THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part Seven)

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Debut album George Best, released in October 1987, had been a hit. The end of year polls in most of the UK music papers had The Wedding Present listed high in one category or another, whether it was best new band, best indie band, best band or best album.

But for one person, the year ended on a sour note as drummer Shaun Charman was asked to leave the band. It has since been admitted by all concerned that it could have been handled better, and Shaun himself says that while he didn’t deal with it well at the time, he has come to accept it was for the better.

The situation was only made public in late-January 1988 along with the news that another UK tour with an as-yet unnamed drummer (who would turn out to be Simon Smith) was taking place the following month as a way of promoting a new single. The three remaining members of the band were given the accolade of a front cover by the NME around the time the new single came out:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm

I’ve always felt this marked a bit of a turning point in the way the songs were recorded and presented, with David Gedge‘s vocals much more prominent in the mix than previously. A sign perhaps that he was finally getting much more secure about his abilities as a wordsmith?

This one came out on 7″, 12″ and CD, marking the first time a single had been released on that format. As usual, the 7″ had one b-side, but the other formats had additional songs.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Nothing Comes Easy
mp3: The Wedding Present – Don’t Laugh
mp3: The Wedding Present – I’m Not Always So Stupid

Nothing Comes Easy was an unusual number in that it was a bit slower-paced than just about anything the band had released prior to this point in time, and with a running length of almost four-and-half minutes, it was one of their longest songs. The other two songs were everything that fans had come to expect, with the mix of fast and frantic guitars accompanying lovelorn lyrics.

I never thought I could live here on my own
But then I guess everybody’s got to live somewhere
Four tins of paint made this our home
Oh, I got less on the walls than I got in my hair

When we moved in here the dog was still a pup
Oh do you remember the time he chewed those curtains that we found?
I laughed the day you put them up
The day you left, I tore them down

(from Don’t Laugh)

It’s fascinating to look back and see how prolific the band were in those early days. This was already the seventh single and there had been one album – and by my reckoning it meant 28 different songs were already out there, of which just two were covers. I could easily come up with two ICAs on this early material alone.

JC

Woodenbox

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #382: WOODENBOX

This six-piece folk-rock outfit from Glasgow formed in 2008, initially as Woodenbox With A Fistful of Fivers. The inclusion of saxophone and trumpet within their sound did mark them out as a bit different from many of their contemporaries, and there was fair bit of buzz around them when debut album Home and The Wild Hunt was released on Electric Honey Records in 2010, with the band invited onto the bill of a number of festivals and making an appearance at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas in 2011.

About a year later, the name was shortened to Woodenbox and plans were revealed for their new material to come out on the then relatively new Glasgow label, Olive Grove Records.

Two more albums would follow, End Game (2013) and Foreign Organ (2015)., before Olive Grove, in 2020, re-released the long out-of-print debut on its 10th Anniversary.

A lot of people whose tastes I admire and appreciate did their best to convert me into a fan, but it never quite happened. I’ve only a couple of songs on the hard drive, courtesy of them being part of compilation CDs, including one made and sent over by Phil Hogarth, long-time supporter of the blog, from which this is lifted:-

mp3: Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers – Twisted Mile

You can tell from the fact it’s when the band had the longer name that this one comes from the debut record.

JC

Various

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (10)

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Today’s lucky dip is the last for a while, but I’m sure the series will return at some point in 2024. It just happens that it offers a bit of a bargain, with four songs for the price of one……and it’ll be interesting to see if anyone likes all four.

This 7″ vinyl record came free with the edition of the NME that was published on 22 May 1985. It rotates at 33.333 rpm and the quality, which wasn’t all that great to begin with, isn’t the best on my copy, which is at least second-hand in nature.

The idea of the record was to acknowledge the NME Readers Poll Winners from 1984, the results of which the paper had published in February 1985. The best album had been Treasure by Cocteau Twins, while The Smiths picked up the votes to be named best group. Bronski Beat took the plaudits for best new group, while Bono was given the accolade of best male singer and Elizabeth Fraser was named as best female singer.

Fair play to those involved in persuading the various parent record labels to allow songs to be included.

mp3: Bronski Beat – Hard Rain
mp3: Cocteau Twins – Ivo (new version)
mp3: The Smiths – What She Said (live)
mp3: U2 – Wire (dub)

Hard Rain was a previously unreleased track, and as far as I’m aware, was never included on any future singles or albums by Bronski Beat.

Cocteau Twins offered a different take on one of the best tracks on Treasure, and I reckon the NME version is a better listen.

The Smiths supplied a live track from gig that had taken place at the Oxford Apollo back on 18 March 1985 (a show in which they were supported by James), while U2 provided a fresh mix of a track that had been on the multi-million selling The Unforgettable Fire.

Given how many copies the NME shifted back in 1985, it’s no surprise that this EP is really easy to pick up on the second-hand market. There’s more than 200 listed on Discogs alone, with prices going from 40p to £50.45 – I’ve a feeling that the seller who has it listed at that price may wait quite some time before they shift it.

JC

James

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #039

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#039– James ‘Hymn From A Village’ (Factory Records ’85)

Hello friends,

James, ey? Yes, them of ‘Sit Down’ – and ‘Come Home’ – fame, for younger readers, if such creatures do at all exist over here!

But, you know, James were more than those two hits, by far more, in fact! In my book, they easily were one of the best bands to come from the UK for a full decade. And as we have seen on numerous occasions, it certainly isn’t easy for a band to remain true to a self-imposed style for such a long time, especially when satisfactory success is not in sight by and large. I mean, we listeners, we easily tend to complain about bands who try new stuff, expand their horizons in order to gain wider attention – and consequently sell more records, so that they can afford a living. Because this is what bands make music for, not for pleasing boring nerds like us!

James though, they never changed a great deal, at least that’s what I would think. They had considerable success from scratch on, first locally in Manchester, where they gained a reputation as a good live act. They quickly got a record deal with Factory, released their debut single in 1983, supported The Smiths in early ’85, all of which is not too shabby for a band, so perhaps rightly they were considered to be ‘the next big thing’ back then. Then again, ‘the next big thing’ was a term much too inflationary used in those days anyway, so it should be taken with a pinch of salt, perhaps. Anyway, the guitarist became a drug addict whereas the singer and the bassist ended up in some sort of sect which entailed restrictions on their lifestyles. Under these circumstances, the next record would turn out to be utter crap, you would have thought.

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mp3: James – Hymn From A Village

Jim Glennie, the bassist, once said that “this is the one James song that he would want to survive if all but one were accidentally erased”. That would be my wish as well, although I strongly suggest to everyone reading this to have a closer look into James back catalogue until, let’s say, 1993: if you’re not familiar with what they issued then, you may have missed a treat.

But first of all, enjoy the one above!

Take care,

Dirk

P.S.: fun fact: I saw them live once at an indoor festival in Germany (they were absolutely stunning). And I spent the whole show standing right beneath one of the few indie rock goddesses of the time, Naomi Yang out of Galaxie 500 (who were on the same bill, along with, oddly enough, Einstürzende Neubauten):

naomiyang

I still could drive a nail through my foot every I remember this gig, because within all of James’ set I was too shy to address Naomi …. ah well …

JC adds……

I hope Dirk doesn’t mind, but the release of this single back in 1985 coincided with what I think was James’ first appearance on national TV in the UK. It was on Whistle Test on BBC2 and consisted of two songs played live at the ICA in London. I’m sure Microdisney were also on that night….I’ve got in on a VHS tape somewhere.

