LINER NOTES: THE BOYS OF SUMMER [2001]

1.  Speed of Life – David Bowie
2.  Use It Before You Lose It – Bobby Valentin
3.  Phoenix City – The Skatalites
4.  Woman of the Ghetto – Phyllis Dillon
5.  Night and Day – The Maytals
6.  On the Road Again – Canned Heat
7.  I Hate You – The Monks
8.  Paint it Black – The Rolling Stones
9.  The Man Who Sold the World – David Bowie
10.  Household Names – Stereolab
11.  Conquistadors – Chico Hamilton
12.  Mizrab – Gabor Szabo
13.  Viva Tirado – El Chicano
14.  Eye of Danger – Michigan & Smiley
15.  Blackout – David Bowie
16.  Happiness – Teenage Fanclub
17.  I am Pentagon – Make Up
18.  Broasted or Fried – St. Vincent Latinaires
19.  Little Red Rooster – The Rolling Stones

Our flat in Brentford was nice enough but short on space. My fainting friend was holed up in an even more diminutive tenement in Hounslow. We arrived at the conclusion that one-bedroom flats didn’t come cheap and, if the three of us shared, a two bedroom dwelling would afford us all a higher standard of living – which it did.

            Our new lodging – near Osterley but officially designated as Isleworth – was about 10 minutes’ walk away from the residence of the friend who used to own a pager, which was a wonderfully grotty apartment on London Road spread across two floors that some assumed to be a squat. The nearest pub was The Milford Arms, a traditional type of boozer that should have made for a pleasing local. Unfortunately, it was run by a couple of idiots who favoured certain customers over others and treated the place like an extension of their living room. When this began to grate we fell back on old favourites: The Rifleman, The Town Wharf, and The Royal Oak on Worton Road just opposite Mogden Sewage Works. We also knew people who’d recently moved to South Acton, conferring upon us the opportunity to drink in Chiswick – at The George IV, The Duke of Sussex, The Rat and Parrot, and The Crown & Anchor (frequented for a while by ‘Ant and Dec’).

            We were socially more itinerant back then. Wouldn’t think twice about starting off at The Rifleman in Hounslow only to then move on to Baroque in Ealing (Friday, 26th January), or having a few pints in Kingston upon Thames before jumping on a train to Clapham Junction (Saturday, 22nd September). Midweek drinking was also the norm. I don’t mean to suggest that we lived dissolute lifestyles, merely that we were younger then and more carefree. Not that I held my health in complete contempt. I was playing football occasionally with work colleagues, weekly games of badminton with the lady, and a secondhand bike allowed me to cycle to and from work. I was also eating well, making regular trips to Bunny’s Tandoori, The Kyber Pass, Pizza Express and The Coffee Pot.

Great West Road - Osterley or Isleworth?

2000’s The Ladies of Varades and 2001’s The Boys of Summer should be seen as companion pieces. They follow similar musical themes, drawing upon jazz, funk, Latin vibes, reggae, soul, ‘60s rock and contemporary indie. They were also conceived of with the specific intent of being listened to while holidaying in the Loire Valley.

I like to introduce my compendiums with something upbeat – 'Zambezi' by The Fun Company in the case of The Ladies of Varades – but with The Boys of Summer I’ve begun with the oddity that is 'Speed of Life' by David Bowie, a jolly instrumental that also kicks off the album it’s taken from – Low. However, I quickly follow up with 'Use It Before You Lose It' by Bobby Valentin, an exuberant stab of boogaloo. The Latin music of North America and the Caribbean is very different to the bossa nova, samba and Tropicália of Brazil, and this is a good illustration as to how.

I’ll then lay off slightly, to the point of delivering something mellow by about the fourth or fifth track in. In this instance I’ve started with ska, in the shape of 'Phoenix City' by The Skatalites, taken from the Soul Jazz compilation Studio One Rockers. Warming to the theme, I’ve reached for another Soul Jazz compendium – 100% Dynamite – and borrowed 'Woman Of the Ghetto' by Phyllis Dillon and 'Night and Day' by The Maytals. The inspiration in the first instance would have been the guy who used to own a pager, although the Studio One Rockers album was/is my own. This run of ska and rocksteady eases us into the mellifluous blues of Canned Heat’s 'On the Road Again', which my lady friend pejoratively thinks sounds like somebody using an electric razor (the sound she is referring to is in fact a tambura).

