Decayed IV: 2006

Side 1 of a completely made up cassette compilation, stepping through the 2000s.

When approaching this post, 2006 didn't particularly stand out. I was half way though my first 3-year stint as a blogger, still with less than 100 posts by year end. 

However, it proved to be a helpful reminder of what I got up to in 2006, mostly going to comedy clubs and the theatre with Mrs. K, by the look of it. Little surprise, as the excellent Comedy Box at the Hen & Chicken pub was at the end of our street, and Bristol city centre was a short walk away.

Comedy shows in 2006 included Adam Hills, Mark Thomas, Matt Welcome, Omid Djalili, Richard Herring and, er, Russell Brand.

Theatre-wise, we experienced 

Air Guitar by Peter Kesterston

Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter, adapted by Tom Morris and Emma Rice

Present Laughter by Noël Coward, starring Simon Callow

Restoration by Edward Bond

The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter

The Taming Of The Shrew by William Shakespeare

Jesus Christ, It’s Christmas by Bristol-based theatre company Paper Aeroplane

and, er. Scrooge, based on the 1970 film musical by Leslie Bricusse and starring Shane Richie ...and yes, he did shout "Taxi for Walford!" at the end.

I also enjoyed reading a fair few books, such as 

American Ghosts & Old World Wonders by Angela Carter

Black Hole by Charles Burns

N.P. by Banana Yoshimoto

Feeding Frenzy by Will Self

Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid On Earth by Chris Ware
Planet Karen by Karen Ellis

Whoa Nellie! by Jaime Hernandez

and The Fountain At The Centre Of The World by Robert Newman... actually, that one was shit, and the former star of The Mary Whitehouse Experience was a creepy sleazeball when we saw him perform stand-up around the same time.

As for TV, we were both obsessed with Lost and Dog The Bounty Hunter, Saxondale and Nathan Barley. To be honest, the latter two were me, Mrs. K wasn't at all bothered by them.

2006 was Clan K's first experience of Go Ape in the Forest of Dean; tree tops, rope walks and zip slides, it was a blast. 

Mrs. K and I also visited the Relaxation Centre in Bristol, sampling the outdoor and indoor hot tubs, steam room, sauna and floatation room and we both felt unbelievably great afterwards. I then blew it all the same evening as my oldest friend Stuart was in town and mandatory ale quaffing in The Three Sugar Loaves and The White Lion ensued, including pints of the prophetically named Doom. 

Gig-wise, 2006 was pitifully limited to Julian Cope in February and the Ashton Court Festival in July.

I've written about this previously, but 2006 was the year that Mrs. K and I experienced unexpected headliners Simple Minds. The once-free festival now charged entry, but £9.00 per day was pretty good, considering the range of music on offer.

What wasn't pretty good was Jim Kerr and co. In my blog review, I wrote that "Don’t You Forget About Me, a dire cover of Van Morrison’s Gloria and the closing third encore (!) of Alive And Kicking were little more than extended karaoke tracks, with Kerr preferring the audience to do the work on the choruses."

It wasn't all bad: I cited the "sole redeeming moment [as the] rendition of New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) seemingly inspired by Utah Saints’ rousing mid-1990s cover version." 

In closing, I ruefully reflected that "Perhaps the festival is still a rites of passage for some, but my feelings towards Ashton Court were aptly personified by Jim Kerr: over priced, over the hill, out of touch and with an inflated sense of self-importance." Oh dear!

On a happier note, we had a fun holiday in Bulgaria in October.

But what else was going on in 2006. Here's a non-exhaustive and entirely subjective run through of some events (and non-events, I might argue).

1st January

The first UK #1 single of the year was That's My Goal by Shayne Ward. 

21st March

Twitter launched. Five days later, Elon Musk's company SpaceX's first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket crashed to Earth shortly after liftoff. Sixteen years, Musk acquired Twitter, with similar results, culturally speaking.

6th May

Grant McLennan of The Go-Betweens died of a heart attack at his home in Brisbane, Australia, aged just 48.

20th May

Finnish band Lordi won The Eurovision Song Contest with Hard Rock Hallelujah.

9th July

Italy beat France to win the FIFA World Cup.

24th August

The International Astronomical Union defines 'planet' at it's 26th General Assembly, consequently relegating Pluto to 'dwarf planet' status. Poor Pluto.

4th September

Steve Irwin, Australian TV legend and conservationist, is fatally stung in the heart by a stingray while filming underwater.

23rd November

Alexander Litvinenko, former Russian Federal Security Service officer and subsequent critic of the Putin administration, dies after being poisoned with Polonium-210. 

30th December

Saddam Hussein is executed by hanging for crimes against humanity.

