unpopular

20 Albums That Changed My Life - pt 9

Felt – Splendour of Fear

This was my first Felt album; the one that started something of an obsession. It happened so quickly. That was the way of it in those days. Those days being to do with a time in my life, not a time in the world, as indeed they are for everyone.

There were already older and newer Felt records to discover after this one, and yes, it was ‘Primitive Painters’ that had hipped me to Lawrence and the group. I heard that on Peel. The festive 50. Taped it off the radio and spent hours on end gyrating in my bedroom, high on home-made wine and dreams. Heady times.

In hindsight I am not sure why I went with Splendour Of Fear as my first Felt album, but I am glad I did. The Red Indian drumming. The Warhol / Chelsea Girls cover that I didn’t twig until years later. The texture of the sleeve. The silver and black labels. When I heard this record it was like I finally knew who I was, or at least could dream of being.

Felt - Mexican Bandits

Revolutionary Spirits

For people of a certain age, the mention of Pop music and Liverpool immediately brings thoughts of Merseybeat and The Cavern. For many of my own generation however, it’s a different set of names and sounds altogether. It’s all about The Teardrop Explodes, The Mighty WAH!, Echo and The Bunnymen and Erics. Balfe and Drummond weaving their magic in the Zoo. Big In Japan, and the shores of Lake Placcid. Pete Burns. A multitude of Scouse myths and legends.

For so many of that generation too, there is one record they will point to as the pinnacle of those heady times. ‘The Revolutionary Spirit’. Wild Swans. So aptly named.

Wild Swans are rightly one of those most treasured of groups. For ‘The Revolutionary Spirit’ of course, but also for so much more. If you are in any doubt, check the Incandescent and Magnitude collections. Peerless. Magnitude in particular has thrilled me in recent times. For some reason I had been flippantly dismissive of their Bringing Home The Ashes set of 1988. Compared to so much of what I was listening to at that time it seemed full of bluster and shiny production values. I was deaf to the beauty of the record. Such shortsighted madness. These days, I am pleased to say I play Bringing Home The Ashes and am utterly seduced. I wonder how on earth it could been different.

Of course exploring the past is all very well, but what about now? When I was still doing my Unpopular label a few years ago there was some vague talk of doing a solo Paul Simpson 7”. I wish we had pursued that idea. It would have been amazing. ‘Decomposing’ was a song we were looking at. Listening to it again this morning it still thrills and chills me in equal measures.

Thankfully others have stepped up to the plate for some Wild Swans output. Specifically the very fine people at the Occultation label, who are soon to ship a very limited edition 10” with two brand new Wild Swans recordings. Both songs of course are essential listening. ‘The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years’ is seven and a half minutes of beauty, with Paul Simpson reading a poignant memoir of his time sharing a flat with the equally prodigiously talented Pete De Freitas. For a glimpse into the reality of living in early ‘80s Britain under Thatcher’s thumb, it’s a perfect, priceless and bittersweet Polaroid.  ‘English Electric Lightning’ meanwhile is a glorious requiem for a ‘lost’ England; a list song full of such evocative references both positive and negative. In many ways it’s doing the same as Ray Davies once did in painting an image of a mediated and  illusory England, and although it’s coming in an opposite tangent, it’s like some strange brethren to ‘Village Green Preservation Society’. It says all the things that Davies leaves unmentioned in his song: the Sun reporters and pools of vomit; the thousand burning Ford Sierras. I’ve been playing the song for some weeks now, and it’s already etched deep in my mind.

Of course it’s not all just about Paul Simpson. For on this new record the Wild Swans line-up is a classic one, thanks in no small part to the return of Ged Quinn.  Also playing on the record are Ricky Maymi from the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Mike Mooney (Cope/Spiritualized/etc.) and drummer Steve Beswick. They do make a ravishing sound. You may of course know that Quinn is these days much better known as a painter, and he also provides the artwork for the record. I’ve yet to actually hold a copy in my clammy hands, but it looks beautiful in the photograph. And 10” is perhaps my favourite format ever.

Occultation is not just about Wild Swans, however, and a second 10” is being released at the same time by The Granite Shore. Again, the cover detail is by Ged Quinn, so it looks as beautiful as it sounds. And yes, it does sound beautiful. ‘Tomorrow Morning, 3 a.m.’ is a six plus minute masterpiece that reminds me somewhat of early to mid period Gravenhurst, or of Animals That Swim at their downbeat stripped back finest. Paul Simpson once said of Wild Swans that “if we sounded like doomed romantics, that’s because we were”. There’s something of that in The Granite Shore too, although like Wild Swans, it’s a doomed romance that swells with a brittle strength and quiet pride.

