Equus: Thieves - Placed Aside (10 January 1993)

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Anybody listening to this edition of John Peel’s Music on BFBS would have got a 2 year head start on the rest of us in learning one of the immutable laws of pop music: The gorgeousness quotient of any song will increase by at least 50% if David McAlmont sings on it.

For me, McAlmont was the best UK singer of the 1990s, only Jaime Harding of Marion came close.  His achievement, which may also have been his curse, is that his voice needed lush, ecstatic and grand settings  to be heard in. Certainly anyone who worked with him in the 1990s knew that you couldn’t have that voice in front of your bog-standard guitars/bass/drums sound. The boat needed to be pushed out to make use of such a stunning voice and on several occasions in the 90s, McAlmont’s voice was at the forefront of several aural luxury cruise liners which sailed beyond the waters of a John Peel playlist and into the harbours of mainstream popularity. His brace of 1995 singles with Bernard Butler, Yes and You Do as well as his 1997 solo effort, Look At Yourself are all massive, brilliant songs which feature the kitchen sink being thrown at the listener, because to do anything less would be to let McAlmont down.

At times, it felt as though one reason for the sonic excess was because it was needed to try and cover the awkwardness of the material.  As a lyricist, McAlmont was seemingly incapable of writing anything which could be thought trite, banal or cliched. His work has always been emotionally deep, humane, often scathing of those who’ve treated him poorly but ready to reach out to those desiring a connection with him. His work doesn’t lend itself to simple ditties or melodies and even in the hands of someone as musically savvy as Butler, there could still be tracks such as The Debitor, which as a listener, you had to sit back and let them get on with because there was no way you could keep up with them.

This tendency to use McAlmont's voice and big arrangements as a cover for densely personal material was evident from his earliest work as part of the duo, Thieves which McAlmont formed with multi-instrumentalist, Saul Freeman. An NME review of their show at the Camden Falcon  from December 1991 written by Gina Morris mentions that, They've got no songs to speak of, there's no definite hit amongst fillers, but the music does serve as a foundation for his voice. And what a voice he has - mesmerising, encapsulating and hypnotic, where the lyrics are inconsequential and the band don’t exist.

It’s a summation which you may find yourself agreeing with as you listen to Placed Aside. If you were to take the track apart and examine each element individually, you’d be hard-pressed to see how any of it would fit together convincingly, but McAlmont’s stunning voice and Freeman’s equally ecstatic arrangement - under the production of Paul Sampson at the Cabin in Coventry, producer of this blog’s most viewed post - are enough to assuage any doubts.  

Peel liked the track and resolved to keep an eye on Thieves’ progress, though it doesn’t look as though McAlmont ever featured on a Peel running order again, so I’m invoking blogger’s privilege by ensuring one of my favourites gets on the metaphorical mixtape. And while this post may be a slice of McAlmont at the start of his musical career, I was delighted to see that this very month sees the release of a new album from him with Hifi Sean.

Videos courtesy of David McAlmont and Hifi Sean.

Equus: Elmore James - Stranger Blues (10 January 1993)

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I recently read The Age of Anxiety, a novel by Pete Townshend. It combines some of his meditations on how the vibration of sounds in the atmosphere can lead certain chosen ones to hear music wherever they go, with a narrative structure straight out of a Joanna Trollope novel: marriages fail, affairs are pondered, long-lost children are rediscovered etc. A Twitter thread I saw some time before reading the book reckoned it was one of the worst novels ever written. I don’t agree with that, it’s not a bad book. The symphony of sounds which afflict the lead character are quite evocatively described, but it feels as though Townshend felt that the book would be impenetrable if it was hooked purely around a form of extreme synesthesia, so sought to ground the story by basing it within marriage, family and friendship groups. Unfortunately, Townshend can’t really pull off the Aga saga elements. There are contrivances, red herrings and coincidences which Trollope would have binned after completing her first draft. As a result, the book walks a tightrope between sense and nonsense, which it just about manages to avoid falling off. 

The vessel through which these sounds are transposed into music is through rhythm & blues singer, Walter Watts. Walter is the singer with a moderately successful pub-rock band and becomes a wealthy man off the back of a song he writes which is used in a Ford commercial, which is fortunate given that his band don’t appear to be playing venues any larger  than Dingwalls in Camden.  With its mid-90s setting, Townshend seems to be trying to imagine how the lead singer of Ocean Colour Scene would cope if he became so attuned to everyday sound that he could hear music in any of it.

