Forty Five Minutes Of Bunnymen

I've been thinking about an Echo And The Bunnymen mix for ages without committing. Part of me just wanted to do the first four albums, the original line up of McCulloch, Sergeant, Pattinson and De Freitas, from Eric's to Ocean Rain. Part of me wanted to just sling together my favourite Bunnymen songs (more or less the same thing actually). Part of me wanted to do just B-sides and album songs. These things may still happen. But I enjoyed the pair of New Order mixes I did earlier this year where I started with a New Order song and went where it suggested, taking in solo songs, remixes, covers, edits and songs that sounded New Order- esque- so I used that as a guide and started a Bunnymen mix in a similar vein. There are edits and solo songs, B-sides and singles, outliers in the Bunnymen world. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Bunnymen

• Into The Seventies
• Bedbugs And Ballyhoo (Single Version)
• Never Stop (Discoteque)
• BOTDH Peza Edit
• Thorn Of Crowns (Go Home Productions Remix)
• Lover Lover Lover (Indian Dawn Remix)
• The Killing Moon (T- Rek's Desert Disco Dub)
• Weird Gear

William Alfred Sergeant is Echo And The Bunnymen's guitarist, a sometime solo artist, memoir writer and all round good egg. In 2020 he released an an album of instrumentals called Things Inside. Into The Seventies was the opening track, a three minutes of finger picking and drones that sounds like the soundtrack to a late night TV programme. His side project with Les Pattinson, Poltergeist, released a fine album too, Your Mind Is A Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder), which I should have included in this mix. 

Bedbugs And Ballyhoo was originally a B-side to Bring On The Dancing Horses, a shimmering Bunnymen pop song with a jazzy, groovy B-side. It was re- recorded for the so- called Grey album, their fifth and self- titled album in 1987 (and then released as a single by WEA but I think everyone had pretty much given up on that album by that point). Ray Manzarek of The Doors plays keyboards. Bedbugs And Ballyhoo (along with The Game, Lips Like Sugar and one or two others) are proof that they could have made a really good album out of those songs if they'd not been falling out, had been more arsed and not smothered the songs in late 80s sheen. 

Never Stop is a 1983 single, a massive Bunnymen moment, released to coincide with gigs at the Royal Albert Hall- 'lay down thy raincoat and groove' they instructed. Strings, Ian doing his best Henry Fonda 'Good Gawd' impression and lyrics attacking Thatcherism. Will's bursts of guitar are pretty good too. Discoteque is the 12" mix and the rhythm section really could lay down their raincoats and groove. 

Peza is a DJ, producer and remixer/ edit artist. His version of Bring On The Dancing Horses is a 2019 nu- disco edit that doesn't too anything too radical but keep the song streamlined for the dancefloor. Dancing Horses is brilliant, shimmering 80s alt- pop.

Go Home Productions is/ was the name of Mark Vidler's remix/ edit/ mash up outfit- I featured quite a lot of his stuff back in the early days of this blog and he's been doing his thing since 2002. His unofficial version of Ocean Rain's Crown Of Thorns found its way to the band who liked it so much they put it out themselves. By contrast with Peza, Go Home Productions does monkey around with Thorn Of Crowns, completely reconstructing it, leaving Ian's C- C- C- cucumber, C- C- C- cabbage C- C- C- cauliflower malarkey on top. 

Ian left the Bunnymen and went solo in 1989. Hi first solo lp was Candleland, a low key and somewhat out of step album for 1989 but it's rather wonderful in its own way. His second solo album was 1992's Mysterio which was lead by a cover of Leonard Cohen's Lover Lover Lover. This remix, the Indian Dawn Remix, was by Mark 'Spike' Stent and is very 1992. He went on to work with the reformed Bunnymen on 1999's What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?, the Bunnymen reduced to just Ian and Will. Les left after realising that the things he grew frustrated about with Mac in the 80s were still frustrating and causing arguments in the 90s. 

The Killing Moon is perhaps their best known song- I'm sure it's their most streamed. It gained a whole new life after being included on the soundtrack to Donnie Darko in 2001. It is a superb song,both Ian's timeshifting, romantic lyrics and the swooning 80s post- punk/ psychedelic music. Something For Kate's cover and this dub disco remix came to me via its appearance at an ALFOS. Both Something For Kate and T- Rek are Australian and this cover/ remix is a bassline led, thumping nine minute gloom romp. Lovely. 

Weird Gear is from Everyman And Woman Is A Star, the 1991 album by Ultramarine with lyrics from a Kevin Ayres song, sung by Brendan Staunton and with strings sampled from The Cutter, a 1983 Bunnymen single/ highlight, high drama and urgency, happy losses and drops in the ocean. 

November

This rainbow appeared when I went to the cemetery yesterday to see Isaac, a full arch overhead- it was nice for a moment, this natural display lighting up the grey skies overhead. I try to go every weekend and at least pop by, leave some flowers and say hello. These small acts of remembrance have become important and it feels OK now, funnily it actually feels like we're going to see him in a way. 

November is a fucker. Isaac's birthday is the 23rd (he was 23 when he died and would have been 27 this month had he lived). He died a week after his birthday on the 30th November 2021. Those two dates, so close together, make November really difficult. Last year, the third anniversary, was as bad as the two previous ones- oddly, the actual days themselves weren't too bad- we went to see him and then went and did something with the day that seemed to be fitting. But the build up to his birthday, the next three weeks, and then the week between the two- they're really hard and I think we can all feel that coming again now the calendar's ticked over into November. The day after the anniversary of his death it's December with everything that that month brings. 

I was hoping that this year might be slightly better, a little easier but at the same time I'm not expecting it to be. A friend with experience in these matters but a good few years ahead of us said to me recently that, 'everyone assumes grief is linear and it most certainly isn't'. Which is very true. I'm also in a new workplace where people on the whole don't know my story yet- it just hasn't been easy to drop it into conversation so far- and that adds a new dimension to November. 

As ever music helps. Here are some November songs. 

I can't remember who tipped me off to Bathhouse by Steven Leggett. It came out in 2018, an ambient/ neo- classical, electronic tribute to the Turkish baths in Newcastle- upon- Tyne. Andrew Weatherall played some of it on Music's Not For Everyone so maybe it was one of many hundreds of Weatherall tip offs. 

It's a beautiful album, very much a singular piece of work. You can get the whole thing digitally at Bandcamp. November is the album's penultimate track, it fades in slowly with found sounds (recorded in Crete) and drones and then cello. There's the low end rumble of a single dull thudding drum and the sound of water lapping against the sides of the baths. The ambient sounds and musical instruments drift in and out, the drum comes and goes, and there's the swell of something choral. Quietly stunning. 

November

The only other song I have in front of me with November as its title is a 2009 Echo And The Bunnymen B-side, the flipside to Think I Need It Too (from the album The Fountain). Ian McCulloch had been recording with three musicians in London, trying to do something different. The results still sounded like the Bunnymen so Ian invited Will to go into the studio and they worked on the songs that became The Fountain. The Bunnymen duo of 2009 do indeed sound a little re- invigorated by this and their song November is decent enough. 

