Song of the Day 65 : Our Lips are Sealed : Fun Boy 3

Our Lips are Sealed was originally a hit for The Go Gos but it is the version by Terry Hall and Fun Boy Three that is what I know best and enjoy the most.

When The Specials broke up the smart money was on Jerry Dammers having the most successful afterlife.  But the smart money is not always right and Hall's contribution to The Specials was probably under-estimated.  Evidence of this is that post Specials he probably had the most successful career.  First with Fun Boy Three, then The Colourfield and, after a few collaborations as a solo artist. 

Always interesting and now sadly missed. 

Favourites - Gomez - In Our Gun and How We Operate

Gomez is a five member band from both Southport and the English resort town Weston-super-Mare just across the Bristol Channel from Cardiff.  They play a mix of styles and writing and singing and swapping instrument leads from time to time - reminiscent of The Band's approach.  

I have been a fan since their Mercury Prize winning debut Bring it On and until she saw them Jan thought some of their music just noise.  

While I was in Dublin last year I came across an anniversary edition of their 2006 album How We Operate.  Jan and I (and Chris) saw the tour that supported this album.  It was fun and also what got Jan across the line in terns of enjoying Gomez's varied sound,.  Probably because it is their popiest album and while some fans were pleased others were put off by the overt stab at the charts. 

While I enjoy the pop of Girlshapedlovedrug I am more drawn to the dreamy Charlie Patton Songs  or the more representative Hamona Beach. 

I bought my first (CD) copy of In Our Gun in 2001 in Hong Kong when I heard it playing in the HMV
store.  But a few years ago I picked up this vinyl copy in Melbourne.   

A lovely pressing that helped me appreciate it all over again.  From the opening track - Shot Shot (the track that was playing in the store, through the title track and onto the close out Ballad of Nice and Easy you really get a good taste of what Gomez is all about.  

I have bought a couple of CDs since How We Operate but they never seemed to capture that magic again. We also saw Ben Ottewell solo at the San Francisco in what was a fun show.  They still play and record and who knows there may be another great album yet.  

Song of the Day : Almost Blue - Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello twice recorded songs with the same title as an album but then did not include the song on that album.  Almost Blue appears on the album Imperial Bedroom and is a great example as to why Costello is such a revered songwriter

Chet Baker plays trumpet on the album and then recorded his own version as well for the soundtrack album - Let's Get Lost

Almost blue

Almost doing things we used to do

There's a girl here and she's almost you, almost

All the things that your eyes once promised

I see in hers too

Now your eyes are red from crying

Almost blue

Flirting with this disaster became me

It named me as the fool who only aimed to be

Almost blue

It's almost touching it will almost do

There is part of me that's always true...always

Not all good things come to an end now it is only a chosen few

I've seen such an unhappy couple

Almost me

Almost you

Almost blue

You may have missed this - James McMurtry - The Horses and the Hounds

Way back in 2014 I wrote a blog about how much I liked James McMurtry's debut album Too Long in the Wasteland.   

More than 30 years after releasing that fine album in 2021 I think he released his finest work to date with The Horses and the Hounds.  While I enjoyed it immedirately it has steadily grown on me, the depth of the songwriting becoming clearer with every play.  

It was the opening song Canola Fields that drew me into repeated listening.  The best song I have heard about rekindling youthful love.  You can always expect some evocative phrases and this was the one that got me 

In a way back corner of a cross-town bus

We were hiding out under my hat

Cashing in on a thirty-year crush

You can't be young and do that

One song later, after the romanticsm of that track there is the pointed critique of Operation Never Mind how the US engages in war (or operations) these days.  With the profiteering and eliticsm of the KBR Man versus the poor country boy doing the fighting.

The country boys will do the fighting

Now that fighting's all a country boy can do

But all the time being very aware to avoid the public getting too het up about it. 

We got a handle on it this time

No one's gonna tell us we were wrong

We won't let the cameras near the fighting

That way we won't have another Vietnam

No one knows, 'cause no one sees

No one cares, 'cause no one knows

No one knows, 'cause no one sees it on TV

Later we have the funkiness of Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call built around relationship issues and how losing your glasses can make a whole day turn to shit.  

