Hard-to-find

For Every Bragg There’s A Bono

Craig McAllister

Mixing Pop and Politics He Asks Me What The Use Is. That’s a Billy Bragg line. From ‘Waiting For The Great Leap Forward‘. But you knew that already.

Mixing pop and politics always sits slightly uneasily with me. A bit rich coming from someone who loves the early work of Bob Dylan I know, not to mention the socio-soul of Curtis ‘n Marvin ‘n Stevie, The Specials and all of 2 Tone, the angry young Mr Weller (when I think about it, I could go on and on and on), but you’ve got to agree with me that while there are the earnest few who do so for the correct, compassionate reasons there are those who do it more for the ker-ching and the career. Aye Geldof. Perhaps even you. Pause.

End pause.

Phew. I half thought a bolt of lightning would flash outta the sky and knock me outta my new suede slippers there. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh aye, that’s right; for every Bragg there’s a Bono, for every Stevie a Sting.

Housemartins Mk1. Where’s FatBoy Slim?

I like the sound of records. Often I don’t actually listen to what the singer’s singing about. A bit rich coming from someone who loves the early work of etc etc blah blah blah, yes, but this would explain my love of the Cocteau Twins. When I was at school and Happy Hour came out I thought The Housemartins were just a slightly wacky guitar band with a clever grasp of melody and terrible taste in knitwear, no more and no less. Later in life I appreciated Paul Heaton’s biting sattire on some of The Beautiful South’s material (even the band’s name had political undertones, I got that), but I never really had his first band down as being overtly political. All that changed (I’m embarrassed to admit) only 2 months ago. Flag Day, from The Housemartin’s London 0, Hull 4 LP popped up whilst the iPod was on shuffle and oh! The penny dropped. Flag Day in 1986 was far too slow for this 16 year old. It was nothing like Happy Hour or Anxious or We’re Not Deep or any other of those 4 chord toe tappers. It broke the flow of what was a jaunty wee album up until that point and although I’d never get up and move the needle onto the next track, I doubt I actually properly listened to it more than once. Fast forward 25 or so years and it’s quite clear; The Housemartins were a slightly wacky guitar band with a clever grasp of melody, terrible taste in knitwear and a terrific way with words.

Too many Florence Nightingales
Not enough Robin Hoods
Too many halos not enough heroes
Coming up with the goods
So you though you’d like to change the world
Decided to stage a jumble sale
For the poor, for the poor

It’s a waste of time if you know what they mean
Try shaking a box in front of the Queen
’cause her purse is fat and bursting at the seams
It’s a waste of time if you know what they mean

Too many hands in too many pockets
Not enough hands on hearts
Too many ready to call it a day
Before the day starts
So you thought you’d like to see them healed
Got Blue Peter to stage an appeal
For the poor, for the poor

It’s a waste of time if you know what they mean
Try shaking a box in front of the Queen
’cause her purse is fat and bursting at the seams
It’s a waste of time if you know what they mean

Flag day, flag day, flag day.

How good is that? Paul Heaton isn’t that much older than me and here he was writing acidic commentaries on modern society. It could’ve been written yesterday, it’s that relevant today. Flag Day is lo-fi gospel, all chunky piano chords and sincere white boy vocals. Nothing much like the rest of the debut album and perhaps then a bizzare choice for a first single. It barely scraped the top 150. Later on, The Housemartins would do garage gospel again and take it all the way to the top. Christian Socialists at the Christmas number 1, if memory serves me correctly. Or did Reet Petite beat it? It seems a long way away these days.

The Music:

Flag Day (original single mix)

Flag Day (LP version)

Tune in next week as I discover the real meaning behind the tracks on This Is The Story by everyone’s favourite Caledonian Calvinists, The Proclaimers.

Housemartins Mk2. There’s the FatBoy! And the axe wielding maniac.

Cover Versions, Live!

And It Was Only Ever A B-Side

Craig McAllister

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want is the sound of The Smiths in minature. It‘s got a whole multitude of acoustic & electric guitar tracks, with enough pretty chords and fancy picking to satisfy even the keenest bedroom Johnny Marr guitarist for years to come (believe me). It’s whimsical, melancholic and bathed in pathos. Morrissey’s close-miked vocal is equal parts full of hope and despair and, for me at least, shrouded in ambiguity – is it “Good times, for a change” (eg, normally times are anything but good) or is it “Good times for a change” (eg, these good times we’ve been having will no doubt soon be over). That’s puzzled me for years that has. Sometimes drives me crazy if I’m telling the truth. The lyric is often lazily trotted out by the Philistines as an example of why The Smiths were “depressing etc etc blah, blah, blah“. Remarkably, it’s all over in under 2 minutes. “Where’s the rest of the song?” asked Rough Trade upon their first listen. Of course, it’s perfect as it was. “Like a very brief punch in the face,” to quote Steven Patrick himself. But you knew that already.

