Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Most downloaded tracks, Studio master tapes, studio outtakes

Gold! (Gold!) Always Believe In Your Soul!

Craig McAllister

You’re indestructuh-buh-uhl etc etc.

The internet is full of gold. Look in the deepest, darkest corners and all sorts of fantastic stuff awaits you with a nod and a wink and a glad-you-found-me smile.  Without the internet, I wouldn’t have learned to dance like James Brown (thank you, You Tube). I’d never have seen Stevie Wonder doing Superstition on Sesame Street (Thanks again, You Tube). I’d never have heard those rip-roaring Sgt Pepper master tapes (still available here) that caused Plain Or Pan to go into some sort of meltdown for a few of days a couple of years ago.

One story goes that the record companies are all in a  panic over the state of many of the master tapes in their posession. The original tapes have over the years been rendered gossamer-light and wafer-thin through combinations of repeated reissues/remasters/remixes and plain old neglect. In an attempt to preserve these original recordings as best they can, the labels have started transferring the original master tapes onto digital files, where they can be kept box fresh for as long as they want (you’re indestructuh-buh-uhl and all that, or at least until someone discovers that digital files also have a sell-by date). Being made digital also means that as soon as they’ve been converted, some kind soul sticks one or two teasers out into the ether and stirs up a bit of a feeding frenzy amomgst yer more savvy downloaders. It would appear that none other than the good folks at Motown (yes!) have decided to preserve their archives in this way and, thank you Lord, someone has seen fit to leak some of these masters online. A year or so ago I posted the master tapes to Stevie Wonder‘s Superstition and Marvin Gaye‘s Heard It Through The Grapevine. If you liked them, you’ll love these…

A 15 year old Stevie Wonder belting out Uptight (Everything’s Alright) like his life depended on it.  Crystal clear with just a touch of reverb, this is the music-free vocal track. Comes complete with all the gaps and pauses for you to fill in the horn parts yourself. Listen out for his wee laugh when he cracks up towards the end. Gold!

Michael checks his latest royalty cheque. Older brother isn’t reading a text from Berry Gordy. It’s 1971.

What happened to Michael Jackson? I mean, what happened? When he died, the TV showed a brilliant black and white clip of The Jackson 5, young Michael at the front boppin’ and a-poppin’  in slow motion to this track. Here for you is the vocal-only track of an 11 year old (11 years old!) Michael Jackson singing I Want You Back with absolute total abandon. By the time he gets to the end, his voice has almost gone but he’s still going for it with those wee ‘uhs‘ and ‘huhs‘ that would later develop into crappy girly yelps. No wonder Jarvis Cocker kicked his arse all those years later. Gold!

I’ve posted Marvin Gaye studio stuff before, but never this. It’s only the vocal-only track of What’s Going On! Just Marvin double-tracked and duetting with himself through the slickest protest song ever written. The middle section where he scats and shoobee-do-bops is outrageous, something I’d never really noticed in the finished record, given that the middle part is packed full of sweeping strings, bongos and kitchen sinks full of Funk Brother riffs. Gold!

I’ve also posted versions of The Temptations‘ Papa Was A Rolling Stone before, but again, not this – the vocal-only track. Written by regular Motown producer Norman Whitfield, the vocal group didn’t really like his instrumentation. Vocalist Dennis Edwards didn’t like the autobiographical (he thought)/coincidental (Whitfield claimed) “...3rd of September” line, given that that was the day Edwards father had actually died. Whitfield made him sing the line time and time again until he got a take filled with the right amount of anger and frustration. I’m not sure who the dude doing the bass vocal part is, but be careful, he might just shake your fillings loose. Here too, is the vocal-only track of Ball Of Confusion. Gold x 2!!

Theres tons of this stuff out there. I probably should keep these back, there’s about a month’s worth of posts here….

The Spinners vocal take of the Stevie Wonder-penned It’s A Shame. Gold!

The Four Tops vocal take of Walk Away Renee. Gold!

The Velvelettes vocal take of Needle In a Haystack. The handclaps don’t stop from start to finish! Gold!

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles vocal take of Tears Of a Clown. Gold!

Diana Ross & the Supremes vocal take of Baby Love. Gold! (New link 15.10.10)

Cover Versions, Dylanish, Hard-to-find

Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals no matter how great they are or were.

Craig McAllister

Bob Dylan? Is he not dead? A colleague asked me that a couple of years ago, just before I bored them to within an inch of their death with useless Bob trivia, making them wish they’d had the foresight to not think out loud in my presence. I love all things Bob and many things Bob-related. He can be the most obnoxious, obscure, obfuscating person I never want to meet, but he can also be The. Best. Thing. Ever. Right at the top of that ridiculous pedestal. But you probably knew that already.

With the release of the Bootleg Series Volume 9 (the Witmark Demos) just around the corner, it’s worth noting that Columbia records tried to get many artists to have a go at a Dylan track – they heard the ring-a-ding-ding not from the wonderful sounds old wheezy Bob and his trusty harmonica were commiting to vinyl, but in the glossy cover versions of the pop artists du jour. The Witmark Demos was Columbia’s way of getting Dylan into a studio with all the songs he had, pressing ‘record’ and firing out the recorded results to whoever they thought might be able to sugar coat it all the way to the toppermost of the poppermost. You don’t need me to tell you that many have tried (and will continue to do so), but nobody sings Bob Dylan like Robert Allen Zimmerman. Certainly not The Byrds, who recorded whole albums worth of his stuff. Certainly not N. E. One with an acoustic guitar, no decent hair-do to speak of and the noose-like albatross tag of ‘The New Dylan‘ hanging round their neck. And certainly not those X Factor hopefuls who’ve started giving Time Out Of Mind‘s Make You Feel My Love the Mariah Carey ‘soul’ treatment. There were at least 2 versions on last weekend’s show. Enough to give anyone the dry boaks (Google it, non Scots everywhere). Of course, for every 3000 bad versions of Dylan songs, one good one pokes it’s head carefully round the corner long enough for someone to notice.

Like this one.

I heard this for the very first time only last week and I couldn’t believe my ears. Frankie Valli, helium voiced purveyor of northern soul perennial The Night, bouffanted crooner of the Grease theme tune and subject matter of musical theatre or theater depending which side of the world you’re on does a spot-on version of Highway 61 Revisited‘s Queen Jane Approximately that is absobloodylutely magic. Between the opening Mr Tambourine Man-aping (Byrds version) guitar riff, the fabulous Four Seasons call and response backing vocals and the rolling and tumbling piano riffs, I can’t believe this track has escaped my attention for so long. It sounds like any one of those bands from the Nuggets compilation, Mouse & the Traps maybe. I’d never have guessed Frankie Valli was responsible for it. It’s my favourite record of the year so far, until I track down the unreleased Frankie Sings Bob sessions that must surely lurk in the darkest corners of this here interweb.

From one extreme to another.

Dan Le Sac V’s Scroobius Pip were briefly famous 3 years ago with their Thou Shalt Always Kill single. Take time to read this. Just like Bob Dylan, it’s poetry (man)…

Thou shalt not steal if there is a direct victim.
Thou shalt not worship Pop Idols or follow Lostprophets.
Thou shalt not take the names of Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer,
Johnny Hartman, Desmond Decker, Jim Morrison,
Jimi Hendrix or Syd Barrett in vain.
Thou shalt not think that any male over the age of 30
That plays with a child that is not their own is a paedophile.
Some people are just nice.
Thou shalt not read NME.
Thou shalt not stop liking a band just because they’ve become popular.
Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry.
Thou shalt not judge a book by it’s cover.
Thou shalt not judge Lethal Weapon by Danny Glover.
Thou shalt not buy Coca-Cola products.
Thou shalt not buy Nestle products.
Thou shalt not go into the woods with your boyfriend’s best friend,
Take drugs and cheat on him.
Thou shalt not fall in love so easily.
Thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls’ pants.
Use it to get into their heads.
Thou shalt not watch Hollyoaks.
Thou shalt not attend an open mic and leave
As soon as you’ve done your shitty little poem or song
You self-righteous prick.
Thou shalt not return to the same club or bar week in,
Week out just ’cause you once saw a girl there that
You fancied that you’re never gonna fucking talk to anyway.

Thou shalt not put musicians and
Recording artists on ridiculous pedestals
No matter how great they are or were.
The Beatles: Were just a band.
Led Zeppelin: Just a band.
The Beach Boys: Just a band.
The Sex Pistols: Just a band.
The Clash: Just a band.
Crass: Just a band.
Minor Threat: Just a band.
The Cure: Were just a band.
The Smiths: Just a band.
Nirvana: Just a band.
The Pixies: Just a band.
Oasis: Just a band.
Radiohead: Just a band.
Bloc Party: Just a band.
The Arctic Monkeys: Just a band.
The Next Big Thing… JUST A BAND.

And on and on it goes. You’d like it. See/hear it here. Anyway, around the same time, Dan Le Sac also took Blowing In The Wind, cut it to shreds, threw it up into the air, stuck it back together again in whatever order it landed and looped it into almost 8 and a half minutes of insanity. It‘s called Bob Dylan Thing. You might not like it. You might decide it’s the best thing since, well, Bob. You may even want to stick it on some ridiculous pedestal. But I doubt it. Give it a go though, eh?

Random fact

Bob has gone on record saying Elvis’ verson of Tomorrow Is A Long Time is the best cover version of one of his songs. That’s all folks!

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

God Save The Queen Of Denmark

Craig McAllister

John Grant‘s Queen Of Denmark album is a slow-burning beauty of a record. It’ll appear on every hipster’s Best Of 2010 list, yet I doubt it did so much as graze the outer reaches of the stalest charts since I don’t know when. All the hippest of hipsters like to keep these things to themselves, y’see, so they can say “told you so” when the time is perceived to be right. Queen Of Denmark is melancholic, melodic, Midlake-mentored and as richly produced as anything from the Golden Year of 1973 (right up there with Band On The Run, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, For Your Pleasure) It’s good, so it is. You’d like it.

