The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 106

Today is Friday. Friday means rockabilly and today Friday means payday as well. And as Carl Belew sang when covering Radney Foster, 'if I could get my hands on some f-olding money'.

Drink? Believe I will.

Folding Money

Two Small Men Cutting Footsteps In The Roof Of The World

It's been the 60th anniversary of Tenzing and Hillary's ascent of Everest this week. There have been a load of previously unseen photographs published some of which are pretty amazing. Does anyone still climb Everest in woolly jumpers? I hope so.

I've posted the video to Public Service Broadcasting's song Everest before, one of my favourite songs of last year. The PSB album came out recently and is well worth getting. It sounds like a proper lp and Everest is one of the standouts. The only slight letdown with it is, if you bought the earlier singles and eps, you've got almost a third of it already. But no matter- it's a winner anyway. Everest was remixed several times when it came out as a single. Here's one of them.

Everest (Iron Butterflies Remix)

Tweed Mix

The Soundcloud hour long dj mix is one of the wonders of the internet age- yes, even better than clips of cats falling off pianos. An hour is a good length- it doesn't overface you like a two or three hour mix can, allows enough time for some good ebb and flow, and provides a good soundtrack to a commute/trip. The recent Weatherall British council one and the one he did for Faber, the Justin Robertson one for Gomma, the Scott Fraser machine one and the David Holmes garage rock one have all been recent Bagging Area favourites (scroll down the page, they're all there). This Weatherall one appeared in association with Manchester's Warehouse Project last December. Lap it up.

The photo is a piece of product placement for Walker Slater, manufacturer of high quality tweeds. Our model is pictured wearing a three piece grey Birds Eye herringbone with red and yellow windowpane, 'timeless style and never with a twist (the last refuge of the charlatan)'. Obviously they are also expensive so I won't be rocking one at work in the foreseeable future.

Sorry there haven't been any mp3s this week- they'll be back tomorrow. It's been one of those weeks technologywise. Don't even get me started on the topic of mobile phones.



System of Survival ‘Crash What’
Baldelli and Rocca ‘Terrapoda’
E. Project ‘Mozaik’
Blancmange ‘Title Unknown’
Clarion ‘All Over All Kinds’
Crooked Man ‘I’ll be Koving You’
Phil Kieran ‘Lose Your Love (Andrew Weatherall Remix)’
Andrew Weatherall ‘Dub We May, Sail We Must’
Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry ‘Soul Man (Ricardo Villalobos Remix)’

Le Sacre Du Printemps

Pushing the boundaries of this blog a little bit further than usual, this evening is the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Stravinsky's Le Sacre Du Printemps (The Rites Of Spring). Now this is some way outside my area of expertise but let's consider the facts- this was a piece of music that deliberately set out to shock, has multiple layered patterns, polyrhythmic whatnots, pounding drums, invented a completely new strand of modern music, has been described as cubism set to music, is supposed to be played while people dance, and on its debut led to audience members fighting with each other and riots between conservatives and modernists. Take that Primal Scream.

I've no idea whether this 2010 performance is a good one or not and obviously footage and bootlegs of the original 1913 performance are hard to come by. If anyone knows of any superior versions please let me know. But as one Youtube commenter says 'God damn. Stravinsky always leaves me wondering whether I want to fuck or go blind'.

Shall We Take A Trip Down Memory Lane?

I've read a couple of unconnected references to Northside recently and I don't ignore things like that when thinking about stuff to post here. Northside haven't fared well in the long term, seen as chancers, the runts of the Madchester litter, looked down on as not being worthy of being on Factory Records. But their sparkly, jangle pop with a funky drummer backbeat isn't as bad as it's been painted. First single Shall We Take A Trip? is the one everyone remembers, with its opening chant of 'L....S....D'. Obviously it was banned by the Beeb (drug references apparently) but still made the Top 50 and bizarrely was used as the theme tune to Granada Soccer Night throughout the early 90s. By the time the album Chicken Rhythms came out in 1991 Dermo, Cliff, Michael and Paul had had an NME front cover but gone out the exit door on the other side. In between they had this cracker of a single, My Rising Star...



But the truth is this single already sounded a teensie bit cliched by the time it came out. A vastly superior version was played live by the band on the semi-legendary Madchester- The Sound Of the North documentary which bravely attempted to capture the Mancunian zeitgeist in 50 minutes, despite the refusal to play ball of The Stone Roses and the absence of other key players. Northside come in at around the five minute thirty seconds mark in this clip. It also features a youthful Stuart Maconie being ironic in Dry Bar.



I videoed this programme and we sat around with it on often. Watching it now brings everything back in huge rushes- 'shall we take a trip down memory lane?, head in the clouds in the acid rain, time means nothing I can smell the trees, chase that rainbow with the summer breeze....sing LSD, sing LSD'.

