Junior Kickstart

I experienced a notable first for my little blog today: for the first time in three years, I had a takedown request from an artist responsible for creating the work involved. A few months back, I posted what I believed to be the only three remaining session tracks by Mandrake Paddle Steamer, which even Peel himself thought had been wiped by the BBC. However, it appears this is not so, and Paul Riordan from the band (see my author page) very politely asked me not to do this. In fact, ‘takedown’ is too strong a word for his request, as he has offered to make samples for me to post ahead of a planned full re-release this year.
Now, far from being dismayed, I was delighted not only to get his comments, but act on them immediately. It has always been my policy that, should any artist object to their work being displayed in this way, they have only to contact me and removal will be swift. It proves that Paul was actually paying attention to what I am trying, and have always tried, to do, here, to illustrate the Festive Fifty and Peel’s session artists with musical examples in the fervent hope that those with the facility to do so will investigate further and support the musicians by buying their work. My own passion for doing this is testified to by the mountain of CDs taking up most of my front room wall. When the album comes out, it will join them (if one of the dwindling number of Korean CD shops will import it for me), and I genuinely wish Paul good luck with the venture.
Contrast this with the knee-jerk reactions to my posts on Van Morrison and the Beatles, with removal of the latter actually enforced by parties unrelated. In this case, the pendulum swings the other way: it is not in the spirit of protecting the msuic to do things like this, but rather to reinforce the image of the music industry as an unforgiving tyrant, making themselves look thoroughly mean-spirited in the process. After the DMCA notice, a quick Google turned up a huge raft of Beatles’ LPs freely available for download without, it seems, fear of retribution, as opposed to the one or two tracks I made available for a limited period solely in the spirit of a historical perspective.
And contrast it too with Tony DuShane’s insidious snipe at bloggers in pursuance of me taking down a quote from an interview that he’d done with Jonathan Richman, claiming that he said it, not Richman, and that this was everything that was wrong with bloggers, blah blah. Now, a quick read of the link thoughtfully provided shows even the most Cro-Magnon among us that Richman did say it, and that it was not taken out of context, but was entirely relevant to the thought creation process that goes behind his work. Which leads me to one of two inescapable conclusions:
1) Mr DuShane did not take the time to read his own work properly. Or:
2) He did not write the comment himself.
I refuse to believe that 1) is an option: he is a prolific author with a great deal of work and awards to his credit, and I hardly think he would make such a basic error. So, if he didn’t write it, who did? Is it inconceivable that there is a new tactic being employed by the industry? His details are readily accessible, and nothing that I could see in the comment betrayed information that could not have been obtained by anybody. As we all know, identity theft is common on the Web, and just maybe interested parties (i.e. fans) are using this kind of weapon in some misguided attempt to protect their heroes? If so, that is still identity theft, and does no favours to the artist whatsoever. Quite the reverse.

Coyote Ugly

Peel’s very first Festive Fifty was intended to be an all-time chart, and would continue in this vein until the big changeover of 82. The first thing to note about it is that it is not representative of the year in question, as was amply demonstrated by the noble Adam on Fades In Slowly and his own chart for that year, which would possibly have included material by David Soul, ELO and Joan Armatrading if it had been a true reflection of what people really liked. John undoubtedly wanted his listeners to agree with him in that the best songs were being made here and now, not in a time frame stretching back to his first years on Radio London and then Radio 1. However, the simple fact of the matter is that, as Sheila, John’s widow, pointed out, his listeners were not quite ready to hack off their hair and burn all their old albums just yet (even Peel himself admitted it was all about the music and how ridiculous it would be for a 37 year-old man to follow that path of fashion), and probably felt, in a maternal way, that punk was a ‘phase’ John would grow out of, just as they no doubt did when he started to play reggae.

The other noteworthy misconception is that the chart included just one nod to punk in the shape of Jonathan Richman’s Roadrunner (FF 1976 #33). I suspect that this idea came about as a result of the Sex Pistols’ shambolic cover version, a demo released three years after the fact, on The Great Rock’N'Roll Swindle. If it was such a punk anthem, it seems incongruous that Rotten needed Steve Jones to shout the lyrics to him. The truth is that Richman was a rock’n'roll troubadour in the tradition first and foremost of Dylan, who to my mind was the one who proved you didn’t need to have the vocal talents of Mario Lanza to make great music that spoke to a wide audience. The other influence, of course, was the Velvets, and one can hear the two-chord spectre of  three-chord Sister Ray in the background to this. But they were not punk: they were the dark flipside of psychedelica. Richman had seen them many times, and wrote Roadrunner as a homage to their soundworld in 1970. Getting John Cale to act on production two years later cemented the connection, but the song would not see the light for years to come.

Richman takes a rock cliche that would not have sounded out of place on a Bruce Springsteen album and invests it with a naive wonder that elevates the constant Boston area name-dropping above its rather mundane genesis. It is a paean to beauty found in the ordinary, and Jonathan’s subsequent work would elaborate on this. There was no subversiveness, no exhortation to anarchy, no desire to smash the system, merely a crystallisation of a moment or few in time, and the joy of being young, which is the fountainhead of rock’n'roll itself. For punks to find anything to ally themselves with in this was strange but inevitable, but they did, and the song still bears comparison with anything from rock’s epochal past.

Jonathan Richman, Roadrunner

Bruise Violet

'A bassline rumble/A beatbox stumble/I'm a wise man and I am humble.' They certainly don't write them like that any more (maybe just as well).

There was a group called The Three Wise Men (really XTC) whose single Thanks For Christmas surfaces around the festive season in blogland, but today’s offering is not from them. The other Three Wise (or occasionally Wize) Men were a rap aggregation who throughout their rather brief career were signed to the noble Rhythm King label, and released a small but treasurable amount of singles borrowing heavily from the likes of Run DMC but with a Sarf London flavour. Their songs talk of street life as it more or less was in those turbulent post-Falkland days, with beatbox to the fore and signet rings well on display. The members were Alex Angol (he of Renegade Soundwave), Jemski Jah and Wild Danny D, and our interest in them lies in the sole Peel session they laid down in November 1986. Here, they were joined by Cybotron on the de rigueur scratching and DJ effects, and Phil Chil on programming.

The recordings below include what was later to be issued as a single, Urban Hell: Refresh was another stab at the singles market that failed to crack the top 40. This rather basic rap sound would be embellished and refined in years to come, but already we have a sample of Humphrey Bogart (from The Petrified Forest) to underline the street cred, and it’s all very much of its time. And none the less enjoyable for all that.

Three Wise Men, Peel Session 1986-11-13
Hard Bop/Refresh/Cruising For A Bruising/Urban Hell

The Spirit Of Christmas Present: Part Seven

It took them a good hour to find the small parish church, its spire grimy and grey in stone like a finger pointing to Heaven. The stained glass windows glowed very faintly with the small light of candles, but that small light shone brightly to the children, in their misery grasping at the one small spark of comfort struck by their faith. Their hands joined, their heads bowed, they made their way through the leaf-strewn portico to a pew near the front, and there alone they prayed. Oddly, the church was empty, and yet it seemed to be full of some intangible power. Sarah was deep in reflection when some invisible force raised her chin and gently opened her eyes.

She saw the small church tree, thinly decorated with tinsel, baubles and fairy lights. Its colours glowed brightly, but the more she stared at it, the brighter it seemed to glow. Then the face formed. It was that of a man, dim and featureless at first, but sharpening by degrees into focus. The full lips parted, and a pair of soulful blue eyes seemed to join with them in imparting a message. The face was framed by long, soft brown hair. Sarah was petrified. She was aware of Giles still in prayer by her side, yet she was transfixed by this image. At last, she summoned up the courage to speak to it. ‘Who are you?’, she said. ‘Do you have something to tell me?’ The face smiled, with a gentleness that Sarah had never encountered before. ‘You will see me again on Christmas Eve’, its voice intoned softly. ‘Look for me and you will find me. I bring to you the gift for which you have always longed.’ Then it started to vanish.

Sarah cried out, ‘No!’, but then the face was no more. The church and Giles were around her and the tree in front of her. She began to weep gently. Giles looked up from his prayers. ‘Soz! What on earth is the matter?’, he said. She hugged him, and replied, ‘I’ve just had a strange vision. I’ll tell you about it on the way back home.’ ‘But we’ve only just got here!’, he grumbled. Sarah smiled. ‘Something’s telling me we should leave now. There doesn’t seem to be anybody here anyway. Come on.’ She took his hand, and after some hesitation, he followed. He took one last look, however, and made up his mind that, sooner or later, he would come back here.

Their return to the cottage was marked by a curious circumstance. The Ashers had gone. There was a scrawled note on the kitchen table, the contents of which were impolite to say the least, yet it amounted to the fact that the children were now on their own and expected to cope. Some money was on the table (‘we’ve taken the rest’, as the note explained). It was a cruel blow, but not an unexpected one. ‘After all’, as Sarah reasoned, ‘they had as little as possible to do with us anyway.’

