Rocksteady is a style of music that originated in Jamaica around the end of the 60s. Slower than ska, faster than reggae, you’ll recognise rocksteady by its beat – 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and so on and so on. Alton Ellis. Toots and The Maytals. Hopeton Lewis. The Cables. Names you may not be familiar with (though Toots, surely?), but all are purveyors of the finest rocksteady available. You should seek them out, you’d like them.
Rock Steady is a 1971 single by Aretha Franklin, appearing on her Young, Gifted and Black LP. It‘s a classic piece of call and response Atlantic soul, all hi-hat, one chord chicken-scratch guitar and outrageously funky organ fills. The bit when everything drops out save Aretha’s “Rock!…….Steady!……Rock!…….Steady!” vocals is hairs-on-the-neck material. But you knew that already. That wee section alone has been sampled by every hip-hop act you care to mention, from Afrika Bambaataa to Young Bleed. Public Enemy have sampled the exact same part 3 times! I’ve often thought that Talking Heads based their white boy funk of Burning Down The House on Aretha’s Rock Steady groove, whether consciously or not. EPMD certainly did. Their 1988 single I’m Housin’ is built around the track. Still stands up today, for what it’s worth. You should play it in the car, bass boomin’ as you’re gangster leanin’ out the window. And if you can carry that move off in this particular part of the world, I’ll buy you a pint.
Jamaican artists were heavily influenced by the sounds they could pick up on the airwaves. Being an island, few if any travelling musicians toured there, so Jamaicans were left to come up with their own music. As the sounds of soul drifted across the Caribbean, the musicians would take what they liked and add their own laid back twist to it. Many early ska and rocksteady records are covers of soul tracks. When an artist wrote his own song, it was often in essence a barely disguised soul record with new lyrics on top. The Brentford All-Stars Greedy G is basically a James Brown record with extra keyboard stabs and some dubby drums. Nothing wrong with that, eh? The Marvels heard Aretha’s Rock Steady and as quick as that light bulb could ping in their collective minds they’d re-jigged it into a rocksteady groove, chicken-scratch guitar, ourageously funky organ fills and all. Just a bit slower than the original, but then, the original was made in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The Marvels cooked up their version in the burning hot temperatures of Jamaica. Sound Dimension were also taken by Rock Steady. Their instrumental Granny Scratch Scratch is clearly based on the Aretha record. Pure rocksteady (count the beat as you listen), it‘s a terrific head-nodder of a track.
*Bonus Tracks!
Here‘s an alternate mix of Aretha Franklin‘s version. It’s looser and longer than the version you’re familiar with.
Here‘s Rocksteady by Byron Lee & The Dragonaires. It has nothing to do with any of the above records.
Here‘s People Do Rocksteady by The Bodysnatchers. Again, nthing to do with any of the above records.
Now treat yourself and go and buy the Soul Jazz ‘Dynamite‘ series. 100% Dynamite is the best place to start. At the last count, six volumes to collect. All killer no filler ‘n that.
Effortlessly cool, even with the wee vocal slip at 2.28.
Pop music, especially the early stuff when the concept of the teenager had just been invented has always been awash with songs sung by hormonally imbalanced adolescent boys about seemingly unattainable girls. The helium high of The HolliesHey!Carrie Anne (what’s your game and can anybody play?), Buddy Holly‘s uh pretty-pretty-pretty-prettyPeggy Sue, the Beach Boys‘ mock party jam version of ah-ba ba ba baBarbara Ann (ah-ba ba ba ba Barbara Ann, ta-ake my ha-a-and). I bet you’re singing Al Jardine’s ridiculous falsetto right now. Every one of them a gazillion plays radio standard. Every one of them a teenage ode to an unattainable double barrelled object of desire.
I bet you couldn’t sing this though: Pamela Jean by The Survivors.
Pamela Jean is a terrific slice of early 60s Dionesque doo-wop pop, all hand claps, honkin’ sax and Spectorish tumbling drum rolls. It also happens to feature the unmistakable vocals of Brian Wilson. The vocal arrangement of Pamela Jean is totally Brian. From the bottom end bass to the harmonies and the high-high-highs, Pamela Jean is the sound of Sta-Press ‘n Pendletones ‘n Brylcreem flicks – the Beach Boys Sound of Endless Summer.
Pamela Jean isn’t actually a Beach Boys record but if you didn’t read the small print you’d never know. It could easily slot right there inbetween Little Deuce Coupe and Don’t Worry Baby; 50% pop and 50% pathos. Only thing is, other than Brian, no Beach Boys appeared on it. The Survivors were Brian and three friends, Bob Norberg, Dave Nowlen and Rich Alarian. Alarian had helped Brian write some of the early Beach Boys songs, but rather than Brian give his pal a writing credit, they agreed that Brian would produce a record for him. Pamela Jean was the result. Tremendous as it clearly is, the record failed to even scrape the outer edges of the chart. Perhaps poor old Rich would’ve been better off insisting on those writing credits after all.
