Record Store Day at Monorail Music (20/04/2013)

Only a week to go! I'm really looking forward to it as I've bought some wondrous stuff from Monorail Music (The Wake lp box, Fame Records singles box, 7"s by The Scientists, The Electric Eels etc.) and seen some great music in Mono (Edwyn Collins, The Membranes and more) on previous Record Store Days. This year's Monorail Music programme is startlingly good: Vic Godard and The Sexual Objects playing a set of Velvet Underground covers (gasp!), World Peace (Sinead from Palms' other group who come highly recommended!) and unique sonic traveller Ela Orleans:

In between the groups, records will be spun by Deena E. Jacobs (The Sophisticated Boom Boom and soon to be seen DJing in The Pastels' "Check My Heart" video), David Barbarossa (Huntleys & Palmers, Wild Combination etc.) and The Brogues (Not Unloved).  I hope Deena busts out her Thai (?) "Venus" soundalike!  One 45 that is 100% certain to find its way from my record box onto a turntable is this brand new effervescent pop smash from Slumberland Records's Kids On A Crime Spree:

I'll be proudly wearing my Slumberland SLR badge and clapping along like a loon while it's spinning.  If you're there, please feel free to join me!

There's a facebook page for RSD 2013 @ Monorail Music here

Update!

Jenny Rollo from the All The Rage team will be joining me on the decks.  She has top taste so this is great news!  Unfortunately, she was added a little too late to have her name added to this smashing poster:

Tracey, Vic & Vini

This week Tracey Thorn is reading from her excellent sounding biography on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.  According to today's excerpt, when she first went to Ben Watt's shared student flat in Hull and ran the rule over his record collection, she was pleased to find that he had both of her then favourites: recent releases by Vic Godard and Vini Reilly's group The Durutti Column.  What fine taste they had in 1981 - no wonder they bonded!  Roll on 30+ years and it's hard not to contrast Vic's situation with Vini's.  Vic seems to be having a rare old time, playing celebratory gigs all over the country to adoring audiences and working with a succession of friends and admirers.  Vini, on the other hand, has gone through a series of sobering, difficult times although, thankfully, the most recent update on his situation was more upbeat.  Hopefully, somebody will do for Vini what Paul Kelly did for Lawrence Hayward and provide a focus to bring his music back to some kind of prominence so that he, too, can feel that he has a future and an immediate connection with his audience.  I wonder if in 1981 they both imagined that they'd still be part of the music industry three decades on.  I'd be surprised if they did; pop seems like such a young person's game when you're young.  I bought Vic's new single in Monorail at the weekend.  At a tenner it wasn't cheap (it's an import on Spain's famèlic) but a) IT'S VIC and b) it's great and a lot of fun, especially "(Oh Alright) Go On Then".  I wonder, too, if Tracey's still listening to Vic and Vini's records.  I hope so as, for my money at least, the music they're releasing and re-releasing now deserves it.  I'll be reading Tracey's book, for sure and it was a lovely surprise to hear even the briefest snatch of Marine Girls' sublime music on the radio during my commute to work - it felt like spring had truly arrived.

Update

Tracey Thorn appears in Glasgow at Aye Write! on the 12th of April.  Full details here.  If I can arrange it, I'll be there.

Hey, Mr Postman

Last night Davy Henderson and his The Sexual Objects (enhanced by Gareth Sager) backed The Postman (a.k.a. Vic Godard) at The Old Hairdressers in Glasgow.  It wasn't perfect - no stage, Fisher Price P.A. which at times rendered the singers barely audible - but was, nonetheless, hugely enjoyable.  Liberated by not having to strap on a guitar, Vic was free to be more animated than I've ever seen him.  At times his back was arched way back like a cobra waiting to strike as he wailed into the mic which he cupped in his hands for maximum amplification.  "Chain Smoking" was blistering as was  "Nobody's Scared".  "Parallel Lines" was tinkered with somewhat which robbed it slightly of its punch but, still, I'd rather be listening to it in any form (well, maybe not happy hardcore or cod reggae versions!) than just about anything else.  After C's comment at Edinburgh's The Citrus Club in March, I've taken to singing 'school children' instead of 'stool pigeon' and so it was last night.  Vic's between song asides (including a ringing endorsement of, er, BetFred!) were funny.  As S pointed out, as good as the show was, it should have been better promoted and at a venue where more people could see the action.  Maybe gigs should operate a school photo policy of tall ones to the back.  Thinking back, I'm pretty sure my ample frame and large head prevented a good few folks from seeing Vic and co..  If so, sorry!

The Sexual Objects' set was enjoyably chaotic and centre-pieced by a rambling instrumental that swiped a riff from Captain Beefheart and twisted it into various shapes.  Russell Burn's drumming was noticeably brilliant throughout.  Before them, a woolly hatted Jock Scot tipsily performed his poetry, hilariously baited the Glasgow audience and delivered an assortment of waggish asides until he was unceremoniously shoulder-charged from the 'stage' by former British Sea Power manager Rob Wilkinson who was hellbent on reading more of his new book.  Talk about an ill-judged interruption; a total buzzkill that lost him much of the good will earned earlier by the mildly amusing stories of his 87 year old, Butthole Surfers obsessed dad.

Residents from Edinburgh are advised that Vic, The Sexual Objects etc. appear tonight at Unbound at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Step to it!

Vic Godard and Subway Sect in Scotland (soon!)

11th March: Glasgow @ The Accies Club (with The Sexual Objects & Wake The President)
12th March: Edinburgh @ The Citrus Club (with The Sexual Objects)
13th March: Dundee @ Dexter's (with Spectorbullets and Edinburgh School for the Deaf)

 (there are a bunch of English dates, too. Information here)

Not long now!  If Vic and co.'s recent album "We Come As Aliens" (cd via Overground / vinyl self-released and available at shows and Monorail in Glasgow) tells us anything, it's that these shows are going to unmissable.  It's scarcely imaginable how "We Come As Aliens" could have turned out any better: Vic is in wonderful, wayward voice, the current Subway Sect sound committed and cohesive (if only these guys could be recruited to help Lawrence of Felt/Denim realise something similarly brilliant) and the songs made it onto tape with the bulk of the energy and feeling intact.  Looking back on it, 2010 was a landmark year for that little group of kindred spirits comprising Vic, Davy Henderson and Edwyn Collins, with all three - Davy with his group The Sexual Objects - releasing vital and relevant lps.  It's genuinely exciting to have them all active and producing such great work.  I'd be letting myself down if I didn't make at least one of the Scottish shows!