Category: Cover Versions

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Brrrrr!

Craig McAllister

Cold, isn’t it? Here’s a couple of self-explanatory tracks and 2 versions of a hip jazz inflected talking blues reinterpreted as a Soul II Soul-style floor shuffler. Or something like that.

Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (also known as The Woodpecker Symphony) is something of an oddball in the Beach Boys‘ mighty canon. Made up of some of The Elements bits n bobs (Mrs O’ Leary’s Cow and Fire) from the abandoned Smile album, it features enough random claps n clatters and eee-long-gaaa-ted incidental backing vocals to suggest Brain Wilson was in full sandpit mode as the tapes rolled. None of the Smile LP really made it into the public domain the way its creator intended, but Fall Breaks And Back To Winter did pop up as the last track on 1967’s mainly terrific Smiley Smile. But you knew that already.

Peter Fonda, main protagonist of 60’s counter-culture California briefly fancied himself as a peace ‘n love balladeer. In 1968 he even went so far as to get Gram Parsons to write him a song and commit it to vinyl. Resplendent in the West Coast contemporary finery of 12 string guitars and tasteful Forever Changes-lite trumpets, November Night didn’t exactly set the heather on fire and Fonda went on to do what he would be best remembered for – producing and acting in Easy Rider.

Beatle fact – when he was 11, Peter Fonda accidentally shot himself. Recounting the tale to a roomful of Beatles,  John Lennon picked up on his “I know what it’s like to be dead” line and wrote She Said She Said.

Given that his Jamaican dad was nicknamed The Black Arrow and played in the 1950s Glasgow Celtic team, Gil Scott-Heron is best known in Scotland as the answer to numerous pub quizzes. 1974’s  Winter In America is the flute ‘n strings Blaxploitationesque jazzy track mentioned at the start. It’s groovy! Saint Etienne‘s version adds that early 90s shuffly Soul II Soul drum loop and a tastefully sampled brass section. It’s not Sarah Cracknell on vocals (Moira Lambert, I think) but it’s still pretty groovy too!

Winter’s here, folks. You’ll catch your death of cold, Sarah. Wrap up tight! Stay tuned.

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

I Got 96 Tears and 96 Eyes*

Craig McAllister

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


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

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

Go fill yer boots…

96 Tears – ? & the Mysterians

96 Tears – Big Maybelle

96 Tears – Aretha Franklin

96 Tears – Gerardo Manuel & El Humo

96 Tears – Primal Scream

96 Tears – Inspiral Carpets

96 Tears – Music Explosion

96 Tears – Todd Rundgren

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

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

David Gedge! 25 Years In the Business! Yay!

Craig McAllister

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

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

Fan snap shot of The Wedding Present, Glasgow Barrowlands

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Bonus tracks!

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

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

Cover Versions, Dylanish, Hard-to-find

Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals no matter how great they are or were.

Craig McAllister

Bob Dylan? Is he not dead? A colleague asked me that a couple of years ago, just before I bored them to within an inch of their death with useless Bob trivia, making them wish they’d had the foresight to not think out loud in my presence. I love all things Bob and many things Bob-related. He can be the most obnoxious, obscure, obfuscating person I never want to meet, but he can also be The. Best. Thing. Ever. Right at the top of that ridiculous pedestal. But you probably knew that already.

