Yesterday’s Papers is my way of infrequently getting new life out of carefully selected old posts. It’s terrific that new readers seem to find Plain Or Pan on a daily basis and often request particular pieces of music which, for one reason or another no longer have working links. There’s also some stuff on here that I, being vain and narcissistic, still enjoy reading and, even though I would like to take an editor’s pen to the text and re-write much of it, I think new and not so new readers might enjoy reading it too.
Every Yesterday’s Papers post is presented exactly as it was written when it first appeared on Plain Or Pan, apart from the odd spelling mistake or grammatical error that escaped my editorial eye first time around. Oh, and the links to the music have all been updated too.
First appeared July 2, 2008
Got the new issue of Mojo through the letterbox today and amongst the usual excellent mix of articles, I spotted a wee nod to ‘Dylan Hears A Who’. This was a project that I stumbled across quite by accident about a year ago, where a couple of guys recreated Bob Dylan‘s golden mid-6os period with the most authentic-sounding band ever, playing songs who’s lyrics are made up entirely from words and phrases taken from the writing of Dr Seuss. It has to be heard to be believed, but trust me, the album is easily one of the Top 3 things I’ve ever downloaded. Even the artwork is beautifully pastiched…
According to Mojo, mp3′s of ‘Dylan Hears A Who’ are hard to find. A bit of poking around on the internet shows this to be true. Dylan loved the music – there’s faithful pastiches of ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’, ‘Tombstone Blues’, ‘Queen Jane Approximately’ and much more, but the dylanhearsawho website was shut down on the instructions of the Dr Seuss estate. Booooo! Pastiche fascists! So a year late, I’m posting it here. Artwork is included!
The Cat in the Hat
There’s something happening here and you don’t know what it is? Try before you buy!Here‘s the aforementioned splendid take on ‘Tombstone Blues’, entitled ‘Green Eggs & Ham’. See what I mean? Now go and download the whole lot. You won’t regret it. ‘Too Many Daves’ sounds like one of those hotel room tape recordings that Bob fans go mental over. I’d forgotten quite how good Dylan Hears A Who actually is. Thanks, Mojo. Now. What are you waiting for?
It happened. It had to happen eventually. Poor Andy Murray carried both the weight of the world on his shoulders, or at the very least, the heavy expectations of a nation terminally shite at sport upon them, and a monkey on his back that many thought he would never shake. Late last night/very early this morning, somewhere above the Arthur Ashe Stadium, high above the Manhattan skyline, the stars aligned, the Gods conspired and It happened. In a thrilling contest with individual rallies lasting longer than entire Ramones sets, and in five full sets featuring more ebbs and flows than the tide at Saltcoats beach, Andy Murray, our Andy Murray, bagged his first Grand Slam. But by now, you’ll know all that already.
How he did it is, I think, all down to psychology. Having had his early lead pegged back by an angry, fired-up opponent who’d suddenly awoken and found himself two sets down must’ve been agony. It was for me. With work in the morning, I was desperate for my bed, yet I had vowed I would watch the match to the end. “It’ll be over by midnight,” I told myself, unaware that one of the longest Grand Slams ever was about to unfurl. The 3rd set was a wash-out for Murray, and there can be no doubt that, by the 4th set, the match was Djokovic’s to lose. He had the momentum, and he was serving first in the final set. Get your nose in front and stay there, that’s the tennis players’ mantra.
But from somewhere, Murray dug deep. The spring in his heels that had so abandoned him along with his first serve in sets 3 and 4 returned. The fist pumping re-appeared. The crowd, sensing Murray’s positive mental mood-swing changed allegiance. Buzzing by this point, he went for the strictly unthinkable and the seemingly unplayable. He could’ve taken the easier option by ensuring he got the ball over the net, anywhere, just over, in the hope that Djokovic might be forced into a stupid error. But, no. In the eye of the storm, he pulled out all the hard shots and went for it. Long, deep, top-spin shots fizzed to within a hair’s breadth of the baseline. First to one corner, then the other. And back again. “East Coast to West Coast,” as my American commentator helpfully explained. “That’s how he’s gotta play it!” surmised his sidekick. “Make Novak work!” Murray chose to play them all. The back-hand slices. The cute drop-shots. The disguised cross-court passes. And they all came off, every one of them. Positive mental attitude. Self-belief. Call it what you will, but from somewhere, Murray found the charge. He broke the Djokovic serve. Then, after holding his own, he broke the Djokvic serve again. This was unbelievable. By the time he was serving for the match, I was shaking with excitement, playing every shot with him, right up until the end when a spent Djokovic returned the ball just on the wrong side of in and Andy finally cracked a smile.
