Plain Or Pan

I’m Hank Marvin

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013 Craig McAllister

According to some so-far-unconfirmed sources, Richard Hawley, in his National Health milk bottle thick Gregory Pecks and greasy collpased 1950s quiff has Sleepwalk by Brooklyn brothers Santo & Johnny Farina playing on a constant loop inside his head, and, when stuck for inspiration, reaches out and grabs whatever twangy part happens to float past and recycles it under his own name. Cleverly, he also adds his own bottom of the bottle of whisky vocals to it, but disregard them if you can and it all becomes clear.

Nothing evokes that fuzzy, fuggy end of the prom waltz into the wee small hours quite like Sleepwalk. A shuffling, twanging instantly recognisable piece of late 50s melancholia, it’s got the minor key melodrama down to a tee; The slide guitars streeeeeeeeeeetch off out into the ether. The steel guitars weep like jilted boyfriends who’ve just come off second best in the game of love to the star quarterback. There’s a tiny bit of stand-up slapback bass underpinning the soft-shoe shuffle of the brushed drums and really, that’s about it. Two brothers. Two jobbing sessioneers. Four instruments. No overdubs. Recorded at the famous Trinity Sound studios in New York for $35 during Bing Crosby’s lunch break. Quite possibly.

It’s since become something of a graduation piece for budding bedroom guitarists the world over. Master some chords (3 majors and a minor should do) then move onto the tricky pickin’. Sleepwalk is perfect for this, as is borne out by the number of early 60s (and beyond) cover versions by nascent young whippersnappers eager to show off their chops. The Shadows and The Ventures, between them the finest purveyors of the guitar instrumental (with apologies to Dick Dale) both released versions early into their recording careers. Chet Atkins fancy-panted his up somewhat with some jazzy-inflected country licks and none-more-50s rasping saxophone. Jeff Beck’s version is a soulful, we’re-not-worthy bow-down to the original, and even I have been known to dust off the old Telecaster, fire up the Orange amp and crank out my fat-fingered approximation of the tune. King of them all though is Brian Setzer’s respectful yet mental Grammy winning version. A man who out-Hawleys the Hawley and clearly spends even more time than the Sheffield Shinatra dreaming about the good old days of pre-TV households and cars as wide as they were long, his version knocks all others for six. Here’s how to do it:

Bonus Track!

Santo & Johnny Sleepwalk (extended version)

Twangtastic.

Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – Charlie Boyer

March 25, 2013 Craig McAllister

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 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.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Aye, Spy!

March 16, 2013 Craig McAllister

Focus. Surely the reason punk had to happen. They’re not a band I’ve ever mentioned on these pages before. And they’re not a band likely to ever feature on these pages again. Hoary old 70s prog rockers, with their fuzzy faces and parted-curtains hair-dos, Focus might’ve looked like any one of those uber-cool purveyors of the German Kosmische Musik, but they eschewed that minimal motorik groove in favour of an altogether less savoury sound. Technically super-proficient players, Focus had an alarming tendency to fling 94 ultra-slick 2 bar arpeggios in the space where most contemporaries would rattle out a blues riff copied from any old Chuck Berry record. Focus would also regularly yodel like castrated cats on their records, records that careered from a post-blues/pre punk squealing guitar abandon to neo-classical and medieval lampoonery, by way of a side order of jazz fusion. In many ways then, a Dutch Spinal Tap…

The Be-de-le-be-de-le-be-de-le-be-de-le-be-de-le-be-de-le-scree lead guitar in Focus was provided by Jan Akkerman. Jan is something of a hero to 60-year old physics teachers who wear their hair a wee bit too long at the back and still harbour hopes of making it with their band. He tours regularly and mentions of his name in the right circles can elicit the same sort of reaction you’d get when talking about Johnny Marr to half the folk who are reading this now.

He began playing in The Hunters, a beat-boom inspired garage band from the Netherlands who had one minor hit in 1966 with Russian Spy And I. A terrific record, it sounds equal parts Yardbirds, Animals and (really) The Ukrainians, the short-lived world music off-shoot of the Wedding Present. All hand-claps, shouty “oi!s” and chicken dance-inspiring rythym guitar, Russian Spy And I is a record you could happily smash plates to, Greek wedding-style. Listen to it and underneath the frenzied stomp of it all you just might spot Jan Akkerman’s ever-so subtle and understated guitar parts.

