Oliver: Orchestra Maquis Original - Ngalula (23 November 1991)

Back to Africa now and from the album, Tanzania Dance Bands Vol.2, we get to enjoy some Tanzanian rhumba.  One of two tracks from an album which was played on successive nights and an album which only featured three bands on it.  Presumably the other three all featured on Vol. 1.

Altogether more funkier and deep (in a sound sense) than the soukous tracks which Peel gave heavy rotation to, the heavy brass and plangent guitars soundtrack a lovely lyric which Peel had the kindness to read for us.  All together now:

"Despite her problematic character, I still need her in my life.  She knows me better than anybody else, understand my problems and my joy. I forgive you, Ngalula.  In the end, even hot water will cool."

The art of the make-up sex song: perfected in Tanzania.

Video courtesy of Dekula2.

Oliver: John Peel Show - Radio 1 (Sunday November 17 1991)

I had 2 hours of a 3 hour show to make selections from from this show.  6 tracks would have made it on to the mixtape, 4 of which are shared below.  The 2 tracks which I can't currently share on the blog are:

Whipped Cream - Whatever (Peel session)
Lethal - Techno Stylin'

I'm particularly bummed out that the Whipped Cream song is missing, because unless it's been re-recorded under a different title, I haven't found hide nor hair of it on any of their work.

I also went through a process whereby one track I was going to include, Skip Steps 1 & 3 by Superchunk, came off the list when I listened to it again.  Not only that, but another Superchunk song which I'd earmarked for inclusion in the future, was taken off when I listened to it again and decided, I really didn't like Superchunk.

As you'll see, I've started on my record hunt to buy as many of the records which contain the tracks I've selected.  2 down, many thousands to go.  The Howlin' Wolf Album (1969) hasn't cropped up in any of the recordings I've been listening to but I was interested to see how the tracks which he returned to in 1969, which had been originally featured on the 1962 album, turned out next to the originals.   There will be similar diversions in future as you'll see when I pick up the next record in the hunt...

As it turns out, I can share the Whipped Cream and Lethal tracks, as well as much else besides.  Have a listen and see what you think of Superchunk.  Would you have included them?
Also, I had completely forgotten that Philip Schofield used to be on Radio 1 despite the fact that he hosted a Radio 1 Roadshow from Gyllngvase Beach, Falmouth that year.  I went down but left after an hour when he promised us that one of the hip 'n' happening guests we had to look forward to was the comedian, Jethro.  If you've never been to a live roadshow event, trust me you aren't missing anything.  Watching a music radio show in person is, exactly as Peel said, like watching somebody typing.

Full tracklisting.

Oliver: Organised Konfusion - The Rough Side of Town (17 November 1991)

Buy this at Discogs

Melancholic nostalgia is not a phrase often associated with New York rap, but from what I've heard so far of Organised Konfusion's debut album (2 tracks played by Peel), it was a strong part of the duo's shtick.  Understandably so, as here they reflect on how Southside Queens, NY has changed over the years.  Now the police are never out of anything other than high speed chases when they're in the area. Women who were sweet as children become corrupted once they reach maturity.  In the cut, Peel played on 17/11/91, the track is introduced by a short sketch in which a naive and uncertain young woman is persuaded to try a narcotic only for it to kill her.  The am-dram radio quality of the start of this track (which isn't included on this clip) and the bogus shouts of "Yeah! Yo! Yeah!" bookend a lament about how the neighbourhood has gone to the dogs. It's great stuff, but done even better on the other Organised Konfusion track which has been saved up for the future, Who Stole My Last Piece of Chicken?

On a side issue, is there any word in the history of language that has dated worse than "yo"?

Video courtesy of toxicofera.

