Category: Cover Versions

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

Alex Chilton

Craig McAllister

Fuck. Just heard the news. This keyboard is awash with tiny tears as I type. It’s always the way, but why do the good guys go first? I can’t believe I’m writing about Alex Chilton in the past tense. His music, especially with Big Star, means as much to me as Them There Beatles, it really does. Whether he was bedroom balladeering or bar-room bawling and balls-out rocking, his songs hit a nerve that jangled all the way to the auditory part of my brain like one of those fancy pants chords he could tease out of his guitar.

If you’re reading this you probably know all about him. Teenage Box Top. Cult hero in coulda been shoulda been Big Star. Producer of The Cramps. Friend and collaborator with fellow enthusiasts/obsessives Teenage Fanclub. All round nice guy, he wrote and recorded some of the best pop songs you’ll hear. Seek out #1 Record or Radio City or 3rd/Sister Lovers for proof. Sometimes bleak, often uplifting, always soulful. But you knew that already. Given our track record for celebrating the artist in death rather than life, Alex Chilton may yet become somewhat ironically a Big Star.

I’m glad I caught Big Star live. Just the once, when they first played Glasgow as part of their initial reunion tour. I stood on the balcony of the QM Union looking down onto the stage where Chilton led his band through non-hit after non-hit after non-hit. The crowd knew every word. So too did Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer of The Posies, similarly Teenage Fanclub-like in their obsessiveness about Big Star, and on-stage playing out their own version of Jim’ll Fix It on bass and guitar. Chilton himself played a mean guitar that night. And I mean mean in the economic sense. No frills, no pedals. Just him, a nice warm valve amp and a couple of vintage guitars. What a sound! Often overlooked in the scheme of things, Chilton was a fantastic guitar player – proof? – His version of My Baby Just Cares For Me is still up for grabs via this post.

He could play anything. Anything. Rock. Pop. Stax-inflected southern soul. Doo-wop. Jazz. E-nee-thing. He was a player’s player. A dude. And he once, sorry twice, played the 13th Note in Glasgow with Teenage Fanclub as his backing band. Naturally I found out about this the day after the second show. It was a Tuesday morning and a colleague from work casually mentioned it on the phone. Pre internet days, I’m afraid. Pissed off? You better believe it. Especially as the bootleg sounds amazing. Here‘s the entire show. No artwork. No tracklisting (I’m far too lazy/far too busy to type it out). First track is a rockin’ September Gurls. There’s covers of T-Rex, 60s pop standards and, yep, Stax-inflected southern soul. Get it and remember him this way.

Thanks for the music Alex.

Alex Chilton. December 28th 1950 – March 17th 2010

Cover Versions

I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down Double Whammy

Craig McAllister

Round about 1990/91, John Peel played a version of I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down on his late night Radio 1 show. It was loose, sloppy and fairly fantastic and I’m almost positive he said it was by Nirvana. Given the year, this would be the post-Beach/pre-Nevermind globe straddling Nirvana. Peel mentioned something about a Japanese compilation called Teriyaki Asthma, and though I can find these albums online, as far as I can see there’s no mention of …Can’t Stand Up… on any of them. No matter where I search or who I ask, I can’t seem to find a recording of it anywhere. To all intents and purposes, it just doesn’t exist. Or does it? Over to you…

 
For years I was under the impression that I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down was an Elvis Costello original. It was released on 1980’s ‘Get Happy’ but began life in more dubious circumstances. Following the collapse of Radar (the label Costello recorded for up until this point) and fresh from producing The Specials’ first album, his manager Jake Riviera approached 2 Tone with the idea of releasing the track as a one-off single until a label was found and a deal was struck to release the Get Happy LP. WEA, owners of Radar, were not impressed. Given that they had been distributing his records, they felt that they had a stake in Costello’s success and promptly served a writ on 2 Tone, stopping them releasing the record.
The few thousand 7”s that had been pressed were given away at a Rainbow Theatre gig in London, and Riviera sneakily pressed up some more which were given away at other London and American gigs. Interviewed in Record Collector No 363, Jerry Dammers takes a slightly different view point :
“Jake Riviera cheekily printed up a few thousand Elvis Costello singles on the 2 Tone label, obviously thinking that I would be delighted to have such a major star on the label, but I was having none of it, 2 Tone being strictly ska at that time. So Elvis was forced to give these singles away free at his gigs.”
 
