Four Years

Four years today, at quarter to two in the afternoon, Isaac died at Wythenshawe hospital. He was 23. That it is four years seems barely possible- time goes so quickly in some ways. I can transport myself back into that room in the hospital very easily- it's probably not a good thing to do too often. In the time since he died I've noticed that the grief, the thing, the ball of darkness, the knot in the stomach and the ache in the chest, can replace him, engulfs him (and me)- he, Isaac, gets lost inside it. Which isn't right.

It's difficult to remember that sometimes because the loss takes over, but it should be about him, remembering him and who he was, the things we did and the things he said, the good times. We are able to do that now- we sent some time in a cafe yesterday laughing about the things he used to do, him and Eliza when they were both much younger and smiling at photos of the pair of them. It's nice to be able to do it but it becomes much harder in November. Anniversaries are still hard. I'll be glad to put this month behind me. 

Isaac touched many, many people when he was alive and he continues to do so even now, through photos and memories on social media. Photos previously unseen by us still appear. Short video clips Eliza made of him I've not seen before pop up. Sometimes on these clips he looks so close you could almost reach out and touch him. Recently a friend I've never met said this about him, 'His smile lit up many a soul, so many that he hadn't even met'. It is lovely to think of him having a long afterlife in photographs, still lighting up the lives of people all this time later. 

We played Sketch For Summer at Isaac's funeral, 17th December 2021. Vini's guitar playing and Martin's production never sounded better than on Sketch For Summer, the opening seconds of electronic birdsong and then the primitive drum machine entry and those guitars. Sketch For Winter is different but equally affecting and seems appropriate for today. 

Sketch For Winter

The Durutti Column's first album, The Return Of The Durutti Column has been re- issued recently, an album made by Vini Reilly and Martin Hannett in 1980, the pair put together by Tony Wilson. Hannett sat with his new toys, various digital echo and delay devices and a drum machine. Vini played bits of guitar but was largely ignored by Hannett who was deep into the new machinery. Occasionally parts were recorded. Eventually Vini walked out, frustrated and pissed off. Hannett completed the album and when Vini was presented with it, it sounded completely new to him- he didn't like it. Like Joy Division before him, he grew to love it, as Joy Division did with Martin's production on Unknown Pleasures. 

Sabres, Nicky Maguire And The White Hotel

Haunted Dancehall was the second Sabres Of Paradise album, released in November 1994. It was recorded as and should be listened to as a whole piece, a musical wander round the minds, music and influences of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns. 

On the inner sleeves were extracts from a novel, also Haunted Dancehall, by James Woodbourne. The extracts follow a character called Maguire round London at night, a London noir novel taking in Battersea Bridge, Borough tube station, Soho, Berwick Street and a strip club on Dean Street*. In the final extract Maguire pulls some planks off the front of a boarded up cafe and steps inside...

Those of us that spent time in second hand books shops looking for Haunted Dancehall (back in the pre- internet age) found out fairly quickly that no- one had heard of it. Unsurprisingly really, as the novel didn't exist. Neither did James Woodbourne. The author of the text was Andrew Weatherall, using one of his many pseudonyms to create one of his many worlds and subcultures. 

On Wednesday night Sabres Of Paradise arrived in Salford to play at The White Hotel, the second stop on their week long tour of the UK, bringing those tracks from 1994 and 1995 to life on stage, Jagz and Gary with the 90s live band, Nick Abnett (bass), Rich Thair (percussion an drums) and Phil Mossman (guitar, keys, synth). While returning home from the gig, elated, in the murky black Mancunian night I wondered about whether  James Woodbourne could make a to return to the Haunted Dancehall...

Maguire was lost, no doubt about it, lost and a long way from home. The East End of London he knew very well, and Soho like the back of his hand, but he was now well out of his manor. He stepped off the train at Piccadilly, through the barrier and down the escalator. A quick pint in a pub across the road from the station, The Bull's Head he recalled now some days later, to settle the nerves and then he stepped back into night. He headed up Dale Street and round what locals called the Northern Quarter ('as if this northern town was somehow French', he snorted to himself). The backstreets seemed familiar, similar to some of the ones in London but dirtier and wet, always wet. He slipped down Shudehill and pausing to check his bearings turned right up Cheetham Hill Road. Ahead of him the tower and walls of the infamous Strangeways prison loomed out of the darkness. 

He was only five minutes from the city centre but this was a different world, vape shops and takeaways, a distinct lack of gentrification. Turning left- 'can it be down here?', he asked himself, 'a music venue round here?'- he saw concrete fences, barbed wire, yards with barking Alsatians, graffiti, urban dereliction and businesses that couldn't be totally law abiding. He could hear the thump of the bass now, up the road, and he continued, turning right past a few optimistically parked cars. Ahead of him, The White Hotel. 

Someone, Maguire thought, was having a laugh. This place was not a hotel, never had been and it wasn't white either. It looked like a rundown mechanics garage, single storey and unadorned, with a bouncer outside. Maguire approached the man sitting by the door. 'I'm on the list', Maguire muttered. The list was checked and indeed, Maguire was on it. 'Round the back', the doorman said. He walked round the building, past the smokers and through the door. Maguire entered The White Hotel. Colourbox were playing through the sound system, the dub bassline rattling round the building and gunshots echoing out. 

Looks Like We're Shy One Horse

Inside it was clear the venue was indeed once a mechanics garage. There was a hole in the wall covered in a sheet, the pit to work on the underneath of cars was still there and a roller shutter formed the back wall of the stage. The stage was only a couple feet high and there was no barrier between the stage and the crowd. The room had a pillar in the centre and a girder formed a cross, ready for some urban crucifixion. The DJ, one Alex Knight, was playing from inside a cage. Maguire moved inside the room and shuffled round the back. He waited. It smelt of damp, grease and beer. Nearby someone lit a spliff. The room was busy and still filling up. They all seemed to know each other. 

Colourbox faded into In The Nursery and as the symphonic strings played five figures took the stage, The Sabres Of Paradise, suited and booted. At the back of the stage, Jagz Kooner, behind a table full of boxes and mixers. Near the front Mossman, behatted, strapping his guitar on. The bassist, Abnett or something like that Maguire remembered, looked sharp, short hair, suit and tie and bass worn suitably low. They started up, a slow ambient intro, the guitar and synths kicking in gently, the sound moody and dark. Like the venue. Maguire nodded along. 

Mossman hit the riff and the song shifted, the drums kicked in and everything lurched, a James Bond theme but if Bond had been a proper wrong 'un, a small time hood rather than an international spy. The Sabres weren't playing the songs as Maguire remembered them, they were looser, dubbier, more drawn out with the bass loud and central. There were parts where Abnett pummelled his bass for ages, the noise filling the venue, a huge wall of distortion, then suddenly cutting it and the band back into the track. Maguire grinned to himself. All this on a wet Wednesday in an unloved corner of Salford.

