Keeping It Peel

Fifteen years, fifteen fucking years!

Maryanne, Lauren, the rest of 6Music, not least John's son Tom have tried to fill the gap and have just about managed to do it but it is telling that it has taken a whole station to fill those boots and come up with a daily playlist as diverse as the late man's one show. I say nearly as no matter how good all those djs are they do not possess those dulcet tones, the deadpan delivery and very few ever play the record at the wrong speed. I wonder if Peel had still been around what his show would have been like after his beloved Liverpool won the European Cup for the 6th time.

I had a few Peel sessions vying for inclusion today but as I am off to see the Wedding Present tonight,  in what I have no doubt will be another brilliant ninety odd minutes, especially as Bizarro my second favourite Weddoes album will be played in full, it seemed fitting that I should pick them and  the  band's final session recorded on 22/07/2004 and broadcast 12/09/2004 which contained at the time brand new tracks from Take Fountain, my favourite Wedding Present album.

Peel once said "the boy Gedge has written some of the best love songs of the Rock 'n' Roll era. You may dispute this, but I'm right and you're wrong!" His faith in Gedge can be attested by the fact that after M.E.S. Gedge clocked up the second most session appearances, 22 in total either with the Wedding Present, Cinerama or solo.



Blue Eyes

Ringway To Seatac

Shivers

Queen Anne 

White Horses

John Peel - The Fall

Forget You Ever Met Me Baby

Barbara McNair is responsible for one of my favourite soul songs of all time, You're Gonna Love My Baby and although Forget You Ever Met Me Baby isn't quite in the same league it is still an extremely good piece of sophisticated soul. Although this track was never released as a single it was on the second album she recorded for Motown, The Real Barbara McNair, released in 1969.

Barbara McNair - Forget You Ever Met Me Baby

Monday's Long Song

Not sure if Techno is the right thing for a Monday morning. It's not banging techno, Ripperton stretches and mellows out the Bristolian duo's 2011 release which may not have you pulling shapeson the floor but will have you nodding along. Ripperton does this kind of thing very well.

Emptyset feat Cornelius Harris - Altogether Lost (Ripperton's Underground Kingdom mix)

The Closing Act Of An Imaginary Festival (Second Stage)

A few weeks ago I was flicking through an old notebook looking for a record that I had scribbled down after hearing somewhere but could not remember what it was, when I came across a title that stopped me in my tracks for a couple of minutes. The header on the page was "Setlist For Spiritualized Closing The Festival" and as you can probably guess the page then listed a load of Spiritualized songs, some scored through others with arrows showing where they should be moved to and then the final running order.

The reason that this stopped me in my tracks was it had me remembering a most enjoyable series of email correspondence with Tim Badger from the beginning of May last year

Tim had emailed a few of us bloggers as he and SWC had had a mad idea (not like them that) to put on an imaginary festival over the August Bank Holiday 2018, over three days and multiple blogs. There would be three stages, the Main Stage where the acts would be complied by Tim, SWC and their  partner in crime KT (C) over the Friday,  Saturday and Sunday nights. A Second Stage with Jez, JC and yours truly and Another Stage maned by Swiss Adam, Robster and Walter.

There were some ground rules, the festival had to have bands that could physically play, ie were in existence at the time of the August Bank Holiday. The bands/artists would play for around an hour but headliners could have two hours. It had also been stipulated by SWC that my headliner had to be Spiritualized.

I put a lot of thought into this at the time and decided that I would add my own rule that my sets would consist of live recordings of the bands which narrowed down the attendees I could pick as I also had to already have mp3s of these. A piece of pish in relation to the headliners as I have loads of live Spiritualized stuff but a little bit trickier when it came to the rest of the line-up and possibly why in the notebook I only have a setlist for Spiritualized and no other bands listed.

I can't quite remember why this did not come to pass but I thought that I would post my Spiritualized set in memory of Tim, as I have been thinking of him recently, and of how at the start of the year when I was feeling quite low a comment he left made me feel just that little bit better.

Anyway,  below is my setlist for the final act on  the Second Stage  on the Sunday of Blogfest. I know shite name. I am sure that if it had come to pass the festival would have a much better and funnier name.


Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

Hey Jane

I Want You

Lay Back In The Sun

Soul On Fire

Shine A Light-All Of My Tears-Electric Mainline

I Think I'm In Love

She Kisssed Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)

Come Together

Medication

Cop Shoot Cop

So Long You Pretty Thing

Encore

Take Me To The Other Side

Oh Happy Day

It's Amazing What You Find Food Shopping On A Sunday These Days

A few Sundays ago while doing the shopping in Sainsbury's Lynn was looking at the home ware and I stumbled across a rack of vinyl which was all very much mainstream fodder, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd, ELO, you get the idea. One thing did catch my eye as it had the Red Bird logo, the red bird playing a guitar. It was called "Go Girls: The Women of Red Bird. I was pretty sure that I would have all the tracks on the excellent comprehensive double cd The Red Bird Story and a few things on 7" but thought I would have a look anyway. As I suspected I did have all the tracks but was beginning to justify the purchase in my head. AS Go Now was on this, I wouldn't have to play my previous Bessie Banks 7" and the version of Baby would undoubtedly be better than the boot single I had and after all it was only 14 quid. But then I noticed that Don't Think My Baby's Coming Back by Dee Dee Warwick was also included, a song that has been on my vinyl wants list for quite some time, and that was it. It could have been double the price and I would still have bought it as a vg+ copy of the single Standing By released on the Tiger subsidiary label in 1964 that had Don't Think on the flip would set me back over £50.

I don't actually mind food shopping, okay truthfully I really enjoy it (well until we are fighting in the isles over the last tin of Spam in a couple of weeks) but stumbling on this album made a pleasurable experience just that little bit better. Just one gripe, why did it have to be on fucking pink vinyl.

Dee Dee Warwick - Don't Think My Baby's Coming Back

Monday's Long Song

In 1976 Brian Eno travelled to Forst in West Germany to collaborate with the Harmonia, the German supergroup that consisted of two members of Cluster, Hans Joachim Roedelius & Dieter Moebius and the guitarist from Neu! Michael Rother who had released two albums to limited sales. For 11 days in September Eno and the other three collaborated before he buggered off to work with David Bowie. The output of these sessions weren't released until 1997 as the tapes had been considered lost up until then. The album that was released Tracks and Traces is a mixed bag, the long contemplative piece, Sometime In Autumn being the pick of the bunch which was remixed by Shackleton and released on a 12" with an Appleblim and Komonasmuk remix of By The Riverside the other main track from the 1976 session.

Harmonia 76 - Sometime In Autumn

Life In Mono,

I was listening to a rather good radio dramatization of the Ipcress File on Radio 4 Extra the other day which and I realised that although I have seen the film many times and read the follow-up, Funeral In Berlin I have never read The Ipcress File which when I think of it is rather strange. I went through a period in my middle teens when I was obsessed with all of this espionage type stuff and consumed all of the John Le Carre and the like I could find.

This particular radio adaptation used snippets of the excellent John Barry soundtrack throughout which had me scouring the cd shelves for the soundtrack which still cannot be found not sure where it's gotten to. So I dug out Life In Mono by Mono which was released in 1996 and samples BArry's soundtrack to great effect. This 12" single came out with a raft of remixes including 2 very good efforts by The Propellerheads who were very much mining the seams of spooks and espionage at the time. But for me the original is the best.

Interesting fact, in the original Len Deighton books the main protagonist is never named, apparently Michael Caine came up with the name Harry Palmer when having lunch those Christian name was adopted and the Palmer part came from a boy Caine knew from school who he thought to be the most boring person there.

Mono - Life In Mono

Getting Mighty Crowded

Sometimes you forget just how good some songs are.  Either through being too familiar or just in the context that you tend to hear them, you don't really listen and appreciate them, then you hear them unexpectedly and you see the song in a whole different light.

This happened to me the other week, I had the iTunes on the computer while completing the excruciatingly tedious job of uploading and classifying site documents to our eTMF. I was just about to lose the will to live when the horns and the clip clop intro to Getting Mighty Crowded come out of the desk top speakers that I have in my home office.  Then the gorgeous tones of Betty Everett's lush velvety voice started to give me goosepimples the faintly echoey production just perfect. I am not sure that I have ever just sat and listened to this song before, I associate it with dancing (badly in my case). I played it three times on the bounce.

Getting Mighty Crowded was first released in 1964 on Vee Jay Records, the first American label that the Beatles signed for. It was picked up by the Twisted Wheel crowd and has been a staple on the northern scene ever since.  Elvis Costello recorded and released a particularly pish cover on the b-side of High Fidelity.

I suppose a track that is 55 years old and can still stop you in  your tracks can be considered a classic. Well it is to me anyway.

Betty Everett - Getting Mighty Crowded. 

Monday's Long Song

I don't think that it is a coincidence that quite a few of the 10 minute plus tunes that I have also have the name Pete Kember/Sonic Boom in some way associated with them. Today's track is one such example. Ocean is a cover of a Velvet Underground track that was never released when the band were still going. This version by Sunray and was one of the tracks on their second and in my opinion best album, Tomorrow from 2007. Sonic Boom's not only contributes vocals, guitar, keyboards and Tambura but also produces the track as well. It's a great extended, blissed out, fuzzed-up version of the song not quite on a par with the Velvets take on the Matrix Tapes but then it was never ever going to be.

