Get A Grip

Those of you of a certain vintage may recognise Norman "Gripper" Stebson, Grange Hill wrong 'un from 1980, expelled in 1983. 

Nothing wrong about this line-up, however. The Vinyl Villain's posting Lambchop's superb cover of This Corrosion by The Sisters Of Mercy on Tuesday got me thinking of today's opening song and from there a Dubhed selection was born. 

The similarly-titled song by A Certain Ratio gets a stunning synth rinse by Maps, whilst Thomas Leer dusts off his song of the same name, recorded in 2004 and languishing in the vaults until finally released in 2022.

Amateur Night In The Big Top was essentially a duo of Shaun Ryder and Shane Norton, with one self-titled (and hugely underrated) album and a few singles. Clowns was co-written and co-produced by Pete Carroll and Stephen Mallinder and gets a shoo in here courtesy of the remix artist Gripper.

The selection closes with a 12" remix of The Stranglers' classic, released in 1989 as far as I can recall to promote a greatest hits collection. The remix is an odd, welding the percussion track from The Sound Of The Crowd by The Human League to the undercarriage and generally making the song sound more lightweight. Not a patch on the original version, obviously, but an oddity that I think would have sounded as out of place in 1989 as it does now.

Come back here tomorrow for a tale of raffle tickets, home made marmalade and sweet, sweet music.

 

1) (Get A) Grip (On Yourself) (Cover of The Stranglers): Lambchop (2004)

2) Devil's Grip: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown (1967)

3) Get A Grip (Maps Remix By James Chapman): A Certain Ratio ft. Maria Uzor (2021)

4) Kick It (Hippy Grip) (Remix By Randy Wilson): Nitzer Ebb (1995)

5) Get A Grip: Thomas Leer (2004)

6) Drums In A Grip (Wax Doctor Mix By Paul Saunders): Frank De Wulf (1996)

7) Clowns (Gripper Mix By Alan Gubby): Amateur Night In The Big Top (2003)

8) Grip Like A Vice (Black Affair Mix By Steve Mason): The Go! Team (2007)

9) Phantom Grip: Rival Consoles (2018)

10) Elektro (He Held The World In His Iron Grip) (Part Two): Stereolab (1992)

11) Grip '89 (Grippin' Stuff Mix By Barry Cooder & Taff B. Dylan): The Stranglers (1989)

Get A Grip (52:20) (KF) (Mega)

Waves Don't Die (Everything Is Waves)

Spotting the titular graffiti on a fire exit door in central Gloucester somehow reminded me of Thomas Leer's latest song, Death Of A Dream, released in late January.

 

 

It also reminded me that a year ago yesterday (25th), I suggested that I might have a go at an Imaginary Compilation Album for The Vinyl Villain, focusing on Thomas Leer's work as a solo artist, with Claudia Brücken as Act and his collaboration with Robert Rental.

I am currently working on an ICA but not this one, which has been a work-in-progress for some time. For once, I'm kind of glad as my usual rabbit hole expeditions subsequently led me to the Future HIstoric site on Bandcamp. Here for the past decade, Thomas has uploaded "Collections of previously unreleased material spanning the last three decades & up to the present.", from full-length albums to standalone tracks.

Death Of A Dream is the 13th release to date, eight minutes of sweeping synth strings collapsing into pulsing beats, Leer's cracked, vulnerable and electronically treated voice conveying a world weariness. Seven decades on this tiny planet and the acknowledgement that we are "as big as life", but "as small as nothing in the universe".

 

It's an affecting song and I've been poised to purchase more of Leer's treasure this coming Bandcamp Friday. Great though it's been to discover the wealth of material on Future Historic, it'll make a 10-song ICA all the more difficult to decide on...

 

 

 

Death Of A Dream

I live on an island,

on the top of a building,

in a town I don't recognise.

I don't fear the devil, 

coz he lives in me, 

tempered by the good that's eating at me.

Don't feel sorry, 

don't feel guilt, 

you can't burn bridges that you never built. 

I'm ready & I'm willing & able to testify, 

to what I can see, 

the world's in a breach.

I am broken 

they finally got me, 

it took a long time to get here,

but I'm broken,

cut off at the knees,

I caught the disease & I'm broken.
 

