It's All Illusion Anyway

I'm following on from yesterday's Neil Young post with some Pixies and some more Neil. The first time I heard Winterlong was the cover version by Pixies on a tribute album to Neil called The Bridge which came out in autumn 1989. There was a brief rash of indie tributes to 60s artists compilations around this time- I had a tribute to The Byrds but at some point that has departed from my record collection and I remember a Jimi Hendrix one but I didn't buy that one. There were several Velvets ones too I think. They were very hit and miss. But The Bridge was well worth getting and holding onto featuring as well as Pixies, Soul Asylum, Victoria Williams, The Flaming Lips, Nikki Sudden, Loop, Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, Psychic TV, Dinosaur Jr, and Henry Kaiser. That list alone brings back the smell and feel of the Melody Maker's pages. There are plenty of good covers in that cast and Sonic Youth probably take the gold medal but Pixies absolutely nail Winterlong, Black Francis and Kim Deal duetting over some deliciously fried guitars. 

Winterlong

Neil's own version of the song was not released until Decade came out in 1977. He'd been sitting on it since at least 1970- apparently it was likely recorded in 1974 during the On The Beach sessions but it didn't fit on that album so he held it back. I first started buying Neil Young albums in summer 1988, taking advantage of the Price Cuts discount label that was widely available then- Harvest and After The Goldrush could both be bought new for £4.49, risk free purchases for a poor student. I don't remember getting a copy of Decade until many years later- triple albums were expensive and it wasn't easy to find. 

Neil takes Winterlong at a slower pace, his voice yearning for his lost love and the guitars and performance less manic with a pedal steel guitar in the instrumental break. It's gorgeous, right up there in terms of definitive Neil Young songs. 

Winterlong

There's some really good Pixies on TV clips from the late 80s, a period where they were unmissable and didn't really sound like anyone else. Surfer Rosa and Doolittle were a unique pair of albums, a band with a sound, a worldview and four very different members completely in tune with each other. The song's topics and lyrics were coming in from the outer reaches of Black Francis' imagination and together sounded like nothing else, the rhythms, the frantically scrubbed acoustic guitars, the dry, sparse sound with violent explosions, Joey's crazed solos and David's drumming plus Kim's sheer joy at playing/ singing- they had that chemistry that some bands find for a brief period that makes them briefly unique. I lost interest after Doolittle. They couldn't match it. Bossanova felt flat to me, a bit tamed, and I didn't bother with Trompe Le Monde. People tell me the re- union albums are worth getting but I don't have the interest, I don't need any Pixies albums other than Surfer Rosa and Doolittle (and Come On Pilgrim of course). They've appeared twice recently on TV programmes, firstly this clip of them playing on BBC 2's Late Show in 1989, Monkey Gone To Heaven played late at night with no audience other than Kirsty Wark or whoever was presenting that night and the camera crew.

The Late Show must have had some bookers who were well into their NME and Melody Maker at this point. Between 1988 and 1991 they were many memorable performances. The Cramps played a deadly two song set with Lux resplendent in black leather and bra in 1990, Jane's Addiction rocked out with Been Caught Stealing, R.E.M. did a stunning performance of Half A World Away and Belong in 1991, Public Enemy and Ice T both appeared and famously in 1989 The Stone Roses blew the sound limiter and as Tracey MacLeod tried to cover the show's blushes and move to the next item Ian Brown harangued the studio with shouts of 'amateurs, amateurs' eventually deciding 'we're wasting our time here lads'. 

This clip comes from British TV, not the Beeb. I'm not sure which ITV programme this was- Pixies doing Hey. 

While looking for all of that I found this, Pixies on Dutch TV in 1988, a five song set taken from Surfer Rosa. How good is this? Very very good.  

Vaughan Oliver

Vaughan Oliver died yesterday aged 62. He was the man responsible for the creating the artwork that graced the sleeves of a slew of bands in the 1980s and 90s and the entire visual identity of 4AD. The selection above shows how distinctive, eye catching and beautiful his work was but also how varied. It helps that the music contained within the 12" by 12" squares above was always of the highest calibre- Lush, Pixies, This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins, Ultra Vivid Scene, MARRS, Colourbox, Pale Saints (and also Throwing Muses, The Breeders, AR Kane, Belly... the list goes on). From the days when buying records based on the label they were issued on was commonplace and when the artwork mattered as much as the music.

Here in 1991 are Lush performing their single Sweetness and Light at The Dome, shoegaze pop with a Manchester swing to the rhythm. Vaughan Oliver RIP.

