Category: Hard-to-find

Hard-to-find

Valentino’s Day

Craig McAllister

I’ve been re-reading Luke Haines’ very entertaining Bad Vibes: Britpop, And My Part In Its Downfall – a memoir? an autobiography? a study of a time and place? – and despite having read it at least twice since it was published a decade or so ago, it’s still fantastic reading.

Haines was the driving force behind The Auteurs, a band forever on the fringe of things but never quite the epicentre of musical movement. In filmspeak, the auteur is someone who stamps their identity across a project and demands complete control. Given that he led The Auteurs with a controlling hand and twisted, narcissistic mind, Haines named his band well. Equal parts spiteful and insightful, the book charts the rise and fall of the band from their early days vying for top dog status with Suede (the very early days, then) to the famous Select magazine cover that first coined the term ‘Britpop’ (coined being the operative word), multiple awards ceremonies, Japanese sex cults, the end of The Auteurs, the one man and a dog shows in the American mid-west and his reinvigoration with the music he made as Black Box Recorder and Baader Meinhof.

Lumped in with the Britpop lot on account of a lazy music press’s perceived meaning behind The Auteurs’ track American Guitars, Haines’ uncompromising nature and unhealthy obsession with rival bands keeps you reading. He feigns indifference but really, read between the lines and you can see that Haines craves success. He detests fellow Londoners and fellow ‘promising new act’ Suede in their relentless and Panzer-like march on the charts, taking the huff when they are seated centre-stage before winning the Mercury Prize and referring to Brett Anderson and his ‘bumboy androgyny that’s more Grange Hill than Bowie.’ Every other page is littered with such bitchy comments. It’s unpleasant, but boy, it’s a great read!

Obsessed with midweek chart placings, column inches and magazine covers, Haines realises he’s losing at a game that, much to his own disgust, he so desperately wants to win, but only on his own terms. Haines hates the music industry; from the leech-like managers and their draconian contracts to the hippies who run the record label, he barely has a good word to say about anyone. His own band can’t even escape his disdain. Old school friends and drummers are one and the same and they come and go once it’s apparent they’re not up to the task. Bass player Alice comes in for occasional sniffy criticism, despite being Haines’ girlfriend.

His seething vitriol is saved for the band’s ‘unique selling point’; the cello player. Throughout the book that unfortunate musician is only ever referred to as ‘The Cellist’. Haines despises *him/her and their perceived desperation for grabbing a slice of the fame pie – and at a time when no-mark, one-word acts like Powder, SMASH and Marion were making the most of their 15 seconds in the spotlight, you can almost sympathise with the poor string player, but yet we never learn their name.

At one point, Haines gleefully employs a second guitarist, an Adidas tracksuited cast-off from perennial bottom-of-the-billers Spitfire and he purrs at how much the cellist hates the oikish mockneyisms of the interloper. The cellist is unique to the sound of Haines’ band though, so they are an ever-present, much maligned presence for most of the book.

*(Don’t want to ruin the narrative, but he’s James Banbury, below)

And what of the ‘sound’? The Auteurs’ first album, New Wave, was nominated for the Mercury Prize. A heady swirl of posh-boy vocals, mournful cello and melodies from old Monkees records, it didn’t win and didn’t really benefit from any exposure following the Mercury nomination but taken on its own terms New Wave is a fine record. I’ve always liked Showgirl, a track that for some reason reminded me of a long-lost George Harrison single. There’s a great bit of dead air immediately after the first line is sung, put there by Haines purely to mess with radio play.

The Auteurs – Showgirl

And I’ve always really liked second album lead single Lenny Valentino, with its choppy rhythm and saw-saw-sawing cello, a Home Counties Pixies in an era of cor blimey guv Mod-lite nonsense.

The Auteurs – Lenny Valentino

He’s a real snob, is Haines. He absolutely hates anywhere north of Watford. Actually, he has no time for anyone or anyplace anywhere. He’ll have you believe he’s so far ahead of the curve it’s next week already. When will the record-buying public realise? may well have been the subtitle to the book. Pretentious, portentous and prodigious in his own mind at least, Luke Haines has little time for anyone save himself. It’s a ridiculous way to carry yourself and perhaps goes some way to explaining Haines’ relatively short career as a chart-bothering artist. As far as music books go though, it’s up there with the very best. Read it or read it again.

Extra Bit

Those Black Box Recorder and Baader Meinhoff records are really good. Totally at odds with what was fashionable at the time, they are in their own way ahead of the curve. Don’t tell Haines that though. A future post for sure.

Hard-to-find

Strop Of The Pops

Craig McAllister

The mixed bag of unsolicited – but very welcome – mp3s that currently clutter my inbox contain a couple of bona fide right here right now, on the pulse indie rock ‘records’, the kinda tracks that in a pre-internet era I might’ve spent aeons tracking down. Last week, the Working Men’s Club single was the track to rock my (in)box. This week it’s the sound of The Stroppies.

A confession: The Stroppies’ label sent me a press bio and a link to current single Cellophane Car about 3 weeks ago. One look at the band’s name and I thought, nah, I’m not having that. Who names their band The Stroppies? It’s the twee-est, most cutesy-cute, indie-ish name going, is it not? I remember reading an interview with Michael Stipe where he said that you had to imagine your band’s name in lights above the door of the biggest venue you knew. Only then could you consider what you might be called.

Anyway. A track popped up on 6 Music last week on the commute to work and frustratingly the station ID listed it as ‘Deep Blue Day’ by Brian Eno, when it clearly wasn’t. Fast forward to yesterday and it was played again. The Stroppies. Cellophane Car. The Stroppies?!? Where do I know that name from? And then earlier tonight, Marc Riley opened his show with them. They’re a hot thing, these Stroppies. Riding the crest of some zeitgeist or other. Daft name though, but great tunes.

Cellophane Car has all the right reference points you could wish for; an underlying Felt-like feyness, jangling 12 strings, a forever-on-the-verge of being out of tune one chord Velvets riff, wobbly Antipodean male/female vocals last heard on any number of Go-Betweens records and an arch, eyebrow aloft nod to Jonathan Richman. You can practically sing Roadrunner over the top of it.

Nowt wrong with that, of course. On Cellophane Car, the band are stretched to their very limits. There are no flash solos or tumbling toms in the middle eight. The music is lean, pared back and designed to run and run. Where most bands would finish on a crashing oomph or a squeal of feedback, The Stroppies lure you in with a false ending before the parping Farfisa and swirling keys lead the track on an extended slightlydelic coda.

The best guitar music, from, oh, I dunno, Orange Juice to Jellyfish is made when bands step out of their comfort zones. At any minute things might unravel. Band members eyeball one another between swift glances at the frets, shonky nods are aimed in the direction of the beat keeper at the back. Those Stroppies are forever on the verge of unravel.

Coming hot on the heels of fellow hot-hitting Australian Courtney Barnett, The Stroppies have an album – Whoosh – due for release in March, after which they’ll be zig-zagging their way around the less-than-glorious venues of our cities in July; you’ll find them in Glasgow, York and Brighton amongst others. You should probably go.

Follow The Stroppies on all the usual forums (apart from Twitter, it would seem) or visit here for tour dates, music and more.

 

Hard-to-find

No’ Equals

Craig McAllister

The new 6 Music schedule has taken a fair bit of bashing since the turn of the year. I used to enjoy my morning commute to the languid sighs of Shaun Keaveny and was mildly irked when he was shunted to an afternoon slot that I rarely have the chance to listen to, but I must admit to a growing fondness for Lauren Laverne’s replacement show. She has a great morning radio voice and while initially her playlist was a bit beige – a never-ending conveyor belt of close-miked singer-songwriters and glossy electro-infused indie from the moment I started the car until I pulled up at work, the past couple of weeks has seen some more interesting stuff creep in.

She played a track on Friday morning though that made my heart sink to depths last felt around the second week in January. The Specials’ new LP was the Album of the Day and Lauren played their version of The Equals’ Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys, a terrific early 70s stomper and lyrically, right up The Specials’ street.

By comparison, The Specials’ version was too polite, too lite and sounded like a graduate from the Glen Ponder school of insignificant incidental music. It’s always a nail-biting time when old bands fanfare a return with a slightly altered line-up and brand new album and most of the time you’re left feeling nothing other than disappointed (see also The Clash or REM) and on this evidence, I fear one of our most important bands has taken a bit of a tumble. A mere blip, I hope.

That Equals’ version though kicks like a mule, an aggressive and confrontational record that’s equal (arf) parts Slade and Led Zeppelin fed through a Brixton blender and left to run like a feral delinquent. The ‘solo’ alone is almost avant garde in execution. . Listen up now people….

The Equals – Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys

Recorded in 1970, its fist-pumping socio-political message was at odds with the band’s previous hits – you’ll be familiar with Baby Come Back – and is miles away from guitarist Eddy Grant’s future hits – and is all the better for it.

Dressed like Sly & The Family Stone and employing a set of vintage guitars that would have Orange Juice frothing with jealousy, Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys sets the tone for the sound of the seventies; a toughed-up, roughed-up riffing groove, egged on by the hardest kicking of kick drums.

Those Specials really should have paid more attention.

Hard-to-find

Milltown Brothers (And Sister)

Craig McAllister

Try googling Working Men’s Club. Go on. I’ll wait for you.

Chances are you didn’t land on the band of the same name, which is bad planning on their part because had you alighted on the northern English act you’d have been pleasantly surprised by what you’d hear. I imagine other acts will have equally Google-unfriendly names, but then I can’t name any as I haven’t found them yet(!) Thankfully, the good folk at Melodic Records in Manchester saw fit to point the band in my direction.

From the Calder Valley area, a belt of old industrial mill towns located somewhere between the white and red roses of Leeds and Manchester, Working Men’s Club are named after the clubs they once sneaked into as underage drinkers. Pleasingly, they’ve eschewed the normal Oasis-by-numbers rentarock that many young bands fall into.

Theirs is a twisted take on the angular scratches of post punk; a bit of Wire here, a stroppy Fall vocal there, a Gang Of Four thunk in the chorus…..bitter old cynics will easily trace the lineage from there to the Manics at their angriest or The Futureheads at their most obtuse, but taken at face value, Working Men’s Club are worth further investigation. My favourite album of last year came from Parquet Courts and a track like Bad Blood could sit happily in the grooves within that record.

 

Regular touring partners with the excellent Orielles, the next few months will see Working Men’s Club play a handful of shows across the Manchester area as guests of both Pip Blom and The Limananas, as well as striking out for headline shows of their own.

I’m keen to see if they make it further north and across the border into this fine and pleasant land. If and when they make it to Glasgow there’s a good chance I’ll be first in the queue for tickets and *down the front come showtime. I fully expect too that someone with a finger on the pulse of what’s a-happenin’ – a Marc Riley, perhaps – will afford them the opportunity of a session, so if they don’t fancy their chances of (cough) foreign travel in this era of pre-Brexit uncertainty, there’s a good chance I’ll get to hear them live, if not see them live.

*at the side, bobbing my head slightly whilst taking mental notes and hoping I don’t miss the last train home.

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The Temptations

Craig McAllister

Temptation by New Order is a steam-powered, clattering industrial racket, the result of maverick programming and experimentation from a band keen to break free from their previous sound and take on a brave new direction.

Coming a year after a debut album that the band struggled to like – Bernard Sumner in particular hated its unavoidable debt to Joy Division, Temptation plugged the gap between the propulsive Everything’s Gone Green and the ubiquitous Blue Monday. Like all the great bands, New Order were (are?) great at releasing stand-alone singles; bold statements of intent and hints to future direction, and made sure Temptation was seen as such. It’s the perfect marker, taking the cold, robotic greyisms of the Movement album and dressing them up in learn-as-you-go proto sequencers and asthmatic guitars that wheeze and rattle away like Nile Rodgers had he lived in a Whalley Range bedsit.

Incredibly, the two versions that make up the 7″ and 12″ releases were recorded in one 15 minute take. On the longer version, the band crash in as if they’ve really hit the ground running, a multi-layered palette of pulsing sequencers, Peter Hook’s signature bass-as-lead and those ‘woo-oo-oo-ah-oo‘ vocals, a notion which only makes sense once you know that the 7″ edit fades at the same point the 12″ begins. Of the session, the first 5 or so minutes were given over to the 7″ version, the track that would secure enough radio play to get New Order inside the top 30, and the rest (just shy of 9 minutes) was where the band allowed themselves to fly. Cue both tracks up and see for yourself;

New Order – Temptation (7″ version)

New Order – Temptation (12″ version)

See?!?

