Blur Fanclub Singles, demo, Hard-to-find

Fish, Phish and all sorts of pish. Thank heavens for the internet.

Craig McAllister

It seems as good a time as any to post some of these tracks. Actually, a couple of weeks ago would’ve been better, but then as you know, I’m always just a half-step behind what’s currently in vogue. As I write, Blur have played their final gig. Again. And broken up. Again.

blur early

(snigger)

I’ve written about this before, but for those irregular/new visitors, I’ll go on record again and say that I’m a bit of a Blur fan. I have been since day 1. Bought She’s So High on 12″ and faithfully bought each release on the day of release until Crazy Beat limped out from between the grooves of Think Tank to promote a Coxon-less version of the band that had somewhat spectacularly ran out of steam. To be fair though, I played Think Tank a week or two ago and it’s held up fairly well, even without Coxon’s distinctive wonky guitar scratchings.

blur 97

The only aspect of Blur’s back catalogue I don’t have is the fanclub singles that get sent out every Christmas to those in the band’s fanclub. Subscribers to the fanclub received a quarterly fanzine called ‘Blurb‘. Come 1996 (and issue 4 of ‘Blurb‘) lucky subscribers also received a nice wee CD single at Christmas. In these modern times where bands continually blog, twitter and YouTube every bum note they’ve ever twanged, the notion of a fanclub is fairly quaint. But then, if you’re a fan and you’ve gotta have the lot, joining the fanclub was the only way to ensure your collection remained complete. REM have a similar fanclub that send you all sorts of live/demo/rare material that is the proverbial trainspotter’s wet dream.

coxon

A pissed Graham Coxon has just been knocked down by a car.

It’s all Britpop’s fault.

Thank heavens then for this thing called the internet. A bit of googling and bittorrenting later, and you too can have the entire recorded output of Fish, Phish and all sorts of pish. Look in all the right places and you might even find stuff you like. A couple of clicks yesterday led me to the very items missing from my Blur collection – the fanclub singles. Over the next few weeks I’ll post a couple of tracks until you too are bang up to date with all things Blurish. The fanclub singles were released once a year between 1996 and 2005. Here’s the first three:

death_cover_big

1996: Death of a Party

Acoustic demo version of a track which finally appeared on the Blur’s 1997 eponymously titled elpee. The demo was recorded at Matrix Studios in 1992. Extra points for the Syd Barrett-esque backing vocals. Blur sure set their stall out early…

iloveher_cover_big

1997: I Love Her

Demo recorded in 1991 at the sessions that produced ‘Leisure‘. Came with issue 8 of Blurb. Nice cheesegrater guitar/elastic band bass duel. Extra points for the pseudo Syd Barrett backing vocals. Can you see a pattern emerge?

close_cover_big

1998: Close

Demo recorded at Maison Rouge in 1992. Sounds a bit like the track above. What with all that backwards feedback fading in, it sure starts a bit like Popscene. Also has something approaching those “Ah ah watch you play” backing vocals that you’ll know from There’s No Other Way. Came with issue 12 of Blurb. Extra points for Coxon’s especially wobbly guitar solo.

More to follow in the next couple of weeks. Keep ’em peeled….

demo, Hard-to-find

A plea for Lee and GOLAS3

Craig McAllister

Hoy! Mavers! C’mere til I gie you a smack roon’ the heid. And make it quick, before that Pete Doherty gie’s you a different kinda smack roon’ the heid. In two weeks time, a bastardised version of The La’s will play a free festival in Sheffield. The band will consist of Lee Mavers (of course) along with selected Babyshambles personnel and Pete Doherty hingers oan. Not good. I asked Mavers if I could be in The La’s once. True story, but I’ll save it for another day. He told me I could never be in The La’s because I wasn’t a Scouser. Nowadays, anyone with the right haircut, Cuban heeled boots and fondness for illegal substances can seemingly fit right in. This new version of The La’s promises to be a car crash of even greater proportions than the 2005 version. And that’s really saying something. Bop bop shoobedoowop.

