasperated) “‘sake, man! Jist get in! Hurry up!” (rev rev rev! REV!!)

He’s a very persuasive friend is John, so before I knew it, I was sitting in the leather-upholstered passenger seat of this cool, wee Mercedes sports car, belt on, but minus shoes.

“I’m test driving it,” says John. “I’m thinkin’ of gettin’ it ’til the Aston’s ready. It fair shifts. I’ll take it out to the country roads and show you what it can really do.”

We pulled out of my street. I’m feeling self-conscious. The top’s down, so you’re fair game for a slagging should anyone you know see you. The music is doof-doof-doofing away and it’s not music I’d ever be caught playing or consciously listening to, so there’s that too. You’re really drawing attention to yourself in a car like this at the best of times, let alone one with the top down…in Kilwinning…on a dull day…playing music that’s far too loud and attention-seeking. Plus, I’m not wearing any shoes. This bothers me constantly as we make our way through the suburban streets towards the open roads of North Ayrshire.

A Fiat Panda pulls out ahead of John and he falls in behind it. He’s tailgating it, really, which I’m hyper-aware of, but you can tell that John has the bit between his teeth and he just can’t wait to put that, eh, pedal to the metal. Only one road snakes its way through Kilwinning town centre. Recently it was made a 20 limit. Back then it was a breakneck 30. Unless you were John. But he couldn’t overtake the Panda in front. Every time he pulled out, an oncoming car would force him back into lane, tucked in behind the limit-observing citizen in front, getting more and more impatient as each lamp post rolled amiably past. He’d chance it at a blind spot then swerve straight back in. He’d try and force the Panda in front to pick up the pace but, no, the driver was (rightly) observing the rules of the road. John was getting irritated as we edged towards the, eh, city limits of our town. And then…a chance! A straight road! No oncoming traffic! John went for it.

He dropped a gear. Raised the revs. Glided into the oncoming lane with a swoosh. Even I got a minor thrill at that, the car’s sudden G-force sucking me back into the soft, leather seat. John turned to me smiling an evil smile and really put the foot down…

…just as a speed gun totin’ traffic cop popped up in the middle of the road from absolutely nowhere. Honestly, it was like he was lying flat on the road, spring loaded and ready for action should a car exceeding the speed limit trigger him. Which, of course, John was.

“Shiiiiiteee!” he screams, hitting the brakes hard and immediately.

Der-der-derderder-der-der-der… went the ABS system on the Mercedes.

I was expecting to see the traffic cop land with a mangled thud on the car’s sleek and silvery bonnet, but, no, there he still was, less than 5 metres from us now, still pointing his speed gun directly at John. His was the second evil grin I’d seen in less than six seconds.

“John, man. If he asks us to get out of the car…I’ve got no shoes on.”

“Craig, mate. I was doing 65 in a 30 limit. I don’t give a flying fuck about your shoes.”

The cop comes over. He doesn’t need to get John to roll the window down, like you see in the movies, because we have the top down, remember?

“Good afternoon, sir,” he says, all sweetness and light.

“Would you mind stepping out of the car?”

(Ah shite, I think, and undo the belt.)

“Just you,” says the cop, pointing to John.

My heart begins beating again, although much faster than it was twenty seconds ago.

A second traffic cop appears. They go through a whole good cop/bad cop routine, John doing his best to butter them up.

“How quickly d’you get to 60 in that car of yours?” he asks, pointing to the long and sleek BMW police car that was parked just out of view of the main road.

“Quicker than that car of yours,” comes the reply from good cop.

“…If it really is your car,” insinuates bad cop.

“I’m just out for a test drive” says the jovial John. “Nice car, innit?!”

“Are you getting it?” asks good cop.

“…cos you’re getting this…” says bad cop.

I’m assuming it was a speeding ticket or worse, but an ashen-faced John wouldn’t tell me. We drove, sensibly and safely, back to my house, me and my green socks skipping back onto my still-slippy floor.

We never spoke of this again.

I noticed McAlmont and Butler had reissued ‘The Sound Of…‘ recently. I think I’m right in saying it’s the first time that the stomping, stupendous Yes has made it to vinyl. That alone would make it worth getting, I’d think.