As Sarah made the best of the food they had left, Giles went outside and looked into the rapidly darkening winter sky, and noted each star and the almost full moon that was now coming out. In his mind’s eye, he could see three bearded and gowned men riding across desert dunes to witness the beginning of a new world.

Pet Shop Boys, Birthday Boy

Let’s Start The New Year Right

'Immerse the baby's head/Wrap her up in the News Of The World/Dump her on the doorstep, girl.' Challenging lyrics indeed, which worried the BBC initially.

‘We were working together quite a lot, and tried to make the BBC sessions as easy, and as painless, as possible. We’d try and get it good, but not get too hung up about it. I think all the numbers were done very quickly, in just a first or second take. We’d get the band sound set up, and Morrissey would come in, perhaps only for a couple of hours, and we’d just do the numbers in a very straightforward way. We never really laboured that much over them.’ (John Porter, producer of the Smiths’ last two Peel Sessions, as quoted in The Peel Sessions by Ken Garner, p. 116.)

It’s the old old story come back to haunt us, isn’t it? If you remember my post concerning the Housemartins and the appalling lack of a concentrated Peel Sessions complete set, as opposed to piecemeal reissues cynically designed to make people buy more vinyl and CDs, then you will know what I mean.

The same has happened to one of the most celebrated group of studio tracks ever to come out of Maida Vale, those of the Smiths. The first session appeared in full on a (now deleted) Strange Fruit vinyl-only release, then three of the tracks and the complete second session turned up on Hatful Of Hollow. However, the last two were sporadically issued as extra tracks on singles (one being issued on Louder Than Bombs) and the very last song of session 3  has never appeared anywhere.

Now with a piece of history as important as this, and a band who made such an impression both on the Festive Fifty and on Peel’s show as a whole, the time is surely ripe for a remastered set of the whole lot. If done properly, as per the treatment afforded the  Wedding Present and the Fall, the result would be one to treasure. But don’t hold your collective breaths. In lieu, therefore, today’s collection features all of the 16 tracks put down by the band over the years in one handy bundle.

Of these tracks, Reel Around The Fountain (FF 1983 #6 and 1984 #36) is probably unique in the chart’s history in that it would appear to be the only Peel Session song that made the chart in two consecutive years: indeed, the only one ever to appear twice. The reason for this anomaly was the fact that it made the first chart on the basis of the session broadcast alone (the first year any session tracks had done so) and the second time as a result of its official release on Hollow. Peel considered excluding it, but wanted to hear it again, so there it was. Forgetting the pathetic and spurious hysteria whipped up by the Sun over its alleged references to paedophilia, this tops a staggering achievement by the band: as Ken Garner said, ‘you can still hear the group’s original, unique character echoing in those session tapes today’.  Two other session tracks made the Fifty (Nowhere Fast, FF 1984 #14; and Sweet And Tender Hooligan, FF 1987 #23), and  two of these songs, This Night Has Opened My Eyes and Back To The Old House were never again recorded in these arrangements, but listening to these as a whole tells a story of pop history in the making. And that’s no exaggeration.

Smiths, Peel Sessions
#1 (recorded 1983-05-18)
What Difference Does It Make/Miserable Lie/Reel Around The Fountain/Handsome Devil
#2 (recorded 1983-09-14)
This Night Has Opened My Eyes/Still Ill/This Charming Man/Back To The Old House
#3 (recorded 1984-08-01)
William It Was Really Nothing/Nowhere Fast/Rusholme Ruffians/How Soon Is Now
#4 (recorded 1986-12-02)
Is It Really So Strange/London/Half A Person/Sweet And Tender Hooligan

Lightnin’ Strikes Twice

It seems odd to think so, but Sam Lightnin’ Hopkins was not averse to a bit of crossover in his music, and with his new-found celebrity made the unusual step of recording an album with the 13th Floor Elevators in 1968 called Free From Patterns. In fact, he toured extensively, including in Europe and Japan (no mean achievement for somebody with a fear of flying) and released two albums a year on average: it is said that he recorded more albums than any other bluesman. He died of cancer in his beloved Houston in 1982. At the unveiling of a statue in his honour in 2007, his 54-year-old granddaughter Bertha Kelly said, “If Lightnin’ were alive, I don’t know if he would even attend. He was not one that liked publicity. I remember talking to him one time at a blues singer’s funeral. They were taking pictures, and newspapers were around, he’d say, `Ah don’ wan’ none o’ that at my funeral.’ “

His biographer Alan Govenar said of him,  “What distinguished Hopkins as a blues artist was the spontaneity of his performance and the unabashed power of his personality. He rarely sang a song the same way twice. He improvised songs and engaged his audience on the problems and joys of everyday life, telling stories about whatever came into his mind.”

