Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Totally Wired: Postpunk Interviews and Overviews by Simon Reynolds (Soft Skull Press 2009)
Monday, July 07, 2014
Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s by Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein (Abrams Books 2014)
Sunday, May 05, 2013
Bedsit Disco Queen: How I grew up and tried to be a pop star by Tracey Thorn (Virago Press 2013)
Friday, November 02, 2012
Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division by Peter Hook (Simon & Schuster 2012)
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 12
Don't ask me why, but I've always been very much taken by the artwork for the 1981 Au Pairs album, 'Playing With A Different Sex':
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Head-on: Memories of the Liverpool Punk Scene and the Story of the "Teardrop Explodes", 1976-82 by Julian Cope (Thorsons 1994)
A bunch of guys I'd seen loads were going crazy about Subway Sect. Actually, most of them were standing looking at just this one guy, who was going crazy on his own. This guy was a bit of a loudmouth. I'd noticed him in Probe before. But his face was so animated, I stood and gazed at him. He wore a black leather jacket and black combat pants. He had a Clash T-shirt under the jacket, which was zipped halfway. His hair was a natural black and gelled into a boyish quiff. In fact, everything about him was boyish. He was the most enthusiastic person I had ever seen. Beautiful. On his leather was a home-made badge. It said: "Rebel Without a Degree".
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
The Mo-Dettes - White Mice - Rare Video
You can keep your big budget glossy vidoes. Nothing beats the scratchy, cheap looking performance videos from the late seventies and the early eighties. The more amateurish the better.
One of my favourite singles from the post-punk era. If this song isn't on your post-punk compilation then you have to send that rar file back to rapidshare.
File this video next to Josef K's 'Sorry For Laughing', Orange Juice's 'Rip It Up' , and The Jam's 'Going Underground'.
PS - have to be polite and cut and paste the blurb from YouTube:
RARE - possibly unique! Shot in the primitive studio at the London College of Printing in 1979 - with Ian H at the video colourizer controls... All I have left is this dodgy quality VHS - so, with apologies for that, sit back and enjoy one of the most under-rated bands of the 80s... All hail the Mo-Dettes... Remember - No girl likes to love a wimp..."
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Saved by the bell . . . that was a cup . . . until it was struck
Temporarily stopped myself from checking out early Talking Heads by listening to old Wire again.
It was the right decision.
1:17 am
Strange one that.
Ten minutes ago, I'm bemoaning the fact that The Flowers don't get the music blog mentions that they deserve, and then I go and stumble across this old post from the music blog, Egg City Radio, which features two excellent Flowers tracks from the compilation, 'Fast Product: Mutant Pop 78/79'.
A compilation album that was put together for the American market, it also featured early tracks from such bands as the Human League, Scars, The Mekons and the Gang of Four. Yeah, you'll think you've already got the tracks from the more famous bands featured but, in many cases, they're different versions from the ones that we all know and love.
And with regards to The Flowers, I get the blogger's Au Pairs comparison, but if you listen to their brilliant track, 'After Dark', you can't help but hear early PJ Harvey. I've got a sneaking suspicion that I've mentioned that about 17 times on the blog now.
More info on Fast Product and other related Bob Last stuff over here.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Revisiting Pop and Politics
Belatedly realised that the post on the punk band Crisis doesn't really qualify as an "obscure factoid". Must try harder. Don't wish to be seen to be corrupting the purity of the series. (Bear with me, I'm babbling.)
Just thought it was a funny wee story and I also think that Crisis were an excellent band who deserve a wider audience. The four and a half (aye, Kara, you're the half) dedicated readers of this blog could make all the difference in them being discovered by a new generation. There's an excellent fan page for Crisis over here and be sure to check out a MySpace page dedicated to them.
Surprised that they don't get more plaudits from the usual suspects. There's only so many articles one can write about Crass or Zounds before it all gets a bit stale. Punks not dead: It's just a bit musty.