Don’t do it Lee. Stay at home, dig out the back catalogue and reminisce. That’s what most La’s fans have had to do for long enough anyway. It’s what I’ve been doing this week. Someone contacted me from Chile (!) and asked me to write a piece on The La’s for a cultural South American website. It’s being translated into Spanish as I type. I dug out my old La’s bootlegs and session material and buried myself in the stuff. It’s been magic. I have all The La’s small but perfect back catalogue apart from this…

timeless melody ad

The unreleased version of Timeless Melody, GOLAS3 (or GOLAS312 for the 12″). Almost 20 years to the day, 500 copies were pressed up and promoed to the music weeklies very briefly. GOLAS3 subsequently became the most sought after item in The La’s canon. It was withdrawn very quickly after Mavers decided he no longer liked the mix. But you knew that already. After hearing tape after tape of La’s sessions I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t think even Mavers knew what he was really listening for some of the time. GOLAS3 is a fantastic release. I’d imagine you’ll all be familiar with Timeless Melody, but the withdrawn version is something else entirely. It has a full-fat mono-sounding thunk that is obviously missing from the watered down, more well known album version. “Almost an anti production!” raved St Etienne’s Bob Stanley, reviewing the singles in that week’s Melody Maker. The withdrawn version of Timeless Melody is The Beatles in Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, Jeff Beck in The Yardbirds and Bummer In The Summer-era Love rolled into one. ‘Wild’ Billy Childish must’ve cried into his impeccably imperialistic droopy moustache if he was ever fortunate enough to hear it. There’s even more to follow…

GOLAS_312-Melody_Maker-May_27-1989

Skip past the more familiar sounding Clean Prophet and you’ll get to Ride Yer Camel, a 7 minute lo-fi homage to the Delta Blues, recorded late one night in one of The La’s umpteen guitarist’s flats. Beefheart, Bo Diddley and the blues. I’ve written about it before (canny be arsed linking to it to be honest) but have a listen. You won’t believe your sanitised in-ear speaker system 21st century ears.

Timeless Melody

Clean Prophet

Ride Yer Camel

My mp3’s come courtesy of a very kind and decent Irishman. He made my day about 4 years ago. If you happen to have a copy of GOLAS3 or GOLAS312 lying around gathering dust in your collection, drop me a line and I’ll take it off your hands forever. You could make my day today. I’ll even give you some money for it. Everyone’s a winner baby, that’s no lie.

Hard-to-find

Take Me To Your Dealer, Super Furry Animals

Craig McAllister

Ah, hidden tracks. Ever since that tape engineer accidentally left the tape running whilst Abbey Road was being mastered, creating Her Majesty as an unintended hidden track, others have followed where The Beatles (naturally) took the lead. Come to think of it, The Beatles pioneered something similar a couple of years before this when they put that “I never cook it any other way I never cook it any other way I never cook it an….” right into the run out groove at the end of Sgt Pepper. But that’s not really a hidden track, more of an annoyance to the weekend stoner who’d have to get up and physically lift the needle form the record. No, I’m talking about proper hidden tracks. Those wee gems right at the end of a CD about 15 minutes after the last track has stopped playing, or before track 1 has even started (re-re-wind). I can do without the sound of the bass player being sick at the beginning of Ash’s ‘1977‘ album. And I can do without the stoned piano nonsense at the end of  (er, I forget for the moment!) But tracks like Nirvana’s ‘Endless Nameless’ (on later editions of Nevermind), Me White Noise on Blur’s Think Tank and GenChildren on Radiohead’s Kid A are proof that sometimes the band’s best work goes almost unnoticed. Those 3 tracks are all future posts for sure, but for now I want to focus on the real Kings of Pop, those Super Furry Animals.

super furry goggles

I said Google!

The Super Furries would perhaps agree with me when I say that the best work can often go unnoticed. The first track on their Guerilla album is Check It Out. A few weeks after the albums release, they let slip via their fanclub mailing list (no internet in those days) that if you rewound the CD beyond the start of Check It Out you’d get this, a track called Citizen’s Band. And it’s magic. “Tried my hand at the citizen’s band, I’m a breaker that breaks.” A slow burner, it finishes in a flurry of fuzz guitar, handclaps and Keith Moon drum rolls. Nice falsetto backing vocals too. Oh, and a flute. Oh, yeah, and a stolen melody from part of their own ‘Hometown Unicorn’.

