Your Love

Jamie Principle and Frankie Knuckles' Your Love is one of the cornerstones of modern music- the two note bassline, that sequenced arpeggio part, the gospel vocals, the four-four beat. Back in the mid-80s Jamie Principle put it together in his Chicago bedroom on cheap and homemade machinery. Frankie Knuckles then sprinkled his magic over it. It was played off cassette for ages in Chicago warehouses before it got a vinyl release. It's been an everpresent record of uplift and ecstasy ever since, especially since it then went and got magically spliced with Candy Staton.

At a recent Radio 1 session The Horrors covered Your Love. Do not worry. It is fucking superb.

Your Love (Radio Session)

Turn The Heater On

This is New Order's gorgeous cover version of Keith Hudson's reggae tune Turn The Heater On, done for a Peel session in 1982. The marriage of early 80s New Order and dub works really rather well, Bernard's melodica especially.

Turn the Heater On (Peel Session)

As far as I'm aware, it's also New Order's only recorded cover version.

Note...
1. Yes, I know they used to cover Sister Ray, but that appears on live albums and bootlegs only (including the very brilliant mid 80s Glastonbury gig they released. Bernard's  between song banter including the legendary 'Big songs, small dicks'). There's also a US gig where they did Anarchy In The UK I used to have a recording of. Was it any good? No, it was shit.
2. Yes, I know they covered Jimmy Cliff's Vietnam for a War Child compilation. But that was the reconvened New Order minus Gillian Gilbert and while I saw them live several times during that period and always massively enjoyed them I'm getting to a point where as far as being a recording band is concerned, I don't include the stuff without Gillian. Sorry Phil Cunningham but that's how it is. On the other hand, I do really like at least half of Get Ready, their 2001 comeback album, so I'm contradicting myself. Maybe the line above should therefore read...

As far as I'm aware it's also New Order's only recorded cover version apart from their 2003 cover of Jimmy Cliff's Vietnam. 

I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time

This garage rock nugget from 1967 by The Third Bardo could well be the very best 45rpm single of it's kind- nasty, short, distorted, snotty, arrogant and with one of the best song titles/choruses committed to vinyl. It's got everything you need to shake you up this morning.

I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time

Follow Through

Sunday morning- time for a 12" remix that I bought having seen it referred to on the NME's club page back in 1991, then as now a sucker for the words 'Andrew' and 'Weatherall' and 'remix'. The band were called Airstream, signed to One Little Indian, and if I remember right were the first recorded output of at least one future Chemical Brother, Tom (or Ed) playing guitar (I think) in an indie dance group. But I might have made that up. For the remix Weatherall chops up sections of the vocal and scatters them along with some strange noises, some of which sound suspiciously like didgeridoo, over a drum track. If you want to be a bit reductionist about it. The Weatherall remix bears little relation to the original which is a catchy, piano led Flowered Up style groover.

Follow Through (Nine O' Clock Drop Mix)

I once saw (and very nearly bought) a vintage brown leather motorcycle rider's jerkin, similar to the one the man in the picture is wearing.

No, of course I'd never have worn it. I mean, what circumstances could possibly require such a garment?

Saturday Night Live

New Order in imperious form live in Japan in 1985. In fact this show was filmed exactly twenty nine years ago this coming Friday (2nd May). Shockingly long ago. This was released by Factory as a video entitled New Order PFD (Pumped Full Of Drugs), a most un-Factoryesque title and so typically New Order.

Bim

  

A new (to me) thing I found on the internet recently- Mick Jones doing a funky electro-pop 12" excursion in 1982.

Blind Lead The Blind

The Return of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 145

Imelda May has been doing the chat shows promoting a new song and presumably a new album too. A few years ago Imelda and her band played a few radio sessions and often included their take on The Johnny Burnette's Trio's The Train Kept A Rollin', one of the cornerstones of rockabilly. This one is from a BBC Radio London session and is blistering.

Considering this has been a short week, it's felt like a long week. Join me for a drink if you like.

The Train Kept A Rollin' (Live Session)

Kentish

Do you want to see some of my holiday photos?