Diego

I love this picture of Diego Maradona in his Boca Juniors shirt and carpet slippers. I saw Diego Maradona play once. In the 1983-4 season United drew Barcelona in the quarter-finals of the European Cup Winner's Cup. Away in the first leg United came home two-nil  down, centre back Graham Hogg diverting the ball into his own net right at the end of the game. Two weeks later Barca came to Old Trafford for a match that still stands out for me as the best game I've ever attended. We didn't have much hope of going through. Two-nil down,a Barca away goal would finish us. As well as Maradona, then ascending to 'best player in the world' status, they had mop-haired midfield maestro Bernd Schuster in their side as well. Old Trafford was crammed to the rafters, Maradona barely got a kick and Frank Stapleton and Bryan Robson scored the three goals that sent us through to the semis (a tie against Juventus, who had a team containing Boniek, Platini and Rossi amongst others. Another amazing night at the football, from when European nights were a rarity rather than an expectation). Robson left the pitch on the shoulders of the thousands of fans who poured onto the pitch at the final whistle. Not me, as my brother frequently reminds me. I didn't want to get clobbered by a copper. At the Juventus game a copper threatened to break my arm if I tried to walk down a certain gangway again. Friendly chaps the GMP.

None of which has anything to do with this song I found recently. It's one of those deeply clubby chuggers, Love From Outer Space style jobs. Very good. May wear the carpet out if played late at night in subdued lighting through some decent speakers. Headman featuring Scott Fraser and Douglas McCarthy remixed by Hardway Bros.

A Little Souvenir

Back from camping- I took this photo on Saturday morning. The weather was lovely all the way through to Sunday night. Some members of our party even got a little sunburned. It's been great to get away, to sit in a field around a fire, drinking wine, chatting. There's something about getting up and being outside straight away that nullifies a hangover as well. This morning, as we were beginning to pack up, the heavens opened and didn't stop. Our car boot is currently full of one very wet tent.

I got in, unpacked some of the car, stuck BBC 6 on and this song was playing.



No d/l I'm afraid. My Boxnet bandwidth has been exceeded for May and my 4Shared account has recently been terminated due to a 'three strikes and you're out' rule over DMCA bobbins.

Nights Under Canvas

I'm off camping after work tonight, three nights in a field with the family and three other families in the Lake District. Weather forecast is dry enough not to cancel. Red wine and airbeds ahoy! Pop the corks and let the nippers run free. See you late Monday or Tuesday my amigos.

The Nights Are Cold (acoustic version)

Breaking Rocks In The TV Studio

I found this somewhat unrehearsed but very endearing version of The Pogues with Joe doing I Fought The Law live on Irish TV back in 1987. Pogues guitarist Phil Chevron has recently been diagnosed with inoperable cancer of the head and neck- best wishes to him and his family. While I'm here, this is for SH and JG as well.

Transient Truth

Posting that Death In Vegas song on Monday night prompted me to think that it's been ages since I posted any One Dove. So, plucking a track fairly randomly from the hard drive we get the Old Toys Mix of Transient Truth. There are half a dozen different mixes of this song, most of them by Weatherall and his Sabres Of Paradise cronies Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns. This one is a killer- 120 bpm with a deep dubby bassline, pulsing synthlines, squelches and bleeps, a bit of Dot. They used to call it Progressive House. It still sounds like progress.

Transient Truth Old Toys Mix

Tomorrow

I suppose part of the appeal of writing a song called Tomorrow is it will never be old will it, it will always sound like tomorrow. And tomorrow never comes. Or knows. Or dies. Or something. Liverpool's Clinic sound gleefully old but never archaic, all Velvets organ and two chord fuzz and Adrian Blackburn's nasal vocals. A much under-rated band. I saw them soundchecking once on an afternoon by accident, without their stagewear on. It took some of the magic away.

Tomorrow

I have no idea what's going on the picture but if I ever get forced out on the fairway I shall be dressed like one of these chaps.

Under Dub Wood

You gonna love this- Richard Burton reading Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood over a King Tubby dub track (all put together by The Dubwood Allstars). 7" single available here. Best thing I've heard today.



Edit- you can't buy the 7". It's out of stock. Unsurprisingly.

Justin Time

Justin Robertson and his Deadstock 33s are on a roll at the moment with remixes, an album, and dj sets all over the place. In this mix he 'explores the far out borders of contemporary dance music'. Free download and worth every byte. There are some cracking tunes on this.

Dirge Dub

I missed a comment left a month or so ago from a reader called J who was looking for this- Death In Vegas's Dirge (with the lovely Dot Allison on vox) remixed by dubmaster Adrian Sherwood. And though this may tip me towards the edge of the monthly bandwidth with Boxnet I'll stick it back up anyway. Dubbed out Monday nights.

Dirge (Adrian Sherwood Remix)

Hippy Shake

Devendra Banhart, nu-hippy supremo, cropped up at Acid Ted on Friday- a most unexpected Acid Ted artist. I'm not a huge fan of Mr Banhart but I like these two songs. Forget About Him has an ace shuffly rhythm and is a cover of a Kath Bloom song.