Kooner hit a button or moved a fader or did something and the horns from Theme blared out. A cheer from the crowd and the nodding and shuffling increased, the hip hop drums thumping and the gnarly guitar hook caught in a whirl, going round and round. A pause and they slid into Edge 6. 'What a track', Maguire thought, 'and a fuckin' B-side too'. The drums shuffled, the bass pumped. The descending mournful keys at half speed. The spirit of King Tubby lurked somewhere in the room Maguire thought- maybe trapped in that fuckin' mechanic's pit. 

Years before Maguire had encountered Wilmot, chasing that trumpet line. It repeated its magic, the trumpet and the keys and snatches of a vocal, 'ai ai aiee'. Maguire hadn't expected to hear these songs played live, not three decades after the band split and, what was it now, nearly five years after the man that dreamt it all up had sadly left this world. But here he was, among two hundred and fifty other revellers, hearing Wilmot. The skank of Wilmot. Fuck. 

'Chase that tune, scour the shacks, pester the sound boys', Maguire recalled, a line from a book he once read.

On it went, the band now in their element, feeding off the crowd and playing the songs as if they were both brand new and centuries old. Kooner stopped between two of the songs and made a dedication to Mani, 'a fucking great musicians and a fucking great bloke', Jagz said and they began to play Smokebelch, the twinkles of the ambient, beatless version lighting up the darkness of the room. Abnett's bass and Burns' piano and oh, what a moment. Grown men with tears running down their faces. Even Maguire was moved. 

Clock Factory, many minutes of delicious weirdness located somewhere between ambient and industrial, a ticking of clocks and doomy chords, a track that somehow expands time and makes it stop. Maguire rubbed his chin. This was special, it made him think of things bigger than himself. Music and its power. Both beautiful and strange, he thought. 

There was a pause and then it got louder, thumping kick drums and whoops from the crowd, metallic clangs and throbbing bass, that Sabres collision of spectral melodies and thumping rhythms, everyone, band and crowd in the same place. Mossman waved his hands in the air, encouraging the crowd. Kooner conducted from the back, red shirt and black tie. 

Still Fighting started with long chords and tension, and then the release, the thump of the bass drum. That's the spirit, Maguire thought, that's it, they're still fighting. Crashing drums and early 90s synths, and then that two note whistle, the track betraying its origins, a remix of a remix, a version of a version, Don't Fight It, Feel It, Nicolson's topline refrain- doo doo doo dit dit- ricocheting round the space, this former industrial unit, God knows how many cars ended up in here, Cortinas, Datsuns, Fords, knackered vans and failed MOTs, oil and spanners all over the place, mechanics in dirty overalls- and now this epic piece of music filling it. Still fighting.

The Sabres took the applause and headed off stage, through the hole in the wall. A few minutes later they returned, as the crowd knew they would, cheers and hollers welcoming them. They went in for the kill, more Smokebelch, the David Holmes version, dancing piano lines and that enormous acid house squiggle, the drums battering the walls and the roller shutter. One of the venue's speakers was right behind Maguire and he could feel the music, the bass rippling his trousers and rattling his chest. Behind him a scouser was lost in his own world, his head in the bassbin. At the back a woman danced on a step against the wall, grinning, lost in the moment. In front of him people jumped up and down, danced and span. Then the breakdown and the drummer, Thair, on the snare, recreating Holmes' majorettes- then the bass bumping up and down and those Smokebelch melody lines riding the wave, on and on... Maguire had to pinch himself to check it was real, that he wasn't imagining it from his room in Limehouse, an armchair reverie. No, it was real and it was happening right in front of him. The Sabres stepped out from behind their machines, moved to the edge of the stage and arms around each other, took their bow, all smiles. 

Afterwards, in the outdoor area, the band milled around with punters and well wishers, taking in the Salford air and drizzle. Maguire overheard Jagz telling a fan that when they arrived he saw the graffiti and barbed wire and thought 'this is exactly where Sabres should be playing'. He looked on from a distance, pleased he'd made the effort. Maguire enjoyed the pursuit, the chasing of the tune. He contemplated the walk back to Piccadilly and wondered whether he could find somewhere on the way to have a drink. Maguire walked past the band and their fans and stepped into the street outside...

Smokebelch (David Homes Remix)

* The strip club on Dean Street was the home of the Sabres Of Paradise office, which operated on the first floor above the strip club. 

Thanks to Linda Gardiner for the photo of the band onstage.

Manchester Stockport Tokyo Ancoats

Ban Ban Ton Ton is Dr. Rob's Tokyo based music blog covers everything Balearic/ acid house and beyond. I've been writing guest reviews for some time. Two weeks ago I wrote about Ace Of Swords, the second album by Thought Leadership, a guitarist from Edgeley, Stockport. Stockport, people round here keep saying, is the new Berlin (a student of mine told me this week that Eccles is going to be the new Didsbury- I await this development patiently). 

Thought Leadership's music is entirely instrumental, just guitar FX pedals, some bass and synths and a drum machine- ambient, with detours on the latest album into Balearic Jazz. The spirit of Vini Reilly hovers close by. I loved the first album- Ill Of Pentacles- and love the second too, an album about to get a limited vinyl released on Be With Records. My review is at Ban Ban Ton Ton here. This is XVII, six and a half minutes of ambient soundscapes and echo and chorus laden guitar playing. 

Thought Leadership is shortly to find a home on a 12" by Jason Boardman's Before I Die label, a Manchester based independent with a growing back catalogue. Arrival features the guitar playing of Kevin McCormick (another ambient guitarist and another artist I've written about at Ban Ban Ton Ton). The 12" is going to include a Thought Leadership remix among its four tracks. More news to follow.  

A month before that post I wrote about Ein Null: Ten Years Of Sprechen, a celebration of a decade of music coming from Chris Massey's Manchester based label, an album that is packed with exclusives and one offs. A Certain Ratio appear with a track that you won't find anywhere else, the Martin Hannett referencing Faster But Slower, percussive Manc- funk noir. 

Ein Null includes tracks from The Utopia Strong, Psychederek, The Thief Of Time, Low Pulse, Lena C and Gina Breeze and Massey and Supernature's Walk... Now Walk. Lots to enjoy. My review is here. 

Yesterday Rob posted a piece to celebrate the soon coming 30th anniversary of Bugged Out, a 90s Manchester nightclub institution that spread its wings beyond its birthplace, a scuzzy former mill in Ancoats called Sankeys Soap. Bugged Out's 30th birthday includes the publication of a very nice looking book. As someone who attended Bugged Out nights at Sankeys on many occasions in the 94- 97 period including memorable nights that Andrew Weatherall and Carl Craig headlined, Rob asked me to pen some of my memories of the times which you can read here. The music on the post is heavy on mid- 90s techno, as Bugged Out at Sankeys was, with tracks from Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, Green Velvet, LFO, Dave Clark, Ron Trent, Carl Craig and Der Dritte Raum. This twenty minute documentary came out ten years ago for the 20th anniversary...

