the BBC observes | the GLC protests

tottenham high road. after Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes.

▼ WIRE: REUTERS from "Pink Flag" LP (Harvest EMI) 1977 (UK)

augustus pablo swaby paints

kingston, 1976, photographer unknown.


Overtaken by a weakness to bludgeon the house senseless with a royal flush of dubs, the bleachers echo with the whisper of melodica.

From 10PM to 5AM, its disinfected concrete steps slump tiredly. A stomach emptied. Hosed down with cobalt blue. 

Tubular rails faintly thrumming. 

A late August cough nudging silver wrappers. A polystyrene cup impaled on a straw.

By 1AM, the sirens falter. Subside to a wheeze. The hammers to the south bed down in a pulse.

Pablo never sleeps. Not really. The quiet he inhabits are those spaces between sinew and joint. The dials twitch. The tape rolls. Spooling behind eyelids, the fluttering of moths. East of the Nile. A mile upstream.

The engineering is not so critical as the end result. Chin to midrift. Thickening to a river.

Tubby.

Augustus Pablo started out as an anonymous outpouring, a splash from a carafe, a water bearer.

As with Miles, the climate is tertiary. Around it. Through it. To it.

Written and produced by Horace Swaby.

Mixed by King Tubby.

 ▼ AUGUSTUS PABLO: CHAPTER 2 from "East Of The River Nile" LP (Message) 1977 (Jamaica)

newtown #1 | take two

That is thing with new towns. Architectural interventions. Less than ten years on, the paint is worn; the litter and graffiti proliferates. Thirty years on, and the third generation has evolved its own indecipherable mother tongue.

Postscript

On 19th September, 1977, Arianna Forster, Viv Albertine, Paloma Romero, and Tessa Pollitt - collectively The Slits - recorded four tracks with Tony Wilson at BBC studios. 

Three of those songs would be later worked on in the spring of 1979 - by which point a suitably retiring Palmolive slipped on her raincoat to be replaced by Budgie - at Ridge Farm Studios. Produced by Dennis Bovell for Island, "Cut" eventually hit the racks almost two full years after that session's initial broadcast on The John Peel Show, 27/09/77.

"Vindictive" would not see a commercial release until its inclusion on the 1987 Strange Fruit EP release of that first session, five years after the group disbanded.

It was subsequently repackaged - alongside their second Peel session from April, 1978 (broadcast May 22nd) - as a budget LP and CD issued in November, 1988.

photograph, sans palmolive, by anton corbijn.

▼ THE SLITS: NEWTOWN (19/09/77) from "The Peel Sessions" 12" EP (Strange Fruit) 1987 (UK)

subject to alteration

▼ WIRE: MR. SUIT from "Pink Flag" LP (Harvest EMI) 1977 (UK)

archived radiation

▼ PERE UBU: CHINESE RADIATION from "The Modern Dance" LP (Blank) 1978 (US)

▼ PERE UBU: SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY from "The Modern Dance" LP (Blank) 1978 (US)

UBU PROJEX: BUYER'S GUIDE TO PERE UBU

tricky fingers: bring me the dub glove of bunny lee

Bunny Lee's succinct dub take on Dillinger's "No Business" - ranked "Mind Your Own Business" on "Talkin' Blues" - from side two of the Weed Beat issue of "Ranking Dellinger: Superstar". Sans vocal, and quite possibly all the sweeter.

Featuring The Aggrovators. Recorded at Channel One. Remixed and engineered at phase two of King Tubby's Home Town Hi-Fi.

Something short of three minutes of pure THC clarity.

▼ RANKING DELLINGER: A BUSINESS DUB from "Superstar" LP (Weed Beat) 1977 (Jamaica)

spoiler alert: channel one for the road

here's to early retirement. and ukuleles.


And not a G-Man from here to the border.

