Category: Hard-to-find

Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Happy Birthday Rabbie

Craig McAllister

250 years young today. I love Burns. Had him drummed into me at school. In fact, anyone who goes to school in the West of Scotland knows all about him. And as a teacher, I love banging on about him to my class. Here’s a brief history for any uninitiated out there…

robert-burns

Born on the 25th January, 1759 in Alloway (now a posh part of Ayr). Scrawny boy, wasn’t expected to live long. Helped his dad on the farm. Wasn’t cut out for it. His dad, though poor, paid for Robert to go to school. Robert excelled in academia. Began writing poems to go along with the folk songs his mother had sung to him. People liked them. Drifted around Ayrshire. Had a reputation as a ladies man. Loved them and left them. Made plans to go to Jamaica as a slave driver (they don’t tell you that in school). Was just about to go when someone in Kilmarnock published the first edition of his poetry. This edition made it’s way to Edinburgh and Robert followed. The Edinburgh high society loved him. He loved their women. He loved life. Spent the equivalent in today’s terms of £170,000! That’s £170,000 pissed against a wall. Made a hasty retreat, skint, to Dumfries when he was caught having an affair. Married Jean Armour, the love of his life and went back to the farming. Hated it. Became a tax man. Hated that. Died of a heart condition aged on 21st July 1796, aged just 37. At the time of his death he had fathered at least 13 children to various women throughout Ayrshire, Edinburgh and Dumfries. Stick that in yer pointy boots, Russel Brand.

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

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Round Round Get Around He Gets Around

Craig McAllister

Everyone’s favourite spectacle-sporting singer from The Best Band In The World…Ever (that’ll be the Teenage Fanclub) Norman Blake is no stranger to the odd side project or two. As well as playing in parallel with TFC and BMX Bandits until 1991 when, let’s face it, Teenage Fanclub became really really good and so much better than the Bandits, he’s also added his golden chords and vocals to records by The Pastels, Kevin Ayers, the Trashcan Sinatras and Bill Wells. And he plays tonight in Glasgow alongside Gorky’s Euros Childs. A walking side project for hire, the Bellshill Beach Boy knows them all. This, then, is as good a time as any to point you in the direction of a few Norman Blake curios. Tracks that may have slipped underneath your Teenage Fanclub radar but would undoubtedly have become firm favourites by now, were they to have been presented as Teenage Fanclub records.

shoe004

In the mid/late 90s Norman teamed up with future Fannie Francis MacDonald as Frank Blake and in ’96 recorded a one-off limited single for Shoeshine Records. Being a collector of all things Fanclub-related I naturally have a copy. ‘Don’t Let Love Pass You By’ is a slice of classic Blakery – a mid-paced love song with typically tricky jangling chords here and there. It even has the grace to start with the chorus so you know how it goes after the first 20 seconds. ‘Plastic Bag’ is a bit different. It sounds, for want of a better word, ‘light’, as in the total opposite of AC/DC. It passes by pleasantly enough, but those wonky keyboards and acoustic guitars have always been a bit too twee for these ears. Sorry Norman.

norman-dj

Frank Blake also recorded a version of Frank Zappa’s ‘Anyway The Wind Blows‘. I must confess that until recently I had no idea this was a cover version, so I was all over the internet until I could find a version of Zappa’s original. As it turns out, the cover is a fairly faithful reworking of the original. I have a version somewhere of Alex Chilton backed by the TFC live in Glasgow. They do a  grrrrreat version of it. I’ll have to dig that one out for your appraisal sometime  I took this quote from the Shoeshine Records website…

“I hadn’t heard any Frank Zappa and I was wondering what he sounded like. I thought his most musical thing would be his first thing so I got the first Mothers Of Invention LP. I started playing through it and ‘Anyway The Wind Blows’ was the really obvious pop song. I thought it was really good and would be fun to do. Again, it was all done pretty quickly and just sort of worked out on the spot because that’s the way Frank Blake like to work.”

Lastly, tucked away at the very end of a 2001 Shoeshine Records sampler I have ‘You Don’t Have To Cry’ by Frank ‘Jackson’ Blake. There are no sleevenotes with the sampler and I can find no information about this song/band line-up at all. I can only assume this is Blake, MacDonald and Belle & Sebastian’s Stevie Jackson, but I may be wrong. In any case, this track is a belter. It sounds like something the Everly Brothers would have done some time in 1961. In fact, ‘You Don’t Have To Cry‘ sounds so good it has to be a cover. Right? I think it’s a Gene Clark song. Yeah? It sure sounds like it. Someone help me out here.

teenagefanclubflyer

I’ve had this picture for ages and was looking for any excuse to put it up here. Cracker, eh?

Hard-to-find

Fuck this

Craig McAllister

for a game of soldiers. The internet police have gone and deleted all my music files. Again. I’m so angry and pissed off. I think this is where Plain Or Pan? ends. Thanks everyone.

Update!!!!!

