Giant Sized

Giant, the debut album by The Woodentops, came out forty years ago this week. It's a fantastic album, a slice of 1986 that is in some ways a unique sounding record, one that was a little out of step in 1986. It's indie but sounds little like the main indie attraction of 1986 (The Queen Is Dead) and had little in common with the other big indie hitters of that year- The Fall, Billy Bragg, R.E.M., The Housemartins, Husker Du and The Shop Assistants all made the NME's albums of 1986 with Giant pitching in at number 36*.

Rolo McGinty formed The Woodentops in South London in 1983 having spent some time in Liverpool playing bass with The Wild Swans and then joining The Jazz Butcher. The Liverpool connection s present with Frank de Freitas (brother of Bunnymen drummer Pete) playing bass in The Woodentops and them being joined by Simon Mawby, Alice Thompson and Benny Staples on drums. Staples added something different to the band- he played standing up and had a rack of hub caps that added a real bite tot he percussion and rhythms. Rolo strummed his acoustic guitar like he was trying to scrub several layers of it away and the use of acoustic instruments like marimba and accordion made them sound different. The songs were crafted, beautifully sung, hypnotic, upbeat and infectious. On disc they popped out of the speakers. Live they were twice the speed, hyper energetic and Rolo sang like his life depended on it. 

Good Thing

There isn't a bad song on Giant- Get It On, Good Thing and Give It Time are an uptempo and punchy opening trio, the swooning, rattling Love Train follows. Love Affair With Everyday Living sounds like nobody but The Woodentops. Travelling Man, Last Time, Everything Breaks make a strong final three songs. Their energy and speed hen playing live is caught brilliantly on Hypno- Beat, a live album released in 1987 with the band recorded playing at The Palace in Hollywood. It's been noted I think that was the night The Woodentops discovered ecstasy. The performance is most definitely ecstatic. 

The Woodentops found their way into the record box of the legendary Alfredo, a DJ playing records at Amnesia in Ibiza. Alfredo played whatever he liked- rock, soul, disco, early house, reggae, instrumentals, Belgian New Beat, ambient, New Age, anything that suited the mood of the outdoor dance floor and that people could enjoy under the stars. Why Why Why became part of the Balearic Beat, The Woodentops energy and dance rhythms fitting in with Alfredo's vision and spirit.  

Rolo posted on social media on Tuesday marking the fortieth anniversary of Giant's release and saying what a happy time it was for the band, hard work but great fun visiting countries they never imagined they'd play. He recounted being in a club in Kyoto, the Rubba Dub, and having an emotional moment standing looking at the band and road crew having the time of their lives on the dance floor and becoming teary eyed at the sight. 'The Giant tour... peak happiness all round', he wrote.  

Happy 40th birthday Giant. 

The Woodentops story didn't stop with Giant and it goes on still. Last year a revitalised Woodentops released Fruits Of The Deep and this week have put out a remix of one of the songs from the album, the Too Good To Stay (Night Club Mix)- funky, infectious, uplifting, danceable, indie rock.  Get it at Bandcamp.

* The NME's end of 1986 Albums of the Year is here and it's an interesting top ten showing that the NME's writers were of a fairly broad mind in the mid 80s. The indie ghetto they were famed for is not evident in the top 10 or the top 50. Prince topped the '86 chart and the top 10 found places for Mantronix, Run DMC, Paul Simon's Graceland, Cameo, Janet Jackson and Anita Baker as well as Sonic Youth (Evol at 4), The Fall (Bend Sinister at 7) and The Queen Is Dead (number 9). Melody Maker had The Beastie Boys at number 1 along with The Smiths, Prince, Elvis Costello, Throwing Muses, The The, R.E.M. and Big Audio Dynamite, with Giant coming in at number 16. 

River's Song

Richard Norris never stops, a endless flow of music coming from his monthly subscription at Bandcamp via his studio in Lewes. The latest piece of music is River's Song, the first fruits from a forthcoming album. Richard acquired some clips of 8mm film and then asked on social media for people to send him any further pieces of film they might have. The album, titled 8mm, is a musical response to those flickering images, past lives clicking and flickering by, captured by 1960s cine cameras on Kodak film. 

River's Song is a tremendously affecting and evocative piece of music, three minutes of treated piano/ keys very much in the Hauntology arena, the ghosts of people and lost places preserved on an obsolete film format several decades ago. River's Song is a version of lost futures idea of hauntology, as expounded by Jacques Derrida and Mark Fisher, captured in three minutes of piano. 

