Cowboy Time

Mike Wilson records as 100 Poems, straight outta Kildare, Ireland. Since January 2024 he's released six albums of music sample based songs, edits and original compositions, straddling the wiggly line between Balearic, dub and all sorts of electronic delights, and earlier this year throwing some acid boogie, Americana and cosmic country and western into the stew. His newest album, Rodeo Disco, came out last week and continues down that route, with uptempo floor fillers, dub basslines and some more Western cowboy business. For Mike, music is about creating but also about facing life full on and in his own words, there to help 'shake off the black dog'.

Rodeo Disco opens with a pair of bangers, the Doobie Brothers cosmic funk house of Let The Music Play and an Elvis sampling Rockin' Dub Music, Elvis coming to us from an interview in 1953 being asked about juvenile delinquency over slo mo beats and whooshes. On Freedom Fears Nothing there are acoustic guitars and more slowed down tempos and Martin Luther King, recorded speaking the night before his death in Memphis, a speech that almost prefigures his assassination the following day.  Sister Dave's Rodeo Show goes Western and gospel- acid beats and a Brian Christopher vocal and La Danse De Mardi Gras spins us back onto the floor with fiddles and Cajun dance. 

The final two songs bring the album home in emotional fashion and demonstrate Mike's range. On Big Purple Hands there is a Seamus O'Rourke vocal, reading from his book Leaning On Gates, a novel from Leitrim with home truths, booze, bedsits in Dublin, work in New York and an author/ narrator finding out his place in the world. Mike's drums and synths provide a clattering backing that veers into cosmic territory, a splicing of genres and cultures that works really well, O'Rourke's conversational style making it sound like you're sitting in a pub listening to him while tow bands compete to be heard, a cosmic country and an Irish jig outfit. On the closing song Wand'rin' Dub, Lee Marvin's famous number one single, Wandr'in' Star, is reworked with Lee's gravelly voice embellished with waves, acid beats and bleeps, dub space and a ticking drum machine. Wandr'in' Star was played at the end of Joe Strummer's funeral which adds a certain poignancy to it- the anniversary of Joe's death is coming up next month. 

You can find Rodeo Disco at Bandcamp, a free/ pay what you want deal. Any monies raised are going to support two mental health charities close to Mike's heart. 

The Western theme on this 100 Poems album and my Soundtrack Saturday post last weekend have brought a cowboy and Western themed vibe to Bagging Area. There are lots of songs and artists with the word Cowboy in my music folders. Cowboy Junkies and Cowboys International have both featured here before and Midnight Cowboy was a Soundtrack Saturday post earlier this year as was Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. Here are some more cowboys...

Cowboy George

Cowboy George is from The Fall's Your Future Our Clutter, their twenty seventh studio album, released in 2010 (which also featured a cover of Wanda Jackson's rockabilly Western song Funnel Of Love). Taut slide guitar, rumbling bass and clattering drums with the inimitable Mark E. Smith in rampant form with lines about low fat Limeys, broken bottles and Robin redbreast. 

Cowboys Are Square

It's been ages since I posted any Billy Childish, like Mark E Smith a total one off with a prodigious work rate and idiosyncratic worldview. Cowboys Are Square was on Thee Headcoats 1990 album The Kids Are Al Square: This Is Hip! In the last few months Billy has reunited Thee Headcoats and released a new album. They've probably recorded a new one in the time it took to write this blogpost. Billy's anti- cowboy obviously, cowboys are square, Indians are best.

Cowboys

Cowboys was the opening song on Portishead's second album. Claustrophobic and dense, hip hop/ jazz noir with Beth's lyrics eviscerating the British establishment. 

Cowboys And Indians

Cowboys And Indians is Pearl Harbour and The Explosions, a 1980 rock 'n' roll single in the Jerry Lee Lewis style, and also from the album Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost Too. Pearl arrived in London, had a relationship with Kosmo Vinyl, married Paul Simonon, supported The Clash and got members of The Clash, The Blockheads and Whirlwind to play on the album along with BJ Cole. 

Hey Cowboy

Lee Hazlewood recorded Cowboy In Sweden in 1970, a collection of country/ cowboy songs but done with that psychedelic, cinematic sound Lee pioneered. Nina Lizell sings with Lee on Hey Cowboy. 

Paul Simonon is a big Lee Hazlewood fan and was married to Pearl Harbour. Lee Marvin was played at Joe Strummer's funeral and is on the final track on 100 Poems' Rodeo Disco. The connections are everywhere. Sometimes these things just come together as I write them. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

Last Sunday's cover versions mix worked well enough for me to undertake a second. I started with Jah Divison and went from there, a succession of dub and reggae covers, wasn't happy with it and scrapped it and started again, setting off again with Jah Division but heading in a noisier, more guitar laden direction, all a bit more shambolic. Then it slows down and blisses out before kicking up a storm again for the finish. 

After I posted last Sunday's mix Steve from Andres y Xavi messaged me to say he had a series of cover version mixes called Under The Covers, up at Mixcloud. The latest, his ninth, covers a lot of ground from Lady Blackbird to The Droyds with Isaac Hayes, Bobby Womack and Jose Feliciano among the people sandwiched in between. Plenty to enjoy. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

• Jah Division: Dub Will Tear Us Apart
• The Fall: Mr Pharmacist
• The Jesus And Mary Chain: Surfin' USA
• Sonic Youth: I Know There's An Answer
• Sonic Youth: Computer Age
• Hardway Bros: 1979 GLOK Remix
• Andy Bell: Our Last Night Together
• The Liminanas: Ou Va La Chance
• The Vendetta Suite: Who Do You Love?
• Fontaines DC: 'Cello Song

Jah Division is a Russian reggae band, formed in Moscow in 1990. This is what it says in Wikipedia. It also say that the founder of Jah Division, Gera Morales, was the son of Leopold Morales, an associate of Che Guevara's. Elsewhere (Bandcamp) it says Jah Divison are from Brooklyn and their 2004 12" of four covers of Joy Division songs is their sole release. According to Bandcamp Jah Divison features members of Onieda and Home, began as a joke and the four tracks were recorded in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. Take your pick. None of which stops Dub Will Tear Us Apart from being a genius cover version whoever recorded it. 

The Fall's Mr Pharmacist is a cover of a song by Los Angeles 60s psyche garage band The Other Half, a 1986 Fall single from the Brix period and produced by John Leckie. The original was on an early 80s Nuggets compilation. Mr Pharmacist was also on The Fall's Bend Sinister album, an opinion splitting album derided by Mark E. Smith and John Leckie.

Surfin' USA was a Darklands outtake, all feeedback, rough and rowdy drums, breaking glass, East Kilbride sneers and TV preachers. The Reid brothers knew how to cover a song. The original was a 1963 Beach Boys single...

... and I Know There's An Answer was a 1966 Beach Boys album song (from Pet Sounds). Sonic Youth's cover comes from 1989, recorded for a Brian Wilson tribute album released in 1990 and sung by Lee Renaldo- no one else could sing it according to Lee who says J. Mascis helped out in the studio too. Appropriately squally and rather wonderful. 

Sonic Youth also recorded a Neil Young cover in the same time frame for a Neil Young tribute album, The Bridge (a superb album). They chose a song from Neil's most misunderstood album, Trans. Like the Mary Chain, Sonic Youth instinctively know what makes a good cover version. Computer Age is a gem in the SY back catalogue. 

Sean Johnston's Outre Mer label is an outlet for Hardway Bros recordings. In January 2024 he released an EP called My Friends which included a cover of Smashing Pumpkins 1979 (a song which is itself pretty much a New Order tribute). A remix EP saw GLOK tackle 1979, and has a massively overloaded guitar sound that makes you check your speakers are OK. 

Andy Bell's covers EP Untitled Film Stills contains four covers- Our Last Together is an after hours beauty, impressionistic, woozy and moving. Well, it moves me. 

The Liminanas featured in last week's mix and they're back today with a song from this year's album Faded. Ou Va La Chance is a cover of a Francois Hardy song, closing the album in fine style.

The Vendetta Suite are from Belfast and their 2021 album The Kempe Stone Portal is packed with electronic, acid house, Balearic and cosmische sounds plus this slowed down, electronics and feedback rumble version of Bo Diddley's classic (also covered by The Mary Chain back in the 80s). The Vendetta Suite's Gary Irwin goes all the way back to David Holmes and Iain McCready's nights at Belfast's Art College in 1990 and has worked with Holmes on and off ever since. 

Fontaines DC's cover of 'Cello Song has featured in at least three previous Sunday mixes- a Nick Drake one, a Fontaines one and an end of 2023 mix. I make no apologies for its re- appearance here. They take Nick Drake's 1969 song, a beautiful poetic song and retune it, turning it into a modern rock 'n' roll thrill with Grian Chatten finding new meaning in Nick's words. Both versions, original and cover, struck me quite profoundly in the time since Isaac' died, these lines in particular...

'For the dreams that came to you when so young
They told of a life where spring is sprung

So forget this cruel world where I belong
I'll just sit and wait and sing my song

But while the Earth sinks to its grave
You sail to the sky on the crest of a wave'

And that's where we're ending today. 

Imaginary Albums

Over at The Vinyl Villain you can find a long running series of Imaginary Compilation Albums where JC and various readers have put together compilations for a range of artists and musicians from The Smiths (ICA 001) to Steve Albini (the most recent, ICA 366). This is not a post or series to tread on those toes- this is imaginary albums that should have happened but didn't or that only exist in the mind, music that should have/ could have been made but which remains unwritten, unrecorded and inexistent. 

I've spoken to Mark from Rude Audio/ The Flightpath Estate previously about the imaginary album we wanted to happen. In 1991 Jah Wobble and The Invaders Of The Heart recorded Rising Over Bedlam, an album taking Wobble's huge love for dub and fusing it with what was then called World Music. Sinead O'Connor and Natacha Atlas both appeared on vocals and on Bomba and Visions Of You Wobble produced some of his best solo songs. In 1992 a 12" of Visions Of You appeared. The A Side was the version from the album. The flipside, The AW Side, had three remixes by Andrew Weatherall, remixes that ran into each other, adding up to nearly thirty minutes of music- Andrew took the song and looped it, twisted it, dubbed it, reshaped it, the bass and FX bubbling on forever, Sinead's voice dropping in and out. The AW remixes,  Pick 'n' Mix 1, Pick 'n Mix 2 and The Secret Love Child Of Hank And Johnny Mix, are a brilliant piece of work in their own right, the remix as an artform. 

Weatherall's remixes of Visions Of You were also the first time that what would become The Sabres Of Paradise would work together. Andrew had met Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns in a club and said they should work together. Jagz and Gary nodded and smiled and said, 'of course, of course', not expecting it to happen. Andrew phoned them shortly after and the three of them went to work on Visions Of You. 

Visions of You (The Secret Love Child Of Hank And Johnny Mix)

In the imaginary album of my mind the remixes led to talks about an album, and in the aftermath of the albums Andrew produced for Primal Scream and One Dove, he, Jagz and Gary went into a studio somewhere in London (Orinoco was popular at the time) with Jah Wobble and Sinead O'Connor and they went onto write, record and produce a full length album- Andrew Weatherall's production, Jah Wobble's bass and Sinead O'Connor's voice all fleshed out over four sides of vinyl, a widescreen, post- acid house, 1992/ 1993 dub and electronics masterpiece to go with Morning Dove White. 

I have a second imaginary Andrew Weatherall album that coulda/ shoulda happened. In December 1993, in the bumper end of year Christmas edition of the NME, Mark E Smith was one person given a series of questions, including being asked to nominate their Jerk Of The Year. MES gave the response 'Andy Weatherall' (he also replied to Woman of the Year with 'lead singer from James' and said what he wanted from 1994 was 'death to all French people' so curmudgeonly Mark was definitely having one of those days). But to nominate Andrew Weatherall, out of everyone who could have annoyed MES, as Jerk Of The Year seemed odd. 

It turns out Andrew had been lined up to produce a Fall album. Like all right minded folk, Andrew was a huge fan of Prestwich's finest post- punk group and in 1993 had accepted the challenge. Mark and the then line up had been playing with dance music rhythms and the album that ended up being '93's The Infotainment Scam included The Fall covering Lost In Music among the customary swaggering Fall brilliance and mayhem. If Andrew had stayed on the job, he would have been the producer of The Infotainment Scam. The thought of a 1993 Andrew Weatherall produced Fall album is mind boggling- by '93 Sabres were off the ground and the techno sound of Andrew's Sabres Of Paradise club and label had shifted him away from the Balearic remixes of the previous years and the genre bending sounds of Screamadelica.  

In reality Andrew arrived at the studio, took a look at the amount of boozing that was going on (as Brix Smith has said in an interview) and walked away. Other Weatherall insiders have said similar. We can only imagine what a Weatherall produced Fall album would have sounded like but the thought of some of the Sabresonic- era sounds and rhythms with Mark E. Smith's voice plus those ramshackle, distorted Craig Scanlon guitars cut up and looped is mouthwatering. 

A Past Gone Mad

The experience may have led Mark to call Andrew Jerk Of The Year. It clearly didn't put Andrew off The Fall- they appeared in mixes and sets thereafter, not least on Sci- Fi- Lo- Fi, a 2007 compilation Andrew put together for Soma which had Big New Prinz on it (From 1988's I Am Kurious Oranj). In 1988 The Fall played the song on Tony Wilson's The Other Side Of Midnight- a proper glam racket. 

There may be more imaginary albums to follow, some may even be non- Andrew Weatherall related. Although there is the story of the Sabres Of Paradise album with guest vocalists that never happened that I'll probably come back to. 

Damo Suzuki R.I.P.

Damo Suzuki, Can's vocalist and front presence, died a few days ago on 9th February. It's fair to say he was a distinctive and unique person, discovered busking in Munich by Can's bassist Holger Czukay and drummer Jaki Liebezeit as they wandered through the streets of the city. He joined them for Soundtracks, released in 1970, and then their run of groundbreaking and massively influential early 70s albums- Tago Mago, Ege Bamyesi and Future Days. His vocals were a singular sound in themselves, freeform and freestyle, switching between English, Japanese and a language all of his own. The singing on those records sometimes seem to bear little relation to the music Can were playing, their own distinctive take on rock fused with jazz/ musique concrete/ avant garde/ whatever, but it's impossible to imagine the songs without him and his stream of consciousness words and non- sequiturs.

After leaving Can he spent a decade out of music before returning in the mid- 80s and in recent decades has toured the world as his own Damo Suzuki Network, playing with bands recruited locally, that he called his sound carriers. When he played Leicester a few years ago, my brother in law Harvey and members of his band had the chance to become sound carriers for one night. At the soundcheck Harvey asked Damo what he wanted them to play. 'Whatever you like', was the reply. So they did just that. 

Scrolling through my social media timeline at the weekend it turns out quite a few people I am friends with or follow have been sound carriers, all of them part of the Damo Suzuki Network, an improvisational, amorphous, ad hoc clan of guitarists, bassist, drummers, synth and keys players bound together by one man, Damo Suzuki. He is of those people of whom it seems very apt to say, we shall not see their like again.

Damo Suzuki R.I.P.

Some music to celebrate the man and his life. First Mother Sky, a Can song from 1970, recorded for the film Deep End and released on Can's album Soundtracks. Mother Sky is a fifteen minute long song, that jumps straight in, one of those grooves that only Liebezeit and Czukay could muster, with a Michael Karoli guitar solo and Damo pondering the relationship between madness and mother sky. 

Mother Sky

In 1985 The Fall, another group with a singular and unique talent at the microphone, paid their own tribute to Damo with the song I Am Damo Suzuki (the entry point for many people into Can in the mid- 80s). The song is from This Nation's Saving Grace, a Fall highlight and one from the Brix period. Mark's opening lines, 'Generous of lyric / Jehovah's Witness / Stands in Cologne Marktplatz / drums come in / When the drums come in fast / Drums to shock, into brass evil', summoning both Damo and Jaki into The Fall's unholy racket. 

I Am Damo Suzuki

In October 2022 I put together a half hour mix of Can songs for my Sunday series, seven slices of pioneering West German krautrock with Damo Suzuki's voice running through it, starting out with some funky Can disco- kraut and ending with a 2007 edit by French producer/ DJ Pilooksi. 

Thirty Minutes Of Can

• ... And More
• Moonshake
• Vitamin C
• Oh Yeah
• Future Days
• Mushroom
• Mother Sky (Pilooski Edit)

Forty Minutes For Christmas Eve

I haven't really felt much Christmas joy so far this year and all of a sudden it's Christmas Eve and I need to try to get into the spirit a little. Therefore, today's Sunday mix is a Christmas special, a little under forty minutes of Yuletide tunes to sing around the Christmas tree. Admittedly The Jesus And Mary Chain aren't particularly full of Christmas cheer but a little noise and self- loathing is all part of the season isn't it? 

The picture, 'cos I know you're asking, is from a nativity scene that gets erected every Christmas about half a mile up the road from here. It's full of the Joyeux Noël spirit and is a feast for the eyes. 

Forty Minutes For Christmas Eve

• Durutti Column: One Christmas Your Thoughts
• The Sugarcubes: Birthday (Christmas Eve)
• Basement 5: Last White Christmas
• The Vendetta Suite: Christmas In Cologne
• Low: Just Like Christmas
• Johnny Marr: Free Christmas
• Sonic Boom: I Wish It Was Like Christmas Every Day (A Little Bit Deeper)
• The Fall: Xmas With Simon
• Saint Etienne: Her Winter Coat

One Christmas For Your Thoughts was originally released as part of a 1981 compilation, Chantons Noel, on Crepescule along with other festive tunes by artists including Aztec Camera, Paul Haig, Simon Topping, and Cabaret Voltaire. It then became an extra track on the various CD re- issues of LC, the 1981 Durutti Column classic- LC stands for Lotta Continua, the struggle continues. This is a particularly lovely piece of Vini Reilly guitar playing and let's face it, there's never a bad time to listen to Vini.

Basement 5's Last White Christmas came out in December 1980, dub/ punk produced by Martin Hannett. Post- punk dread as standard.  

Birthday was a single by The Sugarcubes, their breakthrough record. In 1988 Jim and William Reid remixed it three times, each one with a Christmas title- Eve, Day and Present. Scuzzy Christmas sounds. Side A of the 12" is double grooved so when putting the needle on the record it was always a lottery as to which version you'd get. 

Christmas In Cologne is on The Vendetta Suite's December 2019 EP The Wheel Turns, a festive krautrock treat from Belfast's Gary Irwin, Christmas a la La Dusseldorf.

Just Like Christmas has become one of the few seasonal songs I'll actively seek out around Christmas, the  Minnesotan three piece releasing it as part of an eight song Christmas album in 1999. Sleighbells, Velvets drums and sweetly sung lyrics about driving from Stockholm to Oslo, it starting to snow and it feeling like Christmas. 

Johnny Marr's Free Christmas was given away free from Johnny's website back in 2011. Chiming guitars, acoustic guitars, baritone guitars and some choral voices with Mr Marr wishing listeners a happy Christmas. 

Sonic Boom's 2020 Christmas song was a reworking of another of his songs from the All Things Being Equal album and has Galaxie 500/ Luna's Dean and Britta helping out on vocals. Christmas as repetitive, trippy drones and a song specifically for a Christmas we all spent in Covid enforced isolation. 

Xmas With Simon was the B-side to 1990's High Tension Line single. The Simon in question is Simon Wolstencroft, ex- Fall drummer who I bumped into at the Unknown Territories gig last weekend. Shame I didn't have the presence of mind to get a photo with him. The caption would have written itself. 

Saint Etienne's Her Winter Coat was a December 2021 single, a rather beautiful Pete Wiggs song and production, a wintry blur of synths, sleighbells with the distinct air of melancholy. Just like Christmas. 

Forty Minutes Of The Fall

Putting together a forty minute mix of songs by The Fall is the easiest one I've ever done. 

• Go into the folder marked The Fall and start selecting songs.
• Sequence them into an order that is pleasing.
• Note that this process could be repeated three, four , five more times over and the quality would not dip.

Mark E. Smith famously said that 'if it's me and your nan on bongos, it's The Fall' but there's no doubting the musicians who came and went through the ranks over the years added a significant amount to the songs the group wrote and played. The songs here would sound different if Brix Smith, Steve Hanley, Craig Scanlon, Simon Wolstencroft, Karl Burns, Marc Riley, Martin Bramah, Spencer Birtwistle and all the rest hadn't been members of The Fall. Mark E. Smith may have been an intolerant and difficult person to be in a band with as time went on but he was also a singular and endlessly electrifying presence, as the songs below demonstrate. The lyrics and vocal delivery are of course central and the ones here find room for the Kennedy assassination, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Frank Zappa, Australians, Oprah Winfrey, Nelson, Tolstoy, Jeanette Fletcher, forty year olds in coloured shirts, the Flintstones, Star Wars, Nietzsche and the hip priest. 

Forty Minutes Of The Fall

• Cruiser's Creek
• Australians In Europe
• Free Range
• Oswald Defense Lawyer
• Touch Sensitive
• Two Librans
• Big New Prinz
• Blood Outta Stone
• High Tension Line
• Dead Beat Descendant

Cruiser's Creek is a single released in November 1985, one of the first songs written and recorded for This Nation's Saving Grace, when Brix joined the band and upped the ante a little in terms of sound and melody. John Leckie produced. The intro, MES shouting through a megaphone or over a tannoy, 'What really went on there? We only have this excerpt', is a brilliant way to open any song/ mix/ compilation tape.

Australians In Europe was a B-side to Hit The North, released in October 1987. Hit The North is a great single, 80s indie/ alternative night dancefloor gold.

Free Range came out in 1992, on the album Code: Selfish and a single in the same year. There are dance/ techno influences finding their way in to The Fall's sound, partly brought by new recruit on keys Dave Bush. At some point in the mid- 90s Andrew Weatherall was lined up to produce a Fall album but it became clear to him that his way of working ('You will give complete control of songs and production over to me and I will turn the vision in my head into a wildly expansive album') and Mark's ('I am The Fall and I say what it sounds like') would not be conducive and he backed out. A Weatherall produced Fall album is one of life's great What If's....

Oswald Defense Lawyer is from 1988's The Frenz Experiment, my first Fall album and hence one of my favourites (I think it ranks fairly low among The Fall's cognoscenti). There are Fall fans who say the cover of The Kinks song Victoria (also from this album) and There's A Ghost In My House are the worst songs The Fall did. Similarly there are Clash fans who hate Should I Stay Or Should I Go and Rock The Casbah because they sold in large quantities and were hits. Generally, I distrust these views. A good song is a good song regardless of how many or few people bought it.

Touch Sensitive came out in 1999. I'd drifted from The Fall by this point and this single bought me back, a dancefloor friendly, catchy as you like, thundering rumble of Mancabilly, filled with MES one liners. It opened the album The Marshall Suite, the 20th Fall album and last one in the 20th century. 

Two Librans came out on 2000's The Unutterable, the first Fall album of the 21st century, and proof that the band and Smith were as vital as they'd ever been.

Big New Prinz is a contender for my favourite Fall song, the first song on  October 1988's I Am Kurious Oranj (either my second or third Fall album purchased I think). The album was conceived as the soundtrack to a ballet performed by Michael Clark and Company, a performance based on William of Orange's ascension to the English throne in 1588, the so- called Glorious Revolution. Big New Prinz is based on 1982's Hip Priest. The album also contains their cover of Jerusalem which is priceless.

Blood Outta Stone was on 1990's The Dredger EP, a four track 12" led by the cover of White Lightning. It was later on added to CD re- issues of Shift- Work.

High Tension Line is another favourite of mine, also from 1990, a period when they seemed to release 12" singles almost weekly. It was produced by Grant Showbiz who did a lot of good work with them around this time.

Dead Beat Descendant is prime late 80s Fall, the B-side to Cab It Up. The title apparently comes from an episode of The Flintstones, Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty sent into the 21st century by The Great Gazoo. The four of them are chased out of Fred's company by George Slate the 8000th, Fred's $4 loan from prehistory now ballooned into a $23 million debt, Slate shouting 'come back here you dead beat's descendants!'

And should you require it, here is Wilma using the word bollocks...

Blonde September

By the turn of the millennium The Fall were becoming a less well loved affair. Mark's reign seemed to have flipped into something less lovable, line ups disintegrating, being fired or walking out, tales of drunkenness, violence and arrests (on stage and off stage) becoming wearying and worrying. There were of course still disciples who would buy every album and go to every tour but by the time their 2000 album The Unutterable hit the shelves, some had silently drifted away. But even a below par Fall album contains moments of Smith genius and on The Unutterable one song stands as a 21st century Fall highlight. 

Two Librans

The band are in their finest North Manchester garage band form, guitar lines ringing and drums clattering and when they smash into the chorus the sheer force of the distorted guitars is a shot of pure adrenaline. The bass sounds brilliantly filthy, as if it's been dredged up from the bottom of the ship canal, covered in all manner of shite and detritus, shaken down and forced through an overdriven amplifier. 

There are websites that try to pinpoint and explain all Mark E Smith's lyrical references, a small band of users making contributions and identifying the obscure, the possible and the probable. There are similar websites for Half Man Half Biscuit and I can't be the first to see parallels between these two long running north west cultural commentators. Two Librans is littered with classic Smith lines and references, from the titular zodiac pair to Oprah Winfrey and her study of bees, Nelson in Timor, Tolstoy in Chechnya and the miracles of blonde September. 

Saturday Theme Twenty Five

In 2003 The Fall released an album that was as good as anything they'd done for a decade, titled The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country On The Click). Mark E Smith was unhappy with the mix on what was intended to be released as  Country On The Click and pulled it to re- mix it. Some copies leaked out. Mark described the Country On the Click mix as resembling 'Dr Who meets Posh Spice'. One of the Real New Fall LP's stand out songs was this...

Theme From Sparta F.C. 

Ben Pritchard's descending guitar riff intro and clattering drums and then the crunchy guitar riff running through it are exciting enough, handclaps and chants add to the joy. Mark's lyrics are brilliant, his narrator a Greek football fan of a fictional Greek football club (Turkish club Galatasaray feature too- when Manchester United played there in the 90s, trying to navigate their way through the group stages of the then new fangled Champions League, a banner at the home end read 'Welcome To Hell'. The United's player's faces, some well travelled and seasoned footballers among them, suggested that playing there was indeed like an away game in Hades). 'Come and have a bet/ We live on blood', the Greek fan/ Mark chunters, 'We are Sparta F.C.' The English fans of Chelsea get their marching orders too- 'English Chelsea fan/ This is your last game', he threatens and adds, 'Take your fleecy jumper/ You won't need it any more... No more ground boutique at match in Chelsea'. It's funny and unnerving.

Theme From Sparta F.C. was recorded at Lisa Stansfield's studio in Rochdale. A year earlier a version had been recorded for John Peel and a year later a re- recorded version became a single- but as the early 21st century line up of The Fall batter their way through this new garage classic and Mark slurs and sing speaks as only he can, there's no doubt that this is the one, electrifying, compelling and uniquely The Fall. 

Saturday Theme Nineteen

After Mark E. and Brix Smith divorced MES threw himself (or shuffled himself maybe) into a new line up and a new album, what would become The Fall's twelfth studio album, 1990's Extricate. Martin Bramah rejoined on guitar and at the height of Madchester (something Mark was fairly scathing about not least on the song Idiot Joy Showland from 1991's Shift- Work). However in a nod tot he changing musical times The Fall had worked with Coldcut on Telephone Thing, the song which leads Extricate, a chunky drums, dance music influenced song which fitted in very well with the then current sound. Extricate also had possibly the most sincere and personal song The Fall recorded, the beautiful Bill Is Dead. It also had Black Monk Theme Part 1.

Black Monk Theme Part 1

Keyboards and guitars plus a loping drumbeat Black Monk Theme Part 1 is a cover of I Hate You by 60s garage band The Monks. I Hate You is one of the great songs of the 60s, an organ led, minimalist piece of nihilistic thuggery, the flipside of the 60s dream of peace and love pre- dating both The Stooges and The Velvet Underground (I Hate You came out in 1966 on the album Black Monk Time). The Monks were five GIs stationed in Gelnhausen, West Germany. The brutal rhythms, chanted vocals, lyrics about the war in Vietnam, whiny organ, banjo and feedback gave them a pretty unique and far out sound. If that wasn't enough, they dressed as monks in black robes and shaved their heads into tonsures.

I Hate You

Mark E. Smith retitled another of their songs, Oh, How To Do Now for Black Monk Theme 2 which came out as a B-side on the Popcorn Double Feature 12". The highspeed backing track and chipmunk like backing vocals make it all sound a bit ridiculous until Mark wades in to bring the song under control. 

Black Monk Theme Part 2

The original can also be found on Black Monk Time, a blast of proto- punk rock from five men playing U.S. airbases and in West German beat bars at a time when being sent to die in the jungle of South East Asia was a daily possibility. 

Oh, How To Do Now

When their time in the army came to end they stayed on in West Germany honing their abrasive, high energy, non- conformist and distorted sound. Their record company, Polydor, decided against releasing the album in the States, it was they reasoned 'too radical and too non- commercial' and Black Monk Time didn't get a full U.S. release until 1994.  

Extricate got rave reviews in 1990 and remains one of The Fall's finest albums. In typical Fall style Martin Bramah and keyboard player Marcia Schofield were sacked by Mark while the group were touring the album in Australia. 

Across the Kitchen Table

Three songs for Drew today who is in the midst of some tough times. His blog Across The Kitchen Table was around way back in the late 00s and was one of the reasons I started this. Since striking up an online friendship (beginning with posts about Weatherall records if I remember right) we've met in real life on several occasions in Glasgow and Manchester, even venturing out to watch lower tier Scottish football at Airdrie back in 2017. All the best Drew, take care of yourself and each other. 

First song is by The Fall, der gruppe he loves as much as any. I could pick almost any Fall song at random. On looking in my Fall folder I went for this one, prime late 80s Fall with Mark and Brix chanting something about Baghdad space cog analysts before the scabrous Mancabilly fires in on all cylinders and MES goes off about guest informants, cheap hotels and miserable Scottish hotels that resemble Genesis and Marillion album covers in 1973. I guess touring in the 80s really didn't agree with him. 

Guest Informant

Secondly round about this time of year when Drew's blog Across The Kitchen Table was active he would post this Jonathan Richman song, a slightly calmer and less unhinged way to start your Tuesday. 

That Summer Feeling

And finally, The Pale Fountains in 1985...

... From Across The Kitchen Table

Songs For Isaac 5

Sifter's Records on Fog Lane in Burnage is a second hand record shop immortalised in the Oasis single Shakermaker ('Mr Sifter sold me songs/ When I was just sixteen/ Now he stops at traffic lights/ But only when they're green'). It is about half a mile from where I grew up in Withington and a regular haunt for me until recent years. Sometime back when Isaac and Eliza were both pretty young, around 2008, I hit upon the brilliant plan that if I took them into Sifter's and gave them a fiver each, they could choose a record each while I browsed the racks. The plan only had two flaws: 1) it was high risk. I could easily end up walking out with a copy of Tango In The Night and a 12" of Whitney's I Wanna Dance With Somebody and 2) my attempt to get them crate digging didn't occupy them for very long at all, they both committed to records quickly and then got bored and wanted to leave. 

On the other hand, they both randomly came up with the goods. Eliza, round about five years old, chose a copy of Into The Groove on 12", Madonna's 1985 Desperately Seeking Susan smash hit. Nothing wrong with a bit of Madge, classic 80s dance pop (and covered by Ciccone Youth but that's for another day). I suspect the mid- 80s Madonna and Rosanna Arquette on the sleeve, all hair and bangles, may have influenced her choice. 

Into The Groove

Isaac's eyes and hands had picked out a 12" single too, There's A Ghost In My House by The Fall. 

There's A Ghost In My House

The Vinyl Villain recently wrote about this 12" as part of his weekly ramble through The Fall's singles and you can find his post and the singles B- sides here. What drew Isaac to it I don't know- the sleeve isn't exactly child friendly but it's another piece of 80s dance music, The Fall approaching accessibility with Brix in the group and a cover of one of my wife Lou's favourite Northern Soul hits (R. Dean Taylor's original came out on Motown in 1967). As for the song's title taking on new meaning now,  well, I don't know about ghosts but Isaac's presence is all over our house from his coat and bobble hat still hanging up in the hall as you come in through the front door to the hundreds of cards we've received since he died last Tuesday. Thanks again to all of you who have left comments here or elsewhere. It means a lot. 

Go!!!

Back in 2010 Andrew Weatherall remixed Danish producer Trentemoller's track Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider, Go!!! At that point Timothy J. Fairplay was Andrew's studio right hand man, a partnership which would result in their album as The Asphodells (the superb Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust, named after a shlocky gladiator porn movie). One of the key influences at the time, all over the Trentemoller remix, was the glam rock stomp, a wonderfully retro sound derived from twin sources- Big New Prinz by The Fall and Let's Get Together Again by The Glitter Band, 'the men in satin trousers it's ok to like' Andrew quipped after playing the song on one of his radio shows at the time (that's The Glitter Band not The Fall obviously). 

Big New Prinz is a remarkable piece of Brix- era Fall, built around Glitter Band drumming, some really grimy bass and vicious guitar lead lines, a song that developed from a 1982 song (Hip Priest) and was reworked for their 1988 I Am Kurious Oranj album, a record that combined some kind of tribute to William of Orange's ascension to the English throne in 1688 and the soundtrack to a Michael Clark ballet along with a version of Jerusalem. Meanwhile Mark riffs about rock records, drinking the long draft, big priests and the self referential refrain, 'He/ Is/ Not/... Appreciated'. 

Big New Prinz

Let's Get Together Again is 70s social club manna, a football chant and double drumkit stomp, sax and Les Paul. No mp3 I'm afraid but I've found it on Youtube- there's another clip on Youtube where they perform the song on Top Of The Pops and are introduced by a well known sex offender/ DJ but we don't need to see his face here.

Andrew and Tim channelled these sounds into the Trentemoller remix, one of those tracks you wish could loop endlessly whilst you go about you daily business. 

Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider, Go!!! (Andrew Weatherall Prinz Remix)

There is a second Weatherall/ Fairplay remix, the Sky 81 remix, which is less Glitter stomp and more echo- laden, submerged, Wobble era- PiL take on the original. Both remixes, the original and two other mixes can be bought here. And for completion's sake here are the twin heroes of the Trentmoller song, from the golden age of Marvel and the pens of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. 

Frenz

If you head over to The Vinyl Villain today (and every Sunday for the foreseeable future) you'll find JC and Drew going through the singles of The Fall. That may well sound like a Herculean labour but Drew has been known to undertake- voluntarily- the task of listening to every Fall album released in chronological order in one weekend before. 

In 1988 I bought the tenth Fall studio album, The Frenz Experiment. It contained their cover of Victoria, an actual top forty hit for Prestwich's finest. The album has been seen as a bit of a mis- step by many purist fans, a bit Fall on autopilot, Brix pushing the group in a more commercial direction, and there's no denying it has a more accessible sound compared to some of their records but there's plenty to enjoy- The Steak Place, Carry Bag Man, Oswald Defence Lawyer, Get A Hotel and Bremen Nacht all do it for me. Mark E Smith is in minimalist lyrical form in part, a less is more approach, in contrast to the torrent of words he often used to spill into the mic. On the album's opening song, the first I heard when I snapped the cassette deck shut in March 1988 and pressed play, is Frenz- a groove as much as a song built around a two note Steve Hanley bassline and Mark ruminating on the number of friends he had (not enough for one hand) with the unsaid insinuation that he was surrounded by hangers on.

Frenz

Tiers Mix

Another Bagging Area mix for you, an hour of old and new and fairly ambient/ drone/ instrumental based but with Mark E. Smith turning at the end to add his inimitable voice to proceedings. In fact the only other voice is Andrew Weatherall's, heard briefly at the end of Prana Crafter's Starlight, Sing Us A Lullaby, a moment that got to me the first time I heard it. You can find Tiers In December on Mixcloud. 

• Kams: Hopfen (Richard Norris Remix)
• Stray Harmonix: Mountain Of One
• Harold Budd: The Pearl
• A Winged Victory For The Sullen: Keep It Dark, Deutschland
• Lol Hammond and Duncan Forbes: Angel Hill
• Dreems: Shark Attack (Abyss Mix)
• Daniel Avery: A Story In E5
• Daniel Avery: Petrol Blue
• Prana Crafter: Starlight, Sing Us A Lullaby
• Radioactive Man: Goodnight Morton
• Harmonia and Brian Eno: Atmosphere
• Neotantra: Ataxy- Hills
• Woodleigh Research Facility: The Fallen
• The Fall: Bill Is Dead

Monday's Long Song

On his recent radio appearance with Heidi, posted here if you missed it, Andrew Weatherall dropped the news that back in 1993 when questioned for the NME's end of year poll Mark E Smith's nomination for Wanker Of The Year was Andrew Weatherall. He didn't go on to say what had gone down between them other than that he (Weatherall) had been lined up to produce an album for The Fall and then for reasons unspecified it didn't happen. If you want to dip in, it's at around forty five minutes into the show.

Then Weatherall played this from 2005's Fall Heads Roll, the centrepiece of that album led by a filthy, churning, propulsive bass guitar riff and chugging drums. Mark speaks into the microphone of walking bass, Aristotle Onassis, Jane Seymour, Calvary and cavalry, Prestwich, Deansgate and Moscow Road, eight minutes that once again proves Mark E Smith and whoever was playing with him at that time were indeed The Fall and that they were capable of coming up with moments of genius. 

Blindness

Industrial Estate

Longley Lane runs from Northenden to Wythenshawe. Before you get to Sharston tip (sorry, Household Waste Recycling Centre) there is a sprawling industrial estate with some magnificent 1930s buildings, all still in use today. The one above is a gigantic concrete hanger, containing I don't knows what. I couldn't get the whole thing into one shot on my phone's camera but you can see the curve of the roof on the front well enough and the enormous windows down the side. If you like industrial architecture- and I'm sure some of you do- then this place is paradise. Those of a certain disposition will see or hear the words industrial estate and instantly hear this running in their head...

Industrial Estate

There, that's cleared your ears out hasn't it, The Fall back in 1979.

'Yeah, yeah, industrial estate
And the crap in the air will fuck up your face
Yeah, yeah, industrial estate
Boss can bloody take most of your wage'

On the main road is this building, currently occupied by Siltint Industries Ltd, brickwork all painted white, which I love beyond reason. 

I'm Telling You Now And I'm Telling You This

'Life can be an onward, downward chip'.

Some music from The Fall for Friday. Gut Of The Quantifier is from 1985's magnificent This Nation's Saving Grace, an album Mark E Smith reckoned was one of their best (or at least he said that in an interview once). The Fall line up in 1985 was Mark, Brix and Craig Scanlon on guitar, Steve Hanley on bass, Karl Burns on drums and Simon Rogers on keys. This incarnation of the band were tight as you like. Gut Of The Quantifier shows this group could cook up killer riffs (Hanley's bass riff on the song below is immense and the guitars are wired and exhilarating), could get a proper groove on and wrote music that borrowed and stole but sounded unique. You can trace the outlines of various older songs in Gut Of The Quantifier- Junior Walker, The Doors and Lipps Inc for three, all pulped together with a semblance of James Brown. Over this amped up garage band rock MES delivers one of his finest sermons. Some excerpts follow which I won't attempt to annotate or comment on-

'I'm not saying they're really thick
But all the groups who've hit it big
Make the Kane Gang look like
an Einstein chip'

'Here are your wedding pictures
They are black'

'They take from the medium poor to
give to the needy poor
Via the government poor
Give it to the poor poor
They're knocking on my door'

'Who are the riff-makers.
Who are they really?
How old are the stars really?
Half-wit philanthropist, cosy charity gig'

Gut Of The Quantifier

'I'm telling you now
and I'm telling you this,
Life can be a downward chip'

Head Down

I was thinking while driving home last night about The Fall and how they've been part of my musical life for over thirty years. When I first started properly getting into music- buying the records, going to the gigs, reading the music press, looking for the clothes, all that kind of stuff- The Fall were there (along with The Smiths, New Order, Talking Heads, and various other indie/alternative bands). And while I've never been a buy-all-the-records Fall fan, their music is undoubtedly part of musical DNA. In the 8 years I've been doing this blog I've posted about them 17 times. The songs- Theme From Sparta FC, Bill Is Dead (thrice), Popcorn Double Feature, Funnel Of Love, How I Wrote ''Elastic Man'', Bingo Master's Breakout, Two Librans, White Lighting, There's A Ghost In My House, Rowche Rumble, Big New Prinz, Wrong Place Right Time and Squid Lord (plus I Want You by Mark E Smith and Inspiral Carpets, Mark with Edwyn Collins on Seventies Night and Rhinohead by MES with Von Sudenfed). That looks like a pretty decent compilation album right there.

On top of those I could easily have posted these without much effort- Free Range, Hey! Luciani, Repetition, Industrial Estate, Edinburgh Man, Mr Pharmacist, Hit The North, Eat Y'self Fitter, Touch Sensitive, Victoria, Cruiser's Creek, Totally Wired, Who Makes the Nazis?, Telephone Thing, High Tension Line, Twister, Blood Outta Stone, Kimble, Trust In Me, Spoilt Victorian Child, Bremen Nacht, Dead Beat Descendent, Jerusalem and Get A Hotel. That's just the obvious ones off the top of my head. And this one, off 1988's The Frenz Experiment (a somewhat unloved album I think among the devotees but I treasure it. I think Brix really brought something to the gruppe).

The Steak Place

For a long time I thought there must be a subtext to The Steak Place but couldn't put my finger on it, something in the lyrics I couldn't work out. But on reflection I think it is just a song about a steak house.

'Cheap carpet lines the way 
Aluminium tack door handles 
Candelabra lions head 
Via butchers display too

The steak place

Via a carcass row
Things are brought forward and eaten,
I see the corners filled with hitmen,
Two young lawyers they are whispering, in

The steak place

I want to stay here,
I don't want to go anywhere,
I could remain here'

Mark E Smith

I've just seen a post by Dave Haslam on social media saying that Mark E Smith has died at the age of 60. He doesn't seem to have been in the best of health recently but it is still sad and shocking news. He was a true one-off, a maverick, a wordsmith and a visionary. He will be missed.

Squid Lord

Since Thursday night this Fall song from a 1988 Peel Session has been referenced a lot on Twitter and elsewhere. Not sure why. I'm sure any similarity between it and other new songs are purely coincidental. Blistering stuff from my favourite line up of The Fall. I don't have an mp3 of it right now so it's a Youtube clip only.