The Stares

Russian Spy And I first came to my attention not from The Hunters but via The Stairs and their Woman Gone And Say Goodbye single. A band forever out of sync with the times (too late for the 60s, too early for that mid 90s boom in guitar bands), the Merseyside revivalists did a faithful version of Russian Spy… on the b-side, for extra authenticity recording it in mangled mono glory and unwittingly inventing The Coral in the process, who took The Stairs sound and polished it up until it was shiny and chart friendly. Nothing wrong with that, of course. The Stairs were a magic wee band. They had soul and funk and the riffs and could play like delta bluesmen and swing like Sinatra at the Sands. I’ve written about them and their genius leader, Edgar ‘Jones’ Jones before. Take 5 minutes and reacquaint yourself with them here. And listen to their version of Russian Spy And I while you’re at it. Oi!

I Spy the heir to the Plain Or Pan throne

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

Hot Rod

March 8, 2013 Craig McAllister

Over Christmas a pal on Facebook posted a video of Boogie Nights by Heatwave. With it’s super-slinky bass sound and below-the-bell-bottoms baritone “got to keep on dancin’, keep on dancin‘” backing vocal, it’s the sort of record that could have me Dad dancing for ages. (*Just to clarify – I’m not a Yorkshire man. I’m from further oop north than that – when I say me Dad dancing, I don’t mean it could get my own father on his feet. Although it probably could. I mean that Boogie Nights makes me dance in my own rhythmically-challenged Ayrshireman fashion. Like I said – just to clarify).

When the Heatwave video appeared I mentioned that the track was written by the same guy who wrote Thriller for Michael Jackson, Rod Temperton. I also rather glibly suggested he was now dead, when in fact it was pointed out that he’s very much alive and kicking and sleeping on a bed of crisp, fresh $100 bills every night in his Bel Air mansion. Probably. There’s nothing that unusual about songwriters who write one or two massive hits, but have a look at the picture below. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and all that, but……

Rod Temperton, the man who re-invented slick dance floor disco and wrote just about the most recognisable track of the 80s and beyond is a skinny-arsed, geeky white man with a rubbish pencil moustache and pre-perm footballer’s haircut. All the way from Cleethorpes in the north of England. A town with about as much musical pedigree as a squeaky dog toy. Yet there he is – the not-quite-invisible man to the side, goofing and gurning his way through three minutes of proper 70s American black man funk. And he wrote it. On top of a pile of dirty washing in a tiny flat. No wonder he’s laughing. All the way to the bank, he’s laughing.

Rod’s story is perfect Plain Or Pan fodder. Here follows a brief catch-up if you’re new to his name.

Beginning his musical apprenticeship in the working mens’ clubs around Tyneside and the north east of England, by the early 70s Rod had left the glamour of the frozen food factory where he worked in Grimsby and sought out his chance on the German club circuit. Like most bands who did this tour, he played long-into-the-night sets and his playing improved ten-fold. Rod and his Hammond organ were much in demand. An ad in Melody Maker led to him joining Heatwave and it was from there that Rod’s talents took him to the toppermost of the poppermost. Not quite the token honky (Heatwave’s drummer looked out of place also), Rod was the driving force behind the multi-cultural group’s success – Stateside million sellers, the whole shebang, before his work brought him to the attention of Quincy Jones. He’d go on to write three tracks for Michael Jackson’s debut Off The Wall LP and was retained by Jones and Jackson to work on the difficult-second-album follow-up, Thriller.

‘Originally, when I did my Thriller demo, I called it Starlight. Quincy said to me, ” You managed to come up with a title for the last album, see what you can do for this album”. I said, “Oh great,” so I went to the hotel, wrote two or three hundred titles, and came up with the title Midnight Man. The next morning, I woke up, and I just said this word…Something in my head just said, this is the title. You could visualise it on the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as Thriller.’

Quick! Grab these! They’ll probably be gone faster than you can say Beat It!

