Alternative Version, Get This!, Gone but not forgotten, Live!, Peel Sessions

The Stuff I Got Gonna Bust Your Brains Out

May 5, 2014 Craig McAllister

That’s the haunted figure of Robert Johnson, womanisin’, gamblin’, soul-sellin’ deep South bluesman with a hell hound on his tail. Robert had the uncanny knack of channeling all sorts of bad voodoo via his unnaturally long fingers into his music and into the ether forever. To this day, the dusty grooves on his old 1930’s 78s spark with the crackle and pop of a life gone wrong.

Robert Johnson – Stop Breaking Down:

His songs, all rudimentary strumming and picking, have been picked up and picked apart by all manner of blues-influenced groups, not least the Rolling Stones.

No strangers to a stolen blues riff and a Robert Johnson tune (their version of Love In Vain is the definitive country/blues weeper), the Stones really out-did themselves when they came to tackle Stop Breaking Down. It’s a completely different song to the original.

Rolling Stones – Stop Breaking Down:

A total groove with Charlie playing just behind the beat, it’s a beautiful soup of chugging, riffing rhythm guitar and an asthmatic wheezing lead hanging on for dear life like the ash at the end of Keith’s ubiquitous cigarette. Between Jagger’s verses, the band swagger in that tight but loose way that no band has ever since equalled. Listening to it you can almost see Jagger prancing around some massive American stage or other, wiggling his 26″ snakehips to those lucky enough to be able to see them from the back of whatever enormodome they happen to have found themselves in.

Totally telepathically in synch with one another, the Stones in ’72 would be my time machine moment. Actually, they wouldn’t. Given the chance I’d be going back to 1965 to watch my team win the Scottish league for the last time, hang around a year and catch Dylan go electric then hope for some malfunction or other that would allow me to wait around for 6 years until it was fixed. To be Keith for a day while recording Exile On Main Street. What a time of it. Great hair. Great clothes. Great guitars. Great women. And everything else that goes with it. Like your own plane…

…or drinks cabinet on stage…

The Rolling Stones version of Stop Breaking Down comes towards the end of Side 4 on Exile On Main Street, the loosest, funkiest, grooviest Stones LP of the lot. But you knew that already. That they chose to sequence it where they did (although sandwiched between the blues rock of All Down The Line and southern soul gospel of Shine A Light makes for a strong ending) suggests the Stones had no particular fondness for it, that they considered it an album track at best, perhaps even (gasp) album filler. It certainly never gets a mention in the same breath as the big tracks from the LP (Tumbling Dice, Happy, Rocks Off, Loving Cup…I could go on and on) but to me, as something of a hidden Stones gem, that’s kinda what makes Stop Breaking Down so special.

Evoking the spirit of the early, earthy Stones with a punk/blues ferocity not heard since, ooh I dunno, Pussy Galore or someone were whipping up a frenzy at the end of the 80s, the White Stripes version of Stop Breaking Down appeared on their first, self-titled LP. If you’ve not heard it before, it’s just as you might imagine it to sound.

White Stripes – Stop Breaking Down;

Thump. Crash. Thump. Crash. Thump. Crash. “Whooo!”. Screeee. Thump. Thump. “Whoooo!”. Screeeeeeeeeeee!

Two folk standing in a room with a handful of basic instruments between them has never sounded so feral and primal. Nowadays, it’s all the rage. Isn’t it, Black Keys? I know Jack White splits opinion, but for what it’s worth I love the White Stripes.

Later on, they tackled the same track for a BBC session, extending it to twice its length and playing it as a walkin’, talkin’ slow blues.

Thump. Crash. Thump. Crash. Thump. Crash. “Whooo!”. Screeee. Thump. Thump. “Whoooo!”. Screeeeeeeeeeee! At half the speed.

White Stripes – Stop Breaking Down (BBC Session);

*Bonus Track!

Whatever happened to The Bees? I had them pegged as the equal of the Beta Band. Terrific players with a slightly psychedelic take on things. Not so much under the radar as off it completely, they deserved better. Their take on Stop Breaking Down is clearly modelled on the Stones’ version, but with a dual vocal and a nice, understated Hammond holding the whole thing together.

demo, Hard-to-find, Live!