Take it to the rain, 

wash it all away.

Sometimes I wonder if the worlds worth saving, 

when I look at the way you're behaving. 

 But I knew what I was doing & I did it anyway.
You got the way to say "Hi", 

to make me feel low.

You're my vision,

dear to me,

a good decision, 

on my part,

you're my vision,

like nuclear fission,

in my soul. 

How do you feel,

how do you feel,

are you hiding or do you want to reveal.

Death of a Dream, 

here I am as big as life,

as small as nothing in the universe.

Another Teenage Remix

Side 1 of a 1980s 12" mix cassette compilation, recorded 24th April 2000. According to my sleevenotes on the reverse, "these 12" singles kept me going even when my hairstyle just couldn't keep pace". It's fair to say that in the mid to late 1980s, I went through an environmentally unfriendly amount of hairspray and gel, rarely to impressive effect.

The selection starts off with Act, who featured here in their own right last year. A short-lived but oh-so-wonderful collaboration between Claudia Brücken and Thomas Leer. Unfortunately for them, Act was launched just as label ZTT experienced a dip in popularity, post-Frankie Goes to Hollywood and pre-808 State and Seal. A shame as Brücken and Leer looked and sounded great, with satirical lyrics and none-more-80s production. 

 

Snobbery & Decay was Act's opening statement and deserved a far better UK chart placing than #60, which would sadly prove to be their biggest 'hit'. As with most ZTT releases, there were multiple formats and remixes. As this mix title suggests, this limited edition 12" was housed in a beautiful sleeve with a photo of Quentin Crisp by Anton Corbijn on the reverse. What's less obvious is that the remix heavily samples Cybil Shepherd and Bruce Willis from US TV series Moonlighting, which was hugely popular at the time. In fact, the song proper doesn't kick in until five and a half minutes into a remix just shy of nine minutes. All good fun, but you had to buy the other formats to get more Claudia and Thomas.

Visage arguably made one good album (their debut) and it was all downhill from there. Personally, I also have a lot of love for second album The Anvil and, singles-wise, everything up to Pleasure Boys. Night Train is one of their best and the record-buying public seemed largely to agree as it proved to be their fourth UK Top 20 hit, pipping Mind Of A Toy by one place to peak at #12. I first got the dance mix of Night Train on vinyl courtesy of the Old Gold series, which would usually slap two extended mixes on a 12" single in a hideously generic sleeve for a bargain price. I tracked down the original 12" single years later in Replay Records in Bristol. I still love it.

 

What can I say about Associates? Well, other than whether to use the definite article in their name or not. Billy MacKenzie and Alan Rankine created some of the finest pop music of the 1980s, managing both perfect and off-kilter often in the same song. Club Country had a tough gig, being the follow up to Party Fears Two, but it managed #13 in the UK and matched it's predecessor's 10-week run in the charts. I love the song, whether the 7" single, slightly longer album cut or here in it's extended version. And, for my money, the best phrasing of the word 'pseudonym' in a song, ever. 

 

It's only occurred to me whilst writing this that there's a Scottish theme running though this selection: Thomas Leer, Midge Ure, Billy MacKenzie and Alan Rankine. Zeke Manyika was born in Zimbabwe, but moved to (and I think still lives in) Scotland, joining Orange Juice in 1982, so that's good enough for me. 

 

Runaway Freedom Train was released in 1989 as the follow up to Bible Belt and sadly also seems to have had little impact on the charts. It carries a similar political heft to Bible Belt, albeit with a slightly more oblique comment on apartheid in South Africa:

"No matter how hard you try
To break this motion,
It's a one way ticket,
Only one destination,
You can't break the wheels of history" 

 

I still have the 12" single of Runaway Freedom Train, but I haven't digitised the songs or currently have the means to do so. The original 12" version is about eight minutes long and a fairly straightforward extended mix by Keith Cohen. The only version available online is the "U.S.A. Extended Club Version", which appears to be a re-edit of the Cohen mix, initially by The Latin Rascals and re-edited in 2009 by Mixmaster DJ Heavy M aka Malik Jefferson. The tracks runs to nearly ten minutes and is a veritable frenzy of scratches and edits. I tried cutting it down for use in this selection, but it just sounded way out of place with the rest of the tracks. I also didn't want to use different mixes of any of the other tracks to maintain the original running time.

 

So, what you've got here is my own re-edit of the re-edit of the, er, re-edit. Largely the album version from Zeke's second album Mastercrime, I've spliced a chunk of edits a little way into the intro and dropped in a further slab of edits at the end. It still runs a little short at just over seven and a half minutes, but (I think) it just about works. As ever, you'll be the judge of that. The mix title says it all.

 

Grace Jones next, with Living My Life. I first heard the song in 1983 on The Master Tape, a freebie compilation with Record Mirror which I think was a sampler of forthcoming releases. The irony with Living My Life was that it didn't appear on either her album of the same name or as a single in the UK, although a limited 12" was released in Portugal. I could have used the Long Version from the latter to solve the issue with Runaway Freedom Train, but true to the original mixtape, I've stuck with the 1986 remix by Steven Stanley, which is much closer to the version that I originally heard on the Record Mirror compilation. Neither Grace Jones nor Steven Stanley were born in Scotland and regretfully, I can't find any evidence that either have lived there, so my Scottish theme ends there.

 

But only briefly, as Aberdeen's own Annie Lennox leaps to the rescue with, er, Sunderland native David A. Stewart as Eurythmics. Would I lie to you? No, siree. This was the lead mix (of two) from the 12" single, with Eric 'ET' Thorngren bringing his customary BIG drums in and pushing everything bar Annie's vocals back in the mix. He likes his drums, does ET. I did buy the accompanying album, Be Yourself Tonight, but this was pretty much the point that I started checking out on Eurythmics. I like this single but it was all getting a bit slick and aimed squarely at global domination for my liking. Fair play to Eurythmics, they achieved it, but it's the first three albums that I return to time and again.

 

And blowing the Scottish theme once and for all (well, it was good while it lasted), Side 1 ends with Scarlet Fantastic, who both hail from the West Midlands, and are remixed here by Australian Karen Hewitt. The wonderfully named Maggie De Monde and Rick Phylip-Jones were previously in Swans Way, who had a Top 20 hit with the avant-garde pop of Soul Train. Scarlet Fantastic were more out-and-out pop and No Memory is a fantastic example, although it sadly didn't quite find an audience, reaching #24 in 1987. The pick of the bunch is the Extra Sensory Mix but the Ecstacy Mix is also a corker. The version here was ripped several years ago from my copy of the limited edition 12" single in  - what else? - "scarlet fantastic" red vinyl.

 

Have a fun Saturday, everyone!

 

1) (The Naked Civil) Snobbery & Decay (Remix By Stephen Lipson): Act (1987)

2) Night Train (Dance Mix By Visage & John Luongo): Visage (1982)

3) Club Country (Extended Version By Associates & Mike Hedges): Associates (1982)

4) Runaway Freedom Train ('All This Scratching Is Making Me Itch' Re-Edit By Khayem): Zeke Manyika (1989/2022)

5) Living My Life (Remix By Steven Stanley): Grace Jones (1986)

6) Would I Lie To You? (An Eric 'ET' Thorngren Mix): Eurythmics (1985)

7) No Memory (Ecstacy Mix By Karen Hewitt): Scarlet Fantastic (1987)

 

Side One (45:49) (KF) (Mega)

Side Two here

These Altered States And Altered Bodies Are Telegenic Holy Relics

I'm still trying to take in the fact that Cathal Coughlan has passed. Last week's sad news was a real shock, which reverberated across many of the music blogs that I follow. I posted a celebration of Cathal's music as The Fatima Mansions but, as is often the case in times of loss, it also provided the impetus to finally catch up with his subsequent work.

I'll focus a future post on Cathal Coughlan's last solo album, Song Of Co-Aklan, and companion E.P. Of Co-Aklan, the latter released less than a week before his death on 18th May 2022.

Today is all about Telefís, Cathal's electronic/dance project with producer Jacknife Lee. Of course, being Cathal Coughlan, you inevitably also get the biting satire and acerbic lyrics. I ended up buying the complete Telefís discography available on Bandcamp, including the album a hAon and the Archbishop Beardmouth At The ChemOlympics EP, both released in March this year.

 

Cathal is no stranger to juxtaposing hard-hitting narratives with dancefloor-friendly rhythms, as remixes of The Fatima Mansions' Blues For Ceausescu, The Loyaliser and Nite Flights will attest.

 

Cathal Coughlan and Garret Lee were apparently working on new Telefís songs prior to Cathal's passing and I hope that there is sufficient material that may make it's way into the world in the future. For now, I'd highly recommend the album and EP releases, including a trio of reworkings of Falun Gong Dancer featuring the mighty Jah Wobble.

Today's selection spotlights Archbishop Beardmouth At The ChemOlympics, both in it's original album form and as remixed/versioned by Thomas Leer. 

 

Cathal held his promise to Keep Music Evil right to the end. 

 

 

Archbishop Beardmouth At The ChemOlympics (Album Version): Telefís (2022)

Archbishop Beardmouth At The ChemOlympics (Thomas Leer Version): Telefís (2022)

 

We used to be
And we believed
It's plain to see
Toxicology

 

From the devotional freakout
of Archbishop Beardmouth:
ChemOlympics! ChemOlympics!
Don't call it chemo
These toxins are for fun!
These altered states and altered bodies are telegenic holy relics

 

We used to be
And we believed
It's plain to see
Toxicology

 

The common sense
(doesn't matter, doesn't matter)
Raped by events
(doesn't matter, doesn't matter)
Back in your trench
(doesn't matter, doesn't matter)
The games won't relent, won't relent

 

Culvert, truck-bonnet, crazed mob, crowbars -
We're not going out like poor Muammar
Gollies next to eagles next to crosses
on the aprons of the ungiven tosses

 

We used to be
And we believed
It's plain to see
Toxicology

 

The medals gleam
(doesn't matter, doesn't matter)
The nostrils steam
(doesn't matter, doesn't matter)
COPD
(doesn't matter, doesn't matter)
Google, Pepsi, epilepsy!

 

...Doesn't matter, doesn't matter.

 

In A Discotheque At Dawn Is When It Came To Me

Nothing clever or fancy about today's selection: 7 randomly selected 12" mixes, sequenced in alphabetical order by artist. Some unexpected and welcome treats, though: a welcome return to this blog for Act aka Claudia Brücken & Thomas Leer; Bryan Ferry goes clubbing*; an early remix by Justin Robertson; François K taking on The Cure; and disco and dub classics from Grace Jones and Gregory Isaacs. To close, a track from modern dub colossi Youth and Gaudi, remixed by Cambridge DJ/producer Kuba, which has introduced me to a couple of new genres, psychill and broken beat. Every day an education. And a reason to keep moving.

1) Chance (Throbbin' Mix By Stephen Lipson): Act (1988)

2) You Can Dance (John Monkman Remix): Bryan Ferry (2010)

3) Redhills Road (Most Excellent Mix By Justin Robertson): Candy Flip (1991)

4) Hey You!!! (Extended Remix By François Kevorkian & Alan Gregorie): The Cure (1988)

5) La Vie En Rose (A Tom Moulton Mix): Grace Jones (1977)

6) Cool Down The Pace (10" Mix By Godwin Logie & Paul 'Groucho' Smykle): Gregory Isaacs (1982)

7) Empress Of The Tarot (Kuba Remix By Laurence Harvey): Youth & Gaudi (2020) 

 

* This is very good, but the original version by DJ Hell is the best.

In A Discotheque At Dawn Is When It Came To Me (44:12)

Your Life Will Surely Change

As a follow up to Sunday's post, more The The, this time a selection of their videos, which are all rather wonderful. I still have Infected "The Movie" on VHS tape, unfortunately our video player is long dead, so I haven't been able to watch it in years. I remember seeing the whole thing on Channel 4. I loved the album but the video experience just blew me away. It was a really powerful visual and aural statement in the midst of mid-80s MTV pap.

 

Side One


1) I've Been Waitin' for Tomorrow (All of My Life) (1983)


2) I Want 2 B U (2020)


3) Pillar Box Red (2002)


4) The Beat(en) Generation (1989)


5) Out Of The Blue (Into The Fire) (1986)


6) Kingdom Of Rain (1989)



 

Side Two


1) Infected
 (1986)

2) Dogs Of Lust
 (1993)

3) This Is The Day
 (1983)

4) Sweet Bird Of Truth
 (1986)

5) We Can't Stop What's Coming
 (2017)

6) Love Is Stronger Than Death
 (1993)

 

Kingdom Of Rain features vocals from Sinéad O'Connor, who unfortunately doesn't appear in the video itself. All of the videos are taken from The The's official YouTube page, with the exception of This Is The Day.

Testament To Reality

Happy 60th birthday, Matt Johnson. 

 

Sides 1 & 2 of a mixtape, recorded 21st October 1989. Cassette sleeve 'inspired' by the cover to the Gravitate To Me 12" single. Like many, Matt Johnson's albums, singles and B-sides were the soundtrack to my teenage years.

 

Side One (45:32)

1) Good Morning Beautiful (Album Version): The The (1989) 

2) The Sinking Feeling (The Original Version): The The (1982)

3) Sweet Bird Of Truth (12" Version) ('45 RPM' Album Edit): The The ft. Anna Domino (1986) 

4) Perfect (New Version): The The (1983)

5) The Nature Of Virtue (Version II): The The (1983)

6) Gravitate To Me (Little Version): The The (1989)

7) Giant (Album Version): The The ft. Thomas Leer, Jim Thirlwell, Zeke Manyika & Camelle Hinds (1983)

Side Two (46:03)

1) Harbour Lights (Single Version): The The (1986)

2) Heartland (Album Version): The The (1986)

3) Soul Mining (Album Version) (Edit): The The (1983)

4) Song Without An Ending! (Album Version): Matt Johnson (1981)

5) Bugle Boy (Album Version): Matt Johnson (1981)

6) Slow Train To Dawn (12" Version) (Edit): The The ft. Neneh Cherry (1986)

7) Infected (Album Remix) (Edit): The The (1986)

8) Flesh & Bones: The The ft. Jim Thirlwell (1985)

9) Uncertain Smile (Album Version): The The ft. Jools Holland & Camelle Hinds (1983)

10) Beyond Love (Album Version): The The (1989)

Side One (45:32) (KF) (Mega)

Side Two (46:03) (KF) (Mega)

Extended, For Stephanie Beacham

On record, Act were a going concern for little over a year, from their debut single Snobbery And Decay in May 1987 to their sole album, Laughter, Tears And Rage in June 1988. However, being on ZTT, there were a plethora of remixes, album tracks that were unique to each format and unreleased songs and alternative versions. This has continued with a number of reissues, compilations and anthologies over the years.

 

I'd got in on the act (excuse the pun) because of Claudia Brücken's involvement - I was a big fan of Propaganda - but it's had the lasting impact of introducing me to Thomas Leer's solo work, before and after. Act was not a commercial success but they've remained a go to if you like your 80s pop with a dash of commentary on, as Wikipedia puts it, "decadence and moral bankruptcy".

 

1)  Absolutely Immune II (Remix By Stephen Lipson & Trevor Horn) (1987)

2) Strong Poison (Remix By Stephen Lipson) (1987)

3) I Can't Escape From You (Razormaid Mix) (1992)

4) (Alternative) Gestures (Remix By Stephen Lipson) (1988)

5) Body Electric (1987)

6) Snobbery And Decay (Extended, For Stephanie Beecham) (1987)

7) Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now (Lucky's Skank 2) (ft. Casbah aka Aloysius 'Lucky' Gordon) (Cover of The Smiths) (1988)

8) White Rabbit (Cover of The Great Society with Grace Slick) (1987)

9) I'd Be Surprisingly Good For You (Cover of Julie Covington) (1987)

10) Chance (Throbbin' Mix By Stephen Lipson) (1988)

11) Under The Nights Of Germany (Trial Edit By Stephen Lipson) (1988)

12) Laughter (Seven Inch Mix By Greg Walsh) (1988)

13) Winner '88 (12" Mix By Stephen Lipson) (1988)

 

Extended, For Stephanie Beacham (1:05:15)