*Trainspotter Fact #1
Any Beach Boys obsessive worth his salt (note his, not their – the tendency to focus on the minutae and detail is surely a male thing, aye?) would recognise that the melody for Pamela Jean was taken wholly from Car Crazy Cutie, from the Beach Boys Little Deuce Coupe LP. Pamela Jean just sounds better though, eh? And I bet you can sing it now too.
“Brian Wilson is not a good looking human being, yet his music is beautiful. Look at Nat King Cole–he looked like a real piece of shit but he had a beautiful voice. Look at Aretha Franklin–she would scare me in a dark room, yet her voice is fantastic. Roy Orbison too. The thing I listen too is the music.”
-Dennis Wilson, 1976
It’s 1989 and I’m sitting in my bedroom, pleased as punch that I’ve managed to de-press ‘pause‘ on the tape deck of my music centre at the exact moment The Wedding Present launch into their final song in yet another brilliant Peel Session. It’s a rattlin’, clatterin’ version of Altered Images’ perennial classic Happy Birthday (hear it here), and during a breakdown in the middle section David Gedge gleefully shouts, “Status Quo, 25 years in the biz-ness!” and the band “Yay!” back at him with hardly disguised irony. Old farts still churning out the same 3 chord nonsense to the same set of hairier, older fans. Roll over lay down grandad and let the young team through.
It’s 2011 and I’m sitting at my computer, pleased as punch that I’ve managed to get this blog somewhat back on track after a couple of months of having more important stuff to do. I’m researching some things for possible inclusion when I stumble upon the fact that 25 years ago this month (July 1986), the New Musical Express released C86, the now seminal cassette that featured a compilation of tracks by 22 staunchly independent bands du jour. Released being the key word here – despite 3 weekly music papers, no-one felt the need to give anything away for free. C86 could only be bought by mail order, whic thousands of alternative music fans did. Although I didn’t. I paid 50p for mine at a record fair in Kilmarnock a few years later. I still have the tape somewhere and after a bit of poking around I turn it up.
And whadayaknow? Track 1, side1? It’s only Primal Scream, still going strong after all these years. Last track, side 2? Why, it’s only little David Gedge with his Wedding Present, also still going strong after all these years – Yay! Twenty five years in the biz-ness indeed. Aye, so Primal Scream have seamlessly tripped their way through just about every sub-genre known to even the most trainspottery of musicologists, but there is still a band called Primal Scream who release records today, much like the Primal Scream who recorded Velocity Girl all those years ago (did the Stone Roses really rip it off for Made Of Stone? You decide). And The Wedding Present nowadays is a very different proposition to the band of George Best and all that jazz. Indeed, with the exception of the boy Gedge, the current line-up look like they’d have been playing pin the tail on the donkey at a jelly and ice-cream birthday party around the time C86 was made, but nonetheless The Wedding Present are still going strong. They even recently toured the Bizarro album again. What was that about old farts still churning out the same 3 chord nonsense to the same set of hairier, older fans? I love them, though. But you knew that already.
Most of the bands on C86 didn’t last a quarter of a century. Half Man Half Biscuit are still around – Yay! and Stephen Pastel can often be spotted still sporting the same dufflecoat, no matter the weather, in whatever part of Glasgow is deemed to be hippest that week. Thankfully the others could spot a shelf life when they saw one – in perhaps the same way that Spitfire and Shed 7 would be considered ‘important’ to musical heritage a decade later (ie, not at all important), Stump and Bogshed were maybe just about alright for the times and didn’t hang around too long afterwards. C86 became a lazy adjective for Steve Lamacq to use when describing under-achieving bands with bowl cuts, beads and a Byrdsian bent to their guitars. Which is more than a bit unfair, as to these ears, C86 had no actual defining sound. D’you know that smell you get when you walk past a group of 18/19 year old boys, all done up in their smart/casual gear and off to the local nitespot? A heady mix of Diesel, Dior and Davidoff that smells nothing like the sum of its parts? C86 is a bit like that. Aye, there’s floppy fringes and feyness ahoy, but there’s also experimentalism, big beats and the sort of music that was impossible to pigeonhole in 1986. The aesthetic of C86 was very much “we do this for ourselves and if anyone else likes it it’s a bonus“.
