Dean Wareham, ex- Galaxie 500, ex- Luna, solo artist and half of Dean and Britta, has a new album out at the end of March, That's The Price Of Loving Me. A single appeared last week ahead of it, a gloriously Velvets indebted slow paced guitar song, two chords and some cello and Dean's distinctive voice- You Were The Ones I Had To Betray. It's produced by Kramer who was at the controls back when Galaxie 500 were a going concern. It's a beautiful song, one that reveals a little more with each play.
Kramer had always wanted to make another record with Dean but it didn't happen until last year, the pair recording ten songs in six days in Los Angeles, with Kramer playing piano, organ and synths, Britta on bass and backing vox, cello from Gabe Noel and Dean upfront on vocals and guitar. There's a Nico cover on the album too, Reich der Traume (Realm Of Dreams) from 1981's Luul (recorded with Lutz Ulbrich).
In 2021 Dean released his second solo album, I Have Nothing To Say To The Mayor Of L.A. The title of the album was the first line sung on the album, in this song...
'The past is our plaything/ We're making it up as we go', he sings in that casual half sung/ half spoken delivery over some Lou Reed/ Sterling Morrison third Velvets album guitar chords. There are nine more Dean Wareham sung and played songs on that album, with Britta on bass, two covers (Scott Walker and Lazy Smoke), the usual deal, excellence as standard. Which reminds that there was a Galaxie 500 compilation out last year with a load of previously unreleased stuff on it, that I never got round to getting hold of.
David Lynch died last week aged seventy eight, as I'm sure most of the readers of this blog will know. He was a visionary artist, the director of film and TV that redefined what film and TV could be. His films- Eraserhead, Dune, Blue Velvet, Wild At Heart, Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway- all lit up the screen and took storytelling and cinema somewhere else. The dreamlike world he created, a sense of the surreal and the strange being just around the corner, live in the memory long after the credits have rolled. Twin Peaks reimagined what television could be and do.
Music was crucial to Lynch's film and visual world. Blue Velvet, 1986's psychological thriller/ film noir, was based around the Bobby Vinton song of the same name and any reference to the film- the cover of The Face magazine above for instance- will have the song playing in my head instantly...
Blue Velvet is one of those 50s songs that has a weird, trippy edge to it regardless of its association with David Lynch's film. It's place in the film just made it even more so. 1990's Wild At Heart, a black comedy/ road movie/ romance/ crime spree film, made a star out of Chris Isaak and his song Wicked Game.
Wild At Heart took Elvis, the 1950s, a snakeskin jacket, suggestions of the Wizard Of Oz and the stars Laura Dern and Nicholas Cave and wrapped them in a love story freak out. I saw it at the cinema in 1990 while a student in Liverpool, an afternoon screening that had us blinking in the daylight when we came out. My then girlfriend saw it with me and hated it (and made it clear during the film's duration)- it was very much a film that split opinions.
Twin Peaks is unimaginable without the soundtrack, not least Julee Cruise and Angelo Badalamenti's song Falling, that plays over the opening titles, a song that creates a dream world of its own and that sets the tone for everything that follows.
It's been sampled ever since its release in 1990 as have other parts of the Twin Peaks soundtrack and world. I've posted this before but its worth posting again- a Bedford Falls Players track from last year called Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams that takes Kyle MacLachlan and Twin Peaks and builds a wonky, electrifying cosmic house world around them. Find it here.
David Lynch was a music obsessive and frequently made and released his own music too, the '50s influences ever present along with his enduring love of the blues. Many of them are at Lynch's own Bandcamp page, the physical copies largely sold out but digital available. This one, The Big Dream, is the title track from a 2013 album, twelve modern blues songs, Lynch and his co- writer/ musician David Hurley (with Lykke Li singing on a bonus song) and a Bob Dylan cover (The Ballad Of Hollis Brown). Dusty blues, like some 21st century crossover of Tom Waits, Bobby Vinton, Jack White and Link Wray, but ultimately entirely Lynchian.