Bob’s Boots

March 11, 2014 Craig McAllister

Boots Of Spanish Leather is Bob Dylan‘s first truly great love song. They would’ve quaintly called it ‘a ballad’ in 1964, when it first appeared on his The Times They Are A-Changin‘ LP, although it dates back to at least 1962 when the then 21 year-old Dylan recorded it along with a whole host of originals that were to be potentially offered to the more established acts of the day in the hope that this would help cement the burgeoning Bob’s up and coming talent as a writing force to be reckoned with.

Boots Of Spanish Leather (demo)

Like any other Dylan song you care to mention, Boots Of Spanish Leather is open to any number of interpretations; It’s a straightforward long-distance plea to an absent lover. It’s a metaphorical paen to Dylan’s past, the towns he grew up in and grew out of as he morphed from Minnesota Little Richard wannabee to Greenwich Village hipster. It’s sung from Dylan to his muse. It’s sung from the muse to Dylan. You could tangle yourself up in blues just thinking about it, but if you put all the messages and metaphors aside for a moment and just listen, one thing becomes clear – Boots Of Spanish Leather is timeless, ageless and peerless. And written by someone barely out of his teens. The talented bastard.

It’s very possible that it was written about Suze Rotolo, the girlfriend who’s wrapped around Bob as they walk the snow-filled Village streets on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Couldn’t live with her and couldn’t live without her, Bob and Suze had an up and down relationship. In 1962 she took off for Italy to study art. Of course. Only bohemian New Yorkers who barely had a dime to their name went to Europe to study art.

“I’m sailin’ away my own true love, I’m sailin’ away in the morning…” and off we go. Verses ping-pong back and forth between the two protagonists, Dylan’s youthful voice that strangely wonderful blend of sand and glue. “Is there something I can send you from across the sea, from the place that I’ll be landing?”

“No,” replies Bob. “I just want you back.”

“I might be gone a long time,” she says. (Or, to paraphrase, I doubt I’ll be back anytime this side of Christmas, and if I am, I won’t be rushing round.)

“I just want you back, that’s all.”

“Phhhh. Listen. I don’t know if I’ll be back, it depends how I feel.”

“Sca-roo you then. Send me a souvenir of Spain. A pair of boots or something impractical to post.”

Bob’s words are far more poetic than my ham-fisted praphrasing, but that’s about the jist of it. If he can’t have the girl, he’ll have the boots instead and metaphorically walk out of her life/away from this town/and on to pastures new. Have a listen to the LP version;

Boots Of Spanish Leather

I’ve shamefully given up on Bob a wee bit recently, what with his joint tours with Mark Knopfler and 4 nights in the Armadillo at £60 a pop, but a decade or so ago I was a card-carrying Bob Cat who went to all the gigs; the good, the bad and the ugly. It was tragic watching a once terrific backing band led by a a true maverick degenerate into Chris Rea’s backing band with a Thunderbirds puppet, back to the audience, farting about on rudimentary organ.

Much has been written of the fact that you can go and see Bob and not recognise a single song until you read the setlist the next day. That’s rubbish. It’s usually said by those who truly expect to hear a hopped-up Bob rattling off Subterranean Homesick Blues like it’s 1965 all over again before segueing into a carbon copy of Hurricane. Bob’s sets are peppered with a liberal sprinkling of mid 60s majesty. Sometimes the arrangements have been altered. Sometimes the phrasing is all over the place. But the song is always recognisable.

In June 2004, Bob played 2 nights in Glasgow. On the first night, at the SECC, he played a version of Boots Of Spanish Leather that was truly spine tingling. A small ripple of applause from those in the know greeted it like a long lost brother as Bob and the band eased into it. A guy in front of us, at the gig alone, could barely restrain himself. His right leg juddered up and down and despite the dark, you could see his knuckles were pure white as he gripped the edge of his £35 plastic seat with one hand and his long-range binoculars with the other. Lost in his own wee world, he was oblivious to the dimwits all around who used this opportunity to go to the toilet or the hot dog stand while Bob played ‘a new one’.