With the release of the Bootleg Series Volume 9 (the Witmark Demos) just around the corner, it’s worth noting that Columbia records tried to get many artists to have a go at a Dylan track – they heard the ring-a-ding-ding not from the wonderful sounds old wheezy Bob and his trusty harmonica were commiting to vinyl, but in the glossy cover versions of the pop artists du jour. The Witmark Demos was Columbia’s way of getting Dylan into a studio with all the songs he had, pressing ‘record’ and firing out the recorded results to whoever they thought might be able to sugar coat it all the way to the toppermost of the poppermost. You don’t need me to tell you that many have tried (and will continue to do so), but nobody sings Bob Dylan like Robert Allen Zimmerman. Certainly not The Byrds, who recorded whole albums worth of his stuff. Certainly not N. E. One with an acoustic guitar, no decent hair-do to speak of and the noose-like albatross tag of ‘The New Dylan‘ hanging round their neck. And certainly not those X Factor hopefuls who’ve started giving Time Out Of Mind‘s Make You Feel My Love the Mariah Carey ‘soul’ treatment. There were at least 2 versions on last weekend’s show. Enough to give anyone the dry boaks (Google it, non Scots everywhere). Of course, for every 3000 bad versions of Dylan songs, one good one pokes it’s head carefully round the corner long enough for someone to notice.

Like this one.

I heard this for the very first time only last week and I couldn’t believe my ears. Frankie Valli, helium voiced purveyor of northern soul perennial The Night, bouffanted crooner of the Grease theme tune and subject matter of musical theatre or theater depending which side of the world you’re on does a spot-on version of Highway 61 Revisited‘s Queen Jane Approximately that is absobloodylutely magic. Between the opening Mr Tambourine Man-aping (Byrds version) guitar riff, the fabulous Four Seasons call and response backing vocals and the rolling and tumbling piano riffs, I can’t believe this track has escaped my attention for so long. It sounds like any one of those bands from the Nuggets compilation, Mouse & the Traps maybe. I’d never have guessed Frankie Valli was responsible for it. It’s my favourite record of the year so far, until I track down the unreleased Frankie Sings Bob sessions that must surely lurk in the darkest corners of this here interweb.

From one extreme to another.

Dan Le Sac V’s Scroobius Pip were briefly famous 3 years ago with their Thou Shalt Always Kill single. Take time to read this. Just like Bob Dylan, it’s poetry (man)…

Thou shalt not steal if there is a direct victim.
Thou shalt not worship Pop Idols or follow Lostprophets.
Thou shalt not take the names of Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer,
Johnny Hartman, Desmond Decker, Jim Morrison,
Jimi Hendrix or Syd Barrett in vain.
Thou shalt not think that any male over the age of 30
That plays with a child that is not their own is a paedophile.
Some people are just nice.
Thou shalt not read NME.
Thou shalt not stop liking a band just because they’ve become popular.
Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry.
Thou shalt not judge a book by it’s cover.
Thou shalt not judge Lethal Weapon by Danny Glover.
Thou shalt not buy Coca-Cola products.
Thou shalt not buy Nestle products.
Thou shalt not go into the woods with your boyfriend’s best friend,
Take drugs and cheat on him.
Thou shalt not fall in love so easily.
Thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls’ pants.
Use it to get into their heads.
Thou shalt not watch Hollyoaks.
Thou shalt not attend an open mic and leave
As soon as you’ve done your shitty little poem or song
You self-righteous prick.
Thou shalt not return to the same club or bar week in,
Week out just ’cause you once saw a girl there that
You fancied that you’re never gonna fucking talk to anyway.

Thou shalt not put musicians and
Recording artists on ridiculous pedestals
No matter how great they are or were.
The Beatles: Were just a band.
Led Zeppelin: Just a band.
The Beach Boys: Just a band.
The Sex Pistols: Just a band.
The Clash: Just a band.
Crass: Just a band.
Minor Threat: Just a band.
The Cure: Were just a band.
The Smiths: Just a band.
Nirvana: Just a band.
The Pixies: Just a band.
Oasis: Just a band.
Radiohead: Just a band.
Bloc Party: Just a band.
The Arctic Monkeys: Just a band.
The Next Big Thing… JUST A BAND.

And on and on it goes. You’d like it. See/hear it here. Anyway, around the same time, Dan Le Sac also took Blowing In The Wind, cut it to shreds, threw it up into the air, stuck it back together again in whatever order it landed and looped it into almost 8 and a half minutes of insanity. It‘s called Bob Dylan Thing. You might not like it. You might decide it’s the best thing since, well, Bob. You may even want to stick it on some ridiculous pedestal. But I doubt it. Give it a go though, eh?

