Ghost Music

To mark the release of the new Ghostbusters movie I thought I'd compile a music video playlist of ghost songs. Now I am not one who believes in the paranormal or the supernatural, but funnily enough I do believe in the possible existence of what might be termed as ghosts; when a person dies in sudden, stressful circumstances, it is possible they leave a searing energy trace and that is what we pick up and regard as a ghostly presence. Having said that, I'm not that interested so as to go on a ghost hunt or anything like that. I'll just stick to my own ghost sonatas presented her. Enjoy!

1) "Ghost In My House" - R.Dean Taylor
I know nothing about R.Dean Taylor and only came to this song when the Fall covered it, but since I've got a Fall ghost song later I thought I'd check out the original. The ghost of a relationship, yeah that works for me.



2) "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" - Bruce Springsteen
Marc, I'm beginning to worry about you. All your life you've fulminated about Bruce Springsteen. Ever since you grew up in Wembley and came home past the stadium where Bruce was playing a week of concerts to 80,000 folk and you were appalled (and let's be honest sniggering too) at so many British souls wearing a 'Born in the USA' t-shirt. And yes you know Bruce meant the song ironically, not as a patriot rally call at all but a searing indictment of the American Dream, but still all those Brits in stars and stripes left a distaste that has stayed with you. But now Bruce makes his second appearance in one of these playlists. Are you mellowing with age? Has your music tastes changed. Has Britian formally become the 51st State of America (see Chilcot Report)...? No, I still hate him, but well, just, you know... Besides my kids did Steinbeck for their GCSE English Lit and I didn't object to that for being 'American'... Cognitive dissonance I guess.



3) Her Ghost In The Fog" - Cradle Of Filth
It also has to be said this is the first time Heavy Mentallists Cradle Of Filth have appeared in one of these playlists. This ghost theme seems to have got you spooked...



4) "The Ghost With A Hammer In His Hand" - Tools You Can Trust
Ah now that's better, one of my actual you know like favourites... 319 views, 2 comments, 1 of them mine, the other from the singer's son, what the hell is going on here? There is no justice.... Actually Tools You Can Trust were always an odd blend of industrial noise percussion and bass, with surf guitar as here. I liked them though. Sniff.



5) "Ghost On The Highway" - Gun Club
A lover is killed and the ghost wanders the highways and byways of the US. Great swamp rock blues from the Gun Club as is to be expected.



6) "Ghosts Of Ladbroke Grove" - Killing Joke
I have a soft spot for Ladbroke Grove having lived there for a few years and worked there for 15 years. The original Killing Joke song was nothing special, but this dub version is outstanding and has some of the heaviest dub bass you'll ever here. The sentiment is correct I think, in that the area was the run down part of the Royal Borough Of Kensington & Chelsea and lots of creative art and music emerged from it as it played host to a lot of squats which also doubled up for rehearsal and performance spaces as they were free. The Clash and Hawkwind both came from the area. Punk could legitimately be said to have been started there as punk and reggae influenced on another through being in close physical proximity. Dubstep, a uniquely London music genre also had a strong footing in this part of West London. But now the London property boom being what it is, there are no more squats and houses and flats probably go for a million pounds or so (forgive me I haven't checked the property papers, it's all too galling) and the area trades off its artistic past with very little new work being produced. Sad really.



7) "Ghost Town" - The Specials
Now this really does sound ethereal and ectoplasmic and yet it was absolutely rooted in the reality of 1980s post-riot Britain. Ghosts are about presence, something that just won't fade away and die but clings on for dear life, well death maybe. But a ghost town of course is the exact opposite of that, a total absence and this song captures the sensation so wonderfully.



8)  "Spectre Vs Rector" - The Fall
As unlistenable as presumably a full-blown exorcism might sound. Actually the Fall have a brilliant song about ghostly sensations in old buildings, but as it's called "City Hobgoblins" I didn't think I could include it in a playlist devoted to ghosts. I don't want the paranormal genre fiction police on my back for such a crime...



9) "Ghost Ride" - Suicide
In what has been a dreadful few months for rock and roll in terms of deaths (has the relatively recent art form suddenly reached an age where its key players are of such an age that they do all die off?), this weekend we learned of another fatality. Alan Vega rest in peace. A singer and his compadre at a keyboard, flying right in the teeth of punk and new wave, these guys were truly pioneers.



10) "Ghosts" - The Jam
Paul Weller's lyrical prowess to the fore here. Still backing singers and a horn section, we fans knew it was the beginning of the end for this particular power trio.



11) "The Ghost In You" - Psychedelic Furs
I was never a great fan of the Furs, though I did like "Pretty In Pink", but then that did have more of edge than this saccharine number.



12) "Ghost on The Dancefloor" - Blink 182
I never understood why people regard Blink 182 as punk. They are rockers no less than Bruce Springsteen or US. They probably do Pete Townsend arm revolutions but as I'm not a fan I haven't any video evidence to back that up.



