Friday Night Music Club Vol 37

And we’re back in the room!

Hello again, and here we go, bringing some joy and fab poppy tunes into your orbit on a Friday night.

And, on a strictly one-off basis, I’ve done sleeve notes for this one (I’ll leave it with you as to whether or not that’s a good thing…).

So, without further ado, let’s crack on shall we?

Friday Night Music Club Vol 37

1. Tindersticks – Can We Start Again?

Trust the Tindersticks to ask the unaskable question. The answer is, of course, in true Bob The Builder spirit, yes we can!

Tindersticks are wonderful, but, without wishing to sound all muso-snob, a bit of an acquired taste. Mostly, this is because many compare lead singer Stuart A. Staples to Vic Reeves in his pub singer mode:

Can’t see it myself…

2. Theaudience – A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed

Long before she was famous in her own right, and for doing Kitchen Discos during lockdown, Sophie Ellis-Bextor was in Theaudience, and this is one of their singles. Generally unloved and slated at the time by the music press, I really love this. Make of that what you will.

3. Juliana Hatfield – Everybody Loves Me But You

In case you’re perplexed, you know Juliana from the backing vocals she provided on the Lemonheads’ wonderful It’s a Shame About Ray and Come On Feel… albums. This is great in its own right.

4. Dolores Forever – Funeral

Sometimes inspiration hits you from an unlikely source. I follow stand-up comedian, actor and director Chris Addison on Twitter (I refuse to call it X, no matter how much Elon insists), and recently he did one of those things where, to alleviate the boredom of a long journey, he invited folks to ask him anything. One asked him where he was travelling back from, and he responded that he’d just been to see Dolores Forever. Such was his gushing about them, that I checked them out, and he was right. The next big thing? I dunno, but this is bloody great. Think a less potty-mouthed Wet Leg and you’ll get the giste (although that’s probably an extremely lazy comparison).

4. Smashing Pumpkins – Siva

Following the loudQUIETloud template, this, for me, is the Pumpkins’ finest moment.

5 The Stranglers – No More Heroes

This one doesn’t need any explantion does it? A classic.

6. Siouxsie & The Banshees – This Wheel’s On Fire

In 1987, Siouxsie and the boys released Through the Looking Glass, an album of cover versions, which I loved, even if it is a tad on the patchy side, It included this Dylan cover (although probably more famously done by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity) . Many of you will recognise this as being the theme tune to sit-com Absolutely Fabulous.

7. Sneaker Pimps – Spin Spin Sugar (Armand’s Dark Garage Mix)

Much as I love Sneaker Pimp’s debut (and let’s face it, best) album Becoming X, I love this remix even more.

8. The Blackout Crew – Put A Donk On It

To puncture any accusations of pomposity. If I remember right, Mark & Lard, or possible Radcliffe & Maconie used this as an i-dent, and many listeners assumed they had created it themselves. They hadn’t: it was this bunch of Goldie Lookin’ Chain wannabes.

9. Pop Will Eat Itself – R.S.V.P.

I haven’t checked, but I think this was the final single released before the Poppies went their seperate ways: Clint to become, suprisingly, a film score composer; the rest to become, briefly Bentley Rhythm Ace, and then to reunite as a touring concern on the retro 80s/90s circuit, Bless ’em. Still, this is great.

10. Justice vs Simian

When I worked for a fairly large and reputable insurance company (well, as reputable as any insurance company is), I was one day approached by a young lady who had been directed to me by a colleague as she wanted to know who did this song (“Ask Jez, he’ll know.”). Flattering, I know. I gladly told her, and also explained that Justice was not pronounced Justice, but Just-eece. Vital knowledge for the uninitiated wanting to look smart in converasation. All part of the service.

Also, and I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, I was once asked to provide the music for a house party, where the DJ had dropped out at the last minute. I dutifully prepared a run of 13 CDs, all around 60 minutes long (house parties can last a while…), to be played in order and consecutively, which I’d composed to mirror what I anticipated to be the flow of the evening: some slow burners at the start, a few indie classics later on, a banging dance one, which included this, a few hours in, when I (rightly) anticipated the ecstasy would have kicked in. This went down a storm, rightly, the reaction probably only bettered by the bloke who wanted to hug me for including Double Trouble & the Rebel MC’s Street Tuff on one of the earlier CDs.

11. The Charlatans – One To Another

Another needs-no-introduction-or-explanation tune.

12. The Aliens – Robot Man

When the Beta Band split, they went into two factions: Steve Mason, of whom I’m sure you’re aware, and the rest formed The Aliens, of whom very little has been heard ever since.

That said, their Astronomy for Dogs album, from which this is lifted, is worth a listen; this tune is included for the bit in the middle which always reminds me of the tune before.

13. Elton John – Are You Ready For Love (2003 Remix)

Robot Man to Rocket Man, seewhatIdidthere? I was reminded of this when, during his recent triumphant headlining slot at Glastonbury, he thanked Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim for repoplarising it. And rightly so, it’s a banger, but mentioning Norman and not his long-time collaborator Bernie Taupin still annoys me.

14. Judy Street – What

When I did my (half) Northern Soul mix last time around, it was bugging me as I knew I’d forgotten something important. My mind was jogged when watching the recent, wonderful Northern Soul at the Proms which you can watch here (and you should, it’s prett great):

15. Scott Walker – Jackie

I wanted a triumphant, orchestral climax to conclude my return, and what better than this? OK, you probably wouldn’t get away with some of these lyrics today but…it’s still pretty great, isn’t it?

That’s yer lot. More soon.

Friday Night Music Club

Welcome back. Time for Part Two of our questions/answers/lost/directions/yes-it-is-quite-a-broad-theme-this-isn’t-it? theme. And to get us going, there’s just one question that needs answering:

218. Tindersticks – Can We Start Again?

Yet another band I’m surprised I haven’t mentioned already on these pages. This is from their fourth album “Simple Pleasures”, which saw a change in direction from those that preceded it. Almost entirely gone were the earlier albums’ string laden lounge jazzy feel (I really haven’t done them justice there), replaced by a more snappy, soulful sound. “Simple Pleasures” may not be the Nottingham band’s best work, wonderful as it is, but it’s certainly their most accessible, a good stepping on point for the uninitiated. Plus it has an artfully shot nude woman on the cover. So y’know…something for everyone.

And if anyone is going to give us permission to start again, then who better than:

219. Teenage Fanclub – Start Again

On the bus on my way to work on Tuesday, as there were no discarded copies of the Metro for me to flick through, I had a quick browse of Twitter, where I spied this tweet:

Serendipity. Tickets purchased, I’ll be off to see The Fannies in Islington come September. I am already very excited. But not enough to start doing that annoying “149 sleeps” countdown thing people do when trying to appear cute.

Moving swiftly on, to this week’s entry into the “Bloody hell I’d forgotten all about them” hall of fame, this from 1992:

220. Mega City Four – Stop

Named after an area in cult comic “2000AD“‘s iconic “Judge Dredd” strip, and led by a chap called Wiz, who sadly passed away in 2006, my path crossed with theirs in 1989/1990.

My mate Ian was a huge fan, and he was delighted when we managed to book them to play the Student Union venue “Shafts” on his birthday. However, the night didn’t pass without incident.

In the weeks beforehand, we’d had a lot of problems with student-hating Paul Calf types coming onto the campus, and into the Union building and causing trouble: picking fights, smashing the place up, smearing shit all over the gents’ toilet walls. Lovely stuff. Something had to give, and at a meeting of the Student Union Executive, it was decided that anyone trying to gain access to the Student Union building without a Union Card would have to pay a £10.00 entrance fee. I argued against this, because that meant that any locals wanting to come to the gigs we were putting on would have to pay twice: once to get into the building and then again to get into the venue. I was out-voted though and wouldn’t you just know it, the first night these draconian measures were implemented was the night of the Mega City Four gig.

The band were, understandably, not happy, but kind of got round the problem, with my knowledge (I can’t call it with my permission, but I certainly didn’t do anything to prevent their plan being out into action after they suggested it to me), by adding anyone who had to pay to get into the building on to the guest list for the gig. I think they would have refunded the difference to them too, if they could have done.

After the gig, as the roadies and sound crew were disassembling all the gear, I wandered over to have a chat with Wiz, to thank him for coming and putting on a great gig, and apologised for the problem with the door. His response was: “Don’t worry about it mate. It’s not your fault. It’s those faceless bastards that make the decisions, it’s theirs”. I decided against telling him I’d been in the room when the decision was taken and had been powerless to stop it.

There’s a line in “Stop” which always reminds me of that moment:

“They say actions speak louder than words
Whoever they may be
Probably the one’s who’ll break your back
To bolster up their insecurity”

Now, I’m not saying that conversation inspired Wiz to write “Stop” but I’m also not saying that it didn’t…

I fear we are about to get trapped in some sort of stop/start vortex:

221. The Jam – Start!

I’m not going to dwell on this tune, as JC has recently finished discussing all of The Jam’s singles over at The (new) Vinyl Villain, so I’d suggest you pop over there is you want to learn more (like you don’t already read his blog anyway).

Instead, we’ll swirl around in the stop/start vortex a little more, with some outright, shameless pop:

222. Erasure – Stop!

 They don’t get the credit they deserve, Erasure. Lead warbler Andy Bell is from my home town of Peterborough, so from their first UK hit in 1986 (which coincided with me starting 6th Form), I’ve found it quite hard to ignore them, and there are very few people of my age from who find it hard not to feel a little proud of him. Let’s face it, Peterborough is not exactly a town blessed with famous pop stars; the only other one I’m aware of is Aston Merrygold of JLS, whoever they are.

And someone else…it’ll come to me…no, no, don’t tell me….

That can’t be it, can it? I decided to do some research, and found this: Famous People from Peterborough You can imagine my surprise when I found there were 226 names on the list. You can imagine my additional surprise when I read that number one on the list: “David Michael Krueger, best known by his birth name, Peter Woodcock, was a Canadian serial killer and child rapist“. Turns out, whoever compiled this list hadn’t realised that as well as a Peterborough in the UK, there’s also one in Ontario, Canada, and New Hampshire, USA.

Which makes 226 look like quite a low number, now I think of it.

Maxim from The Prodigy!! That’s who the other one was!! Which gives me an excuse to play this:

But I digress. Erasure were (and apparently still are – who knew?) a fabulous pop band, and “Stop!” is one of my favourites by them, containing as it does, about half way through, that cheeky little keyboard motif lifted from Donna Summer’s “Love’s Unkind”. You know the bit I mean:

And think yourselves lucky I didn’t post a link to former EastEnder Sophie Lawrence’s version.

Whilst we’re on perfect pop moments, let’s have a bit of this:

223. The Supremes – Stop! In the Name of Love

Back in the days before Miss Ross had elbowed herself to the top of the bill, but also before their photographer learned to give his camera lens a bit of a wipe before commencing the shoot, judging by the quality of the picture they used for the sleeve.

And now for a quick summary:

224. Biffy Clyro – Questions And Answers

This is one of their earlier singles, from 2003 to be precise, and before they became the unexpected subject of a cover version by 2010 X-Factor winner Matt Cardle.

Does anyone have any clue quite how that was allowed to happen, by the way?

I’m reminded of a Stewart Lee (yes, him again) routine about Jim Davison pinching Jimmy Carr’s jokes, which, in the middle of a much longer piece about Joe Pasquale, you can find here:

 You take my point, I think.

225. Queens of The Stone Age – Go With the Flow [Radio Edit]

Several years ago, I got…erm…acquainted with a young lady (who, gentleman that I am, shall remain nameless) on a works night out. We discussed our favourite records; mine included a few she didn’t know, hers included a few which made me question her intelligence. She came back to mine and…well, you know…some stuff happened. (See fellow music nerds – it can happen!!).

Before she made her way home, she asked me – yes, you read that right, she asked me – if I’d mind making her a mix CD of some of the songs I had been waxing lyrical about. Her taxi had barely pulled away when I started on it.

I mention this as a cautionary tale, for I compiled said CD, cramming it full of some of my favourites, without pausing to consider what kind of message my selections were sending out. Among them were: Kirsty MacColl’s “They Don’t Know”, The Go-Go’s “Our Lips Are Sealed”, the above Queens of the Stone Age track, and perhaps most ill-advisedly, a mash-up of Spanky Wilson’s version of “Sunshine of Your Love” and N*E*R*D’s “She Wants To Move” that I was particularly fond of at the time, and which had wittily been named “She Wants a Spank”.

Never heard from her again.

I was later told by a mutual friend that my selection or songs had given her the impression that I was some sort of secretive S&M gimp. I would have thought the sex-swing was a bigger clue.

(Just to be clear, that last sentence was a joke)

Ho hum. Lesson learned.

A few years ago, when I wasn’t working, as so often happens with people in the same situation, I found my sleep pattern all screwed up, sleeping all day and awake all night. Generally, my night times were filled watching the late night movies on Film 4, and it was in one such film that I first encountered our next tune. I have no idea what the film was called; it was a British film, set out in the countryside, had very little dialogue, and was quite an unsettling piece. Does anyone know what it’s called? (I know it has also been used in “The Place Beyond the Pines”, but it’s not that).

The record in question was this Bacharach/Hilliard composition:

226. The Cryin’ Shames – Please Stay

Back to something a tad poppier now, and of course when I talked about Erasure earlier, I deliberately omitted to mention the other half of the pop duo, Vince Clarke. Which is lucky, because here he is again:

227. Yazoo – Don’t Go

Bands Vince Clarke has been in:

• Depeche Mode
• Yazoo
• The Assembly
• Erasure

That’s not a bad strike rate is it?

Depeche Mode had their first hit in 1981, as anyone watching the run of old Top of The Pops currently being shown on BBC4 will attest – so that’s 35 years of pop, right there. Impressive.

Which is more than can be said for the next lot. Regular listeners to 6Music of an afternoon will recognise this from a shout-out on Radcliffe & Maconie’s show:

228. The Blackout Crew – Put a Donk on It

Please remember that if you must put a donk on something, you should seek the bill payer’s permission first.

Back in 1990, there was no such thing as a donk. We had to make do with donk-free records. Records like this:

229. James – Come Home (Flood Mix)

At the time, James were quite the merchandise marketeers, releasing a stream of clothing – t-shirts, hooded tops, etc etc – all bearing their insignia and the name of the current single. The one for Come Home was based on the sleeve of the single above, meaning it had the word Come on the front, and the word Home on the back. A mate of mine bought one, but rarely wore it, so sick was he of us all telling him “Oi mate, you’ve got come on your shirt”. Juvenile, but funny.

230. The Mighty Wah! – Come Back

That, my friends, is one of the most glorious records from the early 80s, and isn’t even the best record that Pete Wylie made, either in one of his many Wah-guises (Wah!; The Mighty Wah!; Wah! Heat) or solo or even when he was knocking around with Ian McCulloch, Pete Burns and Julian Cope in the late 1970s. One day I’ll get round to playing you the greatest. You probably already know what it is.

And that’s about it for this week. Just one more to wrap things up; this seemed appropriate given the amount of songs I could have posted, the amount that I decided against posting, and the fact that every time I thought I’d exhausted the topic another one popped into my head. Needless to say, I could have gone on for another week, at the very least. Maybe I’ll come back to it sometime (see what I did there?).

231. The Animals – We Gotta Get Out of This Place

More soon.