Estaba Pensando Sobreviviendo Con Mi Sister En New Jersey

Snub TV ran for three series between 1987 and 1989, shown on early evening BBC2 at a time when the channel had a dedicated youth slot which also included Rough Guide (essential viewing, hosted by Magenta De Vine and Sankha Guha) and in the early 90s Dance Energy. Snub covered the UK indie and underground scenes, catching bands live and in the studio, interviewing them and giving a glimpse into the alternative culture of late 80s. It was lo fi and informal and had some absolutely vital moments- The Stone Roses at the Hacienda as they were about to go supernova in 1989 lives long in the memory as does World Of Twist, rather less dramatically, being interviewed at Withington swimming baths, a place I knew very well from school swimming lessons and being our local baths). 

Snub filmed Pixies at a gig in 1988 on tour with Throwing Muses, an incendiary version of Vamos. However many times you've watched this clip, once more never hurts... 

Black Francis scrubs his guitar and switches between Spanish and English, David Lovering's backbeat is a lesson in breakneck drumming and Joey Santiago's guitar solo with beer can and feedback is so exhilarating it almost can't be contained by the small screen. After Joet stops, all Francis can do is scream 'aah!' several times before slotting straight back into whatever it is the song is about- moving to California, your daddy being rich and your momma a pretty thing. 

The recorded versions of Vamos are slower but no less intense. It appeared first on Come On Pilgrim, 1987's Pixies debut on 4AD, an eight song mini- album presented in a distinctive Vaughan Oliver sleeve, a photo of a bald man with a hairy back. The Pilgrim version is from the band's demo tape, recorded in Boston in March 1987 and finding its way to Ivo Watts- Russell in London, owner of 4AD. There was no- one else like Pixies in 1988/ 1989. 

Vamos

Vamos turned up a year later, re- recorded for Surfer Rosa with Steve Albini producing the band, another slower than the live version take but with a very loud kick drum and some deranged guitar playing created out of patchwork of improvised shorter sections, bits of tape chopped up, turned around, played backwards and messed about with. 

Vamos

Nobody Loves You More

Here's one to file in the Albums I Missed In 2024 file- Kim Deal's solo album Nobody Loves You More. There's lots to love about Kim Deal- her past playing bass and writing songs in Pixies, The Breeders and The Amps, her Mid- West/ ciggie smoking voice and her all round coolness. On Nobody Loves You More she takes all of this, her alt rock/ indie songs and adds some slightly unexpected flavours, including string arrangements, a horn section and bossa nova. I read some reviews back in November when it was released but didn't go any further and when I stumbled across the title track last week I suddenly realised what I'd missed...

Nobody Loves You More

What a lovely song that is. The eleven songs on the album veer lyrically from reflections on her mother's Alzheimer's to the actor Rose Byrne to on Coast, a song written when deep in addiction issues and wishing she could enjoy the simple outdoors joy that the surfers she was watching were having. This song, Big Ben Beat, is more in the vein of some of her former bands...

Playing catch up with the album means that I've had the full eleven songs to digest in one go, a wonderful set of songs with Kim joined at various points by Kelley Deal, Steve Albini (who produced eight of the songs), Raymond McGinley from Teenage Fanclub, two of Savages (Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan) and Raconteur Jack Lawrence. 

Steve Albini RIP

Steve Albini's death at the age of 61 from a heart attack while in his studio has caused shockwaves and an outpouring of tributes. Albini could be a polarising personality and in recent years he admitted saying and doing things in the past he regretted and apologised for them. Naming his early 90s band Rapeman was a clearly provocative/ idiotic decision and cost him a lot. His previous band, Big Black, were a huge part of the US post- punk/ hardcore scene, an abrasive and aggressive guitar band, clanky, metallic guitars and a drum machine. They courted controversy with their songs and lyrics but were by 1988 a big part of whatever constituted alternative culture- their name and sleeves were in the record racks, fly posted on walls, on gig listings and in the music press. Atomizer is a huge and dark record. Songs About Fucking was everywhere briefly. 

My friend Ian (Meany) was and is a huge fan of US hardcore and was part of the scene in Liverpool in the mid- 80s, promoting gigs, photographing bands and interviewing them. He posted this on his social media yesterday by way of an obituary for Steve Albini and he says more and says it better than I can...

'I was just about to buy a ticket for Shellac in Brighton and get stuck into the interview in the latest Wire mag, hot off the press, and the bad news arrived. Fuck…. Proper legend obvs. No doubt the obits will focus on his engineering/production credits (his ‘cutlery scraping together’ production vibe, as I once heard it described (did round out as he went on) wasn’t always great - PJ Harvey wisely moved on I thought. In Utero (wasn’t that a bit shit?) but his guitar playing genius and his unique guitar sound are oft overlooked. Big Black were one of the pivotal bands of the post hardcore US underground halcyon days of my yoof and I forever regretted not seeing them on the Songs About Fucking tour before they split, tho I had the chance. ‘Kerosene’ would reverberate through indie discos (including Planet X, Liverpool) for years to come. The brilliance of his next outfit, a supergroup of sorts, Rapeman, got lost in the furore surrounding their admittedly very stupid name. Us members of the north west punk rock contingent have fond memories of their legendary Chester gig with (peak) Dinosaur Jr. The threepiece genius continued with Shellac, who I saw on several occasions, including at the Shellac curated ATP at Camber Sands (Cheap Trick, Wire, Low, Bonnie Prince Billy, Breeders, Rachels, Smog, Low, Mission of Burma, Melt Banana … need I go on). Famously cantankerous and opinionated, he was in fact, if you were on the right side of rock’n’roll history, quite affable in person. I had the good fortune to photograph him on a few occasions and hang out with him a couple of times: sitting on the floor in John Loder’s office (Crass, Big Black, Jesus and Marychain etc engineer) at Southern Studios chatting about the Scala cinema and films I remember, and I interviewed him at the legendary Newport TJs before a Shellac gig when he advocated for the greatness of ZZ Top (that’s all I can remember of that encounter!). Although he was fiercely indie, and railed against the the exploitation of the music industry, he also accepted the inevitability that streaming would deliver free listening, suck the profit out of recorded music but also would greatly increase listenership and push bands towards live performance. An antidote to the ideology of the privileged whiny whinging wealthy middle aged vinyl collecting cognoscenti. Gone too soon. Rest in power mate.'

Thank you Ian/ Meany

If you've never heard Big Black's cover of The Model by Kraftwerk (off 1987's Songs About Fucking), you should rectify that immediately by heading here. We were back at Meany's once after clubbing (at Cream in the mid 90s, no doubt a foray to see Mr Weatherall DJ) and Ian slipped The Model into the post club soundtrack and it blew us away all over again. 

Steve Albino's production was legendary. Albini scoffed at it being called production- he said it was all about how many and which microphones you had and where you placed them. He called it recording rather than production, the no bullshit attitude on display. In the early 90s he made The Wedding Present move into a different musical landscape...

Dalliance

Crawl

I hope like me you're enjoying the weekly chronological trawl through through the complete singles back catalogue of The Wedding Present over at The Vinyl Villain, an indie goldmine each Sunday courtesy of JC. A couple of Sundays ago JC reached the 1990s, the group's move to a major label and the beginning of their recording relationship with Steve Albini. JC wrote about The Wedding Present's twelfth single, a three song 12" single titled 3 Songs, led by the A-side Corduroy and coupled with a pair of B-sides, Crawl and a cover of Come Up And See Me (Make Me Smile). 

Last weekend I found myself in a second record shop and while rifling through the 12" section, nestled among a very random selection of records, I found the 3 Songs 12". I didn't buy it back in 1990, having drifted out of Gedge world after Bizarro (I loved George Best and Tommy, the Nobody's Twisting Your Arm and Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now singles and then followed them to RCA with Kennedy and Brassneck but there were a lot of records competing for my student grant in 1990 and something had to give). I have done some catching up since but my Wedding Present collection is by no means complete. 

Until I read JC's post the weekend before I'd never heard Crawl, a song that had been floating around for the intervening thirty four years unheard. I was familiar with the Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel cover but not Crawl. At his post JC said that many Wedding Present fans have Crawl high up on their lists of all time favourite songs and the comment section confirmed this. 

Crawl

Crawl is wonderful, acoustic and electric guitars crashing in, Gedge in growly form and the band building as the song goes on, Keith's bass grinding and pushing, drums thumping and the guitars piling up before everything breaks apart at the end. Having heard and loved the song via JC's post, picking up the 12" for £4.00 was not a difficult decision to make, so thirty four years after first seeing the 12" in the racks it now resides in my record collection.