Random fact

Bob has gone on record saying Elvis’ verson of Tomorrow Is A Long Time is the best cover version of one of his songs. That’s all folks!

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

God Save The Queen Of Denmark

Craig McAllister

John Grant‘s Queen Of Denmark album is a slow-burning beauty of a record. It’ll appear on every hipster’s Best Of 2010 list, yet I doubt it did so much as graze the outer reaches of the stalest charts since I don’t know when. All the hippest of hipsters like to keep these things to themselves, y’see, so they can say “told you so” when the time is perceived to be right. Queen Of Denmark is melancholic, melodic, Midlake-mentored and as richly produced as anything from the Golden Year of 1973 (right up there with Band On The Run, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, For Your Pleasure) It’s good, so it is. You’d like it.

Before flying solo, John Grant was leader of The Czars. Much like the album mentioned above, The Czars flew under almost everyone’s radar, save a few canny folk with one ear stuck to the ground and a finger lodged in their other ear in an attempt to keep out the cor blimey mockneyisms and northern infleccheeeoooons of the lad rock that wafted out of every butchers, bakers and candlestick makers up and down the country. There are many bands you could argue were born at the wrong time (hello Trashcan Sinatras), but The Czars, with 6 albums, 3 singles and an EP released to general indifference throughout the mid 90s and early 00′s can stake a claim to that unlucky title. I’d like to be able to tell you I was one of the few with that ear to the ground in 1994, but even though I’d heard of them when a local band supported them around 1997, I didn’t get on board (there were plenty of seats left mind) until 2001′s The Ugly People Vs. the Beautiful People.

Starting with the eerie melancholy of the aptly-named ‘Drug’, The Ugly People…album smacked me (ouch) between the eyes in a way I’d never been hit (oof) since Elliott Smith’s XO masterpiece. I got my fix (stop!) by playing the album daily, like some sort of deathly ritual until I was absolutely sick fed up of it. S’a great album n all that, but I only began playing it again recently after I’d heard Queen Of Denmark. More fool me.

From this point on, I went on a bit of a Czars bender. I went back and started at the beginning of their recorded output (Moodswing), where Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde came on board. He signed them to his label, produced them and carried out some A&R, encouraging them to cover Song To The Siren along the way. With no real commercial success (and precious little critical acclaim) The Czars split up to no great fanfare in 2004. Strange to think that in 3 years, I’d heard and processed their entire catalogue. Processed? Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals says that he heard the Velvet Underground so much when he was younger that he never needs to listen to them again, that their music is stored in the human iPod, the myPod if you may, that is the human brain. I’m a bit like that with many bands, The Czars included.

And now I’m discovering them all over again, thanks to John Grant releasing Queen Of Denmark.

Cover Versions, demo, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Live!, studio outtakes

Are You Experienced?

Craig McAllister

“We’d like to stop playin’ this uh, rubbish an’ dedicate a song to The, uh, Cream…” My first brush with Jimi Hendrix was at the tail end of the 80s on one of those Sounds Of The 60s shows where they showed a clip of the Jimi Hendrix Experience playing a brief blast of Hey Joe before freeforming into Cream’s Sunshine Of Your Love. On the Lulu show, no less. “That was really nice!” deadpans the still Scottish-accented Lulu through gritted teeth. On first seeing it (the full 9 minute clip is below), 20 years after the actual event, I thought it was fantastic. The string bending! The guitar tone! The way he re-tuned his guitar while he played! The way he sang and played at the same time! The way he sneaked a wee Beatles riff (I Feel Fine) into it! The sheer outrageous flamboyancy of it all – he looked like a pirate and, uh, did he just play that bit with his teeth?!?!?

