Yup, it’s Friday again, and what a relief it is to get here.
Tonight’s post is going to be brief, for reasons which will become clear if not by the end of this post, then certainly with the posts I’ll be writing for the weekend and next week.
This week sees the usual rag-tag of tunes, some of which were culled from last weeks’s sort-of-travelly theme. You’ll spot which ones, you’re smart cookies. Oh and a remix of a tune widely regarded to have one of the worst lyrics ever comitted to vinyl.
If I’m honest, had I had a little more time then I probably would have jiggled about with the running order at the end a little, but ho hum and hey ho, let’s go:
Toto – Africa (Nikko Full Vocal White Label Club Mix)
Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force – Planet Rock
Run-DMC – It’s Tricky
Tone Loc – Funky Cold Medina
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Whatever Happened To My Rock’n’Roll (Punk Song)
Sex Pistols – C’mon Everybody
Pixies – Planet of Sound
Ramones – Sheena is a Punk Rocker
Tenpole Tudor – Swords of a Thousand Men
And that’s it for another week. Actually, for another two weeks; there won’t be a new mix next Friday. I’ll be travelling to Leeds to attend a funeral, and although I will doubtless need cheeering up on the journey home, I don’t really think it’s appropriate for me to be posting a mix celebrating the event of Friday when my day will be spent in mourning with my family.
I’m cheating this week. And making no attempt to hide it.
Tonight’s mix has never featured on these pages before, but has appeared elsewhere on t’internet: over at JC’s ever magnificent The Vinyl Villain blog.
But this week I’m even more pressed for time than usual. I’m in the middle of composing a Christmasy mix for next week (you’ve been warned…) so I figured I may as well share this, in the unlikely event that anyone who comes here doesn’t also regularly frequent JC’s place and may have missed it. If that’s you, then have a word with yourself.
And since I’m using the same mix (actually, I have redone it to get rid of some of the skips which cropped up in the original mix – no need for the disclaimer that The Robster referred to in his post which reappeared over at No Badger Required a week or so ago), I may as well use the same words I did back then:
“Hello. My name is Jez and I am addicted to making playlists.
It has been three days since I put together my last playlist.
I’ve done mixes – compilation tapes, CD-mixes, playlists – for years now, always managing to find spaces where they could be heard: when I was younger, there were compilation tapes in the 6th Form common room, or in the motorway ‘restaurant’ I worked in during the holidays at 6th Form and at college (and for a year after I graduated). I would craft a new tape every other evening to take in the following day with which to wow my friends and work colleagues. Like snowflakes (the old usage of the term), no two were ever the same.
Becoming a DJ at college was almost inevitable and my plans for world domination moved on at pace: I started off by taking over the fortnightly Indie Night, before also becoming the regular DJ at the retro-80s night (which, incredibly, started in 1990), occasionally hosting the retro-60s & 70s night, playing between and after the bands on live music night, and eventually even the coveted Saturday night “Chartbuster” gig. (The fact that I was the Social Secretary and decided who got paid to DJ which nights was *coughs* entirely coincidental.)
After I graduated, I worked in a video shop for a few years, which only had a cassette player to play music through, so the compilation tapes kept coming. But as technology progressed I willingly followed, creating CD-mixes and then iPod playlists to soundtrack a Friday night with my flatmates, when we were too skint to go out, but between us could afford the ingredients to make several pints of White Russians all night until one of us inevitably fell asleep in the bathroom. This was the birth of the Friday Night Music Club which I’ve recently resurrected over at my place, A History of Dubious Taste (a link for which you can find over in the sidebar should you care to investigate further).
And of course, there was the far-more-frequent-than-I-care-to-admit compilation tape or CD-mix lovingly prepared for a young lady I was trying to impress. If you’ve ever read Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, (and if you’re reading this, then I would be extremely surprised if you haven’t) then you’ll know, if you didn’t already, that there are rules one has to observe when making one.
For example (and I’m paraphrasing here):
• Thou shalt not include the same artiste more than once in the same mix; and
• If there is a particular song which you want the recipient to hear thou shalt bury it somewhere towards the end of the mix (but not within the last three songs, and definitely not the final track) – mid-way through the second “side” of a C90 compilation tape should be about right
As you’ve probably guessed, it’s my love of putting together playlists which brings me here today. For last week, whilst laid up with a touch of the Covids and trying to decide what could feature in this week’s mix at my place (which is now last week’s mix, do try to keep up), the latest missive from our host dropped. It included a playlist, which, as one would expect from such an eminent source, was rather fine, featuring a load of songs with the word love in the title.
And there, at the end of the post, JC had written these words: if anyone out there wants to have a go, I’ll willingly make space for a guest posting.
Now, one of the things I love about doing a mix is trying to make a theme of it, but drunken flatmates would inevitably roll their eyes when I started to grill them as to what the theme might be each week, so I try to shy away from them these days (themes, that is: I got rid of all the flatmates years ago). But here was an invitation to create just such a thing, so I knocked this mix together and sent it to JC:
(Love is…also not caring that neither of you appear to have genitals…unless it’s just cold there….)
For a while now, every now and then, I would receive a message from a concerned reader, asking whether everything was ok, and telling me they hoped I started writing again.
This confused me, since bar the odd day or two here and there, I’ve been posting stuff much more regularly than I have for ages.
And then I realised that all of these messages had been left as comments on the same post, which I wrote way back in May this year.
So I investigated, and it turns out said post was the last time I “stuck” a post to the top of the blog. This is a function available here on WordPress which I never used to tick when completing a post, but when I noticed it, I figured it ensured that when people visit my blog it would be the first post they saw.
Which it does. I mean I have to commend them, it works brilliantly.
But this function is akin to having a Pinned Tweet on your timeline on Twitter. And because I then began ticking the “Stick Post to the Top of the Blog” box for a couple of months, throughout pretty much all of April and May, that meant that all of those “stuck” posts appeared, in sequence, before anything else more recent that I’ve posted appears.
So I spent Tuesday night going through them all and making them…erm…unsticky. Normal service should now resume.
And here’s two songs which were rattling round my head as I was doing it, the first of which is another track by the recently featured Little Boots which, as with the last tune I posted by her, it doesn’t seem to have got a commercial release, remaining reserved for white label affcianados :
And this one, the tenth single from The Wedding Present’s Hit Parade series, where they released one limited edition 7″ single at the start of each month for a whole year:
Rule No. 1: If you’re going to pick a song by a very well known, recently deceased person, don’t pick one of the songs he was was most known by.
For example: don’t go “Freddie’s dead? I’d better do a cover of Don’t Stop Me Now to show my empathy.”
Pick a semi-obscure sort of hit single from the mid-80s when they weren’t with their band and therefore attracting lots of attention. And then wait a while.
Freddie has a Metropolis lolly, and having a Metropolos lolly is the international sign language for anybody wishing to cover his songs.
And so, observing and understanding the bat-signal Freddie-flounce, several years later, you make this (which I don’t think ever got an official release – I picked this up on of those Buffetlibre promos that did the rounds 15 years or so again) happen:
Right, you can all stop checking the time, here it is, three weeks late, but that’s better than another super-long hiatus, surely?
More mega than a fleet of MegaBuses, yes! It’s time to check the buffering capabilities of your hardware and internet provider as we launch into the latest instalment of The Chain.
And what a selection we have for you this week!
But before we get started, some admin. The more observant of you will have spotted a new page link over there on the left entitled “The Chain – The Rules”. You’ll never guess what you see if you click that!
I mention this because there would have been a couple of disqualifications this week for (unintentional) breaches of the rules; luckily one of the transgressors realised and suggested an alternative link.
The easiest rule to break is suggesting a song which has already featured, and I appreciate with around 1000 songs having featured so far this can be somewhat tricky to keep up with. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in the process of writing up a definitive list of every song which has featured so far, but until I’ve got round to finishing that (and writing The actual Chain takes up a fair bit of time when I could be doing that), if you want to check your options are:
1) Read every previous edition of The Chain (bit time consuming that one)
2) Check the Tags down the left-hand side; if the act you wish to suggest is not listed there, then you’re fine (assuming I remembered to add them, of course). If it is listed, click their name and you’ll be taken to every page that a song by them has featured on and you can check that way.
3) Email me at dubioustaste26@gmail.com and I’ll check and get back to you.
OK, admin over, let’s remind ourselves of the source record for this week:
The biggest source of linkage this week was the “Echo” part of the song title, so let’s get cracking with one of mine. Since an echo is something happening again, this seems to be an appropriate place to start:
So, who else provided echo-based suggestions? Well, here’s Alex G of the temporarily (I hope) dormant We Will Have Salad to provide not just a suggestion, but also a definition of “echo”, which saves me the bother of having to copy and paste something from an online dictionary to justify some of the other suggestions I’ve come up with:
“… an echo is an acoustic phenomenon caused by sound bouncing off walls. And ceilings. And other things. But it’s the first one which concerns us here, because it leads me to suggest….”
Unsurprisingly, several of you (well, five actually) proposed records by Echo & The Bunnymen, so we may as well get one of those out of the way next, and it’s over to Swiss Adam of Bagging Area fame, with his second suggestion. (No, you haven’t blinked and missed his first, that’s coming in a while. It’s called editing.)
“Echo and the Bunnymen…sang ‘Silver (Tidal Wave)’, a beach connection there too.”
Yes indeed, that’s your first – of many, it has to be said – double linkers of the week right there. Points!
Next to one of several songs this week that I had never heard of before the suggestions came flooding in, this one courtesy of The Swede from Unthought of, though, somehow who proposed this by Cavern of Anti-Matter who, for the uninitiated (i.e. me), are Joe Dilworth and Tim Gane, formerly of Stereolab, possibly one of the most missed and most under-rated (if that’s not a contradiction, and if it is, I’m sure it’s one which would please them immensely) bands of the last twenty years or so:
I like that. A lot. Thanks for nudging it under my nose, Swede.
Which leads us quite nicely onto another suggestion by Alex G:
“When they recorded ‘Echo Beach’, Martha And The Muffins’ drummer was one Tim Gane. Another Tim Gane was more famously (not *much* more famously, I admit) the lead guitarist of McCarthy and Stereolab. [I just told them that – Ed] So I’ll go for….”
And since that takes us back into 1980s indie territory, that makes it time for another Echo & The Bunnymen track, this one proposed by Alyson from What’s it All About?:
“…double link there if I’m not mistaken…” pleads Alyson. Hmmm…Echo, yes…Seas -> Beach…what do you reckon, Chain Gangers? Oh go on then: Points!
I first posted that song way back in August 2015, accompanied by a retelling of one of the many faux pas I’ve committed over the years. Since some of you may not have frequented these pages that long ago, indulge me for a moment whilst I relate this one, which took place circa 1984, as I waited for the school bus and found myself chatting to one of the “cool kids” at school. He liked cool music (i.e. not Quo) and during this conversation he extolled the virtues of ‘Seven Seas’. My response, a rather pathetic and, as it transpired, ill-judged, attempt to ingratiate myself, was to talk at length about the lead singer fire-eating on Top of the Pops and how impressive he was. I realised mid-flow that my conversation piece was attracting some quizzical looks. And that was because I had completely mis-heard him. When he had said ‘Seven Seas’, I had thought he had said this song title:
Not cool, just…not.
Anyway, moving swiftly on, here’s Walter from A Few Good Times in My Life with the scecond song this week that I’ve never heard before. Over to you Walter:
“They might be forgotten but this song is still worth to listen to sometimes…”
Actually, that was Walter’s second suggestion. His first was for an Echo & The Bunnymen track, and I think enough time has passed since the last one to allow me to post his, which needs no introduction:
Now, a couple of you picked up on the Echo/Repeat/Again angle, but to explain how The Great Gog (who appears to still be doing DIY) got there, we’ll have to take a slight – but relevant – detour:
“Martha And The Muffins’ follow-up to ‘Echo Beach’ was called Saigon, the former name for a city in Vietnam whose new name I can’t accurately spell. This gives rise to…”
Which leads us on to a very brief sub-category, those of song titles which repeat, or, you might say, echo themselves. This is by far my favourite category of the week. You’ll see why. Julian from Music from Magazines suggested this, which probably doesn’t need any further explanation:
The Quo, there, demonstrating on the record sleeve their renowned empathy for the Black Power movement.
And that brings to an end that sub-category of song titles which repeat, or, you might say, echo themselves.
You know what I haven’t said for a while? I haven’t said the words: “And here’s the next suggestion of an Echo & the Bunnymen song, this time by *insert name of Chain Gang member here*“. I feel an overwhelming need to say it again. But not just yet. I’ll wait til I’m asked.
And here’s the next suggestion of an Echo & the Bunnymen song, this time by Dirk from sexyloser with the closest we’ve had to a Showboating Suggestion so far:
“Nominated to be one of the world’s most beautiful beaches back in 2012, 2014 and 2015 was Burundi’s coast fronting Lake Tanganyika: if you’ve never been there, you really have missed a treat, I can tell you!
So obviously the correct link can only be Echo & The Burundimen (yes, it’s the Bunnymen in disguise, but still I haven’t made that [name] up, just listen to McCulloch’s intro!) and ‘Zimbo’, the 1982 Shepton Mallet live version though!”
Which very nearly brings us to the end of the Echo section. Except…
Except I can’t believe nobody suggested anything by this lot. This is the first single I ever bought by them, before they’d properly found their feet and commercial success:
And that does bring us to the end of the Echo section. Except…
Except, you’ll recall that I mentioned five of you had suggested songs by Echo & The Bunnymen, and so far we’ve only had four. Well, GMFree suggested their rather wonderful comeback single ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’ but then ploughed through the entire history of suggestions in The Chain and retracted that on the grounds that it had featured back in #31 so I wouldn’t have been able to allow it. (Oh, and whilst I’m on songs I couldn’t allow – Lynchiefromab, if you check the Comments in the last Chain, you’ll see that I wasn’t sure if yours were suggestions or just recommendations; if the latter then, thank you, and you’re right, but if the former than I couldn’t allow either of them as they contravene rule No. 6: “Suggestions must be more than just naming a different song by the same artist. You’re cleverer than that.” And I know that you are. Sorry!) However, GMFree did propose a different Echo & The Bunnymen track, a cover version, but suggested that I might post the original instead, since the performers have never featured in The Chain before.
And that really does bring us to the end of the Echo section. Except…
Except, speaking of strange people, and making suggestions which kind of echo, here’s Jules again, and strangely he hasn’t proffered anything by Lambchop this week. Instead:
In case you’ve no idea what Jules is blethering on about, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy is the best known stage name of Will Oldham, but he has also recorded under variations of the Palace name, including the Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music. As you know, I prefer it if there’s only one suggestion per person for the same band, but since these two versions are so different, and since they were recorded under different monikers, and since I allowed GMFree to suggest more than one tune by Steven Jones last week for the same reason, I guess I’ll have to let it slide this time.
Speaking of GMFree and Steven Jones:
“Mentioning Mr Jones is too easy on this occasion as Babybird was signed to the Echo label, instead I’ll just suggest one track from his 27th (!) album as Black Reindeer…available through Bandcamp.”
Now, I wouldn’t normally buy a track specifically for The Chain, preferring the suggester to provide me with a copy, but I was intrigued by that title so I downloaded that song from the band’s Bandcamp page, as recommended. And shortly afterwards, I got an email from Steven Jones which read: “Ooh a bit topical that purchase Sx”. Which was nice. So I’ll not complain about being out of pocket. This time.
You’d have to have had your head buried in the (beach) sand to not understand what he was referring to, and as it happens, this was not the only track which referenced the forthcoming apocalypse.
“‘Echo Beach’ puts me in mind of the 1959 film ‘On the Beach’, which depicts the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war. (Not a surprising image, considering the current state of affairs, I suppose.) The film stars Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins and is based on Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel. Anyway, as I’ll use any excuse to post some black gospel quartet music, my selection is the 1950 ‘a capella’ version of…”
Well, bar that last little excursion, we appear to not only be in nuclear war related territory – cheerful! – but also Beach related, so let’s have some more of those. And since that last song contains the lyric “Hello New Order!”, it seems appropriate for us to go back and find out what Swiss Adam’s other suggestion was:
“‘Echo Beach’ takes me to the remixed version of Blue Monday from its b-side in ’83…”
Bet you’re expecting me to suggest something by The Smiths now, right? Close, but no cigar. Instead, the greatest song about a seaside resort (that isn’t Echo Beach, of course):
So, having exhausted all of the suggestions about echoes, beaches and, of course, Nazis and impending nuclear doom, we’ll move onto something a lot nicer. Back to Martin who suggests this as a double linker:
And the thinking behind this double-linker? Well, for a start, the original is by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas (we’ll be coming back to some more Martha’s shortly), but also:
“…because you often get jam in the middle of a cake, and a muffin is a type of cake, so yes, I am making a blatant play for a double-linker (and The Jam’s version is, ahem, ace).”
Yes it is, and that’s a succesful double-linker play too. Points!
Do I need to get a shiny gameshow host jacket to wear whilst I write this, do you reckon?
But Martin’s not done there, oh no:
“Talking of muffins being a type of cake, I must also throw in [this] by Kiwi tunesmiths Crowded House:”
Which leads me onto this, a track lifted from one of those typically patchy tribute albums that were all the rage once upon a time one of those tribute albums, which were all the rage once upon a time, and which could (typically) be a little on the patchy side (and this one really is patchy).
In case you’re wondering what that’s doing there, give it a listen partly as there’s an extra verse, not in the original, which links to Martin’s last choice, but mostly because it’s an utterly wigged-out mental cover version.
And whilst we’re still on chocolate cake, it’s about time I posted another clip:
Right, that’s Muffins pretty much covered, right?
Well, actually, not quite. Here’s Rol from My Top Ten:
“Muffin was a Mule and a Mule is sort of like an Ass… though very slightly different.” Which brings us to, rather rudely:
Let’s have some Echo Beach/Martha and the Muffins facts to raise the tone a little.
Fact One: Martha and the Muffins are Canadian.
“Plenty of Canadian bands/artist to choose from,” chips in Rigid Digit of Stuff & Nonsense, “including: Rush (but who has time to listen to the whole of Side 1 of ‘2112’?), Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bryan Adams and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. All too obvious, but this bunch of Canadian one-hit wonders…:”
“Did you know,” pipes up George, inadvertently providing Fact Two, “that Echo Beach has been voted the 35th greatest Canadian song of all time? The greatest song is the execrable song ‘Four Strong Winds’ by Ian and Sylvia, which must surely get the Worst Song vote.”
Well, I’ll happily do that George, although you realise that would mean you’d have to agree the Chas & Dave record is better…? Along with two other songs yet to feature that we all know you’ll hate….?
Four strong winds, you say? Here’s four in varying levels of strength.
The ease and squeeze:
2. The Pant Ripper (a classic):
3. The Preposterously Executed:
and 4. The Accidental Decongestant:
Right, that’s…erm…got that out of my system. More factoids please!
Fact Three, courtesy of babylotti:
“‘Echo Beach’ was released in 1980 on DinDisc records, another record that was released in 1980 on Dindisc records, and one that I still have (okay, it was a re-release in 1980, but that’s the one I have) is…:
Before we get on to the final category, time for those two songs which George won’t like, the first of which is suggested by Alyson, and I think this one wins the award for Comment Showboat of the week (or have I already awarded that? I don’t know, I’m tired…). George, sorry, I was going to leave these two till last to make it easier for you to ignore them, but thematically they kind of need to be posted earlier.
Anyway, here’s Alyson’s suggestion:
“Martha’s Vineyard is actually a small island off the State of Massachusetts. It faces out onto the Atlantic and it’s where they filmed ‘Jaws’. The fake shark they used for the movie was given the name Bruce.” Which leads us to:
And so on to the final category, songs which link to Martha. And we’ll start off with my own double-linker for the week.
There’s a well known phrase in certain communities: “Is he Arthur or Martha?”. Well, here’s an Arthur, Arthur Lee to be precise, and he and his band are going to sing a Love-Lee song which has an Echo/Repeat/Again link too. Points please!
“First thought – got Martha on my mind now so I’d like to offer one of those songs that surely everybody knows and surely everybody likes? What better time for an office clerk with a very boring job to go down to Echo Beach than during a heatwave, too?”
Next up on the oche is The Robster from Is This The Life? Now, a few weeks ago, Rob announced that he was thinking about stopping writing his blog as he was feeling devoid of inspiration and was just going through the motions. I’ve often felt the same about this place, and I know others in our little blogging community have too. You may not know that Rob lives not a million miles away from where I used to in South Wales, and I love his blog for it keeps me in touch with what’s going on down in and around my old stomping ground so I’m delighted that he’s decided – for now – to keep going, albeit with less frequent posts.
I mention all this not to put any unintentional pressure on him to carry on, but because having cut back on his posts he seems to have gone a bit stir crazy, suggesting “I’m a Man” by The Spencer Davis Group on the basis that Martha & The Muffins were an all-male band. Getting confused by that whole “Arthur or Martha” issue there, I think.
To be fair, Rob did correct himself almost immediately (with a little help from Alex G, who I can confirm is not a qualified doctor, but is a very keen enthusiast), and redeemed himself by suggesting this, another of the records I’d never heard before, and which I’m really quite pleased that I have now. And it’s a double pointer, featuring as it does a Martha and “two items you might see at a beach”:
“In May last year I concluded a post containing one of [his suggested artists’s] fine songs, by saying that I’d return to his music soon – a promise I’ve yet to keep. I must remedy that situation.”
And having heard this, I think I’ll be joining you to investigate further:
Time for Abramson60 next, who…erm…echoes some of the sentiments raised earlier:
“Looks like things are getting worse and worse US of A side, can it really get any worse? My suggestion this week could well be aimed at that excuse for a human being, Trump. No need to explain the link?”
Nope, but this young lady certainly needs to wash her potty-mouth out with soap and water:
Another from Alex G now, who suggests “…a lovely song which is never played on the radio because if it was, everybody would stop what they were doing to listen, at a cost to the UK economy of several squillion pounds.”
I agree, it is a lovely song, although I suspect were it played more often, people would stop what they were doing to remember when – and I’m sorry to bring it up again (I’m not in the least bit sorry, as it goes) – this happened:
More from Rol next, who suggests this next song on the grounds that a) it has the word “Martha” in the title, b) it doesn’t have any other words in the title, and c) he “…can’t believe nobody’s suggested it yet…”
George is back with another suggestion: “I’m hoping no one has suggested a link from Martha Johnson (that would be the Martha of Martha and the Muffins) to….:”
As it happens, George has sort of gone down a route I explored, only I sought out other famous Marthas and linked from there. And here’s what I came up with:
Firstly, this which features Martha Wash, who was one half of The Weather Girls, but you’ll forgive for not posting anything by them, I hope:
And the presidential links don’t end there, for there was also of course Martha Jefferson, wife to Thomas, who became 3rd President of The United States in 1801. Martha would have been the third First Lady, had she not rather inconveniently died in 1782. Anyway, this Martha leads me to this ground-breaking house record from 1986:
And the other is…well, Mrs GMFree was not alone in suggesting it, for it was also proposed by Rigid Digit (and I thought one other person too, but I’m buggered if I can spot who it was now. If you suggested it and I have omitted to credit you, make yourself known and I’ll amend this bit).
Which means that for the first time ever, we have two people correctly guessing the next record in The Official Chain, which, with the simple explanation of “From one Martha to another…” is this:
So to wrap things up, your suggestions, please, for songs which link to “Martha My Dear” by The Beatles, along with a brief description of the link, via the Comments Section down below, in time for the next edition. Whenever that might be.
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A History of Dubious Taste 