My Magpie Eyes

The Queen Is Dead is twenty five years old this week, which makes this piece of UK indie twenty six years old. The Loft were signed to Creation in the days when Creation was all about shambolic guitar bands. Up The Hill And Down The Slope rattles along, chasing it's own tail for most of it's four minutes, while singer Pete Astor declares his ambitions ('My magpie eyes are hungry for the prize') and asks to be given a shot at the world ('please don't say no, once around the fair, so I know'). The Loft would implode in 1985, splitting up onstage, which seems like a pretty spectacular way to go out. Pete Astor would go on to form The Weather Prophets (also on Creation), and write several minor classics, Almost Prayed for one. Neither Up The Hill And Down The Slope nor Almost Prayed of these will be remembered like The Queen Is Dead but that doesn't mean they ain't no good.

Up The Hill And Down The Slope

I'm On The Centreline, Right Between Two States Of Mind

The other half of Husker Du's songwriters was Bob Mould, who had the more successful solo career. Sugar hit the big time with Copper Blue (on Creation in the early 90s), Workbook and a string of solo abums sold well and were highly rated, he took time out to write WWF scripts for TV (wrestling not wildife), and he did some housey electronic stuff (which bamboozled some of his fans). Recent interviews suggest he's mellowed a bit from the slightly dour figure he was. I like Bob Mould even if some of his solo albums can be hard work.

This is Hoover Dam, from Copper Blue- full of crunching guitar, melodrama and some strangely cheesy 80s keyboards. Turn it up.

Hoover Dam

Screamadelica Live Tonight

I'm off to the Apollo tonight to see Primal Scream run through Screamadelica. For someone sometimes described as 'miserable' and 'cynical' I'm pretty excited about this, especially seeing as the reviews have been good, the Apollo's a great venue, I've seen them several times before and they've always been a good night out, and I enjoyed watching the documentary from the boxset online the other night (despite it being a tad shoddy). Just a shame it's Sunday night. Ah well. This is I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have, the ballad that became the starting point for Screamadelica, twenty one years ago.

Looking at the picture, you can see why Bobby Gillespie doesn't smile in pictures too often.

05 I\'m Losing More Than I\'ll Ever Have.wma

Hypnotise Us

I posted a different mix of Hypnotone's Dream Beam ages ago, the Ben Chapman version with it's huge bleepy intro. This version was by remixed Danny Rampling and on the Creation does dance Keeping The Faith compilation. Rampling keeps the big vocal, gives us synth stabs rather than pianos and a well Balaeric rhythm to hypnotise us, as the vocal sample says several times. A friend of Bagging Area reckons the over-riding thing about records like this one was the sense of possibility in them. He's not wrong. I saw Hypnotone play Dream Beam at the Sefton Park festival in Liverpool in summer 1990, sitting by the pond in almost complete darkness. It's stayed with me ever since. Tune, as people used to say.

Dream Beam(Danny Rampling mix).mp3

Version Francoise

Ed Ball co-formed Television Personalities with Dan Treacy during the punk period, set about Bill Grundy, Part Time Punks, Syd Barratt amongst others and set up their own record label. Ball also formed The Times who released records regularly between 1980 and 1999. While finding a home at Creation in the 80s and 90s Ball found the time to record various (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) celebrations of acid house, drug culture and Manchester/London at the time. This is Lundi Bleu, his version of New Order's Blue Monday with Bernard Sumner's lyrics translated into French. It's a post-acid house, 8 minute monster which finds time to turn into Neil Young's After The Goldrush at the end. Very lovely and very of it's time. Art Dept IAMT, currently in Nuremburg, this one's for you.

The Times - Lundi Bleu (Man New Age Mod Mix).mp3

You Better Run, Run, Run

A Primal Scream song for Monday from their sonic terrorist, war against vowels phase. When The Kingdom Comes was the second B-side on the 12" of the Accelerator single, the last record Creation released. It features Paul Weller on 'auto-destructive 12 string Rickenbacker' and Kevin Shields 'sonically speaking' (both quotes from the back of the sleeve). You can probably guess who was responsible for which bits when you listen to it. The song sounds a bit like they made it up on the spot at the end of the night when they'd dragged Weller out of the pub and into the studio, Bobby Gillespie's lyrics probably took longer to sing than they did to write, and it's a fairly derivitive piece of pop-art, rock 'n' roll- despite all of this, I like it.

When_The_Kingdom_Comes.mp3

Glossop Rock

The Bodines came from Glossop, a small town nestling in the Pennines to the east of Manchester. This single, Therese, was on the legendary c86 tape (given away free with the NME), an indie disco regular, compilation tape staple and the only thing they're really known for at all. And very good it is too in that 1986-7, Smiths-influenced, pre-Roses way. They screwed it all up/got screwed up (delete as appropriate) like so many of these bands did by signing to a major label who dropped them as soon as their album didn't shift millions. Or even thousands. Or hundreds maybe. They re-recorded Therese for the album, Played, although the original Therese single came out on Creation. I've got the major label subsidiary (Magnet Records anyone? Me either)album Played on vinyl and looking at the sleeve I honestly couldn't tell you how any of the songs go, apart from Therese and a vague recollection of Slip Slide which I think a friend put on a compilation tape for me around that time.

