This caught my attention: dB Music has a You Tube channel "Remaking songs using isolated vocals"
Uploads at present have largely focused on Boy George and Pet Shop Boys, with associates Dusty Springfield, Liza Minelli and David Bowie (a remix of a PSB remix) appearing. Oh, and Limahl, with The Never Ending Story.
The one that hooked me in was Stranger In This World, a Boy George song written in the late 1990s for an abandoned album project and subsequently featured in his 2002 musical Taboo, albeit performed by the cast. I wasn't familar with any recording of the song, so approached it with fresh ears.
The original demo is a downtempo, acoustic-driven reflective song. The remix is a synth-drenched, ambient affair. George delivers a fine vocal and the remix does it justice. The former possibly edges it, just because it's so fully formed that it could easily have been released 'as is', but dB Music's rework is on a level and if both were paired as a single release, I think it would work well.
From the Pet Shop Boys, I've gone for Can You Forgive Her?, a UK #7 in June 1993 and instantly recognisable from the opening bars.
The album/single version is four minutes of pop brilliance, remixed back in the day by Rollo (Faithless) and MK aka Mark Kinchen. dB has taken the bold step of transforming the song into a 12-minute (synth) orchestral, club-friendly 'monster'.
There are times when I'm sure it's going to collapse under the weight of its own ambition but dB pulls it off. Reminiscent of what Brothers In Rhythm were doing in the 1990s, and that's a compliment as it's on a par.
I will revisit the channel to listen to more of dB's remixes. I'd love to see a spotlight on Billy MacKenzie, for one.
My ears are still ringing from seeing Sugar perform live at Lakota in Bristol on Wednesday 16th December 1992. The loudest gig I've ever been to, and unlikely to be beaten.
It was my college friends, in particular my relatively new girlfriend that talked me into going. I was aware of Bob Mould and Hüsker Dü, but more from their regular appearances and interviews in the music press, more than through familiarity with their music.
I'm not sure that my gig buddies had even that level of awareness of Bob & co's pre-Sugar activity; Sugar were fresh, exciting and loud, and had released their debut album Copper Blue a few months previously, and that's all that mattered.
Sugar arrived at just the right time for me, as there was a Pixies-sized hole in my life and they were a perfect fit. So, there was a certain expectation going in, as Pixies were a phenomenal live act.
I was a regular at Lakota, but for it's club nights. I think this was the first - and possoibly last - time that I'd been there for a live music gig. A good location, on the edge of St. Pauls, but maybe unprepared for the decibels that were about to be unleashed inside.
As the ticket (found online, mine lost a long time ago, possibly on the night) shows, there was a support band. It's likely we turned up too late; it was a college day, I had to get home, get changed, pick up my girlfriend and friends (I was the only one with a car at this time) and then zoom along the M32 to the outskirts of the city centre, park up and get in.
If we did make it in time, then I have absolutely no memory of who played and for how long.
When Sugar appeared, they got straight down to business with the opening three songs of Copper Blue, everything dialled up, energy exploding from the stage and bones shaking with the sonic assault.
If that was all to lull the audience into a false sense of security, then it worked. Half of the songs in the set hadn't been released, in some cases, were never recorded in the studio. Ever couple of songs, a Copper Blue track would drop in - Hoover Dam, the (soon-to-be) hit single If I Can't Change Your Mind, Slick - but the majority of songs were completely new to us.
Towards the end, we were treated to a preview of the opening two songs of the upcoming Beaster mini-album, Come Around and Tilted. I was blown away. It was like a transformative experience, lifting me out of my body (although that might have been the sound vibrations). I might have been the designated driver that night, but who needed drink and drugs when the sounds created by Bob Mould, David Barbe and Malcolm Travis were enough to take your mind on a trip?
I don't remember the encore, or indeed if there was one or they just simply kept playing on. There's no setlist online for the Bristol show but, looking at the sets for Leeds and Norwich earlier in the week, it's likely that they played covers of Armenia City In The Sky (The Who) and That's When I Reach For My Revolver (MIssion of Burma). I've found an audience video of the latter, performed in Norwich on 13th December 1992.
The set is likely to have closed - as does Copper Blue - with Man On The Moon, which feels timely, given all of the excitement surrounding the Artemis II mission currently underway, diverting some attention away from the lunacy of SCROTUS, sorry, POTUS on Earth.
Beaster was released on 6th April 1993, ahead of the Easter holiday the following weekend. It's my favourite Sugar record, but Copper Blue is an outstanding debut and it's been good to revisit these three decades later, for Easter 2026.
Despite my tinnitus getting a kick start on that December night in 1992, it's remained relatively mild and I couldn't resist turning the volume up when I played this Dubhed selection back for the first time.
Sugar has reunited and will be playing in Bristol again on 30th May. Tempted though I was, I decided to pass. Nothing could come close to the impact - and volume - of that gig way back when.