Forget About Him

I borrowed a Banhart album from a friend several years ago- I don't seem to have made a copy of it, not a digital one anyway. There may be a cassette somewhere (which would date it to pre-2007 for me). This song was the best one on it. I Feel Just Like A Child stays just the right side of cloying, grooving along like an acoustic T Rex....

Forty Three

It's my forty-third birthday today - I haven't got much to say about that really, it's just forty three- but I'm celebrating it here with a recent Weatherall mix, done for the Selector programme for The British Council, who promote British arts abroad. Sounds like a good job to have. This mix is what the word eclectic was invented for, opening with the old musical theme for Thames TV and then taking in some low key sounds, some folky tunes and some stuff from over there and yonder. Very lovely too.




1. Johnny Hawksworth – Salute To Thames
2. A Foggy Day (In London Town) – Dirk Bogarde
3. Mount Vernon Arts Lab – The Mandrake Club
4. Anthroprophh – Ende
5. The Unthanks – The Romantic Trees
6. The Durutti Column – A Room In Southport
7. Jah Wobble – Highgate
8. Belbury Poly – A Pilgrim’s Way
9. Phil Manzanera – Islands (Secret Fingers Remix)
10. The Deadstock 33s – Impatient For Your Love
11. Pye Corner Audio – November Sequence
12. Woodcraft Folk – Blok Flute
13. Sir John Betjeman – The Licorice Fields of Pontefract
14. Temples – Shelter Song

Weatherall contributes 'five songs you should hear this week' to Erol Alkan's website here, taking in Charles Mingus, The Monks, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Mad Man Jones and The Mighty Wah! Again, eclectic- we got it.

Breaking Rocks In The Hot Sun

Today, from 11 til 2, I shall be manning the book stall at Park Road Nursery's summer fair. Not exactly breaking rocks I know. And the weather forecast for M33 is for heavy rain and not hot sun. Last year the big sellers on the stall were various celebrity autobiographies in hardback (prices ranged from 30p to 50p depending on my judgement), a book on pond care and a dvd boxed set of five Steven Seagal films. But that was very much just the tip of the iceberg. The Quakers, Park Road, Sale- pop in if you're free, say hello and leave with some quality literature.

I Fought The Law is one of the great rock 'n' roll songs, written by Sonny Curtis and The Crickets. I'm not sure The Bobby Fuller Four's version has been bettered- as Paul Simonon pointed out, it's the way those guitar chords are so 'light and feathery'. I played this at a mate's wedding and it went down a storm. Bobby Fuller met a very sticky end, found dead in his car with foul play suspected though the verdict was suicide.

I Fought The Law

The Clash's version is superb- from Topper's opening salvo through to Joe's impassioned delivery. The breakdown on the line 'robbing people with a -dum, dum, blum, blum, blum, blum- six gun' is especially thrilling. This live version is The Clash at their most black-clad glorious. Best bit- when the three man front line step up to the mics in sync to bawl out the opening line.



It's been covered endlessly, the 60s girl group version by The She Trinity being one of my favourites ('He fought the law and the law won'). Most recently Johnny Marr has been encoring with it and doing it very well too. As evidenced here in San Francisco, along with fellow former Wythenshawe resident Billy Duffy.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 105

I said to Drew in the pub on Tuesday night (during our top level blog summit) that I didn't know how much longer I can keep this Friday night series going. I think I'm close to exhausting my rockabilly goldmine. This song featured here before, three years ago, in the original Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night series (number 3 fact fans). It is the greatest rockabilly song in the world. It is just over two minutes of 1950s perfection. It is about leaving a girl in Kansas City and not being able to eat or sleep. It has a stupendously great riff. It is Wayne Walker and frankly, when it is playing, it is all you need.

All I Can Do Is Cry

All You Gotta Do Is Hustle

Tom Courtenay has just said to Pattie Boyd, while walking Thameside in the rain in 1966, 'Yeah, so actually my favourite way of getting kicks is to go down town and hustle chicks', and Pattie has replied 'You what pal?' Leaving Tom to dig his way out of the whole Beaver Patrol problem.

The original of yesterday's Poppies cover.

Beaver Patrol

My Favourite Way Of Getting Kicks

There's a grebo reunion package tour about to do the rounds- Jesus Jones, The Wonderstuff and Pop Will Eat Itself. Steady, don't rush off to Ticketmaster all at once. If Jesus Jones were playing in our back garden I'd pull the blinds down and turn up the TV, and The Wonderstuff would probably turn the bar into a giant magnet but I'd quite enjoy PWEI. I saw them in my first term as a student at Liverpool University and they were dead good fun. I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't know Beaver Patrol was a cover until much later as well (Shadows Of Knight, 60s nugget band). Beaver Patrol is of course infantile, purile and sexist. At the gig, autumn '88, I was talking to a grebo girl I quite fancied. I was wearing a bandanna (around my head) and a white shirt with a waistcoat. Thought I was cutting quite a dash. I only realised later that several times I'd referred to PWEI's Clint as Clive. Although maybe it was the bandanna that damaged my chances more.

Beaver Patrol