Lightnin’ Hopkins, Happy New Year

Happy New Decade

I won’t do the usual round-up (see 17 Seconds for a superb example of that), but I’d like to thank all the readers of the last 300 posts for their support and encouragement. This year has not been a vintage one for my little blog: I have been working very hard and my wife and I have both suffered a few health setbacks, so I haven’t been able to post as much  as I would have liked, but I hope things will pick up for the New Year. From a blisteringly cold yet quiet South Korea, forget the noughties (they really weren’t up to much), and enjoy a few last tunes by the fire with me.

Mary Margaret O’Hara, What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
Abba, Happy New Year
Barbara Dickson, January February

See you in 2010! x

The Spirit of Christmas Present: Part Six

And so, for another month or so, Giles and Sarah’s days settled into a regular pattern: an early breakfast, a long walk, maybe punctuated by a bout of fishing, then lunch (during which, one day, a large supply of clothes appeared), after which the Ashers would retire to drink, whereas the children would sit in the kitchen for a while to let their lunch go down, then make for a treehouse that had been hastily constructed in the shedding branches of an enormous sycamore tree situated at the foot of a long, barren, wood-strewn field. Then it was time for tea, which the Ashers would prepare under protest after waking up with terrific hangovers, and then either in front of the hearth or in their bedrooms, Giles and Sarah would spend the evening. Sarah had found a pine bookcase filed with dog-eared children’s books and a few volumes of Dickens. She read the entire collection twice.
Mr. Asher snored in a dusty armchair until half past ten, then he and his wife would retire for the night. When the children heard the click of the latch that marked the evening’s end, for fear of annoying their keepers, they would do the same. For Sarah, the late afternoons following tea were almost always spent staring at the fireplace from the vantage point of the window seat, trying desperately to reconstruct that face, half seen, half glimpsed. Who or what had it been?
Then it came towards the completion of the Advent cycle. Christmas was drawing near to the children. It had never ceased to exercise a glow of warmth and hope in their hearts. Even in the children’s home, that grim place of scientific misery, it had always been a special time, the one high spot in an otherwise glum year. They always looked forward to the tree, the lights, the tinsel, and the fact that the food tasted as though it had been cooked. For once.
At the cottage, however, a new order prevailed. The Ashers increasingly spent the best part of the old year drowning it in alcohol and over-indulging in the pantry’s contents. Consequently, the nearer it got to the festive season, the less likely it seemed to the children that any goodwill (or food) would be left to go around.
But there was something else. The constant arguments, which had always been an accompanying feature of the Ashers’ presence, stopped. In fact, they stopped speaking to each other-at least, not in front of the children. Meals were served in sobering silence, and the laundry done when the children were elsewhere. ‘What’s the matter with them?’, said Giles one day after the children had shared yet another sparse lunchtime. ‘Christmas is in four days’ time, and these two are mooching around as if they’re being sent off to market. We haven’t even been taken to church since we got here.’ This last comment reflected the fact that they had always been deeply religious: in fact, Sarah still had a tiny black Bible given to her by a kindly priest who had visited the children’s home one Sunday morning. ‘Why don’t we find one for ourselves, Soz? Even churches are in the back-end of beyond, like this cottage’ (for they seemed to be miles from anywhere, and had seen no-one save the Ashers). ‘If we walk far enough, I’m sure we’ll find one!’ Sarah hesitated, but in that brief instant, the silence was shattered by a loud roar emanating from the passageway, and a crash, as ther door to the kitchen was flung open by Growler. His face glowed red like a bonfire: it was obvious that he had been drinking even more heavily than usual, and Mrs. Asher was swaying behind him at his shoulder, in her habitual stance of arms akimbo. Both looked shabby and in a pitiful state of filth.
Growler’s fist crashed on the table in a hell-sent thunderbolt.
‘We’ve ‘ad enough, you ‘ear me?’ he bawled. ‘Enough of looking after yez! Cooking. cleaning, all the lot! From now on, ye can do it all yersels! You ‘ear me?’
Giles and Sarah rose and stood together, but with less an attitude of fear than one of corporate defiance of their shabby guardians. As quickly as the man’s anger had flared, it subsided, and the pair turned their backs and gently closed the kitchn door on the children. Their double set of footsteps could be heard all the way down the hall, but not a further sound did they utter until their respective rooms were reached.
To Giles and Sarah, this had far more of an effect than any beatings ever could. A cold, intangible atmosphere of menace hung over te entire cottage. ‘Soz!’ Giles breathed, his face having regained some of its former colour. ‘What are they going to do to us?’ Sarah shook her head. ‘I don’t know Giles, but I don’t want to stay around here to find out. Let’s go and find that church you seem to be sure exists.’ On their way out, the children noticed Growler loading boxes into the back of his horse trap: luckily, Growler did not see them. Giles did not see anything odd in this, since Growler had regularly gone out to get food and provisions from somewhere, but Sarah was perturbed, although she said nothing to her brother, to see Mrs. Asher helping Growler, something she had never done before.

