BONUS POSTING....INSPIRED BY A FACEBOOK CONVERSATION

This coming Saturday sees the latest of the Glasgow Little League events, a night of magical music and dancing hosted by the wonderfully talented John Hunt of Butcher Boy.

It has become something of a tradition over at the GLL Facebook page for folk to make requests for songs they'd like to hear - quite often these are songs that John will play early on the evening prior to the dancing really taking off.  One such request from a GLL regular was for this 60s obscurity:-


I say obscure....only in as much as I can't remember it at all....hardly a surprise as it is from 1967....but it did reach #9 in the UK charts.

However, it is a song that I know from cover versions.  Firstly, as one half of a bizarre 1981 release featuring the finest combo to ever come out of the city of Dundee:-

mp3 : 39 Lyon Street - Kites

The music is very much the work of Alan Rankine and you can clearly hear Billy Mackenzie on backing vocals.  The lead vocal is taken by Christine Beveridge who at the time was part of a band called Orbidoig who, also in 1981, released a single on Situation Two, the label to which Associates were signed (and the following year Billy Mackenzie would release a 7" single in which he covered an Orbidoig song....)

The 39 Lyon Street version of Kites is reasonably well-known as it was included on a posthumous compilation CD, released in 2004, which brought together 28 different singles that Billy Mackenzie had been involved in.  What is slightly less well-known is this:-

mp3 : Associates - Kites

This dates from 1984 and is the additional track on the 12" version of the single Breakfast, one of the best post-Rankine tracks that Billy released under the name of Associates. I well remember (and still have on VHS tape) a version of Breakfast, recorded live at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London for broadcast on BBC-TVs Whistle Test.  I was delighted to find that youtube has come up trumps:-

Simply beautiful.

Late PS after a reader requested this:-

mp3 : Associates - Breakfast Alone

Happy Listening