It would be a few years later until I’d find out what that Plaster Casters slogan on Noel Redding’s tee-shirt was all about (Google it!), though Jimi Hendrix made just as big an impression on me, in much the same way as I’d hope today’s guitar obsessed teenager stumbling across a Sounds Of The 80s show would feel on hearing Freak Scene or Fools Gold (YouTube ’em kids!) for the first time. Man! I. Am. Old. Certainly older than Jimi was when he made his best stuff, that’s for sure.

James Marshall Hendrix.

The only guitarist ever to be named after an amplifier.

Jimi died 40 years ago today, on the 18th September 1970. At the ripe old age of 27 he joined that heavenly choir of fellow 27 year olds who drowned, drank and drugged themselves to death before their time was up. Brian Jones. Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison. Later on Kurt Cobain. And they’re just the well known ones. Daddy of the blues, Robert Johnson danced with the devil and paid the price at the same age. You can add Big Star’s Chris Bell to the list. Echo & the Bunnymen’s Pete de Freitas too. You could even argue a case for missing Manic Richie Edwards. He disappeared aged 27 and has never been seen again. He was officially pronounced dead in 2008. Weird, eh? I thank my lucky stars that at the age of 27 I was still trying to master Wild Thing on the plank of wood I called a guitar. Unlike my 40 year old self, the members of the 27 Club never got stale, bloated, fat and comfortable with it all. Well, apart from Jim Morrison of course. But you knew that already.

I’ve got all the Jimi Hendrix I need – that’s the first three albums done with the Experience and a compilation of his pure blues stuff as well as a couple of studio outtake bootlegs and a sneakily downloaded copy of the Jimi Hendrix Experience 4 CD box set, choc full of alt versions, live stuff, unreleased takes and all manner of the sort of stuff that thrills me to this day. I couldn’t care less if I never hear Purple Haze again, but you can never have enough versions of Third Stone From the Sun, especially 9 minute versions that are more jazz than blues, with Jimi taking on the role of stoned space captain. I don’t really need to hear his version of Hey Joe again, but I never tire of hearing the “Oh Goddam! One more time…make the voices a little lower and the band a little louder” version – replete with great swooning female backing vocals.

On his recent tour, Paul McCartney told the well known story of The Beatles going to see Jimi Hendrix at the Albert Hall and Jimi serenading the 4 moustachioed mop tops in their box with his own version of the freshly-minted Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Sgt Pepper album had only been released a day or two before and Jimi thought he’d play his version for the writers. It sounds thrilling to me. I can only imagine how thrilling it must’ve been for them. Note too, that in those days Jimi didn’t have access to any of the gazillion tab ‘n chord sites that litter the internet with badly tabbed versions of Sweet Child O’ Mine. Get this homeboys ‘n girls –  he learned straight off the record. Just like me. But better – he even replicates the brass parts. Show off.

It’s pretty clear that, post Experience, Jimi had bought himself a one way ticket to Flaresville, Seventies Central. Along with the hemlines and bottoms on his trousers, his music had expanded even further into the cosmicness of free jazz. He was playing with Buddy Miles, his Band of Gypsies even had a bongo player ferchrissakes. This is a much maligned and misunderstood period in the Hendrix canon. Had he stopped after those 3 JHE albums then died, he’d have been immortal. Instead, he’ll be remembered, perhaps unfairly, in the same way as all those other casualties – the promising start before succumbing to ego, drugs and fame and the inevitable  law of diminishing returns. Put yer prejudices aside and listen to this – one of the sweetest tracks Hendrix recorded (in true Plain Or Pan tradition, it’s the demo, not the final mixed version), and only released after his death in 1971. Angel was so good, Rod Stewart recorded a version of it that even them Faces would’ve been proud of. Aye!

*Bonus Track!

In 1968, this track appeared. So Much In Love by McGough & McGear (produced anonymously by one P. McCartney) was never likely to trouble the hit parade, but the guitar playing, the tone, the way those notes are bent……rumours are that’s Jimi at the helm steering the group (including Mitch ‘n Noel of the Experience plus Graham Nash amongst others) straight towards the section marked ‘phazed phreakout psychedelia’. S’acracker!

