Six Of The Best is a semi-regular feature that pokes, prods and persuades your favourite bands, bards and barometers of hip opinion to tell us six of the best tracks they’ve ever heard. The tracks could be mainstream million-sellers or they could be obfuscatingly obscure, it doesn’t matter. The only criteria set is that, aye, they must be Six of the Best. Think of it like a mini, groovier version of Desert Island Discs…

Number 16 in a series:

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Eh, he’s on a London bus, actually.

When I call Romeo Stodart, singer, songwriter and guitarist with brother/sister 4 piece The Magic Numbers he’s making his way back from his second visit to the raved-about Bowie exhibition at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. It takes a wee bit for our voices to become attuned to one another; mine being the 90 miles an hour broad Ayrshire variety whilst his sits somewhere halfway between Honolulu and the Holloway Road. Like his singing voice, it’s very soothing and liberally peppered with “yeahs” and “mans“, like a caricature 60s San Franciscan hippy, except for real.

Laid-back and loquacious, Romeo is an excellent interviewee. We’re here ostensibly to talk about The Magic Numbers up and coming gig as headliners at the very first Freckfest in Irvine and pore over his favourite tracks of all-time, but we cover way more ground than that; Neil Young, death metal, South American audiences and the David Bowie exhibition all come up in conversation.

Romeo enthuses about one of the artifacts on display in the V&A – an invoice for a Hunky Dory recording session charging Bowie £40 for studio and musicians’ time.

“Imagine recording an album as good and timeless as that for £40………mind you, two ninety-nine gets you Garage Band these days!”

Romeo lives and breathes music. Growing up firstly in Trinidad & Tobago and laterally in New York, before settling in London, he remembers as a small boy picking up his uncle’s 7″ singles and “running my fingers along the grooves of these strange objects, wondering how it all worked.” He first became aware of the power of song when one day, walking into his living room, he found his whole family sitting in floods of tears as Patsy Cline’s ‘I Fall To Pieces‘ spun infinitely on the turntable. He knew then, at that moment, that The Song, especially songs that told a story, had magical powers. He wanted more.

Younger readers take note. You, yeah, you can log on and download the entire back catalogue of the history of popular music and all its sub-genres anytime you like. Illegally. For free. Look hard enough and it’s all there for you, hanging from a virtual tree and waiting to be plundered like the next door neighbour’s apples. Back in our day, getting hold of music was a mythical quest, an adventure, something that actually cost you real money, perhaps more money than you maybe had. I spent so much money on records, I ended up having to sneak mine into the house, crammed into a not-quite-big-enough schoolbag so that my mum wouldn’t find out. To this day, I can look at any New Order 12″ and see the creases on the corners where my Rucanor hold-all damaged it. The fool that I am.

Romeo’s first musical purchase was Guns ‘n Roses Appetite For Destruction, although it wasn’t entirely his to own.

“My friend and I put our money together and bought it – ‘I’ll have the record, you can have the sleeve’ – and we shared it like that until we had enough money between us to buy another copy.”

From Guns ‘n Roses it was but a denim ‘n leather clad hop, skip and jump to Metallica, Slayer and the very bowels of death metal. That Romeo had a bit of a metal phase is not up for debate. That he kept his beard in tribute to this chapter in his formative years perhaps is. Once he started buying music, the next logical step for Romeo was to go and see it played live. His first gig was at Madison Square Garden, to see all 3 nights of Guns ‘n Roses residency. He wasn’t impressed.

“The first night, I’m like, ‘Yeah man!’ This is awesome!’ There’s smoke, lights, it’s loud, it’s super-exciting! They’re playing ‘Welcome To the Jungle’! The next night I’m like, ‘Yeah, this is good’, although it was much the same as the first night. By the third night, when Axl started ranting about the media at the same point in the set, and the roadie walked on to give Slash a cigarette after one of his solos, I realised it was just a show. Total theatre.“

There’ll be no media rants at Freckfest. No roadies participating in pantomime. No riots. The Magic Numbers recently played Brazil and Argentina and were bowled over by the crowd response. They like playing in off-the-beaten-track places, and for the last few years, nowhere has been more off the beaten musical track than Irvine.

“Unlike the big city audiences in say, London, who can see any number of well-known bands in a night, we love playing to provincial audiences who are starved of bands. We play better in front of a fervent crowd, a crowd not standing back, arms folded saying ‘Go on, impress us’. This is our last full band electric performance before our acoustic tour, and we want to tear the roof off the place.”

(Come back next year, Magic Numbers, and the council might just let you do that very thing. But that’s another story for another day…)

“The Irvine crowd are in for a good gig. We’re playing really well just now, firing off one another. It’s great to get back out on the road and just play the songs we love.“

And talking of songs we love…………

Romeo’s Six Of the Best is a cracker – a right good mixture of well-known obscurities and just plain old, eh, obscurities. Wonky 60s ballads…..roots reggae…..soulful singer/songwriters….ambient techno…..new bands….it’s like a microcosm of Plain Or Pan itself;

Please Stay – The Cryin’ Shames

A hauntingly beautiful song written by Burt Bacharach. This was the last ever record produced by the late great Joe Meek and it just sounds unlike anything else. I love the lead vocal. Guess if it’s a man or woman singing…..

(Apologies for the interruption, but please take 10 minutes after reading this and acquaint yourself with the terrific Joe Meek piece I wrote here.)

You Don’t Know – Bob Andy

Bob Andy’s a really important and influential songwriter from Jamaica. Apparently, upon having a huge hit with Young, Gifted & Black here in the UK under Bob & Marcia he didn’t like the weather and would get lost driving around London so basically couldn’t bother capitalising on pursuing his career abroad. Anyway, this song is a recent discovery. Again, there’s something really powerful in the vocal delivery. I can’t stop playing it.

Beak > – Mono

I love Beak>

Pretty much everything Portishead’s Geoff Barrow has been involved in or put out I’ve loved. I went to see them play a killer show at The Lexington in London that was so rammed, yet mid show he left the stage and pushed through the crowd to go for a slash as the toilets were on the other side of the venue. ‘Talk amongst yourselves’! I really like that kinda carry on. Anyway, this was on a recent 7 inch. I play this out when I DJ. I recommend you listen to it LOUD.

It’ll Never Happen Again – Tim Hardin

This is probably one of my favourite songs of all time, two minutes and thirty seven seconds of just pure confessional honest emotion. This and Speak Like A Child are up there with his best I think, they usually make it onto most mix tapes I make for people. Depresses the hell outta them ;0)

Ordinary Joe – Terry Callier

This has one of the best opening lines in a song ever…

‘And for my opening line…’

Just cool as! Terry Callier was someone who just oozed soul. Within every style of music he honed in on, it was there in abundance. Another favourite of mine to DJ, and a song we have covered a few times out on the road.

Avril 14th – Aphex Twin

This is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever made. I love the prepared piano sound. Genius. It’s up there with Erik Satie, a simple but hugely affecting piano instrumental. We’ve used it as intro music many a time, and to be honest it would make perfect outro music, leaving this world behind to a true gem. A must hear.

The Magic Numbers dust down their electric guitars for a full-on headline slot at Freckfest in Irvine this Saturday (17th August). They then head out on a nationwide acoustic tour. You should go and see them…..

Six Of The Best – Ian Rankin

July 17, 2013July 17, 2013 Craig McAllister

Number 15 in a series:

Ian Rankin barely needs any introduction at all. An East Coaster schooled in Cowdenbeath and at the University of Edinburgh, he’s most famously the internationally renowned creator of the Inspector Rebus novels. Like the best literary heroes, Rebus is a bender of rules, a doer of wrong in the pursuit of right, and his malt whisky-soaked character flaws and imperfections have captured the imagination of many a reader. Translated into numerous languages, each Rebus novel will casually shift in excess of half a million copies in its first 3 or 4 months of publication. According to Wikipedia (I know, I know…) they account for 10% of all crime fiction sales in the UK. Many of the stories have successfully made the transition from printed word to celluloid. People, many thousands of people, have discovered the work of Ian Rankin not only from the library but also from the television. With an OBE for services to literature, countless honorary doctorates and more Crime Writers Association Daggers than an end of the pier act on Britain’s Got Talent, Ian Rankin is, in short, a dead famous author.

