Double Nugget – Plain Or Pan

Super Bowl

April 6, 2021April 6, 2021 Craig McAllister

There’s something about those early Inspiral Carpets records that’s really great. And by early I’m talking about the pre-Tom Hingley, pre-chart, pre-baggy (eugh) records; tunes formed and fermented in garages, coated in a dusty Nuggets-inspired layer of authenticity and woven together through sheer punkish energy over anything resembling finesse.

Well, yes, Clint Boon was undeniably a whizz on the Farfisa and, given that he was at least 42 years older than the other Inspirals, it’s perfectly logical reasoning that he should be skilled on his instrument of choice whilst the others faffed around with open chords and one-finger bass lines played through the same sort of Peavey amps that my very own garage band would use to blast our own hamfisted first attempts at songwriting out into the neighbourhood, but what those early Inspirals perhaps lacked in subtlety led them to create a sound that was unlike anything I’d heard. I know now about Nuggets and what have ye, but back in 1988, the Inspiral Carpets were something of a revelation. To these ears, they were dynamite.

Lazy naysayers would often point to The Doors as the obvious point of reference. For me, though, Inspiral Carpets had much more in common with Teardrop Explodes. It’s there in the second-hand ’60s references fed through an anything-goes indie attitude, the organs and rat-a-tat drumming…the over-arching sense of melancholy that’s created in their maelstrom of noise.

I saw them live a handful of times in those pre-Hingley days and they were always worth catching. And the early records always came with wee folded flyers -‘Moos-letters‘ they were eventually called, with a pudding-bowled nod of the head to the trippin’ cow that would become their logo and record label. You could send away for tapes and t-shirts, proper cottage industry stuff, a product of the fanzine scene of the mid ’80s and a precursor to today’s Bandcamp era. Handily, each Moos-letter charted the band’s rise to success, from Glasgow Tech to Strathclyde University to Barrowlands to the SECC, that Dung 4 cassette steadily rising in price to a giddy £4.49 before being finally unavailable by the time of Moos-letter 5.

Like many of you reading this, I sat with a tape permanently ready to record anything of interest on the John Peel show. Peel loved the Inspiral Carpets. Between 1988 and ’91, they recorded four sessions for his show – that’s the same number as The Smiths in about half the time, although only a mere 20 sessions short of the total set by his beloved Fall.

Not long after seeing Inspiral Carpets open for the Wedding Present, they did their first Peel Session (August ’88) and I sat itchy-fingered by the Grundig music centre, expertly de-pressing the pause button in the exact moment between each track fading and Peel’s warm voice of encouragement announcing the name of the track just played.

“That’s Inspiral Carpets in session tonight with ‘So Far’. Mighty fine stuff indeed. And we’ll be hearing more from them later on. Which I’m rather looking forward to.” I wish, in hindsight, that I’d thought to leave the tape running and capture more of his iconic voice.

Inspiral Carpets – Greek Wedding Song (Trainsurfing EP version)

One particular track on that session stood out. With a title that screamed ‘working title’, Greek Wedding Song is the perfect microcosm of that early Inspirals’ sound; shouty vocals atop that urgent, Teardrop Explodes-ish bassline and fizzing guitars buried deep in a swirl of ’60s-inspired swelling keys that fall somewhere between wasp-in-a-jar stylophone and noodling Ray Manzarek classicism.

In just a minute and a half, the band lays out their punkishly amateur stall, only for the tune to come waltzing back in after the false ending on a ne-ver a – never a frown Golden Brown coda. ‘It’s a bit short for a Peel Session, lads‘, Clint Boon might’ve said beforehand. ‘Let’s stretch it out by going full-on Stranglers for another minute or so.’ Influences worn proudly on sleeve, it’s a cracker.

That full session from ’88 can be heard below…

Peel Session – first broadcast 1st August 1988

Clint and one of his roadies in 1989.

Double Nugget, Get This!, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Electric Soup

February 15, 2021 Craig McAllister

1966. The decade was in full swing. Skirts grew shorter as hair grew longer. Some team or other won the World Cup. Bands were beginning to realise that there might be a bit of longevity in this fleeting thing called the music business after all. The album was at the point of becoming more important than the single. At the end of the summer The Beatles put out Revolver and played their last live show in front of a paying audience, turning their attentions instead to using studio technology to realise their artistic vision.

The Stones were just warming up though. Barely four years old, they were on a phenomenal run of records. In 1966 alone, they released their fourth album Aftermath and a run of half a dozen singles/EPs, all unique, all still instantly singable 55 years on; As Tears Go By, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Paint It, Black, Mother’s Little Helper, Lady Jane and, the cream of them all, September’s Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?