Sunray - Ocean

Monday's Long Song

An epic from the pen of Mike Scott today, a song that Scott himself called "big music". Red Army Blues was influenced by two books that Scott had been reading, The Forgotten Soldier and The Diary of Vikenty Angarov, both stories of the Eastern Front one from the German and the other from the Russian perspective.  The song is the story of a hero of the Soviet Union in the second world war who on his return is sent to the gulag as Stalin fears the influence that American troops had on their Russian counterparts when they met after the fall of Berlin. This was the standout track from the second Waterboys album, A Pagan Place released in 1984.

The Waterboys -  Red Army Blues

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

For me no other genre of dance music is quite as goods as the progressive house sound that was kicking about from 1991 to 1994 which probably says more about me and my age than it does about any other genre of dance music, except the trance which followed progressive house that was pure pish. Hard Hands was a consistently good label not only did they have Leftfield on the roster, as label owners it may have been surprising if they had not been but also releases from Full Moon Scientist, Vinyl Blair and two belters of 12" singles from Delta Lady. Swamp Fever was the second release by Kris Needs and Wonder, which contains a very good Scream Team mix but the one you want on a Friday night ids the full on Delta Baptism mix. Magic stuff!

I can't quite believe what I'm typing here but Airdrieonians are sitting 4th in the league at the moment, granted the table is tight but fourth is fourth. Tomorrow sees the Diamonds welcome Raith Rovers, two points and two places ahead of them in the League. A win would be great but a draw and a performance like the one against Falkirk three weeks ago would more than do.

Have a good weekend people

Delta Lady - Swamp Fever (Delta Baptism mix)  

Age of Chance

I was sent a link yesterday on Twitter for the C86  Radioshow on Mixcloud  which included an interview with Geoff T from Age of Chance. You can get it here if you are interested.

For about 18 months from the first tine I heard their cover of Kiss and the Kisspower mix on the John Peel show they were one of my favourite bands, I loved everything about them from the mad record sleeves designed by the Designer's Republic, the slogans, the cycling gear at least two decades prior to the explosion of middle aged men in lycra,  the shouty vocals and most of all the use of a dj and sampling in their music.

When I look back at my time in Aberdeen in 1987/88, along with all the house music I was immersing myself in two albums also feature heavily, Public Enemy's Yo! Bum Rush The Show and 1000 Years of Trouble by Age of Chance both of which sounded nothing like anything I had been listening to previously. Age of Chance deserved if not to become superstars Like Chuck D and Favour Flav, should have been a lot better known than they were. Last night I played 1000 Years of Trouble and this may be the nostalgia talking but I think it still sounds pretty damn good. I think this evening I might go through the 12" singles as they include some pretty good remixes two of which done by Hank Shocklee and Carl Ryder bringing us back to Public Enemy.

Age of Chance - Learn To Pray 

Age of Chance - This Is Crush Collision

Five Years Ago Today

Things could have been so, so different but the majority voted no. Buying the arguments that we were too wee, too poor to go it alone, That the best way to stay inside the EU was to remain within the UK where we were a valued equal partner in the relationship.

How's that working out for you now?

Last week the # FuckoffScotland was trending due to the mendacity  audacity of the three highest judges in Scotland daring to suggest that the clown in No.10 Downing Street had been less than truthful to the monarch. All the tropes of "subsidy junkies", "scummy wee country full of drunks and junkies" "shite football team" etc were rolled out. Okay I'll give you the third one, that has been a given long before the resurgence of the SNP.

I do think that we made a mistake. As you can see from Johnson's recent European jaunt, the smallest countries in the EU are allowed a voice whereas within our own "Union" we are allowed to be a part of it but don't dare step out of line.

If This Doesn't Make You Smile

Sure Twitter can be a fucking desperate place with all of the shit but sometimes some of the interactions can give you back your feeling that not all of humanity is like that horrible woman who was once on the apprentice and the guy who has unsuccessfully stood for Parliament 8 times. The other times it can make your day with one clip that has you smiling all day. Last Tuesday  was one of those days when the clip below was posted and it also had me scurrying to the soul boxes as, shamefully The Nitty Gritty was a single that I had but neglected for far too long.

The clip is from the Judy Garland Show and is probably the best example of a white guy getting his groove  until Pulp Fiction. The guy dancing like nobody is watching is Bobby Banas, who was a professional dancer and choreographer who was in West Side Story and also Down And Out In Beverly Hills.

Shirley Ellis is probably best know for the Clapping Song, however in my house it's Soul Time that is played more often. The Nitty Gritty was released on the Congress label in 1963.

Shirley Ellis - The Nitty Gritty

Monday's Long Song

Not sure I have anything to add to the reams of stuff that has been said about Bob Dylan or this song in particular apart from it is a work of fucking genius that you just don't want to end and when it does you can't quite believe that eleven and a half minutes have passed.

