LINER NOTES: TAKE A RIDE [2013]

1.    Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark) – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

2.    Let England Shake – PJ Harvey

3.    Over the Ice – The Field

4.    Tugboat – Galaxie 500

5.    You Made Me Realise – My Bloody Valentine

6.    Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr. Hitler – Wild Billy Childish & The Blackhands

7.    Take a Ride – The Questions

8.    Damaged Goods – Gang of Four

9.    Stardust – Billy Ward and His Dominoes

10.  El Toro – Chico Hamilton

11.  I Put a Spell on You – Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

12.  Tramp – Lowell Fulson

13.  Come on In – The Music Machine

14.  Como El Agua – Camaron de la Isla y Paco de Lucia

15.  National Shite Day – Half Man Half Biscuit

16.  Ingenue – Atoms for Peace

17.  FFunny FFriends – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

18.  Flowers – Galaxie 500

19.  Swing Easy – The Soul Vendors

20.  Late in the Evening – Paul Simon

21.  Every Picture Tells a Story – Rod Stewart

Bouldering is indoor climbing utilising plastic holds, without ropes; you’re never so high off the ground that a deep crash mat won’t do should you fall. I bouldered at The Arch before they were kicked out of their premises by British Rail. They then moved to a warehouse in Bermondsey called The Biscuit Factory. This was a great shame, but London Bridge station was to be expanded, and now has been.

Contrary to the music the kids at Vauxhall Climbing Centre like to subject their clientele to, at The Biscuit Factory they normally do all right, and it was there that I came across Unknown Mortal Orchestra. They had released two albums at this point: an eponymously titled work and II. Both are represented here. 'Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark)' is taken from their second record. It works well as an opening track, although it isn’t used as such on the album. The music has been deliberately recorded to sound like the psychedelic records it takes inspiration from. That is to say, it sounds like you’re listening to it through an old Dansette record player, even though you’re more than likely not.

When I first became interested in indie music, PJ Harvey was one of the artists introduced to me. She was, compared to now, relatively unknown – this was around the time of her second album, Rid of Me – and the approaching juggernaut that was Britpop suggested it might remain that way. Instead, as Britpop was nearing its critical mass – early 1995 – she released To Bring You My Love, which was a success critically and to some degree commercially. And while bands like Suede, Radiohead and The Verve would be conveniently co-opted into the Britpop movement, once it had established itself, PJ Harvey stood apart. She was succeeding on her own terms, and Britpop’s sustainability was not her concern.

I took note of all this but PJ Harvey’s next album, Is This Desire, released in 1998, eluded me. Her fifth, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, made more of an impact but not enough for me to go out and buy a copy. 2004’s Uh Huh Her barely even registered. White Chalk, forget it. I guess I had my ears pressed against other things: Latin jazz, funk, soul, ska, psychedelia, garage rock, new wave.

It was my partner who broke the embargo. In 2012, she bought for me Let England Shake, reinvigorating my appreciation of PJ Harvey’s oeuvre as whole. I especially appreciated the use of the autoharp and zither on many of the tracks. This is Polly Harvey’s great strength: an ear for euphonic textures, off-beat rhythms, sound collages.

Living alone and left to his own devices, my Cornish friend was listening to various electronic music. He played me From Here We Go Sublime by The Field. Billed as techno, it’s closer to trance, although not of the Goa kind. Perhaps it’s neither for it leans heavily on sampling, inhabiting a wistful sort of groove. That said, 'Over the' Ice is fairly upbeat, even if the tune it borrows from – Kate Bush’s 'Under Ice' – isn’t.

My nostalgia for late ‘80s/early ‘90s indie music, which had started with Sebadoh, led me back to Galaxie 500 (although it was Dean Wareham’s other band, Luna, that I was more familiar with). It seemed to me that Galaxie 500 held more in common musically with the more sixties’ influenced groups on Sarah Records than it did alternative indie American rock; dreampop, slowcore, shoegaze - whatever you want to call it. Wareham’s ostensibly simple guitar work is reminiscent of The Velvet Underground after John Cale was kicked out and their music became prettier. Except Wareham’s voice is far thinner than Lou Reed’s.

