Craig McAllister

Creepy Prince

May 4, 2008 Craig McAllister

Shhhhhh! Listen! That sound you can hear is the sound of a million Radiohead fans tapping furiously on their iMac 4G Powerbooks as they vent their spleen on the umpteen thousand Thom Yorke Is God fansites that litter every corner of cyberspace.

Prince is a bit creepy. Everyone knows that. But by far the biggest highlight of the recent Coachella festival seems to have been him doing a straight ahead cover of Radiohead‘s ‘Creep‘. It’s true! It’s also very good. Fairly faithful to the original, Prince manages to be both Thom Yorke with added soul and those wee yelps that he’s fond of doing and Jonny Greenwood with the kerrunk-kerrunk guitar before the chorus. His vocals get the full on Purple Rain-era treatment – slight delay, lots of reverb, the exteeeeeeeeendeeeed outro, and I actually think Prince makes this track his own. The audio is taken from this mobile phone video that YouTube won’t show. But it’s reasonably good quality. Worth the download. Click on the video link and you can download the video from there.

Radiohead fans yesterday.

Spot the one that quite likes Prince’s version.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

No Cure For Plagiarism

May 4, 2008 Craig McAllister

For a couple of very good reasons, it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve put up anything new. Firstly, I’ve been very busy in my day job. I’ve been bringing work home at night and doing all the stuff you tell yourself you’re not going to do, which has affected my blogging. Secondly, and more crucially, I’ve had to lie in a darkened room for most of the past fortnight after hearing the latest records by 2 tribute acts being played to death on BBC 6 Music every hour of the day.

I am referring of course to the latest singles by Black Kids and the Shout Out Louds. Two perfectly acceptable, inoffensive wee indie pop bands. Well, they would be acceptable and inoffensive if they didn’t wear their Cure influences so brazenly on their cap sleeves. Talent borrows, genius steals, but this pair rip off their favourite band’s vocal style, scrubbed nylon-stringed acoustic guitar, synthetic trumpet stabs and keyboards so much it’s quite incredible Robert Smith hasn’t put on his best crumpled suit and hi-top trainers and marched them off to the local plagiarism court for a good dose of how the fuck did you think you could get away with that? Ok. Ripping off other artists is nothing new. What goes around comes around and all that, but really. Really! These records are quite incredible. Black Kids have recently been given a shiny make over by Bernard Butler but they still sound like the Cure. Here‘s the original lo-fi version of ‘Im Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You’. It still sounds like the Cure. “You are the girl…..” the singer whines at the start and you think, “Hey! Where have I heard that before?” And by the time the chorus has kicked in it’s all too clear. The remix isn’t bad, mind. The Cure mixed by Daft Punk, but not bad.

Shout Out Louds are clearly in thrall to mid-80s Cure. ‘Tonight I Have To Leave It’ sounds like a 2 Many DJs mash-up of ‘In-Between Days’ and ‘Just Like Heaven’. Actually, I quite like this record. But don’t tell anyone. Compare and contrast with The Cure’s original (vocal-free) studio demo of ‘Just Like Heaven’ and an acoustic re-recording of ‘In-Between Days’. See what I mean?

At least J Mascis is an honest fellow. He liked ‘Just Like Heaven’ so much he recorded it and put it out on sexy green vinyl 7″. And he was honest enough to admit he didn’t know how to play the end of the record, so Dinosaur Jr‘s version just. Stops. Like that. It’s noisy and there’s a funny kind of wah-wah feedback effect playing in the background. There’s the odd scary bit too. You’ll like it. Here’s another scary bit………

If J Mascis cut his hair, he couldn’t half pass for Radio Clyde’s Billy ‘I Can Exclusively Reveal’ Sloan. No?

Hard-to-find

Grrrrrrrrrrrrremlins!

April 20, 2008April 20, 2008 Craig McAllister

Thanks for all the emails. Many of you seem to be having problems clicking on the links and saving some of the music to your computer. Yesterday The Last Shadow Puppets and David Bowie tracks disappeared totally for a couple of hours. Today the Primal Scream tracks seem to be the ones going astray. I have no understanding of this, but I’m as pissed of about it as you might be if the track you really want appears to have gone AWOL. Behind the scenes I have a team of experts who are frantically trying to resolve the issue. As I write, all links are working – I’ve checked them all myself. But I can’t guarantee that’ll be the case in an hour or so. Please be patient!

