I can confirm that this week’s blog contains no US Government classified information – it’s just the same old nonsense. Enjoy!
A reminder that Spotify plays from this box in the annoying ‘Preview’ mode with short excerpts of each track. Please click the icon in top right corner to open the full playlist in a separate Spotify window.
Girls Talk – Dave Edmunds (1978)
Perceived wisdom is that most of the world’s ills can be blamed on social media, with Twitter and Tik Tok coming in for the greatest criticism. I only use the former and I can see that, in the wrong hands, it can be a vile cesspit of hate and horror. Unaccountable people can write what they want and so many seem to thrive on picking arguments which range from minor quibbles to full blown abuse. But there are areas where it can be a really enjoyable place to be. I get a lot of my music kicks from it. During lockdown, Tim Burgess (of The Charlatans) began his brilliant Listening Parties where people from all over the world came together to listen to a favourite record often along with the artists who made it and post comments in real time about the music. I follow a number of people who use Twitter to post stories and videos of great tunes and one of my favourites is a guy called Andy Chislehurst whose Twitter name is @Birmingham_81. He is a massive music fan with an encyclopedic knowledge of a wide range of genres which is why he has nearly 40,000 followers on the platform. Like this blog, he often uses anniversaries as the excuse to talk about something and he posted a thread about this Dave Edmunds top 5 hit record on Saturday as it was Edmunds’ birthday. His post says: ” Written by Elvis Costello at a time when so many amazing songs were pouring out of him he could could just hand them out to friends before he’d recorded them himself.” Quite! Andy posted a rarely seen version of Edmunds performing this song with his beautiful Gibson semi-acoustic on the TV Show Cheggers Plays Pop. Alternative National Treasure Nick Lowe is playing bass and the guitarist is Billy Bremner – not the footballer, but by my reckoning he could be the lost twin brother of Keith Chegwin. EC’s more moody version of his own tune appeared on the b-side of I Cant Stand Up For Falling Down the following year. So if you are on Twitter, give @Birmingham_81 a follow – he also does amazing public playlists on Spotify. The man must never sleep…
Tunnel Vision – Kae Tempest (2016)
As part of the preparation for some building work on the house, we have been trying to rationalise our book collection. Living in the twilight zone between the convenience of (non-Bezos) e-readers and still enjoying the physicality of real books, we still needed to reduce numbers. In doing the cull, I came across a number of books I hadn’t read yet, which went in the ‘keep’ pile. On Sunday evening, I braced myself and began reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I was aware the 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner wasn’t going to be an uptempo, cheery read but I wasn’t quite prepared for the relentless, but strangely addictive, bleakness. I knew there had been a movie adaptation but the more I read, the more I thought how do you film this post-apocalyptic survival story in a grey colourless world? Some quick research tells me they shot much of it in decayed and abandoned areas of Pittsburgh in the winter – remind me not to book to book two weeks in January there. Other bits were shot in Katrina-ravaged parts of New Orleans and many of the road scenes were done on a 13 mile stretch of former highway known as the Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike which has just been left to decay. What green natural grow-back had occurred was apparently digitally greyed out! When I went to look for the soundtrack, I did not have to be picked up off the floor when I saw it had been written by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. It sounds like their kind of gig and a quick listen to the title track confirmed this. While I am a huge fan of their work together and saw them live 18 months ago, I decided to plump for another apocalyptic track for this week’s playlist from poet turned rapper Kae Tempest. This is the concluding track from the cataclysmic 2016 concept album Let Them Eat Chaos which was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize in 2017. The record’s narrative is based on seven individuals who have never met but live on the same street in London where a storm brings them out onto the street to see each other for the first time. In this final track, Tempest adeptly paints a bleak and gritty picture of societal and environmental collapse while the 80s synths squeal and bend below the vocal. The words pour forth in layers of grim reality and the music builds to a drop at 3:50 with the words “I’m pleading with my loved ones to wake up and love more”. The instrumental coda that follows this hints at a more positive conclusion with the addition of shimmering synth arpeggios like little rainbows after the dark storm. Powerful stuff.
All My Friends (Live) – LCD Soundsystem (2014)
So up until Tuesday, I had erm… heard of Heardle but never actually got round to trying it. For those who hadn’t even got that far, it’s apparently the musical version of Wordle, except that it isn’t really. It’s more like a digital version of game show Name That Tune which begun on TV back in the the 1950s as Spot That Tune and is now The Hit List. Guessing songs from short excerpts is a broadcasting stalwart (remember the Radio 1 Roadshow doing ‘Bits and Pieces’?) but Spotify thought it was worth a digital punt when they bought the rights to the game in 2022. Now they have announced it is closing in May due to falling interest. Reading this today, I had my first go and was lucky enough to guess Depeche Mode’s Leave In Silence after the first one second clip. So now, I have a couple of week to say a long goodbye to something I never knew I needed. Which is a bit like LCD Soundsystem, the hard to classify indie-dance-art-rock ensemble from Brooklyn, New York who released a live album called The Long Goodbye this week in 2014. When they started releasing records in the early 2000s, I heard some hype and listened in and thought they were OK, enjoying the likeable 2005 hit single Daft Punk Are Playing At My House. Then, despite the critics loving their records, I paid no attention to them at all until late in 2010 when I picked up on a couple of tracks from their third album and dipped back into their previous record and thought what I heard was pretty good, particularly the studio version of this track. At this point, LCD front man James Murphy decides to disband the group following a farewell gig at Madison Sq Gardens in February 2011. The gig was filmed for a brilliantly named documentary called Shut Up And Play The Hits. It took five years for the live recording of the gig to be released, hence the length of the goodbye. This track takes the efficiency of the clinical studio version and adds an underlayer of crowd noise to the sound of the band playing right on the edge of falling over into chaos. It makes it a more emotional experience as it builds from the piano and relentless driving thump of the rhythm section into the vocal recalling younger years and crazy times from a position of faded friendships. And then that New Order guitar riff kicks in. And on it goes from there, with waves of crowd noise and Murphy’s breaking voice rushing us ever faster toward the euphoric finale as the backing voices (including members of Arcade Fire) eventually swell to join Murphy in the question: Where are your friends tonight? The good news for me was that the band reformed in 2017 and released the brilliant American Dream LP, which I recommend you seek out if this live track appeals to you.
Valley Of The Lost Women – John Cooper Clarke (1978)
On the 18 April 1991, record producer Martin ‘Zero’ Hannett died at 42 from heart failure following many years as a heavy user of alcohol and drugs. His gravestone describes him as the “creator of the Manchester Sound” and an overview of the career of this innovative maverick certainly supports this. Notoriously demanding and difficult to work with, he is best known for his work with Joy Division where some critics likened his influence to that of George Martin with the Beatles. A jobbing musician and sound engineer in the mid 70s, he first came to prominence in 1977 by producing the first independent punk record, Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch EP. His next move was to set up Rabid Records which is where he worked with performance poet John Cooper Clarke. He took the monotone words of the self-styled ‘Bard of Salford’ and enhanced them with synths and drum machines. They released the Innocents EP in December 1977 and I remember hearing this in the attic room of my mate Ken’s house and just being amazed by Clarke’s words and delivery on the mind-blowing Psycle Sluts Pts 1 & 2. Hannett went on to work with Clarke over the next five years on a number of records which balanced the Bard’s witty and incisive wordsmithing with his unorthodox production methods and use of burgeoning studio technology. For the playlist. I’ve chosen this slightly out of character slower track from Disguise In Love, Clarke’s second album in 1978. Hannett has created a kind of dreamy soundscape to match Clarke’s gentle but acerbic musings on the lives of middle class suburban wives in the 1970s. Holidays are planned in places “where sixty Italian love songs are sung to a million guitars, they lick their frozen drinks on sticks among the men with important cigars” all half sung in that glorious Salford accent. From this point, Hannett went on to produce Unknown Pleasures and Closer and then, after the death of Ian Curtis, he worked on Movement, the first New Order album. He worked with other bands from the North of England like Magazine, A Certain Ratio, Duritti Column, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Pauline Murray & the Invisible Girls. He produced U2’s 11 O’Clock Tick Tock single and was being lined up to be at the controls for their debut LP Boy. However, he was so affected by the suicide of Ian Curtis that he pulled out. Clarke went on to become the best friend of the Honey Monster and had his pension plan sorted when big fan Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys adapted his I Wanna Be Yours for their fifth record AM. His status in Salford and his contribution to poetry was recognised with an honorary doctorate from the University of Salford. I’ve seen him a few times live, most notably supporting Elvis Costello and the Attractions at the Glasgow Apollo in 1979 second on the bill above Richard Hell and the Void-oids!
Drive-In Saturday – David Bowie (1973)
Fifty years ago on Wednesday, David Bowie released Aladdin Sane and there has been much coverage of this anniversary in the media. So I’m going to make my contribution to this and Bowie becomes the first artist to have two tracks on the WeekInSound blog – more will follow, I’m sure. Much has been written on this record so forgive me if these words tell you nothing new. Even after all these years I still love the glamorous glam sound of it and, despite the odd inclusion of the slightly clunky Stones track, it remains my second favourite Bowie LP next to Ziggy. Judged on album covers alone, Brian Duffy’s iconic image would make it my favourite – I have a t-shirt of the photoshoot contact sheet above. The story of a frustrated Bowie grabbing a lipstick off the makeup artist doing a small delicate lightning bolt on his cheek and drawing the outline of the full flash himself, saying “now fill that in” always amuses me. Among my highs on the record are the backing vocals on the New York Dolls influenced Watch That Man, the glorious one-take improvised piano solo on the title track by Mike Garson, Trevor Bolder’s bass on Panic In Detroit and the Brechtian drama of Time. And Mick Ronson’s guitar shines brightly throughout from the feedback-laden crunch of Cracked Actor to his delicate Spanish style solo on the lush Lady Grinning Soul. It’s tough to choose one track but I’ve gone for the one that resonated most with the 13 year old me as the second single from the record. Apparently the song was offered to Mott the Hoople as a follow up to All The Young Dudes. But Ian Hunter was concerned about the song’s complexity and, keen to develop his own writing, he turned it down. Written looking back in time from a post-apocalyptic world (this week’s theme?), Bowie has said “It’s about a future where people have forgotten how to make love, so they go back onto video-films that they have kept from this century.” The lyric was almost certainly the first time I had heard the word ‘video’ and I was totally captivated by the opaque imagery: “With snorting head he gazes to the shore, that once had raised a sea that raged no more”. While heavily influenced by America where he was touring when he wrote it, there are great references to European cultural icons – Mick Jagger, Carl Jung and Twiggy all get a name check. The descending doo-wop style vocals in the chorus along with Bowie’s sax playing gave it a surprisingly radio friendly sound and it reached No3 in the UK singles chart. Here he is singing it live on the Russell Harty Show with the Spiders miming to a backing track but looking fabulous, although Mick Ronson seems to have fallen out with the lighting man. I’ll leave the last word on the song to man that turned it down. Writing in his brilliant book Diary of a Rock’n’Roll Star in 1974, Ian Hunter recalled his reaction when Bowie played him the song. “It’s Dylan-ish and it’s got a hell of chord run down. Innocence, cruelty, the nearness yet the distance, all the qualities of the star he is.”
We Could Send Letters – Aztec Camera (1983)
Another notable milestone on Wednesday was that it was forty years ago that Aztec Camera’s debut album High Land Hard Rain was released. Not sure Roddy Frame would have been aware of the tie in with the Bowie record, but I’m pretty sure he would approve. Back in the early 80s, Postcard Records was at the centre of the hipster scene going on in Glasgow that became a national phenomenon. I wasn’t really part of the scene but I was at school with David and Keith Band who very much were. David was the amazingly talented artist who did the sleeve artwork for High Land Hard Rain and many others, and Keith played the bass in the Jazzateers. My hazy memory tells me that both of them were at an Orange Juice gig in Night Moves in Glasgow sometime in the latter half of 1980(?) where me and my mate Mark first saw Aztec Camera perform as an acoustic duo. Roddy Frame and Campbell Owens shuffled shyly on to the stage in white shirts, tartan ties and the obligatory floppy fringe. I was blown away by the few songs they played which include this fantastic track full of smothered sympathy and blood that wasn’t meant to be found. Mark went out and bought a tartan tie while I sent away my coupons for the (now legendary) NME C81 cassette tape in February of 1981 and this incredible song was on there. I then bought Just Like Gold when the Postcard 81/3 single was released in May which has Letters on the b-side. If possible, Just Like Gold was even better than Letters and it’s incredible that Roddy had written both these tunes aged 16 in his bedroom in East Kilbride! Keith then slipped me a murky cassette of the demos for the lost album Green Jacket Grey and I was a fan for life – if you have Soundcloud, you can hear the title track here. This all took place a very long time before High Land Hard Rain finally saw the light of day in April 1983 but this was due to the slow painful move from the independent chaos of Postcard to the slightly more organised Rough Trade. Despite its 80s production, I love the record and have played it to death over the years. I was at the Glasgow Concert Hall ten years ago for (the normally forward looking) Roddy playing all the tracks from it one last time. He also performed Green Jacket Grey and the gorgeous The Spirit Shows from the demo tape – emotional stuff. In 2021, an 8 hour long anthology of Roddy’s recordings for WEA was released and buried in there are live performances of much of HLHR from a gig at the Barrowlands in October 1984. The version of We Could Send Letters is slower and well worth hearing – at 4:28 in the build up to the guitar solo, listen out for Roddy improvising the words from former Postcard label-mates The Go-Betweens’ wonderful Part Company. Maybe he heard that tune on the 1984 NME tape Raging Spool where it was the track before Aztec Camera’s cover of Van Halen’s Jump! A tangled web or what?!
Last Word
First off, I need to apologise for those last two long gushing, fanboy posts on Bowie and Aztec Camera – sorry, it just all poured out! With building work on the house starting next week, there should be less time for that. In fact, my current plan is to do a first ‘themed’ week not linked to events. I think I’ll post six recent releases that I have enjoyed where my natural verbosity will be hopefully be limited by my lack of knowledge. Oh – and I’ve given up on Heardle before I even started. I had no idea on the next two days which were Justin Timberlake and One Direction so I’ve said a short goodbye to the game!
As ever, the Master Playlist has been updated at the link below. It now has over three hours of music on it so why not stick on shuffle next time you are in the kitchen making the tea!
AR
Week In Sound 
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