Guys and Dolls: John Peel Show - Friday 7 May 1993 (BBC Radio 1)

When I was acting in the play, Here Comes a Chopper, last year, I spent several happy hours talking about music with the director’s husband, Brian Harrington, who was playing the part of Death. During the rehearsal period, he was selling the majority of his extensive record collection, most of which made up the playlists for on his shows for Kennet Radio. One band he mentioned to me a couple of times was Stray, who having formed in 1966 are currently - as of 2023 - onto their fifth reformation. I listened to one of their tracks during the rehearsal period, and thought it was OK, but it turned out that I’d already heard them a couple of years previously, when Peel played Jericho from the 1971 album, Suicide. He was inspired to do this after playing a track called Stray by Heatmiser, which featured Elliott Smith. I wonder what Brian would have made of Peel summarising Stray as a good Second Division band from the era.

Amongst all the usual letters and faxes, it was an answerphone message that had grabbed Peel’s attention during the week. An unidentified, distraught man had left a message on the office answerphone talking about the death of their mother. Given that he was still processing the death of his own mother, the year before, Peel reached out to the caller to get in touch again if they were listening.

This blog’s been covering the 7 May 1993 edition of Kat’s Karavan since 21 January, and it’s no surprise given how many good records were broadcast that night. It’s likely that we’d still have been on this show for another month if the following tracks hadn’t fell from favour with me:

Jerry Lee Lewis - Crazy Arms - When it comes to Jerry Lee Lewis, nothing else showed me how much I’ve been ruined by Great Balls of Fire than re-listening to Crazy Arms, which featured on his debut album, released in 1958. It’s only after hearing Lewis perform in slower, more contemplative mood that you realise just how much Great Balls of Fire casts such a shadow over everything else he recorded. Crazy Arms is pleasant, but pedestrian and, for the moment, if I want piano shuffle, I’ll stick with Fats Domino.

If I ‘d been feeling vindictive, I would have included Crazy Arms simply because the opening piano figure  on it reminded me of the opening to I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do by ABBA. I’ve spent most of early April walking around, either singing that song or with it stuck in my head, so I could have chosen to make all of you suffer as well. Have a care if you click on the link… It’s too late, isn’t it? You’re already singing along to it, aren’t you?…

The reason why Peel was playing Jerry Lee Lewis was due to him seeing the TV premiere of Great Balls of Fire, a 1989 biopic about Lewis, with Dennis Quaid in the lead role, broadcast on Bank Holiday Monday. He hadn’t thought much of the film, but had praise for Quaid’s performance, and conceded that the film had been successful in doing what any good music biopic should do, namely sending him back to listen to the records. Furthermore, he had a bit of a connection to Lewis, in that he reckoned he was the first person in Liverpool to own Lewis’s debut album as he had pre-ordered and pre-paid for a copy at his local record shop.

Captain Jesus and the Sunray Dream - I’m So Dead Bored - How to define the sound on this track, or indeed on its accompanying album, All Thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ Amen?  I’d say space rock meets punk rock; with the musical emphasis on the former and the lyrical emphasis on the latter. Take a future Hawkwind frontman on bass, write songs whose titles and melodies subvert Clash/Sex Pistols tunes i.e. the aforementioned I’m So Dead Bored and the now prescient, Anarchy in the USA. Record and issue it on your own label out of Armley, Leeds and you have an album which impressed Peel due to it trying to walk its own path instead of trying to hitch itself to a current guitar scene. It sounds something of a throwback to circa 1980. My notes say that It doesn’t break any new ground for me, but it has undeniable intensity. Which is true even though it hasn’t stood up to reappraisal. 

It’s not helped by the fact that the whole album is on YouTube, and when heard in full context, I’m So Dead Bored ends up sounding like one of the least interesting tracks on the record, albeit the second half of the album falls into space rock jam tedium. Had I been coming back to hear a track like the similarly titled I’m So Depressed, I Wanna Be Me or the album’s big production number, Starship, I’d probably have been persuaded. As I say, you can decide for yourself whether you would have become one of Captain Jesus’s disciples, I’m So Dead Bored starts at 9:36.

Mortal - Psycho (Logic) - How different would this blog look if I posted about tracks as soon as I heard them? I have to ensure that there’s a lag between the period I’m writing about (May 1993) and the period I’m currently listening to (September 1993) so that there is no massive gap between postings. But if I had acted the moment I heard, then Psycho (Logic) would be on the metaphorical mixtape given that my notes call it a terrific dance track. But when I listened back to it, I started to wonder whether I was responding more to the samples of Anthony Perkins being particularly mesmeric in Psycho, than I was to the music around it. 

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a dance track, specifically because of its samples - there’s one potentially coming up in a few shows time featuring an off-mic Ronald Reagan - but, with a tinge of regret, I eventually concluded that if the Perkins samples weren’t included, I may not have even noticed the track in the first place. If you are looking for further Hitchcock infused material, then you may enjoy the Bernard Hermann-esque sounds on PJ Harvey’s Man-Size Sextet, which was also broadcast on this show.

Gallon Drunk - You Should Be Ashamed - featuring Terry Edwards on saxophone. I think this probably made the initial list purely because there’s an instrumental refrain in it which reminded me of two tracks that were released after You Should Be Ashamed. Namely, If I Only Knew by Tom Jones (1994) and Amnesia by Chumbawamba (1998), both which I have a regard for which sees-saws between pleasurable amusement and outright derision. But the rest of it left me wondering what on Earth I’d seen in it given that it sounded like standard Gallon Drunk mumblerock. It struck me that You Should Be Ashamed might have sounded out of place when listened to away from its parent album, From the Heart of Town. I was able to listen the LP, which has the feel of a concept album given that the record feels like it’s set among drinkers, druggies and debauchers who are united by disgust at themselves and alienation from civilised society. However, this didn’t change my opinion on You Should Be Ashamed. The whole exercise was:

a) pointless, as I wouldn’t have had the album as a point of reference to use in 1993, and…

b) frustrating, as I finally came across some Gallon Drunk songs that I really liked*, but I won’t be able to write about them here as it doesn’t look as though Peel ever gave any of them an airing.

Full tracklisting

*The tracks were Keep Moving On, Push the Boat Out and Bedlam. Apart from a single play for the latter in September 1992, when it was released as a single, Peel passed on all three of them.