Mixing Pop and Politics (7)
Obscure Factoid of the Day
OK, I know that with this post I'm stretching the whole theme of 'mixing pop and politics' a tad but I do love this anecdote about the late seventies punk band, Crisis, that I spotted on the excellent 'Always Searching For Music' music blog:
"I can still remember when one of their protest songs nearly got their drummer Luke Rendall (also played with Theatre of Hate) into trouble. One of Crisis onstage favourites was a track called SPG, which for those of you who can remember was the abbreviated name for the Special Patrol Group (a controversial unit of the metropolitan police force of which in 1979 became notorious for the alleged murder of protester Blair Peach. In the inquiry the SPG officers were found to have weaponry such as Baseball bats, sledgehammers and crowbars - No SPG officer was convicted but an out of court payment was made to the Peach Family, the SPG were also cited as a major factor in the 1981 Brixton riots)The SPG often hassled punks (and I guess anyone young), I can personally remember a number of occasions where they were over the top and over aggressive for no real reasons.So they had a reputation that you didn't muck around with.
Luke was wearing the Crisis SPG badge (see scan) when we were pulled up by the actual SPG. They looked at Luke's badge and said "Whats this then".
Luke replied "I'm in a band and it's a song about the SPG"
The SPG officer said "oh, what's it all about then"
Luke stood their silently thinking "Oh shit, the chorus is "smash, smash, smash the SPG (something like that I'm struggling to remember now)"
then replied "It's an instrumental"
Check out the links above if you want to hear some *samples* of Crisis. Excellent stuff. 'White Youth' is especially fine.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Music Matters
The usual drill: sprinkle in a few hat tips to where politics and popular music try and intersect; mention a couple of obscure bands - the more dated the better - to make me seem more interesting by association; link to incredibly popular music blogs so that they might notice me for ten seconds; and a mention of the Scotland football team and their date with glorious failure this coming Saturday:
"Jesus wept -- I'm 54.": So said Andy Partridge. Last Sunday saw Mr P's unhappy birthday and another excellent song installment from the XTC Myspace page. This week the 1978 single, 'This Is Pop', comes under scrutinisation.
And I totally get where Andy P. is coming from with regards to the similarities between 50s Skiffle and Punk: what were the TV Personalities, if not a punk version of Lonnie Donegan Xs 2?Not Enough Protest Songs: Brilliant post over at The Gaping Silence blog, where Phil dissects the lyrics of the Dexy's classic, 'There There, My Dear'. I must have listened to that song hundreds of times over the years, but it was only now that I've read Phil's post that I finally get what Kevin Rowland was singing in the second verse. Yep the lyrics are two-parts bonkers to one-part brilliance but I'll always have a soft spot for the couplet: Robin, you’re always so happy, how the hell?That rabbit punch will never get old.
You’re like a dumb, dumb patriot.Nothing But Protest Songs: One of the best protest 'singers' out there at the moment bar none is The Coup's Boots Riley. The latest issue of the CPGB/Weekly Worker's student freesheet, 'Communist Student', has an interesting article by John Jo Sidwell on the music, politics and history of The Coup. (The article is on page 2 of the PDF linked.)
Also, check out the story about the original artwork for the cover of The Coup's 2001 album, 'Party Music', and wonder what might have been.The Truth Can Often Be Painful: A sensitive and thoughtful post over at Vinyl Villain about Edwyn Collins and his recent rehabilitation from the life threatening cerebral hemorrhage that struck him down in 2005. With regards to the Artworks Scotland programme on Collins that is mentioned in the post, I downloaded it a few months back via UK Nova, but I've yet to watch it. I'm not sure if I could handle the uneasiness of watching someone so literate and witty picking the pieces of his life up after such a tragedy. Busted Noses and Bruised Dreams: Is it just me or does the young raffish Pete Wylie look like Steve Bruce in this old Top of the Pops clip? Cheers to Danny over at the Socialist Unity Blog comments box - getting mighty crowded there these days - for the hat tip about the YouTube clip.
