Blur Fanclub Singles, Get This!, Sampled

The Fool On Melancholy Hill

Craig McAllister

I’ve been a wee bit unkind to Damon Albarn on here. Shallow poster boy. Mock-cockney posh boy from middle class Colchester. Pretentious twonk with too many fingers in too many pies. The Africa trotting, Chinese opera-plotting indie Sting. All of this is true, of course, and he is so easy to dislike, but….

…you can’t argue the fact that he’s one prodigious talent. It’d be hard to disagree that Blur are (?)/were (?) one of the great singles bands, right up there with Madness when it comes to looney tunes and merry melodies. And it’d be hard to argue that Gorillaz aren’t that far behind. Dig deeper and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find a whole host of other terrific records. And not just the afore-mentioned Chinese opera or melodica-enhanced African soul music. The widely eclectic list of folk he’s collaborated with would be unbelievable if it wasn’t true. Off the top of my head – Lou Reed. Snoop Dogg. Mark E Smith. De La Soul. Gruff Rhys. Shaun Ryder. Dan the Automator. Half of The Clash. Michael Nyman. Del Tha Funky Homosapien. Bobby Womack. Flea. Toumani Diabaté. Ike Turner. Fela Kuti’s drummer, Tony Allen. All have answered the Albarn call, done their bit and waited while Damon has worked his magic in the studio and re-packaged the results to feature his toot-toot-tooting almost-in-tune melodica and unmistakable genre-defying, melancholy-applying vocals. Regardless of the collaborator or genre, the Albarn record, with its hangdog vocal and uplifting gloominess is instantly recognisable.

The current Mojo (the one with Weller on the cover) has a good wee feature on Albarn’s extra-curricular activities. It focusses on the stuff he’s been doing with the polyrhythmic Tony Allen and Flea as Rocket Juice and The Moon. The prospect of sock on the cock slap bass and rapping doesn’t fill me with too much excitement, but I’m keeping an open mind. Especially as Mojo compiled a list of essential non-Blur Albarn tracks, most of which were new to me, all of which are terrific:

Trek To the Cave (Albarn & Michael Nyman)

Time Keeps On Slipping (Albarn & Deltron 3030)

Sunset Coming On (Albarn & Toumani Diabaté)

Every Season (Albarn, Tony Allen & Ty)

Feel Good Inc. (Albarn, Danger Mouse & De La Soul)

Kingdom Of Doom (The Good, The Bad and The Queen)

Heavenly Peach Banquet (Albarn, Shi-Zeng & David Coulter)

Hallo (Albarn, Tout Puissant & others)

It‘s an excellent place to start your re-appraisal of oor Damon if, like me, you felt he was getting a bit too big for his well-travelled boots. My favourite Damon Albarn moments? That’ll be Dare, with Shaun Ryder on vocals. Great cooing Damon backing vocals and a subtle chiming percussion track that takes its cue from Talking Heads’ Once In a Lifetime. Initially called It’s There, it was renamed after unsuccessful attempts to get the newly re-toothed Ryder to pronounce it correctly when he sang.

And the look of ecstatic fanboy joy on his face as he punches the air when Bobby Womack comes in on Stylo (below) is magic. Damons’ own wee Jim’ll Fix It moment, I’m sure.  (2mins 10 seconds, if you want to fast forward. Though, why would you want to fast-forward?)

Close friend and fellow music obsessive Rockin’ Rik reckons Albarn is the 21st Century Brian Wilson. While he’s still to write his Sunflower, let alone his Pet Sounds, on the evidence so far I can just about go along with this.

*Bonus Track

In keeping with the pan-global spirit of this post, here‘s Gorillaz‘ Feel Good Inc. incorporated into some Fela Kuti afrobeat rhythm track. You can get a whole album’s worth of this stuff here. Go! Go! Go! And then Go! Go! Go! here and catch some of those Blur Fanclub-only singles that keep being deleted by the man. Gotta be quick though.

Live!

