super groovy delicious bite: jangle pop

Showing posts with label jangle pop. Show all posts

Thursday, July 30, 2015

underwater moonlight

The Soft Boys were out on a limb and felt it coming on in floating currents so powerfully strong they set the body free and hatched an undersea classic. The Cambridge based group had challenged the punk ethos with their daring debut 'A Can Of Bees'; but with their second album, they found the perfect balance of psychedelic beat and jangle pop.

A major change came with new bassist Matthew Seligman, who forced the band to simplify their musical approach: "I couldn’t cope with all the chord changes...But you have to remember, we were just this tiny little band. That is the thing that can be most misunderstood at this remove of time. We were a tiny band with a little indie album. Everything that happened afterwards with the record is thoroughly deserved. I just wish I could go back and show you - it wasn’t in the cards for us. Our band seemed to be the most ephemeral thing, so much promise but nothing delivered at all. [Underwater Moonlight] is a lovely piece of history. But I don’t know how it happened...I never saw anyone ’arrange’ anything. Things would fall into place, without anybody saying anything."

'Underwater Moonlight' was produced by Pat Collier and Mike Kemp at Alaska and James Morgan studios in London and by the staff at Spaceward Studios in Cambridge, England. The sessions featured Robyn Hitchcock on guitar, vocals, and rhythm bass; Kimberley Rew on guitar, vocals, bass guitar, and synthesiser; Matthew Seligman on bass guitar; and Morris Windsor on drums and vocals; with Gerry Hale adding violin; and Andy King on sitar.

Rew reveals: "I think we hit our stride with Underwater Moonlight ... Financially, the second album was done bit by bit. Every time Robyn got enough money together we could record a few songs at a time. Pat Collier was a great producer- he didn't change our sound at all. He was sympathetic and had a natural feel for it. He was low-key and confidence inspiring...The songwriting certainly changed. Robyn was always developing- his songs appealed directly to peoples' feelings. The curtain of dark imagery just got thinner and some light came through. In the early days, we'd have competitions to introduce little twists into the music. We stopped that by the second album and simply supplied the musical setting for the songs...We were always playing live in Cambridge. You had the pub-rock phenomenon there. It was the pub-circuit after pub-rock was over. We did manage to break into the London circuit but we really didn't get any further than that. When we toured nationally, punk became a problem for us. It was the current thing that the kids subscribed to. Because of that, we couldn't get an audience in Sheffield or Leeds. The strength of being individual wasn't good enough. We did get to go to New York in 1980 but that's as far as we got, geographically...We were just contemporary with punk so it tended to set the tone at the time. You were forced to justify why your band wasn't punk then...For the Soft Boys, people weren't patient enough for '60's-type, mainstream rock. That was seen as old-fashioned and because of that, the group couldn't break through commercially."

Hitchcock harkens back: "The first one was 'Can of Bees', and there was in fact another one as well before that which we recorded for the Radar label but aborted. The first good one though was 'Underwater Moonlight'. It’s one of the albums I’m most proud of. It’s certainly the best Soft Boys album...I have made albums since then that I like as much probably...'Underwater Moonlight', however, is definitely up there. It’s like saying though: is it better to be 20 or 40? Neither is, it’s just different. Life isn’t a means to an end, it’s just a series of moments that you make the best of. 'Moonlight' was the work of four young guys in their mid/late twenties and I thought it was pretty good really. I'm definitely pleased with it, and I’m glad it has survived...I pictured the Soft Boys a bit like civil servants. They were powerful, but you wouldn't see them. They were invisible, but they had a huge influence. Funnily enough, that's kind of what happened...My vision of them was that they had been filleted, they had no bones so they could slide under doors and then come back up, like in the Terminator movies, so they could get anywhere, through a keyhole or under a door. They would be bloodless, like they had been drained like Halal, but they would be alive . They didn't have bones and they also had a tremendous sexual appetite in some ghastly way that was left to the imagination. I thought this is too good so I had I had to write about in a song and came up with 'Give it To the Soft Boys'...We were also in one sense all very soft. We were middle class, mother’s boys, wouldn’t hurt a fly, couldn’t confront anyone never mind each other, very nice people who avoided eye contact and really liked Monty Python and kind of laughing at things quietly in silent laughter. Anyway, there it was in a way. We did become invisible, but an influential force after our demise...I felt quite sour about it all which never helps because no one loves you when you’re sour and angry! I remember there was a bill at the Electric Ballroom in London with the Psychedleic Furs, and the Bunnymen, the Teardrop Explodes and Wah, and I thought 'Fuck it ! No one asked us.'...They were a bit younger and in some ways they were more sort of post-punk that us. They were people who had been through punk and had decided to get onto a bit of a psychedelic trip where we were pre-punk and we didn’t really adopt psychedelia. It was already there in our system. They discovered psychedelia and decided to wave it as a flag whereas we didn’t wave it as a flag. It was what we were anyway. A lot of them were from Liverpool, so they were probably a lot more outside-world friendly; Cambridge is rather sheltered."

