Various - Overload (1982)

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Haircut One Hundred ‎– Pelican West (1982)

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Pelican West . . . South . . . East . . . and North

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.

The Boy He Used To Be

I was going to do it eventually, but as Stuart has now outed himself as a fellow Haircut 100 fan in response to the previous post, I thought I'd draw people's attention to this excellent old article from the Church of Me blog that was linked to in the last post but was buried deep amongst the self-absorption and mono-mania.

It's a track by track breakdown and celebration of the Haircut's debut album, Pelican West. The Smash Hits generation know of the Postcard connection when talking about Haircut 100's style and influences but were you aware of Pelican West's tipping the hat to No Wave and Steely Dan, amongst others?

It also pleases that there is a few knowing barbs aimed at those bands that were supposedly inspired by new pop of the early eighties but bit the hand that fed it by sucking all the joy and life out of what was a great period for music. I mean, I do have a soft spot for a couple of early tracks from the Kane brothers but I know what the blogger means when he writes of Hue & Cry:

" . . . despite borrowing an album title from Baudrillard, [they] always came across to me as Haircut One Hundred with a Lanarkshire Ben Elton on vocals."

The mid-eighties has a lot to answer for.

Friday's Playlist #12

An ongoing series:

Mission of Burma, 'Academy Fight Song' (Signals, Calls and Marches)

Manic Street Preachers, 'This is Yesterday' (The Holy Bible)

Mick Ronson, 'Only After Dark' (Slaughter On Tenth Avenue)

X, 'Johnny Hit And Run Pauline' (Los Angeles)

The Auteurs, 'Lights Out' (How I Learned To Love The Bootboys)

The Coup, 'Five Million Ways To Kill A CEO' (Party Music)

Melanie C, 'Goin Down' (Northern Star)

Westworld, 'Sonic Boom Boy' (Once Upon A Time)

Haircut 100, 'Fantastic Day' (Pelican West)

OMD, 'Souvenir' (Architecture & Morality)

Christ, I need to start listening to some new music.

UPDATE

On second thoughts, with choices 1 through 7 I was doing so well, as well.

A wee bit muso . . . a wee bit obscure. The recent announcement of the one-off reunion tour affording me the opportunity to splice in a solo song from the most talented Spice Girl to come off as oh so ironic (but secretly liking the song . . . the cynics can take a running jump off of Ger's old platform shoes). Throw in a bit of revolutionary hip hop from The Coup to impress any passing American student r-r-r-revolutionary politico who stumbles across the blog on their way to the next cute agit-prop event, but I fuck it all up by revealing my true colours in choices 8, 9 and 10: Laminated Smash Hits magazines parked neatly in the back of the wardrobe alongside my K-Tel compilation albums.

Update 11/12/ 22

There's a shock. Me moaning about listening to too much old music. I just couldn't accept that I was stuck musically in the 80s and always would be. The Coup still sounds brilliant, though.

Spotify Playlist Link.