BEAT CITY 61 “feat. David Cameron” – SLEEVE NOTES
11
Jan

MEILYR JONES “How To Recognise A Work Of Art” (from the forthcoming album “2013”)

Meilyr Jones is a pretty unique talent. He formed Radio Luxembourg while still at school, that band morphing into the Race Horses. Collaborations include Gruff Rhys, Stealing Sheep and Euros Childs.

But frankly all of that, fine though it is, pales into insignificance next to his solo work. “How To Recognise A Work Of Art” hits you firmly in the sonic solar plexus with its Motown beat set behind those oddly ethereal vocals.

Check out his recent session for Marc Riley on BBC 6 Music before it disappears from the site – as well as a great version of “Work Of Art” it also includes “Strange Emotional” and “Featured Artist”, both from the new album, confusingly titled “2013” since that’s when the songs were written.

HINDS “Warts” (from the album “Leave Me Alone”)

I’m scratching my head to think of too many Spanish bands that have made any sort of a splash in the English-speaking indie world.

Hinds hail from Madrid. They’ve gained attention over the last couple of years for their carefree, jangly guitar sound and their infectiously upbeat live shows.

Their debut album “Leave Me Alone”, however, shows a more multifaceted music – there’s a more downbeat approach to songs like “Warts” and the last single “Garden” which to my mind is a smart move – you don’t want to be TOO cheerful to sell records to indie / emo kids.

From the accompanying press release :

“These songs try to represent the 12 faces of love we’ve experienced.“

“It’s funny ’cause we thought this album would be all party and cheerfulness, but – SURPRISE – it’s not!!!!! haha. Feelings are more balanced, like in life. So suddenly we had a more sober – or even sad – album than we expected. Please don’t think we’ve turned into depressive people or something, we’ve always been humans, it’s just we’re now showing it to you.”

Fair enough, I’d say.

NOVELIST “Street Politician”

Kojo Kankam, aka Novelist, co-founded The Square grime crew (whose members have appeared on the Beat City podcast before) but left in late 2015 to push on with his solo career.
Artistically this looks like a very smart move indeed. December saw the release of the “David Cameron riddim” (lost in the pre-Xmas rush, a theme throughout these sleeve notes incidentally!)

and now Novelist has dropped the absolute killer track “Street Politician”, which actually samples our dear leader Mr Cam.

The best thing I’ve heard all year by some distance – why aren’t more people making records like this? It deserve to be a massive hit but I can’t see it getting too much airplay despite not having any bad words on it.

(see the final entry in the show for a further example of protest in current music, also featuring David Cameron)

SUMMER TWINS “Ouija” (from the album “Limbo”)

Summer Twins are sisters Chelsea (guitar, vocals) and Justine Brown (drums, vocals). They write dreamy rock ‘n roll songs with a touch of California sun. Born and raised in Riverside, Ca, they formed Summer Twins in 2008, with a focus on singing pop harmonies atop garage rock inspired by the ’50s and ’60s. Summer Twins play live with Michael Rey Villavicencio on bass and Andy Moran on guitar.

Their debut album “Limbo” came out in October 2015 – here’s another track from it.

LIZZO “My Skin” (from the album ….. “Big GRRRL Small World”)

Lizzo has this to say about this track :

“This is a summoning of bodies: all shapes, sizes and shades to unite in their pride, and wear their skin like the gift it is”

Check out Check out the rest of Lizzo’s thoughts on the track “My Skin” – they’re well worth a read.

VILLAGERS – “Memoirs” (from the album “Where Have You Been All My Life?”)

The new Villagers album is a collection of new recordings of songs from the last few albums. Always a potentially dodgy exercise but they really come through, not least on this superb, moody reading of a ‘Memoir’, which Conor O’Brien wrote for Charlotte Gainsbourg; it can be found on her 2011 album Stage Whisper, but has never before been recorded by Villagers until now. Here’s the Gainsbourg version.

Looking forward to seeing them perform the new arrangements on their forthcoming tour of Europe. See you dahn the front!

COUSIN STIZZ “Dirty Bands” (from the album “Suffolk County”)

Brilliant 13-track mixtape from Boston’s Cousin Stizz, making serious waves further afield. Not a dodgy track on it – check out this one for size.

BEATY HEART “FLORA” (from the forthcoming album)

Here in Beat City we took Peckham popsters Beaty Heart’s debut album “Mixed Blessings” right to the core of our (beaty) hearts.

It contained some wonderful summery beats into an indie wrapper with some really messed-up lyrics sung with a jaunty bounce that made it easy to forget the often very dark subject matter.

The lead track for the second album has just been given the accolade of Huw Stephens’ single of the week on Radio One, which is excellent news 8=)

The album is produced by David Wrench, who has worked with Caribou, Jungle and FKA Twigs. Presumably the band are aiming for a wider audience, which is no bad thing, just as long as they don’t lose their quirkiness along the way – basically David, make it less Jungle and more FKA Twigs / Caribou, would you? Just play “Lekka Freakout” loud if you feel its all getting a bit too commercial. Ta.

