Simon Wistow’s blog

90s Music Monday

2009-11-16T19:57:14Z

House music has always veered between having a sense of humour about itself and being thoroughly up its own arse. Tracks have trodden the very thin line between novelty, kitsch and playfulness - witness the differences between The Prodigy's "Charlie" (which, even at 180bpm, sounds twice as slow now as it did in my head at the time), Urban Hype's "Trip To Trumpton" and plummeting to new depths with Doctor Spin's "Tetris".

Set against this backdrop was N-Trance who are an odd datum on the arc of early to mid nineties techno. Their first demo was an (unreleased?) rave version of the theme tune to kids' tv program "Roobarb and Custard" but in '92 they put out "Set You Free" - a genuine, euphoric, hands in air rave anthem.

But then they veered off into novelty record territory with BeeGee's cover "Stayin' Alive" and accompanying slapstick pseudo 'comedy' video

and then the slightly less goofy (but only just) with their take on Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?"

The funny thing about both of those were that, along side long term collaborator and vocalist Kelly Llorenna they drafted in Ricardo Da Force who was, at the time, most famous for being the some time vocalist for the KLF who probably challenged the piss taking/completely credible boundaries more than anyone else before or since.

But more on that next week ...

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90s Music Monday

2009-11-10T01:45:14Z

Apparently #musicmonday is a trending topic on the Twitters - bunch of bloody Johnny Come Latelys. Some of us have been here every Monday morning (for various definitions of 'every', 'monday' and 'morning'), mining the rich vein of at-least-a-decade-old music for nuggets and gems to present you with. Although I'll concede that it may be closer to a family cat, possibly elderly and constantly smelling faintly of urine, 'presenting' you with a the mutilated carcass of a songbird than to a lover presenting you with a platter of the finest silks, gems and perfumes purchasable.

Either way - I forge on, secure in the knowledge that I'll be here long after those young whipper snappers have got tired and moved on to new things.

Anyway - my American friends will be blissfully unaware that for British soap operas are completely unlike their Yankee brethren. For a start there are no impossibly glamorous people or complicated plots involving hitherto unknown twin siblings, murders and lengthy comas. Or vampires. No British soaps, such as "East Enders" are mostly populated by grim, ugly people living grim, ugly lives in grim, ugly surroundings. See this comparison for example:

Anyway, when we want to import a little glamour we instead turned to two Australian soaps - "Neighbours" (24 years old this year) and "Home and Away" (22 years old this year). I mean, when I say glamour it's still no "Stairwells of Time" they're are still set in mundane locations - a Melbourne suburb and small, coastal town near Sydney respectively - after all, and the people them selves are pretty ordinary.

But they boast a startlingly accomplished and wide spread alumni amongst the cast. Probably the most famous, is of course, Ms Kylie Minogue, now so famous that her surname has withered and dropped off with disuse, like an unused appendix. Kylie played tomboyish greasemonkey Charlene Ramsey in Neighbours

Kylie

Meanwhile Heath Ledger played a goth boy who took Sally's virginity in H&A, Dichen Lachman now plays Sierra in "Dollhouse", Guy Pearce was the main character in "Memento", Jim Dale has been everything from the vice president in "24" to the big boss in "Ugly Betty", Isla Fisher's been in, well lots and now dates Borat, Julian McMahon is in "Nip/Tuck", Simon Baker's the titular character in "The Mentalist", Ryan "Vinny Patterson" Kwanten plays Jason Stackhouse in "True Blood" and Naomi Watts has been, in well, lots as well. I hear she's quite succesful.

Which is, to say, you probably didn't realise it but there are Australians everywhere. Do you really know your friends and neighbours? Do they ever casually "chuck" a "shrimp" on the "barbie"? Do you ever see them with faint traces on zinc on their noses? These and more may be an indication that you have an Australian infestation. You have been warned.

Anyway - so on to the main point of this increasingly rambling and incoherent post. 90s music. And Australians. Who were in soap operas.

Oh, look it's adorable elfin faced pixie Natalie Imbrugliagaliagala looking all quirky and alternative

Natalie Imbruglia - Torn

It's not a bad concept as a video although I think iconic German synthpop band Wolfsheim did it better with their video dyptych of "Find You're Here" and "Find You're Gone"

Wolfsheim - Find You're Here & Find You're Gone

Christ, bet you'd never thought you'd find a musical blog which mentioned Natalie Imbruglalalaiglia and Wolfsheim in the same post.

Anyway, somewhat little known fact - Ms Imbruglaglaglala didn't write (and by 'write' I mean, 'was given the song by one of the 5 pop composer supremos who secretely write about 90% of stuff that's in the charts these days') "Torn" it was originally a 1991 track by a Swedish band called Ednaswap

Ednaswap - Torn

which was then covered by Danish singer Lis Sørensen as "Burnt" in 1993 (in Danish - listen to it, it will mildly freak you out)

Lis Sørensen - Brændt

and then again, by Trine Rein in 1996 sounding much more like Ms Imbruglililgigglli's eventual 1997 version

Trine Rein - Torn

Of course the best version ever done was Johann Lippowitz's mime version

Johann Lippowitz - Torn

which he then duetted with Natalie Imbrogliogle at "The Secret Policeman's Ball"

Johann Lippowitz with Natalie Imbruglia - Torn

So there you go - 8 videos and 3 pictures. Let's see you stick that in 140 characters.

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90s Music Monday

2009-11-02T20:19:42Z

Placebo are one of those bands that I always feel oddly guilty about enjoying which is odd because "Nancy Boy" is damn fine blistering 3 minute pop song which lovely crunchy guitars and a thumping bass line. I mean the video's a little bit "Art school student gets his 'alternative' friends together and then gets a bit enthusiastic with the Inferno effects plugins" but I never seem to get tired of listening to the song itself

Placebo - Nancy Boy

and "Pure Morning" is annoyingly compelling too

Placebo - Pure morning

It's slightly disturbing that Brian Molko is probably one of the prettiest people in pop.

As a bonus track - not strictly 90s but I really like the Placebo cover of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" which Q magazine memorably described as "sound[ing] more like a 'pact with the Devil' than the original 'deal with God'"

Placebo - Running Up That Hill

even if the video is like a better dressed emo version of Feeder's "Just A Day" (which for some reason I can't help watching every time it comes on)

Hmm - no nerdy music factoids so far. Errm. Ok - the reason why drummer Steve Hewitt is blurred out in the Nancy Boy video is because he was still contractually obliged to a band on another label at the time.

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90s Music Monday

2009-10-26T21:41:28Z

It turns out that Sedona in Phoenix is so unspeakably cinematic - with its soaring orange mesas and artistically arranged cacti silhouetted against the blazing sunset - that your brain can't actually deal with it and you just start thinking that it looks like a really bad special effects cliché and discounting it as being fake.

It's kind of weird.

Anyway, that's got absolutely nothing to do with this weeks 90MM which I've plucked randomly from my scratch pad of potential candidates based purely on the fact that it's gone 2pm already and I hadn't noticed.

Inspiring, huh?

Anyway, so "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow.

Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do

Because I'm doing this somewhat haphazard today I'm giving you the extra special LOOK!!!! @@@RARE@@@11!!11 original version which features the oft mentioned Billy character wandering around - something that was subsequently cut to produce the more common form of the video most people are familiar with.

Looking round to find the reasons the general consensus, including the commentary on Wikipedia, calls this inexplicable but, having watched both this 'original' and the more common one (which you can find here for comparison) I think I have an answer - the edited version is better and the guy who plays Billy comes across as an insufferable douche who I'd really like to give a good shoeing to.

Anyway, with that particular issue settled we can get onto even more obscurity like, for example, the fact that the song is actually a pretty much word for word recital of the poem "Fun" by Wyn Cooper (who is credited as a co-writer and made, apparently, a metric fuck-tonne of money from the royalties)

“All I want is to have a little fun
Before I die,” says the man next to me
Out of nowhere, apropos of nothing. He says
His name’s William but I’m sure he’s Bill
Or Billy, Mac or Buddy; he’s plain ugly to me,
And I wonder if he’s ever had fun in his life.

We are drinking beer at noon on Tuesday,
In a bar that faces a giant car wash.
The good people of the world are washing their cars
On their lunch hours, hosing and scrubbing
As best they can in skirts and suits.
They drive their shiny Datsuns and Buicks
Back to the phone company, the record store,
The genetic engineering lab, but not a single one
Appears to be having fun like Billy and me.

I like a good beer buzz early in the day,
And Billy likes to peel the labels
From his bottles of Bud and shred them on the bar.
Then he lights every match in an oversized pack,
Letting each one burn down to his thick fingers
Before blowing and cursing them out.

A happy couple enters the bar, dangerously close
To one another, like this is a motel,
But they clean up their act when we give them
A look. One quick beer and they’re out,
Down the road and in the next state
For all I care, smiling like idiots.
We cover sports and politics and once,
When Billy burns his thumb and lets out a yelp,
The bartender looks up from his want-ads.

Otherwise the bar is ours, and the day and the night
And the car wash too, the matches and Buds
And the clean and dirty cars, the sun and the moon
And every motel on this highway. It’s ours you hear?
And we’ve got plans, so relax and let us in—
All we want is to have a little fun.

... and lets face it, who doesn't like a good beer buzz early in the morning?

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90s Music Monday

2009-10-19T19:03:54Z

Have you seen "24 Hour Party People"? You should, it's pretty good. It's about the rise and fall of the legendary Hacienda club in Manchester and the entwined Factory Records which was home to acts like Joy Division, New Order, The Happy Mondays and Cabaret Voltaire amongst others.

Anyway, the reason why I'm proselytizing the film is that it's not a bad introduction to the Madchester/Baggy scene that sprung up in Manchester at the start of the nineties - a weird and heady blend of rave, indie rock, psychedelia and hip hop.

The movement, as well as bringing the phrase "You're twisting my melon, man" into common parlance, provided a second coming from a relatively obscure band called James. James had previously had two minor hits around '89 with "Sit Down" and the more stereotypically Baggy "Come Home" which had both done well in the indie charts but got more mainstream recognition when they released "Gold Mother" around the same time as musical press attention turned north.

Singles "How Was It For You" and re-released "Come Home" and "Sit Down" did well (the latter was only kept off the top spot by Chesney Hawkes) but the eponymous single from the album "Laid", released in 1993, was the one that 'broke' in the US.

Released as three different versions of the same video (of which I can only find two)

James - Laid (Version 2)

James - Laid (Version 3)

its popularity was spurred in part by the (slightly) risqué nature of the title and the, hmm, evocative lyrics

"This bed is on fire with passionate love, the neighbours complain about the noises above, but she only comes when she's on top"

meaning that, although it 'only' got to number 23 in the UK charts and peaked on the US Billboard charts at #61 its cult status on college radio stations drove it to #3 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts and was later used in the American Pie films.

The album itself is fairly interesting. Recorded as a series of session with Brian Eno it actually produced enough tracks for two albums - "Laid" being the "song album" and "Wah Wah" being the more experimental release.

You note, of course, that I use the term "interesting" in a way that means "if you're a huge music nerd like me"

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90s Music Monday

2009-10-12T17:57:17Z

Well, fuck me rigid - this is the 100th 90s Music Monday. Who knew I had that kind of staying power - if you'd asked me 2 years ago I would have laid good odds that ADD would have got the better of me long before now.

Either way - shouldn't I have my book deal by now?

Anyway, since I've been on a "Remixes of Female Solo Songs" kick (see previously, previously and even previously) I figured I'd go with the Daddy of them all

Tori Amos - Professional Widow (Armand's Star Trunk Funkin' Mix)

which is very, very different from the if anything, even more explicit, harpsicord driven original (how many times in your life do you get to write that particular sentence)

Tori Amos - Professional Widow

the track is, allegedly anyway, about Courtney Love and specifically how she broke up the friendship between Ms Amos and Trent "Nine Inch Nails" Reznor who also weighed in with the track "Starfuckers Inc." on "The Fragile" ('starfuckers' being a lyric from "Professional Widow").

No video was made for the original version of the song but an official clip was made for the Star Trunk Funkin' mix using segments from other Tori Amos videos. It is, according to Wikipedia, the only Tori Amos video from between 91 and 98 not to appear on the "Tori Amos: Complete videos 91 - 98" VHS - a video with a title that really needs little explaining.

I honestly thought I was going to have more to write about this track - although, when I went back and looked at some of my earlier, more ... terse 90mm entries even a couple of paragraphs comes across as a nigh Homerian epic.

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90s Music Monday

2009-10-05T17:08:34Z

Continuing the theme of "Obscure singles by women later remixed by semi-anonymous producers to become huge house hits" let's go with [flicks idly through big book of OSBWLRBSP] ... ooh, "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega.

Now this is a song which encourages all out music nerdery ... grab a cup of coffee and settle down. Or whisky. Or coffee with whisky in which case might I suggest that you stay clear of the 30 yr old single malt and stick with some Jamesons or similar.

Ok, you're back? Groovesome. Let's get down to it.

First off, the version that most people know is the 1990 remix by British Producers DNA (later DNA Disciples to avoid confusion between them and an existing band)

Suzanne Vega feat DNA - Tom's Diner

it's actually a fairly simple remix taking Ms Vega's acapella 1981 original

Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner

and layer it over a beat ripped from Soul II Soul's "Back to Life"

Soul II Soul - Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)

and after a short stint being distributed as a white label in the UK club scene as "Oh Suzanne" it came to the attention of Suzanne's record label.

Nowaday this would lead to multiple multi-gazillion dollar law suits, threats of international law suits, renting of hair, tearing of clothes, skies falling, lions laying down with lambs etc etc but, in a virtually unprecedented, and surely never to be repeated, level of non-asshattery the label, instead of suing, decided to buy the remix (via intermediaries so that the identities of DNA wouldn't be revealed - although they were later named as Neal Slateford and Nick Bett) and then released it officially. At which point it promptly did far, far better than the original and, according to Wikipedia (since even I'm not geeky enough to remember chart positions for every song ever in two countries) it peaked at "#2 on the UK singles chart and #5 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and became one of a handful of tracks to chart in the top 10 of both the Modern Rock Tracks (#7) and Billboard R&B Tracks (#10)".

So everyone's happy?

Well, not necessarily, contemporary articles, such as this one from Entertainment Weekly imply that DNA got fairly screwed

to avoid a lawsuit, D.N.A. was forced to sign away all rights to their creation for less than $8,000. ''D.N.A. got a terrible deal,'' says entertainment lawyer Ken Anderson. ''But they're not in the best position to complain.'' Vega's manager, Ron Fierstein, comments: ''Yes, we made a good deal.But these guys were guilty of criminal copyright infringement.''

(for similar stories see Run DMC and Jason Nevins and the "It's like that" remix)

Anyway, that aside there's plenty more to geek about other than the provenance of the song - for a start and for massive nerd points it should be pointed out that the original "Tom's Diner" was used to help fine tune the compression for the Fraunhofer Society's MP3 codec in much the same way that the length of CDs was set to accommodate Wilhelm Furtwängler's recording of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony from the 1951 Bayreuth Festival.

"I was ready to fine-tune my compression algorithm...somewhere down the corridor, a radio was playing "Tom's Diner". I was electrified. I knew it would be nearly impossible to compress this warm a cappella voice."

again, quoting Wikipedia,

While it is an exaggeration to say that the MP3 compression format is specifically tuned to play the song "Tom's Diner" (an assortment of critically analyzed material was involved in the design of the codec over many years), among some audio engineers this anecdote has earned Vega the informal title "The Mother of the MP3".

And if that wasn't geeky enough, the lyrics of the song provide enough clues to accurately pin point the exact day that the events transpire on - specifically November the 18th, 1982 (although Vega has admitted that some of the song is a composite from multiple days).

And oh, how I could go on - detailing all the other remixes of which there were so many that Vega released an entire album called "Tom's Album" which included a version called "Jeannie's Diner", a parody that makes references to I Dream Of Jeannie.

Or I could mention the location of the real Tom's Diner in NYC and reference the fact that it's also mentioned in Seinfeld.

Or I could recall lying on the floor in a tent at Glastonbury at Ms Vega's feet while she cooed out acoustic treats before inviting us all "for brunch at this little diner I know in Manhattan" and dreamily listening to the song in the original form until about half way through when someone started beat boxing the beat and then everyone joined in and ... anyway, you get the point.

I think that's quite enough geeking for one day.

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90s Music Monday

2009-09-28T19:58:09Z

So, after 3 months away I'm back with a head buzzing with ye olde 90s music - when file sharing meant a virgin stack of C90s, the highest compliment was getting a hand lettered and intricately decorated track listing replete with multiple inside jokes and the primo super-sekrit FTP server looked unerringly like your friend's hot and musically adventurous older sister who almost certainly completely moulded your budding adolescent sexuality and is the reason why you now go and see every Zooey Deschanel film the day it comes out.

Anyway, jet lag is great for mild obsessive compulsive activities like, say, a touch of musical spelunking. What is musical spelunking you say? Why, I'm glad you asked! Simply put it's the act of taking a song and obsessively following any influences it had, finding the originals of all its samples, finding alternate versions and covers and then repeating with all the new songs you've got. Trust me, if you're up at 4am with screaming trans-continental insomnia then it's just the ticket to soothe the troubled soul.

And what was the focus of my laser like nocturnal focus - a throw away line in an obscure British drama made me think of 1991 house arm raiser "You Got The Love" by The Source and Candi Staton

The Source ft. Candi Staton - You've Got The Love

and later rereleased in 1997 and 2006 (under a new "Now Voyagers" mix)

The Source ft. Candi Staton - You've Got the Love

The song itself has an interesting provenance - it's actually a mashup bootleg by DJ Eren (who later ceded the name 'The Source' to DJ John Truelove) combining an old 1989 track called "Your Love" by Frankie Knuckles

Frankie Knuckles - Your Love

with an obscure Gospel track by Candi Staton, originally recorded for a 1986 documentary about an obese man trying to lose weight. When asked later Candi couldn't remember ever having recorded the track

Candi Staton - You've Got The Love

The track got a further boost when it was used in the final scenes of Sex In The City.

Sex and the City - The End

which I'll refrain from making any comments about.

It's been remarkably resistant to cover versions though - Mika and Kasabian both do live covers and, more recently British Indie Darlings Florence + The Machine had it as a live staple before putting it on their first album

Florence + the Machine - You've Got The Love

and then using it as the grand finale in their festival tours including this brilliant closer from Glastonbury this year

Florence + the Machine - You've Got The Love (Glastonbury 2009)

and an even better, crazier, euphoric, manic version from Bestival last year

Florence and the Machine - You've Got The Love (Bestival 2008)

I could go on but I'm low on tea and any thing more than this is verging a little on hard core music nerdery. Or at least, verging more.

UPDATE: Mr Batistoni pointed me further down the rabbit hole with this Jamie XX remix of the Florence + the Machine cover

Florence + the Machine - You've Got the Love (XX remix)

To quote from the Pitchfork review of the track

"Claiming this track merely "features" the xx is a bit disingenuous on the group's part. The only elements that survive from Florence's hyper-dramatic version of the song are Florence Welch's vocals and the song's harp."

Currently I'm vacillating wildly between loving this remix and recoiling in horror.

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90s Music Monday

2009-06-22T22:37:26Z

Fine, I'll stick with Brit Pop if that's what you really want. What's that you say? You couldn't give two shits either way? Well, fine. I'll do it just to spite you instead then.

The ludicrous thing is that many of the bands - Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Radiohead, Lush, Suede, Powder, Ocean Colour Scene - that were lumped into the Brit Pop were so completely disparate in musical style that grouping them together them was clearly an exercise in comparing apples to pineapples. I mean look at the list of bands mentioned on Wikipedia; it's probably the only ontological list in the world to classify Dodgy and The Divine Comedy together. Hell - many bands (Radiohead being perhaps the prime example here) changed their sounds so much between albums that even comparing themselves to earlier incarnations was meaningless.

You might as well just have called the scene "Not American Grunge Bands" and been done with it.

I have nothing really particularly witty to say about Pulp or Jarvis Cocker unfortunately other than the rather obvious joke that Mr Cocker, certainly in the early days, seemed to be entirely constructed out of elbows. Oh, and that he did this rather marvelous thing in protest of Michael Jackson's rather ludicrous messianical performance at The Brit Awards

Jarvis Cocker Interrupts Michael Jackson's Earth Song 1996

So you'll just have to watch "Common People" instead

Pulp -- Common People

I went to a party with a bunch of people from St Martin's College once. They were all twats. All of them. I'm not saying that everyone who goes to St Martin's is a twat. Just everyone I've ever met from there.

Note that the video contains Sadie "I used to be married to Jude Law" Frost. That crowd (now called The Primose Hill Set or similar by the British media) used to drink at a pub called The Tup on Liverpool Road, just down from where my first job was and were regularly in there at the same time as us (not hard since, partly due to the fact that we used it as a meeting room, I was in there approximately 90% of my waking hours). They're all shorter in real life than you'd expect. And much less good looking. The same is true of Madonna to be fair. She has weird, old lady hands. Tru Fax!

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90s Music Monday

2009-06-16T07:11:33Z

So, last week I did Oasis which, as part of the natural order of things, basically forces me to do Blur this week.

The putative rivalry between the two bands reached its peak in 1995 when the media whipped up a frenzy when Blur's "Country House" and Oasis' "Roll With It" were released on the same day despite the fact that really the two bands weren't at all similar in style. But you know, anything for a good story.

Blur won the battle, for what it's worth partly because their video had page 3 "stunna" Jo Guest and models Vanessa Upton and Sara Stockbridge in it as well as popular comedians Keith "My daughter's more famous than me now" Allen and Matt Lucas.

Anyway, I'm not going to talk about that - nor their oddly menacing breakout video for "There's no other way" which thrilled teenagers since it featured the actor who played Arthur Fowler from EastEnders and the actress who played Mrs Mclusky from Grange Hill. Which, for thems that don't know, are British TV programs concerned with unglamorous people which, as I understand it, are a totally alien concept in the US.

Of course, I use the word "thrilled" here when what I mean is really "not thrilled in any way". More that odd frisson that one gets from seeing actors from beloved institutions in unusual roles.

Anyway ... neither am I going to talk about the video for the single that really made them megastars (well, in the UK anyway) - "Park Life" which featured Phil Daniels from Quadrophenia. Nor am I going to talk about the disturbingly catchy "Girls and Boys" which announced their move away from their Madchester / baggy / shoegazing sound to a more daring, disco tinged sound.

I'm going to talk about "Song 2".

I have to admit that I'm somewhat conflicted by this since, for a start, it's too obvious. Especially in the US it's the song that everybody knows is by Blur. It's used as the kind of odd pump up music for trailers and sporting events that sits at odds with Blur's image. Hell, the US military allegedly wanted to use it when unveiling the B2 Stealth Bomber.

Secondly - it's not really representative of Blur's oeuvre in any way sense or form.

However it is an awesome 2 minute pop song. If I was drunk and feeling ebullient I would say that it's almost the perfect slice of addictively catchy energetic rock and, under certain circumstances I might even go as far as to say that it was better in that regard than "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Maybe.

Blur - Song 2

It's funny - I personally really love this video, mostly because being slammed against a carpetted wall like that looks like all kinds of fun but I have the feeling it could easily have ended up as being being a bit rubbish. It does look an awful lot like the video for "Popscene" though.

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