Ian is also a well-known music fan. Follow him on Twitter and you’ll discover just how regularly he visits his favourite record shops, goes to gigs and enthuses about new music. With a nod and a wink and an eyebrow permanently arched, his writing is liberally peppered with music references and trainspotters like myself enjoy looking for them all, silently hoping that it’s only us and the author who are in on the secret but knowing full well that half the population gets it too. Off the top of my head, his various novels have been titled Let It Bleed, Black And Blue, Beggars Banquet (all Rolling Stones LPs), The Hanging Garden (A Cure track, more of which later), Exit Music (A Radiohead track) and Dead Souls (Joy Division). There’s also the Heartache Cafe in The Black Book that sells Blue Suede Choux for dessert. Read the novels and you’ll find many more.

I came late to Ian Rankin’s books. Fortunately as it turned out, you don’t need to have been with him from the start. Yes, Rebus novels have wee themes going through them and they regularly refer back to previous characters and cases that Rebus has worked on, but you don’t necessarily need to start at the beginning (1987’s Knots And Crosses) and work forwards from there. You can start anywhere. Just jump in and you’ll quickly get the measure of the man.

Somehow, for reasons I don’t really know, I’d missed out on all of Rankin’s books until my father-in-law handed me a couple, telling me to read them because I’d like them. He was right. And so, during the summer holidays a couple of years ago I found myself in the midst of a Rebus marathon. The first one I read was Mortal Causes, about the tattooed body of a gangster being discovered, and where I met Big Ger Cafferty for the first time.

You probably know already, but it’s dead easy to get hooked on a Rebus investigation. I was going through a Rebus novel every couple of days and found myself totally immersed in his tangled life of complicated relationships and petty workplace politics. Although an Ayrshireman, I could still pick out recognisable Edinburgh landmarks and streets (Mary King’s Close, Fleshmarket Close, The Oxford Bar) that helped place the stories in the real world, in the here and now, as opposed to some made-up fantasy land a million miles from reality. I’d find myself desperate to revisit Edinburgh and perhaps stumble upon the corners and closes where many of the crimes Rebus was investigating had taken place.

During this self-induced Rebusathon I happened to be channel-hopping late one night, past BBCs 3 and 4 where nothing of interest was on, past Sky Arts where a repeat of a Smiths concert was on (Rockpalast – it’s very good, but I’d seen it half a dozen times already), past Channel 4 movies, past the shopping channels, past Al Jazeera TV until I rested on some short-lived channel that may or may not have been called Sleuth TV. I’m not making this up. On Sleuth TV was an adaptation, I quickly realised, of Strip Jack, the Rebus story I was currently half-way through. I started watching but immediately, just as I was thinking, “Turn over! You don’t want to know how the story ends!” the killer was very clearly being unmasked, and the scene played out loudly and unavoidably on the telly in front of me. Unfortunate timing. To this day, Strip Jack remains the only one of Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels I have never finished.

Anyway. Enough flim-flam from me. Ian’s ‘Six of the Best‘ is right up Plain Or Pan’s street. Over to the man himself…

When Desert Island Discs asked me several years back for my top 8 songs, I started with a Shortlist of 40. So I’ve decided here to go with six tracks that may not be all-time favourites but mean something to me and should be listened to more often.

‘Silver Machine’ by Hawkwind.

I probably want this played at my funeral. It was one of the first records I bought, and I still own and play that original 45. To me it means rock, and sci-fi, danger and otherworldliness. Smashing.

‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ by the Rolling Stones.

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I remember hearing this when I was 10 or 11 and not being impressed. By the age of 30 Let It Bleed was my favourite album and it’s still up there. A beautiful piece of music with a lyric that captures a moment in social history. A really hopeful song to round off a great album. Mourners may leave my funeral service with Hawkwind ringing in their ears, but as they walk into the chapel this is what they might hear.

‘Theme from Shaft’ by Isaac Hayes.

When I was a kid I loved this tune, especially the wah-wah guitar. I was too young to see the film, so I bought the book. I was amazed that a kid was allowed to read anything and everything. Books became exciting to me. And I got a taste for crime fiction. My whole career starts with John Shaft.

‘The Hanging Garden’ by The Cure.

So good I named one of my novels after it. Then used quotes from Cure songs throughout the text. Robert Smith was gracious enough to grant permission. The fee? A signed book. Always loved The Cure, and Joy Division, and Bauhaus, and… All those dark, atmospheric post-punk pre-Goth groups. I sang in one myself. They were called the Dancing Pigs and weren’t good enough. So I put them in one of my novels, too.

‘Exit Wound’ by Jackie Leven.

Jackie was a fan of my books. I didn’t know that. But I was a fan of his music and so was Inspector Rebus. Eventually we became friends, made an album, toured together. And then Jackie was gone, dead too soon. I saw him do this song many times. It’s moving, powerful, classic Jackie.

‘Ankle Shackles’ by King Creosote.

There wasn’t much of a music scene in Fife when I was growing up. Nazareth in the early 70s, The Skids a bit later. But then came KC and his Fence Collective colleagues. Love his stuff. Wrote the sleeve notes for one album. This track is quite new, and only appeared on CD this year. I saw him do it live in Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall last year. It is a pulsing, driving, bitter tale, enlivened by cello and a terrific vocal. Dude’s a dude, bless him.

Bonus Track!

As mentioned earlier, Ian toured with Jackie Leven in 2005. Here’s a live version of the pair of them doing Exit Wound.

In 2006, Ian was the featured castaway on Desert Island Discs. There are a couple of crossover artists/records from his Six of the Best list above. You can read more about it here. Or give yourself 45 minutes and listen to an edited version of the broadcast below;

Also worth a listen is this wee curio – Tim Burgess of Charlatans fame asked Ian to write him a short story that could be set to music. The resultant record, A Little Bit Of Powder, was read in spoken word form by actor Craig Parkinson (he plays Tony Wilson in Ian Curtis biopic Control) and given away by Tim to his fans as a Christmas present. Rather frustratingly, the Soundcloud track fades out before the story has finished. Like all good Ian Rankin stories, you’ll need to track down your own copy to find out how it ends. After all, A Little Bit Of Powder is unlikely to be shown on Sleuth TV anytime soon.

Ian Rankin‘s next Rebus novel (the 20th) Saints Of the Shadow Bible is published in November 2013.

You can find out more about Ian Rankin at his official website here.

And you can follow him on Twitter here.

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Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – Charlie Boyer

March 25, 2013 Craig McAllister

Number 14 in a series:

Well.

This is something of a first for Plain Or Pan.

Regular readers will be aware that most of the music that appears here is from before, say, 1985. Anything else more up to date than that must past strict and stringent tests to ensure the quality of the fare on offer does not drop too far down on the old Tune-O-Meter. The artist featured here is so achinghly hip and happening and cutting edge and NOW that I fear my keyboard may temporarily freeze over, such is the ice-cold coolness he and his band of East London renegades appear to have.

Charlie Boyer and The Voyeurs have been played a lot on 6 Music. So thanks to the BBC, and Marc Riley in particular, who’s super-enthusiastic about their music and has had them in for sessions, Charlie and his Voyeurs have become my new favourite band.

If I was 18 or 22 or even 25, I’d go so far as to say they’re the best band ever. At that age, you’ve perhaps still to hear the influences that so clearly seep into their music.

But, by my age, you’ve pretty much heard it all. It was the singing that got me first. “That sounds like Television!” The Tom Verlaine-esque lazy drawl. The snaking, intertwined guitar riffage. Pure Television.

