Rankine full stop

Following on from the recent Associates post, here's a Bjork-approved insight into the making of Sulk, from the mouths of Alan Rankine and Mike Dempsey, as told to the incomparable Alexis Petridis.

Keep on truckin'

And while I'm on the kids' TV tip, how frickin' great is this?

Pointer Order

Apologies to those who are keeping the faith, either by checking back here intermittently, or by subscribing (click on the orange feed icon on the left). My blogging may be a little sporadic over the next two months as I'm trying to finish a dissertation. However, I'll try and post a couple of times a month, and if anybody's still reading in July, well, lucky old me.

Out of necessity, this'll be a quick post, but the tune's a goody, and sure to imbue those of a certain age with a sense of nostalgia. Remember that Sesame Street pinball cartoon, with the numbers being counted off ("1,2,3,4,5,6/7,8,9,10/11, twe-e-e-e-e-e-elve...")? Turns out it was Ruth, Anita, Bonnie and June, aka The Pointer Sisters, pre-"Jump", "Automatic", "I'm So Excited" etc. A couple of years ago it was dusted off and cut together by the venerable DJ Food, given a very limited release on Ninja Tune, and today it's on my blog. Enjoy!


Download Pinball Number Count by DJ Food/The Pointer Sisters (MP3) (deleted May 2008)

Silly Billy

Billy Mackenzie would have been 50 years old today. There's not a lot more I can add to Tom Doyle's excellent book, so go and read that if you want to find out more about the man behind the extraordinary voice (the story about Billy's last cab on the Warner Bros. expense account is particularly funny). If, on the other hand, you've never heard the Associates, (why?) I'm providing a couple of tasters below, all taken from a CD of Radio One sessions.

The first, A Severe Bout of Career Insecurity shows the duo at their most demented; recorded for a Peel Session and augmented by Mike Dempsey's bass and Steve Golding's drums, a version of the song was also recorded for the Sulk sessions (entitled And Then I Read A Book), and surfaced on the CD release from 2000. This version, though, is particularly manic, and features a little treat for Julie Andrews fans (presumably The Sound of Music was a big feature at the Rankine and Mackenzie family Christmases).

The second, taken from the same Peel session of 1982 is an early version of Waiting For The Loveboat, which was eventually released on Perhaps, the Associates album that Billy made after Alan Rankine flew the coop in 1982. However, while Rankine doesn't feature on the album version, he does appear on this, somewhat different, take on the song. Please pay attention at the back.

Finally, while few would deny that Rankine and Mackenzie were never as good again after their split, both showed occasional glimmers of their former glory in their subsequent careers. Mackenzie's take on Billie Holiday's God Bless The Child was one such glimmer; it's taken from a Peel session from 1983, and I can't help but think that Volkswagen missed a trick when they used the original version in preference to this for a commercial a few years ago.

RIP Billy.

Download A Severe Bout of Career Insecurity (deleted May 2008)

Download Waiting For The Love Boat (deleted May 2008)

Download God Bless The Child (deleted May 2008)

Buy Associates CDs

Can do

Just had a message pointing me to this site full of interesting bedroom remixes, some of the best I've heard in a long while, and as the remixer, Mr. Bruno Sagai (?) says, influenced by the mighty Can. The ones featuring the B52s, Massive Attack, Marvin Gaye and Wu-Tang Clan are particularly worth a listen. Check it!

Of course, this being Irk The Purists, I couldn't leave you hanging with a Take That clip. Check out this recent performance of John Cage's 4'33" from the Barbican. I know that the piece was written to accommodate (and point up) ambient sounds such as rustling, breathing, coughing etc. (though I can't help thinking that some of the coughers during this performance were taking the piss--have they never heard of Halls Soothers?). However, a thought struck me as I watched it. What if the bane of contemporary theatre--the mobile phone--had made its presence felt during the performance? The piece was written some 50 years before the mobile became ubiquitous. Would a Nokia ringtone be accommodated in the aleatory scheme of things? Or would people have tuted and glared at the miscreant?

John Cage At UbuWeb

And people say Saturday night entertainment is dead!

My wife reckons this is the most exciting 4 minutes of telly ever broadcast. I wouldn't quite go that far, but it was certainly the most exciting four minutes of the weekend, in a Busby-Berkeley-meets-Colin-an-Justin sort of way. And yes, I do expect to get royally flamed for putting this up here.