1) The Act We Act (Album Version) (1992)
2) A Good Idea (Album Version) (1992)
3) Changes (Album Version) (1992)
4) Running Out Of Time (Live @ Cabaret Metro, Chicago, 22 July 1992)
5) Where Diamonds Are Halos (Live @ Cabaret Metro, Chicago, 22 July 1992)
6) Hoover Dam (Album Version) (1992)
7) The Beer Commercial (Live @ Cabaret Metro, Chicago, 22 July 1992)
8) After All The Roads Have Led To Nowhere (Live @ First Avenue, Minneapolis, 2nd November 1994)
9) If I Can't Change Your Mind (Album Version) (1992)
10) Frustration (Single Version) (1992)
11) Slick (Album Version) (1992)
12) Anyone (Live @ Cabaret Metro, Chicago, 22 July 1992)
13) Clownmaster (Single Version) (1993)
14) Come Around (Single Version) (1993)
15) Tilted (Single Version) (1993)
16) Armenia City In The Sky (Cover of The Who) (Live @ Cabaret Metro, Chicago, 22 July 1992)
17) Man On The Moon (Album Version) (1992)
1992: Copper Blue: 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 11, 17
1992: A Good Idea EP: 5, 16
1993: Beaster: 14, 15
1993: If I Can't Change Your Mind EP: 12, 13
1994: Your Favorite Thing EP: 10
1995: After All The Roads Have Led To Nowhere / Explode And Make Up EP: 8
2012: Copper Blue / Live At The Cabaret Metro, Chicago, Illinois, 22nd July 1992 (Deluxe Edition): 4, 7
Ninety-one minutes of Andy Bell to breeze through the Easter weekend and blow those blues away.
The original thought had been to revisit Andy's music as GLOK but as I was putting together a shortlist of songs, I found myself pulling in a Ride song here, a solo song there, and I ended up with a list of about thirty tracks, all equally deserving of inclusion.
I think it turned out alright but then when you're dealing with an artist who is not only incredibly gifted but also phenomenally prolific, it's on me not to screw it up!
1) Aubrey Drylands Gladwell: Andy Bell (2020) 2) Portland Rocks: Ride (2024)
A brand new Fad Gadget selection today, which was initially inspired by the cover version of debut single Back To Nature by the new electronic supergroup Doublespeak. Comprising Vince Clarke, Neil Arthur and Ben 'Benge' Edwards, Doublespeak in turn chose to release Back To Nature as their debut single earlier this week..
Back To Nature opened The Damage Done, a C90 cassette compilation that I recorded in 1990 and recreated for this blog in 2021. I recorded a further 46-minute Fad Gadget selection in 2024 and so today's collection could be considered 'Side 4' of a mixtape that's been three and a half decades in the making.
Having settled on my today's post, I then realised that today marks the 24th anniversary of Frank Tovey's untimely passing on 3rd April 2002. This post was clearly always meant to be.
Given that creating this selection has pretty much exhausted the Fad Gadget catalogue, bar 12" versions and the odd (with the emphasis on odd) instrumental B-side, this doesn't feel like a barrel scraping exercise in the slightest. In fact, what continues to surprise and delight is how so much of the music sounds like it could have been recorded last week, not decades ago.
The first Fad Gadget album I bought was Under The Flag, Frank's third from 1982, created at a time that the British Army was engaged in war with Argentina over The Falkland Islands. I've listened to the follow up Gag more recently, released two years later and the closest Fad Gadget ever got to a pop album. 1986's Snakes And Ladders by Frank Tovey took it one step further, but he was never going to be O.M.D. or Erasure.
The first two albums, Fireside Favourite (1980) and Incontinent (1981) are wonderfully dark, both in terms of sound palette and lyrical focus, but they are also surprisingly groovy when you least expect it. State Of The Nation from the former and AA-side single Make Room are prime examples of this.
More years have now passed since Frank's death than the entirety of his recording career from 1979 to 2001. Yet, his music continues to inspire and remind us of true innovation, artistry and great, great music.
Inexplicably, you can't buy Fad Gadget or Frank Tovey's music from the Mute Records online shop or via Bandcamp, but you can find their releases on other mainstream platforms.
Fast forward to February 1992 and Massive Attack managed to take the song to #27 in the UK as the lead of their self-titled EP. The week before their chart peak, Massive Attack performed the song on Tonight With Jonathan Ross... well, a version of Massive Attack, at least.
Whilst vocalist Tony Bryan is up front at the mike, and those in the know will spot guests Luis Jardim and Steve Nieve in the ensemble, there's no sign of 3D, Mushroom or Daddy G.
A couple of 21st Century covers that are new to me, firstly from Sade, performed at the Nakano Sunplaza in Tokyo in May 1986, bootlegged at the time and officially released thirty years later.