Download-only Pixies track from a couple of years ago. ‘Bam Thwok’ is the sound my brain is making trying to fix my download problem. Fingers crossed this link works.

Cover Versions, Peel Sessions

Brand new, you’re retro

April 18, 2008April 20, 2008 Craig McAllister

I’m quite enjoying The Last Shadow Puppets single just now. ‘The Age of the Understatement’ isn’t quite the lost track from ‘Scott 4’ that the band would like it to be, but it twangs in all the right places and rushes past like Morricone beating The Coral to the finish line in the 100m sprint. There’s even a nice whiff of the Electric Prunes in the string arrangements.

Even better to these ears is their cover of David Bowie‘s ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’. Originally recorded for Deram back in the 60s, this is one of the lesser-well known gems in the Bowie catalogue. All strings and weird chords, in the scheme of things it falls somewhere between ‘Space Oddity’ and ‘Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud’. You could be forgiven for thinking that The Last Shadow Puppets based their entire sound around this record, cos it sure sounds like it. But in a good way. Bowie likes it too. “That’s wonderful,” he said. “A daymaker.” Go on…make your day….

*The Last Shadow Puppets – ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’

*David Bowie – ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’ (Deram Records original release)

David Bowie – ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’ (John Peel’s Top Gear BBC Session, broadcast Christmas Eve, 1967, features Tony Visconti and T.Rex’s Steve Peregrine-Took on backing vocals)

Today’s blog has been half-arsed and lazy. Better quality blogging will resume as normal next week.

Hard-to-find

Albums where the title track went missing #1

April 10, 2008April 11, 2008 Craig McAllister

‘Screamadelica’ by Primal Scream is a modern classic. From the cover art on the outside to the last faded twinkling bit of percussion on the digitized grooves of ‘Shine Like Stars’ it’s as landmark an album to my generation as ‘Revolver’ was to my dad’s. Possibly. It’s also one of a number of albums where the title track is missing. Led Zepppelin‘s ‘Houses Of the Holy’ wasn’t on the album of the same name. You can find that track on ‘Physical Graffiti’. The Doors‘ ‘Waiting For The Sun’ is on 1970’s ‘Morrison Hotel’, released 2 years after the album of the same name. And Primal Scream‘s ‘Screamadelica‘ isn’t on the ‘Screamadelica’ album. But it should’ve been. What was already a great album would have become a really great album.

Dixi Narco ep cover

‘Screamadelica’ (the track) is a 10 minute potted history of everything Primal Scream were about in 1992. It was released on the ‘Dixie Narco’ ep to promote the album. The lead track ‘Movin’ On Up’ took all the plaudits (and the airplay), but if you kept your record spinning past the pseudo-druggy ‘Stone My Soul’ and the barely-recognisable, electric piano ‘n’ pedal steel cover of Dennis Wilson‘s ‘Carry Me Home’ *, you’d’ve found ‘Screamadelica’. Produced by Andrew Weatherall and Hugo Nicolson, they add all the necessary bleeps, squelches and tyre screeches to keep it contemporary, although it starts off like some Blaxploitation movie soundtrack. The brass refrains. Giddy black female vocalists. Thumping George Clinton-esque rhythm section. Some Bobby Gillespie ‘Wooos’. A flute solo straight off of ‘What’s Going On’. The phased guitar-as-percussion track. How very John Squire. Talent borrows, genius steals they say, and Primal Scream certainly nicked from all the right reference points. I think this is one of Primal Scream’s very best tracks, and why it was never include on the album of the same name I’ll never know.

*Footnote. ‘Carry Me Home’ was written as an anti-Vietnam protest song and was considered, but not included on the Beach Boys 1973 ‘Holland’ album. Travesty! My copy comes from the ‘Bamboo’ bootleg, which as many Wilson watchers now know should really be spelt ‘Bambu’. You can download the track here.

* Footnote 2. ‘Dixie-Narco ‘sounds great. ‘Dixie’, the south of America, where the blues, jazz and all that great music comes from. ‘Narco‘. Short for, oooooh, ‘narcotics’. Sounds a bit dangerous. A bit rock’n’ roll. A bit Primal Scream. Not many people know this, but Dixie-Narco is the name of a company who make soft drink vending machines. Stick that in yer Marshall stack and smoke it.

Hard-to-find

Stone Fee! Yeah! Alright!

April 10, 2008 Craig McAllister

Listen zis baybee. Julian Cope has a lot to answer for. I’ve been reading ‘Japrocksampler’ on and off for the past couple of months, but to be honest I’m finding it hard to get into. For me it’s hardly a page turner and reading it is becoming more of a chore than a pleasure. And I really want to like it. Problem is, I’ve never heard any of the music he’s writing about and that makes it difficult to stay focussed on all the characters, groups, albums and scenesters he goes on about. I liked ‘Krautrocksampler’, even though my knowledge of German music was limited to Neu! and Kraftwerk (of course) and ’99 Red Ballons’ by Nena, but that was enough to get me to the end of the book without any bother. So. To help me get into the book a bit more, a bit of poking about in the far flung corners of the web has uncovered some tracks by the impossibly named Flower Travellin’ Band.

$\'Anywhere\' album sleeve$

Flower Travellin’ Band were a psychedelic, blues-based hard rock band. Created by Yuya Utchida (a main protagonist in Cope’s book) they originally featured Remi Aso, considered at the time to be the Japanese equivalent of Janis Joplin. Utchida wanted them to shock, and their debut album featured all group members (oo-er) nude on the cover. Much of their material was made up of barely recognisable cover versions. Extended acid-frazzled freak-out soloing and radical rearrangements meant that the simplest of songs took on a new lease of life. Seek out their version of ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ and you’ll see what I mean. Their 1970 album ‘Anywhere’ featured the first known cover of a Black Sabbath track, ‘Black Sabbath’. On the cover of the album, the four members of the band ride their Honda motorbikes naked (naked again!) down some lost highway. This image got them into a bit of bother with the Japanese authorities (again!), but the music on the grooves itself got them signed to Atlantic Records, and it even briefly charted in Canada.

If the MC5 had came from Tokyo

Cope first freaked out over Flower Travellin’ Band when he heard the 1995 ‘From Pussies to Death in 10,000 Years of Freakout ‘ bootleg album. He says that the 20minutes+ (!) tracks ‘I’m Dead part 1’ and ‘I’m Dead part 2’ are the outstanding moments in the band’s history. To these ears, they sound a bit stoner-rock, long-haired, prog-rock scary. Drugs may well have been involved during the recording process. I certainly need them to listen to all 20+ minutes of each track. Personally, I prefer the more accessible versions of Hendrix‘s ‘Stone Free’ and Howlin’ Wolf‘s/Led Zeppelin‘s ‘How Many More Times?’. As an introduction to Flower Travellin’ Band, they’re as good an entry as any.

A couple of quick facts. In 1973, Flower Travellin’ Band were booked to open for The Rolling Stones. But Mick Jagger’s previous conviction for drugs meant that the tour was postponed. Thems the breaks. However, the band may yet still get the opportunity – a bit of research has revealed that they got back together in January this year and are due to appear at July’s Fuji Rock Festival. Watch zis space, baybee!

entire show, Hard-to-find

There she goes. There she goes again. And again…and again…and again…and again…and again…and again…and again…and again…and

April 3, 2008January 17, 2009 Craig McAllister

‘There She Goes’ by The La’s is the best song ever written. Just over 2 and a half minutes of perfect pop – the instantly recognisable guitar intro, the frantically scrubbed repeating drum-n-guitar clatter after every ‘I just can’t contaaaaiiaaaayyyn….‘ line, the middle 8 before going back to the chorus, the ‘she goes again and/or calls my name, calls my name’ refrain you hear on some versions, the wee 3-part harmony on the very last word……it’s all there. The best song ever written. Not that it looks like he ever will, but the royalities he receives from this song alone ensure that Lee Mavers never has to work again.

