Face It Tiger

I was sifting through a box of cds found on top of a cupboard recently- various bits of decorating and reorganising have been taking place which will eventually lead to a new storage solution for the overspill of records that has been taking place in the back room for a few years now. The box contained either cds I'd made myself or cds that came free with magazines. Some didn't the survive the process. Some got refiled in the box (but more neatly). Some got taken to the car. On the way to work on Tuesday morning I put a cd called Change The Beat into the player, a compilation that came free with Mojo in 2015 subtitled '14 tracks from Madonna's New York scene'. This came blaring out of my car's speakers and for 4 minutes and 13 seconds I was convinced it was the best song I was going to hear that day.

Coup

Everything about it is the maximum it could be- that taut, funky as fuck bassline (pinched by The Chemical Brothers at a cost for Block Rockin' Beats), those chanted backing vox, the horns, the timbales, the gunshot samples. Magical stuff from 23 Skidoo back in 1983. You just hit the jackpot.

To Fly Free You Must Fly Alone

Back to 1990 today and a hands in the air piano rave moment from N-Joi. The vocal track on the original version of the song was made up of samples from 3 different sources- Gwen Guthrie, Soul II Soul and Darlene Davis- which singer Saffron mimed for TV and sang live for performances, as seen here on Top Of The Pops...



Anthem

Saffron went on to find fame as the singer of Republica, a group that included a former member of Flowered Up (Tim Dorney on keyboards) and a former member of Soul Family Sensation (Jonathan Male on guitar). Back in the late 90s I wrote some reviews and articles for a Manchester based magazine and got to interview Saffron (on the phone not face to face). I don't think the Saffron interview was published (probably because my interviewing skills were limited and the whole thing was a bit uncomfortable). Later on I co-interviewed Bez in a bar called The Temple Of Convenience. He was promoting his book Freaky Dancing. This interview went much better. Bez offered to take us out for the night with, and I quote, 'some classical music fella and the King of Cumbia squeezing fuck out of a massive squeezebox'. His opening gambit when we all sat down was to tell me that I looked like 'I smoked loads of smack' (which I didn't I hasten to add). Good fun and highly entertaining. Happy days.

So Shall It Be

A 1971 psychedelic/Norse crossover, this one drawn by John Buscema, from the Third Eye series. Odin resurrects Hela. So shall it be.

This can only go in one direction can't it? From 2008's Black Sheep album, some prime recent Julian Cope.

Psychedelic Odin

More from the Marvel Third Eye series, these ones are all by Jack Kirby I think, but its the colourist who's getting most of the fun- The Infinity Man, an acid trip in spandex; the Silver Surfer, freed and unbound; magnificent Medusa.

And because Cope has more than one Marvel link, Spiderman and Daredevil threatened by Submariner- The Teardrop Explodes!

This is their 1979 single (that inspired its own tribute song by Chris Sievey and the Freshies, otherwise known as Timperley's own Frank Sidebottom).

Bouncing Babies

Or Is It Treason?

The idea that any band could contain three egos like Ian McCulloch's, Julian Cope's and Pete Wylie's is absurd and according to legend The Crucial Three never even got as far as rehearsing, but it's nice to try to imagine what they might have sounded like. This video for The Teardrop Explode's Treason, a single off 1980s Kilimanjaro, is a hoot. The B-side was Read It In Books, a joint McCulloch-Cope effort recorded by both bands.