Category: Live!

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.

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.

house of love classic

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.

house of love live

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

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:

hol setlist

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

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.

Live!

Friday The 6th March 1987 at 7.30pm

Craig McAllister

25 years ago today I experienced my first ever live concert. Glasgow Barrowlands. The Cult, with support from Gaye Bikers On Acid. The Electric/Love tour, I think it was billed as. I still remember it like it was yesterday. From the thrilling shock of hearing a band in-your-face loud for the first time (and that was only the support act) to the heart-stopping sight of the roadie bringing on Billy Duffy’s massive white Gretsch Falcon (“Aw man!, It’s gonnaehappenit’sgonnaehappenit’sgonnaehappen!!!“) to the sputtery spark of said guitar being plugged in and amplified through the Spinal Tapesque coupla dozen or so Marshall stacks to the anticipation in the air almost as thick as the exotic smells wafting around me and my wide-eyed pals to the lights going down and the intro music starting AT ONCE (some rousing classical piece or other, my mind tells me it was Ride of the Valkyries, but I may be wrong) to the shock of hearing Ian Astbury speak for the first time “Yaykickayussmuthafuckinglasgow” (he was in transition at this point from Love-era bangles ‘n beads rattlin’ hippy to the Jim Morrison/Wolf Child American-twanged sweary twonk with furry trapper hat) to the mentalness of the mosh pit during the main event itself (in which I lasted all of half of a glam-slamming Big Neon Glitter before a wet with sweat biker jacket landed on my head and a big hairy guy pushed me out the road) to the first of what would be many asthmatic runs back to Central Station to discover we were too late for the train to the fruitless wander around Anderston Bus Station at midnight just in case a bus with ‘Irvine’ happened to pull up just for us to phoning one of my pal’s sleeping dads who arrived extremely pissed off and drove us down the road in deathly silence while our ears rang like billy-o and we pondered to ourselves why The Cult had turned themsleves into Def Leppard. Breathtakingly magic? Not ‘alf, as they say.

Here’s that self-same Cult, 10 days later, recorded live at the mixing desk from Hammersmith Odeon. Quite thin and weedy sounding. Not like I remember it at all. Maybe you had to be there, although the You Tube clip below (pointless but thrilling equipment trashing ‘n all) is pretty terrific and much more how I remember things, even after a quarter of a century.

Love Removal Machine

Li’l Devil

Revolution

Useless fact

A few months later, The Cult would take this tour to the enormodomes of the U S of A where they would be supported by fresh faced new kids on the block Guns ‘n Roses.

Gone but not forgotten, Live!

Squeaky Drum Time

Craig McAllister

It’s getting towards the time of year when false promises made by desperate men in expensive jackets look about as likely to come to fruition as The Smiths reforming and playing a gig in my living room. Yes, football managers up and down the country are maybe starting to regret the arrogant boasts of silverware and European adventures made in August when the disappointments of last season had barely been cast aside. New season, same old problems. I’m sure you can apply that phrase to your team. Leagues can be won and lost in an instant, with little room left for catch up. The needless booking leading to the unfortunate suspension. The wrong substitution. The wrong formation. Flat back four or holding mid? Decisions, decisions, decisions! Managers unfamiliar with the giddy heights of the top of the league will look nervously over their shoulder as the teams behind them ramp up the war of psychology and bare their teeth. I know how worked up I get over Fantasy Manager. The real thing must be oh, at least twice as bad. Squeaky bum time, as someone once said.

