Episode 170 - The Days of Our Lives

The place is Grasmere Avenue, Coventry.

The year is 1977.

I’ve just finished my evening meal. It was something quite modest on a Thursday as we didn’t have much money. Something like fish fingers and mashed potatoes with frozen peas. Possibly followed by a butterscotch Angel Delight.

I had a lot of homework – a staggering amount of homework, in fact. I’ve never worked so hard since then. The remnants of the old grammar school system.

However I would always ensure to give ‘Top of My Pops’ my full attention. It generally promised more than it delivered. Glam rock was just a memory by this point, and although The Sex Pistols and The Stranglers were in the charts, so was a heap of novelty records and tame disco.

Rita Coolidge came on and there was nothing to quicken the pulse of a 15 year-old there. But next Kid Jensen, bravely disdaining to future-proof his name, announced a band from Australia called The Saints. This didn’t bode well. I was unaware of any decent Australian bands. Olivia Newton-John and The Bee Gees may have been the only artists I knew from that country and neither bespoke good pedigree.

I then experienced a two-minute epiphany, similar to the one three years previously when I’d seen Sparks for the first time. Years later I read Jon Savage’s book “England’s Dreaming” about the punk years and he described the song thus: it "speeded up the ‘Paint It Black’ riff into pure extinction. "This Perfect Day" is almost too fast: The group nearly come off the rails before singer Chris Bailey brings everything to a grinding halt in an extraordinary cluster of negatives.” He later said the song was, "the most ferocious single to ever grace the UK Top 40."

Then, 47 years later, I got round to seeing the band live for the first time. Earlier this week at the Northcote Theatre in Melbourne, in fact. Ed Kuepper wrote the song and he was there on stage, as was drummer Ivor Hay, although the original vocalist Chris Bailey is no longer around. It was a sell-out and it was great.

And here are some other days of our lives to accompany it:

Tracklist:-

This perfect day, The Saints

Digital, Joy Division

Long day, Medications

This is the day, The The

Tomorrow, Tanukichan

Monday morning, Death Cab for Cutie

By tomorrow, Black Tambourine

My favourite wet Wednesday afternoon, The Siddeleys

Favourite day, European Sun

Dog days, Dehd

Monday, Slow Fiction

Slavery days, Burning Spear

End of the day, Beck

These days, St Vincent

Episode 169 - Broadcast and their Influence

If there’s one thing you can say about Broadcast – in fact, there are many – it’s their attention to detail.

Their debut studio album, The Noise Made By People, was self-produced in the group's own recording studio after having been through three producers to get a particular sound. Regarding the expensive two year production of the album, singer Trish Keenan said, "There were no financial benefits in getting it right."

Recording sessions for the second album took place in fragments at various locations: Keenan recorded vocal tracks with her head in a cardboard box which gave it a "closeness and deadness that makes it sit in the mix a bit nicer," while drummer Neil Bullock recorded drum tracks in a neighbourhood church.

They used samples taken from both library music compilations but also real-life field recordings.

If you can tell a lot about a salesman by their shoes, you can tell a lot about a group by their artwork. Broadcast’s artwork are indeed works of art, which would not look at all out of place in an exhibition. And they’re all quite different while emanating from a singular artistic vision. If we need ever pine for a world of vinyl (personally I don’t), it’s for the lost artwork of records such as these.

You can tell something about a group from their reviews, more obviously.

In a review published in Spin in 2001, the band were unfavourably likened to being "stuck in a time warp–the sound of '70s wife-swapping parties with beanbags and unhappy children serving sausages on sticks." Since this piece goes out on the day of the 2024 US election, I’m less inclined to trust the judgement of some of our American friends.

More accurately, The Guardian described their work as incorporating direct pop while "mixing together influences such as the primitive electronics of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop Czech surrealism, Moog organ, forgotten film soundtracks and kitsch ephemera." According to journalist Mikey Jones, the band "fused the worlds of pop songcraft and experimentally-minded electronic music into a contemporary blend of psychedelia that resonated deeply with listeners, effectively expanding the conventions of what could be considered psychedelic.”

Broadcast are a cult band but not in the sense of The Velvet Underground or The Fall. The man (or woman) on the Clapham omnibus has probably never heard of them or anything by them. The bands they influenced are somewhat cultish as well, for the most part. But not entirely. A band like Beach House are a good example of taking a high concept idea and commercialising it. Broadcast will always have a special place in my heart as I saw one of the last gigs Trish Keenan performed, in Melbourne. She was so engaged - surprised, as many bands are, by the reverence great music is afforded at the end of the world, animated, and happy to be performing her idiosyncratic music. Then a few weeks later, she was no longer there.