These 2 Tone singles are now ridiculously collectible. If you have one it’s worth checking out what the 2 Tone nuts’ll pay for it. Disappointingly, my version comes from a Best of 2 Tone CD I got about 20 years ago. No cash-in for me.
 
Hipsway. Glasvegas taking notes just out of shot.
For years I was met with blank stares and sneering indifference from trying-too-hard-to-be-cool wankers in West of Scotland record shops whenever I asked for Hipsway (aye, really!) doing It’s A Family Affair, until I found out it was just called Family Affair. I had seen Hipsway play it live and assumed it was an old b-side or something, having never heard Sly Stone at this point in my life. I doubt those wankers behind the counter had heard Sly either cos no-one ever corrected me and pointed out what it was I might be asking for. Even the nice wee old woman who worked behind the counter in RS McColl’s record department (best record shop in the world by the way!) at Irvine Cross couldn’t help me. I got into soul music big time when I worked in record shops myself and had access to all these artists I had heard of but never heard. That was when I discovered that many of the records I liked were cover versions. The Jam doing Stoned Out Of My Mind? That’s a Chi-Lites cover, man! The Black Crowes doing ‘Hard To Handle’? That’s an Otis Redding cover! And it’s not as good as the original (of course). Elvis Costello doing I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down? That’s an old Sam & Dave song. Is it? Oh, so it is! But whereas the Elvis version is an uptempo new wavey 2 minute wonder, Sam & Dave’s original is a different kettle of crawfish altogether.
Sam & Dave. Or Dave & Sam. I’m no’ sure.
Theirs is an exhausted, knees-to-the-floor, crumpled in a pool of sweat, southern soul tearjerker. Half the speed of Costello’s with twice the soul and despair, it’s a belter. What makes it all the more amazing is when you know the story of Sam & Dave. For most of their time together, they barely spoke to one another. They had separate dressing rooms. They turned up separately to shows. By the 70s, one of them might not even turn up at all. Which made it difficult for the promoter promoting the Sam & Dave Show. Sam had aspirations for going solo. Dave resented this. Sam hated the ‘Sam & Dave Show’ material they were made to perform. On stage, they would constantly try and out-do one another, which made for outrageous dance-offs and a frenzied live performance. Following the 1967 Stax/Volt tour of Europe, Otis Redding refused to go on after them as night after night they brought the house down – Follow that Otis and all that. Aye, Sam & Dave’s version is the real deal. Though not as good as the cover……
 
*Apologies for the layout/font/spacing etc. My computer’s having an off day.
Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

A Kinks Klunker and a Kouple of Klassiks

Craig McAllister

Call it The Establishment, Rock Royalty, whatever you fancy, but every songwriter has plenty skeletons rattling around their songwriting closet. For every Helter Skelter there’s a Frog Chorus. For every Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands there’s a Wiggle Wiggle. For every Heroes there’s a Laughing Gnome. If you dig deep enough you’ll find that no hero-worshipped songwriter is immune from it. They’ve all written rubbish at some point and some of it has even made it to vinyl.

Kinks ’83 model.

I came to The Kinks via 1983’s Come Dancing, but I was in denial about them for a long, long time. “The Kinks? Oh, they’re an old band.” said my mum. “I met Ray Davies in a pub in Arran once. Or was that Jeff Beck?” Like any normal 13 year old, anything my parents liked, I didn’t (or shouldn’t). If they hated Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood as much as they said they did, I was only going to buy the 12″ and play it non-stop for half a year. Ditto The Kinks’ Come Dancing. I loved it. I bought it. I played it to death when my mum wasn’t around to hear me playing it. Sometime later I borrowed the LP with Come Dancing on it (State Of Confusion) from the library and was massively underwhelmed. What’s all the fuss about those Kinks? This is pub rock. And not even good pub rock. George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Now there’s some decent pub rock for you. I was a good few years away from setting foot in a pub, but I knew. I did. 

