Plain Or Pan?
A new world record
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I go to about 2 gigs a year. Way back in my youth I would go to 2 a week. Now it’s 2 a year. Usually Bob Dylan and Teenage Fanclub. I’ve seen Teenage Fanclub live at least once every year since 1990. I’ve probably seen the Trash Cans as many times or more as well. OK. Make that 3 gigs a year. Point is, I don’t go to that many any more.
So, a wee burst of gig action has taken place recently. Hot on the heels of, yes, Bob Dylan and the Trash Cans (if I’d remembered which night they were on. Idiot. Haven’t seen them live in 2007 yet), I have recently seen Candie Payne and King Creosote.
Candie Payne first. Hotly tipped, great reviews and rightly so. A fine voice, a backing band stuck in 1964 (the best bits of 1964) and enough good tunes to suggest she is more Saint Etienne than Dido, which is what I’d secretly feared. She is being compared to Dusty In Memphis, but that frankly is a bit too much. Still, she was pretty good. Her new album is a good bet for the Mercury Prize this year. Frank suggets you stick a tenner on it…
King Creosote sounds or looks nothing like Candie Payne but his gig was just as enjoyable. He can sing a bit, plays a mean accordion and has funny between-song banter. Best song of the night was a new one about having seen Grease too many times. “You’re not the one I want. No, no, no.” He is self-deprecating and as far removed from pop stardom as you can imagine. Which is just how I’d like you to stay please, Mr Creosote. Go and see him if you get the chance.
In the meantime, here’s 2 interesting covers.
Candie Payne does Iggy Pop’s ‘Nightclubbing’ (plays in iTunes only)
King Creosote does Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’.
(Man, they love Jeff Buckley round here!)
Up shit Greek
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Liverpool the other night were beaten by a freaky goal, a classy goal, and by their own ineptitude at putting the ball in the net when they had the lion’s share of possession. I had this next musical treat all ready to go in the event of Liverpool winning, but it seems churlish not to put it up anyway. Back in the 80’s, Liverpool were my favourite English team. They had Souness, Dalglish and Hansen. The backbone of the team was Scottish and they were mainly unbeatable. When they won the European Cup against Roma in 1984, John Peel’s show was magic. It began with a burst of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, some church bells, some Mighty Wah! and Peel and Kid Jensen trading good natured bonhomie. In between you get some dub reggae (of course), some “exquisitly tastless” Anti Nowhere League and a bit of Ivor Cutler (of course). Peel was a big fan of Liverpool, so much so that he got married in a red and white suit. Throughout the show he is in good spirits and full of emotion.
If you’re a Liverpool fan, listen in, stop greetin’ and hark back to the good old days. And if you’re not a fan, listen in anyway. It’s lo-fi quality and sounds a bit underwater at times, but radio gold all the same.
God bless John Peel
Pass It On (part 2)
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Simple Kid is a one-man band. All battered acoustics, a bit of banjo and a smattering of electronics and new technology. He’s an Irish Beck. I suppose you could call him Feck. Hee hee. Anyway, his first album ‘Simple Kid 1‘ was pretty good. I have had a copy of it since it was released but I recently picked up the genuine article in Tesco for 97p!
More recently I heard him do a song called ‘Lil King Kong’ which sounded like it sampled/borrowed/stole the riff from Led Zeppelin’s version of Robert Johnson’s ‘Travelling Riverside Blues’ (get it on the BBC Sessions album). Pretty good I thought. And pretty cheeky. Cos it’s not like Led Zeppelin are going to sue him. After all, they’ve made a career out of ripping off the old blues guys and crediting everything to Page, Plant, Bonham and Jones. Even their version of ‘Travelling Riverside Blues’ is credited to Page, Plant and Johnson. But I’ve never been able to hear where they enhanced the original. Unless you count the drums. But then surely the credit should have Bonham added to it somewhere.
Actually, they probably would sue, being the corporate money grabbers that they are/were, but I digress. These 2 tracks are posted in the spirit of the first ‘Pass It On’ post – that the best songs and tunes of the past usually end up being recycled in some way years down the line. Listen and compare, pop pickers.
