What Arab Strap Meant To Me.

Choose bitterness. Choose love gone wrong. Choose melancholy at 3am. Choose heartbreak. Choose social realism. Choose the fundamental conflict of what you want and what you find. Choose adultery, infidelity and shameful truth. Choose the unflinching honesty that defines your own fuck-ups. Choose pornography. Choose post-coital vulnerability. Choose inner conflict. Choose a fury for revenge that runs bone deep. Choose hopeless love affairs, Choose jealousy. Choose being broken. Choose strangers. Choose dying a million times. Choose being up all night crying over someone who had no trouble falling asleep. Choose venom. Choose unrequited love. Choose the worst of you. Choose the best of you. Choose being more profound than any heart could dare understand. Choose falling in love. Choose apathy. Choose mutual apathy. Choose blind perseverance, Choose stolen glances. Choose cutting out your tongue to stop a name ever coming up in conversation. Choose Aidan Moffat. Choose Malcolm Middleton, Choose Arab Strap.

The detailed insight was always poetic, In its brutal honesty we took comfort. The nod to the everyday man on the street...always. Nobody could untangle, decipher and narrate the cloying intricacies of human emotion quite like Arab Strap. They wrote anguished symphonies for every post-drug comedown, every wet eyed public bar loser, every broken hearted council estate Romeo and every disenfranchised street urchin, Aidan Moffat the impeccable wordsmith and storyteller weaving it all seamlessly into the narrative, Malcolm Middleton the gifted composer. That pissed off despair, the hangovers, the comedowns, the vitriol....all side effects of intrinsic motivation...and we know this because we are no different. Arab Strap never sang about heroin addiction. They weren't some Irvine Welsh soundtrack.. they lived the same lives we did. The same recreational habits...the same losses and the same victories. Every melodramatic hate opera dictated by nihilistic philosophies...wanting to kill your love rival and escape the realities that intimidate you.A million poetic metaphors to define you...and an orchestra of trippy/lo-fi minimalistic weirdo nothing/ everything layers of sound to serenade you.

In no particular order....5 of their greatest songs you need to hear before you die.

Dream Sequence

'And now I love you more than that, and now I love you more than this

So just stay over on your side, and go to sleep and dream of piss

Tomorrow you can tell me all the things you've done with boys

Blushing as you recount tales to satisfy my see-through ploys'

The Shy Retirer
'These people are your friends
this cunted circus never ends.
 I won't remember anything you say'

Here We Go

'And I don't doubt you wouldn't touch him now

But let's face it, you always used to go for that kind

And if you ever really wanted two men at once

All I'm saying is I better be one of the guys you've got in mind

Love Detective
'I don't know
I suppose I've had my doubts for a while there's been
Hushed phone calls virtually every night
Her friends stop talking when I come in the room
They look at each other, and I don't know
It's just a feelin'



Fucking Little Bastards
'I used to think they loved me, now I know it's pity
And they know that they can always flee this fucking city'

Arab Strap formed in Falkirk in 1995 and released six studio albums before splitting up 11 years later...playing their final gig in Japan in December 2006. They reformed briefly last year for a series of reunion shows to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album The Week Never Starts Around Here. A double album of singles and rareities was released in September alongside a special re-worked version of their first single The First Big Weekend. Both on the Chemikal Underground label.

CHEMIKAL UNDERGROUND 

ARAB STRAP OFFICIAL

Writer: Alan Baillie

5 Reasons To Love: HOLE

The most commercially successful female fronted grunge band in the history of music.

1: DOLL PARTS

( from the album Live Through This)

  "and some day you will ache like I ache"

A raw disjointed start/stop ballad where you can almost touch the excruciating self loathing that resonates from the harrowing acoustic despair of unfurled honesty. It almost drops to a whisper...this subdued restraint of a broken spirit...before pleading its way to an end on a vocal of bone-crushing agony. The distraction is cataclysmic...a brooding overflow that hacks out a valley in her voice and renders the life from her bones. Her naked vulnerability.. the most beautiful truth on earth...She ends the song by repeating the line "some day you will ache like I ache" over and over with gaining intensity until she is almost screaming the words.

