Spirea Rising

Spirea X came my way again a few days ago, a welcome blast from the early 90s. Formed by Jim Beattie, a founding member Primal Scream, they promised to make records that would be better and bigger than the Scream's but it didn't really work out for them, despite having the benefit of being signed to 4AD. Their sole album- Fireblade Skies- has stood up fairly well. Spindly, psychedelic Rickenbackers, a mid-60s Stones on speed vibe but with 1991 shuffly drums. The single Chlorine Dream is one that should be on all those compilations of the lesser known groups from this time (along with Box Set Go by The High). Jim Beattie later formed Adventures In Stereo (who made similarly 60s influenced music but this time using samples and taking The Beach Boys as their starting point, not a million miles from Stereolab).



The album version is extended to over 6 minutes.

Chlorine Dream

The 60s groups were massive at the time, groups like Love and Buffalo Springfield. Their influence is all over Fireblade Skies. Album closer Spirea Rising is a fairly glorious instrumental, with swathes of Slowdive-style backing vocals and buckets of Glaswegian guitar noise.

Spirea Rising

Glitter

Daniel Avery and Jon Hopkins have made two of this year's most enthralling electronic albums (Song For Alpha and Singularity respectively) and are about to start a tour of the USA together. As an extra they've swapped remixes, taking a track from each other's albums and reworking it. The first one out in public is Hopkins new version of Avery's Glitter, a thumping percussive workout with little subliminal melodies, building in intensity for a good seven minutes.

Taking The Knee

Zenith

In a week's time I'm going to Gorilla to see Wooden Shjips, creators of the most blissfully cool guitar album of 2018 so far, supported by Carlisle's The Lucid Dream (who have made 2 of the year's most impressive singles, SX1000 and Alone In Fear, acid house and techno influences to the fore). Their album Actualisation is out in October and ahead of it comes a third single- Zenith (part 2). This one puts them firmly back in the northern psyche-rock territory with a growly bassline and vocals smothered in echo, tense and urgent and electric. I'm hoping, almost expecting, that the pairing of Wooden Shjips and The Lucid Dream will be gig of the year.



Another Zenith first appeared in 2000 AD in summer 1987, a 19 year old British superhero in the Watchmen anti-superhero mode, and a story involving the Second World War, Maximan versus the Nazis, a 1960s team with a Jim Morrison lookalike (below), and Zenith himself, a cocky late 80s flying generation gap with a quiff.

A Modern Guy

I wrote a piece about Iggy Pop for JC at The Vinyl Villain, putting together an imaginary compilation album from Iggy's wildly inconsistent solo career. You can read it here if you're a fan. I put in 10 Iggy songs, starting with the Bowie and Berlin pairing of The Idiot and Lust For Life and pogoing through his back catalogue ending up at 2016's Post Pop Depression, plus a bonus song to represent his many guest vocal spots. I'm still getting loads out of his collaboration with Underworld, the Teatime Dub Encounters ep released this summer, and I think it will come to be seen as a late-Iggy triumph and part of me regrets not including a song from it on the ICA. I left off anything from his 1975 album Kill City, written and recorded with ex-Stooge James Williamson and eventually released in 1977. Kill City was recorded while Iggy was resident in hospital going through treatment for heroin addiction. He was allowed out at weekends to record his vocals. These are not the ideal circumstances to make great records. The title track is a decent mid-70s rocker but I still think I was right to leave it off the final line up of my compilation.

Kill City

Two other songs that didn't make the cut and were mentioned by people in the comments thread are this pair- the first, a really well sung love song from Iggy's 1990 album Brick By Brick, a duet with Kate Pierson. Iggy said Candy was the only good pop song he'd ever written and as if to prove him right it was the only single of his to reach the US top 40.



My bonus track was Iggy's guest vocal on Death In Vegas' Aisha in 1999. Since then Iggy has spread his voice over various songs by other people, including Aggrophobe, a song by Manchester group PINS from last year (the video was filmed in Gullivers, a bar on Oldham Street in town and is probably NSFW, unless you happen to work in a bar or stripclub).

