Year: 2011

demo, studio outtakes

Swayed? Swoyed? Swede?

Craig McAllister

Oh no! It was always said swed. To rhyme with head. The posh folk rhymed it with played. “Swayed.” Showing off their general sophistication or something. London-centric media types such as yer Lamacqs rhymed it with played as well, but spoken like a yoof TV presenter it always came out as swoyed, innit? I am of course referring to Brett ‘n Bernard ‘n co’s Suede, hip young gunslingers (1992) who, with slinky, snake-thin Ziggy guitars and target-market grabbing daft quotes about being bisexuals who’ve never had homosexual experiences, were all the rage in those early 90s.

You’ll know the story. Justine from Elastica. Damon from Blur. Lovebites on the arse. In the olden days, middle class twats would have a duel, a stand-off with pistols at dawn. May the best man win and all that. Brett and Damon swung punches via well-chosen quotes in the NME and Melody Maker. Tough as nails I don’t think. A heavy air of pretentiousness hung over Suede with everything they did. Bernard seemed alright. So did the drummer. But that big, lanky, girly-looking dude, preening himself on the bass got me all annoyed just looking at him. And Brett thought he was intellectual. Cultured. Arty. Russian literature and Haydn concertos. Above you and me. Punchable is the word I’m looking for. Brendan from Teenage Fanclub used to call him Bert.

Despite the high level of wankiness in half the band, there weren’t half some decent tunes there. Metal Mickey. The Drowners. So Young. Animal Nitrate. All singles from the first album. The accompanying gigs (especially at King Tuts) were a right froth of excitement too. Indie rock classics for those in the know, fireworks on the fretboards, Bernard’s the new Johnny ‘n all that. But it’s the second album I like best. Dog Man Star is (aye) arty, pretentious and preposterously overblown. Recorded while the singer spent most of his time fried on acid, it’s the album where Bernard realised he couldn’t work with the rest of the band and chose to leave them half way through recording. Butler favoured a loose, experimental approach to his songwriting. 10 minute guitar solos. Tracks that could ebb and flow for 15 minutes. The rest of the band baulked at this idea. They saw themselves as a classic rock group, 3 minute singles ‘n all that.  Butler would eventually be replaced in classic Jim’ll Fix It style by a 17 year old fanboy who could play all his parts note for note.  But despite all the background chaos, Dog Man Star is very much the band’s meisterwerk.

Why? It’s got the fuggy, druggy thunk of Introducing The Band on it. It’s got The Asphalt World. All 9+ minutes of it, ridiculous ‘ecstasy and arse-felt world‘ lyrics ‘n all. It’s got the glam-stomp ‘n whammy-barred pomp of This Hollywood Life on it. It’s got We Are The Pigs, the closest cousin to any of those fizzing singles from the first LP. It’s also got The Wild Ones, the best Suede tune bar none. Even Bert would agree with me on that one. It’s a classic mix of Butlerisms on the guitar – simple pull-on, pull-of chords joined together by as many notes as can be fitted in the space allowed and Anderson’s understated, almost crooned baritone. It starts simple enough then rises and rises to epic proportions, finishing in a fade out of despair (and judging by the demo, it was always meant to be. It arrived fully formed and everything). It’s soul music, Jim, but not as we know it. It doesn’t matter what you think of Suede as people, if you don’t like The Wild Ones there’s simply no hope for you. Away and listen to Pearl Jam instead.

Have a listen:

The Wild Ones (album version)

Ken (The Wild Ones four track demo)

The Wild Ones (unedited version)

*Bonus Track!

Standalone widescreen epic Stay Together was released betwixt and between those first 2 albums. The band instantly hated it. For what it’s worth, I’ve always liked the ridiculous grandeur of it all, as did apparently many others who helped make Stay Together Suede’s highest ever chart placing (number 3, pop pickers).

Back together, it seems.

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten

Puir Amy

Craig McAllister

She had it all, she threw it away. Like one of those comets that comes blazing across the Earth every coupla hundred years, its tail fizzing slowly to a burnt out nothing. Then gone. Her ‘advisors’ no doubt loved it as the car crash unfolded around her. Was it Malcolm McLaren that coined the phrase Cash From Chaos? The skunk, the skank, the short short skirts, she wisnae the new Billie or Nina or Etta. She was the first Amy, all back-combed beehive and body art. Unreliable yet unconditional. Unable yet unbelievable.

Russell Brand has said it best so far. Read his words then listen to her duet with Paul Weller on Don’t Go To Strangers, a brilliant piece of Stax-inspired southern soul that Russell refers to in his eulogy.