Up pops My Bloody Valentine on a second, consecutive compilation. This time around it’s one of their more conservative numbers, 'You Made Me Realise'. Conservative in the sense that it possesses a verse and a chorus, what passes for a riff, vaguely melodic harmonies, and an instrumental breakout about halfway through. It then descends into a mess of feedback, which has been known to last, in a live setting, for over half an hour.

Adolf Hitler. There’s a certain attitude towards this monomaniacal piece of work that’s distinctly British. In the lead up to the Second World War and during it, the Fuhrer was perceived as a figure of fun, a caricature to be ridiculed and laughed at. This attitude is manifest in Allied propaganda: in posters (American placards were very much more aggressive than their British equivalents), songs ('Hitler Has Only Got One Ball'), films (The Great Dictator), plays (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui), even cartoons (the Bugs Bunny short 'Herr Meets Hare'). Charlie Chaplin said that had he been cognizant of the holocaust he would never have made The Great Dictator. After 1945, once the strange terror of the Third Reich had been revealed to all, portrayals of Hitler became more considered and generally light on laughs, which in itself became a source of amusement: 'Just don’t mention the war'. (I say strange because so inimical to the German war effort was the holocaust that early reports of it were dismissed as preposterous. Knowing that it did indeed take place does not render it any less so.)

But we do mention the war. I mentioned the war, albeit obliquely, on a friend’s stag-do in Berlin that I’d been called upon to organise. Somebody had got wind of this thing called the Berlin Beer Bike Tour, and I took it on board. A 'beer bike' is no such thing. Although it is pedal-powered, it has four wheels and can accommodate up to 16 persons. It also incorporates a sound system, and so I prepared a CD especially for the occasion. As well as some old Acid Jazz numbers to bring back memories of the Quay Club in Plymouth, and few Britpop favourites to evoke Saturday nights down at JFKs, I included Wild Billy Childish & The Blackhands’ cover of the Dad’s Army theme tune. Billy Childish’s tribute is recorded in the ska tradition, and recorded live. It’s actually quite difficult to catch the words, all the more so in an open-air, urban setting. Nonetheless, a song was played that asks of Mr Hitler who he thinks he might be kidding, in the very heart of the German capital. To add another layer of subversion, I was done up like a member of the Red Army Faction: khaki field jacket, black cords, burgundy cable-knit pullover, brown shoes. As Luke Haines opines in his book, Bad Vibes, 'Terrorist chic, you’ve gotta love it,' although I doubt anybody made the connection.

Berlin

The Questions were (Les) Lou’s by another name. In their incarnation as The Questions, they appeared briefly in the obscure French punk flick La Brune et Moi, performing 'Take a Ride'. This track can be found on the hard-to-find compilation entitled My Girlfriend Was A Punk! Rare Early Female Punkrockers. I suspect The Questions were formed for the purpose of the film, because I can find no trace of anything else recorded by them. Not that Lou’s were prolific either, but they did at least support The Clash on their 1977 ‘Get Out of Control Tour’ (playing under Richard Hell and The Voidoids).

With their choppy guitar parts and slinky bass lines, Gang of Four are sort of like England’s answer to Talking Heads. Their debut album, Entertainment! might be the best album released under the auspices of post-punk (unless of course you think The Fall were post-punk, which I don’t). Footage of Gang of Four playing 'To Hell with Poverty' on the Old Grey Whistle Test drew my curiosity. The song, taken from the EP Another Day/Another Dollar, is available as a bonus track on the re-issued version of their second album, Solid Gold. If I hadn’t quickly followed up with Gang of Four’s first LP, Entertainment! then it might have been that track, rather than 'Damaged Goods', that ended up on this compilation.

Sometimes a shift in musical style can be so pronounced that it somehow works. From post-punk to R&B with a doo-wop slant; you may be familiar with 'Stardust' from its inclusion in Martin Scorsese’s film Goodfellas. The tune itself dates back to 1927 but the Dominoes version was released in 1957, and it was a big hit. The lead vocal is sung by Eugene Mumford, who died in 1977, a month shy of his 52nd birthday.

I made the mistake of assuming that 'Conquistadors' was representative of Chico Hamilton’s output. The associated LP – El Chico – is an exercise in Latin influenced jazz that takes full advantage of Gábor Szabó’s underrated ability on guitar. The Dealer is not, although it is an interesting record in its own right. But a strange thing: reading up on where I went wrong, I discovered that the reissued CD of the album included another collaboration with Gábor Szabó, entitled 'El Toro', which had been recorded four years earlier for the album Passin’ Thru. It’s not as full-on bossa nova as 'Conquistadors' but there’s enough exoticism going on to fulfil my remit – a sort of North African, hard bop vibe – so I downloaded it.

In 1993 I became fascinated with a Levi’s advert that depicted an inevitably handsome man dazzling in a pair of pristine indigo 501s, laying to rest the jeans he’d replaced. This all plays out to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins singing 'Heartattack and Vine', which its author Tom Waits objected to. I’d been mesmerised by both the song and the jeans themselves, the iconic Red Tab looking almost violet beneath the colour-balancing filter. (If Levi Strauss had produced a limited edition 501 jean with a purple tab, I’d have bought them.) Anyway, I must have needed a new pair of jeans or something, because I looked up the commercial on YouTube and reacquainted myself with ‘Procession’ (did you even know Levi’s gave their adverts actual names?). This in turn prompted an investigation into Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. The rest is history. I was familiar with Nina Simone’s recording of 'I Put a Spell on You' but not Screamin’ Jay’s. I prefer Screamin’ Jay’s.

In April, before the stag-do in Berlin, I completed a three-month tenure working for an independent tour operator in Kingston, for peanuts, during what was a cold and protracted winter. In some ways this was a blessing, because I needed to get fit for the London to Brighton Bike Ride in June, which I was doing with my brother, neighbour, and a couple other guys. I'd started getting into cycling the previous year, and I was already on my third bike, but I'd never ridden any farther than 30 miles. And it was a good thing. Aside from the trip to Berlin, and a jaunt to Paris with my partner in August, 2013 was a dispiriting and financially challenging period of my life. Riding around London, and to Brighton itself, gave me respite and also provided a fascinating insight into how the city is geographically arranged.

I can pinpoint the precise moment I finally ‘got’ road cycling. It was during Stage 5 of the 2012 Vuelta a Espana, when Javier Chacón, racing for Team Andalucia, broke away from the rest of the field, built up a 12 minute lead before being chased down by the peloton approximately 30 km from the finish (in what was a 168 km stage). He was rewarded with the stage’s Combativity Award for his efforts, and deservedly so. Without anyone supporting him, Chacón had little chance of pulling off this audacious stab for victory, but he gave it a go anyway. What really left an impression was the instant he must have known it was all over, when Javier glanced back over his shoulder and saw the pack gradually bearing down on him. It was a singular spectacle that invoked both dread and excitement, like watching an explosion in slow-motion. Would he make it, or was the peloton going to swallow him up?

I have previously alluded to my quest to replace all my old hip hop cassettes with their vinyl counterpart – original pressings if at all possible – as and when I come across them. I was lucky enough to chance upon an immaculate copy of Cypress Hill’s first album for a very reasonable price, either in the Music & Video Exchange in Greenwich or Reckless Records on Berwick Street in Soho. (Whichever one it wasn’t may have been where I picked up an equally immaculate copy of Bazerk, Bazerk, Bazerk by Son Of Bazerk.) Released in the summer of 1991, 'How I Could Just Kill Man' was Cypress Hill’s first single. The eponymously titled record that followed teems with samples in the way It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back does: ambient noise and people talking buried in deep among horns and percussion to create a mise-en-scène that evokes the sounds of 1960s/70s Los Angeles. 'How I Could Just Kill Man' is built around a guitar riff employed by West Coast bluesman Lowell Fulson in his song 'Tramp', although Lowell regulates its intensity to create a very different effect.

