Equus: Guided by Voices - Quality of Armor (27 March 1993)

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The vinyl version of Guided by Voices Propeller LP was consistently causing problems for Peel. This was the second night running that he had played a track from the album and once again he called the track by the wrong title. In fairness to him, he did mention that he wasn’t sure whether he was giving the correct title due to the number of titles in the tracklisting not lining up with the number of tracks on the record. Whereas the previous night’s Weedking was announced by him as the album opener, Mesh Gear Fox, this play of Quality of Armor was introduced as Metal Mothers.  I wish it had been that one, because I think Metal Mothers is the best track on the album. However, it isn’t too much of a disappointment to be including Quality of Armor here.

In contrast to the monolithic hard rock of Weedking, on Quality of Armor Guided by Voices sound like they’re channelling the ambiance of The Beach Boys with the righteousness of The Clash. Alongside this are the qualities that distinguish the best Guided by Voices material:

1) The way they can make the everyday seem psychedelic, while making the psychedelic seem everyday.

2) Their propensity to world build and draw the listener to the places where these songs take place. The narratives they spin are so well realised that we, the listener, feel that we know the people that GBV sing of. The “you” they address in Quality of Armor is not us the listener, but somehow we are made to feel that we know everything about the people they are singing to. This is quite an achievement given that almost none of the lyrics on Propeller could be considered as naturalistic.

I’m not convinced that the drive my car opening is about actual road tripping, rather I suspect that a different kind of trip may be the inspiration for the song. In the play out from around 1:51 onwards, the references to travelling Beyond the secret bogus world show that the journey they’re on might be one into  the depths of the subconscious rather than to the local beach or makeout point.  Whatever they’re taking appears to be something to inspire introspection and debate rather than a wish to party.  In contrast to the brightness of the music, the tone of the lyrics is argumentative and serious, especially in the second verse:

The worst offence is intelligence.

The best defence is belligererence.

How we stalemate our predicament.

Governed by tissue and by filament.

Clearly, it’s not a group of party animals on this trip. The personality dynamics are so well constructed here that I can clearly picture the thick black spectacle frames and slanted 1970s haircut of the Velma-alike who is …finding God in the dictionary/Taking photographs in the cemetery. But unlike those taking the ride in Sonic Youth’s Pacific Coast Highway, there seems less danger about making it home safely. We may be at risk of dying of exposure to drug-induced earnestness more than anything else, though.

Video courtesy of Brocklanders.

All lyrics are copyright of Robert Pollard.

Equus: Thumper Jones - Rock It (27 March 1993)

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One of the sub-debates that caught my eye in the reaction to the news about Oasis reforming to play live dates in 2025 was whether demand for tickets to their shows would be comparable to anyone trying get a ticket for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.  It’s been a long time since I concerned myself over attendance figures at a rock concert. The last time I did so was mid-1996, when my concern for how Blur had seemingly gone from heroes to punchlines after winning the Country House vs Roll With It single battle, but decisively losing the Great Escape vs (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? albums battle both in terms of sales figures and, more crucially, in the court of public opinion. They were due to play a gig at the RDS Grounds, Dublin which I feared virtually no-one would attend. In the event, 32,000 people turned out and those present got to be the first people to hear Song 2.

I’m out of the loop when it comes to Taylor Swift. I drifted away from mainstream music over the course of the 2010s, so her rise to superstardom was something I knew about, but didn’t witness. Apart from a bit of the chorus to Shake It Off, the only thing I know about Swift’s music is that she got her start in the business as a country music star.  Going by Wikipedia, she’s subsequently recorded albums that are inspired by pop, rock, hip-hop and electronica. Maybe I should go through her back catalogue one day as it appears that she has never stood still as an artist and has been eager and brave enough to step out of her musical lane, time and time again. I thought about Swift while researching the story behind Thumper Jones’s 1956 single, Rock It, released through Starday Records.  Not least because the man who recorded it found that having done so, he had no wish to get outside of his designated lane. What’s more, he actively tried to close the other lane down.

