Plain Or Pan

Answer? Three feet high and rising. And so, with these words, Johnny Cash named the greatest hip-hop album ever. From that album, De La Soul released arguably their best-known single, ‘The Magic Number’. Like everything else on the album, it was cut, pasted ‘n’ jigsawed together from a variety of eclectic sources. Soul, funk, country, jazz, rock, spoken word comedy. They’re all in the great melting pot of the single known as The Magic Number.

Syl Johnson ‘Different strokes’ (“Do the shangalang!”)

The Jackson 5 ‘ABC‘

Bob Dorough ‘Three Is The Magic Number’

Led Zeppelin ‘The Crunge’

Eddie Murphy ‘Anybody In The Audience Ever Get Hit By A Car?’

Johnny Cash ‘Five Feet High And Rising’

Double Dee and Steinski ‘Lesson 3 (History of Hip Hop mix)*, which itself samples;

*Schoolhouse Rocks ‘The Magic Number’

*Bill Cosby ‘Got To Have Soul’

*Putney Swope ‘Got To Have Soul’

* ……and many other records that I don’t know. I imagine De La Soul used the Double Dee record as the basis for their track, but I could be wrong.

De La Soul also remixed The Magic Number. ‘The Too Mad Mix’ isn’t essential, but worth a listen. How can you improve the original? You can’t, but here’s Jeff Buckley mucking around somewhere onstage (unknown audience recording bootleg) making a good go of Bob Dorough’s original.

If you haven’t found them already, you can also find the list of records that were used to make ‘Eye Know’ here.

Hope you’ve got your blank CDs ready after all that downloading!

Gone but not forgotten

Fac 8*

August 11, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

After Lee Hazlewood, another maverick on the music scene is dead. Tony Wilson died yesterday despite undergoing intensive chemotherapy for cancer. He was only 57.

The story of Tony’s life and it’s many ups and downs and twists and turns can be seen in ’24 Hour Party People’ where he is portrayed by Steve Coogan. Perhaps even better than the film is the book of the same name, from where the screenplay was adapted. Get it. Read it. Read it again. I was telling someone last week that it was ideal summer holiday reading material. Everything you would want to know about Tony Wilson, Factory Records, Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and Crispy Ambulance is in there.

Tony saw the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester. 39 people in the audience went on to form bands. Step forward Bernard Sumner, Morrissey, Pete Shelley, Mick Hucknall. Sorry. Can’t have it all. Tony put the Sex Pistols on the telly. The day after it was shown Peter Hook went out and bought his first bass guitar. Years later, Tony put the Stone Roses on the telly (the Other Side of Midnight – a great programme shown in the wee small hours. That’s the Stone Roses on his programme on the inside sleeve of their first album.) The next day I went out and bought the Stone Roses first album. And formed a band. Hardly the seismic shift that the Manchester scene caused, but nonetheles…..

Tony Wilson was aloof. He was snobby. He was pretentious. He would quote Latin, he would enthuse about Greek tragedies, he would get super enthusiastic about music, about design, about getting the message across. He didn’t care that he lost money on every single copy of Blue Monday sold. It didn’t matter to him that Blue Monday went on to become the biggest selling 12″ single ever. He gave the people what they wanted, whether they realised it or not. Like Joy Division for starters. As if they’re not enough, here’s some of the other music he’s been responsible for:

New Order ‘Ceremony‘ demo. Had this for years on the ‘Western Works’ bootleg. What else do you need to know about New Order? Fac 33 was the catalogue number of the Ceremony single. Everything that Factory Records did was given a catalogue number. Fac 1? That’ll be the poster advertising the first Factory Club night in 1978. Fac 240? That’ll be the label’s 10th Anniversary wall planner. Fac 420? That’ll be ‘Yes Please’ by the Happy Mondays, the album that cost millions and finally killed the label. Crack cocaine, broken limbs, selling studio furniture. It’s all in the book. Read it. You’ll like it.

