2008 – Page 7 – Plain Or Pan

The Blues Is Still The Blues

March 3, 2008March 6, 2008 Craig McAllister

The new (April) issue of Mojo is giving away one of the best free CDs I think I’ve ever got from a magazine. Usually I tend to play these things once at best (sometimes they remain in their shrinkwrap forever) but ‘The New Dictionary Of Blues And Soul’ is a belter. It’s so good it made me want to write about it. It’s been on constant rotation this weekend and has made the job of cleaning the wooden floor in preparation for a visit from my mother-in-law all the more bearable. The compilation features only new artists playing blues and soul, just as authentically as any of the old masters you already know and love. When I hear the term ‘New Blues and Soul’ I think of keech like James Morrison or Adele, but these artists have the chops, the soul and the clout to show they mean it, maaaaaan.

I’m posting one track from the CD and another 2 that didn’t feature on it, but on another day would be equally at home on such a compilation with Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings (essentially Amy Winehouse’s band on the ‘Back To Black’ album), Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed & the True Loves, Edgar ‘Jones’ Jones and Seasick Steve, amongst a dozen or so non-household names. Saying that, Seasick Steve is playing the Albert Hall. THE Albert Hall, not the shitty wee place in Stirling, so who I am to suggest who is and who isn’t a household name?

Pete Molinari is on the Mojo CD doing ‘I Don’t Like The Man I Am’. This is taken from his forthcoming ‘A Virtual Landslide’ album, which on the strength of this track, I will be buying. Molinari has all the right credentials. His album was produced at Toe Rag Studios by Liam Watson, he did his shift in New York’s Greenwich Village at the Cafe Wha? and The Gaslight and he has a soul voice that wannabees like Paulo Nuttini would swap their 1970s Rod Stewart collections for. ‘I Don’t Like The Man I Am’ sounds a bit ‘Time Out Of Mind’-era Dylan and would fit neatly beside tracks like ‘Tryin’ To Get To Heaven’.

T-Model Ford records for Fat Possum records, the home of raw and unpolished blues. He was born in Mississppi, of course. He thinks he’s 75 but isn’t sure. He’s been in the jail for murder amongst other offences. If his music wasn’t so powerful, he’d be a walkin, talkin’ cliche of the blues. ‘Nobody Gets Me Down’ is on his forthcoming ‘Pee-Wee Get My Gun’ album.

RL Burnside also records on Fat Possum. In 1997 he recorded his debut album for Fat Possum. He was 71 and sounds it. Like T-Model Ford, he’s lived a full-on life. He’s been a sharecropper, a migrant worker and seen his father, brother and uncle all murdered within a month of each other. He sings the blues with unquestionable authenticity. He played music for much of his life, but it wasn’t until the 1990s when Jon Spencer (of the Blues Explosion) started name dropping him (and later recorded with him) that he got any incling of recognition. This track, ‘Shake ‘Em On Down’ is from his 1997 album ‘A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey’. Robert Lee is currently rockin the good Lord up above. (ie, he’s deid.) Amen.

Hard-to-find

Brian was a French horn

February 29, 2008March 6, 2008 Craig McAllister

Some say ‘Pet Sounds’ is the greatest album ever made etc etc blah blah blah. It may well be, but for what it’s worth, ‘Abbey Road’, ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’, ‘Hunky Dory’, ‘Grand Prix’ by Teenage Fanclub and ‘Blonde On Blonde’ (or ‘Bringing It All Back Home’, Highway 61 Revisited, Nashville Skyline, yawn) have been or are currently my own personal ‘Best Album Ever’. Even ‘Life’s Too Good’ by The Sugarcubes is in my eyes/to my ears one of the best albums ever made. Honest. The fact is, there is no one ‘Best Album Ever’. But for many, ‘Pet Sounds’ is right up there. I saw the Brian Wilson ‘Pet Sounds’ tour a couple of times in 2002, and the show at the Edinburgh Playhouse was fantastic, way better than the Glasgow show earlier that year. My memories of Glasgow were of folk continually shouting out combinations of “Genius!” or requests for the next song, when everyone there knew what was coming next. Duh. It was the ‘Pet Sounds’ show. We all had the album. Edinburgh was better. We were 3 rows from the front, right in front of Brian. At one point I was convinced he was smiling at me. Then I realised he was screwing up his big fat hang dog face to read the auto-cue. True. The one major blip came at the end of the night, right after I had acquired a typed out set list from the stage. There at the top were the immortal words. ‘Brian Wilson. Pet Sounds. Edinburgh, England.’ Genius? Not at geography.