Sunday, January 11, 2015

reading, writing and arithmetic

The Sundays went following the feel of fire to create the half twisted janglepop swoon of this impressionistic ethereal souvenir. The heart of the band formed when Harriet Wheeler and David Gavurin met at Bristol University. Gavurin reveals: "We bought a drum machine, a bass guitar, and a four-track recorder and began writing songs for a band, even though there were only two of us ... The way we write is, I'll put down a lyric and Harriet will write the next line...I admit it's kind of weird, since I don't know how many other writers work that way. But it works for us. We like that a person can be writing a song one way and the other person can take it on a completely different tangent. Actually, it's the only way we know how to write ... The mood of the music determines the diction of the lyrics. We don't tell structured stories or have specific matter that can be unlocked with a magic key. Our lyrics are more a jumble of personal impressions. In the confusion, important feelings get mixed up with completely meaningless garbage."

They enlisted their friend Paul Brindley and Patrick Hannan, the brother of another friend, to be their rhythm section and relocated to London. At their first show, they drew the attention of several record companies. Gavurin: "We'd done no gigs, contacted no one, sent out no tapes, and suddenly we had record companies courting us and four firm offers,"

Wheeler: "It was very exciting as well as quite stupid--a few weeks of not sleeping a lot because there was so much to think about."

They settled on Rough Trade because, as Gavurin quips, "It was near our flat."

'Reading, Writing and Arithmatic' features Harriet Wheeler on vocals, David Gavurin on guitar, Paul Brindley on bass, Patrick Hannan on drums, and Lindsay Jamieson on tambourine. The band co-produced the sessions with Gentle Giant's Ray Shulman; but the album took over a year to finish. Gavurin says: "A lot of bands who get signed, who have been playing the circuit for years, have 30 songs for the first album; but we didn't have enough for our first album, let alone our second. We can't write to deadline. You can't force a whole load of songs out quickly...The main pressure we felt was with the single, and even then, we thought, well, they're either going to like it or they're not, and there's not much we can do to influence that."

'Reading, Writing and Arithmatic' resonated with listeners around the world, charting at forty in Australia, thirty-nine in the US, and number four in the UK.

Gavurin and Wheeler look back: “Our first taste of anything fame-related was when we started getting recognized in London, and given that things had kicked off for us in such an overnight fashion, this felt a little freaky initially. So we decided to clear off to Barcelona for a few days to get our heads ’round this new change in our lives, only to find the same thing occurring there. For a brief paranoid period, you can think the whole world is following your every move. Things move on pretty quickly in the music industry though, and there’s always some up-and-coming act to take the spotlight, and what with gradually adapting to our newfound minor-celebrity status, life overall didn’t alter significantly. The main upside of any success was that we were able to live from making music, traveling the world in the process — something we felt hugely grateful for...As writers, the odd thing is that you’re as likely to think back to the place where the songs were actually composed as to any location or situation that inspired their creation. So in the case of “Can’t Be Sure” and “Here’s Where the Story Ends” in particular, these songs transport us to the minuscule boiler room attached to the equally cramped rented flat we were living in before our careers took off. At the time, despite the industrial noise of the hot-water system and the frequent burglaries, this felt like the perfect writing environment, and virtually all of what ended up on our first album originated there. Not very poetic, but there you have it!"

