Last Pulse

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.

All Hallow's Eve

Trick or treat? Neither, go away you pesky kids.

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).

Mulletover Halloween 2011 Mix

You Said You Were Careful, You Never Were With Me

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.

Packs Of Three

Lose Your Love

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.

When He Spoke She Smiled In All The Right Places

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.

Blue Boy

Edit; I've just remembered that Blue Boy was a B-side. A B-side!

I See You Crying And I Want To Kill Your Friends

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.

Oblivious

Montevideo Horror Show

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.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 79

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.

No More, No More, No More

Edit; Mediafire don't like this one. Here's an alternative way to hear it.

Deborah Ann's Got A Tiger In Her Hips

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.

Sex Beat (Remix)

As a bonus here's The Gun Club playing Sex Beat at The Hacienda in 1983...



And a fan made video featuring Wild At Heart and a whole load of Hollywood dancers...

Keeping It Peel 2012: What Ain't We Got?

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

Boot Boys

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.

Where Have All The Boot Boys Gone?

Safety Net

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.

Safety Net

The Hardest Walk

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.

The Hardest Walk

Various Black Victorian Towers

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.

The Licorice Fields Of Pontefract/In The Public Gardens

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.

Meanwhile, In Timperley Village...

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.

The Robbins Aren't Bobbins

Apologies to readers in the US or other foreign parts, to whom much of this will mean nothing.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 78

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).

Give Me A Woman (Peel Session)

Edit; something's gone wrong here- it's still Thursday night in the real world.

Can You Judge A Man By The Clothes He Wears?

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.

You're A Better Man Than I

The Seaside Town They Forgot To Close Down

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.

Everyday Is Like Sunday

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.

I Must Be Disco Dreaming

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 Must Be Dreaming (Clouded Vision re-edit)

Shake Your Brain, Shake Your Sandals

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.

Shake Ya Brain

You Don't Know What It's Like

And then I found this...

There's Wheat In The Field

No words needed really.

And When You Kissed Robert Mitchum

I know (and agree) that the first Velvet Underground album is the one and that the third is the secret best one (it is) and that White Light White Heat is the furthest out one but I think Loaded is the one I play the most. It sounded out of this world listening to it last night. It's also the most contentious, what with Lou Reed moaning for several decades after it was released that it was remixed and re-edited without his knowledge and that Sweet Jane had a verse missing and that his name came third in the list of writers and that John Cale left during it's sessions and that Mo Tucker didn't even play on it because she was pregnant and that Velvets fans don't like Doug Yule at all. But look at the tunes. And the playing. And I love this song, with the autograph hunter, Robert Mitchum and the fat blonde actress.

New Age (Full length Version)

Surf Sunday

Calvin Cool and his band The Surf Knobs (really) from 1963 with El Tecolote, a very cool, string bending instrumental. You can say that about much surf music can't you? Keen eared listeners may recognise this as the intro music to one of Andrew Weatherall's radio shows- the old Double Gone Radio over at Rotters Golf Club I think. RGC are currently saying The Aspodells debut lp will be out on January 28th. So, why does the Japanese market get it two months earlier?

El Tecolote

The photo shows a surfer girl pictured in 1944. While there was a war on, for goodness' sakes.

Weathertube

There's been nothing from Lord Sabre here at Bagging Area for well over a week so here's a couple of clips from Youtube to remedy the situation.

First up, Weatherall, Terry Farley and Pete Heller interviewed for the long lost and lamented Snub TV (from BBC2, late 80s). The clip is memorable partly for Weatherall's long, curly hair and biker boots. The trio discuss London's acid house scene and how they helped  invent it. Also features a Bocca Juniors video.



Second up, Weatherall djing in a club in Belgium last year. Somewhat better than your average club clip due to being filmed and put together by someone who seems to know what they're doing rather than a drunkard with a mobile phone, it features a heavily bearded Weatherall playing cds (gasp, shock, horror, not vinyl!) to  a crowd significantly younger than him. Judging from the clip the Belgians haven't banned smoking in clubs yet and there's always a girl dancing on her own right in front of the record cd players. Records played in the clip- his own remix of Fuck Buttons Sweet Love For Planet Earth and Briosky's Radio Anatomy (I think).