And indeed, the more I listen to ‘Tomorrow Morning, 3 a.m.’ the more convinced I am by its breathtaking scope and ambition. If this, and ‘English Electric Lightning’ are not in my end of year list of ‘songs of 2009’ then you have my permission to call me an ignorant old sod with the memory of a flea.

The Wild Swans 10” is a limited edition of 900 signed copies. The Granite Shore 10” is in an edition of 700. Both are available to pre-order now at the Occultation shop. You can buy both records for twelve quid, which seems to me to be the bargain of the year. Act fast though, because they are sure to sell out very quickly indeed.

Sly Ones

So you’ve been downloading the ‘Your Heart Out’ fanzine, haven’t you? Of course you have. You all have such exceptional taste, after all. Well now there’s a blog to go with it. I’m sure it will come to be essential reading and a terrific support for the fanzine downloads.

In his post today Kevin mentions issue one, and how on the back cover there is a photo of Marina Van Rooy dancing in the video of The Pale Fountains’ ‘Jean’s Not Happening’. He suggests it is the coolest thing ever and I think he might be right. Either that or Marina singing ‘Sly One’ – “just about the coolest single ever”. And amen to that. I still remember the thrill of sticking it on my record player, having found it for 10p in a Reading record store.

Tragically it seems those Marina Van Rooy recordings are no longer available, so here’s an mp3 rip from my well-worn vinyl. Enjoy this treat.

Marina Van Rooy – ‘Sly One’

20 Albums That Changed My Life - pt 8

The Byrds – Younger Than Yesterday

So I might have worn my fringe like Roger McGuinn’s, but weren’t The Byrds that group that did ‘Mr Tambourine Man’? And wasn’t that old people’s music?

Through most of my teen years I had an enormous aversion to the 1960s. I might have worn those Lennon glasses once or twice, but man, it was ironic. I hated those hippies. The 1960s was a time of evil. I really had no clue. But at least I had an excuse. The fallout of the punk ‘revolution’; the whole Year Zero schtick. So many of us bought into that. Foolish. Young. Something like that.

Then, somehow, some threads started to unravel. I started to reappraise. Slow at first. Little baby steps. I was led by the contemporary of course, although now the detail of that escapes me except for one thing, which was a line from ‘Why’ that Matt threw into a copy of Are You Scared To Get Happy. You know the one. About not knowing where you’re living, but you’re not LIVING. That simply thrilled me.

And so Younger Than Yesterday was my first Byrds record. My first 1960s record. A revelation in slow motion.

The Byrds - Everybody's Been Burned

RIP Randy Bewley (Pylon)

Just read the sad news about Randy Bewley's passing. He was the guitarist in Pylon, one the great post-punk innovators.

20 Albums That Changed My Life - pt 7

Orange Juice – You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever

Yes, I knew about Orange Juice and liked them from an early age. Well, from 17 or so at least. Scott and I danced ridiculously to ‘Rip It Up’ at the 1984 Ayr Roads CC Christmas dinner dance. We wore stupid Lennon sunglasses that we’d picked up in town the week before, and, yes, I wore my fringe like Roger McGuinn’s. Even though, at that time, I scarcely really knew what that meant.

It was 1985 though before I really picked up on this album, and even later before I searched back further and explored the other Postcard groups, thanks to my friend Andrew and his older brothers’ collections. In hindsight, if I had been more aware of Edwyn and his fellow troubadours at an earlier age, perhaps I would have felt less insecure about being a bit of a wimpy, skinny, girly kind of teenager. And then again, maybe not.

Orange Juice - 'Consolation Prize'

20 Albums That Changed My Life - pt 6

The Go-Betweens – Spring Hill Fair

Christmas 1984. This is my present from my brother. Yes, I had requested it. Yes, it changed my life, arguably more than any other record did before or after.

I so vividly remember playing it all that Christmas holiday. I took it to Jon’s house on Boxing Day night. A night when all manner of hi-jinx was taking place amongst my friends, including midnight raids on the village Christmas tree lights and the scaling of the churchyard wall. I only heard about that when they returned, however, as Scott and I stayed supping cider and playing Spring Hill Fair time and time again on Jon’s stereo. How could we not?

Now I did not really know anything about The Go-Betweens at that point; had just read that this was meant to be a great record. I’d been immersed in The Smiths all year and I knew had to explore further afield. I felt like a change. I was 18. It seemed about time. It was a revelation.

Spring Hill Fair was the start of what ended up being probably my longest lasting and most profound love affair in music. It led, in some explicitly connected and in other less tangibly so ways, to so many of the most important relationships in my life, musical or otherwise. Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I had never discovered the records of The Go-Betweens. The thought frankly terrifies me.

