When I saw The Manfreds play at the Riviera Centre in Torquay in late-1992, one piece of between song patter always stayed with me. Singer Paul Jones explained to the audience that although they were known for their hits such as Do Wah Diddy, Pretty Flamingo or The Mighty Quinn, if people wanted to know what the band were really like or what their true sound was, they should listen to the b-sides, as they captured the band as they saw themselves musically. And with this they launched into a rendition of I’m Your Kingpin. Anyone interested in hearing what this duality sounded like - at least over the first half of their career - is advised to buy Manfred Mann at Abbey Road 1963 to 1966.
In the same vein, I feel that if you want to get an idea of what I’m like as a musical curator, skip past whichever tune I’ve put at Number 1 in either of the Festive Fifties that I’ve compiled for the blog - this and this respectively - and instead listen to the Number 49 choices: Black Metallic by Catherine Wheel and, most relevantly to this post, Music by The Safehouse. Time hasn’t been kind to the former tune, if I had to choose which of the two to listen to on a loop, I’d go for Music everytime. It struck me as a tune that only I could love, it was warm and comforting, the aural equivalent of a cup of warm soup on a bitterly cold day.
But fast forward a year and The Safehouse turned up on Peel’s playlist with a track which sounded like they would now be more inclined to throw the cup into your face. Given the gnarly, squally quality of most of the sound on this track, the hardcore child of the title track appears to be going through the terrible twos. Any attempt to soothe the listener, by throwing in bursts of electric sitar for instance between 0:48 to 1:04 is overridden by more audio grumbles/teething and there’s an especially epic tantrum thrown between 2:05 and 2:28, which is followed by a duet between the sitar and a set of beats which sound like the child is smashing anything it can get its hands on. Tellingly, the sitar quickly retreats, and by the end, of the track, the child is left lying amidst the debris it has created.
That description might sound like an unappealing listen, but The Safehouse haven’t entirely lost their gift for melody here, and it’s much less abrasive than a similar idea would have been in the hands of, say, 70 Gwen Party.
Hardcore Child was the final track on The Safehouse’s Funkatronics 12-inch. The A-side of that record includes Out of My Body, which sounds like a copper-bottomed mainstream hit track, but it wasn’t. Instead, Hardcore Child was paired on the B-side with Screamer ll and stands as a final, defiant stand by The Safehouse, whose members, Mark Hailwood and Tommy Trainor, wound the project up after this release.
Hardcore Child won’t get to Number 49 when I do the 1993 Festive Fifty, indeed it won’t feature at all. But I’ll take that troubled child into my arms and give it a loving home on the metaphorical mixtape. I hope you will too.
Video courtesy of Bob Murray, and my thanks to him for making the video shareable here.
No comments:
Post a Comment