"Here's Where the Story Ends" became a number one smash hit on the US alternative singles chart; but it was never released as a single in the UK because Rough Trade Records went bankrupt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHsip5xOenQ

People I know places I go
Make me feel tongue tied
I can see how people look down
They're on the inside

Here's where the story ends

People I see, weary of me
Showing my good side
I can see how people look down
I'm on the outside

Here's where the story ends
Ooh here's where the story ends

It's that little souvenir of a terrible year
Which makes my eyes feel sore
Oh I never should have said
The books that you read
Were all I loved you for
It's that little souvenir of a terrible year
Which makes me wonder why
And it's the memories of the shed
That make me turn red
Surprise surprise surprise

Crazy I know, places I go
Make me feel so tired
I can see how people look down
I'm on the outside

Oh here's where the story ends
Ooh here's where the story ends

It's that little souvenir of a terrible year
Which makes my eyes feel sore
And who ever would've thought
The books that you brought
Were all I loved you for
Oh the devil in me said
Go down to the shed
I know where I belong
But the only thing I ever really wanted to say
Was wrong, was wrong, was wrong

It's that little souvenir of a colorful year
Which makes me smile inside
So I cynically, cynically say the world is that way
Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise

Here's where the story ends
Ooh here's where the story ends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kJokrPUYVo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXsT4pWtjA8

"Joy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwEakHWFiSU

"Can't Be Sure"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yARVs1ZNLjU

UK version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5qNe2MFzk

"You're Not the Only One I Know"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ip6ly5rR-k

"I Kicked A Boy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swrBgXBPJ8I

'Reading, Writing and Arithmatic'
full album:

https://myspace.com/harrietwheeler/music/album/reading-writing-arithmetic-6217

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Sundays/Reading,+Writing+and+Arithmetic

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=ALBTKoXRg38BB3XYdBNq4mNhLJjKlazrE3

All songs written by David Gavurin and Harriet Wheeler.

"Skin & Bones" – 4:16
"Here's Where the Story Ends" – 3:54
"Can't Be Sure" – 3:22
"I Won" – 4:23
"Hideous Towns" – 3:46
"You're Not the Only One I Know" – 3:50
"A Certain Someone" – 4:25
"I Kicked a Boy" – 2:16
"My Finest Hour" – 3:59
"Joy" – 4:10

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

rattlesnakes

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions caused a stir with these jangle pop reflections of cosmopolitan academia blues. Cole was born in Derbyshire, England and started the band while studying at the University of Glasgow. They were signed to Polydor Records and recorded their debut album 'Rattlesnakes' with producer Paul Hardiman at The Garden in east London. The album features Neil Clark on lead guitar; Lloyd Cole on vocals and guitar; Blair Cowan on keyboards; Lawrence Donegan on bass guitar; and Stephen Irvine on drums and tambourine. String arrangements were done by Anne Dudley.

The band became associated with a number of bands that had a similar sound. Cole considers: "Quite often there are what are seen as "movements" in music, and it's more like a conflict. A bunch of people at the same time... If you set up a sort of scientific experiment and apply A, B, and C to a scenario and see what follows on, the same thing's gonna happen in Durham and Manchester and Liverpool as it's going to happen to other cities in the north of England or Glasgow. The way the music scene had been going, the dominance in the early 80's of very synthetic Stock Aitken Waterman pop music... it was sort of inevitable that people would react in an opposite direction. Some of the people decided to go in a manner that was clearly sort of revolutionary, like Jesus and Mary Chain, and other bands were saying, "Well, we still want to make pop music, we just want to make pop music that's got maybe something to it." For Prefab Sprout, the Smiths, and us.... it was not a bad time to be in the U.K. in '84, '85."