Happy Mondays ‘Freaky Dancin”. Their second single (Fac 142), the first was ‘Delightful’, (Fac 129) ‘Freaky Dancin’ was produced by Bernard Sumner. Scratchy white man funk. Still sounds great 21 (fuck me) years later.

A Certain Ratio ‘Shack Up’. (Fac 167). More scratchy white man funk. It’s a cover of an old Blue Note jazz/soul single by Banbara. Tony loved ACR until they started wearing shorts onstage. That’s in the book as well.

The Durutti Column ‘Sketches for Summer’. Tony really believed that Vini Reilly was a megastar in the making. He’s an artist I’ve always been planning to investigate but never quite got round to. He’s rake thin, weighs about 2 stone and plays fantastic guitar. In another world he might’ve been a megastar, but it’s always good to have cult heroes.

*Fac 8? That’ll be the Factory-designed menstrual egg timer. Of course.

Lee Hazlewood dies

August 6, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

I heard this morning that Lee Hazlewood had died. He was 78 and had terminal cancer since last year. I can’t find any more details so far. In the meantime, let’s celebrate his life. Here’s something I posted a few months ago.

Sampled

Eye Know who does the samples

August 5, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

De La Soul’s ‘3 Feet High And Rising’ is my favourite hip hop album of all time. It turned this white, West of Scotland guitar playing, desert boot wearing, walking talking Morrissey haircut into a homeboy (with a quiff). I have been poking about in all the darkest corners of the internet to come up with a definitive list of samples for the record. It was released in the days before sample clearance was the law, so there’s tons of stuff on it that would never be allowed to be sampled nowadays. I’ve found a few websites that list bits and pieces of what was sampled for the album, but nothing definitive. Until next week…..

‘Eye Know’ got to number 14 in October 1989. It’s hard to believe, but the original single/album version was jigsawed together from only 6 records. That’s all. De La Soul played nothing on it. They rapped a bit, but all the music you hear was played by other people. That wouldn’t happen nowadays. Dr Dre finds his sample, sticks it on top of a crazy beat, gets Snoop Dogg to swear a bit over it and voila, another motherfuckin million seller. De La Soul cut’n’ pasted everything, and they sound 10 times funkier than everyone else.

‘Eye Know’ was put together using the following records:

The Mad Lads ‘Make This Young Lady Mine’

Steely Dan ‘Peg‘

Steely Dan ‘FM‘

Patrice Rushen ‘Remind Me’

Otis Redding ‘(Sittin On) The Dock Of The Bay’

Sly And The Family Stone ‘Sing A Simple Song’

Get youself Audacity, give yourself a year, and see if you can recreate this fantastic record in the comfort of your own home. I doubt it…

In the meantime, here’s the ‘Know It All’ and the ‘Daisy Bass’ remixes of Eye Know as a bonus. The start of the ‘Daisy Bass’ remix reminds me of the Happy Mondays ‘Wrote For Luck’ for some reason. Or Lil’ Louis’ French Kiss. Either way, listen and weep homeboys and girls.

Cover Versions, Peel Sessions

Love Will Tear Us Apart again and again and again, plus more…

July 27, 2007October 27, 2007 Craig McAllister

I came to Joy Divison in a roundabout way. When ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ was released, in fact when any of Joy Division’s stuff was being released, I was totally unaware that it/they existed. In my defence I was a bit young (about 10) and too young to be a post-punk. I was more into Adam and the Ants, Madness and The Specials, and I spent 99p of my £1 pocket money every Saturday morning in John Menzies on whatever had taken my fancy from Thursday night’s Top Of The Pops. I remember running, sprinting up the road with my 7″ of ‘Stand and Deliver’ and playing it to death for the next week.