Guys and Dolls: Fishmonkeyman - What’s the World Coming To? (7 May 1993)

 

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A word of heartfelt thanks to my benefactor, Webbie, for providing an upload for this track, which out of 24 tracks from this 7/5/93 show that made my initial list of inclusions, was the only one that wasn’t shareable. He may well have provided the very best from this show at the very last.

So, it’s late Spring/early summer 1993. And if you’re of a certain age, like me, that period of time means the first stirrings of Britpop. It was a phenomenon that was going to be the making of some bands, the destruction of others and the revitalisation of a couple of bands who were either perceived as having blown a big chance (Blur) or had been quietly toiling away for years and were finally about to be noticed (Pulp). If there had been any justice, it should have worked its restorative powers on Fishmonkeyman too.

Their story is closer to Blur’s than Pulp’s given they had spent 1990 into ‘91 attracting considerable interest and radio-play with their first two singles: If I’ve Told You Once and Breathing. After signing to Warner Music UK, they recorded an album called Gryst, only to suffer an almighty slap in the face when Warners chose not to release it. After an intense year of recording, gigging and writing, this decision knocked the stuffing out of the band. Three-quarters of the personnel left and guitarist and songwriter Paul Den Heyer spent 1992 writing new material and looking for new colleagues to play with.

With a new band around him, Den Heyer and Fishmonkeyman returned with a four-track EP, Seven Monkeys Sitting in a Tree, which they released through own label, Groovey Cardboard. After the trauma of late 1991, Den Heyer was determined to just have fun on this release and the lack of pressure appears to have contributed to him writing one of the earliest unknown Britpop songs. What’s the World Coming To? features a lyric about a character, a singable chorus line, tunefully noisy guitars and, in keeping with the period 1993-95, a tremendously carefree spirit to it. 

The target of the song is a faceless government bureaucrat, but this isn’t an Ernold Same-type sneer at boring people doing boring jobs. Instead, it looks at the notion that if governments bring forward legislation that harms people, the effects of those policies are enacted by people like the subject of What’s the World Coming To?. Your mortgage has to go up? Council tax on the rise? Cuts to services? Losing your benefits?  You could be living next door to someone who has had to ensure those measures are implemented. And, depressingly, the song suggests that not only do these people not feel conflicted by it (The man with no conscience has plenty to do), but that there are more of them willing to do this than we realise (He works in your office, he lives in your street/He’s everyone that you are likely to meet.)

The song briefly tries to offer some element of McCartney-esque sympathy towards its lead character by implying that they lost something of themselves when a love affair broke up, but it doesn’t dwell on this, especially once it tells that the man is a tyrant towards his current wife and children, and that, come rain or shine, they’ll be out there waiting for the train that takes them to the job which sees them wield power over people and communities. 

If we’re looking for contemporary parallels (in 1993), while lines like He’ll stop at nothing, to get his own way/Never stops talking, has nothing to say suggest that he would have found plenty in common with Blur’s hyper efficient Colin Zeal*, the later lines in the song such as When there’s a war, he’ll be first in the line/Cutting off ears with his Swiss Army Knife suggest that their bureaucrat may have found more common cause with someone like the bigot sampled on Countryman by that evening’s Peel Session guests, Fun-Da-Mental. After all, a phrase like What’s the World Coming To? can sound like a lament in anyone’s mouth, but what they may be lamenting could have different connotations depending on who says it.

Whether they intended to or not, Fishmonkeyman caught an early whiff of the British guitar zeitgeist in this track, but it did them no good commercially, albeit Den Heyer might not have been too keen to jump back into a major label’s arms again so soon after the Gryst fiasco. This interview on Cloudberry Cake Proselytism V.3 suggests that the experience left scars he wasn’t in a hurry to expose to the music business again. The band instead signed to Copasetic Records…where history repeated itself! After releasing a couple of singles, Fishmonkeyman had an album, This Is Where You Are, recorded and set for release, but Copasetic Records couldn’t put it out due to financial problems, at which point Fishmonkeyman disbanded.

*Blur released Modern Life is Rubbish, 3 days after this Peel Show was broadcast.

Video courtesy of Webbie.

All lyrics are copyright of their authors.

Guys and Dolls: Oil Seed Rape - Rib Donor (7 May 1993)

 

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Rib Donor was the first track Peel played on this 7/5/93 show and, as was generally his style, he went straight into the record without any mention of who it was by. So, as I listened to the brewing atmosphere of malevolence and the full-blooded shouts of someone haranguing an undesirable neighbour with implications that they are either a murderer or a pedophile, I found myself thinking that it sounded a little like Therapy? in one of their murder metal tracks. But it was actually the work of Gloucestershire’s Wayne Travis, aka Oil Seed Rape, who had started the project as a one-man outfit, before expanding it into a quartet.

 In this live video from November 1992, Travis introduces Rib Donor as being a song about a sweet old lady who makes us scones. A throwaway line maybe, but it conjures the image of an angry woodcutter, leading a group of forest folk to harangue the witch’s house in the weeks before Hansel and Gretel go there. (Song starts at 2:55).

Despite the thrashing and the shouting, I’ll happily concede that Rib Donor is quite a slight track to put on to the metaphorical mixtape. Ultimately, as with Slugger by Tsunami from the same show, it owes its place here to me thinking that it was someone else. There’s a case to be made that in Rib Donor, Oil Seed Rape sounded more like Therapy? than Therapy? did themselves at this time. At least, that was what I would have been feeling…

Video courtesy of planetfurball.

Guys and Dolls: Therapy? - Speedball (7 May 1993)

 

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So, having declared myself a fan of Therapy? around the time of my 17th birthday, I did what any good bandwagon jumper would and immediately went cold on the new material, because it didn’t sound like what had grabbed my attention in the first place.  

I’d been hooked by Screamager from the Shortsharpshock EP, and I was excited to see a new EP, Face the Strange, following hard on its heels. Hell..there was even a chance that I’d actually buy this one. But when I saw them perform the lead track, Turn on Top of the Pops, I felt quite disappointed. It was a bit of a drag, which wasn’t a description I generally associated with Therapy? (from my one experience of hearing them). A recent re-listen to it showed me the error of my ways, but in the early summer of 1993, the damage was done, and I didn’t end up buying Face the Strange, because its public face wasn’t giving me what I wanted.

I wasn’t alone in this given that, after receiving an acetate of the EP, John Peel bypassed Turn and went straight to the second track, Speedball. This would have been much more like it from my point of view; full of skittering Fyfe Ewing drum patterns, thorny guitar storms and a wonderfully singable chorus line, You make me sick etc.  But, I suspect for the band, they may have regarded it as being too much like a Screamager retread, while their label would have faced pushback from radio stations who would have blanched at giving daytime radio play to a track named after a drug cocktail. Such were the compromises of major label life.

I went on telling anyone who was interested* that I was a Therapy? fan, though shamefully, I only bought one album, Semi-Detached (1998) and that was a good 20 years after it came out.  Meanwhile, Peel, after several years of airplay, bade them farewell at this point.

Video courtesy of balbees.

All lyrics are copyright of their authors.

*Nobody. However, given that Therapy?’s former producer, Al Clay, went onto to produce the debut album by my favourite band of the 1990s, it feels to me that, my initial dalliance with Therapy? essentially served as the preparation for my love affair with Marion.

Guys and Dolls: PJ Harvey - Man-Size Sextet (7 May 1993)

 

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While preparing this blogpost, it became apparent to me that Man-Size is currently my least favourite PJ Harvey song. I’ve written previously about my dislike of a lot of the Rid of Me era tracks, and how what I struggled to engage with was the way in which they try to Americanize Polly’s style and vocals. This reaches its nadir in the closing lines of Man-Size when she sings the word gasoline with an American twang which makes me want to rip my ears off the side of my head, anytime I hear it.   

But all was not lost for Man-Size, because she gave us a second version on Rid of Me consisting only of her voice, percussion and various string instruments, which I think she may have played herself.  

Although the title Man-Size could be seen as a comment on Polly’s own sexual nature and awakening, the lyrics suggest she is playing the role of a man who is now sexually switched on and looking for something to do with his equipment: Good lord, I’m big/I’m heading on. Not to mention tangible excitement at having someone to use their equipment on: Got my girl and she’s a wow….My babe looking cool and neat/I’m pretty sure good enough to eat etc.

On Rid of Me, Man-Size Sextet is sequenced four tracks ahead of Man-Size. Stylistically, this makes sense because the vocal on Man-Size Sextet sounds far more uncertain than the one on Man-Size. Taken together with the stabbing, dissonant strings, it does an excellent job of conveying the chaos of puberty and sexual awakening. Polly wants to fuck in Man-Size Sextet, but despite the favourable conditions, s(he) is a bundle of nerves. Emotions are churning up all over the place, and although s(he) has the tools, it doesn’t sound as though s(he) knows what to do with them. I know how s(he) feels. I had my first passionate experiences with a woman in December 1993, but it took me another four years before I actually achieved anything. Nerves, excitement, tension, desire, delusion all played their part.  As the strings scream out over the repeated refrain of Man size from 1:40 to 1:52, it sounds nothing less than someone desperately trying to cross the threshold into adulthood and leave both their and the girl’s pre-sex self behind. You almost feel the pelvic thrusts between two hot groins.

The closing note shows that, together, the boy and girl have become man and woman, but Polly nails the one-eyed nature of the conquering male. They’ve made a girl into a woman, now burn that childhood version with gasoline, so that the newly made woman can service the man again, and again. Notice how the man doesn’t burn their boyhood self. Presumably this is so they can have it both ways: be serviced like a man and waited on like a child, when the mood takes them.

If we take this idea on a stage, if Man-Size Sextet relates to the virgin trying to use their new sexual awareness for the first time within a fog of nerves, then the rock version of Man-Size finds the man several months on, bullishly confident in their sexual technique, in awe of their physical development and ready to rut.

I respond to Man-Size Sextet because it speaks to where I was at the time Peel played it - all tooled up, but with nowhere to go, no-one to play with and uncertain about what I would do if I found someone. I also like it because it sounds closer to what I want from a PJ Harvey song. It’s telling that this was the only song on Rid of Me that was not produced by Steve Albini and that’s probably why Harvey sounds, to my ears at least, closer to her real self than she does on other material from this period. It also points to where she would take her music next, once Steven Vaughan and Rob Ellis - who did the string arrangements on this track - had moved on.

Video courtesy of zararity.

All lyrics are copyright of Polly Jean Harvey.

Guys and Dolls: Cell - Halo [Peel Session] (7 May 1993)

 

This session was originally broadcast on Saturday 13 February 1993, at a time when Cell were enjoying some decent exposure on Kat’s Karavan. However, this repeat marked their final appearance on a Peel show playlist.

The studio version of the third track, Everything Turns (from 7:37) has already been featured here and I’d have possibly included it on the metaphorical mixtape for reasons of completeness. Remembering how much I’d enjoyed some of Cell’s music from late ‘92/early ‘93, I was a little surprised to see that it was only the session opener, Halo, that made my list of inclusions, but having listened to the full session here, I don’t feel that I was wrong. It’s the only one of the tracks which has any kind of life and spark to it, as, in keeping with the theme of so many inclusions from this show, our narrator comes back from a period of self-reflection and decides to end a relationship that’s been causing him problems. He suspects that his lover has been cheating on him, and the projection of goodness that they show to him and the world is a false impression.

There is a second reading about Halo, which is that it’s told from the perspective of Death itself, swooping down to take away some unsuspecting person, who has been wasting their life doing nothing and in its closing lines: Get off my face/Baby, I’m not dead being utterly indifferent to protest or pleading.  Whichever interpretation is true though, Halo rocks in a way that the other tracks don’t get near. It’s not that any of them are bad per se, but they don’t really engage me.

The second track, Camera is too whiny, the final track, Stratosphere (from 11:50) tries to reach for the skies but ends up leaving the listener behind, and even Everything Turns runs the risk of being left off giving the strained vocals on it.

As the full session is available, you’ll be able to make your own decision, but for me it’s Track 1 and done.

Video courtesy of The Sidefish Report.

All lyrics are copyright of their authors.

Guys and Dolls: Terror Fabulous - Drop It Cool (7 May 1993)

 

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So, after a couple of false starts, Cecil Campbell aka Terror Fabulous takes his place on the metaphorical mixtape. We’ve already had Peel warning listeners about “sexist claptrap” on Terror Fabulous records; while, a few weeks before this programme went out, I left a Terror Fabulous tune out because I was undecided on whether it was slut shaming or slut protecting.

But, as far as I can tell Drop It Cool appears to stay clear of controversy and frames its message around how people approach each brand new day. In Terror Fabulous’s view, the world is split between those who shine and those who glisten. The former dedicate their day to doing right by their fellow man and living a virtuous life; the latter only see the new day as a chance to feather their nest with money. I don’t think he’s being especially critical of people working for a living to put food on the table or a roof over their heads, but the use of the word, glisten, implies an attack on those who earn money purely for status. He also includes a swipe at those who chase money through crime, the ones with an angle of essentially living through wasted days, because they’re only interested in the false prophets of mammon.

If we assume that the Drop in the title refers to the patois meaning die as in drop out, then this song implies that those who dedicate their days to clean living and looking after others will receive their reward in death compared to those who grind themselves into the dirt as part of the rat race or those who may find themselves murdered by rude boys. If you shine, you’re an angel and will soar on into Heaven; if you glisten, then you’ll be marked by a gravestone that will only degrade and wear away over time.

Video courtesy of K Gold

Guys and Dolls: Royal Trux - Steal Yr Face/Gett Off (7 May 1993)

 

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On the evidence of these two songs, which made up both sides of a single released through Sub Pop, if you take a sprinkling of early 1970s Rolling Stones guitar riffs and season with Sonic Youth-style vocals, you get Royal Trux.

In keeping with those two other bands, on both of these tracks, Royal Trux manage to combine a musically sexy but unromantic sound with lyrically striking junkie poetry. The creative force behind the band was a couple, Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema. On Steal Yr Face, Hagerty - who had already acknowledged a debt to the Stones when his previous band, Pussy Galore (featuring Jon Spencer) had recorded a cassette only cover album of Exile on Main St. - takes on a hybrid Jagger cum Thurston Moore role, warning of dire consequences at losing oneself to narcotic excess. Meanwhile, Herrema dusts down her Kim Gordon cosplay act on Gett Off, barking out unintelligible orders over a clipped guitar sound, which sounds like Brown Sugar’s autistic, younger brother, before becoming overwhelmed by spooky harmonica playing, as though the solo in Little Red Rooster was having a stroke.

It’s difficult to pick a favourite here, as they both have lots to cause fascination and enthralment. It’s not fair of me either to talk about Royal Trux sounding like other bands, especially given their influence on Sonic Youth - Kim Gordon’s side project duo Free Kitten took inspiration from the Royal Trux sound, for example.

Videos courtesy of Rich Neil and myaimistrue.

Guys and Dolls: Moonshake - Girly Loop (7 May 1993)

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I talk sometimes about tracks on this blog being borderline inclusions on my metaphorical mix tape. Girly Loop by Moonshake is so borderline that I can picture it diving under a descending doorway, Indiana Jones-style to take up its place here rather than being left out in the cold.

It owes its place here, mainly, due to pleasure in having new material from Moonshake and hearing them on a Peel show again. The material he had played from the Eva Luna album had been among some of the most consistently entertaining heard on a Peel show during late 1992. Now, the band were back with a mini-album called Big Good Angel, a record which functioned as something of a holding operation while the band toured extensively through the first half of 1993.

However, alarm bells have been ringing when I find myself admitting that it has taken me 3 or 4 listens to engage with Girly Loop, and even then I’d say that my enthusiasm for it is lukewarm at best. When I posted about their Peel Session from 29/1/93, I highlighted the band’s smorgasbord of styles and textures that they work into their songs as being what drew me towards them. But, curiously, it’s precisely that blending which works against the track here. The mood starts out nocturnal, spooky and primal as Margaret Fiedler McGinnis sings about trying to find crazy men and wild men, as a contrast to the passive partner that she has at home. The illicit thrill - albeit a dangerous one - of trying to find, what I presume are new sexual partners, that she tries to convey as she steps out into dangerous environments is telegraphed by bursts of noise which are trying to introduce notes of abrasiveness into a quiet basic track, but which just ending up sounding either like a flock of seagulls having an argument or an amplifier breaking wind. 

For a change, the eclecticism sounds forced, they’re metaphorically throwing sounds out of the speakers to see what sticks, and at times you can see the beads of sweat on their foreheads with the desperate effort of it all.

It just gets by on the strength of who it is and Fiedler McGinnis’s vocal. Also, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see how the approach here may have inspired PJ Harvey’s music in her post-Rid of Me albums. Fiedler McGinnis would subsequently play as part of Harvey’s live band in the early 2000s, so I trust that Polly made her debt clear to Margaret.

Video courtesy of TheMelcene.

Guys and Dolls: Lee and the Clarendonians - Night Owl (7 May 1993)

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Peel played this 1972 roots reggae track because he claimed that he was still going through his collection of singles even though he had now found the elusive record in the Little Richard cover search. I’m guessing that in the L section, Lee and The Clarendonians would have been positioned before Mickey Lee Lane.

If Discogs is to be believed, then Lee in this instance was Hubert Lee, and this was one of his earliest releases. Indeed, it may have been a conscious decision to pair Lee up with the more experienced vocal duo, The Clarendonians (Peter Austin and Ernest Wilson), to give things a more polished veneer. It continues the theme of records from this Peel show which deal with relationships collapsing, although in this case, it’s the man waiting up with a rolling pin to greet the late homecoming of his party-loving other half, and sending her to bed with a message that her behaviour has killed his love for her.

I’ve had to do a lot of driving recently, both for work and for the extended run of a play I’ve been in. This has led to me following Peel’s lead and re-listening to albums I haven’t heard for many years. The tone of this track came back to me when I was listening to Better Do Better from Stars of CCTV by Hard-Fi. 33 years separate Night Owl and Better Do Better, but the message is clear - whether you’re in Feltham or Jamaica - those women gonna drive you mad!

Video courtesy of Mr Charlie Chalk.

Guys and Dolls: Moose - Suzanne (7 May 1993)

 

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Still makes my head go all funny, that one. John Peel after playing Suzanne on 7/5/93.

The Phantom Fifty had got to Number 17 and presented a track which is the flip-side of Vi Ploriontos by Scrawl. Whereas that track was about someone choosing to end a relationship, Suzanne finds Russell Yates and Moose having to manage the pain of being dumped by the titular lover, who at least has the decency to look sad about it.

Musically, there’s a lot going on in Suzanne, which reflects the sense of emotional turmoil that it’s trying to chronicle. The chiming guitars that open it sound like choked breaths of disbelief that another day has come around and that the pain of this breakup has to be relieved again, a weary recognition that things haven’t got easier yet. We even have arpeggios that sound like falling tears cropping up at some points. Lyrically, the song touches on the pain of seeing the one who has let you go having the strength to work through their own guilt and make progress, all while Yates still finds himself looking longingly at photographs he’s not yet ready to throw out and recognising that, just by existing, Suzanne still has mastery over his emotions and heart: She walks all over me/I can’t take it from her.

And what complicates these feelings further is the fact that while Yates suffers, both Suzanne and the world at large keep going, oblivious to his pain: She goes where she wants to etc while the galloping, driving drum pattern sounds like the rest of the world clattering around our stricken, lovelorn hero. Moose up the ante on this from around 2:15 onwards by introducing a loud white noise effect through to the end of the song which does a brilliant job of evoking just how overwhelming it can be to try and pick your way through the everyday world when your heart is broken.

Around the second chorus the white noise guitar bursts through and takes over the song, swinging from side to side on the stereo spectrum, hitting a single note column of sound where a normal guitar solo might be, and the song just builds onwards, drums roll, guitars get more frantic, the noise increases like the blood boiling in your ears until the band crash to a halt. Still stunning now, and for me a high water mark for shoegazing.  (Taken from We almost laughed, we almost cried, a 2014 retrospective article on the work of Moose, published on A Goldfish Called Regret).

 Moose talk about how they made the video to Suzanne.

Video courtesy of 9emmett9

Lyrics copyright of K.J. McKillop and Russell Yates.

Guys and Dolls: NSO Force - In 2 Deep (7 May 1993)

 

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NSO = No Sell Out

My notes seem to suggest that I misinterpreted what In 2 Deep was about when I first heard it. I thought it was tremendous, but was perturbed by troubling sentiments. I was probably guilty of taking the title and the line at the 38 second mark about re-offending, as a sign that the track was about the narrator embracing crime, and accepting it as their way of life, because it was impossible to turn back from it.

However, it’s become clear to me on subsequent listens that it’s a repudiation both of a criminal life and living a conventional 9-to-5 existence. The NSO crew - Douglas Haywoode, Niles Hailstones and Ola The Soul Controller - have clear heads about both their purpose and the sacrifices they will have to make in order to be true to what they want to do. However, there’s no bravado on show here. The mood of the track is quite downbeat with its  repeated wah-wah sample reflecting all the possibilities being gone over and rejected, and the jazz trumpet evoking the noirish sense of late nights and melancholia at the struggles which await them as they try both to develop as artists, and stay true to their cultural principles.

And make no mistake, “struggle” is the central theme of In 2 Deep. It’s the struggle not to work as a wage slave or puppet, so as to attain the dream of a place in Battersea, eating caviar and swine - now that’s what I call London weighting. It’s a struggle not to get embroiled in intra-racial conflicts with other black people and artists over trivialities - such as a brand of trainer - which can wind up leaving people dead.  And it’s a struggle which has to be faced alone. I found the most affecting section of the track to be the run  from 1:23 to 2:16, where the MC laments the way in which nobody impedes the progress of black people more than other black people, and in rap/hip-hop, you have to keep your aspirations quiet as you build them up, so as not to attract dangerous attention. Choose your time to flex, wisely, appears to be the message. 

And then there’s the pressure to succeed before life either makes other choices for them, or the streets end up claiming them, one way or another. The closing refrain of Time is running out adds another layer of pressure to the NSO Force’s mission. The track carries the weight of mental agony and it transmits the harshness of urban London life. NSO Force certainly had to put up with their share of setbacks, including the disappointment of seeing their one and only Peel Session, recorded in November 1989, go unbroadcast due to excessive swearing.

But it’s not all grim stuff. If nothing else, this may be the only hip-hop track to ever feature the words dilly dally in it.

Video courtesy of Sentinal One.

Guys and Dolls: Tsunami - Slugger (7 May 1993)

 

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Two tracks blogged about in a day! What madness is this? Well, they have a couple of things in common, such as:

1) Both Tsunami’s album, Deep End and Scrawl’s mini-album, Bloodsucker were issued by Simple Machines, out of Arlington County, Virginia.

2) Like Vi Ploriontos, Slugger made my list of inclusions - albeit with a question mark next to it - then I was going to pass on it, only to reprieve it.

I don’t think Slugger is as good a track as Vi Ploriontos, but this could be down to it being harder to get a handle on. I think it’s about outsiders trying to break into a clique, but doing a bad job of it, though it’s not easy to decipher that from the vocals. I was helped by the fact that part of the lyrics are included in the liner notes for Deep End:

Fly in to town on a saucer of gold.

You wouldn’t know cool 

If it crept up and slugged you in the nose.

I was probably guilty of giving up too easily, but I initially wrote the track off as being too insubstantial for inclusion. However, when I found myself thinking about Vi Ploriontos, I was convinced that the riff to Slugger was from Vi Ploriontos. The fact that that chugging riff had clamped itself to my brain convinced me to put it back on the metaphorical mixtape. Sometimes, you just have to go with the vibes.

Video courtesy of Brooks Wyrick.

Lyrics copyright of their authors.

Guys and Dolls: Scrawl - Vi Ploriontos (7 May 1993)

 

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Having recently written a post about what it felt like to be dumped after a long term relationship, it makes sense that within the same Peel show, we should also be able to enjoy a track written from the perspective of the one who has decided it’s time to pull the plug on a relationship. I think, in comparison to the subject of derision in Vi Ploriontos, I probably got off lightly as co-authors Marcy Mays and Sue Harshe firmly go in  two-footed on their soon-to-be ex.

One thing I didn’t mention in my break up post was the way in which, when you’re dumped after a lengthy relationship, you find yourself wondering why you bothered putting in all the time and effort that you did. Once you get over the end of the relationship, all the good times and happy memories become a comfort to you, and something to remember with pride. But when you’re in the immediate aftermath of the break-up, then every kind word, every happy time, every penny spent feels like it was a waste of time, given that it ultimately led to heartbreak.

What’s interesting about the dynamic in Vi Ploriontos, is that Scrawl feel exactly the same sense of disappointment and let-down. They reflect back on the trinkets that were bought: fine wines, Megadeth concert tickets, trips away etc; though there is a note of ambiguity as to whether these were things bought by Scrawl or by their ex. Regardless, at this point, it only counts as wasted money and poor taste. The key line by which Scrawl announce their intention to end the relationship is You’re not worth all the space that I let you use up. So, a point of no return has clearly been passed.

Given that Vi Ploriontos translates from Latin as “I forced them to cry” and with its ongoing refrain of You’re gonna cry, I suspect that the break up has come about because the ex has done something unforgivable rather than because they’ve simply drifted apart.

Despite it making my list, I had originally thought that I was going to pass on Vi Ploriontos, but what reprieved it was hearing some more of Scrawl’s music from Peel shows broadcast later in 1993, in particular a track called Your Mother Wants to Know, which showed me that Scrawl had a very nice line in tracks about romantic and interpersonal dysfunction. I want to enjoy them while I can because Peel stopped playing them after ‘93, though this wasn’t helped by them signing to Elektra and a three year delay between albums.

Video courtesy of Scrawl -Topic.

Lyrics are copyright of Sue Harshe and Marcy Mays.

Guys and Dolls: Fun-Da-Mental - Countryman [Peel Session] (7 May 1993)

 

This was the second of three sessions which Fun-Da-Mental recorded for John Peel, so there’s time for me  to revise my opinion, I’m sure, but listening to this three track session, all of which is included in the video above, I found myself having to confront an uncomfortable personal reaction to Fun-Da-Mental’s music. What they sing about is important, necessary and vital….but on the evidence of this session, they’re also very boring to listen to. It’s a tightrope that a lot of socially conscious groups have to walk. Music with a message that needs to be heard, but which can end up being an aural slog. 

You hear the names mentioned: Fun-Da-Mental, Back to the Planet, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprasy, Senser, Chumbawamba and Consolidated are the examples which most readily come to mind; bands which you’re happy to see, but which can leave you asking, “Are you going to be staying long?”

Fun-Da-Mental don’t help themselves given the stature of some of those that they sample. And when they work in blasts of oratory from figures like Malcolm X, Mahatma Gandhi and Louis Farrakhan, they inevitably end up sounding weedy in comparison once they start rapping themselves. Even worse in tracks like Front Line and Tribal Revolution, which made my initial list of selections, they become so overwhelmed by the noise that they make, that the listener becomes passive; hit by a wall of samples and sloganeering, but utterly unengaged by either the content or form. You may feel differently, and for all my carping, I’m glad that the session is out there in full for you to listen and decide for yourself. But it begs the question, has anyone ever listened to a Fun-Da-Mental track for pleasure? Is such a thing possible or desirable with their music?

I don’t think it is, but one thing which links Fun-Da-Mental with the other bands listed above is that when they do come up with something which hits the mark, they really make it count, and Countryman - which is the opening track on the video, but was their session closer on the 7/5/93 show - is a magnificent piece of music, which has stayed with me ever since I heard it again for the first time in several years, when I was prepping this post.

Several things are striking about Countryman, but the thing that stands out to me is that regardless of the anger which features in the track either from the sampled Midlands bigot or the contemptuous laugh that Aki Nawaz gives after he reveals the ratio of  Victoria Crosses awarded against the number of Indian born servicemen who served in the British Army during the Second World War (25:2,000,000), it’s all undercut by the mood of sadness that runs throughout the track. It’s there in the string sample that opens the track and recurs throughout (dilruba?, esraj?, Tar shehnai?, taus?); it’s in Bad-Sha Lallaman’s baffled vocal, wherein he wonders why Asian men would give up the comforts of family love and village peace to travel to a promised land that only offers them poor housing, jobs that are only fit for animals and an expectation that they turn their back on their cultural roots in order to follow…what exactly? 

….they bring their ways, but they don’t want our ways. And yet nobody ever asks the bigots, what ways immigrants are expected to follow. Change religion? OK, but how many BNP members attend church every Sunday? Show deference to the British? In other words, transpose Empire mentality within our own streets and communities? How would that work? Must they work only as our inferiors? Bow to us in the street? What is it that you want? Can you explain it in any way that makes sense? And they can’t.

That undertone of sadness in Countryman even extends to the bigot, whose ignorance seems rooted in bewilderment as much as anything else.

Mind you, Fun-Da-Mental give him and his brethren cause for concern as they announce at 6:20 that they can build a new society alongside their countrymen, and given that this will be done to white man’s surprise, it implies that they are done with trying to meet the likes of the bigot halfway, they will do it themselves and try to make it work. The inference is clear: if you want separation, we’ll give it to you. And we will flourish.

Flash forward 33 years, and we find ourselves in a country where the political landscape currently sees the children of immigrants all chasing the vote of the bigot by emphasising just how much they’ve followed our ways and that they too see those that bring their ways as the problem that over-rides all others. Meanwhile those of us who would prefer it if we all just work together to make the greatest country on Earth, into a place where we can all prosper are patronised and told that we don’t understand the concerns of people in this country. If the direction of travel continues in the way that the lamp post flaggers and vast sections of the media are trying to move it, then maybe the time will have come for the ideas Fun-Da-Mental floated in Countryman to be put into practice. And it won’t be a moment too soon.

Fun-Da-Mental put out Countryman as a single, later in ‘93. The order of the verses is different from that in the Peel Session.

Videos courtesy of FruitierThanThou and NationRecordsLabel.

Lyrics are copyright of Amir Ali and Inder Matharu.

Guys and Dolls: Close Up Over - Olivine (7 May 1993)

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Another track from the Black Dog Productions album, (Bytes). Close Up Over was an Ed Handley alias, and one of 3 on the LP which was credited to Close Up Over. In playing Olivine, Peel indulged in a spot of audience pleasing given that, compared to Jauqq and Caz - the two other Close Up Over tracks on the record - Olivine manages to include the dance part of Intelligent Dance Music. I’m particularly drawn towards this track because it includes more of the bicycle spoke sound that I always enjoy hearing in dance tracks. Though unlike previous examples like Date M by The Traveller or 20 Hz by Capricorn, the sound is achieved through the keyboards rather than as a percussive adornment.

As for the title, Olivine is a mineral found in the upper mantle of the Earth’s core. If Handley’s fellow Black Dog artist, Ken Downie was the collective’s resident historian, then Handley was its in-house geologist. When it came to using the science of rock as a source of musical inspiration, he was in exalted company.

Video courtesy of Cloud4mations music.

Guys and Dolls: Everton Blender - Create a Sound (7 May 1993)

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Everton Blender’s career is a reminder that talent can always find a way, even if you don’t succeed first time around. After releasing a number of records in the late 70s and early to mid 80s, a lack of commercial success had seen him leave the music business and go back to working as a house painter. But, his honeyed voice had caught the ear of Garnett Silk, and that led to Blender getting signed to Star Trail. He returned to recording and performing in the early 90s and Create a Sound would act as the starting track on his first album, Lift Up Your Head, which even made some British charts in 1994. 

Create a Sound acknowledges that this a second chance for Blender, one that he’s surprised and relieved to have been given. He’s spent many days working through the slog of painting houses, and it sounds as though some of those jobs were in pretty rough neighbourhoods, so now he’s going to relish the chance to do what he most wants to do:

We just a come.

Long time a day under Jah Jah sun.

Box and relax.

A nice sit down.

Put on mi locks and I create a sound.

In the same way that we like to wish that MPs had experience of the world before going into politics, so Blender assures us that his working background and experience will inform the music he makes and keep him grounded if he becomes successful:

The longer you live, the more you learn.

The harder you work, I know you will earn.

The heights I reach, I will surely keep.

The Lord is the shepherd and I am the sheep.

I wish he had kept this narrative going, as the track eventually moves into standard reggae semi-religious homilies i.e. A happy father is the result of a wise son etc, but I suppose he worried that to keep singing about his new opportunity risked showing a lack of humility. There’s a likably amusing section in which Blender suggests that having avoided being harmed by the criminals in the neighbourhoods he worked in due to good fortune or pure front, that his music will now have the effect of turning them from crime, which seems a far bigger boast than any of those stated at the start of the track. Might it be worth playing some of his music in the Donbas?

Lyrics copyright of Everton Williams (Blender)

Video courtesy of Reggae Nineties (and early 2000s).

Guys and Dolls: that dog. - Paid Programming (7 May 1993)

 

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I never like to speculate on whether John Peel would have liked any record released after his death, but I really wish he’d lived long enough to hear a copy of Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out, in which the violinist/mandolinist recorded an a cappella version of The Who’s 1967 concept album. It was released in February 2005, four months after his death. I’d have loved to know whether the record would have tickled or irritated him. It may also have caused him to dig into his record collection and pull out something by that dog. a Los Angeles based band that Petra was part of alongside her sister, Rachel, drummer Tony Maxwell and guitarist, Anna Waronker, who is perhaps, the third most famous music personality in her family after her father, Lenny (president of Warner Records) and her brother Joey (drummer with R.E.M., Beck and as part of the Oasis reunion tour).

For me, Petra’s violin contributions are the best thing about the eponymous double-7 inch mini album that introduced that dog. to the world. And Paid Programming is the only track that deserves being listened to more than twice. The rest of the record veers between fairly dour acoustic arrangements - albeit enlivened by some good harmony vocals - or short, sharp, punk songs written by Anna Waronker’s friend, Jenni Konner, who swapped music to work in television and later collaborated with Lena Dunham on Girls.

It’s the mood of Paid Programming which makes it stand out.  With the rise of digital television, everyone in the world now has the chance to experience the American attitude to television which I remember from the 80s & 90s; namely 99 channels and nothing worth watching.  America though was, and remains, very much the land of the infomercial, a set of extended commercials stretched out to full programme length, and advertising products, services, lifestyle choices etc. They tended to be broadcast on local affiliate TV stations and go out as overnight broadcasts, usually between 1am and 9am. Perfect fare for insomniacs, stoners, the lonely and depressed; aspirational viewing for those who found mainstream advertising too intimidating, noisy and shallow. Here, the sellers really had to work to build up a connection with their potential customers. It may be that if you found yourself actually watching any of these shows with your full attention, you may have cause to consider what’s happened to your life. But that dog. aren’t here to sneer, and Paid Programming does a great job of evoking a sense of how this kind of television could provide a late night comfort blanket to those who had nowhere to go out to or no need to go to bed, because they had no reason to get up early in the morning.  Though, it should be said that from their relevant positions of privilege, one could well believe that Waronker and friends really would dream of strawberry whip delights as something to enjoy at their favourite coffee shop the next day.

If we consider the song from the perspective of those without an emotional, employment or financial safety net, then Paid Programming deserves to be seen as coming from the same sort of musical support network as Realize by Codeine. The curtains are drawn and the sun has gone down, but at least the television is on and maybe Richard Simmons can provide some inspiration for those unable to get off their couch for even a little exercise, while the thought of owning a vacuuming haircut machine could stand as a status symbol comparable to a new car for those down at the bottom of the pile who’ve found that, for whatever reason, they’ve let themselves go or are looking a little shabby. The dream of owning one could be the catalyst to the best night’s sleep they’ve had in ages.

Cher’s hairstyling infomercial was a real thing. Forget about L’Oreal, for her it was all about Lori Davis.

Video courtesy of HesKissingChristian.

Guys and Dolls: That Petrol Emotion - Catch a Fire (7 May 1993)

 

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When it came to the work that former members of The Undertones released through the mid/late 1980s and early 1990s, we know that while John Peel felt despairing exasperation at the records Feargal Sharkey was putting out, he was more accommodating towards the music of That Petrol Emotion, which included John and Damian O’Neill.  They had featured fairly consistently on his playlists since 1985, including three Peel Sessions. Even John O’Neill’s departure from the band in 1988 hadn’t dented Peel’s willingness to play their records. But, this 7/5/93 show marked the last time in his life he would play anything by That Petrol Emotion while they were an active band*.

Catch a Fire’s appearance on the Volume Six compilation album acted as a trailer to That Petrol Emotion’s fifth and final album, Fireproof, which appears to be the only one of their albums that Peel never played anything from directly. One might have expected him to be all over the record given that it features a Jew’s harp on Catch a Fire, while Heartbeat Mosaic includes a pedal steel guitar. But, for whatever reason, it clearly wasn’t his bag.

On my first re-acquaintance with Catch a Fire, I wasn’t sure if it was mine either. There was a vein of pouting theatricality running through it, especially in Steve Mack’s vocal which I found slightly off-putting. He sounded like he was turning in an overly camp audition to be the lead singer for a Damned tribute act. However, on the second listen, I got it. Catch a Fire is what the theme song for a James Bond film written by Suede would sound like. There’s a particularly enjoyable, ascending guitar line from 2:31 to 2:52 which conjures up images of naked women dancing in Maurice Binder-inspired silhouettes, while John Barry’s orchestra provide underpinning support. Taken on those terms, I was able to enjoy Catch a Fire much more.  It’s just a shame that by the time the James Bond films resumed production in 1994, after a four year legal battle, That Petrol Emotion had split and Catch a Fire’s authors, Ciaran McLaughlin and Raymond O’Gorman had to watch the theme song gig go to southern Ireland instead of to the North.

*They reunited to play a series of live dates over 2008-09.  This live video of them performing Catch a Fire shows Mack dancing to it exactly the way he sang it.

A short Trouser Press essay on That Petrol Emotion’s discography

Video courtesy of Volume Channel.

Guys and Dolls: L-Dopa - Feel Your Need [Instrumental Mix] (7 May 1993)

 

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So, Credit to the Nation got played on the John Peel Show, a week ago, and promptly got signed to a large record label, which led to them achieving, if not quite fame and fortune, then at the very least, an opportunity to have their music put out to a much wider audience than Rugger Bugger Discs would have ever reached.

Why oh why, though could a similar benefactor not have been listening to the radio in order to lend a hand to the dance act, L-Dopa?  I find it astonishing that not only did Feel Your Need not become a mainstream hit, but that none of their records ever managed to crossover into chart hits. To my ears, in the admittedly limited cross-section of their material that I’ve heard while prepping this blogpost, L-Dopa’s music landed in that perfect dance music sweet spot, in that you could enjoy them whether you were out clubbing, or had them on in the background while working. Not too frenetic, not ultra-chilled but catchy enough to avoid blandness. And Feel Your Need is the perfect embodiment of that dancefloor/shopfloor vibe.

In fairness to him, John Peel certainly tried to help push Feel Your Need over the line to mainstream success. He included it among the records he interspersed with Radio 1’s daytime playlist on his first day as cover for Jakki Brambles’s lunchtime show. He always seemed to prefer the Instrumental Mix, as that was the version he played both then and on this 7/5/93 show. It might have been a good idea for him to play the Song version of Feel Your Need to Brambles’s listeners, then we would be able to read that track’s refrain of Open up your mind as a subliminal message from Peel himself to anybody in the daytime audience whose musical tastes may have been more defensively conservative than his own.

As to why Feel Your Need wasn’t a hit, it’s possible that elements of the track may have been seen as passé in 1993, such as the shift to a mellower tempo between 2:07 and 2:32.  Perhaps, those behind L-Dopa were offered the chance to put Feel Your Need out on a bigger label and turned it down. Or maybe I should stop grizzling about a hit that never was and just appreciate the fact that it exists and that it’s wonderful.

Video courtesy of SteveF.

Guys and Dolls: Rick and the Fairlanes - Danger (7 May 1993)

 

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Issued in 1959, the instrumental Danger was the only credited release for Rick Allen and his group, the Fairlanes. Curiously, they were not the only American group going by that name at the time. Over in Alabama, another group called The Fairlanes would go on to release a handful of singles between 1960-62, and to add a further level of confusion, they included a Rick of their own - Rick Hall, who would go on to work as a songwriter, producer and studio owner in Muscle Shoals. And to add a further layer of mystery, in the mid-1980s, another group called The Fairlanes, supported Bruce Springsteen at a 1987 concert in New Jersey. This was a band which featured Ernest Carter, who had played drums for Springsteen’s E Street Band in 1974. As to why Fairlane was so common as a band name*, this was probably due to the ubiquity and coolness of the car of the same name, which was marketed by Ford between 1955 and 1970.

Rick and the Fairlanes - by which I mean Rick Allen’s group and not Rick Hall’s group, do keep up…- hailed from New England and owed their spot on Peel’s playlist for this show to Danger’s inclusion on the compilation album, Strummin’ Mental! Volume One, which was first of seven volumes released under that name by Link Records.

I think that the track was recorded in reverse. Not in an I’m Only Sleeping lead guitar solo style, but the different parts of the song seem to tell the tale of the narrative in reverse. What’s the narrative in an instrumental, though? Well, for me, the song is called Danger, and opens with a suitably gloomy snippet of Chopin’s Funeral March, which implies that the danger caused someone to die, and if we follow the theory that 99% of 1950s rock’n’roll tunes are about one of girls, dances or cars, then the cause of death was a car crash. That covers the opening 9 seconds of the track, what we can establish from the remaining 126 seconds of music is that the final drive was a hell of ride. It’s packed with joyous screams, driving guitar, delirious saxophone and red hot piano. You can feel the wind in the hair, the liquor bottle being passed around and the female passenger planting a big kiss on the driver’s lips as they reach the highway. The reverse motif continues to work given that the closing drum fill sounds like someone slamming a car door shut. 

There is an alternative reading that could be floated, to say that Danger is actually a tune with religious connotations. The music after the funeral march could be the soul springing forth to Heaven…or maybe diving straight down to Hell so as to give itself to the Devil’s music for eternity.

It’s a wonderful record, and I bet it went down a storm whenever they played it live.

Video courtesy of Danger - Topic.

*And this is even before we start to consider other similarly named groups from the same period such as the Texan doo-wop group or the late 1960s folk group, who had one particularly brilliantly named song, which it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine Peel playing on Top Gear, in one of his more jaundiced moods.