'Rattlesnakes' went to number thirteen in the British album chart. Cole reflects on his literary aesthetic: "Well it's very simple. If you're going to put energy into it, if you're gonna care about the lyrics being elegant, at least elegant, then... you have to do it, you have to put the work in, and if people care about it, they will appreciate it, and if people don't care about it, you still have to put the lyrics together in a manner where by being used to carry the melody, they're just like any other lyric. So I don't think there's any reason not to do it the way I do it. I have some people that I've worked with... you can hear, you can hear on certain records that the songwriter doesn't value the lyric as much as he values the melody because you can tell that they're moving words around in a very uncomfortable manner just to carry a melody, and you can tell when people care about it also. There's room in music for all kinds of songwriters. I'm just one of those guys who wants the lyrics to be.... elegant is the word I like."

http://www.lloydcole.com/

"Rattlesnakes"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEJaf8Bvc9U

Jodie wears a hat although it hasn't rained for six days
She says a girl needs a gun these days
Hey on account of all the rattlesnakes

She looks like Eve Marie saint in on the waterfront
She reads Simone de Beauvoir in her American circumstance

She's less than sure if her heart has come to stay in San Jose
And her never-born child still haunts her
As she speeds down the freeway
As she tries her luck with the traffic police
Out of boredom more than spite
She never finds no trouble, she tries too hard
She's obvious despite herself

She looks like Eve Marie Saint in on the waterfront
She says all she needs is therapy, yeah
All you need is, love is all you need

Jodie never sleeps 'cause there are always needles in the hay
She says that a girl needs a gun these days
Hey on account of all the rattlesnakes

She looks like Eve Marie Saint in on the waterfront
As she reads Simone de Beauvoir in her American circumstance
Her heart, heart's like crazy paving
Upside down and back to front
She says "ooh, it's so hard to love
When love was your great disappointment."

"Perfect Skin"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMztoBark9U

I choose my friends only far too well
I'm up on the pavement, they're all down in the cellar
With their government grants and my I.Q.
They brought me down to size, academia blues
Louise is a girl, I know her well
She's up on the pavement, yes she's a weather girl
And I'm staying up here so I may be undone
She's inappropriate, but then she's much more fun and
When she smiles my way
My eyes go out in vain
She's got perfect skin
Shame on you, you've got no sense of grace, shame on me
Ah just in case I might come to a conclusion
Other than that which is absolutely necessary
And that's perfect skin
Louise is the girl with the perfect skin
She says turn on the light, otherwise it can't be seen
She's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin
And she's sexually enlightened by cosmopolitan and
When she smiles my way
My eyes go out in vain
For her perfect skin
Yeah that's perfect skin
She takes me down to the basement to look at her slides
Of her family life, pretty weird at times
At the age of ten she looked like greta garbo
And I loved her then, but how was she to know that
When she smiles my way
My eyes go out in vain
She's got perfect skin
Up eight flights of stairs to her basement flat
Pretty confused huh, being shipped around like that
Seems we climbed so high now we're down so low
Strikes me the moral of this song must be there never has been one

"Forest Fire"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSVDJwnrQKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv1IamCan_k

"Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?"

'Rattlesnakes'
full album:

https://myspace.com/lloyd.cole.and.the.commot/music/album/rattlesnakes-9646198

All lyrics by Lloyd Cole, all music composed by Cole except where noted.

side one
"Perfect Skin" – 3:13
"Speedboat" – 4:37
"Rattlesnakes" (Cole, Neil Clark) – 3:28
"Down on Mission Street" – 3:49
"Forest Fire" – 4:34
side two
"Charlotte Street" – 3:55
"2cv" – 2:52
"Four Flights Up" (Cole, Lawrence Donegan) – 2:37
"Patience" (Cole, Blair Cowan) – 3:40
"Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?" (Cole, Clark) – 3:06

"Beautiful City (Live At The Marquee (05/11/84))"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWrpuYssFZ8