Category: Hard-to-find

Hard-to-find

Frying Tonight

Craig McAllister

Currently receiving no end of constant rotation in the car at the moment is the snappily-titled compilation ‘A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind Volume 1 – Cosmic Space Music’. Curated by The Future Sound Of London’s alter-egos Amorphous Androgynous, it does exactly what it says on the tin. No less a musical visionary than Noel Gallagher mentioned it in his end of year best of list and regardless of what you think of his own particular brand of retro rock, this compilation is the real deal. I’m quite excited by the prospect of another Oasis album, cos if the monobrowed dwarf’s magpie tendencies are anything to go by, it promises to be an absolute cracker. Fingers crossed.

Here’s three taster tracks from Disc 1. I could’ve picked anything to give you a flavour of the album but, really, if you ain’t got this album yet, well, blah blah blah, etc etc, slevver….

pop-levi

No. It’s not Kasabian. Keep reading.

First up, a track by Pop Levi called ‘Blue Honey’. This track sounds like a strange long-lost cousin of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Keep On Runnin”, but with Robert Plant on vocals. It’s extremely heavy on the hammond (maaan) and sounds like it was recorded round about 1972. Imagine my surprise then when after a bit of GoogleWiki-ing, I discovered that Pop Levi is a Liverpudlian who only started making records 5 years ago. Lauren Laverne (mmmmm) tipped him for big things in 2007, but so far the world and all it’s riches still awaits him. Shame, as if Blue Honey is anything to go by, his work has been seriously overlooked. I’m off to play.com as soon as I finish typing this.

betty-davis1

Uh huh!

As something of a musical historian, I am more aware of Betty Davis. Soul siren from the sixties and seventies, she was known as Betty Mabry until marrying Miles Davis. Clearly, Miles’ own brand of don’t-give-a-fuck freakydom rubbed off on his wife. The fact that she ‘knew‘ (cough, allegedly) Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix only enhances her reputation to this writer. She is one little minx! ‘If I’m Lucky I Might Get Picked Up‘ is a raw throated paen to the joys of one night stands. “Raunchy dancin’…I’m shakin’ my fanny!” In the West of Scotland that means a whole different thing, but we know what she means, eh boys?

mountain-machine

The Betty Davis track segues into a track called ‘Mountain Machine’ by a band called Mountain Machine. Rather embarrassingly, my ignorance of the underground knows no limits. This lot are currently on the go, with an album out and a MySpace page and everything. Acoustic guitars fight for equal billing with some Moog-y sounding effects, backwards guitars and a fuzz toned riff that could be Black Sabbath in their hey day. This track is an instrumental, with the focus firnly on the mental part. Download it, turn it up and fry your ears. Then get on down to play.com where you have at least 3 new purchases to make. See you there!

Cover Versions, entire show, Hard-to-find

The Queen Is Dead….Long Live The Queen

Craig McAllister

My wee girl likes Hannah Montana, High School Musicals 1, 2 and 3 and all that sort of pre-teen garbage. A particular favourite of hers at the moment is Camp Rock, the story of a poor girl who finds herself at a summer school full of rich, beautiful and talented teenagers all intent on making their mark in the business of show. But you don’t need to know that. However. ‘Camp Rock’! I always have a wee snigger at that title. In my head I can picture Freddie Mercury in a puff-sleeve blouse singing “Scaramouch scaramouch do the fandango.” Camp rock. Hee hee. But from today that’s all changed.

morrissey1

Ooh! You are awful!

Morrissey played an intimate show for Radio 2 a couple of nights ago. I missed it at the time but caught it on the iPlayer last night. Initial reactions were….well…..I dunno. His new stuff sounds OK. Just OK. Not the triumphant return to form that you either a) secretly hope for or b) that the arse-licky journalists are required to write in order to have an audience with the grumpy old so-and-so. Highlight for me by a country mile was when he sang ‘This Charming Man’. I don’t have my Smiths history books to hand at the moment, and the old Smiths hardrive I keep somewhere in my brain is playing up, so I can’t tell you exactly when the last time he sang this song, but it was a long, long time ago.