At the fringes of music, but deep in our hearts.

Tracklist:-

Come on, let’s go, Broadcast

Tir ha mor, Gwenno

Cuckoo, Still Corners

The inconsolable Jean Claude, Lake Ruth

Once twice melody, Beach House

Colour me in, Broadcast

Years and elements, Plone

Springtime, Le Superhomard

Half past, Honeyglaze

The book lovers, Broadcast

I need a connection, Jane Weaver

Estuary, Virginia Wing

I want another affair, Jockstrap

Pendulum, Broadcast

Episode 168 - Still Waters

Sometimes a headline is metaphorical and the actual subject of the episode will be deepest, darkest emotional responses to life changing events.

Not on this occasion. The episode is actually about still bodies of water. Although that is not to say that some of the aquatic references won’t have a metaphorical quality. I doubt the Gilla Band’s excellently robust song Backwash is about the annoying splashback you suffer when someone dives off the top swimming board or you’re standing by a puddle at the bus stop.

We did do an Over The Oceans episode about 18 months ago and this isn’t about seas, oceans, major lakes, gulfs and channels. Although - trivia alert - they do constitute roughly 99% of the water on the planet. No, this is rather an episode about non-tidal, non-saline water. I have stretched to one canal, because the chances of me doing an episode dedicated to canals are vanishingly small, so I’ve given it sanctuary here.

I have steered away from rivers, on the whole as they’re quite big - although Down by the River (Neil Young) and River (Joni Mitchell) are excellent in their own half-a-century-ago-vibe way. I might do a separate episode about rain because that’s surprisingly fertile territory. But, again, to stress, not canals.

It’s a sad thing about canals. They were the big new technology 200 years ago. Canals everywhere. Famously there are more in Birmingham than Venice (though I haven’t fact checked this - maybe it’s an urban myth). Then along came the railways and now there are endless waterways only fit for an ironic holiday.

Still waters can run deep, of course. Maybe not in a watercooler though.

Tracklist:

Tread water, De La Soul

Water table, Cola

By the water’s edge, The Bevis Frond

Canal side running, Harpans Kraft

Watercooler, Grandaddy

Deep murky water, Honeyglaze

Love is a sign, The Go-Betweens

Water underground, Real Estate

Backwash, Gilla Band

Down by the water, P J Harvey

Living by the water, The Unthanks

Des ronds dans l’eau, Francoise Hardy

Moon begins, Florist

Episode 167: Steve Pringle - Unleashed!

Irk the purists indeed!

Steve Pringle, author of the magisterial volume on the Fall, ‘You Must Get Them All’, swung by the virtual SF studios recently to record an interview for Sombrero Fallout. He took us through first attending a Dylan concert with his dad at St James' Park, Newcastle (where I myself have witnessed a few Newcastle v Coventry clashes with my own dad) to gigs at Newcastle City Hall (where I once saw PIL).

There’s some classic SF fare on offer starting with a raucous I heard her call my name by The Velvet Underground. However, the the climax of the show will surprise a few people who might have Steve pigeonholed as yer classic Fall fan, because it turns out that there is no such thing ….

… take a look at the last three tracks here. Rod the Mod! Springsteen! Marillion!!!

Steve is a man of utmost authenticity and the reason he opted for Irk the Purists for his Half Man Half Biscuit choice is because he believes there is no such thing as a “Guilty Pleasure”. So impassioned is he on the subject (and bear in mind there were rumblings of Supertramp, prog and the New Wave of British Haevy Metal inter alia) that he spurred me on to produce a Vinyl Maelstrom episode (our sister podcast) on that very subject of Guilty Pleasures.

It was a great pleasure to chat with Steve and he is the most affable of music men. I hope one day that our virtual chats can become actual over a real life pint. In the meantime, we’ll have to settle for this.

Tracklist:

I heard her call my name, The Velvet Underground

Wow, Cinerama

Neil Jung, Teenage Fanclub

Get me, Dinosaur Jr

This is what she’s like, Dexys Midnight Runners

Johnsburg, Illinois, Tom Waits

Irk the purists, Half Man Half Biscuit

Handbags and gladrags, Rod Stewart

Highway patrolman, Bruce Springsteen

Sugar mice, Marillion

Episode 166 - History and Some People Who Made It

There are broadly speaking two schools of thought when it comes to the shape of history.