Friday The 6th March 1987 at 7.30pm

Craig McAllister

25 years ago today I experienced my first ever live concert. Glasgow Barrowlands. The Cult, with support from Gaye Bikers On Acid. The Electric/Love tour, I think it was billed as. I still remember it like it was yesterday. From the thrilling shock of hearing a band in-your-face loud for the first time (and that was only the support act) to the heart-stopping sight of the roadie bringing on Billy Duffy’s massive white Gretsch Falcon (“Aw man!, It’s gonnaehappenit’sgonnaehappenit’sgonnaehappen!!!“) to the sputtery spark of said guitar being plugged in and amplified through the Spinal Tapesque coupla dozen or so Marshall stacks to the anticipation in the air almost as thick as the exotic smells wafting around me and my wide-eyed pals to the lights going down and the intro music starting AT ONCE (some rousing classical piece or other, my mind tells me it was Ride of the Valkyries, but I may be wrong) to the shock of hearing Ian Astbury speak for the first time “Yaykickayussmuthafuckinglasgow” (he was in transition at this point from Love-era bangles ‘n beads rattlin’ hippy to the Jim Morrison/Wolf Child American-twanged sweary twonk with furry trapper hat) to the mentalness of the mosh pit during the main event itself (in which I lasted all of half of a glam-slamming Big Neon Glitter before a wet with sweat biker jacket landed on my head and a big hairy guy pushed me out the road) to the first of what would be many asthmatic runs back to Central Station to discover we were too late for the train to the fruitless wander around Anderston Bus Station at midnight just in case a bus with ‘Irvine’ happened to pull up just for us to phoning one of my pal’s sleeping dads who arrived extremely pissed off and drove us down the road in deathly silence while our ears rang like billy-o and we pondered to ourselves why The Cult had turned themsleves into Def Leppard. Breathtakingly magic? Not ‘alf, as they say.

Here’s that self-same Cult, 10 days later, recorded live at the mixing desk from Hammersmith Odeon. Quite thin and weedy sounding. Not like I remember it at all. Maybe you had to be there, although the You Tube clip below (pointless but thrilling equipment trashing ‘n all) is pretty terrific and much more how I remember things, even after a quarter of a century.

Love Removal Machine

Li’l Devil

Revolution

Useless fact

A few months later, The Cult would take this tour to the enormodomes of the U S of A where they would be supported by fresh faced new kids on the block Guns ‘n Roses.

Gone but not forgotten, Live!

Squeaky Drum Time

Craig McAllister

It’s getting towards the time of year when false promises made by desperate men in expensive jackets look about as likely to come to fruition as The Smiths reforming and playing a gig in my living room. Yes, football managers up and down the country are maybe starting to regret the arrogant boasts of silverware and European adventures made in August when the disappointments of last season had barely been cast aside. New season, same old problems. I’m sure you can apply that phrase to your team. Leagues can be won and lost in an instant, with little room left for catch up. The needless booking leading to the unfortunate suspension. The wrong substitution. The wrong formation. Flat back four or holding mid? Decisions, decisions, decisions! Managers unfamiliar with the giddy heights of the top of the league will look nervously over their shoulder as the teams behind them ramp up the war of psychology and bare their teeth. I know how worked up I get over Fantasy Manager. The real thing must be oh, at least twice as bad. Squeaky bum time, as someone once said.

