Category: Hard-to-find

Hard-to-find

Sloppy Mondays

Craig McAllister

It’s panto season right now, and last Friday Happy Mondays found themselves playing Kilmarnock’s Grand Hall, right through the wall from the conjoined Palace Theatre where an assortment of bit-part actors and actresses more accustomed to the outer reaches of Scottish television productions were hamming their way through an innuendo-packed Dick Whittington. Oh yes they were.

The ‘Mondays clearly felt the need to put their own panto spin on what was a gloriously ramshackle night. Bez played the court jester perfectly, greeted with cheers and mile-wide smiles whenever he bounced onto the stage and into his boggle-eyed four-step shuffle.

With a pair of maracas permanently set to ‘shake’, he’s stage left, then stage right, then up a speaker stack, then swinging off a microphone stand, then kissing Rowetta, then swapping his t-shirt with some equally boggle-eyed guy in the audience.

He’s the focal point for a band who despite their undeniable groove are as static and stony-faced as the Easter Island statues.

The role of panto villain falls to Shaun. “Check out our kid!” he drawls, looking stage left towards his bass-playing brother Paul. “Look at ‘im. ‘E’s a right miserable coooont!”

Nowadays dressed in mildly expensive rather than wildly expansive clothing, he has all the air of one of those ex football casual ne’erdowells you’ll meet in the opening scenes of The Bill. “Get down from there, Bez,” he implored in the same voice you’ll know from the opening lines of Mad Cyril. “You’ll get yourself killed!”

“What’s the difference between me and B?” he asks the audience, as Bez ungloriously tries to remove himself from the top of the speaker stack at the front of the stage. “Bez is a grandfather.”

Oh no he isn’t!

Oh yes he is!

Oh! Yes, he is.

Think about that for a second.

 

It’s not just his dress sense that’s undergone a radical rethink. At Happy Mondays’ Barrowlands show at the tail end of the 80s, Shaun freely puffed on never-ending metre-long spliffs, sitting plastic-faced on the drum riser for the entire gig. Shaun still remains rooted to his spot between the keyboards and drums, but these days he vapes vigorously during all the instrumental passages. He vapes! Suck on that, Keith Richards!

Shaun doesn’t do much else. He never removes his jacket. He never even unzips it. He’s wrapped up for winter even if it feels like the summer of love in here. Occasionally he’ll sidle up behind Rowetta and indulge in a spot of dirty dancing. Rowetta, co-vocalist since those heady days of 1990 is tonight’s panto dame. Alarmingly shorter than I had remembered – she looked like someone had taken a photo of her from back in the day and squashed it without keeping the aspect ratio the same – she wobbled onto stage in custom-made, mile high Adidas platforms, reappearing every other song wearing a different Grand Central Design-inspired costume.

“Do what you’re doing, sing what you’re singing, go where you’re going, think what you’re thinking,” she belts out during opening number Loose Fit.

I’m thinking, Rowetta, this is going to be brilliant. And I’m not wrong. It’s a clever opener. The band saunter on in dribs and drabs, easing themsleves into the riff. Rowetta arrives in full-on panto dominatrix role, slowly circling the stage, whipping up a storm with a set of kid’s streamers, building the excitement until Shaun slopes on, all hunched shoulders and hands in pockets swagger. I swear the clock at the back of the hall did a quarter of a century slow-motion reverse.

Happy Mondays – Loose Fit (from Baby Bighead bootleg, 1991)

“Let’s see ya, then!” he says, removing his sunglasses for the first and last time of the night. We’re off and running. This tour is billed as the 24 Hour Party People Greatest Hits tour. Whether that means a retread of the debut album (it doesn’t, as it transpires) or we’re due a run through of 30 years of Happy Mondays’ greatest material (it doesn’t quite do this either) is clearly open to creative interpretation. I’m not entirely convinced the band themselves knew what they would be playing each night of the tour.

Now and again Shaun’ll lean over the set list. “Fookin ‘ell!” he’ll moan. “Here’s another one we ‘aven’t played since 1986.” It’s a terrific choice of songs on offer, from the clattering industrial funk of Clap Your Hands and Freaky Dancing to the Balearic-kissed Donovan and Bob’s Yer Uncle.

Happy Mondays – Kinky Afro (from Baby Bighead bootleg, 1991)

Stand-outs were a filthy Kinky Afro, a steroid-pumped 24 Hour Party People and a helium-high Hallelujah, dedicated to Kirsty MacColl. A euphoric mid-set Step On, a song that didn’t really do it for me back in the day (too populist for this old grump, y’see) did its very best to raise the roof on Friday night. The encore – an e-longated and trippy run through of Wrote For Luck was almost worth the price of admission alone.

Happy Mondays – Wrote For Luck (from Baby Bighead bootleg, 1991)

I say almost. Tickets for the gig were quite expensive. For a 30th anniversary show, you might expect it to be longer than 14 songs, over and out in about an hour and 20 minutes. I certainly did. By the time the last notes of WFL had stopped crashing off the Grand Hall’s walls, most of the band had run from the venue, steadfastly refusing any requests for signatures and selfies and were in a car on the way to their hotel “somewhere near Glasgow.” It’s the one gripe I have. That, and the fact I’m still waiting on the “quick 5 minutes” interview I’m sure they promised me before the show.

