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What music are you playing: Part VI

Uncle Uncool

By Uncle Uncool
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Wez Completely Obsessed Member

Wez

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The Ruts.

 

Looking for a suitable video to post I came across Henry Rollins talking about the Paul Fox benefit gig that he sang at.  For those that don't know, Paul Fox, the Ruts guitarist was dying from cancer and the rest of the band and the promoter wanted to put on a gig for his benefit.  Henry Rollins was asked to do the vocals in place of the original Ruts vocalist Malcolm Owen who died of a heroin overdose in 1980.  You Tube has a very good series of Rollins talking about being asked to do the vocals, preparing for the gig and the gig itself.  They are very funny and his fan-boying of the Ruts as well as the UK Subs and the Damned who also played at the gig, is a delight to see.  They are very sweary though.

 

Anyway, here's the video from the gig...

 

 

...sadly, Paul Fox died 10 months after this gig.

 

There's this from an old TOTP...

 

 

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Mr T Very Obsessed Member

Mr T

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Listening to a BBC podcast called Fake Heiress, about the Anna Delvey/Sorokin story and I was rather intrigued by the music used as the theme song. It is by The Heavy and called 'How You Like Me Now?' Not my usual fare

, but I like the brass backing. 

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lasermonkey Very Obsessed Member

lasermonkey

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Pygmalion by Slowdive. It was their final album on the Creation label and something of a two-fingered salute to label boss Alan McGee, who had been pressing the band for more singles and a more Britpop oriented sound. Instead, they went almost full-on ambient and were dropped the day after the album was released as a result. Good on 'em, I say. IMO, McGee wasn't the genius people make him out to be and in the Slowdive story, he doesn't come up smelling of roses at all.

 

I was at the last gig they played before they split. I thought they were great, but the fickle music press had turned against them, preferring the sing-along-on-the-terraces simplicity of Britpop*, which I hated (and still do) with a passion. British alternative guitar music was really starting to get interesting in the early 90s, with albums such as My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, Boo Radleys' Everything's Alright Forever, along with other bands such as Swervedriver, Loop, Curve, et al.

 

Slowdive's first LP and EPs got ecstatic reviews in the weekly music press at the time, but when their second LP Souvlaki was released, they turned on the band with a viciousness that still beggars belief, despite the LP being considerably better all round. It's still one of my favourites and I'll pit my musical tastes against any music journo past or present with righteous conviction! But then, I don't have an ulterior motive and I don't care a jot about what might be the next bandwagon to jump on**.

 

Not that I'm bitter.

 

Anyway, read the various online reviews these days and everyone's pretending like they loved the band all along. Charlatans!

 

* few bands that were lumped in with the Britpop scene had any real substance IMHO, with the exception of Radiohead, who I think defied everyone's expectations. I didn't like Pablo Honey at all (I still think it's a poor album) and even The Bends, which I think is excellent, didn't hint at what was to come. The other band being Teenage Fanclub, who did, and still do that timeless melodic guitar pop that will sound great forever.

 

** I met one NME journalist (quite a famous one) who championed Aphex Twin (one of my favourite electronic artists) from way before he made it big. I was an early fan and found it refreshing that amongst all the fawning over Britpop, there was someone sticking their neck out for something truly innovative, new and fresh. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that he didn't like the music at all, he just wanted to appear "cutting edge".

 

While I don't believe in karma, I quite like the idea as a concept, so with Slowdive now playing venues far bigger than they did back in the day and Melody Maker long gone and the NME having become so bad at one point, they had to give it away for free ( I believe it's online only now), I think there's a bit of balance in the universe.

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fightersweep Very Obsessed Member

fightersweep

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This one is perfect for Britmodeller. If you like Spitfires and a cracking good tune, then here's the band Public Service Broadcasting with Spitfire. Great video. Think I recognise it from somewhere.........

 

 

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Vince1159 Completely Obsessed Member

Vince1159

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10 minutes ago, Mick4350 said:

Jukeboxdury. Ian Dury.  '81 ...

 

from a really old cassette tape, on my equally old Dual CV-1160 Integrated Stereo Amplifier.

I saw on the news this morning that tapes are making a comeback :thumbsup:....

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fightersweep Very Obsessed Member

fightersweep

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On 4/23/2021 at 2:38 AM, lasermonkey said:

Pygmalion by Slowdive. It was their final album on the Creation label and something of a two-fingered salute to label boss Alan McGee, who had been pressing the band for more singles and a more Britpop oriented sound. Instead, they went almost full-on ambient and were dropped the day after the album was released as a result. Good on 'em, I say. IMO, McGee wasn't the genius people make him out to be and in the Slowdive story, he doesn't come up smelling of roses at all.

 

I was at the last gig they played before they split. I thought they were great, but the fickle music press had turned against them, preferring the sing-along-on-the-terraces simplicity of Britpop*, which I hated (and still do) with a passion. British alternative guitar music was really starting to get interesting in the early 90s, with albums such as My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, Boo Radleys' Everything's Alright Forever, along with other bands such as Swervedriver, Loop, Curve, et al.

 

Slowdive's first LP and EPs got ecstatic reviews in the weekly music press at the time, but when their second LP Souvlaki was released, they turned on the band with a viciousness that still beggars belief, despite the LP being considerably better all round. It's still one of my favourites and I'll pit my musical tastes against any music journo past or present with righteous conviction! But then, I don't have an ulterior motive and I don't care a jot about what might be the next bandwagon to jump on**.

 

Not that I'm bitter.

 

Anyway, read the various online reviews these days and everyone's pretending like they loved the band all along. Charlatans!

 

* few bands that were lumped in with the Britpop scene had any real substance IMHO, with the exception of Radiohead, who I think defied everyone's expectations. I didn't like Pablo Honey at all (I still think it's a poor album) and even The Bends, which I think is excellent, didn't hint at what was to come. The other band being Teenage Fanclub, who did, and still do that timeless melodic guitar pop that will sound great forever.

 

** I met one NME journalist (quite a famous one) who championed Aphex Twin (one of my favourite electronic artists) from way before he made it big. I was an early fan and found it refreshing that amongst all the fawning over Britpop, there was someone sticking their neck out for something truly innovative, new and fresh. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that he didn't like the music at all, he just wanted to appear "cutting edge".

 

While I don't believe in karma, I quite like the idea as a concept, so with Slowdive now playing venues far bigger than they did back in the day and Melody Maker long gone and the NME having become so bad at one point, they had to give it away for free ( I believe it's online only now), I think there's a bit of balance in the universe.

 

Great write up on a great band sir! I'll admit, I was late to the party with Slowdive, with Souvlaki Space Station being the song that hooked me in and a recommendation from my brother back then. My musical taste has a love/hate relationship with the 90s for some reason, but these were one of the stand out bands for me.

 

I didn't know about the treatment of the second album by the music press, but it doesn't surprise me at all. I have the Rock Year Books from 1981 to 1986 and I get constant amusement from reading the annual album reviews in these books from people such as the NME, Record Mirror, Sounds, Melody Maker etc. Reading them now, the majority seemed incredibly out of touch and more concerned with witty snark and displaying some self imagined superiority complexes than actually objectively reviewing the music. 

 

The perfect example of this has to be Gary Numan. Love him or hate him, the music press certainly hated him with a passion so strong you could almost taste the venom. That is until years later when artists across the spectrum from Trent Reznor to Africa Bambaataa started quoting Numan as a major influence and his music began to be widely sampled. Then that same music press did an about face just to jump on another bandwagon I imagine. As you say, charlatans.

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