My Top 6…cover versions

Posted on April 2nd, 2009 by Andy

Here are my submissions to Cover Me, Volume 17 of Splotchy’s Green Monkey Music Project (visit the link to download the two 36 track compilations the first one has the selected cover versions, while the second has the original versions of the same songs).

Your selections should all be songs which are not the original versions, but are rather another artist’s interpretation of the original. I want the cover of the song to be meaningful, or important, or special to you in some way that distinguishes it from the original, and I’m going to want you to explain the significance when you discuss your selections after the mix has been published.

Obviously I could have had six Galaxie 500 songs…or Luna ones, but resisted the temptation to be quite that unimaginitive.

Ceremony – Galaxie 500 (originally by Joy Division) – Ceremony is, unquestionably, the greatest cover version anyone’s done of anything ever. In 1990 I saw Galaxie 500 at the Subterania and they finished the set with Ceremony, joined on stage by Kramer. If I had to throw away all but eight minutes of my gig going memories – those would be the eight minutes I’d hang on to.

Blue Christmas – Low (originally by Elvis) – I first heard this on the car radio in a supermarket car park (I think it must have been Peel sitting in on an earlier show as he did occasionally – or I was out shopping late!). Mimi’s voice just left me breathless – I had to sit in silence for a minute or two before heading off to do the shopping.

Flaming Telepaths – Espers (originally by Blue Oyster Cult) – I’d never heard the original before hearing this. Greg and Meg’s voices work so well together and this one really opened up a prog seam that I wasn’t sure I had or at least had long covered up. The original is only fair – the cover is immense.

Leaving Here – Motorhead (origially by The Birds) – In 1979 Motorhead was my escape into musical individuality – one of the key moments in that escape was on 1st May 1980 when Motorhead mimed to “Leaving Here” on Top of the Pops. Music changed pretty profoundly at that point. The live version of the Golden Years EP (which the TOTP performance was promoting) was head and shoulders above the weak studio version on On Parole.

Cast a Shadow – Yo La Tengo (originally by Beat Happening) – Two of my favourite bands. Stuart had this on a 7″ – was it on the back of Speeding Motorcycle? – I was jealous and have been careful to buy pretty much anything Yo La Tengo have released since.

Indian Summer – Luna (originally by Beat Happening) – I was really sad when Galaxie 500 broke up but in Feb 1992 Dean came through London with the first Luna incarnation (Stan, Justin and Grasshopper) and played a show at the Underworld that reassured me that maybe a positive spin could be put on the split. They played Indian Summer that night. It was also the last song the played at their last London show in 2005.

Posted in Music, blogs and the internet, my top 6... | 1 Comment »

Just dug this one out #28 – Hanoi Rocks

Posted on March 28th, 2009 by Andy

OK – I haven’t really dug anything out…but a sudden wave of uncontrollable nostalgia inspired me to post this to the Galaxie 500 Mailing List – which got (mostly) the whistling silence it’s astonishing off-topic-ness deserved. I thought it really ought to live here where it can offend no one…

Back in the early 80s (I might have mentioned a few hundred times before) I was a huge metal fan – but the metal I liked wasn’t the tight-trousered, eye-liner-wearing glammy type; I liked my metal a bit grubby. But as a music obsessive I considered any band that passed through Guildford as fair game which meant that I saw lots of bands that it would be cool to boast about but I barely remember the gigs (e.g. The Jam, Buzzcocks (I think), SLF, Pretenders) and lots more forgettable crap (or crap I wish I could forget (Gary Moore, Budgie, Toyah)).

Anyway Hanoi Rocks came through town and they wore girly-clothes and make up, they were not all hard and manly like I liked my rock, but we went along anyway expecting to snigger, and probably heckle. But they were awesome – they rocked so hard, they played for hours, Michael Monroe, the lead singer, looked great (something I probably wasn’t ready to admit out loud at the time…I liked my rock stars like Lemmy remember!) and played a saxophone, and clambered up the PA and just gave us an awesome show. Most of the audience left before the second encore, I could never figure out why, which just made the ending so much more special because we got 20 minutes more just for the 50 or so of us who stuck around. I think they covered Train Kept a-Rolling.

I bought albums but they were disappointing and I never saw them again – shortly afterwards Razzle, the drummer, died in that Motley Crue related accident and it seemed that my Hanoi Rocks love was destined to be all about a couple of hours at Surrey University in 1984.

So today, on the back of this nostalgia trip I found myself at YouTube thoroughly enjoying the stacks of Hanoi Rocks videos from that period and seeing exactly why this gig is one that I never forgot. I’m about to reacquaint myself with a couple of albums but am expecting to be disappointed.

Posted in Music, a nostalgia trip, just dug this one out | No Comments »

Just dug this one out #27 – Tracey Thorn – A Distant Shore

Posted on March 17th, 2009 by Andy

Yesterday we were watching an episode of The Simpsons where Homer was driving his family home, the car was covered in dust and Marge suggested that they get it washed but Homer chooses to ignore her. Just then Lenny pulls up alongside and suggests that Homer wash his car and Homer swerves into the nearest car wash.

Anyway, Hazel owns Tracey Thorn’s A Distant Shore and has done for many years and for all of those years I’ve skipped past it whenever I see it because…well…you know…Everything But the Girl…she may even have suggested at some point that I give it a listen but I suspect was treated to a Homeric snort or shrug. Last week Alistair Fitchett on his Unpopular blog wrote about A Distant Shore in his “20 albums that changed my life” series. Given that other entries in that series had included Galaxie 500, The Velvet Underground, The Kinks, Belle and Sebastian and The Go Betweens and included three albums that featured in my list I decided that the time was right to give Tracey a chance.

The album is short but stunningly sweet, beautiful in places. Simply arranged with guitar strums and Tracey Thorn’s voice, its an album I wanted to be alone with and one that required an immediate second, and then a third listen.

So thanks Unpopular for exposing me to this…oh and Hazel…<shrug>…

Posted in Music, just dug this one out | No Comments »

Just dug this one out #26 – Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmo’s Factory

Posted on March 10th, 2009 by Andy

Creedence Clearwater Revival were one of the many bands that my Dad passed onto me. We had a couple of albums kicking around (Willy & The Poor Boys and maybe Green River) but Cosmo’s Factory is the album that stuck in my head, possibly because of Travelin’ Band and Up Around the Bend, a couple of songs I have fond memories of. So this was the album I grabbed this morning when I thought a blog post was long overdue.

I’ve just made my way through it but it was bloody hard going – an album full of charmless, stodgy, chunky dross with very little clue as to what I may have liked about it. Fogerty’s voice grates and the majority of the album stinks to high heaven. The side two centrepiece of an eleven minute version of I Heard It Through the Grapevine was shameful. I shall never listen to this again.

Posted in Music, just dug this one out | No Comments »

Music History (Another Facebook meme)

Posted on March 4th, 2009 by Andy

These questions concern our universal experiences with music, how we’re exposed to it and our reactions. It’s not about how much you know or your tastes now in music (we can see that already in FB). Answer the questions or not, tag your friends or not. LOL at some of your answers.

1. What was the first concert you attended? (Think way back). – Motorhead @ The Hammersmith Odeon in 1979.
2. What was the most recent concert you attended? – Damon & Naomi @ The Luminaire in January
3. Name of first album purchased? – Snoopy Vs The Red Baron by The Hotshots
4. What format was that album in (LP, cassette, 8-track, CD, 45, iTunes, etc)? – 7″ single
5. What was the theme song played at your prom/formal/last high school dance? – n/a
6. What is the last song you played on your ipod (or other music device)? – Perversion by Stereolab
7. What music is a guilty pleasure (that you mostly keep quiet about)? – I’m not sure I feel guilty about anything – I like stuff that people mightn’t expect – some musicals.
8. What song, group, musician or genre do you absolutely dislike? – Songs where the video involves people dancing in rows towards the camera
9. What was your favourite radio station in school? – BBC Radio 1
10. What music did your parents listen to when you were a child?
    Mum = Daniel O’Donnell and Eoin McLove – she also liked classic country music like Dolly and Tammy and Don Williams
    Dad = Trad jazz, rock and roll – pretty much anything!
    Impressions then?; I hated most of what my mum listened to and spent a lot of time trying to turn her onto better things. Dad’s hoarding of music had a huge influence on me.
    Impressions now?: Still hate most of the music my mum loved and still appreciate my dad’s even thought there was a lot of rubbish in amongst it all.
11. Can you read music? – Yes
12. Do you play an instrument now? Yes (piano and guitar neither very proficiently) In a band? No
13. Did you play an instrument as a child? No
14. Ever play air guitar? – Yes In public? – Yes
15. Ever do karaoke? No
16. Did you ever drive anyone to distraction because you played a song over and over again? Name it. – Don’t think so – maybe the Dear Paulina single when Dean first sent me the tape.
17. Have you ever sung the words to a song aloud and then found out you had the words wrong? What was it? – Yes – most recently discovering that Nick Drake never held an ocean in the palm of his hand.
18. What music do you wish you knew more about? – Almost everything.
19. What is your most memorable music experience? – Meeting (and liking) all three members of Galaxie 500 – maybe the arse-print incident
20. What was your High School or College fight song? I don’t understand the question, and I won’t respond to it I don’t know what that is nor do I care to find out. (that was the quote I meant!)
21. Did you lie on any of the questions above? Not to my knowledge

Posted in Facebook meme | No Comments »

Nothing to see here

Posted on February 24th, 2009 by Andy

Nothing to see here
originally uploaded by grange85

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Lux Interior

Posted on February 5th, 2009 by Andy

Lux Interior, Cains Ballroom, 1980

There was a time in the early/mid 1980s after Fast Eddie Clarke left Motorhead and before The Pogues released Rum, Sodomy and the Lash were I was lost in a frustrated grasp to find a musical place for myself. For a short time during that aimless wander through the obscure and unloved musical movements I decided that maybe ‘psychobilly’ could be where I settled. I went to three or four gigs at the Clarendon in Hammersmith and the energy and noise was exceptional, I saw The Guana Batz and The Meteors and a myriad of lesser (in fame and quality) bands. I sadly never got to see The Cramps but they were the band that defined that music more than any other, and I suspect that if I had seen them maybe I would have taken a different course.

The Cramps albums got filed away and to be honest I’ve listened to very little since then and had pretty much forgotten that nine months or so until I read today that Lux Interior had passed away and I was filled with a desire to hear The Cramps (thanks last.fm) and a regret that I never did see them live.

R.I.P. Lux Interior

Posted in Music, a nostalgia trip | No Comments »

Buddy Holly

Posted on February 3rd, 2009 by Andy

Today is 50 years since Buddy died in that plane crash and given that I’m not yet 50 obviously his death wasn’t really something that had any sort of impact on me…but his music did. I grew up with a lot of Buddy Holly, my dad had a pile of original albums (that I think he acquired from his brother and that are now in my posession/shed). There was a period in the mid 70s where me and school friend Dave would spend an awful lot of our breaks talking about Rock ‘n’ Roll. I remember we smuggled a cassette player in on one school sports day and sat on the field listening to some great music during the events we weren’t required to be a part of.

Dave, Greg and myself met up in Woking to go and see The Buddy Holly Story and then got chased around the streets of Woking by some hooligans – TheyDave and Greg lived in Woking so I dived on a train at the station and they probably got chased home. I enjoyed the film if not the after film entertainment.

Posted in Music, a nostalgia trip | 2 Comments »

Wikipedia > Britannica because…#4

Posted on January 30th, 2009 by Andy

Grand Moff Tarkin’s slippers.

Costuming difficulties resulted in a piece of trivia about Star Wars. He was presented with ill-fitting riding boots for the role and they pinched his feet so much that he was given permission by George Lucas to play the role wearing his slippers. The camera operators filmed him above the knees or standing behind the table of the conference room set.

Your search – “peter cushing” slippers site:britannica.com – did not match any documents.

Although this post grew out of an omission in Wikipedia. When I joined the Vegetarian Society way back when, I was overjoyed that the patron at the time was none other than Victor Frankenstein (or Van Helsing or Grand Moff Tarkin) and coming across his Wikipedia entry I noticed that it omitted to mention this. So I decided that it was worthy of addition and went off to find the appropriate evidence so that I could add it to the site. But it doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere. The Vegetarian Society misses a trick by not bothering to mention it. Britannica (obviously!) has nothing and scouring the Internet (and the research resources that my job gives me access to) provided no evidence that I can use in Wikipedia.

All I did discover was just what a lovely man Mr Cushing clearly was. As evidence I offer the vegetarianism, a bench in Whitstable and that Carrie Fisher “found it hard to deliver her lines to him and seem terrified [when she was] in the presence of a charming, polished man who smelled of ‘linen and lavender’“

In August it will be 15 years since Mr Cushing passed away.

Update: Gotcha! I had to go to the Internet Archive (wish I’d thought of that before!) to find it but here’s Peter Cushing’s Obituary from the Autumn 1994 edition of The Vegetarian (The Vegetarian Society’s magazine).

Posted in Wikipeida > Britannica because... | No Comments »

Just dug this one out #25 – Deep Purple In Rock

Posted on January 22nd, 2009 by Andy

Deep Purple in Hanwell

On his blog Music Arcades, David posts a piece about an album every day, the recordings are selected using a database and a random number generator. “Just dug this one out” was me trying to do something similar but my posts are sporadic and the randomness is the disoganised randomness of my head rather than database driven. The posts on Music Arcades contain a mix of (lots of) obscure, (some) familiar and (occasional) “I haven’t given that a thought for years”. Yesterday’s post about Deep Purple’s In Rock was one of the latter and I woke up in the early hours of this morning with a strange desire to listen to the album…and write about it. So here I am…doing both.

I didn’t have the album to hand, I suspect like much of my dubious past it lives in my dad’s shed. So I had to make do with the version that last.fm had on offer, which was of questionable origin, for example the version of Speed King never had the intro that David mentioned in his post (which was one of the things that got my appettite whet in the first place).

In Rock was an album (and Deep Purple were a band) that I was never really a fan of (although it was an album I owned). The Hard Rock/Heavy Metal distinction that David mentions was very important and the music I was listening to and loving during that period was most definitely Heavy Metal. Metal, to me at least, was less pretentious, more exciting, more about the “feeling” and less about the “music” – Motorhead were metal[1], Sabbath were metal and Deep Purple were rock, Gillan (the band) were metal even if Gillan the voice was rock. The late 70s rock graph looked like this (to me)…

punk <- – - -> metal <- – - -> hard rock <- – - – > prog
            ^
            |
            me

So In Rock was an album that meant very little to me and listening to it now there are only mild pangs of familiarity, although Ian Gillan’s voice is still something that gives me a buzz – maybe because it is the archetypal rock voice – although it probably makes me want to listen to bits of Glory Road rather than any more Deep Purple.

However, In Rock, puts where I live on the musical map. According to the astoundingly anal (and that’s said with genuine envy) Deep Purple Appreciation society website …

It was at Hanwell Community Centre that Mk 2 began their rehearsals and wrote much of their hard rock masterpiece “Deep Purple In Rock”.

Actually there’s more to Hanwell than just Deep Purple. The Wikipedia entry also mentions The Who, Marshall Amps, Jimi Hendrix and…errr…The Magic Numbers – and doesn’t, but could, mention Uriah Heap.

[1] although anywhere you find a discussion of Motorhead you’ll find an argument about what slot they fit into – it seems that some people see HM as something to be slightly embarrassed by and so try and find new (or in Motorhead’s case old) places to file the HM bands they love.

Posted in Music, just dug this one out | 1 Comment »