We Love 1997

Worst Built Peripheral Award: Rock Band Bass Pedal

2009-01-03T19:49:00.002Z

You would have thought they'd build it more sturdily if they knew you would be repeatedly stomping your foot down on it, but apparently not. Everyone is breaking their their Rock Band pedals and quite a market has sprung up to cater for people who need to replace their Rock Band Foot Pedals.

The conspiracy part of me thinks that was the plan all along. Build a pedal so flimsy that it collapses as soon as you touch it so you have to go out and buy a new one. What were they expecting people to do when they were playing Rock Band? Delicately tap it each time? So now you have to spend more of your money if you want to have a decent bass pedal.

It does, however, fulfill the needs of drum nerds who want their bass pedals to look exactly like the real thing. You can even get a doodad which can give you a double bass pedal effect. That's taking it a little too far if you ask me.

Ukuleles etc.

2008-06-18T10:12:00.003Z

Is anyone reading this any more? I highly doubt it. So, if no one objects, I'm just going to use this blog as a bit of a personal blog from now on.

My main site now is Ukulele Hunt mostly posting ukulele tab and chords.

I've become completely obsessed with the ukulele. I've also been buying ukuleles as if I was stock piling them for some impending crisis. Currently on this list of purchases considerations: Lanikai (as used by Zach Condon), SpruceHouse (damn cheap for solid wood, luthier made ukuleles) and, if I find the money Martin ukuleles (I shouldn't think I'll ever find the money).

The Hives – Well, Well, Well.

2006-09-14T09:04:00.000Z

When Einstein announced that nothing could move faster than the speed of light he had obviously neglected to take account of the tempo of Hives songs.

I often yearn for a return to the days before ADHD was invented. If little Pelle Almqvist had spent his formative years in modern day USA he’d have been strapped to a gurney and force fed Ritalin until he started churning out Dido records. Luckily for all involved, early 90’s Sweden allowed the young man free reign to front a band and take over the world armed only with loud guitars and suits stolen from raffish Italian waiters.

The Hives were allegedly formed in 1993 by the shadowy svengali Randy Fitzsimmons. However, it later transpired that ‘Fitzsimmons was a pseudonym for the band’s guitarist Nicholaus Arson. After their 1995 EP Oh Lord! When? How? brought them to the attention of Burning Heart Records, they released their debut album Barely Legal in 1997 which launched them to international obscurity.

Although the band would not receive wide acclaim until they cleaned up their sound, it’s enjoyable to hear them thrashing through 14 clattering songs in the space of 27 and a half minutes. This track in particular has all the subtlety and panache of a JML Rotary Tool Kit being repeatedly hurled against the side of the Eiffel Tower.

The Hives – Well, Well, Well

Buy Barely Legal

I don’t know if this happens to you but occasionally the mp3 pixies visit my house, boot up the computer and start downloading random songs. I have never actually seen these RIAA baiting sprites but it’s the only rational explanation for the number of tracks I’ve acquired without the slightest knowledge of where they came from. Such is the case with this surprisingly faithful ACDC cover by The Hives. I couldn’t confirm when this was recorded but the tag says 1997 so that’s good enough for me.

The Hives – Back In Black

New Blog

2006-09-10T10:17:00.000Z

As this blog shudders inelegantly towards the end of its shelf life I've decided to start a new mp3 blog (because that niche hasn't been crammed to bursting yet). All I can promise you is that there will be absolutely no songs from 1997.

Shotgun, Bastard and Dribble

Helen Love – We Love You

2006-09-08T16:20:00.000Z

Channel Five first hit our screens on Easter Day 1997. A brick first hit my screen shortly afterwards. Channel Five decided that the best way to launch itself was with the now tired looking Spice Girls trotting out an uninspired, cheesy rehash of a dated pop song. This was closely followed by an ad for Chanel No.5. The public opinion of five was eloquently summed up in twee popster Adam Faith’s dying words, “Channel 5 is all shit, isn’t it. Christ, the crap they put on there. It’s a waste of space.”

It’s hard to believe it when watching the Spice Girls vacuously yelling it at the behest of the highest bidder, but the phrase ‘Girl Power’ did mean something at one time. The term was originally the rallying cry of the feminist Riot Grrrl movement of the early 90’s. It announced a rejection of and a direct challenge the violent male domination of society. Quite how the Spice Girls managed to remould is as something to shout while doing bikini shoots for Loaded remains clouded in mystery.

Before ‘Girl Power’ was misappropriated by the Spices, it was used by Welsh lo-fi rockers and Ramones obsessives Helen Love. They used it (reportedly its first use in song) in their tribute to Riot Grrrl Formula One Racing Girl in 1993. The lyrics made it clear their meaning of girl power:

I bought these boots to make you happy,
I strapped them up to turn you on.
Now I don’t care about you,
I’ve got my Huggy Bear t-shirt on.

I assume ‘Huggy Bear’ is a reference to the Riot Grrrl band rather than the adorable comedy pimp.

The lyrics of Formula One Racing Girl were reprised (stripped of the now hollow ‘Girl Power’ shouts) for 1997’s We Love You

Helen Love – We Love You

Buy Radio Hits Vol.2

The Beta Band – Dry The Rain

2006-08-27T11:05:00.000Z

Listen up Americanos; it’s pronounced ‘Bee-ta Band’ not ‘Bay-ta Band’. And while we’re at it, it goes day/month/year. (I can hear ‘em now: “Hey, we saved yer asses in dubya dubya two.”)

Dry The Rain was the opening track on The Beta’s Nick McCabe produced debut EP Champion Versions in 1997. The EP and the two that followed (The Patty, Patty Sound and Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos) earned them a huge cult following which saw the original limited edition EPs changing hands for amounts that would have funded a rudimentary space program. The situation was remedied with the release of The Three EPs in 1998.

Unfortunately, the Beta Band weren’t able to continue their fun, inventive, catchy songwriting into their debut album proper. Hot Shots II was poorly received critically and received a lukewarm response from the public. The recent post-split release of The Beta Band’s greatest hits contains only songs from The Three EPs.

Dry The Rain was also the song that launched the Bay-tas in the US of America when it was featured in the film version of Nick Hornby’s music geek tome High Fidelty. Before playing the song John Cusack’s Rob states, “I will now sell five copies of The Three EPs by The Bay-ta Band.” It’s fair to say that the song’s appearance in the film lead to comfortably more than an additional five copies of the CD sold (some sources suggest as many as eleven or twelve).

The Beta Band – Dry The Rain

Buy The Three EPs

Grandaddy – AM 180

2006-08-06T15:36:00.000Z

I’ve covered international political upheaval, violent death and smurfs but there’s one topic I’ve skirted around as too significant to tackle: extravagant facial hair.

In 1997 the world was awed by the stunning whiskers of Overall World Beard and Moustache World Champion Jürgen Burkhardt. The more astute amongst you may have already worked out that Jürgen is German.

However, the world champ of facial hair in pop at the time was no doubt Jason Lytle, head honcho of indietronic band Grandaddy. Sporting, as he did, a Newgate Fringe equalled only by Michael Eavis. The Newgate Fringe is so called as the noose like appearance was taken by condemned residents of Newgate prison before the real thing was placed on. Rumour has it that the facial hair failed to save any more than a handful of lives.

As well as cultivating 18th Century facial apparel, Lytle also took the time to record one of the catchiest indie ditties of the year thanks to a cheeky synth riff that wouldn’t be out of place on a Moog Cookbook record. The off-kilter kookiness match with the dour vocals make it a popular choice for soundtracks. It has previously graced zombie flick 28 Days Later and can currently be heard as the title music for the delightfully misanthropic Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe.

Grandaddy – AM 180

Buy Under the Western Freeway

Moog Cookbook – Whole Lotta Love

2006-07-30T10:47:00.000Z

Warning: disturbing levels of Cotton hatred imminent.

Generally, I’m all in favour of the law against twatting a person full in the face with a banjo, ramming a javelin up their left nasal cavity, taking a rusty chainsaw to their lower limbs and then running over their twitching carcass with a tank. However, I also believe morality is a mutable concept not given to black and white rulings – especially when faced with the perma-grinning mush of Fearne Cotton.

Yes, the final episode of Top of the Pops airs tonight and the blame for its demise, and that of Western culture in general, lies entirely on Cotton’s shoulders. It’s not so much the fact that she has the brain power of a squashed slug (or Patrick Kielty for that matter) or that the only adjective in her vocabulary is ‘amazing’ or that she’s sleeping her way through faux-indie band-boys like a Primark Winona Ryder; it’s that her vacuous inanity has forced me to thrust my head through 6 television screens in the last two weeks.

Fearne’s (apparently non-sarcastic) reaction to Damien Marley’s song of Jamaican violence and poverty Welcome To Jamrock (sample lyric: “Welcome to Jamrock/Poor people are dead at random/Political violence, can done”) was:

Ahh! A nice bit of Jamaican sunshine there from Damian Marley.

Cotton, shut your shit-spout you beslubbering flap-mouthed death-token.

Ahem, on to matters 1997 related. In tribute to Top of the Pops, here’s Moog Cookbook’s cover of the TOTP aka Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love.

Moog Cookbook’s first album of kitsch synthesised versions of current indie hits (most notably Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun) seemed like a one-off oddity. However, support from the rock-ocracy and probably no little cajoling from the record company saw them repeat the trick with classic rock songs on 1997’s Ye Olde Space Bande. This time they had a few guests along with them including Eels’ Mr E., MC5’s Wayne and Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh.

Surprisingly, the joke hasn’t worn thin. This is probably due to the obvious glee with which these tracks are made. There’s an enormous sense of fun as they throw snippets of The Who and Beethoven into this track and the ‘bumblebee trapped in a jam-jar’ sound on the guitar solo is irresistible.

Moog Cookbook – Whole Lotta Love

Buy Ye Olde Space Bande

For Fearne

Stacey Kent – More Than You Know

2006-07-16T15:13:00.000Z

Modern Romance, Martin Beck, 1997

Ahh, they don’t write ‘em like this anymore. After the ramshackle blues and raucous rock and roll, a change of pace this week with some romantic, laid-back-ness from the songbook.

They didn’t write ‘em like this in 1997 either, of course. The song comes from the 1929 musical Great Day. The coy, understated romanticism didn’t really fit with the let it all hang out climate of 1997. It was the year that the original book of Sex and the City and J.Lo was (allegedly) cheating on both first husband Ojani Noa (whom she divorced in 1997) and Puffy P Fiddly Diddly Diddy Daddy Combes with third husband to be Marc Anthony.

I love how comparatively half hearted some of the lyrics of this song are (“I’m growing fonder of you” “Wouldn't I be glad to take you” “I'll string along”). I get a bit sick of all the ‘climb the highest mountain’ love songs. If your true love’s at the top of a mountain it would be much easier if she came down.

Stacey Kent – More Than You Know

Buy Close Your Eyes

Read The FWARA Conference Report 1997 on Romance (how sexy).

BTW

1997 was the subject of the first episode of Annually Retentive the unimaginative rip-off of Have I Got News For You starring Rob Brydon within the actual show - also called Annually Retentive, also starring Rob Brydon and also an unimaginitive rip-off (of Larry Sanders).

We've just gone over 40,000 hits. That's a bit rubbish really.

Sleater-Kinney – Words and Guitar

2006-07-08T16:28:00.000Z

In deference to Sleater-Kinney’s feminism, today’s post will be vigorously gender neutral with no ~~mention~~ use of gender biased terms

There’s only one way to go once you’ve been turned into lego. So it was a wise move for Sleater-Kinney to call it a day recently before Duplo and Weebles got involved and the whole affair became cheap and tawdry.

Sleater-Kinney were born when the Riot Grrrl movement was begin to die on its hairy rrrse. Both Sleater front-persons, Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein, had previously been in other Riot Grrrl bands. For their debut, self titled album they followed the feminist person-ifesto of the Riot Grrrl movement with a collection of man-hating, hectoring, didactic songs. (It was a pile of person-ure to be honest).

By the time of their third album, Dig Me Out, in 1997 they had dropped the hard-line feminist a-gender and, after a run of drummers that would make Spinal Tap spin in their spandex, had picked up Janet Weiss. Lyrics this time focussed less on male violation and more on rocking out (sample lyric: “rock you till your good and dead/rock you till there's nothing left”). A trend that they would continue until their final album The Woods which was regularly compared to Led ‘The Shark Incident’ Zeppelin.

Sleater-Kinney – Words and Guitar

Buy Dig Me Out

Download Sleater-Kinney and many others on Kill Rock Stars Records

Take the Sleater-Kinney quiz

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Let’s Smerf

2006-06-24T15:27:00.000Z

When historians are looking to chart the cultural shifts of the late 20th Century they would be well advised to analyse the rise and fall of various smurf figurines. 1997 saw the retirement of the hopelessly non-aspirational tramp smurf and caveman smurf along with the introduction of the much more hip inline skater smurf and smurfette and disco smurf and smurfette

Despite not being signed to Fat Possum, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion have still come to symbolize what the label stands for; a relationship they cemented when they joined RL Burnside on his Fat Possum album A Ass Pocket Full of Whiskey in 1996. That year JSBX also released their album Now I Got Worry which features a more collaborations including funk legend Rufus Thomas and honorary Beastie Boy Money Mark.

But The Explosions are always at their best as a threesome such as on the ’97 singles Wail and 2 Kindsa Love. Wail was accompanied by an ugly and disastrously unfunny video by Weird Al Yankovich. Luckily, Judah Bauer managed to retain his ‘Coolest Man In Rock’ title despite being forced to do the nose dance. You can watch it here but you’d be better off checking out Talk About The Blues (on the same page) featuring Winona ‘celebrity theft pixie’ Ryder as Spencer along with Giovanni Ribisi and John ‘hasn’t done anything since Boogie Nights’ Reilly.

Let’s Smerf appeared as the b-side to 2 Kindsa Love.

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Let’s Smerf

Buy Now I Got Worry

The Neckbones – Hit Me

2006-06-17T15:24:00.000Z

The jawbone’s connected to the skullbone,
The skullbone’s connected to the neckbone,
The Neckbones connected to the tradition of stark, hardhitting music from the Mississippi region

Although Fat Possum are largely, and rightly, known for releasing records by old, black blues musicians such as T-Model Ford and Junior Kimbrough they occasionally sign young white kids to much greater financial reward (e.g. Black Keys and Fiery Furnaces). However, sometimes even white kids can’t sell records.

The recording of The Neckbones’ 1997 album Soul On Fire did not go smoothly. During sessions singer/guitarist Tyler Keith had to be rushed to hospital with a swollen liver. Whilst there bassist Robbie Alexander got his arm stuck, Homer Simpson style, inside a cigarette vending machine. He was sawn out by the fire brigade some 2 hours later.

You wouldn’t know it by the number of factual inaccuracies but I do actually do some research for this blog. During my travels I read the strangest bio of The Neckbones on Fat Possum. It contains exactly no information about the band but extensive, lurid, vomit-inducing detail on the acts the writer would like to perform on the Souls On Fire cover girl. Luckily, it’s rescued by the pay-off line, “I am the only one who knows that she now has the demon spawn in her womb.”

The Neckbones – Hit Me

Buy Souls On Fire

In Other News

Tonight, BBC2, 2110, The Summer of… 1997.
Almost certain to contain extensive coverage of the high-jinx of obscure US punks.

Junior Kimbrough – Lonesome Road

2006-06-11T10:35:00.000Z

There are only two types of modern blues records: those released on Fat Possum and those that suck.

Kimbrough’s story is so similar to T-Model Ford’s I was tempted to cut and paste last week’s entry. Born into a poor Mississippi family; alcohol induced coma at age 6; father of 36 children; a life of obscurity until picked up by Fat Possum late in life.

Kimbrough was in fact the first act signed by Fat Possum. He came to the attention of fattest possum Matthew Johnson after appearing in the film Deep Blues. His first album All Night Long brought him great admiration from blues aficionados. At this point he was too ill to tour so a steady stream of fans made their way to Mississippi including U2, The Rolling Stones and Iggy Pop.

By the time of 1997’s Most Things Haven’t Worked Out Kimbrough’s suffering had worsened and would finally take his life in 1998. Despite this he still sounds in fine fettle.

Since his death, Kimbrough’s fame has spread thanks to a tribute album featuring The Black Keys and a tribute album by The Black Keys.

Junior Kimbrough – Lonesome Road

Buy Most Things Haven’t Worked Out

T-Model Ford – I’m Insane

2006-06-03T16:21:00.000Z

T-Model Ford is going to remember you sorry fuckers how it’s done.

Listening to this track and following his career, it’s hard to disagree with T-Model's assertion that he is insane.

T-Model, or James Lewis Carter Ford as his Mum knows him, released his debut album, full of the kind of ramshackle blues of which Fat Possum is known for, at the tender age of 70-something (he’s not entirely sure of his age). He spent many of the previous years either in bars or behind bars - including a two year stint on a chain gang of murder - and somehow finding the time to father 25 children.

Age hasn’t entirely mellowed him. Today’s track chronicles his stormy and occasionally violent relationship with his fifth and current wife Stella. His temper has meant that he has had trouble holding a band together even for the length of a recording session. His only long term cohort, until they fell out, was drummer Spam who has an equally fearsome reputation.

However, this rather sweet article suggests that behind the legends and tall tales is a lovable family man.

T-Model can currently be found dishing out relationship advice in Arthur Magazine - no, really.

T-Model Ford – I’m Insane

Buy Pee Wee Get My Gun

Download more from Pee Wee Get My Gun on Fat Possum Records

Peter Mulvey - Deep Blue

2006-05-28T10:02:00.000Z

After World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov’s 1996 defeat of the computer Deep Blue, 1997 saw a rematch between the cold, emotionless chess machine and IBM’s computer.

The project that was to become Deep Blue began in the 1980’s and was called Deep Thought (after the computer in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and twice lost to Garry Kasparov in 1989 – chiefly because it kept trying to make the move ‘42’. IBM, aka Big Blue, took over the project, changed the name and set about working out ways of using it as a promotional tool.

Although during the 1996 match Deep Blue become the first computer to win a game against a reigning world champion under tournament conditions, Kasparov won the match at a fairly comfortable 4 – 2.