You Made Me Realise

Each day on Facebook I post a link to that day's Bagging Area blogpost- I like to keep Mark Zuckerberg updated with music from the last few decades although he never comments himself or thanks me. When I published Tuesday's post- Galaxie 500's Blue Thunder from their 1988 On Fire album- a friend thanked me for reminding them of the song and album and posing the question 'why was 1988/89 such a fruitful time?' I replied and then thought about it a bit more.

The reason for the explosion of dance music and acid house in the years 1988-1989 has been well explored and well documented. In summary, in the north Mike Pickering had recently returned to Manchester from Belgium and headed Factory's A&R. He was also given control over the musical policy at the Hacienda. Dave Haslam's Temptation night was growing but from opening in 1983 the nightclub was often largely empty (and open almost every night). In its first few years it was more gig venue than nightclub. Pickering began to play the music that excited him, the new music coming out of the USA, house music from Chicago and techno from Detroit. At a similar time Shaun Ryder and friends developed a sideline to being Happy Mondays, importing ecstasy and selling it in the Hacienda. The combination of music, nightclub, youth and drugs quickly gathered steam. In the south a similar revolution took place but this time starting with four friends (who were also DJs) who spent a summer in Ibiza dancing to a wide variety of tunes, including some of those early house records, in open air nightclubs under Balearic skies fuelled by the same pills the Mondays had discovered. When they got back to the UK they decided to try to re-create this scene in London in the autumn- Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway, Johnny Walker and Danny Rampling. Within months Spectrum, Shoom and The Trip opened. Acid house ensued.

The reasons for guitar music entering such a fruitful period between 1987 and 1989 are maybe slightly different. The bands putting records out in the late 80s were at the tail end of what had started with punk, in particular a model of Do It Yourself. An entire system of independent record labels was well established with a distribution model that got records into shops all over the country while avoiding the majors. In the US the bands inspired by punk had spent years criss-crossing the states building up a network, playing gigs in clubs and bars, meeting promoters, fans, fanzine sellers and the DJs from late night regional and college radio stations. In the UK John Peel existed as an outlet for even the most experimental and outlying bands and getting played by Peel was a reasonable ambition. The weekly music press (three papers remember, Sounds, NME and Melody Maker) had pages to fill, with opinionated and passionate writers and they held real sway and influence- NME Single Of The Week felt important. The post-punk period of roughly 1978-83 extolled being experimental, sounding like yourself and independent, leftfield, leftwing values. Technology was available and cheapish so recording a decent sounding demo tape was attainable. Cassettes were cheap and easy to reproduce and could be sent off to Rough Trade or Creation or 4AD or whoever. By 1988 this was all well established and bands had a mains to plug into, plus the back catalogues of the psychedelic groups of the 60s, the girl groups, the proto punks of The Stooges and The Velvet Underground, Nuggets and punk and its aftermath found cheaply in second hand shops or taped onto cassette with hand written inlay cards.

I think there are two other explanations- bear with me, if you're still reading and I fully understand if you've clicked off and gone elsewhere- and which are specific to the 1980s. Firstly (and Aditya agreed with this on Facebook) one reason for the boom in guitar music was state funding of bands and music- the dole and to some extent the student grant which sent young people from all backgrounds to university or polytechnic or art school. The dole and education grants gave people the income which bought them space to create. It wasn't much, there was just enough income to survive week to week but it was guaranteed as long as you met a few basic criteria (turn up at the job centre once a fortnight and sign on, turn up at lectures and hand an essay in once a term). Many of the British bands of the 80s came from dole culture. Some of the labels were funded by Thatcher's enterprise culture- there are several who got a business grant or loan to start up. As Aditya put it on Facebook yesterday 'You need a guaranteed income if you're going to try anything highly speculative, such as writing a 20 minute white out in the middle of You Made Me Realise'.

You Made Me Realise

Today's young people have to pay for their further education and the Tories have completely monetised university education, made it a financial transaction- what you are going to earn and how you are going to pay it back are the primary considerations. Leaving home to go to a new city, do a philosophy course, form a band, mess around and take your time doing it, are no longer possible (or valued). Trying to exist on the dole while putting together guitar, drums and bass seems increasingly unlikely.

