Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – Gerard Love

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 3 in a series:

Ge-ree! Ge-ree! Ge-ree! Ge-ree!

Gerry Love is the bass player in Teenage Fanclub, easily one of my favourite bands ever. When the name ‘Teenage Fanclub‘ is mentioned, I always make a point of saying  to no-one in particular that I’ve seen them live at least once a year since 1990. This year will be my 22nd year of Teenage Fanclub gig-going and at a conservative guess, I must’ve seen them close to 50 times by now. I never tire of them. Sometimes they’re hot (Motherwell in 2009, picture below) and sometimes they’re hotter (the Grand Ole Opry, 1994 (?) and the Monday night of  those ‘3 nights at Oran Mor‘ a couple of years ago spring to mind). I’ve seen then play live dressed as Elvis, I’ve seen them play the cold, vast enormostages supporting Neil Young and Pixies. I’ve seen them in long hair. I’ve seen them in short hair. I’ve seen them in grey hair and, no doubt, I’ll still be going to see them when they’ve nae hair. I should’ve seen them playing Orange Juice’s Greatest Hits with Edwyn Collins and I never saw them back Alex Chilton at the 13th Note, but I’ve just about got over those misdemenours. The only place I’ve still to see Teenage Fanclub play live is in my living room. Which they’ll be doing next week (once I’ve cashed in that EuroMillions cheque).

Wide-screenage Fanclub

Gruff Rhys once said that he never ever needed to listen to the Velvet Underground again because he had listened to them that much their music was now embedded firmly in his brain. My brain is similarly soaked with the sparkling sounds of the Teenage Fanclub. Being one of the chief songwriters in the band, Gerry has written his fair share of those sparkling sounds. Indeed you could easily make up a Best of Teenage Fanclub compilation that featured only his songs – Sparky’s Dream, Radio, Going Places, Don’t Look Back, Sometimes I Don’t Need To Believe In Anything, Shock and Awe, Starsign, Fallen Leaves, Near You, Time Stops. I could go on, but Ain’t That Enough? Ouch! (I think that one was a Norman one in any case). You could call it Love Songs if you wanted to. Ouch again.

Not Gerry. But he does share a likeness with potty-mouthed Christian Dailly.

Gerry very kindly emailed me his thoughts on 6 of his favourite tracks. Some were new to me (the Dion and Darondo tracks ), others I hadn’t heard in a long time. Rather impressively he included You Tube links as well, although some of the videos won’t play here, you’ll have to view them on You Tube itself. I also asked him to tell me one of his best – the song he was most proud of having written. His words follow at the bottom of his chosen tracks, which you could argue mirror perfectly the music of Teenage Fanclub – coated in wistful melody, warm harmonies, weird fancy-pants chords and the sound of sunshine itself. Over to you Gerry…..

Here is a list of 6 songs that I currently like. It would change every day, but these 6 are songs I go back to time and time again.

1. It’s All Too Much – The Beatles

The Beatles had more than their fair share of groundbreaking productions, but this is by far my favourite. Possibly George Harrison’s finest Beatles moment. Love the bass clarinet, and Ringo’s drum fills are outstanding.

Trainspotters ahoy! I’ve included the mono version of It’s All Too Much in the download below.

2. The Dolphins – Dion

Beautifully orchestrated crystal clear production of the Fred Neil classic. There are simply not enough harps and celestas on records these days. Dion’s voice is so effortless and amazing.

Heads up! – I wrote a whole post on the brilliance of The Dolphins last year – catch up here.

3. Something On Your Mind – Karen Dalton

The first time I heard this it reminded me a little of of Bill Callahan. Such a great song and a great understated arrangement, and Karen Dalton’s voice just melts your heart.

4. Didn’t I – Darondo

Loose, fragile, sweet soul from the Bay Area.

 

5. Aguas de Marco – Elis and Tom

The definitive version of the song once named as the “all-time best Brazilian song”, featuring Elis Regina and bossa nova genius Tom Jobim. Don’t know if it’s my favourite Brazilian song, but I love it.

 

6. I’ll Keep It With Mine – Fairport Convention

The thing I love about this, apart from Sandy Denny’s vocal, is that it seems to start from nothing, like it almost didn’t happen; as if someone just picked up the guitar for a little strum, and might have put it down again had the others not tentatively joined in. In the course of the next five minutes it builds and builds to become, in my opinion, one of the most life-affirming performances committed to vinyl. An amazing group.

Thanks,

Gerry

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

*BONUS TRACKS!

