Christmas Eve Trio

I was going to start off this post by saying I've been trying to feel a bit more positive towards Christmas this year, having not found much to enjoy in it for the last three, but the songs I'm about to post would suggest otherwise. It's good to be on holiday though and to have some time to socialise and spend time with people and it's good to be feeling a little bit more positive about it as an event. 

Over at My Top Ten Rol's been wondering whether some Christmas songs should be cancelled. Rol and fellow bloggers dissected A Fairytale Of New York here and then Do They Know It's Christmas? here. 

In place of the awful annual succession of Christmas songs you can currently hear being piped out in shops and on TV here are a trio that give a different slant on the festive season.  

In 1978 Tom Waits released Blue Valentine, an album which included the song Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis, a first person sketch which revels in the low life street level characters Waits loved and wrote about and which comes with a lyrical twist at the end. 

Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

In 1988 Julian Cope added a fourth song to his Charlotte Anne 12" single, the sparkling pagan psyche- pop of Christmas Mourning. 

Christmas Mourning

In 2000, as they prepared for the release of their third album This Is Happening, LCD Soundsystem contributed some songs to a Ben Stiller film, Greenburg. Oh You (Christmas Blues) is a raw and distorted blues song, sounding like the result of a collision between 70s Pink Floyd and James Murphy coming down hard at the end of a very long session. 

Oh You (Christmas Blues)

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Four

One more cover version Sunday mix then I'll leave it alone for a while. I've been finding cover versions in all sorts of places since I started the first mix four weeks ago, songs springing to mind at random moments. Most of the ones I've chosen do something with the source material, take it somewhere else emotionally or stylistically. Some rip the original to shreds, some pay their respects but still tear it up. Some nod their head to their influences or pay something back. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Four

• Spectrum: True Love Will Find You In The End
• Spiritualized: Any Way That You Want Me
• The Kills: Pale Blue Eyes
• One Dove: Jolene
• Galaxie 500: Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste
• John Cale: All My Friends
• Monkey Mafia: As Long As I Can See The Light
• Raz and Afla: Windowlicker

Sonic Boom formed Spectrum after Spacemen 3 split up and his cover of Daniel Johnson's True Love Will Find You In The End is a gorgeous, angelic take on the song. Released in 1992 as a single and later included in two versions on a Sonic Boom/ Spectrum compilation.

Two years earlier Jason Pierce/ J Spaceman flew the Spacemen 3 coop first, releasing the first Spiritualized single, a cover of The Troggs 1966 single. Jason doesn't radically alter it but he makes it a Spiritualized song all the same. 

The Kills cover of The Velvet Underground's Pale Blue Eyes is gloriously ragged and fuzzed up, the guitar stuttering and ripping a hole in the speaker while Alison gives deadpan vocals. It was a B-side to their 2012 The Last Goodbye single.

One Dove's dubbed out, trippy reggae cover of Dolly Parton is a blast, Dot's beautifully off key vocals perfect for the band's blissed out but slightly on edge comedown re-imagining of the song. It came out as one of the B-sides to the 1993 single release of Why Don't You Take Me.

Galaxie 500 recorded several fantastic covers- their take on New Order's Ceremony may be the best NO cover ever recorded. Their cover of Jonathan Richman's Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste is superb, Jonathan's ninety second original stretched to to seven minutes, a thrilling Galaxie performance, the rumble of drums and bass matched by Dean's trebly, overdriven guitar. They only existed for four years, 1987 to 1991, but what a great band they were. 

John Cale covered LCD Soundsystem's All My Friends for LCD's own release of the single back in 2007- it came out as the B-side on 7" along with a sister 7" that had  Franz Ferdinand cover of the same song. Cale's version, piano, clipped krautrock guitars and his lived in, baritone voice give James Murphy's song a new dimension- when Cale sings, 'where are your friends tonight?', it conjures all sorts of imagery. 

Monkey Mafia's cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's was a 1998 single, a late 90s revisiting of a 1970 song, a call out to the weary travelers and wanderers, a song about going home. Pre- millenial tension?

Raz and Afla's cover of Aphex Twin's Windowlicker came out this year, a fantastic synths and percussion Afro- electronic floor filler- well, I can imagine some floors that it might fill. 

When We Talk Of The Times

LCD Soundsystem began an eight night residency at Brixton Academy last week, the New York art- dance, post- punkers continuing their habit of rolling into a city and taking it over for a week. If I hadn't been down to London for Sabres Of Paradise I might have thought about going, although I'd prefer it if James Murphy decided the next UK destination for a residency is a bit closer to home- Manchester would do fine. 

In 2010 LCD Soundsystem released their third album This Is Happening, an album that at the time I remember feeling a little ambivalent about. It seemed quite stuck to the LCD template that Murphy and co. had established on Sound Of Silver three years earlier but it's grown on my over the years and songs like Drunk Girls, I Can Change and Pow Pow all worked their magic eventually. This Is Happening starts with this song...

Dance Yrself Clean

Many of LCD's songs are builders. Dance Yrself Clean is very much a builder and at nearly nine minutes long there's a lot of time to build. The first three minutes are very slow and low, a sparse drum machine pattern, James' voice compressed and alone, some backing vocals joining in and the thud of a piano. The lyrics dissecting friendship gone wrong or maybe some soul searching. The song explodes in the third minute, synths and FX, and continues ever onward, James now on the floor and dancing himself clean. 

Support at the second half of the residency comes from Working Men's Club, the Calder Valley's own electronic dance/ rock/ acid house/ post punkers, a group led by Syd Minsky- Sargeant. On Friday night Working Men's Club warmed up for those gigs with one at The Golden Lion, a much more intimate venue than Brixton Academy. 

The pub is packed, the downstairs stage is low and where I'm standing over by the DJ booth it's difficult to see much, Syd's head and microphone, the occasional glimpse of the other members of the band. A stuttering synth loop kicks in and builds over several minutes, other loops kicking in, eventually all coming into sync and then we're off, a full on WMC sound- synths, bass, 303s and 808s and on top Syd's vocals, repeated loops of lines. There aren't any gaps between songs, one song seguing into the next, an hour long megamix. Working Men's Club sound like New Oder if they'd kept pushing and got tougher after Technique or maybe Joy Division in an alternative 1983, one where Ian didn't die but they'd gone fully synth and electronics anyway. WMC's second album, Fear Fear, came out in 2022 and was informed by lockdown and existential dread, Syd's fear writ large. 'When we talk of the times/ We talk in the past tense', rattles round the pub over some very heavy post- punk/ New Beat. There's a healthy dose of late 80s rave and its defiance, its anti- authoritarian stance- the refrain from the song John Cooper Clarke, 'We dance and we smile/ We laugh and we cry/ We play and we fight/ We live and we die', sounding anthemic. 

Both Working Men's Club albums were mixed into single, twenty minute megamixes by Syd, versions of the albums and the live set. Megamix and Megamix II give you an idea of what the live set sounds like. 

Live the songs are even more physical than they sound on disc, Syd a bobbing and frenetic presence at the front of the stage, conducting and waving his hand around as his stream of consciousness is thrown around the pub, the soundman applying layers of FX to the vocals. We get an hour and then they're off. On the basis of tonight, anyone with tickets for LCD Soundsystem should get there in good time. 

Be My Guest was on WMC's self titled debut album, released in 2021, crunching drums and laser focused noisy guitars, Syd bursting out of a small town in West Yorkshire. 

Be My Guest

Syd is also a member of Demise Of Love, a trio made of him, Daniel Avery and Ghost Culture's James Greenwood. A four track 10" EP came out recently led by Strange Little Consequence which I posted in February. This song is also on the EP, Like I Loved You, a slow burning summer epic, some New Order gone interstellar synths, distorted vocals and a loud/ quiet dynamic that keeps the song shape- shifting. 

 

And It Feels Like I'm Coming Home

I've had an LCD Soundsystem renaissance this year, starting back in the early summer, kickstarted by their performance at Glastonbury, and have found all sorts to revisit and enjoy in their music. By happy coincidence James Murphy has put the group back together again and the first fruits of LCD Soundsystem 2024 came out eleven days ago with a single called X- Ray Eyes. What does it sound like? It sounds very much like LCD Soundsystem- vintage synth arpeggios, hissing drum machines, dead pan vocals from James from a space somewhere between ennui and anxiety, No Wave dance music for the middle aged...

In 2005 LCD Soundsystem followed the release of three groundbreaking singles (Losing My Edge, Give It Up and Yeah) with a self titled debut album that gave us more of the same and took LCD into some new places too. The razor sharp New York post punk/ disco of Daft Punk Are Playing At My House opened the album and this song closed it, not what I was expecting when I first played it, a gorgeous, sleepy eyed sunset/ sunrise tune, drum machine in the echoey distance and big Balearic piano chords with James dewy eyed and coming down after all that strobe lit dancing and nervous energy- 'And it feels like it won't come on/ And it takes like you're full of love/ Still the time never to pay on/ Still the time never to pay on/ And it feels like it's coming home/ And it feels like it's full of love/ Still in time is the great release'

Great Release

Monday's Long Song

More LCD Soundsystem long song Monday action. In 2005 DFA released a single CD titled Holiday Mix, nine DFA tracks over fifty minutes, almost all remixes of DFA artists by others. Black Dice, LCD Soundsystem, The Juan MacLean, Delia Gonzales and Gavin Russom all appear with remixes from Loumo, Booka Shade, Cajmere, X- Press 2, Soulwax and Tiga. When playing this in the car recently this pair stood out...

Tribulations (Tiga Remix)

Tiga, a producer, programmer and DJ from Canada, ramps up one of the key songs from LCD Soundsystem's self titled debut album, nearly eight minutes of uptempo, messed up, four- four dance floor mayhem. James Murphy doesn't appear until three minutes in, with a very New Order- esque vocal line- 'Everybody makes mistakes/ But I feel alright when I come undone'. Tiga keeps going, turning the knobs, synths and drums piling in, and there's a tension building breakdown at four and a half minutes, just Murphy and a bassline, before the snare and kick drum core- enter and everything gets full on and whizzy again.

As this is a mixed CD the next track segues in at seven minutes, the Soulwax remix of Daft Punk Is Playing At My House, and then unfortunately it comes to a very abrupt end. But you can cue this up to take over straight away and let it frazzle your senses. Soulwax pull no punches, everything in the red and overloaded. 

Daft Punk Is Playing At My House (Soulwax Shibuya Remix)

Monday's Long Song

Another Monday, another LCD Soundsystem long song. This one is from 2010 and the third LCD Soundsystem album This Is Happening. I remember feeling a little underwhelmed by the album but looking at it now maybe that was me and not James Murphy. The songs were good but none matched the sheer  emotional dance music majesty of Sound Of Silver's peaks. I payed it through recently and it sounded great, the melancholy tinged dance pop of I Can Change, the sleek NY sounds of Pow Pow and Drunk Girls, a song Murphy described as 'dumb' but also said that he liked dumb stuff. In May 2010 Drunk Girls was released as a single, the 7" coming with a Wooden Shjips cover of the song as its B- side and the 12" with a remix by Holy Ghost!

Drunk Girls (Holy Ghost! Remix)

Holy Ghost! are a synthpop duo from Brooklyn. Their remix splices electro, indie rock and disco, a New Order- ish, pulsating, high energy seven and a half minutes of fun with James outlining what drunk girls (and drunk boys) are and what they do, the shallows and depths of hedonism and his belief in waking up together. 

Monday's Long Song

On Thursday this week, 18th July, The Flightpath Estate DJs northern division (Dan, Martin and me) are playing some records at Head in Stretford, as guests of Club Solo. I've been going through my records, making piles and lists of probables and possibles, re- listening to some things and narrowing it down to something approaching a set. My recent Monday long song focus on DFA and  LCD Soundsystem led me to go through my LCD records and I pulled out the 12" of Yeah.

Yeah (Crass Version)

Yeah came out in January 2004, in two mixes, the eleven minute Pretentious Version and the nine minute Crass Version. I put the Crass version on the turntable and wallowed in James Murphy's attempt to tell the story of dance music in one track, a track that Murphy says was difficult to make. The whole thing is an LCD Soundsystem tour de force, New York clubland pressed on wax- driving art- funk bass, Murphy and Nancy Whang chanting the word of the title, and then 'Everyone keeps on talking about/ Nobody's getting it done', his intonation somewhere between wired and bored. The synths flutter, the snares crack, the bass pumps like a marriage between Talking Heads and Liquid Liquid. The Crass version piles up and becomes increasingly intense, like being trapped in a washing machine with a power drill, the ultra- distorted, raw acid analogue synths buzzing at the very edge of music, noise and rhythm combined in ecstatic union. Fuck yeah!

Monday's Long Songs

The Monday long song slot LCD Soundsystem/ DFA takeover continues. Last Monday was LCD Soundsystem's Freak Out/ Starry Eyes, which followed the DFA remix of Le Tigre the previous week. Today, two further remixes but this time remixes of LCD Soundsystem by others, both from 2007.

Carl Craig, second wave of Detroit techno legend, remixed the title track from LCD's album of the same year, Sound Of Silver. James Murph's vocal refrain remains intact, 'Sound of silver talk to me/ Makes you feel like a teenager/ Until you remember the feelings of/ A real life emotional teenager/ Then you think again'. Around this piece of wisdom, Carl constructs a sleek nine minute machine ride with thudding drums, a synth drone at the top end that nags away, keyboard parts and not a little drama. 

Sound Of Silver (c2 rmx rev.3)

Soulwax remixed Get Innocuous!, ten minutes and one second of Belgian dancefloor nirvana, kicking off with just drums and then gradually bringing the keys in, Nancy Wang's voice, shiny 80s production, Murphy's Bowie- esque vocal, juddering synth stabs, the whole kit and caboodle. 

Get Innocuous! (Soulwax Remix)

Monday's Long Song

Last Monday's long song, the DFA remix of Le Tigre, was a little on the short side, clocking in at just over six minutes. To atone for this today we have a twelve minute epic, from DFA main man James Murphy's headline outfit LCD Soundsystem. I could probably run LCD Soundsystem/ DFA songs in the Monday slot all summer without running out of either tunes or inspiration.

In the first decade of the 21st century LCD Soundsystem re- wired dance music, Murphy taking his influences- The Fall, Talking Heads, Bowie, Can- and infusing them with dance and electronic music. Their first single, Losing My Edge, was one of 2002's best, a still astonishing seven minutes. In 2006 Murphy made 45: 33, a 'conceptual jogging soundtrack', commissioned by a major US sportswear manufacturer (Nike), and some of that piece of music became 2008's Someone Great, one of the standouts from Sound Of Silver, an album that is as good as any released in the 21st century. In 2007 45: 33 came out as a CD single with three Sound Of Silver B- sides including this one...

Freak Out/ Starry Eyes

Twelve minutes of limitless ambition, drums and bass, percussion, choral vocals, horns, groove- the first half is like a New York version of Screamadelica, amped up soul and slo mo dance music crossed with cosmische synthlines. The voices chant, 'If we do it again/ I'm gonna freak out/ So do it again', a phrase that reverberates long after the song has finished. At six minutes forty five there's a drum solo- a full minute and a half long, rolling round the kit drum solo- and then the second half begins, Starry Eyes. Wired keys and synths, Tom Tom Club style lyrics and vox and another chant, 'Starry eyes/ doot doot'. It's ridiculously, effortlessly, confidently cool, the sound of a band in complete control in the studio, a B-side that eclipses many band's  A-sides. 

LCD Soundsystem played Glastonbury on Friday, an early evening set on the Pyramid Stage. They were very, very good indeed. It's on the iPlayer for the next thirty days (if you're in the UK). 

If I Could See All My Friends Tonight

Every time I post here about Isaac and our loss since he died last November (as I did yesterday) I'm a bit overwhelmed by the responses. People leave the loveliest comments, here and on social media. I know that it can't be easy to find the words sometimes- I think I'd struggle myself if it the situation were reversed- but one thing we've learned in this is it's often better to say something rather than nothing. So thank you to you all who do leave comments. I'm sure there must be times when it's difficult to read and I don't blame anyone who comes for the music and doesn't want to read my posts about bereavement and grief. I get that too. Some of you I've met in real life, many I haven't, but you're all my friends in either real or virtual life and thank you. 

Earlier this week JC at The Vinyl Villain posted a three song mini- ICA revival featuring New York indie- disco outfit LCD Soundsystem. In 2007 they released Sound Of Silver, a much lauded (deservedly so) album with a single, All My Friends, which is a superb piece of massive sounding, infectious, danceable, melancholic but ultimately life affirming music. The post is here. When All My Friends came out as a single fifteen years ago there were two 7" vinyl versions, each with a cover of the song by a different band. One cover was by Franz Ferdinand and the other courtesy of John Cale. Cale's version is magnificent (obviously) and it felt apt for this post. 

All My Friends (John Cale Version)

I Don't Know Where To Begin

When I posted Islands by The xx earlier this week I said how surprised I was that their debut album as now twelve years old. Music from the 2010s is now well over a decade old. LCD Soundsystem's Sound Of Silver came out in 2006, fifteen years ago. Eventually James Murphy's outfit seemed to be presented with so may layers of knowing irony and hip references that it became difficult to take them at face value. Even on Sound Of Silver, an album with some genuinely breath-taking moments, the Lou Reed pastiche of New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down was almost too much. This song though was a perfect piece of dancefloor punk- funk, a smart marriage of Talking Heads and The Fall for the 21st century. 

North American Scum

Starting with what sounds like someone accidentally holding down several keys at the same time and a banging, jerky drumbeat Murphy goes onto satirise his country and European views of it. It explodes several times, Nancy Wang's backing vocals sound superb and after an intense few minutes comes to a very sudden stop. 

Edit: I wrote this post, the two paragraphs above and the title, before the insurrection in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. Aspects of the post could take on a new meaning in light of what happened. As shocking as the TV coverage was, it also seemed grimly inevitable that Trump's rule would end like this: refusal to accept or acknowledge facts; violence from his supporters, whipped up by Trump and his family and by members of the Republican Party who have enabled him at every turn. Nothing shows tin pot dictators up quite like the manner of their departure. Mussolini ended up hanging from by his ankles. Saddam was hiding in a hole in the ground. Trump has appeared smaller and smaller in recent weeks as power has ebbed away from him. People have scoffed at use of the word fascist to describe him and his politics, as if it's an exaggeration or an over reaction. I don't think there can be any doubt now. 

Change

I don't feature much brand new music here at Bagging Area, but for this I'll make an exception. It's all over the internet (if you look at the Hype Machine say) so I'm guessing it's a sanctioned leak from the forthcoming LCD Soundsystem album This Is Happening, which James Murphy has said will be their last. This is a beauty, in the vein of All My Friends and Someone Great, a minor key electro throbber with a great vocal- machines and heart-felt emotion. Lovely way to start a Saturday.

Edit Post removed by Blogger, reposted without track.

LCD Soundsystem v John Cale

LCD Soundsystem are great- yeah they're arch, knowing, record-collectors that make music that sounds like The Fall in a disco, and they're all the better for it. There's something about Losing My Edge, a song narrated by an aging hipster who's losing his edge that surely speaks to all of us. Sound Of Silver topped loads of polls at the end of 2008, and had some great songs on it- North American Scum, Someone Great, All My Friends. When they released All My Friends as a single/digital bundle, as well as some remixes they got other bands to cover the song and released them as well. Cracking idea. Franz Ferdinand covered All My Friends, as did John Cale, which is what I'm giving you here. John Cale v LCD Soundsystem. Still looking good, John Cale, unlike his old mate Lou Reed...

All_my_friends v John Cale.mp3