Pete Wylie really is/was a legend of sorts . . . or at least that's what it says on his website. And spare a thought for Steve Bruce. He's never going to get the Old Trafford gig (Mark Hughes and Roy Keane are ahead of him in the 'old boy to succeed Fergie stakes'), and he's currently caught in a tug-of-war between a midget jazz mag merchant and a union busting and price gouging scumbag. He should have stayed at Selhurst Park under the watchful gaze of tangerine man.Recommended Music Blog of The Moment Too much unused disk space cluttering up your hard drive? Then head over to Rho-Xs and catch your jaw before it hits the floor. Take the excellent Not Rock On, and turn it up to 11: Rho-Xs is that good.
Latest post on the blog covers 1984 albums by the Eurythmics, Art of Noise and Felt. Granted, those albums don't really float my boat. (Felt, for fucks sake. Indie kids across the bedrooms of suburbia are wetting themselves as I write.), but the blog covers everything from early eighties Belgian post-punk to New York electro to Jamaican dub to "hiphop flamenkillo" from Barcelona. It sounds like an explosion in a John Peel factory.'The album currently claiming squatting rights on iTunes': It was via Rho-Xs - by way of the 5P music blog - that I recently discovered the brilliant early eighties album, 'A Thin Red Line', by Edinburgh Post-Punksters TV21. To be honest - to paraphrase Renee Zellweger's character in 'Jerry Maguire' - they got me at (pre-maturely) naming their album after what should have been the title of the Crump/Rubel eighties classic.
I don't get it - how was it that they didn't even dent the lower reaches of the charts or the left-side of my musical consciousness? We're not talking about one of those infamous lost bands from music's murky past who recorded one single in some backwater back in '78, only to break up with bitter recriminations after the single got played on John Peel twice. According to the blurb on the Rho-Xs blog:"TV 21 had been always in good company during their brief time together as a band. Teardrop Explodes' Troy Tate produced their first two independent singles. The 1981 album, "A Thin Red Line," was produced by Ian Broudie of the Original Mirrors and later Lightning Seeds. Mike Scott of the Waterboys and Pete Wylie from Wah! make appearances on their lp .They toured with the Undertones and were the opening act for the Rolling Stones for the Scottish dates of their 1982 European tour."
See what I mean? Look at the names cited. Troy Tate also did the original production work on The Smiths debut album*. Mike Scott is proof needed that I'm not so secularist that I can't tap my toe to tunes from a mystic gobshite, and that man Wylie again. Only a bona fide legend turns up in the unlikeliest of places - and twice in the space of a post on this blog to boot.
Bit of a happy ending of sorts out of the saddest of circumstances. The band reformed in 2005 to play a gig in appreciation of the legacy of the late John Peel, and decided to carry on from there.
When in doubt reach for MySpace, where there is a canny page for the band. Check out the reworking/re-recording of 'Something's Wrong' that was on 'A Thin Red Line'. It's as good as the original. And the other new songs on the page that have been uploaded carry themselves off with aplomb. Think The Silencers meet late XTC. I might see you other there. I'll be the one gushing over the track, 'When I Scream'.“Messieurs et Mesdames, Les Ecars…”: OK, sample track of the day. Stick with Edinburgh, stick with early eighties post-punk, and stick with the theme of 'why the hell weren't they more famous?'
And that's despite being smothered with suchprosepraise as:[they] . . . epitomise the post-punk new seriousness that has radically re-activated pop music, destroying the dichotomy between intelligence and emotion and confronting a whole range of different fears and desires. New pop that treats the transient thrill seriously." [Could only be this bloke in the pages of the NME.]