Gerry Love – One Of His Best:

The song of mine I’m most satisfied with is “Don’t Look Back” from the Grand Prix LP. I really couldn’t explain why, but I’m always quite happy to play that one. I guess it was the first “proper song” I felt I had written; everything before felt like some type of experiment. I like the intro, Raymond plays some really nice stuff and Paul’s drum part was really good.

I still find it easy to sing and when we play it live, it always seems to get a good reception – maybe that’s why I like it.

I came up with the original spark in Hawaii, of all places. Sounds quite ridiculous now; that I was ever in Hawaii, but I think I have photographs to prove it! We were only there for a few days, stopping off, on tour, between Australia and the USA. Although the idea originated in Hawaii, the song was mostly written in Lanarkshire.

Hawaii, eh! Who knew?

Here‘s Don’t Look Back from Grand Prix. And here‘s the stripped down Don’t Look Back from the Teenage Fanclub Have Lost It ep

A couple of years ago, Teenage Fanclub stuck a couple of podcasts on their website, one compiled by Norman and one compiled by Gerry. Both podcasts featured an assortment of curious and obscurities and disappeared faster than the sad cases who arrive at Plain Or Pan after googling ‘Teenage Fanny‘ and don’t find exactly what they were looking for,  so if you missed out, here‘s Gerry’s for the moment.

‘I’ll Keep It With Mine‘ is a Bob Dylan song. He wrote it for Nico, who he was more than slightly infatuated with. But you knew that already. Here‘s one of Bob’s studio run-throughs, understated, under-rehearsed and full of that Thin Wild Mercury sound he was after in the mid 60s. And here‘s Nico’s version from her 1967 Chelsea Girl album.



Coming next in this series –

Six Of the Best from Trashcan Sinatras’ John Douglas.

Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – David Quantick

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 2 in a series:

Ladies and Gentlemen, respected writer and raconteur, the Sony award-winning David Quantick.

As Kirsty Wark observes in the clip at the very bottom, David has been writing about the music he loves and hates for the past 30 years. As well as being something of an authority on the mechanisms of the music industry, he has a terrific gift for observational comedy – see/hear for yourself in this clip. Not only that, but David also cooks a mean Tex-Mex steak. Youll know this if you’ve ever seen the episode of Celebrity Come Dine With Me where he takes part in a cookathon alongside Helen Lederer, Ben de Lisi, Ulrika-ka-ka-ka Jonsson and eventual winner Mica-ca-ca-ca Paris. David also writes a tasty joke or two, as you’ll know if you’ve ever watched the Quantick-penned Harry Hill’s TV Burp, and his laconic West Country-by-way-of-Yorkshire drawl can be heard over the comings and goings of the day trippers on Channel 4’s Coach Trip. Ubiquitous? Oh aye!, but in a bid to further increase his stellar profile, David agreed to take some time out of his busy schedule to tell Plain Or Pan six of his favourite tracks…….

FAST CARS – BUZZCOCKS

If you could encapsulate everything good about my teenage years into a couple of minutes, this would be it (especially if you included the instrumental revamp of Buzzcocks’ Boredom that leads into this song). The shiny, silver sound of my favourite punk band with a Pete Shelley vocal and a Howard Devoto lyric, opening one of my favourite albums and managing to be both ecologically sound and sneery at the same time. I could and will and do listen to it all day.

SOUND AND VISION – DAVID BOWIE

I am slightly rooted in the late 70s. I love all David Bowie, but this bizarre song, self-obsessed and croony, which only becomes a song halfway through, is a swinging classic. Mary Hopkin on backing vocals! These things matter.

GO WEST – PET SHOP BOYS

Music journalists (the good ones anyway) love songs that are made of ideas. This one is an idea that makes you cry. The original by Village People is an OK disco song about moving to San Francisco in the 1970s to live the gay dream. The Pet Shop Boys turned it into a requiem for the people who did that just in time to meet the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. It’s the saddest song ever to become a terrace anthem, and proof – again – that pop is the best vehicle for intelligence and emotion in music.

FORGOT ABOUT DRE – EMINEM

Eminem’s combination of all kinds of loathing  – but most of all self-loathing – makes him more of an existentialist hero than most rappers, which makes this brilliant single even sweeter, as it’s a message of love to Dr Dre, the producer who recognized Eminem’s talents and made them both international stars. I could listen to Dre and Eminem all day and this song makes that easy to do.

