Last Saturday night I found myself in the unlikely position of DJing at a ska night for 500+ of the best-dressed gig goers in the country. Troon Town Hall was the venue, a town more in swing with the “Fore!” on the golf course than the “1 and 2 and 3 and 4” ryhthm of rocksteady, but Seaside Ska 2 as it was billed, following last years successful inaugural event, was terrific.
I’d love to tell you I was spinning vintage Trojan and Blue Beat 7″s all night, but in truth I was spinning the wheels of steel on my laptop, filling in between 4 of the best ska acts around by drawing on my decent collection of ska and reggae CDs that I’ve built up over the years. Soul Jazz‘s The Dynamite Series (100% Dynamite, 200% Dynamite etc) are a great resource for such a night and despite the lack of authentic snap, crackle and pop, my ska collection seemed to do the trick.
What to play for the Skins, the Rude Boys and the Guns ‘n Roses fan?
Many of the records were greeted with beery cries of recognition, groups of lads tunelessly bellowing out the brass line to all manner of Prince Buster, Byron Lee and Skatalites tracks. The highlight for me was between twin ska stalwarts The Amphetameanies and Esperanza’s sets when I played this;
Toots & The Maytals – 54-46 Is My Number
A quick pan across the room saw every head bobbing along to the rhythm. Desert ‘n Doc-booted feet tapped in time. One old skin in Ben Sherman and braces punched the air in barely concealed delight before losing himself in his own wee private version of the Moonstomp. Two Perry-clad rude girls girls with sweat-soaked sidies stuck fast to their cheekbones mirrored one another’s moves. Eveywhere else, people lost their inhibitions and cut loose. Being the person responsible for playing the tune, and by default the person responsible for creating this mass dance craze, it was quite the buzz. Almost enough to make me fling both my arms in the air with giddy abandon and holler “Superstar DJ!!!” Almost. But not quite.
54-46 Is My Number is a primo slice of late 60s rocksteady. Written about the time Toots Hibbert was caught in a sting operation and jailed for marijuana possession, it rolls along, infectious and catchy, like a Jamican Otis Redding. There’s the regular throat-clearing declaration, “Give it to me one time!” There’s that fantastic clipped guitar. And there’s a keyboard line that snakes in and out it like mercury. I can’t imagine anyone not liking this record.
Bonus Tracks
Here‘s Toots & The Maytals skankin’ take on Louie Louie. Every bit as good as you’d expect.
And here‘s the Rebel MC with Street Tuff, a track that steals the bass line from 54-46, revs it up to 100mph and loops it ad infinitum, to now dated effect. “Is he a Yankee? No, I’ma Lundun-ah.”
Whatever happened to Bond themes? Save the fairly recent Adele effort, Skyfall (which at least attempted to recreate the 60’s heyday of lush orchestration, big vocals and bigger hair), pretty much every Bond theme since A-Ha’s The Living Daylights has been as sexy as yesterday’s Daily Mail.
Radiohead’s recent statement that the Bond franchise people had preferred Sam Smith’s idea of the Spectre theme to their own kinda sums it all up. It’s now lowest common denominator, appeal to the masses stuff, rather than edgy and out there. Perhaps this is a reflection, a metaphor for Bond himself. Once edgy and out there, he’s now lowest common denominator action hero, appealing to the masses with his suits, gadgets and beautiful women, just like yer Farrells, Damons and the rest of them.
Radiohead‘s theme is fantastic. Released for free on Christmas day without fanfare or prior warning, as is the Radiohead way, it’s edgy and paranoid, Thom Yorke’s falsetto surfing over the top of a heavily orchestrated backing track. “I’m lost, I’m a ghost. Dispossesed, taken host,” he wails, right eye no doubt twitching uncontrollably on the off beat.
