The Peace That Earth Cannot Give

John Maus sounds like what would happen if Billy Mackenzie from The Associates and Scott Walker met in a disco in 1977, and fell deeply in love. They would get married in 1978, buy a little cottage in the country in 1980, and have a little kiddy in 1983.

For his first birthday, little John Maus (for that is what they would call him) would be given a top of the range Bontempi organ, with eight realistic voices, and startlingly accurate percussion sounds.

For four hours each day, little John Maus would be left with his Bontempi in a room in the cottage with no windows, painted black throughout, with only his parent’s record collection and gramophone for inspiration.

Each subsequent birthday until he was eleven, John Maus would be given a new, better Bontempi, and his time spent in the room would increase by two hours per day for each year that passed.

He would not be allowed to go to school – Billy and Scott would teach him everything he needed to know. He would not be allowed contact with any other children. He would only leave the cottage to get his Bontempi repaired.

When he was twelve, Billy and Scott would split up, citing irreconcilable artistic differences, and John Maus would go out into the world with his last Bontempi under one arm, and a head full of words and sounds and wonders.

After spending some time walking the earth, playing his songs wherever anyone would let him, John Maus would be spotted by a talent scout from the majors, and be taken into a small studio. He would record his songs in a day and when finished, he would leave, never to be seen again.

The tapes of his recordings would be thought lost shortly afterwards, when an unexplained fire would rip through the studio, only for them to resurface 10 years later under a floorboard in a black room in a cottage in the country, wrapped in a tea cloth that looked a bit like Jesus. They would be recognised as a work of some mystery and intrigue, and released to the world by Upset! The Rhythm, like a flock of colour blind doves.

These are two songs that would be from that lost and found album. There would be more here. You would get the album from here.

John Maus – Maniac

John Maus – The Peace That Earth Cannot Give





005. Droids – The Force (Part 1)


Tiny Dancer

There’s A Club, If You’d Like To Go

It's been proven by Finnish bearded people researching for many years, using complex mathematical formulas and a dash of magic from Santa's elves that The Specials are one of the top three coolest bands of all time. This is FACT. It has recently been discovered that the second was The Velvet Underground, but due to an accident befalling these heroic scientists that is still shrouded in mystery and innuendo the third has yet to be revealed. All we know is that there was a letter "L" in it...

Now I'm no maths expert, in fact I was in the 'C' stream at school (and that was in Welling where this isn't really much competition...) so I'm going to have to try and prove it to you in another way, and the only way I know how is to play you this little gem; Friday Night Saturday Morning.

Anyone who has ever tried to describe a great night out to someone who wasn't there will tell you that it's nigh on impossible to get through the whole story without the listener trying to drown themselves in their own tears of frustration and boredom. I for one have lost many friends this way. However, Terry Hall somehow manages to turn a simple evening of Friday night clubbing into something so romantic and noble that you half expect him to put on a suit of armour and go riding out on a white charger. The last couplet:

Wish I had lipstick on my shirt
Instead of piss stains on my shoes

Is surely the best summary of post club feeling there has ever been and beats hands down How Soon Is Now? with its:

So you go and you stand on your own and you leave on your own
And you go home and you cry and you want to die

Don't believe me? Then ask yourself this; who would you rather go clubbing with, Morrissey, or Terry Hall?



The Specials – Friday Night Saturday Morning


Further to this, I've had it in mind to start a thread of 'Cover Versions That Equal Or Better The Original' and I can think of no better place to start than Nouvelle Vague's version of this song. When you first start listening to it you might think that I've accidentally put in a rare outtake of Never Ever by All Saints, but once you get over the initial disappointment that it's something else, what you will find is a version of Friday Night Saturday Morning that is perhaps even more beautiful and romantic than the original.

It also adds a layer of melancholy into the mix that was only really previously suggested by the lyric and was sacrificed by The Specials in order to turn it into a tune that you can dance to. In many ways both versions are love songs. The protagonist is driven to go out drinking and dancing by something beyond them, in The Specials version they give in to it and revel in it, for Nouvelle Vague it’s a bittersweet addiction that they can’t escape from.

So, The Specials version for Friday night, the Nouvelle Vague version for Saturday morning.



Nouvelle Vague - Friday Night Saturday Morning


By the way, if anyone finds the third of the top three coolest bands of all time please let me know. I can tell you it's not revealed in the new Harry Potter book; I've checked.