Small in frame, massive in voice. Amy Winehouse, you’ll be missed.

Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – Alan McGee

Craig McAllister

Six Of The Best is a semi-regular feature that pokes, prods and persuades your favourite bands, bards and barometers of hip opinion to tell us six of the best tracks they’ve ever heard. The tracks could be mainstream million-sellers or they could be obfuscatingly obscure, it doesn’t matter. The only criteria set is that, aye, they must be Six of the Best. Think of it like a mini, groovier version of Desert Island Discs…

Number 7 in a series:



Most readers on here need no introduction to Alan McGee. A genuine indie rock svengali, a cross between Andy Oldham (the schemes), Andy Warhol (the dreams) and Andy Cameron (the fitba team), I’d wager that most visitors here own records made possible mainly by him and put out on his Creation Records imprint. Originally more excess than success, it’s amazing that Creation achieved anything at all, but they did, with a style and a swagger to boot -“Bobby the anchor….the star who attracted people there, Liam and Noel the goal scorers.” 

August 1983 saw the release of CRE001, ’73 in ’83 by The Legend! Assorted singles by The Jasmine Minks, The Pastels, The Loft and The Jesus & Mary Chain followed, but it wasn’t until the cash registers started ringing to the sounds of the debut album by The House Of Love that the label started to take itself seriously. When they weren’t releasing landmark LPs like Screamadelica and Definitely Maybe, they were championing the experimentalism of Giant Steps by the Boo Radleys and the pervy dance-pop of Momus, all the while nurturing a whole host of white hot guitar bands. It’s easy to reel off long lists of the bands that have blazed a trail in retro-inspired guitar-based rock, but you know all the important ones anyway. You’ll also know that a huge number of them released records on Creation, not bad considering “half these bands were found in pursuit of female“. Throughout the 90s especially, Creation Records was the hippest, most influential label in UK music. When they weren’t down with the kids they were down in Downing Street, SWAT teams and all, unwitting leading lights of the horribly-monickered champagne ‘n charlie Brit Pop era. Apparently McGee spent most of the night keeping an eye on Mick Hucknall because “he was chasing everything that was blonde in the room.”

Where’s Mick?

When I was about 15 I had a copy of Psychocandy that I’d taped after borrowing the LP from Irvine Library. It was played to death, so much so that the tape eventually loosened and stretched and made the guitars sound even more out there and other-worldly. Guitars that had once sounded like glass smashing now sounded like my gran’s ancient Hoover. The Wall Of Sound-on-cheap-speed thunk of Bobby Gillespie’s drums began to sound as if Phil Spector himself had recorded them through one giant phaser in qaudrophonic sound. I eventually bought the LP. And the CD later on. I’ll also be buying the Deluxe Edition when it gets released in September this year. And they said home taping was killing music….

When My Bloody Valentine released Loveless in 1991 I started to wonder if that same TDK hadn’t somehow fallen into the hands of Kevin Shields, given that much of the guitar sound on Loveless sounded exactly like the wonky version of The Hardest Walk that was on my Jesus & Mary Chain tape.  Quite ridiculous all things considered, given that some estimates suggest Kevin Shields spent a quarter of a million pounds almost bankrupting Creation whilst trying to perfect the sounds in his head. “Son, I think your tape player’s broken,” laughed an old lady at the bottom of the shop as I stood playing it on the counter one day in Our Price. “Where’s your Daniel O’Donnell?”

Thankfully, there’s no Daniel O’Donnell in Alan’s Six Of the Best….

Sex Pistols – God Save The Queen

It speaks for itself.

 

Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith/Sonic’s Rendezvous Band – City Slang

Best ever punk rock single.

 

The Clash – Complete Control
Their best-ever single.

 

Primal Scream – Loaded

It changed Creation and it changed our lives.

 

The Rolling Stones – Sympathy For The Devil

It defines rock ‘n roll.

 

The Beatles –Hey Jude

Beyond criticism.

Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get Alan McGee’s here.

Save for being something of a mentor to Glasvegas (read here) and DJ-ing now and again in his local pub, McGee has given up on music, moved out of London and into the Welsh countryside and spends his days listening to The Beatles. For a while he wrote a McGee on Music column for The Guardian and he ran the Death Disco club nights, but it looks like he’s stopped them too. Content to watch from afar as his most important bands become something of a tribute act (come on down, Primal Scream. And bring that tour with you), his whole hedonistic trip is chronicled in recent Creation Records film Upside Down. Seek it out. You’d like it. But you knew that already.

*Bonus Tracks!