The 12″ version is notable for the wee yelp that Barney lets out just off-mike as the track limbers its way into its free-form groove, the result of a snowball being shoved down the back of his shirt by an errant band mate as he prepares to sing and drive his band forward from the constraints of the past into a technology-inspired future. As the snowball works its way down Barney’s back he mixes up a few of those ‘green eyes, blue eyes, grey eyes‘ lines but recovers in time before anyone save the most trainspottery of listeners has noticed. I first picked up on that wee slip way back when while trying to unbend the corner of the beautiful Peter Saville-designed sleeve, bashed and bent from being hidden in my school bag to avoid the disapproving eyes of my mum who lectured me regularly on the evils of spending all my paper round money on records.

Temptation is a track New Order hold dear. Not only does it have the honour of being their most-played live track, the band would go on to re-record it on at least two further occassions. The most popular version of Temptation is arguably the one that graces Substance, the collection famously commisioned by Tony Wilson as he wanted all the New Order singles in the one place for listening to in his car.

New Order – Temptation (’87 version)

Blue eyes, green eyes, grey eyes. Photo by Kevin Cummins

 

Not remixed from the original, but recorded as a brand new track 5 years after the original, it’s a big, bold, pop record, sunshine-bright with a spring in its step and as far removed from the original as Salford is from the Seychelles. Does it lack something because of this? Soul, perhaps? Or the mis-placed wonky, seat of the pants programmed percussion? Maybe, but the Substance version of Temptation is the glossy sound of a band finally free from its monochrome past and confident in its own skin. They’d record the evergreen True Faith around this time, the melancholy-drenched beauty that went a long way to cementing New Order’s status as one of our greatest bands. Temptation though….give in to it. It’s a cracker.

 

 

Hard-to-find

Feeling Low

Craig McAllister

In their early days, Low were known to obtusely turn the volume down at gigs rather than up, so that their audience was forced to listen to them. Perhaps that’s why they’re so called, named in a defiant, low-volumed protest to the ramshackle, turned-up-to-11 grunge bands of the day. Or perhaps it’s because the audience would often sit on the floor at their shows, again in defiance of the crowd surfing and body slamming that was commonplace on their circuit. I imagine though that they’re called Low simply because they have the knack of mentally bringing you down.

Low inhabit an arcane, sepia-tinged world where time slooooooows down, crawls to an eventual halt and, with a lethargic burst of lung-bursting effort, rolls into creaky reverse. Not for them the modern day currency of of a sampler or sequencer or ProTools production. Heck, they’ve only just discovered electricity. Low’s is a world where Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris are king and queen, where major chords segue into minor chords over the course of marathon-lengthed songs that belie their actual three and a half minutes and where an Everly Brothers harmony aces all. Listen carefully and you might hear the faint whirr of an old tyme 78 cranking up ethereally in the background.

They’re hard work, are Low. Their current album Double Negative has wormed its way quietly into the critics’ ‘Best Of 2018′ lists but I found it a bit slow, a bit samey and as tortuous as a month of Sundays. Perhaps I need a second listen. Perhaps I need to listen to it once, in all honesty, all the way through without feeling the need to tap my watch face and check that time was indeed moving forwards before giving up at track 3? 4? 9? I dunno. Perhaps I’ll do so after removing this pencil from my eye. Their Christmas album is a bit cheerier, the go-to hipster choice for those seeking a Mariah and Slade-free festive period, but it still has its treacly moments.

If you want to indulge in a little Low, may I point you in the direction of their slo-mo, downbeat shuffling take on The Smiths’ Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me. Soaked in reverb, bathed in pathos and moving majestically between Johnny Marr’s majors and minors, it’s fantastic. Gothic cowboy music at its very best.

Low – Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

Or you might want to try their achingly hearfelt take on George Harrison’s Long Long Long. The quiet Beatle’s original was never the most upbeat of tracks to start with but Low take it somewhere new. It sneaks under the radar and ebbs and flows, falls and rises and falls again with double vocal dynamics, scrubbed acoustic guitar and a droning keyboard that gently noodles it off and out into the ether.

Low – Long, Long, Long

Great, innit?

Hard-to-find

Christmas Number 1

Craig McAllister

My team went to the top of the league last night. No mean feat in a league dominated by the two Glasgow giants and their financial clout, the Edinburgh clubs with their large swells of season ticket holders and Old Firm-splitters Aberdeen, for too many times the bridesmaids but never the bride.

The achievement is a culmination in consistency. The record shows that in the calendar year, from January until now, Kilmarnock, a team who plays in a less than half empty stadium every other week, a team with less season ticket holders than most other teams in the league, a team who pays less to their top earners than an average bench warmer at Tranmere Rovers might earn in a week, has somewhat incredulously gathered more points than their competitors and is now the best team in the country. Today we sit at the top of the pile, looking towards a genuine top of the table box office clash at Celtic Park on Saturday.