13) "Cherché La Ghost" - Ghostface Killah
When you're a rap singer and your name is Ghostface Killah, chances are at some point you'll be doing a song tooting your own horn and name-checking yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you-



14) "Ghost of A Chance" - Rush
I used to quite like a couple of Rush's early albums, but then I discovered they were heavily influenced by the writings of Ayn Rand (there's even a track called "Anthem"). Then I didn't like them any more. Still don't. But I see from videos like this that they certainly didn't get any better musically or lyrically even when they abandoned their Rand fixation.



15) "Little Ghost" - "White Stripes / "Casper The Friendly Ghost" - Daniel Johnston
Prefer Daniel Johnston's for twee mania music but there you go. Daniel Johnston however isn't playing at it

Rock Against Racism - A Music Video Playlist

Punk rock had very close ties with reggae. Groups like the Clash had grown up in multi-racial communities and been heavily influenced by reggae music and culture. Reggae DJs played the music before the live bands in punk clubs. Both were music of protest and in the late 1970s there was plenty in Britain to protest about. Another protest group were the far-right political party (and in true Nazi tradition street fighting thugs) The National Front. With the state of the UK economy they were beginning to make some political headway with the usual dreary simplistic argument of immigrants taking British jobs. Music turned its force on them partly due to a spark from their own industry. Eric Clapton, who seemingly was oblivious of the Afro-American blues roots of his own music, made some inflammatory anti-immigrant and racist statements from the stage during one of his gigs. David Bowie's iconography of the character of the Thin White Duke was also unfortunately timed, as he rode around in a limousine like a 1930s Fascist dictator from Mitteleuropa.

There's a very good retrospective here containing some wonderful photos, so I'm just going to present videos of some of the bands who were involved, many like Ruts and Misty in Roots who went up and down the country touring with Rock Against Racism. It's impossible to measure what effect the campaign had, but it was most definitely a battle for the hearts and minds of British youth, to stop them being won over to the National Front's cause. When the whole country swung to the right with Mrs Thatcher, the National front beset by splits and personality clashes faded away. But they were replaced by other fascist and far-right groups and of course the anti-immigrant argument is being loudly trumpeted today by mainstream politicians. Time for another Rock Against Racism? I can't quite see any of the Simon Cowell created bands carrying it off.

How many of the below bands do I possess albums of? All of them excepting Sham 69...


1) The Clash - "White Man In Hammersmith Palais"
Of all punk bands, the Clash were most heavily influenced by reggae, producing their own reggae originals and covering reggae classics. Their song "White Riot" was influenced by the 1977 Notting Hill riots when the Caribbean carnival erupted in violence at police treatment of the community.




2) Misty In Roots - "How Long Jah"
It's ironic but Misty in Roots played more RAR gigs than anybody else, yet initially they were never part of the main stage, but a sort of side act on a flat bed truck at the head of the anti-racist marches preceding the gigs. Seems just a little bit like segregation to me. But they more than most had direct experience of racial violence when their manager was beaten into a coma by the police at an anti-racist march in their home town of Southall, West London.




3) The Ruts - "Staring At The Rude Boys"
The Ruts came from Southall as well and were close band mates with Misty. Their sound was heavily influenced by reggae and like Misty they were solid supporters of the RAR campaign playing up and down the country.



4) Steel Pulse - " Handsworth Revolution"
This song preceded the Handsworth (Birmingham) riot of 1985. People could see what was happening and tried to alert us to the situation, but seems no one in authority was listening. With songs like "Klu Klux Klan" and "Drug Squad" they painted the experience of the Afro-Caribbean community in the late 1970s better than anybody.



5) Tom Robinson Band - "Winter of '79"
Tom Robinson Band were perhaps the most overtly political band that emerged from 1970s punk, fronted by a gay guitarist-singer, they sung songs for all oppressed and minority groups.



6) Sham 69 - "If The Kids Are United"
Sham 69 were a working class band who sung about beer and fighting and attracted a far-right skinhead following. It took a lot of too-ing and fro-ing to get lead singer Jimmy Pursey to agree to play a RAR gig, as he himself had received death threats. It was crucial when the band did eventually play, as it forced their fans to confront the message of the concerts and see the multi-cultural nature of the bands.



7) Aswad - "Drum And Bass Line"
Aswad were from West London and when they weren't away touring they would go to the local playing fields and play football every Sunday, the same pitches my team played at & occasionally we saw them down there.



8) Stiff Little Fingers - "Doesn't Make It All Right"
Hailing from sectarian Ulster, SLF lived in the middle of another low rent form of apartheid that separated two communities there. This is a cover of a Specials' song, one of the best anti-racist songs ever written. Check out the original version if you get the chance.



9) Elvis Costello & The Attraction - "Two Little Hitlers"
Yep Elvis played an early RAR gig, before jetting off to the US and making strange Country & Western hybrid music.



10) Au Pairs - "Steppin Out Of Line"
Another new wave band that fused rock with reggae and dub. Singer Lesley Woods gave up the music business to become a lawyer. oh well.