Now it’s time to wind things back up, and 'I Hate You' by The Monks more than serves this purpose. Taken from their seminal 1966 album Black Monk Time, 'I Hate You' is a spiteful barrage of fuzz-tone distortion and bitter incantation. (The Fall covered this track on their 1990 album Extricate, which is how I initially came to be aware of it, but I bought Black Monk Time after I saw a copy hanging in the window of Intoxica Records on the Portobello Road on a Saturday.) Having released such energy I am committed to drawing it out, and do so with 'Paint it Black' by the Stones. This is what the second phase of a playlist of this length is often about – making a noise, or throwing poppy melodies out there to keep the listener hyped.

We need to talk about David (as in Bowie). Nobody had much to say about him at school or when I arrived at university. It was the guy with the tapes who finally broached the subject. His then girlfriend included 'Queen Bitch' on a mixtape she sent him when we were living together on Hanworth Road. Having already established myself as a fellow Velvet Underground fan – 'Queen Bitch' is Bowie’s homage to them – I took note, but not to the extent that I immediately did anything about it. I’m not sure what prompted me but at some point in the year 2000 I bought a secondhand copy of Hunky Dory. I’m assuming it was after July because nothing features of it on The Ladies of Varades, and I would have surely have included 'Andy Warhol' given the opportunity.

I purchased my copy of Low in Penzance, which dates it to the end of August bank holiday of that same year. I’d liked Hunky Dory but wasn’t dazzled by it. Low – the first side at least – really grabbed me. I was aware that Bowie had written Low on returning to Europe, in an effort to escape the ruinous, psychotic lifestyle that taken him over in Los Angeles, but wasn’t alive to what this had actually entailed (the album Station to Station points the way, should you wish to mount your own chronological campaign). I was taken with the simplicity and strangeness of some of the lyrics, the fragmentary nature of the songs’ structures and the general mood of the thing – which was ‘low’. Bowie’s vocal delivery is measured; the timbre boarders on the melancholy. Conventional arrangements are dispensed with. In 'Sound and Vision' the nearest thing approximating a chorus is heard just twice: once at the beginning of the song and again at the end, bookending what passes for a verse. 'Breaking Glass' consists of two verses and a single chorus, if it can be called that. In parallel to all of this, Bowie had ditched many or his sartorial eccentricities and taken to wearing plaid shirts, jeans and sensible shoes. His hair was still orange though.

By the time I’d begun compiling a playlist in readiness for a second gite-based holiday I’d added “Heroes” to my collection. The B-sides of both Low and “Heroes” are comprised largely of ambient instrumentals but, despite both albums forming part of Bowie’s ‘Berlin Trilogy’, their A-sides aren’t remotely similar. “Heroes” is louder, more aggressive, the tracks are longer and the lyrical content more verbose. Robert Fripp’s guitar is let loose all over it while Eno’s noodlings take a back seat. I’m not sure which album I prefer. I definitely find the second side of “Heroes” more stimulating than side two of Low but it is the first sides of both that hold all the aces. In this respect, side one of Low just about edges it on account of there being seven of them – aces, that is – to “Heroes”’ five.

The first version of this compilation had Bowie's 'Breaking Glass' following on from 'Paint it Black', but I decided to replace it with 'The Man Who Sold the World' after everybody got quite into it on our trip to France (courtesy of the guy who used to own a pager). It was a simple exercise to delete 'Breaking Glass', record 'The Man Who Sold the World' and then rearrange the running order on my MiniDisc.

Hunky Dory

We’re at a crucial stage of our anthology now – the third quarter – and in this instance I’ve turned to jazz to sustain the listener’s interest. Jazz has an epic quality that I think sets a compilation up nicely for the final run in. You can’t just drop it in willy-nilly, so I’ve used a Stereolab tune, with their complex arrangements and fondness for vintage keys, to pave the way. Stereolab had a new album due out at the end of August, but our French holiday couldn’t wait that long and so I reached for the EP they released in May 2000, The First of the Microbe Hunters. Thereafter, Chico Hamilton’s 'Conquistadors' segues into the jazz-raga of Hungarian guitarist Gábor Szabó’s 'Mizrab'. It’s a natural progression as Gábor plays guitar on both.

I’ve got nothing against The Beatles but consider this: August 1965 and the Fab Four have just recorded Help!, their fifth studio album. The same year Chico Hamilton releases El Chico, his 23rd. I’m not going to argue that El Chico is a better album than Help! but it’s hard to make a case for, say, 'Ticket to Ride' being anywhere near as sophisticated as 'Conquistadors'. Gábor Szabó’s guitar playing is far more accomplished than either Lennon’s or Harrison’s, not because he’s more talented necessarily but because jazz simply offers more room for manoeuvre. It’s not so much a case of which music is better but what’s more interesting. (Ironically, one of Gábor’s first releases as a band leader was a cover of the Paul McCartney schmaltz-fest 'Yesterday'.)

It was Earl Gateshead who introduced me to El Chicano’s take on jazz standard 'Viva Tirado', which they make their own. The slice of Hammond driven Chicano rock serves to ramp things up before 'Eye of Danger' kicks in, a menacing slab of late 1970’s dancehall that needs to be kept apart from the more delicate intricacies displayed by Gábor.

'Blackout' off of “Heroes” succeeds Michigan & Smiley’s 'Eye of Danger' because it is frantic and noisy enough to cope with the responsibility. It also signals the beginning of the end – the last quarter.

While one needn't save the best until last, it is advisable that your compilation builds toward a climax of sorts. 'Happiness' by Teenage Fanclub could fairly be described as an uplifting track. It has proper singing on it, rather than shouting, screaming, grunting or whimpering. The same cannot be said of 'I am Pentagon' by Make Up. I’ve already noted that the Make Up and the Stones shared a sort of muscular licentiousness – or at least their frontmen did – but this is only partly true. It is correct that Mick Jagger and Ian Svenonius, as well as having big hair, commit completely to their physical performance. However, where Jagger seeks to convey primitive urges, Svenonius brings humour. His shtick is tongue-in-cheek but played with enough conviction to make you think twice; it is not parody. It’s more like if a young Jonathan Meades had joined the Weather Underground and been possessed simultaneously by the spirits of James Brown and Prince.

The penultimate track, 'Broasted or Fried', is taken from the same record as the second: a miscellany of 'Latin breakbeats, basslines & boogaloo' to which it lends its name. 'Broasted or Fried' is a monster of a tune, driving forward with an intense ferocity that feels conclusive.

Considering the effect Exile on Main Street had on me, you would have thought I'd have hastily hunted down copies of Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed and/or Sticky Fingers. Instead, I mined my father’s record collection and came away with both The Rolling Stones’ eponymously titled debut album and the compilation LP Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) – hence 'Paint it Black' and hence 'Little Red Rooster'. 'Little Red Rooster' was almost new to me, whereas 'Paint it Black' already held associations with my second year at university drinking in The Chariot. I should have tried harder, but it is a good tune and does work well in this context

Why ‘The Boys of Summer’? It had been my intention to include the Don Henley song of the same name but I couldn't get hold of it. In hindsight, it was probably for the best.

[Listen to here.]

STADIA: RAMON SANCHEZ PIZJUAN AND BENITO VILLAMARIN, SEVILLE

The Estadio de La Cartuja, on the north-western fringes of Seville, presents a forlorn spectacle. It was built specifically for the 1999 World Championships in Athletics, but with also the Olympics in mind. Twice, in 2004 and 2008, the International Olympic Committee rejected Seville's bid for the games outright. Since then, La Cartuja has had to satisfy itself with hosting: the Copa del Rey (twice); the 2003 UEFA Cup Final (Porto 3-2 Celtic); the 2004 and 2011 Davis Cups; the Spanish national football team, but only in exhibition matches; various musical artistes (AC/DC among them).

Why so forlorn? Despite supporting a fairly attractive pleated polycarbonate roof, the external structure is rudimentary, resembling the sort of faceless hotel you might find to the side of a motorway or nearby an airport. Its peripheral location supplements this impression, lost on the outskirts of town overlooking the arid banks of the Guadalquivir River. Wisely, both Seville’s resident football teams, Sevilla FC and Real Betis Balompié, have resisted any temptation to take up residence, possibly to the chagrin of the Sociedad Estadio Olimpico de Sevilla. While the stadium represents an exemplary athletics venue – albeit an architecturally predictable one – it is not conducive to generating the sort of atmosphere one expects at a football match (ask your nearest West Ham United supporter if you do not comprehend why). In any case, Sevilla FC and Real Betis Balompié have good enough stadia of their own.