It was a movement, perhaps the twee-est, tamest of all youth movements, that was more about acne than anarchy, eczema than ecstasy, but it was a generation’s calling card, played out in the wastelands betwixt and between punk and house music, filling the void until the next proper movement arrived. We could do with that now. A proper musical movement to tease us, please us, invigorate and inspire. Or maybe we have. Is it Mumford & Sons & assorted pals pseudo folkest posho raggle taggle? Is it the skinny-jeaned and pointy-boots brigade from East London? Is it ‘mon the Biffy? I dunno. Maybe I’m one of the old farts. Actually, I know I am. Roll over lay down and all that, the young team are coming through….
In the meantime, dig out yer pipe and slippers, settle down in the rocking chair and crank up the old music centre. Here‘s C86 in all it’s itchy ‘n scratchy, low-fi, badly produced glory:
Side one
Primal Scream – “Velocity Girl”
The Mighty Lemon Drops – “Happy Head”
The Soup Dragons – “Pleasantly Surprised”
The Wolfhounds – “Feeling So Strange Again”
The Bodines – “Therese”
Mighty Mighty – “Law”
Stump – “Buffalo”
Bogshed – “Run to the Temple”
A Witness – “Sharpened Sticks”
The Pastels – “Breaking Lines”
Age of Chance – “From Now On, This Will Be Your God”
Side two
The Shop Assistants – “It’s Up to You”
Close Lobsters – “Firestation Towers”
Miaow – “Sport Most Royal”
Half Man Half Biscuit – “I Hate Nerys Hughes (From The Heart)”
The Servants – “Transparent”
The Mackenzies – “Big Jim (There’s no pubs in Heaven)”
Big Flame – “New Way (Quick Wash And Brush Up With Liberation Theology)”
Fuzzbox – “Console Me”
McCarthy – “Celestial City”
The Shrubs – “Bullfighter’s Bones”
The Wedding Present – “This Boy Can Wait”
*Bonus Tracks!
Musical karma chameleons Primal Scream have been through more changes than a (insert your own metaphor here).
Here‘s their stompin’ version of the Small Faces’ Understanding, featuring yer actual PP Arnold on vocals. And here‘s the Weatherall remix of Uptown, all 9 and a half minutes of struttin’ 70s dub disco and Chicago house – Hey, there’s about 3 movements right there in the one record! Beat that, kids.
*Extra Reading!
There was a good article here in The Quietus from a few months ago about the genesis of C86. Worth 5 minute of anyone’s time.
It’s midway through the year and round about now the movers, shakers and self-appointed hipsters in the music press like to sort out the wheat from the chaff in an early attempt to predict what will become the all important ‘Album of the Year‘, just so they can say “told you so!” in December. It’s ridiculous to even try and suggest such a thing – one man’s meat is another’s poison and all that, and who really cares anyway?, but for what it’s worth, if you were to ask me, an early contender for such a title would surely go to solo Super Furry Gruff Rhys for his Hotel Shampoo LP.
Had it been released under the Super Furry Animals banner it would have been frothed over by superlative-filled foaming-mouthed sychophants falling over themselves in praise of yet another Super Furry masterpiece, but I can’t help thinking that it somewhat crept under the radar. Investigate it now – here‘s the opening track Shark Ridden Waters. Seagull noises and bursts of foreign TV shows doused with a liberal sprinkling of Gruff Rhys melody, all underpinned by the most fruggable bassline since Peter, Bjorn & John’s Young Folks. Good, eh? And that wee fade out at the end, the ‘there’s no use cryin’, no use tellin’ me how much you’ve changed‘ part gets me every time. Sounds like it’s been sampled from something too, but I can’t place it. Any ideas? Oh, and talking of samples…….
Super Furry Animals’ The Man Don’t Give A Fuck takes the sweary part from Steely Dan‘s Showbiz Kids, loops it over 50 times and creates a fantastic record full of fuzz guitars, sleigh bells, Beach Boys-style doo-wop backing vocals and Glitter Band stomping drums that builds and builds and builds until it falls spectacularly in on itself. But you knew that already. You may also know that it was recorded at the same sessions that produced the bulk of debut LP Fuzzy Logic and was earmarked as a b-side (only a b-side!!) to If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You. Failing to get sample clearance in time put the kybosh on that idea, however, but thankfully the SFA persevered until Steely Dan gave them the OK to release it as a standalone single – in return for 95% of the track’s royalties, an arrangement Gruff Rhys was more than happy with, given that a record featuring such nonchalant use of the ‘f-word would hardly trouble the playlists of the nation’s radio stations. And just in case it did somehow set the charts alight, the band deleted the single one week after its release, making it instantly collectable to those (like me) who care about such trivialities.
