Hard-to-find – Page 26

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

The Best Pop/Soul 7″ Ever…

May 28, 2013 Craig McAllister

…and that’s a fact.

This could be a never-ending pub argument amongst (mainly middle-aged) men who should know better, but let’s cut to the chase here – Stoned Love by The Supremes is the best pop/soul 7″ ever.

It’s in the measured intro – Jean Terrell’s Diana-aping whispered cooing that gives way to the insistent four-to-the-floor snare ‘n tambourine Motown beat. It’s in the stinging fuzz guitar riff (fuzz guitar!!) that plays like the demented half brother of Ernie Isley throughout the whole thing. It’s in the boot stomps and handclaps that give it that talcummed Northern whiff. It’s in the backing vocal performance, with all the ooos and aaaahs and vocal gymnastics that alone confirms it as a whole mini Motown symphony in itself. But most of all it’s in that wee breakdown around 48 seconds, when everything bar the vocals and kick drum drop out momentarily before it all comes back in again in fantastic, glorious technicolour, strings sweeping in life-affirming joy. Don’t you hear the wind blowin‘? The best pop/soul 7″ ever.

Released in 1970, Stoned Love was essentially The Supremes’ American swansong, albeit a high-charting and successful one, much to Motown mogul Berry Gordy’s disgust. With Diana Ross long-since solo, and Berry Gordy focussed on her and her alone, the 3 Supremes – Jean Terrell, Cindy Birdsong and Mary Wilson – were able to record without the interference of the hit-obsessed Gordy. Both Birdsong and Wilson had rarely featured on previous Supremes records, their vocals instead being sung by anonymous but greater talented sessioneers. Not here. Stoned Love features both their vocals much more prominently. You could argue that Stoned Love is slightly less-polished than the other more well-known Supremes material, but that would surely be nit-picking of the highest order. The vocals soar like a bird on a summer breeze, although, having listened to the media player above, you’ll know that by now. If you don’t want to handclap like a mains-wired marionette and cry even the tiniest tears of joy whenever this record comes on you might as well bunker down with your crap beard and your Biffy Clyro records and fester forever.

Written by Detroit teenager Kenny Thomas as Stone Love and misheard along the way (despite The Supremes singing Stone Love, someone decided it was called Stoned Love, and it stuck) before being fashioned into the best pop/soul 7″ ever by Frank ‘Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)‘ Wilson, Stoned Love is essentially a plea for peace and love. The general sway of the times may have been towards living and loving in harmony, the hippy movement, the ‘legalize it’ campaign, not to mention the war raging in Vietnam (A love for each other will bring fighting to an end, Forgiving one another, time after time…) but the censors heard things differently. Stoned Love was clearly about D.R.U.G.S. drugs! TV appearances were cancelled. Radio stations dropped it from their playlists, although not before the record had charted and gone to #1 on the RnB charts and #7 on the Hot 100 (and #3 in the UK). Berry Gordy washed his hands completely of it and The Supremes were left to limp on a few more months, to ever-decreasing returns.

For such a sacred cow, there have been mercifully few butcherings of Stoned Love over the years. There was a terrible Motown Remixed album that came out a few years back (possibly for a Motown landmark anniversary, though I can’t be sure) where Stoned Love was remixed, rejigged and extended to within an inch of its life, but apart from that there seems to be a healthy respect for it and it’s so far been left otherwise untouched. The Stone Roses last year chose to use it as their intro music, the ‘love between our brothers and sisters‘ seeming to be pretty apt for the event. They play Glasgow in little over 2 weeks and if it’s anything like the last time they played Glasgow Green, this writer will be praying that the audience of grown-up neds and nedettes heed the words wisely. You can read all about that particular event here. Poignant and Beautifully Written were John Robb’s words to me. Just sayin’.

Stoned Love

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

Baby What You Want Me To Do Quintruple Whammy

May 24, 2013 Craig McAllister

Baby What You Want Me To Do was written at the tail end of the 50s by blues guitarist Jimmy Reed.

Not that he’d have known at the time, but Reed penned something of a blues standard. In its 50+ years amongst the canon of popular song, Baby What You Want Me To Do has been recorded in a whole range of styles by a whole range of artists. Here are some of the better ones.

Ol’ Elvis Himselvis was Jimmy Reed daft, and by the time of the ’68 Comeback Special, after he’d strapped on a guitar for the first time in ages, was intent on sneaking the Jimmy Reed riff into as many parts of the set as his band would allow. Every time rehearsals stopped, The King would find his sweaty fingers forming around the swampy tune. With quiff collapsed and lip curled high, he’d be off and running, his band of A-list sessioneers falling in behind him with a forced goofiness and much hootin’ and hollerin’. “We’re goin’ up, we’re goin’ down…” and off they’d go once again….