River Man

Nick Drake's music has been orbiting me recently. Sometimes the only way to deal with melancholy is to accept melancholy and Nick's music deals in that beautifully. River Man from his first album, 1969's Five Leaves Left, is a masterpiece, a sign that Nick Drake was a young man with many talents. The song is in 5/4 time, possibly the influence of Joao Gilberto. The lyrics- I'm not sure I fully get them but they're poetic and full of meaning maybe only to Nick, concerning Betty and some sadness she endures, autumn and the running out of time ('Said she hadn't heard the news/ Hadn't the time to choose/ A way to lose/ But she believes'). The river man is someone who the narrator is going to speak to, 'about the plan for lilac time' and 'about the ban on feeling free'. Mystery and enigma. 

At the end Nick switches it around and suggests the river man might answer and tell him 'all he knows/ about the way his river flows/ I don't suppose it's meant for me'. The river man could be time, could be God, could be nature. He (Nick) is searching for something. 

Musically its sublime, Joe Boyd's production and the playing both first rate. The moment the strings enter, one minute in, is superbly done, Boyd's production utterly sympathetic to the song and the performance...

This version is the Cambridge version, a demo from spring 1968, just Nick and acoustic guitar. It came out in 2004 for a compilation, Made To Love Magic, an album of outtakes and different versions. 

River Man (Cambridge Version)

In 2010 a diverse cast of singers and musicians paid tribute to Nick at the Barbican, a concert called Way To Blue, with a house band (featuring the recently departed Danny Thonpson on double bass) and a line up of singers including Green Gartside, Teddy Thompson, Vashti Bunyan, Robyn Hitchcock, Scott Matthews and Kate St. John. I watched some of it late last Friday night and found it a mixed bag. Nick's songs, the singing especially, are so him it's difficult for the singers to do something with them and as songs they're not necessarily suited to big rooms and grand gestures. The best one for me was Lisa Hannigan's Black Eyed Dog, Lisa stamping her foot and playing the harmonium- she found a new way to play the song and brought a different energy to it, a real physicality. 

Black Eyed Dog goes beyond melancholy, it's depression. Nick's version drowns in it. 

Black Eyed Dog 

Lisa Hannigan finds I think a defiance in the face of the black dog, she squares up to it, dares it to do its worst. It's a shame Nick Drake never lived to hear Lisa's version of the song. 

Holy Island

Sister Ray Davies are a duo from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, who have both played as session musicians in the kind of bands you'd imagine might inhabit Muscle Shoals. The music they make as Sister Ray Davies sounds nothing like that and the album they've just released was inspired by Holy Island, Lindisfarne, Northumbria, a place that is a very long way from Muscle Shoals in all sorts of ways. 

The Sister Ray Davies sound takes early 90s shoegaze and FX pedal psychedelia as its starting point, early Ride, Spacemen 3, Slowdive... the single Aidan  is a beauty, all shimmer, haze and slow burning guitar melodies, and a tribute to St. Aidan, the Irish monk who converted the Anglo- Saxons of Northumbria to Christianity and who died in 651 AD.

Big Ships, Viking ships presumably, followed, layers of sound, a shoegaze wall of guitars but with a driving rhythm pushing it on...

The album, Holy Island, is out now on Sonic Cathedral and you can get it at Bandcamp.

Jimmy Cliff

The good and the great continue to depart- Jimmy Cliff died yesterday at the age of 81. His voice, often described as mellifluous- I'll go for mesmerising and a joy to listen to- is one of the sounds of reggae for me. When I first began to buy reggae records, via covers by The Clash and interviews in the weekly music press, Jimmy Cliff and the soundtrack to The Harder They Come was one of my entry points. The soundtrack to that film is hit after hit. Jimmy sang the title track and recorded it specifically for the film, as well as Many Rivers To Cross and You Can Get It If You Really Want alongside songs from The Maytals, The Melodians, The Slickers and Desmond Decker. Jimmy played the lead role in the film too, Ivan. 

Way back in the early 90s I bought a Jimmy Cliff compilation at a record fair in Buxton which had these two songs on it...

Wild World

Vietnam

I was already familiar with Wild World due to the Maxi Priest cover version from 1988. Good as that is, Jimmy Cliff's version is sublime. Vietnam was called 'the best protest song I ever heard' by no less an authority than Bob Dylan. 

In 2012 Jimmy released a cover of Guns Of Brixton, Jimmy returning the tip of the trilby to Paul Simonon who references Ivan in the lyrics. Jimmy's version was produced by Tim Armstrong of Rancid, a massive Clash fan- Jimmy later covered a Rancid song too. 

'You see he feels like Ivan/ Born under the Brixton sun'

Guns Of Brixton

A life well lived and a giant of Jamaican music. Jimmy Cliff RIP. 

Songs From The Sabres Tour Bus

Sabres Of Paradise board the tour bus and head out on their UK tour tomorrow, a gig in Bristol first, followed by The White Hotel in Salford on Wednesday, Leeds on Thursday, the Forge warehouse in Sheffield on Friday, Bugged Out at Tramsheds in London on Saturday and then bringing the curtain down in Brighton on Monday. Back in May and June they played Fabric in London and Sydney Opera House and a pair of festival appearances- Primavera in Spain and Dekmantel in The Netherlands. I saw them at Fabric and am going to The White Hotel. I'm sure I can't be the only person who did not start 2025 expecting to see Sabres Of Paradise play live, twice. There are a handful of tickets still available for some of the venues I believe- try here.

Back in the 1994 Sabres Of Paradise played twenty two live shows, on their own and supporting Primal Scream. They finished the year with some dates in Japan. The live band- the Sabres studio pair of Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns along with Rich Thair (percussion and drums, on loan from Red Snapper and The Aloof), Nick Abnett (low slung bass) and Phil Mossman (guitar, later of LCD Soundsystem)- would kick up a storm, a heady stew of programmed drums, samples and live instruments bringing those classic Sabres tracks to life on stage- Smokebelch, Wilmot, Theme, Tow Truck... Andrew Weatherall started out on stage with them, playing some keys, but said he felt like a fraud and preferred to DJ before and after, and skulk around in the crowd watching them play, smoking and enjoying seeing his band play the gig. 

The Sabres re- union comes in part from a night The Flightpath Estate put on at The Golden Lion two years ago, a Q&A with Jagz and Gary (with me in the David Frost hotseat) and then Jagz DJing. Rob Fketcher, of Herbal tea party fame, has a live recording of Sabres playing at the club in 1994 and we played it after the Q&A. Jagz stood by the speakers listening and nodding his head. 'We really pretty good back then', he said. Two years down the line, the Sabres albums re- issued in the summer, rave reviews from the shows they played in the summer and a UK tour imminent, the horses saddled and ready to go, I thought it might be good to get a Bagging Area exclusive, songs from the Sabres Of Paradise tour bus in 1994 and 2025. I asked Jagz and he and the rest of the Sabres were happy to oblige...