Creation Records took their name from 60s garage band The Creation, who released Biff! Bang! Pow!, a terrific Who-esque mod-stomper of a record. Alan McGee formed a band called Biff, Bang, Pow! who released There Must Be A Better Life (on Creation Records), a slice of none-more-mid 80s indie with elastic band bass and far too much reverb on the snare drum. And talking of none-more-mid 80s indie, The Pooh Sticks recorded I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well. But you’ll have to track down that particular novelty ditty for yourself.

One whole bit about Creation Records and no mention of The Greatest Creation Band In The World….Ever? That would be Teenage Fanclub if you don’t know already.

Creation was here

(Photo nicked from McMark, cheers!)

Coming next in this series –

Six Of the Best from Gruff Rhys (eh, hopefully….)

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find, Peel Sessions

Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Craig McAllister

(and I’m talkin’ about my g-g-g-generation)

It’s 1989 and I’m sitting in my bedroom, pleased as punch that I’ve managed to de-press ‘pause‘ on the tape deck of my music centre at the exact moment The Wedding Present launch into their final song in yet another brilliant Peel Session. It’s a rattlin’, clatterin’ version of Altered Images’ perennial classic Happy Birthday (hear it here), and during a breakdown in the middle section David Gedge gleefully shouts, “Status Quo, 25 years in the biz-ness!” and the band “Yay!” back at him with hardly disguised irony. Old farts still churning out the same 3 chord nonsense to the same set of hairier, older fans. Roll over lay down grandad and let the young team through.

It’s 2011 and I’m sitting at my computer, pleased as punch that I’ve managed to get this blog somewhat back on track after a couple of months of having more important stuff to do. I’m researching some things for possible inclusion when I stumble upon the fact that 25 years ago this month (July 1986), the New Musical Express released C86, the now seminal cassette that featured a compilation of tracks by 22 staunchly independent bands du jour. Released being the key word here – despite 3 weekly music papers, no-one felt the need to give anything away for free. C86 could only be bought by mail order, whic thousands of alternative music fans did. Although I didn’t. I paid 50p for mine at a record fair in Kilmarnock a few years later. I still have the tape somewhere and after a bit of poking around I turn it up.

And whadayaknow? Track 1, side1? It’s only Primal Scream, still going strong after all these years. Last track, side 2? Why, it’s only little David Gedge with his Wedding Present, also still going strong after all these years – Yay! Twenty five years in the biz-ness indeed.  Aye, so Primal Scream have seamlessly tripped their way through just about every sub-genre known to even the most trainspottery of musicologists, but there is still a band called Primal Scream who release records today, much like the Primal Scream who recorded Velocity Girl all those years ago (did the Stone Roses really rip it off for Made Of Stone? You decide). And The Wedding Present nowadays is a very different proposition to the band of George Best and all that jazz. Indeed, with the exception of the boy Gedge, the current line-up look like they’d have been playing pin the tail on the donkey at a jelly and ice-cream birthday party around the time C86 was made, but nonetheless The Wedding Present are still going strong. They even recently toured the Bizarro album again. What was that about old farts still churning out the same 3 chord nonsense to the same set of hairier, older fans? I love them, though. But you knew that already.

Most of the bands on C86 didn’t last a quarter of a century. Half Man Half Biscuit are still around – Yay! and Stephen Pastel can often be spotted still sporting the same dufflecoat, no matter the weather,  in whatever part of Glasgow is deemed to be hippest that week. Thankfully the others could spot a shelf life when they saw one –  in perhaps the same way that Spitfire and Shed 7 would be considered ‘important’ to musical heritage a decade later (ie, not at all important), Stump and Bogshed were maybe just about alright for the times and didn’t hang around too long afterwards. C86 became a lazy adjective for Steve Lamacq to use when describing under-achieving bands with bowl cuts, beads and a Byrdsian bent to their guitars. Which is more than a bit unfair, as to these ears, C86 had no actual defining sound. D’you know that smell you get when you walk past a group of 18/19 year old boys, all done up in their smart/casual gear and off to the local nitespot? A heady mix of Diesel, Dior and Davidoff that smells nothing like the sum of its parts? C86 is a bit like that. Aye, there’s floppy fringes and feyness ahoy, but there’s also experimentalism, big beats and the sort of music that was impossible to pigeonhole in 1986. The aesthetic of C86 was very much “we do this for ourselves and if anyone else likes it it’s a bonus“.

It was a movement, perhaps the twee-est, tamest of all youth movements, that was more about acne than anarchy, eczema than ecstasy, but it was a generation’s calling card, played out in the wastelands betwixt and between punk and house music, filling the void until the next proper movement arrived. We could do with that now. A proper musical movement to tease us, please us, invigorate and inspire.  Or maybe we have.  Is it Mumford & Sons & assorted pals pseudo folkest posho raggle taggle? Is it the skinny-jeaned and pointy-boots brigade from East London? Is it ‘mon the Biffy? I dunno. Maybe I’m one of the old farts. Actually, I know I am. Roll over lay down and all that, the young team are coming through….

In the meantime, dig out yer pipe and slippers, settle down in the rocking chair and crank up the old music centre. Here‘s C86 in all it’s itchy ‘n scratchy, low-fi, badly produced glory:

Side one

  1. Primal Scream – “Velocity Girl”
  2. The Mighty Lemon Drops – “Happy Head”
  3. The Soup Dragons – “Pleasantly Surprised”
  4. The Wolfhounds – “Feeling So Strange Again”
  5. The Bodines – “Therese”
  6. Mighty Mighty – “Law”
  7. Stump – “Buffalo”
  8. Bogshed – “Run to the Temple”
  9. A Witness – “Sharpened Sticks”
  10. The Pastels – “Breaking Lines”
  11. Age of Chance – “From Now On, This Will Be Your God”

Side two

  1. The Shop Assistants – “It’s Up to You”
  2. Close Lobsters – “Firestation Towers”
  3. Miaow – “Sport Most Royal”
  4. Half Man Half Biscuit – “I Hate Nerys Hughes (From The Heart)”
  5. The Servants – “Transparent”
  6. The Mackenzies – “Big Jim (There’s no pubs in Heaven)”
  7. Big Flame – “New Way (Quick Wash And Brush Up With Liberation Theology)”
  8. Fuzzbox – “Console Me”
  9. McCarthy – “Celestial City”
  10. The Shrubs – “Bullfighter’s Bones”
  11. The Wedding Present – “This Boy Can Wait”

*Bonus Tracks!

Musical karma chameleons Primal Scream have been through more changes than a (insert your own metaphor here).

Here‘s their stompin’ version of the Small Faces’ Understanding, featuring yer actual PP Arnold on vocals. And here‘s the Weatherall remix of Uptown, all 9 and a half minutes of struttin’ 70s dub disco and Chicago house – Hey, there’s about 3 movements right there in the one record! Beat that, kids.

*Extra Reading!

There was a good article here in The Quietus from a few months ago about the genesis of C86. Worth 5 minute of anyone’s time.

Hard-to-find, New! Now!, Sampled

Cult Heroes

Craig McAllister

It’s midway through the year and round about now the movers, shakers and self-appointed hipsters in the music press like to sort out the wheat from the chaff in an early attempt to predict what will become the all important ‘Album of the Year‘, just so they can say “told you so!” in December. It’s ridiculous to even try and suggest such a  thing – one man’s meat is another’s poison and all that, and who really cares anyway?, but for what it’s worth,  if you were to ask me, an early contender for such a title would surely go to solo Super Furry Gruff Rhys for his Hotel Shampoo LP.

Had it been released under the Super Furry Animals banner it would have been frothed over by superlative-filled foaming-mouthed sychophants falling over themselves in praise of yet another Super Furry masterpiece, but I can’t help thinking that it somewhat crept under the radar. Investigate it now – here‘s the opening track Shark Ridden Waters. Seagull noises and bursts of foreign TV shows doused with a liberal sprinkling of Gruff Rhys melody, all underpinned by the most fruggable bassline since Peter, Bjorn & John’s Young Folks.  Good, eh? And that wee fade out at the end, the ‘there’s no use cryin’, no use tellin’ me how much you’ve changed‘  part gets me every time. Sounds like it’s been sampled from something too, but I can’t place it. Any ideas? Oh, and talking of samples…….

Super Furry Animals’ The Man Don’t Give A Fuck takes the sweary part from Steely Dan‘s Showbiz Kids, loops it over 50 times and creates a fantastic record full of fuzz guitars, sleigh bells, Beach Boys-style doo-wop backing vocals and Glitter Band stomping drums that builds and builds and builds until it falls spectacularly in on itself. But you knew that already. You may also know that it was recorded at the same sessions that produced the bulk of debut LP Fuzzy Logic and was earmarked as a b-side (only a b-side!!) to If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You. Failing to get sample clearance in time put the kybosh on that idea, however, but thankfully the SFA persevered until Steely Dan gave them the OK to release it as a standalone single – in return for 95% of the track’s royalties, an arrangement Gruff Rhys was more than happy with, given that a record featuring such nonchalant use of the ‘f-word would hardly trouble the playlists of the nation’s radio stations. And just in case it did somehow set the charts alight, the band deleted the single one week after its release, making it instantly collectable to those (like me) who care about such trivialities.

The sleeve of The Man Don’t Give A Fuck featured a picture of Cardiff City’s Robin Friday flicking the V’s to the Luton Town goalie of the day (see full picture below). Friday seems to have been cut from the same cloth as George Best – at his peak in the mid ’70s Friday was a free-scoring player both on and off the pitch, and was just as famous for his smoking, drinking and drugging exploits as he was for his womanising. A bit like any number of modern day players really, but without the kiss-and-tells in the News Of The World. Or, in Rio Ferdinand’s case, the free-scoring on the pitch part. Allegedly.

As Paolo Hewitt and Guigsy (from Oasis) wrote in the single’s  sleevenotes…

Robin Friday was a nonconformist and lived every second of his life with an intensity that burned for all to see. Friday not only flicked V signs at goalies who stood no chance against his prowess but he flicked V signs at anyone who tried to tame him. He was the superstar of the suburbs, the one who made George Best look like a lightweight.

Indeed. He once kicked Mark Lawrenson in the face, something that many of you here would no doubt jump at the chance of doing too. Perhaps that’s why Lawrenson now speaks in that ridiculous singsong school girly voice? Who knows, but surely after reading the sleevenotes above, the question on everyone’s minds is now, “How much of that did Guigsy write?”

*Bonus Track!

No bonus tracks as such. The 2 additional remixes on the MDGAF single were rather lacklustre beats ‘n bangs ‘n clatters mixes that just about survived one whole play before being filed away for 15 years. I’ve just played them for the 2nd time ever whilst writing this and honestly, you never need to hear them. But I’ve featured loads of Super Furry Animals before –  I’m particularly proud of the hidden tracks article I wrote a couple of years ago. For anything else, use the ‘Search‘ facility!

Get This!, Hard-to-find

Stoned Love. On and on and on and on.

Craig McAllister

Sometimes it’s not about the hard-to-find, the rare, the obscure, the long-forgotten must-have on that uber-hip label. Nope. Sometimes it’s the simple things. The sun comes out, a smile breaks out and you need to state the bloody obvious – She Bangs The Drums by The Stone Roses is magic. And so were the b-sides.

The Stone Roses were the soundtrack to my summer of 1989, but if you’ve been here before you’ll know that already. She Bangs The Drums was released right at the height of the baking hot summer (if memory serves me correctly) and in discography terms is the middle cog in a great run of 1! 2! 3! singles, sandwiched between the band’s first great single, Made Of Stone and the band’s last great single, Fools Gold. She Bangs The Drums is unashamed pure pop, guitar-driven and saccharine sweet with a great pay -off line in the vocals.

“Kiss me where the sun don’t shine. The past is yours but the future’s mine…you’re all out of time.”

Aye, The Stone Roses came from Manchester, but they despised the city’s musical legacy. They hated The Smiths and they would never have dreamed of signing for Factory. So what if their youthful arrogant streak wore off on certain other monobrowed bands of the locality, at that moment in time The Stone Roses were the greatest thing on the planet. They were my Beatles and my Stones and by the time of Fools Gold they were my Family Stone too.

 

 

She Bangs The Drums was released at a time when vinyl was king (“I can feel the earth begin to move, I feel my needle hit the groove” and all that), when bands thought carefully about what to put on the b-sides and is a perfect summation of all The Stone Roses stood for at that time. Guitar riffs, fantastic drumming, those whispered vocals (thankfully not as out of tune as they usually were in the live setting). The other tracks are just as good.

Mersey Paradise with its see-sawing 12 string chiming guitars, tambourines on hi-hats and a terrific “oh yeah..!” whispered vocal break in the last chorus would’ve made a great single in itself, but clearly the self-belief in the band at this time was such that they could stick a song like Mersey Paradise on a b-side. Plus, they were working up to Fools Gold which is much better.

Standing Here took up all of the second side of the 12″. It was pure proto-Hendrix, all squealing guitars, feedback and riffs! riffs! riffs! before falling apart into a coda that ebbed and flowed like the California surf itself. For a while it was my party piece. My crappy electric guitar would feedback brilliantly whenever I held a particular note on the 13th fret and I could replicate the intro pretty faithfully. I never did master the wee incidental riffs behind the vocals though.

Simone was the extra track on the CD single. It’s one of those backwards sound collage thingys that John Squire was fond of putting together, where he takes a standard Stone Roses track, plays it backwards through the mixing desk and adds all manner of stuff on top. Simone takes the backing track for the relatively obscure Where Angels Play (released on the Australian version of the I Wanna Be Adored single) and builds it into something of an ambient oddity. The pinnacle of this aproach is, of course, Don’t Stop, the backwards version of Waterfall that’s on the debut album. All the rage for listening to whilst on whatever you were on in the second summer of love.