Before flying solo, John Grant was leader of The Czars. Much like the album mentioned above, The Czars flew under almost everyone’s radar, save a few canny folk with one ear stuck to the ground and a finger lodged in their other ear in an attempt to keep out the cor blimey mockneyisms and northern infleccheeeoooons of the lad rock that wafted out of every butchers, bakers and candlestick makers up and down the country. There are many bands you could argue were born at the wrong time (hello Trashcan Sinatras), but The Czars, with 6 albums, 3 singles and an EP released to general indifference throughout the mid 90s and early 00′s can stake a claim to that unlucky title. I’d like to be able to tell you I was one of the few with that ear to the ground in 1994, but even though I’d heard of them when a local band supported them around 1997, I didn’t get on board (there were plenty of seats left mind) until 2001′s The Ugly People Vs. the Beautiful People.

Starting with the eerie melancholy of the aptly-named ‘Drug’, The Ugly People…album smacked me (ouch) between the eyes in a way I’d never been hit (oof) since Elliott Smith’s XO masterpiece. I got my fix (stop!) by playing the album daily, like some sort of deathly ritual until I was absolutely sick fed up of it. S’a great album n all that, but I only began playing it again recently after I’d heard Queen Of Denmark. More fool me.

From this point on, I went on a bit of a Czars bender. I went back and started at the beginning of their recorded output (Moodswing), where Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde came on board. He signed them to his label, produced them and carried out some A&R, encouraging them to cover Song To The Siren along the way. With no real commercial success (and precious little critical acclaim) The Czars split up to no great fanfare in 2004. Strange to think that in 3 years, I’d heard and processed their entire catalogue. Processed? Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals says that he heard the Velvet Underground so much when he was younger that he never needs to listen to them again, that their music is stored in the human iPod, the myPod if you may, that is the human brain. I’m a bit like that with many bands, The Czars included.

And now I’m discovering them all over again, thanks to John Grant releasing Queen Of Denmark.

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

Are You Experienced?

Craig McAllister

“We’d like to stop playin’ this uh, rubbish an’ dedicate a song to The, uh, Cream…” My first brush with Jimi Hendrix was at the tail end of the 80s on one of those Sounds Of The 60s shows where they showed a clip of the Jimi Hendrix Experience playing a brief blast of Hey Joe before freeforming into Cream’s Sunshine Of Your Love. On the Lulu show, no less. “That was really nice!” deadpans the still Scottish-accented Lulu through gritted teeth. On first seeing it (the full 9 minute clip is below), 20 years after the actual event, I thought it was fantastic. The string bending! The guitar tone! The way he re-tuned his guitar while he played! The way he sang and played at the same time! The way he sneaked a wee Beatles riff (I Feel Fine) into it! The sheer outrageous flamboyancy of it all – he looked like a pirate and, uh, did he just play that bit with his teeth?!?!?

It would be a few years later until I’d find out what that Plaster Casters slogan on Noel Redding’s tee-shirt was all about (Google it!), though Jimi Hendrix made just as big an impression on me, in much the same way as I’d hope today’s guitar obsessed teenager stumbling across a Sounds Of The 80s show would feel on hearing Freak Scene or Fools Gold (YouTube ’em kids!) for the first time. Man! I. Am. Old. Certainly older than Jimi was when he made his best stuff, that’s for sure.

James Marshall Hendrix.

The only guitarist ever to be named after an amplifier.

Jimi died 40 years ago today, on the 18th September 1970. At the ripe old age of 27 he joined that heavenly choir of fellow 27 year olds who drowned, drank and drugged themselves to death before their time was up. Brian Jones. Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison. Later on Kurt Cobain. And they’re just the well known ones. Daddy of the blues, Robert Johnson danced with the devil and paid the price at the same age. You can add Big Star’s Chris Bell to the list. Echo & the Bunnymen’s Pete de Freitas too. You could even argue a case for missing Manic Richie Edwards. He disappeared aged 27 and has never been seen again. He was officially pronounced dead in 2008. Weird, eh? I thank my lucky stars that at the age of 27 I was still trying to master Wild Thing on the plank of wood I called a guitar. Unlike my 40 year old self, the members of the 27 Club never got stale, bloated, fat and comfortable with it all. Well, apart from Jim Morrison of course. But you knew that already.

I’ve got all the Jimi Hendrix I need – that’s the first three albums done with the Experience and a compilation of his pure blues stuff as well as a couple of studio outtake bootlegs and a sneakily downloaded copy of the Jimi Hendrix Experience 4 CD box set, choc full of alt versions, live stuff, unreleased takes and all manner of the sort of stuff that thrills me to this day. I couldn’t care less if I never hear Purple Haze again, but you can never have enough versions of Third Stone From the Sun, especially 9 minute versions that are more jazz than blues, with Jimi taking on the role of stoned space captain. I don’t really need to hear his version of Hey Joe again, but I never tire of hearing the “Oh Goddam! One more time…make the voices a little lower and the band a little louder” version – replete with great swooning female backing vocals.