"This set was voiced at King Tubby's studio in may [1977] for producer Bunny Lee. I was lucky enough to be at Tubb's on one of the nights, Bunny arrived in his rather beat up yanky [sic] car with Dillinger, Trinity and Jah Stitch, ready for an all night session. Dillinger entered looking dapper in a blue track suit with a pair of shoes tied by the laces slung around his neck. Dillinger greeted Jammy who looked up and remarked on whether or not the footwear was new. Dillinger, sharp as a ratchet blade replied, 'Yeh man, me got me new shoes and the talking blues'."

- Dave Hendley: Blues and Soul; sleeve notes, "Talkin' Blues", Bellaphon.

"Talkin' Blues" - released to a somewhat indifferent reception after the huge success of Island's "CB200" and "Cokane In My Brain" - comes in two distinct flavours. Or wraps. The superior Jamaica Sound original (pictured top), and the Belgian reissue marketed simply as "Dillinger" ; hidden within a horrendous sleeve wholly at odds with King Tubby's crucial Home Town sound.

Released too in the UK on the Magnum label as "Talkin' Blues", so far as I can gather these dubs are culled from the LP originally issued on the Jamaican Weed Beat imprint - with additional material - as Ranking Dellinger's "Superstar". With rhythms recorded at Channel One from The Aggrovators, featuring all the usual suspects. A killer mash, ultimately, with Bunny Lee and Tubby at the controls.

Lester Bullocks, certainly, was inordinately fond of his Honda CB200. It seems fitting that it graces this LP too.

Brother Jon announced his retirement this weekend after driving for a living for close to forty years. Most recently for the Golden Gate bus company in San Francisco. This is it. He calculates he has clocked up over one millions miles; something approaching a million and one quarter. That is a lot of road.

I would like to wish him well. He has been plotting a somewhat epic voyage from the west coast up to the Olympian wastes of Canada and Newfoundland, I believe, for some time now . And farther afield. Weather and hockey permitting. His bags are packed; his passport is in order. Since he refuses to travel without his prized ukuleles, I very much doubt he will be going at it on motorcycle. In any case, he has his free ride for life. The option to sit back in relative comfort and led somebody else take the wheel for a change.

Who knows. Perhaps somewhere down the road we may yet get the opportunity to meet face to face. That would be cool.

This dub is not particularly apposite. I ought to have cobbled together something more celebratory - portentous even - but my attention has wandered a little this past week, meandering into marginally paranoid cul-de-sacs. Idling in cobwebs.

Blame it on my stalker. 

Add to which, I spent the better half of an hour this afternoon laid out in a dentist's chair. Nursing a hangover while the hygienist tutted and worked in my mouth with ill concealed contempt. Scratching away deep beneath the gumline with water jet and crochet hook, and no offer of anything approaching an anaesthetic. I think she has given up on me. The hygienist. I spat blood and left.

Anyway. Jon has impeccable taste. An ear for all manner of lost dub gems. This is one of them. One for the road. Just groove on the Tubbs and Lee. Jah Love.

 Written by Lester Bullocks.

Engineered by King Tubby and Prince Jammy

at King Tubby's Home Town Hi-Fi.

Mastered by Ken Mossue.
 Produced by Bunny Lee; remixed by Dojo Claridge.

With thanks to Still Anonymous for the tip.

▼ DILLINGER: JAH LOVE from "Talkin' Blues" LP (Jamaica Sound) 1977 (Jamaica)

the dub that would not die

#LPIR 0001.

"an i far an i... a toot' far a tooth..."

Resurrected. From the excellent Trojan 2007 remasters, originally mentioned here; issued on the twin CD, "Ape-Ology". To what extent Scratch utilized the engineering skills of Osbourne Ruddock or Jammy on this is subject to dub-ate.

King Tubby would revisit Super Ape on "A Noisy Place" on his Home Town Hi-Fi.

▼ THE UPSETTERS: RETURN OF THE SUPER APE from "Return Of The Super Ape" LP (Lion of Judah / Upsetter) 1977 (Jamaica)

< 0, 11

Released on March 25, 1977. From Elizabeth Arden to the seedy Riviera.

Disturbed at the prospect of terminal promotion into white collar drudgery, Declan Patrick MacManus signs with Jake Riviera's fledgling independent, age twenty-two. The leap from computer data entry - in an era when IBM had not yet tipped the scales in its war on paper and Dickensian filing - is not quite so remarkable when one considers that Costello's father made a comfortable living as a vocalist with the Joe Loss Orchestra. McManus made his professional debut in 1974, performing on an advertising jingle for R. White's Lemonade - "I'm a Secret Lemonade Drinker" - written and delivered by his dad. The pub and club scene was always just around the corner. The nicotine pull of rolling one's own. 

Flip City. In an interview conducted for 'Sounds' in 1977, the freshly laundered Elvis dismisses attempts to ferret into his past: 

"I don't want to talk about the past. It's dead and gone. I didn't appear in a puff of smoke; I've been around a long time. If people weren't interested in what I was doing then, why do they want to know all about it now ?"

Written by Declan McManus.
Produced by Nick Lowe.

Sleeve photographs by Chris Gabrin.

▼ ELVIS COSTELLO: LESS THAN ZERO from "Less Than Zero b/w Radio Sweetheart" 45 (Stiff) 1977 (UK)

import and export

king's road, 1977. opposite lloyd's bank.

Produced by Micky Foote and The Clash.

▼ THE CLASH: POLICE & THIEVES from "The Clash" LP (CBS) 1977 (UK)

agitator in the house

not much cop at nuffink but stealin', bo.

Well. They could not police a tantrum in a kindergarten. But they are alarmingly proficient at robbing both tenant and taxpayer blind.

Produced by Lee Perry.

Written by Lee Perry and Junior Murvin.
Covered by The Clash.

▼ JUNIOR MURVIN: POLICE AND THIEVES from "Police And Thieves" LP (Upsetter) 1977 (Jamaica)

stars on 45: if we haven't done what we could have done, we've tried

500 copies with silk screened 3 colour 'Beatles' jackets. No plastic wigs.

A Day In The Life • The End • Money • Tell Me What You See • God • The Beatles 3rd Christmas Record • Can't Buy Me Love • Tell Me Why • I Am The Walrus (backwards) • Blue Jay Way • Drive My Car • Another Girl • Strawberry Fields Forever • All My Loving • Dizzy Miss Lizzie • Only A Northern Song • Yellow Submarine • No Reply • I'm A Loser • Mr. Moonlight • I Am The Walrus (forwards) • Love You Too • I Want To Hold Your Hand • Hey Bulldog • Bad Boy

▼ THE RESIDENTS: BEYOND THE VALLEY OF A DAY IN THE LIFE from "The Beatles Play The Residents And The Residents Play The Beatles" 45 (Ralph) 1977 (US)

WE'RE LATE FOR CLASS VIA NØ

the ghost of christmas stooge

Well. Never let it be said, Mr. Devlin. While this may not be the song you were hounding me for, I had to put on my reading glasses regardless just to procure the label for a Sunday scan. And put aside the solvents.

I hope you are satisfied. Alone again or a different form of substance abuse entirely. ' Loyd's Assistant' ? Did I read that correctly ? Lloyds assistant ?

Stiff.
Today's Sound Today.

made to be played loud
at low volume.

▼ THE DAMNED: SO MESSED UP from "Damned Damned Damned" LP (Stiff) 1977 (UK)

busboy blues

A cautionary tale, and an unusual stab at fusion from producer Bunny Lee which left everyone involved with undressed wounds in the back and sundry infections.

At some point in 1977, Lee invited guitarist, Carl Harvey - born in Jamaica but raised in Toronto, Canada - to collaborate on an ill-considered production involving the reinterpretation of several popular international standards, ranging from Brook Benton's "Rainy Night in Georgia" to George Benson's "Breezing". Harvey, lead guitarist with overnight funk sensations, The Crack of Dawn - the first black act in Canada to sign to a major recording label - was sufficiently gifted to secure the attention of Toots & The Maytals, but the finished article was cabaret at best.

