Treat.
Another Hallowe'en related post, for all my saying I'm not a fan. This is an eerie slice of breakbeat led, 80s horror film indebted electronica and very good it is too, from Slighter whose apocalyptic romance Our Own End I posted a while back. Available for free from Bandcamp. Well worth the email address exchange involved.
I'm not a big fan of Hallowe'en but it gives me the excuse to post this slightly disturbing picture from the USA in 1959 and this mix from Mr Weatherall from this time last year- an hours worth of spooky sounds and plenty of 50s and 60s rock 'n' roll, rockabilly and psych, featuring amongst others Gin Gillette, Sparkle Moore and Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads (with Cramps' cover Goo Goo Muck).
Arab Strap's Packs Of Three contains possibly the most attention grabbing opening line of any song I've heard. They always sounded like a night out/total existence that had gone about as wrong as it could, so whether this song is an advert for safe sex or not I'm not sure.
Brand new up on Youtube today, an Andrew Weatherall remix of Lose Your Love by Le Carousel (from an e.p. out at the end of November). Nice video too with that camera trick where everything looks like models doing stop-motion animation.
It's a small skip and jump from Roddy's Aztec Camera to Edwyn Collins and Orange Juice. Their Postcard single Blue Boy is a hyper-excited rush of trebly guitars and fresh faced enthusiasm that sounds almost too good three decades later. They'd never make it to bootcamp. Tulisa would criticise Edwyn's singing. The whole thing could fall apart at any moment. Gary would do that smirk thing, shaking his head slowly. Louis would say he couldn't see the wow factor. They'd have to be re-styled to look exactly the same as everyone else. And to sound the same as everyone else. Lord help us.
There aren't many days that can't be immediately improved by a spinning of Aztec Camera's 1983 single Oblivious. Brilliant tune, sprightly guitar playing, cracking lyric, and written, recorded and released when Roddy Frame was twelve years old or something. When Rough Trade put this out it just missed out on the top 40. When WEA re-released it was a hit. Bloody majors with their big budgets.
Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay. Apart from being a lovely word to say, Montevideo was the home of the first football World Cup back in 1930. In the picture the French national team relax on deck on their way to the finals which were eventually won by Italy. Host nation Uruguay would go on to win the following tournament four years later.
Montevideo are also a Belgian indie pop outfit who produce music for fans of 'funereal beauty'. They've made this song Castles (remixed by spindly legged, black clad Horror Tom Furse) available for free download from Soundcloud. Starts out all murky then lurches into sunny psychedelia. Just the thing for Saturday morning at the start of half term.
Back to the 50s for tonight's rockabilly, this time with Bobby Lord and a wonderfully unhinged vocal performance. Bobby's had enough, Lord knows, no more, no more, no more.
The Gun Club's first album, Fire Of Love, is a Bagging Area favourite, best played loud. Its best known song is Sex Beat, a prowling four chord romp. Their punk driven country/rockabilly formed a substantial part of The White Stripe's make up, amongst others. On Two Lone Swordsmen's Double Gone Chapel album Weatherall and Tenniswood turned in a fine cover version having added guitars and singing to their electronics. The single version came with a remix of Sex Beat that flipped back to the low key electronics of earlier TLS.
We Ain't Got Mates. October 25th has become Keeping It Peel Day in recent years, a series of blog tributes to John Peel's radio shows, eclectic tastes and the influence he had on so many people who just wanted to hear the stuff they weren't playing on daytime radio. Recent news stories have left a bit of a bad taste in the mouth where Peel is concerned (even if none of the stories are actually news. He wrote about the underage Texan wife in his autobiography published after he died, having been completed by his wife Sheila). I'm not entirely sure where I stand on all of this re: Peel at the moment but we'll Keep It Peel musically anyway. Half Man Half Biscuit were Peel Sessioneers on six occasions (I think). The magnificently titled Four Skinny Indie Kids Drinking Weak Lager was from a 1998 session and features Peel introducing it. Verse 1 kicks off with - 'Bleak cheap interview Pool cue fancy pants Chic Bates apricot Short term sweat Hamstring monument Shark shit welterweight Topsoil Chapterhouse Christ-like mince' And has this as a middle eight- 'We’ve got lo-fi, we’ve got tie-dye We’ve got grey and brown and black We’ve got stickers on guitars We’ve got a tape for Steve Lamacq We’ve got celibate lead singers We’ve got Sebadoh’s and Docs But what ain’t we got? We ain't got mates' Four Skinny Indie Kids Drinking Weak Lager
I'm reading Tony Fletcher's new biography of The Smiths at the moment. The early chapters are pretty good on late 70s and early 80s Manchester. Wythenshawe's Slaughter and the Dogs crop up frequently; as one of north west England's first punk bands who supported the Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, as the big boys of Johnny Marr's teenage locality and after the departure of vocalist Wayne Barrett briefly as the band for Morrissey's early ventures as a singer. Mani says they're his favourite band also. A version of Slaughter continues to perform at punk festivals. This is 1978 punk rock, as it was received in the largest council estate in Europe.