November

There are other November songs- November Has Come by Gorillaz, Vashti Bunyan's Rose Hip November, Sandy Denny's Late November, Tom Waits' November, The National's Mr. November and Folk Implosion's Fall Into November could all find a place here but instead I'll go wth the latest in Richard Norris' ling running series of monthly ambient releases, Music For Healing. Richard releases a new twenty minute track at the start of each month. The latest one which arrived in my inbox on 1st November was written by Richard in the aftermath of his bandmate Dave Ball's death, using the synths and instruments that the pair of them used in The Grid- a Minimoog, some Roland, Oberheim and Waldorf machines and was recorded at Richard's studio in Lewes. Deep Down (In B) is most certainly a memorial for Dave, a musical eulogy. You can listen to it here.  

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions

I held back from doing this for ages, a mix just containing cover versions, because it felt a bit lazy, a bit uninspired but the recent covers of Nick Drake by Joao Leao and The Velvet Underground by Thurston Moore twisted my arm into it. There are potentially more cover versions mixes to come. All these are relatively recent, although now I think about it Rowland S. Howard's Pop Crimes album came out in 2009 which is sixteen years ago and Calexico's in 2003 which is twenty two years ago- but the rest are all fairly recent. This mix leans towards the garage/ psyche/ guitar side of things. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions

• Andy Bell: Smokebelch
• Joao Leao: One Of These Things First
• Calexico: Alone Again Or
• Rowland S. Howard: Life's What You Make It
• Moon Duo: Planet Caravan
• Moon Duo: No Fun
• The Liminanas: Angles And Devils
• Thurston Moore: Temptation Inside Your Heart

Andy Bell's cover of The Sabres Of Paradise's Smokebelch was begun on the day of Andrew Weatherall's death, 17th February 2020, and finished in late summer/ early autumn 2023 when I emailed Andy to ask him if he had a track for our then unreleased pipe dream album Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. Andy's reply contained the completed cover and as soon as we listened to it, we knew it would close the album. Smokebelch itself began life as a cover version of L.B. Bad's New Age Of Faith.

Joao Leao's bossa nova flecked cover of Nick Drake's One Of These Things First, a song from Nick's 1971 album Bryter Later, came out as a 7" single on Toronto's Local Dish label and was posted here two weeks ago. 

Calexico's cover of Love's 1967 classic Alone Again Or doesn't stray too far from the original- Calexico were surely destined to cover it through with their combination of desert indie and mariachi horns. I thought I had a dub version of Alone Again Or- it sounded superb, dub groove, those horns and a snatch of vocal but I must have dreamt it. 

Rowland S. Howard's Pop Crimes was the former Birthday Party guitarist's second solo album. He was undergoing treatment for liver cancer at the time and died two months after it was released. Under those circumstances Talk Talk's Life's What You Make (second line, 'can't escape it') takes on a different meaning. Rowland's guitar playing- in fact just the way he held and approached the guitar- is pretty unique. His roiling guitar lines and feedback, the metallic clang and grim vocal delivery take the song into new places- which is what a cover version should do really. 

Moon Duo are represented twice here. First their cover of Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan was a summer 2020 release, their version of the 1970 original a chilled and weightless cosmic take. Their version of The Stooges' No Fun is from a 2018 12" single with Alan Vega's Jukebox Babe on the other side. Sonic Boom produced it. Again, a blank eyed, calmed down take on Iggy's 1969 proto- punk classic. 

The Liminanas released a compilation of singles and other rarities in 2015, I've Got Trouble In Mind Vol. 2 which included this cover version of Angels And Devils, an Echo And The Bunnymen B-side. The Liminanas, French psyche/ garage band par excellence, take The Bunnymen's Mo Tucker stomp and turn it Gallic. 

Thurston Moore's cover of The Velvet Underground's Temptation Inside Your Heart came out in September, a song he's been playing live for some time, MBV bassist Debbie Goodge plays the bass (as she does when Thurston plays live). Lou Reed's song first saw the light of dark on the 1985 outtakes album VU and has been a favorite of mine since the late 80s. Thurston more than does it justice.

Weird Gear

My recent trip back to Ultramarine's 90s albums and the recent re- issue of some unreleased recordings from 1996 led me to Weird Gear, the second track on 1991's Every Man And Woman Is A Star, a song with vocals by Brendan Staunton and a very well deployed string sample from 1983...

Weird Gear

The bouncy folk/ techno groove and Brendan's soulful vocal are a dream. The lyrics are from a Kevin Ayres song, There Is Loving Among Us from 1972 and Kevin's Whatevershebringswesing album. 

The swirling strings sample is of course from The Cutter, the second single from Echo And The Bunnymen's third album Porcupine- the Bunnymen and producer Kingbird (Ian Broudie) pulled out all the stops with The Cutter, Eastern strings, scouse psychedelia growing from their post- punk dread and some of Ian's best lyrics, lines about the seventh floor, hurdles approaching, drops in the ocean, Sellotape and knives and being the happy loss. What's it all about? I don't know. It's exhilarating and anthemic stuff though. 

The Cutter

This earlier demo version saw the light of day on the Never Stop 12", also from 1983, a wonderfully rattly version with trebly guitars courtesy of Will Sergeant but lacking those distinctive strings. 

The Original Cutter- A Drop In The Ocean

V.A. Saturday

In 1982 Bill Drummond and Mick Houghton compiled an album called To The Shores Of Lake Placid, a various artists compilation rounding up releases by on the Zoo label. Bill set up Zoo in 1978, initially to put out a single by Liverpool punk group Big In Japan (the band Drummond played guitar in along with at various times Jayne Casey, Ian Broudie, Holly Johnson, Dave Balfe, Budgie and Clive Langer among others). The Big In Japan single was a four track EP, From Y To Z And Never Again- the song Suicide A Go Go appeared on To The Shore Of Lake Placid along with Society For Cutting Up Men. 

To The Shores Of Lake Placid is a round up of some of what was going on in Liverpool between 1978 and 1982. A clutch of lesser known, semi- legendary Zoo groups are all present- Whopper, Troy Tate's The Turqoise Swimming Pools, Birkenhead's Dalek (I Love You) and Those Naughty Lumps whose song Iggy Pop's Jacket Bill Drummond plays guitar on. 

Lori And The Chameleons, a short lived Bill Drummond and Dave Balfe outfit with singer Lori Lartey, are there twice, with Lonely Spy and this one, Touch, a lovely piece of late 70s disco- pop...

Touch

The Teardrop Explodes and Echo And The Bunnymen both show up, each represented by three early classics (the Bunnymen with Pictures On My Wall, their Julian Cope co- write Read It In Books and live favourite Villiers Terrace, The Teardrops by When I Dream, Camera, Camera and Take A Chance). 