REVOLUTION 9 – THE BEATLES

I wrote a book about the Beatles’ White Album, which was reviewed by Ian MacDonald, the author of Revolution In The Head, the definitively definitive Beatle book. It was the equivalent of being in Mumford and Sons and having Bob Dylan, Ewan MacColl and Fairport Convention come and see you. Ian MacDonald called my book “inessential at best”, which was a bit painful, but when trying to find something positive to say, he did at least say I’d made a case for this track, the epic sound collage that most Beatles fans try and skip. And I do genuinely love Revolution 9. My friends would quote bits of it, and even now Yoko whispering, “You become naked…” or Lennon listing various dances in a comic Northern accent or the EMI engineer chanting, “Number 9…. Number 9…” is as much part of my catchphrase vocabulary as anything else. It’s not a song, but a forest to lose yourself in.

BAT OUT OF HELL – MEAT LOAF

Another one from the late 70s, but you are now what you heard when you were then. And while there are millions of songs I love, I played this last night again so it’s in my head. I’ve owned the album this is on about five times. I used to sell it every so often because it was so uncool. But now I just acknowledge my love for it. Meat Loaf  is part Rocky Horror, part Bruce Springsteen, part teen romance and all sturm und drang. Todd Rundgren makes motorbike noises on a guitar. Meat Loaf sings like a teenage demon. Jim Steinman writes the best rock lyrics, in that they can be dirty and silly and innocent and knowing all at once. But when Meat sings, “Baby, you’re the only thing in this whole that’s pure and good and right,” I become emotional in at least six ways.

David Quantick

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


Coming next in this series – Six Of the Best from Teenage Fanclub’s Gerry Love.

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Kraut-y, Live!

Denise, Denise! I Gotta Crush on You!

Craig McAllister

Has it really been 20 years since Screamadelica was released? Well, no actually. Primal Scream‘s meisterwork first saw the light of day at the end of September 1991, but we’ll not split hairs over a few short months.  Bobby Gillespie certainly isn’t – the album has just been reissued in all sorts of sexy and expensive packaging and the Scream Team juggernaut is currently zig-zagging its way across the country to any number of  unfeasibly impersonal auditoriums near you as I type. It was in Glasgow the other night, in the luscious surroundings of the big red shed inside the SECC.

I didnae go. I prefer to remember the heady days of Screamadelica first-time around, crammed into the Barrowlands, Kriss Needs on the pre-gig decks mixing Prince into the Stones into Bo Diddley into Sly Stone and into my narrow-minded musical mind. Everything, from the warm-up DJ to the visuals to the energy of the band on-stage was truly spectacular and I doubt that anything like that could be created on this current tour, where a gang of outrageously pretentious  musical outlaws has been replaced by a gang of outrageously pretentious musical outlaws with big bank balances and designer suits. And there’s the difference. Also, Denise Johnson isn’t doing the backing vocals and as anyone with half a brain knows, she was clearly the secret ingredient in the original make-up of the band. My pal Wullie was so taken by Denise he sent her a letter proclaiming his love for her and she actually wrote back with a letter scented in her perfume. In this day and age of 24hr accessibility to your favourite stars via Facebook, Twitter and whatever, that’s something that’ll unlilkely happen again.

However, the main reason I didn’t go is this – I’ve heard some of the recent concerts. The playing’s fine, great actually, but the singing! Man, the singing! Bobby was never a singer, but he was always true to his Glasgow roots. These days, he sounds far more Miami Florida than Mount Florida. It’s embarrassing and it’s laughable. Listen below to the intro before Slip Inside This House from London at the end of last year…

“C’mon, lets have uh pahrty! What the fuckhr ya heer fuhr? C’mon!” OMFG, as you youngsters might say. I know what you’re here for though….

The Music

  • Moving On Up as done by Edwin Starr. Good God! Taken from a lo-fi source, sadly.
  • Moving On Up (live in London 26.11.10)
  • Slip Inside This House (live in London 26.11.10)
  • Come Together (live in London. 26.11.10. The full 14 minute Elvis-in-Memphis Suspicious Minds guitar version that morphs into the Weatherall groove ‘n gospel choir. C’est magnifique.
  • Screamadelica (the track of the same name that didn’t make the album. One of the first things I blogged. It’s essential, so it is. But you knew that already)
  • Can – You Doo Right (it’s 20 minutes long…..(yawn)…..but listen to the words. Then go and listen again to Moving On Up. Oh! Was it an influence on Bobby, or was he just under the influence when he nicked it?)

BONUS!

You can see a documentary about the making of Screamadelica here. Amongst other things you’ll find out it was Robert Young and not Bobby that sang almost all of the vocal on Slip Inside This House. Who knew, eh? Worth half an hour of your time any day of the week.

HELP!