The Rolling Stones – Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?

Riding in on a snarling lip curl of droning, wah-wahd Brian guitar, Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? rattles along for two and a half frantic minutes, a downhill-without-the-brakes-on clash of badly recorded trumpets, thumping, divebombing bass and hard-to-hear percussion, welded for posterity to a rhythmic piano riff, all left hand and boogie woogie blues, and topped-off by one of Jagger’s more throat-ripping vocals, slightly too high a key perhaps, but one that all adds to the urgency.

Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? was indeed an urgent record. Needing a new tune to premier on the Ed Sullivan Show, the track was commited to tape almost as soon as Jagger had jabbed the last full stop on his lyric sheet. If you could pick apart its constituent pieces you might be able to spot Bo Diddley maracas and handclaps, Keith’s clipped, staccato guitars fighting for earspace with Brian’s fuzzed-out proto-punk riffage, some rattling, brain-jangling electrics in the breakdown and a brass section that pre-dates the loose ‘n louche Exile On Main Street by a good few years.

There’s an awful lot going on in its electric soup, not least a nod and a wink to the American underground, a Nuggets for the mainstream if you may. Keith Richards hated the final mix. It was muddy, he said. The trumpets sounded raspy and far-off. The track’s original groovy rhythm was buried underneath a blanket of white noise and peripheral faff and yet…and yet…Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? may well be the best Stones’ track of ’em all, Keith.

Take note of those Mick ‘n Keith call ‘n response vocals. Richards especially is having a ball. “I’m glad I opened your eye-eye-eye-eyes!” he goes, rhyming eyes with ice and time and fine on every other line, filling the spaces where the band pause for the briefest of respi-ay-ay-ites.

Charlie, always the backbone of the Stones, almost always a half beat behind the others but not on this record, makes the most of these mini-breaks, pausing for a nanosecond before driving the band home to its wonderful, widescreen, barre chorded end. You can practically see the impish Jones smirking from underneath that beautiful outgrown bowl cut, the devil making work for his less-than-idle hands as it plays out in reverbed slo-mo.

The next year would bring Let’s Spend The Night Together, Between The Buttons, drug busts, Ruby Tuesday, court cases, We Love You, Who Breaks A Butterfly On A Wheel?, Their Satanic Majesties Request…. It was quite the time to be a Rolling Stone.

It’s worth highlighting too the record’s b-side, a psychedelic barrelhouse blues number titled Who’s Driving Your Plane?

The Rolling Stones – Who’s Driving Your Plane?

In it’s sloppy, midpaced booming fug, all emphasised vocals and eee-long-gated vowels, I can never hear this without imagining a hunched-up Shaun Ryder singing it. It’s all rather great, an underplayed hidden gem(Stone).

Double Nugget, Peel Sessions, Six Of The Best

Read It In Books

November 21, 2019November 21, 2019 Craig McAllister

So the big milestone birthday came and went in a week of extended celebrations, Indian food, mislabelled birthday cupcakes and enforced fun with the family who found themselves gathered in the living room last Saturday night with no chance of escape until they’d participated in argumentative games of Family Fortunes and something called ‘Shout Out’, a rapid-fire general knowledge game that, we all agreed, had all the makings of a prime time Danny Dyer-fronted quiz show. “Shaaaaat Aaaaaht!”

My sister Shona and her husband Terry pulled out all the stops on the presents front. The week previously, Shona had been at the run of 3 Billy Bragg shows in Glasgow and hung around afterwards to grab a photo opportunity and a quick chat with old Bill. In one photo he was wearing a customised Smiths t-shirt, replete with the logo ‘Morrissey Sucks‘. It’s a cracker of course, reflecting the fact that these days Steven Patrick very much does indeed suck, not only for his increasingly watered-down records and hideous parallel jeans, but mainly for his questionable and indefensible political views.

After a bit of persuading, yer actual Billy Bragg offered to email Shona the digital artwork for what was a one-off t-shirt and so it came to be that I now have my own Billy-fashioned Morrissey Sucks t-shirt, only the second of its kind in the world. I’m very much looking forward to sporting it wherever it might get under the skin of the most vocal of Morrissey apologists.

