Automatic

Reading William and Jim Reid's account of their lives and time in The Jesus And Mary Chain, Never Understood, over the Christmas holiday sent me hurtling into their back catalogue and the one I got really stuck with/ into was 1989's Automatic. It's the album from the post- Psychocandy albums that sounds now like a high point, a non- stop adrenaline rush of great JAMC songs, really well recorded and produced. 

Automatic got mixed reviews in autumn '89, coming out just as the indie guitar world was going indie- dance and dayglo, The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays crossing over from the world that the Reids came from (The Roses took quite a bit from early Mary Chain, not lest the paint splattered guitars and drumkit and John Squire freely admitted that seeing The Mary Chain made him completely rethink playing the guitar). By 1989 and the recording of Automatic the band had gone through bassists and drummers and were pared back to just William and Jim in the studio, writing and recording alone together. Almost all the drum parts for the songs were via a drum machine and all the basslines were sequenced from a keyboard (drummer Richard Thomas plays on Gimme Hell). The NME and Melody Maker both opined that the mechanical drum machine rhythms were a weakness and that the Reids had dropped the ball and were left looking like yesterday's men. 

In Alan Moulder the Reids found a sympathetic producer who gave the songs on Automatic a full, vibrant sound and sheen. He also made those drums and basslines sound really powerful- the songs on Automatic now sound very contemporary, jackhammer rhythms with William's best guitar playing, gnarly lead lines and grungy riffs. The two singles are peak Mary Chain- Head On is a blast, possibly their best song, and Blues From A Gun (sung by William) is stunning radio friendly, self- loathing indie- punk, with William's raison d'etre line, 'I guess that's why I've always had the blues...' sounding as profound as anything either brother ever wrote. 

The songs that really stood out on revisiting Automatic recently could easily have been singles. Here Comes Alice is the album's opener, a reverb laden slow motion groove, Jim growling about the heat, summer's heavy sweat, Pepsi Coke and ice cream and, in true Velvets style, about how 'here she comes'.

Here Comes Alice

On Coast To Coast they sound like the best of American indie- rock distilled into three minutes of adrenaline/ amphetamine rock 'n' roll. When the guitars drop out and Jim sneers, 'On the road/ Under the sky/ Coast to coast', it's genuinely thrilling. 

I don't think Jim and William ever had a lyrical theme to their albums- the Jesus and Mary Chain was the theme- but Automatic is full of references to travel, motion, velocity and distance. On Between Planets they turn the tempo up, the guitar a beautiful wall of sound, the drum machine thudding away, and singing of Jackie T who 'done it 50 ways/ Been off that medicine now/ For almost 15 days'. It's more or less the same song as Head On, the essence of Reid '89 at its peak. 'Don't shake those hips/ Don't bite those lips/ Just keep it hid'. 

Between Planets

Side one finishes with UV Ray, crunching hip hop drums and William's burst of guitar- experimental, but not acid house inspired, indie- dance. Side two has five more five star transmissions from Reid world- Her Way Of Praying, Head On, Take It, Halfway To Crazy and the full on psychodrama of Gimme Hell. 

They were filmed live for Snub TV in 1990, playing Take It and Gimme Hell, the films projected onto the screen behind them a perfect summation of Jim and William's vision- blurred shots from passing cars, coke logos, the word Jesus writ large, stars and stripes, all submerged behind red lights, dry ice, hair and black leather jackets. 

Jokerman

One of the joys of Bob Dylan's career/ story is the droplets and sidesteps scattered throughout the last seven decades of music making- not just the giant, canonical albums or the times he changed the course of popular music, but the ginnels and alleyways he ventured down for a few minutes/ days before diverting again. One of those moments happened on 22nd March 1984 when he appeared on Letterman to promote a new song and album with a three song set backed by a trio of total unknowns, The Plugz. The song he was promoting was his new single, Jokerman... 

As this is Dylan there are different versions of how Dylan met The Plugz, an unknown Californian punk/ New Wave band. In one version Dylan saw them at a club, in another his son Jakob tipped him off. However it happened, at some point drummer Chalo got a phone call and was asked to bring some musicians down to Bob's house to jam. Chalo, bassist Tony Marsico and guitarist J.J. Holiday (who had a decent knowledge of blues guitar) trouped down to Bob's and after a couple of weeks had knocked a load of songs around, rarely playing the same ones twice (as is Dylan's habit). One day Dylan came in and asked the trio if they knew of Letterman and did they want to play on it. 

