Don't leave the house without MRML's New Year's gift stapled onto your iPod (oh that wasn't the verb I needed was it?) Last time we dedicated a post to Die Toten Hosen we said "they have for decades have ruled the charts of their native Germany by mixing the swagger of glam rock, the aggro of '77 punk and and the sing-along choruses of schlager (a central and Northern European easy listening genre whose name sounds like a portmanteau of schmaltz and lager for good reason). Now I'm going to send you sprawling into 2010 with the sound of the Dead Pants (en anglais) curb-stomping Guy Lombardo.
It's a riotous 2:32 that, in tribute to "Auld Lang Syne's" Scottish author, Robbie Burns, has bagpipes alongside the loud guitars. Die Toten Hosen's take on this old folk standard recalls the Sex Pistols derangement of "Friggin' in the Riggin", there's even an exact moment where you can imagine someone shouting "Give it some bollocks" just before the song goes into overdrive. Who cares if the boys add some 'new' verses about "pubs in Inverness" when the song's such a blast?
The rest of this 1999 E.P. is filled out with two fine-sounding Deutsch sing-alongs as well as an unplugged versions of "Auld Lang Syne" and "Little Drummer Boy".
To continue adding to the saturated market of best of lists, I'll add yet another dose of subjectivity with this one caveat: I chose albums which show drive, grit and passion and yet, too rarely grace typical best-of-the-year lists. Being a tad retro-minded may taint my list in some eyes but with all these nature-named bands and their delicate sound-sculptures dominating best-of lists someone's gotta highlight albums that kick ass - not just punk but driving country, folk, glam, power-pop, gospel, hell even an indie rock album if it shows some damn fortitude.
1. The Parasites (more here) Solitary
New Jerseyite Dave Parasite, a one-man force in pop-punk for decades waited till two-thousand-and-fucking-nine before releasing his best record, full of racing guitars and soaring tunes - score one for the late-starters! Listen here 2. RipchordBeginner's Luck
If I told you I'd discovered a band whose two greatest influences are the Kaiser Chiefs and the Housemartins would you run away or listen closely? Choose carefully... Watch here
3. Those Darlins’S/T
Always nice to have a funny, pretty and catchy country album on the list; even if gets a bit arch in spots. Watch here
4. HouseboatThe Delaware Octopus
The lame name (but netter than Barrakuda McMurder!) can't disguise the fact that Grath Madden, formerly of New York's Steinways is starting to grow up. Now backed by members of Dear Landlord and the Ergs, Grath's more musically developed songs show that his old cute self-loathing is veering towards self-disgust, ("everyone's fucked and alone" he sings on "Alonelylonelylone") which he still makes sound pretty appealing. Listen here
5. Frank Turner (more here) Love, Ire & Song
An odd entry due to the Frank Turner Overdose on the net this year and this album being from 2008 but as the hype focused on the disappointing Poetry of the Deed and since Epitaph did release this wordy-but-wonderful folk-punk album in North America this year (though without the corrosive "Thatcher Fucked the Kids") and I need a "Dylan-was-a-punk" album of the year we will have to bend the space-time continuum just to the left. Watch here
6. Used KidsYeah No
Nato Coles (self-described as, "like Bob Mould, Howlin' Wolf, Paul Weller, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Westerberg, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer, Mike Ness, the baritone guy from the Coasters, the slightly less baritone guy from the Coasters ... all rolled into one giant burrito." put out two heartland punk records this year and I'm giving this one the edge for the astounding ballad, "Desperate Times". Listen here
7. Michael Roe (more here) We All Gonna face the Rising Sun
I've already raved to ridiculous degrees about this gos-pel ex-plosion, which is basically a one man condensation of the the Goodbye Babylon box set (the Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack would be a more widely known, if less accurate, comparison). Listen here
8. The Leftovers (more here) Eager to Please
Another one I've spilled many words over, but how can you resist such sparkling power-pop melodies being given the pop-punk once over? Watch here
9. TV Smith (more here) Live at NVA
Thirty songs hammered out by one skinny fifty-something balladeer with an acoustic guitar who'd sooner kick the shit out of James Taylor then confess his inner demons. Watch here
10. The Takeover UK Running With the Wasters
The kind of swaggering egotistical glam-pop thievery that the British music press would usually salivates over, if the band wasn't from Pittsburgh - yup the Takeover UK are from steel-town. Watch here
11. MewithoutYouIt’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All A Dream! It’s Alright
Experimental post-hardcore band who, despite their roots is Sufism and Judaism record for Christian label Tooth and Nail, find the Neil Young and Sufjan Stevens within, thereby breaking all my stupid rules (it's even number eleven!) and make an album that when described sounds like a pretentious bag o' shit but in execution aches, shines and refuses to relent. Watch here
Okay, MRML Readers, leave us a comment on our choices and then tell us your picks for the great album of '09.