Ricky Stardust

STAY. CALM.

Following Tiny Dancer’s most recent post I thought it would be nice to put up something soothing and I’ve come up with a bit of a tidy double whammy. Not only that, I’ve linked the two songs together - nobody likes a smart-arse, but sometimes it simply can’t be helped...

First of all we have the Pale Saints’ Kinky Love from all the way back in the early nineties, which is very very lovely and very very nice.



Pale Saints – Kinky Love


It’s a cover version of a Nancy Sinatra track, who was supported on her 2005 tour by Richard Hawley. And for your pleasure, here’s something new from Mr. Hawley (see what I did there?) – the album’s due out in the August, and you and I will both be buying it. Very very lovely and very very nice.



Richard Hawley - Tonight The Streets Are Ours


Crisp Debris

In The Presence Of Justice

A couple of months ago, I found myself in a pub watching a man head-butt a sizeable piece of glass until it shattered. Now, depending on the cut of your jib, and where you like to take in a leisurely evening drink, this may or may not seem unusual.

I found it unusual. And I don’t even like wine.

I found it unusual because the purpose of the head-butting was not a show of masculinity, or an action against transparency, or an attempt to escape the crushing midweek mundanity of a South-East London watering hole, but to change the ‘pitch’ of the glass. For the man was ‘playing’ it.

That man was Justice Yeldham, and I say playing with a degree of caution. The glass had a contact mic on it, which was put through some kind of pedal of doom, and Mr. Yeldham was using his mouth to (once again, with caution) manipulate it, in the process of making some truly unholy noises. By breaking it into smaller pieces, the pitch of the noises changed. Simple really.

Needless to say, it was an interesting 25 minutes. The glorious ending, after much smashing, involved a quick dash to the lav for some toilet paper, and ultimately a couple of bandages and plasters. Pretty much your average New Cross Wednesday night then.

I got to talk to Mr Yeldham afterwards, and although he was a little bit the worse for blood loss, I can confirm the following:

1 – He has to locate a glass seller in every place he plays, all over the world. Surprisingly, they don’t let you take panes of glass as hand luggage nowadays.

2 – He takes his own personal first aid kit to every performance.

3 – He is a very nice man.

Playing glass is just his current leaning and the tip of his inventive ice-berg, as the following tracks can testify. They feature Mr. Yeldham ‘playing’ a turkey-skewer, accompanied by a drummer who wishes to remain nameless. It’s all quite full on, with a precognitive DIY nod to the likes of Wolf Eyes and that, but what do you expect from a noised up cooking implement?

Justice Yeldham – Recorded In Tokyo 1998 Track 03

Justice Yeldham – Recorded In Tokyo 1998 Track 06

By his own inference, the performance is as important as the result, so his stuff isn’t the easiest to get hold of, but you can download some of his glass based work with the Dynamic Ribbon Device here, and if you send him an electronic mail over the future-web, I should imagine he’d be only too happy to help you out. Like I said, he’s a very nice man.

Go and see him, though. It is truly worth it. Truly. Have a look at Dual Plover as well, his label of love.




Tiny Dancer

Music Box Symphonies

Back in 1999 I went to see Van Dyke Parks at Queen Elizabeth Hall. I must say that I had no idea what to expect. From pictures I’d seen of his time with The Beach Boys during my Smile obsession days (beaten out of me by Brian Wilson’s voice on his solo recording of the album) I was expecting a studious librarian type.

Having heard such songs as Ode to Tobago and Sweet Trinidad my friend Simon was expecting a calypso prince.

What we got was the shortest, campest gentlemen from the American South since Elmer Fudd.

All I had of his work in those days was a Best Of comprising selections from his first three solo albums, Randy Newman’s debut album that he worked as producer and arranger on and various Smile bootlegs that featured his lyrics. I was pretty shocked that I’d managed to find that much.

It was before the re-issues of Song Cycle, Discover America and Clang of the Yankee Reaper and before his triumphant production work on Rufus Wainwright’s first album that, due to taking something like two years to finish, almost ended Rufus’s career just as it was beginning. Still, he had him back on his third album so I guess he must have been happy with the results. Take a listen to a Rufus album and then listen to Song Cycle and I think you’ll agree that there is something of a kinship there.

I was just looking through the set-list of that gig and I remember that at the time I think the only song I knew was Sailin’ Shoes and despite how good the whole gig was (including a great support slot from The High Llamas) I remember I was disappointed there was no Vine Street or Clang of the Yankee Reaper or Ode to Tobago... or anything really.