I have as many versions of ‘There She Goes’ as I could ever need. I’ve just bought the newly issued limited edition ‘Sound‘ 7″ ep that has the unreleased John Leckie version on one side and the original single version on the other. I’ve got the original red cover 12″. I’ve also got it on the blue cover 7″ with ‘Way Out’ on the other side. I’ve got the album version (on vinyl and CD, and coming soon, Deluxe Edition CD), the reissued 1988 version, the BBC Sessions version, the ‘Fever Pitch’ ep……..and they’re just the ones you could or still can buy! I also have the promo versions – the one with the alternative intro, the instrumental version, the unplugged version, the, ahem, cough, ‘live‘ in New York version that’s basically an unlabelled studio demo with added crowd effects (but very trippy and very, very good). I also have umpteen demo versions from a variety of sessions and they’re absolutely magic. La’s heaven. Trainspotter gold. Call them what you want, but if you’re a fan of a particular band and a sucker for studio outtakes this, to me, is about as good as it gets until Lee Mavers turns up at my house armed with a battered acoustic, a 4 track portastudio and instructions to “keep tapin’, la“.

I’ve recently put all these versions in the one place (a CD) and have been playing them in the car on my daily journey to work. By the time I’m out the car, depending on what day it is, I’m either the happiest man alive or I feel like stabbing someone’s eye out. 21 tracks! Every one of them ‘There She Goes’! Can you handle it? It may drive you batty or it may be The Best La’s Album In The World….Ever! Either way, they’re all here, on this handy-to-download .rar file. Play it all and you’ll begin to hear every faded intro, every subtle variation on the bass line, every backing vocal, every ammended harmony. It’s all there. It’s all magic. And it’s all been sprinkled with a generous layer of 60s dust. No artwork yet. I’ll be working on that over the school holidays in the next couple of weeks.

Lee Mavers genuinely loves this song. He often played it live twice in the one show (and certainly not cos he was told to by the record company), and if I have 21 22 versions, of which only 4 5 are commercially available, how many versions does Mr Mavers have lurking about his archives? Slevver, slevver, drool, drool, drool.

“How many versions!?!”

Tracklisting:

1. John Leckie version

2. Original single version

3. Album/reissued/Fever Pitch etc single version

4. Alternative intro (Go! Discs promo CDP547PRS)

5. Unplugged version (Go! Discs promo CDP547PRS)

6. Instrumental version (Go! Discs promo CDP 547PRS)

7. ‘Live’ version (Go! Discs promo CDP 564PRS)

8. Liz Kershaw BBC Session version 31.5.88

9. Demo #1

10. Demo #2

11. Demo #3

12. Demo #4

13. Demo #5

14. Pete de Freitas Echo demo #1 1987

15. Pete de Freitas Echo demo #2 1987

16. Pete de Freitas Echo demo #3 1987

17. Eden Session #1

18. Eden Session #2

19. Eden Session #3

20. Eden Session #4

21. Ride Yer Camel session – recorded on a ghetto blaster, Barry Sutton’s flat (date?)

*Notes on the tracklisting. I have a played-to-death compilation demo tape that a pal got me from the Go! Discs archives around 1989. The versions of ‘There She Goes’ from that tape are included here. I have no more recording info other than they are labelled ‘Demo 1 – Demo 5’. Some, all or none of them could be the legendary Hedges versions, but we’ve not long now till we find out anyway. Any ammendments to my recording info gratefully received. Come on, all you lot on Las.org – get correcting!

*Shite! Knew this would happen! You go and compile it all and what happens? You remember about that album you bought a few years ago that you don’t play much. ‘Lost La’s’. There’s a version on that. It’s not the best, but it does have an alternative middle 8, and purely for historical value it should be included too. Here’s the first ever live performance of ‘There She Goes’ from the Picket in Liverpool, May 1987.

*STOP PRESS The first 10 people to download the .rar file can email me their address and I’ll send them a free sample of 60s dust from the top of Lee’s old Vox AC30.

