Soundtrack Saturday

I watched Wings Of Desire over the Christmas holiday- it was on one of the many Channel 4 channels having been remastered and restored in 2022. It's a film I haven't seen since it came out in 1989 and am pretty sure I've only seen once before (probably at Liverpool University film club which had a long running mid- week film night I used to go to in '88 and '89). 

Wings Of Desire was made by Wim Wenders, a mark of quality in itself, and is set in West Berlin in 1989 (the events of November 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent break up of the Eastern Bloc and the USSR don't appear in the film at all, no hint of a major shift in geo- politics. The Berlin Wall does feature in the film and West Berlin's unique feel and status are undeniably an important aspect of the film. Interestingly, much of West Berlin is semi- derelict with shots of vast areas of waste ground in what is now central Berlin, Potsdammerplatz for example). The film is in German mainly, subtitled, with brief bits of conversation in English (especially when Columbo, Peter Falk, features). It's shot mainly in beautiful black and white with some scenes in equally beautiful colour. Wenders cinematography and eye for a shot is second to none. It's also very slow, especially by modern cinema's standards, a film that feels like for long periods nothing much happens, the main characters drift around a lot, contemplating and deliberating. 

The film centres of two angels, one played by Bruno Ganz (best known to British audiences for his portrayal of Hitler in Downfall), who populate West Berlin and are invisible to adults but can be seen by children, listening to the thoughts of West Berliners, occasionally intervening to comfort humans in distress, sometimes failing to prevent people from spiraling. Many of the people in the film seem to be alone, estranged from family and friends, everyone isolated in a city isolated from the rest of the country. A circus is in town and the angel Bruno Ganz plays falls in love with the trapeze artist, a woman played by Solveig Dommartin, and wants to become mortal so he can feel human pleasures. A film about the Second World War is being filmed, starring Peter Falk, who knows the angels are there even though he can't see them. At times, shots of Berlin from 1945 newsreel are cut into the film. The black and white scenes, including some shot inside the enormous modernist West Berlin library and some sot near the Wall, are the world as seen by the angels. The colour scenes are the world as seen by humans.  I'll leave my plot synopsis there- no spoilers.

The soundtrack is mainly by Jurgen Knieper who wrote much of the score and then re- wrote much of it having been shown rushes by Wenders. It's an ambient/ instrumental score with found sounds and dialogue from the film which works well as a standalone. This is Der Himmel Uber Berlin (The Sky Above Berlin), a haunting and rather lovely five minutes which sounds exactly like the soundtrack to angels on the rooftops of buildings at the frontline of The Cold War should sound. 

Wim Wenders said he couldn't make a film in West Berlin in the late 80s and not include Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. The Bad Seeds appear in colour and in black and white, the characters turning up at a gig in a dilapidated dancehall. In this scene (in colour) Bruno Ganz arrives at the club while Nick and the boys play The Carny. Solveig is on the crowd too. Then they play From Her To Eternity, throbbing, restless, junkyard blues, young Nick Cave at the stage's lip in full heroin preacher mode playing to West Berlin's goth/ punk/ alternative underworld. Otto Sander, another angel, appears on stage. 

Bad Seed guitarist Rowland S. Howard had a second band, Crime And The City Solution. They also appear in Wings Of Desire, playing the ominous Six Bells Chime, a sort of West Berlin/ Weimar Spaghetti Western song. Roland spins round the stage wielding guitar and cigarette. Solveig dances, The angels listen in. 

The soundtrack features both bands with nine Jurgen Knieper pieces of music, snippets of conversation and dialogue from the film (just as the soundtrack to Wender's Paris, Texas did), plus several other pieces of music (expanded on CD), a soundtrack works really well away from the film as well as part of it. Both film and soundtrack are moving, atmospheric and have something to say about the human condition. What more could you want?

AW60

Today would have been Andrew Weatherall's 60th birthday. His absence is felt very strongly among his family and friends and in the corners of the culture he inhabited. His presence is there too I think, in the open minded spirit of adventure, of finding new music and doing things your own way. Fired up by youthful rebellion, the DIY spirit of punk and acid house and an interest, often obsession, in what was happening on the margins, he was a singular character. In the end, by the time he died in February 2020, he was approaching national treasure status. At the start he was an inexperienced DJ asked to bring his box of 'weird records' down to Shoom. Then he was a novice remixer asked to make something new from an indie rock 'n' roll record (in fact his remixes of Happy Mondays and That Petrol Emotion both pre- date Loaded, as do his remixes Word Of Mouth, Deep Joy and West India Company- the chronology is not entirely clear but all those were released before Loaded). In between 1989 and 2020 he took us on a ride from the Balearic network to techno, from Sabres to Swordsmen, from deep house to rockabilly and 60s garage to the multi- coloured cosmic chug of the 2010s, all of it underpinned by dub. He moved on, working quickly and always looking forwards. The way he became a master in not just one form of electronic music but several is largely unparalleled- not many of his peers could play several hours of dub one night, techno the next and house the third and do it well, brilliantly in fact. 