However, the rematch saw Kasparov struggling. After the first five games the match was all square. At that point Kasparov’s puny human brain gave way and, according to those who know, he rook-ed it up completely. True to form Kasparov blamed anyone but himself. He complained that the computer had been reprogrammed between games, had been programmed specifically to beat him and even that humans had been helping Deep Blue select its moves.

I think Emo Philips summed up the battle between man and machine best when he said, “A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kickboxing.”

Today’s track comes from the previously chronicled Peter Mulvey’s 1997 album, also called Deep Blue. The song was inspired by Deep Blue despite having lyrics that don’t refer to it in any way whatsoever.

Peter Mulvey – Deep Blue

Buy Deep Blue

Watch the match

Andrew Bird – Oh So Insistent.

2006-05-21T07:58:00.000Z

A person with a fine and pure heart will find love. Dr. Shinichi Suzuki

Most music scenes end up dragging along a few unwilling participants whose music stretches far beyond the constricts of the fad. Such was the case with Andrew Bird.

Bird began his career playing fiddle extensively with The Squirrel Nut Zippers (although he was never formerly a member of the group). However, his influences and virtuosity quickly saw him venture far beyond the confines of swing music as was demonstrated on his 1997 album Music of Hair.

Bird’s virtuosity is usually ascribed to his training under the Suzuki Method. Suzuki classes begin at age 5, have a strict repertoire for students to follow and are told to, “only practice on the days you eat,” - a philosophy that explains why Victoria Beckham never learnt to sing. Despite the insistence on hard work, the Suzuki method is cutesier than a skip full of cross-eyed kittens and asserts that the most important ingredient in music really is love.

After his stint with The Squirrel Nut Zippers, Bird was inevitably eager to stretch his legs stylistically; which he certainly did on Music of Hair. The record is split into three distinct genres. Oh So Insistent, with its heavy debt to Klezmer, comes from the North American section.

Bird has spent most of his career being a little embarrassed by Music of Hair as it was only later that he developed his own, distinct sound. However, the obvious enjoyment with which he launches himself into the various styles makes it easily my favourite of his.

Andrew Bird – Oh So Insistent

Buy Music of Hair on iTunes

Swing Revival Pt. 4: The Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hell

2006-04-30T15:41:00.000Z

The swing revival brought with it a number of unusual acts such as the previously mentioned Asylum Street Spankers and The Squirrel Nut Zippers. Unlike many of the other swing revivalists The Zippers took their inspiration from the earlier hot jazz of the 1920’s and could not be accused of being over-rehearsed.

The Squirrel Nut Zippers (named after the retro sweets) grew out of informal jams that head zippers Jim Mathus and Katherine Whalen held in their home with fellow hot jazz lovers. The band began playing a few gigs locally and were quickly signed and released their debut album, The Inevitable, in 1995.

Their breakthrough came in 1997 when their faux-calypso song Hell was picked up by MTV and became a novelty hit.

Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hell

Buy Hot

Watch the video

Swing Revival Pt.3: Royal Crown Review – Hey Pachuco!

2006-04-23T10:13:00.000Z

Royal Crown Review are the band most commonly cited as the originators of the Swing Revival. Certainly, they were the most dedicated. As well as aping the music and wearing the clothes they played pre-WW2 instruments, drove the cars, read the books and sat on the furniture. In a move that shocked many, the band also deliberately infected themselves with tuberculosis.

The band had formed in 1989 but really hit their stride during their two-year long residence at The Derby club in Hollywood beginning in 1993. The buzz created by these shows led directly to their performance of today’s track in the film The Mask. Their Derby shows were also the inspiration for the dance scenes in Swingers.

In 1997 Royal Crown Review signed a major label deal (with Warner Brothers) and released a quick cash-in live album, Caught in the Act, featuring this version of Hey Pachuco.

Royal Crown Review – Hey Pachuco

Buy Caught In The Act: Live

Swing Revival Pt.2: Cherry Poppin’ Daddies – Zoot Suit Riot

2006-04-17T14:21:00.000Z

As you might have guessed by now, you were no-one unless you were someone’s ‘Daddy’ during the swing revival.

The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies had formed in 1989 and originally played a wide variety of styles. They had released a number of albums on independent labels to near universal disinterest. Their long awaited overnight success did not come until, with the swing revival taking off, they collected their more swing based material onto one album: 1997’s Zoot Suit Riot.

The album, and its eponymous hit single, were named after a week long riot that occurred in LA in 1943. What had begun as a minor scuffle between a group of zoot suited Mexicans and a gang of military men over, what else, women rapidly escalated into a riot with army men attacking any Mexicans, including children, they could get their hands on. The riots became the first acts of violence named after clothing since the Battle of Balaclava.

The swing revival went in to overdrive in 1998 when The Gap used the big band classic Jump, Jive and Wail in their Lindy-hopping ad (watch it here). But, as the Lindy Hop regularly illustrates, what goes up must come down and swing music fell from grace as quickly as it had risen. The Finger Poppin’s Daddies follow-up album, Soul Caddy, faired poorly – a fact The Daddies blamed on the record company (those bastards – releasing the record and selling it to people). This led to big Daddy Steve Perry leaving the humdrum, work-a-day world of international rock 'n' roll stardom to follow his crazy childhood dreams of attaining a degree in molecular biology.

Cherry Poppin’ Daddies – Zoot Suit Riot

Buy Zoot Suit Riot

Watch the video

Watch more Lindy Hoppers

Swing Revival Pt.1: Big Bad Voodoo Daddies – Go Daddy-O

2006-04-15T12:42:00.000Z

We are so money.

Vegas, baby. Vegas!

The film Swingers has inspired more idiots to throw quotes round than anything since Monty Python hung up their wellies.

Swingers, written by its star Jon Favreau, was made on a miniscule budget (and it shows) but thanks to its wit, catchphrases and swinging soundtrack it gained a cult following and influenced mainstream culture (musically and lexicographically) far beyond those who actually watched it.

Swingers focuses on a group of wannabe actors in LA led by Vince Vaughn’s Trent who attempts to cheer up the recently singled Mike (Favreau) by taking him to Vegas to ‘kick it old school’ and get him laid. Cue cringe-making scenes of desperate attempts to impress girls and a classic answer-phone message scene (watch it here). Despite the film’s nominal focus, it is essentially a buddy flick; the guys spend far more time talking to each other – when they are much more loveable - than chatting up women .

What really marks Swingers out is its charting of the, then height of hip, ‘cocktail nation’ scene – giving the film its own style, sound and language. ‘Cocktail nation’ married the dancing and big band music of the 1930’s and 40’s with the style and hedonism of the 50’s Rat Pack. The scene was no doubt a reaction against the tatty clothing and depressed nihilism of the early 90’s grunge fad. However, it never really took off in the UK. Perhaps because the 30’s and 40’s weren’t so swinging for us or, more likely, because we’re a bunch of miserable scruff bags.

The redemptive end to the film has Favreau and co-star and former girlfriend Heather Graham dancing in a club to a lively performance of this song by the Big Bad Voodoo Daddies. The film helped swing music move from an underground LA cool towards mainstream popularity – but not as much as a certain ad did.

Quick tip: if you’re looking for images from the film “Swingers” on Google: turn the safe search on first.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddies – Go Daddy-O

Buy Swingers

Watch the trailer

Ben Folds Five – Battle of Who Could Care Less

2006-04-02T14:17:00.000Z

By 1997 Britpop and its attendant Cool Britannia culture had died on its hairy, sweaty arse. It was, therefore, time for politicians to jump on the bandwagon.

The campaign of the rebranded ‘New’ Labour focussed on modernity and Britishness. This came to the fore with the use of a Bulldog in one of their party election broadcasts. However, to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of Middle England, the dog’s testicles had to be airbrushed out. If only the bollocks had been removed from the campaign itself.

The Tories chose to go down the anti-Blair route displaying an uncharacteristic prescience with their ‘demon eyes’ Blair poster. However, their broadcasts were less successful. They featured images from a distopian vision of Britain under a Labour government which looked remarkably similar to Britain under the Tories. The only pop music used by the Tories in the campaign was Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight. Perhaps in an attempt to conjure up their mid-80’s glory days. Although it’s much more likely they were just heroically out of touch.

The Labour Party were slightly more up to date chosing Things Can Only Get Better by the inexplicably coloned D:Ream for their theme but the real anthem of the election blasting out the radio was Ben Folds Five’s Battle of Who Could Care Less. Turnout for the election was 71%, the lowest since 1935. Labour declared a landslide victory despite only receiving 42% of the vote (around 30% of all eligible voters).

Ben Folds Five – Battle of Who Could Care Less.

Whatever and Ever Amen

John Adams –Short Ride In A Fast Machine.

2006-03-25T17:23:00.000Z

I must admit to being slightly nervous about posting this cursed track.

Short Ride In A Fast Machine had originally been scheduled to be played at the Last Night of the Proms in September 1997. However, it was swiftly pulled after Diana Princess of Wales had her own short ride in a fast machine – you might have heard about it at the time.

On the 30th August, after an evening living large at The Ritz, she and her millionaire playboy boyfriend were driven through Paris in their Mercedes at twice the speed limit by a drunken chauffer without wearing a seatbelt when, surprisingly, they had a fatal accident. She was like a candle in the wind, you know.

In another move that showed her reckless disregard for her own life earlier in 1997 she had apparently been in talks with Kevin Costner about appearing in The Bodyguard 2. The latest name put forward for the Diana role is Jessica Simpson. And why not?

Not ones to be deterred by just one international tragedy, the Proms nabobs rescheduled the performance for the Last Night of the Proms on 15th September 2001 (you’re way ahead of me). Of course, the ‘tragic events of 9/11’^TM meant it had to be pulled again.

On the highly scientific principle of ‘third time’s a charm’ the piece was again scheduled to appear in the Proms in 2004. However, to ensure that any collateral damage was restricted to perma-grinning, cocaine fuelled children’s TV presenters, it was to be part of the Blue Peter Proms. Luckily, Richard Bacon and Konnie Huq made it to the performance unscathed and the curse was lifted - I hope.

Drive safely kids.

John Adams – Short Ride In A Fast Machine

Buy the score if you happen to have two flutes, two piccolos, two oboes, an English horn, four clarinets, three bassoons, and contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, two synthesizers, timpani, high wood block, snare drum, crotales, glockenspiel, suspended cymbal, pedal bass drum, large bass drum, sizzle cymbal, tambourine, large tam-tam, medium wood block, triangle and xylophone hanging around that you want to make good use of.

Foo Fighters – My Hero

2006-03-18T17:54:00.000Z

"You’re no-one in music until you have feuded with me or until you sleep with Winona." Courtney Love.

In 1997 Dave Grohl realised that, although he’d done plenty of the first, he had egregiously neglected to do the second. So it was out with Louise ‘Veruca Salt’ Post and in with 'Noni'.

Ryder’s list of rockstar boyfriends reads like a list of everyone who’s picked up, or even looked at, a guitar in the last 20 years (including, but not limited to, Ryan Adams, Evan Dando, Dave Pirner, Adam Duritz, Jay Kay, Jakob Dylan, Conor Oberst, Eric Schrody, Jack White, Paul Westerburg, Pete Yorn and a partridge in a pear tree – that’s not even starting on the actors). In fact, if you laid all Winona’s exes end to end you’d have wasted a huge amount of time on an essentially pointless exercise. There’s no doubting she’s had a lot of stick (no sniggering at the back) for her long list of beaus but it’s no mystery why arty, sensitive boys are attracted to her.

As well as his split with Post, 1997 also saw Grohl split with two of his band members: drummer William Goldsmith and guitarist Pat Smear. Replacements were found in the shape of Taylor Hawkwind (off of of The Alanis Morissette Band) and Franz Stahl (a former bandmate of Grohl’s from the pre-Nirvana Scream).

The focus of My Hero, from The Foo Fighters second album The Colour and The Shape, is the subject of much discussion. According to Grohl himself the song is, “my way of saying that when I was young, I didn't have big rock heroes, I didn't want to grow up and be some big sporting hero. My heroes were ordinary people and the people that I have a lot of respect for are just solid, everyday people - people that you can rely on." However, with lyrics like, “Don't the best of them bleed it out/While the rest of them peter out,” it was inevitable that many people would see the song as a tribute to Kurt Cobain. Grohl muddies the water further by often dedicating the song to Jim Craig (an ice hockey goalie who helped the USA win the 1980 Olympic gold).

Foo Fighters – My Hero

Buy The Colour And The Shape

Watch a rather fine acoustic version of My Hero

Veruca Salt – Volcano Girls

2006-03-12T20:05:00.000Z

A girl can’t spoil herself, you know.

With perhaps one of the most unappealing band names in history, taken from the Willa Wonka character, Veruca Salt still managed to be one of the few bands to survive the downfall of grunge.

The band, lead by Nina ‘the blonde one’ Gordon and Louise ‘the other one’ Post, rose to early prominence after scoring a hit with Seether after only playing a handful of gigs. This brought them to the attention of Geffen Records who released their typically demurely titled EP Blow It Out Your Ass, It’s Veruca Salt!

They followed this in 1997 with the album Eight Arms To Hold You and its standout single Volcano Girls. The song was an immediate success thanks to its catchy chorus, rawk guitar solo and a video that’s as much fun as you can film without providing proof of age.

1997 also saw the cracks begin to appear between the two frontwomen. Whilst on tour in Australia Louise Post found out her then boyfriend Dave Grohl was cheating on her with celebrity kleptomaniac Winona Ryder. This prompted her to set off on a drink and drugs binge ending in her passing out topless on stage. Gordon and her boyfriend, Veruca Salt’s drummer Stacy Jones, were less than impressed. Jones left the band at that point and Gordon followed the next year.

Post recruited Suzanne Sokol to replace Gordon but Veruca Salt but never regained the chemistry the original band had. Gordon went on to have a similarly lacklustre solo career – at least until last year when blogland went crazy over her lilting acoustic version of NWA’s Straight Outta Compton (hear it on her website).

Veruca Salt – Volcano Girls

Buy Eight Arms To Hold You

CAKE – The Distance

2006-03-04T09:40:00.000Z

1997 saw a concerted campaign to keep kids away from the drug that was scything down members of Prague’s ‘Boon rave’ culture. Cake, also known as ‘Russell Dust’, ‘Loony Toad Quack’ and ‘Hattie Jacques’ Pretentious Cheese Wog’, is a bi-sterbile cradabolic anphetamoid which acts on the Shatner’s Bassoon region of the brain causing such known side effects as vomiting out one’s own pelvis, crying all the water out of one’s body and ‘Czech Neck’. News that the drug was on its way to the UK caused an outcry; opposition groups were set up, high profile names such as Noel Edmonds, Bernard Manning and Bruno Brookes implored the youth to stay away, and questions were asked in parliament (read Hansard).

Thankfully, the feared Cake epidemic failed to materialise. This was largely thanks to the fact that it was made up my media-prankster Chris Morris for the show Brass Eye. Morris first came to wide attention on the radio, and later TV, spoof news show The Day Today. He took the elements of parody of the clichéd self importance of news and stretched it even further with Brass Eye. In particular, he received a great deal of publicity, positive and negative, for conning C-list, rent-a-gob celebrities and politicians into supporting non-existent causes. Most amusing of all was convincing Paul Daniels and Carla Lane to speak out against a zoo that had allowed an elephant’s trunk to get stuck up its rectum.

The first and only series was originally intended for broadcast in 1996. However, the series had been held back due to the inclusion of a sketch about a musical version of the life of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe. A de-Sutcliffed version was finally broadcast in 1997 with other material taken out but with the addition of a highly unflattering subliminal message about Channel 4 controller Michael Grade.

The band CAKE, with their jaunty riffs and catchy melodies, were much less like to make anyone vomit out their own pelvis. CAKE have been going since 1992 but only once entered British consciousness; with the melancholy but fun The Distance.

CAKE – The Distance

Buy Brass Eye

Buy Fashion Nugget

The Dandy Warhols & Brian Jonestown Massacre

2006-02-25T14:09:00.000Z

The love/hate relationship between The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre (BJM), as chronicled in the film Dig!, took a definite swing towards hate during 1997.

Initially, the bands, and in particular the two frontmen Courtney Taylor (Warhols) and Anton Newcombe (BJM), were close but it was clear the two were not entirely compatible. The Dandys, describing themselves as ‘the world’s most well adjusted band’ were clearly aiming at large scale success. The BJM, on the other hand, were hell bent on self destruction from the start. Their name is an agglomeration of the Rolling Stones guitarist who drowned in his swimming pool at the age of 27 and the mass suicide of over 900 members of a messianic cult. The Dandys have seen only one line-up change whilst BJM has had between 24 and 60 members depending on which source you believe. One of the more entertaining and long lasting members was ‘Spokesman for a Generation’ (read Bez of the band) Joel Gion on tambourine.

By 1997 The Dandy Warhols had signed to a major label (Capitol) and were recording the album The Dandy Warhols Come Down. Dig! has a scene where an excited Taylor plays Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth to an obviously under-whelmed Newcombe. Shortly afterwards we see BJM recording their satirical response, Not If You Were The Last Dandy On Earth. Further ructions occurred when most of the BJM turn up for the recording of the David LaChapelle directed video for Junkie (watch it here) and leave with a sense that the Dandys have sold out.

The pivotal moment in the relationship between the two bands comes after the video shot for Junkie when the Dandys are looking for a location to host a photoshoot. The night before, while the Warhols were partying in a posh hotel with LaChapelle, the BJM had hosted a less salubrious get together in the band hovel. Taylor decided the BJM’s dilapidated fleapit would be idea for the photoshoot, presumably giving them the bohemian image they desired but were too hygienic to live with.

Later that year, after recording a new album, there was another bust up within BJM which resulted in a mass evacuation of members including Gion and Black Rebel Motorcyclist Robert Turner - although Gion still regularly joins the band on stage after discovering there is a decidedly sluggish market for his tambourine playing in the global marketplace. The Dandy Warhols went on to make records for mobile phone ads and Courtney Taylor changed his name to Courtney Taylor-Taylor (as if to underline the fact he’s a bit of a knobhead-knobhead).

