BEATS OF LOVE 

68. A Puppet by The Mod 4

TEENAGE ALL-GIRL band The Mod 4’s career highlight came in early 1969 on the telly variety show Happening, hosted by Paul Revere and the Raiders. 

That pre-teenagers called Paula & The Pipsqueaks beat them epitomises the tragi-comic elements of pop failure that make it so fascinating. That Swiss graphic designer and record collector Ivan Liechti has unearthed a double LP's worth of similar warmly ambitious treasure for Oz label Efficient Space with a forward penned by my former guru Sonic Boom is definitely a Christmas come early. 

By the time the Beatles publicly turned their back on LSD, the damage had already been done; scientific zealotry had taken hold, Brian Wilson had lost his mind, and, introspective, imaginative, soul-searching pop songs were big business. It's no surprise that bands immersed in LSD actually sound worse than the more youthful ones influenced by them. Billy Nicholls, being the exception. Slight misunderstandings make these teenage songs sound less velvety, saccharine, and insincere. 

The Mod 4 had money and in Nellie Hastings, a songwriter who had read and listened just enough to craft a song more creatively and imaginatively than the folk she was in part imitating. Big dreams have never sounded so fragile, and the transparency of thought is its biggest charm. 

I had my own big dreams too this year, but, with the sheer quality of compilation albums coming at me, I'm happily mired in a listening mode for the foreseeable. Acting on them will just have to wait. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

67. Give It Up (Benedek remix) by RTSAK

MUCH TO love about this twelve. For a start, the sleeve feels really luxurious. 

Moving away from his signature sultry heat, Antoine steps into a brighter spotlight. He stops drifting through the cosmos and starts dancing on the Daft Punk coffee table to a sparkling 80s rhythm. He pulls it off with effortless cool, bringing Batiste’s guitar to the forefront and adding a distinct pop edge, without losing his grip on that warm, vintage analog equipment.

Raphaël Top-Secret brilliantly kick starts his label cachette in collaboration, adding some refreshing earth beneath his work-spars astral leanings. Consequently, creating a vibrancy that gives it more than a sprinkling of funk. The musical equivalent of offering it a smile with a loving tumbler of Mezcal.   

However, it's this remix that does it for me. Benedek created the lockdown classic Mr Goods on L.I.E.S., perfecting the future-retro grooves that folk my age find really appealing. Nodding to the raw beats of yesteryear but with a pulse that places it firmly in the now. With an added elasticity to the funk, this neo-soul wobbler shifts gears, sending it flurrying, tumbler in hand, onto discerning dancefloors. It’s an irresistible late-night anthem that has me properly hooked.

BEATS OF LOVE

66. Hotel California (Orbitally Ambient Mix) by Jam on the Mutha 

LEE AND Mark both enjoyed boozing, but that's where the similarity ends. 

When I first met Lee, we'd drive to remote areas and dance topless to S'Express on his car bonnet. Or punch the air in surrender to Erasure in the rougher boozers in Shaw. Like me, he was a bit of a clown. He became a postie and went from being dead chatty to totally remote over the course of a few short years. I was too young to realise unsociable working hours weren't for everyone. 

He was humiliated by the regulars who stripped him naked and threw him out of the local boozers window after his behaviour became increasingly bizarre, as he sadly lost his faculty to communicate. It was sad to see Lee's demise, and I later felt tremendous shame that I was too apathetic to at least attempt to force some conversation out of him. I could see clearly he was worse than unhappy. 

By 1994 I could see myself spiralling and becoming more like him, who, by this point, was sadly no longer with us. After a failed attempt at self-poisoning, I moved away. Best thing I did until I met the missus.     

I first recall seeing Mark through a police car window. I was being driven off, and he was intrigued, as teenagers are. A year later, he was taking LSD with us on the local playing field. I was aware of his young age and despite going through the massive fits of laughter stage; I felt a responsibility to be there for him as the more intense stage kicked in, which it already had with me. We must've walked around that field two hundred times, and Mark never once stopped laughing. 

He still hadn't stopped laughing throughout the nineties. Or, after a trip to Ibiza, where my mate thought it would be a good idea to knock back brandy and coke in the departure lounge with him. Mark returned home in hysterics as my mate languished in a Spanish cell for two days. 

I recall being round another mate's house and Mark putting Hotel California on. A permanent pub jukebox record, but it made sense to me during a particularly scrambled session. Obviously, I prefer this Orb version, which he would say is shit. Mark, with the same wicked twinkle in his eye as his dad Terry, was definitely more of a ladies' man. 