Perfect as it was. That hasn’t stopped others from having a go though. Without popping off to the normal places to check I’d wager it’s the most-covered Smiths track….ever!  It’s featured in a handful of movie soundtracks, sometimes as the original, sometimes under the guise of someone else. It’s been played live by any number of sensitive acoustic troubadours and as I type it’s being downloaded into the higher regions of whatever constitutes a Hit Parade these days by a whole generation of cloth-eared numpties who’ve taken to it after hearing Slow Moving Millie’s clunkingly twee aberration of a version that soundtracks the current John Lewis Christmas ad on the TV. (Try saying that after 2 light ales). I don’t like it, no.

In their prime The Smiths could rattle off songs the same way you or I tend to boil the kettle – daily and without really thinking about it. With supreme confidence they stuck Please, Please, Please… onto the b-side of the William, It Was Really Nothing single, alongside How Soon Is Now? The best bands always have their best songs tucked away on b-sides but that’s quite an amazing little single, eh? Johnny tells of writing it in his Earls Court flat in the Summer of 1984, just as The Smiths had joined that train that heaved onto Euston. The inspiration behind it was the little-known Del Shannon track, ‘The Answer To Everything‘, a record constantly playing in his house when he was growing up. “I tried to capture the essence of the Del Shannon tune in terms of its spookiness and sense of yearning.” If you haven’t already done so, now’s a good time to point you in the direction of Johnny Marr’s Dansette Delights, a compilation that features this very track. Anyway, I digress. What of those cover versions?

The first to appear was The Dream Academy‘s version in 1985. An instrumental was recorded for the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off movie, which is where most folk would’ve heard it. The Dream Academy were unfortunately a bit out of step for the mid 80s. Clearly in thrall to the pastoral,  introspective charms of Nick Drake and even Syd Barrett they’d have had a better chance of success in the mid 90s, when anyone who was anyone was citing Drake ‘n Barrett as visionary influences. The Dream Academy’s version (horrible pan-pipey synth strings ‘n all) crashed the charts at number 81, “which is nearly a hit,” mused Morrissey, who would later include it on  his audience warm-up tapes that played before his concerts.

She & Him do a nice 50s-inspired twangin’, end of the prom-type version. Slow and reverby and featuring the vocals of the future Mrs Plain Or Pan, Zooey Deschanel (aaah, Zooey!) it‘s one of the few Please, Please, Please… covers that dares to be just that wee bit different to the original.

On the other hand, Josh Rouse, the poor man’s Ryan Adams (albeit with far better manners) contributes a lazy half, cocked version. I like Josh Rouse, I really do. His 1972 album is worth more than a fleeting Spotify listen if you’re unfamiliar with his stuff, but really, his Please, Please, Please…! He doesn’t even play the proper chords or anything! That’s just not on!

Please, Please, Please… was rarely played live by The Smiths, but here‘s a terrific, and I mean terrific, version of it that opened one legendary LA show in 1986. Famous for a bouncer-inflamed riot at the end, The Smiths actually opened with Please, Please, Please….that night. A lilting, soulful version, bass, drums ‘n all. Now pop off and seek out Thank Your Lucky Stars. You will Thank Your Lucky Stars – the best Smiths bootleg out there, if y’ask me.

From Hair To Eternity

Cover Versions, Double Nugget, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Live!

Brown Sugar, How Come You Taste So Good?

Craig McAllister

There’s only one thing good about Hallowe’en and that’s tablet. I despise Hallowe’en. Really properly hate it. I think it dates back to the times when I was a wee boy and I was sent out every year as a one-man band – my Dad’s old guitar (it was old then, it’s ancient now), a coathanger fashioned into a half-arsed harmonica harness, two cardboard cymbals between the knees and a massive big bass drum hanging off my skinny shoulders right down to my backside. Oh, and a couple of bells strapped round my ankles for added effect. “Who…what….are you meant to be?” they’d always ask and I’d mumble the answer while stuffing monkey nuts into a poly bag already full of monkey nuts. Then I’d shamble off to the next house sounding like the Eastenders theme falling down the stairs. With bells on.

“Can I not just be a skeleton next year Dad?”