Starlight – Michael Jackson‘s demo of Thriller

Vincent Price spoken part for Thriller (first run-through)

Billie Jean – Michael Jackson‘s demo

As well as the title track, Rod wrote Baby Be Mine and The Lady In My Life, both more derivative of the kind of smooth soul tracks that he can seemingly knock out in his spare time. Difficult second album? Thriller has since become The Biggest Selling Album…Ever!, selling in excess of 60 million copies along the way. But you knew that already. Buy maybe you didn’t know that the wee skinny guy from unfashionable Cleethorpes had a huge hand in it. He still makes me laugh whenever I see Boogie Nights on any of those old TOTP repeats:

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

O Superman

March 3, 2013March 3, 2013 Craig McAllister

Life’s Rich Pageant was the first REM album I heard and, when push comes to shove, it’s still my favourite of theirs. Borrowed from Irvine library and duly taped, it soundtracked much of my late teens. From Begin The Begin‘s acid rock feedback ‘n twang via the alt. American Rickenbacker riffage of These Days and I Believe, to the Beach Boys backing on Fall On Me and Cuyahoga, it’s a terrific LP. All killer, no filler, you might say. It captures the band at the highest critical trajectory in their career – still hip enough to be considered underground, yet big enough to have worldwide sales (and actual big-hitting chart singles just around the corner with their next LP and beyond), being in REM around this time must’ve been great.

Tucked away at the end of Life’s Rich Pageant was Superman. A twin-vocaled throwaway bit of bubblegum pop that showcased the extraordinary backing vocals of Mike Mills, it was the track I played again and again and again and again ad naseum. Which, given it was on cassette, led to some frustrating rewind sessions where I’d zero the wee digital tape counter as Superman started, and try and stop the tape bang on zero zero zero when the song had finished and I’d began to rewind it. There was none of this stop/start/skip/repeat stuff going on back then. But you’ll know that already. Anyway, I did this 1000 times until the tape stretched and eventually, catastrophically snapped, leaving ribbons of TDK wrapped around the tape heads on my none-more-80s music centre. The soft-eject door may have been the most aesthetically-pleasing one in the shop (you tried them all out, didn’t you) but it was impossible to take off to get the chewed bits of tape back out. So that was that. Down to the wee record shop at the back of RS McColl’s at the cross to buy the actual record. Up the road, and reading the sleevenotes it was then that I realised Superman was a cover. With no internet at my fingertips or music-geek big brother to grill, I waited literally years until finding out that the REM track I loved so much was by a band called The Clique.

Pardon the pun here, but there are lots of Cliques in the music business. The Clique that released Superman in 1966 were from Texas. There was also a pilled-up ‘n purple hearted mod band from England called The Clique doing the circuit at the same time. And in the 90s, a band called The Clique (also of modish persuasion) were on the go. A few years back I featured one of their tracks. Very good it was too. But anyway…

The Clique’s version of Superman was a b-side. Given his trainspottery love of obscure and underground music, it was no doubt Peter Buck who brought it to REM’s attention. REM’s version actually turns out to be pretty faithful. The original is indeed a piece of throwaway bubblegum pop, with a high backing vocal and a highly fruggable bassline. Handclaps, little bits of chanting and a weird, trippy vocal, not unlike the effect you get when you hear backwards guitar on one of those 60s records, complete what is an excellent wee record. Although I still prefer REM’s.

Contrast and compare:

Superman – The Clique

Superman – REM

Sadly, perhaps, I don’t have to hand the recording my wee band did at our first ever gig. I did the Mike Mills bits. Badly.

demo, Hard-to-find, Live!, Peel Sessions

Guy Chadwick Once Tried To Kick Me Full In The Face But I Deserved It So I Did.

February 23, 2013 Craig McAllister

I liked tons of other contemporaries, but The House Of Love were, for me, the band that perfectly filled that post-Smiths/pre-Stone Roses void. They were terrific. A classic twin guitar and bass and drums indie rock band, they wore their influences proudly on their leather-jacketed sleeves; the twang and reverb. The stripey jumpers and black jeans. The semi-acoustic Gibsons. The rows and rows of effects pedals. The sheer bloody distorted racket they could morph into at the drop of a well-timed drum stick click before coming back as one to the melody – Guy Chadwick sooo wanted to be the new Lou and his band a Velvet Underground for the late 20th century. At a time in music when many bands were posturing in ponytails on political platforms, The House Of Love were always more Nico than Biko. That they blatantly added a female singer with high cheekbones and a 60s bowl cut who happened to be German only hammered the point home to those less observant than yer average muso geek.

