Cindy Lee "Heavy Metal"

Growing up in the west of Scotland in the '80s, it was almost obligatory to be into heavy metal. The local Our Price would display the top 10 national and local albums in the window each week. On the local albums chart there would be all these names that meant nothing to me like Dio, Lita Ford or Dokken. 35 years on and I'm finally into "Heavy Metal"...the Cindy Lee (Patrick Flegel of the group Women's other project) song, that is. A month back, based on a distracted skim-through, I decided not to buy the "What's Tonight to Eternity" lp (W.25th). Thankfully, a friend's evangelism/surprise at my dismissal of it (cheers, C!) ensured that I listened again more closely. "Heavy Metal" quickly became my favourite track. It closes the record on an affecting, chills-giving but luminous note. It's sure to be used to touching effect in a movie at some point and when it is I'll be the one hoping the house lights don't come up too quickly...

All My Nights, All My Days

Thanks to some Covid-19-enforced time at home, Not Unloved has been getting reacquainted with some recent-ish buys. "All My Nights, All My Days" by The Breakers has all the elements to make it a 60s girl group classic: the dreamy lead vocal, the swaying backing singers, the romantic/affectionate lyrics etc.. Sure, it's sung by a fella but that doesn't change anything does it? Oh, and how sweet is that middle section where the singer sings from inside a watering can before breaking into a falsetto? Top stuff.

Sari and The Shalimars "It's So Lonely (Being Together)"

"It's so lonely being together

 Knowing in our hearts
 We're two worlds apart"

Sigh. So many of us have experienced the oxymoron of the title/chorus.  The great thing about so much up tempo 60s soul music, of course, is that it gives you a cheery melody to sing while you're sweating out your woes on the dancefloor:

By Northern Soul standards, copies that aren't too battle-scarred can be snapped-up for buttons.  About a tenner for a song with such a pleasingly punchy arrangement, a heart-swelling key change and lashings of great backing vocals doesn't sound like the worst value for money to me.  

My Love Has Gone

Last week's trip to Monorail Music yielded the"My Love Has Gone" 7" (Norton) by Miriam (Linna of The A-Bones).  I'd read about Miriam's album on Lindsay Hutton's cranky but admirably passionate Next Big Thing blog so was on the lookout for her records.  "My Love Has Gone" is such a punchy evocation of the classic girl group sound.  TV theme catchy with hooks by the score, everything is played so emphatically (those drum skins took quite a beating!) that despite all the glockenspiel and romance-gone misery it could never be described as twee.  Hopefully, the lp will show up in Glasgow before too long.

The Delmonas

2014's tsunami of much-needed reissues shows no signs of abating.  My heart flipped (and my bank manager fainted) recently when Damaged Goods announced their plan to reissue Billy Childish affiliated girl-group The Delmonas' first 2 lps.  What great news!  They covered a lot of '60s material in their time but their choices were invariably smart ones as exemplified by this:

The Delmonas also appear on the latest volume of Ace Records' indispensable Girls With Guitars cd series with this:

Hopefully by June, when the aforementioned lps are reissued, my bank balance will have recovered from recent excesses.

The Sultanas "You're The One"

The Sultanas' "You're The One" 7" (2005-ish, Boom Boom Records) found its way into my collection through a variant of the usual process. I didn't fall for its Headcoatees-like charms through reading about it on a blog or being recommended it by a friend.  Instead, less prosaically, I chanced upon it whilst sifting, YouTube to hand, through a discogs "seller's other items" list looking for something/anything cheap that would be nice to get postage-free when buying another record from abroad.  Whatever the route it took to my attention, there's no mistaking the fact that "You're The One" is superior Girls In The Garage fare that sounds better with each play and with each upwards turn of the volume knob.  A quick Google didn't turn up much information about The Sultanas save for the fact that one member was subsequently in Sub Pop's The Duchess and The Duke (who toured with The Vaselines, if I'm not mistaken).  There don't appear to be any more records to track down which is a real shame as I'd love to have more crunchy Sultanas vinyl to knock me back into shape whenever I need it! 

Jubilee

To my mind Jubliee released at least 2 of the greatest pop singles ever and both were by Marie Applebee.  Ever since I bought "Here Come The Girls Volume 7: The Trouble With Boys"  from the record department of John Smith's bookshop in the mid-90s, my favourite song from the girl-group era has been Applebee's sorrowful "Down By The Sea (End of Summer)".  Marie's voice is simply incredible.  At times as intimate and soft as any I've heard while at others as emotion saturated as the most melodramatic of West End musical stars'.  The music, too, shows similar contrasts from the restrained, mournful intro to the tear-stained strings and broken-hearted bells of the chorus.  I've seldom heard a melody fit a tune better and there aren't too many songs which capture the regret at romance gone wrong better than these:

The waves keep pounding on the shore
As each wave breaks it hurts me more
To realise that you left me
One foolish quarrel made us part
But when you left you took my heart
I miss you so down by the sea

or these:


And as the waves keeps breaking
My lonely heart is aching
I've loved you from the very start

In every sense, "Down By The Sea (End of Summer)" is a POP masterpiece and I'd say as good as anything produced by Phil Spector or any of the other more highly revered production teams of that era.

The other wondrous Marie Applebee single is much less dramatic, much less orchestrated but just as brilliant.  "Toom Toom (Is a Little Boy)" is a stripped-back slice of proto-K Records naivety that again showcases Marie's utterly beautiful voice to full effect.  It, too, is on Sequel Records' "The Trouble With Boys" cd but DJ copies of the original 7" can be picked up fairly cheaply (which just goes to show that in the ebay world there's not always a correlation between the quality of a record and the price it commands!).  To the best of my knowledge Marie only made one other single: a bouncy version of the song "Dear Mrs Applebee" which was made famous in the UK by David Garrick.  It's good and worth owning (it doesn't cost much - I got mine for a £1.50 a few years back) but it's not in same league as the other two.  It's funny.  I have multiple albums by some bands but wouldn't necessarily describe them as favourite groups and I only have three 45s by Marie Applebee but she's unquestionably one of my favourite artists ever.

Hollows "Hot Sand" / "Shapeshifter"

Surely, there can't have been many odder 7" sleeves this year than the one pictured above!  It seems like an age since Not Unloved did much crazylegs dancing round the living room to Hollows' Trouble In Mind single so it's nice to hear that they're still in the business of making records.  In "Hot Sand", those suave cats at Soft Power Records (the record releasing arm of cherished online popshop Soft Power Vinyl*) have got themselves another pop winner.  If the original lineup of The Pipettes had dug tattoos and surfer dudes more than polka dots and boys in school unifrorm maybe they would've sounded a bit like Hollows.  Check the handclaps on the frat-rockin' "Shapeshifter" if you're in need of convincin' .  Coming so soon after their fine, fine single by The Tamborines, it would appear that Soft Power Records has hit a bit of a hot streak.  Long may it continue! 

Hot Sand by Hollows SOFT003 by Soft Power

* - Full marks to Soft Power Vinyl for having the smarts to stock some recent Shelflife Records 7" - it's about time those White Wishes and Soda Shop 45s were available in the U.K.!

"Hey!!" by Barbara Mercer

It was pathetic, really.  I'd lost out in yet another ebay auction (I make that 3 times this year) for a reissue of the modern soul record I want most so, like a spoilt kid hellbent on getting a new toy and who won't take no for an answer, I looked for something, anything else that would satisfy my need for a soul record right there and then and this is what I bought:

Just listen to that voice!  Have you ever heard anything softer in your whole time on this earth?  I'm not sure I have!  Burg'n'Beans' production is classy and refined but has just the right amount of sway to banish the inertia from your feet.  I'm pretty sure I'll be "walking round on a cloud" when the postman slides it through my letterbox later this week.  As with The Petticoats 7" (see yesterday's post), it's the kind of record you want to put next to your bed so that it's the first thing you see when you prise open your leaden eyes of a morning; a reminder of the good stuff in this (golden) world.

Maxine Darren "Don't You Know"

Tsk! Tsk! Look at the mess of this place... there are cd's strewn all over the place.  Ah, the joys of making mix cd's (it's not all podcasts and Spotify playlists in 2011!) for chums.  Of course, the real joy of compiling mixes is re-discovering all those semi-forgotten songs that made your heart stop when first you heard them.  Today, Maxine Darren's "Don't You Know"*  has happened to me all over again.  I was totally charmed by it back in the late '90s when I was mad keen on accumulating all 10 volumes of Sequel's Here Come The Girls series. It still possesses one of the finest intro/outro guitar lines I've ever heard; as precise and pretty as a little cut glass ornament.  Dig, too, those doo-wop style backing vocals and the key change that ratchets up the desperation to 11.  The 16 year old Maxine's voice is just the cutest thing and practically made for delivering the melodramatic 'dying'/'crying' teen heartache lyrics.  Maxine Darren was certainly one swinging little mademoiselle!

(* - it's currently available on this fine cd)