 

Hard-to-find

Somewhat Marrvellous, Somewhat Disappointing

Craig McAllister

My work today took me to Kilmarnock’s grand old Grand Hall, scene of the Ballroom Blitz and the venue in which during October 2015 Johnny Marr played a one-song soundcheck (The Headmaster Ritual) to an audience of one (me) before playing then signing my trusty old Telecaster and a couple of Smiths records before being joined by his band for the soundcheck proper. I was there today for a multi-agency course, part of which involved networking the room by finding the other lost souls who happened to have the missing parts of the same jigsaw that I’d found on my chair when I arrived. “Snowman?” some fellow room circulator would ask uncomfortably in your general direction. “Sorry, I’m an elf,” was my standard ridiculous reply. Once located, my fellow elves and I were allocated a table and a task, part of which involved telling a story to someone at your table. Given the venue and the fact that the chap next to me had already mentioned Gruff Rhys and Super Furry Animals, I fancied that he’d quite like my Johnny Marr story. As it turns out, he did, especially when I got to the punchline about how he played Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others on my guitar, his silver nail polish twinkling with each open-stringed twang.

There’s a version of Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others that appears on the new-ish Queen Is Dead box set. It’s listed as a demo and has all the hallmarks of a band finding their uncertain way with a new tune, but it’s quite spectacular. Johnny’s riff hasn’t quite developed into the full-blown shimmer of the album version, but, much like a moonlit sea in your favourite Mediterranean bay, it sparkles with a lucid quicksilver glisten, 80s chorus pedal effects ‘n all . It’s worth stopping to consider that Johnny was only 22 years ‘old’ when he wrote and recorded it, which brings more than a tear of frustrated disbelief to my eyes every time I think about it. When I was 22 I was still trying to master the bastard F chord. Johnny, of course, would choose to play his F by sticking a capo on the 4th fret and playing the much easier C chord, but how was I to know that back then?

The Smiths – Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others (demo)


There’s a general feeling amongst the Smiths community that there was a great opportunity lost with the box set. I have to admit to a creeping sense of disappointment with it. It looks great and it sounds great, which is surely all that really matters, but at the eyewatering retail price (that I happily paid) I can’t help feeling a wee bit let down. I’ve lived with it since October and rather than dive in feet first with a hamfisted and potentially regretable review, I’ve waited this long before making my mind up.

It does look great. Sturdy and big, with the black shadow of the famous album cover looking righteous and regal on the front. (It is The Queen Is Dead, after all). But what was wrong with the original’s iconic racing green colour? Or the inner sleeve artwork? Where’s the Salford Lads Club image? That’s as much a part of Smiths’ heritage as the music itself. The new image, the girl wearing the Hatful Of Hollow t-shirt at the Westminster riots is a cracker. It says more than 1000 words ever could, but it’s a modern image. I get it. I appreciate why it’s there. But to include it at the expense of the original is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Perhaps Stephen Wright, the photographer that day at Salford Lads Club wanted a hefty fee for including his picture. Who knows?

And what about sleevenotes? Most box sets of this gravitas carry an extended essay from one or more of the makers and shakers. The Queen Is Dead has nothing. Smiths geeks such as myself love eeking out new information. When Mike Joyce told me a few months ago about the colour of shirt Morrissey was wearing when he recorded I Know It’s Over, well, stone me! I had to lie down in a darkened room for over 4 minutes. It’s mindless minutae to some but total treasure to me. And I’m far from alone in Smithdom. Where were the pictures of the recording sessions? The Smiths larking about with half-filled tea cups? Andy Rourke making bunny ears behind Morrissey’s untoppable quiff? They just weren’t there. That’s what was disappointing.

And the music? Well, it sounds fantastic. Johnny has done a smashing job remastering it. It’s clean, vivid, shiny and new, which I can say no more about my well-thumbed original. From now on, the new version is my go-to copy. I still have the original, of course, beautifully autographed by the wunderkid guitarist, so it’s not as if it’s going anywhere anytime soon, but I doubt I’ll ever play that particular copy again.

The demo tracks sound fantastic. Compared to the slightly ropey mp3s that circulated a few years ago, these sound like freshly-minted masterpieces. My problem is the lack of demos. There are, if you know where to look, more versions of these tracks out there, the parping Penny Lane by way of Coronation Street take of Frankly, Mr Shankly for starters. It’s by no means an era-defining complete set.

The Smiths – Frankly, Mr Shankly (demo)

 

Likewise with the live album. I like the sleeve image of a skewed and wonky Jack Kerouac which, if you squint a bit and use your imagination, looks a wee bit like a morning after the night before Johnny. It would’ve made for a decent budget-priced release in its own right. It’s taken from a late-era Smiths show, with an interesting career-spanning setlist played by a band at the top of their game. It’s good ‘n all, but it sounds kinda flat. It certainly doesn’t have the metallic feral velocity of the Rank album. If you want to hear late-era Smiths in all their volume, stomp and glory, that’s the one for you. And as with Rank, it’s an incomplete show. Maybe the box set includes all of the show that was recorded, but I doubt it. What a missed opportunity!

