The Great Lost Band Of The 90s

There's general agreement round Bagging Area's way that One Dove's Morning Dove White is the great lost album of the 90s, packed with Weatherall's production, great songs, Dot Allison's vox and loads of after-club atmosphere. In their limited back catalogue there's a few other gems- I've posted their cover of Jolene and the Weatherall remix of Breakdown (Squire Black Dove rides Out). This song, Skanga, was tucked away on the Why Don't You Take Me single (various formats, cd, 12" double pack etc). I think by this point the record company were getting a little desparate for a hit. Skanga is five and a half minutes of dub-house loveliness with a strangely off key vocal from Dot. What's bemusing is why the album featured two versions of two of the songs, White Love and Breakdown (it had both the superior Weatherall mixes and inferior Stephen Hague radio mixes of each song), when this and Jolene would've made an eleven track beauty. But then whoever thought record companies knew what they were doing?

One Dove - 02 Skanga.mp3

Space Woman

I was going to go for a Bunnymen hat-trick with an obscure late period B-side but judging by the download stats no-one's that interested, so instead here's a superb piece of space disco from 1977, Space Woman by Herman's Rocket. Containing far less cosmic cheese than The Ultimate Warlord from a few weeks back, this is a great track with a huge synth bassline.

Space_Woman.mp3

Through The Fog We'll Keep On Beaming

Here it is, the song that's been in my head all day- The Game by Echo And The Bunnymen. It's the last great Bunnysong by the original line-up, released in 1987 as the first single ahead of their self-titled fifth album (otherwise known as the grey album). The album was panned, the band didn't like it, or each other. Result? The US loved it, it sold half a million, they did a tour of enormo-domes, and later co-headlined the Monsters Of Alternative Rock (ugh) tour with New Order.

01 The Game.wma#1

C C C Cucumber

I woke up this morning with Echo And The Bunnymen's The Game playing in my head- not sure why, maybe it's September becoming October and that stuff in The Game about changing seasons and everybody having their own good reason why their favourite season is their favourite season. Maybe not.

I've just realised I don't have The Game on the hard drive, so it'll have to wait until later in the week. In the meantime, here's a crackers remix of Thorn Of Crowns. Go Home Productions Mark Vidler has produced many wonderful mash-ups, including Ray Of Gob and How Soon Is Independance, both featured previously at Bagging Area. This isn't a mash up. It's Thorn Of Crowns (possibly my least favourite track from Ocean Rain 'the greatest album ever made', the one where McCulloch goes 'c c c cucumber, c c c cauliflower, c c c cabbage') remixed with an in-yer-face electronic backing. The band apparently loved it. I imagine Bunnymen purists will hate it. I'm somewhere in between. See what you think.

Thorn Of Crowns (Go Home Productions remix).mp3

Default Mode- More Audrey

One of the best records from the last few years- Fuck Buttons' Sweet Love For Planet Earth, remixed by Andrew Weatherall. Music to lose yourself in. Smoking.

Sweet Love For Planet Earth (Andrew Waetherall Remix).mp3

I've Been Waiting So Long

A third track from David Holmes' mix on the London Xpress NME/Xfm free cd for you, following the Family Of God and Joy Zipper posts last week. This is Ella Fitzgerald covering hoary old rock band Cream's Sunshine Of Your Love, and it's really, really good, with horns replacing that guitar riff and predictably huge vocals.

I have now broken a Bagging Area unwritten rule of not posting anything by Eric Clapton, even though he doesn't appear on this. And yes Clapton apologists, I know, Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers etc, but it's a personal prejudice formed in the 1980s and I can't do anything about it.

19 Sunshine Of Your Love.wma

Railway Crossing

We've been camping near Carnforth, Lancashire this weekend for a friend's 40th (cold nights, no rain, sunny days, drunken evenings, very good all told). We were waiting at a level crossing with this Underworld song pumping away on the car stereo, complete with ringing bells and the sound of trains whooshing past.

That's it. I am very tired.

