Category: demo

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

Since you’ve g-o-o-o-ne ah got a mess of the blues

Craig McAllister

The words of Elvis Himselvis. Maybe my favourite Elvis tune ever. It’s certainly one of them, right up there with Guitar Man et al. Anyway. A mess of the blues. Or to be more exact, many versions of Blues Run The Game. Written and originally recorded by Jackson C Frank it’s become a ubiquitous live standard on the folk scene. It’s been sung by a million sensitive finger picking  souls. And it’s been recorded by hundreds of them too. Some versions better than others, none of them particularly messy (sorry if the heading was misleading), all of them worthy of hearing for different reasons.

jackson c frank

Jackson C Frank’s story is tragic. In another world and time he’d be as revered as Tim Buckley or Nick Drake. If you know about him, this’ll ring true. If you’ve never heard about him read on.

In 1954 when he was 11, an explosion in Jackson’s school killed15 of his classmates and left him disfigured and hospitalised for 7 months. During this time he learned to play the guitar. The explosion in the school was national news at the time and a substantial compensation was set aside for victims of the event. Fast forward to Jackson’s 21st birthday and a cheque for $100,000. Not a nice way to receive such a  sum of money, but Jackson grabbed his chance and set off for England, with the money burning a hole in his pocket and the intention of buying ‘cars and guitars’. Stop for a moment and ponder that statement. I recently re-read Ian Hunter’s fantastic ‘Diary of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’. After reading it, the one thing I’d bet my house on is the fact that America has all the best cars and guitars. Jackson must’ve had very conservative tastes indeed.

Meeting Paul Simon on the folk circuit led to Simon producing the ‘Blues Run The Game’ album. The track of the same name was the first original song he wrote and was a standout both on record and in concert. No internet in those days, the folkies would sit, ear cocked with note book and pen in hand to quickly scribble the words. They’d then add it to their own set of songs for their next show at The Finger In The Ear or wherever they were on.  I know this as fact. As the son of 2 folkies, I ‘borrowed’ my dad’s copy of ‘Bringing It All Back Home’ and inside it found this scribbled sheet of A4 paper with half the words to Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream scrawled across it in some form of shorthand. Anyway, I digress. Jackson’s story doesn’t turn out particularly happy.

There’s a phrase they use. A musician’s musician. It means someone so supremely gifted that their peers worhsip at their fantastically talented feet. Not necessarily the wider audience at large. The paying customer.  Never was this phrase more true of Jackson C Frank. Dylan. Drake. Denny. All playing on the same folk scene at the time, they all dug him. (Everyone dug everyone in the 60s, yeah?) But as Sandy Denny and especially Dylan (we’ll talk about Nick Drake another time) went onto sell records and everything else, Jackson didn’t. A combination of writer’s block and mental health problems (a knock-on effect from the events in his childhood) saw him fall apart quite spectacularly. At the start of the 70s his son died from cystic fibrosis. Heavily depressed, before he knew it, his mental health was so bad he was institutionalised. Following this, he wandered the streets of New York homeless and helpless. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time led to him being shot and blinded. Through years of neglect, his voice was shot and no matter who tried to help him, it seemed Jackson wanted nothing from anyone. Shame, as his friends could see what was happening and were trying desparately to help him recapture his muse and maybe steady him on an even keel once more. It was not to be. Jackson’s troubled life ended in 1999 when he died of a heart attack, aged 56. Cheery stuff, eh?

jackson c frank 99

Jackson C Frank in 1999. Holy fuck.

Blues Run The Game is the sort of song Elliott Smith would be writing these days if he too were still alive. What is it about fucked-up singer-songwriters? It has been done by many. Here’s a few versions….

Nick Drake (taken from one of the countless bootlegs available online)

Bert Jansch (faithful and tasteful re-working)

Simon & Garfunkel (outtake from their debut album sessions)

Eddi Reader (gives it a restrained, shuffly acoustic Led Zeppelin III treatment. Taken from her Simple Soul album. S’a cracker)

Headless Heroes (Feisty-sounding, anonymous 21st century collective from America. S’another cracker!)

