Monday 31 October 2016

Poem: A Nail-Bomb In Old Compton Street



A NAIL-BOMB IN 
OLD COMPTON STREET/ 
 OR HOW THEY CARRIED 
THE BAD NEWS FROM 
ALEPPO TO MY FRONT ROOM 



a wall of dead TV’s
await ignition,
stillborn with genocides,
behind retail store glass

then, to theft light-
fingered? lift smooth
from tempting lure of
crisp-new tabloid stash
hunched by cool dawn
just-delivered
newsagent grille?

but no, I walk on,
those laser-guided lies
will target me
later today
anyway


From my book
‘The Poet’s Deliberation On The State Of The Nation’
(Penniless Press)…
http://www.pennilesspress.co.uk/books/poetdeliberation.htm 

Also published in:
‘THE BLACK ROSE no.15’ (Feb 2003 – UK)
‘GARBAJ no.14’ (Aug 2003 – UK)
‘TALVIPAIVANSEISAUS no.7/LADDIE’ (Finland – March 2004)
and featured on website: ‘DEAD SNAKES’
(1 May 2015 – USA) http://deadsnakes.blogspot.co.uk

Thursday 27 October 2016

Music Profile: KARL DENVER



STILL KARL DENVER 

His “Wimoweh” is jaw-dropping. Maybe Karl Denver 
 was not exactly a hero of early British Rock ‘n’ Roll, 
 but at a time when heroes were scarce, he 
provided a hugely entertaining distraction… 


Try it this way. Early 1960s studio technology was fairly limited. There were novelty effects that included speeded-up vocals, dual-tracking to add voice depth, and the kind of electronic distortion favoured by mavericks such as Joe Meek. But largely making a record came down to a live studio performance into a couple of strategically positioned pick-up microphones. The producer’s role was primarily down to reproducing the sound as accurately and cleanly as possible. So – my theory goes like this, to stand out in the tacky Pop shallowness, a certain vocal extremism provides the edge.

Karl Denver was more extreme than most. His “Wimoweh” straddles a switchback of multi-octave contortions, a foreign nonsense-language of throat-shredding clicks, brrrrr’s and death-defying yodels. Watch the blurry black-and-white TV-clip, see his mouth working scat-wise around the gymnastics of sound, shaping and modulating a sheer cacophony of noise, remoulding it into new configurations. Other singers had falsetto swoops into stratospheric highs. But no-one was quite like Karl Denver.


Born 16 December 1931, as Angus Murdo McKenzie in Springburn, Glasgow, by the time of “Wimoweh” he’d already tipped over the generationally-sensitive thirty watershed, in a realm of photogenic teenage poster-boys. And in truth, he never quite fits easily. He had history, he’d enlisted in the Argyll & Sutherland regiment and seen action in Korea, and sailed as a deckhand with the Merchant Navy. Those years were written into the rugged lines of his face. Onstage he wore built-up Cuban heels to compensate for his unprepossessing pint-size stature. Portly bespectacled Gerry (Gerard) Cottrell – who stands to one side, plays lead guitar, but Kevin Neill – standing on the left, has a big stand-up double-bass. At a time when Rock ‘n’ Rollers were up-switching to solid-body bass guitars, the stand-up has a special organic jazz-resonance, but it’s not quite cool.

Yet Karl had wild tales and authentic country credentials, having jumped ship and lived in Nashville for a space, without a work permit. He had a hard-drinking storyteller’s gift of invention, retaining the raw Glasgow burr to knock years off his official biog-age, so his claims of playing the ‘Grand Ole Opry’ broadcasts while hanging out with Faron Young and Lefty Frizzell, should be treated warily, but then again, who knows? It was here he adopted his stage-alias, taking ‘Karl’ to commemorate a dead son, and the surname from the American city, before he was deported by the US Aliens Department as an illegal immigrant in 1959.


It was on his return to the north of England that he formed a trio with Brian Horton and Gerry Cottrell (born 18 December 1933 in Manchester), who provided long-term musical and logistical support. Gigging at the ‘Yew Tree’ in Wythenshawe, Brian was soon replaced by Mancunian Kevin Neill (born 25 July 1931) who had previous big-band experience working with both Joe Loss and Geraldo, as well as backing Anthony Newley’s 1960 tour! And it was here they were talent-scouted, and invited onto Jack Good’s ‘Wham!’ TV-show, leading to a tour with Jess Conrad and Billy Fury. Then a major forty-three date Larry Parnes ‘Star Spangled Nights’ package-tour from October through to December with Mike Sarne, Joe Brown, Jimmy Justice, Marty Wilde, Mark Wynter, plus Peter Jay & The Jaywalkers, all compĂ©red by Al Paige. For British 1961 Pop, this was the big time.

