Category: Cover Versions

Cover Versions, demo, Dylanish

Outfoxed

Craig McAllister

In blogging terms, this post is chip paper. Yesterday’s news. Actually, make that last weeks news. You no doubt know already, but main Fleet Fox Robin Pecknold has gone and recorded some stuff under the alias of A White Antelope. What can be found so far online is pretty good – finger-picked, layered in harmony and as poofy sounding as you could possibly need. I like it. How come no-one told me about this before now?

white-antelope

Here‘s his/their cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’. Last time I saw Dylan play this he went for the marching military funeral band approach to the arrangement. A far cry from his early 60s live versions when Joan Baez would often rudely interrupt with her strangled attempts at harmony, or his mid 70s Rolling Thunder versions with the clipped guitar and pedal steel accompaniment. White Antelope has listened to the original recording and replicated it well. Better even. But then, if you’ve been keeping up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in the world of music, you knew that already.

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

Like A Rolling Stone quadruple-whammy

Craig McAllister

Probably Bob Dylan‘s most famous song, Like A Rolling Stone shows no sign of gathering moss just yet. He’s still playing it live to this day, and unusually for 21st Century Bob, it sounds fairly similar to the original 1965 version released on Highway 61 Revisited. Dylan loves playing around with songs, changing them, playing them in different keys and in diferent tempos (LARS was originally in 3/4 waltz time). If you get him on a good night, he might have told the band that the key has changed before they start playing it. On a great night (Barrowlands 2004) he might even conduct the lucky few in the room in a bit of a singsong. “We musta played that song a thousand times and ain’t nobody ever kept up with us.” For Bob to say anything to his audience, never mind a dish out praise as flattering as that, is rare indeed. Given that Bob likes to change his songs so much, I’m sure The Old Zim would like, even dig, the versions below.

jimihendrixmontereykl3

How does it feel? Burny, of course

I say ‘dig’ because, as you no doubt know, in between changing the sound of the rock guitar forever and before disappearing somewhere down flare city, Jimi Hendrix was Dylan fan numero uno back in the 60s. His version is from the Monterey Music Festival in 1967. It’s long, bluesy and uh, kinda groovy. Yeah, dig brother (You get the idea). Jimi set fire to his guitar at the end of this show. Everyone thinks he did this all the time on stage, but he didn’t. Monterey was one of those rare occassions.

mick-ronson

Another guitar hero who had a bash at LARS was Mick Ronson. Redolent with full-on Ziggy Les Paul power chords and rather shitty sounding drums, this version is remarkable in that it features David Bowie on vocals. It wouldn’t sound out of place on ‘Pin Ups’ (my 2nd favourite Bowie album, just behind Hunky Dory). Choc-full of spectacular guitar sounds, it twangs, squeals and screeches it’s way from beginning to end in just over 4 minutes.

creation_pic

The Creation were a pslightly psych garage rock band from England. But you probably knew that too. They famously described their music as ‘red with purple flashes’ and for most of the time this was true. Obviously, Alan McGee was a fan. Obviously. ‘Making Tyme’, ‘How Does It Feel?’ ‘Painter Man’ (aye, later done by Boney M) are all fantastic speed/acid fuelled foot-to-the-floor romps throught the tale-end of the 60s. Shame, then, that their version of LARS is so tame. Given that Bob was something of a Holy Grail for many of these musicians, it’s possible that The Creation were just paying too much respect to the tune. I don’t know, but listening to it doesn’t really conjure up the red and purple flashes I’d like.

soupgreens

Oh smile, ffs

The same cannot be said for The Soup Greens. Recorded in just one take, this is garage band rock at it’s finest. The Soup Greens have the distinction of making LARS sound like Louie Louie or Wild Thing, and given that that’s pretty much the only songs they knew before recording this (there are only 8 known Soup Greens recordings in existence), it makes perfect sense. There’s echo, twang, Farfisa organ and that nagging insistant beat that Julian Cope clearly heard and ripped off before passing it off as an original recording. Back in the mid 80s, Cope was indeed flying in the face of fashion, but World Shut Your Mouth would not have been possible without this record, that much is clear. Even with the vinyl snaps, crackles and pops, it. Is. A. Belter.

