FRIDAY.....WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED????

At 6.00am this morning, I posted the latest in the series of Morrissey singles. Some 16 hours later, the posting had gone.....without any warning whatsoever from Blogger....no dmca notice or anything. Indeed, I wouldn't have spotted it without someone very kindly leaving a comment in last Friday's posting to say that Part 28 was missing....

The thing is, given I've had no hassle with Morrissey posts all this year this was huge shock, but I've learned my lessons from problems of old and habitually do a back up. I managed to have a look at the files, and I found what I said:-

Someone had a wee pop at me last week with a few words to the effect that for someone who is a Morrissey fan I seem to spend a fair bit of time being critical of his output.

The idea of this series looking at all the singles in his long and distinguished solo career is to bring them all together in one place, complete with the numerous b-sides.

What I feel however, is that it does throw up is the fact that a fair number of the singles have been rather poor efforts, often saved by the inclusion of one or more great b-sides and or cover versions.Today's offering is the lead-off single from the much-criticised 1997 LP Malajusted, and this may surprise one or two of you as it is one that I like.

Alma Matters was the first song released by Morrissey, in July 1997, for his new record label, Island. I really thought it was a welcome return to something resembling form after the disappointing lack of half-decent tunes on Southpaw Grammar a couple of years earlier.

mp3 : Morrissey - Alma Matters

It was a view that was seemingly shared by a fair number of fans, as we bought enough copies of the single to allow it to reach #16 in the UK Charts, after the previous six singles had all stalled outside the Top 20, and I don't think I was alone in looking forward to the album which hit the shops about a week later. Sadly, the album was a bit of a let-down......but I don't think it is anything as bad as some of the critics made it out to be, and in Trouble Loves Me you have one of the best things he's ever recorded. Having said that, it also contained the truly appalling Roy's Keen.

But back to Alma Matters.....There's two extra songs on the CD single, one of which I'm fond of, but the other is one that I played just now for maybe the first time in 12 years as I typed these words.....and I'll be surprised if I listen to it again before 2021 (and I dont mean not after long 8 o'clock in the evening):-

mp3 : Morrissey - Heir Apparent
mp3 : Morrissey - I Can Have Both

For the avoidance of any doubt, its the tuneless and dirge-like Heir Apparent I was referring to in the previous paragraph.Trivia facts.

The nipple-tweaking photo was taken by Derek Ion and in small print on the back of the sleeve, Morrissey thanks Willie Garcia (at least I think its says Garcia....the print is tiny and my 46 year-old eyes ain't as good as they used to be). I have no idea why these thanks were offered.......

More trivia facts. Morrissey is well known for going on the road and promoting his new material. However, there were only two UK gigs in December 1997, one at the Battersea Power Station in London and the other at the Northgate Arena in Chester....it would be 1999 before most of us got to hear live songs from the LP. But I'll save that for another time.

So fuck you whoever got the original taken down......

And here's what folk have said previuosly as I still have the comments via email:-

Ed has left a new comment on your post "FRIDAY, I'M IN LOVE....WITH MORRISSEY (Part 28)":

Bought this at the time...I really like this one, too!


Phil Spector has left a new comment on your post "FRIDAY, I'M IN LOVE....WITH MORRISSEY (Part 28)":

Have you seen that new book, Mozipedia? It looks right up your street. £20 in Waterstones, though I'm sure it'll be cheaper elsewhere.

Laura has left a new comment on your post "FRIDAY, I'M IN LOVE....WITH MORRISSEY (Part 28)":

Totally agree with you about "Trouble Loves Me." But "Roy's Keen" isn't THAT bad... But maybe I'm the only person who thinks so! :)

Victoria has left a new comment on your post "FRIDAY, I'M IN LOVE....WITH MORRISSEY (Part 28)":

You're not alone, Laura. I think "Roy's Keen" is a fun song and felt kind of bad about it getting left off the "Maladjusted" reissue.

But YES - "Trouble Loves Me" is absolutely gorgeous.


Rol has left a new comment on your post "FRIDAY, I'M IN LOVE....WITH MORRISSEY (Part 28)":

I've been listening to the Maladjusted reissue myself recently, and have found myself enjoying it more than the Southpaw reissue. Particularly as it now features the great lost Moz song, Lost.

(But sorry to the above commenters, it's also improved by the removal of Roy's Keen imho!)

And here's what tipped me off.....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "FRIDAY I'M IN LOVE....WITH MORRISSEY (Part 27)":

I think Blogger deleted your latest Friday I'm In Love With Morrissey. :-( I didn't get to read it yet.

Here's yer mp3s once again:-

mp3 : Morrissey - Alma Matters
mp3 : Morrissey - Heir Apparent
mp3 : Morrissey - I Can Have Both

Now listen for a minute whichever cunt it was that demanded a takedown.......get a fucking life and leave those of us who actually appreciate music alone to get on with what we like doing.

And if you get this taken down, just remember, I've backed it up, and while it is a pain in the arse, I'll just repost it again.

FOLLOWING ON NICELY FROM YESTERDAY'S POSTING

The production talent behind the early Spandau Ballet music was Richard James Burgess. What many folk probaly don't realise (and I include myself in that vast number) is that way before the Kemps put their band together, the man in the producer's chair was a wannabe pop star.

Landscape were formed in 1974, playing pop and jazz tunes and released a couple of low-key EPs in the late 70s. They turned to synthesisers and electronica in 1979 but with little commercial success....until Burgess' name became famous thanks to his imprint on the Spandau Ballet singles and other emerging acts like Visage.

Cleverly cashing-in on the fame, Landscape enjoyed some minor success in 1981 with a Top 5 hit in Einstein A Go-Go and a Top 40 hit with follow-up Norman Bates. Subsequent singles and LPs were not hits, and by 1983, Landscape had split-up.

Richard James Burgess worked with quite a number of successful chart acts in the early-mid 80s, and also released some more jazz-influenced material. He is highly respected in the world of academia thanks to his pioneering work with electronica when it was just emerging, and has taught and lectured in a number of high-profile educational establishments in the USA. But most of us I suspect know him best through this:-

mp3 : Landscape - Einstein A Go-Go

Note the recording and mixing of various telephone calls in the opening part of the mp3, which I'm sure must have been one of the first such examples of sampling on any record. Interestingly, the info on the record label advises that the song is 3 minutes in length, but the intro is 32 seconds long....thus allowing radio DJs to cue the record up properly so that listeners got to hear only the actual music.

Happy Listening.

STEALING CAKE TO EAT THE MOON

History hasn't really been all that kind to Spandau Ballet, and that really all stems from 1983 onwards when the single and LP True gave them enormous crossover appeal, success, fame and fortune. And I'm not going to sir here typing away any real defence of the band, for it was a very clear and distinct career move to shift away from the sort of music that had dominated the first two LPs into the bland, radio-friendly wine-bar shite that was incredibly popular in UK plc when Thatcher was at her most frightening.

But I'll take issue with anyone who simply dismisses the early work just because it was a Spandau Ballet song.

Their debut single is one of the great synth-pop singles in an era where acts like Soft Cell, Human League, OMD and Depeche Mode were churning them out.

mp3 : Spandau Ballet - To Cut A Long Story Short

This was a huge hit, reaching #5 in the UK singles chart, and I don't mind admitting that I did lots of dancing to this, as well as their great follow-up The Freeze, in Glasgow discos in the early 80s. In fact, their debut LP Journeys To Glory, released in October 1981, along with Non Stop Erotic Cabaret and Dare by the afore-mantioned Soft Cell and The Human League, are about the only synth-dominated LPs from that era that I'm still happy to listen to all the way through almost 30 years later.

Not long after the LP appeared, we had the single that many of us will say was the high point of the band's output, the Top 3 smash Chant No.1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On) . The band followed this up with Paint Me Down, another classy bit of pop-funk, but rather worryingly, the other tracks on the parent LP, Diamond, released in May 1982, were quite disappointing.

Looking back, it's worth remembering that the two albums were released only 8 months apart, so there's a case to be made that some of the material on Diamond was a bit rushed in an effort to stay in the public eye, and maybe if the band had been given another six or nine months, the LP would have been a lot stronger.

