Month: March 2012

Cover Versions, Get This!, New! Now!

Summer Love-in

Craig McAllister

(Had me a blast). It’s been a good old week, all things considered. I’m still basking in the afterglow of my team beating one of the great unwashed in a national cup final at the national stadium, the frantic pace of work is slowing down in preparation for the Easter holidays, I’ve got a new bike that I plan to cycle for miles and miles and the sun has been shining as if March thinks it’s July. I drove home today, window down to the sounds of Lee Perry and his dubby Jah-maica-ca-ca-ca riddims, convinced I was stopping tomorrow for yer actual summer holidays. Mad March, eh?

Even better than all of the above was the discovery of one of those wee bubble-wrapped envelopes on my door mat when I got in. I don’t buy that much new music, but inbetween the obscure soul stuff from 1971 and the Brazilian garage punk from 1964 (and the new Weller album, still unconvinced t’be honest), there’ll always be a place for Teenage Fanclub and anything related. Bass player Gerard Love has been working on his solo album for, ooooh, ages, if you believe some sources. Anyway, he’s finally got around to releasing it and ‘Electric Cables‘ by Lightships is now out (or in 4 days time if you didn’t pre-order it). But you knew that already.

First impressions? Well, this is the best Teenage Fanclub album they’ll never release. If you’re a fan of the Gerry tracks of old, especially the more recent Shadows-y stuff, you’ll like it. Everyone’s out right now, so I have the pleasure of listening to it not on my PC or in the car or through my crappy iPod headphones, but extra-loud via my big old Denon seperates. The way music was intended to be heard. It sounds analogue. Old, but in a good way. Everything about it is warm, woozy, wistful; Mellow. Guitars chime, basslines frug, pastoral flutes flitter their way in and out of the melodies like butterflies in high summer.  I’m sure you get the idea….

Perhaps at first you’ll think it’s missing some of those close-knit harmonies we’ve come to expect from his day-job band, but by the second and third listen, wee nuggets of golden sound start sticking their head up from the background and weave their magic. Lead track Two Lines is a thing of beauty, all understated guitars and organ that goes on and on, riding a wave of melancholy. First single Sweetness In Her Spark is much the same, with its great cooing vocals in the background and perfect lyric.  Some of the video was filmed just down the road from me, at Troon Harbour, fact fans. Elsewhere, vocals soar, delayed guitar riffs fade in and out and those Fanclubesque harmonies begin to appear. I have to admit, I’ve always been a Norman kinda guy, but between Shadows and Electric Cables, I’m fast turning into Gerry’s number one fan. This album is already my Sound of the Summer and it’s not yet April.

Duh. When ordering the album I shoulda ordered the 7″ of Sweetness In Her Spark. It’s backed by a cover of Moondog‘s 1978 ‘Do Your Thing‘. Moondog’s original is half way down here.

Lightships’ version is here:

Good, eh? I’m now off here.

If you haven’t already done so, get yourself over here pronto and find out what Gerry’s favourite records are. S’a good read, even if The Man* deleted all the files that go with it.

*not yer man Gerry, but the actual Big, Bad internet Man.

Breaking News!        Breaking News!        Breaking News!

The words ‘remix‘ and ‘Teenage Fanclub’ aren’t something you usually read in the same line, but you can get yourself a free download of the Raf Daddy remix of album opener Two Lines over here at Soundcloud. Not a patch on the album version (it’s the aural equivalent of drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa) but, hey, if you’re a geeky completist you’ll need it.

 

Gone but not forgotten

Aw Naw……….

Craig McAllister

It appears that my Mediafire account, where all the music on here is hosted, has been suspended. I logged on this morning to this welcoming message:

This account has been locked.
See our page about account suspensions for more information:
http://www.mediafire.com/policy_violation/account_suspension.php

Looks like the internet police are up to their old tricks again. Pop in again in a day or so when I might have something more to tell you.

Blur Fanclub Singles, Get This!, Sampled

The Fool On Melancholy Hill

Craig McAllister

I’ve been a wee bit unkind to Damon Albarn on here. Shallow poster boy. Mock-cockney posh boy from middle class Colchester. Pretentious twonk with too many fingers in too many pies. The Africa trotting, Chinese opera-plotting indie Sting. All of this is true, of course, and he is so easy to dislike, but….

