50 Twelve Inches – #37

Star Sign – Teenage Fanclub (1991, Creation Records)

I was listening to this radio show this other day whilst in the car.  It was one of those phone in ones, where the cheery DJ gives the listener a topic and the listener then phones in and regales the audience with a tale.  Today’s topic was the rather open ended, “Strange but True”.  So you got Brenda from Cullompton phoning in telling people some strange fact that she has picked up about post codes , which is neither interesting nor that strange, and Todd from Porlock Bay (where fans of the slightly dubious Mr Tumble flock to because that is where it was filmed ) tells everyone a slightly fascinating story about the why Nipples Hill on Exmoor is so call – “and it’s not for the reason you might be expecting”, he says with a laugh.

It’s all very whimsical, until its Stuart from Bickleigh turn that is.  Bickleigh, for those who don’t know it, is a small village just outside Tiverton that holds its own strange but true slice of rock history – or so they say – it is debatable as to whether or not it actually true or not – but there is an ancient road crossing over the river Exe in Bickleigh, and one Sunday afternoon, after lots of rain, a certain Paul Simon sat in the pub opposite the bridge, eating a roast dinner, and came up with the idea of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters’.  Why Paul Simon would be in Mid Devon eating a Sunday Roast at the height of his fame, is anyone guess…Anyway, I’m digressing, Stuart from Bickleigh.

Stuart tells us that he has recently been having a clear out at his mothers house, as she has moved in with him and his wife, Louise.  The other day the found a load of old photograph albums and he, his mum and the lovely Louise spent a wistful afternoon flicking through them. One of these albums had pictures of Stuart on holiday in the sun kissed beach resort of Skegness when he was five, there he was sitting on the sea wall eating an ice cream with a goofy grin on his face, as he smiles at the camera.  He passes the photo of to Louise to look at, which is when she takes a closer look at the photo and says with the utmost certainty, “that’s me in the background”, because there in the background, staring at the photo, is a five year old Louise.

Now, that isn’t necessarily the strange thing about this story – the chances of two people, who didn’t know each other at the time, but now do, both being at a Butlins Resort in the eighties isn’t necessarily that rare, they were really popular in the eighties.  Nor is it strange that Stuart has opted to repeat a much told urban myth to the listeners of Radio Devon on a Tuesday morning.  I doubt that Stuart has a wife at all in fact – but what’s strange is that Stuart then said that Skegness was one of the best places to go on holiday in the world and that he and Louise still go there regularly. 

The twelve inch that the finger of fate stopped on today after the STOP command was hollered is ‘Star Sign’ by Teenage Fanclub, an all time indie rock classic from a band who were back in 1991 at a height of their creative brilliance, saying that they’ve never really slipped far from creative brilliance to be fair.

‘Star Sign’ was the lead off single from Teenage Fanclub’s third album ‘Bandwagonesque’, an album which took Teenage Fanclub from being highly rated indie gods in the making to even more highly rated indie gods in the making, largely because it failed to trouble the charts, something with the band grew very familiar with in the following months.  Not having success was something that they seemed quite comfortable with, they always cam across as the sort of band that didn’t really want to be superstars and yet despite having the perfect melodies and the wonderful harmonies, what they had the most of was perhaps humility.

The twelve inch in the cupboard was bought from Our Price, in Chatham, probably in the OPG era of my life, in fact almost certainly.  It came backed with three tracks, the first was a cover version that had surfaced a while earlier on their second album ‘The King’ which the band famously wrote, recorded, released and then deleted in the space of 48 hours. 

Like A Virgin – Teenage Fanclub (1991, Creation Records)

The flip side had two other songs, neither of which were ‘new’ songs, the first one ‘Heavy Metal 6’ was also on ‘The King’ and the other was a demo version of ‘Star Sign’, all ace though.

Heavy Metal 6 – Teenage Fanclub (1991, Creation Records)

Star Sign (demo) – Teenage Fanclub (1991, Creation Records)

Here is the no more than five word review, which I take as a personal insult.

“Libras are better than Gemini’s”

For this weeks recommendation my daughter has gone big and offered us the new country and western tinged Beyonce track, ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’, something which as it happens, is a rather fine thing anyway.

Texas Hold ‘Em – Beyonce (2024, Columbia Records)

In comparison, here is something by London DIY indie act C Turtle, who might just be my new favourite band.

More Insects – C Turtle (2024, Blitzcat Records)

A month of Lost Indie 45’s- #20 Heaven Sent an Angel – Revolver

Heaven Sent an Angel – Revolver (1992, Hut Records, Taken from ‘Baby’s Angry’)

This series draws a close with another band who probably should have been far more successful than they actually managed to be.  Revolver were a three piece from London who I saw supporting Teenage Fanclub in 1992 (I think at least) and thought were excellent.  Within a week I’d found two of their EP’s – the debut one imaginatively titled ‘45’ and the second one called ‘Crimson’ in a shop in Maidstone.  By the end of week two, I’d declared Revolver to be the best new band in Britain to anyone who was listening, which to be fair, wasn’t that many people.  Partly because I was wrong and partly because everyone knew by then that Mint 400 were the best new band in Britain (or Suede were, delete as applicable).

Gas – Mint 400 (1992, Incoherent Records)

Metal Mickey – Suede (1992, Nude Records)

Anyway, despite those other noiseniks Revolver were excellent and were very nearly the Best new Band in Britain.  Their most popular track was ‘Heaven Sent An Angel’, which was the sort of jangly indie pop that was beloved by floppy fringed youths with stripey jumpers, and Doc Martins and a love of feedback pedals.  Or shoegaze if you want to pigeonhole the band, personally I’d never do that.

Revolver however, refused to accept that they were a shoegaze band despite every section of the mainstream press describing them as one.

Despite their frustrations and their protestations Revolver were definitely a shoegaze band.  In fact, I’ll go slightly further than that and argue that Revolver’s early singles sound so much like shoegaze pioneers Ride that if you had never heard either band you would struggle to separate the two.  In might be lazy journalism to pigeonhole bands into obvious scenes but in this case there was very little else for them to do. 

Let’s take their track ‘Venice’ for starters.

Venice – Revolver (1992, Hut Records, Taken from ‘Baby’s Angry’)

Which when I first heard, I would have said it was brilliant and thrown myself around the room to it.  Nowadays, having listened to it for the first time in about twenty years, I would describe as ‘Ride by numbers’.  It sounds identical to one of the tracks on Ride’s second EP (the one with daffodils on the cover).

And then there is ‘Molasses’ which is basically the slightly angrier brother from another mother of ‘Seagull’.   All thrashy when it needs to be but with a cautious eye centred on the chorus.

Molasses – Revolver (1992, Hut Records)

Both tracks still sounds great though to be honest with you.

Revolver were in existence for about four years but after their lack of success their record label dropped them and they split up in 1994.  Their singer, Matt Flint, did however perhaps go on to better things.  He joined Death in Vegas as a bassist and features on their nearly perfect ‘Contino Sessions’ album.

And that folks is that – tomorrow we will take a peek at some more of the best releases from this year and then from Monday we welcome in October, which means, calm yourselves now,  the return of the Musical Jury and that means a new No Badger Required Countdown!!

After you’ve changed your underwear due to the sheer excitement of that announcement – here is a quick hint at what that might be all about.

Lenny and Terence – Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (1993, Chrysalis Records, Taken from ‘Post Historic Monsters’)

Norman 3  – Teenage Fanclub (1993, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Thirteen’)

Guesses on a post card unless you an actual musical jury member in which case you can send me fake guesses on a post card.

A Creation Records Countdown – #3 – Teenage Fanclub

Forget About the Rest

Points 211

Highest Rank 1^st (Twice)

Lowest Scoring Rank 19^th

The Cabbage – Teenage Fanclub (1993, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Thirteen’)

“Teenage Fanclub will be in the Top Three, guaranteed”.

That is JM9 folks, and he has been wonderfully prophetic but before all that, I think I’ll start with a leftfield memory

I once went to a fancy dress party in the coastal town of Dartmouth dressed as a member of Teenage Fanclub, (probably Norman Blake, but it could have been anyone of them really) I was supposed to go as something else but the costumer didn’t arrive in time so I grabbed a red and black stripey jumper, some blacks jeans and wore my hair down long.  I thought it was an inspired choice.  Everyone else thought that I’d gone as Kurt Cobain, so it was probably rubbish.  Just for the record, my wife went as a disco diva (her outfit included a snazzy tshirt which had Bruce Forsyth’s face on it and some blue hair), My brother in law went as a trainspotter and actually looked more like one of Blur and our mate went as an old lady with beer filled breasts, which we all thrilled in sucking on throughout the night. 

Anyway

Teenage Fanclub released at least four albums on Creation Records that were all nothing short of excellent or as JM13 puts it

“Almost all of their output on Creation bordered on perfection”.  

Well nearly….

These albums were ‘Bandwagonesque’ which (with a nod of the head in the general direction of their Paperhouse Record released ‘A Catholic Education’) underlined their huge potential and won them a whole region of new fans.

‘Starsign – Teenage Fanclub (1991, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Bandwagonesque’)

That was followed by ‘Thirteen’ which saw the band trying and largely failing to build on that new fanbase with a slightly more radio friendly approach.  The result was probably the weakest of these fab four albums.  ‘Thirteen’ was followed by the immense ‘Grand Prix’ which is for me the bands greatest album.  Which according to JM20 is a “An album full to bursting of perfect indie pop gems”, like this one in fact

Mellow Doubt – Teenage Fanclub (1995, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Grand Prix’)

‘Grand Prix’ remains critically adored by the music press and if ever a record should have led a band to being megastars it was that one but again for some reason the public didn’t quite go for it (it did go Top Ten in the album charts, but it is generally felt that it should have done better and outside the UK it largely sank). Teenage Fanclub were, thankfully, not put off by this relative lack of commercial success and in 1997 they released the fourth of their wonderful Creation releases, ‘Songs from Northern Britain’ – an album which poked fun at the bands supposed inclusion on the Britpop bandwagon, which ironically was more successful than anything that the band actually released in that Britpop era.  .  JM7 also wants to chip in here,

 “Songs from Northern Britain is the best record ever released on Creation Records”

Well nearly….

Ain’t This Enough – Teenage Fanclub (1997, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Songs from Northern Britain’)

Despite their third placed finishing position Teenage Fanclub were never in danger of winning this thing, they were like the Super Furries before them late starters.  Then two sets of dangerously similar votes from two members of the Jury came in on the same day, which both placed them at the top of the tree and rocketed them up the table.  From there they never looked back and were comfortable in the Top Five for the rest of the counting process before pulling away towards them to finish 25 points ahead of the Super Furries back in fourth. 

What You Do To Me – Teenage Fanclub (1991 Creation Records, Taken from ‘Bandwagonesque)

By the way, collusion and subterfuge in order to fix the results of a Musical Jury Poll is actively encouraged….in fact I awarded Teenage Fanclub five bonus points, just in case.

Here is tomorrows lyrical teaser….which might come as a surprise to some of you.

“And when I hit the ground”

Rearranging The Flowers – A Pointless Whodunnit with musical interludes and 7 chapters – #5

(In which our hero has a good idea or so he thinks)

Five years ago I got made redundant from a firm of builders that I had worked for since I was about nineteen.  Seemingly thrust onto life’s scrapheap at the relatively young age of 43 I decided to start my own business and since then I have never looked back.  Since the pandemic I have been able to scale things back a bit and I am now pretty much the man to call in this village and three neighbouring villages if you need something fixing – there are not many kitchens in a five mile radius that I haven’t fitted cupboards into or patios that I haven’t helped lay.  One old lady paid me £200 last Christmas to build her a table that her granddaughter can build Lego on. 

Busy Earnin’- Jungle (2014, XL Recording, Taken from ‘Jungle’)

It was about five minutes after Mrs Checkley told us all that Angela Finch was staying with her sister that I had my first brilliant idea (well I thought it was brilliant).  The fuss of the broken vase and the possible missing person had, if you excuse the term, died down a bit. Taking my cue I asked Kevin, who, was unusually quiet, a question.

Plan A – Letters & Colours (2007, Mother Tongue Records, Taken from ‘Gaunt’ Single)

“Kev” I said, trying to appeal to his chirpy London demeanour, “A few weeks ago, Angela asked me if I could fix a cupboard in her kitchen for her, I said I’d do this week.  Do you mind if I do it when you pop round to feed the cats?  Shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes, it was just a bracket that needed rehinging.”

Silence.  So I continued.

“Or you could just give me the key and I can go and do it now, its on the way home after all, I’ll drop the key back when I’m done. Be nice for her for it to be done when she gets home.  Her tins of rice pudding keeps falling out of the door you see”.

I’m usually a rubbish liar but I think I’d sounded pretty convincing, almost as convincing as Mrs Checkley I would say. Although I might have been pushing it a bit with the rice pudding.  Angela Finch would make her own rice pudding for sure.

Lies – Deap Vally (2013, Island Records, Taken from ‘Sistronix’)

Kevin stops sweeping the floor and, after the briefest of glances across to Mrs Checkley, who I am absolutely sure nodded her head, reaches into his pocket, and produces a set of keys.  They are dangling off a pink dinosaur keyring which has ‘Dinosaur World’ stamped on its belly. 

“Can you drop them back to me before 7 tonight please, as the cats will want their dinner”,

and with that he lobs the keys through the air and fall on the pew next to me with a clunk and I pick them up and literally run out of the church.

Don’t Look Back – Teenage Fanclub (1995, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Grand Prix’)

I went the long way round to Angela’s house, and I parked my van in yard by the farmers barn, phoned my wife to tell her where I was (in case I never returned) and then walked the couple of hundred metres down to Angela’s house.  I stopped twice to check that I wasn’t being followed by Kevin or Mrs Checkley and then let myself in the back door.  

The first thing that greeted me was Matthew, one of the cats, a big noisy brown shorthaired who leapt off a sideboard and meowed loudly at my feet and scared the life out of me.  I gave him a quick stroke, popped my bag down on the floor, and told myself that despite not knowing Angela’s sister name I should look for an address book.

Where Do I Begin? – Chemical Brothers (1997, Freestyle Dust, Taken from ‘Exit Planet Dust’)

I walked into the small sitting room, there was a big bookshelf on the wall by the door and a wall cupboard containing crockery and a series of framed photos on my left.  I had just picked up a photo of Angela with her arms around two small children when the phone on the table behind me rang.

Retrospective Musical Naval Gazing – #1 (1991)

The recent rundown of the best tracks of the year has sent me into some sort of musical nostalgic revelry.  I have for the past month or so been compiling list of playlist of my favourite tracks from every year since 1991.  These may or may not turn into some sort of series over the coming months but until then, over the next few weeks I will present five or six tracks one from each year 1991 to 2021 of the songs that made my end of year top tens.

Let’s start with music that is now well over thirty years old, and if that doesn’t make at least one of you feel utterly ancient then I’m going to give up and go and live out my days in a comfy home and watch daytime telly.

1991 was a landmark year for me, for a start it was the year that I became a proper music aficionado.  It was the year I started going to gigs with mates and the year that I kind of threw off the shackles of childhood and starting investigating girls, cigarettes, alcohol and staying out later that ten pm. It saw, according to last three pages of my old CDT text book, brilliant life changing music releases from Nirvana, Primal Scream, Teenage Fanclub, Leatherface, The Wonderstuff and the KLF but the track that topped my singles of the year list was this: –

Pearl – Chapterhouse (1991, Dedicated Records, Taken from ‘Whirlpool’)

Which is still sounds brilliant today.  The drum sample, the whispered vocals, the feedback laden guitars, everything.  In the summer of 1991, shoegaze sounded fresher and more exciting than pretty much anything that I had listened to before.  That was of course until the Reading Festival when Nirvana arrived on a Friday afternoon played before Chapterhouse and killed the scene dead.

Nirvana featured in the Top Ten as well, with ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ being placed quite low at Number Seven.

Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana  (1991, Geffen Records, Taken from ‘Nevermind’)

At number two in my rundown that year was this:-

The Concept – Teenage Fanclub (1991, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Bandwagonesque’)

It was the brilliant run of singles lifted from ‘Bandwagonesque’ that made me start to enforce the One Song per Band rule, because below ‘The Concept’ at Number five was ‘Starsign’ such was the draw of ‘Bandwagonesque’ at the time.

Elsewhere in the Top Ten at Number Three and Nine respectively were these two blasts of indie pop marvellousness.

Size of A Cow – The Wonderstuff (1991, Polydor Records, Taken from ‘Never Loved Elvis’) – I listened to ‘Never Loved Elvis’ again the other day and I’d forgotten just how must reliance there was on fiddles and mandolins running through it.

After the Watershed – Carter USM (1991, Rough Trade Records, Single) – Of course, Carter USM would be catapulted into musical history a few weeks later when live on TV at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party, Fruitbat would suddenly fly through the air and rugby tackle a clearly baffled Philip Schofield to the floor.

Lost Indie 45’s – #19 Silver Sun

Lava – Silver Sun (1997, Polydor Records, Taken from ‘Silver Sun’)

In 1996, I went for a drink in a Camden pub with a guy called Ned who worked for a promotional company based around the corner from this pub.  For half an hour a pretty endless stream of white boys dressed in Fred Perry shirts who all looked Liam or Noel Gallagher and all thought that they were the future of indie rock would amble past, Ned left the pub with about thirty CDs in his hands.

Most of the bands were nobodies, chancers who thought that because they owned a copy of ‘Beggars Banquet’ by the Stones or ‘Revolver’ by the Beatles that they were musicians of stature.  Chancers who thought that 12 months after the great Blur vs Oasis single battle (which folks as I’ve gone there, was apparently a marketing idea dreamed up in the very same pub during a very liquid lunch by their respective managers.  It was also the same pub that around six months before then had seen Menswear sign a record contract on a table next to the gents toilets) that record labels were still looking for the next Oasis, the next Blur or even the next Marion (more of them later).

It turns out that Britpop had moved on and record labels via their scouts and promotional teams were looking for a new type of band.  After our pint, Ned handed me a CD, not one of the several handed to us that we had started to use as coasters but one he plucked out his jacket pocket.  It was a promotional CD of a band called Silver Sun.

Silver Sun had been around for a couple of years, they had formed, oddly enough, in Camden and had previously gone by the name of Sun! until they got into some legal problems with a toilet roll masquerading as a newspaper and had added the word Silver to their name.  Silver Sun were according to Ned, along with Placebo, who had just signed to Hut Records, responsible for reigniting his love of guitar music.  That was quite a recommendation, baring in mind that the last CD Ned had given me was a Renegade Soundwave Best Of Album (talking of which, next year will see a short series which looks at Best Of Albums).

Biting My Nails (Bassnumb Chapter) – Renegade Soundwave (1989, Mute Records, Taken from ‘RSW 1987 – 1995’)

The thing that I think interested Ned so much about Silver Sun was that they were, despite forming in Camden at the height of Britpop, not trying to be a Britpop band.  They were trying to be Teenage Fanclub circa ‘Starsign’ or they were trying to be Weezer circa ‘The Sweater Song’. 

Starsign – Teenage Fanclub (1991, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Bandwagonesque’)

Undone (The Sweater Song) – Weezer (1992, DGC Records, Taken from ‘Weezer’)

It was all multi layered harmonies, falsetto vocals from more than one singer, a more focused attention on the guitars which were ratcheted up a notch or three and as Ned put it and as I can’t better it I’ll quote him direct.

 “Not a fucking trumpet or string section in sight”

‘Lava’ was probably Silver Sun’s finest moment, a glorious three minute indie pop blast that straddled the lower echelons of the top 30 when it came out.    Their eponymously titled debut album went top twenty and for a short period they looked set for stardom, but their second album was poorly received, and they fell from favour.

100 Songs with One Word Titles (95 – 91)

The next five tracks in the rundown were apart from the first one, songs that I expected to do much better, two of them are stone cold indie pop classics, one is American alt rock at it finest and one is on the soundtrack to ‘The Smurfs Movie’ which of course essential viewing.  But let’s start with the one that did rather better than I expected, although it is course the best thing you will hear all day.

95. Vomit – Girls (2011, FantasyTrashcan Records, Taken from ‘Father Son Holy Ghost‘)

‘Vomit’ was the first single to be released from Girls’ second (and last?) album ‘Father Son Holy Ghost’ and is a sprawling seven minute slow building monolithic freakout of a tune.  Singer Chris Owens spends most of those seven minutes, sighing the lyrics, rather than actually singing them, as the band then all kick in with crunchy rock guitars, organ solos and twinkly percussion bits.  But when you think it can’t get any better a gospel choir jump in from left of screen and its just splendid.

94. Radio – Teenage Fanclub (1993, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Thirteen’)

Until the release of their fifth (sixth?) album Teenage Fanclub had never had a Top 30 hit (and even now they have only had one).  The closest that they had got was in June 1993, when ‘Radio’ backed unsurprisingly by a lot of radio play, rocketed to Number 31.  It’s odd because as good as ‘Radio’ is (and its very good indeed) its probably one of the bands weakest singles. Still saying that I expected it to be much higher in this list.

93. Big – New Fast Automatic Daffodils (1990, Play It Again Sam Records, Taken from ‘Pigeonhole’)

When I was 16 I had to do some coursework for my statistics GCSE.  We had to pick something on ordinary life and introduce statistics to it.  So I decided to show on a bar chart the bands that were most played by John Peel over a six week period (excluding sessions).  There in third place on that chart (behind The Fall and The Cure) were New Fast Automatic Daffodils.  My statistics teacher Mrs Bruce put a star by them and said “Did you make this name up?” 

92. 100% – Sonic Youth (1991, DGC Records, Taken from ‘Dirty’)

‘100%’ was the first Sonic Youth song that I properly loved.  It came out at a time when grunge was really popular in the UK and it was the start of a love affair that continues right up to today.  It was of course, the first single to be released from the bands seventh album ‘Dirty’ and was recorded largely as a tribute to a friend of the band who was murdered in armed robbery in 1991. Which I didn’t know until about five minutes ago.

91. Holiday – Vampire Weekend (2009, XL Records, Taken from ‘Contra’)

If you were in doubt, this is the one which features in ‘The Smurfs Movie’.  It’s the scene where the Smurfs have just arrived in New York and are travelling on top of a taxi to the house of Doogie Howser MD in order to rescue the Smurf who has fallen into a box of cosmetic paperwork.  What do you mean you’ve not seen it?  Seriously go watch it.