My mp3s of the original versions of Read It Books and Pictures On My Wall, the ones from Lake Placid with Echo the drum machine keeping time, are corrupted and won't play. This version of  Read It In Books is from a session at Rockfield with The Chameleons producing, and was added to the U.S. release of Crocodiles. 

Read It In Books

A few years later Echo And The Bunnymen would be huge. In 1984 they released 'the greatest album ever made' (to quote Ian McCulloch), Ocean Rain. Drummond gave the Bunnymen something else as manager, something out of the ordinary. On 12th May 1984 there was a Crsytal Day, a day of activites in and around Liverpool city centre- breakfast in a greasy spoon, a bike ride that traced the outline of the head of the bunny god, a ferry trip across the Mersey and a banana fight. In the evening the band played at St. George's Hall, the neo- classical building opposite Liverpool Lime Street station, visible in the centre of my photo above, taken from the viewing platform at St John's Beacon. The gig was filmed and transmitted on The Tube, a tea time treat.

Bill's adventures as the Bunnymen's manager came to end not long after and in some ways they were never the same without him, professional record company management taking over and the operation losing the madness of Bill's days- the tours of Scottish islands, gigs on ley lines, post- punk bicycle rides. In his book 45 Bill details his time as their manager in a chapter called From The Shores Of Lake Placid, a book written and published for his 45th birthday and also the revolutions per minute of the ultimate pop culture artefact, the 7" single.

All Hands On Deck At Dawn

Echo And The Bunnymen played a pair of sold out gigs at Manchester' Albert Hall last weekend, two nights celebrating their 1985 singes compilation Songs To Learn And Sing. I was there on Saturday night, the middle of my action packed musical weekend. The Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant plus four shadowy auxiliary Bunnymen, are a slick outfit these days. Mac is centre stage and all in black, saying little between the songs but in good voice. Will plays stage left, switching guitars and peeling the lead lines from the last the last forty three years off nonchalantly, head down. They play two sets, one at 9pm and one at 9.50pm, a short ten minute gap between to the two, presumably so Ian can have a mid- gig cigarette. The Albert Hall is an atmospheric venue, perfect for the Bunnymen, back lit and with dry ice with the old Bunnygod figure on the back drop occasionally lit fully. 

The first half is a mix of old and new, opening with the post- punk thump of Going Up and All That Jazz, and then Flowers from 2001. New song Brussels Is Haunted  follows Rescue, Will leading the band through the 1980 single. The first set finishes with a strong pair of songs, Never Stop and Bring On The Dancing Horses, all 80s grooves and cool.

After a short break they're back. My memories of the second set are hazier but its wall to wall classic album tracks and singles, a singalong Seven Seas in the middle, culminating in The Killing Moon and The Cutter. An encore has them play an extended version of 1987's Lips Like Sugar, sounding superb on the packed floor of the Albert Hall. They follow it and finish with Ocean Rain, the drama and dynamics of their 1984 album's title track played for full effect, hushed and sparse instrumentation, Mac crooning behind dark glasses, and everyone coming together for 'all hands on deck at dawn, sailing to sadder shores'. 

Ocean Rain

Big Weekend Incoming

It's a big weekend of music related activity coming up, starting tonight and running though until Sunday evening by which point I will be in need of a lie down. We'll go in reverse order. As the flyer above shows on Sunday The Flightpath Estate DJs (on this occasion Martin, Dan and me) are returning to Blossom Street Social in Ancoats for our third mission there, playing records from 3pm until 8pm. We are joined by guest Rob Fletcher, the man responsible for legendary 90s Manchester techno and electronic music club night Herbal Tea Party. The four of us will be playing back to back, three tracks each and then switching and it will be a seamless showcase of our track selection and turntable skills. Obviously. 

If you're in Manchester on Sunday afternoon, please come down and say hello. Dan has a test pressing of our forthcoming double vinyl album Songs From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, the album we're putting out with The Golden Lion featuring Two Lone Swordsmen, Justin Robertson, Andy Bell, The Light Brigade, Justin Robertson, Sons Of Slough, 10: 40, Richard Sen, Rude Audio and Hardway Bros, so some of those tracks, if not all, will get their first airing in public. 

On Saturday night I'm at Manchester's Albert Hall to see Echo And The Bunnymen who are touring to celebrate 1985's Songs To Learn And Sing, Mac, Will and the rest of the current line up playing two sets with a short gap in between. I've seen them a few times in the last ten years and when they're good, they're very good. 'Lay down thy raincoat and groove', was the advice of the Bunnymen back in 1983 on the release of Never Stop- decent advice still. 

Never Stop (Discotheque)

The night before the Bunnymen (tonight in other words) we're at Manchester's Deaf Institute to see a second member of The Crucial Three, Pete Wylie, on tour with a full band promoting Teach Yourself Wah!, a Pete Wylie and The Mighty Wah! best of. A small venue, Wylie's between song storytelling and patter, some of the best songs of the 1980s, good reviews coming in from other gigs on the tour.. . I'm really looking forward to it. 

Seven Minutes To Midnight

Seven Minutes To Midnight came out in 1980, the second/ final single of Wah! Heat, a clanging, clamorous post- punk single written in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent moving of the hands of the doomsday clock to 11.53. In the intervening forty three years the clock's hands have moved back and forth a little and were altered most recently in January 2023, now set at ninety seconds to midnight. That apocalypse just creeps closer. 

Start Again

I took this picture two years ago today, of Sefton Park in Liverpool. We went over for the day for Lou's birthday- it's her birthday today, so happy birthday to you Lou. Eliza had just gone to university in Liverpool the month before, which was a huge change for all of us and she was excited and loving her new student life. The three of us, me, Lou and Isaac went over to see her, go out for lunch on Lark Lane and then into town for some shopping. We were still being really cautious about Covid, not doing much indoors and not taking Isaac into indoor public spaces. We had lunch sitting outside a cafe on Lark Lane in the October sunshine. It was the last time the four of us were together. Just over a month later we were all in hospital with Isaac who had Covid and which killed him, aged twenty three on 30th November 2021. 

Last year we went over again to see Eliza on Lou's birthday. We were all in a bit of a mess, going through the grief and the loss and having to navigate all the first anniversaries- our birthdays, his birthday (23rd November) and the first anniversary of his death. It was a difficult day, each of us in tears at different times but we managed to see it through and in the end had a good night out. 

We're going over to Liverpool again today, the three of us going out once again for Lou's birthday. Here's a scouse song to celebrate. I've been playing disc four of Echo And The Bunnymen's Crystal Days box set a lot, a CD mainly comprising songs from their Scandinavian tour of 1985 where they supported themselves playing covers of Paint It Black, Soul Kitchen, Friction, Action Woman, She Cracked, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue and Run, Run, Run. At the start of the CD there's a live version of a song called Start Again, recorded live in Gothenburg in 1987, the final tour for the classic McCulloch/ Sergeant/ Pattinson/ de Freitas line up. In the booklet Ian says they never really nailed the song which suggests they had a go at it in some studio or other but as far as I'm aware this is the only existing Bunnymen version. It's a rattling, driving late- 80s Bunnymen song, with sweeping strings, a Will Sergeant guitar solo and a rousing chorus, 'sinking shadows again... And one day/ I'll turn around/ Wonder when/ I'll turn around/ And start again'. Looking at the words it does seem like it could be a coded message, Ian signalling to the other three he would be off shortly. 