King Of Snake_ Ashley Beedle_s Save Our Discos Re-Edit.mp3

We Shun Publicity

Sometimes I need a short, sharp, shock of punk rock to blow the cobwebs away. This is Subway Sect, who genuinely couldn't play, were inspired by seeing Sex Pistols gigs, played the 100 Club festival in 1976, and had something to say. Nobody's Scared was released in 1978 on manager Bernie Rhodes Braik Records. Rhodes later sacked the band except for singer Vic Goddard and a whole album was left unreleased (cleaned up and released eventually in the last year or two, if anyone's heard it I'd like to know if it's worth getting). Rhodes released another Subway Sect single, Ambition, which he had keyboards plastered all over. Goddard later became a postman, before making various comebacks. None of which takes anything away from this urgent, clattering 7" single.

Nobody's Scared.mp3

Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 30

It wouldn't be right to do this Friday series without featuring serial Bagging Area offenders The Clash in some way. A love of rockabilly was brought to the band by Paul Simonon and Joe Strummer, and they recorded numerous rockabilly songs, either covers or their own, starting with Vince Taylor's Brand New Cadillac on London Calling. This is Long Time Jerk, a little known Clash song from 1983, the B-side to Know Your Rights. It opens with one of Joe's greatest introductions-

'We gotta scrape the trouble off our boots!'

This Friday night rockabilly series has to stop somewhere and I think this is it. We've gone from the early 50s to 2010 with 30 different bands or artists, rocking, rolling, shaking and smoking. If you want to investigate further I recommend Max Decharne's new book Rocket In My Pocket, and the accompanying cd. Available from all good stockists. I'm sure I'll come back to posting some from time to time- in the meantime quiffs up, jeans turned up, sleeves rolled up and off we go...

19 Long Time Jerk.wma

Childish Stuff

It's been a while since we had anything from Mr Billy Childish round Bagging Area's way. This is Pokerhuntus Was Her Name by Billy's 90s incarnation Thee Headcoats. If you're a fan of Billy Childish's abrasive, 60s garage rock style stuff you'll like this. Or own it already. If not use it as a starting for exploring the career of a man who has made 100s of records in a thirty year career. I think a deerstalker may be this season's headgear of choice. A Bagging Area style tip for you.

08 Pokerhuntus Was Her Name (Album).mp3

Your Aching Spanish Heart

808 State's breakthrough album Ex El from 1991 featured several of their best tunes (Lift, In Yer Face, Cubik), two collaborations with Bjork, and this song co-written with and sung by Bernard Sumner. Spanish Heart is a lovely piece of Sumner dance-melancholia, great backing from Massey, Price and the other two (not that Other Two), and a close cousin of several tracks on the first Electronic album. Very of it's time and very good.

Spanish Heart.mp3

I Guess A Twinkle In Her Eye Is Just A Twinkle In Her Eye

In a deft step to the side, Bagging Area presents some hip hop from 1993- The Pharcyde's Passing Me By. 1993 was fairly close to when I stopped listening to hip hop. The Pharcyde, a Californian four piece, using self-deprecating humour, rapping about wishing they weren't such a wimp, and sampling Quincy Jones, Weather Report and Jimi Hendrix on this single, with vinyl crackle all over the start. As people say at the moment, what's not to like? The four mc's take it in turns to describe school day crushes on unattainable girls, and contains one of my favourite rhymes- 'now there she goes again, the dopest Ethiopian'. If you don't normally listen to this kind of thing, you should make an exception here.

It's also to the best of my knowledge the only rap song to use the word nincompoop as an insult.

The Pharcyde - Passing Me By.mp3

I Like Your Clothes When They're Undone

Also from the David Holmes mix on the 2000 London Xpress cd New York's Joy Zipper with Check Out My New Jesus. Distorted guitars, stoned drumming, l-a-z-y vocals about new jeans, Jesus and like other stuff man, and a general summery, narcotic haze. Tabitha Tindale and Vincent Cafiso went on to work with David Holmes and Kevin Shields, and be scuppered by collapsing record companies.

13 Check Out.wma

God's Children

Here's an oddity.

Back in 2000 the NME and Xfm put a cd out, free with the NME, with mixes by Andrew Weatherall and David Holmes. I know that the idea of either NME or Xfm being associated with the distribution of good music may seem strange today, but stick with me.