Bonus Track. You know that song Groovin’? “Groovin’ waah-waah-wah (harmonica riff) on a Sunday afternoon waah-wah-wah” It was by The Rascals. Before they became The Rascals, they were the Young Rascals. If you watch The Beatles at At Shea Stadium closely (google it – it’s downloadable!) you’ll spot a ‘The Young Rascals Are Coming’ banner. That’s them. They do a fairly good West Coast version of LARS. You can hear it here. Cheerio!

Cover Versions, entire show, Hard-to-find

The Queen Is Dead….Long Live The Queen

Craig McAllister

My wee girl likes Hannah Montana, High School Musicals 1, 2 and 3 and all that sort of pre-teen garbage. A particular favourite of hers at the moment is Camp Rock, the story of a poor girl who finds herself at a summer school full of rich, beautiful and talented teenagers all intent on making their mark in the business of show. But you don’t need to know that. However. ‘Camp Rock’! I always have a wee snigger at that title. In my head I can picture Freddie Mercury in a puff-sleeve blouse singing “Scaramouch scaramouch do the fandango.” Camp rock. Hee hee. But from today that’s all changed.

morrissey1

Ooh! You are awful!

Morrissey played an intimate show for Radio 2 a couple of nights ago. I missed it at the time but caught it on the iPlayer last night. Initial reactions were….well…..I dunno. His new stuff sounds OK. Just OK. Not the triumphant return to form that you either a) secretly hope for or b) that the arse-licky journalists are required to write in order to have an audience with the grumpy old so-and-so. Highlight for me by a country mile was when he sang ‘This Charming Man’. I don’t have my Smiths history books to hand at the moment, and the old Smiths hardrive I keep somewhere in my brain is playing up, so I can’t tell you exactly when the last time he sang this song, but it was a long, long time ago.

The version he did the other night had me pining for the chiming guitars of Johnny Marr. This version was so LA rock it hurt. Devoid of any subtlety at all, the twin guitars bludgeon the chords to death and it ended up sounding like the bastard offspring of ‘Lust For Life’. If you are in the UK, you can watch it here. See Morrissey in all his barrel-chested, receding hairlined glory. Who ate all the (vegetarian) pies? If you are not in the UK, he looks a bit like Peter Mandelson. Go and google him. As he said himself on Wednesday night, “Life, in all it’s disgusting glory, goes on.” Yeah, so it’s not The Smiths. That’s obvious. But (whisper it)…………I quite like it. Camp rock indeed. I prefer this version though…

At the end of his set he also did a version of old Smiths’ b-side ‘I Keep Mine Hidden’, from the ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’ single if my afore-mentioned hardrive is correct. All tumbling piano riffs and power chords, I also (cough) liked this one (a lot, if truth be told after repeated plays) even if he didn’t do any of the whistling that he does on the original version. If you’re interested in the whole show, it’s here.

So. Not sure what to make of the latest version of Morrissey. I want to like him. I think I like him. But I’m not sure. If he was an artist I didn’t have any history with I’d not even bother with him. But if you are a music lover of a certain vintage (approaching 40 (fuck!)) you have to afford him some of your time. You might not be too keen on Morrissey the musician anymore, but we all still need Morrissey the popstar. “This Charming Man is about being charming, which so few people are these days. I think it’s nice to install these words into people’s brains and who knows, it might rub off on a new generation. We don’t have to be violent, or ugly, or arrogant, just be charming. And what a pleasant world that would be.”

*Bonus track. Stars verion of ‘This Charming Man’. I heard this in Gap a few years ago and spent ages tracking it down. I think you’ll like it.

And another thing. If you’re a fan of all things Morrisseyesque, you could do worse than add The Vinyl Villain to your favourites. Every Friday VV puts up a Friday I’m In Love…With Morrissey post. I’m sure today will be no different.

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Studio master tapes, studio outtakes

Johnny Marr’s Dansette Delights

Craig McAllister

For Johnny Marr, the 7″ is king. The latest edition of Mojo has him picking his 10 essential 7″s (+ 6  8! bonus tracks). He’s even designed a CD cover as well. All you need is the music…..

johnny_marr_3

I’ve lifted the picture above and some of the text below from Mojo’s website. Credit where it’s due and that.
1. Del Shannon
Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun)
(Stateside B-side, 1964)
Johnny Marr: “The influence of [A-side] The Answer To Everything on me when writing Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want is well documented so I picked its sister record, this time. It was the sound of the house when I was little.”
2. The Rolling Stones
Get Off Of My Cloud
(Decca single, 1965)
Johnny Marr: “The main thing I took from Keith Richards was his musical ideology; that there is a nobility in playing rhythm guitar and being the engine room and steering the ship, all these very valorous concepts which he threw in the face of guitar culture in the early ’70s.”
3. T.Rex
Metal Guru
(T-Rex Wax Co. single, 1972)

Johnny Marr: “It’s so beautiful and commercial but slightly weird and I could not believe what I was hearing because it was so all-encompassing. It connected with something beyond my regular senses.”

4. The Isley Brothers
Behind A Painted Smile
(Tamla Motown B-side, 1969)

Johnny Marr: “Motown provided a fantastic alternative to the rock music my mates were getting into. I ventured into this place called Rare Records on John Dalton Street in Manchester, I went into the basement and I remember to this day it was like a sea of future happiness.”

5. Iggy And The Stooges
Gimme Danger
(Raw Power LP track, CBS 1973)

Johnny Marr: “I remember getting on the bus and just staring at the front cover in disbelief all the way home. I wasn’t disappointed when I played it because it sounded like I thought it would. It was mysterious, sexy, druggy, riffy and to-the-point.”

6. The Crystals
There’s No Other Like My Baby
(Philles single, 1961)

Johnny Marr: “There is an unpretentiousness to it, and compared to what was passing itself off as weird in rockland with prog music at the time this just sounded weirder to me, and it seemed to come from an odder dimension.”

7. Blondie
Hanging On The Telephone
(Chrysalis single, 1978 )

Johnny Marr: “It reminds me of going to parties and really complaining that I didn’t want to hear Peaches by The Stranglers for the eleventh time and going through record collections with all that ELO shit in them and pulling out *Parallel Lines and going, ‘Alright then, let’s listen to this very, very loud!’”

8. Bob And Marcia
Young Gifted And Black
(Harry J single, 1970)

Johnny Marr: “It was one of the records that both Morrissey and myself liked in the same way. It reminded us both of being youthful fanatics and being outside of the norm… Then, amazingly, when [New Order’s] Bernard Sumner and I started to get close we both discovered that we liked that record in the same way.”

9. The Equals
Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys
(President single, 1970)

Johnny Marr: “Some records you wear down and you wear out but this one… I remember it from being out from when I was a kid but unlike some of the other tracks I play, I don’t listen to it for that reason, I like it because it reminds me of something shared between me and my mate.”

10. The Cribs
Hey Scenesters
(Wichita single, 2005)

Johnny Marr: “A fantastic working class street rock’n’roll 45 that could only have come from a band in this country. It’s like, Move over, this is the new generation. The Jarmans are as hip as street musicians get from any generation.”

Bonus Tracks:

Paul Davidson – Midnight Rider (Tropical single, 1976)

Johnny Marr: “Aside from Keith Richards’ on Gimme Shelter, Midnight Rider contains my favourite ever guitar solo.”

 

Alternative TV – Action Time Vision (Deptford Fun City single, 1978 )
Built To Spill – In Your Mind (Ancient Melodies Of The Future LP track, WEA, 2001)
The Drifters – I Count The Tears (Atlantic, 1960)
Johnny Marr: “If you were to play this to the other members of The Smiths it would remind them of being in a band with me. I used to sing and play it on the guitar when we weren’t recording and forced everyone to sing along. They learned to love it!”

Hamilton Bohannon – Disco Stomp (Dakar/Brunswick, 1975)
No direct quote from Johnny, but he’s said before that Disco Stomp influenced the swampy rhythm of How Soon Is Now. That record, and undoubtedly a huge side order of Bo Diddley.


TV On The Radio – Wolf Like Me (4AD single, 2006)

!!!Extra Bonus Tracks!!!

Del Shannon – The Answer To Everything

Johnny Marr: “The influence of ‘The Answer to Everything’ on me when writing ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’ with The Smiths is well documented.” It is? ! ?

Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter (Guitar track from recording session)

Johnny Marr: “Keith Richards was badass. His solo on ‘Gimme Shelter’ is my favourite ever guitar solo.“

johnny_cd_artwork

 

Download the entire set + artwork here.

I’ve written about Johnny Marr before. Have a read here

***Woops! Numpty Alert!

In my haste to bring you this excellent compilation, I mistakenly put the wrong TV On The Radio track on the album. Playing it in the car today I though, “Hang on! That’s not ‘Wolf Like Me’! Idiot!” But this is. So if you downloaded the .rar file previously, you’ll need it to correct the tracklisting on the compilation You can also download front and back cover artwork here (made by my good self). Ta!

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Round Round Get Around He Gets Around

Craig McAllister

Everyone’s favourite spectacle-sporting singer from The Best Band In The World…Ever (that’ll be the Teenage Fanclub) Norman Blake is no stranger to the odd side project or two. As well as playing in parallel with TFC and BMX Bandits until 1991 when, let’s face it, Teenage Fanclub became really really good and so much better than the Bandits, he’s also added his golden chords and vocals to records by The Pastels, Kevin Ayers, the Trashcan Sinatras and Bill Wells. And he plays tonight in Glasgow alongside Gorky’s Euros Childs. A walking side project for hire, the Bellshill Beach Boy knows them all. This, then, is as good a time as any to point you in the direction of a few Norman Blake curios. Tracks that may have slipped underneath your Teenage Fanclub radar but would undoubtedly have become firm favourites by now, were they to have been presented as Teenage Fanclub records.

shoe004

In the mid/late 90s Norman teamed up with future Fannie Francis MacDonald as Frank Blake and in ’96 recorded a one-off limited single for Shoeshine Records. Being a collector of all things Fanclub-related I naturally have a copy. ‘Don’t Let Love Pass You By’ is a slice of classic Blakery – a mid-paced love song with typically tricky jangling chords here and there. It even has the grace to start with the chorus so you know how it goes after the first 20 seconds. ‘Plastic Bag’ is a bit different. It sounds, for want of a better word, ‘light’, as in the total opposite of AC/DC. It passes by pleasantly enough, but those wonky keyboards and acoustic guitars have always been a bit too twee for these ears. Sorry Norman.

norman-dj

Frank Blake also recorded a version of Frank Zappa’s ‘Anyway The Wind Blows‘. I must confess that until recently I had no idea this was a cover version, so I was all over the internet until I could find a version of Zappa’s original. As it turns out, the cover is a fairly faithful reworking of the original. I have a version somewhere of Alex Chilton backed by the TFC live in Glasgow. They do a  grrrrreat version of it. I’ll have to dig that one out for your appraisal sometime  I took this quote from the Shoeshine Records website…

“I hadn’t heard any Frank Zappa and I was wondering what he sounded like. I thought his most musical thing would be his first thing so I got the first Mothers Of Invention LP. I started playing through it and ‘Anyway The Wind Blows’ was the really obvious pop song. I thought it was really good and would be fun to do. Again, it was all done pretty quickly and just sort of worked out on the spot because that’s the way Frank Blake like to work.”

Lastly, tucked away at the very end of a 2001 Shoeshine Records sampler I have ‘You Don’t Have To Cry’ by Frank ‘Jackson’ Blake. There are no sleevenotes with the sampler and I can find no information about this song/band line-up at all. I can only assume this is Blake, MacDonald and Belle & Sebastian’s Stevie Jackson, but I may be wrong. In any case, this track is a belter. It sounds like something the Everly Brothers would have done some time in 1961. In fact, ‘You Don’t Have To Cry‘ sounds so good it has to be a cover. Right? I think it’s a Gene Clark song. Yeah? It sure sounds like it. Someone help me out here.

teenagefanclubflyer

I’ve had this picture for ages and was looking for any excuse to put it up here. Cracker, eh?

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

Ingredients in a recipe for soul

Craig McAllister

Who says we don’t do requests? Regular reader Big Stuff emailed to ask for some Bobby Womack and such stuff in a soulful vain. So for him and every other soul brother or sister out there, read on.

Firstly, not Bobby Womack, but The Temptations. ‘Ball Of Confusion’ is a stone cold funk/soul classic, in any of it’s various forms. Five-part harmonies backed by the Funk Brothers is always going to be a winning combination in anyone’s book. Released on the ‘Psychedelic Shack’ album in1970 it took the sound of The Temptations onto a whole other level. Here‘s an unreleased alternative mix of the version you know and love.

temptations

If that version is on a whole other level then this version takes the original 4 and a half minutes of funk and propels it into the stratosphere. At 10 minutes + (!), the 1971 Undisputed Truth version is the one that does it for me every time. Every time. The Undisputed Truth was essentially a nom de plume for in-house Motown producer Norman Whitfield. He was getting tired of the Motown sound he had helped make so ubiquitous, and with a love for Sly Stone, Parliament, Jimi Hendrix, Funkadelic and so on, decided he was going to create a similar sound for himself. He took The Temptations basic backing tracks, got in a couple of singers and got to work.

ball-of-confusion-lyrics

His take on ‘Ball Of Confusion’ features phased, fried and wah-wah-ed guitars, “Right on…take me higher” vocals, the greatest 3 note bassline ever and quite possibly the goddam kitchen sink. Basically, Whitfield took The Temptations out of Detroit and put them on a Greyhound bus with a one-way ticket to flare city. Listen to it with loud with the lights out and prepare to fry yer mind.

undisputed-truth

The Undisputed Truth

You might be surprised to learn this, but Bobby Womack was the writer of the Rolling Stones 1964 hit ‘It’s All Over Now’. Or maybe you knew that already. You probably do know that his track ‘Across 110th Street’ was used in Tarantino’s blaxploitation homage ‘Jackie Brown’. And you’re probably also aware that it was also used in the 1972 film of the same name. (110th Street, not Jackie Brown)The soundtrack for the film features 3 versions of the same track. The first one is the one you know and love. The other 2 are more interesting. Firstly, there’s an instrumental version that sounds like the incidental music in a long-forgotten episode of Starsky & Hutch. It also sounds like the funkiest elevator muzak you could ever wish for. It’d sound great on Celebrity Come Dancing. Honestly.

bobby-womack-110street

There’s also Across 110th Street (Part II). Featuring minimum vocals and maximum brass stabs and wah-wah, it should get those ants in yer pants a-dancin’. Get on the good foot!

bobby-womack-1972

D’you want to hear my Louis Walsh impression? Read this with an Irish accent….

“Y’know what? You’ve got a lotta soul in your voice, a lot of soul.” Sheeesh. The word ‘soul‘ is bandied about these days in front of anyone who can hold a note for 2 seconds. Louis Walsh wouldnae know soul even if a huge afro continually kicked his arse shouting “I feel good!” at the same time. Those X-Faxtor contestants are really quite sadly deluded and buffoons like wee Walshy don’t help matters.

aretha-67

Real soul, real soul is all about feeling. And no-one felt it better than Aretha. With 2 kids to her name by the time she was 16, she’s lived it more than most of us will ever know. Her 1967 version of ‘Chain of Fools’ is a belter. Even better is the rare version featuring Joe South’s extended tremolo’d twanging guitar. Man, you should hear it! Here it is. Dig it brothers and sisters!

 

Cover Versions, demo, elliott smith, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Most downloaded tracks, Peel Sessions, Studio master tapes, studio outtakes

Aye! Tunes! iCompiled for you

Craig McAllister

‘Don’t Look Back’ sang Bob Dylan. And indeed Teenage Fanclub. But sometimes you’ve got to look back before you can move forwards again. 2009 starts with a bang! Plain Or Pan? is almost 2 years old and to celebrate I’ve compiled a selection of the most-loved and downloaded tracks from the blog. This is your very last chance to grab some of those nuggets of pop goodness that you may have missed first time around.

plain-or-pan-first-2-years

Tracklisting:

Disc 1

1. Sgt Peppers’ vocal track – The Beatles

2. Coca Cola – Jerry Lee Lewis

3. Son Of Sam acoustic – Elliott Smith

4. There She Goes promo – The La’s

5. All The Way Down  beat version – The Primitives

6. Boots – Lee Hazelwood

7. Just Dropped In – The Dap Kings

8. Baby I Love You vocal track – Ronettes

9. Hey Hey What Can I Do – Led Zeppelin

10. You Really Got A Hold On Me – Small Faces

11. Your Time Is Gonna Come – Sandie Shaw

12. Mama You Been On My Mind – Rod Stewart

13. In The Heat Of The Morning – Last Shadow Puppets

14. The Loner – Supergrass

15. Down By The River – Joey Gregorash

16. Southern Man – Sylvester and the Hot Band

17. Freaky Dancin’ – Happy Mondays

18. Filthy – St Etienne

19. Gimme Shelter  vocal track – Rolling Stones

20. Flume live MOKB/WEEM – Bon Iver

21. Grace – King Creosote

22. Just Like a Woman live in the studio– Jeff Buckley

 

Disc 2

1. Monkey Gone To Heaven vocal track – The Pixies

2. Handy Man Peel Session – Frank Black & Teenage Fanclub

3. About A Girl BBC session – Teenage Fanclub

4. Dead Leaves And Tne Dirty Ground – Nina Persson

5. Hanging On The Telephone – The Nerves

6. Down On The Street take 2 – The Stooges

7. Tradewinds – Super Furry Animals

8. Riders On The Storm outtake – The Doors

9. I Heard It Through The Grapevine vocal track – Marvin Gaye

10. Coca Cola – Ray Charles & Aretha Franklin

11. Homework – John Lee Hooker

12. Stickman version 1 – Elliott Smith

13. Snow – Trashcan Sinatras

14. Moon River full-length version – Morrissey

15. Autumn Almanac BBC session – The Kinks

16. Everybody Drop It Like It’s Hot – DJ Prince

17. 99 Problems – Jay Z/The Beatles

18. Over  live in a stable– The La’s

19. Music When The Lights Go Out Legs 11 demo – The Libertines

You’ll find CD1 here, CD2 here and you’ll find the artwork here. Easy-peasy!

   

 

 

Cover Versions, Sampled

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?

Craig McAllister

Don’t point it at wee Chris Martin. He didnae mean it! I see gazillion-selling guitar virtuoso and purveyor of a thousand beedly-beedly-beedlies Joe Satriani is wanting to take Coldplay to court. He thinks that their track ‘Viva La Vida’ has “copied and incorporated substantial original portions” from his track ‘If I Could Fly’, released in 2004. Satriani’s lawsuit demands damages and “any and all profits” related to the alleged copyright infringement. Of course. You be judge and jury. Take a listen…..

Joe. Coldplay. See? A wee bit samey. In much the same way that the Red Hot Chili Peppers “borrowed” some of Tom Petty’s ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ for their own ‘Dani California’. “Borrowed” mmm hmmm, or indeed “totally ripped-off“. To these ears, the sock-jocks had much more of a case to answer than Coldplay, but old hippy-spirited Tom Petty let them off, saying that this kind of thing happens all the time. Of course it does. Led Zeppelin were absolute masters at it. Like the Viking warriors they holler about with great bluster on ‘Immigrant Song‘, they raped, pillaged and plundered the whole of the Mississippi Delta for much of their output. And they even had the cheek to put ‘Page and Plant’ in the brackets after the song. I’ve written about this a couple of times before, if you’re really interested. There’s tons of cases of musical plagiarism. There are probably whole blogs dedicated to this subject. At the very least, Wikipedia is a good first stop.

Interestingly, Joe Satriani used to be a poodle-haired rock God. Now he looks a bit like an extra from The Matrix.

joe-satriani-hairjoe-satriani1

And only a couple of years ago, Chris Martin was a poodle-haired rock God who’d even managed to snare his own Hollywood wife. In more recent snaps, it looks like he’s heading down the same extra-from-The-Matrix road as Satriani.

chris_martinchris-martin-guitar

Joe. Coldplay. See? A wee bit samey. Round our way, Satriani is rhyming slang. In much the same way as Shereen Nanjiani, Giorgio Armani or chicken biryani. I think you know what I mean.

Bonus track. Here‘s the bleepy, slightly ambient wahp remix of ‘Viva La Vida’. It’s no’ very good. Nothing like chicken biryani at all.

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

Strummertime blues

Craig McAllister

Last night’s excellent BBC4 scheduling of The Clash documentary ‘Westway To The World’ and the hour’s worth of live footage that followed it had me going all misty eyed and regretful. To paraphrase Kevin Keegan, I would have LOVED to have seen The Clash live in action on stage. LOVED it. Sadly, age decrees that this was never to be, although I did once see yer actual Clash in the flesh in the strangest of situations.

clash

Woo oo oo oo! Can you feel the force?

Clashophiles will no doubt correct me here regarding accuracy of the dates, but my story concerns the summer of 1982 (I think) when I would have been 11. John Menzies in Irvine Mall had a huge ‘Combat Rock’ display in the window and The Clash were playing at the Magnum Leisure Centre, 20 minutes walk away. It was a roasting hot day and my brother and I were wandering up the mall. Right across from John Menzies there was a huge something going on. 4 or 5 guys dressed head to toe in denim, leather, shades and the coolest haircuts this 11 year old had ever seen were surrounded by some of Irvine’s finest ambassadors. I recognised someone who was in 6th year at my school amongst it all. He seemed quite excited. “It’s the fuckin’ Clash! The fuckin’ Clash! For fuck sakes, it’s the fuckin’ Clash!” I looked at the Combat Rock display. I looked at the guys in leather and denim. So it was. It was The Fuckin’ Clash. Being 11, it didn’t have the same seismic effect on me, but I still remember it well. I mentioned this story to my brother about a month ago. He remembers nothing about it at all. But then, he was 9 years old.

Round about 1989 I started playing in bands and one of Irvine’s elder statesmen of rock told me how Mick Jones had given him a mohican in the dressing room after the Magnum show. Call me shallow, but I’m still dead impressed when I hear stories like that. By this point in my life I was a seasoned gig goer. The Pogues at The Barrowlands in December 1989 was one that sticks in mind for a number of reasons. Kirsty MacColl came on to sing Fairytale of New York. Joe Strummer played London Calling and I Fought The Law with the band during the encores.

strummer-shane

The Barrowlands was jumping so much that night that I almost fainted. I sat on the floor at the end with my pal until the place had just about emptied. We went to the front of the stage where the roadies were dismantling the equipment. Strummer’s guitar was right there, in front of me. “S’cuse me mate. Can I have that plectrum?” I pointed to Strummer’s famous Telecaster. “‘Koff“. I didn’t give up. “C’mon!” He chose to ignore me. “Pleeeeease? Thanks!” This time, the roadie looked at me with total contempt, turned his back on me and pulled the plectrum out of the scratch plate. Fuck! He pulled the plectrum out of the scratch plate!!! “‘Koff” he grunted as he handed it to me. Joe Strummer’s plectrum! In keeping with his down to earth image, this was no gold-plated custom-made job with his name engraved in it. Just a simple white Jim Dunlop USA Nylon .48 plectrum. I’m looking at it right now. Looks like any other plectrum. But it once belonged to Joe Strummer. My own wee piece of rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia.

joe_strummer-tele

But yeah, I’d have loved to have seen The Clash live. Here’s some Clash covers for you…

The Strokes do ‘Clampdown’, live from Alexandra Palace. I’ve taken this from a good quality FM broadcast bootleg that I’ve had for a while, although it may also have been a b-side to one of their singles. In keeping with later-period Clash it sounds less cheesegrater thin, more widescreen and wide-eyed thanks to the heavily delayed guitars. I like it.

Primal Scream do ‘Know Your Rights’. If The Clash original was a speed-induced rockabilly knee-trembler in an alleyway, this version is a downer-heavy, dirty blues riffathon that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the Scream’s ‘Give Out But Don’t Give Up’ album. It’s taken from the obscure ‘Repetitive Beats’ ep which I’ve written about before.

Of course, The Clash were no strangers to covering other folk’s material. Amongst others, ‘I Fought The Law’ by The Bobby Fuller Four, LLoyd Price‘s ‘Stagger Lee’ and ‘Brand New Cadillac’ by Vince Taylor And His Playboys have all been given the Clash City Rockers treatment. But you knew that already. Happy listening.

Cover Versions, Double Nugget, Hard-to-find

It’s The Aptly-Named Billy Fury!

Craig McAllister

Billy Fury. Your granny knows him from such staple Hit Parade fodder as ‘Halfway To Paradise’, ‘Wondrous Place’, ‘Last Night Was Made For Love’….. do I need to go on? Billy and Cliff Richard battled it out for the dubious tag of ‘British Elvis’, but the more sussed among us really knew that Elvis was in fact the ‘American Billy’.

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Upturned collar? Check. Lip curl? Check. Half-collapsed quiff? Check. Forget the songs listed above and instead listen to this. ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Shakin’ But The Leaves On The Trees‘ is a hand clappin’ enhanced primal rocker that could’ve sat neatly on any Nuggets-type compilation you care to mention. How Fury got from garage band howling blues to slush like ‘Colette‘ is anyone’s guess but, wow, when he was on form there was clearly no-one like him. His manager obviously gave him his stage moniker round about this time, otherwise he’d have been forever known to the world as Billy Ballad. Incidentally, The Beatles version of ‘Nothin’ Shakin’…‘ can be found on their ‘At The BBC’ album. It sounds pish.

Morrissey was a big fan, so much so that he nicked half his look from Fury. Look here.  As too are those talented wee fuckers in The Last Shadow Puppets. They stuck their own version of ‘Wondrous Place’ on the b-side of their ‘The Age Of The Understatement‘ single. Understated indeed – a churchy organ, some brooding bass, a top vocal and some Duane Eddy twang halfway through. What I like about this lot is that they all look similar, they even sound similar when they sing and they are clearly very talented. A bit like The Beatles. But then, obviously nothing like The Beatles. I’ve already posted their version of Bowie‘s ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’ (here) and if they keep up their high standards of self-imposed quality control I think these two youngsters could be around for years to come. A bit like The Beatles. But then, obviously as I’ve already said, nothing like The Beatles as well.

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2 more decent UK garage band rockers to follow. These days, Dave Berry may be more comfortable touring the country in those terrible 60s nostalgia shows alongside such 3rd divison outfits as The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Tremeloes. Back in the day he was equally comfortable blasting out tough R&B tunes as he was crooning pop ballads. One such record was July 1964’s‘The Crying Game’ (number 5, fact fans), much later also a hit for Boy George. The A-side was the pop ballad. The B-side was something else entirely. Along with his backing band The Cruisers, he came up with this proto-punk snarling rabid dog of a record. ‘Don’t Give Me No Lip Child’ is a belter, and given that the Sex Pistols strangled and choked it into something resembling a cover version, John Lydon thought so too.

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Before they became The Who, The High Numbers released ‘I’m The Face’. The sound of Swinging London, it was written by Peter Meaden, their amphetamine-fuelled manager stroke publicist. This tune is essentially Slim Harpo‘s ‘Got Love If You Want It’ with new lyrics designed to reflect the culture of the times – a classic mod-stomper of a record that was a paen to all things Modern (not modern). Of course, as is more often than not the way with fantastic records, the single was a flop. According to some sources, the only copies that were actually sold were bought by Meaden himself, in a crap attempt at chart rigging. Ivy League jackets. Buck skin shoes. I’m the face baby, is that clear? Clear as crystal, little Roger!

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