Lesser-heard, but every bit as good is Speed, a song recorded for the duo’s ultimately abandoned third album.

McAlmont and Butler – Speed

Making a fleeting appearance on a Rough Trade 7″ and digital download only, it barely registered anywhere. If you didn’t know the charts went beyond a Top 100, you might not know that this song made it all the way to 196. So, yes, you’re forgiven if you don’t know the track…just be thankful it’s here for you now. It’s got it all; McAlmont’s octave surfing vocals, Butler’s keening, twanging electric guitar, an ice shimmer of strings, full-on Phil Spector drums, hysterical backing vocals and a thumping, reverb-soaked kitchen sink production worthy any Scott Walker record on the Philips label. It is, as they say, a cracker.

‘Faster than the bullet train in the east,’ it goes. Which, according to the reading on that traffic cop’s gun, is only marginally slower than a speeding Mercedes on the outskirts of a small Ayrshire town.

Get This!

Movin’ On With My Very Best Friend

Craig McAllister

See if you’re going to crawl around on top of a slag heap in yr birthday suit, with only a giant turtle shell on top of your back to protect you from the elements, you don’t really need to signpost your everyday state of mind to the uninitiated. For emphasis though, you might, should a camera appear, ignore the allure of the lens and hone your focus solely on a once-scarlet Tonka truck with missing tyres. You might call your album Fried. You might even, for added emphasis, stick the name of the album to the side of the wonky Tonka the way Eddie Stobbart might splash his livery across his fleet of motorway mile guzzlers. Julian Cope is Fried, says the picture in not so many words. Well, duh, points out the audience.

Fried was Cope’s second solo record. Following World Shut Your Mouth and his earlier work in the Teardrop Explodes, he continues to channel his undeniable pop chops; the knack of knowing where to stick a hookline in a simple three or four chord progression, the understanding that an understated brass section can elevate everything to Beatles-great levels of enjoyment, the tightrope drama of an acid-drenched guitar – too much and the pop has gone out of it, too little and the acid heads think you’ve lost your fizz. Cope has that balancing act down to perfection.

Check out Sunspots, the only single that would be grudgingly released by an amazingly stupid record company to promote Fried.

Julian Cope – Sunspots

Simple four chord progression? You betcha. Oom-pa-pahing Beatle-ish brass that stomps all under the verses like a drunk elephant? By golly, aye. A hooky yeeeoooow vocal line in all the right places? Wow. Yeah…right on, as the vocalist himself might’ve said during its first play back.

Sunspots is terrific. Forty years later, it’s lost none of its potency in the slightest. From its sharp, lysergic guitar intro onwards, it’s pure, hazy psychedelia for Gen Xers with a penchant for Nuggets and the outer fringes of the sixties counter culture. The organ (Farfisa? Vox?) stabs ‘n sustains ‘n swirls in all the right places. Glassy twelve string guitars pop in and out of the mix. There’s even a reedy Wild Thing-aping ocarina solo should you need to place it in context. And the dopey, walking bassline? It plays the part of trip sitter, holding the tuba player’s hand until it all wears off.

Cope is on very good form, overlapping his vocals to great effect -‘Way! Waaay! Way! Wuh-ay!‘ – singing about his very best friend…he’s in love with his very best friend, dontchaknow. Whether he’s singing about his actual best friend or whether he’s metaphorically alluding to, y’know, drugs, is anyone’s guess, but I know where I’d be sticking my money if it was an option with Paddy Power.

The outro too – all 90-odd seconds of it – is slow burning sunshine in a jar. Is that a xylophone towards the end there, just between the elephant stomps and the kitchen sink? I think it is, y’know. A fitting way to end a single that would peak at number 76. We’ve been here before, but really, what is wrong with people?

Sunspots‘ parent album fared even worse, limping itself to number 87 with a bullet. A bullet might’ve been kinder. Mercury Records decided enough was enough, and Cope’s time at the label was, eh, Fried.

