Dub '85

In a very belated follow up to Dub '83, which I posted in September 2023, today's selection is a dozen songs from - you guessed it, 1985 - given a dub overhaul. 

 

John Robie is the only producer from the previous selection appearing here, but he's joined by more heavyweights of 80s remix culture, including Shep Pettibone, Ivan Ivan aka Ivan Baker, Joseph Watt, Rusty Egan, Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero, Mark Berry and The Latin Rascals aka Albert Cabrera and Tony Moran.

 

It's all about the beats and the edits, with varying degrees of vocals. Not for everyone, but I loved them. It wasn't unusual for me to opt for the 12" B-side over the main mix when compiling mixtapes in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

I think I may have set a precedent with the previous post, of homaging / ripping off (delete as applicable) another, far superior Saturday morning quiz. In for a penny, in for a pound I say, so I've invented five more brain teasers. An hors d'oeuvre, if you will, before the more satisfying meal over at Rol's place.

1) The Vinyl Villain blog covered the Pet Shop Boys singles in 36 parts from January to October 2023. In which part did today's featured dub first appear?

2) Which band features the offspring of legendary TV presenter Bob Holness?

3) What is Bad Manners' front person Buster Bloodvessel's birth name?

4) Which of these songs is a cover version of a flop single from 1983?

5) What do red hat obsessives Devo, singer songwriter Hugh Cornwell, avant garde drummer Robert Williams and 1990s animated TV show Rugrats have in common?

Answers will be posted in the comments later today.

1) I Like You (Dub) (Remix By Shep Pettibone): Phyllis Nelson

2) Here To Go (Here To Dub Version By Ivan Ivan): Devo

3) Sweet Murder (The Smile On Her Face) (Murderess Dub Version By Michael Baker & Axel Kröll / Edited By The Latin Rascals): The Blow Monkeys

4) Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money) (Dub For Money) (Remix By The Latin Rascals): Pet Shop Boys

5) It's Called A Heart (Emotion Dub) (Remix By Joseph Watt): Depeche Mode

6) Girls Night Out (Dub) (Remix By Nigel Wright & Robin Sellars): Toto Coelo

7) Living On Video (Dub Mix By Claude Allard & Pascal Languirand): Trans-X

8) Dub-Vulture (Remixed By John Robie) (12"): New Order

9) Blue Summer (Dub) (Remix By Steve Thompson & Michael Barbiero): Bad Manners

10) Kings And Queens (Geordie's Dub Mix By Geordie Walker): Killing Joke

11) Come Back (Dub) (Remix By Rusty Egan): Spear Of Destiny

12) Obsession (Dub) (Remix By Mark Berry): Animotion

Dub '85 (1:11:20) (KF) (Mega)

You can find Dub '83 here.

I will get around to Dub '84 at some point, I'm sure.

Was It That Obvious?

Rounding off my 3-day celebration of Australia, what better way to get the weekend started than with Kylie?!

 

If Dubhed was a prize-giving blog, then Charity Chic would have cleaned up yesterday with his astute prediction. Unfortunately, it's not but hopefully the crushing disappointment will be offset by the prospect of nearly 90 minutes of Ms. Minogue.

This being Friday, I've often tended to feature selections of 12" mixes and slightly more 'up' music so in Australian terms, it was always likely to be Kylie over Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, wasn't it? Although they did collaborate back in 1995, including a memorable appearance on Top Of The Pops, when the pop princess reinvented herself as Indie Kylie.

Today's selection however focuses solely on Disco Kylie, spanning three decades and showing no sign of slowing down now we're midway through the 2020s. 

Although her music career exploded from the Stock, Aitken & Waterman hit factory, Kylie moved on in the early 1990s and has followed her own course ever since, working with some dynamic producers and remixers along the way.

 

I've never particularly considered myself a Kylie fan, I've bought a few singles here and there mainly for the remixes but never any of her albums. I thought the 'country' songs a few years ago were a misstep, but that's the beauty of Kylie. If you don't like what's she doing right now, there will either be club-friendly remixes to compensate, or another change around the corner with her next album.

