Cassette experiment day 50 - Electric Light Orchestra 'Eldorado'

I love cover versions. You’ve probably heard me bang on about this subject before. You’re about to hear me bang on about it again!

One of the best cover versions I’ve ever heard was at one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended – Boo Hewerdine playing live in a little coffee bar on Tynemouth Metro station. In attendance, around 30-40 eager Boo fans, one of whom, heroically stepped in and played keyboards when the scheduled ivory-tinkler didn’t show. They’d never met before, Boo and the keyboard man, but he contributed to a tremendous concert, adding to the friendly atmosphere as we all rooted for him in his corner, next to the caramel slices and scones.

Anyway, as part of this tremendous gig, Boo, armed only with his acoustic guitar, played a blistering version of Electric Light Orchestra’s ‘Can’t get it out of my head’.

Nowadays, in a world where it’s entirely acceptable to admit that you love ABBA and Darts and The Bay City Rollers, ELO remain firmly in the uncool section of the record collection. To help to explain why this situation is an absolute travesty, I’d like to introduce you our cassette today, their 1974 offering, ‘Eldorado’.

If a group were to release this album in 2013 it would be hailed as a masterpiece by many, and if you’re reluctant to dip into the world of ELO having only previously heard stuff like ‘The diary of Horace Wimp’, then I’d suggest this album as a better place to start than Jeff and the boys’ better known albums that arrived just a few short years afterwards.

Tuneful and orchestral, it’s like proper music with an overture and a finale and recurring musical themes and… everything, even if Jet Records do get the track-listing order slightly arse about face on this cassette version. ‘Can’t get it out of my head’ is the best known track for good reason, but for something a little bit different you might like to try ‘Boy Blue’ or the soaring ‘Laredo Tornado’.

Go on, try it – you might like it! You certainly won’t be able to get it out of your head.

Label – Jet Records Inc.

Year - 1974

Cassette experiment day 49 - Sweetmouth 'Goodbye to songtown'

I’d like to talk today about the Grandaddy of ‘Superstar DJs’, Sir Terry Wogan. Cheery of demeanour, Irish of birth, rambling of delivery, seriously middle-of-the-road of musical taste.

And – born on exactly the same day as my Mam. So we always know that when she has a birthday, Sir Terry is having exactly the same birthday. Except that he’s probably having his at his chateaux in France, not at his terraced house in Sunderland. Just to be clear, Terry doesn’t have a terraced house in Sunderland, he may or may not still have all of those forests though.

The reason why I have adopted Sir Terry’s own rambling style myself today should become apparent later, when we discuss today’s cassette, Sweetmouth’s ‘Goodbye to songtown’.

Not so much a supergroup, but more of a super-duo, Sweetmouth were the hugely talented songwriter and former member of Fairground Attraction, Mark E Nevin, and the wonderfully voiced brother of Bap and future backing singer of Van, Brian Kennedy.

‘Goodbye to songtown’ finds these two collaborating on an album of extremely high quality, which nonetheless dips its toes ever so slightly into Sir Terry’s musical territory somewhere around the middle.

Side 1 is scorching (in a very restrained way) with the stand-outs being ‘Forgiveness’, ‘I know why the willow weeps’ and the touching ‘Home to heartache’, which mines a similar seam to Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes’ ‘I don’t want to go home’ with similar disturbing effect.

Side 2, with the exception of the single ‘Fear is the enemy of love’, is where it all goes just a little bit too Wogan, because if your music is pleasant and unchallenging (and this is, in the nicest possible way), Terry’ll love you. If you’re Irish too, as Brian is, Terry’ll love you even more. This may also explain Terry’s otherwise inexplicable adoration of Imelda May.

In conclusion, a very ‘nice’ album to listen to every once in a while, and well worth the 49p that I paid for it.

Label – RCA.

Year - 1991

Cassette experiment day 48 - The Proclaimers 'This is the story'

As a long-time spectacle wearer myself, I spent much of my youth hoping upon hope that some cool, bespectacled, musical heroes would turn up, rendering yours truly just a little bit hipper in their wake.

Then, lo and behold, after years of waiting two turn up, just like buses.

Hardly the coolest guys on the planet (I’m sure they’d admit that themselves), Charlie and Craig, collectively The Proclaimers, burst forth from Auchtermuchty onto the music scene in1987, with ‘This is the story’

The album includes some great tracks that leave an Englishman in no doubt that the Scots are the finest and proudest nation on the planet – the opening track ‘Throw the ‘R’ away’ explains the boys’ unwillingness to moderate their local accents, and their biggest hit from this album, ‘Letter from America’ tells of the lack of opportunities for the Scottish people, and the subsequent pressure to move abroad. Included in two versions here, the ‘Band’ version is produced by another legendary spectacle-sporter, Gerry Rafferty.