Then it was the tunes. “That sounds like something off a Nuggets LP!” Short ‘n sharp ‘n full of Farfisa. If you dug it, it’s a Nugget, as someone once said.

Then it was the sound. “That sounds kinda like Horrors and Toy and all those new-psyche bands. Or like The Strokes back when they were cool and vital and everything.”

The Voyeurs look like them too. Or to be more accurate about it, they look like the Velvet Underground in 1967. Lean, mean and looking pristine, they’re all black leather and skinny jeans and bowl cuts, with pointy boots comin’ at you like the Krays wielding a pair of snooker cues.

If you haven’t yet watched the video, look again at the promo shot at the top, and new single (their 2nd) Things We Be sounds exactly as you’d expect it to. Following on from debut release I Watch You, it’s out this week. You should buy it. A scuzzy, scuffed garage band affair over and out in 3 chords and 3 minutes, it has a real chance of scraping yer actual charts (whatever they are these days) and should see Charlie and his four Voyeurs primed for pole position come summer festivals time. The debut album Clarietta is released at the end of May and it wouldn’t surprise me if that goes Top 10 before June. You heard it here first, boys ‘n girls.

I started writing this piece before Charlie had agreed to contribute to it, so it was pleasantly surprising when a) he agreed to do it, and b) his choices by and large mirrored my ideas of what his band’s influences might be. Amongst the 17+ minutes avant-garde New York cool of the Velvets and Edwyn Collins’ nascent, knee trembling, clattering dub reggae-by-way-of-Bearsden, you’ll find the dumb fun, fun, fun, of early Beach Boys, the effortless, unparalleled BIG sound of the Big O (an influence in the shades dept. at least), The Fall covering a bona fide Nugget and the new-psyche sounds of labelmates Toy.

It’s a great list…..it’s a great listen:

1. The Velvet Underground
Sister Ray
It has excited and amazed me since I was 15. It has 3 chords and is completely magical.

2. Roy Orbison
You Got It
I love his Sun/Nashville period…some of the best songs I’ve ever heard. But for some reason this is the one that gets me at the moment.

3. Orange Juice
Breakfast Time
We recently recorded with Edwyn Collins and this has always been my favourite. It’s the B-side of Simply Thrilled Honey. The structure and the lyrics are really interesting together.

(Plain Or Pan says: I always preferred the version on the Rip It Up LP – full-on dub reggae by way of Bearsden)

4. The Fall
Mr. Pharmacist
Another great Fall song.

(Plain Or Pan says: Younger readers may be interested in the original version by The Other Half. It’s pretty essential.)

5. The Beach Boys
Little Honda
One of their best rock n’ roll songs. Really good naive lyrics. And I think one of Brian’s first productions for the band?

(Plain Or Pan says: Aye – possibly Brian’s first ever production at that.)

6. Toy
My Heart Skips A Beat
Their new single. And my favourite song on their album. The string/synth bit at the end is wonderful. Sounds like something from Lou Reed’s Berlin.

Magic, eh? Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get Charlie Boyer‘s here. Or here.

Now go and buy some real records and bask in the I-told-you-so glory when …the Voyeurs sell out at a venue near you later on this year.

Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – Daniel Wylie

February 12, 2013 Craig McAllister

Number 13 in a series:

Daniel Wylie is a solo artist best-known as the honey-toned vocalist in Glasgow’s Cosmic Rough Riders, a jinglin’, janglin’ bona fide turn of the century Top 40 chart group, with Top Of The Pops appearances and support slots to some of the biggest acts in the World under their belt. If Cosmic Rough Riders and their influences were a question on Pointless, high scores would be awarded all round for references to the 4 Bs – Beatles, Byrds, Beach Boys and Big Star – the mother lode of West of Scotland guitar bands. The smart answers would be on the less obvious; 70s lovers’ rock reggae. Jazz-influenced AOR artists. Contemporary bands. All perhaps obvious once heard, but not the first artists that spring to mind whenever you choose to give essential CRR compilation Enjoy The Melodic Sunshine a wee spin.

Being like a potted history of all their best bits, smash hit Revolution (In The Summertime) (#35 with a bullet) is as good a place to start as any if you’re unfamiliar with their work, where every song appears to have been written, recorded and placed on a timeline anytime between July and August. Daniel and his band’s inter-woven 3 part harmonies and chiming guitars created the unmistakable sound of summer. Nothing new, of course. Plenty of bands, especially in this part of Scotland, seem particularly au fait with this concept, but the Cosmic Rough Riders were one of the finest.

What’s perhaps most surprising about Cosmic Rough Riders is that the ‘band’ was essentially Daniel and some hired help. Think Roddy Frame/Aztec Camera. Or Matt Johnson/The The. Nothing new, really. Even The Smiths on paper were really only Morrissey and Marr. And those ‘inter-woven 3 part harmonies’? Live, Daniel would sing along to his pre-recorded harmonies whilst his band of hired help mimed in best ‘Live On Top Of The Pops’ fashion. Aye! Why? Well, after Alan McGee showed interest in signing him, Daniel hastily put together a band that would enable him to play his songs live. Duly signed there and then, as a band rather than solo artist, Daniel found himself in a situation of Spinal Tap proportions when his new bandmates began demanding royalties for records they hadn’t initially played on. Daniel quickly and quietly left, leaving Cosmic Rough Riders to eek it out, with ever-decreasing returns.

In the intervening years, Daniel has done what he does best. He writes and records regularly and has amassed loads of material. “Enough good stuff for twenty more albums without dropping quality“. His 6th solo outing, Fake Your Own Death is ready to go, and will be released as soon as the right deal comes along. In the meantime, you can listen to assorted tracks via YouTube. One of the best, Everything I Give You, wears its influences proudly on its plaid-shirted sleeve (music by REM, harmonies by CSNY). It’s terrific. I think you’ll like it :

Daniel has picked 6 great tunes as his Six Of The Best:

Elizabeth Archer & The Equators – Feel Like Makin’ Love (Dub Version)

I’m a massive fan of 60’s and 70’s pop reggae. I heard this on John Peel’s show one night and had to order it from Bruces Records in Glasgow. He told me 16 people had ordered this hard to find single. Some years later, I heard Edwyn Collins mention it among his favourite records and how, after hearing it on John Peel’s show, he ordered it from Bruces Records. I met Edwyn a couple of years ago and we spoke about how he was one of the 16 and how great this single is.

R.E.M. – Perfect Circle

Not only my favourite R.E.M. song but also Michael Stipe’s favourite. Like on Nightswimming, the beautiful piano motif was written by ex drummer Bill Berry. What a loss he was to the band. When he left, he left a massive void that no one managed to fill.

Band Of Horses – Detlef Schrempf
I love Neil Young and lots of Band Of Horses songs remind me of classic 70’s Neil Young. This is a beautiful melancholic tune that compares favourably with another great Neil Young influenced band, My Morning Jacket’s best work.

Steely Dan – Only A Fool Would Say That

Acerbic and sometimes sarcastic lyrics, were Steely Dan trademarks. They managed to dress them up in amazing tunes and great arrangements, making the perfect package for intellectual music fans around the world…or you might just like the tune.

John Martyn – Fine Lines

John Martyn is an English songwriter who was schooled and brought up in Glasgow by his Gran. He went to Shawlands Acadamy and learned his trade in the folk clubs of Glasgow where he was taught to play guitar by among others, folk legend, Hamish Imlach. Whilst he started out as a folkie, he followed in the footsteps of Joni Mitchell by embracing a more Jazz oriented style. “Fine Lines”, is a transitional song from his mostly experimental album “Inside Out.” A song on which he manages to “touch your soul.”

Todd Rundgren – I Saw The Light

Todd Rundgren, is revered by musicians in the same way that Brian Wilson, is. His skills as a songwriter, producer, musician and singer, are up there with the very best. It was a difficult choice between this song and “Hello It’s Me”, but I heard this on the radio when I was around 14 years old and at 54 years old, I’m still listening to it and loving it just as much as when I first heard it all those years ago.

Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get Daniel Wylie’s here. Or here.

Listen to tracks and keep up to date with all things Daniel-related via his My Space page. (Shhh! It’s not that up to date).

Or listen to a selection of his songs via Daniel Wylie Radio.

Or buy his music via iTunes. Go! Now!

demo, Hard-to-find, Six Of The Best, Yesterday's Papers

Yesterday’s Papers – Bums, Punks and Old Sluts On Junk

December 17, 2012December 18, 2012 Craig McAllister

Yesterday’s Papers is my way of infrequently getting new life out of carefully selected old posts. It’s terrific that new readers seem to find Plain Or Pan on a daily basis and often request particular pieces of music which, for one reason or another no longer have working links. There’s also some stuff on here that I, being vain and narcissistic, still enjoy reading and, even though I would like to take an editor’s pen to the text and re-write much of it, I think new and not so new readers might enjoy reading it too.

Every Yesterday’s Papers post is presented exactly as it was written when it first appeared on Plain Or Pan, apart from the odd spelling mistake or grammatical error that escaped my editorial eye first time around. Oh, and the links to the music have all been updated too.

First Appeared December 13, 2011

This time last year I read an article in one of Mrs Plain Or Pan’s magazines about Christmas. The article asked a carefully selected sample of celebrities to describe their perfect Christmas Day. “A long walk in the woods with my fiancé,” cooed Kathryn Jenkins, “before curling up in front of the log fire with a glass of mulled wine.” “We always start the day with a champagne breakfast,” revealed Maureen Lipman. “Traditionally, we open presents after dinner, then the whole family settles down to watch The Snowman.” Christmas Day seems just peachy round at her’s, eh? I don’t know about your house, but mine on Christmas Day is nothing like that at all. “Those carrots are mushy…and the sprouts are still raw! You useless bleep!”(whispered of course, so the relatives can’t hear us arguing, 3 feet away on the other side of the wall). “You told me when to put them on!” “Could you not tell the carrots were ready? Couldn’t you use your bleeping brains for once?” etc etc etc. Like I said, I don’t know about your house, but I’m inclined to think it’ll be more like mine than Kathryn Jenkins’ or Maureen Lipman’s come a week on Sunday.

Still Alive! Todd Marrone did this, the talented so-and-so.

You know this already, but just for the record, Fairytale Of New York is the best Christmas song of all-time. It doesn’t matter what’s gone before (the Phil Spector album, Bowie ‘n Bing’s Little Drummer Boy, the glam slam of Slade and Wizzard) or what came after (East 17? Cliff Richard? Kylie Minogue panting her way through Santa Baby with all the sex appeal of an asthma attack?) Some of these records are better than others, but none of them come close to capturing the essence of Christmas (raw sprouts, useless husbands and all) quite like The Pogues.

A Fairytale Of New York is almost unique amongst Christmas songs in that it tackles the ‘C’ word with none of the blind enthusiasm or misty-eyed schlock normally reserved for such events. Slade set their stall out before a bell has even been clanged in excitement. “It’s Christmaaaaas!!” yells Noddy, and you know from then on in you’re in for a rollicking yuletide ride. Wham drown that thinly-disguised same-sex love song of theirs in a gazillion sleigh bells and suddenly everything in George Michael’s garden is rosy. “All I Want For Christmas,” enthuses Mariah Carey, “is yooouuuuooooouuu!” Yeah, and an X-Box, an iPod and a flat screen TV, Mariah. We’re all materialistic over here. And while you’re at it, could you get me a job too? And maybe find someone who’ll give us a mortgage? Aye, bah humbug ‘n all that jazz. The Pogues have gone for none of that. Fairytale Of New York is still romantic, but it’s also raw, real and ragged, full of remorse for past misdemeanours while hoping for a better future. Nicely gift wrapped of course in a Pogues-punk waltz-time, with added BBC ban-defying swearing.

It’s a terrific arrangement, put together quite masterfully by Steve Lillywhite. Initially written as a duet between Shane MacGowan and Pogues bass player Cait O’Riordan, then scrapped when she left the band, it was Steve Lillywhite who suggested getting the missus in to duet with MacGowan instead. Listen to the demos below and hear how he transformed The Pogues’ half-finished ideas into the final record, with its peaks and troughs and instrumental breaks. Hear too how he gets the best out of Shane, who at this point in his life was eating tabs of acid the way the Fonz eats gum (all the time, if you didn’t know), whilst washing them down with enough brandy to drown a whale. Lillywhite somehow coaxes him out of the famous fluent Macgowanese mumble and into that raucous final take.

The Music:

Ennio Morricone’s Overture from Once Upon A Time In America, from where Shane pinched the melody. Play it (above) – you’ll spot it immediately!

One of the first takes. Fluffed lines, missed cues….and the band played on.

Shane ‘n Cait almost full-length run-through duet with alt. lyrics, missed cues, forgotten words………and the band played on.

The ‘blueprint version‘ – Starts with Shane ‘n James Fearnley on accordion. Different lyrics again. Shane struggles with the concept of singing in tune. Band in top form as usual. After listening to this you can begin to appreciate the contribution Kirsty MacColl made to the finished record.

The final take. The best Christmas song ever.

Tell yer pals:

Get This!, Kraut-y, Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – James Brooks

December 8, 2012December 30, 2012 Craig McAllister

Number 12 in a series:

It’s not often these days that a new album hits me square between the eyes demanding I reach for the repeat button again and again. Normally, by the 2nd listen, I’ve heard all I need to hear and whatever I’m playing is filed away in alphabetical order, unlikely to see the light of day ever again. Sometimes, an album will make it all the way to a week on Wednesday, as I do my best to find some so-far unheard melody or wee bit that grabs me (Tame Impala, I’m looking at you). But, eventually, the same fate awaits all of them. Well, nearly all of them.

The album that’s got under my skin most in the past few months is unlike anything else I’ve heard this year. That this album features no bass, no drums and no singalong choruses, or, for that matter, no singing at all makes it all the more surprising. Roman Roads IV-XI by Land Observations is that album. With my penchant for old La’s demos and soul tracks recorded before 1975, I could hardly be considered a knowledgeable voice at the forefront of cutting edge new music, but I’m going to stick my neck out just this once. I really think you’d like it. That’s what my old work pal Donald told me before I’d listened, and it turned out he was right. I liked the album so much that I bought it there and then from iTunes. That’s not something I’ve ever done, believe me. iTunes? Gads. But Roman Roads IV-XI made that big an impression on me. I’ve only just got around to ordering the vinyl version, which comes with a CD copy, so I’ve now found myself with all bases covered. I’ve got plenty of albums in multi-format, but the Land Observations one is the first in a long while. It’s a ‘keeper’, as they say. Alongside Lightships’ Electric Cables and Outside In by the Super Furries’ Cian Ciaran, it’s formed an inseperable trio that make up my Best Album(s) of the Year. Like I said earlier, I could hardly be considered a knowledgeable voice at the forefront of cutting edge new music, but I really think you’d like it.

Land Observations is the nom de plume of James Brooks; fine artist, musician and Roman road enthusiast. Previously in Peel favourites Broadcast (they recorded 4 Peel Sessions and 4 albums in all), James has developed a very particular sound. For him it’s all clean, linear and minimal, built around layered and gently effected guitars.

Roman Roads IV-XI is a simple album. In times gone by it would have been labelled a concept album. Eight tracks of quietly pulsing motifs, inspired in part by the remnants of the Roman road at the end of James Brooks’ street, its repetitiveness and motorik Michael Rother-ish chiming guitar bring to mind the work of Vini Reilly and The Durutti Column, Rother’s Neu and all those other mid 70s German bands that the real barometers of hip opinion told you about long before now. I suppose you might call it Kosmische Musik if you were a lazy labeller.