Lindsay Was My First Love

I was never a massive fan of The Waterboys- I appreciate what Mike Scott was doing, the Big Music and Celtic influences, and I've danced to The Whole Of The Moon just like the rest of you have- but when Fisherman's Blues came out I was never able to play it all the way through and fully enjoy it. Having said that I love A Bang On The Ear. I'm a sucker for those rat-a-tat-tat narrative songs, where the rhythm and the rhyme rattle along, telling stories, especially in this one where Mike looks back at the girls in his past he's loved.

A Bang On The Ear

To pick a verse almost at random-

'Deborah broke my heart 
And I the willing fool
I fell for her one summer
On the road to Liverpool
I thought it was forever
But it was over within the year (oh dear)
But I send her my love
And a bang on the ear'

I like the way he throws in the homely and prosaic (chicken soup say). I like the reflective quality of the words, the lightness of touch and the wordplay. It's also in the way the song fades in and out, like it could have started earlier and carried on longer.

I suppose the daddy of these songs is Dylan's Tangled Up In Blue, a tour de force in painting pictures with words, rhyming couplets describing a life lived (whether it's Dylan's actual life, an imagined life or a composite of people's I don't know). Tangled Up In Blue switches between tenses, the present and the past, while Dylan narrates a number of scenes that got him to where was then-

'She was married when we first met
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam I guess
But I used a little too much force'

and later...

'I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the axe just fell
So I drifted down to New Orleans
Where I happened to be employed
Workin' for a while on a fishin' boat
Right outside of Delacroix'

and later still...

'I lived with them on Montague Street
In a basement down the stairs
There was music in the cafes at night
And revolution in the air'

What both these songs have is an authority and the voice of experience. What we get is the rush of words, a pile up of images and autobiography that becomes universal but with different names and places. And you can picture them being written- once the first line is there and the rhythm gets going, it all coming out in a flood, fingers banging away at typewriter keys.

Tangled Up In Blue

Then there is 88 Lines About 44 Women by The Nails, an obscure 1984 single from a US post-punk band. Over a pleasingly basic Casio backing track Marc Campbell delivers deadpan narration, describing each one of 44 women in 2 lines, (some  he admitted were real and some imaginary). In a 2018 light you could argue that reducing women to a single characteristic, often based around sex, in a list for comic effect is a little sexist but this is so well done with so many good lines that I think it stands.

An excerpt from the middle-

'Pauline thought that love was simple
Turned it on and turned it off
Jean-Marie was complicated
Like some French film-maker's plot
Gina was the perfect lady
Always had her stockings straight
Jackie was a rich punk rocker
Silver spoon and paper plate'

88 Lines About 44 Women

John Peel loved it. In a nice twist, 30 years after writing the song, Campbell got in touch with one of the women in the song through Facebook (Tanya Turkish, she of the leather biker boots) and they became a couple.

I Wore My Teeth In My Hands So I Could Shake Hands With The Night

The Velvet Underground have been re-issued and anthologised and expanded all the place in recent years, boxed sets galore. I picked up a nice double album on vinyl recently called The Velvet Underground/1969, an attempt to put together the lp that didn't come out in that year. Yeah, essentially it's VU and Another VU in one edition but with some different mixes (the 2014 versions of some tracks) and other mixes of others. Disappointingly it doesn't contain the more recent mix of I Can't Stand It (with the 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 countdown by Lou after the guitar solo, which is exciting beyond words) but you can't have everything.

Although most of the tracks (3 out of the 4 sides of vinyl) are the Doug Yule version of the group the 4th side has some recordings before John Cale packed up his viola and left. The final song on the album is this early version of Beginning To See The Light, recorded with Cale, which would later be recorded again with Yule for the self-titled album which did come out in 1969. Makes sense?

I love Lou's lyrics on this song, aping gospel, sneering with NYC cool and in places brilliantly nonsensical. This version has different words, clearly a work in progress.  The title of this post became 'I wore my teeth in my hands, so I could mess the hair of the night' in the final mix. Both work for me. 

Beginning To See The Light (Early Version)

La Passionara

Here's a well Balearic instrumental from an 80s pop group which has been enriching my life recently. In 1990 The Blow Monkeys released an album called Springtime For The World, fully informed by dance music culture. Album track and single La Passionara was a Spanish influenced instrumental (with odd bits of voice at the start and throughout but mainly just Iberian guitars, synths and lazy drums). It gained a vocal for the single but the 12" is the one you need, perfect for those warm evenings we're still getting.