What percentage of songs that came out this year in the Western world (to say nothing of the REST of the world) have you heard? Even for most music fanatics (takes one to read one), the number is not only single digit, it's probably a count-on-your-little-piggies digit. So the MRML Twenty-Two makes no claim to enumerate the GREATEST song of this calendar year, just ones I heard that shouldn't languish in that >95% mass of missed music.
The list is tightly bound by my taste for the punchy over the swishy, the pounding over the lilting, the catchy over the fancy and the relentless pursuit of relentlessness. When I say punchy, pounding, catchy and relentless, you'd think punk and you wouldn't be wrong but the lifeboat's got room for folk, country, power-pop, ska, the much-maligned (by me anyway) indie-rock and perhaps a 450 pound Royal Bengal tiger.
1. Manic Street Preachers "Jackie Collins Existential Question Time"
While Journal for Plague Lovers is not as immediate to me as Send Away the Tigers, this track with it's refrain of, "Oh, mommy, what's a Sex Pistol?" is as good of a smack-in-the-face as anything they've done.
2. Radio Faces "Slippin' Back With You
Milwaukee-ite Nato Coles 2nd best album of the year (see the next list) could be given a ridiculous genre like "bar-punk" or "honky-punk" but songs like this are just rough-hewn, mid-western rock n' roll played like the final closing time is nigh. Listen here
3. Pugwash "Monorail"
If I was Australian (where this Irish band had a huge hit this year) I'd hate this song but since it's a novel obscurity with cool keyboards, a lyrical list and, befitting the album's name, Earworm, a chorus that slithers into your ear like Kahn's mind-controlling eels and just takes over it'll fit here. See here
4. Teenage Bottlerocket "Skate or Die
The fact that Teenage Bottlerocket (and their kin, The Lillingtons) so often resemble an old-school hardcore band as much as a pop-punk band is their secret strength.
5. Classics of Love "Slow Car Crash"
I've a bit of weakness for survivors, like ex-Operation Ivy/Common Rider singer Jesse Michaels but he's still a all-out performer with a knack for wise, sharp-eyed lyrics and choruses that a crowd of sweaty kids can yell along to instantly. Listen here 6. The Bomb "Space Age Love Song"
Despite the abundance of ripping rockers ( "Haver", "Integrity") on Speed is Everything that sees Chicago punk legend Jeff Pezzatti (of the fearsome Naked Raygun) giving the kids hell, I chose this mid-tempo, post-punk ballad because it hearkens back to "Holding You" a longing ballad from the neglected album Raygun, Naked Raygun. Listen here
7. Two Hours Traffic "Territory"
The pride of Prince Edward dish out sprightly power-pop with a dollop of wussiness. See here
8. Frank Turner "The Road" Poetry of the Deed was a bit of a let-down but this song is not only a clear-eyed statement of Turner's philosophy of itinerance, it's also a grand, booming song whether played solo or with the band. See here
9. Shonen Knife "Ramones Forever"
I'm a sucker for a heartfelt tributes to great bands and for Osaka's Shonen Knife. Listen here
10. The Methadones "Gary Glitter"
I'm also a sucker for savage put-downs like this one from Dan Vapid formerly of Chicago's Kings of Pop-Punk, Screeching Weasel. Listen here
11. Said the Whale "Camillo (the Magician)"
With "Camillo" Said the Whale prove that while there may be not be any good band names left to pick there's still a near-inexhaustible supply of power-pop hooks as yet uncast. See here
12. Dear Landlord "I Live in Hell"
Pop-punk schleps Adam and Brett from Chicago's the Copyrights name their sideband after a Dylan song and rock like hell. Listen here 13. Roman Candle "Why Modern Radio is A-OK With Me"
A little alt-country is good for what ails you, especially when it's astute, tuneful and not too studied. See here
14. Carbon Silicon "What's Up Doc?"
While I wish that Mick Jones and Tony James would remember that songs can be over in 2 minutes fifty-nine, you gotta love a rip-snorting rocker like this:
15. Grant Hart "You're the Reflection of the Moon on the Water"
A hummable zen-noise-pop song from the former Husker Du man and members of Godspeed You Black Emperor.