FYI, McGough was Roger McGough, ex of Scaffold and these days better known as a witty Scouse poet. His son Nathan managed Happy Mondays, if indeed they were at all manageable. McGear is better known as Michael McCartney, brother of Paul. But you knew that already.

Cover Versions, Football, Hard-to-find, Most downloaded tracks

Ramble On

Craig McAllister

One of the greatest pleasures in this blogger’s life is the daily digestion of blog stats. At any given time I can see who’s visited here, where they’re from and what the most popular posts and downloads are (currently the Jake Holmes/Led Zeppelin one). I can also see who’s Googled what and arrived at Plain Or Pan either by sheer good luck or misfortunate malapropos. Current visitors include those looking for What Brand Of Cigarettes Does Keith Richards Smoke?, Pain or Fantasy and my favourite, African Jungle Horse Sex. I can just about understand why trouser arouser browsers looking for Teenage Fanny are directed here. I just hope the sad old bastards leave with a new-found appreciation of the Bellshill Beach Boys chiming guitars and honey-coated harmonies. But don’t stand anywhere near me at the next TFC gig, or you might just get a punch in the face. OK? I wrote something about the Stone Roses a wee while ago that said the bassline on Something’s Burning sounded like it came from the heart of Africa itself. And a long while ago I wrote about Johnny Wakelin’s In Zaire being total jungle funk, but how Google pointed a slevvering sexual deviant looking for quirky equestrian delights towards this mighty fine site four times in one day is beyond me.

Off course, there’s an underlying seriousness to all this. Clearly, people are using the internet for purposes other than tracking down obscure records by musicians only a handful of people have heard of. Whodathunkit, eh?

On a lighter note, the football transfer window closed at midnight on Tuesday night. This is a nerve-wracking time for fans of any club, but especially for fans of the less-fashionable, poorer clubs. As a Kilmarnock fan I’ve had to endure the pain of seeing our star players being snatched away from us at the stroke of midnight by ‘Sir’ Walter Smith and his satanic promises of first team football and the chance to wear the badge of the team they’ve “always supported since I was a wee boy“. To be fair to my club, the last time this happened they held out spectacularly for a decent sum (£2 million I think) for Steven Naismith. But this was only after failing miserably to command a fee any greater than £400,000 (to be paid in instalements, not even in the one go) for the services of Kris Boyd the season previously, a player who went on to score about 17 gazillion goals over the next few seasons (many against us), helped his team to a European final and cemented his place in the Scotland team, before getting his dream move to a bigger club. That’s Middlesborough, if you didn’t know.

The internet was buzzing on Tuesday night. Fans forums were in meltdown as everyone logged on trying to find the truth amongst the rumours, the rubbish and the rest. This year’s big worry was whether or not our star midfielder and captain, Craig Bryson, would be off to join up with recently departed Killie boss Jim Jefferies at Hearts. The rumour mills were in over-drive. At various points leading up to midnight he was at Tynecastle undergoing a medical, he was being sold for £400,000, he was being sold for £200,000 plus a player in return. At one point he was even off to Ipswich. Truth is, none of this was correct. By midnight, Hearts had had a couple of cheeky bids knocked back and Bryson remained with us.

Amongst all the Bryson rumours was a rumour about another player joining Hearts. Every team has fans’ favourites. Maybe not the most technically gifted set of legs in the team, but the one with the biggest heart, worn on the sleeve with pride. The player who’s first to question the referee’s authority whenever he feels a sense of injustice. The player who’ll give away the ‘clever’ foul and take the ‘clever’ booking for the team. The player who kisses the badge unironically cos he means it (maaaan), the player who, when a goal is scored, is the first to run to the crowd and not his teammates to celebrate, a player who can whip up a frenzy of excitement on the terracing by the sheer mention of his name.