Jokerman was the lead single from 1983's Infidels, an album that saw Bob come out of his Born Again phase and return to more secular music. The album was produced by Mark Knopfler, had ex- Rolling Stone Mick Taylor on guitar and Sly and Robbie as rhythm section- nevertheless, it's 80s Dylan and must be approached with caution. But, Jokerman has become top level Dylan, a song that features in all the lists, with multiple verses of dense Dylan lines, with finger pointing as relevant to 2025 as it was in 1983- 

'Freedom just around the corner for you/ But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?' 

'You're a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds/ Manipulator of crowds, you're a dream twister'

'It's a shadowy world, skies are slippery grey'

The rock reggae rhythm and slick production jar at first but Jokerman settles into its groove, the song creating it's own sense of time, understated guitar lines peeling off against each other and supported by an organ. Jokerman grows as it goes, riding the reggae bass and drums, Dylan delivering mystic wisdom and barbs into the supposed perpetual sunshine of Reagan's America. 

Jokerman

The Letterman performance of Jokerman is something else, a true one off, Dylan and Plugz all in slim cut black and pointy boots, the reggae replaced by a driving urgency, the clipped guitars and thudding bass matched by Bob's vocal delivery. Dylan's harmonica solo that takes them all through to the song's end is priceless. For me this is the definitive version of Jokerman, and it provokes questions, a whole load of what if? type questions. If you're interested there's a free download of all three songs Dylan and Plugz played on Letterman, an entirely unofficial bootleg at Bandcamp. 

In true Dylan style, Plugz only heard from the man once again- Bob turned up at the studio Plugz (by then renamed Cruzados) were recording in, blew some harmonica for them, and disappeared into the night. 

Monday's Long Songs For Isaac

Trying to think positive thoughts on the worst Monday of the year, while getting back into the commute and work groove. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts... 

When Isaac died my friend Chris Rotter (Chris Mackin) recorded a song for Isaac, a twenty three minute version of his song 86'ed (which I'd first heard when Andrew Weatherall played it on one of his radio shows. Chris recorded as Bad Meat Club and was also a former flatmate of Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood and the guitar player in the garage band version of Two Lone Swordsmen, not to mention the man whose guitars adorn Andrew's 2008 solo album A Pox On The Pioneers). At the time when Chris re- recorded 86'ed, we'd never met but had been friends online. Since then we've met a few times, usually at Todmorden's Golden Lion. 

Poet Or Prayer and 86'ed (on Andrew Weatherall 6Mix, 8th August 2010)

Poet Or Prayer is from Andrew's unreleased second solo album, a record that became the subject of a dispute between Andrew and the engineer Steve Boardman (who wanted co- writing credits and who took the hard drive hostage, at which point Andrew walked away, onto the next thing, later saying he quite liked the idea of having a legendary, lost and unreleased album. Laugh Myself To Sleep has never seen the light of day although the title track appeared on David Holmes' album Blind On A Galloping Horse, covered by David with guitar from Tim Fairplay). Chris plays banjo on Poet Or Prayer. 

Chris' new version of his song, 86'ed (For Isaac) is still up at Bandcamp, soaring instrumental cosmische with the proceeds going to The MPS Society (the charity that looks after families affected by MPS diseases and funds for research into cures and treatments). 

The MPS Society

Last week Chris released a new series of tracks for Isaac. This was a complete surprise to me and a lovely thing to do. Chris also sponsors a dolphin, Rainbow, so the new album is under a new guise, Dölphin Plays Music For Isaac. There are five long pieces of instrumental music, all variations on a theme, starting with the thirty minute long Ocean Droog (a minimalist piano and synth excursion, the perfect backdrop to thinking positive thoughts), and then Cowboy Droog (echo, lonesome guitar, glorious synth drones), Beautiful Droog (horns, swelling synth choirs), Space Droog (cosmische synths and Vangelis vibes) and finally Cosmic Droog (piano, space, more horns, fuzz guitar). The whole album is at Bandcamp. It's a pay what you want/ free deal but if you can Chris has asked people to donate to The PMS Society by way of payment. Thank you Chris- it's beautiful that Isaac is still being remembered in this way. Positive thoughts. 