Craig Levein, if you’re reading, go and speak to Murray. Get him to rub his white ‘fro onto your frightened, negative head and see if you can’t pick up some of his bristling positivity. Go out and play like you want to win. Play the hard shots and take chances. Play with a swagger. Play with belief. Play like you owe us, big time. Who knows, you might even get us back in to the Grand Slam that’ll be Rio 2014. Though, sadly, maybe that’s pushing it a wee bit.
The Music:
The Artist who cannot be named in the blogging community for fears of hefty DMCA notices and men in shades appearing at your door in the wee small hours has a song called Glam Slam. Here‘s the none-more-80s remix. To paraphrase: Glam Slam, thank you man. You really made my day.
So I’m looking over my 19 year-old shoulders, keepin’ the edgy with one eye whilst scanning for decent pallets of wood with the other. After a minute or so a criteria-matching pallet is duly found (“sturdy“, “wan ye could stamp oan an’ it widnae brek“), carefully dismantled (“shhh! Security guards, furfucksakes!“) and folded into the boot of my pal’s mum’s Mini Maestro before being sped out of Hysters at top speed and delivered to the back door of The Attic, venue for that night’s Nyah Fearties gig.
Nyah Fearties (pronounced Nyah Fearties) were a brilliant, brilliant 2-man folk/punk band from Lugton in Ayrshire, a place so small and insignificant that Google are still looking for it on one of their own maps, even if The Fearties did their best to put their wee toun there. They had a sound that had obvious reference points in The Pogues and The Men They Couldn’t Hang, but there was a rough and raggedyarsedness to their sound, more no-fi than lo-fi, that made MacGowan and co. sound like a slick jazz funk band from 1982 by comparison. The Fearties were very parochial. Not for them a Scottishness that reeked of purple heather and proud images of Edinburgh Castle, they sang of what they knew. Lugton Junction. Bible John. Sawney Bean.Red Kola. A Sair Erse.
At The Attic, the two Wiseman Brothers, Davy and Steven, thrashed the daylights out of their acoustic 6 strings and bass guitars, not so much playing them as wrestling with them as though they were man-eating pythons. They kicked the shit out of that freshly-borrowed pallet and by then end of the gig it was in pieces smaller than we’d made when trying to get it into the car. They sounded like the apocalypse. Wild-eyed and feral, they participated in an hour and a half of non-stop call and response cris de guerre, sweating like boxers in the final round yet still standing upright, as if held vertical by magic. And so were we. Fuelled on £5 Bob Marleys – an ice bucket filled with a shot of every spirit and diluted to taste with fruit juice and so called because, as the barman helpfully pointed out, “you’ll wake up black and dead“, we thrashed about in the wee area in front of what loosely passed as the stage. Bang in the middle of this area was a spiral staircase. And bang! At one point or other I chicken-danced myself into it and split my head in two. Didn’t notice a thing until the next morning when I did indeed wake up black and dead and very hungover, just in time for the half 7 start in Safeway, dried blood crusted on my forehead and a splintered plank of wood from our pallet lying next to my bed. Really.
Red Kola (pronounced Rid Kola) is one of The Fearties best. Written as an anthem to Curries’ Special Kola (not brown, but red, and teeth-rottin’ tasty) as well as a tongue in cheek response to REM’s Orange Crush and as a metaphorical warning of the Americanisation of the UK, it’s a breathless, clatterin’ rant and a half:
Cop shows, burger bars and American Cream Soda
Take them oot an’ drown them in a sea of Pepsi Cola
They swallowed up oor land in the name o’ Geordie Bush
He couldnae keep his piggie little eyes aff oor skoosh!
Rid Kola! Rid Kola! Oor guts are dyed wi’ Rid Kola!
Lugton Junction (pronounced Lugton Junction) is a tirade against British Rail. From the opening scaffolding poles and found-sound bashing that apes the sound of ancient steamtrains passing at high speed, to the slide guitar as train whistle, to the we’re no’ standin’ fur this vocals, it’s what you could call one of The Fearties’ Greatest Hits;
There’s a train comin’, it’s no stoppin’ here
There’s a train comin’ doon the track, it’s no stoppin’ here,
There’s a train comin’ doon the track, it’s no stoppin’ here.
It husnae stopped here fur 20 bloody years!
Lugton Station, 1966
A year or so after The Attic gig and me and a pal are on the bus to Glasgow. It stops at Lugton and who gets on but none other than Davy Wisemen (he cannae get a train, remember?) “A’right boys!” He sits down and entertains us and everyone else on the bus (he has a rather volumatic burr to his voice) with stories about anything and everything. He draws us a map of Arran, showing us where The Fearties are playing in a week or so. Then we’re in Buchanan Street bus station and he’s off to who knows where with a genuinely cheery cheerio. “Did embdy ever chin you about that pallet?” No, Davy, but I couldnae explain to my mum how a broken plank of wood had ended up in my bedroom.
