I’m Happy Just To Be With You

I had an urge the other day to hear a song by The Small Faces- it was almost overpowering, like the cravings I still very occasionally get for a cigarette (it’s now five and a half years since I last had a ciggie, as you’re asking). And it was a very specific craving- it had to be the 1968-period, Ogden’s era Small Faces, when they’d loosened up and gone a little hippie around their mod edges, Steve Marriott’s soulful voice, Ronnie’s distinctive bass playing, the wheezy organ, Kenny’s thumpy drums. Song Of A Baker would have done perfectly. Or Tin Soldier. Or this…

Afterglow (Of Your Love)

This is the version from Ogden’s Classic Nut Gone Flake, not the single version Andrew Loog Oldham put out after the group had split in 1969. The album version has the acoustic intro that was removed from the single release- I’m not that fussy, both versions are great. Loog Oldham sped it up slightly for the 45 and extended the end section. Both are stunning but I guess this one is the one the group recorded initially and wanted. Marriott’s lyrics were written for his wife, Jenny Rylance, a song that according to his drummer in Humble Pie Jerry Shirley only Marriott could have written, ‘a beautiful love song about what it feels like to have a fag after sex’.

And while I’m here, double bubble two-fer-one, one of the greatest clips in the history of music television, The Small Faces and PP Arnold destroying hearts on French TV in 1968.

Renegade Soundwave

I was reminded of this at the weekend, a lengthy techno workout from 1994, Leftfield remixing Renegade Soundwave. Moody, thumpy, acidic and very, very good indeed. Sounds like part of a soundtrack to a journey by train at dusk.

Renegade Soundwave (Leftfield Remix)

Monday’s Long Song

Over- familiarity can be a curse with songs. Sometimes you have to hear a song differently to appreciate it again, in a different context or space or just at volume. Since it was released on November 9th 1989 Fool’s Gold has become one of those overplayed songs but occasionally I can hear it for what it is again. It stands on its own in The Stone Roses back catalogue, a 9 minute 53 seconds B-side that became an A-side, a long way from the 60s inspired songs on the debut, a fair distance too from the extended jam section of I Am The Resurrection (which is much more indebted to rock music than Fool’s Gold is).

Fool’s Gold is effortless, ice cool, ghostly northern funk, with menacing whispered vocals and all manner of effects pulled out of John Squire’s guitar and pedals. Squire and Brown wrote it at Sawmills in Cornwall, based a four bar drum loop from a James Brown record with Reni adding live drums later to toughen it up. Ian Brown’s lyrics were inspired by Humphrey Bogart film The Treasure Of Sierra Madre, the story of 3 prospectors betraying each other. Squire’s wah wah guitar part sounds like a helicopter, rising and falling while Mani’s tight but rubbery bassline holds things together. It doesn’t really sound like anything else they recorded (the follow up One Love is more song based with a Resurrection style jam section). It doesn’t really sound like anything anybody else at the time recorded either.

Fool’s Gold

Initially the 12″ single was released with What The World Is Waiting For as the A-side but it was Fool’s Gold that radio picked up on, that was switched around on subsequent pressings of the single and it was Fool’s Gold that saw them crash-land into Top Of The Pops in November 1989. The band look brilliant in the clip, insouciant, cocksure and calm in the knowledge it has been their year- especially the moment where Ian raises the microphone above his head and stares down the camera lens while miming the words, not playing along with the pretence that it could be live. A little act that speaks volumes.

Moving Trucks

Bob Mould has a new single out (and an album to follow and a tour next year). Following the deaths of both parents Bob was self aware enough to know that this could lead to a bleak Bob Mould album (and you only have to listen to Black Sheets Of rain for instance to know that Bob can do bleak). He forced himself to write positive songs. Sunshine Rock sounds just like an upbeat Bob Mould song should, ringing guitars, surging chords, that vocal tone, but when the strings come in towards the end, it all shifts up again.

I’ve dipped in and out of Bob’s solo career, more out than in recently, but there’s always something worth rediscovering. Twenty years ago he was on Creation and put out The Last Dog And Pony Show. This song is a keeper, the tale of a man watching his partner pack up and leave and then using the break up as a way to move forward, ‘no moving trucks to hold me down’.

Moving Trucks

A Battered Street

Some buildings in the Northern Quarter have been pulled down recently, allowed to fall into a state of disrepair and then condemned. Cheaper than renovating them. The landlord can then demolish and sell the land (prime location, city centre land) and build something new and cheap. Cities always change, old being replaced by new, but it’s hard to see the new ones they put up and not feel something is being lost.

The La’s released one album and a few singles, all nearly 30 years ago. Since then their slim back catalogue has been fleshed out with all manner of demos, sessions, ‘lost’ recordings and live tracks. Their Scouse skiffle found a wide audience during the late 80s and early 90s, all the while Lee Mavers complaining that the songs didn’t sound right, hadn’t been recorded properly. The group had been going in different line ups for several years by that point. This version of Callin’ All is a demo from around 1987 but sounds pretty finished to me and has exactly the kind of vibe and produciton I’ve always assumed he was looking for, Lee Mavers’ vision of the ’60s in the ’80s already fully realised right in front of his nose.

