Soundtrack Saturday

In 1973 Sam Peckinpah's revisionist Western Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid hit the big screens, a retelling of the story of Billy and Pat starring James Coburn (as lawman Pat) and Kris Kristofferson (as outlaw Billy). Peckinpah had a track record of Westerns behind him by 1973, depicting violence explicitly and graphically, stories about outsiders, loners and losers. Ride The High Country. The Wild Bunch. Major Dundee. The Ballad Of Cable Hogue. 

Pat Garrett And The Billy The Kid is famed for the behind the scenes rows with the studio MGM and a mangled version that was largely disowned by cast and crew. In 1988 a re- edit by Peckinpah was released and widely praised as the film the 1973 one should have been. 

Peckinpah saw the film as a chance to complete a trilogy (after Ride The High Country and The Wild Bunch), to make a definitive statement about the Western and complete his revisionist perspective of the Old West. He fell out with everyone while making it, suffered budget cuts and technical problems, re- shoots and crew illness, some of this caused by the director's own drinking and argumentative nature. The 1988 version is a gem though, Peckinpah's original vision of the film restored. 

We're here for the soundtrack though and the soundtrack was by Bob Dylan. Peckinpah, unbelievably, had never heard of Dylan- Kristofferson brought Bob down, Bob played him a song, and Peckinpah hired him straight away. Dylan appeared in the film too, as an enigmatic character called Alias. In 1973 Bob was a background presence. Self Portrait, released in 1970, seemed a deliberate attempt to shed fans, to get people to leave him alone and to lose the Spokesman for a Generation tag. 'What is this shit?', Greil Marcus famously wrote when reviewing it. It was followed by New Morning, Bob sounding more like Dylan again but still for many a little tame. In 1972 and 1973 there was nothing though, radio silence, until Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid. 

The Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid soundtrack is an overlooked Dylan album- or rather, nine of the songs are overlooked and the other is Knocking On Heaven's Door, a worldwide hit, with Roger McGuinn and Jim Keltner on guitar and bass, a song which has suffered from being covered by too many people, usually badly. The other nine (of the twenty four recorded at various sessions, fourteen still unreleased) include four versions of Billy, any one of which is as good as much of what Dylan released in the 70s. This one is Billy 7...

Billy 7

Billy (Main Title Theme) is an instrumental (with Booker T Jones on bass) and none the worse for it. Billy 1, Billy 4 and Billy 7 all have words, slightly different versions and lyrics, different takes on the film and its themes. 

'Spend the night with some sweet senorita
Into her dark hallway she will lead you
In some lonesome shadow she might greet you
Billy you’re so doggone far away from home

They say that Pat Garrett's got your number
Sleep with one eye open when you slumber
Every little sound just might be thunder
Thunder from the barrel of a gun

Maybe you will find yourself tomorrow
Drinking in some bar to hide your sorrow
Spending the time that you borrow
Figuring a way to get back home'

Mani

The Stone Roses were one of those bands that, in the overly dramatic words of the youth and the music press, changed your life. In 1989 they changed the way I looked at the world, they changed my relationship with music, made it deeper and more intense (and I was already pretty far gone before that). The news yesterday that bassist Mani died suddenly aged 63 is hard to take- a Stone Rose, Mani the rogue Rose, gone. Awful. 

Picture credit where it's due- the photo above was taken by my friend Darren when The Stone Roses played Manchester's International 22 in 1987, a youthful Mani caught staring out into the crowd, paint splattered bass at hand. Thank you Darren for letting me use it. 

Edit: Darren shared this one with me too, Mani and Ian at the same gig...

I first saw The Stone Roses at Liverpool Polytechnic (the Haigh Building, now demolished), 4th May 1989. At this point I had a couple of singles- Sally Cinnamon was my first encounter with them. They changed going to gigs for me that night, they were electrifying, four young men with absolute self belief, locked in and playing the songs which would make up the debut album (the album was released the same week as the Liverpool gig). Mani's bass was as much a part of that sound, that late 80s psychedelic sound, bolstered by the best rhythm section in town, as John Squire's guitar playing and Reni's out of this world drumming. The rumble of bass that slowly brings I Wanna Be Adored in. The instant hit of the bass intro to She Bangs The Drums. The heavy Hendrix grove of Standing Here. The subtler dynamics of Shoot You Down. The thrill of the bassline and snare that opens I Am The Resurrection and the epic twisting, funked up groove of its extended instrumental ending. All these things took hold of me that night at Liverpool Poly- in some ways it's the gig I judge all gigs since against. 

At the start of that year they appeared on Tony Wilson's late night, north west only Granada TV music programme, The Other Side Of Midnight playing Waterfall, a band as cool as fuck and who know it, the genuine article. Mani, paint splattered Rickenbacker bass, black and white striped t- shirt, flicking his fringe out of his eyes, a group on the cusp.