The whole album is at Bandcamp too along with various other Lynchworld releases.
Today's Sunday mix comes from the south of England and from Grant Williams who runs the independent label Eclectics which has recently re- entered the fray after a hiatus of a couple of years. The recent edit of The Residents (featured in my edits mix last Sunday, part two to come soon) can be found at Eclectics Bandcamp along with a, yep, eclectic range of releases including a James Bright EP, The Outside, that comes with Hardway Bros remixes, Warmth by Cole Odin and a Coyote release from 2017.
Grant hosts his Love Under Will radio show at 1BTN and last Sunday broadcast a two hour mix that is up at Mixcloud for those of us playing catch up. The two hours begins with Chris Rotter and his Bad Meat Club and the epic twenty three minute version of 86'ed that Chris recorded for Isaac when he died in November 2021 and then drifts off with some gorgeous electronic music- cosmic, ambient, space disco, dub and downtempo with tunes from Rhythm Doctor, Assab, Chris & Cosey and more.
The Totem Edits service run by Leo Zero and Justin Deighton threw another top class edit out into the ether on Friday, this one called Medicine, an eight minute edit of Big Audio Dynamite back in 1985 that shifts Mick, Don and the B.A.D. boys towards a dusty western stomp, appropriately enough given the sampling and lyrical content of the original and its all star video. Your Medicine is here.
In July 1979 Jimmy Carter, then President of the USA, faced with a declining economy, inflation, oil shortages and a hostage crisis in Iran, made a speech from the White House to the American people. The speech- The Crisis Of Confidence- became known as the 'malaise' speech. In it Carter spoke of the numerous challenges the USA faced, crises he dated back to the assassinations of both Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King in 1960s and the loss of confidence in politicians that Watergate had provoked.
Carter had met with a range of business, political, religious and academic leaders in an attempt to revitalise his government. The energy crisis and inflation were massive problems. Carter and his advisor Pat Caddell came up with the idea that the USA was facing not just an energy crisis, not just an inflation crisis but a crisis of confidence, that something fundamental had gone wrong that could not be fixed merely by legislation. In the Malaise speech he referred to conversations he'd had with other people- 'Mr President', he was told, 'we are facing a moral and spiritual crisis'. The entire speech, with Carter's solutions can be found here. This is the part that is most associated with the malaise-
'The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.
The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.
The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July.
It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else -- public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.
Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.
The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.
As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.
These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.
We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate.
We remember when the phrase "sound as a dollar" was an expression of absolute dependability, until ten years of inflation began to shrink our dollar and our savings. We believed that our nation's resources were limitless until 1973, when we had to face a growing dependence on foreign oil.
These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed. Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our nation's life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our government has never been so wide. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual.
What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends.
Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don't like it, and neither doI'
At first many Americans responded positively to the speech, it struck a chord and polled well. But Ronald Reagan and his team, campaigning for the Presidential election that November, turned it around and used it to batter Carter (whose troubles just increased as the November election neared). 'I find no national malaise', Reagan said, 'I find nothing wrong with the American people'. This boosterism was one factor that propelled Reagan into the White House in January 1980. I was remained of the speech when Jimmy Carter died recently aged 100, the last President of the Roosevelt era and tradition.
It also reminded me of the film 20th Century Women, a 2016 film directed by Mike Mills (not the R.E.M. Mike Mills), one I've watched twice since it came out, a film set in Santa Barbara, California in 1979. Carter's speech is on the TV at one point, the crisis and malaise Carter articulates felt by some of the characters in the film. 20th Century Women is the story of an unconventional household, a middle aged woman Dorothea (Annette Bening) raising a fifteen year old son Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) in a large, ramshackle house also occupied by two lodgers, a young female photographer with cervical cancer and a middle aged male mechanic/ carpenter, plus Jamie's friend/ maybe girlfriend Julie (the trio played by Ella Fanning, Greta Gerwig and Billy Crudup). There is feminism, punk rock, Talking Heads, Black Flag, hardcore punk purism and violence, sexual encounters, a punk club in Los Angeles and an end of the 70s sense of things coming to a conclusion, an unclear terminus. In one scene at a skatepark Jamie gets beaten up for liking Talking Heads. Art, music and photography, are a key theme in the film, and the punk world is there as a door to somewhere else, to modernity, some kind of freedom, a way out- escapism too. It's a film about two generations of women at the end of the 1970s and how between them they try to raise Jamie as a modern male in the modern world. Carter's malaise speech is very much part of the film's world.