Lucky 7s From The Flightpath Estate

Dr Rob has been running a series of end of year posts at Ban Ban Ton Ton, with a slew of contributors (and Rob) offering up their best of tracks of 2024 in the form of 7s. Rob is based in Japan and in Japanese superstition 7 is the luckiest number- Rob's hopes that by each contributor keeping their end of  '24 lists tight and limited to just 7, some magic conjured up by 7 x 7 x 7x 7 x 7 recurring will bring us a good 2025- as far as I'm concerned it's as good a theory as any. Contributors of Lucky 7s include Coyote, Klangkollektor, Silvertooth, Secret Soul Society, Eiji Tanaguchi, J- Walk, Jason Boardman, and various selections from Rob himself (compilations, Balearic beats, techno and house)

Rob asked us at The Flightpath Estate if we'd like to contribute our Lucky 7s and there being five of us (me, Baz, Dan, Martin and Mark) we decided to do 7 each, thus swelling our contribution to thirty five tracks. The post with or Lucky 7s went up at Ban Ban Ton Ton on Boxing Day. You can find it here. There is dub. There is Australian psychedelic jazz. There is ambient. There is Four Tet (twice) and Coyote (twice) and Fat White Family (also twice). There is hip hop. There is euphoric acid house. There are remixes. There is indie dance and Balearica. There is wonky techno and deep fried acid house. There is cosmic piano house and wigged out covers of Manuel Gottsching. There is Mancunian post- punk. There are sounds from the Flightpath Estate and there is poetry. 

Martin volunteered to sequence our thirty five selections into one long form mix, a mammoth undertaking but one he's pulled off with aplomb, thirty five tracks from 2024, three hours and twenty one minutes of musical joy and wonder. Listen at Mixcloud. 

Tracklist

• [0:00] Rebelski: Navigation (Electric Piano Version) 
• [4:00] Sedibus: Seti Part 3 
• [10:00] MOY: Sunrise (Live) 
• [18:00] Holy Tongue & Shackleton: The Other Side Of The Bridge 
• [23:00] Antoni Maiovvi: Glyph
• [26:00] Four Tet: Loved 
• [30:00] Coyote: Living in Heaven 
• [37:00] J-Walk: African Custard 
• [41:00] Satellites: World At Your Feet (Johnny Vic Remix) 
• [47:00] Richard Sen: Eleven Eleven 
• [53:00] Four Tet: Three Drums 
• [59:00] GLOK & Timothy Clerkin: Scattered 
• [1:05:00] clipping: Keep Pushing 
• [1:08:00] Mildlife: Chorus 
• [1:16:00] 100 Poems :Joyness Magnificent (We'll Find The Light Together) 
• [1:22:00] Coyote: Know One Cares 
• [1:28:00] Lisa Moorish: Sylvia (David Holmes Dub) 
• [1:35:00] Alex Kassian: A Reference To E2-E4 By Manuel Göttsching (Mad Professor's Qantas Crazy Remix)
• [1:46:00] Marshall Watson & Cole Odin: Voyager 
• [1:51:00] Bedford Falls Players: Chaotic Beautiful (Full Up Mix) 
• [1:58:00] Fat White Family: Bullet Of Dignity (Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Re-animation) 
• [2:02:00] Raemann: Heaven Is Beyond Your Mind 
• [2:12:00] David Holmes: Yeah x 3 (Sonic Boom Reset Remix)
• [2:19:00] Ex Easter Island Head: Norther
• [2:24:00] Orbital, David Holmes & DJ Helen with Mike Garry: Tonight In Belfast 
• [2:35:00] Fat White Family: Visions of Pain (Tim Goldsworthy Remix) 
• [2:42:00] C.A.R.: Anzu (Hardway Bros Remix) 
• [2:49:00] The Light Brigade: Human : Remains 
• [2:55:00] Quiet Village: Reunion
• [3:02:00] Raxon: Your Fault 
• [3:08:00] Autumns: Inside The Bins 
• [3:10:00] Hot Chip & Sleaford Mods: Nom Nom Nom 
• [3:13:00] Woodshed: Slide or Die 
• [3:16:00] A Certain Ratio: It All Comes Down To This 
• [3:19:00] Autumns: Interpretive Dance Is A Scam 

Soundtrack Saturday

Throughout 2024 I ran a series every Saturday called V.A. Saturday, a celebration of the various artists compilation album. I could probably keep this going but felt it was time for a change so am shifting the Saturday slot to an appreciation of soundtrack albums, the records/ CDs released to accompany films. There's a difference between soundtracks and original scores which I will probably skirt the line of, and maybe at times the old V.A. Saturday might return. 

When I was a kid, I'm talking twelve/ thirteen, I was really into soundtracks. I was a big fan of cinema and the early 80s were a good time to be into films. Soundtrack albums were tied in to the cinematic releases, and were often if truth be told a bit of a let down. What sounded epic and exciting over the cinema speakers and complemented by the visuals could easily sound less so at home. But there were enough really good soundtrack releases that stood on their own two feet and it was a habit that lasted through the 80s, vinyl OSTs and soundtracks a big part of my fledgling record collection. In 1981 I bought the Raiders Of The Lost Ark soundtrack, my first soundtrack album, with John Williams' orchestral theme played by the London Symphony Orchestra often on the Dansette turntable. I was a slightly quirky child at this age. The same year, '81 (I was eleven), I was invited to a fancy dress party and went as Lawrence of Arabia. Everyone else was far more plugged in to popular culture for their fancy dress. The Raiders soundtrack didn't survive the years- I've no idea what happened to it. 

The following year Blade Runner came out. I was a big Harrison Ford fan and had an interest in film noir (early evening BBC2 often showed black and white films from the 1940s). The cinema up the road from us in Withington, the Scala (later Cine City, now a Tesco) had a liberal attitude to age certificates and admission and twelve year old me got in to see Blade Runner despite looking )and being) too young. Blade Runner is a very different kettle of androids compared to Raiders Of The Lost Ark or Star Wars- dark, ambiguous, dystopian. I loved it and love it still, whatever cut or version you're watching. I had no problem with the studio added voice over (and don't still) or the vaguely happier ending the studio tacked on to Ridley Scott's film. 

The soundtrack too planted deep roots in me, Vangelis' synthesisers and timpani, his wide screen electronics, jazz saxophone and film noir influences, all very memorable and  striking. Not that anyone could buy the soundtrack- it was unavailable until 1994 and then released in a strange version that included recordings not even used in the film.  

Vangelis' equipment list for the recording of the soundtrack is a synth lovers dream- various Rolands including the Jupiter 4, Yamahas, a Fender Rhodes. He supplemented them with traditional percussion instruments and when the various versions of the soundtrack were released, snippets of dialogue from the film were included, not least the famous Rutger Hauer Tears In Rain monologue. Blade Runner is a masterpiece, a perfect vinyl soundtrack album, twelve tracks of early 80s synth music, enormously influential, futuristic, moving, powerful, evocative, romantic and haunting, and a narrative in its own right. 

Blade Runner (Main Titles)

Tales Of The Future

Blade Runner (End Titles)

Tears In Rain

Finally See What It Means To Be Living

I bought Eliza a copy of Fast Car by Tracy Chapman on 7" for Christmas. I've been buying her bits of vinyl since she was young, a small and eclectic record collection taking shape. It's a song which has crossed the generations, partly due to the strength of  original and partly due to two recent covers of it (a country cover by Luke Combs and a dance version by Jonas Blue- we'll skip past both today). Fast Car came out in April 1988, the self- titled album released the day before. Two months later Tracy Chapman stepped out on stage at Wembley Stadium and performed Fast Car to an international audience at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday concert organised by Jerry Dammers, the Anti- Apartheid and the ANC. Chapman hadn't expected to be thrust onto the stage so suddenly having already sung her three scheduled songs- Stevie Wonder was supposed to go on but his floppy disc failed and he panicked. Tracy was quickly shoved centre stage with just her guitar and a microphone. Fast Car was the song she sang.

Fast Car

Universal and unflashy folk pop, lyrics about a working class woman and dreams of escape from a dead end existence, the fast car being the ticket outta there. Tracy's narrator is at the bottom, living in a homeless shelter. 'Leave tonight or live and die this way'. It struck a chord worldwide and sold millions. 

I'm really partial to this reggae cover by Foxy Brown from October 1989- digital reggae, clattering drum machine riddim and lyrics as true in Jamaica as anywhere. 

Fast Car

Eliza's a fan of this one as well...

Talkin' 'Bout A Revolution

The poor people's revolution Tracy was talkin' 'bout in 1989 hasn't come to fruition yet. There's still time I guess but 2025 doesn't look promising from a socio- economic/ political point of view. 

From 24 In 25

Here's a few releases from late 2024 to kickstart 2025- late to me in 2024 that is, not late in the year releases, but things that either I only just caught up with or for whatever reason didn't write about earlier last year. Two of them came via Flightpath excursions. The first is Reunion by Quiet Village, a record Dan played at The Golden Lion and which caught my ear (along with one he played from 1969 but we'll come back to that at another time). 

Quiet Village are from London, a duo who play a cocktail of future jazz, downtempo, ambient/ Balearic and funk/ soul. Reunion is very much in the future jazz camp, with a rattling 6/8 rhythm, piano and a hard edge- then a sax comes in and drifts over the top into infinity. Sun Ra, Carl Craig, Clyde Stubblefield. Retro- futuristic sci jazz? Whatever labels we're using, it's rather beautiful. Available digitally at Bandcamp.