Any other 21st century folkies with an ear cocked and notebook and pen poised might be interested in the following…

Catch a boat to England, baby,
Maybe to Spain,
Wherever I have gone,
Wherever I’ve been and gone,
Wherever I have gone
The blues are all the same.

Send out for whisky, baby,
Send out for gin,
Me and room service, honey,
Me and room service, babe,
Me and room service
Well, we’re living a life of sin

When I’m not drinking, baby,
You are on my mind,
When I’m not sleeping, honey,
When I ain’t sleeping, mama,
When I’m not sleeping
Well you know you’ll find me crying.

Try another city, baby,
Another town,
Wherever I have gone,
Wherever I’ve been and gone,
Wherever I have gone
The blues come following down.

Living is a gamble, baby,
Loving’s much the same,
Wherever I have played,
Wherever I throw them dice,
Wherever I have played
The blues have run the game.

Maybe tomorrow, honey,
Someplace down the line,
I’ll wake up older,
So much older, mama,
Wake up older
And I’ll just stop all my trying.

Catch a boat to England, baby,
Maybe to Spain,
Wherever I have gone,
Wherever I’ve been and gone,
Wherever I have gone
The blues are all the same.

 

jackson15

Happy Jack

 

Cover Versions, demo, Hard-to-find, Uncategorized

We’re Lost In Music. Caught In A Trap. I Quit…

Craig McAllister

I don’t quit. I merely quote you the lyrics of Sister Sledge. Bob Dylan holds them in such high regard he plays this track immediately before taking the stage each night on his never-ending tour. (ahem….cough….etc). Aye right.

previously-on-lost1

There’s a fine line between madness and genius and brilliance and shite, and I think I may have just (very belatedly) discovered the musical threshold by which an artist can cross over from one side to the other. I say ‘belatedly‘ because the following tracks have mostly been floating about the ether for a year or so and had I not been listening to Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone on BBC 6 Music on Sunday night, they’d still be happily floating about the world wide web and I’d be none the wiser.

Just Wink

The Ballad of Sayid Jarrah

Be My Constant

The tracks in question have been recorded by Previously On Lost. As the advert says, it does just what it says on the tin. From Season 3 of ‘Lost‘ onwards, these 2 guys have written, recorded and released via their MySpace site a song a week, based on that week’s episode of Lost. Genius? Aye. The songs? Er….aye. It’s a bit Flight Of The Conchords, which is clearly no bad thing. In fact, that’s a very good thing, but I get the feeling these guys take themselves a wee bit too seriously. Anyway, their tracks vary in quality, length and genre on any given week. They pastiche doo-wop, Prince-style funk and any other genre you care to suggest. All played on the cheapest of Casio keyboards and plastic-sounding guitars and sung in the highest falsetto you could possibly achieve wearing skinny-fit cheapo Top Man jeans. If you’re a fan of Daniel Johnson or Ween they might be right up your street. Me? I love Flight Of The Conchords, but I think I prefer the real thing.

previously-on-lost-studio

Genius at work (?)

Let me know what you think. If you dig, feel free to go to the band’s website and buy Previously On Lost‘s new elpee, “The Tale of Season 4 and the Oceanic Six“. In the meantime, here‘s The Fall‘s version of Sister Sledge’s ‘Lost In Music’.

Le money il sur la table

Il money est sur la table

The palace of excess-uh  leads to the palace of access-uh!

Hiiiideawayyy!

What the fuck does that all mean? I mean, I can speak French and that, but what’s he on about? Make no mistake,  Mark E Smith is a true madness/genius threshold straddler.

demo, Most downloaded tracks, studio outtakes

Well, flip your wig!