Boots Of Spanish Leather (SECC June 23rd, 2004)

So, there you go. The moment I first heard Bob sing Boots Of Spanish Leather in the same room as myself was somewhat spoiled, but for that guy his night was made. The next night, Bob played the Barrowlands and, well, that was outrageously brilliant. Watching the sweat drip off his cowboy hat and onto his keyboard as he cautiously felt his way into Ballad Of A Thin Man. Being swept away, feeling his joy at ours, as he conducted the audience during Just Like A Woman (which he’s played in Glasgow every time since, I think). A wee Bob speech at the end. And Bob never speaks. That’s how good he was that night. No Boots Of Spanish Leather though.

Alternative Version, demo, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Live!, studio outtakes

33 rpm

December 8, 2013December 8, 2013 Craig McAllister

33 years ago today, John Lennon was shot dead outside his New York home.

When he died he was younger than I am now.

By the time I’d decided at the ripe old age of 32 that teaching might be the vocation for providing for my family, John Lennon had already lived a colourful life in Hamburg, formed the Beatles, split the Beatles, was one of the most recognisable faces on the planet and half-way through a solo career. Not bad going when you stop to think about it.

On the day he died, I came home from school to find my mum cleaning out the kitchen cupboards and crying. I shuffled about awkwardly, trying to be invisible while looking for the chocolate biscuits that weren’t in their usual place. Imagine seemed to soundtrack that whole era, Lennon’s unofficial national anthem for the world playing on every radio station across the globe.

Here’s the first take of Imagine, that other gun-wielding maniac Phil Spector at the controls and recorded at John’s house in Ascot. See when the honey-thick warm strings come in at the start with the piano……..s’beautiful, man!

And here’s a live version from 1971. Just John and his acoustic guitar in front of a politely reserved audience. Imagine wouldn’t be the song it was until Lennon’s death. Who knew?

Here’s the demo of Real Love. Lennon gives birth to Elliott Smith whilst sketching out a minor keyed spidery piano part that would never see the light of day during his lifetime.

And here’s the Jeff Lynne-produced shiny, polished-up Threetles version, released to promote the mid 90s Anthology series. Packed full of George’s slide guitar and some warm Beatles harmonies, it is (to paraphrase Alan Partridge) the band ELO could’ve been.

A few years ago, we visited New York. Just across the road from the Dakota Building in Central Park we came across Strawberry Fields. Once we’d managed to squeeze ourselves in between the hordes of quietly determined Japanese tourists hell-bent on not letting us through (Give Peace A Chance, my arse), much like that December day in my kitchen in 1980, we looked in slightly self-conscious silence at the wee tiled memorial.

I could post a picture of it, but it looks exactly the same as any one you choose to Google, although my picture has a random scattering of Autumn Central Park leaves on top of the black and white tiles, rather than the candles of eternity that were somewhat ironically missing that day.

*Bonus Schmonus!

Tis the season to be jolly ‘n all that. Here’s the rough version of Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Written and recorded in the space of a day, as was Lennon’s wont at the time, the record company failed to act quickly enough, and it missed out on being that year’s Christmas single. As with Imagine, it’s only since his death that Happy Xmas became truly popular.

Lennon autographs a copy of his Double Fantasy LP for the man who would return to kill him six hours later.

Live!

Feelgood Factor

October 9, 2013 Craig McAllister

Paul Weller at the Barrowlands on Monday night was terrific. The opening night of his ‘One Night Only‘ tour, this was Weller’s way of gathering up the best bits of his back catalogue and playing them with a renewed effervescence and vigour that could shame a band with a combined age less than half his 55 or so years.

Paul Wellblurred

Not that we knew it at the start. A Paul Weller gig without an album to promote always puts the needle into the red on the old apprehensionometer – this might’ve meant a set of brand new material to endure, with a couple of greatest hits flung in at select moments to appease a restless crowd. Not a bad night out maybe, but not really what you want on a Monday night. From the off, though, when a free from fanfare and flashing lights Weller strolled on at the unfashionably early time of 8.30pm, all perma-tan and tight, tight trousers, and fired into Sunflower, it was clear he was here to entertain. Earlier on, the DJ had played a not entirely inspired selection of 60s and 70s 45s. You won’t need me to list them for you. Stuck somewhere in the middle was Bowie’s Golden Years – a wee clue to how the night would proceed. Not for PW a cosy pipe ‘n slippers run through of his earlier past triumphs, this was going to be a back catalogue cherry pick through his own golden years, played for us like the Angry Young Man from Woking he once was.

