Category: Gone but not forgotten

Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Try Listening To The 12″

Craig McAllister

Watching the predicto-fest that was the Brits the other night, my mind started wandering half-way through the Pet Shop Boys Lifetime Achievement Award set. Even in all their badly-mimed, poorly edited megamix glory, I have to say that I like the Pet Shop Boys, but I couldn’t help thinking that, had they not been so contrary, difficult (and split up), New Order would’ve been up there getting their backs well and truly slapped by all manner of minor celebrity instead.

new-order-at-club

Here are the young men

Of course, being contrary and difficult is exactly what maketh the band. Famous for leaving the big hits off the albums (in a give-the-fans-value-for-money kinda way) they never fail to irritate, infuriate and infatuate me in equal measure. My formative years as a beer drinker in training were soundtracked by 3 12″ records – Talking Heads ‘Slippery People’, Simple Minds‘ ‘I Travel’ and New Order‘s ‘Blue Monday’ (naturelement). To this day I can still tap out Blue Monday‘s opening bars with 2 Bic pens on an empty can of Tennents. When I hear it, I still get flashbacks to being 15 and drunk in a pal’s house (or even worse, a pal’s loft. Try getting out of one of them after 2 cans and a packet of dry roasted peanuts!)

I’ve mentioned this previously, but if you’re new here you won’t know, so I’ll mention this again. I was too young to fully appreciate the full majesty of a prime New Order. I got into Blue Monday and worked my way backwards. Then I discovered Joy Division (via Paul Young, ouch). But I digress. RS McColl’s in Irvine had the best record department I’ve ever seen. Essentially a paper shop that sold sweeties, you could travel backwards in time if you went into the back shop. Rows upon rows of vinyl. Crammed into whatever space was available. Apparently the shop never returned anything to the record companies. You could buy anything there. The wee woman who worked in it knew the stock like the back of her hand and she could tell you exactly where something was in the racks too. There was a loose consession to alphabetical order but you’d never find anything by that method. The best records were found by accident, possibly because someone had found it before you and stashed it somewhere until they had enough money to buy it. The wee woman was also very generous. Once I realised they sold New Order 7″s and 12″s, I was never out of the place. I quickly realised that if you wanted more than one thing, she’d knock 50p or £1 off the total price now and again. I eventually bought the entire New Order section from there and I think it cost me about £8.30 in total. A slight exaggeration, but you get the idea. I used to have to sneak the records home in my school bag cos my mum would go mad if she caught me “wasting” money on records. Subsequently, most of my New Order records have buckles and bends in the corners of the sleeves. Silly me.

Don’t worry, the music’s coming

Last year, New Order were the latest act to get involved in that great fan-fleecing racket, the Deluxe Edition. I can’t help but think that this would never have happened under Tony Wilson or Factory Records patronage, but major labels like the smell of cash and they know how trainspottery fans can be. New Order’s back catalogue from ‘Movement‘ up to ‘Technique‘ was re-released with all manner of b-sides, remixes, alt. versions and associated album release singles included on the second disc of each album. Movement included an alt version of ‘Ceremony‘ from 1981. I’m not 100% sure about this, but I think this slightly out-of-tune version was re-recorded after Gillian Gilbert joined the group. I’m sure New Order scholars will keep me right on that one.

temptation-fac63

This disc also featured 2 versions of ‘Temptation‘ (not the shiny, better-known version from Substance and Trainspotting, but the original cold, clattering Manchester funk version.) The 7″ version has an abrupt start (if that makes sense) and fades out rather quickly as well. The wee message scratched into the run-out groove on the 7″ read, “Try listening to the 12″“. So I did. I liked it better. But it also started and ended kinda funny. The 12” run-out read, “What do you think?” At the time of release, rumour had it that you were supposed to splice the 7″ version to the 12″ version for one long continuous mix. Almost impossible to do with a BSR Music Centre in the mid-80s, but these days with free, easy to use software like Audacity, this could be quite easily tested. Anyone fancy trying it?

One minor trivial, trainspottery fact. That scream you hear after 52 seconds of the 12″ version is the sound of Peter Hook and Rob Gretton running into the vocal booth to stick snowballs down the back of Barney’s neck just as he’s about to start singing. S’true!

blue-monday

The biggest selling 12″ record in history

Power, Corruption and Lies is enhanced with the addition of such behemoth non-album tracks as Blue Monday, Confusion and Thieves Like Us. What an album that would’ve made! My 12″ of Blue Monday has the unusual quirk of being labelled incorrectly. The side that says ‘Blue Monday’ actually plays the b-side, ‘The Beach’, and vice-versa. Now, that used to really confuse me at the afore-mentioned parties when I’d play ‘The Beach’ instead of the a-side. It seemed I was the only one who owned a wrongly-labelled record. Anyway, I’ve now heard The Beach a million times more than anyone else and I love the phased, processed drums, synthetic Kraftwerk-aping vocals (listen to ‘Uranium’ from 1975’s ‘Radioactivity’) and elastic band bassline as much as I love the a-side. Have a listen.

