I don't want to dwell on Black Box too much, but have a gander at the top ten British singles the week St Mirren beat Celtic 1-0 at Love Street back in '89
And some people wonder why I battened down the musical hatches in 1981 and have refused to come back up ever since.
Not enough of you click on the links of the music blogs placed under the Thank You For The Music banner, so a very quick intro to a few of the blogs listed:
Walk Out To Winter - The name of the blog is a giveway. A music blog recently established which is a hymn to singles dating from - but not exclusive to - the period 1978 to 1983. If your musical tastes are for early goth, post-punk and the burgeoning indie scene from that time then this a blog you have to bookmark. I'm guessing the blogger is basically going through their record collection. High Fidelity for the Zig Zag magazine generation. Consolation Prizes - CP overlaps a bit with WOTW but moves on a few more years and is more rooted in C86 indie pop. The sub-heading marks itself down as dedicated to "guitar pop/indiepop/neo-acoustic/wimp pop/powerpop punk/new wave/post-punk/pre-punk" and, like WOTW again, focuses primarily on singles. A lot of material isn't to my taste but a lot of the bands are new to me. This blog is very much a wee brother to the long established music blog, Take The Pills, which comes out of Brazil, and earned extra brownie points for introducing me to this superb Martin Newell single from 1980 that I hadn't previously come across before. Moody Places - And it's three in a row for excellent 7" music blogs. I say 7" but Moody Places operating out of Belfast is firmly rooted in the period of the CD single and the multi formatting rip off that we all came to learn to hate in the early 90s. Very much the indie pop kid but his musical tastes are much too eclectic to simply be pigeon-holed as a Brit Pop music blogger. One of the few music bloggers out there who shares my affection for the criminally underrated Diesel Park West. Also check out his sister blog, Grand Passion, which throws up cover version compilations arranged around a particular theme, season or year and can be either 'interesting', left-field or execrable . . . and sometimes all three within the same track if it involves either the Wonder Stuff, Kingmaker or Jesus Jones. The Post-Punk Progressive Pop Party - Also known as 5P round my way and old favourite that's been mentioned many a time on the blog previously. Still the best place to go on the music blog circle if you're trying to locate dates of releases, record sleeves or *cough* mp3s from the 1978-1984 period. The perfect companion to Simon Reynolds post-punk primer, Rip It Up and Start Again. Jangle Pop Boutique - Arguably the most obscure of the music blogs mentioned, Jangle Pop Boutique comes from the same mystery music blogger who brought us the excellent Best Kept Secrets blog. Another love letter to obscure jangle pop from the mid-80s period. Bands so obscure that Andy Strickland didn't even namecheck most of them in the sadly defunct Record Mirror back in the day (Though Strickland's Caretaker Race does get a mention on the blog.) With obscure band after obscure band featured on the blog it highlights from that time what was almost a throwback to the punk period with the recurring scenario of four blokes with the same fringe shambling together for the duration of a couple of singles and a feature on a indie compilation record -print run of 500 - only to drift apart in the direction they originally came from. Most of these blokes now have receding hairlines and are now either working in IT or teaching Maths in educational establishments well placed in the school league tables year on year. Take a chance on a music blog who's most famous featured bands are McCarthy, The Close Lobsters and The Boy Hairdressers.
Happy hunting, and feel free to also check out this old post from the blog which very much goes over the same old ground with the same jokes, phraseology and writing everything in threes.
I'm an old blogging dog and I have no new tricks.
Disclaimer Time
This post was written in haste, with no recourse to revision, re-reading or reflection. The typos, spelling mistakes and alliterations are part and parcel of the post and in keeping with the spirit of the music under discussion. Now I'll shamble off in the direction of the kitchen for a cup of tea.
'Another Girl, Another Planet' is so fucking overrated.
Granted, it's a good song, but in no way does is it qualify as great. It's nothing more than the bastard cousin of Richard Hell doing the guest vocals on a Motors song.
It's taken me 15 years to pluck up the courage to voice that opinion out loud. Even know, I expect Pitchfork to turn up at the front door with the . . . erm, pitchforks. Knowing my luck, Peter Perrett will break a guitar string tomorrow and his fan base will hunt me down via google alert.
Someone disagrees. That person needs to put on a loud shirt and listen to Wham!'s debut album.
File this post under 'An iTunes Shuffle Epiphany'.