On his recent tour, Paul McCartney told the well known story of The Beatles going to see Jimi Hendrix at the Albert Hall and Jimi serenading the 4 moustachioed mop tops in their box with his own version of the freshly-minted Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Sgt Pepper album had only been released a day or two before and Jimi thought he’d play his version for the writers. It sounds thrilling to me. I can only imagine how thrilling it must’ve been for them. Note too, that in those days Jimi didn’t have access to any of the gazillion tab ‘n chord sites that litter the internet with badly tabbed versions of Sweet Child O’ Mine. Get this homeboys ‘n girls –  he learned straight off the record. Just like me. But better – he even replicates the brass parts. Show off.

It’s pretty clear that, post Experience, Jimi had bought himself a one way ticket to Flaresville, Seventies Central. Along with the hemlines and bottoms on his trousers, his music had expanded even further into the cosmicness of free jazz. He was playing with Buddy Miles, his Band of Gypsies even had a bongo player ferchrissakes. This is a much maligned and misunderstood period in the Hendrix canon. Had he stopped after those 3 JHE albums then died, he’d have been immortal. Instead, he’ll be remembered, perhaps unfairly, in the same way as all those other casualties – the promising start before succumbing to ego, drugs and fame and the inevitable  law of diminishing returns. Put yer prejudices aside and listen to this – one of the sweetest tracks Hendrix recorded (in true Plain Or Pan tradition, it’s the demo, not the final mixed version), and only released after his death in 1971. Angel was so good, Rod Stewart recorded a version of it that even them Faces would’ve been proud of. Aye!

*Bonus Track!

In 1968, this track appeared. So Much In Love by McGough & McGear (produced anonymously by one P. McCartney) was never likely to trouble the hit parade, but the guitar playing, the tone, the way those notes are bent……rumours are that’s Jimi at the helm steering the group (including Mitch ‘n Noel of the Experience plus Graham Nash amongst others) straight towards the section marked ‘phazed phreakout psychedelia’. S’acracker!

FYI, McGough was Roger McGough, ex of Scaffold and these days better known as a witty Scouse poet. His son Nathan managed Happy Mondays, if indeed they were at all manageable. McGear is better known as Michael McCartney, brother of Paul. But you knew that already.

Double Nugget, Hard-to-find

Keeping Up With The Joneses

Craig McAllister

Edgar Jones is a dude. Variously, he’s been a pipe-cleaner thin, bowl-headed 60s revivalist, Paul Weller’s bassman of choice, an Andrew Oldhamesque pop svengali, even a Merseyside Duke Ellington. He’ s had his long fingers in many a musical pie and I can guarantee you that anything he’s been involved in has been (and will be) boss, la.

20 or so years ago you would usually find me hanging about at Shabby Road Studios in Kilmarnock, home to chart non-botherers the Trash Can Sinatras (3 words in those days) and a handful of local bands with one half-cocked eye on the prize and no chance of getting it. The band I played in had a rehearsal room there and as I worked in Kilmarnock I was usually first to rehearsal. Often, I’d pop upstairs for a cup of tea and a chat with some of the Trash Cans and whoever else was about. Seemingly, Go! Discs advance had all been spent on the studio itself and some rattly old vintage Vox amps because they never, NEVER! had any milk for the tea. Over the course of my time as a (and I use this term loosely) musician I met a fair few coulda beens, shoulda beens and also rans, as well as the odd bona fide gin-u-wine chart success (Hello, Chas Smash) in the kitchen at Shabby Road and it was during one of these milkless tea breaks that I met Edgar Jones and his mop-topped, mono-obsessed band of merry men that comprised The Stairs.

The Stairs were recording some stuff for Go! Discs at Shabby Road. But rather than use the studio’s own desk, they had brought with them a handful of dusty old bits ‘ n bobs straight outta the 60s as well as their own 4 track recorder. From downstairs in my rehearsal room they sounded great. They were brilliant musicians. They only needed 3 chords and had a garage swagger that I was still to recognise as being Nuggety. One of them (the ginger one in the middle) had broken a guitar string and came into the kitchen looking for one, to no avail. “I’ve got one!” I said and ran downstairs to get it. I’m sure he’d have said something like “Ta la!” but I can’t remember. He was thankful though, for the next night he popped into the kitchen to give me a 7″ copy of the Weed Bus ep.

Borrowing the Bo Diddley beat from The Who’s Magic Bus and welding on the riff from the Stones The Last Time, Weed Bus sings of the joys of smoking on the top deck of the bus. And I don’t think they mean Silk Cut, if you know where I’m at. “It’s the 147 and you know you’re in hevuhn!” barks Edgar.

Second single Woman Gone And Say Goodbye came complete with a Stax house band riff, cowbells and the faint whiff of Hendrix. It‘s a belter. And in case you missed any of their wee reefer references, by the time the Mexican R’n’B album had came out, they were writing Glitter Band stomping songs like Mary Joanna “You are always on my mind“. It was so good they released it as their third single, to little fanfare anywhere other than my head. The 7″ even came with a free bit of sandpaper stickered with the legend ‘Stairtex Record Cleaner‘.

