SONGS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO

22 JIM BEATTIE: Not God but not half bad

PART 1

MUST ADMIT Primal Scream only came into my orbit because of the Stone Roses in 1989. Bobby Gillespie was simply the drummer in JAMC until I read some articles that made me do some revision. Must also admit that Jim Beattie only came into my orbit because of Snub TV in 1991. Despite liking Chlorine Dream, I stopped short of purchasing a copy when I read he 'hated the Stone Roses.' Yeah, I was that fickle. Ditto Adventures in Stereo. 

What Gillespies' frustrating memoirs Tenement Kid did was colour in Beattie's character sympathetically. The retrospective Reverberations LP gives more than a flavour of the dynamics within the early Primal Scream and after much revision, I can declare Beattie to be the finest exponent of the very short pop song. 

His Glaswegian Scream years feel more than embryonic. Styled on Love's disarming image and sounding Byrdsian, they were to have a greater influence by fashioning the explosive Madchester sounds. Hence why I parted with a pretty penny to purchase their early singles retrospectively. Their Warners related material was easier to find and cheaper to buy. 

The making of which comes alive in Martin St John's equally frustrating memoirs. It's comical to hear the skeletal tambourinist attempt to hide his bitterness. He was dead right about Bewitched and Bewildered, though. It was insane not to work that pearl of a tune onto the album.  

Beattie exclaims that in retrospect being in that wider Scream gang and the early recordings were 'some of the best times of my life.' Gentle Tuesday abandons their very short song manifesto clocking in at over a massive three and half minutes and Beattie's Rickenbacker held the tune together. Had the wider world been ready for sixties spiked indie jangle pop, there might not have been such an acrimonious split. 

Reduced to a four-piece, even with the addition of Andrew Innes and badly compromised in the studio, their anti-climatic debut album would never be a classic. The overworked songs sound less focused and the spikiness of their earlier work was gone. Silent Spring being a case in point as it sounds much better on Reverberations.

Beattie left shortly after its release. Without either the enthusiasm for a move to Brighton or high energy rock 'n' roll or a move back to Creation records.  

PART 2

UNMOVED BY the parallel style of the day, Beattie returned in 1991 when all eyes were on his former band, whose masterpiece Screamadelica was being hotly expected. There could've been room for his new band Spirea X, named after the song solely credited to himself in his time with Primal Scream, had 4AD presented them to us in 1989. To say Spirea X should've set the world on fire would be daft. Shoegaze favourites like Ride were shaggable and signed to Creation, which at the time was really happening. 

Keen to escape comparisons with these younger, hipper bands, he was talking Biblical and political but got edited right down to tiny snippets and soundbites. When he said his band would succeed through a 'sheer force of ideas', he couldn't have been imaging the album Fireblade Skies. Sure, Chlorine Dream, creates great harmonies that are swept into the air by his 12 string majesty, but shares more in common with the catchier shoegaze acts than with the sonic architecture Kevin Shields was stirring up. 

The very short but memorable opener Smile is even better and could've been a part player on Screamadelica itself, but the rest of the album strives for a more direct pop distortion. Signed DC could've been a far earlier Primal's track. Another very short gem of a tune. The album lacks truly catchy hooks and the shuffly drums are at odds with their less linear approach. Making it sound a little uncohesive. Unsurprisingly, once it failed to sell, the label dropped them.  

Rising from the ashes of Spirea X, Adventures in Stereo began as a sample-driven project. Former manager Simon Dine supplied dense loops to contrast Judith Boyle’s vocals, creating a compressed, sugary aesthetic. While their overall output was inconsistent, When We Go Back perfectly captures the 60s girl-group miniature they aimed for. Other tracks feel rigid and trapped by the concept. However, their B-side cover of Nobody’s Scared channels a budget Saint Etienne, making it more charming.

Despite being the victim of misfortune, his musical story ends on a high. Abandoning the sample only idea, following Dine's departure, the stripped back 2000 album Monomania is great with Beattie distilling all he has learned into wonderfully short warm and woozy numbers that channel Pet Sounds, really bringing the best out of an angelic sounding Boyle. We Will Stand sets a high benchmark, but miraculously the quality persists throughout. It's definitely a future classic and a great way to bow out. 

It's not without irony that Gillespie and Innes, after generously unearthing superior versions of Give Out..., and Sonic Flower Groove, then tarnished their own legacy through sheer greed. Downgrading former band mates and making them less than peripheral characters in the story. A story that would read better with everyone, part of the socialist utopia they painted when on E. 

At least Beattie knew that was all complete bollocks from firsthand experience, preferring instead to make some sweet music with his girlfriend. A sensible man.    