I didn’t know about Joy Division until 1985 and I discovered the Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen et al for myself. I never had a cooler big brother or sister or cousin or uncle. I didn’t know anyone that was cool. At school everyone was into Duran Duran, Kajagoogoo and all that crap. The big album round about Christmas 1983 was Paul Young’s ‘No Parlez’. You can get it these days in any charity shop that still sells vinyl. That and Michael Bolton’s back catalogue. Paul Young had hair like a bog brush, wore suits that looked like they were made out of blue tinfoil and he had thought he sung like Otis Redding when I now know he sounded more like Noel Redding than any black man I’ve ever heard sing. I taped ‘No Parlez’ from someone, and that’s where I first heard ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. I thought Paul Young wrote it. It sounded like one of his songs. Slow. Dead slow. Took ages to finish. Was full of keyboards and wanky fretless bass. It wasn’t very good. Fast forward a couple of years. In 1985 I was an album-buying geek. I read sleevenotes. I knew who produced albums, where they were recorded, who wrote what. I was at my pal’s one night and we were going through his old albums and laughing (Lionel Richie ‘All Night Long’, Go West ‘Live’!!!) and I found his copy of ‘No Parlez’. Reading the sleevenotes was when I found out that that ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ was a Joy Division song. I went out and found the 7″ in a second-hand stall. It sounded fantastic and I played it to death. Even more than ‘Stand and Deliver’. I bought everything I could find that said ‘Joy Divison’ on it. Then I found out that Joy Division had become New Order. I was off and running again. Spending money I didn’t have on singles and albums I had to have. You just don’t get that rush from downloading.

Here’s some rare Joy Divison for you:

‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ February ’79 Peel Session

‘Transmission‘ Martin Rushent demo, Eden Studios London

‘Chance‘ (early demo of ‘Atmosphere’) Pennine Sound Studios Oldham

and here’s a couple of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ cover versions:

French disco outfit Nouvelle Vague‘s jazzy, almost bossa nova, female-sung version with added wave effects. Squarepusher‘s faithful version from their ‘Do You Know Squarepusher?’ (answer: Radiohead certainly do. The wee thieves) that sounds like it’s sung by David Gedge of the Wedding Present.

Uncategorized

This is Planet Earth bah bah bah!

July 19, 2007July 19, 2007 Craig McAllister

Simon le Bon. Wanker. As everyone knows. Anyway, as everyone also knows, Prince gave away his new album free with The Mail On Sunday and we’re all up in arms about it. “We supported him when he was nothing” moaned the record shops. “We can’t name his last 2 albums” admitted the public (‘3121’ and ‘Musicology’, if you don’t count the ‘Ultimate Prince’ Warner Bros Christmas cash-in). “We just download stuff for free” said the iPod generation. “And who is this Prince anyway?”

So it is a big deal, but not that big a deal. If it was the Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Killers who had done this, it would have been a huge deal. Massive. But they’re signed to record companies. Prince is a one-man band in every sense. He picks and chooses who’s going to release his next record. He can do what he likes, and he did. He won’t make any money from album sales. Relatively speaking, not that much. ‘3121’ sold 82,000 copies. At £1 a sale, that’s £82000 he’s made. It probably cost him more to record etc. Next month he plays 20-odd dates in London to 20,000 folk a night, at £31.21 a ticket. That’s (quickly does mental maths) £624200 a night. After he’s paid all his overheads and stuff, he won’t be much short of making half a million a night, or £10million for the series of shows. So maybe the tax man takes a big chunk of that, but add merchandise sales on top (how much is a concert T-shirt nowadays?) and it’s easy to see he’s raking it in. His name is Prince and he is funky. And he is loaded. Everyone who bought a ticket for his London shows got a free album as well. So giving his album away to a newspaper means nothing to him. It’s been said that the Mail On Sunday gave him £250000. Small change. I also read that they sold an extra 600,000 copies on Sunday. At £1.30 a pop, that’s a tidy wee profit they’ve made. Quarter of a million is small change. But most of those ‘new’ readers won’t be back next week, or indeed any time soon until they start giving away the new U2 album for nothing.

Thing is, ‘Planet Earth’ isn’t that bad. But because it’s free, most folk’ll play it once and file it away, or bin it. If I’d bought this album, I’d be playing it over and over until all the songs sink in. The sequence of songs seems to follow a slow-fast-slow-fast order and I prefer the fast ones. The first track’s pish. It’s drippy, slushy romantic drivel and goes off into Barry Manilow’s ‘Could It Be Magic’ at some point. No matter how many plays, I’d still be skipping it. But ‘Guitar’ sounds great, even if the intro sounds like Razorlight ripping off U2’s ‘I Will Follow’. ‘The One U Wanna C’ looks and sounds like old-skool Prince, like ‘Raspberry Berry’ with extra slappy bass, and ‘Chelsea Rodgers’ is as funky as they come, all Mavis Staples vocals (I think), clipped Chic guitar and Bootsy Collins slap bass (again). ‘Lion Of Judah’ begins like my old band trying to play ‘Purple Rain’ but speeds up and sounds all the better for it. There’s the odd falsetto number that doesn’t do much for me, and the last track ‘Resolution’ sounds like it was written by a Primary 7 pupil, but overall the album’s OK. Honest! If you don’t already have it by now, you’ll find all the tracks in this folder here. Click on the + sign on the right hand side of the song title and download in the usual way. And here’s the sleeve…

Footnote. Apparently Madness will be the next one’s to do the big giveaway, with a whole album of new stuff cover mounted with The Sun. Shame on you Suggs, Chas ‘n’ co. That’s one step too far beyond.

Uncategorized

I love this record

July 12, 2007July 12, 2007 Craig McAllister

Poor Travis. They’ve had their day. Back in ’97/’98, you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing them. They were everywhere. Every other trolley in the checkout queue at Tesco had a wee copy of ‘The Man Who’ next to the nappies, bottled water and whatever else the masses were buying. Everybody loved them. As Noel Gallagher said of ‘Wonderwall’, “Once the nerds get involved, man, it goes insane. That song made me £4 million, £4 million count ’em, in one year alone.” And boy, the nerds loved Travis. I say ‘loved’ in past tense, cos they don’t love them anymore. They’ve all moved on to James Morrison or Paulo Nuttini or Coldplay (are they still relevant?) or bloody Snow Patrol or someone. Point is, no-one buys Travis albums anymore. Which is a shame, cos they’ve still got a good knack of complementing the jangling 12 string acoustic ‘n’ electric guitars with a decent melody. Like this. Selfish Jean. On constant repeat round our house. I don’t care that it’s square, nerdy and not trendy. I don’t care that it sounds like ‘Lust For Life’ on Smarties rather than heroin. I don’t care that there’s a daft line about wiring chocolate biscuits to a car alarm. I don’t even care that Teenage Fanclub and the Trashcans do it better, it’s a fantastic record and that’s what matters. Travis are an outdated band for outdated people like me, but more fool you for disgarding them around 2002. It’s not too late to redeem yourself.

Still got it 10 years later

Hard-to-find, Peel Sessions

Oranj Peel

July 11, 2007October 27, 2007 Craig McAllister

So, T in the Park came and went, and going by what I watched on telly it was just like Glastonbury with kilts on. The same acts, the same sets, the same presenters, the same mud, the same audience. The same pish if you ask me. Wean’s World.

It’s hard to come up with any highlights from T, but if there was one it would be the faux pas the singer from Arcade Fire (Wim Butler) made. Telling the crowd that the band had stayed in Glasgow the night before their slot he went on to say, “What the fuck was that parade all about? It was awesome. You guys really know how to play a snare drum.” Cue much booing and many “Get tae’s!” from the soggy masses. It turns out Mr Butler and co had just witnessed their first orange walk. What a walk to witness as well. Given the date at the weekend, it would have been the big one.

The phenomenon of the orange walk may be unfamiliar to some of you so I shall try and briefly explain. In Ireland and in the West of Scotland there is a strong anti-Catholic organisation called the Orange Order. Yes, it’s not just Muslims that get it from us. Anyway, this lot like to remember the Battle of the Boyne which took place over 300 years ago(!) in July 1690, when King William of Orange (King Billy) defeated King James’ and his attempts to regain the thrones in Scotland and England as well as Ireland. Do some googling and you can find out all you need to know. These days, the Orange Order and their associated walks on and around the 12th of July are used by Rangers FC shirt wearing thickos to shout, swear and sing obscenities about Roman Catholics and should really have no place in 21st Century society. That’s why the Arcade Fire were booed. Nice to see the kids of today rubbishing the orange walk. With any luck, these parades will eventually die out, just like my failed attempts here at a bit of political writing.

And now for the music bit. Here’s 4 tenuously-linked tracks related to the 12th of july and it’s associated rubbish…..

Kicking things off, two Libertines tracks. First, from their much bootlegged Legs 11 demo sessions, ‘Hooray For The 21st Century‘. Secondly, ‘Boys In The Band‘ from an XFM session 2002 (exact date unknown).

Next. The Arctic Monkeys got famous on myspace etc and everyone knew the words to all their songs before they were even released. File sharing? Great, eh? Hooray for the 21st century! Here’s their first demo of ‘Scummy Man‘.

Finally, the fantastic Fall. Taken from the Complete Peel Sessions Box Set, which you really should own by now, is their ‘Kurious Oranj‘ from the 31st of October, Nineteen Eighty-eight-ah. Trumpets, giant hamburgers and ballet dancing. No-one does it or says it like Mark E Smith.

Pained and intense, man
They were inquiring.
They were Kurious Oranj…
They rode over peasants like you, they rode over peasants like you,
And their horses loved them too, and their horses loved them too.
They Were Kurious Oranj. They Were Kurious Oranj.
They built the world as we know it, all the systems you traverse.
Rode slipshod over all dumbshits.
They were Kurious Oranj…

Cover Versions

Cover version of the month, possibly the year

July 2, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

From the new Patti Smith album ’12’, here’s her version of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. It starts quite quietly, so be patient. It’s worth the wait. See all those words that you could never make out Kurt singing? You’ll get them all now. “It’s fun to lose and to pretend. She’s overboard and self assured” So that’s what he was mumbling! It’s so great it’s my Cover Version of the Month. Possibly even the Year.

Remember – no Patti Smith, no PJ Harvey. Here’s PeeJay doing Bob Dylan’s ‘Highway 61 Revisited’. It starts quietly as well, strangely enough. It’s so great I had to post a gratuitous picture of PJ in her underwear………

(funny quote should be here)

Cover Versions

Re-re-reconsider baby

July 1, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

Blues standard triple whammy.

‘Reconsider Baby’ is quite possibly my favourite Elvis tune. Not a lot of people know that, as Michael Caine might say. The origins of the song go way back. What follows here is a wee history of the track and 3 versions for you to download and compare.

Lowell Fulson wrote and recorded his original mid-tempo blues version for Chess in 1954. It features some nice bluesy guitar licks (Eric Clapton was clearly paying attention) and some honkin’ sax (every blues band this side of Memphis were also listening). It proved to be his only hit on Chess but as well as Clapton and all those other blues plodders, Elvis Presley was opening his ears.

In 1954 Elvis was still a couple of years away from breaking big, and would take an enforced break (and haircut) from music when he went off to do his National Service. On March 20th 1960, he went into Nashville’s Studio B (15 days after leaving the army) and over the course of 2 nights, 2 nights, Radiohead!, recorded the 18 tracks that would make up the 12 ‘Elvis Is Back’ tracks plus assorted b sides. Elvis was worried that he might have lost it since being in the army, as if being stripped of the quiff by the army barber would somehow render him useless on record. ‘Reconsider Baby’ was one of those 18 tracks and it smoulders, swings and just plain rocks to this very day.

The track has also been recorded by, amongst others, Chicken Shack (a bit Booker T-ish), Earl Hooker (standard blues ‘n’ organ fare, see also Freddie King), Bobby Bland (excellent, slow and soulful version), Eric Clapton (nice Cream-esque fuzzed guitar, horrible soulless vocal) and relative blues newcomer Joe Bonamassa. His version is pretty good. It starts a bit like Funkadelic’s ‘Maggot Brain, goes a bit Led Zeppelin ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ as sung by a bad Joe Cocker in the middle, and ends up sounding like the theme tune to ‘Taggart’, the top Scottish Police drama on TV. Really. I like it! (This track and Taggart).