By the time the band had had a modicum of success, Andrea Heukamp, she of the bowl cut and high cheekbones, had gone her own way. With her in their ranks, The House Of Love had cut their original version of Shine On. Not the over-produced, radio-friendly, siren-led version that, backed by their major label Fontana’s money gave the band their highest chart placing (20), but the far superior played-in-a-tunnel original version. This version was all reverb ‘n twang punctuated with a stratospheric guitar interplay provided by Guy Chadwick and Terry Bickers, a bonkers but brilliant guitarist who’s hedonism for the excesses encouraged by the music industry could make Bez and Shaun Ryder seem like Smartie-guzzling Boy Scouts in comparison. (He’s the angelic looking one 2nd from the right). At one stage Bickers’ erratic behaviour-via-drug use got so full-on the band elected to throw him out of their van halfway up some motorway or other between last night’s venue and tonight’s. Bickers left the band around this point, but would return to the fold a few years later. But you probably knew that already.

Shine On was followed up by one more equally sonically-brilliant but anonymous-to-the-public single. Real Animal came and went in a real blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. Had you heard it, you’d have been telling anyone who’d listen just how good The House Of Love were. I know I did. John Peel had played it on occasion and, as recording it to a C90 had escaped me at the time, I had to wait until a few years later to own it when I picked up a German import compilation of the band’s first few singles.

Having an ear glued to Peel was good news for the House Of Love fan. Peel was a fan as well, which meant they regularly popped up in session (7 in all, between 1988 and 1992) and he always seemed to have first play of the next single. The first single to be released as a four piece, Christine was the one that put the band in the spotlight. All tough as nails guitars and ba-ba-ba-da-ba vocals, Christine once again failed to make the ‘real’ charts, despite being a creatively marketed Creation Records 99p no-risk disc. But the band’s next single (and last for Creation) was their best yet. Fading in on an instantly recognisable guitar riff, Destroy The Heart was a heady mix of shimmering chords and pistol-crack drums, Bickers’ anti-solos confirming him as the next indie rock hero to follow in Johnny Marr’s footsteps, although John Squire was just around the corner, ready to pop up with his band and change the rules and define an entire epoch. As I said earlier, betwixt and between The Smiths and Stone Roses. But you know all that already too.

Destroy The Heart

Demo
Single Version
Peel Session (7.6.88)
Live (Paris la Cigale, 30.10.88)

As you’ll see from the video, The House Of Love were more frantic, more fuzzed, more furious than on vinyl. They played King Tuts three nights running, with a different set each night. Gigs weren’t that expensive back then and I don’t know why we didn’t go to them all, but we chose the Friday night only. Full of spirit (and beer and wine) I managed to squeeze my way to the very front of the stage and, being a little shit, managed to annoy Guy Chadwick at one of the last songs by grabbing the base of his microphone stand and twisting it away from his mouth just as he was about to sing. This forced him to turn his head to the side slightly and remain in an awkward stance until he’d finished the verse or chorus or whatever he was singing, before heading the end of the mic like a crap footballer (“Thuuunk!”) back to his favoured position. As you might imagine, he wasn’t in the least amused by any of this. The second time I did it, he looked down from his lofty King Tuts stage position and scowled witheringly at me. When I did it for a third time, he aimed a well placed Doc Martin at my face which only just missed. Punk’s not dead! I suppose I deserved it. It did give me a bit of a fright, but as they finished, I made sure Guy wasn’t watching and I managed to detach the heavily-gaffer taped setlist from the stage and folded it into my pocket:

Afterwards we went to The Arches. (Bouncer, frisking me. “What’s that?” “It’s my House Of Love setlist.”) Still full of spirit (and more beer and wine), we made idiots of ourselves dancing to the anonymous doof-doof-doof house music of the time before heading home – by taxi? by bus? did we stay on someone’s floor until the first light of morning? – I can’t actually remember. Anyway, guess what? In a bizarre turn of events, look who’s due to play at those very same Arches in April this year. It’s only Guy Chadwick and whoever else constitutes The House Of Love these days. I’ll be there, but taking up my more customary back of the room position that I’ve come to appreciate in my advancing years as a gig goer. If you’re coming, I might need hawners. You up for it big man?

Cover Versions, demo, Hard-to-find, studio outtakes

Three Little Birds

February 17, 2013 Craig McAllister

I’m just about finished Neil Young‘s autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace. It’s an annoying read, but now I’ve come this far, I need to finish it. I love old whiny Neil, I really do, but his book goes about dispelling the myth behind the man faster than the man himself was able to hoover up the white stuff backstage during The Last Waltz. The chapters jump from one time and place to another time and place and back again with random abandon (which I don’t mind) but the content therein just bores me. There’s just not enough background information on the kind of stuff I’d expect most Neil Young fans to be interested in.

For every “The day I wrote Cinnamon Girl…” you get half a dozen finger-pointing one-sided arguments on the benefits of the electric car Neil’s been designing for the past 390 or so years. For every “We had a lotta fun, I got another STD” tale of woe you get a step-by-step account of his shopping trip to Costco. Really! For every “Oh man! Let me tell ya about this one time in the Springfield…” you get seventeen lectures on the rubbishness of mp3s. Indeed, ol’ Neil’s got a big shout for himself. He’s offered to help Apple improve the sound quality of their music files and much of his book reads like a particularly crass advertorial. He takes folk out to his car (always a ’51 this or ’67 that, never a B-reg Cortina) and plays them music through his self-designed PureTone/Pono audio system that he hopes will become the leading portable audio player on the market. Whatever, Neil. Just tell us more about the Ditch Trilogy and your guitar sound on Weld, and much, much less about the movies for Human Highway and Prairie Wind.

Much like his music, where great album is followed by mediocre shelf clutter (for every pearl, there’s a Pearl Jam, perhaps?), so too his story alternates between revelation and exasperation. He does admit that he shelved too many good albums in the 70s at the expense of at-best average ones. Maybe he should’ve got himself an editor who could’ve told him likewise about the output of his writing.

Young wearing yer actual After The Gold Rush jeans.

Press ‘Play’ to hear groovy 60s Reprise Records radio promo ad.

At the end of the 60s, Neil Young found himself living in Topanga Canyon, overlooking the Pacific Palisades in the Santa Monica Mountains. A liberal, boho-rich 60s community of artists, actors and assorted creative types, it lent itself perfectly to Young’s own creative, carefree spirit. Here, he would pen many of the songs that would later become staples of his catalogue and live set. Sugar Mountain. I’ve Been Waiting For You. Helpless. Tell Me Why. Only Love Can Break Your Heart. All materialised in some form or other in this period. Not bad going for a 24 year old song writer. Amongst his ouvre during this time was Birds.

Birds (Neil Young early version from Topanga Canyon)

Birds is not that well regarded in what is undoubtedly a gold-standard catalogue, but it should be. Eventually appearing on his 3rd solo outing, 1970’s After The Gold Rush, Birds found itself sequenced mid-way through side 2, sandwiched between acoustic Neil nugget Don’t Let It Bring You Down and the electric Neil ‘n Nils Lofgren guitar duellin’ When You Dance You Can Really Love. Birds is a great wee song; downbeat, introspective and yearning with a terrific backing vocal from the assembled Danny Whitten (who’d be dead from heroin in 2 short years), Crazy Horse’s Ralph Molina, old partner in rhyme Steven Stills and the afore-mentioned 18 year old wunderkid Nils Lofgren.

Birds (After The Gold Rush album version)

Hands down even better is the mono single released to promote the Gold Rush album. A markedly different version from the piano-led album version, the single places greater emphasis on shimmering electric guitars and richly plucked acoustics without losing the soaring, whisky-soaked, weed-smoked 4-part harmonies in the chorus. And it’s all over in barely more than one and a half extraordinary minutes. Most folk know Birds from the album, but the mono single is where its at…

Birds (mono single version)

A few weeks ago, when the news of HMV’s decline was made public, I found myself shamelessly plundering their website for keenly priced booty. Top of my wish list was Neil Young’s Archives Project, the catch-all, multi-disc labour of love that had been assembled by Young himself after trawling years of tapes from his own archives. At £200+ a pop it was one box set I could never justify purchasing. I’d already acquired it via other means (I’m sure you know what I mean) but the real deal offers updates via the web and enough interactive material to satisfy even the keenest of Rusties. Sadly, HMV had none to sell, so the mp3s above are taken from my own slightly more dodgy archives. Be careful not to play them too loud, though, or old Neil will be round in his car, the ’62 Chevy perhaps, or the ’78 Jensen, to make you listen to how they should sound on his latest hi-spec audio player. And he’ll probably charge you $250 for the meet-and-greet privilege. Hippies, eh?

*Bonus Track!

From the throwaway and listened-to-less-than-once-before-being-filed-away-waste-of-his-time-and-my-money Studio 150 covers LP (phew!), here’s Paul Weller, in full-on white man sings Otis guise doing a fine version of Birds. Perhaps a reappraisal of Studio 150 is required.

