Month: October 2010

Cover Versions, demo, Double Nugget, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

I Got 96 Tears and 96 Eyes*

Craig McAllister

Right from the off, with its rinky dink 2 note Vox Continental organ riff and garage backbeat, 96 Tears is just about the perfect record. Released in 1966 by ? & the Mysterians, it was one of those songs like Louie Louie or Wild Thing that went on to be recorded by everyone and anyone with a fuzz guitar and a hip ear to the underground. It has in its time gone on to sell over a million copies and had over 3 million airplays.


Not bad for a band of Mex-Americans from Michigan with a love of surf music and a well thought out marketing ploy – have an unusual name and an even more unusual singer. It might’ve helped record sales when their lead singer claimed to be a martian who had lived with dinosaurs in a past life. Yep. Or when he claimed to have visited other planets and periods in time. Uh huh. I once had a drama teacher who would say to the class, “I‘m going to turn my back and when I turn around again, I’ll be in character….(….pause….)…Beowulf!!!” Rudy Martinez must’ve been a bit liked this.  He never went out without his sunglasses and only answered to his chosen moniker ‘?’, rather than his given ‘Rudy’, the name his mother preferred to shout when he was listening to his Van Morrison and Them records too loudly. If you’ve ever heard a ? and the Mysterians album, you’ll know how much a debt they owe to wee Van. If not, the ‘96 Tears‘ or ‘The Action‘ albums are good places to start.

96 Tears features regularly when my iPod is on shuffle. Most days will see an appearance of one version or another pop up. I’ve got what seems like 96 versions of it, most fairly pointless faithful recreations of the garage stomping original (Hello, Stranglers! Hello Music Explosion! I’m looking at you, Inspiral Carpets! You built an entire (early) career out of its Nuggety groove.) There’s one or two that take the original and mess with it so much, it just seems like the’d recorded a few minutes of pointless FM static and looped it ad infinitum (Hey there Primal Scream! Stop hiding at the back Suicide – how apt a name.)  Favourites?  Todd Rundgren‘s lo-fi fuzz-bassed studio demo is right up there, Aretha Franklin‘s soulful and (at first unrecognisable) version from Aretha Arrives is classic Aretha, with an almost Respect-like backing. Big Maybelle‘s a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ version, all Stax-inspired southern soul groove, underpinned by clipped guitars and a (bold as) brass section first came to my attention on 6 Music’s excellent Craig Charles’ Funk & Soul Show and has been on constant rotation ever since. Then there’s Gerardo Manuel & El Humo‘s super-heavy epic prog rock take. Think Iron Butterfly on jellies. It’s a grower, trust me!

Go fill yer boots…

96 Tears – ? & the Mysterians

96 Tears – Big Maybelle

96 Tears – Aretha Franklin

96 Tears – Gerardo Manuel & El Humo

96 Tears – Primal Scream

96 Tears – Inspiral Carpets

96 Tears – Music Explosion

96 Tears – Todd Rundgren

*…and I can’t believe I don’t have/can’t find a version by The Cramps, so here‘s Human Fly, featuring the line in the title at the top.

Cover Versions, entire show, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Peel Sessions

David Gedge! 25 Years In the Business! Yay!

Craig McAllister

Keeping It Peel is the brainchild of the good persons over at Football And Music. To honour the memory of the late great John Peel, Football And Music has decreed October the 25th “a sort of John Peel Day, but for bloggers.” Like many of the blogs listed on the Blogroll down there on the right, I’m in. It seems the right thing to do – as a music-obsessed teenager I listened religiously, finger sweating on the ‘pause’ button of my music centre waiting patiently to catch and magnetise some of those brilliantly weird and parent-bothering new sounds floating through the ether and onto my crappy cheap Boots C90s. I quickly developed the skill of being able to depress the ‘pause’ button in that wee space just between JP stopping talking and the record starting. In hindsight, I wish I’d been less skillful, as I’d love to listen back to those old tapes and be able to hear some of what he was saying. I still have some of the tapes up the loft. I should really get them down and have a wade through them sometime. Y’know, without John  Peel etc etc blah blah blah…