Paint Me Down only reached #30, which must have been a shock to the band and everyone associated with them given all previous four singles had been big hits, but that was nothing compared to the follow-up She Loved Like Diamond which only just made the Top 50. Something needed fixing.....

And so the record label sent for uber-producer Trevor Horn and he sprinkled his magic dust over the underwhelming song Instinction and produced brashy and bold bit of pop that soon had the boys back in the Top 10, on Top Of The Pops and in the pages of Smash Hits:-

mp3 : Spandau Ballet - Instinction (single version)

I finally picked up a copy of this bit of vinyl on e-bay the other day (along with a few other classics of the era), and I'm delighted to share it with y'all. Normally, I would also put the b-side up as well, but it really is a dreadful bit of pap called Gently, a self-produced number that really does put the band firmly on the road to the sort of stuff that was shoved on in the background so as not to interfere with the important chit-chat and gossip at the dinner parties...you know the sort of thing.....'Tristan just picked up his half-a-million bonus from the bank the other day after he persuaded the plebs to buy shares in the the Telecoms/Electricity/Gas companies they already owned. Tee-hee. Crack open another case of bolly....."

Oh and I havent a fucking clue what Gary Kemp meant with the words Stealing Cake To Eat The Moon.

BOOK REVIEW : FALLING & LAUGHING - THE RESTORATION OF EDWYN COLLINS by GRACE MAXWELL

After reading this compelling 310 pages, I was left with quite a number of impressions, one being that I couldn’t possibly cope with being married to Grace Maxwell. She herself acknowledges that she is a nagging, dominating, sharp-tongued and single-minded individual who has difficulty ever admitting that she ever gets something wrong. But one thing is for sure…..if she wasn’t like that, her partner would most likely be dead, or at best locked away from the world, dependant on specialist round-the-clock treatment. So without any question at all, Edwyn Collins is very blessed to have Grace Maxwell by his side…

Falling and Laughing – The Restoration of Edwyn Collins is a truly astonishing and eye-opening book. It’s also a very very frightening bit of work, and not the sort of thing you really want to be reading if someone close to you is lying ill in hospital with a life-threatening condition (my best mate right now is being treated for leukaemia, and very likely to require a bone marrow transplant in the near future – if he and/or his wife were to cast their eyes over some of the pages they would be filled with anxiety…)

I’m sure most regular TVV readers are familiar with the basic facts, but here’s a quick resume of what I knew before picking up the hardback.

In February 2005, Edwyn Collins suffered a stroke which left him seriously ill in a London hospital. He was in a coma and required major brain surgery to stop internal bleeding which threatened to kill him. His recovery was hampered by him contracting MRSA, but in the fullness of time, he got back home, and thanks to some fantastic TLC from his partner Grace, their son Will and many other members of his family and his close friends, not to mention many hours of therapeutic treatment, he made a remarkable recovery which allowed him to get back on stage again in late 2007 and to then go on tour in the summer of 2008.

If only it had been that simple……

Opening with a very short prologue that asks the reader to imagine you not having any more thoughts, the book then looks back at the early part of Edwyn’s career with Orange Juice and the circumstances which brought him and Grace together for the first time in 1980, leading to them deciding to live together some five years later. From the outset, Grace was an essential part of Team Edwyn - she was his full-time manager before they got together as a couple, and she shared his woes and worries as he went out of fashion post-Orange Juice but never ever giving up on his immense talent, even when his records were selling to almost no-one.

The world-wide success of the single A Girl Like You in 1994/95 changed everything, setting them, and new son Will, up for life in terms of financial security. It also gave Edwyn the opportunity to make and produce music as and when he liked from the comfort of his own and much-in-demand studio. By early 2005. life seemed quite uncomplicated. Edwyn was 45 years of age, an elder and much respected statesman in music, still recording new songs but under no pressure to come up with the hits. Indeed there was a great deal of satisfaction with the new songs recently recorded and about to go into the post-production for a new LP which would be followed by the inevitable tour and other promotional work.

But then Grace came home on at around 7pm on on the night of Sunday 20th February 2005 after picking up her car that had been left a friends house after a party she and Edwyn had attended the night before - and discovered him lying semi-conscious and distressed on the living room floor....

Much of the book deals with the next few months as Edwyn tries to battle back from the stroke. Grace writes with a directness and clarity that is utterly refreshing, and she is never over-dramatic about events. She gives a great deal of praise to the medical and nursing staff involved in saving Edwyn’s life, but without ever making them appear as saints. At the same time, she also paints a very distressing picture of a medical system that contributes more to a crisis than it does resolve it.

Grace was fortunate in having some immediate family members who work in medicine, and so she could often talk to someone and try and get an alternative view. Grace was also able to devote 100% of her own energy to be with Edwyn over an extended period of time – a luxury very rarely afforded to most wives/husbands/partners. If she had been in a position where she had taken all the medical opinions totally at face value, and had been unable to spend as much time by Edwyn's side in the very early days, it is quite likely that everyone would have given up the fight…but they battled through all the obstacles and barriers placed in their way, and slowly his recovery began.

But just as Edwyn was about to be moved out of general care into a specialist unit where his therapy would be intense, there was a setback that made the original stroke seem a bit like a pleasant Sunday stroll in the sunshine round – the contraction of the superbug MRSA. What follows really is the stuff of nightmares……

I’m not spoiling anything by revealing that in the fullness of time, Edwyn faced up to and defeated death for a second time. His rehabilitation is covered in great depth and compassion. Grace doesn’t hide from the fact that this was an immense strain on her and Will and describes some unpleasant family exchanges with an admirable honesty that brought a lump to the throat of this particular reader. I’m sure most of us by now have been in difficult circumstances when someone close is being treated for an illness, and reading many of Grace’s lines brought back a lot of memories of watching loved ones painfully tear themselves up trying to work out what course of action is the best way forward.

As a long-time fan of Edwyn Collins, I would love to have discovered that his recovery turned out to be a smooth and straight-forward process, with him taking his medicine and undergoing his therapy without complaint or giving anyone any cause for concern, and indeed Grace could have easily painted such a rosy picture with very few of us being any the wiser. That she doesn’t is testament to just how good a book this is, and helps the reader gain a much better understanding of just how remarkable it is that Edwyn has the ability nowadays to take to the stage and entertain us.

Having been lucky enough to see him perform three times over the past 12 months I thought that Edwyn – not withstanding the very clear mobility and speech difficulties he still has – was almost completely rehabilitated. Grace’s book reminds everyone that there is still a long way to go. It also reminds us that what Edwyn and so many others close to him have achieved over the past couple of years is quite miraculous – but it has all been through grit, graft and guts, not to mention a lot of Grace.

mp3 : Edwyn Collins - Graciously

mp3 : Edwyn Collins - Let Me Put My Arms Around You

The book is widely available in many stores, but if you’re having difficulty tracking it down, there’s always Amazon. Just click here.

PRE-BAGGY/MADCHESTER 'BLONDE' STUFF

A reader and contributor from way back in the early days, Jeff in Chicago, dropped me a note last week asking for "pre-baggy/Madchester 'Blonde' stuff"

I'm guessing he means the likes of this:-

mp3 : The Primitives - Really Stupid

The Primitives formed in the mid 80s, and while the music was pretty decent, it was the presence of an attractive singer called Tracey Tracey that gained them loads of column inches and photographs in the male-dominated world of the UK weekly music papers.

Between 1986 and 1991, they released three LPs (or four if you include one put up by their original indie label), as well as ten singles, of which this was the most successful, reaching #5 in the UK charts in 1988:-

mp3 : The Primitives - Crash

I'm also guessing that Jeff was thinking of this:-

mp3 : The Darling Buds - If I Said

The Darling Buds formed in the mid 80s, and while the music was pretty decent, it was the presence of an attractive singer called Andrea Lewis that gained them loads of column inches and photographs in the male-dominated world of the UK weekly music papers.

Between 1987 and 1992, they released four albums and eleven singles, of which this was the most successful, reaching #27 in the UK charts in 1988:-

mp3 : The Darling Buds - Hit The Ground

I'm also guessing that Jeff was thinking of this:-

mp3 : Transvision Vamp - I Want Your Love

Transvision Vamp formed in the late 80s. I reckon much of their music was mediocre, and indeed without the the presence of an attractive singer called Wendy James they would have failed to get many column inches and photographs in the male-dominated world of the UK weekly music papers.