The set was given a modernist (no pun intended) twist thanks to the liberal sprinklings of sonic stereo swooshes and panning vocal effects that were in equal parts druggy and dubby, but especially due to the use of a piercing Telecaster for half the songs. This gave the band an angular, angry, post-punk sound; aggressive yet arty, taut yet trippy.

Third song in was From The Floorboards Up, and even more so than the recorded version, it was total Wilko Johnson. From the opening slashed chords onwards, Weller channeled his inner Dr Feelgood. Not many would’ve noticed, but for this track PW ditched the plectrum (just like Wilko!) strummed with open hand (just like Wilko!) and perfected that thousand yard stare (just like Wilko!) Between a couple of verses he even had the nerve to do that spasmic, wired-to-the-mains electrified stagger across the stage – aye, just like Wilko! Tonight Matthew, for the next three minutes, I’m going to be Wilko Johnson. And he was. Never before have I seen such an obvious ‘we’re not worthy’ episode of hero worship. Did anyone else spot it?

The set thereon in was inspired. The Style Council’s My Ever Changing Moods was a surprise early addition, fuelling an unspoken frenzy amongst 1800 souls that he might dare to play a couple of (whisper it) Jam songs. He did. A punchy, punky Start! received almost the biggest cheer of the night, and even the inability of Weller to hit the high notes of his youth couldn’t dampen things. I don’t know what Weller thinks of this – he’s clearly comfortable playing these old songs that mean so much to so many, but his own, more recent back catalogue is sounding sensational in its current form – Dragonfly, Andromeda, Sea Spray, Wake Up The Nation, Come On Let’s Go, 7&3 Is The Striker’s Name. They are equally as deserving of that same roof-raising cheer – a roof-raising cheer that reached delirious levels of excitement when the group walked out for the second encore and the bass player thudded into the opening Motownisms of A Town Called Malice. Weller, on joint tambourine and Telecaster duties looked like the happiest man on the planet. And given that 1800 people had just spontaneously combusted in total delight, that’s really saying something.

Disappointments? None really. The above set list shows He’s The Keeper and Out Of The Sinking, neither of which he played, for whatever reason. I did think, early on, when it was clear he was here to entertain, that we might get Into Tomorrow. But no. And it’s possible to create your own brilliant set from the obvious tracks he didn’t play – Brushed would’ve sounded great in this set for example (as would Out Of The Sinking for that matter), and I’d have liked to hear Starlite, the forgotten single released between the last two LPs, but really, you can’t complain. A just-short-of two hours set with tracks from all eras fizzing off the stage like welders’ sparks is a good night out, is it not?

This is, I’m certain, the most fired-up and relevant Weller I’ve ever seen in concert. If you have a ticket for one of the shows, you’re going to really enjoy it. If you don’t have one, do everything you can to get one.

My ears are still ringing, by the way…..

Get This!, Hard-to-find, Live!

I Wanna Be Indoo-oo-ors

June 19, 2013June 20, 2013 Craig McAllister

Well. This piece is causing all sorts of debate over at Louder Than War. Shoot me down….

Stone Roses, Glasgow Green

Saturday June 15th, 2013

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”

Gonzoid observationalist Hunter S Thomson said this 30 odd years ago. It’s never been more relevant today. The Stone Roses know all about the money trench and the thieves. For any good men and women attending their show at Glasgow Green, they will now, unfortunately, know all about the negative side.

At a gig of this magnitude, you expect all walks of life to be present; the good, the bad and the downright ugly, but this was something else entirely. Brad Pitt was in town a year or so ago filming zombie slopfest World War Z, and as the afternoon turned to evening, the Green resembled a lost cut of the movie. Had Brad been here, he’d have been looking for direction. Or a way out. It was as if every mental health establishment in the West of Scotland had simply shipped every one of its patients up the Clyde and into the park before flinging the key down the nearest, darkest well and doing a runner. Inside, the park was a human cesspit, a giant soup of slurring, slevering stupids in splatted bucket hats, barely able to stand or sit or stagger. It was horrible.