Play it through a set of headphones and the world slows down in front of your very eyes. You lose track of time. You want to stop time. This isn’t an album you can multi-task to. Like many of you reading this, I like watching stuff like Countdown or Pointless with the sound down while I listen to my music, but you can’t do that with Roman Roads IV-XI. It requires you to stop. And listen. Tracks melt into one another. That understated, nagging motorik feel worms its way inside of you. Counter melodies make their way to the fore and new rhythms start to appear. Bits of it sound like mild-mannered drum machines battling with analogue synths. Before long you could be forgiven for thinking you’re listening to some minimal techno album or other, and not one man and his guitar (and, in keeping with the Roman theme, that’s a VI string guitar James is playing). The whole album’s quite sensational, really.

There’s a gentle ebb and flow to the whole thing, which means it’s best listened to as a whole thing. It’s not much longer than half an hour – that makes it ideal commuting and lunch break material. I’ve been cycling a lot with it. There’s no greater feeling than really going for it on a nice flat bit of road with the sun setting behind the Isle of Arran as Appian Way washes over you. So what if you hear the sound of the chain snaking its way through the sprocket and into the mix? That only adds to it.

“I’ve always really admired the fragile emotion in Phil Collins’ voice, and his version of You Can’t Hurry Love is far superior to anything Motown ever put out.” Not an actual quote, but I dread the day when someone tells me something like that. Whenever I do these Six of the Best pieces I’m always a wee bit panicky in case the contributor’s choices are unexpectedly naff and I’m left with a whole different impression of that person. Thankfully, it’s unlikely James will ever need to channel his inner Slash in the quest for inspiration. A look through his Six of the Best choices reveals a set of records that, once you’ve heard Roman Roads IV-XI makes perfect sense. All the music featured is repetitive, emotive and full of soul. Guitar lines are clean and distinctive. There’s space. On one or two tracks, there’s an almost neo-classical thing going on. Much like James’ own work.

James agonised over his choices for a good few weeks before narrowing them down to his final six. For what it’s worth, if you’ve never heard any of the bands on offer, they’re as good an introduction to those artists as you’ll find.

“It’s funny how it all pretty much ends up being early influences, rather than things from 2 years ago etc.”

Here y’are’;

Can – Future Days

There are of course a number of Can songs I could have picked that I hold close, but this one seems to win out because of its mystery. Everytime I listen to it, I’m left wanting more. There is a strong sense of rhythm, yet, it still seems to retain this droney, washed-out enigma.

Listen to Future Days by Can

The Durutti Column – Pauline

When I first got the Circuses And Bread LP, I so was taken with this track…..and still am – elegance and understatement that is second to none. This might sound over the top, but it calls to mind Bach and Chopin in the same sentence.

Listen to Pauline by The Durutti Column

Television – Marquee Moon

I recall reading about the album first before hearing it and thinking that this sounds like something I need to find out more about.

There’s such accomplishment, with the twin guitars and band playing as a cohesive force. Marquee Moon (the song) is such a constructivist opus in its arrangement and structure.

Listen to Marquee Moon by Television

Nick Drake – Road

I had to select a Nick Drake song. Through whatever musical exploring I have done, his music has stayed consistent ever since hearing him as a teenage art student. I do remember very vividly standing at my bedroom window and having an epiphany of how good guitars could be. Again I could have chosen a number of songs. For such a small output, there’s a lot of quality…

Listen to Road by Nick Drake

The Cure – A Forest

Just a magnificent indie guitar song. What can I say…Robert Smith is a lucky man to have written this. The space that is left within the track and on Seventeen Seconds is something else.

Listen to A Forest by The Cure

Neu – Hallogallo

I had to pick this track. It was the one that got me initially… Drive, attitude, propulsion, yet never rock. It just rolls along… A real bench-mark moment.

Listen to Hallogallo by Neu

Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get James Brooks’ ~~here~~. New Link!

Now! Click on the album cover and go and buy a copy of Roman Roads IV-XI by Land Observations. Then tell all your friends. Go! Go! Go!

All photos courtesy of and copyright by Erika Wall

Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – Cian Ciaran

July 21, 2012July 29, 2012 Craig McAllister

Number 11 in a series:

2012 looks like it’s the year of the side project. Just as Gerry Love‘s excellent Lightships LP has raised his status from bass playing, songwriting member of Teenage Fanclub into bona fide artist in his own right, so to will Outside In by Cian Ciaran.

Cian is the keyboard player with the Super Furry Animals. He’s the man who put the tech in their technicolour surround sound and is the Super Furries’ secret weapon, the main reason they remain a massive cut above yer average indie rock band. With Cian at the helm, the Super Furry sound can go from Beach Boys balladery to bangin’ nosebleed techno to 12-bar boogie and back again, often before the first chorus. Sure, it’s Gruff out front and it’s Gruff who appears most active when the SFA are in downtime, so who knew that the wee guy at the back who sings occasional harmonies was such an integral part of the band’s sound?

Well, wait till you hear Outside In. Drawing another parallel with Gerry Love’s Lightships, it’s nothing really like the music of Cian’s day job, it’s not what you might expect to hear, yet it’s somehow exactly right. Cian’s record is all about the arrangements. And I’m talkin’ a Surfs Up level of sophistication here, a level of greatness few would’ve presumed a keyboard boffin with a side project releasing anonymous techno records was ever capable of (sorry, Cian). Written entirely on keyboard, though played on a smörgåsbord of Super Furry-friendly instruments, Outside In is bathed in pathos, with melancholy dripping from every minor key and sustained harmony. As I previously wrote about lead track You & Me:

Lennonesque is the word that straightaway springs to mind. The double-tracked vocals, the Double Fantasy piano part, the double dose of sweary words. There’s even a George Harrison slide section playing just behind the best 3-part woo-woo-wooing harmonies the Wilson brothers never recorded.

That should give you some idea of where the album’s heading. Second track ‘Till I Die is a real heart-breaker. Tinkling grand pianos accompany Cian as he pours his heart and soul into it. Woman. What have you done to me? Why leave me? My life began the day that I found you. Jesus. By the time the string section swells into the middle eight there’s not a dry eye in the house. This is immense. Proper grown-up adult music, whatever that is. Elsewhere on Outside In you’ll find the Super Furry bossa nova of Martina Franca, the falsetto a-capella of 1st Time and the sunny doo-wop of What Will Be. There’s enough wonky waltzes and trippy time signatures, fuzzy psychedelia and unconventional weirdness to satisfy your inner Wilson fetish. Indeed, every track sounds like it’s been poked, prodded and tweaked by ol’ hang dog Brian himself whilst lounging in his L.A. sandpit. Which, if you need to ask, is no bad thing at all.

Cian’s choices (and accompanying You Tube links) for Six of the Best are perhaps the most eclectic and interesting we’ve had yet, a perfect reflection of someone who often turned up at festivals blaring ear-splitting techno from a customised army tank and, who, in his day job plays in one of the most eclectic, interesting and unconventional bands on (?) the planet, unrestricted by fad, fashion or expectation. From crescendo-peaking opera and string-swelling soundtrack via wigged-out indie rock and under-appreciated songwriters living in the enormous shadow of their brothers to 20 minute long squelchy 303 acid house, Cian’s picks truly are Six of the Best…

In no particular order…….. it’s like choosing between ones children…..

Ennio Moriconne – Once Upon A Time In The West

I only chose this particular track because I had to choose one. But it did bring a tear to my eye when I heard it live. Anything by him has been eye-opening for me and something to aspire to. I’ve seen him 4 times in various locations, the best was in Rome where he played less of the hits. I love the power of a live orchestra. Awe inspiring.

Stone Roses – I Am The Resurrection

The band that made me want to be in a band. Before I heard the Stone Roses, the only gtr music I really knew was the Beatles and Stones. They made music contemporary for me. At the time I picked up a pair of drumstix and practised and realised soon enough that I had a long way to go, and still do. I went to see them last month and it was a trip down memory lane. I used to listen to the album on my Walkman every night in bed and sang every word, guitar part, solo, every drum beat and bass line – fuck me, it was my musical education that I still cherish to this day.