Yesterday’s Papers is my way of infrequently getting new life out of carefully selected old posts. It’s terrific that new readers seem to find Plain Or Pan on a daily basis and often request particular pieces of music which, for one reason or another no longer have working links. There’s also some stuff on here that I, being vain and narcissistic, still enjoy reading and, even though I would like to take an editor’s pen to the text and re-write much of it, I think new and not so new readers might enjoy reading it too.
Every Yesterday’s Papers post is presented exactly as it was written when it first appeared on Plain Or Pan, apart from the odd spelling mistake or grammatical error that escaped my editorial eye first time around. Oh, and the links to the music have all been updated too.
First appeared March 19, 2007
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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.
Did someone order a Tango?
I’ll put up more of these soon. Next up Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Sinatra, Vanilla Fudge, any requests…..
When it comes to overlooked, it’s hard to see past William Bell (no pun intended). Precious little has been written about William and his contribution to soul music, but when you poke and prod beneath the grooves and squint at the small print on the records, you’ll discover that he was a key figure in the development of Stax Records’ punkish ying to Motown’s pop yang. All music fans like Motown. All music snobs prefer Stax. That’s just the way it is. And while the stories of Holland-Dozier-Holland, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson et al are widely known, William Bell’s tale could do with a leg up.
Bell learned his chops playing in Rufus Thomas’ backing band. It couldn’t have been easy. Thomas has a voice like a rooster at the break of day and liked to dress up in the sort of costumes Elton John might have refused to wear on account of them being too outlandish. Tired of doing the Funky Chicken, the Funky Penguin, the Push And Pull, the Itch and Scratch and all manner of novelty nonsense, William made the decision to go it alone. A wise decision, as it turned out. With a series of self-penned, tear-soaked, southern soul-inflected heartbreakers, he firmly established himself alongside Isaac Hayes and David Porter as one of the go-to staff writers at Stax. You Don’t Miss Your Water. Born Under A Bad Sign. A Tribute To A King. I Forgot to Be Your Lover. All flowed effortlessly from his pen and into the R’nB charts alongside a handful of duets with Judy Clay.
Weller. On target.
I first discovered William Bell via Paul Weller, who stuck a version of Bell‘s My Whole World Is Falling Down on his You Do Something To Me single. Weller plays a terrific high in the mix guitar riff (same as the original, only grittier, rougher and much more mod) and channels his best white man sings Otis vocal. But don’t let that put you off. It was 1995 and everyone was going mental for Ray Davies. Weller was just being contrary, for which I am eternally grateful as I now own a handful of William Bell LPs on the strength of his cover. Recorded for a Radio 1 session, it’s played live without overdubs and is a fine indication of just how tight and in-tune with one another Weller’s band was back then. Essential listening, as they say in some parts.
An interesting (and totally off the wall) cover is by Jamaican Ken Parker. His uptown uptempo version was recorded at Studio One by Coxsone Dodd and skanks in all the right places. The version I have is over 8 minutes long and goes kinda dubby in the middle before making its way back to the main song and melody. Me tinks da ‘erb might be involved. Jesus. I came over all Alan Partridge there. Sorry ’bout that. Anyway, heady stuff from the son of a preacher man, as they sing in some parts.
Three very different, excellent recordings straight outta three of the most famous studios in recording history – Stax, Maida Vale and Studio One. How’sabout that then, guys ‘n gals?
Fritter about on the margins of success. Get signed. Release a hit single. Release a hit album. Tour bigger venues. Release a small run of future classic singles with killer b-sides. Release further singles and albums with ever-decreasing returns. Implode around 5th/6th LP when key member leaves or dies. A year or so down the line, entice same member back (unless dead) for one last hurrah and pay-day, but by then the magic is gone. All this is of course played out to a backdrop of drink and drugs and guns and girls and boys and Bentleys and bad and/or bent management. The trick for all bands is to make the upward trajectory as quick as possible, plateau for as long as everyone can stand you then make the downward trajectory as smooth and pain-free (and lucrative) as you can. (cf. most of your favourite bands, even that Stone Roses lot, – they all fit the model to some degree or other, but you knew that already).
Happy Mondays were well into the downward trajectory of their life when they decamped, in part to escape the Manchester drug scene, to Barbados to record …Yes Please!, the album that proved to be their last. Unable to secure the services of Paul Oakenfold, the uber producer who’d sprinkled their previous work with hit-making fairy dust, the band instead chose to work with Talking Heads’ rhythm section, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. On paper this sounds great – a decade earlier, Weymouth’s Tom Tom Club had taken the Talking Heads scratchy funk/punk blueprint and created proper full-on dance records, of their time, yet simultaneously ahead of the game, and Happy Mondays, via Oakenfold’s magic touch, had taken their clattering industrial funk and propelled it into the charts, the mainstream and the collective minds of most of the under 25s in the UK. In practice, however, things were not so great. Never has an album been more aptly named. Paul Ryder and his brother Shaun (suffering heroin withdrawal when he left Manchester), a pair of walking, talking Scarface caricatures who at the best of times could make any substance shoved under their noses disappear in Dyson-quick doubletime, arrived in a Barbados that was buckling under the weight of a crack epidemic. Want some? Yes, please. The cost of funding this adventure eventually broke Factory Records and Shaun spent so much time building crack dens out of sun loungers beside the studio pool, that he forgot to write a single lyric for the album, a fact only discovered back in the UK when Tony Wilson was forced to pay £50 ransom to Ryder for the return of the studio mastertapes.