Enjoy your Saturday.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 77

Last week's Friday night rockabilly hero Andy Starr recorded a bucketful of great songs once he got back from the Korean War and as reader Jase suggested this was one of them.

Give Me A Woman

The marker of many a good rockabilly song is whether it was covered by the Cramps. Give Me A Woman was the B-side to 1986's What's Inside A Girl single and there's a rocking Peel Session version too. Give me a little while and I'll find it....

'Give me a woman, any kind of woman'll do'

Holmes And Bobby G

Back in the summer I listened to David Holmes' career spanning compilation The Dogs Are Parading several times was and struck by how well it all hung together and how much top notch stuff he has done- My Mate Paul, Compared To What, I Heard Wonders, Gritty Shaker, Sugarman, Don't Die Just Yet, 69 Police et al. This song didn't make it onto the double cd and wouldn't have fitted very well anyway, being Holmes does the Stooges. Sick City is off his Bow Down To The Exit Sign album from 2000 which had a variety of guest stars and tried to hit loads of targets at once. It also featured Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie on vocals and sounds like an out-take from the Scream's war on vowels, sonic terrorist stage.

Sick City

David Holmes is producing Primal Scream's forthcoming lp, a double album of 'strange psychedelic guitar music'.

Savages

I just caught up with this- Savages live on Jools the other week. Thankfully Jools and his piano get nowhere near them. A right old post-punk racket.

There's Death In These Silver Curls

One of my most listened to songs of this year was released last year but I didn't pick up on 'til January. Since then it's never been far away. Baby Says off The Kills Blood Pressures album adds up to way more than the sum of the parts- overloaded biscuit tin drums, a wonderful, entrancing, snaking guitar line from Mr Kate Moss and Alison's rasping vocal singing lines about Baby; 'she's dying to meet you, to take you off and make your blood hum and tremble like fairground lights' and how 'if ever you see skin as fair or eyes as deep and as black as mine, I'll know you're lying'. Some kind of post-punk, 00s, poetry thing going on there, if you ask me. The rest of the album's good but Baby Says stands out head and shoulders above it and I haven't got anywhere near bored of it yet.

Baby Says

Paper Tiger

I really don't know very much at all about US band Spoon- named after a Can song, going since the 90s, described by Brian Eno as 'rock 'n' roll' (which maybe tells you something about Eno's version of rock 'n' roll 'cos they don't really sound rock 'n' roll to me). This song appears on shuffle mode every now and then and I really like it. The interplay between guitars, bass and drums is very good indeed.

Paper Tiger

Of the four 1930s chaps pictured above I reckon, from left to right- drummer, guitarist, singer, bassist.

Deadstock

I found this while piddling around the net- Justin Robertson's current band/project Deadstock 33s and a remix of Paul Weller. A psychedelic Balearic dub remix. Yup.

Deadstock 33s have a website here with loads of mixes and remixes, mainly just to listen to. The Deadstock 33s track below is an acid and techno influenced thumper.

Mercury Project

Bet You're Wondering How I Knew

As a follow up to yesterday's post here's some Slits. Viv Albertine, Ari Up (above) and Tessa Pollitt never sounded better than on this Slits cover version of Marvin Gaye's song, where they twist its rhythms about and give it a punky-dubby makeover.

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Viv

Viv Albertine, guitarist with The Slits, aged 17.

Viv Albertine, ex-Slit, aged 54. Some people get all the luck with aging don't they?

Viv has a solo album out imminently. Her website has a pledge page where you can contribute to the cost of recording, mixing and production in return for a stake in it, although I guess the imminent release means this might all be paid for now. There was a solo ep in 2009 that came out on Thurston Moore's label which I've got someone but can't put my hands on at the moment. In the meantime, to convince you that this solo album might well be worth a tenner of your pay try these two youtube clips.