So, what to post? Much of the stuff I enjoyed on the Peel Show (roughly about 3 records an hour if I’m being honest) ended up being the stuff recorded by my future favourite bands. You know who they are, they’re the same as yours. I could be wilfully obscure or wilfully elitist, but in keeping with the unpretentious nature of the band I’ve chosen to feature, I won’t. The ubiquitous Fall may be forever linked-uh with John Peel, but to me The Wedding Present are just as big a deal – he gave them plenty of opportunity to record sessions for his show and they seemed to appreciated the platform he afforded them. Peel’s listeners clearly appreciated them too – they had a massive 45 tracks included throughout the years in Peel’s Festive 50s, a feat only bettered by, aye, The Fall.  And besides, David Gedge is the nicest pop star I’ve ever met – you can read all about it here.

Fan snap shot of The Wedding Present, Glasgow Barrowlands

(you can tell by the white tiles on the ceiling) 1988

Their session from the 24th May 1988 is my favourite Wedding Present Peel Session. This is the sound of a band no longe ramshacklingly scrubbing tinny guitars with brillo pads and replaying the reults through cheap amplifiers. This is the sound of a band who’ve managed to recreate their favourite sounds of alt. America in their live set – low rumbling bass that sounds as if it’s balls have dropped, meatier guitars played through proper amplifiers; tight, taut, tense, terrific. They would later go on to replicate this sound on their masterpiece LP, major label debut Bizarro (aye, forget the George Best album. No tears now.)

The 24.5.88 session is almost the perfect session. As was often the norm at these sessions, the band recorded 3 brand spanking new songs and one sparkling cover version. Nowadays, those three spanking new songs would be all over the internet the moment the last screech of feedback had died out and would have been digested, discussed and dissected by chat boards from Bradford to Berlin and beyond before breakfast. In pre-internet days, the C90 and your ‘pause’ button were your only friends. Fearful of taking a toilet break (Misty In Roots was my calling card every time), you captured what you could and replayed it the next day and more until the tape started to sound a bit wonky. Over time of course, this only added to the charm of a clandestinely captured Peel Session. It was often something of a shock to hear the ‘new’ song for the first time on the band’s album and finds that it didn’t slow down and speed up during the last chorus. Kids today with their mp3s, huh? They don’t know what they were missing. The 4 tracks I captured in all their hissy glory?

  1. Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? (with ‘single‘ written through it like a stick of Blackpool rock, it was released on 7″ 4 months later. It even ended up being recorded and released in French)
  2. Unfaithful (workmanlike strumathon, eventually saw the light of day on the b-side of Kennedy (October 89 – Number 33  in the proper, real Hit Parade, pop pickers!)
  3. Take Me! (introduced by the DJ as Take Me, I’m Yours, released as Take Me! on Bizarro just under a year and a half later, this is a terrific indication of where the post George Best Wedding Present were heading (major labels, Steve Albini, America, Top of the Pops, my fanzine…))
  4. Happy Birthday (Altered Images cover, complete with Marilyn Monroe singing to JFK, “Happy Birthday Mr Pre.Si.Dent“. at the start)

Take Me, I’m Yours was my favourite. Over 8 minutes long, it featured an extended outro complete with Status Quo riffing, not the sort of thing expected from yer Wedding Present at all. The band must’ve been in on some Quo-related in-joke, for on Happy Birthday Gedge gleeefully shouts, “Status Quo, 25 years in the business!” and the band all cheer. It still tickles me today. The session tracks above are taken from my shiny, pristine Wedding Present Peel Sessions Box Set. Free of any FM hiss and missed guitar riffs they (cough…ahem) Present the Weddoes in the best possible way. I’m amazed that the Marilyn Monroe intro to Happy Birthday has been retained. I’d’ve thought that would’ve cost an arm and a leg to get the clearance for, perhaps even more than the expected return after selling however many copies of the box set they expected to sell. This music, after all, was recorded by a band who once sold a t-shirt proudly proclaiming in big black letters, ‘All The Songs Sound The Same‘. Who wants to sit through 12 John Peel Sessions over 6CDs in the one sitting? Only a fool. But a fool with particularly good taste.