Woah. Not so hasty. All files back up and running. Stick it to the man. Thanks for the kind comments and all that.

johnny-finger

Here’s those 4 Beatles Master Tapes I uploaded a while back…

Sgt Pepper

With A Little Help From My Friends

A Day In The Life

She’s Leaving Home

Hard-to-find

A Minefield Full Of Dynamite

Craig McAllister

I like northern soul, but beyond the obvious tracks and 3 or 4 ropey compilations in my collection, I find it a bit of a minefield. I’m certainly no expert on the subject – I’ll make that clear right now. I don’t know about art, but I know what I like and all that. I was digging through some of those ropey compilations the other day, looking for ‘new’ stuff to play in the car and I came across these two tracks of dynamite.

northernsoul

First up, Madeline Bell‘s ‘Picture Me Gone’. A quick bit of googlewiki (copyright Plain Or Pan?) tells me that Madeline Bell was born in America but came to the UK in the mid 60’s to make her way in the music business. Singing back-up to Dusty Springfield and, later, on early recordings by Elton John and Donna Summer no doubt paved the way. And meeting and recording a track with a pre-Led Zeppelin  John Paul Jones (1968’s ‘What Am I Supposed To Do?’) wouldn’t have done her any harm. But it’s ‘Picture Me Gone’ that she’s most well known and loved for in northern soul circles.

madelinebell

Picture Me Gone sounds a lot like Dusty in places, which is no bad thing. Plenty of horns, clipped guitar, sweeping strings and the odd key change, it’s northern soul personified for part-time northern soulers like myself.

mary-love

Also northern soul personified is Mary Love‘s ‘Lay This Burden Down’. A soul/gospel Christian evangelist, Mary Love was discovered in the mid 60’s by Sam Cooke’s manager who pointed her in the direction of Modern Records, where she started recording. These records became a big hit on the northern soul scene. I need to investigate them because if they are half as good as this track I’ll be finger-poppin all the way to the Wigan Casino. Is it still open?

(I know it’s closed). As you can see from the poster below, Mary Love still tours to this day. I need to get out more. I think I’m missing out on a whole subculture of music. If any experts out there would like to make me a decent northern soul compilation, feel free to get your CD Writer out and keep on burnin’! (ouch)

mary-love-live 

demo, Hard-to-find

I Do Like To Be b-side The Seaside

Craig McAllister

I heard this track properly for the first time a couple of days ago and it’s been on constant repeat since. I say properly because I’d heard it before, round about last summer, and it passed me by. But now I’ve come to realise that it may just be the best thing Glasvegas have ever recorded.

glsavegas

The wall of sound

Yeah, Glasvegas. Everyone has their opinion on them. Are they still cool? Were they ever? Who knows? Who cares? For what it’s worth, I like them. Maybe it’s because I’ve been hearing about them for the past couple of years from a friend who has family in the band. Maybe it’s because the best Christmas card I got this year was from the same friend, who sent me a picture of Glasvegas in Raybans and Santa hats. Those quiffs must’ve been a bit of a disaster after that photoshoot. Although they probably used Photoshop. The vain bastards. But I like Glasvegas. A lot. And I really like The Prettiest Thing On Saltcoats Beach. Stuck away on the b-side of the Geraldine single, it had been played once then filed away. Last week I was given a compilation CD from another friend and the last track was this track. For some reason, it stuck out. Maybe cos the other tracks weren’t very good? (not true, McMark)  But I played it again and again and again, and it’s playing right now.

sillhouette

Miss Pan jnr, the prettiest thing on Saltcoats beach, July 08

It begins with gentle waves crashing on the shore. Clearly a sample from some long-forgotten sound effects album, cos if you’ve ever been on Saltcoats beach you’ll know that the waves don’t break gently on the sand. There are 2 kinds of waves in Saltcoats: 1. Those big fuckers you get when it’s the middle of winter, blowing a gale, snowing and freezing and the TV cameras are there. And 2. The splashback from the Arran ferry as it comes into dock in Ardrossan, just up the beach. So, sound effect waves. They provide the drama as the track unfolds in melancholy fashion, all vibraphone, reverb, shimmer and twang. It reminds me a lot of those early Trashcan Sinatras b-sides (like ‘Skindiving‘ – go seek it out). It builds and builds and builds until the singer can’t take any more and it comes crashing down in a wave of white noise. It’s truly bathed in melodrama and pathos.

It makes Saltcoats sound like the most (cough) romantic place on Earth. Clearly it isn’t. If you’ve ever been to Saltcoats during the Glasgow Fair Fortnight you’ll know what I’m talking about. Dressed head to toe in Rangers or Celtic regalia, they come down to our bit of the world armed with crappy-ringtoned mobiles and plastic footballs, to eat our ice cream and litter the beach with empty bottles of Buckfast. And that’s just the women. To be called the prettiest thing on Saltcoats beach is a bit of hollow praise. But Glasvegas must’ve been down on a good day. ‘The Prettiest Thing On Saltcoats Beach’ does for Glasvegas what ‘The Boys Of Summer’ does for Don Henley. It’s a Scottish love song of the highest order. Burns would’ve been proud. In fact, I’d say it’s right up there on a par with Morrissey’s best work. He’d do a great version of it. And that would be something, wouldn’t it?

*Bonus track. 2006 demo recording of above track here.

