Green Gartside’s recent 7″ single for Rough Trade, a pair of covers of Anne Briggs folk songs, had me reaching into his back catalogue for the album Scritti Politti released in 2006. White Bread Black Beer was put out as Scritti Politti but was effectively a solo album. Green singing and playing all the instruments, recorded at home in Dalston. The fourteen songs are minimal, sparse recordings but lushly produced, Green’s honeyed voice centre stage with acoustic guitars and keyboards. It’s intimate but warm and a long way from the layered productions the 80s pop Scritti.
Fourteen songs feels a few too many now, a shorter album may have been worked better but there are some moments where the combination of voice, songwriting and production reach the heights. Dr Abernathy is one, named after an 18th century English surgeon but borrowing lines from 80s rap- ‘punks jump up to get beat down/ all the days of my life’- and with lyrics about the Owl of Minerva (a symbol of knowledge and wisdom) and meth amphetamine. Album opener is another, a love letter to golden age hip hop, the drum machine that gives it its title and the songs of Run DMC. Green sings softly over some lovely synth chords for texture and a touch of echo, ‘the boom boom bap/ the rat- a- tat- tat/ that’s the beat of my life’ and later ‘the Yes Yes y’all/ was the siren call/ to come around to my life’. At the end he quotes Run DMC song titles in that softly sung way, ‘Hard Times, Sucker MCs/ Jay’s Game, 30 days/ Wake Up Hollis Crew/ Rock Box, It’s Like That…. I love you still/ I always will’. Gorgeous stuff.
There’s no real hope of me feeling remotely festive until work finishes on Friday but here’s a second Christmas song for this weekend- ‘cos nothing says Christmas like old-school hip hop, Adidas tracksuits and gold chains. Run DMC, all the way from 1987, sampling Clarence Carter’s Back Door Santa. ‘It’s Christmas time in Hollis, Queens, Mum’s cooking chicken and collard greens’.
A pair of Adidas Kopenhagen (from the much sought after City range)
Today we turn our attention towards footwear. A good outfit starts with the shoes, and works its way up. Mr Charity Shop Chic recommended Angels Want To Wear My Red Shoe by Elvis Costello. I was thinking of this, one of hip hop’s earliest examples of product placement (and earning Run DMC a lifetime supply as well). Run DMC didn’t wear the Kopenhagen pictured above- the shelltoe (or Superstar) were their thing, wide laced. The Kopenhagen and other city trainers were much more of a UK, terrace culture thing. I don’t often wear trainers anymore outside sporting activity but have owned multiple pairs of Adidas in the past. Trainer fetishism is widespread in the north-west. Trainers mind- I have noted a worrying trend developing, people in Britain calling trainers sneakers. Ugh.
If sir or madam requires something else less sportswear oriented for your feet, here’s Elvis Costello with his Attractions on Top Of The Pops in 1977.
According to The Guardian’s fashion desk band t-shirts are currently at various degrees of hipness. The ubiquitous Ramones t-shirt has peaked- wear at your peril. This is due to the large number of kids wearing them and it’s availability in Primark. The Stone Roses t-shirt is also in trouble, again due to their popularity with toddlers/their parents. Too cute y’see. On the other hand Raymond Pettibone’s illustration for Sonic Youth’s 1990 Goo album is always hot and currently having a bit of a moment. But top of the pops and hot to trot is the 80s classic, the Run DMC shirt. Which is funny because I nearly bought one for my daughter a couple of weeks when I chanced upon one in TK Maxx- but didn’t. If I’d bought it, for a child no less, an almost eleven year old, I could have killed the whole scene dead there and then. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll thank me (and The Guardian) for this advice- I wouldn’t want you getting it wrong out there and with band t-shirts, as Run DMC might say, it’s tricky.
A slight interruption in the Creation Records run. I’m the oldest of five brothers (there’s two sisters as well. That makes eight. Count ’em. Nightmare sometimes I can tell you. Though not the ones who read this blog obviously). The next one down from me, Z, is forty today. He was into hip hop, graffiti and breakdancing from the start. He’s still into it now (well, maybe not the breakdancing. And the judge put him straight about the graffiti), the oldest B-Boy in town. Why? Because it’s like that, and that’s the way it is.
Bagging Area 