Following on from this Super Furry revelation I spent an afternoon going through all my SFA records looking for hidden tracks to no avail. Imagine my surprise then when Outspaced (early singles/b-sides/rarities compilation) was released. Rewinding the first track, I found this. ‘Outspaced‘ (the track) is an instrumental that builds and builds from a few electro bleeps and pleasantly strummed chords into a behemoth of a track that could only be describes as The Beach Boys playing Krautrock. To think I might never have heard it…

SFA-Slow-Life

I can’t find any more hidden gems amongst my SFA collection, but if you know something I don’t, please let me know. Until then, here’s a couple of Super Furry rarities for you. First up, the Street Edit (ie very sweary) of Motherfokker. Sounding like a stoned n’ swaggering Shaun Ryder, it’s quite amusing and very sweary. It features some of Goldie Lookin’ Chain, but don’t let that put you off. Released initially on the Japanese ‘Slow Life’ ep, you can find it on a few other SFA releases. Or you can get it here.

sfa ysbeidiau

Finally, Charge, from the b-side of Welsh language vinyl-only single Ysbeidau Heulog. A heads-down, no-nonsense Stooges assault on the senses. With added random American newsreader and the band shouting ‘Charge!’ every now and again, it’s a belter. Hear it here.

These tracks just go to illustrate what a brilliantly eclectic band the Super Furry Animals are. To do soft-rock harmonies, all out techno assault n’ battery, stoned fuzz and psychedelic acoustic balladry well is no mean feat. Especially when they often do all that and more in one song. Appreciate them while they’re here, folks. Don’t let them become the Velvet Underground for my grand children. Investigate the above tracks then nip over to superfurry.com or Play or Amazon or wherever you shop these days and fill yer trolley to the brim.

demo, Hard-to-find, Sampled

And I got more hits than Sadaharu Oh.

Craig McAllister

Yes! My hits per day has taken a sharp increase recently. Don’t know why, as I’m blogging far less than I used to, but thanks a million to you. And you. And you. And you. And… 

sadahura oh

Sadaharu Oh was a baseball player for the Yomiuri Giants in the Nippon Professional  Baseball League in Japan. He hit a world record 868 home runs in his career.  “And I got more hits than Sadaharu Oh” is a line from ‘Hey Ladies’ from the Beastie Boys ‘Pauls Boutique’ album.

Following the success of their globe straddling Licensed To Ill album with its Rick Rubin-produced juvenile rhymes on top of sample after sample of Jimmy Page and John Bonham, the Beastie Boys took themselves to LA and began working in self-imposed exile. With fresh money on their pocket, New York was too full of temptations. They relocated with the Dust Brothers in tow and worked on the demos that would become Paul’s Boutique. Given that it was a commercial disaster, the album was considered something of a failure and EMI quickly stopped promoting it. Yet, the album’s popularity grew and grew quietly. Music fans like me who wouldn’t consider listening to rap suddenly latched onto the facts that the album was constructed from a vast range of rock samples and references. Nowadays, Paul’s Boutique is considered the hippest thing in the Beastie Boys canon of work. Although I prefer Check Your Head.

pauls boutique

With 105 wholly uncredited samples, Paul’s Boutique is on a par with De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising for imagination, inventiveness and downright blatant stealing (I’ve already mentioned De La Soul’s Magnum Opus here) Familiar bits of records jump out at you. James Brown yelps and huhs all over it, hard-to-place bits of Pink Floyd fade in and out, Sly Stone bass lines and drum parts feature regularly, Johnny Cash sings about killing a man in Reno just to watch him die (though not on the demo, as you’ll hear); the album is a trainspotters delight, choc-full of musical refernce points. Even those sacred cows The Beatles get the Beasties treatment. Their late-period catalogue is ransacked and reassembled as ‘The Sounds of Science’. The Back In The USSR jet sound, the crowd noise from the start of the Sgt Peppers album, the Sgt Peppers drums, the oboe and bassline from the start of When I’m 64, the drum track from Abbey Road‘s ‘The End’, the orchestra tuning up at the start of Sgt Peppers, it goes on and on and on and on, all the while the 3 Beastie Boys rapping about Isaac Newton, Galilleo, Muhammed Ali’s ‘Rope A Dope’ boxing technique (which consisted of giving your opponent the opposite of what you lead him to believe he is about to receive) and anything else that comes into their way-too-clever brains….