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

Ingredients in a recipe for soul

Craig McAllister

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

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

temptations

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

ball-of-confusion-lyrics

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

undisputed-truth

The Undisputed Truth

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

bobby-womack-110street

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

bobby-womack-1972

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

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

aretha-67

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

 

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

Aye! Tunes! iCompiled for you

Craig McAllister

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

plain-or-pan-first-2-years

Tracklisting:

Disc 1

1. Sgt Peppers’ vocal track – The Beatles

2. Coca Cola – Jerry Lee Lewis

3. Son Of Sam acoustic – Elliott Smith

4. There She Goes promo – The La’s

5. All The Way Down  beat version – The Primitives

6. Boots – Lee Hazelwood

7. Just Dropped In – The Dap Kings

8. Baby I Love You vocal track – Ronettes

9. Hey Hey What Can I Do – Led Zeppelin

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

11. Your Time Is Gonna Come – Sandie Shaw

12. Mama You Been On My Mind – Rod Stewart

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

14. The Loner – Supergrass

15. Down By The River – Joey Gregorash

16. Southern Man – Sylvester and the Hot Band

17. Freaky Dancin’ – Happy Mondays

18. Filthy – St Etienne

19. Gimme Shelter  vocal track – Rolling Stones

20. Flume live MOKB/WEEM – Bon Iver

21. Grace – King Creosote

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

 

Disc 2

1. Monkey Gone To Heaven vocal track – The Pixies

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

3. About A Girl BBC session – Teenage Fanclub

4. Dead Leaves And Tne Dirty Ground – Nina Persson

5. Hanging On The Telephone – The Nerves

6. Down On The Street take 2 – The Stooges

7. Tradewinds – Super Furry Animals

8. Riders On The Storm outtake – The Doors

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

10. Coca Cola – Ray Charles & Aretha Franklin

11. Homework – John Lee Hooker

12. Stickman version 1 – Elliott Smith

13. Snow – Trashcan Sinatras

14. Moon River full-length version – Morrissey

15. Autumn Almanac BBC session – The Kinks

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

17. 99 Problems – Jay Z/The Beatles

18. Over  live in a stable– The La’s

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

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

   

 

 

Hard-to-find

Out with the old, in with the new

Craig McAllister

Or, out with the old missus, in with the new girlfriend. Paul Weller won’t want you to see this picture of him and his new squeeze lying pissed as the proverbials in some street in Prague last week, but it’s a belter. His trousers still look remarkably pressed and pristine, right enough. Even in a right old state he somehow manages to retain a sense of style. Old mods, eh?

weller-drunk

From the floorboards up he once sang. Here‘s the Lynch Mob remix.

Happy New Year to you all. Come back next year when I plan to be blogging much more frequently than of recent, with tons of interesting stuff. Pour me a Johnnie Walker red and let the countdown to the bells begin. Cheers!

*updated 2nd January. At some point in the near future I’m going to compile all those fantastic Lynch Mob remixes that have been done and put them up here. If you’ve never heard them they’ll blow the cobwebs out your ears. If you have heard them, you’ll realise that they would make an excellent mini album for yer iPod or the car. Until then, here‘s the Tone 396 remix of ‘Come On, Let’s Go’. (Got myself a new file host. Testing the water) “Sing you little fuckers, sing like you have no choice!” 

Hard-to-find, Peel Sessions

O Come All Ye Faith-Fall

Craig McAllister

Or the Fall-y and the Ivy. Or Mark The Herald Angels Sing. Or…you get the picture. Many bands have bent, buckled and bastardised yer favourite Christmas singalongs into their own unique shape, but none more so than The Fall. Unlike wet farts like Belle and Sebastian who go for that twee primary school choir effect (with bells on) (pass the sick bucket), The Fall know how to do it properly.

Peel Session #18 (broadcast 17 December 1994) saw Mark E Smith and co. tackle 2 festive favourites. Jingle Bell Rock is a cracker (pardon the pun). A clattering, twang-filled garage band run-through that clocks in at a breakneck 1 minute and 10 seconds long, it is especially joyful and triumphant as the lyrics have been changed to reflect the true Christmas spirit -“Post office hell….Friday night on Oxford Street…walking with green M&S bags…(and something incoherent about) sprouts“. Oh yes!

mark-fag

The Fall. Smokin’!

Hark The Herald Angels Sing sounds nothing like the version you sang at school. Complete with a jangling Brix Smith Rickenbacker riff and a skewiff choirboy vocal on the chorus, it sounds, well, like The Fall. It actually sounds like it could be something Mark E Smith wrote last week. “Christ, the everlasting Lord” he drawls, sounding like Jim Royle swearing at the X Factor on the telly. And if you pardon the pun again, it’s a cracker too.

Just a note to explain the lack of activity over the past week or so – a combination of work/home/Christmas stuff combined with the paranoia of being regularly watched over by the internet police has somewhat slowed me down. Hopefully, everything will be back in full working order in the new year. I certainly intend it to be. Keep visiting!

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

Strummertime blues

Craig McAllister

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

clash

Woo oo oo oo! Can you feel the force?

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

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

strummer-shane

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

joe_strummer-tele

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

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

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

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