The official Wedding Present website seems to be no more is here, and this excellent fan site has all you need and more. The image above, of David Gedge’s handwritten lyrics and guitar chords for Unfaithful and that shot of the band at the Barrowlands were taken from there. Thanks, Something And Nothing website!

*Bonus tracks!

Woah-woaw! Just cos it’s a cracker, here‘s The Wedding Present’s version of Orange Juice’s Felicity (Peel Session #1, 11th February 1986)

I used to have a few complete Peel Shows from the late 60s and early 70s which I’d have loved to make available for download here, but following the disaster that was the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2007, this is no longer possible. Instead, I offer you this – the complete 1971 David Bowie Peel Session. Some of this (crucially, not all of it) made it onto the Bowie At The Beeb CD set a few years back. Plenty of chat from Peel (and Bowie for that matter). Get it while you can.

Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

I’m Immortal

Craig McAllister

Forget your Abbacadabras, your He-Bee Gee-Bees, your Bootleg Beatles even, the real tribute to any act is surely the tribute single – a pastiche-like dedication of another’s love for their favourite artist.

Elvis Herselvis

One of the first must certainly be Janis Martin‘s 1956 hit single ‘My Boy Elvis‘. Janis was only 15 when she recorded this slice of schlockabilly rockabilly – “He’s off like a rocket and there he goes, he rocks from his head down to his toes, My Boy Elvis, Real Rock!” Sounding like it came  from a Sam Phillips session straight outta Sun Studios, Elvis was so impressed he sent her a big bunch of flowers. Not casting aspertions or anything, but Elvis was quite keen on the younger ladies, so there could well have been an ulterior motive in his Southern man’s kindly gesture. As young Janis herself sings,  “All the teeners stop and shout when they open the curtain and he walks out.” Indeed they did.

John Paul George Ringo & Dora

Y’know, in 9 weeks time Old Santa Claus himself will be popping down yer chimney. Given that the odd advert or two has sneaked under the radar and onto the TV, it seems only fitting that Plain Or Pan brings you the first Christmas download of the year. In 1963, cashing in on that new-fangled beat music thing all the youngsters were getting in a froth over, actress Dora Bryan recorded a somewhat novelty record, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle‘. Sung in mock-cockney and covered in BBC light entertainment syrupy strings, it‘s not the sort of record you’re likely to play ad nauseum. “Christmas comes but once a year, they’re really all the same. I never know just what I want, it really is a shame. Yesterday I saw something that is my pride and joy. I want it for Christmas….it’s a real live Liverpool boy!” You can probably guess the rest, although she never quite gets anything to rhyme with ‘Ringo’. It’s a curio all right,  best kept in that ‘Christmas Songs’ box you open but once a year if you’re lucky.

Not Dead Pop Stars

Much more up my alley (and yours too, you people of good good taste) is the post-punk pre-pop debut single by Altered Images, 1981’s ‘Dead Pop Stars‘. Atmospheric, spiky and proto-goth (aye!) it’s a mish-mash of all the great post punk bands of the day. 30 years later it sounds to me like the boys are trying hard at being Siouxsie’s Banshees while Clare Grogan spits most of the words like a stroppy Minnie Mouse version of PIL-era John Lydon. Which, it goes without saying, is fantastic. Ironically, the band got their break in 1980 after sending those very Banshees a tape and managed to blag a support slot on their Kaleidoscope UK tour. This video is from that very tour;