HOUSE oF ALL

RECOMMENDED LISTENING FROM 2023 (Volume 9)

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The ninth of an occasional feature in which I’ll draw your attention to some albums that have been purchased in 2023 and which I reckon are worth highlighting.

There is no denying that The Fall are irreplaceable. Mark E Smith‘s death brought an understandable end to everything, but with so many musicians having been involved with the group over the decades, it was surely only a matter of time before some sort of tribute act popped up.

I approached the idea of HOUSE oF ALL with some trepidation. The initial single had been released via internet channels but had created a ruckus with the family of the late singer stating that they found the idea “extremely offensive and very misleading to the wider audience of Mark E Smith and The Fall”.

mp3: THE HOUSE oF ALL – Harlequin Duke

The fact that the band consists of Martin Brammah, Steve Hanley, Paul Hanley, Simon Wolstencroft and Pete Greenway (and includes a dual-drummer approach, it is inevitable that much of the sound will give off vibes of the band they had all at one point in time, been heavily involved in. But Brammah has long been his own man in terms of songwriting and singing, and his contributions are quite some way removed from those of MES, albeit he does make playful reference in the lyric with ‘maybe our bingo master has returned’.

In short, I didn’t see what all the fuss was really about.

It seems that the problems were all about the use of the phrase “the Fall family continuum” within the promotional/PR blurbs. It was quickly dropped and those involved with HoF got on with getting the record out there and making plans to play live.

The album arrived in the shops in May. It’s the result of three days in a Manchester studio from the first time all five had actually played together. It contains just eight songs, and has a running time of just over 35 minutes, and while it is fair to say that the trademark Steve Hanley basslines are very much to the fore, not forgetting the dual drums of Paul Hanley and ‘Funky Si’, it turned out to be a record that has influences from The Fall rather than being any sort of pastiche or tribute.

I guess that many listeners did initially look out for obvious rip-offs or reference points, but what became clear very quickly was that HOUSE oF ALL was more than worthy of being considered entirely on its own merits. I tried hard not to think of it as a debut album given the combined decades of experience that the five members have, not to mention the many hundreds of albums and singles they have played on, and indeed one of its great strengths is the confident playing from all concerned. It certainly sounds as it was rehearsed professionally to within an inch of its life, rather than coming together over such a short and intense period of time.

The Bay City Pistols??? Utter genius. And one of the catchiest sing-a-long songs I’ve heard in decades.

Highly recommended.

JC

Belle and Sebastian

60 ALBUMS @ 60 : THIS MISSED THE CUT?

Belle and Sebastian- The Boy With The Arab Strap (1998)

I’m playing my newly-acquired copy of the 25th Anniversary reissue of The Boy With The Arab Strap, the third studio album in the career of Belle and Sebastian. It’s kind of hard to believe that this year saw the release of Late Developers, their 12th album….I don’t think many of us who were listening back in the mid-late 90s would have imagined they’d still be going strong all these years later.

The Boy With The Arab Strap was very much on the longlist for inclusion in the rundown earlier this year. It was the victim of having to make really tough decisions. If it had made the cut, I don’t think it would have been at #60….it would have been looked at along with everything else on the list and compared to them.

Anyways, today’s review is an effort to make up for the omission.

I’ll begin by saying that the 25th anniversary reissue is rather lovely to look at. Where the original had a green coloured sleeve (and it’s a release I only picked up on CD), the reissue has a blue sleeve, which is in keeping with the posters which were illegally plastered all over Glasgow back in ’98. The vinyl is also a lovely shade of light blue.

It’s an album on which the lead vocals weren’t exclusively taken by Stuart Murdoch. There’s two from Stevie Jackson, one from Isobel Campbell and one from Stuart David….but that still leaves eight for the main man. It’s an album on which many of the fan’s favourites are included, not least the magnificent, pop-orientated and utterly danceable title track:-

mp3: Belle and Sebastian – The Boy With The Arab Strap

And yup, the title of the song and album was inspired by the Falkirk band. The two groups had toured together, and rumour has it that Aidan Moffat was slightly besotted by Isobel Campbell, and in due course provided the inspiration for some of the lyric. Malcolm Middleton, in a later interview, said that came to be annoyed about it all as some folk thought it was some sort of collaboration between the two groups.

I don’t think it’s a perfect album, or indeed a near-perfect album. The spoken-word effort from Stuart David doesn’t fit in all that well, albeit the outro part of the song over the final minute or so is well worth a listen as a sort of film soundtrack piece of music – but at least with this vinyl version it comes at the start of Side 2 and the needle could be placed in a groove slightly further on (not that I’d dream of doing that!!). And while one of the Stevie Jackson tracks is more than fine, his second contribution, Chickfactor, is a ballad that has never done anything for me….it’s a reminder that his voice is an acquired taste.

But here’s the one I do like:-

mp3: The Boy With The Arab Strap – Seymour Stein

The tale of how the American mogul tried so hard to get the band to leave Jeepster Records and take the filthy lucre of cash from Sire.

Listening again afresh, I do think the Isobel Campbell song is among my favourite B&S tracks. I didn’t, however, include it on ICA 165 which now seems a major error on my part

mp3: Belle and Sebastian – Is It Wicked Not To Care?

For the most part, it’s a gentle-paced album, perfect for those long, lazy and warm summer days, to be listened to while eyes are closed and the rays are caught. But it doesn’t sound too shabby on a cold but fresh November morning. I can see this bit of vinyl getting lots of spins….it’s strange that the CD hasn’t been played in years….but then again, very few of them are these days.

Talking a moment or two ago about cold…..I’m heading off later today to somewhere I expect to be chilly. It’ll be my first ever trip to Oslo, the capital city of Norway, and I’m quite excited about it.

Only downer is that it is very much a straight there and straight back effort that won’t leave me much time for sightseeing. It’s also probable that I’ll land just as the dusk comes in, and my journey back out to the airport tomorrow will be so early that the sun won’t have fully risen.

But it’ll have all been worth it, I’m sure, as the reason for the trip is to see Arab Strap play live (well, Aidan and Malcolm as a duo), performing the album Philophobia, which was #21 in the 60@60 list.

They have been out on the road for a fair bit of this year, and things are closed off next month with a series of gigs in Scotland, all of which coincide with me being away on holiday. So, Norway it is. The flight and hotel were very reasonable, and I’ve vowed that I’ll stay off the drink to save money!

Oh, and I’m going in solo for this one…it should be quite the adventure!

JC

10000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #354: NATALIE MERCHANT/10,000 MANIACS

A GUEST POSTING from STEVE McLEAN

JC writes……

Steve submitted this with the suggestion that it be used across two separate non-ICA pieces, partly on the basis that with 8 songs on offer for each of the 10,000 Maniacs and solo years, there weren’t enough songs. I’ve decided to roll things into one, with the result that you get to enjoy a wonderfully expansive ICA totalling 16 songs. After all, there’s nothing to say that these MUST be 10 songs in total, although it is my preference. That’s enough from me….so without further ado, please give a big and warm welcome to Mr Steve McLean………

Hello internet friends!