16. Dr Frank "Bethlehem"
The doctor must need to write catchy pop-punk songs with clever lyrics and quirky bridges since he keeps recording music despite his massive literary success (calling the sequel to his best-seller King Dork, King Dork Approximately is a sly Dylan reference). Listen here
17. Tinted Windows "Kind of a Girl"
Okay, the classic super-group paradox (the whole is less than the sum of the parts) kicked in for this Cheap-Trick-Smashing Pumpkins-Fountains-of-Wayne-Hanson aggregation but, fittingly, the single was a grand-scale pop song. See here
18. Ida Maria "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked"
As I've said before, the hype, or lack thereof, is irrelevant, if the song (in this case one by a sexy Norwegian) makes you want to sing along or air drum than you've got a winner.
19. Jeffrey Lewis "Whistle Past the Graveyard"
New York cartoonist and anti-folk standard-bearer Lewis tries on his cow-punk boots then contemplates eternal life and zombies. See here
20. Oak Ridge Boys "Seven Nation Army"
Stop using that word novelty like it's a bad thing, as if this White Stripes classic didn't always need some gnarly country veteran going bom-bom-bom-bom-bom in the background. Listen here
21. Dan Magann "Tina’s Glorious Comeback"
As a singer and song-writer I'd slot Vancouver's Magann somewhere between the Violent Femme's Gordon Gano and the Weakerthan's John K. Sampson and while some of Nice, Nice Very Nice is occasionally a bit hushed or precious, when his cleverness and tunefulness come together it's impressive. See here
22. Bob Dylan "It's All Good" Together Trough Life was not a great record by any stretch but this song is one of those "Foot of Pride" style attacks on the world's ills that even a half-assed, strangulated Dylan pulls off well. Listen here
(Bonus: Bryan Scary and the Shedding Tears will confuse the hell out of everyone with Queen-like piano-punk song, "Andromeda's Eyes".)
Okay, MRML Readers, leave us a comment on our choices and then tell us your picks for the great songs of '09
For the entire playlist click here and please remember to delete any material downloaded for education purposes from your computer within 48 hours.
And on a less legalistic note go to please got to Interpunk,Amazon or even (shuddder) iTunes and buy some music!
This CD collects up all of the Damned's BBC work from 1976 through till 1986. With it's rawer and sometimes better versions, it ends up functioning as alternate "Greatest Hits" album.
In many ways it's a drastic decade, going from the brutally raw "Neat, Neat, Neat" to the to the crooning goth-psych of "Is It a Dream?" but even the later material has some bollocks left (thanks Rat!) unlike, say, the Stranglers of this era and their Linn drums. Just saying...
MRML Readers: Whaddya think of the mid-eighties Damned?
More Damned for your dollar. Damned But Not Forgotten is yet another collection of rarities and alternate takes and again it hangs together pretty well.
Pity the poor fool who's primary introduction to the Damned is the The Light at the End of the Tunnel. That compilation is, to use a currently meaningless word accurately, random, placing tracks like their '76 jackhammer punk classic "Neat Neat Neat" cheek-by-jowel with their 1986 cover of psych-pop classic, "Alone Again Or". Damned albums were hard to find in my time, so this album, which on my cassette copy even included the side-long experiment, "Curtain Call" was where I finally began.
Speaking of dog's breakfast comps, today's offering is actually the slightly narrower focused, Tales from the Damned. This album covers the late seventies through early eighties period of the Damned. Perhaps it's the side-effects of owning Light at the End of the Tunnel but I really believe that this is the band's apex. This rarities collection is anchored by the four songs from the creepy but poppy Friday the Thirteenth E.P. ("Disco Man" is the hit but "Billy Bad Breaks" is almost as good) and also includes a slew of rarities like a violin version of "Anti-Pope", a remix of "There Ain't No Sanity Clause", a live version of the MC5's "Looking at You"and MotorDamned (both bands playing at once!) on the fittingly named, "Over The Top". The album sells for $100 now, which is foolish because it completes any Damned collection.
MRML readers: What is the best period of the Damned's discography?
R.I.P. Joe StrummerAugust 21st 1952 - December 22nd 2002
Sandinista is a mess. Call it an inspired mess or self-indulgent one but few accuse it of cohesiveness. While the Clash's fourth album, a triple L.P. from 1980, has its defenders and detractors my estimation remains unchanged since making my own cassette distillation back in the eighties: roughly one album of strong material, one album of fine B-sides and one album of endurance-defying filler.
So, as MRML once presented Cut the Crap Revisited, we’d now like to offer up Sandinista! Live!, a collection of just-about every song the Clash played live from that album. This compilation is not so-much an alternate version (listeners make their own even faster now) as a supplement to the studio work. After all, unlike Cut the Crap, Sandinista doesn't suffer over-production, if anything it suffers from the lack thereof. The final goal of this set was to observe how well the test of the stage succeeded in burning off the dross.
(In the early eighties this image sold as a poster, alongside ones of Rambo and Cheryl Tiegs)
1 Intro Kingston, Jamaica (27-1-'81) A little Kosmo Vinyl to rile you up. 2. The Magnificent 7 Jaap Edenhal, the Netherlands (10-5-'81) The original (more so than its re-mixes) succeeds at its somewhat dubious goal (white-boy rap-punk) so well that the live versions, even this guitar-heavy one, rarely out-do the original (the mash-up of the songs and "Armagiddeon Time" preserved on Live at Shea CD possibly excepted).
3. Junco Partner - Kingston, Jamaica (27-1-'81) Look, I don’t know what makes that bown! sound on the record but it’s fucking annoying and any version without it has a leg up on the original.
4. Ivan Meets G.I. Joe Jaap Edenhal, the Netherlands (10-5-'81) The Topper song sans the disco touches is kinda fun
5. The Leader Jaap Edenhal, the Netherlands (10-5-'81) It’s a little slight in the lyrical department but the original rocks any way you cut it.
6. Somebody Got Murdered Jaap Edenhal, the Netherlands (10-5-'81) Lyrically and musically devastating, this song got a bit buried in the vinyl avalanche that was Sandinista and here it gets a rough treatment with Jones vocal being stretchy but his guitar ringing at full force.
7. One More Time Jaap Edenhal, the Netherlands (10-5-'81) A throbbing version of one of Sandinista's better reggae tracks.
8. Lightning Strikes Jaap Edenhal, the Netherlands (10-5-'81) Structurally a bit too similar to Magnificent 7 but this version rocks out.
9. Corner Soul Lille, France (09-05-'81) This bantam level song has dodgy sound but a solid performance.
10. Let’s Go CrazyBarcelona, Spain(27-04-81) Great song but by far the worst recording here. 11. The Sound of the Sinners (US Festival, 05-28-83) A secret joy of Sandinista is this little gospel pastiche done both tongue-in-cheek and with reverence for the power of the music. The live versions are fiery with hilarious Joe intros.
12. Police on my Back Tokyo, Japan (30-01-82) You’d be hard-pressed to find a bad version of this one, Mick and co. just seemed to love ripping up Eddy Grant's classic.
13. The Call-Up Bonds, New York, USA (09-06-81) A live audience definitely gave this less-successful single the extra push it needed.
14. Washington Bullets Bonds, New York, USA (09-06-81) Long one of my fave songs from the album (in retrospective it foreshadows the Mescaleros) despite a few clunky lines ("Castro is the colour that will earn him a spray of lead"), this version features a jam with some toasting (mmmm jam toast).
15. Broadway Bonds, New York, USA (09-06-81) A subtle, jazzy song from the album that feels more immediate in this setting. 16. Charlie Don’t Surf Jaap Edenhal, the Netherlands (10-5-'81) A loping version that shows that even with slower material the Clash were still an exciting live band.
17. The Street Parade Bonds, New York, USA (03-06-81) A noisier version of another of the undeservedly ignored songs from the album.
18. Radio Clash Jaap Edenhal, the Netherlands (10-5-'81) An honourary Sandinista song (it came out between that album and Combat Rock) and despite being slagged off as "This is Disco Clash" it's never a drag, especially on this burning version.
I’m saddened that “Hitsville UK”, “Something About England”, “Loose This Skin” (resurrected by the Mescaleros-era Strummer) “Rebel Waltz” and “Kingston Advice” (despite being the title of a fine bootleg) never met the stage but glad for what we do have to remember Joe by.
