Category: Hard-to-find

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

A right couple of Fannies

Craig McAllister

You might know this already, but I don’t follow a very successful football team, so whilst many of my friends have recently been shelling out literally thousands of pounds to follow either half of Glasgow’s Ugly Sisters on their European exploits, I justified my decision to buy tickets for 3 nights of Teenage Fanclub shows as my equivalent of the Champions League. Three nights at Oran Mor in the West End of Glasgow. ‘Electric Chestnuts’, ‘Acoustic Chestnuts’ and the one I’m looking forward to most, the ‘B-Sides and Rarities’ night.

Last night was the first of the 3 and we were treated to what was essentially a Teenage Fanclub Greatest Hits set. With Norman as Bill Gates on vocals. No kiddin’. He looks like Bill Gates these days! The sound was a bit muddy. I hope it’s sorted out for tonight, but anyway, it was of course a cracker of a show.

Where’s my axe?

You can find the setlist for last night’s ‘Electric Chestnuts’ below (muchos gracias, John S.) As they always do, the band finished with ‘Everything Flows’, their first single. No thanks to the couple of Fannys stood next to me who talked about going to ‘the Sellic gemmes’ with Brendan and Pat and Big Mick all the way through it. I bought ‘Everything Flows’  on 7″ the day after I saw Teenage Fanclub for the first time. They were supporting the Soup Dragons in the Garage. Anyway, I digress.

Setlist, Oran Mor Saturday 14.6.08

Many other musicians love ‘Everything Flows’. I have a Velvet Crush version on 7″ that’s no’ bad, but I don’t have the means to convert it at present. Until then…

Redd Kross ‘Everything Flows’

(Rockin’! – from tribute album ‘What A Concept’)

Gallygows ‘Everything Flows’

(Mellow! – Duglas T Stewart likes this one)

Teenage Fanclub ‘Everything Flows’

(Live! – Malmo, 5th July 2005)

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Peter Painter Painted Pete In Pastels

Craig McAllister

Acclaimed artist and Ayrshireman Peter Howson’s very stylised work sells for tens of thousands of pounds at a time. Many of his paintings are centered around what he has observed in life – hard working men down the mines of Ayrshire, hard drinking men in the rough-round-the-edges pubs we’ve all seen wherever we live. If you look closely enough you might also see a bit of religious imagery in there. At least, I think I can. He’s also painted The Queen, Henrik Larsson and Madonna in the nude (just Madonna, not the other two.) This weekend he has been in the headlines of most of the big papers.  He’s just unveiled 6 new works which depict Pete Doherty as dead.

It would appear that the Last of the Great Romantic Poets has a bit of a death wish. Some of you may think this is a good thing. Certainly, many would argue that his best years as a writer are behind him. Howson is no stranger to this sort of criricism himself. After a battle with drink and drugs he found God, then found himself on the frontline in Bosnia as the Governent’s Official War Artist. He says his paintings are a warning to Doherty, that he’s lived the scuzzy lifestyle himself and he fears Doherty will end up dead.

“I’ve painted Pete dead before he ends up that way. This is my warning to him. I don’t want him to die but he surely will soon unless he changes. Pete can influence a whole generation by kicking this evil habit. He could become the right kind of hero. I know what it is like to live the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. I would love to meet Pete and shake some sense into him.”

In one drawing, Doherty is wearing a Dante hat instead of his usual trilby. It’s a reference to Dante‘s poem Divine Comedy, about his trip to hell.

Pete’s people said: “I don’t believe Howson knows Peter so I don’t know where he got his inspiration from. We have not seen the drawings.”

The pictures went on show yesterday (Sunday) at ArtDeCaf, Glasgow.

Anyway, all this gives us a good excuse to get out the Libertines bootlegs and give you some stuff you may never have heard before. First up, Pete plays The La’s. This is a 28 minute studio outtake of him messing around playing ‘Son Of A Gun’, ‘Callin’ All’, ‘Timeless Melody’ and some Smiths stuff amongst a whole rake of familiar and unheard Doherty originals. Sponatneous? Certainly. Rough? Definitely. Essential? Of course! Next up, ‘Hooligans On E’, from another studio session (date unknown, sorry). I bloody love this half-baked, half-finished song. Some of the lyrics are great. Also, you can have this beauty. ‘Road To Ruin’ is different to the album version. It features a great spooky keyboard part. Mostly sung by Carl, it’s just about my favourite Libertines outtake. Finally, if you fancy a lazy Sunday hanging around art galleries looking at paintings of dead people who aren’t dead yet, this is for you. The Libertines do the Small Faces ‘Lazy Sunday’. Originally on the soundtrack to the film ‘Blackball‘, it sounds just as you’d expect. Which is half arsed and out of tune. Of course.