Perhaps even better than this – actually, definitely better than this – was the book Shona had published. Going back to the beginning of Plain Or Pan, she very methodically picked out the highlights from almost 13 years of writing and had them complied into a coffee table-sized hardback book – definitely the only one of its kind in the world; coloured pages, the odd collage of pictures, but mainly the best of the writing about outdated music for outdated people, ordered non-chronologically, with sections on some of the more-regularly featured bands – there’s plenty on Teenage Fanclub, The Smiths, The Trashcan Sinatras, a decent selection of Six Of The Bests (an almost extinct feature these days, given how difficult it now appears to be to hook in a second division pop star and have them yap away about their favourite records) and more than a few forgotten-about articles that have aged pretty well.

Of course, there are a handful pieces that cause me to wince slightly when I re-read them a decade on from when they were first fired off and out into the ether, and there are maybe 2? 3 at most articles (OK, there are another 16 articles!) that I’d have looked to include had I done this myself, but over all its an absolutely fantastic thing – a really brilliant present – and it’s extremely impressive to see your own work in such tangible form as this.

Best present ever? Aye, it’s certainly right up there.

Echo & The Bunnymen – Read It In Books (Peel Session, 22.8.79)

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Double Nugget, Gone but not forgotten

In-Between Go-Betweens

May 13, 2017May 13, 2017 Craig McAllister

No writing recently as I’ve spent the past week away on a school residential trip. Well, 4 schools’ trips to be exact. It’s the final hurrah before the P7s leave their lofty position as top dogs of their respective primary schools and enter the local secondary as the smallest fish in a much bigger pond. The trip is organised as a bonding session, as a way of getting to know the chancers and cheek merchants who’ll form your peer group for the next 4 years at least. It was a great trip, all be told, my 6th tour of duty at the same place and, as before, a trip like none of the previous ones. I sat last night like a burst baw, beer in hand and hardly bothering to drink it.

Despite the fact that you’re most definitely very responsible for these children 24 hrs a day, every day for a school week, and you’re in their company from the moment the first early riser surfaces (6.00am was this week’s record, though it was no later than 7 on the others), until the last laugh has echoed down the dormitory corridor at 11.30pm, it is a very enjoyable week. My personal highlight was yesterday morning when we went out as a school group and sped across the Firth Of Clyde on a handful of speedboats. A pod of dolphins had followed our procession and at one point, one of the dolphins swam alongside one of the boats. The kids were able to lean overboard and touch it, much to their delight (and the disappointment of the others who’d found themselves on the ‘wrong’ boat).

The instructor driving the boat asked me if we’d prefer to go and see the seals next or head further round and push the vessel to the limits of its speed. “Can’t we do both?” I was thinking, although I replied, “Whatever you think’ll be best….the kids’ll enjoy either.”

“Easy come, easy go,” came the reply.

And with that, an earworm was born. And it’s been my earworm ever since.

As it turned out, we did do both; we zipped across the top of a blustery channel before thrillingly and somewhat dangerously sharply turning 270 degrees to head for the rocks where the seal colony lived. My knuckles were white but I had GW McLennan’s tune spinning in my head as we headed for the seals. “I see my friends on fire….I might even have struck the match,” And there they were, playing up to the nautical tourists like well-trained zoo animals, the wee ones appearing and disappearing from the water, heads like black Labradors, the big fat one seemingly slobbed on the highest rock until we floated closer and it belly flopped into the oily sea. “You gotta take the moon from the trees, you gotta hide it in your room…”

We then turned again and our skipper edged forward into full throttle. There was an audible gasp for breath as the speedboat hit light speed, children gripping just that wee bit tighter than before. And still that tune played in my head. Weird! “You gotta hold it til it burns, you gotta make it easy come, easy go…” Even a sudden, unexpected mouthful of salt water couldn’t stop it.

When I got home last night, and the children and missus had been kissed and hugged and the dust had settled on the stories to tell and the washing had been put on and the case returned to the loft and the beer was in hand, the next thing I did was reach for Teenage Fanclub’s recent version. It was spun to within an inch of its life for about 40 minutes, one play after another, until my mind was rested. It’s a great version; faithful to the original, delivered by Gerry and wrapped in honeyed harmonies from Norman.

Sadly, no studio version remains available in mp3 format. You’ll need to have a copy of the fairly limited ‘I’m In Love’ 7″ if you want to hear it in all its warmly-produced glory. There is however, a rather good live version doing the rounds, recorded at last December’s Barrowlands show.

Teenage Fanclub – Easy Come, Easy Go (Live at Barrowlands, 3.12.16)

As a studio version, it could sit very easily on any of TFC’s stellar albums, especially last year’s ace ‘Here‘ LP. It could also sit nicely on a Lightships release, should Gerry decide once again to step away from Fanclub duties and go solo for a bit. He’d certainly be made very welcome to do so.