Anyway. The music. Before I go on, a disclaimer. There are plenty, plenty of Beach Boys trainspotters out there. Some of you may even stumble across this site. If you do, please don’t take great delight in correcting any inaccuracies I may write with regards to ‘Pet Sounds’. For this reason I am keeping any such info at a minimum. In fact. I’m not going to write any. There are plenty, plenty of Beach Boys websites, blogsites and fansites scattered throughout hyperspace that do just that. There’s a very good one right here in fact. Me? I prefer to focus on the music. Or lack of, as today may be. What follows is the 11 songs from ‘Pet Sounds’ done in acappella style. No music, except for the odd leakage of backing tape that the assembled Beach Boys could hear in their headphones. Beach Boys stack-o-vocals, as Brian liked to call them. All the harmonies, coughs, whispered count-ins, duh-duh-duh-duh-duhs you could ever want to hear. In fact, it might all be too much for the one sitting, but it does make a great wee compilation. If it does appear all too much, I’d suggest going for the version of ‘Here Today’. But really, you need all of this, you really do.

In a rare fit of praise, Murry Wilson once said of his son, “Brian thinks in six-part harmony instead of two or three part. He’s not only a writer, he’s an arranger and he has a concept of harmonics which is uncanny.” These six-part harmonies blew the socks off of 1970s slush merchant Eric Carmen (‘All By Myself’ etc). In a famous quote he says, “Their vocal harmonies are unsurpassed…..I think Brian was a French Horn, Carl was a flute, Al Jardine a trumpet, Dennis a trombone and Mike Love (booooo!) a baritone sax, before their incarnation as The Beach Boys.” So here you go….the human orchestra that was the Beach Boys:

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

You Still Believe In Me

That’s Not Me

Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)

I’m Waiting For The Day

Sloop John B

God Only Knows

I Know There’s An Answer

Here Today

I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times

Caroline, No

*special bonus track God Only Knows (alternative ending – very nice!)

All in all, not a bad day at the office for a 23 year old. Genius? Maybe. Talented bastard? Aye, definitely. Happy downloading!

Weirdy and Beardy

Most downloaded tracks

My fvrt nw bnd

February 24, 2008May 25, 2012 Craig McAllister

“Let’s make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.”

I’ve been getting myself all in a lather over MGMT (pronounced as it reads – as in ‘Booker T & the MGMTs’, not ‘Management’ – thanks to Wino.) Shitty name. A pain in the you know what to google, but what great music! Like a Californian Super Furry Animals or the long lost Siamese twin of the Flaming Lips, guitars are just on the right side of fuzzy, the keyboards are set to wonky, but not too wonky and everything’s wrapped up in a half decent melody. In short, weird tunes you can whistle. The album ‘Oracular Spectacular’ is released on 10th March and is only £6.99 from Play. The first track is called ‘Time To Pretend’ and I have played it about 43 times over the course of this weekend. Try before you buy here.

Hard-to-find

Dear Jim, Please could you fix it for me….

February 23, 2008February 23, 2008 Craig McAllister

…to be a great northern soul singer in the style of Dean Parrish? So thought a 15 year old Paul Weller when he recorded ‘Left, Right & Centre’ at one of his first recording sessions. Jim didn’t quite fix it for Weller at the time but 35+ years later, ‘Left, Right & Centre’ has seen the light of day, with northern soul legend Dean Parrish doing the vocals.

It’s out on Acid Jazz, under the nom de plume of Lord Large and it sounds just like the Weller demo from all those years ago. In fact, I imagine it sounds like something straight off of the turntable at the Wigan Casino in the 1970’s. Which is no bad thing. Weird thing is, on the demo Paul Weller sings like Dean Parrish. And on the new version, Dean Parrish sings like Paul Weller. Or maybe Paul Weller’s been singing like Dean Parrish all along and no-one’s noticed. I’ve only heard ‘I’m On My Way’, so I can’t claim to be the biggest Dean Parrish fan ever. So what do I know? I don’t even know if Paul Weller plays on the new track. Neither does Mr Google or Mr Wiki. Maybe you do?

Get yer brogues on, talc down your floor and have a northern soul night in front of your computer. Go on! You know you want to! And if you don’t like the track you can blame the bald mod himself, Steve Cradock. Apparently he found the demo in a box of old stuff when he was round at Weller’s one night and got it released. He even gets to play guitar on the Lord Large version too. The wee arse licker.

A self-satisfied Paul Weller yesterday. Just out of frame, Steve Cradock’s tongue.

entire show

Jeff Buckley Glastonbury 24th June 1995

February 18, 2008February 18, 2008 Craig McAllister

Following on from the post below, here‘s the complete show as requested by one or two of you more sociable vistors. The file’s quite big and has been compressed as a winrar file, which works the same as a zip file. Download, unrar and enjoy.

