entire show, Hard-to-find, Peel Sessions

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

Craig McAllister

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

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

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

Popscene

Song 2

On Your Own

Chinese Bombs

Movin’ On

M.O.R.

Tonight Matthew I’m going to be Michael Caine

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

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

Blur do Blondie

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

Hard-to-find, Studio master tapes

16 Track Master Blaster

Craig McAllister

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

Genius at work

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

Funky beyond compare

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

Burns’ Immortal Memory

Craig McAllister

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

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

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

Hard-to-find

Neil Young Is A Cunt #2

Craig McAllister

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

And there the joy ends. 

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

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

Sugar Mountain (1965 demo)

Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing (1965 demo)

The Rent Is Always Due (1965 demo)

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

Ah’m-a gonna rip you off!

Neil Young has also been called a cunt here.

 

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Creepy Prince

Craig McAllister

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

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

Radiohead fans yesterday.

Spot the one that quite likes Prince’s version.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

No Cure For Plagiarism

Craig McAllister

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

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

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

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

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

 

Hard-to-find

Grrrrrrrrrrrrremlins!

Craig McAllister

Thanks for all the emails. Many of you seem to be having problems clicking on the links and saving some of the music to your computer. Yesterday The Last Shadow Puppets and David Bowie tracks disappeared totally for a couple of hours. Today the Primal Scream tracks seem to be the ones going astray. I have no understanding of this, but I’m as pissed of about it as you might be if the track you really want appears to have gone AWOL. Behind the scenes I have a team of experts who are frantically trying to resolve the issue. As I write, all links are working – I’ve checked them all myself. But I can’t guarantee that’ll be the case in an hour or so. Please be patient! 

Download-only Pixies track from a couple of years ago. ‘Bam Thwok’ is the sound my brain is making trying to fix my download problem. Fingers crossed this link works.

Cover Versions, Peel Sessions

Brand new, you’re retro

Craig McAllister

I’m quite enjoying The Last Shadow Puppets single just now. ‘The Age of the Understatement’ isn’t quite the lost track from ‘Scott 4’ that the band would like it to be, but it twangs in all the right places and rushes past like Morricone beating The Coral to the finish line in the 100m sprint. There’s even a nice whiff of the Electric Prunes in the string arrangements.

Even better to these ears is their cover of David Bowie‘s ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’. Originally recorded for Deram back in the 60s, this is one of the lesser-well known gems in the Bowie catalogue. All strings and weird chords, in the scheme of things it falls somewhere between ‘Space Oddity’ and ‘Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud’. You could be forgiven for thinking that The Last Shadow Puppets based their entire sound around this record, cos it sure sounds like it. But in a good way. Bowie likes it too. “That’s wonderful,” he said. “A daymaker.” Go on…make your day….

*The Last Shadow Puppets – ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’

*David Bowie – ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’ (Deram Records original release)

David Bowie – ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’ (John Peel’s Top Gear BBC Session, broadcast Christmas Eve, 1967, features Tony Visconti and T.Rex’s Steve Peregrine-Took on backing vocals)

Today’s blog has been half-arsed and lazy. Better quality blogging will resume as normal next week.

Hard-to-find

Albums where the title track went missing #1

Craig McAllister

‘Screamadelica’ by Primal Scream is a modern classic. From the cover art on the outside to the last faded twinkling bit of percussion on the digitized grooves of ‘Shine Like Stars’ it’s as landmark an album to my generation as ‘Revolver’ was to my dad’s. Possibly. It’s also one of a number of albums where the title track is missing. Led Zepppelin‘s ‘Houses Of the Holy’ wasn’t on the album of the same name. You can find that track on ‘Physical Graffiti’. The Doors‘ ‘Waiting For The Sun’ is on 1970’s ‘Morrison Hotel’, released 2 years after the album of the same name. And Primal Scream‘s ‘Screamadelica‘ isn’t on the ‘Screamadelica’ album. But it should’ve been. What was already a great album would have become a really great album.

Dixi Narco ep cover

‘Screamadelica’ (the track) is a 10 minute potted history of everything Primal Scream were about in 1992. It was released on the ‘Dixie Narco’ ep to promote the album. The lead track ‘Movin’ On Up’ took all the plaudits (and the airplay), but if you kept your record spinning past the pseudo-druggy ‘Stone My Soul’ and the barely-recognisable, electric piano ‘n’ pedal steel cover of Dennis Wilson‘s ‘Carry Me Home’ *, you’d’ve found ‘Screamadelica’. Produced by Andrew Weatherall and Hugo Nicolson, they add all the necessary bleeps, squelches and tyre screeches to keep it contemporary, although it starts off like some Blaxploitation movie soundtrack. The brass refrains. Giddy black female vocalists. Thumping George Clinton-esque rhythm section. Some Bobby Gillespie ‘Wooos’. A flute solo straight off of ‘What’s Going On’. The phased guitar-as-percussion track. How very John Squire. Talent borrows, genius steals they say, and Primal Scream certainly nicked from all the right reference points. I think this is one of Primal Scream’s very best tracks, and why it was never include on the album of the same name I’ll never know.

*Footnote. ‘Carry Me Home’ was written as an anti-Vietnam protest song and was considered, but not included on the Beach Boys 1973 ‘Holland’ album. Travesty! My copy comes from the ‘Bamboo’ bootleg, which as many Wilson watchers now know should really be spelt ‘Bambu’. You can download the track here.

* Footnote 2. ‘Dixie-Narco ‘sounds great. ‘Dixie’, the south of America, where the blues, jazz and all that great music comes from. ‘Narco‘. Short for, oooooh, ‘narcotics’. Sounds a bit dangerous. A bit rock’n’ roll. A bit Primal Scream. Not many people know this, but Dixie-Narco is the name of a company who make soft drink vending machines. Stick that in yer Marshall stack and smoke it.

Hard-to-find

Stone Fee! Yeah! Alright!

Craig McAllister

Listen zis baybee. Julian Cope has a lot to answer for. I’ve been reading ‘Japrocksampler’ on and off for the past couple of months, but to be honest I’m finding it hard to get into. For me it’s hardly a page turner and reading it is becoming more of a chore than a pleasure. And I really want to like it. Problem is, I’ve never heard any of the music he’s writing about and that makes it difficult to stay focussed on all the characters, groups, albums and scenesters he goes on about. I liked ‘Krautrocksampler’, even though my knowledge of German music was limited to Neu! and Kraftwerk (of course) and ’99 Red Ballons’ by Nena, but that was enough to get me to the end of the book without any bother. So. To help me get into the book a bit more, a bit of poking about in the far flung corners of the web has uncovered some tracks by the impossibly named Flower Travellin’ Band.

\'Anywhere\' album sleeve

Flower Travellin’ Band were a psychedelic, blues-based hard rock band. Created by Yuya Utchida (a main protagonist in Cope’s book) they originally featured Remi Aso, considered at the time to be the Japanese equivalent of Janis Joplin. Utchida wanted them to shock, and their debut album featured all group members (oo-er) nude on the cover. Much of their material was made up of barely recognisable cover versions. Extended acid-frazzled freak-out soloing and radical rearrangements meant that the simplest of songs took on a new lease of life. Seek out their version of ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ and you’ll see what I mean. Their 1970 album ‘Anywhere’ featured the first known cover of a Black Sabbath track, ‘Black Sabbath’. On the cover of the album, the four members of the band ride their Honda motorbikes naked (naked again!) down some lost highway. This image got them into a bit of bother with the Japanese authorities (again!), but the music on the grooves itself got them signed to Atlantic Records, and it even briefly charted in Canada.

If the MC5 had came from Tokyo...

If the MC5 had came from Tokyo

Cope first freaked out over Flower Travellin’ Band when he heard the 1995 ‘From Pussies to Death in 10,000 Years of Freakout ‘ bootleg album. He says that the 20minutes+ (!) tracks ‘I’m Dead part 1’ and ‘I’m Dead part 2’ are the outstanding moments in the band’s history. To these ears, they sound a bit stoner-rock, long-haired, prog-rock scary. Drugs may well have been involved during the recording process. I certainly need them to listen to all 20+ minutes of each track. Personally, I prefer the more accessible versions of Hendrix‘s ‘Stone Free’ and Howlin’ Wolf‘s/Led Zeppelin‘s ‘How Many More Times?’. As an introduction to Flower Travellin’ Band, they’re as good an entry as any.

A couple of quick facts. In 1973, Flower Travellin’ Band were booked to open for The Rolling Stones. But Mick Jagger’s previous conviction for drugs meant that the tour was postponed. Thems the breaks. However, the band may yet still get the opportunity – a bit of research has revealed that they got back together in January this year and are due to appear at July’s Fuji Rock Festival. Watch zis space, baybee!