Stigandnasty's Spotify Blog

Track Nine: Siouxsie & the Banshees - Hong Kong Garden

2010-06-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

Siouxsie and the Banshees were one of the most successful bands to emerge out of the punk era. And while they later inspired some of the most god-awful dirges and doom-laden music in the form Goth, they began as something very exciting.

They began as a one-off, standing in for a band which dropped out of the '100 Club Punk Festival'. Their lineup included Siouxsie and her friend Steve Severin along with John Ritchie on drums. Ritchie would become better known as Sid Vicious.

There was no intention that the band would ever appear again, but their set (a twenty minute version of the Lord's Prayer) went down so well that they were asked to play again. Having abandoned Ritchie they appeared with a real lineup of Sioux, Severin (Bass), Pete Fenton (Guitar) and Kenny Morris (Drums). Fenton was too much the typical rock guitarist and was replaced by John McKay in July 1977.

Long before they produced any records, John Peel had them on the show. Their sessions were edgy and discordant with the feel of the Doors but without the smoothness given to that band by Ray Manzerick's keyboards. There was no way this band would ever produce anything like Riders on the Storm.

When they finaly signed for Polydor, their first single was this song inspired by the menu of a take-away. With the number of goth bands inspired by the Banshees thir stripped down, discordant sound is familiar, but this was a unique sound at the time. Severin had turned into abass player unafraid to intrude on the mix, at a time when bass players were supposed to be heard but not noticed. McKay's chords sounded off and harsh and Siouxsie was not exactly your traditional girl singer. Most of the second half of the song is McKay riffing on the song in a style about as far from your usual guitar hero as you can get. But somehow they reached the top ten in the british charts. The album which followed, The Scream, suffers now by imitation, but at the time it was shocking and difficult and wonderful. Nick Kent, the ubercool editor of the NME said described it as a "unique hybrid of the Velvet Underground mated with the ingenuity of Tago Mago era Can" thereby marking the band as one that old hippies had permission to like.

This isn't the single version, rather coming from the second session the band recorded for John Peel. The slightly smoother single version can be found on the alternative takes playlist, but this is the trak that takes me back to 1978 and an old cassette tape that I played until it fell apart. Happy days.

Track Eight : Richard Hell - Blank Generation

2010-01-08T10:50:00.001-08:00

Mix the Velvet Underground with rap and you get something a little like Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Founder of two of New York's seminal punk bands (Television and The Heartbreakers)

From the opening choppy guitar intro that leads into an awkward tempo change there is something special about this song.

The guitar solos are discordant, off-key and utterly perfect. Just the thing to save a seventeen year old me from the terminal dullness of prog rock. Hell, i'd even bought Tales From Topographic Oceans!

Better known among my school friends for his seminal "Love Comes in Spurts" this is Hell's classic track. Born Richard Meyers, Hell was, according to some sources the original punk, with spiked hair and safety pins holding torn jeans together. Malcolm McLaran has said that his look was the basis for the clothing he sold in his shop Sex.

Meyers was a childhood friend of guitarist Tom Miller (Tom Verlaine), having run away from school together in 11th grade. They were arrested and charged with arson and vandalism shortly afterwards. Moving to New York in 1973 they formed The Neon Boys who recorded Love Comes in Spurts as a demo in 1973. A year later they added an additional guitar player and became Television.

Blank Generation was one of the highlights of their live shows at CBGBs, the home of New York Punk. In 1975 Hell left Television after falling out with Verlaine over control of material. At the same time Johnny Thunders and Gerry Nolan left the New York Dolls, together they formed the Heartbreakers, who would go on to make one of the best of the early Punk albums LAMF - but without Hell.

He left again to form the Voidoids and to record Blank Generation for Stiff Records. The Voidoids recorded one half decent album and a dreadful one, which Hell has rerecorded and was due to release last year.

Track Seven - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: Tears of a Clown

2010-01-07T01:05:00.000-08:00

Originally recorded in 1967, this is perhaps the first song I remember getting really excited about hearing. I clearly recall spending a rainy day at home reading "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and listening to Radio One on a huge black Bush Trannie (a type of radio, youngsters) in the hope of hearing the song again. I'm going to claim that it was my inate good taste that drew me to the song, but it might just have been the mention of clowns.

The song had a unique origin. It began life at the 1966 Motown Christmas Party when Stevie Wonder brought an instrumental track he had written with his producer, Hank Crosby for Smokey Robinson to listen to.

They had failed to find a lyric to go with the tune and wanted Smokey to see what he could come up with.

Robinson seems to have taken themes from his song 'My Smile is Just a Frown (Turned Upside Down)', which he had written for Carolyn Crawford in 1964- see the alternative takes playlist - and added the clown theme from the opening calliope motif which reminded him of a circus. Indeed he even reused one line from his earlier song, "just like Pagliacci did/I'll try to keep my sadness hid", a line that stands out for its elegant awkwardness.

The song was not released as a single at the time and it was in 1970 when, starved of any new Robinson material, the UK Motown office remixed the album version and had a huge hit with it. Finally released in the US it was the Miracles one and only number one single with Smokey.

It was a hit all over again in 1976 when it was re-released in the UK and was later covered by Ska group, The Beat. There are also echos of the song in ABC's tribute song, When Smokey Sings.

But I still hate clowns!

Track Six: Temptations - Ain't Too Proud to Beg

2009-12-07T10:56:00.000-08:00

A 1966 single written by Norman Whitfield (above) with Edward Holland. It sounds more, to me at least, like one of the classic Holland, Dozier, Holland tracks that were the mainstay of early Motown, than the more

The track was supposed to be a one-off collaboration between Whitfield (as producer) and the Temptations, who were seen as Smokey Robinson's Group. It was recoded with David Ruffin on lead vocals and Whitfield arranged the song just out of the singer's usual range. Ruffin had to strain through numerous takes to reach the high notes and thus added a special edge to the vocal. Ruffin wasn't pleased and this set the stage for a difficult relationship between producer and group.

The track was brought to the regular Motown "Quality Control" meeting on the same day as a Smokey Robinson produced Temptations track, Get Ready. Motown chief Gordy Berry went for the Robinson song, describing Whitfield's effort as unfinished, and so Get Ready was the next single released by The Temptations.

While it was was a big R&B hit, Get Ready failed to make the top 20 in the Pop Charts and as a result Ain't too Proud to Beg was released shortly afterwards. It reached 13 in the pop charts.

Two more big hits for the Temptations under Whitfield and the band were seen as his. He continued to use the technique of forceing Motown singers to sing at the edge of their range, understanding the emotional accent it gave to the music. Perhaps most notably on Marvin Gaye's version of Heard It Through the Grapevine.

Track Five : Temptations - Papa Was a Rolling Stone

2009-11-14T02:58:00.000-08:00

If there was a standard Motown Sound, then the Temptations were the big-name band who deviated from it most often. This song, a huge hit in 1972, is one example where producer Norman Whitfield took them is a different direction from the standard three minute ballad that had been the Motown stock-in-trade throughout the sixties.

More in keeping with the late period Stax sound of Isaac Hayes than anything Diana Ross, or the Four Tops were involved in, the instrumentation of 'Papa' was unique with a very basic and evocative drum and bass intro and instrumental passages between verses extended beyond anything Motown were doing elsewhere. The shorter, single version still came in at a full seven minutes long and featured an instrumental version on the B side.

The song was not written with the Temptations in mind, producer Norman Whitfield and his songwriting partner Barret Strong first gave the song to the normally harder edged "Undisputed Truth" who barely breached the top 100 of the singles chart. Indeed the Temptations hated the song, complaining that it didn't feature enough of their trademark, close harmony and instead concentrated too much on orchestration with the band members singing single lines one in a sort of in-song conversation. In addition singer Dennis Edwards was furious that he was asked to sing the opening lines of the song:

It was the 3rd of September
That day I'll always remember
Cause that was the day, my Daddy died.

Edwards father had indeed died on 3rd Sept, and he suspected that producer, Normal Whitfield, had written the song with that in mind. Considering the picture of 'papa' as an absentee father presented by the song his upset is not really a surprise. Other members of the band have said that Whitfield used this anger, making Edwards sing the line over and over again until he the got just the right angry and frustrated tone

Despite the band's feelings it was a huge hit for them, winning three Grammy's, for best R&B song, Best instrumental (for the B side) and for best song and ended up being the last single to top the charts for the Group. So upset were the band with Whitfield that they fired him as their producer shortly afterwards. They never achieved this level of sucess again.

I've included the original version of the song, by The Undisputed Truth in the alternate playlist alongside another Temptations cover, Ball of Confusion.

Track Four - Robert Wyatt: I'm a Believer

2009-11-08T03:21:00.000-08:00

Robert Wyatt's version of this Neil Diamond penned Monkees's hit from 1966 is about as atypical of his music as you can imagine.

A more or less straight rendition of the biggest selling single of 1967, over one million sales, it is only the vulnerability of Wyatt's voice and his gentle Canterbury accent that sets this version apart. Released at a time, 1974, when rock music was taking itself far too seriously, this was a breath of fresh air and one of those tracks that makes me smile every time I hear it.

Wyatt's background was in progressive rock where he played drummer for The Soft Machine, with Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen (who will be names known to anyone who likes Prog Rock).

He'd learnt drums from a Jazz musician friend of the family in late fifties Dover and the influence of Jazz in most of his work is obvious.

Wyatt has been in a wheelchair since 1973. The story I read at the time, and always believed to be true, was that he was electroucuted while playing electric drums in Japan. It turns out he fell off a balcony at a party for Gilli Smith and Lady June from his old friend Daevid Allen's band Gong. He was pissed!

Wyatt will appear again in the list, and the alternative tracks playlist includes the Monkees original version of this song, along with an example of more typical Wyatt work from his days with the Soft Machine.

Track Three - Bruce Springteen: Mrs McGrath

2009-11-08T02:41:00.000-08:00

Taken from the 2006 album, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions", this is Stringsteen's version of an Irish anti-war folksong dating from the Pennisular War with Napoleon. The arrangement seems to follow one used by many american folk bands such as "Wake the Bard" but with a rock sensibility that gives the song real power. Who'd have ever thought of using an accordian and a Tin Whistle in a rock band? (Horslips and Moving Hearts and, believe it or not, Jethro Tull but we'll get to that some other time.)

The idea for the album arose in 1997 when Springsteen was asked to sing We Shall Overcome for a Pete Seeger (see picture) Tribute album. He didn't have much knowledge of folk music but, according to an interview in Rolling Stone, he started listening to Seeger after he recorded the song. The RS article says that it was the interest his ten year old daughter showed in the songs that led him to start playing them.

The album was recorded by a large, informal band in Springsteen's farm in New Jersey, with only his wife Patti Scafia and violinist Soozie Tyrell coming from the E Street Band. It was Tyrell who gathered most of the folk musicians together and the addition of 'The Miami Horns', The Sessions Band was formed.

Springsteen toured the album to mixed reviews. Many concert goers expecting the usual large scale rock show were disappointed, but to others, myself included, this was the best Springsteen album and show for years.

Check out the Alternative Playlist for versions of the song by Wake the Bard, Pete Seeger and an excellent live version from The Sessions Band Live in Dublin Album.

Track Two - Drive-By Truckers - Zip City

2009-10-31T07:24:00.000-07:00

The Drive-By Truckers are purveyers of Dirty, southern, country-rock at its very best. Much influenced by Lynyrd Skynyrd, it is often their lyrical content that sets them apart.

When the Truckers reappear on this blog, and they will, chances are that those selections will be songs written by Patterson Hood, the main writer for the band. But this song is by Mike Cooley and is arguably his best for the Band.

A straight ahead Southern Rock song, what sets it apart is the awkward elegance of the lyrics. Written from the perspective of an angry 17 year old who 'ain't gettin none" from his girlfriend, Cooley finds the voice perfectly and manages to be profane and poetic at the same time. He snarls the song out and there is real anger in some of the verses. Take this.

Keep your drawers on, girl, it ain't worth the fight
By the time you drop them I'll be gone
And you'll be right where they fall the rest of your life

Real, angry, raw and powerful. The key verse to what is an old fashioned story song, this is the stand-out rock track from their first really sucessful album, Southern Rock Opera.

Track One - Lew Lewis Band: Caravan Man

2009-10-31T03:10:00.001-07:00

If I was ever to get my own radio show I'd want this as my opening theme. Something about the mixture of Harmonica runs along with the chopping guitar sound is almost hypnotic. The credits imply that this was jammed, rather than being written.

I first heard the track on an album called "Hits Greatest Stiffs", a compilation of tracks from Stiff Records' first 15 singles which had been deleted. I lent it to a friend many years ago and never saw it again. This track, more than any other, was the one I missed and I only recovered it a few years ago with the reissue of Lewis' one and only album.

Lewis played with Eddie and the Hot Rods, just before they achieved success on the coat-tails of punk. He was kicked out of the band after they recorded their first single, Writing on the Wall.

The Hot Rods, like Graham Parker and Dr Feelgood were pub-rock bands with their roots firmly in the R&B boom of the 1960's, but each, to some degree or other, owed their success to the 'New Wave' that followed the Punk Revolution. Lewis never quite made it. The Harmonica was not a 'Punk' instrument and he was, at best, an adequate singer.

There is an obvious reggae influence to this track, something that was also associated with Punk. His band made one album for Stiff in 1979, Save the Wail, which was re-released in 2002. Nothing on it matches Caravan Man.

Lewis missed out on the success of Eddie and the Hot Rods, and bouts of illness and drug addiction have prevented him for making any great headway with his music. In 1987 Lewis was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing a Post Office with a fake gun. Since then he has had his own band and has played with friends from Dr Feelgood and Wilko Johnston's band. He is, by all accounts, a difficult man to know, and has had drug-related problems with his health in recent years. Last I heard of him he was out of hospital and clean, but the long promised new material has never appeared.

Buy 5: Lew Lewis and His Band

A Side: Boogie on the Street (Lewis)
B Side: Caravan Man (Zear/Green/Ocean/Clouter/Araby/Lewis

Stigandnasty's Spotify Blog

2009-10-30T16:51:00.000-07:00

The Spotify software allows me, just for a while, to imagine I've fulfilled one of my ambitions. To have my own Radio show. Ok its a show nobody much listens too and one in which I never get to speak, but what the hell.

Talking to Bingobison one evening, trying to justify my selections on the "90% Dead Free" playlist it struck me that I’d like to write a wee bit about most of the tracks I was selecting.

There are three playlists to have a look at, the original "90% Dead Free" An Alternate takes playlists, with songs I'll probably mention when I write about the main list and finally a collaborative list for seanb and Bingobison (and anyone else) to play about in.

So here we are. Comments are very welcome, even if it’s just to say hi but I'd love to hear what you think about my selections.