“Julian Cope? The difference between me and him is I’m a character from Shakespeare and he’s a cartoon out of the Beano.”

That’s a quote attributed to Ian McCulloch in 1985.

The fact it’s taken directly from Cope’s ‘Repossessed‘ memoir would suggest that Julian kinda likes it. Can you imagine your image-conscious guitar-totin’ popstars saying that about one another nowadays? That lad from Fontaines DC getting hardcore bitchy about the singer in Westside Cowboy? Nathan Shepherd would probably get a three-part 6 Music podcast from the fallout.

But back to Cope.

I’m sorry Mac the Mouth, but given the choice of Shakespeare or the Beano, I’d take Minnie the Minx every day of the week. As great a singer as McCulloch is was, Julian Cope is just far more interesting.

Alternative Version

Pédaler en Grand Braquet

Craig McAllister

The uncracked, ochre-washed spine of a book leapt out at me from the shelf of an Irvine charity shop recently, followed immediately by a shuddering Proustian rush of deja vu. The offending novel, David Coventry’s The Invisible Mile was something I’d tackled – slowly and painfully – a decade or so ago. Based on a true story, it’s set in the very early years of the Tour de France and follows the fortunes of an Antipodean rider as he winds his way up and down and all the way around France, breaking sweat and breaking his bike and finally reaching breaking point itself. As synopses go, I’m sure there are a few of you here who’d take a chance on a novel like that.

Far from me to be critical of another writer, but the prose in the book was so heavy, so unbreachable, so smart-arsed in its smug use of a metaphor or unnecessarily long prose that it was a properly punishing read, a totally gruelling slog from beginning to end; a bit like the Tour itself. And then, when I got to the end – because, like those riders, I was damned if I was giving up – I was left none the wiser. There was no true conclusion. The protagonist didn’t win. He wasn’t last. He was just one of many who’d made it to the end, bruised and confused and absolutely certain that this was something he’d never want to do again; a bit like reading the book, as it happens. It wasn’t a surprise to find the book in such a Waterstones-friendly condition. I can’t ever bring myself to stop a book early, but chapeau to the reader who got one page in and had the foresight to bail out.

I’ve always had a thing for Kraftwerk‘s Tour de France. Like listening to The Beatles in mono, the only way to fully appreciate any Kraftwerk is via the full-length German-language version.

Kraftwerk – Tour de France (German version)

Written by the group’s resident cycling enthusiast, Ralf Hutter, it was recorded and released back in 1983 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Le Tour. It’s a properly great approximation of cycling set to music.

Tour de France falls in on a rhythm of panting, peloton-pacing voice, the pitter-patter of instrumentation sounding just like a well-oiled chain running through greased and grit-free sprockets, the track propulsive and forward-moving. The keyboard motif brings to mind those parts of a cycling trip when you allow your mind to wander and the countryside and scenery by the roadside sweeps past in a blur of lovely greenery and nature. The robot voice pulls you back to the present, with its uphills and granny gears, the thigh burns and tiny tears. Then the heavy panting again. And more smooth, mechanical synthetic percussion, the clean, wind-at-your-back soundtrack carrying you home, pure German precision, chromium-clean and vacuum-sealed for science lab freshness, Kraftwerk pedalling effortlessly in top gear. There is not one misplaced or irrelevant part to this record. It is perfect.

The first time we were in New York, we went, as everyone does, to Manhattan’s Staten Island ferry port. The trip to Staten Island is a great way of seeing Manhattan from the East River, especially if you time it to travel back from Staten at golden-hour sunset. Perhaps even more impressively, the round-trip is absolutely free of charge – about the only thing in the whole of New York that is both entertaining and entirely free. Anyway. Outside the ferry port, a wee posse of breakdancers had set up; properly uniformed-up in matching Adidas tracksuits and shell toes, outdoing one another with a series of headspins and handsprings and robotic jerks. They had with them a massive ghetto blaster (of course). Their breaking tune of choice? Tour de France. Nearly 17 years later, I’m still able to play it in my mind’s eye, recalled from the section of my brain marked ‘random trivial shit.’ Which, of course, it ain’t.