Record #9: "In The Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)" by Zager and Evans

I thought I'd have a stab at topicality with today's blog post, what with what's happening in Copenhagen, although a song covering the years 2525 to 9595 at roughly 1010 year intervals is probably a bit optimistic for the times we live in.
2525 isn't really about climate change of course, but a sister cause, that of over-reliance on technology and overexploitation of the world's resources. It's an extraordinary song, for several reasons. First of all, there's the bizarre Mariachi intro, which bears very little resemblance to the rest of the song, which has a driving rhythm and ascending chords (I think it's ascending chords with a dramatic key-change in the middle, but I'm not sure. I'm not terribly musical in that way) before ending in a terribly pessimistic way.
It's a terribly pessimistic ending for a song recorded at any time, but this song is more remarkable in that it was number one in America from the 12th of July until the 16th of August, 1969. You may be thinking, "well, that's a good long run for such a gloomy song," so let me rephrase it. It was number one in America on the 20th of July, meaning this was number one when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
The Apollo programme is still seen by many as the apotheosis of American science and technology, with Apollo 11 its crowning achievement. It was, in a lot of senses, a golden age. There's a bewildering amount of precognition going on, because looking at it now, we recognise that Apollo 11 was the beginning of the end for all that - manned spaceflight, NASA and all the related industry and science have not, so far scaled such heights again. (Such metaphorical heights - the moon programme continued but the goal had been reached - America got a man on the moon first.) It was the end of the decade (the single charted in the Uk a little later, at the end of August) and just a couple of months before the Altamont Festival, with Hell's Angels security, brought what are traditionally known as "the sixties" in pop culture (which began in 1963. Confusing isn't it?) to an end. 11 years later the first test-tube baby was born and now genetic selection is a hot scientific issue. From our historical perspective, it at first glance it seems to fit the narrative perfectly. We have a lot more information now about the 70s than the record-buying public of 1969 though and know how it all turned out, Could they forsee what was coming?

Of course not, the question is absurd, but it is a salutary lesson in the dangers of painting history with broad brush strokes. Listen to the song again. It's an unpleasant future they're describing, so imagine how much closer it must have seemed in 1969. Men were walking on the moon and they hadn't even invented pocket calculators. You can forget 2525, what about when your children are 25?
The song was written much earlier in the decade, around 1963 or 4 (accounts vary). It was issued as a single in 1967 and wasn't a hit, but was picked up by a radio station in 1969 and re-ished off the back of its popularity there. It struck a chord (no pun intended), I guess because the dawn of a new technological age might be magnificent but it must also be a bit frightening, considering we're not that far from cave-dwellers yet. References to future tech are fairly basic scifi fare, a genre of course that flourished with the coming of the space race. That they got some stuff right means they picked their innovations with some care but isn't supernaturally improbable. They never had another hit, but I'm not sure how you'd be expected to follow this one up.
My copy is the German issue of the single, with an amusingly awkward definitive article on the sleeve. I bought it from the excellent Second Hand Records in Stuttgart when I was on my year abroad with university, despite my record players being at home and me not having one there, so I owned it for months without being able to play it. This was in 2006 or 7, I think it was January 2007, from memory, although the price in Deutschmarks above the Euros suggests it had been in the shop a while. I don't know why though - a bit corny it may be, but I've played it regularly since then.

Postscript
Generally when I'm writing this I favour my memory over Wikipedia, because although they're both fallible I trust the former more than the latter, and supplement my memory with a couple of books and other websites. However, I notice that the wikipedia article on this song asserts
""Their followup single on RCA-Victor, "Mr. Turnkey" (a song about a rapist who nails his own wrist to the wall as punishment for his crime), failed to chart.[citation needed]"

Now I'm only human, I admit I was intrigued. The big fat citation needed on there gave me pause for thought though - if I just wrote it as gospel and it turned out not to be true I'd just be propagating a big lie, albeit a tempting one.
I don't own the single in question, but I found someone on youtube who does, and in this instance, Wiki was right. Not being one I own it's ineligible for this blog, but I present it here for curiosity's sake:


Can't think why it didn't chart.