 

Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Funky Lee Hooker

Craig McAllister

I was looking for my gardening gloves (!) yesterday and way at the back of my garage I found a box of half a dozen or so compilation CDs I had made up a few years ago. They’ve been in the garage since I moved house 2 years ago and I had forgotten all about them. Needless to say I was delighted with my wee find and I spent yesterday afternoon rooting through my weeds and rooting through my CDs in search of ‘new’ music.

So….here’s 2 tracks by the mighty John Lee Hooker. Both called ‘Homework’, both different in their own way. They may even be 2 versions of the same song, but I’m not sure! The first comes on like Sly & The Family Stone, with a great swampy bassline and a lyric possibly about cheatin’ on his woman, the second sounds more like James Brown, with a clipped Jimmy Nolen-esque guitar riff and a lyric this time about coming home and finding someone else teaching his old lady a thing or two about the finer things in life. The first version comes with added vinyl crackles and pops from 1971’s ‘Free Beer And Chicken’ album. The second I have from a 1992 Point Blank promo CD, although I think it was released around this time as a b-side to a re-released version of ‘Boom Boom’.

Cool

And that’s really all I know about these tracks except to say that they make me dance on my tiptoes. Up until now, Stevie Wonder‘s ‘Superstition’ and ‘Upside Down’ by Diana Ross have been the only 2 records capable of making me do this. John Lee Hooker has an incredible back catalogue, but it’s a bit of a mine field. What’s good? What’s bad? What’s essential? Many compilations feature re-recorded versions of older tracks – by 1960 he had released over 100 singles! It’s not surprising that many of these tracks were re-cut as movers ‘n shakers like John Hammond, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, etc etc blah blah blah worshipped at his impeccably dressed feet. If you’d like to get deeper into him, you could do worse than visit this site. It has everything you need and probably a whole lot more.

 

 

Hard-to-find

I Love Baroque ‘n Roll

Craig McAllister

Put another dime in the jukebox, baby! Fleet Foxes are possibly the most talked about band of the moment. If you’re looking in the right places, they’re everywhere. Having made a big splash at this year’s SXSW, 6 Music has them on constant rotation, Mojo‘s just given them Album Of The Month and June sees them tour Europe. If you’re not looking in the right places, Fleet Foxes will no doubt find you anyway.

The band think of themselves as ‘not much of a rock band’. They describe their music as ‘baroque harmonic pop jams‘ and that’s as good a description as you’ll get. With a dash of Left Banke choral harmonies, a splash of Brian Wilson’s uplifting melancholia and a mash of retro-modernism a la Midlake, they manage to sound both like everything you’ve ever heard before and nothing you’ve ever heard before. While waiting for Sub Pop to release their debut album in America, they recorded the 5 track ‘Sun Giant’ ep to sell at gigs. You can track track this down to buy, if you look in all the right places. You can also get the album in 2 weeks time in the UK (£7.99 from Play). I’ve got my order in, but while waiting for it I thought I’d put my mp3 copies of these 2 releases onto CD. When I realised that I still had 20+ minutes to fill on my disc, I went poking about the internet to see if I could find anything else by my new favourite band…..

….and I found this 2006 self-titled 6 track ep.

She Got Dressed

In The Hot, Hot Rays

Anyone Who’s Anyone

Textbook Love

So Long To The Headstrong

Icicle Tusk

There’s very little information to be found anywhere about it. I don’t know if the current 5 piece line up plays on it. I don’t know if it was released anywhere. I don’t know if anyone bought it. I do know it’s fantastic. The influences mentioned above are very much to the fore. It sounds lovely. And added to the album and ‘Sun Giant’ ep it makes a nice wee Fleet Foxes CD (if you delete your least favourite track!) I won’t put the other 2 official releases up for grabs, but in the traditions of Plain Or Pan‘s hard-to-find only policy, these are all yours.