The Go-Betweens - 'Part Company'

20 Albums That Changed My Life - pt 5

The Smiths – The Smiths

Like a lot of things, I downgraded the importance of The Smiths in my life a long, long time ago. I once wrote in defence of The Go-Betweens being of much more lasting value (to me, which is all that counts after all) than The Smiths, but still… it cannot be denied; for a few years back in the mid 1980’s The Smiths ruled my life.

The funny thing is, I cannot now pinpoint the moment when I first heard them. I suspect it must have been ‘This Charming Man’, and I do remember buying the 12” of that single with Scott on one of our regular Saturday morning sojourns to Ayr in late ’83. I also have an 1984 diary which is peppered liberally with lines from various Smiths songs, and which reminds me of the January show in Glasgow when they were late arriving after flying back from filming Top Of The Pops.

That thing about the lines from Smiths songs peppering my diary though; it sounds so corny and obvious in hindsight. It all became so clichéd in such a short time, and a part of me is eternally embarrassed to have been so easily seduced by such dramatically measured lyrical conceits. But hey, I was 17. Sue me.

And The Smiths really did light up 1984 for me. I turned 18 and felt something like a strange mixture of fourteen and forty. Or at least what I assumed forty to be like; out of touch with and blinking in confusion at the mainstream of youth culture. Looking back from here I am not sure I was too far wrong.

Looking back from here too, what’s most startling about playing records like The Smiths is just how, sonically, they are so indelibly impressed on my memory. I know every line. Every instrument. Buried deep. Just like the bedraggled and bewildered emotions of the time.

The Smiths - 'Still Ill'

20 Albums That Changed My Life - pt 4

 Tracey Thorn – A Distant Shore

I can’t think of anything to add about this record that I didn’t write in 1996, so I’ll just do the old copy’n’paste shuffle. You can also access the original Tangents page here.

New Opened Eyes

I remember 1983 as a fantastic summer. There was much illicit drinking, a great deal of long hot rides of eighty miles over distant hills, and a multitude of what seemed to be endless parties. There was also a lot of music. Many of the specifics of the music I have long forgotten; I presume they were generally Hits of the day, the pop music that my friend's 14 year old sister and her gaggle of girlfriends played on old tape recorders. A few things only remain in my mind after the passing of time and erosion of memory: I recall that the early Style Council played a lot on warm evenings and that Weekend's La Variete was similarly a beloved accompaniment to lazy sun-soaked afternoons in back gardens as we rested between water fights. The Marine Girls also played, at least in my bedroom, and the Sound of Young Scotland was always prominent on the record player at the endless parties, or at least it was when we were able to displace the aforementioned gaggle of girls' Duran Duran and Wham! records. Not that we totally disliked those pop moments. I have memories of dancing to and enjoying the teenage thrill of the best Fantastic slots of Pop, but it might just have been because of the girls. I forget so much.

One record, however, towered above the entire summer like a reluctant and unlikely colossus. Tracey Thorn's A Distant Shore was hardly the most forceful of records, yet it forced its way into the lives of me and my friends with a supple ease. It was an understated, simple, flawed beauty of a record that was short enough to always result in a yearning for more, no matter how many times it was played. And it was played a lot.

The sound was one of simplistic guitar strumming, occasionally just out of tune, with Tracey's voice drifting on top like a strange jewel, always seeming a heap more soulful than the Soul records I would hear on the radio. It was a sound that made perfect sense in sunsets and shaded foot of gardens by the gazebo, and it was a sound that fitted to perfection late nights sprawled indoors surrounded by empty bottles and lonely friends. It was a sound that was heard in many places: Gardens, beaches, tents, living rooms, bedrooms, the roof of a garage... The sound reminds me of all those places, but strangely the one place it reminds me most of is the one place we never played it, although we talked about it often. It was on the hillside overlooking the bay in which our hometown sat, a place where we always planned to spend an afternoon in the sun with Cider and A Distant Shore, but never did. It's a place and a 'memory' made all the more poignant by the very fact that it did not happen and so cannot fade. All the faces of that summer are on that hillside, in that record. All the faces which are now grown older, married, mortgaged, lost or dead, for better or for worse. They are all crystal clear because they never existed like that in the first place.

I am 'happier' now than then, and although the past is passed and I would never go back, I still envy very much those who have yet to be that age and of that persuasion. Those who might feel the same intense feelings for the first time to the tune of any particular sound. And although I hope today that they listen to and love Tracey with her Springheel Jack breakbeat backing, I also hope they investigate further, delve back in time to A Distant Shore and discover the crystalline summertime blue jewels it holds within.

Tracey Thorn - 'Simply Couldn't Care'

no career, no hope, no fun, no fashion

Song of the day/week/month/year.



Kind of puts me in mind of 'Her Jazz', no? No bad thing.