On New Year's Day at The Hangover Lounge, I was talking to John Jervis about Spearmint, what a great band they were and what a great songwriter Shirley Lee is. I fondly remember back in the late 90s, The Pill club in Boston, MA used to play We're Going Out. Such a great anthem, it never fails to lift one's spirits. So in love with that song was I, I ended up paying $37 for the A Week Away cd (with bonus A Trip Into Space ep), the most I think I've ever spent on a new cd. Worth it though. Had never seen the video for it before. Great stuff. Dickon Edwards (Orlando, Fosca) was in the band for a while, here seen playing a delivery man.
And then there's Sweeping The Nation, a beautiful pop song, complete with a sample of Dobie Grey's Out On The Floor, all about those bands that never made it but were no less great for it, and the importance of sticking to what you believe in. Spotify link here. That bit at 1:51 - "I, I've been wasting my life..." - with the descending chords is one of my favourite sections in all of pop music. Lovely. And here it is live at the Strange Fruit Festival 2003, which I'm glad to say I was at and it was excellent.
Friday, 6 January 2012
Thursday, 5 January 2012
The Foundations - Take A Girl Like You...
Although more famous for Build Me Up Buttercup, The Foundations' Take A Girl Like You is another 60s Pop classic. I came across it two years ago as the theme tune for the Jonathan Miller film of the same name, starring Hayley Mills and Oliver Reed, based on the Kingsley Amis novel. I was on a big Kingsley Amis kick back in 2001, collecting and reading almost everything by him (even learning that one might get a deal on ebay if you searched for variations of his name misspelled, Kinglsey etc.). I remember liking this boy-trying-to-get-girl story, not as great as such classics as Lucky Jim or The Old Devils (my personal favourite. I've always said that the mark of a good book is that you really miss the characters after you're done reading it, and I still do, 9 years later) but still worth a read and the film worth a watch.
Title sequence from film, but not the greatest audio quality:
Title sequence from film, but not the greatest audio quality:
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Love & Rockets - Mirror People...
Love & Rockets' Earth Sun Moon is an excellent record. One of those rarities you can enjoy all the way through. It opens with (and on the cd re-issue closes with a slowed-down version of ) Mirror People. Which, quite simply, KICKS ASS.
Album version:
1988 "souped-up" re-recording:
Live at The Town & Country Club, Kentish Town, London, October 1987:
I recently did an interview with David J, which I thought was very interesting. He's been involved in theatre quite a bit lately. You can read it here.
Album version:
1988 "souped-up" re-recording:
Live at The Town & Country Club, Kentish Town, London, October 1987:
I recently did an interview with David J, which I thought was very interesting. He's been involved in theatre quite a bit lately. You can read it here.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Martin Newell - This Little Ziggy...
I finished Martin Newell's This Little Ziggy last night and I must say it is one of the best autobiographies I've ever read. Full of unabashed love of the music he grew up with - the pop of the 60's with great new songs in the charts every week, the harder rock of the early 70's with Stray, The Pink Fairies, etc. - as well as a lovely account of what it's like to be young and in your first real band, The Plod. Also refreshingly free from any bitterness about not having "made it" despite having worked very hard and tried your best. That the important thing was having fun and playing music. His remarks on the music industry all ring true but he doesn't let them get in the way of recounting a great story of growing up, it's trials and tribulations, the downright unfairness of it all sometimes, but also the excitement and, quite often bawdy, fun to be had and knowing that if you stick to what you believe in, you just might enjoy yourself and do something of worth. I really loved this book and recommend it to anyone. As well as the man's music. I've been listening to the early Cleaners From Venus records a lot again (the first three will be reissued by Captured Tracks in March) and I'm still very impressed not only by his prolific output, but the quality of the songs as well, some POP classics here. Two that have been stuck in my head, from the third Cleaners tape, Midnight Cleaners:
Corridor Of Dreams:
Wivenhoe Bells II:
And Martin reading an excerpt from This Little Ziggy:
Buy the book from the Wivenhoe Book Shop who published it and support local and independent book shops!
Corridor Of Dreams:
Wivenhoe Bells II:
And Martin reading an excerpt from This Little Ziggy:
Buy the book from the Wivenhoe Book Shop who published it and support local and independent book shops!
Monday, 2 January 2012
Darren Hayman - I Taught You How To Dance...
My third favourite song of 2011 (after Mikey Georgeson's Moth In The Flame Of Carnality and The Real Tuesday Weld's You're Gonna Live), I Taught You How To Dance is just lovely, a beautiful pop song.