Incidentally…

  1. That blurry Polaroid of Altered Images live came from a brilliant fanziney website here. Worth 5 minutes of anyone’s time.
  2. Altered Images bass player Johnny McElhone holds some sort of record, having played in 3 different bands that have had Top 20 hits – Altered Images, Hipsway and Texas.
  3. The drummer in one of the later Altered Images line ups came into the Our Price shop I worked in one day. I didn’t know this until he asked to order an obscure Afrika Bambaataa 12″. “Why d’you want that?” I asked out of genuine interest. “Because he’s nicked my drums for it and hasn’t asked my permission!” “Oh, you’re a drummer…who for? etc etc” Nowadays he’s the guy who announces the passenger safety notice on the Ardrossan-Arran ferry. And that’s a fact!
Hard-to-find, studio outtakes

A Hunka Funkadelic

Craig McAllister

In Rolling Stone magazine’s uber-list of the Top 100 Greatest Guitar Songs Of All Time, sandwiched at number 60 between Jeff Beck’s Freeway Jam and Steve Cropper’s chops on Sam & Dave’s Soul Man you’ll find Eddie Hazel’s frazzled contribution to the title track of Funkadelic‘s Maggot Brain.

The (Maggot) brainchild of George Clinton, Funkadelic drew on music from every sphere, more often than not with electrifying results. Nothing was off-limits – when Clinton was in the studio cooking up his own particular blend of soup, into the pot would go 500ml of straight ahead doo-wop,  followed by 2 dessert spoonfuls of wild, freaked-out screaming guitar, a token pinch of acoustic balladeering and a generous dollop of gospel-tinged soul…often within the same song.

During the sessions for 1971’s Maggot Brain, George Clinton famously told guitarist Eddie Hazel to play as if he’d just found out his mother had died. For the next 10 minutes, Hazel wrung every drop of emotion from his guitar as Clinton manned the mixing desk, gradually fading out the rest of the band when he heard just how good the guitar playing was. While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and all that. It goes on and on. Self-indulgent and sustained by subtle Cry Baby wah, notes bend and vibrate, the whole thing ebbing and flowing, twisting and turning until Hazel finally goes and spoils it all by giving birth to the Red Hot Chili Peppers right there and then. He couldn’t know that at the time, of course, and Clinton, as much a visionary as he is, would’ve had no idea that his group of seriously funky black dudes would be the inspiration for some seriously flunky blank duds 20 or so years later.

Contrast and compare 2 versions of Maggot Brain: yer common or garden album version and yer original, un-faded mix, replete with random cymbal crashes, bass parts and the likes.

If you’ve never heard Funkadelic, Maggot Brain is a good starting point. Clinton’s kitchen sink mentality of flinging every possible musical genre into the mix and seeing what sticks is prevalent throughout. If you have heard Maggot Brain, you’ll know what I mean. But you might not have heard these tracks…

Whole Lot Of BS was the b-side of album single Hit It & Quit It.

I Miss My Baby was recorded at the Maggot Brain sessions.

I Call My Baby Pussycat (Is it funk? Soul? Retro-Hendrix riffing? Far-out gospel-tinged madness? Yes! Yes! Yes! And yes! From the America Eats Its Young album)

Like these? Seek out Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow. It’s even better than it sounds.

*Bonus Track!

In 1994 George Clinton got together with the post-Screamadelica Primal Scream. A good match, you’d think. The Clinton influence is clearly there – Funkadelic/Screamadelic – come on! and both artists have impeccable musical taste, but the results were a bit disappointing to these ears. Whereas Funkadelic were a black band who could play rock music, Primal Scream were a peely wally rock band who thought they could play black music. And there’s the difference. Funky Jam‘s not bad, but I doubt George Clinton rates it as highly as anything else in his unique catalogue of work.

Just to jab the eye of any doubters, Funkadelic even wrote a song called Who Says A Funk Band Can’t Play Rock? It‘s magic.  Bobby G has still to write the Primal Scream classic Who Says A White Band Can’t Play TotalPunkSoulFunkAcidHousePsychoGarageSpeedFreakbeatStoogesMC5StaxMotownCrampsnEddie CochranAwopbobaloobobawopbamboo. But he’d like to.

Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Most downloaded tracks, Studio master tapes, studio outtakes

Gold! (Gold!) Always Believe In Your Soul!

Craig McAllister

You’re indestructuh-buh-uhl etc etc.