And don’t feel guilty about downloading the tracks either. Main Fox Skye’s world changed forever after downloading the Smile sessions bootleg. Maybe Fleet Foxes will change your world – that’s what he’s hoping for. See you down the front at the ABC on the 18th June. You coming Quinny?

***!!!***!!!UPDATE MARCH ’09. More Fleet Foxes stuff here!***!!!***

entire show, Hard-to-find, Peel Sessions

Hey! Hey! Come Out Tonight! Popscene! Alright!

Craig McAllister

Mention Blur and most folks think of Brit Pop, very big houses in the country and all that terrible stuff, or gurning smart arse Damon Albarn, who with his side projects involving World Musicians, hip-hop and opera (hip-hopera?) is becoming the indie Sting. Me? I still like them a lot. I have all the Blur singles. From 1990’s ‘She’s So High’ on 12″ right up to 2003’s ‘Good Song’ and everything inbetween. And not everything inbetween was good. ‘Sunday Sunday’ is one cockernee oompah-pah knees up too many, and lots of their b-sides were decidedly average. But I still bought them. On 7″, 12″, CD1 and CD2. The 10th Anniversary Box Set (£10 in the Our Price sale!!!) Box Sets aside, EMI must’ve made a fortune out of me. I even bought the Japanese import stuff, which is where this post is leading.

‘Bustin & Dronin’ is a Japanese compilation that collects all the remixes, b-sides and stuff from the singles that were released off of the ‘Blur’ album from 1997. This was the album that lost the band many of their fans but it’s my favourite. It’s loud, wonky, experimental and has Graham Coxon all over it. Not that the other albums don’t have Graham Coxon all over them either, but this album is the sound of a pissed-off guitarist fed up with where the band were being pigeonholed. It spawned the catchy ‘Song 2’  (which I am led to believe is more popular these days than Sweet Child O’ Mine as the riff of choice for spotty wee boys in guitar shops) and made them massive in America. It’s said that ‘Song 2’ was influenced by the stage antics of Pavement‘s Bob Nastanovich. Anyway……

Spread over the various formats of the ‘On Your Own’ single you can find assorted Blur tracks recorded live for John Peel at Peel Acres (his house). Bustin & Dronin’ has the whole 6 song set in order and it sounds fantastic. Recorded on 8th May 1997 it’s a right royal racket of a set. It starts with a hundred mile an hour trumpet-free blast through ‘Popscene‘ and continues in wonderful fashion from there on in. It sounds nothing like the Blur that the tabloids focussed on. It sounds like nothing or no-one else to be honest. Imagine the sound of a shitty amp wired to fuzzbox being dropped down a flight of stairs along with a box of drums and a cheap keyboard. Yes, it’s that good. It’s the ideal snapshot of where Blur were at in 1997. If you saw them live around this tme you’ll know what I mean. And it’s all here below….

Popscene

Song 2

On Your Own

Chinese Bombs

Movin’ On

M.O.R.

Tonight Matthew I’m going to be Michael Caine

Incidently, a wee Blur fact. David Bowie and Brian Eno were given a co-writing credit for ‘M.O.R.’ Acknowledging the song’s similar melody to ‘Boys Keep Swinging’, Blur gave them credit before getting the phone call and lawyer’s letter.  

Special bonus track. The frankly weird Earl Zinger reggae version of ‘Song 2Wo’. It’s hardly essential, but have a listen.

Blur do Blondie

Nowadays, the guy on the left really does live in a very big house in the country. Bit of a fanny, wears tweed jackets, makes cheese. His book‘s really good. You should read it. I once saw Blur and Radiohead play the Barrowlands around the time of ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’. Possibly 1993. Radiohead were just back from America where Creep was massive. Thom had that Birdland haircut he was fond of before he went bald. Radiohead were shite. No-one belives me when I say that, but they were. Rank rotten shite. Blur were fantastic. 40 minutes of in-your-face, no-nonsense punk pop. There were only about 150 people there. True story that.