Rehearsal:

The Live Show:

Elvis, dressed head to toe in Wild Ones leather and looking like a Texas oil slick played his guitar with a twanging punk ferocity not heard since Gene Vincent Raced With The Devil almost a decade earlier. That he and his band were playing inside a boxing ring rather than a stage only added to the pugilistic undertones eminating from the Presley 6 string. Terrific. There are a couple of ’68 Comeback albums worth looking out for – the edited essentials Tiger Man and the warts ‘n all Memories; The ’68 Comeback Special album, which features more versions of Baby What You Want Me To Do than you could possibly ever need. Or perhaps not. If you buy one record this month…etc etc…

Delectus ‘Dee‘ Clark was a ten-a-penny soul/RnB singer. Most famous for having fronted Little Richard’s band after the real Richard had his calling from the Lord, Dee Clark would’ve romped the 1958 series of Stars In Their Eyes, such are the carbon-copy facsimiles of Little Richard in his earlier records.

But Dee could turn his vocals to many styles, and inbetween the high camp quiff Richardisms and duh-duh-duh-duh doo-wop stylings, he found time to cut a version (above) of Baby What You Want Me To Do that instantly conjures up lazy images of the deep south and makes me want to pour a decent measure of sour mash, fire up a crawfish gumbo and let the good times roll. Terrific too.

Everyone should clear 5 minutes a week to hear an Everly Brothers record – you’ll feel better for it. Battlin’ brothers Don and Phil cut a version that is classic Everlys – a polite country-ish rockin’ guitar, some barrelhouse piano and enough good time vibes that belies the fact that they hated one another with a passion. You can imagine them in the studio sharing the mike, just as Lennon & McCartney would do a few years later, their close-knit harmonies fusing together like honeyed glue, all the while angling for greater personal share of the spoils, Don doing the low parts, Phil the outrageous highs.

Likewise Dion. Not Celine, just Dion. Clear 5 minutes a week etc. No stranger to Plain Or Pan, Dion’s take comes from the suitably named Bronx In Blue LP, a somewhat laid-back affair, all twangin’ acoustics and groin-botherin’ bass. It was nominated for a Grammy, dontchaknow? Unusually for a Dion record, his version was cut in the mid 2000s, when he wasn’t smacked off his face on Class A’s, and he doesn’t quite break into that doo-wop falsetto of his, but don’t let that put you off.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find, Kraut-y, New! Now!

Slanging Match

May 17, 2013May 17, 2013 Craig McAllister

So the new Primal Scream album’s here and before a note had been heard, the knives in this house were already being sharpened. From the rubbish cover that looks as if the work experience boy was given a generic shot of Bobby and 10 minutes with a laptop, to the list of cliches masquerading as song titles on the back – River Of Pain, Culturecide, Tenement Kid, Invisible City, Goodbye Johnny, Elimination Blues – I had this album down as a stinker, another one of those disappointing albums the Scream have been turning out with increasingly diminishing returns since the high watermark of the double decade-old Screamadelica.

But y’know what……..?

It’s not all bad. In fact, some of it’s pretty good. And bits of it are really very good indeed. Opener (and lead single) 2013 seems to have split opinion amongst the critics, and at 9 minutes long, it’s not perfect radio fodder, but I like it. Bobby’s clearly determined to write an era-defining chronological anthem (think Stooges 1969, or Stooges 1970 come to that, or 1977 by The Clash). It reminds me of golden-age Psychedelic Furs, if they ever actually had a golden age, replete with a rasping saxophone line not heard since The Waterboys‘ A Girl Called Johnny. Very similar, Bobby. Very similar indeed. Elsewhere, vocals are whispered where previously they were mangled into that accent that was more yer actual Florida then Mount Florida. Acoustic guitars flutter against a backdrop of We Love You-era Stones psychedelia. Keyboard swells and electro bloopery compete with Zeppelin drums and turned-up-to-11 Les Pauls through Marshall stacks. Textured. That’s the word I’m looking for. More Light is a textured album. A textured album that’s about 4 tracks too long, but never mind. Is it obtuse of me to say that, for me, the best tracks are the bonus tracks? They’re certainly the most interesting by far.

Nothing Is Real/Nothing Is Unreal (above) is terrific – a proper motorik, Krauty groover that really benefits from David Holmes’ polished sheen. If the whole album was like this, we may be saying it’s the best Primal Scream album since Screamadelica. Actually, the publicity surrounding the album would have you believe that, but this track is truly wonderful.

For Record Shop/Store Day this year, Primal Scream brought out a 12″ of them doing Sonic’s Rendezvous Band‘s City Slang. Sonic’s Rendezvous Band was a mid 70s alt-supergroup, formed by Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith of the MC5 and featuring Scott ‘Stooges’ Asheton amongst other garage band no-hit wonders. City Slang is a pretty intense piece of proto-punk, full of elastic band bass, cheesegrater-thin guitar solos and a stu-stu-stuttering chorus, a testifyin’ punk rock call to arms. Heard once, never forgotten. Heard for the first time, it’s one you’ll want to play again and again. Just as well the original 7″ has the same song on both sides – wear out one set of grooves and you’ve still got another to batter the hell out of. That SRB had only one track was neither here nor there, City Slang remains something of a masterpiece. It also happens to be one of Alan McGee’s favourite records, as he told Plain Or Pan a year or so ago.

