Whang Numbers

Six numbers by Nancy Whang, who I was delighted to see on stage with LCD Soundsystem at Glastonbury...well, courtesy of BBC iPlayer, if not in person.

So, what better excuse to revisit some of Nancy's extra curricular activity? I tried to select songs where she either assumes lead vocals or is up front in the mix. Trying then to find videos where Nancy makes an appearance was even tougher, so I pretty much copped out by the end. Sadly, her guest spot on IDLES' 2023 single Dancer doesn't make the cut on both counts.

However, plenty to enjoy along the way, closing with a sampler from a 2014 EP of Nancy covering some Casablanca Records catalogue classics which may have you reaching for your credit card.

And not to ignore LCD Soundsystem completely, here's a timely reminder of one of James, Nancy and the crew's finest moments.

Happy House: The Juan MacLean (2008)

All You're Waiting For: Classixx ft. Nancy Whang (2013)

Do That Dance: Shit Robot ft. Nancy Whang (2014)

E Talking (Nite Version - Felix Da Housecat Edit): Soulwax ft. Nancy Whang (2005)

Sharevari: Aidan Noell ft. Nancy Whang (2022)

I Was Made For Loving You (Extended Version) (Cover of Kiss): Nancy Whang & Drop Out Orchestra (2014)

 

 

 

 

 

If You Want My Future, Forget My Past

I've just caught up with Orbital's set at Glastonbury, including a majestic performance of Spicy featuring the legendary Mel C and one of the highlights of my (limited) TV viewing experience so far. You wouldn't believe the trio on stage had a combined age of 166, would you?

 

My house mate Jason was obsessed with Emma (Baby Spice) at the height of Spice Girls mania. We lost contact many years ago, but a quick glance online indicates that his plan to one day become Mr. Bunton never bore fruit. 

 

Visiting my friends Vicky and Simon was always a delightful and unpredictable experience. They lived in a brilliant three-storey house with a topsy-turvey layout with a stairs leading to an upstairs lounge. It was no surprise one evening to find the stairwell had been adorned with tiny plinths all the way up to showcase each of the five Spice Girls

12” dolls. They loved them all (dolls and humans) but Geri (Ginger Spice) was their favourite. 

 

Neither for me though: Mel B (Scary) and Mel C (Sporty) were the most interesting personalities, who looked like they were having the most fun and gave the least of a damn about conventions and rules. 

 

I won't pretend that I've followed either's musical ventures post-Spice Girls, though Mel(anie) C's guest spot on When You're Gone in 1998 made a Bryan Adams record bearable. Jez featured the song in his excellent Friday Music Club mix over at A History Of Dubious Taste a couple of weeks ago, stating that "I’m not going to apologise for Track 11. It’s a bloody great pop record. Fact." He's spot on, of course.

 

Likewise, no apologies for posting the Spice Girls' finest moment and the inspiration for Orbital's track. One of the best music videos and debut singles ever...even if I'm still not quite sure what the "Posh" one actually did... Both Mels steal the show, obviously.

Paul, Phil, Mel C, great work!

Music Instigates Transcendence

Alan Sparhawk dropped a new single and video on Tuesday, the abrasive and unsettling Can U Hear.

It's two hundred and nine seconds of skittering beats, relentless synthetic bass and pitch-shifting vocals that sound like the bastard child of Believe by Cher. All inspired by kit that Alan's kids used to play around with in the studio with their friends. 

There will be a lot of discourse and commentary about Alan's motivation and inspiration for this - and forthcoming album White Roses, My God. The loss of Alan's wife Mimi Parker in 2022 was inevitably a crushing, life-changing moment and brought about an unwanted, seismic change, not least closing the door on Low, the band they had co-founded (with John Nichols) three decades previously.

But that would completely ignore Alan's questing spirit, hunger for new sonic experiences and, to slightly paraphrase one of his own comments in the promo, "tapping into a part of me that I’ve come to trust, so I [keep] recording."

 

Can U Hear sounds like nothing Alan has recorded before, yet simultaneously an "of course" moment that sounds exactly like what his next venture should be.

 

White Roses, My God is out on 27th September, with a tour to transform the music further in a live setting. 

 

Alan is in the UK for two consecutive concerts in Leeds and Cardiff, the latter on Tuesday 5th November. The following day will mark three years since Mimi's passing. I hope the love and empathy of the audience will provide a healing balm for Alan's unimaginable loss.