Bizet – The Pearl Fishers

I first heard this when I was 4 apparently, so says my mum when I walked into the kitchen having played it and then reported back to her saying “It’s a special piece , isn’t it Mam?”

Stakker- Humanoid (Snowman mix)

I think this was the first record I knowingly bought, after Ghostbusters from WHSmiths on Bangor High Street. Acid House was my first love and this track is one of my all time greats. There are so many versions but this one, along with the original is my favourite. It was my first step into what would shape my musical exploits through my teens. I don’t know where I’d be now without acid and techno. Long may it continue and develop. Electronic music always pushes barriers for me and shapes things to come, musically and in production, ever since synths and technology found their way into popular music. I fuckin’ loves it!

System7 – Alpha Wave (Plastikman rmx) –

A classic, I never get tired of this one. I played it in Liquid Rooms, Tokyo back in the day. There’s an almighty drop down, and a build up that lasts forever. It’s one of the best (along with Hardfloor’s monster builds, that would be another choice, Hardtrance Acperience, here), in which the crowd proceeded to do the Ayatollah to the record as conducted by Guto and Bunf. It still works on the dancefloor to this day.

Dennis Wilson – Lady (Fallin’ In Love)

Again, I could’ve chosen anything by the Beach Boys but plumped for this solo effort to represent them. A beautiful song, what more can I say?

As Cian perfectly summarised in Rocksucker recently:

I don’t want to be held down to one style of music because I like listening to all sorts, and I like writing in all styles as well. I don’t think you should be pigeon-holed into one style because you can learn from other styles and incorporate what you learn in other stuff, weave it in however you want. It’s like an artist – why should an artist stick to his paintbrush when he can do pottery or film or photography? I just look at it like that.

Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get Cian Ciaran’s ~~here~~. New link HERE! (Thanks, Andy!) Now get yourself over pronto to your favourite record shop, if you’re lucky enough to have one you can frequent, or your usual online retailer and pick up a copy of Cian Ciaran‘s Outside In. Or, in keeping with the Super Furry mood, why not buy it here, via Spillers in Cardiff, The Oldest Record Shop In The World. Go! Go! Go

Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – R.J. Ellory

July 14, 2012July 3, 2014 Craig McAllister

Number 10 in a series:

By now, 10 novels in, Roger Jon Ellory should be a household name in the same way Stephen King or Dean Koontz or Ian Rankin are household names. A multi-award winner (Steel Dagger, CWA Dagger, a Barry Award, Crime Novel of the Year, to name just some), he writes crime thrillers like no-one else at the moment, and in a just world Roger’s books would be making the jackpot-winning leap from print to celluloid. His stories can be brutal, violent, uncomfortable and unsettling, but turn the page and it’s just as likely you’ll be reading some life-affirming, uplifting, faith-in-humankind passage – the welcome daylight to the novel’s relentless darkness. Always gripping, Roger’s books are simply unputdownable and feature more twists than a copy of Chubby Checker’s Greatest Hits. Just when you think you have a handle on the story and how it’s panning out, he has the knack of hitting you between the eyes with an unforeseen left turn. Page turners. That’s what they call them.

I chanced upon Roger’s novels after a trip to New York. With Big Apple dirt still under my fingernails and the smell of stale pretzels lingering in my hair, I went to Kilwinning library looking for something to read that might help me cope with the unwelcome NYC withdrawal symptoms I couldn’t shake. From the row of anonymous books on the ‘E’ shelf, Saints Of New York made its way into my line of vision, its title dancing seductively before my eyes (think Tales of the Unexpected), and after flicking randomly through a couple of pages I knew this was the one for me. I read it in 2 days flat, visualising the landmarks and streets that had been my home a few days previously, adding my own imagined soundtrack of honking taxis, skronking Central Park saxophones and loud-mouthed street vendors. “Hat cwoffee! Hat cwoffee!” With the last paragraph still ringing in my ears I hot-footed it back to the library, making a bee-line for the ‘E’ section. Loads of Ellorys! Ghostheart. City Of Lies. A Simple Act Of Violence. A Quiet Belief In Angels (set not in NYC, but even more gripping (if that was possible) than what I’d read so far). In The Anniversary Man, the story even climaxed on a bench in Union Square, the same bench, I convinced myself, where I had eaten my lunch on the day I left.

Roger really captures the feel of the places he writes about. You can tell every word, every measured nuance has been carefully considered, agonised over even, before being committed to print. His chosen prose transports you slap bang in the middle of the time and place in which the story’s set. You can smell the deep south of New Orleans in A Quiet Vendetta. You can hear the open roads and taste the Texas dustbowls of Bad Signs. It was most surprising, then, to find out that Roger lived not in New York or in New Orleans but in Birmingham. And not Birmingham, Alabama, but Birmingham, UK. How can he write so knowingly, so honestly about places half-way across the world? Research, yes. An awful lot of research, I’d imagine. And no doubt the odd field trip or two, but clearly, RJ Ellory has a gift for story writing. My favourite? That’s hard (I’m half way through A Dark And Broken Heart, his latest), but for the moment it would have to be A Quiet Belief In Angels. You should read it, you’d like it a lot. Surely it’s only a matter of time before some enterprising movie maker or other adapts it for the silver screen? Tarantino at the helm. William H Macy as Sheriff Dearing. Scarlett Johansson as Miss Webber. That would be great…

Fresh from publishing his Chicagoland eBook trilogy (above, 99p a book!), playing and singing in his own band, The Whiskey Poets and hanging backstage with Bruce Springsteen in Paris, Roger somehow found the time to contribute his ‘Six Of The Best‘ to Plain Or Pan…

I have to say that being asked to write something about six songs is outrageously unfair! How can you choose six songs? I have hundreds of LPs, thousands of tapes and CDs, and I have just started loading this library of music onto an iPod. I have crossed the 10,000 tracks mark, and I have a long, long, long way to go yet. The only way I could do this was to choose six tracks that I have listened to in the last couple of days that stood out for me. I have excluded Tom Waits, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Paul Butterfield Blues Band (with Mike Bloomfield, one of my true guitar idols), and so, so, so many other wonderful artistes.

Anyway, here are six songs, though tomorrow there would be another six, and the day after another six again…

Johnny Cash

If You Could Read My Mind

I only recently discovered this song on Cash’s last album. I love the original by Gordon Lightfoot, and have listened to it for years, but there is something so desperately emotive about this version. Cash is tired. You can just feel it in every line, every breath. He knows he’s reaching the end of his life, and he has taken a number of classic songs and covered them. I listen to this and it breaks my heart. It is not just the words, it’s the arrangement, the fact that the key has been dropped into Cash’s vocal range…just everything about it. I was playing the CD in the car, and this track came on and I just had to pull over to the side of the road and wait for it to finish. Once it was done, I played it again.

Antony & The Johnsons

Hope There’s Someone

I saw this performed on a television show, and it stopped me dead in my tracks. He’s an Englishman, from Kent I believe, and he wound up in New York where he was supported and patronised by Lou Reed. Oddly enough, I saw him in a cameo role in a recent film called ‘Animal Factory’ with Willem Defoe, where he played an inmate singing on a talent show evening. There is something so utterly arresting about his voice, his delivery, his presence. This song is truly sad. This song is all about loneliness, that desperate feeling of hope that your life will have meant something, and that there will be someone to take care of you when you die. I think this says a lot about what Anthony suffered – for his sexuality, his appearance, the personal crosses he has had to bear. I listen to this and I shudder…

Derek Trucks Band

Sahib Teri Band/Maki Madni

I have put this on the list for two reasons – first and foremost, it’s a wonderful track, and secondly, because of the Allman Brothers connection. Derek’s father was Butch Trucks, drummer for the Allmans, and Derek stands head and shoulders above the vast majority of contemporary blues players. He does something fresh, new and interesting with every album. He collaborates with a huge gang of great players, and with his wife, Susan Tedeschi, he has formed the Tedeschi/Trucks Band. I am a little exhausted with the endless wave of SRV-wannabe blues guitarists, and though I can appreciate great technique in a player, I am not a fan of rendition as an ‘art’ for its own sake. Art is communication. Great art is not judged by the artist, but by the public and history. Fretboard pyrotechnics appeal to guitarists, not girls! Enough said! I am all about the emotion in music, and the way in which the sound and the rhythm get under your skin and change the way you feel. Trucks is a master, and I love what he’s doing.

Dr. John

I Walk on Gilded Splinters

What can I say about Dr. John? This album – of which I have a vinyl first pressing – is a stand-out, timeless, monster classic. Breathtaking, scary, unsettling, uncomfortable, familiar even on the first listen…and it appeals to so many aspects of my musical and other interests – jazz, blues, African rhythms, voodoo enchantments, curses, hexes, gris-gris gumbo ya-ya, and the rest. The hiss as the needle goes down, that first intonation of sound, and you are gone – lost in the deep, dark, dreadful swamps of Louisiana, surrounded by shrunken heads, ouanga charms, Papa Legba, mandragore and grimoires. Just the most wonderful concoction of sounds and emotions and rhythms. As an additional aside, there’s a great live version of this from Humble Pie, and there we have a way of getting Steve Marriott into the mix, one of the finest singers Britain has ever produced! Marriott, another tragic loss to the world of great music, lived too few years and recorded too few songs.

The Gun Club

Eternally Is Here

For me, Kurt Cobain holds a place that should have been reserved for Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Pierce was a phenomenon, a wizard, a genius. Pierce was a paradox, a contradiction, a genius, a drunk, a guitar master, a songwriting legend. I love the first albums – ‘Fire of Love’, ‘Miami’…in fact, I love them all, but there is something about the raw power of some of the tracks on ‘The Las Vegas Story’ that just blows me away. I think JLP was more familiar with the technical aspects of studio recording. I think he’d worked with these musicians for a while and felt comfortable with them, and he produced an album that possessed as much ‘thump’ and energy as anything I have ever listened to. This song really hits me in the chest and the heart. Maybe there is a rawness missing from this album that was there in spades in the early work, but I don’t care. The songs are wonderful. I saw The Gun Club only once, back in 1982 at The Hacienda in Manchester. Eight or ten of us hired a van and drove from Birmingham to see them. I was so very drunk, so completely drunk, but from the moment he appeared on stage it was as if I had suddenly received three pints of intravenous espresso. He just blew me away. I will never forget that gig. A life-changing experience, literally.

Fleetwood Mac

Need Your Love So Bad

Peter Green. What can I say? BB King says that Green was the only guitarist who made him sweat. Sure, he’s a brilliant guitarist, no question about it, but he’s an extraordinary singer, songwriter, arranger, recording artiste, and it saddens me no end when I think about what was done to him. That aside, I saw him recently, here in my home city. He was supporting BB King, ironically. The lights were out, you couldn’t see a thing, and he hit one note. Instantly, you knew it was Green, and he wasn’t even playing a Les Paul! The name ‘Fleetwood Mac’ should have been retired when the original line-up with Jeremy Spencer was terminated. Now you say ‘Fleetwood Mac’ and people think of Stevie Nicks, ‘Rumours’, and all manner of hideously safe middle-of-the-road AOR nonsense. Fleetwood Mac was a kick-ass blues band, a real British R&B band that took the world by storm. They sold more records than the Stones and The Beatles combined at one point. Albatross, Oh Well, Green Manalishi, Man of the World…the list goes on. I have a great photo of the young Green in my study, along with photos of Roy Buchanan, Mike Bloomfield, Muddy Waters, Kelly Joe Phelps, Alvin Youngblood Hart and a host of others. See what I did there? Still trying to get a whole lot more than six tracks mentioned here!

Steven Van Zandt – Silvio from The Sopranos and Fender-totin’ Springsteen foil. He has good tatse in music too – click on the Little Steven’s Underground Garage link, over there on the ‘Blogroll’ on the right.

A great selection….and I’m quite surprised. I kinda thought, given the nature of his books, that Roger would pick wall-to-wall Americana. Nothing wrong with that of course, but to read him wax lyrical about The Gun Club, Johnny Cash and Dr John while bigging up Mike Bloomfield and Steve Marriott, and bemoan the fact that he hasn’t any space left for Tom Waits or The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, well, this is music right up Plain Or Pan’s metaphorical street.

Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get R.J. Ellory’s here.

Now! Get yourself over to your local library or even your favourite local bookshop, if you’re lucky enough to live in a town where such things still exist. Or, if it’s raining, just pop on Roger’s Six Of the Best while you get yourself over to your favourite online book retailer. Try here. Or here. Pick an Ellory. You could start at the beginning with Candlemoth, or you could go straight to A Dark And Broken Heart and work your way backwards. It doesn’t matter. Just read one. Then another. And another. And tell a pal. Tell two pals. Tell everyone. Go on! Whatchawaitin’ for?

RJ Ellory online

RJ Ellory on Facebook

RJ Ellory on Twitter

You can listen to The Whiskey Poets here, with Roger on guitar and vocals.

Cover Versions, demo, Double Nugget, Dylanish, elliott smith, Get This!, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Kraut-y, Most downloaded tracks, New! Now!, Peel Sessions, Sampled, Six Of The Best, Studio master tapes, studio outtakes

I Got 5 Years Stuck On My Eyes

January 3, 2012May 25, 2012 Craig McAllister

I got 5 years, what a surprise! ‘Five Years‘, Bowie’s opening track on the Ziggy album ends with that afore-mentioned refrain. But you knew that already. You might also know that Plain Or Pan has now been going for 5 years. Or you might not. Either way, thanks for visiting time and time again. Whether you’re one of the few who choose to ‘follow this blog’ or you’re one of those misguided creeps who ended up here via Google after searching for ‘Teenage Fanny‘ and got the Bellshill Beach Boys instead, those visits (and the numbers they register behind the scenes in the Plain Or Pan office) are what keeps me a-writin’ and researchin’. Not as often as I’d like to, but as someone commented some time ago, “One good post a week is better than 7 posts of shite.” I might be paraphrasing there, but you get the idea.

As is now customary at this time of year, my team of office monkeys gather up all statistical information made available to them and compile a couple of CDs worth of the year’s most popular downloaded tracks and painstakingly create a groovy cover that goes with it. This is not a quick process. Hours are spent refining and re-refining running orders. At least 14 different covers are produced before a carefully-selected random sample of Plain Or Pan’s target audience (that’s you, that is) choose the cover that speaks most to them. This year is slightly different. The office monkeys have gone on strike (they mumbled something about pensions) and time is at a premium (ie, I don’t have any). The tracks, 2 CDs worth are here. The artwork, not your normal CD cover, more of an image that you can use as cover art in iTunes or however you listen to music on your computer, is there, above this paragraph (right click, save as etc etc). The tracklist? I don’t have one. This year you can choose your own running order from the following:

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John Barry – Midnight Cowboy

King Creosote – Home In A Sentence

The Smiths – How Soon Is Now? (Rare Italian pressing)

Gruff Rhys – Shark Ridden Waters, which samples….

The Cyrkle – It Doesn’t Matter Anymore

Midlake – Branches

Elliott Smith – Alameda

Peter Salett – Sunshine

Mott The Hoople – Walking With A Mountain

Primal Scream – Jailbird (Kris Needs’ Toxic Trio Stay free mix)

Primal Scream & PP Arnold – Understanding (Small Faces cover)

Ride – Like A Daydream

The Wildebeests – That Man (Small Faces cover)

Dion – The Dolphins (Tim Buckley cover)

Darondo – Didn’t I

Edwin Starr – Movin’ On Up (Primal Scream cover)

Shellac – My Black Ass

The Rivingtons – Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow (the building blocks of Surfin Bird)

The Survivors – Pamela Jean (Brian Wilson recording)

The Heavy – How You Like Me Now? which heavily ‘borrows’ from…

Dyke & The Blazers – Let A Woman Be A Woman (Let A Man Be A Man)

The La’s – Come In Come Out (John Leckie mix)

The Girlfriends – My One And Only Jimmy Boy

The Whyte Boots – Nightmare

James Brown & the Famous Flames –I’ll Go Crazy

The Jim Jones Revue – Hey Hey Hey Hey, cover of….