Callin’ All

Rick James Dwells In The Abyss

Steve Cobby’s album from last year, Hemidemisemiquaver, was chock full of electronic delights. One of them was this inspired electro plus vocal sample tribute (of kinds) to Rick James. There’s a killer guitar solo in there too. Steve’s made a video for it, having gone slightly mad with a Spirograph app (created by Nathan Friend)- it will hypnotise you if you stare at it for too long.

https://youtu.be/_tuupgtNwg0

Rick James started out in LA playing bass in a handful of short lived bands including one called Salt, Pepper And Cocaine. Prior to this he had played with some future members of Buffalo Springfield and had also fled to Canada to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. His solo career took off on  Motown in the 70s and into the 80s, with songs such as Mary Jane and his hit Super Freak. Rick James, as the vocal sample says, dwells in the abyss and by the 90s deep into the abyss was where he was- rampant cocaine use and a conviction for sexual assault which led to 2 years in prison. After his mother died, Rick said he went even further, “there was nothing to keep me from descending into the lowest level of hell. That meant orgies. That meant sado-masochism. That even meant bestiality.” Rick James dwells in the abyss.

A Double

In past years on music blogs October 25th was Keeping It Peel Day (October 25th being the day he died in 2004), a day to celebrate the life and music of the man. I remember this largely because October 25th is also my wife’s birthday.

This photograph/meme was doing the rounds a couple of weeks ago and I love it. In the spirit of the meme and for Keeping It Peel Day- Peel supported and loved both bands- I offer you a Joy Division song recorded by New Order in 1998 for a Peel Session.

Isolation

Isolation contains one of Ian Curtis’ most distressing lyrics. The second verse has for a long time seemed to me like where he knew he was moving towards the place he ended up in on 18th May 1980.

‘Mother I tried please believe me,
I’m doing the best that I can.
I’m ashamed of the things I’ve been put through,
I’m ashamed of the person I am’

Musically Isolation is immense, Stephen’s urgent electronic drums, Hooky’s driving bass and Bernard’s keyboards which bring a bit of light into the shade. The second half of the song receives a real shot of adrenaline when the ‘real’ kit and hi-hat come in, propelling it onward. On Closer, Joy Division’s second album, it is a breath of fresh air, a few minutes of aural relief following the claustrophobic, intense and unsettling opener Atrocity Exhibition. If you can ignore the content of the lyrics. The New Order version above is well worth your time, an update and upgrade, a merged musical version of Ally Sheedy and Molly Ringwald, both black and pink.

And happy birthday to Mrs Swiss (Lou), a fan of The Breakfast Club and Molly Ringwald’s dancing.

Russian Roulette

The Liminanas have made one of my favourite records of 2018, the album Shadow People which came out back in January. The French duo have such a good sound, using 60s folk-psyche as a starting point and from there adding in some groove, general Gallic cool and contributions from like-minded souls (Anton Newcombe and Peter Hook for two). And lots of reverb. This new song is on a new compilation album of rarities and oddments out in November. Magnifique.

Now That’s A Record Buddy

In 1995 lots of bands made claims about being The Best Band In The World. After the more self contained, internal world of 80s indie, it became a sign of ambition and achieving best or biggest status was something all groups should strive for. But all those groups who said such things were all wrong because The Best Band In The World in the mid 1990s was actually Beastie Boys. This track from their 1994 double album Ill Communication is Exhibit A. Made up solely of a few samples (a killer bassline, drums, the crackle of vinyl, some organ from Jimmy Smith’s live album of the same name as the song and some deeply funky wah-wah guitar) over which Ad Rock, Mike D and MCA spit out lines and rhymes, coming together for the chorus. Two of the standout lines here are Ad Rock’s ‘everybody know when I be dropping science’ line and later on the sudden stop that leads into ‘oh my God, that’s the funky shit!’ They make it sound like anyone could do this but that’s clearly not true. They also make it seem like fun- serious but also fun.

Root Down

The Beastie Boys make double the amount of sense when you have the visuals to go with the music.

There’s a book coming out shortly called Beastie Boys Book, co-written by Ad Rock and Mike D with contributions from many of their friends and collaborators, and by the sounds of it it will not be your standard rock biography. During the 90s they expanded into clothing (X-Large), magazine publishing (Grand Royal), owning a record label (also Grand Royal), toured at length and also headlined Lollapalooza, put together a massive fundraising concert for human rights in Tibet, made some of the best pop videos ever (Sabotage and Intergalactic for two) as well as no less than 4 vital hip hop albums- Paul’s Boutique, Check Your Head, Ill Communication and Hello Nasty.

Monday’s Long Song

Not so much a song today, more a thirteen minute groove with staccato organ chords, crunchy guitars and trumpets, lightness rather than shade. Stereolab could do this kind of thing in sleep I think but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. From their 1996 Flourescences ep (and the 3 cd box set Oscillons From The Anti-Sun from 2005 which is a treasure trove of ep tracks, a dvd of videos and TV appearances and some stickers).

Soop Groove #1

It’s half term here this week and the weather looks good with some late October sunshine promised today. Some of the leaves are still clinging on to the trees. The rest are scattered all over the ground in a random autumnal colour chart. Quite often up here the seasons tend to blur and become a smudge but sometimes there’s a week or two where we get a proper autumn, before the clocks go back and everything becomes unpleasantly grey and dark wintry.