Record #8: "The Family EP" by Whysp

It's become clear to me as I've been doing these that I've barely scratched the surface of what I have: I daren't count them for the same reason I daren't calculate how much money I've spent on records - I'm scared of the outcome. It seemed likely though that over the course of the 45 pieces the dominant trends of my record-buying would make themselves known. In an early post I talked about how in the seventies, seven inch singles weren't "special" the way that they are now, at least to a faction of the record-buying public. They sold in their thousands to a public to whom the words 'limited edition' aroused nary a flicker of interest. This record then, is the obverse of that. It's modern (2008), limited edition (number 194 of 300)and put together with extreme care. I've added a clip of side one's track, "Sun Without End," side 2's track is similarly ramshackle, but not quite so paranoid. It's a touch quiet, but the distortion you can here is on the record too - it's not a fault in reproduction or in my recording. That's a leaf on the edge of the picture, I sat the laptop in a plantpot to get a view of the deck with the webcam
I mean ramshackle in a positive way, but for all that, there's not much here really, to love or hate. I like it, but without passion. The record-buying subset of mine that this falls into is what I call "airy nothing-folk-records." To me it's all about the packaging (in this instance.) I listen to the record, but what lingers is the experience of taking the record from the box, unwrapping it and putting it on the deck, which is a pleasure I get to experience again, but in reverse, once it's finished.
Now, a quick break for credit, where credit's due. The label, The Great Pop Supplement spend their time putting out beautiful limited edition pieces, and this, at 300, is one of their larger editions. They're a tiny label run from somebody's back room and a good 90% of their releases are 7 inchers, each one handle and presented lovingly. Judging by how quickly their stuff goes, they must be doing something right, so hats off to them.
Maybe you could argue that this fetishisation of vinyl is a bad thing for music, like those people who will frame your record sleeves - the ownership of the physical artefact becomes the important thing, rather than the music itself. If that were the case, then yes it would be, but, in the words of The Long Blondes, you could have both.
I have a lot of singles. Some of them I really like, some of them I once really liked and some of them are and always were mistakes but I've never bought a record just to own it - everything gets played* There are numerous limited edition things for sale that I'm ignoring RIGHT NOW - this one, this one and this one for starters and that's jusrt from the labels that email me. (Although, actually I would like a couple of them...)
Thing is though, the aim is for a fantastic-sounding record presented in a beautiful package that can easily be fawned over. I have a few examples of that and they may well make appearances at some point before we reach 45 #45. This one's here though, in part to illustrate that sometimes the zenith I described is missed. I'm very much into this sort of thing though, and Whysp's myspace cites obscure late-60s folk band Forest as a big influence, which is a winner in my book - I had to take a punt at it.
This leads me on to my final point, something I've not touched upon - exclusivity. I had to have a punt on it right then and there because if I'd hung around it'd be gone. In this case, I'm lucky (in case it goes, there's one for sale here at £8 on Netsounds, 12/12/09) On one level, it's a marketing con/decision (delete as applicable) but on another level it makes sense - small labels don't have the space or the resources to make and stock thousands of the things, and I don't imagine that the market for them is that big. The secret I suppose is making your pressing number just a bit smaller than your market. I admit that I like numbered editions, they feel more personal somehow, unique (after all, I have the only number 194 of these in the world!) and indie. I feel I've rabbitted on rather overmuch though, so I'll leave that one hanging.



*well yes, the exception is my mispressed mono Revolver, but I was given that and I've got another copy of Revolver which I play, and that's 60s vintage, so nyerr

totally wired

I've got record #8 written up and ready to go, but it's taking an awfully long time to process the video of the single going round, it being too obscure for the youtubes. Hopefully it'll be finished tomorrow, but I'm off to bed the now.

Record #7 : "Young Adult Friction" by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

(editor's note: This one was done when I was quite poorly so may not be up to scratch but I didn't want to leave any longer between posts)

Ah, i do like a good library-based pun in a title. This is a bit of mid-1980s Scottish indie janglepop that seems mysteriously to have been recorded in New York in 2009.