I first heard Dylan at a mate's house when I was either twelve of thirteen. Ben's dad was a huge Dylan fan and it was not uncommon to hear Bob's dulcet tones when entering the house it was either that or the Archers if I wandered up at that time of evening. So both parents were responsible for turning me on to two quite different forms of aural entertainment.

Bob Dylan - Desolation Row

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

A few weeks after discovering Whyte Horses and buying both of the albums I found myself once again in Monorail, I'm not sure if they have some sort of tracking device but sometimes I find myself in there when I have gone in the town with absolutely no intention of going anywhere near King Street. So I was just flicking through the racks when I came to the W section and the divider stating Whyte Horses but the only thing there was possibly the worst album artwork this side of the Regrettes with the name Justin Velor and 2013 emblazoned across the front. On closer inspection on a sticker it informed me that Justin Velor is none other than Dom Thomas the man behind Whyte Horses and so I decided to take a punt on the double album, there was bound to be enough good music to justify the £6.99 price tag, surely on past evidence of the man's output.

So when I got home I put it on expecting something in the vein of Whyte Horses or Cowgirl In Sweden, I was not prepared for four to the floor house, electro, rhythms stolen from Detroit and a smattering of Balearica, actually the last one wasn't that much of a surprise. After a bit of digging it made a bit more sense as some of the collaborators were Jez Williams from Doves and Graham Massey, others were a bit more surprising, Gerry Love from the Fannies, Chris Geddes from Belle and Sebastian and Lee E John from Imagination. With a squad like this you may be thinking that the album will be all over the place and it is but there are more good tracks than duds with Energizer being the pick of the bunch for me.

Third tier Scottish football, you've got to love it. Three weeks ago Airdrie the Diamonds got an absolute mauling away to East Fife, so none of us were confident for the following week's home game against Falkirk, the team that had been relegated from the Championship last season and during the summer spent big, well in relative terms, to ensure that they would not be hinging aboot in League 1. What we got though was a thoroughly entertaining nil-nil draw where Airdrie more than held their own and could have sneaked it in the last minute. For the first time ever Leo saw the opposite stand open with the large travelling support providing much needed atmosphere to proceedings.

Last week it was time for cup action, the Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Cup, no less and the Diamonds welcomed European opposition in the form of Irish side Bohemians and a bizarre 13:00 Saturday kick-off . Another thoroughly entertaining game with Airdrie just edging to a 3-2 victory.

Tomorrow sees the team away to Dumbarton where hopefully they can keep up the wining ways.

Have a good weekend people

Justin Velor - Energiser

Wings

Yesterday a live version, recorded at a gig on the Renfrew Ferry that I attended, of the track posted came on and it gave me quite a jolt, firstly it hit me again that there would never be a chance to feel that buzz and relief of seeing MES wander on stage mid song, select a mike and slur the immortal words "good evening we are the Fall . . . " Then I started to smile as I remembered how amazed I was that night in March 2008 as I never thought there was a chance that I would hear this incredible song live as it had been released as the b-side of Kicker Conspiracy some 25 years earlier and I knew Smith's feelings about playing things from his back catalogue.

One thing about Smith, he could always surprise you. Or to paraphrase John Peel " That's the thing with the Fall, you never know what your what your gonna get , at may not be what you want but it is what you need"

The Fall - Wings

Crying In The Night

There hasn't been much in the way of Northern Soul on this place for a while, I realise that there hasn't been very much of anything really but I am trying to up the posts, honest.

Crying In The Night is another of those unfathomable decisions by Motown to shelve an absolutely cracker of a track. It has all the hallmarks of a hit from the Tamla stable, a driving beat, a powerful main vocal, sweet backing vocals and those distinctive drum rolls. It was recorded on 14th June 1966 and produced by Willian Weatherspoon  but never saw the light of day until it was included in the This IS Northern Soul, The Motown Sound Vol I it can also be found on a 7" boot.

The Monitors - Crying In The Night

This Strange Effect

I do like a good cover version, even when I'm not aware that the version I am listening to isn't the original until I read the credits or someone else informs me that it is a cover version. In this instance I became aware that This Strange Effect was a cover was from a comment by Johnny TFL when I first posted a track by the young Brooklyn duo who first met in high school.

The track was penned by Ray Davies but a studio version by the Kinks was never officially released, however a BBC session was included in a couple of compilations. The song has been covered a few times, originally by Dave Berry in 1965 when it reached the low end of the top 40 in the UK but Number 1 in the US. The Shacks version was released  on The Shacks ep which is well worth tracking down.

The Shacks - This Strange Effect

Monday's Long Song

Today's long song came out in 1993 but could have been released any time from the late 60s until sometime last week. Another extended fuzzed-out, distorted piece of space rock that won't ease you into the new working week but should give you a jolt and get you ready for whatever madness that may befall us in the coming days.