The Dandy Warhols – Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth

The Brian Jonestown Massacre – Not If You Were The Last Dandy On Earth

Download every BJM song for nowt on their website

Buy Dig!

Buy Give It Back

Buy Come Down

On TV

I urge, nay command, you all to watch Gideon’s Daughter on Sunday night. It is set largely in the summer of 1997. Not something I’d usually bother mentioning but Stephan Poliakoff’s programmes are always so firmly rooted in time and place – making it seem as though they were shot live at the time – that it has to be worth a watch. Expect much referencing of the rise of New Labour, the planning of the Millenium Dome and the death of Di; perhaps not so many references to the squabbles of American psychedelic bands.

Best of all it alludes to The Cumberland Pencil Museum on one point which puts it in the unmissable category as far as I’m concerned.

On Last.fm

WL97’s sister blog Whatever’s Left has set up a Last.fm group. Feel free to join up.

Bjork – Joga

2006-02-18T13:41:00.000Z

When Bjork isn’t laying eggs at the Oscars or tearing Lars Von Trier’s shirt to pieces with her teeth she occasionally makes time to produce some of the most affecting music you’re ever likely to hear. None more so than on her 1997 album Homogenic.

It’s little surprise that Homogenic was noticeably darker than her first two solo releases after the events of the previous year. The first hint that all was not well with Bjork came at a Thai airport when she grabbed a reporter by the hair, hustled her to the ground and gave her a makeshift orthodontic makeover with the pavement. It was the only rational response of the reporter’s vicious invective of, “Welcome to Bangkok.”

Later that year Floridian Bjork lover Ricardo Lopez demonstrated his adoration of her the only way a demented stalker knows how; by mailing an acid bomb to her and videotaping himself blowing his brains out to her music. Fortunately, the bomb was discovered before it could do any physical harm although this event seems to have triggered the end of her long term relationship with drum and bass star Goldie and her retreat to a remote area of Spain to record Homogenic.

Joga, with its pounding beats and luscious strings, matches the mood of much of Homogenic. The song was Bjork’s attempt at writing an Icelandic national anthem; an idea that was picked up for Michel Gondry’s gorgeous video for the song (watch it here) that glides across the stunning Icelandic landscape which starts to digitally dance to the song.

The video was filmed in the glacial Vatnajokull region of Iceland – an area which has since been threatened by the introduction of mining in the region and a huge damming programme. In 2002 Bjork’s mum went on hunger strike in an attempt to stop the scheme going ahead but sadly no emaciated pop matriarch could stand in the way of ‘progress’ and the project continued apace. Luckily, the protests also continue. Earlier this year a ‘gig for nature’, headlined by Bjork and featuring Sigur Ros, Mum, Damon Albarn and Damien Rice, kept up the pressure.

Bjork – Joga

Visit Iceland Under Attack

Watch When Icelandic Pop Pixies Attack

Buy Homogenic

Playing Catch-Up

2006-02-12T20:11:00.000Z

After a brief hiatus I’m back with a few things I’d promised but not provided:

The Fall – I’m A Mummy
Read the post.

Belle and Sebastian – Lazy Line Painter Jane
Read the post

Katrina and the Waves – Love Shine A Light
Read the post

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

2006-01-22T19:49:00.000Z

Harry Potter has become such an institution is hard to believe that the first of the books was only released July 1997. Time drags when normally sane adults are discussing a kids’ book.

Harry Potter owes his existence to the staggering ineptitude of British Rail. The idea came to JK Rowling on a train journey in 1990 from Manchester to London (181 miles apart for you yanks) that ended up lasting 4 hours. Four years of writing and three years of whoring it around agents and publishers later and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was finally released by Bloomsbury. The book was later released in the USA under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (don’t you Americans ever get sick of being treated like morons?).

Much more interesting than the books themselves was the foaming mouth reaction from Christian fundamentalists. Numerous websites sprung up (this is my favourite) declaring Harry Potter to be satanic, spreading witchcraft or sending a godless pagan message (those pagan bastards with their reverence for the life force and its ever-renewing cycles of life and death). But it wasn’t just the raving nut-jobs on the fringes that got their cassocks in a twist; it was also the raving nut-jobs at the centre. The current Pope, back when he was plain old Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Dean of the College of Cardinals, expressed his distaste for the half blood prince along with the Vatican’s official exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth (yes, really).

At the last count the Harry Potter series has clocked up sales of over 300 million worldwide and Rowling is richer than the Queen.

Buy Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Read twelve reasons not to watch the Harry Potter movies. Not one of which is ‘Because it’s for twelve year olds; grow up and watch something proper’.

Join New Satanic Order Of The Black Circle

June Tabor – April Morning

2006-01-17T22:22:00.000Z

If you don’t like listening to June Tabor, you should stop listening to music.”
Elvis Costello.

June Tabor is the sort of woman whose house the nine year old me would walk past in nervous silence before turning to a friend and whispering, “A witch lives there.” Luckily, Tabor was willing to take time between spell casting and games of quidditch to become one of the most distinctive and highly regarded voices in English folk music.

Similarly to Martin Simpson, June Tabor began singing after hearing the singers of the 60’s folk boom (especially Anne Briggs). A stint in the group Mistral and an appearance on University Challenge later Tabor got her big break when she teamed up with fellow folkie Maddy Prior (a founding member of folk-rock pioneers Steeleye Span) to form the Silly Sisters in 1976 and made an album that is still regarded as one of the greatest of the genre. She followed this up with a number of solo albums before, inevitably, moving to the Lake District to open a restaurant. She spent most of the 80’s serving up food and made only occasional forays into live singing.

After shutting up shop and releasing a fairly terrible album of jazz standards Tabor returned to folk singing in the 90’s and has released a string of highly acclaimed albums including Aleyn (the Yiddish word for ‘alone’) in 1997.

April Morning is a traditional English song about how all men are cheating scumbags (how times change - folk songs just aren’t relevant to the modern world). The track twins Tabor’s voice with accordion playing of Andy Cutting to great effect.

Enjoy the song but watch out; a witch lives there.

June Tabor – April Morning

Buy Aleyn and download her version of Richard Thompson’s The Great Valerio from the same album.

Martin Simpson – Rose of Allandale.

2006-01-08T09:42:00.000Z

With all the fraught excess of the festive period over I thought I’d go easy on your ears with this gentle instrumental by English folk guitar legend Martin Simpson.

Simpson was part of the second wave of the English folk revival. Growing up he had been heavily influenced by the guitarists of the 60’s folk boom such as Davey Graham and Martin Carthy.

Simpson’s big break came when Barbara ‘I Know Him So Well’ Dickson dragged folk impresario Bill Leader (who had a hand in the careers of Bert Jansch, Davey Graham and Dick Gaughan among many others) to one of his gigs. Leader rapidly snapped him up for his record label, produced Simpson’s debut album and set him up as the accompanist of folk grande dame June Tabor. Since then he has gone on to collaborate with a number of musicians as far flung as Madagascar’s Tarika Sammy and Chinese Pipa player of the famous Pudong School Wu Man (how dare you accuse me of making it up). He also, unadvisedly in my opinion, decided to start singing himself. However, for his 1997 album Cool and Unusual he decided to go all instrumental and roped in more high quality collaborators (including the aforementioned Kelly Joe Phelps).

Today’s song, Rose of Allandale, is a sweet love song (read one version of the lyrics here) geographically located in Scotland but often sung throughout all the British Isles.

Rose of Allandale also formed part of the set for the Four Martins tour; a collection of four fingerpicking guitarists all called Martin (Simpson, Carthy, Taylor and Flamencist Juan Martin). If they decided to get together again you HAVE TO go and see it. It features all the dazzling fret-board wizardry and shameless showboating you could ever need.

Martin Simpson – Rose of Allandale

Buy Cool and Unusual

In Other News

WL97 has made the press page of The Sherwood Consort's site despite describing them as, "a Medieval Baebes for those who don’t mind ugly people."

And can someone keep a copy of this entry so the OED can trace the origins of the entirely unnecessary word ‘flamencist’ (flä-meng’kist one who plays flamenco).

Year End List.

2005-12-31T15:43:00.000Z

With everyone posting their year end lists I’m feeling a bit left out. So, for no good reason, here are my favourite tracks from 1997 (some of which might give you a hint as to what’s coming up):

10. Stereolab – Miss Modular

9. Mogwai – Mogwai Fear Satan

8. Ben Folds Five – Smoke

7. Beta Band – Dr. Baker

6. Pavement – Type Slowly

5. Radiohead – Climbing Up The Walls

4. Missy Elliott – The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)

3. Portishead – All of Portishead.

2. Koffi Olomide – Loi

1. Spiritualized – Electricity

Feel free to list your favourites of 1997 in the comments - unless you have something better to do like sniffing your own bellybutton fluff.

Ash – I Only Want To Be With You

2005-12-20T19:02:00.000Z

Christmas 1997 saw the second of the Spice Girls’ trio of consecutive Xmas number ones. I don’t care how many begging emails I get I’m not going to post it. Nor am I going to post any festive ditties (largely because I don’t seem to have any from ’97 in my collection but also because they tend to fill me with murderous rage rather than goodwill to all men). But, I am going to post Ash’s spunky cover of Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want To Be With You in the hope of spreading some Crimbo joy.

The Spice Girls were part of Ash’s considerable celeb following at the time (which also included Oasis, Placebo, Blur, 3 Colours Red amongst others). Tim ‘the handsome one out of Ash’ Wheeler had called the Spice Girls ‘the coolest band on the planet’ (although which Spicepants he was trying to get into at the time history does not record). This popularity occurred during Ash’s golden period between the fantastic 1977 (just 20 away from being this blog’s favourite album) and the disastrously awful Nu –Clear Sounds. It was also the year they recruited Charlotte Hatherley.

I Only Want To Be With You was released as one of the b-sides of the ultra rare Barbie 7” which also featured a cover of Beck’s Devil’s Haircut.

Ash - I Only Want To Be With You

Buy Barbie (if you’re feeling lucky).

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you in 2006.

Matthew Barney – Cremaster 5

2005-12-08T17:16:00.000Z

Video art was also the all the rage in the US in 1997. However, not for the Americans the understated subtlety of a bunch of motionless bobbies. Instead Matthew Barney, whose previous work includes gym equipment covered in Vaseline, gave us a sprawling, baroque epic called The Cremaster Cycle. This contains five feature length films telling the story, according to experts, of the moment in embryonic development when the sex of the baby is determined. (N.B. the cremaster muscle raises and lowers the testicles – gory picure here - I hope that information never comes in handy).

1997 saw the release of climax of the series. The fifth film features Barney leaping around the Hungarian State Opera house in various guises and Ursula Andress singing with a pair of large glass testicles on her head (not likely to replace the swimsuit image in the public's affections). I’m sure it all makes sense when you see it – which I haven’t.

If you’re eager to buy a DVD of this you best get on eBay. Only ten copies of each film were made and you can expect to pay around $400,000 for one. Or, if you’re not Charles Saachi, you could just rent Weekend at Bernie’s again. Failing that you could watch one of the other sprawling epics of 1997 such as Titanic or Kevin Costner’s legendary winner of five Raspberry Awards The Postman.

Visit The Cremaster

1997 Turner Prize.

2005-12-05T20:25:00.000Z

1997 was, as usual, a controversial year for the Turner Prize. For the first time in history the shortlist was entirely female causing many cries of political correctness (largely from people who hadn’t raised a whisper against the many all male shortlists). The nominal winner of the prize was video artist Gillian Wearing. Her works, 60 Minutes' Silence, included an hour long video of a group of police officers sitting still and in complete silence. Complete silence, that is, until the very end when one of the policemen lets out a yelp of joy at it being over. A yelp that was referred to by The Daily Telegraph’s Richard Dormant as, “one of the great moments in the history of modern British art.” Which says more about the state of modern British art than it does about the piece.

The real winner of the night, though, was Tracy Emin.

In reaction to the conceptual nature of the art on the shortlist, Channel Four showed a live discussion programme called The Death of Painting. The show featured a number of eminent art critics and academics and a generously irrigated Tracy Emin. The other guests on the show, quite understandably, ignored Emin’s pickled expletives until she loudly stumbled out of the studio. The papers completely ignored Wearing in favour of yet more publicity for Emin.

Emin went on to win-without-actually-winning The Turner Prize in 1999 when her soiled Bed garnered all the publicity and a cheque for £150,000.

The good people at Channel Four needn’t have worried about ‘the death of painting'. The following year the award went to painter Chris Ofili. Oh, except he painted with elephant dung.

This year’s Turner Prize is on Channel 4 right now.

Check out this year’s entries here.

The Campbell Brothers – Medley of Offertory Tunes.

2005-12-02T16:26:00.000Z

In the beginning was the word.
And the word was with God.
And The Word was presented by Terry Christian.

I’m not a religious man – I used to think the baptismal font was Jesus’ favourite typeface – so the closest I come to a spiritual experience is listening to screaming gospel music. I’ve reasoned that if I listen to enough of it God might be tricked into thinking I believe in him and let me into heaven. It’s a bit of a long shot, what with that whole omniscience thing he’s got going on, but worth a go.

The Campbell Brothers, Philip, Chuck and Darick, began playing in their father’s church, The House of God Church in Tennessee, which has a sixty year old tradition of ‘Sacred Steel’ music. This style is based around the sound of the steel guitar which is laid flat and played using a steel bar. The steel guitar is usually associated with the gentle whining sound often heard in country music and the music of Hawaii (where the instrument originated). However, Sacred Steel music uses the instrument to create a much more intense sound to match the fervid nature of the sermons.

The Campbell Brothers were the first to take this music out of the Church and begin playing to secular audiences. Since then, Robert Randolph (who was given his first steel guitar by Chuck Campbell) has taken this music further into the mainstream. It’s not hard to hear why this music inspires religious fervour in people or why atheist fundamentalists like me love it. Of course, you don’t need me to tell you this; I’m sure you all obeyed my earlier order (which still stands – that tune is far better than today’s and far better than pretty much anything you care to mention).

It might be shallow of me but if they played music like this at my local Anglican church I’d be there every Sunday. As it is they come up with sermons that are dull enough to be the next 50 Cent single. Logic would suggest that if you knew the secret of the universe and were guaranteed an eternity in heaven you’d sound a little pleased about it (perhaps church is God’s way of preparing us for hell). Logic would also suggest that God wouldn’t have the one true faith founded because Henry VIII was bored with his wife.

Don’t interpret any of this as having a go at Christians. They have the right to believe what they believe and I have the right to believe the truth.

The Campbell Brothers – Medley of Offertory Tunes

Buy Pass Me Not

Download The Campbell Brothers at the Grassroots Festival

The Verve Pipe – The Freshmen.

2005-11-24T16:09:00.000Z

Never ones to be outdone, the Americans had their own chart-topping Verve miserablists in 1997. Of course, they added their trademark sledgehammer subtlety, bleeding-heart emoting and buck-passing to the mix.

The Verve Pipe had formed in the early ‘90s in the wake of the grunge explosion which accounts for the sub-Eddie Vedder vocal stylings of front-man Brian Vander Ark. In 1992 the band independently released their debut album called I’ve Suffered A Head Injury (which would explain a few things). The album contained an early version of today’s track, The Freshmen, which was later rerecorded when they signed to RCA records.

The song itself tells the story of two freshmen who are attempting to convince themselves that they are not to blame for the suicide of a girl they both dated and ditched. It is such a depressing song that it made The Guardian’s list of the 25 most miserable tracks. Despite, or maybe because of, this the song rocketed into the US top ten and became the breakthrough smash of the summer. It also, rather incongruously, led to a support slot on tour with good-time, show-me-the-money rockers Kiss which, you have to imagine, was a bit like Joy Division supporting the Teletubbies.

If anyone can explain what the wittering bejesus the line ‘a shoe full of rice’ is supposed to mean I’m all ears.

The Verve Pipe – The Freshmen

Buy Villains

Debbie Currie – You Can Do Magic

2005-11-17T20:05:00.000Z

I don’t have an mp3 of this unfortunately (hey, come back) but, since I covered the second strangest record of 1997 a couple of weeks ago, I have no option but to mention this too.

The song was a cover of Limmie and the Family Cookin’s You Can Do Magic sung by Debbie Currie (daughter of the Ramsey-slapping, egg bashing, prime minister shagging Edwina Currie). I use the word ‘sung’ in the Milli Vanilli sense of the word. The song was actually sung by Sinitta of So Macho and sleeping with Simon Cowell “fame”. Currie herself has the voice of an angel – albeit an angel that’s swallowed a set of bagpipes and an angry cat. Needless to say, it was bloody awful.

However, the celeb family connection together with dubious tabloid stories of six times a night, four-in-a-bed, underage romps and her willingness to pose with only a thong and two strategically placed fried eggs to cover her ‘modesty’ made sure there was plenty of publicity. Adding to the overwhelming urge to vomit out your own eyes is the fact that Debbie bears an uncanny resemblance to her mother which made photos of her look like a head shot of the Tory MP hastily photoshopped onto the body of a page three girl. See the egg picture here if you think you’ve got the stomach for it and have a reckless disregard for your mental health.

Just another day in the wonderful world of pop? Not so. It eventually transpired that the record was an attempt by ITV’s flagship investigative journalism show The Cook Report to prove how easy it was to rig the charts. They went round carefully selected record shops buying arm-loads of copies. Consequently, the single went in like a bullet at number 86.

The bulk buying had been noticed by chart compilers CIN and been discounted. But, never one to let the facts get in the way of dull story, Cook pressed ahead with the programme only to be faced with legal action which meant the programme had to be re-edited.

The Cook Report was cancelled in 1998.

Half Man Half Biscuit – Monmore Hare’s Running (Peel Session Version)

2005-11-10T18:19:00.000Z

They are a national treasure… When I die I want to be buried with them. John Peel.

I had been planning to post Half Man Half Biscuit during the John Peel season but, disgracefully, they didn’t appear on the 1997 Festive Fifty. Everyone who was alive in 1997 deserves a hefty punch in the face for that one.

HMHB began the year recording their 7th Peel session featuring four songs that would eventually appear on Voyage to the Bottom of the Road: Monmore Hare’s Running, Tonight Matthew I’m Going To Be With Jesus, PRS Yearbook and He Who Would Valium Take. As you can tell, The Biscuits have a penchant for arresting titles. Their albums include Back In The DHSS and Trouble Over Bridgewater and they have songs called Look Dad No Tunes, Deep House Victims’ Minibus Appeal and Even Men With Steel Hearts Love To See A Dog On The Pitch. As Peel said, “every song a t-shirt.”

This pithy-ness is also evident in their lyrics which are occasionally caustic, occasionally amusing and occasionally banal but usually all three at once. For example, these from 99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd:

Have you ever wondered how you get triangles from a cow?
You need butter, milk and cheese, and an equilateral chainsaw.

Mary had a little lamb, the doctors were astounded,
And everywhere she went gynaecologists surrounded.

Their songs are usually packed with references to d-list celebs (useless pub trivia: the lead singer of Runrig – who are name checked on PRS Showcase - ran for parliament in 1997. He didn’t get in) and mundane observations. Monmore Hare’s Running mentions Paolo Hewitt, Neighbours and has a verse that decries the inadequacy of low quality Sellotape. You can find explanations of all the references on the record here.

1997 almost saw HMHB signing with a major label, V2. Previously, the band had done everything possible to avoid success. They had refused to appear on The Tube, despite the offer of a chopper ride, because they wanted to watch Tranmere Rovers; they had split up in 1987 because they were getting too famous; they had only formed in the first place because it was more interesting than ‘writing on the sole of your slipper with a biro’; they claim that the secret to happiness is lowering your expectations. Unsurprisingly, the deal fell through and the band trudged back to their old label, Probe Plus.

I’ve chosen to upload Monmore Hare’s Running from the session. It is, and I’m being careful not to exaggerate here, a work of genius comparable to the entire output of the Italian Renaissance.

Half Man Half Biscuit – Monmore Hare’s Running (Peel Session).

Buy Journey To The Bottom Of The Road

The Derailers – Ellen

2005-11-03T17:39:00.000Z

Ellen DeGeneres’ real life coming-out and that of the character she played in her sitcom, called Ellen, in 1997 caused a huge stir and saw a whopping 42 million people tune in to the “Puppy Episode”. Over in the UK everywhere you went absolutely everyone was talking about something else. But, I’m Ellen’s biggest English fan – I’ve seen part of one episode of one of her shows – so I can’t let it pass without comment.

The decision to have the fictional Ellen come out was precipitated by the script writers’ frustration at Ellen’s lack of love interest and DeGeneres’ relationship with Hollywood actress Anne Heche, whose lesbian credentials are undermined somewhat by the fact she’s had more men than the Grand Old Duke of York. You may be familiar with Heche’s oeuvre; she gets it out in every film.

The episode itself feature a huge array of stars (Oprah Winfrey, Demi Moore, Billy Bob Thornton, Laura Dern, Gina Gershon and, with crushing inevitability, kd lang) and inspired ‘Coming Out With Ellen’ parties from coast-to-coast (and nowhere in between). After the success of the coming-out episode the backlash was quick to come. The show was accused of being too political and viewing figures dropped rapidly. As well as receiving criticism from the Christian right, she even had the dog-eat-dog world of lesbian politics turn on her when Chastity Bono said the show was ‘too gay’. Even Elton John joined the chorus of disapproval. When Elton thinks you’re too gay you know you’re in trouble.

In actual fact, the show was killed off by an endless procession of celebs desperate to prove they loved ‘the gays’ – a fate currently befalling Will and Grace. Madonna’s “acting” on W&G was on a level with a primary school nativity play – I swear at one point I saw her pick her nose then wave to her mum. Anyhoo, stumbling guilelessly back to the point, Ellen was cancelled because it wasn’t funny anymore.

DeGeneres refused to learn her lesson. She returned with The Ellen Show in which she played a lesbian called Ellen. It was cancelled after one series. She is currently presenting her own talk show called, you’ll never guess, The Ellen DeGeneres Show and is snogging Portia de Rossi.

Today’s track comes from The Derailers’ 1997 album Reverb Deluxe. As a bunch of honky-tonkin’ rednecks it’s unlikely they wrote this tune to celebrate Ellen’s coming out.

The Derailers – Ellen

Buy Reverb Deluxe

BTW, the fact that this is post number 69 is entirely coincidental. And anyone who laughed at lesbianism being a ‘dog-eat-dog world’ needs to grow up.

Owada – Nothing

2005-10-26T16:24:00.000Z

Thanks to WFMU’s ever wonderful Beware of the Blog you can now download the second strangest record of 1997.

Owada are the brainchild of 2001 Turner Prize winning artist Martin Creed. Fresh from the runaway success of pieces such as Work No.79 (which was a small lump of Blu-Tack stuck to a wall) and Work No.88 (a crumpled up piece of paper) Creed decided to enter the world of pop music and make an album about nothing – a concept upon which Oasis have based their entire output. The lyrics stretch from a list of the numbers up to four all the way to a list of the numbers from 101 to 200 (read the full lyrics here) which give the record the feel of an episode of Sesame Street presented by Bearsuit.

Creed created his most famous piece, Work No.200, in 1998 by filling various rooms with balloons. He went on to win the Turner Prize with Work No.227: The lights going on and off which, funnily enough, featured the lights in a room going on and off every 5 seconds. See the stunning pictures here.

Download all of Nothing on WFMU’s Beware of the Blog

Visit martincreed.com

Dave Godin’s Deep Soul Treasures Volume 1.

2005-10-24T16:44:00.000Z

Shortly before the death of John Peel last year came the less widely reported death of Dave Godin. Even though he wasn’t as famous as Peel his influence was huge. He is one of the main reasons that soul music, despite being neglected for many years in its homeland, is kept alive in the UK.

I wouldn’t usually cover reissues on here but the release of Deep Soul Treasures Volume 1 in 1997 is too big to ignore. Unlike most compilations they were put together with a reckless disregard for commercial potential. The artists are largely wilfully obscure (Zerben R Hicks anyone?) to the extent that even Godin knows little or nothing about some of them. Nevertheless, thanks to Godin impeccable taste, idiosyncratic liner notes and the extraordinarily intense songs, the albums began to sell and picked up a large cult following.

Godin was a bit of an all-round nutcase. He was an anarchist, a vegetarian, a Jainist, a believer in Wilhelm Reich’s loopy orgone theory (which also found supporters in Patty Smith, Frank Zappa and, most famously, Kate Bush) and he once compared David Blunkett to Stalin. All this, as well as him looking like an anaemic geography supply teacher, made him an unlikely champion of the music of black America. But he was obsessed with soul music to the exclusion of all other genres – once he even claimed he couldn’t name a single member of The Beatles. This dedication lead to him becoming the leading authority and taste maker of soul music in Britain through his writing, his advice to record companies and his own record labels devoted to releasing rare soul records in the UK. He is also credited as being creator of the terms ‘Northern Soul’ and ‘Deep Soul’.

But it is the Deep Soul Treasures series that represent Godin’s life’s work; he even referred to them as being his babies. Deep Soul is a subgenre of soul which is gritty, intensely emotional and uncompromising. Musically it is usually, although not exclusively, slow in tempo and heavily influenced by the blues and gospel. Godin, in his unique style, says, “Deep Soul strives to help us understand what our heads alone cannot always accommodate, and delineates the vicissitudes of the human heart as it searches for what it so desperately yearns for, and what it fears it may never find or secure.” The genre reached its peak in the late sixties and was shamefully killed off with the rise of disco in the 70’s.

Jaibi’s You Got Me was Godin's favourite record of all time and it’s not difficult to hear why. He wrote of this song, “You Got Me is a Deep Soul side of almost indescribable beauty and poignancy. Mannered, stylised, and with a cascading and vertiginous unfolding, it is, quite simply, the ultimate expression of what Deep Soul music is all about at its most stunning and majestic, with a mood that is both ambivalent and mysterious, and an atmosphere that is suffused with all that is good and worthwhile about being human, and being capable of love for other human beings.” I think that means he likes it.

Keep the faith – right on now!

Jaibi – You Got Me

Buy Dave Godin’s Deep Soul Treasures Volume 1

Festive Fifty #1: Cornershop – Brimful of Asha.

2005-10-13T22:58:00.000Z

Ho, ho, ho. Merry John Peel Day one and all. What a joy it was for me to wake this morning to see my kids gathered around the John Peel tree excitedly tearing open their John Peel presents and singing John Peel carols at the wrong speed. With my belly full to bursting with John Peel cake, here’s the Festive 50 number one from 1997.

Peel had been a fan of Cornershop for many years before their breakthrough single Brimful of Asha and he selected them to headline the Meltdown festival when he was its curator in 1998. Cornershop’s Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayers were both present at Peel’s funeral last year.

Cornershop were initially dismissed by many in the music press and with the amateurishness of their early records you can see their point. It didn’t help that they garnered more attention for their feud with Morrissey - which culminated in them burning pictures of him outside his record label’s offices - than they did for their music. Luckily, they grew into their music and by the time of 1997’s When I Was Born for the 7th Time their blend of tuneful indie-pop and Indian sounds had been perfected and they were heading for the charts.

However, it was not until Fat Boy Slim’s speeded up, gimmick packed remix of Brimful of Asha was released in 1998 that they hit the top of the singles chart. I’ve uploaded the original version.

Cornershop – Brimful of Asha

Buy When I Was Born for the 7th Time

Festive Fifty #4: Period Pains – Spice Girls (Who Do You Think You Are?)

After the technical foul ups of the last couple of days I thought I best offer you another track. And a damn good one it is too.

Period Pains were a bunch of bratty, 14 year old posh girls with a 'butter wouldn’t melt' look and a way with a good punk tune. They also had a sense of humour about their public school life giving songs titles like Daddy, I Want a Pony and Anarchy in the Abbey. There’s no doubt they had a way with words e.g. on the song Anorexia is Sexier:

Come on now grls don't tell fibs
You wish that we could see your ribs
If you want to lose that baby bounce
Regurgitate and shed that ounce

Although you would have thought that all those school fees would have meant they knew the difference between anorexia and bulimia.

This track originally appeared on the amusingly named, but inaccurate on at least one count, Virgin Megastars. The album doesn’t seem to be available any more – shame.

Period Pains – Spice Girls (Who Do You Think You Are?)

Buy BBC Sessions

Festive Fifty #5: Belle and Sebastian – Lazy Line Painter Jane.

2005-10-12T19:29:00.000Z

For a bunch of nose-bleeding bed-wetters Belle and Sebastian got off to a surprisingly aggressive start in their career. In 1996 they formed, were signed by Jeepster and released two albums (the eBay favourite Tigermilk and If You’re Feeling Sinister).

They didn’t let up much on the pace in 1997 releasing a series of EPs. Without doubt the best track on these was Lazy Line Painter Jane (now available on the Push Barman to Open Old Wounds compilation). The song showcases an echo-y surf guitar and the voice of Monica Queen (the lead singer of THRUM who had been described as sounding like ‘Tammy Wynette with a hard on’).All that and educational too (I didn’t know you could get thrush from licking railings).

No track again I’m afraid – more techy problems. Double bugger, bugger it sideways and one more bugger for the hotel room.

Buy Push Barman to Open Old Wounds

Read all the 1997 Peel sessions.

Festive Fifty #17: The Fall – I’m A Mummy.

2005-10-11T22:23:00.000Z

1997 was a year of flux for The Fall i.e. business as usual.

All curmudgeonly Fall main man Mark E Smith’s skills of conciliation had been unable to prevent the departure at the end of 1996 of Brix ‘Ex-Mrs Mark E Smith’ Smith and in-out-in-out drummer Karl Burns. Despite this Smith cobbled together a new band and no fewer than 10 Fall albums were released in 1997: 7 live albums, two reissues and Levitate from which today’s track comes.

The next bust up occurred with Levitate producer Simon Spencer. He was replaced by Jason Barron who, according to The Fall website, ‘cut his teeth on records by Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan & Rick Astley’. Well, I suppose trying to eat the records is less painful than trying to listen to them.

1997 also saw Mark E Smith hook up with Damon Gough to write the song Calender. Apparently, at the end of one drunken night Smith mistook His Badly Draw-ness for a taxi driver – as opposed to the pissed-up hobo most people mistake him for.

A new band was put together in August ’97 to tour the album and to record their 24th Peel session including the return – again - of Karl Burns. This line-up lasted all of eight months until April ’98 when an onstage brawl resulted in the departure of three members and a night in jail for Smith on assault charges.

Unfortunately, there’s no track today – technical problems. Bugger.

Buy Levitate

Festive Fifty #22: Bis – Sweet Shop Avengerz.

2005-10-10T21:51:00.000Z

Bis provide a stern warning on the dangers of finding pop stardom too young. Once spunky teenagers, now jaded, world weary, mid-twenty-ites lumbered with the names John Disco, Sci-Fi Steven and Manda Rin.

Bis were formed in 1994 and rapidly graduated from their bedrooms to playing around the Glasgow scene and, after a couple of EP releases, secured their first Peel session in 1995. They were then hyped in the way only the British inkies know how. They even became the first unsigned band to appear on Top of the Pops. Unsurprisingly, a fierce bidding war began and after a protracted bout of handbags and hair-pulling the band signed to Wiiija Records.

By the time they released New Transistor Heroes the UK was already mightily sick of them. Luckily, their bratty punk-pop was guaranteed to make them big in Japan (or at least big in comparison to the Japanese). This resulted in what they will be remembered for: the closing theme to The Powerpuff Girls.

Bis – Sweet Shop Avengerz.

Buy New Transistor Heroes

Play the John Peel sweet game

Festive Fifty #37: The Verve – Sonnet.

2005-10-09T21:38:00.000Z

Richard Ashcroft can be held at least partially responsible for the significant rise in the number of people being barged over in the street by blokes singing anthemic rock songs that occurred in 1997.

It’s something of a miracle that Urban Hymns ever got made at all. The relationship between founding members Richard Ashcroft and guitarist Nick McCabe was particularly fractious. The band first split in 1994 up after a disastrous stint on Lollapolooza left Ashcroft in hospital and drummer Peter Salisbury in jail. They got back together long enough to record 1995’s A Northern Soul and managed to stay together for three months before Ashcroft left after a series of rows with McCabe.

Ashcroft reformed the band but was, initially, unable to convince McCabe to rejoin. He eventually relented and the group recorded their masterpiece and, as it turned out, swansong. The feud between Ashcroft and McCabe quickly resurfaced and no amount of success could stop McCabe quitting the band for good in 1998. The group limped on with BJ Cole on guitar but eventually split once and for all in 1999.

I’m not sure why Sonnet is singled out for inclusion in the Festive Fifty as it is far from the strongest track on the album. I also don’t remember Peel ever playing a Verve track but I wait to be corrected.

If you want a literate overview of The Verve’s career – firstly, what the hell are you doing here? - then read Hannah’s post.

The Verve – Sonnet

Buy Urban Hymns.

John Peel: Festive 50 1997.

2005-10-09T14:54:00.000Z

As 1997 was slap bang in the middle of my student days, I spent many a night listening to Peel (rather than learning something about economics) and many a grant check on the music he played (rather than the world famous floozies of Nottingham). Some of his fans were even more prestigious than me. In 1997 the newly crowned Prime Minister Tony Blair called him "truly a radio legend". Peel later refused to meet him.

In the run up to John Peel Day I will, rather unimaginatively, be posting selected entries in 1997’s Festive Fifty. A particularly poor tribute since Peel himself always hated doing the Festive Fifty (the tracks were predictable and not unrepresentative of the show's scope) and he often threatened to stop. This may be why in 1997 he didn’t bother playing numbers fifty to thirty two. The full list with the tracks I’ll be posting in bold:

1. Cornershop - Brimful Of Asha
2. Mogwai - New Paths To Helicon
3. Helen Love - Does Your Heart Go Boom
4. Period Pains - Spice Girls Who Do You Think You Are
5. Belle & Sebastian - Lazy Line Painter Jane
6. Novak - Rapunzel
7. The Fall - Inch
8. Daft Punk - Rollin' & Scratchin'
9. Clinic - IPC Subeditors Dictate Our Youth
10. David Holmes - Don't Die Just Yet
11. Blur - Song 2
12. Belle & Sebastian - Dog On Wheels
13. Hydroplane - We Crossed the Atlantic
14. Stereolab & Nurse with Wound - Simple Headphone Mind
15. Bette Davis & the Balconettes - Shergar
16. Arab Strap - Hey Fever
17. The Fall - I'm A Mummy
18. Spiritualised - Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
19. AC Acoustics - I Messiah Am Jailer
20. Stereolab - Fluorescences
21. Hitchers - Strachan
22. Bis - Sweet Shop Avengerz
23. Secret Goldfish - Dandelion Milk Summer
24. Prolapse - Autocade
25. Dreamcity Film Club - If I Die, I Die
26. Stereolab - Miss Modular
27. Delgados - Pull The Wires From The Wall
28. Propellerheads - Velvet Pants
29. Hybirds - Seventeen
30. Prolapse - Slash/Oblique
31. Angelica - Teenage Girl Crush
32. Junior Reid - Mashing Up the Earth
33. Stony Sleep - She Had Me
34. Ash - A Life Less Ordinary
35. DJ Hype - Peace Love and Unity
36. Blur - Beetlebum
37. Verve – Sonnet
38. Panecea - Stormbringer
39. Velodrome 2000 - Charity Shopping
40. Vynil Junkie - Can't Forget
41. Idlewild - Chandilier
42. Cuff - Evapourate
43. Starkey Banton - Symposium
44. Ivor Cutler - Goosie
45. Underworld - Moaner
46 Cornershop - Sleep on the Left Side
47 Pulp - help the aged
49 Velocette - get yourself together
50 Propellerheads - take california

As a more fitting tribute here’s Ronnie Ronalde played at the wrong speed:

Ronnie Ronalde – Mocking Bird Hill (33 1/3 at 78)

Read a Peel interview from 1997.

Other Radio News

I recently found out that my new favourite radio station, Splash FM, made this blog ‘Website of the Day’ at the beginning of August. If anyone was in the Worthing area on 1st August and listening to Simon Osborne at 8:50am, I’d love to know what was said about what will henceforth be know as ‘The Internationally Famous in Worthing, Shoreham and Lancing We Love 1997’ (or TIFIWSALWL97 for short).

Also, WL97 is now one year old.

Ocean Colour Scene – Hundred Mile High City.

2005-09-30T15:55:00.000Z

The Britpop scene never had a defined sound. But there was one thing that connected them all – crap names. Shed Seven, Echobelly, Kula Shaker, Menswear. However, one band stood ahead of the crowd.

Ocean Colour Scene were formed in Birmingham in the late 80’s and had their first crack at stardom when they were signed to the equally ill-named Phfftt Records. After lengthy recording sessions with a string of producers, their album was released to vast public indifference. They were unceremoniously dumped by the record company (usually when a band gets ditched there’s a ceremony involving cake, balloons and a pregnant hippopotamus) and went on the dole.

Luckily, their Modish Dad-Rock caught the eye of Paul Weller, who offered them a support slot and recruited guitarist Steve Craddock for his own backing band, and Noel Gallagher, who also offered them a support slot. The resulting bidding war was won by MCA who were the only record company daft enough to allow them to keep the name Ocean Colour Scene. Their second debut Moseley Shoals was released in 1996 and, with the celebrity backing of Chris Evans, Johnny Depp and pixie-faced coke fiend Kate Moss, hovered around the top of the album charts for the next six months.

Their 1997 follow-up, Marchin’ Already, was excitedly received on its release and knocked Oasis of number one; prompting Noel to proclaim them the ‘second best band in the world’. But sales dropped and it failed to perform as well as Moseley Shoals. The band themselves blamed this on the outing of singer Simon Fowler. Ignoring the fact it just wasn’t much good.

The album does have one redeeming feature; the rifftastic Hundred Mile High City.

Ocean Colour Scene – Hundred Mile High City

Buy Marchin’ Already

Kate Rusby – Bold Riley.

2005-09-23T06:15:00.000Z

I’m surprised I managed to last this long without indulging my passion for English folk music and posting some ‘finger-in-the-ear’ music (opposed to the ‘fingers-in-both-ears’ music I post most weeks). It has been a long held dream of mine to play banjo with Eliza Carthy and fiddle with Kate Rusby.

Although Rusby’s 1997 album Hourglass, from which today’s track comes, was her debut she had already had already established herself on the folk scene. Along with Kathryn Roberts, she was part of folk’s answer to Destiny’s Child (not that anyone had asked the question). She was also a member of folk supergroup Equation whose members have included recent Mercury Prize nominee Seth Lakeman and Irish nymph Cara Dillon (there’s a Rock Family Tree to be made of that band).

However, Rusby left Equation after the band were approached by a major label who wanted them to move in a more commercial direction. She decided to go solo, set up her own record label and make an album with her, musical and life, partner John McCusker and a bevy of talented, young folk musicians.

Bold Riley is a traditional sea shanty. It is, to get a bit geeky about it, a Halyard Shanty and was used when sailors raised and lowered the sails – pulling on the chorus and resting on the verse. Rusby turns it from a gruff work-song into a melancholy ballad with accordion accompaniment (c/o Andy Cutting) – a trick she repeated on her follow-up album Sleepless with the track The Wildgoose.

It was with Sleepless that Rusby began to be noticed outside the folk scene and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize – shamefully losing out to Talvin Singh’s aptly named OK.

Kate Rusby – Bold Riley

Buy Kate Rusby mp3s

View My half hearted, less than comprehensive attempt at an Equation family tree

In case you were wondering, White Stocking Day was a sailors payday. Once back in port the sailors female relatives would dress in their finery (including white stockings) and collect the money.

Kelly Joe Phelps – Go There.

2005-09-15T16:41:00.000Z

Fantastic, white bluesmen are few and far between. In fact, you could count the number of great, white blues musicians on the fingers of one finger. He’s Kelly Joe Phelps.

Like many old-time blues musicians, Phelps began his musical career playing fretless bass in a series of free-jazz groups and was highly technically adept. However, he swung to the other side of the musical spectrum and decided that the limited but soulful acoustic blues was to be his idiom. According to legend, this conversion occurred after a Robert Johnson/Jesus style period spent alone in the wilderness. He also developed his penchant for playing slide on a guitar laid flat across his lap at this time after a mysterious ‘carnival accident’ (“No-one tells me what I can’t stick my arms out of.”) didn’t leave him with any other choice.

His early albums, Lead Me On and 1997’s Roll Away the Stone, owe a great deal to his blues influences. As well as a high percentage of blues standards, his own songs on these albums are indebted to the tradition. For example, today’s track Go There, with it’s references to poor sinners and bible reading, is lyrically and musically reminiscent of the gospel-blues of Reverend Gary Davis.

But increasingly Phelps began to move back towards free-jazz and wrote increasingly literary songs to establish the unique style that sets him apart from most modern blues musicians. The balance between these two hit perfection on the follow-up to Roll Away the Stone, Shine Eyed Mister Zen. Unfortunately, he continued to head towards free-jazz and recruited a band of jazzy beard-scratchers.

Kelly Joe Phelps – Go There

Roll Away The Stone

Modest Mouse – Shit Luck.

2005-09-07T18:57:00.000Z

I have to admit I was only dimly aware of Modest Mouse before last year’s Good News for People Who Love Bad News and once I had heard I looked back on the days of ignorance with a teary-eyed fondness. That was until I heard their 1997 album The Lonesome Crowded West.

The album veers from describing Jesus pissing off God by having a drink to a bluegrass backing (on Jesus Christ Was An Only Child) to howls of desperation set to violent, brutal guitars (on today’s track).

Modest Mouse were formed in 1993 by frontman Isaac Brock and rapidly ran into trouble. The first album they recorded was shelved (it was later released as Sad Sappy Sucker) and Brock took the unusual step of releasing his songs by phone. Every day he would record a new song as his answering machine message and fans would, according to legend, ring up and listen. With such PR savvy tactics Modest Mouse’s international fame was but a short decade away.

Once they did get to make proper records they didn’t hang around. In 1996 they released their debut, This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About, followed in 1997 by The Lonesome Crowded West and the Fruit That Ate Itself EP. The speed of release perhaps explaining the lax editorial control of album titles.

Modest Mouse – Shit Luck

Buy The Lonesome Crowded West

Download more Modest Mouse 1997 action

Shameless Self Promotion

2005-08-28T21:44:00.000Z

I’ve entered Spoilt Victorian Child’s Killing Rattlesnakes Mix competition. As I write this I’m on a big, fat, Belgian-style nul points. Go and vote for me. Over and over again.

Money’s In – Jon Schaben vs. Bob Brozman

Bob Brozman

Jon Schaben

Spice Girls – Spiceworld.

2005-08-23T18:54:00.000Z

Writing his autobiography wasn’t nearly enough to keep Stephen Fry busy in 1997. He also found the time to star in two hit films. In one he bowed to the inevitable and played the literary, witty, gay, polymath and all round smarty-pants Oscar Wilde. In the other he bowed to the regrettable and appeared in Spiceworld – The Movie. On the upside he did have the only amusing line in the film: “Send in Hootie and the Blowfish”. There you go, I’ve ruined it for you now.

I suppose you’re wondering why I didn’t post last week. You probably think I spent the week lazing around the woodshed, sipping drambuie and licking tiramisu off assorted comely wenches. You’d be wrong. I spent the whole of last week devising an argument as to why, contrary to appearances, The Spice Girls were not a bunch of talent-less, pan-faced bints. Unfortunately, no amount of clever circumlocution can get around the fact they were a bunch of talent-less pan-faced bints.

Luckily, the end of 1997 saw the beginning of the downturn for The Spices. But before the downturn you have to hit a pinnacle and that pinnacle was the 1997 Brit Awards. That night they became icons, largely thanks to the Union Jack dress worn by Geri (rechristened Ginger despite previous glamour photos providing ample evidence to the contrary). It didn’t hurt that while collecting their awards Geri’s boob fell out and Sporty offered Liam Gallagher out for a fight.

Shortly before the release of Spiceworld (on Boxing Day) they decided to fire their svengali manager Simon Fuller and, temporarily at least, take on managerial duties themselves. Many people point to this as the beginning of the end for The Spice Girls. Their next release, Stop in February 1998, was the first not to top the UK chart. 1998 also saw Halliwell leave the group and become a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Population Fund in the same year (I’m still not sure that actually happened).

Do you really want me to upload a Spice Girls song? Really?

Buy Spiceworld – The Movie

Blur – MOR/Chinese Bombs (Peel Session)

2005-08-09T15:09:00.000Z

It’s a little surprising that Blur even survived until 1997 never mind released probably the best album they ever made.

In 1996 it was clear that Britpop was on the wane. The band themselves were unhappy with their previous album The Great Escape and had decided to take a year out to recuperate. Graham Coxon, however, decided that rather than ‘recuperate’ he would partake in repeated episodes of alcohol poisoning. The band’s hiatus looked like it might become a permanent one.

However, the group did reform with increased vigour and a new direction. Coxon managed to sober up and became the driving force behind Blur’s new lo-fi, indie-rock sound. With their long time producer Stephen Street (who would be replaced with William ‘I did Sting’s If You Love Someone Set Them Free you know’ Orbit on later albums) they set to work recording Blur.

The album’s raw style did not sit well with fans of Parklife and The Great Escape but did win them many new fans. For the first time the band began to sell records in US largely thanks to Song 2 which gave Americans the opportunity to do what they love most: whooping.

Blur also won an unlikely convert in John Peel. He enjoyed their new direction so much he invited them to record a session at his home, Peel Acres. Blur gladly accepted and recorded, among others, these spunky versions of songs from Blur. After Peel’s death Albarn said, “John Peel’s endorsement was for me, like countless other musicians, one of the most significant things that happened to us in our careers”.

Blur – MOR (Peel Session)

Blur – Chinese Bombs (Peel Session)

Buy Blur

Buy Bustin’+Dronin’

Stephen Fry & Joby Talbot– Hitchhiker’s Guide to Blogging.

2005-08-03T16:19:00.000Z

I’m not sure if this is something to be celebrated but 1997 was the year the weblog was born. Blogging was dreamt up by a group of Harvard academics to once and for all test the theorem that an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of type writers will eventually produce Shakespeare. So far it’s not looking likely.

In December 1997 editor of Robot Wisdom Jorn Barger started logging sites he had visited on his website and decided on the name ‘weblog’. This was rewritten as ‘we-blog’ and the term ‘blogging’ was invented.

1997 also saw the release of Stephen Fry’s autobiography Moab Is My Washpot (covering the first twenty years of his life). It’s a little hypocritical of Fry to have a go at blogging since the only thing more egotistical than writing about your humdrum life and expecting to read it is writing about your humdrum life and expecting people to pay to read it. Near the end of the book he writes:

“I know that my early life was at one and the same time so common as to be unremarkable, and so strange as to be the stuff of fiction. I know of course that this is how all human lives are, but that it is only given to a few of us to luxuriate in the bath of self-revelation, self-curiosity, apology, revenge, bafflement, vanity and egoism that goes under the name Autobiography.”

Now we all get to luxuriate under the name blogging.

Stephen Fry and Joby Talbot - Hitchhiker's Guide to Blogging

Buy Moab Is My Washpot

Buy Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Soundtrack

Mary J Blige – (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman.

2005-07-31T14:00:00.000Z

Who’s the most innovative female singer of our decade?

This is the question posed at the beginning of Mary J Blige’s 1997 album Share My World. ‘Mary J Blige’ wouldn’t be my answer to that question (see Monday for my answer) but that’s the sort of hubris you need to invite comparisons with Aretha Franklin.

Share My World was Blige’s first album without the guiding hand of Sean Hufflepuff Piffle Diddy Daddy Combs who had been her mentor since she was 17. Combs’ boots were filled by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis with results that were commercially, although not critically, successful.

As I understand it, this track did not appear on the US version of the album. That’s a shame as it shows just how heavily influenced by Franklin she is. This version is an almost note for note rendition of Franklin’s.

Mary J Blige – (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman.

Share My World

Erykah Badu – On & On (Live)

2005-07-27T16:54:00.000Z

Erykah Badu has something for everyone. A bit of old school soul, hip-hop, a raspy, Billie Holiday-esque voice, laid back grooves, consciousness raising lyrics and a taste in head gear that gives her a Marge Simpson silhouette.

1997 was a busy year for Badu. In February she released her debut album, Baduizm, and the original version of On & On, she toured extensively including appearances with acts as diverse as the Wu Tang Klan (on the Smokin’ Grooves Tour) and Sarah McLachlan (at Lilith Fair), she appeared on Busta Rhymes’ record, she released a live record in November, from which today’s track is taken, and she ended the year picking up piles of awards.

On the same day as the release of Baduizm Live Badu gave birth to her first son, with Andre ‘Outkast’ 3000, and ridiculously named him Seven. I say ‘ridiculously’ as ‘Seven’ is obviously a girl’s name. Presumably, his full name is Seven Badu-3000 which is bound to cause ‘I’m not a number, I’m a free man’-style teenage rants.

I’m all for giving children numbers instead of names. All the names I plan to give my children include numbers. I’m going to have two boys called Shenstone Pathfinder First XI Woodshed (after the West Midlands (Regional) League Division Two football team) and Commodore 64 Woodshed (after the prehistoric digital device) and a girl called Corel Suite 7 Woodshed (after the software package).

Erykah Badu – On & On (Live)

Buy Baduizm Live

iLove 1997

2005-07-27T16:47:00.000Z

I’ve put together an iMix of some/most of the songs I’ve posted if you’ve missed something or want a legit copy. There are also a number of tracks I plan to post in the future if you want to get a jump on me. I’ve also done an iMix of OK Computer covers some of which weren’t included in OKC Week.

The BBC’s shameless rip-off of us I Love 1997 has streams of every number one of 1997. You can also take the 1997 quiz.

Missy Elliott – The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)

2005-07-25T16:07:00.000Z

Posting R Kelly the other week made me realise that I’ve shamefully overlooked all the really great R&B that came out in 1997. And it doesn’t get much greater than Missy Elliott’s reworking of Ann Peebles’ classic I Can’t Stand the Rain.

Although Supa Dupa Fly was Elliott’s debut album she had served a long apprenticeship with The Swing Mob – a group of around 20 musicians brought together by Jodeci main man DeVante Swing. The Swing Mob all lived in a single, two-storey house in New York writing and producing their own material as well as songs for Jodeci and other acts. Although this should have produced something akin to a hip-hop version of The Young Ones, it actually produced a close-knit group of talented musicians including Magoo, Playa, Ginuwine and Tweet – with whom Elliott is so close they have been rumoured to be having an affair. The Swing Mob also contained Elliott’s childhood friend and producer DJ Timmy Tim – who DeVante Swing did the huge favour of renaming Timbaland.

It’s difficult, and a little scary, to think what R&B would sound like if it hadn’t been for Timbaland and Elliott. In the early-mid 90’s R&B was still struggling to overcome what happened to it in the 80’s. R Kelly was plugging away at the fag-end of New Jack Swing and Mary J Blige brought a bit edge to the Whitney Houston sound but still sounded marginally less interesting than a day-trip to Cumberland Pencil Museum. Today is rare to hear an R&B song which doesn’t feature Elliott/Timbaland style syncopated beats. Elliott may also be the reason why the distaff side of R&B is by far the most interesting.

As well as being a killer song, The Rain also had a stunning video by Hype Williams. Although Williams bears considerable responsibility for the ‘Pimps & Hoes’ aesthetic which makes every hip-hop video look like a Britney wedding and suggests that Bin Laden may have a point about the degradation of Western culture; when he tries he really creates something special. Possibly inspired by Elliott’s considerable girth at the time, he had the genius idea of putting her in a black, blow-up, rubber suit and have her sway around like a Weeble.

Missy Elliott – The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)

Buy Supa Dupa Fly

Listen Ann Peebles session for Andy Kershaw

Jewel – You Were Meant for Me

2005-07-20T16:09:00.000Z

The one who really made it, made it coz her breasts were really big

That may not be entirely true but Jewel certainly got plenty of support from horny old rockers early in her career. She opened for Neil Young and Bob Dylan and had Red Hot Chilli Flea hanging round her like a bad smell (and I imagine Flea smells very bad). Dylan in particular has a habit of hiring attractive female support acts (e.g., e.g., e.g., e.g., e.g.).

Jewel released her debut album, Pieces of You, back in 1995. Unfortunately, at the time the world liked its female singer-songwriters angry, shouty and with only a tenuous grasp of the meaning of the word ‘ironic’. As a result it took more than a year for the album break into the top 100 in the US. Jewel can take some credit/blame for killing off the likes of Morissette and the rise of the girly-girls which reached its nadir, let’s hope, with Dido.

The one who really made it, made it coz she was actually pretty good.

‘Actually pretty good’ is damning with faint praise but accurate. I have to admit, I find this song quite charming. The people who are great rather than ‘pretty good’ rarely make it.

Jewel was born in Alaska. I wouldn’t normally mention it but it gives me a chance to share my favourite state capitals joke:

What’s the capital of Alaska?
Juneau.
No, that’s why I’m asking.

Da-dum. Tish.

Jewel – You Were Meant for Me

Buy Pieces of You

Jill Sobule – Bitter.

2005-07-18T15:29:00.000Z

“Everyone thought that I wrote that first verse about Jewel. I honestly didn’t.”

Jill Sobule is best known for the song I Kissed a Girl and rightly so. Containing, as it does, an infectious melody, a Dinosaur Jr.-style wobbly guitar solo and experimental lesbianism. It short, it has everything I look for in a track – plus it has an infectious melody and a Dinosaur Jr.-style wobbly guitar solo.

She also caused a bit of a stir with this song from the album Happy Town. I have to say I’m one of the ‘everyone’ who thinks it is about Jewel. The first time Jewel and Sobule shared a bill was a small gig at the South by Southwest festival. Jewel was first on the bill and ended up running off stage and crying after an indifferent reception from record execs. The second time they played the same event was at Lillith Fair. Sobule took to the stage half an hour before the festival was due to start and Jewel was headlining. Plus, there’s no denying the generosity of Jewel’s jumper-bumps.

That wasn’t the only trouble she caused with the song. Her record company were none too pleased with the language on the track. I’ll let her finish the tale. “They wanted me to replace "bitch" with something that Wal-Mart would be okay with. I went back in the studio and replaced the offending word with... ‘cunt’. I thought it was funny. They didn’t.”

Jill Sobule – Bitter

Buy Happy Town

Download more Jill

Buy the T-shirt

Dr Peter Alsop – It’s My Penis/It’s Only a Wee Wee.

2005-07-14T14:57:00.000Z

Yes, unlike Doctors John, Fox and Gillian McKeith, the man who wrote these songs really does have a Ph.D. – in educational psychology. According to his website, “His songs are used by thousands of parents, doctors, educators and other human service professionals to help families discuss sensitive issues such as sexual abuse, disabilities, loss and grief, codependency, self-worth, chemical dependency and family violence.” Quite how lines like, “What’s that hanging there between my legs?/It looks like a sausage between two hard boiled eggs”, are supposed to help solve chemical dependency I don’t know. I guess that’s why he’s got a Ph.D. and I’ve got an NVQIII in Nail Jewellery.

Alsop’s has been writing songs aimed at children since the 1970’s. Songs with such diverting titles such as Safari Up My Sister’s Nose. However, in 1997 he released a double album Songs On Sex and Sexuality aimed at an older, although not necessarily more grown-up, audience. But the gently didactic tone of his children’s songs is still very much in evidence.

It’s My Penis is a celebratory song to counter all the people who have been down on the penis. Not like that – you’ve got a sick mind. It’s Only A Wee-Wee blasts against sexual stereotypes. Something I entirely support - gender shouldn’t determine anything more than how carefully you do up your fly. It also contains the great line, “Let’s all be abnormal and act like ourselves”.

Just for the sake of trivia; Alsop’s father-in-law is William Auge Geer who sang with Woody Guthrie and Burl Ives in the 30’s but is best known for playing the fantastically named Zebulon in The Waltons.

I hope no one’s been offended by this week’s posts and the terrible innuendo. I felt the need to go downmarket after all that international politics.

There’s better things to discuss

Indeed there are, Doc. Next week: boobs.

Peter Alsop – It’s My Penis

Peter Alsop – It’s Only A Wee-Wee

Buy Songs On Sex and Sexuality

Smash Mouth – Sorry About Your Penis.

2005-07-12T18:17:00.000Z

Just in case you thought I was being ironic when I suggested “back in 1997 every other song on the radio was about erectile dysfunction”. Even the Christmas number one featured a guy whose ‘tinky winky’ had gone ‘dipsy’.

Sorry About Your Penis featured on the b-side of Smash Mouth’s breakthrough hit Walking on the Sun. It also, inevitably, featured on the soundtrack to the Trey Parker film Orgazmo.

The song doesn’t explicitly say what’s wrong with his penis. The implication seems to be that the subject of the song is attempting to make up for a lack of size. He shouldn’t worry about it.

This isn’t the end of it. There’s more to come. A-hem.

Smash Mouth – Sorry About Your Penis

Buy Orgazmo Soundtrack

Billy Bragg – Bugeye Jim

2005-07-11T15:07:00.000Z

Since the release of Viagra you don’t hear many songs about impotence. However, back in the pre-Viagra days of 1997, every other song on the radio was about erectile dysfunction. The best of them all was one written by a man who had died 30 years earlier.

Nora Guthrie (daughter of American folk legend Woody) met Billy Bragg in 1992 at a gig to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birth. She had been looking for someone to interpret the vast number of lyrics that Woody had left behind when he died of Huntington’s disease, which had been slowly attacking his brain for 20 years, in 1967. Billy Bragg was the half obvious choice. Even though it seems strange to have an Englishman singing the words of the quintessential dust-bowl troubadour, Guthrie and Bragg are the only two people in history to write decent songs about unions. To America things up a bit Bragg enlisted the help of Wilco and work was started on Mermaid Avenue.

Although there are plenty of the political and working-man songs that made Guthrie famous, many of the songs on Mermaid Avenue reflect other sides of him: Birds and Ships (sung by Natalie Merchant) is a heartbreaking love song, Voodoo Hoodoo is sing-along-a-nonsense and Another Man Done Gone is angst-ridden soul searching. Guthrie even attempts to write a feminist anthem, She Came Along to Me. However, he doesn’t seem quite at home and says of women, “they've not been any too well known for brains and planning and organised thinking”. A line I don’t remember cropping up very often in The Female Eunuch.

The album also highlights Guthrie’s raunchy side with liberal use of double (and sometimes single) entendres on Walt Whitman’s Niece ("And as she read, I lay my head, and I can't tell which head, down in her lap"), Ingrid Bergman (“This old mountain it’s been waiting/All it’s life for you to work it/For your hand to touch it’s hardrock/Ingrid Bergman”) and today’s song.

Bugeye Jim turned up on b-side of Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key which preceded the release of Mermaid Avenue and, inexplicably, didn’t make it onto the album. It makes me cry.

Billy Bragg – Bugeye Jim

Buy Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key

Buy Mermaid Avenue

R Kelly – I Believe I Can Fly.

2005-07-09T11:12:00.000Z

So the greatest track ever to come out of the entire continent of Africa got a big, fat ‘0 Comments’. You must all be punished. As much as I’d love to come round and spank each and every one of you, I’m a busy man so I’ll make you listen to this R Kelly dirge instead.

I Believe I Can Fly is a favourite song of motivational speakers. Quite why is beyond me. Not only does this track make we want to rip my own face off but R Kelly seems a strange role model given his habit of putting his ‘key’ in the ‘ignition’ of girls too young to drive. He even went the whole Jerry Lee Lewis and married Aaliyah when she was 15. Another favourite of the motivational types is Hero by warbling wrist-slasher Mariah ‘I don’t do stairs’ Carey. It’s enough to give you the impression that being a highly-motivated go-getter is against God and nature.

My personal philosophy is that the key to happiness is lowering your expectations. I’m going to write a song about it. It’ll be called I Believe I Can Have a Bit of a Sit Down. I don’t expect it’ll sell well.

R Kelly – I Believe I Can Fly

Buy Space Jam Soundtrack

Koffi Olomide – Loi.

2005-07-03T10:01:00.000Z

Unlike Hong Kong, the ironically named Democratic Republic of Congo (the country formerly known as Zaire) is swimming in natural resources. It mines huge amounts of copper, zinc, coltan and tin (in high demand to make circuit boards). It is also the world’s largest exporter of ethically unsound diamonds and largest consumer of Um Bongo. Yet it remains at the bottom of the league table for wealth – or it would do if they could afford any statisticians.

By the time he was deposed in 1997 Mobutu had been the despotic ruler of Zaire for over thirty years. During the early years of his reign he had violently put down a number of rebellions with the help of the CIA (who in return were able to use Zaire as a base to attack neighbouring communist countries). He used the power he gained through this to embark on a staggering policy of embezzlement. He seized over 2000 Western owned companies and distributed them amongst his friends – unsurprisingly they were incompetently run and the economy rapidly deteriorated.

By the mid-90’s the ethnic violence in neighbouring Rwanda spilled over into Zaire. The Hutus that fled Rwanda began attacking Tutsis in Eastern Zaire with the help of the Zairian government’s forces. The Tutsi militia, under the leadership of Laurant Kabila and with the support of Rwanda and Uganda, quickly gained the upper hand and sent Mobutu packing to one of his many European mansions in May 1997.

However, Kabila was unable to stop the ethnic violence in, what he renamed, the Democratic Republic of Congo and was himself assassinated in 2001 and replaced with his son, Joseph Kabila.

The Congo remains one of the most unstable countries in the world. Many areas of Eastern Congo are lawless. UN troops have decided it is too dangerous for them to enter. Not so for journalists apparently; you can see pictures from a mine in Eastern Congo on the Channel 4 website.

Despite its many problems the Congo somehow managed to produce the world’s most joyous and uplifting form of music – Soukous. Soukous has never had the exposure it deserves in this country. This is largely due to the fact that world music types have their head rammed up their arse – which, oddly, doesn’t preclude them from scratching their beards. In 1997 the deathly dull Buena Vista Social Club was all they could talk about. However, Koffi Olomide had his guitarists playing their guitars the way they were meant to be played – loud, fast and vulgar.

This made Olomide a huge star in Africa. In 1998 he won the Kora Best Artist Award; voted for by a phone poll covering the whole of Africa. But, unless they’re willing to lower themselves to collaborating with Sting or Peter Gabriel, African artists get no coverage in this country.

Loi is an absolutely stunning track and one of my favourite songs of all time. So download it, play it LOUD, sign the Live 8 list and buy the absolutely essential Rough Guide to Congolese Soukous.

Make Poverty History

Koffi Olomide – Loi

Buy Loi

Buy The Rough Guide to Congolese Soukous

Download Um Bongo stuff

Rebecca Pan – Kowloon Hong Kong.

2005-06-30T16:16:00.000Z

In 1982 Margaret Thatcher embarked on The Falklands War which would result in a thousand deaths to keep a wool producing island of less than two thousand people British. In 1984 she willingly signed over 6 million people in one of the most affluent places on earth to one of the world’s most repressive regimes. Go figure.*

At midnight on 30th June 1997 Hong Kong was officially handed over to the Chinese government and became a “Special Administrative Region”. Up until that point, and - to be fair to China - until now, the system in Hong Kong couldn’t have been further away from Communism. They had no unemployment benefit, minimum wage or trade union laws. They also had, until 1980, on open door immigration policy. All this resulted in Hong Kong being richer per head than all but three countries despite having almost no natural resources.

Hong Kong owes much of its success to the incredible good fortune of being assigned a politician who wasn’t a self-important idiot. After the Second World War, John Cowperthwaite was sent by the British to redevelop Hong Kong. He decided that they were doing a pretty good job of redeveloping themselves and anything he did might ruin it. According to Cowperthwaite, “All I did was to try to prevent some of the things that might undo it.” If only every politician thought the same way.

Rebecca Pan is best known, although still not that well known, as an actress appearing in the Cannes Award Winning In The Mood for Love. But the finger-clicking, big band nonsense of her album Qing Ren Qiao suggests singing is her real talent.

“But,” I hear you all cry in unison, “surely Rebecca Pan’s Qing Ren Qiao was released in 1996 and posting it would invalidate the whole premise of the blog”. OK, ya got me. But two things:

1) This track is bah-rilliant and I’m sure they were all still listening to it in 1997.

And;

b) Shut up.

Rebecca Pan – Kowloon Hong Kong

It's unavailable in the UK but you can buy it from iTunes. God I love iTunes.

*Some suggest it’s because the people on The Falklands/Malvinas are white and those in Hong Kong are only Chinese so not worth bothering about. Of course, to believe that you’d also have to believe the Tories are racist. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

Speedlimit – Holiday in Cambodia.

2005-06-27T15:51:00.000Z

Although 1997 was a great year if you were a music lover, it was less of a good year if you happened to be a murderous, maniacal dictator. 1997 saw the overthrow of Mobutu in Zaire (more on him when Live 8 rolls around) and the arrest of Pol Pot in Cambodia.

Pol Pot (or 'Brother Number One' as he, rather stylishly, insisted everyone refer to him) came to power as the head of the Khmer Rouge in 1975 after 5 years of civil war. He immediately began to purify Cambodia of capitalism. All institutions were banned (that included hospitals, schools and even families) and the cities were evacuated as people were forced to work in the so called ‘killing fields’. During the three and a half years of the Khmer Rouge power it is estimated that 2 million Cambodians (about 30% of the population) died of disease, execution and, despite the plan to increase agricultural production three fold in one year, starvation.

With the world running at around 33 1/3 revolutions per minute at the time, his regime could not last long and he was overthrown in January 1979. Pol Pot was tried in absentia and was sentenced to death for genocide. However, the Khmer Rouge still had considerable power in areas of Cambodia and it was not until 1997 (when he lost the support of the party after he ordered the killing of Khmer Rouge minister Song Sen and his wife and children) that he was arrested by the Khmer Rouge itself. Pol Pot died in 1998 reportedly of natural causes. His happy legacy was an estimated 10 million landmines left in the ground of Cambodia.

Today’s track is Dutch covers band Speedlimit’s 1997 version of Holiday in Cambodia. Or, if you prefer, RIAA’s mash-up of the original Holiday in Cambodia with Martha and the Vandellas’ Heatwave.

Speedlimit – Holiday in Cambodia

RIAA – Sounds for the Sun-Set

Hire Speedlimit for your wedding or bah mitzvah.

Finley Quaye – Sunday Shining.

2005-06-21T15:57:00.000Z

Summer’s here and the time is right for drizzle and hosepipe bans.

Quite how a Scotsman managed to make the summer record of 1997 is mystery but Finlay Quaye’s Sunday Shining (a reworking of Bob Marley’s Sun is Shining) was all over the radio at the time. The original was one of Marley’s more forgettable songs (still amazing compared to most stuff) but Quaye lifts the tempo and adds brass and a superb guitar riff to great effect.

Finley is definitely brother to Caleb Quaye (guitarist with Elton John) and possibly uncle to Tricky. Quaye and Tricky had initially been friendly and collaborated, along with Iggy Pop, on Please Share My Dappy Umbrella. However, their relationship took a turn for the worse culminating in Tricky laying into Quaye on Can’t Freestyle “Calling yourself Quaye/Leave that for another day/Don't you feel no shame/Taking my mother's name in vain”.

Quaye was also criticised by some journalists for being too mainstream and making cod-reggae; a criticism which he seemed to take to heart. It took him four years to make the follow up to Maverick A Strike, Vanguard, and it turned out to be a rather uninspired album of lumpy rock songs. Last year’s Much More Than Love saw a return to a more pop sensibility and some success in the States after Dice was featured on The OC. However, it’s still his debut that I put on when the sun is shining.

Cannily, Quaye made Maverick a Strike 52 minutes long – the exact length of the average British summer.

Finley Quaye – Sunday Shining

Buy Maverick A Strike

Loudon Wainwright III – Bein’ A Dad.

2005-06-19T11:08:00.000Z

A quick post for Fathers’ Day from Loudon Wainwright’s 1997 album Little Ship.

Wainwright has written a huge number of songs about his family; about his Dad (e.g. Surviving Twin), his Mum (e.g. White Winos), his Granddad (Half Fist), his sister (e.g. The Picture), his son (the outrageously un-prophetic Rufus is a Tit Man) and his daughter (e.g.Father/Daughter Dialogue).

However, more recently, his offspring have started to get their own back and haven’t pulled their punches. Rufus’ Dinner at Eight includes the line “Daddy, don’t be surprised/If I want to see the tears in your eyes” and Martha wrote the cryptically titled Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole.

Loudon’s response to being asked about BMFA was, "That song is about me?! I thought it was about President Bush. That girl is gonna be so grounded!"

Loudon Wainwright III – Bein’ A Dad.

Buy Little Ship.

Download BMFA from Martha Wainwright’s website.

Sherwood Consort – Sumer Is Icumen In.

2005-06-14T16:43:00.000Z

I can’t pretend it’s a smooth transition between Mmmbop and medieval British music but there is a link. Medieval church songs often included a line in English followed by a line in Latin. The Latin was incomprehensible to the average member of the congregation and taken to be gibberish. This idea was adapted by singers of folk songs as a way of expressing the inexpressible, which usually meant it was used euphemistically, hence much ‘fa-la-lanky-down-dilly’-ing. This tradition of nonsense lyrics has carried on throughout pop music and reached its undoubted peak with Hanson.

Sumer Is Icumen In is from a mid-thirteenth century manuscript (see it here) and is one of the few surviving songs of the period. The lyrics seem to be simply celebrating spring but it has been suggested that there is a less wholesome subtext with the cuckoo symbolizing infidelity. You can read a translation of the lyrics here and make up your own mind.

The Sherwood Consort are essentially a Medieval Baebes for those who don’t mind ugly people. Personally, I am fan of any band that contains a sackbut player. The group were formed in 1995 by Mary Devlin after she developed an obsession with medieval English music, as so many Californians do. Sumer Is Icumen In is featured on their 1997 debut album Between March and April.

The Sherwood Consort – Sumer Is Icumen In

Between March and April is currently unavailable but can be purchased on iTunes.

Download more on IUMA.

Visit their website.

Hanson – Mmmbop.

2005-06-08T18:57:00.000Z

Despite their tender age at the time (singer/keyboardist Taylor was 15, guitarist Isaac 17, and drummer Zac just 3 months old) Hanson were not an overnight success. They had been dragging themselves around record companies for five years before Mercury signed them on the strength of Mmmbop.

The list of people Mercury brought in to work with Hanson on their major label debut Middle of Nowhere is staggering. Mmmbop was produced by The Dust Brothers; who had previously worked with Beck on Odelay and The Beastie Boys’ on Paul’s Boutique and went on to make the Fight Club soundtrack. Much of the album was produced by Steve Lironi (Black Grape, Fun Loving Criminals). Songs were written with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling, Saturday Night at the Movies and, fittingly, Who Put The Bomp?) and Desmond Child (Aerosmith, Alice Cooper and The Baha Men). The video for Mmmbop was made by Tamara Davis who had previously made a video for Sonic Youth’s Bull in the Heather.

Hanson went on to defy all expectations by failing to end up as bloated corpses floating in a pool of hookers and gin.

Hanson - Mmmbop

Buy Middle of Nowhere

Crazy Frog/The Frogs

2005-06-06T15:39:00.000Z

While the likes of Radiohead and The Verve were stunning the world with their magnum (opuseses? opii? *reaches for dictionary*) opera (that can't be right) a 17 year old Swede called Daniel Malmdahl decided to imitate his friends’ mopeds and post the results on the net.

Yes, Crazy Frog was born in 1997. Frogs have a lifespan of around 15 years.

Crazy Frog – Axel F (a mercifully brief clip)

Hear the originator himself.

Sign a petition against the Crazy Frog.

Buy Axel F

But the Crazy Frog wasn’t the only frog related weirdness in 1997.

The Frogs, consisting of brothers Jimmy and Dennis Flemion, have set themselves the task of offending as many people as possible as much as possible whilst wearing six-foot wide green bat wings.

On their debut LP they set themselves up as the heads of the ‘gay supremacist’ movement. Racially Yours saw them blacking-up and singing racist lyrics in a minstrel pastiche – their record label refused to release it. My Daughter the Broad contains some hilariously offensive song titles (see for yourself).

However, in 1997 they were in a rather relaxed mood on the Billy Corgan produced Starjob EP (now out of print) and restricted themselves to poking fun at Nirvana.

You can hear a session version of I Only Play for Money, as well as a huge number of other oddities, on WFMU’s On The Download.

The Frogs – I Only Play for the Money via WFMU’s On The Download

Primal Scream – 96 Tears/Know Your Rights.

2005-06-02T16:12:00.000Z

“You have the right to free speech, as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it.”

Primal Scream’s 1997 album Vanishing Point saw them returning to the dance sounds of Screamadelica after the critical panning of the Stones influenced Give Out But Don’t Give Up (although the album and the single Rocks gave the band it’s highest ever chart positions). However, the party vibe of Screamadelica was replaced with a much darker sound.

As well as recording a cover of Motorhead's Motorhead for the album, these two cover versions were released on the first single off the album Kowalski.

96 Tears is a cover of 60’s one-hit wonders ? and the Mysterians. Yes, the group really was lead by a man who referred to himself as “?” (originally Rudy Martinez but he legally changed his name to “?”). He used the name ? as he wanted to be anonymous – a feat he achieved by disappearing into obscurity after releasing 96 Tears. Primal Scream's version is fairly representative of Vanishing Point in the way it matches electronic blips and beats with raucous, distorted guitars.

Know Your Rights is a cover of millionaire Marxists and Sony-owned revolutionaries The Clash. The original is from their final album Combat Rock which was their most commercially successful thanks to monster hits Rock the Casbah and Should I Stay Or Should I Go?. Primal Scream’s version replaces The Clash’s sharp guitar stabs with a rollocking guitar riff that wouldn’t have been out of place on Give Out….

Primal Scream – 96 Tears

Primal Scream – Know Your Rights

Buy Kowalski

Buy Vanishing Point

Jeff Buckley – Everybody Here Wants You.

2005-05-29T15:41:00.000Z

In early ’97 Jeff Buckley was struggling to write and record the follow-up to his 1994 debut, ‘Grace’, in the face of public anticipation and record company pressure. By this time he had already spent the best part of a year attempting to write songs but had come up against a lengthy period of writers block. He embarked on a series of low key solo slots in an attempt to recreate his Sin-e days and the songs began to come slowly. Recording sessions were set up with Television’s Tom Verlaine producing and a number of songs were recorded for an album provisionally titled ‘My Sweetheart the Drunk’. However, the sessions fell apart and the tracks were shelved.

After this, Buckley’s writers block lifted (he apparently had about 30 songs ready) and sessions were scheduled for 30th June with ‘Grace’ producer Andy Wallace.

On May 29th Buckley and a friend were lost in Memphis trying to find the rehearsal studio. They gave up the search and went down to hang out on the banks of the Mississippi. Buckley decided to go for a swim in the notoriously unpredictable river fully clothed including heavy boots; a decision which mitigates any description of him as a ‘genius’. His body was not found until 4th June.

‘Everybody Here Wants You’ was one of the tracks that came out of the sessions with Tom Verlaine. Previously to this Buckley had always shined brightest on cover versions (you can download a few of the rarer ones here) but this track is his most successful composition. It’s a song brimming with sexual tension. He also sounds more like his father, Tim Buckley, than ever before. Jeff was never comfortable with this comparison. As evidenced in an interview with Mark Radcliffe on BBC Radio 1:

Radcliffe: “Your dad sang with the same sense of abandon.”
Buckley: “Well he abandoned me.”
Radcliffe: “…[uncomfortable silence]… Fair enough.”

Jeff Buckley – Everybody Here Wants You (link fixed)

Watch the video

Buy Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk

Kylie Minogue – Did It Again

2005-05-26T15:20:00.000Z

1997 was slap bang in the middle of Kylie’s lost years. Since leaving Stock, Aitkin and Waterman 1992 and signing with deConstruction she had been searching for credibility (“I’ve got a second name, you know.”) and fumbling around for her own style; recording everything from dark disco-pop (‘Confide In Me’) to murder ballads (‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’ with Nick Cave). The 1997 album ‘Impossible Princess’ continued this trend.

The first single from the album, ‘Some Kind of Bliss’, was co-written with the Manic Street Preachers. It sees Kylie moving into decidedly unfamiliar indie-rock anthem territory (a sound with which fellow Neighbours alumnus Natalie Imbruglia was having great success at the time). It wasn’t the first song the Manics had written for Kylie. They originally intended Kylie to sing on ‘Little Baby Nothing but, unsurprisingly, Kylie didn’t show and had to be replaced with porn “star” Traci Lords. Unfortunately, Kylie’s vocals on ‘Some Kind of Bliss’ sound very similar to those of Lords. Her thin, reedy voice was never going to make her a rock star and the single limped into the charts at number 22.

Most of Impossible Princess, including today’s track, was co-written with the Brothers of Rhythm Steve Anderson and Dave ‘Not That Dave Seaman’ Seaman. ‘Did It Again’, the second single from the album, tones down the rock sound with a drum machine and wobbly keyboard and as a result it performed slightly better and reached number 16.

The release of the album itself was held back after the death of Princess Diana with the spurious excuse that some may find the title ‘Impossible Princess’ offensive. It seems more likely that it was due to the poor chart performance of the singles. However, the delayed release didn’t do much for sales and Kylie parted ways with deConstruction in 1998.

Although ‘Impossible Princess’ was Kylie’s least successful album commercially there are still some bright spots. The heavy breathing, spoken word ‘Too Far’ and the trippy, spacey album version of ‘Breathe’ firmly point the way to the records which would again take her to the top of the pop tree.

Kylie Minogue – Did It Again

Buy Impossible Princess

Read about breast cancer

Supergrass - Richard III

2005-05-25T16:42:00.000Z

Supergrass, as my good friend Rhian Coggin once claimed, are everybody's second-favourite band. The boys are currently on tour round the UK, preceding what will be their fifth studio album - not bad going really. They've been going in excess of a decade now (celebrated by last year's singles collection - Supergrass is 10) and they're showing no signs of stopping.

So, because I feel like it, here's one of the tracks, a single, no less, from their hit 1997 album 'In It For The Money', five tracks of which made it onto the aforementioned compilation.

Richard III

It's still Supergrass-catchy, just in a darker, hard-driven rock way. The general idea of 'In It For The Money' was to sound different and more developed compared to the first album. This track manages to be one of the least like 'Alright' that Supergrass have ever done yet both songs peaked at 2, the band's highest ever chart position. Talking of 'Alright' - it was omitted from their setlist when I saw them on this current tour.

Buy In It For The Money
Buy Supergrass is 10
Visit Children Of The Monkey Basket

Katrina and the Waves – Love Shine A Light.

2005-05-21T08:55:00.000Z

Warning: No mp3.
Warning: Post liable to befuddle non-Europeans.

Britain has won the Eurovision Song Contest just once in the last quarter of a century. Bet you can’t guess what year it was.

After 15 years without a win and a disappointing 4th place in 1996 for the quite frankly brilliant Ooh Ahh (Just a Little Bit) by Gina G, the UK’s Eurovision nabobs were getting desperate. The task of finding a potential winner fell to Eurovision Music Executive and celebrity paedophile Jonathan King. To ensure that the public voted for the right song in the Great British Song Contest the field was restricted to four songs – three of which were entirely rubbish. Even so Katrina and the Waves only narrowly beat, and I’m not making this up, Yodel in the Canyon of Love by Do Re Me and Kerry (if anyone knows what “yodellin’ the canyon of love” is a euphemism for please leave a comment).

Love Shine a Light (written by Waves guitarist and former Soft Boy Kimberley Rew) was a big, cheesy, banner waving anthem with some of the most vomit-inducingly naff lyrics ever heard: “Love shine a light, in every corner of my dreams/Let the love light carry, let the love light carry/Like the mighty river, flowing from the stream”. Naturally, it set the record for highest points scored ever with a total of 227.

1997’s recipient of a big fat nul points was Tor Endresen; Norway’s answer to Bill Haley (and the rest of Europe’s answer to “when’s the best time to nip to the bog?”). In true Serge Gainsbourg style France was represented by a 17 year old girl called Fanny.

To get us in the Eurovision mood here’s some Wogan style foreigner piss-taking.

Clockwise from top left:

Paul Oscar (Iceland) “That bastard Gary Numan’s nicked my act.”
Kolig Kag (Denmark) - Blimey, Su Pollard’s let herself go.
Bianca Shomburg (Germany) – Bird or bloke?
Blond (Sweden) – 1985 called. They want their haircuts back.

Photos (and some jokes) cribbed from TV & Radio Bits.

As a reward for reaching the end of this post here’s a little Spiritualized remix action:

Spiritualized – I Think I’m in Love (Chemical Brothers vocal remix)

Found via Totally Fuzzy

The Wannadies – Hit

2005-05-18T15:43:00.000Z

The Wannadies are almost solely remembered for the insanely catchy/annoying You and Me Song. That’s a shame because they have a way with a pop tune and have released a number of fine singles.

The band formed back in 1988 with the intention of playing one gig - a festival in support of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. They decided to make it permanent and had some success in Sweden but it was not until the 1994 album Be A Girl, and You and Me song in particular, that they went international.

Be A Girl had a difficult birth. Original producer Dagge Lunquist went on paternity leave (PATernity leave? Those crazy Scandos) the next month engineer Adam Kviman and replacement producer Micke Herrström both left due to hearing problems. But persistence paid off and they completed the album; the first they were happy with. The band were picked up by UK label Indolent, set out on a sell out tour and released the song they would forever be associated with.

The band themselves seem to have accepted that You and Me Song was it for them. They managed to release that song, in one form or another, four years running. First in Sweden in 1994 as a single and on Be A Girl. In 1995 Be A Girl was released in the UK. In 1996 the single was re-released in the UK (reaching number 18 in the charts). In 1997 it appeared on their follow-up album, Bagsy Me, and again on the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack. Cha ching.

There is also more than a hint of resignation to their fate on the song Hit. Despite the sprightly guitars and shouty chorus, there is a definite sense of deflation in Pär Wiksten’s voice as he sings lines like “Calling this a hit/I don’t deserve it.”

The Wannadies – Hit

Buy Bagsy Me

On this day in 1997 – Blur beat The Levellers in the final of the Music Industry Soccer Six tournament.

Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentleman…/Electricity.

2005-05-15T11:01:00.000Z

Spiritualized’s 1997 album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (or LAGWAFIS as the kids call it) doesn’t come up on greatest ever albums list as often as OK Computer and Urban Hymns but it caused just as much of a stir at the time. It even beat these albums to top the NME’s albums of the year list.

Spiritualized took shape during the breakdown of Jason ‘J Spaceman’ Pierce’s previous band Spacemen 3. By 1990 Pierce and Pete Kembler were no longer talking and the album Recurring was made Outkast style with the two men’s tracks being recorded independently and stapled together. To no one’s surprise the band broke up shortly afterwards. Spiritualized initially featured many of the musicians who had recorded Recurring and had an unsteady line up for many years. By 1997 the core of Spiritualized had settled as Pierce, bassist Sean Cook and Kate ‘Mrs Richard Ashcroft’ Radley.

LAGWAFIS is one of the classic break-up albums (Pierce had recently split from Kate Radley) shifting between songs of heartbreak and songs of redemption. Despite the gospel flavour of the album this redemption comes not through God but through self-medication. Even the album’s artwork and liner notes are a parody of packet of pills. Among other warnings, we are told that the album is “for aural administration only” - presumably for the benefit of those considering using the CD as a suppository. The bands love of drugs references reached its natural climax in November 1997 when they played the ‘world’s highest gig’ at the top of the CN Tower in Toronto.

LAGWAFIS kicks off in a mellow fashion with the title track. The song uses overlapping vocal lines (a trick also used by The Beta Band at the time) to create a sense of disorientation which continues throughout the album – particularly in its many white noise sections.

Electricity is a full-on rocker and the band certainly sound like they were wired when recording it. Here they reject the old Status Quo three chord trick for being hopelessly over-wrought and stick with one chord for the entire song (G for those of you taking notes). This track reminds me of the high tempo, high octane gospel one-chord vamps intended to produce spiritual rapture in the congregation. If you don’t know what I’m talking about go to iTunes and download Thank Ya’ by The Campbell Brothers. It’ll be the best 79p you ever spent.

Spritualized – Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space

Spiritualized – Electricity

Buy Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space

Parish Notices.

A hearty ‘how do’ to all The Guide readers and apologies to anyone expecting “a fantastic blog”. The Guardian’s Corrections and Clarifications editor has been notified.

You can hear Steve ‘Lamo’ Lamacq talk to Richard ‘Chuckles’ Ashcroft about the recording of Urban Hymns on BBC6 Music Plays It Again (look in the right hand column).

In all the excitement of OK Computer week I blithely assumed everyone already owned a copy and failed to provide a link to buy the album. Buy OK Computer.

OK Computer Week: Radiohead For The Pianoforte

2005-05-08T16:32:00.000Z

You'd think that the sheer intricate detail of a typical Radiohead song would be impossible to recreate on a solo piano. Many have tried to recreate the effect, with different approaches and different levels of success.

Classical pianist Christopher O'Riley is well-known for his Radiohead covers. Of course, there's no vocal, so the piano is required to carry the tune, making each song accompaniment sometimes seem a little limited.

Then there is my good friend, Mary Bichner. Although it's no longer updated, her website, Radiohead For The Pianoforte contains two OK Computer themed transcriptions, both done by hand, one being the robotic, heavily criticised, track 'Fitter Happier'. Interesting anecdotes and observations from both Thom Yorke and Mary can be found, along with the score and a midi file, here.

Aside from this oddity, there is also an arrangement of the live 'Karma Police' duet with Thom on a Baby Grand and Jonny on a Rhodes Organ. Here you can also find various soundblips of what were once works in progress of other tracks on the album. I can only say it would have been great to see these as full scores.

OK Computer Week: Hard ‘n Phirm – Rodeohead.

2005-05-08T15:10:00.000Z

I’ll finish on a track everyone’s heard before. Radiohead done bluegrass style – ace. I wonder if Chas ‘n Dave could be convinced to do a Radiohead medley.

Hard ‘N Phirm – Rodeohead.

Another album that doesn’t seem to be available in the UK. Import Horses and Grasses on CD Baby.

Visit Hard 'n Phirm

That’s your lot from me this week. I hope you enjoyed it. Back to business as usual next week (i.e. a lazy one track a week) with Spiritualized.

OK Computer Week: Maroon – The Tourist.

2005-05-08T11:17:00.000Z

Radiohead’s musical complexity, critical acclaim and commercial success make them the number one choice for jazzers looking to shift a few units. Luckily, this track is a cut above the Jamie Cullum/Michael Bublè types.

Maroon were formed in Brooklyn in 2000 by singer Hillary Maroon and pianist Benny Lackner. These core members are joined by a number of musicians from New York’s avant-garde scene – most notably guitarist Marc Ribot (Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Lounge Lizards). They cover many contemporary rock songs (including an interesting version of Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun) and make a good job of it by avoiding changing them into Brat Pack style jazz songs – keeping more in tune with the original while bringing their own sound to it.

This version of The Tourist manages to be even slower and more languid than the original perfect for a Sunday morning hangover. What makes it less relaxing to me is the association it has in my mind with the hoax 9/11 tourist guy photo. Even though it’s an obvious fake it’s a memorable and shocking image.

Maroon – The Tourist
Unfortunately, this mp3 cuts out after about 5 minutes. If you want the whole thing you’ll have to buy it.

Who the Sky Betrays doesn’t seem to be available in the UK try visiting Head Fulla Brains to order it.

OK Computer Week: Warren Haynes – Lucky.

2005-05-06T16:17:00.000Z

I have to admit I know very little about Warren Haynes and this track does little to inspire me to find out more. This is the sum total of my knowledge:

- He was in the reformed version of The Allman Brothers.
- He’s in a band called Gov’t Mule that I’ve never heard.
- He has a voice that suggests he regularly gargles rusty spanners.

Radiohead originally recorded Lucky for the album HELP to raise money for the War Child charity. The album features many of the UK’s largest acts of the time (The Manics, Blur, Oasis, Salad) and was recorded in the space of a day. It was released later that week and instantly became the fastest selling album when it reached number one the next day.

War Child is pretty much alone in allowing you to support a charity while listening to great music – so do it. You can subscribe to War Child’s downloading service or buy individual tracks such as Radiohead performing Go To Sleep live. The EP also contains songs from Keane, Lucky Jim, Bloc Party and Tom Waits.
And, while you’re throwing money around to assuage your middle class guilt, make sure you pick up a copy of Andrew Holmes’ book 64 Clarke

Warren Haynes - Lucky

Buy Live at Bonnaroo

OK Computer Week: The Mountain Goats – No Surprises.

2005-05-05T12:07:00.000Z

The Mountain Goats are one of the most determinedly lo-fi bands in existence. Most of their songs sound like they were recorded down a phone line – which was actually the case in a session recorded for WELH. The rest of their songs are recorded onto tape via a boom box. For many years they only released songs on tape.

The Mountain Goats is effectively singer/songwriter/guitarist John Darnielle. He is an unbelievably prolific songwriter. Bob Dylan is praised for never playing a song the same way twice; Darnielle rarely plays the same song twice. This can lead to a hit and miss catalogue but when he hits the spot, he really hits the spot. I’m particularly fond of his tales of youth and young manhood such as Dance Music, The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Denton and Fall of the Star High School Running Back. He deserves and award just for the lines like “Selling acid was a bad idea/Selling it to a cop was a worse one” and “The best ever death metal band out of Denton/Never settled on a name/But the top three contenders, after weeks of debate/Were Satan’s Fingers and The Killers and The Hospital Bombers”.

This song was recorded for WFMU in 2000. You can hear the entire session along with the WELH phone session and a cracking Peel session here. It’s a straight forward, strumalong-a-Radiohead version of the song – which is only fitting for a song called No Surprises.

The Mountain Goats – No Surprises via so this is what the volume knob’s for

Visit themountaingoats.net

Totally Fuzzy has posted a link to these acoustic Radiohead songs including a version of Karma Police.

Kate Rogers – Climbing Up The Walls

2005-05-04T15:45:00.000Z

Climbing Up The Walls by Timothy McConnachie

There aren’t many Radiohead songs that you could describe as being sexy but this is one of them. Its sound owes a great deal to acts like Tricky and Portishead.

Kate Rogers made her name singing with Aim (on Sail and Girl Who Fell Through the Ice) and with Rae and Christian (on Not Just Anybody). The fact she is cousin to Rae and Christian member and Grand Central Records honcho Mark Rae is entirely coincidental.

Every review of Rogers’ debut album, St Eustacia, used that most hideous of four letter words – Dido. Rogers’ music is certainly in a similar vein and Dido also started her career singing in a relative’s dance band (brother Rollo’s band Faithless). But to be fair to Rogers, unlike Dido, she does have more character than a soggy draining board. She also has some high quality influences judging by the songs she has chosen on her recently released covers album, Seconds. Tracks include Big Mouth Strikes Again, Here Comes Your Man and – erm – Green Day’s Brain Stew. She even manages to make a decent attempt covering one of my favourite Radiohead songs.

The consensus opinion is that this song is about mental illness. I always thought it was about Thom Yorke’s penis and his repressed desires (feel free to leave a comment; I’d love to know your opinions on the matter). I’m often wrong about these things but my interpretation of this song added an extra dimension to hearing a woman sing it.

Kate Rogers – Climbing Up The Walls

Buy Seconds

OK Computer Week: The Bison Chips – Karma Police

2005-05-03T15:23:00.000Z

This a cappella version of Karma Police is from The Bison Chips’ Appalling and Ridiculous album. They said it, not me.

The album had some terrible reviews. You can read some vicious ones here (choice Cowell-esque quote “Very few groups excel in both studio work and live performance. As Appalling & Ridiculous proves, the Bison Chips do neither”). Given this I’m not going to be too harsh on them. I almost had you going there. God made the task of making fun of them all to easy. On their website they boast that they have boyish good looks. Well, maybe if that boy is Rick Astley. They look like what they are: a bunch of mechanical engineering studying, Klingon speaking, pasty faced nerds. See for yourself.

And then there’s the singing. I’m no Simon Cowell (for which I am eternally grateful) but even I can tell the tuning is all over the place. And the attempts at recreating the sounds of the instruments: Dum dum tish, chica chika, doo doo.

However, I have to admit that the ‘Phew for a minute…’ section, although far from perfect, is actually powerful and worth listening to the rest of the track for.

Bison Chips – Karma Police

Appalling and Ridiculous doesn’t seem to be available in the UK but you can buy it via iTunes.

OK Computer Week: UMass Drumline & Brad Mehldau.

2005-05-03T11:57:00.000Z

UMass Drumline – Paranoid Android.

My idea was to post cover versions in the order they appear on the album but I have again been thwarted by the inferior quality of my brain. I don’t know how I could have forgotten about this track by students at UMass (or The University of Massachusetts to us suspicious foreign types).

Credit has to go to UMass Drumline mainman (also called Thom – Thom Hannum) for the incredible arrangement. It’s almost enough for me to forgive them for playing at the inauguration of Ronald Regan (twice) and George W. Bush (in 2001) – almost.

UMass Front Percussion Ensemble – Paranoid Android from here

Visit UMass Drumline’s website

Brad Mehldau – Exit Music (For A Film)

On the other hand, I find Brad Mehldau much more forgettable. This track and his version of Paranoid Android have been doing the rounds on the audioblogs recently and Xanax Taxi did a much better write up than I could do (here and here).

You can watch a video for this and download other stuff on Mehldau’s website

Brad Mehldau – Exit Music (For A Film) via not for profit
Hint: add ".mp3" to the end of file name when saving.

Buy The Art of the Trio Vol.3

OK Computer Week: Scala – Exit Music (For a Film).

2005-05-02T17:15:00.000Z

The Scala Choir is composed of around 60 teenage Belgian girls and was formed in 1996 by brothers Steven and Stijn Kolacny. Their repertoire consists largely of reinterpretations of recent rock and pop songs. This sort of thing can often go horribly wrong. Witness the Vienna Boys Choir singing a reggae version of Nothing Compares to You. However, the Kolacny brothers know the right songs to choose and manage to avoid sounding stiff.

Unsurprisingly, this has lead to popularity among audioblogers. Most bloggers have focussed on the more incongruous songs covered such as I Touch Myself, Smells Like Teen Spirit and She Hates Me. However, I prefer the songs that sound like they were written to be sung by a choir (especially one consisting of teenage Belgians) such as Bittersweet Symphony, Rammstein's Engel(well, they make it sound like it was written for a choir) and, most impressively of all, this track.

Of all the covers posted this week this is the only one that beats the original. The “Now we are one” section gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. Just one more example of great music from Belgium.

The song was originally written for Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet and sticks close to the narrative. Thom Yorke’s original intention was to stick even more closely. He tried to write the songs lyrics using quotes from Shakespeare. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. Still, you have to wonder what it sounded like.

Scala – Exit Music (For A Film)

Buy Dream On

OK Computer Week: Glastonbury 1997 and Other Radiohead Gubbins.

2005-05-02T09:44:00.000Z

Like everything Radiohead did in 1997 their performance at Glastonbury is a regular poll topper. Even Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis called it "the most inspiring festival gig in 30 years". Apparently, the gig was an absolute nightmare for the band – they couldn’t hear themselves play. It doesn’t show.

Download the show from not for profit (recently back online) here or get the video here (the last two links may require a bit of luck).

Here’s a pile of - mostly OKC related - Radiohead stuff culled from t’internet:

Multimedia stuff including unreleased songs, No Surprises with entirely different lyrics, OKC screensaver, icons - Green Plastic Radiohead.

not for profit has plenty of live stuff and rarities including this annoyingly designed page,.

A gig from 1996 including early versions of many OKC songs.

Acoustic performance for KROQ including Lucky and No Surprises.

OKC artwork

Radiohead cover Wonderwall apparently without ever having heard the song before.

OK Computer Week: Peter Mulvey – Airbag.

2005-05-01T11:30:00.000Z

The 1st May 1997 saw the release of Radiohead’s OK Computer. An album regularly voted greatest album ever (most recently in a Channel 4 poll). So, to celebrate, this week will be dedicated to all things OK Computer: cover versions, live stuff, multimedia.

We kick off in the same way as the album does with Airbag – for anyone under the impression that all Radiohead songs are depressing.

It’s not easy to cover a Radiohead rocker on a single acoustic guitar and retain the elements of the original but on this track Peter Mulvey manages it on this track.

Mulvey is a one man advertisement for spending 10 hour days busking on the Boston subway. His time busking has given him a direct songwriting style, a clear, resonant guitar technique and a penchant for cover versions (his take on Gillian Welch’s Caleb Meyer is well worth checking out). He evidently has a fondness for his days busking as he recreates the sound of the underground on this track with jangling change, a quick ‘thanks’ and the sound of a train screeching to a halt.

There is little doubt that it is Mulvey’s guitar playing that is the star of this track and pretty much everything that he has recorded. He manages to fuse the previously alien genres of funk and folk and plays with great virtuosity. He also uses a huge array of guitar tunings (listed here for those of you wishing to experiment at home). Although, according to his website, “I only play in about seventeen different tunings, and the rest are simply transpositions of them”. Quite what the word ‘only’ is doing in that sentence I don’t know.

I think this solo version of the song is very effective and enhances its ‘one man against the world’ stance.

Peter Mulvey – Airbag.

Buy Signature Sounds 10th Anniversary Collection.

Chumbawamba – Tubthumping.

2005-04-27T16:02:00.000Z

Chumbawamba have been releasing records since 1986 and have had only one hit. I think that’s some kind of blessing.

They were formed in a Leeds squat in 1984 by frontman Dunst, Lou Watts and Alice Nutter (former drummer with the excellently named Ow My Hair’s On Fire) with the intention of spreading anarchism through pop ditties. Their debut album, the Band Aid baiting Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records, failed to instigate popular revolution and they spent the rest of the 80’s happily yelling at Thatcher.

However, with the Tories being booted out of government, 1997 saw Chumbawamba take a strange turn. They signed to that bastion of radical socialism EMI. Amid talk of crippling the musical and political establishment from the inside Chumbawamba released Tubthumping. The song is a pile of catchy vocal hooks that any drunken, forehead-slapping moron could sing along with on their hen night and as a result became a massive international hit.

Chumbawamba briefly became infamous after the 1998 Brit Awards. Never ones to let a good pop song get in the way of half-arsed political sloganeering, they changed the words of Tubthumping to “New Labour sold out the trade unionists and now they’ll sell out the dockers” – no one really cared. What actually made an impact was Chumba’s Danbert Nobacon throwing water on Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. Somehow this failed to bring the establishment crashing to its knees.

Chumbawamba’s next shot at controversy came with Alice Nutter’s appearance on US talk show Politically Incorrect. She suggested that fans should steal their album from large record shops. Failing to realise most people were smuggling the album back into the shop after realising Tubthumping was the only decent song on it.

Chumbawamba were eventually dropped by EMI after the release of What You See is What You Get in 2000. They claimed this was due to the lyrics which attacked the media and big business. However, astute observers (me) put it down to the vast indifference the public showed to the record.

Chumbawamba – Tubthumping.

Buy Tubthumper.

Watch Chumbawamba’s protest against The Smashing Pumpkins’ 52 piece drum-kit.

Lilys – A Nanny In Manhattan.

2005-04-20T16:13:00.000Z

Hey girl, where you get them jay-nes?

Lilys have been releasing records since 1991 and have had only one hit in the UK. I think that’s some kind of achievement.

This song became a hit thanks to its appearance in a Levi jeans ad. Lilys are certainly not afraid of being labelled ‘sell outs’. Their music has used in adverts for Volkswagen, Calvin Klien and Nike. People seem to prefer new music if it comes attached to a multinational corporation. Ho hum.

There have been over 30 members of Lilys in their history. The only constant member is frontman Kurt Heasley. Heasley is not a man how could often be called innovative. Each Lilys record sound entirely different from the last yet exactly like something else. Fortunately, he knows how to fleece with style. Their first album, In The Presence of Nothing, was a shoegazing carbon copy and has been described as ‘one of the few decent My Bloody Valentine rip-off records’.

The album Better Can't Make Your Life Better, from which Nanny in Manhattan comes, sees Lilys take on British Mod music and come out on top. I find it impossible to resist the sing-a-long melody, fuzzed out guitars and its admirable brevity
.
Pointless pub trivia: Nanny in Manhattan was the first song performed entirely live on Top of the Pops

Lilys – A Nanny in Manhattan.

Buy A Nanny in Manhattan for a penny!

Buy Better Can’t Make Your Life Better.

Super Furry Animals – International Language of Screaming.

2005-04-12T16:30:00.000Z

International Language of Screaming was the lead single from The Super Furry Animals’ second album Radiator (originally titled Short Assed Skinhead Copper). It was my favourite single of 1997. Not everyone felt that way at the time. The single was not playlisted by Radio 1 and only reached number 24 in the charts. I must have been out of step with the times in my love of a great pop melody, rocking guitars and psychedelic bleeps.

Although SFA have had a long and successful career they never seem to have achieved quite the level of popularity they deserve. But they’re not a band that does things the easy way. Singing songs in Welsh is never going to get you on the cover of Heat magazine - although exactly which are sung in Welch and which in English is often hard to distinguish. After seeing them live for the first time Creation records boss Alan McGhee asked the band if they had any songs in English – the entire set that night had been in English.

1997 was an eventful year for the band. They released their second album to great critical acclaim, played the NME Brats Tour and sold their tank to Don Henley of The Eagles. But highlight of the year for them has to have been, Super Furry Bassist, Guto Price’s triumphant performance on Mark and Lard’s Radio 1 Breakfast Show. He scored four points during the quiz ‘We Love Us’ and walked away with a brand new luxury foot spa.

Given the strange nature of the band it’s sometimes hard to tell fact from fiction with SFA stories. Decide for yourself which of these are true: they appeared on GMTV in a competition to find the next Take That, they have a designated ‘hat day’ once a week, they once released an album entirely in Welsh.

Super Furry Animals – International Language of Screaming.

Buy Radiator.

Ron Sexsmith – April After All.

2005-04-06T13:52:00.000Z

Ron Sexsmith is one of those singer-songwriters who keeps making great records and keeps getting ignored.

His second album, Other Songs, is about as close as he’s got to selling out featuring as it does Sheryl Crow and even having a few up-tempo tunes. The album’s slicker than usual production comes courtesy of Mitchell Froom who produced such acts as Crowded House, Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello and is also known as Mr Suzanne Vega.

However, no amount of slick production could cover up the morose nature of the songs on the album. Themes include child abuse, cemeteries and plenty of loss (of childhood, love and dignity). Lyrically, the closest he gets to happy-go-lucky on the album is the melancholic optimism on display on Thinly Veiled Disguise and today’s track, April After All.

On this song Sexsmith sounds absolutely deflated and defeated. Even though he keeps insisting that, no matter how bad things are, better times are just around the corner; you have to wonder if he really believes it himself.

Ron Sexsmith – April After All.

Buy Other Songs.

Asylum Street Spankers – Shave ‘Em Dry.

2005-03-29T19:36:00.000Z

In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Or, failing that, thoughts a little south of love. In the spirit of Spring today’s track is The Asylum Street Spankers’ gleefully obscene version of Lucille Bogan’s blues classic Shave ’Em Dry.

The Spankers (or The A.S.S. as they’re known to me and probably no one else) grew out an informal jam band in Austin, Texas in 1994. Since then there has been a revolving door of musicians based around core Spankers Christina Marrs and Wammo (the only person I’ve ever seen described as a “master of the washboard). Their repertoire consists largely of 1920’s and 30’s Blues and ragtime songs mixed with their own compositions written in a similar musical vein but with “contemporary themes”.

They have an almost puritanical approach to their music – even refusing to use amplification at live shows. However, they are certainly not jumper wearing musos. Lucky, they are also keen to reproduce the fun, risqué side of this music that many of the old-time revivalists seem to lose. An attitude that is very much in evidence on this track.

I should warn those of you of a sensitive disposition – don’t listen to this song if words like ‘nipples’ and stronger make you feel queasy.

This song comes from their 1997 EP Nasty Novelties. The EP has never been released in the UK but is available on import from Amazon and, more cheaply, on iTunes.

Asylum Street Spankers – Shave ‘Em Dry.

Buy Nasty Novelties.

Download more Spankings.

Mogwai – With Portfolio

2005-03-24T18:01:00.000Z

I’ve been showering constantly since posting the Dario G track but the dirt isn’t coming off. Hopefully, this will do the trick.

In the mid to late nineties there were a number of, mainly American, bands making avant garde instrumental music (Tortoise, Trans-Am, Salaryman etc.) loosely collected under the banner of ‘post rock’. However, none of these could quite match the standard of Glasgow’s Mogwai.

Mogwai were formed in early 1996 with the goal of destroying Britpop – as shown by their ‘blur: are shite’ t-shirts. They were rapidly signed by The Delgados’ chemikal underground records and released a number of singles (collected on Ten Rapid). But the quality of their debut album, Young Team, was a huge surprise – to me at least.

The album had critics wetting their knickers and Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus declaring them 'the best band of the 21st century' three years before the century had even begun.

Like their film star namesake, Mogwai start all cute and fuzzy but rapidly turn into wailing, bloodthirsty psychopaths. They refined the usual rock dynamic of quiet-loud-quiet-loud into quiet-very quiet-barely audible-loud enough to knock your granny through a stained glass window. Vocals are scarce. On Young Team they are limited to a garbled telephone conversation and Arab Strap’s Aiden Moffat doing his usual Rab C Nesbitt rambling on ‘r u still in 2 it’. The highlight of the album is the sixteen minute noise-fest closer ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’ but I’ve chosen to post the shorter but equally noisy ‘with portfolio’.

This track begins with a slow, sombre melody plonked on out of tune piano. This is joined by gently swirling feedback which grows into a cacophonous din crashing from speaker to speaker.

Make sure you play it LOUD.

Mogwai – with portfolio.

Buy Mogwai Young Team.

Download more Mogwai.

Dario G – Sunchyme.

2005-03-22T13:06:00.000Z

You were promised shit and I don’t intend to let you down.

Given the trashy Euro-disco flavour of this track and the name Dario G, I had always assumed Dario G was one of those bleach blond, perma-tanned European guys. Turns out this is home grown tosh.

Dario G main man Paul Spencer was born in non-sunny Nantwich and had previously been keyboard player in Monaco (the side project of New Order bassist Peter Hook). The band was named in tribute to football manager Dario Gradi. If you ever go to a pub quiz it’s worth remembering that Gradi is the longest serving manager in the English football league.

Usually, you are under strict instruction to delete tracks you get from here within 24 hours. I don’t think that’ll be an issue with this track. In fact, a prize for anyone who can sit through the full eight and a half minute original version; a bottle of this perhaps.

I’d like to make it clear that I had to borrow this CD from a friend. Everyone who tells you I have a copy, that it’s my favourite record and I kiss it each night before going to sleep obviously has me mixed up with someone else.

Dario G – Sunchyme (Radio Edit).

Buy Sunmachine

Black Grape – Get Higher

2005-03-15T17:16:00.000Z

Continuing the theme of over analysed lyricists, this week it’s Happy Mondays/Black Grape frontman Shaun Ryder. He’s not the messiah; he’s a very naughty boy.

Not that Ryder himself has ever claimed to be. His response to receiving the NME’s God-like Genius award was, “Not god like genius, knob like penis! I've met Phil Daniels, you know, king of mods, and he was good."

Black Grape’s second album, Stupid, Stupid, Stupid, was completed without the help of Ryder’s trusty sidekick Bez (who had acrimoniously split with the band the previous year). Inevitably, without Bez, Stupid did not match the success of their debut, It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah!, and the band broke up in 1998.

Get Higher was the first single and the opening track of Stupid. It sticks closely to the Grapes’ formula of good times, guitar riffs and the joys of self medication. But with the notable difference that most of the drug pushing is done by Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

Black Grape – Get Higher.

Buy Stupid Stupid Stupid.