Big Name – Small Return

The Observer Music Monthly magazine is to close to save the paper itself which is losing fistfuls of cash.  It was a reliably good read and the Vinyl Doctor feature wherein a celebrity gave an account of their music tastes and was pushed towards new stuff by the GP, fascinating.  World Domination Enterprises turned up as a recommendation and I was reminded of the short-lived cult band with the manifesto that they put to the testo.   Its hard to imagine that any label was persuaded to release their premature goodbye to the world, a crudely packaged half-live/half-studio set of savagely uncommercial industrial noise-mongering.  It was perhaps a cry of despair from a period when guitar groups simply could not prise A&R men’s cheque books open.  Around the same time the Stone Roses debut appeared and set British rock on a different path of course.  The man leaving the surgery with the prescription was Ben Elton, even strangerer!

Cut ‘n’ Shut

An interesting factoid I picked up recently was that the Primitives, or the Jesus and Blondie Chain as I prefer to call them were a teensy bit on the manufactured side.  Their adrenalised punk pop hit from ‘88 “Crash” is a real tight blast, more hooks than a rose bush.  BUT…an insider reckons that it was re-written, arranged and mostly played by the producer, not the band.  The original demo certainly couldn’t be any less committed, have a listen.  I was always mystified that Tracy Tracy Tracy Tracy didn’t get a second wind when it was re-released in ‘95 and weak girl singers fronting boring thrashy indie bands were la dernier mot in fashionability.  Instead, the still wincingly attractive Tracy Tracy Tracy Tracy Tracy Tracy was reduced to being insulted in strict numerical order on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Shame.

Pigs Might Fly

The Police’s recent world tour visited my neck of the woods last year but I didn’t get a ticket in the local resident’s ballot so passed up the opportunity.  Sting was always vastly preferable as part of a trio than solo and apart from over-extending their old songs for purposes of displaying their ‘chops’ they were pretty sprightly.  Despite outselling most of their contemporaries at the time the rozzers have very little credibilty with UK fans, perhaps because Sting is fundamentally a bit smug and arrogant.  Their souvenir box set went nowhere, but then the Clash’s one wasn’t even released in this country.  Time passes though and they had no trouble packing out stadiums like it was 1983 when they did bury the hatchet and reform.  I feel a download coming on…the band made a stab at a sixth album in 1986 but Sting (him again) refused to offer new songs and they re-recorded “Don’t Stand” and “De Do Do Do”  before taking out contracts on each other.  The latter was only released officially once and is still a bit on the rare side.

Put some Dobly on it

The never-ending eighties brings us up to D for Dolby, Thomas.  Mr D has had a strange career orbiting normality.  He applied to join XTC and was turned down (too freaky).  He went solo with “Golden Age Of Wireless” which is actually a very idiosyncratic but brilliant album of electro weirdness.  He almost became a pop star with “She Blinded Me With Science” and “Hyperactive” then blew it by doing a crap third album and the OST for the kid’s movie “Howard The Duck”, a massive turkey in disguise.  That first album went through loads of variations for various tedious music biz reasons and has now been reissued with everything but the moog chucked on.  You should buy it as it is the “best damned synth-pop record ever, period.”  Or at least a worthy English riposte to Kraftwerk.  As an incentive here is the very rockist version of “Radio Silence” that was swapped out before many got to hear it.

Please Pixilate Me

Yes folks, 9/9/9 is here, the arrival of the Beatles remasters and the Rock Band game.  I’ve mellowed since I last posted a rant about Guitar Hero, and the Fabs game looks enormous fun.  But, what’s this, game £50, drum and bass controllers £180, John’s Rickie £90, George’s Gretsch another £90, and you don’t have a console only a PC?  Oh dear.  Call me a cynic but I suspect in a year’s time there will be a lot of Beatles shaped plastic lying around on eBay.  So on to the remasters.  They have been done in stereo and mono but the mono is only available as a costly box set.  The packaging is nice I suppose, but each CD is what, twelve quid separately?  I think you know what’s coming, namely torrents of high quality digitised Beatles audio.  Face it lads, this is 2009, only Roman Abramovitch can afford everything that you’re putting out today. The whole mono/stereo debate may seem of only interest to Beatle nuts but believe me there are some stark choices to be made.  Here is your handy cut out and keep guide to 10 Beatles songs you must hear in mono.

Ticket To Ride: When John claimed this as the first heavy metal record, we dug out our weedy stereo Help! album and laughed at his presumptiousness.  But listen to the staggeringly powerful mono mix with thunderous drums and keening harmonies and nod with agreement.

You’re Going To Lose That Girl: Bongo’s Ringos are buried so the comedy factor is reduced but the guitars and vocals really sock home.

Day Tripper: The group’s rockers lose their impact when smeared across the speakers in stereo.  Here the crappy edits and drop outs George Martin let through are hidden by the juggernaught riff blaring out dead centre.

The Word: The Rubber Soul stereo mix is a shocker, all separation and no balls.  This scouse funk track is made for hard, compact mono.

Paperback Writer: The worst stereo mix of any Beatles song, drums like pinpricks and guitars like doorbells.  Hear this song as it was intended in mono with fat bass and great scuzzy riffola.

Eleanor Rigby: The stereo starts OK then drops the double tracking (clumsily) and its downhill from there.  In mono, an immaculate wintry blast.

She Said, She Said: It’s the drums again, pounding away on the original mono.  And as everyone is hammering the same acid fried riff the last thing you need is wide sound staging.

Getting Better: Mono suppresses some of the stinging treble that makes it hard to listen to otherwise.

Helter Skelter: a completely different edit, shorter and to the point.  The tape echo is less messy and all in all it sounds heavier, more like Paul’s answer to the Who.

Don’t Pass Me By: Much faster in mono, so over and out with less fiddly bollocks at the end.  The boys must have intended this to be a talking point as its like a different song.

Repeat please!

P/O Caine listens to the bomb doors joke he heard on holiday in Italy

And don’t they ever,  since Battle Of Britain crashed and burned at the box office in 1970 – no American faces see – its been round on telly more often than a low level Luftwaffe bombing unit.  It was a remakable achievement for its time as pre-CGI the producers had no alternative to assembling as many airworthy vintage planes as they could and filming them dogfighting and blowing up.  Just about the entire British acting population was featured and despite the crap script it does give a great account of the action.  Surviving flyboys are praying that the mooted biopic of Billy Fiske (moderately talented US pilot killed fighting with the RAF) starring Tom Cruise winning the Battle unaided, never gets off the runway.  If it does a new generation will no doubt be marvelling how a scientologist defeated Hitler under the leadership of a nodding bulldog with a northern accent ohhhh yes!  The original soundtrack by William Walton was replaced by a new score at the last minute.  The only exception was the thrilling sequence “Battle In The Air”.

Crushed Metal

And another 80’s oddity; Age Of Chance’s 1986 cover of “Kiss” sounds like a disco at the local scrapyard.  Here’s the 8 minute remix by DJ Chakk (wonder if he gets many bookings these days?) O level metalwork set to music, but it was one of the first reworkings of a song that has become ubiquitous (iniquitous if you’re Tom Jones).

Ashes Schmashes

When I learnt that Divine Comedy mainman Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh of Pugwash had sprouted ludicrous facial hair and decided to become the Merv Hughes and W G Grace of pop, delivering this concept album about our national summer game, I was filled with trepidation.  But actually it bloody works doesn’t it?  Trust two Irish lads to try something so wigged out.  OK a few moments veer to silly mid-off and sub-Kinks whimsy but there is nothing quite as embarrassing as Ray Davies’ own seventies music hall abomination “Cricket”.  The enterprise succeeds because it alludes to the modern game as well as ye olde village greene version and the pair are having a good time and don’t care what anyone thinks of their efforts.  Anyone who was sat on a Kennington rooftop in August 2005 will love it, hell even I like it and I am not a fan, having suffered from being pelted with red balls by psycho classmates in the nets at school.  A low-res version of the single is all you get today, move along now and buy the album.

The curse of…

The Thrashing Doves.  These guys were the recipients of Maggie Thatcher’s seal of approval on a Satuday morning kids show, a present they didn’t open with much alacrity.  Their first single called “Matchstick Flotilla” was about the Falklands War but wasn’t very good.  That’s the one I bought catapulting it to #96 in the UK.  The PM’s tune was better, the Roxy-ish “Beautiful Imbalance”.  I didn’t buy that and the the band stopped thrashing and became everyone’s favourite singing northern brickies the Doves or so Wikipedia claims.  I don’t care I just write the blog, just a cog in the machine, speak to Reg in Lengths etc etc…but first procure the two songs here.

Button Down Man Love

I’ve been spending the last few weeks hunting down lost records from my youth; a true summer job as I came of age in the 80s the worst decade ever for music so it won’t take long.  Here’s a really catchy number and quite rare waxing from 85 or 86 by a couple of airbrushed boys called Two People.  I believe it’s a gay love song delivered with real feeling and by avoiding those plasticky SAW-isms, it sounds like a bona fide pop song.  The said chemise is a real technicolor horror but it was the bloody eighties, did I say how much I was bummed out by those years?  This Is The Shirt. If I find the tie I’ll let you know.