…you can’t argue the fact that he’s one prodigious talent. It’d be hard to disagree that Blur are (?)/were (?) one of the great singles bands, right up there with Madness when it comes to looney tunes and merry melodies. And it’d be hard to argue that Gorillaz aren’t that far behind. Dig deeper and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find a whole host of other terrific records. And not just the afore-mentioned Chinese opera or melodica-enhanced African soul music. The widely eclectic list of folk he’s collaborated with would be unbelievable if it wasn’t true. Off the top of my head – Lou Reed. Snoop Dogg. Mark E Smith. De La Soul. Gruff Rhys. Shaun Ryder. Dan the Automator. Half of The Clash. Michael Nyman. Del Tha Funky Homosapien. Bobby Womack. Flea. Toumani Diabaté. Ike Turner. Fela Kuti’s drummer, Tony Allen. All have answered the Albarn call, done their bit and waited while Damon has worked his magic in the studio and re-packaged the results to feature his toot-toot-tooting almost-in-tune melodica and unmistakable genre-defying, melancholy-applying vocals. Regardless of the collaborator or genre, the Albarn record, with its hangdog vocal and uplifting gloominess is instantly recognisable.

The current Mojo (the one with Weller on the cover) has a good wee feature on Albarn’s extra-curricular activities. It focusses on the stuff he’s been doing with the polyrhythmic Tony Allen and Flea as Rocket Juice and The Moon. The prospect of sock on the cock slap bass and rapping doesn’t fill me with too much excitement, but I’m keeping an open mind. Especially as Mojo compiled a list of essential non-Blur Albarn tracks, most of which were new to me, all of which are terrific:

Trek To the Cave (Albarn & Michael Nyman)

Time Keeps On Slipping (Albarn & Deltron 3030)

Sunset Coming On (Albarn & Toumani Diabaté)

Every Season (Albarn, Tony Allen & Ty)

Feel Good Inc. (Albarn, Danger Mouse & De La Soul)

Kingdom Of Doom (The Good, The Bad and The Queen)

Heavenly Peach Banquet (Albarn, Shi-Zeng & David Coulter)

Hallo (Albarn, Tout Puissant & others)

It‘s an excellent place to start your re-appraisal of oor Damon if, like me, you felt he was getting a bit too big for his well-travelled boots. My favourite Damon Albarn moments? That’ll be Dare, with Shaun Ryder on vocals. Great cooing Damon backing vocals and a subtle chiming percussion track that takes its cue from Talking Heads’ Once In a Lifetime. Initially called It’s There, it was renamed after unsuccessful attempts to get the newly re-toothed Ryder to pronounce it correctly when he sang.

And the look of ecstatic fanboy joy on his face as he punches the air when Bobby Womack comes in on Stylo (below) is magic. Damons’ own wee Jim’ll Fix It moment, I’m sure.  (2mins 10 seconds, if you want to fast forward. Though, why would you want to fast-forward?)

Close friend and fellow music obsessive Rockin’ Rik reckons Albarn is the 21st Century Brian Wilson. While he’s still to write his Sunflower, let alone his Pet Sounds, on the evidence so far I can just about go along with this.

*Bonus Track

In keeping with the pan-global spirit of this post, here‘s Gorillaz‘ Feel Good Inc. incorporated into some Fela Kuti afrobeat rhythm track. You can get a whole album’s worth of this stuff here. Go! Go! Go! And then Go! Go! Go! here and catch some of those Blur Fanclub-only singles that keep being deleted by the man. Gotta be quick though.

Live!

Friday The 6th March 1987 at 7.30pm

Craig McAllister

25 years ago today I experienced my first ever live concert. Glasgow Barrowlands. The Cult, with support from Gaye Bikers On Acid. The Electric/Love tour, I think it was billed as. I still remember it like it was yesterday. From the thrilling shock of hearing a band in-your-face loud for the first time (and that was only the support act) to the heart-stopping sight of the roadie bringing on Billy Duffy’s massive white Gretsch Falcon (“Aw man!, It’s gonnaehappenit’sgonnaehappenit’sgonnaehappen!!!“) to the sputtery spark of said guitar being plugged in and amplified through the Spinal Tapesque coupla dozen or so Marshall stacks to the anticipation in the air almost as thick as the exotic smells wafting around me and my wide-eyed pals to the lights going down and the intro music starting AT ONCE (some rousing classical piece or other, my mind tells me it was Ride of the Valkyries, but I may be wrong) to the shock of hearing Ian Astbury speak for the first time “Yaykickayussmuthafuckinglasgow” (he was in transition at this point from Love-era bangles ‘n beads rattlin’ hippy to the Jim Morrison/Wolf Child American-twanged sweary twonk with furry trapper hat) to the mentalness of the mosh pit during the main event itself (in which I lasted all of half of a glam-slamming Big Neon Glitter before a wet with sweat biker jacket landed on my head and a big hairy guy pushed me out the road) to the first of what would be many asthmatic runs back to Central Station to discover we were too late for the train to the fruitless wander around Anderston Bus Station at midnight just in case a bus with ‘Irvine’ happened to pull up just for us to phoning one of my pal’s sleeping dads who arrived extremely pissed off and drove us down the road in deathly silence while our ears rang like billy-o and we pondered to ourselves why The Cult had turned themsleves into Def Leppard. Breathtakingly magic? Not ‘alf, as they say.