Side 2 is not quite up to side 1’s high standard (with a number of the songs apparently consisting of the boys strumming guitars while shouiting ‘hup, hup, hup’ a lot), but ‘Beautiful truth’ lives up to its title and the second side does feature the alternative version of ‘Letter from America’.

Incidentally I saw The Proclaimers in concert at the Newcastle Mayfair (sadly now demolished) and they appeared to be the grumpiest individuals I’ve ever seen live (and I’ve seen Van Morrison). Their demeanour may have been linked to the fact that they were blown off the stage by their support act, the never heard before or since (unless you bought their tape at the gig, which I did) ‘Critterhill Varmints’. Glorying in the title of ‘Pump up the turkey’, this may feature in future, but only if you’re very good.

Label – Chrysalis.

Year - 1987

Cassette experiment day 47 - Bryan Ferry 'Let's stick together'

Have you ever had to complete a report at work and you think to yourself, ‘you know what, if I use the introduction from the one about the air conditioning project that I did three weeks ago, then modify the contents of the one I did about alternative energy sources last Monday and then use as the conclusion a slightly altered version of my report about water filtration systems nobody will suspect a thing? Me neither, I’m a far more responsible employee than that.

But some people would.

Bryan Ferry did pretty much just that on his 1976 album ‘Let’s stick together’, released when Roxy Music were ‘on a break’. Five of the eleven tunes present here are re-recordings of tracks from the first and fourth Roxy Music albums – the remaining six are perfectly executed cover versions of well-known standards ranging in quality from soulful to soulless.

Recorded between 1973 and 1976 (I’m struggling to avoid the words ‘cobbled’ and ‘together’ here), this disjointed album still has the distinction of containing some classic tracks and is surprisingly listenable. Of the Roxy Music tunes, ‘2HB’ is probably best, and of the cover versions it’s the opening tracks on each side that really stand out – ‘Let’s stick together’ (with additional ‘vocals’ by Jerry Hall) opens side 1 in fine style, while a blistering version of The Everly Brothers’ ‘The price of love’ introduces us to side 2.

One major word of caution though (particularly for fans of the first Roxy Music album); If you possess a ten-foot bargepole you might want to hunt it out in readiness for Bryan’s ‘cheesy listening’ reworking of ‘Re-Make Re-Model’. Difficult to believe that this is the same amazing track that, in its original version, ushered in one of the most astonishing albums ever made.

Always stylishly turned-out, the look that Bryan seeks to achieve on the album cover is ‘Private Walker from Dad’s Army’. He pulls this off with considerable aplomb.

Label – E.G. Records Ltd.

Year - 1976

Cassette experiment day 46 - Sinead O'Connor 'Universal mother'

We all know that the best way to keep out of trouble is to avoid wading in to the twin subjects of politics and religion. Somewhere down the line it seems that Sinead O’Connor didn’t receive that particular memo.

Sinead’s famous flirtations with both of these subjects are well documented elsewhere, so I won’t elaborate here. Sufficient to say, however that both are front and centre on today’s cassette, Sinead’s 1994 album ‘Universal mother’.

Many people find these aspects of Sinead’s beliefs annoying or off-putting, but they run the risk of missing out on some tremendous music if they do.

Opening with a speech by Germaine Greer (no, please, come back, it’s quite short!), the album then opens musically with the tremendous (although seriously grim of subject) ‘Fire on Babylon’.

Other tracks of note on side 1 include the heartfelt ‘My darling child’, Sinead’s interesting (but not particularly exceptional) version of ‘All apologies’ and ‘A perfect Indian’ which is a bit of a hidden gem as far as I’m concerned.

If possible side 2 takes on an even more serious tone than side 1 and includes a version of Phil Coulter’s ‘Scorn not his simplicity’ (with Phil himself guesting on piano), which is guaranteed to transform the hardest of souls into a quivering wreck, and “Famine” deliberately encapsulated within double quotation marks to portray Sinead’s message that there never really was a famine in Ireland. You probably need to give it a listen to get the full gist!

So, not many laughs (in fact probably none unless you count the ‘Me little ninja’ line in ‘My darling child’ which always makes me smile for probably the wrong reasons), some feminism, some religion, some politics, some child abuse. But all still fairly beautiful in its own way for around 85-90% of the time.

I can tell that some of you still aren’t convinced!

Label – Ensign

Year - 1994

Cassette experiment day 45 - The Housemartins 'The people who grinned themselves to death'

In the mid 1980s, a band emerged from Hull in the North of England (or as I prefer to think of it, the South!) who briefly threatened to change the world.

In many ways the first Britpop band, The Housemartins wafted fresh air through a music world fixated on Nick Berry’s ‘Every loser wins’ and Chris de Burgh’s ‘The lady in red’. They released two great pop albums in two years, and then promptly went their own separate musical ways.

Many of the tracks on this their second (and final) album have become over-familiar in the nostalgia-obsessed world of music radio, but they’re none the worse for it. ‘Me and the farmer’ (with musical use of the word ‘blister’ a full eight years before one of  Britpop’s greatest moments, Oasis’ ‘She’s electric’), the thoughtful ‘Build’ and the wonderfully energetic and aptly titled ‘Five get over excited’ are all now bright and brilliant staples of daytime radio.

For me though, it’s in the lesser known tunes that much of the joy of this album still resides, ‘I can’t put my finger on it’ is a peeing standing up pop masterpiece, and how Paul (or P.d. as he’s credited here) manages to hit the highest note of ‘The world’s on fire’ I’ll never know. I still give a one-man round of applause every time it happens.

Please note that St. Winifred’s School Choir appears on this album, but that’s no reason to be afraid.

Also receiving honourable mention within are the popular culture touchstones of Scalextric, Rupert, James Dean, Abba, The Thunderbirds, Motown, Meccano and Legoland. You don’t get those on a Chris de Burgh album

Label – Go! Discs

Year - 1987

Cassette experiment day 44 - Jonathan Richman 'You must ask the heart'

There are few musicians who are truly unique. As soon as success arrives, uniqueness tends to fly right out of the window.

So who are these artists, the peak of the unique if you will? Scott Walker perhaps, Chet Baker almost definitely, Kate Bush, Sinead O’Connor (who will make an appearance in a few days time), Serge Gainsbourg and of course the Daddy of unique musicians, Jonathan Richman.

Jonathan has been singing and recording songs of childlike simplicity and refreshing openness for over four decades, and our experiment subject today is his album from 1995, ‘You must ask the heart’.

It’s resolutely lo-fi and low-key, even by Jonathan’s unusually stripped-down standards. Tales of baseball players (‘Walter Johnson’), racial stereotyping (the just-the-right-side-of-painful, ‘Just because I’m Irish’) and a little bit of Spanish (‘Amorcito Corazon’) rub shoulders with a number of unusual covers (Tom Waits’ ‘The heart of Saturday night’, Sam Cooke’s ‘Nothing can change this love’ and Amanda McBroom’s (or Bette Midler’s if you prefer) karaoke favourite ‘The Rose’ which sounds like it was rattled off in one take just before leaving the studio one day).

Put this all together with liberal use of the word ‘vagabond’ and the touching ‘Let her go into the darkness’ and you’re left with an album that by anyone else’s standards would be stunning, but by Jonathan’s standards might not even make his top ten.

Watch out for more by Jonathan in the weeks to come.

Label – Rounder

Year - 1995

Cassette experiment day 43 - Army of Lovers 'The Gods of earth and Heaven'

That great musician, Louis Armstrong (‘Satchmo’ to his friends and Michael Parkinson) once famously said ‘There is two kinds of music, the good, and the bad.’

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, particularly when considered alongside the concept of ‘guilty pleasures’ and have been inclined to reject the idea of the ‘guilty pleasure’. It may be musically embarrassing, but if it’s good, then it’s good. I was also drawn towards this conclusion when I recently audited my collection and found that 46.8% could be categorised as embarrassing.

With all of this in mind, we move on to an album that could only be described by a Mental Health professional (not for the minutes of course) as ‘absolutely barking’, ‘The Gods of Earth and Heaven’ by Army of Lovers.

Army of Lovers were (and still are) a Swedish group fond of overdressing, religious imagery and stomping dance beats. A foursome for this album, the boys sport extravagant shirts, make-up and beauty spots, the girls (and there is a lingerie designer and manicure supplier credited!) can only be described, in North-East vernacular, as being in serious danger of their ‘puddings boiling over’.

No strangers to causing offence, their biggest hit single before this album had been the massive European (although inexplicably not UK) hit ‘Crucified’.

Most of the best tracks here feature on side 1, ‘I am’ opens with the line ‘I am a Liberace fan’ and proceeds in that same understated vein, ‘Israelism’ apparently caused such offence that it was banned in some countries, although at it’s most offensive it’s really no more than slightly irreverent. The wonderfully titled (and wonderful) ‘Carry my urn to Ukraine’ ensures that the first side finishes on a high.

Side 2 struggles to keep up the pace, as you might expect, but if you’re a fan of domestic items being used as musical instruments you might want to try ‘Sons of Lucy’ as this features a waste-paper basket, syrup bottle, food processor and pots & pans. Side 2 also features, as seems to obligatory for an album of this kind what sounds uncannily like an orgasm (although it may be someone in the later stages of running a marathon) set to music, and also the much more thoughtful (only joking!) stomper ‘Blood in the Chapel’

Great fun was had by all – Louis would have loved it.

Boney M’s classic ‘Love for sale’ coming up in a few days.

Label – Stockholm Records

Year - 1993