La Passionara (12" version)

Given Dr Robert and The Blow Monkeys politics and political pop I've always assumed that the title refers to La Passionara (Dolores Ibarruri), the Basque heroine of the Spanish Republic of 1936-1939 and the Spanish Civil War. She was famous for her No Passaran! slogan, galvanising the defenders of Madrid during the battle for the city in November 1939 and her speeches throughout the war. The statue of her pictured above actually stands in Glasgow not Madrid.

This also means I can add it to my Spanish Civil War mixtape, something I wrote about back in 2012 which seemed like a good idea at the time. Some day I may fnd time to actually put it together in some format.

Which links nicely to this- non-league football team Clapham CFC have been deluged with thousands of orders from Spain for their new away kit for the 2018-19 season, a kit in the colours of the Republic (purple, yellow and red) with La Passionara's slogan on the back, honouring the volunteers of the International Brigades who went to Spain to fight fascism when the democratic, western powers refused to help the legitimate government against a military, fascist coup by Franco (whose allies Hitler and Mussolini had no such qualms about sending help). More here.

Sweet

This is the sun setting over the River Mersey, not far from our house on Friday night just gone. My summer holiday is over as of today, back to work today after several weeks off. Luckily I alwasy have music to dull the pain(at least during the commute). This is a late slice of summer from Hollie Cook, a cover of Shanks and Bigfoot's 1999 UK garage chart topper Sweet Like Chocolate. Hollie and her band turn it into a deliciously laid back piece of lovers rock



Hollie Cook is 29. If you are in your twenties a song from 1999 is a song from your childhood. Time's big wheel keeps on turning.

In proper reggae style the B-side is a dub version, Dub Like Chocolate. It is a well dubbed out affair, reverb and echo ahoy and a rocking rhythm.

Just What Is It That You Want To Do?

Sunday always seems like a good day for dub. This was shared with me the other day via the wonders of social media and I then shared it again so some of you may have heard this already but for those of you that haven't it's a bit of a treat, Loaded done dub stylee.



Thus far we haven't been able to discover who did this but what I know is this- it dates from the first decade of the 21st century; is a bootleg; and is a delightful re-working of Primal Scream/Andrew Weatherall's Loaded. Enjoy.

In other Primal Scream news, next month will see the release of their 1993 album Give Out But Don't Give Up. Not the version that was released in 1994, the 'dance traitors' album, but the version they recorded in Memphis with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section of David Hood and Roger Hawkins and producer Tom Dowd. At the time the group (and Alan McGee) were worried that the tapes weren't contemporary enough, not rawk enough and were too polite, so they shelved them. The songs were buffed up and re-recorded and added to by George Drakoulis with more guitars and more sheen. The original tapes were more country, more blues, more gospel. I've not heard much apart from some brief clips on their Twitter account but it sounds intriguing enough. There are multiple versions and formats available to pre-order here. It's a shame that Throb, whose guitar will be all over these songs, isn't around to enjoy the release of the songs as originally recorded.

September Songs

September arrives after a long August bringing with it a change in tone and pace. The first of today's pair of September songs is Ian McCulloch's solo single from 1984. Ian wanted to indulge his crooning side away from the Bunnymen and this song, a cover of the 1938 Kurt Weill standard, is decent enough (but in the same year as Ocean Rain it naturally pales a little). The lyrics nail this day and month perfectly-

'Well, it's a long, long time
From May to December
But the days grow short
When you reach September'

September Song (Long Version)

Meanwhile a decade earlier Alex Chilton wrote this song for Big Star, less about September maybe and more about a gurl. There is something heart-wrenchingly beautiful about this song- the guitars, the chord change, the vocal. Autumnal perfection.

September Gurls

Four Eleven Forty Four

The last day of August is always depressing- the end of summer, end of school holidays, changing seasons, nights drawing in, all that stuff. We need something heroic and valedictory to see us through- and Pete Wylie is the answer I think. I was going to post Sinful, his 1987 single, a real fists in the air, all together now moment, but while looking for that I found this one (also a single from 1987).

Fourelevenfortyfour

Otherwise known as 4-11-44, a love song and one of those songs that can convince you Wylie is some kind of genius. The roots of the phrase 4-11-44 are in the African American community of the USA in the 19th century. 4, 11 and 44 were popular numbers chosen when gambling on illegal lotteries,a three number gig that rarely came up and would therefore give a large payout. According to Urban Dictionary and at least one other source, the numbers are slang for the penis, particularly among black Britons.

