Cassette experiment day 78 - Visage 'Visage'

Do you ever take five minutes at work to ponder your career path? Is the job you’re doing now the one you thought you’d be doing when you had your little talk with your careers master or mistress all those years ago?

I’ve had a pretty strange career path myself – if I’d only passed my ‘A’-levels I’ve no doubt that my place at Stirling University would have led to a long and sparkling career in accountancy. Exam failure took me down a far more chequered and interesting route to the exciting job I do today. (Although not actually today, because even though you’re probably reading this on Monday, I’m actually writing it on Sunday).

I wonder how formerly pointy sideburned Scot Midge Ure (O.B.E.) saw his career path when growing up in Cambuslang? Did he foresee his time in criminally under-rated pop band Slik, who had a number one single with ‘Forever and ever’? Or his spell with former Sex Pistols in The Rich Kids? Or Ultravox? Or his brief interlude with Thin Lizzy? Or writing a multi-million selling charity single with the man who wrote ‘Mary of the fourth form’?

What a strange and interesting musical journey our Midge has been on!

Somewhere in between The Rich Kids and Ultravox and a little bit during Thin Lizzy, Midge and Rich Kids band mate Rusty Egan joined forces with members of Ultravox (Billy Currie) and Magazine (John McGeoch, Dave Formula and Barry Adamson) and a night club host (Steve Strange) to form Visage.

Visage’s first album, the imaginatively titled ‘Visage’ was part of the early soundtrack to what was known then, but is hardly ever referred to now, as the ‘New Romantic’ movement. This album was recorded before, but released slightly after, the first outing of Ultravox with Midge as lead singer, ‘Vienna’.

Tunes from both of these albums were firm favourites in what was pretty much Sunderland’s only ‘New Romantic’ type venue (don’t snigger, it really did exist), ‘Heroes’. A place where you could quite happily go at age 16 or 17 (but officially 18) and dance the night away to tracks from both of these albums as well as early favourites from the B-52s, Spizz Energi, Spandau Ballet and The Human League - wearing a baggy white shirt and very dodgy plus-fours that you’d made on your Mam’s best Singer sewing machine.

‘Mind of a toy’, my first encounter with Visage is one of my favourites here and is far superior to the better known ‘Fade to grey’ largely due to the employment of one of my favourite devices, a musical box. Early single ‘Tar’ also features – I was never sure whether this was meant to be a pro or anti smoking song and it’s still difficult to tell.

There are some lesser known wonders present too though – ‘Moon over Moscow’, ‘Blocks on blocks’ and ‘Malpaso man’ all still sound fantastic. The final track, slightly detached from all the others is a slightly out of place slower piece similar to David Bowie’s ‘Crystal Japan’.

This cassette (and a 12” single of ‘Mind of a toy’) have remained with me throughout my unusual career path. Thankfully the plus-fours haven’t.

Label – Polydor

Year – 1980

Cassette experiment day 77 - Kevin Rowland 'The Wanderer'

At the risk of starting with a football tale for the second day running, the best manager that England never had was the incomparable Brian Clough. Brian was one of only a small handful of people whose self-assured arrogance was entirely justified. He wasn't sure if he was the best manager in the country, but he was absolutely certain he was in the top one.

Constantly prone to offering advice to anyone who would care to listen, Brian often ended his words of wisdom with what was to become one of his many catchphrases - 'Young man' Unusual training methods abounded in Brian's training sessions, as did unusual punishments for any of his players who didn't come up to scratch. I have a strange recollection of Peter Withe, naked from the waist down, being forced to run to and fro in a field full of nettles. Or maybe that was just a dream I had.

I was reminded of Brian (that's Mr Clough to you!) when I broke out today's cassette 'The wanderer' for two reasons.

1.    It's by another unconventional genius with Brian Clough levels of self-belief, 'Kevin Rowland' ('of Dexys Midnight Runners' as the insert asserts, somewhat unnecessarily)

2.    The opening track is called 'Young man' and I can't resist singing along to it in my best Brian Clough voice.

This album is perhaps best-known for being Kevin's least-known album. It’s the one after the Dexys Midnight Runners albums and the one before the one where he wears a dress on the cover. It's perhaps Kevin's most obviously commercial and mainstream album, and ironically his least successful and the one held in least regard by those who consider themselves to be in the know.

I find this unfortunate as it's a great album if you're prepared to take the time to get to know it. (Over) produced by Deodato, there are some fantastic tracks here including the under-appreciated single, ‘Walk away’ and, with a nod towards Kevin's next album 'My beauty' (his masterpiece as far as I’m concerned), Kevin turns in a version of ‘Heartaches by the number’ which, depending on your point of view is wonderfully effortless or soullessly karaoke. I lean toward the former rather than the latter.