If you’d suggested this a year ago, you’d have been laughed out the room. By then, our previous manager, Lee McCulloch, had fallen on his wobbly sword with the team rooted to the bottom of the league we’re now winning. Relegation, even at that stage in the season, was looking very likely. The appointment of the ‘correct’ manager was absolutely key to our team’s survival, not only in the top flight but also to our very existence. Enter Steve Clarke.  A one season wonder at West Brom, he’d taken them to their highest-ever Premiership position before starting the following season poorly and paying the ultimate price. With family ties to the club (brother Paul was a stalwart in defence at Kilmarnock in the 80s), Clarke was enticed to take over the reins from McCulloch.

The difference between the two managers is there for all to see. The team is currently on a short but impressive run of 4 (or is it 5 now?) clean sheets in a row. Of the starting 11 in these games, 9 of the players played under our previous manager. Clearly, our success is down to Mr Clarke. At the club’s open day last season, I found myself face to face with his predecesor.

“Hi Mr McCulloch. What d’you think – top 6 this year?”

“Whit?!? Hahahaha!” (nudges one of the other coaches standing next to him. “Peter! Get this guy!” (looking back to me) “Tell him what you just asked me…..top 6! TOP 6!!! Hahahahahaha. Aye, right!”

Now. Even if you’re the manager and you think there’s zero chance of achieving the frankly average position of ‘Top 6’, you don’t go around laughing at the suggestion, let alone laughing your season ticket holders out of the room, especially with the season yet to kick off.  The opening to a season, when a ball has yet to be kicked in earnest and all possibilities are endless is the best of times for a fan, especially for a supporter of one of the wee clubs. “This might be our year,” and all that. Yet here was the team manager (the team manager!) pissing on those dreams before our first game. McCulloch should’ve been saying, “Top 6? Nah, mate, we’ll be top 3 this season. Just wait and see.” Instead, our season was over before it had begun.  Or, it was until the board saw sense, found some loose change down the back of the sofa and sent the diddy packing. I wonder what he’s thinking now.

Where’s Wally? (Firhill edition)

The last 14 months have been the best of times for Kilmarnock supporters. Even in defeat, we competed. There was a thrilling midweek game against Hibs where we applauded our team off the pitch, despite shipping three goals. This proved to be the turning point in our fortunes. There was an incredible run of games this time last year where we dispensed of The Rangers, Celtic and Dundee in three of the best matches I’ve ever seen. One nil down to Rangers, Boyd scored a quick one-two and turned the final score in our favour. Youssouf Mulumbu, a player who’d shone in Clarke’s West Brom side slotted the winner in the Celtic game and inevitably earned himself a move to the champions in the process. Best of all was the Dundee game, a match we were winning then losing and, thanks to an anti-footballing Dundee team and some shoddy refereeing, found ourselves a man down as well as a goal down. As the game wore on, the character of the ten-man team came to the fore and, backed by a noisy, partisan and aggrieved home support, an equaliser was dug out before a thrilling winner was scored at the death.  As the games, weeks and months rolled by, the team kept on winning from unwinnable positions, picked up points in the most difficult of away fixtures and gave us our best season in many a year. It was fantastic.

And it continues to be so. We’re top of the league. The words ‘Leicester City’ have started popping up in relation to our achievements and the potential this brings, whispered at first but now just that wee bit louder. No team out-with the ugly sisters has won the top league in Scotland since Paul Hardcastle’s ni-ni-ni-19 was top of the charts when, in May 1985, Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen reigned supreme. Of course, at least one of the two slighted Glasgow giants went straight out the following season and spent far more than they could afford on players in a vulgar display of money over merit in a bid to wrestle the title back from the daring Dandy Dons, an arrogant and self-entitled manoeuvre which we in Scotland are sick of by now.

Much of Kilmarnock’s fate in the coming months depends on how they survive the January transfer window. A winning team features winning players and it wouldn’t be the first time one of the big boys from just up the M77 has chapped our door waving offensively woeful figures under the noses of impressionable young players and their agents. More worryingly, a winning manager such as Clarke will have made chairmen up and down the country sit up and take notice. Should any of their charges have a wobble and their coathook becomes a bit shooglier than normal, Steve Clarke must be one of the names in the frame. So we’re dreamers, yes, yet we’re also realists. It’s a nail-biting time and it can all change in an instant. The two teams immediately behind us have games in hand and it’s quite possible we’ll have slipped to ‘only 3rd’ by the close of the weekend, by which time, if you’re only just getting around to reading this article, this blog will read like virtual chip paper.