 

This is one musical pleasure I don't feel guilty about in the slightest. And even if my primary reason for buying a single or compilation was to get that remix by DNA, The Chemical Brothers or Tom Middleton, so what?

Today's selection reflects some early favourites: Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi is cheesy perhaps but I love it; What Do I Have To Do? and Shocked were the big hits whilst I was in Australia; The Chemical Brothers remix of Slow is twice as good as the original. And I would have bought the Soulwax remix compilation anyway - they're brilliant - but their scuzzy, fuzzy overhaul of Can't Get You Out Of My Head was worth the price alone.

In a half-arsed attempt to dodge the sniffer bots and a DMCA takedown notice, I've avoided any reference to Ms. Minogue in the post title and have named the selection SmileyKylie in the hope that it similarly avoids unwanted attention on KrakenFiles or Mega. As usual, the download links will be up for roughly a month, so get in there now!

 

1) Too Much Of A Good Thing (12" Mix By Phil Harding & Ian Curnow) (1992)

2) Into The Blue (Yasutaka Nakata (CAPSULE) Remix) (2014)

3) Finer Feelings (Brothers In Rhythm 12" Mix By Dave Seaman, Steve Anderson & Alan Bremner) (1992)

4) Red Blooded Woman (Whitey Mix By Nathan White) (2005)

5) Confide In Me (Justin Warfield Mix) (1994)

6) It's No Secret (Alternative Extended Version By Dave Ford) (1988)

7) What Do I Have To Do? (Extended Album Mix II By Phil Harding & Ian Curnow) (1991)

8) Falling (Farley & Heller Alternative Mix By Terry Farley & Pete Heller) (1994)

9) Slow (Chemical Brothers Remix By Ed Simons & Tom Rowlands) (2003)

10) Shocked (DNA Mix By Neal Slateford & Nick Batt) (12" Version ft. Jazzi P)  (2001)

11) Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi (The Revolutionary Mix By Phil Harding) (1989)

12) Chocolate (Tom Middleton Cosmos Mix) (2004)

13) Dancing (Initial Talk Remix) (2018)

14) Can't Get You Out Of My Head (Soulwax Kyluss Remix By David Dewaele & Stephen Dewaele) (2001)

 

1989: Hand On Your Heart EP: 6 

1989: Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi EP: 11

1991: Shocked EP: 10

1992: Celebration EP: 1

1992: Finer Feelings EP: 3

2003: Kylie Minogue (Special Edition) (2x CD): 5 

2003: Slow (promo 12"): 9

2004: Chocolate EP: 12

2005: Red Blooded Woman EP: 4 

2007: Most Of The Remixes We've Made For Other People Over The Years...: 14

2010: What Do I Have to Do? (The Original Synth Mixes) EP: 7

2014: Kiss Me Once (Japan only bonus track): 2 

2016: Confide In Me: 8

2018: Dancing EP: 13

SmileyKylie (1:28:22) (KF) (Mega)

* Or, to give the Soulwax compilation it's full title,

Most Of The Remixes We've Made For Other People Over The Years Except For The One For Einstürzende Neubauten Because We Lost It And A Few We Didn't Think Sounded Good Enough Or Just Didn't Fit In Length-Wise, But Including Some That Are Hard To Find Because Either People Forgot About Them Or Simply Because They Haven't Been Released Yet, A Few We Really Love, One We Think Is Just OK, Some We Did For Free, Some We Did For Money, Some For Ourselves Without Permission And Some For Friends As Swaps But Never On Time And Always At Our Studio In Ghent.

Let's Burn This Land

A cassette compilation of The Go-Betweens, recorded 31st August 1990.

No diary extracts today, but sticking with my Australian reminisces, specifically The Go-Betweens mixtape that I recorded in readiness for my year-long adventure Down Under.