Side 2 is, if anything, a touch better than side 1. Whoever thought of using doo-wop arrangements (particularly on my favourite here, ‘Age can’t wither you’) was a genius. Whoever thought of using synthesised pan-pipes on a couple of the tracks was very clearly not.

Label – Mercury

Year – 1988

Brian Clough’s wife as Brian gets into bed – “God, your feet are cold”

Brian to Brian’s wife – “When we’re in bed you can call me Brian”

Cassette experiment day 76 - Prince '1999'

You know when your football team destroys the opposition in the first half then re-emerges for the second half only to sit on their 3-0 lead, conserve their energy and coast to a comfortable 3-0 victory? I don't - I support Sunderland, I can't even remember the last time we were 3-0 up.

I can very much relate to being on the other end of it though.

Ultimately we’re talking about an impressive win, but don't you just sometimes wish the same stops could be pulled out in the second half as were used in the first. Matches like that are often the most memorable of all.

Our cassette today, Prince's breakthrough '1999' has one of the most impressive side 1s you could ever wish for. Title track '1999' seems unbeatable, until it blends seamlessly into the classic track that was the one that probably broke Prince to a worldwide audience, 'Little Red Corvette'. Frantic electronic masterpiece ‘Delirious’ is then followed wonderfully by ‘Let’s pretend we’re married’. Originally released as a double album, this was inexplicably truncated for single album release, with 'D.M.S.R.', the eight minute penultimate track on side 1 (and a fantastic lesson in ‘groove’ for bands like Daft Punk) being one of the tracks chosen for the chop. Side 1 finishes peacefully and inspirationally with ‘Free’, one of the diminutive genius’ many understated classics.

Side 2 has its moments too, but there's nothing here to match anything on side 1 (unlike the vinyl version, the cassette version features the fantastic 'Free' at the end of side 1 rather than being part way through side 2). It feels very much like Prince is sitting on the comfortable lead that he built up on side 1, although he does manage a very strong finish, in ‘Fergie time’ with ‘International lover’, in which he seems to manage to be both coy and exceedingly brash at the same time.

‘Lady cab driver’ put me off taking a taxi for a very long time. Like a few of the other tunes here you shouldn’t really play it to your Granny (if you have one (or two)).

And, lest we forget, this was released 17 years before the actual 1999.

Label – Warner Bros. Records

Year – 1982

Please don't forget (as if I've been giving you the chance to!) that you can still get 'The Great Cassette Experiment - The first 40 days' on your kindle by following the link below;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CJ9X7R8

For the 'Princely' sum of 99 pence.

Cassette experiment day 75 - ABBA 'The Visitors'

It’s that time of year again. Not Spring (obviously!). The Eurovision Song Contest.

A time when all of the countries in Europe that can still afford to put forward their most accomplished singers who sing the best songs they can lay their hands on in the hope of becoming champions. Obviously the old Royaume-Uni has therefore chosen Bonnie Tyler as their representative and it is on Bonnie that all of our collective hopes are pinned. The winners subsequently push themselves closer to bankruptcy by becoming the host for the finals in 2014.

Loved and hated in equal number, Eurovision seeks to unite Europe by preying on our collective love of bagpipes, violins, bodhrans and euphoric euro-disco beats.

In the 1970s the Eurovision Song Contest wasn’t the highly polished behemoth that it has become today. There was a real orchestra for a start. And real conductors. And most of the contestants wore costumes that seemed to have been run-up on their mother’s sewing machines back in Stockholm, or Barcelona, or Rome, or Dublin, or Copenhagen.

The biggest ever Eurovision winners (in 1974 in Harrogate) were, of course ABBA. With their shiny outfits and their platform boots and their conductor dressed as Napoleon they simultaneously took a picturesque Yorkshire spa town and the rest of Europe by storm.

Only seven short years later after huge international success, ABBA released ‘The Visitors’ and it is to this, their final album that we turn today.

The album opens with the unusual title track ‘The Visitors’. I like to think of this track as ABBA’s re-reading of The Beatles’ ‘Within you, without you’. I’m not kidding – have a listen if you don’t believe me!

Elsewhere the album is shot through with more sadness than any of their others, and I guess that’s to be expected given their unusual personal circumstances at the time. The best known tunes here are ‘One of us’ and ‘Head over heels’ at which point their success in singles charts was starting to wane just a little.