In March 2024, Daryl Hall's long running series Live From Daryl’s House welcomed Rumer and the pair duetted on Be Thankful For What You've Got. There are some nice moments of harmony, but personally I would have been happy for Daryl to stick to guitar on this one and let Rumer carry the vocal.
I've never heard of Orgōne before and I only discovered whilst looking for a clip of Massive Attack performing Be Thankful for What You Got. An unintended slight as they've released at least fifteen albums in the last quarter of a century.
Their nine-minute live in the studio take was recorded in Los Angeles a few weeks before the USA went into lockdown due to the COVID pandemic.
To finish, what else but the original version, written and recorded by William DeVaughn?
The single got to #31 in July 1974, with a new, more uptempo version peaking at #44 in October 1980. Proof that even William himself couldn't top his first go and to emphasise that point, I've gone for the full seven-minute album version from 1974, for which we should all be thankful.
I couldn't have failed to notice that Flea's album Honora was out, but it was pretty much on the periphery until I came across this beautiful cover of Wichita Lineman, featuring Nick Cave,
It's a wonderfully restrained and understated version, delicately constructed around upright bass, tender guitar and gentle percussion, underpinning Nick's world weary voice. Flea's musical contribution is the flumpet, which I'd never heard of before now and had to look up, which eases in during the break and drifts back out again, to great effect.
The original narrative, of a lineman perched high up a telephone pole in the middle of nowhere, on a call to his girlfriend, takes on an extra dimension with the gravitas of Cave's vocals. I can now imagine the titular character as a career lifer, been doing this all his life, doesn't know anything else, aches to be at home with his wife but is afraid of the void that giving up his job would create.
Or maybe it resonates because it's striking a chord with my own life right now. Either way, a compelling cover and a reason to check out Honora in full.
It would be remiss of me not to include the very first version of Wichita Lineman that I heard (or at least remember hearing), on the 1982 compilation Music Of Quality And Distinction: Volume One by B.E.F. aka British Electric Foundation aka two thirds of Heaven 17, namely Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh.
For their version, they roped in their H17 colleague Glenn Gregory and, for me, it hit the spot, on-point vocals and a duet of saxophone (actually two, played by Glenn and Ian) and acoustic guitar, courtesy of David Lockwood.
That was enough to encourage me to seek out the original version of Wichita Lineman, written by Jimmy Webb and recorded by Glenn Campbell. Vastly different in arrangement from the covers in 1982 and 2026, but an astonishing performance from Glenn.
Wichita Lineman was released as a single in 1968 and, as this performance from 1972 demonstrates, only grew in impact as the years passed.
Possibly Webb and Campbell's finest moment, in already illustrious respective careers and one of my favourite songs of all time.
Not my favourite Duran Duran single by a long chalk, but I found myself thinking of Too Much Information yesterday.
Written by the band, at that time a four-piece comprising Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and Warren Cuccurullo, it was a modest hit in the UK (#35) and USA (#45), faring marginally better in Canada (#25).
I'd not seen the video before and whilst visually it's of moderate interest if overlong, structured around the 5 minute album version rather than the slightly more spritely 4 minute radio edit, it's the director credit that caught my attention.
Nick Egan is more familiar to me for his design work on album art. How's this for starters?
(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais & Tommy Gun (singles): The Clash (1978)
Searching For The Young Soul Rebels: Dexys Midnight Runners (1980)
See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy!: Bow Wow Wow (1981)
Duck Rock: Malcolm McLaren (1983)
Empire Burlesque: Bob Dylan (1985)
Midnight To Midnight: The Psychedelic Furs (1986)
Kick: INXS (1987)
It's inevitable that Nick would move into video direction and although it's not particularly memorable compared to, say, Rio or The Wild Boys, it does a decent job of conveying the spirit of the song, with rapid edits, fast zooms, use of old news footage and a prop that references A Clockwork Orange.
Too Much Information had remixes to appeal on both sides of the Atlantic, America represented by John 'Jellybean' Benitez, the UK by Ben Chapman. The latter edges it for me.
I realised with horror that the only previous Siouxsie selection to appear here was in September 2021, recreating the gig that I attended in 1988. Time to make up for lost time!
The nine songs featured here are a mish-mash of official 12" versions and bootlegs that have appeared in the 21st Century, either physically or digitally.
I think all of the extended versions featured here manage not to outstay their welcome and work pretty well as a collection. As ever, you'll be the judge of that!
1) Desert Kisses (Black Sand Extension) (2010)
2) This Wheel's On Fire (Incendiary Mix) (Cover of Bob Dylan & The Band) (1987)
3) Fireworks (12" Version) (1982)
4) Shadowtime (Eclipse Mix) (1991)
5) Cities In Dust (Extended 12" Version) (2007)
6) Red Over White (Re-Recorded Single Version) (1984)
7) Slowdive (12" Version) (1982)
8) Dear Prudence (McDoC Evo-XR Remix) (Cover of The Beatles) (2002)
9) Song From The Edge Of The World (Columbus Mix) (1987)
It was beginning to seem like just a dream, but I finally got to see Misty In Roots (again) in Bristol on Friday night.