State Of Confusion was so bad I didn’t even tape it. The band themselves seemed to be in some state of confusion. Were they rock? New wave? Acoustic balladeers? Nah, they were the bloody Kinks, mate. Only, they were going downhill fast without the brakes on. A severley diluted, sanitised version of the real Kinks that I had yet to hear. Of course a few years later I discovered the true Kinks and came to love them. Ray Davies doesn’t have to apologise for anything he’s written, recorded or released. You and I both know that. But the iPod threw up this stinker of a tune the other day. I had no idea who it was and was beginning to doubt my own taste in music. Then amongst the strangled power chords and strained vocals something jumped out at me. I recognised a wee bit of the voice. T’was only Ray Davies! On Disc 6 of Kinks box set Picture Book. Aye. Disc 6. The disc no-one will ever play more than once. Not The Kinks’ finest hour, that’s for sure. And lo and behold, the track I was about to skip was State Of Confusion, title track from the aforementioned 1983 elpee. It took me all the way back to when I thought the Kinks were Krap. Yuck! It’s a stone cold sure fire Kinks Klunker and no mistake. You have been warned.

I prefer my Kinks tight of trouser, modish of cloth and shaggy of hair. They were a fantastic garage band, a fact often overlooked in the clamber to place them at the top of the classic songwriting pedestal, but find a space in your heart and a few minutes of your time to appreciate the following tracks….

Here’s Sittin’ On My Sofa, Milk Cow Blues and I Need You. I’ve posted I Need You before (here), but You Need It. You Need All Of Them to be honest. As you listen, spare a thought for how they got that guitar sound. If you’ve read Ray’s X-Ray semi-autobiography, you’ll already know that brother Dave took a knitting needle to his amp one day in a fit of squabling sibling rivalry and burst a hole right throught the speaker cone. Cue much fuzzed-up distortion and the riff for You Really Got Me….

Ray and Dandy Dave

Cover Versions

Kiss My Shades* (slight return)

Craig McAllister

Two people have been in touch over the past week or so and asked if I’d re-post some mp3’s. I don’t usually respond to requests like this because a) I cannae usually find the mp3s in question and b) if I can find them, I usually cannae be arsed with all the bother of uploading them again. Often the reason mp3s disappear suddenly from Plain Or Pan (or indeed any blog you visit)  is because a particular record company has spotted something they own and believe that the blogger making it available for free will stop you from buying it. I tend to post only hard to find/out of print stuff, but this argument doesn’t win with the powers that be and I’ve often received the internet equivalent of a record company knee capping by daring to post some dusty old forgotten slab of vinyl. Anyway Stephen Q and Quiff#1 (really!) this re-post (from November 07) is for you…..

Released in April 1984, this version of ‘Hand In Glove’ was promoted as a Sandie Shaw solo release, although it is essentially The Smiths with Sandie Shaw coming straight off the bench as some kind of super-sub. All those Smiths fans helped the single reach the dizzy heights of number 27. Even the cover art of the single is Smithsy in appearance. I’d imagine all Smiths aficionados would have the 3 Smiths tracks Sandie covered by now, but if not, here you go… 

sandie-sleeve.gif

The 7” featured 2 tracks – the lead track and her version of ‘I Don’t Owe You Anything’. ‘Hand In Glove’ is a reverb-drenched bash-along that Siouxsie Sioux would be proud of. The lead guitar riff sounds like a glockenspiel, and I mean that in a good way. The outro is terrific too. Different to the original. Not better. Not worse. Just different.  

sandie-smiths.jpg

Apart from the unusual introduction, Sandie’s version of ‘I Don’t Owe You Anything’ sounds an awful lot like the Troy Tate produced version that was intended for their first album before The Smiths binned it at the last minute. Maybe, way back in ’84 before Bongo, Sting and all those other worthless eco-warriers, The Smiths were into recycling their old junk, giving it to someone more deserving. It’s got a creepy, churchy-sounding keyboard part playing through the background and tons of jangling, clipped 12 string Rickenbacker. And the final chord is niiiiiiiiice. Sandie’s got a nice warble to her voice too. I like this version a lot. 

 sandie-johnny.jpg

The 12” featured ‘Jeane’ as an extra track. More acoustic than The Smiths, it’s just Johnny n’ Sandie, until some crooner in a big quiff and national health specs starts yodeling towards the end. No heavenly choirs, not for me and not for you, they sing. But I’m not so sure. Sandie Shaw’s 3 Smiths covers are amongst some of my favourite records.    

 sandie-moz-rosary.jpg

Forgive me father, for I have sing-ed

Around the time of the record’s release, Morrissey said, “I met her a few months ago and it seemed perfectly natural for me to seize the opportunity and ask her to work with us and she was incredibly eager and incredibly enthusiastic. She really liked the songs and she was very eager to do it. So, it’s happened and I’m very pleased.“ Four years later, post-Smiths and bored of Smiths-obsessed journalists, he cut short one inquisitive interviewer with, “It was so great for me personally that I don’t actually remember it happening“. 

sandie-leather-jacket.jpg

Is that real leather she’s wearing?