Thumper Jones was a pseudonym used by country singer, George Jones, a man who was regarded as one of the finest and most successful country singers ever. He had over 160 hits on the country music charts from 1955 to 2013.  His first records came out in 1954, just at the point that rock ‘n’ roll music was getting started. Indeed, Jones had shared bills with Elvis Presley during 1955. Although Jones had already had a couple of Top 10 hits on the country charts, he set to writing a fast rockabilly tune called Rock It, so as to reflect the new musical sound. However, it doesn’t seem as though he was artistically invested in the single, not least because he put it under a pseudonym.  He subsequently admitted that he had taken a punt on trying a rock ‘n’ roll tune in the hope of making a quick buck. The record didn’t chart and Jones beat a path back to pure country music as fast as he could.  In fact, Jones was so embarrassed by it, he unsuccessfully tried to buy the masters to both sides of the single so that he could stop them surfacing on compilations.

It’s a shame that Jones had such a low opinion of both Rock It and its flipside, How Come It, because he gives a terrific performance here. There’s a degree of appropriation going on with a few borrowed “Go cat, go!” lines and he also tries to channel Elvis’s “smushy” vocal sound* at points. He also makes a bit of a dogs dinner of the Everybody likes to do the bop/Some is just too slow lines where they clearly don’t fit the scansion of his tune, but these quibbles apart, the tune flies and Jones makes it a compelling listen with a lyric which can be read either as one about dancing or sex.

I wish Jones had had a few more stabs at rock ‘n’ roll music, as he clearly had the aptitude to do it well. If he felt that it was an inferior art form to country music then he’s entitled to his opinion. But having listened to his 13 Number 1 country hits while prepping this blogpost, I only found 3 of them to be anywhere near as good as Rock It. Two of them were duets he sang with his ex-wife, Tammy Wynette (1976’s Golden Ring & 1977’s Near You). The best of them was his first number 1, White Lightning, recorded in 1959, and ironically given Jones’s antipathy towards the form, arguably his most rocking country hit. This could be down to the fact that it was written by The Big Bopper and Jones does a fine job of marrying the idiosyncrasies of Bopper’s style with his own in the recording.

Peel occasionally played George Jones’s records through the years and four years to the day of the broadcast of this show, he played Developing My Pictures from the 1982 compilation album, Burn the Honky-Tonk Down, released via Rounder Records.

*I’m thinking particularly about the way Elvis sounds on the “…so lonely…” lines of Heartbreak Hotel.

Lyrics are copyright of George Jones.

Video courtesy of TyroneSchmidling.

Equus: Paul Mix - New Millenium [Tranceatlantic Mix] (27 March 1993)

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OK, I’ll get the obvious joke out of the way first. So, just how many tunes out there are subtitled as the Paul Mix mix?

When he played this, John Peel referred to the look of the 12-inch as Blue vinyl, flecked with grey. Rather lovely. I think that sums this particular mix of New Millenium up quite well, actually. The Tranceatlantic Mix was put together by Damon Wild and Tommy Musto, who attempt to give a tribal slant to Paul Mix’s slightly intergalactic sounding original version. The keyboards on the original sound like frantic distress signals sent from a stricken space station, but Wild and Musto pull the track back down from the stratosphere and plant it in a rainforest, augmented with African drums, breathy chants and “pop” sounds like woodpeckers beating out messages to each other in response to Mix’s keyboard figure from the stars which bursts in at the 2:16 mark. They reappear over the final minute too giving the feel of Earth and the Solar System trying to talk to each other.

The original version of New Millenium.

Videos courtesy of 2trancecentral and En-trance.

Equus: The Congos - Neckodeemus (27 March 1993)

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Many compilations give the spelling in this track as Nicodeemus, but I have gone with the spelling which the track was given when it was first issued as one side of a single in 1977. To get a more complete idea of what The Congos were doing while recording around this time, I would direct interested parties to the expanded versions of their album, Heart of the Congos.