I love Natalie Merchant. She’s awesome, she’s caring, she’s non-judgemental and while she’d probably get you ethically made wooden toys for Christmas and not the Transformer you specifically asked for, I reckon she’s still great fun to be around.

I went to see her recently at the Palladium and while she was prone to bouts of tears, she also picked fluff off of Billy Bragg and teased him about his jumper. You see, FUN! pure fun.

There’s a Faceook group called Alternative Ballpark run by Phoenix Phil for music fans who are mostly over 40. They have a great regular segment called “The Wondertour”, which is a run through of the back catalogue of an artist. I recently hosted the Merchant / 10000 Maniacs Wondertour to a reaction audience of sometimes double figures (she’s what the people want). These choices are essentially a distilled version of that project. I’ve picked 16 songs. 8 on each ‘side’. One side for the Maniacs and one for Natalie. It’s not enough but it’ll have to do. It his however ripe for splitting into two posts on this fine blog. (JC adds….see above intro!!)

SIDE ONE – 10,000 Maniacs

I’ve ignored the first album and first EP. They’re both pretty hard work and the best songs turn up later on the on the major label records.

Scorpio Rising – (from The Wishing Chair)

The second single from the major label debut record and what I like to think of as the first proper Maniacs single. Up until now the band had the training wheels on (This post is going to invoke some strong FANZINE FEELS!) But this has all the hallmarks of their classics; powerful but not overbearing with lyrics that smack you around a bit. It’s one of those songs where the meaning changes with the mood the listener is in.

“Treat me to an honest face sometime. AMAZE ME NOW!”

Fucking hell, right?

Back O’The Moon – (from The Wishing Chair)

The lyrics always make me think of my pal Jenny who saved me from going up the wall during lockdown. It’s a great example of why you need to be tuned into Merchant to hear what she’s singing. ‘A car make go, where’s the operator?’ is actually ‘A comical where’s the end parade’.

I love Natalie but sometimes it’s like listening to a BBC Micro.

The Painted Desert – (from In My Tribe)

This is either a song about ghosting or an affair. There’s a feeling of someone being strung along. The way Natalie Merchant of 10KM writes about love often feels it’s from a position of someone who has never been in love. Like she just detaches herself and watches what happens to others. There’s a real sadness to it.
”I haven’t read a word from you since Phoenix or Tucson. April is over, will you tell me how long before I can be there?”

He’s never going to leave her Natalie. He’s a bastard!

A Campfire Song – (from In My Tribe)

I don’t think this is an anti-capitalist number, it’s more of an observation on how greed taints the soul (FANZINE FEELS!). This might be about a Scrooge McDuck or a Cyril Sneer type. Whoever the case study is, they don’t recognise their own folly. Someone clever once said ‘No one who is evil realises they’re evil’ (it was me but I was quoting) The bridge features a sneaky cameo from Michael Stipe. I picked this song as I know he’s popular around these parts.

Please Forgive Us – (from Blind Man’s Zoo)

Remember the Iran / Contra affair? In the 80s Congress blocked giving any aid to the Contras of Nicaragua during their “revolution” as they were spending it on cocaine smuggling and landmines. Reagan & Co bypassed congress by selling arms covertly to Iran and using the money to fund the Contras. This wouldn’t have been quite so bad if the White House hadn’t spent most of 81 to 85 trying to convince the rest of the world not to sell weapons to Iran.

The internal thinking / excuse was that this might thaw relations between the US and Iran and that Iran would be ever sooooo grateful to the US that they’d release the hostages they had. This ultimately turned into an Arms-for-Hostages scandal and an Ignoring-Congress scandal that would have implicated Reagan, George Bush Snr and Lt Cl Oliver North. Guess which one of those three took the fall?

Reagan went on TV and denied everything, then he went on TV and said it happened but he didn’t know about it and then he went on TV and said it happened and that he knew about it but he didn’t know that he knew about it. Boris Johnson got his notebook out and started scribbling. Everyone was eventually pardoned by Bush when he went from VP to P.

10000 Maniacs watched all of this unfold and then penned a song saying sorry to all the kids killed by landmines, the villages ransacked under the name of revolution by the US trained Contras and all of those oppressed in Iran by US weapons.

“Please forgive us, we didn’t know”

Headstrong (from Blind Man’s Zoo)

Petulant, unreasonable and entirely relatable. It takes balls to admit when you’re wrong. It takes even bigger balls to admit that you can be a dick rather than admitting you’re wrong. Although ultimately it’s a plea for the other person to listen and the last verse changes the meaning considerably. It’s the frustration you feel when you’re arguing with someone who is always being entirely reasonable. My Dad used to say ”Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t call you a cunt in an argument” But I think that was just a get-out-of-jail card for him to call people cunts. Clever.

Noah’s Dove (from Our Time In Eden)

Natalie has had her heart broken and Imma gonna punch the guy. Religious imagery plays a part in a lot of 10KM songs but here that gives way to pity and a loss of trust (she’s not angry, just disappointed in you). If bedroom dwelling songs are an art then this is a masterpiece (fanzine McLean strikes again). It’s looking out the window on a bus, planning your future with the girl who works in the library or walking in the rain. It’s sad but it’s a hug.

Eden (from Our Time In Eden)

It’s strange that this wasn’t really a single, it got one of those promo-US-Radio type releases. it has the hallmarks that appealed to daytime One FM of the time. Steve Wright would have fucking loved this (the afternoon posse would too, but those bitches liked what Steve told them to like.) The lyric ‘To pick a rose is to ask your hands to bleed’ is astounding. It floored me when I first heard it. The whole song feels like it’s about paying the piper or the boatman or whatever your reference of choice is. It’s about understanding we’re all flawed and weak and that every personal utopia, be it a relationship or a friendship or just a peaceful time will always end. Blimey!

SIDE TWO – NATALIE MERCHANT SOLO

1993. Merchant quit and went solo. The rest of the band carried on with Mary Ramsay as the lead singer. Lately, Leigh Nash of Sixpence None The Richer has been fronting them. That’s not a bridge we’ll cross.

Natalie enjoy a worldwide smash hit record with Tigerlily. She was the darling of the Coffee Table Book set and edged herself from MTV to Radio 2. Later, while the world was enjoying Central Perks and Deep Blue Something / The Rembrants / Hootie Blows Fish, Natalie was releasing gothic folk records about children’s toys that froze to death. Take that you pastel-Gap-advert-loving fucks.

Jealousy (from Tigerlily)

It’s a brutally honest song about Jealousy (hence the title). It doesn’t shy away from what a small minded, petty, childish emotion jealousy is. The word ‘deb’ is slang for Debutante, you might have known that but I didn’t, which to me adds an angle of class gripe to the song and suddenly she’s being fucked over by the poshos and that gets my back up. It’s gone all Pretty In Pink but with without Duckie being too creepy. I’m not Duckie.

Frozen Charlotte (from Ophelia)

Frozen Charlotte is the name of a Victorian china doll. The name originate from a poem called “A Corpse Going to a Ball” about a girl who didn’t want to cover up her pretty dress while traveling to a party so she froze to death (I’ve got a lemon yellow and pink bowling shirt that I feel similar about). I think this is a song about those tragic folks who take their own lives and their love for those that are left behind. It’s the confused feelings that troubled souls have. It’s quite beautiful.