Craig McAllister

So Phil Spector is finally found guilty. Six years to reach the only obvious conclusion, although, most music fans could tell you he’d committed murder as soon as he got his tiny little hands on the master tapes to ‘Let It Be’. But it’s official – it’s moiduh and Phil Spector will probably spend the rest of his life in a cushy corner of some state penitentiary or other, bald and friendless.

phil-wig

Murder 1

Of course, as you know, the music he worked on is mostly sublime. Timeless, not set by generation. You could be 5 or 95. There’s something there for all of us. Some of those tracks are practically folk songs. I’m going to remember him this way. And you should too. Listen to The Ronettes in the studio doing ‘My One And Only Baby’ as it was called before becoming ‘Be My Baby’. Here‘s an amalgamation of takes 21-25, mostly instrumental, with the odd backing vocal and studio chatter flung in for good measure. A Wall of Sound production in production.

phil-wig-2

Murder 2

Here‘s an unrecorded take of the same track, complete with  lead and backing vocals and that ricketty-ticketty percussion at the end of every line. The wee tape rewind at the beginning makes me think this is Spector’s first play back of the completed track, but that’s only my thoughts. I guess we’ll never know now.

Finally, here‘s that Ronettes ‘Baby I Love You’ isolated vocal track that everybody still emails me about. *Note. I incorrectly labelled this as Be My Baby Vocals. But before you get yer knickers in a twist I just checked, and it’s definitely the vocal track of Baby I love You. OK!

Last time I posted tracks of this ilk, they were removed tout de suite by the DMCA. Make like Phil with a .45 and act fast!

Later everyone, gotta shoot…….!

phil-wig-3

Murder 3

demo, entire show, Hard-to-find, studio outtakes

Come down from the mountain, you have been gone too long…

Craig McAllister

…Spring is upon us, follow my only song. The clocks change this weekend, and the opening line from the Fleet Foxes ‘Ragged Wood’ has been ringing in my head since yesterday, when I logged onto The La’s forums to discover that Lee Mavers, my generation’s Syd Barrett, Arthur Lee and Howard Hughes rolled into one (Eccentric behaviour? Check. Reclusive lifestyle? Check. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? Check) has come out of hibernation for a one-off (or maybe more) guest spot on Pete Doherty’s tour.

mavers-doherty-1

He’s alive! And playing guitar! Picture copied from Las.org

Believe me, this has sent ripples of excitement towards anyone who still faithfully checks out what the La’s have been up to since 1990. For any uninitiated amongst you, here’s a quick summary…

tumbleweed

Yep. Ignoring the ironic attempt at humour, or the eagerly anticpiated yet ultimately unfulfilling 2005 ‘comeback”; Maver’s toothache problems meant he couldnae sing very well. Drummer problems of Spinal Tap proportions meant that Lee’s gardener (he has a gardener?!?) played the smallest drum kit imagineable whilst standing up, The La’s have been pretty much gone, dead and split up. So yeah, ripples of excitement have splashed their way across the ether towards anyone still holding a 20 year old torch in anticipation of the mythical second album. Even a new song would be nice. Or a new chord. Or a new anything. Until then, we’ll have to make do with this…

The internet is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

They did ‘Son Of A Gun’ as well, which is easy enough to find on yer YouTube. I don’t want to clog this page up with videos when what I really wanted to give you was this……………….the Holy Grail of La’s recordings. Whispered in hushed tones from every corner of the Merseyssippi and beyond, rumoured to be an urban myth, a recording that wasn’t actually in existence, until 2005 when me, myself and I stupidly opened my metaphorical big mouth with one typed line on the La’s website. “The Kitchen tapes? I’ve got them.” Cue mass pandemonium. “No you don’t.” “Yes I do.” And my ego got the better of me. I won’t say how I got a hold of the original tape, but I feel I betrayed that person’s trust in a way. Sorry Mr L, if you’re reading. I know you browse here on occassion. As soon as I had copied the tape for one person it had spread like the River Irvine bursting its banks across the Low Green. It was everywhere. Every bloody file sharing site and half-arsed second rate blog posted it. And took the credit for it.  Anyone could hear the session. I was pissed off. You had to earn your La’s stripes first. You couldn’t just turn up to the party as a newcomer in 2005 and just be given it. But that’s what happened. The emails never stopped coming. “‘Eh a’right fella/la/mate etc. Eh, about dem Kitchen tapes. Any chance of eh, y’know. I’ll send you me addy and a stamp.” I still get the emails to this day, even though if they looked hard enough, any dim wit could find it on most file sharing sites. All my fault. I let it out the bag and I hate myself for it. But you might as well get it from me as poke about on those dodgy file sharing sites full of adverts for swingers in your area.

