It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Back to 1999 this week with a bit of funky Big Beat from the Groove Armada with added Gram'ma Funk and Fatboy Slim.

Have a good weekend people

Groove Armada featuring Gram'ma Funk - I See You Baby (Fatboy Slim Remix)

The KKK Took My Baby Away

Although we do have quite a few nutters in Lanarkshire,  I'm not sure that too many people will have found themselves in the same predicament as Joey Ramone. It appears that some fannies with a penchant for wearing white bed linen have abducted his girlfriend!

Stiff's older brother's son knew the names of the Ramones before those of the Teletubbies. Makes you kind of proud of the parenting skills doesn't it?

The Ramones - The KKK Took My Baby Away

I Taught You How To Dance

This is so gorgeous, all of the hairs on the back of my neck are sticking up.


Darren Hayman - I Taught You How To Dance (Official Video) from Darren Hayman on Vimeo.

Ma Baby (He's Boring)

The Southern States of the USA don't have a monopoly when it comes to singing about disappointment  in relationships.

Here is a sad, sad tale from deepest Lanarkshire of a guy who is more interested in his boxsets than his girlfriend.

The Just Joans - Ma Baby (He's Boring)

He Called Me Baby

He Called Me Baby was originally entitled She Called Me Baby, a country song written by Harlan Howard. Until about ten years ago I had only ever heard the Patsy Cline version.

I was travelling home from Edinburgh, late one night during a hectic data base lock and had turned the radio to Radio 2 for some reason,  just in time to hear Bob Harris play the Candi Staton version which bowled me over and which I still believe is the definitive version. However this, slower more laid back version recorded by Ella Washington, later Pastor Ella Washington Cobb,  for the Nashville label Sound Stage 7 label is nearly as good and a great piece of Southern Soul which retains a Country feel to it.

Ella Washington - He Called Me Baby 

Don't You Worry Baby

Here's a track which, when I was a teenager I would never have described as Northern Soul. Since then I like to think that I have grown up, (possibly) become less blinkered  and realised that all that nonsense about the tracks having to be 60s stompers was exactly that, nonsense and that there is room for the likes of  Don't Worry Baby The Best Is Yet To Come in that broad church that is described as Northern Soul, a scene that  can include the likes The Theme From Joe 90 or Nosmo King and other records vastly inferior to this recording by Bessie Banks.

Bessie Banks has featured here before with one of my all time twenty one favourite tracks, Go Now. Don't You Worry Baby is a completely different beast. Released in 1976, it is a baw hair away from disco and is probably more at home in the modern room than on Northern dance floors. It was however a mainstay in Colin Curtis' sets on a Saturday night in the Highland Room and if it was good enough for Mr Curtis then it is good enough for me. I just wish that Bessie Banks had been rather more prolific during her recording career as she has an absolutely amazing voice.

Bessie Banks - Don't You Worry Baby The Best Is Yet To Come

Baby Says

When I first saw the Kills at King Tuts all those years ago I thought that they were brilliant. But since Keep On Your Mean Side the next two albums the duo released disappointed me. There is really nothing wrong with them, they are on the whole good albums but there was something missing, nothing I could pinpoint.

Last year's Blood Pressures on the other hand was probably one of my favourite releases of the year I haven't listened to it as many times as Cults debut but I haven't listened to anything as much as that.

The Kills - Baby Says

Just Because . . .

this is quite, quite wonderful.

Sam & Dave - When Something Is Wrong With My Baby

Nothing wrong with mine,  she's just stumbled in the door after being out all day in the Town!

A Man Is A Mean Thing

Here is a cracking slab of RnB courtesy of Barbara Perry. Another track that was unreleased back when it was recorded in 1967. It was finally released by Kent in 2008 on the New Breed R&B With Added Popcorn cd and a subsequent 7" single with I've Got A Feeling by Gladys Bruce on the flip.

Barbara Perry - A Man Is A Mean Thing

37°2 le Matin

I bet I wasn't the only person who had this poster on his wall and was ever so slightly obsessed with Beatrice Dalle back in 1986/87.

I once made my good friend Trudi sit through Betty Blue, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Three Colours Red all in the one afternoon/evening. Can't quite remember what she did to deserve that but we remain friends to this day, amazingly.

Gabriel Yared - 37°2 le Matin

Just Lovely

I haven't listened to Rilo Kiley much recently, I'm not sure why, I think that the totally underwhelming last album and my complete ambivalence to the two solo efforts by Jenny Lewis may have something to do with it. Yesterday, however this song came on the ipod on the journey up to Dundee and it made me revisit More Adventuros and The Execution Of All Things on the road back down. I think that a time away from some things does make you appreciate them more.

Rilo Kiley - Does He Love You (Live At Fingerprints)

Gloomy Monday?

I think that today is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year not for me, that accolade is always the day when the anti-christ gets another one of his manufactured non entities to number one on the Sunday before Christmas.

Anyway,  last week to start the week we had a jazz tinged housey bit of soul, this week I feel that I am straying into The Ghost of Electricity's territory with a tune that would not be out of place at his on a Friday night, which I have always thought of as Jazz but after consulting the internet a moment ago I was informed that it is actually gospel, whatever it is I have loved it since the late 80s when I found it on a cheap compilation cd called 'round midnight.

Billy Taylor Trio - I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel To Be Free)

Keeping Warm

Went to see We Were Promised Jetpacks with Stiff just before Christmas for what is becoming to be a
annual fixture for December along with The Wedding Present.

As usual they were very good getting better with every gig. The only problem with the evening was all the twats who seemed to be on a Private School Christmas night out and their incessant chatter which luckily was drowned out by the band most of the time.

Here,  is what was one of the highlights a great tune with an even better more powerful build up live. The lyrics , however I feel let it down, as they are a bit crap.

We Were Promised Jetpacks - Keeping Warm

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Technology, don't you just love it until it fucks up.

My work laptop decided it no longer wanted to connect to the Internet yesterday and due to my reliance on web based systems I'm as much good as a man short. So today I will be tidying up my office and feeling guilty about doing next to nothing, as my laptop gets couriered to Luton to either be rebuilt or scrapped.

But back to the music. Hardcore Uproar is on of those tracks that you heard everywhere in 1990, a Rave anthem before the term had even been used to label certain dance tracks.

The track was written and pressed on white label with the sole aim of being played at the Hacienda. it duly got flogged to death in the club and was picked up by Pete Tong owned FFRR and given a full release.

The bassline and melody are built around a sample from John Carpenter's The End Theme from Assault on Precinct 13. The tune also begins with the famous "More powerful than you can possibly imagine" Alec Guinness sample from Star Wars.

Have a good weekend people.

Together - Hardcore Uproar

Happy Birthday

Number two son is three today.

Here is a tune he likes to jump about to. I blame his mother.

M.I.A - Paper Planes

Days Like This

I'm probably going to get a visit from the download plods for this. But what the hell, I really want to post this, as the lyrics convey the very antithesis of how my last few days have gone extremely well.

"When everyone is upfront and they're not playing tricks"  - If only.

Very grumpy Northern Irish Gentleman - Days Like This