Indefinitely shelved - presumably as soon as the good shit had all but dried up - both Lee and Harvey (who knows what became of Oswald ?) were dismayed to hear the album had reemerged as a wholly illicit vinyl release in the UK.
According to Zero G Sound and Reggae Reviews:
" Without his or Harvey's knowledge (and thus without compensation),
it came out in England in 1979 on the Cancer label... amazingly misrepresented as a Lee "Scratch" Perry album... 'Guitar Boogie Dub'. "

Whatever the original intention, "Ecstasy of Mankind" is a lightweight affair; elevator music in a neighborhood built on bungalows and one storey pool halls.

It might have gone down well with tourists on parole at The Sheraton, but it warrants its reissue on the French label, Makasound, only in so far as yachting coke-heads would sooner waltz to Clapton than tangle with Dillinger.

The following, touching bass on the Techniques' hijacking of Curtis Mayfield's "Queen Majesty", is one of few highlights.

▼ CARL HARVEY: LATE NIGHT RAVER from "Carl Harvey Meets The Dub Masters Bunny Lee & Prince Jammy: ECSTASY OF MANKIND" CD (Makasound) 2005 (Jamaica / France)

something borrowed, something new

seasonal greetings from SibLINGSHOT

Considering Glasgow's climate is generally temperate, it was cold; -2℃ this morning when I stepped out to purchase some essential supplies.

My decision to decline a carrier bag for the 2 litre carton of milk straight out the refrigerator was ill judged at best. By the time I fidgeted the key back in the door my teeth were chattering. We have been shrouded in freezing fog these past few days, but it was clear if still pitch black out there. Dark enough for me to stumble on the shrivelled refuse adhering to the pavement.

If corn on the cob possessed extremities it might have twitched its last like Scott or Amundsen.

Sundry frozen artifacts lay scattered around it in a trail of confusion. Jettisoned in the final throes of hypothermia.

Well. Remixed at Dynamic Sounds in Kingston - with the Revolutionaries - by Karl Pitterson for the 1978 Virgin LP release, the original 45 was produced by Errol Thompson for Joe Gibbs Music and was a huge dance hall hit. Anton Ellis' 1967 rocksteady smash, "I'm still in Love", and Trinity's "Three Piece Suit" provided the basis for the backing rhythm, re-recorded here in 1977 with additional lyrics by teenagers Forest and Reid and, allegedly, Thompson himself.

Thirty-two years older, this one still radiates good tidings and rude health.

▼ ALTHEA & DONNA: UPTOWN TOP RANKING from "Uptown Top Ranking b/w Calico Suit" 45 (Joe Gibbs) 1977 (Jamaica)

the lazy earl of wessex

Annotated as an "outtake"on the 2002 repackage, I can hear nothing here differing significantly from their definitive LP version.

The most recent accession, of course, to the Dukedom of Wessex is none other than 'our' Prince Edward; a tiresome brat harboring melodramatic delusions of grandeur. A dribbling imbecile racing from one knockout to the next. No Tad 'behemoth', he. More a sneering conduit of waste. The antithesis of Darwinism. As a Pictish heathen with a dash of Ghengis Khash running through my veins, I feel no allegiance whatsoever to the House of Windsor. And scarcely more to Holyrood. We'll suffer no whiff of borgeois monarchism here.

No small amount of atrocious snivelling.

We bring with us the ghosts of lepers and saints to staunch our mortal wounds.

▼ SEX PISTOLS: SEVENTEEN (Wessex Studios, NMTB Outtake) from "Box Set" 3 x CD (Virgin) 1977 / 2002 (UK)

pal joey and the queens mafia

Anyone with half a heart will guess immediately from just checking in on yesterday's 1974 post what this is all about.