Jagz Kooner

1994 tour bus song: Nas feat Az and Olu Dara, Life's A Bitch (from Illmatic in 1994).   

'Remember listening to this on the tour bus and when that chorus landed it was a proper 'damn that's a hook and half!', so much so that Bob G improvised it over a Primal Scream song when we toured with them too'.

Life's A Bitch

2025 tour bus song: Rapture in Blue (Midnight Version) by Daniel Avery with Cecile Believe (from Tremors)

'This whole album is a sonic masterpiece and I love the fact he has an entire full live band with him when he tours too. Respect to Dan!'

  

Gary Burns

1994 tour bus song: Cypress Hill, Hits From The Bong. 

Hits From The Bong

'I remember listening to this (very stoned) on the bus quite a lot. Loved the fact it sampled Son Of A Preacher Man by Dusty Springfield which was always a favourite of mine too'

2025 tour bus song: Bloomy Mulberries by K2W0.

'Downtempo and dirty. Reminds me of old school acid house times'. 

Get Bloomy Mulberries at Bandcamp. 

Rich Thair 

1994 tour bus song: Depth Charge- Bounty Killers.

'For me in the 90s J Saul Kane was a huge influence, an amazing, creative producer and sculptor of beats. Jon produced fantastic remixes for The Sabres & Red Snapper. RIP J Saul Kane x'

Bounty Killers

2025 tour bus song: Snorkel- Sirene

'Frank Byng’s Snorkel deserve more recognition for their inventive rhythm chaos. Check the new album'.

Find Snorkel's Sirene at Bandcamp.

Nick Abnett 

1994 tour bus song: The Beach Boys - God Only Knows. 

'Weirdly enough the only music I ever remember being played on a Sabres bus was the Pet Sounds album! Andrew bought it in a service station and we listened to it on the journey to wherever we were heading'.

God Only Knows

2025 tour bus song: Nia Archives / Clipz- Maia Maia. 

'There’s an exciting new school of jungle producers around at the moment. Nia is a great example of an open minded generation of new artists. Good vibes and killer tunes!'

Get Maia Maia at Bandcamp. 

Adam says- a bang up to date blend of Brazilian sounds and new generation jungle, new to me and very good indeed.  

Phil Mossman 

1994 tour bus song: The Sandals- Feet (Slam remix). 

'The thought of the Sandals always brings a smile to my face and takes me straight back to those days. The Slam remix is a seminal piece of 90s techno'.

Feet (Night Slam VI)

2025 tour bus song: Sunn O))) with Scott Walker, Herod. 

The whole Sunn O))) and Scott Walker album is at Bandcamp. It is, it almost goes without saying, pretty intense. Those miles shuttling round the country this week with Scott Walker and Sunn O))) on the bus sound system are going to be quite a trip. 

I've sequenced those ten tracks into one mix, a Sabres 94/25 tour bus tape- it comes in at just over forty six minutes so with a bit of trimming you could get it on one side of a 1995 friendly c90 cassette. It starts with God Only Knows and ends with Herod so it could be described as Biblical. 

Sabres Tour Bus 94/ 25 Mix

• The Beach Boys: God Only Knows
• Cypress Hill: Hits From The Bong
• Nas ft Az and Olu Dara: Life's A Bitch
• Depth Charge: Bounty Killers
• Nia Archives & Clipz: Maia Maia
• Snorkel: Sirene
• K2W0: Bloomy Mulberries
• Daniel Avery ft. Cecile Believe: Rapture In Blue (Midnight Version)
• The Sandals: Feet (Night Slam IV)
• Sunn O))) and Scott Walker: Herod 2014

If you prefer to stream the mix is at The Flightpath Estate's Mixcloud here. Massive thanks to all five Sabres Of Paradise for doing this- see you at The White Hotel on Wednesday Night. Love and Sabres to you all. 

Twenty Seven

Today would have been Isaac's twenty seventh birthday. He died aged twenty three, four years ago next Sunday. It'd be nice to get to a point where we can separate his birthday and the anniversary of his death but I'm not sure we're there yet. It'd be nice too to get to a point where we can celebrate him on his birthday without the feelings of loss that it's currently weighed down with. Maybe one day. One thing I've learned is that grief is what it is and one doesn't have much control over it- to some extent, you have to go with it as it is and let it pass through. 

This A Certain Ratio song came out in 1991, seven years before Isaac was born. I'm pretty sure Jez Kerr wrote the lyrics about Brian Jones, a member of the 27 club- Brian was 27 when he died and is forever that age. I thought I had a digital file of the original mix, Jez singing with the late and much missed Denise Johnson but at the moment I can only find the Jon Dasilva mixes. Denise appears on this one, singing 'You were so lonely/ Never be lonely again/ I'm gonna love you til the end'. 

27 Forever (Dasilva Bubble Bath Mix)

Happy birthday Isaac. Miss you. 

Soundtrack Saturday

In 1973 Sam Peckinpah's revisionist Western Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid hit the big screens, a retelling of the story of Billy and Pat starring James Coburn (as lawman Pat) and Kris Kristofferson (as outlaw Billy). Peckinpah had a track record of Westerns behind him by 1973, depicting violence explicitly and graphically, stories about outsiders, loners and losers. Ride The High Country. The Wild Bunch. Major Dundee. The Ballad Of Cable Hogue. 

Pat Garrett And The Billy The Kid is famed for the behind the scenes rows with the studio MGM and a mangled version that was largely disowned by cast and crew. In 1988 a re- edit by Peckinpah was released and widely praised as the film the 1973 one should have been. 

Peckinpah saw the film as a chance to complete a trilogy (after Ride The High Country and The Wild Bunch), to make a definitive statement about the Western and complete his revisionist perspective of the Old West. He fell out with everyone while making it, suffered budget cuts and technical problems, re- shoots and crew illness, some of this caused by the director's own drinking and argumentative nature. The 1988 version is a gem though, Peckinpah's original vision of the film restored. 

We're here for the soundtrack though and the soundtrack was by Bob Dylan. Peckinpah, unbelievably, had never heard of Dylan- Kristofferson brought Bob down, Bob played him a song, and Peckinpah hired him straight away. Dylan appeared in the film too, as an enigmatic character called Alias. In 1973 Bob was a background presence. Self Portrait, released in 1970, seemed a deliberate attempt to shed fans, to get people to leave him alone and to lose the Spokesman for a Generation tag. 'What is this shit?', Greil Marcus famously wrote when reviewing it. It was followed by New Morning, Bob sounding more like Dylan again but still for many a little tame. In 1972 and 1973 there was nothing though, radio silence, until Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid. 

The Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid soundtrack is an overlooked Dylan album- or rather, nine of the songs are overlooked and the other is Knocking On Heaven's Door, a worldwide hit, with Roger McGuinn and Jim Keltner on guitar and bass, a song which has suffered from being covered by too many people, usually badly. The other nine (of the twenty four recorded at various sessions, fourteen still unreleased) include four versions of Billy, any one of which is as good as much of what Dylan released in the 70s. This one is Billy 7...

Billy 7

Billy (Main Title Theme) is an instrumental (with Booker T Jones on bass) and none the worse for it. Billy 1, Billy 4 and Billy 7 all have words, slightly different versions and lyrics, different takes on the film and its themes. 

'Spend the night with some sweet senorita
Into her dark hallway she will lead you
In some lonesome shadow she might greet you
Billy you’re so doggone far away from home

They say that Pat Garrett's got your number
Sleep with one eye open when you slumber
Every little sound just might be thunder
Thunder from the barrel of a gun

Maybe you will find yourself tomorrow
Drinking in some bar to hide your sorrow
Spending the time that you borrow
Figuring a way to get back home'

Mani

The Stone Roses were one of those bands that, in the overly dramatic words of the youth and the music press, changed your life. In 1989 they changed the way I looked at the world, they changed my relationship with music, made it deeper and more intense (and I was already pretty far gone before that). The news yesterday that bassist Mani died suddenly aged 63 is hard to take- a Stone Rose, Mani the rogue Rose, gone. Awful. 

Picture credit where it's due- the photo above was taken by my friend Darren when The Stone Roses played Manchester's International 22 in 1987, a youthful Mani caught staring out into the crowd, paint splattered bass at hand. Thank you Darren for letting me use it. 

Edit: Darren shared this one with me too, Mani and Ian at the same gig...

I first saw The Stone Roses at Liverpool Polytechnic (the Haigh Building, now demolished), 4th May 1989. At this point I had a couple of singles- Sally Cinnamon was my first encounter with them. They changed going to gigs for me that night, they were electrifying, four young men with absolute self belief, locked in and playing the songs which would make up the debut album (the album was released the same week as the Liverpool gig). Mani's bass was as much a part of that sound, that late 80s psychedelic sound, bolstered by the best rhythm section in town, as John Squire's guitar playing and Reni's out of this world drumming. The rumble of bass that slowly brings I Wanna Be Adored in. The instant hit of the bass intro to She Bangs The Drums. The heavy Hendrix grove of Standing Here. The subtler dynamics of Shoot You Down. The thrill of the bassline and snare that opens I Am The Resurrection and the epic twisting, funked up groove of its extended instrumental ending. All these things took hold of me that night at Liverpool Poly- in some ways it's the gig I judge all gigs since against. 

At the start of that year they appeared on Tony Wilson's late night, north west only Granada TV music programme, The Other Side Of Midnight playing Waterfall, a band as cool as fuck and who know it, the genuine article. Mani, paint splattered Rickenbacker bass, black and white striped t- shirt, flicking his fringe out of his eyes, a group on the cusp.

By the end of 1989 they world was theirs. The appeared on BBC 2 early evening show Rapido, interviewed at Battery Studios in North London and wandering round the streets. At one point Mani nips into a hairdressers to wash his locks. Fools Gold turns up in the studio playback, a monster of a song driven by a monster of a bassline- the breakbeat, the guitars, the whispered vocal are all vital but the thing that moves Fools Gold, that drives it, is Mani's bass. 

Fools Gold took them to Top Of The Pops, a night that felt seismic, The Roses and Happy Mondays crashing into the chart world and inanities of early evening pop music television, Mani in red swinging his bass around, flares flapping around his legs. A nation of indie kids get up and dance. 

I saw them again- Spike Island, the Apollo in 1994 on the Second Coming tour (Reni was gone by that point) and then in 2011 at the re- union warm up at Warrington Parr Hall, an amazing night. Mani looked as pleased as anyone that it had actually happened, bounding onto the stage and celebrating like he'd scored a winning goal in injury time and then, in front of his bass cabinet and amp adorned with his collection of Toby jugs, that familiar rumble of bass notes faded in, dum dum dum dum/ dim dim dim dim/ dum dum dum dum/ der de der... 'I don't have to sell my soul he's already in me...'.

1990's single One Love came with this B-side, a seven minute swamp groove with Mani's bass central to the sound...

Something's Burning

By 2016 the Roses re- union rolled on and they did four shows at the Etihad (playing at Manchester City's ground was surely a shocker for Mani, a life long match going United fan). By this point they were being adored by two generations of fans. I took these two pics as mayhem ensued around us...

When the Roses ended Mani went onto Primal Scream, giving that band a much needed shot in the arm (poor choice of phrase possibly), dragging his bass onto Vanishing Point and giving them an energy and a sound they'd missed. Live Primal Scream were untouchable with Mani on board- his bass playing part of the guitar army era of Andrew Innes, Throb and Kevin Shields. Mani said that other than The Roses there were only three bands he'd consider joining- Primal Scream, The Jesus And Mary Chain and The Beastie Boys. I'd have happily seen him play with the other two as well...

There's so much more I could write. The Stone Roses- Ian, John, Mani and Reni- have been a central part of my musical life for over three and a half decades. Their music rewired me, changed my DNA. I feel privileged to have seen them back then and to still have that debut album and the songs from those singles, from 1988 through to 1990, to still get so much enjoyment from them when I hear them and play them. There's something special about those songs that stadium tours and late stage capitalism can't tarnish. The Roses were from round here, they were us on stage, us on record, four ordinary Mancunians but also they were something else, something so un- ordinary that they transformed themselves when they played together- and by doing that they transformed us too. 

Where Angels Play

Gary Mani Mounfield. RIP. 

Still Feel The Rain

This record, Still Feel The Rain by Stex, was released on 19th November 1990, thirty five years ago yesterday. 

Still Feel The Rain (The Grid Remix)

It rolls in on a very danceable, very 1990 breakbeat. There's a clipped, funky guitar riff, the spirit of Nile Rodgers has been conjured into acid house. A bumpy bassline, sounding like The Orb or The Grid. And then a vocal, a female lead joined by a male on the chorus, 'I still feel the rain now the storm is over/ Still the cold when you open the door'. Wonderful uptempo house/ pop. 

Stex briefly promised to be a Sly Stone for the 90s. it wasn't to be- an album, Spiritual Dance, didn't follow until 1992. Still Feel The Rain got some music press coverage and should have been a smash hit. The press coverage came via two factors- the single was remixed by The Grid and the guitar was played by Johnny Marr. 

Richard Norris and Dave Ball were just starting out as The Grid in 1990- singles like Floatation and A Beat called Love and an album, Electric Head, saw them flying their flag high. It's easy to see why Johnny Marr was happy to play on Still Feel The Rain. He was post- Smiths, Chic had always been an influence on his guitar playing and in 1990 he was perfectly placed to enjoy acid house. He was repositioning himself away from those Smiths fans who still blamed him for breaking up the band, playing on a slice of good time, acid house pop, grooving in the video with hair cropped short and wearing white with a gold necklace. Johnny's moved on writ large. 