She's camped in the shower and she won't come out

And I don't have a clue what that's about

I'll just have to wait and see

Can't get online to check the bank

Twitter's on fire, my stocks all tanked

But what's really getting to me is

I keep losing my glasses

After more trials and tribulations the day ends as it started 

My daddy told me, if you got any sense

Better feed the woman, many years hence

I know what he meant and I got me a plan

But I can't read the menu 'cause, damn it

I keep losing my glasses (glasses)

Those are some of my highlights but as I am playing the record now - I could have picked three of four others 

Favourites - North Mississippi Allstars - Shake Hands wwith Shorty

I keep a list of favourite CDs I would like to have on vinyl.  These are genrerally ones that were released in the 90's and early 00s that have never beeen on vinyl.  I made the lisr some years ago now and there were about 70  on it originally.  Wuth the vinyl revival some have now seen the light of day and there are now ONLY 50 to go.  I am resigned that some by some pretty obsure artists or artists that have now left us may never see the light of day. 

So I was really pleased when Shake Hands with Shorty was released on vinyl for the first time on Record Store Day last year.  I first heard the CD when I was browsing in Radar Records in Christchurch around 2000 and it was playing in store.  

The band is built around brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson who are the sons of Jim Dickinson, the almost legendary member of the Dixie Flyers who backed many soul artists in the 60s, played piano on Wild Horses and produced The Replacements.  

Shake Hands with Shorty is their debut albium and is steeped in the hill country blues style of Mississippi Fred McDowell,  Junior Kimbrough and RL Burnside.  It starts with the MCDowell classic Shake 'em on Down, includes Burnside's Going Down South and ends with Kimbrough's All Night Long. 

I already had McDowell's I Do Not Play No Rock'n'Roll and knew him through songs like Good Morning Little School Girl and You Gotta Move (check the Stones' version on Sticky Fingers) but this was my introduction to the other two.  This is a different style of blues, driving repetitive and a link to some more modern sounds.  

I have continued to track the Dickinson boys both with the North Mississippi Allstars (their Up and Rolling album was my favourite of 2019) and as session musicians where they have supported favouries like John Hiatt and Anders Osborne. 

Song of the Day : My Old Friend The Blues - Steve Earle

Confession time.  The first version of My Old Friend The Blues was by The Proclaimers on their excellent Sunshine on Leith album.  I was aware of the buzz around Steve Earle's Guitar Town album but it was not enough for me to buy the album at the time.   However it is Steve Earle's Version that I now play the most. However I did play The Proclaimers recently and that too is bloody good.  

Steve Earle has written some other great songs that are equal to this but what a good (late) start to a career.

Simple

Elegant

Complete

My Old Friend The Blues

Just when every ray of hope was gone 

I should have known that you would come along 

I can't believe I ever doubted you 

My old friend the blues 

Another lonely night, a nameless town 

If sleep don't take me first, you'll come around 

'Cause I know I can always count on you 

My old friend the blues 

Lovers leave and friends will let you down 

But you're the only sure thing that I've found 

No matter what I do I'll never lose 

My old friend the blues 

Just let me hide my weary heart in you 

My old friend the blues

Favourites - Tom Petty - Wildflowers

I have been listening to Tom Waits since I bought his first album from a sale bin in a record store in New Brighton in 1979.  I caught him live at the Majestic Theatre in Wellington in 1980 and also saw the infamoouly poor Athletic Park gig with Dylan. 

I will admit it took me a while to get into Wildflowers.  However itt is now firmly my favourite and its scope is really pretty amazing.  It was also Petty’s own favourite album.  So much so that while he was alive he kept promising a definitive version with tracks left off the original double album and remixes of tracks he included on the soundtrack to She's the One (his least favourite album).    

The Petty Estate eventually made good on his promise with a number of releases that capture the full scope and achievements of the Rick Rubin produced sessions along with live material from the time.  There are now multiple places you can get songs from those sessions, and I have ended up with five on vinyl (that I can happily spread between my various listening systems and homes) as I would listen to something from the album every two or three weeks.

·       Two versions of Wildflowers and All The Rest – I have both the expanded three lp version and the sprawling box set with 7 albumsincluding live versions

·       Finding Wildflowers – with alternative unreleased takes and, unbelievably a few extra songs

·       Angel Dream – a reimagining of what She’s the One could or should have been, and

·       An original of She’s the One

I can happily listen any of them all the way through and each time marvel at the consistency of the songwriting and excellence of the playing (generally The Heartbreakers and 
the occasional guest like Ringo). 

So what of the songs.  While there are no major hits, there are just too many to choose from the title song Wildflowers, rockers like You Wreck Me and  Dylan's favourite Honey Bee, the reflective Harry Green, his cover of Lucinda Williams Change the Locks and You Don't Know how it Feels. 