We were in Kent last week, staying on Romney Marsh. I've only ever travelled through Kent before en route to Dover but exploring it was fantastic. As a bonus the weather was good too. Just down the road is Dungeness, one of the bleakest and most beautiful places in the country. Plus it's got an enormous nuclear power station which adds to the drama along with the masses of shingle flats and a pair of lighthouses. This one, the older of the two, is open and you can climb to the top.

Dungeness is also home to a community of artists and bohemians who live in a scattered collection of wooden cottages, some converted railway carriages. This one, Prospect Cottage, was the home of Derek Jarman.

Kent's coastline is dotted with reminders of the past and it's relationship with France, only twenty-five miles away. During the Napoleonic wars a string of Martello towers were built, against the threat of invasion. This one is Martello tower number 24 and is situated in a car park next to a small amusement park.

From a later conflict and threat of invasion, this World War Two era pill box looks out over the marsh.

Right behind the site we were staying on are some sound mirrors. The listening ears were constructed in the late 1920s, a form of acoustic sound detection and early warning of approaching enemy aircraft. Within a few years they were superceded by radar. There are three at Romney; this thirty foot concrete dish next to a smaller one and a two hundred feet long curved concrete wall. They've been closed off to the public due to vandalism and damage, now marooned on a man made island in a nature reserve. There's a swing bridge for guided tour access (but not while we were there). 

Musically, Kent means Billy Childish to me. We didn't get to Chatham, it's north Kent not south. This song is from the second album he did with his wife Nurse Julie and Wolf Howard as The Chatham Singers, a blues-gospel thing.

The Good Times

Bag A Wire

I was listening to the radio while on holiday last week (through the telly no less) and the disc jockey played Bag A Wire Dub by King Tubby. It was one of those real 'stop what you're doing and just listen' moments. King Tubby's dub is such strange music and appears to have so little in common with anything that came before it- this one has some chanting about Marcus Garvey, deep bass bubbling up and down, horns coming and going, lots of echo, rim shots. Fluid and free form from Jamaica in 1976. Otherworldly.

Bag A Wire Dub

It might be worth pointing out that the disc jockey who played it was Huey (formerly of Fun Loving Criminals) who often comes across as a bit of a knob but, fair play to him, he played some good tunes that particular afternoon.

Balearic Berkshire And A Remix

Today I offer you two Weatherall related items that popped up when I was away that you might have missed.

First a twenty minute documentary about the late 80s Berkshire acid house scene, documenting the spread of house music, clubbing, drugs and loose fit clothing from the Balearic islands to the Home Counties, a scene Mr Weatherall was an early part of- Shoom, Boys Own, Terry Farley and Primal Scream all included. It's highly recommended and a great watch, the pictures and footage especially. It's also amazing both how long ago it all looks and how beautifully romantic it all seems, as your past is served up as history. You can find it here courtesy of Dazed Digital.

And from the old days to bang up to date, there's a remix of the very recent Asphodells and Friendly Fires track Before Your Eyes by Jack Savidge- a banger for the dance floor, free download.

Back...

Back home, back to work, back to the blogging...

I'm a bit pushed for time having driven from the Kent coast to Manchester yesterday so you'll have to wait until later in the week for any tales of adventures in the garden of England.

This is a picture of Darrow Fletcher. Before leaving for Kent I chucked a few homemade compilation cds into the car, one of which had a long run of northern soul songs on it (acquired from the usual suspects). This song really sounded good. Darrow was a child prodigy who had a massive run of singles in the late 60s through to the late 70s. The Pain Just Gets A Little Deeper was released in 1966 and was apparently a favourite at The Twisted Wheel. Listen to this and it's easy to see why.

The Pain Just Gets A Little Deeper

Darrow Fletcher is not the Manchester United and Scotland midfielder Darren Fletcher. But for us United fans as this season has gone on the pain has gotten a little deeper. Rumours abound that David Moyes may lose his job today. I think it's the right thing if he does- it's not really worked out has it? 

