Smash Hits: Sept 6-19 1979

As you can see, they abbreviated the name of the month and I’m staying true to that despite really wanting to write it out in full.

And there on the front cover – a band who, little over a month earlier, were unknown to the bulk of the readership. This “hot new band will shift lots of copies” philosophy will be repeated on the cover of the next issue, too.

Turning the page we get lyrics to The Stranglers’ Duchess, little realising that I’d find myself singing this 19 years later when hearing a song by Manic Street Preachers for the first time. The next couple of pages feature three songs so different that it feels like the phrase “strange bedfellows” could have been made for them. The rapidly declining in popularity Boney M and Gotta Go Home, the re-released Boredom from Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch (listed as Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto – just so we didn’t confuse it with anything new) and Squeeze with Slap & Tickle.

Following an interview with The B-52s (and still no words for Rock Lobster), the first of the Bitz pages introduces us to “London band Madness”. Whatever happened to them? Squeeze’s Chris Difford shares his wide-ranging Top 10, with Elvis Costello taking top spot with Stranger In The House. In case you don’t know it, EC wrote it for a George Jones album in 1978 and his own version was given away as a limited edition single with early copies of This Year’s Model. It also featured on a Peel session, recorded with The Attractions. Probably a good time to share a version.

There is footage of Elvis and George duetting on this, but it’s from 1981, so I’m guessing this is the version to which Chris refers.

Also on the Bitz pages is the first of three mentions for a release on Stiff Records entitled Peppermint Lump. Its singer, 11 year-old Angie (Angela Porter), we are told “is an experienced juvenile actress who has appeared in such masterpieces as Wombling Free, Nationwide and The Rod Hull Show”. With it also featuring later on the magazine in the Singles Reviews and as Rob Jones’ “Disco” Pick, it felt like this was going to be the Next Big Thing. Pete Townshend produced it and played guitar on it and future Big Country man, Tony Butler, played bass. It failed to chart. I have literally just heard it for the first time ever, and feel somehow grateful that none of us appears to have been taken in by the hype.

Moving swiftly along, a two page interview with The Jam is followed by a full page advert for “The new game from XTC”. Making Plans For Nigel’s first 20,000 copies include a free game. Given that this is 18 months prior to my introduction to strategic board gaming, I opted not to purchase this. Fool.

Across the page are the words for the rather insipid Love Will Make You Fail In School from Rocky Sharpe And The Replays and a band who seemed to land five years later than they should have done and were continuing to linger like a bad smell – Racey and Boy Oh Boy.

There’s an interview with The Specials and a quiz, in which I would today comfortably score 20/20, but appear to have only managed a meagre 12 at the time. A photo of Squeeze occupies the centre pages.

The disco pages feature one song that I absolutely love – The Crusaders’ Street Life, one I can vaguely remember – Commodores and Sail On, and one I don’t think I ever heard – Fat Larry’s Band and Lookin’ For Love Tonight. Their time would come. These lyrics are all spread over a picture of a rather tall-looking woman on all fours wearing a swimsuit. It’s explained thus: “If you’re wondering why New York disco star Grace Jones is crawling across this page and there’s no pic of Fat Larry or The Commodores, then you’ve obviously never seen a pic of Fat Larry”. Harsh. I had no idea who Grace Jones was at the time and did briefly wonder if she was the vocalist on Street Life – that would have been interesting!

More lyrics with Gerry Rafferty having the final Top 40 morsels from his dining out on the back of Baker Street, with Get It Right Next Time. Below that was the song which had my father looking briefly at the magazine – the awful If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me from The Bellamy Brothers. And this:

It references a Jensen Interceptor – my favourite car – so I have some affection for this, but it is terribly cheesy when compared to the ska sounds that were now hitting the airwaves. Nevertheless, Bill’s only hit did reach #12.

Eddie Cochran features for the second issue running, this time via an article telling his story. I’ll skip past the Singles Reviews, with some of the discs there featuring in forthcoming issues, and pause at the Album Reviews. What’s the top scorer? Talking Heads and Fear Of Music at 7.5/10? Nope. Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures with 8/10. No, sir. With a score of 8.5/10, album reviewer Red Starr plumps for Risqué by Chic. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Mrs TGG was masquerading under the Red Starr moniker with those scores (but she would only have been 13 then, like me – I’m a week older than her). It is the Chic album that includes Good Times, so it should get a decent mark, but better than Unknown Pleasures?!?

The lyrics request spot continues its fixation with releases from 1978 – this time it’s The Clash and White Man In Hammersmith Palais. As we’ve moved into September, there are no outdoor shows with varied line-ups to share from the Gigs page, but acts performing in Manchester that fortnight that I could have seen, had I been able to go, included Shake, Boney M, Nils Lofgren, XTC, The Crusaders, The Chords and one my father would have been interested in – The Shadows.

This issue’s lyrics are concluded with two from Wings. Getting Closer and Baby’s Request. I had to look this up as I can’t recall either song. It was a double A-side that peaked at #60, and the last Paul McCartney release billed as Wings. He’d be back before the end of the year with a song that, annoyingly, I can recall only too well, because I’ve heard it every year since.

Finally, the back page photo is of Gibson Brothers (you know, Him, Thingy and Wotsit). At the time they were (and may still be), the only act from Martinique to have ever hit the UK Charts. Obviously the photo has them standing in front of a beach and some palm trees.

I’ll warn you now – the next issue has some very stern-looking people on the front cover.

TGG

April 19, 2024

1. 

   JC

   April 22, 2024

   Dear God….if you’d given me 100 guesses as to which label had released that Peppermint Lump monstosity, I’d still never got it. Unlistenable.

   Surprised that Unknown Pleasure was even given a review in Smash Hits, far less scoring so highly. 

   Also fascinated by Virgin Records taking out a full page ad for the next XTC single….wouldn’t have imagined Smash Hits readership being the normal target audience for the group, but then again, they were about to release a bona-fide pop classic.

   This remains a fascinating read. Cheers

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2. 

   thegreatgog

   April 22, 2024

   Thanks JC – glad you’re enjoying it. I’m finding it fun regressing to the 13 year-old me, and trying to recall how I felt at the time. I’m guessing I was in the demographic that Smash Hits was aimed at in 1979. Both male and female peers were buying the poppier “new wave” releases as well as the 2-tone and mod stuff. If you look at the other singles covered, they weren’t really aimed at teenagers – Gerry Rafferty, Boney M, etc. Even the disco releases would have been more for the older teenagers who were actually going to clubs.

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Unsung Songs #7: Immaculate Fools – Immaculate Fools

It really is time that I got round to sharing my thoughts on this one. The idea to do a piece on this tune occurred to me in the aftermath of writing the Shane MacGowan item back in December. If you recall that piece, you’ll be aware that part of the story was about my liking of music that some of my less enlightened peers did not. This has been a pretty constant theme throughout my life, hence the existence of this series.

I can’t recall where I first heard what was the only song by Immaculate Fools that I knew for many years, other than the B-side. I’m guessing it was the juke box in the common room at my college. It generally had a smattering of current hits, but there were always the odd one or two which someone somewhere thought would have been hits by the next time they rocked up to change the records. I remember putting my money in said juke box rather a lot during the early part of 1985, as well as the accompanying cries of “Oh, God – no, not that shit again”, as the synth intro to Immaculate Fools rang out to my fellow students who were playing pool, a bizarre video bar football game or pinball among other activities. Like this:

I couldn’t easily tell you what it is I like about the song. The video above appears to have been made a couple of years later, but other than being slightly longer than the single, is pretty much true to what I was listening to. It was some time later when Mrs TGG heard it on one of my numerous mixtapes of the early 90s and said that the vocals reminded her of The Psychedelic Furs. Somehow I hadn’t clocked that, but I had to admit that she had a point.

So my love of this song appears to boil down to it sounding like another band that I like and the fact that at the age of 19, I just loved being annoying. The song was the band’s only UK singles chart entry, reaching #51 in its 4 week stay. It’s done well in recent times though, picking up just under 2.8 million plays on Spotify at the time of writing. The only other person I know who admits to liking it is my mate Steve (the one that was at Rewind North last year) – I found this out back in 2006 when I was showing him how the iTunes Store worked!

Immaculate Fools – consider yourselves welcomed to the Unsung Hall Of Fame.

I expect my next scheduled piece will be some more Smash Hittery – I’m enjoying both re-reading the magazines and then writing about them as well. And that’s before I start the research on some of the more obscure tunes that are mentioned.

TGG

April 9, 2024

1. 

   JC

   April 10, 2024

   I have absolutely no recollection of this one at all…….feels as if it hasn’t dated very well. Get where Mrs TGG is coming from re The Furs-style vocals.

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Smash Hits: August 23 – September 5 1979

I was going to do an Unsung Song that I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, but I so enjoyed writing the last one of these, I thought I’d do at least one more first. We move forward 14 days and are greeted on the cover by the nearest thing 1979 had to a boy band.

Except they weren’t actually all that young, as will be discussed shortly….

On to some song lyrics first, and another of the many classic hits from 1979 is first up on page 2, Cars by Gary Numan. Then we have the band mentioned in the previous issue’s Bitz, already making the breakthrough to having the words of their only (very minor hit) published.

Their prime time TV appearance resulted in them getting no higher than #40. Yes, that is Mick Talbot’s brother, Danny. Hard to believe that a mere 4 years later, Mick would be involved with the far more sophisticated output of The Style Council.

Mick and co share a page with The Flying Lizards and their cover of Money, while across the page is a picture of future bandmate Paul Weller and the words to The Jam’s When You’re Young.

There follows an interview with Joe Jackson, before we hit the Bitz pages and that man Jackson is there again with his All Time Top 10 – a varied selection that includes both Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run and Big Youth’s cover of Hit The Road Jack. The Bitz pages also tell us that someone called Toyah Wilcox is releasing a 6 track record called Sheep Farming In Barnet. The 13 year old me would have been thinking Who? What? Why?, little realising that 45 years later, I would have seen her live on four occasions.

The other notable item on the Bitz pages (as alluded to earlier) is a photo of the Zoot Money Big Roll Band from 1964 featuring a certain Andy Summers from the issue’s front cover. “No, no, Andy, don’t thank us – it was nothing” it says, as thousands suddenly realise that Andy is offically old.

Thereafter there is a Police interview followed by the words to Angel Eyes by Roxy Music. There then follows an odd page where you can enter a competition to win an Eddie Cochran album alongside a large advert for an album by Rocky Sharpe And The Replays. Interest in Cochran would have been high due to the recent Sex Pistols covers of a couple of his hits.

Then it’s the Disco pages and Rob Jones’ Disco Pick, which to my ears is not in any way disco.

Future member of The Christians, Henry Priestman, and his Liverpudlian outfit had caught the ear of Mr. Jones, who at the time was on Radio Luxembourg. He can now be found on Boom Radio – and I bet he’s never played this on there.

There is some disco on the Disco pages though, with lyrics to Girls Girls Girls by Kandidate, Strut Your Funky Stuff by Frantique and Gone Gone Gone by Johnny Mathis. I may have heard the Frantique song at some point since 1979, but the other two?

The centre pages are basically a Gary Numan poster before we hit the most interesting article in this issue. Martyn Ware (then of The Human League) gets two pages to write about the Sheffield music scene. As well as his own band there are, among others, mentions for Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, forerunners to ABC, Vice-Versa, and er… Def Leppard. Best band name goes to The Defective Turtles.

Words to Angelic Upstarts’ Teenage Warning are followed by the chance to complete a crossword and win a B-52s album. I’d just purchased Rock Lobster as a single and was gutted the words hadn’t been published due to “delays with their American publishers”.

The request spot is taken up like the last issue by another 1978 release, this time Solitary Confinement by The Members.

The Singles reviews cover a wide range of artists from Buzzcocks, and the aforementioned Toyah release to Chas ‘n’ Dave and Max Bygraves (the latter two being separate releases and not thankfully a collaborative work). As for the albums, highest mark goes to XTC’s Drums And Wires (9/10) and the wooden spoon to AC/DC and Highway To Hell (3/10). The Australians are described thus: “with the possible exception of Kiss, the worst group currently walking the face of the earth”. You can almost hear Rocky Sharpe and his mates breathing a sigh of relief at that news.

One single reviewed that I do remember hearing on the radio, but which was not a hit is this one. They got on to Swap Shop, but this would seem to be their only ever release.

Three more sets of lyrics as we near the end. Randy Vanwarmer (probably not his real name) and Just When I needed You Most, Hot Chocolate and Going Through The Motions (which I guess they were, as I don’t recall this one) and the delightfully titled The Bitch by The Olympic Runners – the words are not an easy read.

The gig listing has an interesting show on September 1 at the Edinburgh Ingliston Showground where you can see Van Morrison, The Undertones, Talking Heads, Steel Pulse and Squeeze. Wow! If only I’d not been a 13 year-old living in Stockport. At least I have seen The Undertones and Squeeze since, the latter many times.

Final song words come from The Jolly Brothers and Conscious Man (more dubious lines about being wary of the females you might get involved with) and then a song which ended up being a much bigger hit in 1984. Sister Sledge and Lost In Music.

The back page is a picture of The Undertones, which I can’t imagine ended up adorning too many bedroom walls.

And so I headed off to my third year at Senior School (or Year 9 as it is now known) armed with two issues’ worth of lyrics, facts and news with which to bore my schoolmates.

TGG

April 1, 2024

1. 

   JC

   April 8, 2024

   So many names thrown at us in this review…..I was 16 years old and totally obsessed with music, but there are so many songs and musicians in this edition that I simply cannot recall!!!

   The late 70s was an era where the boy band phenomena in pop music was nowhere to be seen. The Osmonds and Bay City Rollers had come and gone a few years previously and the likes of Smash Hits had to scramble around to find suitable substitutes. Fast forward two years and the ‘New Romantic’ bands were ushered in to fill the void.

   Another fascinating read.

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Smash Hits: August 9-22 1979

New idea for a series, no idea if it will work or not, but I’m curious and for now, strangely motivated.

My sister and I are in the process of emptying my mother’s house so we can get it on to the market. – the joys of needing to pay nursing home fees. Clearing out the wardrobe in my old room, I found various items I’d meant to move out with me, but due to lack of space in abodes prior to living chez TGG, had left behind. Among them, football & speedway programmes, a backgammon set and every issue of Smash Hits magazine from August 1979 to April 1983. The latter date was the moment when I realised that my sister (who is five years younger than me) was reading it more than I was.

This realisation was caused by the nature of the music covered changing and the fact that I myself was changing. I was 13 when this run of purchases began, and I stopped just a month before my 17th birthday. I was also picking up NME, Sounds, Melody Maker and Record Mirror on a more occasional basis, with NME and RM becoming regular purchases once I ditched Smash Hits.

I should point out that I’ve lived at my current address since 1997, and could have moved these items at any time. Mrs TGG hasn’t even noticed their arrival (at least I don’t think she has).

I plan to saunter through each magazine with a brief-ish description of the contents, commenting on anything that interests me and providing a link or two to tunes of interest. All the magazines are in a reasonable state, apart from the well-thumbed first one, which has also had the misfortune of being top of the pile and acting a a protector for the others below.

This was actually the 18th issue of the magazine. I’d been tempted by earlier issues, but the thing that got the purchase over the line was the inclusion on the inside cover of the words to Beat The Clock by Sparks. The publication of song lyrics was the big attraction of Smash Hits – in theory settling the various arguments about what was actually being sung. Except that they didn’t always get it right. A letter in this issue berates them for printing “curry and kippers for breakfast” as opposed to “could we have kippers for breakfast” a couple of issues previously when including the lyrics for Supertramp’s Breakfast In America.

So the 13 year-old me was thrilled to read those Sparks lyrics and was word perfect in no time. I still know them off by heart. I can also see why they haven’t played it live since 2013, as the words do include a degree of misogyny that seemed to be more accepted back in 1979, but is actually quite cringeworthy when you stop and consider it.

So what else was there? Words for Gangsters by The Specials and Is She Really Going Out With Him by Joe Jackson follow – a couple of classic tunes and the first hit for both. Then it’s ELO and one of theirs that you don’t hear so often these days, despite a Top 10 placing – The Diary Of Horace Wimp.

Below ELO is an advert for Boots announcing that they’ve cut the price for singles to 79p. I remember reading that and thinking it was still too expensive and that I could save myself money by not getting the bus into town and getting my records more cheaply from my local shop, which was within walking distance. It’s also got me wondering as to exactly when it was that Boots stopped selling records.

3 pages of short items follow under the heading of Bitz. Rita Ray of Darts shares her All Time Top 10. It includes two from both Mary Wells and Smokey Robinson. Bitz also has a short feature on a new mod band, The Merton Parkas, one of whom will go on to have a lot of hits in the 80s as part of The Style Council – Mick Talbot.

There’s then an interview with cover star, Ian Dury, and the words to his latest release, Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3. Quite handy given the “list” nature of the song.

Three sets of lyrics on the next page: Ooh! What A Life by The Gibson Brothers, You Never Know What You’ve Got by Me And You (looked it up – got to #31) and a band also mentioned in Bitz, with a cover whose words were probably quite well-known to most readers (or at least their parents):

This was the future! Except that it wasn’t. Better synth records were already out and about and despite their TOTP appearance, the Belgians fared even less well than Me And You, peaking at #34.

Two pages of Disco follow with lyrics to Boogie Down (Get Funky Now) by The Real Thing and Earth, Wind & Fire’s After The Love Has Gone. Not sure how Disco the latter of those is – more of a Smooth Radio staple I’d say (the people at my mother’s nursing home have Smooth playing in her room all the time as she likes to sing along – you get to know what they play).

Centre photo is The Boomtown Rats (who were the current No 1 with I Don’t Like Mondays). The future Sir Bob – pulling at a roll of cellophane with his mouth because….. Wacky! Rock And Roll! etc.

Then there’s an interview with The Pretenders headed “Stop Your Gobbing” – they didn’t like audiences spitting at them apparently, particularly Pete Farndon.

Future No 1 for Cliff, We Don’t Talk Anymore shares a page with Dire Straits non-hit “Lady Writer”, before a Sham 69 interview and the words for Hersham Boys.

Then it’s some pretty unremarkable Singles & Albums reviews. The Sex Pistols’ Some Product merits 9/10, with Neil Youngs’s Rust Never Sleeps getting 8/10. (I know which of those I’ve listened to more over the years). An album also scoring 8/10 that I’ve never listened to is the Nina Hagen Band’s eponymous effort, with this track being described as “just incredible”:

That’s one word for it.

Skipping past the Letters and Word Searches, we get a Request lyric for Stiff Little Fingers and the previous year’s Alternative Ulster, which I’m guessing was released prior to the first issue of Smash Hits.

There’s an eclectic list of gigs, with the most intriguing taking place on 21st August at Hammersmith Palais, featuring the varied talents of The Specials, Linton Kwesi Johnson and John Cooper Clarke.

We round off the lyrics with a couple that hark back to another era – Darts’ cover of Duke Of Earl and the cast of thousands that was Showaddywaddy and the long-forgotten Sweet Little Rock’n’Roller, and then there’s a photo of David Bowie on the back cover, with D.J. having recently just made it into the Top 30.

I enjoyed writing that and had no idea which songs I was going to feature when I started. I guess that means I’ll at least do the following issue at some point. I hope that you enjoyed being catapulted back in time.

TGG

March 25, 2024

1. 

   JC

   March 26, 2024

   It’s genuinely fascinating to realise that these early editions of Smash Hits covered such a broad range of music. It’s not a magazine I ever bought but then again – it was 1979, the year when I got to my first live gig, that I began to buy music papers. I wasn’t faithful to any of the inkies – I’d look at each front page, and based on who was featured in the cover photo or the undercard, would decide which I’d go for that week. 

   I think this is great idea for a regular feature. 

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2. 

   thegreatgog

   March 26, 2024

   Thanks for the kind words about the series. I think the nature of the early Smash Hits was a product of the times, where the Top 40 contained a mix of (in my mind) new pop and rock acts, old pop and rock acts, disco and stuff my parents liked. There were little in the way of “pin-up” acts, save for the cover stars of the next issue and it was very much about the music. It changed at some point – if I stick with this long enough, we may all find out when!

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Games People Play #2

The palace of Sanssouci can be found in Potsdam, to the south-west of Berlin. Back in 2018, Mrs TGG and I were travelling by train from Prague to Berlin (in one of those proper old school three seats on either side compartments). Two elderly ladies joined us at Dresden. I clearly have a Central European look about me, because a recurring theme of that break was random people walking up and speaking to me in Czech or German. As luck would have it, I did an A-Level in German and the manner in which these ladies spoke was not a million miles from the stilted nature of my old text books.

There followed a surprisingly fluent exchange during which they strongly advised me that we should dedicate one of our scheduled days in Berlin to a trip to Potsdam. As shouts go, this was a very good one. We had an excellent time learning all about the history of this fascinating place, ate what are probably the largest burgers we’ve ever eaten and got to visit the palace at Sanssouci and its magnificent gardens. Whilst the Potsdam bus tour cost us some of our Euros, the train journey from Berlin to Potsdam and back cost us nothing extra as it was included in the scope of our Berlin travel cards that we’d purchased the minute we arrived in the German capital.

It’s the gardens at Sanssouci that form the basis of the board game. Originally released in 2013, I remember playing and enjoying the game at a convention around that time. I didn’t really think any more of it until I saw that there was a re-release of the game launching on Kickstarter in June 2023. I correctly though that nobody in my regular gaming group had a copy, and it’s the sort of easy to learn tile-laying game that sits well with most of us. The basic premise of the game is to re-design the gardens and score the most points for pleasing the nobles with your efforts. This work has been commissioned by the great-nephew and successor to the successor of the Prussian emperor, Frederick The Great, under whose orders the palace was built. The game has made it to the table (as we say) and gone down well.

If you’d like to know more about the game, it’s all here:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/146816/sanssouci

As an historical footnote, Frederick The Great finally got his wish to be buried at Sanssouci on the 205th anniversary of his death – on 17th August 1991.

Music-wise, the tune here pre-dates the board game, but obviously not the palace. It’s one that I immediately took a shine to when I first heard its parent album back in 2007.

It doesn’t appear to have ever been released as a single anywhere, but it makes the cut as one my five favourite Rufus Wainwright tracks on my master Spotify playlist (where no-one is allowed more than five songs). I just need to get the pub where the games group meets to put this on their playlist for when we next play the game.

TGG

March 18, 2024

Steve Harley R.I.P.

More sad news earlier, when I heard the news of Steve Harley’s death. I was visiting my mother at the time and was surprised that she remembered Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) when I sang the chorus to her – she doesn’t remember a lot these days and my singing is far from the best.

Steve Harley’s most commercially successful spell took place while I was still at primary school, but I do remember the aforementioned track, along with Judy Teen and Mr. Soft from that era. At some point I picked up a Best Of cassette that contained a few more songs from that era and some from a little later.

Like this one, that missed out on the Top 40 in 1979 (reached only as far as #58), but that I clearly remember hearing on the radio at the time. Looking at the release date, I’d have just started what is now referred to as Year 9 (or 3rd year at senior school), and I think there were others who also expressed a liking for this tune.

TGG

March 18, 2024

Karl Wallinger R.I.P.

I was really saddened this morning to hear of Karl Wallinger’s death. As regular readers here from the start may recall, I have both of The Waterboys albums on which he contributed as a full member of the band and I was also an avid purchaser of World Party’s output and got to see them a couple of times in the early part of their career.

I’ve read a number of tributes to Karl over the course of the day from various people in the music world, and it’s clear that he was loved and admired not just for his musical and song writing ability, but also because he seems to have been a really likeable person.

If anyone remembers The Cassette Albums #1 on this blog, you will be aware of my very brief meeting with Karl. The meeting where I sent him and his bandmates back round a one way system because they had just missed their turning. They took the news better than I would have done!

Obviously I’ve been playing some World Party today when not in online meetings (at least today was a non-office day for me) and the song that seems to have lodged in my head is this one – which surprised me a little as it wasn’t one of the ones I’d expected. Still a fine tune though.

Thanks Karl, for some great tunes and I really wish I’d found the time to get to some later World Party shows as I know I’d have thoroughly enjoyed them – from a guy wearing specs and an overcoat back in 1986/7, that still feels bad about those directions.

TGG

March 12, 2024

Seen ’em Live #11

Hello! Still checking in to see if anything’s been posted? Thank you – sorry that it hasn’t really been worth the effort for the last few weeks. We saw a couple of live acts on Monday 29th January and I had planned a write-up of that occasion.

However, I started to feel unwell during a meeting at work on the Wednesday lunchtime, and by the early hours of Friday morning I was once again having the full-on chest pains and breathing difficulties experience that I had back at the beginning of December.

Thankfully it got sorted and I was given medication that I am supposed to take until the end of March when I’m having some tests. Said medication completely messed up my sleep patterns (which aren’t the best anyway) and I’ve stopped taking it. And touch wood. I’ve been fine so far. I don’t think they have the first idea what’s wrong with me and I can only hope that these tests can shed some light on the issue.

So that and a good dollop of old-fashioned inertia is why there hasn’t been anything here for a while.

It’s too long ago now to do any sort of meaningful write-up of seeing Depeche Mode, supported by Nadine Shah – both acts that we’d never seen live previously. DM had been #2 on my “bands I’d like to see” list, behind long-standing and almost certainly permanent #1, R.E.M..

Both acts have relatively recent releases, tracks from which featured in their sets. I’ve picked out a couple of favourites.

It was a very enjoyable evening out and having seen both acts once, I’d be more than happy to go and watch them again.

Hopefully posts will start to appear here a little more regularly once again.

TGG

February 26, 2024

A Band I Discovered In 2023

Happy New Year! This is the promised “before the end of the year” article which for various reasons hasn’t been written, other than in my head, until now.

I’ve done a number of “Seen ‘Em Live” posts – 10 in actual fact. This is not by any stretch the total number of live music events I went to last year. I’ve only written up the ones where I thought there was something interesting to say or to share. The shows I haven’t written about have been very good, don’t get me wrong, but a combination of lack of time and not there not being something share-worthy stopped me from writing them up.

I could have mentioned the show we went to in December, just 6 days after my hospital dash, where I remained seated for the entire event, wondering if this was actually a sensible place for me to be – Manchester Arena with Mrs TGG and our 2 sons, watching Madness supported by The Lightning Seeds. The memorable part of that gig was that both acts paid tribute to Terry Hall, with “Sense” from Ian Broudie and co and “Friday Night Saturday Morning” from the headliners. This last gig of 2023 therefore neatly bookended with the first where Belinda Carlisle had played Our Lips Are Sealed as a tribute to the great man (see Seen ‘Em Live #1).

However – that’s not the point of this piece. Just three days after Seen ‘Em Live #10 (Gary Numan acoustic at Manchester Cathedral), we were back in Manchester at the Ritz to see Haircut One Hundred. If you’ve been paying attention, you may recall that we’d seen Nick Heyward at Rewind North, where we’d had the hits played to us. This was a deeper dive, with 3 original members, and a 4th, drummer Blair Cunningham, sadly too ill to perform, but a very competent replacement had been drafted in. If you like their Pelican West album and the other peripheral tracks they recorded, you’d have enjoyed the show. I do and I did. Closer up (a LOT closer than at Rewind), I realised that despite being 5 years older than me, Nick Heyward could easily pass for 5 years younger than me. A point Mrs TGG has been reminding me of ever since, particularly during my spell of illness when I felt about 20 years older than him.

While we were queuing, we were wondering if there was a support act. Upon entering the venue we could see that “Barbara” was due on stage at 8pm. A female singer or a band? We weren’t sure until we clocked a small merch store in the corner. A band.

Barbara are in fact two brothers, Henry & John Tydeman, from the Brighton area, who for their support slot on the tour were augmented by three other musicians. One is the vocalist, one plays the piano, and I’ve forgotten which is which. All I can say, is that I loved their set. Some strong 1970s influences, but somehow dragging that sound into the 21st century. I’ve been listening to them quite a bit since as well.

A couple of their tunes, both of which they performed in Manchester.

They’re out and about in 2024 with none other than Paul Weller, as support on his forthcoming tour. We tried and failed to get tickets for the Stoke-on-Trent show – so we’re doubly fed up about that now.

Hopefully they’ll be back in our neck of the woods with their own show at some point – I think Mrs TGG may even put up with having to stand, we liked them that much! Their Bandcamp page is here: https://barbaratheband.bandcamp.com/

I’m planning more of the regular series as 2024 progresses and I still have to fish out the actual cassette for my next planned Cassette Album. I’ll try to post a little more frequently as well. Try, being the operative word!

TGG

January 10, 2024

Unsung Songs #6: Jimmy Jimmy – Silence

This wasn’t going to be the next in this series, although it would have featured eventually. It’s just that the title (and song) sprang to mind given the lack of activity on here during December.

Within 12 hours of posting the Shane MacGowan piece, I was in the back of an ambulance with blues and twos, on the eight mile journey to my nearest A&E, with a suspected heart attack. Suffice to say I was in a bad way, responded to treatment and it’s taken some time to recover. My heart is actually in very good nick for a 57 year old, apparently, but while I have some other relatively minor health issues. the main culprit appears to have been something I picked up in SE Asia. All this has made me reappraise things and I’m eating less and have dramatically reduced my caffeine intake. Alcohol? Yes, I’ve dropped a bit off my usual level as well – being ill during the Christmas do season has helped on that front. During lockdown, I lost three and a half stone, moving from “obese” to “overweight”. Half a stone had crept back on, but that’s now gone again – I don’t really want it to reappear. Mrs TGG had started making salads to take to work – she’s now doing double the amount and leaving a portion for me. I’m very grateful for this and have enjoyed the absence of my usual pastry-based lunches far more than I expected.

The song?

This one came to my attention as a freebie sent to the student radio station in 1985. CBS/Epic were very good at sending us stuff – often multiple times. I just remember playing this and loving it instantly. It was released twice (with different B-sides and the piano intro missing from the re-release) but doesn’t appear to have got anywhere remotely near the UK chart. Wikipedia claims this song made No 1 in Japan, but Discogs doesn’t list a Japanese release. Believe what you want to believe.

From memory. the two guys were both called James and were busking in Coventry before landing their major label deal. One of the B-sides was a medley entitled Songs From The Street, which included songs they’d played while busking. There were a couple of other singles and an album and that seems to have been it on the recording front. I was also fond of one of the other singles.

I think my liking for their songs was because they were a little different to a lot of major label releases in 1985 and I’m a sucker for upbeat acoustic guitars. The Everly Brothers style vocals also won me over.

I don’t play these two songs as often as I should, but boy, am I glad to be well enough to share them with you.

I have at least one more post I want to get in before New Year. Let’s see how that goes!

TGG

December 23, 2023

1. 

   Khayem

   December 27, 2023

   I dropped by to catch up and wish you a happy holiday, TGG, not expecting to read that you’d spent time in A&E in the lead up to Christmas. I hope you’ve been able to take it relatively easy and enjoy the last couple of days at home with Mrs TGG.

   Thanks for stepping back into the blogging spotlight. I don’t get to comment as often as I like as my phone seems to really (I mean, really) dislike WordPress these days so I only get the chance to read and catch up on your blog when I have a quiet moment on the family computer (and I’m not frantically trying to get my own posts finished).

   Keep on keeping on…but at your own pace. It’s worth the wait.

   Cheers,
   Khayem

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2. 

   thegreatgog

   January 10, 2024

   Thanks for those kind words, Khayem. Glad you enjoy dropping by. Pretty much back to normal now – looking forward to playing football for the first time in several weeks tomorrow night!

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3. 

   JC

   January 26, 2024

   It’s taken me till almost the end of the month to finally get round to visiting other folk in 2024.

   Genuinely sorry and upset to read this. I really hope that the past few weeks have seen you continue to recover. Take real good care………..

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Shane MacGowan R.I.P.

A slightly belated post, but one I felt I ought to write if for no other reason than The Pogues were the first band I ever saw live.

It was two or three weeks into my first term at Uni and Elvis Costello & The Attractions were playing. I’d gone with a couple of people from my corridor who by now I vaguely knew – neither of whom had showed a liking for any sort of music other than heavy metal both before and after this gig. We’d assumed there’d be a support, but there hadn’t been any mention as to who it was.

The lights went down and a ramshackle bunch of people burst on to the stage with the lead singer yelling something at the mic before the band launched into their first song. At the time, I don’t think any of us worked out what he said, but It was probably something along the lines of “We’re The Pogues”.

It was a minute or so into that first song when I turned round triumphantly to my new acquaintances and told them that I’d actually got a single by this band and they’d recently had to change their name. “They’re shit” was the considered response. It wasn’t that much further into the set before said single got played.

At which point I started singing and doing something that vaguely passed for moving my feet. As we were near the back, I wasn’t exactly joined by many people in this enterprise. My companions looked suitably unimpressed. One of them told me later that he didn’t think he could bring himself to ever attend a gig with me again – he was true to his word.

Over the next few years I was an avid purchaser of Pogues records – singles, EPs and albums. Some even got re-purchased as CDs in later years.

I didn’t really pay much attention to anything that was released after the band’s initial split, but those songs released up to 1990 have given me a great deal of pleasure over the years. One of my sons has also got bitten by the bug and plays them often. I realise the band was more than just Shane, but he was the face of the band and wrote or co-wrote so much of the band’s original material prior to his departure.

Thanks Shane for some great songs that evoke some great memories. And I bet both those guys I went to that first gig with ended up buying Fairytale Of New York at some point!

TGG

December 4, 2023

1. 

   JC

   December 21, 2023

   Fine words.

   It also was a university gig when I first saw The Pogues. June 85. Helluva set list from an incredibly good band, given how hammered they all were when they took to the stage.

   https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-pogues/1985/university-of-strathclyde-glasgow-scotland-3bcc9074.html

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En Vacances #2

Two posts in a week! Not done that for a while.

Unfortunately (I’m assuming you like what you read here as you’ve taken the time to visit), there won’t be any more posts for at least the next two and a half weeks, maybe a little longer.

Mrs TGG & I are off on the longest trip we’ve ever done, taking in a couple of countries, where things have changed a bit since these songs were written and recorded.

and this one

It’s a 16 day tour that takes in all the key sites, including ones that pertain to the troubles both countries have endured during my lifetime. For all the more ancient wonders that the countries have, I wouldn’t be comfortable without going to see and learn more about their recent history.

I was going to download something so I could write a Cassette Albums piece when I got back. Unfortunately said album isn’t on my streaming service of choice so that will have to wait a while longer and I’ll have to – gasp – actually listen to the cassette! I have got 3 albums recorded by one of the band member’s previous group downloaded, so I’ll certainly be listening to those.

And I suppose you’re shouting at the screen wondering where this is…

TGG

November 8, 2023

Unsung Songs #5: Talk Talk – Living In Another World

I needed to do one of these on Talk Talk, but which song? They had a number of great tunes that dodged the UK Top 40. Even their biggest UK hit, It’s My Life, didn’t break the Top 40 until 6 years after its original release – I enjoyed that moment as I’d lost count of the number of people who’d had to put up with me bemoaning its lack of Hit status.

Ultimately I’ve chosen one from my favourite Talk Talk album. When they first appeared, with the repetitive group name, I, like many others, assumed they were trying to ride on the coat tails of Duran Duran’s success. But when I actually listened to the singles it occurred to me that there was a bit more to this bunch and promptly got hold of the debut album. By the time the second album landed, they definitely had their own distinctive sound, aided by the voice of Mark Hollis, who seemed to inject a sense of drama into whatever he happened to be singing about.

The third album, then. Not just my favourite Talk Talk album, but one I can categorically put in my Top 10 albums of all time. I even bought it on CD to replace the knackered cassette I had of it. The Colour Of Spring is just flawless in my opinion. Even the slow, airy tune (April 5th) doesn’t linger longer than it needs to. I know the perceived wisdom is that 4th album, Spirit Of Eden, is their career peak, but it just doesn’t quite do it for me in the way that The Colour Of Spring does

The first single taken from The Colour Of Spring, Life’s What You Make It, earned a respectable Top 20 placing, so I imagine hopes were high for the second single. If memory serves, I already had the album when it was announced that my favourite track would be that second single. But hang on! It’s almost 7 minutes long! Yup, it was a truncated, edited version that hit the nation’s airwaves. It’s still a great tune, but does suffer from not being the full-length version.

See what you think.

And the album version

It peaked at #48. I don’t suppose the unedited version would have fared any better as it wouldn’t have been attractive to radio schedulers. Of course, I played it to death on student radio, where such concerns didn’t exist in those days. I believe that playlists have even crept in there now. If you can’t play whatever you want and be innovative on a student station, then all hope is lost.

I may pick another of Talk Talk’s misses at some point – I never tire of listening to them. Their recorded legacy is not massive, but there is quality throughout and for me, it does all stand the test of time.

TGG

November 4, 2023

Seen ’em Live #10

Annoyingly it’s taken me almost a week to get round to writing this, but Saturday 14th October saw us heading to Manchester Cathedral. Despite being born and brought up in Manchester and still working there (on my increasingly infrequent visits to the office), I’d only ever set foot in the cathedral once before. That was for a memorial service. Won’t go into details, but obviously a prominent person in the life of the city who I’d met via work a few times, and I was there in that capacity.

This time it was to see what struck me as a rather intriguing event when I first saw it advertised. We’ve seem Gary Numan a couple of times recently (both occasions at Manchester’s Albert Hall) and been blown away by the performance. If you’re not familiar with his more recent output, it’s a lot heavier than the songs he made his name with – and even the old tunes that he does play get the heavier treatment. I wasn’t sure Mrs TGG would be that keen, but I think she enjoyed those shows even more than I did. So when he announced an acoustic tour, she was straight on it and grabbed some tickets for a show that was sold out in a matter of minutes.

At this point, I’m going to say there is a far better review than anything I could write. It’s on the Louder Than War website – link here: https://louderthanwar.com/gary-numan-manchester-cathedral-live-review/

I concur with that review. It was one of the best shows I’ve attended, largely due to its unique nature, but also because Gary Numan and his fellow musicians truly pulled it off.

Even leaving aside the amazing reworking of so many songs, it was a real deep dive into his back catalogue. He admitted that one song had only been included because his daughters had told him to, and that he couldn’t actually remember writing it, let alone recalling which album it was from. Another older track he confessed to not remembering what it was about. As the review above states, there was a very personal feel to what he was sharing with the audience. Normally, he says next to nothing at a show, but following him on Facebook does give an insight to life in the Numan household, and it was that openness which came across here.

It was also great to see everyone on stage, including the man himself, laughing, joking and clearly enjoying themselves. Here’s a clip of one you’ll know performed on the night and filmed from just to the left of where we were.

Not sure how long it will be on there for, given the brevity of some live performances’ existence on the service, but hopefully it illustrates what the shows on the tour were all about.

TGG

October 21, 2023

Seen ’em Live #9

When I wrote the piece How It Should Be a few weeks back, I listed a variety of reason for the inactivity on this blog. One reason I didn’t include was Being Ill. Ill in the sense of taking time off work, not partaking in the usual leisure activities that one does, not wanting to eat a cheese and onion pie or drink a pint of beer. That level of ill. The level of ill where everyone else in the house doesn’t want to go anywhere near you – for several days. The level of ill that as it endures, you start to worry about missing a live music event which you’ve been looking forward to.

Given that this involved a band I’ve never previously seen, but whose first six albums I dutifully bought, there was a fairly significant level of worry attached. Thankfully, while still not feeling 100%, I did make it on Friday night to the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester to see The Waterboys.

Like the Ben Watt song mentioned a while back in Unsung Songs #3, my first recollection of The Waterboys was hearing A Girl Called Johnny on the radio during a spell of homework avoidance. The “what the Hell was that I just heard?” moment lingered and as a result of never seeing the single on sale, I ultimately purchased the first album. As I did the next five, up to 1993. Then, the band seemed to have a break and even when things started up again I never really re-engaged, until I borrowed a CD copy of 2011’s An Appointment With Mr. Yeats from my local library.

Since then I’ve been dipping in and out, thanks to the existence of music streaming and the odd CD purchase.

The current tour isn’t billed as plugging a particular album despite a new release in 2022 and indeed nearly half the set comes from 1985’s This Is The Sea and 1988’s Fisherman’s Blues. Given that I haven’t seen them previously and that these albums are chronologically slap bang in the middle of my peak love of the band, I’m not unduly disappointed by this.

The band played without a support act, doing two sets and the obligatory encore of The Whole Of The Moon. It does seems as though they have been mixing the set list up a bit between shows on this tour and the fact that some shows have seen a cover of Prince’s Purple Rain has intrigued me. Sadly we didn’t get that in Manchester.

However, it was a great show with a highlight for me being the end of the first set which saw a cracking version of The Pan Within with keyboard players Brother Paul and James Hallawell trying to outdo each other duel-style with some truly amazing playing. There was also a first play on the tour for a cover of a traditional song “Dim Lights Thick Smoke (and Loud Loud Music)”. Mike Scott explained how this was a song they thought would suit the band well – until he saw how misogynistic the lyrics were. He said that he and Brother Paul had re-written the lyrics on the journey over from the previous night’s show in York – and then duly played it, to a great reception.

There is one new song that they have been playing at every show – It Was Over. Sadly its brief appearance on YouTube also seems to be over, so I can’t provide a link to it. I will however provide a link to the show opener – 2019’s Where The Action Is.

It really shouldn’t have taken me 40 years before I saw Mike Scott and co live. Would I see them again? Oh, yes.

Saturday saw another trip to Manchester for a rather different show. I’ll write about that as soon as.

TGG

October 16, 2023

1. 

   baggingarea

   October 17, 2023

   Missed this, would love to have gone but baulked at the ticket price. My loss.

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   1. 

      thegreatgog

      October 21, 2023

      I baulk at many ticket prices, but usually end up going. I’d only be chucking the money at board game Kickstarter projects otherwise.

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Games People Play #1

I’ve mentioned before about attending a board games club. I’ve been playing strategic board games since 1981, when a group of us played a game called Diplomacy at the after school war games club. I’ve played by post, by email and via websites as well as in person at our current club, at a student club in my Uni days and attending conventions where I can play with around three hundred other like-minded souls, some of whom have become very good friends over the years. I seem to have gravitated towards people who also like real ale, football – and of course, music.

It seems like some games designers have also had an ear to the radio, record player, etc over the years as some games share their names with various songs and bands. And that’s the point of this series. I’ll mention a game, provide a link to its entry on the mammoth BoardGameGeek website (see, we don’t take ourselves too seriously!), and also include the musical connection.

What better way to start than with what is seen as a “gateway” game? That’s a game that a non–gamer can easily learn and understand, but which a seasoned gamer can also play and enjoy. I should point out that these types of games may well have some luck, but the challenge is managing your luck or lack thereof.

Ticket To Ride (wonder what inspired that name) is based on a USA rail map in 1910 and players collect cards that they then exchange in order to build bits of track that should ultimately allow them to complete various contracts. These are what score the bulk of the victory points. There are several other maps available (all with individual tweaks to the rules) as the original game was hugely popular and the gaming industry, like any other, will flog a franchise for all its worth. I seem to be particularly good at the Nordic Countries map for some reason.

Here’s the BoardGameGeek link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9209/ticket-ride

I’ve seen the original USA game and the Europe version on sale in places like Waterstone’s in the UK.

Now the music – well sort of. I won’t be providing a link to the original version of the song. We all know that. I thought it would be more fun, and indeed more appropriate, to share a version I acquired on a free EP that came with NME many years ago, recorded by a band whose name was actually inspired by a board game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/14423/husker-du

It’s a children’s game and not one I’ve ever seen, let alone played. Not that I think I would want to.

I still have this record somewhere, but the version on the link is in far better condition than my copy, which got played to death for eighteen months or so after I got it.

There will be more gaming waffle to come as well as further pieces in the other ongoing series. There’s been a delay since the last post for a number of reasons – not least the fact that I lost all Internet on Tuesday, when I originally planned to put this together.

TGG

September 23, 2023

Unsung Songs #4: Faith Brothers – A Stranger On Home Ground

The idea to write this piece started to form on the day that I posted #3 of the series – June 21st. I don’t like to rush things! My friend, Dave, put something on Facebook about U2’s Longest Day gig on that day back in 1985 and included a photo of the sleeve of this single (Faith Brothers were one of the support acts that day). This was a sleeve I know very well, as during my student days I filed my 7″ singles in alphabetical order of song title and this was first. I suppose technically, it should have gone under “S”, but I suspect I didn’t want “Abacab” by Genesis on general display – bit of a guilty pleasure, that one. If only I’d purchased “A Forest” as a single, rather than buying the album….

Anyway – Dave’s posting did prompt me to tell him about this blog (and I believe he has dropped by once or twice) and thank him for potentially inspiring a future piece. We did have a brief discussion about whether this should be the Faith Brothers song chosen or if it should be “Country Of The Blind” instead. You can see where that discussion went. That track may feature in a future piece and it also reminded me that their first album, “Eventide” was one that I purchased on cassette and so could be the subject of a future Cassette Album piece – neither single appears on the original release.

The two main members of the band were Billy Franks and Lee Hirons (who co-wrote this track). The song and its B-side – the excellent “Fulham Court” – deal with the redevelopment and subsequent loss of community in the West London area they grew up in. A familiar tale in many urban areas and a theme that others have visited over the years. What I really like about it is the upbeat nature of the music despite the subject matter and I do feel it should have received more airplay than it did.

This one got to #69, following on from the #63 peak of “Country Of The Blind”. The album followed towards the end of 1985 and made it to #66. There were further releases a couple of years later, but the Chart compilers were sadly not troubled by those. As time passed (and the singles eventually got filed by artist), this was a track that I did forget about for a while. Some time in 2008, I stumbled across Billy Franks’ website and he was offering free downloads of live versions of the two singles – not the greatest sound quality, but it was good to hear what they had sounded like live. Sadly Billy Franks passed away in 2016 and I don’t believe those downloads are available now, although his website is still there.

Anyway, I’ve waffled on for long enough. Here it is.

And YouTube being YouTube, the b-side is also available.

TGG

August 30, 2023

How It Should Be

At least three posts a week. Posts that bring in visitors and comments. A feeling that much as I’m writing this for my own need to jot down my thoughts on my years of listening to music, other people are finding it entertaining.

My woeful levels of productivity, lack of interaction and dwindling visitor numbers are proof that I’m a long way from the ideal.

And things probably aren’t going to change.

My mother is in now in a care home where she seems as happy as my mother ever gets – but I’m spending a lot of time messing about with her finances and trying to empty her house of years of accumulated tat (e.g. books of Green Shield stamps, interest rate increase letters from 1962 and what seems like a national library of cookery books, all recipes unattempted afaik).

At 57, I’m still managing a couple of games of football every week – proper running football against people way younger than me in the main, with a couple of other 50-something players so I don’t feel like a complete dinosaur.

Add to that a weekly board games club, the Campaign For Real Ale (I’m a Branch Chair) and other socialising and you can see why I’m struggling to find time to write anything.

And then there’s work. A restructure looked like it was going to give me the opportunity to wind down on reduced hours until jacking it in when I hit 60 in May 2026. Until I made a flippant comment about a new senior post to my boss – she gave me a steely gaze and told me that she strongly encouraged me to apply for it. After an eleventh hour application, I got the job (I’m convinced my boss only suggested I apply because her own retirement is imminent and she won’t have to deal with me). So retirement plans are on hold – and any chance of creating additional time to write here has gone with it for the time being.

So it will be much as it has been over the last few months I suppose. I’ve plenty I want to write about, but it’s finding the time. This post is 48 hours later than I planned it due to me falling asleep on the sofa after football and then board games over the last couple of nights. I’m only awake now because tonight’s footy was called off and I’m drinking a rather stunning black IPA that I fully intend to finish before I doze off.

If you choose to keep dropping by, thank you. I’ll do my best to entertain.

And this now gives me a chance to inflict some Inspiral Carpets upon you, should you so wish.

TGG

August 26, 2023

Seen ’em Live #8

The companion piece to Seen ’em Live #7. This one looks at day 2 of this year’s Rewind North on Sunday 6th August.

I should firstly mention that it was still raining. We’d managed to get off the car park (a field) the previous night, and just as I was sitting at home pouring a beer, I received a message from a group of friends I’d seen earlier, asking whereabouts I was and had I got a tow rope. I’m remarkably proud of myself that I managed to respond without being smug. They did eventually get towed off by one of the fleet of tractors that had apparently descended on the car park.

On Sunday we had the relative luxury of being driven there by another couple who’d been unable to attend on Saturday (the non-driver having a broken foot, which she ingeniously protected from the elements by wrapping it in a rubble bag tied with string). It came as no surprise to be directed to a different field than the one we used on Saturday.

As well as a different car park, we had a different compere – the Rewind legend that is Clive Jackson. Also known as The Doctor. The Doctor who had a #1 hit with The Medics, of which more later. Typical quote: “I only had the one hit, so that’s why I’m standing here introducing these wonderful people who had a lot more”.

So, who did we see as we sat in our chairs getting thoroughly wet?

China Crisis – The self-proclaimed “nicest group you’ll ever meet”, Kirkby school friends Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon are an act we’ve seen a few times, including on their 40th Anniversary tour in 2022. They joke about being the warm-up act, but the songs go down well. Last time they played here, I was delighted to see debut single African And White included, but it’s dropped this time around and replaced with this, which was also pleasing to hear.

The Farm – At some point Rewind will have to stop being an 80s Festival, so it was good to see a toe being dipped in the water of the early 90s. 4 of their own songs (3 of which I recognised) and a cover of Bankrobber (keeping it 80s!) – there was a reason for them playing it but it was quite a long-winded explanation, something to do with a Hillsborough charity, I think.

Big Country – I never saw the original line-up, but the guy next to me said he had and that they were better than the current iteration. This didn’t really come as a surprise. Having said that, they were entertaining enough and I think there are a couple of them that were there back in the day. I hadn’t expected Harvest Home to get played, so that was a nice surprise.

Al McKay’s EWF Experience – You know Al McKay, surely? He was a member of Earth, Wind & Fire between 1973 and 1980 (yeah, OK – I had to look that up). The early part of the set passes me by. The playing is good, but the only song I recognise is a cover of Got To Get You Into My Life. The final three songs get everyone up on their feet though (the rain has finally stopped) – September, Boogie Wonderland and Let’s Groove (the latter recorded after Al had left Earth, Wind & Fire).

And then, just like on the Saturday, the house band arrive and there are three 15 minute sets, kicked off by…

Brother Beyond – The lead singer (indeed the only member) of BB is called Nathan Moore. I learn this because his name keeps appearing on a screen behind him. Mrs TGG and her friend with the broken foot feel the need to Google him. He’s 58 apparently. That’s a year older than me and three years older than my mate Steve (husband of the broken-footed friend). I have to admit that he looks about 15 years younger than me. He sang some songs that female members of the crowd seemed to like.

Red Box – The two hits and for reasons unexplained, a cover of California Dreamin’. I have no idea who Mr. Red Box is (I seem to recall them actually being a duo), but he seems like a really nice guy and appears genuinely humbled that people still enjoy those hits. His daughter is singing alongside him and he plugs her new album and says that the next time we see him, he’ll be supporting her. Sadly, their indie hit from 1983, Chenko, doesn’t feature, but I have added it to my list of potential Unsung Songs (quite literally unsung today).

Sonia – Annoying shouty Scouse teenager is now an annoying shouty Scouse middle-aged person. My personal highlight of her set was the halloumi wrap I purchased while it was on.

Doctor & The Medics – It happens every year. We are either “ahead of schedule” or there’s an “unexpected delay”. The Doctor will always ask for suggestions as to how to fill the gap. “What’s that? You want to hear a medley of my one hit? Oh, go on then….” Everyone is on their feet belting out Spirit In The Sky. Every year I also get a stern look from Mrs TGG for mentioning that I prefer Norman Greenbaum’s original version of the song.

Heaven 17 – Drafted in with less than 24 hours’ notice as Marc Almond was unable to appear. We’ve seen them a few times before – now Martyn Ware. Glenn Gregory and a female singer. Temptation is obviously a crowd-pleaser, but also so powerful when they play it live. Glenn’s favourite song of theirs is also mine. I’ve never seen them without it being played.

Go West – Still the original duo. Peter Cox has a great voice and they rattle through the hits and a cover of Hungry Like The Wolf for some reason. I’ve always liked We Close Our Eyes and bought the 12″ back in the day. Both Peter and Richard Drummie are instantly recognisable 38 years on from the cover of that record.

Nik Kershaw – Old Men of Arran dancing round and around and all the other hits. All good sing-along stuff and he still sounds the same. We’ve seen him previously here and he always mentions a song he wrote that someone else took to the top of the charts. He is responsible for Chesney Hawkes. The One And Only then gets played, obviously.

The Boomtown Rats – Another act who came in at short notice (on the previous Wednesday when Squeeze had to pull out as Glenn Tilbrook was unwell). I’d never seen them before – and wow, I want to see them again. There was an energy and intensity to the performance that completely conveyed itself to 20,000 folks in a field standing and watching. Sir Bob was Sir Bob, and the rest of the band were just spot on. Even Mrs TGG (who was disappointed not to see Squeeze – we’ve seen them more than any other act together) was impressed. Bookended by a couple of recent tracks, everything else was pre-1980 (i.e. their best stuff). A superb way to finish the weekend.

So that was Rewind North 2023. A weird mix of acts, but one of the most enjoyable weekends of the year for us and a lot of our friends. Hopefully we’ll be able to go again next year (which will probably be the next time I eat any halloumi).

TGG

August 12, 2023

Seen ’em Live #7

The one about the retro music festival just up the road – part 1 (Saturday 5th August)

Said festival is Rewind North – mainly an 80s festival, held in the grounds of Capesthorne Hall in Cheshire, with 20,000 people in various costumes and various levels of alcoholic intoxication. We know there were that number attending because Jenny Powell (yes, the one that used to present No Limits) said so, and she was the compere for the day. She is a couple of years younger than me and Mrs TGG, and my other half couldn’t believe how good she looked for her age.

We’ve been attending this for a number of years now (since the lads were old enough to be left on their own for the day, basically). What follows is a list of who we saw and may be of interest if you’ve not been to this sort of event before. I don’t intend to dwell too deeply on set lists unless there’s a reason to do so and as I type this I’m far from decided as to which track or tracks I will share a link to. Hopefully that will become clearer as I plough through.

Format-wise, the first four acts each gets around 30 minutes and will be a band that’s provided all of its own musicians. Then the hard-working house band comes on and backs three acts who just get a fifteen minute slot each (this usually coincides with tea-time and one of those acts will invariably be one I don’t mind missing in order to queue for a halloumi burger or whatever). Then we’re back to 30 minute slots again, but now with the house band accompanying and finally the headline act gets an hour, which may or may not see the house band pressed into service yet again. There are obviously gaps between the acts which gives Jenny Powell something to do and a few tracks get played from artists from the 80s who are not performing there over the weekend.

August 9, 2023

August 9, 2023

So who did we see?

Disco Inferno – A disco covers band. Good musicians, predictable set of songs, warmed the crowd up.

I didn’t mention the rain, did i? It rained a lot and I mean a lot. Not that it really dampened anyone’s spirits, but warming the crowd up was very much needed.

The South – Some ex-members of The Beautiful South and some other people. I saw The Beautiful South a couple of times and I’ve seen Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott. At least with the latter you get some Housemartins songs thrown in as well. Rude version of Don’t Marry Her is performed. Children are present. Edgy.

From The Jam – Bruce Foxton and his chums doing some of the old favourites. Good to see them being performed by someone who was involved with recording them. David Watts is their earliest release played in the set and The Eton Rifles probably gets the most enthusiastic crowd response.

UB40 – This is the Robin Campbell version, which I think makes it what’s left of the original band. This is commercial UB40, so lots of their cover versions with an ironic inclusion of Sing Our Own Song thrown in for good measure. I’d have liked Rat In Mi Kitchen, but didn’t get it. Food For Thought was played though.

Art Of Noise (VJ set) – First of the 15 minute acts and as a mate that I bumped into said – “not exactly essential, was it?” Nice to see Max Headroom on the screen, but yes just a romp through their canon of hits all spliced together.

Heatwave – Correctly guessing that the one song I could name of theirs would be played at the end, we went to get something to eat (spotting that the pizzas were in proper boxes with lids this year and given the incessant rain, the choice of food was a no-brainer). Their other tunes were something with a lot of “Oohs” that I didn’t recognise and some dirgy ballad that I vaguely recall. Two original members perhaps. Boogie Nights is a great song though.

Toyah – Bonkers as always. Three of her hits and a cover of Echo Beach (which research tells me she took to #54 in 1987). Given that I can’t think any festival would fly Martha or indeed any number of Muffins over to perform their one UK hit, it was good to hear it from someone who can, in her own shouty way, still hold a tune.

Nick Heyward – Last time we saw him was supporting Squeeze in the mid-90s where a heckler yelled “Where’s your jumper?” as he was about to start his set. None of that today though. No sir. Instead Jenny Powell revealed that as a kid she’d had a poster of the Haircut 100 front man on her bedroom wall (possibly the same one that my sister had). She was clearly delighted to be temporarily sharing a stage with him and there was a big hug before he kicked off with Take That Situation. We got the other two big solo hits and the three big Haircut hits as well.

ABC – Martin Fry can still pull off that gold suit look. He can also still deliver a polished ABC set. We saw the band last year performing The Lexicon Of Love album with an orchestra and thoroughly enjoyed it. On Saturday, we got the big hits, a couple of lesser ones and 2016’s Viva Love – which is as good a song as any to share.

Martin Kemp (DJ set) – Smug 60-something bloke who used to be in a band that had a few hits plays some predictable 80s bangers. Even less essential than Art Of Noise.

Andy Bell – The guy from Erasure, not the one from Ride. With Vince Clarke not currently performing for personal reasons, the Saturday headline act is the half of Erasure that is getting out there. And it was all a little odd. As he launched into the first song (Drama) Mrs TGG and I exchanged a glance because he did sound a little out of tune. This carried on throughout – tuneful bits and the occasional less tuneful bit to go with them. Also odd was the attire he wore – jettisoning the cowboy hat and jacket, he spent most of the set wearing a white T-shirt and sparkly hot pants, which would have been fine, but he has gained some weight since the last time I’d seen him and he did keep lifting up the shirt to display his midriff for no apparent reason. Even odder were the long rambling bits between each song where he seemed out of breath, talked in a silly voice, lost a ring, mislaid his spectacles necessitating him lying on the floor to read the set list and wittered on about all manner of random stuff. Quite a few people were leaving early. He also played what were to me at least, some unfamiliar tunes – Hey Now Think I Got A Feeling and Nerves Of Steel, but at least he introduced them thus unwittingly helping a local blog writer. We did get to sing along to the likes of Stop, A Little Respect and Love To Hate You (which he introduced as “a shit song”).

So that was Saturday. Sunday looked to have the stronger line-up and was supposedly going to be less rainy. You can find out how that played out in due course.

To be continued.

TGG

August 9, 2023

Discover Weekly #11

Yes – it’s back. The series that almost broke the blog. It’s been standing in the corner for a long time, reflecting on its behaviour.

It’s been allowed out to play again under strict conditions – chiefly that it won’t be operating under the strict conditions that it had previously.

Rather than fixing itself on a specific number, and hence track, in the Discover Weekly playlist, it will now just focus on anything that’s been in one of those playlists that I was previously unaware of, and that I’ve been enjoying listening to. And it won’t be weekly.

And so we go to a track that popped up a few months ago that was completely new to me and that I’ve played quite a few times now. It’s only 6 years old.

Sweet Baboo is Stephen Black, described by Discogs as a “Multi talented singer/songwriter from Wales”. He’s been releasing albums since 2008, with the most recent release being this year. This one is from 2017’s Wild Imagination. Going to Discogs again, the album is described as slotting in to the folk, world and country genres.

This is why I dislike the use of genres. The above track, for me, doesn’t fit any of those. I’m not entirely sure what I’d describe it as – it just moves along in an inoffensive, but interesting way. I’d sooner just click on the track and listen to it, than be potentially dissuaded from doing so due to supposed preconceptions as to what a genre may entail. So I’m not going to try to describe it, other than to say that I like it and you might too. Click on it – you can always stop if you don’t like it.

With this track, I was sufficiently impressed to visit the bandcamp page – https://sweetbaboo.bandcamp.com/

I downloaded the above track and added it to my iTunes library and fully intended to go back and listen to some further tracks. Which of course I haven’t done. (Hangs head in shame).

And there we are – that was more enjoyable to write than the last couple of DWs. I do want to look at another Cassette Album, but unfortunately, I can’t locate the cassette in question for its photoshoot (something I feel is important – you need to see the cassette that has been neglected for so long so that it can have its moment in the sun again). Next up will most likely be another Unsung Song.

By the way – is it just me or did this song cross your mind when looking at Stephen Black’s band name?

TGG

July 16, 2023

Seen ’em Live #6

It’s taken me almost two weeks to get round to writing this. Stuff happening. We went to see an artist that may not be to everyone’s liking. So to save your ploughing through I’ll tell you that we went to see…

Peter Gabriel.

Still with us? Then read on…

There has been plenty written about this tour already by people far more talented at this sort of thing than I am, so I’m not planning to do a massive in-depth review. And as I mentioned, it’s been some days now.

Despite the fact that his work with Genesis pre-dates me being properly interested in music, since hearing Solsbury Hill, which was a hit when I was 11 years old, I’ve always had a quiet admiration for PG. The fact that his first 4 solo albums were all called Peter Gabriel indicated to me that this was a guy who didn’t necessarily want to conform. I also found his song, Biko, particularly moving as a 14 year old, hearing it for the first time as it was released, just at the stage when I was becoming aware of world politics.

This current tour, the i/o Tour, is his first for 9 years. We’d never seen him live before and both Mrs TGG and I felt that was something we should rectify. His new album, i/o, is to be released later in 2023 and he is releasing a song at each full moon throughout the year. At the time of the concert at the Manchester Arena, 6 tracks had been released. Given that he plays (I think) 11 new songs as part of the 22 song set, some pre-show listening meant that we were at least familiar with some of them.

The show featured a number of animations and short films to accompany the music with PG keen to give thanks to their creators and giving a shout out to any that were in the audience that evening. He does come across as very humble and is continually thanking the band. Thanks are also directed to a seeming cast of thousands including the catering and driving staff for the tour.

We left feeling we’d really enjoyed the show. At 73 and with a lengthy back catalogue, playing so much new material can only be applauded in my book. He did please the retro crowd to some extent, with 5 songs from the mega-selling So album, including a superb vocalist to do the Kate Bush bits of Don’t Give Up. But there was no room for Games Without Frontiers or Shock The Monkey. He rounded off the encore with Biko, with a picture of the South African activist on screen behind him, the song dedicated to those fighting oppression all over the world, including Ukraine, Myanmar and Palestine.

My favourite new tracks have all been released already. If you’ve not heard any of them yet, now’s your chance.

Our next live music is a month away at the two-day retro-fest that is Rewind North. Not an event where we would expect many surprises, but as I’ve written previously, it’s local and so we invariably see a lot of folks that we know there. This year, two bands we’ve seen a lot are playing – Squeeze and China Crisis. I think they’re on the same day so I have a t-shirt dilemma!

I’ll try and get one or two other pieces written before then. I’ll try….

TGG

July 6, 2023

Unsung Songs #3: Ben Watt – Some Things Don’t Matter

I’m guessing it was around February 1983 – it was definitely a Sunday afternoon and I had Radio 1 playing while I was doing my best not to complete a homework essay, the topic of which could have been:

a) Some sort of creative writing piece in French

b) An analysis of some aspect or another of Bertolt Brecht’s play, The Caucasian Chalk Circle

or c) Peter The Great (without mentioning his introduction of a tax on beards, which whilst a highly amusing fact, would according to our History teacher, not earn a mark in an A Level exam).

As it wasn’t yet evening, my level of urgency to get the essay finished would have been low and it wouldn’t have taken a great deal to distract me. And distract me a piece of music did. Something that sounded just perfect for a rainy (probably – I was in Stockport) Sunday afternoon in February. A guy singing softly over an acoustic guitar and a lovely saxophone bit, exactly where it needed to be. The pen was put down and I listened transfixed, hoping that there would be a mention of the artist and title at the end of the song, as I’d not been listening that closely prior to the song playing.

I had a tiny spiral-bound notebook during the early 80’s, in which I kept a list of songs I’d heard on the radio that I liked. This book without doubt contained the neatest writing I’ve ever managed (*1) (*2). The name of Ben Watt and the title Some Things Don’t Matter were duly added when the song did indeed get its back announcement. At this point in time, I had no idea who Ben Watt was and for a few months, the song was just a memory, logged in my notebook.

Forward to July 1983, and I’m in my first week working for a firm of auditors in Manchester during my summer holidays. I’ve got some work there via George who lives round the corner. George chats to my father a lot and between them they have decided that some exposure to the accountancy world would be very useful for someone studying French, German and History at A Level. It’s a small firm and I soon notice that George is actually a bit of a joke in the office. His arrival at 9am on a Monday with me for my first day has his colleagues open-mouthed. I barely see him again after that as he’s always late, at lunch or leaving early – “visiting clients”, I’m told by said colleagues, who can barely supress their laughter. Everyone else in the office is old (i.e. over the age of 30), apart from Nigel. He’s delighted to see a younger person and talks to me a lot. He’s in his mid-20s, and the only mention of music that passes between us is him telling me how great he thinks Yes are.

Nigel reappears after popping out for lunch, complete with an HMV bag. He’s very excited and tells me that he’s just spent 99 pence on a brilliant album. I make some comment about prog rock albums and clearance sales. Undeterred, he gets out an album that’s called Pillows & Prayers and tells me to look at the the track listing. My eyes home in on Side 1, Track 5. “Wow! Have you heard that Ben Watt song? Were there any more copies of this album? That’s worth the price on its own!”, I gibber excitedly.

I take my lunch break and return with the same album. We share an office with Audrey, who looks like she should have retired a couple of decades earlier. Audrey tuts all afternoon as Nigel and I discover a shared love of John Peel shows and do next to no work.

It’s coming up to 40 years since I purchased that album. It’s been played a lot, well – parts of it have, none more so than Some Things Don’t Matter, which has never lost the ability to transport me back to a rainy Sunday afternoon in February 1983.

Maybe I’ll write about Pillows & Prayers at some point in the future, although I’d imagine most people reading this will be familiar with it. But this is Ben Watt’s moment of glory on this blog, and the point at which I humbly apologise to him for never purchasing the parent North Marine Drive album. Sure, I was relatively skint in 1983, but I’m ashamed to say that the first time I heard it in its entirety was via a streaming service. Maybe one day….

(*1) My handwriting is appalling. It’s so bad that I wasn’t allowed to use a pen at primary school – I was kept on pencil so that I could rub things out and try to make them legible for the teachers. Even now I can’t use a biro and have any hope of reading what I’ve written a couple of days later. A fine-nibbed fountain pen just about does the trick, and has marked me down as mildly eccentric with younger colleagues. I have been described as “lacking fine motor skills” for most of my life. Actually, “clumsy” is the word that’s usually used.

(*2) A list of really stupid things that I’ve done would include, somewhere near the top, the disposing of said notebook around 1988/89. As someone who is a self-confessed hoarder, this was totally out of character. As I recall, my logic was that I’d most likely never again hear those songs I’d not bought by then, so the book was just taunting me about missed purchases. Luckily I can still “see” some of the entries in my head (obviously the “neat” writing helped) and a number of them were acquired when iTunes became a thing.

TGG

June 21, 2023

Seen ’em Live #5

It’s taken longer than I anticipated to pull this piece together – I hope I remember everything I wanted to say.

A few months ago, I got rather excited. An act that I have followed since 1974 were going to be playing in Manchester. On what would be my 57th birthday. A band I only saw for the first time in April 2022 at a much-rearranged show. That April 2022 gig ranks with both me and Mrs TGG as one of the best shows we’ve ever been to. The band would also be releasing a new album on May 26th, the day prior to my birthday and the Manchester show. This is the title track from it – featuring a celebrity fan in the video.

Their first (and biggest) UK hit was #2 in the Charts on my 8th birthday. As with many playgrounds at the time, the band’s appearance on Top Of The Pops was a talking point, particularly the “scary man on the piano”. We thought he looked like the teacher who took all of our primary school’s classes for music and who had mastered a disapproving look when he played the piano prior to assembly and we loudly chattered over whichever classical piece he’d chosen to play. (*1)

This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us has remained a favourite ever since and I’ve always managed to somehow keep up with what the Brothers Mael have been up to, without necessarily purchasing everything at the time. I loved their 1979 work with Giorgio Moroder, was probably the only person on our student radio station to play anything from the Music That You Can Dance To album, went into a buying spree during their reacquaintance with the charts and the airwaves in in the mid-90s, bought their 2015 collaboration with Franz Ferdinand as a download and they are by far and away top of my Spotify play count.

The April 2022 gig was at the Albert Hall in Manchester, a venue I’ve mentioned previously. What was evident was the love that the crowd had for Russell and Ron, and they seemed genuinely humbled by the reception that they received that evening. We certainly weren’t expecting that they’d be back in the city so soon, and this time going “upmarket” and playing at the Bridgwater Hall. We did wonder how the move to a venue with comfy seats might affect the show, but obviously we bought tickets.

The first thing I noticed was the age range of the audience. It was huge. I saw a primary school age child (admittedly an outlier), plenty under the age of 40, right up to the ages of Sparks themselves (mid-70s). I suppose an band with a 50+ year career who have constantly evolved their sound and have never been truly “in fashion” will attract that demographic.

First of all was a brief support from Mr B, The Gentleman Rhymer. Eccentric is probably the best word to describe his style. We all joined in shouting “All Hail The Chap” during one of his own ditties and his own take on various Sparks songs (including a lengthy medley) signposted some of the songs we wouldn’t be hearing later on in the evening. His website came up with a security warning when I tried to visit, so here’s his Wikipedia page, should you wish to know more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr.B_The_Gentleman_Rhymer

Only about a third of the setlist from April 2022 was retained for this tour (and I’ll come to some of those songs in due course). Last time, it almost seemed like a career-spanning Best Of, given that it had been a couple of years since the release of A Steady Drip Drip Drip. This time, with the new album just released, it featured heavily, with 7 songs taken from it. At least in Manchester, we’d had a couple of days to acquaint ourselves with it, and I was already familiar with some of the catchier elements as I’d had it pretty much on repeat for two days.

One song that stayed was the opener, So May We Start, taken from the 2021 soundtrack to the film Annette. I have to say that Russell Mael has remarkable energy for someone his age, and his vocals are still very good, but at both shows, there’s been a pause for Ron to step out from behind the keyboard and give his kid brother a break whilst delivering 1986’s Shopping Mall Of Love in a deadpan manner. The new songs seemed to be well received – even the Kraftwerk-y sounding Escalator, which has been described as the new album’s weakest track by some critics. I disagree.

I think initially the audience was a little more reserved than at the Albert Hall, but as the show went on, that love for the band was coming across in much the same way. And by the time the crowd pleasers came along (Music That You Can Dance To, When Do I Get To Sing “My Way”, No 1 Song In Heaven – complete with obligatory Ron dance and This Town…), the comfy seats were given up and everyone was on their feet. With typical Sparks humour, the main set finished with the closer from the new album, Gee, That Was Fun.

The three song encore was once again rounded off with 2020’s All That (probably as close to a phone-waving song as Sparks have ever got). There then followed several minutes of cheering, responded to be several thank-yous from Russell & Ron. Once again, they seemed genuinely humbled by the response they were getting. For me, any concerns about getting a less intense experience by moving venue just up the road were well and truly dispelled.

My favourite track from the new album did get played:

As a postscript the new album has entered the UK Album Chart at #7, their third consecutive one that’s got to that position. It was also #1 on physical sales. To be that relevant after 50 years is some achievement.

(*1) Subsequently I discovered that this teacher was a lifelong vegetarian, very unusual back then – I assume he was around 50 when I was at the school, so that would put his birthdate in the 1920s. He also never owned a car and cycled 10 miles to and from school every day on a bike that looked as old as he was, wearing his suit and a tatty looking raincoat, long before people wore cycle helmets. He seems to be very fondly remembered on the various “memories” social media – I actually feel bad for chattering through his piano playing now.

TGG

June 5, 2023

En Vacances #1

A new reason for not recently posting – I’ve been on holiday. So busy was I before the break, that I’ve ended up posting this three days after I got back.

Where have I been? Well, when Mrs TGG and I decided to book this one, two songs lodged in my head.

Should be back with a Seen ‘Em Live post in the next day or two. With a bit of luck.

TGG

May 27, 2023

Unsung Songs #2: Mick Karn – Sensitive

If the various lockdowns hadn’t have happened, I might not be writing about this song now. The thing is, until the end of 2020, I can’t recall ever having heard it. That’s when, twiddling my thumbs at home, because we were in some Tier or another that meant all the pubs were shut, I was idly scrolling through Facebook when a “Suggested For You” item took my attention.

The Synth World Cup: Forgotten 80-84 was the title of what turned out to be a very interesting group and concept. What was being planned to start early in 2021 was a knockout competition involving a few hundred synth tunes that had never made the UK Top 40. Even better than that, there were YouTube playlists including at least 95% of the nominated tracks so that members of the group could listen prior to voting. All of this organised by a guy called Jeremy who lives in the South-West and has subsequently gone on to run a series of club nights called Computer World down there.

With these playlists featuring everything from near-misses by artists who did have some hits to stuff that was really obscure, and all stations in between, the quality level varied significantly. What I got from it, on a number of occasions, was a “Crikey, that was good, I wonder why I’ve never heard it before” moment. Which is where this comes in.

I can’t recall ever noticing that Japan’s bass player had made a solo album after the group’s demise. I was familiar with a single he recorded with Midge Ure in 1983 (After A Fashion), and I’d heard something by the band Dali’s Car, with which he teamed up with Peter Murphy of Bauhaus – although I wasn’t sure at the time who from each of the bands was actually in that outfit! There were a number of other works that also passed me by, prior to Karn’s death from cancer in January 2011.

Sensitive reached the dizzy heights of #98. It probably wasn’t an obvious fit for radio play, but I like its general mood and somehow or another I do find myself singing bits of it for some time after I’ve heard it. It’s possibly the song I’ve played most over the last couple of years, since I discovered it.

I was surprised to discover when researching this piece that the aforementioned After A Fashion only reached #39 in 1983. This is a track I have played frequently over the last 40 years and is another that seems to get lodged in my head whenever I hear it. So, as a bonus, here’s a link to that as well.

There may well be other discoveries and tracks from the Synth World Cup: Forgotten 80-84 making it into this series. You could say it partly inspired the series. For the record, Sensitive made it as far as the 3rd Round and the overall winner was the rather splendid Let Me Go by Heaven 17. The group continues on Facebook, albeit under a slightly different name and no World Cups currently taking place. It’s a group that has led me in a number of directions and rekindled my interest in B-Movie among others. Here’s a link if you’re interested.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/936749170080609

It wasn’t meant to be a month between posts. Life has just been a little hectic of late for one reason or another.

TGG

May 11, 2023

Seen ’em Live #4

Another Saturday, another visit to Manchester’s Albert Hall. Also another visit to the Pizza Express on King Street, sitting somewhat incongruously among the high-end eateries in that area, such as Gotham, Rosso and other places where you may encounter the less publicity-shy Premier League footballer or soap star. Oh, and Gordon Ramsay appears to be opening a place there at some point, as well.

This time it’s to see Peter Hook & The Light. We’ve seen them a couple of times before at Rewind North, an 80s retro fest that takes place 6-7 miles north of chez TGG. So it’s rude not to go – it’s almost like a local party in the park given the number of people we know from our town who we see there. Hooky and his band have impressed when we’ve seen them. Then again, when others on the bill include someone who used to be in Five Star (One Star?)…. In fairness, it’s a mix of cheesy (ideal for queuing up for food), half-decent and people I would (and do) go and see perform their own gigs.

There are those that dismiss acts such as Peter Hook & The Light and From The Jam as glorified tribute bands. You may well agree with that point of view, and I understand that argument. I take a more generous view, though, that such acts are offering a chance to see a full set of songs from those classic bands with at least one person who was actually involved with the original recordings. I would of course like to see New Order if they were to tour again (*1), but I can’t see The Jam reforming any time soon.

This performance is the third of three consecutive nights at the Albert Hall. On Thursday, they performed Unknown Pleasures and Movement and on Friday it was Closer and Power, Corruption & Lies. I quite fancied Thursday, but a combination of work commitments due to the financial year-end and Mrs TGGs unfamiliarity with the finer points of both albums led us to the sell-out Saturday show where they were to play both of the Substance albums from Joy Division & New Order.

This meant that we knew the set list in advance, and with the New Order album definitely getting more play in our house, I did have to double-check the Joy Division running order. Handily, I did get an email with the running orders and what was included in the encore during the course of the day! I guess it’s useful for those who drink a lot at a gig and can’t remember what they’ve heard, and also a useful aide memoire for someone who wants to write about it afterwards. For the record, I rarely drink alcohol at a music event – largely because I’m a picky real ale drinker and most venues don’t sell anything I like.

The first set is pretty no-nonsense. Straight on stage, a quick “it’s good to be home” and then on with Warsaw. There are pauses only for dedications prior to Transmission and Atmosphere – the former for Tony Wilson and the latter for Nora Forster. All too soon, we reach the end of the set with a song who’s intro always gives me goose bumps – Love Will Tear Us Apart. You don’t really need me to tell you the response it gets from the audience.

After what I recall was only around a 15 minute break, the band are back out to work their way through the somewhat lengthier New Order set. There’s certainly a greater element of the crowd joining in with the songs here – I put it down to a combination of alcohol consumption and familiarity. Everything is delivered in an energetic way and Hooky is taking a regular wipe of the forehead with a towel. The nature of the Albert Hall does mean that it gets a lot warmer in there as the evening progresses – I know the same can be said of many venues, but it seems more noticeable here. We reach the encores and as well as the published Regret and Crystal, we also get Vanishing Point.

Gig over, milking the applause. Hooky takes his shirt off. He’s ten years older than me, but I have a lot to do if my physique is to be as good as that at 67. He then throws the shirt into the crowd. Mrs TGG tries to work out how many people will leave with a piece of that very sweaty shirt.

All in all, an enjoyable evening. We knew what we were getting and the band delivered. What it did allow was a chance to see how the sound of early Joy Division evolved into the New Order mid-80s style, courtesy of them being played by the same group of musicians in chronological order in a live setting. It also struck me (and I’ve no idea why it hasn’t before) that all the way through there’s been a focus on simplistic song titles, with very few having more than a couple of words.

Here’s some old footage of them doing Transmission.

(*1) On and off, it’s taken me a couple of days to write this piece, during which time I’ve learned that New Order have announced some UK dates later in the year. Nearest so far is Leeds, but if anything closer to home is announced and we’re free on the date in question, I may end up doing a bit of compare and contrast.

TGG

April 11, 2023

Seen ’em Live #3

Saturday 1st April 2023, chez TGG, sometime before the City v Liverpool match. “You’re not seriously going to wear that. I thought you’d chucked it out. Where’s it been? Does it even fit you?” Mrs TGG was once again taking a dim view of my antics. Incurring her wrath on this occasion was the fact that I had not, as she supposed, disposed of an old T-shirt that she was never very fond of. A band T-shirt. One that I acquired back in 1990. More than that, I planned to wear it that evening whilst watching said band at the Albert Hall in Manchester. The offending item was (and still is) a fading yellow T-shirt with a crazy cow’s head on it and the legend “MOO!” printed underneath. Yes – we were off to see Inspiral Carpets.

This was their first tour since 2015, their first tour without drummer Craig Gill, who sadly passed away in 2016.This was them back in Manchester for the first time since December 2015, at what is a great venue. It’s the sort of place that can generate an amazing atmosphere (most recently experienced by me when watching Sparks there just under 12 months ago). More into, if you’re unfamiliar with it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Hall,_Manchester

The good news was that the T-shirt does still fit me – I tried it on more in hope than expectation if I’m honest, but that was it, my mind was set and even continued grumblings from my other half weren’t going to stop me.

We arrived in good time and were near the front of the inevitable queue that snakes along Peter Street, up on to Bootle Street and beyond. We also spotted Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, in the vicinity – hadn’t realised he was a fan, but I suppose by the law of averages there must be some politicians who have reasonable taste in music.

The doors opened at 7pm and once inside, DJ Dave Sweetmore was already on stage playing a mix of 80s and 90s classics that fitted the evening, mostly from Manchester-based acts.

Support act Stanleys were on at 7:45pm. They are from Wigan – as both they and Dave Sweetmore mentioned to us. They were a good fit. Jaunty indie-style music that wasn’t pushing any boundaries, but was pleasant enough to listen to. They played what they said was a new song called Maybe, which I liked, but I can’t find a YouTube link to it, so you’ve got this instead.

After that DJ Dave was back, ramping up the popularity level of the tunes as we headed towards the 9pm arrival of Clint Boon and co.

A chorus of “Moo”‘s greeted the band as they walked out on stage and off they went, launching into early single Joe to get things under way. The 17 song main set and 3 song encore leaned towards their earlier output, although all 3 singles from 1994’s Devil Hopping made an appearance and one track from the 2015 comeback album as well. The latter (Let You Down) had a recording of Dr. John Cooper Clarke played in and from the former, the barnstorming I Want You had the words from Mark E. Smith as part of the intro.

What was apparent as the evening progressed was the reaction from the crowd, which was getting more and more boisterous. This was clearly finding its way to the band. Clint Boon said that when he first went to a gig at the Albert Hall, he was regretting that the Inspirals would never play there, but now it had actually happened it was a great experience, and one can only assume was exceeding his expectations. This was certainly becoming a superb homecoming gig.

The closer for the main set was Dragging Me Down, one of their better-known songs and one which was performed with oomph by both band and crowd alike. The band departed and guess what – there was a lot more Moo-ing from the crowd. Of course there would be. Even the video screen at the back of the stage kept displaying the word. Until suddenly it didn’t. Suddenly Craig Gill’s image appeared and there was film footage of him in happier times, with “Craig Gill 1971-2016” displayed at the bottom. You can only imagine the reaction from the crowd.

The band reappeared and announced that there would be a guest drummer for the first song of the encore (Commercial Rain) – Craig’s son, Levon. He came on, drumsticks in hand, did a “Manchester!” shout to the mike and took his place on the drum stool. He did his old man proud – the drumming gene has been passed down. What a great, and emotional, reception he received when he stepped down.

Next in the encore was a cover of 96 Tears (as included on their 1988 Planecrash EP) and a shout out to local radio personality Mike Sweeney, a long-time supporter of the band. They rounded off with the soaring Saturn 5, singing-along levels so loud that it’s a wonder that the venue still has its stained glass windows fully intact.

I’d expected a good night, but this was great, and once again the Albert Hall’s unique environment had contributed to the experience. We skipped the after show party at the Deaf Institute (I still have my unused wristband that I was handed whilst queuing), where Clint Boon was going to be doing a DJ set, and demonstrating commendable levels of energy. Mrs TGG had an 8am start on Sunday and as out-of-towners, we travel in via Metrolink from the Park & Ride at East Didsbury. Sadly the later trams never started up again after Covid.

I hope they won’t leave it too long before touring again as I could really do with another night like that. I’ll leave you with Commercial Rain and some old footage.

TGG

April 4, 2023

Unsung Songs #1: The Bible – “Graceland”

I was going to call this series The Underachievers, but that almost felt like it was being critical of someone, be it artist, record company or even the Great British Record-Buying Public. That isn’t what I’m trying to do. It’s meant to be more a celebration of songs I’ve liked over the years, but which, at their initial time of release at least, didn’t capture the hearts and minds of too many other folks.

To qualify, a song must have:

a) been released as a single in the UK

b) failed to make the UK Top 40 Singles chart – ever (unless I make an exception and allow a very low Top 40 placing)

c) been feted by me to various people over the years – with reactions ranging from “I can see why no-one bought it” to “did you know they’re still together – fancy seeing them?”, and most stations in between.

And so to #1…

Around 15 years ago, there was a flurry of 80s Lyric Quiz things flying around the office. These generally had some of the more interesting excerpts of songs from that decade that we were then invited to guess. Obviously most were taken from the well-known material that is still played on retro stations around three times a day (so I’m told – I rely on people who are subjected to this sort of stuff in their workplaces to keep me abreast of such developments. I’m so glad I work from home apart from a couple of days per month).

One lyrical excerpt I’d love to have seen in one of those quizzes was: “and when I die, will you build the Taj Mahal, wear black every day of your life – I doubt it”. It certainly beats the vast majority of the lyrics that did make the cut. But it wasn’t there, because it comes from a ditty that only ever got to #51 in 1989, and that was via a re-recording after two earlier peaks of #87 (1986) and #86 (1987). All of these were released on Chrysalis, but there was an earlier 1986 release on Backs Records. It seems there were others out there who really believed in this one, not just me. Looking at Discogs, I seem to have the 1986 Chrysalis version, which is reassuring, because that’s what my memory was telling me. Wikipedia seems to recall it slightly differently however, noting only the Backs release in 1986, and not the Chrysalis one that I actually have. I know this because the 1987 release had a different sleeve.

The band were formed in Cambridge in 1985 and the name I always associate with them is that of Boo Hewerdine, who wrote the song along with Tony Shepherd. Hewerdine has gone on to have a lengthy solo career, and my recollection is that there has been significant acclaim for his solo output, although I must confess to not having explored it too deeply.

Would that solo career have happened in quite the same way if Graceland and subsequent singles had fared better sales-wise?

For me, Graceland sounded a little Smiths-y, which is probably what drew me to it in the first place – and may well have turned others off it. I think it’s the pick of The Bible’s output prior to their break-up in 1989 (they have reformed twice since then and appear to be an entity at the time of writing). It lags well behind later single, Honey Be Good, in terms of Spotify plays though, which surprised me. Of course mentioning the word Graceland in 1986/7 would have prompted people to mention the then current Paul Simon album of that name, whose global success far eclipsed this humble track. I like both, but given the choice of only playing the one, this wins hands down.

TGG

March 29, 2023

1. 

   Charity Chic

   April 3, 2023

   aN EXCELLENT CHOICE

   LikeLiked by 1 person

   Reply

The Cassette Albums #2: G. W. McLennan – “Watershed”

I’m fairly sure I was aware of The Go-Betweens before I landed at Uni in 1984. Aware of their existence, that is. I was reading enough of the music press to be aware of many bands from whom I’d heard no output – indeed in some cases, I probably still haven’t. But as I recall it, the press coverage around The Go-Betweens had always been fairly positive.

Therefore, I was rather delighted one day when browsing the Uni radio station record library, looking for something that I’d decided to play, when I stumbled across The Go-Betweens’ debut album, Send Me A Lullaby. Not that I realised at that point that it was their debut. I found some spare studio time to give it a listen at some point and quite enjoyed it, but no more than that. Nevertheless, it was good to see an album from a couple of years earlier released on Rough Trade in the collection, as there were still plenty of prog-rock loving Engineering students around, and the record library reflected this.

My next recollection of hearing The Go-Betweens was when I Just Get Caught Out appeared on an EP that came free with Sounds (research tells me this was on 28th February 1987). According to the sleeve notes, this had been specially recorded for the EP. This was the second track on the B-side of said EP, following offerings from The Cult, The Fall and The Adult Net (who may also feature in this series at some point). For a free EP, it was one of the better ones I’d acquired in this manner, but it was track B2 that I kept going back to for another listen.

That version of I Just Get Caught Out was not the version that ended up on their next album, Tallulah, which is a shame as I prefer it. But that album and follow-up, 16 Lovers Lane, cemented The Go-Betweens as the sort of band I’d enthuse about to other people – usually to complete indifference. I re-listened to Send Me A Lullaby and got a lot more from it this time, and I investigated the albums in between that I’d missed.

And then they only went and split. How dare they? I’d only just got into them. I felt royally cheated.

So that is why, upon learning of a debut solo release from Grant McLennan around 18 months later, I rushed out to purchase the album, without having heard anything from it. I can’t fully recall what the 25 year-old TGG was expecting from the album – I imagine it would have been something that picked up where The Go-Betweens left off. Listening to it now, it doesn’t exactly do that, and I guess that’s what I thought back then as well. The difference is that now I can appreciate the album on its own merits, but in 1991, in the context of the relatively recent demise of The Go-Betweens, I’m not entirely sure I would have been capable of doing that.

It’s certainly one that following the initial flurry of plays after buying it, didn’t trouble the cassette player of the Fiat Uno I had at the time. That, I think is the reason that I was keen to revisit this so early in this series. Basically, I don’t think I was mature enough to appreciate an album like this at that time.

The one song I did remember from the album without any prompting was “Haven’t I Been A Fool”, the first single taken from it, I now learn. I was however a little surprised that my memory had failed me, as I thought it was the lead track, but it isn’t – it’s the second track on side 1. This is one that I had added to a couple of playlists on Spotify as for whatever reason, it has stayed in my head despite not playing it for a number of years. The first track is actually Word Gets Around, which is a decent way to kick things off.

Listening through the album, the track Black Mule had me singing along to it well before the end, dredged from somewhere in the back of my brain – did I actually play this album more than I’d realised? Listening now, the standout track is Easy Come, Easy Go, which bizarrely, I had absolutely no recollection of whatsoever. This was also apparently a single. Once I’d played the album in its entirety, I went back and picked out favourite tracks for a further listen – all of the above plus Sally’s Revolution and Putting The Wheels Back On (which has surprisingly few plays on the aforementioned streaming service).

Overall then I was pleased to have revisited Watershed. It was never going to be a replacement for a new Go-Betweens album back in 1991 and if I did expect that perhaps it was me being the fool, but there is enough of their sound there (not really a shock), whilst to me, it does go somewhere slightly different.

What I didn’t do was purchase any further Grant McLennan solo albums – they have now joined the lengthy Things I Need To Listen To list (which exists only in my head – were I to write it down, I fear it would be a never-ending task). I was however fully on board for the Go-Betweens reunion in 2000, until Grant’s untimely death in 2006.

And what of Robert Forster? Somehow his pre-millennium solo output had avoided my radar until I started fact-checking this article. Guess what’s also now on that very long list.

There wasn’t meant to be such a long gap between the Taking Stock post and this one. Life.

I notice the colour on my photo isn’t the best – that’s down to me taking a shot in poor light rather than having left the cassette exposed to bright sunlight for a number of years!

TGG

March 23, 2023

Taking Stock

After setting up this page as long ago as 2017, it took until the 19th December 2022 before I actually posted anything on it. I’ve had plenty of ideas and created numerous lists over the five year gap. I’m not entirely sure what prompted me to start typing that evening, but I have found that stationing myself at the PC in the titular study and listening to and writing about music and various linked experiences has been quite helpful in coping with a number of stresses, including the ongoing situation with my mother’s health.

After a break during the second half of January, when I was routinely falling asleep at the times when I’d wanted to type something, I was glad to get back to it. What also pleased me was that visitor numbers actually increased upon my return, which was not what I’d been expecting at all. However, I feel that the quality of recent posts hasn’t perhaps been that great, and one or two pieces have felt like a bit of a chore when I was writing them. This seems to be borne out in visitor numbers, which have dropped off a cliff since the beginning of March. Not that I can complain – I’ve not been visiting my usual blog haunts that much in the last month or so either. I’m writing this primarily for myself, as a way of formalising my thoughts and memories about music, but I’d like to think I can do that in a way which others find entertaining. There are a couple of recent posts that I can barely re-read myself, so why should I expect anyone else to look at them?

So where to go after 18 posts and 21 YouTube links?

I have listened to another Cassette Album, so that is most likely the next thing I will write about, and I made a lot of notes whilst listening. I’m not sure if everything will make the cut, but it was one I picked out as something that I really wanted to revisit after a long time of not playing it, so I do want to do it justice.

There will be some more Seen ‘Em Live – including a couple that I’m really looking forward to writing about if the gigs are half as good as I’m hoping they will be.

I also want to start a new series – The Underachievers. This will focus on records that for whatever reason failed to make the impression in terms of UK Chart position that I feel they should have done. It may be that they did well in other countries or have done well years later or whatever. My blog, my rules as to what constitutes underachievement. Obviously this will be time-locked to the period when I took an interest in what was actually making the Charts, so that will feature music from the 20th Century. I’ve got five song titles noted down so far – and many more in my head.

And then there is what seemed like a good idea at the time – picking something from the Discover Weekly playlist based on matching the date and the number on the list. It had its moments, but last week it threw up a Top 10 hit from 1987. A song I hadn’t consciously heard in 36 years. A song so awful I opted not to share a link or write anything about it. A song that I hope I don’t hear for another 36 years (if I make it that long, I will be 92 and will probably be past caring).

But Discover Weekly will stay with different rules, and it may not necessarily appear every week. My focus with this now will be genuinely on something I haven’t heard before that’s made a positive impression on me and that I feel I want to share. I will be taking into account the full playlist and not just the track that matches the date. Bear in mind I don’t listen to the radio all that much these days, so my knowledge of new stuff is not what it was. My definition of “new” is pretty much anything recorded since 2010! Comments mocking my levels of being out of touch will of course be warmly welcomed. There was a song from 2017 on this week’s list that may feature, but I want to play it a couple more times before I decide.

So after Taking Stock, hopefully there are treasures still unlocked.

At which point Echo & The Bunnymen become the first act to feature twice on the blog.

TGG

March 8, 2023

Discover Weekly #10

And so it takes until the 10th of these before a track doesn’t get added to a playlist. I’ll be honest – I like 10cc. I grew up in Manchester and Stockport and so from an early age, saw them as a “local” band. In my twenties, I even drank occasionally in the pub across the road from their Strawberry Studios (where I’m Not In Love was recorded).

I was probably too young to realise that the band had split and that by the time Dreadlock Holiday hit #1 in 1978, two members of the band had already recorded an album of their own. In fact, I’d have been totally stumped if you’d asked me to name any members of the band. But then, I was 12 in 1978 – and I could only name a couple of Sex Pistols because I’d seen their names printed in a suitably frothing-at-the-mouth article in the Daily Mail.

It wasn’t until 1981 and the Top 10 success of Under Your Thumb, that I got to know the names Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. That’s a tune I still like a lot and the cod soul of follow-up Wedding Bells is OK as far as I’m concerned. I purchased their parent album Ismism. If I put it on the turntable today, two tracks would be a lot more crackly than the rest of the album. I’ll leave that there.

I became aware of this track around the tine that Under Your Thumb was being played on the nation’s airwaves. Presumably some enterprising DJ decided our knowledge of the duo needed broadening.

It had been released a couple of years earlier to complete indifference in the UK, but bizarrely made the Top 10 in both Belgium and the Netherlands. For me, it’s an OK song, but I find it slightly irritating – a bit like the occasional 10cc album track. So that’s why it won’t be making its way onto any of my playlists.

This is of course an early example of the video-making that would give Godley & Creme a parallel career.

As a footnote, Lol Creme has recently been playing in the Trevor Horn Band. A group that performs Video Killed The Radio Star, Two Tribes and Owner Of A Lonely Heart without batting an eyelid. Trevor Horn will introduce Creme as “this old specimen” and then the band do a great version of Rubber Bullets. I’ve caught them a couple of times at Rewind North.

This was #20 on the 20th February playlist.

TGG

March 5, 2023

Discover Weekly #9

Those of you who read #4 in this series will be familiar with a former work colleague who was a major fan of Super Furry Animals (and may well still be, but I haven’t seen or heard from him in 22 years). He and some of the music press of the time, were also swept away with the band who featured at #13 on 13th Feb playlist. To be honest, I didn’t really get it at the time.

I’m not entirely sure I get them now. I did purchase the follow-up single, Bring It On, but it’s spent many years in an inaccessible box, which perhaps tells you how I feel about this band. Nothing wrong with them, but there seemed to be a whole load of hype around them – and they were never seriously going to be the new Blur or Oasis.

As someone who gets ever so slightly obsessed with numbers, this has been added to a playlist of songs that peaked between 31 and 40 (#35 in 1998). It’s pleasant enough, but the hype at the time did the band no favours.

TGG

March 5, 2023

Discover Weekly #8

Still playing catch-up with this (and I have things to say about each track so I am going to persevere). This was #6 on the 6th Feb playlist. I don’t intend to say much about the song or the artist, as both will be well-known enough I’d have thought, with the song being a UK #10 hit in 1974.

What I may just need to explain is why it’s ended up on my “Discover” playlist. It’s down to me and the rules I’ve put around the numerous playlists I’ve created. I won’t bore you with all of them, but I’ve limited the number of songs by a particular artist on many, in order to provide variety when I listen. I do chop and change tracks from time to time as well.

My main playlist started out as a simple Top 200 tracks of all time, limited to two per artist. Then it got a bit of mission creep. So much so that the mission blew right off course and it now boasts 1,839 tracks with a maximum limit of five tracks per artist. It’s name is a nod to Douglas Adams: The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Top 1,500. I was going to cap it at 1,500 at one point – then I figured I’d be spending half my life trying to work out what to remove when I realised I’d missed something that I now I really wanted to add.

If you’ve followed my ramblings above, you will have deduced that this does not feature in my top five Stevie Wonder tracks of all time, so it’s not one of the 1,839. I have also never set up a specific ’70s Soul playlist. My wife would probably like that, so maybe it’s one to look into at some point. Luckily, I do have a catch-all for anything that I can’t add to a playlist due to my rules, so it’s joined It Just Don’t Fit – an understandably esoteric collection of tunes.

I did think about listing the top 5 Stevie Wonder tunes, but it might be more fun to have that as another thread and discuss why those are my favourites, along with other artists have made it to five tracks on the master list. I should also reassure you that I Just Called… and Ebony & Ivory are not present.

TGG

February 28, 2023

Seen ’em Live #2

The Peak District town of Buxton is about a 35 minute car journey from chez TGG. It’s a pleasant drive through steep hills, deep valleys, roads with deep drops to the side and lots and lots of sheep – the type of countryside that few people associate with Cheshire, with the Derbyshire border only being reached just before arriving in the town. It’s got some decent restaurants, cafes, pubs, bars, a park that the lads loved to play in when they were little – and even a decent brewery. It also has an Opera House. We’ve been as a family to watch family-oriented productions and in more recent times my wife and I have seen various acts perform there. But we’ve never seen any opera there. I assume it does stage operatic productions, but we’re not overly keen on opera.

Neither of us is all that bothered about traditional folk music either. Last Thursday, we went to see Suzanne Vega at said venue in Buxton – the first time either of us had seen her. The support act was a guy called Sam Lee who came on stage with a keyboard player, whose name I can’t recall, and enquired gently of the audience as to whether we’d like to listen to a few folk songs. There was clearly no escape as we were stuck in the middle of a row of seats and any hasty dart for the bar would be a little obvious – and rude.

As it transpires, Sam sings the first couple of songs very well and we, along with the rest of the audience, are warming to him. He’s very engaging and talks quite bit between his songs. Firstly about nightingales and the book he’s written about said bird and the nightingale song walks that he conducts in the south of England. Then we learn about the extensive research he’s done to record old (particularly Romany) folk songs before they are lost for ever. He’s even got a song on a forthcoming soundtrack to a film that stars Jim Broadbent. These lengthy anecdotes are delivered with charm and there’s even an audience participation song, with The Lady Behind Me singing along in such a way that I feel slightly awkward about my deep monotone drawl of a voice.

Sam has a Wikipedia entry, should you wish to discover more about a very interesting character. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Lee_(folk_musician)

His own website is: http://samleesong.co.uk/

Suzanne Vega is joined onstage by a guitarist (plugged) while she opts for an acoustic guitar. Starting with Marlene On The Wall (and wearing a top hat for said song), she is quick to inform the audience that she’ll play a lot of old songs early on in the set so that “no-one gets anxious”.

She plays mainly older stuff, but does perform a song she’s recently written, entitled Mariupol, which is very moving. There are plenty of anecdotes, which I won’t put here as I wouldn’t want to spoil anything for anyone going to see her in future. These are delivered with great charm. We do discover a link between two of her songs recorded some years apart, with a couple of linked anecdotes to support it – all very interesting. For the encore, Suzanne includes a cover of what she says she feels is the ultimate New York song, Blondie’s “Dreaming”. Coincidentally my favourite Blondie song.

One of my favourite songs by Suzanne Vega was also played, and I hadn’t previously realised it was written as an homage to Elvis Costello. Suzanne and her guitarist illustrated the fact by synching in and out of Lipstick Vogue halfway through the song.

You’ll just have to imagine how that one worked.

All in all, a great evening’s entertainment – followed by a stressful drive back due to the fog up in them there hills.

TGG

February 22, 2023

Discover Weekly #7

January 30th’s playlist and the final track on it. A band I’m familiar with, but a song that I’ve never previously heard.

I don’t know about anyone else, but the first thing I ever heard from Split Enz was their 1980 UK hit single I Got You. It hung around in the Charts for a few weeks and narrowly missed out on the Top 10. I think the only reason I didn’t buy it was the fact that I was 14 and most of my cash was being spent on stuff by The Jam, Madness and the like. Oh – and Love Will Tear Us Apart joined the record collection around that time as well.

But something struck me about that song – I can’t really say what it was, there was just something about it – and Split Enz joined my mental list of “bands I want to hear more of”. To be honest, in the ensuing 43 years, I can’t say I’ve done all that well on that particular front. I do recall a song from the following year, History Never Repeats (and indeed it didn’t, as it peaked at #63) – this would become an early purchase from the iTunes Store in 2006. I did go so far as to buy their 1982 single Six Months In A Leaky Boat, the release of which unfortunately coincided with a lot of very large boats sailing from the UK to the South Atlantic, and thus lost out on airplay, so as not to upset anyone. Or something.

At no point have I ever purchased a Best Of, listened to anything earlier than 1980, or played any of their albums on Spotify. In fact their later albums aren’t actually available on that streaming service, save for the odd track, which is where the Discover Weekly list kicks in

This one’s from 1983 an I’d not heard it before. I can see why it wasn’t commercially successful, when I think of what was getting radio airplay around that time, but I like it very much and once again it’s another direct hit for the DW algorithm.

Oddly, as you’ll be aware, the next project for the Finn brothers was Crowded House, who I was into from the off, even before I was aware of the connection. I have all their albums and saw them live with Mrs TGG a few times during the 90’s. Not even that prompted me to investigate the Split Enz back catalogue.

Once again, they’re on a mental list of “bands I want to hear more of”. This time I need to deliver on that.

TGG

February 18, 2023

1. 

   JC

   February 21, 2023

   I can only ever recall ‘I Got You’…..a real ear-worm of a tune.

   LikeLike

   Reply

Seen ’em Live #1

I’ve ummed and aahed about trying to write a series under this heading, but having gone to my first live concert of the year on Saturday, in Nottingham, something happened that made me decide that there might be some mileage in this.

Mrs TGG and I used to go to lots of live gigs both before and after we met in 1992. We even attended the same David Bowie and Prince concerts at Maine Road in Manchester two years prior to meeting. Gig-going came to an abrupt halt in 1998 as our first son arrived – the final show being Paul Weller in Manchester with a 6-month bump accompanying us. Our other son is almost exactly two years younger than his brother, and the two did lots of activities together as they were growing up. Particularly competitive swimming. This is a huge time commitment for swimmers and their parents with several training sessions per week and galas most weekends. Even more so when the parents get involved with coaching (Mrs TGG) and being Treasurer, Gala Manager, Announcer and Chair of two swimming leagues (me). That meant there wasn’t time to go and unwind by watching a band – not until the lads did their A Levels and retired (as many do at that age, other than the elite swimmers – and we had one of those at our Club).

Since 2017, we’ve been making up for lost time a bit. The enforced Covid break saw a massive pile-up of rearranged dates as well as some new ones we booked during that time. Somehow we avoided any clashes, and we did do three gigs in a week at one point. We have mostly been catching up with acts we know from the 80s and 90s. One exception was my lads and I going to see The Coral together – which was great. Most of the acts are well-known and so I couldn’t see what I could write about on here, but as I said something happened in Nottingham on Saturday.

I should also point out that we live in the south-east corner of Cheshire and we mostly go to see bands in Manchester, Salford, Buxton, Leek or Stoke-on-Trent. The concert we saw on Saturday, as I’ve mentioned, was in Nottingham. There had been a Manchester date on this tour, but it was at the Academy, which means standing up. This isn’t a problem when you’re 6′ 1″ like me, but Mrs TGG is at least a foot shorter and so she gets to see nothing. The days of me being able to lift her up for most of a Crowded House gig are long since gone (she’s not got any heavier, I’m just a lot more feeble these days). So Nottingham it was (with a night in a Premier Inn) at the Royal Concert Hall to see Belinda Carlisle supported by The Christians.

This one was for my my wife. She’d seen BC before, in around 1990, and we’d both seen The Christians at Rewind North a couple of years back. Before the gig, I made a comment about loving it if BC played a particular song, but that I wasn’t holding out a great deal of hope of hearing it. Oh, me of little faith.

Belinda (who I have to say was very good and had energy levels that belied her age) mentioned that she’d first played in Nottingham back in 1980 with the Go-Gos, supporting The Specials and Madness. And yes, she mentioned Terry Hall and the song he wrote with her band-mate Jane Wiedlin, a song apparently written by the two of them sending letters to each other. And then of course, she played it, to my, and clearly a lot of other people’s, delight.

The Christians were OK, rattling though their few hits, with Garry taking time between songs for a bit of banter and (so he said) to get his breath back. I correctly guessed that they’d round off with their version of Harvest For The World, which for me doesn’t really add anything to the Isley Brothers original. I did get a little concerned that they’d miss out my favourite of theirs, but when they “asked for requests”, this was the one that got shouted out by the audience.

We’ve got another concert later this week. I may write about that as well – I sort of feel I ought to now I’ve started this.

TGG

February 14, 2023

1. 

   JC

   February 21, 2023

   Fair play to both BC and the Christians for giving the audience what they wanted. It does increasingly seem to be the way with the ‘nostalgia’ acts, but then again given what many of them charge for tickets, it should be a given.

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Discover Weekly #6

Still playing catch-up with #23 from 23rd January, and a band I can’t say I knew anything about until the early 2000’s.

That was when I started being asked to provide a music round for a pub quiz, and on a few occasions, provide a complete music quiz of several rounds’ duration. Fine, I thought, I’ve got lots of CDs and vinyl that I can easily copy bits from onto a cassette. Problem – I’ve got a great selection of stuff that I like, but which to a “normal” person is quite obscure. There was nowhere near enough material that was suitable for a quiz where an average person could sit there recognising a tune, but not being able to name it straight away. There was just a lot of stuff that would have people asking if next week’s quiz could be easier, please.

My solution was to visit various record emporia and buy up as many cheap / cheapish CD compilations of as many music genres as I could think of. That’s why I’m the proud owner of a 16 track compilation entitled The Golden Age Of Swing, featuring Woody Herman and Django Reinhardt, among others. And a 3CD compilation of records that only reached #2 in the UK Charts – bought for a specific series of rounds in the hope that no participant had the same set of CDs. Yes, it does include Vienna (Disc 1, Track 8).

There were also some compilations, proclaiming themselves to be of the Punk / New Wave variety, with the term New Wave being stretched to pretty much breaking point in some cases. It was on one of those that I first heard a cover version of River Deep, Mountain High that a band called The Saints had very much made their own. At some point subsequently, I have learned that the band were Australian. My iTunes library has also acquired their only UK Chart entry, This Perfect Day, and their debut single, (I’m) Stranded. All decent tunes and the latter two have made it onto Spotify playlists.

Therefore it shouldn’t have surprised me to see one of their tunes being offered for me to “discover”. Not that it did surprise me. It was this track, which was released as a single in the UK in 1978, and is from the Eternally Yours album released in the same year.

To me, it does seem a little more accessible than the other songs I’ve mentioned, and maybe the record label felt the same as it is the album’s lead track. Definitely another successful “discovery”.

Sadly, Chris Bailey, who was the main songwriter and vocalist / guitarist passed away in April 2022. The band appears to have been performing live certainly up until 2021 (albeit with nearly as many ex-members over the years as The Fall).

#7 in this series will also feature a band from the Southern Hemisphere.

TGG

February 8, 2023

1. 

   JC

   February 21, 2023

   “Problem – I’ve got a great selection of stuff that I like, but which to a “normal” person is quite obscure.”

   Yup. Got me fired after just the one week of compiling the quiz!

   Chris Bailey was a personal favourite of Nick Cave. There’s an excellent single from an otherwise underwhelming Bad Seeds album on which Chris sang a co-vocal.

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Discover Weekly #5

Firstly – it’s been a while. Longer than I intended. Thanks to those of you who commented regarding my mother. She is currently being reassessed (or is it re-reassessed? I’m losing track) and this is meaning regular visits. Additionally I’ve been busy with meetings for the Campaign For Real Ale (if you’ve no idea what this is, it’s probably best not to ask!) and for a beer festival that’s being run later in the year. And on top of all that, for some strange reason, Mrs TGG likes to spend some time with me. I have an increasing number of ideas for posts, etc to the point where I’m now filling bits of paper with them, so things will continue, but probably in an erratic manner.

So to the weekly discovery and the next one (#16 on the 16th January playlist) was not a discovery in any way – apart from seeing the video for the first time in order to include it here. I assume it’s the first time as I have no recollection of ever seeing it before.

Early 1986 and in our student house (a big old place that accommodated 8 of us), I and a couple of others were the music obsessives, blowing most of our student grants and racking up some decent overdrafts on a significant amount of vinyl. The music weeklies (another regular expense) were as ever getting quite excited The Next Big Thing. Depending on what you read it appeared to be either Sigue Sigue Sputnik or We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It. I’d heard both and wasn’t entirely convinced by either.

One of my housemates wanders in with an EP, Rules And Regulations, by the latter. He’s excited. I hide my lack of enthusiasm and encourage him to play it, whilst calling the other music obsessive to the front room. I make a positive noise about having heard John Peel play one of the tracks. It plays, we listen. “Yeah, but I like the way they look, yeah?” says the guy who’s just blown tonight’s beer money on said disc. He is the most extreme of us in terms of hairstyle and charity shop clothing, so this comment does not come as a complete surprise.

I don’t believe it ever got played again on the communal stereo system.

Fast forward three years or so and not only are we no longer students, but we’ve smartened ourselves up and got jobs in order to start paying off those overdrafts (and also in order to keep purchasing records in the volumes to which we have become accustomed). We’ve Got… have also had an image change and moved to a major record label who perhaps see them as a UK version of Bangles. They are now just referred to as Fuzzbox. They have a hit with International Rescue. I purchase it. And this one as well.

I must confess to still liking this one quite a lot. A jolly, jaunty pop tune. It’s just that when putting Spotify playlists together, I’d completely forgotten about it – perhaps that was the point. It’s very much of its era, but that just happens to be an era that Spotify (and if I’m honest, writing this blog) is dragging me back to on a regular basis. Oh, that and seeing various bands from the 80s and 90s fairly frequently too. I’m planning a series about those who Mrs TGG and I go to see live – some may make more interesting reading than others.

Pink Sunshine has now managed to find a place on a playlist. Another victory for the algorithm.

TGG

February 5, 2023

1. 

   Khayem

   February 7, 2023

   I’ll admit to enjoying both incarnations of Fuzzbox. I really liked their attitude and they were a breath of fresh air compared to the likes of Five Star, to be honest.

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2. 

   JC

   February 21, 2023

   I’m with Khayem.

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Discover Weekly #4

It’s taken almost a week to get round to writing this. Not because I can’t think of anything to say (that’s a rare occurrence) or because there’s any great difficulty in saying something about the next tune in this series. I had the Cassette piece in my head and wanted to get that done first. And then, for the second time in three months, my mother has been admitted to hospital.

I won’t go into it too much but my mother’s residence, and indeed the hospital, are around 40 minutes away from me. My sister lives a lot closer and has taken on a lot of the visiting duties, but I’ve been heading up when I can. My sister and I have had some lengthy phone calls around various aspects surrounding this hospital admission as it’s looking more serious than the previous one. So spare time and motivation to write have been limited this week.

Anyway.

9th January saw a new list and sitting in 9th place on the playlist was…no…surely not…I MUST have got that on a playlist somewhere! But I hadn’t (please note the use of the past tense there – the situation has now been rectified).

Despite the fairly traumatic nature of this week, this song has been going through my head pretty much all the time when I haven’t been listening to anything else.

How on earth this has evaded any previous listing, or indeed that its absence had failed to come to my attention, is beyond me. I’d even gone to the trouble of putting Juxtapozed With U from the same album onto a couple of playlists.

Super Furry Animals are a bit of a strange one for me. I like pretty much everything I’ve ever heard from them and have five of their first six albums, including the one from which this is the title track. But if you asked me to list my Top However Many Favourite Bands, they’d be some way down the list. I’ve been thinking about this and have a couple of thoughts as to why this might be the case.

1 – I used to work with a guy, a few years younger than me, who had heard the band before I did and was genuinely an enormous fan. I mean, he even used to name his Fantasy Football teams after their songs – what greater accolade can there be? Any liking of the band on my part paled into insignificance in comparison, and they didn’t feel like “my” band.

2 – They were at their peak in the late 90’s / early 00’s, just as small people that demanded constant attention were appearing chez TGG. I know full well that I didn’t spend the time with albums purchased during this period in the same way that I did in the previous fifteen to twenty years. As as result, bands from this era spring less readily to mind when coming up with those lists.

Whatever – it’s a top quality tune and if you’ve clicked on the link at any point whilst reading this, I’ll wager it’s well and truly lodged in your head now. And I don’t feel sorry about that at all.

TGG

January 15, 2023

1. 

   george

   January 16, 2023

   Tune not lodged in my head but has inspired me to play LoveKraft

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2. 

   Charity Chic

   January 20, 2023

   Sorry to hear your mum is poorly
   Old age is a bugger.

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3. 

   JC

   February 5, 2023

   As CC said.

   I’m also with you on SFA in that I have and really enjoy all of the early albums; I’ve seen and loved them in the live setting. But if I was to compile a list of may all-time favourite acts, they wouldn’t make the Top 50…..maybe not even the Top 100.

   I’ve too much affection for the late 70s/early-mid 80s music to not have it dominate, while lots of singers/bands of the 21st Century have made a huge impact on me as the blogging days got underway and have continued. SFA, like many others, fall in between two stools.

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The Cassette Albums #1: World Party – “Private Revolution”

It was early March 1987. Probably (*1).

My then-girlfriend (Mt-g) and I are just starting the two mile walk from the one large supermarket in the city centre back to her student house. A VW Transporter van pulls in just ahead of us and I recognise instantly the face that appears out of the front passenger window. “Hey!”, I say, “It’s Karl Wallinger!”. I rush over to said van, barely noticing that Mt-g hasn’t actually moved at all. “Hiya, we’re looking for the King’s Head”, says Mr W. I politely inform him that there isn’t a King’s Head – does he perchance mean the King’s Arms, known for having rooms to let? He confers with the driver. They decide that it might be the King’s Arms. “In which case the bad news is that you missed the turning for it a couple of blocks ago. And the even worse news is that you’ll have to go right round the one way system to get to it now. Sorry – mad I know” (Thinking to myself all the time that I curse whoever came up with this bloody road system because I’ve just had to give some bad news to a guy who appears on some records that I own). Mr W seems quite chipper given the earth-shattering inconvenience that I’ve just made him aware of, thanks me very much and bids me good day. And off they drive.

I return to Mt-g. “Was he one of those people from your course? I thought you didn’t bother with them. (*2) What were you talking about?” Perhaps a little too smugly, I advise her as to who I’ve just been speaking. “Why didn’t you ask for some tickets for the gig tomorrow?” My next words are way too smug. “Er, because it’s pay on the door”. “Well you should at least have got his autograph”. At some stage in my life, I have taken to carrying a pen round with me all the time. This episode predates that. My response of “Haven’t got a pen on me” ensures an unusually quiet walk back to her house.

We did go to the gig – sadly, there was no dedication to “that guy in the audience with the glasses and the overcoat who gave us directions yesterday”. Half the audience were probably sporting overcoats. A reasonable percentage were probably bespectacled.

Private Revolution, purchased on cassette at some point in 1987, is an interesting album. Wallinger’s influences from the Beatles and Dylan among others, are very obvious, and it’s a very un-1986 album (apparently its year of release), given that students seemed to be the target audience. World Party were neither C86 nor goth, which covered petty much everyone else who performed there that term. I’d bought the title track as a 12″ single after seeing a clip on the TV and really enjoyed all the tracks thereon. Having played the album in its entirety twice over the last few days, there was a real familiarity which suggests I’d played it a lot more than I realised back in the days of cassette. I wouldn’t have said it’s my favourite World Party album (and all the ones I have were cassette purchases, so my view may change as I revisit those) but I’ve certainly reconnected with the song World Party, which I’d forgotten how much I liked. Sadly, Spotify users disagree and at the time of writing it has around 1% of the plays that Ship Of Fools has.

I’ll probably come to Ship Of Fools in a series I’m planning for the future about songs that never made the UK Top 40, but seem to have done a lot better elsewhere – or something along those lines. It’s an idea and no more right now. I’ll leave you with the title track that started my liking for this band.

And yes, that is Sinead O’Connor on backing vocals.

*1 – the gig I refer to is not on Setlist.fm, but there were other Uni gigs that month, so March 1987 it was. Probably.

*2 – Mt-g and I had been an item for long enough that she knew pretty much all of my acquaintances. She thought it odd that I didn’t socialise with anyone who was on my course, but just with other music geeks, the radio station crowd and some board gamers. “But they only ever want to talk about the course”, I said, “and frankly I don’t. It’s bad enough going to the bloody lectures….” I got a third.

TGG

January 12, 2023

1. 

   barrystubbs

   January 12, 2023

   “I got a third”.

   Biggest lol of the day so far. A great tale.

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2. 

   baggingarea

   January 15, 2023

   I have a bunch of cassettes from this period, often bought like you for either financial reasons or because of extra songs. Although I have nothing to play them on, finding them brought a bit of a rush of nostalgia.

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   1. 

      thegreatgog

      January 15, 2023

      Mine are buried in a corner of the study mentioned in the blog title. I had to move all manner of things out of the way to take some quick photos of the ones I felt I might want to write about. I find their presence reassuring. Mrs TGG does not.

      On a separate note, remiss of me not to have your blog on my list. I’ll add it on once I can remember how to do it.

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      1. 

         baggingarea

         January 16, 2023

         ‘I find their presence reassuring. Mrs TGG does not.’ Very relatable.

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Coming Soon: The Cassette Albums

From around 1982 until 1993 or thereabouts, I purchased several albums on cassette. The majority of my purchases, certainly until 1988 were on vinyl, but I do have a significant number of pre-recorded cassette albums.

The albums from the early years, up to July 1988, were bought mainly because my record emporium of choice at the moment of purchase didn’t have said album available on vinyl, or the cassette version was in a sale (I was a student between 1984 and 1987 and again for a brief spell in early 1988, so I was easily swayed by discount offerings).

July 1988 saw me purchase my first car (a dilapidated 9 year-old VW Derby, nicknamed the “Debris” by my mates as bits used to regularly fall off it – door handles, wing mirrors, random bits of metal from underneath….). But it did have a radio / cassette player, which probably accounted for about half the value of the vehicle. It was at this point where a total proliferation of cassette albums began. Why bother buying the vinyl when I’d have to transfer it onto a cassette to play in the car? I could just get a pre-recorded cassette instead – one or two even had bonus extra tracks!

It all ended abruptly in July 1993, when the future Mrs TGG and I started living together. To celebrate this momentous occasion, we splashed out on a CD player to add to our collective hi-fi equipment. Blur’s Modern Life Is Rubbish heralded the new dawn of what is a scarily huge collection of CDs. Within a couple of years, we had cars with CD players and the cassette albums have been pretty much gathering dust ever since, grand survivors of Mrs TGG’s many culls of “your crap”.

Some of those albums have been replaced with CD versions over the years – pretty much everything by R.E.M. and The Smiths among others. But many of those albums have not been played by me in their entirety for over a quarter of a century. I’m not sure what state the cassette tapes are actually in these days, and the sound quality of the one remaining device we have which is capable of playing them is somewhat grim. Thank goodness for streaming services.

This new series will see me revisiting these albums and seeing which, if any, I really wish I’d listened to a lot more over the last twenty-five years.

I’ve just listened to the album about which I intend to write the first article, and it will include a mention of a brief chat I had with the lead vocalist of said album (don’t get too excited, it’s unlikely to feature in his memoirs).

For some reason, this tune has been going through my head whilst typing the above.

TGG

January 7, 2023

Discover Weekly #3

My freshly curated playlist on Monday 2nd January had a song by Australian band, Flash And The Pan as its second tune.

For the UK reader with a long enough memory, Flash And The Pan are only really remembered for their 1983 #7 hit, Waiting For A Train. This was an annoyingly catchy tune that I bought early on in its rise up the Charts and was heartily fed up with it by the time it departed. I think thereafter it sat on the shelf, unplayed, for the best part of a decade. Absence made the heart grow fonder and I do now allow myself occasional listens, smiling all the while at the erratic music-buying patterns I had as a 17 year-old. At the ripe old age of 56, they haven’t really moved on all that much if I’m honest.

Anyway. That’s not the tune on my playlist. Nor is the featured tune their other UK Chart entry (yes it’s true, they’re not quite a one hit wonder). That tune is Down Among The Dead Men, from their 1978 debut album, which got to the giddy heights of #54 that year, although for some reason it was called And The Band Played On with the other title in brackets when released as a single in the UK.

The featured track is also from the debut album and was the b-side to their first single a couple of years earlier. At first glance when I looked at the list I thought it said Waiting For A Train. Then I cleaned my glasses and realised it was actually Walking In The Rain. Playing it, it seemed very deadpan and downbeat and also vaguely familiar. Was it a Waiting For A Train prototype? Well, possibly, but, no, there was something else. That’s it – Grace Jones! She did a cover of it on her 1981 Nightclubbing album (it’s the lead track).

Familiarity leads me to preferring Ms Jones’ version, but in all fairness I’d find some entertainment value in Grace Jones menacingly reciting a telephone directory to music.

So this Flash And The Pan track is unlikely to make it onto any of my existing playlists, largely because one of my “rules” is not to have two versions of the same song on any of them. But it’s here with an unofficial video as it was just a tad too early for MTV to be a consideration.

TGG

January 6, 2023

Alan Rankine R.I.P.

And so we lose another talented musician at far too early an age.

There will be others who are far more au fait with the early Associates output than I am. Party Fears Two was my conscious introduction to the band, although I may have heard tracks before then without them registering. I certainly made efforts to explore the earlier recordings once they did cross over into the Top 40, and have enjoyed those songs for may years since.

I can’t see any videos for the pre-Sulk songs, which doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, so I’ll let the music do the talking on this link.

Hopefully a more cheerful post next time.

TGG

January 4, 2023

Discover Weekly #2

Back after a short break to allow for Christmas and the added complications my sister and I are currently dealing with – our mother having recently been admitted to a care home, supposedly on a temporary basis….

Perhaps not the best time to start a blog, but it does at least take my mind off things.

The latest Discover Weekly landed on Boxing Day morning, but I’ve only just looked at it, and specifically at the 26th song on the list, Boxing Day being the 26th December and all that.

My initial thought was along the lines of “Oh, bother – that’s just trampled all over another piece I was going to write in a forthcoming series”. The Spotify algorithm is good I have to say – picking up on things I like, without me having obviously demonstrated any liking for it on that platform.

Mrs TGG and I both like Prince. We actually attended the same Prince gig at Maine Road, Manchester, a couple of years before we became aware of each other’s existence. However, there’s no question that one of us is more favourably disposed towards the track at #26 on this week’s Discover Weekly. And that will be me.

For the uninitiated, Hindu Love Gods was a one-off project featuring R.E.M. and the late Warren Zevon. The story goes that these recordings came about after some alcohol had been consumed in the small hours and everyone started playing some cover versions. Including this. It’s a cut above the average covers band, with Zevon snarling out a vocal as only he could.

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of cover versions, it has to be said. For me, what is absolutely key is that the act doing the cover should make the song their own, and that certainly happens here.

Not previously playlisted, I’ve added it to my Should Have Been A Hit? playlist – I can’t see any evidence of it hitting the Charts in any territory where it was released.

The forthcoming series I referred to is The Cassette Albums, of which more in the coming days. My (re)appraisal of the one and only Hindu Love Gods album may now have to wait a little.

TGG

December 28, 2022

1. 

   barrystubbs

   January 12, 2023

   I hope your mother us doing OK GoG.

   Hindu Love God’s were one of those bands that kicked around when I was younger but I never explored.
   Swc.

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Discover Weekly #1

This is what is intentioned to be a weekly series (although as previously mentioned, I’m not good with self-imposed deadlines, so it will appear when it appears).

I had only vaguely noticed a playlist on Spotify entitled Discover Weekly and had never really bothered with it. That was until J (age 24), the elder of my two sons, alerted me to it, largely because his version of said playlist seemed to have a lot of stuff that I like on it. To be fair, his main playlist owes a lot to stuff he’s heard me playing over the years – I’ve schooled him well!

Anyway, I’ve started exploring my own Discover Weekly as a result. I can generally categorise the 30 songs on each week’s list as follows:

• Stuff already on a playlist but in a different version (e,g, full length version, radio edit, etc) – no discovering here.
• Stuff I’ve heard of that isn’t on a playlist because I limit the number of songs by one artist on some of them.
• Stuff I’ve heard of that isn’t on a playlist because I consider it to be complete and utter bilge.
• Stuff I think I haven’t heard of but then realise I have heard before after all.
• The odd genuine new discovery

My worry is that entries in this series may get a bit “samey”, but hey, let’s give it a go.

I’ll pick a tune each week and jot a few lines about it. The tune will be selected by using the date the playlist was released (if it’s the 31st, song 30 will get picked). This week’s list was out on 19th December, so song 19 it is.

My initial reaction was that I hadn’t got the faintest idea what this was. A spot of research confirmed an initial hunch that Michael Penn is indeed related to Sean Penn (brother). This did little to raise my expectations of what I was about to listen to. Once I started playing it, it sounded somewhat familiar, possibly because it’s been in my iTunes library since 2015, picking up 3 (presumably random) plays in that time. It deserves to be there. It’s a likeable, catchy tune from 1989 – not ground-breaking, but pleasant. It puts me in mind of Crowded House a bit, and that’s not a bad thing.

The song, released in 1989 didn’t trouble Chart compilers in the UK, but did reach #13 in the US. It’s from his debut album “March”. Quite how it got onto my iTunes library, I cannot explain. I can only think it was on a compilation of some sort that I loaded in. Anyhow, I’ve listened to the song more times in the last four days than I had in the previous seven years, so the algorithm certainly got that one right.

TGG

December 23, 2022

1. 

   JC

   December 23, 2022

   I’ve loads of things on my laptop hard drive that I’ve obviously downloaded from other blogs at some point over the year, but have no recollection of when and from where. It’s funny how often I then give such a song a listen again many years later and wonder what possessed me in the first instance!!

   Just to say, welcome to the blogging world. Good luck and have fun.

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2. 

   barrystubbs

   December 27, 2022

   Just discovered your blog TGG. Excellent stuff.
   I’ll be checking in regular.
   Swc.

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Martin Duffy R.I.P.

The fourth post on the blog, and the second obituary. Not really what I was planning.

Martin Duffy is perhaps best known for his work on keyboards with Primal Scream and from 1996 with The Charlatans. For me though, the impact of his keyboard playing will be best remembered in mid-80s Felt (a band I will almost certainly revisit on this blog). This is the lead track from the 1986 album Forever Breathes The Lonely Word.

TGG

December 21, 2022

Terry Hall R.I.P.

I hadn’t really expected to be doing a post like this so early in the life of this blog. Having seen the news late yesterday evening, I have had time to read many tributes to Terry Hall during various pauses during my working day. And many there have been from both fellow musicians and fans alike. For me, as a 13 year-old, hearing Gangsters as it entered the Charts, The Specials seemed exciting, different, dangerous. The attitude of punk, the words a little clearer and a tune you couldn’t help but dance to. They were a band I stuck with until their demise just two years later. Terry’s next project, Fun Boy Three, also caught and held my attention – his deadpan vocals covering a multitude of edgy topics.

After Fun Boy Three ceased to be, in my head I was paying less attention to Terry and his work. Until today, when I realised that along with records by The Specials and Fun Boy Three, he also features on CD or vinyl in my collection with The Colourfield, Terry, Blair & Anouchka, Vegas and as a solo artist. Then there are the guest appearances with the likes of Gorillaz and the couple of tracks I downloaded from his collaboration with Mushtaq. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to his music.

My only regret is never seeing him live. I had a ticket to see The Specials in Manchester in September 2021 – only to test positive for Covid a couple of days beforehand and to have to pass the ticket on to a mate.

I’ll leave you with a couple of tracks – my favourite one from Fun Boy Three and a solo favourite from 1994.

TGG

December 20, 2022

Something Old

As an easy way of getting started, here’s something I wrote for the now defunct blog When You Can’t Remember Anything, back in 2017:

My parents were born in the mid-1930s. They met in the early 1950s, before rock ‘n’ roll was a thing, and by the mid-1960s when I rolled up, they had amassed a record collection which would have served well as a playlist for the new Radio 2 station at its launch the following year. There was nothing by the Stones (despite Paint It, Black being No. 1 on the day I was born) and only one Beatles record (bizarrely, the Twist & Shout EP). The Hollies were OK though – there were a few of theirs, presumably because unlike the Fab Four, they hailed from the “correct” end of the East Lancs Road.

Throughout the next eighteen years, additions were made, with albums from the likes of Andy Williams, Perry Como, James Last and Richard Clayderman appearing on a regular basis. With that background, it probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise that I was a very early starter in the “liking music your parents don’t” stakes – at the age of five to be precise. Seeing T. Rex performing Hot Love on what I presume must have been Top Of The Pops was my eye-opener and I clearly remember my father’s horrified reaction when I pointed at Marc Bolan and announced that I wanted to be like him when I grew up.

So, by April 1984, just a month or so shy of my eighteenth birthday, my parents had grudgingly accepted that this wasn’t a phase I was going through and that I had acquired a lot of vinyl that they didn’t want anywhere near the stereo in the living room.

That was when something rather strange happened as we ate our evening meal. I presume there must have been a lull in the usual conversation, which would have been around the seeming lack of revision I was doing for my forthcoming A Levels (a conversation that is strangely being repeated right now with my eldest…). My father suddenly asked, “Echo And The Bunnymen – are they one of those groups you listen to?”. Bracing myself for some sort of sarcastic remark, I looked at my sister, rolled my eyes and replied in the affirmative. “Their new one’s very good”, he stated. My sister and I looked at each other.

It was she who took the initiative, guessing at what she thought was going on. “The Killing Moon is their old one, Dad”, she said, “they’ve got a new one out now”. My father put down his cutlery, clearly affronted by her comment. “No”, he said very pointedly, “I mean the new one. Something to do with fingertips”.

The ensuing conversation revealed that in the timber yard where my father worked, the radio was on pretty much constantly in the various buildings on the site. In recent years, as the average age of the workforce had lowered in relation to my father’s, Radio 1 had become the station of choice, exposing him to some of the “rubbish” he believed I listened to.

My father didn’t really elaborate too much on what it was he liked about Silver, but there was a post-A Level conversation where he described Seven Seas as “another good one”. He had started buying cassettes to play in the car around that time and had moved onto The Eagles among others – maybe this had paved the way to him liking the works of Ian McCulloch and co.

So that’s Silver and what it means to me. I never did sit my father down and play Ocean Rain to him as I did OK in those A-Levels, went to Uni and those family evening meals became a thing of the past. I’m not sure if he’d have liked all of it, but I always think of him when playing tracks from it.

As a footnote, my father passed away a few years ago after a prolonged illness. He lost interest in most things, including music. However, my mother has picked up the mantle of surprising the offspring with musical observations, declaring Biffy Clyro’s original Many Of Horror to be far more “real” than the version by the bloke who won the X Factor….

TGG

December 19, 2022