BEATS OF LOVE 

142. Miles Further by Wrekin Havoc

WE WRITE a lot. Deconstructing the process that folk who deconstruct music to create fresher sounding music undergo, so we can all feel a little more enlightened. 

Well, this week was a real toughie. It was the anniversary of the death of my kid sister's husband and to compound things, my nephew, who has been home with her since, has just started a new job, so she was all alone near the Devon coast miles away from us. 

My mother's surviving partner is awaiting the memory clinic's assessment and is losing sight of us more each week and needing more of our attention. And sadly, work was especially weird. I say work because the manager that pissed me off is just programmed to operate in a hostile manner. Luckily for me, I had a couple of freshly bought records to play on repeat. 

The trancey warmth of Hey Mister Mister by Kriss, a massive want after Rob J posted it, has sent me to sound heaven. Weightless arms aloft. I'd settled for a CD version but the brilliant Sound Metaphors stable have thankfully put it out on their Thank You imprint. In the same packet was this absolute gem of a tune. Rob again with his fellow West Midland cohorts, Stuart Robinson and Richard Hall. Who've produced this epic dose of musical madness which eclipses everything I've bought this year. 

Fuck the process, and fuck enlightenment. It is simply emotional pop at its very best. Its memorable vocal refrain teases in, carried mesmerisingly on a floaty bed of synths, then a dramatic guitar lifts it up even higher, and then we have lift-off. It all feels way shorter than its nine minutes. My outstretched arms, in a musical hypnosis, are attempting to glide on the magnificence of it all. 

I really pray these special people in my life have things that can make them feel momentarily blissful that puts aside all their heavy chocolate.

BEATS OF LOVE 

141. Blue – 80s Extended Unreleased Vocal Mix by Wham!

ORIGINALLY, A b-side track, the result of the eleven spare studio hours left after recording the mighty debut album Fantastic, and an obsession of mine in 2018. 

Its dubby synths evoke the DIY spirit and not the work of students of the chart takeover. Footage of George replete in his Borg Elites on The Russell Harty Show put him centre stage in a more intense pose.   

You forget it was basically Nothing Looks the Same in the Light with less production but instead get seduced by a melodic charm and hushed vocals. A tentative delivery by someone who has all but shut down the creative input of his partner to make their band massive. These were the last songs of theirs that felt like mine. Consequent releases would happily transfer into the cassettes my father would play in his car. My sister's. 

Its release coincided with the last time I felt naturally happy, so when I play their earliest records, it touches me personally. I can taste the fresh orange I drank before leaving the kitchen and picture my father's outstretched arms as I ruffled his neatly combed hair on my way to school. Life felt warm and playful, and I loved going to school and church. When their sophomore Make it Big album came out, I didn't. 

This edit works wonders with the vocals and turns this notion I have of it being a DIY tune on its head. It sounds crispy fresh and not unlike a smash. I love the tactile cover and the Lovevinyl bullshit that accompanies the release on their website. Especially the lie about it being a hundred only pressing. After two failed attempts, I've finally got a copy. 

There's nothing bullshit about ECLA, their mighty edit rocks, and like a nice pair of heavy duty velvet curtains, it shuts out the world today brilliantly.

BEATS OF LOVE 

140. Looking Glass by The La's

USED TO go to Liverpool Poly to catch bands occasionally. Getting there early to watch the soundcheck but when The La's played there in 1990 was a different vibe. It was already busy.

Ordinary, expectant people were milling around the bar with thick scouse accents. This was their band and with my deep monotone North Manchester accent, I was wary of speaking. After all, I'd been obsessed with most of their songs for just over a month whilst many of the crowd had lived with them for years. They were an incredible live force with a fiery spark, and the tunes were just dripping out naturally. 

Hearing from folk who'd heard Maver's demos for a follow-up album was a regular part of post-clubbing in the 90s. The stuff of legend, yet when they surfaced online decades later, they actually surpassed the crazy high expectations. Tears in the Rain slowed down, sounds sublime. The band hated their recorded output. However, despite their harsh criticism, it's still much loved. Their only album's closer, this effortlessly poetic epic helps give the band verisimilitude. Making it more resonant with age. It's the music that The Verve strove to eclipse. 

A diversion towards the experimentation and space found on the twelves, it actually states with a wholly arresting conviction that the change is cast. The change being this direct but more soulful form of expression and not the vastly inferior band Power formed in frustration at Mavers overworking the demos. Essentially, keeping him to the same songbook since 1986. The conundrum now is which version to share. Since Mavers hated the final version, other sessions and alternate takes have since surfaced. 

For today, at least, I'm going with the one that has served me longest. The one Mavers hates the most. It's still one of the best songs ever recorded.

