Plain Or Pan

On heavy rotation chez moi at the moment is Neil Young’s ‘Live at Massey Hall’ album, the second in his much anticipated (by me at least) Archive Performance series. Roll on the 8CD box set. If you’re a fan of Neil Young you’ve probably got this already but for those in the dark, this release is of a 1971 Toronto show which took place after the release of After The Goldrush and before the release of Harvest. It is generally agreed that it should have been released in its own right at the time, but for whatever reason it is only now seeing the light of day. Highlight for me is the version of ‘Down By The River’. Unlike the many versions of this song Neil Young has done over the years, this one features just Neil, his acoustic guitar and his whiny voice. I love it. Neil can often overdo this song. I have a few 17+ minute versions with Crazy Horse and umpteen squealy guitar solos. I also have a 31 minute version somewhere that you need to hear once before having a long lie down. But it’s still one of my favourite Neil Young songs, and has been covered to great effect by many artists including…

Buddy Miles. Buddy’s version is more soulful than the original. It features some Isley Brothers-esque guitar (check out that sustain!), some wah-wah and some jazz tastic Fender rhodesy keyboards. At 6.15, you might think it goes on a bit, but not as long as….

Roy Buchanan‘s version. Just short of 9 minutes it features some trademark 70’s lead guitar, Gimme Shelter-copying female backing singers and a vocal track that sounds like the Eagles on sleeping pills. Oooh sha la la the weather. She can take me over the rainbow, send me away. Like, laid back man! Here it is.

Joey Gregorash does my favourite version. It’s faster than the original, features scrubbed acoustic guitars, bongos and an angry wasp in a jar electric guitar sound. Dig it! Here! A fellow Canadian (like Neil Young, also from Winnipeg) Joey covered Down By The River in 1971. It was never intended for release until some sharp-eared record company executive thought the better of it. The radio stations then picked up on it and in classic style decided to play ‘Down By The River’ instead of Joey’s new single. Eventually the record company were forced to rush release an edited version of the album track and Joey’s 15 minutes of fame were complete. Add that to yer Wikipedia and smoke it!

Uncategorized

Hello porn searchers one and all

April 7, 2007May 25, 2012 Craig McAllister

It’s weird, this blogging thing. The number of hits I’m getting is quite astounding. So thank YOU and you and you and you and…….

……especially the poor soul who was looking for ‘teenage fanny’ and came across this site. Well, I hope he didn’t come across this site, but maybe he found something worth downloading. Who knows?

Anyway. New stuff soon. Been on holiday and had no time to blog. Thanks for visiting. Especially if you were looking for some decent porn and found this instead.

Hard-to-find

Trashcans cut thin hair

March 23, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

A wee bit naughty this post. Going against my principles of only featuring hard-to-get and out of print music. As a new release, this track is certainly in print and should be fairly easy to buy, but it’s here for a limited time or at least until the good people at Chemikal Underground threaten me with a lawsuit…

‘The Ballads Of The Book’ is the brainchild of Roddy Woomble. It’s a novel idea. Hee hee. Contemporary writers pen the lyrics to music played by contemporary bands such as Aidan Moffat, Norman Blake, King Creosote, Malcolm Middleton, Sons & Daughters, blah blah blah. Oh, and the Trashcan Sinatras of course. The Trashcan’s have contributed a fine tune called ‘Half An Apple’ which, like so much of their recent output is melodic, laid back and the right side of mellow. Features some pretty good slide playing that sounds like something from Brian Eno’s ‘Apollo’ album. That’s a complement by the way. Here it is. Please leave a comment in the box above.

Ali Smith is a celebrated author. She was born in Scotland but now lives down south. You can get most of her books at your local library. They’re in mine, so they should be in yours. Her latest book ‘The Accidental’ is very good. So they tell me. Culture? What’s that? I’m currently reading Dave Alexander’s excellent trainspotterish tome ‘A User’s Guide To The Fall’. Can’t put it down. I’m sure Ali Smith is just as good.

Hard-to-find

Coke after Coke after Coke after Coca Cola

March 19, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

Hey! Get down! Dig it with the Vanilla Fudge and Coca Cola! My mum tells me that in the swinging 60s, most provincial teenagers never had access to, never mind actually try, the mind-bending drugs that were so obviously shaping music, fashion and the consciousness of society. Instead, the hip, with-it teenagers in my wee corner of the west of Scotland would pop a couple of aspirins into their Coca Cola and swing the night away in a tripped-out approximation of sixties bliss.

