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 Justin Robertson Remixes

A few of Justin Robertson's early 90s remixes today, chunky beats and tempos, samples and trumpets- lots of trumpets- and indie bands transformed into dancefloor monsters. Ideal for the spring sunshine that has finally arrived this weekend in this part of the world. 

Forty Minutes Of Justin Robertson Remixes

• The Sugarcubes: Birthday (Justin Robertson 12" Mix)
• The Stone Roses: Waterfall (Justin Robertson's Mix)
• Bjork: Big Time Sensuality (Justin Robertson Lionrock Wigout) 
• Lionrock: Packet Of Peace (No More Fucking Trumpets)
• Yargo: The Love Revolution (Justin Robertson's Scream Team Remix)
• Inspiral Carpets: Caravan (No Windscreen Mix)

Justin's remix of Birthday by The Sugarcubes turns singular Icelandic post- punk oddness into seven minutes of dub loveliness. Released on vinyl in 1992 along with remixes from Jim and William Reid and Tommy D.

I was of the opinion once that remixes of songs by The Stone Roses were totally unnecessary. I've come round to some of them, not least this remix of Waterfall, Reni's drums replaced by a skippy drumbeat, some echo- laden cymbal splashes and Ian's voice sitting above the music with John's guitar drizzled on top.

Big Time Sensuality was inescapable in 1993, not least in Manchester's clubs and bars, and enjoyed every time. I met my wife on the dancefloor at Paradise Factory dancing to it. Justin's remix, in his Lionrock guise, was a big hitter too, a slo- mo groove, with those massive trumpets and Bjork's barely contained sense of gleeful abandon.

Justin, Mark Stagg and rapper MC Buzz B were Lionrock. Packet Of Peace was their 1993 12". The remix here is Justin's own Lionrock remix of Lionrock and clearly by the title,  he'd had enough of his signature trumpet sound by this point. I can keep enjoying those trumpets ad infinitum.

Yargo were Manchester's best kept secret, an urban funk/ soul/ blues group graced by the honeyed voice of Basil Clarke who are probably best known for their song of the same name being the title music to Tony Wilson's Other Side Of Midnight, a semi- legendary music programme from the late 80s (which The Stone Roses appeared on, playing Waterfall- see above). The Love Revolution came out as a 12" in 1990 with co- vocals by guest singer Zoe Griffin and samples the drums from Fool's Gold. Yargo's 1987 album Bodybeat is something of a lost classic. The follow up, 1989's Communicate, didn't manage to crossover outside Manchester but is (again,) one of the period's lost gems. As is this remix

I posted this Justin Robertson remix of Inspiral Carpets a couple of weeks ago, a 1991 acid house banger complete with the 'you play consciousness expanding material' vocal sample and general '91 madness. A numbered 12" vinyl release in a run of 10, 000. 10, 000!

Marzipan Fingers Then Marble Hands

I was listening to The Sugarcubes a while ago, sparked by a Twitter account that posts photographs of pages from the music press, in particular a run of issues of NME and Melody Maker from 1989. The Sugarcubes featured often in the live reviews, single and album reviews and interviews from that year. The Sugarcubes had hit the UK music scene hard when Life's Too Good was released in 1988. John Peel fell heavily for the single Birthday the year before, a song that sounded like little else- strange avant- pop about a girl who keeps spiders in her pocket and collects fly wings in a jar, sung in a unique voice. The album followed, a rush of post- punk, dance- pop played by a group of Icelandic punk veterans, spiky guitars, metallic drums, funky rhythms and a manic optimism with Bjork's squeals, hiccups and singing and Einar's spoken word voice. Delicious Demon, Motor Crash and Fucking In Rhythm And Sorrow were all perfect, wide eyed indie pop with audible punk roots but made for spinning round the floor to. Einar's interjections were funny, a counter balance to Bjork's otherworldliness. On Deus they muse about the existence of God. 

Deus

The indie holy trio of Peel, NME and Melody Maker banged their drum throughout 1988. The Sugarcubes had front covers and went to the US, the album sold well. What the NME and Melody Maker cuttings on Twitter made clear was how sour the relationship turned and how quickly. The group's punk nature was never far from the surface. They became suspicious of all the fawning and didn't always take interviews seriously. The NME and MM printed stories about the band eating puffins and put their focus on Bjork (naturally maybe). This upset the rest of the band who wanted them to be seen as a group, a democracy, not Bjork and The Sugarcubes.  Einar especially seemed prickly about it. As 1988 became 1989 The Sugarcubes released album number 2, Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week! the NME and Melody Maker turned on the band, slagging the album (and listening to it again recently there's no denying it's a much weaker set of songs) and attacking Einar's contributions especially. It's amazing reading some of the reviews three decades later how vitriolic and personal some of the articles in the music press were (not just the ones about The Sugarcubes, more generally articles like weekly pages of singles reviews where bands, singers and individuals get savaged by whichever critic was in the chair that week. At the time it seemed funny I guess, and a bit edgy, a bit punk but it reads pretty cruelly now. There was a review of a Wedding Present single that read like Gedge and the boys had committed a war crime and I was left thinking that a bit of perspective was needed, it's just some indie pop). 

I saw The Sugarcubes play at Liverpool Royal Court in October 1989, a gig reviewed by one of the two papers. The journalist was in the tour bus with them, reporting on the tensions and reviewing the gig. Things clearly got to Einar. That night in Liverpool he jumped off the stage to remonstrate with a heckler, grabbing hold of him in the pit. By that point there were plenty of fans who were wondering why Bjork needed a second  vocalist alongside her, shouting lines in the gaps between her singing. On record Einar's vocals made more sense. Live his presence as a shouter/ dancer was part of the band's punk roots. Hot Meat came out as a B-side, a version of Cold Sweat from Life's Too Good, Bjork and Einar perfectly in balance with each other. 

Hot Meat

By the time of 1992's Stick Around For Joy the spark had gone and Bjork was already planning a solo career. She'd spent much of 1989 and 1990 in Manchester and London, soaking up the club scene. She'd recorded with 808 State, the wondrous Ooops coming out as a single and featuring on 1991's ex:el album (as well as another song Qmart). Bjork and 808's Graham Massey would write together throughout the 90s. 

Stick Around For Joy had a decent single in it though- Hit- which obviously became one, their highest chart position achieved just before splitting up. 

Hit

Christmas

We live close to the River Mersey. Isaac's wake, a week ago today (and how quickly that week has passed) was at Ashton- on- Mersey cricket club, down by the river. It was somewhere we walked with him quite often and when we were looking for a venue for his wake we needed somewhere which had a good outdoor space so anyone who wanted to be outside could be. I still don't feel fully comfortable being inside a pub and sit outside out of habit now. We walked down by the river yesterday, a good round trip past the cricket club, over the river, skirting the edge of Urmston and back under the M60. It was peculiar seeing the cricket club a week on. We don't get many sunsets in south Manchester but the picture above caught one of them, the sun dipping below the treeline behind the river. We're going to go back to see him today at the cemetery. We went twice in the days after the funeral, once to leave him a mini- Christmas tree. We said to each other last Friday we were going try to have a Christmas of some kind and that's what we're going to do. 

I realised yesterday as well that I haven't done the annual self- indulgence that is the Bagging Area end of year list. I did start putting a list of favourite albums and songs together back in November so that'll give me something to do in a few days time. 

Some festive songs to take us into Christmas. First up Cocteau Twins 1993 cover of Frosty The Snowman, originally released on the Volume CD. There's something about the Cocteau's sound, all that reverb and those chiming guitars which is very wintry. I'm not a big fan of Christmas songs but this one will do.

Frosty The Snowman

Back in 2011 when Johnny Marr and The Healers put out a freebie download, an instrumental with plenty of guitars, acoustic and electric. In a world where ex- Smiths have veered in divergent directions morally and politically, choose Marr. 

Free Christmas

I was listening to  Life's Too Good by The Sugarcubes recently, an album I think I'll come back to on these pages soon. In 1988 Iceland's finest released Birthday on 12" with three remixes by The Jesus And Mary Chain (Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Christmas Present). This one is the one for today.

Birthday (Christmas Eve)

And finally, something bang up to date and released yesterday by Pye Corner Audio for Christmas (if you fancy your Christmas a tad dystopic). Get Thee Behind Me Santa is all backwards sounds, drones and distorted synths. Find it at Bandcamp (free/ pay what you want). And well worth whatever you feel you should pay. 

Happy Christmas. 

This Wasn't Supposed To Happen

I was in Top Shop the other day- with my teenage daughter, just to provide some context- and this song started playing over the in-store sound system.

Hit

It took me a moment to place it but it sounded really good, thumping away over the bright lights and rails of clothes. Its unexpectedness, a 27 year old song in among what they'd been playing beforehand, was part of it. But it sounded good on its own terms too- the loose early 90s drums, the synth horns and funky guitar riff and Bjork's vocals (Einar's contribution too). I always think that as a band they never matched the songs on Life's Too Good but at the tail end of 2017 I was proved wrong. I'm happy to be proved wrong with music.

As a bonus here they are on The Word in December 1991 (the sound is a bit patchy I'm afraid).

Motorcrash

In August 1987 The Sugarcubes released Birthday, an instant indie hit thanks to John Peel and the music press, a record so different and otherworldly that almost on its own it took the band round the world. I've posted it before, twice. The following year they put out Life's Too Good, an album with Birthday plus nine slices of high octane Icelandic guitar-pop. I've included many of them, Delicious Demon and Fucking In Rhythm And Sorrow especially, on compilation tapes and mix cds ever since. Motorcrash was the last single from the lp, released to promote their US tour at the end of '88, a tour which saw them wined and dined and play at The Ritz in New York with Bowie and Iggy in attendance.

Motorcrash

During the American tour they played Saturday Night Live, which you can watch here. The performance by co-vocalist Einar Orn which illustrates exactly why Bjork would eventually go solo. In this clip they play Auburn, Alabama with similar results- blistering band, brilliant lead vocalist, irritating co-vocalist.

Grapples With The Earth With Her Fingers

I was planning to post this anyway and happily reader Gentle Ben pointed it out in the comment box on Monday's Sugarcubes remix post. Jim and William Reid also remixed Birthday, three times in fact (labelled Christmas Eve Mix, Christmas day Mix and Christmas Present Mix). They kept Bjork's vocal and added buzzing guitars, dropping in and out in bursts, some 'hey-hey-hey-hey' backing vocals and a spoken word part. And some feedback. The Justin Robertson remix and these Jesus And Mary Chain ones show what good remixing should do- get the source material and take it somewhere else. All three versions are good.

On the original 1988 vinyl release these Mary Chain mixes were double grooved so depending on whether you hit one groove or the other you got one version or another. The third was on the B-side with a live song. The eight track ep, released in 1992, plays conventionally and has the Robertson mixes, Tony D remixes and The Sugarcubes demo version. Just so you know.

Birthday (Christmas Eve Mix)

She Lives In This House Over There

The Sugarcubes single Birthday was a record so unlike any other that it assured them some kind of instant hit status almost as soon as John Peel had taken it out of it's sleeve. The album that followed- Life's Too Good- was a massive indie hit. I saw them play live at some point, I think around '89-' 90 (by which point they were promoting their second album, which wasn't nearly as good). They were a good live band, Bjork doing her skippitty-boppity thing and co-vocalist Einar entertaining and annoying everyone.

Birthday got remixed by various people on an eight track e.p. Justin Robertson's remix is the best. He avoids the easy route of just sticking a kick drum underneath and looping a little bit of Bjork's vocal and concentrates on isolating the bass, adding some horns and a dub-dance feel (in keeping with his Lionrock project).

Birthday (Justin Robertson Remix)