This isn’t supposed to sound snobbish, but it will invariably be taken that way in any case. So shoot me down. Music fans, the ‘real’ music fans who are regular gig goers and album buyers and live and breathe music like it’s some all-encompassing need for survival will be now be reflecting on a gig where more of the focus was on what was happening around them than what was happening on the big stage in front of them. Music is for all, and you can’t deny anyone’s right to like a band, but why is it The Stone Roses seem to attract the wrong element?

The ones in wee huddles, backs to the stage and openly sniffing and snorting their Class As off of credit cards and keys and whatever else provided a flat surface. Not there for the music, are they?

The ones pilled, powdered and poppered off the planet who, by default, created their own wee exclusive zone amongst the decent people where they could foam at the mouth and loll around, indifferent or oblivious to the sounds coming from the stage. Not there for the music, are they?

The ones tossing cups and bottles containing overpriced beer (and worse) with joyful abandon into the air and onto the crowd in front of them. Throwing pissiles is, I think, the phrase I’m looking for. There were hundreds of these cretins everywhere. Not there for the music, are they?

And the thugs. The 40-something year-old grown-up hooligans in expensive sports wear, pent-up aggression evidently at boiling point, perpetuating the underlying threat of violence if you happen to glance at them the wrong way. Not there for the music, are they?

With all this distraction it might’ve been difficult to focus on the stage. Just for the record, The Stone Roses were terrific. But you probably knew that already. I’ve seen them live a handful of times since 1989 and this was easily the most full-on, the most fluid, I’ve ever seen them.

If the sound of the first album is the sound of a band effortlessly gliding their own meandering way across 60s-tinged psychedelic pop, Glasgow Green was the sound of a band dive-bombing their own material with napalm bombs of funk – the muscled-up Second Coming band giving the first album the workout it didn’t even know it needed.

Bobby Gillespie had earlier invited us to Kick Out The Jams, but if anything, the Roses were hell-bent on doing the exact opposite. The 17 song set was packed full of add-ons, cheeky Beatles riffs when Squire thought no-one was looking and enough improvisation required if anyone still doubted this band’s ability to play. I Wanna Be Adored was given a coda akin to Sly Stone going 15 rounds with Jimmy Page. Standing Here’s Hendrixian hysterics gave way to a beautifully extended and elongated chiming guitar part that ebbed and flowed like the tide on the Firth of the Clyde. Fools Gold, misplaced (to these ears at least) in mid-set was an astonishing exercise in 10? 15? 20? minute motorik, precision funk, its lazy Krautrock groove underpinned by Mani’s outrageously switched-on bass playing and Reni’s octopus-limbed polyrhythms. The best rhythm section around? I think so. Brown’s vocals, so often the brunt of ridicule and mirth sounded fairly decent. In tune, even. Although it could be hard at times to hear him amongst the out of tune voices barking approximations of the right words back at him.

The gig, the actual musical part of the gig was an absolute triumph. You’ll read lots of testimonies to that over the next few days and weeks as writers trip over superlatives in an attempt to help you fully appreciate it. In fact, I won’t be surprised if/when the Stone Roses let slip that Glasgow Green 2013 really is the best gig they’ve ever played. They simply were that outstanding. It’s just a shame that it was all played out in such shitty conditions.

The Music

Here’s two versions of I Am The Resurrection, one , a faithful to the album version from Rooftops in Glasgow, June 1989 that I recorded myself on my Dad’s wee dictaphone….

The other , below, is from the last time they played Glasgow Green, in the big tent. By this time, the band had stretched it out to almost 11 minutes long. At the weekend, it was even longer. You can read about the first Glasgow Green gig here.

And here’s I Am The Resurrection from Saturday night in all its 12 minutes glory.

(Link removed at the request of video owner)

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

Baby What You Want Me To Do Quintruple Whammy

May 24, 2013 Craig McAllister

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

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

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

Rehearsal:

The Live Show:

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

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

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

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

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

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, Live!

Skin Tight

May 11, 2013 Craig McAllister

The Great Pyramid of Giza. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The Colossus of Rhodes. The Lighthouse of Alexandria. The Seven Wonders of the World. You’d think that by now, the 21st Century, someone somewhere might fancy updating that list. I think I missed the appeal when they were asking folk to write in with their suggestions for the 8th wonder, but if it’s not too late, I’m putting forward the Glasgow Barrowlands for inclusion.