Hard-to-find, Studio master tapes

16 Track Master Blaster

Craig McAllister

In the early to  mid 70’s Stevie Wonder was on a bit of a creative roll. In 1972 he released not 1, but 2 albums – the underrated ‘Music Of My Mind’ and it’s more well-known follow up ‘Talking Book’. In the next 2 years he released both ‘Innervisions‘ and ‘Fullfillingness First Finale’ . He also happened to play most of the instruments himself! Stick that in yer big hat Jamiroquai. Back in ’72 he was only 22 (22!)  when he wrote and recorded ‘Superstition‘. Considered a throwaway, he gave it to Jeff Beck until his manager heard it, and seeing dollar signs between the grooves, he demanded Stevie keep it for himself. Jeff Beck was given another Wonder composition instead ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’, and the pair fell out a wee bit. Beck would eventually record and release ‘Superstition‘ a year later in 1973 on his ‘Beck Bogart & Appice’ album. I think the Eagles may have been taking notes when they were writing ‘Life In The Fast Lane’, but it’s the Stevie Wonder original on ‘Talking Book’ that does it for me every time.

Genius at work

Perhaps it’s the drum beat. Perhaps it’s the clavinet. Perhaps it’s the horns. I don’t know what it is, but put them all together and it makes me dance like the rhythmically challenged West of Scotland male that I am. I love ‘Superstition’. These 16 track master tapes have been floating around the internet for a wee while now, and given the download mania that greeted the Beatles Masters, I know you’re going to love them. They’re ripe for sampling if you’re that way inclined. Me? I just like listening to the individual parts. You can hear the trumpet player taking deep breathes at one point. It’s deconstructed funkiness. Have fun – I even made a ringtone out of the wobbly clavinet part. I just called to say I love you indeed.

Funky beyond compare

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

Burns’ Immortal Memory

Craig McAllister

Tommy Burns died today. He always seemed like a decent man to me. All the cliches are out – “football man“, “family man” etc etc, and for once they’re all true. I never met him, but I often cheered him on/cursed him from the sidelines when he was playing/managing for Kilmarnock. He was a majestic midfielder before taking the hot seat in the dugout, and he worked a miracle by dragging us from the despairs of the lower leagues to the dizzy heights of the Premier League. He also played over half a thousand times for some other provincial team, but we’ll gloss over that part.

Trash Can Sinatras ‘Worked A Miracle’ (1991 demo from Shabby Road, Kilmarnock)

Trash Can Sinatras ‘I’m Immortal’ (1991 demo from Shabby Road, Kilmarnock)

Hard-to-find

Neil Young Is A Cunt #2

Craig McAllister

Yep. He’s still one of them. The release of his long-talked about ‘Archives’ series is just around the corner. Well. September. But if like me you’ve been waiting 10 or so years for this, September is but a hold-your-breath moment away. Should be great. Cannae wait etc etc blah blah blah.

And there the joy ends. 

‘Archives’ will be released solely on Blu-Ray. That’s right. Blu-Ray! You can’t listen to the discs on your CD player. But you can play them through your telly. You would expect the box set to cost a fortune anyway, but Blu-Ray! Blu-Ray! That’ll make it super-expensive! How many people own the hardware? Does old whiny Neil have shares in the company that makes it? I think he must. Blu-Ray might sound better, but to yer average ex-hippy turned bank manager, will it be that much of a difference? Will the high notes ring that wee bit clearer? Will the harmonies soar that wee bit further? Will you notice the sound of plegm on harmonica that wee bit better? I don’t think so. I don’t believe Blu-Ray can be that fantastic. Especially listened to through your telly. Old Shakey knows the hardcore fans are going to buy the discs and the equipment to play it on but he really has gone about the release of ‘Archives’ in all the wrong way. Total contempt for his quickly reducing fanbase.

He should’ve released it as a vinyl box set. Maybe include an old Betamax tape of a classic Fillmore East show or something. Stick in a couple of packets of those cigarette papers he sold at his concerts a few years ago. Maybe even a plectrum. I’d be straight out to buy that box set. Just as well we live in the digital age. Some enterprising kind soul will no doubt work out how to .flac or mp3 the whole series and we’ll all have them by Christmas anyway. Fingers crossed. If you can’t wait that long here’s a couple of Elektra Demos recorded in New York, 1965 to tide you over. Just Neil and his acoustic guitar. On low-rate, low quality mp3. They don’t make ’em like that anymore. It’s all Blu-Ray round these parts nowadays mate. Have you tried googling ‘Archives Be Damned’? Prepare yourself for a download frenzy.