The startling “Wimoweh” – issued on the deep-blue Decca label in its orange-striped bag, was masterminded by Jack Good as Karl’s third single. The song has obvious root-connections to the Tokens big American hit “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” – a ‘Cashbox’ no.1 in November 1961, and it’s that Brooklyn version that’s later revived by ludicrous studio concoction Tight Fit (UK no.1 in January 1982) and referenced on REM’s “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight”. But Karl’s reading is significantly different. He told several versions of the story. He claims to have picked up the song – in its original Swahili-language form, during a stop-over in South Africa, where the Zulu Folk-song “Wimba Way” or “Awimbawe” had been adapted and originally recorded as “Mbube” by Solomon Linda & the Evening Birds for Gallo Records in 1939. There had also been subsequent interpretations by the Weavers (with Pete Seeger), Miriam Makeba, and the Kingston Trio. But although misleadingly credited to ‘Paul Campbell’ on the label, Karl takes his reading, complete with Swahili lyrics, from its earliest form.

Kevin Neill explained to journalist Fred Dellar about performing the song in Africa. ‘When we worked in Zimbabwe, Karl and I found it a bit strange because we crack jokes onstage. But there, we had to do everything through an interpreter. One thing though, we’d be doing these shows in front of about two-thousand people and we’d get to “Wimoweh” which – being an African song, they all knew. And they’d join in, banging tin cans and everything. In some ways, it was a bit eerie’ (‘New Musical Express’, 5 August 1989).


The track was recorded during their first Decca sessions – with Andy White or Bobby Graham providing drums, and although it titled Karl’s debut album, it was initially considered too freaky for ‘A’-side status. Yet, in a sense, it is all you really need to hear. In an era of polite sugar-coated Pop, “Wimoweh” is jaw-dropping. Karl recorded a lot of ho-hum material of varying quality, but “Wimoweh” provides the gravity around which everything else orbits. It provides the context and relevance to everything else he did. Karl Denver didn’t need studio effects, he provides his own nerve-shredding box of tricks. And it’s all here, on this one 45rpm single. You never need to apologise for the schmaltz of his balladry when you have “Wimoweh” in your collection.

There was a brief yodeling fad from which the trio arguably benefits. Frank Ifield scored three consecutive yodeling no.1’s starting with “I Remember You” in July 1962, the ‘B’-side of the second – “Wayward Wind”, is even a humorous spoof relating how “She Taught Me To Yodel”. Ifield’s third chart-topped – “Lovesick Blues” in November, even pips Del Shannon’s yodeling “Swiss Maid” into second place. And after all, yodeling has genuine Singing Cowboy Country-roots. But in truth, Karl Denver’s song-bending sound defies category. There’s something of Lonnie Donegan’s eclectic oddness, delving into the Folk and World Music repertoire, and an early champion of Hank Williams, and Woody Guthrie long before we’d heard of Bob Dylan, but also drawing on Country sources and old turn-of-the-century balladry, as often sentimentally embarrassing as he could be startling. As a ‘NME’ headline points out, he has ‘Songs From The Four Corners Of The World’ (Derek Johnson, 11 August 1961).

Karl premiered the follow-up single, “Never Goodbye”, on BBC-TVs 11 February 1962 ‘A Song For Europe’ – David Jacob’s pre-selection show for the ‘Eurovision Song Contest’, his ear-splittingly piercing lead losing out to Ronnie Caroll’s wretched “Ring-A-Ding Girl”. He played a Summer Season variety-show at Great Yarmouth – interrupted by an auto-accident that jolted him out of action. Then, by Easter 1963, he could be glimpsed in Milton Sobotsky’s opportunistic movie ‘Just For Fun’ (Amicus Films, 1963) in a cast crammed with Bobby Vee, Joe Brown, Mark Wynter, the Vernons Girls, and various other suitably marketable Pop acts. Based in Stockport at his peak, Karl could be seen driving a big flash red American Chevrolet Impala, enjoying his unlikely celebrity, but although the trio might only have made the back cover of the glossy ‘Pop Weekly’ (no.10), the smartly-suited threesome were never going to be anyone’s Pin-up cover-stars.


The arrival of the Beat Boom found him engaged in a curious chart battle with tattyfilarious comedian Ken Dodd (KD vs KD) over Bill Anderson’s lush Nashville ballad “Still”. With the Beatles “She Loves You” at no.1, he climbed to no.13 with his biggest hit in eighteen months, the sickly-sweetness of its sing-along harmony-choir perhaps legitimized by the song’s country origins. Yet the trio had actually played the ‘Cavern’ (27 March 1963) alongside the Hollies and the Big Three, as well as opening Manchester’s legendary ‘Twisted Wheel’ club. Then the Beatles were the first guests to appear on Karl’s BBC Light Programme show ‘Side By Side’, the Fab Four returning the favour by including him as their special guest on US TV show ‘Shindig’ (7 October 1964), performing “Wimoweh” alongside annoying GoGo dancers.

Complicated by a similar tax-aversion tendency to Doddy, Karl was declared banckrupt in 1966, in 1973 and then again in 1978. And after the mid-1960s, he worked mainly on the cabaret circuit, with guest slots on popular TV show ‘Stars & Garters’ and ‘Wheeltappers & Shunters Club’. Although Kevin Neill was a constant, Gerry Cottrell left the trio towards the end of the 1970s and died 24 November 2006, at Manchester’s Trafford General Hospital. He was replaced by Keith Elliott – who was later drafted into a reformed Bachelors.

Oddly, as the Pet Shop Boys revive Dusty Springfield’s fortunes, Marc Almond was dueting with Gene Pitney, and Sandie Shaw was recording with the Smiths, Karl enjoyed a renewed ripple of celebrity. ‘New Musical Express’ (6 May 1989) reports that Happy Mondays have made him part of their own cult retro. ‘Karlos’ guests on their Factory single, “Lazyitis (One-Armed Boxer)” which samples the original “Wimoweh” and quotes “Ticket To Ride”, he cavorts with Shaun Ryder and Bez live on the ‘G-Mex’ stage (25 March 1990) and in the Mondays’ video for the song, even though he contracts pneumonia during the filming process! And there were two further unique collaborations issued by the iconic Manchester label, “Wimoweh ‘89” and “Indambinigi”, credited to Karl Denver and producer Steve ‘DJ Futuro’ Lima.


He’d journeyed from the primitive Jack Good studio productions at the very dawn of the sixties, through into the realm of Acid-House sequencers and samplers, but low or hi-tech, his power-vocal extremism provides just as distinctive an edge. Now, leaving Madchester behind he returned to country music fare for what was to be his final album, ‘Just Loving You’ (1993), largely made up of affectionate covers glazed in sighing steel guitar. Karl died from a brain tumour, 21 December 1998, a few days after his sixty-seventh birthday, and in the midst of sessions for a further album. The finished tracks were added to an extended re-release of ‘Just Loving You’ titled ‘Movin’ On’ in 1999. Among the final songs he recorded were “I Can’t Go On This Way”, and Burt Bacharach’s “The Story Of My Life”.

His ashes are buried in Stockport Borough cemetery, with a plain wooden marker. Three times married, he had eight children. Karl (who tragically died early) and Jean from his first marriage. Dolian Murdo, Fiona and Victoria from his second marriage to Alma. Justin and Richard from his third marriage to Andrea, and Melanie.

Maybe Karl Denver was not exactly a hero of early British Rock ‘n’ Roll, but at a time when heroes were scarce, he provided a hugely entertaining distraction…



KARL DENVER: ALL THE HITS 

 22 June 1961 – ‘Marcheta’ c/w ‘Joe Sweeney’ (Decca F 11360), no.8, revival of Victor Schertzinger’s 1912 ballad. Gerry Cottrell explains how the record was flipped when they couldn’t get the banjo-sound right on ‘Joe Sweeney’

19 October 1961 – ‘Mexicali Rose’ c/w ‘Bonny Scotland’ (Decca F 11395), no.8, old-time country song

23 December 1961 – ‘WIMOWEH’ LP (Decca LK 4428, Ace Of Clubs ACL 1098), no.7, with side one: ‘Wimoweh’, ‘China Doll’ (a Slim Whitman song), ‘Open Up Dem Pearly Gates’, ‘Shin Gan Goo’ (what Karl describes as a Chinese song), ‘Mexicali Rose’, ‘Vella Langa’. Side two: ‘Zimba’, ‘Rose Marie’, ‘Blue Yodel (T For Texas)’, ‘If I Had My Way’, ‘Marcheta’ and ‘The Peanut Vendor’


25 January 1962 – ‘Wimoweh’ c/w ‘Gypsy Davy’ (Decca F 11420), no.4 (no.3 in ‘NME’), lifted from the LP as Tokens ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ reaches no.11 18 January 1962, and then overtakes it!

22 February 1962 – ‘Never Goodbye’ c/w ‘Highland Fling’ (Decca F 11431), no.9, ballad written by Jimmy Kennedy

1962 – ‘KARL DENVER’ LP (Ace Of Clubs ACL 1131) ‘The songs on his LPs display the wide ranges of his voice and repertoire… a mysterious version of ‘She Moved Thro’ the Fair’, the standard ‘Moonlight Becomes You’ and an invigorating treatment of the Irish folk song ‘Three Lovely Lassies From Bannion’ (Spencer Leigh’s ‘Independent’ obit) plus ‘Canoe Song’ (sung by Paul Robeson in ‘Sanders Of The River’), ‘Careless Love’, ‘Silver And Gold’, ‘O’Brian The Brave Engineer’, ‘Walk On Boy’, ‘Sierra Sue’, ‘Weary Blues’, ‘Far Away’, ‘Highland Fling’. Although he preferred the Karl Denver Trio billing, the label always insist on separate credits as Karl Denver, Kevin Neill and Jerry Cottrell

7 June 1962 – ‘A Little Love A Little Kiss’ c/w ‘Lonely Sailor’ (Decca F 11470), no.19, a French song popularized in 1914 by Irish tenor John McCormack

1962 – ‘BY A SLEEPY LAGOON’ EP (Decca DFE8501) with ‘Sleepy Lagoon’, ‘Lonesome Traveller, ‘Snow Shoes Thompson’ and ‘Just For A While’, EP chart no.2 

20 September 1962 – ‘Blue Weekend’ c/w ‘My Mother’s Eyes’ (Decca F 11505), no.33, another Jimmy Kennedy song 

1962 – ‘KARL DENVER HITS’ EP (Decca DFE8504) with ‘Marcheta’, ‘Mexicali Rose’, ‘Never Goodbye’ and ‘A Little Love A Little Kiss’, EP chart no.7 