*   ’Kiss My Shades’ was the wee message scratched into the run-off groove of the 7”, trainspotters.

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, studio outtakes

Ladies and Gentlemen, Elvis has re-entered the building…

Craig McAllister

Last Friday would’ve been Elvis’s 75th birthday. It’s anyone’s guess what he might’ve been doing had he still been alive these days. Maybe the hottest, most over-priced oldie ticket on the circuit. Having finally freed himself from the management clutches of illegal immigrant Colonel Tom Parker he’s a non-stop World Touring machine, kerchinging his way across the planet out-grossing the Rolling Stones, U2 et al along the way. Or maybe the fattest, lardy-assed multi millionaire grossing out anyone he comes into contact with in one of his few forrays into the real world, instead living out his final years in Gracelands surrounded by flunkies and 50 year old former beauty queens who still see Elvis, Shallow Hal style, as that bee-stung lip curled, hip-swinging sexual animal of old. Personally I like to think he’d be somewhere in between. By now, someone would’ve taken him aside, pointed him in the direction of some decent management and he’d have taken to touring when and where he felt like it, BB King style. Maybe an annual show at Prestwick Airport or something like that…

We’ll never know.

Spiritualized’s ‘Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space’ has recently been reissued as a monster 3CD package. Jason Pierce had the opportunity to work on the remaster but somewhat arrogantly (and predictably) claimed that he’d done the best possible job first time round. Eh..not quite, Mr Spaceman. On the original 1997 release, the first track, ‘Ladies and Gentlmen We Are Floating In Space’, was a delicate paen to lost love, Pierce harmonising and singing counter-melodies to himself over the sort of backing track Brian Wilson would be proud of creating. The lyrics hint at snatches of Elvis’s ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ in places, but never quite get there – possibly due to copyright problems a la Verve and The Rolling Stones, where Jagger and co got 100%, (that’s 100%!) of the royalties from Bittersweet Symphony. Serves that lanky idiot Ashcroft right, after running away with Jason Pierce’s girlfriend – lyrically, that’s what the whole Ladies and Gentlemen album is about. Anyway, I digress. The new Spiritualized release doesn’t change anything, but adds the fantastic sound of a gospel choir singing ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love‘ throughout it. It. Sounds. Fantastic.

And if you thought that was good…here‘s a seperated track, featuring sparse backing and Pierce doing the whole Elvis bit himself. It’s restrained, heartbreaking and druggy as fuck in equal measures. If you were a writer dealing in puns you might say there’s methodone his madness. Anyway, you’ll also find it on disc 2 of the new release.

Sometimes in my search for interesting music to put on here, I overlook the fact that often, the original un-altered version is usually the best. So here‘s Elvis doing Can’t Help Falling In Love. The same version on every Elvis hits compilation ever released, the same one you’ve heard a gazillion times before. Recorded for the Blue Hawaii soundtrack. But you knew that already.

*Bonus Track!

Here‘s take 4 of Guitar Man. I’ve written about it before, here. (Though the mp3 links have long been deleted by them pesky internet police.)

Cover Versions

We’re Lost In Muzak

Craig McAllister

Hard to believe it’s now almost 25 years ago, but tons of bands in the mid 80s were awash with floral patterns and full of cutesy-pie hair slide-wearing, pasty-faced sensitive souls. And that was just the boys (drumroll and cymbal crash, please). Declaring their love in song for Rachel and Emily and Charlotte, they sang with such effeteness that these days, Belle and Sebastian sound like Motorhead in comparison.

It’s all Orange Juice and Postcard Records’ fault of course, but you knew that already. Taking it many, many steps too far, one of the chief perpetrators was Sarah Records, a Bristol-based label who grew out of the underground flexi-disc scene. They even released a record called ‘I’m In Love With A Girl Who Doesn’t Know I Exist’ (by Another Sunny Day). Oh happy happy joy joy. One of Sarah Records more successful acts was The Field Mice.