true-faith-remix

‘True Faith’ remains my favourite New Order track. Like many of it’s preceding singles, it has also played a part in soundtracking my formative years. I bought the 12″ remix version (above) on the Isle Of Man the day after a particularly memorable and highly personal experience on a park bench in the Douglas Gardens with a girl from Liverpool. Yep! The original version is by far the best, but the 9 min + Shep Pettibone remix is worth a listen, if only for realising just how much those Lifetime Achieving Pet Shop Boys lifted every bang, crash and production technique from it. Nice rinky-dink Chic-esque guitar riffs in it now and again though.

On initial copies of the 4CD ‘Retro‘ box set that came out 4 or 5 years ago, you got a 5th CD of bonus remixes etc. Included on this disc was the mega-rare Pink Noise Morel edit of ‘True Faith’. It sounds very much like the last track of a remix single (ie, no’ that good) but I’ve included it here for curio value.

run2

‘Run 2’ (a re-recording of the track ‘Run‘ from ‘Technique‘) got the band into a bit of bother with American country-folky John Denver. He claimed they stole his melody from ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’ and the band ended up withdrawing the single. 20,000 were pressed up and distributed. Today selling half that amount would keep you at number 1 for a month or so, but in 1989 record sales were far healthier and New Order’s chart positions not as lofty as they might’ve been. ‘Run 2’ captures New Order at that thing they do best – uplifting yet melancholic music with a great hook. Maybe John Denver had a point…

Another thing. The last time I saw New Order (Glasgow Barrowlands, 2002) I had a tap on the shoulder during ‘Run’. “Sorry pal, but I cannae see for you.”

Pat Nevin! (Google him if you’re none the wiser)

And now the ironic part…

After being released last year, people started complaining about the sound quality of these Deluxe Editions. There were accusations that some of the tracks were mastered onto CD from the vinyl originals instead of the master tapes. Nothing new in this of course. My original CD copy of ‘Kind Of Blue’ has a comforting fluffy sound between blasts of Miles Davis’ trumpet. I like it like that. It takes me back to an era I wasn’t old enough to experience first time round. Even those lovers of lo-fi The La’s have fallen victim of this. Last years ‘Deluxe Edition’ of their debut album (I live in hope) featured tracks that were copied from an old C90 tape that someone at the record company had found behind the sofa, even though the master tapes were made available to them for remastering purposes! It seems the cheaper option was to dub from the old TDK. And there’s the rub. Fleece the fans by getting them to shell out for hard-to-find material but do it as cheaply as possible. New Order quickly withdrew all the re-released albums, making them something of a collector’s edition (if not Deluxe Edition) and until they are re-re-re-released (gently down the stream) some time later this year, the above tracks’ll have to do. Or you could try eBay of course. It doesn’t bother me. I think they sound magic just the way they are.

 

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

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

Johnny Marr’s Dansette Delights

Craig McAllister

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

johnny_marr_3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bonus Tracks:

Paul Davidson – Midnight Rider (Tropical single, 1976)

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

 

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

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


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

!!!Extra Bonus Tracks!!!

Del Shannon – The Answer To Everything

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

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

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

johnny_cd_artwork

 

Download the entire set + artwork here.

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

***Woops! Numpty Alert!

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

Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Happy Birthday Rabbie

Craig McAllister

250 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 history for any uninitiated out there…

robert-burns

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 their women. He loved life. 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 and went back to the farming. Hated it. Became a tax man. Hated that. Died of a heart condition aged 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, Russel Brand.

Here‘s The Ramones doing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Mr Burns on The Simspons.

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.

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

Ingredients in a recipe for soul

Craig McAllister

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

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

temptations

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

ball-of-confusion-lyrics

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

undisputed-truth

The Undisputed Truth

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

bobby-womack-110street

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

bobby-womack-1972

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

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

aretha-67

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

 

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

Aye! Tunes! iCompiled for you

Craig McAllister

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

plain-or-pan-first-2-years

Tracklisting:

Disc 1

1. Sgt Peppers’ vocal track – The Beatles

2. Coca Cola – Jerry Lee Lewis

3. Son Of Sam acoustic – Elliott Smith

4. There She Goes promo – The La’s

5. All The Way Down  beat version – The Primitives

6. Boots – Lee Hazelwood

7. Just Dropped In – The Dap Kings

8. Baby I Love You vocal track – Ronettes

9. Hey Hey What Can I Do – Led Zeppelin

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

11. Your Time Is Gonna Come – Sandie Shaw

12. Mama You Been On My Mind – Rod Stewart

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

14. The Loner – Supergrass

15. Down By The River – Joey Gregorash

16. Southern Man – Sylvester and the Hot Band

17. Freaky Dancin’ – Happy Mondays

18. Filthy – St Etienne

19. Gimme Shelter  vocal track – Rolling Stones

20. Flume live MOKB/WEEM – Bon Iver

21. Grace – King Creosote

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

 

Disc 2

1. Monkey Gone To Heaven vocal track – The Pixies

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

3. About A Girl BBC session – Teenage Fanclub

4. Dead Leaves And Tne Dirty Ground – Nina Persson

5. Hanging On The Telephone – The Nerves

6. Down On The Street take 2 – The Stooges

7. Tradewinds – Super Furry Animals

8. Riders On The Storm outtake – The Doors

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

10. Coca Cola – Ray Charles & Aretha Franklin

11. Homework – John Lee Hooker

12. Stickman version 1 – Elliott Smith

13. Snow – Trashcan Sinatras

14. Moon River full-length version – Morrissey

15. Autumn Almanac BBC session – The Kinks

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

17. 99 Problems – Jay Z/The Beatles

18. Over  live in a stable– The La’s

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

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

   

 

 

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

Strummertime blues

Craig McAllister

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

clash

Woo oo oo oo! Can you feel the force?

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

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

strummer-shane

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

joe_strummer-tele

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

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

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

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

Gone but not forgotten

Grab ’em while you can folks

Craig McAllister

It’s a disaster of Titanic proportions. I received this e-mail earlier tonight.

“To whom it may concern,

We have recently received a complaint regarding files, which you have been sharing through your Box.net account, and infringe on previously-held copyrights.

As infringing on copyrights by sharing files through your Box account goes against the Box.net Terms of Service, we will deactivate your account on November 13, 2008.”

titanic

So. You have 1 week only to get all the stuff from here that you want. After that, everything’ll be gone. It’s not like I’ve been guilty of sharing the new Guns ‘n Roses album 4 weeks before it’s released, or any other Tesco shelf filling crapolla like Snow Patrol or Oasis. As you know, most of the stuff on here is deleted/hard to find old stuff that only people with incredibly good taste like us folk enjoy. Someone’s got it in for me, as Bob sang. I cannae believe it. I’m quite pissed off and upset, but there you go. Secretly, I’d like to think that, somehow, Prince stumbled onto Plain Or Pan?. It wasn’t long after his version of ‘Creep’ was posted that I had my first slap on the wrists. I also had another warning when I dared to post a Jesus & Mary Chain cover of ‘Alphabet Street’. I think wee Prince is a secret lurker on here. If you are reading this Prince, just to let you know, you used to be really, really magic…..

The good ship Plain Or Pan? will still be sailing. Future files will just be hosted somewhere else instead. But any music I am currently sharing will be gone gone gone forever, I’m afraid. Bastards. Grab em while you can folks, grab em while you can.

sad

Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Hands in the air, this is a stick up!

Craig McAllister

Now, this is a good bit of music. I’ve noticed that I’m getting a whole load of new people finding Plain Or Pan? by Googling ‘Elliott Smith’, so especially for those folks and also any regular visitors who are partial to a bit of introspective melancholia, here follows some assorted versions of 2 of the greatest songs George Harrison never wrote.

‘Stickman’ is just one of many unreleased gems in Elliott Smith’s grand body of work. Leftover from the recording sessions that spawned the material that appeared on the posthumously released ‘From The Basement On A Hill’ album, it wouldn’t have sounded out of place on ‘Figure 8’, his sophomore major label release (as our American friends would say). I have a collection of unreleased tracks loosely titled ‘Basement II‘. Elliott’s original idea was for ‘From The Basement On A Hill’  to be a double, but once he died that idea was vetoed. Shame, as ‘Stickman;’ would undoubtedly have been on it. But which version?

Stickman (Version 1) is the clearer version, with full band, backing vocals and everything in place. It features a fantastic wonky sounding guitar riff and this version is my favourite Elliott recording in the world….ever! Stickman (Version 2) is the more introverted acoustic demo, featuring some nice shakers, backwards percussion, some lovely “aaaah” backing vocals and a honky tonk piano towards the end. Kind of psychedelic naked soul bearing. Here it is.

The ghost of George Harrison playing slide guitar is all over ‘Dancing On The Highway’. Or ‘Still Here’. Or ‘Here If You Want Me’. Yep. Three titles for the same song. Each version features an assortment of chiming guitar riffs, “wooo-ooo” backing vocals just behind the George Harrison guitar part and backwards percussion. Very Beatles and very, very good. Happy downloading!

All images taken from this book. It’s a good buy.

Comes with a free CD too.

Have a poke about the site – there’s quite a bit of Elliott Smith material still available for download.