The sleeve of The Man Don’t Give A Fuck featured a picture of Cardiff City’s Robin Friday flicking the V’s to the Luton Town goalie of the day (see full picture below). Friday seems to have been cut from the same cloth as George Best – at his peak in the mid ’70s Friday was a free-scoring player both on and off the pitch, and was just as famous for his smoking, drinking and drugging exploits as he was for his womanising. A bit like any number of modern day players really, but without the kiss-and-tells in the News Of The World. Or, in Rio Ferdinand’s case, the free-scoring on the pitch part. Allegedly.
As Paolo Hewitt and Guigsy (from Oasis) wrote in the single’s sleevenotes…
Robin Friday was a nonconformist and lived every second of his life with an intensity that burned for all to see. Friday not only flicked V signs at goalies who stood no chance against his prowess but he flicked V signs at anyone who tried to tame him. He was the superstar of the suburbs, the one who made George Best look like a lightweight.
Indeed. He once kicked Mark Lawrenson in the face, something that many of you here would no doubt jump at the chance of doing too. Perhaps that’s why Lawrenson now speaks in that ridiculous singsong school girly voice? Who knows, but surely after reading the sleevenotes above, the question on everyone’s minds is now, “How much of that did Guigsy write?”
*Bonus Track!
No bonus tracks as such. The 2 additional remixes on the MDGAF single were rather lacklustre beats ‘n bangs ‘n clatters mixes that just about survived one whole play before being filed away for 15 years. I’ve just played them for the 2nd time ever whilst writing this and honestly, you never need to hear them. But I’ve featured loads of Super Furry Animals before –Â I’m particularly proud of the hidden tracks article I wrote a couple of years ago. For anything else, use the ‘Search‘ facility!
Sometimes it’s not about the hard-to-find, the rare, the obscure, the long-forgotten must-have on that uber-hip label. Nope. Sometimes it’s the simple things. The sun comes out, a smile breaks out and you need to state the bloody obvious – She Bangs The Drums by The Stone Roses is magic. And so were the b-sides.
The Stone Roses were the soundtrack to my summer of 1989, but if you’ve been here before you’ll know that already. She Bangs The Drums was released right at the height of the baking hot summer (if memory serves me correctly) and in discography terms is the middle cog in a great run of 1! 2! 3! singles, sandwiched between the band’s first great single, Made Of Stone and the band’s last great single, Fools Gold. She Bangs The Drums is unashamed pure pop, guitar-driven and saccharine sweet with a great pay -off line in the vocals.
“Kiss me where the sun don’t shine. The past is yours but the future’s mine…you’re all out of time.”
Aye, The Stone Roses came from Manchester, but they despised the city’s musical legacy. They hated The Smiths and they would never have dreamed of signing for Factory. So what if their youthful arrogant streak wore off on certain other monobrowed bands of the locality, at that moment in time The Stone Roses were the greatest thing on the planet. They were my Beatles and my Stones and by the time of Fools Gold they were my Family Stone too.
She Bangs The Drums was released at a time when vinyl was king (“I can feel the earth begin to move, I feel my needle hit the groove” and all that), when bands thought carefully about what to put on the b-sides and is a perfect summation of all The Stone Roses stood for at that time. Guitar riffs, fantastic drumming, those whispered vocals (thankfully not as out of tune as they usually were in the live setting). The other tracks are just as good.
Mersey Paradise with its see-sawing 12 string chiming guitars, tambourines on hi-hats and a terrific “oh yeah..!” whispered vocal break in the last chorus would’ve made a great single in itself, but clearly the self-belief in the band at this time was such that they could stick a song like Mersey Paradise on a b-side. Plus, they were working up to Fools Gold which is much better.
Standing Here took up all of the second side of the 12″. It was pure proto-Hendrix, all squealing guitars, feedback and riffs! riffs! riffs! before falling apart into a coda that ebbed and flowed like the California surf itself. For a while it was my party piece. My crappy electric guitar would feedback brilliantly whenever I held a particular note on the 13th fret and I could replicate the intro pretty faithfully. I never did master the wee incidental riffs behind the vocals though.
Simone was the extra track on the CD single. It’s one of those backwards sound collage thingys that John Squire was fond of putting together, where he takes a standard Stone Roses track, plays it backwards through the mixing desk and adds all manner of stuff on top. Simone takes the backing track for the relatively obscure Where Angels Play (released on the Australian version of the I Wanna Be Adored single) and builds it into something of an ambient oddity. The pinnacle of this aproach is, of course, Don’t Stop, the backwards version of Waterfall that’s on the debut album. All the rage for listening to whilst on whatever you were on in the second summer of love.
Bonus track!
Something I’ve meant to do for ages! I took Simone, reversed it using Audacity, et voila! The instrumental version of Where Angels Play, with added whoosing noises and general pseudo-psychedelic tomfoolery. Who needs John Leckie?