At Killie, Manuel Pascali is that player. A tough, no-nonsene pro he breaks down attacks with a crunching tackle before distributing the ball wisely to a team mate. Not wisely distributing. That would infer that he’s incapable of anything other than giving the ball to a teammate to do the hard bit. No. I mean distributing the ball wisely, whereby at lightning speed he assesses the situation and from all his options picks out the best pass that’ll put his team on the offensive. He’s a bit like one of those Dutch or Spanish holding midfielders that slugged it out in that tetchy World Cup final a couple of months ago. Only not as good, or he’d be at a bigger club. Which takes me back to transfer deadline day and stupid rumours. Not only was Bryson going to Hearts, Pascali was off too! In fact, he was currently undergoing a medical and was about to put pen to paper. Noooooo! This was a disaster! While we were getting all hot under the collar about our star midfielder, our old manager had only gone and thrown a cat amongst the pigeons by pinching Pascali from right under our blue and white noses. Manu! How could you? Except, of course, he hadn’t. As all this drama was unfolding on the football part of the internet, over on the social networking section my close personal Facebook friend Manu Pascali was exclusively revealing we were  not to worry, that he was sitting “at home watching a DVD” and that he was “Killie Til I Die!” Heroes, eh? Dontcha just love ’em?

Also over on Facebook, another friend had posted a video of lost Talking Heads‘ classic This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody). I’ve got Arcade Fire doing that I said. What, with their quirky nature and choice of instrumentation, it’s a song that suits them perfectly. So, for you, Mr Big Stuff and any other Arcade Fire fans (and there must be a fair few, given that they’re currently (ahem, cough) burning up the charts, here’s some rare Arcade Fire.

This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) (taken from a 2004 CBC Radio 3 Studio Session)

Cold Wind (from the Six Feet Under TV series soundtrack)

No Cars Go (from the 2003 and re-released in 2005 Arcade Fire ep)

Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son (Serge Gainsbourg cover, released on one side of a joint tour 7″ single with LCD Soundsystem. Sung in French. Or is that French Canadian?)

And if you haven’t done so already, you need to try this. Arcade Fire video +  Google earth images of your address + some animated birds = pretty fantastic viewing experience. Warning – takes a wee bit to load. But it’s worth the wait.


Cover Versions, demo, Gone but not forgotten

Black Sheep Boy Triple Whammy

Craig McAllister

Or Meet The Folkers (Slight Return). Coming hot on the slippery flippers of the folkie Dolphins post a week or so ago, I’m about to wax lyrical about Tim Hardin‘s Black Sheep Boy. Released in ’67 on Tim Hardin’s 2nd LP (Tim Hardin 2), Black Sheep Boy is a gentle finger-picked acoustic track, melancholic, downbeat and, thanks to the Atlantic Gulf Stream, perfect for this Indian summer we’re currently experiencing on the West Coast of Scotland.

Joe Strummer called Tim Hardin a ‘lost genius of music‘ and he was right. A songwriter’s songwriter, he penned one stone cold classic that would be oft covered by others (Reason To Believe), provided Nico with Eulogy For Lenny Bruce for her Chelsea Girls album and more recently has given Mark Lanegan the perfect track for his gargling sand ‘n gravel growl (Shiloh Town).  Black Sheep Boy is a melancholic rumination of a life gone awry. Basically it says, “I can’t do right for doing wrong, my family don’t love me and no-one understands me ‘cept for the girls who dig my golden curls of hair.”

Much like Reason To Believe, Black Sheep Boy has been covered by numerous hipsters, all eager to worship at the altar of Hardin. Front of the queue was Scott Walker who took Hardin’s introspective strumalong and turned it into a lush Spectorish wall of sound production, all sweeping strings, plucked nylon acoustics and bathed in pathos. Sitting quite happily amongst a mixture of originals, contemporary covers and the odd Jacques Brel song of decadance and decay, it is quite splendid and appears on ’68s Scott 2 (sleeve notes by ‘his friend‘ Jonathan King, fact fans).