“We’ll see son, we’ll see…”

Not that I’m scarred for life or anything. I’ve just spent the last couple of hours in classic grumpy old man fashion, hanging cheap orange and black Poundland tat from the outside walls of my garage and front door. An inflatable bat here, a plastic pumpkin there. Tat, tat and more tat. At least the kids’ll like it though. Hang some of that junk to your wall and it’s an open invitation to all and sundry. I expect literally hundreds of the wee grubbers round here tomorrow night, with their rubbish jokes and shop-bought costumes (there’ll be no one-man bands, I can guarantee you that), rattling my letterbox just as The One Show kicks off. “Oany tablet mister?”

Heres 2 version of a vaguely Hallowe’en themed double whammy (thanks to Big Stuff for the inspiration).

Spooky was first recorded by Classics IV, a band from Florida featuring a singing drummer and harmonies to rival the Wilson family. They were so laid back and chilled out they make Fleetwood Mac seem like Sonic Youth in comparison. Indeed, they practically invented the whole ‘soft rock’ genre. Gads. Spooky is almost garage band in presentation, but if you listen closely to the clipped guitar and polite vibraphone you just know they were heading in a different direction entirely. Indeed, by the time you’ve picked up on the lack of fuzz bass and the singing drummer’s vocal inflections (groovy, baby), it’s clear they’d bought a one-way ticket to mid-70s elevator muzak central, sax solos ‘n all. And it was only 1968.

Dusty Springfield hid her version away on the b-side of 1970’s How Can I Be Sure. Picked up since by hip samplers and happenin’ film soundtrack compilers, it’s been rightly placed amongst the canon of her best work. Dusty practically breathes the vocal across the top like a butterfly on a breeze as her fingers click in time to the coolest Fender Rhodes this side of Ronnie Scott’s in 1972. Even more cocktail lounge than the Classics IV version, it had, for a brief two and a half groovy minutes there made me forget the reason I was posting it in the first place.

There’s no tablet, by the way. I ate it all. Every last tooth-melting soft ‘n sugary bit of it. Right at this minute I am, as someone once sang, shakin’ all over. What’re ye goin’ as?

Bonus Track of sorts

REM did Spooky now and again in concert. Here they are in Hamburg a couple of years ago:

Live!

Moonlighting

Craig McAllister

Now and again I like to spread my wings and write things for other blogs and websites. I wrote a piece about the Stone Roses reforming and John Robb kindly published it on his constantly updating Louder Than War site. He had the good grace to call it “poignant and beautifully written.” Here’s a wee extract:

The memories are flooding back. Every time I hear Fools Gold I get a Pavlovian rush of the smell of warm chestnuts, cooking on a November London street on the way to the Ally Pally. The old bootlegs come back out and Glasgow Green sounds better than I remember. Their best ever gig, some say. I hated it.

The thumping intro tape, all drum loops and backwards guitar-as-siren had finished and through the blasts of rave whistles and shouts of excitable Scots, nerves taut with anticipation and expectation, the low rumble of I Wanna Be Adored began its fade in. The hi-hat (always the hi-hat) kick started that idiotic shuffle dance that most of us would continue for the next hour and a half. With bass and drums as canvas, a head down John teasingly splashed huge dollops of psychedelic feedback squall on top, reverberating to the back of the tent and returning twice as loud, twice as intense. And then, finally, the riff. Thousands of out of tune voices singing along, lost in our own wee world, lost in the right here and right now, in a tent in the East End of Glasgow, the most important place on Earth. This was brilliant! This was E times ten! This was…….. FUCK YOU! A punch. Right in the face. Right in my face. Right at the top of my nose. Two eyes streaming with tears, dumbstruck and trying to work out what had just happened. One of my extended crowd, a friend of a friend who’d been on the train with 20 of us from Irvine, noticed me holding my face. “Who was it? Who was it? We’ll do him.” As I shrugged in the negative and wiped the gunge from my face I saw the wee bastard slink his way into the crowd. Gone. He sneaked a half glance back, knowing he’d got away. My lot quickly got back to the main event. I couldn’t. This party was over. Here I was being soaked by the sweat of 7000 lunatics as it dripped from the roof of this massive tent, my own snot down the front of my brand new top and a throbbing between my eyes that pulsed in perfect time to every note coming from Mani’s bass. Second Summer of Love? Not for me. Forget Reading in ’96, this was the day the music died. When our band became their band. Band of The People? The wrong sort of people if you ask me. Once, you liked The Stone Roses instead of Bon Jovi or Wet Wet Wet. Now the twonks that liked Bon Jovi and Wet Wet Wet also liked The Stone Roses. Them and the neds. Aye, The Stone Roses were now a ned band. The music snob in me knew this was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Now get yerself over to Louder Than War for the full unedited version.

Includes previously unpublished photos like the one above taken by my pal Gordon at Rooftops in June 1989…..

…and look what I found up my loft – only my crappy old bootleg from Rooftops that I recorded on my Dad’s wee dictaphone. It’s digitising as I type.

Hard-to-find, Peel Sessions

Keeping It Peel 2011

Craig McAllister

Keeping It Peel, eh? A worthy and admirable affair since you’re askin’. Click on the face of the great man just over there on the right to find out more.

Late 80s/Early 90s music in the UK was a strange place to be. The Smiths were long gone but still on everyone’s lips and Morrissey was trying to carve out a solo career and somewhat failing (the lukewarm Kill Uncle limping behind the giddy thrill of Viva Hate). New boys on the pedestal, The Stone Roses (whatever happened to them?), were on extended hiatus and the charts were full of 2nd rate Roses-inspired trash that was supposed to keep us entertained till they pulled on their Joe Bloggs and got down to business again. Happy Mondays were self-imploding on a cocktail of every conceivable drug. Bridewell Taxis? Naw! Chapterhouse? Naw! Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine? Naw! Naw! and Naw! Hairstyles started creeping downwards and greasy globs of lumpen grebo clogged up yer actual pop charts – Neds Atomic Dustbin, Wonderstuff, PWEI. Looking for a fix I turned to The House of Love and posh boys Ride. Both were very traditional 4 piece bands with all the right reference points and songs coated in all manner of guitar effects, but whereas House of Love used their pedals subtely to enhance their songs, Ride used them to disguise their shortcomings as musicians and singers. Flange. Chorus. Delay. Wah-wah. Turbo Distortion. Throw them all at the verse. Add a bit of Phaser to the chorus. Extra Delay in the middle eight and, voila, music for the kids. Being 19/20 years old, I loved them.

In a hazy blur of stripey t-shirts, girly fringes and expensive guitars, Ride thrashed their way fantastically through their first couple of EPs and debut album. With 2 singing guitarists (how very 60s!) and token silent moody bass player, the secret to their success was Lawrence on drums. A seemingly 8-armed whirlwind of Moonisms, right down to the target t-shirt, he was always the one to watch whenever they played live. First time I saw them, in the old Mayfair (now Garage) in Glasgow, the tall brothers walked in and stood right in front of me just as the band took the stage. I have a vivid memory of watching Lawrence thrash at his drums in the mirrors on the wall. I also remember trying to work out the chords Andy Bell was playing during Chelsea Girl, but, given that I was watching in mirror image, I couldn’t work it out. Damn those 2 Joey Ramone lookalikes.


Ride recorded a couple of sessions for John Peel. Their first from February 1992 is my favourite. In the spirit of all the great Peel Sessions, this session featured new stuff and a cover – 3 tracks from their not yet released second and third EPs plus a cover of a Pale Saints song – the joke being that Ride claimed to dislike Pale Saints, although their version of Sight Of You is pretty faithful to the original. Opening track Like a Daydream is sadly minus the backwards fade-in cymbal rush that introduces the EP2 version, but fairly clatters along in a rush of boyish off-kilter harmonies and masses of bravado. Great machine gun drums too, of course.  Perfect Time (also from EP2) is awash with a combination of chiming 12 string guitars and fuzzed out Fender Jags. Did someone mention Shoegaze? Shoegaze was never this slow, though. You want slow? Dreams Burn Down featured on both EP3 and the album, but on the Peel Session is stretched out to 6 and a half minutes of tremelo ‘n feedback and ‘she doesn’t love me anymore’ angsty lyrics. I thought this might’ve sounded dated 20 years on, but, nope, it still sounds mighty fine to these ears. Dreams Burn Down was always a favourite of Andy Bell, as he said in April this year:

“What can I say? It’s a great tune. It’s about the end of an affair — the end of a relationship. Kind of a typical, teenage reaction. I remember it became massive when the band started playing it. It was written as a pretty straightforward sound, but I remember the rehearsal when we first played it — we decided to go with this noise kind of thing. The noise emphasized certain parts of the lyrics, and that really worked and it was fantastic. Lawrence plays a massive drumbeat on it that actually Coldplay ripped off. I don’t know if that’s actually true or not.”

And he gave all that up! To play bass! In MKII (or was it MKIII?) Oasis! The fool.

The music:

Like A Daydream

Dreams Burn Down

Perfect Time

The Sight Of You

*Bonus Tracks!

Here‘s the EP2 version of Like A Daydream, backwards cymbals ‘n all.

And here‘s Pale Saints‘ original version of The Sight Of You.

The beginning of the end I’d imagine.