Prokofiev, Lieutenant Kije: Troika (vocal version)

The Fall In Winter

'Post-festivities/I'm feeling numb now/from remedies and Prozac/and a can of two-tone.'

Fuckin’ John Peel, he’s the fuckin’ worst, he’s worse than Tony Blackburn ever was. Bastard. (Mark E.  Smith, dispensing charity by the cartload during a celebrated ‘interview‘ with Loaded magazine in 1997)

One tends to hear only the Christmas-related parts of this quite stunning session, but because the main part of Yuletide is to all intents and purposes done and dusted, and there’s a track that made the Festive Fifty nestling in there, I give you the entire 19th session by those impish Prestwickians in all its debauched and driving glory.

It’s debatable whether MES was feeling all that festive when he put down these four quirky scorchers in late November 1994.  ‘Glam Racket/Star’ certainly evinces all of Smith’s biting put-downs of a celebrity hanger-on in strident fashion: ‘You’re a half-wit from somewhere or other/Why don’t you bog off back there…you hang around with cameramen who look up girls’ skirts’, these being slightly toned down for the single release. Mark was evidently feeling he had a new lease of life since Brix had rejoined the band and Dave Bush had continued to bring his interest in electronica to the band’s output (even though he eventually decamped to join Elastica, who shared a double bill with the Fall when this session debuted on 17 December).

‘Jingle Bell Rock’ and ‘Hark The Herald Angels Sing’ don’t so much remake the originals as trample them to death (despite the presence of Lucy Rimmer, choir girl of the year, on the latter). Yet these versions patently resist ridicule and become bona fide Fall originals in the very process. The final track, the majestic ‘Numb At The Lodge’ (FF 1995 #7) was renamed ‘Feeling Numb’ for its official release on Cerebral Caustic and, though the newly named track was the one voted for, Peel chose to play the rough cut, with its sparkilng energy and tightness vindicating his decision utterly.

Fall, Peel Session 1994-11-20

A Chessmas Carol

This afternoon, dear reader, I thought I’d share with you all what happened to me while I was trying to pass the time on a snowy Korean afternoon. I haven’t played chess on Yahoo for months now: one, I don’t have the time and two, I got repeatedly beaten by sharks with high ratings moving in on the minnows who have never progressed beyond a 1400 rating. However, I decided to settle down for a quiet coffee and a game, and was joined by one scott_polacca. The game started quietly enough, but then he started making strange moves, like bringing his king out on his third move and then sacrificing his queen to no visible effect. He then decided to start chatting with me, and it is his gentle patter that I’d like to share with you, exactly as I remember it.

Scott P: So It Goes >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>nice handle
Me: Thank you.
(several disastrous moves pass on his part)
SP: There goes my queen
SP: away she goes
SP: I’m giving games away today
Me: Really? Why?
SP: FUCK U
Me: you have a really good sense of humour
SP: STFU CIA POLICE ruin the world
Me: Scott, you really shouldn’t drink so much when you’re playing
SP: You know NOTHING asshole
SP: I’m an asshole too
Me: Thank you for that, I would never have known
(He has by this time abandoned any attempt at playing, the clock is ticking down regardless, and I’m enjoying it all)
SP: CUNT FUCKING DICK
Me: How do you know I’m a man?
SP: CUNT
SP: BITCH
Me: or a woman come to that
SP: You’re a COP PIG CIA MOTHERFUCKER
Me: errr…no I’m British
SP: Fucking BRITS fucked the world
SP: you started all the drinking
Me: Yes, I had a nice Christmas how about you?
SP: PIG
Me: mmm, I did have rather too much to eat I must confess
SP: Stinking asshole you’re all out to get me
SP: CUNTOLA
Me: I must admit I’ve never heard that word before, I’ll remember that
SP: FUCK U ALL
Me: (game has now timed out) Nice to speak to you Scott, have a Happy New Year
(I sign out, and tell the rest of the room what a gent he is)

Lovely to know that paranoia is still alive and kicking.

Half Man Half Biscuit, Bad Losers On Yahoo Chess