I have often described my musical collecting journey as the ongoing search for the perfect album.  This is possibly as close as I have got.  

 

Favourites - Semi Twang - Salty Tears

I bought my first copy of Salty Tears in the sale/secondhand section of Everyman Records in Nelson not long after it was released.  

Whoever discarded it did me a great favour as it has endured as a favourite record for many years.  What attracted me to the album, apart from the price, was the production team with Jerry Harrison, Mitchell Froom, and Chris Thomas sharing production duties.  Clearly the record company was getting behind this release.  

It is a record that does not have a lot of standout tracks but holds together overall but check out the Title Track and No Other Girl

About once a year or so I go through a phase of playing the record a few times over about a month.  On one of those occasions, I started googling about what happened to them and why there was only one record.  No real answer but I did find that the lead singer and main song writer had in fact released a few solo CDs and I managed to track down 3 of them – each had the spark of something good going on but I suggest you start with Quiver.

Then in 2011 they got the band back together and have since released 3 excellent CDs which I bought directly from the band’s website.  All three are worth checking out but I suggest you start with Wages on Sin.

 

 

 

 

I'm Not Here - Let's not forget this interesting take on Dylan

There is a lot of energy and talk now around the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown
at the moment. It is not going to get to New Zealand for another week or so but Dylan himself has endorsed it.  It comes with a new soundtrack that is basically the actors singing the songs in copies of Dylan’s originals.  I am looking forward to seeing the movie but the sound track does not interest me. 

This is not the first Dylan biopic.  In 2007 Todd Haynes wrote and directed I’m Not There.  This is what, in my opinion anyway, is a great and very Dylanesque take on Dylan’s life.  He is presented in different guises by different actors to represent different stages in his career.   The choice of actors is interesting, and the soundtrack reflects both the quirky nature of the movie and the man himself. 

What I like about the soundtrack is that it is a mix of fairly straight covers to some really interesting takes by a variety of artists some of whom you might not normally expect to associate with Dylan.  It is also where you can find some of the last, at least to now, available recordings of Tom Verlaine’s fluid guitar work.  His Cold Irons Bound is worth the price of admission alone.   Other highlights include Antony and The Johnsons’  Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, The Hold Steady’s Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?, Cat Power’s Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again and Willie Nelson and Calexico’s Senor (Tales of Yankee Power).

However, in truth, every time I play the album a different track impresses me. 

 

 

Favourites - Grant Haua - Awa Blues - Judging a record by its cover

I liked the look of Awa Blues when I saw it in the NZ section at Slowboat Records in Wellington.  I had never heard of Grant Haua but it looked like something worth checking out.  I did a little research, checked out a couple of tunes on Spotify and decided that it was worth buying.   So $50 later and a short work home I was listening to it in full.  

Awa Blues is his first solo album.  Prior to that he was in what has been described as a Power Blues duo (Black Keys anybody) Swamp Thing.  

Not long after we caught him doing a live acoustic show and was impressed by the strength of his presence and show.  Unfortunately it was poorly attended with less than 30 people.  I  have therefore recommended to friends whereever he plays that they should catch him play and so far all have reported being very impressed. It is a pity that he seems to be better recognisd in Europe than he does in his homeland with good reviews, particuilarly in France and he records on a European label. 

The music is a mix of John Hiatt, Taj Mahal influenced acoustic country and Maori blues.  Grant's songwriting is strong throughout with some really great songs. 

When he plays Tough Love Mumma live he tells the great story of getting all his Aunts together, paying them with wine and the fun they had recording the video.  You can certainly see the fun, and love, in the video.  This is the Place portrays well the importance of land or whenua to Maori.  

New Addition - Perry Keyes , Black and White Town

 Perry Keyes has been described as “Redfern’s (Sydney) answer to Bruce Springsteen”.  I get that but while his lyrics reflect some of early Springsteen – think Meeting Across the River, and Backstreets in particular, the content is generally darker and reminds me more of Lou Reed.  His music also tends to be more pub rock than cinematic (but that is probably more a budget issue). 

My introduction to Keyes was 10 years ago now when I picked up his excellent Sunnyholt album.  Check out Home is where the Heart Disease is and the title track from that album.  That lead me to explore his back catalogue and stay tuned for new releases. 

In late 2023 I was notified he was releasing a new album, Black and White Town, and it would be his first available on vinyl.  It is another solid outing and as good a place as any to start.  Worth checking out Streets of a Black and White Town and Last Night in Redfern Park as tasters.