With Andrew you weren't just buying records either, you were getting into something deeper- he left clues scattered throughout his back catalogue, in song titles and remix names, references to books and artists that you might not pick up on until many years later. You also were not just buying a record. In 2007 he released Wrong Meeting, an album of rockabilly, garage rock and experimental rock 'n' roll with the man himself singing. The album came out on vinyl (at a time when virtually no one was buying vinyl never mind releasing new albums on it), in a box with an illustrated lyric booklet, a t- shirt and a hand signed print (a print of a Weatherall linocut of guitarist Chet Atkins from the cover of his Workshop album). 

There are a series of events taking place during April to celebrate his 60th birthday. Tonight at Fabric in London a host of names will play records/ CDs in several rooms, starting at 11pm and going through until dawn- David Holmes, Daniel Avery, Sean Johnston, Dave Congreave, Adrian Sherwood, Miss Kittin, Fantastic Twin, Radioactive Man, Ivan Smagghe, Manfredas, Optimo and Fi Maguire will all play to rooms full of friends and fans, trying to capture something of the spirit of the man in music. 

Later on this month, in a turn of events which still baffles me at times, I will be part of the birthday celebrations at The Golden Lion in Todmorden. On the Saturday afternoon and evening myself and four other fans/ DJs (Martin, Mark, Dan and Baz) will play support to Timothy J. Fairplay and Justin Robertson as The Flightpath Estate DJs. This blog and my repeated writing about Andrew Weatherall and his music led to this- I like to think in some way reflecting the spirit of Andrew, do what you want to do, create something you love, do it yourself. 

I've put together a mix of songs inspired by Andrew for today. There's so much variety in his life and work you could put together ten mixes and only scratch the surface. His radio shows at 6 Mix and NTS, his Music's Not For Everyone banner that took in goth, garage, rockabilly, 80s indie, cosmic blues and country, rock 'n' roll and punk, where endlessly inspiring and I've tried to reflect some of that in the hour of songs below with one of his songs in the middle. 

AW60 Mix

• The Triffids: Wide Open Road
• Chuck Prophet: Play That Song Again
• Forest Fire: In Shadows
• Grant Hart: You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water
• The Dream Syndicate: John Coltrane Stereo Blues
• Dennis Wilson: Carry Me Home
• The Replacements: Sadly Beautiful
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Get Out Of My Kingdom (Demo)
• Rowland S. Howard: She Cried
• White Williams: Route To Palm
• Rose City Band: In The Rain
• The Jesus And Mary Chain: Darklands
• Cowboys International: The 'No' Tune

Wide Open Road was on The Triffids' 1986 album Born Sandy Devotional, an album widely seen as the band's masterpiece. The song is on Andrew's The Black Notebooks YouTube playlists, Volume One of which you can find here. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. You'll find plenty in there to keep you going. 

Chuck Prophet was the guitarist in US roots rockers Green On Red. His solo career included a 2012 album called Temple Beautiful and this song is built around a cracking guitar riff and a load of good one liners- 'You go fight the power/ I'm fighting off a cold'. Andrew played it on one of his Music's Not For Everyone radio shows for NTS that year, a series that were a monthly treat and are missed beyond words, his voice, his wry sense of humour and his song selection. 

Forest Fire were an experimental rock band from New York whose second album Staring At The X came out in 2011. The song here, In Shadows, is superb and much played in my house. The way the rhythms, FXed guitars and vocals merge into one rush of sound hits me every time. Andrew played it on his third Music's Not For Everyone in 2011. 

Grant Hart, ex- Husker Du drummer and solo artist, features in Andrew's Black Notebooks and radio mixes. You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water is a blistering wall of guitars and drums with words inspired by the sayings of the Buddha and came out in 2009. Andrew played it while at 6 Mix in March 2010, a show he did with Fuck Buttons as guests. 

The Dream Syndicate's John Coltrane Stereo Blues is an eight minute epic, from their 1984 album Medicine Show. Andrew played it memorably while doing a MNFE set at Terraforma, a music festival held in Italy, in 2017. The fifty minute film of him DJing in sunglasses and 1940s work clothes to a crowd of young, beautifully lit Italians is here. The song appears alongside Fujiya and Miyagi and Moon Duo, sequencing only Andrew would attempt. 'I got some John Coltrane on the stereo baby/ Make you feel alright/ I got some white wine in the freezer mama/ I know what you like/ We gonna learn about love on a three ply rug'

Dennis Wilson's Carry Me Home was recorded in 1973 but didn't make it onto Holland, The Beach Boys album of that year. It is a broken, beautiful funeral blues for a soldier dying in Vietnam. Andrew produced Primal Scream's cover on their 1992 Dixie- Narco EP, ably assisted by Hugo Nicolson. 