It didn't work out for Stex- there was an album and a handful more singles. Better to have made one great single than none at all and this record is a perfect little time capsule,a postcard from 1990. 

Innenleben

I've written many times about Exeter's Mighty Force, a label reborn in 2019 and since then responsible for a run of great electronic albums and EPs from a huge roster of artists including David Harrow, Long Range Desert Group, Reverb Delay, M- Paths, D3, Dylab, Fluffy Inside, Myoptik, Boxheater Jackson, Yorkshire Machines, KAMS, Paddy Thorne, Golden Donna and more besides. 

At the end of October SubDan returned with a full length album, Innenleben. All ten tracks, as well as the album itself, have German titles. It opens with Denkmuster (translation 'thought patterns' or 'mindset'), a setting out of the stall, ticking hi hats, bleeps and bass, lovely machine repetition- there's a laser focus on Innenleben, absolute precision and timing, the occasional human voice dropped in, but there's also a lot of feeling and a lot of soul. 

Liebesgefluster (translation, love whispering- and don't the Germans have a word for everything) is a technoid joy, warm and minimal, the synth hook bouncing around, robotic voices just within earshot muttering sweet nothings, and the drums and bass gathering pace. 

This music, streamlined, linear and all forwards momentum, always puts me in mind of travel and transport (something Kraftwerk picked up on half a century ago with Autobahn and Trans- Europe Express)- it's the sound of gliding through miles of countryside after dark on the rails or under the sodium lights on the motorway, the white lines shooting past, miles falling away. 

Translating the song titles is a joy in itself. There is Gedankenfrei (thoughts are free) and Vorstellungskraft (imagination). At the end there is the tile track, Innenleben (inner life), a beatless and weightless ambient techno affair with loops that repeat until dissolving into nothing. Lovely stuff. Get it at Bandcamp.

It's Plain To See

This song revolved back into my life at the weekend and I played it umpteen times on Sunday, something about it really striking a chord. 

I'm Not The Man I Used To Be

How good is that? I was reminded on Sunday evening that it was a favourite of Drew of the now dormant but once essential music blog, Across The Kitchen Table. 

In 1989 Fine Young Cannibals were making a second album, The Raw And The Cooked. Some of the songs that would appear on it were already out- their cover of Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have Fallen In Love With) was in Jonathan Demme's 1986 film Something Wild and Good Thing, Tell Me What and Hard As It Is all showed up in Barry Levinson's 1987 film Tin Men (with FYC playing a band in a nightclub in the film). They were moving away from the 60s soul towards something more contemporary. Andy Cox and David Steele had made an acid house inspired single as Two Men A Drum Machine And A Trumpet while singer Roland Gift was acting in Sammy And Rosie Get Laid and Scandal. They reunited and the band told their label they wanted Prince to produce the rest of the album. Prince wasn't available but strings were pulled and Fine Young Cannibals ended up in Paisley Park with David Z, a member of Prince's Revolution. The big hit single She Drives Me Crazy came from those sessions as did I'm Not The Man I Used To Be. 

I'm Not The Man I Used To Be is built around a James Brown drum loop, the ever dependable and in 1989 increasingly ubiquitous Funky Drummer, a subtle guitar part and some lovely synth chords. Roland Gift's voice was indeed a gift and his vocal is wonderful, introspective and heartfelt, full of regret and emotion. It's not house music but it's coming from that plac. 

'Oh, it's plain and it's a shame/ I can't explain/ But I'm not the man I used to be'

It was the fourth single off the album- record companies really rinsed albums back in the 80s. Of the remixes and extended versions the Jazzie B and Nellee Hooper remix is a winner. I don't have an mp3 but it's on Youtube.

I once saw Roland Gift in real life, walking down the street in Islington one evening in the mid- 90s when we used to spend quite a bit of time in that part of London. He has that kind of charisma and style that makes it look like he's in a video when he's doing nothing more than walking down a North London street after dark. Fine Young Cannibals didn't make any more albums, more's the pity- the former Beat pair of Andy and David and Roland drifted apart and they called it a day in 1992. Roland apparently resurfaced this summer playing two gigs. 

Monday's Long Songs

Back in July I wrote about Galactic Ride, a solo single from Gordon Kaye, a Brighton based DJ and producer who has been active in the Brighton music scene (and beyond) since the mid- 80s. This Friday Galactic Ride is released in a variety of versions including a brand new vocal version. Gordon originally saw Galactic Ride as a nine minute Cosmic Disco instrumental but his daughter Gabriella arranged a vocal for it and now its difficult to imagine it without it...

Chuggy cosmic/ Balearic that really moves when the bassline hits a minute in and Gabriella's vocal soars over the dreamy synth arpeggios. It sounded great back in the summer and has now returned in its orbit to light up late November. Galactic Ride is out this Friday- pre- order at Bandcamp. 

Out last week was a Hardway Bros remix of Le Carousel's We're All Gonna Hurt. The original version came out back in February this year and has been much played by Sean Johnston at ALFOS nights up and down the country. It seemed right therefore that Sean did a remix- which he ahs and it more than delivers the goods, with a heavy new breakbeat that kicks and a monstrous bassline is so huge it's almost a living breathing entity. The second half, the vocal surfacing with the line, 'Sooner or later/ We're all gonna hurt', as the synths bounce around, the pianos clang and the bassline buzzes, is genuinely thrilling. Nine minutes of electronic fun from Phil Kieran in Belfast. Get it at Bandcamp. 

Forty Minutes Of Grant Hart

Last Wednesday's Husker Du post, three albums from a period of a little over a year and a new box set of live recordings at gigs from 1985 sent me back to the Husker Du back catalogue and then into some of Grant Hart's post Husker albums. A Sunday mix seemed like a good idea (to quote Bob Mould who will turn up with his own mix sometime soon). Grant was a singular character in US 80s hardcore/ punk and a fine songwriter and drummer. I was genuinely saddened by his death from cancer in 2017. 

Grant and Bob had a difficult relationship- they could both be difficult with each other and the pair's non- communication in 1987 contributed to Husker Du's split. They made up in the end, when Grant's illness was terminal and laid some ghosts to rest. 

Grant's life was tinged with tragedy and difficulties. His older brother was killed by a drunk driver when Grant was ten. Grant inherited his drum kit. Both Grant and Bob struggled with their sexuality as young men in the early 80s punk world, a place where homophobic attitudes were often very close to the surface (Bob came out in the 90s, Grant was openly bisexual). In the late 80s Grant had an HIV Positive misdiagnosis and was spent some time dealing with heroin addiction (which contributed to Husker Du's break up). In 2011 his house caught fire and burned to the ground and his mother died a month later. 