Squeaky drum time is something else entirely. Led Zeppelin, by the time they were making Led Zeppelin III were formidable. They rocked harder, louder and longer than anyone else, with a blues bluster famously described as ‘tight, but loose‘. They could also swing like Sinatra. This was absolutely down to John Bonham. If you see pictures of him and his drumkit from this era you’d notice how basic it was. Compared to the double bass and cymbal stack flab preferred by many of the rock aristocracy at this time, Bonham’s kit looks like a Fisher Price My First Drumkit. Yet the power generated from it would be enough to keep the National Grid ticking over for a week. On Led Zeppelin III, save for an occassional flashy Jimmy Page overdub, much of the material was recorded live and committed straight to tape. In. Out. Job done. With America waiting to be conquered, there was simply not enough time to re-do each track 20 times and splice together the bass track from Take 3 with the vocals from Take 18. Which meant by the time the album was mixed and released, an annoying noise had found itself being magnetised to tape and recorded for posterity. Bonham’s bass pedal had developed an annoying squeak and it can be heard throughout the album. You may have listened to Led Zep III before and never noticed it, but once it’s pointed out, you’ll never be able to listen to it again without hearing it. It’s particularly prominent on the slow blues of Since I’ve Been Loving You. Thump! Squeak, squeak, squeak. Thump! Squeak, squeak, squeak. Thump! Squeak, squeak, squeak! Like the bedsprings in a  cheap honeymoon hotel it’s right there, squeaking away underneath everything you do.

Remastering the tracks at the start of the 90s, Jimmy Page ruefully remarked,

The only real problem I can remember encountering was when we were putting the first boxed set together. There was an awfully squeaky bass drum pedal on “Since I’ve Been Loving You“. It sounds louder and louder every time I hear it! That was something that was obviously sadly overlooked at the time.

Someone else who overlooked the squeaky drum pedal was James Brown. Given his penchant for strict disciplinary control, it’s amazing that he let Nate Jones (and not Clyde Stubblefield as many think) near his kit without a can of WD40 before recording the one chord groove of Give It up, Turnit Loose. Not as prominent as the John Bonham squeak, it’s nonetheless right there, forming part of the distinctive fluid funk that James Brown was famous for. Jones plays like a particularly funky octopus throughout, all pitter pattering snare and tsk-tsk-tsk hi hats. Fans of yer Stone Roses may not be too surprised to hear traces of Reni’s drum playing style filtering in and out.

*Bonus Track!

Bob Dylan also fell foul to studio gremlins, though this had nothing to do with him, or even his drummer. It was only after his MTV Unplugged album had been released that the Bobcats and Dylanologists of the world noticed a tiny bit of looped audience applause that repeated now and again throughout Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. Two excited whoops and an elongated whistle are enough to have you reaching for the ‘skip’ button before too long. Later versions of the album were corrected, but if you’re one of the many who bought it straight away, you were left with the whoops ‘n whistles repeated ad nauseum. Not to offend anyone from that side of the Atlantic, but those American audiences sure like ta whoop…

Cover Versions, Double Nugget, Gone but not forgotten

If You Like To Gamble I Tell You I’m Your Man…

Craig McAllister

You win some, lose some (it’s all the same to me)……………I don’t share your greed, the only card I need is the Ace Of Spades the Jack Of Diamonds. Or depending where you are and who you’re listening to, the Jack O’ Diamonds.

Jack O’ Diamonds is a classic of its kind. A song about cards, gambling and losing. Which is one and the same I suppose. It was often sung as a lament on the lost highways, biways and plantations of the southern states whenever one unlucky gambler lost his lot playing Coon Can, an arguably politically incorrectly named version of a card game that we nowadays would call Rummy. Like most songs of its ilk, it has ancient roots, some stretching back to the Highlands of Scotland, others stretching less far back to the American Civil War. In 1926, Blind Lemon Jefferson was the first to cut a recording of it. You may never have heard it before, but you’ll know exactly how it sounds – deep southern blues with a petted lip and rudimentary knife-as-slide guitar, coated in what sounds like a thousand eggs frying outside Aldo’s chip shop on a Friday night. It’s quite possibly the oldest record I’ll ever put on here. It’s amazing that it exists at all, a fact highlighted by the eerie, ghostly state in which it is preserved.