Radiohead – Spectre
It fades in on a sweep of Bond-ish strings, not quite but almost playing that well-ingrained Barry motif. A piano holds the rhythm as a set of jazz drums straight outta the John Barry 7 skitter around the background. There’s the dramatic part in the middle when the strings soar and stab and jar until its brought back to earth with Yorke’s vocals about ‘bullet holes‘ and ‘mortal souls‘ and so on. Then, just as you’re getting the measure of it, it’s gone in a sudden brass stab and some wind tunnel effects. “The only truth that I can see is when you put your lips to these.” It’s by far the most Bondish of Bond themes in recent years and it was rejected.
Radiohead weren’t the only ones to fall foul of the rejection slip. Tom Jones’ brassy hip-swingin’ theme to Thunderball was chosen over a clip-clopping Johnny Cash effort. Considering the era, the producers got this spot on. Bond. Brass. Swinging London. Or the Man In Black singing roll ’em, roll ’em, roll ’em rockabilly country?
Blondie felt the sting of rejection when they submitted their theme for For Your Eyes Only. Sheena Easton’s at times out of tune and none-more-80s syrupy wallow got the nod ahead of the Noo Yoikers’ twangingly pedestrian (and frankly forgettable) mid-paced clunker. You can find it if you wish on late-era Blondie LP ‘The Hunter‘. Again, you have to say the producers got this spot on. You’re probably singing Sheena Easton’s version to yourself right now. And that’s something I never thought I’d be typing on Plain Or Pan.
By the mid 90s, anyone popular in music seemed to be draped in the Union Jack and aligned to some establishment-friendly updated idea of Swinging London. All manner of bands were discovering trumpets and strings and enhancing their weedy indie with overblown orchestration. I’m fond of some of it – Blur’s To The End, for example, and the opening track to Mansun’s debut album, but much of it was totally irrelevant.
Masters of the era were Pulp and Saint Etienne, both acts steeped in pop culture and history, with subtle nods to the unfashionable corners of the 70s, eyebrows permanently arched. Both submitted tracks for consideration as the theme to Tomorrow Never Dies. Both were rejected. Pulp’s was retitled Tomorrow Never Lies and found its way onto the b-side of the Help The Aged single. It’s not a bad tune, but alongside the stellar catalogue of existing Bond themes, it’s weedy and thin and very mid 90s indie by comparison.
Pulp – Tomorrow Never Lies
Incidentally, Help The Aged‘s parent album This Is Hardcore featured the track Seductive Barry. Either it was a song in celebration of the great arranger’s soundtracking or it was about a brown ‘n beige bri-nylon clad 2 up/2 down boy about town. With Jarvis you never know.
Saint Etienne‘s effort is more in keeping with the idea of a Bond theme; sweeeping orchestration, some wah-wah, breathy vocals, tinkling keyboards. Unfortunately it also suffers from sounding very of its time. A Bond theme should be timeless, peerless and ageless. Saint Etienne’s track most certainly isn’t. In fact, it sounds like something Dubstar might’ve rejected on the grounds of being too flimsy and wishy washy. The track has made just the most fleeting of appearances, being included only on 1999 fan club compilation Built On Sand.
Saint Etienne – Tomorrow Never Dies
The band claim that Bond du jour Pierce Brosnan owns the master tape of the track, saying it’s “seven times better than Sheryl Crow“, who’s song went on to lead the film. Really?!? Pinch of salt, surely. I’d have thought the Bond people could’ve found someone better than Sheryl Crow at the time. David McCalmont perhaps, who certainly knew a thing or two about a Bassey-inflected vocal range.
The one that really did get away though was Amy Winehouse. She was in the middle of lurching from one personal crisis to another and was passed over in favour of Jack White & Alicia Keys, who were chosen to duet the lead for the Quantum Of Solace film. Had Amy got herself together, she’d have been perfect for such a job. Composer David Arnold had worked out a contemporary orchestrated sixties-influenced piece for her and Mark Ronson sat patiently in the producer’s chair, golden touch unused. Amy’s ongoing problems meant that track was never completed.
They should’ve used Amy’s Love Is A Losing Game instead. Richly orchestrated, full of clipped guitar and bathed in pathos and heartbreak, it was the Bond theme wot got away. Amy’s voice is superb throughout.