Come in, Come Out originally appeared on the b-side of The La’s There She Goes 12“. It’s the slinkier, groovier progeny of Captain Beefheart playing Ian Dury’s Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and personifies that La’s Rattle ‘n Roll tag that they were fond of banding about around 1988.
Come In, Come Out is one of only 20 songs officially released by The La’s – (count ’em!) – 12 on the album plus 8 assorted b-sides, but thanks to a combination of fans with magpie-like tendencies, generous studio engineers and the Go! Discs not-quite warts ‘n all box set from last year, there are numerous versions available to even yer casual La’s enthusiast. Of course, yer casual La’s enthusiast might struggle to hear the difference between any of the versions, but yer proper fully signed-up card carrying Dole Pay Me So Far La We Go La’s enthusiasts like myself can spot every little minutae of detail between the riffs. Slow versions. Fast versions. Frantically scrubbed skiffly acoustic versions. Who-rockin’ electric versions. Live versions. Abandoned studio versions……..
Of course, The La’s abandoned just about everything they ever put to tape. But you knew that already. It’s good to know though, that even the stuff they considered below par is still a whole lot better than many of their contemporaries’ output. Hey, it’s better than many bands’ output, full stop. Just be thankful those fans with the magpie-like tendencies and the studio engineers with the pile of C90s at the ready were around at the time. Here’s three versions. All different. All slinky. All groovy. All good in their own way.
Come In, Come Out Mick Moss acoustic version, recorded April 1987. An early take. This‘ll be one of those the frantically scrubbed skiffly versions – it’s less than a minute and a half long. No Ian Dury riff yet, but it’s ace!
Come In, Come Out John Leckie mix. Fast, frantic and full of r’nb riffing and skittery Keith Moon-esque drums, this is a right proper knee-trembler behind the bike sheds, the sound of The Marquee in 1964. The percussion sounds like it was played on a selection of kitchen pots and pans. Listen out for Mavers’ skirling percussive guitar trills, frills and fills towards the end. What a rhythm player!
Come In, Come Out Steve Lillywhite mix. Slow, bluesy, druggy and fuggy. Or just plain half-arsed. You decide. Any musos out there are sure to appreciate the nice percussive ‘clunk‘ on the off-beat. Rather uniquely for a Lillywhite recording, this doesn’t feature any backing vocals from his his estranged wife Kirsty MacColl.
I curse the day I named this website philspector.com instead of plainorpan.com, but there’s nothing much I can do about that now. I kinda like the fact that the odd misguided soul wanders over here expecting to find Phil’s latest gossip from behind whichever bars he’s behind. I’m sure if they looked around before they left they’d find an interesting article and some decent music to content themselves with. I’ve long been a fan of Phil Spector and his terrifically over the top Wall Of Sound productions on records by The Ronettes, The Crystals, Darlene Love, etc etc…..I could go on, but you know them all yourself.
Phil ‘n Ronnie Spector. Clearly, Phil suffered from ‘wee man’ syndrome.
Phil Spector’s music gets played fairly regularly round here. Two and a half minute pocket symphonies of teenage angst, unrequited love, cheating and heartbreak that rush past in a crack of a castanet and a tumble of toms, soaked in enough reverb to drown in. Phil Spector knew what he was doing right enough. Thinking outside the box, he was a true production maverick, double and triple-tracking everything, re-taking and re-doing seemingly perfect takes, pushing the artists to their very outer limits – read/hear here if you haven’t already. And the instrumentation! Wow! Big on rhythm, big on beat, he used everything but the kitchen sink on these records (although they say if you listen closely to River Deep, Mountain High, the sound you hear in the background of the chorus actually is the studio’s kitchen sink being employed as some rudimentary rhythm machine or other.)
Hey Spector! You shoulda listened to these dating tips from the Shangri-La’s!
Or perhaps not. But you get the idea. Anyway, Phil Spector spawned a whole host of copycats and wannabe soundalikes and I’ve built up quite a collection of them. You’ll be well aware of The Shangri-La’s, who, for me at least, ARE teenage angst personified. They weren’t averse to the odd Spectoresque sweeping string and clattering castanet – have a listen to The Dum Dum Ditty. See? Then I Kissed Him by any other name, no? But what about The Girlfriends? The Bees and The Honey? Pussycats? The Whyte Boots? The Geminis? The Bitter Sweets? Each and every one are just as thrilling and just as vital as their more well-known rivals. Much like the music Lenny Kaye compiled for his Nuggets series, these bands and singers were less the one hit wonder and more the no-hit wonder and in common with Nuggets groups, many of the vocalists would achieve success later on in different groups.