At the time, I was a relatively new fan. I'd heard odds and sods, but the only record that I owned was the 1978-1990 compilation, bought in the spring of that year. A simple but eye-catching front cover, a gatefold sleeve with photos of the band, a double vinyl album capturing 28 singles, B-sides, album cuts, radio sessions and demos, all for £5.99.

It quickly became one of my most treasured albums, although with the bittersweet knowledge that The Go-Betweens were already in the past tense as a band.

 

Although I eventually got all of the studio albums, the 'lost debut album released in 1999 and various radio sessions and live DVDs, all of that was long after I returned to the UK.

 

This 14-song selection was recorded and reordered from the 1978-1990 vinyl compilation, the only cassette compilation of an Australian band going into my Antipodean adventure. This C90 side (Talking Heads on the other) was one that got me through some long, long coach journeys around the continent, and also soundtracked some unforgettable moments in jaw-droppingly beautiful places.

A quick glance may induce outrage at what I didn't pick from the vinyl. No Cattle And Cane? Or Spring Rain? Or The Wrong Road? I also left off When People Are Dead, which deeply resonated with me when I first played the album. 

 

What can I say? I had a strict rule of one band per cassette side and I would have struggled to leave off any of my final choices. I mean, how had songs like The Sound Of Rain and You Won't Find It Again remained unreleased until the 1978-1990 compilation?

All in all, these are the songs that become inseparable in memory from my time in Australia, a snapshot of The Go-Betweens between 1978 and 1988. My go-to Go-Betweens, if you will.

I'm going to round off the week with another Australian artist tomorrow morning. To manage expectations, it won't be a Jimmy Barnes and/or Cold Chisel selection. But who will it be?

 

1) Karen (Single Version) (1978)

2) The House That Jack Kerouac Built (Album Version) (1987)

3) Man o' Sand To Girl o' Sea (Single Version) (1983)

4) Secondhand Furniture (John Peel Session) (1984)

5) People Say (Single Version) (1979)

6) The Sound Of Rain (previously unreleased) (1978)

7) Love Is A Sign (Album Version) (1988)

8) Streets Of Your Town (Album Version) (1988)

9) Draining The Pool For You (Album Version) (1984)

10) I Need Two Heads (Single Version) (1980)

11) World Weary (1981)

12) This Girl, Black Girl (Single Version) (1983)

13) Mexican Postcard (1988)

14) You Won't Find It Again (Acoustic Démo) (1988)

 

1978: Lee Remick EP: 1

1979: People Say EP: 5

1980: I Need Two Heads EP: 10

1981: Your Turn, My Turn EP: 11

1983: Man o' Sand To Girl o' Sea EP: 3, 12

1984: Spring Hill Fair: 9

1987: Tallulah: 2

1988: 16 Lovers Lane: 7, 8

1988: Was There Anything I Could Do? EP: 13 

1989: The Peel Sessions EP: 4

1990: 1978-1990: 6, 14

Let's Burn This Land (46:09) (KF) (Mega)

I posted a previous Dubhed selection of The Go-Betweens in October 2021 (still no Cattle And Cane!), which you can find here.

A month earlier, I compiled a side each of Robert Forster and Grant MacLennan's solo work, drawn from the 2007 2CD collection called Intermission, available here.

NYD In AUS

I discovered that both of my work shirts were in the washing bag last night, so I had to frantically wash and hang them out in the hope that they would be dry by the following morning. They weren't.

I walked to the freeway in a damp T-shirt. I lost my watch while hopping the fence. Work crawled by at a snail's pace. I was pissed off when, at 4.00pm, Norm looked at me as if to say, "Why are you still here?" I had to run for the bus. Not a good day, you may say. Not so bad, after all.

I'm currently in the midst of a drinks party with Ken, Takashi and Kazu. We've consumed an unhealthy amount of gin already and are carrying on with the same intentions for the remainder of the evening. Should be good.

