I finally bought a copy of 'Rip It Up And Start Again' the book by Simon Reynolds which tells what happened after punk rock. Post-punk, as the Music Genre Board officially designated it in 1980, was what happened. RIUASA is a great book, which is accompanied by a great compilation CD of the same name. It came out five years ago and I should have bought it then but I didn't. Then last week I saw it in Dragon records in Belfast for £8 second hand, which always makes a book more attractive to me. Among the stories of Pere Ubu, The Slits, Orange Juice , Specials, and a whole lot more, Simon also writes about Sheffield and the Human League. I have to own up to being an index trawler when I see a music book, looking under 'U' for my own wee band but I didn't expect us to feature in a book about post punk. But there, between Ultravox and Underwood, Simon, is Undertones, The. We're in the chapter about The Human League. It seems we were the baddies who "took the piss" out of them just as their "Travelogue" LP was released. (This was before "Dare", the LP which eased their financial problems.)
Fair enough, in My Perfect Cousin we did have the line
'His mother bought him a synthesiser, got the Human League in to advise her"
but it was only because they were the only synth band we knew whose name fitted. I didn't mean any harm, your honour. It was a joke. Sorry, OK ?
Ìý
The sugary sweetness of the Freshies epic is off set by the dirty guitars of The Avengers and Johnny Moped. The intro of Mr Moped's performance live in The Roxy is something to behold, to read and learn off by heart. Basically. The Avengers reference the JFK assassination, which happened forty seven years ago this week. There's an anger there, but it was 1980 in California. What's to be angry about ? Sun too hot ? Too much chlorine in the swimming pool ? The Radiators must be considering a re release of their 1978 spark of genius although one million dollars won't get you far these days. "Seventy Billion Euro Hero' doesn't scan as well as the original, though.
Radiators - Million Dollar Hero
Gymslips - Big Sister
VÌý - Need
Freshies - I Can't Get Bouncing Babies By The Teardrop Explodes
Avengers - The American In Me
Johnny Moped - Hard Lovin Man
Doors - Love Me Two Times
Echo & The Bunnymen - People Are Strange
Guana Batz - Loan Shark
Au Pairs - Ideal Woman
Fleshtones - I've Gotta Change My Life
Captain Beefheart - Diddy Wah Diddy
Mumps - I Like To Be Clean
Magazine - Upside Down
Died Pretty - MIrror Blues Pt 1
Ìý
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The 23rd Foyle Film Festival has again come up with a "Must See, But May Never Again See" nugget for the discerning music movie fan. Last year I saw the Ian Dury biopic with Andy Serkis, this year a documentary film about The Doors called '". It's already been shown on these shores, at the Belfast Film Festival, so you've absolutely no excuse for not seeing it. I am a fan of the band, although until now I've remained relatively immune to the poetic charms of the singer, Jim Morrison, probably as a reaction to the cult which grows up around any performer who doesn't reach his 28th birthday. It was Robbie Krieger, remember, who wrote "Light My Fire".
"When You're Strange" remains head and shoulders above your usual rock movie in that it's all archive footage, including film of Jim driving through the desert and stopping off here and there, presumably accompanied by a chum with a camera. The fact that both Morrison and keyboard player Ray Manzerak studied film at UCLA must have meant there was a lot of footage around. Onstage, backstage, in the car, on a plane, on a yacht - it's all there. No present day talking heads with neatly gathered thoughts about what happened, just a voiceover by Johnny Depp. Some of the footage you've probably seen before - the band being asked to introduce themselves as they emerge from London airport - and Jim looks lost in thought before he just smiles directly into the camera (yes, like Eric Morecambe). Most of it will come as pure pleasure, including a brilliant scene where Morrison is wandering through the crowd before one of their shows, when they were being supported by The Who, leafing through a programme, and asking how much they were. "A dollar? Can I read it before I buy it?". Forget about the Lizard King persona, the drinking, the beard and the Parisian bath tub. Look in wonder at the great singer of a great band who can't be blamed for the leather trousered copyists who followed him.Ìý
Jonathan Richman's diatribe against all things stoned starts tonight's showÌý and I loved hearing the story that he used to stand up in Cambridge Common in Massachussetts and shout out that he wasn't stoned, he wasn't a hippie. This was the late 1960s when I can only assume that he was surrounded by those of a hippie persuasion, presumably sitting on the grass. Hiding itÌýin case the cops came, as theÌýjoke goes.ÌýAs an old punk rocker, in both senses of the world,Ìý Jonathan's words cheer me up and make me want to play his records even more. Of course, many of those hippies went on to invent things that we now use to listen to the Modern Lovers today. Not that JR would have any truck with such items, of course.
Modern Lovers - I'm StraightÌý
!Action Pact! All Purpose Action Footwear
Boyfriends - Don't Want No Body
Devo - Gut Feeling/ Slap Your Mammy
Ian Dury - Clever Trevor
Teardrop Explodes - Bouncing Babies
Johnny Thunders & Patti Paladin - Can't Seem To Make You Mine
ÌýSeeds - A Thousand Shadows
ÌýYoung Marble Giants - The Man Amplifier
ÌýMinny Pops - Dolphin Spurt
ÌýVelvet Underground - Stephanie Says
ÌýOutcasts - Love Is For Sops
Monochrome Set - Cast A Long Shadow
I had to play Time's Up again , as it was cut short in its prime last week. I mismanaged the time very badly, which is why I am not in charge of the railways. The Spiral Scratch EP, in which it resides, is a wonderful thing. Its most famous song 'Boredom' is rightly seen as a Punk Rock Classic and as only one of four recordings with Howard Devoto singing it's kept in a special glass case. But as a Buzzcocks fan I would say that they got better whenever Howard left and Pete Shelley stepped up to the microphone. I'll demonstrate that when we next gather around the radio.
The Dead Boys feature this week (despite my suspicions that they were fakes) forÌýtwo reasons.Ìý
1. The song is the great Syndicate Of Sound's 'Little Girl'
2. I spent ten pounds on the CD 'Young Loud And Snotty' and I'm going to get at least one more play from it.
Blondie - X Offender (Single version)
Times Up - Buzzcocks
Specials - Little Bitch
Orange Juice - Dying Day
Clash - Lost In The Supermarket
Flesheaters - Pony Dress
Dexys Midnight Runners - Show Me
Iggy Pop - Shake Appeal
Berrys - Little Things
Scientists - Swampland
Flaming Groovies - Tell Me Again
Dead Boys - Little Girl
Nerves - Hanging On The Telephone
Beat - Over And Over
Disco Zombies - Here Come The Buts
It's hardly on a par with the Sex Pistols being asked to leave EMI but Queen's departure from the label has made the news. Of course, Queen aren't in the business of making new records, thankfully, so they're taking their old ones with them to their new home. (Universal, which sounds like it could be the Last Record Label Left In The World.)Ìý I was once signed to EMI along with my Undertones chums. It was 1981 and we had , until then, a relatively successful contract with Sire records. We left Sire, with the rights to all our recorded output tucked under our arm, and signed what was then a big money deal with Electrical & Musical Industries, who were based in Manchester Square in London. It didn't work out, as they thought they were signing a band who would continue to provide them with upbeat jolly singalongs like My Perfect Cousin. We had other ideas. We were 'growing' musically which meant that we were more likely to come up with 'mature' compositions which, we were warned,Ìý may not sell as much as our previous work. They didn't. My main regret is that we didn't get our photo taken leaning over the stairwell in the EMI building, as the (and the Sex Pistols) did. A year or so after we broke up (EMI weren't too upset) I found myself back in their Manchester Square HQ delivering a parcel, in my new role as a bicycle courier. The building itself is now demolished, as is EMI's reputation in the harsh world of the music industry. Still, we'll always have the , which allows us to impersonate Johnny Rotten when we say those three magic letters. E.M.I. ......goodbye.
Two songs from The Slits tonight, to remember Ari Up who passed away two weeks ago. Interesting to hear the difference between the Peel session in September 77 and the 'Cut' LP in 1979. The Dennis Bovell production is always given a lot of credit for the sound of 'Cut' but listening to the rawer Peel session (produced by Tony Wilson, who shares the name but not the fame of the late Manchester Mogul) I wonder if a different version of 'Cut' , with more fuzzy guitars, would have been just as good. There's a wonderfully vitriolic by a former ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ engineer about the Slits Peel session which says that they couldn't tune their own guitar. That could be true, so credit to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ engineer who tuned it for them. That's why The Slits paid their licence fee.
Sex Pistols - Satellite
Slits - Typical Girls
Gorillas - Gatecrasher
The Fall - Shoulder Pads Number 1
Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles
John Otway - Baby's In The Club
Slits - Love Und Romance (Peel Session)
Angelic Upstarts - Police Oppression
Microdisney - Sun
? & The Mysterians - Can't Get Enough Of You, Baby
ÌýCortinas - Heartache
ÌýRevillos - Motor Bike Beat
ÌýHalf Man Half Biscuit - Trumpton Riots
June Brides - Heard You Whisper
ÌýBuzzcocks - Times Up