Bonus track!

Something I’ve meant to do for ages! I took Simone, reversed it using Audacity, et voila! The instrumental version of Where Angels Play, with added whoosing noises and general pseudo-psychedelic tomfoolery. Who needs John Leckie?

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, studio outtakes

Hey Hey Hey Hey Double Whammy

Craig McAllister

Three weeks. Three weeks since I’ve put electric pen to electric paper on Plain Or Pan. In fact, you could make that three weeks and counting, as I don’t know when I’ll be able to dedicate the necessary time required to liven things up round here. Six of the Best with Alan McGee? It’s a work in progress – honest! Real work and all that that entails has kept me ridiculously busy recently and will do for the next couple of weeks at least. But while I’ve some breathing space I thought I should blow away some of the dusty cobwebs that are starting to gather in the deepest corners of the blog.

Hey Hey Hey Hey was originally on the b-side of Little Richard‘s Good Golly Miss Molly, way back in Nineteen Hundred and Fifty Eight. It comes at you like a runaway train, all pounding piano and breathless high-camp vocal hysterics from The Queen of Rock ‘n Roll (Elvis was The King – you gotta have a Queen, right?) It’s ridiculous, overblown and absolutely fantastic. Here‘s one take with a false start. And here‘s the master take. Good, eh?

The Jim Jones Revue are the MC5 in collapsed quiffs. They sound like a mixture of greasy spoon cafes and sweat, and their take on Hey Hey Hey Hey is a right royal ramalama of screamin’ and a-hollerin’ and needles-in-the-red distortion. I think you’ll like it. They also did an outrageous version of Good Golly Miss Molly. Here it is. I think you’re more than familiar with the original though…

Back soon!

 

Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – Kris Needs

Craig McAllister

Six Of The Best is a semi-regular feature that pokes, prods and persuades your favourite bands, bards and barometers of hip opinion to tell us six of the best tracks they’ve ever heard. The tracks could be mainstream million-sellers or they could be obfuscatingly obscure, it doesn’t matter. The only criteria set is that, aye, they must be Six of the Best. Think of it like a mini, groovier version of Desert Island Discs…

Number 6 in a series:

Sole Brother!

Kris Needs is, amongst many other things, a jammy b’stard. He seemed to fall feet first into the first chaotic strains of punk rock filtering from across the Atlantic, rode the crest of the wave and survived with a headful of stories that would sound so far fetched if you didnt know he had actually been there, seen it and done it all. Twice. He’s also a fantastic music writer. Being one of the first UK writers on the scene, he found himself in the company of yer actual Ramones, Talking Heads and, perhaps most heart-stoppingly of all (for me at least), Blondie. In true Jim’ll Fix It style, if he wasn’t in the dressing room arranging set-lists for Blondie shows, he was being caught in compromising situations with la Harry herself.

He regularly dispatched writings from the trenches of the punk wars in the pages of Zig-Zag magazine, Pete Frame’s (he of Rocks Family Trees fame) slightly proggy publication that Needs transformed into the punk bible when he took charge of it in Year Zero itself (1977, if you need to ask). Writing about the music and the people who made it wasn’t enough for Kris though, and he went all out to live the same life as some of his famous subjects; dancing, dabbling and dicing with death like the best of them. If you can track it down (it’s currently out of print, I think) you can read all about the up(per)s ‘n down(er)s  in Kris’s life in his  excellent book Needs Must.

These days, Kris is perhaps best known as a DJ. He often warmed the crowd up before Primal Scream shows. In fact, it seemed that every time I saw Primal Scream between 191 and 1995, Kris was on the decks.  I was one of many in a boggle-eyed crowd who had my ears and mind blown open by a suitably terrific playlist one memorable Barrowlands gig,  when he mixed Prince (Gett Off! 23 positions in a one night stand!“) into George Clinton’s Atomic Dog (“Hey – that’s the Snoop track!”) into the Stones. And none o’ yer 60s too cool for school Stones or yer Suckin’ in the Seventies Stones at that. No! It was the none-more-80s Undercover Of The Night uber-disco Stones, with the phased ‘n flanged  Keith klang giving us the perfect accompaniment to our night out. I went back home that night and nicked my Dad’s LP, carefully slotting it into the vinyl collection like it had always been there (“….yeah, I’ve always liked Undercover, actually…“)