Second Of June

Back in 2024 The Jesus And Mary Chain returned with an album called Glasgow Eyes, one that sounded like the Reid brothers were enjoying the freedom of a creative spurt. Scuzzy synths, FX and drum machines were added to the guitars and it was a fairly intense and uncompromising record, one with a certain amount of swagger to it. Towards the end of the album was this song...

Second Of June

And it seemed most apt to post today. 

'There's a blood moon on the rise and murder in your eyes', Jim drawls as William strums an acoustic guitar and a drum machine patters away. 'Brother can you hear me calling you?' he carries on and then as if to remind everyone who they're listening to, in case they'd forgotten who was making this music, 'Face the sky/ Take cover before you die/ The Jesus and Mary Chain'. 

Monday's Long Songs

Sonic Youth's albums breakdown into three phases for me: the first phase is from 1982 to 1988 where they released increasingly inspired albums for indie labels SST (in the US) and Blast First (in the UK), culminating in Daydream Nation; the second is from 1990 when they signed to Geffen and released several albums that in one way or another were a response to being on a major label (Goo, Dirty and Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star); and then a long third phase from 1995's Washing Machine through to the end in 2009 with The Eternal. A big part of this third phase was the band becoming elder statesmen of indie- punk, no longer the youthful punks of the early 80s, and having to find ways to keep moving forwards without repeating themselves. They also were hugely affected by two events, the death by suicide of Kurt Cobain in 1994 and the Twin Towers attacks of 2001. 

Washing Machine was their ninth album and released not long after their headlining stint on the Lollapalooza tour. They'd had a period where they all explored side projects and Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon had a child, their daughter Coco. They decamped to Memphis, Tennessee to make Washing Machine, a most un- Sonic Youth place on the face of it, but they wanted to disconnect from the usual environment and surroundings and free themselves to make an album in a more relaxed way. 

Washing Machine opens with The Diamond Sea, a song that clocks in at just under twenty minutes (and a song they released as a single). In 1991- 2 Sonic Youth had toured with Neil Young and Crazy Horse and had been an influence on Neil releasing Weld, the feedback driven live album from the tour. In return, on The Diamond Sea Sonic Youth sound the most like Neil Young and Crazy Horse they ever would, the song a long ballad with overblown guitars and a very Neil opening line, both in the lyrics and Thurston's drawl- 'time takes it crazy toll'. The last line, and it's difficult not to hear the song as a tribute to Kurt Cobain in many ways, is another Neil Young sounding line- 'And love is running wild on the diamond sea'. 

In November 1995 the band were on tour again, playing Austin, Texas on the 15th. Towards the end of the set Thurston introduces the song by telling a story about the band playing Austin years before and meeting Terry Pearson who became their soundman from that point on. Then they fly into the song, Lee and Thurston's guitars wailing and roiling and Thurston singing like Neil Young. It's slightly shorter than the album version, just fourteen minutes, but it's a heck of a way to spend a quarter of an hour, the four Sonic Youthers locked in and on fire, a tremendous racket- the guitars blaze and glow like fireworks, coupled with a great tune and some emotional tension. And the re- entry after the feedback/ noise freak out section crescendo with Thurston back into the song's end section with the line 'time takes it's crazy toll' is fantastic. 

The Diamond Sea (Live in Austin, November 1995)

Neil Young released Weld in 1991, a double album of songs recorded during the long tour and a third disc called Arc made up entirely of feedback. During the tour Neil and Crazy Horse developed the songs, many of them becoming longer and longer and more feedback driven. He took to covering Blowing In The Wind and adding air raid siren FX. The first US led Gulf War was going on at the same time and Neil said the band would see news reports on CNN and then go on stage after 'watching this shit happen... singing songs about conflict'. He added, 'we couldn't just go out there and be entertainment'. 

Cortez the Killer is from 1975's Zuma, a tale of imperialism and slaughter extended for nearly ten minutes live in 1991. It's the song that kicks off disc two of Weld, Neil and Crazy Horse at their live best.

Cortez The Killer (Weld Version)

Humanity As An Act Of Resistance

David Holmes' regular slot at NTS, God's Waiting Room, has been transforming in recent times from the purely musical into something political, a two hour radio show with something to say- Humanity As An Act Of Resistance. David still plays music, searching the racks and digging in the crates for the obscure and overlooked- ambient jazz, cosmische, drones and rock 'n' roll- but he splices it all with excerpts from interviews, TV news, documentaries and spoken word. The last three episodes have all been subtitled Humanity As An Act Of Resistance: The Epstein Class. It's not always easy listening but it's a vital piece of reportage, pop and politics. The latest one is at Mixcloud here. 