For my money the whole package is defined by two tunes that nestle together for warmth on side 2. In ‘Two for the price of one’ a man is attracted by an advert placed by ‘Alice Whiting’ (presumably so named to rhyme with ‘exciting’) who offers, as the title suggests, ‘two for the price of one’. How we laugh when we discover that the third person in this suggestive trio is, in fact, Alice’s mother. It’s rubbish, but it’s fun rubbish. But then from the opposite extreme comes ‘Slipping through my fingers’, a song about children growing up and growing away that will reduce all but the most flint-hearted to floods of uncontrollable tears.

Label – Polydor

Year – 1981

Incidentally, Sweden next won in 1984, with the glorious ‘Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Ley’, by Herrey’s, and I’ve dug very deep within my own Eurovision collection to bring you a picture of their winning single. Hope you’re grateful.

Cassette experiment day 74 - Kid Creole & The Coconuts 'Tropical Gangsters'

I’ve explained the concept of the dreadzone at length before – but just in case you weren’t paying close attention it’s a pile of cassettes that, for one reason or another, I’m not looking for to re-acquainting myself with.

In some instances this reluctance turns out to be justified (Paul King’s ‘Joy’ – an ill-thought out name for an album if there ever was one) and in others not to be (‘Mask’ by Bauhaus surprised me greatly).

For a few weeks now I’ve been close to listening ‘Tropical gangsters’ by Kid Creole & The Coconuts. Every day I approach the pile and this one literally shouts ‘pick me, pick me!’ I love it when people misuse the word ‘literally’ don’t you?

‘Tropical gangsters’ is a tailor-made candidate for the dreadzone for a number of reasons;

1.    It’s a concept album

2.    The insert includes hair, make-up and wardrobe credits

3.    Everything about it screams ‘we have a quirky sense of humour’

So, on a journey to South Bank, Cleveland (UK not USA!) I removed the shocking-pink cassette from its box, loaded it into the JVC, gritted my teeth and pressed the play button.

The first thing that struck me was how much better, how much less ‘gimmicky’ the opening track ‘Annie (I’m not your Daddy)’ is in extended album form than in its slightly grating single guise. The strident hymn to self-esteem ‘I’m a wonderful thing, baby’ turned out to be hugely enjoyable too.

By the time I’d made it to the halfway mark and ‘Loving you made a fool out of me’ arrived, I turned up the volume, dropped the windows and reminded all of the other drivers on the A19 of what I had so unfairly forgotten – this is a great big album of summery fun.

Track 3, ‘Imitation’ is the only one that seems to forget to bring its brightly coloured suit to the party.

So, to Kid and his Coconuts, I’d like to offer my unreserved apology. I had fun. Again.

Label – Ze Records

Year – 1982

Cassette experiment day 73 - The Smiths 'The Smiths'

In 1984, while studying for my 'A' levels I got my first job.(if you don't want to know the score look away now - I failed Maths and German, but did manage an unremarkable E in Economics).

Every Saturday plus three nights a week I donned a rather fetching blue overall and plied my trade at Laws Supermarket in Southwick, Sunderland. At the risk of sounding like a CV, my main duties included taking stock from the warehouse to the shop-floor, cleaning underneath the conveyor belt, loading and unloading the cardboard bailing machine and mopping the aisles. If I was really lucky I was also asked to use the scraper to de-chewing gum the shop floor. I was probably fortunate that there were no chimneys to sweep.

To ensure that all of the money (approx. £13.50 per week) earned could be used to buy records and cassettes I used to strap on my Walkman (not a real Walkman, a Sanyo copy) and walk the two miles to work and back to avoid the bus fare.

By this point my music collection was growing steadily and I had a considerable choice of cassettes for the journey. Three stood out from the crowd at the time however, and this ‘Holy Trinity’ got more than their fair share of play time. The three tapes in question were 'Forever now' by The Psychedelic Furs, 'Life's a riot with Spy vs Spy' by Billy Bragg and our subject for today, 'The Smiths' by The Smiths.

The Smiths' first album is now a part of our collective musical folklore but in 1984 it was merely a fantastic debut by an exciting new band that we'd all loved since first hearing them on the John Peel show (where else!).

With memorably quotable controversial lyrics, brilliant music, and images of gladioli-strewn stages the album became an instant classic which landed half-way between punk attitude and 1960s kitchen sink drama sensitivity. The high points are many but it would be remiss of me not to mention my own personal favourites, in order of preference;

·         Reel around the fountain

·         This charming man

·         Suffer little children

·         Still ill

Sandie Shaw’s version of ‘Hand in glove’ is very slightly better than The Smiths’ own for my money. And ‘Miserable lie’ still gives me exactly the same kind of headache as it did 29 years ago.

Another of the ‘Holy Trinity’ will feature soon – sadly it won’t be The Psychedelic Furs because when I removed it from its box this morning I noticed that the tape had snapped. I’ll have to find a replacement if life is to continue as normal.

Label – Rough Trade

Year – 1984

Cassette experiment day 72 - R.E.M. 'Green'

Any idea what the difference is between a cusp and a tipping point? Me neither.

I ask because I find the point of a musical artist’s cusp to be one of deep fascination. The album in an artist’s discography that was released just prior to stellar success is often one of the most satisfying items in their back-catalogue.

It doesn’t happen with many artists though as most artists don’t experience a slow rise to glory – most just retain relative mediocrity throughout their careers or in much rarer cases find sudden and early success.

To give a better idea of this rather muddled theory I’ll give you a few examples of albums released as artists stood upon the threshold of their musical cusp.

U2 – October (UK chart No. 11)

R.E.M. – Green (UK chart No. 27)

The Human League – Travelogue (UK chart No. 16)

Abba – Waterloo (UK chart No. 28)

All now correctly regarded as classics, but not one of them managing to crack the UK top ten when first released.

One of these albums, R.E.M.’s ‘Green’ just happens to be the subject of our cassette experiment today. It’s also the only one of the above that I purchased on first release (from W.H. Smith according to the price sticker on the box).

R.E.M.’s first offering for their new record label, Warner Bros, ‘Green’ was not a typical R.E.M. album. This was an apparently deliberate ploy by Bill, Peter, Mike and Michael to write and record an album that wasn’t particularly ‘R.E.M.-like’.

So they swopped their instruments around a bit and came up with this little beauty.

‘Stand’ stands out, with its lovely fairground organ style opening and just the perfect blend of noise and tunefulness. ‘Orange crush’ might just be my favourite R.E.M. tune, with little (presumably unintentional) nods towards ‘The call up’ by The Clash, which is no bad thing in my book.

But great albums aren’t made by the best-known tracks being brilliant. Great albums are made by the least-known tracks being brilliant. And that’s certainly true of the likes of ‘You are everything’ and the gloriously murky list-song ‘I remember California’.

Please be careful as there’s also an un-credited 11^th track on here too – much easier to miss on cassette than on vinyl or CD.

Also – just the right amount of mandolin – not too much, not too little.

Label – Warner Bros

Year – 1988

Cassette experiment day 71 - Genesis 'Abacab'

I bet you thought that immersing myself wholeheartedly into the cassette experiment would present me with no opportunities to hear new music. Well today’s cassette, ‘Abacab’ by Genesis isn’t exactly recent (it’s actually 32 years old), but it’s new in the sense that, before today, I’ve never actually listened to it.

I’d like to qualify what I’m about to tell you by revealing that I’m a firm believer in an artist limiting their output to no more than 10 albums. Once they’ve reached that 10 album point most artists are creatively spent. Don’t believe me? Try and think of an absolute classic album released by any artist more than 10 albums into their career. If you are able to think of any I bet you can count them on the fingers of one hand.

There are a few rules – live albums and compilations don’t count for example,and once you start a new band or solo career you can reset the counter, but otherwise I put it to you that this 10 album rule holds water.

I know I’m in the minority, but I quite liked Genesis’ 10^th album, ‘Duke’. I think it makes a strange and interesting companion to (or even bedfellow with) Peter Gabriel’s third solo album which was released just a couple of months later.

‘Abacab’ is the 11^th album to be released by Genesis.

Obviously not all of ‘Abacab’ is new to me. I’ve heard the singles before, particularly the mediocre title track. ‘No reply at all’ (with Earth Wind & Fire’s horns if you please) sounds like it would be more at home one of Phil’s (non Granny-scaring) solo albums, as does ‘Man on the corner’ and ‘Like it or not’, where Phil whinges on about his private life in a way that no-one else can – or would.

The only example of ‘traditional Genesis’ to be had here is in the twin opening tracks of side 2, ‘Dodo/Lurker’. Any joy, however, is relatively short-lived.

Watch out too as Phil reverts back to his Artful Dodger persona (and accent) for the awful ‘Who dunnit?’ If you have any teeth you should prepare yourself for them to be set on edge.

Incidentally the cover (or insert) was available in four different colour combinations. Sadly this fact may be the most interesting thing about this album.

Label – Vertigo (I have a German copy for some reason)

Year – 1981