Between 1987 and 1991, they released three LPs as well as ten singles, and unlike the other 'blonde' bands they were lazily lumped in with, they enjoyed substantial fame with three Top 20 hits, including Baby I Don't Care which went Top3 in both the UK and Australia.

Of the three blonde singers, Wendy was the only one happy enough to get her tits out for a photo shoot....strangely enough, her band was the one that received most attention, most airplay and most chart hits. Hmmmmmm.

Finally, although this has nowt to do with the 'blonde' movement, here's a single I always associate with the period:-

mp3 : Daisy Chainsaw - Love Your Money
mp3 : Daisy Chainsaw - Get Real Pleasure

Daisy Chainsaw formed in 1989. They soon became known for their live shows during which lead singer Katie Jane Garside would scream, holler and yell her way through the set, holding the audience's attention with weird dancing and antics such as dressing in nightclothes and drinking from baby bottles. They were just too strange to ever be mainstream, although the fantastic and frantic 7" single I've listed above did reach #26 in the UK charts in 1992.

Katie Jane left the band in 1993 after the release of their debut LP, and while the rest of them soldiered on for a couple of years, it was all over for everyone by 1995.

Happy listening Jeff......and everyone else.

THE CLASS OF '79 (Part 23)

The reason for the two sleeves will hopefully become apparent...

I cant claim to even remember hearing this back in 1979, far less buying the damn thing. And I don't reckon that many folk who did buy it would ever have imagined that the group behind it would still be going strong 30 years later, probably more popular than ever.

No, it would take another 12 months or so before I bought something by The Cure, and that was A Forest, the first of their singles to hit the UK Charts. I had already missed out on debut, Killing An Arab and follow-up, Boys Don't Cry.

I've just had a look at wikipedia and clocked the fact that The Cure have 40 different tracks as singles to their name...but if you also include the 1986 re-release of Boys Don't Cry, there have actually been 41 releases. I was surprised to learn that only four of them have ever made into the Top 10 in the UK mind you.....

But back to 1979. I've really no idea how I managed to miss this, for it really is a classic post-punk/new wave/indie pop by numbers. But thinking back to what was really popular at the time, it was, if anything, just too light and disposable to be taken all that seriously (did I really type that given that I was at the time listening to bands like The Police and Squeeze????)

It's got a lyric that is just as brilliant as anything that was or had been penned by the great post-punk poet of bitter love songs, Pete Shelley and a tune that just demands to be sung along to at the top of your voice out of your face on the contents of the best part of a bottle of vodka. But that was just soooooooo 1984 and a different time in my life......

But seriously, Boys Don't Cry is one of those songs that you take for granted, and its only when you listen to again for the first time in years, as I've just done while typing these words, that you realise that it is an absolute belter of a song. A borderline classic.

mp3 : The Cure - Boys Don't Cry

Oh the blue and purple cover is of the 1979 UK single, which had Plastic Passion on the b-side, but the monochrome cover is that of the Australian release which actually gave the band their first ever chart position - the giddy heights of #99. And it had on its b-side, this cracking track which had in fact been the flip side of the debut single:-

mp3 : The Cure - 10.15 Saturday Night

It's almost the perfect goth record (well...not quite as perfect as last Sunday's offering) until just after the 2 minute mark and then the

pub-rock guitar solo kicks in. Still love it mind you.......

FROM UNDER THE COVERS (Parts 58 & 59)

This was originally pulled out of the cupboard to be part of the Lazy Postings Week that has just passed, but then I remembered that both sides of the single were covers....

mp3 : Grace Jones - Private Life (extended version)
mp3 : Grace Jones - She's Lost Control (extended version)

I only bought this 12" single back in 1980 to listen to the Joy Division cover, and at first I was appalled by it. It didn't appeal one iota to the musical snob in me. But after giving it some more spins on the stereo hi-fi over the following weeks, I eventually gave into its charms as I accepted for what it was - a radical cover version completely different from the original that had to be listened to and judged on its own merits. And nearly 30 years on, I still think its not bad.

On the other hand, while it may have taken me a about a month to actually play the other side of the single, I fell in love with the stunning re-working of a track on the debut LP by The Pretenders very quickly indeed. I believe its a cover version that Chrissie Hynde herself is immensely fond of.....and little wonder. Pop-reggae at its finest, although I guess that the purists will hate it.

Strangely enough, I don't actually remember this single being a hit, but a wee bit of research throws up the fact that it did climb as high as #17 in the UK Charts, and was the only chart success enjoyed by Grace Jones until 1985 when Slave To The Rhythm went massive.

Normal service should now be resumed shortly.....but I quite like the idea of an occasional lazy week.

FRIDAY I'M IN LOVE....WITH MORRISSEY (Part 27)

This should have been Part 26 of the series looking at Morrissey singles.....but instead, in a moment of sheer forgetfulness, I looked at another track from Ringleader Of The Tormentors. Sorry about that.

The Youngest Was The Most Loved was the second single taken from the LP, finding its way into the shops in June 2006 and peaking at #14 in the UK singles chart. I have to say that I was rather surprised at this being picked out as the second single given it is quite similar to You Have Killed Me (but that's still no excuse for my error last Friday). I was certain that one of the slower songs on the LP would have been chosen...maybe Dear God, Please Help Me....as these were the tracks that most critics had homed in on as being among the best stuff in his long and distinguished solo career. But then again, that's why I work hard for a living and other folks get to become record company executives.....

mp3 : Morrissey - The Youngest Was the Most Loved

Once again, a single that is nothing more than average was saved by some of what we found on the b-side or additional tracks on the CD. I've been quick enough in the past to put the boot into the various members of the Morrissey backing bands for the way they butcher some of the old classics originally recorded by The Smiths, but every now and again some of the stuff written in conjunction with Alan Whyte reminds me that I should sometimes temper my criticism.

mp3 : Morrissey - Ganglord

I first heard this track when it was played on the tour that accompanied the release of the album (I was lucky enough to get tickets to three Scottish gigs in five days - two of them at really small venues, and it was at Sirling Albert Hall that Ganglord was first aired) and while the recorded version never quite captured the impact of hearing it live, it remains a personal favourite.

I'm also quite fond of this, which could easily have fitted onto the parent LP:-

mp3 : Morrissey - If You Don't Like Me, Don't Look At Me

I suppose I'm quite tickled at the idea of Morrissey singing about young men and women running through the glen, which just makes me think of shortbread tins for some reason or other....although as a tune I think it has some similarity to the verses, but not the chorus, of First Of The Gang To Die.

And so to the cover version. One that I'm really not all that sure about. On the plus side, it brought royalties to Howard Devoto. On the minus side, it is a rather lame version of one of my all time favourite records....when Howard sang he was angry, ill and ugly as sin, I felt he meant it. Morrissey surely has his tongue firmly in his cheek.....

mp3 : Morrissey - A Song From Under The Floorboards

I do like the sleeve mind you, another photo by Fabio Lovino, and unlike many other of the singles which were released on 2xCds and 1x7" bit of plastic, the same photo was used in all formats. The great man looks awfully dignified.....

LAZY POSTINGS WEEK (Part 3)

I remember Jacques the Kipper being impressed that I had this in my record collection during one of our earliest ever conversations. In fact just typing that sentence made me remember that I wrote about all this previously as the single was featured on these pages in May 2008 as the #16 song in the 45 45s at 45 series.

Click here if you fancy a flashback.....you get a little flavour of my life story if you're remotely interested.

mp3 : Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven
mp3 : Pixies - Manta Ray
mp3 : Pixies - Weird At My School
mp3 : Pixies - Dancing The Manta Ray

I really do love the use of violins and cellos on this single.....and all three b-sides are tasty as well.

LAZY POSTINGS WEEK (Part 2)

Sigh.

mp3 : Altered Images - See Those Eyes (12 inch version)
mp3 : Altered Images - See Those Eyes
mp3 : Altered Images - How About That Then (I've Missed My Train)

While bands like The Smiths would put the exact same version of the single on both the 7" and 12" releases of the record, most bands opted for an extended mix. Some of these mixes were pretty seamless and sometimes helped turn a good record into a great one....other times they helped ruin a good record..... The extended version of this #11 hit from 1982 falls more into the latter as it really is over-produced and gimmicky.