Led Zeppelin ‘Travelling Riverside Blues’
Trashcan Sonatas
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This is one of the weirdest bootlegs I own. Dylan fans are guilty of grabbing hold of anything that his name can be linked with and I’m as big a sap as the next collector. No music on this. Just AJ Weberman talking about an interview he did with Bob Dylan in January 1971, followed by 2 telephone conversations between them following the interview.
Weberman is, to quote West of Scotland vernacular, a bit of a roaster. Amongst other things, he was convinced Dylan was a heroin addict, so he tracked down where he lived in New York and started raking through his rubbish to find clues/evidence that could substantiate his claims! The sleevenotes on the bootleg tell you more:
AJ Weberman, self styled Dylanologist, mega egotist, founder member of the art of Garbology, (the practice of sifting through someone’s garbage to interpret their character) had become notorious by circulating his revelations on Dylan’s persona on the underground press. Probably in an attempt to curb some of Weberman’s wild theorising and to protect his young family from intrusive attentions, Dylan began to actively cultivate Weberman’s interest in him, and around December 1970 and early January 1971 arranged to meet with Weberman at his recording studio in Greenwich Village that he’d recently had converted from a shop. Whatever the understanding between them may have been, Weberman’s motivation for attending these meetings was to consruct an article on Dylan that he could circulate in the underground press. When Dylan became aware of this, two telephone conversations ensued, the first from Dylan to Weberman requesting to see a draft of the article, the second a return call from Weberman to discuss amendments.
There’s books on this! And folk like me read them! Dylan is revealed to be obtuse, awkward and contradictory once he realises Weberman has taped him in conversation. Hardly revelatory stuff then, but you need to hear it. And he swears quite a lot too. It’s in 3 parts:
* part 3 will download from megaupload, as it was too big a file for my usual file host
Pass it on….
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In the 1930’s, Jimmie Tarlton had a tune he played on his guitar called ‘Mexican Rag’. I have read that it was captured somewhere on a field recording (possibly by Harry Smith or Alan Lomax) but extensive googling and raking arond in the depths of file sharing sites has not helped me find it. Anyway, around 1964 Bob Dylan appropriated/liberated/stole it and was caught on tape doodling around with it in the studio. It has since been named ‘Suze (The Cough Song)’, named after Suze Rotolo (that’s her on the cover of Freewheelin’) and due to the fact that he coughs near the end of it, mid-harmonica solo. I don’t think Dylan intended to do much with it but you never know. It sounds a wee bit like ‘Nashville Skyline Rag’, so maybe he kept it in mind for a few years. Who knows? The version I have is a work in progress but it is one of my favourite Bob-in-the-studio moments. Either way, it is a great wee tune that is good fun to pick along with on the guitar. You can get it on CD2 of the Bootleg Series 1-3, or you can hear it here.
In the best folk tradition, the tune has been passed on and re-named many times, with words added, changed or dropped altogether. The new Elliott Smith compilation ‘New Moon’ has a track called ‘Whatever (Folk Song in C)’ that sounds very similar to Dylan’s tune above. A bit slower and less excitable, it features a fantastic vocal from Elliott. I bloody love Elliott Smith. I love the way his vocals are nearly always double-tracked (just like John Lennon). I love the effortless way he can pick out a tune on his guitar. I love the weird chords he throws in now and again. I love the absolute melancholy of it all. Almost makes me want to take heroin. Why his music is not held in the same regard as Nick Drake’s or even Kurt Cobain’s escapes me. I wish I had got to see him live. I wish I could sing and play guitar like him. I wish he hadn’t stabbed himself to death. Stupid bastard. The whole ‘New Moon’ album is fantastic. If you like your music downbeat, melancholic and bathed in pathos you need it. ‘Whatever’ is my current favourite track. Get it here. Then get yourself over to Play or Amazon or wherever and get the album.
elliott smith 1969-2003
Bonus track added: Plain Or Pan’s version of Elliott’s ‘Miss Misery’, the song that won him an Oscar for the soundtrack of Good Will Hunting. Recorded on 4 track, it’s a bit hissy and crackly and I didn’t get the levels quite right. It has a ‘unique’ sound all of it’s own and might well give bedroom singer songwriters a bad name everywhere.