Therese.mp3

Your Face Is A Hammer In My Head

Whatever that means.

The House Of Love were the new Weather Prophets. In Dave Cavanagh's biography of Creation Records he describes The Weather Prophets slagging off Guy Chadwick's band as 'too psychedelic'. The House of Love's first album The House Of Love was 1988's indie heavyweight, chock full of great songs and two blistering singles- Christine and Destroy The Heart, all guitar effects and mystery. They signed to Fontana and came back with Never, which the press didn't like, and then this I Don't Know Why I Love You. Recorded with guitarist Terry Bickers but released after he'd been dumped at a motorway service station for unreasonable behaviour- drugs, ego, burning a tenner in the van, punched by the drummer etc etc. This is a great song, played to death on my stereo when it came out. Yes, it has iffy lyrics and lacks some of the 'ethereal' nature of the first album's songs but it's got a great drilling riff. After this it was all downhill, then scuppered by Madchester but briefly they were very good.

10 I Don't Know Why I Love You.wma

I Struck A Match

The Weather Prophets 1986 debut single Almost Prayed is a gem of mid 80's indie- great guitar playing, lovely chiming riff, softly sung- it's close to indie perfection and a real Bagging Area favourite. There are two versions, one two and half minutes and one three and a half. I can't remember why there are two. I imagine it was re-recorded for the album or something. This is the longer one, for extra jangle.

Almost Prayed.mp3

Please Stop Crying

While things are all Screamadelic in various pockets of internetland I thought I'd post this- the Terry Farley mix of Loaded, which appeared on the Creation dance compilation Keeping The Faith (various Keeping The Faith tracks have been posted here at Bagging Area during the year). In this reworking of Weatherall's Loaded Terry Farley pretty much keeps Loaded as it was and puts Bobby's vocal from source track I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have back over the top. When I previously posted a Terry Farley remix a regular reader left the comment 'I'll remain anonymous for this one- great track but Terry Farley is an elitist knob'. Bagging Area cannot comment on this claim. Mr Farley remains unavailable for comment.

09 - Primal Scream - Loaded (Terry Farley Mix).mp3#1#1

Protect And Survive

We had a family day out yesterday to Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker, near Nantwich in Cheshire. Let no-one say we don't show our kids a good time. The bunker is not so secret any more, there are signs for miles around, but this lump of concrete and underground passageways and rooms would've been where parts of north-west England were run in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. It's all quite spooky- press offices and a radio room for broadcasts, early warning systems, horribly dated computers and phones, desks for top ranking civil servants and ministry officials, decontamination suits and areas, geiger counters, a dormitory with bunk beds. Chilling posters, wall charts and documents about casualties, food dumps, walking wounded, death rates. That Protect And Survive film playing. Gives you a shiver. In the shop you can buy Cold War relics and artefacts, Hack Green pencils, the Protect And Survive leaflet from 1980, and Hack Green snowdomes with the snow replaced by fallout. Yep, we bought one. The place was deemed redundant in 1993, sold off, and has become a macabre tourist attraction. Recommended if you're in the area.

One of the displays was the exact piece of equipment that Thatcher used to order the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War. The Belgrano was sailing away from the Falklands exclusion zone but was sunk regardless. I remember this clearly at the time as an eleven year old, knowing at some level this was wrong, one of the first events that began to politicise me (followed fairly quickly by the miners' strike a year or two later).

It all made me think of this track, by an obscure Creation act- Jetstream by Pacific. It was on the cut-price Creation sampler Doing For The Kids from 1988, which I've bought on cassette and vinyl (twice). This song has some sweet acoustic guitars, some polite electronics, boy-girl vocals and samples from parliament about the sinking of the Argentine ship. I know little about them, and the net doesn't turn up much. I think at some point a friend taped their album for me, but it's long gone, leaving us with this indie anomoly- one part of the 80s which hasn't been revived recently.

11 - Pacific - Jetstream.mp3#2#2

The Creation 'How Does It Feel To Feel?'

The Creation famously described their music as 'red- with purple flashes'. Like a lot of the mod-psyche groups from the mid-to-late 60s they have a few belters, a pile of covers and some duff moments too. How Does It Feel To Feel? is one of the belters, and they obviously had an influence on Alan McGee who named his record label (Creation) and first band after them (Biff! Bang! Pow!). Think Ride may have either covered this song or nicked the title as well. The Creation pioneered using the violin bow on the guitar, did some souped up r'n'b/garage stuff, and as you can see from the photo were sharply dressed men with good haircuts.

How Does It Feel To Feel.mp3