I suspect the record label knew this which was why the 7" version was also provided.

The third track is a band remix of their second flop single. A Day's Wait, originally released some 18 months earlier.

LAZY POSTINGS WEEK (Part 1)

I've hardly had time the past two weeks to read anyone else's blogs, partly because I've been busy at work, partly because I've been spending time out on the golf course, and partly because some of my own posts have taken an eternity to put together. So, for the next three days only, I'm just going to delve into the cupboard and post 3 x 12" singles in their entirety, all from bands who really don't need any introduction or explanation. And I'll use the spare time to catch-up on my reading...

First up is this:-

mp3 : The Style Council - Shout To The Top
mp3 : The Style Council - Shout To The Top (instrumental)
mp3 : The Style Council - The Piccadilly Trail
mp3 : The Style Council - Ghosts of Dachau

A #7 hit in the middle of 1984, this is one of a number of great pop singles released by The Style Council, and in my humble opinion, far superior to most of the stuff the so-called Modfather has released in his solo career. Feel free to say that I'm wrong....

SITES FIT FOR HEROES

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed a few minor amendments to the lay-out over on the right-hand side of the blog, and I now have tried to provide direct links to a couple of sites devoted to the lovely boys pictured above.

Edwyn Collins has recently re-launched his own website, http://www.edwyncollins.com/ , which is absolutely tremendous, not least for the the facility that allows anyone to register and then submit content. I've been able to put up videos of Blueboy and A Girl Like You that I've filmed at gigs in Glasgow over the past 12 months, as well as some photos that were also taken at the gigs. And it was a big thrill when Edwyn himself popped by and left some complimentary remarks....

Paul Quinn now has a website worthy of his talents, and its all down to the hard work and graft of a fan called Rob, aka Frankosonic, who was kind enough, as part of the recent guest bloggers series, to post the impossible-to-find Bourgie Bourgie session that John Peel broadcast over the airwaves in January 1984.

It really is an astonishingly fine site, with an incredible attention to detail that covers the mighty Quinn's full career from The French Impressionists through to the final recording with Nectarine No.9, and all points in between. There's a bio, full details of every recording (including those that have criminally never been released), scanned copies of press articles, and a videography. There's very little missing....but Rob is on the lookout for things he knows are out there but cant get his hands on.

1. Cheap Flights - Glasgow Film Theatre : 12 October 1994

I was at this unforgettable night along with Jacques the Kipper. I'm fairly certain that there was some newspaper coverage of the event beforehand as well as a review afterwards in the local broadsheet, The Glasgow Herald. But despite a long and detailed search, nothing has come up. Anyone out there happen to have any clippings?

2. Video Clip - Rock Around The Clock : 26 August 1984

I know this exists....I used to have it on VHS tape, but its been lost/stolen at some point over the years. Also....it was, for a short while, available on YouTube, but the person who made it available had their account suspended (I presume for sharing some long lost stuff taped direct from telly that the powers that be decided must be stamped out).

Anyway...it was from a 24-hour long music show on BBC2. There were live gigs from Aztec Camera and The Cure direct from the Barrowlands in Glasgow, while New Order played in a radio studio in a then historic event that went out simultaneously on radio and TV. There were loads of videos and live performances from the studio where The Old Grey Whistle Test was filmed....including a drunken and very silly three minutes or so that featured Paul, Edwyn and Zeke Manyika doing So Tired Of Being Alone, that mutated into Paul imagining himself as a preacher....

If anyone has that particular bit of musical history on videotape, I'd really like to hear from you, or alternatively get directly in touch with Rob at pqweb@frankiemachine.com

And in advance of some help arriving, here's something rare and unusual for you to listen to:-

mp3 : Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins - Ain't That Always The Way
mp3 : Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins - Different Drum
mp3 : Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins - It Had To Happen
mp3 : Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins - Louise Louise

As Rob tells us over at the site, these are from a Radio 1 session, on the Richard Skinner Show, that was recorded on 5th August and broadcast on 20th August 1984. It's taken direct from the radio in pre-FM days, so the sound quality is a bit iffy....but its still worth listening to.

Which brings me to.........

ANOTHER TVV CAMPAIGN!!!!

It seems that the digital radio station 6 Music takes requests for old sessions to be rebroadcast. I reckon we should all bombard the BBC, politely of course, and demand that this Paul & Edwyn session, as well as that of Bourgie Bourgie from January 1984, be played one more time......

Visit this place....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/clare_mcdonnell/liveat4.shtml

and email Clare.

Finally...........I've mentioned before that every three months or so, usually just after I've removed the link, I get an email from someone asking if I could repost Breaking Point. Well, its happened again. So this one's for you Cat:-

mp3 : Bourgie Bourgie - Breaking Point

Merci.

THE CLASS OF '79 (Part 22)

Ah.....the song that invented goth rock.

Now I'll be honest, I didn't buy this in August 1979 when it was first released, but I know I had it in my collection by August 1981 as I remember having a heated conversation about it with someone during Freshers' Week at University.

I was arguing that while I didn't disagree with the general premise that most of the greatest songs ever written and recorded were about three minutes long, there were a number of exceptions, including the nine-minute debut record by Bauhaus. In those days I was more than capable of starting a fight in an empty room.

A mate of mine once said that Bela Lugosi's Dead was his favourite record for finding out if you were in with a shout with the girl you were dancing with at the student union disco..... He felt that if you started up a conversation at the start of the record, excused yourself when the singing begins, nip off to the loo for a quick piss, have a cigarette and a vodka you've just purchased for yourself from the bar and then got back to the dancefloor in time for the end of this record AND the girl is still happy to dance with you at that point, she is going to still be with you come the end of the night. But I reckon he was only ever able to prove his theory once in the four years I knew him.

Unsurprisingly, this is a record that didn't get much airplay, and so didn't stand a chance of making the mainstream charts. Remember, these were the days when you probably had to sell 30,000 to get into the Top 40....nowadays that would get you a month at the #1 spot.

I know my copy isn't the original pressing of the single as it was on white vinyl and limited to 5,000 copies, but then again I've got black vinyl which does seem appropriate in the circumstances.

mp3 : Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead

And here's yer little known b-side (which I know isn't the b-side on all the versions of the single, but it's the one I have).

mp3 : Bauhaus - Boys/Dark Entries (demo)

Within a couple of years, Bauhaus would find fame and fortune, largely as the result of a spirited cover of Ziggy Stardust, but by 1983 it was all over and lead singer Peter Murphy and his incredibly cheekbones would be best known for advertising blank cassette tapes (remember those things kids????)

STUFF FROM OVER THE POND

Today's humble offering was inspired by a few tracks coming on the old i-pod in recent weeks from USA-based singers or bands that don't have a great presence in my own vinyl and CD collections, but who have released singles that I've picked up on via the radio, or more likely, music video channels which I tend to flick through when bored with terrestrial telly of an evening (and there's no decent sports on).

Things like these:-

mp3 : Buffalo Tom - Sodajerk
mp3 : Cake - The Distance
mp3 : Faith No More - Everything's Ruined

Doing the wikipedia thing, here's what I learned.....

Buffalo Tom are from Boston, Massachusetts and they took their name from a combination of Buffalo Springfield and that of their shy drummer. They've been releasing records now for just over 20 years, but there were only a couple of singles between 1999 and 2007 which makes me think they broke-up and reformed. Sodajerk is the lead-off song from 1993 LP Big Red Letter Day, which is a CD that sits on my shelf but hasn't probably been played in its entirety since maybe a week or so after it was bought. This would have been at a time when I was travelling back and forth between Glasgow and Edinburgh for my job and I read a lot of music papers and magazines at the time, so I suspect the LP was bought on some journo's recommendation. But I reckon its a fine enough single....

Cake have been going since 1991. They are from Sacramento, California and I know exactly how I first heard this song which was released as a single in 1997....it was via Channel 4 in the UK who showed the video one night in between a couple of programmes. It was the video that caught my attention initially as it was just weird.....



The next day I happened to see the single in a record shop for just £1.99 do I bought it...loved it at the time and still love it now. What I didn't realise is that it climbed to #22 in the UK singles chart...Actually when I think about it, I've four or five Cake singles in the collection so they really shouldn't be included in this series, but far too many words have been typed to remove them now.