Squeaky drum time is something else entirely. Led Zeppelin, by the time they were making Led Zeppelin III were formidable. They rocked harder, louder and longer than anyone else, with a blues bluster famously described as ‘tight, but loose‘. They could also swing like Sinatra. This was absolutely down to John Bonham. If you see pictures of him and his drumkit from this era you’d notice how basic it was. Compared to the double bass and cymbal stack flab preferred by many of the rock aristocracy at this time, Bonham’s kit looks like a Fisher Price My First Drumkit. Yet the power generated from it would be enough to keep the National Grid ticking over for a week. On Led Zeppelin III, save for an occassional flashy Jimmy Page overdub, much of the material was recorded live and committed straight to tape. In. Out. Job done. With America waiting to be conquered, there was simply not enough time to re-do each track 20 times and splice together the bass track from Take 3 with the vocals from Take 18. Which meant by the time the album was mixed and released, an annoying noise had found itself being magnetised to tape and recorded for posterity. Bonham’s bass pedal had developed an annoying squeak and it can be heard throughout the album. You may have listened to Led Zep III before and never noticed it, but once it’s pointed out, you’ll never be able to listen to it again without hearing it. It’s particularly prominent on the slow blues of Since I’ve Been Loving You. Thump! Squeak, squeak, squeak. Thump! Squeak, squeak, squeak. Thump! Squeak, squeak, squeak! Like the bedsprings in a  cheap honeymoon hotel it’s right there, squeaking away underneath everything you do.

Remastering the tracks at the start of the 90s, Jimmy Page ruefully remarked,

The only real problem I can remember encountering was when we were putting the first boxed set together. There was an awfully squeaky bass drum pedal on “Since I’ve Been Loving You“. It sounds louder and louder every time I hear it! That was something that was obviously sadly overlooked at the time.

Someone else who overlooked the squeaky drum pedal was James Brown. Given his penchant for strict disciplinary control, it’s amazing that he let Nate Jones (and not Clyde Stubblefield as many think) near his kit without a can of WD40 before recording the one chord groove of Give It up, Turnit Loose. Not as prominent as the John Bonham squeak, it’s nonetheless right there, forming part of the distinctive fluid funk that James Brown was famous for. Jones plays like a particularly funky octopus throughout, all pitter pattering snare and tsk-tsk-tsk hi hats. Fans of yer Stone Roses may not be too surprised to hear traces of Reni’s drum playing style filtering in and out.

*Bonus Track!

Bob Dylan also fell foul to studio gremlins, though this had nothing to do with him, or even his drummer. It was only after his MTV Unplugged album had been released that the Bobcats and Dylanologists of the world noticed a tiny bit of looped audience applause that repeated now and again throughout Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. Two excited whoops and an elongated whistle are enough to have you reaching for the ‘skip’ button before too long. Later versions of the album were corrected, but if you’re one of the many who bought it straight away, you were left with the whoops ‘n whistles repeated ad nauseum. Not to offend anyone from that side of the Atlantic, but those American audiences sure like ta whoop…

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

Flesh Of My Flesh Of My Flesh Of My Flesh

Craig McAllister

Not the most well-known Orange Juice track, although it is on the self-same Rip It Up album as The Hit. And was released as the follow-up to that self-same number 8 smash hit, peaking at a slightly less chart-troubling number 41. Fame fame fickle fame, to paraphrase one of our other pop treasures. And not the coolest Orange Juice track either. That would be Blue Boy if you were wondering. And certainly not the best Orange Juice track, although there’s something about Flesh Of My Flesh that brings me back time and time again.

Maybe it’s the acid-tongued Collins’ bittersweet vocal, “Here’s a penny for your thoughts (incidentally you may keep the change)“. It’s a good one, but, nah. Most of the time the lyrics are incidental (there’s that word again). It’s the overall sound that reels me in. Always has been, even with Dylan. Orange Juice knew their onions, as they say, and the reference points, however fashionable or otherwise they may have been in 1982, are there for anyone with even half a scholarly outlook on pop music to spot. Maybe it’s the Chic-esque rinky-dink guitars and I Want Your Love descending chimes. Talent borrows and genius steals, after all. Maybe it’s the wee burst of ba-ba-ba-Bacharaque brass every now and again, recalling Dionne Warwick at her easiest of easy listening. Or maybe it’s just the sting of distorted vintage guitar riffing in and out whenever Edwyn thinks the track veers too close to pipe ‘n slippers pastiche. Maybe even it’s the Philly soul guitar break that pops up here and there on both single versions (it is a belter of a riff, if you want to know). Or maybe (though less likely) it’s the none-more-80s-sounding 12″ version, with it’s extended breaks, congas and bongos, ting-a-ling percussion and of-it’s-time super-slick st-st-st-stoodio production.  Whichever way you look at it, Flesh Of My Flesh by Orange Juice is a perfect wee record.