BEATS OF LOVE 

130. Mind Bomb LP by The The 

REFLECTING ON the first time, I went back to Jockey Slut's infamous afters and painfully struggled to break into conversation. I kept looking at my kid sister and she kept looking at me whilst looking mainly at the flat itself. I'd just sat in Bugged Out dipping into my brandy and coke and was already feeling empty whilst everyone else was bursting full of life.

I suppose the awkwardness served some purpose, as on subsequent nights it introduced to someone who made me a little happier. Whilst everyone else got involved in relationships and business, I just carried on with this same stifling routine until it finally became too boring. Boring for me, and for everyone else.

I couldn't work over fifty hours a week, then party for twenty and keep the musical passion I needed to be interesting to myself. What this self indulgent masterpiece is full of, is passion. It drives Matt Johnson's concept album with its intensity and sparkle whilst harnessing a great musical response from a quality team of players. I thought Gravitate to Me was the cut, but listening back now, I can see a cohesion that makes every single track equally enthralling. 

There's his prophesies about America and the Middle East that explode with rich metaphors and his sharp musical vision. It's a shame the label feared him being seen as the Salman Rushdie of song and pulled their weightier first single. He'd gone on a strange diet and forced some of his band to do the same to reach this unsound level of intensity that helped him see into the future. An intensity that speaks directly to our human soul and, for the short while, it is playing, helps us untangle this mess we call life with a lot more passion. 

What is truly remarkable is how utterly now it sounds. That I was in that flat talking up Acid Eiffel whilst forgetting all about this mighty album, a mirror to life no less, speaks volumes about the folly of youth. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

129. Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain by William & Jim Reid 

BEING IN bunker mentality because of more weird dark art shit has led to a lot of books being read.

John Berger and Will Hodgkinson deserve honorary mentions. The former for reminding me that Marxism is still alive in spirit and the latter for making me laugh out loud five times. This book, however, is a cut above for being the most brutally honest autobiography I've ever read. 

Psychocandy was the ultimate antidote to the artifice of eighties pop, which grew the prettiest flowers on a monolithic slab of fuzzed up feedback and its creators, the first pop stars to speak directly to my teenage self. I'm still indebted to them for being so real then and now. The goths I knew were all middle-managers or bank clerks and hated the gritty realism of the Mary Chain. Unsurprising coz goths were all about that same artifice, I guess.  

They gloss over this period of relative solidarity with a warmth that fades out with each subsequent chapter until they can no longer be on the same continent together. That said, a shared self-deprecating humour accompanied by a hindsight that comes with age means the book remains colourfully gripping throughout and never once loses sight of the disorientating music. Music, as understood from the perspectives of at least half a dozen different versions of each brother.

That Dave Booth regularly span Never Understand at the Hangout was a testament to their musical influence. It was like a shot of something authentic that had more in common with Funhouse tracks than the sugary Inspiral Carpets tracks being played. It's tragic to learn that a band who, to my mind, at least existed within the confines of their own in-built mythology, was jealous of the happening scenes that sprung up around them. Tragic, but heartening to learn that they're human after all. 

Ultimately, despite the authors' best efforts to convince you otherwise, that's their lasting legacy. They transcended the age in which they first came into fashion to become something truly timeless. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

128 Step to the Rear by Brand Nubian

I'M OFF social media sites and it feels great. Facebook was accidental. (A long story.) Twitter; well you'd be mad to stay on there, right? Now I really am just talking to myself without all that toxic noise deafening me.

I still remember the Monday in Musicworld, my town’s only record store, when this track on the turntable completely blew me away. Walking up to shop counters in Mancunia was second nature to me, but not here. Yet, breaking my usual reserve in that shop, I stepped forward to ask.

I admit it was my kid sister playing De La Soul that first got me into Hip-hop. I think I swiped it before realising that the U.S. press was far superior. I love lyrics, sages, and wordplay, so this was tailor made for me. Their LP sounded so perfect on that Monday. And it sounded even better when I cranked it up later on the home hi-fi.

With all the toxic noise that deafened us out of nowhere, I revisit this gem to make some noise of my own. Until the neighbour returns home from work. It sounds perfect and still blows me clean away. Puba just flowing vibrant rhymes effortlessly and elastically on top of some of the dopest, laid back funky hooks committed to vinyl. I doubt you can eclipse the breezy lines, 'But I'm long, I'm like Stretch Armstrong, I go on and on and on and on'. The Mar-Keys’ Plantation Inn was the springboard for them and their extended crew, the SD50s, to get deeply creative. Giving Puba the ideal platform to be brilliant whilst still disarming me with his swaggering elegance.  

Music, memory, and escape are my armour. They anchor me against the dread of these dark days; through the noise of a social media detox and the sting of rampant racism. Right now, I can blast this out loud. But in an hour, reality will come crashing back with the heavy slam of my neighbour’s front door.

BEATS OF LOVE 

127. Drifting in the Moonlight by Richenel

BLAIR'S TIMING couldn't have been worse. UK's second generation Muslim population was integrating at pace when he waged his illegal war. Both the police and media then scapegoated them whilst shielding the footy firms who caused carnage in their neighbourhoods. Inciting riots and galvanising far-right hate groups.

The footy firm was alluring in the mid 80s for a school dropout like myself. The gang; shouting obscenities at the police in decent clobber, smelt like freedom. Luckily, after a couple of outings, one of the main heads of the FYC (Oldham's firm, the Fine Young Casuals) found his way into the family home and went on a minor wrecking spree. 

After picking up a broken seven inch single, I instantly fell out of love with his plotted acts of violence. Finding record shopping was a better way to spend my Saturdays. He goaded my pal's young-brother into throwing a petrol bomb a few years later that epitomised his cowardice. Scarpering whilst my pal's young brother faced serious charges. 

Sadly, my pal, like many, has got more obsessed with the frightening concepts surrounding Islam and immigration than the footy of late. Concepts put into his head by fake online memes and coercive, radicalising posts, but legitimised by the divisive and cowardly rhetoric of a few politicians and journalists who don't let the truth they obscure impede their inflammatory arguments. Goading arguments that have given way to a scarpering silence in the past few days. 

They mistake secularism for progress while falsely labelling immigrants as backward. True backwardness is an emotional and aggressive reaction to everything; stuck in a perpetual state of teenage angst and amplified by immature public figures. That inability to mature is the real regression.

It's as pathetic as it is cowardly to encourage in any way a protest borne of beak and strong lager that will inevitably turn violent, which targets entirely innocent people. A riot then, in everything but name. 

BEATS OF LOVE

 

126. Yuri-G by PJ Harvey

WHAT A brilliant afternoon unfolded. After washing my floors whilst watching American Psycho, I had to decide whether to listen to the golf on the radio or watch the telly highlights and go for a walk. 

I had intended to walk to the monument prior to a trip to Gosfield to celebrate my lovely aunt's 90th year but got waylaid watching the marathon ladies' semi-finals at Wimbledon, so did it today. When I finally got to the place where both my mother's and her brother's ashes scattered after busy winding roads chock-full of cars kept slowing things up, two soft circling ravens met me. 

lovely aunty with her lovely grandchildren

Ravens have become deeply poignant and something I have had to change my attitude toward. They first lingered on my lawn the day my mother took ill, then seemed to gloat after she'd died. However, by the time I celebrated my 50th in a Zurich restaurant replete with ravens designed into glass-panels, I finally embraced the bird, which became emblematic of my mother.  

My lovely aunty Pat is a great example of courage and fortitude. A wise owl. Partially sighted and dependent on carers entering her home, she is full of trust and joy. Reaching that age to teach us still. An atheist, she misses her long chats with my mother, whereas I still put words in mother's mouth every time I see a raven and peck her head. Almost daily. 

Hoping her bearing witness to the duplicity of others can have some sway in future outcomes. That is simply selfish, and I will just have to find the faith to forgive. Today was all about letting go. Praying instead that she rests in perfect peace. 

That a lone raven gently flew past as I headed for home made my soulful walk complete. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

125. Persephone's Song by Students of The George School

Jonny Trunk's genius for unearthing music and releasing it on vinyl knows no bounds, and reading his Friday mail-outs is an integral part of my week. I miss wrapping my tenner in an envelope and receiving advanced copies and still say to myself 'you've surpassed yourself this time' at least once every five years.

I vividly recall the hunt for his breakthrough Wicker Man soundtrack, LP. E-Bloc and Decoy couldn't help and the HMV store and Piccadilly had sold out of their stock, so I scoured second hand outlets. Luckily, after a few weeks, M1 had a copy on their counter, but Brian didn't want to sell it. I must've looked pretty desperate. He finally accepted my steep offer of £17.

With super artwork and an info sheet name-checking the Massiv chorus, Journey of Persephone was less stressful to buy and is stunning. Magically unearthing this rare 1973 album from a Pennsylvania school ensemble like no other, Jonny once again delivers the goods. Unlike the Wonder Years, which taps into a faux nostalgia, this feels authentic. Except darker. 

Echoes of this era's telly acoustic hand clapping children sing-alongs are more embedded in the imaginations of folk, like myself, born in the sixties. Before more visual, ad orientated chewing gum telly became the norm. And Miraculously, the students play all Lars T Clutterman's weird, wonderful songbook with total mastery. On stage. In real time.

   

This opener's jaunty, piano-led blast of folk funk takes me to my happy place, but reflecting on the curation of the whole album, it is a masterclass in musical discovery. 'You've completely surpassed yourself this time!'