I originally bought tickets to see Pama International, headlining with a full band at The Fleece in February 2025.
The gig was postponed, then cancelled and relocated to the Bristol Beacon, with Pama International moving to a support slot under Misty In Roots. I duly bought tickets for the revised show in September 2025.
The gig was postponed a week or so beforehand, "due to circumstances out of the bands, promoters and venues control." and rescheduled for Friday 27th March 2026. Thankfully, it was third time lucky!
I turned up early, perhaps too early, encountering a very spare crowd, mostly lining the walls of Lantern Hall, fixed on their phones. The show wasn't sold out and heavily discounted tickets and 2-for-1 deals were being offered throughout and right up to the last minute.
The other change was that the support was re-billed as a "Pama International Hi-Fi DJ Set". I don't know what prompted this, but seemingly poor ticket sales would surely have made bringing a full band together and travelling back and forth along the M5 an expensive proposition.
The hour-long DJ set was great, lots of crackly reggae 45s and unexpected sides, but there was no sign of DJ or decks in the room. I like to think that it was all happening live backstage, but it could well have been prepared in advance and piped into the space. Sadly, the lack of connection with the audience meant that few were dancing at this point despite the choice tunes.
Perhaps sensing the restlessness in the room, which at least had started filling up nicely, with a late influx of students and twenty-somethings to bring the average age down considerably, Misty In Roots took to the stage about 15 minutes earlier than billed.
The seven-strong band took their positions and played Wise And Foolish for a good few minutes before front person and founder member Walford 'Poco' Tyson came on stage. In this respect, it was pretty much as for their gig at the Electric Ballroom in London in October 2024.
That was my first experience of Misty In Roots and whilst the location and the vibe was different this time, the band were similarly captivating this time around. I was closer to the stage and I could see a lot more. And smell a lot more. I didn't spot a spliff on stage but the clouds wafting out into the concert space didn't come from a smoke machine, that's for sure.
As in 2024, I just got caught up in the music and I didn't keep track of what was being played and in what order. Apart from Wise And Foolsh, I recall Slavery Days, On The Road, See Them A Come and several others, many stretched out into an extended rhythm, showcasing the chops of individual members.
After an hour, Misty In Roots left the stage, returning a few minutes later to play a couple of encores, then were off again, this time for good.
For a band celebrating their 50th anniversary, and with the majority of members of a certain age, here is further proof that life is worth living, that causes are worth fighting for and that reggae and dub music is as vital now as it was more than half a century ago.
Misty In Roots are back at the Electric Ballroom on 4th April. You'll be hard pressed to find a better Saturday night out, even in London.
For today's selection, as I'm unable to recall and recreate the setlist, I've instead put togther an hour-long Misty In Roots compilation, a dozen songs, some of which were played on Friday, others which have been included...just because.
I've tried to avoid duplicating songs that have appeared on previous Misty In Roots selections, and I've added a trio of 12" versions, opening with early single AA-side Rich Man and closing with one of my favourites of theirs, Follow Fashion, in it's 10-minute definitive version.
1) Rich Man (12" Version) (1979)
2) Slavery Days (Album Version) (1981)
3) Jah Jah Bless Africa (Part Two) (Single Version) (1981)
A special thanks to fellow audience member Colin Macqueen, who took the excellent band photo heading this post, plus the close up of Poco, which I borrowed from his posting on BlueSky.
Sixty minutes, ten tracks, one decade in the life of MAN2.0 aka Mark Bailey.
My recent NEIN Records catalogue buy has significantly boosted the quantity of MAN2.0 music and remixes in my collection, and this is only a good thing as I've been a fan since I discovered Mark via his remixes and releases on Paisley Dark Records a few years ago. Last year, he took the next logical step by launching his own label, Embryonic Soundwave.
Today's selection plucks selections from the past decade, spanning 2017 to 2025 and trying to avoid repeating tracks (or at least versions) that I've previously used elsewhere on this blog.
Starting off with the brilliantly-titled Anti-Chug, the selection takes in remixes for Perry Granville, Tronik Youth and Soft Cell, as well as MAN2.0 releases including last year's superb CTRL ALT DEL and wrapping up with Cosmikuro's stunning rework of 2023 single Red Shift.
May your weekend be full of sunshine, inside and out. I think this is the ideal soundtrack.
All of these - and more - are available to buy online and if this music pushes your buttons, tickles your fancy or sugars your plum, then I highly recommend MAN2.0's Operator EP, on Embryonic Soundwave, last December.