Indeed, Easy Come, Easy Go was the product of a solo record to begin with. Grant McLennan’s first output since the split of The Go Betweens (they’d reform briefly a decade or so later, before McLennan’s untimely death) was the Watershed album. It’s a record I’d never heard until I backtracked from Teenage Fanclub’s b-side and heard the original for the first time. In all honesty, The Go Betweens, as pleasant and melodic and literate as they are, didn’t really do that much for me. I appreciate them ‘n all, I just wasn’t crazy about them. For this, see also Belle & Sebastian. But I digress…. A solo record by someone from a band who I thought were just OK was never going to be high on my list of ‘must hears’. More fool me.

GW McLennan – Easy Come, Easy Go

I dare say it’s a terrific LP, packed full of Antipodean jangling pop, although as I’ve reasoned above, it needs proper investigating before I’m fully qualified to really say so. In its original form, Easy Come, Easy Go sounds exactly like a Teenage Fanclub track even if, when it was written in 1991, the Fannies were still favouring Marshall stacks over Fender Twin Reverbs and were more akin to fuzzy Ravenscraig rockers than the Bellshill Beach Boys they were still to become. Certainly, Watershed as a whole and Easy Come, Easy Go in particular are clear influences on the TFC sound. And for that I really should sit up and take more notice.

demo, Double Nugget, Get This!

I’m Backin’ The Kane Gang

April 18, 2017April 20, 2017 Craig McAllister

A few weeks ago I was involved in putting on a fantastic gig in the tiny but perfect Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine, half an hour from Glasgow on the west coast of Scotland. The main act for the night was BMX Bandits, an act who last graced my hometown a mere quarter of a century ago at one of our Tennent’s Live-sponsored ‘Rock On The Watter’ events. The beginning of the 90s saw Tennent’s dip a corporate toe into the world of live music and Rock On The Watter, which ran annually from 1990-1994 was, in a way, the precursor to T In The Park. Indeed, if our town fathers had had any ounce of rock and roll in their brittle, backwards-thinking bones, TITP might’ve been staged at Irvine’s Beach Park rather than Strathclyde Park in Hamilton. But that’s another story for another day.

As it transpired, Duglas T Stewart had fond memories of playing in Irvine and took great pleasure in eating a banana during the opening song Cast A Shadow – just as they’d done 25 years previously. The gig would unravel to be something of a classic, with a heady mix of Bandits’ greatest ‘hits’ getting a good airing alongside debut live performances from their very imminent BMX Bandits Forever LP. I’ve since heard a couple of these same tracks played on Marc Riley’s 6 Music show, which I suppose gives the whole gig some extra gravitas. The last band to debut new material in Irvine was young upstarts Oasis, who chose the Beach Park in 1995 as the venue in which to float Don’t Look Back In Anger out into the ether, Noel playing his barely-disguised, ham-fisted version of All The Young Dudes with yer actual George Harrison’s actual plectrum. Again, another story for another day.

The whole point of this post though was to highlight the undeniable talents of Joe Kane, the artist who provided support to BMX Bandits in the HAC.

Joe is one of Scotland’s best-kept secrets. He spends most of the year being Paul McCartney in Them Beatles, regarded as one of the most authentic Beatles tributes around. Squint hard enough and he has an undeniable, two thumbs aloft, McCartney look about him. Add a pair of pointy boots, a perma-surprised mouth agape and crucially, a Beatles’ wig, and the look is complete.

For months on end he can be found playing Beatles conventions all over the world. Them Beatles have a trainspotterish approach to authenticity, so going to a show is quite possibly as close as you might get to the real thing. A fantastic array of period guitars – the Hofner bass, George’s Rickenbacker, John’s Let It Be-era Gibson – played through a backline of vintage Vox valve amps, coupled with the studied mannerisms and learned lines of each Beatle – “Rattle yer jewellery,” “Opportunity knocks,” etc etc, all add up to the real deal. Fab, even.

Joe’s ‘hobby job’, if you like, is playing his own music; wonky pop, looney tunes and merry melodies, all swimming in nutty effects with a rich Beatleish undercurrent. It’s a job that’s found him playing sessions on BBC 6 Music, performing alongside the cream of Scotland’s indie elite and co-writing with big hitters (in a parallel universe) such as Norman Blake and the aforementioned Duglas. You may be aware of some of his nom de plumes; The Owsley Sunshine, Dr Cosmo’s Tape Lab, as part of Ette…..