When it eventually materialised, …Yes Please! took a bit of a kicking. Melody Maker posted a lazy, half-arsed review that simply said, “No thanks.” Nirvana and their ilk were in full flow and for the first time ever, Happy Mondays seemed antiquated and irrelevant. It’s right there on the shelf behind me, but I can’t even remember buying it. Like many bands once they reach a certain point in their life, I bought it out of blind loyalty rather than musical merit. However….
…listening to it again recently had me doing some sort of mini re-appraisal. First single Stinkin ‘Thinkin’, with its ringing guitars and stoned, whispered vocal still stands up to repeated listens. The very antithesis of twistin melons, callin’ the cops and all that jazz, it’s downbeat, reflective and unlike anything Happy Mondays had done before or since. Drug confessional Angel is another that still cuts the mustard. “When did the Simpsons begin?” slurs Shaun, eyelids heavy with the fug of the night before. Although spoiled somewhat by foghorn-voiced Rowetta, the big haired, big mouthed wannabe rock chick the ill-advised Mondays brought into the fold for their later stuff, it‘s still a cracker. Currently appearing in pantomime at a medium-sized arena somewhere near you, Happy Mondays seem certain to eke out a living, Drifters style, from now on in. Stinkin’, yes. But not really thinkin’. Stop! Now!
Anyway, whether he’d ever acknowledge it or not, those two Happy Mondays tracks above were a definite influence on Damon Albarn when he wrote the tracks for Blur‘s final LP, Think Tank. I’ve been playing Think Tank a lot lately, what with the Blur reunion (of sorts) and the excellent No Distance Left To Run documentary on the TV the other night. The dark horse in the Blur catalogue, Think Tank is famous for being an almost Coxon-free zone, the guitarist contributing to the woozy, wobbly Battery In Your Leg before having left after being increasingly frustrated at the (sigh) direction the band’s music was going in. Recorded in Morocco, there’s a noticeable space between the grooves that allows the album to pop open the top button of its trousers and, like, breathe. (Sadly) it’s not tied up in any of those jerky, spasticated 2 minute shouty freakouts that Coxon does so well. (Thankfully) there’s none of those terrible bleep/bang/bleep/scree tune-free bits or free-form atonal rackets best saved for b-sides or solo LPs. Think Tank as a whole is dubby, spacey and tinged with African bangs ‘n beats. Now that I think about it, it’s basically a precursor to Gorillaz, without the big-name special guests. Best track by a country mile is Brothers And Sisters, a track so clearly in debt to those two Happy Mondays tracks that Shaun Ryder would indeed call the cops if he was ever sober enough to listen to it properly. Built on a bed of elastic band bass, Albarn’s loose, stoned, vocals practically stage whisper, “Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be Shaun Ryder!” Caffeine. Codeine. Cocaine. White doves. He reels off a tick-list Paul and Shaun would’ve had no bother putting away before breakfast.
Think Tank is also notable for featuring Me, White Noise, a hidden track you can find by rewinding from the start of the first track. With a backing track sounding like a fly trapped in a bass bin, Phil Daniels mutters and mumbles and shouts and swears his way through almost 7 minutes of thrilling stuff. “Fack orff!” he snarls. “I’ve got a gun, y’know…and I’d use it!” Thanks to this and Brothers And Sisters fore-mentioned prescription list, Think Tank got one of those stupid Parental Advisory stickers.
My parental advice? Split up when you’re at your peak. Leave them wanting more. Don’t reform. Ever. You’ll come back looking like this:
You might even become a respectable, bespectacled married member of society…
Holy fuck
*Bonus Tracks!
Although a Coxon-free zone by the end of the LP, Blur as a 4-piece recorded tracks during the Think Tank sessions that were never quite finished due to the guitarist walking out. Here’s a couple of Coxon-enhanced crackers that turned up on future b-sides.
This half-considered Damon nicking off the Happy Mondays theory of mine may have legs. On the b-side of Happy Monday’s 24 Hour Party People single, you’ll find a track called Wah-Wah (Think Tank) Call The Cops!
I wrote this on Saturday, telling myself I’d finish it later and went out to enjoy the weather. It’s now Tuesday and the storm clouds are gathering.
Y’know, I make a point of digging deep to turn up the rarest of the rare when sometimes it’s the obvious ones that are the best. With the school holidays nearly over, the weather has (naturally) taken a turn for the better and we’re currently basking in what the tabloids of yore might refer to as a heatwave. Phew, what a scorcher and all that. There’s no denying. I’m in shorts. I’ve cut the grass. The smells of barbecuing meats are wafting from somewhere across my back door. The shrieks and high pitched laughter from wee ones in paddling pools is competing for ear space with the football on the radio and I’m contemplating painting my fence, safe in the knowledge that the job’ll be done before the rain comes on. Because at the moment it looks like we’ve as much chance of rain as the Costa del Sol. Great, eh!
Heat Wave was a 1963 hit single for Martha Reeves & the Vandellas. From the collective pen of Holland-Dozier-Holland, the oft-forgotten about songwriting team who are up there with your Lennons & McCartneys and Jaggers & Richards in the Sixties Premier League of hit songwriting teams, it’s sometimes referred to as (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave. Straight off the Motown production line, it’s a Funk Brothers piano-led, hand-clapping, gospel-tinged, giddy call-and-response shout-out to the joys of being in love, ell you vee love and all that, and it gave the Vandellas their first big hit single, reaching number 4 on the Billboard charts. Since then, it’s been covered by all manner of artists, from label mates The Supremes (a facsimile of the original), via celebrity coat ‘n hat checker Cilla Black (Surprise, Surprise, it’s very good!) to Linda Ronstadt’s mid 70s FM-friendly AOR version, replete with subtle bongos and meanderingly polite soft rock guitar solo, the sort of thing you might expect a half-arsed covers band to be playing at a Holiday Inn in the background of a TV movie. The most effervescent covers tend to have been by the boys. Both The Who and The Jam channeled their inner mod and bashed out R ‘n B tinged faithful reworkings. The Who’s version is fast. The Jam’s is faster.
Martha & the Vandellas‘ vocal-only studio outtake. These vocals gained the group a Grammy Nomination. And rightly so. They’re terrific!
*Bonus Track!
Martha & the Vandellas‘ vocal-only take of Jimmy Mack.
That fence painting job? I’m just contemplating, though. Not doing. This weather doesn’t happen too often. I think I’m going to get some sounds on and sit in the sun and enjoy it. I might even pour myself a drink. Costa del Sol, or Costa del Peroni, it won’t matter.
I’ll admit it. The Olympics have got me hook, line and sinker. From the opening ceremony onwards, via Wiggins’ magical time trial ride and the Scottish fella Jamieson who very nearly gubbed them all in the 200m breast stroke, until this weekend when Team GB have been picking up gold medals with all the carefree ease of Gladys and Agnes on a Tuesday morning at the pick ‘m mix in Woolies, I’ve sat, shouting sweary words of encouragement from the comfort of my sofa to people I had no idea existed a week ago. I was as cynical as many up here. Greatest Show On Earth? I don’t think so, pal. The Greatest Show On Earth is the World Cup. Everyone knows that. In no small part, my cynicism was due to Stuart Pearce’s (cough) Team GB football squad selection. A squad made up of numerous young Englishmen and a smattering of token Welshmen, with nary a Scot or Northern Irishman in sight. But more about them later. Yesterday was the opening game of the season for my team, Kilmarnock. It was a decent enough game, end-to-end, even, even if the BBC reported otherwise (their usual reporters have probably been deployed around the East End of London, I’d wager, and they’d been using some junior hack or other, not yet acquainted with the football normally played in the top league) yet I found my mind drifting back to events down south and couldn’t wait until half time in order to check the @TeamGB Twitter feed to see what I’d been missing. Good! My girl Jessicarennis was still burning the competition in the Women’s heptathlon.
It wasn’t long until I was home and catching up properly. Saturday night’s telly was sensational. But you knew that already. If you were watching ITV, silly you. If you were out, silly you. If, like me you whooped, hollered and punched the couch and the air and your wife with joyful abandon, you’ll know just how thrilling it was. When Jessicarennis lead from the front and came back strong and determined around that final bend; When the far-too-full-of-himself long jumper who’s name I’ve forgotten already messed up his last jump and bowed theatrically to the stadium; When Mo Farah, looking like someone Bob Geldof might be inclined to start an appeal for kicked his heels and dug out the strength to carry himself to victory; It was clear – that most dreaded of things, a feel good factor was suddenly everywhere. A ginger, a Muslim and a women of mixed race go into a pub. Everyone buys them a drink. I stole that from Richard Bacon. It’s a good one, eh?