Not as rich but no less fantastic to these ears is Paul Weller‘s frantic knee-trembler of a version, released on the now-obscure Volume series of CDs (the hip and happening of the day compiled on a CD with an accompanying fanzine-style glossy book.) At less than 2 minutes long it cuts to the chase, managing to pack in tasteful pedal steel, some subtle organ, occasional double-tracked vocals and Weller’s signature white man trying to sing like Otis on the last couple of lines. PW’s version was recorded in 1994, around the time of Wild Wood. You could suggest that Tim Hardin was something of an influence on the Wild Wood LP, given that album’s rootsy acoustic feel. You might even suggest that Weller has been a fan of Tim Hardin for a number of years. On Side 2 of Tim Hardin 2 you’ll find a song called Speak Like A Child. Now. Where have I heard that before?

Bonus Tracks!

Tim Hardin Speak Like a Child

The Style Council Speak Like A Child

(2 totally different songs, in case you were wondering)

Cover Versions, Dylanish, Hard-to-find

Meet The Folkers

Craig McAllister

A quick history lesson. Sit still at the back!

The Marymass Festival in Irvine is an annual event that dates back to the Middle Ages, although the Marymass festival that Irvinites are familiar with has been going in its current guise since only 1920. The Festival celebrates the time when Mary Queen of Scots stopped off briefly with her entourage of maids-in-waiting at Seagate Castle in (what is now) the town centre. In the lead up to Marymass, a group of voted-in dignitaries go around the local schools and select a 15 year old Queen and four Marys who’s job it is to sit in a couple of wee carriages and get drawn around the corners of the town as the centre piece of a parade. It’s all very serious stuff to those involved.

The parade appears to get smaller every year but always features a dazzling array of dancers, drunks and dandies. Horse-drawn floats dressed up in the themes du jour (this year will no doubt feature a Toy Story float) follow pipe bands who follow twirling majorettes who follow somersaulting seven year olds in leotards trying hopelessly to avoid the horse shit on the road.

The crowds love it. Sunburnt, tattooed and dressed in their Old Firm finery (and that’s just the women), they follow the parade as it progresses out towards The Moor on what was once the outskirts of the town. Ever since a drunk councillor pissed on the sacred, crumbling walls of Seagate Castle a few years ago, public drinking has been banned at Marymass. The pubs open ridiculously long hours on Marymass Saturday, but if you’re caught drinking outwith the walls of The Turf or The Porthead or any local hostelry, you can expect a clip roon the ear from the polis.

Glugging Buckfast from craftily disguised Cola bottles, the throng make their way to the greasy pole to watch as teams of young men (usually from the same family) make a human ladder up the pole to get to the top and remove a giant ham that awaits them. There can be only winner – it’s generally accepted that the ham is always won by the baddest boys from school’s big brothers and that all other teams are there merely to add to the spectacle. And it really is a spectacle. Horse racing, the shows (that’s a funfair, if you’re reading daan sarf) and any number of attractions, the whole of Irvine will be out on the streets this Saturday. Dontcha dare miss it now.

The music bit.

As part of Marymass, there’s an annual folk festival. Held over 5 days around Marymass, I think I’m right in saying it’s the oldest surviving folk festival in the world. This year is its 43rd year. It’s healthy, self-sustaining and plays to a small but fanatical crowd. When Billy Connolly plonked his big banana feet onto the bottom rung of showbusiness, he played the festival. Nowadays, there’s a hardy mix of locals, Irish, American, Scandinavian and Antipodeans who get together to swap stories and song.

