Born To Be With You was an American top 5 single for The Chordettes in 1956. A largely forgotten piece of bobbysox balladeering, it’s a proto doo wop, proto girl group paen to a just-out-of-reach romance, all minor key melodrama and vocal harmonies. It was quite clearly an influence on the young Phil Spector a few years later. A few short calendar years maybe, but it might as well have been several lightyears, given what happened in the intervening years betwixt and between The Chordettes and the golden touch of Phil Spector. 1956 was Year Zero for rock ‘n roll. The year that Elvis and his gyrating pelvis appeared on television screens with the dual effect of horrifying the moral majority of Americans whilst galvanising youths everywhere into action.
“Before Elvis there was nothing.”
John Lennon said that. And after Elvis there was everything. I’ll say that. Firstly, Tin Pan Alley songwriters and their ‘moon in June‘ blandfest of lyrics were given a huge boot up the arse and out the door. As they were leaving, in came bands who played their own instruments, wrote their own songs, presented themselves as a gang and dressed accordingly. In a few short years, the thrill of rock ‘n roll and all its attendant detritus was well in motion. But you knew that already.
Phil Spector was a bit of a throwback to that pre-Elvis era. The auteur of teen angst, he used assorted songwriters to pen the hits, before introducing the song to the musicians who would bend and shape it into Spector’s vision of a 3 minute symphony, before finally introducing the singers to the song and pushing them to the very edge of their limits in order to create pop perfection. Goffin & King. Ellie Greenwich. Jeff Barry. Writing for The Ronettes. The Crystals. Darlene Love. I’m sure you know them all. Phil even got himself a writing credit for coming up with the “woah-woah-woah” part at the end of Mann & Weill’s ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling‘. Clever man, that Phil Spector. Well, he was at one time…
Spector’s influence reached far and wide, as far even as that hotbed of rock action, south Wales. In 1973, following the huge success of I Hear You Knocking (a favourite of John Lennon, coincidentally), and after a part in David Essex’s Stardust, Dave Edmunds combined his love of early 50s rock ‘n roll with the technique of Phil Spector and produced his own version of The Chordettes’ Born To Be With You. It’s terrific! A wall of 12 string guitars, stratosphere-scraping vocals and galloping, clattering rat-ticky-tat percussion. It’s measured. Precise. Perfect. By the time the brass ‘n slide guitar part comes soaring in, you’ll already have convinced yourself this is the best record you’ve heard all year. Someone like Glasvegas could waltz in and do it in the same style and make it sound even huger. “Coz ah wiz borrrrn…tae be wi’ yooo!” But for the moment, content yourself with Dave Edmund’s 40-year old version. I think you’ll like it a lot.
Pop Quiz Interlude
Q. Aside from The Beatles, name the only other rock/pop artists on the cover of the Sgt Peppers LP.
A. Bob Dylan (top right, back row) and Dion (7th from left, 2nd back row. Just next to Tony Curtis and behind a wee bit from Oscar Wilde).
Dylan you’ve probably heard of. Dion too, for that matter. Dion was a duh-duh-duh-d’-duh-duh duh dude. His rasping, doo-wopping Noo Yoik Bronx vocal created monster hits. The Wanderer. Runaround Sue. A Teenager In Love. I’m sure you’re singing them now, ingrained as they are in the very fabric of rock ‘n roll. Dion was also the Marti Pellow of his day – pop idol on the outside whilst rattling to the bones with heroin on the inside. When the hits dried up, Dion found himself label-less, friendless and definitely down and out in New York City. Following a religious epiphany (c’mon! what did you expect?!?) and subsequently ditching the drugs, 1975 found Dion working with Phil Spector on his own version of Born To Be With You.
Ironically, it’s less Spectorish than Edmunds’ rollin’ and tumblin’ version. Dion’s is downbeat, introspective and melancholy, sounding exactly like the kind of record an artist makes when they know they’re in the last chance saloon; measured (again) and majestic. At just short of 7 minutes, it’s something of an epic. Jason Pierce of Spiritualized is said to be a huge fan of this record, which makes perfect sense. It’s almost Spiritualized in template, with it’s steady, pulsing riff and inter-woven sax breaks. And the background drugs story was no doubt the icing on the cake for our Jason.
Good records. That’s what they are. Play them. Enjoy them. Pass it on.
My Dad’s a banjo player. And that’s not a strange euphemism for any dodgy Deliverance-influenced way of life. He’s a straight-up, proper bluegrass bashin’, six-fingered pickin’ ‘n strummin’ banjo player. And quite good too. Plays in a band and everything. Which is more than I do these days. Maybe once I retire…..
As a teenager when I was learning to play the cheap plank of wood and rubber band combo that passed as my first electric guitar, he’d show me how to play the chords to any number of Buddy Holly songs, when all I really wanted to do was play the She Sells Sanctuary riff in front of the mirror. He couldn’t show me, thankfully (how uncool would that have been?), but it didn’t stop him listening to my records from afar and watching any videos I was in the process of freeze-framing in order to establish what chords, strings and frets my latest idol was playing. Now and again he’d point out a D chord or a hammer-on at the 7th fret, but that was as far as he got. I got quite good at learning by ear/watching telly. I still play Blackbird the same way after watching Paul McCartney’s MTV Unplugged. And I finally worked out She Sells Sanctuary (dead easy, but you knew that already).
One night I was watching for the umpteenth time a video of The Cramps, taped from arts show Later, long before it morphed into the Jools Holland-endorsed franchise of modern times. This was late-era, almost-classic line-up Cramps, on telly to promote the Stay Sick album. On hearing another unfamiliar racket starting up, my Dad poked his head around the living room door and feigned interest. “Who’s this? This looks interesting.” He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. The camera panned up and down Lux in his Fonz-in-high heels ‘n PVC get-up, then panned up and down Poison Ivy wearing a mini skirt and a Gretsch and not much else, then panned up and down straight-backed drummer Nick Knox before settling on bubblegum-blowing bass player Candy del Mar in her tiny black bikini top. “Look at the size of her fingers,” he said without a trace of irony. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, it’s not hard to track down that very show. I urge you to watch it:
Conclusive proof, if it were needed, that The Cramps were the last truly great rock and roll band.
I came to The Cramps quite late and only saw them live once, at the Barrowlands. Promoting that same Stay Sick album, as it happens. At the back of the Barrowlands, where the sound desk and special seated guests area is, there’s a wee 6 inch high ledge, ideal for short arses like myself to stand on and get a better view of the stage. Just before The Cramps came on, we were looking for a good viewing place and were headed in that direction. Perched on the end of the ledge with a girl on either side (combined age 32, and I’m being kind) was Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie. My pal Rab, suitably refreshed despite the warm beer in the plastic glass, and dismayed at the direction the Scream had taken with their new material, decided to have a wee word with the man – “That Loaded‘s shite, Bobby. You should’ve stuck to Ivy Ivy Ivy.“
Gillespie looked up. He was in full faux rockstar casualty mode at the time, lank hair ‘n leathers ‘n all. Flashing a Lennon peace sign, from beneath the fringe came the immortal words, spoken in that strange accent that’s more yer actual Florida than Mount Florida. “Ecstasy, motherfucker.” And almost to the beat of his poetry, The Cramps walked on and started. “Good mawnin’ Captain! Good mawnin’ to yoo! Ah-ha-ha, ah, ha, ha!!!” And away they went. Lux hanging off the mic stand like a transvestite Twiggy Pop, to-ing and fro-ing his vocals between hiccuping hillbilly and graverobber growl, Ivy playing like a hot-wired Scotty Moore. They were absolutely dynamite. Gillespie would kill to have an ounce of their effortless cool, that much is obvious. Anyway, anytime I listen to The Cramps, I think of that story. That and, “Look at the size of her fingers.”
Two cover versions (the first 2) and an outrageously good self-penned rip-off of Hang On Sloopy that does exactly what it says on the tin. The twang’s the thang, baby!
There’s a Cramps tribute on in McChuills, Glasgow this Saturday night, with The Primevals amongst others taking part. Just a wee heads up if you’re at a loose end. Click on the link. You might say it Lux interestin’…….(Scottish pun).
Some of you may have read this before (2009 and 2011, to be exact).
254 years young today. I love Burns. Had him drummed into me at school. In fact, anyone who goes to school in the West of Scotland knows all about him. And as a teacher, I love banging on about him to my class. Here’s a brief potted history for any uninitiated out there…
Born on the 25th January, 1759 in Alloway (now a posh part of Ayr). Scrawny boy, wasn’t expected to live long. Helped his dad on the farm. Wasn’t cut out for it. His dad, though poor, paid for Robert to go to school. Robert excelled in academia. Began writing poems to go along with the folk songs his mother had sung to him. People liked them. Drifted around Ayrshire. Had a reputation as a ladies man. Loved them and left them. Made plans to go to Jamaica as a slave driver (they don’t tell you that in school). Was just about to go when someone in Kilmarnock published the first edition of his poetry. This edition made it’s way to Edinburgh and Robert followed. The Edinburgh high society loved him. He loved Edinburgh life. He loved Edinburgh women. He loved entertaining Edinburgh women. In less than a year he spent the equivalent in today’s terms of £170,000! That’s £170,000 pissed against a wall. Made a hasty retreat, skint, to Dumfries when he was caught having an affair. Married Jean Armour, the love of his life they say and went back to the farming. Hated it. Became a tax man. Hated that. Died of a heart condition, possibly brought on by syphilis, on 21st July 1796, aged just 37. At the time of his death he had fathered at least 13 children to various women throughout Ayrshire, Edinburgh and Dumfries. Stick that in yer pointy boots, Russell Brand.
‘Happy Birthday, Mr Burns‘, by The Ramones on The Simpsons.
Ane, twa, chree, fower!
That reminds me. Prince Charles was on a visit to Crosshouse Hospital, just outside Kilmarnock a couple of years ago. One of the Hospital big wigs was accompanying him round the wards, steering old Charlie clear of the wasters, winos and swine flu sufferers that were using up valuable bed space. Walking into one ward, The Prince stopped at one of the first beds and asked the young man how he was feeling. The bedridden patient replied;
“Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty Wi bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee, Wi’ murdering pattle.”
Charles mumbled something under his breath, smiled at the distressed patient and walked on. He stopped at another bed and asked the next patient how he too was fareing. The patient looked up and shouted out,
“My curse upon your venom’d stang, That shoots my tortur’d gooms alang, An’ thro’ my lug gies monie a twang Wh’ gnawing vengeance, Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang, Like racking engines!”
Somewhat shaken, Charles walked on. Stopping at the last bed he looked at the patient. Being the future King and all, it was only polite of him to ask this patient how he too was progressing. With a froth of the mouth patient number three barked out,
“When Chapman billies leave the street, And drouthy neebors neebors meet, As market-days are wearing late, An’ folk begin to tak the gate; While we sit bousing at the nappy, An’ getting fou and unco happy, We think na on the lang Scots miles, The mosses, waters, slaps and styles, That lie between us and our hame, Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame, Gathering her brows like a gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam O Shanter, As he frae Ayr ae nicht did canter: (Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses, For honest men and bonie lasses.)”
A visibly bemused and perturbed Charles turned to his guide and inquired, “Where are we man? Is this some sort of mental ward?”
“No Sir,” came the reply. “This is the severe Burns Unit.”
You can have that one for free….
Here’s lo-fi acoustic folk Scottish supergroup-of-sorts The Burns Unit doing a brand new song called Tupperware Pieces for last week’s Marc Riley show on BBC 6 Music. S’a cracker. (I stole the mp3 from Peenko – ta!)
And here’sthe Trashcan Sinatras‘ ode tae Rabbie, I Hung My Harp Upon The Willows. It tells the story of Rabbie’s time in Irvine. Aye, Alloway made the man, but Irvine made the poet. As an Irvine boy, I make sure I tell them that in school. It gets right up the snooty noses of those South Ayrshirites, so it does.
Back in 1970s Scotland there was a drink called Creamola Foam. You might remember it. It came in orange and raspberry flavours and was aimed solely at children, who up until then got their fizzy fix from stealing their dad’s mixers when he wasn’t paying attention, before adding that same mixer to a big cup of additive-heavy, wheeze-inducing orange juice. Teeth-meltingly magic and free of faff, the instructions on the Creamola Foam tin told you simply to add one level teaspoon to a cup of water, stir and drink.
Everyone ignored the instructions. Two, three, four heaped spoonfuls of the stuff went into the beaker and whoosh! A volcanic eruption of legal amphetamine right before your very eyes. It’s no coincidence that the introduction of Creamola Foam correlated with the trend for driving BMWs and Audis amongst the dental profession up and down the land. Until 1978, Mr Devine my dentist drove a beige Vauxhall Viva.
Born at the arse-end of the Creamola Foam boom, it’s unlikely that Supergrass ever found themselves hairy-face to face with a cup of the stuff (they kept their teeth nice and clean, after all), but their early recordings sound like they were bathed in gallons of it, such is the youthful effervescence of it all. You’ll know this already, but they came to mainstream attention in 1995 thanks to the Alright single and its accompanying video featuring the group Monkeeing around on a trio of Choppers, Gaz sporting a set of Victorian gentleman’s sideburns that even Neil Young might be inclined to shave off for being on the wrong side of hippy. Alright crossed the Atlantic and brought Supergrass to the attention of America, although the band had trouble explaining the “smoke a fag” line, which was somewhat lost in translation.
Those with an ear to the ground were familiar with Supergrass long before Alright began bothering the charts. Preceding single Mansize Rooster was a giddy rush of Madness barrelhouse piano, Chas Smash shouting (Roooostah!) and Nutty Boy stomp (my ability to identify it helped me win Danny Baker’s quiz on the radio one Saturday morning), and the debut album I Should Coco was a riot of 3 minute riffage from start to finish. Lenny. Lose It. Sitting Up Straight. She’s So Loose. The sweary Strange Ones. The one chord groove of Time. The astonishing punk/prog of Sofa (Of My Lethargy). All rush by with the carefree abandon you’d expect from a group with a collective age roughly an eighth of Mick Jagger, who, if I remember correctly, was about 93 at the time. If you’ve never heard the album, do yourself a favour, eh? If you have the album, do yourself a favour and stick it on again. It’s playing as I type and it still stands up.
Debut single Caught By The Fuzz was my favourite. “It’s nothing you’ve never heard before,” quoted one cynical regular in the record shop where I worked. He was right. Caught By The Fuzz is punk-pop by numbers; a Buzzcockian breakneck rush of chugging guitars, Moon-esque tumbling drums and woo-aaa-wooo! backing vocals hanging on to the coat tails of a true story confessional concerning jazz cigarettes and the over-officious Oxfordshire police.
In The Observer last year, Gaz explained that his 15 year old self was a passenger in an old Ford Fiesta with a broken headlight when he and his pals got pulled over. “I stuck the hash down my pantsbut I had it in a little metal tin. I was standing on the pavement, and the tin just went all the way down my trousers and landed on the pavement with a ting. The copper went, ‘What’s that, son?'” Uh-oh. A song was born. “Locked in the cell, feeling unwell…..I talked to a man, he said “It’s better to tell”…Who sold you the blow?” “Well, it was no-one I know!” Here comes my mum, she knows what I’ve done….you’ve blackened our name, you should be ashamed.”
It’s magic, in case you need to ask. It was magic then and it’s still magic now, the best part of (gulp) 20 years later.
Don’t even think about downloading it!
Caught By The Fuzz comes here in a couple of versions:
The original Backbeat Records version is slightly different to the single/album version above and is rarer than a frown at a Supergrass gig. Sadly, it’s always been just out of reach. If you have a spare copy….
Fuzz Fact #3
I Should Coco was the biggest selling debut on Parlophone since The Beatles’ Please Please Me in 1963.
Fuzz Fact #4
Rather predictably, Hugh Grant wouldn’t give the band his permission to feature his mug shot on the sleeve of the single (he had been arrested around this time for picking up that very manly hooker in LA), but bass player Mick managed to appear on Top Of The Pops with the same image cheekily printed on his t-shirt.
So, the most surprising, genuinely uplifting and fist-pumping pop moment of this week was, of course, the sneaking-out of the new David Bowie single with all the silence and stealth of a top-secret Radiohead campaign. And with an album to follow too! I like Where Are We Now?, it kinda reminds me of Wild Is The Wind or Loving The Alien or Always Crashing In The Same Car or any other of those other slow-burning beauties of his that appear fully-formed and worm their way into your head forever.
By sheer coincidence, about 10 minutes after hearing the Bowie single on 6 Music, the iPod threw up an old James Brown tune as I drove grudgingly to face the day. Not a tune that I had played very often (never?), I had to check as I drove what it was actually called. Turns out it was called Hot (I Need To Be Loved, Loved, Loved) and by the sounds of it was a classic example of mid 70s funk-period Brown. Y’know, not the pop-soul James Brown of Sex Machine or Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag, rather the big girl’s blousey James Brown of velvet flared suits and Rumble In The Jungle moustache. Less than a minute into it and I was asking myself where I’d heard it before. A classic stabbing Blaxploitation brass intro replete with Brown grunts before breaking down into the instantly recognisable groove – all super-slinky rinky-dink riffing and fluid, four-to-the-floor bass, conga breakdown and electric piano. Had I been trying to sleep, this would have caused me a sleepless night. Where had I heard it before? Where?
It came to me in the middle of the afternoon. Bowie! Fame! Fay-yame! Fay-yame, makes a man think things over. Fame fame fame fame fame fame fame fame fame! Bully for me! Bowie had nicked the riff to Hot (I Need To Be Loved, Loved, Loved), added some bitchy lyrics with the help of John Lennon (who sang the backing vocals and may or may not have played additional guitar, depending on what and where you read), changed the melody and passed it off as one of his own. Even the wee high chord that punctuated the verses was there. Bowie, in his mid 70s plastic soulboy incarnation had appropriated every tiny bit of it from James Brown! He even had the nerve to go on Soul Train and sell coals back to Newcastle.
Or so I thought…..
Checking the credits later on that night, I notice that Bowie’s Fame is credited to Bowie, Alomar and Lennon, and following some detective work on that last outpost in truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Wikipedia, I discovered the track was built around a Carlos Alomar riff. Aye right, I thought. James Brown is the most sampled man in music. You’ve just gone one further, Bowie and ripped the whole thing off. Then I dug deeper. Turns out Carlos Alomar was in James Brown’s band for a bit in the mid 60s. Not only that, but that last outpost in truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth claims that James Brown based Hot (I Need To Be Loved, Loved, Loved) on David Bowie’s Fame. He ripped off Bowie! There’s no mention of a Bowie credit on the James Brown version (not on my Star Time, Disc 4 info at any rate), so if Wiki is to be believed, James Brown turned from funky gamekeeper to funkier poacher. And got away with it.
Both tracks, it turns out, were recorded sometime in 1975 at Electric Lady Studios in New York, Bowie’s in January and Brown’s later on in the year. Carlos Alomar, having played with many of the band still backing James Brown at this time was, by all accounts, absolutely livid by the steal. Bowie was a bit cooler, agreeing to sue if the track became a hit, which it never did. It’s interesting to note that in the fully comprehensive booklet that accompanies the James Brown Star Time Box set, where recording personnel are meticulously listed, under Hot (I Need To Be Loved, Loved, Loved) it just says ‘backing by unknown personnel’, which, for me, is just about as good an admittance you’ll get that James Brown took the original Bowie track, dubbed out his voice and sang his own melody across the top. Just my theory, at any rate.
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It’s the annual, token Plain Or Pan Christmas posting. And this year it’s a cracker. Boom, boom!
At the televised Michael Jackson funeral/tribute on the telly after his death there was a piece of slo-mo footage that was absolutely dynamite, and it’s stuck with me ever since. I can’t seem to find it on the You Tube (copyright, Rob Bryden) so you’ll need to make do with my 3 and a half year old memories. In it, a barely into double figures Michael, wearing an eye-poppingly bright tank top and very pointy collared shirt, body pops up and down, left and right, back to front, with all the carefree abandon of someone so young and foolish and happy. Watching it was almost tear-inducing, to see what he once was like when faced with the grim reality of what he had become. His wee tailored checked flares flap around the top of his cuban heeled boots in time to his and his elder brothers choreographed moves, their afros bobbing up an down in funky unison. Yeah, the brothers played the music and laid down the groove, but all eyes were on Michael. Without him, they were nothing. Ten years old and he owned the stage, looking right down the lens of the camera and into the homes of millions when he was singing, desperate for the musical interlude to arrive when he could break out the shackles and into his total, uninhibited dance as though his life depended on it. That his bastard of a father was probably standing just out of shot with brows furrowed and fists clenched makes the piece of film all the more amazing.
Michael Jackson turned out all wrong, but for a few moments at least, he is worth remembered as the wee boy who lit up the stage. It’s worth listening to the voice too. I mean, really listening to the voice. You know he can dance. And you know he can sing. But strip the music away, isolate the vocals and what do you have? Perfection, that’s what. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus is not a track I’ll freely run to when I need to hear the Jackson 5. Who does? But listen to this – the vocal-only track.
The control in his voice. The sheer joy he sings it with. The range of notes he can reach. That last note he hits, and holds, right at the end, is sensational. Anyone who tells you they can sing should be made to listen to this then asked to reassess their position on the matter forthwith. And here‘s wee Michael giving Santa Claus is Coming To Town the same sort of high-octane, helium-voiced treatment. A pocketful o’ dynamite!
*Bonus Track!
Here‘s that vocal-only track of Michael singing the Jackson 5’s I Want You Back – One of Plain Or Pan’s most popular downloads ever.
Deleted by The Man. Pfffft.
That’ll probably be me till after Boxing Day. See you on the other side….
Y’know the maid from the old Tom & Jerry cartoons? The one with the broom and the wrinkled up stockings and the shrill, accusing “Thomas!” voice and the face you never saw? I think she’d have loved swinging that big ol’ Mammy ass around to Little Willie John‘s I’m Shakin’.
William Edward John, as he was known to his own Mammy, is an important figure in the development of R&B in the 50s and 60s. Like many of his ilk, his muse came from gospel music, alcohol abuse and the concurrent loving arms of many women. He did the original Fever (selling over 1 million copies in the process), later covered ‘n claimed as signature tune by Peggy Lee. Little Willie John was also the originator of Need Your Love So Bad, a track so beloved of Peter Green’s blues-obsessed Fleetwood Mac. Even The Beatles were touched by John’s tunes. In the early days in Hamburg, they regularly included Leave My Kitten Alone as part of those backbreaking put-Springsteen-to shame length sets.
Little Willie John didn’t write I’m Shakin‘, that would be Rudy Toombs (who’s version seems to be forever out of the reach of these typing fingers) but it was Little Willie John’s version that pounded out of the juke joints and jive houses on the other side of the tracks, the same juke joints and jive houses that Keith Richards writes so fondly of in his autobiography. I’m Shakin’ is big, bold, bluesy and brassy and swings sweeter than Sinatra at The Sands. If you’ve never heard it, rectify that now!
….although you may well have heard at least one version of it by now. It’s that traditional time of year when all and sundry chip their tuppence worth in to give you a rundown on the year’s most essential movers and shakers. Lists are drawn up all the way from Lerwick to Land’s End and dismantled and debated for all their worth by every 2-bit self-appointed music expert with an opinion and the ability to voice it. Folk like me love ripping those lists apart. Wilfully pretentious or missing the glaringly obvious, its easy to do.
Mojo’s Album of the Year went to Jack White‘s Blunderbuss, which was kinda a return to White Stripes territory. Riff-based, part guitar, part keyboard and featuring a whole lotta whoopin’ and a hollerin’, God-fearin’ Jack, it featured a version of I’m Shakin’ that turned Little Willie John’s Memphis Horns riff into a Led Zeppelin funk of a record, squealy guitar solo ‘n all. The genius part of it all is when Jack takes the original ‘I’m jittery‘ lyric and replaces it with ‘I’m Bo Diddley‘, replete with a perfectly-timed Jerome Green-inspired maraca rattle. For a rhythmically-challenged Ayrshireman like me, Jack’s I’m Shakin’ is manna from heaven.
Best known for their raucous mix of R&B, country and blues, The Blastersversion from 1981 is actually pretty tame in comparison. Maybe it’s the 80s production or the fact that The Blasters sound anything like their name would have you believe, but to these ears it’s more of an I’m Shruggin’ than I’m Shakin’. Is that the best you can do? Really? Perhaps you had to be there. In 1981 I was doing the dandy highwayman dance to Stand & Deliver, so I’m probably not the most qualified to comment.
Robert George Meek was better known as Joe Meek. A maverick record constructor, sonic architect and visionary of what was possible from the seemingly impossible, he led a turbulent life, permanently perched on the line right between madness and genius. Many of the main protagonists in the Joe Meek story went onto bigger and more successful things (though not necessarily better), but equally, many of the characters who crossed paths with Meek during his quest for sonic perfection ended up troubled, broke (mentally, physically and financially) and even dead. By comparison, Joe Meek’s story makes Phil Spector’s look almost insignificant.
From his rented flat above a handbag shop on London’s Holloway Road (Number 304 – there’s now a wee unobtrusive plaque there for anyone with a keen eye and musical trainspottery tendencies), and with financial backing from a somewhat eccentric ex-army major who made his fortune from importing children’s toys, Joe crafted a selection of minor hits, major hits and million-sellers, all sewn together from an unlikely array of self-built echo chambers and a Health & Safety Officer’s wet dream of spaghettied electrical cables across landings and staircases via the bathroom and bedroom to the wee cupboard/control room where it all came together. Windows were covered up for sound-proofing. It could be the height of summer but no-one inside the ‘studio’, least of all Joe, could have known. To the piano keys Joe added drawing pins to give it a more sparkly sound. Vocals were nearly always recorded in the tiled bathroom, where there was a better, more natural reverb.
Joe couldn’t play a note of music, so he would hum and sing the tune he was wanting to the musicians, who would then be instructed to play it back note perfect. Often, in the search for perfection, they would be asked/encouraged to play the same tiny fragment of a song over and over again, way into the wee small hours if necessary, until they captured the essence of what Meek was hearing in his tortured head (sometimes even at gunpoint, when Joe’s demons got the better of him – more on them in a bit). It’s quite clear that Joe was not like any of the other 9 to 5 shirt-and-tied record producers of the day. Lee Mavers would’ve loved him.
Joe’s personal life was significant for two reasons. One: He had an interest in the spiritual world and the occult. He regularly channeled the spirits for guidance and inspiration. On meeting Buddy Holly, Joe told him he had foreseen his death. “February 3rd,” said Joe. “That’s today,” replied Buddy. A year later, on February 3rd 1959, Buddy Holly hopped on board a light aircraft in Iowa and died when the plane crashed.
Joe, like many people in the early 60s, had a huge interest in space travel and the possibility of civilisations on other planets. Watching the launch of the Telstar satellite and mesmerised by it’s capabilities for beaming live television and audio around the world, Joe began working on his most famous record. The music for Telstar came to Joe in a dream. Re-creating the drama of lift-off and the other-worldliness of outer space, Telstar was like nothing that had been before. A combination of twanging minor key surf guitar and distorted clavioline it has since had the dubious distinction of being known as Margaret Thatcher’s favourite record. But don’t let that put you off. Telstar was also one of the catalysts for Joe’s descent into madness. But more of that in a moment.
Have a listen to Telstar by The Tornadoes:
The other significant aspect of Joe’s life was that he was homosexual. Still illegal in early 60s Britain, Joe was forced to keep his true self under wraps. Surrounding himself in his studio with eager young boys, Joe was on a mission to find the next Billy Fury, a singer he nearly ‘got’ before showbiz giant Larry Parnes snapped him up, and who’s success Joe found hard to cope with. Joe began managing a young German-born hopeful called Heinz. Heinz had little talent and minimum appeal but Joe spent the major’s money on far too many promotional shoots in an attempt to hype him into the charts. He lavished clothes, cars and even a boat on him and began a very one-sided love affair that was doomed to failure from the start.
No hits were forthcoming and the major was starting to ask for a return on his money. So too was Joe’s landlady, a woman who put up with much and to a point had allowed Joe to defer payment on his rent. But Joe had no money to give them. Around this time, Joe was arrested, George Michael style, for soliciting an undercover policeman in a public toilet. Named and shamed in the newspapers, friends stopped calling and Joe slipped into a spiral of drugs and the unpredictable madman/genius behaviour he has since become known for – waving guns around the studio, sacking the session musicians who had played on all his tracks and constantly checking for hidden bugs around his studio/flat when he became wracked with paranoia thinking Decca Records and even Phil Spector were somehow stealing all his ideas.
Still from the excellent ‘Telstar’ Joe Meek Biopic.
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?
The success of Telstar should have eased the situation. It spent 5 weeks at Number 1 in the UK. It was the first British record to reach Number 1 in the USA. It won an Ivor Novello award. More importantly, it sold millions. It should’ve made Joe and everyone involved very comfortable. However, as the record grew in success, Jean Ledrut, a French composer decided that Joe had taken the melody for Telstar from his track La Marche d’Austerlitz.
Contrast and compare with Ledrut‘s tune:
Royalty payments were subsequently frozen and a lengthy courtroom case began. This deprived Joe of much-needed income. Perhaps, more significantly, along with the public toilet episode and the subsequent hushed-up blackmailing of him, it robbed Joe of any dignity he had left. Joe maintained his innocence, that the tune had come to him in a dream, but by now the people doubted his talent. Joe spiralled even further into madness. With his studio dismantled and possessions confiscated following a court order for non-payment of bills, he got into an argument with his landlady over his over-due rent. Pulling the gun on her, he shot her before turning the gun on himself. The date? February 3rd. Albeit 8 years apart, the same date as Buddy Holly’s death.
The Music:
John Leyton – Johnny Remember Me.
John Leyton was the original actor-turned-singer, long before Simon Cowell trawled the karaoke bars of Blackpool in search of the inspiration required in order to turn a couple of ugly actors into million-selling chart stars, and make himself a fortune in the process. Along with The Shangri-La’s Leader Of The Pack, Johnny Remember Me is all you really need for sides 1 and 2 of Now That’s What I Call Melancholic Teen Angst. Like a spaghetti western theme, all galloping Spanish guitars and teen heart throb vocals, Meek’s trick is to add a gallon of reverb, a ghostly female wail and enough pathos to soften the collective hearts of every spiv, shyster and Kray Twin who flirted with the music business in the early 60s. Wee Alex Turner and Miles Kane, when doing their Last Shadow Puppets album had this on constant rotation, I’d bet.
The Outlaws – Swingin’ Low.
A post-Shadows, pre-Beatles twang affair, this is neither rock nor roll. On account of all the wee bits where the musicians get to showcase their individual talents, it falls into the almost novelty record category – the sort of record Benny Hill might have sequenced one of his dolly bird chases to. The Outlaws were Meek’s backing band of choice and various combinations of them played on many of Joe’s sessions. Given the chaotic nature of Meek’s recording, and the sheer volume of un-labelled tapes in the Meek archive, no-one knows for sure exactly who played on what. Bass player Chas Hodges went onto greater fame in his own right as Chas from Chas ‘n Dave. Guitarist Richie Blackmore went on to join Deep Purple, form Rainbow and live more recently as a 17th century mandolin playing medieval minstrel. Occasional drummer Clem Cattini went on to do sessions for The Kinks, Tom Jones and played un-credited on any number of 1960s hit singles.
The Honeycombs – Have I The Right.
Stealing the chorus from the Everly Brothers Walk Right Back, Have I The Right is yer classic stomping 60s smash. The stomp was created by banging brooms, boots and all manner of bangable things on the studio’s wooden floor, much to the annoyance of everyone in the handbag shop downstairs. It’s just my opinion, but I think the Sex Pistols based their jackboot stomp on this record when they recorded Holidays In The Sun.
Other-wordly, of its time, yet still contemporary sounding today, Telstar is Meek’s legacy. In an ironic post-script to the Joe Meek story, just 3 weeks after Meek’s death, a judge ruled in favour of Meek, citing the fact that Ledrut the Frenchman’s music hadn’t been played outside of France and that Meek could not possibly have heard it. Given that Meek spent every hour cooped up in his little flat/studio, he does have a point. Had the judge’s ruling been made earlier, perhaps Joe might still be with us today, kicking against the pricks and doing something interesting. We’ll never know.
Cor! Eh? You beauty! (Nudge, Nudge). Knowotoimean? (Adopts Sid James cackly wheeze). I mean, ‘oo wouldn’t? Eh? Eh! Ow’s yer father? Eh? Eh? She’d get it! And no mistake! Let’s slip into sumfink more comfortable, shall we?
Yeah, let’s slip into something more comfortable. Like the honeyed tones of La Cracknell and her backing band of boffins and beard strokers tackling some of the finest moments in thinking man’s pop. With mixed results. Saint Etienne annoy me. Not in the way that wasps annoy me. Or paper rustlers in the cinema. Or blue-blooded ‘n bigoted Rangers fans. Or those paranoid green-tinted Cel’ic supporters and their uncouth manager after a decision goes against them. But Saint Etienne get my goat. I can’t put my finger on it or tell you exactly why. There’s no one reason. I’ve got tons of their stuff, vinyl and CD, bought in faithful chronological order as and when released, up to a point around How We Used To Live. I’ve always liked their way with a sixties-inspired piece of London pop and the sly wink of an eye towards the reference points therein. They’re a true ‘record collection’ band, that’s for sure, but with that comes a feeling that they’re just a wee bit too hip for their own good, just a shade too arch for those in the know and slightly smug in the knowledge that no-one is quite like them. Suffering from something of an identity crisis, they’re too ‘indie’ for pop when they themselves’d probably consider themselves too pop even for pop.
That said, they probably wet their collective knickers when asked to produce a version of Kylie covered Nothing Can Stop Us with a coolness that even Sarah would find difficult to cultivate. This was Kylie BH (Before Hot Pants), the Kylie of mid 90s hell, when only Nicky Wire and ironic students paid her any attention. And here she was, covering obscure, non-charting singles built around old Dusty Springfield samples. Of course. Great version, Kylie! Really!
Saint Etienne’s best known cover is surely Only Love Can Break Your Heart, a pre-Cracknell track where they dismantled whiny old Neil Young’s campfire strumalong of angst and re-tooled it as a Soul II Soul-styled shuffler for the dancefloor. But you knew that already. Dig deeper into the Saint Etienne ouvre and you’ll find all manner of cover versions. Available on the rare-as-can-be fanclub-only Boxette, you’ll find their version of David Bowie‘s Absolute Beginners. I saw them do this live, at the Mayfair in Glasgow, with a pre-fame Pulp supporting. I’ll need to dig out the ticket some time, as the band’s name is written as St Etiene, with one ‘n’. Anyway, their version was rubbish that night (no Bowie aping bap-bap-ba-ooos, surely the best bit?) and the studio version, despite the inclusion of the aforementioned bap-bap-ba-ooos, remains kinda rubbish to this day. Some shouty sampled bit or other by the boys whilst Sarah sounds like a Dalek on downers. Not their finest moment. Maybe they should’ve tackled The Jam track of the same name instead.
On the Deluxe Edition of So Tough, you’ll find them having a go at Teenage Fanclub‘s Everything Flows. A staple of TFC’s live set since their first gig, Fannies fans froth at the mouth for its meandering Neil Youngesque solos and melancholic ruminations on life. Saint Etienne, surely having a laugh at our expense, render it practically unlistenable. Now, some folks say that the best cover versions are when the band takes the song and makes it their own (see, for example, Only Love Can Break Your Heart), but when the heart and soul of the track (in this case the insistent, wailing guitars) are replaced by synth washes and a politely skittering drum machine so bland a yoga teacher would have trouble chilling out to them, well, you can imagine….
Going some way to redeem themselves, this year found Saint Etienne taking a shot at the holiest of holies, TheBeach Boys‘ Wouldn’t It Be Nice. It‘s not bad – starting acapella before morphing into a soft focus mush of warm harmonies, ticking clocks and half-speed backing tapes, keen scholars of Wilson pop will easily spot the odd nod to the Smile-ear Barnyard amongst the mix. See – they’re too fucking smart for their own good, that Saint Etienne.
A fuggy haze hangs low over the East River between Manhattan’s Financial District and the brownstones of Brooklyn. Clattering like one of those wooden toy snakes across the Williamsburg Bridge weaves a long, low train, lazily rolling its way along the J line. Sprayed in a dulling array of pinks, greens and primary colours, tagged to within an inch of illegibility to those over 35, its contents sit in silence, oblivious to the multi-coloured carnage in which they are cocooned. Inside is not much different. It looks violent. It feels violent. Doors, windows, seat coverings; every available surface space is thick with the same chunkily inked shout-outs to whoever is reading. Every passenger finds a point in front of themselves and focuses, daring not to lift their head and avert their gaze lest they happen to catch the eye of someone close by. Women clutch their bags and count the stops until they can get off. Men, the good ones, the ones who’d like to think of themselves as the have-a-go hero when something bad kicks off in here, try to look both non-threatening yet tough. The bad ones just look threatening. And tough.
If this was the start of a movie, it’d be soundtracked by this, Shambala from The Beastie Boys‘ Ill Communication LP. Purveyors of the finest gravel-throated shouty hip hop since 1981, Beastie Boys also did a mean line in often-overlooked instrumentals. Shambala is spacey, droney and built upon a bed of Buddhist chants and brooding wah-wah. Kinda vegetarian funk, I suppose. There’s a nice drop out where the hi-hat does its best Theme From Shaft impersonation before the clipped wah-wah brings us back to the incidental music in a 1976 episode of Starsky And Hutch. That wee scratchy noise you can hear in the background isn’t authentic vinyl hiss – it’s the sound of the Stone Roses taking notes in preparation for their next set of ker-ching! comeback dates.
Also on Ill Communication is Bobo On The Corner, another fantastic slice of Beastie funk. More clipped wah-wah and droney bass, this time the sampled Stubblefield-aping shuffle beat comes from, presumably, one of those New York street musicians who can make 3 oil drums and an empty can of vegetable oil from Chinatown sound like a particularly funky octopus playing Give It Up, Turn It Loose. A bit like this guy…(maybe he’s the real Bobo on the corner. Or maybe not)….
“Gimmefidollahs!”
If you prefer yer Ad Rocks ‘n MCAs ‘n Mike Ds rrrrrrappin ‘n rrrrrrhymin’, ch-check this out- Ch-Check It Out from 1997’s Hello Nasty, devoid of loops, samples and other assorted musical flim-flam. Just the 3 voices a-riffin’ and a-goofin’ off one another, like Benny and the Top Cat gang recast as super-bratty teenagers. And, bringing us back to where we came from, a vocal-onlyStop That Train. Hot cuppa cwawfee and the do’nuts are dunkin’, Friday night and Jamica Queen’s funkin’. Essential!
Ach. Y’know you’re gettin on a bit when Beastie Boys start dying round about you. Rap on, MCA!
Plain Or Pan 
