I liked The Cult as a teenager

The transition from juniors to secondary school has faded somewhat from my mind. I can’t remember whether I was full of fear or excitement. It was just another school – you know just another brick in the wall and all that. Blazers, ties and band allegiances – I’d cultivated that at an early age. That’s probably why I can’t quite remember the feelings – blotted them out with Shakin’ Stevens and the Sex Pistols. We used to have school discos in the main hall at my juniors – at lunch times – you could bring your own records – I would follow ‘Hot Dog’ with ‘Friggin’ in the Riggin’ – I was a shock jock then.

I’ve always been eclectic maaaaannnnn.

I arrived in secondary school clutching on to the late 1970s – early eighties rock n roll revival. Not quiffed yet – that would come two years later with The Smiths and awkward moments on the dance floor – or should I say cringe worthy moments. The thing is – I like dancing – we want to dance and have some fun – but I must have spent a fair part of my youth with arms flailing and fringe swinging. It used to make the girls go giddy - well actually – it didn’t – that’s artistic licence for you – I could say that it did and you’d just have to believe me. Still I’ll write about the dance floor again another day. This is about the switching and changing of musical taste of hearing something new and embracing it – which you’re ripe to at that early age – sponge like and not set in our ways. Saying that – I wasn’t open to it all – this whole thing is a ball of contradictions – it preaches have a listen and then puts the boot in too.

I’ve always been like that you know. Contradictory and opinionated. You could say I’m not that easy to get along with. The family recognise it – my friends recognise it – I care not to and blindly carry on doing it. Saying one thing – meaning another – tying up my tongue in frustration and incoherence.

So how is this going to get to talking ‘bout (love) Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy – this chief and warrior union through glam goth rock and the stomp of something rocking? I had a cousin further up north – so far in fact it’s another country – and she was a few years younger than my brother – they enjoyed the dark music – they embraced the backcombed in their lives. Now as I have previously stated – I wanted a piece of the alternative too – I once wore a ribbon in my hair in a heady tribute to Porl Thompson of The Cure (at that time) However, I’m not sure the wider general public of Port Seaton recognised the dandy in me – it was more likely that they laughed. See you – aye – see that ribbon.

So you could say I was open to suggestion at this point – it was time to move on from ‘Shirley’ and ‘Green Door’ and Matchbox weren’t cutting it anymore – I didn’t want the girl’s to cry on my shoulder. I didn’t want Jump the Broomstick – at Heslam Park Rugby Club disco – I wanted guitars, scarves, chants and emotions – I wanted an alternative. And The Cult initially filled those transient times – they weren’t The Cure – Paul (my brother) had claimed them. That sudden shifting from the Top 40 to all things independent. You know what it’s like with men – we’re just looking for a perfect list. So it seemed that the mainstream wasn’t quite cutting it for me. The arrival of the music press in the house was slowly shifting my agenda and ideology. Writing could do that then – I’m not certain that the current readers of NME (.com) ever get that feeling. I maybe wrong – but the newspapers back then had articles about music and misery, unemployment and anger coursing through those inky pages. Writers who wanted to write about music and about life. There were four page interviews – you know – lots of words and that.  Oh I know it was affected – isn’t this?

And as my cousin played me Spiritwalker and Resurrection Joe – up there in the bedroom at the top of the house  – there was something different –a kind of groove – mixed with yelps and the feeling that it was alive – I couldn’t reference The Doors then, and this in itself was a good thing – because you know how I feel about The Doors. 

I hadn’t even seen them – at this point. I don’t mean live – I just mean moving. It had been still photos and words on pages. I was reading something the other day from an American about The Smiths and there was a line that resonated with me – he said he never saw The Smiths move until 1986. This lack of internet look ups – DVD sales and promo videos – you know Derek Jarman made the first Smiths videos or should that be films and they weren’t in them – all this music coupled with all those static images – it meant you had to think what they would look like moving – grooving – playing and dancing – even just walking.

Nothing could have prepared you for Ian Astbury – this hip (shaking) shaman – this screamer and bawler in leggings and leather – feathers and fur. He was cartoon like in state – larger than life – and the songs referenced tribal gatherings and dream walking and all that spiritual shit. Beside him quiffed and ready for action – Duffy heading up the troops – all blonde hair and low action.  But I fell for it – I liked the fact that Resurrection Joe was eight minutes long – it wasn’t digitally produced – it was flawed – in production and composition. You don’t come out fully formed – you kind of grow into it – and boy would The Cult grow – into a muthafucking rock stomping behemoth of a band. All hair and Gretsch White Falcons – double bass drums and Marshall stacks – by the time Love Removal Machine emerged – Astbury was inflicted with a rock tourettes all yyaoowws and yelps – screams and yeaahhhs. Sweat pouring down his made up face – more bloated than Morrison – a sort of Rob Zombie version of Mick Jagger.  He’d eventually slim on down (to the other side) and join The Doors 21^st Century – life – art  - you know the saying. He made a good Morrison though – but it’s weird watching it. It’s studied – it’s knowing – it’s honest – yet it doesn’t quite feel right. Like the wig might slip.

I stuck steady with The Cult – well I was steady with the Cult from their Southern and Death incarnations – and then when She Sells Sanctuary crossed over – in appearances on TOTP and The Tube. This single line floating melody that kicked in with a bang and made all our heads turn as this band from the Midlands (with some northern parts) made a beeline for the top of the charts. Okay – it got to number 14 – but to us ‘outsiders’ looking in that was success  - that was gate crashing the party. And then came the long player – Love – I liked it – I listened to it a great deal. I was part of their cult. I was into the gatefold cover – the graphics – and the tunes. The Cult felt like a band that was mine – they weren’t overly gothic – they flirted with it – but there was a straight rock ethic flowing through it. Plus they were always brilliant - self-deprecating in their interviews – it helps to have the ability to laugh at yourself  - it’s taken me about 30 years – but I’m getting there.

And then suddenly they ‘broke’ the US – and that was that – an almighty clash of Zepp and AC/DC – they went proper raaawkkk. It didn’t scare me – just disappointed – I hung in for a while – but eventually we went our separate ways. I just happened to come across an odd glam rock version of She Sells Sanctuary that my band did years ago – in a Scunthorpe bedroom and it brought me back to the original – that first dalliance with the Cult.

It was good to be friends with them – through vinyl and reported speech. It was a decent dalliance. Cheers Ian. 

Let's (not) dance

Bowie released a single this week. He hadn’t released one for a while. He’s sixty six you know? Pensionable, bus pass and heating allowance qualifier. It was a number about Berlin – retelling stories and past glories – hanging with Iggy and wearing black and that.   Then out of the woodwork came all the glam queens and diamond dogs to pledge allegiance to the starman. You know Jonathan Ross gets a front page leader in The Guardian to basically tells us how hip and connected he is. And you wonder why the Guardian lost £44 million pounds last year – I wonder. I wonder why why why why why.  You’ve got Skyped calls to old producers, friends on Radio 4 and fans in the street – all ready to tell their Bowie story. I don’t have one. I’m going to make one up today.

I think I’ve said it before – but I don’t quite get Bowie.

There’s always some writing about him playing with the expectations of the audience – the boundaries. But he’s selling pop music isn’t he – you’re not really playing with our expectations are you? I mean it’s gonna be a tune – he’s not going to really play with our expectations of the genre is he? It will be a tune – last around four minutes – have a chorus and bits we can hum. He might dye his hair – he might put on a bit of slap – he may well ask Ronson to grow his sideburns and wear a bit of gold. We will not come out of that dumbfounded – confused or knowing anymore than we did before.  

We will be entertained. Happily sated on melody and performance.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Just stop making it into something more. I like music. You know David didn’t "challenge the core belief of rock music of its day’ as his biographer stated by adding a  bit of spoken word in Future Leader before the seven minutes of Diamond Dogs kicked in. Yes – you read it right – seven minutes of sub Rolling Stones swagger.  David made records – appropriated this and that and sold a lot of them.

Who has ever ‘challenged’ the core belief of rock music? What does that phrase actually mean? Iggy, Lou, Rob Tyner – on the edge performers – challenging the core belief of rock – oh pleaseeeee.

Perhaps I need educating. Schooling in Bowie’s ways and given reasons as to why this monarch of pop is vibrant, relevant and exciting. Perhaps I should dig out those albums picked up in second hand shops and start listening again – they are nestling in the collection – from Space Oddity to one where he seems painted blue or some such thing. I forget its name.

To be honest – I was just too young for that son of a gun. Bowie seemed over to me by the time I was getting my fix of the popular. You know his songs were on tapes for my dad made by his brother – they were not for the young things – us boys needed to keep swinging in different ways. He already seemed like a relic. I remember thinking who is this fella – with Bing Crosby – with Queen? Yet the press seemed to laud him as an artist – an alternative. What with Bing and Freddie? I might have been missing the point – but then again I don’t like points being made – do you get?

And if we trace a lineage from him through the musical ages and stages we get to Boy George – we get to Marilyn -  wearing a frock and releasing mediocre pop smashes does not make for a legacy. Oh I know it’s in lots of music – I’m being banally confrontational. Saying that Arcade Fire can fuck off – that’s not confrontational that’s a fact.

And Talking Heads. Next question?

I know Bowie fans get riled when someone takes a sideways slap at him – I sometimes get that way when Emma has a go at Brian Wilson. Yet over the years I’ve dealt with it – and let’s be honest there’s a fair amount of shit in the Wilson cannon. Sacrilege I know – but I’m starting the new year with a Lou Reed kind of mood. I want some fucking street hassle – mmaaaaannnnn.

So maybe I should give the alien another chance to fall to earth and land in my lap – I might enjoy it. Perhaps I don’t know where to start. I have tried – I tried listening to Diamond Dogs and Hunky Dory today. But it just widnae work for me.  I can’t get past the deaden rasp of his voice – clearly unique – but the pretention of the ‘cut up’ approach or the mime. You know Howard Jones tried that – mind you he got another fella to do the trapped in a box bit. And somewhere lodged in the back of my mind is the whole Let’s Dance era – all pleats and false smiles. Wrung through with Thatcher and hollow of spirit. I am certain it is the way I remember the times and not something specific to the thin white duke – but I can’t help associate that with this and then with now and that’s why Bowie’s not getting a look in.

I also remember an attempt by older lads – all part of the Scunthorpe scene – to recreate a Live Aid moment in a church hall on Ashby Road by instigating a mass sing along to Heroes at the end of a charity night of bands. The bile was rising then – it still is now. What a fucking liberty. I know Bowie wasn’t involved – he hadn’t given his blessing but it gets my gander up and typifies those big brash popular cultural sweeping statements and moments. Geldof was a cunt so why ape it – eh?

I hate being part of the masses.

I know I am part of the masses. I know I am not individual in anyway but let’s not get into all this mutual appreciation back slapping congratulations and all that sycophantic stuff that comes with an ageing pop star releasing a tune. There’s other things that should be filling our front papers.

They’re dismantling the welfare state. They’re shutting hospitals. They’re stopping trade unions. They’re taxing the poor but hey Bowie’s back though – Let’s dance. 

I managed to find this - it's more Marc Bolan than Bowie - so worth a look. It grooves. 

Sounds from the overground - solitary rants from the listening man No.5

I've been flagging lately - illness rolling around these bones  - you know the chills mutiplying - losing control. 

So in order to keep some semblance of writing happening here - it's a short post - i'll be updating very soon - longer and possibly diving back into the recording process and dates and stuff. 

So here you are then - happy new year - (class) war is not over. 

I have been spending far too much time making compilations of Euros Childs, Jonny, Teenage Fanclub and The Well green

Stuart Kidd is a beautiful musician. Honest, creative with songs to sing along too. You should look up his band camp site. There’s a wealth of lovely things there – a genuine wealth.

I came across The Wellgreen.

Euros continues to produce the most consistently beautiful sounds you could ever wish for and I have decided that next year I’ll interview him for this blog. A new twist in 2013. He doesn’t know it and hopefully it will be as good as my J Mascis interview conducted when I was mere youth. It was five words long. Bloody grungers.

I have listened to EPMD Never Seen Before exiting from the workplace – because I’m street like that.

Students I once taught have provided soundtracks to my waking hours – you all should check out Clouded Judgement, Beatmasta Bill and Monkeysteak.

Inkrument have failed to follow up a seminal long player. Pull your fingers out fellas.

The Super Furries have emerged on the periphery of my being.

Richard Chester is the new Brian Wilson or Spector or Joe Meek – take your pick really. We love him in this house.  

I missed The Fall, Orbital, The Stone Roses, The Primitives, and The Beach Boys this year.

My brother continued to see Adam Ant and saw The Stone Roses.

I’ve played Denim a great deal.

Summer Special is my No.1 album of 2012

I have avidly listened to Duglas’ recommendations on Twitter.

I have tuned into FNOOB – and got down to the Orb Sound System. 

I am pondering whether to get a Primal Scream ticket for March. 

I've got two music books to read - one called Telling Stories the other all about the mavericks in the independent scene from 1975 til 2005. 

I bought five cds for one pound yesterday – I am currently playing Simian Mobile Disco’s mixed set for Bugged Out. It is very good – bass and bleeps. 

The ever popular Denim

Not many people write about Denim as they do about Felt. These are bands by the way – not fabrics. I haven’t changed the nature of the writing. It’s still about music. Lawrence – as it simply is - gets all fawned over for the Felt beauty whilst the throbbing and bubbling glam stomping pure rock n roll of Denim is seen as an aberration – a record that poured scorn on the sensitivity and style of Felt. Saying that it’s not as if Felt get written about a lot. Although recent ‘media’ interest in a film with Lawrence (of Belgravia) made a few headlines in the back pages of music magazines. This is of course not true because music magazines don’t put those sort of things in the back of the papers. And if I’m honest I don’t read music magazines – or as they were called in my day – the music press – the papers as avidly anymore. So I may have missed a six page feature on the Rise and Fall of Lawrence. I somehow feel that I haven’t – but you never can tell.

Paul and me used to buy the music papers – you know - read it in the press.

There was a lot of them back when we wore donkey jackets to protect us from the cold on our walk into town. Broke and on the dole. Just hanging around. Uptown. We would buy nearly all the music papers every week – there was writing in there. Lots of words about records and that - it was relevant and irreverent.

We would only buy Sounds if we had too. It was a bit metal in the eighties. We weren’t metal. But each to his own. Paul did once own an Iron Maiden picture disc and I bought Gillian’s New Orleans on 7 inch in Boots. In the precinct – just down from WH Smiths – I think you can say that made us ‘metal’ for a week or so. But I never could take to the clothes. You need creases in your trousers – give it an iron and that – and the denim is so faded – I like mine dark.

I couldn’t get enough of Denim when I first heard them. The excitement had been building for months in our Scunthorpe bedroom - as Paul (my brother) and I read of Lawrence’s plans to form this group, this rocking behemoth of a band. Two drummers. Synthesizers and guitars and Lawrence’s studied coolness. Denim were so much more Britpop than any of that unnecessary nonsense that came out in the nineties. They were British and they made pop music. Not eccentric or located in the past. Pop music for the day which referenced their youth. Arppeggiated synthesizers and theme tune melodies wrapped in a disdain for the eighties – beautiful really. And again if I’m being honest - sounding so much better than Felt.

I had a wonderful friend at university – who loved Felt. You know - felt Felt – if you get me. I admired his patience – his integrity. You either get it or you don’t. He formed a wonderful band – part in his head – part in real life – Bellevue – they would have been brilliant. They had a master plan – like Felt did.

Except theirs and Felt’s never came off.

Saying that I wanted Denim to be huge – but it wasn’t to be.

If I remember rightly – and I seldom do. So I’m told. We ventured to town – along Ashby Road – past The Beefeater and over Howden’s Hill to Record Village. The home of ‘smart. music – this wasn’t their slogan – I just made it up. But you get my drift – you could buy those alternative sounds of the underground there. You could find good music (if you liked good music – do you like good music?) And we wanted to buy the long player by Denim all bright blue and 70s fonts.

It was the song title ‘I’m against the eighties’ that had chimed with us all. It was everything we had felt in this disposed decade – Thatcher’s ruin. The running down of every public service and any act of collectivism – of organising and protesting – was the norm. You know you’re a teenager and you’re growing up feeling fairly hopeless. Just as she had wanted. Because you can be crushed then – and we are now. This was being left out in the cold and Lawrence channelled all of that into a fix of pop. I took a look around there was nothing going down in the ‘80s. As I have stated previously – music cannot change the world but it can chime with a thought and a feeling. I’m sick of winklepicker kids - mary chain debris. Lawrence achieved that on Back in Denim – this reflection on things past as ‘Robin’s Nest’ synths bubbled and squelched and guitars riffed. Or Middle of the Road that challenged all that coolness and being hip.

I hate to be hip – I want to be square. So there.

I wish I could have seen them perform live. I remember video tapes at the ready for a performance on ‘Later’. They were wonderful. This was what Denim had sounded like in my head. They were making glam rock for a modern age – they were taking a bit of care. This was a band that signed to Boy’s Own at the time. Taking the idea that they were a dance band – rock music was finished – this was about doing it differently. You need different strokes for different folks.

Yet Back in Denim cost so much to make that Boy's Own went bankrupt. Or so they say. Denim were never going to hit big. That was until EMI said they would sign Denim if Lawrence came up with hit material. I mean imagine that – the band already had an album’s worth and here were these A&R fuckers asking for the hits. So he gave them one – a bubblegum pop called Summer Smash.

EMI loved it. It was Radio 1's single of the week.

"It was all set to come out on a Monday," remembers Lawrence. "Then Princess Di died on the Sunday before. EMI melted all the singles down."

Cursed – some might say.Lawrence would go on to form Go Kart Mozart. They're brilliant too. Lawrence tends to add that touch of magic.

So here’s to a Denim revival. It’s 2012. Let’s all have a bit of Lawrence in our lives.

Oh and stick with the clip – I think the beginnings some programme on Spanish television but suddenly Lawrence appears. You can look up the recorded version on line – if you like the beauty and soul in this performance.