Start Again (Live in Gothenburg 1987)

Incidentally, the Bunnymen HQ was across Sefton Park from the photo above on Aigburth Drive, the road that skirts the western edge of the park, a flat at the top of a large Victorian house occupied by various band members during the 1980s. 

Ian recorded Start Again for his 1989 solo album Candleland, the lyrics going through some changes. Candleland was filled with a few Bunnymen sounding songs but without the fizz that the other three Bunnymen brought. Producer Ray Shulman brought a production sheen to Ian's songs, there is the lovely title track where Ian sings with Liz Fraser and the very New Order-ish Faith And Healing. Start Again closes Candleland- the album version is slowed down, with an acoustic guitar, cello, a wash of synths and Ian singing softly, 'wonder when', as the song fades out. It's some distance from the live version in Sweden, a very different take on the song. 

Start Again

Candleland was partly a reflection on mortality following the then recent deaths of both Ian's dad and Pete de Freitas, Ian singing start again as a way to move on from both of those bereavements. And sitting here typing this I realise it applies to us too, trying to finding a way to start again without Isaac. 

Take A Drag Or Two

More Velvet Underground following yesterday's Sunray/ Sonic Boom/ Ocean post. Today's post has The Velvets via Liverpool and Barking. The photo above is of Eric's in Liverpool, not the original Eric's- that closed a long time ago, 1980- but a live venue on Mathew Street under the same name and logo. Since The Vinyl Villain's guest post here a few weeks ago I've been vaguely obsessed with one of the performances in his post- Echo And The Bunnymen, a group firmly connected to Eric's, playing live with Billy Bragg, covering The Velvets' Run, Run, Run on OGWT in 1985. 

Will and Billy have the Velvet twin guitar drone/ wired lead line nailed with Pete's thumping backbeat covering the Mo Tucker thump. Ian McCulloch gives it the full big hair, big coat, alternative rock star frontman, kicking off with 'show me the way to go home' and squealing/ crooning/ grunting as required. 

In 1985 The Bunnymen set out for a tour of Scandinavia, a tour Ian has referred to as 'the last great Bunnymen tour'. They played support act to themselves, playing a set of covers every night, then going off for a break before returning to play their own songs. Many of the covers were chosen by Will Sergeant- Action Woman and She Cracked- along with Bunnymen favourites by Dylan, Television, The Doors and The Velvets. This take of Run, Run, Run was recorded onstage in Gothenburg by Swedish radio.

Run, Run, Run (Live in Gothenburg)

Will has also spoken of his enjoyment of the Scandinavian tour, playing the support set of covers through practice amps in small halls with no stage, staying at the promotor's house and having breakfast with them. 'I think', Will said, 'it was the last time we were a band really. The next tour we played was stadiums. I hated that. Playing places like Wembley... was everything the Bunnymen wasn't about'.

Run, Run, Run was on The Velvet Underground's debut, the banana album/ The Velvet Underground And Nico. Lou Reed wrote in on the back of an envelope while on the way to a gig at Cafe Bizarre. It's a belter of a song, with those speed freak guitars, rumbling rhythms and lo- fi, reverb production. Lou''s cast of characters- Teenage Mary, Margarita Passion, Seasick Sarah, Beardless Harry- are all on the streets of New York looking for a fix and/ or to be saved, drugs and religion mixed up. Lou's guitar solo is unlike other guitar solos from 1967, a trebly, wired, atonal freak out. 

Run, Run, Run

More Bands In Places They Shouldn't Be: A Vinyl Villain Guest Edition

I spent last Thursday evening in the company of JC, the man behind the long running, standard setting blog The Vinyl Villain. He'd travelled down from Glasgow overnight and we met for a few drinks and a catch up taking in two legendary Manchester pubs- The Briton's Protection (grade II listed, serving beer since 1806- the year not the time- with a mural of the Peterloo Massacre down one wall) and The City Arms (a pre- Hacienda haunt for many back in the day, situated just across the road from Fac51). Earlier this week JC sent this to me. A few weeks ago I started an irregular series of Bands In Places They Shouldn't Be including Echo And The Bunnymen on Wogan, Prefab Sprout at Alton Towers, Ice T on The Late Show and Aztec Camera on Pebble Mill. I've got a few ideas lined up for further editions in the series but in the meantime JC has stepped in with a Bands In Places They Shouldn't Be Scottish Edition. Without further ado, then, over to JC...

I was quite tickled by Adam’s previous posts in which he dug out some classic video clips of performances or appearances in the most unlikely of places.  So much so, that I’ve come up with a few more, all of which feature singers/bands from Scotland.

First up are Aztec Camera and a rendition of Walk Out ToWinter that was broadcast on Switch, a series aired on Channel 4 between March and September 1983.  It basically took over the Friday evening slot that had been occupied by The Tube, starting one week after the end of the first series and ending one week before the second series began.

Look closely and you’ll see that the normally immaculate Roddy Frame and his bandmates are wearing identical and hideous tracksuits.  That’s because the footage was from the afternoon rehearsals when they did their bit to help the camera operators and lighting technicians do their thing, returning later on for the actual performance that was broadcast.  Only thing is, the band decided not to perform the new single and thus leaving the record label a tad upset. Which is why, no doubt after much pleading with the producers of Switch, this footage was shown a few weeks later. 

Back in the days when the BBC actually were half-decent at putting out music shows, they came up with the idea of a 24-hour broadcast across BBC 2 and Radio 1, which was given the imaginary title of Rock Around The Clock.  I think there may actually have been a couple of these, with the shows being a blend of live performances from concert venues, studio performances, interviews, videos and specially commissioned film clips.   It also saw musicians dropping in for chats, as was the case when Edwyn Collins, Paul Quinn and Zeke Manyika were interviewed, from recollection around 1am, and it’s fair to say they were up for having a bit of fun.

I’ll divert for a few minutes, as the same show also had Billy Bragg and Echo & The Bunnymen in the studio at an even later hour.  They teamed up for an unforgettable cover of a Velvet Underground number.

Turning now to the first band ever to play at the Scottish Exhibition Centre, the cavernous venue on the banks of the River Clyde to which all the big names would flock after the legendary Glasgow Apollo was closed down and demolished.  History records that UB40 were the first to play in what became known as Hall 4 in 1985, but the truth of the matter is that a little-known local act called Snakes of Shake were the first as evidenced by this clip which went out on The Tube in 1984:-

OK….the building was still under construction, but let’s not split hairs.

