Just having a wee lie-in. I’ll be back on tip-top form soon as.
Month: May 2010
Plain Or Panache
This blog has something. The words? The music? I dunno, but it has something. Why? Because hits to the site are at an all-time high. It would appear that Plain Or Pan has become something of a phenomenon. Daily figures are rising. Incoming links are being pinged from all manner of websites. Heavy traffic (man) is visiting from places as far-flung as Sao Paolo, Aukland and Moscow. As the wee sidebar on the side says, truly Plain Or Pan-Global. What’s weird though is that the rise in popularity here is relative to the lack of new stuff I post. In other words, the less I write, the more hits I seem to get. Long may it continue…
This post is for all you new comers/late comers/returners. Take a look again at the wee sidebar on the left. Just below it you’ll notice the search facility. Use it! I get all sorts of emails from people everywhere requesting stuff that’s still available. If you go to the search bar and type in the artist or the song or any sort of key word relating to whatever it is you’re looking for, it’ll take you to it in a nano second. But you knew that already. Try it!
Every post since January 2007 has been preserved here. Sadly, some of the music has been deleted. Not by me – try typing ‘fascist internet police bastards who hack your account without your permission’ or something similar into ‘search‘ and you’ll find out why). But much of the music remains. Stuff that many of you may not know is there. So what follows are a few links to some of the better/more obscure/popular/whatever I fancy right now music I’ve put up over the years. Think of it a bit like one of those supermarket sweep trolley grabs, because once some of the tracks below get pinged around the world I expect those pesky internet police to come a-knockin’ on my virtual door once more. They may not be here for long folks. Go get ’em!
Johnny Marr‘s Dansette Delights. Johnny compiled a CD for Mojo magazine. Words here. Music here.
Elliott Smith‘s rare as you-know-what version of The Beatles ‘I’ll Be Back’. Music here.
Those Blur fanclub singles. I did a few posts in a series. Some, but not all, of the mp3s were removed. I try and put them back up when I notice they’ve gone. You can get the Sing (To Me) (demo) here. Words and other links here. Remember to use ‘search‘ or the Blur Fanclub Singles tag on the sidebar!
The Ronettes vocal track of ‘Be My Baby’. One of the most downloaded tracks….. ever! in the history of the internet. Possibly. Words here and here. Music here. (nb. Sadly, some of the other links in these posts have been deleted.)
Those 4 Beatles mastertapes that melted Plain Or Pan for a week in March 2008 are still up for grab! Words here. Music here – Sgt Pepper. With A Little Help from My Friends. A Day In The Life. She’s Leaving Home.
Talking of mastertapes…many of the original ones I put up (The Stones Gimme Shelter, Stevie Wonder’s Superstition, Marvin Gaye’s Grapevine) were removed. Some of the tracks however are still available on these excellent Best Of Plain Or Pan compilations. Here y’are….
Plain Or Pan (The First 2 Years In A Nutshell) Words and tracklistings here. Music here. And here.
Plain Or Pan (3rd Birthday) Words and tracklistings here. Music here. And here.
I could go on all night. Hopefully some of this stuff is new to you. If so, happy downloading. If not, try using ‘search‘. You never know what else lurks within….
Ciao!
Tunng In Cheek
Here’s a thing. Actually, you might be aware of this already, so if that’s the case bear with me. If not, prepare yourself for some startling music trivia.
I was listening to one of Dylan‘s Bootleg Series CDs while doing stuff around the house. It was the ’64 Philharmonic Hall one, where Joan Baez ruins everything by guesting on 4 or 5 tracks. Normally I tend to skip her. I cannae stand her voice or the way she calls him “Bobby Dylan” or the way she ruins a great song like ‘Mama You Been On My Mind’ with her high pitched harmonies, poor phrasing and wrong words.
I. Just. Cannae. Stand. Her.
And by all accounts, most of the time, Bobby couldn’t either.
(Caption Competition: ______________)
Because I was pottering roon the hoose yesterday, she managed to get past my Baez Detector and suddenly came bursting into earshot. And this is what I noticed….
She sang a version of old folk traditional Silver Dagger. No vocals by Dylan, though he plays along with some rudimentary, scrubbed acoustic guitar and wheezy harmonica. Other than that it’s Joan Alone and it stinks. But the melody was familiar. Very familiar. And then it dawned on me.
Saint Etienne have nicked it, note for note for their ‘own’ no. 47 in ’94 smash hit Like A Motorway.
A quick bit of googling proved me correct. The motorik thunk of Like a Motorway is indeed based on the melody of ancient 19th Century traditional song Silver Dagger. Not only that, but on parent album Tiger Bay, Saint Etienne seemingly based many of the songs around old folk melodies, beating forward-thinking modernist laptop folkies such as Tunng and Psapp by a good few years. I suppose that explains Tiger Bay‘s olde worlde ‘Welcome Bonny Boat’-inspired cover. But whodathunkit, eh?
Original
Cover version
Silver Dagger is currently doing the rounds in the form of a version by White Antelope. White Antelope is the side project of Fleet Fox Robin Pecknold. But you knew that already. His version is dynamite. One man, his delicately skipping guitar and a perfectly in tune reverb-soaked vocal.
Unlike Moany Joany, this boy can really sing. If you’re desperate to hear a Baez version you’ll have to look elsewhere I’m afraid. I’m not sullying this fine site with rubbish like that.
*Bonus Track!
Here’s Robin Pecknold/White Antelope giving Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe the full-on Fleet Foxes treatment. Stunning.
Robin Pecknold/White Antelope
Plain Or Pan 