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!

Cover Versions, Get This!, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Born To Be With You Triple Whammy

February 6, 2013 Craig McAllister

Born To Be With You was an American top 5 single for The Chordettes in 1956. A largely forgotten piece of bobbysox balladeering, it’s a proto doo wop, proto girl group paen to a just-out-of-reach romance, all minor key melodrama and vocal harmonies. It was quite clearly an influence on the young Phil Spector a few years later. A few short calendar years maybe, but it might as well have been several lightyears, given what happened in the intervening years betwixt and between The Chordettes and the golden touch of Phil Spector. 1956 was Year Zero for rock ‘n roll. The year that Elvis and his gyrating pelvis appeared on television screens with the dual effect of horrifying the moral majority of Americans whilst galvanising youths everywhere into action.

“Before Elvis there was nothing.”

John Lennon said that. And after Elvis there was everything. I’ll say that. Firstly, Tin Pan Alley songwriters and their ‘moon in June‘ blandfest of lyrics were given a huge boot up the arse and out the door. As they were leaving, in came bands who played their own instruments, wrote their own songs, presented themselves as a gang and dressed accordingly. In a few short years, the thrill of rock ‘n roll and all its attendant detritus was well in motion. But you knew that already.

Phil Spector was a bit of a throwback to that pre-Elvis era. The auteur of teen angst, he used assorted songwriters to pen the hits, before introducing the song to the musicians who would bend and shape it into Spector’s vision of a 3 minute symphony, before finally introducing the singers to the song and pushing them to the very edge of their limits in order to create pop perfection. Goffin & King. Ellie Greenwich. Jeff Barry. Writing for The Ronettes. The Crystals. Darlene Love. I’m sure you know them all. Phil even got himself a writing credit for coming up with the “woah-woah-woah” part at the end of Mann & Weill’s ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling‘. Clever man, that Phil Spector. Well, he was at one time…

Spector’s influence reached far and wide, as far even as that hotbed of rock action, south Wales. In 1973, following the huge success of I Hear You Knocking (a favourite of John Lennon, coincidentally), and after a part in David Essex’s Stardust, Dave Edmunds combined his love of early 50s rock ‘n roll with the technique of Phil Spector and produced his own version of The Chordettes’ Born To Be With You. It’s terrific! A wall of 12 string guitars, stratosphere-scraping vocals and galloping, clattering rat-ticky-tat percussion. It’s measured. Precise. Perfect. By the time the brass ‘n slide guitar part comes soaring in, you’ll already have convinced yourself this is the best record you’ve heard all year. Someone like Glasvegas could waltz in and do it in the same style and make it sound even huger. “Coz ah wiz borrrrn…tae be wi’ yooo!” But for the moment, content yourself with Dave Edmund’s 40-year old version. I think you’ll like it a lot.

Pop Quiz Interlude

Q. Aside from The Beatles, name the only other rock/pop artists on the cover of the Sgt Peppers LP.

A. Bob Dylan (top right, back row) and Dion (7th from left, 2nd back row. Just next to Tony Curtis and behind a wee bit from Oscar Wilde).

Dylan you’ve probably heard of. Dion too, for that matter. Dion was a duh-duh-duh-d’-duh-duh duh dude. His rasping, doo-wopping Noo Yoik Bronx vocal created monster hits. The Wanderer. Runaround Sue. A Teenager In Love. I’m sure you’re singing them now, ingrained as they are in the very fabric of rock ‘n roll. Dion was also the Marti Pellow of his day – pop idol on the outside whilst rattling to the bones with heroin on the inside. When the hits dried up, Dion found himself label-less, friendless and definitely down and out in New York City. Following a religious epiphany (c’mon! what did you expect?!?) and subsequently ditching the drugs, 1975 found Dion working with Phil Spector on his own version of Born To Be With You.

Ironically, it’s less Spectorish than Edmunds’ rollin’ and tumblin’ version. Dion’s is downbeat, introspective and melancholy, sounding exactly like the kind of record an artist makes when they know they’re in the last chance saloon; measured (again) and majestic. At just short of 7 minutes, it’s something of an epic. Jason Pierce of Spiritualized is said to be a huge fan of this record, which makes perfect sense. It’s almost Spiritualized in template, with it’s steady, pulsing riff and inter-woven sax breaks. And the background drugs story was no doubt the icing on the cake for our Jason.