Here’s Joe in his Owsley Sunshine incarnation, clattering along like Supergrass doing Badfinger by way of an XTC Bond theme, all compressed vocals, ringing and lightly toasted guitars, stop/start riffs and a brilliant rhythm section – which may be all his own work. (*Update – it’s not, but Joe is happy for you to think that – not for nothing does he have a track called Don’t Pump My Ego, Baby!

The Owsley Sunshine – Powered By An Electric Shepherd

For the Irvine show, his 4-piece Radiophonic Tuck Shop sounded extraordinary; slightly psychedelic and Super Furry super-tuneful. Amazingly, this was their first ever gig. Not for them though the usual sweat of jittering first-night nerves; Joe surrounds himself with tip-top, top-chops musicians, and the Radiophonic Tuck Shop comprised of seasoned pros (I’m sure that was ‘George Harrison’ stage left) that brought out the best in his songs.

Their set of skewed power-pop went down extremely well, the short, sharp blasts of Nuggety pop from Joe’s back catalogue given an urgent, insistent makeover in the live setting. Intentional or not, each song was counted in with a none-more-Macca “1234!” to great applause, which you could be forgiven for thinking was a smart sample from any one of those early 60’s Beatles’ BBC sessions. As first gigs go, it was a brilliantly explosive cherry-popping and an exciting portent of things to come.

Only Joe Kane – As Hard As I Feel

Only Joe Kane – Disnae Time

This coming Saturday (22nd April) will see Joe and his Radiophonic Tuck Shop support Teen Canteen at the launch of their also-endorsed-by-Riley ‘Sirens‘ EP, which is pretty much the perfect double bill if y’ask me. It may well be sold out by now, so if you can’t get to it, keep an eye on the gig listings pages. Joe’s out and about regularly and definitely worth catching. Indeed, the following weekend will see Joe wig out in his Beatles guise, for two shows at Oran Mor, on the 28th and 29th April on Glasgow’s Byres Road. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Tickets can be bought here.

Double Nugget, Hard-to-find, Sampled

Soul Brothers

June 1, 2016June 1, 2016 Craig McAllister

Siblings in soul is, as Tom Jones might say, not that unusual. The Isley Brothers weren’t so-called for nothing, ditto the Family Stone, with Sly fronting a band including his brother Freddie and sister Rose.

Erma and Aretha Franklin both developed singing careers from a church background. Their father was a travelling preacher, a pop star in his own right who’d go from town to town raising hell with his fire and brimstone sermons before his daughters raised the roof with their pure gospel. Big sister Erma would go on to have a hit with ‘Take A Little Piece Of My Heart‘, but it was Aretha who went on to far greater success. You may have heard of her.

Then you had the Jackson Sisters and, no relations, a whole hairy-headed handful of brothers in the Jackson 5, who had expired long before Michael would climb the charts all over again, duetting with little sister Janet.

There are loads more, of course, but to acknowledge them all would turn this article into a listathon, and who wants that?

One of the more interesting musical family rivalries was that of the Butler brothers. Big brother Jerry was a songwriter chiefly, but a decent crooner in his own right. Like many of his ilk, he found his voice via gospel and actually ended up being the lead vocalist in the Curtis-free first line-up of The Impressions. Mayfield certainly made the bigger, er, impression, as Jerry and his voice were soon dispatched to make way for Curtis and his distinct vocals.

Most of Jerry Butler’s tracks never get out of 2nd gear; shiny-suited and highly pompadoured mid-paced mushy love songs that were expertly delivered, easy on the ear and admired by many. To me, he’s a bit too wallpaper, ie, he’s there, but kinda in the background and unnoticed. This track from 1968’s ‘The Ice Man Cometh‘ LP though is a stone-cold classic.

Jerry Butler– Never Gonna Give You Up

Wee brother Billy on the other hand favoured up-tempo soul stompers. In an act of how-to-piss-off-your-brother-pettiness, his early material was produced by Curtis Mayfield. Loud, in your face, driving brass-led blasters were his speciality.

In the mid 60s, Billy had a hit with ‘The Right Track‘, a dazzling slice of Temptations-inspired northern soul. You can take any meaning you fancy from the lyrics – ‘I’m gonna keep on steppin’, never lookin’ back, I believe I’m on the right track‘ could be the rallying cry of a manifesto-wielding civil rights supporter, but it could also be the rallying cry of the weekend mod and his pals, pilled-up and looking for a good night out. Take yer pick.

‘The Right Track‘ has it all; clipped guitar, blasting horns, a piano riff absolutely ripe for sampling and, with Billy outta the traps like a talcum-covered whippet, all over and done with in under 2 and a half explosive minutes.

Who disnae like this, eh?

Billy Butler – The Right Track

Double Nugget, Gone but not forgotten

Too Much, Too Young

May 25, 2016May 26, 2016 Craig McAllister

2 Tone Records was the brainchild of Jerry Dammers, a reggae and ska fan from Coventry. More a culture mash than a culture clash, the label took the ideology and DIY aesthetics of punk, welded it to the Jamaican dance music that was prevalent in the multi-cultural Midlands and created the most exciting musical sound this writer had ever heard in his 10 short years on the planet.

It was almost too much for someone so young. That it happened to be the edgiest, most fashionable music of the era, with the razor-sharp creases on their Sta-Prest as razor-sharp as the attitudes of the folk wearing them, was neither here nor there. For me, 2 Tone was plain and simply exciting pop music, no different to Dog Eat Dog or Kids In America or Status Quo’s ‘Down Down‘.

2 Tone was initially conceived as a vehicle for Dammers to release his own Special AKA singles, but quickly became a collective that put out some of the most vital, insistent and exciting records of the era.

To keep the costs down, 2 Tone’s first release was a split release – ‘Gangsters‘ by The Special AKA on the one side (catalogue number TT1), with The Selecter’s eponymously-titled instrumental (catalogue number TT2) on the other.

The Special AKA. – Gangsters

The Selecter – The Selecter

The Special AKA’s track was the one favoured by DJs and went Top 10. The ‘flip’, not many realised, was actually a track without a band. John Bradbury, The Specials’ drummer played backing to a couple of local musicians who’d written the lilting instrumental based on the original ska records they heard around the city. When ‘Gangsters‘ became a hit, Dammers realised the need for an actual Selecter and, just as the pop impresarios of the previous decade had done, a Selecter was quickly formed.

With a strong emphasis on black and white, both in clothing and personnel, the bands on 2 Tone were coiled springs of energy, bobbing left, right and centre on their numerous Top of their Pops appearances. Suedeheads, pork pie hats and loafers became desirable items of want.

The suedehead was easy enough (though too severe for my mum’s liking (and mine, if truth be told) – I had a pre-Stone Roses bowl cut instead), Burtons sold tassled loafers and skinny black ties – next to the white shirts and sober suits in the ‘funeral’ section, believe it or not, but where in Irvine could you buy a pork pie hat?

Easier to get a hold of were the most important things – the records. Every Sauturday I’d run down to Walker’s at the Cross with my £1 pocket money and part with 99p of it in exchange for the latest 2 Tone 7″.

The Prince. Tears Of A Clown. Do Nothing. Stereotype. On My Radio. I had them all.

Then I gave them all away to a jumble sale that was raising money for Band Aid.

Regretted it ever since. I spent the early 90s sifting through boxes of singles at record fairs (remember them?) in the hope I’d turn up an old friend. Some I now own once again, but many still elude me, going for daft prices online. You live and learn, eh?

Alternative Version, Cover Versions, demo, Double Nugget, Dylanish, Get This!, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Kraut-y, Most downloaded tracks, Sampled, Six Of The Best

We Are 9

December 30, 2015December 30, 2015 Craig McAllister

Somehow, some way, Plain Or Pan has turned 9. Or, to be more accurate, is just about to turn 9. But at this time of year, when you can never be entirely sure if it’s Sunday morning or Thursday night and inspiration goes out the window along with routine and work ethic, it’s tradition that I fill the gap between Christmas and Hogmany with a potted ‘Best Of‘ the year compilation, so I’ve always made this period in time the unofficial birthday for the blog.

Not that anyone but myself should care really; blogs come and go with alarming regularity and I’ve steadfastly refused to move with the times (no new acts here, no cutting edge hep cats who’ll be tomorrow’s chip paper, just tried ‘n tested old stuff that you may or may not have heard before – Outdated Music For Outdated People, as the tagline goes.) But it’s something of a personal achievement that I continue to fire my wee articles of trivia and metaphorical mirth out into the ether, and even more remarkable that people from all corners of the globe take the time out to visit the blog and read them. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you, one and all.

Since starting Plain Or Pan in January 2007, the articles have become less frequent but more wordy – I may have fired out a million alliterative paragraphs in the first year, whereas nowadays I have less time to write stuff and when I do, it takes me three times as long to write it. To use an analogy, I used to be The Ramones, (1! 2! 3! 4! Go!) but I’ve gradually turned into Radiohead; (Hmmm, ehmm, scratch my arse…) Without intending it, there are longer gaps between ‘albums’ and I’ve become more serious about my ‘art’. Maybe it’s time to get back to writing the short, sharp stuff again. Maybe I’ll find the time. Probably I won’t.

The past 9 years have allowed me the chance to interview people who I never would’ve got close to without the flimsy excuse that I was writing a blog that attracted in excess of 1000 visitors a day (at one time it was, but I suspect Google’s analytics may well have been a bit iffy.) Nowadays, it’s nowhere near that, but I still enthusiastically trot out the same old line when trying to land a big name to feature. Through Plain Or Pan I’ve met (physically, electronically or both) all manner of interesting musical and literary favourites; Sandie Shaw, Johnny Marr, Ian Rankin, Gerry Love, the odd Super Furry Animal. Quite amazing when I stop to think about it. You should see the list of those who’ve said they’ll contribute then haven’t. I won’t name them, but there are one or two who would’ve made great Six Of the Best articles. I’m not Mojo, though, so what can I expect?

A quick trawl through my own analytics spat out the Top 24 downloaded/played tracks on the blog this year, two for each month:

Michael Marra – Green Grow the Rashes
Wallace Collection – Daydream
Jacqueline Taieb – Sept Heures du Matin
The Temptations – Message From A Black Man
New Order – True Faith
Bobby Parker – Watch Your Step
Jim Ford – I’m Gonna Make Her Love Me
Doris – You Never Come Closer
Ela Orleans – Dead Floor
Mac De Marco – Ode To Viceroy
Teenage Fanclub – God Knows It’s True
Iggy Pop – Nightclubbing
George Harrison – Wah Wah
Magazine –Thank You Falletinme Be Mice Elf Again
Future Sound Of London – Papua New Guinea
Bob Dylan – Sad Eyed Lady Of the Lowlands (mono version)
Richard Berry – Louie Louie
REM – Radio Free Europe (HibTone version)
The Cribs – We Share The Same Skies
Johnny Marr – The Messenger
McAlmont & Butler – Speed
Talking Heads – I Zimbra (12″ version)
Style Council – Speak Like A Child
Darlene Love – Johnny (Please Come Home)

And there you have it – the regular mix of covers, curios and forgotten influential classics, the perfect potted version of what Plain Or Pan is all about. A good producer would’ve made the tracklist flow a bit better. I just took it as I came to them; two from January followed by two from February followed by two from etc etc blah blah blah. You can download it from here.

See you in the new year. First up, Rufus Wainwright. Cheers!

Cover Versions, Double Nugget, Get This!, Gone but not forgotten

Hang On Sloppy

September 30, 2015 Craig McAllister

Louie Louie by The Kingsmen is the basest, crassest, lowest-level, stoopidest rockist frat-boy thunk ever committed to vinyl. Which happens to make it just about the best record ever. But you knew that already. The fact that it is sloppiness in excelsis; badly played and full of mumbled, mistimed vocals only heightens its appeal.

Louie Louie was written and recorded in 1955 by Richard Berry, who, along with his band The Pharaohs released it as a single to mass indifference. Shame, as it‘s a mighty fine piece of skronking, doo-wop inflected rock ‘n roll.

Louie Louie – Richard Berry

The Kingsmen first became aware of Louie Louie not via Richard Berry’s original, but from another cover. Rockin’ Robin Roberts‘ version was a regular on the jukebox in Seattle’s Pypo Club where the band often gigged.

Louie Louie – Rockin’ Robin Roberts & The Wailers

They quickly spotted it was a guaranteed floor filler, so The Kingsmen began incorporating it into their sets of lounge standards and easy listening classics.

All the King’s horses and all The Kingsmen

To say the recorded version was a departure from their usual sound would not be an exaggeration. Look at the band. Hardly The Stooges, or even The Troggs, are they? But with this one record they unwittingly created the caveman stomp of the Garage Band movement. Three chords? Check! Farfisa organ? Check! Nagging, repetitive chorus? Check, and check! Those Troggs’ and future Stooges’ ears pricked attentively at the hot-wired sound emanating from their AM radios.

Louie Louie – The Kingsmen

In order to give the record a live feel, the one vocal mike was hung suspended from the ceiling of the small studio and singing guitarist Jack Ely was forced to shout into it over the noise of the band. Just after the scratchy solo, he comes in to the verse a bar too early, checks himself and is saved by an on-the-ball drummer who casually flings in a recording-saving drum fill.

