Record Industry Blues

I got in this evening. I went looking for Andrew Weatherall's remix of Wild Eyed by The Horrors. I was prepared to pay for it. After a little searching I ended up thinking 'Is it any wonder the record industry is on it's arse?'

The only place you can buy the track is as part of the iTunes version of the album Skying. It's there, but you can't buy it as a separate track, only as part of the US version of the album, at a cost £7.99. Thing is, I've already bought Skying in a physical format and it cost more than £7.99, which is what the record industry wants isn't it? I didn't download it illegally. I paid money for it, in a record shop. Old fashioned I know but there you go. If I want the Weatherall remix I've got to buy the whole album again. And this isn't one of the majors, this is XL who like to dine out on being a credible, cutting edge little guy. At the moment I still don't have it, as I haven't found an illegal download either. So what do they want- sales which rip off the niche band fan or illegal downloads? I suppose I could just stop being a Weatherall completist but it's a habit that's a little ingrained by now. In the spirit of the whole thing, no music with this post. But if and when I find the song, I'll let you have it too.

Thursdub

Inspired dub from Lee Perry, from the Voodooism compilation which you really should have got by now. This is the dub version of African Style. Pretty self explanatory really.

African Style Version

Weatherall Remix Creation

I can't let this Creation series go by without including Andrew Weatherall's remix of My Bloody Valentine's Soon, which was and is a stunning example of the art of the remix. Weatherall said recently that indie-dance remixes just involved sticking a breakbeat under a guitar track but I think there's a bit more to it with this one, with that Westbam sample, the clanging riff, ghostly noises, the 'here we go' vocal refrain and the crunching beat. Su-chuffing-perb.

This track was the starting point in a way for me- it was looking for an mp3 of it that led me firstly to Stx's Audio Out blog. The link had expired but he kindly supplied me with it, and many more tracks besides. That led to exploring a load of other blogs, which led eventually to Bagging Area. So, Soon Weatherall Remix, you've got a lot to answer for.

I was in indie nightspot South on King Street at some point in the late 1990s. The Stone Roses bassist Mani was djing and he played this. Coming through the speakers it sounded huge, distorting South's iffy soundsystem, reminding me of the greatness of the track and with a Stone Rose playing a Weatherall remix joined a few dots neatly for me. Yep. I should probably get a life (popular early 90s saying).

Soon (Weatherall Remix)

Prophets Creation

Pete Astor's second Creation band following The Loft, The Weather Prophets wrote one stone cold indie classic, Almost Prayed, which has been here before. This is a little gem from the B-side.

Like Frankie Lymon

Loft Creation

A couple more Creation posts to come, kicking off this chilly Monday with Pete Astor's 80s indie band The Loft, described in the Creation documentary Upside Down as 'the first proper band Creation signed'. The Loft didn't last long, splitting up onstage with Pete Astor and drummer Dave Morgan moving on sharpish to The Weather Prophets. The Loft's best song, Up The Hill And Down The Slope, has been featured at Bagging Area before. This is a live version from a Loft compilation cd released by Rev-ola in 2005. I'd like to tell you when and where the performance dates from but at some point the booklet has been victim of a spillage accident. The pages are stuck together and ripping as I open them, destroying the info. Grrrrr!!! Bleeding kids!!! Anyway, seeing as The Loft only really existed between 1982 and 1985 we'll just have to say that this is The Loft live, for over six and a half minutes, sometime in the early-to-mid 1980s.

Up The Hill And Down The Slope (Live sometime in the 80s)

Sunday Noise

New York's A Place To Bury Strangers know about noise, and play feedback drenched, ominous, guitar music. Sound familiar?

Missing You

Him Of The Big Wheel

Andrew Weatherall djing recently in a pod on the London Eye, promoted by the makers of some sticky fluid. Can't imagine there was much room for dancing. No track listing and I haven't listened to it all but the opening ten minutes sound great, dreamy, krauty synth stuff.

Edit- also includes Weatherall's own cover of AR Kane's A Love From Outer Space and what I think is his remix of The Horrors.

http://redbullmusicacademyradio.com/shows/4555/

Head On

Pixies cover version of one of The Jesus And Mary Chain's best moments. Pixies were such an odd band- four people that looked like they should be in four different bands combining untutored talent, technical limitations and an off kilter world view. Quiet, loud, scream, quiet, loud, scream doesn't really do it justice. This breakneck cover rocks, as they say.

Head On

Get Up

It's Saturday morning and as Lord Tanamo said 'I'm in the mood for ska'- the very great Mr Desmond Dekker as it happens. A little infectious this one...

Get Up Edina

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 32

'Train I ride sixteen coaches long

Well that long black train carries my baby home'

From Sun Records all the way back in 1953 this is Little Junior Parker and the original version of Mystery Train, co-written by Parker and Sam Phillips. Elvis' version came out two years later and helped invent modern music. I'm not sure Little Junior Parker's song is rockabilly, just early rock and roll, but it's Friday night, it's sheeting down outside and who's splitting hairs?

Mystery Train

House Creation

House Of Love Creation that is. What was funny in the Creation documentary the other night was a couple of Creation talking heads saying that they were all 'working class boys' and then Guy Chadwick turned up 'talking like Kenneth Branagh'. British music like British society is class obsessed. And class riven. No matter- very briefly the House Of Love had 'it'. They lost it pretty quickly, but for a while it was theirs. This is another Creation Peel Session song, from August 1988, featuring the slow burn drama of a great track from their debut album.