September Gurl

I've never quite been able to figure out quite why Big Star are held in such high esteem by certain middle aged men. The first album baffled me when I first got it, twenty years ago. It just sounded like southern boogie to me and I expected so much more. On the other hand there are some great tunes on the second album (Radio City) and Third/Sister Lovers has got its moments.

September Gurls is an absolutely beautiful little guitar song, ragged and yearning, a real head turner (and yes, it did provide Teenage Fanclub with the template for Bandwagonesque, but that's fine). George posted September Gurls a few weeks ago, so I'll provide you instead with this cover version by The Bangles, from back in the mid-80s. They smoothed it out, glossed it up a bit, Rickenbackers chiming away.

September Gurls

Susanna Hoffs didn't actually sing September Gurls, fellow Bangle Michael Steele did. Susanna isn't a September gurl, she's a January gurl, birthday-wise. I just looked it up. It has stunned me somewhat to realise that Susanna Hoffs is 55.

As of today we're off on holiday for a week, back late on Easter Monday, so most likely I won't post anything until the Tuesday. Hopefully you can manage without my meandering waffle for a week. However, if you do happen to pop in here while I'm away you will get to look at this picture of Susanna Hoffs, so it's not all bad is it?

Stranded

I pulled this out the other day, a superb blast of punk energy from antipodean upstarts The Saints. Not that any of them looked much like punks. Which probably makes them more punk. This song, recorded and first released in 1976, was hugely influential on the early London punk scene (along with the first Ramones lp), as 7" copies made their way from the southern to northern hemisphere like spiky driftwood. Coming from Brisbane in the mid 1970s they probably did feel pretty stranded- no offence to the people of Brisbane but it is a long way away from where the action was. (I'm) Stranded is an utterly life affirming recording and one of those cases of, although they had other songs, this one song by them is all that matters.

(I'm) Stranded

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 144

1957 was a golden year for rockabilly. Brenda Lee cut several rockabilly influenced singles including this one which earned her the nickname Little Miss Dynamite. While her voice has a gravelly Wanda Jackson quality, they added some doo-wop style backing vocals, presumably to soften it for radio listeners and record buyers. The slightly unsettling thing about this song is that Brenda was about thirteen or fourteen years old when she recorded it.

Dynamite

Analogue Bubblebath

This is an absolutely essential record from the imagination and fingertips of Richard D James, a record that sounds like its title (a title that is a nice pair of words to speak- analogue= rhythmic with hard sounds, bubblebath= rhythmic with soft sounds). This is music that envelops and warms and is full of possibility, which ignores the structure of the popular music that came before it- no verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle eight etc. It still has form, just a different kind of form. It also takes from rave. Really wonderful.

Analogue Bubblebath

Stockholm Syndrome

I've never been to Stockholm. I've been to Helsinki, which was lovely. Someday I'm going to do a Scandinavian tour. I'll need to be significantly better off financially than I am now.

Stockholm was the title of the New Fast Automatic Daffodils' single from their second album (Mind Body Exit). This doesn't sound at all like the work of a Madchester band and in parts reminds me as much of Julian Cope's early 90s work as anything. Good song- this is the five minute version rather than the three minute radio edit (which probably didn't get very much radio airplay).

Stockholm

Introduction

Third post in a row in what seems to be turning into an accidental 'what the punks did next' theme week. Greg Dread (Big Audio Dynamite, Dreadzone) has recently unearthed and shared a track he put together back in the mid 80s, Big Audio Dynamite's live show intro music. It's a five minute track with snippets and samples from BAD's back catalogue all layered over a drum machine set to 'loud and fast'. The band would ususally appear at around the two minute mark but this goes on for another three. It won't embed but you can find it and download it here. Via the marvels of social media Greg said I could share it. Thanks Greg.

As a bonus this is BAD performing The Battle Of All Saints Road live on the telly in 1988. Mick suave in leather biker jacket and grey trousers, Don giving the one fingered/keyboard-playing salute...



What a good band they were.
Dreadzone are currently rocking a dancefloor somewhere in the UK, celebrating their twentieth anniversary.