If Love, a cool little song from the Flesh ep with some nice Slits-style guitar and singing. I'm not allowed to embed it so follow the link. Very good.

And Confessions Of A Milf, a barbed song about motherhood and mid-life, played live...

For Me You Are

I'm really into the reggae and dub sounds of Prince Fatty at the moment. He produced Hollie Cook's lovely debut album of last year and the dub version follow up. At his website you can order all kinds of reggae delights, including several singles on 7" vinyl. This is the dub on the B-side to For Me You Are which together with  the A-side, featuring Hollie's sweet vocals, is well worth a fiver of your hard earned.

For Me You Are (Dub)

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 76

Andy Starr, just a walkin' in 1960 without a baby of his own but with some good whoopin' going on. Have a good evening, wherever you are.

Just A Walkin'

A Man Needs To Be Told

I'm still enjoying Tim Burgess's solo album Oh No I Love You which I wrote about last Saturday. Limited quantities of cd and vinyl have a disc of remixes that are worth hearing and Django Django have just done one too. It's an album that gives a little bit more of itself with each play. Back in 2001 The Charlatans did a preliminary version of some Burgess country-soul with this beauty of a single; a shuffly rhythm, falsetto vox and pedal steel guitar.

A Man Needs To Be Told

I don't know who the five chaps up above are but they aren't The Charlatans.

Don't Ask Why

I'm not saying that Don't Ask Why is necessarily any better than Soon or You Made Me Realise but recently when I've listened to this year's remastered version off the My Bloody Valentine ep's 1988-1991 compilation it seems like the perfect blend of narcotic, post-coital wooze, melody, distortion and noise. It is total MBV perfection.

Don't Ask Why

I Did Not Mean One Word Of What I Said

Usually when I hear a radio dj utter the words 'indie classic' it's time to reach for the dial- they're often followed by Oasis or Stereophonics or some such drivel and rarely something like this, which is yer actual indie classic. Memorably covered 1990 Balearic style by St Etienne.

Let's Kiss And Make Up

Submission

I've not posted any stuff that gets sent to my email inbox for some time and occasionally I feel a tinge of guilt about it. Here's a couple that might be of interest to some of you.

Dot Dash are a Washington DC based guitar post-punk band, who have been here before. They've got a new album out called Winter Garden Light. It's pretty good to be honest. You can listen to them and buy it at Bandcamp.

Slightly more off the map are The Bordellos, who were drawn to Bagging Area by the Half Man Half Biscuit stuff, which gives you an idea of their outlook. Fuzzed out goth-garage apparently. Their Bandcamp page is here, featuring the Bring Me The Head Of Justin Bieber ep available as a name your price download i.e. you can pay nothing for it if you want to. The Bordellos say of themselves 'Midlife crisis, teenage angst, put them in songs and sell them to the yanks... they say 'No thanks' '. Worth a punt.

And I'm Telling You Now

I read a big piece in one of the weekend newspapers about Kirsty MacColl, who died ten years this December. All her albums are being re-released. I haven't got any of them, only the odd song I picked up here and there. There aren't many cover versions of Smiths songs I like- Morrissey and Marr stamped their own characters all over them so much that almost any cover version comes up short. But this one by Kirsty is as good, if not better, than the original.

You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby

As I'm typing this the internet is reckoning that The Smiths are about to reform. My hairdresser says he heard that they were going to do it last summer but The Stone Roses re-union scuppered it and stole the thunder.

So Much Confusion When October Comes Around

I always think of this song at the start of October- Pet Shop Boys and their 1990 song My October Symphony. Lovely, lush, grown up pop music. The album, and maybe this song, featured understated guitar work from Mr. Johnny Marr.

My October Symphony

Of the pair of gentlemen in the picture, posted at Whitsun 1939, I'd say Neil Tennant's the one on the right and Chris Lowe on the left.