 BEATS OF LOVE 

139. Afro Disco by Vincent Arthur & Dagomba

BIGGED UP Sam Don before, but he's since started a label. Sweet Free Association. 

I was lucky to bag one of two left on his Bandcamp page as the og was too pricey. Sam was onto it prior to its price sky rocketing and has kindly licensed three choice cuts. I was also lucky enough to bag one of the two left with his debut release, the impossibly rare Carter Lake by Carl Moore. A grower that peaked just in time for a tonne of Christmas plays. The pitfalls of coming off social media is I'm consigned to blogs and forums to hear fresh music. The only pitfalls. 

As a failed DJ, I appreciate the idiosyncratic self-imposed rules the successful DJs create to box themselves into a particular style. A style they can then harness. Comparatively speaking, I'm like the massively overgrown hedge way found outside derelict buildings.

Case in point, before deciding this record creates a brilliant atmosphere for dancing, I was pitching the idea, largely to myself, that Tony Ogden and John West's Man, Myth and Music demos, should be professionally recorded. They're so good. Not by AI, but by the compilation artists' Imaginary records were so good at finding. I've also been entering the hallucinatory world of my mother's surviving partner. A fatiguing world that reminds me that life can change in an instant. 

This year, I must stop filling notepads with ideas that never get realized and act on some instead. Cheers Sam and Ted for today's lesson.

SONGS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO

23. Nick Sanderson : Shrunken Head, Massive Head

PART 1

I DISLIKE drummers; they came back to mine and talked up Queen. They snidely slagged off my big hooter and formed the Foo Fighters.

I like Nick though, unless his cheeriness stood in my way of talking to World Of Twist frontman extraordinaire Tony. He has been the much loved antihero of at least four books I've read, so has become an obsession of sorts. Hence, this retro-glance back at his career highlights. In descending order; train driver, boarder, Earl Brutus co frontman, WOT, Mary Chain, Freeheat, Gun Club and Clock DVA drummer.

Would love to drive the Brighton to London train. All those tired empty faces of a Monday morning heading away from a weekend's pleasure. Not so good on a Friday teatime mind. I had fantasies about boarding school and a different life. Genesis fan Nick breaking into Peter Gabriel's house suggests it would've been a waste on me. That he had the audacity to go back there trying to find the touches to make an album that was both brilliant and commercial, and beat his host at table tennis is an anecdote for most of us but a mere footnote for Nick.

Surprised he wasn't driving the underground tube trains though, as he was a bit of a hex on the overground majors. The Mary Chain got dropped by WEA after his sole contribution to their arsenal. Circa dropped WOT after they handed in insanely rushed demos for a follow-up album. Polydor dropped Clock DVA after his sole contribution to their arsenal and Island dropped Earl Brutus after their sophomore album tanked. Not that anybody ever held it against him.

Wish he'd fronted WOT with Tony slinking into the background, but after commercial failure, the band got dropped and simply fizzled away. His time in the Gun Club, which bookmarked his time with WOT, coincides with the music of theirs I found more accessible. Lupita Screams is fantastic in anybody's book. It must've taken an enormous amount of patience and fortitude to help Jeffrey Lee Pierce realize his musical vision. Almost as much as helping Tony realize his. Little wonder he needed to exhale.

I've been blasting out Earl Brutus all Christmas. Their resonant slogans and glam leanings are as festive as I've felt, and I have been getting some funny looks in the supermarket where I work chanting their catchiest tunes. I needed a survival strategy. Where most acts drip their inner selves into songs, they resist that as if they were creating an art installation and not a song. It possibly explains why I only started getting into them once I understood the Chapman Brothers.

PART 2

MASSIVE KUDOS to Icerink for releasing Earl Brutus's skull-fuck of a glittery stomper, Life's Too Long, on the label. Not least because it is. They saw the remnants of World of Twist and If? and had their own minds blown and so kindly blew ours. Twinned on a good sound-system with The Fall at their deranged best, people would go insane. And I mean insane. That they surpassed all expectations was down to Nick's energy and soul. Few people can shout 'shrunken head, massive head' and make it sound earnest.

Following on from WOT, whose live shows were events Earl Brutus has attracted the anti-terrorist squad and, following Nick actually pissing on the stage, got signed. (Only in the nineties.) Predictably, I never saw them live. Possibly because I felt they'd wronged Tony, but more than likely because Gordon never once let on despite being in the same pubs and clubs. We hide the truth. Pretty sure my pal Jeff was into them back then.