Oliver: Curve - Clipped (17 November 1991)

"They seem to have been coming in for a certain amount of stick recently, I'm not sure why.", Peel remarked after playing this on 17/11/91.  A throwaway remark but one which spoke of the divide that was staring to rear its head in the music media as the onset of grunge began to register bands associated with shoegaze as passé and unfashionable.  By the time, I started taking a casual look at the music papers in 1994/95, grunge was getting a restrained backlash as Britpop took hold, but shoegaze hadn't been "re-assessed" and the bands of that time were either winding down or disbanding to go on and re-invent themselves in new forms while their names were held up as objects of derision.  Had I been a fan of a group like Curve at the time (who carried on until 2005) I would have been very miffed about this given they had produced songs like Clipped, which showcased exactly why shoegaze deserved better than it got.

Out of the ethereal radio static, we are launched into a thunderously exciting song mixing propulsive beats with heavily riffed and distorted guitar line.  The brief bridge provides a wonderfully ecstatic moment.  And over it all, Toni Halliday, drawls her way like a sky goddess over the thrashing cocophany underneath her.

I seem to remember that one of the criticisms of music made by the likes of Curve was "They let the (guitar) pedals do all the work for them!" which ignores the fact that the tools only work brilliantly when the mind operating them is inspired too.

Video courtesy of Felice Scala.

Reflections on New Fast Automatic Daffodils - All Over My Face (1991)

Referenced via: played on 2 November 1991 - released through Play It Again Sam.

All Over My Face (1991) - note watercast of male genitalia

The first single on the record hunt and I have little to add to my write-up of the track from 2 November 1991. The 4 track EP is bolstered by two superfluous remixes which do little except bolster the volume of the guitars and put back the swearing which the radio edit covers with a car horn.  The 4th track is a percussion and bass lead instrumental called Why The Hard Man Fail.

Personal interest comes from the fact that All Over My Face was recorded over my father's 50th birthday weekend in August 1991. The only time he has ever had a surprise party thrown in his honour and a particularly emotional moment when he was given a present of a painting of the boat he served in during his navy service which is still hanging in my parents' house now.  A thoroughly good time was had by all.

Also, kudos to whoever decided that the photo of a pool of water needed enlivening with some positively pornographic manipulation of the water. At least, I don't think that's an elephant's head on the front cover.

Mixtape selection: All Over My Face.

Discogs link: All Over My Face

Reflections on Howlin' Wolf - Howlin' Wolf (1962) and The Howlin' Wolf Album (1969)

Referenced via: Down In The Bottom played on 2 November 1991.  Original release on Chess Records.  2014 reissue on Hallmark Records.

My record collection hunt begins with two albums by one of the giants of 20th Century blues music, Chester Burnett aka Howlin' Wolf.

Howlin' Wolf (1962) Val Doonican vibe in the cover art

Wolf began releasing records on the Chess label in 1951 and remained astonishingly productive all the way upto his death in 1976.  In 1962, Chess gathered together 6 of the 7 singles that Wolf had released between 1960 and 1962 and put the A and B sides out as a compilation album which they entitled simply, Howlin' Wolf.  As an arrival point for a Wolf novice, which I am, it's an ideal album to start with for him.
Given that these songs were intended for singles, they contain the essential element of economy that was such a feature of pre-House of the Rising Sun 7"s, but being rooted in the blues, there was nothing throwaway about any of these tracks, even the B-sides.
From the opening Latin blues sway of Shake for Me through to the almost showband blues of Tell Me, the listener is grasped both by Wolf's voice and Hubert Sumlin's urgent guitar lines.  However, the first half of the album passes by in such a blur that only The Red Rooster really makes an impression and that's mainly down to what's missing from Wolf's version compared to the better known Rolling Stones version.  I have heard a recording of Peel playing a version of this by The Jesus and Mary Chain in 1993 which makes it into a pile driving rock song, but that's for another time.

The album starts to pick up from track 6 onwards.  Little Baby is a blues song which anybody can sing.  I wouldn't attempt to try and sing any of the earlier cuts like Who's Been Talking, but If you put Val Doonican into the rocking chair on the front cover of the album, then Little Baby would be the tune he'd come back at you with.  The ladder is pulled up again on subsequent tracks but the battle of engagement has been won and the listener can revel in Wolf doing his stuff on the likes of Spoonful, Down in The Bottom and Howlin' for my Baby.  The standout track is Back Door Man, a key blues touchstone tune.  Basically, every "Woke up this morning" blues song parody you've ever heard uses Back Door Man as its riff, but this tale of a man making his escape after nights spent making love to the women of the men working on the night shift is the original work.  Wolf's voice on every refrain
of "I AMMMMMM... Back door man" is that mythical, much discussed "sound of the blues" and
with his voice front and centre throughout, it's pretty hard to resist.





The sound of the blues...

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for 1969's The Howlin' Wolf Album.

The Howlin' Wolf Album (1969) - Note reverse psychology advertising strategy for cover art.

The idea behind it was impeccable, Marshall Chess of Chess Records decided to pair up both Wolf and Muddy Waters with the avant garde, Chicago rock band, The Rotary Connection to create a fusion between old school blues and late 60s acid rock.  The records were released on a new subsidiary of Chess Records called Cadet Concept.

Waters's effort, Electric Mud, was released first in October 1968.  The Howlin' Wolf album followed a year later.  Neither man was happy with the final product, feeling that neither of them worked as blues albums or as rock albums.  Chess tried to work Wolf's dis-satisfaction into the marketing of the record by telling the record buying public on the front cover that he didn't like the record they were

thinking of buying, but to basically ignore him on this.  The album also includes two short spoken
word interludes where Wolf reflects on the "queer" sound of electric guitars and later states that
people don't like the blues and that the sound of today, 1968 and by extension the record he was then working on, wasn't the blues.

When dealing with a good record that the artist who made it criticises, the common argument against them is that they were too close to the product to judge it.  But this isn't a good record and Wolf's unhappiness was thoroughly justified here.  The record's main issue is that Wolf is too often pushed into the background while wah-wahs wah, fuzz guitars scream and Morris Jennings on drums runs through his full repertoire of Keith Moon fills.  There aren't enough instances where Wolf and The Rotary Connection seem in sync with each other.  This leads to lapses like the ridiculously
overblown, echo laden ending of Smokestack Lightning or the interminable noodling on Moanin' at
Midnight, Wolf's first single for Chess in 1951, which sees Wolf doing his trademark howl,
ineffectually over a band that take the music nowhere.  Four songs are revisited from the 1962 album (Spoonful, The Red Rooster, Down in the Bottom and Back Door Man) and get a psychedelic rock
overhaul, meaning that the best they can come away with is an honourable defeat next to the original recordings. 

Only twice does the album really hit its stride.  The Rotary Connection find a lovely laid back groove on Built For Comfort and this encourages Wolf to deliver a characterful vocal.  Standout track is one of Wolf's standards, Evil, which sees everyone deliver the goods. Perhaps the reason for this being that Wolf seems to take centre stage in these songs in a way which he is never given the room to in the other tracks.






Evil - the best performance on the record.

Although, Wolf didn't enjoy himself with The Rotary Connection, he didn't turn his back on the contemporary scene altogether given that a year later he was in London working with such luminaries as Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts on an LP called The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions.

Videos courtesy of Classic Mood Experience and DeepDownSound.

Mixtape choices: Little Baby, Spoonful, Down in the Bottom, Back Door Man, Howlin' for my Baby (Howlin' Wolf);
Spoonful, Built For Comfort, Evil, Back Door Man (The Howlin' Wolf Album)

Discogs links

Howlin' Wolf

The Howlin' Wolf Album

Happy New Year and a Twitter feed.

Something to celebrate the start of a new year and the blog setting up a Twitter feed.  Find us @greasepaintpeel

This track is out of sync with the journey so far given that the first recording I heard Peel play it from was on January 1 2002, though it counts as I was rehearsing David Hare's play, Amy's View at the time.  He played it from a CD called Blue Yule which was another CD I recommended to the Sainsbury's worker who craved some more musical variety during his festive shifts (see Henry Rollins: T'was the Night Before Christmas - 24 December 2014).

Video courtesy of Eric Cajundelyon.