1. Licence
to Confuse – Sebadoh
2. Bad as
Me – Tom Waits
3. It’s
All Over Now, Baby Blue [Version 1] – The Byrds
4. Al
Capone – Prince Buster
5. The
Vampire – The Upsetters
6. Concorde
– The Prophets
7. Typical
Girls – The Slits
8. 52
Girls – The B-52's
9. Boredom
– Buzzcocks
10. Neat
Neat Neat – The Damned
11. Leave
the Capitol – The Fall
12. This
Night Has Opened my Eyes – The Smiths
13. Whoever
You Are – The Brian Jonestown Massacre
14. Sometimes
– My Bloody Valentine
15. Dead
and Gone – TOY
16. Any
Day Now – Elbow
17. The
World’ll Be OK – Teenage Fanclub
18. My God
– Bombay Bicycle Club
19. Lorelai
– Fleet Foxes
20. The
Look – Metronomy
21. Rock
Lobster – The B-52's
Sound is
analogue, consisting of continuous waveforms. The music derived from a phonograph
record is also analogue and therefore a reproduction of the original
sonority. Compact discs are not: they are the result of analogue-to-digital
conversion, whose values must be derived from a discrete set. Digital signals
are simply snapshots of information that are converted back into an analogue waveform
by way of an amplifier. By definition, the digital recording can only ever be a
simulacrum of that which it purports to represent. That all said, a hi-fi system is only as good as its weakest link, regardless of the format, and there are many external factors that must be taken into consideration: the quality of the vinyl, the placement of the speakers, the acoustics of the room, the cables, and so on.
A photographic negative is the result of a chemical reaction arising from
light being projected upon a transparent plastic film coated with microscopic,
light-sensitive halide crystals. The photograph itself is also born of a chemical
reaction on a molecular scale: from the projection of the negative upon paper
coated with a light-sensitive emulsion. As such, its optical texture is random.
Digital photography does not capture light on photosensitive film but by means
of an image sensor (usually a charge-coupled device, or CCD) which converts the
variable attenuation of light-waves into electronic signals to convey the information
that comprises the image. Thereafter, the image is printed directly onto paper
using a peripheral device, such as a laser or inkjet printer. This method of
printing lacks the continuity of tone associated with traditional photographic
processing techniques, whereby the image is literally developed.
Digital music and digital imaging are analogous then. Yet whereas vinyl
is undoubtedly superior to its digital alternative, with photography it’s
not so clear-cut. For one, the ear is more discerning than the eye. Or is
permitted to be. You could in theory record digitally with such a high sampling
rate to be almost indistinguishable from vinyl, but this would be both expensive
and impractical. With digital imaging the extra level of detail doesn’t impact
much on the size of the device or its relative cost. There’s certainly a
difference between the photograph and the digital print, but it’s not – or at
least not any more – much of a hierarchical discrepancy. (A bias towards saturating
the colour green, to reflect the physiology of the human eye, backfires in
verdant landscapes, but it’s nothing that can’t be remedied either in-camera or
in post-production.)
No, the catch with digital photography is that it’s ephemeral. Those of
us who used to shoot on film will recall sending our rolls off to the
developers or taking them into high-street chemists to get them printed. It was
not an instantaneous process, and I think we paid more attention to the results
because of this. Not to mention the fact that we took greater care over the
composition and the conditions of the each shot, knowing that we were limited to
a certain number of frames. Those of us who could be bothered, which included
me, would also collate our prints into an album. At the very least, you’d keep
them in the paper wallet they came in, along with the negatives should any of
the human subjects be desirous of reprints.
Digital images live a more precarious existence. They’re lucky if
they even make it off the camera and onto a computer. Those that do may well end
up in the recycle bin. The chances these days of an individual photograph being
appreciated are about as likely as surviving an encounter with the Ebola virus.
And when an image is deemed worthy of sharing, where is it normally displayed?
On Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or some other on-line vanity showcase I’m
not aware of.
The practical purpose of (amateur) photography – to record specific
events in one’s life, or to make something aesthetic out of it – has become
secondary. The picture is no longer a representation of time and space but a
symbol of time and space. It has become freelance, to be viewed when browsing
through My Documents, whenever you’re retrospectively tagged or commented upon
in somebody’s else’s on-line posts, or as an avatar, a personal logo. It’s as
if the photograph has embraced libertarianism, to exist for its own sake. The
idea that images should live side-by-side in an album – even a virtual album
– and form part of a narrative is nearing redundancy. Photography’s
primary purpose has become that of a marketing tool for the individual, a precession of simulacra intended as a
primary source of self-identification.
