Cocktails and Records

Five Thirty
13th Disciple

In one of many ongoing attempts to free up some space in our crowded flat, I recently took the radical (ha!) decision to transfer all of my CD singles to itunes and stash the originals away in the trusty old loft.

Ah, the CD single – what a stupid concept! When I bought this one by Five Thirty back in 1991 I thought I was being pretty cutting edge – a wizzy new music format which was absolutely guaranteed to surpass scratchy old 7″s within the blink of an eye and a trendy new band with cool hair who were due for big, big things.

Well, I was wrong on both accounts.

But ‘13th Disciple’ is a great song. I’ve always thought so and thankfully, in this issue of The Word, Steve Lamacq agrees (well, that’s what I’m reading into his article anyway). Just wish I’d bought the damn thing on vinyl.

‘13th Disciple’, Five Thirty, 1991

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Esquivel!
Johnson Rag

I cannot believe that I have been writing this blog for 2 1/2 years without mentioning Mr Juan Garcia Esquivel, or Esquivel! as he apparently preferred to be known. This was a man who was not put off by silly lyrics, odd instruments or experimentation with weird arrangements. No, he embraced them whole-heartedly – only to create the ultimate in big band ’space age pop’.

File under: the sound of 50s summer
Goes with: a Mai Tai

‘Johnson Rag’, Esquivel, 1960

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The Bamboos
Keep me in Mind

This song doesn’t have an original bone in its body. From the two-note piano solo and classic horn runs to the strangely predictable melody and boring female backing vocals it is same old – same old nu-soul. In fact, I can’t think of anything remotely interesting to say about ‘Keep me in Mind’ other than that the label it’s on, Tru Thoughts, is a top Brighton-based indie who generally release way more interesting music.

But it’s great. Song of the week I say!

‘Keep me in Mind’, The Bamboos, from 4, Tru Thoughts, 2010

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Joglaresa
Stella Nuova

I’ve been keeping myself busy with an evening course on Early Music recently. Since I know practically nothing about any music from before 1900 it has been enlightening and educational to say the least.

One thing that I have learnt is that not all ‘early music’ involves Greek Orpheus types plucking lyres and monks chanting spooky exhortations to God. No, sometimes there is rippingly upbeat stuff such as this.

‘Stella Nuova’ is an Italian tune from around the 12th century and like say, this year’s German Eurovision winner ‘Satellite’*, is annoyingly catchy.

‘Stella Nuova’, Joglaresa, from Stella Nuova: Celebratory Songs of Medieval Italy, 2005

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* You did watch it didn’t you?

It’s been an odd weekend. It started off badly when our lovely neighbours decided to ‘prune’ the tree in their garden – how I love the sound of chainsaws at 8am on a Sunday morning – and descended into just plain weirdness when Mr C. announced that he was going to do some pruning of his own.

‘I have too may records’ he said surveying his not insubstantial collection, ‘I don’t listen to some of them very much and well, I don’t really need to keep them all do I?’
‘No… ‘ I responded, swallowing my disbelief, ‘but are you absolutely sure about this?’
‘Yes, there are too many’ he said determinedly ‘I need to purge.’

I am sorry to say that I just snickered unsupportively at this point and went off to read the paper.

Several hours of struggling later, he had triumphantly managed to reduce the vinyl load on the shelves by around oooh… eight LPs.

Not that I have any right to be sarcastic. He did much better than I ever could. The last time I attempted a purge was just before I freighted my vinyl over here from Australia. Once it arrived after several long months on the boat I realised I’d made a terrible mistake and had to go out and buy them all again.

And as we discussed, post failed purge, it doesn’t matter if you don’t listen to all of your records all of the time. It’s just comforting to know that they’re there. Even the ones by James Last.

The Easybeats
She’s so Fine

Another delve in the mix tape box (sorry) came up with this early tune by The Easybeats.* I don’t think ‘She’s so Fine’ charted in the UK, but it was a bit of a ‘hits and memories’ radio perennial when I was growing up. Once you hear it you’ll know why – it’s 2 minutes 9 seconds of catchy pop perfection. And just listen to that scream five seconds in. What a way to open a song!

‘She’s so Fine’, The Easybeats, from Easy, 1965

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* bunged on the end of a tape after ‘What I like about you’ by the Romantics, but never mind.

All this talk of the now sadly departed raconteur Malcolm McLaren has singularly failed to commemorate his contribution to my early life.

Long before I discovered punk, or indeed any music beyond Culture Club and my Dad’s Beatles records, I knew Malcolm McLaren as the man behind the groovy skipping song ‘Double Dutch’.

This single, with its natural exuberance celebrating the important things in life for an 8 year old, kicked off a huge skipping fad in our school playground. And for once I wasn’t standing on the sidelines wondering what the fuss about. No, it was quite clear from the film clip I’d seen on Australian Sunday night music staple Countdown that skipping was not like the usual rubbish sports like cricket or netball. Skipping was COOL.

So here’s to you Malcolm – for not only helping change the course of music but for managing to get sport hating bookworms like me out of library (for the weeks that the song was in the charts anyway).

‘…The skip they do is the double dutch, that’s them dancing…’

Malcolm McLaren, ‘Double Dutch’, 1983

Split Enz
Strait Old Line

The mood being ripe for mix tapes, I reached into the old shoe box full of the blighters that is hidden under the stereo and randomly plucked one out to accompany the washing up. The lucky tape started with a lengthy version of Julian Lloyd Webber’s ‘Variations’ so Mr C. made me put it straight back where it came from.

The second tape was a compilation I remember taking to a party when I was about 16. It contains some fabulous stuff – Martha and the Muffins, Mental as Anything, the Swingers, The Beat, the J. Geils Band…  Sadly once again, I screwed up with the music as this was 1991 not 1981 and everyone but me and my friend Scott thought that it was crap. I was made to play Bryan Adams instead.

Anyway, that’s all rambling. The point is that this mix tape contained the mighty Split Enz and that’s what you’re getting today.  All requests for that bloody Robin Hood song will be ignored.

‘Strait Old Line’, Split Enz,  from Conflicting Emotions, 1983

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You mightn’t believe it, but I can be very sensitive about my music taste. Or more accurately, unjustified criticism of it (which as we all know, is pretty much all criticism).

For example some time ago (well, 1996 to be precise) I cautiously lent a new friend two of my favourite albums of all time, thinking that since he liked that style of music, he might share my enjoyment of these too.

But no, he returned them saying that they were quite possibly the worst records he’d heard in a very long time, that the respective singers couldn’t sing to save themselves, and how could I possibly listen to this godawful rubbish. I bit my lip; I tried to be brave and indignantly defend my taste but it was too late – I was over-sensitive, he had revealed his ears of cloth and our friendship wasn’t ever going to be quite the same.

That old feeling of musical rejection has emerged again over the past couple of weeks. This time a friend asked me to suggest some ‘nice, subtle but different’ background music for an event he was putting on, stuff that he might enjoy as well. I dutifully (read stupidly, gullibly, naively...) handed over a pile of handpicked CDs from a range of different musical genres, all of which I personally would be delighted to hear filling up the embarrassing silences at any occasion.

But no, back they all came. Everything from Michael Nyman, Davy Graham, Jackie Mittoo and Mr Scruff to the Cocteau Twins, Toumani Diabate, Candi Staton and a lot of jazz albums. Rejected. ‘They’re all a bit… inappropriate’ he explained, ‘couldn’t you have given me something more obvious, a bit less weird? I want to play something that people will actually like you know.’

I thought I had. I had resisted The Fugs, the KLF, Messiaen, Eric Dolphy and that Japanese psych compilation – all of which would have been truly different to hear as background music.

So once again, I’m feeling musically rejected. But this time I’m not letting the rejection get to me. No, I’m going to plant someone at the event to go up and complain that the music is too boring, and to request The Fugs and Eric Dolphy.

J Girls
Kiro No Sekai

This weeks long-delayed Song of the Week is testament to the power of two things: musical memory and the Amazon recommendation system.

I first heard this song in a club called The Sounds of Seduction in Sydney around 1996. I heard it once, had an excellent time on the dancefoor with it, and never again. However, that one night together was enough for its ’shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop–shoop, shoop shoops’ to move into my brain, unpack their things and put their feet up on my mental sofa forever more. I haven’t resented this; I’ve only been annoyed by the fact that I don’t know who sang them or even what the name of their song was. And since my Japanese is pretty much limited to ‘I’d like to look at cherry blossoms and drink sake’, I’d resigned myself to never finding out.

Well, you’ve already guessed what happened next. Taking a queue from my fondness for French pop, Thai-funk and the glorious Japanese psych stuff I’ve never got round to posting, a few months back Amazon recommended a compilation called Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova, 1966-70. And there it was: those shoop- shoops suddenly and unexpectedly blasting out in all their glory, complete with the rest of their song.

I’m pleased to say that they sounded exactly like the version that’s been in my head these past 14 years. And since I can’t remember that important information that my boss told me last Monday, I can only say that memory works in mysterious ways.

‘Kiro No Sekai’, J Girls, 1969 from Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova, 1966-70

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