Strangely and sadly it's become a journalist cliche to say that in every piece written about this band, so I'm getting it out of the way early. It's not without some merit of course, it does sound quite jangly and the cover art (also used on their album. And badges. And tote bag) does, it's been pointed out to me, resemble early Belle and Sebastien covers.
It's not like this has come completely out of nowhere though - Kevin Shields has recently scuttled back out from wherever he's been hiding and is as obsessed with waves of noise as ever, talking last year about hitting buildings' "resonance points" and thus making the masonry shake so that bits of dust fall on the crowds, or something, with his revitalised My Bloody Valentine and The Wedding Present (!) have been stotting around the country with TPOBPAH in tow. There are also bands like A Sunny Day in Glasgow who, with a name like that have obviously not been near Glasgow, let's be honest.
TPOBPAH (catchy, that) obviously have been though, because I saw them live a couple of nights ago. There were a lot of black polonecks in the room but it was enjoyable. I got a real sense that TPOBPAH's music should definitely be played at the sort of volume a venue's sound system can afford, blissful tuneful twee waves of sound with a melancholy edge and lyrics about being in love with Christ and heroin. The band opened their set by saying "Thanks for letting us play your songs" and were repeatedly effusive about Glasgow and its musical heritage - they know as well as I do where their sound comes from.
Musically this single, which preceded its parent album by a couple of months, is for my money, their best song. I'm not grumbling, but this sets out their stall well. I particularly like the double meaning of the "don't check me out!" coda, even though it's just pinched from "Take me Out" by Franz Ferdinand.
Derivative, then, is what seems to be coming across mainly and I suppose it is. No bad thing though.
In the picture above I've also put one of the badges that came with the album as an illustration of the, ahem, uniformity of sleeve design. (except that I forgot, didn't I? Anyway, no prises for guessing what it looks like. You'll just have to take it on trust that it exists. Come to think of it though, it looks very like the centre label of the record itself. Funny that.) While some uniformity can be good (I'm thinking Take Me Out-period Franz Ferdinand again, with their Russian Constructionist artwork, or Penguin or Persephone Books) or bad (Hard-Fi's lamentably weedy "No Cover Art" nonsense), they did tend to vary it a little bit, and in their defence I see that their newest ep (or, y'know, support your local record dealer) has new cover art in the same style, so maybe they're playing the long game. Problem is though, to my jaded, tired eyes it all looks a bit cool and trendy, and the problem with things that look cool and trendy is they look a bit naff and old very quickly. (I do know about this, incidentally. I own a Trimphone, after all) and I suspect it will be abandoned before it really begins to work as a brand. Still, it made it easy for me to spot it in the singles box here at Anticant Towers.

Normally, that would be my conclusion, but I don't really want to stop it there. I'm aware that I've not really sold this record to you, the reader, and I don't want to end on that sort of note. I really like it, despite its, shall we say, obvious heritage and limited aesthetic appeal. This is why I put a link to a video of the song itself at the top of the post, so's yous can hear it yourselves. I can write at length about any piece of music but it's no substitute for hearing it.

Record #6: "Heart Full of Soul" by The Yardbirds

This record is from 1965 and, unusually it would seem for this blog, was a proper hit, both here in Blighty and in America. The Yardbirds though are not really thought of as being a "hits" sort of band. They're remembered primarily as being the Ur-Led Zeppelin and secondarily as being the launchpad of the careers of Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. Like most things people are remembered for, these are partial truths.
Clapton was (and remains) a great guitarist but the popular perception of him is of a former innovator who now (1999 to time of writing, basically) has ossified into some kind of "Blues Purist." I think this idea is based upon his work with Cream but I genuinely don't get it - he's always been a blues purist. I've been incredibly fortunate with the youtube today and dug up this:



That's Clapton, aged about 19, on guitar on the left. Very different to the single I'm getting further away from by the minute, although there's only about a year separating them. The real star of that clip though is singer/harmonica blower Keith Relf, more on him later.
Anyway, Clapton was disheartened by the pop direction the band started to head in and left just in 1965 to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, where he met Jack Bruce with whom he formed Cream. stop tittering at the back there. It as in The Bluesbreakers that he really started his career in earnest and made the connections with other musicians that soon led to graffiti proclaiming his deistic nature. When he joined the Yardbirds he WAS a promising young blues guitarist, but there were plenty of them around. Hell, two of the others were in the group after him.
They became Led Zeppelin only in the sense that Jimmy Page needed a band to fulfil a tour after the band broke up. The ROCK guitar sound that characterised his work owed very little to The Yardbirds and in fact can be heard on "Je n'attends plus Personne" by Francoise Hardy for which Page, then a session musician, provided the growly fuzzy guitar. This was in 1964, before he joined the Yardbirds, when he must have been about six years old.
This leaves us with our 3rd guitarist and that's the one who actually plays on the single I'm supposed to be writing about - Jeff Beck. He also has been highly regarded throughout his long career but not quite to the extent of the other two. Given who the other two are, I think this is understandable and not something we should hold against him. This is a great little single and Beck's riff is quite savage and sharp. I picked it up for 70p at a market stall. Listening to it shorn of all the cultural baggage it still makes me want to dance. Mid-60s pop 45s seem pretty bomb-proof and cut and pressed to be loud and to be played on a crummy portable record player. Teenager-friendly, in other words. I'm going to go and play it again. Sometimes owning it as one single in a large box can make it easier to strip away the mythos surrounding a song and do a wee-bit dance.
To finish, I wrote near the start that I'd have a bit more to write about Keith Relf. He died in 1976 and the oft-repeated story is that he electrocuted himself playing electric guitar in the bath.
It's not true. Of course it's not true, I mean, that would be monumentally stupid. His electric guitar was badly wired and that electrocuted him while he was playing, nowhere near a bath, him being a professional and all.