For the vinyl lover – and there are literally thousands of Smiths fans who bought this boxet – the non-inclusion of the Derek Jarman-filmed Queen Is Dead promo is a glaring miss. There were other opportunities. What about a download code? That’s standard with any vinyl release nowadays. They might even have considered a second live disc of QID-era tracks. There’s that terrific Thank Your Lucky Stars bootleg that does the rounds. It’s sensational. And what about a cleaned-up version of the only ever live take of Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others? It’s worthy of inclusion for Morrissey’s extra Carry On Smiths verse alone.

The Smiths  – Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others (live, Brixton Academy, 12.12.86)

Maybe I’m expecting too much. Maybe not. But in an era when anyone from Bon Iver to Bon Jovi can get away with releasing a 10th Anniversary Edition album with all manner of bolted-on goodies, it does look like the people looking after The Smiths sold us short. The gullible fools that we are.

Hard-to-find

Code Crackers

Craig McAllister

I begin this post with one eyebrow arched in the direction of the tagline at the top of the page: ‘Outdated Music for Outdated People’ it reads, a tagline carrying more than a knowing inference that if you’re of a certain age you’ll like the subject matter herein. Not only that, but that you very likely also have the capacity to recognise your own status as an old fart, stuck, like my original copy of Bringing It All Back Home, in the grooves of yesteryear, unable to break out of the rut, incapable of turning that dial much farther away from the musical welcome mat that is BBC 6 Music, much less jump on board the next big thing.

I’m so stuck in the past that I can’t listen to a new band without yawning about how Pixies or The Beatles or the Velvet Underground or bore, bore, bore, someone else has done it already. Did I stop to think about how it works both ways when it dawned on me that I’d discovered the wonders of Neil Young via Teenage Fanclub? Did I heck. These days, I find it hard to spot talent in front of my very eyes until they’re three albums to the good and the act is suddenly playing the ABCs and O2s of the world. “How did they get so big?” is a familiar out-loud ponder when I read the gig listings. “Who even are they?”

 

Blue Rose Code is such an act, four impeccable studio albums to the good, equally at home in Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall as they are in the backroom of a forgotten East End pub. Their component parts are everything an (outdated) person such as you or I might look for in ‘new’ music; every mention of the band will point out a hint of the the wild, Celtic soul of the double denim ‘n flares era Van Morrison, a reasonable intake of the voodoo folk/blues of John Martyn and a smattering of Chet Baker’s late night jazz. For what it’s worth, to these ears they’re all that and more. If you like Elbow or the Blue Nile or Talk Talk or Joni Mitchell, you’ll love Blue Rose Code. Chances are, you know that already though.

Blue Rose Code come billed as a band when really it’s a vehicle for Ross Wilson, native of Leith, onetime of London and Bournemouth and occasionally of Manchester, to channel his fantastic songs from head to fingers and out into the world.

“Pre-Blue Rose Code I was messing around in bands to little success. Blue Rose Code will always be me, but by taking on the mantle of a band name, I can play gigs with 3 musicians or 5  musicians or however many the budget allows.”

With Ross, there’s no pretence that he’s here for anything other than to disseminate his incredible songs to whoever is listening.

Blue Rose Code – Over The Fields (For John)

The titular John is John Wetton, ex of Roxy Music and King Crimson, whom Ross befriended during his time living in Bournemouth. John passed early in 2017 from cancer. His recurring end of days phrase of “Everything’ll be OK – we all go home,” struck a powerful chord with Ross and a song was born. Having recently lost my dad to cancer, well, I’m not embarrassed to say this song gets me every time.

Ross is canny enough to surround himself with the best players on the scene. His songs are just the half of it – it’s the music and the arrangements that complete them. On The Water Of Leith, the songs come wrapped in richly-embelished form. The critically-lauded launch gigs in Edinburgh and London featured a full complemement of musicians including pedal steel, a brass section and an expanded string orchestra which you can hear to great effect on To The Shore.

Blue Rose Code – To The Shore

At his back to back Irvine shows recently in the small but perfect Harbour Arts Centre, those aforementioned budgetary constraints meant that it was a far more stripped-back but no less powerful Blue Rose Code who took the stage.  There was a tangible moment during the Friday show when the melodies tumbling freely from Ross’s acoustic guitar floated out into the ether, swirled just above the heads of the rapt audience and weaved in and out of the beautiful noise created by the electric piano on the right and the fluid, meandering electric guitar on the left and hung suspended for the briefest of moments. This was music you could practically touch, reach out and put in your pocket, the combined talents of three musicians creating something that was far greater than the sum of their parts.

“When I’m asked to describe my music,” says Ross, “I usually say that people who don’t like folk music would call me folk, and people who do like folk wouldn’t.”