Walter’s band features a guitarist called Crow, who we are told: Whenever creative matters came up, for example prior to  recording sessions, he would simply pull out the same six vinyl albums. “Let me remind you lot what our mantra is here - What we do.” Then he would yank his shabby army-surplus bag open and lift out several old vinyl albums. “This is the pinnacle. This is the White Cliffs of Dover we jump from. This is where we start. We are a pub rock band, we do not play fucking jazz.The albums were Booker T. and the M.G.s Greatest Hits, Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall, The Everly Brothers Greatest Hits (two albums), a white label collection of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates singles, The Best of  Little Walter (on Chess Records) and Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline. (Townshend, The Age of Anxiety, pages 48-49, 2019, Coronet). Reading that, you have to conclude that if Crow took those records and a couple of bottles of red wine to Peel Acres, then he and John Peel would have had a wonderful evening together. 

I thought of Crow when listening to Peel playing Stranger Blues, one side of a 1962 single by Elmore James, imbued as it is with those very qualities that feel like music stripped down to its basic core elements.  When you can sing as well as James does and hit the kind of groove that the guitar and brass manage, the idea of over-decorating music sounds like an offence against nature and culture which should be punishable by firing squad.  And as Peel told his audience, seeing or not seeing Elmore James live, was enough to drive a man to consider deceit.  I toyed for a very long time, this is shocking, with the idea of pretending that I’d seen Elmore James live. ‘Cause I know that, I mean none of you have, and I’ve never met anybody who did see him live. Because he must have played in Dallas - I mean he died in 1963 - but he must have played in Dallas or in that area, while I was living there.  And I’ve often thought, ‘Shall I tell...’ because no-one would be able to say, ‘You never did, you fat twerp’ but I’ve often thought of telling people, ‘Yes, I only saw him once, but my God, he was incredible live!’ But my natural honesty and goodness won out in the end.

Video courtesy of Glendoras//DJ Mean Mojo Mathias

Equus: Tiger - Beep Beep (10 January 1993)

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When reflecting on the large number of reggae stars who enjoyed substantial success in the UK singles charts from around 1993-95, it’s a surprise to me that Tiger (Norman Washington Jackson) never managed to get a slice of that action.  He’d put in the work, having recorded since the late 1970s and enjoying considerable success in Jamaica by the end of the 80s. John Peel gave his records airplay and the major labels clearly felt that if the early 90s were going to be the era that reggae artists started getting exposure on MTV and the like, then Tiger needed showcasing. 

This led to the release of Claws of the Cat, Tiger’s 15th album since 1986, and his first with any kind of major label backing behind it - via an imprint of Columbia Records called Chaos Recordings.  It should have been a perfect calling card record which showed off his chameleonic vocal abilities across a mix of pure, dancehall ragga tracks combined with more daytime radio-friendly fare.  There was no global hit on the record in the manner of Shaggy’s Oh Carolina, but it’s not beyond the realms of imagination that a follow-up to Claws of the Cat would have been tooled for mass-mainstream appeal.

Sadly, the whole issue became irrelevant after Jackson was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident in January 1994.  Although he survived, Jackson’s recording career ground to a halt and it would be nearly a decade before he sang live again.

In the circumstances, it would be tasteless to see Beep Beep - also known as Beep Beep, Move Over on some single pressings - as predictive of Tiger’s fate.  For me, there are several potential readings of the track’s meaning:

1) The literal meaning in which Tiger is burning up the road and wants dawdlers to get out of his way. Unfortunately, his speed on the road alerts the police who threaten to take him into jail.

2) The song could be directed to a reluctant wannabe lover who is procrastinating over committing to a girl and as a result finds themselves being given a subtle warning.  “If you’re not going to do anything about this, then get out of the way and let me take my chance.”

3) At street level, the track could be announcing the presence of a new King of the Street in the middle of a turf war, hence why the police may be making their presence felt.  But this is by no means certain, and indeed, the flow on the track is so quick that it’s entirely possible that none of the interpretations I’ve put forward are correct.  Nevertheless, the track is great entertainment from start to finish.

Video courtesy of Eldorado Sounds

Equus: Unsane - Urge to Kill (10 January 1993)

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As the new year dawned, Unsane found themselves in something of a holding pattern. With a new drummer in their ranks after the death of Charlie Ondras, they did the most obvious thing and released a singles compilation which could serve as both a tribute to Ondras and allow people who had got into the band after the release of their debut album - a record which John Peel had absolutely caned throughout late 1991 - to discover their earliest work. Urge to Kill was a b-side on the band’s first single, This Town, released in 1989. It leans towards the industrial end of their sound, albeit underpinned with those sudden swerves into melody underneath the drone which always meant that Unsane never sounded bland or one note in their sonic attacks. This Town even manages to sound close to funk-noise-drone-rock.

Urge to Kill takes the listener through the progressively darkening mood of someone driven to psychosis. The crunch moment appearing to be around 3:04 when the battering cymbals and downbeats on guitar and bass paint the picture of the psychotic impulses being played out for the first time, with the playout suggesting both the scramble to hide the evidence and the chase on to find the next victim.  It seems appropriate that the fadeout feedback at the end of the track feels like the screams of the next victim or of those discovering the dead bodies. 

When they released Urge to Kill in ‘89, the band were known by their original name of Unsane N.Y.C and I wondered just how much of an influence their home city and things like New York based slasher films had been on them. This was a bit of a stretch as far as theories go given that if the band were looking to slasher films for inspiration, they appeared to be taking their cue from Italian director, Dario Argento given that they were named after the English language title for Argento’s 1982 film, Tenebrae. But the scores to Argento’s films, especially those made with groups like Goblin, tend more towards electro-folk than noise rock - I cannot claim this to be all-encompassing as I’ve only seen a couple of Argento’s films and I don’t really like his movies.  I had thought the track may have been inspired by Abel Ferrara’s 1979 film, The Driller Killer in which an artist living in New York cracks up due to a mix of money, work and romantic troubles which are further exacerbated by disturbed peace from a rock band who rehearse at all hours in the flat above his. This conspires to send him on a killing spree around the city, murdering various homeless alcoholics with a drill powered by a battery pack. Until this week, I hadn't seen the film but could remember its opening title card which declared This film should be played LOUD. But while the film was great, the soundtrack was a million miles away from the kind of anarchy suggested by a track like Urge to Kill, the rock band specialises in sub-blues pub rock while the rest of the soundtrack owed more to those of John Carpenter and Wendy Carlos.  I’m still waiting to chance upon an early 80s New York based slasher film with a hard-rocking, urban, industrial soundtrack. Maniac (1980) is another film which brings the scuzz in terms of its look, but which is trying to pitch for dinner-table music with its soundtrack.  Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Unsane started 1993 by touring the UK and Peel revealed that he and his oldest son, William were hoping to go and see them in the coming week.

Video courtesy of Unsane - Topic

Equus: Polygon Window - Audax Powder (10 January 1993)

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Riding high off the back of the acclaim lavished on Selected Ambient Works 85-92, the Aphex Twin, Richard D. James was ready to unveil his Polygon Window side project via an album called Surfing on Sine Waves.  Audax Powder mixes both the soothing (the deliciously mellow sine waves of sound which are the foundation of the track) with the assertive (there’s a percussive synth beat throughout which sounds like someone drumming on industrial plastic tubes with table tennis bats.)

For myself, I think there are better tracks from the record which Peel could have played.  I particularly like Supremacy II and Quoth, which was also released as a single.  However, Peel appears to have been drawn to Audax Powder due to its title, which he felt sounded like a remedy for athlete’s foot and his views on the subject generally chime with mine:

I like having athlete’s foot. I was trying to persuade somebody the other day of the pleasures and the virtues to be derived from having athlete’s foot.  They thought I was nuts of course, but I’ve hours, weeks even, of innocent pleasure out of that.

The version of Surfing on Sine Waves that Peel was playing was a limited edition, numbered, double album pressed on clear vinyl. His copy was number 27, which led him to think that he might get £15 to £20 for it if he lived to be 110.  Well if, as we all wish, he had lived to 83, then going by this morning’s prices for that version of the record on Discogs, he could have got over £700 for it.  

Audax is a form of long distance cycling race, so it’s possible that powder gets used to deal with saddle soreness.  When James returned to the Polygon Window name on a 2001 12-inch white label, he discarded the enigmatic track titles for the slightly more prosaic likes of Portreath Harbour and Redruth School.

Video courtesy of God Bless Electronic Music