Plain Or Pan? – We do requests!

Any problems with winrar, visit this site.

entire show, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Jeff Kicks Out The Jams

February 17, 2008February 17, 2008 Craig McAllister

Apart from not going to see The Smiths play my hometown during their 1985 tour of off-the-beaten-track backwaters and one horse towns, my main musical regret is not going to see Jeff Buckley when I had 2 chances. In February 1995 he played the Garage in Glasgow. Two of my pals went. I played football instead. Then on the 20th of June he played Edinburgh Queens Hall. I was working in Edinburgh that whole week. Somehow I only found out about the concert the next day….

D’oh. And d’oh. Four days after the Queens Hall show Jeff Buckley played Glastonbury. Sandwiched somewhere between Sleeper, Heavy Stereo and a million other Adidas-clad no-marks he put on a performance of such magnitude that ‘Glastonbury Live’ would have made a great official live Jeff Buckley long player. Especially as the BBC were recording it. The tracks below are taken straight from a BBC transcription disc. That means crystal clear sound, about as far removed from that 5th generation D90 recorded outside the venue sound that you often associate with bootlegs. Unfortunately, history shows that Jeff’s performance was somewhat overshadowed that weekend by 2 monobrowed brothers from Burnage. Yep. 1995 was the year of Oasis and the record buying public in the UK didn’t have time for fookin’ sensitive singer-songwriters who were the missing link between the Smiths and Led Zeppelin. Indeed, many people had yet to actually hear Jeff Buckley. ‘Grace’ is now regarded as a stone cold classic album, but you need to bear in mind that it sold slowly while Jeff was alive. It’s hard to explain to any Buckley haters just why he’s so brilliant, especially as he’s partly responsible for awful bands like Starsailor, Scott Matthews or even Muse, but if like me you are a fan, the tracks below from the Glastonbury show are absolutely essential.

Starting with a fantastic 9 minutes + version of ‘Dream Brother’ before going into ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’, Jeff and his band are on sizzling form. In amongst a mixture of released and unreleased songs they do theee heaviest version of ‘Eternal Life‘ you might ever hear. These 3 tracks are all here in crystal clear straight-off-the-mixing-desk quality. If you like them, any requests for the full show in the comments section will be dealt with ASAP. In the meantime, if you’re new to Plain Or Pan? you may not have discovered the other Jeff Buckley downloads here and here.

front cover artwork for the complete show

Hard-to-find

T’n’T @ KEXP

February 8, 2008May 25, 2012 Craig McAllister

If you’ve ever read this previous post, you’ll know how much I like Tapes ‘n’ Tapes. It’s been a while since they’ve done anything new. In fact, it’s been a while since they’ve done anything at all. Played a few shows across America maybe, but there’s not been much action this side of the world. So I got quite excited when I received one of the band’s emails saying they’d finished their 2nd album and were about to start touring it. Yeeha!

The following tracks are not new in any way, shape or form. I spent a few months and a few pennies (but not that much) on eBay last year tracking down the various singles, promos and odd releases that had slipped through my Tapes ‘n ‘ Tapes radar. If you have ‘The Loon’ do yourself a favour and download this wee selection of b-sides, session tracks and remixes to complete your collection. If you don’t have ‘The Loon’, why not? Try before you buy from the menu below, then go and buy ‘The Loon’.

1. Cowbell (KEXP session, previously only available as a free download.

Now it’s available as a, er, download again…for free…)

2. Jacov’s Suite (KEXP session, b-side of ‘Cowbell‘ CD single)

3. Omaha (KEXP session, b-side of ‘Cowbell‘ 7″ single)

4. Cowbell (Blackeyes Remix – Promo only release – rare as hens teeth)

These instruments below made that racket above

Hard-to-find

Well I might be the honky…..

February 2, 2008February 2, 2008 Craig McAllister

…..but I’m hung like a donkey. That’s my favourite Shaun Ryder lyric that is. I might be the honky, but I’m a gullible so and so, and don’t I know it. Amongst other albums, my recent music purchases have included the Deluxe Edition reissues of Happy Mondays ‘Bummed‘ and ‘Pills, Thrills & Bellyaches’. Now I own 3 versions of each – the original Factory Records vinyl, the original Factory CDs and now these London Records versions. Both are double CDs and are packed full of extra tracks, rare remixes, stuff that hasn’t been on CD before, the whole shebang. Well. ‘Bummed‘ is, anyway. ‘Pills, Thrills…‘ 2nd disc is a DVD of the band’s videos. Nice and all that, but for me ‘Bummed‘ is the far better one of the two to buy.