Since 1926, it’s taken on a life of its own. Jack O’ Diamonds has been recorded a gazillion times by every two-bit country bluegrass and blues singer that ever lived. And the rest. Lonnie Donegan, the King Of Skiffle, released his version in 1957. A heady mix of hiccuping vocals, frantically scrubbed acoustic guitars and some fine Scotty Moore a-like electric pickin’, it sows the seeds for all future DIY punk aesthetists everywhere. Old tea chest and string as upright bass guitar. Washboard as rhythm section. School choir harmonies. It’s terrific! Without Lonnie Donegan, The Beatles might never have happened, Western pop music as we know it would be very different and we’d all be listening to Mongolian jazz. Probably. But you knew that already. Anyway, if you have the time, you might want to read this.

The best version of Jack O’ Diamonds is, to these ears, the 1966 version by The Daily Flash. Little-known outside of Seattle, The Daily Flash were a fantastic garage-punk band. All wailing harmonicas, fuzz bass and obligatory ear-bleeding guitar solo, their version sounds nothing like the other two. The rhythm underpinning it all brings to mind the rattle and roll rumble of the coal-laden Hunterston Power Station train as it thunders past my house in the wee small hours most nights. Terrifying, yes. Noisy, yes. And guaranteed to keep you awake just the same as that bloody train.

Cover Versions, Get This!

Real Moody Blues

Craig McAllister

Or Under The Covers with Mick Jagger. Now there’s a thought ladies. He’d be all hips, lips ‘n finger slips. Gads!

In the mid 70s, the Rolling Stones released Metamorphosis, a long-delayed compilation of demos, outtakes and Decca-era odds ‘n sods. Although subsequent releases would include a few of the tracks, Metamorphosis didn’t stay in print very long, becoming something of a Stones’ collectable (until recently, that is, when it was made available on SACD). It’s rumoured that some of the demo tracks (eg Heart Of Stone and Out Of Time) featured uncredited appearances from seasoned sessioneers Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan and that Mick Jagger was in fact the only actual Rolling Stone on some of these tracks. Included amongst the flotsam and jetsom of discarded Stones nuggets was I Don’t Know Why, a cover of Stevie Wonder’s I Don’t Know Why (I Love You). Recorded the very night that Brian Jones died/drowned/was done in (July 3rd 1969), it finds the Stones in fine form, with the newly recruited Mick Taylor contributing a fine slide guitar solo to the proceedings. Loose and funky, with its Gimme Shelter guitars, brass section and keys courtesy of the ugly Stone, Ian Stewart, it’s the real moody blues, all descending atmospherics and impending sense of doom. Shame on Jimmy Miller who in his wisdom decided to fade it out just as the band were beginning to sizzle and things were getting interesting.

The original Stevie Wonder version was released alongside My Cherie Amour and found its way onto either the a-side or the b-side, depending on which ‘territory’ (to use horrible record company speak) you were in, creating what must surely be the strangest pairing of Stevie tracks on the one slab of vinyl – the sugar coated lovey dovey one side coupled with the fuggy paranoia of the other side. I know which side I prefer.

And talking of saccharine-sweet, even the Jackson 5 got in on the act.  Their version is from their second LP (ABC) released in 1970 and is full of little Michael’s trademark whoops, yelps and heart-stopping helium high vocals. It builds and builds on a crescendo of strings and the pistol-crack of the Motown snare, the Jackson brothers allowing Michael to take centre stage as if his life depended on it (which, of course given the reputation of Father Jackson, it kinda did).  He nails it, of course. It’s pretty bloody fantastic if truth be told.

He ain’t heavy, He’s my brother.

*Bonus Track! Saving the best for last…..