The inspiration for the track appears to be the Christian saint, Nicodemus. His conversation with Jesus, as referenced in Chapter 3 of the Gospel of John is the subject of the song from 1:15 to 1:40:

Neckodeemus! Neckodeemus!

Neckodeemus went to Jah Jah by night.

To ask Him the way of salvation and right.

You gotta be born again, you gotta be born again!

The triumph of the first half of the track is the way that the Congos wring melodic gold out of phrases such as a yard and on edge.  As well as references to theology, they also reaffirm their commitment to the ongoing wait for spiritual enlightenment:

Now it’s a long long time we a gwaan sah.

I never get weary yet, oh no.

Now it’s a long long time we a gwann sah.

I never get weary yet.

Everything flows beautifully about both the performance and the production except for the clunky edit at around 3:35, where what would have been the dub version side on a conventional single release would have started.  However, the Congos were so overflowing with music at this time, they put vocal and dub as a continuous piece on one side of the single, and backed it with the slightly dull, Solid Foundation.

All lyrics are copyright of Roydel Johnson

Video courtesy of Mystic Revelation.

Equus: Arcwelder - It’s a Wonderful Lie (27 March 1993)

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Many, many years ago, I had a dream that I was in a casual relationship with an airhead, good-time girl. This wasn’t anyone I knew, they were quite literally a figure of fantasy conjured up in my dreams. They were friendly, sexy, ditzy and very much the helpless-female. I remember going through the dream feeling that I had the power in the relationship; I liked her and enjoyed being with her, but I knew that it wasn’t love. She was far too flighty to lose my heart to. We had various (innocent) adventures during the course of the dream and what I remember is that, somehow, she had got herself in some sort of trouble with the authorities. Just before I woke up, I remember she was pleading with me to stand by her while she was in trouble. As she showered me with kisses to persuade me, I remember feeling within the dream a mixture of concern for the predicament that she was in, lust in response to the kisses and irritation at the fact that the inevitable break in the relationship was going to have to wait until her situation was sorted out.  I found myself thinking back on that dream the more times I listened to It’s a Wonderful Lie by Arcwelder.

It’s a Wonderful Lie was recorded for the Minnesota band’s third album, Pull. Listening to the record, the dominating theme is one of romantic disintegration. Five of the 13 tracks, including It’s a Wonderful Lie, are about relationships crumbling, while the remainder trade in notions of doubt and lamentations about the masks people wear in relationships and the pretences that are maintained long after a relationship has gone past its use-by date. Only the penultimate track, Finish My Song, admits to any need for love and comfort in the arms of another. 

As the lyrics to It’s a Wonderful Lie make clear - and you’ll need to read them because Scott Macdonald’s vocal is indecipherable for large parts of the song - the protagonist is ready to quit a relationship which seems to be giving them diminishing returns of enjoyment. What’s interesting about this to me, and why I’ve been reminded about my dream of a relationship with a ditz, is that the lyrics play out like a line by line conversation between the dominant and the submissive halves in a relationship at the point where they are both facing up to the end of the relationship. There’s even the possibility that Macdonald represents the ditzy one in this couple, having to justify themself in the face of the other’s perceived superiority, while attempting to fire back a few home truths of their own and trying to leave with their dignity intact.

My belief that this was a relationship founded on physical attraction is because of the line, I admit that it’s lust - frees my mind from thinking.  What I find fascinating about the lyrics is that so many of the lines could be interchangeable in terms of who is saying them. Examples include:

Why do I try fighting against your indifference? - You’ll never be bright enough to understand me, will you?/You’ll never think me worthy of true love, will you?

I always say it’s OK. I was only lying the last time - I can tolerate your foolishness most of the time, but I don’t think I can anymore/Your harshness doesn’t bother me, but I think you’re getting harsher more often.

I always know when to quit, when I’ve overstayed my welcome - I think I need to move on/Maybe, you should move on, I’ll be OK.

I’m not unbreakable, sorry if I gave that impression - I can’t be what you want me to be.

There’s plenty more in a similar vein that’s open for joint interpretation, but the line Time to move on to bigger and better disasters feels like the crux of the song for them both. There’s every possibility that a split will see them both end up in a similar situation with another person in a year’s time. This feels born out in the song’s coda from 3:48 during which Macdonald repeatedly sings A speeding train and as the brittle driving riff that the song was formed around builds to a crescendo at the 4 minute mark, I can see both myself and my ditz - or Macdonald and his alpha - all of us stood, paralysed in the door frame which could lead either to freedom or disaster and us reacting by clasping the other and collapsing to the floor in a welter of frenzied, desperate kisses. Needing to quit, but too dependent on the other to do so.

Staggeringly good stuff and comfortably the best track on the Pull LP.

Lyrics are copyright of Scott Macdonald.

Video courtesy of Marc Davis.

Equus: The Ultraviolet Catastrophe - Funk You Very Much (27 March 1993)

 

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Music for night owls - John Peel after playing this on 27/3/93.

Featuring “live percussion & vibes”, I feel that Funk You Very Much, is an inaccurate title for what we get to hear on this track. I’d have gone with Sam-Bang, Thank You, Ma’am, given that the track sounds as close in style to fast paced Latin Music as it does to Funk, especially from around 1:48. 

Funk You Very Much is not in and of itself, an original piece of music. Rather, it is a remix - by Jon Williams - of an Ultraviolet Catastrophe track called The Trip. Funk You Very Much found itself on a 12-inch of remixes of The Trip, all of which were given alternative titles. Of these, Funk You Very Much is the catchiest, Trip Harder is the most energetic and Twisted Twinkle is the most inventive. But it was Trip Harder which earned the men behind The Ultraviolet Catastrophe a windfall when The Chemical Brothers included it on their 1998 mix compilation album, Brothers Gonna Work It Out. 

Video courtesy of Cristian M.

Equus: John Peel Show - Friday 26 March 1993 (BBC Radio 1)

 John Peel

I’ve just finished listening to Peel’s Radio 1 show from 18 June 1993, which featured a second session from Huggy Bear. On this 26/3/93 show, Peel was sent a review of their show at the 1 in 12 Club, Bradford by listener, Mark Anthony. He called them “Gods of the stage.” I would have been in full agreement at the time, but I have to report that I found their second Peel Session less impressive than their other work.  More on that in a year or two’s time….

During a phone call in the week to his friend, Hameesh, Peel had been asked if knew what had  happened to the band, Slint. With exquisite timing, the following day’s post brought a record by The Palace Brothers which featured three members of Slint as part of its lineup. Peel duly played Ohio River Boat Song to celebrate.

The programme also featured a reminder of the days before mobile phones in that Peel had to read out a message on the off-chance that a listener called Nigel Stevens may be tuned in and would contact Hayes Police Station.

The selections were taken from a 90 minute section of the show. Two of my original choices fell from favour:

PJ Harvey - 50ft Queenie - I do have other selections from her Rid of Me period down for appraisal as we move through 1993, and I remember this track as the one which first gained her widespread exposure as it crept in the Top 30 of the UK Singles Chart. However, I have an uneasy feeling that most of those choices will go through the same second thoughts as this one. The problem for me is I dislike the way Polly Jean sounds in this era. Someone, maybe Steve Albini who produced Rid of Me, clearly told her, “Hey, you know Sheela-Na-Gig? Well, sing it like that but with a Somerset meets Louisiana vibe”. It sounds fake, grating and too much like the sound of people trying to fit a unique artist into the prevailing sound of the time.  Once she dumped all of that, Harvey went back, at least to my ears, to being the compelling musical presence she had been two years earlier. 

Stereolab - Avant Garde M.O.R - Yet again, this lot come up with something which catches my attention, but which fails to stick.  Their Bossa nova phase can’t come soon enough.

Me

Long time readers of this blog will know what a John Peel/Me split in one of these posts means. I was back on stage. Tonight was the first of a two night run for Equus at Falmouth Poly. I will provide more details on this when we round up the 27/3/93 show.

Full tracklisting