Oh go on then, here's Sinful as performed on Top Of The Pops back in '87, presented by Peel and Long, with Josie Jones (sadly no longer with us)  and 3 dancers dressed as nuns (which brought a complaint from Mary Whitehouse). We need more of this type of thing.

The Mirror

                                                      The Mirror, 12th March 1932

Sleeping Woman By A Mirror, 1932

We had a few days staying with friends in South London and took in trip into central London on Tuesday which gave me the opportunity to see the Picasso 1932 exhibition at Tate Modern (for free too courtesy of friend's Mum's membership card. The Picasso show is amazing, gallery after gallery of paintings done in a year long creative burst (inspired by his love affair with a younger woman Marie-Theresa Walter). Along with the paintings are sculptures, drawings, sketchbooks and a few paintings from earlier on in his career, arranged to re-create the one man show he held in Paris in 1932. Some of the portraits, large canvasses, were completed in one single afternoon sitting. The speed and intensity of the work is jaw dropping as is his use of colour. The paintings become darker towards the end, a recurring rescue of a drowning woman dominating (in the autumn of 1932 Marie picked up an infection swimming in a sewage infected river). It's on until 7th September. It frazzled my head a bit to see so many of these pictures together and close up. Well worth a trip out. 

There are quite a few songs that mention or are about Picasso. Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers are at the top of the pile.

Pablo Picasso

Coming out of South London our SatNav decided to take us north up to the Thames, though Crystal Palace, Norwood, Tulse Hill, skirting the edge of Brixton, and then crossing the river at Hammersmith Bridge. I don't think it was the fastest way out of the city. Maybe it knew the M25 was at a standstill. Or maybe it knew that having crossed Hammersmith Bridge we'd turn left and see Cheyne Walk and Edith Grove, home to the 60s Stones, the World's End Estate (home to Joe Strummer and where he wrote London Calling, by the river) and then turn up Gunter Grove (the infamous home of John Lydon and the base of Metal Box-era PiL). All seen through the window of the car while negotiating London traffic. I think London Lee of Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop fame knew this part of London well. Anyway, thank you SatNav for showing it all to me. 

Landscapes

Back in 2015 Lonelady released an album of skeletal funk, inspired by the dead zones around the city centre and partly recorded under the Mancunian Way (a concrete flyover that skirts the southern fringe of the city centre). I'd forgotten about it until someone played this on BBC 6 the other day and was reminded how good it sounded- viciously trebly guitar part, hissing cymbals and 1981 bass. Lonelady is Julie Campbell, singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist.

(I Can See) Landscapes

There will now follow a short break in transmission at Bagging Area. I'm away now for a few days, taking an end of August trip down south. See you at the end of the week. Be good.

Flying

Radio 6 spent a day celebrating 30 years since the summer of love and dance culture earlier this week. You can catch some of it here where Steve Lamacq interviews Andrew Weatherall, Nicky Black market and The Bug.

Dr Rob has put together a Flying Mix Part 3 which captures the spirit of the times, a tribute to the clubnight Flying, held in central London back in the day. There's also a wonderful written piece to go with it here titled Oh My Gosh! You can also find links to parts 1 and 2 in here.



The tracklist is below- surely everyone can find something to groove to in this. It reminded me that I'd forgotten how much I like that Jesus Loves You record (Boy George's acid house guise).

Blvd Mosse - Can`t Escape The Hypeness
The Aloof - Never Get Out The Boat (Farley & Heller Mix)
Ethereal Beat - Can You Understand
Ariel - Sea Of Beats
Sensuround - Blind Faith
Orchestra JB - Free Spirit (FPI Project Mix)
Mad Jacks - Feel The Hit
Ian Dury - Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick (Flying Mix)
Kwanzaa Posse - Wicked Funk
Raimunda Navarro - Jungle Fever
Beautiful Ballet - Energy (Rudy`s Remix)
Pete Wylie - Sinful
Jesus Loves You - Bow Down Mister (Grid Mix)
Audio Deluxe - Sixty Seconds
Ragged Jack - Party`s Over (Flying Mix)
Deep Joy - Fall (Let There Be Drums)
Mr Luthero - Rotation
Kiss AMC - Circles (Blind Lemon Mix)
La Camour - Tarantella
Paradiso - Here We Go Again
DJ H & Stefy - Think About
Stex - After The Rain
Sound Of Shoom - I Hate Hate
The Temptations - Ain`t Too Proud To Beg
Eve Gallagher - Love Come Down
Frances Nero - Footsteps Following Me
A Man Called Adam - Barefoot In The Head
Love Corporation - Give Me Some Love (Weatherall Mix)
Less Stress - Don`t Dream It`s Over
Archie Bell & The Drells - Don`t Let Love Get You Down