Stevie Wonder is a musical genius, there is no debate over this. Child prodigy, autocratic studio pioneer, groundbreaking, etc etc (you know all this already). By 1974 he was on his 17th album, the unfashionable and often overlooked Fulfillingness First Finale. Coming towards the end of a phenomenal run of albums – 1971’s Music Of My Mind, 1972’s Talking Book, 1973’s Innervisions, 1976’s Songs In The Key Of Life. What was lazy-arsed Stevie up to in 1975, eh? Well, given that Songs In The Key Of Life is a double, you could still argue that he was making an album a year. That’s an album a year, Thom Yorke. And everyone a bona fide stone cold classic. Food for thought, eh? Anyway, Fulfillingness First Finale is equal parts dancefloor Stevie and socio-political pop Stevie. You Haven’t Done Nothin’ is, rather thrillingly, Son of Superstition, right down to the funky clavinet, horn breakdown and hi-hat heavy drums. What’s particularly impressive is that except for the bass guitar part, Stevie plays everything on this record. Everything! He even ropes in our old friends the Jackson 5 to sing the ‘doo doo wop‘ backing vocals. And he took it all the way to Number 1.

If this doesn’t have you doing the white man ain’t got no rhythm but digs it anyway dance, there’s no way back for you. If you only download one thing from Plain Or Pan this year….etc etc….blah blah blah……..

Get This!, Hard-to-find, Kraut-y, Sampled

Vorsprung Durch Technik

Craig McAllister

Vor 30 Jahren Kraftwerk schafften es auf Platz 1 mit ‘Das Modell’, möglicherweise der unwahrscheinlichste Rekord, solche hohen Status zu erreichen, und eine, die immer dem Aufzeigen würden die vier Düsseldorfians fest in der ‘One Hit Wonder ” listen. Natürlich können Sie und ich wissen es besser.

Elegant gekleidete junge Männer und Pioniere der elektronischen Musik in einer Zeit, die westliche Welt ging ga-ga für lange Haare, Leder und Les Pauls, sie waren für viele der Ying zu den Beatles Yang. Einige können sogar so weit gehen zu sagen, sie waren die einflussreichste Band aller Zeiten. Nicht ich, aber dann habe ich immer eine Strat zu einem Synth bevorzugt. Pionier der Elektro Hip-Hop-Haus (ist, dass selbst ein Genre?) Afrika Bambaataa würde wahrscheinlich mit mir nicht einverstanden. Er wurde sicher von minimalistischen Techno Kraftwerks inflenced, Kneifen große Teile des Trans Europ Express für seine eigene höchst einflussreiche und bahnbrechende Planet Rock. Ohne Bambaataa keine Detroit House-Szene und alles andere, dass inspirierte (Happy Mondays für ein, wenn Du sitzt dort denken: “Ach. Wer über Tanzmusik cares?” Joy Division, mit ihrer eisigen Soul-Rhythmen und weniger repetitive Riffs waren klar große Fans. und ohne Joy Division, New Order und nicht alles, was von ihnen folgten. Bowie war so beeindruckt von Kraftwerk (und die deutsche Szene im Allgemeinen), die er nach Berlin ging und nahm seine berühmte Berlin-Trilogie von LPs als Hommage verliebt. Aber dann, so tat U2. Und armen Mannes U2, (C**dplay), abgetastet großen Teilen der Computer Liebe für diesen “, wenn Sie ein Bild zu machen” Lied von ihnen. also, Kraftwerk. Einflussreiche in allen möglichen Weisen. der Musik toll. Robotic, sich wiederholende und reif für eine Neubewertung …

Das Modell

Autobahn

Die Roboter

Computer Liebe

All above tracks are in German, if you haven’t guessed already. I selfishly included Die Roboter as my kids think it’s great. “We are stinky robots!” they happily sing along. It fits too! Have a listen!

Having trouble reading my attempt at Google Translate-enhanced schoolboy German? Click here and copy ‘n paste the above text.

Tschüs!

*Useless Trivia…

Daniel Miller, head honcho at Mute Records (and therefore someone who owes Kraftwerk a huge debt) owns the vocoder that produced the wonderful vocals on Autobahn, amongst many others in the early career of Kraftwerk. “It’s like owning Hendrix’s guitar,” he mused on BBC4’s ‘Synth Britannia‘ a year or so back.

Get This!, Hard-to-find, Live!