Amy Winehouse – Love Is A Losing Game
Imagine it playing as those famous images of the silhouetted naked girls float and swim across the silver screen, then ‘see’ the camera pan downwards at the final string flourish to reveal Bond in some far-off desert or window ledge or hotel bedroom, licensed to kill and licensed to thrill. The best of the Bond themes that never were.
Not everything goes better with (a) coke. “I swiched from coke to pep and I’m a connoisseur,” drawls Sly Stone on In Time, the opening track on Fresh.
It‘s a terrfic track from a terrific album. A one-chord groove, darkly claustrophobic with pitter-pattering proto drum machines fighting for space with highly-regarded sessioneer Andy Newark’s loose-limbed paradiddles and shuffle, it features the Family Stone in full-on funk effect; horns blasting between the lines, brother Freddie riffing out a nagging counter melody amongst the electric keys and triple-part harmony backing vocals, while Rusty Allen’s bass is a-poppin’ throughout. Miles Davis loved the discipline and groove of the track so much he’d make his band listen to it over and over again to get them in the zone before performing. “Sslaaa iz whey iz at,” he’d tell anyone listening at the time.
Sly & The Family Stone – In Time
Carrying on where he left off with the previous year’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On, Fresh gets its slightly murky sound from Sly’s over-recorded master tapes. Sly by name and sly by nature, he would regularly invite young ladies back to his studio and promise them a slot on the up-coming album in exchange for some good ol’-fashioned lovin’. Once gone, their vocals would be erased from the tape to make space for the next eager hopeful. A shameful practice, you’ll agree, but one that adds to the legend of Sly.
Fresh features no high octane danceable r’n’b. Although one or two of the tracks fared well on 7″, there are no instant hits on it. It’s best listened to in a darkened room, late at night, with your choice of libation close at hand. It’s a creeping, crawling, fevered itch of a record and without a doubt my favourite in Sly’s ouvre.
Here’s If You Want Me To Stay, the 2nd track in on Fresh, ruined spectacularly 20 years later by those soul-free fornicators of funk, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Don’t ruin it by seeking their version out. The original is whey iz at. But you knew that already.
One of the many things I do outwith the blogosphere is that I’m involved in putting on gigs in my wee corner of the world. It’s not something I mention much on here, partly because much of the music, while really great, doesn’t really fit in with the ethos of what Plain Or Pan is about (ie, old stuff by old bands.) I became involved when a small group of us got talking about all the big acts who’d come to Irvine as part of their UK tours. Irvine, believe it or not, was quite the hotbed at one time; The Clash, The Jam, The Smiths, Madness, Chuck Berry, Big Country, Bjork, Oasis, Supergrass, Thin Lizzy, The Wonderstuff….. all graced our wee town with their presence. They were brought here by one man, the great Willie Freckleton, and when he died a few years ago, the council failed to fill his position and the acts dried up. Irvine is a deprived town, and starved of popular culture, it can feel even more depressing than it should. So, along with my like-minded pals, we decided to act.
We organised a festival, Freckfest, named in Willie’s honour, and put on The Magic Numbers at the top of a bill including local acts. It was always Willie’s thing that he’d have a local act supporting the big visiting star. It might’ve been the local band’s big break, but more often than not it was their brief spotlight into the glitzy world of rock ‘n roll before imploding in a storm of musical differences and stolen drummers. All of us in the past benefited from Willie’s ideal and in the distant past you’d have caught us gleefully thrashing away in our own no-hope bands as we warmed the audience up for BMX Bandits or John Martyn or whoever else was in town. Great times!
