Wall of Sound A-Z: Garbage :Garbage

Wall of Sound A-Z: Garbage :Garbage

Garbage represented my first getting caught up live in the massive hype of Melody Maker and the NME as in 1995 Garbage arrived, having Nirvana producer Butch Vig in the band and strong female vocalist Shirley Manson. I got caught up in all of this and bought tickets to see them at Wolverhampton Civic Hall (best local venue I the West Midlands at the time).


The album starts with Supervixen which I can take or leave,  but then Queer is a fantastic tune, a single receiving huge airplay, I liked it because it felt like the outsider element of Suede fronted by a woman, what's not to like. Just when you think the song iswinding up after 2 minutes it leaps on with some more grungy guitars, confirming the Queerest of the Queer, Strangest of the Strange. Definitely a 5 star tune, Duh duh duh der duh, you can touch me if you want.

Next my favourite song on the album, Shirley showing how stroppy she is with the excellent only happy when it rains. Great tune, shouts out at you, again massive airplay, catchy title and probably why I bought the tickets, odd chorus though 'Pour your misery down on me'

So at the Civic Hall we had balcony seats and I had never seen the hall so rammed, everyone clammering to see Shirley and co, and missing the support I didn't have long to wait, it was electric with the mosh pit seeming to stretch for most of the length of the venue, that's what stuck with me most from the gig, this mass of humanity totalling hyped for a brilliant experience and a band raring to give it them.

Back to the album, 'As heaven is wide' takes the grungy baseline and sticks it over a beating drum machine and Shirley speaking huskily over the top very effectively. We slow down a bit with the marching 'Not my idea' again great song, Shirley's Scottish accent breaking through, it's always nicer to hear singers singing in the own accent.

I was lucky to get to see Garbage, as I had bought tickets to 2 gigs on consecutive nights, Garbage and the Bluetones, but working in Swindon on an away job, not having tickets on me and Pre the Internet era I got confused, I came back to Brum to go to Wolverhampton and found the Bluetones was actually the first of the 2 gigs and had happened the day before. I was gutted and this put me off the Bluetones for life, especially as I had to pay for my mates ticket too. Lucky for me that Garbage was so good.

The biggest Britpop moment for the album comes with Stupid Girl, which was a decent sized hit too, lots of AirPlay again, backed no doubt by various lovely formats of records, I seem to recall that Garbages packaging was impressive, furry cover on one I think. Stupid Girl hit number 4 in the charts in the UKwhen that meant something to me and was all over the TV chart shows.

Milk ends the album, a quieter relaxing end, their final single off the album, reworked with Tricky, showing what a big deal they were at the time, this is a quite haunting track, with the vocals 'Im waiting, I'm waiting for you' staying with you long after the single finishes.

I stayed following Garbage, really enjoying lots of the singles off less successful later albums but was most surprised when Shirley turned up as the key baddy in the Terminator Spin off TV series, the Sarah OConner Chronicles where she played one of the liquid metal terminators and was pretty effective as a cyborg!

The Wall Of Sound A-Z: The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

The flaming lips are one of a kind, a band who seem just to make music based around the things they came up with on a drunken night out, those exciting no holds barred ideas, and as a result they are one of my favourite bands.

Picking up Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, it's an interesting record, good first couple of tracks, particularly the strings at the end of the second, the sound of feeling in love, then comes Yoshimi, parts 1&2, and what a difference the 2 parts are, first is a beautiful song about these robots - Perfection. The second, effectively a playing of scales up and down, squishy sounds and not really up to much (it's more interesting live with the full experience as I will expand on below).

In the morning of the magicians, is back to a wistful, beautiful song Wayne Coyne crooning in his ravaged voice with beautiful tunes around. Then spacey sounds and it sounds like what flying in a spaceship would sound like universe rushing past, then back to the gentler element again.

Ego tripping at the gates of hell, is an average pleasant canter through 4 minutes, no short tunes on this album. Similarly are you a hypnotist? And it's summertime, these three songs have all been building up to one of the greatest songs ever written.

Do you realise?? Not only is it a beautiful, beautiful song, every line makes you think about something, Do you realise that everyone will someday die being the one that really gets me every time, probably because I have been relatively sheltered to this in my life. It's a song I could stick on repeat, lie back and close my eyes to.

The last couple of tracks basically rattle through basking in the glow of Do you realise.

So overall the album has 2 of the greatest tracks on it, and takes you on a trip for the rest of the album, brilliant stuff. The music mags loved it too, as the sticker on the front of my cd states:

"...even by their standards, Yoshimi is astonishing. The greatest album released in uncuts lifetime" *****

"The bands most delicate and sophisticated work yet" ***** the times

"The Flaming Lips are out there on their own : there is no one quite like them" Daily Telegraph 

"Outstanding" Sunday Times
It's not the songs though that make the Flaming Lips a phenomenal band but the live experience, I've seen them 3 times and each time it's been a draw dropping performance, whether it's the big plastic ball that Wayne walks over the crowd in, or the numerous green balloons into the crowd bouncing them around, or the big hands, random cam, dancing Santas or Aliens, streamers and confetti guns - it's a party not a gig!

The final word for me would probably be linked to the robots, as around this time me and Mrs P had come into the possession of 2 big black wind up robots, which we would then hide around the house, behind the curtains, in the fridge, in the bed etc to surprise each other whenever we could. They are in the loft now, so may be time to bring them out of retirement.

Wall of sound A-Z: E : Elastica Elastica

Wall of sound A-Z: E : Elastica Elastica

Starting off with spiky guitar riffs Line Up must be the only debut song on record that kicks off with a song with what sounds to the untrained ear to be 'retching' all the way through, and despite this its a cracking tune. Onto Annie, and we are into a lively tune Britpop romp, over in 1:14 barely time to write a sentence.

Now connection is a TUNE as I believe the young folks say, this is the sort of tune that got me into Elastica at the time, amazingly I don't think I was aware that Justine, the lead singer and guitarist was ex Suede and had committed the cardinal sin of swapping Brett Anderson for Damon Albarn in the Beau stakes. How anyone can be cool enough to snag both of them lot I don't know, but very impressive. So rather than Elastica being listened to because of Suede links (step forward McAlmont & Butler) it was a favourite CD on merit.

Being released in 1995, it fell nicely in the era when I could go out with a paypacket and purchase the latest tunes, still having to eek out a bargain (starting on £9,000 pay with a first class degree!). The albums pretty instantly listenable to, punky songs, only 4 on the album stretching over 3 minutes in length, they don't overstay their welcome.

Not sure they were a band that Mrs P enjoyed but I did manage to drag her out to Digbeth Institute to see them, a venue that was to obtain for many years a magical nostalgia as Elastica were the only band I had seen there before it shut for a decade. It was a lovely old building, smoky to say the least and rammed with sweaty students. Tall sweaty students to be honest which meant that I was going to get an ear bending from Mrs P if I wasn't careful when the support band came on, as she couldn't see anything. However we were in luck,  not sure whether they were a recent invention or not but the drinks in the Institute came in the most robust plastic pint glasses ever, allowing the ever resourceful Mrs P to balance precariously on 2 for the gig, me chasing them round on the odd occasion a wobble got the better of her.

Support that day were also pretty special in Powder, Pearl Lowe's band. Its been quite interesting to read over the years about Pearl Lowe's exploits in show biz, in fact having just reminisced about her, I have now purchased her book 'All that glitters' on ebay for 99p, I reckon that will be interesting. But on the musical front Powder produced a couple of cracking tunes, Shave me and Aphrodisiac which have received regular spins over the years.

The main event is something I can't remember too much about, I bumped into my later best man (now nicknamed the shadow as he has vanished from view) sporting his Ultra cool John Travolta in Pulp Fiction haircut (he was a drummer in a band, Crystal Injection maybe??). Hadn't seen him for years so it was a good spot, and being seen at Elastica must have done my street cred some good. I do look back incredibly fondly on the gig there and would put the feeling right up there if you know what I mean.