Flesh Of My Flesh Of My Flesh Of My Flesh

Craig McAllister

Not the most well-known Orange Juice track, although it is on the self-same Rip It Up album as The Hit. And was released as the follow-up to that self-same number 8 smash hit, peaking at a slightly less chart-troubling number 41. Fame fame fickle fame, to paraphrase one of our other pop treasures. And not the coolest Orange Juice track either. That would be Blue Boy if you were wondering. And certainly not the best Orange Juice track, although there’s something about Flesh Of My Flesh that brings me back time and time again.

Maybe it’s the acid-tongued Collins’ bittersweet vocal, “Here’s a penny for your thoughts (incidentally you may keep the change)“. It’s a good one, but, nah. Most of the time the lyrics are incidental (there’s that word again). It’s the overall sound that reels me in. Always has been, even with Dylan. Orange Juice knew their onions, as they say, and the reference points, however fashionable or otherwise they may have been in 1982, are there for anyone with even half a scholarly outlook on pop music to spot. Maybe it’s the Chic-esque rinky-dink guitars and I Want Your Love descending chimes. Talent borrows and genius steals, after all. Maybe it’s the wee burst of ba-ba-ba-Bacharaque brass every now and again, recalling Dionne Warwick at her easiest of easy listening. Or maybe it’s just the sting of distorted vintage guitar riffing in and out whenever Edwyn thinks the track veers too close to pipe ‘n slippers pastiche. Maybe even it’s the Philly soul guitar break that pops up here and there on both single versions (it is a belter of a riff, if you want to know). Or maybe (though less likely) it’s the none-more-80s-sounding 12″ version, with it’s extended breaks, congas and bongos, ting-a-ling percussion and of-it’s-time super-slick st-st-st-stoodio production.  Whichever way you look at it, Flesh Of My Flesh by Orange Juice is a perfect wee record.

Jesus! Sandals! With Socks!

I’d love to tell you that after buying this in Rough Trade I ran up the road to play this to death in 1983, but I’m just not that cool. I would’ve been running up the road to play records to death by this point in my life, but in 1983 I was most probably running up the road with Electric Avenue or Down Under (look them up if you need to) swinging in the wind, John Menzies poly bag tearing into my newly teenaged wrists while I sprinted at full lung bursting pelt to get home tout de suite in order to perform the spiritual ritual of placing needle on vinyl. Eddy Grant and Men At Work. That was my 1983. It would be a few more years before Orange Juice made themselves known to me, but I’m glad they eventually found me.

The Music:

Flesh Of My Flesh (album version)

Flesh Of My Flesh (7″ version)

Flesh Of My Flesh (12″ version)

Flesh Of My Flesh (from a bootleg, live in London 83, probably the Lyceum in March)

All tracks are very different. The album version is, for want of a better word, smooth. The two single versions are spikier, more abbrasive, rawer, whatever you want to call them, and are better for it. The 12″ version features all of the production gimmickery mentioned before. Perhaps a slightly dated affair, I love it, for what that’s worth. The live version manages to be both punkish and funkish, with cringe-inducing out of tune keyboards replicating the brass parts. Haircut 100 this is not. Take from that what you will.

Cover Versions, Get This!, Hard-to-find

Third Degree Burnin’

Craig McAllister

Here’s a thing. In the post-Winehouse search for gin-u-wine authentic blue eyed soul, any pretty young thing with a gritty voice and a decent set of breasts found themselves in a dusty, analogue recording studio listening carefully to whatever it was that the svengali their record company had plucked from indieland’s dole queue was telling them to do. Leader of the pack was Duffy; 60’s-steeped, Dusty-voiced (kinda) and produced by former hip young gunslinger Bernard Butler. Mercy, with its snapping snare and northern soul Perry boys in the video was, I’m not ashamed to say, a real favourite of mine way back in ’08.

