Wednesday 30 September 2015

Take Me To The Other Side



I haven't got a lot to say today. I have been meaning to post this tune again for ages. It is without doubt my favourite Spacemen 3 song, it's hard to believe that it's 28 years old. A few years ago, seven to be precise when I saw Spiritualized in Glasgow Jason turned this into a twelve minute epic of throbbing noise which if it had gone on for another 10 minutes I would still have been happy.

Spacemen 3 - Take Me To The Other Side

Tuesday 29 September 2015

Who Do You Love?





Since you were all totally underwhelmed by my posting a bit of 60s American Garage Rock last week I thought that I would inflict some more on you this week, so here is a cover of the Bo Didley song which would later be covered in an extremely menacing style by the Mary Chain. This version by the LA group The Preachers from 65/66 ish is a lot more frenetic.

The Preachers - Who Do You Love


Monday 28 September 2015

What's In A Name?



I intended to post one of Motown's earliest tracks that would be labelled as psychedelic soul, Reflections,  however when I played the track on Saturday I flipped it over and after listening decided that the b-side was the one to post. This single was significant in more ways than one. Not only was this the first hit of this new sub-genre bringing the record label bang up to date, it was also the first release to be released as Diana Ross and the Supremes and sadly also the last recording of the trio to feature Florence Ballard.  The struggle within the group is detailed in depth in Stuart Cosgrove's excellent book Detroit 67.

Diana Ross & The Supremes - Going Down For The Third Time

Sunday 27 September 2015

Mellow Sunday




With all the discussion around This Is England 90, which I haven't watched yet, it's on my list, as Stiff remarked recently "you gotta love catch up TV". Anyway I thought that it was about time I featured something by Shane Meadows friend and collaborator Gavin Clarke. This is the demo version of one of the many highlights from Sunhouse's is only and sadly much over looked album Crazy On The Weekend. After Sunhouse disbanded Clarke went on to form Clayhill and also collaborated with UNKLE. Sadly Clarke died in February of this year.

Sunhouse - Spinning Round The Sun (Acoustic Demo)

Saturday 26 September 2015

Boy's Own Recordings - The Twelves #5



The fifth release on the label saw the return to the studio of the members responsible for BOIX1.  I don't think that people took to Substance the way they did to raise. If I remember right I wasn't that impressed when I first put it on the turntable but after a few spins it grew on me and in the here and now it sounds really good. I'm not sure that if I were listening to it for the first time I could place it to 1990 until flipped over, the b-side is firmly of it's time. There was also a remix 12" with three versions by the Moody Boys which are less than essential, it is probably best to stick to the a side of the original release although the b-side is also worth a listen.

Bocca Juniors - Substance 

Bocca Juniors - Substantially Soulful

Friday 25 September 2015

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance



Today's choice from the soundtrack of A Short Film About Chilling when I listen to it like to think it was responsible for more than a few slackers getting their groove on. It is also another of Weatherall's outstanding remixes during the period when he could do no wrong. I was aware of My Bloody Valentine and had bought a couple of things Isn't Anything and You Made Me Realise,  the latter being particularly good but I did not wait avidly for their records to be released but having a remix by my dj of choice made it an essential purchase. The use of the Westbam sample is utter genius and the "Here we go"'s and ah-huh's are not the kind of thing that would sit easily within a My Bloody Valentine record but this is no ordinary My Bloody Valentine record it has been touched by the hand of god. I have read comments in places describing this as "horrible", "a desecration of a classic. disgusting" but I tend not to take notice of the opinions of people with long matted hair and manky trainers. In my top ten Weatherall mixes.

It's the September Weekend up here when traditionally the west of Scotland decanted en masse for a weekend of drink and debauchery in Blackpool. I'm not sure if this still happens but we are going to Edinburgh for an overnight on Sunday and on the way back the following day going to see the Kelpies

Have a good weekend people.

My Bloody Valentine - Soon (Weatherall mix)

Thursday 24 September 2015

7" vs 12"



Last night I dug out the 7" box set of Echo Dek. I'm not sure why I decided on that rather than the lp as it a lot more hassle than simply flipping over the lp once. Anyway,  I thought that I would conduct a little experiment and play the single and then the corresponding track from the album to see if there was any difference in the sound and do you know what, there is absolutely fuck all, surprise surprise. Of all the things I could have achieved last night I chose to do this so nobody else had to. I am sure that you are all happier in the knowledge that has been nagging you ever since passing up that reasonably priced box set in Fopp all those years ago as you already had it on vinyl. No need to thank me. One thing I will say is it's a cracking listen, however not sure the bass was that good for the foundations but it had Max nodding along. For me this was the last truly memorable Scream album

Primal Scream - Last Train

Wednesday 23 September 2015

Oops Oh My



On last week's bit of R&B Simon commented on this song by Tweet, a song I absolutely loved at the time and have played pretty frequently ever since but have never posted. I did post the other great single from Southern Hummingbird, Call Me about a year into the blog. Oops (Oh My) her first solo single think just shades it for me, the production by Timbaland is impeccable and Tweet's voice could only be sexier if she singing in French.

Tweet - Oops (Oh My)

Tuesday 22 September 2015

Hurricane Fighter Plane



"It's a band that has no idea how to play it's instruments. In fact, they don't even know what instruments are, or if the guitarist can stay conscious long enough to play whatever it is a 'note' might be". Is not the sort of review to instill the confidence of the reader that what they are about to listen to is any good. But that indeed is one of the more positive reviews that The Red Crayola have had over the years since they formed in 1966. The Texan psychedelic rock band were definitely on the "experimental" edge of the spectrum when it came to music making much of the first album The Parable of Arable is virtually unlistenable as it is basically noise made by a fifty strong crew of off their nuts hippies and termed "free-form freak-outs. But when they do get there shit together like on Transparent Radiation and  Pink Stainless Tail (for some of it anyway) the results are nearly acceptable, in that amongst all the noise there was a discernible song.

Hurricane Fighter Plane, probably the band's most accessible song is the track that introduced me to the band. It was courtesy of a not very good cover by Future Pilot A.K.A vs The Pastels which was bought back in 1998 if I'm honest not on the back of it being a record by an ex Soup Dragon and The Pastels but because on the other side was a track remixed by Two Lone Swordsmen. From there I found a version on a live Cramps bootleg after which I sought out the original which features Rocky Erikson of the 13th Floor Elevators on organ which probably focuses the rest of the band. In 2011 a not too radical remix by Sonic Boom was released for RSD which was quite apt as in a former incarnation as part of Spacemen 3 he had covered the aforementioned Transparent Radiation.

The music didn't get any better by Red Crayola's second album which was rejected by the record company on the grounds that it had no commercial potential!

Red Crayola - Hurricane Fighter Plane

Red Crayola - Hurricane Fighter Plane (Sonic Boom mix)

Monday 21 September 2015

Wrong Too Long



A bit of Southern Soul courtesy of the writing team of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham today. Wrong to Long was released in 1973 and was produced by Clarence Carter and that's about all I know, I can't find out any information about Matilda Jones.

Matilda Jones - Wrong Too Long

Friday 18 September 2015

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance



Not much I can add to that which has already been said about today's track from the soundtrack to A Short Film About Chilling, suffice to say it's a true classic. It has featured here before and on numerous over blogs but should be heard at least once a month, it's just so joyous and upbeat.

This is something I never thought I would be typing but at the moment Airdrie are sitting one point off of the top of the league and tomorrow we take on Ayr United one of the two teams at the top of the table. Can the Diamonds make it 5 league wins on the bounce? Probably not now I dared to type that! It should be a cracking encounter. As Lynn and the boys are away at the motor racing after the football Stiff and I will be going out for an all too rare Curry and beer night out.

Have a good weekend people.

The Source feat Candi Staton - You've Got The Love (Erens Bootleg mix)

Thursday 17 September 2015

We'll Wear Ray-Bans For Reagan



JC posted a couple of tracks from Age of Chance in his comprehensive series on the C86 bands. I have always found the inclusion of the Leeds four piece incongruous with all those jangly anorak bands. There sound was different, forward thinking embracing technology. At the risk of repeating myself  they were the first band to produce a fully sample based record, Kiss (Kiss Power mix),
 granted it never got released due to potential litigation due to uncleared use of samples from Bruce Springsteen and a myriad of others. They were also way ahead of the curve on the proliferation of genres in dance music with the very techno sounding Timeless (Time's Up). Oh, and did I mention that they were the first band to incorporate a dj in their set-up.

Today's track is a very tongue-in-cheek critique of American foreign policy during the 1980s when US "advisers" seemed to be everywhere helping to topple legitimate governments and setting up US friendly regimes. The track is from the band's first full album 1000 Years of Trouble released on Virgin in 1987 which for some inexplicable reason failed to set the heather on fire. I saw them live in Aberdeen in either October or November of that year and they were absolutely amazing live,

Age Of Chance - Ready Or Not Here We Come

Wednesday 16 September 2015

Music Memorabilia




For years I kept all of my badges on a bucket hat in my office. For a while nowI have been wondering what to do with them, you couldn't really see them and some  were beginning to fade or rust. I mentioned this to L who had an idea, she has a friend who is quite arty/crafty and recently started up in business, L thought that she might be able to frame the badges for me. So I took them off of the hat and collected the others that had been languishing in a drawer, there were around 200 in total when they were gathered together. I took them down and gave P the briefest of direction,  basically "can you do something with this lot, like frame them?"  I was told to leave them with her and she would think of something and let me know. A week later I got a call, did I have an old record that she could mount them on. I had a trashed copy of Fall Heads Roll and thought this would be ideal as more than a few of the badges were of the gruppe. I still had no real idea what she had come up with and didn't quiz her too much. Anyway, after another week L came home one night with a bag of unused badges and the lovely work of art in the picture above.



The record featured today doesn't have much to do with this post apart from on the one time I saw Battle live at King Tut's in 2005, on the strength of this single, I was given a badge by the girl on the merchandise stall which now resides on the bottom right hand corner of the montage hung on the back wall of the dinning room.

Battle - Demons

Tuesday 15 September 2015

Shackles



I've been on a wee bit of an R&B tip over the past couple of days,  ever since today's track popped up on the iPod on the flight home on Thursday night. We're not talking maximum R&B here, no we're talking the US stuff which I know one friend thinks is all "utter pish" but there we go, no accounting for taste. So I have been digging deep in the cd cupboard because very little of this came out on vinyl, well vinyl that I would fork out for as who needs needs 6 versions of Heard It All Before or No Diggity. I would wait until the cd singles were in the quid bin in Woollies or if enough tracks that I liked were on one of whose cheap Now That's What I Call R&B Masters or something similar inevitably curated by Trevor Nelson popped up I would take a punt on it. There are quite a few of these cd's lurking in the cupboard, checking the track listings I reckon I know less than half of the tracks on most of the discs so they must have been cheap. There is one that has a track by "Amil feat. Beyonce of Destiny's Child", so there was a time when it had to be explained to people who she was which seems bizarre now. Oh and there is also one with a Sophie Ellis-Bextor song on that but I think we should just draw a veil over that right here and now. I hope that the efforts over the last couple have days have satiated my need for the next 10 years at least. But this is still a good song.

Mary Mary - Shackles  (Praise You)

It could have been worse you could have got Bad Babysitter

Monday 14 September 2015

Looking For You


I was first introduced to Garnet Mimms in 1987 via the excellent "What's Happening Stateside" lp which was also responsible for my first exposure to Aarron Neville , Professor Longhair and quite a few others, In fact all of the acts on the compilation apart from The O'Jays, Bobby Womack, Little Anthony and the Imperials and The Isley Brothers were heard for the first time when I put this ridiculously cheap album on the turntable of my red Panasonic ghettoblaster/turntable combo. Anyway,  later on I kept hearing Looking For You at various soul do's but was never able to source a copy. At that time I wasn't aware that it was the flip side of the 1966 release I'll Take Good Care Of You. Earlier this year the fact that this was to be released as an RSD15 release nearly got me out of my bed at 05:30 but not quite. Fortunately when I visited Monorail the following day there was a copy which was duly purchased and has been played regularly since.

Mr Mimms is still with us at the age of 81. He stopped recording in 1977 became a born again Christian and found a career as a minister returning to recording in 2007 and releasing a Gospel album. His biggest hit was Cry Baby released in 1963, a song which would later become a staple of Janis Joplin's.

Garnett Mimms - Looking For You

Sunday 13 September 2015

Mellow Sunday



This feature is not really the place for politics but I will make an exception today. In the UK we now have a leader of the opposition who actually believes in the words of this song and will pay more than lip service to it. Interesting times ahead.

Aztec Camera - The Red Flag

Saturday 12 September 2015

Boy's Own Recordings - The Twelves #4



The fourth release by Boy's Own hasn't dated very well sadly. I was never really a fan of Crowded House, I always found them to be a bit wet and so a Balearic remake of one of their hits didn't exactly entice me to buy the record but I did anyway as it was on Boy's Own and at the time it was probably played a few times but not that much since. The b-side had two tracks the first of which has quite a weak rap on it which I've never ripped and the second is very hippy dippy with all the Woodstock samples lifted from the soundtrack album which dates the track even more than the a-side. There was a remix 12" as well which included a Graeme Park mix but I never got round to buying that,

I think that Less Stress were two DJs from London and vocalist Katherine Wood on this track. They also released a record on Wau! Mr Modo, so a nice wee link into yesterday's track but in a different league completely.

Less Stress - Don't Dream It's Over 

Less Stress - A New Dawn (With A Little Help From My Friends)


Friday 11 September 2015

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance




Sorry about the lack of posts for the past couple of days but I have had the joy of spending some time in that most lovely of towns Luton, bugger Provence or Tuscany, if  you want real beauty and culture you must go to Bedfordshire and the food, well it's positively to die from.

So I need some music not only to dance to this Friday but also that will transport me to somewhere that isn't the South of England but somewhere a little more exotic and where better than the Ibiza of twenty five years ago with another track from A Short Film About Chilling and what better than a tune that you can get yourself lost in but which is not essentially a dance track as for the majority of the track there are no beats just a collage of samples stolen from here and there and assembled into one of the most if not thee most extraordinary pieces of music from the early days of dance music and probably the longest titled single ever. I can't be bothered going into the detail around this track but did you know that the title comes from a a BBC sound effects album, Science Fiction Sound Effects No 26 to be exact and it pertains to an effect used in the cult British Sci-Fi programme Blake's 7.

Have a good weekend people

The Orb - A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld (Original Wau! Mr Modo 12" mix)

Tuesday 8 September 2015

Tune!!!



As you can probably tell I'm a sucker for a re-edit. I love to hear something I know fucked about with in a tasteful manner. There have been some really good ones recently and this housing up of the title track from Gregory Porter's last album is up there with the best of them, it just builds and builds and then there is a fabulous breakdown into the chorus from the original and the beat comes back in with more punch than a toff's garden party. I have no idea who produced this and that is probably deliberate as I think that this 12" is not the most legal release I own. It's good but.

??? - Liquid Spirit (re-edit)

Monday 7 September 2015

Make Me Yours



Today's track comes from one of my favourite female vocalists. There is something about Bettye Swann's voice that makes me crumble. This track comes from her time recording for the Money label. Every single she produced for the label for the two years from 1965 to 1967 is worth owning but my favourite is also her biggest hit, Make Me Yours topped the R&B charts in 1967 and also reached number 21 in the Billboard Hot 100. My copy is the re-release on abet from 1972.

Bettye Swann - Make Me Yours

Sunday 6 September 2015

Mellow Sunday



Here is a brilliant edit of a classic Marvin Gaye song courtesy of Shoes edit crew. I absolutely love this.

Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Slow Soul Flow edit)

Saturday 5 September 2015

Boy's Own Recordings - The Twelves #3



I don't know much about this track apart from it's an Italian release and these days sounds distinctly meh. At the time I quite liked this track although I could do without the vocal mix. It is very 1990 Euro house.Not the best release on the label but not awful.

Paradiso - Here We Go Again (Stairway To Heaven mix)

Paradiso - Here We Go Again (Herestrumental Mix Down Dub)

Friday 4 September 2015

RIP Rico


Rico Rodriguez 17 Oct 1934 - 04 Sept 2015

Rico Rodriguez - That Man Is Forward

it's Friday . . . Let's Dance



We continue with the soundtrack to the C4 documentary on the Ibiza 90 experience with one of Creation records dance acts. I am quite surprised, as when I pulled this 12" single I fully expected it to sound dated and dull as I hadn't played it in a long time. But to these ears it sounded pretty good, that could just be nostalgia though but I thoroughly enjoyed the mixture of bleeps, piano and the suggestions of being on one from the lyrics. Don't know much about Hypnotone apart from the fact that he produced a couple of albums and a smattering of singles for MCGee's label and was also responsible for a pretty magic remix of Come Together by Primal Scream. This single also came with a remix from Danny Rampling mix which was included on the brilliant Keeping The Faith, Creation compilation but this is the version for me.

The Diamonds play Cowdenbeath, the Blue Brazil tomorrow and hopefully can make it three league wins in a row, however the quality of the football will need to improve as last week's performance was dire and is up there as one of the most lacklustre games I have ever watched,

Have a good weekend people.

Hypnotone - Dream Beam (original mix)

Thursday 3 September 2015

About You



I know that it's hard to believe but back in the mid 80s Glasgow and Lanarkshire was the center of the UK Indie universe, or so it seemed . There was something in the water back then bands, like Soup Dragons, BMX Bandits and the Vaselines were ten a penny and everybody knew somebody whose band had appeared on the John Peel show. My claims to fame was I was going out with a girl who was best friends with the sister of the saxaphone player of the BMX bandits,  who gave me weird compilation tapes of 60s American garage bands also I once had a pint and talked pish with the guitarist in the afore mentioned Soup Dragons whose brother was a member of the Dirty Dozen Scooter Club. If somebody had told me that nearly thirty years on some of these  bands would still be making music and that I would regularly be served in my record shop of choice by the main man from one of my favourite of those bands I would not have believed them, no siree. Anyway,  here is a track by the Pastels from not too long ago, well six years ago, it feels like less, covering another Lanarkshire band.

Pastels/Tenniscourts Tenniscoats- About You

Wednesday 2 September 2015

Big Decision



This song immediately transports me back to a specific time and place. It is any Monday night from the middle of September on in 1987, the place is Aberdeen and the indie dance night , although that term had yet to be coined, called the Mudd Club, I have no idea why the extra d. I can taste the Furstenburg as I type this. Big Decision, along with Beaver Patrol and Bizarre Love Triangle always have this effect on me,  I'm eighteen, skint fending for myself for the first time and just ditched in favour of a new life in a land down under. Still it wasn't all bad, the drink was cheap  and the music was mainly very good.

That was a very long time ago!

That Petrol Emotion - Big Decision 

Tuesday 1 September 2015

A Grain of Sand



How about a bit of mid 60s bombastic melodrama to brighten up your Tuesday. I know very little about Susan Barrett apart from she was responsible for a couple of pieces of blue eyed soul including this one that go down well with the northern soul crowd. A Grain Of Sand came out in  1966 on RCA/Victor.

Susan Barrett - A Grain Of Sand