Little Richard – Hey Hey Hey Hey (false start take)

Suede – The Wild Ones (unedited version)

Lee Dorsey – Holy Cow

Fern Kinney – Groove Me

Aretha Franklin – Rock Steady (alt mix)

Jackson 5 – I Want You Back (Michael’s isolated vocal – dynamite!!!)

Reparta & the Delrons – Shoes (the inspiration for The Smiths’ A Rush And A Push…)

Dusty Springfield – Spooky

She & Him – Please Please Please, Let Me Get What I Want (Smiths cover)

John Barry – The Girl With The Sun In Her Hair

A fairly representative selection of what Plain Or Pan is all about, you might agree. In other words, a right rum bag of forgotten classics and demos and cover versions and alternative takes and studio outtakes and the rest of it. Outdated Music For Outdated People right enough.

Missed any of these legendary compilations?

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Hard-to-find, Six Of The Best, studio outtakes

Six Of The Best – Craig Gannon

October 5, 2011 Craig McAllister

Number 9 in a series:

Craig Gannon is, to use that much clichéd phrase, a musicians’ musician. Any band looking for some understated yet majestic, melodic guitar playing could do worse than turn to Craig for inspiration. His CV reads like a Who’s Who of left-of-centre British rock acts since the mid 80’s – he’s been the perfect foil for Aztec Camera and Roddy Frame, The Bluebells, The Adult Net, The Colourfield and much of Terry Hall’s ‘solo’ material.

He’s perhaps most famous for being (briefly) the fifth Smith, hired when Andy Rourke’s drug problems led to him being ousted from the band and, on his return, being given the role of 2^nd guitar. Craig played on much of The Smiths’ vital output from 1986 – the Panic and Ask singles, London, Half A Person, You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby (the best Smiths non-single ever, surely?) and although asked to leave The Smiths in confusing circumstances, was considered vital enough to be asked back into the Morrissey fold, playing Last Of The Famous International Playboys on Top Of The Pops and as part of a pseudo-Smiths line-up when the old nipple flasher played his first solo show in Wolverhampton at the end of 1988. All this was happening whilst behind the scenes legal proceedings were underway to sue Morrissey and Marr for unpaid royalties relating to the afore-mentioned tracks. For a while it looked like Morrissey was considering him as his main writing partner, but being a man of principle, Craig wouldn’t drop the court case and, well, that was the end of that.

This was very much Terry Hall’s gain. Craig worked extensively with Hall throughout much of the 90’s and his guitar work on Hall’s solo albums Home and Laugh manages the trick of being both uplifting yet melancholic, with added fancy pants chords to boot. To these ears, both albums have the air of the undiscovered classic, and still hold up to repeated plays today. If you’re unfamiliar with them have a listen to the Forever J single, from Home. You’d like it. Craig has fond memories of working on these albums.

“The track I’m most proud of having played on would probably be a song called Take It Forever on Terry Hall’s second solo album which myself and Terry co – wrote. I rarely listen to records I’ve played on over the years but I still like the guitars on that. An obviously higher profile track would be Panic by The Smiths as I’m proud of my guitar playing on that.”

These days you can still hear Craig playing, though you might not realise it. His subtle playing is perfect soundtrack material for a whole host of TV and cinema productions – incidental music on Eastenders and A Question Of Sport amongst many others, and he doesn’t appear to miss the thrill of what you or I might refer to as ‘the music scene‘.

“I now make my living as a composer rather than a guitarist which is exactly how I like it and at the moment I’m just in the middle of writing the score for a film called R/Evolution which looks at the revolution in human consciousness. It includes contributions from Forest Whitaker amongst others and is narrated by Richard Olivier. The film was been shot around the world over most of this year and I’m writing a contemporary orchestral score which incorporates various ethnic and world music styles.”

Craig’s Six Of The Best is, I think, one of the best we’ve had yet and a good indication of the influences that seep into his guitar playing:

Walk On By – Burt Bacharach.

One of Bacharach’s most simple songs which in this case proves that simple can be good, although that’s not always the case. I first got into Burt Bacharach when I was about 14 and it was probably this song that started it. A great intimate feel and a never bettered vocal by Dionne Warwick this also has trademark Bacharach flugelhorn phrases. The Stranglers did a great cover of this track which I also love but this is perfect.

Alone Again Or – Love

I first got into Love in 1983 through Roddy Frame who used to play this all the time. This song is off one of my all time favourite albums ‘Forever Changes’ and was written by Bryan Maclean rather than the usual Love songwriter Arthur Lee. It’s probably the most accessible track on an album which includes some pretty weird late 60’s psychedelia. It starts with a great acoustic guitar arpeggio pattern joined by strings and then into an inspired mariachi style trumpet solo. Love also did some rubbish but ‘Forever Changes’ is one of the best albums of all time in my opinion.

The Long And Winding Road – The Beatles.

Growing up in the seventies I was always listening to The Beatles and I’m still amazed at how brilliant they often were and they had everything including two brilliant songwriters, great image, personality and chemistry etc. I could have picked loads of favourite Beatles songs but this is just one example of what an incredible songwriter McCartney was. Great chords, a poignant melody and a hugely emotional vocal. John Lennon played the bass on this and you can hear him fluffing all over the place but that doesn’t take anything away from it. The originally released version has choir and orchestra overdubbed by Phil Spector which apparently McCartney hated. One of many fantastic songs from the best band the world has ever seen.

Theme from Once Upon a Time In America – Ennio Morricone.

Written by one of my all time favourite film composers this is one of many works of genius he composed and it never fails to get me choked up every time I hear it. Knowing it so well from the film originally it evokes feelings of innocence, lost friendship and nostalgia. About a year after I first saw the film I was lay on the beach in St Petersburg Florida in the same spot De Niro and James Woods filmed one of the scenes in the film and I listened to the score on headphones…..the whole score is amazing.

Let Him Run Wild – Beach Boys.

I got into the Beach Boys quite late really, probably in my mid – twenties as before that whenever I heard the name ‘Beach Boys’ I always thought of ‘Surfin USA’ etc until I heard the album ‘Summer Days and Summer Nights’ and the masterpiece ‘Pet Sounds’. ‘Let Him Run Wild’ has everything you expect from Brian Wilson including great harmonies, catchy bass line and the best part for me Brian’s beautiful lead vocal, he had such a fantastic voice. This song was a taste of things to come with ‘Pet Sounds’.

The Girl With The Sun In Her Hair – John Barry

Loads of times in the Seventies I’d be watching TV and hear a great TV or film theme and a lot of the time it turned out to be by John Barry. Growing up on the Sean Connery Bond films I always loved the music although John Barry has written loads of great music for non – Bond films. ‘The Girl With The Sun In Her Hair’ was actually written for a Sunsilk advert in the late Sixties and you can hear that unmistakeable Barry sound, it could almost have been another Bond theme. Every composer ‘borrows’ occasionally and it sounds like John Barry ‘borrowed’ from Ravel’s ‘Introduction & Allegro’ for this piece.

Now, that’s what I call music! Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get Craig Gannon’s here.

*Bonus Track!

Here‘s The Long And Winding Road, stripped of Spector’s syrupy strings and all its Mantovani mush. Essentially a McCartney demo and all the better for it.

Coming next in this series –

Six Of the Best from a worldwide singing sensation (TBC)

Category: Six Of The Best

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Six Of The Best – Craig Gannon