The version he did the other night had me pining for the chiming guitars of Johnny Marr. This version was so LA rock it hurt. Devoid of any subtlety at all, the twin guitars bludgeon the chords to death and it ended up sounding like the bastard offspring of ‘Lust For Life’. If you are in the UK, you can watch it here. See Morrissey in all his barrel-chested, receding hairlined glory. Who ate all the (vegetarian) pies? If you are not in the UK, he looks a bit like Peter Mandelson. Go and google him. As he said himself on Wednesday night, “Life, in all it’s disgusting glory, goes on.” Yeah, so it’s not The Smiths. That’s obvious. But (whisper it)…………I quite like it. Camp rock indeed. I prefer this version though…

At the end of his set he also did a version of old Smiths’ b-side ‘I Keep Mine Hidden’, from the ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’ single if my afore-mentioned hardrive is correct. All tumbling piano riffs and power chords, I also (cough) liked this one (a lot, if truth be told after repeated plays) even if he didn’t do any of the whistling that he does on the original version. If you’re interested in the whole show, it’s here.

So. Not sure what to make of the latest version of Morrissey. I want to like him. I think I like him. But I’m not sure. If he was an artist I didn’t have any history with I’d not even bother with him. But if you are a music lover of a certain vintage (approaching 40 (fuck!)) you have to afford him some of your time. You might not be too keen on Morrissey the musician anymore, but we all still need Morrissey the popstar. “This Charming Man is about being charming, which so few people are these days. I think it’s nice to install these words into people’s brains and who knows, it might rub off on a new generation. We don’t have to be violent, or ugly, or arrogant, just be charming. And what a pleasant world that would be.”

*Bonus track. Stars verion of ‘This Charming Man’. I heard this in Gap a few years ago and spent ages tracking it down. I think you’ll like it.

And another thing. If you’re a fan of all things Morrisseyesque, you could do worse than add The Vinyl Villain to your favourites. Every Friday VV puts up a Friday I’m In Love…With Morrissey post. I’m sure today will be no different.

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

The Making Of A Great Compilation Tape…

Craig McAllister

Stubborn kind of fellow. Marvin Gaye sang a song with the same title but to all intents and purposes he could be talking about himself. Fed up with the non-stop rollercoaster of  Motown promotion and hard-sell and at the same time defying the orders of label boss Berry Gordy (who wanted instant hit after hit), he set up camp for the best part of a year recording what many of us consider to be his masterpiece, ‘What’s Going On’.

I expect most of you here to know about the socio-political overtones in the lyrics, about how at the time (1971) such things were no-go for someone in Gaye’s world of work. You could argue that Marvin pushed open all sorts of doors with ‘What’s Going On’. Certainly, Stevie Wonder’s political work was just around the corner, but Marvin was one of the first mainstream million-selling artists to start writing this sort of stuff. Nowadays anyone from Take That to Leona Lewis can have a political conscience, but Marvin’s work was truly groundbreaking. What makes it all the better was that he cajoled, coerced and conducted the Funk Brothers into playing the grooviest music imaginable. Political music doesn’t have to be flat and one dimensional. Billy Bragg, sit up and listen when I’m talking to you.

marvin-gaye-wgo-sessions

Marvin cajoles, coerces and conducts the Funk Brothers

Listen to this. An instrumental (with the odd leaked Marvin backing vocal thrown in at the end) ‘rhythm ‘n’ strings’ version of the title track of ‘What’s Going On’. Listen to that bassline! Listen to those vibes! The clipped guitar! The finger clicks! The sweeping strings! The bongos, man! THIS IS MUSIC!

Marvin took the same approach to recording a couple of years later when writing ‘Let’s Get It On’. An album dedicated to love, sex and all that sort of stuff, you could be forgiven for thinking that it might sound like a slushy mess if you’ve never heard it. Far from it. Like the album before, Gaye pushes the Funk Brothers to their limits (and they have some seemingly never-ending limits) and makes another belter of an album.

I was always in denial about ‘Let’s Get It On’ as an album. Nothing could ever match up to ‘What’s Going On’ and I thought it was slushy romantic crap the first time I heard it. Played it once then filed it away. Then I heard the title track again, at the end of ‘High Fidelity’ when Jack Black’s band sing it. Instant re-appraisal. Jack Black turned me back on to ‘Let’s Get It On’! S’true!