The Ballad Of Henry Darger (from Motherland)

This has strong Nick Cave vibes to me but I don’t know if that’s just because it’s about someone called Henry. The real Henry Darger was an orphan who worked in hospitals and went to war in WW1. He was an advocate for caring for abandoned and poorly treated children. Today he’s a renowned outsider artist and novelist, although his novel The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion is still seemingly unpublished, it certainly takes all of those wanky overly long naughties book titles like ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ or ‘The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared’ to the fucking cleaners though, right?

Bleezer’s Ice-Cream (from Leave Your Sleep)

A great example of Natalie doing after hours jazz that will subvert our teeny-poppers in their bobby-sox. Except it’s a poem about ice cream flavours. Flavours straight out of Bod’s Milkshake Quiz. Ebeneer Bleezer runs Bleezer’s Ice Cream. Bleezer Good, Bleezer Good. There’s a guy in the place he’s got a bitter sweet ice cream taste.

Tuna taco baked potato, Lobster litchi lima bean and Mozzarella mangosteen all sound rank but you’d try the Checkerberry cheddar chew, right?

Lulu (from Natalie Merchant)

A gentle tribute to Louise Brookes, the silent film start (in case you thought it was dedicated to the ‘…and the Luvvers’ fame or the album by Lou Reed and Mehtallica, although she did inspire that album cover).

She’s the same star of OMD‘s Pandora’s Box and Marillion‘s Interior Lulu. Natalie tracks her life from early chorus girl to scandalous German superstar who gave Hollywood a proper fuck you. I can’t do the life of this lady or the song justice so go to the wiki entry and check her out.

‘Christened in straight up gin’

She Devil (from Butterfly)

This has a sinister feel to it, it’s got an undercurrent of menace and the saxophone is sexy af but also evil, the breathy verses add to the danger and it feels fucking amazing. If only, and I say this thinking that she almost certainly hasn’t heard the 1998 infectious / grating hit, IF ONLY the whole vibe isn’t ruined in the first line with the lyrics

COMIN’ ATCHYA. CLEOPATRA.

Hunting the Wren (from Keep Your Courage)

A cover of the Lankum song. Hunt the Wren is a Manx custom (Isle of Man). It takes place on St Stephen’s Day and it’s basically a group of locals (three surnames between twenty of them) doing a celtic version of Morris dancing. I spent my formative years there and I can tell you that even on their best days it is cousin-fucky as fuck. Things like this don’t help. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wren)

There’s an Irish tradition too called Wren Day which I think probably has more actual hunting but retains the essential 6-toed feel.

Tower of Babel (from Keep Your Courage)

The tower in the bible is an explanation of why humans speak different languages. The story of the Tower of Babel explains the origins of the multiplicity of languages. God was concerned that humans had blasphemed by building the tower to avoid a second flood so God brought into existence multiple languages. Thus, humans were divided into linguistic groups, unable to understand one another.

God is a bit of a prick. Imagine punishing people for not wanting to be drowned again. The song itself is a bluesy stomp with a cracking horny section. You hear that God? I said HORNY! Get it round ye, ya fud.

This is really just my favourite songs of today. There’s absolutely stacks of stuff she’s recorded, even with only two albums of original material since 2001. She’s released a couple of folk cover albums, songs with Billy Bragg, The Kronos Quartet plus loads of one offs and guest appearances. A deep dive into her output is well worth your time.

If you see her, remind her she agreed to marry me in a dream. And by that I mean I had a dream once where Natalie was singing the her cover of ‘If No one Ever Marries Me’ and I was in the audience. After the song I shouted ‘I’ll marry you Natalie’

She asked me to stand up, looked at me and then said ‘hmmmm…. anyone else?‘

Even my dreams are pricks.

STEVE

Wedding Present

THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part Six)

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April and May 1987 saw The Wedding Present out on tour across the UK, mostly at student union venues, while the following month they were a late replacement, well down the bill, at Glastonbury after Red Lorry Yellow Lorry had to pull out unexpectedly. Otherwise, the time was spent, writing, rehearsing and eventually recording the songs for the debut album.

A few weeks in advance of the album, a new single was released as a taster:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Anyone Can Make A Mistake

Maybe it was around this time that someone cracked the line ‘all the songs sound the same’, to which the smart reply has to be ‘maybe….but it’s a helluva song isn’t it?’ Anyone Can Make A Mistake didn’t deviate too far from the tried and tested, but perhaps the one minor criticism on offer is that it wasn’t quite as brilliant as My Favourite Dress (but then again, what possibly could be?)

This one came out on 7″ and 12″, as well as on cassette, which was a limited edition with a free Reception Records badge. The 7″ had one b-side, but the other formats had two additional songs

mp3: The Wedding Present – All About Eve
mp3: The Wedding Present – Getting Nowhere Fast

The interesting thing about the latter is the fact it’s a cover version, something that the band would increasingly become famed for in the succeeding years. This one is of a song originally released back in 1980 by Girls At Our Best, a short-lived but much-loved post-punk band from Leeds. The decision by TWP to cover the song re-ignited interest in Girls At Our Best (they had broken up in 1982), one that has been maintained through to recent times with Optic Nerve, the Preston-based label which specialises in re-releases from the golden eras of indie-pop, giving said treatment to Pleasure, the band’s sole album from 1981.

JC

Wojtek The Bear

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #381: WOJTEK THE BEAR

Wojtek The Bear is an incredibly unusual name for a band.

The backstory can be read in full here on wiki, but in short, Wojtek was a bear cub who was found in 1942, who was adopted and raised by soldiers in the Polish Army, and who lived the latter part of his life in Edinburgh Zoo, passing away at the age of 21 in 1963.

The name has now been adopted by five Glasgow-based musicians, whose third album is scheduled for release in early 2024. The band, consisting of Tam Killean (vocals), Graham Norris (lead guitar), Paul Kirkwood (bass, vocals), Martin McClements (drums) and Becky Cheminais (violin) have been around for about five years, with the debut album A Talent For Being Unreasonable coming out on Scottish Fiction Records in 2018.

The band were a quartet at the time, but having guested on a number of the songs on the debut, Becky was asked to join by the time everyone went into the studio to record the follow-up, Heaven By The Back Door, which was issued by Last Night From Glasgow in 2021.

They make the sort of intelligently enjoyable indie-pop that has never quite gone out of fashion, certainly in the environs of Villain Towers, and I’m only sorry it was taken so long, and their appearance in this long-running series, for them to debut on the blog. Rest assured that when the new album, Shaking Hands With The NME is made available to buy, it will be getting well mentioned and plugged. I should mention that the new album, which will again be on Last Night From Glasgow, was produced by Stephen Street, which is usually a sign of quality.

To make up for them not featuring in the past, here’s a song from each of the two previous albums.

mp3: Wojtek The Bear – Made Out Of Maps (from A Talent For Being Unreasonable)

mp3: Wojtek The Bear -One Things’s For Certain (from Heaven By The Backdoor)

Ach…. let’s go the whole hog. The band recently released a video to showcase what will be the debut single from the third album.

It’s rather wonderful, isn’t it??