Best ever punk rock single, as he so succinctly put it. You can read more about Alan McGee’s favourite records (something of a Plain Or Pan scoop at the time, though you wouldn’t know from reading it) here.

Anyway, Primal Scream’s version is a faithful-to-the-original, full-on heads down punk rocker. For men pushing 50 and more, this is either admirable or rather sad. I’ll let you be the judge on that one.

Contrast And Compare:

City Slang – Primal Scream

City Slang – Sonic’s Rendezvous Band

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Yesterday's Papers

Revolution 9

April 28, 2013April 28, 2013 Craig McAllister

When I first picked up the plank of wood I had the cheek to call a guitar, I hadn’t yet mastered changing from a D to an A and back again before I realised something was missing. I needed something, anything, to disguise the bum notes from the badly-played chords I was trying to strangle out of my instrument at parent-bothering volume through my wee practice amp. That something was the fuzzbox. What a revelation! I could play along to most of The Buzzcocks‘ What Do I Get and mangle a passable version of Everybody’s Happy Nowadays, fire off Janie Jones from the first Clash LP and play almost all of The Ramones‘ It’s Alive LP, riff for riff and legs akimbo, just like Johnny. Look at me, I can play guitar! 1! 2! 3! 4! Gggzzzzzssss! Hey ho and indeed, let’s go. The intricacies of Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others and Blackbird were a long, painful way off, but that fuzzbox was the thing that spurred me on to those greater things.

Nasty Punks, Funk Off

Eventually tired of the fuzz and with ears open to a wider variety of music, that wee pedal was retired from duty, to be ressurected a couple of years later by better musicians. If you listen very carefully to One At A Time on the Trash Can Sinatras‘ I’ve Seen Everything album, that same £20 fuzzbox gets a good workout from Davy Hughes’ bass guitar. Or so they tell me.

But that’s another story for another day. After mastering the complete works of Johnny Ramone and the odd Beatles tune and sickening myself by tying my fat fingers in knots whilst trying to unsuccessfully learn Johnny Marr’s best riffs, I spent a great many hours poring over the guitar parts on James Brown records.

The guys who played the best of them (Catfish (brother of Bootsy) Collins and Jimmy Nolen) were as yet unknown to me, but they were just as vital and exciting and talented as the three Johns. I could sit for hours and listen to I’ll Go Crazy but I’ve never yet quite mastered the fluidity of the riff. Sex Machine was the big one. The one chord groove was a bee aye tee see aitch to learn in those pre-internet days. Starting with the top string and working backwards to the bass, I held down all sorts of permutations of strings and frets until one day the funk planets aligned and my fingers fell on the strings and frets in the correct position. For any technically-minded musicians amongst you, the chord I was playing was an Eb9 (with a hammer-on on the 8th fret), although I was yet to know that. To me, it was the chord that unlocked the funk.

Using the 9th chord, Jimmy Nolen laid the foundation of funk. Stop/start slides from the 4th to 5th fret, pinky hammer-ons 2 frets above, muting the strings with his right hand to get the distinctive chicken-scratch sound, he’s the guitarist who anyone who’s ever played a note of funk guitar owes a debt to. James Brown changed his guitar players as regularly as you or I change our underwear, but from listening to the records you’d never know. All guitarists after Jimmy Nolen followed his distinctive chordings and ryhthm. Got a guitar to hand? Try it! Slide the same chord shape (above/below) up and down the frets and you’ll find all sorts of James Brown songs – Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag. I Feel Good. Super Bad. Talkin’ Loud & Sayin’ Nothing. Soul Power. Persevere, you’ll find them all.

Get Up (Feel Like Being A Sex Machine)

e|--(start with an upstrum)----6-6----6---8--6----------6-6----6---8--6-----------------|
B|-----------------------------6-6----6-----------------6-6----6------------------------|
G|-----------------------------6-6----6-----------------6-6----6------(and repeat!)-----|
D|-----------------------------5-5----5-----------------5-5----5------------------------|
A|-----------------------------6-6----6-----------------6-6----6------------------------|
E|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Stick on the wah-wah pedal and you can riff your way to funky oblivion like an extra in a 1975 episode of Starsky & Hutch. Sly Stone, no stranger himself to a 3-in-a-bed romp with a wah-wah and a 9th chord, got in on the act. His Sing A Simple Song is an absolute monster of E9 riffing (see tab below. S’easy!). Booker T and The MGs did their own Hammond ‘n 9th-heavy version. And Ike Turner quite blatantly/beautifully ripped it off for his ‘own’ Bold Soul Sister, a young Tina coming across like the less-vulgar wee sister of Betty Davis. I think even Led Zeppelin used it on Houses of the Holy‘s The Crunge, such is the chicken-scratching Jimmy Nolen-ness of it all. The 9th. It’s a well travelled chord. Kick out the jams and play it, brothers and sisters. Now that’s an order.