The soundtrack is packed with punk and New Wave artists, with songs by Talking Heads, The Clash, The Raincoats, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Germs, Suicide, Devo and Buzzcocks as well as the big band music of the 30s and 40s that Dorothea remembers from her pre- war youth. These three songs all fit not just in the film really well but also as a musical backdrop to Jimmy Carter's spiritual malaise and his assertion that 'piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose'.
Talking Heads debut album '77 featured this song, Don't Worry About The Government, a most un- punk song lyrically, a sentimental and optimistic celebration of civic leaders and community (although it can probably be read as satire too but I'm not sure that was necessarily Byrne's intention).
The Raincoats released Fairytale In the Supermarket in 1979, a 7" single on Rough Trade. It's a sardonic look at late 20th century life- love, time, books, how to live- while the trio play inspiring rattly, trebly, homemade post- punk.
Suicide's Cheree came out in 1978, essential synth punk rock. Martin Rev and Alan Vega were true innovators making existential music, punk rock without the guitars.
The film also has a score by American conductor, writer and musician Roger Neill, several pieces of music full of echo and reverb, wobbly cellos and E- bowed guitars. This one, Santa Barbara 1979, is from the film's opening scenes, a lovely, warm ambient incantation.
Mogwai have been making records since 1997 and just seem to be get better and better if mellowing somewhat from the noise terrorism sound of their earlier days. Time passes and their sound evolves and they make music that is recognisably Mogwai while finding something new with each release. Their forthcoming album, The Bad Fire, is out at the end of the month and this single slipped out a week ago- Fanzine Made Of Flesh. It has a song structure and vocals, something they've added in recent years (see the equally beautiful songs Richie Sacramento, We're Not Done and Party In The Dark from three previous albums). The vocals on Fanzine Made Of Flesh are fed through a vocoder, layered over soaring, churning guitars and driving drums and bass. Members of the band have been through some difficult times in recent years and the music, emotive and moving, reflects this. They also have a knack of coming up with brilliant song titles that usually have nothing to do with the song whatsoever.
My friend Spencer sends me music fairly regularly and often things I'd missed or hadn't heard for years. Recently he sent me a link to a new single by Throwing Muses, a new song called Summer Of Love, from an album coming in March titled Moonlight Concessions. Summer Of Love's lyric deals with a wager Kristen Hersch made with a man for a dollar around the idea that the seasons don't change us. The bet was lost. Kirsten says the man said, 'we aren't just planted here, stagnant, we're in flux, responding to love like octopuses moving across the ocean floor'. 'Turns out here was right', she adds, 'and I still owe him a buck'.
Throwing Muses never really went for the obvious with the words or music. Summer Of Love is three minutes of off kilter acoustic guitar and hushed vocals, cello and a noisy guitar solo, leftfield indie- Americana with a brooding, baroque feel.
I don't think I even knew they'd reformed. released an album in 2003, one in 2013 with Tanya Donelly back in the fold and then another in 2020. I haven't been paying attention obviously. I'm not sure I've even thought about Throwing Muses for a very long time. The first album I bought by them was Hunkpapa back in 1989, the band's third. It came out on 4AD and in 1989 anything on 4AD was worth listening to. The artwork alone was worth the price of admission but also in '89 Pixies had released two essential albums in a year with 4AD and there were albums from Pale Saints, Ultra Vivid Scene and Lush in the same year. The consensus now seems to be that Hunkpapa smoothed off some of the rough edges that the group's previous two albums contained but I remember thinking Hunkpapa was really good at the time. The lead single from it was Dizzy, classic late 80s Ameri- indie, catchy folk- pop with a snarl and a endlessly circling guitar riff.