Here’s that self-same Cult, 10 days later, recorded live at the mixing desk from Hammersmith Odeon. Quite thin and weedy sounding. Not like I remember it at all. Maybe you had to be there, although the You Tube clip below (pointless but thrilling equipment trashing ‘n all) is pretty terrific and much more how I remember things, even after a quarter of a century.

Love Removal Machine

Li’l Devil

Revolution

Useless fact

A few months later, The Cult would take this tour to the enormodomes of the U S of A where they would be supported by fresh faced new kids on the block Guns ‘n Roses.

Gone but not forgotten, Live!

Squeaky Drum Time

Craig McAllister

It’s getting towards the time of year when false promises made by desperate men in expensive jackets look about as likely to come to fruition as The Smiths reforming and playing a gig in my living room. Yes, football managers up and down the country are maybe starting to regret the arrogant boasts of silverware and European adventures made in August when the disappointments of last season had barely been cast aside. New season, same old problems. I’m sure you can apply that phrase to your team. Leagues can be won and lost in an instant, with little room left for catch up. The needless booking leading to the unfortunate suspension. The wrong substitution. The wrong formation. Flat back four or holding mid? Decisions, decisions, decisions! Managers unfamiliar with the giddy heights of the top of the league will look nervously over their shoulder as the teams behind them ramp up the war of psychology and bare their teeth. I know how worked up I get over Fantasy Manager. The real thing must be oh, at least twice as bad. Squeaky bum time, as someone once said.

Squeaky drum time is something else entirely. Led Zeppelin, by the time they were making Led Zeppelin III were formidable. They rocked harder, louder and longer than anyone else, with a blues bluster famously described as ‘tight, but loose‘. They could also swing like Sinatra. This was absolutely down to John Bonham. If you see pictures of him and his drumkit from this era you’d notice how basic it was. Compared to the double bass and cymbal stack flab preferred by many of the rock aristocracy at this time, Bonham’s kit looks like a Fisher Price My First Drumkit. Yet the power generated from it would be enough to keep the National Grid ticking over for a week. On Led Zeppelin III, save for an occassional flashy Jimmy Page overdub, much of the material was recorded live and committed straight to tape. In. Out. Job done. With America waiting to be conquered, there was simply not enough time to re-do each track 20 times and splice together the bass track from Take 3 with the vocals from Take 18. Which meant by the time the album was mixed and released, an annoying noise had found itself being magnetised to tape and recorded for posterity. Bonham’s bass pedal had developed an annoying squeak and it can be heard throughout the album. You may have listened to Led Zep III before and never noticed it, but once it’s pointed out, you’ll never be able to listen to it again without hearing it. It’s particularly prominent on the slow blues of Since I’ve Been Loving You. Thump! Squeak, squeak, squeak. Thump! Squeak, squeak, squeak. Thump! Squeak, squeak, squeak! Like the bedsprings in a  cheap honeymoon hotel it’s right there, squeaking away underneath everything you do.

Remastering the tracks at the start of the 90s, Jimmy Page ruefully remarked,

The only real problem I can remember encountering was when we were putting the first boxed set together. There was an awfully squeaky bass drum pedal on “Since I’ve Been Loving You“. It sounds louder and louder every time I hear it! That was something that was obviously sadly overlooked at the time.

Someone else who overlooked the squeaky drum pedal was James Brown. Given his penchant for strict disciplinary control, it’s amazing that he let Nate Jones (and not Clyde Stubblefield as many think) near his kit without a can of WD40 before recording the one chord groove of Give It up, Turnit Loose. Not as prominent as the John Bonham squeak, it’s nonetheless right there, forming part of the distinctive fluid funk that James Brown was famous for. Jones plays like a particularly funky octopus throughout, all pitter pattering snare and tsk-tsk-tsk hi hats. Fans of yer Stone Roses may not be too surprised to hear traces of Reni’s drum playing style filtering in and out.

*Bonus Track!

Bob Dylan also fell foul to studio gremlins, though this had nothing to do with him, or even his drummer. It was only after his MTV Unplugged album had been released that the Bobcats and Dylanologists of the world noticed a tiny bit of looped audience applause that repeated now and again throughout Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. Two excited whoops and an elongated whistle are enough to have you reaching for the ‘skip’ button before too long. Later versions of the album were corrected, but if you’re one of the many who bought it straight away, you were left with the whoops ‘n whistles repeated ad nauseum. Not to offend anyone from that side of the Atlantic, but those American audiences sure like ta whoop…