Here’s Dizzy Dizzy by Can, a track as thrilling, unpredictable and meandering as one of those Greg Stewart runs that leaves baffled defenders toe-tied in his wake.

Can – Dizzy Dizzy

Hard-to-find

Roamin’ Holiday

Craig McAllister

I’ve been in Italy this week. What’s struck me most is not the plethora of churches, bad driving and graffiti that are on every strada corner but the stylish way in which the Italians go about their daily business.

Whether it’s in Napoli and Sorrento in the south or roaming’ further north through Rome and Pisa, I’ve been goggle-eyed at the sheer amount of Vespas on the roads. They’re the great levellers, those wee scooters. Whether you’re a pizza delivery guy or a teenage girl with your boyfriend riding pillion or a businessman in a 3-button suit, open-necked shirt, scarf, loafers and no socks, the best way around town is on one of them.

You’ll hear them everywhere you go, zipping above the noise of impatient klaxons and whistle-happy Polizia, zig-zagging their way to the front of the traffic, edging forward before the lights have instructed them to go and weaving their way around goofy tourists who have one eye trained firmly on the tour guide way up ahead and the other on their bag over their shoulder. That’s been us the past few days.

The tour guides are great. For the most part funny, engaging and knowledgeable they’ll point out various buildings and suchlike in a version of English that far outweighs my knowledge of Italian. Until this week I knew just two Italian words; bella and bella. (That there is a reference to the greatest film ever made.) My vocabulary has now extended to include “Ciao!” which, much to my kids’ embarrassment I’ll say with great enthusiasm to any shop keeper, waiter and bus driver who’ll listen.

Yesterday in Rome our guide pointed out all the sights. “Behind the small cheeerch to the right is the larger Basilica. Right next to that is another cheeerch, famous for being one of the oldest cheeerches in this district of Rome.” To qualify – I love Roman history. And it’s a terrific city, where every corner turned gives you another breathtaking building to take in.

Built on the foundations of faith and fighting you have to expect what you’ll be shown as you march around the city’s high points. But as we followed our guide I couldn’t help noticing the side streets.

We might’ve been walking the tourist route but what was happening just behind the main event was where real Roman life was going on; ridiculously fashionable men; tanned, healthy, great hair and sock-less, always sock-less, smoking roll-ups while shaking on business deals. Beautiful women in beautiful heels walking beautiful dogs. Snooty teenagers, Armanie’d up like paninaro with significant disposable income hug and air kiss like the beautiful people they are.

The flower delivery van, burping black exhaust smoke in sharp contrast to the multicolours it was transporting stopped suddenly and the driver emerged to shout at 161km/h (that’s about 100mph) to the aproned shopkeeper who was standing nonplussed in the doorway of his store.

An old man, glimpsed through a door ajar onto an alleyway was dressed in a white coat, slowly and patiently sanding wood. Around him were stacked dozens of picture frames and mirrors, a master craftsman at work using the tools and skills of previous generations.

In the fashion district – until we’d been told by our guide that we were now in the fashion district, I’d assumed that the whole of the city was one big fashion district, the side streets offered up furtive-looking Africans selling Michael Kors, Luis Vuitton and Armani bags, belts and bumf, laid out on pieces of rug, ready to be rolled up and ran-off with should any of Rome’s finest happen to wander by. Round the corner the shops were closed-door affairs, opened by appointment only by 7 foot-tall security guards. I’m not much of a fashionista but I did manage to get myself not one but two pairs of Ray-Bans. The second pair the seller did the haggling for me and he gave me them for €5 without me actually saying a word to him. My wife’s convinced they’re just those 3D ones you pick up at the Odeon, with a cheap Ray-Bans transfer on the leg. She may be right but when I’m wearing them, I am Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday, so I’m not bothered.

Talking of which, our tour guide pointed out a poster for the film with Peck and Audrey Hepburn sitting on the Spanish Steps eating ice cream and looking every inch the consummate 50s mods they were aiming to portray. Only half an hour earlier we’d stopped for a gelato by those same Spanish Steps, where my ice cream ran the length of my arm and onto my trousers. Daughter moaned about her salted caramel being too salty. Wife complained about the macaroon they’d stuck in hers. And son had an over-priced can of Coke as he’s allergic to egg and can’t normally go near ice cream. That was our Roman Holiday for you.