mavers

But the Kitchen Session itself. What is it? If you’ve never heard of it before now, here’s the facts. Sometime in 1989, the La’s were staying at a cottage in Devon, ostensibly to write songs for their second album. The cottage was owned by Andy MacDonald, label boss of Go! Discs. In preparation for him visiting, the band recorded themselves in the kitchen (good acoustics apparently) doing a half hour or so session on video camera. MacDonald later took the tape back to London where an audio copy of it made it’s way into my lucky bastard hands. The songs are almost complete but not quite. Apart from ‘I Am The Key’ none of the songs had ever been heard before. The session is a masterclass in songwriting. Mavers is clearly in charge, shouting instructions and changes to the assembled band – John Power (bass), Chris Sharrock (bongos, percussion, banging noises, now in Oasis) and Barry Sutton (guitar). “The song’s just started…….Bongos man! Nah, You should come in second….2, 3, 4!”  “ZZ Top! chaka-boom, chaka boom!“

He sings guitar riffs where they would appear in a studio recording. He scats, riffs and sings in that high falsetto that sounds so magical on The Hit Single the band are known for. Where the lyrics are incomplete, he makes up the words to fit the melody. He even sends himself up, him and Power singing Bryan Adams’ ‘Run To You’ at one point when they realise where they got the bassline from. But the songs. The songs! Pure gold! ‘Our Time’ features one of the best lines in any songs, ever.

“But the reasons unravel through the seasons I travel.”

Good, eh? I must’ve played my 17 year old tape about 300 times. As soon as I had the technology I converted it to a digital file, but for maximum effect I still like playing that old tape. It’s just about the best piece of music I own. Well. Apart from (insert obvious choice here) and so and so, but you know what I mean. The tape has reached such mythological status that it even has it’s own Wikipedia page (!) In fact, it’s so good only last week Mavers declared it “fucking rubbish“. Yes. It is that good. There is an inferior quality version in circulation which includes a daft R’n’B tune at the end. But if you want the original hi-fi/lo-fi master tape to wav file, the full unedited 34 minute Kitchen Session is here. I hope you enjoy every minute of it as much as I have. I’ve listened to it twice as I’ve written this article and it still knocks my socks off.

The official unofficial tracklisting is:

  • When Will I See You Again
  • Our Time
  • Robberman
  • She Came Down In The Morning
  • Was It Something I Said
  • It’s Not Impossible
  • Tears In The Rain
  • I Am The Key
  • band talking

    • A plea. My recording is taken straight from the video tape and converted to audio. If anyone out there has the video, well, I’m your best pal. Drop me a line. I can send you me addy and a stamp if you like, la.

    *If you like The La’s, and in particular studio outtakes, demos and the likes, you might want to click here. I put the music back up recently for a polite reader from Sweden.

    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.

    demo, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, studio outtakes

    The Making Of A Great Compilation Tape…

    Craig McAllister

    Stubborn kind of fellow. Marvin Gaye sang a song with the same title but to all intents and purposes he could be talking about himself. Fed up with the non-stop rollercoaster of  Motown promotion and hard-sell and at the same time defying the orders of label boss Berry Gordy (who wanted instant hit after hit), he set up camp for the best part of a year recording what many of us consider to be his masterpiece, ‘What’s Going On’.