Again, following on from WOT who conceived of the idea that writing the worst lyrics in pop's history would be their golden ticket, Earl Brutus conceived of the idea that infusing the energy and inane banter emanating from telly pages and gritty northern taprooms would be theirs. Alas, only art students think subverting the mainstream with highly convincing parody is a good idea. Their second album was no better than the first, despite major backing on account of their debut being so strong. Quality is quality, I guess. That said, Universal Mind should've been a smash hit.

And again following on from WOT, whose in joking held them back, Earl Brutus set themselves apart from their contemporaries. Seeing most of them as shoddy revivalists. Nick famously called his most famous fan Noel Gallagher, John Noakes, and withdrew consent for their inclusion on the Trainspotting soundtrack on account of Ewan McGregor sounding too posh. It was these acts of self-sabotage that made both acts great but came at a great cost. 

Freeheat; what happened before the Mary Chain reformed and while Earl Brutus waited for another label to sign them, was more an exercise in fun. That said, the Chemical Brothers sampled the riff from The Two of Us. Sadly, the last time Nick's wife and bandmate Romi duetted with Jim was in tribute to him following his untimely death. Tragic a life lived so richly needed a fundraiser. 

As I was ending this piece, Man United's beleaguered ten men had forced a penalty shootout. I thought of Nick, a massive fan and, for the first time in my life, actually wanted them to win. Unthinkable an hour ago. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

138. The Drift by deary 

 

THAT CAPITALISM survived communism is no surprise. It's less theoretical and lends itself to corruption. Communism was a big ask and a big threat, which is why we had a social democratic society. 

Meaning there was less nepotism and cronyism and more education and opportunity. Now, with the end of the cold war, there is a complete inattention to the plight of everyday folk as unimaginative politicians inflate their own egos and get obsessed with one another. 

It's why Starmer can go from socialism to something that could be mistaken for the Sunak era in a few short months. It's why populism, the last throw of the dice in any democracy, is so popular. Its ideas, values and tenets are malleable. Another unspoken truth is that everyday folk are a bit like politicians. Creating a low-cost world with mass consumerism, meaning that they can also unimaginatively inflate their own egos and get obsessed with one another. 

Despite still having slavery in its DNA, this unchecked capitalism has now become the new religion. Reagan, by exhausting Russias wealth pool, created an oligarchy. And not just in Russia. A politician's role is now to serve that whilst trying to serve the low-cost world we create. Meaning that only the very richest feel any gains. Something similar occurred during the late Roman Empire. When its ideas, language, and culture took hold elsewhere while it became obsessed with lying and deceiving the everyday folk in its care. 

It's why another part of the world with more imagination and integrity holds the key to moving humanity forward. One not so lost and confused in its own self.  

BEATS OF LOVE

137. Bigger & Closer (Not Smaller & Further Away) by David Hockney 

IT WAS with trepidation that I entered the Aviva studio, thinking I was going to see another three-hour show. The last time I went, I saw Laurie Anderson. As compelling as elements were, it was sprawling in over indulgence and went on far too long.

My relief was palpable as I discovered two of the three hours my missus had allotted to this were actually in the bar. The last time I saw Hockney in Manchester was his photographic exhibition, that left me a little cold. I like to see the artist's hand in the work, so I was even less drawn to this. 

However, despite massive reservations, once I found my perch aloft, I became drawn in and mesmerised. Aviva for once made perfect sense as its vast space became awash with a vibrancy that was both colourful and high spirited. I couldn't help but do a bit of people spotting as my eyes scanned the dominant spaces and saw miniature people sat to attention, laid back with their phones, lent against walls, sprawled out on the floor, and knelt down playfully. It very much had a festival flavour. 

Lightroom's masterstroke is having Hockney's distinctively northern voice making pithy comments to guide us through his work with a sense of great purpose. An advantage he has over Van Gogh for sure is this artistic control. Artist Chanje Kunda noted that this gave the work an African flavour by evoking oratory art traditions perfected by the elders and passed down through generations. It certainly gives the exhibition its sense of reverence that means there's no casual banter, allowing the spoken word and image to coalesce. Prompting us to ask, 'are we seeing the work through Hockney's eyes or our own?' Probably our own. That said, the method helps us reach a better level of understanding his work without scrunching our faces in brain ache. 

What came to life for me were the photographs I had dismissed. Possibly because they lend themselves to reproduction, or most likely because I now know what foregrounding time and perspective means. Hockney is a great entry point for this type of installation, as his use of colour is joyful. His big themes, water, spring, theatre; dramatic. It's a great appetizer, as I'm surely not alone in wanting to view more of his actual work now. There is a great big book near the entrance, a more comprehensive catalogue of his oeuvre with a £4500 price tag. I'm guessing it's still there.   

I have my reservations about future installations working as well, but the three-year effort to realize this blockbuster art show needs commending. A blockbuster  art show in Manchester. That's a first.