Last night saw the annual ‘Open stage’ event and I was there. Judges from Living Tradition magazine put on their  Simon Cowell masks and select an appropriate winner, judging performers on choice of song, musicianship, vocal ability, you know the sort of stuff. The act that won it were head and shoulders above all others, and I say that not because 2 of  the trio were my parents, but because they really were the best. Pause. Pause again. Aye. You read that correctly. My parents. Way back before I was born, they were regulars on the folk scene, playing on the same bill as Billy Connolly, railing against the government with a handful of protest songs and a couple of cheap guitars. All this fell by the wayside when 3 children arrived, but they’ve picked it all up again and with a fanatacism that’s hard to beat.

Lou Reed? Joe Strummer? Him from Glasvegas?

One of the acts last night did a song that sounded like Greenwich Village folkie Fred Neil‘s The Dolphins. But it wasn’t. However, it gives me a good excuse to stick up some versions of The Dolphins, a spot-on brilliant song that’s been covered countless times by countless artists.

Tim Buckley‘s version

Beth Orton‘s version. Features Terry Callier on backing vocals.

A youthful sounding Trashcan Sinatras version.

Taken from a hissy radio session in February 1991.

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

King Curtis (part 2)

Craig McAllister

Everybody listen up! Everybody! All you laydees an’ Gen’lmen! All you foxes an’ fellas! All you fellas wishin’ they was foxes an’ all you foxes wishin’ they was fellas! Tonight’s contest sees some of the greatest soul records ever made* slug it out in this here ring for the crown of Best Version Of a Curtis Mayfield Song….Ever! In the black corner we have our tag-team challengers, the mysterious and little-heard of 16 year old wonder, Miss Patti Jo and, fresh from touring the World and beyond with The Jackson 5, the delicious Sisters Love. And in the black corner we have the Undisputed! Genius! Of Soul! Funk! R&B! Gospel! And stack-heeled boots! Thee Heavyweight Champion of the World, Mr Cuurrttiiss Maayyffiieelldd!

Seconds out, Round1!

By 1973, Curtis Mayfield had penned an astounding 44 Top 50 US R&B chart hits for other artists. His version of the sublime Make Me Believe In You appeared on 74s Sweet Exorcist album, but by then it had been recorded by Patti Jo. Little is known of Patti Jo. I do know she was only 16 when she recorded her version. No amount of GoogleWiki sheds any light on her at all. I don’t know what else she recorded, what she looked like, where she lived. I don’t know anything about her at all. But I do know that her version of Make Me Believe In You is a reliable standard in Pete Wiggs’ (St Etienne) DJ box whenever he gets the chance to spin the wheels of steel. Vinyl pops ‘n crackles ‘n all, this is the harder-to-find full length version, not the edited one that usually crops up on yer more trainspottery soul compilations. Flute solo included, it knocks Curtis’ original into submission by the first minute, if you ask me.

Seconds out, Round 2!

Curtis put his version of Give Me Your Love on the soundtrack to Superfly. Scroll down a wee bit from here and you’ll find a live YouTube video of it. It is Blaxploitation personified. Lush, sweeping strings, hypnotic 4 note bass riff, stabbing brass, the ubiquitous wah-wah, by the time the vocals come in I find myself struttin’ the room like a velvet-adorned Harlem pimp. A look that doesn’t go down particularly well in this exclusive part of Ayrshire, even at Halloween. Snoop Dogg liked it so much he knicked it for the opening track of Doggystyle. But you knew that already. Or maybe you didn’t? Hear here.

In contrast, 73’s version by Sisters Love turns the original’s man-coming-on-to-woman on it’s sweet soul head, giving it an empowering pro-feminist love ’em and leave em twist. Or something like that. Either way, it‘s a bona fide, stone-cold underground funk/disco classic. Does that genre even exist? It does now, brothers and sisters. Punch for punch and pound for pound, Curtis takes this one for me.

That’s one round each. Patti Jo takes the first. Curtis batters Sisters Love in the second. Who wins? It’ll go to points. Listen, score them and post your winners in the comments section below. Ciao, soul brothers and sisters!

*mid 70s only