    I expect most of you here to know about the socio-political overtones in the lyrics, about how at the time (1971) such things were no-go for someone in Gaye’s world of work. You could argue that Marvin pushed open all sorts of doors with ‘What’s Going On’. Certainly, Stevie Wonder’s political work was just around the corner, but Marvin was one of the first mainstream million-selling artists to start writing this sort of stuff. Nowadays anyone from Take That to Leona Lewis can have a political conscience, but Marvin’s work was truly groundbreaking. What makes it all the better was that he cajoled, coerced and conducted the Funk Brothers into playing the grooviest music imaginable. Political music doesn’t have to be flat and one dimensional. Billy Bragg, sit up and listen when I’m talking to you.

    marvin-gaye-wgo-sessions

    Marvin cajoles, coerces and conducts the Funk Brothers

    Listen to this. An instrumental (with the odd leaked Marvin backing vocal thrown in at the end) ‘rhythm ‘n’ strings’ version of the title track of ‘What’s Going On’. Listen to that bassline! Listen to those vibes! The clipped guitar! The finger clicks! The sweeping strings! The bongos, man! THIS IS MUSIC!

    Marvin took the same approach to recording a couple of years later when writing ‘Let’s Get It On’. An album dedicated to love, sex and all that sort of stuff, you could be forgiven for thinking that it might sound like a slushy mess if you’ve never heard it. Far from it. Like the album before, Gaye pushes the Funk Brothers to their limits (and they have some seemingly never-ending limits) and makes another belter of an album.

    I was always in denial about ‘Let’s Get It On’ as an album. Nothing could ever match up to ‘What’s Going On’ and I thought it was slushy romantic crap the first time I heard it. Played it once then filed it away. Then I heard the title track again, at the end of ‘High Fidelity’ when Jack Black’s band sing it. Instant re-appraisal. Jack Black turned me back on to ‘Let’s Get It On’! S’true!

    Listen to the original studio demo of ‘Let’s Get It On’. A bit rougher round the edges than the version Jack Black loves but smooth enough to suggest something might happen upstairs sometime soon. Actually, it’s very smooth. Flutes, piano, backing vocals, wah-wah’d guitar, saxophone. This is one lush demo. I like my demos to feature a wee bit of studio chat and the odd bum note here and there. This one is no different. Except I’ve never heard the Funk Brothers never play a bum note, ever. Even on a demo.

    gaye-lgio

    Marvin hears that all-too-familiar squeak of the bedsprings from the upstairs neighbours and decides to write ‘Let’s Get It On’.

    ‘Running From Love’ was an instrumental that never Marvin quite managed to find a complete set of lyrics for, so never made the final cut of the album. Shame, as this version with fuzzed intro makes it sound like some long-lost Blaxploitation theme. The other version is slicker and smoother and would make great incidental music on a chocolate advert. Ideal, indeed, for gettin’ it on. With Valentine’s Day but a few days away, what better present to give your loved one than a CD of these downloaded beauties? And if he/she thinks it’s the worst present in the world…ever, then you’ve got to ask yourself if they’re really worth the effort.

    marvin_gaye_in_studio

    demo, Gone but not forgotten

    Michelle, Ma(ma) Belle

    Craig McAllister

    I love you, I love you, I lo-oooo-ve you! Had I been a teenage boy in the 60s I’d have had posters of Mama Michelle Phillips all over my wall. She was Laurel (Canyon) to Mama Cass’s Oliver Hardy, the skinniest, blondest hippy chick in the whole of sun-kissed California and quite possibly the sexiest girl singer ever, although that last point is clearly open to healthy debate.

    michelle-pool

    Michelle. On the pool again.

    The story of The Mamas and The Papas is best told by listening to their #5 1967 US single ‘Creeque Alley‘, taken from the group’s 3rd LP, ‘Mamas and Papas Deliver’. I remember going to a jumble sale with my Dad sometime in the 70s (long before ‘jumble sales’ became ‘car boot sales’) and my Dad buying ‘Deliver‘ for 10p. Fast forward to the end of the 80s and, armed with an encylopediac knowledge of The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Love and West Coast music in general I pinched the album from my Dad’s collection. He still doesn’t know.

