Oliver! appendices: Whipped Cream - Whatever [Peel Session] (17 November 1991)

We jump back to 1991 for this appendice.  Alas, the Peel Session version of this track by Swedish group, Whipped Cream has never turned up on YouTube, so we must make do with the studio version  here, though the Peel version can be heard here from 24:55.  In and of itself, Whatever isn’t anything too sensational.  If you wanted to be cruel, it could be accused of being a mid-tempo dirge.  What makes it for me are the gorgeous harmony vocals between Elizabeth Punzi and Jorgen Cremonese that wend their way through the song.  However, it really owes its place in my affections to something that will become apparent if you hear it via the link a few lines further up.  It was placed between a lovely piece of Peel rambling and the sock it to ‘em thrills of Clipped by Curve.  Peel’s linking teed the crashing opening to Whatever up perfectly:

“I got a phone call from one of the people who runs Watercolour Records and I thought in my naieve, innocent way he was ringing to say, ‘Thank you for playing our nice records’ all the way from Ironbridge, but I made some mistakes apparently.  I played the wrong track by The Lean-Tos and The Field Trip don’t come from Derby, they come from Birmingham, so there!  Well, I won’t get it wrong again, that’s for certain. [....] Actually, it’s been that sort of a day, to be honest with you because some friends of mine came in to see me and I thought I’ll show them round Radio 1 - there isn’t that much to see to be honest.  And as I’ve said to you before, when people say, ‘Can we come and watch your programme?’ I always say, ‘Well you can do if you really insist upon it, but it’s not interesting.  It’s not a spectator sport, it’s like watching somebody typing.’ But they didn’t even want to do that. What they really wanted, in their heart of hearts, was to meet Phillip Schofield - which they did - and Andy Kershaw - which they did.  And I always say to Phillip Schofield, ‘Look if any of your listeners want to come and meet me, I’m perfectly happy for that to happen’, but so far it hasn’t.  Anyway, Whipped Cream and Whatever.”

Video courtesy of Amigo Arhsam who has also introduced me to Anna B Savage for which I am most grateful.

Oliver! appendices: Love Battery - Foot; Silverfish - Jenny (3 February 1992)

This blog doesn’t often go down the awards route except when looking at bands who should have been Oasis before Oasis, but these two appendices from Peel’s Nachtexpress show of 3/2/92 both earned something imaginary, but heartfelt, from me to put on their mantlepieces.

Peel opened his Nachtexpress show with Love Battery’s new single on Sub Pop Records.  Amidst its punk/garage rock scratchy opening, brawny hard-rock chorus and swamp rock bridge, Foot weaves a touching and vulnerable lyric about the hurt and sadness felt when a trusted relationship falls away.  The chorus sees singer, Ron Nine, weighing up the options of giving himself over to an intimacy of some description with a new companion, but riven with doubt about whether to “put my foot in” before having full confidence in the recipient “Don’t follow blind” being admirable advice.  In 1992, the sonic wallop of Love Battery’s performance would have swung me.  In the words of YouTube commenter Maggie Marl, “Now we know where Foo Fighters steal their songs from” and it has that wonderful sense of joy that the best hard rock singles can put across.  But of more prescience to me in 2018, it put me on a road to hearing the album, Dayglo, which has remained on YouTube
since I blithely commented about it when reviewing the Nachtexpress show just over 2 years to this day.  If I listened to Dayglo at the time, I clearly didn’t “hear” it in any great depth back then and certainly not enough to comment about.  But having taken the opportunity to do so while preparing this post, I found myself stunned by it.  Like all great guitar records, it sounds like the best bits of all your favourite records cooked up with Love Battery’s own unique touch.  I think it may be the best, or at any rate, most compelling record I’ve heard from any Sub Pop act.  Bear in mind, it took me a while to embrace any of Nirvana’s material from their Sub Pop days and although I went for all of the selections that Peel chose from Smells Like Smoked Sausages, I still think he left the best tracks out of his playlists, or at least on the recordings I heard.  But, as the blog prepares itself to cover a new play through the summer of 1992, I’m praying discreetly that Peel was taken by Dayglo as I was - though knowing my luck, he probably played the tracks from it that I merely liked rather than those I could rhapsodise over at great length.  Time will tell, but in the meantime, and if you’ve never heard it before, get to YouTube and seek out “Love Battery Dayglo album”.  Then go to Discogs and buy it.  You have 2 weeks before I get paid - I urge you to make the absolute most of this opportunity.  I will console my own sense of loss, should it come to pass, with happiness that new ears are falling in love with Love Battery and Dayglo.  Best Sub Pop Act?  Based on what I’ve heard so far, the jury went home weeks ago

The other award for this evening is the Best Female Fronted Band of the Oliver! Rehearsal and Performance Period.  This is not tokenism on my part.  Looking back over the 400 odd posts clocked up so far, when it came to guitar music across Oliver!, it was woman-led bands who offered up the greatest range of multiple selections.  PJ Harvey probably should win this given that over 1991-93 it was the name given to a band rather than just Polly Jean herself, but she dominated the visual look of that band so much that, with no offence intended to Rob Ellis or Stephen Vaughan, I regard Dry and Rid of Me as PJ Harvey solo records in all but name.  It wasn’t either of them swanning around in their pants for 4-Track Demos, for instance.  Hole’s splendid Peel Session had me feeling for a time that Courtney Love was the talented one in that turbulent relationship with rock’s most unprepared messiah.  I had plenty of love also for the likes of Bleach and Curve but ultimately, I could only keep coming back to be flogged and abused by Silverfish, a band which consistently and brilliantly placed the listener lips first to the leather of Lesley Rankine’s DMs and had them saying, “Thank you, mistress.  May I have another?”.  Jenny may well be their masterpiece out of the slew of Silverfish tracks that Peel played over early 1992.  Who was Jenny?  If she was a real person then it’s terrifying to think that Lesley Rankine knew someone even more vengeful than herself.  As was typical in Silverfish’s world, Jenny was forged in blood and violence but quickly spots an opportunity to turn her brutal genesis into something beneficial to herself, “Will I taste and will I feel/If I lie and if I steal.  This is mine/Dip it in greed and set it on fire!” she squawks like a kingpin.  Previous Silverfish tracks on this blog have dealt with overthrowing the patriarchy, childbirth and woman as avenging angel.  Jenny is an extension of Vitriola but applied to terrify whole communities rather than just cheating lovers.  The band play out with the intensity of exploding buildings and flames burning, while Rankine’s refrain of “I’m so pretty when I’m angry” turns her protagonist into nothing less than a She-Hulk. Mad, bad and dangerous to know...but thrillingly irresistable with it.

Videos courtesy of Lance Vance (Love Battery) and skawashers (Silverfish)

Oliver! appendices: A.E.K - Dead Stock (25 January 1992)

WARNING- the video for this track is virtually unwatchable due to the uploaders applying a strobe effect for the whole duration.  You may want to minimise your screen or go to a new tab while it plays.

Although I appear to have left it out of my notes for Peel’s show on 25/1/92, I could not shake off a memory of this piece of cheapcore techno and found myself regularly checking YouTube to see whether anyone had uploaded it.  I was thrilled to see that it had been put up since March 2017, but then found myself thrown into doubt when I heard it about whether to include it as an appendix to the Oliver! selections, as it seemed a good deal less essential than I remembered.

What swung it ultimately was what had first attracted me to include it on my lists and that was the cheap sound that it had.  I can’t bring myself to describe it as minimalist, because so much of Dead Stock seems to be bolted together from whatever dance tropes that the four producers who made up A.E.K had to hand at the time - a tambourine here, a low bassline there, in this corner an “ughn” sample, in that corner a bit of reverse tape sound and Bob’s your uncle.  It’s unfussy and slightly beige, but what sells it is that pitter-patter popcorn riff.  In the land of mixtaping, it has the quality of a way station - a place where the listener can stop for a breather and tune out before engaging their faculties in something more substantial.  Like most stop-off points on a Peel playlist, I would often skate past it 95% of the time, but it must be doing something right to persuade me to stop by.  Though not for too long, with that video, I’m afraid.

Video courtesy of Northern Electric Recordings who have repeated the “magic” with other A.E.K recordings if your retinas can stand it.

Oliver! appendices: Zimbabwe Cha Cha Cha Kings - South Africa (12 January 1992)

Through January/February 1992 Peel and Andy Kershaw caned tracks from Vimbiso the 1989 jit album by Zimbabwe Cha Cha Cha Kings.  My selection lists from Peel shows over that period regularly saw Zimbabwe Cha Cha Cha Kings tracks on there, but it seemed that every selection I wanted hadn’t been shared to YouTube.  However, this seems to have changed over the last year or so, for which I am grateful.
Another change has occurred in my choices as well.  For so long, I had the sing-along Ambewe as my most desired ZCCCK track, but in listening to some of the newly uploaded tracks, I found that it was South Africa, with its naggingly insistent and persisistent riff that held my interest more.  At this point, I must send out a request for anyone able to provide translation of the lyrics.  Given that it was recorded at a point when apartheid was still in place - albeit shortly to fall apart - I’d love to know whether the song was political in nature.  Or maybe it was praising the country’s wine trade?  It was the penultimate track of the night on the 12/1/92 show and with 2am beckoning and his Radio 1 shift nearly over for another week, Peel wasn’t giving out much in the way of details.  Any help gratefully received.
For Zimbabwe Cha Cha Cha Kings, as had been the case with their countrymen in The Kasongo Band, the success brought about by Vimbiso would lead to upheaval and infighting for control and money .  They came through it to record a Peel Session in November 1992 and hopefully this blog will cover that, but four years elapsed between Vimbiso and its follow-up, Ndiri Muvhimi which translates as I am a Hunter.

Video courtesy of Juan Andres Gonzalez Sanjuan.