I was thinking the other day that over the past few years there seems to have been  a resurgence of psychedelic music but when I look at my cds and records looking for tracks for a Monday morning it's not really the case the music has always been produced. This track being a prime example as it comes from the third Sun Dial album, Return Journey released back in the days when the Brit Pop stuff was just starting to emerge and Trance was sneaking into the clubs.

Sun Dial - Sunstroke

A Little Bit of Something To Cheer Me Up

All of the turmoil that is happening on this island is really starting to get me down. So much so that I have been seeking solace in a manufactured boy band. A couple of months ago I had an urge to listen to the Monkees, I have no idea where this came from but I dusted down the double cd Best Of I had and rifled in the cupboard for the handful of singles I have.

Since then I have kept returning to one song, my favourite song by the band and one that was purposefully left off of the first album by producer Don Krishner who appears to have taken personal offence to this Mike Nesmith penned song which didn't receive an official release apart from on the b-side of the Australian release of I Wanna Be Free, a complete travesty in my opinion.

Below I have included the footage of the song being performed on the Monkees TV show. If that doesn't make you smile there is no hope for you. And also the recording of the original session for the first album where Nesmith explains to the legends that were Hal Blaine and Robert West exactly what he wanted.

The Monkees - You Just May Be The One 

Whyte Horses

A couple of weeks ago I featured the mysterious Cowgirl In Sweden album which I took a punt on after a couple of people had mentioned it on Twitter,  After a few listens I decided to do a bit of digging to see if I could find out anything about this mob, So after rooting about the internet I found the consensus opinion was that it was most probably a side project of Whyte Horses, a band I had heard of but never actually heard. I consulted Discogs and it appeared that this "pop psych" band hailed from Manchester and had released a couple of albums and a few mix cds. So I decided to start with LP # 1 Pop or Not.  My first thought once I had played the album all the way through was why the hell had I not heard this or even anybody talking about this album as it was absolutely magic, a complete mish mash of styles and sounds that really worked as an album and held my attention throughout.

Still peeved off that it has taken me four years to find this band.

Whyte Horses - Feels Like Something's Changing

Monday's Long Song

There is a gloom descending and at the weekend I thought that some KC might make things better. It didn't work but I did re-discover on the shelves the criminally ignored, by me for the past few years anyway, experimental album that Kenny Anderson released under the moniker Kwaing Creasite back in 2004, This dark, claustrophobic album just fitted right in with the gloomy mood. I'm not sure if "Jack Shit" is a miserable song or not, there is definitely a melancholy in KC's voice but there seems to be a glimmer of hope in there too. 

Kwaing Creasite - Jack Shit

Monday's Long Song

I'm not sure why I don't listen to the Future Sound of London more as when I do I always feel the better for it. Today's track comes from the fifth release  in the Environments series which started off as a way to get out a lot of the unreleased archive material that the duo had accrued over the years but this one contained 13 completely new compositions. In Solitude We Are Least Alone is a very good way to ease us into the new week, a haunting, mellow track that which when I put on always have to play it at least twice.

Future Sound of London - In Solitude We Are Least Alone

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

 

Last Sunday on our way through to the Edinburgh Fringe today's track popped up on the iPod which startled me, as it is not a huge favourite and can't remember ripping it, I have a suspicion it may have been for this very feature and then I forgot all about it. It also brought to mind a conversation with Swiss Adam on Twitter and continued in the comments section of the Bagging Area which began due to Andrew Weatherall, not an uncommon occurrence you may be thinking and you are probably right. It was about a mixtape (in the true sense of the word) of a set that Weatherall had done in the backroom of Cream round about 93/94 time and the samples that our favourite DJ used to pepper into his sets and in particular the one that went "to the beat of the drum bang, to the beat of the drum, bang bang".  I am not sure if Patrick Prins is a Weatherall aficionado or had heard others drop this sample into their sets but in 1995 he built a very dancefloor friendly tune around the sample which was first released in Italy on the UMM label.

The Ethics  - To The Beat Of The Drum (La Luna)

Last week I berated the less than illustrious start of the season Airdrie had made and on Saturday it looked like it wasn't going to get much better, conceding a goal in the first minute and looking positively lacklustre all through the first half. I am not sure what Ian Murray said or did to the team at half time but a very different team emerged for the second half  with an equaliser two minutes in by Kurtis Roberts followed by numerous attempts at goal, three of which in the space of seconds all hitting the woodwork. It looked like it was going to be another hard luck story to regale Lynn with when I got home. However with ten minutes to go Dale Carrick put the home team ahead but could we see it out was what was on everybody's mind and a nail biting final 10 minutes seemed to crawl by and then in the 92 minute Calum Gallagher put the game to bed with what can only be described as a wonder goal, a beautifully placed overhead kick. If I see a better goal this season I will be very lucky.

So tomorrow it's away to East Fife, so let's hope Airdrie can keep up the winning ways. What's that feeling, pure foolish optimism the curse of all "diddy team" supporters. Brian may yet be right.

Have a good weekend people























































🎆 | Fair play to Calum Gallagher for this spectacular overhead kick in Airdrieonians' win over Clyde yesterday - absolutely outrageous stuff! pic.twitter.com/6Po6DvxleD

— Tell Him He's Pelé (@tellhimhespele) August 18, 2019

Sound of My Summer

A few months ago I took a punt on an album on just what I had read about it quite a strange event these days but there were no tracks posted anywhere but there was a buzz coming from sources I trust, Monorail and Piccadilly Records amongst others so went for it. The album duly arrived, a white cover with only the words Cowgirl In Sweden on the front and on the reverse the track names and the label nothing else. I put the album on and knew right from the off that I had made the right decision and this record would spend quite a bit of time on the turntable. The album has the sound of late 60s Southern California, filled with pop psych nuggets at least one of which is a cover, The West Coast Experimental Pop Band's "Here's Where You Belong". which although harking back to the heady days of peace and love still sounds fresh and has been one of my albums of the summer.

As there was absolutely no information on the record and I was quite curious as to who this band were and so headed to the internet where there really wasn't very much but pretty much all of the pieces I could find agreed on who they thought were responsible; more of which to come.

Cowgirl In Sweden - This Earth 

Not Just A One Album Thing, Then

My favourite bratty California teenagers. The Regrettes  are back with a new album, How Do You Love and also a European Tour and the bampots have managed to sell-out King Tut's before I got a chance to get a ticket. Still it will stop me feeling as deeply self conscious as I did when I saw them a couple of years ago in Nice and Sleazy's with all the teenagers giving me a double take and the "what the fuck is that old guy doing here?"look.

The new album is not radically different from their debut, all loud guitars, shouty lyrics and lots of attitude. Ok, at times it is a bit repetitive, the intros to 4 of the songs are very very similar, but that never stopped The Ramones. The Regrettes aren't quite in the same league as those legends but then again songwriter, guitarist and singer Lydia Night is still only 18 so you never know. Not the most original sound in the world but there is always a time and a place for fun, thrashy  rock n roll.

Monday's Long Song

Right,  this is the last of the ancient tracks in this series, for a while anyway, I promise. From next week it will at least be something from this century but first here is a great piece of improvisation from one of the nearly were bands of the psychedelic era. Moby Grape were formed in 1966 by the ex drummer and the manager of Jefferson Airplane and also included in the line up were Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson of The Frantics, Bob Mosley and Peter Lewis. The original line-up was short lived and by 1969 and after two albums after Skip Spence was incarcerated after increasingly erratic behaviour after being turned on to LSD, The story of the band is one of bad timing, poor decision making and shit luck. One example was that they played by all accounts a great set at Monterey which although recorded on tape and film was cut from D.A. Pennebaker's Monterey Pop film  as Katz wanted 1million dollars for the rights to their performance, also they were moved from opening for Otis Redding on the Saturday night to sunset on the Friday night when hardly anybody was there, The footage was shown eventually in 2007 as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of the Pop Festival.

Dark Magic is quite an incredible bit of psychedelic guitar rock but is even more impressive when you consider that it a live improvisation around  the very briefest of sketches of a song by a group of musicians who had been working together for less than 6 months when this was put on tape at the Avalon Ballroom on New Years Eve 1966.

Moby Grape - Dark Magic

Peter Fonda

Another of the main figures of late 60s counter culture gone. I've loved Easy Rider from an early age and for a scooter lover I always wanted to own one of the choppers in that film but not Captain America's but Billy The Kid's which always looked cooler to me anyway.

Rest easy Peter for me you had more of an influence on films and filmmaking than either your father or sister. And lest we forget his part in possibly the best indie/dance record of all time, Loaded.

YouTube won't let me embed the Easy Rider clip I wanted and it appears that the only version of the Ballad of Easy Rider I have ripped is the Kathryn Williams one which in it's way is better than the Byrds one.

Kathryn Williams - The Ballad of Easy Rider

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Nobody will have been waiting for this to rear it's ugly head again but I can't think of anything else to fill a Friday with so there you go. Here's a bit of early Dutch Techno from way back in the early days raving. Techno Trance was the flip side of Yaaaaaaaaaah, a very basic one dimensional bit of techno  but we are talking about 1990. Techno Trance isn't really a track with much depth either but when it's 02:00 am and you're eccied out your nut who needs depth, what you need is a pulverising beat and repetitive shouting of "c'mon, wooh". Not the subtlest but somewhat effective.

It has been a pretty ignominious start to the season for the Diamonds, a two nil home defeat and pitiful performance  against Forfar on the first day of the season and a narrow one nil away win at Montrose last week. Let's hope some sort of gelling has happened and we get a better performance at the Excelsior tomorrow against Clyde but I will not hold my breath. Still we do have a home tie against Irish side Bohemians in the Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Cup next month to look forward to. Onwards and upwards as they say.

Have a good weekend people.

D-Shake - Techno Trance (Paradise Is Now)

My Sweet Lord

Got this a few weeks ago and it is absolutely joyous. In it's original form John Gary Williams cover of the George Harrison classic is a laid back wah wah driven tune, with a spoken word bit in the middle. The Soul Flip guys give it a northern back beat keep the spoken word bit and turn it into something that if it doesn't make the most ardent Dawkins acolyte move, I'll eat my recently purchased rather fine new Airdrieonians beanie.

John Gary Williams - My Sweet Lord (Soul Flip edit)

Greg Dulli Covers

When Greg Dulli returned to Louisville after the extensive and gruelling touring on the back of the Congregation album, he found that things had changed in his absence. His live in girlfriend confessed to him that while he was away she had "hooked up" with someone else and although Dulli had been doing the dirty on her more than a few times when on tour he could not accept that somebody could do the same to him. He upped and moved home to Cincinnati to lick his wounds and do some soul searching to a soundtrack of Blood On The Tracks, Here My Dear and Astral Weeks. The record however that got the most turntable time turned out to be the flip side of an R&B top three hit Turn Back The Hands Of Time from 1970, The pleading, grovelling, "please take me back" plea for forgiveness "I Keep Coming Back" struck a chord with Dulli.

A lot of Dulli's feelings from this time of reflection shaped the subject matter and lyrics of the Whigs next album, Gentleman and so covering the track that he had played over and over during the downtime in Cincinnati was probably an obvious choice and what a cover it is, the emotion that Dulli puts into his rendition of this track would have you thinking that these must be his own words penned from deep within, it wasn't until after the third or fourth time of listening and on getting round to perusing the sleeve notes that I realised that this was a cover not being acquainted with the original at that point. On a couple of occasions during the song the singer nearly goes totally out of tune but manages to pull it back from the brink just as you think "oh no" which makes this one of my absolute favourite covers and a track would that would have ended a few compilation tapes if it had been around back in the day when I tried to woo members of the opposite sex with the aid of what I believed to be my excellent taste in music,

The Afghan Whigs - I Keep Coming Back

Monday's Long Song

One of the best things about trying to find long songs for a Monday has been that I have had to revisit a lot of the music that I was introduced to in my early teens before I became a bit of a music snob and turned my back on all of the proggy/ hippy stuff that Lex, Jim and others introduced me to. A lot of this stuff easily met the criteria for this feature and I think this is why I love tracks that go on for some time as I was used to listening to lengthy tracks from quite an early age. Don't get me wrong some of the stuff I have gone back to and listened to have been real rubbish, quite a few falling into the "meandering pish" category but others have had me chastising myself for not listening to them for so long.

I have only ever owned one Vanilla Fudge album, the first one and never felt the need to own anything else, the album consists of 7 cover versions, 6 of which last a lot longer than the original versions and on the whole work pretty well. The pick of the bunch and which in single form broke into the top twenty on both sides of the Atlantic was their version of the Supremes You Keep Me Hanging On, before I got really into soul when I was about 15/16 this version of the Holland-Dozier-Holland song was the one I was more familiar with, I had probably heard the original first on the radio but this slowed down, strung out version with the weird organ intro was the one I knew best. It's probably been ten to fifteen years since I had heard it up until a few weeks ago but it has been played half a dozen times since then.

Vanilla Fudge like so many of the bands form that era have re-formed and released an album in 2015. The band were an influence on the likes of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and the like which you may thank them for or not and have been seen as one of the bands that links psychedelia to Heavy Metal.

Vanilla Fudge - You Keep Me Hanging On 

Greg Dull Covers

I think that today's cover is an interesting one and to be honest that I didn't realise was a cover if I'm honest, although the title was familiar.  Deep Hit Of Morning Sun was the opening on Primal Scream's 2002 album Evil Heat, not an album that I have listened to that often. In it's original form it is a trippy. psychy track with pretty rubbish lyrics. Dulli's version in his Gutter Twins guise with Mark Lanegan gives it the more straightforward rock treatment which I think works better but it is not outstanding or essential by any means. It was released as part of the Adorata digital only ep which consists of 7 covers and one original. The pick of the bunch is the Lanegan sung version of Duchess, penned by Scott Walker.

The Gutter Twins - Deep Hit Of Morning Sun
The Gutter Twins - Duchess  

Sunny

This song was in my head yesterday all day. If you excuse the pun it always brightens up my day. For a song that if the story is true was a result of such a tragic event, it is quite remarkable how upbeat it is. It is said that Bobby Hebb wrote the song after his brother was stabbed to death, the day after the assassination of JFK  as a way of remembering better times.

Sunny has been covered numerous times by the great and the truly appalling. My favourite version was the Marvin Gaye one unearthed from the Motown vaults by Richard Searling at the turn of the millennium which I have posted a couple of times. So today you're getting Marva Whitney and James Brown's rather fine jazzy stab at it. I had never heard this before I bought the It's My Thing remastered double album which is well worth seeking out.

Marva Whitney/James Brown - Sunny

Monday's Long Song

Up here summer feels as if it has been and gone as I type this it is poring with rain and incredibly windy for July, it is the second week of the Glasgow Fair so we don't really expect glorious sunshine but still.

Last week when I was contemplating filing the newly acquired Complete Matrix Tapes vinyl boxset, a thing of beauty both visually and aurally by the way, the shiny silver box housing I See You, the third album by the XX caught my eye and I thought to myself "haven't heard much from them recently and I can't actually remember that album at all, must play it again" and then duly forgot it again until last Thursday night when I contemplated doing a moon themed It's Friday . . .  Let's Dance but couldn't decide between Acen's Trip To The Moon or the Orb's Supernova At The End of The Universe so in the end didn't bother my arse but did think about the great video for Gosh and decided to listen to some Jamie xx tunes and remixes.

So today's track comes out of that listening session, In 2015 Young Turk's released a white label 12" of two excellent John Talabot remixes of Loud Places one of the best tracks from Jamie xx's solo album, In Colour. The Higher Dub, the b-side was the one that I flogged to death for months but this mix, the Without Me dub is actually pretty special too.

Jamie xx - Loud Places (John Talabot's Without Me dub)

Neil Armstrong

With all the buzz around the 50th Anniversary of the moon landing, this song has been running around my head.

In some of my least lucid moments I have been known to be a bit sceptical about whether we walked on the moon or not but after educating myself and also looking at some of the conspiracy theory guff I am quite annoyed at myself.

God, I miss Allo Darlin'.

Allo Darlin' - Neil Armstrong

Greg Dulli Covers

This track was another that Dulli gave away from his website about 4 or 5 years ago. A Crime was originally recorded by Sharon Van Etten and appeared on Brooklyn based singer/songwriter's 2010 album Epic. Dulli slows the pace down slightly turns the folky acoustic ballad into a smouldering tune full of regret and longing.

Greg Dulli - A Crime

Monday's Long Song

Bloody hell that was a quick two weeks, some clichés unfortunately happen to be true, especially the one about holidays being the fastest two weeks of the year.

As well as supervising the younger son's exploits on his bodyboard (no need for the elder who decided to spend two weeks in the caravan re-watching the Wire, a step up from last year's viewing, old episodes of Coronation Street on YouTube), I managed to read a few books and can thoroughly recommend David Ross's Welcome To The Heady Heights. One of the other two was "In Search of The Lost Chord - 1967 and the Hippie Idea, as the title suggests the book was all about the year that was the high water mark for the 60s counterculture movement. As you would expect there was quite a bit of emphasis on the music of the time, including of course the Grateful Dead. 

I have to be honest I am not a Dead Head and never really got into them the same way as I did with other bands from the late 60s. I did own a couple of albums when I was a young teenager. The first thing I bought was Shakedown Street, if I'm honest, I bought for the cover which was by Gilbert Shelton responsible for the Freak Brothers and Fat Freddy's Cat. It was pish, to my 14 year old brain this had nothing to do with psychedelia or what I expected. I also bought a copy of the first album which failed to bowl me over either and I ended my investigations there, deciding that LSd was obviously needed to get this guff. 

Fast forward twenty five years and I'm sitting at a table in a hotel in Bothwell after the end of a couple of friends wedding and another of the guests is waxing lyrical about "the Dead" and of course I had to stick my neb in, "hippy pish at is noodling, self indulgent worst" was my constructive input. But Jim gave a vigorous, impassioned  defence of Garcia, Weir, Pigpen etc" So much so that a couple of weeks later I followed up on his recommendation to buy Live/Dead as this is about the best representation of what the Grateful Dead were all about in the early days and listen to it especially Dark Star. And you know what, I rather liked it. The lyrics are embarrassing nonsense but the music is pretty good and I have listened to Dark Star in particular pretty often since, the tune would be a hell of a lot better in my opinion if it was an instrumental. 

I have never felt the need to investigate further but I have gone back and listened to Shakedown Street and it's not half bad too.

The Grateful Dead - Dark Star