Also from the Flightpath Estate DJs record boxes is Dyslexia Sound Source by Autumns, and an album recommended by both Martin and Mark- tight percussive dub shot through with experimental post punk. The ten track album is superb from start to finish. The track I'm posting here is for the title as well as for the music, Interpretive Dance Is A Scam, no nonsense, no fat, heavy duty dubwise sounds. Dyslexia Sound Source can be found here. 

Finally, Flightpath connected but one step removed, Mark's brother Carl lives in Australia and a couple of days ago sent me a link to an album by a band called Aircooled. Eat The Gold is six songs long, a fusing of krauty/ cosmische and spiky indie rock from a three piece from St. Leonards made up of drummer Justin Welch (formerly of Elastica and The Mary Chain), Katherine Wallinger (The Wedding Present, Viv Albertine), Oliver Cherer (Miki Berenyi's Trio) and Riz Maslen (FSOL). It's all good but today the eight minute sweeping West German majesty of Star Rider is the one that really hits the spot. The full album is at Bandcamp.

Fifteen

Happy New Year! 

This blog is fifteen years old today. Bagging Area was born with a whimper on 1st January 2010, with the intention of seeing if I could do it for a year and no real plan for what I was going to write about. Here we are a decade and a half later with 5, 939 posts under my belt, over 18, 700 comments from people from near and far many of whom are now actual friends in virtual and/ or real life, and over 4, 666, 787 page views (at the time of writing). I didn't expect it to be as central to my life as it has become and can't really conceive how I could do without it. Micro- blogging and social media have their place, sharing music and with the capacity to make similar connections, but there's something about long form blogging, the process of writing, that sets it apart. I'm sure it's an outdated form of internet expression in an age of Tik Tok and Instagram Reels but it works for me and many others. The comments, the connections and the conversation, are really what make it so thank you to everyone who reads and leaves comments here (or when I share posts on Facebook). There's more of the same to come in 2025- apart from a list of artists/ songs on a notepad next to the computer and a few ideas for Saturday and Sunday posts I've no real plans beyond the next few posts, but something always comes up. 

To celebrate Bagging Area's fifteenth birthday here are a trio of fifteens in song and a poster. Andy Warhol famously said that, 'in the future, everyone will be world- famous for fifteen minutes'. And he didn't even know about YouTube at that point. Two of the songs here (I think) are inspired by or refer to that quote. The first is by Johnny Boy, a Liverpool boy- girl duo from the mid- 00s who released a legendary 7" single, You Are The Generation Who Bought More Shoes (And You Get What You Deserve), a 60s girl group inspired song that was a proper music blog song, shared countless times all over the place. Their sole album included this...

15 Minutes

Thundering drums, squealing guitars, hand shaking percussion, more multi- tracked girl group vocals, an 00s feel (think The Go- Team et al).

Ride's second re- union album was 2019's This Is Not A Safe Place, an album that drew from Jean- Michel Basquiat, Sonic Youth, and post- punk, all undercut by some squally electronics. Fifteen Minutes is three minutes fourteen seconds of indie rock with some kiss off lyrics about someone who's had their fifteen minutes and who has been bitten by karmic retribution, the song interrupted by bursts of  Goo- esque dirty guitar 

Fifteen Minutes

Thirdly, a fairly obscure Joe Strummer song, the B-side to the Island Hopping single from 1989. 15th Brigade (Viva La Quince Brigada) is a song from the Spanish Civil War, Joe singing in Spanish. There's a song of the same name written by Christy Moore, a tribute to the Irishmen who fought in the war against fascism in Spain in the International Brigades, Irish socialists who were also know as the Connolly Column. As far as I can tell the two songs aren't the same song. 

15th Brigade

And finally, a Factory records fifteen. In true Factory style the catalogue number Fac 15 wasn't given to a record but to a poster and an event (just as Fac 1 had been a poster). Fac 15 advertised the outdoor gig held jointly between Factory and Liverpool's Zoo Records, the two independent labels meeting half way in Leigh. I cycle through Leigh quite often- the idea that the cream of 1979's post punk bands played in a field there is always faintly ludicrous and totally brilliant, as is the poster's advice about how the post- punk youth of Manchester and Liverpool should get there. In terms of value for me it's second to none. It was however very poorly attended- the other bands on the line up watching whoever was on stage often comprised half of the total watching crowd. Accounts from the few who attended report that Joy Division were breathtaking.