Now that none of us are in ‘promising local bands’ any more, we felt it was time to take the baton left behind by Willie and pick up where he left off. The Magic Numbers show was not as well attended as we’d have liked, but it was a brilliant event and everyone who came to it asked if we’d be doing more things like it. Fast forward 2 and a bit years and we’ve now been given a monthly slot to fill in the local arts centre. We’ve had all manner of acts in there; Nik Kershaw for 2 sold out nights, solo Glenn Tilbrook Squeezed in-between concerts he was playing with his day-job band, up-and-comers like Neon Waltz, broadcaster Andy Kershaw who told us tales of a life less ordinary. Wherever possible, we’ve had local acts playing support. Last year we landed Johnny Marr, and without a suitable venue in Irvine, we put him on in Kilmarnock. Suddenly, it’s getting quite serious, and we could be doing gigs twice a week if we had the time and resources. Not bad going for a bunch of enthusiastic unpaid volunteers.
On Friday night we kicked off our 2016 calendar with a full house (and a waiting list of gig goers desperate for any spare tickets), guaranteeing that tickets for a Songwriters’ Circle featuring James Yorkston, Withered Hand and The Pictish Trail were the hottest in the country.
“We headlined Celtic Connections last night,” intoned the quietly-spoken Yorkston during the second half. “…as the warm-up for Irvine.” Cue massive cheers and applause. By all accounts the previous night’s show had been a cracker, and judging by the weary-looking faces on the three performer’s faces, they’d made the most of the offer to indulge in the Festival’s legendary after-show hospitality.
“I got to bed around 4am,” sighed James. “I left Johnny (Pictish Trail) and Dan (Withered Hand) to it.” With three under-par performers, fresh from the glory of a massive Celtic Connections show and squeezed onto the HAC’s ‘stage’ (it’s actually just a space on the floor where a local am-dram group might perform, surrounded on 3 sides by banks of seating – a brilliant, intimate, whites-of-the-eyes venue), this didn’t bode well for the night ahead. The artists even admitted as much afterwards. We shouldn’t have worried.
(C) Paul Camlin
Beginning with Withered Hand’s ‘Life Of Doubt’, replete with a wheezing Neil Young-ish harmonica and some excellent finger-picking, the trio rolled out two terrific sets of well-paced originals. The plan was that each artist would deliver 10 of their own songs, accompanied by the other two on occasional instrumentation and backing vocals. Given that they had been playing as a group for the previous two weeks on tour, by the time they arrived in Irvine they were extremely comfortable in one another’s company and were well-versed in one another’s material.
(C) Paul Camlin
Withered Hand gave way to James Yorkston, airing the best bits of an embarrassingly-rich back catalogue in-between some highly entertaining stories and light-hearted put-downs of his band mates. A highlight of the first half was the version of Withered Hand’s ‘California’, all triple-part, slightly-skew-whiff harmonies, delicately plucked 6 strings and moody atmospherics. I tend not to write notes during a gig, but during this one I wrote ‘McCrosby, Stills and Nash’, which will make perfect sense to anyone there.
Withered Hand – California
If James was the dry-witted, droll one with the introverted tunes, and Dan the slightly foul-mouthed one with a keen ear for the closest thing to a pop song you’d hear all night, Johnny Pictish Trail was the extroverted, out-going leader of the pack.
His tunes veered from folkish, socially-conscious beauties to (bizarrely for half the unsuspecting audience) lo-fi, electro-enhanced 30-second wonders with subject matter ranging from getting your foot stuck in concrete to sweating battery acid. “Is it my turn now? Ok! Would you like a disco song or a depressing song? Tell you what, here’s a depressing disco song…” And just as your ears were recovering from the aural assault, it’d be back to James who’d tell a brilliant monologue about last night’s hotel, before working the band into an intricately-woven arrangement of one the choicest cuts from his dozen or so long players.
(C) Paul Camlin
The audience sat in reverential silence, laughed at the easy-going on-stage patter shared between the three artists and lapped up what is already a contender for Gig Of The Year. As the artists signed merchandise and chatted to fans at the end, they too agreed this had been the best night of the tour, and not just because they’d raided the HAC’s wardrobe department and appeared for the 2nd half wearing three Chinese dragon heads. Honestly, you really had to be there…
What to play for the Skins, the Rude Boys and the Guns ‘n Roses fan?
Plain Or Pan 