. . . the Scars were another Edinburgh band who never made it big. (In retrospect, Josef K seem like superstars by comparison.) Curious as to why they never made their mark. They had the scratchy post-punk guitars that weren't fooling anyone - they could play their instruments. They had the kudos of releasing a single on the Fast Product record label. For a Scottish band they were surprisingly good looking, which probably helped them get their pasty faces in the pages of Smash Hits, but to no avail.
Arguing from a position of splendid blogging ignorance, maybe being signed to the record label that they were didn't exactly help. Don't be fooled by the 'Pre' record label. It was a subsidiary of Charisma; the home to the likes of Genesis, Peter Hammill and RD Laing. I'd hazard a guess that the Scars were the token punk/post-punk/no wave/new wave band for the label. Well, them and Delta 5, and the record label probably didn't know what the hell to do with them.
And what was the deal with the Scars naming their only album after what was to be one of the worst films of Al Pacino's career? Sorry a misprint, I meant this sorry excuse of a film. They were just inviting indifference.
Back to why I think should check out the Scars. Think of a post-punk ménage à trois between The Sound souped up, Josef K and early Wire playing songs that lasted longer one and half minutes, and you get some sense of their musical lovechild that may or may not have resembled the Scars' 'Author! Author!' album.
The songs that everyone talks about from the album are 'Your Attention Please' and 'All About You', which are both fine songs but I have an especial soft spot for this track:'Lady In The Car With Glasses On And A Gun' mp3
The title of the song suggests it should have been on last The Long Blondes album, but it is in fact the best Josef K song, Franz Ferdinand, Radio 4 and Josef K never wrote. By comparing the sound to Josef K, I'm not accusing the Scars of being copyists. Just trying to bring home to you how good this track is. You should *sample* it now.Progress Report On The Ongoing Attempt To Upgrade The Blog Into A Music Blog 'Fraid it's not going as well as planned. The expanded sidebar, with the new music blog section, only helped to hit home to me how many good bona fide mp3 music blogs there are out there. My attempts at foisting my record collection on an unsuspecting desktop population is rightfully getting lost in the goldrush.
Also, it doesn't really help that for all after the obscure stuff I've posted on these pages, the mp3 that keeps getting hit upon again and again is John Gordon Sinclair singing 'We Have Dream'.
Aye, it's the best football song ever committed to vinyl but what happens to the blog come Saturday night? The Italians are going to get the result they need, and Scottish people living in Amersham and Leyton Buzzard will no longer be stumbling across my blog via a google search for that 1982 BA Robertson song.
Who can honestly contemplate another scenario at Hampden? And what's worse, if he's playing Saturday, it's guaranteed that Italian defensive midfielder, Rino Gattuso, will score with a goal of such sweet majesty that it will make Messi's goal against Getafe look like a tap in.
Gattuso will leave the pitch with Archie McPherson's knitted saltire wrapped around his shoulders and with tears in his eyes, will warmly embrace a watching Walter Smith whose been sitting in the stands, and in the post-match interview he'll insist that he still has plans to return to Glasgow and Rangers.
And I'll be left with posting sad bastard tunes by the likes of Smog, the Red House Painters and Arab Strap for the next six months. I may as well jump under a bus right now and get it over and done with.
*His production work was scrapped, and John Porter ended up producing the best album of 1984.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Skinny Ties and Jean Jaures Shoes
Morphing Into A Music Blog (1)
A recommended 'on this day in post-punk history' blog, The Post Punk Progressive Pop Party, is my new daily must read.
A labour of love, where someone does all the labour, and I can supply the love and admiration from afar, it's for all of us who wanted our Simon Reynolds 'Rip It Up And Start Again' in digestible bite size chunks. (I came away from that book as 1 Angry Man, mimicing Henry Fonda, with Devo & Pere Ubu placed on trial . . . Cleveland was going down for a 25 stretch.)