It isn’t to hard to imagine that the Duffy track, with its wonky Stand By Me bassline and cooi-ing ‘yeah yeah yeah’ backing vocals was actually a cover of an obscure soul nugget from the late 60s. Which is exactly what some enterprising group did. The Third Degree add proper soul boy black vocals, a smokin’ pistol crack of clipped guitar and a horn section from heaven, making Mercy their own, straightouttanineteensixtyeight. Aye, it has the ever-so-slightly desperate whiff of cynical record company product placement and marketing (from the hip in ’93 Acid Jazz label), and was probably produced with the aid of a demographic spreadsheet, but drop yer snobbery for a minute and listen! Craig Charles played this on his show at the weekend and it’s terrific.

This was released in 2009! Why wasn’t I made aware of this until  now, eh? Tsk.

Listening to that cover of Mercy reminds me of The Seed by The Roots. It has a similar live-in-the-studio, retro-coated, vintage production which belies it’s relative modernity. And before you start thinking ‘Lenny Kravitz’, think again. The Seed is ace. A monster hybrid of live drums, clipped funk guitar and a duet of hip-hop stylee “1! 2! 1! 2’s” and properly sung vocals, I think you’ll like it. Released in 2002 (10 years ago! Ouch!) it is that rare thing – a hip-hop record made by a hip-hop group who play their instruments rather than simply sample and loop old Curtis Mayfield b sides. No doubt about it, The Roots can play. If you cannae shake yer bootee to this, there’s nothing I can help you with here. Dig it, soul brothers and sisters.

Useless Fact: Paul Weller loves The Seed.

*Bonus Track!

What’s that y’say? Old tracks re-done in the soul stylee? I’ve blogged this before, but here‘s Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed & The Trueloves making Ace Of Spades sound like Otis Redding with ants in his pants. Lemmy cannae like this. I think you might.

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

What does Snoop Dogg use to dye his hair?

Craig McAllister

Bleeeeeeaaaaaach.

I’m from Ayrshire. I can’t pretend to understand the gangsta leanings of Cribs ‘n Bloods ‘n West Coast v’s East Coast. Not that that stopped every two-bit Burberry ned who ever stole from the music shop I once worked in. The 2 Pac posters were just about the most shoplifted items there. Them and the M People CDs, bizarrely enough. “Goat oaney Floyd, man?” someone would ponder in your general direction. And as you did your best to be civil towards them, his pal would be lining the sleeves of his puffa jacket with select pre-ordered images from the poster stand. Ask Marvin from The Scheme and he’ll confirm it. The hash leaf poster of 2 Pac with his pecs ‘n guns ‘n bling bling chains must’ve been on half the walls of Kilmarnock. The ‘Take Me To Your Dealer‘ one with the day-glo alien was no doubt on the other half. But anyway.

2 Pac. Made one terrific record. California Love. It was his comeback single after being released from jail in 1995, after poppin’ a cap in yo’ ass (or something). Packed full of vocodered vocals, sampled ‘n looped trumpets, 80s analogue synths and thumping bass, it is, in short, Dr Dre’s G Funk personified. As is nearly always the way with such tracks, it arrived fully formed and was jigsawed together by the rather clever Dre from an assortment of obscure and under-appreciated funk and soul gems. By no means an exhaustive list, if you listen to the tracks below, you might get a better idea of how the good Dr mixed the given ingredients into the California Love cake.

Ronnie Hudson‘s West Coast Poplock is old school funk. Vintage 1982 to be exact. So not that old school, really, but it‘s the sort of old school funk that once could make Prince strive to make decent records. I bloody love it. It’s the basis of the lyrical content of 2 Pac’s track and is itself fairly redolent of Booker T and the MGs Boot-Leg.

Joe Cocker‘s Woman To Woman features the rolling, staccato piano riff and horn riff that plays throughout the 2 Pac record. It has, I should point out, also been sampled by Moby and Ultramagnetic MCs amongst others. You’d think there’d be enough sampleable tracks out there without everyone using the same bits, eh?