Now here we go dropping science dropping it all over
Like bumping around the town like when you’re driving a Range Rover
Expanding the horizons and expanding the parameters
Expanding the rhymes of sucker M.C. amateurs
Naugels, Isaac Newton Scientific E.Z.
Ben Franklin with the kite getting over with the key
Rock shocking the mic as many times times the times tables
Rock well to tell dispel all of the old fables
I’ve been dropping the new science and kicking the new knowledge
An M.C. to a degree that you can’t get in college
The dregs of the earth and the eggs that I eat
I’ve got pegs through my hands and one through my feet
Shea Stadium the radium E M D squared
Got kicked out of the Palladium you think that I cared
It’s the sound of science
Public service announcement time and money for girls covered with honey
You lie and aspire to be as cunning
Reeling and rockin’ and rollin’ B size D cup
Order the quarter deluxe why don’t you wake up
My mind is kinda flowin like an oil projector
Had to get up to get the Jimmy protector
Went berserk and worked and exploded
She woke up in the morning and her face was coated
Buddy you study the man on the mic
D. do what you like
Drunk a skunk am I from the celebration
To peep that freak unique penetration
I figured out who makes the crack
It’s the suckers with the badges and the blue jackets
A professor of science cause I keep droppin’ it
I smell weed ’cause ya’ll keep packin’ it
People always asking what’s the phenomenon
Yo what’s up know what’s going on
No one really knows what I’m talking about
Yeah that’s right my name’s Yauch
Ponce De Leon constantly on
The fountain of youth not Robotron
Peace is a word I’ve heard before
So move and move and move upon the dance floor
I’m gonna die gonna die one day
Cause I’m goin and goin and goin this way
Not like a roach or a piece of toast
I’m going out first class not going out coach
Rock my Adidas never rock Fila
*I do not sniff the coke I only smoke sinsemilla*
With my nose I knows and with my scopes I scope
What I live I write and that is strictly rope
I’ve got science for any occasion
Postulating theorems formulating equations
Cheech wizard in a snow blizzard
Eating chicken gizzards with a girl named Lizzy
Dropping science like when Galileo dropped his orange

Clever stuff, huh, although a bit of googling won’t go amiss while you read the above. Here‘s the original LA demo of The Sounds Of Science’.

beastie boys

Here’s some more demos..

Johnny Ryall demo #2 Samples Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney drums, Jean Knight’s Mr Big Stuff and a whole host of stuff I can’t quite place. Elvis, Bob Dylan and Donald Trump are all mentioned in the lyrics.

Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun demo Samples the big piano chord from Pink Floyd’s ‘Time‘, nicks the drums from Ocean’s ‘Put Your Hand In The Hand‘ and some Incredible Bongo Band bongos. The lyrics feature references to Bruce Willis, A Clockwork Orange and Son Of Sam.

Shake Your Rump demo Samples (if you listen carefully and quickly) Led Zeppelin’s Good Times Bad Times drums, lots of Rose Royce’s Carwash (the looped wah wah guitar), some Bob Marley’s ‘Could You Be Loved’ and a million other unheard-by-these-ears 70s funk nuggets. The lyrics make reference to Kangol hats, Fred Flintstone and Pigpen from The Grateful Dead. Nothing if not eclectic.

Egg Man demo liberally steals from Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Superfly‘. Lyrics make reference to Dr Seuss, Cheech and Chong, Cadbury’s Cream Eggs and Public Enemy’s You’re Gonna Get Yours.

Paul’s Boutique has undergone something of a critical reappraisal since it’s initial release. This year saw the release of the 20th Anniversary Edition. Sadly EMI chose not to feature any of the demos that are widely available on t’internet. More fool them. Until they do, enjoy the demos you’ve found here.

BONUS FEATURE!!

paul audio

There’s a fantastic series of books, the 33 1/3 series, where classic albums are untangled and dissected and their mysteries revealed. Paul’s Boutique has been given this treatment not once, but twice –  as a standard book and as an audio book. You can download the audio book free (and legally) here. Whatchawaitinfor?

Cover Versions, entire show, Hard-to-find, Peel Sessions

Tres Bon Ivers

Craig McAllister

That story from the other day (here) about the boy who swapped his iPod for a Walkman for a week had me thinking back to all my old compilation tapes I’ve still got in a box. I used to listen to the John Peel show religiously and sit with my finger poised over the pause button of the cassette deck on my music centre (as they were called, in my house at least, between 1983 and 1990, until CD first came into my life) waiting for something good to pop up inbetween the anarcho-punk, dub reggae, Ivor Cutler and Fall tracks. Nowadays I can appreciate that for the most part, John Peel’s show was all good, but to a 13 year old mad about Adam and The Ants, Crass, Culture and Captain Beefheart were a step too far.