Let's remember Grant this way, with eleven songs that burn with passion, desire, emotion and the punk rock flame...

Forty Minutes Of Grant Hart 

• 2541
• Turn On The News
• Green Eyes
• Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely
• She Can Hear The Angels Coming
• My Regrets
• The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill
• You Can Make It At Home
• You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water
• Old Empire (BBC Session)
• Keep Hanging On

2541 was a solo single from 1988, from Grant's debut solo album Intolerance (December 1989 on SST), an album on which he played all the instruments and produced. After the guitar assault of Husker Du Grant shifted to organ as the central instrument for Intolerance and on 2541 acoustic guitar. 2541 is a story song, a couple move in together and then split, told in a few verses with some very well drawn touches and details. A personal song that has universal appeal. She Can Hear The Angels Coming is also from Intolerance. Grant got the front cover of Sounds when Intolerance was released. I still have a copy in my archive (boxes in the loft) of music press and magazines. 

Turn On The News is from 1984's double album Zen Arcade, the releases that lifted Husker Du apart from their peers. Doomy piano note, TV news samples at the start, a long fade in and then the three Huskers power into some frenzied punk/ psyche. Great backing vocals on this one as Grant howls away up front and Bob riffs away.

Green Eyes and Keep Hanging On are from 1985's Flip Your Wig, Husker Du's pinnacle in songs and sound, and also home to some Grant Hart masterpieces. Keep Hanging On is everything a Grant Hart Husker Du song should be. Green Eyes rings and clamours, with cymbals splashing and guitars crunching. 

Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely is from Husker Du's major label debut 1986's Candy Apple Grey. Not to damn Candy Apple Grey with faint praise but it's one of the foundation stones of 90s alt- rock, a slightly more introverted and slowed down approach, acoustic guitars higher in the mix. Don't Want To Know... was a single too which came with Husker Du's assault on The Beatles' Helter Skelter. Don't Want To Know... is neither acoustic nor slowed down. 

My Regrets is from 2009's Hot Wax, an album I love. Grant started it in 2005, travelling to Montreal to record with members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and A Silver Mt. Zion before finishing it on his own. My Regrets is the album's stately, confessional closing song, with dense clanging guitars and stirring vocals. You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water opens Hot Wax, the lyrics a series of Buddhist sayings and the music a burning fire.   

The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill is from New Day Rising, one of two Husker Du albums in 1985. After the three word howl of the title song Grant's song bursts in, all feeling, noise and melody. On finding out that Heaven Hill is a US brand of whiskey, the song's lyrics and subject take on a different tone. 

After Intolerance Grant formed nova Mob, a band in which he played guitar and sang. In 1991 they released The Last Days Of Pompeii, an album with lyrics taking in Pliny The Younger, Werner von Braun and the Nordic God of War. Their second and final album, self titled, came out in 1994. Old Empire opened it and was played at a BBC Session in 1994 hosted by Marc Riley. 

You Can Make It At Home is from the final Husker Du album, a double released in 1987 called Warehouse: Songs And Stories. It is packed with great late period Bob and Grant songs but it also sounds like an end is nearing, it's there in the tone and the feel. On You Can Live At Home, the final Husker Du song on the final Husker Du album Grant and Bob duel to have the last word, Bob peeling off  notes amid feedback, Grant banging the drums and singing the line over and over, 'you can live at home now...', the song a long fade out, no one wanting to find the way to bring it to a stop. 

Soundtrack Saturday

In late July I was sitting on the roof terrace of a hotel bar in Napoli overlooking the Bay of Naples with Mount Vesuvius behind me drinking this negroni (a cocktail I became quite partial to in the summer, equal parts gin, Campari and Vermouth Rosso, garnished with some orange peel, a bittersweet drink that went down very well on holiday in Italy). It seems so unlikely now with the British autumn in full effect- at the time of writing this it is dark early and pouring down. So it goes. 

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' working relationship has gone well beyond the Bad Seeds (Warren joined in The Bad Seeds in 1994 and has become Nick's right hand man. He was instrumental in Grinderman too). Their soundtrack work is spread over a range of films and documentaries, starting in 2007 with The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford and The English Surgeon and then really gathering acclaim with the soundtrack to The Road two years later. There are many others, full length scores, most recently Back To Black (a biopic about Amy Winehouse which I had the misfortune to watch one evening last year. The soundtrack was rather good though). 

Cave has spoken about how their collaborations for film scores comprise a totally different approach than the writing for The Bad Seeds- Warren records music all the time, sometimes just loops, rhythms, a couple of minutes of synth or violin. He sends it to Nick who then works on it, quickly and usually without the pressure of having to present it to a band for working up into a song or having to provide lyrics for it. There's a compilation called White Lunar, two CDs, which rounds up the soundtracks for The Proposition, Jesse James, The Road, The English Surgeon and more with a handful of otherwise unreleased pieces that works really well as a full album, disc one especially. Instrumentals, some only a couple of minutes long, piano, some bass, some violin. Some of it is elegiac, mournful, melancholic. Some of it is tense and droney. Some bleak. Cave's voice appears occasionally, croaking or whispering. It works as a standalone album without the weight that The Bad Seeds songs sometimes bring with them. 

This is from The Road, the 2009 film of Cormac McCarthy's novel. The book and film tell the story of a man and his son trekking through a post- apocalyptic North American wilderness. It's never quite clear what the apocalypse consisted of but it's truly end times- harrowing and tense and unbearably moving in places. For some reason I read the novel while Isaac was in hospital with meningitis in 2008, a six week stay that involved emergency hospitalisation, a coma, brain surgery, a desperate close to death forty eight hours and months of recovery for Isaac. We had a lot of time sitting by his bed and I guess the book didn't seem as bleak in those circumstances as it might otherwise. This piece of music, mainly gentle piano is lovely.

The Road

Song For Bob is from The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford starred Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, a 21st century Western that stands up (as does Unforgiven, a similarly toned modern Western). Cave appears in the film briefly as a balladeer in a saloon. Song For Bob is six minutes long, very different from The Road- slow paced and subtle, a lead violin backed by a string section, piano and some soft padding bass notes. 

Song For Bob

In 2021 Nick and Warren provided the score for a documentary about snow leopards called La Panthere Des Neiges. The long title track has drawn out synth chords and twinkling sounds, violin (again) providing some tension, piano notes rippling in, and a build up that breaks eventually with a ghostly choir and Cave singing, ending with the repeated line, 'We are not alone'. Nick didn't write the words- they were by the film's writer Sylvain Tesson- but they feel like they fit perfectly with Nick's post- Skeleton Tree, post- Ghosteen, Carnage world, a feeling of survival and of something bigger than yourself. 'I was observed/ We are not alone'. Rather beautiful all told. 

