On August 15thTeenage Fanclubplay at the beautifully renovated Kelvingrove Bandstand in Glasgow. If it's anywhere near as good as Belle & Sebastian's celebratory show there a few weeks ago, it'll be a real highlight of summer 2014. After the show there's a free shindig at The Poetry Clubwhere filmmaker and former The Jesus & Mary Chain bassist Douglas Hart will be playing some tunes. It'll be fascinating to hear his selections. I'll also be making an appearance behind the decks under the wee train. There's every chance I'll play the Go Ahead reissue - no 'original vinyl only' snobbery from me; I'm no Daddy Warbucks, y'know - of Jackie Wilson's mighty "Because of You":
Come along and dance like a loon. It'll be better if you're there!
Sparse, affecting and almost hymnal, Justin Velor's "Missing You" is one of the prettiest pieces of music to seemingly drop from out of nowhere so far this year:
It was released in February but nobody told me or, most likely, I was distracted and didn't listen when I was told. Gerard Love's hushed vocal is something special. Think Jim Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain late at night in reflective, sober mood. Sometimes you don't need to shout to be heard. Not many tunes can lay claim to having one gorgeous guitar solo never mind two or three, the third (at 5mins) being worthy of Vini Reilly himself. I'd love for it to be released on 7" vinyl. If Brutal Music saw fit to do just that, I'd no doubt sequence it alongside something like Fuxa's* majestic tribute to Martin Rev of Suicide (Great Pop Supplement) which, again, managed not to register with me upon its release in 2011:
Martin Rev and Suicide seem to be something of a cultural phenomenon at the moment with Rev's enjoyable debut lp (which includes the deliciously creepy "Baby O Baby") having been reissued on vinyl by Superior Viaduct and Suicide's music featuring on the soundtrack to at least two recent films: new Ryan Gosling movie The Place Beyond The Pines and uplifting Ulster punk flick Good Vibrations. All of this is fine by me!
* - I'll never forget the first time I heard John Peel say their name. I think he relished the naughtiness of pronouncing it fuksa and not fooscha.
Sometimes you get hung up on a detail. From the first play of Lightships' debut lp "Electric Cables"(Geographic) I was floored by the passage about two minutes into "Photosynthesis" where Gerard Love sings "Waited so long, Drifted off in a dream". He only sings those lines twice but from the first time on that first spin I was convinced that it was the single most beautiful piece of art I'd heard or seen in 2012 and I remain convinced of it. The rest of the tune is wondrous, all optimistic melodica, stuttering drums and a backgrounded keyboard that makes you tingle in the same way that the Bobby Reed sample on Saint Etienne's "Spring"makes you tingle. I would love to hear what that group's Wiggs & Stanley would come up with were they ever to remix it. I suspect it would be sublime. It's not hard to see why Geographic released "Electric Cables" in spring. So many of its songs are concerned with blossoming whether it be of a romance or of things in nature. The air of gentle transformation and quiet noticing is completely enchanting. It feels like the lp was conceived over repeated walks along a canal or by a river. There are so many sounds - pretty much all of Tom Crossley's pleasingly non-hippie flute work, for example, or the skipping guitar figure on recent single "Sweetness In Her Spark" - and lyrics - "Gentle one, this world is yours", "I don't plan to let you down", "I sense the magic in her" to quote but three - that are utterly disarming in their easy beauty. Everything is in balance, too. For instance. "Silver and Gold" features the record's only chunky fuzz-guitar wash so Love adopts a particularly tender falsetto and the equilibrium is restored. There won't be many warmer, more consistent or more human records released in 2012. Taken as a whole or as a collection of lots of exquisite details, it's a record that I know I'll need to return to a lot over the coming months.
Bacharach and David's "Baby, It's You" is another of those songs like "I'llKeepItWithMine" and "She Does Everything For Me" which brings out the best in musicians and singers with the result that, to date, I've yet to hear even a semblance of a bad version. Both The Shirelles' and The Beatles' versions are as heartbreaking as you could ever wish for but it's Gary and The Hornets' tear-stained teenage boy version that takes the garlands*. From that first 'sha la la la', which takes softness to a whole new level, it's uncommonly affecting. Gary's vocal is stunning: pure, intuitive, nuanced (listen to the final 'suits ya!') and beautifully recorded. Sure, he sounds a lot like a woman but then so did the Chris Montez when he sang "The More I See You" and "Foolin' Around" and they've always been my favourite songs of his. There aren't all that many recordings on which I couldn't contemplate changing a single thing but this is emphatically one of them: the harpischords (?), the reverb, the backing vocals; all are perfect - strange to think that a group of soft boys made what in essence is now my favourite girl-group record..
The fact that I've heard of Gary and The Hornets at all is thanks to Teenage Fanclub and their memorable coverwith Alex Chilton of the group's "Patti Girl" which came out in the mid-90s on one side of a mailorder-only 7" released by the NME. Apparently, they'd heard it first on a Calvin Johnson mixtape. Copies of Smash Records' DJ promo of "Baby, It's You" crop up fairly frequently on ebay at around the 10-15 GBP mark for a clean copy (mine was at the lower end) but, really, just about any price would be worth paying to get your hands on such a gorgeous record. There is a 100% chance that I will play "Baby, It's You" when I clumsily spin some tunes at the Glasgow Popfest in December (more on that nearer the time!).
Update: I can't believe I forgot that Dolly Mixture also did a wonderful version. It's not quite as moving as Gary and The Hornets' but it's certainly as cute! Thanks A for the reminder.