By the end of the 80s I was a dab hand at recording entire Peel Sessions. If I was lucky I’d pause it just before Peel started talking. In hindsight, that was a stupid thing to do. I’d love to know what he said about some of the sessions I taped, but his comments have floated off into the ethers of time. I still have those tapes though…

cassette

The House of Love (“Hey man, the bongos are too loud” – I managed to capture Peel that night!), numerous Wedding Presents, a great Inspiral Carpets session with their original singer that sounded like The Doors and The Teardrop Explodes slugging it out after 17 microdots. And some fantastic Pixies stuff, including their first Peel Session.

pixies bw

You can find out all you need to know about any John Peel session at this indispensable site here. This Pixies one was recorded at Maida Vale 4 on 3rd May 1988 (21 years ago!!!) and broadcast about a week later, the session was notable for a couple of things. Firstly, it sounded fantastic. Pristine recording. Short, short songs. Frank Black screaming his big fat head off. Listening to it now, I can vouch that it still sounds fantastic today. Secondly, the choice of songs the band played was interesting. Two tracks from their recently released ‘Come On Pilgrim’ ep, two cover versions and a track that wouldn’t see the light of day until the ‘Doolittle‘ album.

pixies bar

About 10 years ago, long before file sharing had reached the West of Scotland I bought a Pixies bootleg called ‘Rough Diamonds’. This album has 5 tracks credited to the May 88 session, but my old tape has 4 songs from the session. I either missed their pre-Doolittle version of ‘Hey‘, or that song wasn’t broadcast in the first place. The 5 tracks are:

Hey

Levitate Me

Wild Honey Pie

Caribou

In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song) 

In contrast to the rather daft and throwaway Beatles original, Wild Honey Pie is a full-on Frank Black scream-fest that wouldn’t sound out of place in any Pixies set of original material. In Heaven.. is a cover of a song from David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’. But you knew that already. Have you ever heard Peter Ivers original? Creeeeeeepy. High pitched voice, churchy keyboard and a wind effect at the end. The Pixies do a pretty good job of replicating it, but I think the Flaming Lips would really make this one soar. I’m now off to illegally seek out some Peter Ivers recordings.  Enjoy the session!

peter ivers

I heart Peter Ivers

 

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

I like it, I like it, I la la la like it.

Craig McAllister

Watching Glastonbury from the comfort of my armchair, one band stuck out like a sore thumb. But a good sore thumb. A really good sore thumb. Springsteen? Hmmm. Sure, he’s got the knack of making a hundred thousand people feel like he’s serenading them on a one-to-one basis in the dressing room of King Tuts. Neil Young? Hmmm, yeah, but he does go on a wee bit too long. Just a tiny bit, but a wee bit nonetheless. Long may you run and all that, but c’mon Neil. Blur? Punkpoppogoagogo. Damon All Bran shadow boxing and jogging on the spot. Graham Coxon rolling around on the floor whilst soloing. Yeah, it’s all very 1992. I liked them a lot. But nope. The band that really did it for me were Status Quo. Yep. You read that right first time. Status Quo.

If only for their opening 5 minute salvo, I’d have been delighted to stand in a crowded field full of B.O. and pollen. Had I been there, my fingers would’ve been firmly in my belt loops and I’d’ve been heabanging away like some of those hopelessly embarrasing bald-on-top, long at the back tour t-shirt-wearing accountants-by-day oldies. Status Quo’s opening song sounded so good, I thought it was 1973 again. There’s a slow build up of feedback that Kevin Shield’s would’ve been proud of. Parfitt’s fingers are barred and poised to start chugging out the F-Shape at the 13th fret. As he finds the rhythm and locks the groove, Rossi fades himself in with that instantly recognisable counter riff on his green Tele. The rest of the band get on with the no-nonsense heads-down boogie and we’re off. Come on Sweet Caroline! Take my hand, together we can rock and roll! As that other rock ‘n roller who clearly stole Parfitt n’ Rossi’s patented denim-with-white-trainers look might say, Sen. Say. Shee. Oh. Nal. Aye Liam. You’ve been out rocked and out rolled by a couple of old men in waistcoats and bad hair.