Zapp and Roger Troutman‘s (also sometimes known as Zapp and Roger, or the Zapp Band or just plain old Zapp) Dance Floor provides the authentic electro backing and Chic-esque rinky-dink guitar riff. And the vocodered vocals. And the groove. Once again, it‘s exactly the sort of record that Prince was carefully taking notes from whilst building his 80s back catalogue.

See? That Dr Dre’s no’ that guid really. A couple of heart-attack inducing bass bins, a decent record collection and a good ear for glueing the right bits together in the right places. Ker-ching. It’s dead easy when you think about it. Now. Where did I put that Fat Larry’s Band 12″?

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

Song To The Siren Triple Whammy

Craig McAllister

Song To The Siren was originally released on Tim Buckley‘s near-mythical Starsailor album. Long-since unavailable on CD, if you don’t have it you can buy it these days on iTunes. I think a re-issued vinyl made a fleeting re-appearance a couple of years ago before burying its head once again in the sands of time. Or you can read to the bottom and see what turns up…

There are two schools of thought surrounding the Starsailor LP. On one hand it’s considered a bit out-there and genius-like. On the other hand, it could just as easily be described as unlistenable, noodling avant-jazz-folk-funk. You’ll have your own thoughts on the matter I’m sure.  Song To The Siren cuts through all of this by virtue of it being an old song by the time Buckley got around to cutting Starsailor. It’s moody and melancholic and features the trampoline-voiced Buckley switching back and forwards from baritone bass to fabulous falsetto, much like Buckley Jr (proving, I suppose, that young Jeff was merely a more angelic chip off the old block). Not avant-anything at all, it’s got some terrific atmospheric guitar going on just below those stellar vocals. If you haven’t heard it you’re in for a treat.

*link removed by The Man

Back in the 80s, standing proudly alone and not at all drowning amongst the flotsam and jetsom of the pop fodder du jour was This Mortal Coil‘s version. Essentially a Cocteau Twins’ track (Liz ‘n Robin ‘n nobody else played on it) their version of Song To The Siren took the Buckley blueprint, added some distinctive Cocteau’s swirling effect-laden guitar and topped it off with the weirdest, wonkiest and most crystal-clear vocals this teenager had ever heard. It took me about 14 years to like it, in all honesty. The cloth-eared fool that I am.

Ivo Watts-Russell, 4AD co-founder and brains behind the This Mortal Coil projects recalled the recording of Song To The Siren in a recent issue of Mojo.

I asked Liz if she’d sing Song To The Siren a cappella. Liz never went anywhere without Robin, so he came along. I couldn’t think what to do between the verses, so Robin, reluctantly, put on his guitar, found a sound, lent against a wall, bored as anything, and played it once. Three hours later, it was finished. I still tried to think of how to remove the guitar, but I couldn’t get away from that swimming atmosphere, which is a tribute to Robin’s genius.

Interestingly, Liz Fraser hated her vocal and Robin Guthrie is mightily peeved that no royalties have ever been forthcoming. In a flash of serendipity, Fraser would later go on to have a relationship with Buckley Jr, but that’s mere tittle-tattle and has no place in a family-friendly blog such as Plain Or Pan…

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Before he was releasing critic-unifying Albums of the Year, John Grant was the singer with The Czars. I’ve written about him before, in a told-you-so sort of piece, just before his Queen of Denmark LP stole everyone’s thunder in the music inkies round-up of what was hot and not last year. The Czars released half a dozen LPs to general indifference throughout the mid 90s and early 00s. I was a total fan. Possibly their only one. In another weird twist of serendipity, they were encouraged to magnetise their version of Song To The Siren by their A&R man, former Cocteau Simon Raymonde. Their’s is an almost 8-minute long blissed-out version, understated slide guitar, tinkling piano, gently beaten toms and John ‘s perfect vocals occupying the space left in the sky between Buckley’s soaring mood piece and Fraser’s cooing angel breath. Or something like that. I think you’ll like it…

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Tim Buckley‘s fabled Starsailor LP, anyone? Click the cover….

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