Hard-to-find, Six Of The Best, studio outtakes

Six Of The Best – Craig Gannon

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 9 in a series:

Craig Gannon is, to use that much clichéd phrase, a musicians’ musician. Any band looking for some understated yet majestic, melodic guitar playing could do worse than turn to Craig for inspiration. His CV reads like a Who’s Who of left-of-centre British rock acts since the mid 80’s – he’s been the perfect foil for Aztec Camera and Roddy Frame, The Bluebells, The Adult Net, The Colourfield and much of Terry Hall’s ‘solo’ material.

He’s perhaps most famous for being (briefly) the fifth Smith, hired when Andy Rourke’s drug problems led to him being ousted from the band and, on his return, being given the role of 2nd guitar. Craig played on much of The Smiths’ vital output from 1986 – the Panic and Ask singles, London, Half A Person, You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby (the best Smiths non-single ever, surely?) and although asked to leave The Smiths in confusing circumstances, was considered vital enough to be asked back into the Morrissey fold, playing Last Of The Famous International Playboys on Top Of The Pops and as part of a pseudo-Smiths line-up when the old nipple flasher played his first solo show in Wolverhampton at the end of 1988. All this was happening whilst behind the scenes legal proceedings were underway to sue Morrissey and Marr for unpaid royalties relating to the afore-mentioned tracks. For a while it looked like Morrissey was considering him as his main writing partner, but being a man of principle, Craig wouldn’t drop the court case and, well, that was the end of that.

This was very much Terry Hall’s gain. Craig worked extensively with Hall throughout much of the 90’s and his guitar work on Hall’s solo albums Home and Laugh manages the trick of being both uplifting yet melancholic, with added fancy pants chords to boot. To these ears, both albums have the air of the undiscovered classic, and still hold up to repeated plays today. If you’re unfamiliar with them have a listen to the Forever J single, from Home. You’d like it. Craig has fond memories of working on these albums.

“The track I’m most proud of having played on would probably be a song called Take It Forever on Terry Hall’s second solo album which myself and Terry co – wrote. I rarely listen to records I’ve played on over the years but I still like the guitars on that. An obviously higher profile track would be Panic by The Smiths as I’m proud of my guitar playing on that.”

These days you can still hear Craig playing, though you might not realise it. His subtle playing is perfect soundtrack material for a whole host of TV and cinema productions – incidental music on Eastenders and A Question Of Sport amongst many others, and he doesn’t appear to miss the thrill of what you or I might refer to as ‘the music scene‘.

“I now make my living as a composer rather than a guitarist which is exactly how I like it and at the moment I’m just in the middle of writing the score for a film called R/Evolution which looks at the revolution in human consciousness. It includes contributions from Forest Whitaker amongst others and is narrated by Richard Olivier. The film was been shot around the world over most of this year and I’m writing a contemporary orchestral score which incorporates various ethnic and world music styles.”

Craig’s Six Of The Best is, I think, one of the best we’ve had yet and a good indication of the influences that seep into his guitar playing:

Walk On By – Burt Bacharach.

One of Bacharach’s most simple songs which in this case proves that simple can be good, although that’s not always the case. I first got into Burt Bacharach when I was about 14 and it was probably this song that started it. A great intimate feel and a never bettered vocal by Dionne Warwick this also has trademark Bacharach flugelhorn phrases. The Stranglers did a great cover of this track which I also love but this is perfect.

Alone Again Or – Love

I first got into Love in 1983 through Roddy Frame who used to play this all the time. This song is off one of my all time favourite albums ‘Forever Changes’ and was written by Bryan Maclean rather than the usual Love songwriter Arthur Lee. It’s probably the most accessible track on an album which includes some pretty weird late 60’s psychedelia. It starts with a great acoustic guitar arpeggio pattern joined by strings and then into an inspired mariachi style trumpet solo. Love also did some rubbish but ‘Forever Changes’ is one of the best albums of all time in my opinion.

The Long And Winding Road – The Beatles.

Growing up in the seventies I was always listening to The Beatles and I’m still amazed at how brilliant they often were and they had everything including two brilliant songwriters, great image, personality and chemistry etc. I could have picked loads of favourite Beatles songs but this is just one example of what an incredible songwriter McCartney was. Great chords, a poignant melody and a hugely emotional vocal. John Lennon played the bass on this and you can hear him fluffing all over the place but that doesn’t take anything away from it. The originally released version has choir and orchestra overdubbed by Phil Spector which apparently McCartney hated. One of many fantastic songs from the best band the world has ever seen.

Theme from Once Upon a Time In America – Ennio Morricone.