JC

Robert Smith, Twilight Sad

THEY’VE BEEN GREAT PALS FOR YEARS…

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The Twilight Sad appear to have won legions of new fans this year, thanks to them being the special guests of The Cure on what was a very extensive tour of North America back in May and June.

It’s not, of course, the first tour they have undertaken as the specially invited guests of the legendary pop-goths, and the fact they were asked to do so again is testament to their abilities not to be overawed by the logistics of playing in cavernous arenas not forgetting also that Robert Smith has been a long-time admirer of their music.

It was back in 2015 when Smith provided a vocal to a Twilight Sad song, one which was issued as part of a Double-A side single:-

mp3: Robert Smith – There’s A Girl In The Corner

The song had originally appeared as the opening song on the album Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave. I’m sure I wasn’t alone, when I read that it was to form one half of the latest Twilight Sad single, that it would be one where he contributed a vocal to either the original tune or would see him in the studio with the band doing it all again fresh.

Nope.

As you can see from the back of the sleeve above, the voices and instruments were all the work of Robert Smith, and that he engineered, produced and mixed everything too.

The result is hugely enjoyable, with James Graham and Andy MacFarlane both saying at the time how thrilled they were that one of their heroes had accepted what they thought was an ambitious request to cover one of their songs.

But it’s not a patch on the original.

mp3: The Twilight Sad – There’s A Girl In The Corner

I’ve this one on 7″ white vinyl, which I had long believed was the only format in which it was released. Turns out there’s a rare and sought after CD version, with only 100 copies issued as a promotional release in America.

JC

Alan Rankine

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (9)

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Bit of a strange one today.

The late Alan Rankine, who passed away on 2 January 2023, was probably best known as being a founder member of Associates. He quit in 1982, not too long after the release of their third album, Sulk, quickly moving into production during which he worked with, among others, Paul Haig, Cocteau Twins and The Pale Fountains.

He returned to performing in 1986, eventually recording three solo albums before moving on in a new direction by joining Stow College in Glasgow as a lecturer on a music business course, where he was instrumental in providing a very firm launchpad for the career of Belle & Sebastian.

His solo material was a bit on the patchy side, and that’s me being kind. This is the single which also lent its name to his debut album:-

mp3: Alan Rankine – The World Begin To Look Her Age

It’s one in which the kitchen sink has been thrown at, production wise, but all it seems to do is highlight that his own vocal is quite one-dimensional and limited. I don’t think he was ever cut out to be a frontman. He was probably more comfortable doing the more experimental stuff that was on the b-side:-

mp3: Alan Rankine – Can You Believe Everything I See? (Part 2)

This single, like much of his solo material came out on Virgin Records. It didn’t chart.

JC

Jam

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #038

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#038– The Jam– ‘Down In The Tube Station At Midnight’ (Polydor Records ’78)

Hello friends,

in the long run The Jam certainly were one of the most notable bands of all time. If you just consider the five years from ‘In The City’ to ‘The Gift’, there aren’t that many competitors who managed to keep up with such a level of constant brilliance. This makes it rather hard to pick just one single out of the big lot that the band had released within this period. So at the end of the day, basically it could have been any other one, but I went for their eighth 7”, ‘Down In The Tube Station At Midnight’, taken from their third album, from 1978.

Why this one? Well, just like The Clash, The Jam have always been a “lyrics band” for me. I well remember that once I finally had access to internet (when would that have been? 1995 or thereabouts?) I more or less immediately tried to get hold of ~~free porn~~ Jam lyrics, and when being successful, it was always a revelation for me, nearly for each and every tune of theirs. But I think finally being able to understand the full lyrics of ‘Tube Station’ stood out by quite some distance.

Of course I had already realized that Weller is not exactly singing about love, peace and harmony, no, the message seemed to be quite the opposite, in fact. But only after having access to the ‘missing parts’ – the bits I simply couldn’t translate, regardless how often I would play the record – the circle closed, and I loved the tune even more than I already had done before – a masterpiece, I thought: not only lyrically, but musically as well, obviously.

The funny thing is: Weller wasn’t at all fond of the song, so I learnt very much later. He even didn’t want to have it on the album. Apparently the producer, Vic Coppersmith-Heaven convinced him in the end: “I was insistent on him reviving it, and once the band got involved and we developed the sound it turned into an absolutely brilliant track, a classic. Maybe we would have come around to recording it later on in the project, but he’d just reached that point of ‘Oh bollocks, this isn’t working, it’s a load of crap.’”

In hindsight, it seems rather ludicrous that Paul Weller thought so bad about this song. But it is easily forgotten that Weller was only 20 years old in 1978. Me, I could barely write my bloody name when I was 20, let alone write three essential albums full of clever lyrics – which often tried to give the listener an understanding of the fucked up state of Britain’s politics, economy and society.

But the BBC, in their wisdom – instead of putting the single on heavy rotation in order to spread the word – subsequently banned it: in a time when racism was commonly accepted in British society, the song’s powerful message was not acceptable to play on the radio for the station apparently. To quote Tony Blackburn, BBC Top DJ at the time: “It’s disgusting the way punks sing about violence. Why can’t they sing about trees and flowers?”

These days a down-right ridiculous attitude of course, but as it seems at least a handful of young Britons were ahead of their time, because ‘Down In The Tube Station At Midnight’ became The Jam’s second Top 20 hit:

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mp3: The Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight

And finally, for fact-fans: the cover photo was shot on Bond Street tube station on the Central Line whereas the the sound of an Underground train at the beginning of the song was recorded at St. John’s Wood Station.

Enjoy,

Dirk

James

RECOMMENDED LISTENING FROM 2023 (Volume 8)

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The eighth of an occasional feature in which I’ll draw your attention to some albums that have been purchased in 2023 and which I reckon are worth highlighting.

OK. This is a total nostalgia kick. There’s a huge number of singers and bands who’ve been around for decades flogging many a dead horse to fans who are prepared to pay silly money for limited edition represses, gig tickets, t-shirts and all the other paraphernalia that comes with music in the modern era. I’m as guilty as most when it comes to forking out, although I’ve increasingly become tetchy and unwilling to pay the asking price for live shows which are unlikely to be as memorable or enjoyable as those from a few years or decades ago. (£50 for the Bunnymen at the Barrowlands next year? No thanks…….)

I did, however, fork out for the James show in Glasgow that was to feature an orchestra and choir. I did so as the venue was more than decent, and I’m very fond of hearing songs adapted to include strings. It proved to be a good call, as it turned out to be one of the best of what ended up being many live highlights during 2023.

I have to admit that the actual performance was far more spine-tingling than the accompanying album, but that really is down to the magic of seeing and enjoying things in the flesh as opposed to hearing a note-for-note perfect reproduction at home via the stereo speakers. It’s also the fact that the running order of the live show was quite different from the order in which the songs appear over the four sides of the vinyl, as well as having a number of songs that don’t appear on the record. But, all minor grumblings aside, Be Opened By The Wonderful is an album I’m very happy to recommend be added to your wish list from Santa if you’re looking for ideas.

I love that James went deep into the back catalogue for this one. Yup, a fair chunk of the better-known hits are given the full treatment, but there’s also a fair number of album tracks from before they hit payola, at least one very obscure b-side, a handful of songs from their most recent releases and one completely new song. They have all been imaginatively arranged by Joe Duddell, the Manchester-based composer and conductor, and the playing by the ORCA 22 Orchestra and the singing from the Manchester Inspirational Voices Choir is, as you’d expect, from the very top drawer, as too is the playing by the various members of James.

But none of it would work if Tim Booth wasn’t on top form. It’s hard to believe that he sounds as young, fresh and invigorated as he did when he started out some 40 years ago. He brings beauty, drama, power and raw emotion to every one of the tracks, his voice soaring when required but falling to a near whisper when the moments call for it, sometimes on the same song.

mp3: James – Hey Ma

The album and concept was pulled together to mark 40 years in the business. It would have been easy enough to go down some sort of box set route, but instead the band, and all involved with them on the management side, have spared no expense in this incredibly lavish production. Here’s one of the big hits.

If you need any more tasters for what the album offers, you can hear everything over at the James YouTube channel. Just click here.

JC

Carte de Sejour, Rachid Taha

CARTE DE SÉJOUR : DOUCE FRANCE

A guest posting by J.C. Brouchard (our French Correspondent)

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When JC placed a call for a guest posting about Rachid Taha, I thought I could only step up to the plate.

After all, I bought his band Carte de Séjour’s first record back in 1982 and wrote about it on my blog Vivonzeureux! back in 2007 (click here) and earlier this year, I remembered and reviewed one of his solo singles (click here). I have read his autobiography, Rock la casbah and many years ago, I bought on release and thoroughly enjoyed Carte de Séjour’s biggest hit Douce France, which I’m glad to introduce you to today.

What made Carte de Séjour stand out after they formed in Lyon in the early 1980’s is that they were a great rock band, with a line-up made up mostly of « beurs » (a French slang word which became popular at the time, derived from a reverse pronunciation of Arab »). They were maybe one of the first, and not many have followed suit since.

Their name itself was a statement (The « carte de séjour » is the residence card for foreigners in France) and they purposely elected to write lyrics in an arabic-Algerian dialect mixing in some French words.

Carte de Séjour performed their cover of Douce France for the first time on June 15th 1985 at a huge anti-racist concert on Place de la Concorde in Paris. A short clip is on YouTube, with comment by Rachid Taha, complete with subtitles:-

The choice to cover this Charles Trenet song was perfect. The original song itself has a chequered history. It was written and first performed by Charles Trenet in the 1940’s, during the German occupation. Some took this nostalgic paean to France and childhood memories as an endorsement of the Vichy regime, while others saw in it some form of passive resistance to the Germans, harking back to an eternal idealised France. Trenet first recorded it in 1947, and it became a classic of the « chanson française ».

Carte de Séjour recorded their studio version of Douce France with British producer Nick Patrick, who worked a lot with Barclay artists at the time and had produced Alain Bashung’s Touche pas à mon pote the year before. It was released as a single and was also included on their second album, 2 ½.

mp3: Carte de Séjour – Douce France

Asked later what he meant by covering this song, Rachid Taha replied « I meant «Fuck you», » We are here, we are to stay for good, we can sing this, we can sing Brassens,… ».
It was a way to reclaim a piece of French heritage as their own, but if their intentions were initially ironical, as underlined, by the use of a forced Arabic accent, it is not exactly the way in which their cover was ultimately received.

Here’s how Barbara LEBRUN puts it in “Carte de Séjour: Revisiting ‘Arabness’ and Anti-Racism in 1980s France.”, the first academic study published in English about Carte de Séjour (Popular Music 31, no. 3 (2012): 331–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/S026114301200027X) :

« the unchanged lyrics suggested that ‘Arabs’ expressed their love of France just as Trenet, and by extension white French people, once had. This literal interpretation also implied that, like the French, ‘Arabs’ had had childhoods in France, were an integral part of the nation, and kept ‘sweet’ memories of their life in France. This assimilationist interpretation was not intended. (…)

Taha detested Le Pen, but his intentions in this cover were ironic rather than literal. Instead of appropriating the patriotism of the original, his ‘Douce France’ was ‘an antiphrasis. It was out of irony precisely because France was not sweet for immigrants, that we chose that title’ »

The Douce France cover was a soft but also violent way to denounce rampant fascism, in the context of ambient racism, the rising far-right Front national and a new rightist government intent on fighting immigration (If you think the past sounds like our present, you’re unfortunately right !).

This culminated on November 19th 1986, when Parliament was debating a reform of the Nationality Code. With the band’s approval, ex-culture minister Jack Lang and Charles Trenet himself took it upon themselves to hand out copies of the single to members of Parliament at the National Assembly.

I didn’t underline it enough, but Carte de Séjour’s version of the song is a success all over, energic and exhilarating.

Unfortunately, even with a lot of media coverage, it was not that big a hit. The band never really made it big and split after two albums.

JC Brouchard

Wedding Present

THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part Five)

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We’ve now reached 1987, the year in which The Wedding Present would break out of cult status and take firm grip of the indie-scene in the UK. It all began with the release of a new song in February, one which was given the accolade of ‘Single Of The Week’ in the NME:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – My Favourite Dress

There can’t be too many of us who haven’t been on the bad end of a painful break-up at some point in time. The luckier ones are those who never see the previous other half ever again, but such instances are very rare. It is an inevitability that paths will cross in the most difficult and agonising circumstances. Plenty of poems, prose and songs throughout history have touched on the theme, but there can’t be many better that have captured the gut-wrenching feeling of having it confirmed with your own eyes that it really is all over.

“A stranger’s hand on my favourite dress. That was my favourite dress you know.”

It was released on 7″ and 12″ on Reception Records.

As with previous singles, the b-sides proved to be worthy of attention.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Every Mother’s Son
mp3: The Wedding Present – Never Said

The former is a ridiculous burst of energy that is done and dusted in just over 90 seconds with Pete Solowka playing his guitar at a speed very few of us can comprehend, while the latter is another example of what has turned out to be the many hundreds of Gedge songs dealing with break-ups – in this instance the protagonist is seeking an explanation of what went wrong. But at least it seems he was spared seeing a stranger’s hand on his previously favourite dress.

JC

Withered Hand

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #380: WITHERED HAND

Withered Hand is the stage name adopted by Dan Willson, an English-born but Scottish-based musician who made a bit of a comeback this year after quite a lengthy spell out of the limelight.

He was a relative latecomer to music, seemingly not picking up a guitar until the late-90s, by which time he was in his 30s. Around the turn of the century and beyon, he became part of a number of bands based in the Edinburgh-area, none of which made any sort of commercial breakthrough. He was then involved in the Fife-based Fence Collective scene, quickly making a name for himself as a talented singer-songwriter in the folk/indie style that was becoming increasingly popular in Scotland at the time.

In 2009, he released what proved to be a very-well received debut album Good News, on Edinburgh-based SL Records, all the while attracting very positive press for his live shows. The next few years would see a number of EPs and singles and a move to Fortuna Pop!/Slumberland Records for whom he recorded New Gods, his second album, in 2014.

New Gods is a hugely enjoyable record from start to finish, and for a time it looked as if Dan would be the next singer/songwriter to emerge out of Scotland to a wider, international audience.