Love the wee snippets of history, and my misbegotten nostalgia is kicking into overdrive with the record sleeves lovingly uploaded but come on lads, where's the mp3s for sampling purposes? Grainy YouTube clips are vastly overrated unless it's for a lost classic that you foolishly passed onto some smirking wanker in Notting Hill Gate's Record and Music Exchange about 9 years ago for the price of a hot bagel and butter. (The wanker rubbed salted butter into the wounds by immediately playing the CD on the shop's sound system at full blast. Never found that track again on vinyl, Cd or mp3.)
That blog is just screaming out for its daily posts to be piggybacked with mp3s placed on this blog . . . for sampling purposes, of course . . . but I'll leave it for now.
In the meantime, a few links to posts of interest from the blog:
Wah! - The Story Of The Blues The Jam - This Is The Modern World M - Pop Musik Theatre Of Hate - Original Sin The Pretenders - I Go To Sleep ABC - Tears Are Not Enough Heaven 17 - Let Me Go A Flock Of Seagulls - Wishing (I Had A Photograph Of You) The Associates - The Affectionate Punch The Undertones - Teenage Kicks The Ramones - The Ramones Lene Lovich - A New Toy
Beats Dead Socialist Watch any day of the week.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Fast Forwarding Through The Adverts
As their recent bulletin that I reposted on the blog indicates, Robert and Piers over at the SPGB page on MySpace have been good enough to repost Danny V's excellent article, Punk Rock's Silver Jubilee, on their blog.
I've posted the article myself a few times on the Socialist Standard page on MySpace but Robert and Piers, being more savvy than myself, have also had the good sense to break up the text with YouTube clips from such groups as X-Ray Spex, Sex Pistols, The Clash and Crass. One of their regular commentators on the page has also chipped in with the addition of a playlist of some of the songs mentioned in the article as a comment. (Nice Devoto version of 'Orgasm Addict', by the way.)
Therefore, just like the bloke you knew at school who always got into stuff the day after everybody else had moved on to something else (I was that bloke - how was I to know that the SPGB legwarmers were out of fashion in 1986? I didn't get the bastard memo.), I thought I'd get in on the act fashionably late by posting a couple of mp3s on the blog from some of the bands mentioned in the article.
As Piers, Robert and Terry have mostly focused on the early punk stuff, I thought I'd chime in with some post-punk material. It also saves me having to come up with a plausible explanation as to why Danny V's can love The Adverts so much, but can't bring himself to mention The Undertones in the article.
The mp3s are just for sampling purposes, and I'll only have them up for a few days. I urge you to check out the albums of the bands featured. All good stuff, and you can always take out a subscription to the Socialist Standard at the same time that you're buying the back catalogues of the featured artists on Amazon:
Au Pairs - 'Dear John' (John Peel Session) mp3 Delta 5 - 'Mind Your Own Business' mp3 Kleenex - 'Nighttoad' mp3 The Flowers - 'After Dark' mp3
The Au Pairs' track is from their 1980 Peel Session. Delta 5's 'Mind Your Own Business' was released in '79 by Rough Trade, and Kleenex - otherwise known as Liliput - were a post-punk band from Switzerland. I'm not sure when 'Nighttoad' was originally released, as I found the track on a compilation album. I'm guessing it dates from round about '78/'79.
I'll put my hands up to cheating with the last track included. Danny V doesn't mention The Flowers in his article, but I have enough faith in him that if he had known about them at the time, he would have given them a namecheck in the article.
Sadly, not a lot is known about The Flowers but what I do know is that they were from Scotland and signed to Bob Last's Fast Product label. Some of their early tracks are featured on the first Earcom compilation.
The featured track, 'After Dark', was originally released as a b-side to the single 'Confessions' in '79, but this version is from the Mutant Pop compilation that was released in 1980. A compilation which also featured The Mekons, Human League and the Gang of Four.
I personally think the song is a lost classic of the post-punk era, but maybe it wasn't lost to everyone. I can't help hearing traces of 'After Dark' in the PJ Harvey track, 'Dress', from her 1992 album, Dry. Maybe it's just me.