Posted on by chasinvictoria

Roxy Music – Roxy Music (box set) – Disc 4

1972/2018
Disc 4 – DVD video + 5.1 album mix

THE PROLOGUE

At last, it is time for a (short) break from the audio tracks, and a lateral move into video clips. The fourth disc of this set is in fact a DVD that includes some UK and French television appearances to promote the album.

It also includes a full 5.1 DTS 96/24 or Dolby AC3 Sound remix of the album for those of you with 5.1 surround sound setups. I lack such a home theatre setup, but that said even listening to it with a “spatial audio” assist via AirPods Pro reveals obvious improvements.

THE VIDEOS

Naturally, video clips from 1972 are sometimes hard to find, as videotape oxidizes over time and the tapes are often buried in archives. Thankfully, the band (or their record company) got copies of the tapes and preserved them well enough for presentation here.

The first “track” is a version of “Re-Make/Re-Model” performed live and filmed at the Royal College of Art in London on 6-June, 1972, intended as a promotional video rather than taken from a live show.

The sound is muddy mono as you’d expect, and the video is “marred” by an excess of 70s-era video effects that are so hokey and old they’ve come around to being cool again. The effects get excessive, but the visual and audio message gets delivered nonetheless.

From there we move to the venerable TV music show “The Old Grey Whistle Test,” a BBC show that ran from 1971 to 1988. This appearance was on 24-August of ’72. The video of this performance opens with an out-of-focus disco ball slowly spinning before dissolving into the quiet intro to “Ladytron” being played by the band.

Sleepy-eyed Bryan is off in the corner. The video of the band performing is beautifully sharp and clear, though the sound is of course still mono. Andy effortlessly shifts from oboe to sax with cover from the rest of the band. Manzenera’s bug-eye specs get a fair amount of focus, as well as his and Eno’s interplay of guitar effects vs. electronic efforts.

An extended guitar-and-electronics jam follows, and ends with some video feedback. If you were watching this while high, I can only imagine the either panicked or euphoric reception you gave this.

Likewise, “Top of the Pops” started off with blurry psychedics before sharpening up and focusing on the band in their full splendor for a version of “Virginia Plain.” Bryan is resplendent in his spangly green dress suit, Paul Thompson has now formally adopted (or perhaps this is the debut of) his “long-haired caveman with one black eye” look. Manzenera still relies on his shiny track suit and bug-eye glasses, while Eno is rocking a black ostrich-feather jacket, and the crowd are not quite sure how to dance to this, but they give it a go anyway.

Another live but more echoey (and very brief) performance of “Re-Make/Re-Model” is done for “Full House” on 25-November, with the band also doing “Ladytron” for the show on the same day. The band are positioned on a circular stage, with the camera slowly swooping in over the audience (who are seated).

The camera pans around behind the stage, and the band stops suddenly after the end of the first verse to applause. Yes, just one minute of the song! I believe this was used at the top of the show as a “teaser” for the bands that would be performing.

The (more complete) performance of “Ladytron” starts off with a close-up angle of one of Eno’s synth knobs. He kicks things off with some ambient noise while MacKay does a slightly-shortened oboe intro. Ferry and the band kick into the song proper, with more echo than normal because of the studio.

Manzenera is shown without his bug-specs. You can actually (gasp) see his eyes! Every instrument is clearly heard, so the sound mix is impressive. After Phil’s guitar solo and Eno’s stylings, the song comes to a quick close.

We then move on to a filmed performance at the Bataclan, in Paris, in front of a very large and enthusiastic audience. The set kicks off with “Would You Believe,” and the band are engaging in a bit of 50s style choreography. The song is unfortunately interrupted by an announcer telling the television audience (in French) about the venue and the band.

Eno is shown among those singing backing vocals, and while the sound mix is muddy and shifting, Bryan’s vocals are, as always, very clear. The 16mm film cuts into the instrumental break and second verse of “If There is Something.” This is clearly from towards the end of the concert, as Bryan is very sweaty but still very into it.

We do get the full “Sea Breezes,” with Manzenera doing his impressive “weeping guitar” style as heard on the album. Again, one is reminded that both Ferry’s vocals and the basic direction of the band are very polished and consistent with the album verison, allowing for only minor variations (mostly due to Eno’s electronic squelchiness).

The film cuts slightly to the opening of “Virgina Plain,” which the audience are clearly familiar with, clapping the count-in. Again, the band engages in a little synchronized movement while Ferry pounds that repeating chord. The song returns in full force for the sudden ending, the band waves goodnight and the crowd goes wild.

THE 5.1 MIX(ES)

Finally we arrive at the album once again, only this time a little different: a newly-created “surround sound” mix done by Stephen Wilson from the master tapes. Right away, you notice the crowd sound is floating around before the piano kicks in.

Even using just conventional headphones, there is stronger stereo separation and clear positioning of the players: Ferry in the center with MacKay’s oboe, Manzenera and Simpson on the left side (probably with Manz in front of Simpson front), Thompson on the center “back,” Eno and MacKay’s sax mostly on the right. Backing vocals are likely positioned in the back center, but on normal headphones they just sound a bit distant, like Thompson’s drums.

At the time of this review, I don’t have access to a full 5.1 surround system where I can listen to this mix in the way it is intended; that said, some headphones and earbuds (such as the AirPods Pro) do their best to simulate the experience, doing a good job at the separation but unconvincing when it comes to sounds that are intended to becoming from behind you.

If I can find a way in the near future to put this on at some stereo boutique or some friend’s home with 5.1, I’ll amend the review to include those impressions.

Naturally, the bass can only be as woofer-y as your headphones allow, and cranking up the bass on your stereo doesn’t really replace a true subwoofer. In my experience, however, owners of home theatres tend to crank the subwoofer up somewhat higher than they should, because of the novelty of truly having room-shaking bass at last.

The conventional headphone experience still rates as a novel and “different” way to experience the record, with the two rather different types of “surround” experiences and the appropriate amount of bass if you keep the levels even. For those who are long familiar with the album already, the 5.1 mixes might also be a good place to start, especially if you actually have the setup needed for it.

There’s probably less difference when experienced on a proper 5.1 setup, but to my ears the DTS option seems to give conventional headphone listeners more distinct separation, while the Dolby AC3 version draws it lines fuzzier, with most of the instruments having a better grouping, if you will. The sounds sometimes travel from one “side” to another, though the transitions are very smooth; some sounds seem further away, while others are perceived as being “closer.”

I’m just sorry I’m not getting the full experience. Yet.

THE CONCLUSION

This box set could be called a lab on how to experience the same album in a few different ways, but for me working my way through it, it was more about rediscovering what a remarkably fresh-sounding and original album it was at the time, not to mention re-appreciating a few songs that once forgets about compared to the singles. As a debut album, this thing is damn hard to top.

On top of that, the entire album sounds like it fell through a time warp from the first wave of post-punk “New Wave” bands that started using synths, and at least some of that obviously goes to Brian Eno’s contribution. Take him out of the picture and the band still rocks, but it wouldn’t have that “futuristic” vibe that makes the band stand so far apart from their 1972 contemporaries.

Roxy Music would certainly be a strong candidate for the honour of being “the first New Wave record.”

As someone who certainly hasn’t listened to every possible debut album from that year to compare but is broadly familiar with stuff came out back then, I’d still say Roxy Music is likely to be one of the absolute best and most innovative records. That Roxy Music emerged this fully-formed gives a lot of credit to Ferry as a superb songwriter, as a bandleader, and as an incredible talent-spotter.

Posted on by chasinvictoria

Roxy Music – Roxy Music (box set) – Disc 3

1972/2018
CD 3

THE PROLOGUE

Following what has become convention for these multi-disc box sets covering a classic album, Disc 3 is generally the odds-and-sods package, and that’s also true in this case. We get the entire album yet again (except for “Bitter’s End,” oddly enough) in the form of sessions recorded for UK DJ John Peel’s radio show, albeit out of album order, and across several sessions.

We also get a “BBC in Concert” recording with five songs from the album, and this time there is audience reaction noise, which is gratifying. There’s more to come on the live and semi-live front, but that will have to wait for the DVD that makes up the fourth disc in this package.

THE MUSIC

The first five songs hail from the band’s first meetup with Peel — on January 4th, 1972 — and the session is an interesting artifact from David O’List’s time as the guitarist for the band. The session starts with “If There is Something,” featuring a pretty similar vocal from Ferry and a few mistaken notes here and there but otherwise very impressive — this is a very well-rehearsed band that’s not afraid to play around the song a bit but is mostly very tight.

Eno’s synth work here occasionally reaches duck-warbling levels, but is mostly great. The song retreats to just drums and piano, with some fine backing vocals, for a bit before the band fully returns for the finish.

The second track is “The Bob (Medley)” which reinforces its war theme with air sirens and a menacing bass synth undertone ahead of Ferry and the band kicking in. The sax is made prominent in the instrumental break, which gives the middle section a nice lift. O’List proves himself a skilled guitarist, if prone to stick to conventional licks and hard-rock phrasing.

Next up is “Would You Believe?” which is the most direct throwback to the 1950s style and that is played up here. The band vocals, other than Ferry, are noticeably different than the album original, but the instrumention sticks to the script. This song is especially well-suited to MacKay’s sax and O’List’s guitar.

“Sea Breezes” starts off with an honest-to-god Tiny Tim vocal from Ferry, who sometimes skates too close to the thin-yet-warbly vocal line that separates them. We get a very drawn-out version of the song, running 8’15” and threatening to turn into a Grateful Dead jam in the middle.

Almost identical to the album version, “Re-Make/Re-Model” shows off again how tight the band has become under Ferry’s musical direction. Eno’s parts are more prominent here, but apart from that the performances are remarkably similar. This performance, live in the studio as it is, might be my favourite of the three versions we’ve heard so far.

The second Peel Session came in late May, and featured just three songs, but with new bassist Rik Kenton, who would be present for the remaining Peel Sessions. He was let go at the end of ’72 and went to a long career as a session musician.

By contrast to the album version, “2HB” is a little disappointing, in that the edit here cuts off the dreamlike opening that set the mood in the album version, and goes directly into the first verse. Beyond that, the song manages to recapture that feel in the instrumental break, where everyone except Bryan is playing together. There’s a weird channel shift near the end that kills most of the right side in the last 10 seconds or so, but that’s live radio for you.

Thankfully, we do get the dreamy mood-setting instrumental that starts off “Ladytron.” The jam section in the middle is always a treat, and the mix here is just different enough to keep things fresh while still being very similar to the album version.

After hearing these different versions of “Ladytron” in this box (with three more to go!), it’s clear that the key to this song is Kenton’s throbbing, insistent bassline. Unlike most of the songs, which are anchored by either Ferry’s piano or Paul Thompson’s incredibly good, solid drumming, in “Ladytron” it’s the bass that is the foundation everyone else builds on.

“Chance Meeting” is such a mannered song, sung in a clipped manner and based on an almost “Chopsticks”-like chord progression (but Ferry likes those chords, as we heard in “Virginia Plain”). The delivery is so stiff-upper-lip and the band so restrained, it makes for a nice mood break from the other tracks, but it’s still one of my least favourites on this album.

The final track for the Peel Sessions on this disc is of course their killer hit, “Virginia Plain.” Thompson’s bass drum teams up with Kenton’s bass, while MacKay’s oboe and Manzanera’s guitar take turns swooping around like daredevil stunt pilots, while Eno’s sonic decorations dance about wildly.

The remaining five tracks are from a “BBC In Concert” live event from August 3rd, 1972. It kicks off with “The Bob (Medley),” an odd choice for an opener in my view but around the same length as the album version, as compared to the drawn out jam we got on Disc 2’s outtakes.

Naturally, a live performance is going to have a different mix, but Eno really gets into his performance of war effects and sonic warbling early on here, with the band right behind him. After the first part, the band jams out in a now-familiar way that is close to what we’ve heard on previous versions. There’s the brief spoken-word moment, then things get heavy again before the finale, and we finally hear some audience appreciation.

“Sea Breezes” has a different but similar arrangment to the album version, and provides a sombre contrast to the more-bombastic previous opus. I think the problem I have with this song is that it meanders, and — as nice as the second half turns out to be — it never really pays off. That said, Eno goes wild at the three-quarters mark of this seven-minute opus, which makes it really quite different to the album version. Following the ever-shifting “The Bob (Medley),” I have to wonder if the audience thought this would be what every song is like.

Thankfully, the next song is a very good live version of “Virginia Plain.” It still sounds a little restrained from the other versions, but it still rocks along nicely and follows the album version pretty closely. Eno’s magnificent synth riff in the middle eight is nice and LOUD as it should be. The audience clearly liked this one a lot.

Then we come to the more formal “Chance Meeting.” Once again, Eno is more prominent here than he was on the album or Peel Sessions. The instrumental break is nicely mixed and sounds great here.

The last track is “Re-make/Re-Model,” and again the band is back in top form with a fantastic sonic attack, though the band’s vocals caught the sound man napping for a few seconds until he brought their mic levels up. MacKay’s sax is amazing in a live setting, and the whole band are really on fire here — it’s clearly something they love playing.

At the three-quarters mark, Eno really gets to shoot his shot, but all the band members get to show off their chops really nicely, which is one of the reasons I like the song — it’s obvious why this was the concert ender; they are throwing the (sonic) kitchen sink at the audience, and they are are loving it, breaking out into a chant for more at the end that regrettably just fades away.

THE VERDICT

If you’ve listened to the box set in disc order, you’ve heard the album, the demos and out-take versions of the songs on the album, and now the “live in studio” and “actually live” versions, and you’re not done yet (more on that later).

The highlight of this disc, for me, is comparing guitarists O’List and Manzanera (which is like comparing Monet to Jackson Pollack), and judging Rik Kenton’s bass playing to Graham Simpson’s (both quite good, so a more difficult compare — and neither stayed with the band past this album). It’s also been fun to hear the band rehearsed but live on radio and in an audience environment — and very gratifying to hear that Roxy Music found an enthusiastic audience very quickly, given how bold the album was.

That said, the reason this album found its audience relatively easily is because there was a hell of a lot of new sounds coming out around this time. King Crimson was around, Kevin Ayers was around, John Cale and Terry Riley had put out an experimental minimalist album, and there was more of that as the move away from folk-rock had begun.

Audiences were looking for something different from the late 60s sounds, and in Roxy Music they found it. On the very same day it was released, a bubbling-under folk-rocker named David Bowie took a hard turn with a rock concept album (thanks to Mick Ronson) with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, and achieved superstar status.

Bowie won out in the UK album rankings, peaking at #6 while Roxy Music managed a very respectable #10 position. More importantly, it launched Roxy as a huge success right from the start, and has remained a strong influence for art-rock and New Wave bands across the decades.

Just as an example: earlier in 2024, acclaimed folk-rocker Linda Thompson released a successful album called Proxy Music, aping the cover of Roxy’s debut perfectly. Thompson has recently lost the ability to sing or speak due to spasmodic dysphonia, so she recruited others to sing the songs she wrote for the album.

Next time: the DVD (video portion)!

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Roxy Music – Roxy Music (box set) – Disc 2

1972/2018, 3CD + 1 DVD
CD 2 of 3

THE PROLOGUE

Hopefully you paid attention to my guidance in the prologue to Disc 1, and now you’ve skipped it and come here first. If so, pat yourself on the back — you’re here to watch the house get built, and then when you go back to the familiar sounds of the actual album, you will marvel anew at how well it all came together.

If you didn’t do that, well, I guess the best analogy would be that you already ate a marvelous cake, and now you’re inspired to go to cooking school to learn how such a cake could be made. Here you’re going to hear the false starts, the unfinished lyrics (and in all cases, unfinished songs), the recording fuck-ups either from the band’s missteps or technical goofs, the latter courtesy either their recording engineer (Andy Hendrickson), or producer Peter Sinfield (he of King Crimson and ELP) interrupting sometimes.

Most listeners don’t appreciate the effort that goes into making any album, let alone a great one like this, and so I think it is illuminative to hear bands still working out or tweaking songs while they are in the studio. Not to spoil anything, but Ferry (who wrote all the songs for this album) clearly had his musical ideas more or less lined up for the songs, and often had the central idea behind the song’s lyrics, but frequently added at least some lyrics somewhere along the way to the final song.

An important part on Disc 2 that shouldn’t be glossed over is that we get a taste of an earlier lineup of the band. Before Roxy was quite Roxy, it included bassist Rick Kenton on one track (his part survives on “Virginia Plain,” both the official single included on the album, and the “outtake” version here). Roger Bunn, not Phil Manzenera, handles guitar on the first four tracks on Disc 2, with Dexter Lloyd on drums for those same tracks.

Holy Re-make/Re-model, Batman! This is yet another reason to listen to this disc first — some of this is proto-Roxy before it all really came into focus. We don’t get to hear Ferry deciding his original lineup isn’t working, but things get more interesting starting with Track 5.

You might have picked up on it even if I hadn’t mentioned it, but things get more interesting starting with Track 5.. Manzenera’s contribution in particular helps put a special stamp on the sound.

We also hear that the musicians are still in the process of figuring out the arrangements of the songs. Sometimes they sound like they’re still trying out ideas that may or may not go anywhere, and you’ll hear several portions where solos will later go but aren’t there yet. It’s always kind of weird and jarring when a solo you like just … doesn’t happen.

There’s a feel throughout that Ferry wants to get this very right, and that they know they are doing something different: I mean, it’s not like there were a lot of oboe players routinely adding to rock songs in 1972. Likewise, the demos don’t feature quite as much of an Eno presence, though he is there (especially in th outtakes) — one gets the feeling that he worked out/added his parts himself and tended to add them “live in the studio,” the way it would seem the core of the tracks were recorded.

So, now that the project has mostly come together, let’s go through the demos (rougher) and outtakes (usually very similar to the finished products, sometimes missing parts to be overdubbed later) to spot the differences.

THE MUSIC

Ladytron (demo): A very Eno opening with an electronic atmosphere with a double-tracked oboe and some organ coming in with the introductory melody line as the electronics retreat. Then the electronic soundscape comes roaring back before a cold stop, with a very echoey Ferry and the band finally coming in. Sung in a bit of lower register, and no majestic riff — just a sax solo before the second verse. This is much more avant-jazz in style and just kinda peters out.

2HB (demo): A short bit of that trademark “snake charmer” music, and again it dies out and Ferry and the band come in cold, with a minimal arrangement. The song itself and its lyrics are complete, with Ferry taking front and center. The horns are absent now that the song has started. After the second verse, the whole tune drops out for an echoey instrumental sax break from … well, nothing to do with 2HB, but everything to do with the horns, which eventually devolve into free jazz bouncing off a deep bass sound.

Again, all that drops off the face of the earth and the song returns to finish up. The electric guitar in both song parts is played acoustically.

Chance Meeting (demo): Once again, a quavery verse, a long instrumental break (at least sticking to the song’s tune this time), and then the second verse, then another instrumental break, and another verse, a shorter instrumental break, and out.. Since these songs don’t have choruses, I guess they thought this might be a good way to present them?

The BOB (Medley) (demo): This one does something different: it starts with the first verse. It’s worth noting that there don’t seem to be any difference in lyrics from the finished versions, and the basic melodies also seem to be here for all the songs so far. The structure of the medley and lyrics are also here as it is in the finished song, so the impression of these demos is that Ferry’s got his act together, but the band is starting to work out what they might do in between the verses, and often falling back to easy cliches for now. Not much for Eno to do, though he makes his mark from time to time.

We’re now into outtakes that didn’t work rather than demos, but the band seem to know what each one is supposed to end up sounding like.

Instrumental (outtake): Very short and seemingly improvised riffing against an Eno backdrop. From here on out, it’s the band lineup as credited on the album.

Re-make/Re-Model (outtake): Now this starts off sounding like a song, then dies as Ferry tries to have a second go, and we get something VERY close to what we ended up with for a bit, albeit not mixed well at all. This one has a lot of back-and-forth between the engineer and Ferry, but the third take gels nicely. It kind of shines a light on how the non-vocal parts were shaped (prior to this point) through directed improv. There’s no band call-and-response in this version, though, which to me is second only to the lyrics in importance. The instrumental breaks here are almost identical to the finished product except for the sax.

Ladytron (outtake): By contrast, this one starts out quite a bit differently than the final product, but with the same idea in mind until the oboe comes in. Then a count-in, and Ferry on voice and piano with bass, then drums coming in. More like an actual traditional song after that instrumental break, and they still don’t have that heroic riff at the end of the verses yet.

If There is Something (outtake): trying to get started with the engineer first with Ferry on piano, then they count in and the band get going pretty much as we hear on the final track, except that Ferry hasn’t written past the first couple of lines of the lyric, so it is mostly instrumental — and a bit less “country” sounding. The hypnotic sax riff is here, though. Ferry returns for the … middle lyric? Not-chorus? Whatever you call this bit, the lyric here is done, as is most of the instrumentation. A long break before we get to the middle waiting lyric, with Ferry handling the “when we were young” part also.

2HB (outtake): Not far from the finished product, some unfinished lyrics and much tamer band breaks, and we find out why after the song ends.

The BOB (Medley) (outtake): “There’s no bass guitar or saxophone!” Ferry complains about the previous performance. Doh!

The band begins again in earnest at the 1’15” mark, and now with a just the synth part. It fades out at 3’20, and the second part comes in with the what seems to be the band minus the bass player. They stop and complain about this, and restart only to fall apart almost immediately. Thankfully they laugh about Paul breaking his stick, and suddenly fall into a bass/oboe/piano filler piece briefly. After a bit of natter, they start again and finally all parts can be heard — so they stop again, and faff around for a few more seconds.

Chance Meeting (outtake): Piano and bass only this time. Who the hell is the engineer on this thing?

Would You Believe? (outtake): synth and guitar only this time for the first 1’35”, then the song starts properly, but this is clearly not the final take. You are, however, reminded of Fats Domino’s influence on Ferry.

Sea Breezes (outtake): piano, bass, and drums only this time. This guy is so fired.

Bitters End (outtake): a stately opening, then the sound of the tape being rewound, then the tape jumps around a bit with a odd “fake birdsong” repeated effect. It eventually stops, then some conversation working out a take, then they start again. This is nothing like the 50s barbershop approach they settled on finally, its mostly just the piano and no lyrics. It’s fun to listen to it as almost solo piano, and then they discuss the arrangement a bit.

Virginia Plain (outtake): A false start, then another. Then a harsh cut, and suddenly the song is already in progress. Ferry’s performance is a rote runthrough of the lyrics rather than the actual whole-hearted performance as we ended up with, but we can finally hear the whole band again. Even in this very rough form, you want this song to be in there — it’s the most irresistable thing on the record, and I think they know it full well.

THE VERDICT

Historically speaking, this is fly-on-the-wall time — a glimpse at an earlier lineup (and why some people were replaced), a peek through the door of Ferry working out parts of songs, and a seat at the table as the band starts putting it all together. Re-make/Re-model (which still sounds like a stolen Kraftwerk song title to me) is the closest thing we get here to Athena bursting fully formed from the head of Zeus.

The demos get the basic ideas across but are far from finished, and really I suspect the outtakes were included both to round out the disc as well as embarrass the engineer one final time. Why? Because if there’s one thing we know about Bryan Ferry, it’s that he likes to look polished, poised, and debonair, and the clown in the booth is wasting Ferry’s time and money.

The outtakes remind us that, although he might be a songwriting god (already), Ferry’s a human being and an artist who takes the advice to revise, revise, revise. We are certainly all the better for that discipline, but on top of that we get to hear the new lineup coalesce and figure things out, something you don’t often get to see.

This shines a light on the creative process, and it doesn’t just apply to Roxy Music — these sessions all took place just a couple of years after the Beatles inadvertently documented their disintegration by filming their Let It Be sessions for a TV special.

As indicated by my encouragement to listen to Disc 2 first, I think hearing this first re-shapes how the final album sounds to us. Undoubtedly, most bands could have secret tapes like this, but in the case of Roxy something new and fresh was happening, and I like to think that’s why they kept at it to get this record made.

How lucky for us, eh?

Posted on by chasinvictoria

Roxy Music – Roxy Music (box set) – Disc 1

1972/2018, 3CD + 1 DVD
CD 1 of 3

So now that we’ve already covered the packaging in detail, we can dig into the album proper — but it’s worth remembering that the packaging singularly used “sex” to sell the record. The complete lack of any information about the band (apart from the name) or what the music might sound like — there was just “the girl” — on the front or back cover ensured that only the most curious and intrigued of parties would buy it, if they wanted — or needed — to learn more.

THE PROLOGUE

Luckily for us all the trick worked: the first single was (wisely) chosen as “Virginia Plain,” which served as a calling-card for their elegant, innovative, and varied rock stylings. It went to number four in the UK singles chart, and that pushed the album (which at the time did not include the single) to number 10 in the charts.

This was something different: neither the swamp-rock of Creedence Clearwater Revival, nor the hippie music of George Harrison, and not the R&B white soul sound of Van Morrison, the funk and soul of Gladys Knight or Aretha or Sly Stone, or the gentle pop of Neil Diamond. It was new and different, borrowing from the 50s but adding in sounds of the future and a decidedly eclectic crooner style — and thankfully it caught on with an eclectic group of buyers who took a chance and were richly rewarded.

I used to call the first album “the first New Wave record,” and while I was basing that assessment on my favourite tracks rather than the album as a complete work, I still stand by that description. It took a nearly decade, and the reactionary mid-70s revolution of punk, to create a movement that followed in Ferry and company’s footsteps.

Before we get started, though, a radical rethink: don’t start here. Go directly to Disc 2, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. You will thank me later.

You see, the packagers of this comp (presumably Ferry and various execs) have made a hideous mistake — we should hear how the album came together (aka Disc 2), warts and all, and <em>then</em> you should go back and listen to Disc 1 with enlightened new ears. As I mentioned earlier, if you bought this box then you’ve heard the first album, maybe a hundred times or more.

The real find here is the demos and outtakes, which haven’t been heard before. While the songs (and especially the lyrics) are still familiar, they are cut short, redone, tooled around with, argued over with the engineer, and generally … <em>fresh</em>. Listen to Disc 2 first, then come back to Disc 1 with completely new ears for this album you know so well.

No? Oh all right then …

THE ALBUM

Disc 1 of this set starts off with some false advertising: it’s billed as the “original” album, but it’s not: the original vinyl release in 1972 contained nine songs. The CD version, first released in 1984, inserted the pre-album hit single “Virginia Plain” between “If There is Something” and another popular song, “2 H.B.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the first disc here exactly matches the first CD version, but it’s not the “original” release, is it? And yes, there’s more quibbles to come!

On to my second (minor) gripe: the version used on CD1 here is in fact 1999 remastered edition, which was cleaner and brighter than the original 1984 CD issue. I would kind of liked to have had a Stephen Wilson stereo remix instead — which exists, but isn’t present in this box set.

Most people who would buy this deluxe edition likely already have or had the ’99 remastered version, and the technology has moved on considerably in the last 25 years. Using the 2.1 Stephen Wilson version would have given most buyers something “new” there – if you’re not going to give us the 1984 original CD version – and it would been a thoughtful gesture for those lacking the equipment to properly play back the DVD’s 5.1 SW mix.

Still, for those who bought (and still have) the original CD on first issue, the ’99 remaster is clearly the superior version of the CD.

The single sleeve disc’s front cover does, of course, faithfully preserves the original eye-catching outer cover, while the back lists the album’s contents, players, and production personnel. Thankfully, the “art book” portion of the presentation gives us gatefold’s original interior art, with more information about the band and songs — at the same size as the original LP release.

If you’re reading this, you are very likely to have heard Roxy’s debut album already, so we’ll stick mostly to my refreshed impressions, listening to it again after a few years’ gap from my last listen; we’ll get into more detail once we move on to the discs with the previously rare-or-unreleased material.

Re-Make/Re-Model: the short silence (six seconds) before the crowd noise, which we get for another few seconds followed by a sharp cut and Ferry’s piano, then Thompson’s drum start and the band joining fully just two seconds later … what a way to announce “this isn’t your typical band.” While the bass and drum hold down the basic rhytms, guitar and sax go wild in almost jazz-like improv, with short bursts of Ferry’s vocal, and the band backing him by reciting a license plate number between verses.

There’s no chorus (apart from, I suppose, the license plate thing), and the long instrumental section is like nothing else: a bit of the full band, then a suddent stop and breakout spot by each instrument that feels very on-the-spot improvised, as if the direction given was “you get a five-second solo. Go!”

First drums, then a cheeky bass rip-off of The Beatles’ “Day Tripper” riff, then Eno’s sputting screech noise box, then a shot of sax that flows right back into the music stream, ditto with the guitar, and finally some madcap piano, one last drum break, and then all of them at the same time for a bit before it falls apart and winds down. The way the weird synth noises snake through the deteriorating band and finally signals the end.

By this point, the listener in 1972 must have been wondering what planet these guys were from. What an opening number! After all these years, I still say “wow.” This is just as fresh and wild as it was the day it was released … and there’s not a lot of 1972 albums you could possibly say that about.

Ladytron: With barely time to take a breath, we take another short break of seeming silence (about four seconds) before we begin to perceive a soft electronic bed emulating wind, with an oboe softly winding its way around a melody, accompanied by synth sound effects kind of emulating a lonely wind. The oboe part partially repeats, then Ferry comes in with “You’ve got me girl on the runaround, runaround/Got me all around town/You’ve got me girl on the runaround/And it’s gettin’ me down, gettin’ me down,” as the bass moves in ahead of the full band coming in fully.

Naturally, you get absolutely no clue as to why the song is called “Ladytron,” and the song about a ladykiller gent playing cat-and-mouse with his latest target. After the first full verse, we again take a break to highlight a fabulous echo-drenched oboe. Ferry returns, now double-tracked, and we get that first taste of Ferry’s famous warble.

Without changing the tempo, the furious drums return with fast bass, horns and guitars double-tracked guitars, piano trying to keep up, shakers and the kitchen sink thrown in for good measure. Imagine Elton John playing “Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting” with his full band, and all of them having a nervous breakdown – with Brian Eno aggravating matters – as the instrumental break just floats off into the sunset after a minute, and the song is over.

These first two tracks firmly established that this music was something new to the world of the early 70s, acknowledging influences of jazz, soul, and rock while melding it together into Dali-esque impossible structures and jams, where the singer was not the focus but still riveting when he did appear. Vocals were just another instrument, occasionally contributing something that might sound like a lyric, or words intended more for texture, and then step aside to let the band show off.

If There is Something: The above is what makes the third track all the more confusing: after two incredible tracks, suddenly Roxy Music becomes a country-rock bar band (?!). Something about Ferry wanting to settle down with a young girl and grow potatoes, showing off his vocal quaver — and with nothing for Eno to do until halfway through, then mutating the song into a slow jam?

It’s a little portent of the second half, and while it’s not bad at all, it’s certainly a letdown from the first two killer tracks. Okay, there’s an argument to be made that after two (for the time) bizarre tracks, you might want to give the listener something akin to music they’ve heard before, and I get that.

It’s not until Eno’s synth counter-melody, though, that “Something” reverts to the kind of interesting and non-mainstream sound it has been cultivating so far. Thanks to the sinister undertone of the song after its initial riffs and Eno’s contribution, I can see why Bowie’s Tin Machine wanted to take a stab at it … but frankly, I think Bowie did a better job with it.

Virginia Plain: As “Something” meanders off, the first single pulls up in a new sports car with style and energy to spare, thanks to its playful lyrics: “You’re so sheer, you’re so chic/Teenage rebel of the week” is just a sample of the joy that permeates this song. Wrap it around another fast-tempo’d melody featuring frantic piano and drumming, steady bass with schizophrenic horn, and a motorcycle taking off for good measure. This track is a solid-gold winner, with a brilliantly-framed synth coda before the final lyric, which beautifully brings the song to a flying stop. It was an obvious choice for the first single.

Spoiler! This is the new official music video for “Virginia Plain,” taken from the bonus DVD in the box set.

2 H.B.: This is followed (finally) by a breather, a somewhat-gentler tribute to Humphrey Bogart. Ferry puts on an even thicker Ferry-esque style for this one, which includes a nice long multitracked sax-oboe instrumental break.

The chorus of “Here’s looking at you, kid” ties back to the title so nicely and the repeated line of “failing me never” which fades off as the instruments retreat is a lovely finish. On the original vinyl, that concluded a pretty much all-star Side One.

The Bob (Medley): Now we start off back in ominous synth town for a bit before the band comes in and disrupts whatever mood the opening was going for. It’s like a parody of the indulgent slogs that The Grateful Dead put out, meandering from one musical idea to another with little connective tissue.

We’re clearly in for a rougher ride on the second side, kids. It’s not until the middle of the piece and all the gunfire that you get the idea its about war (specifically, the Battle of Britain). It’s like a notebook of barely-started lyrical and musical ideas, poorly glued together.

Chance Meeting: We transition away from “The Bob”’s car wreck with a slow, beat-less piano-and-guitar first verse, which describes exactly that happening. During the instrumental break, the bass is allowed back in the room for a bit before it quickly fades out.

Would You Believe: Just when you think the second half is going to be the (almost) “all filler” counterpoint to Act I’s “all killer,” this track finally gets us back to the Roxy we thought we were getting based on side A. The soft, falsetto, double tracked Ferry starts off with a ballad verse, then the band breaks out with a 50s-styled main tune, the band shows off their sax-and-piano chops before Ferry returns to his crooning.

It comes off like a real tribute to the kind of music they grew up listening to, and it’s the highlight of the second half.

Sea Breezes: Following that, the next song literally opens with the sound of (synthesized) crashing waves, and then Ferry crosses fully into Tiny Tim territory with his delivery; we’re just missing a ukulele here to complete the effect in this very quiet number. There was so much energy and verve on the first half of the album, listeners might be wondering what the hell happened to the band when they recorded the second side.

Just in the nick of time, however, the second part of “Sea Breezes” sees the return of Ferry’s normal singing voice, far better lyrics, and some lovely contrasting instruments in our left and right ears, which is a fun effect. Sadly, then the finale of the song reverts to the catatonic style that is so inert you want to check the band’s collective pulse, complete with the return of the falsetto. The band seems to have something of a schizophrenic personality.

Bitters End: While maintaining a barely-above-ballad tempo, “Bitters End” returns to the tribute 50-style doo-wop number with a dropped in crowd effect, and works well. Given the lack of pulse present in most of the second side, it was very wise to finish with this number.

It’s Noel Coward as a 50’s ballad, and I do particularly love the occasional background chorus of “Bizarre” to frame Ferry’s amusing lyrics. Once again, a sudden change-up (in this case, Ferry reverting to his lower register) to a sudden stop makes this clever homage into a strong ending for a mostly-disappointing second part.

THE VERDICT

Like Longfellow’s little girl who had a little curl, when this is good it is very, very good, and great respect is earned for continuing to sound so contemporary after more than 50 years since its release … but to rewrite the poet a little bit, when it is bad it is somewhat disappointing.

Few are the albums that can maintain a consistently great standard across 10 tracks, and Ferry’s love of slower ballads will eventually pay off in later albums. But in this case, the flip side just seems laboured and leaden most of the time, or maybe I just don’t have enough of an appreciation for languid love songs. I think it’s fair to say that Roxy Music’s debut is strong, but uneven.

Next time: Demos and Out-takes!

Posted on by chasinvictoria

Roxy Music – Roxy Music (box set) – Box & Book

Virgin/EMI Records, 1972/2018
3CD + 1 DVD, book

THE PROLOGUE

Although Roxy Music as we know it began in 1970, it was two further years before the concept became a recording act, providing evidence of what they were up to in the form of their debut album. For this super deluxe box set, founder Bryan Ferry emptied his vaults for material well beyond the original album, including the early demos, album out-takes, radio sessions, and a DVD of mostly short television appearances, capped (on the DVD) by a new 5.1 DTS and Dolby AC3 mix of the album by Steven Wilson.

Billed as a 45-anniversary deluxe box set — even though it actually came out a year late, in 2018 — this weighty box includes three CDs and one DVD, the latter of which contains both visual and audio-only information (more on that later).

Where the weight gets put on is in the incorporated 136-page book documenting the band’s formation by The Guardian journalist and author Richard Williams, who first wrote about the group for the music paper Melody Maker in 1971. It features a plethora of previously rare or unpublished photos from those early days, along with a Ferry-approved essay on the founding and early days of the band. Everything is on a heavy stock glossy paper, surrounded by a glossy, high-grade cover.

We’ll begin our examination with the packaging and book before diving into the music. The set’s presentation, from the outside, suggests that you might be buying a five-disc vinyl box set and/or a coffee-table art book of the sort you find in museums, but thankfully this hefty tome devotes itself as much to sound as to vision. While there’s no vinyl to be found here, there are three CDs, 1 DVD, and the book on to very pleasurably work your way through.

THE BOX AND THE BOOK

The box is a three-sided slipcase box for the book, and the discs are tucked away in individual sleeves in the back of the book. The box reproduces the cover of the book, which in turn is a recreation the outside cover of the album. On the back of the box is a “removable” — if one is patient and careful — spot-glued paper outsert that shows the band logo, a brief blurb explaining the contents, the covers of the four discs in miniature, and the contents of each one.

This is the only spot on the outside where you will see all the requisite industry logos for the material inside, including the DVD logo, the all-region logo, and a couple of others. Given how radical a departure this album was from the mainstream in 1972, that “exempt from classification” MPAA “E” logo feels very appropriate.

The sound recording and other copyright logos and text are first seen on the stuck-on paper, as well as discreetly placed on the bottom of the slipcase. If one chooses to remove the paper to appreciate the full cover reproduction, the legally-required info is still there — a classy touch.

As packaged, the book spine is showing on the “open” side of the outer box, reproducing the gatefold spine. This of course means that as you pull the book out, you’ll be seeing Kari-Ann Muller’s lower leg and the gold record side of the cover.

If there’s one thing you can count on from a Bryan Ferry-led project, it’s that it should look, feel, and sound like no expense was spared, and that it is an important release. There’s only so much you can do to make a CD or vinyl album into a luxury item — though in the 70s, making it a gatefold album design was one sure way of transmitting that feel to the buyer, and indeed this debut album got the gatefold treatment in its original release.

The inside front and back cover and first and last endsheets showcase film positives of the many alternate takes and poses of Ms. Muller. There’s a title page with just the band’s logo, of course, and then the essay begins on the following page with yet another reproduction of the iconic cover.

A few of the many, many, many alternate images from the cover photoshoot.

Within the first few paragraphs, we learn that the two-tone Roxy Music logo uses a blue and pink that exactly matches the shade of Muller’s eye shadow and lipstick — again a mark of a premium product and that the carefully-constructed image with Muller’s “sultry” gaze was “an explicit taunt to the new rock establishment” that had come to dominate the form in the late 1960s.

Author Richard Williams notes that Elvis Presley had used a similarly bold two-tone logo and provocative photo for his debut album in 1956, and that eight years later, the Rolling Stones used an “unheard of” at the time stark photo with no text other than the Decca logo on the cover — another daring move for a debut album.

Eight years after that, Roxy Music made used the provocative and daring swimsuit-clad Muller, in a “glamour” type shot in a wraparound style, as their attention-grabbing debut cover. Compared to most the album covers of the time, Roxy’s cover was bold and wildly sexy for the time: “a signpost to a future of exotic promise,” as the essay describes it.

The book is a collaborative effort between Ferry, Wilson, Puxley, and a small army of mostly-uncredited photographers, although Ferry himself is among them (his are likely the photos of the other band members in rehearsal rooms). Without delving much into specifics and glossing over any conflicts, it outlines the history of the band, starting with Ferry’s idea for it, with his friend Graham Simpson providing some musical foundation, and the process of recruiting the others — including some, like Roger Bunn and Dexter Lloyd, who didn’t last past the demo tape.

Andy Mackay was an early addition who made the grade, though, and he was the one who the world must thank for bringing in Brian Eno. Eno was initially brought in to play Andy’s synthesizer and mix the sound, meaning he would be at the mixing desk rather than onstage with the band. The group rehearsed at the home of Ferry’s girlfriend Susie Cussins, to whom the first album is dedicated.

Phil Manzerera had been part of that round of auditions, but had been passed over initially, and then called back when Ferry’s first choice — David O’List — eventually didn’t pan out. O’List went on to a fairly illustrious career playing with a bunch of bands, including The Nice, Jet, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd and others. He has two solo albums out in the 21st century.

Davy O’List’s prior band, The Attack, from 1966. He’s the curly-haired chap.

By May 1971, “Roxy” was finally deemed ready to cut a demo to shop to record labels. Ironically, the big obstacle with the first round of record companies didn’t turn out to be the band — it was Ferry.

His singing was very out-of-fashion for the rock of the time, with a mannered upper-class style and sort of anguished general tone, as if he is straining to not just say the lines rather than sing them. No hint of blues or soul style could be detected, and he had a rather fey quavering falsetto that was sparingly used.

That first demo tape, which we’ll get to hear on Disc 2, is all pre-Eno, and mostly features the “Mark 1” version of the band, with the early musicians and rougher sketches of the songs they would become, some with different titles.

They had to change the name to “Roxy Music” since there was already a band named “Roxy” in the US. The demo helped solidify the band, specifically helping attract Paul Thompson as the new (and permanent) drummer, replacing Lloyd, and of course eventually adding the mystery ingredient that was Brian Eno and his cutting-edge electronic wizardry.

This lineup, and a dash of glam and glitter and sequins all over the place, got them invited to a lot of events. Eventually, they met the legendary DJ John Peel, who had heard the demo. With the help of John Walters, Peel’s producer, they got a couple of live guest spots on Peel’s popular radio show.

This got them the thing they needed most: some positive press in the mainstream and music papers. From there, everything started to fall into place, and the band we know and love was cemented and offered the chance to make an album.

The essay itself is peppered with early images, and after the words we get many pages of more photos from live gigs and in the studio, some candid shots and a handful of formal pics. Even in these, we see also the band’s visual sense: Ferry’s formality, Eno’s glitter bombing, Mackay’s sequins, Manzanera’s bizarre eyewear. Thompson, who occasionally favored leopard-print and caveman-type clothing when he wasn’t shirtless but for a sequined vest, was the least-photographed member in these as he’s always in the back, of course.

This is followed by pages of lyrics (accompanied by more photos), the typewritten original lyric sheets (with a few scratch-throughs and notes), a page of quotes reflecting on the album by Ferry, a few pages of Puxley’s eccentric descriptions of the songs and key lyrical phrases, a few more pages of Keri-Ann photos including one in a completely different outfit).

This goes on to show images of the master-tape boxes, early press releases and bios, many pictures from the Lincoln Festival in May of ’72 (their first festival show), the UK tour of ’72 program book cover and dates (with a few photos), a brief tour diary, an ad for the album, a montage of small venue notices, want ads the band took out looking for a drummer and guitarist (“for avant-rock group”, single covers and posters from various countries, newspaper notices (mostly positive, but a few not quite complimentary), the US tour listing, and — finally — big colour pictures and stills from TV appearances, and the US and UK shows.

L-R: Mazenera, Ferry, Mackay, Eno, Rik Kenton (who replaced Graham Simpson for the first tour), Thompson

The book wraps with a two-page spread of the CD covers and their contents, a page of credits for the book, the CDs and some of the photos, and another page of Keri-Ann outtakes.

Next time: Disc 1 — the “original” album!

Posted on by chasinvictoria

The Stiff Records Box Set – Disc 4

The Stiff Records Box Set — Disc 4
Stiff Records, 1992
4CD box set + booklet

THE PROLOGUE

Well, here we are at last, the final disc in this set, chronicling the last days of Stiff as an active record label roundabouts the mid-80s. Many of the acts Stiff first signed and/or made famous moved on to bigger record labels and more money, and Robinson and Riveria were forced to cast an ever wider net.

It’s a label that kicked off with Nick Lowe because he had already recorded to “publisher demos” at other companies’ expense, so the cost of releasing that very first Stiff single was a staggering £45. Thankfully, it did well – and the rest of the history is encapsulated here.

As mentioned previously, the tracks on these discs are in rough, rather than exact, chronological order, but on the other end of this Stiff journey we alight on the pub rock band Dr Feelgood, still going to this day as an entertainment entity but with a completely different lineup. You might wonder what a mid-70s traditionalist UK rock band is doing here, but they are part of Stiff history for two reasons.

First, singer Lee Brilleaux was the man who lent Jake Riveria and Dave Robinson the 400 quid they needed to register Stiff as the UK’s first independent record label. Second, they were a pretty damn good pub-rock band by the time they finally recorded with the label.

THE MUSIC

Things kick off with “Sign Of The Times” — a nice, poppy single from The Belle Stars, an all-female group that should have gone further than they did. I’m happy that their biggest single was one of their own originals, rather than the cover versions they had been doing for a while prior to that. Prince obviously liked the title also!

The follow-up single from the band is also included here, “Sweet Memory” as the second track on this disk, and it failed to crack the top 20 despite some pretty groove-y instrumentation. It’s certainly not as good as “Sign of the Times,” but it’s not awful either. I think the “aggressive/tough” style vocal on “Sweet Memory” is what hurt it.

Stiff was not doing as well by the time 1983-84 rolled around, and this disc is low on hits (but not without them). The label signed a bunch of new bands as their older acts left for bigger labels, and Electric Guitars is one of those. To be fair, the New Wave edge had faded by this point, but the “angular” attempts at cool had devolved into a similar style for a lot of bands.

It makes sense that the Guitars’ “Language Problems” would follow “Sweet Memory,” since it is rather similar: musically very competent, vocals rather odd.

Thankfully, the fourth song on the CD is a bona fide hit that still gets me dancing to this day: Tracey Ullman’s version of Jackie DeShannon’s “Breakaway,” a sped-up 60s girl-group song that infused extra energy and Ullman’s own sparkly vocals into an irresistible treat. Two minutes and 37 seconds of absolutely perfect pop.

This is followed by a song that might have made it but missed it by this much, Passion Puppets’ “Like Dust.” Musically, it has the moves, the vocals aren’t bad, there’s no reason this harder-rock mainstream number couldn’t have done reasonably well, and yet it didn’t. I can only imagine that the collapse of Stiff in 1984 contributed to the band’s failure to put out more than a single album.

Likewise, “Dangerous Dreams” by Jakko sounds like perfect FM radio fodder, but went nowhere just the same.

But now, time for something different: King Kurt launches “Destination Zululand” at us with a Tempole Tudor style and a bad Elvis impression. This sounds more like the happier days of the label, and it’s competently performed but silly. Not great, but certainly fun.

If you had trouble deciphering exactly what King Kurt is saying at all times on his song, wait till you get a load of poster-boy-for-dental-work Shane McGowan and the Pogues, who debut in this set at last with “The Sick Bed of Cuchulain,” a rollicking 100-proof Irish punk-folk hit complete with tinwhistle. McGowan alternately snarls and rocks it in this tale, which draws from Irish folklore based on an actual 11-century (lost) Yellow Book of Slane.

The next track is absolutely not what you might expect following The Pogues: “Pick Me Up” by the Inspirational Choir of the Pentecostal First Born Church of the Living God. True to their name, its an African-American church choir singing Christian Rock (or more accurately, inoffensive jazz-pop). It … um … certainly stands out among the songs on this disc.

A band remarkably like peak post-punk band The Jam, but they’re called Makin’ Time, borrow the bass riff from “Town Called Malice” for their own very-nearly-as-good version, “Here Is My Number.” It’s a rousing soul-infused rocker, but … you can’t get that other song out of your head when listening to it.

Three of the four members remained active in the music business into the 21st century, with Makin’ Time bassist Martin Blunt eventually joining The Charlatans.

Time to check back in with The Pogues, doing that Pogues-thing they do so well, with a catchy, bouncy Irish … lament … called “Dark Streets of London.” If you’re reading this, you must know The Pogues, even if you can’t stand McGowan’s vocal style, so you know that musically they are both firmly reflective of Ireland’s musical heritage, while infusing the music with the energy and spittle of punk.

We mentioned earlier The Belle Stars as a band that should have been bigger: well here’s another one — The Untouchables. They briefly grabbed the brass ring of exposure and US fame with a later single “Free Yourself,” but “Wild Child” is exactly the same kind of soul-powered rock stomper. I’m reminded to go back and investigate these guys more as well.

Kristy MacColl returns to give us another fantastic song of hers, “A New England.” Sparkling guitars frame a confessional song about a broken relationship and touching on teen pregnancy, bracketed by absolutely inspired lyrics.

Here’s a sample: “I saw two shooting stars last night/I wished on them, but they were only satellites/it’s wrong to wish on space hardware/I wish, I wish, I wish you cared,” and even more so “Once upon a time at home/I sat beside the telephone/Waiting for someone to pull me through/When at last it didn’t ring I knew it wasn’t you.” Genius!

One of Jamie Rae’s two singles ever released, “Pretty One” is included here, and it’s a pleasant enough pop song, but the young Scottish singer only released one other single. Though he found some considerable fame from those two records, he suddenly withdrew from pop music following the unexpected death of his mother from leukemia. Somewhere in a vault, there’s half an album more stuff from him, but as yet it’s not escaped that I know of.

Starting off with a driving groove, 60s mod styling, and a killer bass riff and wonderful call-and-response between lead singer/guitarist Clyde Grimes and the rest of the band, a ska-like touch of horns and synth organ, “Free Yourself” by The Untouchables managed to get some airplay and exposure on MTV and US radio with this irresistable track. As someone used to say back in the day, “if this don’t get in your head, check yourself — you may be dead!”

Speaking of energy, The Pogues waltz back in with another fast-paced Irish punk ballad, “Sally MacLennane.” A punk-pop take on Irish traditional music doesn’t get any better than this. The drunken-voiced callback in the chorus is the perfect finishing touch. Two minutes and 43 seconds of pure boozy bliss.

Then, suddenly, without proper warning: deep-voiced art-rock New Wave! It’s Furniture’s best single (in my opinion), “(You Must Be Out of Your) Brilliant Mind,” with extra-weird bass tomfoolery in the chorus and occasionally elsewehre, synth strings, a New York angry sax break, full of witty lyrics and oddly danceable. It’s … wait for it … brilliant.

From the “Not Really Our Thing So Much, But It Kinda Works, Mate” department, we finally get to Dr. Feelgood, a band that was a staple of the pub-rock circuit which originally formed in 1971, making them antiquated geezers by this point. The band was anchored by singer Lee Brilleaux, but had a rotating cast of other players.

For their single for Stiff, the label gave them some synths to play with, and the result is the smoky ballad “Don’t Wait Up,” which sits a little oddly with most of the other Stiff artists but is in fact a good song well-performed with just a splash of blues.

This is followed by outright bebop jazz from the Tommy Chase Quartet with a song called “Killer Joe (Right Cross)” — no chaser, just straight shots at a quick clip. As per tradition, the piano and sax get their moment of spotlight. What the huh? 50s jazz on Stiff? What the blazes is going on?

Oh wait, whew — Furniture return to get back in the zeitgeist with a return to their cool romantic artiness, courtesy another single a-side “Shake Like Judy Says.” Oddly, it’s not really a bad placement between Tommy Chase and Dr Feelgood — the song features a jazz-tinged trumpet line (and a little xylophone), which are both given some brief prominence amongst the synth/bass/drum/guitar main sounds.

Dr. Feelgood closes out the show with an unexpected redneck anthem, “Hunting Shooting Fishing,” that at least shows off how the band normally operated, and as you might have guessed, they’re not trying for high art. This is pub rock aimed squarely at working-class club audiences, complete with driving lead guitar and drums, plenty of echo on Brilleaux, and what almost manages to be a song for the monster truck crowd. ZZ Top could only wish they rocked this raucously.

THE BOOKLET

Just before we head for the exit on this review, we have to mention – at long last – the one and only thing included in this box set that is not a CD in a jewel case (which also includes an insert card with the table of contents for each disc, also reprinted on the back card) is a 20-page booklet that tries to set the stage for the creation of Stiff and the state of UK rock music at the time, impart a little data about its founders (including police mug shots!), and outline some of the label’s whacky slogans, which really gave it character. These ranged from the enigmatic “Three Nos Don’t Make a Yes” to the punkier “If It Ain’t Stiff It Ain’t Worth a Fuck” and the wry “We Came, We Saw, We Left” (or as the ancient Romans might have said, “Venimus, Vidimus, Reliquimus). Me, I always liked their on-label saying on many of their singles, “Electrically Recorded.”

We then get in the story about the early singles, starting with Nick and his costs-already-covered first single “So It Goes,” which came out on August 14th, 1976, and hit number one in the US two weeks after it was released. “Heart of the City,” the b-side, made a greater impact on the UK music papers, and between the two songs Jake and Dave were able to pay off the initial loan that started the ball rolling.

After a kerfuffle with EMI over the use of a Beatles’ “baby butcher” unused cover for a Roogalator single, Stiff got in the habit of releasing a single and then quickly “deleting” it from the catalog, which turned out to have the effect of encouraging stores to order more copies upfront. On top of that, they’d let artists or producers scratch messages in the runout groove (no, that wasn’t really a thing until Stiff came along). Genius!

The booklet continues with various tales like that, celebrating itself and writing about both its early wins and some of its early losses – for example, the classic “Alison” by Elvis Costello completely failed to chart on its debut. Luckily, the album did a bit of business (wink). It also chronicles the departure of Jake Rivera, taking Lowe, Costello, and Yachts with him to form another indie label, Radar.

It talks about the changing relationship with the ever-fickle and ever-bitchy UK music press, which once championed Stiff but quickly decided the new crop of acts were already old hat, and chronicles the Live Stiffs tours. As punk began to fade and the Two-Tone (another indie label) legend rose, Stiff signed Madness in a canny move.

By this point we’re in the early 80s, and Madness, Tenpole Tudor and Jona Lewie’s surprise hit “Stop the Cavalry” were helping keep Stiff in the charts, desperation was rolling in like fog and Stiff was throwing all kinds of … stuff … at the wall to see what stuck. Then, like a fortuitous lifeline, in 1983 Dave Robinson took an offer of being the Music Director of Island Records, and took the entire label roster with him.

This lasted until 1985 when Robinson and Island parted ways, and Stiff was back to struggling status. By 1986, Robinson could take the swinging between feast and famine anymore, and after a last short respite courtesy Cashmere (also home to the emerging ZTT label at the time), Robinson and Stiff were done.

The booklet carries on for a bit longer eulogising some of the things that made Stiff unique (such as signing Wazmo Nariz, the guy with two ties). It ends with a listing of Stiff Staff, and thank yous to those who helped put this compilation together.

THE WRAP UP

By the mid-80s, Stiff was flailing around wildly and desperate for hits. By this point, it was sailing on reputation and fumes, and the money was running out fast. That said, Discs 3 and 4 show that Stiff still had an eye for talent, and was still taking chances on an ever-increasing variety of artists even as the ship was starting to sink.

We owe this label and those two founding maniacs a great deal of gratitude for finding and publicising such a wide and clever array of new musical talent, and for helping make the very late 70s and early 80s a fookin’ great time to be a young person who loves great music. As the scores for these four CD s show, the hits outweighed the misses, and the legacy of the label is something Dave, Jake, and the artists can be proud of.

As a grave marker of sorts, this CD set is the finest tribute/chronology/potted history you’ll likely ever get of a UK indie record label. It is still a treasure box to me, 32 years (yikes!) since I first bought it. I’ve managed to buy it at least three times: my first copy was stolen in the mid-90s; another was so well-loved it fell apart; and this third one, thus far, has been treated with care. The little bit of velcro that keeps the box closed, on the other hand, has – on all my copies, and like much of this music – never failed me.

Great songs: 10
Good songs: 4
Meh songs: 7

Next time: Roxy Music!

Posted on by chasinvictoria

The Stiff Records Box Set — Disc 3

The Stiff Records Box Set — Disc 3
Stiff Records, 1992
4CD box set + booklet

THE PROLOGUE

We’ve already sampled 50 songs from the Stiff catalog, and my suggestion is you don’t do this in one sitting! It’s all (well, very high percentage) good-to-great stuff, and a snapshot of an era as well as a label. But will Punk-New Wave-Powerpop-Pub—Rock-Uncategorized fatigue set in? Let’s find out!

In response to some readers – yes, we’ll cover the booklet when we get to Disc 4, and yes, I probably should have done that with the Disc 1 review. Insert traditional UK two-finger wag … here.

THE MUSIC

If you were feeling a little fatigued from listening to (or just reading about) the first 50 songs, Disc 3 is here with a shot of Vitamin Groove to revive you. Stiff could hardly have picked two more energetic, get-up-and-dance-you-fool numbers than Madness’ mid-tempo-domestic-squabble-set-to-ska song “My Girl” to kick things off, and then followed it with Jamaica’s musical master Desmond Dekker’s insanely catchy 1968 reggae classic “Israelites.”

Joe “King” Carrasco (and The Crowns) has the uneviable duty to follow that, but does a decent job with his equally-partying and Wurlitzer-led Tex-Mex hit “Buena,” which of course incorporates some Spanish into the mix.

We shift gears with Graham Parker’s faux-punk rockin’ diatribe “Stupefaction,” complete with a snarling indictment of life in Los Angeles. It was the first single from his final album with the (uncredited) Rumour, The Up Escalator, and while the single didn’t chart, the album was his best-selling record to that point (1980). If you like the song and his attitude, you’ll enjoy the album.

Next up is a masterpiece of the New Wave era — a “love” song that probably could never have been written, performed, or been a success in any other era. Jona Lewie’s biggest hit, “You’ll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties,” was a song I identified with in my very early teen years, until I become the social butterfly I am today (heh).

It’s minimalist, it’s low-key, it’s monotone, and I love it (and it’s not like everything else he’s done). I’m sure it was intended as a “novelty” single, but it bypassed Doctor Demento and became a surprise Top 20 hit in the UK, reaching the #3 spot in New Zealand and parking there (on both charts) for weeks on end.

To the best of my knowledge, there’s only been one “cover” of this song … in 2010, a duo called Man Like Me took the backing track, replaced Lewie’s vocals with their own, and made a video. It’s not horrible, it’s not great, and it’s on YouTube if you want to see it.

If you’ve never heard the original, good lord people — listen to it RIGHT NOW. It’s an Awkward Teenager Redemption Anthem! Plus, this particular video features bonus Kirsty MacColl!

This is followed by the joyous power-pop of Any Trouble, with the song “Trouble With Love.” The group as a whole had its ups and downs, but I have always been a fan of anything lead singer and songwriter Clive Gregson cared to put down on tape — he does a great job of marrying upbeat pop with “unlucky in love” lyrics.

Dave (L.) Stewart — not the guy from the later Eurythmics — spent his time at Stiff mostly covering old songs, as far as I can tell. He had played with bands like Hatfield and the North in the 70s, but by 1981 he was putting out singles with guest vocalists.

The first of two such collaborations we’ll hear on this disc is “What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted,” with vocals by Colin Blunstone (formerly the singer for The Zombies) with some female backing vocals. The song, from 1966, was first recorded by the great soul singer Jimmy Ruffin, who really poured a sense of genuine heartache into it.

Almost every singer who has covered the song since has hewed very close to the original arrangement, but often don’t bring the anguish Ruffin did. It’s the same problem here: Stewart’s instrumentation, while nicely departing from the Ruffin arrangement, replaces it with a cold, synthy-piano-led, clinical style. Blunstone’s singing, while pleasant, is likewise perfunctory for the most part. We’re not looking forward to more of the same later.

Since the last song was so soulless, it follows that Graham Parker would have to follow with his sarcastic takedown of his (former by this point) record label, “Mercury Poisoning,” which is a rollicking complaint letter set to music. His new record company (Arista at the time) had no issues with it, but Parker didn’t last too long there either. This live version got licensed to Stiff and they ran with it, and emerged seemingly unscathed (at least, I’m unaware of any song by Parker with a play on the name Stiff …).

Dirty Looks was one of those bands that always seemed interesting, seemed promising, but at least for me they never managed to push it over the line into being a fan. “Let Go” is a nicely energetic and tuneful number with a great pre-chorus praising the rock n roll spirit embodied in the advice of the title. It’s a good single that probably should have done better than it did — see what you think:

Madness returns with their clown car of fun ska and “nutty boys” story-songs with “Baggy Trousers,” showing that their style had legs to cover more than just their first (brilliant) album. Madness by this point is a reliable and predictable brand, beloved by skinheads and grandmas alike. Nice trick if you can pull it off!

Dave Stewart returns, this time with regular partner Barbara Gaskin in tow, for another off-beat take on a standard: this time, “It’s My Party.” This version works better than Dave’s cover of “Broken Hearted,” because the song was a torch song in the first place, and so performing it like a morose ballad technically makes it a better version that Lesley Gore’s original, but I still prefer Gore’s version. The girl-group backing vocals just put the cherry on this synth-minimalist but perceptive cake.

Speaking of covers, John Otway’s take on the old country standard “The Green Green Grass of Home” is … well hang on, who is this person anyway? I confess I’m not that familiar with him, but he appears to be simply an eccentric musician who tries to do thing in his own unique way.

So, knowing that, it’s possible to appreciate this sometimes atonal, weirdly performed, nearly acapella first minute of the cover, followed by the full band kicking in and Otway singing a raucus version in the second half. It’s certainly a “chaser” between the first half and the second half of the disc, I’ll say that.

Following that, Tenpole Tudor swing around playfully with “Three Bells in a Row,” a tuneful song about “fruit machines,” (coin-operated UK roulette machines where you try to line up three items in a row, with the big winner being three bells). Frontman Ed Tudor-Pole is just out for a good time, and pretty much all the music I’ve heard from the band is the audio equivalent of a good-time pub crawl.

It was good choice to sequence Jona Lewie’s cheery (or as cheery as his deadpan voice allows) “Stop the Calvary” as the next track, as it keeps up the good mood and suddenly turns into a Christmas single unexpectedly (and it’s still played around Christmas time on UK radio to this day).

What’s next? The two songs by Department S you’re ever likely to have heard before, “Going Left Right” and “Is Vic There?” Oh but plot twist — the version of “Is Vic There?” is the French version! Qu’elle surprise!

The former song has a driving style with a lovely swirling synth dressing and snarky lyrics about disco dancing. I still like this song very much, and wish they’d done more in this vein, even though it’s the longest song on this disc (at four and a half minutes).

“Is Vic There?” is a fragment of a phone conversation turned into another catchy, intense yet danceable single, with both French and English lyrics. I should really look into the rest of their output, but I can only think of a handful of Department S songs I’ve ever heard, and they’ve all been good.

Here’s the English-language version of the track.

Now we come to a band called the Equators that I know nothing of other than this one song. “If You Need Me,” has a ska influence to it, and there’s nothing really wrong with the song other than it being a bland love tune, lyrically. It didn’t inspire me to investigate them further.

As if in reaction to the mediocrity of the Equators, Tenpole Tudor return to overturn the table, spike the punch, and swing from the chandelier in an attempt to bring the party back to life with “Wunderbar.” It’s not as energetic as punk in the verses, but it chugs along nicely and the chorus is a big drunk gang singing the word “wunderbar” and whistling as only a big drunk gang can. As good as it is, they get one-upped in due course.

“Allamana” is a quite forgettable number by Desmond Dekker, and was likely a b-side. Nuff said.

We shift gears pretty hard from this string of ska-jacent music with the arrival of Alvin Stardust and his urgent mission to put a new spin on the traditional 50s love ballad. Blessed with the smoothest voice this side of Buddy Holly, he ups the tempo, drips with echo, and has perfectly harmonious backup singers. It’s fabulous.

Billy Bremner of Rockpile (and Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds’ various other records) drops by with a serviceable but relaxed performance of a song called “Loud Music in Cars,” where the title is not only the subject, but the first words sung (and he has a pleasant-enough voice, though the influence of Lowe and Edmunds is keenly felt). It’s a simple Scottish pop song about a simple subject — loud music in cars is something Bremner enjoys, apparently. It somehow sticks in your head, though.

Oh, but then … Tenpole Tudor return to take us away from all that amiable-pop-rock crap with another stomper likely to be sung by football hooligans, “Throwing My Baby Out With the Bathwater,” a good-time breakup song.

This is stunningly well one-upped by a band called Pookiesnackenburger, who I am astonished to report managed not only to produce more than this one madcap song, but indeed produced two complete albums I really must investigate. “Just One Cornetto,” flatly, my favourite song on this disc by a long way.

Following some incomprehensible chatter, the song begins with a Madness-like call to action, becoming a party set to music and a delightfully mad lyric — a love song to an ice cream novelty, the beloved Cornetto. The whole thing is as delightfully mad as the band’s name, and all over in 2’26”. Love it.

Next is Via Vagabond with a driving, swinging jazz number called, brilliantly, “Who Likes Jazz.” It’s wonderfully performed with blazing piano, a touch of synth, but really driven by the drum-and-stand-up-bass 50s style tempo.

The disc concludes with Tracey Ullman with another slab of 60’s style girl-pop, with a beautifully clever title lyric — “you broke my heart in 17 places … Shepard’s Bush was only one.” The secret sauce behind Ullman was always Kirsty MacColl, and this is one of her cleverest songs.

This was part of Tracey’s debut album of the same name, mostly consisting of an eclectic array of remakes of well-known love songs, including Blondie’s “(I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear,” and a lovely cover of Jackie DeShannon’s brilliant “Breakaway.” MacColl also contributed one of her songs she’d had a hit with herself, “They Don’t Know,” and Ullman’s version was a bigger hit than MacColl’s version — reaching the top 10 in the US and peaking at number two in the UK singles chart.

THE WRAP UP

The tracks on these discs are not arranged in strictly chronological order, but they do roughly follow the progression and diversification of the label, and we’re definitely seeing that here. Thankfully, Robinson’s ear and eye for talent remained true, but the number of Stiff acts that went on to bigger labels and greater success is a remarkable testament to that.

“Punk acts” on this compilation mostly consist of The Damned and Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias, and they’re not heard from after the first CD here. That said, my personal rating of “great” songs goes up to a new high mark here . Here’s the score for CD number three:

GREAT SONGS: 14
GOOD SONGS: 6
MEH SONGS: 5

Next time: Disc 4 … and oh yeah, the booklet!

Posted on by chasinvictoria

The Stiff Records Box Set – Disc 2

The Stiff Records Box Set — Disc 2
Stiff Records, 1992
4CD box set + booklet

THE PROLOGUE

Settle in, dear readers, it’s another disc and another 25 songs spread out another hour and 17 minutes, or an average runtime per song of 3’08”. As before, there’s a mix of Stiff’s artists that went on to become famous and/or influential, and a smattering of songs and artists that … didn’t.

THE MUSIC

Disc Two kicks off with another pair of songs by Nick Lowe, just as Disc One did. This time, we get the non-album track “I Love My Label,” which is probably why he got more songs on this compilation than anyone other than his protege Elvis Costello (at four songs each).

Nick’s original of it has only ever appeared on a handful of Stiff Records compilations, of which this is of course one of them, but Wilco very faithfully covered the song as a bonus track on their 2011 album The Whole Love.

This is followed by “Marie Prevost” from his first album, Jesus of Cool, released in March of 1978. It tells the tale (inaccurately) of the silent film star’s life and death. A story had gone around that part of Prevost’s dead body was consumed by her two dogs, and this was used by Lowe in the song.

It isn’t true — she died, destitute, at age 40 from alcoholism and malnutrition due to anorexia nervosa, with her body intact. One of her dogs, in fact, caused neighbours to discover that she had died via the animal’s incessant barking.

Next up is Ian Dury & The Blockheads with “What a Waste,” a song about all his squandered opportunities in other occupations, but for that he chose “to play the fool in a six-piece band.” It’s another mildly entertaining and amusing song, as is his forte.

Elvis Costello pops up next with a live track, which he announces is written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David: “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself,” one of the duo’s many pop standards. Elvis is perhaps surprisingly sincere in his performance of the 1962 number, first made famous by Dusty Springfield’s version.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the fifth track, “Whoops-A-Daisy” by Humphrey Ocean and the Hardy Annuals, was just a more twee version of Ian Dury on a lark. In fact, however, Mr. Ocean is a real person, and a noted UK painter.

The uncanny resemblance in this track stems from Ocean’s affiliation with Dury (who was his art teacher, friend, and apparently vocal coach). Ocean had played bass in Dury’s previous band, Kilburn and the High Roads. Following this music-hall type single, Ocean gave up music and returned to painting.

This is followed by a trio of well-known songs from the New Wave era, the first of which is Lene Lovich’s outstanding cover of Tommy James and the Shondell’s 1967 hit “I Think We’re Alone Now,” originally written by Ritchie Cordell and Bo Gentry. The pop hit about two young people desperately trying to find a place to “be alone” (cough) never sounded fresher, and Lovich was rewarded with helping it chart once again.

“Jocko Homo” was DEVO’s first b-side (the a-side was “Mongoloid,”) as well as Mark Mothersbaugh’s first solo writing contribution. The name comes from a 1924 anti-evolution tract called Jocko-Homo Heavenbound, and the memorable time signatures and call-and-response chant is a play on a similar one in the movie Island of Lost Souls. It’s a compelling song because of its two time tempos (from 7/8 to 4/4 for the call-and-response part), and handily established DEVO as a completely unique band and the vanguard of the post-punk landscape called New Wave.

Ian Dury returns with one of his better-known songs, “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick,” centered on a brilliant Chas Jankel melody and the spoken (and occasionally multi-language) poetry of Dury, not to mention an insane sax solo. One of the things that so attracts me to the New Wave movement was the incredibly size of that tent — wildly different music fit and blossomed in that tent.

“Semaphore Signals” by Wreckless Eric (one of the acts that had very limited success), is a nondescript number about lovers trying to secretly communicate. He’s a “working class” singer one might charitably say, and this is a song with a cute idea behind it but stretched too thin to support its “drunk karaoke”-style vocal performance.

Speaking of drunk performers, Jona Lewie (who did at least get one big hit out of his time with Stiff), seems like a Depression-era pianist somehow transported to the 1980s, and not sure quite what to do with himself. Thankfully, he’s pretty entertaining even when he sounds … er, relaxed, and “I’ll Get By in Pittsburgh” sounds like a closing-time tune by a pianist who’s quite relaxed about his performance. Generally I quite like Lewie’s first album, but this “Pittsburgh” was the b-side to his novelty hit “In the Kitchen at Parties” for a reason.

From there, we go to “B-A-B-Y” by Rachel Sweet. She has a powerhouse voice that you either find thrilling or its like fingers on a blackboard for you. I’m more in the former camp, though Sweet certainly missed her calling as the leader of a 60s girl group by simply having been born too late (1962).

Today, she’s a successful TV writer and producer, but back then she was Stiff’s jailbait ingenue, a veteran child star who was 16 in 1978, switching from singing country to rock music and releasing her first album, Fool Around, that same year. It’s a well-regarded album that has aged well (the musicians on it would later form the band The Records), but only the single showcased here did terribly well.

By 1982 her career as a solo artist was over, with only four original albums and a live record. That said, she later wrote and sang several songs for John Waters’ films Hairspray and Cry-Baby.

For the halfway mark on this disc, we return to the ever-reliable Lene Lovich and her first and arguably biggest hit, 1978/9’s “Lucky Number,” which managed to get substantial video play on the nascent MTV. It went Top 10 in most countries in Europe and the UK where it was released.

The Members were a group that I personally judged never quite good enough to actively collect, but that said I like what I hear from them. “Solitary Confinement” is a very witty song about how “great” it is to get out of your parents’ house and live on your own for the first time.

Or, as they put it: “You are living in the suburbs/And you have problems with your parents/So you move on up to London town/Where you think everything’s happening, going down/Living in a bedsit/Travelling on a tube train/Working all day long/And you know no one/So you don’t go out/And you eat out of tins/And you watch television/Solitary confinement.” Missle hits its target, dunnit?

This live version really captures how meaningful this song was to so many at the time.

Next up is “Frozen Years” by The Rumour (minus Graham Parker). Not everyone remembers that The Rumour put out three albums on their own. This song is a lightweight and pleasant synth-driven number with clever lyrics, sung by Brinsley Schwartz himself (though you’d be forgiven if you thought it was a very low-key Nick Lowe).

Then we’re back to Wreckless Eric with “Take the Cash.” Sound, practical advice regarding the handling of money and job protocols from our Mr. Eric. He embodies the “three chords and enthusiasm” ethic that embodied a number of Stiff acts, but as with “Semaphone Signals” it’s a very amusing but incredibly basic idea, and again he stretches it to within an inch of its life at 3’44”. If he’d get in and out much more quickly, I’d think him a comedic genius.

Following this is one of the absolute gems of the Stiff lineup with an absolute jewel of a song: Kirsty MacColl, the daughter of the revered folk singer and composer Ewan, absolutely nails her debut with the exquisitely gorgeous “They Don’t Know,” the story of a teenager who has found their true love on a level that their parents and others would just never understand.

The 50s styling, multi-tracked choral backup (learned from intently listening to Beach Boys albums), and the puncturing “BAY-bee” that climaxes the instrumental break are spot-on perfect, and the blend of pre-rock ballad style and nascent 80s instrumentation effortlessly show off both her talent and her musical lineage in three perfect minutes flat.

She and Stiff head Dave Robinson didn’t get on very well at the time, however, so he buried the 1979 single, and she wasn’t able to release her own album until 1985 (!). I’ve been a fan of hers since I first heard this in ’79, and was delighted when Tracey Ullman brought it to a wider audience in 1983, making it the hit it always should have been (Tracey herself became a Stiff artist, and appears later in this comp).

Robinson may have had some regrets about how he treated MacColl later on, or maybe he just finally understood how brilliant she actually was, so thankfully she gets two songs on this box set: we’ll get to the other one when we come to Disc Four.

Mickey Jupp was pushing 40 by the time he recorded for Stiff, having done the music scene in the 60s before leaving it. When “pub rock” became a thing in the UK, he happily signed back up for another hitch, and “You’ll Never Get Me Up in One of Those” is a good example of the good-time but rough-n-ready pub sound that dominates the first side of his album Juppanese (the second half is quite different — a trick more artists should employ).

The A-side was produced by Nick Lowe and features an uncredited Rockpile as the backing band, and sounds like it. The B-side of the album was produced by Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker, and is considerably more polished. After seven more solo albums, he took another break from music — but returned to recording in 2009 and most recently released new music in 2022 at age 78.

Rachel Sweet returns for “Who Does Lisa Like?” a nicely angular single that reinforces her under-age image with a song about high-school gossip. The album, titled Fool Around, gave her two popular singles: “B-A-B-Y” and “Stranger in the House,” the latter of which led her to masterfully cover a number of other classic pop and country songs.

“Drive Friendly” is the next song by a band called Motor Boys Motor. It’s a pretty terrible song about a killer car, and thankfully they do not appear again on this compilation — but hey, it might possibly have inspired Stephen King to write “Christine,” so maybe it has some value after all.

After their one 1982 album, the band reformulated itself and became the Screaming Blue Messiahs, another band I don’t care for.

We then get introduced to Lew Lewis Reformer, another pub-rocker but with a certain … something that makes me like him better than Mickey Jupp or Wreckless Eric. I think he manages to communicate his enthusiasm for the genre better than the others, and has a clearer, somewhat higher tone that stands out better from the instruments.

We move along to Theatre of Hate and their fifth single, “The Hop.” The band members had all been in punk bands earlier, but ToH carved out a sort of “art-punk” that didn’t fit easily into other labels, and indeed exemplified the genre by not fitting into any other existing label at the time, going away from the direction of New Wave right from their first single (“Original Sin” b/w “Legion”) in 1980.

I got and liked their first couple of albums (the live He Who Dares Wins and their first studio album, Westworld), but they didn’t appear to do anything else original beyond that for quite a while so I stopped paying attention. I’ll have to catch up on their 90s output, but after that spurt of activity they went kind of quiet again until 2016, so I have some homework to do on their later evolutions.

And the award for the band with the very best introductory single ever (at least in my view) may well go to … Madness’ “One Step Beyond,” the next track here. The heavy reverb’d voice and Camden Town accent (a place I know well), the playful video, and — for a lot of white boys — the introduction to a form of the Jamacian ska sound just hits us white kids like a tonne of very danceable bricks.

It’s one of those occasional songs that pretty much picks you up by your lapels and makes you move. Even better, it’s utterly timeless and joyful with every play. One of the best tracks on this disc, maybe even this whole compilation (which manages quite a few classics within its 96 offerings).

While we are catching our breath in recovery from the heavy heavy monster sound, The Rumour are here with what I think is their best single, “Emotional Traffic.” On paper, it’s a catchy song about avoiding extreme emotions. On record, it borrows from both traditional pop and nascent New Wave to give us something that’s not quite either one, but very pleasant indeed.

We’re on to the third Ian Dury number on this disc, and by this point you know it’s more of the similar. He’s wonderful at varying up the subject matter of his songs, but not very good at varying up his delivery, or the music. This is quite acceptable when you’re delivering singles, but has always been a point of annoyance for me with his albums.

Lew Lewis Reformer comes back to close out the disc with another slab of his well-produced, well-sung and perfectly-performed good-time rockers, “Lucky Seven.” It’s nothing innovative at all, but so well-done you don’t mind, and might even sing along with the rest of the pub regulars.

THE WRAP-UP

As always, these scores are simply my opinion. Your mileage may vary!

Great songs: 10
Good songs: 8
Meh songs: 7

Overall score: 7 out of 10

25 songs in an hour and 17 minutes continues to be value for money, and carries on representing the great, good, and “save it for the b-side” personality of this eclectic record label. Let’s hope the next two discs, moving into the later days of the label, can keep up their strong average.

Next time … Disc 3!

Posted on by chasinvictoria

The Stiff Records Box Set (Disc 1)

Stiff Records, 1992
4CD box set + booklet

THE PROLOGUE

For fans of the various artists and general aesthetic of Dave Robinson’s rebel record label Stiff, this is a holy grail relic. A grab-bag of often-great and mostly-good songs, known and obscure artists, a Whitman’s Sampler of the heart and soul of what the label put out in its heyday, and a sonic manifesto of what it was trying to accomplish.

All these years later, it can be definitively said that Dave Robinson and Jake Riveria, the co-founders of Stiff, had a good ear for talent, style, and strong songwriting. The original plan was to call the label Demon Records (a name Jake later “stole” and became very successful with, now known as DMG), but the label’s motto of “It’s a Stiff!” and catalog of BUY (number) was too funny to let go of, so the label was christened as Stiff Records.

What’s even more impressive (and proof of Robinson’s musical sensibilities) is that so many of the artists found here at the beginning of their careers went on to bigger and better. Even the also-rans generally left us with decent and sometimes quite memorable tracks. This box set has a higher ratio of classics-to-crap than nearly any compilation I own.

Happily, this artifact of a time and place in UK music history is still easily obtainable, occasionally even in mint condition for far less than its original selling price. I’ve owned two copies of it so far; the first is probably still stored in a Florida storage unit, but it might have been stolen as part of a break-in to my car that occurred in the mid-90s (I was a radio DJ back then, and trasported a huge and heavy sack of my CDs back and forth to the station for my show in those days).

I bought my second copy of the box set shortly after moving to Canada in 2007. The weak point of this box set is its well-built but cardboard-based outer shell, which has deteriorated over time. Even though the CDs inside are as pristine in their plastic cases as they ever were, I may buy a third copy while I still have this one that I will never open, such a holy relic it is to me (and cheap these days on the resale market).

Rarely has their been a label that could put out such a luxurious and properly-varied sample of its output (most just box up their biggest hits yet again), but Stiff was always very different to most labels, and this box proves it.

THE MUSIC

There are simply too many songs spread across these four discs to do much more than comment briefly on standouts or misfires without turning this into a book on its own (saaayyy …), but I encourage anyone reading this who doesn’t have a copy to get one while it’s easy and cheap to do so. You’ll never find a more varied and eclectic collection of mostly-quality rock music that captured an important time and place – the UK in the late 70s and early 80s – in music history.

The first track of the box set is, appropriately, the first single Stiff issued, catalog BUY 1: former Brinsley Schwartz’s frontman Nick Lowe with “So It Goes,” his first solo effort which kicks off with bold guitar, bass, and drums to remind the listener that nothing beats basic four-piece rock n roll. It’s a quick (2’32”) midtempo rocker with some of Nick’s best storytelling lyrics.

The first verse tells the story of “a kid who cut off his right arm/In a bid to save a bit of power/He got 50 thousand watts/In a big acoustic tower,” while the second verse muses about diplomacy: “Now up jumped the U.S. representative/He’s the one with the tired eyes/747 put him in that condition/Flyin’ back from a peace keepin’ mission.” Despite each verse having nothing to do with the previous, this series of observations rocks along in Nick’s friendly, country-tinged pop-rock style that he’s made a good career out of.

As befits Stiff’s first signee, the B-side for that single is the next track on the CD, the equally appealing but even more rockin’ “Heart of the City.” Not his most substantial song, but a good little story-song of a young runaway looking for a new life in the … well you can guess where. It’s even shorter, at two minutes six seconds.

Pink Fairies, on the other hand, offer the unmemorable and muddily-mixed “Between the Lines.” Perfunctory pub rock with indistinct vocals, but you gotta admire a band choosing a name like “Pink Fairies” in the mid 70s — that took balls.

Roogalator’s “Cincinatti Fatback” showed off the band’s angular funk style that had made them unique on the pub-rock circuit. Curiously, the track chosen is actually the b-side of their one-off single with Stiff, the a-side being “All Aboard,” which brings a semi-country swing to their funk style (but isn’t on this compilation).

Speaking of angular, “Stryofoam” by Tyla Gang is a very odd duck of a song — so weird you kinda like it, but definitely not material that would ever make any label any money, which is why you’ve never heard of them. That Stiff would even give them a shot is a testament to how wide-open the early days of the label were.

Then we come to what most experts agree is the actual first “punk rock” single ever, The Damned’s “New Rose,” released on 22-October 1976. The contempt in Dave Vanian’s spoken-word intro “is she really going out with him?” dripped with contempt for how beholden mainstream rock music continued to be to the 1950s, and “New Rose” proceeded to destroy rock music as it had been at that point without resorting to heavy metal — a revolutionary trick that inspired many other bands.

This is followed by what was for a period the “anthem” of punk rock, “Blank Generation” by Richard Hell and the Voivoids (also the title track of his debut album). Not many will know that the song is actually a rewrite of a Bob McFadden & Rod McKuen song, “The Beat Generation,” which came out in 1959.

It is said that Hell’s rewrite later inspired “Pretty Vacant” by the Sex Pistols, and it is unsurprising to learn that Hell’s vocal style gave a young John Lydon the inspiration to become a band frontman. What I’d give for a duet with those two.

The Damned return with more pure punk, the machine-gun chorus and primitive lyrics of the one minute long “Stab Your Back.” There’s a hell of a lot of songs that should be limited to just the time it takes to get the message and melody marriage across, and this is one of them (but not the only under-two-minute song on this disc).

The now-legend that is Elvis Costello enters the fray with the simmering “Less Than Zero.” A very political song that mentions a swastika tattoo in its first line, it was interpreted at the time as a (rightful) condemnation of the Nazi-like National Front party in the UK, but Costello now prefers to interpret the song as generally about the degradation of morals and behaviour in society everywhere. The song sadly continues to be relevant.

Next up is “England’s Glory” by Max Wall, a delightful comedic piano-led sendup of the British establishment in the 1970s (and beyond), from the monarchy on down. It reminds me of Benny Hill’s musical moments, and features lots of sarcastic references to distinctly British personalities and things.

An angelic chorus starts off “Maybe,” a fantastic and authentic 50s-style wailer of a broken heart love ballad sung by Jill Read, first recorded by The Chantels (and later covered rather poorly by the Shangri-Las). It features her impossibly high-note wailing (I mean this in complimentary sense — this is a really tough song to sing in its original key!) that perfectly mirrors and improves on The Chantels’ version, and skates right along the line of tribute — or is it parody? — without changing a note or word of the original.

“One Chord Wonders” is a nice group effort and debut single by The Adverts, and features a whimsical self-deprecating lyric about how poorly they play. They were touring as the Damned’s opening act, and the tagline for the bill was “The Damned now know three chords, The Adverts know one, come and hear all four!”

This is followed by the first honest-to-god ballad, Mr. Costello’s moving and gorgeous “Alison,” a still-great ballad of lost love with a line that became the title of his debut album. Despite his unusual voice and punk-accountant visual image, his brilliance as a songwriter and particularly a versatile lyricist was already evident just on these two singles.

Dave Edmunds was in a band called Rockpile with Nick Lowe starting in 1976, but was already known as a “wall of sound” type producer in the mould of Phil Spector as he was a blazing guitarist. Because of differing label contracts, they couldn’t officially record together under that name until 1980, but each contributed to the other’s 1979 “solo” albums. Here, Edmunds gives an underwhelming vocal performance but (sure enough) a wall of guitar sounds with “Jo Jo Gunne,” a Chuck Berry original. The original version is, frankly, much better.

Up next, the slow strumming and twee English accent (and humour) of Wreckless Eric’s “Whole Wide World,” which is an underappreciated minor masterpiece. The song is about a man whose mother says there’s only one woman for him, and she’s not around here — sparking a worldwide search for her. It’s rough, it’s cheesy, it’s great.

The next track starts off with a spoken word parody of The Damned’s opening line in “New Rose,” Stiff’s most openly comedic signing — Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias — faithfully deliver a brilliant parody of the Damned and most contemporary punk bands with “Kill,” the vocal performance of which is the entire basis of Ade Edmondson’s later, brilliant “The Young Ones” punk character Vivian.

It also uses the word “fucking” for the first time in a punk song (I think), and also breaks ground by being the first song to finish with guitar feedback (again, as far as I know).

This is followed by a different sort of classic, “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll,” the debut single of Ian Dury & The Blockheads. Everything about Ian Dury’s career is seemingly impossible, and yet he (with the help of musical genius Chas Jankel) had a brilliant career that was never a novelty act, despite his crippling polio, and despite being a very funny and dark-humoured lyricist.

We then get the B-side of Dury’s single, “Razzle in My Pocket,” a little story-song no doubt based on a true incident from Dury’s youth, where he would shoplift porno mags he was too young or broke to buy.

Coming next to the stylish and Wurlitzer-centric “Suffice to Say” by the Yachts, a genuinely witty and catchy little love song. Maybe the first song to warn listeners in the lyric itself that an instrumental break is coming up (other musical jokes are littered throughout). It took me ages to finally pick up a CD from this band, but their self-deprecating style and charm won me over the first time I ever heard this (which was probably from the original copy of this very box set).

Mick Farren and his single “Let’s Loot the Supermarket Like We Did Last Summer” was a one-shot for Stiff, but Farren was actually in a proto-punk band in the 1960s and thus his amusing single and vocal performance should be interpreted as a parody of punk — taking the piss out of taking the piss, if you will.

He ended up being better known as a novelist than musician, but collaborated with the Pink Fairies as well as Lemmy from Motorhead. His own band, the Deviants, recorded in the 70s and then reformed in the late 90s, and continued until his death on stage with them in 2013.

The next track is a stone-cold New Wave classic, Elvis Costello’s “Watching the Detectives.” The lyrics on this are brilliant from start to finish, a take on detective stories and murder mysteries. It’s a slow-burn, bass-driven potboiler that features a stunning stream-of-consciousness style vocal delivery. Probably Elvis’ best song until he formed The Attractions.

Ian Dury returns with another slice-of-life biography, “My Old Man.” As you can guess, it’s a musical biography of Dury’s father, and saying much more about it would spoil it. It’s a thoughtful and low-tempo portrait of a man Dury didn’t really have in his life growing up, and only met again as an adult.

Next up is Larry Wallis with “Police Car,” showing off his status as the most talented (but short-term) member of the Pink Fairies. He was also an early member of Motorhead, but settled into a role as an in-house producer for Stiff, and this was the first of only two solo singles he ever made.

Jane Aire and the Belvederes, here represented with “Yankee Wheels,” also had very limited success, and “Yankee Wheels” starts off on a minor key and never manages to rise above it. The actual musicians accompanying Jane’s double-tracked vocals were also later to be put to better use as Kirsty MacColl’s band.

Trivia: the drummer on this was Jon Moss, later of Culture Club, and the guitarist was Lu Edwards, who worked with a lot of good bands. This single is, like the rest of Jane Aire’s output I have heard, uneven enough that it never warranted further investigation.

The finale for the disc is an early single by Graham Parker, “Back to Schooldays.” It’s poorly mixed in my view, with Graham not yet front and center the way he would be later, but already capable of a strong vocal performance. This particular song reminds me of the sort of warped-50s style that Richard O’Brien of Rocky Horror fame would have put out if he’d had a solo career.

THE WRAP-UP

Great songs: 10
Good songs: 9
Meh songs: 6

Overall score: 7.5 out of 10

25 songs in an hour and 17 minutes is certainly value for money, and on the whole this first disc is pretty good — after all, not everything can be a hit (and some of these are b-sides by design, of course).

Next time: Disc 2!

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Mari Wilson — The Neasden Queen of Soul — Disc 3

(3CD box set, Cherry Red, 2022)

THE PROLOGUE

So if Disc 1 was the Showpeople album and a handful of bonus tracks, and Disc 2 was a lot of the pre-album demos and some live tracks recorded before and around the first album, what could Disc 3 possibly hold for us?

The answer is: the best of the rest. In particular, these 2022 remixes (and in one case, a 2021 remix), remastered from the original tapes by Tot Taylor himself are just the bee’s knees. You think you’ve heard “Baby It’s True” and “Beat the Beat” enough times already, but you my friend are wrong.

Sadly, there aren’t any YouTube versions of any of the 2022 remixes, so instead the videos we include will be some rare items and later appearances (so don’t be alarmed by the change in hairstyle!)

Our first choice was a stop of the 2016 Heaven 17 UK tour (which we got to see two dates of, but sadly not this one in Bury St. Edmonds), where Mari performed two songs you along side Martyn Ware and the band. So enjoy.

So the first half of Disc 3 is just these fabulous new remixes , with the second half being the “odds-n-sods” collection — a US remix here, an alternate take there, a Spanish version found in the rumpus room, and a 7-inch edit balanced precariously on the liquor cabinet.

There’s even an instrumental version in here somewhere. Let’s dive in, shall we?

THE MUSIC

The disc kicks off with sonically wider, cleaner, and “glow-up” 2022 remix versions of Showpeople tracks “Baby It’s True,” “Beat the Beat,” and “Ecstasy.”

There’s also new remixes of “Glamourpuss” (two remixes, in fact, in different years!) “Rave,” “She’s Had Enough of You,” “You Look So Good,” and the US remix of “Just What I Always Wanted.” There’s also the original UK version of “Ecstasy,” just thrown in for good measure.

For the 2022 remixes of the album tracks, the new version beats the original every time — with one exception. The 2022 version of “Ecstasy,” replaces the 80s drums of the album version with traditional ones, but quickens the pace considerably — it might actually be a little too fast. The UK original version elsewhere on this disc keeps that same manic speed, so I have to bow to the wisdom of the US record company that made them re-do the song at a sensible tempo.

The 2022 remix of “Rave” is really a cleaned-up and slightly re-edited version of the “live in the studio” version heard on Disc 2. Oddly, the Wilsations are not co-credited on the Disc 3 version, though of course they are still there.

Likewise, the 2022 remix of “She’s Had Enough of You” is a notable improvement on the original we heard on Disc 2. It seems like it is pitch-shifted a little from the other version, which only benefits the song.

This brings us to the 2021 remix of “Glamourpuss,” here given the subtitle “(Scenario).” The piano intro is completely different, and jazzier, just for starters, and then the sax comes in. Sadly, this version keeps the corny b-side “band introduces the singer” gimmick, and then the original piano comes in and the song gets underway.

Give me the 2022 remix version on this one any day.

The “U.S. Remix” version of “Just What I Always Wanted” starts off with the whispered “Let’s Go,” then proceeds to drag out the intro of the song and ruin the energy of the original until Mari finally shows up and gets the number going properly after the first minute. Of the three versions found on this box set, the original album cut is the best, in my opinion.

Note to Tot Taylor and/or Tony Mansfield: when you have someone say in a song “let’s go,” there needs to be a burst of energy that follows that. I’m not quite sure how you missed that, but them’s the rules.

So now we move into the second half of Disc 3, which offers no remixes but more alternate versions. We start with a song only heard on Disc 1, “One Day is a Lifetime.”

This time, The Wilsations are credited, even though we don’t hear a peep out of them vocally. It’s listed as an “Alternate Version,” and apart from correcting an editing error at the very beginning of the original Showpeople track, the main change is the band’s presence is felt throughout the track rather than only sporadically.

“Tu No Me Llores” is “Cry Me a River” in Spanish, and a classic is a classic in any language. The middle-eight reverts back to English, but the verses have been rewritten slightly to rhyming purposes. After the instrumental break, we come back to Spanish.

This is followed by an instrumental version of “Would You Dance With a Stranger.” A solo sax starts us off for a few bars, then the piano softly comes in behind the sax.

Finally the upright bass arrives, and the disc officially earns its Apple Music and Spotify classification of “Jazz” with no qualifiers. It’s a beauty in either version, but as lovely as it is the lack of Mari is keenly felt.

The 7-inch DJ Edit of “Wonderful (To Be With)” is shorter than the lead-off track on Disc 1, but otherwise unchanged. Again, The Wilsations get credit on this version, where they didn’t on the Showpeople album track.

The last two tracks on Disc 3 should be classified as “curiosities” or perhaps “experiments.” It’s two versions of the song “Let’s Make This Last,” first heard on Disc 2 as the “De Lorean Style Mix,” with squiggly sonic effects at the intro.

The first version on Disc 3 is referred to as “Let’s Make This Last (A Bit Longer),” a clever name for an extended mix, but also has the subtitle “Stereo Shift Mix Loop One” that really makes hay with the synth remix effects.

It takes nearly two minutes for Mari to finally appear and the song to get going properly. I can see where a club DJ would make great use of this, but its an awfully odd duck on an album of faux-60s poppy love songs.

The second version opens with crowd noise (not from a live gig), and is another busy remix, but with no time wasted on extended synth loops (though that’s not to say there aren’t some, just that they get moved to the middle). Like the first mix, this wouldn’t work outside of a club, but at least its much shorter.

On the other hand, the actual song is chopped to ribbons, with the verses removed entirely and replaced with random cheering-crowd snippets. Just my opinion, but this is a pretty awful way to end the disc.

I think if these needed two mixes needed to be included at all, they should have come earlier — maybe right after the 2022 remixes. Move the beautiful “Tu No Me Llores” and “Would You Dance With a Stranger” instrumental to the end, and you’d finish the experience of this box set on a high note.

Next time: “Stiff” competition!

Posted on by chasinvictoria

Mari Wilson – The Neasden Queen of Soul — Disc 2

(3CD box set, Cherry Red, 2022)

THE PROLOGUE

It can be said (fairly) that an entire second disc of material very similar to what appeared on the first album proper might end up overstaying its welcome — unless you really enjoy full-band-and-singers 60s style love songs as a genre. In hindsight, this set should have started with this second disc — another great batch of similar material that was mostly made prior to the production of Showpeople, and thus serves better as a primer on what Tot and Mari were going for.

If you heard the material here first and then heard the resulting album, it would make for a more interesting contrast between their initial approach — sure-fire crowd-pleaser songs for concerts, for the most part — and what Showpeople ended up being, which is more of a showcase of all types of genre song styles for Mari.

These are singles (A and B sides), along with some rarities and leftovers. The big mystery with this material is “why didn’t the leftovers here constitute a second album?” These are very solid numbers that stand perfectly aside the songs that made the cut. How on earth she could ever afford such a large band (as this style of music requires) before getting a record deal is an even bigger mystery!

THE MUSIC

The first three tracks are all that kind of bombastic high-energy full-band affair that I enjoy, and all three — “Love Man,” “If That’s What You Want,” and “Dance Card” — could have easily been on the album if there had been room for more of that.

We finally get to something more focused on Mari along with track 4, “She’s Had Enough of You.” Another great track and breakup song, with a nice variation of style from the previous three “rave up” tracks. Track 5 is another winner, the original “Beat the Beat” single that is kind of a calling card for her style, again with a focus on Mari’s singing rather than so much of a group effort.

“Glamourpuss” (track 6) opens exactly like a classic noir crime drama score, and surprisingly the band introduce themselves before bringing “on” Mari. This time, her “real voice” offers both spoken and sung lyrics, and the band sing on the chorus. It’s a delightful “show” number and I can only imagine it was a big hit at the live gigs.

Finally, the original version “Baby It’s True” shows up as Track 7, and as expected it’s a tighter, introduction-less, straight-to-the-point version of the song first heard on Disc 1, without two full minutes of pointless DJ blather. The drums are still oddly leaden, but getting into the song itself is much quicker, and improves the tune a great deal. I still think this could have been a stone-cold classic in the hands of someone like Dr. Robert of the Blow Monkeys.

Wurlizer organ (!) shows up prominently on “Woe, Woe, Woe” (track 9). There’s a cute wanna-be boyfriend banter bit at the end. Mari’s later career — where she focused more on jazz as herself rather than the early-60’s person she originally projected — is foreshadowed in “Beware Boyfriend,” (track 10) a successful fusion of the 60s song style with some jazzier arrangements. Singing in her natural register also stregthens her delivery.

“It’s Happening” (track 11) and “Rave” (track 12) both seem a bit like filler tracks. The former is like another high-energy upbeat song played at 16rpm instead of 45. There’s nothing wrong with the track except that its thin material stretched out s-l-o-w-l-y simply for change-of-pace reasons.

“Rave (with The Wilsations, Live Version)” features Mari mostly speaking rather than singing with the band, showing off the interplay that was a highlight of her concerts of the period. You’d often see numbers exactly like this in 60s movie musicals. It’s a nice homage.

The original version of the cover “Ain’t That Peculiar” (track 13) is exactly what you want from this song — a torchy, bouncy number with playful instrumentation, a sparing amount of background vocals, and a great lead from Mari.

I also enjoyed track 14, “The Maximum Damage” — it’s not what you think it’s about, which I like a lot, and has some limited (but nice) call-and-response.

“Let’s Make This Last (De Lorean Style)” (track 15) is a rare number that completely abandons any pretense of faux-60s style — it’s very much of the early 80s. It “breaks the mood” a bit, but as referees and judges sometimes say about exceptions with strong arguments, “I’ll allow it.” 🙂

Track 16, “Would You Dance With a Stranger,” is a fabulous little 1950s jewel of a ballad featuring Mari’s soft and seductive tones. If the title sounds familiar, it’s because it was a hit in 1952 for Peggy Lee, and Mari’s version is a very faithful cover in terms of both music and vocal styling. It was an Italian song originally, with English lyrics by Ray Miller, and used again (sung by Miranda Richardson) in the 1985 film Dance With a Stranger, which is set in the 1950s.

This is followed by another cover, this time of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” now oddly done in the swinging girl-group style. It mostly works, but it’s a little discombobulating to follow a 50s-style ballad with a political early-70s anthem. Who did the track sequencing here, a wheel of fortune?

We finally set the TARDIS back to the proper 60s period with track 18, “Stop and Start,” very much something I could hear Diana Ross and the Supremes singing. A lot of this album would convince people the material was all written in the emulated time period, rather than (mostly) by Tot in the 80s.

And speaking of the 60s, track 20 is a cover of The Beatles’ “I’m Happy Just to Dance With You,” originally appearing on 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night soundtrack album. In this case, it’s done as a guitar-and-voice-only ballad, which is a nice take on the idea. Mari makes mention in the liner notes that this was the first time she had recorded without Tot Taylor and her usual coterie, and gave her the vision to go further in her musical career.

The final (21st) track on Disc 2 is called “Let Me Dream,” and is only the second track on the disc credited to “Mari Wilson featuring The Wilsations,” the first of course being the “Live Version” of “Rave” (track 12). It certainly has a “live in the studio” feel, but I can only guess that the reason for the different credits on these two tracks compared to most of the tracks here was because the latter were recorded with session musicians until they got the band together.

Next time: 2022 remixes and bonus tracks!

Posted on by chasinvictoria

Mari Wilson — The Neasden Queen of Soul (3CD box set)

Disc 1 of 3 – Showpeople (1983 album)

(Cherry Red, 2022)

THE PROLOGUE

Approximately 20 years after the musical and social period that inspired her as a pre-teen, recording artist Mari Wilson hit the UK scene with a pair of 60s-style singles, a beehive hairdo, and a talented backing band. She had actually dipped her perfectly-manicured toe into the water first in 1980 with a pair of non-charting singles (with the Imaginations).

Undeterred, she took another, more successful stab at it with another pair of singles in 1982 that did get into the charts: “Beat the Beat,” which peaked at #59, and “Baby It’s True,” which did better but stalled at #42. The backing band was now called the Wilsations, and the pieces were moving into place.

For those early singles, every song was a mission statement; a declaration of love for a bygone style that had broken a lot of women into the charts back in the day, and established women in rock and pop as a force to be reckoned with – most prominently in the early 1960s and the rise of the girl groups. Like those groups, there’s a svengali behind Mari Wilson — songwriter and producer Tot Taylor.

The backstory on her career, told by Wilson herself in the liner notes, is a good one — starring a struggling artist/backup singer with a vision (and a day job in an office in Perivale). She gets called in to sing lead on a “Motown” type song from a group of three guys, and ends up being so brilliant that Taylor (then going by the name “Teddy Johns”) flips the script and makes them the band and her the star.

Taylor quickly secured a singles deal on the strength of her vocal and the song, and they then re-record “If That’s What You Want” in a real studio. It was a while before the whole act came together (and a few friends like Kirsty McColl and Julia Fordham lending a hand), but eventually they had a commitment from a record company, an advocate in A&R at GTO Records, and a stack of faux-60s tracks, and shortly after the A&R guy formally joined the fold, an official record deal with London Records.

By 1983, most music lovers were focused on emerging artists in rock that had been part of the “New Wave” scene in final years of the 70s and first years of the 80s, now seasoned acts with an album or three under their belts. Chart-toppers in the UK in ’83 included New Romantic act Spandau Ballet, Australia popsters Men at Work, former faux-punkers The Police, ambitious New Wavers Duran Duran, the accurately-named Culture Club, and reggae devotees UB40.

A “throwback/nostaglia” type act like Mari Wilson should have been as “popular” as Sha Na Na in a market focused on a new generation of radio-friendly mainstream acts, but Kinder’s faith was eventually justified — somehow the young adults of the 80s had a soft spot for those smart and stylish 60s sounds.

Combine that influence with some clever production and a killer riff, and “Just What I Always Wanted” became one of the surprise hits of the year, getting into the Top 10 on the first try. Combined with Mari’s beehive and cinched one-piece day dress, the perfect matching of the look and the sound pushed her into the charts and the public consciousness .

THE MUSIC

With her debut album Showpeople, the first disc in this expanded 3CD set, every song is a mission statement. It’s always fun to revisit a long-forgotten genre and give it new life, and Mari has the pipes, sensibility, and style to do so (alongside svengali songwriter Taylor). Her main vocal style is nightclub-singer in nature, but with more (synth) strings.

The record kicks off with “Wonderful to Be With” — a riff on early-60s girlpop that clearly sets forth the rules of this game. Right from the kickoff, it’s a big love song number with layered vocals, (synth) strings, and a perfect composite of the style, even throwing in a few “space” synth sounds for good measure.

We shift gears pretty hard on the second track, “The End of the Affair” with a bolder vocal style and a big change in mood. This is a “I’m gonna win him back” type song that is often the subject fodder for country music, but here it is a classic “begging her man to break up with his side piece” number, with the requisite “band guys” vocal interjections. Even just two songs in, you can tell that Taylor has a masterful grip on this entire genre.

Yet another style is trotted out for “One Day is a Lifetime,” with busy horn work and a sultrier vocal from Mari expressing how she misses her man (presumbably not the same man as from “The End of the Affair”). Bonus: great guitar work from Keith Airey (who was known as Gary Wilsation for concert purposes)

“Dr. Love” brings the distinctly 80s Linn drums to the fore, slightly breaking the illusion of pure early-60s sentiments, but the band-guys vocal interjections redeem it, not to mention having a lot of energy for a “I’ll prove my love” type song.

Likewise, “Remember Me” rocks harder than a tragic song about finding out your love is cheating on you should. Thankfully, this one is made whole by having the smarts to include the title of the song whispered when mentioned, giving it the needed drama.

“Cry Me a River,” the classic Arthur Hamilton torch song, was another charting hit for Mari, reaching #24. Better still, this was a nice ballad-y change of pace after the last three more energetic numbers. This one goes straight-up stings-n-sax, with very little percussion.

And so we come to “Just What I Always Wanted,” a complete stomper of a rave-up the brings back the 60s go-go energy back in force, using the bass to drive the rhythm (not to mention so strong back-up singers). Mari never opts for a truly straight “girl-group” vibe, more of a Diana Ross-oh-and-yes-The-Supremes-back-there-somewhere approach.

It certainly works here, and is difficult to believe this isn’t a cover of an actual 60s single or a track from a period musical. There’s even room for a nice trumpet solo, and I absolutely love the drop-dead stop ending.

“This Time Tomorrow” starts off with violin and piano, a fresh opening for this record so far. It turns into a dramatic ballad with strings, followed by drums finally. It includes a very quizzical line, where Mari sings “I will stay tonight … tomorrow,” which … even as a Doctor Who fan, I’m not sure how you pull off that bit of time-paradox.

Mari returns to the infrequently-used lower register for “Are You There with Another Girl?” for another “man is cheating on me” song, this time by no less that Burt Bacharach and Hal David. There are some nice synth touches here and there, and a flute solo no less! Mari double-tracks her vocals on this and a number of the other songs, which isn’t really necessary as much as its deployed in my view.

We head back to quite a high register (and a Synclavier piano opener) for “I May Be Wrong,” another “I’m making a mistake but I can’t help myself, I want you back” song that doesn’t quite work, in part because the chorus seems overly busy, which undermines the ballad-y verses.

The bass-lead energetic soul love song groove is back for “Ecstasy (US Version),” which is also one of the few numbers where Mari’s vocal isn’t doubled at all. I find it a very catchy albeit busy number (with a nice spoken middle-eight) that could have been a single.

The original UK and European versions of this album ended with “This is It” (the US version didn’t include this song, and ended with “Cry Me a River”). This is another overly-busy number that sabotages itself like “Dr. Love” did, with various “big/busy” musical phrases and vocal styles forcibly joined together.

Taylor’s just not quite got this “big musical” type number style quite down, plus it repeats itself a lot and thus goes on for a minute or two too long. At least there’s a funny (unintentional) ending with a froggy-sounding synth for a few bleeps at the very end.

“Just What I Always Wanted (Extended)” begins the “bonus tracks” section of this version of the album. not to knock on Tot too much, but this is a recipe for how you take a perfect single and ruin it. First, make the instrumental opener so long (almost two minutes!) that the listener thinks its a karaoke version, but just as one starts to sing it, finally they bring in the vocals on … the chorus!

Second, edit the first verse (badly and obviously) down to just two lines, so it goes right back into the chorus. Thankfully after that, the song gets back on track and flows as it did originally for the rest of the number.

“Cry Me a River (Smooth Remix),” by contrast, is a perfection of the original version of the number. The piano-synth bits stay, the other synth parts go, the sax and Mari’s superb vocal (now clearer than the original as well) really bring the spotlight where it belongs.

You can practically smell the cigarette smoke in the nightclub in your mind, and nice little touches of violin and synth strings are thoughtfully and discreetly blended in. Tot, I didn’t know you had it in ya!

Sadly, this short interlude of sheer ballad perfection wasn’t to last too long. It’s followed by a “Discotheque Arrangement” of “Baby It’s True” (this original to be found on Disc 2). A long warm up break includes a wretched “strip club DJ” type intro which is pretty awful and goes on seemingly forever.

Nearly three minutes later (at least including “naming” the band), Mari finally appears. It’s a pity the song is pretty lightweight, with the first verse spoken. The chorus is fine, the music is okay, but this goes on way too long at seven minutes total.

We finish this disc with an “Extended Version” of “Ain’t That Peculiar,” which again features an overlong extended intro and some oddly discordant guitar (not heard elsewhere on this disc, thank goodness). Once the song actually gets going, it’s … okay … but seems awfully stretched out. Thankfully, the “real version” is on Disc 2, so we’ll reserve judgement.