Blue Rose Code – Bluebell

The Water Of Leith skips happily between genres. Guest artists include multi-platinum country star Beth Nielsen-Chapman (that’s her on Over The Fields) and modern-day Scottish traditionalists Karine Polwart and Kathleen MacInnes. Ross semingly has no problem getting potential collaborators to work with him. Given the need to pigenohole music it might come as a surprise that he’s a massive fan of Drake. You might be even more surprised to learn that his dream collaborations would be with Kanye West and Garth Brooks – “People I wouldn’t ordinarily be expected to work with,” he explains.

In the past week or so, Ross has celebrated his own birthday, witnessed the birth of his baby daughter on the same day and been awarded Scottish Album Of The Year by tastemaker and shaker The Skinny, so who’s to say that Kanye collaboration is out of the question?

You can get your copy of The Water Of Leith in all the usual places. A very limited run of vinyl is available for sale here. I’d be quick if I were you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hard-to-find

It’s Just A Simple Metaphor

Craig McAllister

A week before my 16th birthday, with freshly-minted National Insurance card in my hand, I went into the local supermarket with my pal and left half an hour and one unexpected interview later – “Q. With what method should you lift a heavy box? A. “The mechanical method, of course.” –  with my first job. 4 hours on a Saturday morning and a further 3 on a Monday night would give me enough disposable income to buy a record and pay for a pint if I was lucky enough to be served, with enough left over to allow me to save a fiver for a rainy day. I can barely save a fiver nowadays, but back then the world was my oyster and the possibilities were endless.

That job paid for some of the best records in my collection. Once I’d discovered The Smiths, I’d buy a different 12″ each week until I’d caught up with their latest release. Likewise with New Order. The only other person I knew who liked The Smiths was Steven Cairney, so when he mentioned them in the same sentence as Echo & The Bunnymen and Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, those bands were next on my hitlist. A record collection that was thus far populated by the most generic of records – every evenly-numbered ‘Now‘ album for example, but only up until Now 8 (my gran bought me a Now album every Christmas and died after Now 8), a smattering of Adam & the Ants and Madness albums and a couple of Greatest Hits collections from Blondie and Queen – began to take shape, growing in direct corelation to the quiff on my head, previously cultivated in tribute to Love And Money’s James Grant but handily becoming more Morrissey-esque with each subsequent Smiths’ record.

To an extent mirroring what would become my current working environment as the token male teacher in a primary school, I worked as the only ‘man’ alongside a gaggle of slightly older girls, all friends who went to a different school from me. They were all at least a year above me. One or two had actually left school, and were students in Glasgow. When you’re 16, 18 year old girls seem incredibly exotic and so far out of reach. These girls weren’t actually that exotic – they were mostly from the Ayrshire backwaters (which, to some, makes them incredibly exotic) but they were definitely out of reach. All had boyfriends and chittered and chattered about them for every long hour of their shift. One or two of the boyfriends had cars and one, Tony, (I may have changed his name) had a motorbike. They always asked me about my hair, which I knew was a constant source of amusement for them. “Is it sticking up when you wake up in the morning?…….How d’you keep it up?” they’d ask in barely disguised metaphors. “With Brylcreem,” I’d reply obliviously. Giggle Giggle, gaggle gaggle, chitter, chatter, chitter, chatter, hee-hee-hee! For four hours every Saturday and three on a Monday after school.

On one shift, over the click-click-click of an old hand-held pricing gun, one of the girls got chatting to me about music. “D’you like Lloyd Cole?” she enquired. I’d only just bought Rattlesnakes on the back of Steven Cairney’s mentioning of them, so I talked a wee bit about it. In truth, I loved Rattlesnakes, I still do, but I wasn’t going in feet-first with that admission. “D’you like the song ‘Forest Fire’?” she asked. It was my favourite track on the album. “D’you know what Tony wrote to me? He left a note in my bag that said ‘We’re a forest fire, every time we get together.’ Isn’t that the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard?” It was just about the most adult thing I’d ever heard at that point in my life, that was for sure, and I can never hear Forest Fire without the flashback memory, me in my over-sized company work jacket, cuffs turned up out of necessity rather than in tribute to Don Johnson, she in her work-provided gingham dress and grown-up outlook on life. Flash bastard Tony, with his motorbike and his brilliant-looking desert boots and his collapsed-quiff fringe and his just-left-school boy about town swagger has forever killed it for me.

Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Forest Fire

It’s a great track though, and probably the first I heard where I realised a guitar solo didn’t have to mean a lightning-fast blur of fingers on the 24th fret of a jaggy-shaped hideous guitar. Johnny Marr didn’t go in for guitar solos at all and was the very antithesis of what a guitar hero was supposed to be. Will Sergeant peppered Echo & The Bunnymen’s finer moments with effect pedal-heavy shimmer, something I was unable to replicate on the cheap plank of wood I had the cheek to call a guitar. But on Forest Fire, Neil Clark’s slow-burning twang fits the mood perfectly, closing side 1 of the album with a brilliant repetitive refrain. It’s a guitar solo you can sing. It’s even a guitar solo I can play. It was, for many a year, the only solo I ever needed. Even if it’s been ruined by Tony forever.

