January 2008 – Plain Or Pan

Cover Versions, entire show, Hard-to-find

Well! Move over Rick Wakeman……….

January 23, 2008 Craig McAllister

……..Teenage Fanclub are back in town. And to celebrate my first gig of 2008 this Saturday in Glasgow, or for those of you who’ll see them before me in London (that’s just the warm-up by the way. Glasgow’s always Miles Better), here‘s a fantastic radio session they did for Mark Radcliffe’s Radio 1 show.

Broadcast on 1st June 1995 it was aired probably to promote the ‘Grand Prix’ album, although in Teenage Fanclub land I doubt if anything is so slickly planned. Still, if the session didn’t help the band shift an extra million or so copies of what was their finest album to date (and may still be?) then there really is no hope for any of us. The session’s a belter. It is choc full of funny anecdotes, bum notes and a general bonhomie between Mark Radcliffe and the band. I considered posting it as mp3’s. Due to boring reasons posting mp3’s as oppossed to larger files somehow brings more people to this site (something to do with search engines) and then I thought, well, you need to hear all of this session. The music is almost secondary to the inbetween bits. Full tracklisting is:

1. The OMD Drum Machine

2. Verisimilitude

3. Move Over Rick Wakeman

4. Songwriting Duties

5. Going Places

6. Norman’s Beard Permutations

7. Feel A Whole Lot Better

8. Why didn’t Gerry Sing It?

9. China Girl

10. Norman’s Maraca Frenzy

11. Starsign

12. Finding out everyone’s starsign

Happy downloading.

Please feel free to leave comments in the box. Cheers.

Mark Radcliffe in a pub. I’d buy him a pint.

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

50 Million Elliott Smith Fans Can’t Be Wrong

January 13, 2008May 25, 2012 Craig McAllister

Well. Not quite 50 million. More like 50. I liked the Elvis-style photo below, hence the title. But in an ideal world more people would know about the music of Elliott Smith. He’s been dead for 3 and a half years, so if this post helps you get into him, great, but don’t expect him to be visiting your local open mic night anytime soon. Just make sure you get over to the Domino Records website for his earlier and later releases and Amazon or Play for his mid-period major label stuff. If you’re new to Elliott Smith I’d go for ‘XO’. That’s the album I discovered him through.

He is a truly great artist. A songwriter’s songwriter for sure. I bet Elton John loves him (though that’s no indication of what Elliott’s records sound like). His singing and guitar playing is absolutely fantastic. He plays all the weird chords, all the fanciest picking arrangements and if you’ve ever tried to learn any of his songs you’ll know how quickly they tie your fingers in knots. I’ve looked at all his press shots. I’ve yet to determine if he has 6 fingers on each hand, but it sure sounds like it. His vocals always sound brilliant. Like his hero John Lennon, they tend to be double-tracked. But whereas Lennon was a shouter (‘Help!’, ‘Revolution’ etc etc, take your pick), Elliot is more introverted. His ‘whispered, spider-web thin delivery’ (as one early reviewer referred to it) is understated melancholoy at its best. Elliott’s frequent battles with depression, drug addiction and alcoholism means that the subject matter can sometimes be dark, but the overall sound is just brilliant. In 1996, his song ‘Miss Misery’ was nominated for an Oscar, and Elliott performed it at the Academy Awards ceremony (it seems to have disappeared from YouTube). Unfortunately or otherwise, 1996 was the year of ‘Titanic‘ and Elliot was pipped at the post by Celine Dion.

When he died he was working on the the songs that would form ‘From A Basement On The Hill’. It was released after his death to no fanfares, fireworks or frenzied reviews. But those of us in the know lapped it up. Last year, ‘New Moon’, an album of demos and outtakes recorded around the time of his 3rd album (‘Either Or’) was released. You can hear one of the tracks here. Below, you’ll find a selection of demos, outtakes and b-sides from throughout his career. This is as good an introduction to Elliott Smith as you need. Happy downloading!

Say Yes (studio version)

Bottle Up & Explode (‘Either Or’-era demo, released on ‘XO’)

Punch & Judy (‘Either Or’-era demo)

Alameda (‘Either Or’-era demo)

Miss Misery (piano version)

Bled White (Jackpot Studios demo. Original version on ‘XO’)

Happiness (acoustic version. Original version on ‘Figure 8’)

Son Of Sam (acoustic version. Original version on ‘Figure 8’)

Figure 8 (title track, dropped from album)

Concrete Jungle (Bob Marley cover)

This is an excellent site where some of my recordings came from.

Hard-to-find, Most downloaded tracks

Tonight Matthew I’m going to be Pete Docherty

January 9, 2008 Craig McAllister

Libertines copyists. Dontcha just love ’em? I do! With 2008 only 9 days old it’s way too early for any ‘Best Of The Year’ lists, but I am almost certain that ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ by The Maccabees will still be on heavy rotation on my jukebox come December. I have been playing this wee song constantly for the past week and my enthusiasm for it shows no signs of stoppng. For me, The Maccabees have come from nowhere and somehow sneaked under my ‘Good Music Radar’. For a while now I have been of the mindset that ‘all new music is rubbish’, when of course it’s only rubbish if you don’t look out for it. Or should that be listen out for it? Anyway, by chance I was channel hopping over the festive period and caught the video for ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ on E4 or somewhere like that, and my love affair with The Maccabees began.

The singer clearly has the same Libertines bootlegs I’ve got. He has the sardonic vocals down to a tee and the combination of Spanish and electric guitars gives it the same feeling as ‘Music When The Lights Go Out’-era Pete ‘n’ Carl. Along with the scrubbed barre chords there’s a nifty understated solo that sticks in your head like all the best Paul McCartney songs and some wolf whistling behind the opening lines…..

Cradle me, cradle you

I’ll win your heart with a woo-hoo

It’s bloody magic. Go to The Maccabees website and you can even play the Toothpaste Kisses game. It’s nearly cost me my marriage I’ve been playing it that much. Who needs a Wii when there’s games like this out there for free? You can find the video on YouTube too although I’m not linking it here. I hate blogs that are full of YouTube videos and nothing else. (Lazy fuckers.)

Contrast & Compare!

Heres’s some Libertines demos from various sessions. Sardonic vocals? Check! Spanish/electric guitar combination? Check! Whistling? Sometimes! Check! Pete gets a lot of flak, but he cannae half write a half-finished song. I love him.

Albion (version 1)

The Good Old Days (A Carl Barat song)

Music When The Lights Go Out (Legs 11 demo session – the best version of this song that exists, I think)

entire show

Missed Scotch Mist? It’s all here…

January 2, 2008January 2, 2008 Craig McAllister

Radiohead‘s webcast for ‘In Rainbows’ aired on New Year’s Eve and it was bloody magic. Believe it or not, I actually have some sort of social life so I didn’t watch it as it happened. Last night was spent poking about the ‘net to find a video download that I could watch. You can get it here if you want.

This morning was spent extracting the audio part of the video so that I could make a CD for the car. This caused me no amount of pain and a lot of trial and error. Don’t ask me how I did it cos even I don’t really know, but here’s the audio only broadcast. It sounds excellent. Of course. With the exception of ‘Faust Arp’ which was recorded outside somewhere, and ‘Nude’ (which they didn’t play) the band recorded the entire album (in a slightly different running order to the album) in a basement studio somewhere. It’s a fly-on-the-wall look/listen at how Radiohead do their thang. If you have a spare hour sometime you really should click on the link at the top of this post and watch it. Otherwise, get yourself the music-only soundtrack. It sounds great through headphones. What are you waiting for?

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals: