[Just found this in my drafts, written way back in March 2021]
I’ve just finished the #MWE challenge for February. This stands for “Music Writer Exercise” and the challenge is to listen to an album you have never heard before each day and write a one tweet review of it.
Last year I participated in the voting for this “100 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century” list. When the results were published I noticed that not only did nearly all of my choices fail to make the list but also that there were an awful lot of albums listed that I’d never heard. So I chose 28 of them to listen to one per day throughout February.
Pretty much as soon as I started I realised that the most difficult part wasn’t listening to the albums but trying to cram your thoughts about it into 280 characters!
Here’s the list with my ratings.
5 ***** = Absolutely love this!
4 **** = These are also great
3 *** = Like these, will definitely listen again
2 ** = Pretty good, might listen again.
1 * = 1 or 2 decent songs but won’t listen again
0 = No thank you, not for me
1st February: Come On Feel The Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens (2005) 3***
A lot to take in here! 22 songs! Strings brass woodwind! A 5/4 song that sounds like The Cure’s Close To Me! Banjos! Lovely backing vocals! Another song in 5/4! Steve Reich-y closer! Quite overwhelming on the 1st listen but I’ll definitely revisit.
2nd February: Have You In My Wilderness by Julia Holter (2015) 1*
2 listens of this today, definitely better on headphones than in the car. Both times I had (but resisted!) the urge to press skip on 1 jazzy/weird song (Vasquez) Much preferred the gentler orchestral songs e.g. Night Song, title track
3rd February: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out by Yo La Tengo (2000) 3***
Hammond organ, slow tempos, atmospheric instrumental parts, brushed drums. Given my Tindersticks obsession, perhaps no surprise that I really liked this! Standout track Tears Are In Your Eyes. Will definitely revisit.
4th February: Suburban Light by The Clientele (2000) 2**
Well, this is very pleasant. Digging the 60s chord sequences & occasional backwards guitar. Loved the vocals too, apart from the falsetto bits. I especially liked the songs that reminded me of the slower songs on VU & Nico Andy Warhol LP 🍌
5th February: Things We Lost In The Fire by Low (2001) 3***
Already know & ❤️ 2 later albums & saw them in 2016 where they played 1 song off this apparently. Mimi’s voice is wonderful. Alan’s on its own can get a bit too whiney Neil Young sometimes. But when they harmonise together it’s paradise.
6th February: Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter (2010) 4****
Didn’t like the slow track Sailing, possibly because I was listening while running? But all the rest is bloody great. Highlights include the sax on Coronado, the weird electronic percussion & the strange lyrics throughout. Another to revisit.
7th February: Tender Buttons by Broadcast (2005) 1*
My least favourite so far. Not that it’s terrible, it’s fine but it’s nothing more than that. Occasionally threatens to get interesting but mostly just background music, I kept almost forgetting that it was on. Stereolab without the melodies.
8th February: Teen Dream by Beach House (2010) 2**
Love the lead vocalist here & lots of cool understated guitar/keyboard lines. Mazzy Star meets The Shins. Sure I’ve heard the track Norway somewhere before? Bit of a dip in quality in the middle but first 3 songs are good & the last 3 even better.
9th February: Oceans Apart by The Go Betweens (2005) 4****
A definite hit. Bright & tuneful, a nice change after some of the recent albums. Enjoyed the Marr-like open string chords on Boundary Rider & the gradual build of Finding You. Now That’s What I Call Proper Songwriting.
10th February: Vampire Weekend by Vampire Weekend (2008) 1*
Exciting, consistently interesting & sounds like great fun to jump around to. Liked the Afrobeat / ska elements but ultimately it’s a young man’s game this. If I’d been 17 in 2008, this would be one of my favourite albums of all time!
11th February: Channel Orange by Frank Ocean (2012) 2**
Lots of it seems to be about unrequited love & existential longing. Frank’s like an emo Prince. Snip off a few songs at either end to improve it because all the best stuff’s in the middle (Sweet Life, Pyramids, Lost, White, Monks, Bad Religion)
12th February: Want One by Rufus Wainwright (2003) 4****
Ballads are good obviously because of that voice. But what really sweeps me away here are the grandiose everything-including-several-kitchen-sinks epics. Amazing arrangements, production, performances. Favourite song I Don’t Know What It Is
13th February: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven by Godspeed You! Black Emperor (2000)5*****
It’s Sigur Ros minus the annoying singing. 4 tracks each around 20 minutes. Paced like a Mahler symphony but enhanced by the beautiful, beautiful sound of guitar feedback. I’m going to buy this one.
14th February: Madvilliany by Madvillain (2004)3***
Very creative sampling going on, all kinds of weird musical genres going off in the background. I like the GZA style laid-back wasted delivery of the rhymes too. Densely packed wordplay, need to listen again to get my head round what it all means.
15th February: The Silver Globe by Jane Weaver (2014)5*****
In which Jane weaves(!) together electronica, kosmische, disco, folk & synthpop to make a wonderfully comfortable but occasionally itchy blanket. But it’s her versatile singing voice that’s holding the metaphorical blanket together.
16th February: Kiwanuka by Michael Kiwanuka (2019)3***
Really liked his previous album & saw him live at The Ritz in Manchester in 2016. This is more of the same really, Danger Mouse producing again so naturally I like this too. Highlights from 1st listen: Piano Joint, Hard To Say Goodbye, Light.
17th February: Time (The Revelator) by Gillian Welch (2001)3***
Great voice & plays a mean banjo. I love Dear Someone, could’ve been written by Hank himself! Last track I Dream A Highway WOW! A sad tale of yearning involving Johnny Cash, Emmylou & Gram over the same 3 chords for 14 hypnotic minutes.
18th February: Master and Everyone by Bonnie Prince Billy (2003)0
Disappointing! Based on other songs of his I’ve heard & enjoyed, I was expecting interesting characters & stories, maybe a bit of dark humour. If there was any of that here, then it totally passed me by. [I think I was confusing Bonnie Prince Billy with Bill Callahan here]
19th February: Diamond Mine by King Creosote & Jon Hopkins (2011)2**
Acoustic melancholia with added bleeps & crackles. The harmonium bits remind me of Ivor Cutler without the jokes. Definitely intrigued enough to go back for another listen, even though this makes me miss holidays in Scotland.😐
20th February: Tomorrow’s Harvest by Boards Of Canada (2013)1*
Ominous synths & beats. Sounds like the soundtrack to an unnecessarily graphic 1980s public information film discouraging children from playing with farm equipment. Might listen again but only as background music while I’m working.
21st February: Not The Trembling Kind by Laura Cantrell (2000)2**
Old school country sung beautifully, mostly quite low-key & acoustic with wonderful mandolin & lap steel accompaniment. Reminded me of Nanci Griffith which is a very good thing. Favourite songs Queen of the Coast, Somewhere Some Night
22nd February: The Woods by Sleater Kinney (2005)4****
Made a nice change to listen to SOMETHING REALLY LOUD after several days of gentle albums. How did this band pass me by at the time? 11 minute thrashathon Let’s Call It Love is either the best or worst song here, need more listens to decide which.
23rd February: Donuts by J Dilla (2006)4****
Disappointingly there’s no rapping about donuts here, no rapping at all in fact. Lots of King Tubby sci-fi sound fx, 70s soul samples & wonky-sounding breakbeats. Reminds me of Nightmares On Wax which means Donuts🍩 is my “jam”!😂 “Ring” the Alarm!🤣
24th February: Rounds by Four Tet (2003)2**
More downtempo trip-hoppy instrumental stuff with some great melodies floating about. Favourite track: My Angel Rocks Back & Forth, cool harp sample makes it sound like Bjork’s Vespertine. This is another album I might listen to again as background music.
25th February: Norman Fucking Rockwell by Lana Del Rey (2019)5*****
Seeing as I’ve started with some swearing let’s carry on, this is absolutely fucking brilliant. Whoever she’s singing about here, please go to California ASAP because Lana’s missing you & she REALLY wants to dance with you.
26th February: Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill by Grouper (2008)0
Mazzy Star played at the wrong speed. Don’t hear anything that explains why people have listed this in their favourite albums of the century. Possibly it’d improve with repeated listens but I won’t be taking the time to find out.
27th February: Any Other City by Life Without Buildings (2001)4****
Vocalist Wow! She’s doing that talking/singing/shouting thing, reminds me of Flowered Up, X Ray Spex, Fontaines DC,@EddieArgos, Blue Aeroplanes & the incomprehensible stream of consciousness chatter of Hybrid in Battlestar Galactica.
28th February: The Drift by Scott Walker (2006)0
Not sure I hear a single. Very unpredictable with many dynamic shifts from quiet to loud keeping you on your toes & I didn’t expect either the braying donkeys or the Donald Duck impressions! Hard work though, I’ll stick to The Lights Of Cincinatti!
Here is a playlist I made as I went along with some favourite songs from each album (except the 0 ranking ones!)
And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (Yo La Tengo) #MWE Hammond organ, slow tempos, atmospheric instrumental parts, brushed drums. Given my Tindersticks obsession, perhaps no surprise that I really liked this! Standout track Tears Are In Your Eyes. Will definitely revisit. pic.twitter.com/LaoZpSCcsv
Tender Buttons (Broadcast) #MWE My least favourite so far. Not that it's terrible, it's fine but it's nothing more than that. Occasionally threatens to get interesting but mostly just background music, I kept almost forgetting that it was on. Stereolab without the melodies. pic.twitter.com/11ftMI7OoD
Two very different albums under scrutiny in this show. One, from the height of the hippie dream, full of optimism and naivety, the other its brutal and violent opposite.
Guess which one we liked best.
You can find out what we made of these albums by clicking on the image below.
Our chats about the previous tapes can be found where you found this one.
To avoid any potential disappointment on missing out on the next show, make sure you follow our podcast on Spotify or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
Last month I had a lovely family holiday in Scotland with Mrs Garbanzo & the 2 Garbanzo Juniors. Oh, and Nova the dog.
Nova at the top of The Knock, Perthshire
We decided (well, let’s be honest I decided) that we would only listen to albums by Scottish artists in the car.
A few weeks before going, I posted a first draft of my list on Twitter or whatever that nobhead Musk is calling it now.
Preparing some playlists of favourite Scottish bands for family holiday to #Scotland next month. Any good ones missing from here? pic.twitter.com/7xqwITFOGg
I was very surprised to get more than 400 replies to that list. Those mostly fell into these 7 categories:
people helpfully suggesting bands that weren’t on the list because I had forgotten about them (e.g. The Shop Assistants, Sons & Daughters) or because I hadn’t actually realised they were Scottish (e.g. This Mortal Coil)
people helpfully suggesting bands that I’d already thought of but not decided not to include on the list because I just don’t happen to like them very much (e.g. Simple Minds, Primal Scream, Del Amitri, Sensational Alex Harvey Band)
people who hadn’t read my list properly saying “OMG I can’t believe you haven’t included…” & then suggesting a band that were already on the list
people who hadn’t read my Tweet properly suggesting new upcoming bands who haven’t made an album yet
people trying to outdo each by naming more and more obscure bands
actual bands putting themselves forward for inclusion (hi there This Poison!)
people slating off my list saying it was terrible, but not deigning themselves to suggest any bands that would improve it
Armed now with the helpful suggestions, I made a list of 120 albums. I limited the list to only 1 or 2 albums by nearly all the artists. But a few exceptions to that rule were permitted.
The Proclaimers and Mike Scott / The Waterboys are already well-established Garbanzo family favourites so they both had loads of albums in the list. Same for Cocteau Twins because they are one of Mrs Garbanzo’s favourite bands of all time.
The list was sorted in alphabetical order by album title and numbered accordingly. Then we used a random number generator to decide which album to listen to next.
Each family member (but not the dog) was given 2 “joker” cards which could be brought into play at any time in the holiday. Playing a joker would mean that the random number part was skipped and they could just choose any album from the list.
Good advice on the window of Stirling Boys Club
Big thanks to the elder of my 2 sons (Chorizo Junior The Elder) who very kindly wrote down all the albums we listened to in a notebook. He also noted down any particular favourite songs which I’ve put in a Spotify playlist at the bottom of the page.
We ended up having to impose an informal rationing of “favourite songs” to prevent every song on certain albums from being included (e.g. Blue Bell Knoll, This Is The Sea)
There were no Teenage Fanclub albums included on the list because Chorizo Junior The Elder and I are going to see them in Manchester soon and we have recently completed a separate project where we have listened to all their albums in order of release (another blog post incoming on that soon!)
Main conclusion to be drawn from this experiment:
The 2 boys definitely don’t share their parents’ enthusiasm for Cocteau Twins but they absolutely love the surreal songs and poetry of Ivor Cutler. And none of my family are anywhere near as keen on jangly 80s indie-pop as I am.
Here’s a list of the albums in the order we listened to them:
Dreamland – Aztec Camera
Let’s Get Out Of This Country – Camera Obscura
Heavy Elevator – Hamish Hawk
Day Of The Lone Wolf – Astrid Williamson
Black Bay – Silver Moth
Any Other City – Life Without Buildings
Charm – Spare Snare
Heavy Heavy – Young Fathers (Joker card played by Chorizo Junior The Elder)
Fisherman’s Blues – The Waterboys
The Glasgow School – Orange Juice (Joker card played by me)
Treasure – Cocteau Twins
The Bones Of What You Believe – Chvrches (Joker card played by Chorizo Junior The Younger)
Foxheads Stalk This Land – Close Lobsters
Run Around The Sun – Sacred Paws
Born Innocent – The Proclaimers
Dear Catastrophe Waitress – Belle & Sebastian
A Flat Man – Ivor Cutler
Will Anything Happen – The Shop Assistants
All Souls Hill – The Waterboys
Bring ‘Em All In – Mike Scott
Young Forever – Aberfeldy (played because we were driving through Aberfeldy)
The Wringer – Martha Ffion
Still Burning – Mike Scott (Joker card played by Mrs Garbanzo)
Home Again – Edwyn Collins
This Is The Sea – The Waterboys (Joker card played by Chorizo Junior The Elder)
In My Mind There’s A Room – Mull Historical Society
Angel Numbers – Hamish Hawk
Four Calendar Cafe – Cocteau Twins
Magazine – This Poison!
One Head Two Arms Two Legs – Dawn Of The Replicants
The Greatest Hits – Texas
Blue Bell Knoll – Cocteau Twins (Joker card played by Mrs Garbanzo)
Pinky Blue – Altered Images
Gorgeous George – Edwyn Collins
The Crossing – Big Country
Notes & Rhymes – The Proclaimers
The Private Memories & Confessions Of – The Just Joans (Joker card played by me)
A Guide For The Daylight Hours – Ballboy
Lyceum – The Orchids
This Is The Story – The Proclaimers
The Making Of You – Snowgoose
Dandruff – Ivor Cutler (Joker card played by Chorizo Junior The Younger)
A handful of other albums we also listened to that I forgot to include in the pictures above:
Sunshine On Leith – The Proclaimers
An A To Z Of – Spare Snare (tracklist selected by my podcast co-host Kicker Of Elves)
Lagoon Blues – The Bathers
Jump – Paul Vickers & The Leg
Mrs Garbanzo’s Spotify playlist of Calvin Harris “bangers”
Nova enjoying a paddle in Loch Morlich
Apologies to these bands who had albums on the list but their numbers never came up:
Mogwai
This Mortal Coil
Kathryn Joseph
James Yorkston
Girobabies
Goya Dress
The Jesus & Mary Chain
Eddi Reader / Fairground Attraction
Geneva
Withered Hand
The Associates
Trashcan Sinatras
Eugenius
Dogs Die In Hot Cars
The Soup Dragons
Strawberry Switchblade
Skerryvore
Bronski Beat
The Delgados
Travis
Frightened Rabbit
Josef K
Urusei Yatsura
Sons & Daughters
Bis
Here’s the playlist of favourite songs from the albums we listened to.
“Enjoy this trip through the back catalogue of albums, plus one compilation, Steve’s piece on seeing them live at Crystal Palace Bowl, a gig I was at myself (see issue 3) and an extract from John Robb’s book The Art Of Darkness.”
I chose to write about the album that was my introduction to The Cure in 1984. (You can buy the whole fanzine for an absolute bargain £1 here)
Some of those articles where they rank a particular groups albums or songs, you know the ones, can really get under my skin. I suspect they only exist as clickbait anyway, tempting the reader to share it with their friends saying “Have you seen this list of best songs by Snotty & The Nosepickers? What a load of bollocks!” When said friend reads it, it registers as another hit on the website and everyone’s a winner.
The Top is often an unfairly demeaned victim of this kind of article. Received wisdom seems to place it very low in the rankings of “Best Cure albums in the world EVER!!!1!!1!” Usually it’s placed lower than any other album from the band’s “imperial phase” which the mass of critical and public opinion seems to define as running from the first album up to the early 1990s.
It’s perhaps not difficult to see how The Top has ended up being dismissed as the unloved stepchild of the bands albums from that period. It’s partly due to its chronological place in the band’s discography. It was preceded by the majestic “goth” trilogy Seventeen Seconds / Faith / Pornography. Those were the only albums recorded by the Smith / Tolhurst / Gallup trio and they share a similar sound palette. They gave us spindly guitar lines, breathy synths, drums heavy on the tom toms, drum machines heavy on the snare and very prominent bass guitar parts. You could take any song from those 3 albums and swap it to one of the other albums without it sounding particularly out of place.
Then you’ve got the most commercially successful albums that followed after The Top, the albums that generally feature right at the top in the online rankings and include nearly all the band’s best-known songs (The Head On The Door, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, Disintegration and Wish, each one of those a multi-million seller.)
So The Top sits awkwardly sandwiched between those 2 more easily digested eras. Here’s an extract from “Cured,” the brilliant book by Lol Tolhurst: “This was The Cure Mark 2. This version was more expansive and less stripped down than the previous iteration, the Pornography Cure, as it were.”
Simon Gallup had parted ways with The Cure by now after a notorious punch-up with Smith in Strasbourg and a fractious final gig in Brussels. The Cure were effectively now down to just two, Smith and his childhood pal Tolhurst. They took a left-turn into out-and-out pop music with their 3 singles in 1982/1983, Let’s Go To Bed, The Walk and The Love Cats, scoring actual big hit singles with those last 2 making it to number 12 and number 7 respectively. Aged 12 and an avid listener to the Top 40, The Love Cats was the first time I can remember hearing The Cure. With its jazzy double bass and piano chords, it stood out as something very different from the rest of the charts just as much as it stands out from every other song in The Cure’s entire career. They would never again record a song that sounds like something from the soundtrack of the Disney film The Aristocats and as fun as that song is, most would probably agree that’s very much for the best.
Meanwhile Robert Smith was also playing with Siouxsie & The Banshees. When Siouxsie & Budgie went off to record as The Creatures and flirted with their own jazz tendencies, Smith teamed up with his new bassplaying pal Steve Severin and vocalist / dancer Jeanette Landray as The Glove and recorded the album Blue Sunshine going in an altogether different musical direction. Blue Sunshine is as bizarre and psychedelic as you’d expect an album recorded whilst binging on hallucinogens and old B-movies to be and it sounds like a bit of a stepping stone between Pornography and The Top.
Like many 13 year olds I used to record my favourite songs from the Top 40 countdown onto a tape for re-listening later and I loved the “do do do” chorus of The Caterpillar and its scrapy violin noises. For such a peculiar song, it’s incredibly catchy and I loved it so much I bought the 7” single. A little while after that, I discovered that my local library in Haslemere lent out tapes so I could use my elder brother’s fancy new JVC tape-to-tape player to make my own copies. (Incidentally, that library is just 8 miles from Chestnut Studios where The Cure recorded their first demos.)
Me with my 7″ of The Caterpillar
So I soon ended up with a C90 that had Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ocean Rain on one side and The Top on the other. There was even room to fit on the b-side of my Caterpillar single Happy The Man. So many joyful teenage hours spent listening to both sides of that tape.
Happy The Man, like the whole of The Top, is quite a peculiar little thing. Another extract from Lol Tolhurst’s book: “There was always a psychedelic side to Robert that he explored in depth on The Top¸ which to all intents and purposes is a psychedelic album, albeit a couple of decades after the original psychedelic era.” In the spirit of that original era, it’s also genuinely experimental and just quite odd. Maybe that’s another reason why it doesn’t get the praise that other Cure albums from around that time do? It’s unpigeonholeable.
The album kicks off aggressively with crashing drums and waves of guitar on Shake Dog Shake. One of many songs on this album where the lyrics are coming from quite a dark place, “anger” “spit” “cough” “scrape my skin with razor blades” before we’ve even made it to the first chorus! Over the coming years, this song would be played live way more than any other from this album and quite often as the opening song (including in the brilliant Live At Orange film.) It’s the only song from The Top that’s being played on the current US tour and they’ve played it pretty much every night. Shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake dog shake!
Bird Mad Girl starts with acoustic guitars, a relative rarity on The Cure’s album up until this point. There are bits of piano and various percussion, including the staple of every primary school music lesson, the claves. It’s another incredibly catchy song, one of my favourites on the album. It feels a bit like a companion piece to Mr. Alphabet Says, one of only 2 songs on the Blue Sunshine album where Smith sings the lead vocals (and also to Six Different Ways on The Head On The Door.)
Similarly, Wailing Wall with its Eastern-tinged melody and cymbals shares some of its sound with a song by The Glove (Orgy) as well as a Cure song from a future album (If Only Tonight We Could Sleep from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.)
Yet more dark and aggressive lyrics to kick off Give Me It: “get away from me, get your fingers out of my face” (Smith still annoyed about the punch-up with Gallup??) Layers of squealing lead guitar and drums that are almost proto-“baggy” it’s definitely the heaviest song they’d recorded so far in their career, and arguably wouldn’t get this heavy again until the 2000s.
The pace drops for Dressing Up, a lovely gentle song that’s almost entirely synth-based. Listen to it on headphones and there’s just so much going on here. Smith wrote this one about putting on make-up & getting ready for a gig. He told Rolling Stone that it was “actually done as a Glove song, and then I didn’t play it to (Steve) Severin because I thought, I like this one too much.”
After The Caterpillar (still flickering, still beautiful on every listen and still in my top 3 Cure songs) comes Piggy In The Mirror, another of my favourites on the album. It’s a superb song with a memorable melody, a great organ part and a charming acoustic guitar solo. Just when you think it’s coming to end, here comes the coda as Smith sings “as I dance, dance back” and repeats the songtitle over the syncopated synth riff. Just brilliant. Once again, there’s a song on Blue Sunshine that sounds like a bit of a pre-cursor to this, the dizzying This Green City with its distorted twisting guitar and woodwind-like synths lurking in the background.
There’s more of those woodwind synth sounds on the next track The Empty World which starts off with military drums to match the lyrics “she talked about the armies that marched inside her head.” Smith has described this song as “the flip side to Charlotte Sometimes” and the female subjects of both songs appear to be struggling to distinguish between fantasy and reality.
Partly inspired by a short story by J.D. Salinger “A perfect day for Bananafish” there’s a great singalong chorus on Bananafishbones: “Oh kill me kiss me once and then we’ll throw it away” Had they chosen to release a second single from this album, then I think this would’ve been a good choice. It’s another song that sounds straightforward, but when you listen on headphones there’s so many interesting little melodic hooks to reel you in. A bouncy synth bassline, some great Hammond organ sounds and at least 3 different guitar parts contrasting with each other.
The album closes with the title track The Top, just under 7 minutes long and comfortably the longest song on the album. There’s a recording of a spinning top at the start followed by very sparse verses with a weirdly dissonant bass riff. The lyrics of the chorus take us back into the world of fantasy (“this top is the place where nobody goes, you just imagine, you just imagine it all”) but the music that accompanies those words is strangely uplifting, as if yearning for a peaceful resolution to all the confusion and conflict that has gone before.
So there it is. Ten very diverse songs, none sounding quite like the others, none sounding quite like anything The Cure had released up to this point.
And all of it has come from the mind of just One Imaginary Boy.
More than any other album, this is the closest we have ever got to hearing a Robert Smith solo album. Apart from Andy Anderson’s drumming, you’ve got Lol Tolhurst’s keyboards on just 3 songs. Porl Thompson, who would later join as full-time guitarist, plays the saxophone on Give Me It. Apart from that, every single sound you hear is played by Robert Smith, who himself described The Top as “the solo album I never made.”
My affection for this album grew even stronger after I went to see The Cure at the Hammersmith Odeon on 22nd December 2014. Taken from the band’s announcement of these gig dates: “The band will be performing a 150 minute show playing songs drawn from their entire 37 year old catalogue including deep cuts, pop songs, fan favourites and surprises galore.” The band And Also The Trees were supporting, just as they had done at the same venue when The Cure had first played it 30 years earlier.
Every other Cure gig I’ve been to has been either a festival or in an arena / enormodome, so I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see them in a more intimate venue. If the reference to the 1984 Odeon gigs was a clue to what they would be playing then it went completely over my head at the time so I was both excited and surprised when after opening the gig with 2 of my favourite songs from The Top (Shake Dog Shake, Piggy In The Mirror) Robert revealed that in celebration of the 30th anniversary of their first gig at that venue, they would be playing all the songs from The Top during the set. Re-fucking-sult!!
The Cure @ Hammersmith Odeon, 22nd December 2014. (Photo by my wife)
That Hammersmith gig is a very special memory and definitely my favourite of all The Cure gigs I’ve been to, in no small part because I got to hear the whole of the album that made me a fan in the first place!
Just look at this 40 song setlist (songs from The Top underlined) …
Shake Dog Shake / Piggy in the Mirror / A Night Like This / Push / In Between Days / Just Like Heaven / Bananafishbones / The Caterpillar / The Walk / A Man Inside My Mouth / Wailing Wall /Three Imaginary Boys / Never Enough / Wrong Number / Birdmad Girl / Lovesong / Like Cockatoos / From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea / Kyoto Song / alt.end / Want / The Hungry Ghost / One Hundred Years / Give Me It / The Top
Encore 1: The Empty World / Charlotte Sometimes / Primary
Encore 2: M / Play for Today / A Forest
Encore 3: Pictures of You / Lullaby / Fascination Street
Encore 4: Dressing Up / The Lovecats / Close to Me / Why Can’t I Be You? / Boys Don’t Cry / Hey You!!!
Earlier this year, a new book about The Wedding Present called “All The Songs Sound The Same” was released.
It is packed with hundreds of people writing about their favourite Wedding Present / Cinerama song and what it means to them. Lots of current and former bandmembers are included and it was lovingly curated by Richard Houghton and David Gedge himself. Many others provided their own stories for the book. Famous fans such as radio presenters Shaun Keaveney and Andrew Collins and the probable next Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, alongside many less-celebrated ordinary proles like me.
You can buy the book from the band’s website here.
Here’s the piece I contributed to the book about the song “You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends”…
Sheffield (February 2018)
It’s the Tommy 30th anniversary tour. I’m there with my oldest friends Mike, Rich and Simon and David Gedge has just dedicated a song to the 4 of us. As another David once sang “you may ask yourself, well how did I get here?”
The Wedding Present at The Leadmill, Sheffield (3rd February 2018)
West Sussex (30 years earlier)
If you know anything about Sussex, it won’t be anything to do with the unexciting top left corner of it where I grew up. All the best-known places like Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings are in East Sussex. The only famous location in West Sussex is Gatwick and that is right in the opposite corner! The Cure’s hometown of Crawley is over that way too, which made them our not-that-local heroes.
The repetitive strain of our uneventful teenage lives was thankfully enlivened when we started going to watch gigs. The London to Portsmouth train line ran nearby which meant we could get to gigs in both of those, but only if we could persuade someone to take and collect us from the train station. Once we were old enough to learn to drive ourselves, a whole new set of possibilities opened up before us like a vast New Jersey freeway. Access to cars meant freedom, we were inside a Bruce Springsteen song. What else can we do now except roll down the window and let the wind blow back our hair because the night’s busting open and this dual carriageway can take us anywhere. Well, maybe not anywhere but Aldershot, Brighton and Reading were good enough for us.
We were disciples of the gospel according to NME and Melody Maker and Janice Long’s weekday evenings show on Radio 1 was our holy communion. (I didn’t discover John Peel until a couple of years later)
So it came to pass that in 1987, I sent off for a compilation tape advertised in Melody Maker called Indie Top Twenty. It’s not overstating it to say that tape changed my life. It was the first time I ever heard Half Man Half Biscuit, still one of my favourite bands to this day. It was the first time I heard Joy Division (unless you count the Love Will Tear Us Apart cover that was on Paul Young’s No Parlez which you definitely shouldn’t!)
It was the first time I’d heard The Blue Aeroplanes. Within 6 months, I would be singing and playing guitar in my own band with our name taken from a Blue Aeroplanes lyric and ending most of our gigs with a very loud and sped-up Joy Division cover. Have that, Paul Young!
The tape was a gateway into so much more music and looking at the tracklisting I can see that in the aftermath of hearing it, I subsequently bought records or tapes by 16 of the 20 bands on it.
Most significantly, it was the first time I ever heard The Wedding Present and the song You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends.
The frantically strummed noisy guitars grabbed my attention but the lyrics seemed to be telling an altogether more melancholy tale. A lost, or more probably unrequited, love with a friend from school.
On another record I love from that time, Billy Bragg said, “I couldn’t stop thinking about her and every time I switched on the radio there was somebody else singing a song about the two of us.”
When you’re sixteen, clumsy and shy with hormones running riot and heightening every emotion to what often seems like unbearable levels, it feels like every short-term crush is actually “Love Story” and you can hear references to the sad little non-event that you laughingly call a lovelife in all manner of unlikely places.
So those lyrics really said something to me about my life in 1987. A school trip to the unlikely destination of Ostend had provided me with a precious opportunity to spend a few hours talking to someone else’s girlfriend. That afternoon was the inspiration behind several of my own most cringeworthy attempts at lyric writing but I never came up with anything remotely as good as “a bridge that stood close by the sea, the day that we spent there is ours eternally.”
I bought Volume 2 of the Indie Top 20 tape when that came out. That had My Favourite Dress on it and I loved that just as much. The next few Wedding Present singles bedazzled us further. Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm was a dancefloor staple at our favourite indie disco (Sister Rays in Brighton) as were the next singles Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? and especially Kennedy. Just after that came out, we saw them live for the first time at Kilburn National Ballroom and a couple of months later we were back for more at Brighton Top Rank.
Bizarro… Seamonsters… Hit Parade… the noisy guitars got noisier, the records got even better, the gigs got wilder. Over the next few years, we saw them many more times in Portsmouth, Reading, Brighton and London.
But as people do when they get older, gradually we all dispersed. By the end of 1992 when we saw them play in Brighton, none of us were living in Sussex. The venue itself had been renamed from Top Rank to The Event. The times they were a-changing. Over the next few years, various circumstances caused us to make our homes in all manner of glamorous locations… Tokyo! London! Sydney! Istanbul! Auckland! Sheffield! Liverpool! Swindon! Portsmouth! Chippenham! Cheam!
Holmfirth (August 2010)
Jobs, partners, children and the kind of responsibilities that go with being an actual grown-up followed and by 2010, the 4 of us have somehow ended up living almost at opposite corners of England. I’m in the North West. We were all 40 in 2010 and I noticed that a few days before my birthday The Wedding Present were playing in Holmfirth, about an hour’s drive from my front door. What’s more they’re celebrating the 21st anniversary of Bizarro by playing the album in full.
A couple of years before, we had been to see the reformed Pogues at Brixton Academy and had spent most of the gig watching from near the back drinking our pints and discussing whether it was sensible to go down the front and get in amongst it. Were we too old to mosh? It’s a young man’s game, isn’t it. Eventually we’d had enough beer to give it a try anyway and those sweaty last 20 minutes were the best bit of the gig by a mile!
Having survived that, we knew how we wanted to celebrate the big 4-zero. Go to Holmfirth and laugh heartily in the face of the aging process by jumping around like lunatics down the front and pretending we were 19 again!
That Holmfirth gig was a bit of a Damascene moment for all of us. We realised that we needed to treasure every opportunity we got to see this band that meant so much to us. We went back to Holmfirth again in 2011 and since then The Wedding Present have become the catalyst for us to get together regularly for the best possible reason. Any tour announcements are followed by a flurry of excited WhatsApp messages as we work out which gigs we’re going to and start researching nearby Travelodges and pubs.
Left to right: Simon, me, Rich, Mike @ The Wedding Present gig, Manchester Academy 14/11/15. Photo by Tom Williams.
In the last decade we have met up to see The Wedding Present in Bristol, Chester, Wolverhampton, Blackpool, Wakefield, Liverpool and multiple times in London and Manchester. And Sheffield which is where this tale began.
Sheffield (February 2018)
Mike said he didn’t want any kind of big stag weekend. He just wanted to meet up somewhere, have a few beers and go to see The Wedding Present. Great fortune for us that there was a Saturday night gig coming up in Sheffield, a city we all have great affection for. Simon used to live there and we all have treasured (albeit hazy) memories of visiting him up there to explore the city’s pubs, parties, curry houses and chip shops.
Shortly before the gig, I interviewed superhero drummer Charlie Layton. I told him a little of the backstory you’ve just read and that the 4 of us were celebrating Mike’s stag weekend at the Sheffield gig. Being the lovely chap that he is, Charlie must’ve asked David to give us a shoutout. We appreciated it all the more because we all know that’s not the kind of thing David is comfortable doing. A bit too naff, fake and showbizzy. Like doing encores. One of many things that makes them the semi-legendary band they are.
Neither Charlie or David would’ve known that the song they dedicated to us was the first Wedding Present song I ever heard, the one on that tape from Melody Maker.
But the title of the song couldn’t have been more appropriate. No matter how it ends, you really should keep in touch with your friends.
If I’m honest the rest of that song’s lyrics have lost most of their impact. The girl in Ostend is long forgotten, to quote A Million Miles “I can’t even remember the colour of her eyes.” I’m not that lovelorn teenager anymore. Nor indeed am I the overgrown lovelorn teenager that I remained for many years after that. So as good as they are, it’s not the lyrics that get me these days. That’s not what hits me hard. It’s the noisy guitars. It’s still the noisy guitars. It will always be the noisy guitars. Nobody does it better. Baby you’re the best.
I’ve written before on this website about my first job working at The HMV Shop when I was 17 and being surrounded by older, cooler, more knowledgeable people who helped widen my musical horizons. One of the most important of those was the shop manager, a wiry bloke from Blackpool called Andy, still to this day one of the best bosses I’ve ever had and a much beloved figure amongst HMV alumni. Knowing that I was into The Damned, Buzzcocks and especially The Clash, he asked me one day if I’d heard of The Only Ones. My blank look in response was all the encouragement needed for him to arrive the next morning holding a carrier bag containing his records from home for me to borrow and make tape copies of. Gawd bless the TDK AR90 blank tape, I’m sure I spent most of my HMV wages on them!
In Andy’s carrier bag were all 3 of their albums, “The Only Ones” (1978), “Even Serpents Shine” (1979) and “Baby’s Got A Gun” (1980)
On those records, a world-weary voice sounds very sorry for itself and seems resigned to being one of life’s losers.
“Why do I go through these deep emotional traumas? Why can’t I be happy like everybody else?”
A teenage Smiths fan like me was always going to fall in love with a band that start a song like that, even if the closest the 17 year old me had ever got to “deep emotional trauma” was having a faceful of acne and being unable to get a girlfriend.
Musically, there was a lot more going on here than the “wun-doo-free-for” surge of straightforward Ramones-style songs. Punk was generally anti-guitar solo and Mick Jones had even perfected the anti-guitar solo guitar solo (e.g. “Cheat” “Remote Control” “White Riot”) Proper tricky-to-play lead guitar lines and solos were all over these Only Ones records, perhaps a clue to why they didn’t fit in at the time and why commercial success never came anywhere near them. Their third album made it to number 37 in the album charts and the previous two didn’t even make it that high. None of their singles got anywhere near the Top 40, not even “Another Girl Another Planet” which is by many light years their best-known song. But they have definitely acquired “cult band” status because over the years I’ve met lots of people who love these records just as much as Andy and I do.
Back then the possibility of seeing The Only Ones live seemed less than zero. They’d not been heard of since they split in 1982 and frontman Peter Perrett was reportedly lost to junkiedom. I don’t know if many people remember Volume magazine which ran from 1991 to 1996 and may well have been the first music magazine to include a free CD in every issue. I bought every one on release and I was very excited to hear a new song called “Daughter” by “Peter Perrett’s The One” when it appeared on “Volume Ten” in 1994. The accompanying magazine article talked of a forthcoming solo album which took a while to actually appear and was a bit of a disappointment when it did. To my ears, 1996’s “Woke Up Sticky” sounded a bit insubstantial, like a watered down pint. Not sure why because it was produced by Marc Waterman who had previously done some astoundingly good work producing early singles by two of my favourite bands of the early 90s, Five Thirty and Ash. Maybe I should dig out the CD and re-listen?
My box set of the first 10 “Volume” magazines
A quarter of a century after the initial split and prompted by the use of “Another Girl, Another Planet” in a Vodafone advert, The Only Ones reformed for a handful of gigs in 2007. On holiday in Scotland with Mrs Garbanzo, we heard about the Connect Festival going on nearby in the grounds of Inveraray Castle, easily the most spectacular festival location I’ve ever been to. We had a great time seeing Bjork, Tilly & The Wall, and Orbital, but we weren’t able to go for the whole weekend which meant we weren’t there when The Only Ones played on the Saturday! That was my big chance to see them gone. Bollocks. “Why can’t I be happy like everybody else?”
So I was delighted to hear radio legend Marc Riley mention this new reunion a few months ago and an opportunity for me to finally see the band live. This mini-tour comprised of 2 sold-out nights at Hebden Bridge before a weekend appearance at the Rebellion Festival in Blackpool. The line-up included 3 of the 4 original bandmembers, Peter Perrett (vocals, guitar) Alan Mair (bass) and John Perry (guitar). Very sadly, drummer Mike Kellie passed away in 2017.
This was my second gig at Hebden Bridge Trades Club. It’s a great venue that books loads of bands I like, but I live nearly 2 hours drive away so it’s nearly really that viable most of the time. My previous time here was a flying visit 10 and a bit years ago to see the always brilliant Chuck Prophet & The Mission Express. This time around I had time to look around a bit before the gig and to take a scenic route on the drive up here, exploring the Calder Valley. Wow, what a beautiful part of the world this is! Not only that but the town centre seems to be full of enticing community-owned craft ale pubs that I would’ve loved to have gone into had I not been driving. You can see why it’s been nicknamed Happy Valley.
I walked up to the train station to meet my mate The Lancashire Toreador who’d travelled up from Manchester. Then we got into the venue just in time for the support act Crimewave. They’re a one man outfit and that one man is Jake Wilkinson. In his militaristic khaki t-shirt and maroon beret, he looks like a Holy Bible-era Manic Street Preacher, but sounds more like the Manics a few years later when they started deliberately alienating their newly acquired mainstream fanbase by commissioning the likes of Mogwai, Cornelius, Fuck Buttons and Four Tet to create noisenik remixes of their singles.
Crimewave @ Hebden Bridge Trades Club, 3/8/23
Armed with just a guitar, a Midi pad and a laptop, Crimewave were all frantic breakbeats and blasts of Spacemen 3-style guitar accompanied by a big screen backdrop showing blurry CCTV footage of various violent incidents, like watching an episode of Crimewatch through a frosted window. The music was mostly instrumental and any lyrics were impossible to make out. But the songtitles on his Bandcamp page (Ultraviolent Crime, Metropolitan Police, Dispersal Order) certainly suggest that they fit in with the backdrop images and the bandname.
Crimewave’s performance was reminiscent of a bloke called Joe from Wigan whose performs as TV-AM. We played his single “No Explanations” on our podcast in 2014 and I’ve caught him live a couple of times, supporting Moon Duo in Liverpool and Dengue Fever in Manchester. Two full-length albums later, I’m hoping to catch him again at Manchester Psych Fest next month.
After a while, The Lancashire Toreador was finding the visuals a bit much and starting to feel like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange having his eyelids held open by wires. He decided to listen to the rest of the gig standing with his back to the stage. I did a similar thing the second time I saw Tricky back in 90s. Having seen him support PJ Harvey and play in almost complete darkness save for a couple of dim blue lights, when I saw him again at a festival soon after I decided to sit down with my back to a massive speaker by the mixing desk. It was a waste of effort trying to watch the “show” because it was 100% about the sound, not the vision. It meant that I only needed to use one of my senses to absorb the performance but I think I actually enjoyed that gig far more than the one that I’d actually watched!
The Toreador’s verdict was that it didn’t lose anything from just listening, not watching. But I thought the visuals were powerful and added to the ominous feeling of hostility and menace in the music.
Overall it was quite an onslaught and a great choice for the support slot.
Don’t have nightmares, sleep well.
Soon after, The Only Ones walked onstage with all Perrett, Mair and Perry all wearing sunglasses indoors and getting away with it as only the supercool can. They were joined by Perrett’s son Jamie (ex-Babyshambles) on additional guitar and drummer Steve Hands, who also played on Peter Perrett’s aforementioned “Woke Up Sticky” album, and did an absolutely magnificent job filling in here.
They opened with “Peter & The Pets,” originally released on the the B-side of their debut single “Lovers Of Today.” It was clear from the very first lines that Perrett’s tired drawl sounded just the same as it did on that record and still hit me with the same emotional punch. Standing to his left, John Perry knocked out the song’s nimble lead guitar lines perfectly, gazing out into the crowd and seemingly not even needing to pay any attention to what he was playing.
Other early highlights of the gig included “Why Don’t You Kill Yourself?” a song I remember being met with incredulous looks from my kids when I’d played it in the car a while ago. They couldn’t believe that anyone had been allowed to get away with singing that! Different times, children, different times. What a great song it is though. It’s always been one of my favourites and it was played brilliantly here by the whole band but especially Alan Mair who filled in the spaces with some fantastic Entwistle-style runs.
So thrilled I finally got to see The Only Ones live. Here's a bit of Why Don't You Kill Yourself from @thetradesclub earlier tonight. pic.twitter.com/dgCQfS1Tam
That song is from the third and final album “Baby’s Got A Gun” and should the incredibly unlikely scenario ever occur whereby somehow a baby got a gun and held it to my head demanding that I tell them my favourite Only Ones album, I’d probably say that the second album “Even Serpents Shine” just shades it ahead of that one.
The 2 opening songs from that album were played soon after and both were amazing.
“Flaming Torch” has our hero resigned to failure again singing “I think our life together has been cursed, I don’t know which one of us is worse” and the irresistibly singalong chorus “I’m always in the wrong place at the wrong time.” More dazzling guitar playing from John Perry on “From Here To Eternity” and more lyrics of doomed romance. Perrett should be lifting up his top to reveal a “Why always me?” slogan like a post-punk Mario Balotelli.
Along the way, Perrett gave a shoutout to the much-missed drummer Mike Kellie, greeted with a big cheer from the crowd. In an interview with John Robb at Rebellion a couple of days later, Perrett said that Kellie was such a key part of the band, he now felt quite uncomfortable using the bandname without him.
The Only Ones @ Hebden Bridge Trades Club, 3/8/23
Perrett introduced “Trouble In The World” with the words “we haven’t done this one in a long time” before correcting himself and saying “we haven’t done anything in a long time!”
As the end of the main set approached, they played a cover of The Kinks song “I’m Not Like Everybody Else,” performed with a lot more vim and passion than the version on “Woke Up Sticky” and all the better for it.
Inevitably “Another Girl Another Planet” was the loudest audience singalong of the night. I was transfixed watching John Perry play that opening lead guitar line and even more so when he played the guitar solo in the middle. I know how hard it is to play that solo because I’ve been trying to master it for 30 something years (still a work in progress!) John Perry makes it look absolutely effortless, that’s how fucking good he is! I particularly loved the moment when he nonchalantly pushed his sunglasses up his nose with his right hand while his left hand just carried on bending the note.
Name me a cooler guitarist. I’ll wait.
See for yourself 2 minutes into this video.
The little sunglasses flourish prompted a memory of seeing The Stranglers in Liverpool many years ago when the late, great Dave Greenfield downed a pint during the trickiest part of the “No More Heroes” keyboard solo.
Even better was to follow with “The Beast,” a standout song from the debut album and a song that both The Lancashire Toreador and I had mentioned as being a favourite on our pre-gig walk from the train station. There’s also a brilliant version on their Peel Sessions compilation album.
Both the original and the Peel version clock in at just under 6 minutes, making them the longest song the band ever recorded. But the 2023 live version is extended even further and was breathtakingly great, possibly my favourite song of the whole gig.
As they came back out for the encore, Perrett said they were going to try something else they’d never done before, a medley. The song had the chorus and chords from Neil Young’s “Helpless” but with different words in the verses. I’ve since learned that it is called “Don’t Feel Too Good” and it was released on a round-up of non-album songs called “Remains,” as was “Prisoners” which was also played in the encore.
After a fairly standard bar-band run-through of “Baby Let Me Follow You Down,” Perrett thanked the crowd for allowing him to indulge his fantasy of being Bob Dylan in 1966. A quick-witted crowdmember responded with a “Judas” shout.
Then the final song of the encore and another absolute golden moment when they played “Someone Who Cares,” another of my favourite songs from “Even Serpents Shine”
Another song that features plenty of that nihilistic romanticism I’ve already mentioned: “I’m scared of losing the most precious thing I own, wake up one day to find the bird has flown.”
But there’s also another thread that runs through lots of Only Ones lyrics. It’s the faint chance of redemption, the possibility of some beams of light at the end of the tunnel. I can take the despair, it’s the hope I can’t stand. “I hope you find someone who cares.”
Regular readers of my gig reviews (hello to you both) will know that I can occasionally get nitpicky about setlists, so here comes that bit.
Only 12 of the 19 songs (63%) they played were what I would describe as well-established Only Ones songs from their golden era. As well as the B-sides of their first 2 singles (“Peter & The Pets”, “As My Wife Says”) they played 3 songs each from “The Only Ones” and “Baby’s Got A Gun” and 4 from “Even Serpents Shine.”
I would’ve loved to hear the A-side of that debut single “Lovers Of Today” as well as later singles “You’ve Got To Pay” and especially “Out There In The Night,” another song about lost love that I can really imagine going down a storm here.
Lots of other favourites from the albums were absent too… The Lancashire Toreador’s favourite “No Solution”… “The Whole Of The Law”… “Language Problem” … “No Peach For The Wicked” … “Miles From Nowhere” … “In Betweens” (although let’s be fair, those last 2 were played at the following night’s gig.)
Instead we got 2 as yet unreleased songs “Black Operations” and “Louder Than Words” and 3 songs from the “Remains” round-up album. No doubt there were a few hardcore Only Ones fans at the gig who were as delighted to hear some relative obscurities being played as I am when the same thing happens at a Wedding Present gig.
But The Wedding Present are pretty much constantly on tour and nearly all of their audience are, like me, repeat customers. So much so in fact, that they end every gig by jokingly asking if there’s anyone there who’s never seen them before.
In contrast, The Only Ones have played about a dozen UK gigs in the last 30 years! So in the circumstances, I’d be happy to sacrifice hearing those little-known songs and the 2 covers and have them replaced with some of the more familiar favourites mentioned above instead. I suspect most of the other audience members might have felt the same judging by the slightly underwhelmed reaction to most of the encore songs.
OK, griping over. Apologies for sounding like an entitled little princess.
Here are some photos from from the gig that are far better than the ones I took.
An awesome show with The Only Ones last night. Fantastic to meet many of you that traveled from all over the UK and overseas to see this legendary band at the Trades Club #hebdenbridge. Let's do it again tonight!
The Only Ones @thetradesclub Hebden Bridge, 4.8.23. The power & the glory of a great band. John Perry’s guitar playing is under-celebrated. @thepeterperrett@jamieperrett — thanks for an amazing evening.
Privilege to see one of my favourite bands of all time, The Only Ones , last night at Hebden Bridge Trades Club. Got to meet Peter Perrett and his lovely son Jamie. What a night !! 😍 pic.twitter.com/2oznL2vx9D
On this podcast the wizards take a look at a couple of albums from that band who seem to always be on the ticket, but never bother to turn up. The Doors!
You can find out what we made of The Door’s third and fourth albums by clicking on the image below.
Our chats about the previous tapes can be found where you found this one.
To avoid any potential disappointment on missing out on the next show, make sure you follow our podcast on Spotify or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
Another tape where Uncle Bob failed to name an album, so we have handpicked 10 tracks from The Attack to review along with a compilation of unreleased recorcordings from Andromeda, featuring at least one of the same musicians.
You can find out what we made of this little lot by clicking on the image below.
Our chats about the previous tapes can be found where you found this one.
To avoid any potential disappointment on missing out on the next show, make sure you follow our podcast on Spotify or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
If you’re a fan of band in-fighting, and, frankly, who isn’t? – this podcast will be right up your 4-Way Street. The undoubted talents of David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young combined with their undoubted egos make for quite the tale as we consider the merits of the CSN&Y album, Deja Vu and the Neil Young solo album that followed, After The Goldrush.
Just look at those happy faces!
You can find out what we made of both albums by clicking on the image below.
Kicker mentioned putting together a playlist of Neil Young Piano songs, but Mr Young doesn’t make it very easy to share his songs online (rightly, I guess), so here’s a list for you to put the playlist together yourselves. Please let us know what we need to add!
Philadelphia
After The Goldrush
Borrowed Tune
Love In Mind
My Heart
It’s A Dream
A Man Needs A Maid
Stringman
Soldier
Birds
Journey Through The Past
Speakin’ Out
Our chats about the previous tapes can be found where you found this one.
To avoid any potential disappointment on missing out on the next show, make sure you follow our podcast on Spotify or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
Despite Kicker getting the name of the album wrong and mishearing some of the lyrics, Jan Burnett still agrees to talk him through the making of the brilliant new Spare Snare album, The Brutal, ahead of its release in May.
Listen to their engaging and informative (at least from one of the parties) chat by clicking on the album artwork below.
The new album is available for pre-order now on vinyl, CD and download:
You can also see the band live during May and June, and we very much recommend that you do.
Here’s our interview with Simon Love, a long-term favourite of ours here at TTW.
Don’t miss this one because the recording also includes a couple of exclusive “in session” performances. Simon plays a couple of acoustic songs, one old favourite and the premiere of a brand new song.
A couple of more obscure albums for the Wizards to chew over this time round. We have the first Blossom Toes album, often hailed as a pop sike masterpiece, and the self-titled, and only, album by The Savage Resurrection, a favourite of Mr Bevis Frond no less.
Find out what Kicker and Chorizo made of both by clicking on the image below.
Our chats about the previous tapes can be found where you found this one.
To avoid any potential disappointment on missing out on the next show, make sure you follow our podcast on Spotify or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
You can definitely believe us, we are not liars, it’s Bob Dylan’s 1966 double album masterpiece that’s under review.
Full libraries have previously been written about this album, but that doesn’t hold the wizards back from making their opinions known with insights such as ‘just look at that sideways cover’, etc. [Sake – TTW Ed]
We also managed to squeeze in a Dylan lyrics quiz for good measure. Check that out, and what we make of these 4 sides of peak Dylan, by clicking on the image below.
Chorizo also unearthed an old Mojo list of Dylan songs, where we found that they were completely wrong in their placement of the songs they included from Blonde On Blonde (see below), and an interesting article on the making of the album from one of the studio janitors (from Uncut magazine, June 2021).
86 Fourth Time Around
67 One of Us Must Know
59 Mephis Blues Again
58 Rainy day Women
28 I Want You
21 Visions Of Johanna
10 Just Like A Woman
3 Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands
Our chats about the previous tapes can be found where you found this one.
To avoid any potential disappointment on missing out on the next show, make sure you follow our podcast on Spotify or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
Next Thursday (2nd Feb) M.J. Hibbett will be playing his 1000th gig. It’s at The King And Queen pub in London & it’s also being livestreamed so there’s no excuses for missing it.
I happen to know there’s a blue plaque on the former home of another great English wordsmith Samuel Taylor Coleridge just down the road from that pub so be sure to check that out if you’re going to the gig.
The Unearthly Beauty Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and M.J. Hibbett
We took the opportunity to grill Mark and his bandmates for some recollections from the previous 999 gigs.
It should be pointed out that Mark has been in several gigging bands over the years, notably Voon, The Council, The Durham Ox Singers and The Validators. The Validators are Frankie, Tom, Tim and Emma and they’ll be referred to throughout, as will Mark’s musical theatre partner Mr Steve Hewitt.
First gig 3 February 1988, Deacon’s School Hall My very first band, The Masters Of Nothing, played a song at a Comic Relief gig that I organised in sixth form. It was called “A Minus Work” and was about one of our teachers getting drunk. “Do you want any more?” I shouted at the end. “NO!” shouted the audience.
Coldest gig 19 January 2001, Upstairs at The Garage, London It was freezing cold and everyone had to keep their coats on. Afterwards a very attractive woman came up to me and said “It’s so cold! Feel my hands!” and put them on my face. Six months later we started going out, 22 years after that we still are!
Hottest gig 26 July 2009, a train carriage, Indietracks The carriage was so full of people who actually wanted to see me that I had to fight to get in myself, and then we set off down the tracks for half an hour on the hottest day of the year. I reckon I lost about three stone.
Drunkest gig (onstage) 10 August 1996, Abbey Park Festival, Leicester A hotly debated category, but I think this is probably the drunkest gig I ever did. The Council were headlining (or “going on last” depending on how you look at it) on a stage sponsored by Bass Brewery and we’d been backstage making our way through the ten foot high tower of free beer since lunchtime. Tim was also in The Council and he was heartily sick by the side of the stage, and then I completely forgot how guitars worked. Emma was there too, on her second date with Tim, and she still married him!
Drunkest gig (audience) 4 March 2006, Carpe Diem, Leeds Everyone always seemed to be drunk every time we played Leeds. I distinctly remember getting off the train one time and nearly being knocked down by a fire engine with a hen do hanging out of the windows, and on this occasion I had to grab somebody by the throat to stop them getting onstage with me.
Smallest crowd 11 December 2008, Green Dragon Yard, Middlesbrough I have played many many gigs where you could count the audience members on the fingers of one hand, or indeed on the fingers of one finger, but on this occassion the audience was a security guard. When he went to the loo at one point I was left playing to nobody at all. It was all a bit Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – was it really a gig without an audience? Afterwards a pal turned up, and we sat in a pub watching two pensioners have a fist fight.
Biggest crowd 17 July 2006, Radio One The Validators played a live session on Steve Lamacq’s Evening Session, which had an audience of over a million people. It was terrifying, and also ridiculous, especially when he read out a question from a listener who turned out to be my mum!
Friendliest gig 29 July 2017, Indietracks Indietracks gigs were always the best gigs with the loveliest people, and this was the last one we did. Pretty much everyone who liked us turned up, and it felt like we were in U2 or something. This would also qualify as “Gig with the most hugs.” [Rebel Rikkit & I were at this gig and we actually mentioned the hugging in our podcast review of that festival.]
Most hostile gig 16 May 2009, Moulsecoomb Forest Garden and Wildlife Project, Brighton Me and Steve went down to Brighton for a performance of “My Exciting Life In ROCK” in a small forest to an audience of young offenders who threw sticks at us. I gave them a RIGHT telling off, and they were good as gold after that.
Tastiest gig 19 October 2022, The Pipeline, Brighton A massive slap-up feed in a Vegan Pub. When I first started doing gigs vegetarian food was mostly big pots of “Veggie Chilli”, but now it’s amazing!
Shortest gig 30 April 2022, Bescot Stadium, Walsall I’ve done several gigs at Retro Computing events where I just turn up and play “Hey Hey 16K”. They’re always great but this one was especially fab because I got to meet Sandy White, the writer of “3D Ant Attack”, who turned out to be a really lovely bloke.
Longest gig 9 August 1995, Town Hall Square, Leicester I organised a one-off performance where pretty much everybody I knew in bands in Leicester got mixed up into different groups and then had to write songs about a specific period of life on Earth. We performed it all in front of the town hall one sunny afternoon to some very bemused passers by and were paid £100 by the council (the actual council, not The Council). This was spent on a massive round of beer for everybody in The Durham Ox round the corner. The show was called “The History Of Life”, and I’m sure it felt about that long for people watching!
Favourite people you’ve shared a bill with Doing gigs is a brilliant wanker-filter – plenty of tosspots want to be rock stars, but after about nine months or so they’ve given up, leaving a rich soup of excellent people to carry on. That means there’s too many to choose from really, but I will say that that (apart from people I’ve been in bands with) I’ve chosen to do the most gigs with Winston Echo, Tim Eveleigh, Charlie Flowers, Pete Green, Jenny Lockyer, Gavin Osborn, Grace Petrie, Chris T-T and Matt Tiller. They are all ace!
Most consecutive gigs played 3-14 August 2013, Edinburgh Fringe This was the year Steve and I did our show “Total Hero Team” at the Fringe – 22 gigs in 12 days, it was knackering!
Most Northerly gig 30 July 2009, Southside Cavern, Stockholm An indie festival in a pub and then a park. The gig was great but the weekend around it was amazing, Stockholm is brilliant!
Most Easterly gig location (apart from the above) 13 November 2009, Ostpol, Dresden This would also be a contender for drunkest and friendliest gig – me, Frankie and Tim were plied with booze and food then went onstage just before midnight for a hugely enthusiastic audience of lovely Germans. We went to bed at 5am in the “artists’ flat”, which was some sofa foam above a rehearsal room and were woken up four hours later by somebody drumming beneath us. It was wonderful, and it was pretty much the same when we went back again a year later.
Most Southerly gig location 10 December 2005, Avaganda, Whakatane My brother’s wedding reception in New Zealand – we stopped off in several places on the way, including…
Most Westerly gig location 23 November 2005, The Cake Shop, New York It was coming up for Thanksgiving so the only gig I could find was at an open mic with some poets and interpretive dance strippers. There were no guitars so I had to sing acapella, but I did get a song out of it called, unsurprisingly, “I Did A Gig In New York”. [CG: and what a fine song it is too!]
Most people onstage 14 August 1999, Abbey Park Festival, Leicester A very early Validators gig, with the five-piece Validators, various Guest Artistes, and The Durham Ox Singers on backing vocals. I think there were about 14 of us at one point, although I’d been on-site since 7am helping to set up the stage so it looked like about 28 to me.
Favourite gig flyers / posters The comics artist John Allison did the posters for our “Total Hero Team” show – we sent him lots of pictures of me and Steve wearing various hats and he used them to create an amazing poster of us as superheroes. Another favourite was a poster for The Council which Neil did featuring entirely made-up quotes. “The Council are the best band ever, and if you’re in a band you might as well give up because you’ll be rubbish compared to them” – NME
Gigs you wish had been recorded for posterity Most recordings are a bit rubbish compared to the gig itself, especially for someone like me whose appeal can be slightly tarnished by sobriety. What I’d really like to see would be videos of some of the audiences and venues – you can see bands any time, but you’ll never see the upstairs room at The Magazine Hotel ever again!
As yet unfulfilled ambitions for the next 1000 gigs? Personally I always wanted to play a gig on the back of a flatbed truck. I’ve played on a fair few trucks, and they’re always slightly disappointing. I think it’s because I’ve always imagined them driving round in a parade or something. What I’d really like to do would be to write something for somebody else, like a musical or a show, and then go and see them do it instead of me. That way I could have as much to drink as I liked without worrying about forgetting the words!
Any other business?
I’ve just realised that there aren’t any gigs by Voon or The Durham Ox Singers here. If you’d asked for “Gig most likely to explode the venue”, “Gig where you pretended the keyboard player was in prison”, or “Gig where you terrified a Punk Legend” they would have been, but maybe we’ll save that for Gig 2000!
Related links:
The M.J. Hibbett website is a treasure troves of blog posts, song lyrics, videos and all manner of facts. Very soon there’s going to be some kind of searchable database of all the gigs he’s played so start preparing your SQL statements.
The second David Bowie album, the second eponymous one, or Space Oddity, or, if you were buying it in Dayton, Ohio back in 1969, Man Of Words, Man Of Music, anyway, THAT one, is under review with the third T. Rex (no longer Tyrannosauraus Rex) album, and yes, that too is eponymous.
As it turns out, there are quite a few connections between these two albums, and you can hear what Kicker and Chorizo make of them by clicking on the image below.
This is where Kicker first became a T Rex fan.
Our chats about the previous tapes can be found where you found this one.
To avoid any potential disappointment on missing out on the next show, make sure you follow our podcast on Spotify or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
If you haven’t done so already, then have a read of my round-up of the 36 gigs I went to this year. You can also hear us play and discuss 24 of my favourite songs of 2022 in this podcast right here.
So to conclude my end-of-year summary, I present to you a list of my favourite things that have entered into my ears and eyes.
Top 3 favourite albums
In no particular order beacuse I really can’t choose a favourite from these! Please support musicians by using the links below to buy their music if you like it.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities (Netflix) – an anthology series of 8 horror stories, each by a different director. Each episode has no relation to the others so you can watch them in any order. I especially recommend episodes 1 2 3 4 7 and 8.
Moon Knight (Marvel/Disney+) – my son & I are in agreement that this is our favourite Marvel TV series so far
The North Water (BBC) – Colin Farrell, Stephen Graham and their shipmates sail off into the Arctic to kill a few whales. A bit like The Terror but better.
Acid Dream: The Great LSD Plot (BBC Sounds) – This series tells the story of the biggest drugs bust ever made, the same one The Clash were singing about in Julie’s Been Working For The Drug Squad.
Year of the Stevie – podcast telling the life story of Stevie Wonder, made by BDWPS who also did the brilliant Year of the Joni
A Life In Music (BBC Sounds) – Music writer Jude Rogers talks to musicians and scientists about the intense impact music can make at different ages
Quiet Part Loud (Spotify) – a cracking horror / sci-fi story about a radio shock jock and creepy goings-on in Staten Island
Best bit of the World Cup
Ilias Chair the football genius coming on as sub for Morocco against Croatia.
Time for a round-up of my adventures in gig-going this year. 36 gigs to talk about, which is not quite back up to my pre-pandemic levels but it’s getting close. Here are a few of my thoughts along with the obligatory poor quality photos.
Gogo Penguin @ Yes, Manchester(19th January)
The first 3 gigs of the year were all at Yes in Manchester.
It’s a venue I love going to not just for the music but also for the food and in particularly the “Bad Girl” vegan kebab by Doner Summer. I’ve gone on about those kebabs to Mrs Garbanzo so much that whenever I’m going to Manchester now she jokes that I’m going to see “the other woman.”
Apparently this was Gogo Penguin‘s first gig in 2 years and it was the debut gig for the new drummer Jon Scott. Hard to fathom when you hear the 3 of them playing like that! Nick Blacka’s double bass defines the band’s sound and reminds me how much I used to love seeing Red Snapper in the 1990s but it’s Chris Illingworth’s piano playing that I couldn’t help being hypnotised by.
Squid / Minor Conflict @ Yes, Manchester(21st January)
Support act Minor Conflict have a singer playing a harp, I think that’s the first time I’ve seen that.
I was seeing headliners Squid for the 2nd time having previously seen them at EBGBs in Liverpool in October 2019. This gig was even better, both band and crowd were fantastic. You can get a sense of it in this video.
The Surfing Magazines / Granfalloon @ Yes Basement, Manchester(4th February)
I’ve seen Granfalloon before when they supported The Burning Hell at The Eagle in Salford in 2017, and further down this page I will be seeing them again supporting the same band. At both of those gigs, it was just one person (Richard) with his acoustic guitar but at this gig he had a really great band with him. Whether band or solo, you can’t help but be won over by Richard’s onstage charm, catchy songs and his Gorkys-like knack for finding lyrical inspiration in unusual places. Watch the “Bee On A String” video to see what I mean.
I saw The Surfing Magazines play a brilliant gig at Soup Kitchen in 2017 so I was looking forward to seeing them again and they did not disappoint! They opened the gig with a cover of Jonathan Richman’s instrumental hit “Egyptian Reggae.” Later we got covers of Neil Young & The Velvet Underground as well as most of the songs from their second, and in my opinion best, album “Badgers Of Wymeswold.” Like their sister band The Wave Pictures, those onstage are clearly having just as much fun as we are off it.
Even by my own low standards, this photo is a particularly rubbish one! Bassist Franic is hidden behind “Doctor” Charle Watson & the unfortunate speaker positioning gives the impression that David’s head is a big black rectangle.
Dana Gavanski / Naima Bock @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester(3rd March)
We only caught the last couple of songs from Naima Bock who was playing solo. Her voice was stunning and her album “Giant Palm” has become probably my favourite of the year.
I’d wanted to see Dana Gavanski at Manchester Psych Fest in 2021 but she clashed with some others so I was grateful for another chance to see “the Canadian Cate Le Bon.”
She played a lot of new songs, which have since been released on the excellent “When It Comes” album. She finished with a cover of Marianne Faithfull’s “Broken English” whose lyrics were particularly appropriate given Russia’s actions in Ukraine a few days earlier. She didn’t play her brilliant cover of one of my favourite David Bowie songs “Word On A Wing” but you can listen and buy it here.
The first of several gigs this year where a support band I really like was added to the bill after I’d bought tickets. An unexpected piece of good luck!
I’m not sure who was scheduled to be supporting tonight but they had to pull out with Coronavirus so we got Cowtown instead. What a bonus!
In 2017, I caught the last song of Cowtown at Indietracks festival and I was impressed enough to go and see them the following year when they played Soup Kitchen with the equally fab Crumbs supporting.
Despite the bandname they are not from Texas, they are a 3-piece from Leeds and they were just as great as the previous time I saw them. They had some great-sounding new songs but also played “old” ones like Bugging Out, Castleman and Monotone Face. Looks like the drummer missed the memo about the band dresscode for the night, stripy tops & big socks.
It’s the McLusky Do Dallas 20th anniversary tour so we get the whole of that fabulous album with a few songs from the 3rd album in the middle. You probably don’t need me to tell you how great it was to hear those songs played at very high volume in a roomful of bouncing nutjobs, most of whom seem far too young to have bought that album in 2002 but clearly know even more of the words than I do.
— Trust the Wizards (@trustthewizards) April 3, 2022
Mdou Moctar @ Yes, Manchester(12th April)
As it says in the Tweet below “What a band! What a gig!”
The short videoclip here really doesn’t do it justice, particularly drummer Souleymane Ibrahim who was just amazing!! Watch this recent live session for more.
Tindersticks @ Royal Festival Hall, London (1st May)
When Tindersticks announced the dates for their 30th anniversary tour, I was initially disappointed that there were only 2 gigs in the UK and none in the North where I live.
But then I noticed the 2 UK dates were in cities where my 2 oldest mates live so a few WhatsApp messages later, Simon Richard and me had arranged a spectacular looking Bank Holiday weekend!!
For the Bath gig on the Friday night, we had the best seats in the house right in the middle of the front row. Before the tour they’d promised a career-spanning set and that’s exactly what we got. Impossible to pick highlights because every song was just great.
The core bandmembers were joined by a string quartet and some additional special guests. These included Terry Edwards who quietly wandered onstage towards the end of “Sleepy Song” to perfectly replicate the incredible trumpet solo on the original and singer Gina Foster who sang backing vocals on several songs and duetted brilliantly with Stuart on “Travelling Light.”
London’s Royal Festival Hall is a considerably larger venue and before the gig you could sense a real buzz of excitement in the sold-out crowd. We were up in the balcony for this one but just like Friday, a life-affirming gig that will live long in the memory. A much larger string section here and Stuart’s vocals thankfully a bit higher in the mix and clearer compared to the Bath gig. Setlist almost identical but we got “City Sickness” in place of “The Other Side Of The World.” I adore both those songs but it was cool that we got “City Sickness” because that was the song that had made Simon into a Tindersticks fan when I’d put it on a mixtape I gave him in the mid-90s.
In a quiet moment between songs at Bath, an audience member had very politely called out a request for a relatively obscure song, originally released on the b-side of 1993 single Marbles: “Stuart, can you play For Those pleeeeeease!” The band clearly took note because we got that very song in the encore, introduced by Stuart saying how they hadn’t played it in 25 years!
My 14th and 15th time seeing Tindersticks and it really is difficult to convey how much I loved seeing this wonderful band and how great it was to be attending those gigs with 2 of my best friends.
Public Service Broadcasting / Worldcub @ Focus Wales festival, Wrexham (5th May)
This was my second time at Focus Wales festival (my 2019 review is here)
Lots of great bands playing over the weekend but other commitments meant I was only able to go for one evening.
There’s live music going on all over the town (as it was then, it’s now a city!) and I saw snippets of quite a few bands. Local group Worldcub made a big impression on me and I’d strongly recommend their recent EP.
As much as I like the Public Service Broadcasting albums I own, I have to say I was not prepared for just how overwhelmingly awesome they are as a live band!! They really put on a show, the lights, the visuals, everything, just fantastic! Even some actual astronauts onstage for “Gagarin”
You might want to try their “Bright Magic” podcast series which tells the fascinating story behind the making of their most recent album.
The Lazy Eyes / The Flints @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester (17th May)
The Flints were really good but don’t seem to have any music out or any obtainable online presence. If you search online for a band called The Flints then you get a different band who aren’t nearly as good.
I loved the 2 EPs that Australian psychedelic funksters The Lazy Eyes released in 2021 and all 6 songs from those are present on their 2022 debut album “Songbook” along with another 6 belters. The gig was pretty much the album in full with long hair flying all over the place. Man, those kids can play!
Yard Act / Nuha Ruby Ra @ Zanzibar, Liverpool (19th May)
This gig was moved at the last minute from District to Zanzibar and upon arrival it took me a while to work out why it looked familiar. (I’d seen Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint do a “secret” gig here in 2007, it was called The New Picket then.)
Friend of the Trust The Wizards website Will from the Undilutable Slang Truth was at this one and it was good to catch up with him for the first time in a few years. Check out his gig review here.
Difficult to describe the kind of music Nuha Ruby Ra makes so it’s probably best you watch this YouTube clip. Half a song in I was thinking “this is going to be a long night” but once I got into it I really liked it. The closest comparison I could come up with at the time was Tricky and just like the Knowle West Boy, the music is somehow accessible whilst simultaneously being very, very unusual.
Last time I saw Yard Act was at Manchester Psych Fest last year where I predicted that they’d soon be headlining such festivals. With their debut reaching number 2 in the actual album charts, they are still on that trajectory and deservedly so.
In 2014, we called singer James “the epitome of the angry young man” when we reviewed his previous band Post War Glamour Girls but unlike most angry young men, he has a real talent for articulating that into poetry.
Dead Horse and Peanuts were my highlights tonight.
The venue was really packed for this one and my photos are exceptionally poor. Partly due the very tall yet exceptionally well-mannered young man, wearing a leather jacket with the Motorhead logo on the back, who stood directly in front of me but turned round several times to apologise for doing so.
— Chorizo Garbanzo (@ChorizoGarbanzo) May 20, 2022
The Wedding Present @ Arts Club, Liverpool (21st May)
Some dates of the tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of my favourite Wedding Present album “Seamonsters” went ahead as planned in late 2021 but most of the tour were postponed until this year.
I’d bought tickets for 3 gigs last year but a poorly timed positive Covid test meant I couldn’t go to the Manchester and Chester ones. My 10 day quarantine ended the day of the London gig so I went to that, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have done because I was still feeling pretty unwell. As with many previous Wedding Present gigs I went to that London gig with my old pals Richard, Mike and Simon. The 4 of us have been avid Wedding Present gig-goers since our teenage years.
I had read David Gedge saying that this tour was going to be the last time they would play “Seamonsters” in full so I decided that I was going to see this tour as many times as possible.
Unfortunately we were unaware that this Liverpool gig had an early start so we actually missed Side 1. The rest of the gig was great though and my 25th Wedding Present gig was also notable for being the first one Mrs Garbanzo has been to!
More (much more!) on this tour further down the page.
— Chorizo Garbanzo (@ChorizoGarbanzo) May 22, 2022
Altın Gün / Stealing Sheep @ The Ritz, Manchester (26th May)
Another “bonus” support band with Stealing Sheep being a very welcome late addition to the bill. Second gig in a row where a band was wearing matching boiler suits by the way. A lot going on visually as well musically. Great dance moves and unlike The Wedding Present their boiler suits were inflatable so they looked like dancing Stay Puft marshmellow people.
The rest of the evening was even better, filled as it was with dry ice and trippy psychedelic rock. Altın Gün, Satellites and Kit Sebastian, all putting out great albums of Turkish-influenced music recently.
The evening was slightly marred by a group of beery lads standing near us. Why pay good money to see a band if you only want to just talk loudly to your mates all night? That’s why we have pubs, you idiots. As with many of modern’s life irritations, The Humdrum Express have a song about this.
Elvis Costello & The Imposters @ The Philharmonic, Liverpool (10th June)
My 31st Elvis Costello gig was also my 6th time seeing him in Liverpool and my 3rd time at this venue.
This one would be put in the “Really great” file rather than the “Outstandingly great” one that several of those previous Liverpool appearances most definitely belong in.
The band were on top form and the “new boy” Charlie Sexton on lead guitar played a blinder. But there were technical issues early on with E.C’s vocals too quiet and at times inaudible in the first few songs.
“After a couple of songs, the audience were really frustrated, and a few people tried to shout out to Costello to tell him his microphone was too quiet.Clearly not understanding what was happening, Costello thought he was being heckled. Appearing insulted, he responded negatively to the crowd before playing on oblivious to the technical error... After a few more songs and shouts from audience members, someone from Costello’s team thankfully told him the crowd were shouting about the microphone issue. “That was the sound check, now it’s the gig”, joked Costello once the microphone had been fixed, but while the majority of the audience laughed and cheered, some fans got up from their seats and didn’t return.“
A key part of that is “Appearing insulted, he responded negatively to the crowd” which is a polite way of saying he was trying to introduce one of songs from the new album, assumed the people shouting out were just drunk hecklers and told them to “shut the fuck up.”
As it says in the Echo review, this was quite obviously a case of Elvis “clearly not understanding what was happening” but a small number of the audience wilfully and childishly took offence at this and walked out. I saw someone on Twitter describe the audience at this gig as “tetchy” which sums it up really. It took the bloke sat next to me about 20 minutes before he started moaning to his mate about Elvis not playing the hits during “Watching The Detectives” A song that was literally a hit, Elvis’ first in fact. Presumably this was his first ever experience of live music and he was unaware of the customary practice of musicians spreading their best-known songs throughout the evening, rather than blasting through them all at the very start to get them over with!
The entitled twat next to me left soon after and missed “Pump It Up”, “I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea”, “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down”, “Alison”, “Shipbuilding” and “Good Year For The Roses.” Pretty much every one of his hits was played in fact, with the exception of “Oliver’s Army” which he never plays these days. Elvis has explained his stance on that song with his customary eloquence and it strikes me that the only people bothered by its omission are the exact same numpties who complain every Christmas about radio stations playing the edited version of “Fairytale of New York.” Their version of free speech means having the right to be allowed to hear an outdated homophobic term in our favourite Christmas song or something.
Anyway, back to the gig itself and my highlights from it. Of the hits mentioned above, “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down” is the one I’d still have him play at every gig and it was as great as ever. I was a bit disappointed he didn’t play either of my favourite songs from “The Boy Named If,” namely “The Man You Love To Hate” and “My Most Beautiful Mistake.” But they did plenty of others from the new album with “I Can Give You Anything But Love” and “The Difference” being my favourites. I have a list of favourite Elvis songs that I’ve never heard live and I was thrilled to hear “The Comedians” for the first time, played here in the same arrangement as Roy Orbison’s amazing version. Elvis’ voice, which at times shows signs of not being quite what it once was, was breathtakingly good on this and also on other slower songs “Either Side Of The Same Town” and the aforementioned “Good Year For The Roses.”
The Waterboys / Gruff Rhys @ Middlewich Folk and Boat Festival (17th June)
The last time I went to this festival was 2009 and Ade Edmondson was headlining with his band The Bad Shepherds. These days it’s a much bigger festival with a big outdoor stage.
Another bonus support act here with late addition to the bill Gruff Rhys which I was delighted about. I’d not been able to go to his Manchester gig in 2021 so this was my first time seeing him promoting the fantastic “Seeking New Gods” album. It was great to finally hear some of those songs live, as well as one of my all-time favourites “Lonesome Words”
The 2 Waterboys gigs I saw in the 1980s remain right up there with the best I’ve ever been to but checking my records I was very surprised to find out I’ve not seen them since! (I have seen Mike Scott quite a few times in those intervening years though)
They’ve had about a thousand line-up changes since then but it’s still Mike leading an incredible band through a really incredible gig! As the song says, he’s still a freak! Great atmosphere at this with the kind of lively and enthusiastic crowd you don’t always get at these boutique festival events.
Amazing evening and just 9 miles from my front door!!
Keyboard wizard Brother Paul is an amazing musician and brings a lot to the party with his magnificently infectious onstage personality. Photo below courtesy of Mrs Garbanzo.
Crowded House @ Castlefield Bowl, Manchester (30th June)
It’s been a long time coming but after several postponements, Crowded House finally got to play the tour that was originally planned for 2020.
First visit to this venue and I noticed that this bowl is a very flat-bottomed one. If you’re near the back and a bit of a shortarse like me, the sightlines are pretty crap. Never mind, get here earlier next time.
Whether playing as Crowded House, The Finn Brothers or under his own name, Neil Finn always puts on a brilliant show. As well as the outstanding musicianship always on show, he and kilt-wearing bassist Nick Seymour are a very witty pair. At this gig they had a lot of fun talking about the trains going past and just generally taking the mick out of each other. They opened with 2 of my absolute favourites “Distant Sun” and “Nails In My Feet” and from then on it was pretty much the greatest hits from the 80s/90s plus a few songs from the recent “Dreamers Are Waiting” LP.
Local legend Johnny Marr made his customary cameo appearance, as he always does when Neil Finn’s in town and got the wild reception he deserves. Just like last time Crowded House played in Manchester in May 2010, they did a really great David Bowie cover. It was “Heroes” at this gig, “Moonage Daydream” at the previous one. They closed the night with another of my favourites “Better Be Home Soon” one of several they played that brought a tear to my eye.
An extra-special treat was going to the gig with my old pal Mark. We used to work together behind the counter at The HMV Shop in Guildford and we hadn’t seen each other since 1992!! Reunited through the power of social media.
In contrast to the tetchy Elvis Costello audience last time I’d been at this venue, the Antpeople were wildly enthusiastic and on their feet from the very first drumbeat to the last. Seeing Adam & The Ants playing “Dog Eat Dog” on Top of the Pops at the age of 10 was a life-changing moment for me and I will forever be of the opinion that “Kings of the Wild Frontier” is one of the greatest albums ever made. The title track was one of the highlights of this gig and it was also great to hear “Digital Tenderness” and “Cartrouble,” 2 of my favourite songs from the first Ants album.
Antpeople are the warriors! Antmusic is our banner!
Pixies / Slow Readers Club @ Castlefield Bowl, Manchester (5th July)
Back here again a few days after Crowded House and this time we arrived early so we could get a decent spot close to the great Joey Santiago. Slow Readers Club were pretty decent, the frontman has a great voice.
Some Pixies dates have been advertised as “Come On Pilgrim It’s The Surfer Rosa” tour and I’d have been very happy to have heard all of those 2 in full (with “Vamos” played twice!) followed by “Doolittle” for the encore perhaps.
That’s not quite what we got but if you’re interested I’ve got statistics on what they did play.
5 out of 8 “Come On Pilgrim” songs (62.5%)
8 out of 13 “Surfer Rosa” songs (61.5%) (no “River Euphrates” though 😢)
9 out of 15 “Doolittle” songs (60%) (no “Dead” though 😢)
2 out of 14 “Bossanova” songs (14.2%)
3 out of 15 “Trompe Le Monde” songs (20%)
Might make a bar chart of that later.
Great to be at this gig with Richard who was also with me when we first saw Pixies in 1989. This was our first time seeing them without Kim and of course we’d always opt for the former when offered “Deal Or No Deal.” But even with 25% of the original lineup absent, the songs are still some of the best ever made and they still play them with the same intensity.
Highlights for me were “Brick Is Red” “Gouge Away” “The Holiday Song” and “Cactus.”
They were great as always. Here's a bit of Brick Is Red. Looks like you were standing quite near me. I would've said hello if I could remember what you look like! pic.twitter.com/5EihNaMkbX
— Chorizo Garbanzo (@ChorizoGarbanzo) July 6, 2022
Simply Dylan @ The Bowdon Rooms, Altrincham (7th July)
I saw Simply Dylan play “Desolation Row” at the Bob Dylan: Electric 50 event in 2016 and I’ve been meaning to see a whole gig of theirs ever since. Here’s what I wrote about them in my review back then:
They bill themselves as “a tribute to Bob Dylan, not a Bob Dylan tribute” and that’s spot on. There’s no attempt to look or dress like Dylan or imitate his voice. Why would anyone do that when even Dylan hasn’t sounded like Dylan for decades? Instead you get John’s excellent and powerful voice, enunciating the words clearly backed up by a brilliant bassist and violinist. Having seen a mixed bag of gigs from the man himself ranging from inspired to forgettable, you could quite easily make the case that John and his band do a far better job of honouring the richest back catalogue in popular music history.
My first time at The Bowdon Rooms and I was impressed that you could order drinks using your phone and have them brought to your table! Very fancy! It was a full band show rather than the trio I saw before and all of them were fantastic musicians. The setlist was great too, not just a run-through of the obvious best-known songs and I particularly enjoyed hearing “Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power)” “Dark Eyes” and “Mama You Been On My Mind,” performed very much in the style heard on my favourite Dylan live album.
The Strokes / Fontaines D.C. / Wet Leg @ Lytham Festival (8th July)
First gig of 2022 for Garbanzo Junior The Elder who is OBSESSED with The Strokes and had just about the greatest time of his life at this! Great gig all round actually, all 3 bands played a blinder.
Traffic problems meant we missed the start of Wet Leg but as illustrated by the really strong debut album, there’s a lot more to them than just “Chaise Longue.”
Last time I saw Fontaines D.C. was May 2018 at Night & Day Cafe in Manchester when they’d only had a couple of singles out. Frontman Grian seemed quite awkward and nervous back then. His stage persona has developed into something very different and when I say there’s now a hint of Liam Gallagher in his confidence and ability to gee up a crowd I mean that as praise. No surprise that they’re playing to bigger crowds these days because as much as “Boys In The Better Land” was very popular with the Lytham crowd, I think they’ve made a lot of far better records since. “A Hero’s Death” “Lucid Dream” and “I Don’t Belong” from the 2nd album for example, all of which were just brilliant.
Garbanzo Junior The Elder had been studying The Strokes setlists on the tour dates leading up to this. No idea where he gets that kind of obsessive trainspotter behaviour from. Probably his mum.
He told me that they would absolutely categorically open with “Bad Decisions” and it was great to see his reaction when they started playing “Is This It?” instead. They played all the songs you’d expect really. “Reptilia” “You Only Live Once” “Automatic Stop” were amongst the highlights. There was a very funny bit where a lady in the crowd requested “Ode To The Mets” so they got her up on the stage only for Julian to walk off and leave her singing it by herself!
As we were slowly shuffling our way out at the end, we heard a few people around us making comments about how they didn’t play “Last Nite.” Junior somewhat sneeringly muttered to me something along the lines of “Pah, don’t these idiots know anything? They hardly ever play that song.” Once again I have no idea where he gets this kind of thing from. Probably his mother.
Happy to report that having enjoyed his first big outdoor gig so much, he’s keen for more of the same and we’ve already booked tickets for a few gigs in 2023, notably The Boss at Villa Park!
The Wedding Present @ The Devil’s Arse, Castleton (20th August)
The Wedding Present / Murder Club @ The Met, Bury (25th August)
Wedding Present gig numbers 26 and 27. Both gigs were “Seamonsters” played in full, followed by a mix of songs from their whole career.
My mate Rich didn’t need much persuading for Castleton. Fancy a weekend walking in the Peak District and going to a Wedding Present gig in a cave? What’s not to like about that? The weather was great and the walks up Shining Tor and Mam Tor were spectacular.
Both gigs were just brilliant, impossible to pick a favourite.
An extra special treat to hear “Mars Sparkles Down On Me” at Castleton too, it’s one of their slower songs and they don’t play it live very much. They played a great cover of Low’s song “Canada” that they’d learnt specially to play the next day when they’d been drafted in as a late replacement for that band at the Green Man Festival. So sad to hear then about Mimi’s illness and subsequent passing.
Here's a bit of Granadaland from tonight's Wedding Present gig in Bury. Look at that wrist go! That's how you play rhythm guitar! I've said it before & no doubt I'll say it again, he's the Indie Rock Nile Rodgers! Thanks for another brilliant gig @weddingpresent@suchsmalltweetspic.twitter.com/8pLFV8jW7p
Margo Cilker / Maddie Morris @ The Castle Hotel, Manchester (30th August)
Missed the start of Maddie Morris but as I walked in she was singing about how the advertising industry cynically uses the LGBTQ+ community to create a pretence that they care about actual people. I was right on board with that and I wish I could tell you the name of the song but I don’t know it. (Maddie’s made one album so far, it’s not on that)
Elsewhere Maddie sings of being a survivor of abuse and it’s truly powerful stuff. It’s just one acoustic guitar, one really, really stunning voice and a whole lot of emotional heft. It’s hardcore folk and I liked it very much but it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.
Margo Cilker’s music is far more on the country side of folk. Her voice is a bit Emmylou and you can’t get better than that. Most of the set was taken from 2021 debut album “Pohorylle” but she also played a couple of covers, Dylan’s “She Belongs To Me” and “Navajo Rug” by Ian Tyson (who sadly died today as I was writing this article.) Her backing band were great, especially the Telecaster guy and she told some good stories about her life back home in Oregon where she’s married to an actual cowboy. Yee-ha!
Manchester Psych Fest @ Various venues, Manchester (3rd September)
My 3rd time at this festival which happens on the first Saturday of September, always on or around my birthday and at my age, it’s only right that I get way more excited for Psych Fest than for my birthday!
I saw 10 bands in full (Keg, Tinariwen, Maruja, Jane Weaver, The Bug Club, Battles, Gruff Rhys, Japanese Television, Highschool, Warmduscher)
There were 7 others who I saw some but not all of (Dream Wife, Splint, Loose Articles, Tess Parks, Soup!, The Lucid Dream, Scalping)
A bonus was running into Gruff Rhys for a bit of a chat and a photo on Whitworth Street between bands.
The Handsome Family / Daniel Knox @ St Mary’s Creative Space, Chester (12th September)
After several postponements, it was great to finally see one of my favourite bands back on this side of the pond again after 5 years! This Chester gig was Rennie and Brett first one back after having to cancel a couple of shows through illness. Both of them were clearly still struggling with their singing but a supportive crowd got them through the gig. Exciting to hear some new songs, hopefully a new album in the pipeline? Other personal favourites they played included 24 Hour Store, The Loneliness Of Magnets, The Giant Of Illinois, Octopus, My Sister’s Tiny Hands and The Bottomless Hole. Rennie is just a genius lyricist!!
I’d never heard of the support act Daniel Knox until tonight but his ramschackle onstage persona and his amazing piano-based songs really got my attention. Charmed by his slightly unhinged Randy Newman stylings, I bought his album Chasescene at the gig and it’s really, really good.
Just Mustard / White Flowers / Dog Sport @ Jimmys, Liverpool (20th September)
A triple bill of noisy dreampop with local band Dog Sport kicking things off, followed by White Flowers who played in almost complete darkness but sounded great. Give them a listen if, like me, you’re a Cocteau Twins fan. I’ve been wanting to see headliners Just Mustard ever since I heard their 2019 single Frank. Since then they’ve released 2 very good albums and this gig was worth the wait.
Dog Sport (in green), Just Mustard (in blue), White Flowers (in darkness)
The Wedding Present / Murder Club @ The Leadmill, Sheffield (23rd October)
The penultimate gig of the “Seamonsters” 30th anniversary tour was also my 5th and final time seeing them on that tour. I went to this one with my old pal Simon who went to university in this fair city. We used to travel up to visit him for gigs and football matches and The Leadmill was frequently on our itinerary back then. Simon was the first of our friendship group to see The Wedding Present live in 1987 at this very same venue and over their career The Wedding Present have played this venue more than any other. We saw them play a storming gig here in 2018 on the “Tommy” 30th anniversary tour and just like that gig, there was a proper moshpit at this one. A load of sweaty gits bouncing into each other, pretending they’re not in their 50s and having a fucking great time doing so. It was an honour and a privilege to be amongst them!
Here’s a bit of the ending of “Lovenest” one of my favourites on an album where every song is one of my favourites!
Saw the semi-legendary @weddingpresent play a totally legendary gig at @Leadmill last night. 5th & final 😢 time seeing them on this tour playing my favourite album Seamonsters. London, Liverpool, Castleton, Bury & Sheffield, every one of them just brilliant. pic.twitter.com/WMOlNwtIfW
Support band Murder Club were great here, just as they were in Bury a few weeks earlier. Their catchy songs & girl-group harmonies prompted us to reminisce about seeing Voice Of The Beehive at this same venue back in our teenage years!!
I tested positive for Covid a couple of days after the Sheffield gig and the subequent isolation meant I didn’t get to gigs I had tickets for: Gwenno, Opus Kink and a John MOuse / Peaness double bill. 😞
The Burning Hell / Mathias Kom & Toby Goodshank / Granfalloon @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester (17th October)
My 6th time seeing The Burning Hell and the 2nd time seeing them at this venue. Support from Granfalloon (see Surfing Magazines above) and another inspired Mathias side project playing the songs of Roger Miller (no, not that one!) in partnership with Toby Goodshank. Previously I only knew “King Of The Road” but I learnt at the gig (and from the accompanying album I bought afterwards) that Miller was quite the eccentric songwriter!
Great to hear The Burning Hell play lots of songs from new album “Garbage Island” and in keeping with that album’s ornithogical theme they finished with a cover of “Rockin’ Robin” complete with bird whistling noises.
Delighted to see that they’ve already announced 2023 gigs over here. Already got my ticket for the Liverpool gig. I’ve also noticed they’re playing somewhere called Marple which I’d previously never heard of but have just discovered is only 40 minutes from my home!
Pavement / The Lovely Eggs @ Apollo, Manchester (20th October)
Another “bonus” support band with The Lovely Eggs added to the bill many months after I’d bought the tickets.
They were as fab as ever. As a particular fan of their shorter, dafter songs it was great to hear an old favourite of mine “Slug Graveyard.” The Eggs anthem “Fuck It,” complete with scarf-waving, is always great but the biggest cheer of the night came during list song “You Can Go Now” when Holly adlibbed “Tory shitshow you can go now!”
I didn’t see Pavement when they reformed in 2010 so this gig was 25 years since the last time I’d seen them and 30 years since the first!
When a band has as many great songs as Pavement have, there will be inevitable setlist gripes from pedantic ingrates like me. I would’ve loved to have heard “Elevate Me Later” “Stop Breathin” “Embassy Row” “Transport Is Arranged.” My mate Huw who saw them in London a few days later says they did play quite a few of those! I was basically after more from my favourite albums Crooked Rain / Slanted / Brighten, although I will concede that any hope of them playing early b-side “Greenlander” was always a hell of a long shot.
But enough of my moaning, we still got many other old classics. “Summer Babe” got people moving early on and others I particularly were “Unfair” “Gold Soundz” “Two States” “Cut Your Hair” and the faultless “Here.”
Cud @ The Garage, London (5th November 2022)
This looked like the setup for an ideal Saturday with a QPR home match coinciding, my mate Daniel over from Amsterdam for a brief visit and a London gig for us to go to within stumbling distance of Simon’s house.
I’d rather not discuss how the QPR match went and that might have been a contributory factor in this being comfortably the most drunk I’ve been at any gig this year! But in contrast to the Superhoops, Cud’s performance was thankfully no such letdown, still looking a bit odd yet sounding bloody marvellous. Same as it ever was.
The Wedding Present @ Louder Than Words festival, Innside Hotel, Manchester (11th November)
Curated by Dr Jill Adam & John Robb, Manchester is lucky to have this festival celebrating music and literature. Over a weekend, a whole load of musicians and music writers convene to sell and be interviewed about their books.
First I attended a fascinating Q&A with Helen O’Hara from Dexys and bought her book “What’s She Like.” “Come On Eileen” and “Let’s Get This Straight (From The Start)” were 2 of the first singles I ever bought and both the Dexys albums she played on are very dear to my heart so it was a thrill to hear Helen talk about those and have a chat to her afterwards. But standing next to her exactly as stylishly dressed as you’d expect her to be, I did feel very underdressed in my t-shirt, jeans & trainers! I asked her how Kevin was doing after his motorbike accident and I was pleased to hear that there’s new Dexys music in the pipeline.
Back in 2020, I had a ticket for this festival when it hosted the book launch of comic book biography “Tales From The Wedding Present Volume 1.” That ended up being an online only event with Steve Lamacq interviewing David Gedge.
This time it was John Robb asking the questions, followed by 9 acoustic songs from a stripped down version of the band (David Gedge, regular bassist Melanie Howard and former bassist and co-author of the books Terry De Castro)
During the interview David acknowledged that he wasn’t really a fan of acoustic gigs and whilst I enjoyed this gig and the 2 recent “Locked Down & Stripped Back” albums more than I thought I would, I have to say I agree with him. I wouldn’t necessarily go to see them if they did another tour playing in this style because there is no substitute for the wild assault of bass, drums and distorted electric guitars provided by the proper full-band Wedding Present (See evidence above in videoclips from Bury and Sheffield)
Both books are brilliant though and a godsend to Wedding Present nerds like me. The comicbook format makes them incredibly readable and a few weeks ago, I read the whole of Volume 2 in a single afternoon!
The Mountain Goats / Carson McHone @ Albert Hall, Manchester (17th November)
Support act Carson McHone‘s voice reminded me very much of Gillian Welch which is an indisputably good thing. She played a little bit of harmonica but other than that it was just guitar and voice. The songs were good played solo but the recorded versions are even better. Have a listen to “Someone Else” which is my favourite song from here recent album “Still Life.”
At the start of a road trip holiday with Mrs Garbanzo in 2005, I got talking to a Tower Records employee in the San Francisco store who told me I should buy the new CD by his favourite band. They were called The Mountain Goats and noticing it was on 4AD, I was happy to give up my dollars. That CD “The Sunset Tree” was on heavy rotation for the next couple of weeks as we drove around various western states.
I’ve been meaning to see them live ever since but for whatever reason, it took me 17 years.
I’m not sure what I was expecting from this gig but I was most definitely not prepared for what happened. Man, this band have some passionate fans! The emotional outpouring of love from audience to stage was like very few gigs I’ve seen this year or any other. The singing along in songs like “Up The Wolves” “No Children” and “This Year” was like a football crowd.
Having grown his hair recently, John Darnielle looks like a cross between a young Stephen King and The Dude / Lebowski. In some ways it’s pretty odd how this band led by this man have ended up with such a young and diverse fanbase because he “seems like the last sort of person and band you’d expect to gain a large LGBTQ+ following.” But as this article explains so brilliantly, it’s all about the lyrics.
Great band, great atmosphere, great songs! Personal highlights were “Jenny” “Dark In Here” “The Mess Inside” “Soft Targets” (for the sax playing) and the aforementioned “Up The Wolves.” I will definitely not be waiting another 17 years for more of this!
Ezra Furman / The Golden Dregs @ The Ritz, Manchester (21st November)
And talking of outpourings of love between audience and artist, here comes Ezra on the last night of her tour. Another cracking gig, just like the one I reviewed at this same venue in 2016.
Her recent album “All Of Us Flames” concludes a trilogy (kind of) and is probably my favourite of those 3 albums. 17 of tonight’s 20 songs come from those 3 albums with “Dressed In Black” “Maraschino Red Dress” “Point Me Towards The Real” and opening song “Train Comes Through” shining especially brightly.
But following the tragic mass murder at LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado just a couple of days earlier, the most powerful part of the night was Ezra’s characteristically heartfelt speech leading into the final song, a defiant and impassioned cover of Patti Smith / Bruce Springsteen’s “Because The Night.”
Absolutely loved support band @TheGoldenDregs too. What a voice!! Great band too, their matching outfits reminiscent of Stop Making Sense. pic.twitter.com/F6kpZVSocF
Really liked The Golden Dregs supporting as well, yet another “bonus” support band! They’d been one of the bands I’d wanted to see at Psych Fest but I’d missed them because they clashed with Jane Weaver. I really like their album “Lafayette” but it’s only when you hear them live that you get the full impact of mainman Benjamin Woods’ fantastically resonant voice. He can sing notes so low he makes Stephen Merritt sound like Smokey Robinson! I’ve already pre-ordered their new album and I’ve got my eye on their gig in Manchester next May.
Stereolab / Nina Savary @ New Century Hall, Manchester (27th November)
Back in the 60s this building hosted gigs by Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones. My only previous visit was for a massive beer festival but now it’s got hipster food stalls downstairs and the place is hosting gigs again. Good news because it’s a beautiful venue.
With hypnotic vocals, swirling organs and songs sung in both French and English, you can hear why Stereolab have chosen Nina Savary to support them. She has sung on Laetitia Sadier’s solo albums and Laetitia has returned the favour by playing keyboards on Nina’s most recent album “Next Level Soap Opera.”
With Stereolab having a far larger back catalogue than Pavement discussed above, I have inevitable setlist gripes but I’ll spare you them because it was a really fantastic gig. Plenty of noisy ones, plenty of trippy ones, plenty of 5/4 time signature songs. Someone on Twitter called Peter Finegan described them as “glorious shimmering architects of joyous soundscapes” and I can’t better that for a summary.
The Wave Pictures / Lo Barnes @ The Lexington, London (21st December)
I was gutted to miss The Wave Pictures‘ Manchester gig in May and their Huddersfield gig in October due to other commitments. So it was a very happy Chorizo who noticed that the day we’d arranged to be visiting family in London before Christmas at the coincided with The Wave Pictures playing in the very same postcode. Seren-fucking-dipity!
Following a pre-gig stop off at Tofu on Upper Street for some delicious vegan Chinese food, I met my old pal Jimmy in the pub downstairs and we just had time to raise a toast to the late, great Terry Hall before heading upstairs. Never been here before, what a great little venue this is, massive mirrorball and a raised bar area at the back where shortarses like Jimmy & me can get a good view.
Support act Lo Barnes was great. Twangy torch songs with brushed drums, a cocktail mixed with ingredients borrowed from the nearby borough of Camden, Amy Winehouse & Gallon Drunk. Someone needs to get this girl’s music on the next David Lynch soundtrack.
The headliners kicked off with guaranteed crowd-pleaser “Strange Fruit For David.” We all sang along with that bit about the sculptures and marmalade and David played the first of many fucking amazing guitar solos. Not many bands enjoy themselves onstage as much as these boys seem to but tonight the drinks were flowing even more than usual. David in particular seemed to be in a particularly jocular mood. At one point he proclaimed Franic as “the best bass player in the business” and The Wave Pictures as “the greatest band on the planet.”
Whenever Johnny comes up to the front to sing, you know you’re in for a treat because the next song is going to be either “Sleepy Eye” or “Now You Are Pregnant.” Tonight we got the latter, one of David’s best ever lyrics, sung beautifully as always and following the Elvis / Johnny payoff line, Franic and David extended the song with an incredibly good improvised instrumental section. Greatest band on the planet? They might just be right!
They played some of the best songs from the new double album, including “Douglas,” “French Cricket” and the Dr Feelgood-esque “Back In The City” which prompted Jimmy and I into drinking a toast to another recently departed hero, dear old Wilko Johnson. (The Wave Pictures did their own tribute to him in 2017 with their “Canvey Island Baby” EP)
The drummer from The Surfing Magazines joined them on vocals for the final number, a cover of Neil Young’s “Roll Another Number.” But a few songs earlier they’d played an even better cover, when they’d blasted through The 13th Floor Elevators’ garage classic “You’re Gonna Miss Me.” Check out this video of them playing that song in Zaragoza last month.
Huge thanks to all the bands, promoters and venues who make these gigs possible.
And more huge thanks ❤️❤️❤️to my various friends and family who’ve been to gigs with me in 2022: Mrs Garbanzo, Garbanzo Junior The Elder, Rich B, Rich F, Simon, Will, Ben, Andy, Ellie, Tom, Mark, Garbanzo Senior a.k.a. my dad, Tony, Paul, Alex, James, Daniel, Nick and Jimmy. Mike, we missed you this year!
As it is definitely still tradition, let’s start with my favourite SONG OF THE YEAR – a full run down of all my favourite songs can be heard on one of our end of the year podcasts – the Kicker one – and, well, it’s not every year that a song you co-wrote 34 years ago gets covered by, as Chorizo Garbanzo correctly points out on the podcast, not only a proper musician, but a “rock star”.
Good grief, it’s Hercules Fence!!
(If you’re so inclined, you can hear the original on this podcast, about 25 minutes in.)
Top 25 Albums
1 Simon Love – Love, Sex And Death, Etc
We wizards fucking love Simon Fucking Love, and this might just be his best record yet. Combining brilliant storytelling with a suitably cynical view of the world, and yet somehow remaining life affirming, these songs tick all our boxes, including the one marked ‘gratuitous swearing’. A clear winner of this year’s Kicker. Llongyfarchiadau, Simon!!
2 The Vat Egg Imposition – Shop Tones
3 Telefís – a hAon / a Dó
4 Robyn Hitchcock– Shufflemania
5 Yard Act – The Overload
6 Dumb – Pray 4 Tomorrow
7 Half Man Half Biscuit – The Voltarol Years
8 The Cool Greenhouse – Sod’s Toastie
9 The Humdrum Express – Forward Defensive
10 Rodney Cromwell – Memory Box
11 Guided By Voices – Crystal Nuns Cathedral / Tremblers And Goggles By Rank
12 Royal Chant – Anyways And Also Sorry
13 The Bug Club – Green Dream in F#
14 Elaine Howley – The Distance Between Heart And Mouth
15 Cassels – Gut Feeling
16 Martha – Please Don’t Take Me Back
17 New North Wales – Minor Birds
18 Good Grief – Shake Your Faith
19 Aldous Harding – Warm Chris
20 Personal Trainer – Big Love Blanket
21 Birds In The Brickwork – Recovery
22 Fieldhead – Engine Idling, Around 5am
23 The Cleaners From Venus – That London
24 Helen Love – This Is My World
25 Pixy Jones – Bits N Bobs
…. and making up a top 50 albums, all of which you should own, are, in alphabetical order, 25 more:
Apta – Echoes; The Balloonist – The Balloonist; Black Country, New Road – Ants From Up There; The Burning Hell – Garbage Island; Bill Callahan – YTI⅃AƎЯ; Courting – Guitar Music; Death Of The Neighbourhood – Death Of The Neighbourhood 3; Deliluh – Fault Lines; The Delines – The Sea Drift; Derrero – Curvy Lines; Fragile X – Human Condition; Held By Trees – Solace; Human Concept – The Machine That Made Eternity; Joseph Airport – Vector 23; Love, Burns – It Should Have Been Tomorrow; Stephen Mallinder – Tick Tick Tick; Kevin Morby – This Is A Photograph; The Nightingales – The Last Laugh; Red Setter – Water Feature; The Reds, Pinks & Purples – Summer At Land’s End; Graham Repulski – Zero Shred Forty; The Smile – A Light For Attracting Attention; Luke Steele – Listen To The Water; Test Card – Patterns; Working Men’s Club – Fear Fear
Top 5 Compilations
1 Keep It In Motion: A Tribute To Guided By Voices, Circa 20 Something And 12 (Silly Moo Records)
I mean, these songs are great, aren’t they? Here given a fresh take from a load of excellent bands form all over the globe (probably just the UK and US, tbf – TTW Accuracy Ed). If I had to choose a favourite, I would have to go with the stellar efforts from Sleepy Kitty and bLUSH, but, frankly, it’s all great.
The title track opens up my disc of favourite instrumentals despite not being an instrumental. This is a moving collection of songs that simultaneously makes me feel happy and sad.
2 Helpful People – Broken Blossom Threats
3 Nosdam + Rayon – From Nowhere To North
4 Ffion – The Way Of Birds And Their Voyage Into Radiance
5 Pigbaby – Palindromes
Top 5 Reissues / Re-pressings / Remixes / Not Strictly Speaking New Stuff
1 Jenny Mae – Singles & Unreleased Tracks 1989-2017
Put together by her friend Bela Koe-Krompecher, these songs just underline what a lost talent Jenny Mae really is. Having read Bela’s ‘book ‘Love, Death & Photosynthesis’ last year, it’s clear she really didn’t have a clue how great she was.You just need to listen to this collection to see for yourself.
2 Guided By Voices – Scalping the Guru
3 Dexys Midnight Runners – Too Rye Ay (As It Could Have Sounded)
4 Helen Love – Songs From Under The Bed Vol 2
5 Babybird – King Of Nothing
Top 5 Live Albums
1 Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan – Live at Fox Fest
The standout set for me from a great day of electronic music (see below), and all done with such huge hands!
2 Craven Faults – Live Works
3 Yard Act – Use Your Nut, It’s YA For Yard Act
4 Black Country, New Road – Live From The Queen Elizabeth Hall
5 Neil Young – Citizen Kane Jr. Blues (Live At The Bottom Line)
The Robert Pollard Annual Output Roundup
Guided By Voices – Devil Between My Toes (reissue on grey/clear);Crystal Nuns Cathedral; Tremblers And Goggles By Rank; Scalping the Guru (EP comp);Alex Bell (7”); Thank You Very Much For Absolutely Nothing (DVD)
Robert Pollard – Our Gaze
Two tribute albums: Keep It In Motion: A Tribute To Guided By Voices Circa 20 Something And 12 (Silly Moo Records) – curated by Bunnygrunt’s Matt Harnish (see elsewhere) and All Good Kids – A Tribute To Guided By Voices (Phonophore Records)
And from the wider GbV family, we had the always rocked to the max, Mitch Mitchell’s Terrifying Experience – Appalachian Tontine and the very Circus Devils sounding Moonchy & Tobias – Golem
Top 2 Books (Read This Year)
One a musician’s autobiography, the other a novel by a musician. Both incredible tales.
Vashti Bunyan – Wayward: Just Another Life To Live and James Yorkston – The Book Of The Gaels
Other books I have read this year:
Matt Berenson – Secret Stars: The Greatest Underdogs of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Era ***; James Bowen – A Street Cat Named Bob *; Anthony Clavane – Moving The Goalposts ***; Ron Ferguson – Black Diamonds & The Blue Brazil ***; David Grossman – A Horse Walks Into A Bar **; Sarah Hall – The Carhullan Army ***; Helen O’Hara – What’s She Like ***; Robert Harris – The Second Sleep **; Phil Hay – And It Was Beautiful ***; Greg Healey – Not In Front Of The Children **; Mick Herron – Real Tigers **; Mick Herron – Spook Street ***; Mick Herron – London Rules ***; Mick Herron – Joe Country ***; Mick Herron – Slough House ***; Mick Herron – The Drop & The List **; Mick Herron – The Catch **; Charlie Hill – I Don’t Want To Go To The Taj Mahal **; Salim Lamrani – Marcelo Bielsa *; Alan Lane – The Club On The Edge Of Town ***; Bob Mortimer – The Satsuma Complex **; James Norman – Micro Record Label **; George P Pelecanos – A Firing Offence ***; Stephen Rule – Welsh And I **; Richard Shepherd – Unnatural Causes ***; Willy Vlautin – The Motel Life ***; Willy Vlautin – The Free ***; Ben Wardle – Mark Hollis: A Perfect Silence ***; Martyn Ware – Electronically Yours ***
Top 5 Music Films Seen (But Not Necessarily Released) This Year
1 This Film Should Not Exist (Country Teasers, Datblygu, The Oblivians, The Rebel)
So good, I have now watched it three times. Diolch yn fawr, Gisella!
2 Guided By Voices – Thank You Very Much For Absolutely Nothing
3 Made In Sheffield: The Human League, Heaven 17, ABC, Cabaret Voltaire, Pulp
4 Martin Newell – The Golden Afternoon
5 Who Killed The KLF
The Stephen Jones One Man Domination Of Record Shelf Space Award
Just the 262 tracks released by Stephen Jones this year under various guises:
Babybird – Kids Gun / Pop Gun / A Selfie Cam EP / Selfie Cam / Shepherds Bush, 09.03.19/ I Don’t Want To Be In Love, But I Am / Life, The Brutal Monster, And How To Defeat It / Influencer / King Of Nothing (vinyl)
Baby Bird – Good Shave
Stephen Jones – My Favourite Songs/ The Soundtrack Of A Face / The Happiest People I Know Are Blind To The Concept Of Existence
Death Of The Neighbourhood – Death Of The Neighbourhood 3
Subscription Library: Endangered Species 1998; Nurse Predator – Music For Low Luxury; Ffion – The Way of Birds and Their Voyage Into Radiance; Twilight Sequence – Looking At Lifeforms (7”); Salvatore Mercatante – Mysteries And Prophecies Of The Strega; Kieran Mahon – Eternal Return (dl); DJ Carlos – Castles in Space Vinyl Mix; Yves Malone – Upon Chrome Skies Rides A Pale Horse; Everyday Dust – Deadham Ridge; Wealdham – Complex Systems; Luke Requena – Mirror Stage;Kösmonaut – Transgressive Transmissions;Soulless Party – Macrocosmic Thinking; v/a – Participation Volume 1; Concretism – The Concretism Archive: Volume 2; Rieux – The Gestalt Manifesto;The British Stereo Collective – Tomorrow The Stars; Monochrome Echo – The City And The Stars.
Subscription:Chris Prine – Glacier Locked; Glinca – The Mould; Fields Of Few – Calm Before The Norm; Onepointwo – Atlantis; The Metamorph – Exploded View; Synthetic Villains – Through A Crack Of Light;Oceanographer – Modern Prophecies; Letters From Mouse – Engrams; v/a – One Shot; Gribbles – Digressions; WFR Dark (comp);Autumna – This Isn’t The Love You Promised; Mike K Smith – Landfill
We Should Be Together; I Am Not Going To Fall In Love With You; Go Go Go; Monochrome; X Marks The Spot; Once Bitten; We Interrupt Our Programme; Each Time You Open Your Eyes; We All Came From The Sea; Astronomic; Science Fiction;
The Bluebells – Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool; The Suede Crocodiles – Stop The Rain; Josef K – Sorry For Laughing; Article 58 – Event To Come; The Monochrome Set – The Jet Set Junta; The Wild Swans – Revolutionary Spirit; Black – Human Features; The Wake – On Our Honeymoon; The Times – I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape; Dolly Mixture – Everything And More; The Chefs – 24 Hours; The Avocados – I Never Knew
Top 3 Gigs
To be fair, the only 3 gigs I went to. And one was online. This is what happens when your knees go, kids, never play cricket!!
1 Spare Snare – The Hug and Pint, Glasgow, 19 September
2 Hap & Damwain – Victoria Hall, Lampeter, 4 June
3 FoxFest livestream festival, 21st May 2022:
Scanner, Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan, Everyday Dust, Sulk Rooms, Cholly, Dohnavùr, Faex Optim, Letters From Mouse, Mike K Smith, Apta, Bendu, Eonlake
Favourite Music Related Moments (Outside of Everything Above)
As well as being covered (see above), my old band Tom Violence were also included on the Castles In Space – Participation Volume 1 compilation made available to subscribers (see above, but further down). However, perhaps the most exciting musical development came in form of long-time hero and prolificacy’s proliferator supreme, Stephen Jones, aka Babybird, who went and wrote a song about me and my son. I can’t listen to it without crying, but you might be able to:
Please help support all the wonderful musicians mentioned in the lists above by searching out their records, CDs, tapes and downloads and BUYING THEM!!!
The elves that work behind the scenes of this website have been especially motivated by the threat of being kicked and they’ve managed to get you Chorizo Garbanzo’s favourite songs of 2022 a full 8 days before the year is over!
Click the links below to listen.
We’re going to see the otters. (There aren’t any otters.)
In a year that has seemed to be full of departures, whether literal, temporary or permanent, it has been reassuring to find once again that great new music keeps on arriving.
In his annual round up, our Kicker narrows it down to his favourite 24 tracks of the year, split across two podcasts for your bitesize enjoyment.
Just click on the two pictures below to find a link to stream or download each half of the show.
Turn away now if you don’t want to know what was played. Otherwise, here’s the run down:
As always, we urge you to support all the wonderful musicians involved in making our lives more tolerable by seeking them out on bandcamp (using the links above where available) or elsewhere, and BUYING their stuff.
It’s a cold and rainy Sunday evening and Northwich town centre is even more deserted than usual.
But at the southern end of the pedestrianised High Street you’ll find the best choice of beer in town at The Salty Dog. The owners are desperately trying to breathe some life into this town with regular live music, DJs and comedy nights.
Coincidentally it was exactly 7 years ago today that I first encountered the phenomenon known to the world as Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip. For the uninitiated, they are a 3 piece playing in a 2-1 formation. The backline tonight consists of ever-present shiny-shoed guitar whizzkid Johnny Flockton and a Fruitbat-haired bassist who I think is called Carl. Up front and centre of attention we have the frontman every other band wishes they had, the indescribable Mik Artistik.
He’s a sexagenarian rock star.
He’s a philosopher, a poet, a visionary.
He’s an accordionist with accoutrements.
He’s a menace to society.
He’s a livestream of consciousness.
He’s a shouty bald man in a string vest.
As Kris Kristofferson puts it “he’s a walkin’ contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.”
The current tour is billed as the “Sharp” tour, named after the recently released album which was recorded live in Mik’s hometown of Leeds in December 2021. They’ve released 10 albums now, 3 of them recorded live and often that’s the best way to hear the songs. The live versions can often end up double or triple the length of the original versions once Mik goes off on his tangential ad-libs.
At this gig they only played 5 of the 13 tracks from the “Sharp” album. To be honest I was delighted about that because I got to hear quite a few of my favourite songs that aren’t included on that album.
One of those was the breezy opener “I Don’t Need Heroin” in which our hero plays an accordion while vowing to stick to bitter, Baileys and Belgian chocolates instead. Good advice for all and certainly far funnier than Lou Reed’s song, apart from the line “it’s my wife and it’s my life” which for some reason I’ve always found hilarious.
“the trouble with heroin, it’s very moreish apparently”
That was followed by another of my favourites where Mik is worrying about guitarist Johnny leaving the group, with its increasingly panicked refrain “Johnny’s had an offer from another fucking band!”
Mik boasts of his new musical instrument in “Acoustic Synthesizer” and gives details some of the amazing sounds you get when you press its keys… bird song, a choir of angels, even the football scores! Leeds United 4 Man City 0 apparently, a scoreline which will delight my fellow wizard Kicker Of Elves.
If you’ve been wondering when someone was finally going to get round to writing a dub reggae anthem about people who don’t pick up their dogs’ shit, then “Clampdown” is the song you’ve been waiting for. The 2 boys at the back were playing a blinder on that one.
Another highlight was “Tribute Band” an extended spoken word piece so lengthy it was split into 2 halves either side of the interval. It tells the story of how an impressionable and youthful Mik become obsessed with a band called Theme and how his life was subsequently turned upside down by a chance meeting in the Dolomites. It’s 150% fictional but the detail and precision in the words and performance are so inspired that as you chuckle along, you just have to admire the writing.
The first half was brought to a close with “I’m Turnin’ Into Dad.” There are a lot of lines about getting old in his lyrics and the topic of becoming more like your parents as you get older is one that would be very easy to just play for laughs. But we’re not talking about a musician who takes the obvious path here. Mik’s song about his dad is genuinely moving. He’s been our guide through quite a dramatic change in mood and we’re all going with it. Ten minutes ago he was singing about dog shit in a silly Jamaican accent, now he’s singing about his childhood and many of the crowd simultaneously seem to have something in their eye.
The second half opened with “David Bowie (Was A Funny Man)” another touching song centred around Mik playing the “Golden Years” riff on his accordion. The song mentions that Bowie’s dad was from Doncaster which I just presumed was totally made up. But I just Googled it and it’s bloody true!
David Bowie by Mik Artistik
With its post-punk guitar riffing and unhinged vocals, possibly my all-time favourite Ego Trip song is “Plastic Fox.” The live version tonight was even more intense. The grandkids love it!
The hits just kept on coming as we neared the end of that second half. Not sure where Mik disappeared to while they played “Secret Cloak Of Invisibility” but both that song and the recent single “Glastonbury” went down very well.
Two older songs that I really love, but had completely forgotten about also made very welcome appearances in the set, “Bali” wherein Mik visits the tropical island in his dreams and the unquenchably funky “Condoleeza Rice.”
There were also some new songs along the way, I particularly enjoyed the one about being an old man in a flat cap seeing another old man in a flat cap in the street.
The final song was inevitably “Sweet Leaf Of The North,” named as the greatest song of the 2010s by no less a person than Iggy Fucking Pop! This was preceded by another exhilarating improvised flight of fancy from Mik, in which I especially enjoyed his impression of a Londoner. With the band still playing round the soulful keyboard riff as the song ended, Mik sang his thanks to us all for coming out on a Sunday night. Then we headed back out into the rain with our lives considerably enriched.
This is the second part of my discussion with Jan Burnett of Spare Snare – you can find the first part here.
Here, I presented Jan with all 11 (ELEVEN) Spare Snare albums and asked him to select his ‘one from each’, either a favourite track or one that means the most to him. Jan asked to clarify that we were only talking about the album versions of songs, and I also went through and chose my favourites too. See if you agree.
LIVE AT HOME (1995) – As A Matter Of Fact
Jan: A Matter of Fact.
Kicker: .. is the correct answer. Is it because it’s the first song?
J: {laughs} Yeah, maybe not that album version, but as a song… I think I prefer the 4-track [version], but it’s the one that started it all off, you know? It triggered everything.
WESTFIELD LANE (1996) – Action Hero
J: (picks up Westfield Lane CD) Oh, this is interesting, where did you get that?
K: Oh, I’m not sure, did I not get it off you?
J: Don’t think so, it has a different rubber stamp. It’s a circle one normally.
K: Oh, is it a rarity? Excellent!
J: Hmm… I don’t know how many he made of this – he repressed it without telling me {laughs}, hey ho.
not rare at all, dammit
K: Of course, Guided By Voices and Cobra Verde had a single on [the Wabana label] too.
J; Yeah, the guy who ran the label (John Petkovic) was in GbV for a while… [From this] it’s probably obviously Action Hero, but James Dean Poster is a favourite as well. I’m going to say Action Hero as James Dean Poster has a sample on it.
K: Well, I’ve gone for Action Hero too..
J: I haven’t seen your list, honest…
K: No, no, but we seem to be in tune here…
ANIMALS AND ME (1998) – If I Had A Hi-Fi
J: Out of all the albums, we’ll exclude Sounds, because Sounds has got songs that are off these [other albums], and we’ll exclude the first album, I think this is probably the next strongest album. I think this is our most underrated. Right, I’m going to go with [If I Had A] Hi-Fi.
K: OK. Me too. {laughs}. What do you like about that songs apart from the fact that the title’s a palindrome?
J: It’s brilliant? {laughs} No, it’s weird, the lyrics were so out of date, and then they’ve come back in date. Everyone’s got record players again. I dunno, it [the song] works really well. I think the BBC Scotland version we did in 2018 as part of the Sounds promo is probably the ultimate version, we had slide on it, and it kind of blew me away. It’s on the boxset [The Complete BBC Radio Sessions 1995 – 2018]
CHARM (2001) – Taking On The Sides
K: You’ll know which one I like best on there, but I don’t know if that’ll influence you…
J: Erm, Taking On The Sides is probably the one, although Calling In The Favours… if I have to go with one (It is the One From Each section, Jan! – TTW Ed.)… it’d be Taking On The Sides.
K: See. We agree again, and you knew I’d say that because when you were offering to do hand written lyrics, I made you write out the whole thing including [Charles] Schultz’s spoken bit…
J: Yeah, thanks for that. {laughs}
LEARN TO PLAY (2004) – Why Don’t You Sing In Your Accent?
J: This is a funny record. I don’t always like it, but, er, Why Don’t You Sing In Your Accent?
K: OK, why that one?
J: Well, it’s probably more relevant now than ever {laughs}, but from memory, the recording was at the old Chem19 [with Andy Miller] or some of it was done on 4-track and then taken there. I think it’s got some really good music elements on it, and it’s quite a clever title and lyric as well.
K: I agree. And that’s why I chose it as well.
J: Oh, for fuck’s sake!
K: I don’t know why I’m bothering to ask you all this, I could have done it myself. {laughs} But the thing about that song is it is a Scottish song, right?
J: Aye, I suppose.
GARDEN LEAVE (2006) – Grow
J: This is a good example of where choosing a track to do with [Steve] Albini totally worked because Grow was kind of lost, and I always thought it was a great tune. So, doing it again with Albini with the extra trumpet and stuff, I think really worked. So, I’m going to go with Grow…
K: Well, of course you have because that’s what I went for. {laughs} Although, I do agree that the Sounds version is even better.
J: Yeah, it is a bit lost here, but then this is our lost period where people didn’t buy the records.
I LOVE YOU, I HATE YOU (2009) – Kicking Up Leaves
J: Good title that! The wife didn’t like that title, but… this is where we might go wrong with our choices… I’m going to say Kicking Up Leaves.
K: OK, yeah, I didn’t say that. Why do you like that one?
J: It’s totally about my daughter, actually. It’s a lyric about childhood, autumn leaves… There’s the obvious [choice] Spot The Difference, but no…
K: Well, I went for Qwerty For The Masses, which is also particularly helpful because it gives you that full A-Z of song titles, which I guess is very important and part of your long-term planning. {laughs}
VICTOR (2010) – And Now It’s Over
J: This is quite good, I quite like this, it reminds me of when we did the playbacks [over Twitter] during the lockdown. I do remember them [the albums] better now.
K: So, you don’t listen back very often? It’s like you’ve recorded it, so that’s it now, and you move on…
J: Yeah, well, I will go back in maybe a year or so and listen back, but… Now It’s Over.
K: Well, Our Jazz, which is not released in any useful form, it was just a download, wasn’t it?
J: {laughs} Well, yes, it has come out on cassette though…
K: Well, sort it out, get it out on vinyl…
J: OK. That’d be quite good. All I can say is that this was when no-one was interested, which is why it never came out physically. But then, there’s tracks in there like I Am God that are good, so, erm, I am going to say I Am God.
K: I mean that is the [standout] song on there, but I haven’t chosen it for a reason [that will become apparent]. I went for Distinctly Obsolete. Do you play that live? You don’t, do you?
J: No, I don’t think we’ve ever played that. It’s obviously about us. {laughs} Well, at that time, it was, like, yeah, nobody’s interested. I think at the time I probably thought it was our last record. It was these four [lost albums] and then we came back. I’m not sure why that happened.
UNICORN (2017) – Not As Smart As You
K: Yeah, so what was the push then? It was a round this time [2015] you came down and played Liverpool…
J: It might have been just having a bit of interest from other people. All of this [album] was done on 16 track. I think Alan and Barry probably had some preliminary stuff they sent to me and I added to it and deleted stuff and chopped it up, and made it what it is… I’m going to go for Not As Smart As You.
K: OK. The ‘pop song’. See, I really like that, but I was listening to the album on the way up [to Glasgow] and the song that jumped out to me was You’re Not Home, which I really liked when I first heard the album, but I’d almost forgotten about it because there’s also the likes of Hope You Never Go, and a few others that you regularly play live, but you don’t play that. But there’s a line in it that goes “this democracy is not yours, free yourself, it’s not yours…”, which is so relevant now.
J: Well, this Unicorn is a Scottish, er, animal {laughs}, it relates to Scotland. This was [about] nuclear war and the [Scottish] referendum. You’ve got the Chernobyl recording, which weirdly I recorded on cassette from Russian radio, Radio Moscow, at the time, in my room in my mum and dad’s house, and I found it, I forgot I had it, and there was also the story of the sinking of a Russian ship off Australia, where forty people died, at the same time. So, I transferred that over to digital and then it all kind of made sense.
K: So, this is the political album then, if there is one?
J: Well, it’s political with a slightly bigger P {laughs}
K: I really thought those lines about democracy in light of the mandated national mourning were really quite striking.
J: Oh yeah, well, it’s also about Trident, why do we have Trident, well, we’ve got the deep water that’s why otherwise it’s be in Wales. {laughs} The English government would be scuppered without us having that here. That’s the only reason they want us: Trident, oil, whisky. The things that make money. {laughs}.
K: So, not Spare Snare then?
J: {laughs} No, not Spare Snare!
SOUNDS (2018) – Action Hero
K: So, these are all songs that are actually elsewhere, but these are Albini-ed versions.
J: This was a good chance, as I said earlier, to choose songs that might have been hidden before or that would suit Albini’s sound, we thought, and I think that worked out. I think on here, it’s probably Action Hero as well. You know, they all have different little stories, the studio memories and stuff. So, with Bugs, the intro, and then where it gets loud, is actually two different recordings. So, he chopped them and joined it up, so fast, on tape… amazing! And you wouldn’t know, but that was his decision.
K: So, would you never have done that yourself?
J: No, I wouldn’t have. So, he’s super fast with his razor blade and putting it all together, so he could do that. It was what I was saying to Raveloe last night, who was supporting us, was if she wanted any advice with mastering or that type of thing, go to someone who does it all the time. Not a mate, it’s like a hospital theatre, you want someone who does it all the time, who’s not going to fuck it up, they know what they’re doing. Partly [this is down to] speed, but also they know what they’re talking about and they’re going to get it right for whatever format you need to take it to get pressed, or whatever. There’s no point in not using someone’s experience.
K: Do you generally like the versions on Sounds more than the originals?
J: No, I think they’re just different. The Live At Home version of Bugs totally fits that album, it’s just different. It made sense not to just do a whole bunch of songs that potentially weren’t very good. For our first time with Albini, we thought let’s choose songs that we know are pretty good, that we know back to front… Whereas, this time, we’ve spent nine months [on it] so we know these songs are good, we know they’re decent and they sound great.
[Kicker chose the Sounds version of I Am God to complete the set]
Look out for that new Spare Snare album recorded with Steve Albini due sometime early next year. In the meantime, you can find the Spare Snare back catalogue on Bandcamp.
Here’s a playlist of all Jan’s selections, plus Kicker’s choices where these differed.
TRUST THE WIZARDS 