Him or Me…Battle of the bands

I’ve known the original since I was a kid due to it being part of my brothers collection so I bought the Banned version out of curiosity. The original wins on energy, vocals, style and, well…being the original. I’m told it was a favourite with John Peel back in the day. The remake gets by on cockney charm. But that’s just my opinion. See for yourselves:

mp3: Paul Revere and The Raiders - Him or Me (1967)
There used to be a good Youtube clip of this but now there’s just a very poor quality one. It’s worth seeking out just for a look at their silly stage clothes that stopped them being taken seriously.

mp3: The Banned - Him or Me (1978)
I’ve just found out The Banned have reformed and recorded a new version of their first single Little Girl and a cover of Friday On My Mind. They are available to download from their website.

Leaving it All Behind

I bought this record back in 1979 purely because I noticed Charlie Tumahai, previously of Be Bop Deluxe, on the cover. At the time I thought it was ok but not really my thing. It’s a sort of light funk/soft rock hybrid with nice harmonies and a cracking tune. All that went over my head a bit in those heady new wave days but I re-discovered it in the mid 80s and I’ve considered it a lost gem ever since.

mp3: The Dukes - Leaving It All Behind (1979)

Charlie Tumahai was bass player and backing vocalist for Be Bop Deluxe from their 2nd album onwards. His singing features more prominently on this song than any other I can think of (not including live recordings):

mp3: Be Bop Deluxe - Forbidden Lovers (1976) (Buy)

The Dukes were a bit of a sideman supergroup as they also featured Jimmy McCulloch, who had previously played in numerous bands including Thunderclap Newman and Wings for whom he wrote and recorded the rather splendid (and possibly autobiographical) Wino Junko.

mp3: Wings - Wino Junko (1976) (Buy)

So how do robots praise their God?

Inspired by the Delia Derbyshire post over at Art Decade.

Delia Derbyshire was a pioneer in electronic music who worked for many years for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, her most famous work probably being her performance of Ron Grainer’s Doctor Who theme.

I first heard this about five years ago on a BBC documentary called Alchemists of Sound. The whole show was fascinating but this was the most memorable piece of music in it. It’s from a 1966 episode of Out of the Unknown, based on an Isaac Asimov story, called The Prophet. A piece of music of robots singing praise to their ‘God’ was required. I’ll borrow some words from Delia Derbyshire interviews to describe it:

"I did the music for the whole programme. It was probably in the mid '60s. [...] I never watched the stuff. I had a script, that's all. The actors, I got them to chant. The words they were singing were, "Praise to the master, his wisdom and his [reason]" [...] I turned it backwards first, then chose the best bits that sounded good backwards and would fit into a rhythm, and then speed-changed the voices. Then I used just this one bar repeated which had [previously] been rejected from a science and health program for being too lascivious for the schoolchildren. It was like a science program... it was supposed to be about sex, but under another name. And then the producer had the nerve to turn down my music, saying it was too lascivious. It was just twangy things with electronic pick-ups, and I just used a single note and then did little glissandos on it and pitched it and treated it. But the 'Ooh-ooh-ooh' isn't me... that's wobbulator, pure wobbulator. That's a piece of test equipment that does wave sweeps."

But that’s just words. Listen for yourself. Just under two minutes of brilliance.

mp3: Delia Derbyshire - Ziwzih Ziwzih OO-OO-OO

Doh!

Excuse me but I am drunk while I’m writing this…

A couple of weeks ago I happened upon a wonderful blog called Star Maker Machine which has the simple but brilliant idea of having a weekly theme for contributors to post songs on. They have regular contributors but also encourage outside contributions. Next weeks theme is particularly good: They plan to post 50 songs with the name of an American state in the title (and nobody is sure if there is a song for every state). This immediately got me thinking. I’ve got loads of songs with American states (Idaho, California, Georgia, Arkansas, Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, Indiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi immediately sprang to mind) in the title. After a while I couldn’t get a certain Jonathan Richman song out of my head but alarm bells started ringing. I checked with Wikipedia and sure enough New England is not a state but a region consisting of six states (this, of course, won’t be news to my American readers). Still a bloody good song though.

One thing I particularly like about this song is all my friends and family said “What the f*** did you buy that for?” Always a good sign! I thought it had something and I remain unrepentant.

mp3: The Modern Lovers - New England (Live) (1977)

Sadly, a lovely American girl from Boston I worked with in the 90’s always talked about how great New England was but she had never heard of Jonathan Richman. I always imagined he was a local hero.

Let’s go pre punk…

The comments on my OffBEAT post turned into a bit of a ‘my first live band’ thread so I’ve decided to run with that. My first live band was Daryl Hall and John Oates which may surprise some of you. Most of my interesting, unusual or rare vinyl is from the new wave era so that’s what I usually post, but I started collecting before that and Hall & Oates were one of my early faves. In fact, I think they were the first band that was totally my discovery, completely independent of friends and family.

Anyhow, this discussion led BrotheRay (54) from Dorset to proclaim ‘Gino’, a largely forgotten Hall & Oates song, ‘one of the great seventies singles’ and he may have a point. I’m pretty sure I picked it up for 10p in 1976 (it was released in 1975) and it quickly became a favourite in our house. At the time I used to do impressions of my dad which he knew nothing about (or so I thought but that’s another story) and I found it particularly amusing to have him sing ‘Gino-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no…’ You probably had to be there but, believe me, it was funny at the time. For any other Hall & Oates fans out there the mix on this single is punchier and better than the version that appeared on the 1975 ‘Silver Album’, still their best in my opinion.

mp3: Daryl Hall and John Oates - Gino (The Manager)(SingleVersion) (1975)

Trivia: When I got my USB turntable on Christmas day 2006 this was one of the first singles I ripped.

It's so high...

Just because I don’t post as often as I would like don’t for one minute imagine I’ve run out of old synthpop records. This reached #50 in the summer of 1983.

Matt Fretton supported Eurythmics, Depeche Mode & The Boomtown Rats, released four singles and recorded an unreleased album in the 80s. I loved this at the time so it’s odd that I don’t remember seeing or hearing any of the follow ups. You can hear more at his myspace page.

mp3: Matt Fretton - It's So High (1983)

OffBEAT CD

In these days of CDs and DVDs being given away by newspapers and magazines on a regular basis it’s easy to forget that they used to be expensive and a free cover mount CD was quite a novelty. This is from 1989 and it’s called Offbeat, which was probably the name of the magazine but I can’t remember for sure. It’s a Parlophone sampler featuring five acts of the day and quite an eclectic collection it is too.

1 Marc Almond – Tears Run Rings (Extended Exclusive Mix)
It’s described as the ‘Extended Exclusive Mix’. No idea how exclusive it is now.

2 Goodbye Mr. MacKenzie – Green On Red
Goodbye Mr. MacKenzie are one of those bands I remember hearing about more than hearing if that makes sense. They are probably best known now for featuring Shirley Manson, later of Garbage, as a keyboard player and background vocalist. According to CDDB this is called Green On Red but I believe the correct title is Green Turn Red. Whatever the title it’s a good late 80s indie dance song.

3 The Neighbourhood – Big Long Line
The least interesting song on the CD in my opinion. It sounds a bit Hue and Cry to me.

4 Bliss - Your Love Meant Everything
If memory serves this was a single on an indie label but I’m not sure if this is the original single version. This features a brilliant heartfelt vocal by Rachel Morrison. Bliss was another of those bands that came and went without me really taking any notice but they sound quite interesting now. As much as I love this I think I felt at the time a whole album of this would do my head in.

5 Zeke Manyika - Bible Belt
The pick of the bunch here. If you only download one of these songs make it this brilliant anti apartheid song.