The whole gig was just so strange and unlikely that I still have to remind myself that I was there.

In this spirit, I’ve now seen that apparently the second encore he did on the evening was his version of Donovan’s Colours and that’s what prompted this post. You see, I can’t remember if I stayed for the second encore, but I’ve a terrible feeling I didn’t as I’m sure I’d remember if I had seen him do Colours. Not only is it the centrepiece of Song Cycle, but it’s also one of the greatest cover versions of all time. It’s one of those VDP songs which sound like it should start playing when you open a music box; all clanks, chimes, ticks and clunks.

Here is that song along with the original Beach Boys version of Wonderful with arguably VDPs greatest lyric, and Joshua Tree Suite Pt 1 which I found on a Marina Record compilation cd and reminds me a lot of the stuff he’s done with Joanna Newsom lately.

Van Dyke Parks - Colours

The Beach Boys - Wonderful

Van Dyke Parks - Joshua Tree Suite Pt 1


Ricky Stardust

Muppet Grot And Spectral Pop

A hearty thanks and a manly handshake to 'Peter' who left us a nice message about More Of The Music From The Movies. He mentioned the work of Piero Umiliani who, I am ashamed to say, was previously unknown to me. I can assure you, however, that the last thing I was expecting was that he was the man responsible for the Mah Na Mah Na song that featured in the Muppet Show.

But that's not all - the Muppet Show version was a cover of the original which was recorded for the soundtrack to a Swedish porn film. Fantastic. You can read all about it here. It's things like this that keep me alive.




Piero Umiliani - Mah Na Mah Na


And whilst we're back on the subject of soundtracks, here's an absolute beauty that also shoots to the top of the 'Happiest Tune Ever League', therefore ticking two boxes at the same time, and reducing our carbon footprint. Or something.

Ray Parker Jr. Fact: Ghostbusters was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1984 but lost to Stevie Wonder's I Just Called to Say I Love You from "The Woman in Red". A truly titanic struggle.




Ray Parker Jr. - Ghostbusters




004. Spizzenergi - Where's Captain Kirk?


Crisp Debris

Supergroups Of The World Unite

As children of future music, no doubt you have heard all about Von Südenfed, the new Mark E. Smith / Mouse On Mars supergroup / punch up. If you haven't yet, you should get out there and buy the album immediately - and that's an order.

I was going to try and explain verbally exactly what a drunken, shouting Mancunian pensioner locked into a studio with two provincial German techno freaks sounds like - but I failed miserably.

Instead, here's an old The Fall track and a Mouse On Mars tune to get you in the mood. To succeed where I failed, try listening to both of them at the same time. It might just work...

The Fall – Arid Al’s Dream

Mouse On Mars – Actionist Respoke


‘Interestingly’, I found that The Fall track on an old compilation album which also has a Teenage Fanclub song on it - I'm nominating it as possibly the happiest tune ever... any of you children of future music out there think you can beat it?

Teenage Fanclub - Belt


Crisp Debris

The Same But Different

When I was at school, they taught us history. For the first few years, when you had to do it, it was all dates and stuff, and wars and stuff, and kings and queens and stuff. Then, when you chose to do it, they stopped teaching you about dates and wars and kings and queens, and they took on the noble cause to turn you into a historian. I was about 14, and I didn’t know whether I should nick off PE, or do it in vest and pants because I’d forgotten my kit. So whilst the cause was noble, it was equally thankless.

I don’t really remember that much. We did the Middle East and Palestine for about a year, and I’m buggered if I can remember anything about that. It was well complicated. Still is, apparently.

But I do remember that history repeats itself. Not literally, obviously - there wouldn’t be anything historic then, it would just be going round and round and round. The past would be the future and the future would be the past, and that would be stupid. But man is a predictable beast, and roughly, occasionally, if you look at it with a squint, the same things tend to kind of almost probably happen.

I can’t remember who came up with that little nugget of universal insight. But it was in a book, so it must be true. And one of the reasons it’s true is Jake Thackray and Jeffrey Lewis.

Same but different. Products of their time and environment and context. Traditional to their respective heritage. All of that. I’m not going to copy and paste the biog sections of their websites, you can have a look at that at your leisure (and you really should, because there’s more to both of them than a Wembley-full of charity slags). There are numerous Jake Thackray collections knocking about for cheap, and you can get The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane from here.