Two years later they came back with The Real Ramona, an album I still have on vinyl- I took it out last night. It's still in really good condition and possibly hasn't been played since 1991. The single Counting Backwards preceded it, another catchy, off kilter song from Kirsten Hersh who had a pretty singular world view. Throwing Muses pitched up at BBC2's The Late Show in March '91, a programme that mixed culture arts and politics and had a slew of great bands playing live. They played two songs, Counting Backwards and Two Step, and show what a good live band they were.
In response to a post two weeks ago about Fac 15, a poster for the joint Factory and Zoo festival held in a field in near Leigh in 1979, the line up of which included the great and the good of the north west post- punk era (Echo and The Bunnymen, Joy Division, The Teardrop Explodes, ACR, Orchestral Manoeuvres) and some of the lesser known (Lori and The Chameleons, X- O- Dus, The Distractions, Elti- Fits and Crawling Chaos), Ernie from 27 Leggies asked about the last two and their current status in the 'Where Are They Now?' file. I promised a post on Crawling Chaos.
When New Order played their first after the death of Ian Curtis, an unannounced gig at The Beach Club at Oozits in Shudehill on 29th July 1980, Bernard Sumner, very uncomfortable with the role of frontman and singer, introduced the new band (billed as the No Names after Belgian factory act The Names pulled out) with something along the lines of, 'hello, we're New Order, our mates couldn't make it, we're the last surviving members of Crawling Chaos'. Which was a slightly bizarre announcement under the circumstances but things were tense. Crawling chaos was possibly for Bernard a description of the band and their world following Ian's suicide and their early attempts to carry on, to play live with temperamental equipment and a new set of songs. But Crawling Chaos was also a band who'd released a single on Factory.
Crawling Chaos were from Tyneside- Ashington in Northumberland to be exact (also the birthplace and childhood home of world cup winners the Charlton brothers, and Manchester United's Bobby Charlton, another Ashington boy who ended up in Manchester). They formed in 1977, the pairing of Doomage Khult and Strangely Perfect (maybe not their real names) meeting at school and were named in homage to HP Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mythos. Punk inspired, avant garde, free flowing jams became post- punky new wave. Gigs were often improvised affairs. At some point, after a gig at a hotel in Whitley Bay, a contact was pursued via Tyne Tees TV and word got to Tony Wilson at Granada. Wilson offered to put them on at the Leigh Festival and demo tapes were sent to the fledgling Factory label. Apparently Martin Hannett hated them immediately. As did some of the other Factory movers and shakers.
In 2005 Wilson was interviewed by James Nice (an interview now at Electronic Sound), including being asked about his relationship with Joy Division manager Rob Gretton. Wilson said-
“There were times when it did come to fisticuffs. In the early days, for example, there was a band called Crawling Chaos, who were from Newcastle and they were crusties before crusties existed. They used to take the piss out of Joy Division going, ‘Oh, Joy Division, you think you’re fucking great, don’t you?’. So I would try to book Crawling Chaos for every Joy Division gig I possibly could and there was one night at the Russell Club when suddenly, there it was, it was Joy Division and Crawling Chaos supporting. And Rob came up to me in the upstairs bit, where we served curried goat and peas, and went, ‘Very funny that, Tone’. And I went, ‘I thought you’d like it Rob’. At which, Rob nutted me and, as I went down, he kneed me in the balls. So the fact that there was occasional violence was relevant.
They seem to have divided opinions, described at Discogs by a user as 'the boys you loved to hate' and a band who could never make their mind up about what they wanted. In 1980 Factory released a Crawling Chaos single, Fac 17.
A synth intro which suggests something very Factory is about to follow but doesn't- trebly guitars kick in, there's a snarly, punkish vocal, and a dense, compressed sound. The topic of the lyrics seems to be sexually transmitted infections as opposed to sexual prowess.