Written by one of my all time favourite film composers this is one of many works of genius he composed and it never fails to get me choked up every time I hear it. Knowing it so well from the film originally it evokes feelings of innocence, lost friendship and nostalgia. About a year after I first saw the film I was lay on the beach in St Petersburg Florida in the same spot De Niro and James Woods filmed one of the scenes in the film and I listened to the score on headphones…..the whole score is amazing.

Let Him Run Wild – Beach Boys.

I got into the Beach Boys quite late really, probably in my mid – twenties as before that whenever I heard the name ‘Beach Boys’ I always thought of ‘Surfin USA’ etc until I heard the album ‘Summer Days and Summer Nights’ and the masterpiece ‘Pet Sounds’. ‘Let Him Run Wild’ has everything you expect from Brian Wilson including great harmonies, catchy bass line and the best part for me Brian’s beautiful lead vocal, he had such a fantastic voice. This song was a taste of things to come with ‘Pet Sounds’.

The Girl With The Sun In Her Hair – John Barry

Loads of times in the Seventies I’d be watching TV and hear a great TV or film theme and a lot of the time it turned out to be by John Barry. Growing up on the Sean Connery Bond films I always loved the music although John Barry has written loads of great music for non – Bond films. ‘The Girl With The Sun In Her Hair’ was actually written for a Sunsilk advert in the late Sixties and you can hear that unmistakeable Barry sound, it could almost have been another Bond theme. Every composer ‘borrows’ occasionally and it sounds like John Barry ‘borrowed’ from Ravel’s ‘Introduction & Allegro’ for this piece.

Now, that’s what I call music! Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get Craig Gannon’s here.

*Bonus Track!

Here‘s The Long And Winding Road, stripped of Spector’s syrupy strings and all its Mantovani mush. Essentially a McCartney demo and all the better for it.

Coming next in this series –

Six Of the Best from a worldwide singing sensation (TBC)

Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Studio master tapes

The Kids Are Alright

Craig McAllister

When is it that the arrogance of youth takes flight, mortality strikes and reality bites? Some folk get depressed over milestone birthdays – the 21st, the 30th. Many of my friends are currently agonising over turning 40. That wasn’t a problem to me. The day I turned 27 was my biggy. That was the day I realised I’d never play football for Scotland. Truth be told, I knew from the age of 14 12 10 eh, make that 8 that I’d never play for Scotland, but We Have A Dream and all that.

(statisticians note, not my card!)

I had boxes and folders and albums stuffed full of football cards. Like many of my peers my hero was Kenny Dalglish, the swashbuckling, freescoring King of The Kop. I wasn’t a Liverpool supporter, but Kenny played for Scotland more times than anyone else and he was my idol. We even celebrated his birthday in my house (March 4th, if you want to know). A few years ago when moving house I found all those cards again and amongst them was the celebrated King Kenny card, both arms aloft in victory salute, red socks rolled to the ankles, the boyish smile atop the dark blue of Scotland with a rainy Hampden Park in the background. Aye. Boyish smile. Turning the card over broke me into a cold sweat. Kenny Dalglish. Age 27. Clubs: Celtic, Liverpool. Scottish appearances: 59. International goals: 20. Age 27. 27! He’d done all this by the age of 27! I hadn’t. Nor was I likely to.

It’s the same with music. Actually, it’s probably worse (or better, depending on how you view these things when considering your own contribution to the world.) Johnny Marr had done it all with The Smiths and split them up by the time he’d reached the ripe old age of 24. And when written down like that, I realise he isn’t that much older than me. Booker T Jones was only 17 when he recorded Green Onions with the MGs. 17! Seven-teen! The Boy Wonder himself, Sir Roddy of Frame turned up at a recording studio not far from where I’m currently typing at the age of 15 and, as the engineer himself told me a few years later, “blew everyone away, the wee fucker.”  ‘Little’ Stevie Wonder was practically a veteran of the Motown studios by the time he’d reached double figures. You could say the same about Michael Jackson, with his dance moves copped from James Brown and his wee unbroken vocal yelps the icing to his big brothers’ sugar sweet soul.

There are tons more….a 20 year old Steve Winwood vamping on Voodoo Chile with Jimi Hendrix, 19 year old Paul Weller releasing In The City, George Harrison being sent home from the Hamburg-era Beatles for being too young. Feel free to add to the list here…

It’s no’ fair, eh? Listen and weep old folks, listen and weep….

Michael Jackson‘s isolated vocal track on I Want You Back. Released when Michael was 11 years old.

Stevie Wonder‘s isolated vocal track on Uptight (Everything’s Alright). Released when Stevie was 16 years old.

