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Archive 13
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301 - 325
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Here
you will gain exclusive access to my own personal record collection! I
try to bring you mp3s of rare tracks, deleted material, long forgotten
artists, total flops and down right obscure shit. Often, my choices were
only available on vinyl or were just plain unreleased, the aim being to
indulge an old fan or inspire a new one. I try not to post up
forthcoming releases or anything that's too readily available. Honest,
Gov!
There's a tenuous thread running through the tracks but
your requests are always welcome and I'll try and squeeze them in amongst my
own fancies... eventually.
Do read all the blurb, as there's often links to extra tracks lurking in
there... ; )
Tracks are only available for a 'limited
time' folks (sometimes months!), so get them while you can!
Now for the science bit! To access the music, please click on 'Download' and
you'll be whisked off to those nice people over at Sharebee.
Tracks are ripped at 192 kbps and wherever possible taken from the
highest quality source available. All of the music offered here has been
purchased by myself and is part of my own collection. Tracks are for
evaluation purposes only and wherever possible, purchasing is always
encouraged. If you own any of the material posted here or anywhere else
on this site and are very cross with me, please
email me with threats and such like...
Originally naming themselves
God
Forbid, London flatmates Jimmy Somerville
(vocals), Steve Bronski (keyboards) and
Larry Steinbachek (percussion)
became chart regulars in the early 1980's as Bronski Beat. They were signed to
London Records after just nine live gigs in 1984 and their debut single,
'Smalltown Boy', charted at number three in the UK singles chart. This was
unprecedented at the time given the opening gay stance of the band and the
subject matter of the track, ie. homophobia. An instant gay anthem, the accompanying
video shows Somerville being gay-bashed and outcast by friends and family. Their
second release, 'Why?', further established the act as an outlet for gay issues
and again brought them top 10 success. They closed 1984 with their first full
length release, the provocatively titled 'The Age Of Consent',
which listed the various ages of consent for homosexual intercourse around the
world on the sleeve (at the time it was 21 years of age in the UK). A final single
lifted from the LP secured their third chart placing, a cover of 'It Aint Necessarily So',
originally performed by George and
Ira Gershwin, which questions
the holy bible. In 1985, the trio joined forces with Marc Almond for a cover
version medley of 'I Feel Love', 'Love To Love You Baby' (both
Donna Summer) and
'Johnny Remember Me' (John Leyton). The result was 'the gayest record ever made'
and another top three hit, but the group were about to run into trouble when lead
singer Jimmy voiced his desire to pursue a more political path. Now without a
vocalist, Steve and Larry issued a stop-gap set of remixes and rarities,
'Hundred & Thousands', and set about recruiting a new singer.
John Foster
was
inducted in 1986 on their new single 'Hit That Perfect Beat', a
Hi-NRG dance track which
soared to number three again, the band's fifth top 20 single, and put to rest any rumours
that the band was finished now Somerville had departed. This single isn't
available at all right now and hasn't been for some time, despite it's success. The album from which
it came, 'Truthdare Doubledare' was deleted very quickly on CD and this 12" version was a bonus track on
the 1986 issued CD. As Jimmy Somerville isn't on it, it never gets included on
the 'best ofs' and collections that are regularly re-issued unfortunately. After
a further single, 'C'mon C'mon', Foster
also left the band in 1987. That was almost it
for Bronski Beat, but not quite...
Hard to believe but
Ron and Russell Mael, AKA
Sparks, have been in the music business for almost 40 years! They
formed, originally as Halfnelson, back in 1968, renaming themselves
Sparks in
1970. Their almost constantly changing styles and unique visual presentations
have sometimes seen them unfairly dismissed as a nothing more than a novelty
act. They've survived glam rock, disco, synth pop, techno and mainstream pop,
evolving at every turn whilst maintaining a distinct 'Sparks
sound' throughout.
Now onto their 20th (!!!) album (2006's 'Hello Young Lovers'), they show no signs of
retiring just yet and they are about to issue a live DVD of one of their critically
acclaimed shows from their 2006 tour. Now, I hate to be predictable but
I've plumped for a track from their 1974 LP, 'Kimono My House'. This album broke
Sparks in the UK courtesy of the inclusion of their signature tune, 'This Town Aint Big Enough For Both Of Us', not least of all due to their kooky performance
of the track on 'Top Of The Pops'. Watch it
Initially, after departing from
Alison Moyet and Yazoo,
Vince Clarke planned to work under the name of
The Assembly
and record an album of tracks, each with a different vocalist. The venture got
off to a good start with 'Never Never', a top 4 hit in the UK, featuring
ex-Undertone Fergal Sharkey on vocal duties. However, when follow up single,
'One Day', with vocalist Paul Quinn, sank without a trace, it lead to a
re-think. Andy Bell
was the 41st vocalist to audition for
Vince after he
placed an advert in 'Melody Maker' looking for a new singer to work with. Needless
to say, he got the job. Under the name Erasure, they would go on to eclipse
Clarke's earlier work, despite initial singles failing to chart. From 1986's pop
perfection 'Sometimes' onwards, every one of
Erasure's singles has charted in
the UK Top 30. From 1986 to 1997, they achieved a staggering 24 consecutive Top
20 hits. By 2007, 29 of their 35 singles have made the UK Top 20, with 17 of
those climbing into the Top 10. The pair have now recorded worldwide album sales
of over 25 million. No to mention touring their arses off for years now. That's pretty impressive! Still, their career has had it's
low points. A particularly difficult period of re-evaluation began with 1995's
'Erasure' album. They made a shift away from their signature 3 minute synth-pop
gems to a much more introspective and indulgent sound. Although this new
direction was critically well received, it was not capturing the attention of
the radio playlisters and sales were poor. Erasure's days of mass commercial
appeal and guaranteed number one albums appeared to be at an end. Albums
'Cowboy' and 'Loveboat' came and went without a fanfare but just as things began
to look bleak, 2003's 'Other People's Songs', a set of inventive cover versions,
saw a return to the top 10 and even 'Top Of The Pops' (their first appearance
since 1995). In 2005, 'Nightbird' continued to re-establish the duo as once
again commercially viable and this year sees a more dance-orientated sound with
the release of their 13th album, 'Light At The End Of The World',
in May. This track,
'Knocking On Your Door', comes from November 1988's 'Cracker's International'
EP, which reached number 2 on the back of lead track 'Stop!', and is one of my
all-time favourite Erasure tracks.
Depeche Mode began in 1980 as
David Gahan (lead vocals),
Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, vocals, chief songwriter
after 1981), Andrew Fletcher
(backing keyboards) and
Vince Clarke (keyboards,
chief songwriter 1980—81). Vince Clarke left the band after the release of their
1981 debut album 'Speak & Spell' and was soon replaced by
Alan Wilder (lead
keyboards) who played with the band from 1982 to 1995. Following
Wilder's
departure, Gahan, Gore, and
Fletcher have continued to perform as a trio.
Depeche Mode are such an accomplished band with a massive fanbase, it's surprisingly
to find they never managed to achieve a number one single. They have also
avoided ever releasing a cover
version. Despite the huge successes and achievements throughout their career (Grammy
awards, sell out world tours, number one albums), I
often return to their early brace of singles and marvel at their wide-eyed
enthusiasm and amateurish approach to electronic pop music. For this
reason, I've posted the 12" version of their second ever single (out of a
choice of 44 in
total!), 'New Life'. I can't find the words to do a band like
Depeche Mode
justice and I'm sure there can't be many people reading this who are not already
very well versed in what must be one of the most acclaimed and well known
alternative bands on the planet. For a much better overview, if needed, check
out their
When
Vince
Clarke left electro-pop pioneers
Depeche
Mode in 1982 after 3 successful singles and a hit album, his parting
gift was a new song called 'Only You'. His old band turned it
down, however, so he took it with him to his new project. Remaining on the Mute Records
roster, he placed an ad looking for a vocalist to work with, to
which Alison Moyet
responded. The pair
formed Yazoo (the name coming from an old
Blues record label) or as they were called in the USA, Yaz. They were met with instant success courtesy of the afore
mentioned 'Only You', receiving critical acclaim for their
inventive marriage of soul and electro pop. They enjoyed a short run of hit
singles ('Situation', 'Don't Go', 'Nobody's
Diary') and two hit albums ('Upstairs At Erics', 'You
& Me Both') between 1982-83. Their second album featured a greater
contribution from Moyet as she gained
confidence with her songwriting and it was not unexpected when the pair
announced they were each going their separate ways on the eve of it's release.
'Winter Kills', a cruel and beautiful piano ballad written by
Moyet, is taken from their debut album and
has remained in Alison's live set to this
day. Vince would of course go on to form pop
juggernaut Erasure with
Andy Bell, whilst
Alison established herself as a much celebrated solo performer. There
have been a couple of instances where the pair have crossed paths creatively
since their days in Yazoo. With
Erasure, Clarke
and Moyet tried to record a version of her
1991 single 'This House' as a duet with Andy Bell. The collaboration was aborted however when Sony Records
would not permit it (madness!). Clarke was
also commissioned to remix Moyet's 1994
single, 'Whispering Your Name'.
Moyet's
solo career had become a battle field by the time she came to record the follow
up album to her hugely successful second album, 1987's 'Raindancing'.
Her record company, CBS/Columbia (owned by Sony), wanted the pop
hits to continue to flow but this left Alison
feeling artistically compromised and under pressure to deliver. The
eventual follow up set, 'Hoodoo' ('A Herstory Of'), took 5 years
to surface. It was recorded during a period of extreme unhappiness both
personally and professionally, and this is reflected in the album. The pop
confectionary is gone and in it's place is an altogether more sombre, melancholy
and, in places, angry set of songs. Alison,
like her contemporary Kirsty MacColl,
refused to produce radio-friendly hits on demand to satisfy her obligation to
her label and so began a struggle for her to gain artistic control over her
music. 'Hoodoo' received little support or promotion from Sony,
although lead single 'It Wont Be Long' secured her a Grammy nomination for best song in 1991. Whilst the album is not her best, it certainly
deserves re-evaluation and represents a document of Moyet's search to find her own style and voice. It contains two
further A-side releases, the stark torch ballad 'This House' and
the more commercial sounding 'Wishing You Were Here'. Neither
single earned a decent chart placing and the album would be overlooked and
considered a dud for years to come. Anyway, this track is one of the more upbeat
numbers on the album, a heavy, blues-rock workout which sounds like it was
belted out by Alison with a smile on her
face... Pretty little site
Clark
Datchler was born March 27th, 1964 in Sutton, Surrey, England. His
father Fred was a well-know jazz-musician, playing in groups like
The Stargazers and
The Polka Dots. Clark followed in
his father's footsteps and went on to record as a solo artist for RAK Records,
releasing three singles in 1984, 'You Fooled Him Once Again',
'Don't Want You!' and 'Things Can't Get Any Worse'. All
three releases failed to sell, leaving Clark
at a loose end. At RAK studios, he had become friends with
engineer Calvin Hayes and they formed
successful pop act Johnny Hates Jazz. Whilst
still riding on the successes of the group, Clark
left Johnny Hates Jazz
in 1988 to
re-launch himself as a solo artist. He eventually released his 4th solo single,
'Crown Of Thorns', in 1990. It was to be the only single lifted
from his first album, called 'Raindance', which came out in July
of the same year. The album obviously sounds a lot like a
Johnny Hates Jazz album. He re-recorded a very nice acoustic
version of Johnny Hate's Jazz's hit 'Shattered Dreams'
on his own, which turned up as a B-side to the 'Crown Of Thorns' single and here it is.
Clark currently works under the name
80's hornbags
Johnny Hates Jazz were named after a
friend who really did hate jazz! Unbelievable. 'Me And My Foolish Heart'
was the
group's first single and it came out on RAK Records (owned by
Mickie Most -
drummer Calvin's father) in 1986. Landing a
two album deal with Virgin Records soon after, the
group's debut single for them, 'Shattered Dreams', became a big
international hit in 1987 (reaching #5 here in the UK). The
group's debut album 'Turn Back The Clock' also proved successful,
reaching number 1 on the UK album chart, and the title track again performed well in
the singles chart. To their credit, the band wrote, sang and played all their own material,
and they were also engineers and producers on their album. Yuppie posh-boy looking
lead singer, Clark Datchler, left in the
summer of 1988, ditching the other lads to establish himself as a solo artist
(he didn't). It seems a shame as the album had sold 2 million copies by that
point and they had even scheduled a world-tour, which had to be cancelled and
everything. His
replacement was the former Cure
bass guitarist,
Phil Thornalley (had also worked
with Thompson Twins
and
Prefab Sprout, went on to work with
Natalie Imbruglia
and Holly Valance). A month before the release of their second album,
'Tall
Stories', in 1991, the band were involved in a rather serious car accident (Datchler
was not driving the other vehicle!) which left
Calvin Hayes
in a body cast for
over a year. The band understandably lost some momentum here and eventually split in
1995. Please enjoy the 12" version of 'Heart Of Gold', a darn
fine single which often gets forgotten about in the shadow of their other hits.
Watch one of their other hits
This track was the B-side to
Kim Wilde's cover of 'If I Can't Have You'
(originally by Yvonne Elliman
and taken
from the 'Saturday Night Fever' soundtrack in 1977). You'd expect
it to be a bit rubbish given that it's just a B-side to a single that was
recorded to flog a
greatest hits (1993's 'Singles Collection 1981-1993'). But I'm here to tell you it's not.
I really like this track. A lot. Kim Wilde is a very amazing popstar. I think she's
jolly fabulous actually and the recent plans to re-issue
Bananarama's back catalogue has
set me off wondering if Kim
will get the same treatment. There's a good few
handfuls of B-sides, mixes and rarities yet to appear on CD at all and although
there are endless amounts of 'best ofs' and budget compilations littering the
racks, her complete albums haven't been in print for a seriously long time.
And there's some fab stuff from her latter releases that just didn't get the
attention it rightly deserved back in the day. Can anyone tell me why stuff like
Of all the
'Byker Grove' spin-off
music projects (PJ & Duncan,
Byker Groove, Crush) the one that everyone forgets
about is this piece of wonderfully naff girlie PWL-a-like trash by one
Charley.
Now here's where the story get's confusing. In the show,
Charley was played by
Michelle Charles. One of her main storylines was her journey
on the road to
becoming a popstar and this track, 'The Best Thing', was the song she was seen
singing and recording in the show. The track was released in 1990 on Another
World Records. It was popular with the local kids in the Newcastle area, if I
recall (my mate Debra bought it, anyway). It was a wonderful bit of cross-pollination
from kids TV to kids pop chart attack, much like the S
Clubbers would replicate some 10 years later with more success. Nice. Anyway,
Michelle left the show to
not follow a career in pop music at all in 1991 but not before her
on-screen cousin, a similar
looking girl called Charlie (?!), arrived in the show, played by
Donna Air. Donna
Air's Charlie didn't sing any songs but did leave the show to pursue a pop career in 1995 (as one third of
Byker Groove
and then as one half of
Crush with
Jayni Hoy/Luciana Caporaso).
Confusing, eh? Any road, this is a fun, cute, throw-away track, a rare find on the old
CD Single format these days and the whole package mimics the PWL vibe of the
time very closely indeed. The poppy sound, the label's logo, the font, design and photography
on the sleeve all scream Stock, Aitken & Waterman. This was clearly a
cheap copy cat version of the 'soap star leaves telly programme to be a pop
star' formula that was rife in the late 1980's-early 1990's. Obscurity devoured
her shortly after she left the show. The B-side,
'You Don't Know Me', by the way, is co-written by
Kim Wilde
and Tony Swain
and is a left
over track written for Kim's 'Close'
album sessions in 1988. Trivia! I'm in an episode of 'Byker
Grove', don't you know, from around about 2000. It was a scene to do
with that young blond lad who is a gay and now does kids telly presenting, I
think (that's Andrew Hayden-Smith). So
there.
Portobella are essentially vocalist
Luciana Caporaso
and producer
Michael Gray ('I can't wait for the weekend to
begin!'), with guitarist Adam Evans, drummer
Simon Merry and bassist
Mark
Ferguson (these lads may well have nicked off now). Making modern dance-pop records with a nod to the early 80's
British Electro/New Wave
scene, the group released promising debut single proper (there was a white label
promo of 'London Punk/Freakin' In Stereo' some months prior),
'Covered In Punk' in 2004. Sounding not unlike some sort of atomic mish-mash of
Bow Wow Wow's 'Go Wild In The
Country' and, er, Simply Red's
'Fairground', with a bit of Republica thrown in for
good measure (sounds awful, I know, but it's actually rather good). Watch the
video over
Luciana
was signed as a promising solo artist
to Chrysalis Records and in 1994 released her first single, 'Get It Up For Love'
(good grief). It was produced by Dancin' Danny D
(the fat man in D Mob who
fiddled with Dannii Minogue
and Cathy Dennis
in the 1990's) and it stiffed. A
second single followed, 'If You Want', which was apparently a hit
in the clubs courtesy of some remixes. It was to be another
disappointment outside of the clubs, though. A third and final release paired up
Luciana's first ballad, 'One
More River', and an upbeat pop-dance track 'What Goes Around'. That's the track
we're bringing you here - it sounds a bit like Martika,
don't you think? This double A-side single was anticipated to finally
break the girl into the charts and provide Luciana
with her first Top 40
entry... but guess what? It tanked, failing to reach the UK Top 60. A full scale
album was recorded and released under the title 'One More River' but by 1996,
Luciana was shown the door and walked into a
new pop career as 50% of Crush, replacing
Jayni Hoy. After a brief crack at the American market,
Crush were
all done and dusted by late 1998 but Luciana
had made a few contacts stateside and
stuck around. Fronting power pop band Shooter
(a name she later recycled and gave to her
Initially members of
Byker Groove (a
spin off female pop group from BBC 1's teen soap 'Byker Grove'),
Donna Air and
Jayni Hoy later turned up, minus one, as pop duo
Crush. We featured them 2 years ago so
apologies for any repetition here, by the way... They were signed to Telstar Records
briefly (the label Posh Spice sent into
liquidation a few years back) but after two flop singles (the fabulous 'Jellyhead' (
Taken from the much-celebrated yet
commercially stagnant 'Lipslide' album for Gut Records (Space,
Right Said Fred),
Sarah 'Saint Etienne'
Cracknell's 'Taxi' is our second
visit to this record. 'If You Leave Me' was featured about two
years back and since then we've had a few requests for more so hey presto! This
is the original version of 'Taxi', from the UK pressing in 1997,
not the bad remix from the USA release in 2000 on Instinct Records. It
would surely have been a fine single choice had the venture taken off.
Sarah blames Gut Records for the
project's relative failure, citing a lack of promotion on their part. The
original album was deleted very quickly but is a regular on eBay, not
going for very much actually.
I heart
Etienne Daho. He replaced
Antoine De Caunes
from 'Eurotrash' in my 'French older man' fantasy
somewhere in the 1990's. It was Saint Etienne
who brought him to my attention via their 1995 collaboration on 'He's On
The Phone' (credited to Saint Eitenne Daho).
The track was actually an English-language adaptation of
Daho's own French-language single 'Weekend à Rome'
from 1984. Following his UK top ten success on the
Saint Etienne single, they collaborated together on a mini-album
called 'Resurrection EP'. This release featured several re-worked
tracks from Saint Etienne's back catalogue,
including 'Jungle Pulse', which recycles the band's early
recording 'Filthy', and was issued as a single in France.
Sarah Cracknell
went on to collaborate with
the French pop star several times. She co-wrote and sang back-up vocals on
'Les Passagers' from his 1996 album 'Eden', and also
contributed 'Le Premier Jour', a re-working of her own
'Ready Or Not' from her 'Lipslide' album from 1997, which
was released as a single from his 1998 greatest hits compilation, 'Singles'. In France,
Etienne Daho
is a celebrated pop icon and his career spans three decades, 16 albums and some
37 singles. His early output is joyously typical 80's pop fair, upbeat and synth-drenched,
with later material branching out into drum and bass and moody guitar rock. He
has worked with an array of talent over the years, a list which includes such
luminaries as Arthur Baker,
Air, Jane Birkin,
Marianne Faithfull,
Françoise Hardy,
Fischerspooner and
William Orbit. 'Bleu Comme Toi'
is a great pop single from 1988, possibly my favourite Daho
moment, and is featured here in it's rare-ish 12" version. The
artwork is rather nice also (above) and the credits thank i-D Magazine
for inspiration.
'Des Fleurs Pour Un Caméléon'
is the sixth album release of French pop icon Lio.
Released in 1991, the album was recorded in London, produced by
Etienne Daho and features her delightful
Franglais cover version of
Astrud Gilberto's
'Girl From Ipanema'. Another single lifted from the album, 'L'autre
Joue', was accompanied by a video shot by
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
(director of hit French film 'Amelie').
Of Lio's releases, 'Des Fleurs Pour Un
Caméléon' is one of her career-bests. With just nine tracks, it's a
brief but refreshing celebration of dance/rock, perfectly represented by this
track, 'Je Me Tords', which is one of the most played tracks on my
i-Pod. Also present is 'Le Seul Coeur Que Je Brise', a track which
Madonna's 'Swim', from the
'Ray Of Light' album, borrows heavily... trust me! Play them back to
back! The album was not as successful in France as some of it's predecessors,
however, chameleon Lio performs her role so
well, she sometimes goes unnoticed... In 2005, Lio
celebrated 25 years in pop music (as well as her regular forays into film) and
she released 'Pop Box' on the Ze Records label, a set which
contains 7 remastered albums with bonus tracks and 1 DVD of promo video clips.
Buy some Lio
"The French
Madonna"? I'm a relatively new fan of
Mylene Farmer's so I'm no expert (yet!) but she certainly appears to
court controversy like Madge does. She has
featured such taboo and controversial subjects as lesbianism, sodomy, AIDS and
religion in her music and videos over the years. Her videos have huge budgets,
as do her live tours which are lavish affairs involving intricate sets and many
costume changes. She's incredibly popular in French-speaking territories as well
as Russia, Ukraine and Eastern European countries, yet is virtually unknown in
the United Kingdom. She's worked with British artists such as
Seal and Moby
in recent years (her collaboration with Moby,
last year's 'Slipping Away', giving her her 4th number one in
France) and released a career-spanning collection called 'Les Mots'
in 2001, which we
Ye Ye girl
Françoise
Hardy is best known for her 60's out put on the Vogue
record label (excellently compiled on
At the moment, it's easy to think we
might never get another Blur
album. It's
been 5 long years since 'Think Tank', and there was a 4 year gap
between it and the album before it, '13'.
Damon has of course had his hands full with
animated pop group Gorillaz
and now his new
band The Good, The Bad & The Queen (with
Clash bassist Paul
Simonon, former Verve
guitarist Simon Tong
and Afrobeat pioneer/Africa 70
drummer Tony Allen). Also keeping busy,
Alex James turned up in
Wigwam with Betty Boo
in 2006 but it's been 12 months since their debut single so maybe that's all
over? And as for drummer Dave Rowntree, he's
done some animation and started a new indie band called
The Ailerons. But we digress... Britpop staple and ka-zillion
selling 1994 album 'Parklife' is the home of 'To The End',
a lush, string-laden romance novel of a single which charted at number 16 in the
singles chart. It has a rather inspired and beautifully realised
Where the hell does one begin with a
band like Stereolab? Well, they're an
English-based band who are often mistakenly assumed to all be French. They were
founded in 1990 by songwriters Lætitia Sadier
(vocals, keyboards, trombone, guitar) and Tim Gane
(guitar, keyboards). Sadier is originally
from France and sings in both English and French. Many line-ups have come and
gone but notable key members have been
Andy Ramsay (drums),
Mary Hansen (vocals, guitar,
keyboards, percussion - died December 9th 2002) and multi-instrumentalist
Sean O'Hagan. Their style, briefly, is a mix
of 1950s/60s pop, lounge music and Krautrock. They use vintage keyboard
instruments such as the much favoured Moog synthesizer and the Vox & Farfisa
organs. Stereolab are also notable for
founding their own record label (after a time on Too Pure), Duophonic
Records, with a grant from UK charity The Prince's Trust. I got into
the band when I saw the video for 'French Disko' on 'The
Chart Show' many years ago and was traumatised when I saw how prolific
they had been with their releases up to that point! A record collectors
dream/nightmare, they continue to release endless albums, singles and EPs in
different territories, as well as private pressings sold at gigs, in tiny
quantities, on various coloured vinyls. Their artwork is always beautiful, their
sound constantly evolving and experimental and their next move impossible to
second guess. I saw the band live at the Newcastle Riverside in 1997 and
was transfixed. Despite the band's fiercely loyal fan base, 17 years worth of
adventures in pop music and huge critical acclaim, Stereolab
have never achieved huge commercial success. This can
probably be attributed to their independent status, something they are
incredibly proud of. This track is from one of my favourite EPs of theirs,
'Fluorescences' from 1996. If you're fairly new to the band, head for
one of their compilations to break you in, I suggest
This track should hopefully be
familiar to some of you due to it being used in an advert on telly for
Stella McCartney's perfume 'Stella'
in 2005. It was re-shown over Christmas 2006 as well, actually. Anyway, it's by
Scout Niblett, a young woman signed to
Too Pure here in the UK (and Secretly Canadian, home of
Antony & Johnsons, in the USA). She's got
three albums under her belt and is currently working on a fourth. Influenced by
90s grunge bands like Mudhoney,
Sonic Youth and
Nirvana, Scout
works with
Steve Albini to get her sound, who likes to
stick the drums centrally in the mix. I recommend you seek out her splendid
reinterpretation of Althea & Donna's 1978 reggae
hit 'Uptown Top Ranking', which was released as a single in 2004
after it became very popular at her gigs. Visit Scout
Niblett's
PJ Harvey
used to be three people. What I mean is, initially,
PJ Harvey was the the name under which a
trio of people recorded - Polly Jean Harvey,
Rob Ellis and
Steve
Vaughan. As a trio, the group released their first single,
'Dress', for the Too Pure label in 1991, which instantly rewarded
them with a key fan - Mr John Peel.
Polly and
John maintained a friendship for many years and recently honoured the celebrated DJ
with her own 'Peel Sessions' CD, released last year to commemorate
his death. Back in 1992, we saw the release of debut album 'Dry',
a strong, angst-ridden collection of female grunge, hailed as an early classic
and championed by feminist followers. 'Dry' was released initially
with a bonus album entitled 'Demonstration' which repeated the
whole album in demo form. The vinyl came with a second LP and the CD simply
tagged the additional 11 tracks on after the original album. With just 1000
copies of each format, it's now virtually impossible to find, which is a shame
as it's a fascinating insight into PJ's
early creative process. A metronome can be heard ticking away on some tracks as
she strums away and painfully fleshes out unique versions of her first songs.
This version of 'Oh My Lover' is taken from the 'Demonstration'
disc. PJ Harvey left
Too Pure after a fierce bidding war and moved to new home Island
Records. Here she released the barbed and tortured 'Rid Of Me'
(produced by Steve Albini) and it's
stark and difficult sister-album '4 Track Demos' (basically
another 'Demonstration'). This third set was essentially her first
solo release, with Ellis
and
Vaughan exciting in late 1993. Now the stage
was set for a re-birth as Polly began work
on her new album (the dark and bluesy alternative rock classic 'To Bring
You My Love') and also her image (from scruffy sexless grunge youth to
vampish Queen or "Joan Crawford on acid"). The rest is probably
history... at least I hope so coz I'm not writing anymore.
The sonic brilliance of
Curve should never be underestimated. Ahead
of their time and visionary in the extremist, the duo were hard to pigeon hole
in the early 1990's and as a result got lumped in with the 'Shoegazing' scene.
They were far more interesting than that, however. Later to be proclaimed the
catalyst for bands like Garbage (see 'As Heaven Is Wide'),
Dean Garcia's
musical mesh of noise coupled with Toni Halliday's
bruised femme fatale vocal brought Curve
straight to my attention as a young music fan hungry for beats, guitars
and
beauty, a combination lacking on the indie scene at the time. Visually, they
were both brutal and inviting, a sexually evocative yet threatening presence,
reminiscent of Siouxsie & The Banshees. On
record, a hypnotic mix of incomprehensible vocals, booming bass and endless
feedback, all set to relentless techno beats. They were the complete package for
me; great artwork (by Flat Earth), great lyrics (check out 'Left Of
Mother'), great videos (thanks to Sophie Muller)
and completely unlike anything else at the time. Their B-sides were always
stellar pieces of music often better than tracks which made it onto their
albums. 'On The Wheel' is a perfect example (we also brought you
'Falling Free' some 16 months ago). It's from their 'Blackerthreetracker
EP' from 1993, the lead release from their career-best 'Cuckoo'
album. The band disbanded shortly after 'Cuckoo', due to rising tension
between Toni and
Dean I think, but they were back in 1997 for one final stab in the
back of the music scene. 'Chinese Burn' was a promising start to
the new album, 'Come Clean', but when it finally landed, it
sounded like they'd lost their demons. Retreating to their online netherworld,
they released two web-only albums between 2001-2002 ('Open Day At The Hate
Fest' and 'New Adventures Of Curve'), several mp3s of
unreleased material and then their swan song set, 'Gift', in 2002,
which is a better listen than 'Come Clean' but still doesn't quite
cut it next to their best work for me. Curve
officially ceased trading (again) on January 31st 2005 after a 2CD retrospective
, 'The Way Of Curve', brought down the curtain.
Dean now works under the name of
Headcase and Toni
has yet to emerge fully from the ashes (she sang on
The Killers Christmas download single in
December), but I'm sure she will... Trivia! Leftfield
chose their name after listening to Curve's
'Left Of Mother' ("Call me leftfield"), which led to
Halliday's 'Original'
collaboration on the band's classic 'Leftism' album.
State Of
Play were comprised of
Toni Halliday,
Dean Garcia, Julie
Fletcher (Dean's wife) and
Olle Romo. They formed in 1985 and released
a couple of singles ('Natural Colour', 'Rock-a-bye Baby')
and one album, 'Balancing The Scales', which all fell on deaf ears
at the time. Of course, when Curve took off,
interest in their history rocketed and as a result, these largely unspectacular
recordings are now much sought after.
Toni
Halliday was born in Sunderland, like myself, and indeed like
Eurythmic Dave Stewart.
Dave knew Toni
from being a teenager and it was him who introduced her to one
Dean Garcia, a multi-instrumentalist and
member of the Eurythmics
touring band, with
a view to them working together. Toni had
already had a record out with pop-rock outfit The
Uncles and several backing vocal credits to her name but that had all
ran it's course. She was looking to start her own band and she and
Dean seemed to get on like a house on fire. They quickly formed
State Of Play in 1985, a 4 piece pop-rock
outfit, and signed a deal with Virgin. They didn't sell a lot of records
and due to some internal struggles, they disbanded, in one way or another (Toni
was asked to leave/Toni
walked out,
whichever you chose to believe). Halliday
and Garcia had now fallen out because of the
break up so Toni decided to go it alone. She
signed up with Dave's Anxious label
and released 4 singles and one album, 'Hearts & Handshakes' in
1989. It's a surprisingly dull affair, sombre in the extreme and quite MOR,
despite up-and-coming producer extraordinaire and future husband
Alan Moulder at the helm.
'Weekday'
was the lead single and is one of the stronger compositions on there.
This is the single version. The video was on Youtube the other
week but now it's strangely disappeared. Dean Garcia
plays drums on Toni's solo work, despite
them not even speaking to each other at the time so not sure how that worked
out. After her solo material failed to generate much interest/satisfy her
artistically, Toni and
Dean reconciled and decided to form the mighty
Curve. But that's a whole other story...