I can categorically confirm that this is the only single I have by Faith No More. Wiki describes them as an alternative metal band from San Francisco, California who formed in 1981, broke up in 1998 and reformed again earlier this year. I do know they were quite popular over here with a Top 3 hit in 1993 with a rather appalling cover of Easy by The Commodores. The single I've picked out is from the same year, and I first heard it on compilation tape put together for me by Jacques the Kipper. I reckon he included it for at the time I was raving a lot about a UK band called Senser who combined metal and rap and politically charged lyrics, and the Faith No More single, with its attack on capitalism, wasn't a million miles away.

So there you have it, some more stuff that is not your usual far on TVV, but three songs I'm willing to recommend you give a try.

FRIDAY, I'M IN LOVE....WITH MORRISSEY (Part 26)

In terms of chart positions, the lead-off single from Ringleader of The Tormentors is the most successful in the solo career of Morrissey.

The successes of 2004/2005 stemming from the release of You Are The Quarry and subsequent tours had given Morrissey not just a new lease of life a far as the critics were concerned but had introduced him to a whole new army of younger fans. Thus, there was much anticipation about the new material he had been recording in Rome, not least when veteran producer Tony Visconti was quoted as saying, some four months before it was released, that the new record was one of the best he had ever worked on, while Morrissey himself was also singing its praises well in advance.

You Have Killed Me was on heavy rotation on many radio and music video stations for something like three or four weeks in advance of its release in late March 2006 - it was also widely available on many music blogs and so by the time fans could actually go out and buy the the thing, it was a song that was very well known. As I said at the outset, it's the most commercially successful in terms of chart positions - at #3 in the UK, it remains his best ever position (along with Irish Blood, English Heart) - but it also went Top 10 in five other countries, including Canada where chart success before (and since) has been thin on the ground for the great man.

It's probably the least sounding Morrissey single ever for about the first fifteen seconds....with the sort of guitar intro that is nothing truly distinctive but is catchy enough to grab most listeners attention trying to work out who it could be. But when the vocal comes in, it is an entirely different story.....

mp3 : Morrissey - You Have Killed Me

Not being familiar with the genre of 60s Italian cinema, the lyrics were awfully obscure to this particular listener, but I could tell from the killer chorus (if you'll pardon the pun) that this was an exceptionally catchy number that many folk, including many who weren't normally fond of Morrissey, would find themselves singing along with. I wasn't at all surprised to learn that it was the first fruits of a new writing partnership with Jesse Tobias, who had loads of experience playing in US rock bands, including a brief stint with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers in the mid 90s.

But as much as I loved the single when it first appeared, it was one that I got a bit bored with after a few weeks even before I bought the thing. I did feel it was a single tailor-made for an assault on the charts and I really did want Morrissey to have a #1 hit with it. But the snob in me didn't want all of the new stuff to be so radio friendly.....So I was very grateful for the cracking b-sides that accompanied it:-

mp3 : Morrissey - Good Looking Man About Town
mp3 : Morrissey - I Knew I Was Next
mp3 : Morrissey - Human Being

Not being a huge fan of the New York Dolls, I can't say whether or not the cover of Human Being is better than the original or not, but I can say that it's a more than half decent Morrissey recording.

The sleeve sees our man lying down on some railway tracks....the image was taken by Fabio Lovino, one of Italy's most famous snappers, and was apparently on a line that passes through the Pigneto district of Rome, an area famed for its restaurants and nightlife.

That's enough trivia for this week methinks...

Update from three days later.........and an apology from your scribe......You Have Killed Me has already been featured before....way back in Week 15. Oops

LET'S PUT ON OUR CLASSICS AND HAVE A LITTLE DANCE, SHALL WE? (2)

Oh I posted the first in this series months ago, but never quite got round to doing a follow-up. Besides, plenty of other great bloggers listed over on the right hand page do a much better job at featuring stuff that will get you off your seat and wiggling your bum and other sundry parts of your anatomy. But bear with me, cos these are two magnificent tunes:-

mp3 : Sub Sub - Ain't Now Love (Ain't No Use)
mp3 : S'Express - Theme From S'Express

I was stunned to realise that it was away back in April 1988 that the latter took the charts across Europe by storm, going Top 10 in nine countries.....but only #1 in the UK and Switzerland!

More facts......the line "Enjoy this trip... and it is a trip" comes from Gene Roddenberry's The Star Trek Dream monologue on the 1979 record Inside Star Trek, while the sample of "Uno, dos, uno, dos, tres, quatro" is from a Debbie Harry solo single.

Oh and Sub Sub hatched into Doves and have enjoyed a fair bit of chart and critical success over the past umpteen years, but current LP Kingdom Of Rust seems to have got a mixed reception. I've a couple of CDs in the collection, but I find too much of their stuff plodding rather than inspiring, but when they do hit the mark, it tends to be a bit special. Feel free to disagree....

RANDOM CD SINGLE (1)

Last week's posting on Geneva made me delve a bit more into the shelf that holds the 5"CD singles and promo discs that aren't in inside plastic cases...and because of this they don't have a place in my anally-retentive alphabetical system. And every now and again I'll share one of them with you.

I'm sure many of you know that Bjork enjoyed a fair bit of fame pre-solo career with Sugarcubes, who until the recent emergence of Sigur Ros were probably about the only Icelandic pop act many of us could name. They formed in 1986, and went onto release three LPs on One Little Indian to mixed critical acclaim.

The debut LP Life's Too Good was almost universally praised, with most focus being on the extraordinary vocal style of the gorgeous looking female lead singer. Indeed, lead-off single Birthday, was voted #1 in John Peel's Festive Fifty in 1987. Surely the only ever record about a love affair between a five year old girl and her 50-year old neighbour.....if the tabloids had been able to make out the lyrics there wouls surely have been an outcry.

All of this attention and focus on Bjork didn't sit entirely well with Einar Benediktsson the other vocalist in the group. The follow-up LP Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week! featured far more of his contributions than before, a situation that led at least one reviewer to advise listeners that if they wanted to remain fans of the bands there were a number of tracks that the skip button had surely been invented for.

The band were in a sort of limbo.....too successful to be simply a cult indie band, but unable to make the leap into pop stardom via Radio 1 daytime exposure and Smash Hits magazine. They had one more go with Stick Around For Joy, recorded at quite an expense in New York, which contained a fair smattering of great pop songs that should have been smashes including Hit, which went Top 20 in the UK at the tail end of 1991 and got them on Top Of The Pops:-




Things might have turned out different if the follow-up single had enjoyed similar success, but despite it being even more commercial than Hit, it sold dismally:-

mp3 : Sugarcubes - Walkabout

The inevitable break-up of the band happened not long after. Bjork of course released a debut LP within 18 months that turned her into a global superstar.

There were three other songs on the CD single, one of which is a painful to listen to Einar effort, one is a cover version of a cheesy pop single from the early 70s and the other is something that wouldn't have been too out of place on the debut LP:-

mp3 : Sugarcubes - Stone Drill-In The Rock
mp3 : Sugarcubes - Top Of The World
mp3 : Sugarcubes - Bravo Pop

On 17th November 2006, the band reformed for a one-off concert in Reykjavik to mark their 20th Anniversary. Maybe if we're lucky they will get back together in 2011 and do a tour....

FROM UNDER THE COVERS (Parts 54,55,56 & 57)

Feeling a bit weary just now, so can't really think of much to type.

mp3 : Ash - Does Your Mother Know?

I don't think I put enough Ash on this blog. Cant promise that I'll do anything about it tho'. This cover of the Swedish phenomena's 1979 smash hit was made available on the b-side of Oh Yeah.

mp3 : The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy - California Uber Alles

The Dead Kennedys are given an update and the hip-hop treatment on a track from the truly outstanding 1992 LP Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury.

mp3 : Edwyn Collins - 1977

An acoustic cover of an early song by The Clash. Made available on a record magazine give away a few years ago, as was this:-

mp3 : The National - Clampdown

I might have already featured some or indeed all of these songs before, but then again, most journalists/feature writers at some point in their lives re-hash previous columns. If you're bored today with these songs, I apologise.

MY LOVE IS LIKE CATHEDRAL BELLS

Some fantastic plastic from 1985.