The internet is full of gold. Look in the deepest, darkest corners and all sorts of fantastic stuff awaits you with a nod and a wink and a glad-you-found-me smile.  Without the internet, I wouldn’t have learned to dance like James Brown (thank you, You Tube). I’d never have seen Stevie Wonder doing Superstition on Sesame Street (Thanks again, You Tube). I’d never have heard those rip-roaring Sgt Pepper master tapes (still available here) that caused Plain Or Pan to go into some sort of meltdown for a few of days a couple of years ago.

One story goes that the record companies are all in a  panic over the state of many of the master tapes in their posession. The original tapes have over the years been rendered gossamer-light and wafer-thin through combinations of repeated reissues/remasters/remixes and plain old neglect. In an attempt to preserve these original recordings as best they can, the labels have started transferring the original master tapes onto digital files, where they can be kept box fresh for as long as they want (you’re indestructuh-buh-uhl and all that, or at least until someone discovers that digital files also have a sell-by date). Being made digital also means that as soon as they’ve been converted, some kind soul sticks one or two teasers out into the ether and stirs up a bit of a feeding frenzy amomgst yer more savvy downloaders. It would appear that none other than the good folks at Motown (yes!) have decided to preserve their archives in this way and, thank you Lord, someone has seen fit to leak some of these masters online. A year or so ago I posted the master tapes to Stevie Wonder‘s Superstition and Marvin Gaye‘s Heard It Through The Grapevine. If you liked them, you’ll love these…

A 15 year old Stevie Wonder belting out Uptight (Everything’s Alright) like his life depended on it.  Crystal clear with just a touch of reverb, this is the music-free vocal track. Comes complete with all the gaps and pauses for you to fill in the horn parts yourself. Listen out for his wee laugh when he cracks up towards the end. Gold!

Michael checks his latest royalty cheque. Older brother isn’t reading a text from Berry Gordy. It’s 1971.

What happened to Michael Jackson? I mean, what happened? When he died, the TV showed a brilliant black and white clip of The Jackson 5, young Michael at the front boppin’ and a-poppin’  in slow motion to this track. Here for you is the vocal-only track of an 11 year old (11 years old!) Michael Jackson singing I Want You Back with absolute total abandon. By the time he gets to the end, his voice has almost gone but he’s still going for it with those wee ‘uhs‘ and ‘huhs‘ that would later develop into crappy girly yelps. No wonder Jarvis Cocker kicked his arse all those years later. Gold!

I’ve posted Marvin Gaye studio stuff before, but never this. It’s only the vocal-only track of What’s Going On! Just Marvin double-tracked and duetting with himself through the slickest protest song ever written. The middle section where he scats and shoobee-do-bops is outrageous, something I’d never really noticed in the finished record, given that the middle part is packed full of sweeping strings, bongos and kitchen sinks full of Funk Brother riffs. Gold!

I’ve also posted versions of The Temptations‘ Papa Was A Rolling Stone before, but again, not this – the vocal-only track. Written by regular Motown producer Norman Whitfield, the vocal group didn’t really like his instrumentation. Vocalist Dennis Edwards didn’t like the autobiographical (he thought)/coincidental (Whitfield claimed) “...3rd of September” line, given that that was the day Edwards father had actually died. Whitfield made him sing the line time and time again until he got a take filled with the right amount of anger and frustration. I’m not sure who the dude doing the bass vocal part is, but be careful, he might just shake your fillings loose. Here too, is the vocal-only track of Ball Of Confusion. Gold x 2!!

Theres tons of this stuff out there. I probably should keep these back, there’s about a month’s worth of posts here….

The Spinners vocal take of the Stevie Wonder-penned It’s A Shame. Gold!

The Four Tops vocal take of Walk Away Renee. Gold!

The Velvelettes vocal take of Needle In a Haystack. The handclaps don’t stop from start to finish! Gold!

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles vocal take of Tears Of a Clown. Gold!

Diana Ross & the Supremes vocal take of Baby Love. Gold! (New link 15.10.10)