But it has taken nine years to write and record a follow-up, with How To Love making its appearance back on 28 April, and the momentum has been lost. In the media rounds accompanying the new release, Dan hasn’t shirked away from explaining what happened, revealing that he has been having severe struggles with his mental health much of his life, trying to deal and cope with anxiety, depression and addiction. He found himself totally unable to write anything in the wake of the acclaim heaped on New Gods.

I’m really pleased that Dan is on the comeback trail, and I did make a purchase of the new album a few months back. But it’s proving to be a difficult listen – it’s not that I think it’s a poor or disappointing record, but it had so much to live up to with the previous two albums and I can’t help but think it comes up a bit short. I’ll persist with it in the weeks and months ahead. It could well prove to be a grower.

In the meantime, here’s one of the songs from New Gods.

mp3: Withered Hand – Black Tambourine

JC

Indelicates

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #037

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#037– The Indelicates– ‘We Hate The Kids’ (Sad Gnome Records ’06)

Hello dear friends,

what would the world of music be without all those fine famous duets consisting of a male and a female part? You know what I mean, clear, strong, beautiful voices, which, in the combination of themselves – plus a little bit of seduction, if I may say so -, enrich a song to a degree where shivers are being sent down your spine each and every time you hear it. There have been quite a few of those duets over the years: Nancy & Frank Sinatra, John Travolta & Olivia Newton John, Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes, Sonny & Cher, ~~Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson~~, Simon & Julia Indelicate … sorry, what do you say? Oh, the latter are not known to you? Well, let’s revise this then straightaway – because quite clearly they are the fucking best of the whole lot, no question about this!!

Simon and Julia Indelicate, or Simon Clayton and Julia Clark-Lowes, to give them their real names, founded The Indelicates in Brighton in 2005. Simon was a poet, active in cabaret things, so most probably that’s why he didn’t appear on our radar before. Julia though was active in The Pipettes for two years, and perhaps this name rings a bell – it certainly should, they were a great little combo!

The Indelicates gained some attention with the online-only release of a tune called “Waiting For Pete Doherty To Die” in 2005. Doherty, he of The Libertines fame, but back then in Babyshambles, still was quite big in the press at the time, mainly for what he put in (drugs + drinks) than for what he put out (good music), I think it’s fair to say, so the song soon became the source of a lot of misunderstanding and controversial mentions in the press.

I won’t go into detail here, but if you listen to the tune and its lyrics, you will very quickly find out that it wasn’t about wishing Doherty to die, but instead about the media profiting of the death of musicians in general (before I forget: by coincidence I saw an up-to-date picture of good ole’ Pete a few weeks ago, opening some art exhibition here in Germany. You have to google him, you won’t believe your eyes if you, like me, last saw him some 15 years or so ago).

But I digress, as I so often do. Today’s song has nothing to do with any of the above apart from the fact how important lyrics can be: it is The Indelicates’ first proper single from one year later, 2006, in fact. The band found a record company, Sad Gnome Records, the single being the label’s first release, and although I tried to follow them a bit for a few years, they never did anything quite as fantastic as this afterwards, I would say:

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mp3: The Indelicates – We Hate The Kids

Obviously this is one of those songs that lives from its lyrics, and boy – that’s what I call lyrics! A perfect mixture of cynicism, disaffection and cleverness, well-packed in a lo-fi tune that make you want to jump along with it. What more could you possibly ask for, I wonder? One year later the band released an EP called ‘The Last Significant Statement To Be Made In Rock ‘n’ Roll’.

Well, as far as I’m concerned, ‘We Hate The Kids’ actually has already been the last significant statement to be made in rock’n’roll. By a mile …

Enjoy,

Dirk

Spare Snare

RECOMMENDED LISTENING FROM 2023 (Volume 7)

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The seventh of an occasional feature in which I’ll draw your attention to some albums that have been purchased in 2023 and which I reckon are worth highlighting.

The inclusion of Brutal by Spare Snare shouldn’t come as a surprise, given how much I waxed lyrically about it a few months back as part of a lengthy double-feature over two successive days with Jan Burnett, the band’s lead singer. I know that the lengthier articles on the blog are glossed over by a few folk, so I’m happy enough to do a bit of cutting and pasting from that time.

Most Spare Snare records are released in a low-key manner, partly as the time constraints on everyone really restricts how much can be delivered in the way of promotional activities. This time around, the release of the album is going to be accompanied by a week-long tour of venues in England, with Scottish dates later on at weekends. There’s a real desire and willingness to get the album out to as wide a crowd as possible, with a collective belief that it is as strong a collection of tunes as any they have ever delivered.

It’s a compact effort, with its ten tracks coming in at around 35 minutes all told. I played it with a pre-conceived idea of what a Steve Albini-engineered album was likely to sound like based on listening and enjoying his work with The Wedding Present, Pixies, The Breeders, PJ Harvey and so on, but found myself really appreciating how different and diverse things sounded on this occasion. I really shouldn’t have been caught out in that way given that Albini is far removed from being a one-trick pony, having worked with, among others, The Auteurs, Low, Cinerama and Jarvis Cocker, none of whom relied extensively or exclusively on guitars to make great albums.

But please, don’t be under the impression that the brilliance of this record is down solely to the magician behind the desk.

Far from it.

Spare Snare have very much upped their game on this occasion. As I outlined earlier, they took a different approach in the advance planning for this album, working and preparing harder than ever before. By the time they went into the studio, they knew they had a set of very strong songs, their first new material since the release of Unicorn in 2018; by the time they came out of the studio a week later, they had very much risen to the occasion and, to this particular set of ears, delivered the performance of a lifetime.

In summary, they nailed it.

mp3: Spare Snare – The Brutal

Spare Snare have always looked to closely control and manage the distribution of their music, and while there may well be copies kicking around in some of the independent record stores across the country, it’s probably best you pick it up via the Bandcamp page. Just click here.

JC

Various

WHAT’S NEXT?

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mp3: Various – No Idea Where This Is Going (So Have Some Fucking Empathy)

For this edition of the monthly mix, I started off with a particular song to open things up, with the idea/concept that I’d try it as an imaginary live broadcast with no preparation. All I knew was that the next song and/or band would have to flow well from the previous one.

By the time I reached the 14th song, I wasn’t sure if it was working, which is where the inspiration for the 15th song, and the title of the mix, came from. The 16th song was an attempt to finish off with a bit of pop, but then realising I still had a couple of minutes left, which is why song #17 was added to take it to almost the full hour, thus enabling the incoming newsreader to do their bit and on time.

Enjoy.

The Skids – One Skin
Blur – Colin Zeal
Hinds – The Club
Echo & The Bunnymen – Do It Clean
The Wedding Present – You’re Just A Habit That I’m Trying To Break
Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip – Letter From God To Man
Joy Division – Disorder
Working Men’s Club – X
The Cranberries – Zombie
SPRINTS – Modern Job
Alvvays – Plimsoll Punks
Grrl Gang – Dream Grrl
David Westlake– The Word Around Town
Half Man Half Biscuit – Persian Rug Sale at the URC
Dream Wife – Leech
Jane Wieldin – Rush Hour
Soup Dragons – Whole Wide World

JC

Alvvays

AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #353: ALVVAYS

A GUEST POSTING from STRANGEWAYS

Alvvays - rear sleeve

By way of a backpedalling preface, after reading the words below, maybe I’ve gone too heavy regarding my take on Alvvays’ perceived influences. But hopefully these work as very broad signposts, and might even create a bit of debate among newbies and fans. So…

Alvvays: Belinda and Bilinda – an Imaginary Compilation Album

I’ve arrived very late to the Alvvays party-proper.

That said, I was aware of the irresistible Archie, Marry Me, the 2013 sing-along single that pricked ears and turned heads in advance of the following year’s self-titled debut LP.
The mystery then, if you’re me, is why I didn’t explore beyond that one song.

Well, whatever the reason, I didn’t. And it’s therefore not in my gift or capacity to offer detailed histories of records and gigs I wasn’t experiencing. And besides, it’s likely that if you’re reading this you may well know all that stuff. Most especially if you read JC’s piece from October 2022….click here for a reminder

If you’re uninitiated though, and a bit Alvvays-curious, the Toronto-based band have variously been stapled to styles as similar and diverse as dream pop and shoegaze, power pop and twee. Genre-hoppers then, albeit beneath the blanket-descriptor of indie.
Live covers have included Camera Obscura’s Lloyd, I’m Ready to be Heartbroken and Kirsty MacColl’s He’s on the Beach. Add to these Blue by Elastica, Remember This from Dolly Mixture, Trying To Be Kind by the Motorcycle Boy and the Breeders’ Divine Hammer. Plus tracks from Devo and Ramones, and a couple from the Primitives too.

Alvvays are their own band, of course, but a love of glide guitar, bending strings and diffused vocals sometimes recalls My Bloody Valentine, post-Isn’t Anything. Indeed Easy On Your Own?, from latest LP Blue Rev (2022) – named for Rev – a skull-splitting vodka/cola drink popular in Canada – feels like a way poppier, less enigmatic Valentines. Something like this track – or the phasey Pharmacist from the same record – would have brightened that band’s singles-free m b v album from way back in 2013.

Across Alvvays’ three LPs – the eponymous debut (2014), Antisocialites (2017) and Blue Rev – there’s occasionally something approaching both a Sundays jangle and the vocal delivery of Harriet Wheeler. Could the wintry Tile by Tile, again from Blue Rev, take its place on a phantom fourth Sundays album? And winding back to Antisocialites, the spirit of old-school R.E.M. pops up too, via the coda of Atop A Cake. Plus there’s no end of Scottish indiepop. To these ears the likes of Camera Obscura and Shop Assistants.

Connected to this, and in a case of JAMC’ll Fix It, in 2016 singer and guitarist Molly Rankin joined her heroes the Jesus and Mary Chain on a stage in Sydney for Just Like Honey. And Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake sings on In Undertow, the mighty Antisocialites opener.

Selected group surnames past and present even read like the morning register at your local Scottish secondary: Rankin, of course, and also O’Hanley, MacLellan, Murphy and Riley. That’s a Celtic five-a-side right there. And because we Scots can usually find a route to claim pretty much any invention and innovation as our own, you could say that there’s some corner of a Toronto field that is forever Scotland. Glasgow, specifically. And Bellshill.

Enough. Here’s Belinda and Bilinda, an Alvvays ICA with selected tracks from all of the albums.

Side 1

1. Ones Who Love You (from Alvvays)

For me, the emotional heart of the debut LP. If you don’t have time for ten tracks, this is not a bad go-to. “You know that Archie, Marry Me band?” said my friend one evening, “Well, they do this one too.” And from then on, for both of us, that was that. There’s a lovely textured guitar and bass bed on this one.

Recommended is the live take from the December 2014 KEXP session.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1dQI4Gjt9I

2. Easy On Your Own? (from Blue Rev)

A frazzle of distortion/ambience opens the in-and-out-of-consciousness Easy On Your Own?. And when it rapidly explodes following the ‘college education’ line, it’s thrilling every single time. Super drumming too. One who stalks this blog considers Molly’s Rankin’s voice to be an instrument all of its own, and the range present on this song is maybe a good example to cite.

3. Lollipop (Ode to Jim) (from Antisocialites)

The oded Jim in question being Jim Reid. But don’t expect a JAMC-style number. Instead, this is magnificently fizzy and twee, with a riot of la-la-las following an intro that maybe recalls Blondie’s Dreaming.

4. The Agency Group (from Alvvays)

From its sinister-sounding title onwards, this is a brooder that draws you deeper and deeper in.

5. In Undertow (from Antisocialites)

What an intro, and what a way to open an LP. So, naturally, it closes Side 1 of this compilation. Would love to have heard an extended guitar outro to this one.

Side 2

6. Many Mirrors (from Blue Rev)

Airy and earnest, and led by a lovely Kirsty MacCollesque vocal. And if it’s Kirsty MacCollish then it’s surely also Tracey Ullmanish. And that’s OK by me.

7. Belinda Says (from Blue Rev)

A super racket, a quieter moment, then back to noise, robust glide guitar and a key-change to die for. All this, plus a Belinda Carlisle reference. Sounding every inch a single, the band performed a storming version – elevated by live strings – on The Tonight Show at the start of 2023.

8. Atop A Cake (from Alvvays)

Scrunching this ICA down to just ten tracks was especially difficult. And the desire to well-represent all three albums meant banishing songs that would have otherwise breezed in. So Atop A Cake ended up giving Not My Baby, from Antisocialites, a biffing.

This winning eighth track is from the debut record – an album that on another day could have supplied Archie, Marry Me, and Party Police too. But, searching for criteria, and not wishing to draw lots, I chose Atop A Cake partly because that early R.E.M.ish jangle might appeal to readers of this blog who engaged, in big numbers, with JC and The Robster’s epic, near-60 posts, Singular Adventures of R.E.M. series.

Plus, and perhaps less scientifically, a song with Cake in its title is pretty much going to get the nod from me on any given day.

9. Velveteen (from Blue Rev)

Possibly the most commercial-sounding take in all of Alvvays’ catalogue.

Velveteen’s flickering 80s, John Hughesy feel is made lush and lustrous, synthy and shimmery thanks to Kerri MacLellan’s keyboards. The song is decorated with elegant lyrics of banister-sliding, of closets stuffed with lace and, most notably, contains the disarming and poignant chorus ‘Who is she?/Because I know that it can’t be me’.

So Velveteen is brill – and, yes, I’ll propose it out loud: when it comes to B(e/i)lindas, this one is more Carlisle than Butcher.

10. Forget About Life (from Antisocialites)

A bit of a cheat here, as this end track takes its cue also from the Antisocialites closer. But it’s such a terrific way to lay this ICA to rest that I couldn’t resist it.

Wikipedia lists current lineup as…

Molly Rankin – vocals, rhythm guitar (2011–present), bass (2022–present)
Kerri MacLellan – keyboards, backing vocals (2011–present)
Alec O’Hanley – lead guitar (2011–present)
Sheridan Riley – drums, percussion, backing vocals (2017–present)
Abbey Blackwell – bass (2021–present)

…and past members as:

Phil MacIsaac – drums (2011–2016)
Brian Murphy – bass guitar (2011–2021)

Labels are:

Royal Mountain (Canada)
Polyvinyl (US)
Transgressive (Europe)
Pod / Inertia Music (Australia)

Thanks as ever to JC for the space, and to anyone who’s made it this far.