Love In A Car (Peel Session)

Jesus Creation

'The sun comes up another day begins

And I don't even worry 'bout the state I'm in'

The Jesus and Mary Chain have appeared here several time before. I make no apologies for that. They're one of the best bands ever. From the Creation roster you can make claims for Primal Scream (and I'd agree with you about several/many of their records), claims for My Bloody Valentine (and I'd concede some points there too), claims for other minor players (The Loft, The Weather Prophets, The Pastels, The Telescopes, The House Of Love say) and claims for Oasis (if you're an idiot), but Jim and William Reid's feedback drenched pop makes them the original and archetypal Creation band, even if not actually many of their records came out on Creation. And they may only have written one song but it's a great, great song.

This is from an October 1984 Peel Session as played by the original JAMC line up of the Reids, bassist Douglas Hart and 'drummer' Bobby Gillespie. The Peel Session also featured In A Hole, You Trip Me Up and Taste The Floor. Never Understand would become their second single.

Never Understand (Peel Session)

Z 40

A slight interruption in the Creation Records run. I'm the oldest of five brothers (there's two sisters as well. That makes eight. Count 'em. Nightmare sometimes I can tell you. Though not the ones who read this blog obviously). The next one down from me, Z, is forty today. He was into hip hop, graffiti and breakdancing from the start. He's still into it now (well, maybe not the breakdancing. And the judge put him straight about the graffiti), the oldest B-Boy in town. Why? Because it's like that, and that's the way it is.

Happy birthday Z.

It's Like That

Starsign Creation

Early 90s Creation stalwarts Teenage Fanclub perfected that yearning, aching, whistful type of song, West Coast USA via Bellshill. In 1995 they released a cracking 7" single, Teenage Fanclub Have Lost It which proved they definitely hadn't. Four songs, one from each of their albums, done acoustically. Not acoustic guitars, stools and tastefulness though- acoustic instruments including shakers, flageolet, treble recorder, wheezy organs and lots of nice analogue hum. All four songs are ace, this one is Star Sign (originally from Bandwagonesque).

'Hey, there's a horseshoe on my door

Big deal

And hey, there's a black cat on the floor

Big deal'

Star Sign (acoustic)

Palatial Creation

Watching the documentary on Creation Records on BBC4 on Friday night reminded me of just how many great bands and how many great records Alan McGee's label released, certainly in the period before signing Oasis (after which it all went wrong). It was a little flawed as a documentary, and full of 'we were so crazy, we took so many drugs' but overall the music and the misfits in the bands shone through. So I thought we'd have a few Creation inspired posts starting with Love Corporation, Ed Ball's dance project, included on the still magnificent 1991 compilation Keeping The Fath. Alan McGee invented acid house, didn't you know?

Palatial (Danny Rampling Mix)

Spooky Weatherall Mix

It's Halloween. Here's a special spooky, horror themed mix Mr Andrew Weatherall did for Mulletover. Be careful out there tonight.

http://www.mixcloud.com/mulletover/andrew-weatherall-exclusive-mulletover-halloween-2011-mix/

Bleep

Another record from Sheffield's Warp Records, this time in the shape of Tricky Disco by Tricky Disco from 1990. Serious bleepiness.

Tricky Disco

Pepper Trance

Getting on for twenty years ago I shared a flat with N, a man I met in my last year at Liverpool University who was later best man at my wedding. We've drifted apart over the last decade- he went to London in the late 90s, and I was always the poor relation finances wise when we flat shared, and we kind of mix in different circles now. Things were a bit strained for a while for various reasons though it's fine on the rare occasions we see each other now. He loved Speedy J's Ginger album, released in 1993 on Warp's Artificial Intelligence label. Speedy J is Dutchman Jocham George Paap and the album Ginger was full of techno-going-trance music. This track takes me right back to that flat in Altrincham in the middle of winter, three bar fire, crap black and white TV, cooked breakfasts, The Bleeding Wolf, the pub quiz, Regal King Size, trips to Cream, The Hacienda and Home.

Pepper

Ralph's Cupboard

Let's have some dance music today. While rummaging through stuff recently I found Orbsessions Volume 2, a compilation of odds and sods by The Orb which came out in 2006, although I have no idea when this particular track dates from. It's a magnificent, squelchy eight minutes of up dance music and no mistake. One reviewer at youtube left this comment- 'sounds like crossing a vast swamp on a bridge made of sticks while a million happy bugs dance beneath' and I really couldn't put it any better.

Ralph's Cupboard

Friday Night Is... Music Hall Night

No rockabilly tonight. For one week only (probably) we are grooving to some music hall. Tomorrow Mrs Swiss is holding a party to celebrate her 40th birthday. She decided she didn't want to hire a room above a pub or the local rugby club and have me play records. Everyone else has done that. She's having an Edwardian tea party in the afternoon, with tea, cake and sandwiches, and period costume. Note, that's period costume not fancy dress. Mrs Swiss has hired a beautiful dress and hat. I am using the splendid chap in the photo as my model and am getting quite attached to the plus fours (hired), though not the golf club. Tedious game golf.

We've bought three cds of music hall which could get quite annoying over the course of the afternoon. In the evening we're going out for a few drinks in Sale. I'm still contemplating whether to keep the plus fours on.

Having cast my eye over the track listing to The Glory Of Music Hall cd, including songs such as She Was Poor But She Was Honest, It's the First Time I've Done That, The Biggest Aspidistra In The World, The Yodelling Goldfish, the Wives Of Commercial Travellers and Nobody Loves A Fairy When She's Forty I've gone for this George Jackley tune.

Ain't It Grand To Be Blooming Well Dead