A superb single, backed with two memorable b-sides. Including a cover. And a brilliant sleeve as well. What more could you ask for on a Monday?

mp3 : Everything But The Girl - When All's Well
mp3 : Everything But The Girl - Heaven Help Me
mp3 : Everything But The Girl - Kid

It reached the giddy heights of #77. I'm still amazed that all The Smiths fans out there never rushed out and bought this single as it wasn't a million miles removed from the sort of tunes Johnny Marr was writing and recording at the time.

It would be another three years before Everything But The Girl ever cracked the pop charts. And it would take until 1994 and a change of direction before they really became famous. But that's two other stories for two other times...

THE CLASS OF '79 (Part 21)

This was a really tough call. Do I feature the debut single, the one that was a cover version of something by The Kinks, or do I feature the follow-up? Or I could even go with their third single, which although it was January 1980 when it hit #1 was in fact released towards the end of '79 and thus eligible for inclusion in this series

The picture sleeve that I've used gives it away mind you...

mp3 : The Pretenders - Kid

There's loads been written about The Pretenders over the years, and I've really nothing original to add to all those words. There's an excellent wikipedia article that can be read right here.

I chose Kid partly because its probably the least well known of the triumvirate. In my innocence at the age of 16, I assumed this was a sort of lullaby from a mother to a child. Only as I got older and began to understand the complexities of relationships and realise that life and love can never be run on a truly smooth path, did I see this song in its full majesty. At times I've been the one who could be singing this vocal, but all too often, I've been the one behaving and reacting like the kid in question...

This single spent just two weeks in the Top 40 , peaking at a criminally low #33

Oh and I also chose Kid just so that I link it to a great cover version tomorrow....

A HISTORICAL DEBT

Back in the days when the only ways to get a hold of music was to either tape it off the radio, tape it from your mates' collections or, if you had a bit of spare cash around, actually go to to a record shop and receive bits of round plastic 7" or 12" in diameter in exchange for handing over notes and coins, the compilation album was something that you took seriously as it was a cheapish way of maybe latching onto something new.

I've loads of these types of albums inside the cupboard full of records, but there's plenty more on the shelves where the CDs are stacked. This is probably one of the best I have...its certainly one that I didn't grudge paying full price for (£12 or £13 if memory serves me right).

A Historical Debt was issued by Beechwood Music in 1991. All of the songs had been donated royalty free, with the money raised being used to pay back some monies to small, independently owned and run record labels across the UK.

It was all the fault of Rough Trade, who had enjoyed such a cash and critically rich period over the previous decade, thanks in the main to The Smiths.

For those who don't know the story, here's a short and dirty version.

Rough Trade began as a record shop in West London in the mid 70s. It rose with the punk/fanzine/new wave movement, and by 1978 there was a record label as well as the shop. The label inspired many hundreds of others to be launched in countless living rooms and bedrooms. In the mid 80s, those behind the shop and the label decided it would be great idea to create Rough Trade Distribution through which most of the other small indie labels could end up in the shops all across the country and indeed further afield via a slick operation, rather than each individual label manager more or less driving everywhere and then trying to convince record shop owners to take copies of the records. Rough Trade Distribution didn't work....and it collapsed in 1991 owing money to all and sundry. Including the very labels that it had been established to help.

Every week, the music papers were carrying more tales of woe, doom and gloom with staff being laid off all over the place, bands going unpaid and tours being cancelled. Some bright spark, looking at how the 80s had been an era of the massive charity record for some worthy cause or other, came up with the idea of an indie-compilation in the hope that those of us who were concerned about the future might be able to do something about it. And so these tracks were put together:-

1. Oblivious - Aztec Camera
2. Push Me Shove Me (Live) - Erasure
3. Halo - Depeche Mode
4. Possible Worlds - The Shamen
5. Pump Up The Volume - Marrs
6. The Sweetest Girl - Scritti Politti
7. Birthday - The Sugarcubes
8. Phobia - Flowered Up
9. The Only One I Know - The Charlatans
10. Sleep Well Tonight - Inspiral Carpets
11. Well Well Well - The Woodentops
12. Godlike - The Dylans
13. All My Dreams Are Dead - Television Personalities
14. Jeane - Sandie Shaw
15. Shipbuilding - Robert Wyatt
16. Skin Storm - Bradford
17. Let's Kiss And Make Up - The Field Mice
18. I Wonder Why - The Heart Throbs
19. Arc-Lite - Loop
20. Gods Zoo - Death Cult

Impressively, Mute Records, who were largely unaffected by the collapse of RTD, contributed songs by some of their best-known and biggest selling artists, while bands who had previously been on Rough Trade records but were now with majors were happy enough to see some of their old material recycled. Many of the other indies such as 4AD, One Little Indian, Heavenly and Sarah were also happy to help out.

I'm not sure how many copies were eventually sold, but there's still enough of second-hand copies out there being sold very cheaply if you're interested. Try here.

In the meantime, feel free to listen to these:-

mp3 : The Field Mice - Let's Kiss And Make Up
mp3 : Flowered Up - Phobia
mp3 : Robert Wyatt - Shipbuilding

Cheers.

FRIDAY I'M IN LOVE....WITH MORRISSEY (Part 25)

Released in April 1990, November Spawned A Monster shocked an awful lot of people with its candid lyrics about disability. Some weren't sure if Morrissey was mocking the wheelchair-bound or whether he was championing their cause.

Sleep on and dream of love
Because it's the closest you will get to love
Poor twisted child, so ugly, so ugly
Poor twisted child. oh hug me, oh hug me

One November spawned a monster in the shape of this child who later cried
"But Jesus made me, so Jesus save me
From pity, sympathy and people discussing me"
A frame of useless limbs what can make good all the bad that's been done?

And if the lights were out could you even bear
To kiss her full on the mouth (or anywhere?)

Poor twisted child so ugly, so ugly
Poor twisted child oh hug me, oh hug me

One November spawned a monster in the shape of this child
Who must remain a hostage to kindness and the wheels underneath her
A hostage to kindness and the wheels underneath her
A symbol of where mad, mad lovers must pause and draw the line

So sleep and dream of love
Because it's the closest you will get to love

That November is a time which I must put out of my mind

Oh one fine day let it be soon
She won't be rich or beautiful
But she'll be walking your streets
In the clothes that she went out and chose for herself

It was a song I found really disturbing on its release, and even all these years later, it still makes me uncomfortable. But then again, I've no doubt that was the great man's point....

It's a tune which is one of the most unusual across the solo material...it's almost driven along by a dance-beat akin to Barbarism Begins At Home....and again given the subject matter, it can interpreted as a bit of a sick joke. But just as the tune is bouncing along, and the dancers are in the midst of throwing the Morrissey shapes, it slows right down and Mary Margaret O'Hara comes in and starts screaming....

I read many years ago at the time of its release that she was asked to go to the studio and make noises as if she was having a painful and difficult birth. Given this, the lyric does begin to make some literal sense....the child in question was not planned, and to complicate matters for the mad mad lovers who failed to pause and draw the line, nine months later they have a daughter whose physical appearance and dependencies make it so difficult for them to love her....but who think everything will be fine if there is some sort of miraculous recovery.....

So....maybe the song isn't really about disability and its actually a cautionary tale to those who were prepared to sleep around without thinking of the consequences....

Other people have got their own theories. I read once on a forum one fan's view that the song is a parallel to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - a monster created in November but who was unloved by its 'parent'. The monster then had to endure a life of misery and loneliness (a regular theme in many Morrissey songs), and this is going to be the fate of the girl in the song. The fan goes as far to comment that Morrissey is making a really strong statement here that society judges people on their looks alone....

Someone else makes reference to the accompanying video which they feel mocks so many others of its time, with Morrissey wriggling around in the desert making himself look ludicrous to emphasise the point that image and beauty isn't everything...



Your own thoughts dear readers????

mp3 : Morrissey - November Spawned A Monster

Oh and the two extra songs on the 12" and CD single are well worth a listen as well:-

mp3 : Morrissey - He Knows I'd Love To See Him
mp3 : Morrissey - Girl Least Likely To

The latter is probably the nearest thing we've ever had to a song that could have come straight from the days of The Smiths since the break-up - it was co-written by Andy Rourke.

Facts and figures time. It reached #12 in the UK singles charts. The image on the sleeve is by celebrated rock photographer Anton Corbjin...