Jesus! Sandals! With Socks!

I’d love to tell you that after buying this in Rough Trade I ran up the road to play this to death in 1983, but I’m just not that cool. I would’ve been running up the road to play records to death by this point in my life, but in 1983 I was most probably running up the road with Electric Avenue or Down Under (look them up if you need to) swinging in the wind, John Menzies poly bag tearing into my newly teenaged wrists while I sprinted at full lung bursting pelt to get home tout de suite in order to perform the spiritual ritual of placing needle on vinyl. Eddy Grant and Men At Work. That was my 1983. It would be a few more years before Orange Juice made themselves known to me, but I’m glad they eventually found me.

The Music:

Flesh Of My Flesh (album version)

Flesh Of My Flesh (7″ version)

Flesh Of My Flesh (12″ version)

Flesh Of My Flesh (from a bootleg, live in London 83, probably the Lyceum in March)

All tracks are very different. The album version is, for want of a better word, smooth. The two single versions are spikier, more abbrasive, rawer, whatever you want to call them, and are better for it. The 12″ version features all of the production gimmickery mentioned before. Perhaps a slightly dated affair, I love it, for what that’s worth. The live version manages to be both punkish and funkish, with cringe-inducing out of tune keyboards replicating the brass parts. Haircut 100 this is not. Take from that what you will.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find, Live!

Coyne Operated Machine

Craig McAllister

Today’s hot news is tomorrow’s chip paper and all that, and given that the music featured here is all of 5 days old, some of the more turned on and tuned in amongst you will have no doubt heard this already. But a quick scan of the blogosphere leads me to believe I may well be the first to feature this in mp3 form…

It’s only The Flaming Lips doing a 15 minute version of  The Beatles‘ blooze-fest I Want You (She’s So Heavy) as part of their annual New Year’s Eve Freak Out in Oklahoma City. Cosmic, psychedelic and played by a band right at the top of their game, it’s terrific. Listen to the McCartneyisms on the bass. The twin axe attack duelling guitars. Try if you can and ignore the stoned, whooping college jocks in the background, although this in itself lets you know how unexpected and joyfully received it was. You’ll need the full Lips live lazer light show to experience it fully though…

It’s my favourite cover version of the year and we’re only 6 days in…

Cover Versions, Live!

And It Was Only Ever A B-Side

Craig McAllister

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want is the sound of The Smiths in minature. It‘s got a whole multitude of acoustic & electric guitar tracks, with enough pretty chords and fancy picking to satisfy even the keenest bedroom Johnny Marr guitarist for years to come (believe me). It’s whimsical, melancholic and bathed in pathos. Morrissey’s close-miked vocal is equal parts full of hope and despair and, for me at least, shrouded in ambiguity – is it “Good times, for a change” (eg, normally times are anything but good) or is it “Good times for a change” (eg, these good times we’ve been having will no doubt soon be over). That’s puzzled me for years that has. Sometimes drives me crazy if I’m telling the truth. The lyric is often lazily trotted out by the Philistines as an example of why The Smiths were “depressing etc etc blah, blah, blah“. Remarkably, it’s all over in under 2 minutes. “Where’s the rest of the song?” asked Rough Trade upon their first listen. Of course, it’s perfect as it was. “Like a very brief punch in the face,” to quote Steven Patrick himself. But you knew that already.

Perfect as it was. That hasn’t stopped others from having a go though. Without popping off to the normal places to check I’d wager it’s the most-covered Smiths track….ever!  It’s featured in a handful of movie soundtracks, sometimes as the original, sometimes under the guise of someone else. It’s been played live by any number of sensitive acoustic troubadours and as I type it’s being downloaded into the higher regions of whatever constitutes a Hit Parade these days by a whole generation of cloth-eared numpties who’ve taken to it after hearing Slow Moving Millie’s clunkingly twee aberration of a version that soundtracks the current John Lewis Christmas ad on the TV. (Try saying that after 2 light ales). I don’t like it, no.