Roger Waters is on TV. "The Wall" live in Berlin a few months back, to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall, has just started. My friends are very intrigued by it all, but I couldn't really care less. I'm more interested that I'm seeing in a new year in a new land, a new home.

Sometimes, it's as if I have only just become aware of my situation: I break into fits of laughter, finding it hard to believe that I'm really living 10,000 miles away from my 'home'. Or maybe it's the alcohol.

 

Right now, I couldn't ask for anything more from life than to be here with my friends.

...

We appeared to be the only people in the building celebrating the New Year last night. When we ventured out of the flat at the stroke of midnight, it seemed that everyone else had gone to bed. Takashi and I stumbled around, drunk and aimless, but Ken and Kazu dashed off. 

Ken returned moments later, exclaiming that Kazu had become trapped on the roof, so we all raced to the seventh floor.

At the top of the stairwell was a retractable set of steps leading to a doorway and the roof. Kazu had gone through only to discover that the door had a one-way spring lock. Ken was too drunk to attempt to climb up to the retractable steps, and whilst I was squinting in an effort to see just one of him, Takashi leapt up without a second thought and grabbed the steps. Ken and I pulled both down to the ground, and Takashi freed Kazu. Unsurprisingly, Kazu was considerably more sober following this experience.

We returned to the flat and in an attempt to signify this moment of friendship, unity and heroic stupidity, we all had a glug from my bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. We watched pop videos on TV until 2.00am, and we all passed out.

 

...

 

That was me in Perth, Australia, 1990 going into 1991, twenty years old and on my first really big adventure. The only time in my life that I've kept a diary. The picture above is adapted from the sole photo I took on NYE 1990: Ken, my flatmate, and our friends Takashi and Kazu, presumably before the gin consumed us all.

Not the most rock 'n' roll New Year's Eve, perhaps, but the setting and company were once-in-a-lifetime experiences. 

 

Fast forward to NYE 2024, swap Western Australia for South West England, my Japanese friends for Clan K, gin (and Newcastle Brown Ale) for whisky, and Roger Waters for Sophie Ellis-Bextor on TV, and it wasn't all that different.

Fortunately, we were less drunk, neither Mrs. K or Lady K got trapped on the roof and we went to bed before 2.00am, so I'm thankfully in a less fragile state in 2025 than I was in 1991.

This inevitably got me thinking about a Dubhed selection of Australian music that I was listening to during my time in the great continent. And so, for your listening pleasure, twenty songs and eighty minutes of sounds, mostly from 1990, with a few either side.

I came to Australia with a Walkman and a clutch of DIY compilations, such as a 'best of' The Go-Betweens. According to my diary, I bought CD singles by Big Pig and Stephen Cummings on 4th January 1991; later purchases included The Hummingbirds, Clouds (who featured here last summer), Tall Tales And True, INXS and Icehouse, as well as a 1987 compilation called Used And Recommended By. 

 

Triple J was my go-to radio station at home, although the place where I worked blasted out the usual ad-heavy commercial crap you will find in every country. The former offered proof - and hope - that there was an alternative to Jimmy Barnes' strangled and strained singing.

I only went to one gig in Perth, but it was a good one: Ramones, supported by local heroes Ratcat. It was a great night and I wrote about it in 2022. 

I should have included Divinyls' huge crossover hit, I Touch Myself, in today's selection and to be honest, I would have but I forgot! 

 

I also wanted to include Ruby's Arms by Killing Time, a Top 10 indie hit in Australia in early 1991. However, I didn't buy the single at the time and I've been unable to track a copy down...at least, in the couple of hours since I first had the idea for this post.

Some artists of course went on to enjoy global success: INXS, Midnight Oil to a lesser extent, and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, although the prospect of Nick being with us in 2025 let alone continuing to release vital albums seemed unlikely back in 1990/91. 

Paul Kelly's label were hoping for worldwide fame. 1987 album Gossip was prepped for a major push in the US, with R.E.M. producer Scott Litt drafted to remix several songs, including Tighten Up. Paul's band were called The Coloured Girls, allegedly named jokingly after the line in Walk On The Wild Side by Lou Reed. Nah, thought the label, and the Stateside release of Gossip was credited to Paul Kelly & The Messengers. 

Closing the compilation is a song from one of my favourite records of all, the 4-track Resisting Calm EP by Melanie Oxley & Chris Abrahams, released in 1990 on the independent label Spiral Scratch. Triple J played Benchtop (actually track 3/B1) to death, I was hooked and I had to track the record down. I bought Resisting Calm on 12" vinyl and eventually got it shipped by surface mail back to the UK.

Benchtop is a fantastic song and by rights should be on today's selection. That said, all four songs are wonderful and in the end, I chose Siren, the EP's opening song and fittingly, the closing moment here.

Enough looking back, time to look forward! I wonder what wonders 2025 will bring?

 

1) Miss Freelove '69 (Album Version By Hoodoo Gurus & Ed Stasium): Hoodoo Gurus (1990)

2) Man o' Sand To Girl o' Sea (Single Version By John Brand): The Go-Betweens (1983)

3) That Ain't Bad (Album Version By Nick Mainsbridge): Ratcat (1990)

4) Yes Sir, I Can Boogie (Album Version By Tim Cole): Not Drowning, Waving (1987)

5) Throw Your Arms Around Me (Re-Recorded Version By Hunters & Collectors & Clive Martin): Hunters & Collectors (1990)

6) Blue Sky Mine (Food On The Table Mix By Nick Launay): Midnight Oil (1990)

7) Rhythm Rude Girl (Live @ The Horden Pavilion, Sydney, Australia): The Angels (1990)

8) If A Vow: The Hummingbirds (1991)

9) Dream Baby (7" Version By Mike Duffy) (Cover of Roy Orbison): X (1987)

10) Hell (You Put Me Through) (7" Version By Stephen Cummings, Robert Goodge & Shane O'Mara): Stephen Cummings (1990)

11) Justifier (Single Mix By Daddy-O & Femi Jiya): Big Pig (1990)

12) Tighten Up (Re-Mixed Version By Scott Litt): Paul Kelly & The Coloured Girls (1987)

13) Lock It (Album Version By Falling Joys & Adrian Bolland): Falling Joys (1990)

14) Miss Divine (Album Version By Nick Launay): Icehouse (1990)

15) Suicide Blonde (Earth Mix By Paul Oakenfold & Steve Osborne): INXS (1990)

16) Black Betty (Cover of Leadbelly): Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1986)

17) White Rabbit (Cover of The Great Society with Grace Slick): The Shower Scene From Psycho (1985)

18) Superstition Highway (Single Version By Nick Mainsbridge): Tall Tales And True (1990)

19) Cloud Factory (Single Version By Clouds & Tim Whitten): Clouds (1990)

20) Siren (Single Version By Melanie Oxley, Chris Abrahams & Guy Dickerson): Melanie Oxley & Chris Abrahams (1990)

 

1983: Man o' Sand To Girl o' Sea EP: 2

1985: White Rabbit/Cinnamon Girl EP: 17

1986: The Singer EP: 16

1987: Cold And The Crackle: 4 

1987: Dream Baby EP: 9 

1987: Gossip: 12

1990: Beyond Salvation Live (VHS): 7

1990: Blue Sky Mine EP: 6 

1990: Cloud Factory EP: 19

1990: Code Blue: 14

1990: Hell (You Put Me Through) EP: 10

1990: Justifier + Taste EP: 11

1990: Resisting Calm EP: 20

1990: Suicide Blonde EP: 15

1990: Superstition Highway EP: 18

1990: Throw Your Arms Around Me EP: 5

1990: Tingles EP: 3 

1990: Wish List: 13

1991: If A Vow EP: 8

1991: Kinky: 1

 

NYD In AUS (1:19:06) (KF) (Mega)