quo

Of course, twas not always thus. Sure, they’ve mostly always had bad hair and often had a penchant for sporting the garishly coloured waistcoat, but back in the 60s, Status Quo were fresh from the Butlins holiday camp circuit and had a ‘The’ at the start of their name. If you’ve ever seen Spinal Tap (and of course you have) The Status Quo were a psychedelic beat combo in much the same vein as that film’s The Thamesmen. Paisley shirts? Check! Wah-wah? Oh yes! Multi-coloured guitars? Absolutely man!

status quo thamesmen

The Status Quo                        The Thamesmen

The Status Quo are amazing. They’re probably best known for Pictures of Matchstick Men, covered by many including most recently Kasabian for a Radio 2 session with Dermot O’Leary. Christ. I hate that band. They’d love to be Primal Scream, wouldn’t they? Anyway, back to The Status Quo. Not ‘The Quo’. That means ‘In The Army Now’ and best-forgotten collaborations with Manchester United. The Status Quo. Ice In The Sun. Another slice of 60s psychedelia. A coupla years later and they’d be slaves to the boogie. Here‘s their version of The Doors ‘Roadhouse Blues’. Guilty as charged, m’lud. For years I never knew this was a cover. When I was 10 I got ‘From the Makers Of…‘ a triple LP Status Quo Box Set from Santa. It’s still in my collection, as is  ‘Picturesque Matchstickabale Memories From The Status Quo’. If you only buy one Status Quo album this year, etc etc….You’ll not find it in Tesco but it’s worth seeking out.

status quo matchstick

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Ripping off Johnny? Off with their heads!

Craig McAllister

Can’t get that new Yeah Yeah Yeahs single out of my head at the moment. ‘Heads Will Roll’ is cracking; hysterical vocals, electro rush and an outrageously shame-faced borrowing of the guitar riff from PIL‘s ‘This Is Not A Love Song’. Where John Lydon sneers, Karen O breathes. Where PIL throbs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs soar. But there’s no denying both are terrific songs, even if one borrows heavily from the other.

pil

The original version of ‘This Is Not A Love Song’ was PIL‘s biggest hit single, reaching number 5 in 1983. A remixed version featuring brass, keyboards and noticeably less guitar was released as a 12″. It was this version that prompted guitarist Keith Levene to leave the band. I don’t know what he’d have made of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (cough) ‘reworking’ of the track – it too is fairly keyboard heavy. But for want of a better phrase, it rocks!

yeahyeahyeahs

I like Karen O, even if she looks like she’s going out as Joey Ramone for Halloween. She’s got the attitude, style and ballsy presence that all my favourite female singers have. I’d never tire of punching those other 2 though. Wimpy poseurs in skinny jeans. Grow up ya couple of fannys. Still. ‘Heads Will Roll’. Great single. In a gazillion different mixes too…

Heads Will Roll (original)

Heads Will Roll (LA Boxers Dub Remix)

Heads Will Roll (Johnny Roxx Remixx)

Heads Will Roll (Foulhouse Remix)

Heads Will Roll (Weird Tapes version)

Heads Will Roll (Emre B remix)

*BONUS TRACK! French artist singing in English cocktail jazz re-working of ‘This Is Not A Love Song’. Covered by Nouvelle Vague. Fact 1. Pete Doherty would give his trilby-hatted skanky head to get this sound on one of his records. Fact 2. Nouvelle Vague’s version of  Love Will Tear Us Apart is one of the most downloaded tracks on Plain Or Pan. Seek and ye shall find. 

Hard-to-find

Inspiring words (a short post)

Craig McAllister

I don’t normally get political on here, but I felt the need to link to this guy’s excellent post on his blog, Curry and a bit of Motown.

Stirring stuff, eloquent and straight to the point.

Here‘s Aretha Franklin‘s full, unedited extended intro version of ‘Chain Of Fools’. Hold tight for more stuff soon…

Cover Versions

Our Friends Eclectic

Craig McAllister

Forever just that one crucial half-step behind the hip and happening, tonight finds Plain Or Pan puffing, panting, gasping and wheezing in order to bring you the most exciting thing I’ve just heard since, oooh, well, the last exciting thing I’ve just heard (that’td be the Danger Mouse album, scroll down a wee bit). Aye. Most of you will no doubt at least have heard of these tracks by now and will possibly have them already. Some of the more astute amongst you may even have actual physical shiny black vinyl copies of a couple of the tracks. If so, bear with me. And do tip me off about such things in future. For the rest of you who pop over here from time to time, I bring you The Dead Weather.