L'apparition: We Are Not Alone

Friday Three Times

Today we're at one of those bloggers standby types of post, songs named after the day of the week that we've arrived at- Friday. The weeks seem long at the moment and Friday is always welcome. Two of the three Friday songs today have connections to recent Bagging Area posts and the third has a connection to an album that came out this year and has been largely unnoticed. 

Friday number one- The Replacements...

Love You Till Friday (Live at Cabaret Metro 1986)

The Replacements were Minneapolis contemporaries of Wednesday's postees Husker Du and were considered to be the ones most likely to make the jump to a major label- a more palatable, classic rock 'n' roll sound- The Replacements were quite capable of scuppering those kind of expectations by their own willful self- sabotage. In 2023 a remixed and re- issued box set version of their 1985 album Tim was released, a remix that actually made the songs entirely new, the really poorly mixed mid- 80s album totally redone and better for it. There was a live disc, The Replacements kicking the arse out of their own songs at the Cabaret Metro in Chicago in 1986, of which Love You Till Friday was their second song, rattled off in between the ridiculous and the sublime, between set opener Gary's Got A Boner and third song Bastards Of Young. And that's The Replacements all over. 

Friday number two- Jack Kerouac...

Friday Afternoon In The Universe

Jack Kerouac's On The Road was the subject of a Saturday Soundtrack post a few weeks ago. Friday Afternoon In The Universe is from a very long narrative poem Kerouac wrote called Old Angel Midnight, a 'monologue of the world' Kerouac dreamed up in Tangiers in 1956 and then began in a notebook while staying in a cabin with Gary Snyder later the same year. Kerouac called it Spontaneous prose, naked word babble and automatic doodle writing. A judge in a censorship case called it a prose picnic. Whatever it's called, Friday afternoon in the universe is a good time and place to be in. 

Friday number three, Half Man Half Biscuit...

Friday Night And The Gates Are Low

In 1995 Wirral's finest released their second album Some Call It Godcore. Friday Night And The Gates Are Low is a lamentation for Friday night football, Tranmere Rovers playing in the rain in front of a small crowd and the 'bastard slip of a sub's ruined my weekend'. Nigel signs off with 'Friday night and I just love complaining/ And no I haven't got anything better to do'.

In the summer of this year HMHB released their sixteenth album, All Asimov And No Fresh Air. I will return to it- its very much business as usual, in other words thirteen slices of customary laugh out loud lyrics coupled obscure references to modern life and some genuinely moving moments. If you haven't heard it, you really should. 

Cowboy Time

Mike Wilson records as 100 Poems, straight outta Kildare, Ireland. Since January 2024 he's released six albums of music sample based songs, edits and original compositions, straddling the wiggly line between Balearic, dub and all sorts of electronic delights, and earlier this year throwing some acid boogie, Americana and cosmic country and western into the stew. His newest album, Rodeo Disco, came out last week and continues down that route, with uptempo floor fillers, dub basslines and some more Western cowboy business. For Mike, music is about creating but also about facing life full on and in his own words, there to help 'shake off the black dog'.

Rodeo Disco opens with a pair of bangers, the Doobie Brothers cosmic funk house of Let The Music Play and an Elvis sampling Rockin' Dub Music, Elvis coming to us from an interview in 1953 being asked about juvenile delinquency over slo mo beats and whooshes. On Freedom Fears Nothing there are acoustic guitars and more slowed down tempos and Martin Luther King, recorded speaking the night before his death in Memphis, a speech that almost prefigures his assassination the following day.  Sister Dave's Rodeo Show goes Western and gospel- acid beats and a Brian Christopher vocal and La Danse De Mardi Gras spins us back onto the floor with fiddles and Cajun dance. 

The final two songs bring the album home in emotional fashion and demonstrate Mike's range. On Big Purple Hands there is a Seamus O'Rourke vocal, reading from his book Leaning On Gates, a novel from Leitrim with home truths, booze, bedsits in Dublin, work in New York and an author/ narrator finding out his place in the world. Mike's drums and synths provide a clattering backing that veers into cosmic territory, a splicing of genres and cultures that works really well, O'Rourke's conversational style making it sound like you're sitting in a pub listening to him while tow bands compete to be heard, a cosmic country and an Irish jig outfit. On the closing song Wand'rin' Dub, Lee Marvin's famous number one single, Wandr'in' Star, is reworked with Lee's gravelly voice embellished with waves, acid beats and bleeps, dub space and a ticking drum machine. Wandr'in' Star was played at the end of Joe Strummer's funeral which adds a certain poignancy to it- the anniversary of Joe's death is coming up next month. 

You can find Rodeo Disco at Bandcamp, a free/ pay what you want deal. Any monies raised are going to support two mental health charities close to Mike's heart. 

The Western theme on this 100 Poems album and my Soundtrack Saturday post last weekend have brought a cowboy and Western themed vibe to Bagging Area. There are lots of songs and artists with the word Cowboy in my music folders. Cowboy Junkies and Cowboys International have both featured here before and Midnight Cowboy was a Soundtrack Saturday post earlier this year as was Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. Here are some more cowboys...

Cowboy George

Cowboy George is from The Fall's Your Future Our Clutter, their twenty seventh studio album, released in 2010 (which also featured a cover of Wanda Jackson's rockabilly Western song Funnel Of Love). Taut slide guitar, rumbling bass and clattering drums with the inimitable Mark E. Smith in rampant form with lines about low fat Limeys, broken bottles and Robin redbreast. 

Cowboys Are Square

It's been ages since I posted any Billy Childish, like Mark E Smith a total one off with a prodigious work rate and idiosyncratic worldview. Cowboys Are Square was on Thee Headcoats 1990 album The Kids Are Al Square: This Is Hip! In the last few months Billy has reunited Thee Headcoats and released a new album. They've probably recorded a new one in the time it took to write this blogpost. Billy's anti- cowboy obviously, cowboys are square, Indians are best.

Cowboys

Cowboys was the opening song on Portishead's second album. Claustrophobic and dense, hip hop/ jazz noir with Beth's lyrics eviscerating the British establishment. 

Cowboys And Indians

Cowboys And Indians is Pearl Harbour and The Explosions, a 1980 rock 'n' roll single in the Jerry Lee Lewis style, and also from the album Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost Too. Pearl arrived in London, had a relationship with Kosmo Vinyl, married Paul Simonon, supported The Clash and got members of The Clash, The Blockheads and Whirlwind to play on the album along with BJ Cole. 

Hey Cowboy

Lee Hazlewood recorded Cowboy In Sweden in 1970, a collection of country/ cowboy songs but done with that psychedelic, cinematic sound Lee pioneered. Nina Lizell sings with Lee on Hey Cowboy. 

Paul Simonon is a big Lee Hazlewood fan and was married to Pearl Harbour. Lee Marvin was played at Joe Strummer's funeral and is on the final track on 100 Poems' Rodeo Disco. The connections are everywhere. Sometimes these things just come together as I write them.