That clip was part of a special on Scottish music that was broadcast by The Tube.  You’ll have to bear with me on the next one as I can’t find a segment where it’s just the song.  

It’s a seven-minute piece of film, in which presenter Leslie Ash turns up on a very wintry day in Dundee for a chat down in the dockside area with Billy Mackenzie.  The interview takes place on what appears to be a tug boat, while Billy then mimes outrageously to the Associates song ‘Waiting For The Loveboat’ on board the HMS Unicorn, a 200-year old frigate that operates as a museum/visitor attraction in Dundee.  The music begins around 4 mins and 24 seconds in.

You’ll have spotted by now that many of these clips are courtesy of the hard work of an individual who goes by the name of ScottishTeeVe who has taken hundreds of hours to take his VHS etc recordings and put them up on YouTube for our enjoyment.  All the clips thus far, I also have on dozens of different videotapes that are in boxes in a cupboard beneath the stairs, but I just don’t know how to now put them in places where they can be shared and enjoyed more widely.

I’ll finish off with a cheat.

It’s a clip that doesn’t feature anyone from Scotland, but it was filmed in Glasgow on 3 June 1990.

The location is Custom House Quay on the banks of the Clyde. It was part of ‘The Big Day’,  one of the centrepiece events in a year-long set of festivities to celebrate Glasgow being designated as the European City of Culture.  An all-day music festival that was free of charge across various locations, with the big-name acts performing on stages at the main civic square or in the largest of our inner-city parks.  Some more niche acts were put on at Custom House Quay, one of whom was Billy Bragg.  He didn’t let on that he was going to be joined for part of his set by some friends from America:-

You can see that the location is full to capacity, with maybe a couple of hundred folk sitting down and maybe as many again standing up at street level.  No mobile phones, so no way of letting anyone know that Michael Stipe and Natalie Merchant were singing their hearts out.  I don’t have this clip on video, for the simple reason that I was out on the streets that day, among what was estimated to be a crowd of 250,000.  Nor did I see it on the day…..I was half-a-mile away enjoying the one stage where the music was quite eclectic, watching the likes of Aswad, Nanci Griffith and Les Negresses Vertes put on great shows.  It wasn’t until the next day, reading the newspapers, did I learn about the Custom House Quay happening.  The performance has become the Glasgow equivalent of the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1976 with thousands claiming to have been there.

Massive thanks to JC for this time capsule, a hugely enjoyable post. 

Bring On The New Messiah

I came across this clip recently and thought it might make a good starting point for an irregular series- bands performing in places they really shouldn't be. This is Echo And The Bunnymen in their 1985 pomp, miming to their then current single Bring On The Dancing Horses on The Wogan Show. 

In 2023 this maybe doesn't seem so odd, a big alternative act taking advantage of early evening television to sell their new single to a wider audience. In our post- irony world Terry Wogan is looked back on fondly, the man with the chuckling commentary at Eurovision. In the mid- 80s Wogan had no cool at all. The show was as mainstream as you could get. The Bunnymen approach it with customary insouciance, Mac all in black and miming his croon through his fringe, pale, beautiful and with those legendary full lips. Will, also all in black but with leather trousers and customised guitar. Les looks like James Dean with a bass guitar. Pete, again all in black, playing to the side not at the back, as they often set themselves out. Dry ice gathers round their ankles and the BBC's Wogan set flashes behind them. They do give the impression that they'd be somewhere else.

Bring On the Dancing Horses is a shimmering single with tons of hooks, Ian's vocals gliding on top of the synths and Will's gorgeous guitars. It's a real favourite of mine, a tug at the heartstrings song, one they still play live today. Some Bunnyfans are less enamoured with it- too poppy for some, too covered in Laurie Latham's slick production. The 12" version add two extra minutes, extending the intro with more guitars, more synths and FX. 

Bring On The Dancing Horses (Extended Version)

This is an early version of the song before it got it's full name and Latham's production, rough and ready and everything overloaded. 

Jimmy Brown

Saturday Live

My love for Echo And The Bunnymen in their eighties pomp is well documented at these pages. They are also very well served by live performances. This one from 1983 recorded for German TV show Rockpalast almost exactly forty years ago is an hour and a half of prime Bunnymen, the four Bunnymen taking the stage to dry ice and a madrigal intro tape and straight into Going Up's post- punk dread. As they play a stretched out intro to With A Hip its clear we're in the presence of men who want to do it differently. They play in a line, Pete's drum kit set up stage left rather than at the back, Will, Mac and Les in a line left to right. Ian's black top is held together by safety pins, his pale shoulders lit by a single spot. The set is drawn from the first three albums, Porcupine recently released at the time, the group taking it round Europe, a pretty much perfect pre- Ocean Rain set- Show Of Strength, Zimbo, The Cutter, Rescue, My White Devil, Crocodiles, All That Jazz, The Back Of Love.... all payed with a peculiarly Bunnymen sound that is both skeletal and sparse but filled out and widescreen too. Pete de Freitas' drumming is powerful, the tom tom thump that gave them a groove. Les' bass playing, entirely self taught is propulsive and melodic and Will switches between scratchy Velvets guitar and fluid, flipped out psychedelia.

The final section, from the frenetic nervousness of Heaven Up Here to Over The Wall's dark, funky gloom and onto the sturm and drang of Do It Clean is an early 80s joy. The band re- appear, Ian dedicating Villiers Terrace to a scouser in the audience and chucking in bits of Al Green and Gene Vincent into the extended section before bidding the crowd 'auf weidersehen'. They come back for more of course, the deep and dark seascape of No Dark Things, then back off and on (again) for a final flourish through A Promise, Ian pushing his voice to the edge, 'almost near/ almost far/ down came the rain'.  

Here You Come Again, Acting Like A Saviour

Nantwich, a small market town in Cheshire, has had an annual festival called Words And Music running since 2008. Ian McCulloch appeared at it in 2015 and the organisers convinced him to come back this year. My parents retired to Nantwich ten years ago and when I saw the gig advertised months ago, my brother and I jumped in early and bought a pair of tickets. Ian and his band played the Civic Hall, a room with capacity of just 500, so a close up and intimate gig. I was expecting it to be Ian and acoustic guitar and was very pleasantly surprised to see amps, keyboards and the Bunnymen's drumkit set up on stage when we arrived. The Civic Hall's stage is low with no barriers and the room is seated cabaret style, making it feel informal and like a one off. Ian and band arrive on stage just after nine, Ian all in black, wearing shades for the entire gig, and in good form, chatting between songs and telling stories with a table of drinks next to him and several different beverages at hand. The band are loose, nicely ragged in places and more than able to do Bunnymen songs justice. They play a mixture of Bunnymen and Ian's solo songs, and the opening three songs make a good statement of intent, beginning with 1989's Proud To Fall, followed by Rescue and then a lovely, groovy version of Bedbugs And Ballyhoo. 