Formed in Forest Hills, Queens, NYC in the very same year, our holey knock-kneed stick insects concocted the perfect antidote to all which was sick and rotten in the state of detritus. A simple largactyl laced three chord syrup for all our ills.

As unequivocal as a slap straight on the kisser.

I have been grossly negligent up here on the bleachers, sadly. A chain-smoking fuckwad nursing uncalled nostalgia much of the time.

It was only as the result of my wife nagging me to wear my reading glasses that I realized just how much I'd given over to half fartedness. That, and the last two fingers of a bottle of Italian House White we purchased earlier; in spite of more sound financial judgment.

As I sit here typing spastically on one digit, I am mildly shocked to recall that Johnny Ramone was born - Cummings, motherf@cker - way back in 1948. A mere three years after the Big Red One. Small wonder, then, he bequeathed us so much shit on lugers; blitzkriegs; and bop. A commando on Quaaludes, he dealt dealt back the aftershock in graphic primary colors. No f@ckin' 'u' for you.

This, ultimately, is what made it a good deal easier to swallow all that tired Emerson, Lake & Palmer crap; the low slung bass of Dee Dee and the myopic impertinence of Pal Joey strobing out over the closed jackboot ranks of a CBGB's anorexic gathering.

God bless 'em.

1-2-3-4!

SA-746

RAM001

Produced by Tamás Erdélyi and Tony Bongiovi.

▼ RAMONES: SHEENA IS A PUNK ROCKER from "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker b/w Commando / I Don't Care" 45 (Sire) 1977 (US)

white line fever #1

"undertakers to the industry – if they're dead - we'll sign 'em".

A curiosity. From the early compilation - SEEZ 2 - from 33 Alexander Street, London W2; that original little shop of horrors. An entirely different take to the one which made its way onto their debut LP on Chiswick.

Lemmy: bass, vocals;

Eddie Clarke: guitars;
Philip Taylor: drums.

Written by Ian Kilminster.
(originally catalogue # BUY 9, but previously unreleased)

▼ MOTÖRHEAD: WHITE LINE FEVER from "A Bunch Of Stiff" LP (Stiff) 1977 (UK)

after the stooges...

above and below: 1970. camp, subjects and photographers unknown.

Hey Keith ?

I never got to summer camp as a kid. It is - or was - a uniquely American phenemonon.

However. This is as close to a soundtrack, short of Charlie Brown, as is feasible.



▼ THE DAMNED: I FEEL ALRIGHT from "Damned Damned Damned" LP (Stiff) 1977 (UK)

a teardrop explodes

who ate all the pies ?

dig•i•tal•is |ˈdɪdʒɪˌteɪlɪs|
noun
a drug prepared from the dried leaves of foxglove and containing substances (notably digoxin and digitoxin) that stimulate the heart muscle.

ORIGIN late 18th cent.: from the modern Latin genus name of the foxglove, from digitalis (herba) ‘(plant) relating to the finger,’ from digitus ‘finger, toe’ ; suggested by German Fingerhut: ‘thimble or foxglove'.

When they appeared on the same stage as the Clash in the UK in 1977, Alan Vega and Martin Rev famously prompted howls of derision and an explosion of glass too close for comfort. That was a shame; although I suspect Ian Curtis and his triad of electronic subversives might have provoked a similar neanderthal response at that juncture.

To be expected, if not quite alright.

That first wave of brown shirts were not on ball for informed or distressed 'digitalis', as Jayne Casey would later observe. Sadly, it was their - the bondage trousered sheep's - loss.

More spastically muscular and incisive than Helios Creed and Damon Edge's Chrome, brittle New Yorkers, Suicide, fully deserve to be remembered for more than just their superlative 45, "Cheree" or the much covered, "Rocket U.S.A.".

There. I prohibit you - siblings and motherf@ckers - to remonstrate or otherwise disagree.

Produced by Craig Leon and Marty Thau.

▼ SUICIDE: FRANKIE TEARDROP from "Suicide" LP (Red Star) 1977 (US)