Kiss Them For Me

This 1991 single was a big hit in the US for Siouxsie and the Banshees- Stephen Hague production, Talvin Singh on tabla and backing vocals, a Schooly D sample- but I think it may have slipped through the net here. Siouxsie was possibly a bit old hat in '91 but this song shows somebody's finger was on the pulse. It's begging for an expansive remix too. Listened to in 2014 it sounds like perfect, glittery pop music. And there's nowt wrong with that.

Kiss Them For Me

Call It A Day

Ian McCulloch had a solo album out last year which I didn't spend too much time with (for unknown reasons, time probably) but have rediscovered recently. Pro Patria Mori was a good single lp but was also available as a double. The second disc was recorded live at the Union Chapel, a mixture of Bunnymen songs from Rescue through to Nothing Lasts Forever, and songs from Pro Patria Mori, reworked acoustically and orchestrally. The fringe and the chin may not be what they were but the voice is in rich form and there's some lovely chugging Velvets rhythm guitar along with the strings. Angels And Devils, in the grand tradition of 80s indie rock, was tossed away on a B-side.

Angels And Devils (Live at the Union Chapel)

In The Boiler Room

For those of you of the Weatherall persuasion this is a bit of a treat (and those of you that aren't of a Weatherall persuasion must be rolling your eyes, pursing your lips and tut-tutting by now). A two hour radio set with The Asphodells and Friendly Fires chatting about the music that informed their recent collaboration and playing some of those records, hosted by the bearded one.

Plus, April 6th, it's Lord Sabre's birthday.

Set aside a couple of Sunday morning hours and enjoy.

Audio version



Video version

Fade Away

It's been ages since I posted anything from the island of Jamaica so here's some quality roots reggae from Mr Junior Byles in 1975 and a righteous piece of blood and fire.

'He who seeks of only vanity and no love for humanity, shall fade away. He who checks only for wealth and not for his physical health, shall fade away. The man who worships silver and gold, shall surely, surely, surely lose his soul'.

Fade Away

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 143

How many lost rockabilly pearls can there be? Sometimes it seems like half the population of the United States must have cut at least one single in the mid-to-late 50s. I suppose the nature of local and regional charts, cheap recording studios and a churn 'em out attitude led to thousands of them. This one is by Ronnie Pearson (1957). Elvis-y vocals, loads of slapback and some killer guitar playing.

Hot Shot

I finish work for two weeks today, after a very busy few weeks. Line 'em up.

Voodoo Mademoiselle

I heard this song the other day, at work of all places, and I know nothing about it other than that it is a Northern Soul floor shaker by the very coolly named September Jones, a singer from Detroit.

There is another, more recent September Jones from the film Death Race 2, a former Miss Universe who lost her crown. But this is not her.

Voodoo Mademoiselle

Since drafting this post I realised that the much viewed Youtube Northern Soul dancer Levanna, from Bristol, has shown off her footwork to this tune and that there are plans to release it as a 7" single. Which has probably sold out already. Levanna went internet viral while dancing to Pharrell's Happy and a bunch of Northern songs.

Let The Music Use You

Frankie Knuckles died this week aged 59. It would be remiss of me to let this pass, especially seeing as half the music posted here over the last four years lives in his shadow to some extent. I was going to post Your Love but there's a campaign to get it to number one so I probably shouldn't be giving it away for free. Instead here's Night Writers, with vocals by Ricky Dillard...

Let The Music (Use You)

Let the music use you, let it take control.

Velo

Sorry for the brevity and predictability of this post- I am time poor right now.

Here's the flipside of that Asphodells/ Friendly Fires 12", out now on delicious, krautrock orange vinyl.

Warpainted

Some blogs do  an April Fools post with something outrageous (see The Vinyl Villain's attempt to persuade us all last year that Paul Young's No Parlez was a much overlooked lp) or a little joke (one blog once claimed to have posted a rare Joy Division song found at a car boot sale but the download turned out to be Kylie's I Should Be So Lucky). No such going ons here. I couldn't think of anything funny.

This new Richard Norris remix of Warpaint's Disco//Very is somewhat trippy and phased and very nice indeed. Fittingly it has both time and space in abundance. I hope it's coming out on vinyl.