MRML Readers: Is Sandinista trash, treasure or some unholy muddle-up of the two? Let us know in the comments!
Thanks, as always, to If Music Could Talk (esp nsc for the Equaliser jpg), which helped make this post possible, though I’m sure that many of the denizens of that community would make a very different, likely better version of such a compilation. Also thanks to Clash Photo Rockers for many of the fine images herein. Buy Clash albums!
In 2001 T.V. Smith (more here) re-recorded some of his best work with German super-punk-stars Die Toten Hosen (his fourth biggest fans). The album, Useless: The Very Best of T.V. Smith proves his peculiar genius. Specifically, TV proves what a deft re-interpreter of his own material he really is because he never gets caught in that old stuff vs. new stuff war that artists and their fans can get dragged into. To TV, it's all the present.
Musically, Die Toten Hosen's (more here) backing him up on material spanning his entire career (but, sadly, not 1979-1983) proves how devastatingly consistent and relentlessly inventive the man is. Lyrically, TV and co. chose songs like "Gather Your Things and Go" and "My String Will Snap" that portray a world out-of-sorts, a world unjustly turned upside down. While Smith's never had truck with religion, he decries the wickedness of the world like a biblical prophet, just listen to his voice-of-one-screaming-in-the-wilderness anthem, "Get Ready for the Axe to Drop"for proof. To hear TV and the Dead Pants (as they might be known in English) work this theme to its most brutal effect, witness "Expensive Being Poor" one of the most excoriating broadsides ever written, a sharp paradox wrapped in a tune you could hum yourself to death with:
Smith's worldview is never clearer than on the album's sole new track, "Only One Flavour". Here, TV hoists himself up onto the rickety platform of the post-Communist left and, in a pique and at a peak, decries the monotony of political discourse in a capitalist society (see how even that sentence sounds awfully pre-1989). Useless, which shows off Smith's catalog of stirring songs that mix punk brio with folk tropes and that joyously hammer away at the the necessity at looking at our problems through different eyes (though maybe not Gary Gilmore's), is anything but.
MRML readers: last chance to offer you views on TV's mighty works in the comments!
TV Smith (more here) drafted Spanish punks Suzy & Los Quattro to be his partners-in crime for this 2003 release. They rip off the Adverts "New Church" from Crossing the Red Sea and take TV's solo song "What If" from Generation Y. The band pulls it off with guts but it's the cool vocal interplay with Suzy that once again proves just how much TV can get away with.
TV Smith's (more here) elasticity, his ability to play full-on whether the material is old or new, whether the sound is electric or acoustic, is one of his defining traits. The strongest proof of this elasticity, however, is seen and heard in TV's ability to play solo, just man and guitar or with any number of musicians. We've already heard him play with the Adverts, the Explorers, Cheap and Tom Robinson and even though we're likely to ignore his guesting with Florida metal band Amen and German punk band the Nervous Germans, we've just begun to explore the infinite permutations of TV Smith.
Punk Lurex O.K. , a Finnish band whose origin story is cooler than the Jokerbacked up TV Smith on a tour and then recorder this little corker. The fact that the record kicks off with re-recorded Adverts song (Alongside his "Punk Rock Poem") prove TV Smith remains in touch with his own past but it's the two new songs, "The World Just Got Smaller" and "The Future Used to be Better" proves that TV's as incisive, melodic and elastic as ever.
MRML readers: please give your take on the TV-Smith-Punk-Lurex hybrid in the comments!
TV Smith has never lost his knack for penning songs with cutting lyrics that assail the privileged and unforgettable tunes that can rouse almost anyone. "Thin Green Line" isn't so-called folk-punk but a blazing punk song hammered out on an acoustic guitar. How TV Smith keeps his energy and passion burning so hot is a mystery I'm not sure I want solved.