Hard-to-find

Sole Music

Craig McAllister

Who Knows by The La‘s is the track that time forgot. Their one perfectly imperfect album, famously overcooked by a succession of well-intentioned producers, prodders and preservatists, and, despite John Leckie rounding up an actual Abbey Road mixing desk that had channelled yer actual Beatles and a Lennon solo session, devoid of the requisite amount of authentic 60s dust to sate Lee Maver’s unsatisfied and unsatisfiable mind nonetheless contains a dozen short ‘n snappy, frantically scrubbed belters; Way Out, Doledrum, I.O.U, I Can’t Sleep, There She Goes – I really should just list them all – clatter, clang and chime like the best of the band’s undeniable influences.

Mavers, and therefore by default, the band, hated the finished album so much they immediately disowned it. Everyone else though was enthralled by its lo-fi urgency and keening need to drag ‘indie’ music, at the time populated by greasy-fringed posh boys from the Home Counties who played their tunes through banks of overcooked effects pedals, back to a classic songwriting mentality. Too late for the golden era of 60s pop and too early for what would become (gads) Britpop, The La’s ploughed a lone, stubborn furrow for roughly the length of time it took their visionary leader to smoke a six foot spliff to the roach before vanishing in a fragrant puff of smoke.

With each passing year their legend grows. Aborted sessions with young Liverpool musicians too young to have appreciated The La’s first time around, sporadic, erratic live appearances including a short, unpublicised tour 7 or 8 years ago (drums played by the fella who cut Lee’s grass) and a rare spotting of Lee in a Liverpool local banging the bongos at an open-mic acoustic night have all gone a way to helping maintain the myth with a much-resigned and decreasing fanbase.

That sketch above appeared online a couple of weeks ago. Purportedly scribbled by Mavers himself, it’s another reason to hang in there. What else lies in drawers, in cupboards, in studios, long-forgotten?

Will we ever hear new La’s material again? Don’t be daft. Of course not. Thanks to the world wide web, there are a multitude of La’s demos, sessions and alternate versions to gorge yourself upon. Despite this though, two things remain tantalisingly conspicuous by their absence;

1. Lee Mavers has absolutely no online presence at all. He is a 21st century hermit. A recluse happy to live off the not insubstantial royalties that pour monthly through his letter box on the back of There She Goes‘ enduring appeal.

2. You can search and search. You can ask Siri. You might even still be able to Ask Jeeves, but you’ll never find more than one version of Who Knows, The La’s track that time forgot.

The La’s – Who Knows

Who Knows is fantastic. Going by its non-appearance on any of the La’s demos or live shows that circulate, it was seemingly recorded once and once only, commited to tape and preserved forever as a one-off recording. Featuring a simple, cyclical acoustic riff and a fragile, voice in the dark vocal, it floats across the ether on a vapour trail of morse-code guitar transmissions, radio static and a heavy reverb that swallows the whole track up at the end. Someone should see that it soundtracks the shipping forecast and it would be the best thing ever.

Who knows what tomorrow knows? Who knows what the future holds? Who knows?

That’s it in a nutshell. Lee. In a room. Playing for no-one but himself. Thank goodness someone (Bob Andrews, since you’re here) magnetised it all to tape. It made its only appearance on the b-side of the original There She Goes single. The cosmic, slightlydelic yin to the shiny, radio-friendly yang. Those in the know should’ve put it on the album at the expense of Liberty Ship. It would’ve made the perfect Side 1 closer. Why didn’t they? Who knows indeed.

Mavers. 2017.

Hard-to-find

Just Like That

Craig McAllister


Last Tuesday morning I went to my parents’ house. 

In the early hours of Wednesday morning I left my parent’s house. 

A week ago tonight my dad passed away. We were all expecting it. Four years fighting cancer doesn’t come without paying the ultimate price, but it was still a terrible shock when it happened. You think you’re mentally prepared for these events, but it turns out you’re not. I described it to someone as like being suddenly smacked across the face with a rusty shovel. A sharp and shocking ‘take that!’ from someone who doesn’t give two hoots for your feelings. 

Is it worse to experience a sudden, unexpected death or is it worse to sit and watch someone fade in front of you? The grief is overwhelming no matter how it happens. I can confirm that. I’ve experienced both. We were all there at the end last week, surrounding him with love and barely-contained fear. Maybe the fear part was just me, but I don’t think so. Stay strong for dad was the unspoken motto, but no matter how strong we were, we couldn’t help him when he needed us most. The afterwards though was in many ways even worse. 

One call to the funeral director unravelled a whole sequence of never-before considered events. 

An on-call doctor confirmed the death. My dad’s GP will have the death certificate ready in the morning, she tells me, just like that. She’s quiet and respectful but very matter of fact. Formal. Efficient. She has living people she must attend to after she leaves. 