In their prime The Smiths could rattle off songs the same way you or I tend to boil the kettle – daily and without really thinking about it. With supreme confidence they stuck Please, Please, Please… onto the b-side of the William, It Was Really Nothing single, alongside How Soon Is Now? The best bands always have their best songs tucked away on b-sides but that’s quite an amazing little single, eh? Johnny tells of writing it in his Earls Court flat in the Summer of 1984, just as The Smiths had joined that train that heaved onto Euston. The inspiration behind it was the little-known Del Shannon track, ‘The Answer To Everything‘, a record constantly playing in his house when he was growing up. “I tried to capture the essence of the Del Shannon tune in terms of its spookiness and sense of yearning.” If you haven’t already done so, now’s a good time to point you in the direction of Johnny Marr’s Dansette Delights, a compilation that features this very track. Anyway, I digress. What of those cover versions?

The first to appear was The Dream Academy‘s version in 1985. An instrumental was recorded for the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off movie, which is where most folk would’ve heard it. The Dream Academy were unfortunately a bit out of step for the mid 80s. Clearly in thrall to the pastoral,  introspective charms of Nick Drake and even Syd Barrett they’d have had a better chance of success in the mid 90s, when anyone who was anyone was citing Drake ‘n Barrett as visionary influences. The Dream Academy’s version (horrible pan-pipey synth strings ‘n all) crashed the charts at number 81, “which is nearly a hit,” mused Morrissey, who would later include it on  his audience warm-up tapes that played before his concerts.

She & Him do a nice 50s-inspired twangin’, end of the prom-type version. Slow and reverby and featuring the vocals of the future Mrs Plain Or Pan, Zooey Deschanel (aaah, Zooey!) it‘s one of the few Please, Please, Please… covers that dares to be just that wee bit different to the original.

On the other hand, Josh Rouse, the poor man’s Ryan Adams (albeit with far better manners) contributes a lazy half, cocked version. I like Josh Rouse, I really do. His 1972 album is worth more than a fleeting Spotify listen if you’re unfamiliar with his stuff, but really, his Please, Please, Please…! He doesn’t even play the proper chords or anything! That’s just not on!

Please, Please, Please… was rarely played live by The Smiths, but here‘s a terrific, and I mean terrific, version of it that opened one legendary LA show in 1986. Famous for a bouncer-inflamed riot at the end, The Smiths actually opened with Please, Please, Please….that night. A lilting, soulful version, bass, drums ‘n all. Now pop off and seek out Thank Your Lucky Stars. You will Thank Your Lucky Stars – the best Smiths bootleg out there, if y’ask me.

From Hair To Eternity

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

Brown Sugar, How Come You Taste So Good?

Craig McAllister

There’s only one thing good about Hallowe’en and that’s tablet. I despise Hallowe’en. Really properly hate it. I think it dates back to the times when I was a wee boy and I was sent out every year as a one-man band – my Dad’s old guitar (it was old then, it’s ancient now), a coathanger fashioned into a half-arsed harmonica harness, two cardboard cymbals between the knees and a massive big bass drum hanging off my skinny shoulders right down to my backside. Oh, and a couple of bells strapped round my ankles for added effect. “Who…what….are you meant to be?” they’d always ask and I’d mumble the answer while stuffing monkey nuts into a poly bag already full of monkey nuts. Then I’d shamble off to the next house sounding like the Eastenders theme falling down the stairs. With bells on.

“Can I not just be a skeleton next year Dad?”

“We’ll see son, we’ll see…”

Not that I’m scarred for life or anything. I’ve just spent the last couple of hours in classic grumpy old man fashion, hanging cheap orange and black Poundland tat from the outside walls of my garage and front door. An inflatable bat here, a plastic pumpkin there. Tat, tat and more tat. At least the kids’ll like it though. Hang some of that junk to your wall and it’s an open invitation to all and sundry. I expect literally hundreds of the wee grubbers round here tomorrow night, with their rubbish jokes and shop-bought costumes (there’ll be no one-man bands, I can guarantee you that), rattling my letterbox just as The One Show kicks off. “Oany tablet mister?”

Heres 2 version of a vaguely Hallowe’en themed double whammy (thanks to Big Stuff for the inspiration).

Spooky was first recorded by Classics IV, a band from Florida featuring a singing drummer and harmonies to rival the Wilson family. They were so laid back and chilled out they make Fleetwood Mac seem like Sonic Youth in comparison. Indeed, they practically invented the whole ‘soft rock’ genre. Gads. Spooky is almost garage band in presentation, but if you listen closely to the clipped guitar and polite vibraphone you just know they were heading in a different direction entirely. Indeed, by the time you’ve picked up on the lack of fuzz bass and the singing drummer’s vocal inflections (groovy, baby), it’s clear they’d bought a one-way ticket to mid-70s elevator muzak central, sax solos ‘n all. And it was only 1968.

Dusty Springfield hid her version away on the b-side of 1970’s How Can I Be Sure. Picked up since by hip samplers and happenin’ film soundtrack compilers, it’s been rightly placed amongst the canon of her best work. Dusty practically breathes the vocal across the top like a butterfly on a breeze as her fingers click in time to the coolest Fender Rhodes this side of Ronnie Scott’s in 1972. Even more cocktail lounge than the Classics IV version, it had, for a brief two and a half groovy minutes there made me forget the reason I was posting it in the first place.

There’s no tablet, by the way. I ate it all. Every last tooth-melting soft ‘n sugary bit of it. Right at this minute I am, as someone once sang, shakin’ all over. What’re ye goin’ as?

Bonus Track of sorts

REM did Spooky now and again in concert. Here they are in Hamburg a couple of years ago:

Live!

Moonlighting

Craig McAllister

Now and again I like to spread my wings and write things for other blogs and websites. I wrote a piece about the Stone Roses reforming and John Robb kindly published it on his constantly updating Louder Than War site. He had the good grace to call it “poignant and beautifully written.” Here’s a wee extract:

The memories are flooding back. Every time I hear Fools Gold I get a Pavlovian rush of the smell of warm chestnuts, cooking on a November London street on the way to the Ally Pally. The old bootlegs come back out and Glasgow Green sounds better than I remember. Their best ever gig, some say. I hated it.

The thumping intro tape, all drum loops and backwards guitar-as-siren had finished and through the blasts of rave whistles and shouts of excitable Scots, nerves taut with anticipation and expectation, the low rumble of I Wanna Be Adored began its fade in. The hi-hat (always the hi-hat) kick started that idiotic shuffle dance that most of us would continue for the next hour and a half. With bass and drums as canvas, a head down John teasingly splashed huge dollops of psychedelic feedback squall on top, reverberating to the back of the tent and returning twice as loud, twice as intense. And then, finally, the riff. Thousands of out of tune voices singing along, lost in our own wee world, lost in the right here and right now, in a tent in the East End of Glasgow, the most important place on Earth. This was brilliant! This was E times ten! This was…….. FUCK YOU! A punch. Right in the face. Right in my face. Right at the top of my nose. Two eyes streaming with tears, dumbstruck and trying to work out what had just happened. One of my extended crowd, a friend of a friend who’d been on the train with 20 of us from Irvine, noticed me holding my face. “Who was it? Who was it? We’ll do him.” As I shrugged in the negative and wiped the gunge from my face I saw the wee bastard slink his way into the crowd. Gone. He sneaked a half glance back, knowing he’d got away. My lot quickly got back to the main event. I couldn’t. This party was over. Here I was being soaked by the sweat of 7000 lunatics as it dripped from the roof of this massive tent, my own snot down the front of my brand new top and a throbbing between my eyes that pulsed in perfect time to every note coming from Mani’s bass. Second Summer of Love? Not for me. Forget Reading in ’96, this was the day the music died. When our band became their band. Band of The People? The wrong sort of people if you ask me. Once, you liked The Stone Roses instead of Bon Jovi or Wet Wet Wet. Now the twonks that liked Bon Jovi and Wet Wet Wet also liked The Stone Roses. Them and the neds. Aye, The Stone Roses were now a ned band. The music snob in me knew this was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Now get yerself over to Louder Than War for the full unedited version.

Includes previously unpublished photos like the one above taken by my pal Gordon at Rooftops in June 1989…..

…and look what I found up my loft – only my crappy old bootleg from Rooftops that I recorded on my Dad’s wee dictaphone. It’s digitising as I type.

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

Denise, Denise! I Gotta Crush on You!

Craig McAllister

Has it really been 20 years since Screamadelica was released? Well, no actually. Primal Scream‘s meisterwork first saw the light of day at the end of September 1991, but we’ll not split hairs over a few short months.  Bobby Gillespie certainly isn’t – the album has just been reissued in all sorts of sexy and expensive packaging and the Scream Team juggernaut is currently zig-zagging its way across the country to any number of  unfeasibly impersonal auditoriums near you as I type. It was in Glasgow the other night, in the luscious surroundings of the big red shed inside the SECC.

I didnae go. I prefer to remember the heady days of Screamadelica first-time around, crammed into the Barrowlands, Kriss Needs on the pre-gig decks mixing Prince into the Stones into Bo Diddley into Sly Stone and into my narrow-minded musical mind. Everything, from the warm-up DJ to the visuals to the energy of the band on-stage was truly spectacular and I doubt that anything like that could be created on this current tour, where a gang of outrageously pretentious  musical outlaws has been replaced by a gang of outrageously pretentious musical outlaws with big bank balances and designer suits. And there’s the difference. Also, Denise Johnson isn’t doing the backing vocals and as anyone with half a brain knows, she was clearly the secret ingredient in the original make-up of the band. My pal Wullie was so taken by Denise he sent her a letter proclaiming his love for her and she actually wrote back with a letter scented in her perfume. In this day and age of 24hr accessibility to your favourite stars via Facebook, Twitter and whatever, that’s something that’ll unlilkely happen again.

However, the main reason I didn’t go is this – I’ve heard some of the recent concerts. The playing’s fine, great actually, but the singing! Man, the singing! Bobby was never a singer, but he was always true to his Glasgow roots. These days, he sounds far more Miami Florida than Mount Florida. It’s embarrassing and it’s laughable. Listen below to the intro before Slip Inside This House from London at the end of last year…

“C’mon, lets have uh pahrty! What the fuckhr ya heer fuhr? C’mon!” OMFG, as you youngsters might say. I know what you’re here for though….

The Music

  • Moving On Up as done by Edwin Starr. Good God! Taken from a lo-fi source, sadly.
  • Moving On Up (live in London 26.11.10)
  • Slip Inside This House (live in London 26.11.10)
  • Come Together (live in London. 26.11.10. The full 14 minute Elvis-in-Memphis Suspicious Minds guitar version that morphs into the Weatherall groove ‘n gospel choir. C’est magnifique.
  • Screamadelica (the track of the same name that didn’t make the album. One of the first things I blogged. It’s essential, so it is. But you knew that already)
  • Can – You Doo Right (it’s 20 minutes long…..(yawn)…..but listen to the words. Then go and listen again to Moving On Up. Oh! Was it an influence on Bobby, or was he just under the influence when he nicked it?)

BONUS!

You can see a documentary about the making of Screamadelica here. Amongst other things you’ll find out it was Robert Young and not Bobby that sang almost all of the vocal on Slip Inside This House. Who knew, eh? Worth half an hour of your time any day of the week.

HELP!

Does anyone have a copy of Don’t Fight It, Feel It from a Select magazine tape from around 1992? It was taken from a Japanese concert I think and the band played Hey Bulldog half-way through the track. It was quite fantastic if I remember and I’d love a copy of it again.

Thanks to Scott over at Spools Paradise -that live-in-Japan version of Don’t Fight It, Feel It I was after is here.