Sugar Mountain (1965 demo)

Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing (1965 demo)

The Rent Is Always Due (1965 demo)

When It Falls, It Falls Over You  (1965 demo)

Ah’m-a gonna rip you off!

Neil Young has also been called a cunt here.

 

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Creepy Prince

Craig McAllister

Shhhhhh! Listen! That sound you can hear is the sound of a million Radiohead fans tapping furiously on their iMac 4G Powerbooks as they vent their spleen on the umpteen thousand Thom Yorke Is God fansites that litter every corner of cyberspace. 

Prince is a bit creepy. Everyone knows that. But by far the biggest highlight of the recent Coachella festival seems to have been him doing a straight ahead cover of Radiohead‘s ‘Creep‘. It’s true! It’s also very good. Fairly faithful to the original, Prince manages to be both Thom Yorke with added soul and those wee yelps that he’s fond of doing and Jonny Greenwood with the kerrunk-kerrunk guitar before the chorus. His vocals get the full on Purple Rain-era treatment – slight delay, lots of reverb, the exteeeeeeeeendeeeed outro, and I actually think Prince makes this track his own. The audio is taken from this mobile phone video that YouTube won’t show. But it’s reasonably good quality. Worth the download. Click on the video link and you can download the video from there.

Radiohead fans yesterday.

Spot the one that quite likes Prince’s version.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

No Cure For Plagiarism

Craig McAllister

For a couple of very good reasons, it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve put up anything new. Firstly, I’ve been very busy in my day job. I’ve been bringing work home at night and doing all the stuff you tell yourself you’re not going to do, which has affected my blogging. Secondly, and more crucially, I’ve had to lie in a darkened room for most of the past fortnight after hearing the latest records by 2 tribute acts being played to death on BBC 6 Music every hour of the day.

I am referring of course to the latest singles by Black Kids and the Shout Out Louds. Two perfectly acceptable, inoffensive wee indie pop bands. Well, they would be acceptable and inoffensive if they didn’t wear their Cure influences so brazenly on their cap sleeves. Talent borrows, genius steals, but this pair rip off their favourite band’s vocal style, scrubbed nylon-stringed acoustic guitar, synthetic trumpet stabs and keyboards so much it’s quite incredible Robert Smith hasn’t put on his best crumpled suit and hi-top trainers and marched them off to the local plagiarism court for a good dose of how the fuck did you think you could get away with that? Ok. Ripping off other artists is nothing new. What goes around comes around and all that, but really. Really! These records are quite incredible. Black Kids have recently been given a shiny make over by Bernard Butler but they still sound like the Cure. Here‘s the original lo-fi version of ‘Im Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You’. It still sounds like the Cure. “You are the girl…..” the singer whines at the start and you think, “Hey! Where have I heard that before?” And by the time the chorus has kicked in it’s all too clear. The remix isn’t bad, mind. The Cure mixed by Daft Punk, but not bad.

Shout Out Louds are clearly in thrall to mid-80s Cure. ‘Tonight I Have To Leave It’ sounds like a 2 Many DJs mash-up of ‘In-Between Days’ and ‘Just Like Heaven’. Actually, I quite like this record. But don’t tell anyone. Compare and contrast with The Cure’s original (vocal-free) studio demo of ‘Just Like Heaven’ and an acoustic re-recording of ‘In-Between Days’. See what I mean?

At least J Mascis is an honest fellow. He liked ‘Just Like Heaven’ so much he recorded it and put it out on sexy green vinyl 7″. And he was honest enough to admit he didn’t know how to play the end of the record, so Dinosaur Jr‘s version just. Stops. Like that. It’s noisy and there’s a funny kind of wah-wah feedback effect playing in the background. There’s the odd scary bit too. You’ll like it. Here’s another scary bit………

If J Mascis cut his hair, he couldn’t half pass for Radio Clyde’s Billy ‘I Can Exclusively Reveal’ Sloan. No?