The Pop Music from my area is superior to the Pop Music from your area in every way.

Perhaps I’m a little biased, but I’ve always been aware that Scottish Pop Music is the best in the world. Not to mention our choreography, costume design, and television production. Too prove it, here’s Lulu making a guest appearance on Shang-a-Lang, the Bay City Rollers’ astonishingly good TV show from the mid-seventies.

Bonnie and the Treasures—Home of the Brave

“Home of the Brave, Land of the Free
Oh why won’t they let him be what he wants to be?”

I heard this song only once, thirty years ago, but those lines from the chorus have been stuck in my head ever since. John Peel was playing selections from an album of Phil Spector rarities on his weekday-evening show, and this one stuck out. Of course human memory is fallible: I distinctly remember the artist as “Ronnie and the Relatives” which of course was the name Veronica (Ronnie Spector) Bennet, Estelle Bennet and Nedra Talley used before they became the Ronettes. But then, they had become the Ronettes before they’d even met Crazy Phil. Who knows; maybe Peelie also played a Ronnie & the Relatives track that night, and my faulty memory conflated the two.

I’m not alone in this confusion: any online discussion of this little gem of a record sooner or later has somebody stating that Bonnie is Ronnie Spector as an absolute fact. Hey, even Ronnie herself is on record as agreeing. But now I can actually here the record again, I’d have to disagree: there is a similarity, but that’s mostly in the Spector wall-o’-sound treatment (actually produced by Spector protogé Jerry Riopelle). This vocalist sounds like Ronnie would if you took the Washington Heights out of her voice. And who on earth would want to do that?

No, the packet switching muse tells me that Bonnie is in fact Charlotte O’Hara, a talented singer and songwriter who never really made it, and died tragically young.

So why did it stick in my mind all these years? It’s a good bad-boy song in the manner of He’s a Rebel or even Leader of the Pack (but no death, though). Seems like a reasonable Spectory production, although this copy is particularly poor quality, and wall-of-sound quickly turns to wall-of-mush once we move too far from the hi-fi. But the main reason has to be the sentiment. Us pinko limey bastards, like all foreign bleeding-heart liberal cowards, have a love-hate relationship with Yankee Culture. We Hate the Rednecks, but in our hearts of hearts we know that nobody ever heard a good commie rock and roll record (Well, apart from Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’ maybe). But here we have a pop record comparing and contrasting the USA’s Liberty-loving rhetoric with the reality of deeply conservative conformist suburban culture.

If you’re having trouble hearing the lyrics, you can always try Jody Miller's hit version from the same year (1965).

I’m trying out a new way of embedding the sound here: I’d appreciate comments if you can’t play this, or even just to confirm that you can. Thanks!

Download Bonnie and the Treasures—Home of the Brave from Rapidshare

Janie Jones — Witches Brew

Mention Janie Jones, and people about my age think “He’s in love with Rock & Roll whoah...” the song Janie Jones from the first Clash album. If you’re a bit younger, you may be be thinking of the lazy carbon-copy Babyshambles cover version (Look! there’s Janie!). Or if you’re older, you'll perhaps remember the scandal and the vice: court cases accusing her of attempted blackmail (got off) running a brothel (got off), and sex payola (banged up).

But you real old codgers out there might remember this: the nearest thing she got to a hit (Number 46) in her short mid-sixties pop career.

Janie never seems to settle into a consistant vocal style, floating in a grey area somewhere between Terry-lovin’ Twinkle and Commie-lovin’ Eartha Kitt. Backing vocals sound like average sixties beat boys. The music has a relentless, piano-driven simplicity, like a lounge band who’ve been asked to cover a Velvet Underground song. And mixed heavily over the whole thing, a gloopy, burbly, bubbling sound wash, supposedly representing the witch’s, erm, brew, but it sounds more like a malfunctioning cistern to me. Glorious.

Listen:

Download it from rapidshare: Witches Brew.

Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers — Not Yet Three

A pop star once asked what my favourite Jonathan Richman album was. I reckon it was a test to find out if I was a true believin’ JoJo Junkie, or just a Hipster Dilettante. I fluffed the test a little: while my choice was suitably obscure (Jonathan Sings from 1983), I spoiled the effect by forgetting the title of the album: “Erm, the one with Not Yet Three on it.” was my reply.

So here’s Not Yet Three, a minor Jonathan Masterpiece, about his little daughter’s ravenous hunger for life. Like all Jonathan’s best songs, it dances skillfully on the sublime knife-edge between maudlin sentimentality and subtle joy. Even bitter childless cynics like myself cannot resist.

But I don’t enjoy Jonathan’s live gigs anymore: on the rare occasion he gets to my town, the audience is jammed with loud, sycophantic JoJo Boosters. I feel a rant coming on…

Listen punks: I love Jonathan at least as much as you: I’ve got at least as many of his records as you: I know the words to most of his songs like you do: but I didn’t come here to show off about it: I came to hear Jonathan sing; and I won’t sing along because his songs are living, changing things, and every time he comes, the songs have changed, polished, evolved, twisted: but I CAN’T HEAR THE CHANGES because you’re BELLOWING OVER IT. it’s like spray-painting “I’M MARK ROTHKO’S BIGGEST FAN” all over a Mark Rothko canvas.

Rant Over. Enjoy.

Listen:

Download it from rapidshare: Not Yet Three.

Jerry Levitan - I Met The Walrus

More lazy shoving-in of stuff other people have found. Here's I Met The Walrus, a short animation based on a conversation with John Lennon taped in 1969 in Toronto by 14-year-old a Jerry Levitan. It's a good example of Lennon's mercurial, infuriating, never boring, constant, rapid shifting between hippie mysticism and political astuteness; wrapped up in animation that refers to both sixties psychedelic surrealism and today's post-everything dada-cynicism.

Directed by Josh Raskin, Pen work by James Braithwaite, digital illustration by Alex Kurina.

Credit where it’s due: I found this on Jack Shedd’s Big Contrarian blog.

Lucy in London

I try to avoid just shoving in stuff I've found elsewhere, but I can't avoid showing you this. After all it's got two iconic "hate-to-love-to-hate" figures of mine: Lucille Ball (of course), and driving her around Swingin' London in his motorbike & sidecar, the great Tony Newley.

All credit to Will Kane's splendid World of Kane blog, and the unhealthily obsessive Lucy in London fan site.

Zigzag 86—August 1978

Back at my folks’ house a few weeks ago, my Dad gave me a box: inside were various bits of paper, notes, magazines, fanzines, and concert programmes from the late seventies: the last kibble left behind when I left home.

Among the gems (more later) was this Zigzag. Founded by Pete Frame in 1969, this well-respected British Rock Journal had, by 1978, come thoroughly under the Punk Spell, thanks to new editor Kris Needs.

The layout is a curious hybrid: text is mostly properly typset (which in those pre-DTP days meant professional) but the subject matter and the then-current DIY aesthetic meant that layouts also included felt-tip scribbly headlines, rules and page numbers, giving a more fanzine-ish feel.

Like everybody else, I know in my heart-of-hearts that the music being made when I was in my teens is the absolute, ultimate, best ever. So if you’re in your mid forties like me, you’re sure to enjoy these articles on The Raincoats, Suicide, John Otway, Steel Pulse and The Human League. Even the piece on cover stars The Rich Kids is an interesting bit of “Slik-Pistols-Vox-Visage-Pistols-again” history. And there’s a column by the great John Walters to boot.

But the best piece has to be the interview with my then-favourite band, The Rezillos, by Cramps Legionnaire Lindsay Hutton. Here’s the Rezillos piece (click for bigger, readable pages):

...and here’s the whole magazine, rapidshared:
In Acrobat format
In Comic Reader format
As a ZIP archive of JPEG pages.

Harry Roy & His Bat Club Boys — My Girl’s Pussy

While searching for recordings of R. Crumb’s Sweet Shellac radio show (from BBC Radio 3, a few years ago), I came across this little gem of English double entendre thirties jazz. If you’re fortunate enough to have a copy of my Love at First Sound mix CD, you’ll have heard Crumb’s Cheap Suit Serenaders perform a loving remake of this sweet record, complete with cod-English accents.

The double entendre smut is laid on trowel thick: worthy of the great Mrs. Slocombe herself, in fact.

Of course you can find whatever you want on the ole international packet switching network, if you’re smart or dogged enough (or both), and I tracked down Sweet Shellac on eyecandyman's interesting blog of old-time music and Honk Honk exploitation movies. He’s even got video of R. Crumb and his fellow old-time music enthusiast Robert Armstrong listening to this very record.

Take care to remove your gloves.

Listen:

Download it from rapidshare: My Girl’s Pussy.

Washing All Their Troubles away

We start with a track from Lee Scratch Perry's great Battle of Armagideon (Millionaire Liquidator) from 1986. A cassette tape of this album was always by my kitchen machine back then, and "Show Me That River" always seemed to come on when I was doing the washing up. It always seemed appropriate, with it's "Wash all my troubles away" line. But like a lot of Lee lyrics, it was just slightly crazy:

Listen:

Download it from Rapidshare:Show Me That River.

Show My that river, Take me Icarus, And wash all my troubles away. Like that lucky old sun, I've nothing to do, But rolling in heaven all day.

Sounds to me like Perry's magpie, gadfly, creative mind has morphed "across" into "Icarus" here, under the influence of the sun mentioned in the next bit.

Then I found this Prince Buster Tutti Frutti LP in the 50p bin at my local second hand record shop; and the song "Wash Wash" seemed familiar.

Show My that river, Take me across, And wash all my troubles away...

Listen:

Download it from rapidshare: Wash Wash.

Aha! "Across" here! Of course the music industry in general, and the Jamaican music industry in particular, have never been that fastidious about nicking bits of songs from each other. And before you Prince Buster fans out there start looking down on the Scratch fans, wait: Mr Bustamente nicked it himself.

That Lucky Old Sun was a big hit for Frankie Laine in 1949. It was written by Beasley Smith and Haven Gillespie, and was covered many times, by the likes of Vaughn Monroe, Ol' Frankie, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles. Here's Louis Armstrong's version.

Listen:

Download it from rapidshare: That Lucky Old Sun.

This version, with its sacred, gospelly overtones, is clearly implying that the river being shown is the Jordan, and the point where the troubles are washed away is death. Or maybe the Styx, I suppose, but nobody ever got washed in the Styx, unless they got thrown overboard by the ferryman, maybe.

Susan Cadogan — Hurts So Good

I must have heard this song on the Radio in the early seventies, when I still had that child’s thirsty cultural-vacuum-cleaner brain: and for years later the chorus would leap back into my mind at odd moments, though I couldn’t remember the title or artist. Before I’d even heard of double tracking (recording a lead vocal twice to beef up a weak performance) I would think of it as that “hurts-so-good” sound. Until I eventually found it by accident on one of those cheapo reggae compilation LPs, in the eighties. And the reason it had stuck became clear: it was a Lee “Scratch” Perry production.

Listen:

Download it at rapidshare.com

But then I found out that it was actually a Millie Jackson song. Of course I should have known: Millie is, after all, the queen of the I-Love-You-You-Bastard genre. Here she is singing it on Soul Train, in 1973 at a guess:

Millie Jackson - Hurts So Good Uploaded by soulpatrol