Resistance is of
course futile. I persisted with film for longer than most but it soon
became clear that the industry was now calibrating their equipment primarily to
cater for digital imaging (this would have been around 2008, although Boots was making a
mess of it as early as 2001.) There were independent businesses that still
utilised traditional wet-lab technology but they’d become very expensive. So
I went digital and bought a Ricoh R8.
Digital images don’t make for very good 6 x 4 inch prints. For one, the default
aspect ratio for most compact cameras is different to film. This shouldn’t be a
problem but service providers adhere to the standard 3:2 ratio, and
so your prints are either cropped or a boarder is imposed to accommodate the whole
image. For two, colours are often overly saturated and skin tones can appear
unnatural. My advice would be to do away with prints altogether and instead
compile A4 sized photobooks, which are more forgiving. The dilemma presented
is this: holiday snaps aside, is it really worth incorporating all those random
pictures of buildings, meals, cloud formations spotted on the way home from
work, feet, abstract close-ups of road markings and street signage, roadkill, shadows
streaming through windows at oblique angles, into any sort of album? And if it
is, would you get anything out of looking back over it?
Marrakesh
Sebadoh’s 'Licence to Confuse'
reminds me hanging out with the guy with the indie tapes during my first year
at university, early 1994. It does not remind me of a weekend I spent in Lyon
with my partner in August 2011. 'Licence
to Confuse' is taken from the album Bakesale,
which was released on Sub Pop in August 1994. Ergo, I couldn’t have listened to
it in the guy with the indie tapes’ room at our halls of residence. However, I
could, and did, listen to the EP 4 Song
CD, which I bought on vinyl in or around June 1994. The four (proper) songs
that feature on 4 Song CD all
appeared on Bakesale, which I assume I
finally listened to around the new house of the guy with the indie tapes from
September 1994 onwards. I’ve only just worked this out, which means back in
2010, when I bought a copy of Bakesale
on CD, I associated its content with something it couldn’t feasibly be associated with. The Sebadoh album that I did actually listen to with the guy
with the indie tapes in our halls of residence must have in fact been Bubble and Scrape, which is a markedly
different album. I’d been getting a bit misty-eyed over the alternative
music scene as it was before Britpop got out of hand, and if I had to explain to
somebody what this all sounded like I might play them Bakesale.
Neither does 'Bad as Me' by Tom
Waits recall being in Lyon, but it does evoke the period. It might have been
recorded off the lad who used to beat me at snooker, although it could just
have easily been downloaded from iTunes. Either way, the lad is a big fan. 'Bad as Me' is as frantic and barmy as 'Big in Japan'. If you crave something
milder, check out the deliciously paranoid 'What’s He Building?' off of Mule Variations.
'It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue'
reminds me of the Heart & Hand in Brighton, one of my favourite pubs. It does
not remind me of drinking in the hotel lobby of the Grand Hotel Tazi in Marrakesh, October 2011, one of the few places around the old town where you can buy wallop.
The Byrds first recorded this Bob Dylan tune during the sessions for Turn! Turn! Turn!
but it never made the cut. A slower, country-inflected iteration later materialised
on the Ballad of Easy Rider in 1969, but
I wanted the faster, rougher version they recorded in 1965. The Heart & Hand
had it on their jukebox – still do – so I assumed that it had seen life as an
early B-side. It hadn’t. It was re-released in 2004 as part of a collection of
7” singles entitled Cancelled Flytes,
which is how the Heart & Hand must have got hold of it. (If you’re
interested, it’s also available as a bonus track on the extended CD version of Turn! Turn! Turn! as well as the 1987
compilation Never Before.) This is
not the first rendition of 'It’s All Over
Now, Baby Blue' to have featured on one of my compilations. I included the 13th Floor Elevators’ much slower interpretation on 2002’s Come on Let’s Go, which lasts 5 minutes and 17 seconds. Bob Dylan’s
original recording comes in at 4 minutes and 12 seconds, whereas The Byrds complete
their ‘Version 1’ in a little over 3 minutes, which should give you some idea
of the relative cadences.
I wasn’t keen on
my new job but it paid fairly well and my manager would regale me with stories
about surviving avalanches, the efficiency of the French town councils, and
what London pubs had been like in the 1960s. This place of work was located in
Brentford, which hadn’t changed much since I’d lived there ten years before. I
was able to cycle there and did so most of the time. On Wednesday nights I began bouldering with Mr Wilkinson, one of the guys who used to live at The
Grosvenor and a couple of their acquaintances. I was fit and working again.
