#HappyMusicVolumeTwo

This second #HappyMusic selection, gathering 15 songs I picked for Griff's music challenge on BlueSky, ending today. If you missed yesterday's post, songs were eligible if they:

-- make you happy

-- include the word "happy"

-- contain any variation of "happy" in the title, lyrics or band name

-- feature a synonym of "happy"

-- remind you of happiness

As with yesterday's selection, today's featured songs - with the exception of the closer - are not in the order that I posted them, as I was making it up as I went along. I'm pretty happy with how the two mixtapes worked out.

Today's selection gets off to a cracking start with The Icicle Works (my pick on 10th August),  and embracing The Doors, Scritti Politti, The Raveonettes, The Undertones, Madness, Confidence Man, U-Roy, Donovan and a fab cover version by The Siddeleys.

Pussycat by Mulu provided the inspiration for the album artwork for the two volumes, whilst the super final song by Al MacKenzie - one half of D:Ream - has the perfect lyrical sentiment:

"You only get one chance at life, try not to fuck it up"

I can certainly get with that.

September beckons tomorrow. What challenge will the month bring?

1) All The Daughters (Of Her Father's House) (Long Version): The Icicle Works (1985)

2) That Great Love Sound (Album Version): The Raveonettes (2003)

3) Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) (Cover of Edison Lighthouse): The Siddeleys (1990)

4) It's Going To Happen! (Album Version): The Undertones (1981)

5) Jump For Joy: U-Roy (1976)

6) Mellow Yellow: Donovan (1967)

7) Francisca (Album Version): Espiritu (1992)

8) Up, Up And Away (Happy Sexy Mix By Danny Rampling): The Beloved (1990)

9) Pussycat (François Kevorkian Mix Edit): Mulu (1997)

10) Touch Me (Album Version): The Doors (1969)

11) Wings Of A Dove (Single Version): Madness (1983)

12) Holiday (Album Version): Confidence Man (2021)

13) Boom! There She Was (Album Version): Scritti Politti ft. Roger Troutman (1988)

14) The Crunch (Part 1) (Album Version): RAH Band (1977)

15) Life Is Short, Live It Well (Vocal Mix): Al MacKenzie (2026)

1967: Mellow Yellow: 6

1969: The Soft Parade: 10

1978: The Crunch & Beyond: 14

1981: Positive Touch: 4

1983: Wings Of A Dove EP: 11

1985: All The Daughters (Of Her Father's House) EP: 1

1988: Provision: 13

1990: Alvin Lives (In Leeds): Anti Poll Tax Trax: 3

1990: Blissed Out: 8

1995: Always...: 7

1997: Pussycat EP: 9

2003: Chain Gang Of Love: 2

2005: U-Roy Meets King Tubbys: 5

2021: Tilt: 12

2026: Evil Acid Barons: 15

#HappyMusicVolumeOne (1:03:23) (GD) (M)

Give 'Em Enough doPE

"You’ve got the beats, I’ve got the rhymes, let’s make doPE." 

A short email from 2014, a long time to come to fruition, but John Densmore (The Doors) and Chuck D (Public Enemy) finally released an album, no country for old men, in time for Record Store Day 2026.

I have little interest in RSD but on the strength of doPE's lead single every tick tick tick, I'm intrigued! 

Unfortunately, with scalpers already flogging copies on eBay between £50 and £100+ quid, you'll have to count me out...

I'm obliged to say that other dope is available.

 

Upon A Mouse #8: Voting Slip (Ups)

With today's double header of The Velvet Underground and The Doors, I'm now over halfway through the countdown of my expanded notes for The 20 Greatest Eponymous Albums Of All Time, collated, counted and curated by No Badger Required.

From a longlist of suggestions by members of the NBR Musical Jury, we were asked to vote and comment on our Top 20, with no guarantee that our personal choices would achieve a similar ranking or even appear in the Top 20 at all.

So it is with today's selection: one of these made the Top 5; the other didn't make the final countdown at all. But which?

If you haven't read or committed to memory the published Top 20, I will share it again in the final post here as a compare and contrast with my personal picks.

Without giving too much away, SWC noted that some of the Musical Jury voted for The Velvet Underground's third album from 1969, rather than their 1967 debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico, as intended. This inevitably split the votes and impacted on the band's final placing.

Yep, I was one of those people who did that.

I even went so far as to comment that "I won’t pretend that this is my favourite VU album"... no, that would be The Velvet Underground & Nico, dummkopf! 

Even the Iffypedia page on the third album opens with the warning message "Not to be confused with The Velvet Underground & Nico"!!

That aside, The Velvet Underground (1969) is an album that I’ve grown to appreciate far more over the years since I first heard it in the 1990s.

Back then, it felt too safe and straightforward by comparison with what had gone before, and as a fan of John Cale, I was predisposed to dislike the material following his sacking from the Velvets less favourably.

Time at least has enabled me to better appreciate the nuances and, let’s be honest, some pretty beautiful pop songs. My opinion still stands that Paul Quinn and Edwyn Collins recorded the definitive version of Pale Blue Eyes in 1984, but the song started here and it's one of Lou Reed's finest examples of pop songwriting.

Unfortunately due to the unfortunate case of mistaken identity, The Velvet Underground only managed a #12 placing on my voting slip.

 

 

At least I didn't make the same mistake with The Doors' debut, which stormed in at #4 in my Top 20 eponymous albums. 

Like The Velvet Underground & Nico, a Sixties album that is very much rooted in the Eighties, as far as my experience of the band and their music is concerned. And inextricably linked to the VHS era, too. 

The thrill for me of going to the local video shop to rent tapes was as much about feeding my insatiable appetite for music as it was for films, as there were growing number of music video compilations and concert recordings available, which would never be broadcast on the four TV channels in the UK, BBC1, BBC2, ITV and the relatively new Channel 4.

So, on a personal level, The Doors’ first album goes hand-in-hand with the Dance On Fire video compilation, the thrill of Break On Through (To The Other Side) and Light My Fire matched on vinyl by the respective promo clips and appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Not a duff song amongst the first ten, and number eleven is the eleven-minute epic The End, which took Dylan’s bar and raised it, bringing the album to an incredible close.

Incredible then, that I thought – and I still think – that second album Strange Days is even better! But that's a story for another post.

 

 

Heading up today's post is Dr. Sam Beckett, the character played by Scott Bakula in the US TV series, Quantum Leap, which ran for four years, five seasons and 97 episodes between 1989 and 1993.

That perplexed facial expression was Sam's default in pretty much every episode, as he found himself in a new scenario - and time, and body - before spending the next forty-odd minutes doing the right thing. This snap off the telly is from the very final episode, Mirror Image, the ending of which has caused endless speculation and debate since.

Re-Enter The Doors Of Perception

Side 2 of a cassette compilation of The Doors, recorded sometime during the spring/summer of 1992.

 

Music is often deeply rooted in memories and life experiences and this mixtape is a particularly good example. When I posted Side 1 last year, I wrote about my introduction to The Doors, the relationship that inspired this compilation, my wardrobe near-miss with a pair of leather trousers and the sad fate that befell this much-loved cassette. 

 

Writing this post has revived those memories once more, though the circumstances prompting it couldn't be more different. This is the first time I've played both sides of the (virtual) cassette in over three decades and I'm right back there, remembering how much I enjoyed putting this selection of songs together. 

 

At first glance, this side looks lazily recorded, as there are three pairs of sequential songs. 

 

Peace Frog and Blue Sunday were inevitable, as they segue together on the original album. I think I particularly wanted to include the former but there was no way of separating the two without creating a jarring end. That said, they go well together and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

 

Much as I like Spanish Caravan, there wasn't enough room on the tape to include all of the songs on my shortlist and I was especially taken by the opening section, which seemed to naturally dovetail into Hello, I Love You. 

 

The Crystal Ship and Break On Through? Well, they just sounded good together and I seemed to have a specific thing about not having the opening song from any of the albums as the first song on either side of the cassette.

 

The live mash up of Moonlight Drive and Horse Latitudes remains for me the best version of either, this alone a good enough reason for buying the odds and sods collection Alive She Cried.

 

The title track of The Soft Parade was another song that didn't make it intact onto my mixtape. Instead, I culled one of Jim Morrison's spoken word passages from the opening sequence, naming it You Cannot Petition The Lord With Prayer after the closing line. I knew little about The Doors back then, beyond what I'd heard via the vinyl albums, one mine, the rest borrowed from my friend Stuart. 

 

In subsequent years, I've read some of the background to the recording of the albums and Jim's variable state in the studio. Living in an era where artists' catalogues are constantly revived, remastered and reissued, often replete with every cough, belch and fart committed to tape, I've also got to hear Jim's multiple attempts to get to what - for this mixtape at least - ended up as a mere 35 seconds on record. 

 

The cassette was always going to end with The End. I mean, what else, really? It's still an astonishing piece of music and a 'long song' that I never tire of listening to. 

 

Today's post is dedicated to my beloved Uncle Mike, who passed away yesterday. To be honest, he might have preferred Dylan to The Doors, but maybe that's a memory for another day.
 
1) Love Her Madly (1971)

2) Touch Me (Album Version) (1969)

3) The Crystal Ship (Album Version) (1967)

4) Break On Through (To The Other Side) (Album Version) (1967)

5) Peace Frog (Album Version) (1970)

6) Blue Sunday (1970)

7) L.A. Woman (Album Version) (1971)

8) Spanish Caravan (Instrumental Intro) (1968)

9) Hello, I Love You (Album Version) (1968)

10) Moonlight Drive / Horse Latitudes (Live @ Felt Forum, New York) (1970)

11) You Cannot Petition The Lord With Prayer (Extract From 'The Soft Parade') (1969)

12) The End (Album Version) (1967)

1967: The Doors: 3, 4, 12

1968: Waiting For The Sun: 8, 9

1969: The Soft Parade: 2, 11

1970: Alive She Cried: 10

1970: Morrison Hotel: 5, 6

1971: L.A. Woman: 1, 7

Side Two (46:00) (KF) (Mega)

Side One is available here

And, for something a little bit different, here's a different take on The Doors that I posted exactly three years ago, on 1st August 2021...

Val Kilmer starred as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's 1991 film about The Doors. By sheer coincidence, there's a Val Kilmer reference in tomorrow's post, but you'll never guess what it is...

Eclectic Guitar Restrung

Side 1 of a mixtape, compiled 3rd October 1999. 

Another C90-friendly delve into music with guitars. And other stuff. 

 

This might be the only place today where you'll hear The Clash next to Bis, The Doors trading organs with GusGus and Sly & The Family Stone tipping a hat to Magazine.

Play LOUD.

 

1) What Do You Want From Me? (Edit): Monaco (1997)

2) Deep Sleep (US Album Remix By Tom Durack): The B-52's (1990)

3) U-Mass (Album Version): Pixies (1991)

4) Spanish Bombs: The Clash (1979)

5) Action And Drama (Album Version): Bis (1999)

6) Cut Your Hair: Pavement (1994) 

7) Dry The Rain (Single Version): The Beta Band (1997)

8) Twentieth Century Fox: The Doors (1967)

9) Ladyshave (Album Version): GusGus (1999)

10) Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again): Sly & The Family Stone (1970)

11) Rhythm Of Cruelty (Album Version): Magazine (1979)

12) Christianity (Album Version): The Wolfgang Press (1995)

13) A Loon (Strings Version) (Part 2): Kristin Hersh ft. Martin McCarrick (1994)

 

1967: The Doors: 8 

1970: Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again) EP: 10

1979: London Calling: 4 

1979: Secondhand Daylight: 11

1991: Party Mix! / Mesopotamia (USA remixed re-release): 2

1991: Trompe Le Monde: 3

1994: Crooked Rain Crooked Rain: 6

1994: Strings EP: 13

1995: Funky Little Demons: 12

1997: Champion Versions EP: 7

1997: What Do You Want From Me? EP: 1 

1999: Social Dancing: 5

1999: This Is Normal: 9

 

Side One (45:52) (KF) (Mega)
Side Two here

Whatever Happened To Reg? Revisited

Side 2 of a cassette compilation, recorded on 2nd December 1989 by my friend Stuart as a 19th birthday gift.

 

Revisiting mixtapes from my teenage years is a reminder of a simpler time, when my friends and I had much smaller music collections - vinyl or cassette, very few CDs at this point - but knew them inside out and loved them deeply. As my head bobs slightly above the surface of a sea of music, when pretty much anything from the last 100 years is accessible with a few taps of a keyboard, clicks of a mouse or a voice instruction, it can be overwhelming. 

I loved this compilation, so much so that it got packed with a bunch of other cassettes and joined me on my travels Down Under in 1990/1991 and was pretty much a staple of the in-car stereo playlist during my second attempt at a college education in the early 1990s. It survived more or less intact throughout that decade and into the 2000s, until years of excessive play and poor storage in a succession of damp flats did for it. Thank goodness for MP3s, Audacity software and music blogs then, eh?

What is immediately apparent (to me, at least) from the track listing of Sides 1 & 2 is that:

1) Stuart was (and still is) a huge fan of R.E.M. and was determined to educate his largely ignorant friend in their brilliance (it worked);

2) We both loved The Doors; I'd got the first two albums, Stuart got the rest, including their final proper album with Jim, the two best-known songs appearing on this C90;

3) We also both loved Talking Heads and between us had all of the albums from 77 to Naked;

4) Architecture & Morality by Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark was also a pretty important album for us both;

5) Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week! by The Sugarcubes was only a few months old at that time and we were both in agreement that it was even better than the debut album;

6) Fools Gold / What The World Is Waiting For had been released a few weeks before I got this cassette. Stuart (& I) clearly blown away by it; I'd heard both on the radio but I think this might have been the first time I'd heard anything by The Stone Roses.

 

I adore the opening live version of Vicious from Lou Reed's 1975 album, the inspiringly-titled Lou Reed Live. It sets the pace for what is a rollocking ride through music that has since become so important to me. Incredible to believe now, but listening to this cassette was probably the first time that I heard Catapult or Don't Worry About The Government...

 

You might be hard pressed to find anyone who would name Automatic as their favourite album by The Jesus & Mary Chain. The album had been released on 9th October 1989, Stuart and I saw them live in concert at the Studio in Bristol on 14th November 1989 and I got this cassette around 11th December 1989, so Automatic was fresh and new at that time and I loved it. It's not my favourite JaMC album either, but it will always have a special place in my heart for all of the above reasons.

 

Timing issues were always a challenge when compiling cassettes, especially trying not to leave a massive gap at the end, an anathema to being out with friends and a battery-powered ghetto blaster. I might imagine that Stuart may have originally intended to end on a high with track 10, added (arguably) a R.E.M. album filler (which I still love, by the way) and then cursed at seeing a sizeable chunk of reel remaining. Hence, the inclusion of a U2 B-side from a limited edition double 7" of The Unforgettable Fire. For all you Bono fans out there, stand down, it's an instrumental. I like it, and even more in the context of the compilation and the decades of repeat listens that have passed.

Stuart opened the compilation with a cheeky edit of Paul Hardcastle's 19 muscling in on Pixies. Suffice to say, Black Francis gets his revenge - and the last word - at the end of Side 2.

1) Vicious (Live @ Howard Stein's Academy Of Music, New York): Lou Reed (1973)

2) Catapult (Album Version): R.E.M. (1983)

3) L.A. Woman (Album Version): The Doors (1971)

4) Superman (Album Version) (Cover of The Clique): R.E.M. (1986)

5) Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town: Talking Heads (1977)

6) Fools Gold 4.15 (7" Version): The Stone Roses (1989)

7) Tidal Wave (Album Version): The Sugarcubes (1989)

8) Here Comes Alice (Album Version): The Jesus & Mary Chain (1989)

9) She's Leaving (Album Version): O.M.D. (1981)

10) Don't Worry About The Government: Talking Heads (1977)

11) Underneath The Bunker: R.E.M. (1986)

12) Sixty Seconds In Kingdom Come / Outro: U2 / Pixies (1985) 

 

1971: L.A. Woman: 3

1975: Lou Reed Live: 1

1977: Talking Heads: 77: 5, 10

1981: Architecture & Morality: 9

1983: Murmur: 2 

1985: The Unforgettable Fire EP: 12

1986: Life's Rich Pageant: 4, 11

1989: Automatic: 8

1989: Fools Gold EP: 6

1989: Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week!: 7

 

Side Two (45:11) (KF) (Mega)

Side One here

The Doors Of Perception

Side 1 of a cassette compilation of The Doors, recorded sometime during the spring/summer of 1992.

 

During "The Blockbuster Years" of video shops from the mid-late 1980s, I had managed to rent and watch Dance On Fire, a VHS compilation of short films, live and TV performances. It was brilliant and cemented my love of The Doors. I bought secondhand copies of the first two albums from Replay Records in Bristol. Much as I loved the self-titled debut, Strange Days was - and remains - my favourite album by The Doors. The front and back sleeve, featuring a fascinating array of carny characters with the band themselves relegated to a poster pasted to a wall was a real snapshot in time. 

In 1992, I was in a relationship with someone else who loved The Doors. She was quite open in that her main interest was Jim Morrison in leather trousers and to a lesser extent Val Kilmer in leather trousers and wig (Oliver Stone's biopic of The Doors had been released the previous year). 

 

To be honest, most of the overlaps in musical taste was usually predicated on how hot the front person was, particularly in leather trousers, but I managed to resist the subliminal encouragement to purchase a pair of my own. I remembered nights spent kipping on the floors of friends' bedsits, often next to someone's discarded pair of leather trews with the lasting impression of how much they stank after months, years even, of sweaty club nights and gigs. I mean, you could hardly stick them in for a service wash at the local launderette, could you? So, I saved my meagre pennies for feeding my record habit and socialising.

I digress. My ever-reliable friend Stuart had the rest of The Doors' albums, including the rather stingily short Live At The Hollywood Bowl highlights album and excellent out-takes compilation Alive She Cried. So, one weekend I borrowed them and set about creating a mixtape of my favourite songs.

The live version of Light My Fire preceded by Jim's reading of Wake Up from their Hollywood Bowl appearance is about as good as it gets and far superior to the studio take in my opinion. 

 

Strange Days was the opening song on their second album but makes a second appearance as a second song on one of my mixtapes, here following Do It, the penultimate song on Side 1 of The Soft Parade. 

 

I have a lot of time for The Soft Parade, though it doesn't appear to be a much-loved album for its surfeit of strings, allegedly masking a troubled production, and Jim clearly struggling to deliver a decent, committed vocal in places. And yet...and yet. I wrote a few words about the album - and more specifically Touch Me - last March.

The Doors cassette was played to death during the summer of 1992...sadly, literally. I had a fairly reliable secondhand car which had come with a ropey old cassette deck that had been bolted to the underside of the passenger glove compartment with wires trailing here and there and crappy speakers positioned at the rear of the vehicle. It had an unpredictable habit of chewing up or forcibly ejecting cassette tapes, so I tended to only play homemade mixtapes as a result. However, it could just about pass muster for a drive with the windows down, volume up, my girlfriend next to me and friends in the back as we drove around listening to music.

On one sorry occasion, I pulled the car over to drop off my passengers before heading off to find somewhere to park, Light My Fire in full effect, Ray Manzarek giving it his all on the keyboards. As my girlfriend got out of the car, the tape deck decided to violently regurgitate The Doors cassette, projecting it through the still-open passenger door and on a short arc to the ground, smashing to pieces on the kerbside. We were gobsmacked for a split second, then we all started laughing. To be honest, whilst I was laughing on the outside, a little part of me was crying on the inside.

For some reason, I didn't ever get around to recording a new version of The Doors mixtape so here, for the first time in over three decades, is that original Side 1. I've listened to the parent albums many, many times since. I bought all of The Doors albums on CD - Live At the Hollywood Bowl twice, as I got the subsequent expanded 2CD reissue - but I'm pretty happy with the choices and sequencing of this 1992 time capsule. 

I'll take care when playing this selection in the car though, in case the spirit of my long-deceased cassette deck possesses my vehicle and launches my phone out of the window, midway through Manzarek's keyboard frenzy on Light My Fire...

 

1) Do It (1969)

2) Strange Days (Album Version) (1967)

3) Waiting For The Sun (Album Version) (1970)

4) Soul Kitchen (Album Version) (1967)

5) Love Me Two Times (Album Version) (1967)

6) Wake Up / Light My Fire (Live @ The Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles) (1968)

7) People Are Strange (Album Version) (1967)

8) End Of The Night (Album Version) (1967)

9) The Unknown Soldier (Album Version) (1968)

10) Wishful Sinful (Album Version) (1969)

11) Riders On The Storm (Album Version) (1971)

1967: The Doors: 4, 8

1967: Strange Days: 2, 5, 7

1968: Live At The Hollywood Bowl: 6

1968: Waiting For The Sun: 9

1969: The Soft Parade: 1, 10

1970: Morrison Hotel: 3

1971: L.A. Woman: 11

Side One (45:45) (KF) (Mega)

 

 

This isn't the first selection of The Doors on this blog. Back in August 2021, in a post inspired by watching a Patrick Swayze film (!), I created a selection of 21st Century remixes of The Doors by the likes of Nightmares On Wax, Adam Freeland, Thievery Corporation, The Reflex and Mark Vidler aka Go Home Productions. You can find it here.

Another Happy Jolly Tape Thing

Side 2 of a mixtape, recorded sometime in 1992 for my then-girlfriend.

 

We went on a couple of camping holidays, the first of which was a return to Bowleaze Cove in Weymouth where my parents used to keep a static caravan for several years. There's a photo in a dusty album somewhere of me as a baby, having a bath in the caravan's tiny sink. I suspect I looked as bemused as I do now. 

 

We also used the take the cat with us, which seems bizarre in retrospect, but I guess we just didn't have the money to afford the luxury of a cattery for a week. I remember one trip where the cat hadn't returned from their daily patrol on our last day and we were actually driving (albeit very slowly) along the track out of the holiday park, windows open, shouting their name, when they suddenly appeared at the top of the hill, racing down to join us. I don't think my parents really would have left without the cat...would they? The cat was named Sacha, after the popular French singer, although my folks had never shown any particular fondness for his music. Parents are weird like that.

 

We swapped a caravan for a tent in 1992. I hadn't admitted to my girlfriend that I'd actually done very little camping at this point in my life and putting up a tent almost proved to be beyond my capabilities. Relatively early in our relationship, she may not have experienced quite the level of expletives that undoubtedly burst forth as I took about four times longer to get the darn tent up and staying up than any other complete novice.

 

Little had changed in the decade and a half since I'd last visited Weymouth, not least the shift from pebble (& tar) beach at the Bowleaze Cove end to golden sand as you got further along the promenade and into town. At the far end of the beach, before the pavilion and pier, the sand sculptor was still at work, creating scenes and still life art to wow and delight. We ventured into town to the fishmongers, sampling jellied eels (still disgusting) and whelks. All in all, a great few days away and some happy new memories to treasure. 

 

I've been back a couple more times since with Clan K and whilst the town and seafront have experienced more dramatic changes - and the beach-based sand sculptures have now moved slightly inland and upscaled to become Sandworld - we have had a great time, each time.

I like to think that Happy Jolly Tape Thing was playing on the drive from Bristol to Weymouth and home again, back in 1992. It's certainly chock full of travelling, sing-a-long tunes from Depeche Mode, Primal Scream, Talking Heads and Prefab Sprout. The Undertones are the only act to appear on both sides of the cassette, whilst my girlfriend was a huge fan of The Smiths and liked The Doors, although I think that was more to do with Jim Morrison in leather trousers than their music in particular.

Tacked onto the end of the compilation was a hidden track that played out following the closing seconds of the final song on Adam & The Ants' 1981 album, Prince Charmng. Sounds of waves lapping on a beach, guitar strums and a 'wimoweh' refrain, what better way to end, then and now?

 

1) Boom! There She Was (Sonic Property Mix By Steve Thompson & Michael Barbiero) (UK Edit): Scritti Politti ft. Roger Troutman (1988)

2) (Keep Feeling) Fascination (Extended Version): The Human League (1983)

3) The Meaning Of Love (Single Version): Depeche Mode (1982)

4) Movin' On Up (Album Version By Jimmy Miller): Primal Scream (1991)

5) Tell All The People: The Doors (1969)

6) Road To Nowhere (Album Version): Talking Heads (1985)

7) Downtown ('Shag Times' Album Version): The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu (1988)

8) It's Going To Happen! (Album Version): The Undertones (1981)

9) Faron Young (Truckin' Mix By Thomas Dolby): Prefab Sprout (1985)

10) Ask: The Smiths (1985)

11) Streets Of Your Town (Album Version): The Go-Betweens (1988)

12) untitled: Adam & The Ants (1981)

 

Side Two (46:55) (Box) (Mega)

Side One here

Whatever Happened To Reg?

Side 1 of a cassette compilation, recorded 2nd December 1989 by my friend Stuart for my 19th birthday nine days later.

I read the sad news on Sunday that Tom Verlaine passed at the age of 73, with some of my fellow bloggers posting tributes to him and, by default, Television and in particular Marquee Moon. In 1989, I don't think I had heard a single note of music by Television. In fact, it was probably 1993, when I sent a cheque in the post to Melody Maker and received by return a CD compilation, Rebellious Jukebox.

Commenting on C's wonderful Tom Verlaine tribute at Sun Dried Sparrows, Swiss Adam said that the title track of Marquee Moon "is one of those songs that when you hit play, you're in for the duration, no way you're going to turn it off before the full thing has unfolded". 

 

I know what he means. Marquee Moon closes Rebellious Jukebox but it's not the original album version, a relatively brisk run through, stopping just shy of ten minutes. Oh no. This is a live version, clocking in at fourteen minutes and forty five seconds. Quite an introduction to the band, let me tell you.

Which makes the appearance in 1989 of Tom Verlaine's mug on the homemade (by me) sleeve to this cassette inexplicable. Verlaine - either solo or with Television - doesn't appear on the compilation at all! I guess I'd taken a cutting from a music rag and decided that Tom looked "Reg" enough to adorn the cover. So, this is my personal if somewhat irreverant tribute to the great musician. So long, Tom, you were something special.

Returning to the selection, being a 19th birthday present, you get a snippet of Paul Hardcastle's big hit before thankfully cutting to one of Pixies' finest moments. What seems so surreal now, thirty-odd years later, is that this was very 'now' compilation, most of the tracks having come out in 1989 or the year before, with the odd smattering of older songs. Stuart was into U2 and Cactus World News, we had a shared love of O.M.D., Talking Heads, The Sugarcubes and The Doors, and he was introducing me to R.E.M.'s incredible back catalogue. We'd been to see The Jesus & Mary Chain live for the first time at the Studio in Bristol the previous month and Stuart was raving about The Stone Roses' debut album, which at that point I hadn't yet heard.

This might have been the first mixtape that Stuart did for me and it's a good one, even if it did require a bit of fast forwarding at the end to get to Side 2. It's a snapshot of a time in our lives where the decade (and our teens) was coming to an end and anything seemed possible. Happy days.

And who was "Reg"? There was an inscription on the cassette: "Smarmy Reg Varney". Neither of us were fans of On The Buses or Mr. Varney, it has to be said, but it was knocking around as one of those meaningless catchphrases at the time. Sometimes, that's as deep as it goes...

 

1) Intro / Bone Machine: Paul Hardcastle / Pixies (1988)

2) Touch Me (Album Version): The Doors (1969)

3) UV Ray: The Jesus & Mary Chain (1989)

4) The Beginning And The End: O.M.D. (1981)

5) Unchained Melody (Cover of Todd Duncan): U2 (1989)

6) The Book I Read: Talking Heads (1977)

7) Just A Touch (Album Version): R.E.M. (1986)

8) Bee: The Sugarcubes (1989)

9) Reconcile (Single Version): Cactus World News (1989)

10) What The World Is Waiting For: The Stone Roses (1989)

11) Riders On The Storm (Album Version): The Doors (1971)

12) No Compassion (Part II): Talking Heads (1977)

1969: The Soft Parade: 2

1971: L.A. Woman: 11

1977: Talking Heads: 77: 6, 12

1981: Architecture & Morality: 4

1986: Life's Rich Pageant: 7

1988: Surfer Rosa: 1

1989: All I Want Is You EP: 5

1989: Automatic: 3

1989: Fools Gold EP: 10

1989: Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week!: 8

1989: Rebound EP: 9

Side One (44:54) (Box) (Mega)