    Anyway. ‘Creeque Alley’ outlines the whole story of The Mamas and The Papas from the pre-fame hungry years to the cusp of the giddy heights of Ed Sullivan and Monterey, taking in all the sights, sounds and sex that the 60s revolution could throw at them. It’s a good read and it’s a good listen.

    mamas-and-papas-deliver

    Un-used picture from the ‘Deliver’ photo sessions

    John and Mitchie were gettin’ kinda itchie
    just to leave the folk music behind
    Zal and Denny workin’ for a penny
    tryin’ to get a fish on the line
    In a coffee house Sebastian sat
    and after every number they passed the hat
    McGuinn and McGuire just are gettin’ higher
    in L.A. you know where that’s at
    And no one’s getting fat except Mama Cass.

    Zallie said ‘Denny, you know there aren’t many
    who can sing a song the way that you do’ (Let’s go South)
    Denny said ‘Zallie, golly, don’t you think that I wish
    I could play guitar like you’
    Zal, Denny and Sebastian sat (at the Night Owl)
    And after every number they passed the hat
    McGuinn and McGuire just are gettin’ higher
    in L.A. you know where that’s at
    And no one’s getting fat except Mama Cass.


    To paraphrase – John and Michelle (already an item) are fed up playing folk music to the finger-in-the-ear brigade who can’t embrace the new sounds of the day. Zal Yanovsky (later of the Lovin’ Spoonful) and future Papa Denny Doherty were playing together in Nova Scotia in The Future III . The band were just about to break up and Zal and Denny would soon find themselves down and out in New York City. Meanwhile, another future Lovin’ Spoonful member John Sebastian was playing Greenwich Village coffee houses such as the Night Owl for pennies (in the same way Dylan had done a few years earlier). Roger McGuinn and Barry ‘Eve Of Destruction’ McGuire were also part of this scene. They were possibly the Furry Freak Brothers of their generation. Long haired, broke and fond of the odd jazz cigarette. No-one had any money for food. Indeed, the only one who was fat was Mama Cass. But she always had been.

    When Cass was a Sophomore, planned to go to Swarthmore,
    But she changed her mind one day
    Standing on the turnpike, thumb out to hitchhike,
    Take her to New York right away
    When Denny met Cass he gave her love bumps
    Call John and Zal, and that was the Mugwumps
    McGuinn and McGuire couldn’t get no higher
    but that’s what they were aiming at
    And no one’s getting fat except Mama Cass.

    Mugwumps, hi-jumps, low slumps, big bumps,
    don’t you work as hard as you play
    Drink-up, break-up, everything is shake-up
    Guess it had to be that way
    Sebastian and Zal formed the Spoonful
    Michelle, John and Denny gettin’ very tuneful
    McGuinn and McGuire just are catchin’ fire
    in L.A. you know where that’s at
    And everybody’s gettin’ fat except Mama Cass.


    Cass had bumped into Denny and Zal on the club circuit and suggested they work together. Things were going well, but Cass had won a place at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. However, she let her heart rule her head, falling for Denny and forming The Mugwumps at the same time. You can listen to ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ here. Proto-Papas for sure. The Mugwumps were a good-time band (“Don’t you work as hard as you play“) and like a gazillion might-have-beens before them, they broke up. Zal and John went off to find fame and fortune in The Lovin’ Spoonful, a band who’s sound owes quite a lot to The Mugwumps. Here‘s ‘Coconut Grove’, a piece of groovy 60s soft rock. D’you know where the band took their name from? Same as 10CC. Google it…

    Broke, busted, disgusted, agents can’t be trusted,
    and Mitchie wants to go to the sea
    Cass can’t make it, she says we’ll have to fake it
    We knew she’d come eventually
    Greasin’ on American Express card
    Tents, low rents, and keepin’ out the heat’s hard
    Duffy’s good vibrations, and our imaginations,
    can’t go on indefinitely
    And California Dreaming is becoming a reality.