A quick word to all the music bloggers out there:
Please stop posting links to - what looks like brilliant - Spotify playlists when you know that some of us are turned away from the door because of our country of residence.
Step forward the latest culprit, Indiefy.co.uk. You're killing me, people.
Remember the other day when you grabbed the sleeve of my cream coloured cable knit sweater and insisted that you needed to know everything, EVERYTHING (you were shouting at the time . . . caused quite a scene in the condiments section of the Oak and the Iris) about Nick Heyward and Haircut 100?
Well, I had a word and Saltyka has come up trumps. So exhaustive are the trumps (eh?) that there is an A side AND a B side.
And there was you thinking that I was going to title the post 'Kingsize'. Keep whistling in the wind whilst I grab my dark brown corduroy jacket.
I'd forgotten how great 'Against Nature' is.
Bought it at the time. Loved it at the time. Still taking the bus.
I know: the picture on the left could be the East Village 2008, but it is in fact St Albans circa 1975.
The members of Wire at this point in time were still mixing their paints at Watford Art College . . . The Undertones weren't to play the Hemel Hempstead Pavillion for another eight years so, for one brief moment, power pop/new wave/proto punk (delete as appropriate) in Hertfordshire had its moment in the sun in St Albans. Squeeze supporting Curved Air. (Wasn't that Stewart Copeland's first band?)
Is it that obvious that I've been listening to the Frank Cottrell-Boyce's One Chord Wonders radio plays?
The pic comes via the excellent Packet Of Three website, which is dedicated to all things Squeeze-like, and which I have duly added to the 'Fill Your Head With Culture' sidebar. That's all. Just saw the pic and wanted to bring it to blogging light.
"A future morning at 4:50 the F Train took her rather nifty . . . ". I never can remember the rest of the lyrics.
I haven't posted an mp3 (for sampling purposes) in a while, but this one caught my ear when I stumbled across it recently:
Charli Baltimore - 'Lose It' mp3
Philadelphia rapper Charli Baltimore, working with Producer Scott Storch, samples Yaz(oo)'s 1982 US dance number one, 'Situation', for a radical reworking of what was Alf and Vince's biggest hit Stateside.
RED ALERT: The lyrics are a bit risque. (Put it this way; I can't see Alison Moyet doing a cover of the 'cover') but, for all that, it's still a hundred times better than the recent Hercules And Love Affair remix of 'Situation' on the Reconnected EP and, I'm guessing, that this is the toned down PG version of the track.
Brilliant music blog find via the 5P blog, and it does exactly what it says on the tin lid:
"Dedicated to the songwriting of Paddy McAloon.
In this blog I have attempted to create an overview of Paddy's work outside of the currently available material of Prefab Sprout and also covers of his songs by other artists." [From Tin Can Pot blog.]
Paddy McAloon has to be one of the best songwriters of the last 25 years. What happened to all those unreleased albums that he'd said he recorded years ago? Some of us are still waiting.
Posts/tracks that caught my eye in this dedicated blog include:
Radio Love - The B side to Prefab Sprout's 1983 single, 'Lions In My Own Garden(Exit Someone)'. Naturally enough, God is mentioned in the lyrics but what is surprising is that though it wouldn't have sounded out of place on the Sprout's debut album, Swoon, the song comes across as much more polished than any track from that particular album. Why was it hidden away as a b side? Kylie Minogue's cover version of 'If You Don't Love Me'. Though I still prefer the original - I think it's one of Prefab Sprout's most underrated songs - I still have a lot of time for this cover version. Sounds brilliant just stripped down to piano and vocals. Just a shame that, just like Kylie, it's too short. 'Rebel Land' from a 1985 John Peel session. Prefab Sprout did a Peel Session? Now that I think about, I guess it makes sense. Signed to Kitchenware Records and with tracks like 'The Devil Has All The Best Tunes', they always had that element of left fieldism to their music, but I first heard them on Radio 2 when Radio 2 was still, erm, Radio 2 . . . Jimmy Young, Pete Murray and a Pre-ironic Terry Wogan. Why the hell I was listening to Radio 2 at the age of 12 I have no idea, and why the hell 'Don't Sing' was put on the Radio 2 playlist leaves me puzzled - Paddy McAloon's musical reworking of Graham Greene's 'The Power and the Glory' - but whatever the case, it meant that I got into Prefab Sprout from the get go. PS - Loved to hear the 1985 Peel Session version of 'Cars and Girls'. The Editors are now 2 for 2 in my book. Couple of years back they did a more than respectable cover version of REM's 'Orange Crush', and they've come up trumps again with their version of 'Bonny', from Prefab Sprout's sophomore album, Steve McQueen. If only the Editors would give up the songwriting lark, there's a decent pub covers band hiding inside them. Lisa Stansfield singing 'When Love Comes Down' is more a curio than a recommendation. She recorded it for a 2005 album but it sounds incredibly dated. Sort of track that AVPS Phil usually recommends as his fav (old) track of the week on his blog. Must be the first time I've heard a Lisa Stansfield track in about 15 years. I preferred her on Razzamattaz.