You wouldn't have thought there'd be too much to get out of forming a band and making a record that sounds exactly like early Jesus And Mary Chain but with a girl singing. However Safety Net by The Shop Assistants would prove you to be wrong.
A random Mary Chain post. This appeared through the car speakers on Friday evening driving home and sounded great. It's the re-recorded 1987 version from the film Some Kind Of Wonderful- slightly more polished than the Psychocandy original. But not much.
This Margie Geddes. When she died aged 96 over a hundred love letters and postcards from John Betjeman were found under her bed. Betjeman was quite the ladies' man, having a wife and a mistress besides Margie and several engagements behind him. I posted a Youtube video of his poem The Licorice Fields Of Pontefract set to some nice guitar and horn backing by Jim Parker in 1974 the other day. For your convenience and pleasure this Sunday morning I've ripped it. Somehow a bit of poetry feels right for a Sunday morning.
In the licorice fields at Pontefract My love and I did meet And many a burdened licorice bush Was blooming round our feet; Red hair she had and golden skin, Her sulky lips were shaped for sin, Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd The strongest legs in Pontefract. The light and dangling licorice flowers Gave off the sweetest smells; From various black Victorian towers The Sunday evening bells Came pealing over dales and hills And tanneries and silent mills And lowly streets where country stops And little shuttered corner shops. She cast her blazing eyes on me And plucked a licorice leaf; I was her captive slave and she My red-haired robber chief. Oh love! for love I could not speak, It left me winded, wilting, weak, And held in brown arms strong and bare And wound with flaming ropes of hair.
Our local free newspaper The Sale and Altrincham Messenger reported this week that Frank Sidebottom's statue could be unveiled in Timperley village on April 1st next year. The funds for the statue have been raised by public subscription to the tune of £20, 000. The SAM's letters page is one of the highlights of my week- thanks to people who helped when someone fell over in the precinct, complaints about broken paving stones, complaints about dog shit, complaints about council tax, recent discussions about how to pronounce Sale scientist JP Joule's name (Joo-el or Jow-el), various defences of the 11 plus exam; these are all regular features. I'm looking forward to next week's letters page where someone will inevitably complain about Frank's proposed statue.
Frank was a big fan of Altrincham FC, the giant killing non-league team. I've seen them a few times, though not while killing any giants. This is one of Frank's recorded tributes to The Robbins.
I promised The Cramps' Peel Session cover version of Andy Starr's Give Me A Woman last Friday evening and here it is a week later, all the way from 1986. I'll have several of whatever you're having (within reason).
To answer the question, er, sometimes yes I think so.
I've always found the triple threat of Page, Beck and Clapton a bit offputting when it comes to The Yardbirds. But their modish roots, Keith Relf's hair and their beat boom rocking blues can be more than fine from time to time. I've got a cheap vinyl compilation bought back in the late 80s and that's about it apart from the odd track on compilations. Like this one.
Bagging Area loves The Smiths, from their first recorded note to the end of Strangeways, Here We Come. Except Golden Lights, no likes that. Bagging Area is somewhat choosier about Morrissey's solo career, which has had more ups and downs than a two year old on a trampoline. The first few records were promising- Suedehead was a great 'You can't knock me down' first single, Viva Hate had many good moments (Everyday Is Like Sunday particularly, Late Night Maudlin Street still hits me, a few others as well). The appearance and guitarwork of Vini Reilly and Viva Hate's high points can't be a coincidence. Last Of The International Playboys was a proper, Smithsy single that still sounds great today. After that we parted company me and Moz until a flirtation with Your Arsenal (mainly the ace glam stomp of Glamorous Glue)and then didn't get back together again until his post 2000 rebirth with You Are The Quarry, the better Ringleader Of The Tormentors and then Years Of Refusal. There are individual solo songs I've heard and liked but I don't own any other Morrissey solo lps apart from a best of.
Everyday Is Like Sunday is superb late 80s indie pop. A cracking tune and playing with a great lyric invoking the truly melancholic state of the English seaside town out-of-season. It also echoes Sir John Betjeman with his 'come friendly bombs and fall on Slough' line.
Betjeman recorded much of his poetry including this, The Licorice Fields Of Pontefract, set to music in fine style. I've been looking for this on 7" for years.
It's like punk never happened- PiL's I Must be Dreaming (one of the stand out tracks from this years This Is PiL album) remixed, sorry re-edited, by Meant and discofied. Not DISCO disco but still disco-ish. Good it is too.
What's the difference between a remix and re-edit?
I love Acid Jazz, beat poet, house/techno, beardy types Sandals out of all proportion to their actual output or the actual merits of their back catalogue. This one will make your speakers buzz and your head nod.
.jpg)