Another song sampled in 'How I Could Just Kill Man' – and there are at least five – is less congruous. The Music Machine were a sort of psychedelic proto-punk outfit in keeping with the sort you’ll find on the Nuggets and Rubble anthologies I’d been buying ten years earlier. 'Come On In' represents one of their more delicate moments, almost worthy of The Left Banke. The Music Machine were visually ahead of their time. Dressed in black and wearing pudding bowl haircuts, the singer and guitarist sporting single black gloves, they surely inspired the way bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Telescopes or My Bloody Valentine presented themselves in the 1980s.

A bit of a jolt but I didn’t know where else to put it. 'Como El Agua' is sung by Camarón de la Isla, the definitive singer of the flamenco revival that occurred in Spain in the latter third of the 20th Century. Likewise, Paco de Lucia, with whom Camarón often collaborated, was a virtuoso flamenco guitarist at the forefront of the same movement. 'Como El Agua' was selected to round off an edition of the Vuelta a highlights. I was onto it, and downloaded it from somewhere or other. Camarón de la Isla was revered in Spain as a sort of gypsy take on Mick Jagger, although his recreational habits were apparently more in keeping with Keith Richards – hence is premature death at the age of just 41 from lung cancer.

Paris

Come June, I'd found temporary, part-time employment with a medical publishing company in Holborn – the sort of place that liked to jazz up their weekly meetings with hypothetical questions pulled out of a hat. For the first month I was there it seemed to do nothing but rain (although a heat wave was just around the corner). Prospective employers were rebuffing my solicitations. Half Man Half Biscuit captured the mood:

Down in the High Street somebody careered out of Boots without due care or attention.

I suggest that they learn some pedestrian etiquette:

i.e. sidle out of the store gingerly;

Embrace the margin.

The song 'National Shite Day' recounts a set of circumstances so infuriating that its protagonist is left to conclude that the day in question has been contrived to annoy. Really, it’s a frustrated rant offering up the sort of banal irritancies that afflict contemporary living. I could feel Nigel Blackwell’s pain.

Aside from Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace is really the only current music included on this playlist. 'Ingenue' is mere filler, albeit of a pleasing kind, and not markedly different to anything Radiohead had been up to lately (which wasn’t much: 2011’s The King of Limbs had been their last release). 'FFunny FFriends' is the older of the two Unknown Mortal Orchestra tracks I've included, although there’s no way of telling that. 'Flowers' is off of 1988's Today, the same Galaxie 500 album that 'Tugboat' was taken from.

'Swing Easy' by The Soul Vendors is an instrumental rocksteady track, a hangover from my ska binge the previous year. The Soul Vendors were a band Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd threw together to tour England, comprised mostly of Studio One’s studio backing-band The Soul Brothers, who were in turn cobbled together after the dissolution of The Skatalites. Keyboard player Jackie Mittoo seems to be the guy who wrote most of the songs, and would continue to do so once The Soul Vendors mutated into Sound Dimension.

'Late in the Evening' by Paul Simon is pure whimsy on my part. It's a decent song but I have no idea why I have included it on this specific compilation. Not so Rod Stewart. I turned to my copy of Reason to Believe, a bizarre LP put together in 1978 to be sold exclusively through the retailer Marks & Spencer, inherited from my parents. The last track on side 1 is 'Every Picture Tells a Story', co-written with Ronnie Wood and originally the title track of Stewart's third solo album released in 1971 (with 'vocal abrasives' credited to Mateus Rose). The lyrical content is contemptible by today's standards, but what a tune!

[Listen to here.]