STOP STOP PRESS More La’s stuff here and here. Cheers.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

‘Just Dropped In…’ quadruple-whammy

March 25, 2008March 25, 2008 Craig McAllister

‘I Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)‘ was Kenny Rogers‘ second single with his group The First Edition. It made the US Billboard Top 10 in 1968 and rode the crest of the psychedelic wave that was sweeping the music world at the time – “I tripped over a cloud and fell 8 miles high, tore my mind on the jagged sky.” Like, wow, man. The intro has backwards guitars, the solo is played by Glen Campbell (is there anything he didn’t play on in the 60s?) and the drums were played by Mickey Jones, well known to Dylan afficianados as the drummer who couldnae hack it on Dylan’s 1966 world tour with the Hawks.

Nice trousers.

So. Great pedigree. And a great song. About as far removed from ‘Islands In The Stream’, ‘The Gambler’ or ‘Coward Of The County’ as you could possibly hope for. Indeed, Jimi Hendrix called ‘Just Dropped In…‘ his favourite song ever. I wish Jimi had done a version. You just know it it would’ve sounded brilliant. I bet Jerry lee Lewis‘ version sounds the business as well. Too bad he canned it as soon as he recorded it. Or did he? No amount of poking about cyberspace has unearthed it for me, but maybe you’ve got a version knocking about somewhere. Over to you…

No funny comment here.

In the meantime, here’s 3 covers. All different, all fantastic. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings recorded their version as a tribute to the sounds of late 60s Stax and Motown. It sounds like Lynn Collins or one of those James Brown Funky People women singers he often produced. You can see the video for it (don’t think it’s official but it’s great) over on YouTube where the grainy, fuzzy footage is supposed to look like an old VHS taped copy of Soul Train. I thought Sharon Jones had come up with a really great idea for an original cover until I found out that Bettye Lavette had covered the self same track in 1968. I bet Bettye’s sounds just like it (I’m off to seek it out) but I do like Sharon Jones’ attempt. This version has only been released on dead-hard-to-get 7″ (try eBay), but I’ve got one. And now you do too.

They were young, they ran free, they grew old gracefulleee…

Supergrass put their version on the b-side of the double a sided ‘Alright/Time’ single. So lots of people will own this, but many people may not even have played it, given that anyone who bought ‘Alright’ played it on repeat for the whole summer of 1995 and then never wanted to hear it again. Which is a shame, cos ‘Time‘ is a cracker’, and ‘Condition‘ (as their version is called) sounds just like a Supergrass track from the ‘I Should Coco’ era. Which it is, funnily enough. Here it is.

Scuffed, battered and full of character. Just like his face.

I’ve left possibly the best version till last. Like Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson is considered a country singer, but his version of ‘…Condition…‘ is not really country per-se. It’s laid back, soulful and has an intro that is absolutely ripe for sampling. If Sharon Jones’ cover is the Saturday night version then Willie Nelson’s is the Sunday morning hangover cure. You can find it on his ‘Rainbow Connection’ album from 2001. Or get it here.

Hard-to-find, Studio master tapes

Sgt Pepper’s Lovely Hot Cross Bun

March 20, 2008January 14, 2009 Craig McAllister

New Links Updated January 2009!!!

Happy Easter, one and all. This post is something of a milestone, seen as it’s my 100th post. Cue trumpets, fanfares and perhaps a gold watch from my employers. Since late last year I was anticipating this post and had decided on something incredible that I would make available for download. But that’ll have to wait for another day. It was all ready to go as well, until some like-minded geeks over on the Teenage Fanclub message boards pointed me in the direction of THE BEST THING EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE INTERNET.

It’s only four of The Beatles‘ studio master tapes! I’ll say that again. It’s. Only. Four. Of. The. Beatles’. Studio. Master. Tapes. The individual 4 or so tracks that make up ‘Sgt Peppers…’, ‘She’s Leaving Home’, ‘A Day In The Life’ and ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’. Yer actual masters! In digital form! Crystal clear! It’s like Paul McCartney is singing right in front of you! Jeeez, the ‘Sgt Peppers’ backing tracks are amaaaaaazing! Here’s a quick burst of George’s stinging guitar and some Salvation Army horns. Like it? Now download the lot! (*see below) Get yourself audacity, load the tracks into it individually and get ready to do a ‘2 Many DJs’-style mash-up and impress your friends. Or, you could set up your computer, load up the tracks and pretend you’re George Martin on one of those Classic Album documentaries, pontificating over the use of the string section in ‘She’s Leaving Home’. “This is a wonderful part (slide the faders) – Paul had the idea for a string quartet – just listen out for the harp…(plink plink)…rather lovely, don’t you agree?” It’s The Beatles! Just the way you like them!