The fact that the teenage Ely was wearing braces on his teeth meant that when he wasn’t coming in on the wrong cue, he was mumbling his way through much of the song, a point that lead to the band and record being investigated for obscenity by the FBI. They were even banned from playing live in some States. As has been proven time and time again, this is exactly the sort of promotion a record needs in order to scale the charts.

If you listen carefully, more carefully then the FBI as it would appear, at the 54 seconds mark you’ll hear the crystal clear exclamation of Lynn Easton the drummer shouting “Fuck!” as he fumbles his sticks mid fill. Check it out.

The whole record took as long to record as it does to listen to – done and dusted for $50 in one imperfect take and sent to the pressing plant before the band had any time to object.

The Kingsmen hated the version that was put out, although they mellowed slightly when it finally settled in the number 2 slot of the actual Billboard Hot 100 – a somewhat bittersweet tale, as by this point they had split up. To promote the single, drummer Lynn Easton (who named the original band and therefore ‘owned’ the name – although I’m sure a Drifter or a Bay City Roller or 2 could contest this in court) put together The Kingsmen Mark 2 for all promotional work around the single. As long as they played it with the required loose limbed sloppiness, who would even have noticed?

*Bonus Tracks!

Here’s Toots & The Maytals skanking take, all clipped guitars, tippy-tappy hi-hat and stoned Jamaican harmonies. At 5 and a half minutes long, it kinda outstays its welcome, but it’s beautiful all the same.

Louie Louie – Toots & The Maytals

And here, with eyebrow permanently arched, is the typographically mischievous Louise Louise by Orange Juice. Shimmering, jangling and all the way fae fey Bearsden, it‘s a totally different song. Methinks the band had the title before the song.

Louise Louise – Orange Juice

Cover Versions, Double Nugget, Get This!, Hard-to-find

Rods & Mockers

September 13, 2015 Craig McAllister

I Wish You Would by The Yardbirds is a nagging, insistent blast of garage blues from 1964.

The Yardbirds – I Wish You Would

It was their debut single, lifted hook, line and sinker from Billy Boy Arnold‘s 1955 track of the same name and re-sold as the hot new thing. It’s the sort of track that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Nuggets or Pebbles compilation.

When David Bowie heard it and/or saw The Yardbirds at the Ricky Tick or Marquee or whatever venue was most hip and most happening that week, something stuck with him. In 1973, pre-dating Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets theme by a good few years, he put together Pin Ups, a fine fine album of parochial r’n’ b stompers from his formative years; The Kinks, The Who, The Pretty Things…. all corners of the Brit beat group movement were covered, including The Yardbird’s Chelsea-booted stomper.

David Bowie – I Wish You Would

In typical Bowie fashion, his version sounds less like the original and more like a wired, paranoid blues from outer space.

Just a few short months on from the Ziggy album and tour, The Spiders From Mars band are all over it like a glam-slamming racket, Mick Ronson’s Gold Top set to boogie before wigging out in a brief Eastern ragga towards the end. I used to think it was the definitive version until I heard this…

Rod Stewart – I Wish You Would

He’s an easy target, is Rod. He’s certainly had his knockers (arf) but believe me, this is terrific from start to finish! Mock Rod at your peril.

Rod’s version is a full-on mic swinging, hip swiveling, spandex clad romp. It‘s proof that, despite the nickname he was always more rocker than mod. It recalls a prime-time loose ‘n lairy Faces. Listen to him bark out the commands in that voice that’s equal parts sandpaper and sawdust; “First verse!” “Second verse!” “Bridge!” “Sow-low!” You can picture him, strutting across some Mid-Western balloon-filled stage or other, chest puffed, leaning back into the mic the way he does.

Rod’s voice is superb, all mock cockney and nary a hint of the Scots blood that he’s so proud of. He carries the track from start to finish, his band doing the best bar-room blues that can be coaxed out of them. “And away we go! Whatever happens happens! Let’s just do it!” he instructs, his band hanging on in there right until the end, dive-bombing bass runs, runaway harmonica solo, 3-note riff and all. It’s crackin’!

What’s all the more amazing is that Rod’s take on I Wish You Would is from a long-forgotten studio session sometime in the mid 80s, when he really had no right at all to be recording stuff as thrillingly essential as this. See when he was jumping about in his videos wearing a pink tracksuit and a yellow sun visor on his head? He coulda been filing the charts with dumb rock ‘n roll like this instead. What a wasted opportunity.

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals: