Two more selections taken from the NME’s 40th anniversary compilation celebration album, Ruby Trax. Peel also played The Wedding Present’s version of Cumberland Gap from the same album, on this programme.
I don’t know whether the bands who participated made their own choices or whether the NME sent out specific requests over which artist should cover which track, but in 1992 the idea of Toni Halliday, lead singer of Curve, ethereally cooing Donna Summer’s game-changing, colossal 1977 hit, I Feel Love would have been like something out of Central Casting. Possibly only Marina Van-Rooy could have come close to sparking the same amount of endorphin/pheremonic aural release among the album’s core male target audience. Or at least that would have been the case had I known about any of this in 1992. When the idea was floated of Curve covering the track, I’m sure it was high-fives and Charlie all round. What’s more, unlike the ultra-faithful cover of The Model by Ride, which Peel played the week before, Curve do attempt to stamp some of their own musical identity on the track with synth effects that sound like someone machine-gunning a hail of ping-pong balls on a corrugated roof as well as what I can best describe as a shoegaze cloud that passes over the track like a cloudburst in waiting - ominously poised but never quite ready to unload. Nevertheless, the band realise that even with Halliday on vocals, the whole enterprise will be sunk unless they incorporate that unforgettable Moog synthesiser line as the foundation stone of the whole thing. And rightfully so, after all that synth line wasn’t just the foundation for I Feel Love, but effectively for modern dance music itself, which in 1992, was still firmly in hock to the offcuts from Giorgio Moroder’s ideas.
On the face of it, to hear The Jesus and Mary Chain produce a Delta blues, sludge-rock version of Howlin’ Wolf’s Little Red Rooster after hearing Curve’s version of I Feel Love may feel like the epitome of landing in the muddy swamp after being caressed by an angel in Heaven, but there’s less to separate them than might otherwise be imagined. I’ve seen two readings floated about Little Red Rooster. The title character represents either an enforcer figure within the context of the farmyard (and Sam Cooke’s slinky take from 1963 feels like a template for Trouble Man, 13 years early) or it’s a sex song. The Rolling Stones saw their UK Number 1 single version of Little Red Rooster banned from American radio stations in 1964 as it was felt that the lyrics were sexually suggestive. It was absurd, especially given that the feel of the Stones’s version was that of a late night cruise around looking for sex, but Mick Jagger sounded as though he knew deep down that he’d have fruitless night traipsing around and failing to find action.
But with the Jesus and Mary Chain, the cock of the walk is getting his rocks off in no uncertain terms. The bassline sounds like a headboard slowly but rhythmically banging against a wall. Everything’s smothered in fuzztone: vocals, bass, guitar which rumbles and ruts away like a groaning lover under the relentless thump of the bass headboard. You can feel the sweat on the naked bodies as the East Kilbride boys succeed in conjuring up the feel of an endless, erotic Georgia coupling. It’s a real grower of a version, possibly the best one I’ve heard for unleashing the pent-up sexuality of the track which, with no trace of irony, culminates in a feedback orgasm.
So Love and Sex in music form, but who’d have guessed that it would be Jim and William Reid bringing the latter....
Videos courtesy of opalstardream (Curve) and lagustatu (Jesus and Mary Chain)
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