Coca Cola were well aware that things indeed go better with a Coca Cola, and their 60’s marketing team were so on the ball that they got the groups du jour to record Coke jingles for local radio and the likes. Most of these jingles are bloody magic. They are quite blatant pastiches of those artists’ current hit singles and fall into 3 distinct categories:

1. The soul/r’n’b artist – Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Carla Thomas, The Supremes, Otis Redding, Ray Charles etc etc

2. The fuzzed-out, beat-driven, blues-influenced garage bands – The Who, Vanilla Fudge, Troggs, Box Tops, Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Titch (so that stretches it a bit, but you get the point)

3. The pop stars/crooners – Bee Gees, Lulu, Roy Orbison, Petula Clark, Nancy Sinatra, etc.

Here are three examples of the above. The Who’s ‘Coke after Coke’, The Supremes pastiche of ‘Baby Love’ and Tom Jones’ rerun of ‘It’s Not Unusual’ that is quite fantastic, hilarious and hideous all at the same time. “Say, I could do with a Coke right now. Somebody get me one please?” The big orange freak.

I’ll put up more of these soon. Next up Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Sinatra, Vanilla Fudge, any requests…..

Dylanish, Hard-to-find

Me feelin’ Freewheelin’ fake

March 15, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

I bought this off of eBay. Looks great. I’ll probably frame it and hang it somewhere that doesn’t annoy Mrs Plain Or Pan. Thing is, I can’t make up my mind if it’s genuine or fake. It’s a 70’s reissue of Bob Dylan’s ‘Freewheelin” album, signed in green pen by the great man himself. Perhaps. Am I a sucker? Let me know in the ‘comments’ box.

While you’re deciding/laughing at me (delete where applicable), here’s a version of ‘Let Me Die In My Footsteps’ from the excellent ‘Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan Outtakes’ bootleg CD. If you like it, search around in the usual places and you can get the whole album. Well worth looking for. Pristine recordings and alternate takes of one of Bob’s best early albums. Happy hunting!

Uncategorized

Talk About Pop Music

March 11, 2007March 11, 2007 Craig McAllister

There’s a new Stooges album out. Apparently it’s really poor. The Plain Or Pan spies out there tell me it’s one outdated heavy metal solo after another. So. I won’t be listening to it. I like my Stooges just they way they were. Great music for washing the floor to. You can really mop with attitude to ‘1969’. Sometimes I even get the hand claps in as I mop. Takes practise, but it’s worth it. Why do old bands insist on reforming? Actually, we all know why. Ker-ching. But the Stooges could’ve just done a one-off Greatest Hits tour and be done with it. At least the Police are sticking to that part of the deal. In this month’s Mojo, Iggy says how he wanted credibility, and didn’t want to do an Eagles (ie, Ker-Ching). My friend worked at Hampden a few years back when the Eagles played. She said they flew in on 4 separate planes, drove to the show in 4 separate cars, got handed 4 separate play lists and left at the end in 4 separate cars. None of this new album crap. In, out give us the money. Iggy. You have let me down.

Back in the days when the Stooges were long dead, Iggy should’ve been long dead, and his credibility was certainly dead, he recorded some stuff for Virgin. What we have here is a curio – the Long Video edit (whatever that means) of ‘Wild America’. This track is interesting for 2 reasons. 1. It was only ever released on promo, and 2. Iggy breaks off from singing now and again to tell you the story of his life. Talking about Pop music, if you will. It’s pretty weird, but pretty excellent too. You’ll love it.

Hard-to-find

Never Mind The Pollocks

March 5, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

The good folks over at Ape Shall Never Kill Ape recently posted some demos from the Stone Roses ‘Second Coming’ album. And they were pretty scathing about the album too! It’s all just opinions of course, but for what it’s worth, I like the Second Coming. Sure ‘How Do You Sleep’ hasn’t stood the test of time, and was regularly skipped when I first immersed myself in the album, but ‘Love Spreads’? Come on! What’s not to like about that? Who cares if it’s the greatest track Led Zeppelin never recorded, it still sounds ace. ‘Daybreak’? “From Moss Side Manchester, to Addis Aba-ba-ba-baa”. It doesn’t get any better than that. So come on Mr Ape. Surely a reappraisal is due.

Of course, The Second Coming wisnae a patch on the first album. That is just accepted fact. If you were there when it came out you’ll know how it exploded like a technicolour blast of guitar pop and blew everything else away. Wedding Present? See ya. Wonderstuff? Beat it. Voice of the Beehive? Exactly. If you weren’t there, where were you? This was the album that got dance folk into guitar music and the pasty faced wallflowers into dance music. Morrissey quiffs were grown out faster than you could say “I am the resurrection” and suddenly flares were back in fashion. The baggier the better. Which I always found strange cos I saw the Stone Roses in Rooftops (£4 to get in, pay on the door – if we couldn’t get in, we were going to go and see Birdland instead) and Ian Brown was wearing a pair of straight-legged brown Levis cords. So, where the flares came from is a mystery to me.