1962 – ‘Pastures of Plenty’ c/w ‘Dry Tears’ (Decca F 11553), Woody Guthrie’s song


21 March 1963 – ‘Can You Forgive Me’ c/w ‘Love From A Heart Of Gold’ (Decca F 11608), no.32 

13 June 1963 – ‘Indian Love Call’ c/w ‘My Melancholy Baby’ (Decca F 11674), no.32, a song taken from 1936 film-musical ‘Rose Marie’, revived by Slim Whitman as a 1952 hit famous for its inclusion in 1996 ‘Mars Attacks’ movie 

22 August 1963 – ‘Still’ c/w ‘My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes’ (Decca F 11720), no.13, cover of Bill Anderson’s Country hit. Oddly, both Karl and Ken Dodd also record Anderson’s ‘Eight By Ten’ 

1963 – ‘KARL DENVER AT THE YEW TREE’ LP (Decca LK 4540), a return to his roots recorded live in the Manchester hostelry while performing in Pantomime at the nearby ‘Palace Theatre’, with ‘Blue Yodel (T For Texas)’, ‘The Long Black Veil’, ‘Kaw-Liga’, ‘Silver And Gold’, ‘Little Dutch Girl’. ‘You Don’t Need Me Anymore’, ‘Going Going Gone’, ‘Can You Forgive Me’, ‘Indian Love Call’, ‘You Win Again’ (Hank Williams), ‘I’m Satisfied With My Girl’, ‘My Melancholy Baby’, ‘Bless You’, ‘Only The Heartaches’ (prospecting song based on ‘The Streets Of Laredo’, also recorded by Houston Wells with Joe Meek), ‘Love From A Heart Of Gold’, ‘Wimoweh’ 

5 March 1964 – ‘My World of Blue’ c/w ‘The Green Grass Grows All Round’ (Decca F 11828), no.29, written by Ivor Raymonde and Mike Hawker


4 June 1964 – ‘Love Me With All Your Heart’ c/w ‘Am I That Easy To Forget?’ (Decca F 11905), no.37, ‘B’-side will later be a hit for Engelbert Humperdinck 

1964 – ‘Sally’ c/w ‘Swanee River’ (Decca F 12025), ill-judged revival of Gracie Fields song, which Gerry Munroe would replicate into the charts soon after 

1964 – ‘WITH LOVE’ LP (Decca LK 4596) with ‘Love Walked In’, ‘A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening/ Try A Little Tenderness’, ‘Harbour Lights’ (Hank Williams), ‘I Forgot What It Was Like (Bacharach), ‘My World Of Blue’, ‘Can I Forget You’, ‘Mistakes’, ‘Have I Told You Lately’, ‘Eight By Ten’, ‘I Can’t Get Over What You Got Over Me’, ‘Still’, ‘I Can’t Help It’ (Hank Williams), ‘Am I That Easy To Forget’. ‘Jealous’, ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’ 

May 1965 – ‘Cry A Little Sometimes’ c/w ‘Today Will Be Yesterday Tomorrow’ (Mercury MF878), ‘NME’ reviews is as ‘a sob-in-the-throat treatment of a wistful rockaballad’ 

1965 – ‘Marta’ c/w ‘I’ll Never Forget To Remember’ (Mercury MF904), with Tijuana-style horns 

1965 – ‘The Tips Of My Fingers’ c/w ‘I’m Alone Because I Love You’ (Mercury MF926) 

1966 – ‘Big Show 1966’ summer-season at Great Yarmouth with Gerry & the Pacemakers, Silkie, and Karl Denver Trio


April 1968 – ‘You’ve Still Got A Place In My Heart’ c/w ‘I Still Miss Someone’ (Page One POF063) 

May 1969 – ‘Wimoweh’ c/w ‘Never Goodbye’ (Decca F 12928) 

1989 – ‘Wimoweh 89’ c/w ‘Wimoweh Instrumental’ (Factory FAC 228), in 7” and 12” format 

9 June 1990 – ‘Lazyitis: One Armed Boxer’ (Factory FAC 222), no.46, as Happy Mondays & Karl Denver. 7” and 12” formats c/w Mondays only ‘Mad Cyril’ and ‘Hello Girls’ 

August 1990 – ‘Indambinigi’ (Factory FAC 278) one-off Karl Denver 12” collaboration with Steve Lima made up of ‘Zimba’ and ‘Shengali’ 

October 1999 – ‘MOVIN’ ON’ LP (Plaza), posthumously reissued and expanded version of his 1993 ‘Just Loving You’ LP, with ‘Just Loving You’, ‘Song For Maria’, ‘Won`t Give Up’, ‘From A Jack To A King’ (Ned Miller’s lyrics amended), ‘Garden Party’, ‘I Can`t Stop Loving You’, ‘Last Train To San Fernando’ (Johnny Duncan’s Skiffle hit), ‘King Of The Road’, ‘Walk On By’, ‘Runaway’ (Del Shannon song), ‘A Little Bitty Tear’, ‘Traveling Light’ (Cliff Richard hit), ‘The Answer To Everything’ (Del Shannon song), ‘The Story Of My Life’ plus a November 1990 Plaza single ‘Voices Of The Highlands’ (martial drumming and pipes on Roberto Danova’s paean to Scotland c/w Karl’s own song ‘Kaya’, PZA 064) 