2: TEENAGE WHORE

(from the album Pretty On The Inside)

 "'Ive seen the things you put me through and I, I wish I could die"

 Her vocal is a howling turbulence of outrage battering an exit through the thrashing heap of  heavy grunge-fuelled uncongenial chainsaw fuzz. Distorted guitars add to the wrecking ball of brutal angsty-punk banging against the pile-up of  mangled ear-bursting fuck-ups! This is Hole still very much at the fledgling part of their career...gloriously wide-eyed, rebellious upstarts who weren't intending to be forgotten once they'd been heard. The racketing grunge/rock distortion of this wasn't ever again quite as unchecked as it was here.

3: CELEBRITY SKIN
(from the album Celebrity Skin)

"oh cinderella they aren't sluts like you"

A complete move away from their earlier grunge/punk sound...the instrumentation is more civilized and targeted..and the production is sharper and refined. Celebrity Skin is a brilliantly catchy alternative rock song with shimmering guitar riffs and tons of bouncing energy. Courtney's vocals are lazily tuneful...skipping across the melodic cruise-control pace and structure of the song with perfectly suited relevance. The lyrics are a scathing swipe at the superficiality of Hollywood glamour where celebrity is defined in body shape, skin tone and plastic surgery...and the line  'oh look at my face/ my name is might have been/ my name is never was/ my name's forgotten" is a reference to the impossibility of retaining value when the next 'star' is being manufactured to replace you, This was the band's most commercially successful single as was the album of the same name. And another example of how good a songwriter she really is.

4: VIOLET

(from the album Live Through This)

"Go on take everything, take everything, I want you to"

The greatest song Courtney Love has ever written. The delicate opening chords are a soothing embrace..tender in their manner...a tranquility promised...the poetry of the lyrics sketch serene imagery "and  the sky was made of amethyst,,,and all the stars looked just like little fish..you should learn when to go"and then she has you..you're unready and flatfooted.."YOU SHOULD LEARN HOW TO SAY NO!" like a howled battlecry and suddenly it swivels into a tearing onslaught of rattling hostility "GO ON TAKE EVERYTHING! TAKE EVERYTHING I WANT YOU TO!" volleying forwards, relentless...the shout/scream/howl vocals..the feral snarling of the guitars..."I told you from the start just how this would end" the most ferociously barbaric piece of  creative brilliance

 

5: MALIBU
(from the album Celebrity Skin)

  

"The darkest secret of your heart I'm gonna follow you

  A straightforward mid-tempo romanticised pop song that skips and hops on a catchy hook laden feel-good summertime breeze. Incredibly melodic and beautifully understated.....It was a creative change of direction from the brutal grunge/punk anger of debut album Pretty On The Inside and follow up Live Through This...Criticised by some for what they saw as her selling out to the mainstream in a desperate bid for success this is simply great songwriting ability and creative versatility. Courtney Love is a truly superior songwriter who just doesn't get the recognition she deserves.

How Much Does It Cost To Book Your Favourite Band?

Thanks to booking agents Degy Entertainment you can now price the cost of getting your favourite band to play at your event (for GB pounds just half the price shown) If, like me, your budget will never in a million lifetimes stretch THAT far then stick to what you've always done....buy a ticket and go watch them play at someone else's worry and expense. Who died and made Bruce Springsteen the fucking king? $1million+ per show!! Scandalous! I am informed some of these prices may not be absolutely precise in their accuracy as different situations create different costs...but the difference between actual and what's quoted here is minimal.

Nirvana! Overrated?

Thanks to the increasingly deluded insinuations of the conspiracy theorists Nirvana have become the very thing Kurt Cobain despised…a corporate enterprise churning out reduplicated merchandise for the growing masses of ‘new-grunge’ high street hipsters who have rarely heard their music, or worse still, heard it at all. The ever busy Nirvana hype machine rattles out out re-issued albums in a number of glorious formats including the collectors box set, the anniversary editions, the unheard demos, the lost tracks and various other bloated, expensive repackages. T shirts in their uber - produced millions.  Hoodies, badges, patches, mugs, ashtrays, coasters and mountains of more. It’s a tragic fact that Kurt Cobain’s suicide has become the thing keeping Nirvana alive, lifting them to the height of cutting-edge radicals - a label that is greatly exaggerated - and, as a direct result of such, has led to them becoming one of the most overrated bands of modern times.

Nirvana were, quite simply, in the right place at the right time, nothing more than that and nothing less than that. They weren’t ‘legends’ and they didn’t single-handedly save rock & roll either. They were, at best, a prominent band of a specific period in time - mainly the underground indie/punk scene - who made ‘cool’ music with massively catchy sing-song qualities. They never intended to be utterly original and, as history does tell us,  named and copied the bands who influenced them (Sonic Youth, The Melvins, Sex Pistols etc) Kurt Cobain was always honest enough to promote his influences and made no secret of those he ‘stole’ from, neither did he ever claim Nirvana were anything special. He was a very gifted songwriter  (not lyricist) who wrote mainstream alternative rock songs that were lapped up by the MTV generation. He was lyrically childish - as songs like Rape Me prove - and admitted often that the music was more important than the words - which were often pure gibberish - making a complete mockery of the column inches given over to such interpretations. 

If Kurt Cobain hadn’t killed himself then Nirvana would have disappeared into the footnotes of history - they were pretty much out of ideas and fading fast anyway - their Unplugged session was a desperate and final attempt at rekindling public interest, a marketing strategy -  yet following his tragic suicide he suddenly becomes the greatest front-man in history and his band are the voice of a fucking generation! Where were you all before martyrdom did the honours? As is the nature of our existence we place far too much glorification at the feet of dead celebrities, it’s the martyrdom I mentioned earlier, and we edit and tweak the memories until it is opinions rather than facts that we end up believing to be true.   Kurt was no hero and he is no murder victim. He was a human being with a host of weaknesses, heroin and depression being the main ones, and WAS selfish enough to continue his spiralling drug dependency into suicide rather than fight his demons for his daughters sake and THAT is why the conspiracy theorists continue to deflect from that, because they refuse to believe or accept that he WAS weak enough and selfish enough to leave his wife and daughter behind in such an ungracious and traumatic manner.

Kurt had nothing left to offer musically and, had he lived and Nirvana continued, their output would have been terribly ordinary, not anything worth shouting about - as Dave Grohl has told us on many occasions. So maybe it's time to focus on merit rather than a lost potential? Let them have the place in musical history  they deserve (listen to their debut album Bleach for their true pre-Nevermind edginess) and allow Kurt to rest in peace instead of tarnishing his existence with ignorant bouts of mouthy band wagon jumping conjecture!

10 Of The Most Important Albums Ever Made

David Bowie
The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
RCA Records
(1972)

Combining glam rock & roll with the flamboyancy of theatre, David Bowie utilised his major strengths to unfurl the story of his androgynous sci-fi rock star alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The radical orchestration of heavy guitar, buoyant string section and keyboard arrangements when coupled with his profound, and sometimes obscure lyrical sketching, was a stunning production of sheer genius and intensity that far outstretched the dimensions of anything else being offered up at the time. His see-saw juggling of genres is an effective concept clearly visible when the space aged rock thrum of “Moonage Daydream”, complete with spectacular Mick Ronson guitar solo is positioned alongside the whimsically endearing balladry of “Starman”, the perfect pop song with simplicity at its catchiest on the “la la la la” chorusing. Bowie’s greatest rock contribution “Suffragette City” the ballsy, sleaze drenched guitar classic is an immaculate anthem, as is the not so ferocious ( but just as magnetic) title track. An album of scorching rebellion with so many complexities it could easily have ended a fragmented disaster but, instead, turned out to be a classic work of art.