Does anyone have a copy of Don’t Fight It, Feel It from a Select magazine tape from around 1992? It was taken from a Japanese concert I think and the band played Hey Bulldog half-way through the track. It was quite fantastic if I remember and I’d love a copy of it again.

Thanks to Scott over at Spools Paradise -that live-in-Japan version of Don’t Fight It, Feel It I was after is here.

Six Of The Best

Six Of The Best – John Robb

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…

Who better to begin with than someone who fills every above criteria of bands, bards and barometers. Most people here will be familiar with the name of John Robb. Favourite bands? That’ll be The Membranes. The Three Johns. Goldblade. Bard? That’ll be his bylines in a variety of broadsheets and music publications as well as his definitive account of The Stone Roses and the Resurrection of British Pop. Buy it here. (Better late than never, eh?) Barometer of hip opinion? The one thing you can guarantee when you read anything written by John is that it will be passionate, opinionated, heartfelt and thrilling – in short, he means it, maaaaaaan. John has the words DIY PUNK ROCK written through his bones like a stick of Blackpool rock and this is reflected in both the subject matter and take-no-prisoners approach of his writing. Take this piece he’s recently written about Flats for example (more on them in a bit). In fact, take the time to visit his website Louder Than War. It’s choc-full of rants, raves and right-on the money reviews. I drop by from time to time. It’s a right good read and I think you’d like it too.

I got in touch with John and asked if he’d like to contribute to this feature. Quicker than you can say “A-Wop-bop-a-loo-bop a-wop-bam-boo“, he’d sent this briliant reply………

I listen to so much music that I find 6 tracks hard to pin down but here goes.

The Stranglers ‘Down in the Sewer’
Funny, dark, sardonic and plain weird…the zig zag Beefheart bass riff in the midddle, the Ventures on acid guitar break and Hugh Cornwall at his oily best, that ass sound and those keyboards at the end- magical. Punk was everything to me, saved my life and even if The Stranglers were not conventional punk their lack of convention made them even more fascinating- from here we discovered Killing Joke,The Fall, Joy Division- the world!

The Beatles ‘Strawberry Fields’
Yearning, nostalgic and disturbing, like the darkest Lewis Carroll story. Tripped-out but also very northern, with the dank, musty air of fifties post war Liverpool of childhood memory warped through LSD and the super hip summer of love – how could that be a pop single?

Crass ‘Shaved Women’
Incessant drums, mangled rhythms and a powerful message from one of the most imaginative British groups of all time- whose music was far ahead of its time and is sat there waiting for a new generation to explore and get inspiration from- and we haven’t even touched the politics yet.

Shellac ‘My Black Ass’
The best recorded rock record of all time. The perfect sound. This is what we were aiming at in The Membranes in the early eighties but just didn’t have the know how. Somehow Albini took that noise and made it into a science and on this track utterly perfected it. When the bass hits it sounds like an avalanche of raw power.

Hariprasad Chaurasia
Indian flute player…Spotify his name – so many great tunes- the Indian flute is so atmospheric it floats me away. I’ve been to India lots of times and its a full-on overload of good and bad coming at you fast. It’s an amazing place and will be the superpower of the 21st century- it has an amazing tradition and a whole rush of stunning music like this that evokes moods and atmospheres that you didn’t know existed- I also love Kirtan- the Indian harmonium religious music.

Included on the compilation is Manzh Khamaz Teental

Flats ‘Let It Slide’*
Pure noise. Indie kids who discovered Crass, Discharge and Rudimentary Peni and made it there own. Seen them live- brilliant- they haven’t connected to their audience yet but they will do- they do this stuff really, really well and when they twist it with their love of Wu Tang Clan and slow dirge noise they could make something totally genius. They are also an example of the endless rush of great young bands out there of differing styles…here’s a few more: Deadbeat Echoes, The Temps, Rats On Rafts, Obsessive Compulsive, Young Fathers, Folks, Charli xvx …

*Sadly I’ve been unable to locate ‘Let It Slide‘ for John’s compilation. Instead I’ve included Flats Waltz, the lead track from their debut EP from August 2010.

John Robb http://www.louderthanwar.com/

Flats

Every Six Of the Best compilation will come in a handy RAR download file. Get John Robb’s here.

*Bonus Track!

Here‘s One of the Best from John – Goldblade‘s Hairstyle. All tch-tch-tch hairspray hi-hats, Blaxploitation brass and Superstition-esque clavinet runs. With a great ‘nah-nah-nah-nah-nah‘ refrain in the middle. Punk/funk? Funk/punk? Who cares!

Coming next in this series – Six Of the Best from David Quantick.

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

Well, everybody’s heard about the bird!

