From yesterday's new music in 2024 to today's selection of 14 songs from 1954. I wonder what people in 2094, on the edge of the 22nd century, will think of today's music, similarly seven decades in the past?
A fair few of these have come from cover-mounted CDs with Mojo or Uncut magazine, usually delving into the songs that inspired the likes of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Fleetwood Mac. It's
hard to imagine the thrill of the new back in '54, when the needle hit
the platter and people heard these songs for the very first time.
When I was a teen, this music was already 30 years old and really sounded like it was from another time. Lady K listens to a lot of music that's 30 years old but the music of 1994 doesn't feel so dated or different from much of the music that's being made today.
And whilst I see and hear that in a positive way, music as a continual complement and inspiration rather than homogenous regurgitation, it's good sometimes to go back to music that in so many ways has informed and inspired music right up to the present day but is also very much of its time.
1) Blue Moon Of Kentucky: Bill Monroe
2) I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine: Elvis Presley
3) (We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock: Bill Haley & His Comets
4) I'm Just A Country Boy: Harry Belafonte
5) Hernando's Hideaway: Arche Blever
6) Rose Marie: Slim Whitman
7) Grande Jacques (C'est Trop Facile): Jacques Brel
The frankly brilliant video for Old Friends by J Mascis was posted last Friday but I've only just noticed it, or the fact that it's the third single from his fifth solo album, What Do We Do Now, released on the same day. So much music, so little time, etc.
Actually, it's turned out to be the best possible timing. It's been a rather testing week in a number of ways and Old Friends - the song and the video - is the perfect counterpoint. I've replayed both about a dozen times already and I feel...uplifted.
I'd never heard of Geddy Ruxpin's Stressed Quest before, but I'd watch that TV show without a doubt. In the meantime, I just have to decide which print to buy for Lady K. At the moment, it's a toss up between "Cat Glasses" and "Family With Pet"...
The Sub Pop blurb pronounces that What Do We Do Now is "the finest set of solo tunes J has yet penned". That may be a bold claim but the evidence is compelling, not least when the 10-songs wrap up with this beauty.
What Do We Do Now is available in the usual places and J Mascis is embarking on a tour this month, including a few brief stops in the UK in April.
Old Friends
True sound, way down
I won't follow with you
I don't follow you
Grimace, regress
I don't like the outcome
I don't want to come
Say it's a wasteland
Make it a great plan
Old friends defend
Stance I don't agree, no
I don't wanna go
Say it's a wasteland
Give it the wrong hand
No, I won't be back again
You belong
And say it's coming up again
It won't be long
If you said it's up to me
Make me cry
Explain it all and just appear
I know the world's behind me
I know you had enough of fear, real
I know the world mistakes here
I know there is no good take on you, you
Say it's a wasteland
Make it a great plan
Old friend, don't bend
I can't take another, I won't take it all
We're gone, moved on
I'm not going back there
I'm not gonna crawl
The title of today's post was Ernie "27 Leggies" Goggins' riposte to my throwaway but ill-advised reference to Biddu as a "kitsch producer" in December last year. Not my only
mistake, either: I also referred in the post to Biddu as co-writer of the Carl Douglas hit
single, Kung Fu Fighting; he produced it, the words and music were all
Carl's. Thankfully, I was spared the wrath of Ernie, although I did receive an educational visit from funky Billy Chin and little Sammy Chong, who were instructed by the Big Boss to "get it on".
Not that Biddu didn't prove to be a dab hand at composing as well as producing pop earworms. Exhibit A: (Holy Moses!) Everything's Coming Up Roses by teen actor Jack Wild. The name didn't particularly ring a bell, until I found that he was the Artful Dodger in the 1968 film Oliver! and, more memorably for me, Jimmy in TV series H.R. Pufnstuf.
No Biddu tribute would be complete without Tina Charles' 1976 disco smash, I Love To Love (But My Baby Loves To Dance). Here's a vibrant performance on Dutch TV treasure trove Top Pop. Health warning for sensitive fashionistas: this video contains multiple shots of triple denim.
Not one to miss out on the disco action, Biddu & The Orchestra released a number of singles, including this rather compelling cover of a Neil Diamond classic in 1977. However, I've belatedly discovered the even better Boogiethon (It's A Marathon) on the flip side, which Biddu wrote, arranged and produced. Here's the Special Disco Version for your extended entertainment.
In 1980, Nazia Hassan topped the singles chart in Pakistan with Disco Deewane. Guess who wrote and produced it? You betcha! Here's the video featuring a bird of prey (fleetingly) and lots of brass instruments. If you can hear either on the song itself, you're a more discerning listener than I.
Biddu continued to write, record and release music up to the early 2000s, but it's been more difficult (with 30 minutes' "research" at least) to find anything beyond that. But hey, Biddu's turned 80 today, he deserves a day off by now, surely?!
Here's Biddu's interpretation of a Hindu mantra (and which I probably have the most versions of in my music collection) from the 2004 album Diamond Sutra by the Biddu Orchestra.
And I would be called to surrender my blogosphere bus pass if I didn't wrap up with this one.
Another highlight of last week's Bandcamp Friday purchases was a new song by Jo Bartlett.
Drawing A Line (ghost tape no.2) is a lovely burbling, bass-heavy number replete with cassette hiss percussion, occasional jangly guitar and Jo's vocals floating and weaving through. As the sub-title suggests, it's a track from Jo's forthcoming album Ghost Tapes 1-9, due out on 26th April.
Jo also has a band, Kodiak Island, who debuted with the Play To Your Strengths EP in 2022 and followed up with a new song, Innocence, late last year.
Back in December, I was 'introduced' to Jo's solo music via the Hardway
Bros remix of her song Camden, released earlier in 2023 and a track
which immediately secured a place in my end of year Imperfect List.
It was a casual click onto Jo's music site Indie Through The Looking Glass and the 'About Jo B' page that provided the forehead slapping moment when I realised that Jo's been here all along and I hadn't made the connection.
Case in point: It's Jo And Danny, whose folky pop I greatly enjoyed in the early 2000s.
If you've got free time, I'd recommend a visit to Indie Through The Looking Glass, it's a fascinating - at times frustrating, at times heartbreaking - read of Jo's journey through music. Inspiring stuff.
And after you're done reading, then straight back to Bandcamp. A large chunk of Jo Bartlett's back catalogue, including It's Jo And Danny, The Yellow Moon Band and C86 contenders Bluetrain, is available. Absolutely make a beeline for her material from the last 18 months and work your way back.
On this day in 1984, the latest edition of Smash Hits reviewed Julian Cope's debut solo album, World Shut Your Mouth.
Iffypedia will have you believe that it gained poor reviews but Smash Hits journo Peter Martin went against the grain, awarding the album a whopping 8 out of 10.
(To put this in context, half of the 8 albums reviewed scored 8/10, the rest 5 or below, presumably to provide some balance).
The bit that Iffypedia does get right is that World Shut Your Mouth "sold indifferently". Released on 17th February 1984, the album entered the UK chart at #40, which proved to be it's peak. A month later, it had dropped out of the chart altogether.
The debut solo single, the wonderfully insane Sunshine Playroom, pretty much a chorus, a bridge and little else but all the better for it, was a hit with me but unfortunately I wasn't buying singles at the point in my life. Released in November 1983, it managed 2 weeks in the Top 100, with a first week peak of #64. I suspect that the promo video by David Bailey didn't help much. Great if you've seen Battleship Potemkin, not an obvious contender for Top Of The Pops sadly.
Follow up single The Greatness And Perfection Of Love at least attempted something a bit more palatable for TV. And Julian in leathers.
Released in March 1984, the single fared better than its predecessor and parent album insofar as it managed 7 weeks in the UK Top 100, although it took 6 of these to peak at #52 and swiftly dropped out of sight afterwards. This despite being one of the most beautiful pop songs Cope had ever written. Philistines!
The cover of this edition of Smash Hits (cover dated 2nd-15th February 1984) speaks of another time, featuring Peter Anthony Robinson better known to the world as Marilyn.
But "Who's That Girl" as the typeface shouts? It's 15 year-old Miranda Jardine, who has the dubious pleasure of being a beneficiary of monstrous paedophile Jimmy Saville's then-popular TV show, Jim'll Fix It. Of course, back in 1984 Saville hadn't been exposed for his horrific crimes and continued to front this hugely popular show, by then approaching it's 10th anniversary with audiences around the 16 million mark.
Miranda's request was pretty straightforward. "Dear Jim," wrote the Rochdale teen, "Please could you fix it for me to be on the cover of Smash Hits with a pop singer or pop group". Miranda seemed quite happy with her allocated pop star. "Ooh, he's gorgeous," she enthused. "Print that in capital letters - GORGEOUS!"
Despite Miranda's very open and flexible request for a pop singer or pop group, she clearly had her limits. "If it was Limahl, I think I'd have gone home." Something we can all relate to, I think.
I wonder what Miranda would have thought if it had been Julian Cope rocking up to that studio in Shepherds Bush, forty years ago? I think I would have echoed her comments about Marilyn. And you can print that in capital letters.
Sometimes all you need is a mailshot to flag up something that you would otherwise have missed, hurtling down the music highway, pedal to the floor, eyes fixed on the horizon ahead.
StinkyJim's email on Bandcamp Friday resulted in a trio of purchases: Tibilin Sound's Love Light EP featuring a StinkyJim remix, the Boomarm Nation Family Album 2024 which includes a StinkyJim original; and then the Very EP by duo Strange Flesh, straight out of Brooklyn, New York.
More of the other two at a later date, this one warrants a post all of it's own.
Very is described as "the anthem of a woman on her own deliciously precarious path: the
soundtrack to beloved but ill-paying employment, discount decadence, no
children, and a healthy disregard for the future." Varrick Zed's sprechsang vocals bounce over a Ed Zed's wobbling synth lines and clattering percussion to great effect.
The first of two remixes is by Digital Equipment Co., which a little internet digging reveals is Zerstorte Zelle, which in turn is unearthed as an alias of fellow Brooklynite (and co-producer of their EP) Arthur Fleischmann. The "Instruction Set Architecture Edit" is 3-minutes of stuttering, chopped up sounds, Varrick's vocals cut and pasted together but more or less intact.
The real treat is saved for last though, with StinkyJim aka James Needham's Scented Showcase Very-Fied Version offering up over eight minutes of perfectly pitched New Zealand skank, which frankly could go on for eight hours without overstaying its welcome.
Strange Flesh have been releasing music since September 2020, though I've discovered that Varrick and Ed Zed were previously The Casual Sexists from 2015 to 2021, overlapping but presumably making way for Strange Flesh in the last few years.
There's plenty to explore by The Casual Sexists at a later date, generally mining a similar vein of jerky electro pop with dubby B-sides (including a few sides by Tribilin Sound and Wrongtom) but I'll leave you with this unexpected cover version, available as a name your price/free download.
Celebrating Vincent Damon Furnier aka Alice Cooper, born 4th February 1948.
School's Out (the song) was firmly imprinted as a toddler thanks to it's inclusion as the closing song on K-Tel's 1974 magnum opus Dynamite ("20 Original Hits 20 Original Stars"). One of the standouts in my parents' limited vinyl collection, I would listen to the album repeatedly and be fascinated by the characters on the record sleeve. Alice Cooper (the band, well three of them) were featured on the back cover.
At the start of the 1980s, when I became briefly obsessed by Adam & The Ants, I read (probably in Look-In) that School's Out was one of Adam's favourite songs, which meant that I got my brother to add it to one of the first mixtapes he did for me.
In the latter part of the decade, the first Alice Cooper album I ever bought was nearly Flush The Fashion, his post-punk, pop rock response from 1980. I was fascinated by the back cover photo in particular, Alice looking nothing like the familiar image of old.
At this point, Alice had enjoyed a revival of sorts with He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask), although I'm shocked to find that it only got to #61 in the UK singles chart in 1986. I think my record shop visit was also before Alice's 'comeback' was cemented by the single Poison and album Trash, both of which hit #2 in Jul/Aug 1989. As it happens, I ended up buying Under The Flag by Fad Gadget instead, whose image on the back cover was notably similar to Alice's. Although I went back to Flush The Fashion many years later and like it, I made the right decision that day.
So, my first Alice Cooper purchase ended up being in early 1991, in Perth, Western Australia as I was stocking up on music tapes to take with me on an anti-clockwise trip round the country via Greyhound bus. Inevitably, I went back to School's Out but even better, it was a "specially priced" double-play cassette with 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.
I wasn't familiar at all with either album, which changed over the next six months as I played and played and played them, relaxing on the beach, on overnight bus journeys when I couldn't sleep, walking around exploring the latest place that I'd rocked up in.
Unsurprising therefore that half of my 12-song selection today draws from these two albums. To be honest, I could have focused on these two alone but I have cast my net a little wider from 1970 to 1976, from Alice Cooper (the band)'s second album Easy Action to Alice Cooper (the artist)'s second solo album, Alice Cooper Goes To Hell.
The latter provides today's post title and also includes a personal favourite, I Never Cry, a confessional about Alice's drinking problem and a trigger to enter rehab within the year. Return Of The Spiders from 1970's Easy Action is a nod to an earlier incarnation of the classic Alice Cooper line-up.
A couple of weeks ago, when I posted a selection of the UK Top 20 from 20th January 1974, John Medd put a shout out for Teenage Lament '74. Unfortunately, I couldn't include it then, partly as it was at #26 on that date in history and - more significantly - I didn't actually have the song in my collection. I've subsequently, ahem, sourced it via a copy of Alice Coopers Greatest Hits compilation from 1974.
John commented previously that "a roundup of [1974] cannot call itself thus without Alice Cooper's Teenage Lament '74" and I think that goes double for any self-respecting Alice Cooper selection, let alone one covering the 1970s. It's a truly magnificent song.
The choices from School's Out and Billion Dollar Babies may also be predictable. I make no apologies for that, they're all greatly loved here.
Have a suitably wonderful birthday, Vincent, whether it's in the depths of hell or a golf course in Phoenix, Arizona.
1) Hello Hurray (1973)
2) Public Animal #9 (1972)
3) I Never Cry (1976)
4) School's Out (1972)
5) Wish You Were Here (1976)
6) You Drive Me Nervous (1971)
7) Teenage Lament '74 (1974)
8) Luney Tune (1972)
9) Return Of The Spiders (1970)
10) I Love The Dead (1973)
11) Is It My Body? (1970)
12) Elected (1973)
1970: Easy Action: 9
1970: Love It To Death: 11
1971: Killer: 6
1972: School's Out: 2, 4, 8
1973: Billion Dollar Babies: 1, 10, 12
1974: Alice Coopers Greatest Hits: 7
1976: Alice Cooper Goes To Hell: 3, 5
Having A Hell Of A Time, My Dear (45:57) (KF) (Mega)
I hadn't seen the promo video for Teenage Lament '74 before now and it's lots of fun, foregoing any attempt at recreating the lyrical theme and opting for a Keystone Cops riffing romp. There's a wonderful panning shot of the band on-stage around the 2 minute mark, Alice holding a can of beer, DIY fringe and prison fatigues, turning and sweeping his free hand to his forehead in exaggerated cinematic style. It's brilliant.
Today's post and selection is inevitably dedicated to John Medd. Enjoy!
Another album from last year that passed me by completely was Sit Down For Dinner by Blonde Redhead, their first in nine years.
Luckily, a few days ago KEXP posted a 5-song session that the band recorded in October 2023. It's a lovely suite of songs with a touching story of how Kazu Makino got back together with brothers Amedeo and Simone Pace, something that may never have happened had it not been for the pandemic in 2020.
I've only listened to the album once so far, so I'm just going to immerse myself in the session and the album a few more times. I can think of worse ways to spend the weekend.
Keeping with yesterday's uplifting vibes, today's selection is a clutch of songs (mostly) from the early 1990s, packed into an open top car and taken on a remix road trip. Feel the sunshine.
Secondly, all double bass funk and squelchy synths, is Red Snapper's classic Hot Flush from 1995. The music couldn't be more different from One Dove, yet Andrew, Jagz and Gary lend both an emotional heft that just can't be described in words. Well, not be me, anyway. This track originally featured on the EP of the same name, collected the same year on the Reeled And Skinned compilation which is an essential introduction to Red Snapper.
Either side of these tracks are a couple of groovy numbers. In reverse order, Fortran 5 are rinsed good and proper by Alex Paterson and Kris 'Thrash' Weston of The Orb. I loved the original album version but The Herbal Supper Mix is a feast of heavy bass, SFX and samples ("one spliff a day keeps the evil away") with Shola Phillips' sweet vocals weaving through.
Fluke serve up Groovy Feeling, the 1993 single offering half a dozen remixes all named after ice cream varieties. The version here retains the vocal licks and bubbling beats that characterise the Fluke sound.
They pop up again later in the selection with a sublime remix of Beautiful Morning by Sensation, one of my favourites of theirs. The original song was a lovely indie-pop number but Fluke transform it into an energising, irresistible uptempo anthem that has me involuntarily shouting "yeah!" along with singer Johnny Male pretty much every time. Which can be embarrassing if I'm wearing headphones in a public space.
Also feeling the groove are Finitribe, who were so impressed with Justin Robertson's remix of their single Ace Love Deuce that it was the definitive version used on 1992 album An Unexpected Groovy Treat. The additional treat is that the album version is a minute or so longer than the one found on the 12" and CD single. If you're a fan of Justin Robertson's work from the early 1990s, you will not be disappointed.
Underworld come in towards the end of this mix and in such style. I can't remember which came first but their remixes of Water From A Vine Leaf (included here) and Human Behaviour by Björk just blew me away when I first heard them. Twelve minutes of beautifully structured electronic music that was built for the dancefloor yet for me has always worked as songs in their own right, away from the club environment. In both cases, the addition of a unique female vocal is that little push over the edge. In this case, it's Beth Orton (though I think I can hear Karl Hyde in there somewhere too, deep in the mix) joining William Orbit on an epic journey.
Sticking with William Orbit and taking a slight step back into the last year of the 1980s with a mix that pointed to the future. Balearic beats before I had a clue what that even was. Les Negresses Vertes were a Parisian band that I'd seen pop up on TV (the last gasps of The Tube, I guess) but I didn't know much about. I got this remix of 1989 single Zobi La Mouche on a secondhand copy of Beat This! a compilation of dance label Rhythm King originally given away as a cover-mounted CD with Sky Magazine in 1990. William Orbit is joined by fellow Torch Song collaborator Rico Conning, all acoustic strums and rousing calls that scream 'party!' I feel like I've glugged a bottle of red wine and jumped up on the table to dance just listening to it...
1) Transient Truth (Album Version By One Dove & Sabres Of Paradise): One Dove (1993)
It's the first Bandcamp Friday of 2024 on 2nd Feb, so amongst the many Hollie Cook back catalogue recommendations, the dub version of the Happy Hour album is high on the list.
Hollie has appeared on a couple of GDC songs, including Play My Games from last year's On A Mission album, so hopefully in addition to her set she'll pop back up on stage to perform with them. Here's a taster if you've not heard them before.
