It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Back with another tune that soundtracked the C4 documentary, A Short Film About Chilling. I think that 1990 was probably my most wasted year. I didn't go to Ibiza or anywhere more exotic than Aberdeen I think but we did have some brilliant nights in Glasgow, which was the European City Of Culture that year and the clubs were open all night. Weatherall's dubbed out remix of Only Love Can Break Your Heart  was the opening track on the programme and is probably in  my top ten Weatherall mixes ever, in fact three of my top ten are featured in ASFAC. As Frank Sinatra once said,  it was a very good year.

Have a good weekend people.

We are off to Machrihanish for a week tomorrow, so nothing to see here until next Sunday.

St Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart (A Mix of Two Halves)

Or Am I Just A Mainstream Kind Of Guy?

I've got to admit I own more Sonic Youth albums than I like, some of which have been played only a few times and for someone who likes feedback and noise as much as the next I have often wondered what it is that puts me off albums like Sisters, Washing Machine and others which invariable leads me to sitting down and listening to these albums or as much of them as I can until I need to listen to something else, less abrasive, more melodic. I have never been able to come up with an explanation and maybe I should stop looking for one and just concentrate on the stuff that I do like. One such album is 2006's Rather Ripped. It has been said that this is one of the band's most accessable albums, a collection of "rockers and ballads" and a "radio rock album" and maybe that's what it is, I really am a mainstream kind of guy. It is the album I listen to most and genuinely enjoy listening to, The track I have posted is the final track on the US version of the album and probably fall s in to the ballads category and has a guitar line that is very reminiscent of The End.

Sonic Youth - Or 

Marjorca

Majorca is another Balearic isle that I've never been to. Not sure it's as popular with UK holiday goers these days as it was when the Bard of Salford wrote this. Does Double Diamond still exist?Funnily enough I was pondering the same question regarding McEwan's lager the other day as I don't recall seeing it recently, it was pish anyway and only really popular with one half  of the old firm up here I think.

John Cooper Clarke - Marjorca

Vintage Trouble

I stumbled across this the other week and liked it enough to order the track on 7" single. Apparently the band appeared on Later With That Irritating Smug Git a couple of years ago, not sure if he forced his "boogie woogie " piano playing on the band. They have recently been on tour supporting AC/DC. From the little digging I have done, it would seem that the singer Ty Taylor has toured with loads of people including Macy Gray and The Who amongst others. There is a clip on Youtube with him duetting with Paloma Faith on a rather overblown version of I'd Rather Go Blind. Never listened to her before, she can fairly belt out a tune,

The video apparently features Carmit Bachar. I had no idea who she was and so did the necessary,  to find out she was a Pussycat Doll, whatever one of them may be but I am sure that they are of no interest to the middle aged Mae that read this blog.

I Must Be Doing Something Right.

Today's fine slice of funky soul from the late 60s comes from Irene Reid who is better known for her Jazz singing with the likes of Count Basie's orchestra in the early 60s, She was from Savannah, Georgia and recorded for Verve, and MGM and that's about all I know about her. She has appeared here before a couple of years ago with Everyday I Have The Blues.

Irene Reid - I Must Be Doing Something Right.

Mellow Sunday

It's L's birthday today, happy birthday doll. We were out last night so are probably a bit delicate this morning. Here is a lovely cover version that I think is far superior to the original and I love that.

Nouvelle Vague - I Melt With You

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Like SA i have been listening to a lot of stuff from 1990, however all of the sounds emanating from my turntable have been dance tunes. The choice of the tunes has been highly influenced by the urge a couple of weeks ago to watch A Short Film About Chilling, possibly to off set the pish weather we are having here at the moment. Summer! don't make me laugh, but I digress. Those of you not familiar with this short Channel 4 documentary about the British DJs and artists who went over to Ibiza in 1990 will be able to find it on Youtube. Never having been to Ibiza myself I'm not sure how representative the programme was of the white isle at the time but I suspect that only a couple of years later it would have been unrecognisable to those who went in 1990 and before. The soundtrack is rather brilliant, all Bocca Junior's, the Grid, AMCA and such like. The track posted features heavily in the programme in its instrumental mix. Joy & Heartbreak is one of the few Paul Oakenfold records that I really rate. It is said that with Movement 98 the DJ was trying to lower the bpms at the time. Not sure why as I don't think that they were particularly furious, nothing like they would get a couple of years later. The song is built around the melody of Les Trois Gymnopedie by Erik Satie,

Have a good weekend people. It's L's birthday on Sunday so I will be taking her out on the town on Saturday, well dinner and if she's lucky a couple of drinks.

If you watch the film on Youtube, check out the nick of Orde Meikle, totally sparkled.

Movement 98 - Joy and Heartbreak (The Raid Mix)

* Just thinking I may feature the tracks from A Short Film About Chilling in the weeks to come in this slot.

Hey Jane

I haven't posted any Spiritualized for a while, so here is one of the outstanding tracks from the last album, Sweet Heart, Sweet Light released in 2012. By my reckoning it's about time that the Spaceman released a new album. This was also the first single from the album which had a truely disturbing video to accompany it.

Spiritualized - Hey Jane

Geek Love

This track has been posted before and will probably be posted again. It is a track that I never tire of listening to, in fact usually when I dig it out and put it on the turn table it usually gets spun two or three times on the bounce. The last time I posted this stevoid commented . " A genuinely strange (but) great record, you just don't get records like this anymore - even slightly odd tunes these days seem a bit contrived".

Bang Bang Machine  - Geek Love

Not Everthing Goth was Pish

I may have mentioned once or twice on these pages my utter contempt for Goths and all that woes me moping about that they did. I will however admit that there were one or two decent records released that were tagged as being Goth, the one posted today is probably the best in my opinion. I was never really a big fan of Bauhaus, I did by the second and third albums but never really got them.

Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead

Donny Does Northern

Not for download, sorry as this is a recent release on Richard Searling's Go Ahead label. This was a previously unreleased cut from 1968 when Hathaway was recording in Chicago for the likes of Curtom. Once again I am astounded that this was discarded as it is an absolute stormer of a track. The b-side is equally as good.

You can purchase the single here

Donny Hathaway - Don't Turn Away

Mellow Sunday

I was at an 18th birthday party last night.  Christ,  I felt old! I had an extremely interesting conversation with a very vociferous girl on the merits of Led Zeppelin and Jack White she also informed me that there was no authenticity or soul in Country music.

My head hurts!

Kacey Musgraves - It Is What It Is

No Hard Feelings

I'm really loving the lp No Hard Feelings by New Street Adventure which was released on Acid Jazz last year. There is not a duff track on the album. It has a real 80s Mod feel about it, so it's rather strange that I am feeling it so much as I wasn't all that enthused by much of the mod revival stuff when it came out in the early to mid 80s.

This album along with Wonderlust by Kid Wave and Jamie xx's In Colour are sound tracking my summer quite nicely.

I'm off to Belfast, getting up at stupid o'clock so nothing more until Friiday

New Street Adventure - Keep It Burning

It Was Thirty Years Ago Today!

Three decades ago Bob Geldolf had honorable intentions when organising a concert to raise money for the famine in Ethiopia and many other artists jumped on the band wagon realising that this could be a nice wee earner, It has been pointed out more than once that Queen became the stadium band that we all remember on the back of their performance at Wembley that day. For the next year or so the album charts were loaded with the back catalogues of bands and artists who performed that day. I wonder how much of the proceeds of those extra sales went into the coffers of charities and how much went into aiding the Cartels of Columbia.

Still I can't be too po-faced about it, it helped me get my higher English after I produced an essay called Charity Not Change. (A Cynical Take On Live Aid And "Rock Stars") which was aided by an album by a then little know anarcho punk band called Chumbawamba, entitled "Pictures Of Starving Children Sell Records: Starvation,  Charity And Rock & Roll - Lies and Traditions".

Did you know that there was a Royal Box at Live Aid?

Just to remind us of the order of things

Chumbawamba - Prologue

Chumbawamba - How To Get Your Band On Television

Chumbawamba - Unilever - How To Succeed In Business

Something's Wrong

I have been meaning to post this song for sometime but just hadn't got round to it until last week when in the comments section to a post on a rather splendid new free tune from The School, over at the always excellent Linear Tracking Lives (and that's not just because this blog was mentioned in favourable terms) kevinpat mentioned Chris Clark in relation to Do I Love You.

Chris Clark I think that it is okay to say didn't fit the bill of most people's idea of a Motown female vocalist in so much that she was a six foot,  blue eyed platinum blond. According to legend she strolled into Berry Gordy's office at Hitsville and gave a rendition of the Etta James song "All I Could Do Is Cry" and was immediately signed to the label. The fact that the song that she sung had been co-penned by Gordy might have aided her cause, however Gordy's instincts may have been a little more base than that, as a few years later Clark was to become Berry's mistress. Clark released 3 singles each on the Tamla and VIP labels and two albums,  1967's Soul Sounds and the much sought after CC Rides Again in 1969. She became an exec for the Film and TV division of Motown on the West Coast after her recording career had come to an end. She also co-wrote the screen play for Lady Sings The Blues which starred Diana Ross in the role of Billie Holiday.

I have to confess I'm not the biggest fan of Chris Clark, I find her vocal a little too slight a lot of the time. I do however love this 1966 recording which was unreleased until the mid noughties and was the flip side of the Isley Brothers My Love Is Your Love (Forever) from the Motown 7s Box released in 2013.

Chris Clark - Something's Wrong

Mellow Sunday

This is lovely and from an album that I have listened to more in the past year or so than I did when it came out twenty four years ago. An album that certainly hasn't dated and I think sounds even better in 2015.

Slowdive - Erik's Song

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

That was an extremely tiring week. I always find the first week back about as productive as a British Leyland Car Plant during the 3 day week.

To gear us up for the weekend here is a mad bit of Dutch Acid in the form of the Chicago Shags with a track from the 2011 Lost In A Blue Night ep. This track apparently samples Suzanne Ciani soundtrack for the Xenon pinball machine, quite bizarre really. This won't be everybody's cup of tea.

Have a good weekend people.

The Chicago Shags - Irrational Excess

Getting On

I have been catching up with some of the Glastonbury performances over the past few nights, well Motorhead and The "mighty" Fall really and both viewings gave rise to concerns over the health of the two front men. This is probably not the most surprising thing in the world as neither Lemmy nor MES is known for their abstinence. Lemmy looked quite frail and the once powerful growl was more like a rather weak rasp although he can still pound that bass to great effect. MES seemed to be enjoying himself on rather good form, the cause for concern was that it appeared that he had pissed himself before going on stage!

The ravages of time and hard living eventually taking their toll on both men I think.

Here is one of the many highlights from the recent album ( you will not know how glad I am to be able to type that), Sublingual Tablet, from the Glastonbury set, although the studio version goes on over twice as long and could last that again and it would not get boring.

The Fall - Auto Chip 2014 - 2016

Money

Today's tune was the first hit for Berry Gordy's soon to be record empire. The record was released twice in the space of twelve months first on the Tamla label and when it was receiving airplay it was leased to the Anna label on which it became a hit. The record also was another first for Gordy as it was the first of many disputes between the label owner and his staff. Barrett Strong has always maintained that he wrote the song but on the the record the song is credited to Bradford and Gordy. When you look at Strong's writing credits for Motown such as I Heard It Through The Grapevine, War and Papa Was a Rolling Stone amongst many others along with Norman Whitfield tends to give some credence to his claim. No matter what it is a cracking record.

Barrett Strong - Money 

aht uh mi hed

This came on the ipod last week when I was melting in the garden of the house in Gurcan. It went extremely well with the chilled Rose that I was sipping at the time, an absolutely gorgeous record with a right lazy summer vibe.

Shuggie Otis is the son of the R&B legend and band leader Johnny Otis, Otis jnr picked up the guitar when he was just two years old and was playing in his father's band by the age of twelve often having to disguise himself when playing in night clubs.

aht uh mi hed (Out of my head) comes from his 1974 album, Inspiration Information and was also released as a single.

Shuggie Otis - aht uh mi hed

Back To Work Then

Well did you miss me? Thought not.

Here is an absolute fucking gem of a bit of southern soul to ease us into the working week and will give me the strength to book up the work laptop and try to trawl through the hunners of emails I will have.

Lou Johnson - Don't Play That Song (You Lied)