By the end of 1989 they world was theirs. The appeared on BBC 2 early evening show Rapido, interviewed at Battery Studios in North London and wandering round the streets. At one point Mani nips into a hairdressers to wash his locks. Fools Gold turns up in the studio playback, a monster of a song driven by a monster of a bassline- the breakbeat, the guitars, the whispered vocal are all vital but the thing that moves Fools Gold, that drives it, is Mani's bass. 

Fools Gold took them to Top Of The Pops, a night that felt seismic, The Roses and Happy Mondays crashing into the chart world and inanities of early evening pop music television, Mani in red swinging his bass around, flares flapping around his legs. A nation of indie kids get up and dance. 

I saw them again- Spike Island, the Apollo in 1994 on the Second Coming tour (Reni was gone by that point) and then in 2011 at the re- union warm up at Warrington Parr Hall, an amazing night. Mani looked as pleased as anyone that it had actually happened, bounding onto the stage and celebrating like he'd scored a winning goal in injury time and then, in front of his bass cabinet and amp adorned with his collection of Toby jugs, that familiar rumble of bass notes faded in, dum dum dum dum/ dim dim dim dim/ dum dum dum dum/ der de der... 'I don't have to sell my soul he's already in me...'.

1990's single One Love came with this B-side, a seven minute swamp groove with Mani's bass central to the sound...

Something's Burning

By 2016 the Roses re- union rolled on and they did four shows at the Etihad (playing at Manchester City's ground was surely a shocker for Mani, a life long match going United fan). By this point they were being adored by two generations of fans. I took these two pics as mayhem ensued around us...

When the Roses ended Mani went onto Primal Scream, giving that band a much needed shot in the arm (poor choice of phrase possibly), dragging his bass onto Vanishing Point and giving them an energy and a sound they'd missed. Live Primal Scream were untouchable with Mani on board- his bass playing part of the guitar army era of Andrew Innes, Throb and Kevin Shields. Mani said that other than The Roses there were only three bands he'd consider joining- Primal Scream, The Jesus And Mary Chain and The Beastie Boys. I'd have happily seen him play with the other two as well...

There's so much more I could write. The Stone Roses- Ian, John, Mani and Reni- have been a central part of my musical life for over three and a half decades. Their music rewired me, changed my DNA. I feel privileged to have seen them back then and to still have that debut album and the songs from those singles, from 1988 through to 1990, to still get so much enjoyment from them when I hear them and play them. There's something special about those songs that stadium tours and late stage capitalism can't tarnish. The Roses were from round here, they were us on stage, us on record, four ordinary Mancunians but also they were something else, something so un- ordinary that they transformed themselves when they played together- and by doing that they transformed us too. 

Where Angels Play

Gary Mani Mounfield. RIP. 

Still Feel The Rain

This record, Still Feel The Rain by Stex, was released on 19th November 1990, thirty five years ago yesterday. 

Still Feel The Rain (The Grid Remix)

It rolls in on a very danceable, very 1990 breakbeat. There's a clipped, funky guitar riff, the spirit of Nile Rodgers has been conjured into acid house. A bumpy bassline, sounding like The Orb or The Grid. And then a vocal, a female lead joined by a male on the chorus, 'I still feel the rain now the storm is over/ Still the cold when you open the door'. Wonderful uptempo house/ pop. 

Stex briefly promised to be a Sly Stone for the 90s. it wasn't to be- an album, Spiritual Dance, didn't follow until 1992. Still Feel The Rain got some music press coverage and should have been a smash hit. The press coverage came via two factors- the single was remixed by The Grid and the guitar was played by Johnny Marr. 

Richard Norris and Dave Ball were just starting out as The Grid in 1990- singles like Floatation and A Beat called Love and an album, Electric Head, saw them flying their flag high. It's easy to see why Johnny Marr was happy to play on Still Feel The Rain. He was post- Smiths, Chic had always been an influence on his guitar playing and in 1990 he was perfectly placed to enjoy acid house. He was repositioning himself away from those Smiths fans who still blamed him for breaking up the band, playing on a slice of good time, acid house pop, grooving in the video with hair cropped short and wearing white with a gold necklace. Johnny's moved on writ large. 

It didn't work out for Stex- there was an album and a handful more singles. Better to have made one great single than none at all and this record is a perfect little time capsule,a postcard from 1990. 

Innenleben

I've written many times about Exeter's Mighty Force, a label reborn in 2019 and since then responsible for a run of great electronic albums and EPs from a huge roster of artists including David Harrow, Long Range Desert Group, Reverb Delay, M- Paths, D3, Dylab, Fluffy Inside, Myoptik, Boxheater Jackson, Yorkshire Machines, KAMS, Paddy Thorne, Golden Donna and more besides. 