In my opinion, the best song on the album though is Waking Up. Cd single (remember them, brilliant, all up in the loft) purchased to kick off my love of Elastica, helping them get to a respectable #13 in the charts. The funny thing is though that Elastica had to settle out of court with the Stranglers for plagiarising 'No more heroes' with this song. I thought this was a bit harsh given Britpop was the world of the plagiarising artist (step forward Oasis (Beatles) and Blur (Kinks)) but no it was good old Elastica.

Actually having listened to Vaseline, how much is that like Blondies La La La on Sunday girl, I believe the years of listening 6 music may have opened my ears a bit more to the plagiarising. Right I am going to go back to no more heroes (a song I love) to spot Waking up....... oh, 18 years its taken me to spot that. I'll get my coat. What's that you say, its Wire songs too that are ripped off.

Well despite the album now turning into an album of almost covers, I do have an amazing fondness for the album, and Waking Up is still a fantastic song. Coming to the penultimate tune, 'Never here' its a song about Brett and Justine's break up apparently, what will I glean from the lyrics, well, sounds like they were typical student types, too much curry, Brett's lyrics were a bit ropey (they didn't scan indeed) and sounds like that was the end.

Going forward Elastica waited a good 5 years to do a follow up, with a significantly changed line up, down to substance abuse, or not finding any more tunes to slightly tweak, and I saw them again at Wolverhampton before the break up. Justine's an artist or summink now. Elastica are just a blistering punk pop band I love.

Wall of sound A-Z: Daisy Chainsaw Eleventeen

Purchased for $3.99 probably on BOGOF

Wall of sound A-Z D Daisy Chainsaw: Eleventeen

What do you get mixing Bubblegum pop with a deranged mind, well I think it's Daisy Chainsaw. I first came into contact with Daisy Chainsaw at Uni in Liverpool, they were on my favourite weekly post pub show the word. The debut song was a blistering sing called 'Love your Money' as mentioned a Bubblegum Pop with an incredibly grungy bass coming through, as you can see below.

This was in the days of vinyl and 12 inch singles, which usually would have extended mixes on so imagine my disappointment when the 12inch mix was the same as the single, clocking in at less than 3 minutes. But the cover art is, a work of art.

This was probably the moment I moved away from pop and closer to Indie, I see huge similarities in this song to songs by Transvision Vamp and yet it is grungy and mental too. The enthusiasm for this album also drove me and Baggy from my house to go into Liverpool to see Daisy Chainsaw in concert in a little club. I don't remember too much about it, the club was very dark, down stairs and felt like a cellar. We went in pottered around, had a couple of pints and then found a small paper sign stating gig cancelled. We left pretty sharpish as we were well out of our comfort zone.

Looking at the album, it's got a label from the states, a bargain bucket purchase from one of the trips to America where, Pre kids I would drag Mrs P to local record shops in whichever city we went to, grabbing pages of the equivalent of the yellow pages and free music magazines to find them. The one year I got that many Britpop failed CDs (Britpop not being as huge in the US) in bargain buckets I had to jettison the cases to avoid excess luggage costs.

This CD didn't get much of an airing though, a quick play years back showed there wasn't anything quite like Love your Money and it sat on the shelf, so playing it back again has been like investigating a new CD.

It's quite an interesting album, I feel insane being quite interesting with mumbled insane lyrics, a few other album tracks feeling like Bjork singing, the odd ticks and chirps in the lyrics. Katie Jane Garside the singer being a really unusual grubby looking singer, with per Wikipedia live performances consisting of

The band's live performances were noted for their wild histrionics, often featuring Garside onstage drilling doll heads and drinking juice from baby bottles.

Probably a good job I didn't see them live in the darkened cellar, I would have been scarred for life.