Sadly Beautiful is a Paul Westerberg song from The Replacements' 1990 album All Shook Down, a song he wrote with Marianne Faithful in mind. She was supposed to sing it but that never happened so Paul recorded it for All Shook Down instead. By 1990 The Replacements were to all intents and purposes a Paul Westerberg solo project although Tommy Stimson plays bass on much of the record. Sadly Beautiful shows up in Andrew's Black Notebooks and on various tapes he made for friends in the early 90s along with songs from the previous Replacements album, 1989's Don't Tell A Soul. That album is not the group's best, marred by a glossy radio friendly production but some of the songs are classic Westerberg, Achin' To Be, Rock 'n' Roll Ghost and We'll Inherit The Earth among them. Talent Show is a song I've had a weird soft spot for for thirty- five years. 

Get Out Of My Kingdom was perhaps the pinnacle of the final incarnation of Two Lone Swordsmen, the live band, garage/ rock 'n' roll, Andrew on vocals version of the band. I saw them play at Sankey's Soap in 2008 supporting the Wrong Meeting album, the full live band tearing it up in a corner of the club. Sankey's was once the only thing you'd head into Ancoats for, a maze of streets and dilapidated buildings north of city centre Manchester. Andrew commented once that artists are the vanguard of gentrification. Now Ancoats is the place to live/ work/ socialise.

She Cried was on Rowland S. Howard's Teenage Snuff Film, a 1999 album. The former Birthday Party/ Bad Seed was joined by Mick Harvey. They covered Billy Idol's White Wedding on the album. She Cried is itself a cover of a 1961 melodrama single by Teddy Daryll and has been covered by others including Johnny Thunders, Del Shannon and David Hasselhoff (insert your own joke here). The Horrors also borrowed from it on Who Can Say in 2009. She Cried is in Andrew's Black Notebooks playlists. 

Route To Palm is by White Williams, a song that somehow combines both rockabilly and krautrock and is therefore perfectly Weatherall. White Williams is from New York and released the album Smoke in 2008 (on Domino). Andrew played it on his 2009 6 Mix, a legendary show in the Bagging Area which took in Wayne Walker, La Dusseldorf, Andrew's remix of Primal Scream's Uptown, The Glitter Band, his remix of David Holmes' I Heard Wonders and much more besides. Route To Palm turned up on FACT Mix 85 too. 

Rose City Band is one of three groups headed by cosmic guitarist/ singer Ripley Johnson- Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo are the other two. Ripley's music is all over Andrew's radio shows. In The Rain was played on Music's Not For Everyone in 2019. 

Darklands was the title track on The Jesus And Mary Chain's 1987 album and has been selected by Andrew on various occasions- when on tour in Australia and asked to compile his formative influences in 2018 and in an internet article called Five Songs For The End Of The World (or similar) which I can't find right now. 

The 'No' Tune was on a 1979 album by Cowboys International called The Original Sin, a band that included Keith Levene, Terry Chimes and Marco Pirroni in its number. The 'No' Tune was the theme to Andrew's Music's Not For Everyone shows, the chiming guitar line announcing the start of two hours of adventure, two hours of Andrew's Gnostic Sonics. As the guitar notes faded, The 'No' Tune's space lullaby would be replaced by Andrew's voice. 'Huddle round your devices, don your ceremonial robes and headgear...', he would advise, and we'd be off into new territory, music from the past and present sewn together in ways only he could do. 

As such, rather than have the two minutes and forty seconds of The 'No' Tune as an ending, in the spirit of Andrew it should be a beginning, the gateway to music new. Go and find something new today, something from the margins, the edges, the sidelines- and when you do, raise a glass to the man. Happy 60th birthday Andrew.  

Life's What You Make It

This is one of those songs that is always there for me, a pleasure to hear whenever it comes up and a song I'd put in a lifetime top 50 if I had to ever compile such a list- most recently it came up with this clip on Dutch TV from 1985, Talk Talk on TopPop, playing/ miming Life's What You Make It. 

The guitar is a little over the top for our 21st century ears perhaps but the proto- Balearic drums and piano and Mark Hollis' passionate vocal are perfect in every way. This is from the 12", an extended version released in January 1986. 

Life's What You Make It (Extended)

There's nothing I can say about the song that can add to it, you just have to listen to it. The words can mean as much or as little as you want them to in a way- 'Baby life's what you make it/ Celebrate it/ Anticipate it/ Yesterday's faded/ Nothing can change it/  Life's what you make it'. 

In 2009 Rowland S. Howard, guitarist in The Birthday Party and The Boy's Next Door (his and Nick Cave's first band), recorded a solo album called Pop Crimes. Rowland was unwell at the time, Hepatitis C having brought on liver cancer and he died at the end of December 2009. His cover of Life's What You Make It is heard very differently under those circumstances. 

Life's What You Make It

All Exits Final

Today is the day an unelected Prime Minister with no mandate, desiring only to suck up to the Daily Mail, the right wing of the Tory Party and a slim majority of those who bothered to vote last year, pushes the button to start the process of isolating the UK from European political and economic union.

Don't worry, I'm sure it will be fine.

Rowland S Howard was in Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party with Nick Cave and also Crime And The City Solution before making a couple of excellent solo albums. He died at the end of 2009.

Exit Everything

One Of Our Girls Has Gone Missing

I rediscovered this last week, a 1989 single by A.C. Marias. In my 1989 head it somehow sounded like really polished electronic pop but listened to today sounds murkier, less overtly poppy, with a darker, post-punk undertow. The glacial vocal floats over the top of some synths and a clattering rhythm, the lyric recalling a spy thriller or Cold War film. Rowland S Howard and Barry Adamson were involved in the album and I'm assuming played on this single. A.C. Marias was the name for Angela Conway's recordings, who was also a collaborator of Wire (whose Bruce Gilbert helped out with the A.C. Marias records). A welcome blast from the late 80s I'd completely forgotten about.

One Of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing)

Life's What You Make It

Back in January 2010 when I was only a few posts into the blogging game I posted this song by Rowland S Howard. He died of liver cancer just a few days earlier, 30th December 2009. Rowland recorded his album Pop Crimes while ill and this song, a cover of Talk Talk's Life's What You Make It, has a slightly different perspective when sung by someone who knows their time is up.

Life's What You Make It

Aged just sixteen Rowland wrote Shivers, recorded by pre-Birthday Party band Boys Next Door. Strange to think that Nick Cave was actually this young once.

And Then I Kissed Her With A Kiss That Can Only Mean Goodbye Part Two

Just so you can compare and contrast, here's Roland S Howard's She Cried, from his 2000 album Teenage Snuff Movie, which today's earlier Horror's song is clearly indebted to. Rowland S Howard was guitarist in The Boys Next Door (for whom he wrote the still stunning Shivers aged only 16) and then The Birthday Party. He died of liver cancer on December 30th 2009, two days before I started Bagging Area. His cover of Talk Talk's Life's What You Make It was the second or third post here, and was part of the reason for starting blogging.

She Cried

And Then I Kissed Her With A Kiss That Can Only Mean Goodbye

Everyone's favourite skinny legged, crate-digging, goth and garage rocking five piece The Horrors are back with a new album Skying. The last time they put an lp out they flipped lids all over the place. Primary Colours featured the electro and krautrocking Sea Within A Sea and Who Can Say, just about my favourite rock single from that year. They also released a superb single, Whole New Way, which I posted here ages ago. By way of celebrating the new album, shaping up to be on heavy rotation, here's Who Can Say from a 6 Music session. The mp3 I think came originally from the late, lamented Ripped In Glasgow blog (although Moggieboy's RiG adventures do continue on a well-known social networking site). Anyway, distorted guitars, 60s organ, girl group drums, Rowland S Howard 'inspired' breakdown- what more could you want?

Who Can Say (6 Music Session)

The Boys Next Door 'Shivers'

I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago when I posted about Rowland S. Howard. This is the song he wrote aged 16, which became a millstone around his neck, still having to perform it 30 years later. Sung by a fresh faced Nick Cave, The Boys Next Door's 'Shivers', from before they became The Birthday Party and moved to London. All together now... ' And my baby's so vain, she's almost a mirror'

10 Shivers.wma

03 Life's What You Make It.wma

Rowland S Howard 1959-2009

Rowland S Howard was the guitarist with The Birthday Party, and before that The Boys Next Door. He joined Nick Cave and Mick Harvey, and aged 17 had already written Shivers, the underground Oz-rock classic. After The Birthday Party split, amid chaos, vomiting and drugs, he drifted around fronting the odd band (These Immortal Souls) and released some solo lps (Teenage Snuff Movie in 2000 and Popcrimes in 2009). By the time Popcrimes was released Rowland was suffering from liver cancer and waiting for a transplant. He died on December 30th. He was a unique guitarist, songwriter and singer- and he could record a decent cover as well. On Teenage Snuff Movie he did White Wedding (yes, that White Wedding) and here for you to download Talk Talk's Life's What You Make It (given some grim irony by his state of health, I guess)

mp3: Life's What You Make It