31st December

The last UK #1 single of 2006 is A Moment Like This by Leona Lewis.

Yep, if we weren't facing the existential threat of talent shows like The X-Factor, music buying on physical formats was also under threat. Crazy by Gnarls Barkley became the first single to top the UK Singles Chart on download sales alone. Crazy remained at the top of the UK singles chart for nine weeks, the longest #1 spell for more than a decade. 

It's one of two #1's to appear in today's selection, albeit in a DIY extended version by DreamTime, whose music blog I was obsessed with at the time, even if the edits themselves were a bit hit and miss. Crazy definitely sits in the 'hit' camp for me.

The other #1 is by Arctic Monkeys, who also used the internet to their advantage, building up a groundswell of interest and support, which helped their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not become the fastest selling debut album in UK chart history at the time.

Aside from that, it's the usual eclectic mix of the well known and the wilfully obscure. And yes, although I committed the crime of not including The White Stripes, I have opted for Jack White's other band, The Raconteurs. Contrary sod, aren't I? Great song, though.

I missed The Go! Team at the Ashton Court Festival - they headlined the previous day - and I've still yet to see them live, but I love their gloriously joyful racket as much now as I did 20 years ago when I first heard them.

Muse and The Killers I'm less fussed by, but I do like the remixes featured here. Tahiti 80, Phoenix and Peter, Björn & John (with Victoria Bergsman) brings some European sunshine to proceedings. I finally got to see Peter at least live on stage, as the cornerstone of Robert Forster's Swedish Band in Cardiff last month.

I can’t promise the same level of diary diving tomorrow as I have done today, but 2007 will offer up another dozen examples of why the 2000s weren't so bad for music after all.

1) Big Day (Album Version): Tahiti 80

2) Young Folks (Album Version): Peter, Björn & John ft. Victoria Bergsman

3) Long Distance Call (25 Hours A Day Mix By Pierrick Devin): Phoenix

4) Cash Machine (Video Version 2): Hard-Fi

5) Why Won't You Give Me Your Love? (Album Version): The Zutons

6) Steady, As She Goes (Album Version): The Raconteurs

7) Crazy (DreamTime Mix): Gnarls Barkley

8) Ladyflash (Album Version): The Go! Team

9) Supermassive Black Hole (Team9 Remix By Neil Mason): Muse

10) Standing In The Way Of Control (Radio Edit): Gossip

11) When You Were Young (Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Radio Edit By Stuart Price): The Killers

12) When The Sun Goes Down (Album Version): Arctic Monkeys

1st January 2006: Stars Of CCTV (#14): 4

22nd January 2006: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (#1): 12

5th February 2006: Thunder, Lightning, Strike (#26): 8

5th March 2006: Fosbury (# n/a): 1

26th March 2006: It's Never Been Like That (# n/a): 3

2nd April 2006: St. Elsewhere (#1): 7

9th April 2006: Tired Of Hanging Around (#9): 5

30th April 2006: Broken Boy Soldiers (#4): 6

25th June 2006: Black Holes & Revelations (#4): 9

13th August 2006: Writer's Block (#35): 2 *

24th September 2006: Sam's Town (#2): 11

5th November 2006: Standing In The Way Of Control (#64): 10 **

Side One (46:14) (GD) (M)

* Young Folks was subsequently re-released the following year and got to #13 in the week of 23rd September 2007

** Likewise, Standing In The Way Of Control got a second bite of the cherry when it returned to the charts the week of 4th March 2007 with a peak of #7

If you're hungry for more, why not sample my selections from 1986 and 1996?

Elect Tronik

Today's selection features Tronik Youth aka Neil Parnell, and is a follow up of sorts to last Wednesday's spotlight on recent purchases from NEIN Records, the label Neil co-founded with Ian Considine over a decade ago.

 

In a 2018 interview celebrating 5 years of NEIN, Neil described the label's mission as "trying to spread some dark magic around the worlds dance floors" and this brief, C90-friendly mix attempts to reflect some of that in his own remixes and releases as Tronik Youth.

Most of the tracks are from the last few years, but I have included Tronik Youth's debut in 2006 with a remix of Listen Up! by Gossip. At the time Neil, a record shop boss and DJ, got involved with a friend who ran Back Yard Records. The two discovered and signed Gossip, Neil had a go at doing a remix and the rest is history.

 

If you're new to Tronik Youth and like what you hear, head first to NEIN Records on Bandcamp, where you will find a fair few Tronik Youth releases, re-edits and remixes of other label artists for your listening pleasure. 

However, a quick online search will also throw up a vast catalogue of music released on other labels and with other artists in the past two decades, as 2014's Suicide Doors on tici taci (included here) illustrates.