So, in no more than 250 words, you see what I mean? (10 marks)



Jake Thackray – On Again, On Again



Jeffrey Lewis – The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song


Tiny Dancer

The Chas & The Dave & The Mysterious Pop-Art Link

It's nice to see that one good thing came out of Tiny Dancer's unhappy experience of Glastonbury - if there's one thing that will see you through mud, rain, misery it's a good old-fashioned rockney knees-up with Chas & Dave.

But is it just me - and surely it must just be me - or does Chas & Dave's Turn That Noise Down sound a bit like XTC's Love at First Sight? Just a bit? Interestingly, both tracks were released in 1981. Hmm.

Of course, this gives me an excuse to put up another XTC tune. I could have chosen any from loads of brilliant songs - and if you haven't heard Making Plans For Nigel then for goodness' sake get on with it - but I've gone for Great Fire just because I can't resist a nice key change at the end of a song.

XTC – Love At First Sight

XTC – Great Fire


Crisp Debris


Oh, and if you're knocking about the darkest depths of South East London tomorrow, with little else to do except avoid the nutters, and wonder at the beauty of it all, you could do a lot worse than get right on a bit of this:

I Got A Feeling In My Knees

I’d like to say the Glastonbury dust has settled. But there was no dust. Only mud. Terrible, terrible mud.

Since it careered to its inexorably horrific end, with people either running for the hills or crying in car parks, I’ve been trying to decide whether it was any good or not. I’ve decided it wasn’t. It could have been, but it wasn’t.

The music on offer was mostly indifferent and uninspiring. Bjork was Bjork, and you’d expect nothing less. Modest Mouse had a lot of Marr going on. Pendulum sounded mighty for a while. Arcade Fire started looking a bit by the numbers. Long Blondes were good, Klaxons were okay, CSS were okay, Brakes were good. And that was about that. I didn’t see a lot, admittedly, because it was easier to sit down and weep, but that was nonetheless about that.

Now, here I think I need to say I’m not sure I went to the same festival as a lot of other people. Turns that I thought were rubbish, other people thought were ‘amazing’ or ‘refreshing’ or in the case of one lady who should know better, both. So, please bear that in mind as I momentarily spit some bile.

The bill was rubbish. Everything on the Pyramid Stage, with the exception of DSB and one or two doughty others, was pandering to the masses. The thought of the last three acts on Friday night, one after the other, going on and on and on, made my blood turn cold. And worse, the place was packed with people lapping it up, who probably didn’t move from the one field for the rest of the weekend, and probably didn’t know why. I truly got the impression that a lot of people were there because they thought they should like music. There was nothing new, nothing interesting. And it went from there really.

The Other Stage had some mildly better stuff, but too often went for the easy option as well. The Jazz World Stage should probably be called the Jazz Wank Stage from now on – it seemed to coax the worst out of those who stepped out onto it. Now that they call the New Bands Tent the John Peel Tent, does that mean they don’t have to put any new bands on? The Dance Stages were pretty much the most interesting, but they were interspersed with some truly terrible acts. Mika. Seriously.

Now, with Glastonbury, the rubbish bill shouldn’t matter – because there’s plenty more to see and do. Okay. But it’s getting the same, every year. The layout’s the same. The areas are the same. Any new areas are the same as the old areas. The themes are the same. You turn up after your first couple, and it’s all very comfortable and familiar. There might be a couple of new ideas, but it gets swallowed up in the maelstrom of regularity. Comfortable and familiar. This is not a good thing.

So, maybe after a bit of regular attendance, the magic’s gone. My first Glastonbury, not long ago, was pretty amazing. It was something new. This time, it was like watching a repeat of a 70s sitcom. Was great, is okay, but you know exactly what’s coming next. Nothing new, nothing interesting, nothing special.

All that being said, it could have been good – had the sun been out and the mud not appeared, I don’t think the mediocrity would have mattered. But that didn’t happen. And of course, the people that were at the other festival to me had an amazingly refreshing time anyway. So it’s probably just me. No stiff upper lip, that one.

One true highlight to mention though – Chas & Dave on Friday afternoon. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been, but the sun came out, the hay started flying, everyone was happy, and it was good. But I’m not about to post some Chas & Dave now, am I.

Chas & Dave – Turn That Noise Down

Chas & Dave – Give It Some Stick, Mick


Tiny Dancer