Theme For Great Cities

I have long held a dislike of Simple Minds, since the 1980s now I come to think of it. I think this is based on the bombastic, U2-lite material they released, the wind in the hair videos and the awful baggy grey suits they all seemed to wear.  I still think these are good reasons to dislike Simple  Minds by the way, I'm not going completely soft in middle age.

People have often, especially in recent years, tried to convince me that there is merit in their works and I can see that there is a charm to some of their mid-80s pop material. Don't You Forget About Me is one of the components that makes The Breakfast Club an enjoyable film. However it would be stupid of me, really stupid and churlish, to deny that this song from 1980 is a bold and innovative piece of electronic pop music.

Theme For Great Cities

We're Not Done

This song from Mogwai came out back in June, from a soundtrack they've done for a sci fi film called Kin. The full soundtrack is out at the end of the month and also features an instrumental called Donuts that came out back in April. We're Not Done (End Title) picks up where last year's superb Party In The Dark left off with hazy vocals, washes of feedback and overdriven guitars and a sense of uplift among the noise and unease. A bit like standing in the hallway between two rooms, one where My Bloody Valentine are on a crappy radio and another where a pop group are playing, a bit indistinct but enough to hear the difference between the verses and chorus. Very nice indeed.

Situation

There's an interesting read here about one of the most sampled sounds, a laugh that found its way onto records by (but not only) Derrick May, Deee Lite, Snoop Dogg, Roni Size, S'Express and the Macarena. To summarise, when Yazoo were recording the B-side to what would become a number one single (Only You), Vince Clarke and Daniel Miller caught Alison Moyet off-guard with a load of reverb piled onto her vocal mic. She laughed. Clarke and Miller decided to keep the laugh on the song, and it works really well, opening the song up after its electro-pop introduction but before her vocal, trampling all over a man who done wronged her.

Situation

Situation became one of those songs which got picked up in the USA and became an underground club song. It then got re-purposed by the next wave of artists. In Detroit Derrick May under his Rhythm Is Rhythim name layered it all over Nude Photo, one of the tracks that would invent techno. From there it was used in countless tracks, from hip hop to Eurobeat.

I'll save you the bother of searching for Nude Photo if you're at work, which might prick the interest of the boys down in the I.T. Dept.

DX Marks The Spot

Newly out on vinyl is this four track ep from Timothy J Fairplay called DX Marks The Spot. The title track rides in on a massive kick drum and some bass that will cause your speakers to vibrate before one of those trademark spooky, science fiction synth top lines comes in.



Tim does song titles better than most- here's a new ocontender for 2018- Phantom Guard Dogs Of Chomolungma. It sounds like a lost track from the Escape From New York soundtrack, circling synthesiser riffs and 80s drum track, melodies which get inside your head and stick there.

Running For Cover

I heard St Etienne's You're In A Bad Way on the radio recently and was reminded what a good song it is, a perfect early 90s version of 60s pop. I've always loved the way Sarah coos the line 'don't you know that crew cuts and trainers are out again?' to the subject of her affections, someone who has let himself go but who should give her a call. I'm not sure this video has aged very well....

Funnily You're In A Bad Way was initially meant to be a B-side but Heavenly insisted on its release as a single. The song that was to be the A-side was Everlasting, a much more house influenced song with a chunky early 90s drum track and bassline, Pete, Bob and Sarah taking their cues from Chicago and Detroit as much as 60s London. The synths sound very like Bernard Sumner's from the same time in Electronic. Everlasting was then unreleased until the deluxe edition of So Tough in 2009. It shows the strength and depth of songs the group had at the time that they could shelve Everlasting and leave it in the vaults.

Everlasting