The Girlfriends featured the young Darlene Wright. By the time she was married she was known as Darlene Love and sang on many of Spector’s records. She is responsible for the vocals on He’s A Rebel, Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), Today I Met The Boy I’m Gonna Marry and a whole lot of other (often uncredited) stuff that’s seeped from the airwaves, out into the ether and quietly planted it’s melodic seed in your head. I bet right now you’re singing that Christmas song to yourself. I am. Before working with Spector, Darlene and her vocal group The Girlfriends recorded My One And Only Jimmy Boy, a total rush of Da Doo Ron Ron handclaps, sleigh bells and tumbling toms.
“He’s my pri-ide! He’s my jo-oy! He’s my one and only Jimmy Boy!”
Darlene had a varied career and went on to work with the hip – John Phillips’ John, Wolfking of LA album and the happening – Elvis – you can see her in the background of the ‘That’s The Way It Is‘ 70s tour film. She also played Danny Glover’s wife in the Lethal Weapons films. But you knew that already.
The Honey and The Bees are a strange proposition. Seemingly sometimes referred to as Honey and the Bees, sometimes referred to as The Honeybees, it’s easier to find the recipe for Coca Cola online than it is to find any meaningful information about them. I have been able to glean that they were essentially The Cookies under a different name – they also recorded as The Cinderellas and The Palisades – and were essentially one band masquerading as four! Lead vocals on this, a cover of Dusty Springfield’s Some of Your Lovin‘ are by Barbara Alston, who later found fame as vocalist in Spector’s The Crystals. Y’see, in the same way that Wigan Athletic plucked Kilmarnock FC’s goal machine Conor Sammon from the relative obscurity of the SPL to the dizzy heights of, er, the bottom of the English Premier League (“The best league in the world!” – (C) the English media), Phil looked on these unknown groups as the fertile breeding ground for his Wall Of Sound productions, enticing the best players with hollow promises of fame, fame, fatal fame and a shot at the big time. Nothing much changes really.
The Whyte Boots are proof of that. Lori Burton and Pam Sawyer were two Brill Building staff writers who came up with the idea of creating a fictional group to front the street-tough, attitude-heavy songs they were writing. Cue The Whyte Boots. Their 1967 record Nightmare, all doom-goth descending piano and heartbeat drums, caused a bit of a furore at the time.
“No boy’s worth the trouble I’m in!” they heavy breath at the start and you know you’re in for the melodramatic ride of your life…..
“You can beat her, you can win!Get her, get her, push her to the ground!” it goes, until it’s obvious this is one catfight that’s got out of hand. The screams! The “What should I do? “Run! Run!” call and response vocals! The screaming police sirens! The way the song drops at the end when you realise the girl’s dead! Wow! Not even the Shangri-la’s went that far.
Mecury Records liked Lori Burton so much they let her record a whole album’s worth of this stuff. It’s called Breakout and has been described as “a classic New York pop-soul stomper of an album.” It is, it is.
I could write about this stuff all day…here’s a few other records that are low on information but high on melodrama and angst.
……and keeping the lipstick lacquered and the heartbreaks a-happenin’ today we have Cults, a terrific Brooklyn-based (of course) band who with You Know What I Mean have released what will absolutely, hands down, be my favourite single of 2011. I don’t tend to feature new music on here much, as things tend to be removed tout de suite by the DMCA (I know Drew at Acrosss The Kitchen Table had You Know What I Mean removed last week), so I’ll point you in the direction of their You Know What I Mean Soundcloud. You can’t download it, but you will want to buy it after listening. Believe me. I’m now off out in the hope I’ll pick up one of the ltd edition 7″s they’re releasing as part of Record Store Day. Form an orderly queue, please.
Going For Gold was a quiz show that ran for about 10 years between the mid 80s and mid 90s, broadcast usually after the lunchtime episode of Neighbours. Contestants came from all corners of the European Community to be asked general knowledge questions (in English) by genial Irishman Henry Kelly – “Who am I? I am an inventor. I was born in Scotland in 1869.” etc etc. What always amazed me about the show was that all contestants could understand and answer the questions in English. Indeed, Olaf from Finland and Gretchen from Germany always, always had a better grasp of the English language than Sue from Sussex and Karen from Coatbridge. In the final round, one contestant had control of the board and Kelly would always say to their opponent, “You’re playing catch-up!”