The booklet that accompanies the 2008 Factory Records: Communications 1979- 92 box set describes Crawling Chaos as 'pranksters' and 'heavy modern' and includes an unflattering, contemporary review of the band's performance at Leigh. They went on to release an album in 1981, Homunculous Equinox, on Foetus Products and then in 1982 an album on Factory Benelux called The Gas Chair. Three more albums followed in the 80s, the last a self released c90 cassette called Cunt. It seems that for a while the band also ran a club night in Newcastle. By the time they released Sex Machine the members included Martin Rees, Jeff Crowe, David Halton, Garry Clennell and Eddie Fenn and others have come and gone over the years, including initially Dave Cook & Steve Smith (but both had left by the time the Factory single came out).
The answer to the question 'Where are they now? is a little unclear. In 2012 an album called Spookhouse came out, the last ever Crawling Chaos recordings dating from 1987. However, there is a website here which is a treasure trove of posts, myths, opinions, quotes, reviews, photographs and more. I can recommend the Myths tab for more information, a page last updated in July 2023 under the heading 'Crawling Chaos History: Myths passing as Truth, revealed'. Judging by the replies to the comments the website seems to be run by Strangely Perfect. So, as far as I can tell, that's where they are now.
As ever at the start of a new year I get into an album (or two) that came out the previous year. This is one reason why end of year lists are a good thing, tip offs and nudges about things that one has missed, overlooked or just didn't get round to. In December JC at The Vinyl Villain ran a series of posts featuring ten albums he'd enjoyed in 2024, one of which was Viva Hinds by Hinds. I listened to a couple of songs and on my trip into town to do some record shopping with some Christmas money bought it on vinyl (clear vinyl with a splattered pink centre plus free signed postcard) from the lovely people at Piccadilly Records.
Hinds are from Spain, four young women making sparky garage/ indie rock. They made three albums between 2011 and 2020, including a wonderful cover of The Clash's Spanish Bombs and then two of the fonder members quit, the management departed, leaving the vocals and guitar duo of Carlotta Cosials and Ana Garcia Perotte wondering what to do. They regrouped, wrote some songs, hired a house in France to record in and came back with Viva Hinds, a short but very sweet album, ten songs in thirty four minutes (with help from Beck and Grian Chatten on two of the songs). Faced with a load of upheaval and departures Hinds seemed to decide that the best thing to do was dance and sing. The songs are light on their feet, with singalong verses and choruses, melodic guitars and synths, veering from moody to poppy, a celebration of friendship and the band and life. This one saw them draft Grian Chatten in to share vocals, the spindly guitars and rattly drums a brilliantly ramshackle backdrop to the two voices.
The internet sometimes delivers sheer randomness. Scrolling absentmindedly last week I came across a pop duo from the mid- 80s I hadn't thought about since, well, since the mid- 80s I imagine. Vicious Pink were a boy/ girl pair who started out as backing vocalists for Soft Cell. Singer Josephine Warden and keyboardist Brian Moss struck out on their own with a run of singles starting in 1982 and going through to 1986 with a self titled album that year. They recently reformed and have released two albums, one in 2022 and one in 2024. The song that appeared in front of me last Friday was this one, a seven minute extended mix of a 1984 single.
Stuttering vocals, ghostly backing vox choirs (sampled Cold War Russians apparently), boxy drum machines (that 80s favourite the Linn drum), Roland synths, a certain mid- 80s dance/ pop charm. I could almost imagine it being played at some club nights now.
Take Me Now came out as a single in 1986, electronic dance pop with, pumping drums and bass, over the top '86 production, suggestive lyrics and a, um, memorable sleeve. If you've got it, flaunt it etc.
There have been a lot of really good edits out in the wild over the last few years and the thought of slinging a bunch of them together into a Sunday mix became irresistible. In the fifty five minutes below you'll find various artists from the last sixty years of popular culture re- edited and rejigged into new shapes including Gil Scott Heron, Gordon Lightfoot, The Residents, Voice Of Africa, Monsoon, Siouxsie and The Banshees and Les Negresses Vertes. This mix is only part of the story- volume 2 (and maybe 3) will follow shortly.