The Pogues
Red Roses For Me
WEA
(1984)
The infectious hybrid of traditional Irish music fused with a punk rock influence was an unknown combination in life before The Pogues. This was their debut album masterpiece, a raw, energetic and unconventional compendium of full bloodied songs that forced new pathways through the middle of post-punk’s garden-variety pastures. Shane McGowan’s lyrics, championing drunkenness and debauchery, are astonishingly brilliant. The band employ an assemblage of instruments including guitar, pipes, banjo, accordion, drums and penny whistles, injecting the songs with authentic Irish nostalgia. This is a drinkers album, little doubt about it. Never has binge drinking and indignant social wastelands seemed so appealing than they do on this record. McGowan’s fractured vocal delivery is tailor-made to narrate the stories - from the guttural offensive launched in the direction of a landlord “and he was a miserable bollocks and a bitch’s bastard’s whore” on “Boys From The County Hell”, the drink sodden pub crawl call to arms of “Transmetropolitan” which promises they’ll “sit and have a drink, of VP wine and cider till’ we can hardly think” or the sewer mouthed ship captain’s “I could fuck all the whores in damnation me boys” claim on “Sea Shanty”. Indeed Shane McGowan is the “bold, shithouse poet” and creature of instinct. With a mixture of original compositions and traditional covers, this is The Pogues at their freshest and most stirring - a sound they never quite managed to ever truly capture again.

The Sex Pistols
Never Mind The Bollocks
Virgin Records
(1977)
Their only studio album from a career that never had the legs to carry them as far as their third birthday yet still cockily self assured enough to procreate a body of work that inspired a whole new movement to grow up around it  (copycat wankers, according to John Lydon) and remains a solid, hugely populated genre 32 years on. There’s no doubting the real genius behind The Sex Pistols was Malcolm McLaren whose clever marketing and carefully positioned episodes of band mayhem challenged the upper classes natural instincts of decency and god fearing so perfectly it brought instant celebrity and notoriety via the backlash of an up in arms society. But, through the contents of this album, the Pistols showed they were more than the puppets of anarchy many dismissed them as being. Lyrically intuitive and deep thinking with an unflinching mean spirit and obvious ability, as musicians, to create catchy, uncomplicated, instantly addictive 3½ minute anthems of expressive brilliance ( Pretty Vacant, EMI, God Save The Queen and No Feelings, for starters) The Sex Pistols changed so many rules in such a short time they ensured this record will always be an important reference point in musical history.

Nirvana
Nevermind
Geffen
(1991)

The ground breaking album that dominated the world and changed the landscapes of rock and roll bringing Nirvana global superstardom and historical relevance. It opened the doors for alternative music within the territories commercial music frequented and attracted new followers who brought and secured a stronger position for the genre which was now flourishing in places never before considered as a hundred new bands were brought to life under its influence. Geffen Records pre-release forecast sales of 200,000 maximum became the most underestimated figure in music as “Nevermind” began selling over 300,000 - per month! It was the pre-album single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” which catapulted everything else forwards thanks mainly to MTV’s worshipping of it - which, ironically, reduced it to college wank proportions until every mummy’s boy seized upon it and elected Kurt Cobain the voice of their generation. But, putting such superficialities aside, this really IS a great album and shows Kurt’s naturally gifted knack for writing stunning melodies and catchy music with often the most minimal chord structures employed. Forget the video-jock friendly single and check the brilliant punk rock aesthetics of “Territorial Pissings” or bittersweet composition “Lithium” and it’s tender/brutal guitar work. This was an album which relied on the music rather than the lyrics, something not many of today’s bands are good enough to carry out so brilliantly. It may not remain as formidable a statement as it did when first released but it will always be a work of genuine honesty.