The second explanation could be this- the 1980s were a polarised and confrontational period. You picked your side and it informed all your decisions. I saw a Tweet recently from someone disgusted by Morrissey and his appearance on US television wearing the badge of a minor British fascist organisation. The Tweeter said something along the lines of 'in the 80s The Smiths were my gateway into an outsider life, of books, music, cinema and politics. Morrissey formed my adult life'. As an aside the fact that The Smiths had split up in 1987 possibly also accounts for something here, a gap where they had been now existed. But to get back to the point, the polarised world of the 1980s meant that making experimental/challenging/lo-fi/home made/trippy/weirdo/out there/leftfield music was a way of life and a basic requirement. The mainstream was the enemy and to be avoided at all costs. Rick Astley, Phil Collins, Queen, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel- whatever you think of these artists now (and I still can't understand why some of them have been allowed back in)- were to be repelled and pushed away from. Bands defined themselves by this, by being outsiders, by taking a stance. Every town had a nightclub that had an alternative night, usually a Monday, when it would otherwise be empty. The music was an alternative to the charts and the mainstream. Lionel Ritchie or My Bloody Valentine? Stock Aitken and Waterman or Creation, 4AD and Factory? Queen or Sonic Youth? Tango In the Night or Surfer Rosa? Bad or Bummed? Thatcher's Britain and Reagan's America and the glossy, bright, mainstream culture that it spewed forth brought about cultural reactions- the guitar groups instinctively knew this and responded in kind.

Ten years later this oppositional approach was gone- guitar groups, especially Oasis, sneered at what they saw as small time bands and a lack of ambition and wanted sales, number ones and stadium gigs. Naked ambition and a mainstream sound was in- Morning Glory and Urban Hymns are mid-tempo, smooth-edged, mainstream rock, rather than that gateway into a hidden world the Smiths fan I mentioned earlier found with guitar music.

Here are some Pixies.

Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf Mix)

Velouria

The new Pixies album Head Carrier doesn't do too much for me, it's alright but that's about it. Plus, Pixies without Kim Deal is a bit of a deal breaker for me. Mind you I wasn't too fussed about the new album they put out in 1990. After the brain melting shock of Surfer Rosa and Doolittle, Bossanova seemed a little humdrum, a bit ordinary. In the years since I've learned to love some of the songs off it, Velouria and Digging For Fire and some others, but nothing meets the standards they set in 1988 and 1989. And while some bands have persuaded me to keep buying their records I've never felt the same urge with Pixies. The compiled Peel Sessions and B-sides albums are well worth your time and money as companions to those two late 80s masterpieces..

Velouria (Peel Session)

Vamos

Snub TV, 1988. Mind duly blown.

Francis goes something like 'We'll have our sons, they will be all well hung, your daddy's rich, your Mama's a pretty thing, we'll go to California, something about lesbians.... etc etc (with a load of Spanish too)' and there's a throat-wrenching bit of  'Aaaghhhh!'

Kim goes duh-duh-duh-dum. Enthusiastically.
Dave goes rattatatatatatatatat, on and on, faster.
Joey gets more beautiful noise out of a guitar and a beer can than seems possible.

Still haven't bothered to see what their new stuff is like.

Kill City

In total contrast to yesterday's Appalachian ghostliness here's a raucous, sex-infused noise. Kill City were an electro-rock band who released a mini-album in 2004 called White Boy Brown Girl, on Alan McGee's short-lived Poptones label. McGee's mate Andrew Innes remixes them in early 00s Primal Scream style. Big drums, white noise, heavy riffs, female vox, lyrics about inter-racial shagging. You know what this is going to sound like don't you?

White Boy Brown Girl (Andrew Innes Remix)

Another song on the lp was titled Cease To Exist- which was the opening line in Pixies' song Wave Of Mutilation (borrowed from Charles Manson/Beach Boys), which took inspiration from Luis Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou film. Luis Bunuel was photographed in the late 20s by Man Ray. Of course he was. Everyone who was anyone was.

Head On

Pixies cover version of one of The Jesus And Mary Chain's best moments. Pixies were such an odd band- four people that looked like they should be in four different bands combining untutored talent, technical limitations and an off kilter world view. Quiet, loud, scream, quiet, loud, scream doesn't really do it justice. This breakneck cover rocks, as they say.

Head On

Cease To Exist

I was going to post something else today but it can wait. Drew over at Across The Kitchen Table has posted the Peel Session version of Wave Of Mutilation by Boston's alt-rock heroes Pixies. This is the UK Surf Mix of the same song, originally from the 12" of Here Comes Your Man, a single from the ever marvelous Doolittle album. The UK Surf Mix slows the song right down and features some lovely surf guitar from Joey Santiago, and Black Francis' Charles Manson/Beach Boys inspired lyrics.

07 Wave of Mutilation [U.K Surf mix][Version].wma