Finding It So Hard To Stay In Tune

Dumb Dumb Dumb by Teenage Fanclub originally closed side 1 of Howdy!, their seventh album released in October 2000 and was subsequently released as a single in April 2001.

Whilst the album got to #33 and lead single I Need Direction peaked at #48 in the UK, Dumb Dumb Dumb doesn't appear to have troubled the singles charts at all. Which is a shame as it's got all of the classic TFC elements and deserved better. Maybe it was just too nice: lairy Bicester pop punkers Crackout released a single called You Dumb Fuck six months later, but that at least managed a week at #87...

Dumb Dumb Dumb is not Teenage Fanclub's - or Norman Blake's - finest three minutes perhaps, but it's good enough for me. Especially on a sodden Tuesday morning in July, where this part of the world seems to have forgotten it's summer.

 

It's been playing on my mind
I don't want to waste your time
And the thought of you is tearing me apart

Had a name but now that's gone
I don't know where I went wrong
Now I'm all alone and drifting in the dark

Take me back to what I know
Cos I don't know where to go
And I'm finding it so hard to stay in tune

But it's hard to comprehend
Getting closer to the end
And I hope that I'll be feeling better soon

Now I'm just a fading light
But I want to feel alright
And I hope that you can help me through the days

And I find it hard to sleep
Cos I sold myself so cheap
Do you think about me when I go away

Pingu At The (Eskimo) Disco

I have a couple of promo CD singles by Eskimo Disco, which both appeared in the late 2000s and featured remixes by Fred Falke, but I knew next to nothing about the band itself.

 

Apart from What Is Woman? and Japanese Girl, there's a 6-track sampler CD and an album - the terribly-titled Robots And Laptop Dancers Make Good Friends - both from 2007 and both on different labels. What Is Woman? also got a release on the legendary Stiff Records, presumably as a one-off depending on whether or not the single was a hit (it wasn't).

 

T'internet reveals that Eskimo Disco are a 3-piece formed in 2003, comprising Scott Doran, Tom Moore and Liam Paton, and promoting (to these ears at least) a fuzzy disco pop that was perhaps overshadowed by the similar but 'edgier' sounds of Klaxons and the Nu Rave mob. 

 

Eskimo Disco's debut single in 2005 was 7-11 and who better to star in it than cult classic Pingu, the Swiss TV animation that aired from 1990 to 2000 and was hugely popular in the UK at the time, thanks to the BBC who had commissioned a revival in 2003. It was also a hit at Casa K when Lady K was in the CBeebies demographic and I have to confess that I loved it. 

 

It's a fun video and narrative and keep your eyes peeled for an Eskimo Disco cameo.

 

In 2021, Eskimo Disco re-emerged with Let The Music, originally one of the tracks from the 2007 sampler and re-released on digital and streaming platforms.

 

In 2022, 7-11 was also re-released as a single with the subtitle "Live And Rebooted", promising that the single had "finally been freed from record company ties".

You'll notice that I used the present tense in describing Eskimo Disco as Scott, Tom and Liam are back on the live circuit. In fact, if you happened to be at the Bures Music Festival on Saturday, you may well have seen them, along with UK Queen, Planet ABBA and Wooden Maiden.

 

Eskimo Disco have got my week off to a great start, I hope they do the same for you.

Named After Cypress Avenue In South Gate, California

Bringing a week a post titles tenuously linked by place names, Cypress Hill are the logical conclusion.

 

Before you read this, pop over to No Badger Required (as long as you promise to come back) and read a post from a few weeks ago. Cypress Hill's second album Black Sunday features in the ongoing Nearly Perfect Albums series and SWC makes a compelling case for it's impact and enduring influence. It's a fabulous read (no surprise there, as NBR is a fabulous read on a daily basis).

 

I had a few Cypress Hill EPs and random tracks in my collection but it's only been in the last decade or so that I've started delving a little more into their back catalogue, which has been a rewarding experience, to say the least. 

This brief selection leans heavily on tracks and remixes from the first three albums circa 1991 to 1995, plus a trio of cuts from the 21st century. I must give the obligatory cuss caution, due to the habitual and casual effing and jeffing throughout. If you can handle that, then you are in for a sonic and lyrical treat.

 

1) Latin Lingo (Album Version) (1991) 

2) Hits From The Bong (T-Ray's Mix - Single Version) (1993)

3) Illusions (Q-Tip Remix) (1995)

4) Memories (2001)

5) When The Ship Goes Down (Diamond D Remix) (1993)

6) Puercos aka Pigs (Spanish Version) (1991)

7) Bye Bye (ft. Dizzy Wright) (2022)

8) Psycobetabuckdown (Instrumental) (1991)

9) Throw Your Set In The Air (Slow Roll Remix By DJ Muggs) (1995)

10) Champion Sound (2022)

11) Everybody Must Get Stoned (1995)

12) Insane In The Brain (Extended) (1993)

13) Light Another (Album Version) (1991)

1991: Cypress Hill: 1, 13

1993: I Ain't Goin' Out Like That EP: 2, 5

1993: Insane In The Brain EP: 12

1995: III: Temples Of Boom: 11

1995: Illusions EP: 3

1995: Throw Your Set In The Air EP: 9

1999: Los Grandes Éxitos En Español: 6

2001: Stoned Raiders: 4

2003: Cypress Hill: Instrumentals (bootleg): 8

2022: Back In Black: 7, 10

Named After Cypress Avenue (45:07) (KF) (Mega)

Fred The Cancerian From New Jersey

Yes, I know it was Fred Schneider's 73rd birthday on 1st July and I'm almost two weeks late, but better late than never, right?

To belatedly celebrate (again), here's a fresh selection of classic cuts by The B-52's, who seem to have played more 'final' shows than Elton John and have a Las Vegas residency in November to do it all one more/last time (delete as applicable).

No complaints from me: a world with The B-52's in it is a much brighter, happier as the three quarters of an hour (give or take) will amply demonstrate. 

The eleven songs here span all of their albums, with the exception of 2008 reunion Funplex. Ain't It A Shame originally appeared on 1986's Bouncing Off The Satellites, although I've gone for the 'New Edit' that appeared on the fab 2002 compilation Nude On The Moon. Likewise, I've plumped for David Byrne's original album mix of Deep Sleep rather than Tom Durack's remix which appeared on the CD reissue of Mesopotamia several years later. 1992's Good Stuff abum is represented by a couple of single edits and remixes.

 

If you need some visuals as well, check out my previous posts on The B-52's from July 2021 and November 2023, which include twenty videos to delight and entertain.

 

And, if that's not enough, go back to July 2022 for my previous (and first) Dubhed selection dedicated to The B-52's.

 

Keep partying, Fred!

1) Deep Sleep (Album Version By David Byrne) (1982)

2) Bushfire (Album Version By Don Was) (1989)

3) Song For A Future Generation (Album Version By Steven Stanley) (1983)

4) Give Me Back My Man (Album Version By Rhett Davies & The B-52's) (1980)

5) Dance This Mess Around (Album Version By Chris Blackwell, Robert Ash & Cass Rigby) (1979)

6) Is That You Mo-Dean? (Edit By Don Was) (1992)

7) Ain't It A Shame (New Edit By Bradford Cobb & Gary Stewart) (2002)

8) Dry County (Album Version By Nile Rodgers) (1989)

9) Big Bird (Album Version By Steven Stanley) (1983)

10) Lava (Album Version By Chris Blackwell, Robert Ash & Cass Rigby) (1979)

11) Good Stuff (Remix Edit By Ben Grosse) (1992) 

1979: The B-52's: 5, 10

1980: Wild Planet: 4

1982: Mesopotamia: 1

1983: Whammy!: 3, 9

1989: Cosmic Thing: 2, 8

1992: Good Stuff EP: 11

1992: Is That You Mo-Dean? EP: 6

2002: Nude On The Moon: 7

Fred The Cancerian From New Jersey (47:19) (GD) (M)

The Third Best Band From Bristol Ever

...is Shoes For Industry, at least according to Jonny Zchivago over at Die Or D.I.Y.? in June 2017.

 

(If you're interested, #'s 1 and 2 are The Pop Group and Glaxo Babies respectively, with "the dreadful" Massive Attack in pole position as "the most boring band [he] ever saw live") 

I don't know a lot about Shoes For Industry to be honest, but the fates conspired and converged to inspire today's post.

Firstly, Walter over at A Few Good Times In My Life put the spotlight on The Bristol Post Punk Explosion Vol 2 (1979-1986) last Saturday. It's another top notch compilation from Bristol Archive Records, officially due out on vinyl in October but available digitally right now. 

However, available in physical and digital formats today (12th) is it's predecessor, The Bristol Post Punk Explosion (1978-1982), promising that "Bristol Boys Make More Noise!" You can even buy the T-shirt.

This 12-track compilation just the one Shoes For industry song, Jerusalem (which opens this post), but it's a goodie. Scratchy, angular guitar, Paul Bassett Davies' raspy vocals, bouncing bass and disco synths all making for a vibrant and exciting four minutes. Apparently the singer used to wear "an exploding brain wig" at gigs and I can think of no better "you had to be there" endorsement. 

If you're feeling sufficiently inspired on the back of that, then check out The Best Of Fried Egg Records (Bristol 1979-1980), also on Bristol Archive Records, offering up 20 post-punk songs released on the titular label, including three from Shoes For Industry. Jerusalem opens the compilation, followed a third of the way through by this one.

"We interrupt your regular broadcast to bring you news of a seaborne disaster approaching the shores of Great Britain.

A huge oily slick, several hundred miles wide, leaving from the coast of France.

All coastal dwellers and alert citizens are warned to prepare for the

Invasion Of The French Boyfriends!"

 

The second unexpected reference to Shoes For Industry came a couple of days ago, when I was listening to Playgroup's self-titled debut album from twenty-odd years ago. This Playgroup is not Adrian Sherwood's (arguably better known) collective but an alias of the multi-talented Trevor Jackson. Three quarters of the way through, the deeply dubby track Surface To Air is built around a sample of this Shoes For Industry excursion on the version.

  

I don't think there are many songs inspired by bygone BBC TV staple One Man And His Dog but it should come as no surprise that arbiter of good taste, Ernie at 27 Leggies, was on the case with Bristol Archive Records years ago and featured Sheepdog Trial Inna Babylon as far back as February 2012. I remain in awe.

Melbourne In The New S.A.

A little bit of feel good from Confidence Man, straight out of Southeastern Australia. 

I've seen very few of the Glastonbury 2024 sets and from the shortlist of shows available on iPlayer, I suspect I'll get through relatively little before they all disappear for good. 

 

However, after completely smashing up the stage (metaphorically speaking, they're not that irresponsible) in 2022, Confidence Man was a must see and they didn't disappoint.

 

Third album 3am (La La La) arrives in October, accompanied by a world tour that sees Confidence Man roam this island in November and December. Needless to say, I've already got tickets, even if I will be the oldest, most grizzled ConMan there!

 

Latest single I Can't Lose You dropped in June, the video seeing the frequently topless Sugar Bones (Aidan to his loved ones) take it to it's logical and ridiculous extreme, with Janet Planet (Grace) following suit, or lack thereof, to be more precise. London 'copter spotters were in for an eyeful that day. 

 

Thankfully, Reggie Goodchild (Lewis) and Clarence McGuffie (Sam) kept their trademark black garb and netted cowboy hats on.

 

For your further listening and viewing pleasure, here's a trio of Confidence Man classics:

 

On & On (Again): Confidence Man & Daniel Avery (2023)

Holiday (Live @ Glastonbury) (2022)

Out The Window (2018) (also available in a deeper shade of Andrew Weatherall)

 

 

 

Working In London [And] Intensely Active In Sonic Art

I've been reacquainting myself with the work of Scanner aka Robin Rimbaud recently. after picking up a secondhand CD of Scanni, the 2016 album he created with fellow composer Anni Hogan.

 

As luck would have it, this (re)discovery has coincided with the release last Friday of The Berklee Sessions, a collaboration with "composer, saxophonist, and transdisciplinary artist" Neil Leonard. The description of Neil's role comes from his website and may be the first time I've seen the phrase, "transdisciplinary artist". I like it.

As the album title hints, The Berklee Sessions was recorded live at Berklee College of Music in Boston. The session was part of a residency in the Berklee Interdisciplinary Arts Institute in 2014 and took one day to record, and a further decade to mix and release! 

 

Four of the eight tracks are available for preview on Bandcamp, with the above video edit of lead song Time Code posted on YouTube.

 

The other shock, although it happens so often that it shouldn't be, is that Robin has been releasing music as Scanner for over three decades now. I first came across his singular approach to sound and marrying human conversations with sonic soundscapes via compilations and remixes. 

 

Earlier this year, Robin posted a couple of archive TV interviews that explain the origins of Scanner's name, sound, inspirations and collaborations. One is from ITV's The South Bank Show in 1997, another from The Frame (a UK show I've no recollection of) in 1998. Both are a brief but fascinating glimpse into Robin's world.