Check out the blog. Twenty years from now there'll be a National Holiday on Paddy McAloon's birthday.
Best Kept Secrets has just posted Easterhouse's 1986 debut album, Contenders, on their blog.
And yes the track, 'Lenin in Zurich', is as intriguing as its title suggests. The final track on the album, 'Johnny I Hardly Knew You', has Andy Perry doing his best Scott Walker impersonation.
Scott Walker in Easterhouse. How's that for a family in-joke?
The music mag, Zig Zag, passed me by as a pop kid.
I've got a sense that I was maybe too young when it was in its heyday. I'm sure I saw it on the shelf at the local newsagents but I think at that point (in the early eighties) it was too much of a goth magazine for my liking. I want to say I once bought a copy because there was a featured article on Marc and the Mambas on the front cover but that might just be false muso syndrome.
This yabbering is just my way of leading into the fact that it's such a pleasure that Highlander over at Cactus Mouth Informer is continuing to post old articles from Zig Zag on his blog. It's such a simple but brilliantly effective blogging idea. Why isn't there a legion of music bloggers out there scanning in their old NMEs' or Melody Makers'? What's the point of posting out of print classic albums from '79 if all you're posting alongside is yet another cut and paste from Trouser Press? How are you supposed to get the scent of sweat, idealism and bullshit in your nostrils if you can't read the half-manifesto, half-monomania from the lead singers concerned when they were releasing the albums?
Whilst I'm on a mini-rant - waiting for the kettle to boil brings that out in me - what about the political bloggers scanning in their old Subversions or Now That's What I Call Marxist? I'm usually not the biggest fan of reading PDF's on the net but surely the old political and musical inkies are prime candidates for rediscovery in their original format? I think it shows that the internet and blogging is still largely in its infancy. But that might just be me throwing my toys out of my play pen because I want to read old Sounds articles about Blue Rondo A La Turk that date from 1981.
Rant over. Kettle boiled. Tea masking. And back to H's excellent series over at his blog. A recent post in his series is a three page article on Theatre of Hate from October 1981. (Featuring an incredibly young Billy Duffy.) Never really got Kirk Brandon and the devotion that he's known to inspire. The music is a bit to clangy, the lyrical sentiments a bit too earnest and po-faced despite their obvious sincerity and I still can't delete from my memory bank an image of him sitting and smiling with Vera Lynn that dates from a mid-eighties issue of Record Mirror. It was the stuff of nightmares. Oh, and Then Jericho stole Kirk's blueprint anyway and just added some nice v-necked jumpers into the pop mix.
The latest Zig Zag article featured on the blog is a two page Simple Minds article that dates from 1981. You know, when they were still brilliant.
Here's some articles from Zig Zag that caught the eye:
Nice interview with John Peel from the October 1983 issue. 'fraid I was never a Peelite, Too much of a pop kid, I guess. Too busy watching shite tv from 10pm-12pm Monday thru' Thursday. Whatever the reason, it was my loss. From the same issue a three page spread on the Cocteau Twins. I was a pop kid but that didn't stop me buying the Cocteau Twins 'Pearly Dewdrops Drop' and This Mortal Coil's 'Song To The Siren'. Beautiful, beautiful songs and for some of us born too late, Elizabeth Fraser was our Claire Grogan. What can one say about the excellence that was the Cocteau Twins? I think Harry Lauder expressed it best in the Ealing Comedy classic, 'The Third Ned': "Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Grangemouth for 30 years under a Labour Council they had cronyism, terror, murder, packed meetings, bogus town twinnings and bloodshed, but they produced Gordon Legge, Isla St Clair, and the Cocteau Twins. In Nottingham they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? Paper Lace."I still think that Jarvis Cocker, Noel Gallagher and Billy Bragg are the three most entertaining interviews in pop music. Back in November 1983, Jarvis Cocker was kept in a state of perpetual fear that the 1967 unsold copies of Pulp's debut album on top of his wardrobe might cascade down one night and suffocate him. Noel Gallagher was having an epiphany in a sitting room in Manchester whilst watching The Smiths perform 'This Charming Man' on Top of the Pops for the first time but Billy Bragg was sticking out like a sore thumb in a Zig Zag issue that also featured King Kurt, Death Cult and Lords of the New Church, with a four page feature to support his debut solo album, Life's a Riot with Spy Vs Spy.