Here in Scotland, following the manner in which oor ain Andy Murray casually disposed of Roger ‘The Greatest Ever‘ Federer, that feel good factor was multiplied ten-fold. Down south, people had a problem with Andy. He didn’t smile. He was dour in interviews. He battered his racquet around the court when things weren’t going his way. Good old stiff upper lip Tiger Tim Henman would never have displayed such vulgarities. Then, a month ago, the boy Murray blubbered like a big baby on the Centre Court and, well, some kind of thaw took place. It seems the public at large took him to heart. Today, when he climbed down from the Players’ Guests box and onto the scoreboard that declared his greatest ever victory, the wee boy who pushed his way to the front and shouted Andy back for a hug showed just how that feel good factor affects us all. That hug, as well as physical, was a metaphorical hug from all of Britain (but especially Scotland) to our own man.
The coverage on the BBC has been exceptional. This is what you pay your licence fee for. Handball over breakfast? Don’t mind if I do! Beach Volley ball at 10 in the morning? Oh aye! Easy on the eye! Beach Volleyball at 10 in the evening? Oh aye! Easy on the…but..hang on…they’re all wrapped up in, like, long lycra and jumpers and stuff. Damn that cold wind and British ‘summer’. Every sport is catered for and it’s all wrapped up and repeated if you happen to miss it first time round. One wee gripe? The commentators. Excellent and knowledgeable they undoubtedly are, they can also display an ignorance that cuts deep. It was that jumped up kids presenter Jake Humphries who did it first, during Team GB’s first women’s football match. “England this…England that….England the next thing“, and that’s a team that did have players from nations other than England in the starting 11. He said it about a dozen times. Then the normally reliable, likeable Lineker last night, “Well. So often before. And we’ve done it again. Out on penalties.” We, Gary? We? This is the first time we’ve ever entered a Team GB into any competition. We? You couldn’t possibly be referring to England, could we? The England who’s bottle crashes spectacularly at the merest whiff of a penalty shoot out? Did you not notice token Welshman and over-age player Ryan Giggs scoring there? Tut tut tut. I’ll admit it, that’s why I took a tiny wee bit of satisfaction in seeing (cough) Team GB crash out of the football.
Anyway. This is supposed to be a music blog. The aptly-named Usain Bolt was pretty terrific in the 100m semi-final. The fastest man on Earth practically jogged over the line once he knew he’d qualified. Then the BBC ramped it up somewhat, with clocks counting down until the final itself. Re-runs of races from all angles. Slo-mo shots of Bolt goofing off to camera. And a 2 minute mini movie of the Best of Bolt for the majority of viewers who somehow knew that Bolt was The Man, yet were oblivious to his achievements to date. All sound-tracked by this. Lightning Bolt by Jake Bugg. One of my favourite singles of the year, it sounds like Bringing It All Back Home-era Dylan rattling his way through Bad Moon Rising, all nasal vocals and cow punk skiffle guitar. Like Bolt in the 100m final, it’s supremely self-assured, a blur, over before it’s begun, leaving the rest in its wake. Get it quick – I’ve a feeling the internet police won’t like it. But you will.
A few years back, as a mature student in desperate need of income, I ran a wee guitar group. Obviously, far better than working a shift in B&Q, I was my own boss and set my own rules. 30 folk of all ages and abilities formed 3 groups of 10 who came to the local community centre to learn the difference between a b-minor and a blues lick and play along to a wide selection of recognised classics, with the odd personal favourite thrown in. Not only that, but along the way these eager students were educated in the ways of guitarists and guitar playing. Steve Cropper was more important than Slash, I’d tell them. Johnny Marr was better than Eric Clapton. Jimi Hendrix played guitar behind his back with his teeth. Try it! First person to play an E minor gets a mini Mars Bar. The beginners loved shaking their hair to The Ramones Surfin Bird, even if they had difficulty changing from an A to a D and back again at the same speed as Johnny and Dee Dee. Over time though, they managed to do a spot-on version of These Boots Are Made For Walking, complete with their own wee choreographed foot dance when Nancy asks, “Are you ready boots? Start walkin'”. The best players in the ‘top group’ could replicate Stairway To Heaven note for note. Well, almost. But my greatest achievement was with the ‘middle group’. Accomplished enough that they could play blues licks in b minor, but not yet fluid enough to think they were Slash, I taught them to windmill like Pete Townshend through the opening bars of The Who‘s Baba O’ Riley. It was a magic sight. 10 arms windmilling round in perfect time. Wind Out -mill! here Wind in -mill! the Wind fields -mill! Some nights we played it 3 or 4 times, such was their joy at playing it. What’s that Roger? Teenage wasteland? Not in here! Happy days!