Wet. Wet. Wet.

Look at them. They could’ve done with a good slap and a good shag, in any order you like. Wee, sleekit, cowrin’, timrous beasties indeed. A brief Wiki of their discography turns up these predictable song titles – Emma’s House, Sensitive, I Can See Myself Alone Forever……Thank God I was immersed in New Order and Love-era The Cult while all this was going on. They did however, turn up trumps on this. Let’s Kiss And Make Up (pur-lease!) is a six minute ode to holding hands again after falling out over who gets to read the copy of Boy Meets Girl fanzine first. Or something like that. But it’s a cracker. Aye, really! I appreciate I’ve given them as good a literary kicking as I can, but LKAMU is brilliant. Jangling (of course), swirly (of course), fey (of course), Home Counties accented singer (of course), it ticks all the correct indie pop boxes, with spots on.

It was so good Saint Etienne picked up on it and released their own version as a pre-Foxbase Alpha single. With vocals (Donna Savage, not Sarah Cracknell) that are gossamer-thin and just on the right side of tuneful, Saint Etienne’s version is aimed slightly more at the dancefloor. All beats ‘n bongos and some none-more late 80s Italo-house piano and stabbing synths, it’s dubby, clubby and a wee bit spacey.

Pete ‘n Bob, always on the ball

One of those bands who undoubtedly have The Best Record Collection In The World…Ever!, Saint Etienne continually irritate me. I love them, I really do. I have almost their entire back catalogue, but Saint Etienne annoy the hell out of me. Sometimes they make terrific music, sometimes they make terrifying muzak (sometimes even in the same record). Too indie to be all out-and-out pop, too pop to be all out-and-out indie, every record they release comes with the slightly smug arched eyebrow and knowing wink of someone who’s a bit too clever and knows it. Listen to this! It’s a Neil Young cover! Listen to this! It’s krautrock for the 90s! Listen to this! It’s post-ironic rave! Listen to this! It’s us recording under a different name. Listen to this! It’s the theme tune to a TV show. Which we recorded/sampled/ironically aped in our video. Having soaked in a good bubblebathful of pop history, they even had their own Brian Wilson moment when Pete Wiggs decided he didn’t want to tour anymore. Saint Etienne, I love you, I really do, but just Who Do You Think You Are?

Any excuse to show la Cracknell

*Bonus Track!!!

Saint Etienne would no doubt love this. An irony-free pop take on their own Nothing Can Stop Us. By Kylie Minogue, released a few years before she was able to trade sans surname. I never thought I’d be posting mp3s of Kylie Minogue on here, but there you go. It’s no’ bad, actually, but not as good as the FHM (I think) inspired photoshoot below.’70s tennis girl for the Lad Mag generation. Thank you God.

Ace! Smashing! Cheeky! etc etc

Blur Fanclub Singles, Cover Versions, demo, Dylanish, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Kraut-y, Live!, Most downloaded tracks, Studio master tapes

Three! Free! Fae Me!

Craig McAllister

Plain Or Pan is 3 years old and what better way to celebrate than with a compilation CD…..

Add your own Ronco/K-Tel voiceover:

Featuring the most popular downloads from last year’s blog, this compilation is the ideal taster for what Plain Or Pan is about. Covers, curios and the odd hard-to-find classic, this fantastic double CD is not available in the shops or from any good online retailers. Get it only at myTunes! Free! Today! Now!

Aye. It’s the ideal companion to last year’s double CD (still available here). Kicking off with the notorious Beatles Revolution take 20  outtake/outfake? that nearly melted Plain Or Pan for good in January last year, I’ve included some odd ball covers (Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed, the Dead Weather track), Fleet Foxes spin-offs (White Antelope), one of Johnny Marr’s favourite records (The Equals), rare fanclub-only releases (Blur), hardly-heard studio gems (The Temptations), demos (Marvin Gaye, The Pretenders), rarities (The La’s white label version of Timeless Melody – only 500 exist) and a whole lot more over 2 CDs. I’m rather proud of this wee compilation. It includes some nifty home-made artwork too! Right click on CD1 and CD2 below to download each CD in one go.

 

CD1                                                 CD2

 

Complete tracklisting:

Disc 1

The Beatles – Revolution (take 20)

The Kinks – I Need You

Pop Levi – Blue Honey

The Temptations – Ball Of Confusion (unreleased version)

Booker T & the MGs – Sing A Simple Song

Ike & Tina Turner – Bold Soul Sister

Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed & the Trueloves – Ace Of Spades

Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On (demo)

Arctic Monkeys – Baby I’m Yours

Afghan Whigs – Band Of Gold

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit (live)

The Soup Greens – Like A Rolling Stone

The La’s – Timeless Melody (GOLAS3 version)

Trash Can Sinatras – Snow

Super Furry Animals – Citizens Band

The Sundays – Wild Horses

Sparkelhorse/Danger Mouse feat Nina Persson – Daddy’s Gone

 

Disc 2

Glasvegas – The Prettiest Girl On Saltcoats Beach (full length version)

The Pretenders – Brass In Pocket (demo)

The Byrds – Mr Tambourine Man (vocal track)

Frank Blake – You Don’t Have To Cry

The Equals – Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys

The Fall – Lost In Music

Dead Weather – Are Friends Electric?

John Kongos – He’s Gonna Step On You Again

Grace Jones – Pull Up To The Bumper (12” mix)

Blur – Sing (To Me) (demo)

Inspiral Carpets – 96 Tears

Beck – Sunday Morning

White Antelope – It Ain’t Me Babe

Eddi Reader – Blues Run The Game

Stone Roses – Love Spreads (Guitar Track)

Neu! – Hallogallo

 

Cover Versions, Dylanish, Hard-to-find

Strokes Of Genius

Craig McAllister

Huge big massive “Happy Christmases!” all round to anyone who visits here regularly, irregularly or by sheer pot luck. Aye, I’m looking at all you faceless trouser arouser browsers who stumble onto Plain Or Pan when your search engine inadvertedly directs you this way in your quest for ‘teenage fanny‘. Norman Blake & co would die if they knew how half the hits on their website materialised. Anyway, now you’re here, feel free to browse around at the tunes on offer. Like these two three belters….

Now That’s what I Call A Christmas Single!

The Doe-Eyed Doonican Delivers! 

Julian Casablancas has released an uber-rare, uber-cool 7″ Christmas single. ‘I Wish It Was Christmas Today’ is limited to 500 copies worldwide, so if you’ve not already got it you’ll need to rob a bank before contemplating eBay. Aye. 500 copies. Worldwide. Which is a real catastrophe, as, no pun intended here, this record is a cracker. It reminds me a whole lot of Buzzcocks’ ‘Everybody’s Happy Nowadays’ (or is it Altered Images ‘I Could Be Happy‘? – Shit. It reminds me of both!) It’s a contemporary new wave classic that just happens to mention Christmas in the lyrics. And the song title. And the record sleeve. Which is a pity, cos I’m going to feel pretty stupid playing this on Saltcoats beach next July. But I shouldn’t.

“I don’t care ’bout anything ‘cept hearing those sleigh bells ring a ding ding”

Heard it yet? Whatcha waitin’ for?!?

Well. From the sublime at one end of the spectrum to the sublimer at the other. Sublimer? Is that even a word? Bob Dylan‘s Christmas album has came in for all sorts of snigger-snigger chuckle-chuckle reviews. Which I suppose was only to be expected. Old wheezy guy not known for jollity sings songs about Santa blah blah blah. Well, let me tell you this. The reviewers were wrong. Every last one of them. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Christmas In The Heart is a decent Dylan album. Decent inner sleeve too – see Betty Page above. Top notch production by Bob himself under the aptly named Jack White pseudonym. Like that Julian Casablancas single, I’d be happy listening to some of these songs in the height of the Scottish summer. It’ll probably be snowing then anyway. They’re (whisper it) better than some of the tracks on Dylan’s recent Together Through Life Tex-Mex snooze-fest. Judge for yourself…

Here Comes Santa Claus

Winter Wonderland

It’s only taken 20 years, but finally! Something to rival The Pogues for airplay in my house at this time of year.

With Christmas Day 5 sleeps away, this might be my last post until sometime between then and New Year. I hope to have some sort of audio present available for you to download at some point in the next fortnight. Drop by again. Even if you were only hoping to find some hardcore porn. A very different sort of strokes etc etc ad infinitum…

Jack Frost nipping at your nose. And ears.

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

A Right Coupla Tramps

Craig McAllister

Now and again I’ll get emails from people requesting stuff. Sometimes specific (“Got any Mogwai outtakes?” – Nope.) Sometimes more general (“Can you re-post that (insert anything from the past 3 years) please – Come on! Gie’s a break! “More Smiths!” “Radiohead!” “White Stripes!” “More soul please!”) OK! OK! More soul I can do. I like my soul music a lot. I think I have all the relevant bases covered in my collection. Just to make sure, I listen every Saturday night to Craig Charles‘ excellent Funk and Soul show on BBC 6 Music. As it says on the tin, the show covers a whole range of funk and soul, from the rarest northern to the most commercial Motown, the downright wilfully obscure and elitist to the phatest tooth-loosening funk-heavy slab of right up to date contemporary release. It’s probably my favourite show on the radio, ideal for cooking to if the mood takes me. You’d like it. Click on the link above and give it a try.

Otis Redding and Carla Thomas.

Anyone know who the piano player is?

Nothing particularly obscure and elitist here though. I’ve had a bit of a Stax attack recently. My 9CD 68-71 Complete Stax/Volt Singles Box Set has been given a good going over and Carla Thomas & Otis Redding‘s Tramp has had a fair few plays. When you hear the pistol crack drums and tight-as-a-teenage boy’s trousers horn section, it’s no surprise to learn it’s been heavily sampled by hip hoppers across the globe. Especially as there’s an instrumental version that made it out the Stax vaults a few years ago. The piano riff, with it’s big bluesy bass notes really does it for me. Who says white men can’t dance? If you want to listen to the complete track, here it is. If you fancy a bit of bedroom remixing, here‘s the instrumental track.

Tramp was also covered by Lowell Fulson. A fairly straightforward rendition, it’s still worth a listen. The guitar sound during the solo on Lowell’s track reminds me a lot of this…

‘Baby Let Me Take You (In My Arms)’ by the Detroit Emeralds. I posted it a while ago, and I’m putting it back up purely because it’s a stone cold soul classic. It’s maybe not a piece you’re familiar with, but you’ll certainly recognise it. Doing their best John Peel impression, De La Soul took the intro, played it at 45 instead of 33 and used it as the basis for their ‘Say No Go’ single. You can read more about De La Souls’ other sampling delights here and here. And before you ask – Sorry. I cannae re-post the files. They’ve been missing since the internet police found them and nearly closed this blog down. Hence the reason I don’t re-post old stuff. The Grinch, that’s what they call me at home.

Postscript – I’m A Numpty

Oh dear! Thanks to the ever vigilant amongst you I now know that;

1. That’s Booker T in the picture above. How could I fail to recognise the greatest ever organ grinder alive? Duh.

2. Lowell Fulson wrote and recorded the original version of Tramp. Otis & Carla’s version is, indeed, the cover version. Oops. 

My team of highly paid researchers are at this moment being emailed their P45s. Thanks to James and Cold Iron Kevin who pointed  this out.

Cover Versions, entire show, Hard-to-find

All Tomorrow’s (Christmas) Parties

Craig McAllister

D’you think the irony has been lost on the three quarters of a million sheep-like Facebook users who’ve signed up to get Rage Against The Machine to number 1 with a song who’s main hook repeats “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” about 327 times?

A better choice of download for Christmas number 1 would be this, if it were commercially available. Beck does the Velvet Underground‘s ‘Sunday Morning‘. It’s gorgeous. It’s the first track on the Velvet Underground & Nico album. But you knew that already. It’s also the first track from the first album in Beck’s irregular Record Club, available to view in video form over at beck.com. But you probably knew that already too. He’s since put up the second instalement (Songs of Leonard Cohen), but, hey, you know me, Hardly hip to the jive, I’m always half a funky footstep away from what’s goin’ down with the kids.

The whole album has been recorded with an assortment of special guests, and it’s a pretty faithful re-recording. Bits of it sound like the Beta Band (especially the pots n’ pans rattling take on I’m Waiting For The Man) Other parts sound a bit like (dig the irony again) Spiritualized and Spacemen 3, two bands who’d arguably never have been born without a love affair with all things Velvet. Anyway, the whole thing is worth hearing. Download slowly and see, here.

See you later, gotta run run run. Ouch.