Despite the two year time frame and the confused associations, I consider The World’ll Be OK to be one of my most
accomplished works. This is due in part to my renewed interest in ska and rocksteady: 'Al
Capone' by Prince Buster, 'The Vampire'
by The Upsetters, and 'Concorde' by The
Prophets. These three instrumental tracks allow the listener to rest their ear after
the earlier onslaught of guitars, as well gearing up for what follows. 'Al Capone' by Prince Buster isn’t
completely instrumental. He asks that we don’t call him Scarface because his
name is not that, it’s Capone: 'C. A. P. O. N. E. – Capone!' The Upsetters were
the house band for Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s record label, Upsetter Records, which
he established in 1968. I don’t know much about The Prophets other than they
were signed to Big Shot, a subsidiary of Island Records that was later taken over
by Trojan. 'Al Capone' is certainly ska
but 'The Vampire' and 'Concorde' would be described as
rocksteady, which came after ska and before reggae. I don’t feel qualified to fully
explain the differences between these genres, except to say that the shifts
between them represented a slowing down in tempo, a diminished interest in
brass and a greater focus on bass. (Legend has it that the slowing down of
rocksteady occurred during a prolonged spell of hot weather unconducive to
dancing.)
All this leads neatly into 'Typical
Girls' by The Slits. The Slits were a punk band with an appetite for dub. In
a nutshell, dub is reggae with the drum and bass turned up and the vocals taken
off. Just as ska informed two-tone, dub and reggae had an effect on post-punk:
The Clash, The Ruts, PIL and, dare I say it, The Police. The Slits debut album,
Cut, is probably more experimental
than any of that lot, its intricate rhythms reaching far beyond reggae. But, a
bit like The Fall, if you can’t get on with Ari Up’s vocal inflections, it
might not be for you.
The 30th birthday of the girl who was going out with the former
cohabitant from Brighton was to be celebrated at Fitzherberts in Brighton, and
I was invited. Such is the fallibility of memory, as has been proven, I
hesitate to say whether I heard the B-52’s that night or not, but something of
that type was certainly played. I cannot be sure either if it was before or after
this party that I purchased their eponymous debut album. I do know, however,
that the record had been on my mental to buy list ever since I’d heard 'Planet Claire' on BBC Radio 6 while working at Nikon between 2003 and 2008. In any case, I was looking for something
to follow on from 'Typical Girls' by the
Slits, and '52 Girls' seemed
appropriate: both songs are strong rhythmically, both contain female
lead vocals and harmonies, both incorporate ‘girls’ into their title. Despite
The B-52’s reputation for kitsch, they could certainly rock – this is a band
that cut their chops at CBGBs. Ricky Wilson’s guitar forms the backbone to many
of their best songs, a guitar tuned to taste, often shorn of a string or
two.
Buzzcocks Spiral Scratch EP was
purchased from Really Good Records in Plymouth a few years earlier (possibly on
the same visit that yielded Tom Tom Club
by Tom Tom Club) in a
sleeve that had seen better days. The hassle of recording vinyl onto my laptop
had precluded its inclusion on any previous playlist so I decided, finally, to
download it. Spiral Scratch was the
third punk record ever released by a British band, the first and second being 'New Rose' by The Damned and 'Anarchy in the UK' by the Sex Pistols
respectively. 'Boredom' is its lead
track, as fast and frantic as 'Neat Neat
Neat' by The Damned, which comes next. Both records came out in
early 1977 within less than a month of each other, implying that 'Neat Neat Neat' can’t be far off being
the fourth punk record ever released by a British band.
The Fall’s body of work can be categorised into four parts. The first
phase spreads from the group’s first album Live
at the Witch Trials, published in 1979, through to Perverted by Language, recorded in 1983.
Thereafter Brix Smith joined the group, whose tenure embodies The Fall’s
second phase. She departed in 1989, after the release of I Am Kurious Oranj, and the third phase then begins, probably
ending around the time of 1997’s Levitate
following the sacking of guitarist Craig Scanlon and the resignation a little after
of bassist Stephen Hanley. (Those more familiar with their later work may wish
to break the canon down even further.) I embarked on my relationship with The
Fall in 1993, between The Infotainment
Scan and Middle Class Revolt, after hearing Extricate – so during their third phase – and continued to work more of less backwards,
reverse-chronologically. Live at the
Witch Trials exempted, this fervid exploration of The Fall’s back catalogue
ran out of steam after I’d reached 1984’s The
Wonderful and Frightening World Of... (although I did also own Hip Priest And Kamerads, a compilation
that gathers tracks from some of their earlier albums). It wasn’t until The
Wilkinsons gave me The Complete Peel
Sessions 1978–2004 in 2005 that I was inspired to carry on where I left off.