When the Queen died, I saw him for what would be the last time. Predictably laughing until King Charles spoke on the telly and he became furious that the guys playing pool were, well, playing pool. He eyeballed me, half expecting me to break the silence he had now orchestrated, but out of respect for him, I kept quiet. I'm now glad I did. 

Lee didn't get the digital wake Mark has rightly received. He would have today. But likes and comments mean nothing if we don't learn to look closer at the folk right in front of us. We need to understand the silence just as much as the laughter. God bless you, Lee and Mark. Two beautiful, chaotic forces of nature. The world is a lot quieter without you, but your lights shine bright.

SONGS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO

18. Candy Flip: A breakfast dream was empty, and no-one took the blame 

PART 1

MY SPECIAL TOTP moments began in 1979 with Wings whose Christmas idyll played on my Grandparents' black and white telly whilst I was getting a bit bored in their company. It was both tantalizingly close and somewhat remote. And mysteriously exciting. That same formula of baffling proximity endured throughout the 80s but in colour, which made TOTP even more captivating. We all know the video hits. 

Watching an eclectic array of acts that often regularly toured on Snub TV brought everything into closer proximity, but killed a lot of mystique. The TOTP acts still seemed remote until the Roses and Mondays swaggered onto the show in 1989. These were bands that were regularly playing the International and Hacienda and not always packing them in. Bands that began fusing their attitude with an acid smiley and daisy age sensibility. It spawned a Face cover that celebrated E and really felt like a moment.   

By early 1990, house influence was ubiquitous and an unadulterated indie-dance sound crossed over into the charts. In my final year of comprehensive education in 1986, I was totally obsessed with the Beatles, so when Candy Flip's Strawberry Fields Forever began to get club play, I was buzzing. Germany's June edition of Pop Rocky magazine labelled them, without irony, 'The Beatles on Acid.' Brilliant. Primal Scream's Loaded also aired on the same TOTP when it finally charted and it felt like another important moment. 

PART 2

CANDY FLIP that same month were on the cover of Smash Hits with their cheeky name, (slang for mixing E with LSD), and played live at the legendary Konspiracy.

I was there flapping without the candy on a wonky stool most of the night. Whereas the Scream welcomed drug references Candy Flip with their unfortunate name and freshly acquired pop aspirations, began distancing themselves from the Hacienda and began talking up the Pet Shop Boys instead.

The fey aspects of C86 inherent in Candy Flip's poppy moments also carried over into the Beloved's later synth pop duo incarnation. The Beloved were more successfully wedded to an acid smiley and daisy age sensibility, but didn't chart as highly. They knew the music business inside out whereas Candy Flip dressed like fashion victims and appealed to a younger audience so started saying naff things like 'acid house might as well have been called banana house.' With an unkind UK music press quickly savaging them their quality tunes got lost in the laughter. 

A crying shame they weren't taken more seriously coz the flip side of their biggest hit, Aqua Libra, is a stunning slice of mellow piano laden goodness. Evolution on their ill-fated debut twelve still takes me to bleep heaven, throbbing in all the right places, and still sells for under a tenner. Buy it. 

Rhythm of Life is also a cheeky little play on Derrick May's masterpiece, which actually sounds cool softening those irrepressibly sexy stabs. Almost as cool as putting JB's funky drummer sample on a Beatles track. The Most Excellent mix of Redhills Road teases in the vocal, then lets it soar. Justin Robertson's remixes were prone to teasing out the vocals, which is testament to its strength.  

They deservedly got the chance to make a studio album and really embraced it. Madstock...The Continuing Adventures Of Bubblecar Fish stands up well and still plays coherently, demonstrating a fine production ear. They comprehended that they were now the weirdest boy band ever but were still subsumed in the same mellow baggy groove that made their big hit such a club moment. Pop songs that sound a bit dull and cheesy fed through videos of Danny Spencer's constant smiles actually come alive and demand much more attention in the context of this LP. Like the opposite of TOTP.   

 

Highlight, the aforementioned Redhills Road, illustrates that they were every bit as odd as Shaun Ryder, whose inane lyrics in stark contrast were lauded by the music press. Odd, but from Stoke and not Salford. So not seen as authentic. They could also concoct a more coherent and convincing form of soft psychedelic dance than the Mondays. 

I also reminisce about Oasis and how fucking over-rated their TOTP performances were, and their authenticity was, with its aggression and simplicity. And I bemoan how LSD sort of fizzled out of the scene, taking Candy Flip with it.