Seventy Minutes From GL11

Back in February Todmorden's Gold Lion pub celebrated its 11th birthday with a weekend of entertainment with Hot Chip's Joe Goddard on the Friday night and on Saturday Deeply Armed playing live upstairs and David Holmes downstairs. The afternoon also had us playing, The Flightpath Estate, from 2pm through until the evening. We had plans to recreate our entire set but for various reasons that hasn't happened but I'd pulled my parts of the set together and it occurred to me that rather than them sitting unused I may as well sequence them together as one piece and share them here. So this is a twelve song selection of what I played at The Golden Lion- Dan, Martin, Baz and Mark's tunes are all missing I'm afraid- keeping track of  what I played is hard enough- and maybe one day we'll sort the full setlist out and post it.

Adam's Flightpath Estate Set From GL11

• Arrival Ft. Kevin McCormick: Common Place (Thought Leadership Remix)
• Cluster: Zum Wohl
• Captain Beefheart and His Magic  Band: Observatory Crest
• Cowboy Junkies: Sweet Jane (Mojo Filter Junkie Re- Love)
• A Mountain Of One: Innocent Reprise
• Thurston Moore: Asperitas
• Warpaint: Disco// Very (Richard Norris Remix)
• X- Press 2: Witchi Tai To (Two Lone Swordsmen remix)
• Doves: Kingdom Of Rust (Prins Thomas Remix)
• Pandit Pam Pam: Tarantula
• Secret Soul Society: See You Dance Again
• Mark Lanegan: Ode To Sad Disco

Arrival's 12" single came out at the start of January, the year's first essential release for me, two tracks from the Stockport duo with the wonderful guitar playing of Kevin McCormick at their core. Thought Leadership, also a guitarist and also from Stockport, remixed Common Place pulling many different threads into one piece of music. 

Cluster's Zum Wohl is from their 1976 album Sowiesoso, a favourite of mine, an album where Cluster and Conny Plank regrouped in rural West Germany and made pastoral ambient electronic/ synth cosmische. 

Captain Beefheart's Observatory Crest made a late jump into my digital record box for the Lion's 11th birthday. I fond myself humming it in the week leading up to the event and it fell into the afternoon vibe I was aiming for. It came out in 1974 on his Bluejeans And Moonbeams album, an uncharacteristically accessible and mainstream sounding record for the good Captain. 

Cowboy Junkies' cover of Sweet Jane came out in 1988 on their majestic Trinity Sessions album. It gained Lou Reed's approval, the song done the way it should have been back when The Velvet Underground made Loaded. Cowboy Junkies have spent the last two week's touring the UK and they played Manchester last Sunday. I was really tempted to go but also tickets were £53 plus fees and it felt like a lot of money. Mojo Filter's Balearic edit is from 2015 and he doesn't do too much to it, just add a subtle electronic undercarriage and a bit of a sunset sheen. 

Innocent Reprise is from A Mountain Of One's EP2, originally out in 2007 and then compiled with EP1 as Collected Works. Lovely sunbaked Balearic folk. 

Asperitas is from an album Thurston Moore put out in early February this year, six long guitar instrumentals inspired by skyscapes of the British Isles, an album called Guitar Explorations Of Cloud Formations. Asperitas is several guitar parts, some controlled feedback and a primitive drum machine. It's a really good album ranging from chilled and krauty to noisy and if by any remote chance he's reading this, vinyl please Thurston. 

We played in rotation at GL11, three tracks each and then handing over to the next Flightpather. Richard Norris' remix of Warpaint came later on in the afternoon, the pub filling up a bit and I can't remember who went before me or what they played but it must have inspired me to turn the bpms up a little and go into dancier territory. Back in 2014 Warpaint were very much a going concern, their California post- punk/ dub sounds getting lots of attention. Richard's remix is one of his best- an indie rock gone Balearic monster.

Two Lone Swordsmen's remix of X- Press 2 is from 2006, Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood heading into the garage rock/ rockabilly sounds that would come to fruition on 2007's Wrong Meeting. Witchi Tai To is a Native American chant that Jim Pepper turned into a hit single in 1971. Recorded in 1969, peyote jazz fusion. 

Doves Kingdom Of Rust was from the 2006 album of the same name. The Prins Thomas remix of the song is a beauty, the guitars and bass circling round each other, Jimi's windswept vocal nailing a certain type of Mancunian melancholy with references to black birds and cooling towers and then the strings swoop in...

Pandit Pam Pam is from Sao Paulo. His cover of Colourbox's Tarantula came out in February this year. The wandering trumpet line and bubbling bass dance around each other.

Secret Soul Society's edit of Neil Young's 1992 song Harvest Moon dropped into my inbox a few weeks before GL11, the line 'I wanna see you dance again' going round and round, a dub/ disco version of 90s Neil Young.

Mark Lanegan's Ode To Sad Disco always works. New Order- esque dance/ rock from 2012's Blues Funeral, a throbbing sequencer bassline, synths and guitars and packed with very visual lyrical imagery- one of those songs that always hits the spot for me. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Three

A third Sunday covers mix for October this time with an 80s indie edge and some repeat offenders from the last two weeks present and correct. Starts out all small hours and hushed, goes noisier, comes down again and finishes where it started with The Velvets, one of the most covered bands. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Three

• Cowboy Junkies: Sweet Jane
• Sonic Youth: Superstar
• Primal Scream: Carry Me Home
• The House Of Love: Who By Fire
• Ciccone Youth: Into The Groovey
• World Of Twist: This Too Shall Pass Away
• Red Snapper: Sound And Vision
• R.E.M.: Indian Summer
• Minutemen: Have You Ever Seen The Rain?
• Calexico: Corona
• Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins: Pale Blue Eyes (Western)

Cowboy Junkies covered Sweet Jane on their magical 1988 album The Trinity Session. The album was famously recorded in Toronto's Church of The Holy Trinity. Their cover was based on the version the Velvets played on their 1969 Live album rather than the one on Loaded. Lou Reed said the Cowboy Junkies take on the song was his favourite, the way the song was meant to be done. 

Sonic Youth featured twice last week and do this week too- their version of Superstar came out on a 1994 tribute to The Carpenters. Richard Carpenter didn't like it at all. Sonic Youth take a blow torch to the song, a huge amount of reverb, one massive piano note, some wobbly guitar sounds and surely nail something true about the song. The Carpenters released it in 1971 with LA session musicians The Wrecking Crew and a toned down, less suggestive lyric ('I can't wait to sleep with you again' was changed to 'be with you again'). The song was written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell and recorded first by Delaney and Bonnie in 1969, a song about the relationships between rock stars and groupies in the 60s.

Carry Me Home was on Primal Scream's Dixie- Narco EP, a bleak Dennis Wilson song made bleaker still by Primal Scream and Andrew Weatherall while recording at Ardent in Memphis in 1991. Weatherall's production and arrangement is superb, an extension of the Screamadelica sound into darker places. Dennis' song is sung from the point of view of a dying soldier in Vietnam.

Who By Fire is a Leonard Cohen song covered by The House Of Love on a 1991 tribute album, I'm Your Fan- there are loads of 80s/ 90s alt/ indie stars on the album including R.E.M., Pixies, The Lilac Time, Ian McCulloch, Lloyd Cole, Robert Forster, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, James and John Cale. I'm not sure any of them really improve on the original songs. 

Ciccone Youth were a Madonna inspired Sonic Youth side project with Minuteman Mike Watt on bass. Watt was in a bad way after D. Boon's death and what became The White Album was a way to get him playing again. Into The Groovey is a cover of Madonna (obvs) and samples her too. SY loved Madonna in the 80s, they loved Into The Groove. They also covered Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love. 

World Of Twist did a few covers- Kick Out The Jams, She's A Rainbow, Life And Death- and this one, This Too Shall Pass Away, which sits in the middle of side one on their sole album, 1991's Quality Street. Quality Street is a heady stew of psychedelic pop, Northern Soul and late 80s Mancunian indie. The original version of This Too... is a 1964 single by the Honeycombs.

Red Snapper's cover of Bowie's Sound And Vision is on Ban- Di- To, out earlier this year and thoroughly recommended. Red Snapper are a formidable live band and Sound And Vision is a live favourite- I saw them do it at The Golden Lion in 2023.

Indian Summer is a semi- legendary song by Beat Happening, lo fi indie pioneers from Olympia, Washington. The song is a slow burning tale of youth and lust, originally released in 1988. R.E.M.'s cover is from a 2008 single, Hollow Man. I have versions by Spectrum (Sonic Boom), Luna and The Jazz Butcher as well as this one. In fact Spectrum's may be the best version and should probably have been included here- R.E.M. find some late period magic and intensity here though.

Minutemen covered Have You Ever Seen The Rain? on their fourth and final album, 1985's Three Way Tie For Last, a cover of Watt and Boon's teenage heroes Creedence Clearwater Revival. AT two minute thirty seconds long it's an epic by Minutemen standards. D Boon died shortly after the album's release.

Calexico's cover of Minutemen's Corona was on their 2003 masterpiece Feast Of Wire. The original is from 1984's Double Nickels On the Dime, one of D Boon's best songs, a heartfelt protest song for the downtrodden people of mid- 80s Mexico. Calexico played it live and then covered it, adding mariachi horns. Let's forget the fact it became the theme tune to Jackass. 

Back to The Velvets. Paul Quinn and Edwyn Collins covered Lou Reed's Pale Blue Eyes for a one off single in 1984, done for the soundtrack of Alan Horne's Punk Rock Hotel. It's a much loved cover, Edwyn and Paul both sounding as good as they ever did. 

200 More Miles

Sometimes a band come around who create an album that is a perfect encapsulation of a sound, of those people in that room making those songs at that exact point in time. They may go on to make further records and albums, some of them very fine, but nothing they do will ever come close to that one off capturing of the moment. In November 1988 the Canadian band Cowboy Junkies did that with their album The Trinity Session. The album was mostly recorded in one night, 27th November 1987 live in Toronto, at the Church of The Holy Trinity, with the band all sitting round one microphone. They played a hushed, spooky but beautiful set of songs, originals, traditional songs and covers, with the voice of Margo Timmins a ghostly presence on top. The covers famously included perhaps the definitive version of The Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane (Lou Reed was of that opinion). But apart from Margo's voice, the brushed drums, the stripped back electric guitar, and the other instruments- fiddle, pedal steel, harmonica, accordion- the biggest presence on the album is the natural reverb of the church, the echo that surrounds the group as they move around, towards and away from the sole microphone. 

Their previous album, Whites Off Earth Now!, saw them tour the south of the USA and the music they heard down in the Deep South states, country and western, informed the song writing and selection for The Trinity Session.  Their own song, 200 More Miles, is a song about life on the road...

200 More Miles

The 1990 follow up to The Trinity Session, The Caution Horses, was a good album. Their cover of Neil Young's  Powderfinger, the opening song and single Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning and a few other songs were good and it had the same slowed down style and hushed approach but it was more polished and as a result lost a little of what made The Trinity Session so special. 

These two clips came my way recently and I don't believe I've ever seen them before. First is Cowboy Junkies in London at MTV's studios playing live and being interviewed for 120 Minutes, a ten minute clip with Margo talking and a stripped down version of the band playing.

But there's also this if you've got the time and inclination, a full live performance by the band from 1990 in Koln, Germany, filmed for German TV. Slow music and slow TV in front of a fairly subdued audience. If you're in a rush and want the sweet hit of Sweet Jane, it's starts at 53.01. 

200 More Miles

Cowboy Junkies' 1988 album The Trinity Session was one that almost everyone seemed to be listening to when it came out, rave reviews in the NME, Sounds and Melody Maker enough to cut through to the different crowds of the late 80s. Recorded in the Church Of The Holy Trinity in Toronto with the musicians all round a single microphone and with Margo Timmins' vocal coming through the PA system left behind by the previous band to play in the church, the presence and natural reverb of the building is as important as the instruments and Margo's voice. The album was almost recorded in one session with no overdubs (except for Margo adding her a capella chanting for Mining For Gold a week later. As they ran out of time they had to pay the security guard on site an extra $25 to let them stay a little longer and record Misguided Angel). 

The album is one of those perfect moments, a record they were never going to match again no matter what, where and when they recorded. The follow up, 1990's The Caution Horses, had some good songs but was more polished and didn't have the unique, one off beauty of that day/ night in that church in Toronto. This song, 200 More Miles, was inspired by the group's never-ending life on the road. Michael Timmins' scratchy lead guitar and accompanying pedal steel guitar are a joy. 

200 More Miles

The album gained a lot of interest because of the cover of Sweet Jane, but the version from 1974's 1969: Velvet Underground Live rather than the more familiar one from Loaded. Lou Reed is said to have preferred the Cowboy Junkies one to the Velvets' ones and who can fault him? I've posted it before fairly recently so instead offer this, a completely unofficial Mojo Filter re- edit of Cowboy Junkies cover. Your tolerance of it may depend on whether you think the achingly beautiful, spectral 1988 cover version needed an AOR sheen and mid tempo club/ disco drums- I can imagine situations where it could work. 

Sweet Jane (Mojo Filter Re-love)

Anyone Who Ever Had A Heart

The last week has been soundtracked much of the time by this hour long mix from Jesse Fahnestock, a promotional mix for Brighton's Higher Love who have released Jesse's recent single Kissed Again (in his 10:40 guise). You can find Higher Love 059 at the Balearic Ultras Mixcloud  page and it's an absolute beaut, a meandering shuffle round some blissed out chugginess, some dub tinged delights, some indie- dance and some loose and lovely Balearica with half the tracks in the mix Jesse's own work as 10: 40. It drifts in with Rich Lane's Coyote, atmospherics, ambience and slide guitar and then Margo Timmins voice appears just below the surface, singing Sweet Jane from The Trinity Sessions back in the late 80s- quite the pairing. Matt Gunn, Kusht and Coco Rosie follow and then a run of unreleased 10:40 tracks before a euphoric section running from Cosmikuro into a re- edited Charlatans song from 1994, then into Kissed Again and then Jesse's re-edit of Hugh Masakela's Strawberries, all multi-coloured, dreamy splendour. Highly recommended.

Tracklist

• Rich Lane/Cowboy Junkies: Coyote Tan/Sweet Jane
• Matt Gunn: Lost in the Drohne
• Kusht: Trippin’ Out Back
• CocoRosie: Good Friday
• 10:40: Coat Check
• 10:40: [Unreleased]
• 10:40: [Unreleased]
• MAKS: North (Yarni Remix)
• Cosmikuro: Gum
• The Charlatans: Come in Number 21 (10:40’s Number 21 with a Bullet Edit)
• 10:40: Kissed Again
• Hugh Masakela: Strawberries (10:40’s Cream Edit)
• Florence & The Scream Machine: Don’t Fight The Love (10:40’s Machine Mash)
• 10:40: See Me Through

As an addition I thought I'd post two songs that provided Jesse with some of his source material. Back in 1988 Canada's Cowboy Junkies recorded an album that seemed to appear out of nowhere and crossed all kinds of boundaries over here. The album pulled together their own songs and some covers with the spectral presence of the church they were recorded in- the natural reverb of Toronto's Holy Trinity church is as important as any of the wood and metal instruments played by the group. The recording was made using a single microphone to pick up all the players and Margo's voice. On Sweet Jane they chose to cover the version from The Velvet Underground's 1969 Live album rather than the one from Loaded. Apparently even professional curmudgeon Lou Reed loved the Cowboy Junkies cover. 

Sweet Jane

By 1994 The Charlatans were a looking a little lost and out of time and their third album Up To Our Hips didn't set the world alight- the next big things of Britpop were already stirring and The Charlatans looked a bit like yesterday's men (many of their contemporaries had already run out of road). The album, produced by Steve Hillage, has endured though, has a groove and feel to it and some of the songs are real fan favourites, songs like Can't Get Out Of Bed, Jesus Hairdo and I Never Want An Easy Life If Me And He Were Ever To Get There. It opens with Come In Number 21, a song that sounds like they've just arrived, plugged in and turned all the switches on, a rehearsal where suddenly things come together on the spot. The guitars are lower in the mix, the drums less obviously based around the 1990 beat, Tim's singing surrounded by the swampy bass, organ and guitars. Time definitely not up. 

Come In Number 21

Anyone Who's Ever Had A Dream

Another Velvet Underground on Sunday post today. In 1988 Toronto's Cowboy Junkies rescued Sweet Jane from the countless butcherings it had received at the hands of the man who wrote it. Their album The Trinity Sessions was recorded in a church and somewhere in that building the people involved and the church's natural echo and reverb summoned up something magical. Margo Timmins' voice, her brother Michael's guitar and the rest of the band, all gathered around a single mic, recast Sweet Jane in the mould of the 1969 Live version rather than the Loaded one, retrieving the earlier lyrics and the 'Heavenly wine and roses/seem to whisper to me when you smile...' section (some lyric sites have this line as 'heavenly widened roses' but I've always heard the former and that's what I'm sticking with). Lou Reed later said that Cowboy Junkies had made his favourite version. Mine too.

Sweet Jane

Numbers Add Up To Nothing

Cowboy Junkies Trinity Sessions album was one of those records that came out of nowhere and obsessed people for a while. A friend of mine and myself listened to little else for what seemed like ages. The follow up, The Caution Horses, wasn't too bad either but it missed the church that the previous album was recorded in. This accordion led version of Neil Young's Powderfinger is good in all the right places.

In 2004/5ish my brother-in-law's band (then called Bocca) played above a bar in Leicester (The Lamplighters I think). Long after the evening and gig had finished three of the band and myself were standing at the bar talking and we decided, seeing as the gear was still set up, to play an impromptu version of Powderfinger there and then to an audience of the barman and three bikers who'd surely ended up in the wrong bar. Emboldened by alcohol and a very small and indifferent audience we staggered/swaggered through it. I managed to remember most of the words. At the end the barman told us that was it, he was closing. As we walked past the bikers one of them said 'That was shit lads. Enjoyed it though'.

Powderfinger