To be more specific, I’m putting forward the Barrowlands when it’s packed-to-the-gunnels full and the band on stage is on fire. I’ve been to the Barras plenty of times. It’s always good. Often, it’s great. Other times, it’s really great. Last night, the second night of The Specials double header, it was electric; right there and then the best place to be on the entire planet. It was packed-to-the-gunnels full. The band was on fire. You didn’t want it to end. A greatest hits and more was played out to a mongrel swill of a crowd; from old suedeheads in too-tight Fred Perrys and braces, spit-shiny Docs and straining-at-the-waist Levis, to ageing mohican’d punks and punkettes, to 40-something numpties in pork pie hats, the weekend rude boys who really should know better, the same guys who take their tops off and still chant “We are the mods!” at Who gigs, to the young team in misguided Liam Gallagher feathercuts and Superdry mod parkas. Punks, teds, natty dreads, mods, rockers, hippies and skinheads, as Do The Dog says, all united on the famous sprung dancefloor that, to paraphrase that Scandinavian football commentator from way back when The Specials first mattered, took one hell of a beating.

Grainy Terry

It’s life-affirming when you realise at the age of 43 you still want to get involved at a gig, that you’re not content standing at the side debating the merits of the setlist with yourself, but you’d rather go for it, jump right in and get into it. I lost a stone and a half in the first 20 minutes alone. My polo shirt stank of other people’s beer on the way home. As I type, I’m looking at my battered desert boots, who look like they’ve been in the trenches at the Somme. The opening four numbers came at you like a breathless, skanking Ramones – Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! I can’t be certain what was played, or in what order (it might’ve been Do The Dog and Concrete Jungle and Rat Race and Gangsters). One into another, a storm of ricocheting pistol cracks from the snare and Roddy Radiation’s spaghetti western twang, glued together by the Hall hangdog vocal. Then the brass section came on. Then the strings. And the band cherry-picked their way through a back catalogue rich in dubby textures and exotica flourishes. Pinch yourself for a minute. That’s The Specials! Playing International Jet Set! I took a particular shine to the three pouting string players, bobbing their heads from side to side in perfect unison whenever the dub swelled and the need for strings reduced.

Picture courtesy of Cameron Mackenzie. Cheers!

This clearly isn’t some half-arsed in-it-for-the-money Stones tour. This is a band playing better than ever to an audience somewhat largely made up of people too young to have seen them first time around (I was 10 when I bought Do Nothing for 99p with my £1 pocket money). The Specials are on fire right now and demand your attention. We were lucky enough to get an extra, unplanned encore, a Terry-free Guns Of Navarone, played by a band who’d wandered on after the outro music had begun and some of the audience had filtered off towards the exits and Central Station. Nae luck, non-believers.

There’s no youth culture anymore. Cast your eye over the appearance of any youngster and you wouldn’t know if they were into Pink or Pink Floyd. Last night showed why tribal music matters. If you do one thing this year, go and see The Specials.

The Music

The Trojan-loving DJ at the start’ll play The Skatalite‘s Guns Of Navarone:

You might be lucky and hear the band do their own version in the encore:

You’ll certainly get Too Much Too Young. Here‘s the slower, dubbier album version, not the more widely-known knee-trembler from The Specials Live EP.

And here‘s Lloyd Charmers‘ Birth Control, the main influence on Too Much Too Young. It’s all in the riddim (method).

Blur? Nope, The Specials.

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

Can o’ Worms

April 22, 2013May 18, 2016 Craig McAllister

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

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

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

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

Can – I’m So Green

Stephen Malkmus – I’m So Green

Can – Vitamin C

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Stephen Malkmus – Vitamin C

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demo, Hard-to-find, Live!, Peel Sessions

Guy Chadwick Once Tried To Kick Me Full In The Face But I Deserved It So I Did.