Western Revolution was released on 12" vinyl only, part of Coyote's Magic Wand Special Editions Volume 2, along with Lonely and two other edits (Love Home and Luca). Western Revolution is a live sounding, laid back groove with the unmistakeable voice of Gil Scott Heron advising us about the results of the revolution and theta there will be 'no re- run, brothers and sisters, the revolution will be live'. Lonely picks up where Monsoon's 1981 single Ever So Lonely left off and extends it out.
Totem Edits have become fairly essential recently, a page at Bandcamp for the edit work of Leo Zero and Justin Deighton (with plenty of input from Sean Johnston). One to watch. I posted Feel fairly recently, lovely drawn out funky folk built around a 1967 Gordon Lightfoot song, The Way Feel. Totem Edit 03 has Voice Of Africa's 1990 Balearic beat smash Hoomba Hoomba close to its core. Totem Edits 14 is one of my favourite recent edits from the pair, a wonderfully absorbing version of Les Negresses Vertes' 1989 French punk/ folk/ Balearic song Zobi La Mouche.
Resident Rockers is part of a two track EP on the recently reinvigorated Eclectics label, San Francisco avant garde/ art punk rockers/ giant eyeball headgear wearers The Residents bent into new shapes by someone very familiar to this blog. Find Eclectics and the EP here.
Jezebell are masters of the edit, a sample forming the basis of a completely new track, something old being reworked into something new. Trading Places was a six track pair of EPs from 2023, split into two parts, daytime and nighttime versions. In the 6PM take Siouxsie Sioux's Peek- A- Boo gets reworked and taken for a spin round the floor.
In 2015 Mojo Filter, an edit veteran, took The Banshees 1981 single Arabian Knights, Siouxsie's post punk psychedelia re- jigged into new shapes. Going from Peek- A- Boo to Arabian Knights seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.
I watched Wings Of Desire over the Christmas holiday- it was on one of the many Channel 4 channels having been remastered and restored in 2022. It's a film I haven't seen since it came out in 1989 and am pretty sure I've only seen once before (probably at Liverpool University film club which had a long running mid- week film night I used to go to in '88 and '89).
Wings Of Desire was made by Wim Wenders, a mark of quality in itself, and is set in West Berlin in 1989 (the events of November 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent break up of the Eastern Bloc and the USSR don't appear in the film at all, no hint of a major shift in geo- politics. The Berlin Wall does feature in the film and West Berlin's unique feel and status are undeniably an important aspect of the film. Interestingly, much of West Berlin is semi- derelict with shots of vast areas of waste ground in what is now central Berlin, Potsdammerplatz for example). The film is in German mainly, subtitled, with brief bits of conversation in English (especially when Columbo, Peter Falk, features). It's shot mainly in beautiful black and white with some scenes in equally beautiful colour. Wenders cinematography and eye for a shot is second to none. It's also very slow, especially by modern cinema's standards, a film that feels like for long periods nothing much happens, the main characters drift around a lot, contemplating and deliberating.
The film centres of two angels, one played by Bruno Ganz (best known to British audiences for his portrayal of Hitler in Downfall), who populate West Berlin and are invisible to adults but can be seen by children, listening to the thoughts of West Berliners, occasionally intervening to comfort humans in distress, sometimes failing to prevent people from spiraling. Many of the people in the film seem to be alone, estranged from family and friends, everyone isolated in a city isolated from the rest of the country. A circus is in town and the angel Bruno Ganz plays falls in love with the trapeze artist, a woman played by Solveig Dommartin, and wants to become mortal so he can feel human pleasures. A film about the Second World War is being filmed, starring Peter Falk, who knows the angels are there even though he can't see them. At times, shots of Berlin from 1945 newsreel are cut into the film. The black and white scenes, including some shot inside the enormous modernist West Berlin library and some sot near the Wall, are the world as seen by the angels. The colour scenes are the world as seen by humans. I'll leave my plot synopsis there- no spoilers.
