Gangsters, Gangsters, Everywhere Gangsters

Gangsters, the latest single from Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke's Tall Tales album has arrived with a mesmerising / fascinating / irritating (delete as applicable) video by Jonathan Zawada.

I haven't yet heard the album, but it's piqued my curiosity and I will check it out at some point. This listen took me down a different - and more obvious - rabbit hole of songs with a gangster...with no prizes for guessing where it ends up.

A few special mentions: 

1) I've never seen the video for Gangsterville by Joe Strummer before, so that was a treat even if the audio quality is a bit hissy;

2) In case you don't already know, The Sinister Ducks were a super group, comprising Max Akropolis, Capt. José da Silva and Translucia Baboon, better known to you and me as Alex Green (Jazz Butcher), David J (Bauhaus) and Alan Moore (comics legend), with visuals by Kevin O'Neill (also a comics legend);

3) Up until about 5 minutes ago, I was convinced that the repeatedly sampled line in Gangster Trippin by Fatboy Slim was not "What we're doin' when a" but "Fluff with the women" and I am greatly disappointed to be corrected.

4) It doesn't get much better than the last song, does it?

Had I more time, I would have presented this as a Dubhed selection. Instead, enjoy the videos (where available) and some rather cracking tunes.

 
1) Gangsters: Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke (2025)

2) Big Time Gangsters: Benjamin Zephaniah (1990)

3) Gangster: Dreadzone (2010)

4) Gangster: Electronic (1992)

5) Gangster Of Love Part I & II: Jimmy Norman (1968)

6) Gangster Of Love: Talking Heads (1991)

7) Gangsterville: Joe Strummer (1989)

8) Old Gangsters Never Die: The Sinister Ducks (1983)

9) Gangster Chronicle (Live @ Green Theatre, Kiev) (Cover of London Posse): Tricky ft. Bella Gotti (2014)

10) Cowboys & Gangsters: Gichy Dan's Beachwood #9 (1981)

11) Gangster Trippin: Fatboy Slim (1998)

12) Gangsters: The Special AKA (1979)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decade III: 1984

Side 1 of a cassette compilation, recorded sometime in March 1990, discarded or misplaced somewhere along the way, reimagined and recreated 18th August 2024.

 

The halfway point, and the second of the two cassettes from the Decade series that I lost, broke or smashed with a lump hammer at some point in the last twenty years. One of these scenarios is highly unlikely.

 

I had a vague recollection of some of the songs on the previous mixtape, but I have no memory of the original 1984 tracklisting whatsoever. It probably would have featured Bronski Beat, almost certainly Depeche Mode and would I have left off Tears For Fears with Shout or at a push Mothers Talk? I don't know, but none of them have made the cut this time around.

 

The selection starts off with two of the defining songs of the year for me, by Prince and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. My appreciation of the Purple One really kicked off a few years later, but I was in with the Liverpool lads as soon as they appeared on The Tube and Top Of The Pops. Neither song has lost its edge or impact, forty years later.

Eighties by Killing Joke, as well as being an apt choice for this series, was the one that hooked me in to the band. Most likely I would have heard them on the radio previously, but it was probably Love Like Blood and the Night Time album the following year that sealed the deal. Kurt Cobain was similarly inspired.

1984 was also the year that the ZTT aka Zang Tumb Tuum label exploded, on the back of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's success with Relax and Trevor Horn's huge production. It was also the home to The Art Of Noise and the bonkers Close (To The Edit), in the days when this kind of craziness could also be a #1 single in the UK. I've got multiple versions of this song, reflecting ZTT's saturation of the market with vinyl, cassette, VHS and Beta, endless 12" remixes and probably a kitchen sink format for one of their releases. On the downside, every single length version of Close (To The Edit) in my collection is prone to vinyl crackles or tape hiss and dropout, so please excuse the slight dip in sound quality.

At the other end of the spectrum, Eurythmics were becoming increasingly more slick with each album. Previous album Touch seems to have been the jumping off point for many, though I liked it and was positively disposed towards follow up single Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four). Released to promote the film adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 (one film that couldn't afford to have a delayed release), Eurythmics also provided the largely instrumental soundtrack album. Not much to recommend it, to be honest. I skipped this album and was disappointed with the 1985 follow up, Be Yourself Tonight. 

I've inadvertently created a mini Six Degrees Of Separation here. Elvis Costello got Green Gartside in to provide backing vocals on I Wanna Be Loved. Green had also appeared on Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams album; Elvis would do the same on Be Yourself Tonight. And the thankfully prophetic Nelson Mandela by The Special AKA was produced by... Elvis Costello.

 

The thread ends there as I couldn't find any link to Strawberry Switchblade, though suggestions on a postcard are welcome. Since Yesterday is a low-fi pop classic that made me briefly want to buy a polka dot shirt. I didn't, though my fashion crimes in this decade were many and there are photos to prove it. Fiction Factory were another one-hit wonder from this year, and whilst I have no recollection of their wardrobe choices, what a song, eh?

Billy Idol came as close as he ever did to a ballad with Eyes Without A Face (UK #18 in August 1984, pop fans), though Steve Stevens succumbs about two thirds of the way in, releasing an almighty riff. None of that guitar nonsense for Heaven 17 though, who (Fair)light the way with Sunset Now, backed by female vocal trio Afrodiziak. Member Caron Wheeler would find her moment in the spotlight a few years later, first with Soul II Soul, then as a solo artist.

I'm pretty sure that I didn't include Come Back by The Mighty Wah! on the original compilation in 1990, which may have been one of the triggers for losing/destroying it years later. In 2024, Pete Wylie and Josie Jones get to close the show as only they can. A fantastic song that manages to soar even higher than The Story Of The Blues.

I'm hoping that you'll all, ahem, ‘Come Back' tomorrow for 1985, though if you're expecting Madonna, Tina Turner, Nik Kershaw and Dire Straits, you're going to be bitterly disappointed...

 

1) When Doves Cry (Edit): Prince

2) Two Tribes (For The Victims Of Ravishment) (Album Version): Frankie Goes To Hollywood

3) Eighties (Album Version): Killing Joke

4) Close (To The Edit) (Video Version 2): The Art Of Noise

5) Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four) (Single Mix): Eurythmics

6) I Wanna Be Loved (Radio Version): Elvis Costello & The Attractions ft. Green Gartside

7) Nelson Mandela (Extended Version): The Special AKA ft. Stan Campbell

8) Since Yesterday (Album Version): Strawberry Switchblade

9) (Feels Like) Heaven (Album Version): Fiction Factory

10) Eyes Without A Face (Single Version): Billy Idol

11) Sunset Now (Album Version): Heaven 17 ft. Afrodiziak

12) Come Back (The Story Of The Reds) (Album Version): The Mighty Wah! ft. Josie Jones

Side One (46:25) (KF) (Mega)

Once Heard Never Forgotten

I first heard Rhoda Dakar via the single The Boiler by Rhoda with The Special A.K.A. featuring Nicky Summers, circa 1989 on The Two-Tone Story cassette compilation. Released in January 1982 as the follow up to The Specials' final single (and UK #1), Ghost Town, The Boiler made it's predecessor seem like bubblegum pop by comparison.

 

Set to a mid-tempo beat, with Jerry Dammers' swirling organ and Dick Cuthell's signature cornet, Rhoda lays a spoken word narrative based on a real-life experience of one of her friends in the late 1970s. It is an increasingly unsettling account leading to a harrowing description of violence, assault and rape, closing out with Rhoda screaming as the music carries on regardless before an abrupt fade. But it's clear that the narrator's ordeal is not over. 

 

Jerry Dammers has been quoted as saying that The Boiler "is the only record that was ever made quite deliberately to be listened to once and once only.”  The Boiler reached #35 in the UK singles chart. 

 

Lizzie Soden produced a video for The Boiler with Steve Binnion and a crew from Nottingham Film Workshop, shot on 16mm film. In the notes accompanying her post of the video on YouTube, Lizzie states that,

 

"The main issue we wanted to explore was that rape was fundamentally about violence against women, as opposed to "sex." We wanted to use images of passive women and violent men from mainstream media to use as a metaphor. However when it was broadcast the TV company cut out the TV collage and replaced it with a silhouette of a man raping a woman which was classic irony."

 

Lizzie adds that "Tyne Tees TV cut off the end which includes snippets from TV shows from back in the day due to copyright clearance costs." The video remains a powerful visual complement to the song.

 

Rhoda also performed The Boiler with The Special A.K.A. on BBC2's Oxford Road Show. I've just seen this for the first time and she delivers an incredibly powerful performance. Unsurprisingly, given that the BBC had withdrawn The Boiler from the Radio 1 playlist after a couple of broadcasts, Rhoda's heart-rending screams are cut short. Unintentional I guess but no less unsettling, the ripped VHS goes all wibbly wobbly before jumping suddenly to a clip of Terry Hall singing the words Enjoy Yourself before cutting out completely.

 

The Boiler was the first original song written by The Bodysnatchers, a 7-piece formed by Nicky Summers in 1979 and fronted by Rhoda. The record label baulked at the idea of releasing The Boiler as a single and to date it remains unreleased. The Bodysnatchers were sadly short-lived, with just 2 singles released on Two-Tone in 1980. However, the band did record The Boiler for a John Peel session on 8th April 1980.

Again, I've just heard this for the first time. This is much more uptempo, rocksteady version compared to Jerry Dammers' arrangement and Rhoda's delivery is superb. It's a bit more colourful in it's characterisation and it's fascinating to hear how Rhoda developed and honed her performance between these recordings.

In the latter version with The Special A.K.A, there is an initial emotionally detached quality at first, leading to a slow build up and release that evokes the journey of Rhoda's character reliving her traumatic experience which makes the final agonised screams even more impactful. 

I haven't followed Jerry's words and listened to The Boiler just the once but three decades of familiarity with the song, since first hearing it as a teen on a tape deck, has done nothing to diminish the song's power to shock and horrify. Sadly, also a reminder that in our supposedly enlightened 21st century society, little has changed.

Rhoda continued to record with Jerry (as the slightly amended The Special AKA), notably on 1984's album In The Studio. She released her own first solo album in 2007, with Cleaning In Another Woman's Kitchen and has been on a something of a roll since. Rhoda's latest album, Version Girl, was released this summer. The dozen covers are songs that Rhoda could not find previous definitive Reggae, Ska or Rocksteady versions of, and include David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World and Everyday Is Like Sunday by The Manchester Racist. 

The album closes with a rather fine cover of (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding, written by Nick Lowe and released as a single from his 1974 album The New Favourites of... Brinsley Schwarz. I'm more familiar with the cover version recorded in 1978 by Elvis Costello & The Attractions but I like this a lot.

  

Version Girl is available on physical and digital formats. If you head to Bandcamp, you'll also find a slew of singles, accompanied by dubs/versions on the B-side. All of the releases feature beautiful artwork by Pete McKee, worth the purchase cost alone.