the-dead-weather

Aye. the Dead Weather. An electro-blues based guitar supergroup of sorts. Featuring a Queen of the Stone Age on guitar, a Raconteur/Greenhorne on bass, a Kill on sulky vocals and the multi-talented Jack White on yer drums. A line-up like that could be a catastrophe in the making but no, everything I’ve heard so far sounds just as you’d expect. Distorted vocals. Crunching riffs. Stops. Starts. Squealy bits. To compare The Dead Weather to that drummer’s other 2 bands would be folly. The White Stripes? Bluesy, loud, fantastic, but the drummer cannae  play for toffee. The Raconteurs? They’ve taken their history classes in classic guitar rock, filtered out the worst excesses and passed the test with flying colours. And a decent drummer. Kick out the jams and all that. The Dead Weather? Aye. All of the above and more. They sound NOW!, not retro. These tracks have all been floating around cyberspace for a wee while now, but the versions below are the best quality mp3s around.

Hang You From The Heavens (First singe. Track 1 on Horehound)

Are Friends Electric? (b-side to single. Gary Numan/Tubeway Army cover)

Treat Me Like Your Mother (track 2 on Horehound, out July 14th)

They’re all fantastic, but on first listens alone, Treat Me Like Your Mother makes it straight into my Best of The Year compilation that I pass out to friends every Christmas. A duet of sorts ‘tween singer n’ drummer, it sounds like Led Zeppelin battling it out with PJ Harvey. It’s that good. “M.A.N.I.P. Yooolate!” If I had it on vinyl, it’d be worn down to the thickness of a flexi-disc by now. As I don’t, the only only other thing that’s puffing, panting, gasping and wheezing round here is Windows Media Player. Even it’s not fed up of The Dead Weather yet. Unlike that Danger Mouse album, if truth be told (!)

the-dead-weather-music-video

Cover Versions, demo, Hard-to-find

Can Gone Congo! Total Jungle Funk, Man!

Craig McAllister

 

 Hey! Hey! Hey! A-Hey! Hey! Hey! You’re twistin’ my melon, man! You know you talk so hip man, you’re twistin’ my melon, man! Call The Cops!

And with that carefully chosen piece of garbled nonsense Shaun Ryder, the thinking man’s Poet Laureate, put his band the Happy Mondays and a whole host of shuffly drummered 3rd rate copyists into the mainstream where they set up camp in Nedville for every Joe Bloggsed-up ned, bam and ‘yeah but no but yeah but right but’ wee hairy to claim them as their very own. Not that us music snobs were in anyway put out of course.

john kongos

Yer real actual music fans could tell you that “Step On was a cover, actually“, by the wonderfully named John Kongos. Sounds a bit like Congo, doesn’t it? Which is fairly appropriate, as his original version is a thumping tribal chant of a record. With a brilliant guitar riff. Replicated note for twanging note by Horse, yer Mondays tragically under-rated natty hat-wearing guitar player. Much like the Sex Pistols and Glen Matlock, the rest of the band hated him. He didn’t play in any of the comeback gigs. There’s yer problem right there, reformed Happy Mondays.

happy mondays

South African-born Kongos was also responsible for giving the Mondays another hit in the form of Tokoloshe Man. The original features a bluesy, swampy guitar riff and more tribal drumming a la He’s Gonna Step On You Again. The cover is pretty faithfull, although the Ryder brothers have flung a big bucket of Salford grime, muck and scuzz all over their clattering industrial funk and most of it’s stuck.  Paul Oakenfold does his best to polish it up, but it’s not too glossy. A perfect example of (gads) late 80s/early 90s indie-dance, in other words.

Johnny Wakelin

The 2 John Kongos tracks really remind me of In Zaire. The 1976 original was by Johnny Wakelin. Written about the Ali-Foreman 1974 Rumble In The Jungle boxing match, it has since been recorded by numerous no-mark disco artists. When I first started going to discos as an under-ager, In Zaire was regulalry played. I loved it. Johnny Wakelin’s version is the best. Chanting, repetitive riffs, tribalism again, it’s like Can gone Congo. Total jungle funk, man! 

Bonus tracks!

Happy Mondays – Step On (Stuff It In mix)

Happy Mondays – Bring a Friend (Bummed album demo)