‘The use of new STAIRTEX provides an effective means of ensuring groove cleanliness essential to good reproduction. Its regular use will lengthen the life of the record and reduce the static charge. Destroys all compact discs. Available from (record) dealers. This side LPs. Other side CDs’

And then The Stairs disappeared. Their withdrawn 2nd LP finally saw the light of day only a couple of years ago. Edgar went on to various things (see first paragraph) and still operates on the periphery today. I last saw him at King Tuts about 3 years ago where he was playing (brilliant) bass in Candie Payne’s band – another of those shoulda been, coulda been acts. He’s the real deal, in music for all the right reasons. He’s worth looking up if you get the chance. In the meantime, enjoy the three slices of The Stairs that I’ve made available to you. And check your pennies then check eBay for the long out of print Mexican R’n’B album.

I once played football in the ‘garden’ at Shabby Road with Half Man Half Biscuit. But that’s another story.

Cover Versions, Football, Hard-to-find, Most downloaded tracks

Ramble On

Craig McAllister

One of the greatest pleasures in this blogger’s life is the daily digestion of blog stats. At any given time I can see who’s visited here, where they’re from and what the most popular posts and downloads are (currently the Jake Holmes/Led Zeppelin one). I can also see who’s Googled what and arrived at Plain Or Pan either by sheer good luck or misfortunate malapropos. Current visitors include those looking for What Brand Of Cigarettes Does Keith Richards Smoke?, Pain or Fantasy and my favourite, African Jungle Horse Sex. I can just about understand why trouser arouser browsers looking for Teenage Fanny are directed here. I just hope the sad old bastards leave with a new-found appreciation of the Bellshill Beach Boys chiming guitars and honey-coated harmonies. But don’t stand anywhere near me at the next TFC gig, or you might just get a punch in the face. OK? I wrote something about the Stone Roses a wee while ago that said the bassline on Something’s Burning sounded like it came from the heart of Africa itself. And a long while ago I wrote about Johnny Wakelin’s In Zaire being total jungle funk, but how Google pointed a slevvering sexual deviant looking for quirky equestrian delights towards this mighty fine site four times in one day is beyond me.

Off course, there’s an underlying seriousness to all this. Clearly, people are using the internet for purposes other than tracking down obscure records by musicians only a handful of people have heard of. Whodathunkit, eh?

On a lighter note, the football transfer window closed at midnight on Tuesday night. This is a nerve-wracking time for fans of any club, but especially for fans of the less-fashionable, poorer clubs. As a Kilmarnock fan I’ve had to endure the pain of seeing our star players being snatched away from us at the stroke of midnight by ‘Sir’ Walter Smith and his satanic promises of first team football and the chance to wear the badge of the team they’ve “always supported since I was a wee boy“. To be fair to my club, the last time this happened they held out spectacularly for a decent sum (£2 million I think) for Steven Naismith. But this was only after failing miserably to command a fee any greater than £400,000 (to be paid in instalements, not even in the one go) for the services of Kris Boyd the season previously, a player who went on to score about 17 gazillion goals over the next few seasons (many against us), helped his team to a European final and cemented his place in the Scotland team, before getting his dream move to a bigger club. That’s Middlesborough, if you didn’t know.

The internet was buzzing on Tuesday night. Fans forums were in meltdown as everyone logged on trying to find the truth amongst the rumours, the rubbish and the rest. This year’s big worry was whether or not our star midfielder and captain, Craig Bryson, would be off to join up with recently departed Killie boss Jim Jefferies at Hearts. The rumour mills were in over-drive. At various points leading up to midnight he was at Tynecastle undergoing a medical, he was being sold for £400,000, he was being sold for £200,000 plus a player in return. At one point he was even off to Ipswich. Truth is, none of this was correct. By midnight, Hearts had had a couple of cheeky bids knocked back and Bryson remained with us.

Amongst all the Bryson rumours was a rumour about another player joining Hearts. Every team has fans’ favourites. Maybe not the most technically gifted set of legs in the team, but the one with the biggest heart, worn on the sleeve with pride. The player who’s first to question the referee’s authority whenever he feels a sense of injustice. The player who’ll give away the ‘clever’ foul and take the ‘clever’ booking for the team. The player who kisses the badge unironically cos he means it (maaaan), the player who, when a goal is scored, is the first to run to the crowd and not his teammates to celebrate, a player who can whip up a frenzy of excitement on the terracing by the sheer mention of his name.

At Killie, Manuel Pascali is that player. A tough, no-nonsene pro he breaks down attacks with a crunching tackle before distributing the ball wisely to a team mate. Not wisely distributing. That would infer that he’s incapable of anything other than giving the ball to a teammate to do the hard bit. No. I mean distributing the ball wisely, whereby at lightning speed he assesses the situation and from all his options picks out the best pass that’ll put his team on the offensive. He’s a bit like one of those Dutch or Spanish holding midfielders that slugged it out in that tetchy World Cup final a couple of months ago. Only not as good, or he’d be at a bigger club. Which takes me back to transfer deadline day and stupid rumours. Not only was Bryson going to Hearts, Pascali was off too! In fact, he was currently undergoing a medical and was about to put pen to paper. Noooooo! This was a disaster! While we were getting all hot under the collar about our star midfielder, our old manager had only gone and thrown a cat amongst the pigeons by pinching Pascali from right under our blue and white noses. Manu! How could you? Except, of course, he hadn’t. As all this drama was unfolding on the football part of the internet, over on the social networking section my close personal Facebook friend Manu Pascali was exclusively revealing we were  not to worry, that he was sitting “at home watching a DVD” and that he was “Killie Til I Die!” Heroes, eh? Dontcha just love ’em?

Also over on Facebook, another friend had posted a video of lost Talking Heads‘ classic This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody). I’ve got Arcade Fire doing that I said. What, with their quirky nature and choice of instrumentation, it’s a song that suits them perfectly. So, for you, Mr Big Stuff and any other Arcade Fire fans (and there must be a fair few, given that they’re currently (ahem, cough) burning up the charts, here’s some rare Arcade Fire.

This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) (taken from a 2004 CBC Radio 3 Studio Session)

Cold Wind (from the Six Feet Under TV series soundtrack)

No Cars Go (from the 2003 and re-released in 2005 Arcade Fire ep)

Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son (Serge Gainsbourg cover, released on one side of a joint tour 7″ single with LCD Soundsystem. Sung in French. Or is that French Canadian?)

And if you haven’t done so already, you need to try this. Arcade Fire video +  Google earth images of your address + some animated birds = pretty fantastic viewing experience. Warning – takes a wee bit to load. But it’s worth the wait.


Cover Versions, demo, Gone but not forgotten

Black Sheep Boy Triple Whammy

Craig McAllister

Or Meet The Folkers (Slight Return). Coming hot on the slippery flippers of the folkie Dolphins post a week or so ago, I’m about to wax lyrical about Tim Hardin‘s Black Sheep Boy. Released in ’67 on Tim Hardin’s 2nd LP (Tim Hardin 2), Black Sheep Boy is a gentle finger-picked acoustic track, melancholic, downbeat and, thanks to the Atlantic Gulf Stream, perfect for this Indian summer we’re currently experiencing on the West Coast of Scotland.

Joe Strummer called Tim Hardin a ‘lost genius of music‘ and he was right. A songwriter’s songwriter, he penned one stone cold classic that would be oft covered by others (Reason To Believe), provided Nico with Eulogy For Lenny Bruce for her Chelsea Girls album and more recently has given Mark Lanegan the perfect track for his gargling sand ‘n gravel growl (Shiloh Town).  Black Sheep Boy is a melancholic rumination of a life gone awry. Basically it says, “I can’t do right for doing wrong, my family don’t love me and no-one understands me ‘cept for the girls who dig my golden curls of hair.”

Much like Reason To Believe, Black Sheep Boy has been covered by numerous hipsters, all eager to worship at the altar of Hardin. Front of the queue was Scott Walker who took Hardin’s introspective strumalong and turned it into a lush Spectorish wall of sound production, all sweeping strings, plucked nylon acoustics and bathed in pathos. Sitting quite happily amongst a mixture of originals, contemporary covers and the odd Jacques Brel song of decadance and decay, it is quite splendid and appears on ’68s Scott 2 (sleeve notes by ‘his friend‘ Jonathan King, fact fans).

Not as rich but no less fantastic to these ears is Paul Weller‘s frantic knee-trembler of a version, released on the now-obscure Volume series of CDs (the hip and happening of the day compiled on a CD with an accompanying fanzine-style glossy book.) At less than 2 minutes long it cuts to the chase, managing to pack in tasteful pedal steel, some subtle organ, occasional double-tracked vocals and Weller’s signature white man trying to sing like Otis on the last couple of lines. PW’s version was recorded in 1994, around the time of Wild Wood. You could suggest that Tim Hardin was something of an influence on the Wild Wood LP, given that album’s rootsy acoustic feel. You might even suggest that Weller has been a fan of Tim Hardin for a number of years. On Side 2 of Tim Hardin 2 you’ll find a song called Speak Like A Child. Now. Where have I heard that before?

Bonus Tracks!

Tim Hardin Speak Like a Child

The Style Council Speak Like A Child

(2 totally different songs, in case you were wondering)

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

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby!!!!

Craig McAllister

Think of a classic album. Go on! Just one! In fact, name two! Two universally accepted classic albums! Don’t tell me yet! You could probably name three, eh? Go on then! In fact, make it ten! Still easy isn’t it? I bet you were thinking about Rubber Soul? Revolver? Blonde On Blonde? The Dark side of the Moon? Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars? London Calling? Pet Sounds? Born to Run? Nevermind The Bollocks? The Velvet Underground & Nico? Yeah, yeah, yeah and yeah! I knew it. Take the standard Mojo/Word/Uncut/Guardian/Times list of da greats with you down to your local record shop (remember them?) splash the cash and hey presto! Instant cred in your record collection. But outta that list, you’ve got them all anyway, eh? Or at least the ones you like. Maybe even also the ones you know you should like but never actually play. I know, I know, I’m guilty of that too.