Sing A Simple Song (Play a simple riff…..)

e|-------------------------7-7--6-7-7--6-7-7----------------------------7-7--6-7-7-|
B|-------------------------7-7--6-7-7--6-7-7----------------------------7-7--6-7-7-|
G|-------------------------7-7--6-7-7--6-7-7----------------------------7-7--6-7-7-|
D|----------5--------------6-6--5-6-6--5-6-6--------------5-------------6-6--5-6-6-|
A|--7-5---7---5-7---5/7----7-7--6-7-7--6-7-7------7-5---7---5-7--5/7----7-7--6-7-7-|
E|------7-----------3/5-------------------------------7-----------3/5--------------|

Hard-to-find, Kraut-y, Live!, New! Now!

Can o’ Worms

April 22, 2013May 18, 2016 Craig McAllister

This Record Store Day thing really grates eh? Who’s at fault? The record companies, who see the event as a way to fleece the record buyers out of every last penny they have and set sky-high dealer prices, thus forcing retailers to charge daft prices for (mainly) old records? Or the record buyers themselves, who see the event as a way to fleece less-fortunate record buyers who have neither the means required nor the availability of a local record shop to go to in order to buy what they want and are forced to take to the internet in a desperate attempt to secure the objects of their desire from people who neither know about or care about the records they are punting?

Five minutes after the shops opened and eBay’s suddenly full of the things everyone wants, available from twenty five different private sellers at twenty five times the original prices, and the internet is bulging at the virtual seams with sob stories from seething, seasoned record buyers unable to get their sticky fingers on the records they so desired. They’ve scanned the lists in March and written and re-written their wishlist into 3 columns; ‘Ideally…’, ‘Hopefully…’ and ‘I cannot leave without this…’ but still ended up only with the last sticker from the acoustic act playing in the corner and a crumbly cup cake from the beardy guy behind the counter who’s job it is to say, “Sorry mate, that’s sold out too,” over and over and over and over until the end of the day. They’ve even emptied the kids’ piggy banks and forced them to eat beans on toast for a month, but that counts for nothing. Come April and the Day itself, they got up half an hour after going to bed in an effort to get as close to the front of the snaking line outside Shady Dave’s Second-Hand Sounds as they possibly could, to no avail. It’s a long line, but the ‘good-time vibe’ in the queue (“Aye, I’m after the Elliott Smith 7″ and the Pulp 12″ and the Big Star outtakes LP too, pal…”) is such that standing hunched up in the rain and the cold with Angry Birds and a quickly-decreasing battery charge on the phone for company are just about tolerable, as hopeful prayers of over-priced, limited edition bits of plastic are messaged to the great vinyl god above.

By the time the doors are unlocked by Shady Dave himself (who knows that only today, this one day of the year, is the make-or-break that might allow him to trade until next year’s big day), wads of money are jumping out the pockets of middle aged men and being flung towards the counter in exchange for a one-off Flaming Lips LP or a White Stripes coloured vinyl or an old Paul McCartney track re-pressed in glorious retro fashion. It’s ridiculous. Especially as that guy in the expensive puffa jacket and beige chinos (not yer average Wedding Present fan, you muse), who happened to be at the front of the queue was royally loaded and bought every copy of the German language 10″ And whatever else he thought he could off-load for a profit. “How many Bowie did you get? I’ll take them all.” It’s the new model for the spineless, the shallow and the touts who already rake it in from selling high-demand concert tickets. Have you checked those eBay sellers addresses? Sorry for the sweeping generalisation, but are they all in Merseyside? Call the cops…

Anyway, for what it’s worth, I’d have quite liked the live Stephen Malkmus does Can thingy. And the Elliott Smith 7″ and the Pulp 12″ and the Big Star outtakes LP too, pal, but I was nowhere near a decent record shop and was being Dad for the day while the missus went off for a belated birthday afternoon with her pal. Plus I don’t have the spare £40 or so that would’ve been necessary to procure them, had I been game enough to try and buy them. A quick scroll through eBay tonight and the Elliott Smith 7″ is selling for £15, as is the Pulp 12″ . The Big Star LP? That’s currently around the £40 mark, but given that almost 20 folk are after it, it’ll probably take a bid of around £100 to secure the bloody thing. That Malkmus/Can album has attracted a dozen or so bids and is already pushing £40 itself. The vinyl would be nice, but I’m just as happy for the moment with the illicit mp3s I found whilst poking around the darker corners of the internet. It’s not ‘real’. It’s not holdable. It’s not warm and friendly analogue. But it was cheaper than cheap. I’ve always preferred Can at their grooviest and Malkmus does a good job. Contrast and compare…

Can – I’m So Green

Stephen Malkmus – I’m So Green

Can – Vitamin C

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Stephen Malkmus – Vitamin C

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demo, Hard-to-find

Telly Addict

April 16, 2013 Craig McAllister

The name Television has popped up here a couple of times recently. James Brooks from Land Observations name-checked them in his Six Of The Best article and a couple of weeks ago I was comparing the laconic vocals and snaking guitar sound of Charlie Boyer & the Voyeurs latest single to that of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd. All this has coincided with the old iPod (well, it’s not that old – 3 and a half years – but I suppose that’s ancient in tech-speak) refusing to sync any new additions to my iTunes library and, worse than that, wiping itself clean of all the 140+GB of crap that was on there originally and deciding it’s just not going to work any more. Even the (cough) ‘Genius’ at the Apple store in Glasgow had to somewhat disappointingly concede defeat. As the iPod goes everywhere with me at all times this has proven nothing short of a disaster. So much so that I’ve gone all end-of-the-millenium retro and started playing CDs again. Real, shop-bought CDs in the car and on the stereo at home (I had to dust it a wee bit first, I’m ashamed to admit). Having exhausted the Can Lost Tapes box set that fell into my hands for less than £18 in a destined-to-die HMV store, the one album I’ve had on constant repeat for a fortnight is Marquee Moon, the debut album by Television.