What with it being 1983, the Billy featured is not so political but the army experience is mentioned and there's also the details of him recently playing the Futurama festival which, 25 years later, only conjures up images of an indie Spinal Tap for this reader. By the by, I've mentioned the Billy Bragg podcasts approvingly on the blog before and I'm happy to do so again. The podcast, 'PJ to top of the indie charts', covers the same period featured in the Zig Zag interview.The November '83 issue also carries an interview with Mark E Smith. Marc Riley has just left the band; Smith makes a casual reference to once held left-wing beliefs that I never knew he held; and, spotted through the interview, are references to Smith's new wife, Brix. Minor pop stardom was just round the corner. If late '83 showed us a Billy Bragg who was yet to be party political, the same period shows a Mark E Smith who had yet to get the crusty curmudgeon persona down pat. For all his personal make up, the bloke comes across as genuinely happy. Strange one.
That's the articles that caught my eye, but if the word 'Batcave' means anything to you, there's enough stuff in this very link to keep you happy between now and the start of the football season.
The 5P music blog brings the blogosphere news of why July 3rd, 1982 was the most important day in the history of eighties:
Best album of the eighties reached its rightful place. Best number one single of the eighties drove a welcome wedge between Stevie Wonder (with Macca) and Survivor stateside.
On the same day, a Norwich band by the name of The Happy Few did a Peel Session - which you can hear here - and I thought I was Eder* when kicking a ball six hours a day . . . and I probably needed my haircut.
A day late but that don't matter: what the hell ever happens on July 4th anyway?
Footnote
*July 3rd 1982 was the day after Brazil had dismantled Argentina 3-1, to put the holders out of the World Cup. July 5th was still to come.
Quick one.
NM over at Castles in Space music blog has just posted 'Kingdom', the wonderful 1993 single by Ultramarine, which featured Robert Wyatt on lead vocals.
Without a shadow of a doubt, it stands up as one of my favourite political pop songs from the the last twenty years and, of course, it took pride of place on the 'The Secret Melody of the Class Struggle' mixed cd that we took down to Glastonbury in 2003 to sell on the SPGB stall that year.
NM already provides the background to the recording over at his blog, so I don't even get the opportunity to use the word 'plaintive' when describing Robert Wyatt's voice because he already beat me to the publishing button. However he's on safer ground with his mention of "folktronica". What the hell is that? Oh, that's "folktronica". OK, I'll have some Beta Band, Beth Orton, Goldfrapp and The High Llamas. The rest can kindly leave the post. The Dance Village is that way.
NM mentions in passing that the lyric was adapted by Wyatt from a "Nineteenth Century protest song", but the underreporting is perhaps doing the original a slight disservice. The lyric was adapted from Ernest Jones's poem, 'The Song of the Lower Classes', which dates from 1852.
Originally from a highly privileged background, Jones - who was on the left wing of the Chartist Movement at its height - was as well known as a poet and a writer as he was an orator and Chartist leader. The strange old days when radical politicians also provided their audiences with popular music and poetry, as opposed to nowadays when whoever's on the front cover of the current issue of the Rolling Stone tries to give us their half-baked politics tucked neatly inside their newly released box set.
If you want more background on Jones, this essay by (the late) Edmund and Ruth Frow of the Working Class Movement Library fills in a lot of the detail.
In the meantime, cut and posted below is Jones's original poem. Be sure to have a read of it whilst listening to Ultramarine and Robert Wyatt's late twentieth century re-interpretation:
Song of the Lower Classes
We plow and sow, we're so very, very low,
That we delve in the dirty clay;
Till we bless the plain with the golden grain,
And the vale with the fragrant hay.