Without a word of a lie, I’ve yet to find an ice cream that can stand toe to toe with the one you’ll get in Varani Brothers’ Forum Cafe in Kilmarnock. Maybe tomorrow will prove me wrong.

Ciao!

Hard-to-find

‘O Hare-Brained Schemes: Brendan 1

Craig McAllister

At the beginning of the week, just as I was going to my bed, a message popped up from Brendan O’Hare, one third of the trio of drummers who’ll be keeping Teenage Fanclub in time when they tour their back catalogue in select cities in a few weeks or so. With rehearsals starting imminently, he was hoping to write a diary, a daily update of all things Fanclub documenting what has now become a significant chapter in the band’s history.

Thrillingly, Brendan was keen to share his diary via Plain Or Pan.

O’Hare-brained schemes, themes and ideas were thrashed out. We’d post every day. We’d post at the same time each night and have folk tune in the way they would for a favourite TV show. There’d be film clips, pictures and all manner of Fanclub ephemera. I went to bed beyond excited, far later than expected and unable to sleep.

Radio silence duly followed, and just as I was thinking maybe Brendan’s idea wasn’t going to happen after all, he last night posted a picture on Facebook surmised with a single line. “Woohoo!”

Ah! I had the impression from Brendan that rehearsals would be through the day. Night time sessions would mean we’d always run a day behind, but so what? A peek into the workings of TFC putting their thang together is worth waiting for, aye?

I awoke on Wednesday morning to the message below. So as to help convey the barely concealed excitement Brendan gets from playing with TFC, I’ve hardly edited it.

Holy shit!

Here’s how it went….

….I was 4 hours late, due to a cold and not a demonic fall into boozy business!

The chaps were really nice about it and it went henceley…….

Me: How about we try a song that you and the band I’m in in Essex do? By the Bevis Frond.

Them:

Me: OR we could just fire in from The Concept?

Them: Yes.

Kinda surreal from then on…..I fucking love Teenage Fanclub and it’s so long since I’ve been in them that I absolutely view them from a fan point, which is hilarious for us, the readers. I feel like I’ve won the lottery, getting to play drums on songs that I love.

When we started ‘The Concept’, I felt like, Yeah! I can do this…then about halfway through I was like, hahahaha I’M PLAYING ‘THE CONCEPT’!

Oh yeah… Gerry, Norman and Raymond have put massive baffle boards between each other and are only communicating through me.

It’s tough but I’m doing it for you.

YAS!

Bx

PS. I’m going to do a side angle, based around the lad’s bowel movements; timings, nothing creepy likes. That’s a misplaced apostrophe, by the way.

Stay tuned…..!

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

Rimbaud 2: It’s A Pay Check, Jack

Craig McAllister

A dozen or so years ago, a concert celebrating the life and work of Robert Burns took place at Culzean Castle on the South West coast of Scotland, not far from where I’m typing. I’m quite into Burns, in an enthusiastic amateur kinda way. I get involved when it’s that time of year in the schools and organise the school Burns Supper. I’ll put together wee groups of kids who’ll eagerly sing Green Grow The Rashes (the Michael Marra arrangement) while I get to rock out gently with some well-rehearsed finger picking on my guitar. At home, we’ve done Burns Suppers celebrating the bawdier side o’ Rabbie that they don’t teach at school, helped along by the sort of food and drink you’d be hard-pushed to find in a school dinner hall. There are tons of Burns scholars out there who take it far more seriously and who could bore the breeks off most of us with their ability to recite his most obscure work which is why, when the concert was announced at Culzean  – with headliners Lou Reed and Patti Smith – I thought I’d give it a miss. “I don’t really fancy hearing Lou ‘n Patti pretend they know the inner workings of Burns’ songbook when they could be doing their own stuff instead,” I reasoned. Big mistake as it turned out, as Lou and Patti by and large did their own stuff, regardless or not of what the promoters had signed them up for. Patti even made the Scottish news on TV the next night for gobbing on the side of the stage, offending those stuffy, ancient scholars I’ve just mentioned. Old punks, eh. What’re they like?