Sevilla FC is the city’s dominant club yet it has the smaller ground. Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán can house 42,500 spectators, which is 10,000 less than its southern neighbour but ample enough for an attendance that averages out at just over 30,000. When the stadium opened in 1958 it actually had room enough for 53,000, despite the fact that the second tier lay incomplete: the budget overran and Seville had to content itself with a single circumambient tier and two anfiteatros overlooking each touchline. When in 1974 the second tier was finally made continuous, the capacity peaked at an impressive 70,000. This was in the days when most spectators watched the game on their feet.

Further improvements were made in preparation for the 1982 World Cup. Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán was to host two games: a first round match between Brazil and the Soviet Union, and a semi-final, which would see West Germany pitched against France. Seating was installed, not throughout but in enough places to temporarily reduce the capacity to 66,000 (the original capacity was reinstated soon after). Floodlights were fixed upon gantries at various points along the top tier’s brim, and one of the anfiteatros became a tribuna by way of a roof being put over it. (As far as I can tell, the only difference between an ‘anfiteatro’ and a ‘tribuna’ is the presence of seats and protection from the elements). Supported by 18 pairs of steel struts, the roof appears to balance precariously above the tribuna, its curved edge mirroring the mild arc of the terracing beneath. In profile these supporting trusses resemble Vorticist giraffes thrusting their necks forward towards the pitch, tails extended backwards over the retaining wall. The roofing itself is almost incidental, an ethereal presence that one could imagine being blown away in the wind. The protruding supporting wall, bearing the back legs of those Vorticist giraffes, mimics the general exterior, save for a huge mosaic occupying the central three bays of the facade. This impressive mural depicts Sevilla FC’s crest flanked by those of 60 other clubs that have at one time or another played here. The stadium’s appellation is writ large across the top.

Designed by the same architect responsible for Real Madrid’s Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, the construction itself is typical of many Spanish stadia built from the 1950s through to the 1980s: Athletic Madrid’s Vicente Calderón, the Estadio Martínez Valero in Elche, Malaga’s Estadio La Rosaleda, Barcelona’s Camp Nou. The common denominator is a reinforced concrete framework upon which the terraces are supported. (The apogee of this way of building may find its representation in Mexico City’s imposing Estadio Azteca.)

As at Estadio de Mestalla in Valencia – another football ground not too dissimilar – Seville has recently embarked on a programme of refurbishment; in lieu of building a new ground elsewhere they have settled on tarting the old one up. The approach is roughly the same in either case: painting the concrete black and covering much of it with aluminium meshing. Valencia has filled in the gaps between pillar and beam with rectangular sheets of perforated metal. At Seville they have enshrouded three quarters of the ground in a metal exoskeleton from which they’ve hung overlapping metal panels parallel to the camber of the supporting stanchions, rather like the armour of an armadillo. The ground floor remains as it was but has been re-rendered to effect a smoother, cleaner finish, and painted red. Both clubs have also suspended huge PVC banners at various junctures: graphics depicting their star players, crowd scenes, and the holding aloft of trophies. This is more prevalent at the Estadio de Mestalla, possibly because Valencia has won more trophies.

Sevilla’s renovations are the more successful. Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán’s fabric remains much the same since it was redeveloped prior to the World Cup in 1982. The metal cladding, the new stucco, the all-red seats – even those PVC banners, mercifully restricted to the exterior of the tribuna – are subtle enough not to detract from the uniformity of the two tiers, the grace of the cantilevered roof and the splendour of the mosaic. It is an edifice in thrall to its cohesion, in sympathy with the environment, appropriate for the climate. One hopes Sevilla FC continues to see it this way.

Estadio Benito Villamarin used to be known as Estadio Heliópolis but actually began life as the Estadio de la Exposición, built as it was for the Ibero-American trade fair of 1929. Initially, Real Betis played there only occasionally but decided to take up semi-permanent residence after winning their first – and only – championship in 1936. The Spanish Civil War then followed.