Terrific photo, aye? More about it here.

It’s now considered something of a (yawn) seminal classic or something, so far out of step/ahead of the pack when first released that it sounds fresh, ageless and timeless when you listen to it now. But you knew that already. In mid 70s America, Television found themselves roped in with the NYC punk lot, seemingly by virtue of having a regular gig at CBGBs. Original bass player Richard Hell, with his penchant for ripped jeans, safety pins and home-made spiky haircut is considered the true originator of the punk style, but by the time of Marquee Moon‘s release, he had long since left the band to form The Voidoids and invent the Stray Cat Strut with their I Belong To The Blank Generation single…

Anyway. Where were we? Oh aye, Television. Where did they fit in? Not for them the 3 chords-in-platform-heel Stonesy glam slam so beloved of the New York Dolls. Not for them the legs akimbo cartoon buzzbomb of the brothers Ramone. Not for them the high-brow beat poetry set to the low-brow beat music of Patti Smith. Television set themselves apart from the off. With an approach to their individual instruments bordering on muso, and a healthy disregard for the two and a half minute pop song, they were so far out of step/ahead of the pack that they still sound fresh, ageless and timeless today. Guitars intertwined like psychic snakes, riffing off one another creating astonishing Fender Jag ‘scuse me while I kiss the sky melodies and counter melodies seemingly at will. Not quite free jazz, but certainly free from the straight-jacketed constraints of their 3 chord loving peers. Learn an F chord, barre it and move it up and down the frets. Play it loud, play it fast, there you go, you’re a band. Television were so far ahead of this, it’s not hard to understand why, 35 years later they were 1) seen as misfits and 2) sound as now as the latest daft haircutted, snake-hipped gang of teenagers straight off the cover of the NME.

First single (not on the album) Little Johnny Jewel was a taste of things to come. 7 minutes of art rock, all cheese-grater strings and rake-thin bass, slightly out of tune chords, random blips and blops and clattering, carefree jazz drumming, with a more spoken-word than singing approach to the vocals, the pre-pubescent seeds for Marquee Moon were sown. After an aborted session with Brian Eno, and balls duly dropped, the band started fashioning the music that would grace the album. Tougher, meatier, more aggressive yet airy, effeminate and even effete when compared to the band’s contemporaries, the alt. mix of the title track is the aural equivalent of watching Picasso sketch Guernica. Or something less pretentious than that. Friction, with its galloping elastic band riff and ‘Eff! Are! Aye! See! Tea-Eye-Oh-Enn!’ refrain is a personal favourite amongst an LP full of personal favourites. If you’ve never heard Television, rectify that now!

Just as The Velvet Underground before them and The Beta Band since (I digress, but believe me, one day The Beta Band will come to be as revered as the truly great originators they were. They will!), Television never really got their dues at the time. But their influence is writ large in any twin guitar band with a penchant for razor-sharp riffs and meandering solos. Scratch just under the surface of all the usual suspects (you know who they are) and you’ll find a well-worn copy of Marquee Moon rotating ad infinitum between the grooves. The coolest part of it all? Well, rumour has it that around the time of recording the Blue Sky Blue album, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy received the ultimate birthday present from his wife- a guitar lesson from Richard Lloyd. Not the first band that springs to mind at the mention of meandering solos and disregard for a well constructed pop song, Wilco did indeed adopt a more Verlaine/Lloyd approach on some of Sky Blue Sky‘s less structured tracks. Impossible Germany, for example, features a pair of clean, chiming guitars wrapping themselves around one another for 6 shimmering minutes. The solo alone is pure Lloyd. Or Verlaine. I can never tell the difference. If you’ve never heard it, rectify once more.

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

There’s No Money Beyond The 5th Fret

April 10, 2013August 23, 2013 Craig McAllister

Tommy Tedesco said that.

Tommy who?

Last summer I went to the Glasgow screening of the above film about The Wrecking Crew, the crack bunch of LA sessioneers who played anonymously on a whole host of things, from film and TV scores via advertising jingles to some of the biggest-selling and best-loved songs of that golden period in early-mid 60s pop music. Tommy Tedesco was a jazz guitarist, and somehow found himself part of that inner-circle of session men and women. Made by Tommy’s son Denny, the film is a celebration of the life and work of his father and The Wrecking Crew. It’s terrific. Denny has, for the past couple of years, been touring the world showing his movie at Film Festivals and special screenings in a bid to drum up the finance required to support the publishing rights of the film. It’s impossible to make a movie about such great music without actually featuring that same music, and seemingly it costs a whole lot of money to negotiate the publishing minefield that the lawyers and money men have put in front of him. If you ever win the lottery and want to help someone out, I’m sure Denny would be more than happy to take your call. If you ever get a chance to see his film, grab it with both hands. Much of the music featured throughout the years on Plain Or Pan is a product of The Wrecking Crew, so if you’re a regular on here, I’d even go so far as to say it’s right up your street.