Our place we know, we're so very, very low,
'Tis down at the landlord's feet;
We're not too low the grain to grow,
But too low the bread to eat.Down, down we go, we're so very, very low,
To the hell of the deep-sunk mines;
But we gather the proudest gems that glow,
When the crown of the despot shines;
And when'er he lacks, upon our backs
Fresh loads he deigns to lay:
We're far too low to vote the tax
But not too low to pay.We're low, we're low -- we're very, very low --
And yet from our fingers glide
The silken floss and the robes that glow
Round the limbs of the sons of pride;
And what we get, and what we give,
We know, and we know our share;
We're not too low the cloth to weave,
But too low the cloth to wear.We're low, we're low, we're very, very low,
And yet when the trumpets ring,
The thrust of a poor man's arm will go
Through the heart of the proudest king.
We're low, we're low -- mere rabble, we know --
We're only the rank and the file;
We're not too low to kill the foe,
But too low to share the spoil.Notes to the People, 1852
Trying to get the 'Thank You For The Music' sidebar up and running again. Some old faces make a reappearance and there's also some new kids on the blogroll. Sorry for the delay . . . I'm a slow listener.
7" From The Underground - Excellent vintage blog from (I think) Italy. The emphasis is on post-punk, cold wave and 'minimal synth', so don't expect any Dr Hook out takes. The emphasis is on bands and individuals from mainland Europe, so think on that when you were shaking a leg to Ryan Paris and FR David back in the eighties, there were bands out there doing Depeche Mode . . . but better. Chromosome Damage - Nine times out of ten the music posted on this blog is too esoteric or too raucous for my tastes - a Gummo Soundtrack, anyone? - but bookmark it for now as it will come in handy the next time a music meme does the rounds. The musos' won't know what's hit them. Fritz Die Spinne - The subheading for this music blog is 'The mad ramblings of one music obsessed old goth', but please don't let that scare you off. I've already shone my torch into the blog, and I promise: there's no Fields of the Nephilim lurking in the shadows. Very similar in tone and period to the 7" From The Underground blog, so if you've already clicked on that blog and liked what you saw, you're in for a further treat. Hooligan's Lament - Excellent music blog with an emphasis on all things Celtic (Keltic, not Seltic) and/or folky. Whoever HL is, he recognises the genius that is Roddy Frame and that's good enough for me. Sons Of The Dolls - In short, guitars . . . guitars and more guitars. Anything from punk to pub rock to rock and roll to alternative country. Perfect cousins need not apply nor look in. The synthesiser would have been banjoed across their bounce quicker than you can say, 'Where can I plug in my fairlight?' Take The Pills! - Excellent music blog with an especial emphasis on C86 and the generation inspired by it but it's so much more. At the last count, the label on the blog for twee had 235 entries. That's a lot of hot sugary tea whichever way you look at it. The Post Punk Progressive Pop Party - For obvious reasons, aka as '5P'. An 'On this date in 80s music history blog'. Well, in truth, more like a 76-84 music history blog. How else will you know when it's Stiv Bators (posthumous) birthday? What day in history did The Stranglers release 'Golden Brown'? Or, the clincher, who wrote Lene Lovich's minor hit 'New Toy'? But how come there's no mention of Blue Rondo A La Turk? Were they really that bad?
More linkage to follow.
One of my absolute favourite music blogs is no more. Not 100% sure what happened, but I think it involved Julian Cope's back catalogue and someone getting mightily pissed. So, Spinster's Rock, RIP.
That's the sad news. The glad news is that the bloke behind the Rock, Nolan Micron, - is that an anagram or his scientologist name? - has started up a new blog by the name of Castles In Space. The byline for the new blog is 'New House. Same Shit', which, coincidentally, will be the exact same words I'll be using after the next General Election when 'New Conservatives' unseat 'New' Labour from the Government benches.
With his new blog, NM promises more music, mixes and cassette rips. The least you can do is promise to bookmark his new blog.
Too hot to blog. Too hot to do anything.
Still enjoying the football, but haven't got the energy to do the spielworks. I know this much. Strachan can be linked to every half decent player in the Euro- Championship between now and the end of the tournament, but I bet come August he won't be linked to Boruc. The bloke's was immense against Austria, and he'll get the offers flooding. I'll be very surprised if Celtic are able to hold onto him.
Summertime in New York City. No wonder people get raged up. When it's this hot, you just want to keep out of other people's way. My way of doing the body swerve is by never having my head less than three feet away from a air conditioner at one time. That's how you avoid those who are only too happy to blow a gasket at the slightest provocation.
Image via here.