A nostalgic grab-bag of rare Karl Denver images: 


Saturday 15 October 2016

Interview: THE BREEDERS (1993)



THE BREEDERS: 
 KIM DEAL – MEMOIRS 
 OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE 

The BREEDERS tend to talk at the same time, and sometimes the 
resulting cross-talk makes as much sense as a Japanese VCR manual. 
 But the Barbie Generation has come of age. And it takes no prisoners. 
 An interview in which the Geekoid Heavy Metal equation is defined. 
 The secrets of sentimental Bikers, wankey Beatles lyrics and Tom Jones 
are discussed, and drummer Jim is sexually harassed…



‘I don’t understand this Who thing?’ complains Kelley Deal as the lights shriek and the feedback zigzags. ‘They what? – they recorded an album here?’

Well, no. Not actually HERE. Not here at the ‘Metropolitan University’. But yes – the Who did do a 1970 ‘Live At Leeds’ vinyl full of the kind of bombast and swagger that now sells like cold cakes. Of course, things have changed a tad since then. All that testosterone male Rock ‘n’ Roll braggadocio is deader than tank-tops, isn’t it? As hairy as a month-old turd.

By contrast, the Breeders ‘Live In Leeds’ can be as delicate as a moth. And simultaneously deadlier than bombs. In the earth-shaking stakes they’re probably somewhere around the 89-mark on the Richter scale. The levels of seismic activity that cause mass evacuation in Southern California. But they move through sheer swerves of volume into sudden halts and pauses, strange distortions and bursts of half-audible vocals, with Kim and Kelley Deal at the centre of the energy. Breeders are the quake epicentre of the Nineties main musical thrust – the female revision of Rock’s antique blueprints. An anti-matter inversion of all that frazzle-brained riffology. Aren’t they?

‘Rush. Ted Nugent. Michael Schenker. UFO’ enthuses Kim. The bands they saw during their formative years, ‘’cos they was RAAAWK!!!’

‘I saw Rush about thirteen times’ brags drummer Jim. ‘Black Sabbath. Ozzy Osbourne…’

But all those Dukes of Dork are Metal. All the worst excesses of politically incorrect unsound sound! The guys who savour guitar solos as if they’re blow jobs.

‘Ah. But there’s Cool Metal’ explains Kim patiently. ‘Mountain. Rainbow – that’s kinda cool metal. But then you have your Geek Metal too. Everybody else thought it was metal, but you didn’t like that. Geek Metal would be…’

‘Kiss’ suggests Kelley, delineating the Geekoid party line.

‘And who else – Night Ranger. That’s Geeky. Toto, Loverboy, Foreigner – YUGHK!’ She wrinkles her nose in disgust. ‘I’d like for Breeders to do a Ted Nugent song. But the thought of us doing a Foreigner song – UURRRGH!’ A pause for reorientation. ‘But I like everything. I think “Sleepwalk” is a pretty song (Santo & Johnny’s 1950s instrumental hit). I like the Chiffons “He’s So Fine”. And what’s that one that goes ‘…why do birds si-ing so-oh gay…’?’ She sings the song sweetly and directly at me, demanding identification.

‘I like Jim Morrison’ declares Jim. His intervention coming as a momentary distraction from Kim’s interrogation. ‘It’s just great pot-smoking music.’

‘Tanya likes the Doors a lot.’ Tanya is Tanya Donelly, one-time Breeder, now full-time Belly. But to Kim ‘naw, Jim Morrison just gets a little too weird for me.’

‘Too weird for YOU! How could THAT happen?’ howls Jim incredulously. ‘That’s impossible.’

‘‘I am the Lizard King?’ I ain’t buying that y’know’ she grumbles suspiciously.


--- 0 --- 

The Barbie Generation has come of age. And it takes no prisoners.

Kelley is reading the ‘Wordsworth Classics’ paperback ‘Fanny Hill: Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure’. Her well-thumbed 99p edition of John Cleland’s Nineteenth Century soft-core is crushed down into the upholstery between us. Erotica, or proto-Feminism? I’m tearing up theory. Party lines are up for grabs.

Kelley’s dark hair shows the residue of recent perming. Kim’s is the same deep black, worn long and lank. She used to be a Pixie, and she’s all surface toughness, but fast and very funny too. Both Deal sisters dress on a casual overdrive. Consider the changing aesthetic of the female form from Titian to Allen Jones. The Deal’s come somewhere around ‘Minnie The Minx’.

‘New York is right here’ explains Kelley, indicating a position on an imaginary map printed in mid-air between us. ‘Right? And Pennsylvania is… here,’ one invisible step from right to left. ‘And Ohio is right HERE,’ an emphatic stab a further step to the left identifies home.

‘I’m right next door to Chicago’ adds drummer Jim (Macpherson), Breeder’s token male. ‘We’re just surrounded by a lot of cornfields.’

‘We have a rehearsal space downstairs in our house. Me and Kelley live together in Dayton, Ohio. Jim lives fifteen minutes away. Josephine… she lives fifteen HOURS away, in England.’

‘But she’s hardly ever home. She’s usually with us’ glows Kelley. ‘That’s the way we like it.’

Josephine Wiggs is no Pixie. Never was. But she’s got an M.A in philosophy from Sussex University, and she did cut three albums with her old band – Perfect Disaster, plus one called ‘Nude Nudes’ (1992, Playtime Records) as part of a duo called Honeytongue (with Jon Mattock of Spiritualised). She’s a calorie-controlled version of the Deal sisters, slimmer and more tightly focussed. ‘Do you realise, if I lived in Los Angeles it would take about the same time? A bit less. But not THAT much less. That is – if you could get a direct flight… which you can’t.’

Kim is unconvinced. ‘But yeah, I bet it probably would. Are you thinking of moving to Los Angeles?’

‘No. That’s just an example.’

Breeders interviews tend to be like that – slightly off-centre. Their internal dialogue is wondrous to behold. It’s a Living Soap Opera with gags, handbrake turns, and buckets of adrenalin to upset your every preconception. They don’t easily open their heads for inspection, not because they’re devious or evasive. Just that they tend to de-rail each other. While Breeders songs give tantalisingly distressed impressions of murky pasts. So let’s unzip the past, from where Kim and Kelley used to be an acoustic duo playing Truck-Stops.


‘In Dayton, Ohio? Yeah,’ from Kim. ‘If you were a guy in Spandex you could play the Bars. And if you did a lot of Night Ranger. You did a lot of .38 Special. You did a lot of Toto – that kind of thing. But there were some places we could play. We used to do an old Hank Williams song, “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still In Love With You)”. We did it recently as a ‘B’-side (of “Divine Hammer”, October 1993). And an Elvis Costello song – “The Angels Want To Wear My Red Shoes”. I remember doing that at Truck-Stops. We also did Delaney & Bonnie things. We did “Comes The Time”, the Neil Young song. And things that we had written. “Do You Love Me Now” (on ‘Last Splash’, August 1993) is from that time. You could play Country stuff. And you can do some Blues stuff. Biker guys – they don’t mind sitting down and watching pretty girls sing and play guitar. It’s a lot different to College-age-type kids who just think ‘there’s no fuckin’ way we’re gonna sit around listening to THIS shit’. But it’s weird because these tough big macho Biker guys – you know?, you could make them cry. You really could, and it’s so nice. There’s this song by… oh yeah, Little Feat! You know the one where they go… erm… TWANG TWANG T-T-TWANG AH-AH OW-OW AH-AH – right?’ She mimes with huge soulful emphasis, thrashing out monstrous chords on an invisible guitar as she memory-searches the title. ‘It’s called…’

‘....“Special”’ suggests Kelley.

‘Yes, that’s it. And it’s all about watching Mexican girls singing and playing in a Cantina in Mexico. How the guy finds all his answers when he sees them play…’ (it’s actually “Spanish Moon” on ‘Feats Don’t Fail Me Now’ (1974) ‘well I pawned my watch and I sold my ring, just to hear that girl sing, yeah yeah’).

And it goes on.

This is what life is like on planet Breeders.

--- 0 --- 


Memo to the serious reader: ‘Pod’ (May 1990, 4AD) – the Breeders first album, comes in a sleeve-shot that resembles one of those ‘naughty’ vegetables that people used to send in to the Esther Rantzen TV-show, and now stick on sniggery ‘Facebook’ posts. Those that resemble mutant genitalia. Built around a trio of Kim, Josephine, and former Throwing Muses sister-act Tanya, it can be a slow and grunge-heavy album. There’s a sharply faithful Beatles ‘White Album’ remnant, “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” (but ‘…just towards the end there’s a section that we just don’t sing at all – ‘and when I hold you in my arms, and I feel my finger on your trigger…’, y’know, they’re going into those risquĂ© really horrible things. Sometimes they did some really wanky things’). But the sharpest most perverse song is Kim’s “When I Was A Painter”. A massive snit of resentment exploring the shape of ravaged and hoary sexual relationships and the intricacies of gender politics.

But why ‘Pod’? It’s a title that sounds like something out of the ‘Invasion Of The Body Snatchers’ movie.

‘Yeah. It’s just self-loathing. A bunch of ugly stinking gross songs. That’s it!’

Steve Albini gets producer credits. But although the main-man of Big Black and Rapeman may be a sorcerer of sound with breathless credentials, can’t he also be… er, difficult to work with?

‘He was really great. He was fun. He’s funny. He’s a smart guy.’

‘A smart ass’ grins Kelley.

‘A smart ass too’ admits Kim. ‘But in a neat way. He’s different. Some producers really become a fifth member of the band. And they really, like, agonise over every decision. But what we had was… we’d go ‘do you like this guitar sound, or this guitar sound?’ And he’d go ‘I don’t give a fuck. It’s not my band! Do whatever the fuck you wanna do. Just tell me when you’re ready and I’ll put the mikes on.’ I can see how people might think he’s difficult. But, y’know – don’t hire him if you want a big fan. He’s not like that. So just don’t hire him.’

‘He can be difficult if you continue to disagree with him’ agrees Jo. ‘But basically, if you go in pretty quickly and say ‘oh, we’re going to do this, this and this’, then he’s not difficult.’

The resulting sides are immaculately twisted, and they shove Breeders way above the Pop Event Horizon. Outside of dildos and Tupperware, pieces of moulded plastic (and whatever it is CDs are mad of) have rarely been known to trigger such intense reactions. Now Tanya and Kim, Belly and Breeders, occupy different planets. But they still inhabit the same sonic solar system. Kelley joined Breeders in time for their ‘Last Splash’ album. It was her initial reading of another underground classic of erotica – a Marquis De Sade biography, that ignited “Cannonball”, the band’s first charting single (UK no.40, August 1993).

‘We just had this conversation about it’ relates Kim.

‘I haven’t – like, read his actual works’ admits Kelley with a devious smile. ‘But I saw (Pasolini’s 1975) movie of his ‘120 Days Of Sodom’ and it was like ‘my gawd!’’

‘I can invent my own fantasies, thank you. I don’t need to READ through that.’

Take these words – and stick ‘em in your head. Kim Deal can think around corners. It was Kim who wrote the Pixies bristling “Gigantic”. Her songs manipulate the complex exchange rates between energy and intelligence, combining the mind-bending with the mundane. The Breeders make violence graceful.

And… Frankie Lymon.

‘Why do birds si-ing so-oh gay…’ I suddenly worry Kim’s question through to its conclusion. The song she can’t name is “Why Do Fools Fall In Love?” – originally recorded by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers. He was a star in 1955 at the age of fifteen, a junkie at twenty, dead of an OD in 1968. One of Rock’s early casualties…


--- 0 --- 

‘Women DO throw their underwear at Tom Jones, you know?’ muses Kelley in wondering disbelief. ‘Why? That’s an interesting question.’

The Breeders might be at the quake epicentre of the female revision of Rock’s antique blueprints. But the amused fascination with that old frazzle-brained riffology remains – from the Who, to the ludicrous posturing of Tom Jones.

‘I saw him in Manchester’ admits Kim. ‘At the ‘Apollo’. And talk about sexual imagery on stage! Here was Tom Jones, and his trousers were so tight he could hardly MOVE. So that when he reached down on one knee to pick up a Lady’s underwear…’ She mimes it out in very slow, very careful, exaggerated slow motion, as the rest of the assembly disintegrates into hysteria. ‘He picks up the Lady’s underwear, he wipes his brow with them, and then he gives them back to the woman.’

‘But then there’s Marky Mark!’ and his Calvin Kleins.

‘Yeah, he’s got into a lot of trouble. If he doesn’t take his pants down and show his underwear, they don’t want him to perform. Now THAT’S a fuckin’ problem, don’t ya know? WE don’t get any sort of things like that. THEY’VE got the problem! And have you noticed recently how many guys are taking their shirts off? Evan Dando. The guy from Depeche Mode. Even the guy from Tears For Fears opened his top button. Why?’

‘You’re getting the wrong idea’ grins Jim slyly. ‘When I take my shirt off on stage, it’s because I’m burning up.’

‘Naw Jim, we’re talking physique here. When you do it we’re not talking about the same thing’ insinuates Jo mischievously.

‘Now THAT is sexist, Josephine’ scolds Kelley.

‘No, it’s not sexist. It’s cool.’

‘Naw – it’s English.’

‘We’re just kidding around here’ assures Kim. ‘Of course, Jim’s not uncomfortable. But what is a joke to you might not be to someone else. You have to ask ‘is it appropriate’ or ‘is it inappropriate’? Does it make somebody uncomfortable…’

I came here tonight to sniff out the critique of the Nineties main musical thrust, and I wind up with the Geekoid metal equation, the secrets of sentimental Bikers, wanky Beatles lyrics, Tom Jones, and the inappropriateness of sexism. But is Jim uncomfortable? More sexual harassment is yet to be inflicted upon his uncomplaining person.


‘…Another good album cover-picture was for Tad’s ‘Eight-Way Santa’ (1991)’ opines Kim as the internal dialogue goes on, faster and more CD-interactive than I can type it. ‘It showed a guy and a girl in a Trailer Park. Me and Jim will do it… I’m the guy – he’s the girl…’ They get up. Jim more than a little apprehensive and unsure what’s expected of him. Kim begins to embrace him. ‘I can’t do it, you’re too big’ she complains. ‘Anyway – the guy had his hand on her breast.’

‘Jim can do that for you’ suggests Jo enthusiastically,

‘OK. Here, I’ll do it for you’ leers Jim, suddenly warming to the game.

The tableau mutates into a writhing skirmish of crawling limbs as Kim continues to talk unperturbed. ‘He just had his hand on her breast – right? It was so… sleazy. The band had just picked the picture up in a garage sale. The album was released, the radio played it. Then the couple in the picture sued – they’d become Born Again Christians, and they don’t like their photograph being used.’

Things subside from active tussle to more normal levels of the Breeders Living Soap. ‘After that they had a big contest’ she resumes. ‘The slogan was ‘TAD NEED A NEW ALBUM COVER PICTURE, SEND IT IN TO THIS ADDRESS’ and blah-blah. I was going to take a picture of myself and send that in.’ An imperceptibly reflective pause, ‘But it was just one of those things that I never did.’

Memo to the Serious Reader: I get the impression there aren’t too many other things Kim Deal’s never done.


Friday 14 October 2016

Gig Review: THE BREEDERS Live in Leeds



A BIGGER SPLASH 
THE BREEDERS 
at ‘Leeds Metropolitan University’, Yorkshire 

Watching Breeder Kim Deal chain-smoke is an entertainment in itself. Gripping cigarette between teeth whenever a vocal break provides an opportunity, her face contorts with effort, her mouth a figure-of-eight around the cancer-stick. Then she’s exhaling and wheezing huge plumes of noxious fumes as if it provides some kind of psychological life-support system. And not having mastered the old Blues-player’s art of temporarily impaling the smouldering butt on guitar-neck strands during songs, she hastily drops it to the floor when her voice is needed, to be retrieved later, perhaps re-lit, or failing that – the crush-pack on the amps is plundered for a replacement. And then another.

There’s no Dry-Ice for the Breeders, but that’s hardly necessary when Kim’s on stage. Breeders are the Music Press ‘Girls De Jour’, but they don’t really need that either. Kim wears a shapeless blue top and jeans with few concessions to presentation. But for the driving instrumental “Flipside” a jive two-some from support band Luscious Jackson provides ragged choreography. ‘They’re great’ enthuses sister Kelley Deal, ‘they’ll do ANYTHING! There – that’s ruined THEIR reputation!’

The bitching cross-chat is almost as much fun as Kim’s ciggy-juggling. ‘It’s not that I’m playing WRONG’ explains bassist Josephine carefully, ‘it’s just that we’re both playing different SONGS.’ For Aerosmith’s “Lord Of The Thighs” Jo snatches vocals. She ‘oozes it, no, she vocal stylises it’, before she switches to drums for “Roi” which Kim announces as ‘a solo acoustic’ (!). Democratically Kelley also gets to sing “I Just Wanna Get Along”, while even Roadie Simon gets a credit, a nudging piss-take for having his Patsy-Kensit-lookalike girlfriend printed across his T-shirt.

Breeders are (largely) from Dayton, Ohio, although solid drummer Jim MacPherson is from Chicago, and Jo Wiggs from fifteen hours away in Brighton, England. Kim arrives by way of her vital role in the Pixies, with Breeders starting out as a side-project (inaugurated with Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses) between their ‘Surfer Rosa’ (4AD, March 1988) tour, and the release of ‘Bossanova’ in August 1990. An outlet for Kim’s songs which, largely, Pixies couldn’t find space for. Tonight the Breeders are touring their second album – ‘Last Splash’ (4AD, August 1993), their first with their current line-up.

John Lennon’s “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” is crammed full of unpolished arpeggios at strobe-speed. The twitchy rhythms of “When I Was A Painter” come in hot pursuit. And their Marquis De Sade-inspired single “Cannonball” is threaded on sadistically oscillating guitar figures that chew their way into your head like a particularly vicious hang-over. Breeders are self-contained and ideally gig-friendly. They close with “Lime House”, the penultimate cut from their debut ‘Pod’ (4AD, May 1990) – the Steve Albini-produced album that Kurt Cobain frequently claimed as his favourite all-time vinyl. And between cigarettes, Kim is one hell of a singer.

From first to Last Splash…


Thursday 13 October 2016

LUDD'S MILL: ISSUE No.2





LUDD'S MILL: 
THE SECOND ISSUE


OK, so maybe this second issue - two sides of A4, was something of a seat-of-the-pants stop-gap shot. Launched in Spring 1971, with a useful round-up of other counter-culture alternative publishing projects, it nevertheless catches something of the grimy flavor of the time.

I never actually thought much of the name 'Ludd's Mill', although I concocted a selection of dubious explanations for it. I always preferred the title I attempted to infiltrate later as 'publisher', which was variations of 'Eight Miles Higher'. As Steve Sneyd later explained it to me, it was something of a random serendipitous bodge of a process anyway. Pre-launch, the collective was sitting around in the bar tossing around semi-serious suggestions, while Steve - taking the minutes on a notepad already full of poems-in-process, quotes and mystic diagrams, jots them down at angles that cram them into available white-spaces. There was 'Thud!', there was 'Trouble At Mill' - sniping at the Northern Industrial dramas, and there was 'Ned Ludd' - semi-legendary leader of the Luddites. Somehow these titles tended to merge and overlap as the liquid evening progressed, to somehow emerge in the mutant 'Ludds's Mill' configuration. I was never a Luddite. Whereas I approve the idea of direct action, I'm also fond of the way the technology can ease us into tomorrows…

But stick with the story… it gets better...