As we creep into September, the blog hopes for an Indian Summer but actually gets ready for the nights to start drawing in with another collection of fine tunes. Enjoy!
Get Away – Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames (1966)
Having failed to get walk-in tickets for the last weekend of the Banksy exhibition in Glasgow, we tempered our disappointment by heading for the Mary Quant – Fashion Revolutionary exhibition in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery. I wasn’t completely convinced it would be for me, but I really enjoyed it. Curated by the V&A in London, it covers the twenty years from 1955 when Quant opened her experimental boutique Bazaar in Chelsea but focuses on her influence in making the Sixties swing. As well as many original outfits, there are photos, newsreels, interviews and other memorabilia which really capture the essence of the period. I was left with a feeling that not only was she a key part of the post-war ‘Youthquake’, but she was highly influential in the continued liberation of women from the patriarchal society. I loved the subversion in her naming a grey pinstripe dress “Bank of England” at a time when women were unable to have a bank account unless they were married and even then it required the permission of their husband. While there was no soundtrack playing, the images of models Jeanie Shrimpton, Twiggy and Pattie Boyd kinda played one in your head. The description of an original of her “Georgie” dress did not suggest a link to Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames but it seems appropriate to me to use a track for the playlist. Get Away topped the UK Singles Chart in the summer of 1966. Originally the riff was written by Fame for a commercial but it was reworked into a song that became a big fan favorite. With a fast lyric and glorious stabs of brass in a hustle rhythm, the song manages to merge jazz and rock and roll in a dance groove that would see many a Mary Quant dress swinging.
Mama We’re All Crazee Now – Slade (1972)
Last weekend’s Reading Festival was headlined by Sam Fender, The Killers and Billie Eilish which is a long way from the heavy metal dominated show ‘Reading Rock 80‘ where Rory Gallagher, UFO and Whitesnake topped the bill. I stumbled across a story about this event on Social media and then followed the rabbit hole to a great blog post by Vintagerock which sets out the full detailed story. The summary is that Ozzy Osbourne was meant to be playing the 1980 festival with his appallingly named new post-Sabbath band Blizzard of Oz, but he pulled out at short notice. The organisers looked round for a quick replacement and found Slade playing small venues around London as their star had fallen from their 70s glam pomp. The band were wary but were persuaded to do it, although they had to bring their own gear in from the public car park where they had to pay to park. They were sent on before new metal favourites Def Leppard and were greeted by a hail of cans and boos by the fans. However Noddy, Dave, Don and Jimmy had worked their way up from the clubs before their chart success and took on the crowd toe to toe by blasting out their songs. Slowly but surely the can throwing subsided and the boos turned to cheers as they stomped their way through some great tunes including this monster which was a No 1 single in August 1972. By the end of their hourlong set they had the crowd eating out of their hands. Finishing with Cum On Feel The Noize and then a barnstorming version of their usual set closer Born To Be Wild meant that, somewhere in the backstage area, a very nervous Def Leppard were wondering how the hell they were going to follow them.
Ghosts Of Princes In Towers – Rich Kids (1978)
Original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock was 67 on Sunday. In 1974, he had joined Steve Jones and Paul Cook in a band known as the Strand. The band evolved into the Sex Pistols when manager Malcolm McLaren came back to London in 1975 after managing the New York Dolls. Matlock and Jones were writing the music as a young, green-haired John Lydon was recruited into the band after McLaren saw him mime to Alice Cooper’s Eighteen in his clothes shop. Infamy beckoned but, just as they were exploding into the mainstream media after the Bill Grundy interview, Matlock was pushed out the band. This allowed McLaren to bring in the more press-worthy, but sadly short-lived, Sid Vicious. Matlock immediately formed the Rich Kids with Rusty Egan and a young Midge Ure, who arrived in London having left PVC2, the punky new name for Scots chart-toppers Slick. The Rich Kids’ eponymous debut single was produced by Mick Ronson and it’s power pop sound was a top thirty hit in January 1978 and got them on to Top Of The Pops. The band went on to record the album Ghosts Of Princes In Towers with Ronson at the controls. It sold reasonably well but neither Marching Men nor the album title track charted as follow-up singles. With Ure and Egan wanting to bring synthesisers into the band, tensions grew and the band split. A popular bloke, Matlock has since had a long and varied career playing with a range of musicians including Danny Kustow, Iggy Pop, Mike Peters, Kirk Brandon and Sylvian Sylvian. He was most recently seen playing bass for Blondie at this year’s Glastonbury. Ghosts is on the playlist as it’s just one of those great guitar-driven pop songs that is lost in the mists of time and really deserves a listen today. Watch them having great fun performing it live on Revolver – introduced by Peter Cook!
Food For Thought – UB40 (1980)
UB40’s debut album Signing Off was released this week, forty three years ago. Given that they responded to their early success by morphing into an insipid, derivative reggae covers band who ended up with the Mail On Sunday giving away one of their CDs, it’s easy to forget what a powerful record their first album was. They formed in late 70s Birmingham when Thatcher was making many people familiar with the unemployment benefit form which gave the band their name and adorns the album’s cover. The strong multi-cultural environment of the city spawned bands who fused influences from black and white music traditions like The Beat and Dexy’s Midnight Runners. UB40 built their early sound on simple soulful melodies set to rhythms where ska upstrokes melded into reggae with the addition of dub bass and echo, particularly on their instrumentals. Early copies saw the ten track LP supplemented by three tracks on a 12″ EP, one of which was a cover of the politically charged Strange Fruit made famous by Billie Holiday in 1939. This tone was matched by the lyrics of the other songs written by the band, all of which address social issues expressing radical sentiments. The searing anti-colonial message in Burden Of Shame has the chorus “There are murders that we must account for/Bloody deeds have been done in my name”. The playlisted Food For Thought was released ahead of the LP as a double A-side single with the Martin Luther King inspired King. Robin Campbell wrote the lyric for Food For Thought with his folk-singer father, citing the hypocrisy of Christmas while children were dying in Africa. Original demos called it The Christmas Song but the name-changed track got all the radio airplay and reached No4 in the UK chart in April 1980, four years before Bob Geldof hit on the idea for Band Aid.
The Boy In The Bubble – Paul Simon (1986)
One of last week’s tracks took me back to the time I spent in a flat in East Claremont St in Edinburgh in the mid 80s when I met Lynn. I shared a flat with two friends of mine (Mike and Mel) who now live in Adelaide and consequently we don’t get to see them that often. We listened to a lot of music in that flat and went to a lot of gigs together but last week I realised that they were blissfully unaware of this blog. So I emailed them with a link and got a brilliant note back from Mike, full of songs he was listening to and memories of that flat. He recounted the tale of me having just bought Graceland by Paul Simon. Apparently, after just one listen to the LP, I was excitedly telling everyone it was the ‘future of rock’n’roll’, horribly mangling the Jon Landau statement about seeing Springsteen perform for the first time. If that’s not conclusive proof that I have always been full of shit, then I don’t know what is! So by way of an apology, nearly forty years later, I am putting the opening track from Graceland on the playlist. The Boy In The Bubble was written soon after Simon arrived in South Africa with Forere Motloheloa, the piano accordion player from Lethoso band Tau Ea Matsekha. It is a cross-cultural treat with African rhythms blended with Louisiana zydeco and Simon’s lyric is as complex in imagery as it is in timing and delivery. He described the song as a balance of hope and dread but coming down on the side of hope. “It’s a turn-around jump shot/It’s everybody jump start/It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts” is a line I often think of when struggling to comprehend current hit songs.
Every Day I Write The Book [Memphis Magnetic Version] – Elvis Costello & The Imposters (2022)
I commented last week that we hadn’t been to see any comedy shows at the Fringe this year. However, we have headed across the Forth to hear a number of authors interviewed about their latest publications as part of the Edinburgh Book Festival. Although more a steady reader than a voracious one, I am in awe of the art of writing and find authors and their inspiration for writing fascinating to listen to, particularly when being questioned by an engaging and perceptive interviewer. Aided by a mole on the inside (hello Irene!), we were able to buy tickets for some of the big names like Ian McEwan, Sebastian Faulks and Fergal Keane. More off-beat, I also really enjoyed seeing the Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir talking about writing a crime novel with her fellow countryman Ragnar Jonasson. Songs about books abound and I’ve chosen to go with this one which Elvis Costello originally recorded on his 1983 album Punch The Clock. A lifetime admirer of the songwriting of Nick Lowe, EC has admitted this track “is a knock off of Nick’s When I Write The Book with a little Rogers and Hart thrown in”. A listen to Lowe’s beautifully constructed tune is highly recommended. Although Costello’s song was a minor UK hit single and, surprisingly, his first in America, he was never happy with the ‘white soul’ sheen given to the original recording by producer Clive Langer. The version on the playlist is one he recently re-recorded in Memphis with The Imposters and guest guitarist Charlie Sexton while rehearsing for their US tour. Recorded live, it has a cleaner bluesier feel to it with some great guitar licks and a vocal delivery that enhances the soulful nature of the song. “Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal/I’d still own the film rights and be working on the sequel” is a line I wish I’d written.
Last Word
The newly imposed word limit of no more than 300 words seems to be holding although the time saved is less than I thought as editing my inevitably longer first draft to make (some) sense takes time! You know the drill about the master playlist by now….
AR
Week In Sound 
Leave a comment