February 23, 2013 Craig McAllister

I liked tons of other contemporaries, but The House Of Love were, for me, the band that perfectly filled that post-Smiths/pre-Stone Roses void. They were terrific. A classic twin guitar and bass and drums indie rock band, they wore their influences proudly on their leather-jacketed sleeves; the twang and reverb. The stripey jumpers and black jeans. The semi-acoustic Gibsons. The rows and rows of effects pedals. The sheer bloody distorted racket they could morph into at the drop of a well-timed drum stick click before coming back as one to the melody – Guy Chadwick sooo wanted to be the new Lou and his band a Velvet Underground for the late 20th century. At a time in music when many bands were posturing in ponytails on political platforms, The House Of Love were always more Nico than Biko. That they blatantly added a female singer with high cheekbones and a 60s bowl cut who happened to be German only hammered the point home to those less observant than yer average muso geek.

By the time the band had had a modicum of success, Andrea Heukamp, she of the bowl cut and high cheekbones, had gone her own way. With her in their ranks, The House Of Love had cut their original version of Shine On. Not the over-produced, radio-friendly, siren-led version that, backed by their major label Fontana’s money gave the band their highest chart placing (20), but the far superior played-in-a-tunnel original version. This version was all reverb ‘n twang punctuated with a stratospheric guitar interplay provided by Guy Chadwick and Terry Bickers, a bonkers but brilliant guitarist who’s hedonism for the excesses encouraged by the music industry could make Bez and Shaun Ryder seem like Smartie-guzzling Boy Scouts in comparison. (He’s the angelic looking one 2nd from the right). At one stage Bickers’ erratic behaviour-via-drug use got so full-on the band elected to throw him out of their van halfway up some motorway or other between last night’s venue and tonight’s. Bickers left the band around this point, but would return to the fold a few years later. But you probably knew that already.

Shine On was followed up by one more equally sonically-brilliant but anonymous-to-the-public single. Real Animal came and went in a real blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. Had you heard it, you’d have been telling anyone who’d listen just how good The House Of Love were. I know I did. John Peel had played it on occasion and, as recording it to a C90 had escaped me at the time, I had to wait until a few years later to own it when I picked up a German import compilation of the band’s first few singles.

Having an ear glued to Peel was good news for the House Of Love fan. Peel was a fan as well, which meant they regularly popped up in session (7 in all, between 1988 and 1992) and he always seemed to have first play of the next single. The first single to be released as a four piece, Christine was the one that put the band in the spotlight. All tough as nails guitars and ba-ba-ba-da-ba vocals, Christine once again failed to make the ‘real’ charts, despite being a creatively marketed Creation Records 99p no-risk disc. But the band’s next single (and last for Creation) was their best yet. Fading in on an instantly recognisable guitar riff, Destroy The Heart was a heady mix of shimmering chords and pistol-crack drums, Bickers’ anti-solos confirming him as the next indie rock hero to follow in Johnny Marr’s footsteps, although John Squire was just around the corner, ready to pop up with his band and change the rules and define an entire epoch. As I said earlier, betwixt and between The Smiths and Stone Roses. But you know all that already too.

Destroy The Heart

Demo
Single Version
Peel Session (7.6.88)
Live (Paris la Cigale, 30.10.88)

As you’ll see from the video, The House Of Love were more frantic, more fuzzed, more furious than on vinyl. They played King Tuts three nights running, with a different set each night. Gigs weren’t that expensive back then and I don’t know why we didn’t go to them all, but we chose the Friday night only. Full of spirit (and beer and wine) I managed to squeeze my way to the very front of the stage and, being a little shit, managed to annoy Guy Chadwick at one of the last songs by grabbing the base of his microphone stand and twisting it away from his mouth just as he was about to sing. This forced him to turn his head to the side slightly and remain in an awkward stance until he’d finished the verse or chorus or whatever he was singing, before heading the end of the mic like a crap footballer (“Thuuunk!”) back to his favoured position. As you might imagine, he wasn’t in the least amused by any of this. The second time I did it, he looked down from his lofty King Tuts stage position and scowled witheringly at me. When I did it for a third time, he aimed a well placed Doc Martin at my face which only just missed. Punk’s not dead! I suppose I deserved it. It did give me a bit of a fright, but as they finished, I made sure Guy wasn’t watching and I managed to detach the heavily-gaffer taped setlist from the stage and folded it into my pocket:

Afterwards we went to The Arches. (Bouncer, frisking me. “What’s that?” “It’s my House Of Love setlist.”) Still full of spirit (and more beer and wine), we made idiots of ourselves dancing to the anonymous doof-doof-doof house music of the time before heading home – by taxi? by bus? did we stay on someone’s floor until the first light of morning? – I can’t actually remember. Anyway, guess what? In a bizarre turn of events, look who’s due to play at those very same Arches in April this year. It’s only Guy Chadwick and whoever else constitutes The House Of Love these days. I’ll be there, but taking up my more customary back of the room position that I’ve come to appreciate in my advancing years as a gig goer. If you’re coming, I might need hawners. You up for it big man?

