unpopular

Between Faulkner and Fitzgerald

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to see this photo. I can die content now, for I have been sandwiched tightly between two giants of literature. An added bonus is that Ask The Dust and Bilgewater are also just a stone’s throw away. We won’t think about how my slim tome actually compares to those others, however. Don’t want to wreck the dream after all, do we?

Sunday Supplement pt 2: Another Sunday - The Legends

The Legends first came to my attention with the fuzzy indiepop shazam of ‘Call It Ours’. Guitars! Action! Gyration! It was kinda cool.

Then suddenly they were all supercool electropop sweetness, going on to show off some hip aural and visual references to Kraftwerk (yeah I know, I know, who hasn’t?) and DAF. I particularly liked the reference is Alles ist Gut on the sleeve of Facts and Figures.

It’s from Facts And Figures that this weeks’ Sunday Supplement comes. I like to think it follows in the spirit of Stephen Duffy and I’m sure that The Legends would not be averse to that suggestion.

Incidentally, there’s a new Legends set that has just come to my attention. On first cursory listen it sounds like a return the scuzzed up style of their debut, except with even more of a heavy hand on the distortion buttons of the mixing desk. It’s like they took the idea of ‘You Made Me Realise’ and made a kinda Swedepop lite version. That’s no criticism, by the way, just an observation. The record, like all of The Legends’ catalogue is certainly worth checking out.

The Legends - 'Another Sunday'

Glasgow Now

Just in case you were suspecting that this blog was turning into some specialist journal about Glasgow nostalgia, I thought I would share a bit of contemporary Glasgow with you in the form of Member Of The Wedding. Now you hipsters are no doubt way ahead of me on this one, but what the heck. The group were kind enough to send me a copy of their ‘Chapter & Verse’ EP some weeks ago, and it’s been a lovely companion over that time, cheering and soothing my fevered and furrowed brow. It’s on the Cosy Recordings label out of Stockholm, which provides a neat Swedish connection, and whilst I balk at much of the material on that label, Member Of The Wedding seem to me to be a cut above and way ahead.

So what am I hearing in their catchy confection? Well, I’m getting a splendid combination of Jens Lekman, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Pants Yell! and early Go-Betweens, as well as a hint of fellow Glaswegians Paul Quinn & The Independent Group. That last one should get some pulses racing in particular, and I can’t help but dream that one day Member Of The Wedding might curl their tendrils around something as deliciously epic and baroque as, say, ‘Will I Ever Be Inside Of You’. For the moment though, Member of The Wedding are scratchy, slinky and seductive as hell.

The Vic Cafe

p344 The Vic Cafe, originally uploaded by Glasgow School of Art Archives & Library.

More on the Glasgow nostalgia trip... This, from the Glasgow School Of Art Archives & Library collection on Flickr. Thanks to Anne for pointing me in the direction of the collections via this little piece about the old BOAC offices on Buchanan Street over on iLike. I am not sure when this photo of the Vic cafe dates from, but it is not significantly different to how I remember it looking in the early to mid 1980's.

Glasgow 1983: Central Station

Glasgow 1983: Central Station, originally uploaded by Simon_K.

So I managed to find a photo of the ticket office at Glasgow Central as it used to be. From 1983, to be exact, which is when I would have started using the station on a regular basis as I commuted from Troon to the Art school and back. The time is half four in the afternoon, which explains the profusion of green blazered school kids.  If I remember rightly that was the St Aloysius school blazer. They had school buildings up near the Art school so we would see them around a lot. We occasionally used one of their playgrounds to throw an American football around when we needed some excercise.

Also, some of you may remember Duglas Stewart’s article in the Coca Cola Cowboy fanzine about ‘Poocheramas’. I’m sure there was reference to St Aloysius blazers travelling on the train from Central to Johnston in that.

This photo brings back so many memories, it’s kind of scary…

Glasgow Central - former ticket office & departure info windows

Glasgow Central - former ticket office & departure info windows, originally uploaded by unpop.

I was in Glasgow last week for a couple of days. You may have spotted my Twitter posts about the train trip up the coast from Troon to Glasgow Central; a veritable burst of nostalgia about various stations and towns. It all ended up with this photo of the old ticket office and departure info windows which has been shops and a bar for maybe a good twenty years now.

Sunday Supplement pt 1

Okay, so I made some kind of aborted attempt at a ‘Sunday’ series a couple of weeks ago. Here’s a proper attempt to get something regular going… Assuming I post a different track every week, I figure that I have just about enough ‘Sunday’ songs to eke this series out to just over two years. Are you ready for the trip? Am I ready for the commitment? Probably not, but what the heck.

To kick off, and to give the series its title, here’s Stephen Duffy, from his Because We Love You album of 1986. Now I liked Stephen Duffy pretty much from the outset, or at least from when I first heard ‘Kiss Me’ on the radio in 1982.  I remember buying Because We Love You on cassette in a record store in Edinburgh. I think it was when I was in the city for an interview at the Art school. I’m pretty certain I picked up the Colourbox album on cassette at the same time, and passed on the Dr Calculus album. Kinda wished I had picked that one up as well, but hey, you can’t have everything.

So did the Edinburgh art school offer me a place? I really do not remember. Not that I wanted to go there anyway. It was Glasgow or nothing.

I have followed Duffy erratically since those early ‘80s days, and whilst it may be unfashionable to admit it, it is those first two albums that I like the best. For whilst there are many moments from the Lilac Time’s impressive body of work that are admittedly delicious, there was always a hint of earnestness or at least the tint of strived for authenticity that left me a little cool. Oh, and ‘Dreaming’ was wonderful too of course. The Hypnotone remixes even better. Which is a statement designed to frustrate the Lilac Time purists, of course, but no less true despite or because of that.

Stephen Duffy - 'Sunday Supplement'

Soon

I was putting some mixes together last weekend for our trip to Cornwall. Quite a lot of old early ‘90s ‘dance’ material. You know, from that kind of post-Ibiza phase when everyone was doing ‘dance’ remixes. Even My Bloody Valentine. Actually the Weatherall remix of ‘Soon’ remains one of my favourite MBV moments, and that era is maybe my favourite of the whole Creation story. So many great records. Do you remember the Keeping The Faith compilation?  That was such a great collection. Is it really not available on download or CD? What about those Love Corporation records? Or Hypnotone? And what about that Area Code 212 compilation that Creation put out? “The sound of the New York dance underground.” I wonder how many of those tracks are available online? Like Yohan Square’s ‘Love Of Life’ or Grooveline’s ‘You Are The One’. Those were mighty, mighty tracks.

Well, whatever, in case you don’t have it, here’s the MBV remix for your delectation.

My Bloody Valentine: ‘Soon’ (Andy Weatherall mix)

I knew that my school was built on the site of an old POW camp, but did not know that part of the site was also used as a base for US army personnel during WW2. This makes me stupidly excited to wonder if it was the camp Salinger was based in; the one he (okay, the character he created) walked to town from in ‘For Esme, With Love & Squalor’. Isn’t it pretty to think so?

Everybody smiles at you

Did Kevin make some mention of The Electric Light Orchestra in an issue of Your Heart Out? If not, then I am sure he will at some point.

For a long, long time I would not contemplate listening to ELO. Why would you, after all? Too busy studying cool. Or something like that. Pointless and silly, but there you go.

The funny thing is that ELO are one of my earliest Pop memories. Or at least are a part of one that I can just about dredge from my memory: lemonade and cakes in Malcolm’s house in town, his brother bringing in a copy of Out Of The Blue, and spinning it several times in one evening. Us dancing like loons dressed in blue corduroy flares and wing collared shirts, out of our heads on sugar. I guess we’d have been 11. Old enough to know better? You decide.

I downloaded Out Of The Blue again last night, fuelled by that re-emerging memory and from listening again to The Delgado’s version of ‘Mr Blue Sky’ from the BBC Sessions. And as fine as The Delgados were, and as much as I adore Emma Pollock, it’s just not a patch on the original. Seldom has the sensational thrill of summery expectation been as sublimely captured as in those five minutes. And as always when replaying something from a long lost past, it always shocks me just how familiar the songs sound. I did not realise that I knew Out Of The Blue so well. But I did. I do. It’s like suddenly meeting someone you haven’t seen for over thirty years, remembering what a wonderful person they were, and wondering why on earth you lost touch in the first place.

So I’ll just mumble some incoherent apology about different paths and absence making the heart grow fonder and just go enjoy the music.

ELO - 'Mr Blue Sky'