Craig McAllister

Bird, bird, bird, b-bird’s the word. Ah well-a bird, bird, bird, b-bird’s the word….

Everybody loves Surfin Bird, right? My 9 year old daughter does. My 4 year old son does. I’d love to tell you that, thanks to their Dad’s rockin’ record collection, they too had developed an ear for the finer things in life and were uber-hip connoisseurs of 60s garage rock. But that would clearly be not true. No, they developed a liking for Surfin Bird’s gibberish nonsense thanks to a game for the Nintendo Wii. I like a game on the old Wii as much as the next person (I have an unhealthy obsession with playing Mario Kart online) and I had no time for those singin’ and dancin’ interactive games that go down well at New Year parties and the likes until Mrs Pan brought home Just Dance, a game (if you don’t know already) where 2 or more people have a dance-off, by following a sequence of steps demonstrated on-screen by a cavorting character in the corner. And there, sitting happily inbetween Who Let The Dogs Out? and Womaniser was The Trashmen’s Surfin Bird replete with dance steps provided by a pork-pie wearing Blues Brothers sillhouette. Mental. It’s probably its inclusion on this game that helped propel Surfin Bird to Number 3 on yer actual Top 40 charts last Christmas, helped on its way by one of those anti-X Factor Facebook campaigns.

Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa!

Cue Dvorak’s New World Symphony (the Hovis advert music, ya philistine) but when I were a lad I didn’t have X Factor or Facebook or fancy computer games to stimulate my musical tastes. Like most of you on here I had LPs. My going out song of choice was always Surfin Bird. Not The Trashmen‘s original verison (I’d love to tell you differently, but I had no idea who The Trashmen were at this point).  Nah, I loved The Ramones ridiculously thrashed out version on It’s Alive – the first Ramones LP I owned and quite obviously The. Best. Live. Album. Ever. (even if on CD it sounds fragile-flat and as spidery-thin as one of Joey Ramone’s limbs). From that Ramones live version I progressed to their studio version from ’77s undeniably essential Rocket To Russia LP.

From The Ramones, it was but a small crepe-footed step to The Cramps, and their cheesegrater-thin hootin’ and a-hollerin’ gutter-punk version from Off The Bone (where I first read the words ‘Alex Chilton‘). A few years later and I’m watching Full Metal Jacket and up pops Surfin Bird once again, this time in the original (aha! or so I thought!) version by garage-surf punks The Trashmen.  Clearly, I came to Surfin Bird back to front.

A young, pre-1980′ s SAW-era Rick Astley, 2nd right. Who knew?

Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-
Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow!

Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow!
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow!

So it was a bit of a surprise to realise some time later that Surfin Bird as I knew it had actually began life as 2 separate doo-wop tracks, recorded in the early 60s by The Rivingtons, a black r ‘n b quartet who could effortlessly churn out the sort of 4-part harmonies that Brian Wilson was trying to replicate in studio sessions with The Beach Boys. Surfin Bird as I knew it was made by welding together The Bird’s The Word (aye!) and Papa Oom-Mow-Mow (oh aye!), 2 slabs of primo-cool duh-duh-duh-duh………woo-oooh! American doo-wop. Everbody loves a bit of doo-wop, eh? If you only listen to 2 doo-wop tracks this year……etc etc blah bla blah….

*BONUS TRACK!

Possibly in a bid to please those right-on 60s bra-burning feminists, The Rivingtons also recorded Mama Oom-Mow-Mow. It sounds just like you’d expect it to.

Cover Versions, Get This!, Gone but not forgotten

Groove Me, Baby!

Craig McAllister

I’m often torn between the two hemispheres of soul. Some days I’m all for the Northern variety, dripping in elitism, dusted in talc, and rattling away through the speakers like an AM radio being beamed in from Brazil at 100mph, the tinnier the better. Other days I’m a sucker for its Southern sister, with its killer guitar riffs, songs-as-stories and basslines boiled in the deep South, Great God almighty gargantuan and gumbo-like.

I had planned tonight to post a few Southern Soul tracks, but while deciding on the tracks to post I got kinda sidetracked and set sail down crazy river with a headful of disco and no paddle to get me back to southern soul central. So instead, here’s two versions of Groove Me.


Groove Me is a belter of a southern soul track. With its juddering, stuttering groove, it’s like a laid back James Brown backing track, almost bluebeat reggae in feel thanks to its off-rhythm keyboard riff and hi-hat action. It was initially recorded in December 1970 by King Floyd who at the time was working for the post office. As is so often the way, it was actually a b-side before tuned-in DJs spotted its potential and turned it into a million-seller for Atlantic Records, when it reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100. Unsurprisingly, Floyd quit his day job and settled into a career of touring his one hit,  management fallouts, ever-decreasing returns and relative obscurity. Sadly, he died 5 years ago.

Groove Me is also a belter of a disco track, but you probably knew that already. You also probably knew that I am unashamedly disco, so I have no qualms about posting this, the 9 minute disco workout cover by Fern Kinney. Fern is yer classic one hit wonder, though not with this track. Together We Are Beautiful reached the very toppermost of the poppermost here in the UK in 1980 and while I have always been aware of her version of Groove Me, I was unaware that it did diddleysquat in terms of chart placings here in the UK (according to my Guiness Book Of British Hit Singles at any rate). Shame, as I think its magic. Have a listen, wait till the groove kicks in then think, “Wouldn’t Happy Mondays have done a brilliant version of this?”

Fact! Fern actually sang backing vocals on the original King Floyd version.

Cover Versions, demo, Hard-to-find

Gott Mott?

Craig McAllister

Of all the music biographies I’ve got, the one I go back to time and again is Ian Hunter’s Diary Of A Rock ‘n Roll Star. Hunter was/is/was the lead singer of Mott The Hoople, and his book charts Mott’s 1972 trek across the USA, with all the squalid poverty and crappy hotels it entails, not to mention the non-stop merry-go-round of city-hopping aeroplanes, record company limousines and the band’s endeavours to spend any penny they earn on ridiculously cheap classic guitars. It’s a totally unpretentious read and blows apart any theory I ever had that touring America with a  rock and roll band in the 70s would be the most glamorous job on the planet. If you haven’t already, I’d recommend you read it. I actually first read it without knowing any of Mott’s material beyond the most obvious (ie. All the Young Dudes), but that didn’t matter. After reading it, I borrowed a Greatest Hits compilation from the library and got myself acquainted.

Mott filled the void between the end of the 60s and the first discordant clangs of punk in the mid 70s. Unfairly lumped in with the novelty Glam Rock scene (what they lacked in make-up, they more than made up for in tunes), in time all yer cool (and not so cool) musicians referenced them, as if associating themselves with the Hoople somehow made their music all the more valid. In his pre-Clash days, Mick Jones was a huge fan;

“I followed Mott the Hoople up and down the country. I’d go to Liverpool or Newcastle or somewhere – sleep on the Town Hall steps, bunk the fares on the trains, hide in the toilet when the ticket inspector came around. I’d jump off just before the train got to the station and climb over the fence. It was great times, and I always knew I wanted to be in a band and play guitar. That was it for me.”

Bobby Gillespie (of course!);

“I was into Mott The Hoople, and then The Clash came and I got into them … because one’s prepared you for the other.”

Well, we can take that quote with a big old pinch of salt, Bob. Whatever you say, but you’re only 7 years older than me. There’s no way on earth you were into Mott the Hoople before the Clash came along. You’d have been 8 or 9 years old. Maybe 11 or 12 at a push, depending on which Mott era you’re referring to. At that age, you’d still have been playing in a sand pit with yer Action Man. But it’s OK! We can’t be first to every party. Don’t kid yerself on that you were.

Mott The Hoople released 4 albums for Island between 1969 and 1971. Four albums! In three years!  Their first LP, Mott The Hoople, was recorded in a week and was heavily reliant on hip covers (Dog Sahm, Sonny Bono), with the odd self-penned original added on for good measure. Much of the band’s original material at this point was clearly under the heavyweight influence of Bob Dylan – the rasping already 30 year-old Ian Hunter singing of ‘kings‘, ‘rogues‘, ‘pawns‘, ‘the minds of fools’ and every other Bob cliche you care to mention. Have a listen to Road To Birmingham (listen too how Hunter pronounces Birmingham!) and Backsliding Fearlessly (The Times They are A-Changin’ by any other name). Critically well-received, it was the first release in what was a series of ever-diminishing returns sales wise, for Island Records. On the brink of break-up, Mott fan David Bowie came to their rescue. Offering them Suffragette City from his yet-to-be released Ziggy Stardust… album, Mott said “No Thanks….but we like the sound of that All The Young Dudes song you’ve written.” And the rest is history, but you knew that already.

Here’s a few more Mott the Hoople tracks that would soundtrack Diary Of a Rock ‘n Roll Star quite nicely.

Walking With a Mountain (from 2nd album Mad Shadows. with it’s frantic twin guitar attack, Jerry Lee Lewis rattling piano in the background and ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash it’s a gas‘ refrain, it sounds more Ziggy than anything Bowie did, a full 2 years before Bowie did it!)

Trudi’s Song (Hunter’s love song to his wide. Bobby Gillespie included this on a compilation tape he made for Select magazine in 1992, trivia fans!)

Roll Away The Stone (Number 8 in 1973, possibly the only other Mott track you may have heard until now.)

Angel of Eighth Avenue (lighters in the air stadium balld. Weeping pedal steel all over it.)

Ballad of Mott The Hoople (self-referencing ‘how we made it’ ballad. A cracker.)

Golden Age of Rock ‘n Roll (misty eyed doo-wop and piano paen to days gone by.)

 

*Bonus Track!

David Bowie‘s version of All The Young Dudes. But of course!


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

Manic Depression Triple Whammy (kinda)

Craig McAllister

Maybe it’s the fact they’re a power trio. (Eugh). Maybe it’s the fact a lot of their music is rooted in the blues. Maybe it’s the fact that their records have the whiff of cosmic psychedelicness around them. Maybe it’s just the fact that Jimi Hendrix’s Manic Depression was such a great riff they felt the need to lift it hook, line and sinker, I don’t know but anyway you look at it, Tame Impala have recorded a terrific Rutlesesque pastiche of one of Hendrix’s finest moments. Only they added their own lyrics and called it Island Walking. As if no-one would notice…

It’s all there; the weird time signature, the rolling drum breaks, the measured tone of the wailing guitar solo. Jeez, it even starts with a wee pseudo Hendrix harmonic tune-up. For good measure – get this!!! – they’ve made it sound like Manic Depression as played by a rocking Revolver-era Beatles, trippy Lennon vocals ‘n all. Extra points too for the outro, all Flaming Lips/Pink Floyd flotation tank otherworldness. “Bootiful!” as Bernard Matthews might’ve said. If I was 17 and had never heard the originals, I’d go mad for this band. Hey, I might still go mad for them anyway – talent borrows, genius steals ‘n all that jazz.

Talking of genius…

Jimi Hendrix. But you knew that already. Maybe it’s the fact they were a power trio. (Eugh). Maybe it’s the fact a lot of their music was rooted in the blues. Maybe it’s the fact that their records have the whiff of cosmic psychedelicness around them. Hey, hang on….The Jimi Hendrix Experience loooked and sounded like nothing on Earth. Manic Depression, with it‘s weird time signature, rolling drum breaks and controlled guitar tone was released on Are You Experienced?, the album that made a thousand guitarists simultaneously weep in envy, throw away their tired old Merseybeat jangling guitars and start growing white ‘fro’s in desperation. As if your haircut (or lack of) could make you play da blues like a tripping cosmic space adventurer. Not that it stopped Eric Clapton, mind.

The weirdy, twisted, off-kilter Throwing Muses do a pretty rockin’ version of Manic Depression. Bereft of any squealing Kristen Hersh vocal gymnastics, it’s a no-nonsense heads-down instrumental rock out. Perfect for the encore you might think. Except the weirdy, twisted, off-kilter Throwing Muses used to start gigs with it. Straight out at the end of the intro music, a quick “How are you?” then bam! and into it. S’a cracker, cosmic space traveller guitar solo ‘n all!

Cover Versions, Double Nugget, Hard-to-find

Double Nugget

Craig McAllister

If you’re looking for musical hereos that are a wee bit more left field than your average common or garden Lennon or McCartney, you could do worse than become obsessed with the music and ideals of XTC and their resident genius Andy Partridge. One such obsessed fan is Irishman Thomas Walsh who recently found minor fame recording a concept album about cricket as one half of the Duckworth Lewis Method (along wth fellow countryman Neil ‘Divine Comedy‘ Hannon). Look them up via Mojo or Word. Both magazines fell over themselves in a race to see who could bestow the more ridiculous superlatives upon this unlikely duo and, while the music is pleasant enough, the underlying smugness of Neil Hannon gets in the way of a good listen for me.

Sweat Sweat Sweat

I much prefer Walsh’s other group, Pugwash. Inspired by stories of Andy Partridge’s refusal to tour with XTC and hearing how Partridge was happiest when recording in his shed,  Walsh used the compensation money he received from a childhood  accident to build a shed/recording studio in his back garden. The music that followed was a heady mix of melodic sunshine garage pop (think Beach Boys, Zombies, early Bee Gees) and through a combination of patience and luck the songs found their way to Andy Partridge, who released them on his own Ape House label. Now there’s a happy ending! In 2008, Pugwash released At The Sea, a single that despite being co-written by Andy Partridge and utilising his talents on guitar, mellotron and anything else lying around the studio, failed (not unsurprisingly) to set the heather on fire. On the b-side was this, a faithful cover of the Idle Race‘s ‘On With The Show‘.

Brummies The Idle Race often pop up on Nuggets’y compilations (Imposters of Life’s Magazine? Days of the Broken Arrows? Ring any bells?) and are famous as the band where Jeff Lynne (ELO, future Threatles-not-Beatles producer) learned his big hairy-faced chops in the late 60s. ‘On With the Show‘ appeared on their debut album (Birthday Party, above) and is very derivative of its time -a descending piano chord sequence, harmonies a-gogo, some light phasing (all the rage in 1968) and enough melody and craft packed in to two minutes and twenty two seconds. You’ll like it.

Fact: Mark E Smith is a big Idle Race fan. According to Wikipedia at any rate.

*Bonus Track!

I’ll wager you’ve heard of Wild Beasts. They’ve been on Later with Jools Holland a few times. Lake District indie rock group with a neat line in guitar riffs ‘n textures and an irritating habit of singing everything in ridiculous falsetto. I kinda like them, even though a) they want so badly to be Orange Juice and b) that singer is fucking annoying. I’ll wager you’ve not heard of The Wildebeests. I know next to nothing about them. If you can fill in the blanks, get in touch.  I heard a track on a Shindig magazine compilation and was taken aback with it’s totally blatant Who-isms. Won’t Get Fooled Again keyboard riff? Aye! Crashing, windmilling Townshend power chords? Oh aye! Moonesque thumps ‘n bumps? Oh aye aye! Layered Goods Gone vocals? Aye ‘n aye again!, That Man is the sort of record Noel Gallagher would shave his eyebrow off to be able to make. Which makes it good, obviously.

Update!

As pointed out by regular reader Garwood Pickjon in the comments below, That Man is in fact a cover of a mid 60s Small Faces record (hear here). I’ve got the record in my collection and everything, but it never clicked when listening to The Wildbeests version. The old antennae needs retuning to digital I think – it reaches me in May this year. Any other mistakes/errors, please let me know. I’m off to eat Humble Pie. No pun intended. Unless you get it. In which case, good pun, eh?

Garwood, your prize is in the post…..

Wildbeests. Not Wild Beasts.

Cover Versions, Get This!, Gone but not forgotten

Seductive Barry

Craig McAllister

John Barry died today at the age of 77. Without him, the Sixties wouldn’t have swung quite as bold or nearly as brassy. You don’t need me to tell you of his work on 11 Bond films, or that his musical scores packed full of stabbing brass, sweeping orchestration and exotic leads (dulcimer! vibes!) often conjured up images of carefree playboys at the wheel of a Jaguar, speeding through the Swiss Alps with a Ray Ban-ed and mini-skirted female for company (although that sounds a lot like a spoof scene from Austin Powers, but you know what I mean.)

Barry ‘n Birkin

John Barry was a bit of a real-life Austin. He was married 4 times, once briefly to Jane Birkin until, in 1968, she went off to work with Serge Gainsbourg and, well, I’m sure you know what happens when old Gauloises ‘n garlic Gainsbourg takes a shine to a lady…

In a career that took in amongst others big band jazz, neo-classical orchestration, easy listening croon and off-beat quirky pop instrumentation, his music can be equal parts mesmerising, life-affirming and downright seductive. Indeed, Pulp put a track called Seductive Barry on their under-appreciated This Is Hardcore album. A brooding 8 and a half minute paean to seedy lust, it’d be great to think that Jarvis was singing about an ordinary northern lothario called Barry, or maybe even Barrys White or Manilow, but it must surely be some sort of tribute to John Barry – Jarvis is a gen’d up scholar of music and had Barry play at the 2007 Meltdown he curated. I can remember reading how Jarvis liked to walk around Sheffield with John Barry playing on his Walkman, as the music transformed his city into a magical place.

Here’s some of my favourite John Barry tunes. Play them as you take the journey into work tomorrow and pretend you’re some sort of libidinous Cold War spy. That’s what I’ll be doing.

Into Miami/Alpine Drive/Auric (a suite, if you like, from Goldfinger)

The Girl With The Sun In Her Hair

Midnight Cowboy (my favourite instrumental ever)

*Bonus Track!

Another Barry, Mr Adamson formerly bass player with Magazine, has released a good half dozen records filled with the sort of arrangements and instrumentation that could’ve had John Barry reaching for the nearest copy of Plagiarism Monthly. Adamson’s ska version of the 007 tune is a belter.