The next day I picked up the death certificate made out in my dad’s name from over the counter of the GP practice. “Sorry for your loss,” mumbled the girl awkwardly. We know one another, but not that well, so it was uncomfortable for the both of us. She went back to her typing and filing. I went back to the car and stared at the certificate for a good 10 minutes, focusing on my dad’s name at the top, unable to drive for tears. 

The following day we go to register his death, armed with a handful of yellowing paperwork; birth certificates, marriage certificates, pension info, all manner of documentation that triggers a wave of bureauocratic activity. As I type, admin assistants in offices around the country will also be typing, updating their records. 

Deceased. Dead. Delete. 

Just like that. 

For the past year or so my dad held a blue badge, allowing him to park in disabled spaces. The woman opposite tosses it to the side. Just like that. The full death certificate prints and I’m handed a fountain pen with which to sign it. I’ve just registered my dad’s death. Just like that. 

It’s numbing. Shocking. Final. 

There have been upbeat moments though. The day after he passed we were in the kitchen sharing stories. I told a good one about the time we went to see Scotland v Spain a few years ago. It was another of our football team’s failed attempts at qualifying for a big tournament (the Euros, I think). My dad was so busy watching the Spanish substitutes warm up at half time that he failed to notice the girl sitting right next to me turn round and bare her breasts for all to see. “Did you see that?!?” he enquired excitedly. “The way that pass bent across the pitch…fantastic!” He had no idea what he’d really missed though. 

As we’re laughing and relaxed, momentarily forgetting dad is in the past and not the present, the doorbell rings again. It’s the umpteenth time already that day. An old neighbour pops in to say he’d heard the sad news. Every one of us in the room, the ones who’d been laughing and joking moments before revert to downbeat, sad stereotypes. We must be sad at this time. We are all sad at this time. It’s quite funny if you stop to ponder it. 

I put together the Order Of Service for his funeral last night. He’d planned it all himself. Dictated his wishes while we’d written it all down. It wasn’t hard to put together but it was hard keeping it together. Typing in my dad’s birth and death dates was another of those shocking, final moments. The big final moment is this Friday, after which everyone who’s been through this tells you it starts to get better. I’m sure it does. You’ll be able to tell, as the music posts will begin again in earnest. 

Social media is full today of tributes to Tom Petty. It’s always terrible when a favourite musician dies. A tiny piece of your own fabric dies with them; the memory of buying a record or going to a gig, entwined with the times in which you first experienced their music. It’s a powerful thing when they go. But it’s nothing compared to losing your dad. Nothing. There’s a pun just begging to be written here about Petty/petty but I’ll leave that to someone else. 

Hard-to-find

Clocks

Craig McAllister

My parents’ house has two front rooms. The smaller one is currently doubling up as a bedroom/sick ward for my terminally ill father. There’s never a clutter of collected tea cups or half-eaten biscuits as my mum busies herself tidying around us, an always-on-the-go highly strung mother hen, just about keeping it together for the good of her brood. The telly is often on, its volume muted, subtitles jerkily appearing out of sync. Now and again one of my dad’s favourite folk CDs will be playing softly in the background. When left alone, my mum sits beside my dad, maybe singing, always holding his hand.

The larger of the two rooms has always been known as ‘the good room’. We are only really ever in there at Christmas and New Year or maybe for someone’s birthday. It would need to be a special birthday though. Compared to the other front room, where the cream carpet has been turned a grubby shade of grey due to non-stop foot traffic over the past two weeks, this room is indeed ‘the good room’. If the nurse or the doctor or the carers turn up, we tend to decamp to the good room while they do their stuff. A couple of days ago my wife and I sat in silence, half listening to the muffled voices coming from the other room, but mainly being distracted by the tick-tick-ticking of an old clock above the fireplace.

“I hate that clock,” I muttered to my wife. “It reminds me of being bored at my gran’s.” I’d be waiting for the telly to start, 70’s TV being characterised by the epoch-defining girl playing knots and crosses with the clown – a screensaver before they’d coined such a term – listening to the ticking of the clock working against the clickety clack of my gran’s knitting needles and the smackety snap of her substitute for Silk Cut chewing gum, willing time to speed up and for something, anything to happen.

Now I’m desperate to slow time down. Turn it back even.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Tick tock.

Outside, traffic flashes past on its way to wherever, busy people leading busy lives. And time goes on.

In the supermarket I meet my dad’s pal, a big, proper man’s man, and we burst into tears at the sight of one another. No one seems to notice.

The Chinese takeaway asks if I want a bag. Well, who wouldn’t want a bag for their piping hot, metal-cartoned food?

The woman in the petrol station asks if I have a Nectar card and do I want cash back and would I like a receipt with that? Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock. No thanks.

Driving to my parents’ house I’m stuck behind a literal Sunday driver and I overtake him where I shouldn’t, pushing my old car to the extremes so that I can get to my dad before the nurse does. She has medication in her bag and the big news of the day is that he’s been ‘talking’ to my mum and my sister. ‘Talking’ has been put in inverted commas as he’s more communicating through a series of painful moans and heavy-armed points in the rough direction of his mouth, but still, the prospect of him being awake enough to be aware of who’s in the room is enough to make me press my foot further to the floor. Now I’m the traffic flashing past, a busy person leading a busy life.