Aztec Camera‘s debut single on Postcard Records (of course!) – A) Just Like Gold B) We Could Send Letters, released when Roddy was 16 years old. The wee fucker indeed.

The Sound of Young, young, Scotland.

Campbell Owens ‘n Roddy Frame ‘n Aztec Camera in 1983

Hard-to-find

Salford Fads Club

Craig McAllister

Next week sees Rhino’s much anticipated release of The Smiths‘ back catalogue, tantalisingly remastered by Johnny Marr and available in any number of combinations, including a lottery winner’s wet dream of a vinyl ‘n CD box set. Old Morrissey’s disowned them already, but what does he know? You really should start sweetening up your other half. Tell them they’ve lost weight, or that that new haircut really takes the years off or…..you get the idea…..if you want one of these babies, you’re gonna have to do a lot of grovelling.

In preparation for my much more recession-friendly purchase arriving (and the fact that Craig Gannon is dropping by any day now with his Six of the Best), The Smiths have been on something of a heavy rotation round here. While The Queen Is Dead usually steals the headlines in any ‘Best Smiths Albums‘ polls, most folk would put the smart money on that particular accolade going to Strangeways, Here We Come, the band’s swansong recorded in (and on) good spirits while Smithdom collapsed around all 4 members like a quiff in the rain.

John Peel said something at the start of The Smiths perfectly-formed lifespan akin to the fact that you couldn’t tell who The Smiths had been listening to. There were no obvious Velvet Underground/Beatles/Van der Graaf Generator influences, that The Smiths arrived fully formed with a sound of their own. This may have been true on their first couple of records, but by the time they’d hit their stride, any number of influences were creeping in. Terrific as it is, you need only listen to the first 30 glam-stomping seconds of Panic back-to-back with T Rex‘s Metal Guru to recognise the chord progression, slide guitar and general hysterical rush to appreciate what Morrissey and Marr were listening to that particular day. (The ‘Hang The DJ‘ refrain came about after Steve Wright In The Afternoon, In The Afternoon! played Wham’s I’m Your Man straight after the news broke about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. But I digress…)

“There’s so much buried in the past to steal from, one’s resources are limitless.” (Morrissey, interviewed in The Face, 1984).

By the time of Strangeways…., The Smiths’ influences had become much subtler. Johnny wanted to write a classic album in the vein of The Beatles’ The Beatles (“The White Album” dontchaknow), an album that was instantly recognisable as being by The Beatles, yet not in an obvious way. While Lennon, McCartney and especially Harrison broke free from what they felt were the constraints of Beatledom via a combination of pastoral fingerpickings and essentially solo recordings, Johnny Marr took the much more daring (and ultimately more rewarding) route of composing songs on instruments other than guitar. Across the album you’ll find autoharp, saxophone, traces of synthesized strings and that most anti of Smiths instruments, the drum machine. Listen closely and you’ll spot them all. Opening track A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours is a terrific piano-led stomper, augmented by vibesy percussion and the sort of arrangement that would have Chas Smash doing the nutty dance at the drop of a pork pie hat. And not a guitar in sight! Which brings us to Reparata & The Delrons 1975 obscurity ‘Shoes‘, which sounds like the sort of bazouki-led Greek goose-step that would’ve been foisted upon us during an era when Eurovision still meant something. All staccato rhythms and slightly stilted foreign accents, it was a huge favourite of Morrissey’s and Marr’s during the recording of Strangeways. Not surprising really once you’ve played it back-to-back with that jaunty opening track…….

And another thing…

To be fair, Johnny makes no secret of his love for Metal Guru, including it on his Dansette Delights compilation here.

This was Morrissey’s preferred image for the cover of Strangeways, until Harvey Keitel refused permission.

Man, The Smiths were just about perfect, eh?

Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – Basil Pieroni

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 8 in a series:

Basil Pieroni, twangin’ guitar maestro from current hot to trot favs Butcher Boy – that’s him third from left.

I’ve known Basil in a roundabout way for over 20 years, ever since I immersed myself in the dual rites of passage afforded to every teenage boy in Irvine in the mid/late 80’s – playing in a band and drinking in The Turf. Even then, Basil was something of the elder statesmen of the Irvine music scene and looked about 40. Of course, he’s not changed a bit since (the wee quiff, the turn-ups on the jeans and the biker boots have all been in place for as long as I can remember) and he’s now having the last laugh, looking much younger than he actually is, while releasing actual bona-fide records on real record labels that proper music fans can buy on vinyl in actual record shops.