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find, Live!

White Hot

June 30, 2012June 30, 2012 Craig McAllister

So I managed to find the time to watch all the David Bowie Ziggy Is 40-related stuff that was shown last weekend on BBC4. It’s almost taken for granted nowadays, but it does need re-stating: Bowie is terrific. Not was terrific. Is terrific. He’s slowed down a bit in the past few years (illness, so they say) but how I’d love to have been old enough to have been there at the start and grown with him throughout the years. New album. New direction. New image. Every year. Bands nowadays just wouldn’t (couldn’t?) get away with that. Every last drop of product is marketed to hell and presented as the greatest thing since last week’s next big thing. Bowie ploughs his own furrow, effortlessly going from mime artist to glam star to Euro-influenced electro pioneer to plastic soulboy to art rocker and whatever else takes his fancy along the way. But you knew all that already. Is terrific. Let’s get that clear.

Anyway, Mrs Pan began to get a bit fed up of the non-stop Bowie fest taking place in our living room (and she had a point – if I wasn’t watching the Euros and England being humiliated by the Azzurri or taking in the tennis at Wimbledon, I’d somewhat commandered the big telly for a few good nights), so for light relief she had me watch an old Top Of The Pops 2. The Shamen were on and she asks, “Who does that remind you of?” We both laughed. “Sweenie!” Her pal went out with this guy who, on the first night we met him, was wearing a baggy Shamen t-shirt and one of those daft wee ethnic beaded hats atop his head. He looked a bit like Student Grant from the Viz comic (above.) Despite this, they’re now happily married, kids, etc blah blah blah. “I’m gonnae text him and ask if he’s still got that hat!” and what followed was a good-humoured to-ing and fro-ing slagging match relating to how we dressed and acted 20-odd years ago. Bemoaning the fact that Saturday nights had changed forever for both of us, he mentioned that he was currently watching Jack White Live via the red button. “You’ll like it,” he said. “Stick it on,” demanded the boss. “I’m fed up watching all this music stuff.”

I smiled smugly to myself as the programme kicked in and she realised that the demented whoopin’ and hollerin’ blooos guitar player Jack White that filled the screen was not in fact Jack Whitehall, the big-haired, well-groomed skinny posh boy in shiny suit that tells sweary jokes, so she retired to bed. I watched ol’ Jack for a wee while, amazed at his intensity and ability to re-invent his back catalogue in any old style. A bit like Bowie, if you stop to think about it. The next morning I dug out an old Raconteurs BBC session and listened again, not in the least surprised it had lost none of it’s potency and power. The White Stripes were pretty special, but when Jack is backed with musicians as talented as himself, the results are pretty spectacular. See the new album, Blunderbuss, for details. Or The Dead Weather stuff. Or, going a wee bit further back, The Raconteurs. Taken from a BBC session in 2006 (25th March, if you’re a trainspotter), there’s a fantastic take on The Raconteurs‘ first single, Steady, As She Goes, re-imagined as a Kinksy shuffle, all beat group harmonies and garage band looseness. If Lee Mavers could get his finger out, The La’s might begin to sound a bit like this. Though Bowie’s more likely to turn up unannounced in my living room and play all of Hunky Dory track-by-track than that happening. Which reminds me. Also on this BBC session there’s a faithful take of It Ain’t Easy, made famous by David Bowie on the Ziggy Stardust LP. I wrote about it many moons ago, but it’s more than worth drawing your attention to once more.

*Extra Track!

Gazillion-selling trend-bucker Adele duetted with Jack on a version of Many Shades Of Black, from the Raconteurs 2nd LP. Like some long-forgotten southern soul Stax belter, it‘s a cracker.

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“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”

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