Once a year I like to round up some of the best music on Plain Or Pan and put it centre-stage for a second time. I like to think all the music I put on here is fantastic in it’s own way, but there are some things that are downloaded/searched for/requested far more regularly than others. The search facility about half-way down on the right there works fairly well (try it!), but I appreciate that sometimes it’s nice to have things put on a plate for you. If you’re a relative newcomer to this blog and you’re not sure what you may have missed out on, this post is for people like you. As Henry Kelly would say, “Olaf, you’re playing catch-up…”
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Who am I? I am a singer-songwriter. I started out my career singing doo-wop with a vocal group known as The Moonglows. When they broke up I began playing as a session drummer at Motown Records before stepping out from behind the kit and standing in front of the microphone. In my time at Motown I added an ‘e‘ to the end of my name, recorded many memorable solo tracks and duets, changed the way the record company viewed the merits of albums and married and divorced the boss’s daughter, resulting in one of the bitterest break-up albums of all time. Who am I? I am Marvin Gaye. And these are the unedited studio master tracks for I Heard it Through The Grapevine. Original article here.
How about some more Motown vocal-only tracks? Get them via here. Want more of this sort of stuff? Search ‘studio master tapes‘ in the ‘whityeherefur?‘ box over there on the right…
What am I? I am another studio outtake. I am a famous song by a famous band, some say that band’s best track (although you could easily argue the case for many of their other records.) Rolling Stone magazine (there’s a clue right there) put me at #38 in their list of Greatest Songs Ever in 2004, which makes me just better than Buddy Holly’s That’ll Be The Day but not quite as good as No Woman, No Cry by Bob Marley. My lyrics predict rape and murder and are a fitting epitaph on the death of the 60s which is just a shot away. What am I? I am Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones. Here is the astonishing Mick ‘n Merry vocal-only track. And here is Keith’s rather groovy lead guitar track. Original article here. Sit down before listening, you may just be blown away.
There’s some terrific Curtis Mayfield stuff via here and here. And there’s some excellent Sly Stone stuff here and here. There’s a whole lotta soul on Plain Or Pan. Whiteyeherefur? Use it!
It’s well documented that Led Zeppelin didn’t so much re-write the blues as nick it riff by riff. Rape and murder, indeed. Compare Jimmy Page’s Dazed and Confused to the relatively-unknown Jake Holmes’ version here. I often contrast and compare the merits of originals v covers v blatantly plagiarised words and music. Type ‘double whammy’ or ‘triple whammy‘ into ‘Whiteyeherefur?‘ and see what you can find…
I could go on and on. Or you could use the ‘Whityeherefur?’ facility. Or you could just go through month-by-month, year-by-year. It’ll take you a while. But then, it’s taken me a while too. Last year’s round-up of all things good about Plain Or Pan can be found here, including links to Johnny Marr’s Dansette Delights, The Ronettes vocal-only version of Be My Baby and the now-legendary Plain Or Pan Compilation CDs. So much to choose from, so much to grab. Go! Go! Go!
Has it really been 20 years since Screamadelica was released? Well, no actually. Primal Scream‘s meisterwork first saw the light of day at the end of September 1991, but we’ll not split hairs over a few short months. Bobby Gillespie certainly isn’t – the album has just been reissued in all sorts of sexy and expensive packaging and the Scream Team juggernaut is currently zig-zagging its way across the country to any number of unfeasibly impersonal auditoriums near you as I type. It was in Glasgow the other night, in the luscious surroundings of the big red shed inside the SECC.
I didnae go. I prefer to remember the heady days of Screamadelica first-time around, crammed into the Barrowlands, Kriss Needs on the pre-gig decks mixing Prince into the Stones into Bo Diddley into Sly Stone and into my narrow-minded musical mind. Everything, from the warm-up DJ to the visuals to the energy of the band on-stage was truly spectacular and I doubt that anything like that could be created on this current tour, where a gang of outrageously pretentious musical outlaws has been replaced by a gang of outrageously pretentious musical outlaws with big bank balances and designer suits. And there’s the difference. Also, Denise Johnson isn’t doing the backing vocals and as anyone with half a brain knows, she was clearly the secret ingredient in the original make-up of the band. My pal Wullie was so taken by Denise he sent her a letter proclaiming his love for her and she actually wrote back with a letter scented in her perfume. In this day and age of 24hr accessibility to your favourite stars via Facebook, Twitter and whatever, that’s something that’ll unlilkely happen again.
However, the main reason I didn’t go is this – I’ve heard some of the recent concerts. The playing’s fine, great actually, but the singing! Man, the singing! Bobby was never a singer, but he was always true to his Glasgow roots. These days, he sounds far more Miami Florida than Mount Florida. It’s embarrassing and it’s laughable. Listen below to the intro before Slip Inside This House from London at the end of last year…
“C’mon, lets have uh pahrty! What the fuckhr ya heer fuhr? C’mon!” OMFG, as you youngsters might say. I know what you’re here for though….