I interviewed Darren Hayman recently and found he had a lot of interesting things to say about music. You can read it here. Here's his comments on this song:
I interviewed Darren Hayman recently and found he had a lot of interesting things to say about music. You can read it here. Here's his comments on this song:
I Taught You How To Dance is one of my favourite songs of the year, anything to say about that one?
DH: Ok, thank you. I like that it’s a bit like a standard. Sometimes when you’re in a situation like…you’re at someone’s wedding, and this doesn’t happen really, but you sometimes feel like if somebody went ‘Oh, Darren’ll do a song, Darren knows a song’ and then you’re seeing like old people and young people and children and I’ve just often felt I’ve got nothing for that situation. Like just a stand-by, just like a love song which doesn’t talk about prostitutes or money or any horrible things. So that was the idea behind it, to write like a cruise ship song, and it sounds like a cruise ship song to me, it sounds like you’d have the mirror ball going around whilst it was playing. There’s nothing particularly special about it. I quite like the title, it started from the title and I quite liked a love song having an arrogant title. I liked the idea of the song coming from a point of arrogance, cause it would be naturally more romantic to say ‘You Taught Me How To Dance’, would be the more emphatic way to structure the song, so I quite like that as a writing challenge.
And I just found this "Unplugged In Monti" version from indieforbunnies.com . "a very special acoustic version of his song "I Taught You How To Dance" in a little courtyard of Via Del Boschetto, in the heart of Rione Monti "
Sunday, 1 January 2012
David Devant & His Spirit Wife...
Happy New Year Everybody! This year I'm going to endeavor to keep up this blog more, as I've been letting it slip lately. And it occurs to me that I've never actually done a post about David Devant & His Spirit Wife! I've always meant to, they're my favourite band, and I think Mikey Georgeson is one of our best, perhaps the best, songwriters. I guess I've always thought it would take forever with all I've got to say about them. Having flown back from the States yesterday in order to see them perform at The 100 Club, for my first New Year's Eve in London, today, despite being jetlagged and exhausted, I'm going to set that right and do the post now, start the New Year properly.
I've written quite a bit about them this year. And about a month ago the idea came to me that I should write a book about Devant and The Elevator Drops. Two bands, one from each side of the Atlantic, that I always felt should've been huge, and always saw similarities between, both being great theatrical pop. If anyone has anything to say about either for the book, please get in touch.
Living in America, I missed out on Devant in the 90's. Some great articles from that time here, here and here. But I didn't hear them until 2006. And was so excitedly blown away when I did! Having caught Mr Solo at The Windmill, I immediately bought his All Will Be Revealed and started to investigate further. Pimlico was the first thing I heard and fell in love with it by the end of the first verse.
With this on repeat, it was actually a few weeks before I got to anything else. And then it was Radar. That riff is just Awesome, insistent. And, as with Pimlico, the lyrics were extraordinary, evoking wonderful playful universes, really something very special. And the songs were so catchy!
The songs to me, like all the best songs, seemed instantly familiar but would slip through one's memory when you tried to place them, for they are in fact all their own. Last night at the gig, I was thrilled that they played the old B-side One Hand, which I'd never heard live before. Such a great song, it reminds me of the 60's 45s that my mom used to play when I was growing up, but for the life of me it doesn't exactly sound like any of them.
And the A-side of that single is Cookie. What an excellent tune.
There's so many songs I could name. The first two records, Work Lovelife Miscellaneous and Shiney On The Inside, I consider perfect albums (every song being great) and two of the best albums of all-time. The first time I ever got to see them live was the best show I've ever seen. And every one since then has been Amazingly Great. Sticking to the tunes they played last night (for now), next up is the classic Ginger:
And then Miscellaneous, the ending to the live version never failing to make one feel good, that everything, as they say, "will be alright". In 2009, I saw Devant play at a church in Brighton. The setting being perfect with the lush red carpet. During the chant of "Work Lovelife Miscellaneous" as the final song, Vessel led us all down the centre aisle and out of the building, across the road and into the pub. Where they proceeded to play four more songs acoustic with Vessel standing on the bar. It was AWESOME. They even did Life On A Crescent, one of my absolute favourite songs of all-time.
Miscellaneous live at The 100 Club, 2010:
Live at The Buffalo Bar, 2009:
This last performance is from the cult classic sitcom Asylum, starring Simon Pegg, Julian Barrett, and Jessica Stevenson, co-written by Edgar Wright and David Walliams, and which featured Devant as the "house band". Ginger was the show's title music.
And then there's I'm Not Even Going To Try, perhaps the most FUN song ever recorded. A song that brings Joy to an audience only too happy to chant "AUNTIE MABEL" and answer the brilliant lyrics with "HE'S NOT EVEN GOING TO TRY".
Ah, I'm very jetlagged and need to get to bed but hopefully this will provide a good introduction to a truly fantastic band. More to come...
I've written quite a bit about them this year. And about a month ago the idea came to me that I should write a book about Devant and The Elevator Drops. Two bands, one from each side of the Atlantic, that I always felt should've been huge, and always saw similarities between, both being great theatrical pop. If anyone has anything to say about either for the book, please get in touch.
Living in America, I missed out on Devant in the 90's. Some great articles from that time here, here and here. But I didn't hear them until 2006. And was so excitedly blown away when I did! Having caught Mr Solo at The Windmill, I immediately bought his All Will Be Revealed and started to investigate further. Pimlico was the first thing I heard and fell in love with it by the end of the first verse.
With this on repeat, it was actually a few weeks before I got to anything else. And then it was Radar. That riff is just Awesome, insistent. And, as with Pimlico, the lyrics were extraordinary, evoking wonderful playful universes, really something very special. And the songs were so catchy!
The songs to me, like all the best songs, seemed instantly familiar but would slip through one's memory when you tried to place them, for they are in fact all their own. Last night at the gig, I was thrilled that they played the old B-side One Hand, which I'd never heard live before. Such a great song, it reminds me of the 60's 45s that my mom used to play when I was growing up, but for the life of me it doesn't exactly sound like any of them.
And the A-side of that single is Cookie. What an excellent tune.
There's so many songs I could name. The first two records, Work Lovelife Miscellaneous and Shiney On The Inside, I consider perfect albums (every song being great) and two of the best albums of all-time. The first time I ever got to see them live was the best show I've ever seen. And every one since then has been Amazingly Great. Sticking to the tunes they played last night (for now), next up is the classic Ginger:
And then Miscellaneous, the ending to the live version never failing to make one feel good, that everything, as they say, "will be alright". In 2009, I saw Devant play at a church in Brighton. The setting being perfect with the lush red carpet. During the chant of "Work Lovelife Miscellaneous" as the final song, Vessel led us all down the centre aisle and out of the building, across the road and into the pub. Where they proceeded to play four more songs acoustic with Vessel standing on the bar. It was AWESOME. They even did Life On A Crescent, one of my absolute favourite songs of all-time.
Miscellaneous live at The 100 Club, 2010:
Live at The Buffalo Bar, 2009:
This last performance is from the cult classic sitcom Asylum, starring Simon Pegg, Julian Barrett, and Jessica Stevenson, co-written by Edgar Wright and David Walliams, and which featured Devant as the "house band". Ginger was the show's title music.
And then there's I'm Not Even Going To Try, perhaps the most FUN song ever recorded. A song that brings Joy to an audience only too happy to chant "AUNTIE MABEL" and answer the brilliant lyrics with "HE'S NOT EVEN GOING TO TRY".
Ah, I'm very jetlagged and need to get to bed but hopefully this will provide a good introduction to a truly fantastic band. More to come...
Friday, 16 December 2011
Madness - Disappear
I've had Madness' It Must Be Love stuck in my head for weeks now.
Hadn't realized it's a Labi Siffre cover:
I have such fond memories of Our House being out as a single in the early days of MTV. Part of what made POP music so attractive to my 6-year-old self, that sense of fun and melody. Always loved the single cover too, with their painted faces in the billiards rack.
I've been listening to Absolutely a lot lately. Disappear is such a wonderful song. That lovely descending chord sequence, and the melodies too, their delivery creating that special sense of ineffable meaning found in truly great songs.
Live in Hamburg 1981:
Hadn't realized it's a Labi Siffre cover:
I have such fond memories of Our House being out as a single in the early days of MTV. Part of what made POP music so attractive to my 6-year-old self, that sense of fun and melody. Always loved the single cover too, with their painted faces in the billiards rack.
I've been listening to Absolutely a lot lately. Disappear is such a wonderful song. That lovely descending chord sequence, and the melodies too, their delivery creating that special sense of ineffable meaning found in truly great songs.
Live in Hamburg 1981:
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