The Wrecking Crew were the go-to guys in the LA recording industry. Slicker than the Brycleem covering Bing Crosby’s bald bits and packing more swing than Sinatra with a six iron, they swept aside the old shirt ‘n tied brigade with little regard for history or unwritten rules.

“I coined the name The Wrecking Crew,” explains ace drummer Hal Blaine. “We came into the studio with our Levis and t-shirts, smokin’ cigarettes, and the older guys were sayin’ ‘They’re gonna wreck the music business!'”

Working quickly and cheaply, and with the ability to read charts and scores of music at the drop of a cocked hat (they had backgrounds in jazz and classical) they were able to turn their hand to anything at all. Often, they came up with the licks and riffs that we all still whistle and hum today. Uncredited. The intro to Wichita Lineman? The intro to These Boots Were Made For Walkin‘? Plucked from thin air by The Wrecking Crew. Working on flat union fees rather than the gamble of percentage royalties, each musician knew that if they played more than one session a day, by the end of the week after they’d multiplied up the standard session fee, they’d be rich. They were so much in demand that playing only one session a day was not ever likely. Producers would request The Wrecking Crew, then hold off the recording session until the Crew could fit them in. The Wrecking Crew did them all. In and out the studio in the time it took to learn the part and record it before going off to the next one. And the next. And the next.

Without the benefit of hindsight of course, they had no idea that this music they were playing would shape the sound of popular music forever. The roll call of records and groups bearing The Wrecking Crew’s stamp is a super-long embarrassment of riches. Off the top of my head – all of Phil Spector‘s epoch-defining Wall Of Sound records, many Beach Boys records, including the sessions that would produce Pet Sounds and Smile, the Elvis ’68 Comeback Special for TV, The Byrds first album (only Roger McGuinn was considered good enough to play on it. The other Byrds sang, but the rest of the music was provided by The Wrecking Crew), a ton of Dean Martin stuff, Frank Sinatra‘s Summer Wind, the Pink Panther theme, Aquarius by the 5th Dimension, most of The Monkees records (Mike Nesmith was The Monkees’ version of Roger McGuinn), Somebody Groovy, California Dreamin’, Monday Monday and countless other Mamas And Papas tracks, Harry Nilsson‘s Everybody’s Talkin‘, Sonny & Cher‘s And the Beat Goes On. And on. And on. And on. You get the idea?

The Wrecking Crew were seemingly involved in everything. Hal Blaine alone estimates he’s played on 35,000 sessions. Thirty five! Thousand! Playing 3 sessions a day for 7 days a week, that’d take him about 30 years going by my calculations. At the height of their activity, I reckon The Wrecking Crew must’ve been doing 50 sessions a week, easy. One day alone might produce The More I See You for Chris Montez and Coconut Grove for The Lovin’ Spoonful before lunch, Dizzy with Tommy Roe and It Never Rains In Southern California with Albert Hammond in the afternoon and a longer session with Simon & Garfunkel in the evening – Homeward Bound and off to tuck the kids into bed. (In the chronology of it all, doing these 5 particular records might’ve been impossible, but you know what I mean). Not a bad day’s work, and, it seemed, every day in The Wrecking Crew calender was like that.

Of course, sadly, frustratingly sadly for some, without the benefit of hindsight, who knew that they’d be involved in so many solid-gold standards? Taking the gamble of percentage royalties would clearly have been the smart thing to do. Every member of The Wrecking Crew would still be a millionaire now. Hal Blaine knew the value in working hard and to paraphrase from the film wanted to make the ride to success as quick as possible and the inevitable decline as slow as could be. By the mid 60s, artists would want to play on their own records. Crucially, the record companies would allow them to play on their own records, and the slow demise of The Wrecking Crew was set in motion. But at the time, The Wrecking Crew were coining it in. As super-cool bass player Carol Kaye points out, “I was making more money than the President of the United States!” Hal Blaine was also earning enough to have a huge house and a yacht, but divorce saw to the end of that. When the sessions dried up, he ended up taking a job as a security guard, spending his days listening to the radio blaring out the countless hits he had played on. The irony was not lost on him. Go and see the film when you get the chance, it’s all in there. Check the website for details: http://www.wreckingcrewfilm.com

The Music

You know all the biggies, so here’s a few less well-known selections from the absolute embarrassment of Wrecking Crew riches…

Carol Kaye – Bass Catch.

Ridiculously funky, even for a white man from the West Coast of Scotland. That’s Carol in the picture above.

5th Dimension – Aquarius.

The hippy dream set to the most fruggable bassline since the word ‘frug’ was invented.

The Mamas and The Papas – Somebody Groovy.