Oh and just in case there's any doubt....November remains one of my favourite ever Morrissey releases...

ANOTHER OF THE SORT OF SONG THIS BLOG IS ALL ABOUT....

Until this came up on random shuffle on the i-pod the other day, I had half-forgotten all about this great wee single. It's one I have on CD, but as it isn't in a plastic case, it sits on a shelf with loads of other similarly packaged singles in a random order, difficult for the naked eye to pick up when glancing over things.

Geneva were formed in the early 90s in Aberdeen, Scotland, and almost from nowhere were signed to Nude Records, which at the time was one of the best-known labels in the UK thanks to it being home to Suede.

This is the debut single which reached #32 in the UK charts back in October 1996. A couple of subsequent singles went Top 30, while debut LP Further went Top 20 in the Summer of 1997. It would be another two years before Geneva got their second LP out to the public, but it, and the two accompanying singles flopped, and the band broke-up in mid 2000.

Coming along at the arse-end of Britpop, the band might just have been in the right place at the right time to get the record deal, but they deserved it on the basis of this song alone. If the arrangements on the single remind anyone of the Everything Must Go era of Manic Street Preachers, then you won't be surprised to hear that Mike Hedges was in the producer's chair:-

mp3 : Geneva - No One Speaks
mp3 : Geneva - Closer To The Stars
mp3 : Geneva - Keep The Light On

Happy Listening.

CALLING ALL TVV READERS......

......can you help solve this one?

Just yesterday, I got a very nice email from Tom in response to the recent posting of Touch by Lori & The Chameleons. He noticed that I didn't have a copy of the follow-up single The Lonely Spy and he said he would be happy to send me an mp3 file.

I took up this very generous offer, and in the subsequent email, Tom also attached a second mp3 file saying:-

'While you're there, can you identify this song from the same time period? I digitized it from an old cassette tape from the summer of 1983. It has stumped everyone I know...'

It stumped me as well.

mp3 : ????????????? (download via sharebee)

And so dear readers, I'm asking if any of you know anything about this song. If so, could you pass on your knowledge via the comments page or by email to the address over on the right hand column of the blog?

I thank you in advance.

Your humble servant

JC

Here's a couple of related songs:-

mp3 : King Creosote - You've No Clue Do You
mp3 : Blaine L Reininger - Mystery and Confusion

THE SORT OF SONG THAT THIS BLOG IS ALL ABOUT...

The main idea when I started this thing up back in September 2006 was to bring folks' attention to long-forgotten/long-lost stuff, often only available in vinyl, that for years sat pining for attention in a cupboard in Villain Towers awaiting the invention of affordable USB Turntables.

Its been a few months since Paul Haig last featured on these pages, so I thought it would be a good idea to delve into the cupboard and pull out one of his 12" singles from October 1984 that was released on the Belgian label Les Disques Du Crepuscule.

Big Blue World should have been released on Island Records, but the strained relationship between singer and label which I've mentioned in past postings, saw it pulled at very short notice, but thankfully, the Belgian connection ensured it was available on import if you were so inclined to track it down.

There's no denying that it is a sound of its time....but equally there's no denying that as a track aimed at the then hugely popular electro/dance market it is an absolute belter, thanks in part to Paul's effortless croon and thanks in part to the production work of Alan Rankine. When you look back and consider that in that era there were countless tunes,with less than 1% of the magnificence of this song, that went Top 10 and made temporary stars of nonentities. As Calimero might say....it's an injustice.

The flip side of the 12" has a couple of real treats with a great, trashy rockabilly cover version of Ghost Rider, featuring David McClymont and Malcom Ross (both of whom were part of the chart-era Orange Juice), while Endless Song, unsurprisingly given who was involved in its making, is a cross between Josef K and Associates. So if that's the sort of stuff you like, why not give it a listen.....

mp3 : Paul Haig - Big Blue World (12" version)
mp3 : Paul Haig - Ghost Rider
mp3 : Paul Haig - Endless Song

Paul Haig is of course still making great music, much of which can be bought direct from him at this site. Oh and I understand that some new material is likely to be on the way before 2009 is out.....watch this space.

I WON'T SAY NOW....HOW COULD I?

The latest Paul Quinn posting led to David saying that I could follow it up nicely if I can find any of The French Impressionists stuff.....

I'm actually guessing that this post might be a wee bit of a let down for David as it is limited in terms of any contributions from the mighty Quinn.

The French Impressionists are a jazz ensemble, formed in Glasgow by pianist and songwriter Malcolm Fisher around the end of 1980/beginning of 1981. Their first demo was recorded in June 1981. It was a session engineered by Davey Henderson, and Malcolm roped in Paul Quinn to sing, Roddy Frame to play guitar and Campbell Owens, another member of Aztec Camera, to play bass. Oh and Edwyn Collins seemingly lent a hand on the writing and arrangements. Here's what they came up with:-

mp3 : The French Impressionists - Boo Boo's Gone Mambo
mp3 : The French Impressionists - My Guardian Angel

Malcolm then formed a proper band in 1982 first with singer Beatrice Colin (who I've previously featured on TVV as lead singer with the short lived April Showers), drummer Barry Ross and bassist Paul Yacoubian, but played just four gigs as well as recording just four songs for a further demo, including this:-

mp3 : The French Impressionists - Rainbows Never End

After the demo, Beatrice was sacked (and to be fair, I don't think her voice was remotely suited to a jazz band). Among those who were auditioned as a replacement was Eddi Reader, later of course to find fame with Fairground Attraction. In the end, it was a former hairdresser and dancer named Louise Ness who landed the gig, and in September 1982, the debut 12" single was issued by Les Disques du Crepescule:-

mp3 : The French Impressionists - Pick Up The Rhythm

The band then began to play a number of live dates in Glasgow and London, and recruited a second vocalist named Margaret Murphy. A short while later, she changed her name to Katy Murphy and became a very successful actress, first coming to attention in the BBC series Tutti Frutti, alongside the likes of Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson and Richard Wilson.

At the time, there was a bit of a jazz revival being promoted in the UK music papers, and the French Impressionists were being talked up as the next big thing, even to the extent that it was suggested Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet would produce their material once they signed to a major label. More demos were recorded, more gigs played in Glasgow (I caught them twice within a fortnight playing at Night Moves, which was then the premier venue for up and coming bands), and this Xmas single was recorded:-

mp3 - The French Impressionists - Santa Baby

But the interest was never followed up, and the band dissolved in early 1983, having been in existence for little more than a year.

Malcolm Fisher then hooked up with a London-based vocalist and tried to get Crespuscule interested in some demos and maybe an album, but nothing came of it. Malcolm went back to Glasgow, while the singer stayed in London, in due course hooking up with other jazz/soul musicians. Her name was Sade.....

Malcolm continues to record under the name The French Impressionists and his my space site can be found here.

How do I know all this?? Well, a couple of years back, I picked up, by mail order, a compilation LP called A Collection of Songs from which the mp3s are taken. If you like them, then please click on this link and make a purchase. The CD came with extensive sleeve notes, written by James Nice in October 2004, and many of the facts have been supplied by him. So if, by chance you ever read this, thanks James.

And that dear readers, is the story of a band who came, who saw, but who didn't conquer.....

PS : Any of you who have any interest in Paul Quinn should have a look at this brand new site right here.

If the link doesnt work (which seems to be a technical issue) then cut and paste this :- http://www.duckworthsquare.com/paulquinn/

JC

THE CLASS OF '79 (Part 20)

I'll admit that this wasn't a record that I went out and bought when it was released on Zoo Records in August 1979. Indeed, I'll also admit that I wasn't even aware of its very existence until I got my hands on a 1990 compilation LP that rounded up all the singles ever released on the label. But its something I quickly fell in love with....

I did know that this lot were another product of the very fertile imagination of the wonderful Bill Drummond, and that the single was co-written with Dave Balfe, who would eventually find fame with The Teardrop Explodes and fortune as the founder of Food Records and be immortalised by Blur in the single Country House. And thanks to the wonder of the internet, I've discovered that while Bill and Dave were The Chameleons, it was a Liver Bird named Lori Lartey who was the third member of the band.

