I love it when the roogie boogie band comes to town

It had been brewing for weeks - the inevitable time that I'd be back with Euros Childs again - and as it turns out The Wellgreen and Laura J Martin. You know I'd done my research - listening to the new album in the car and watching the last great situation comedy ‘dinnerladies’ on DVD – melding the two together. It had been a new engagement - this Euros Childs’ album - it took a little longer to work with me - possible because the leaked track to Mojo (the music magazine) and the associations with Macca (it was that issue with Paul on the front) and the writing in character - all eleven songs in the vein of.....I mean it's not as if Euros hasn't done a concept album before (although this isn’t a concept album – it’s just a good album)  but I was in that frame of mind - careful rather than simply expecting the goods.

And why should I have it my way - he's the songwriter.

And what a songwriter. He just gets better and better.

So where to begin? At the start I guess. Don't look for the laughs here - oh it's comic - but not necessarily laugh out loud. Originally I was going with my other half - she's had to put up with me since I started extolling the virtues of Chops (the album  - not the meat) way back after a Concretes concert. Instead it was the solitary forty something at the front – I was meant to be meeting a dear friend - except he didn't come - I met another Richard though - he'd been drinking since 12 noon - we shared our ways of the world with a pint in the bar next to the venue. I left him there – he should have come next door for a little bit of Euros but I feel he was already swaying too much for an evening of boogie woogie.

Then I sold my ticket to an entertaining mod with a sideline in insurance. All characters you see.

And our first characters of the night were The Wellgreen. I simply love The Wellgreen –their harmony inflected pop music should be playing out of transistor radios up and down the land. I’m not going to spend too long on this far too brief but absorbing set – it was early doors for these two Scottish lads – but they set the tone for the evening. Soul music. So I just grin throughout. I don’t need to bear it. It’s a pleasure. Opening with the Bacharach meets The Zombies structure of ‘Maybe it’s the pressure of the City Life that’s tearing us apart’ the ever growing crowd (arriving at The Boston Arms) are treated to simplicity served up with a slice of the Scottish Everly brothers. Except things have changed – it might have been that time spent with Errol Brown in the prison cells – but the harmonies are evoking Brian Wilson at his finest. Stu and Marco compliment each other so well – building harmony and melody into clouds of beauty (oh come on – I’m feeling over the top) I know I

reference the sixties when I write about The Wellgreen – but there a modernist slant – as if The La’s had bothered to keep writing tunes. It seems so effortless – but that’s the craft you see – make it seem easy – Cantona style. Suffice to say – I bought their new album. I am getting ready to weave a review into a post – it’s coming soon – so grin and bear with me. I then proceeded to harangue Stuart Kidd and did my best to appear like a stalker for the rest of the night (Brides in the Bath – back home)  He was as affable and interesting as ever  - it turns out The Wellgreen teach music out in the villages up their way – now that’s a music lesson I’d love to be in.

Laura J Martin still has this bewitching effect on audiences – and rightly so – you don’t expect the sounds to emerge from her slight frame all fraught yet formidable. I saw her first at a Jonny concert (oh you know I’m stalking Euros – you just have to accept it) and she blew me away – this repetition in the music  (and we’re never gonna lose it) built from loops of flute and bangs and chants. Well she was at it again on Friday – her set was fierce. I couldn’t quite get the words this time – I think the soundperson couldn’t quite get his and her levels – so we had treble flutes and ever expanding reverb – but her charm and ingenuity shone through a muddied mix. The addition of the bouncy Adam Stearn on bass and Stuart and Marco from The Wellgreen with harmonies and drums and guitar gave her new songs that different dimension. Sublime.  I won’t talk about Kate Bush and all that - but I will say she has this PJ Harvey way about her -you know with a flute – she has this enthralling way of telling a tale. You should buy her record to – you probably did – after the gig – from her – that’s how it works.

Sing and sell. Simple.

Euros’s new long player – and it is a long player all four sides and counting takes a different trajectory to the Summer Special of last year – there’s possibly a more intricate take on the pop song on this album. These are crafted tales of worry, woe, misery, love and bitterness written with a quirk and an aside. You’d cry if you weren’t smiling. And that’s what always comes out in a live performance with Euros manning the helm of the good ship Roogie Boogie – a smile – well a laugh if I’m being honest.

Euros performs with a kind of kinetic energy – all twists and flails – bends and turns. Not exactly a man possessed – more poised than that – but you can tell there’s a music coursing through them there bones. And a humour to. There’s nothing contrived about this band – about this man – no symbolism through sub culture – just good tunes and top times. I mean Marco is wearing shorts – perhaps these final dates had depleted the wardrobe – I don’t know - there might have been a mishap on the A1 or M4?

But it’s never been about fashion.

Euros has probably written some of the finest songs of the decade and for us lucky souls he lifts them from their CD cases into new spaces of sound and fury (signifying everything) Opening with Bore Da – eventually – after Euros was reminded of the actually chords he needed to play and issues with his microphone - you could easily see the connections between these early sounds and styles and this new long player. There’s no pause for breath as we hit Second Home Blues – and characters come alive in The Boston Arms.  All frets, regrets and tete a tetes.  Euros is weaving a picture of a bored Britain through Avon Ladies and second mortgages, motorway services and emerging romances. (It’s all economics to me.)

It’s warm inside and there’s a warmth on the stage and it radiates around. We have smiles on our faces because we are happy – even when he’s singing Brides in the Bath – all howls and menace. I was worried about Brides in the Bath – I couldn’t warm to it on the album – it rankled me for some reason – but here receiving the full strength assault of the band in full swing – all discordant and descending - it made sense to me. A killer tune (aha).

An expectant hush greets Parents’ Place – and I’ve said it before – but it brings me to my knees – slays me every time. Backed by the band and still part of the set  from last year  - you see the tragedy mined on Situation Comedy started a long time back on Ends, or The Miracle Inn and even Bora da – there’s a back catalogue there. If you haven’t got it then order it now – from the National Elf himself.

It’s worth every penny. And it funds the next release.

Cottage industries making worldwide music. It’s how it should be – not tainted by the execs and excess of corporate label management – don’t get me wrong I’d love it if Euros was even more widely known than he is – but there’s an integrity about doing it the way that he does. One rehearsal and then get on the road – no leather jackets and Aerosmith entrances for this band. Just Twitter feeds, photos and thank yous – simple connections in digital times. Although to see the Roogie Boogie band dressed in leather with a firework finale could be something worth saving up for. 

And then with the melancholy high in the room – we get that cheery and cheeky little number – Be Be High and then That’s Better. And it was – Euros Childs is simply on it. And number after pop number gets played. And here I am secretly waiting for Tina Said (I also wanted the first two parts of Miracle Inn – but I kind of knew I wasn’t going to get it) because that’s the one that does it for me on Situation Comedy. That driving melody wedded to a folk tradition that stretches way, way back to when I was younger. When we were younger. It’s another one for my children – we had it on a loop in the days before the concert. I like the fact my children sing Euros Childs numbers and ask about Lou Reed when their mum and I are mouthing disbelief at him dying. They’re not hip kids – they’re just good at listening. Open and honest. Which is what I get from Euros – he looks – he sees the minutiae – the odd glance, a glint in the eye, a beauty in the banal – ‘with her suitcase full she’s out of the door on the B13 to Teddlymore’  (Listen to Avon Lady)

And the set continues to confound and please – new songs and old ones. There was a chance to win a prize – because anything goes at a Euros gig maaaaaaan. And all the while it was leading to a blistering psychedelic romp through ‘Like This Then Try This’. A genuine aural assault. You know it’s going to go off when the Casio is deployed. Three hundred people dressed as cheese all dancing to the rhythm of the beat – you had to be there. If you weren’t – then why not?

Encoring with Spin that Girl Around with extra flute from Laura – this man in the audience is wearing a grin as long as ‘your’ arm and as always I had to buy something.  Having already received my copy of Situation Comedy through the post – you’ll have to decide what I bought by visiting Euros’ site and checking out the back catalogue.

So off I rolled into the cold November night. Happy again. So roll on next year.

I’ll be there. Dressed as cheese. Will you?

There's lots to watch and listen to in this post - Here's Euros from The Boston Arms last Friday, and then Laura J Martin and finally there's a video of Ants from a Glasgow gig by The Wellgreen. (Thanks to Ruth for putting these up amd Mike Watts for the Laura J Martin one and Geomck for The Wellies)

"I never travel far without a little Big Star"

I’ve been listening to Big Star. In fact I’ve been learning to play some Big Star tunes – they can have that effect on you. And Big Star are one of those early 1970s bands that time forgot (for a while). You know there are heaps and heaps of neglected bands – releasing songs of beauty and warmth – songs that bring you to your knees. Yet no one at the time had the time – do you get me? I mean the Velvet Underground hardly sold a record back in the 60s heyday – too New Yoooorrrrkkk man.  But Big Star – signed to Stax – having No.1 hit maker Box Tops Alex Chilton in the fold – really never sold any records.

No one wanted to listen to them. 

They couldn’t give them away.  Oh they had the reviews. Those who write about pop liked them. But not the regular (hey) Joe. It’s probably safe to say that Manson or Heavy Stereo sold more of their tunes in their day then Alex, Jody, Chris and Andy sold in theirs. Which is criminal – there is no other way to put it. This is a band formed in Memphis and in love with the simplicity of The Beatles and the power of pop that released three beautiful long players of honesty, integrity and invention. If you don’t own ‘em – then you should do.

And you will do when you’ve had a listen.

So where does it start. Once again with pale saints and late nights in Leeds.  Graeme Naysmith taped Dinosaur’s first album on one side of a cassette and ‘Third/Sister Lovers’ on side b and sent it winging it's way from Harold Avenue. This hallucinatory and untidy masterpiece of Chilton and Stephens  recorded at Ardent Studies – was just tucked away on tape. This must have been 1988. Before Teenage Fanclub had begun to mine that beautiful swamp rock and chime of Chilton’s gang and bring Big Star to the masses – to all us lads and lasses. Well I’m sure Teenage Fanclub were regular listeners up in the concrete jungle of Glasgow. But I’d never heard such fragility and beauty in Scunthorpe – it was all furnaces and smoke – heavy. Do you get me? It was the utter desolation in Chilton’s voice – notes stretched and broken – enquiring and imploring over guitars that break and howl and collapse in on themselves. Yet there’s a brooding rock n roll inherent throughout.

A menace in the misery.

I mean they had a rock n roll number called ‘Holocaust’. It wasn’t for the faint hearted – yet theres wonderful baroque like chiming guitars on songs like Kizza Me or Stroke it Noel and ‘Thank your friends’ sitting next to the desolation of Kangaroo. You know this a story blighted by mistrust, wrong moves, failing friendships, paranoia and drug abuse. It was always going to be.  

Actually – now I’m beginning to write about this discovery – this chance encounter with Big Star  - it starts earlier. A seven inch single – bought from Record Village – This Mortal Coil – 4AD super group singing super songs – Kangaroo. Possible heard on John Peel but bought by Paul and played in back bedrooms on Scunthorpe streets. Tapping into adolescent hopefulness and that feeling of falling in love. I first saw you , You had on blue jeans , Your eyes couldn't hide anything , I saw you breathing, oh. What seems just a surface emotion running ever deeper. Alex Chilton is the master of all that. He captures love as it emerges and flourishes and ends and breaks – in car parks and diners. Or if you were growing up in a steeltown in bus shelters and school corridors.

Big Star always manage to find a way into the car. I don’t mean they’ve got a spare set of keys – or I find them on the back seat – but they feature on many compilations – CDs to drive away to. From On the street and the high glam of No1 Record, to I’m in love with a girl, September Gurls and currently Thirteen.

Thirteen is simply beautiful.

A guitar and harmonies. There’s a post out there beyond these walls that Thirteen refers to when Alex first saw The Beatles. It captures that innocence and defiance of the time with his reference to Paint it Black and parents on his back, it’s both free and tense at the same time – like a child just shooting off their mouth. This pretty tune and it is pretty - is imbued with tension and beneath lurks the energy of a young man. There’s something doomed lurking in the spaces on the track.

There was something doomed about Big Star. They reformed for a while – but it didn’t last. Their music will though. I’m just passing it on. Like Graeme did on that tape.

Thank you friends. 

"I never travel far without a little Big Star"

I’ve been listening to Big Star. In fact I’ve been learning to play some Big Star tunes – they can have that effect on you. And Big Star are one of those early 1970s bands that time forgot (for a while). You know there are heaps and heaps of neglected bands – releasing songs of beauty and warmth – songs that bring you to your knees. Yet no one at the time had the time – do you get me? I mean the Velvet Underground hardly sold a record back in the 60s heyday – too New Yoooorrrrkkk man.  But Big Star – signed to Stax – having No.1 hit maker Box Tops Alex Chilton in the fold – really never sold any records.

No one wanted to listen to them. 

They couldn’t give them away.  Oh they had the reviews. Those who write about pop liked them. But not the regular (hey) Joe. It’s probably safe to say that Manson or Heavy Stereo sold more of their tunes in their day then Alex, Jody, Chris and Andy sold in theirs. Which is criminal – there is no other way to put it. This is a band formed in Memphis and in love with the simplicity of The Beatles and the power of pop that released three beautiful long players of honesty, integrity and invention. If you don’t own ‘em – then you should do.

And you will do when you’ve had a listen.

So where does it start. Once again with pale saints and late nights in Leeds.  Graeme Naysmith taped Dinosaur’s first album on one side of a cassette and ‘Third/Sister Lovers’ on side b and sent it winging it's way from Harold Avenue. This hallucinatory and untidy masterpiece of Chilton and Stephens  recorded at Ardent Studies – was just tucked away on tape. This must have been 1988. Before Teenage Fanclub had begun to mine that beautiful swamp rock and chime of Chilton’s gang and bring Big Star to the masses – to all us lads and lasses. Well I’m sure Teenage Fanclub were regular listeners up in the concrete jungle of Glasgow. But I’d never heard such fragility and beauty in Scunthorpe – it was all furnaces and smoke – heavy. Do you get me? It was the utter desolation in Chilton’s voice – notes stretched and broken – enquiring and imploring over guitars that break and howl and collapse in on themselves. Yet there’s a brooding rock n roll inherent throughout.

A menace in the misery.

I mean they had a rock n roll number called ‘Holocaust’. It wasn’t for the faint hearted – yet theres wonderful baroque like chiming guitars on songs like Kizza Me or Stroke it Noel and ‘Thank your friends’ sitting next to the desolation of Kangaroo. You know this a story blighted by mistrust, wrong moves, failing friendships, paranoia and drug abuse. It was always going to be.  

Actually – now I’m beginning to write about this discovery – this chance encounter with Big Star  - it starts earlier. A seven inch single – bought from Record Village – This Mortal Coil – 4AD super group singing super songs – Kangaroo. Possible heard on John Peel but bought by Paul and played in back bedrooms on Scunthorpe streets. Tapping into adolescent hopefulness and that feeling of falling in love. I first saw you , You had on blue jeans , Your eyes couldn't hide anything , I saw you breathing, oh. What seems just a surface emotion running ever deeper. Alex Chilton is the master of all that. He captures love as it emerges and flourishes and ends and breaks – in car parks and diners. Or if you were growing up in a steeltown in bus shelters and school corridors.

Big Star always manage to find a way into the car. I don’t mean they’ve got a spare set of keys – or I find them on the back seat – but they feature on many compilations – CDs to drive away to. From On the street and the high glam of No1 Record, to I’m in love with a girl, September Gurls and currently Thirteen.

Thirteen is simply beautiful.

A guitar and harmonies. There’s a post out there beyond these walls that Thirteen refers to when Alex first saw The Beatles. It captures that innocence and defiance of the time with his reference to Paint it Black and parents on his back, it’s both free and tense at the same time – like a child just shooting off their mouth. This pretty tune and it is pretty - is imbued with tension and beneath lurks the energy of a young man. There’s something doomed lurking in the spaces on the track.

There was something doomed about Big Star. They reformed for a while – but it didn’t last. Their music will though. I’m just passing it on. Like Graeme did on that tape.

Thank you friends. 

I'm digging your scene (in between)

It’s been a mixed up, muddled up sequence of months. I can’t seem to find the in to write about sound. There’s old Junior Boy’s Own mix CDs in the car, back to back with a compilation of Horrible Histories numbers – all wonderfully sung and set up and they are jostling with three separate CDs for the kids  - hand picked for the holidays – Adam Ant, The Pale Blue Dots, Dion, Floyd, The Mamas and the Papas, Euros Childs, The Wellgreen and The Velvets and The Ramones – their choices – not mine – and I don’t need to buy them childsize t-shirts to prove a point – they just like the tunes  - and they are competing against downloads of every Festive 50 from 1977 with J Peel’s dulcet tones telling me that Mega City Four are at number 47 and all that. And then chancing across a Planetary Assault Systems Archives Two CD in a second hand shop in the ‘village’ – all adds up to a mixed up muddled up month of this sound and that.

So where to begin?

Sam Knee has a book coming out – book, well collection of photographs and interviews and recollections. It’s called ‘A Scene In Between’. It documents in colour and print this heady mix of youth rebellion neither post-punk nor grunge – not acid house or Britpop. It documents those that existed out there in cities and towns (guaranteed to bring you right down) dressing in secondhand clothes – not ‘vintage’ – we weren’t trying to start a fucking fashion trend. We weren’t stockpiling and ebaying as a business – it was what we wore. We had no money.

The clothes in Oxfam, The Salvation Army, Banardo’s and piled high on jumble sale tables – smelling faintly of death –reflected our 1960s and 1970s mentality. Not mining our past but repositioning style in an age of rampant commercialization and greed. We didn’t pay over the odds for our fabrics and fashions – it was a 50p t-shirt and an old fella’s anorak. Preferably brown.

We had home cut hair and found Chelsea boots in Shoefayre. It wasn’t a scene you could get just off the peg. There wasn’t ‘Urban Outfitters’ – you couldn’t even get it at the time in one place – not Topman nor Clockhouse (note intentional 80s referencing) We did not want to dress like Spandau or Duran Duran. We just wanted something that little bit different – shaped by our musical musings – our attentions drawn to the screech of feedback and threat of rock n roll.

And I guess – as Sam documents so well – it was a scene.  A whole freak scene – this in between lark. We were like minded youth dotted across the country. Of course there was that odd emergence of brutal working class thuggery – I remember in the final days of The Smiths – coach trip to Nottingham – when football chants merged with the chords of The Queen is Dead. Or those throwback misogynistic ogling and bellowing at the blonde singer in whichever ‘shambling’ band was hitting the charts that week.

Now I haven’t seen Sam’s book yet. I’ve read about it – and I hope you have too. I was goint to get myself along to the ‘release’ party – all private invites and nods and winks from publishing companies. It’s hard to imagine that photographs of bowlheaded youth and bands playing the Hull Adelphi and Kool Kat’s in Nottingham suddenly becoming worthy of a private launch – but here we are. Those photographs of an emerging scene – The Pastels or My Bloody Valentine snapped on cheap cameras (110 film anybody?) with cube flashes attached suddenly winging their way around the world into your arms.

But they are.

Sam’s got Stephen Pastel deejaying down at Rough Trade – ba baa ba ba ba baaa (that’s love). Heaven’s above.

It will be a great night I’m sure. I can’t get there. Other commitments. It’s what happens when you get older – but my photographs are in there. I guess yours are too. But seeing those snapshots of past times and fond crimes (against fashion and hair) had me return to the sounds of those singers and strummers of independent pop music. Music on the outside – yet to reach the charts. As I said earlier – way back at the start – my brother managed to get hold of the Peel Festive fifties. Ranging from 1977 right up into the 1990s. And I haven’t listened to it all – I never will – if I’m being honest. But I can read the entries – you don’t have to wait for each night when Peel played them. It’ a simple stream of songs. I  never voted in the Festive fifty. I remember a form in the NME – I think – it may have been a different end of year thing. Anyway you could fill in your choices and send then to John Peel. He would compile and count them. I believe he genuinely counted the votes. You’d just make it up now – you’d have a phone vote and rig the results.

Apologise, take the money and carry on regardless.

But it was that scene – the one from in between – that 85, 86 and 87 thing. Peel’s fifty begins to hint at the crossover – where in between becomes mainstream. Now don’t get me wrong there’s nothing untoward in being popular. Every artist wants the recognition. Just on whose terms is where the line is blurred. But you can sense the change – where Mega City 4 and The Weddoes becomes The Roses and De la Soul. I like the change. But you can we were entering different times. Flares were coming back. I don’t think you’ll see a pair of flares in Sam’s book. You might. Duglas was a true hipster – so you never know what to expect.  Yet I have a feeling I won’t see a pair. That was a scene too far.

Yet I was one of those bowlheaded youths in Sam’s book. And the connections made in the past resonate in the present.  We were all out of time and step with the modern world. We weren’t trying to recreate a sixties – we were just having our phase of experimentation with jangling guitars and stand up drums. It was a backlash to mass production. We were sick of style over substance – of that wake me up before you day-glo sheen on our screen when the Tory government were tearing down everything the spirit of ’45 had overseen. You know common sense prevails in the face of socialism – because it just wouldn’t work. Oh well – better listen to the Sea Urchins then – takes your mind off the fact the factories were closing and you were on free school meals. Or it just might have focused it.

Different strokes for different folks see. 

Sam’s book is a majestic affair – an affair of the heart. I can see why we all contributed those photographs from the past. Because back then it mattered. It felt we weren’t just part and parcel of a system that serves to commodify and homogenise culture. We were politicised – we talked about equality – we wanted a different system.

My Bloody Valentine feature in the book, you know that Dave Conway era – slightly airbrushed and rewritten now. But MBV offered something different beneath it all, and the Mary Chain, and The Pastels – and  and and.  MBV can’t even get nominated for an industry award these days – because they’re still on the outside looking in – well actually not looking in – looking away.

Looking the other way. Just as we did back then. Here’s to more scenes in between – they unite the fray(ed) and the fucked up.

As it’s been a while here are three songs to listen to.  They represent the scowl and the menace – the aesthetic and dedication to find glamour in the faded towns we all grew up in.