At the end of October SubDan returned with a full length album, Innenleben. All ten tracks, as well as the album itself, have German titles. It opens with Denkmuster (translation 'thought patterns' or 'mindset'), a setting out of the stall, ticking hi hats, bleeps and bass, lovely machine repetition- there's a laser focus on Innenleben, absolute precision and timing, the occasional human voice dropped in, but there's also a lot of feeling and a lot of soul. 

Liebesgefluster (translation, love whispering- and don't the Germans have a word for everything) is a technoid joy, warm and minimal, the synth hook bouncing around, robotic voices just within earshot muttering sweet nothings, and the drums and bass gathering pace. 

This music, streamlined, linear and all forwards momentum, always puts me in mind of travel and transport (something Kraftwerk picked up on half a century ago with Autobahn and Trans- Europe Express)- it's the sound of gliding through miles of countryside after dark on the rails or under the sodium lights on the motorway, the white lines shooting past, miles falling away. 

Translating the song titles is a joy in itself. There is Gedankenfrei (thoughts are free) and Vorstellungskraft (imagination). At the end there is the tile track, Innenleben (inner life), a beatless and weightless ambient techno affair with loops that repeat until dissolving into nothing. Lovely stuff. Get it at Bandcamp.

It's Plain To See

This song revolved back into my life at the weekend and I played it umpteen times on Sunday, something about it really striking a chord. 

I'm Not The Man I Used To Be

How good is that? I was reminded on Sunday evening that it was a favourite of Drew of the now dormant but once essential music blog, Across The Kitchen Table. 

In 1989 Fine Young Cannibals were making a second album, The Raw And The Cooked. Some of the songs that would appear on it were already out- their cover of Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have Fallen In Love With) was in Jonathan Demme's 1986 film Something Wild and Good Thing, Tell Me What and Hard As It Is all showed up in Barry Levinson's 1987 film Tin Men (with FYC playing a band in a nightclub in the film). They were moving away from the 60s soul towards something more contemporary. Andy Cox and David Steele had made an acid house inspired single as Two Men A Drum Machine And A Trumpet while singer Roland Gift was acting in Sammy And Rosie Get Laid and Scandal. They reunited and the band told their label they wanted Prince to produce the rest of the album. Prince wasn't available but strings were pulled and Fine Young Cannibals ended up in Paisley Park with David Z, a member of Prince's Revolution. The big hit single She Drives Me Crazy came from those sessions as did I'm Not The Man I Used To Be. 

I'm Not The Man I Used To Be is built around a James Brown drum loop, the ever dependable and in 1989 increasingly ubiquitous Funky Drummer, a subtle guitar part and some lovely synth chords. Roland Gift's voice was indeed a gift and his vocal is wonderful, introspective and heartfelt, full of regret and emotion. It's not house music but it's coming from that plac. 

'Oh, it's plain and it's a shame/ I can't explain/ But I'm not the man I used to be'

It was the fourth single off the album- record companies really rinsed albums back in the 80s. Of the remixes and extended versions the Jazzie B and Nellee Hooper remix is a winner. I don't have an mp3 but it's on Youtube.

I once saw Roland Gift in real life, walking down the street in Islington one evening in the mid- 90s when we used to spend quite a bit of time in that part of London. He has that kind of charisma and style that makes it look like he's in a video when he's doing nothing more than walking down a North London street after dark. Fine Young Cannibals didn't make any more albums, more's the pity- the former Beat pair of Andy and David and Roland drifted apart and they called it a day in 1992. Roland apparently resurfaced this summer playing two gigs. 

Monday's Long Songs

Back in July I wrote about Galactic Ride, a solo single from Gordon Kaye, a Brighton based DJ and producer who has been active in the Brighton music scene (and beyond) since the mid- 80s. This Friday Galactic Ride is released in a variety of versions including a brand new vocal version. Gordon originally saw Galactic Ride as a nine minute Cosmic Disco instrumental but his daughter Gabriella arranged a vocal for it and now its difficult to imagine it without it...

Chuggy cosmic/ Balearic that really moves when the bassline hits a minute in and Gabriella's vocal soars over the dreamy synth arpeggios. It sounded great back in the summer and has now returned in its orbit to light up late November. Galactic Ride is out this Friday- pre- order at Bandcamp. 

Out last week was a Hardway Bros remix of Le Carousel's We're All Gonna Hurt. The original version came out back in February this year and has been much played by Sean Johnston at ALFOS nights up and down the country. It seemed right therefore that Sean did a remix- which he ahs and it more than delivers the goods, with a heavy new breakbeat that kicks and a monstrous bassline is so huge it's almost a living breathing entity. The second half, the vocal surfacing with the line, 'Sooner or later/ We're all gonna hurt', as the synths bounce around, the pianos clang and the bassline buzzes, is genuinely thrilling. Nine minutes of electronic fun from Phil Kieran in Belfast. Get it at Bandcamp. 

