Friday 31 May 2019

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance



This can on the iPod the other day and fair cheered me up. I had forgotten just how good a track it was. M People may have turned into a completely insipid pop group. There were quite a few mixes by "the man like . . ." but this has got to be my favourite. Some smiley positive vibes are what's needed after a few weeks that has seen this country and the wider world go even further to shit.

Talking about near hopeless cases, Airdrie finished the league in a respectable 5th place. Since the end of the season their has been many a coming and going from the Excelsior, some of the signings look promising and one of those leaving the club, Chris O'Neal had me a little peeved off as he is one of the most consistent players in the team and someone who gave 100% always. Leo too has been a bit upset as his hopes for the return of his favourite Airdrie player were dashed when Andy Ryan decided to extend his contract with Dunfermline. All in all I'm looking forward to the season ahead but don't hold out much hope of us progression out of the league stages of the Bet Fred Cup where unfortunately fate has kept the only two relevant Lanarkshire teams apart, so we will have to wait until the Scottish cup to have a go at the Motherwell.

M People - How Can I Love You More (Sasha's Master mix)

Thursday 30 May 2019

Number One Fool



There hasn't been much in the way of 60s soul round here recently and therefore not much in the way of ill informed history regarding that type of music. So here is a brilliant piece of up tempo soul from a band that I know nothing at all about. Number One Fool is the flip side to Funky Chicken,  the only release by The Fabulous Emotions that I know of which doesn't go for much to be honest. This song is basically the a-side with added vocals which for me at least make it the superior track.

The Fabulous Emotions - Number One Fool 

Wednesday 29 May 2019

Dulli Covers






Two for the price of one today and not just any two but two classics penned by Holland/Dozier/Holland and originally recorded by the Supremes. The Afghan Whigs do to these soul classics what the Afghan Whigs do, make it ever so slightly seedy, with an extra dose of sleaze and topped off with just the right amount of fuzz and feedback. This live rendition was originally recorded in Denver for KTCL in 1994 and was then released on the 10" and CD versions of the What Jail Is Really Like.

The Afghan Whigs - My World Is Empty Without You/I Can Hear A Symphony

Tuesday 28 May 2019

And I'll Be Elvis Presely To Your Marilyn Monroe


For me Gordon McIntyre has written some of the best songs about relationships, lust and longing this side of David Gedge. Public Park along with Past Lovers always leave me with a watery eye and a lump in my throat. Public Park was originally on the first Ballboy ep,, Silver Suits For Astronauts released in the final year of the last century. It is also on Club Anthems the compilation that brought together the band's first three eps. If you don't have a copy of this, get yourself sorted out Pronto. 

Ballboy - Public Park 

Monday 27 May 2019

Monday's Long Song



We haven't had any John Martyn around here for a while, which is a bit piss poor form. Here is possibly one of Martyn's stupidest songs, his words not mine, from arguably his best album, One World. The song came about as a result of Martyn having breakfast with Chris Blackwell and Lee Scratch Perry in Jamaica with Perry commenting on the pigs and horses on Blackwell's tea set, strange but true but probably no stranger than any other utterances from the legendary reggae producer. This live version comes from the Ain't No Saint compilation that came out in 2008.

John Martyn - Big Muff

Wednesday 22 May 2019

Greg Dulli Covers



Today's instalment in this series is a bit different from those that have gone before in as much that Mr Dulli's dulcet tones only feature in the background . Ornament was a one off collaboration between The Afghan Whigs and the Scrawl vocalist, Marcy Mays although Mays would later appear on the Afghan Whigs excellent Gentleman album a couple of years later. The result of this collaboration was a 7" single containing a version of the Afghan Whigs song Tonight and a cover of the Goffin and King standard Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow which has been covered loads of times but probably the interpretation by the Shirelles. The Dulli/Mays collaboration is a much heavier, grungier affair with all the sweetness of the original extracted.

Ornament - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

Monday 20 May 2019

Monday's Long Song



I posted the flip side of this when the 12" was eventually released back in February 2016. I say eventually as it was recorded 17 years previously in the Arches in Glasgow by a local trio that included one of my blogger compatriots, Gareth from the much missed How Does That One Go Again? Apart from JC, Gareth was the first fellow blogger I met as we djed together at the Blog Rocking Beats nights we arranged in the summer of 2010 at the Flying Duck in Glasgow. 

Here we have the remix by Les Crocodiles from the other side of the 12" singles where they stretch the track out over a further 2 and a bit minutes making it a bit dubbier and even more laid back, Great stuff.

Imperfect Product - Solina (Les Crocodiles remix)

Wednesday 15 May 2019

Greg Dulli Covers



As I think we have established over these posts, Greg Dulli, quite likes to take other peoples songs and put his own slant on them, so much so that when The Afghan Whigs broke up, Dulli's next musical incarnation, the Twilight Singers decided to put out a whole album of cover versions She Loves You where the band went from a traditional ballad, Black Is The Colour of My True Love's Hair, through Blues and Jazz standards to the contemporary at the time, Martina Topley-Bird's Too Tough To Die. I was going to say that his choices were impeccable, however he did include a Fleetwood Mac track, a band I have less than no affection for but Dulli did what I thought up until then was impossible and that was to prompt me to re-appraise this band full of pomp, the worst excesses of the 70s and 80s and those horrible Stevie Nicks vocals and I came to the conclusion that the band are still pish but Dulli can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

The Twilight Singers - What Makes You Think You're The One 

Tuesday 14 May 2019

Everlasting Love



You will probably recognise this song, if not this, the original recording as it became a UK number 1 by The Love Affair in January 1968 not long after the original was released.

The Robert Knight version was re-released as a double A-side in 2017 on the Outta Sight label backed with the better known Love On A Mountain Top.

Robert Knight - Everlasting Love

Monday 13 May 2019

Monday's Long Song



Sorry for the lack of content on this site over the past week but we have had a bit of a trying time since last Saturday, on that evening Max was rushed to hospital in an ambulance after falling from a considerable height into the river from the path along the banks of the Clyde on the way up to the Falls of Clyde.

We spent a very anxious and frightening night in the A&E at Wishaw General with the boy under constant observation until he could get a CT scan and then the horrible wait for the results.

"The good news is", said the consultant after reviewing the scan and contrary to the evidence of looking at Max, "that miraculously, there is no damage to the head or broken bones, however his spleen is in three pieces and will probably need to be removed but over all he is a very lucky boy". I looked at L and I could see from her face the same mixture of emotions going through her head, relief but also the fear of surgery and Max's future without a spleen. The consultant then left to go and speak to the surgical team and get things organised but came back a couple of minutes later asking if we knew exactly when the accident happened as she thought that there may be a chance of an alternative to surgery but it meant that a drug had to be administered within a certain period of time after the fall. So we thought back and it turned out that the fall would have occurred within the time frame. 

In the early hours Max was moved to the ACCU unit where he remained until Tuesday when he was moved to another ward. To cut a long story short he is now home bruised battered and extremely sore but a very lucky boy none the less as it could very easily have been a completely different outcome if it hadn't been for his pal's lack of fear in jumping in the river and pulling him out, the police for going by as another two friends were carrying him home, the ambulance crew and not least the staff in AE at Wishaw General. During the night I was talking to one of the nurses asking if A&E was always as hectic as it was that Saturday and she replied "yip, xxx and I this do this extra shift most Saturday nights, we work during the week at the Beatson" Glasgow's cancer hospital. 

On Sunday night as Leo and I were coming home from the hospital leaving Lynn to sleep on the chair next to Max, this track from 2011 came on the iPod and although it did not absolve me of all my cares and worries it did calm me down for the nine and a half minutes it was on for.

Free School - Lemon (original)

This is not the time for politics but anybody who is thinking of voting for the Brexit Party should think twice as the fascist in charge of that party is on record stating that he was in favour of an insurance based health service such as the USA. Under such a system my son's treatmet would have been a lower priority than our ability to pay for it. 

Thursday 2 May 2019

Port Authority Bus Blues



Paul Simerman, a senior musician in the US Navy had a novel idea for recruiting young men to the Navy at the beginning of the 70s, form a band, record and put out music as Port Authority highlighting that their were other careers in the Navy other than Able Seaman or Deck Hand. The project must have been deemed at least a partial success as the band existed for 14 years and released 5 albums.

Port Authority Bus Blues was the final track on the band's debut album released in 1975, a funky, jazzy workout that would not have been out of place as the Theme to some hard nosed detective show or the main theme of a Blaxploitation film from the period. It was finally released earlier this year as a 7" single which I had on pre-order for quite a while.

Port Authority - Port Authority Bus Blues