The hippy dream sang beautifully. Michelle Philips. Aaaaaaah.

Sonny & Cher – The Beat Goes On.

Written by Sonny Bono, the title is inscribed on his gravestone. Later covered in a big band jazz stylee by Buddy Rich, with his 10 year old daughter doing the Cher parts.

Lee Hazlewood – These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.

Kind of a post-demo, if there is such a thing, Lee’s version takes the same backing track from Nancy Sinatra’s hit single, but he tells the story of how they recorded it. Essential listening!

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The Curios (neither of these were recorded wham! bam! thank you, maam!, that’s for certain)

Brian Wilson haranguing Hal Blaine and co. during the recording of Wouldn’t It Be Nice. Quiet please, genius at work.

Phil Spector haranguing Hal Blaine and co. during the recording of Be My Baby. Wonderful!

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Aye, Spy!

March 16, 2013 Craig McAllister

Focus. Surely the reason punk had to happen. They’re not a band I’ve ever mentioned on these pages before. And they’re not a band likely to ever feature on these pages again. Hoary old 70s prog rockers, with their fuzzy faces and parted-curtains hair-dos, Focus might’ve looked like any one of those uber-cool purveyors of the German Kosmische Musik, but they eschewed that minimal motorik groove in favour of an altogether less savoury sound. Technically super-proficient players, Focus had an alarming tendency to fling 94 ultra-slick 2 bar arpeggios in the space where most contemporaries would rattle out a blues riff copied from any old Chuck Berry record. Focus would also regularly yodel like castrated cats on their records, records that careered from a post-blues/pre punk squealing guitar abandon to neo-classical and medieval lampoonery, by way of a side order of jazz fusion. In many ways then, a Dutch Spinal Tap…

The Be-de-le-be-de-le-be-de-le-be-de-le-be-de-le-be-de-le-scree lead guitar in Focus was provided by Jan Akkerman. Jan is something of a hero to 60-year old physics teachers who wear their hair a wee bit too long at the back and still harbour hopes of making it with their band. He tours regularly and mentions of his name in the right circles can elicit the same sort of reaction you’d get when talking about Johnny Marr to half the folk who are reading this now.

He began playing in The Hunters, a beat-boom inspired garage band from the Netherlands who had one minor hit in 1966 with Russian Spy And I. A terrific record, it sounds equal parts Yardbirds, Animals and (really) The Ukrainians, the short-lived world music off-shoot of the Wedding Present. All hand-claps, shouty “oi!s” and chicken dance-inspiring rythym guitar, Russian Spy And I is a record you could happily smash plates to, Greek wedding-style. Listen to it and underneath the frenzied stomp of it all you just might spot Jan Akkerman’s ever-so subtle and understated guitar parts.

The Stares

Russian Spy And I first came to my attention not from The Hunters but via The Stairs and their Woman Gone And Say Goodbye single. A band forever out of sync with the times (too late for the 60s, too early for that mid 90s boom in guitar bands), the Merseyside revivalists did a faithful version of Russian Spy… on the b-side, for extra authenticity recording it in mangled mono glory and unwittingly inventing The Coral in the process, who took The Stairs sound and polished it up until it was shiny and chart friendly. Nothing wrong with that, of course. The Stairs were a magic wee band. They had soul and funk and the riffs and could play like delta bluesmen and swing like Sinatra at the Sands. I’ve written about them and their genius leader, Edgar ‘Jones’ Jones before. Take 5 minutes and reacquaint yourself with them here. And listen to their version of Russian Spy And I while you’re at it. Oi!

I Spy the heir to the Plain Or Pan throne

demo, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Hot Rod

March 8, 2013 Craig McAllister

Over Christmas a pal on Facebook posted a video of Boogie Nights by Heatwave. With it’s super-slinky bass sound and below-the-bell-bottoms baritone “got to keep on dancin’, keep on dancin‘” backing vocal, it’s the sort of record that could have me Dad dancing for ages. (*Just to clarify – I’m not a Yorkshire man. I’m from further oop north than that – when I say me Dad dancing, I don’t mean it could get my own father on his feet. Although it probably could. I mean that Boogie Nights makes me dance in my own rhythmically-challenged Ayrshireman fashion. Like I said – just to clarify).

When the Heatwave video appeared I mentioned that the track was written by the same guy who wrote Thriller for Michael Jackson, Rod Temperton. I also rather glibly suggested he was now dead, when in fact it was pointed out that he’s very much alive and kicking and sleeping on a bed of crisp, fresh $100 bills every night in his Bel Air mansion. Probably. There’s nothing that unusual about songwriters who write one or two massive hits, but have a look at the picture below. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and all that, but……

Rod Temperton, the man who re-invented slick dance floor disco and wrote just about the most recognisable track of the 80s and beyond is a skinny-arsed, geeky white man with a rubbish pencil moustache and pre-perm footballer’s haircut. All the way from Cleethorpes in the north of England. A town with about as much musical pedigree as a squeaky dog toy. Yet there he is – the not-quite-invisible man to the side, goofing and gurning his way through three minutes of proper 70s American black man funk. And he wrote it. On top of a pile of dirty washing in a tiny flat. No wonder he’s laughing. All the way to the bank, he’s laughing.

Rod’s story is perfect Plain Or Pan fodder. Here follows a brief catch-up if you’re new to his name.

Beginning his musical apprenticeship in the working mens’ clubs around Tyneside and the north east of England, by the early 70s Rod had left the glamour of the frozen food factory where he worked in Grimsby and sought out his chance on the German club circuit. Like most bands who did this tour, he played long-into-the-night sets and his playing improved ten-fold. Rod and his Hammond organ were much in demand. An ad in Melody Maker led to him joining Heatwave and it was from there that Rod’s talents took him to the toppermost of the poppermost. Not quite the token honky (Heatwave’s drummer looked out of place also), Rod was the driving force behind the multi-cultural group’s success – Stateside million sellers, the whole shebang, before his work brought him to the attention of Quincy Jones. He’d go on to write three tracks for Michael Jackson’s debut Off The Wall LP and was retained by Jones and Jackson to work on the difficult-second-album follow-up, Thriller.

‘Originally, when I did my Thriller demo, I called it Starlight. Quincy said to me, ” You managed to come up with a title for the last album, see what you can do for this album”. I said, “Oh great,” so I went to the hotel, wrote two or three hundred titles, and came up with the title Midnight Man. The next morning, I woke up, and I just said this word…Something in my head just said, this is the title. You could visualise it on the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as Thriller.’

Quick! Grab these! They’ll probably be gone faster than you can say Beat It!

Starlight – Michael Jackson‘s demo of Thriller

Vincent Price spoken part for Thriller (first run-through)

Billie Jean – Michael Jackson‘s demo

As well as the title track, Rod wrote Baby Be Mine and The Lady In My Life, both more derivative of the kind of smooth soul tracks that he can seemingly knock out in his spare time. Difficult second album? Thriller has since become The Biggest Selling Album…Ever!, selling in excess of 60 million copies along the way. But you knew that already. Buy maybe you didn’t know that the wee skinny guy from unfashionable Cleethorpes had a huge hand in it. He still makes me laugh whenever I see Boogie Nights on any of those old TOTP repeats:

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

O Superman

March 3, 2013March 3, 2013 Craig McAllister

Life’s Rich Pageant was the first REM album I heard and, when push comes to shove, it’s still my favourite of theirs. Borrowed from Irvine library and duly taped, it soundtracked much of my late teens. From Begin The Begin‘s acid rock feedback ‘n twang via the alt. American Rickenbacker riffage of These Days and I Believe, to the Beach Boys backing on Fall On Me and Cuyahoga, it’s a terrific LP. All killer, no filler, you might say. It captures the band at the highest critical trajectory in their career – still hip enough to be considered underground, yet big enough to have worldwide sales (and actual big-hitting chart singles just around the corner with their next LP and beyond), being in REM around this time must’ve been great.

Tucked away at the end of Life’s Rich Pageant was Superman. A twin-vocaled throwaway bit of bubblegum pop that showcased the extraordinary backing vocals of Mike Mills, it was the track I played again and again and again and again ad naseum. Which, given it was on cassette, led to some frustrating rewind sessions where I’d zero the wee digital tape counter as Superman started, and try and stop the tape bang on zero zero zero when the song had finished and I’d began to rewind it. There was none of this stop/start/skip/repeat stuff going on back then. But you’ll know that already. Anyway, I did this 1000 times until the tape stretched and eventually, catastrophically snapped, leaving ribbons of TDK wrapped around the tape heads on my none-more-80s music centre. The soft-eject door may have been the most aesthetically-pleasing one in the shop (you tried them all out, didn’t you) but it was impossible to take off to get the chewed bits of tape back out. So that was that. Down to the wee record shop at the back of RS McColl’s at the cross to buy the actual record. Up the road, and reading the sleevenotes it was then that I realised Superman was a cover. With no internet at my fingertips or music-geek big brother to grill, I waited literally years until finding out that the REM track I loved so much was by a band called The Clique.

Pardon the pun here, but there are lots of Cliques in the music business. The Clique that released Superman in 1966 were from Texas. There was also a pilled-up ‘n purple hearted mod band from England called The Clique doing the circuit at the same time. And in the 90s, a band called The Clique (also of modish persuasion) were on the go. A few years back I featured one of their tracks. Very good it was too. But anyway…

The Clique’s version of Superman was a b-side. Given his trainspottery love of obscure and underground music, it was no doubt Peter Buck who brought it to REM’s attention. REM’s version actually turns out to be pretty faithful. The original is indeed a piece of throwaway bubblegum pop, with a high backing vocal and a highly fruggable bassline. Handclaps, little bits of chanting and a weird, trippy vocal, not unlike the effect you get when you hear backwards guitar on one of those 60s records, complete what is an excellent wee record. Although I still prefer REM’s.

Contrast and compare:

Superman – The Clique

Superman – REM

Sadly, perhaps, I don’t have to hand the recording my wee band did at our first ever gig. I did the Mike Mills bits. Badly.

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