Neither a single nor an album, 1981's Slates
is an EP highly regarded among Fall followers. It’s far more upbeat (by Fall standards) than the work that proceeded it – the LP Hex Enduction Hour – and 'Leave the Capitol' in particular. In May 2012 I saw The Fall play at The Coronet in Elephant and Castle.
And never seen again.
I wandered into
The Vintage Showroom on Earlham Street off Seven Dials, as is my want. Never
bought anything from there but I like the feel and smell of the place. 'This Night Has Opened my Eyes' by The
Smiths was playing on this occasion, and it had me captivated. Why had it not
resonated with me before? Maybe because it only appears on Hatful of Hollow, a motley collection
of Peel Session tracks, singles and B-sides.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre
double compilation album Tepid Peppermint
Wonderland does not include the song 'Whoever You Are'. This surprises me as it’s among their best work. (Could be to do with copyright.) No matter, I simply bought Give It Back! which also features Anton
Newcombe wrestling with the sitar on a number of tracks.
My nostalgia for old-school indie music pushed me in the direction of
shoegaze, and My Bloody Valentine in particular. The group's early records aren’t really
shoegaze at all and have more in common with the alternative American indie
rock. Loveless is the where the
association comes from, and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, although 'Sometimes' is probably the most accessible song from it.
I would have thought TOY like My Bloody Valentine. They display the
hallmarks of shoegaze – although the noise pop of Split-era Lush might be a more accurate point of reference – and they
don’t look too dissimilar to how MBV did at the start of their career: long hair, drainpipe
jeans, leather jackets, not a beard in sight. After watching
the video to 'Left Myself Behind' and a
live performance of 'Dead and Gone' on
YouTube, I bought their album. The band appear to be still active, although it looks like a case of diminishing returns.
If you’ve read my liner notes to the 2002 compilation Come On Let’s Go then you’ll know that I
purchased the single 'Powder Blue' by
Elbow expecting it to be their album track 'Any
Day Now'. I soon realised my error, but settled for 'Powder Blue' in that instance, which is also very good.
Elbow had since hit pay dirt with their albums The Seldom Seen Kid in 2008 and Build
a Rocket Boys! in 2011, neither of which impressed me much but may have
provided the impetus to finally get hold of 'Any
Day Now'.
I left my job in June 2012. It doesn't matter why, except to say that my manager was very stuck in his ways and had a bad temper (although he never directed it towards me). So I was unemployed again.
Perhaps to reassure myself, I fixated on the 'The World’ll Be OK' by Teenage Fanclub, recorded especially for
their greatest hits album Four Thousand
Seven Hundred And Sixty-Six Seconds - A Short Cut To Teenage Fanclub. I
also needed a song to jolt my compilation out the reverie of its third-quarter,
which is very welcome reverie but an unsustainable one.
Bombay Bicycle Club’s album Flaws
had endured, and this time I reached out for one of its moodier moments.
Mumford & Sons aside, I quite like the indie-folk sound, despite lacking
the chin follicles to embrace the look. Fleet Foxes suffer no such impediment. The band bring a fuller sound to bear than Bombay Bicycle Club, a
wider repertoire of instruments, grander gestures, production values more akin
to those of Phil Spector, and beards.
'The Look' by Metronomy reminds
me of revisiting the likes of Uniqlo in Richmond. It does not remind me hobbling
around Porto, having turned my ankle while bouldering three weeks prior. I
suppose Metronomy was born out of that electro-pop scene that flourished in
the mid-2000s, although it was their third album, 2011’s The English Riviera, that brought them to the fore. I didn’t buy it – 'The Look' was downloaded –
but the song is more than a mere novelty, despite the quirkiness of the
accompanying video, and I made a mental note to keep an ear out for them.
Porto
The more I think about it the surer I am that The B-52’s was played down at Fitzherberts in Brighton. But I don't think it was '52 Girls' I heard. It was more than likely 'Rock Lobster', the band's first single, and a fitting end to one my favourite playlists.
[Listen to here.]
Brilliant read -
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