Episode 70 - New Order begin: their first year and its long legacy

Following the suicide of Ian Curtis on May 18th, 1980, the remaining members of the band – Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Steven Morris – agreed straightaway that they would carry on, albeit under a different name. But that was the easy bit.

Nothing was certain. Joy Division themselves had progressed at such a rapid rate that even as they came to a halt they were considering fresh moves. They’d rapidly moved out of punky squalls, but had multi-tracked other iterations since then. They were more than capable of metallic rockers like Shadowplay, Twenty Four Hours, Dead Souls and Colony, but were increasingly abandoning their rock sound almost entirely.

Love Will Tear Us Apart and Ceremony indicated they were on the brink of mainstream chart success, but there is one JD track, virtually ignored at the time, which was even more influential: As You Said, a two-minute instrumental on the flipside of a flexi-disc giveaway. It sounds more like Cabaret Voltaire, those other northern pioneers, and would fit well on an Aphex Twin or Boards Of Canada album.

So, when New Order got going they were full of doubt. Who should sing? Who should write the lyrics? What should they write about? Should they get someone else in? Should they play Joy Division songs live? Was Martin Hannett still the right producer?

The process of answering these questions threw up a first year of experimentation which is what this episode is all about. Personally, I’d have been happier if they’d stayed in their 1980/81 mode, tense and anxious, but also not afraid to experiment, for a great deal longer. However by 1982 they’d answered all those questions once and for all (Bernard, Bernard, don’t sweat it, Gillian, no and no), then after Temptation and Blue Monday, never looked back.

But the early autumnal version of New Order is the one I much prefer. It doesn’t last long and this period in their lives was one in which they confess to feeling lost. Once they discovered Italian house music and party drugs, the emphasis was on fun, even hedonism, and that fitted the ’eighties well. Not surprisingly their new musical direction matched this new found happiness.

But, as we see so often, misery can be the nursemaid of the best creativity. And their experiments proved, in the end, as influential as the more familiar sound they developed as the decade wore on. But judge yourself.

Tracklist:

Dreams never end, New Order

Inbetween days, The Cure

Cries and whispers, New Order

Asleep, Makthaverskan

The him, New Order

Squalor Victoria, The National

Procession, New Order

Electronic Renaissance, Belle and Sebastian

Ceremony, New Order

Bordeaux, The Durutti Column

Chosen time, New Order

Strange neighbours, Plastic Flowers

Episode 69 - Ireland, in honour of St Patrick's Day

The Anglo-Saxon invasions of England in the fifth and sixth centuries are very poorly documented. So much so that we barely know what happened at all. It’s up to the linguists and archaeologists to try to put together the picture as The Dark Ages descend and the incumbent inhabitants – ‘Celts’ or ‘Britons’, for want of a better description – were pushed back to the hills and mountains of Cornwall, west wales and the Highlands and islands of Scotland.

But the Celtic tradition is a continuous one in the island of Ireland. And I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest this episode celebrating Irish music stands at the end of that long Celtic tradition.

Vigorous, splenetic young bands like Murder Capital, Girl Band and Fontaines DC here rub shoulders with songs of sheer beauty from Rosa Nutty and Seamus Fogarty, contributing his own distinctive brand of haunting melancholy. Classic eighties indie is represented by bands such as Ash, Stars of Heaven, Whipping Boy, Something Happens and The Blades. There’s innovation in the form of My Bloody Valentine and their descendants Newdad (none of whom, as far as they are aware, is a new dad), and original post-punk from The Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers. AE Mak look outside Ireland to the world outside, while The Pogues commemorate the Irish contribution to old wars. Stump supply the humour.

My wife and I love visiting Ireland, whether it be the backstreets of Dublin, the wild peatlands and craggy peaks of County Donegal or the peninsulae of the southwest. We’ve had many marvellous encounters with strangers who, several Guinnesses later, felt like ancient friends. The live music that accompanied those nights will long live in the memory.

We hope to return before long.

Tracklist:

Kung Fu, Ash

When we were young, Whipping Boy

Slowly, Newdad

Lose my breath, My Bloody Valentine

Chequeless reckless, Fontaines DC

Sacred heart hotel, Stars of Heaven

Charlton Heston, Stump

Ducks and drakes, Seamus Fogarty

Fizzy, Rosa Nutty

Here comes the only one again, Something Happens

I can feel it in my bones, AE Mak

More is less, The Murder Capital

The last riddler, Girl Band

Downmarket, The Blades

A pair of brown eyes, The Pogues

Wednesday week, The Undertones

Alternative Ulster, Stiff Little Fingers

Episode 68 - Wales, in honour of St David's Day

It’s simply not true that great bands and artists don’t come out of Wales. Considering the size of the population – about one quarter of Greater London, smaller than Melbourne – the miracle is they’ve contributed so much.

People may talk about Manchester, Sheffield or Glasgow, but what you’ve got in those cities is a ‘scene’. A concentration of pubs, venues, student colleges and promoters feeding off each other. Before the internet someone in Morfa Nefyn (where I spent reasonably happy childhood holidays, the go-to destination for the Midlands family) would have had no clue what a band in Cardiff looked like or sounded like unless they appeared in the NME or on John Peel.

Some memories of Welsh music.

Wondering what on earth the Eisteddfod was. It used to fill up the schedules of BBC daytime TV.

Listening to the strangely unnerving accent of John Cale narrating The Gift on The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat. Hearing his solo album Honi Soit on my friend Lewis’s turntable.

Falling in love with Alison Statton’s voice and the whole Colossal Youth album. Later hearing its influence in bedroom pop, Sneaks, a slew of last year’s post-punk bands. A great interview recently with Phillip Moxham on local radio in Australia.

Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci didn’t sound like a Welsh name, but were clearly from there.

Melys Number One in the Festive 50! Them and Derrero keeping the early ‘90s effortless future sounding female cool schtick alive through the grimmer years of Britpop where it blossomed once more in the early years of the 21st century.

Mclusky – DIY punk rock returns!

Steveless - so named because none of the band members were Steve. Now that is funny.

Anhrefn and Datbyglu singing heroically in their national tongue.

Thank you so much to all our fantastic Welsh bands.

Tracklist:

Something for the weekend, Super Furry Animals

Girl about town, Helen Love

She will only bring you happiness, Mclusky

Death to Los Campesinos!, Los Campesinos

Chinese whispers, Melys

Aerial angle, Derrero

Born slippy, Underworld

Patio song, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci

Bad morning girl, Pooh Sticks

Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier, Manic Street Preachers

Paris 1919, John Cale

Rhedeg i Paris, Anhrefn

Shame on you, The Darling Buds

I don't know why but recently I've got to feel all apologetic for so much of my life sat in my bedroom reading (I guess I should stop watching so much tele, I mean my life could never be as exciting, Steveless

Thrown like a stone, Murry the Hump

Heartbreak soup, The Young Puppies

Salad days, Young Marble Giants

Episode 67 - "This is the real indie": The NY/LI Millennial Scene

Authenticity in music is hard to define. But maybe not that hard.

My wife went through a short period of watching “The Voice”. Are you familiar? It’s a show in which ‘industry heavyweights’ – e.g. Jesse J, Boy George, Delta Goodrem - sit on a panel and decide whether would-be singers have the vocal chops to become a star.

If they do, they’re taken away and moulded into chart material. My wife thinks this is heartwarming. It certainly fits into the contemporary “You just have to want it enough” ethos. While I have nothing against the people on the show, I dislike the premise behind it.

On the podcast attached to this blog, I doubt any of the bands ever thought they’d get stadium-sized. And I imagine that most didn’t want that either. But their music – independent, authentic, ‘thrift-store’ if you like – is magical, gossamer-like. It captures the transitoriness, the profundity, the delicacy of youth. You can’t get that in an anthem.

I once saw Belle and Sebastian and Stuart Murdoch commented – “The trouble is there’s poetry or there’s money”. For a band to survive and thrive, they do need some money. But spare a thought for the bands that never did have the big hit. I won’t say they never “sold out”, though others might.

There is a new documentary Stewart Lee has put together about Robert Lloyd of The Nightingales – “The Jarvis who never made it” as The Guardian headline has it. It’s worth quoting from him.

“I don’t know this group at all, I’ve never heard a single song, but I’d like to be like Grandaddy. If you want to tour Australia someone will book it, if you want to do an album someone will pay for it, if you play in Wolverhampton a thousand people will turn up but if you go in the local Wetherspoons then nobody will know who the fuck you are. I couldn’t deal with fame and people knowing you down the chip shop. I mean, when was the last time Bono went to the chippy?”

Probably been a while. All the people in this podcast, lovingly curated by Tara Needham, who features in several of these bands from the 90s/00s New York/Long Island scene, can still go down the chippy, or whatever it’s called in their area. That’s worth celebrating, as is this marvellous music.

Tracklist:

Circle, Versus

Long Division, The Aislers Set

Flash, The Chandler Estate

To live and die in the airport lounge, Teenage Stride

October, Poconos

The happiest days of my life, My Favorite

Our lady of Stalingrad, The Secret History

False start, The Reverse

Say goodbye, Nilla

Seven sisters, Bell Hollow

Heartworm (ooh ooh song), Four Volts

Soren loved Regina, The Receptionists

Bird on the make, Garlands

Little friend, Hundred Watt Heart

One way to see a quasar, Porcupine 9

Super-8, Mad Planets

Episode 66 - Remembering Mark E Smith 3 years on

Memories of Mark E Smith …

Listening to Fiery Jack between Treason by The Teardrop Explodes and Outdoor Miner by Wire on a mixtape my mate Pete had recorded of songs culled off late night radio. Thinking – what’s this? A joke, a novelty? Or something altogether other? 

C’n’C S Mithering on John Peel’s show, late 1980. Not heard anything like this before. Poetry for today’s world. A rant but a highly articulate one with minimalist, almost primitive musical backing. Intriguing.

MES at the front – where else – of the queue for taxis at Euston Station. A normal guy, normally dressed, though with two plastic bags where everyone else had a briefcase. 

My wife: “I can see there’s something going on here, even though I don’t get it myself. But why do you chuckle when you listen to The Fall? I can’t hear anything funny.”

A friend of my son’s, who’s into Gorillaz; I show him MES at Glastonbury with Damon’s band. He’s confused. “But who is this guy?”

All the stories and the anecdotes about false teeth and walk-offs and amp-fiddling and the endless merry-go-round of Fall members, all rather missing the point. The band were the greatest of their era. 

It’s been said you can exist on a diet of Guinness and oranges alone. From the mid ‘sixties for the next 50 years you could listen every year to new releases by The Beatles, Neil Young, then, from 1980 onwards, The Fall - and survive on that musical nutrition alone. I mean, in the end, you’d want some carrots and chocolate as well. But, you know, if you had to. 

Tracklist:

Blindness (Peel Session), The Fall

Wolf kidult man, The Fall

Mountain energei, The Fall

Bombast, The Fall

The mixer, The Fall

Venice with the girls, The Fall

Is this new, The Fall

Gross chapel- British grenadiers, The Fall

Prole art threat, The Fall

I’m a mummy, The Fall

The man whose head expanded, The Fall

Midnight in Aspen, The Fall

C’n’C S Mithering, The Fall

Episode 65 - Proto-punk

Gerry has written in – a highly complimentary and insightful email, for which I thank him profusely - and as mentioned on the programme, I do hope he doesn’t mind if I quote him directly:

“Having, as I said, now listened to the whole catalogue of shows in a semi-condensed timetable … and I assure you that this is an observation and not a criticism – I think there has been a slight drift towards quieter, less overtly aggressive, maybe less angular music as the episodes have unfolded. This doubtless reflects all sorts of factors, both personal and in the wider world: dominant forms of pop music come and go, and much of the more full-on sounds are now made by rap artists and the offshoots of that genre - plus you may not agree with my contention anyway.”

As it happens, I do agree, Gerry, and have been somewhat conscious of this development for some time. I think the reasons for it are partly included in your original comment. Rap and techno are more the direction where we might look for maximum aggression these days. Partly also, whether subconsciously or not, and again as I mention on the episode itself, I think I’ve been subconsciously looking to balance out the chaos that 2020 represented with some calmer art.

But everything’s changed now (I write this at the end of January 2021). We can once again redress the stability of the world with a little well-judged raucousness. This episode dwells on that era of garage rock that retrospectively has been dubbed proto-punk.

That perhaps does it a disservice. These people weren’t merely warming up the audience before the arrival of the main act. They were making the music that made sense to them, twisting rock’n’roll into deviant, nonconformist directions, singing of repressed self-loathing, Vitamin C and Pablo Picasso. Certainly they were a more faithful inheritor of rock’n’roll’s rebellious caterwaul than the conformism of sharp suits, side partings and photogenic smiles that had cluttered up the scene since Elvis joined the army.

Many of you reading this will know all about The Velvets, The Stooges and Captain Beefheart, great artists though they be. So here also are a few less heralded outfits: Los Saicos, Peruvian rebels, Canada’s Simply Saucer and Death from Detroit. All of them, by and large, neglected at the time and rediscovered years later.

And here’s to a little more compensatory chaos in 2021.

Tracklist:

White light, white heat, The Velvet Underground

1969, The Stooges

I’m not like everybody else, The Kinks

96 tears, ? and The Mysterians

Pushin’ too hard, The Seeds

Oh, how to do now, The Monks

Strychnine, The Sonics

Big eyed beans from Venus, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

Demolicion, Los Saicos

Vitamin C, Can

Bullet proof nothing, Simply Saucer

Blank generation, Richard Hell

Keep on knocking, Death

Redondo Beach, Patti Smith

Pablo Picasso, The Modern Lovers

Monday morning gunk, Radio Birdman

Ghost riders, Suicide

Episode 64 - Women to watch 2021

My friend Jane runs a female-focused communications consultancy, ironically titled Pretty Little Head. Give them a call should you have any issues addressing a female audience in your business. She’s been my guide in this arena for many years now and kindly points out whenever I’m mandermining or manterrupting. I spend many paragraphs on these blogs mansplaining, I have no doubt.

Whether it’s a good idea to have a silo-ed “Women To Watch” episode I’m not absolutely sure. There are probably arguments against, but I’ll take that chance. I can remember when “Best Female Artist” was won with tedious regularity by Kate Bush or Annie Lennox in the NME, for what seemed about ten years. Now, look! There’s an endlessly coruscating calvacade, a veritable smorgasbord of female-led artists and bands to choose from. That’s something to be celebrated, isn’t it?

There are plenty of fantastic female artists music outside what I typically cover - obviously. Sombrero Fallout is nowhere near as broad as a Pitchfork, for example. But although we’ve played tracks by Lana del Rey and Billie Eilish in the past, there are plenty of mainstream places you can listen to artists like that. Likewise specialised and expert outlets know what they’re about when it comes to soul, r’n’b, hip hop, trap, rap, etc (though on this episode you’ll find a Celeste track, for example) and we wouldn’t pretend to compete in those spheres.

What we can help with is an angular, offbeat, heartfelt, humorous look at the world through music. Often - but by no means always - that shelters under the broad post-punk umbrella. Really it’s down to me, and if it feels right, I play it. Happily there are stacks of great female tunes out there right now and here’s a selection.

Tracklist:

Hunger for a way out, Sweeping Promises

Happiness isn’t a fixed state, Kynsy

Linda, The Buoys

Frame of reference, Drug Store Romeos

Blue, Newdad

Acid, Jockstrap

Strange, Celeste

Closer, Las Kellies

Mine, Gustaf

Something I do, Sweet Whirl

Desperate, Anna McClellan

Right round the clock, Sorry

My own person, Smoothboi Ezra

Truth nugget, Helena Deland

Mon ami Martien, Fleur

Episode 63 - 2020 Festive Half Fifty (part Two): Tracks 13-1

I grew up listening to John Peel’s Festive Fifty. For those who did not, listeners to his alternative show would vote each year for their three favourite songs. This started off as an “All Time” show, but after a few years, the usual suspects started gumming up the upper reaches of the chart. After Anarchy in The UK was still Number One years after The Sex Pistols had split up, Peel changed it in the early 80s to a “Songs Of The Year” Fifty.

There were some ‘classic’ Number Ones – Blue Monday, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Common People – but also others to whom time has been much less kind. Geek Love by Bang Bang Machine. Girls are the New Boys by Saloon. Chinese Whispers by Melys. Sometimes listeners seemed ahead of the curve, sometimes not. Good Morning Captain by Slint is surprisingly high for a ‘sleeper hit’. But where are Neutral Milk Hotel?

Peel developed a love/hate relationship with the concept, frequently complaining about “white boys with guitars” while he was trying to introduce his listeners to the broad gamut of alternative sounds. One year The Smiths effected a coup and it seemed like every other track was by them. Another year he abandoned it altogether, only to relent and play the rundown a track at a time over the following year (the so-called ‘Phantom Fifty’). But it remained a highlight of my calendar, marking the pivot from one year to the next.

I can’t pretend this is anything like a definitive selection for 2020. If I carried on listening to everything I might like from the year, I’d still be at it in March. That’s the age of Spotify, to some extent.

Like all Christmas traditions – like Peel’s original format - this one is steeped in nostalgia, even while it carries the torch for a celebration of the here and now. I haven’t got the breadth of Peel’s audience, so can’t ask listeners to send in their favourites. Instead I’ve done it on your behalf. A few of you have kindly sent in your suggestions to the ‘Friends of Sombrero Fallout’ group on Facebook. What I’ll do is put up an “Artists to Watch in 2021” episode early in the New Year, partly drawn from them.

Hope you enjoy the show. Thanks for your support in 2020, and may 2021 be remarkably different, on almost every front. But here’s to the good tunes continuing.

Tracklist:

12. The Motor, The Wants

11. Self effacing, Sparks

10. Can I believe you, Fleet Foxes

9. Someone new, Helena Deland

8. Alexa!, Cool Greenhouse

7. Gush, Bedrmmm

6. Am I missing something?, Jarvis Cocker

5. Hannah sun, Lomelda

4. Valleys, Working Men’s Club

3. Rue, Girl in Red

2. At the door, The Strokes

1. Scratchcard lanyard, Dry Cleaning

Episode 62 - 2020 Festive Half Fifty (Part One): Tracks 25 - 13

Historians looking back on 2020 will find no shortage of material on which to pin a thesis entitled “The Year Everything Changed”. But music doesn’t really work like that. The big youth protest years in the UK and US – 1967 and 1977 – occurred during Democratic presidencies and when Labour was in power. Your descendants listening in 3020 to this list will struggle to deduce this was the Final Year of the Trump and The Time of the Great Pandemic.

Artists ultimately plough their own furrow. Influenced by culture, sure. But in “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”, Breughel’s painting, it’s famously nearly all landscape and hardly any Icarus.

Like a badly tuned radio, these songs go their own sweet way, and perhaps that’s just as it should be. I’ve aimed for a range but some musical themes recur. The return of ‘90s icons, Tricky, Bill Callahan, Cornershop and Stephen Malkmus. The deconstructed post-punk of Sneaks, Porridge Radio and Lithics. Shoegaze and trip hop feature – there’s even a Robert Palmer cover.

The twittersphere is obviously now a feeding frenzy of speculation concerning the Top 12, but I would ask you to exercise patience and stop threatening my family. It won’t be long.

Tracklist:-

Mustang, Bartees Strange

Faith, Sneaks

Johnny and Mary, Black Marble

I’m in the doorway, Tricky

You fear the wrong thing baby, The Radio Dept

Sweet, Porridge Radio

The Mackenzies, Bill Callahan

Sat by a tree, Dan Deacon

Hands, Lithics

Heart to ride, Nadia Reid

Ste Marie under canon, Cornershop

Troubled girl, Drab City

What kind of person, Stephen Malkmus

Episode 61 - The Go Betweens and their influence

Stale bread and paper without privilege, if you live here, learn the language

When I was travelling through the Peloponnese in 1996 with Tamsin, we came across a very pleasant Australian couple, Brendan and Fiona, who were on their honeymoon. We had no thoughts of living in Australia at that point, but nevertheless Brendan and I rapidly bonded over the music of The Go Betweens.

And a quarter of the century later, in my safe Melburnian home, I’d conclude that perhaps the greatest of all Australian bands are the one Brendan and I discussed in a mountainside Arcadian village back then. If there is a distinctive Australian sound, for me this is it. Distilled through classic Americana, refined in the crucible of punk and post-punk in their homeland and the UK, they wrangled their influences into a sound uniquely their own.

Time drags on Sundays spent in Mayfair, with all your riches, why aren't you there?

I would not for one minute wish to downplay the importance of the other members of the band, Lindy Morrison’s complex time signature which underpins ‘Cattle and Cane’ being but one case in point. Amanda Brown added a new dimension as a multi-instrumentalist late in the piece.

But Grant and Robert were the John and Paul of the Antipodes, striving to outdo each other, as per their Liverpudlian forebears. Grant with the more melodic ear, like Paul. John and Robert less comfortable, spikier, but both still capable of heartfelt melancholia as well as art school experimentation.

I took the wrong road round, started out Oliver, ended up Fagin

I have friends who don’t especially care for the final album, 16 Lovers’ Lane - too gentle, gone soft - but it’s never as simple as that with the GBs. Within the The Streets of Your Town dwell the battered wives. Brisbane might seem like paradise from the outside, but like a David Lynch film, there’s ugliness behind the façade of picket fences and picnics on the oval.

So, here’s a selection of Grant and Robert’s compositions, with some of the bands they influenced woven into the fabric. I hope you like it.

Tracklist:

Head full of steam, The Go Betweens

Midweek midmorning, The Lucksmiths

Depth of field, The Sea Pinks

Magic in here, The Go Between

Falling down the stairs, Even As We Speak

The last dance, Disco Inferno

The wrong road, The Go Betweens

Heaven, Popstrangers

Rue savage, Dub Noir

The guilty office, The Bats

Rock and roll friend, The Go Betweens

Make time for love, The Goon Sax

Siesta, The Zebras

Streets of your town, The Go Betweens