The soundtrack is mainly by Jurgen Knieper who wrote much of the score and then re- wrote much of it having been shown rushes by Wenders. It's an ambient/ instrumental score with found sounds and dialogue from the film which works well as a standalone. This is Der Himmel Uber Berlin (The Sky Above Berlin), a haunting and rather lovely five minutes which sounds exactly like the soundtrack to angels on the rooftops of buildings at the frontline of The Cold War should sound.
Wim Wenders said he couldn't make a film in West Berlin in the late 80s and not include Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. The Bad Seeds appear in colour and in black and white, the characters turning up at a gig in a dilapidated dancehall. In this scene (in colour) Bruno Ganz arrives at the club while Nick and the boys play The Carny. Solveig is on the crowd too. Then they play From Her To Eternity, throbbing, restless, junkyard blues, young Nick Cave at the stage's lip in full heroin preacher mode playing to West Berlin's goth/ punk/ alternative underworld. Otto Sander, another angel, appears on stage.
Bad Seed guitarist Rowland S. Howard had a second band, Crime And The City Solution. They also appear in Wings Of Desire, playing the ominous Six Bells Chime, a sort of West Berlin/ Weimar Spaghetti Western song. Roland spins round the stage wielding guitar and cigarette. Solveig dances, The angels listen in.
The soundtrack features both bands with nine Jurgen Knieper pieces of music, snippets of conversation and dialogue from the film (just as the soundtrack to Wender's Paris, Texas did), plus several other pieces of music (expanded on CD), a soundtrack works really well away from the film as well as part of it. Both film and soundtrack are moving, atmospheric and have something to say about the human condition. What more could you want?
Ride/ GLOK guitarist/ writer/ singer Andy Bell has returned this week with a cover of I'm In Love With A German Film Star, the 1981 single by The Passions (retitled I'm In Love... by Andy). For the single Andy's got Dot Allison in on vocals, a song totally suited to Dot's style, and Michael Rother on guitar. It shimmers and floats, with fuzz guitars drifting in, and does all the things you'd want it to.
The song comes ahead of an album, Andy's third solo album, out at the end of February- Pinball Wanderer. Andy's solo work outside Ride, two albums (The View From Halfway Down and Flicker) plus his GLOK albums and singles, have been some of my favourite releases of the last five years so I'm looking forward to this one. In his promo blurb to accompany the single Andy said that for the album he went less is more, 'less tracks, more atmosphere, less layers of instrumentation, more vibes.' What's more, if you go to Bandcamp, there is a 12"/ digital release of the single with remixes by Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s and GLOK (Andy as GLOK remixing Andy as Andy). All three remixes are top drawer.
The Passions original is one of those songs that seems to exist in a world of its own. Released in January 1981, it was written by singer Barbara Gogan about Steve 'Roadent' Connelly, some time Clash and Sex Pistols roadie who had some minor roles in some German films.
This EP from 2016 came my way back in December, four tracks by Hugh Mane on an EP called Control Drama. Hugh Mane, I realised eventually, is a play on words, and the person credited with writing the tracks is one M. Gilbert but other than that I know little. However the person responsible for these four slices of is clearly someone with a background in house, acid, cosmische, and expert knowledge in the space of dub and the timing of techno. The four tracks sit somewhere in a sweet spot between all of these but somewhere else too- an intersection of soulful, laid back, slow motion loveliness, decorated with bird song and warm synth melodies. It's dance music in its origins but definitely designed for home listening as much as out. Get the EP here.
There are a slew of Hugh Mane releases at his/ their Bandcamp page. At the tail end of 2023 Hugh put out another four track EP, this one with Dan from Idjut Boys on board with drum programming, Phased Harmony. More deep sounds for home listening. Find it here.
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'.
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'.
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.
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.
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.
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 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).
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
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.