I get to my parents’ house.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

This is hellish.

Hard-to-find

The Unmentionable C Word

Craig McAllister

Two things have dominated my life the past week or so. Well, one thing has dominated it. The other has irked me to the point of writing about it. 

An ex pop star took exception to a couple of things I’d written in a review of his gig. It was a solid 9 out of 10 review too, the sort you’d think most artists would be content with. Not on this occasion. He took to social media, calling me out for wrongly writing his band name in one conjoined word rather than his preferred two. “There’s no such word as Wonderstuff,” pointed out the man who had a hit with ‘Circlesquare‘. 

“Sorry ’bout that,” I replied, genuinely embarrassed. My normal stringent self-editing skills had clearly left me when I needed them most.

“And there was no ‘flatness’ to the show either,” he spikily added.

Oh, there was. There was. And the steady flow of people after a quarter of an hour on their second and third visits to the toilet? The bar? Anywhere but an auditorium where the hits that had taken the headliner there in the very first place were being steadfastly ignored will tell you that. In hindsight, I’m rather glad of publishing the now-offending line ‘the gig was on the verge of flatness until…‘ rather than the deleted ‘From the blander stuff to the Wonder Stuff‘ one I’d originally gone with. Imagine if I’d stuck with that little nugget?!?

Naturally, when the big hits were rolled out, the gig went into orbit and the tiny venue was vibrating with joyful noise and giddy abandon. The sooner ex pop stars realise what their audience is there for, the better for everyone.

Not that he apparently cared much for his fans either. “They’re only here to get drunk and hear me play “(big number 1 hit record), so I’ll not be doing that,” we were informed beforehand. And he didn’t. Those’ll be the same fans he gladly sold all manner of product to at his merchandise stall at the end of the night, grinnning from ear to ear whenever another tenner was pressed into his hand and grimacing from here to there when asked for a quick selfie. It’s your money I’m after, baby, and don’t you forget it.

Earlier, he’d grudgingly signed two of my records, barely looking up from the screen of his phone as he did so. Had I not been there in person, I’d have sworn the signatures were written by two different people, perhaps a blind southpaw and an in a rush Chinese man with a broken right hand. Previous encounters with pop stars have led to carefully-worded messages across the cover of a 7″ single. “Keep rockin’ Craig,” instructed a cheery Duglas T Stewart. “D’you really want me to write on this?” asked a concerned Johnny Marr as I presented him with a Sharpie and my ’78 Telecaster. “Good luck brother,” he offered, in his best hand writing. 

There were other incidents of note as the night progressed, but as you are perhaps beginning to appreciate, the headliner’s name neatly rhymes with one of those titular unmentionable C words. In the scheme of things though, it’s trivial, so we’ll leave it there for now.

The polar opposite of trivial has been my father’s battle with that other great unmentionable C word. 

For four years he’s faced up to it, eyeball to eyeball and it’s only now that the balance of power is swinging unfavourably away from him. Unlike the minor skirmish above though, this is one battle I’m respecting with an online silence. Posts may be less frequent in the coming weeks.

Hard-to-find

Massive Respect

Craig McAllister

They’re not a ‘group’ in the traditional sense; there’s no lead singer, no egotistical frontperson, no focal point and certainly no lead guitarist, yet despite this, (because of this?) Massive Attack are one of our most important groups.

From Bristol, they’re a multicultural melting pot of accents, ideas and vision. Robert Del Naja, better known as 3D has his roots in Italy’s Naples. Grant ‘Daddy G’ Marshall is a Bristolian, born to West Indian parents. Andrew ‘Mushroom’ Vowles brought his talents as a soundsystem DJ. Tricky, known to his mum as Adrian Thaws, has his own parallel career as as a solo performer. Combine their backgrounds and musical tastes and you have a pigeonholer’s nightmare; they blend elements of hip hop, dub and soul, post-punk, ragga and cinematic score to ceate their own unique music.

Massive Attack – Sly

Sly in name and sly in nature, Sly was created from an uncredited Sly Stone sample (Africa Talks To You, on There’s A Riot Goin’ On). In keeping with Massive Attack’s multicultured and open policy approach to music-making, it features a magical vocal from Nicolette Suwoton, a Scottish-Nigerian living in London. Nicolette sings elsewhere on the Protection album, but, for me, this just shades her other efforts.