Thin Green Line
We're faced with mile-high piles of money Sitting in banks Gold bars, credit cards Aeroplanes and tanks Buy, buy, satisfy Call me when you're rich Cheap food, cows dying in a ditch
We're having a hard time Holding the thin green line
We're faced with out-of-town shopping malls Suburban housing boom Inner city empty lots Damp in all the rooms Bulls and bears, speculators Marks, francs, yen And the baby's crying again
We're having a hard time Holding the thin green line
So come on down to the bottle bank Make your deposit and relax Nothing's going on behind your back We'll make all the big decisions You just watch the television Smash the brown! Smash the green! Smash the clear! It won't happen here
We're having a hard time Holding the thin green Line
We watch the last of the species Vanish from the screens And get replaced by killer dogs And their man on the scene There are peeping toms, pop songs Crime and sin and sex All spewing out on newsprint While the forest dies a death They're cooling down reactors While the natives die of thirst They say let's all pull together You first
We're having a hard time Holding the thin green line
They say let's all pull together - you first But they never pull together No wonder we're having a hard time Holding the thin green line
This Tom Robinson fortified e.p. also includes a sturdy version "The Lion and the Lamb", a pile-driving take on "Runaway Train Driver" (both originally from March of the Giants) and a hard-strumming attack on the Adverts "Gary Gilmore's Eyes". Like the album, the single is way-out-of-print.
At the height of his obscurity, former Advert TV Smith (more here) broke up his loud rock n' roll band Cheap. Then, going on the advice of his old friend Attila the Stockbroker, Smith struck out as an angry folkie on 1992's, March of the Giants.
By cutting off the electricity and turning up the finger-pointing, he did an anti-Dylan, which is fitting since TV is no man's disciple. It's an album that rewards each listening in a different way and it was championed by his 2nd greatest fan, The Big Takeover's Jack Rabid. While not a smashing commercials success, the album established TV's sustainable practice of recording with a varying cast but touring solo.
This approach unleashed a slew of slam-bang songs, which carried on though 1995's Immortal Rich, released in the U.S. on Henry Rollins' (his 3rd biggest fan) label. The first single was the somber-but-restless "We Want the Road, which might make some of our younger readers (Do we have those?) think that TV is Frank Tuner's dad.
We Want The Road
When your walls close in There'll be wheels waiting Ready to roll You can come with me I'll always be free Pack up and go
We want the road We want the open fields We want to feel we're heading somewhere We have the right to go where we want Cut away our ties, shrug away our load want the road
I will cheer you on When your strength has gone And you struggle for hope There's a world out there Just shake out your hair Loosen your ropes
We want the road
When you don't know which way to turn When you're tired and confused When your head's full of negative thoughts I could be right with you
When their words are dust There's no-one to trust Nowhere is home I'm a principle Fundamental Your right to roam
We want the road
We Want The Road When your walls close in There'll be wheels waiting Ready to roll You can come with me I'll always be free Pack up and go
We want the road We want the open fields We want to feel we're heading somewhere We have the right to go where we want Cut away our ties, shrug away our load want the road
I will cheer you on When your strength has gone And you struggle for hope There's a world out there Just shake out your hair Loosen your ropes
We want the road
When you don't know which way to turn When you're tired and confused When your head's full of negative thoughts I could be right with you
When their words are dust There's no-one to trust Nowhere is home I'm a principle Fundamental Your right to roam
In the late eighties, despite mass indifference, TV Smith (more here) fought on with a bracing electric band he dubbed Cheap, which featured Mik Helsin (guitar), Andy Bennie (bass) and Fuzz Deniz (drums) . TV says, “Summer, 1986. Time to form a new band. After The Adverts and the Explorers had both broken up in disarray I´d thought I wouldn´t fall for it again, but hmmm, there was that familiar itch. This time though, it would be JUST FOR FUN. A bunch of mates traveling around the country in a couple of estate cars, all the equipment piled in the back; mobile, compact, above all CHEAP.” TV's razor-sharp writing remains full of treasonous sing-alongs like the anti-Thatcherite anthem, "Third Term", which burns like white phosphorous.
The other side of this 1990 single (their sole album came out long after they broke-up) may even best the A-side. "Buried by the Machine" is a song that you can imagine being in a room full of sweaty punters roaring along to, only partly realizing how that ringing melody brings you face-to-interface with your own dehumanization.
MRML Readers give us your take on TV's Cheap-ness in the comments! Third Term 7"
The Cheap album appears, like many parts of TV's discography, has fallen out of print but is available at fuck-as-punk blog Hang Over Heart Atack (includes an even better version of this Adverts-ian song:
Clive Product: Do you see yourself following in that "folk" tradition of early Dylan or Billy Bragg?” TV Smith: “I suppose. That tradition and spirit of using songs to protest has been around a lot longer than Dylan or Bragg though - I think we're all following a tradition that's been around in music forever.”
Following the Adverts dissolution in 1979, TV Smith remained unbowed. He continue the slower, more electronic feel of the Advert's second album, Cast of Thousands but his burning anger remained undiminished. Some songs from this more experimental era, such as "Tomahawk Cruise", positively explode with righteous indignation.
"Tomahawk Cruise" still oozes all the piss, vinegar and bile of punk just with less speed and distortion. I mean how many many songs are written from the perspective of a long-range, all-weather, subsonic cruise missile (even back in the eighties when such angst was ubiquitous)? The song's lyrics, like most of TV's narratives, force you lean in to catch each word and savour their devastation:
Tomahawk Cruise
I woke up this morning, felt completely at ease Put on my clothes and had something to eat No desire to act, no desire to move Unless I get a reason from you
My name is Tomahawk Cruise
We wear our problems, we wear our fate But we have to eat what we put on the plate Some people wallow in hate, some wallow in fear Neither two are recommended around here
If you so wish I could get nasty Create all kinds of disasters I know things run away with you But at the cusp, you have to choose Between living and Tomahawk Cruise
Now in my heart something starts Down in my heart something starts…
I get your message, I understand Break down the barriers as fast as you can I dream unnatural power, unnatural grace Bricks and wreckage all over the place
I change my clothes for a uniform Throw caution to the wind and walk into the storm At the cusp, you choose Between living and Tomahawk Cruise
I look at myself - what is this body? A few limbs, stock responses A heart turned to steel I just love the attention I’m in the news!
You choose, Between living and Tomahawk Cruise
TV Smith
This is no lazy protest song musically either, listen how Colin Stoner's bass carries the song, while Tim Cross's keyboards add a mechanical menace. It's a gross injustice that the failure of the Explorer's would send Smith to The Wilderness for years to come. However, Ojit Records (see Amazon link below), by re-issuing expanded versions of both the Explorers album and the even-less successful TV solo debut that followed it, have sought to right that wrong.
MRML Readers give us your take on TV and tell us if you want to hear more!
In his sharp, if occasionally plodding, biography of Joe Strummer, Redemption Song , Chris Salecwicz reduces the Adverts to "a punk group who had a couple of hits". Such bloody nonsense (he slams the Ruts as, "reasonably successful Clash copyists") taints an otherwise well-written and meticulously researched piece of work. The Adverts and their leader, TV Smith, cannot be so glibly dismissed.
The Adverts 's two late seventies albums, the sorta accessible one and kinda difficult one, would be towering achievements enough. But over the course of his career, as band leader and as a solo artist, Smith has proven himself Strummer's finest peer. I mean if the Strummerian ideal is the fiery visionary spitting truth at power whilst rocking furiously then TV Smith has been what Strummer should've been in his later years.
Author, critic (and mega-fan) Dave Thompson argues that "Nobody would make music like The Adverts and nobody ever has. In terms of lyric, delivery, commitment and courage, they were, and they remain, the finest British group of the late 1970s". As proof, here's an out-of-print collection of their BBC recordings, which spans their brief existence.
1.One Chord Wonders 2.Bored Teenagers 3.Gary Gilmore´s Eyes 4.Newboys 5.Quickstep 6.We Who Wait 7.New Church 8.Safety In Numbers 9.Great British Mistake 10.Fate Of Criminals 11.Television´s Over 12.Love Songs 13.Back From The Dead 14.I Surrender 15.The Adverts 16.I Looked At The Sun 17.Cast Of Thousands 17.I Will Walk You Home
Tracks 1-5: Peel Session, first broadcast 29.4.77 Tracks 6-9: Peel Session, first broadcast 30.8.77 Tracks 10-14: Peel Session, first broadcast 11.9.78 Tracks 15-18: Peel Session, first broadcast 12.11.79
While I continue work on my Merry Grinch-mas compilation (it may be a cliché but what about Christmas isn't?) this little three song'er will have to kick off my dis-contiguous series of Christmas posts. This wildly-tacky looking 2003 single is a benefit featuring TV Smith (the Adverts), Captain Sensible (the Damned), Charlie Harper (the UK Subs) and Martin Newell (the Cleaners from Venus) which slags the pop charts in a pop chart-friendly kinda way. The song bears Captain Sensible's theatrical absurdity ("Say Captain, Say Wot") and is pretty fun as his re-make of the old Damned obscurity "There Ain't No Sanity Clause"
The big ticket item under this dead tree, however, is TV Smith's "Christmas, Bloody, Christmas" a broadside aimed squarely at the fat man in the suit's symbolic fat ass. While it attacks all that is ridiculous about the season, it's not terribly mean spirited, it just demands more of the season while being a virulent ear-worm (ask my six-year old and his none-too-pleased mother if you don't believe me!)
Maybe in some Joker-like plan, UK punks spiked the country's water supply with sugar and methamphetamines back in '79. What else can explain the explosion of thousands of killer pop bands like Radio City? Radio City were, according to 45 Revolutions, James Sutherland (lead vocals), Robin Murray (guitar, vocals), Colin Matheson (guitar), Raymond Henderson (bass) and Tich Bremner (drums). They were from Thurso in the far North of Scotland. They released just one single "Love And A Picture" b/w "She's A Radio" (Media Wave MV-001, 1980). James Sutherland adds, "We pressed up 1,000 copies of the single, hand glued the covers together then sold them at gigs, mainly in Northern Scotland, so I am always very intrigued at the world-wide interest in our music.
Rob Murray relates that Radio City, then with David Murray (Drums) and without Colin Matheson, later, "recorded two demos, one at Highland Recording Studios Gollanfield Inverness (8 songs : 6 originals recorded ) and one session with John Sutherland at Thurso East ( recorded 4 original songs) all songs written by Henderson / Sutherland. The band broke up late 1981, with two demo songs re-recorded and released as a cassette single, under the name the Blonde Brothers - it actually made single of the week in Sounds (one of the big weekly music papers in the UK back then), beating ABC and "The Look of Love"!!!" Sutherland adds that the Blond Brothers single contained "Talked to You"/"Why", and was the first cassingle released in Scotland ("There's a long story behind that" he warns), and that the Sounds review was written by Ralph Traitor (who was really Jeremy Gluck, lead singer with the Barracudas).
Murray adds, "the "Love and a Picture" single has been bootlegged several times and appears on a series of CD’s i.e. Lost New Wave Classics and Everyone a Classic to name but two. The single was also re-released on vinyl in Holland in 1995, again as a bootleg. As the single was released in a key era ( New Wave 1978 – 1981) and on an independent label, original copies of the single have been sought by completists and collectors with buying requests on eBay and collector's web sites. In 2003 one of the band met Dave Balfe who owned the Gollanfield Studio, he had been contacted on numerous occasions by buyers who wished to secure the Radio City master tapes for both the single and the demo recordings. Again in 2003 a band member was directly contacted by a “music consultant” ( found through friends re-united site) who wished to do a deal to release the single and demo songs on a mini CD/EP marketed under the umbrella of “New Wave Nuggets”. This hasn’t progressed."
Sutherland brings us up to date, "Robert still lives in Scotland, in Inverness, I now live, work (and still occasionally gig) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Raymond, my co-writer, bass player and dear friend passed away in the 90's. I don't know where the other guys are, but I'm sure they will be equally bemused and happy at the ongoing interest in our music.
Of the music, last summer I enthused; "In "Love and a Picture" the interplay of each strum, thump and bang is designed for maximum dynamic impact and that wide-screened chorus will bore right through your skull." And now, glory be, Sutherland has sent MRML a copy of the B-side (and the cover JPEG). He says, "She's a Radio", the other side of "Love.." (it was really meant to be a double A-side), shows our poppier, Joe Jackson-ish side". He's dead right - like the flipside, "She's a Radio" is filled to bursting with hooks, like the band was pouring everything they had into those few minutes of jaw-dropping, ass-kicking, bone-rattling glory.
Further to the subject of influences, Sutherland says they were in fact named after the second Big Star album, "...Although we really sounded not much like them Raymond and I were obsessive Big Star fans. We were also pretty much influenced by anything that combined the jangle of The Byrds, the powerchords of The Who and the wit and wisdom of Ray Davies. In fact, to tell the truth, "Love and a Picture" is lyrically a darker, self-hurting version of the Who's "Pictures of Lily"." There are times, and this was one, when could such classicism, rather than being stuffy and studied, can jump-start an entire nation.
Sutherland concludes by saying, "Great days, great music, and some fantastic memories. Thanks for your interest in this stuff, for keeping it alive and shaking!"
MRML readers: leave the band a comment, it's the least you can do!
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