Proud To Fall

They play Ian's cover of Leonard Cohen's Lover Lover Lover, recorded for his second solo album 1992's Mysterio, a song I saw him play when he toured to promote that almost exactly thirty years previously at Manchester University student union, a night he studiously ignored Bunnymen songs. 

Lover, Lover, Lover

All My Colours (Zimbo) gets an airing, the stage dark and the purple lights setting the lyrics off perfectly. He dips back into his solo debut Candleland with the title track, originally sung as a duet with Liz Fraser, Ian's voice a little raspier than it was in 1989. Seven Seas gets a huge cheer and some dancers moving to the front. Nothing Lasts Forever is played, a song which when I saw Echo And the Bunnymen play it at Manchester's Albert Hall back in February reduced me to a sobbing mess- it doesn't have quite the same, full on emotional impact on me tonight but I'm not completely dry eyed either. It breaks down in the middle and they segue into Walk On The Wild Side. Rust from 1999's second Bunnymen comeback album is Ian at his most reflective. Bring On The Dancing Horses is a highlight, wobbly synth sound, ringing guitars and streamlined groove filling the room, there's a dash through The Velvet Underground's I'm Waiting For The Man and eventually, inevitably, a finale of The Killing Moon.

Ian and the band return for an encore with Lips Like Sugar, a song fully reclaimed from 1987's self- titled, below par album (it's an album and a song I have a lot of love for but pales in comparison to the four that came before it and was a victim of 80s production, inter- band band tensions and a little disinterest from some parties). Then they disappear again. Just as it seems they've definitely decided not to come back for a second encore and half the crowd are putting coats on and beginning to head for the doors, they re- appear and give us a driving, fired up The Cutter. 

The Cutter

McCulloch is sixty two years old, he doesn't really have anything to prove. Echo And The Bunnymen have toured much of the year and were in North America in September. Playing gigs like this is good for him, a way of mixing it up a little I guess, and good for us, seeing him close up and clearly enjoying himself. 

I have tickets for Pete Wylie at Night And Day next Sunday, another scouse post- punk legend in a small venue. If someone can arrange for Julian Cope to play Sale Waterside or Stretford Public Hall the weekend after, I can complete a Crucial Three October hat trick. 

Heaven

Heaven, it turns out, is situated on a side street in Magaluf. This may be news to the major religions of the world. The entrance seems to be more of a roller shutter too than the promised pearly gates but it's nice to have these things cleared up. There are loads of heavens in music- according to Belinda Carlisle it's a place on earth and standing in front of this venue last week I was inclined to agree. Back in 1987 I'd rather have poked my eyes out with forks than admitted liking this song but thankfully now I'm older I can come clean....

Heaven according to David Byrne, is a place where nothing ever happens, where the band play your favourite song, all night long and where 'it's hard to imagine/ that nothing at all/ could be so exciting/ could so much fun'. Talking Heads sound effortlessly sublime on this song, the sweetest moment their most bewilderingly brilliant album, a record that doesn't have any kind of weak spot, has some seriously deranged moments and sounds like the feverish work of a group of musicians at their absolute peak. 

Heaven

In 1981, two years after Talking Heads released Fear Of Music, Echo And The Bunnymen released arguably their best album, Heaven Up Here. The title track is a dark, frenetic, urgent piece of post- punk, the band flailing around and moving rapidly, all scratchy guitar and thumping drums. Ian sings of empty pockets and being unable to afford beer. 'The apple cart upset my head's little brain', he complains before settling on giving up the whiskey for tequila. The centre section, 'groovy groovy people' he sings, 'we're all groovy groovy people' is exhilarating, a rush, and then it's back to the main riff and Ian's found somewhere for the Bunnymen- 'it may be hell down there/ But it's heaven up here'. There's more rapid fire words, more drums and then a sudden dead stop.

Heaven Up Here

All At Sea Again

Echo And The Bunnymen played Manchester's Albert Hall on Friday night, the second of two gigs at the venue. Albert Hall has become the best gig venue in town, an old chapel with stained glass windows, a good stage close to the audience and tons of atmosphere. We arrived to an already packed downstairs room and the balcony also full. Picking our way down the right hand side we ended up close to the speaker at the front, the Bunny God projected onto the back wall. The Bunnymen appear at nine, lights down and the crowd are up for it, Ian later telling us (in one of the few onstage announcements where I can make out what he's saying) that we're 'the best crowd since whenever'. The setlist draws almost entirely from their classic albums, starting with the post- punk urgency of Going Up, Show Of Strength and All That Jazz. The band- Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant plus four younger musicians- are on it, Will's guitar fizzing and buzzing and Ian, black overcoat and sunglasses, is in fine voice, his voice up to the demands of those songs he wrote in the first half of the 80s. The only songs played not from those 80s records are Flowers, Nothing Lasts Forever and a new one, Brussels Is Haunted (which has some promise and sounds like they were fired up again while writing it). But it's their back catalogue we're here for and we get it in spades. Rescue, All My Colours (Zimbo) and Over The Wall all played with intent, Will switching between guitars, pedals and a synth. Six songs in Bring On The Dancing Horses is the first singalong moment, the band stopping playing completely while the Albert Hall sings the chorus, a trick they repeat during Seven Seas (Will strapping on his beautiful nine string teardrop guitar). 

These are songs which have been part of my life since I was a teenager, they're deeply embedded in my musical history. I've been out of sorts all week too, Isaac's death sending ripples and waves of grief through me every day, barely able to speak to people without being on the verge of tears. I'm already feeling emotional when they play Bedbugs And Ballyhoo, the song's groove cooked up nicely, dry ice pumping out, Ian going through the song's rhymes, chipmunks and kangaroos, rifles and cannonballs, the song slipping us and them back to 1987. Villiers Terrace follows. I once spent a day while in Liverpool as a student looking for Villiers Terrace (don't bother by the way, it doesn't exist). They do that Bunnymen trick of playing the song and then lurching into some covers, stitching together old Bunny favourite Roadhouse Blues by The Doors and Bowie's Jean Genie before cutting back into Villiers Terrace. When the opening chords of Nothing Lasts Forever come in I feel myself crumbling and as Ian hits the chorus, 'nothing ever lasts forever', I'm suddenly standing in a packed room, surrounded by people I don't know, tears streaming down my face, crying like a baby. My brother must have spotted it, he grabs hold of me and hugs me but I'm done for, the song bringing all that week's grief and tears to the surface. God knows what the people stood around me must have thought. Nothing Lasts Forever breaks into Walk On The Wild Side, Ian channeling Lou and getting away with it, and I recover myself a little. The two set closers are superb, a gloriously ragged Never Stop (one of my favourite Bunny songs) and a dark, driving romp through Lips Like Sugar, the song played how it should have been recorded back when they'd lost interest in themselves and each other. Two encores follow, the first giving us The Cutter, all spiky and raw, and then a drawn out, spare version of The Killing Moon, all that 1984 romance and mystery recreated on stage in 2022. They go off and then return again for Ocean Rain, waves of drama as Ian stands still, dead centre, crooning 'All at sea again/ Now my hurricanes/ Have brought down this ocean rain'. As the song finishes the closing lines seem to have shrunk the distance between 1984 and 2022 to nothing, 'All hands on deck at dawn/ Sailing to sadder shores/ Your port in my heavy storm/ Harbours my blackest thoughts'. 

Never Stop (Discotheque)

Ocean Rain

Watch Her Spiral Away

Today we take our daughter Eliza to university in Liverpool, the same university I went to in 1988 and we're taking her to the halls of residence on the same site as the ones I stayed in for my first year. There are lots of emotions going on obviously. Leaving home is such a massive rite of passage and as a parent it's one of those cycle of life moments, something that you want it so much when you're eighteen- I could not wait to leave home- which suddenly feels very different when you're the adult and it's your child leaving. I remember sitting in a pub the night before I went to Liverpool and a woman at the bar, probably in her 30s looked at me and said I looked far too young to be going to live in Liverpool. So off we go, taking her to live in another city and although she'll be back and we're really proud of her, we're obviously going to miss her and her company as well. 

Back in 2014 she was 11 and starting secondary school. I took her to the bus stop and this song played in my head when I walked back home as the us went off around the corner. Yo La Tengo in 1993 and some blistering indie rock...

Big Day Coming

Here are some L postcode local heroes, four moptop/ bequiffed boys from Liverpool in 1984, singing of crystal days, joy, pain and misfit ways.

Crystal Days

Finally, this one is by Andy Bell, the Ride/ Glok one not the Erasure one, and a song from his gorgeous 2020 album The View From Halfway Down. I read an interview with Andy earlier this year and he talked about how the song Skywalker was about his daughter as she reached eighteen and went off into the world and at the moment I read it I realised which lines were going to hit when this day came to pass...

'Let the girl go and watch her spiral away/ You're not the centre of her world now anyway/ There's nothing left to say/ Her future flows out from from today/ On the restless crest of a wave/ Just starting to be...'

No I'm not, I've just got something in my eye. 

That's The Way The Thunder Rumbles

In 1985 Echo And The Bunnymen released Bring On The Dancing horses, a single designed to showcase the first fruits of the work with producer Laurie Latham, recorded for the film Pretty In Pink (with one eye on a US audience) and to draw in punters to their singles compilation Songs To Learn And Sing. It was the first release following 1984's Ocean Rain and split the opinion of fans, some seeing it as too lightweight, commercial and poppy. I love it- poppy and smothered in the sheen of big studios and name producers it may be, drenched in layers of synths and melodic it definitely is, but what a tune, Mac singing of Jimmy Brown and Charlie Clown and 'shaking while breaking your brittle heart'. The 12" featured an extended mix, stretching the song out for an extra minute or two. 

However it's not Bring On The Dancing Horses but the B-sides that I'm here to offer you today. For the B-sides the Bunnymen went to Strawberry Studios in Stockport and produced themselves. Flip the 12" over and you'll find a darker, grittier, looser Bunnymen. Bedbugs and Ballyhoo is first up, The song would be re-recorded for their 1987 'grey' album with Ray Manzarek from The Doors guesting on keyboards but the version on the 12" single is vastly superior. Pete on brushes, Les' bassline (the starting point for the entire song) and Will's understated guitar lines. Ian makes up the words on the spot- he later claimed the song was about imperialism (and hey, maybe it is) but I think they're just words he plucked out of the Stockport air and stitched together- bison, buffalo, cannonball, rifle, thunder, rumbles- and then the classic romanticism of the chorus, 'down on your knees again/ saying please again'. The loose, funky breakdown is a treat, Bunnymen at the jazz supper club. 

Bedbugs And Ballyhoo (Original Version)

Leave the 12" playing and the second B-side rips into view, a wall of noise with fuzz guitar, thumping drums and a lovely slide guitar part. Ian said in the Crystal Days box set booklet the song was intended as a riposte to the Mary Chain and the noise bands coming up behind. Ian's vocal veers between coolly disinterested/ half spoken and typically histrionic, 'never gonna change/ never disappear'. 

Over Your Shoulder

The album they began to record after this, the self titled Echo And The Bunnymen (known as the grey album), suffered from Laurie Latham's production (which stripped the life from some of the songs), from being forced to re- record it after the record company rejected the first mixes and a loss of interest from the band. They were split into two, maybe three, camps- Ian was isolated and planning his departure (listen to The Game to see where his head was at) and Will, Les and Pete were pissed off with Ian and the whole process. Pete, everyone said, was never the same after his return from his Sex Gods trip across America. But if they'd been allowed to produce themselves and holed up in Strawberry, things could have been different- or at least the album might have been. The Game, Lips Like Sugar and some of the other songs from the 1987 album done themselves in the vein of these two B-sides could have made for a very different record. Not that it would have kept the group together, I think they were too far gone for that. 

The Book Of Pleasures

Will Sergeant's memoir Bunnyman dropped through my letterbox yesterday, signed by the author himself and now sitting waiting for me to get stuck into, an account his childhood and formative years in Melling (a village on the outskirts of Liverpool, woolly back country for scousers) and the late 70s punk scene centred around Eric's. The book finishes just as Echo And The Bunnymen are about to break so I have a feeling there may be a second volume at some point. Once I've read it, I'll write a fuller post about it. 

In 2013 Will reunited with Bunny bassist Les Pattinson for a group called Poltergeist and armed with guitars, bass and a drummer, a four track and three decades of psychedelic exploration they set about recording an album of instrumentals. At the time Will said it was a return to his pre- punk hippy influences- Floyd, Can, Neu!- and also a reaction to the periodic frustrations of being essentially a hired hand in the band he formed. Ian McCulloch calls the shots in the reformed Bunnymen, decides what they play live and what happens in the studio- which sounds like despite the name on the sleeve most modern Echo And The Bunnymen albums are Mac solo albums and Will recreates his guitar parts on their classic songs on stage. No room to improvise or wig out. Which explains why Poltergeist sounds like it does. Will was in the same class at school as Les Pattinson and never fell out with him so it was obvious to get him in on bass for Poltergeist. This track from their album Your Mind Is A Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder) unfolds slowly with a little drama and some introspection, a slice of 21st century scouseadelia. 

The Book Of Pleasures

I Have Changed But Still My Heart Remains Intact

For the last four Fridays I've written about the unstoppable force of Echo And The Bunnymen and the albums they released in 1980 (Crocodiles), 1982 (Heaven Up Here), 1983 (Porcupine) and 1984 (Ocean Rain), four records charting the Bunnymen as they headed out from post- punk Liverpool into the world. By 1985 they'd reached a dead end of kinds. Bill Drummond had resigned as manager at the end of '84 and they were never quite the same after. There was a state of tension between some members- Will thought Mac wanted to be a rock star and Mac would probably agree that a solo career as a rock star was in his mind. Les compared huge tours of the USA to  national service and hated being away from home for lengthy periods. There was a year off planned and then cut short half way through with a tour of Scandinavia where they performed as their own support act, covering the songs of their heroes, Bowie, The Modern Lovers, The Doors, The Stones, The Velvets and Television. They played Glastonbury, a filthy, muddy year with Mac wearing binbags on his legs while walking to the stage to prevent his trousers getting dirty. There were money problems. 1985 finished with a Best Of album (the brilliant compilation Songs To Learn And Sing but a cash in nonetheless), and a standalone single (Bring On the Dancing Horses) that some felt wasn't up to scratch. Then Pete de Freitas went AWOL. 

Pete had spent part of the six months off travelling across Europe on his motorbike. In December 1985 Pete and some of the road crew took the pay cheques from Songs To Learn And Sing and set off for New Orleans on a drug- fuelled road trip and extended drinking binge. He would phone the BUnnymen up in the middle of the night asking for more money. He talked about forming a new group, The Sex Gods, and how they'd change the world. He was, many people thought, losing his mind. He resigned from the Bunnymen in a transatlantic  phone call. Eventually Drummond would stage an intervention and bring him home. Pete was never the same again and the three Bunnymen were unsure about whether he was in the right frame of mind to re- join the band. When he did it was on a weekly wage rather than as a full member, another sign that things were most definitely not right in Bunnyworld. In the time Pete was away Mac, Will and Les had started again, touring and recording, trying Blair Cunningham (ex- Haircut One Hundred) out on the drums and Dave Palmer (ex- ABC) and there were some sessions with Now Order's Stephen Morris moonlighting. On top of all of this, all unpromising background for recording an album, the group had been summoned to Rob Dickins office at WEA and told to listen to Peter Gabriel's latest album and to emulate it. According to Will, Dickins was lucky to escape with his life. 

The grey album as it has become known eventually appeared in 1987, cut adrift from the trajectory that took them from Crocodiles to Ocean Rain. The album, self titled (they couldn't even be bothered to give it a name) has a murky, monochrome front cover shot, the group in black against a grey sky. On the back the four Bunnymen are merged in silhouette, eight arms coming out of one long coat. Compared to the drama, deep colours and natural beauty of the earlier sleeves this album is already saying that what's contained within doesn't compare with what came before. McCulloch was lording it, drinking heavily, lackeys running around after him. He alienated himself from the rest of the group and was happy to do so, an act of self sabotage. They had done some sessions with producer Gil Norton but ditched the recordings once Pete was back and instead hitched themselves to Laurie Latham, who drained the life out of the songs. Will and Les wanted simplicity. Latham would spend a month getting a song 'right', brought keyboards further up into the sound, pushed the drums down and gave everything a sheen. They recorded in Conny Plank's studio in Cologne, in Belgium, in London and back at Amazon in Liverpool, a lot of effort for an album that all appeared to dislike when it was released. It is a Bunnymen record with the jagged edges smoothed off, the hot and cold dynamics rendered flat, the magic and mystery covered with a layer of soil, the songs smothered with the hopes of an FM hit. Will said it was overcooked. Les liked the songs but hated the mixes. Mac said it was crap. Who knows what Pete thought of it, or if he even cared- his mental state was a concern to everyone around him. McCulloch quit in 1988 and the rest of the group raged about him and his solo career and attempted to keep the band going without the singer. The next time they would be together was at Pete's funeral. He came off his motorbike on 14th June 1989 at a crossroads in Staffordshire aged twenty seven. 

That's a lot of words without even getting to the songs and Les is right, the songs, or some of them, are good. This is partly because they picked the wrong producer. If Gil Norton had stayed on board they could have made a much more energetic record out of the same material, simple structures, stripped down to the four instruments, with a bit of dash and menace. Album opener The Game has always sounded good to me, a four square song with Mac in charge, a song with a flow and irresistible rhythm and Ian singing of the seasons and the planets. Bedbugs And Ballyhoo is another sweet spot. The version on the grey album isn't as good as the earlier take, the Bring On The Dancing Horses B-side, it doesn't move as much, but it still works well. Lips Like Sugar, side two's opener, is another highlight, led by a nagging guitar riff and Mac's croon. It was designed for US radio and arenas and Will said that if judged by that alone it worked- when they played the USA in 1987 a younger generation of fans wanted to hear Lips Like Sugar. An Anton Corbijn video helped sell it to MTV. I like the song, it reminds me of being seventeen and it doesn't need saying that that's a powerful age for a song to hit you, and it stands up alongside the band's earlier songs. New Direction is a minor joy too, a ringing Will riff with some urgency and pace, and Mac sounds engaged as he sings 'Out on a limb/ look what the cat dragged in... I'm looking for a new direction/ where in the world am I?', before the drums double up and the 80s keyboards swell and he is 'higher and higher and higher and higher/ kissing the spires'. Later on he goes all confessional- 'I have changed/ but still my heart remains intact/ and true love stays'. It's almost  a letter to the rest of the band, a Dear John written but not sent yet. Will's guitar solo over the final minute soars like he's found a connection with the spirit that made them great, if only for a minute or two. 

New Direction

There are a couple of others that should be good in the right hands, recorded more quickly with a different producer or by a group who didn't hate themselves and each other. Lost And Found is heartfelt with a lovely melody but sounds a bit drained. Bombers Bay wants to reach the heights but again sounds overcooked. Once again though they knew what they were doing when the sequenced the album and when they chose what had to go last. Just as with the songs that end Heaven Up Here, Porcupine and Ocean Rain, the closer here is a sweeping, majestic piece of Bunny magic with Mac crooning, ringing guitars, military drumming and some stabbing strings, a ballad with an eye on the way out and everyone worn out by the experiences that led them there. 'God's own miracles/ lost in circles' Ian sings before the chorus, 'all my life/ revolves around/ laughter and crying/ as my life turns/ round and round' and then the string quartet re- appears, and the guitars build. Fade and out. 

All My Life

What does this album sound like? It sounds better now than it did then. It sounds like a Bunnymen album that has echoes of what made them great but the gap between this and Ocean Rain- the actual gap of three years, the relationship gaps between the members of the group and what they wanted- is a gap they couldn't get over. It also sounds like a record that the grapples with the old struggle of art v commerce and the group's specific struggle of rock stardom v being able to show your face in Liverpool and never quite resolves them. 

RIP Pete de Freitas. 

Unwillingly Mine

A Bunnymen bonus for Saturday, a cover of The Killing Moon by Australian band Something For Kate, remixed by fellow Melbourne man T- Rek. Something For Kate released it as the third song on a 2006 CD single and T- Rek added the dub disco groove having already mixed the band's cover. Nine minutes of slinky, slow motion Bunnygroove, pushed ever onwards by a post- punk bassline, lovely synth stabs, plenty of echo, all deliciously full of icy gloom. One for spinning round the kitchen to as lockdown kicks in. 

The Killing Moon (T- Rek's Desert Disco Dub Mix)