Anyway, here’s a couple of demos from the first album. ‘Waterfall’ is a bit faster than the album version, and speeds up at the end, driven by Reni’s drums. And ‘Made Of Stone’ is fairly similar to the version you know and love, which goes to show that the band pretty much had these tracks rehearsed into oblivion before they came to record the album. Sadly missing, alas, for all you trainspotters, is the recording info. Where? When? I don’t know. My bootleg CD doesn’t say. But, hey, they’re Stone Roses demos from the first album. And they’re pretty decent quality. If anyone out there has a good demo version, indeed any demo version of ‘I Am The Resurrection’, please get in touch. I’d love to hear it.

Lee Mavers once told me, “Stone Roses? (makes throat gagging sound) Stoned Poses more like.” True story that. I also met John Leckie once as well, but I’ll keep that tale for another day.

Finally, if you’re a guitar nerd, and into the Stone Roses, you’ll love this site.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Raconteurs! In session!

March 2, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

I’ve had these tracks for nearly a year, but I really think I should be sharing them. You might have heard them already, but if not get them now.

Two Raconteurs tracks recorded for the Dermot O’Leary BBC Radio 2 show on the 25th March 2006. I recorded them at the time and have listened to them many times since (usually in the car or on my iPod cos Mrs Plain Or Pan just disnae like all those electric guitars). You may well be familiar with the Raconteurs album, but the version here of ‘Steady, As She Goes’ is something else entirely. Y’see, the Raconteurs album came out a year after it was recorded (due to White stripes stuff and record company politics). In the meantime, the band had been out on tour and really learned how to play. As a result, the songs that featured on the album were stretched, mangled and morphed into feedback soaked blues freak-outs and daintily picked acoustic run throughs straight off of Led Zeppelin 3. This ‘Steady, As She Goes’ sounds like something the Kinks would have been happy to release in 1965 – it’s loose, funky and the drums sound great. It has a great double lead vocal a-la Ray and Dave Davies and it even manages to sound kinda reggae. I love it. You will too.

The second track here is the Raconteurs version of ‘It Aint Easy’, made famous (though not written) by David Bowie on his Ziggy Stardust album. It’s pretty much a straight run through of Bowie’s version of the song, but you need it, cos the band have never really played it since.

Next week I plan to put up more Raconteurs session stuff – I have a fantastic version of ‘Store Bought Bones’ recorded for Radio 1 that sounds like a fight between a Marshall stack and a Big Muff fuzz box in a hammond organ shop. Stay tuned…

Cover Versions, Dylanish, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Just Like Jeff Buckley

February 25, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

Elsewhere on these pages you’ll find Jeff Buckley’s rather excellent version of Dylan’s ‘Mama You Been On My Mind’. That track remains the most downloaded song from Plain Or Pan?, and helped catapult my blog into the dizzy heights of ‘3rd fastest growing music blog on the ‘net for January’. So, thanks!

Today, I’m posting Jeff Buckley‘s version of ‘Just like A Woman’. Like ‘Mama You Been On My Mind’, it was recorded at Bearsville Studios, New York State (?) in September 1993 at the sessions for the Grace album. It features just Jeff and his Telecaster-played-through-Fender-twin-reverb and sounds beautiful. He kinda makes this his own song, which of course is the mark of a good cover.

Just a quick note – the vocals are slightly distorted in places, but I guess that as this was a recorded-in-progress demo, the engineer had little or no time to adjust the levels accordingly. But that shouldn’t spoil your enjoyment of what is an excellent performance.

For all you trainspotters, I have also included a shorter version that fades out here.

Coming soon – If You See Her, Say Hello and another couple of Mama You Been On My Mind outtakes! Drop by again!

Hard-to-find, Sampled

Moonlighting with the Noonday Underground

February 25, 2007September 29, 2007 Craig McAllister

Noonday Underground is the nom de plume of Simon Dine. As well as being A&R man at Go! Discs and producer of Paul Weller’s ‘Illumination’ album, he found the time to release a couple of albums. ‘Surface Noise’ is the second of these albums and came to my attention as it featured 2 tracks with vocals by Frank Reader of the Trashcan Sinatras. It is still available, but seems quite hard to get these days, which is why I’m posting 2 tracks from it.

Windmills is based around a sample of some forgotten 60’s film soundtrack. It’s got weird instrumentation, some plucked strings and lazy, almost spoken vocals. It is magic.

Barcelona sounds quite similar to the above and is probably my favourite of the 2 tracks – looped, sampled strings, some plucked acoustics, some vinyl crackles and some weird film noir noises in the background. Complete with a whispered lead vocal track and falsetto backing vocals, it sounds like an eerie music box, and would be great as the background music to a Twin Peaks-style movie.

If you’re a fan of the Trashcan’s and prefer their more introspective stuff like ‘Orange Fell’, these tracks are for you.