The Music
Moving On Up as done by Edwin Starr. Good God! Taken from a lo-fi source, sadly.
Come Together (live in London. 26.11.10. The full 14 minute Elvis-in-Memphis Suspicious Minds guitar version that morphs into the Weatherall groove ‘n gospel choir. C’est magnifique.
Screamadelica (the track of the same name that didn’t make the album. One of the first things I blogged. It’s essential, so it is. But you knew that already)
Can – You Doo Right (it’s 20 minutes long…..(yawn)…..but listen to the words. Then go and listen again to Moving On Up. Oh! Was it an influence on Bobby, or was he just under the influence when he nicked it?)
BONUS!
You can see a documentary about the making of Screamadelicahere. Amongst other things you’ll find out it was Robert Young and not Bobby that sang almost all of the vocal on Slip Inside This House. Who knew, eh? Worth half an hour of your time any day of the week.
HELP!
Does anyone have a copy of Don’t Fight It, Feel It from a Select magazine tape from around 1992? It was taken from a Japanese concert I think and the band played Hey Bulldog half-way through the track. It was quite fantastic if I remember and I’d love a copy of it again.
Thanks to Scott over at Spools Paradise -that live-in-Japan version of Don’t Fight It, Feel It I was after is here.
Bird, bird, bird, b-bird’s the word. Ah well-a bird, bird, bird, b-bird’s the word….
Everybody loves Surfin Bird, right? My 9 year old daughter does. My 4 year old son does. I’d love to tell you that, thanks to their Dad’s rockin’ record collection, they too had developed an ear for the finer things in life and were uber-hip connoisseurs of 60s garage rock. But that would clearly be not true. No, they developed a liking for Surfin Bird’s gibberish nonsense thanks to a game for the Nintendo Wii. I like a game on the old Wii as much as the next person (I have an unhealthy obsession with playing Mario Kart online) and I had no time for those singin’ and dancin’ interactive games that go down well at New Year parties and the likes until Mrs Pan brought home Just Dance, a game (if you don’t know already) where 2 or more people have a dance-off, by following a sequence of steps demonstrated on-screen by a cavorting character in the corner. And there, sitting happily inbetween Who Let The Dogs Out? and Womaniser was The Trashmen’s Surfin Bird replete with dance steps provided by a pork-pie wearing Blues Brothers sillhouette. Mental. It’s probably its inclusion on this game that helped propel Surfin Bird to Number 3 on yer actual Top 40 charts last Christmas, helped on its way by one of those anti-X Factor Facebook campaigns.
Cue Dvorak’s New World Symphony (the Hovis advert music, ya philistine) but when I were a lad I didn’t have X Factor or Facebook or fancy computer games to stimulate my musical tastes. Like most of you on here I had LPs. My going out song of choice was always Surfin Bird. Not The Trashmen‘s original verison (I’d love to tell you differently, but I had no idea who The Trashmen were at this point). Nah, I loved The Ramones ridiculously thrashed out version on It’s Alive – the first Ramones LP I owned and quite obviously The. Best. Live. Album. Ever. (even if on CD it sounds fragile-flat and as spidery-thin as one of Joey Ramone’s limbs). From that Ramones live version I progressed to their studio version from ’77s undeniably essential Rocket To Russia LP.
From The Ramones, it was but a small crepe-footed step to The Cramps, and their cheesegrater-thin hootin’ and a-hollerin’ gutter-punk version from Off The Bone (where I first read the words ‘Alex Chilton‘). A few years later and I’m watching Full Metal Jacket and up pops Surfin Bird once again, this time in the original (aha! or so I thought!) version by garage-surf punks The Trashmen. Clearly, I came to Surfin Bird back to front.
A young, pre-1980′ s SAW-era Rick Astley, 2nd right. Who knew?
So it was a bit of a surprise to realise some time later that Surfin Bird as I knew it had actually began life as 2 separate doo-wop tracks, recorded in the early 60s by The Rivingtons, a black r ‘n b quartet who could effortlessly churn out the sort of 4-part harmonies that Brian Wilson was trying to replicate in studio sessions with The Beach Boys. Surfin Bird as I knew it was made by welding together The Bird’s The Word (aye!) and Papa Oom-Mow-Mow (oh aye!), 2 slabs of primo-cool duh-duh-duh-duh………woo-oooh! American doo-wop. Everbody loves a bit of doo-wop, eh? If you only listen to 2 doo-wop tracks this year……etc etc blah bla blah….
*BONUS TRACK!
Possibly in a bid to please those right-on 60s bra-burning feminists, The Rivingtons also recorded Mama Oom-Mow-Mow. It sounds just like you’d expect it to.
Plain Or Pan 