Kris is very much still DJing. Along with his wife he hosts a weekly show on online radio station Fnoob. Judging by last week’s playlist, he’s still every bit as eclectic too. He also compiles an assortment of achingly cool compilations, including 2 volumes of Dirty Water – The Birth of Punk Attitude – a good beginners guide to essential US garage rock. You’ll pay around £10 each for Volume 1 and Volume 2 from Amazon. Even more impressively, Kris is responsible for a compiling a historical six volumes of the New York music scene. Volume 1 of Watch The Closing Doors: A History of New York’s Musical Melting Pot is released in about a month’s time. As Kris says,

“I first became fascinated with New York City in the 60s through Dylan’s early albums and Phil Spector’s girl group sound spearheaded by the Ronettes, further stoked by anarcho-poets the Fugs and wild side narratives of the Velvet Underground. The 70s saw Latin hot sauce, before the whole CBGBs-fostered punk invasion and the parallel disco explosion plus, it has to be said, gritty TV programmes like Kojak adding fuel to a burning desire to experience New York’s evident buzz for myself. The early 80s erupted in a post-disco boogie wonderland, which couldn’t help spilling into post-punk’s wildly-disparate innovations and the hiphop explosion.”


Now that reads a wee bit like a manifesto for Plain Or Pan if you ask me! You can read more about it here. And I’m sure Kris would love it if you followed that same link and placed a pre-release order for it too. Whatchawaitinfor? Go! Go! Go! While you’re waiting for it to drop through your letterbox, why not indulge yourself with a small selection of Kris’s favourite tracks.

Here’s Kris’s Six Of The Best:

Velvet Underground – Sister Ray
Ultimate speed-thrash gonzo noise-fest.

Jimi Hendrix – Machine Gun
Still jawdroppingly untouchable; his greatest guitar solo.

Rolling Stones – Midnight Rambler
The live version – Jagger at his most satanic, Keith on fire.

The Clash – Train In Vain
Watched Mick sing this and London Calling was finished.

Primal Scream – Jailbird
Reminds me of the most uproariously brilliant year of my life.

Suicide – Dream Baby Dream
Possibly the most gorgeous love song of all time.

Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get Kris Needs’ here.

Bonus Tracks!

Talking of Primal Scream….and DJing….and Jailbird……here‘s Kris‘s own 10 and a half minute (!) Toxic Trio Stay Free mix of Jailbird. It sounds just like you’d expect it to.

Recorded at the Moonlight Club on April 2nd 1980, here‘s Joy Division doing their assault ‘n battery take on Sister Ray, at 7 and a half minutes it’s a mighty 10 minutes shorter than the Velvets’ original.

Coming next in this series –

Six Of the Best from Alan McGee.


Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – Gideon Coe

Craig McAllister

Six Of The Best is a semi-regular feature that pokes, prods and persuades your favourite bands, bards and barometers of hip opinion to tell us six of the best tracks they’ve ever heard. The tracks could be mainstream million-sellers or they could be obfuscatingly obscure, it doesn’t matter. The only criteria set is that, aye, they must be Six of the Best. Think of it like a mini, groovier version of Desert Island Discs…

Number 5 in a series:

Gideon Coe is a triple Sony Award-winning DJ who currently spins the wheels of steel from Monday till Thursday on BBC 6 Music between 9.00 and midnight. He’s also (cough) what could loosely be termed as a celebrity Trashcan Sinatras’ fan. But you knew that already. You will also probably know that Gideon’s show is quite excellent. Much like a metaphor for BBC 6 Music itself, there’s a very high quality control mechanism in place and any time I switch on Gideon’s show I know that I’m going to like (and quite possibly own) whatever record Gideon’s playing, or at the very least, the next one that comes along. Gideon’s show sounds a bit like my iPod on shuffle – there’s a heady mix of the old and the new – it’s the kind of place where you’re as likely to find Beach House as the Beach Boys and the latest hip new thing sandwiched betwixt and between the broadcast of a listener-recommended vintage Peel Session and a Live In Concert special straight out of 1972. On any given night I’ll re-discover some long-forgotten indie guitar track from the days when I had a 28″ waist or I’ll hear something by a new band that makes me think, “Oh! Not all new music sounds like everything I’ve heard already,” or he’ll play a stone-cold accepted classic that reminds me exactly why that tune has come to be accepted as a stone-cold classic. If this brief introduction has whetted yer whistle, you can listen to the latest shows here.

Gideon’s Six Of The Best list could well be a mini tracklisting from any one of his shows. Over to the man himself…….

Off the top of my head:

Aretha Franklin – It’s faultless. It’s Perfect. (It’s ‘Say A Little Prayer‘, even though Gideon forgot to mention that bit!) And the final refrain where the “For Ever”s build is my favourite bit on any record ever.

The Clash – ‘If Music Could Talk’. ‘Sandinista’ is the best Clash album by some distance. And the rest are pretty good too. Much like the rest of the record it’s meandering and delightful.

Go Betweens – ‘Cattle and Cain’. Whatever the time-sig is on this, it works. Grant McLennan and Robert Forster are two of the best songwriters of the last 30 years.

The Blue Nile – ‘Easter Parade’. It’s raining and I’m 17 years old and I know this record will haunt me forever.

Midlake – ‘Branches’. ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’ is my favourite record of the past 10 years and this slightly odd song has the most beautiful of all choruses.

Bob Dylan/Johnny Cash – Girl From the North Country. My first introduction to both of them. The greatest ramshackle duet ever recorded.

A mighty fine list I’m sure you’ll agree. Want more? Course you do! Gideon talks about more of his favourite records and gigs here.

Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get Gideon Coe’s here.

*Bonus Track!

Here‘s another version of the greatest ramshackle duet ever recorded. Even looser, rougher and ragged than the officially released version, it finds Bob ‘n Johnny vocally jousting with one another, seemingly finding it difficult to sing the same lyric and fumbling for a place where the harmonies fit. It’s taken from the Dylan/Cash Sessions bootleg that’s easily findable in all the right corners of the internet and was recorded at CBS Studios in Nashville, February 1969 as part of Dylan’s Nashville Skyline album sessions. It’s only a short while since a pill-popping, motorcycle crashin’ Dylan had taken himself (quite literally) off the road, burnt out and spent, yet here he was recording sweet songs of love about long lost sweethearts and pie (yeah!). Dylan himself has attributed his unusual nasal whine on the album to the fact that he’d just given up smoking. And probably heroin. But that was kinda hushed up at the time. Anyway you look (or listen) to it, Girl From the North Country is one of Bob’s best. Good call Gideon.

I’m now off to re-acquaint myself with Sandinista! I can usually never get past Super Black Market Clash when I need a Strummer fix.

Coming next in this series –

Six Of the Best from Kris Needs.

Get This!, Sampled

Heavy Soul

Craig McAllister

Just the one track for now, but it’s a belter. I first heard How You Like Me Now? by The Heavy on Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show one Saturday night a while back on BBC 6 Music. I’ve mentioned this show before. Charles plays a heady mixture of bona fide stone cold soul classics and wilfully obscurist talc-dusted rattlin’ northern soul groovers, with the odd disco-tinged track flung in for good measure. It’s terrific!

When I first heard How You Like Me Now? I assumed The Heavy were one of those long-forgotten bands who last played together in 1975. How You Like Me Now? sounds like Led Zeppelin gettin’ it on with Stevie Wonder. The st-st-st-staccato James Brown guitar riff. The low-end horns. The rubber band Bootsy bass. The drum groove that kicks the whole thing up a gear just after the first line is sung. The white man sings the blues vocals. The wee pause just after he sings “remember the time” at the start of the second verse. The piano and guitar break down half way through before the inevitable groove kicks in again. I could go on and on. Suffice to say, never have a band been more aptly named.

You can imagine my surprise then when I discovered that The Heavy were actually a real-live modern day group, recording, gigging and releasing records in the here and now. Not only that, but the vocalist is actually a black man who really can sing the blues. I think they’re from the Birmingham area. I’m sure many of you are more familiar with them than I am. I mean, they’ve played on the David Letterman Show and everything. I might just possibly be the last one to this particularly funky party. Do yourself a favour and download How You Like Me Now? Then head out and buy yourself a copy of Great Vengeance and Furious Fire  or The House That Dirt Built. That’s clearly what Letterman did, judging by his reaction after they appeared on his show in January last year.

ng News! Update! Breaking News! Update! Breaking News! Update!

OK, maybe not as groundbreaking a story as the Bin Laden’s Bin Killed news that’s currently got everyone in a frenzy, but breaking news nonetheless. As pointed out by sharp-eared reader Clawthing in the Comments section below, the horns and guitar riff in The Heavy track are lifted lock, stock and groovy barrel from Dyke & the Blazers Let A Woman Be A Woman And A Man Be A Man. This is a record I’ve been totally unaware of until now, but it somewhat justifies my belief that The Heavy’s record had a great deal of 70s whiffiness around it. I did know though (and no doubt you’ll also probably be aware) that Prince borrowed the Let A Woman Be A Woman And a Man Be A Man line for his Gett Off single. That’s what I love about this internet thing – you learn something new every day. Well spotted Clawthing. Your prize is in the post.