This was their debut single. It was in fact released three times between 1979 and 1981, but never got any higher than #70 in the UK singles chart. The later releases were on the same major label that Echo & The Bunnymen had signed to from Zoo Records, and I'm assuming that Bill Drummond continually badgered the WEA moguls trying to convince him that this four minutes of pop magic would captivate the British public.

Driven along initially by a beat that is very reminiscent of disco-hit Funkytown by Lipps Inc, Lori delivers a wonderful spoken-word tale of love and happiness on a Tokyo sight-seeing holiday while Bill and Dave do their best to sound like a heavenly choir on backing vocals. Oh and about 2 minutes in, there's a rinky-dinky guitar solo that sort of sounds like Hong Kong Garden....

Lori & The Chameleons only released this and one other single before becoming a footnote in pop history. As I said, Drummond & Balfe went on to become rich and famous.....but does anyone out there have any idea what Lori's been doing this past 30 years?

mp3 : Lori & The Chameleons - Touch
mp3 : Lori & The Chameleons - Love On The Ganges

You'll spot that Lori herself doesn't appear on the b-side....

I dont have the other single, The Lonely Spy, which came out in 1980. But I did find this on youtube:-



Wonderful. Oh and if my dear mate Dirk from SexyLoser reads this at any point....maybe now you'll understand why I chose the George Pringle track the other week on the Contrast Podcast...

THE BEST VOCALS THEY EVER DELIVERED...

I've a fair number of singles/EPs/LPs by Cocteau Twins and Everything But The Girl in the collection. Yes, I've bought much of the stuff for the music, but I've also been attracted to both bands by the talents of their vocalists, Elizabeth Fraser and Tracey Thorn.

However.....I reckon my favourite songs that they have ever sung on are by Massive Attack.

mp3 : Massive Attack - Protection
mp3 : Massive Attack - Teardrop

Protection can be found on the LP of the same name, and was also released as a single in January 1995, climbing to #14 in the charts. It's a song that I find moving and uplifting in equal measures, and it was a touch of genius to ask Tracey to take the vocal as her voice is that great mix of strength and fragility that holds together a truly amazing piece of music.

Teardrop is on the LP Mezzanine, and it was released as a single in April 1998, reaching #10, and in the process becoming the biggest hit for Massive Attack, and indeed for any record that featured Elizabeth. A stunning five and a bit minutes of beauty.....it slides along perfectly, and just as you think the vocal has finished and you're into the fade out with the music she comes back at you with a final cry of 'it's tumbling down.....' and then the gorgeous instrumentation begins again.

Oh and of course both songs came with videos that were truly groundbreaking....

FRIDAY I'M IN LOVE...WITH MORRISSEY (Part 24)

Released on 11th December 1995. The outtakes single.

After Boxers was put out in January 1995, Morrissey was no longer obliged to stay with EMI under whom his albums and singles had been issued on the Parlophone label. He chose to move to RCA with who he recorded the critically-savaged Southpaw Grammar, from which were taken the disappointingly-selling singles Dagenham Dave and The Boy Racer.

So I've no idea what possessed his old record label to shove out Sunny just 14 days after the release of The Boy Racer other than assuming it was out of spite and possibly to try and cash in on folk buying Xmas presents for Morrissey fans . The three tracks dated back at least 18 months and more and quite frankly, are rubbish and the #42 placing was at least 200 places higher than it deserved.

Actually that's unfair as the single borders on the OK.(and its not as bad as Roy's Keen) But the b-sides really should never have seen the light of day....

mp3 : Morrissey - Sunny
mp3 : Morrissey - Black-Eyed Susan
mp3 : Morrissey - A Swallow On My Neck

Better informed fans have said elsewhere that Sunny was originally intended to be part of the Boxers single, and Black-Eyed Susan was considered but rejected for the flip-side of The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get. No mention is made of the original plan for Swallow.....

Sorry for the dip in quality control. I promise to do better next week.

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN

I rely a lot on other bloggers to keep me up to speed with a lot of things in the musical world of the 21st Century.

I was very pleased to read a review of the Blur gig at the Wolverhampton Civic Centre written by Coxon over at To Die By Your Side. Seems they are in blistering form. Go here and see for yourself. Then a couple of days later, I was just as equally pleased to read review from a night or two later at the Manchester Area written by Rol over at Sunset Over Slawit. Go here and see for yourself. (oh and there also this one from the warm-up gig at Southend..)

And as a little celebration, here's some stunning versions of one of their best tracks:-

mp3 : Blur - Death Of A Party (album version)
mp3 : Blur - Death Of A Party (12" Death)
mp3 : Blur - Death Of A Party (Billy Whiskers Mix)
mp3 : Blur - Death Of A Party (Well Blurred Mix)

The original appears on Blur, released in 1997. The following year saw a Japanese-only CD entitled Bustin' + Dronin' that featured a bundle of remixes as well as six tracks recorded at Peel Acres (which nails the myth that John Peel turned his back on bands once they enjoyed mainstream success).

Oh and it might be of interest to a number of you to learn that the Well Blurred and 12" Death mixes are by Adrian Sherwood, while the Billy Whiskers mix is the responsibility of William Orbit.

PREGNANT WITH POSSIBILITIES (Volume 1)

Nope, its not the name of a new feature here at TVV.

It's simply a posting of the four tracks that made up an EP released on the revived Postcard Records back in 1995, (catalogue number DUBH 952CD).

mp3 : Paul Quinn & The Nectarine No.9 - Tiger Tiger
mp3 : Paul Quinn & The Independent Group - Will I Ever Be Inside Of You
mp3 : Jock Scot & The Nectarine No.9 - Just Another Fucked-Up Little Druggy On The Scene
mp3 : Jock Scot - Grunge Girl Groan

The post was inspired by a follow-up email that Francis from the Frankosonic blog sent on after I had featured the Bourgie Bourgie Peel Session (for which I can never thank Francis enough...). The mighty Quinn's final release is to be found on this EP, which hit the shops after the release of the two LPs with the Independent Group. In fact, I know that mine was made available in Avalanche Records in Glasgow on 26 June 1995 and it cost me £3.99 as there's an annoying bar code sticker on the back of the sleeve that I don't want to remove for fear of damage...

Some of you might not know much about the other artists who feature on the EP.

I've cribbed this bio about Jock Scott from elsewhere, as it captures him just about perfectly and also gives you some info about Nectarine No.9:-

Born 21 September 1952. Leith, Edinburgh.

Jock began his career in the music industry as a renowned supplier of "good vibes", providing his services to entertainers as diverse as Ian Dury and The Blockheads, The Clash, Blondie, Talking Heads, B52s, Taj Mahal, Dr. Feelgood, Rip Rig and Panic, Neneh Cherry, Viv Stanshall and Wreckless Eric. He rarely let them down, and when he did it was in spectacular fashion.

After waking up in a broom cupboard at the end of a particularly arduous tour, he settled in London at the time the west London scene was wakening up again, centered around a pub in Portobello Road, the Warwick Castle. It was here that Jock started reading his poems to the public, where they were loved by both speed-crazed street sweepers and landed gentry.

Thousands of readings later, in 1993, his first book, "Where Is My Heroine?" was printed and rapidly sold out. It was also around this time he made his first excursions to vinyl and cd, renewing an old acquaintance with Davey Henderson, who he had known from the Edinburgh days, when Henderson was fronting the Fire Engines.

Their first recorded collaboration was on "Going Off Someone" - a track on Henderson's new band, The Nectarine No.9's first Postcard e.p., "Unloaded For You". Subsequently, Scot appeared on their second album "Saint Jack", and on a Postcard sampler ep, "Pregnant With Possibilities.

The logical outcome was a full length album - "My Personal Culloden", which was released in May 1997, followed by the release of his first single "Tape Your Head On", a cover version of a song which originally appeared on his musical cohorts, The Nectarine No.9's "Saint Jack" album.

I know since then that Jock has released some more material, including 2006's The Caledonian Blues, recorded with Gareth Sager (ex The Pop Group and Rip, Rig & Panic).

As mentioned above Davey Henderson has been a legendary part of the music scene in Scotland for nigh on three decades. Given his own vocal talents don't feature on the EP, I thought it only fair to offer up my own favourite Nectarine No.9 song:-

mp3 : Nectarine No.9 - Don't Worry Babe, You're Not The Only One Awake

Not a bad way to kick off July methinks...