It was something of a surprise to find out he was playing in Butcher Boy. I just assumed he’d gone the way of every promising local musician and left his guitar to gather dust just out of reach of small childrens’ hands. While some of us remain frustrated bedroom guitarists and others cashed their chips in for the starry appeal of the wedding band, it seems that Basil’s perseverance has come up trumps. Butcher Boy have been a serious going concern for the past 6 years or so and are onto their 3rd album. You should do yourself a favour and follow that link just there on the right. It’ll take you straight to the page where you can buy Helping Hands, Butcher Boy’s third (and best so far) LP. It’ll sit nicely in the space between your Felt and Belle & Sebastian records, and while you wait for it to arrive you could have a listen to Basil’s excellent Six of the Best, complete with YouTube links ‘n all……

 

Okay. I start with the usual caveat about this selection being the six tracks that come into my head today and the list would change if you ask me again tomorrow.

Dusty Springfield The Look Of Love (1967)

Music written by Burt Bacharach & lyrics written by Hal David and performed by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. The song was sung by Dusty Springfield for the Casino Royale soundtrack and was nominated for an Oscar. Before you think it’s unfair that it didn’t win, Best Song nominees included “The Bare Necessities” from Disney’s Jungle Book and “Thoroughly Modern Millie” The winner was “Talk to the Animals” from Doctor Doolittle… Two songs that didn’t make the nominations were “To Sir With Love” and “Mrs. Robinson“. Tough year.

I digress.

“The Look Of Love” has it all – a great song, an amazing soulful sexy vocal, one of the all-time great bands playing a great arrangement and that dirty honking sax solo. A perfect record

I’ve put in a link to a live version as Dusty is mesmerising to watch.

Orange Juice In a Nutshell
I love this song. A Scottish soul classic all done without the might of Herb Alpert, Dusty or Bacharach & David. And all the more amazing that this was apparently Edwyn Collins’ first attempt at a ballad.

Jonny English Lady

From the eponymous album released this year by Jonny (Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake and Gorky’s Euros Childs). English Lady is one of those songs that instantly got into my brain and gets better with each listen. It’s whimsical in the Ray Davis vein, but it’s daftness never strays into comedy. One of the best songs about missing an ex ever written.

I recommend the album. It’s really accessible pop and contains the Norman Blake song “Circling the Sun” that if you’re a TFC fan you won’t want to miss.

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi, with Jack White Two Against One. From the album Rome

A recommendation from a work colleague and an unexpected treat (not that I thought my colleague has bad taste, but that I though Danger Mouse was a hip-hop producer – shows what I know…not that I’m against hip-hop…).

The players on this album all recorded with Ennio Morricone on his western soundtracks so they know a thing or two about a thing or two. The bass playing in particular, all treble and reverb, is gorgeous. The album also features Nora Jones, who with this and her contribution to Belle & Sebastian’s last record is stamping all over my preconceptions. I picked this track as I had it blasting out the Butcher Boy van as we left Indietracks festival back in July. After the unexpected headline slot from the Hidden Cameras and a belly full of real ale, I was still on a high and this kept the party going.

Edwyn Collins 70s Night From the 1997 Edwyn Collins’ LP “I’m Not Following You”

Time for a duet. Stepping out in style with the unlikely pairing of Edwyn Collins and Mark E Smith. An underdiscovered dancefloor filler. A stomper, a rant. A funked-up, fucked-up groove of a delight.

Bonnie Prince Billy For Every Field There’s a Mole from the 2008 album Lie Down in the Light. Taking it all the way to the sublime now for my last choice. I own more Will Oldham albums than any other artist – eleven in all sitting on the shelf next to me. He’s released a lot of records over the years under various names and with a huge cast of players. I started with The Letting Go a few years ago and wooed by it’s rustic loveliness and haunting cello, and have been collecting his records ever since. Monorail in Glasgow always have a good stock.

His albums can be hard to get into but I’ve found that perseverance pays off. “For Every Field There’s a Mole” is one of his more accessible tracks, so for the uninitiated this is about as upbeat and sing-along as it gets. This song has an unusual dynamic. I’m not technically competent to describe what’s happening musically, but it moves me. And it has some clarinet playing that really hits the spot.

Every Six Of the Best compilation comes in a handy RAR download file. Get Basil Pieroni’s here.

Useless bit of trivia…

I was once the lucky winner of the raffle (aye!) at one of Basil’s band’s gigs. The four scotch pies and beans didn’t quite go round everyone at our table, but we did our best to make sure everyone benefited as best as possible.

*Bonus Track!

Here‘s Girls Make Me Sick, Butcher Boy‘s debut single from 2007.

 

 

Coming next in this series –

Six Of the Best from Craig Gannon