Listening to 'Love your Money' does bring back memories, as this was played a lot a lot at Uni, on numerous mix tapes, on the boom box in my room. Plus this arrived when me and Mrs P started courting, as such the Wierd bells in either ears, left to right, the grungy bass takes me right back to the serenaded 'Love you Clairey, Love you Neily' duetting we would be doing to the song, it's brings a smile to my face. The other striking part is when the song comes up to the pause followed by 'gadadangererdang duh derdangdangderanger' superb.

The rest of the album has some other poppy bits and other deranged bits, nothing getting anywhere near the brilliance of Love Your Money.

Wall of Sound A-Z: Catatonia: Way Beyond Blue

Wall of Sound Part 3: C Catatonia Way Beyond Blue

Looking back to 1996 I'm not sure what drew me to buying Catatonia's Way Beyond Blue. I don't remember  why I bought it, I have a funny feeling I had visited the (relatively) short lived Tower Records store in Brum and wanted to buy something. Wandering around I do remember picking up the album and deciding to chance my arm on it. Being a geek I did use to write down the tunes I used to buy and I have found that I bought it on the 9th Jan 1997, paying the princely sum of £11.99 and buying it with the Goya Dress album (Nude Records, Suede support £5.99) and a Nut CD single for 99p of Scream. This was a Thursday so would have been a lunch hour potter down to the shops rummaging through the racks to find tunes that I enjoy.
Looking in the book, I see that 10 days later I bought Beck's Odelay, which was relevant because the 2 albums formed a tape that spent a number of months in the car stereo of my old Beige Metro. The car below wasn't mine, but looks a lot better than mine. This was my first car when I joined my first job out of Uni and considered my unreliable mini was not reliable enough. 

This was not a lovely car but paid for itself thousands of times over in mileage allowances. I remember one Christmas spent defrosting the engine with a hairdryer at Mrs P's house up North when I had forgotten to put any antifreeze in it and snow and ice froze it solid. Sadly when it did get defrosted all the pipes had burst so it was off to scrap yards to replace them.

My car was not this lovely

On another occasion driving home we could smell petrol, so pulling to the side of the road we could see it being pumped into the engine from a hose. Called the AA van but rather than wait I found that turning the hose upside down solved the problem, so we were away again.

The tape used to get played every journey to work for a few months in the winter. On one such journey to a client in Telford, I parked at the gate house in the cold to sign in, and thinking it was really cold I would leave the engine (and heater) running. Sadly I also locked the door which was a good habit to be in and went inside. Coming back to the car I searched all over for the keys and then saw them in the ignition. Another call out for the AA and an easy morning for everyone at work as all our files were locked in my car belching out fumes at the gate house. I also used to have great fun on frozen nights in Telford, working late, trying to start the car, having a flat battery and then trying to jumpstart it myself by pushing it down a hill, jumping in and bump starting it in second gear.

The album is a really mellow album in parts, really uplifting in parts, sing along in parts and the high point for me is 'You've Got a Lot to answer for' (track 4) and the refrain 'but baby I love you'. Looking back its quite surprising what an impact this had on me, or at least my record buying and how long I would be chancing my arm on Cerys' wares. 

I really enjoyed Catatonia for a couple of reasons, firstly Cerys Matthews the lead singer has one of the most distinctive singing voices I have ever come across, its between her and Nene Persson from the Cardigans for my favourite singer of all time. Secondly they were not massive at this stage and as a result I had them as my own band under the radar, something that I really enjoyed. That was to change with the first 2 singles off the next album, I am the Mob (a Mark and Lard record of the Week when they did the Breakfast show) and Mulder and Skully, anthemic sing along with X files tie in, in the middle of Brit Pop and Catatonia's star shone for their 15 minutes of fame.

I got to see them in one of the most value packed gigs ever, Steve Lamacq put on a gig with co-headliners Travis and up and coming support Idlewild, at Birmingham Irish Centre £8 25 March 1998 - Brilliant.

Continuing to listen to the album whilst writing this, there is quite a mixture of songs, lots of showcasing of Cerys lyrics, she cowrote all the songs. Particularly enjoying the end of For Tinkerbell with the La La La La La La and strings and brass at the end.

There were a number of follow up albums, Cerys solo albums, celebrity big brother, 6 Music DJ, ongoing gigs, albums and even childrens books which I have signed by Cerys for my kids. All of which I followed with great interest, but Way Beyond Blue will always have a fond place in my heart.

So to wrap up I will just include my favourite tune:

Wall of Sound A-Z: Bad News : Bad News

Colin Grigson, Den Dennis, Vim Fuego and Spider Webb

Wall of Sound A-Z part 2: B:Bad News

Thumbing through the B's in the CD rack, Bad News jumped out, the spoof Heavy Metal band formed by the comic strip presents, 3/4 of the young ones (Ade Edmondson, Rick Mayall, Nigel Planer with Peter Richardson). This was a cherished tape (home taping is killing music) that was made for me by my mate Russ, who was into heavy metal music and could play a number of the tunes on the album.

Listening back to the album (a later compilation on CD, capturing all sorts of outtakes, sketches stuff) its amazing how I can recite the songs and band banter (think troggs tapes) word for word some 25 plus years later. A number of the songs bringing a big beam to my face.

It was not surprising that I loved this having watched The Young Ones on video to death, taped the bits off Friday night live with Rick and Ade as the Dangerous Brothers, watched the Comic Strip Presents on the fledgling Channel 4 later Bottom whilst at Uni, and other things with these guys whenever they crop up, sadly Rick and Ade no longer acting together. But this week Ade in 'Ade in Britain' and Rick and Nigel Planer on 'Jonathan Creek' both made it onto the sky box.

What's the album like, well depends who you ask. Someone coming to it fresh will probably be claiming its a rip off of Spinal Tap, although Wikipedia claims "The episode was also coincidentally in production at the same time as This Is Spinal Tap, which was released the following year to a much wider audience and subsequently greater acclaim." The album is definitely a nostalgia piece for me as the songs I don't know (B Sides etc) just sound like a bit of a racket. But the songs I do know throw me over to the Comic Strip, 'Warriors of Ghengis Khan' bring back the thoughts of the band running through a darkened warehouse waving flags as they run up and down slag heaps, Colin Grigson stumbling and falling. Brilliant 'Monkey / Water Margin' Chinese voices impressions and finishing with a bomb dropping and exploding (the symbol of the  Comic Strip Presents).



Listening back to it, its clear this will have been a firm favourite on my Red Sanyo Walkman as there's plenty of F Bombs, the album will never have got on the Rover on the way to swimming. But then the 6 week summer caravanning holidays touring europe always allowed a lot of listening to tunes. Mom and Dad will often tell me about places we have visited in Europe, which I have missed with my head in a book and ears in tunes.



My favourite bits though are where the songs and the humour are mixed, for example in 'Bad News' when they are all calling in each others solos and they get to 'Den Dennis' to silence, then 'Yeah, What' and also the appearance at a festival where you can hear the incredibly well acted (possibly not acting as Ade has gone on record as saying he would have loved to have been in a band) desperation as they sing 'Hey Hey Bad News' only for the Crowd to sing back 'F*** Off Bad News' and Vim Fuego (Ade) shouting for the crowd to stop throwing things.

All in all I love Bad News and their 'Peculiar Brand of Heavy Metal Music' and amazingly here they are on Wogan!

Having been out to the pub quiz and come back, the overwhelming thing that I had forgotten was how important the song 'Drink 'til I die' was for me. As a youngster discovering alcohol (Station and Half Way) this song seemed so pertinent it was my heroes singing

'Lager makes me happy
Vodka makes me mean
I'm a heavy metal drinking driving alcohol machine'

No need to look that up, I will always remember that verse, and have rattled through it in my head so many times over the years. That coupled with the going through the scales La La La La Ger Ger Ger really chimed with the Adolescent Mr P getting into Alcohol.

Great Album!

Wall of Sound A-Z: Lily Allen: Alright Still...

Wall of Sound A-Z part 1: A: Lily Allen

So I will aim to delve into CD's on the surrounding 'wall of sound' in my room, obviously alphabetised to revisit the memories of the tunes.

First up, Lily Alen's debut from 2006 Which putting it on sounds out of place with smile, when there is still the remnants of snow outside. It sounds far better listened to down a beach side walk way somewhere sunny, Barbados perhaps? Into Knock em out. It reminds me what attracted me to Lily's songs, fun and sassy lyrics, normal London town stuff, (not like Suede but just fun). In fact my head is bobbing as I write this.

I got caught up in the world of Lily Allen when I shared her most memorable moment of 2006 with her, not my words, that's what she confirmed in the Q end of year issue. Well she didn't mention me in particular.  The story was that before kids I had some how managed to convince Mrs P that trips to festivals were fun, we had done V, had done Glastonbury and T in the Park seemed a great idea.

So driving for what seemed hours we arrived, queued and just about found 30 cm of space to set up our tent in the drissel that Scotland is famous for, Drissel that would last for days, it never stops, it just makes everything damp, and when you have limited clothes and are under canvas, this can be a bit of a challenge.

Sporting Wedding Dress and Laminate

Main memories from the weekend we're
1) meeting with the only jock I know bumping into her by accident,
2) buying a little knitted Scottish hat, later adorned by my boy in one of my favourite photos of all time, and worn by me occasionally when at St Andrews when Alex McLeish was manager, Barry Fergusson was Captain and Scotland was in.
3) hiding from the rain, in a tent watching someone or other when a beered up fella wandered over to where we were sat and had a slash, disgusting we thought until someone else came along 30 seconds later and sat in the area, probably drawn by the warmth
4) falling asleep listening to the Magic Numbers not sure whether it was the dreamy pop nature of the songs or the dull nature, but it must have been sunny for a second or two for this to happen (I have only fallen asleep listening to bands at festivals twice, both times its been the Magic Numbers, make of this what you will)
5) Leaving early on the Sunday to beat the traffic and drive for (ever) to get back to Brum
6) No sleep, loud people all around all night bah humbug!

Cool Shades, cigs and Beers

And the best memory, the Lily Allen moment, which occurred in the little tent, Lily on around 7pm, when the chart show was coming to an end. I knew of Lily partly because of a few tunes I had heard, partly because her Dad was part of the Comic Strip Presents crowd and partly from the hype following her round. Lily came onstage dressed up in a wedding dress, fag in hand, bit of banter and then on stage came a helper who handed over a bottle of champagne. She took the bottle and was told something. She then shook a little, formula one racing driver style whilst letting everyone around know that she had just hit number one in the Charts with her debut single (Smile). She popped the champagne, sprayed the crowd and me and Mrs P got a little sprayed, being front and centre. She was for me the highlight of the festival, her 20 minute set was really fresh, not like anything I had heard elsewhere and the banter she came up with in between was excellent, I rate Jarvis as my favourite bantering frontman, but Lily is right up there, in fact she can be my favourite bantering front woman in this pc age.

For me going forward Her star burned brightly and after 2 albums she retired burned no doubt to be a Mom, I like her even more for that.

Listening to the album now, it still sounds great, the videos were cracking, I wince a little when the f bombs are dropped in lyrics whilst my little ones are sitting around, great album, but finishing off with Alfie, the kids (and I love) this one to bounce around to.

Bands I saw were over the 2 days were:

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Franz Ferdinand

Maximo Park

The Rifles

Paul Weller

Kaiser Chiefs

The Upper Room

Sandi Thom

Lorraine

Marshalls

Morning Runner

Jenny Lewis

Magic Numbers

We are scientists

Hard-fi

Lily Allen

Dirty Pretty Things

That Hat!