The Specials
The Specials

2Tone
(1979)

Eponymous debut album which revived ska music in Britain with what was essentially a recycled and reinvented model of the 1960’s Jamaican original. Labelled the “defining moment” in that genre’s far reaching appeal The Specials spearheaded its reintroduction with a more accessible formula by injecting the infectiousness of Ska with punk music’s street appeal and the lyrical politics of pub culture, an instant vehicle upon which the frustrations of youth could rely upon to be the soundtrack of their dissatisfaction. Relying on a mixture of cover versions and original songs (as well as the clued-up street level intellect of Elvis Costello as producer) this album captured a generation so fucking perfectly it became the most important musical possession of British youth in 1979 and remains a vital landmark of that time - 31 years since being released. Opening with the most recognised cover ever of Dandy Livingstone’s “A Message To You, Rudy” this album is a masterpiece, a musical interpretation of the community spirit it went on to evoke through songs which typified, accurately, the real Britain that politicians are always so out of touch with to appreciate even exists but is documented on here with brutal honesty and informed wisdom - “all the girls are slags and the beer tastes just like piss” from “Niteklub” or echoing the thoughts we’ve all felt at some point as the realisation of avoiding a definite kicking sinks in with the “glad I got my mates with me” moment in “Concrete Jungle”. Never has the working class been so tunefully encapsulated.

Ian Dury
New Boots And Panties
Stiff Records
(1977)

The rough edged cockney geezer with an earthy sense of fun, cheek of the devil and the soul of a poet painting his suburbia in shades of lyrical witticisms with the brush of his keen eyed observation, and sharing it all with us in the vivid snapshots of “New Boots And Panties” Steeped in true Britishness and with a council estate eloquence and working class honesty, Ian Dury became the greatest champion of normal people, lyrically, since Ray Davies. With a touching nod toward the less glamorous segments of society (and in a language more profane than his predecessors) this was an album of originality and depth from a naturally gifted human being. The wry humour and down to earth honesty came to life under the versatility and magic of backing band The Blockheads. Their incredible grasp as musicians journeyed the songs through stabs of art-rock, elements of jazz and occasional blues, spit and sawdust pub ambience, soulful yearnings and even a bit of disco chucked in for luck. Dury’s songs simply grew wings under such majesty. His lyrical ruggedness was as endearing as it was overwhelming. Never before, or since, has a song opened with the line “Arseholes, bastards, fucking cunts and pricks” (Plaistow Patricia) and be made to sound as non-threatening as Dury did it. But he had a proper tenderness within him, the tribute to his late father, “My Old Man” is astonishingly perfect, and when he sings the line “all the best mate, from your son”, you could weep for his sorrow. It’s a perfect introduction to Ian Dury and one that’s never overlooked by the media or the public. His greatest moment though, and the one that sums the man up, is his humorous composition “Blockheads” - with his east-end brogue at its most jagged and imagination at its most vivid, “they’ve got womanly breasts under pale mauve vests, shoes like dead pigs noses. Cornflake packet jacket, catalogue trousers and a mouth wot neva closes”. How we miss him.

The Smiths
The Queen Is Dead
Rough Trade
(1986)

The best album of their impressive career and the one that earned them a whole new generation of admirers deeply stirred by the almost majestic assemblage representing the craft of a band currently at their most inspirational and influential It’s the consolidation of the foursome, synchronized in natural bonding and shared commitment that urged the perfect flow this record travels at. For those who slated the first two albums and wondered out loud why Johnny Marr “allowed his genius to suffer Morrissey’s absurdities” had their mouths firmly zipped shut and crammed with enough humble pie to feed a nation of starving doubters. It only takes the pounding Mike Joyce drumbeat on opener “The Queen Is Dead” for you to realise that something special has been created. Morrissey’s lyrics are, in the main, light hearted, deliberately cheesy and stuffed with pier-end humour, as he regales us with such nonentities as - “she said hey I know you and you cannot sing, I said that’s nothing you should hear me play piano” as well as his blatantly obvious disregard of the more serious issues in the world “the rain that flattens my hair, these are the things that kill me”. The skills of Johnny Marr as a guitarist are everywhere you turn, from the feathered indie bounce of “Cemetery Gates”, his greatest ever riff on “Bigmouth Strikes Again” clever marching chord structures of “Frankly Mr Shankly” or his finest hour “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out “a stunning anthem of sheer adoration and love which sees Morrissey drop the jokes for poignant reflection “and if a 10 ton truck kills the both of us, to die by your side, well the pleasure and the privilege is mine”. A powerful album with not one visible weakness in earshot, proof that The Smiths were one of the greatest bands of the modern era.

The Beatles
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Parlophone
(1967)

The greatest contribution of their 8 year existence and most opulent pop album to ever emerge from the liberating sixties Packed with complex song structures, multi-tracking, overdubs and astonishing creative stamina The Beatles finally ditched the matching suits, appealing haircuts and boy meets girl love ditties in the most sensational transformation ever witnessed. The entireness of this record at the time of it’s release would possibly be too breathtaking to fully appreciate - yet it’s simply the best of everything their collective minds ever produced. John Lennon’s prolific editorial magnum opus “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”, Paul McCartney’s ornate “Fixing A Hole” , the double layered intelligence of “A Day In The Life”, or just the simple, music hall skew of “When I’m 64” , every note of every song as iconic sounding as the next. It’s studio technology at its most imaginative which brings life to this pseudo-concept album’s curiosity cabinet of unorthodox sound effects (brass instruments, reverse cymbals and sitars included) and sonic experimentation. Nothing is hidden, it’s as honest an effort as you’ll ever hear from them and the over sensitive drama queens of the BBC who banned the playing of 3 of its songs because they suspected a reference to drugs may be contained within the lyrics just make it all the more glorious.

The White Stripes
Elephant Warner
(2003)

For the genius that is Jack White and nothing else! Never has minimalism sounded so powerful. The bluesy/punk/garage sounds of “Elephant” is incendiary guitar rock stripped back to it’s most primitive, low toned state for the greatest example of stunning musicianship in years. Charging through the genres with screaming feedback distortion and Meg’s simplistic, almost petulant thump-thump drumming it’s nearly impossible to believe only two people can create such a searing wall of sound. It’s a far more immediate album than their previous three and certainly more produced which enhances the sharp corners that peppered the music brilliantly. The booming bass sound (it’s an octave pedal not a bass guitar) which opens “Seven Nation Army” is the greatest heaviness to be measured so precisely. Churning blues hybrid “ Ball And Biscuit” is the albums most mesmerising moment and Jack White’s statement of significance delivered soundly with wailing, unrestrained enthusiasm, muscle and brains and heart. Their fuzzy lo-fi cover of Burt Bacharach’s “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” is as far away from anybody else’s song as you could possibly go, with its skewed structuring and cymbal tapping before exploding into a thunderous, unsymmetrical, haunting symphony. This was an album of proud disturbance. Jack White is Marc Bolan reincarnated. 

Patti Smith
Horses
Arista
(1975)

Though “Horses” was never a masterpiece, and Patti Smith really doesn’t have the greatest singing voice, it made a significant enough impact to re-adjust people’s perception of music. She was the rock critic/punk poet operating from within a post-beat landscape merging her esoteric verse with a garage/punk aesthetic on New York’s bohemian gig circuit before this, her debut album (produced by John Cale) was released. Clearly unwilling to ever compromise the poet she was born to be allows the words to run unharnessed with the liberation of their own originality rather than chastising them in a dumbed-down interpretation of themselves. It’s the way they criss-cross between multitudes of spiritual meaning, parallel universe and apocalyptic dreamscape which can become a bit cloudy and harder to follow. The music was loosely structured and only there in most instances to complement her poetry and talk/sing style. Her 9½ minute of free form rock and roll epic “Land” with its sprawling narrative moved between scratchy guitar, atmospheric piano and solid riffs, “Elegie” with its in and out guitar wails, the reggae tinged “Redondo Beach” and signature track “Gloria” are the reasons “Horses” continues to be such a core favourite among the collators of influential music.

Alex Harvey: Last Of The Teenage Idols

The captivating master of ceremonies, a million contradictions within a million contradictions and gloriously unpredictable for it. The unorthodox mindset and flamboyant theatrical performance style shall forever live on in the back catalogue that survives him. His intuitiveness for creating music was as flawless as the insight it must first begin from. He was Glasgow’s first real rock & roll legend, a verbal wit with philosophical depth, novelistic charisma and a rough edged working class honesty.

His music career began when he joined a skiffle band in 1955 later evolving into the Alex Harvey Big Soul Band. He recorded his first album ‘Alex Harvey And His Soul Band‘ in Hamburg in 1963 followed by second release ‘The Blues‘ in 1964. Alex Harvey left the Big Soul Band to concentrate on building a solo career, but it failed to develop into anything substantial and achieved very little success. Failure was only his temporary companion and in 1967 he joined the band of musicians of the London stage production of ‘Hair’ where he remained for 5 years during which the band recorded live album ‘Hair Rave Up‘ which contained songs written by Alex.

In 1972 along with guitarist Zal Cleminson, bassist Chris Glen. keyboard player Hugh McKenna and drummer Ted McKenna he formed The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Merging heavy rock with a blues/garage/glam hybrid unravelled a perfectly formed soundscape for Alex Harvey’s eccentricities to roam freely across the breadth of its surface building his helter skelter symphonies of anguished wailing, frenzied spoken recitals or some juiced-up reworking of someone else’s song. Debut album ‘Framed‘ was a driving rock and blues juggernaut packed with skilled musicianship and depth. Standout tracks are the epic ‘Isobel Goudie‘ the rock fuelled ‘Midnight Moses‘ self explanatory ‘Buff’s Bar Blues‘ and a cover of ‘I Just Wanna Make Love To You‘. Follow up album ‘Next‘ with it’s big sound and glam rock vibe is a much better record than debut ‘Framed‘ and brims with so many great things..like ‘Swampsnake‘ with it’s boogie woogie piano and backyard harmonica…or catchy foot-tapping orgy anthem ‘Gang Bang‘….or the Jaques Brel cover delivered with menacing Glaswegian eloquence…..or throbbing groove pulsing atmospheric masterpiece ‘Faith Healer‘……and ‘Vambo Marble Eye‘ …as examples

Further releases like ‘The Impossible Dream‘ with layers of operatic sawdust rock is a rollicking album of pretentious idealism that manages to remain unceromoniously vulgar, musically, with it’s garage fused indifference. The band also scored top 40 chart

hits with a stunning re-worked cover of the Tom Jones song ‘Delilah‘ and 1976 single ‘Boston Tea Party‘ Alex Harvey left the band later that year re-joining them for 1978 album ‘Rock Drill‘ before quitting again.

On Feb 4th 1982 Alex Harvey suffered a massive heart attack while waiting on a ferry in Zeebrugge, Belgium. On the way to hospital by ambulance he had another heart attack and sadly died. It was the day before his 47th birthday. An ending that came far too soon, too unexpectedly soon, too sudden for goodbye, too immediate for understanding and too unforeseen to prepare for.

*Published In Subba Cultcha*

Peter & The Test Tube Babies

I went to see Peter And The Test Tube Babies playing at The Citrus Club in Edinburgh last night. I didn't review the gig so don't mistake this posting for being such. Although they wouldn't make it into my Top 10 punk bands they are very good at what they do. Energetic, loud and industriously cramming as much as they can into their set. Their booze fuelled humour quite often skims the line between joking and offensive, firing up the audience before launching into another flurry of tongue in cheek punk anthems - and they have written their fair share of them over the years  - with particular favourites 'Banned From The Pubs' 'Run Like Hell' 'Intensive Care' and 'Maniac' the ones guaranteed to lift the roof off every time. Their career has lasted a phenomenal 33 years which deserves nothing but the greatest respect in this day of ever changing attitudes, fashions and fickle tastes. I remember buying their debut album 'Pissed And Proud' which, in my opinion, remains their greatest work. I still rate that album enough to play it from time to time. They continue touring both in the UK and Europe and are a regular presence on the festival circuit. As I said, not one of my favourite bands, but they do put on a cracking show and deserve to be seen. So make sure you catch them live when you can. They're a good, fun night out.

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