The cd was called London Xpress. You can pick it up on ebay for a few quid. Weatherall contributed a mix of seven mainly minimal tech-house tracks. Holmes put in a brief alternative version of his legendary Essential Mix, opening with this track- Family Of God by Family Of God. It's laid back and trippy, has bah-bah-bah backing vocals and American children talking about their idea of what God is like. Listening to it, it seems to be recorded with a kind of Super 8 film quality (if that makes any sense), and actually would work really well with the Go! Team track I posted the other day now I think about it. Discogs says Family Of God were Adam Peters and Chris Brick who recorded a few albums and singles in the late 90s. That's the sum of knowledge I have about the them.

The rest of Holmes mix was equally druggy, electic and inspired, with an early Joy Zipper track (Check Out The Patches On My New Jeans), a couple of solo tracks from Bow Down To The Exit Sign, some Keith Mansfield, some Fred Neil, some Hot Butter and Ella Fitzgerald doing Sunshine Of Your Love. I'll stick some of it up here over the next week or so.

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This Was A Pizza Hut, Now It's All Covered With Daisies

Another installment in the continuing adventures of Johnny Marr after he left The Smiths.

Talking Heads recorded four (count 'em) groundbreaking albums between 1977 and 1981, reinvented the concert film and the pop video, went from four, to four plus Brian Eno, to four plus any number of ex-P-Funk players, then stripped it all back and fell out. They reconvened for 1988's Naked, which still sounds like a weird add on to their back catalogue, but has some good songs on it.

Not least this one, Nothing But Flowers, featuring David Byrne's lyric about nature taking over and reclaiming the shopping malls, car parks and fast food eateries, and some impossibly funky, African highlife style guitar, from Mr Marr.

Talking Heads - Nothing But Flowers.mp3

Go! Go! Go!

When The Go! Team's Thunder, Lightning, Strike album came out in 2004 it was a blast of fresh air. Ian Parton's studio project (and later 6 piece live band) mixed up old skool hip-hop, kid's toy's melodies, Sonic Youth style guitar, double dutch rhyming, soundtracks, and general funky stuff. This song- Everyone's A VIP To Someone -was the album closer, and sounds like the theme tune to a 70s TV show you dimly remember watching as a kid. A perfect mix of retro and new.

11 Everyone's a V.I.P. to Someone.wma

Their Necks Crane

Massive Attack's recent album Heligoland, like all their albums since the still astonishing Blue Lines, was a bit of a mixed bag of guest appearances, some good songs, some padding and the strong whiff of jazz cigarettes. Paradise Circus (featuring Hope Sandoval) and Pray For Rain (featuring TV On The Radio's Tunde Adebimpe) were two standouts. A bunch of remixes followed the album, and this one is the best- Tim Goldsworthy sends the song out clubbing (a cool club though, not a city centre 2-shots-for-quid type of place).

Pray For Rain (Tim Goldsworthy Remix).mp3

Smile

The Isley Brothers' Behind A Painted Smile- joyous, guitar led soul with wonderful vocals from 1968. It does that 60s happy/sad thing as well as any other northern soul record from that time. In an interview last year Johnny Marr said this was a huge influence on him and Morrissey when The Smiths started. That Isley guitar line could easily fit on This Charming Man.

Behind A Painted Smile.mp3

Makes My Back Burn

I have little or no interest in The Cult, or anything else they have done, but this is a ridiculously good song. Long version for extra intro and drama. Do that funny dance. Shake your arms around. Get a bandanna. You know you want it.

she sells sanctuary long version.mp3

Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 29

Johnny Marr kicks off Friday night's rockabilly rave-up this week. His rockabilly influences were worn on his sleeve from early on The Smiths, with Rusholme Ruffians on Meat Is Murder, and some later songs as well (Strangeways' Death At Ones Elbow for one). He also sported a mighty fine quiff. His various projects and guest appearances since havn't been too heavy on rockabilly but his mid-00s band The Healers album saw a brief revival. This is Need It, loaded with rockabilly rhythm and spirit. It's possibly the only track on the album I could still listen to - it was heavily Oasis-ised, and as various people pointed out at The Vinyl Villain this week, not very popular. Actuually looking at the track listing, Down On The Corner's pretty good too. But enough Marr conjecture, on with the Diddley shuffle...

04 Need It.wma