The Best 40 Crossover Tracks (28 – 26) – Where Exciting Things Happen

In the winter of 1995, my flatmate and ‘lighting specialist’ Johnny got himself a girlfriend, a proper, “let’s walk in the park, holding hands” type of girlfriend.  Something, which took him completely outside of his comfort zone – then again anything outside of bar or the kitchen tended to be outside of his comfort zone.  To this day, he’ll tell you that the only reason that girls, women and one occasion, boys found him attractive was because he would occasionally stand behind some decks and press play on a double CD player and button a switch from left to right or vice versa.

She, was called Natalie (I’ve changed her name) and she got talking to him one Thursday night as we prepared to welcome long lost Birmingham indie punk band Angel Cage on to the stage – and you’ll have to make do with the You Tube version.

Princess Die – Angel Cage (1995, Chapter 22 Records)

I wandered across to the bar to grab a couple more drinks and by the time I got back the two of them were swapping tonsil care advice against the door of the DJ Booth, as her friend looked on, ashamed.   The were still there 45 minutes later when the band had, ahem, come and gone.  It’s really, again, ahem, hard to DJ when a two people who have only just started being together, can’t be bothered to, get a room and make do with a small cramped space just behind you.  Although saying that, they did actually get a room later as I found out on most evenings (and mornings and afternoons).

Anyway, my point is that our next poster campaign advertising our club nights featured Johnny and Natalie tongues interlocked in the DJ booth alongside the slogan’

“INDIE NIGHT – WHERE EXCITING THINGS HAPPEN”

Shouting out from it. 

For some reason we remained the most popular club night on campus.  Here are three more tracks where exciting things happen.

28 – Jailbird (Dust Brothers Mix) – Primal Scream (1994, Creation Records)

See Also Patrol – Chemical Brothers (1997, Beggars Banquet Records)

I’m not sure that I’m ready to go the full Primal Scream yet, but Bobby G wrote a really lovely piece in the Guardian the other day about the death of Shane MacGowan, so the ban is temporarily lifted. 

Anyway, yesterday we discussed the indie rockstars who were falling over themselves to be on dance records, in the same breath we can also talk about the number of indie bands who recruited a growing breed of so called superstar DJs to remix their records.  Primal Scream of course, were no strangers to this, bearing in mind that their biggest hits whereas a result of a superstar DJ mixing the life out it – but they kind of set the trend for a bunch of indie bands to follow suit.

Enter then the Dust Brothers, who, as well as spearheading the whole Big Beat scene (along side Fatboy and the Prodigy) were remixing nearly everything that they could.  In 1994, the got their hands on ‘Jailbird’ from the underwhelming fourth Primal Scream album (well underwhelming in comparison to what came before and after it) added some chunky beats and some samples and made it about fifty times better.    Chemical Brothers remixes will feature again here throughout this series.

27 – Psyche Rock (Malpasso Mix) – Pierre Henry (1967, Philips Records, Remixed in 1996)

See Also Teen Tonic (Dmitri from Paris Mix) – Pierre Henry (1967, Philips Records, Remixed in 1996)

Though of course, anything that the Chemical Brothers or the Dust Brothers if you like could do, Fatboy Slim could do just as well.  In 1996, in some down time, he remixed (along with fellow innovators, Coldcut) a track from a ballet score composed by Pierre Henry – which had sort of already been updated by the makers of Futurama – and somehow made it into a club sensation. 

The Malpasso Mix of ‘Psyche Rock’ is incredible it sounds like the theme from Disney’s ‘The Love Bug’, it has bells, whistles, beats, bleeps, surf guitars  everything on it – it is just incredible and to top all that – the bell section on it (which is the bit that Futurama uses) today reminds me of a kids programme that my daughter watched when she was about four – one that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of – and it reminds me of theme to Chockablock with Fred Harris and his giant calculator.  Its great, all of it. There will be more from Fatboy Slim and his remixes later.

26 – Stakker Humanoid – Humanoid (1988, Westside records)

See Also – Jack The House – Fast Eddie (1987, Westside Records)

I of course, didn’t need to snog the face off impressionable females from the first year, because I already had a girlfriend obviously.   She, of course, didn’t need to enter the DJ booth as she was already way cooler than me, and to be fair, I would often step outside of the both in order to be seen with her.  She did however, own and lend to me a load of old dance twelve inches (most of which are still in the cupboard, cunningly avoiding the stop command) which she somehow managed to persuade to drop into my sets. This usually consisted of her simply asking me to play them. Not that I do requests.

House music was a bit like speed garage where the indie kids were concerned, there was a grudging tolerance to it but an acceptance that when we did play it, usually the dancefloor stayed packed.

A Creation Records Countdown – #1 – Primal Scream

Velocity Possessed

Points 260

Highest Rank 1^st (Five times)

Lowest Scoring Rank 11^th

Velocity Girl – Primal Scream (1986, Creation Records, Single)

Dear Reader,

You may have read recently in the papers or the Internet the words of Louie Duffy, the son of Marin Duffy, the late keyboard player in Primal Scream.  Words that Louie made in a statement released after an inquest into Martin Duffy;s death.  It is a difficult read and one that has found me soul searching a little a bit.  I’m well documented in stating my love for ‘Screamadelica’ and for Primal Scream but right now that album and that band feels a little tainted and Primal Scream’s victory in this rundown – although clearly it means absolutely nothing to anyone really, feels slightly sullied because what I have read.  I have a feeling that some members of the jury would have perhaps voted differently had this story broke earlier.  I could be wrong I could just be swept up in the emotional fragility of it all.

Louie Duffy states that the band left his father out in the cold financially and professionally and he also accuses them of contributing to his isolation before his early death in December 2022 (a death that the coroner states was because of alcohol intoxication and multiple skull fractures after a fall. The inquest also heard that Duffy had been diagnosed with prostate cancer during lockdown).

He said that his dad was broke, living month to month whilst the band reaped the rewards of touring ‘Screamadelica’ an album that Duffy was such an integral part of.  He claims that the band paid Duffy sessions fees to perform it and then when he made mistakes they forced him off the tour.   Louie told the inquest how his dad had fallen into debt following the pandemic and this debt had lead to Duffy’s alcohol addiction spiralling out of control. Duffy says that the band should have helped him.

I think he is probably right, although I can understand a band not wanting one of their band members to be making mistakes on stage due to being drunk.

Now I’m sure that Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes are devastated by the loss of Duffy, I don’t think there can be any real denial of that – they called him a ‘beautiful soul’ when he died and publicly stated that he was the most talented member of the band.   Those close to the band say that they told Duffy he could return to the band once he had stopped drinking.  Which is probably a sensible thing, but surely, they could have helped him overcome that and if the cancer side of things is correct as well, then if what Louie says is true, it’s just awful. But we just don’t know.

We have only heard one side of the story.  A side which until Primal Scream break their silence on the matter, is very convincing.

Bobby Gillespie has himself overcome addiction and it may be that he and his band thought this was the right way (the ‘tough love’ that Louie Duffy speaks of) and there is no guarantee that Duffy would have used any financial assistance to overcome his addiction.  Addiction doesn’t work like that – money helps solve it, but it also makes it easier to fuel it.

Either way, this kind of feels like a hollow victory and other than the song at the top there will be no Primal Scream links today and for a while.  I’ll probably change my mind in the future.

I’m sorry that the Creation Records Countdown has ended on such a disappointing note.  I was really pleased when Primal Scream won because despite them topping my own personal chart, I fully expected the Mary Chain to walk this but then the story referred to above broke and I’ve been scratching my head ever since

I am, as ever, indebted to the Musical Jury Members, your assistance as ever, is appreciated, and as long as none of you mind I will continue to pepper your inboxes with inane questions and pleas for help.  I’ll also every now and again send you some music or links to music as a thank you. You know where I am if you want to join the musical jury.

SWC

June 2023

Desert Island Dick 3

Before I start, today happens to be the 500th No Badger Required Post. Here is a bonus 500 related track. Ok, back slapping over, let’s get back to the parish magazine.

This was the final article that was published in the March edition of the Parish Magazine.  I went for the tongue firmly in cheek approach. 

So there I was on a desert island the other day, well I say island, it’s more of an Atoll than an island.  It’s a bit like the ones that a cartoonist would use when drawing an island.  It is about ten metres in diameter and there is nothing but sand on it, apart from a palm tree stuck in the middle of it, which means that at least my skin will be stay fresh. 

I have no obvious way of contacting the rest of the world.  I have no bottles to stick messages in and even if I did, I don’t have any paper to write messages on, so I decide to carve the words ‘HELP’ out in the sand and then fall asleep under the cover of the palm tree.

Being a proactive sort of chap, I decide to write the word ‘HELP’ in English and French, just in case a passing helicopter or sea plane is being piloted by a non English speaker, and I am half way through this when my hand scraps on something hard and solid.

Weirdly it turns out to be a box, which someone has foolishly left unlocked so that any old person can simply unlock and remove whatever is inside.  I drag the box out of its sandy grave and with some caution in case it is a booby trapped treasure chest left by a one legged man with a parrot on his shoulder, I throw the box open.

It isn’t full of treasure.  It contains five things, three pieces of music, a book and a very special thing.  This makes me laugh because I was literally listening to a repeat of Radio 4’s ‘Desert Island Discs’ when the Russians blew up my plane. 

The three pieces of music are by sheer unbridled luck, three pieces of music that I would take to a desert island with me, should I ever wish to have a very secluded beach holiday. They are as follows:

Green Calx by Aphex Twin (Warp Records)

Which if you haven’t heard it before (and I guessing many of you probably haven’t) is full of burbling basslines, synthy interjections, spring noises, clanks, whirrs and electronic trickery and despite it being only six minutes in length you could listen to it a thousand times and it will never ever sound the same.  Which is lucky as I am going to be here for a while.

The second piece of music is

All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem (DFA Records)

Again, for those in the dark, this is a song full of nostalgia and it will remind of my time back at home with my family and friends, it has lyrics about the sun coming up, about bad movies and about making stupid decisions and it has the greatest final 30 seconds of any song ever recorded (Face facts ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’).

The last piece of music is

Come Together (Farley Mix) – Primal Scream (Creation Records)

Which would please me greatly because it tells me that whoever left these pieces of music in this box agreed with me that this is the definitive version of this record.  Its nine minutes of sheer brilliance.

The book has a note attached to it.  It reads “There was a copy of ‘The Complete Works of Shakespeare’ as well but ‘The Winter’s Tale’, bored me to tears, so I burnt the whole lot one cold evening”.  Underneath the note was a well-thumbed copy of ‘Watership Down’ by Richard Adams, again, this is lucky because it’s the greatest novel ever written (face facts John Grisham). 

Which leaves us with just the very special thing because there under the music and the book is what every castaway needs when stuck on a ten metre wide island.  Three thousand pieces of various types of lego.  I have wheels, windows, roof bits, and three green base plates, so if you excuse me, I have some building to do.

On Monday – The Musical Jury is back as a new No Badger Required Countdown judders, jitteringly and jelly like into view.  Bands will jostle and joust their way into view as they all jump up and down joyously as they wait to see who will be crowned Rocks Greatest J.

A Month Curated by A Ten Year Old #18

Higher Than The Sun (Dub Symphony in Two Parts) – Primal Scream (1990, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Screamadelica’)

I mean of course there is going to be Primal Scream, my daughter grew up listening to Primal Scream.  I’m pretty sure that I played her the Farley version of ‘Come Together’ when she was about two months old and I definitely played her ‘Loaded’ one Christmas before we went to a party, I remember us dancing round the lounge to it.  She was probably four then and even then all she wanted to do was be free to do what she wanted to do.

Actually, that party was kind of fun, it was an old school dayglo rave designed to cater for young children.  You turned up were handed some glow sticks, some healthy drinks and a ticket to Santa and then lead into a massive room where child friendly dance music played and children ran around waving their glow sticks at each other, whilst dads tried to out dad rave dance each other and shout about how good Utah Saints were back in the day.   Which they obviously were.

Something Good – Utah Saints (1992, London Records, Taken from ‘Utah Saints’)

Later we posed for photos in our two sizes too big Christmas jumpers with stupid Christmas hats perched lopsidedly on top of our heads.  Raves for children shouldn’t work and should be terrible idea but for some inexplicable reason they work brilliantly.

I’d like to think that whatever version of ‘Higher Than The Sun’ I posted on here wouldn’t need much of an introduction.  But just in case let me stretch out a bit – I think ‘Higher Than The Sun’ sums up Primal Scream and the whole ‘Screamdelica’ thing better than any other Primal Scream song – sure ‘Come Together’ and ‘Loaded’ are better songs, but as musical experiences go, ‘Higher Than The Sun’ takes you places that music shouldn’t ever be able to take you.  Its bloody fantastic, all those squelchy synths, a beat that it is impossible to actually dance to, but nigh on perfect to gently sway in a field at midnight to and even though this song is more than thirty years old, it still feels like a visitor from the future has handed you something that the kids from the year 3000 listen to.

Let’s press that shuffle button again and see what we get.

Le Responsable – Jacques Dutronc (1969, Disque Vogue, Taken from ‘Jacques Dutronc 1970’)

I’m probably, erm, responsible for this being on nearly very playlist that my daughter has made (it is not on the one solely made up with songs that have the word ‘cat’ in the title – a series that perhaps might feature later in the year – perhaps not).  ‘Le Responsible’ is a great blast of late sixties sophisti-pop, a swirl of garage-y guitars, some wonky sounding organ and un voix incroyable.  It’s a song that I have played to death since it featured on a documentary about the Welsh football team and their performances at Euro 2016. 

When ‘Le Responsable’ was originally released back in 1969 it came backed with this Gallic slab of debonair greatness. 

L’Aventurier – Jacques Dutronc (1969, Disque Vogue, B Side)

Join us next week for the final two instalments of this series, we kick Monday off with Sabres of Paradise and if you can find a better way to start a Monday morning, I’d like to hear it.

A Month all about Names – #18 – Johnny

Johnny Borrell Afterlife – Future of the Left (2013, Prescriptions Records, Taken from ‘How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident’)

For years I delivered newspapers to a street of relatively big houses about half an hour’s walk from my dads house.   Every day I would lug my bag up the hill and traipse down driveways to deliver these papers.  Nearly all of the houses were fans of the right wing press, I delivered more Daily Mails and Telegraphs along that road than any other street.  Most of the people on that road were Tory voting scum suckers who never gave you a tip at Christmas and moaned at you if dismantled their Sunday Times so that you could get in through their ridiculously tiny letterboxes.  Some would then moan if you left the paper on the doorstep – because you got bollocked for dismantling the paper last week.  So you were left in this limbo as to how they actually would like their paper delivered.

I hated every house in that street.  Apart from number 50. 

Number 50 belonged to the family who read the Guardian during the week and the Observer on a Sunday and on a Wednesday, they took the NME as well.  They also gave me a fiver every Christmas as well.  They also had a box to put the papers in, because they realised that they didn’t fit in the letterboxes.  I always wanted to shake the owners of number 50 by the hand.

About a year after I stopped delivering newspapers I started college and gradually I built up a group of friends who I would see every day on the train, one of these was Johnny.  Johnny is sort of mate everyone has, the sort of mate who doesn’t care if he is the only person dancing at a nightclub, he loves this song and he’’ll damn well dance to it if he wants to.  The sort of mate who will come and get you from a night out if you need a lift and have lost your train ticket or missed your train because you were in the woods with some girl and lost track of time.  The sort of mate who will send you a bottle of grog through the post in your first week at university, just in case you needed it.

The second time I meet Johnny we walked back from the train station together, and we got talking about where we lived and all that – and Johnny told me he lived on that street with all the big houses.  I sighed inwardly.  I told him I used to deliver papers up that road, to which replied, “Did you deliver to number 50?”.  Because that was where his parents lived.

‘Johnny Borrell Afterlife’ is taken from the fourth studio by Cardiff’s Future of the Left.  You will all probably be aware that two of Future of the Left used to be in the vastly influential indie punk band McLusky before their demise.  The twist in this tale is that Future of the Left are now seemingly on an indefinite hiatus and McLusky appear to be back.   Either way anything involving Andy Falkous is usually a good thing so I probably doesn’t matter.

There are a few Johnny songs in the old music library, here are three of them. 

Goodbye Johnny – Primal Scream (2013, Ignition Records, Taken from ‘More Light’) – ‘Goodbye Johnny’ isn’t actually a Primal Scream song at all but a version of a song written by Jeffery Lee Pierce from Gun Club.  It features on Primal Scream’s tenth album ‘More Light’ which I will say is the last decent album that they band recorded, but I am stretching the definition of ‘decent’ a little bit.

Johnny Bagga Donuts  – Palma Violets (2013, Rough Trade Records, Taken from ‘180’) – Palma Violets were back in 2012, hailed as the great hopes of indie rock and their debut album ‘180’ caused quite a splash.  Sadly every record they released after ‘180’ has been a bit duff. 

Finally from Violet to Violent and a live song from a Violent Femmes compilation album that I found in a charity shop just in Truro.

Johnny (Live) – Violent Femmes (1993, Slash Records, Taken from ‘Add It Up’)

On Monday – Jason – whose listening to Breeders on CD

Nearly Perfect Albums – #51

Vanishing Point – Primal Scream

Kowalski – Primal Scream (1997 Creation Records)

It is clear to anyone that knows me that Primal Scream have not and will not ever make a record as flawlessly perfect as ‘Screamadelica’.   That record for those who haven’t grasped the point is one of the eight perfect records.  The question for me is, what is the next best Primal Scream album and the answer to that changes at least once a week, but for now, the second best Primal Scream album is ‘Vanishing Point’. 

According to Sir Bobby of Gillespie, Primal Scream’s fifth studio album ‘Vanishing Point is an ‘Anarcho- syndicalist speedfreak road movie of a record’.  I’m not sure what half of those words mean, but I do know one thing. ‘Vanishing Point’ is one heck of an album.

It is a record that revels in the musical freedom it seems to have.  It is full of fuzzy guitars, deep, rattling dub basslines, sparse blasts of electronica and as it reaches its smoky climax a growing sense of unsettling psychedelic paranoia that even beautiful moments of calm can’t quite contain.  It is an album that saw the band once again reinvent themselves, and with the exception of ‘Screamadelica’, ‘Vanishing Point’ represents some of the most artistically ambitious music that the band have ever made.

Its shining beacon is perhaps the menacing sounding Krautrock flavoured ‘Kowalski’ with its samples about “Blue Meanies and Speed” lifted straight from the 1971 Vanishing Point (of which Gillespie claims that this album should be made the official soundtrack to – and – by the way – he’s right).  The same sort of menacing swagger (although this one is courtesy of super sub Mani and his mood throttling bassline) can be heard on ‘If They Move, Kill ‘Em’ (a track which would get a workover two years later when Kevin Shields got his hands on it).

If They Move, Kill ‘Em – Primal Scream (1997, Creation Records)

Even the more traditional guitar driven songs such as their cover of ‘Motorhead’ sound different, more pumped, more driven by speed (either the mechanical or the medicinal kind), and ultimately more menacing. 

Motorhead – Primal Scream (1997, Creation Records)

But then there are the less narcotic influence moments on the album.  The beautiful moments of calm that I mention a couple of paragraphs ago.  Tracks like ‘Get Duffy’ pick up where ‘Screamadelica’ left off.  ‘Get Duffy’ is impossibly cool and on an album where fuzzy guitars hump furiously with dub basslines, this feels like post coital cigarette.

Get Duffy – Primal Scream (1997, Creation Records)

There is an argument of course that ‘Vanishing Point’ is Primal Scream’s most significant record in that it laid the ground for what followed.  That being the also nearly perfect ‘XTRMNTR’ and the violently noisy ‘Evil Heat’ (which is folks, as I’ve gone there, not anywhere near being nearly perfect).  It’s also the first album that the band produced all by themselves and that they deliberately recorded a non zeitgeisty record when that would have been so much easier – the public after all wanted ‘Rocks Part II’ but instead got the huge sprawling blissed out dub majesty of ‘Burning Wheel’. 

Burning Wheel – Primal Scream (1997, Creation Records)

A week of tracks from a pile of CDs that were at the front of the Cupboard – #1

Like a lot of people in the UK, my wife and daughter were ill over the Christmas period.  For long periods of time the two of them retreated to their beds in a fugue of coughing, spluttering, sneezing and sniffing.  Every hour or so I would make them drinks, offer them sandwiches and sit with them for a short while and then head back to the lounge where I would idly wander around on my own wandering what on earth, I should do with myself.

Stuck on a Loop – The ILL (2018, Box Records, Taken from ‘We are ILL’)

The answer to that question was obvious I binge watched violent Japanese serials that are on Netflix (Seriously if you haven’t watched ‘Alice in Borderland’ yet do so as soon as you can), and ate all the cake, biscuits and sweets that Santa delivered.  When I’d done that I decided to try and come up with some new ideas for the blog.

Biscuits – Kacey Musgraves (2015 Mercury Records, Taken from ‘Pageant Material)

Most of the ideas I come up with this horse and pony show masquerading as a blog come to me when I am doing something else entirely unconnected.  For instance, the idea for ‘Kids, Eh’ came to me when I was out for a run and something from ‘Kid A’ came on the iPod.  When I actually sit down and suck a thoughtful tooth and try to physically come up with ideas, it usually ends with a blank bit of paper or the words ‘Cover Versions’ written about halfway down an otherwise blank piece of paper.

Androgynous – Nation of Language (2022, Play It Again Sam Records, Single)

This time is sadly no different.  I do write a few things down, ideas that are so terrible or so blatantly unoriginal that I won’t trouble you with the details of them (although one of them has the sprouting of a good idea).  I sigh to myself and think its ok, I’ll just carry on with the series I have running.  But the little devil on my shoulder tells me, they are so last year.  My head finally turns to the cupboard where I keep the vinyl, surely in there I can find some inspiration or at the very least a bunch of decent tracks that I can cobble some sort of series out of it. Best Indie Ballads….Anyone…..?

Once Again – Cud (1993, A&M Records, Taken from ‘Asquarius’) – which to be honest even if I was doing, ‘Best Indie Ballads’, which I’ not, that wouldn’t feature in it.

I don’t quite reach the vinyl because there at the front of the cupboard are two piles of CDs.  CDs that I have put in the cupboard for some reason.  Some of them have been picked up in charity shops and I simply haven’t got round to burning them, others are CDs that I have owned for ages and have grabbed them to listen to in the car and haven’t put them back where they should be (in one of three big boxes in the corner of the lounge)

So for this week only as a stopgap until I can come up with some better ideas, I present a series of posts that revolve around the 20 or so CDs that are stacked neatly in front of the vinyl and we are going to start with this simply because its on the top of the pile : – 

Kill All Hippies – Primal Scream (2000, Creation Records, Taken from ‘XTRMNTR’) – ‘Kill All Hippies’ is taken from Primal Screams brilliant vowel hating album ‘XTRMNTR’ and is very much a CD I would have grabbed to listen to in the car.  I actually own two copies of this album, both on CD, I picked up a second copy because I thought I’d lost my first copy, only to find it about a week after buying the second copy (which I found in a branch of Oxfam in Exeter).

MBV Arkestra (If They Move Kill ‘Em) – Primal Scream (2000, Creation Records, Taken from ‘XTRMNTR’)

Retrospective Musical Naval Gazing – #9 (1999)

On New Years Eve in the small seaside town of Teignmouth, people used to dress up in fancy dress.   For some reason hoards of people descended on the town and took advantage of the towns many pubs.  Around 9pm a grand parade would take place and prizes would be given out to the best costumes.  It was always a fun evening my friends and I would usually wander around the towns charity shops before hand buying up the most garish and awful clothes and then hit the town.  In 1999 I’m fairly sure I wore a blonde wig, a multi coloured shirt and some bright red cord trousers, just because I could. 

At around midnight people would emerge from the pubs and wander onto the beach and see in the New Year with cheers, snogging and back slapping.  After that most people would mooch off home or back into one of the late night pubs.  In the centre of Teignmouth is a small pedestrianised area called The Triangle (it being oblong shaped, it made sense to call it that) and smack in the middle of that is a large fountain, which lit up and made the water look various different colours (it is now switched off and grass grows out of it) and there in that fountain is where at 1230am on January 1^st 1999 I saw Batman and a giant chicken having a marvellously drunken (and wet) scrap.  Moments like that can easily make you think that it was going to be a great year.

The record that topped my end of year chart around 360 days later wasn’t a single but was comfortably the greatest single piece of music I heard all year and if I recall correctly might well have been the first track that I played in the year 2000. 

Streets of Kenny – Shack (1999, London Records, Taken from ‘HMS Fable’) – which I’m sure you’ll agree still sounds all kinds of wonderful.

In second place was a track that if were lucky enough to have ever been given a lift by me anyway in the second part of 1999, you would have heard about eight times as it featured on nearly every mixtape that I made for the car.

Dirge – Death in Vegas (1999, Concrete Records, Taken from ‘The Contino Sessions’)

In the summer of 1999, I went on holiday to Malta and during a day trip to its crumbling capital Valletta I stumbled across a small market and there tucked away in the corner was a guy selling clearly bootlegged versions of the latest releases.  Which was where I picked up my copy of Moby’s all conquering ‘Play’ album for the princely sum of two Euros.  At Number five in the 1999 chart was this slow paced dance classic from that album.

Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? – Moby (1999, Mute Records, Taken from ‘Play’)

Elsewhere in my Top Ten, the usual blend of big beats, guitars and hip hop.   Primal Scream were at six (and should have been higher probably) with a remix and The Charlatans scraped into tenth position with their seven minute epic ‘Forever’.

Swastika Eyes (Chemical Brothers Mix) – Primal Scream (1999, Creation Records, Taken from ‘XTMNTR’)

Forever – The Charlatans (1999, Island Records, Taken from ‘Us and Us Only’)

The One Word Countdown – #3

What is it that you want to do…..

Loaded – Primal Scream (1990, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Screamadelica’)

Points 240

It starts, as we all know, with a trumpet riff, a lazy, reverb groove loosely tracked by a guitar.  Then you get that snatch of dialogue from ‘The Wild Angels’ “What is it you want to do…?” and frankly all hell breaks loose. A crash of an electric guitar, a lazy bongo drum beat, more samples (from The Emotions and an obscure Edie Brickell track) and suddenly the UK had its first genuinely brilliant, genuinely genre bending indie dance classic.

When ‘Loaded’ landed in February 1990 it was the band first hit record, and it blew the mind of a certain 14 year old boy who up until that point, only really listened to ‘Now That’s What I Called Music Vol. 8’.

It was everything about ‘Loaded’, the effortless cool nature of the music, the samples that were so perfect, the look of the band.  Everything.  I sat gobstruck as the band appeared on Top of the Pops, as Bobby Gillespie who according to my dad “Looked Half Dead” stood centre stage, clearly miming and pretty much french kissed the microphone as the trumpet riff (despite there being precisely no trumpet players on stage) and the looping shuffle of guitar swirled away behind it.  They didn’t even pretend to play or sing and yet it was so cool.  It was at that point that I knew that I wanted to make as glorious a racket as Primal Scream did, I wanted to have a good time and I definitely wanted to have a party.

‘Loaded’ set the precedent for nearly everything that followed, bands that were usually associated with a scuzzy grunge sound suddenly experimented with dance – The Soup Dragons, The Farm, The Shamen and even The Stone Roses who twisted ‘Fools Gold’ to the point that it also became a rave anthem.  That sound that indie dance sound, was the soundtrack of the next summers and let’s be honest it was brilliant (apart from The Farm) as bands competed to make the next great indie dance record.

Obviously, the Musical Jury agreed it with me.  Because out of all the songs on the list to choose from, none of them was selected by our Musical Jury members as often as ‘Loaded’ was.   If every person who voted for placed it one position higher it would have easily have won the entire thing, but they didn’t. Regardless, ‘Loaded’ is an astonishing piece of work and was a record that seriously changed my life.

There were a bunch of other Primal Scream songs that were considered, none of which I think would have done as well ‘Loaded’.

Rocks – Primal Scream (1994, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Give Out, But Don’t Give Up’)

Accelerator – Primal Scream (2000, Creation Records, Taken from ‘XRTMNTR’)

Kowalski – Primal Scream (1997, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Vanishing Point’)

Its Monday, Let’s Swear – #16

Pills – Primal Scream (2000, Creation Records)

Bobby calm down.  

It’s ok mate, it was only an iPod Nano, seriously I can buy another one in which I can reload all your best songs and jog past the marina in Torquay as you warble on about syphilitic aliens and whatnot and then when I get home, I can continue to tell the world how great you are.  Honestly, it’s ok.  Be Cool.

Slight diversion here, a few years ago me and the wife travelled down to Cornwall to watch Primal Scream at the Eden Project on the 20^th anniversary ‘Screamadelica’ tour.  We stayed the night at a Bed and Breakfast in the wilds of the St Austell countryside.  We told the owner we would be back quite late as we were going to the Eden Project to see Primal Scream.  She was pretty oblivious to who they were.  The following morning as we ate our organic granola and drunk our freshly squeezed juice in the rose garden, the owner asked us how our “Primeval Scream” was. 

Oh how we laughed at her ignorance.

But you see, she was clever our hostess, because before asking us that question she had clearly been listening to ‘Pills’ the most furious track on Primal Scream’s most furious album, the vowel hating, government baiting wonder that it ‘XTRMNTR’.  Because folks ‘Pills’ is as close, musically, as you will ever get to hearing an actual Primeval Scream laid down on wax – or whatever it is you lay music down on these days.

Essentially ‘Pills’ is the briefest of glances inside the head of Bobby Gillespie, or perhaps in this case, it’s a glimpse inside his bathroom cabinet.  Based on the final third of ‘Pills’ that ain’t a pretty place, but then again, practically no one expected it to be.  What essentially starts as your average Primal Scream song (one of the weakest on the xcllnt ‘xtrmntr’) descends into a nightmarish clash of sounds, strings, beats, shouts, yelps, but mostly pretty impressive swearing.

Exterminator (Massive Attack Mix) – Primal Scream (2000 Creation Records)