Often sample-led, though not in the obvious way, Massive Attack’s music tends to be low on BPM, high on wide open space and spoken word verses and wrapped in rich production. Some of the low-end bass sounds on their first couple of albums are astonishing. By the time of 3rd album Mezzanine, they were sampling Siouxsie Sioux and had added a creeeping sense of impending doom to some of their material. Stick some earphones in and go for a walk with Mezzanine playing. You’ll find yourself in your own movie. Try it with the Velvets and Wire-sampling Risingson (and see if you can spot the less-than-obvious samples)…

Massive Attack – Risingson

Always moving forwards, always seeking new ideas, the key to their success is in no small way due to their choice of vocal collaborators. With no lead singer, they’ve worked with a succession of inspirational vocalists. Soul belter Shara Nelson takes the lead on a few debut album tracks, most memorably on Unfinished Sympathy, their first biggy, the band’s signature tune and arguably their best track. Tracey Thorn adds down-at-the-mouth bedist disco queen vocals to Protection, the title track of their second album. Liz Fraser pops up in Teardrop, an astonishing record that eschews her usual Cocteau Twin’s gibberish for a straightforward native-tongued love song. Love, love is a  verb, love is a doing word. I don’t know who wrote that lyric, but it’s perfect; poetic yet straightforward, straightforward yet poetic. For what it’s worth, I’ve read somewhere that it’s Madonna’s favourite record.

For what it’s also worth, here’s my (current) favourite Massive Attack tune. In the spirit of Plain Or Pan it’s a less-than-obvious choice. Euro Zero Zero found itself on the CD single of Teardrop. It’s a remix of Eurochild from the Protection LP and features each member of the group taking a verse each. Tricky nicks some of the lyrics from The Specials’ Blank Expression for his part. It’s terrific.

Massive Attack – Euro Zero Zero

‘Genre’ menas nothing to Massive Attack. If the voice fits, they use it. Look elsewhere throughgout their rich and varied discography and you’ll find the undisputed vocal talents of reggae legend Horace Andy, Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, Sinead O’Connor, Damon Albarn…..it’s an endless list, really. They’ve also allowed their music to be remixed by Underworld, Paul Oakenfold, Primal Scream, Tim Simenon, Mad Professor, Brian Eno, U.N.K.L.E., Manic Street Preachers and Blur. An embarrassement of riches and a huge ‘fuck you’ to people like me who prefer their music neatly categorised. If your interest in Massive Attack waned after the second or third album, you’re missing out on a whole load of brilliant music. If you’ve kept up with Massive Attack, you will, as the saying goes ’round here, know that already.

 

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Is 3D really Banksy? There’s plenty of evidence to suggest he may well be. As well as being happy to show off his skills at producing very stylised stencilled art, there’s the theory that a new Banksy pops up wherever Massive Attack are on tour. Only 3D can answer that question. And I kinda hope he never does.

*Bonus Track!

Here‘s the evergreeen, forever-rolling Perfecto remix of the Billy Cobham-sampling Safe From Harm. It’s a cracker.

 

 

Alternative Version, Hard-to-find, Live!, New! Now!

Waltz #2

Craig McAllister

Hailing from Caithness, near John O’ Groats at the very top of Scotland, the furthest outreach on the British Isles, Neon Waltz are as far-removed from any ‘scene’ as possible. The six-piece are an insular unit; self-sufficient, self-reliant and self-absorbed.


The music they make is, if you’re of a certain age, nothing you haven’t heard before, but no less thrilling. In songs such as Dreamers and Heavy Heartless they have that unique way of creating an uplifting melancholy; world-weary vocals carried along by chiming, fizzing guitars and a heavy swell of Hammond organ. You might find comparisons with The Coral, The Charlatans or Teardrop Explodes, bands who know how to brew a heady swirl of guitar and organ that’ll lift you to giddy new heights. Lazy folk might label them ‘indie’. I prefer to call them slightlydelic.

Neon Waltz – Heavy Heartless


As befits a band that is so far off the taste radar of hip opinion as to be almost non-existent, they have the freedom to come and go as they please. Regular zig-zagging across the highways and biways of the UK combined with a hermit-like lifestyle in their rehearsal space in an abandoned croft – Music From Big McPink, if y’like, has helped the band forge a sound that led them to Atlantic Records and a deal with Ignition. And a month from now, two years since first being signed, their debut album will be released. It won’t come with much of a fanfare or blustery media hype, but it will come with the guarantee of a melody-rich debut, a record that may well prove to be the year zero for future bands. You can quote me on that when the time comes.

A recent photo session on the Isle of Stroma, halfway between the very north of Scotland and the southerly tip of the Orkneys proved fruitful. Shooting the photos that will presumably appear on all promotional material for the imminent album release, the band chanced upon the long-since abandoned school house. Amazed to find it was accessible, they entered and found an old harmonium, lying dusty, untouched and exactly as it had been left when last used. More amazingly, keyboard player Liam Whittles was able to extract noise from it; eerie, ghost-like and gossamer thin, the old harmonium wheezed into life. A spontaneous version of  Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s ‘Music For A Found Harmonium’ was followed by this beautiful reworking of their own Heavy Heartless. It’s magic; understated, creaky and exactly how a harmonium-enhanced band should sound.

Neon Waltz – Heavy Heartless (Stroma Schoolhouse Session)

Neon Waltz go on tour shortly. Their debut album, ‘Strange Hymns‘ is out at the end of July on Ignition Records. It  can be ordered direct from the band here and in all the usual places.