Martin and Lennon ponder how they’ll sound after you’ve had a go at the controls

How are these available? Surely the record companies could be making some money by releasing these in some sort of commercial form? That’s what I was thinking/fearing. This post may be removed quicker than Paul’s moustache, so you better act fast. The story goes that since studio tape is a wee bit fragile after time, some record companies are digitizing many of their master tapes to preserve them as best as possible. But some enterprising body has sneaked a few mixes out and leaked them onto the internet. If you look hard enough there are loads more – Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’ (a certain future post), some Eagles stuff, Nirvana, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (yes, really!) Seek and ye shall find. It’s a wonderful world out there, it really is. This is musical porn, man. Musical porn.

‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ Studio Master Tapes
‘A Day In The Life’ Studio Master Tapes
‘She’s Leaving Home’ Studio Master Tapes
‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ Studio Master Tapes

Happy remixing!

Any links to other stuff of a similar nature gratefully accepted. Of course.
Oh, and if you’re a latecomer to these fine pages, nice to see you. More Beatles elsewhere on Plain Or Pan – take time to poke about!

Dylanish, entire show, Hard-to-find

Are these French ones? No, they’re healthy cigarettes!

March 14, 2008March 14, 2008 Craig McAllister

In 1962, a 20 year old Bob Dylan recorded an hour long show for Cynthia Gooding‘s ‘Folksinger’s Choice’ radio programme. History seems to be a bit fuzzy regarding the actual date of recording, or even if the show was actually broadcast at all. My bootleg says 11th March 1962, so that’s what I’m sticking with. You may know differently. What is absolutely astonishing about this show is that it exists at all, and in such brilliant quality. I don’t know what methods were used to extract the show from the radio to someones tape recorder. Maybe the recording is taken straight from the radio station’s own tapes (which is more than likely), but if you’re in any way shape or form a fan of Bob Dylan, you need this bootleg in your collection, it’s simple as that.

What you get is young pre-Columbia Bob playing a mixture of original and traditional material. In it’s own right, that’d be good enough. What makes this recording even better is the between-song chat between Cynthia and Dylan. They’d met each other in 1959, when Dylan sang to Gooding at a party after one of her concerts. She recognised his talent and was impressed enough to go and see him perform his own shows at places like Folk City in New York. Throughout the radio show, she is clearly in awe of him. In fact, I’d say she fancies the pants off him, and Dylan knows it. His tall stories regarding where and how he grew up are in full flow – “I’d just come from South Dakota……I’d come there from Sioux Falls“, “I was a clean-up boy, I used to be on the main line, on the ferris wheel, do just fun rides. I used to do all kinds of stuff like that…..I skipped a bunch of things, and I didn’t go to school a bunch of years and I skipped this and I skipped that.” Dylan talks about his influences, how he writes songs, and when cornered has to admit that, maybe, some of these songs, well, he only wrote the first couple of verses himself and the rest of the song is, I don’t know, something I heard before.

Bob, with healthy cigarette

Fantastic stuff, every wee bit of it. The full tracklisting on the back of the disc is below, but really, download and burn as gapless for that full radio show experience. The link for the whole show (plus artwork) in one complete .rar file is here. As a tempter, here’s one of the between-song chats and a version of ‘Smokestack Lightning’.

Lonesome Whistle Blues
Fixin’ To Die
Smokestack Lightning
Hard Travelin’
Death Of Emmett Till
Standing On The Highway
Roll On John
Stealin’
Long Time Man Feel Bad
Baby Please Don’t Go
Hard Times In New York

“D’ya like that?…………..I sure do!”

Tell yer pals:

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