           Such peculiar beginnings explain why Heliópolis looked apart from most other Spanish stadia. It took the form of four separate, whitewashed concrete open-air stands designed in a vaguely neoclassical vernacular with a nod towards Moorish Revival – this is Spain after all. In 1958 the north and sounds ends, behind the goals, were replaced with more substantial structures, and floodlights were installed in 1959. Soon after, the stadium was purchased outright and renamed Estadio Benito Villamarin in honour of the chairman who facilitated its acquisition.

The seventies saw various adaptations including the filling in of the corners, further augmentation of those north and south ends, and the addition of a massive slab of a second tier above the western tribuna, replete with cantilevered roof and alternating blocks of white and green seats (the colours and pattern of Real Betis’ shirts). The eastern tribuna was expanded backward in 1981 and another cantilevered roof built over it – albeit a more rudimentary iteration than the one gracing the stand opposite.

Whether the Estadio Benito Villamarin would have been selected as a venue for the 1982 FIFA World Cup had it not undergone such substantial restoration is hard to say. That the Spanish football authority elected to utilise no less than 17 different grounds throughout the course of tournament – a number unsurpassed to this day – suggests maybe so; far smaller stadia hosted matches. In any case, a new amphitheatre was slipped in between the lower and upper tiers of the west stand, increasing capacity and allowing space for the sort of media facilities required for reporting on World Cup football.

One would think that for a club of Real Betis’s inconsistent stature the ground as it then was would have sufficed. New owner Ruiz de Lopera begged to differ and in 1998 the north and eastern portions of the ground were torn down and a continuous three-tiered structure erected in their place. The idea was to rebuild the southern terrace in the same fashion, but contractual disputes resulted in the work being postponed indefinitely. Not until the summer of 2016 would the funds finally be in place to begin to finish the job.

Although still incomplete, Estadio Benito Villamarin is looking good. The three tiers that now wrap around the northern, eastern and southern sectors are not conjoined with those on the western side. Why would they be: the top two tiers of the western tribuna were built upon the old Heliópolis and follow its shallower incline, whereas the three tiers now surrounding it have been raked more steeply. Nor has any attempt been made to ape the exterior of the western tribuna: despite the generally good condition of the supporting concrete stanchions, the structure shows its age. Moreover, three floors of offices and amenities have over time been untidily shoehorned in between said stanchions.

For the new build, the need for indoor space has been anticipated. The second tier is enveloped in a skirt of concrete parallelogram-shaped panels, each one punctuated with four triangular shaped apertures – hypotenuse facing upward, right angle pointing down. An imbricative belt of concrete signifies the rim of the second tier’s reverse, while also acting as a concourse at the rear of the third tier, whose exposed form tilts overheard. The patina is a raw shade of grey. It is left to the surrounding palm trees to provide colour. The interior has been subjected, via the medium of chairs, to alternating horizontal stripes of green and white, in contrast to the vertical streaks covering the old tribuna.

The result is a modernist take on the Neo-Mudéjar style that flourished in Spain in the late 19th Century: geometric shapes repeating, Moorish gestures; gentle curves, functionalism. Given Sevilla’s Berber heritage this seems entirely appropriate and is almost certainly intended. It should be appreciated that an effort has been made, having been obliged to work with concrete, to try and make something half interesting out of it. Moreover, that in an era of decorative façades, the original concept for stadium has endured, rather than being lost beneath swathes of revisionist ornamentation.

One pauses for thought. Could it be that the 1990s saw modernism’s last hurrah, before postmodernism finally overwhelmed it and gave way to more indulgent, deconstructivist architectural forms? Consider the tube stations built for the extension of London’s Jubilee Line, at Canary Wharf in particular, opened in 1999. Gare de Lyon-Saint Exupéry connecting Lyon to Paris and Marseille: opened 1994. Bari’s Stadio San Nicola, built just in time for the 1990 World Cup. The Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói, designed by Oscar Niemeyer: completed 1996.

It’s hard to say. Cologne’s excellent RheinEnergieStadion – effectively rebuilt for the 2006 World Cup – leaves its concrete endoskeleton on display in much the same way as those old Spanish stadia built from the 1950s through to the 1980s. Meanwhile, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium is structurally the same thing as Estadio Benito Villamarin, just with glass panelled sections, daft murals draped over the exposed concrete sections, and a snazzy roof – all the consequence of a much bigger budget. There’s the crux – bigger budgets. And yet both Seville’s resident football teams have stadiums that retain a sense of history, of purpose, and identity, while offering architectural subtleties that need not be bought.