Bet you didn’t think of Sunflower though. Sunflower. Nope, not Paul Weller’s rockin’ and rollin’ clarion call from ’93 (I’m back! I’m back! Check out me Patrick Cox’s while you listen!) I’m talking about The Beach Boys Sunflower, released one week short of 40 years ago today on August 31st 1970. You’re all people of good taste. I expect you’ll have heard of it. No doubt some of you will have actually heard it. If so, sorry for the condescending tone. If not, sorry for the condescending tone, but what exactly have you been using those ears of yours for all this time? Sunflower is the best Beach Boys album In The World….Ever. Forget any one of those cars ‘n girls ‘n surf compilations that turn up every time the sun pokes it’s stupid head from out behind a big fat rain cloud. Forget (gulp!) Pet Sounds. Honestly! Forget it! It’s good. OK, it’s great. But it’s not even up there with Surfs Up. As a proper bona fide studio album, Sunflower knocks spots off of all of them.

Demoed mainly in the summer of ’69 (howdy Bryan Adams) the songs that make up the final, released version (like gazillions of albums before and since, it went through a series of tracklist changes) really benefit from the shared songwriting talents of Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Bruce Johnston. Brian’s songs make up the lion’s share of the album, but for me, it’s the Dennis songs that sparkle just that bit more.

Listen to Forever. Here’s a guy who’s a major player, a bit of a shagger as they say round here, and he’s writing love songs as tender and romantic as anything Paul McCartney’s ever came up with, with the added bonus of none of the sickly sweet gloop that McCartney can sometimes be guilty of plopping all over his best tunes. We all know guys like Dennis and if any of them wrote a line as brilliant as

If every word I said could make you laugh I’d talk forever…

if the song I sing to you could fill your heart with joy I’d sing forever

they’d get a kicking. Dennis, surf dude and man’s man must’ve had some nerve to bring those words out his brain, onto paper and ultimately onto vinyl. What a guy. What an absolute guy. (That’s a quote from the best film ever made). The words, the music, the arrangement, the na na na na na coda make Forever my favourite Beach Boys song bar none. Easy. Even Mike Love gets in on the act. Granted, not the Beach Boy most BB fans warm to the most, his vocals on All I Wanna Do are superb. On top of one of thee classic Brian Wilson chord progressions, they’re slightly far away sounding and as sunkissed as I can only imagine Malibu Beach to be. They help make this track one of the standouts on Sunflower. By proxy, this makes it one of the best Beach Boys tracks you’ve quite possibly never heard. Do yourself a favour, eh?

Elsewhere on the album you’ll hear snatches of melodies from the abandoned Smile album (Cool, Cool Water), top notch production and the best Californian session musicianship that Reprise Records’ money could buy. Belle and Sebastian would wet their beds if they could come up with an album approaching this amount of class. Misguided twonks like Richard Ashcroft think they’re making albums as good as this today (he really does hahahaha!). Most people consider the Beach Boys to be a singles band (see also Madness and Blur) but truly, Sunflower stands head and shoulders above everything the Beach Boys ever put their name too.  Buy it at your usual vendor of choice. Now!

*Bonus tracks

Everyone knows that Charles Manson became bezzy mates with Dennis Wilson for a wee while at the tail end of the 60s. He thought Dennis could get him a record deal. Instead, Dennis pissed him off by knicking one of his songs, changing some of the lyrics and sticking it on the Beach Boys 20/20 album. Silly move! Contrast and compare…

Charles Manson Cease To Exist

Beach Boys Never Learn Not To Love

Cover Versions, Dylanish, Hard-to-find

Meet The Folkers

Craig McAllister

A quick history lesson. Sit still at the back!

The Marymass Festival in Irvine is an annual event that dates back to the Middle Ages, although the Marymass festival that Irvinites are familiar with has been going in its current guise since only 1920. The Festival celebrates the time when Mary Queen of Scots stopped off briefly with her entourage of maids-in-waiting at Seagate Castle in (what is now) the town centre. In the lead up to Marymass, a group of voted-in dignitaries go around the local schools and select a 15 year old Queen and four Marys who’s job it is to sit in a couple of wee carriages and get drawn around the corners of the town as the centre piece of a parade. It’s all very serious stuff to those involved.

The parade appears to get smaller every year but always features a dazzling array of dancers, drunks and dandies. Horse-drawn floats dressed up in the themes du jour (this year will no doubt feature a Toy Story float) follow pipe bands who follow twirling majorettes who follow somersaulting seven year olds in leotards trying hopelessly to avoid the horse shit on the road.

The crowds love it. Sunburnt, tattooed and dressed in their Old Firm finery (and that’s just the women), they follow the parade as it progresses out towards The Moor on what was once the outskirts of the town. Ever since a drunk councillor pissed on the sacred, crumbling walls of Seagate Castle a few years ago, public drinking has been banned at Marymass. The pubs open ridiculously long hours on Marymass Saturday, but if you’re caught drinking outwith the walls of The Turf or The Porthead or any local hostelry, you can expect a clip roon the ear from the polis.

Glugging Buckfast from craftily disguised Cola bottles, the throng make their way to the greasy pole to watch as teams of young men (usually from the same family) make a human ladder up the pole to get to the top and remove a giant ham that awaits them. There can be only winner – it’s generally accepted that the ham is always won by the baddest boys from school’s big brothers and that all other teams are there merely to add to the spectacle. And it really is a spectacle. Horse racing, the shows (that’s a funfair, if you’re reading daan sarf) and any number of attractions, the whole of Irvine will be out on the streets this Saturday. Dontcha dare miss it now.

The music bit.

As part of Marymass, there’s an annual folk festival. Held over 5 days around Marymass, I think I’m right in saying it’s the oldest surviving folk festival in the world. This year is its 43rd year. It’s healthy, self-sustaining and plays to a small but fanatical crowd. When Billy Connolly plonked his big banana feet onto the bottom rung of showbusiness, he played the festival. Nowadays, there’s a hardy mix of locals, Irish, American, Scandinavian and Antipodeans who get together to swap stories and song.

Last night saw the annual ‘Open stage’ event and I was there. Judges from Living Tradition magazine put on their  Simon Cowell masks and select an appropriate winner, judging performers on choice of song, musicianship, vocal ability, you know the sort of stuff. The act that won it were head and shoulders above all others, and I say that not because 2 of  the trio were my parents, but because they really were the best. Pause. Pause again. Aye. You read that correctly. My parents. Way back before I was born, they were regulars on the folk scene, playing on the same bill as Billy Connolly, railing against the government with a handful of protest songs and a couple of cheap guitars. All this fell by the wayside when 3 children arrived, but they’ve picked it all up again and with a fanatacism that’s hard to beat.

Lou Reed? Joe Strummer? Him from Glasvegas?

One of the acts last night did a song that sounded like Greenwich Village folkie Fred Neil‘s The Dolphins. But it wasn’t. However, it gives me a good excuse to stick up some versions of The Dolphins, a spot-on brilliant song that’s been covered countless times by countless artists.

Tim Buckley‘s version

Beth Orton‘s version. Features Terry Callier on backing vocals.

A youthful sounding Trashcan Sinatras version.

Taken from a hissy radio session in February 1991.

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

King Curtis (part 2)

Craig McAllister

Everybody listen up! Everybody! All you laydees an’ Gen’lmen! All you foxes an’ fellas! All you fellas wishin’ they was foxes an’ all you foxes wishin’ they was fellas! Tonight’s contest sees some of the greatest soul records ever made* slug it out in this here ring for the crown of Best Version Of a Curtis Mayfield Song….Ever! In the black corner we have our tag-team challengers, the mysterious and little-heard of 16 year old wonder, Miss Patti Jo and, fresh from touring the World and beyond with The Jackson 5, the delicious Sisters Love. And in the black corner we have the Undisputed! Genius! Of Soul! Funk! R&B! Gospel! And stack-heeled boots! Thee Heavyweight Champion of the World, Mr Cuurrttiiss Maayyffiieelldd!

Seconds out, Round1!

By 1973, Curtis Mayfield had penned an astounding 44 Top 50 US R&B chart hits for other artists. His version of the sublime Make Me Believe In You appeared on 74s Sweet Exorcist album, but by then it had been recorded by Patti Jo. Little is known of Patti Jo. I do know she was only 16 when she recorded her version. No amount of GoogleWiki sheds any light on her at all. I don’t know what else she recorded, what she looked like, where she lived. I don’t know anything about her at all. But I do know that her version of Make Me Believe In You is a reliable standard in Pete Wiggs’ (St Etienne) DJ box whenever he gets the chance to spin the wheels of steel. Vinyl pops ‘n crackles ‘n all, this is the harder-to-find full length version, not the edited one that usually crops up on yer more trainspottery soul compilations. Flute solo included, it knocks Curtis’ original into submission by the first minute, if you ask me.

Seconds out, Round 2!

Curtis put his version of Give Me Your Love on the soundtrack to Superfly. Scroll down a wee bit from here and you’ll find a live YouTube video of it. It is Blaxploitation personified. Lush, sweeping strings, hypnotic 4 note bass riff, stabbing brass, the ubiquitous wah-wah, by the time the vocals come in I find myself struttin’ the room like a velvet-adorned Harlem pimp. A look that doesn’t go down particularly well in this exclusive part of Ayrshire, even at Halloween. Snoop Dogg liked it so much he knicked it for the opening track of Doggystyle. But you knew that already. Or maybe you didn’t? Hear here.

In contrast, 73’s version by Sisters Love turns the original’s man-coming-on-to-woman on it’s sweet soul head, giving it an empowering pro-feminist love ’em and leave em twist. Or something like that. Either way, it‘s a bona fide, stone-cold underground funk/disco classic. Does that genre even exist? It does now, brothers and sisters. Punch for punch and pound for pound, Curtis takes this one for me.

That’s one round each. Patti Jo takes the first. Curtis batters Sisters Love in the second. Who wins? It’ll go to points. Listen, score them and post your winners in the comments section below. Ciao, soul brothers and sisters!

*mid 70s only