     

    mamasandpapas-b-w

    Round about now, Barry McGuire’s ‘Eve Of Destruction’ was a Dylan-aping monster hit and The Byrds were in full flight. Things on the scene were looking good. Everyone downed an upper and upped a gear. But poor old Cass was still skint. Not that you’d know by looking at her. Also skint, fed up and freezing cold in New York, John and Michelle headed south to the Caribbean. Cass and Denny followed. They rented a house on the Virgin Isles called Duffy’s (it was near a road called Creeque Alley), started writing and playing as a four-piece vocal harmony group and the rest is wife-swapping intra-band sexual jealousies of a Fleetwood Mac nature history.

    michelle-tambourine

    Round round get around, she got around.

    Incidentally, ‘Creeque‘ is pronounced ‘creaky‘, as in door, or my knees after a game of football.

    Video from Ed Sullivan Show….

    And another thing. My computer is playing silly games tonight and won’t lay out the page as I’d like to. I wanted the lyrics in the middle and in a much smaller font than the other words. And I’d like to have made the above video a bit smaller. All these things I should be able to do. I consider myself kinda computer literate (without being too geeky).  Dunno what happened. Bet it was them internet police again.

    demo, Hard-to-find

    I Do Like To Be b-side The Seaside

    Craig McAllister

    I heard this track properly for the first time a couple of days ago and it’s been on constant repeat since. I say properly because I’d heard it before, round about last summer, and it passed me by. But now I’ve come to realise that it may just be the best thing Glasvegas have ever recorded.

    glsavegas

    The wall of sound

    Yeah, Glasvegas. Everyone has their opinion on them. Are they still cool? Were they ever? Who knows? Who cares? For what it’s worth, I like them. Maybe it’s because I’ve been hearing about them for the past couple of years from a friend who has family in the band. Maybe it’s because the best Christmas card I got this year was from the same friend, who sent me a picture of Glasvegas in Raybans and Santa hats. Those quiffs must’ve been a bit of a disaster after that photoshoot. Although they probably used Photoshop. The vain bastards. But I like Glasvegas. A lot. And I really like The Prettiest Thing On Saltcoats Beach. Stuck away on the b-side of the Geraldine single, it had been played once then filed away. Last week I was given a compilation CD from another friend and the last track was this track. For some reason, it stuck out. Maybe cos the other tracks weren’t very good? (not true, McMark)  But I played it again and again and again, and it’s playing right now.

    sillhouette

    Miss Pan jnr, the prettiest thing on Saltcoats beach, July 08

    It begins with gentle waves crashing on the shore. Clearly a sample from some long-forgotten sound effects album, cos if you’ve ever been on Saltcoats beach you’ll know that the waves don’t break gently on the sand. There are 2 kinds of waves in Saltcoats: 1. Those big fuckers you get when it’s the middle of winter, blowing a gale, snowing and freezing and the TV cameras are there. And 2. The splashback from the Arran ferry as it comes into dock in Ardrossan, just up the beach. So, sound effect waves. They provide the drama as the track unfolds in melancholy fashion, all vibraphone, reverb, shimmer and twang. It reminds me a lot of those early Trashcan Sinatras b-sides (like ‘Skindiving‘ – go seek it out). It builds and builds and builds until the singer can’t take any more and it comes crashing down in a wave of white noise. It’s truly bathed in melodrama and pathos.

    It makes Saltcoats sound like the most (cough) romantic place on Earth. Clearly it isn’t. If you’ve ever been to Saltcoats during the Glasgow Fair Fortnight you’ll know what I’m talking about. Dressed head to toe in Rangers or Celtic regalia, they come down to our bit of the world armed with crappy-ringtoned mobiles and plastic footballs, to eat our ice cream and litter the beach with empty bottles of Buckfast. And that’s just the women. To be called the prettiest thing on Saltcoats beach is a bit of hollow praise. But Glasvegas must’ve been down on a good day. ‘The Prettiest Thing On Saltcoats Beach’ does for Glasvegas what ‘The Boys Of Summer’ does for Don Henley. It’s a Scottish love song of the highest order. Burns would’ve been proud. In fact, I’d say it’s right up there on a par with Morrissey’s best work. He’d do a great version of it. And that would be something, wouldn’t it?

    *Bonus track. 2006 demo recording of above track here.

    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!