“On one, in one, doin’ one doin’ one doin’ one doin’ one and two and three…….

do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it

double-double good, double-double good.”

The extra tracks on ‘Bummed‘ capture a band at the height of their powers. Big enough for the good venues (Barrowlands) but not big enough that the neds were into them (a couple of years yet), Happy Mondays sound majestic, none more so than on the ‘Madchester Rave On’-era tracks. Occupying a place between the Martin Hannet productions of ‘Mad Cyril’, ‘Fat Lady Wrestlers’ et al and the LA Oakenfold sheen of ‘Step On’, ‘God’s Cop’ and the rest you get some fantastic scuzzy clattering industrial funk. ‘Holy Ghost’ sticks closely to the sound of ‘Bummed‘ – Ryder bawls some nonsensical, hard-to-decipher poetry, the scratchy guitar wouldn’t sound out of place in The Fall and a bucket full of reverb has been poured over the whole thing. But listen closely and you’ll hear some sort of bass sampler. The first sign of things to come. ‘Clap Your Hands’ is another belter, with some nice wonky sounding guitar all the way through it. If you’ve ever played through a Roland Jazz Chorus and had the tremelo setting on full you’ll know what I mean. ‘Spastic guitar’ my pal used to call it, but I don’t think you can really say that these days.

Still with us?

Good.

‘Wrote For Luck’ on Bummed is of course the standout track. You could be pendantic and say ‘Do It Better’ is right up there (and it is. So is ‘Performance’ – see this video on YouTube for proof), but ‘Wrote For Luck’ does it for me every time. This version (12″ b-side) takes the original and stretches it out to almost 6 minutes, adds some stabby keyboards, some cowbell-y percussion and invents that most horrible of genres, indie dance. Yes. Without this record there would have been no Farm, no Soup Dragons (they’d died a death in 1987 before the Happy Mondays arrived on the scene) and no sitting on the floor at indie discos to crappy James records. Arguably there’d have been no ‘Screamadelica’, no ‘Weekender‘ by Flowered Up and no ‘Joe’ by Inspiral Carpets either, but we’ll keep quiet about that. The 12″ version of ‘Wrote For Luck’ was bloody influential, no doubt about it.

I only saw the Happy Mondays once. It was in the Glasgow Barrowlands around Christmas 1990. The gig had originally been booked for Level 8 in Strathclyde Uni, but the band were far too big for that venue by the time December came round. Shaun sat on the drum riser for the whole show smoking endless amounts of Blackpool rock-sized spliffs, Bez did his dance and the whole building shook as we jumped up and down on the Barrowland’s sprung dancefloor as one. It was easily one of the most rock ‘n’ roll shows I’ve ever been too. I remember hearing the still-to-be-released ‘Hallelujah‘ with the piercing female vocals at the start played by the DJ before the band came on, and those of us with keen hearing getting down to these new sounds. This was pre ned fanbase Happy Mondays, and most of the crowd were probably ‘on one’. The atmosphere was magic. (Unlike the Stone Roses at Glasgow Green where I got punched in the face. But that’s another story). Here’s the ‘MacColl Mix’ of ‘Hallelujah‘. I’m not a big fan of Kirsty MacColl, in fact, I cannae really stand her, but this mix is my favourite. I love the way the guitar slides down and out of the guitar solo (around 1:56, if you’re still reading…)

The last track closes the gap between Bummed and ‘Pills ‘n’ Thrills..’ ‘Kilamenjaro‘ (or ‘Rave On’) has plenty of weird noises, plenty of rhythm, a wee bit of glockenspiel plonking around in the background, a killer guitar riff (again – what an under rated guitarist Cow was. Hated by his band mates as well) and a fantastic Shaun Ryder vocal. “We’ve got speed we’ll raise the crowd. Eat a magic boogie till we all black out.” What more d’you need?

Well, you might need this – extra bonus track – Happy Mondays ‘Wrote For Luck’ live at Brixton Academy 27th April 1999. ‘Bang Chitty Bang Bang! Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!’ It’s a belter. And you might need this – extra extra bonus track – Manic Street Preachers version of ‘Wrote For Luck’, with added super-horrible Slash-esque guitar solo, originally on the b-side of the red vinyl 7″ of ‘Roses In The Hospital’ if I recall. It sounds exactly like you remember/expect (delete as appropriate)

That was a big post today, as I’ve been busy at work, hence quiet on here. Normal regular blogging will resume over the next few days. Keep visiting!

*Extra extra extra bonus track – ‘Beyonce’s Twistin My Melon’ mash-up bootleg thang of ‘Step On/Crazy In Love’. Phew! I’m away for a beer. Happy downloading!

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)