Anyway, after what I’ve just said, you may be surprised to learn that I never totally got The Who. I thought Keith Moon was pretty special, although who doesn’t? Always entertaining to watch. But the others? The Ox, in his later days wore a red leather blouson jacket that was about as close to ‘mod’ as Alex Turner’s Olympics haircut. And he played his bass at throat height, which, no matter what you’re playing on it, is never a good look. Roger Daltrey always seems like a wee guy trying too hard to be macho. Always taking his top off and baring his chest. And he had a haircut like Barbra Streisand for about 20 years during the 70s and 80s. Which, again, is about as close to ‘mod’ as Alex Turner’s Olympics haircut. Pete Townshend? Great windmills (yeah!), great Clockwork Orange boiler suits ‘n Docs combo on the stage ‘n all that, but those child porn allegations from a few years back have tainted him forever for me. I dunno. I like the big singles that everyone likes. But as an album band, their first album excepted, they never really did it for me. I suppose for a live album, ‘Live At Leeds‘ makes all the right noises, and The Who ‘Sell Out’ has some pretty good tracks on it, Armenia City In The Sky, to name one, and I like the pirate radio concept but really, that’s about it. The problem I have is that everything they’ve done seems to have been, aye, a ‘concept’ album. Not just ‘Sell Out’. Quadrophenia is a concept album. Tommy is a concept album. Pete Townshend’s doomed LighthouseLifehouse project was another concept. A Quick One was a rock opera fergawdsakes! Everything seems just a bit too calculated and pre-conceived. I like my rock bands to be unpredictable and raggy round the edges. Which is why the only Who album I truly like from start to finish is their first.
What I like even better than The Who’s first album is the few tracks they recorded as The High Numbers. They’re nothing extraordinary, really just rehashed 12 bar blues-based R’nB tunes so beloved of the early 60s mods. But the sound they made! Big, booming, compressed-sounding mono tracks that jump out the speakers. The bass sounds like it’s playing under the floorboards next door. Ironically, given the advances in technology, it’s a sound that modern studios just can’t seem to replicate. Just ask Jack White (although he’s made a good fist of it) or long-lost La Lee Mavers, if you can find him.
I’m The Face was the B-Side of The High Numbers first single, Zoot Suit. Designed, at the insistence of manager Peter Meaden, to appeal to the local pilled-up mods who got their kicks from American R’nB, I’m The Face was practically a cover of Slim Harpo‘s IGot Love If You Want It. Actually, practically a cover is being kind. This is daylight robbery long before Jimmy Page got his first copy of Down At The Crossroads with Robert Johnson and Some Other Blues Guys No-One’s Heard Of Yet. Slim’s tune stayed the same, although the band played it with a feral garage band intensity lacking in the original’s nasal reediness. On The High Numbers’ version, the harmonica wails just that bit more out of tune. Keith Moon’s drums clatter in time to Townshend’s reverberated chords and perfectly executed solo (did the afore-mentioned Page play this part? After all, he played everyone else’s around this time) and the Entwhistle bass runs divebomb to the very centre of your purple-hearted heart. In keeping with the A-Side (I’m the snappiest dresser right down to my inch-wide tie) manager Meaden changed the lyrics to be more mod-friendly, I’m the face baby is that clear? and referencing Ivy League jackets and wild buckskin shoes along the way.
With all this studied contriving going on you could be forgiven for thinking Zoot Suit/I’m The Face was some sort of UK smash. It wasn’t. Like a gazillion other life-affirming effervescent pieces of 7 inch 60s plastic, it flopped. A disheartened High Numbers went back to the drawing board, changed their name to The Who and tried again. This time, things seemed to work out a wee bit better. Proof? Here‘s the st-st-st-st-stuttering m-m-m-m-mono version of My Generation. Sounds like a tank. (Winks). Some of you will get that reference, some of you might not.
*Bonus Tracks!
Taken from an Abbey Road session, October 1964, here’s The High Numbers doing their re-hashed r’nb 12 bar blues again:
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…
2012 looks like it’s the year of the side project. Just as Gerry Love‘s excellent Lightships LP has raised his status from bass playing, songwriting member of Teenage Fanclub into bona fide artist in his own right, so to will Outside In by Cian Ciaran.
Cian is the keyboard player with the Super Furry Animals. He’s the man who put the tech in their technicolour surround sound and is the Super Furries’ secret weapon, the main reason they remain a massive cut above yer average indie rock band. With Cian at the helm, the Super Furry sound can go from Beach Boys balladery to bangin’ nosebleed techno to 12-bar boogie and back again, often before the first chorus. Sure, it’s Gruff out front and it’s Gruff who appears most active when the SFA are in downtime, so who knew that the wee guy at the back who sings occasional harmonies was such an integral part of the band’s sound?
Well, wait till you hear Outside In. Drawing another parallel with Gerry Love’s Lightships, it’s nothing really like the music of Cian’s day job, it’s not what you might expect to hear, yet it’s somehow exactly right. Cian’s record is all about the arrangements. And I’m talkin’ a Surfs Up level of sophistication here, a level of greatness few would’ve presumed a keyboard boffin with a side project releasing anonymous techno records was ever capable of (sorry, Cian). Written entirely on keyboard, though played on a smörgåsbord of Super Furry-friendly instruments, Outside In is bathed in pathos, with melancholy dripping from every minor key and sustained harmony. As I previously wrote about lead track You & Me:
Lennonesque is the word that straightaway springs to mind. The double-tracked vocals, the Double Fantasypiano part, the double dose of sweary words. There’s even a George Harrison slide section playing just behind the best 3-part woo-woo-wooing harmonies the Wilson brothers never recorded.
That should give you some idea of where the album’s heading. Second track ‘Till I Die is a real heart-breaker. Tinkling grand pianos accompany Cian as he pours his heart and soul into it. Woman. What have you done to me? Why leave me? My life began the day that I found you. Jesus. By the time the string section swells into the middle eight there’s not a dry eye in the house. This is immense. Proper grown-up adult music, whatever that is. Elsewhere on Outside In you’ll find the Super Furry bossa nova of Martina Franca, the falsetto a-capella of 1st Time and the sunny doo-wop of What Will Be. There’s enough wonky waltzes and trippy time signatures, fuzzy psychedelia and unconventional weirdness to satisfy your inner Wilson fetish. Indeed, every track sounds like it’s been poked, prodded and tweaked by ol’ hang dog Brian himself whilst lounging in his L.A. sandpit. Which, if you need to ask, is no bad thing at all.
Cian’s choices (and accompanying You Tube links) for Six of the Best are perhaps the most eclectic and interesting we’ve had yet, a perfect reflection of someone who often turned up at festivals blaring ear-splitting techno from a customised army tank and, who, in his day job plays in one of the most eclectic, interesting and unconventional bands on (?) the planet, unrestricted by fad, fashion or expectation. From crescendo-peaking opera and string-swelling soundtrack via wigged-out indie rock and under-appreciated songwriters living in the enormous shadow of their brothers to 20 minute long squelchy 303 acid house, Cian’s picks truly are Six of the Best…
In no particular order…….. it’s like choosing between ones children…..
Ennio Moriconne – Once Upon A Time In The West
I only chose this particular track because I had to choose one. But it did bring a tear to my eye when I heard it live. Anything by him has been eye-opening for me and something to aspire to. I’ve seen him 4 times in various locations, the best was in Rome where he played less of the hits. I love the power of a live orchestra. Awe inspiring.
Stone Roses – I Am The Resurrection
The band that made me want to be in a band. Before I heard the Stone Roses, the only gtr music I really knew was the Beatles and Stones. They made music contemporary for me. At the time I picked up a pair of drumstix and practised and realised soon enough that I had a long way to go, and still do. I went to see them last month and it was a trip down memory lane. I used to listen to the album on my Walkman every night in bed and sang every word, guitar part, solo, every drum beat and bass line – fuck me, it was my musical education that I still cherish to this day.
Bizet – The Pearl Fishers
I first heard this when I was 4 apparently, so says my mum when I walked into the kitchen having played it and then reported back to her saying “It’s a special piece , isn’t it Mam?”
Stakker- Humanoid (Snowman mix)
I think this was the first record I knowingly bought, after Ghostbusters from WHSmiths on Bangor High Street. Acid House was my first love and this track is one of my all time greats. There are so many versions but this one, along with the original is my favourite. It was my first step into what would shape my musical exploits through my teens. I don’t know where I’d be now without acid and techno. Long may it continue and develop. Electronic music always pushes barriers for me and shapes things to come, musically and in production, ever since synths and technology found their way into popular music. I fuckin’ loves it!
System7 – Alpha Wave (Plastikman rmx) –
A classic, I never get tired of this one. I played it in Liquid Rooms, Tokyo back in the day. There’s an almighty drop down, and a build up that lasts forever. It’s one of the best (along with Hardfloor’s monster builds, that would be another choice, Hardtrance Acperience, here), in which the crowd proceeded to do the Ayatollah to the record as conducted by Guto and Bunf. It still works on the dancefloor to this day.
Dennis Wilson – Lady (Fallin’ In Love)
Again, I could’ve chosen anything by the Beach Boys but plumped for this solo effort to represent them. A beautiful song, what more can I say?
As Cian perfectly summarised in Rocksucker recently:
I don’t want to be held down to one style of music because I like listening to all sorts, and I like writing in all styles as well. I don’t think you should be pigeon-holed into one style because you can learn from other styles and incorporate what you learn in other stuff, weave it in however you want. It’s like an artist – why should an artist stick to his paintbrush when he can do pottery or film or photography? I just look at it like that.
Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get Cian Ciaran’s here. New link HERE! (Thanks, Andy!) Now get yourself over pronto to your favourite record shop, if you’re lucky enough to have one you can frequent, or your usual online retailer and pick up a copy of Cian Ciaran‘s Outside In. Or, in keeping with the Super Furry mood, why not buy it here, via Spillers in Cardiff, The Oldest Record Shop In The World. Go! Go! Go
Plain Or Pan 