Oor ain Eddi Reader, herself a mad Burns fanatic, was on the bill and in the encore she sang the famous ‘doot-di-doo’ backing vocals for Walk On The Wild Side alongside Patti Smith. I know people who’ll be reading this that have wide-eyed stage-side footage of the moment. Why did I not go? Why?

I’ve grown into Patti Smith in a big way. She was always there, a trailblazer for the strong, bloody-minded women from Chrissie Hynde to PJ Harvey who have a place in my record collection, but in recent years I’ve really come to acknowledge her as one of the greats. Morrissey, Michael Stipe and any Maconie-voiced BBC4 documentary will all tell you this of course, but unless you were lucky enough to be there at the time, I’m not sure her importance shines through for generations of mine and since.

Horses is her biggie, of course. A raucous brew of poetry set to music, it’s the sound of flared nostrils and itchy, twitchy jangling nerves riffing on French existentialists, Jesus and the futility of existence – the big stuff, in other words. Wrapped in monochrome with bird’s nest hair, it’s a challenging listen, certainly more difficult to get into than, say, Patti’s contemporaries The Ramones and Blondie who were street suss enough to add some pop to their schlock. The centrepiece of the album is, wonkily, mid way through side 2.

Patti Smith – Land

Land is a free-flowing example of all that Patti does best, over 9 carefully metered minutes of what musicologists might call a triptyche, with 3 parts of music played under the one theme. Every word is enunciated precisely and clearly, given equal gravitas. She howls, she whispers, she duets with herself. She’ll rap on something deeply esoteric one moment and then she’ll be singing about the watusi and Bonie Moronie the next. The words come in floods; pretentious, populist and pure. I can’t pretend to know exactly what she’s on about and I’m not certain that the young Patti in 1975 could’ve told you either. It sounds fantastic though.

Patti has a crack band behind her, rising and falling, ebbing and flowing in time to her carefully-written prose, yet for the entire track they keep it simple. At any moment, Richard Sohl on keys could break into the most heart-stopping piano run, but he doesn’t. Lenny Kaye could easily let fly with an electric burst of pop/punk bloooze, but he doesn’t. There’s ample opportunity over 9 minutes for an Animal-esque freak out on the drums, yet Jay Dee Doherty reigns himself in. With Patti Smith, it’s all about the vocal. The words are everything.

Here’s Piss Factory, her early b-side documenting her time working a crappy job for crappier money.

Patti Smith – Piss Factory

Just Kids, Patti’s autobiography about her life with Robert Mapplethorpe continues this theme. It’s a literary ride on the A Train, taking the reader right into the centre of a mid 70s New York that most of us can only imagine. Their story is played out against a backdrop of the Chelsea Hotel, Max’s Kansas City and Coney Island and features walk-on parts from Andy Warhol, Alan Ginsberg and William Burroughs. Art, music and fashion explode and fuse together and everything and anything is possible, doable and done. Mapplethorpe struggles with a sexual identity that would eventually tear the couple apart but (or perhaps because of this) it’s a beautiful read;  a love letter to and for Mapplethorpe and the city that brought them together. There they are up there, an androgynous Keef ‘n Mick for the Blank Generation. Even without the music, Patti’s words are powerful. Read it.

Footnote

It was a conversation with Johnny Marr a few years ago that made me go home and re-evaluate Patti Smith until her genius really sank in. I was charged with taking photos of Johnny and his fans after a gig. The waiting line snaked around long enough that half the folk in it ended up missing their last connection home. At the front of the line was a girl who might’ve been 13 and might’ve been 33. Small, disheveled and unkempt, she’d been first to queue outside the venue at lunchtime on the day of the show and as soon as the doors had opened she’d ran for the front of the stage where she stood holding onto the barrier and never letting go until it was time to meet Johnny at the end. Johnny recognised her straight away. “Hello again darlin’!” he greeted with a hug. “How are we today? Listen – hey, listen! – make sure you get a bed tonight, eh? No more sleeping in doorways, eh?”

“Once, I bunked off the school,” he told me afterwards, “and skipped the train to Liverpool to catch Patti Smith. Sneaked in the stage door! That night I slept in Liverpool Bus Station and it was the most terrifying night of my life. That girl at the front comes to all the shows. She comes alone, leaves alone and always turns up the next day. I kinda worry for her, y’know?”

If artists have such a hold on folk that they’re prepared to forfeit a roof over their head for the night so that they can see them in concert, they’re worth listening to.