There is the “Great Man” school. This is taught typically by more right-wing historians. They would argue that Hitler changed the course of history, and that so did Churchill. That had Alexander the Great not existed there would not have been a Macedonian Empire. That the same goes for a character such as Genghis Khan and his rampage across the steppes to the gates of Vienna.

Others, and they tend to be more left-of-centre analysts, don’t see the world that way at all. They look beyond the idea of romantic individualism to more technical, economic, geographic, maybe even climatic reasons why events occur as they do. They’re prepared to concede that William the Conqueror might not have won the Battle of Hastings. It was a close-run thing. But they point out that, because England was behind the Normans from a technological point of view, because their cavalry was under developed and, crucially, because they didn’t have castles, England would have been invaded by a force from Europe sooner or later anyway.

I’m slightly more in the latter camp. Yes, individuals can exert a temporary difference. But usually there are bigger factors at play - the boring bits of the history text books which deal with iron ore, defendable geography, farming equipment and so on.

All that said, the “great men” of history make for better art, although McCarthy and the Gang of Four have made attempts to introduce Marxist critiques into their work. But even they and bands like the Au Pairs tend to individualise their themes (although Mdou Moctar gets us off to a rousing start with a great track concerning colonial oppression). There aren’t many songs about the economic dysbenefits of the Prohibition Era, but Al Capone is a colourful character who gave rise to not only Prince Buster’s tribute, but eventually Gangsters by The Specials.

Here then are some songs about history - but also the so-called “Great Men” (unfortunately it is almost exclusively men) who shaped it. A bit.

Tracklist:

Funeral for justice, Mdou Moctar

Al Capone, Prince Buster

Dance stance, Dexys Midnight Runners

Leyendecker, Battles

Fourth shot, Cabaret Voltaire

Columbus, Burning Spear

John Wayne Gacy Jr, Sufjan Stevens

Cortez the killer, Neil Young, Crazy Horse

The death of Ferdinand de Saussure, The Magnetic Fields

Ghosts of Cable Street, The Men they Couldn’t Hang

Bakunin, Alastair Galbraith

William B, The Durutti Column

Cloudbusting, Kate Bush

Episode 165: Britpop - An Alternative History

What exactly are the trademark hits of Britpop? Supersonic. Common People. Country House. I guess. Funnily enough, Oasis are probably not defined so much by Britpop as the Gallagher Brother saga. Neither Blur nor Pulp would want to be positioned as Britpop operatives, probably at all. So what was it then?

Well really, initially it was a reaction against blanket Americana and the dying embers of grunge. Specifically the death of Kurt Cobain. In a very different way, the death of Ian Curtis in May 1980 signalled the end of the introspective anxious angular post-punk era and greenlighted Rusty Egan and Co to start dressing up and dancing. The Nirvana frontman’s suicide was the signal that the British could reclaim the “throne” of rock music. When there was still a meaningful throne to be fought over.

I’ve always been wearily dismissive of all the Union Jacks and the beery swagger which is my mental image of Britpop. The phrase Indie Landfill seems to me rather more easy to direct at Britpop which showcased any number of second-class opportunists.

However, it turned out to be possible, by exploring the edges of the genre, to construct a perfectly listenable, in fact really rather good playlist. One must be openminded. It’s no coincidence that these tracks don’t swagger at all for the most part - maybe one or two flirt - but there is generally rather more sunny optimism, perhaps, than can be found in the typical SF episode. Which is no bad thing.

Anyway, see what you think.

Tracklist:

Come out 2 nite, Kenickie

School disco, Bis

God! Show me magic, Super Furry Animals

Public information film, St Etienne

Funky times are back again, Cornershop

Overhear me, Salad

Kidnapping an heiress, Black Box Recorder

The crawl, Placebo

Jack names the planets, Ash

Lazy day, The Boo Radleys

Middle of the road, Denim

Sale of the century, Sleeper

The sad witch, Hefner

Early years, The Auteurs

The boss, Pulp

Annie, Elastica

Far out, Blur

Time to go, Supergrass

Episode 164 - Insecurity

Impostor syndrome is that creeping, heart-sinking sensation of being out of your depth. “The subjective experience of perceived self-doubt in one's abilities and accomplishments compared with others, despite evidence to suggest the contrary".

