Never get out of the boat: June 2006

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

History of Rock'n'Roll Part 2

For anyone whose interested heres my greatest hit in musical terms.
DJs picked up on the 2nd track on the b-side 'Pricks' back in 1995 and it got heavy rotation from the likes of Carl Cox and Nick Warren, busting up the club charts and back down again...
Released on Bellboy records in the uk, Tube in Italy and Techno Tools in Belgium it was a bit of a trans-european monster (flipped so as 'Pricks' was the a-side). It even turned up on a few compilations including Cherry Moon which is kind of Germany's Ministry of Sound.
I helped set up Bellboy in the early 90s and had a few releases under various guises but this was the one that did it, in critical terms, and nearly spawned an album deal with Cox's label.
Came to nowt in the end but I was able to hike up my DJ fee on the back of it.
The track itself was based on a Felix da Housecat one note and octave thing I had been djing with and was created by me and Cowie in his garage studio in about 2-3 hours and was mixed totally live. Basically a bunch of loops running and the two of us whacking faders up and down.
Listen carefully and you can hear the mistakes but thats techno-punk for you.

Here you go

Monday, June 19, 2006

World Cup

Ingerlund v Trinidad and Tobago from WSC...laugh out loud.

''Back in those days, a game like this would have presented little anxiety. Any goals scored by the Trinidadians, or Tobagans for that matter, would have instantly become the property of the Crown and therefore added to England’s tally...''

read the full thing here

Much chatter about the Argentina goal the other day, 24 passes then Cambiasso popped it in.
But we all know what the greatest world cup goal was...

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Currently on the ipod...

Fourth live album from PW (Live Wood, 2nd cd of Modern Classics, Days of Speed and this).
As with Live Wood its basically the best bits of the last album (ie wild wood then, as is now, now)
plus a few classics. Highlight for me is an epic 'In the Crowd'.
I don't really do playlists on the ipod. I'm a bit of a traditionalist in that I'll listen to a whole lp.
London Calling on heavy rotation too as well as The Kinks 'Village Green'.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Fit Like, New York

The last post set me off remembering that part of the 80's. This book is a pretty good document of that period (in fact it covers the 50's through to 90's)
GillianSilver don't make it in but theres a wee chapter about some of the stuff I was invoved in during the 90's (more about that another time)
Big chapters on APB (big in NY but sadly never quite made it at home) and The Shamen.
Glaring omission is probably Nervous Choir.
I think the book out of print but I would bet these guys still have a few copies/boxes kicking around

History of Rock'n'Roll part 1

Found this pic from around 83. We were called GillianSilver, named after a girl i was at school with who I thought had a cool name. This shot was taken at a cellar bar in Aberdeen where we played a few times. This line-up was the original 3 piece, me on guitar, Steve on vocals and Gregor on percussion. We were into Orange Juice and the so-called 'sound of young scotland' at the time ( i had discovered major and minor 7ths so all the songs we wrote had that melancholy jazzy vibe). The band later expanded to a proper 5 piece with drums and bass. We recorded properly a 3 track ep that was going to come out in some form after we started courting Charlie Cosh, who was managing Alone Again Or (who later became the Shamen) but somehow it didn't happen. The Shamen were mates of ours and we opened up for them a few times.
Our ill fated ep was produced by Wilf Smarties and i googled him in the vain hope that the tapes still exist somewhere (this was before digital storage, kids) and i could contact him. He's now a big shot producer and co-wrote half of Kylie Minogue's last album so I don't hold much hope of tracking him down. Never mind.
In case your interested the ep would have been..
Our Hands (moody soulful string-laden wrist slitter - written by me and Steve)
Some things Never Change (uptempo Motown-ish belter, chord sequence ripped off of Frank and Nancy's Somethin Stupid - another me and Steve original)
This Guys in Love with You (the Burt B number - featuring Gregor on bugle)

The Scream back on form

Been listening to this all week.
Faces/Stones/Dolls all chucked into the pot and the Scream rocking out like never before.
The great thing about these fellas is how they can leap from techno to rock'n'roll then dub
and it still sounds like them.
There are files around to download but these guys deserve your money so buy it