Listen to the original studio demo of ‘Let’s Get It On’. A bit rougher round the edges than the version Jack Black loves but smooth enough to suggest something might happen upstairs sometime soon. Actually, it’s very smooth. Flutes, piano, backing vocals, wah-wah’d guitar, saxophone. This is one lush demo. I like my demos to feature a wee bit of studio chat and the odd bum note here and there. This one is no different. Except I’ve never heard the Funk Brothers never play a bum note, ever. Even on a demo.

gaye-lgio

Marvin hears that all-too-familiar squeak of the bedsprings from the upstairs neighbours and decides to write ‘Let’s Get It On’.

‘Running From Love’ was an instrumental that never Marvin quite managed to find a complete set of lyrics for, so never made the final cut of the album. Shame, as this version with fuzzed intro makes it sound like some long-lost Blaxploitation theme. The other version is slicker and smoother and would make great incidental music on a chocolate advert. Ideal, indeed, for gettin’ it on. With Valentine’s Day but a few days away, what better present to give your loved one than a CD of these downloaded beauties? And if he/she thinks it’s the worst present in the world…ever, then you’ve got to ask yourself if they’re really worth the effort.

marvin_gaye_in_studio

Double Nugget, Hard-to-find

‘I Need You’ Double Nugget Double Whammy

Craig McAllister

‘I Need You’ first appeared as the b-side of The Kinks‘ 1965 single ‘See My Friends’. A proto-punk garage band belter of a track, it starts of with some nifty Dandy Dave Davis feedback and continues kicking and screaming it’s way through some clattering drum breaks, decent ‘aaah-aaah’ backing vocals and the obligatory screaming guitar solo before ending in exactly the same fashion as ‘All Day And All Of The Night’. These days you can get it as one of the extra tracks on the CD reissue of ‘Kinda Kinks’, or on the first disc of the hit ‘n’ miss 6 CD Kinks box set, ‘Picture Book’. Or you can get it here.

 

kinks-roof

The Kinks. Of Kourse.

The Rationals came from Detroit. Arguably the first in a long line of classic garage blues bands from the area (Amboy Dukes/Iggy & the Stooges/MC5/Mitch Ryder/White Stripes/Soledad Brothers/Dirtbombs/Detroit Cobras/ etc etc etc), like most beat groups of their era they took up arms after being wooed by the sounds of The Who, The Kinks, The Stones and that other lot a-blasting across the Atlantic.

rationals

Guess who?

Using The Kinks version as a blueprint for their brief career, The Rationals’ 1968 version of ‘I Need You’ replicates the original, right down to the gutterpunk feedback at the start. Difference is, their version is about twice as fast and twice as raw. Better screaming guitar solo too.

I went to see John McCusker, Roddy Woomble and Kris Drever play last night. They were fantastic. They were supported by Boo Hewerdine and a girl called Heidi who could really sing. Even the first support act, 2 local teenage lads, one dressed like he was off to see Green Day, the other calling himself Tragic O’Hara were decent. They finger picked their way through a brief set of ‘my women done gone and left me and all I got left is this here empty bottle‘ type stuff. A bit cliched perhaps, but give them time. It was busy too. I’m telling ya, folk is the new indie. Keep it up lads!  

Listening to the ‘hip‘ output on BBC6 Music this week, it’s clear we really need records/artists like these above. If bands like Bloc Party can continually get away with releasing records that sound like a half-finished argument with Pro-Tools and White Lies are ‘the next big thing’, I think I might find myself mining by-gone eras for hidden treasure. Keep visiting to find out!

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Studio master tapes, studio outtakes

Johnny Marr’s Dansette Delights

Craig McAllister

For Johnny Marr, the 7″ is king. The latest edition of Mojo has him picking his 10 essential 7″s (+ 6  8! bonus tracks). He’s even designed a CD cover as well. All you need is the music…..

johnny_marr_3

I’ve lifted the picture above and some of the text below from Mojo’s website. Credit where it’s due and that.
1. Del Shannon
Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun)
(Stateside B-side, 1964)
Johnny Marr: “The influence of [A-side] The Answer To Everything on me when writing Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want is well documented so I picked its sister record, this time. It was the sound of the house when I was little.”
2. The Rolling Stones
Get Off Of My Cloud
(Decca single, 1965)
Johnny Marr: “The main thing I took from Keith Richards was his musical ideology; that there is a nobility in playing rhythm guitar and being the engine room and steering the ship, all these very valorous concepts which he threw in the face of guitar culture in the early ’70s.”
3. T.Rex
Metal Guru
(T-Rex Wax Co. single, 1972)

Johnny Marr: “It’s so beautiful and commercial but slightly weird and I could not believe what I was hearing because it was so all-encompassing. It connected with something beyond my regular senses.”

4. The Isley Brothers
Behind A Painted Smile
(Tamla Motown B-side, 1969)

Johnny Marr: “Motown provided a fantastic alternative to the rock music my mates were getting into. I ventured into this place called Rare Records on John Dalton Street in Manchester, I went into the basement and I remember to this day it was like a sea of future happiness.”

5. Iggy And The Stooges
Gimme Danger
(Raw Power LP track, CBS 1973)

Johnny Marr: “I remember getting on the bus and just staring at the front cover in disbelief all the way home. I wasn’t disappointed when I played it because it sounded like I thought it would. It was mysterious, sexy, druggy, riffy and to-the-point.”

6. The Crystals
There’s No Other Like My Baby
(Philles single, 1961)

Johnny Marr: “There is an unpretentiousness to it, and compared to what was passing itself off as weird in rockland with prog music at the time this just sounded weirder to me, and it seemed to come from an odder dimension.”

7. Blondie
Hanging On The Telephone
(Chrysalis single, 1978 )

Johnny Marr: “It reminds me of going to parties and really complaining that I didn’t want to hear Peaches by The Stranglers for the eleventh time and going through record collections with all that ELO shit in them and pulling out *Parallel Lines and going, ‘Alright then, let’s listen to this very, very loud!’”

8. Bob And Marcia
Young Gifted And Black
(Harry J single, 1970)

Johnny Marr: “It was one of the records that both Morrissey and myself liked in the same way. It reminded us both of being youthful fanatics and being outside of the norm… Then, amazingly, when [New Order’s] Bernard Sumner and I started to get close we both discovered that we liked that record in the same way.”

9. The Equals
Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys
(President single, 1970)

Johnny Marr: “Some records you wear down and you wear out but this one… I remember it from being out from when I was a kid but unlike some of the other tracks I play, I don’t listen to it for that reason, I like it because it reminds me of something shared between me and my mate.”

10. The Cribs
Hey Scenesters
(Wichita single, 2005)

Johnny Marr: “A fantastic working class street rock’n’roll 45 that could only have come from a band in this country. It’s like, Move over, this is the new generation. The Jarmans are as hip as street musicians get from any generation.”

Bonus Tracks:

Paul Davidson – Midnight Rider (Tropical single, 1976)

Johnny Marr: “Aside from Keith Richards’ on Gimme Shelter, Midnight Rider contains my favourite ever guitar solo.”

 

Alternative TV – Action Time Vision (Deptford Fun City single, 1978 )
Built To Spill – In Your Mind (Ancient Melodies Of The Future LP track, WEA, 2001)
The Drifters – I Count The Tears (Atlantic, 1960)
Johnny Marr: “If you were to play this to the other members of The Smiths it would remind them of being in a band with me. I used to sing and play it on the guitar when we weren’t recording and forced everyone to sing along. They learned to love it!”

Hamilton Bohannon – Disco Stomp (Dakar/Brunswick, 1975)
No direct quote from Johnny, but he’s said before that Disco Stomp influenced the swampy rhythm of How Soon Is Now. That record, and undoubtedly a huge side order of Bo Diddley.


TV On The Radio – Wolf Like Me (4AD single, 2006)

!!!Extra Bonus Tracks!!!

Del Shannon – The Answer To Everything

Johnny Marr: “The influence of ‘The Answer to Everything’ on me when writing ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’ with The Smiths is well documented.” It is? ! ?

Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter (Guitar track from recording session)

Johnny Marr: “Keith Richards was badass. His solo on ‘Gimme Shelter’ is my favourite ever guitar solo.“

johnny_cd_artwork

 

Download the entire set + artwork here.

I’ve written about Johnny Marr before. Have a read here

***Woops! Numpty Alert!

In my haste to bring you this excellent compilation, I mistakenly put the wrong TV On The Radio track on the album. Playing it in the car today I though, “Hang on! That’s not ‘Wolf Like Me’! Idiot!” But this is. So if you downloaded the .rar file previously, you’ll need it to correct the tracklisting on the compilation You can also download front and back cover artwork here (made by my good self). Ta!

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.