Good records. That’s what they are. Play them. Enjoy them. Pass it on.

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten

Transvestite Twiggy Pop

January 30, 2013 Craig McAllister

My Dad’s a banjo player. And that’s not a strange euphemism for any dodgy Deliverance-influenced way of life. He’s a straight-up, proper bluegrass bashin’, six-fingered pickin’ ‘n strummin’ banjo player. And quite good too. Plays in a band and everything. Which is more than I do these days. Maybe once I retire…..

As a teenager when I was learning to play the cheap plank of wood and rubber band combo that passed as my first electric guitar, he’d show me how to play the chords to any number of Buddy Holly songs, when all I really wanted to do was play the She Sells Sanctuary riff in front of the mirror. He couldn’t show me, thankfully (how uncool would that have been?), but it didn’t stop him listening to my records from afar and watching any videos I was in the process of freeze-framing in order to establish what chords, strings and frets my latest idol was playing. Now and again he’d point out a D chord or a hammer-on at the 7th fret, but that was as far as he got. I got quite good at learning by ear/watching telly. I still play Blackbird the same way after watching Paul McCartney’s MTV Unplugged. And I finally worked out She Sells Sanctuary (dead easy, but you knew that already).

One night I was watching for the umpteenth time a video of The Cramps, taped from arts show Later, long before it morphed into the Jools Holland-endorsed franchise of modern times. This was late-era, almost-classic line-up Cramps, on telly to promote the Stay Sick album. On hearing another unfamiliar racket starting up, my Dad poked his head around the living room door and feigned interest. “Who’s this? This looks interesting.” He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. The camera panned up and down Lux in his Fonz-in-high heels ‘n PVC get-up, then panned up and down Poison Ivy wearing a mini skirt and a Gretsch and not much else, then panned up and down straight-backed drummer Nick Knox before settling on bubblegum-blowing bass player Candy del Mar in her tiny black bikini top. “Look at the size of her fingers,” he said without a trace of irony. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, it’s not hard to track down that very show. I urge you to watch it:

Conclusive proof, if it were needed, that The Cramps were the last truly great rock and roll band.

I came to The Cramps quite late and only saw them live once, at the Barrowlands. Promoting that same Stay Sick album, as it happens. At the back of the Barrowlands, where the sound desk and special seated guests area is, there’s a wee 6 inch high ledge, ideal for short arses like myself to stand on and get a better view of the stage. Just before The Cramps came on, we were looking for a good viewing place and were headed in that direction. Perched on the end of the ledge with a girl on either side (combined age 32, and I’m being kind) was Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie. My pal Rab, suitably refreshed despite the warm beer in the plastic glass, and dismayed at the direction the Scream had taken with their new material, decided to have a wee word with the man – “That Loaded‘s shite, Bobby. You should’ve stuck to Ivy Ivy Ivy.“

Gillespie looked up. He was in full faux rockstar casualty mode at the time, lank hair ‘n leathers ‘n all. Flashing a Lennon peace sign, from beneath the fringe came the immortal words, spoken in that strange accent that’s more yer actual Florida than Mount Florida. “Ecstasy, motherfucker.” And almost to the beat of his poetry, The Cramps walked on and started. “Good mawnin’ Captain! Good mawnin’ to yoo! Ah-ha-ha, ah, ha, ha!!!” And away they went. Lux hanging off the mic stand like a transvestite Twiggy Pop, to-ing and fro-ing his vocals between hiccuping hillbilly and graverobber growl, Ivy playing like a hot-wired Scotty Moore. They were absolutely dynamite. Gillespie would kill to have an ounce of their effortless cool, that much is obvious. Anyway, anytime I listen to The Cramps, I think of that story. That and, “Look at the size of her fingers.”

Here’s some late-era Cramps;

Shortnin’ Bread

Muleskinner Blues

I Wanna Get in Your Pants

Two cover versions (the first 2) and an outrageously good self-penned rip-off of Hang On Sloopy that does exactly what it says on the tin. The twang’s the thang, baby!

There’s a Cramps tribute on in McChuills, Glasgow this Saturday night, with The Primevals amongst others taking part. Just a wee heads up if you’re at a loose end. Click on the link. You might say it Lux interestin’…….(Scottish pun).

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals:

Tell yer pals: