Crackin' Up Over You

You really don't expect a heavyweight Golden Gloves boxer to be responsible for two of the biggest ballads ever in the history of popular music. But that is what Roy Hamilton will be remembered for, being the singer ewho first charted You'll Never Walk Alone and Unchained Melody in the US Charts.

In the north of England and among the northern soul fraternity he will forever be remembered for one of the best floor fillers on the scene.

Roy Hamilton - Crackin' Up Over You

Not a bad way to start a Monday after a week off.

I Started A Joke

I love the album that this track comes from.  Every single interpretation on the album is beautifully done. I once got into an argument with a very pretentious (aren't we all), in my opinion, blogger about the merits off Kathryn Williams' version of Hallelujah and was accused of only citing the version due to it being obscure. It is hardly obscure and I stand by the claim that it is far superior to the Jeff Buckley rendition.

Anyway, personal opinions aside, it is very clear from the album Relations that Kathryn can not only sing but has exquisite taste in the songs she choses to cover.

I saw here support someone, I think it may have been Isobel Campbell at the ABC in Glasgow, years ago. Her opening remarks were "fuck me there are a lot of you out there" in a lovely Geordie accent.

If you haven't already checked her out I think that you probably should. Apart from the album of covers she has also recorded a further eight albums.

Kathryn Williams - I Started A Joke

To Be A Lover

The other week we had Delroy Wilson doing Have Some Mercy. Here is his version of the George Faith classic, To Be A Lover set to the tune of  Have Some Mercy.

Brilliant stuff

Delroy Wilson - To Be A Lover

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Thank fuck all of that Jubilee and Lanimer nonsense is all over with and I can get back to normal for a few months before the Olympics. I will rant about the inclusion of Saudi Arabia and the corrupt body that is the IOC at another juncture.

Today's treat comes courtesy of Kenny Dope Gonzalez and his opening salvo in his war against all of the crap Eurodance sounds that he heard all around him in 1994.

And what an incredibly funky opening shot it was. Clocking in at almost fifteen minutes and built on samples from the track Street Player by Chicago, The Bomb really is a brilliant piece of dance music.

Have a good if not dry,  weekend.

The Bucketheads - The Bomb (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)

Masquerade

It has been a wee while since we have had anything from the gruppe. To be honest with you I think I have been resting them for a while.

Here is the Peel session version of the only single to be released from the Levitate album.

The Fall - Masquerade (Peel session)

Midweek Repeat

Some typically bonkers but brilliant stuff from the KLF.

In July 1993 adverts started appearing in the UK press announcing that the K Foundation would be making available on no format their interpretation of Que Sera Sera/ Happy Christmas War Is Over.

On the 10th July an advert was placed in the NME for The K. Foundation presents the The Red Army Choir performing K. Cera Cera (War Is Over If You Want It). A statement followed saying that the record would only be released if a state of world peace was achieved, however it would be available for broadcast at certain major events. It was to be heard at that year's Phoenix Festival much to the bemusement of festival goers.

The track was eventually released as a limited edition in November of 1993. It was not the easiest release to get a hold of as it was released in Israel, in recognition of the peace accord signed by the PLO and Israel, and to obtain one of the 3000 copies first you would have to fill in a mail order form in one of two Israeli papers, one Israeli and the other Palestinian.

You have got to hand it to Rockman Rock and King Boy D, they definitely knew how to market product.

The K. Foundation Presents The Red Army Choir - K. Cera Cera (War Is Over If You Want It)


First posted March 2009

Ron Hardy Edit

What with all the talk of  Disco over the last few weeks I have been on a bit of 70/early 80s dance tip recently and not just Donna Summer and The Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack either, incidently how good a track is If I Can't Have You by Yvonne Elliman?

I've been listening on repeat to Bettye Lavette Doing The Best I Can, Loleatta Holloway's Love Sensation and the Ron Hardy's edit of probably my favourite disco track, although being released in 1983 after the death of disco maybe we should call it post disco.

Whatever it is a belter.

First Choice - Let No Man Put Asunder (Ron Hardy edit)

No Rest For The Worried

It's amazing how you never get round to things when you really have bugger all else to do. This post should have been completed this morning,. Instead I was hanging out my 'tasteful' Skull and Crossbones bunting and  flag. Then I ventured into Glasgow to get a first look at the scooter, however Davie at the Lambretta Centre had decided to take the day off. Will have to wait until Wednesday now!

This tune is for Mr H who is having a day of northern soul at his gaff. Can't think of a better way to spend a bank holiday than listening to some frantic soul sides.

Clarence Williams - No Rest For The Worried.

It's The Twenty First Century, For Fuck's Sake!

While the rest of the country celebrates Elizabeth I's sixty years of benign rule. The good subjects of Lanark will be indulging in forelock tugging and the nostalgic celebration of Feudalism for other reasons this week. It is Lanimer week in Lanark which I have written about in very little detail here before. This miserable git, some would say misanthrope,  will be endeavouring to avoid as much of both as is humanly possible.

Right, that's my little rant over for today but as the title suggests, shouldn't we be passed all of this deference and shit by now!

Sex Pistols - Just Me (I Wanna Be Me)

The Return Of Sturdy Girl

Since it's a holiday weekend in the UK and Dirk keeps banging on and on about her .

Ran out of songs mentioning beer but here's a guy who goes by the name of Beerjacket with a particularly fine cover of a Springsteen song.

Beerjacket - Dancing In The Dark

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I'm not big on Royalty, Jubilees or Street Parties so the prospect of seeing me waving a Union Jack, sitting at a tressle table and amiably drinking Pimms with the neighbours this weekend is less than zero.

But if you wanted to have a wee jig around  the living room in celebration of a woman who by accident of birth has reigned o'er you and had the best of everything for 88 years then this track would be as good as any other.

Big Love was Pete Heller's first solo single released on Junior Recordings in 1999. It is a big, smiley, hopeful tune guaranteed to put a smile on the most miserable of gits.

Have a good weekend, no matter what you do and if you do decide to celebrate the Jubilee good luck to you just remember it isn't compulsory.

Pete Heller - Big Love

Midweek Repeat

The first time I was aware of Johnny Boy was when I received the latest installment in the series of Boobytrap monthly cds back in 2002. On first listen it sounded to these ears like a lost Pete Wylie song from the same session that produced Come Back. It had that epic, dare I say it, wall of sound backing, with a sample at the beginning which took me a long time to identify as being from Mean Streets. Being a sucker for anything vaguely Spectorish I fell in love with the track and had it on continually for weeks and eagerly awaited the next single.

It was to be a two year wait, the follow-up has probably one of the best titles I've ever heard - You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve. The song turned out to be every bit as bombastic as the debut if not more so. It was produced by James Dean Bradfield who had heard the first single and loved it that much that he offered to produce the duo. Why this song did not did not reach a wider audience I will never understand as it is epic in every way.

After another couple of years an album appeared which I found a disappointment, I don't know if this was due to the wait and expectation of the first 2 singles or I had just lost interest but I have not found myself playing anything else apart from the tracks that introduced me to the band after the initial couple of listens. Maybe further listening and a reappraisal is in order.

On their myspace page they describe their music as "Church bells, boy-girl vocals, loops, twists, warps, walls of sound and edgy guitars combined to rekindle the idea of Sandinista!-era Clash having an, erm, shootout with Phil Spector. The Sandinista reference I know will put off a few of you (JC?) but give them a chance.

Johnny Boy - Johnny Boy Theme

First posted 11Feb 2009

DJ Power Cut, Crush The Beat

Yesterday on Twitter Simon was extolling the virtues of Prince's Kiss which got me thinking about Age of Chance. A band well ahead of their time. I have posted before about the Kiss Power mix, a record I would give my left kidney for and how it was the first track to be entirely produced from samples. I exaggerate only slightly.

I saw the band live once,  in 1987 in Aberdeen  but remember little about the evening as I had concussion after falling more than once and smashing my skull against granite the previous evening after arsing a bottle of Stoli which my mother had brought me back from her travels in Russia. I may recount the full sad tale at some future juncture when I have nothing else to say.

Anyway,  one thing I do remember is DJ Powercut,  as this is the first time I had ever saw a dj cutting and scratching live on stage with a band. He also had a rather cracking blue Adidas track suit on. Why I remember this I have no idea.

The band were promoting their first full and criminally underrated album 1000 Years of Trouble. The album is choc full off samples and punishing beats. If you ever get a chance to get your hands on this gem I suggest that you buy it without hesitation.

Here is one of the many highlights.

Age of Chance - Learn To Pray

Reconsider

Let's start the week off with a belter of a track that Motown deemed not good enough for release when it was recorded. I know that there were many of great tracks vying for release at any one time at ' the sound of young America' but to leave this track on the shelf seems absolutely criminal to me. Again we have to thank a crate digging northern soul fanatic, Peter Lowrie for bringing this track to the attention of the wider public.

Brenda Holloway - Think It Over (Before You Break My Heart) A.K.A. Reconsider

I am beginning to get used to having the sun shining. The miserable old git in me keeps saying, it's not going to last and it will be pissing down by the middle of the week. But until then I think that I will just go with it and enjoy.

I find that his track by Lemon Interupt (Underworld) accompanies this weather particularly well. Yes I know I have posted this before but it is rather good.

Lemon Interupt - Eclipse

Delroy Wilson

Nothing much to say.

Sun is shining let's have some Reggae and at an appropriate hour open the Red Stripe.

Delroy Wilson - Have Some Mercy

Its Friday . . . Let's Dance

Warning - this post contains Trance

Hypocrite! I hear you shout, it was only a couple of months ago when,  in this feature I was very disparaiging about trance and the super star djs who promoted it.

Nothing's changed I still get a shiver down my spine, Mme Lagarde stylee when ever anybody utters the word or I'm somewhere and I hear a trance track. However, a few decent, in my opinion, tracks did appear out of this genre and one or two I actually purchased.

Jam & Spoon  are probably best known for Stella and their remix of Age Of Love. Subsequent to this they teamed up with Plavka and released some really rather iffy commercial dance tunes,  the a-side to the track posted, Find Me (Odyssey to Anyoona) falls into this catageroy. The extended instrumental on the other side is a different beast completely, an intro that seems to build forever but when the enevitable breakdown does come in it turns the track into a rather mellow blisssed out affair perfect for the sort of weather we are having at the moment.

Have a good weekend people.

I'm off to try and buy a new scooter. I think my mid life crisis has eventually hit. I'm fair excited at the prospect.

Jam & Spoon - Odyssey to Anyoona.

Nick Waterhouse

A while ago I featured the b-side of the Nick Waterhouse second single, Is That Clear.

Last month the twenty five year old's debut album, Time's All Gone was released on the Innovate Leisure label out of San Fransisco. The music definitely harks back to the British RnB sounds of the 60's, the sort of sounds thatr Them, The Yardbirds, The Animals etc were producing then. Even although the sounds hark back to that era it also sounds like the recent Alabama Shakes album pretty fresh and has that sort of 'live' feel to it. With only 10  tracks and a running time of 32 minutes, it is rather short.

There is a problem with the availibility of the album, as so far it has only been released on vinyl and in the US and I'm not sure if there are any planss to release it over here. Although I suppose you could aalways buy it on iTunes.

The packaging for the LP is great aswell, the vinyl is housed in the kind if really stiff  glossy card that I've only ever come across housing my mother's old Ella Fitzgerald and Sinatra albums.

Nick Waterhouse - Raina

Midweek Repeat

Lazy concept, this one, rehash old posts of tunes that I'm in the mood to listen to but can't be arsed trying to think up something new to write about them.

First up a post from the early days of the blog, 20th Feb 2009,  featuring my favourite New Order track and one of my Top 21 tracks.

It's a dreich Monday night around the middle of October 1987 and I'm standing in the Mudd Club at the Ritzy in Aberdeen, surrounded by students having a good time and getting legless as students do on a Monday or any other day of the week for that matter. I on the other hand am neither happy nor drunk, I am like the weather that night miserable.

I have just returned to Aberdeen after spending the last weekend with my long term girlfriend as on the Thursday she is emigrating to Australia. Her father in his infinite wisdom has decided to up root his family due to a selfish dream of living in a land down under.

Into the bargain I am also realising that this student life is not all it's cracked up to be. Along with the freedom of living away from home comes the dubious pleasures of shit digs, even shittier food and penury.

Then out of the blue this track comes on and I grab a friend and dance. For nearly 7 minutes all of the crap feelings I have been carrying around with me for what then seemed like forever are lifted and I'm smiling and dancing with not a care in the world (without the aid of a disco biscuit).

The healing power of dance music.

New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle (12" version)

The Prettiest Girl On Saltcoats Beach

The sun is out and this popped into my head yesterday. The best thing the band have done.

Glasvegas - The Prettiest Girl On Saltcoats Beach