According to wikipedia - “Those who have it may doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments. They may have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as frauds. Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon do not believe they deserve their success or luck. They may think that they are deceiving others because they feel as if they are not as intelligent as they outwardly portray themselves to be.”

Without being genderist or whatever the term is, most men and women who interview both men and women tend to arrive at the same conclusion. That it’s innate, or possibly conditioned, for men to make the most of themselves to the point of exaggerating their abilities, while, by and large, women typically play down their achievements. It’s just about possible that this is a clever ruse, I suppose, in that the interviewer will apply a weighting based on this knowledge to the candidates’ answers. But I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.

I think impostor syndrome does exist, but in my experience, as a white older, probably privileged, certainly middle-class male, the sense of queasy nervousness I experienced at work was justified by the hard data. I always dreaded the subject getting round to quantitative analysis, for example, because I knew other people in the office were miles ahead of me on that stuff. There were just some things I was bad at. This had been proved to me by my experience in my first job where I’d clearly been the laggard in the class. So, for me anyway, it was not a case of “evidence to the contrary”.

Of course, people have insecurities about all manner of things, not just work stuff. Their body, their educational attainments, their class, their looks, etc etc. It’s always seemed to me that people who don’t worry about their looks, say, can’t understand why anyone else does. “Just be yourself”, they say. “Anything but that”, replies the wallflower.

Back to wikipedia: “Impostor syndrome is not a recognized psychiatric disorder and is not featured in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual nor is it listed as a diagnosis in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision.

Still exists though. This is an episode dedicated to everyone struggling to come to terms with who they are, in whatever form that might take.

Tracklist:

My anatomy, Winksy

I know I’m not easy to like, Pip Blom

I want to be you, Lime Garden

I think about it all the time, Charli XCX

I was more of a mess then, Comet Gain

Falling apart, Slow Pulp

But not kiss, Faye Webster

Good feeling, Violent Femmes

Creative jealousy, Honeyglaze

No easy way out, Emma Kupa

Angst, Jockstrap

In your house, The Cure

Always trying to work it out, Low

Sour times, Portishead

Fear, Armlock

A shitty gay song about you, Ezra Williams

Episode 163 - Angels and Ghosts

When I do these episodes, I try to avoid the slightly more predictable, the slightly more mainstream, the slightly-played-that-band-a-lot recently, or the slightly-played-before songs. On the other hand, I have started playing the odd familiar number from the vaults, much as The Fall would throw in a couple from their early years.

So people have quite rightly wondered at the absence of I’m So Bored With The USA from the recent Boredom episode, Being Boring, Chairman of the Board and 10.15 Saturday Night. All worthy candidates but all falling foul of one or other of the above criteria.

And there’s a couple of tracks for this episode I’d have loved to play, viz Ghost by Neutral Milk Hotel, There’s A Ghost in My House by either The Fall or R Dean Taylor’s original - and of course, the daddy of them all, Ghost Town, probably the finest song of 1981, along with New Order’s Ceremony. For the purposes of this exercise, I shall put Justin Bieber’s Ghost to one side.

So, that’s some little insights for anyone interested into the selection process.

Actually here’s another one. This episode happens to include three tracks from this year, which always causes a minor dilemma. I like to keep the powder dry for the end-of-year round ups and not play too many you’ve already heard. But when I actually think about it, I doubt anyone apart from me is too worried about that. So expect to hear at least one of the tracks from Mary in the Junkyard, Euterpe, Newdad and Princess Thailand in a few months.

Anyway, angels and ghosts. A nice selection, I hope, and not too tenebrous, eldritch or sepulchral.

Tracklist:

Guided by angels, Amyl and the Sniffers

Ghost car, Princess Thailand

Heavenly pop hit, The Chills

Yankee bayonet, The Decemberists

Angel, Newdad

Lake of fire, Meat Puppets

Ghost, Mary in the Junkyard

My angel rocks back and forth, Four Tet

Archangel, Burial

Because we’re dead, Slow Club

One of your gods, Euterpe

The white mask, Thee More Shallows

Ghosts, Japan

Headless horseman, The Microphones

Episode 162 - 50 Years On: 1974 Reassessed

It’s 1974. (I have chosen to deploy the historic present to intensify the narrative.) 

The 1973 oil crisis rumbles on as does the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War. Yitzhak Rabin takes over as Israeil PM from Golda Meir.

Following Watergate, Nixon resigns.

Turkey invades northern Cyprus leading to partition of the island. 

There is a Carnation Revolution in Portugal.

Willy Brandt resigns as pre-unification West German chancellor, while the country win the World Cup, coming from behind to defeat Holland, as they were then known.

On the subject of countries which are no longer around, there’s the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire between Muhammad Ali and George foreman, before he sold grills. I don’t know why that’s famous, because I can’t fathom boxing’s appeal.

Meanwhile 37 Grasmere Avenue, Green Lane, Coventry CV3 6AY (Tel: 69010) sees the last year of the Forths as a nuclear family. Quite a relief when we moved to a single-parent version in February of the following year, to be honest.

In music, the trend is there is no trend. On this episode we’ve got the last knockings of, I suppose, glam rock, kind of only not really, with Sparks, Bowie and Roxy Music. Some lovely folk with Richard and Linda Thompson, Bridget St John and one of Nick Drake’s last recordings. Reggae from Keith Hudson and Augustus Pablo. The sound of young West Germany with Can, coming to the end of their golden period, and Kraftwerk just setting out on their own personal autobahn. Neil Young, John Cale and 10cc with arguably their best albums. And David Essex with a weird track that, this being 1974, was a Top 10 single.

Reassess for yourself. 

Tracklist:

Autobahn, Kraftwerk

Rock on, David Essex

Darkest night version, Keith Hudson

Reinforcements, Sparks

Needle in the camel’s eyes, Brian Eno

All I want is you, Roxy Music

Barracuda, John Cale

For the turnstiles, Neil Young

Song for the waterden widow, Bridget St John

Rider on the wheel, Nick Drake

Dizzy dizzy, Can

Gun trade, Augustus Pablo

Down where the drunkards roll, Richard and Linda Thompson

Old wild men, 10cc

Rock’n’roll suicide, David Bowie

Episode 161 - Boredom

“Well, it's 1969, okay

All across the USA

It's another year for me and you

Another year with nothing to do

Now, last year, I was 21

I didn't have a lot of fun

And now, I'm gonna be 22

Well I say, "Oh, my" and a "Boo-hoo" (1969, The Stooges)

My mother-in-law was always highly judgemental of anyone who said they were bored. As a matron at a prep school she claimed she’d seen a sea change from boys who would happily “create their own fun” by going off to play in the woods or whatnot to her final years when they asked to be told what to do. But those were children who’d been barred from having phones or very limited access, at any rate.

Does anyone get bored any more? It would be quite a feat, assuming you have access to technology. People will complain about children on screens, sure, but for those of us who can remember life before the internet, there were in fact days when it was possible to run out of things to do. When I was a lad in the long school holidays, I’d sometimes play patience, sometimes bowl a ball against the garage wall. Go round to a friend’s house and play the only one of his seven albums I liked. Then play it again. Five days of test match cricket was a godsend.

There is, I think, something to be said for boredom though. It is where punk rock came from – the bored suburbs. Two of the early tracks on this pod convey that feeling of nothing happening – Bored Teenagers and Boredom. It’s no surprise that the angriest music often emanates from the most boring pockets of the kingdom. The Jesus and Mary Chain in their bedroom in the new town of East Kilbride. The “Bromley Contingent” that followed the Sex Pistols around early on and eventually turned into Siouxsie and the Banshees.

We can certainly be critical of some of Morrissey’s pronouncements, but he nailed that profound sense of ennui with “Everyday Is like Sunday”:-

Hide on the promenade, etch a postcard

"How I dearly wish I was not here"

In the seaside town

That they forgot to bomb

Come, come, come, nuclear bomb

Everyday is like Sunday

Everyday is silent and grey

So, here’s to boredom. I’ve taken a fairly flexible approach to the subject and included boredom-adjacent tracks. Deal with it!

Tracklist:-

Kitchen, Codeine

Bored teenagers, The Adverts

Boredom, Buzzcocks

Flaming Hot Cheetos, Clairo

Repetition, Spread Joy

No fun, Vitalic

Mount Wrocliai (Idle days), Beirut

Why bother? Public Interest

Terminal boredom, Crime

Snowman, Blonde Redhead

Not everybody gets to go to space, English Teacher

New job, Dry Cleaning

Box Elder, Pavement

Burst Noel, Malcolm Middleton

Fear of a blank planet, Porcupine Tree

Heaven, Talking Heads