The previous one, broadcast in April, includes two new tracks by The Five Techniques, a Holmes musical collective that put out a single he recorded with Paul Weller, a project running alongside Humanity As An Act Of Resistance. Resistance In The Dark was remixed by fellow Belfast artist Autumns. The remix EP is here, with the Autumns remix, an Arveene one and two versions by Alex Patchwork that are abstract dub/ drum 'n' bass, Paul Weller, Roisin El Charif and David Holmes spun into entirely new sonic spaces. 

There were two further and as yet unreleased tracks by The Five Techniques on the April edition of Humanity As An Act Of Resistance including one with Ian Svenonius on vocals- that show hasn't been uploaded to Mixcloud as far as I can see but anything with Ian Svenonius' involvement is going to be good. His Charge Of The Love Brigade album as Escape- ism was a 2025 highlight and back in 2011 he recorded the song which provided Andrew Weatherall with a banner and an entire ethos. 

Music's Not For Everyone

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Humanise something free of error.  

My reactions to this were Farley Jackmaster Funk and Daryl Pandy's Love Can't Turn Around and Kurt Vile. From the Bagging Area Oblique Saturdays Squad came the following- Ebony Steel Band covering Kraftwerk (Ernie), Daft Punk's Human After All (Al G), anything by The Fall (JC), King Davis and The House Rockers and We All Make Mistakes (Rol) and R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts (Walter). Here's Mark E. Smith and the 1979 iteration of The Fall with a tale of pharmaceutical misadventure.

Rowche Rumble

Today's Oblique Strategy card is this- What is the reality of the situation?

What is the reality of the situation? didn't do much for me at first, an oblique strategy that left me unresponsive. Maybe it was the heat, but it just didn't spark much in me. Eventually I got to this- the reality of the situation is that this is a music blog and part of what it does is help spread the word about new music. Mike D, former Beastie Boy and now solo artist, has released another single- What We Got, a song that harks back to the Beastie Boys sound of Check Your Head and Ill Communication but also sounds like something fresh and new. 

What we got? 'Retired MC/ Need a Plan B', Mike raps.  

What is the reality of the situation? also took me to this.

In 1994 The Aloof released their debut album Cover The Crime, a dub- techno lost classic by a group made up of two Sabres Of Paradise (Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns), a Red Snapper (Rich Thair), Ricky Barrow and Dean Thatcher. The third track on the album is this one...

Society

The vocal, a robotic/ reggae call and response, worked its way to the front of my mind while I pondered what to do with this Oblique Strategy card.

'Society... this is... reality... this is...society... this is... reality...'

Nine minutes of thundering drums, breakbeats, sirens and mid- 90s dub techno tension. 

Feel free to make your own responses to What is the reality of the situation? in the comment box.

Where Were You?

There was an article at The Guardian earlier this week about The Mekons and how they made their debut single Where Were You? It's here. The band formed in Leeds in 1976 inspired by seeing the Anarchy tour pitch up at the Polytechnic, the Sex Pistols and The Clash. Gang Of Four formed almost immediately, Mekons a little later. This was the key impact of the first flush of punk, the number of people standing and watching, knowing they wanted to do something and the seeing the Pistols and thinking 'I could do that'. 

There's a heartwarming comment in the below the line section where a reader recounts seeing The Mekons soundcheck and speaking to guitarist Tom Greenhalgh and asking him what the chords for Where Were You? were. Later on that evening during the gig as the band played the song, Tom shouted the chords out as he played them, the flame that was lit by the Pistols and The Clash and the Anarchy being handed on again. 

Where Were You?

The intro's clanging guitar chords and rattling drums are really special and then it all kicks in. As noted in the article by Jon Langford, the song is about male loneliness, an anti- macho lyric inspired partly by Buzzcocks. The songs goes off like a flare and later the lyrics and guitars/ drums have done everything they need to, it stops suddenly. 

There's loads more to The Mekons, they have become the longest lasting of the first wave of punk bands, surviving line up changes and fashions and diving into country and folk, 80s alternative and occasionally dub. In 1988 they released Ghosts Of American Astronauts, a sweetly sung 80s indie song with the still astonishing first line, 'Up in the hills above Bradford, outside the napalm factory/ Ghosts of American astronuats, glow in the headlight's beam'.