Forty Minutes Of Grant Hart

Last Wednesday's Husker Du post, three albums from a period of a little over a year and a new box set of live recordings at gigs from 1985 sent me back to the Husker Du back catalogue and then into some of Grant Hart's post Husker albums. A Sunday mix seemed like a good idea (to quote Bob Mould who will turn up with his own mix sometime soon). Grant was a singular character in US 80s hardcore/ punk and a fine songwriter and drummer. I was genuinely saddened by his death from cancer in 2017. 

Grant and Bob had a difficult relationship- they could both be difficult with each other and the pair's non- communication in 1987 contributed to Husker Du's split. They made up in the end, when Grant's illness was terminal and laid some ghosts to rest. 

Grant's life was tinged with tragedy and difficulties. His older brother was killed by a drunk driver when Grant was ten. Grant inherited his drum kit. Both Grant and Bob struggled with their sexuality as young men in the early 80s punk world, a place where homophobic attitudes were often very close to the surface (Bob came out in the 90s, Grant was openly bisexual). In the late 80s Grant had an HIV Positive misdiagnosis and was spent some time dealing with heroin addiction (which contributed to Husker Du's break up). In 2011 his house caught fire and burned to the ground and his mother died a month later. 

Let's remember Grant this way, with eleven songs that burn with passion, desire, emotion and the punk rock flame...

Forty Minutes Of Grant Hart 

• 2541
• Turn On The News
• Green Eyes
• Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely
• She Can Hear The Angels Coming
• My Regrets
• The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill
• You Can Make It At Home
• You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water
• Old Empire (BBC Session)
• Keep Hanging On

2541 was a solo single from 1988, from Grant's debut solo album Intolerance (December 1989 on SST), an album on which he played all the instruments and produced. After the guitar assault of Husker Du Grant shifted to organ as the central instrument for Intolerance and on 2541 acoustic guitar. 2541 is a story song, a couple move in together and then split, told in a few verses with some very well drawn touches and details. A personal song that has universal appeal. She Can Hear The Angels Coming is also from Intolerance. Grant got the front cover of Sounds when Intolerance was released. I still have a copy in my archive (boxes in the loft) of music press and magazines. 

Turn On The News is from 1984's double album Zen Arcade, the releases that lifted Husker Du apart from their peers. Doomy piano note, TV news samples at the start, a long fade in and then the three Huskers power into some frenzied punk/ psyche. Great backing vocals on this one as Grant howls away up front and Bob riffs away.

Green Eyes and Keep Hanging On are from 1985's Flip Your Wig, Husker Du's pinnacle in songs and sound, and also home to some Grant Hart masterpieces. Keep Hanging On is everything a Grant Hart Husker Du song should be. Green Eyes rings and clamours, with cymbals splashing and guitars crunching. 

Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely is from Husker Du's major label debut 1986's Candy Apple Grey. Not to damn Candy Apple Grey with faint praise but it's one of the foundation stones of 90s alt- rock, a slightly more introverted and slowed down approach, acoustic guitars higher in the mix. Don't Want To Know... was a single too which came with Husker Du's assault on The Beatles' Helter Skelter. Don't Want To Know... is neither acoustic nor slowed down. 

My Regrets is from 2009's Hot Wax, an album I love. Grant started it in 2005, travelling to Montreal to record with members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and A Silver Mt. Zion before finishing it on his own. My Regrets is the album's stately, confessional closing song, with dense clanging guitars and stirring vocals. You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water opens Hot Wax, the lyrics a series of Buddhist sayings and the music a burning fire.   

The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill is from New Day Rising, one of two Husker Du albums in 1985. After the three word howl of the title song Grant's song bursts in, all feeling, noise and melody. On finding out that Heaven Hill is a US brand of whiskey, the song's lyrics and subject take on a different tone. 

After Intolerance Grant formed nova Mob, a band in which he played guitar and sang. In 1991 they released The Last Days Of Pompeii, an album with lyrics taking in Pliny The Younger, Werner von Braun and the Nordic God of War. Their second and final album, self titled, came out in 1994. Old Empire opened it and was played at a BBC Session in 1994 hosted by Marc Riley. 

You Can Make It At Home is from the final Husker Du album, a double released in 1987 called Warehouse: Songs And Stories. It is packed with great late period Bob and Grant songs but it also sounds like an end is nearing, it's there in the tone and the feel. On You Can Live At Home, the final Husker Du song on the final Husker Du album Grant and Bob duel to have the last word, Bob peeling off  notes amid feedback, Grant banging the drums and singing the line over and over, 'you can live at home now...', the song a long fade out, no one wanting to find the way to bring it to a stop.