 

1) Cult Haze (One Of Us) (Tronik Youth 'Ritual' Remix): Dan Wainwright (2021)

2) Wrong System (Jay-Son Remix): Tronik Youth (2024)

3) Suicide Doors (Inaigo Vontier Remix): Tronik Youth (2014)

4) I Say Yes (Tronik Youth Remix): Cosman (2024)

5) Listen Up! (Tronik Youth Remix) (Edit): Gossip (2006)

6) Red Shift (Tronik Youth Remix): MAN2.0 (2022)

7) Serpens Caput (Tronik Youth Remix): Celestino (2023)

8) Ghosted Me: Tronik Youth (2024)

 

2008: Rework It: 5

2021: The Universal Energy Within EP: 1

2022: Red Shift EP: 6

2023: tici taci Decade Volume 1: 3

2023: We Are Nothing But Space Dust Remixes EP: 7

2024: I Say Yes EP: 4 

2024: Tronik Youth Club Edits EP: 8

2024: Wrong System EP: 2

 

Elect Tronik (45:28) (GD) (M)

Do You Feel What I Feel?

Gossip are back with a new album Real Power in March, their first in over a decade. Thanks to Martin over at New Amusements, whose posting of lead-in single Crazy Again a couple of weeks ago alerted me to this fact.

Like Martin, I wasn't immediately won over by Gossip mainly because I'd read so much muso journo hype and feverish pronouncements that they were the future/saviour of rock 'n' roll that I was slightly put off before hearing a note of music. 

Worse, I remember hearing Standing In The Way Of Control for the first time and thinking that it all sounded a bit pub band. And I don't mean in a Dr. Feelgood way. And yet...

Standing In The Way Of Control was a real ear worm. And then there were the remixes. Everyone goes on about the heavyweight Soulwax rework - and it is excellent - but it's the Playgroup remix by Trevor Jackson and Le Tigre's dirty disco overhaul that sealed the deal for me.

And Beth Ditto, despite being a ubiquitous presence on TV at the time which can be as much of a curse as a blessing, was an unstoppable force of loveliness. I can't find any contemporary clips (after a whole 5 mins of trawling YouTube) but here's Beth picking out some records for What's In Your Bag? in 2018 which is a fun listen/watch.

My friend John gifted me a copy of 2009's fourth album Music For Men, which I loved and played lots and lots for a couple of years. However, I didn't follow up with 2012's A Joyful Noise which to all intents and purposes was Gossip's swansong. And yet...

Gossip are back and, having listened to Crazy Again and the title track of Real Power, released as a single/video last Friday, I'm looking forward to hearing the album. Everyone needs a bit of indie-dance-punk-funk-with-feeling in their lives. Well, I do at least.

Party Like It's 2009

Back to the tail end of the Noughties with a bunch of beats to bring in the weekend. Some of the artists and DJs/remixers seem to have been dormant or relatively quiet in the past decade: US punk/indie/dance act Gossip, Japanese trio Lalory, Norwegian DJ and producer diskJokke. Others such as Burns, CFCF, The Field, Richard Sen and Daniel Avery have been prolific, the latter two transcending their early work. And Little Boots has been busy in the past year as a member of ABBA's live band on the Voyage tour.

 

A sign of the times that many of the featured artists's profiles on Discogs include links to MySpace, a reminder of how quickly the world moved on and away to other platforms. Says the man who resolutely clings to Blogger and mostly avoids other social media...!

 

1) Heavy Cross (Burns Remix): Gossip

2) Little Secrets (Lalory Remix By Tom Iwami, Kazunari Kadowaki & Kazuya Tamura): Passion Pit

3) The More That I Do (Foals XIII Remix): The Field

4) Compulsion (Padded Cell Remix By Neil Higgins & Richard Sen): Doves

5) Earthquake (Stopmakingme Mix By Daniel Avery): Little Boots

6) Tropics (CFCF Remix): Apache Beat

7) IRM (diskJokke Remix): Charlotte Gainsbourg

Party Like It's 2009 (44:52) (GD) (M)

Falke Music

Fred Falke's guaranteed to bring a little uplift to any song, often creating a pleasing tension with the melancholy lyrics and vocals. This is a selection of his earlier remixes, initially with fellow French DJ Alan Braxe. 10 remixes, 10 years, 1 per year. As Kelis so succinctly puts in Bossy, "uh uh, watch the beat go".

 

1) Sunny Days (Fred Falke Remix): Patterns (2013)

2) Bossy (Alan Braxe & Fred Falke Remix): Kelis ft. Too $hort (2016)

3) Heavy Cross (Fred Falke Remix): Gossip (2009)

4) Good Morning To The Night (Fred Falke Club Mix): Elton John vs Pnau (2012)

5) Take It Like A Man (Alan Braxe & Fred Falke Remix): Dragonette (2007)

6) Holler (Fred Falke Remix - Extended): Rebecca & Fiona (2014)

7) The Look (Fred Falke Remix): Metronomy (2011)

8) Black History Month (Alan Braxe & Fred Falke Remix): Death From Above 1979 (2005)

9) Dancing On My Own (Fred Falke Extended): Robyn (2010)

10) Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix): The Whitest Boy Alive (2008)

 

Falke Music 2005-2014 (1:08:14)
 

Years & Years & Years

Nothing clever or sophisticated about today's post, just a mix of 'year' song titles, in chronological order. I've taken a liberal attitude to the song's actual meaning: I mean, 1234 by Feist could be a paean to the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty if you stretch your imagination, couldn't it? I'll also make no apologies for including the bowel-troubling Moby remix of The Smashing Pumpkins' 1979 over the original version for the simple reason that there's less Billy Corgan in it. Some are irreplaceable - The Clash, New Order, Prince - but hopefully a few surprises along the way. No surprise that Julian Cope and Andrew Weatherall have snuck their way into yet another playlist, of course.
 
2,111 years, 25 songs, 2 hours, done.
 
1) 1234 (Album Version): Feist (2007)
2) 1300 (12" Version): Putsch '79 (2003)
3) 1517 (Album Version): The Whitest Boy Alive (2009)
4) 1901 (Album Version): Phoenix (2009)
5) 1917: David Bowie (1999)
6) 1959: Patti Smith (1997)
7) 1963 (Single Version): New Order (1987)
8) 1967: The Auteurs (1999)
9) 1969: The Sisters Of Mercy (1983)
10) 1973: The Glimmers (2009)
11) 1977: The Clash (1977)
12) 1979 (Moby Mix): The Smashing Pumpkins (1996)
13) 1981: Public Image Ltd. (1984)
14) 1984 (Summer Of Lovefingers Mix): Lovefingers vs. John Martyn (2008)
15) 1987 (Prins Thomas Diskomiks): diskJokke (2010)
16) 1993: Dananananaykroyd (2008)
17) 1995 (Album Version): Julian Cope (1995)
18) 1997 (Doctor Rosen Rosen Remix): Department Of Eagles (2008)
19) 1999 (Edit): Prince (1982)
20) 2000 (Original Version): RPM (1994)
21) 2001 (12" Remix By Donald Ross Skinner & Hugo Nicolson): Melissa Etheridge (1992)
22) 2012: Gossip (2009)
23) 2013 (Andrew Weatherall Remix): Primal Scream (2013)
24) 2080 (Brenmar Remix): Yeasayer (2009)
25) 3345 (GHP Whole Lotta Velvet Mix By Mark Vidler): The Black Velvets (2005)

Years & Years & Years (1:55:22)

Too Punk To Funk

2007 mix, which I think I may have put together for a friend's birthday. Definitely a snapshot of a moment in time, when it was all about indie disco and big beats. The cover is a remixed image taken from the We Never Know CD single by Nicolette. A long time since I've heard some of these songs and many of the acts are now consigned to history, but I'd forgotten how good some of these remixes are.

 

1) Girl And The Sea (Cut Copy Remix): The Presets ft. Kendal Cuneo (2005) 

2) Gravity's Rainbow (Van She Remix): Klaxons (2005)

3) X-Ray (South Central X-Ray Vision 'For Those With Eyes To See' Remix): The Maccabees (2007)

4) Please (Remember 1992? Remix): Paul Hartnoll ft. Robert Smith & Lianne Hall (2007)

5) Jique (MSTRKRFT Remix): Brazilian Girls (2006)

6) Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before (A Chicken Lips Malfunction): Mark Ronson ft. Daniel Merriweather (2007)

7) Save Me (Coldcut Remix): Nina Simone (2007) 

8) Backfire At The Disco (KGB Remix): The Wombats (2007)

9) Office Boy (CSS Remix): Bonde Do Role (2007)

10) Sexy Results (MSTRKRFT Edition): Death From Above 1979 (2005)

11) Me And My Man (Whitey vs. Chromeo 'Fly Whitey' Mix): Chromeo (2004)

12) Standing In The Way Of Control (Soulwax Nite Version) (Khayem's Cheeky Re-Edit): Gossip (2006)

13) Broken Drum (Remixed By Boards Of Canada): Beck (2005)

14) You'll Never Change (Album Version): GusGus (2007)

15) Woozy With Cider (Jon Hopkins Remix): James Yorkston (2007)

 

Too Punk To Funk (1:17:42)