MECHANIMAL “Radio On”

Mechanimal is an industrial audio-visual unit hailing from Athens, Greece, led by Giannis Papaioannou as main producer, songwriter and keyboardist, solely responsible for the direction of the band.

Mechanimal’s musical language can be interpreted through a wide range of genres, featuring male and female vocals on mechanical repetitive beats, shoegazing guitar drones and pulsating sequencers.

Their first album, simply titled “Mechanimal”, was released in 2012 by Inner Ear featuting Freddie Faulkenberry on vocals and Tassos Nikogiannis on guitars. On stage, Mechanimal employed video visual elements created by Angelica Vrettou.

Their second album, titled “Secret Science”, was released in 2014 by Inner Ear featuring the same vocalist and Kostas Matiatos on guitars.

For the recordings of their third album Giannis Papaioannou assembled a new line-up featuring both past guitarists, but female vocals by Eleni Tzavara. This third album, symbolically entitled by the acronym “Delta Pi Delta” will include 10 tracks and will be released by Inner Ear at the beginning of 2016.

The touring band for the new album features a revolving line-up (with Eleni Tzavara on vocals, Tassos Nikogiannis on guitars, Giannis Papaioannou on keyboards, Antonis Charalambidis on drums), that often rearranges songs to fit in this new live setting which is always accompanied by the video fragments projected on stage by Angelica Vrettou.

This is also from “Delta Pi Delta”:

SEA PINKS Ordinary Daze (from the album “Soft Days”)

Sea Pinks have been around for a while, starting out as the one-man project of singer/guitarist Neil Brogan, who made three bedroom albums on which he played everything himself before expanding the line-up for 2014’s “Dreaming Tracks” to the classic indie band lineup of guitar,bass,drums and – erm – cello (anyone remember the Grammatics? No? Just me, then)

“Soft Days” sees them stripped down to a three-piece and I think Brogan has achieved his aim for “a tighter, more cohesive record”.

Definitely their best record yet.

You can buy the album on Bandcamp – the band gets more money that way – heck, you can get the VINYL for thirteen quid.

This is the opening track from the album if you need further convincing:

BEAR GHOST “Funkle Phil”

From Phoenix Arizona, Bear Ghost beg the question on this single “How much Queen is too much Queen?”

Bear Ghost know the answer, as the Darkness did before them, is to go for it “full Freddy”.

If that was all there was to this band, though, they’d quickly become tired (as the Darkness did) but that is certainly not the case. Check out Necromancin’ Dancin’, available from bandcamp on a pay what you like, its superb.

Listen to “Necromancin’ Dancin’ here

ENNIO MORRICONE “Overture” (from “The Hateful Eight” soundtrack)

We’re not huge fans of Tarantino movies post-Jackie Brown here in Beat City, but each to their own.

On the matter of music, however, you can generally trust Quentin, and he’s surpassed himself by persuading legendary film music composer Ennio Morricone to write the score for “The Hateful Eight” (in fact as I write this I’ve just seen that he’s won the Golden Globe for best score. He has to be a good bet for the Oscar next month, surely? .
Unbelievably he wasn’t even nominated until 1979 and has only ever received an honorary one, in 2007, which I’ve always thought was a bit of a “whoops, sorry, we missed you out all those times, you’re going to die soon, have an award”.

It would be a fitting and well-deserved end to a great career if he were to win now.

This is one of Morricone’s best known themes:

LIZZO “Betcha” (from the album “Big GRRRL Small World”)

A more typical track from Lizzo’s excellent album which sneaked out at the end of 2015.

STEVE MASON “Planet Sizes” (from the forthcoming album “Meet The Humans”)

Inspired by his relocation from the London city to the Brighton sea, Planet Sizes is taken from his new album, Meet The Humans, which is out on Double Six on 26 February. While its uncluttered leading track gradually unfurls into a celestial acoustic melody, the rest of the album sees the songwriter experiment with dance, pop, folk, dub and deep house influences. Following his “double political concept album” Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time and his debut solo album, Boys Outside, a collection of songs that wrestle with the end of a relationship and his subsequent breakdown, this third album was recorded with Elbow keyboardist and producer Craig Potter, and is a move towards a more simple ethic. It is “an album where each song is a separate entity, where there is no great narrative running through it,” he says.

There’s an excellent animated video accompanying the track, directed by Anna Ginsburg

SQUEEZE “Cradle To The Grave” (live on the Andrew Marr show)

Protest music’s seemingly gone out of fashion, a subject I keep meaning to write about at greater length.

There don’t seem to be too many younger rock bands making any sort of stand, which seems strange at a time when you may reasonably expect a bit more dissent.

On Sunday, seventies popsters Squeeze closed the Andrew Marr political show on BBC1 with their catchy theme to Danny Baker’s sitcom “Cradle To Grave” .

Prime Minister David Cameron was a guest on the show and singer Glen Tilbrook changed the words of the last verse into a pointed attack on his government, with him sitting three feet away on live television.

It may not bring any governments down, but its a start.

“I grew up in council housing
Part of what made Britain great
There are some here who are hell-bent
On the destruction of the Welfare State”

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this piece and listening to the podcast.

Beat City #63 will be available to download on Sunday 17th January 2015, with the sleeve notes following the next day.

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Thank you. Come again.

Beat ’66 Show #1 – The Blurb
8
Jan

A new show will go up every Thursday throughout 2016, with the sleeve notes following by the Saturday.

13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS “You’re Gonna Miss Me”

“The saga of the 13th Floor Elevators was an Old Testament tale and Roky Erickson was its Job,” – Julian Cope.

Roky Erickson was a misfit kid who loved rock and roll. In 1965, he dropped out of high school a month before graduating to become a musician. Later that year he and his first band, the Spades, made their first single, the crude and hypnotic “We Sell Soul.” Written by Erickson using the pseudonym Emil Schwartze, it has the bare-boned elements of what would become the sound of his next step.

Shortly after the Spades dissolved, Erickson formed the 13th Floor Elevators with other like-minded souls. The band signed to the Texas-based International Artists label and released their classic debut single, “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” in early 1966.

Their mind-blowing debut album, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, would follow that summer.

“You’re Gonna Miss Me,” was a minor hit, making it all the way up to No. 55 in the summer of that year, staying on the charts for nearly two months.

TEMPTATIONS “Get Ready”

The original Temptations version of “Get Ready”, produced by Smokey Robinson, was designed as an answer to the latest dance craze, “The Duck”. The Temptations’ falsetto Eddie Kendricks sings lead on the song, which Robinson produced as an up-tempo dance number with a prominent rhythm provided by Motown drummer Benny Benjamin. In the song, Kendricks informs his lover to “get ready” because “I’m bringin’ you a love that’s true”. Melvin Franklin sings lead on the pre-chorus: “fe, fi, fo, fum/look out/’cause here I come” along with several other similar lines. The song made it to number one on the U.S. R&B singles chart, while peaking at number twenty-nine on the pop charts.[1]

The group’s previous singles since “My Girl” had all landed in the U.S. Pop charts (and R&B charts) Top 20. However “Get Ready” only just scraped into the Top 30.

The song did eventually become a Top 10 pop hit, but not by the Temptations, but by the Motown rock band Rare Earth.

In 1970, Motown’s rock band Rare Earth released a massively successful cover version of the song as a single.

21-minute version of the track appears on Rare Earth’s first album but it’s not for the faint-hearted.

THE UGLY’S “The Quiet Explosion”

Far superior B-side of “A Good Idea” :

The choice of name for Birmingham’s “The Ugly’s” was deliberate and not a reference to the physical appearance of band members as their van became covered in messages lovingly scrawled in lipstick from their many female fans. When interviewed for the Midland Beat newspaper, the group said; “It brings us embarrassing moments but we are achieving our object by using the name. You see, interest is aroused as soon as we are advertised to appear anywhere. People come along to see if we really are ugly!”

The Ugly’s third single for PYE featured Steve Gibbons playing a ‘kazoo’ on the A-side titled ‘A Good Idea’ which in retrospect may not have been a good idea as the single’s B-side is really the stand-out track. ‘The Quiet Explosion’ is a lost psychedelic classic complete with freaky organ and echoey bass.

This was certainly ahead of its time when considering The Beatles had only just started experimenting with strange sounds on their ‘Revolver’ album.

Despite a promotional TV appearance on ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars’, this Uglys single sank without trace and three decades passed before its flip side gained rightful recognition on a CD release.

DAVID BOWIE & THE LOWER THIRD “Can’t Help Thinking About Me”

If “Can’t Help Thinking About Me” was David Bowie trying to sound more like the Kinks than the Kinks did, and succeeding , then the B-side “And I Say To Myself” found the young pop chameleon trying on the teenage hearthrob crooner’s sweater for size – “Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Peter Noone”

THE BOBBY FULLER FOUR “I Fought The Law”

It is a misconception not universally acknowledged that when an artist is known for one hit and no others, that one hit was the absolute peak of their songwriting and musical creativity. They concentrated everything into those two and a half to three minutes and made no other records worth hearing.

Of course in some cases this is actually true – but not in the case of the Bobby Fuller Four.

Bobby Fuller is remembered as something of a Fifties throwback who recreated old-fashioned Buddy Holly-sounding records with precision and perfection, culminating in his most famous song “I Fought The Law”

He did so much more than the admittedly classic “I Fought The Law” though, including “My True Love”, “Only When I Dream”, “Never To Be Forgotten” and “Fool Of Love” (below).

THE GUYS FROM UNCLE “The Spy”

A cracking Northern Soul track about which very little is known. Check out the intro, a full six years before Isaac Hayes’ the Theme From Shaft

There was a vocal version credited to “The Girls From Uncle” called Agent Of Love, equally great, equally obscure.

THEM “Could You Would You” (from the album “Them Again”)

The band’s second and, for all intents and purposes, last full album was recorded while Them were in the process of breaking up.

Apart from Van Morrison’s vocals and Alan Henderson on Bass, it is not clear who actually played on the album although Jimmy Page probably played guitar on a few tracks at least.

The songs here are a little less focused than the first LP, they don’t really fit together as an album, encompassing too many different styles, but there’s still some excellent songs here

The material was cut under siege conditions, with a constantly shifting lineup and a grueling tour schedule; essentially, there was no “group” to provide focus to the sound, only Morrison’s voice, so the material bounces from a surprisingly restrained “I Put a Spell on You”

to the garage-punk of “I Can Only Give You Everything.”, both of which you’ll hear in forthcoming shows but this week we’ve picked the opening track Could You Would You.

You’ll hear a track every week on Retro Beat Sixty-Six throughout January from Them Again, one of our two albums of the month for January 1966.

THE MANHATTANS “Follow Your Heart”

Best known for their soft 70s soul hit Kiss And Say Goodbye …

… the five members of The Manhattans hailed from New Jersey which seems to be the origin of the name – “You could see the Manhattan skyline right across the water from Jersey City. It was an easy name to remember, and we just thought it sounded classy”. Either that or they were named after the Manhattan cocktail – the surviving band members are a little hazy in recollecting which version of the story is correct.

TAGES “Bloodhound”

Tages were a Swedish band formed in the early sixties near Gothenburg.

The band released a number of singles and LPs in their native Sweden to considerable success, making the Swedish Top Ten more than a dozen times.

Later in the year Tages released “Extra Extra”, regarded as one of the world’s first psychedelic albums.

Though remembered as one of the finest non-English speaking bands of the 1960s, they failed to ever really break into the US or UK markets.

Accepting that they would never break the Anglophone markets their later records mix in traditional Swedish folk music influences culminating in their fifth and last album, “Studio” (recorded, oddly at Abbey Road in London)

Here’s another track from 1966 with some dodgy miming (hey, you think it’s hard to mime, try it in a language other than your native tongue)

BOB DYLAN “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window”

Recorded during the sessions for Dylan’s 1965 album “Highway 61 Revisited”, “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window” was released as a non-album single in late 1965 and performed creditably onm both sides of the pond. Dylan is backed for this song by he Hawks – Robbie Robertson on guiter, Rick Danko on bass, Richard Manuel on piano, Garth Hudson on organ and Levon Helm on drums

PAUL REVERE & THE RAIDERS “Just Like Me”

One of the most popular and entertaining rock groups of the 1960s, Paul Revere & the Raiders enjoyed seven years of serious chart action, and during their three biggest years (1966-1969), sold records in numbers behind only the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

They were very much aware of and played up the theatrical side of rock and roll and were unfairly dismissed by critics of the time as being “a bit too showbiz” but their string of hits – “Steppin’ Out,” “Just Like Me,” “Hungry,” “Him or Me — What’s It Gonna Be,” and “Kicks” in particular — are actually decent unpretentious pieces of ’60s punky rock & roll.

“Just Like Me” was their biggest hit to date and led to the rush-release of the album “Just Like Us”, which you’ll hear tracks from later in January on Retro Beat Sixty-Six.

SLIM HARPO “Baby Scratch My Back”

“Baby Scratch My Back” was Slim Harpo’s only #1 on the soul singles chart where it stayed for two weeks. “Baby Scratch My Back” also crossed over to the Top
40 and was Harpo’s most commercially successful single.

Never a full-time musician, Harpo had his own trucking business during the 1960s.

He needed to tour constantly and play as much as possible; times were frequently lean financially and you have to put food on the table, when it comes right down to it.

But, by 1964, several of his tracks had been released on albums and singles in the UK,[8] and British rock bands like the Rolling Stones, the Pretty Things, the Yardbirds, the Kinks, Pink Floyd and Them began to feature versions of his songs in their early repertoires. The Moody Blues reportedly took their name from an instrumental track of Slim’s called “Moody Blues”

Slim Harpo was no purist – his material proved to be quite adaptable for white artists on both sides of the Atlantic (see the Rolling Stones and others’ versions of “I’m A King Bee”.

A crowd-pleasing club entertainer, he certainly wasn’t above working rock & roll rhythms and country and western vocals into his music.

He had his biggest commercial success in 1966, when the predominantly instrumental “Baby Scratch My Back” reached no.1 on the R&B chart and no.16 on the US pop chart. Harpo described it as “an attempt at rock & roll for me.”

Here’s the B-side “I’m Gonna Miss You Like The Devil”

THE SPENCER DAVIS GROUP “Let Me Down Easy” (from “The Second Album”)

One of the most exciting and influential groups to come out of Birmingham in the early 1960s, the Spencer Davis Group is recognized for their classic and ground-breaking recordings as well as for launching Steve Winwood’s music career.

The Spencer Davis Group comprised Spencer Davis on organ, Steve Winwood on guitar and vocals, his brother Muff Winwood on bass and Pete York on drums.

It was Muff Winwood who came up with the name ‘Spencer Davis Group’ on the pretext that the articulate Davis could do the interviews while the others stayed in bed – maybe not the best idea since the band became associated with Spencer’s name whereas their major unique selling point, sonologically speaking, was Stevie Winwood’s incredible strong, rangy voice.

Up to mid-1965 this time, the songs performed and recorded by the Spencer Davis Group were covers of existing blues and R&B standards but Chris Blackwell brought in Jamaican singer/songwriter Jackie Edwards to compose the next three singles for the group. The first was ‘Keep On Running’ which was transformed by the group into a rocking R&B number with the addition of a driving bass riff and a unique (for that time) electric fuzz guitar effect. The result it had on the record charts was spectacular with the song knocking The Beatles from the top spot and going to Number

One before the end of 1965. The Spencer Davis Group’s first LP was rushed to the shops and the band members now had to endure the side-effect of being pursued by screaming girls!

SHAWN ELLIOTT “Shame & Scandal In The Family”

Originally written in 1962 by Trinidadian calypsonian Lord Melody, “Shame And Scandal In The Family” was a hit in Europe for Puerto Rican singer Shawn Elliott Santiago. Oddly, the British satirist Lance Percival had the hit in the USA. Lord Melody never had a hit with it outside the Caribbean.

CHAD & JEREMY “Teenage Failure”

Banned from appearing on Thank Your Lucky Stars and Top Of The Pops because of the line “I’m Gonna Smash Your Face In”.

By mid-1966 Chad and Jeremy had cleaned up their act to the point where they could appear as themselves in an episode of the TV show “Batman”. The story involves Catwoman stealing their voices 8=)

Note Batman’s reference to “5000 screaming teenagers” – can’t be more than 50, surely Batman? Holy exaggeration!

THE McCOYS “Fever”

The McCoys, basically revamping their big hit “Hang On Sloopy” using the words and (vaguely) the tune of Peggy Lee’s smoking classic torch song “Fever”. Here’s the original:

BILLY STEWART “Mountain Of Love”

Co-written by Shena deMell and the legendary Sugar Pie deSanto that was Mountain Of Love by Billy Stewart, the B-side to the more commercial-sounding “Because I Love You”

THE MAMAS AND THE PAPAS “California Dreamin'”

Written by John Phillips on a frigid winter night in Manhattan when his young wife, Michelle, was homesick for Southern California, “California Dreamin’ ” is one of the all-time sunniest songs of longing.

It was first done by Phillips’ folk group the New Journeymen and later given to Barry McGuire as a thank-you after McGuire, riding high with “Eve of Destruction,” introduced the group to producer Lou Adler, who convinced the Mamas and the Papas to cut it themselves.

Due to its popularity, the song has appeared on numerous film soundtracks and as plot elements in other movies and television shows.

Notably, the song is used repeatedly in the 1994 Wong Kar-wai film Chungking Express, in which a character played by singer Faye Wong obsessively listens to it.

FULL LIST OF ALL 55 ALBUMS IN BEAT CITY’s TOP 50 ALBUMS OF 2015
5
Jan

I know its late, and most folks have gone back to work but here is the – an hour of SOME of our favourite tracks of the year.

However there is no way we could possibly do justice to all the great new music that came out in 2015 in one podcast – and we didn’t really fancy doing four or five hours’ worth of shows – so here is an alphabetical list of all 55 of the albums in our Top Fifty Of 2015.

If there’s any we’ve missed then please let us know and we’ll add to the list accordingly – the idea is to get something a bit closer to that impossible and dubious goal of “a comprehensive selection”.

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Anna von Hausswolf “The Miraculous”
Arca “Mutant”
Atomic Suplex “Fourteen Inches Of Fist”
Beach House “Thank Your Lucky Stars”
Cayucas “Dancing At The Blue Lagoon”
Cheatahs “Mythologies”
Christian Fitness “Love Letters In The Age Of Steam”
Dutch Uncles “O Shudder”
Eternal Summers “Gold And Stone”
Father John Misty “I Love You Honeybear”
Gardens & Villa “Music For Dogs”
Gaz Coombes “Matador”
Ghost Culture “Ghost Culture”
Gill Sandell & Chris T-T “Walk Away, Walk Away”
Gilmore & Roberts “Conflict Tourism”
Gwenno “Y Dydd Olaf”
Hey Colossus “Radio Static High”
Joanna Newsom “Divers”
John Grant “Grey Tickles, Black Pressure”
Kelela “Hallucinogen”
Kendrick Lamar “To Pimp A Butterfly”
Kroda “Ginnungagap-Ginnungagadr-GinningaKaos”
Lady Lamb “After”
Lippy Kid “Echoes And Answers”
Lucy Ward “I Dreamt I Was A Bird”
Motorhead “Bad Magic”
Nathaniel Rateliff And The Night Sweats “Nathanial Rateliff And The Night Sweats”
Naxatras “Naxatras”
Pete Williams “Roughnecks And Roustabouts”
Piney Gir “Mr Hyde’s Wild Ride”
Public Image Limited “What The World Needs Now”
Public Service Broadcasting “The Race For Space”
Rachel Sermanni “Tied To The Moon”
Simon Love & The Old Romantics “It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time”
Sleaford Mods “Key Markets”
Sleater-Kinney “No Cities To Love”
Songhoy Blues “Music In Exile”
Sons Of Kemet “Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do”
Squeeze “From The Cradle To The Grave”
Stereophonics “Keep The Village Alive”
Sufjan Stevens “Carrie And Lowell”
Sweet Billy Pilgrim “Motorcade Amnesiacs”
Swnami “Swnami”
The Autumn Stones “Escapists”
The Chap “The Show Must Go”
The Fratellis “Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied”
The Helmholtz Resonators “The Mystery Of Woolley Mountain”
The Unthanks “Mount The Air”
The Wave Pictures “Great Big Flamingo Burning Moon”
The Woodbine & Ivy Band “Sleep On Sleeping On”
Titus Andronicus “The Most Lamentable Tragedy”
Tommy Genesis “World Vision”
Trembling Bells “The Sovereign Self”
Zalza “Superposition”
Zarelli / Leonard Nimoy “There Will Come Soft Rains”

Thanks to everybody who listened to the show in 2015, helped spread the word or said a kind word about it, it means a lot, thank you x

See you every Sunday in 2016 for a new show, starting on January 10th. Hey, gotta finish all the Christmas cake first …

Thank you. Come again.

FESTIVE FIFTY OF 1965 – Further Listening – Nos 10-1
5
Jan

Final blog instalment of the Festive Fifty of 1965.

You can download the two-part podcast absolutely FREE here:

10. THE NOVAS “The Crusher”

Minnesota-based (where else?!) garage band The Novas, wrote this song dedicated to wrestler Crusher Lisowski.

The song has been covered by the Cramps and the Ramones.

The Novas were more usually known as an instrumental band and the B-side of the record “Take Seven” is a decent beefed-up slab of psyche-surf.

9. THE EMERALDS “King Lonely The Blue”

Formed in Farnborough in Hampshire in 1963, the Emeralds got to make three singles, none of which got anywhere chart-wise.

After such a great track as “King Lonely The Blue” had flopped in late 1965 the band changed their name to “Wishful Thinking” and gained a fair amount of success in Denmark, but not in their home country. Check the Beatley end to this.

8. THE BEATLES “Think For Yourself”

george 1965 close

George Harrison’s “Think For Yourself”, lyrically cynical and wielding an odd sequence of chords, which, written down, look like somebody’s programmed a computer to write a song and “be a bit experimental”, somehow works wonderfully well. Paul McCartney’s double-tracked bass guitar makes it sound like something nasty lurking in the vaults, perfectly matching George’s bitter lyric.

I suppose you could definitely say it doesn’t rip anybody off though.

7. MARTHA REEVES & THE VANDELLAS “Nowhere To Run”

When the matter of Martha Reeves & The Vandellas’ finest single comes up, the debate is usually between “Dancing In The Street” and “Heatwave” but the correct answer is of course “Nowhere To Run”.

Incidentally I’d put “Jimmy Mack” at number two, an underrated track – not least by Motown who shelved it for two and a half years after it was recorded in 1964, finally becoming a hit in 1967.

6. THE FOUR TOPS “The Same Old Song”

The highest-placed Motown tune in the Festive Fifty of 1965. The Four Tops released two stone cold classics that year and to be honest if it wasn’t for the “one song per artist” rule “I Can’t Help Myself” would also have got in.

5. SIR DOUGLAS QUINTET “She’s About A Mover”

First release and the only hit for Texas band Sir Douglas Quintet whose combination of a British name and – initially – look attempted to cash in on the just-about-current British Beat Boom that still had currency for another year or so. Sonologically though, the band their Tex-Mexc origins with a garage-based 12-bar blues sound.

This was their first single and their only hit – perhaps they were seen, unfairly from the evidence of their 1969 song “Mendacino” and others, as a novelty band. Founder and mainman Doug Sahm knows how to squeeze every last drop out of two chords – TWO! – and a Farfisa organ hook.

4. THEM “Mystic Eyes”

And while we’re on the subject of two-chord songs, this has rarely been bettered.

The track drops straight in with a full head of steam.

In a song lasting two minutes and 47 seconds, the vocals don’t come in until 1:14. The first minute is played on one chord – one note in the case of the organist – under a crazed, rocking harmonica solo and only then do we drop down to the second chord. We then get a minute’s worth of vocal imagery – a signpost towards Van Morrison’s more stream-of-consciousness lyrics later in the decade – and a long fade on the same chord, leaving you feeling like someone’s kicked you up the arse then run away.

Kicking Bishop Brennan Up The Arse

3. GEORGIE FAME & THE BLUE FLAMES “Yeh Yeh”

Possibly the last ever jazz record to get to Number 1 in the UK, unless you count “Deeply Dippy” by Right Said Fred, which I am inclined not to.

Georgie Fame was so cool he could sing a ska/bluebeat version of a nursery rhyme in a cod-West Indian accent and it would STILL sound great.

Don’t believe me? Check this out.

2. BOB DYLAN “Like A Rolling Stone”

There’s been so much written about this song that I don’t really know where to begin.

Greatest Dylan song? Best Number One song ever? Perfectly defines the moment when pop became rock? Marks Dylan’s transition lyrically from clear protest anthems to more opaque, more personal yet more widely applicable songs? All of the above?

I still can’t think of any other songs regarded as important enough to have a whole book written about them – and Griel Marcus’s impassioned 200-page tome is pretty readable.

1. THE SONICS “Psycho”

From the New Yorker on the occasion of The Sonics’ 2015 comeback album “This Is The Sonics”:

Garage rock doesn’t exactly demand innovation. Songs should be crunchy and upbeat, and if they focus on girls, or cars, or girls in cars, they’ll pretty much do the trick.

Early on, the Sonics intuitively understood this—but they also played harder, faster, and with more grim aggression than anyone in Tacoma, Washington, had ever thought to play.

Morbid hits—now cult favorites—like “Psycho” and “The Witch” sounded angrier and more abrasive than any form of rock and roll that had come before.

Check out “Strychnine,”

At the time, Tacoma was the working-class Liverpool to Seattle’s swingin’ London. “My dad ran a crane on the waterfront,” the saxophonist Rob Lind said recently. “There were great musicians in Seattle, but the music was jazzy and swingy. We were blue-collar guys—we wanted to rock.”

Their formula—straight, pounding beats, bellowing or screeched vocals, pre-stomp-box distortion achieved by maxing out their amps’ volume—presaged the volatile energy of punk rock. It also built them a fan base in the Northwest “teen club” scene, where bored youth drank in the parking lots of halls with names like the Red Carpet and the Lake Hills roller rink.

But a lack of national distribution prevented them from reaching a wider audience. The Sonics never toured extensively, and hit their peak opening for groups like the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, and the Kinks in Seattle.

But they made a lasting impression. “Strychnine” was covered magnificently by both The Fall and The Cramps. In 1994, Kurt Cobain said that Bob Bennett’s machine-gun drumming was “the most amazing drum sound I’ve ever heard.” Their songs have also been recorded by Bruce Springsteen, the Flaming Lips, and the Ramones; and the White Stripes have cited them as an influence.

During the garage-rock revival of the early noughties, the Sonics were rediscovered by a new group of listeners, and they reunited in 2007.

This week, the band releases “This Is the Sonics,” its first album of new material in nearly half a century, one of the longest intervals between recordings in rock history. The new work has the same primal intensity of its previous records, thanks in no small part to the producer Jim Diamond, who has worked with the White Stripes, the Mooney Suzuki, and a slew of other contemporary acts who owe a debt to the Sonics. Diamond recorded the band in mono, to capture the spirit of the sixties output.

Lind quit his day job, and he and the Sonics have embarked on a tour of the U.S., with a stop at Irving Plaza on April 8. With the band members in their seventies, will the live show still pack a punch? Lind chuckled. “It’s the most fun I can have without getting in trouble with the cops.”

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading these notes.

During 2016 we’ll be releasing a Retro Beat Sixty-Six podcast every week on podomatic (see the links at the top of this blog piece) together with notes similar to this, covering the sounds of fifty years ago this week – and not the standard hits you can hear elsewhere, either.

Stay tuned, hep cats!

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FESTIVE FIFTY OF 1965 – Further Listening – Nos 20-11
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Jan

Some further information and links on the tracks making up numbers 20 down to 11 in the Festive Fifty of 1965.

You can download the two=part podcast absolutely FREE here:

20. FREDDY CANNON “Action”

Freddy Cannon’s heyday was well behind him by 1965 but he still managed to put out the odd great record – so what if this is essentially a retread of his classic million seller “Way Down Yonder In New Orleans”?

19. THE GESTURES “Run Run Run”

Great things looked like they were on the cards for Minnesota’s The Gestures in their home state of Minnesota – “Run Run Run”, their only hit, was an effortless blend of British invasion beats into the northern US garage band palette.

But they only got to release one more single (“I’m Not Mad”) as their record company, a local outfit called Soma Records, found it impossible to compete with the big boys.

They recorded an album which is available to download and although it is chock full of cover versions that was pretty much standard in those days for everyone from the Beatles down.

Also there’s an eclectic choice of tracks (“Things We Said Today” in both vocal and instrumental versions, “Can I Get A Witness”, “Long Tall Texan”) that points to a band happy to wear their influences on their sleeve while maybe looking to blend them further on future recordings. Listening to it only emphasises what a damn shame it is that they didn’t get to make more music.

18. THE SAPPHIRES “Got To Have Your Love”

The Sapphires were a trio consisting of Carol Jackson, George Gainer, and Joe Livingston, although Kenny Gamble was also closely associated with the group very early in its history, arranging the vocals on their first album. The trio came out of Philadelphia in the early ’60s, where they were signed by producer Jerry Ross and initially released their songs on the Swan label.

The group’s first record was the romantic ballad “Where Is Johnny Now,” backed with “Your True Love.” The backing group for these and other early Philadelphia recordings by The Sapphires included Leon Huff and Thom Bell on keyboards, Bobby Eli on guitar, Joe Macho on bass, and Bobby Martin playing vibes. When this record failed to chart, Ross turned to Gamble for their next single, “Who Do You Love,” which reached number 25 on the pop charts. Their next single, “I Found Out Too Late,” failed to repeat that success, but its release was accompanied by the issue of the group’s first LP.

The Sapphires left Swan shortly after the release of a third single, “Gotta Be More Than Friends,” moving to ABC-Paramount in 1964, which also led to their recording in New York City. Perhaps not coincidentally, their first ABC single, “Let’s Break Up for a While,” had a sound reminiscent of the Drifters from this same era.

The group entered its most productive and musically ambitious period during late 1964. The Sapphires’ next single, “Thank You for Loving Me,” was written by the Brill Building talents of future Monkees songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart.

Their next single, “Gotta Have Your Love,” finally gave the group the second hit they’d been waiting for, with a smooth Motown-type sound and an infectious beat that helped carry it to number 33 on the R&B charts, with an appearance on the pop charts at number 77 in the spring of 1965.

The song also featured a trio of background vocalists who would go on to bigger things in the years to come: Valerie Simpson, Nick Ashford, and Melba Moore.

The group was never able to build on this record’s success, though not for lack of trying. Their next three singles, “Evil One,” (above), “Gonna Be a Big Thing,” and “Slow Fizz,” all had pleasing hooks and, in the latter case, a wonderfully danceable beat, but failed to sell. “Slow Fizz,” released in 1966, marked the end of their contract with ABC-Paramount, and the trio broke up soon after.

The Sapphires left behind an extraordinarily high-quality body of work, a match for anything Motown was releasing at the same time. Their lack of staying power on the charts can be attributed largely to many factors, including the vast array of competition from various soul acts at the time — had they maintained a somewhat more consistent sound, or broken nationally a little earlier with a slightly higher profile, they might have achieved the success they deserved. As it was, they left behind a very fine, occasionally stunning body of songs, and provided some valuable early experience for Gamble, Bell, and Huff.

17. GANTS “Road Runner”

There’s a terrific piece on Mississippi’s The Gants here

Expect to hear a few more Gants tunes here during the course of 2016 – (new show every Thursday from Jan 6th)

16. OTIS REDDING “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”

From the 1965 liner notes to “Otis Blue:Otis Redding Sings Soul” from which this, his signature track, is taken:

“Soul is a word that has many meanings. In the pop-R&B world of today it usually means an intensely dramatic performance by a singer, projected with such feeling that it reaches out and visibly moves the listener. It means that the singer is saying something, sometimes even more than the lyrics themselves might normally convey. Soul is not something that can be feigned – you either have it or you don’t. Otis Redding has it, to a degree almost unrivaled by any other young singer in sight”.

True dat. This is “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” from the same album.

15. JAMES PHELPS “Love Is A Five Letter Word”

Before his solo career, of which “Love Is A Five Letter Word” was the peak, took off, James Phelps was in the Soul Stirrers gospel group with Sam Cooke, and before THAT he was the lead voice with The Clefs Of Calvary. I’m not a religious man these days (thank God) but it’s hard to listen to this and not feel that there’s a higher power at work. The two songs featured here are “Wait A Little Longer” and “Father Forgive Them” (from 1961)

14. THE McCOYS “Hang On Sloopy”

Ah the “Louie Louie” riff (1-4-5 if you’re a muso) – so many songs on this chord structure, especially in the garageland of the sixties. The McCoys hit huge with this song which reached #1 all over the world, and for the follow-up basically played the same chords under a cover of Peggy Lee’s “Fever” which surprisingly reached #7 and even more surprisingly was pretty good.

13. DOBIE GRAY “The ‘In’ Crowd”

Strange records this, if you think about it. Sure, its one of the best-known mod / Northern Soul anthems but it’s just a bit too slow for a backflip surely? And I’ve always been fascinated by the use of quotes around the word ‘In’ in the title. Surely they can’t be ironic? It would put a completely different spin on this song if it was being sung ironically.

This is Dobie Gray’s earlier hit, an actual dance record instead of one that comments on the “scene”.

12. THE BYRDS “Mr Tambourine Man”

Bob Dylan’s lyrics are wonderfully esoteric and opaque but it seems this song is actually about Greenwich Village folk guitarist Bruce Langhorne who “had this gigantic tambourine, It was,like,really big. As big as a wagon wheel. The vision of him just stuck in my mind. Disappearing through the smoke rings in my mind, that’s not drugs. Drugs were never that big a thing with me”.

The Byrds recorded this after an early Beatles soundalike single “Don’t Be Long” (below) / “Please Let Me Love You” had flopped. With “Mr Tambourine Man” they fused the folk style of Bob Dylan with the British Invasion sound.

The final recorded version features no contributions from any Byrd apart from Roger McGuinn’s iconic 12-string Rickenbacker solo, but that is enough to cement the Byrds’ sound for five years or more, and also to create a stepping-stone on the path to indie rock many years later.

However, most musical innovations of the 60s go back to one place, and McGuinn has generously admitted the debt he owes to George Harrison (who playes a similar guitar all the way through the movie “A Hard Day’s Night”)

11. EDWIN STARR “Agent Double O Soul”

First single and the first hit for Edwin Starr (making #21 on the Billboard chart).

He settled in the UK from the early seventies and if you look at the man’s grave (in West Bridgford cemetery in Nottingham) you can see how important this song was to him:

The follow-up “Back Street” deserved more than peaking at #95:

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