11) Specials - "Racist Friend"
The Specials were a living, breathing embodiment of anti-racism. A multi-ethnic band playing Caribbean influenced Ska but with lyrics pertinent to the situation out on the streets of the UK. They became best known for their excoriating comment on post 80's riot-torn Britain "Ghost Town" and "Free Nelson Mandela"

Cover Versions

I've never seen the point of cover versions that just replicate the original. Then there are those cover versions that simply murder the original, check out Grace Jones and Swans' cover versions of Joy Division songs "She's Lost Control" and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" respectively.  Both make me want to rip my own ears off.

But occasionally the cover version is neither homage nor pastiche, but actually manages to improve on the original. Maybe it just has better quality of the recording. But more likely it's either more deliciously taut than the original, or perhaps more camp and reveals what was present in the original composition all along but had just got hidden.

So here's 15 of my favourite cover versions. Enjoy.


1) The Specials - Message to Rudy
The Specials did several cover versions of Ska songs, launching off with a cover of "Gangsters". But this just throbs with emotion that lifts it from the original by Dandy Livingstone whose vocals are a bit tentative.



2) The Stranglers - Walk On By
While Dionne Warwick's original is pretty damn fine, the sheer dirtiness of the bass sound and Hugh Cornwall's guttural vocals just make this a totally different song. Someone should do a mash up of the two it would be ace.



3) Flying Lizards - Money
Deborah Evans does her best Nico impression and this knocks the Beatles' original into a cocked hat. It's so basic, so stripped down, it's almost perfect pop, or anti-pop.



4) Devo - Can't Get No Satisfaction
Robot-aping geeks pleasingly lance the self-contentment of Jagger's priapic original.



5) Saint Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Yes they were Camden Town music hipsters playing fast and loose with musical post-modern irony, but since I've always found Neil Young's voice a bit reedy, having a deliciously fragile female vocalist sing it made much more sense. Know it all pop that turns out to be just perfect pop in its own right.



6) The Klaxons - The Bouncer
Another of those rarities where I like both versions equally, but the tribal nature of the two clans, the old school dance mob who love the original versus the Nu-Rave devotees of this version go at it hammer and tong in the comments section.



7) Gun Club - My Man's Gone Now
This is the inverse of the Warwick/Stranglers scenario. For here is Nina Simone's full-bloodied original dripping with regret, hurt and a touch of bile, turned into a camp late night whisky bar song (and sung off key to boot) by one of the hardest living & rocking bands in the world. I can't get enough of it.



8) Butthole Surfers - Hurdy Gurdy Man
And then there are some that are just weird and wonderful. Donovan's original was a bit odd in its own distortion pedalled right and the Buttholes just turned that up to eleven in their hilarious version.



10) Soft Cell - Tainted Love
Marc Almond takes Gloria Jones' Motowny feel and manages to make it both seedy and full of pathos at the same time. One of the songs that perhaps shows the biggest differential between the two versions.



11) Minutemen - Have You Ever Seen The Rain
Another example of a beefier modern sound improving a slightly hollow 60's version as Creedance Clearwater Revival's genius is suggested by having so many modern bands pay tribute to them with cover versions.



12) The Clash - Armagideon Time
Even live the quality and musical noodles going on here put Willie Williams' version into the shade I'm afraid. And this was only ever a Clash B-Side!



13) Rachid Taha - Rock el Casbah
Boot on the other foot now and The Clash have one of their songs claimed in another style. This sounds somewhat more authentic somehow.



14) Tricky - Black Steel
Tricky takes a plodding Public Enemy standard and turns it into an genuinely unnerving version.



15) World Domination Enterprises - Funkytown
I can think of few songs that have so utterly had the band's stamp smeared and coated all over it like this. West London blight stamped all over a disco number by Lipps Inc. that was more likely to have been played in the clubs of the West End.



Bonus Track:
William Shatner - Mr Tambourine Man
I say bonus track.... There is always the spectre of non-singing celebs doing terrible cover versions, like Paul Gascgoine singing Fog On The Tyne. Shatner here does to pop music what he did to method acting.

Songs For The Days Of The Week

Many of us work 5 days a week, have fun over the weekend. And yet Sunday offers less opportunity for going full throttle because you have to be fresh for work Monday. Mondays are always tougher to stomach than other weekdays because of the changeover from your leisure time to work time. Fridays are full of expectancy for the weekend ahead. Wednesdays are blurgh nothingy days in the middle of the week.... So since many people's weeks are so rhythmic, I thought I'd look at the music associated with them.

I've already done 7 songs for Monday and the return to work feeling here. (It's proved to be my most popular musical blog post yet, other than my scorecard for Joy Division cover versions post) So below are 2 songs a day for each of the other 6 days of the week.

SUNDAY:
Velvet Underground - "Sunday Morning"
New York, Andy Warhol, Avant Garde, Cale's viola, Tucker's drumming, Nico's inhuman, sexless delivery, 'the most influential record of the late 20th Century' etc etc. And while the Velvet's self-title debut is a truly great record, this track sees Lou Reed in wistful mode as with the later "Perfect Day", rather than the deeply unsettling "Venus In Furs" or "All Tomorrow's Parties".



U2 - "Sunday Bloody Sunday
U2 getting all political? Were they calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into events in Derry in 1972 Don't worry, carry on drinking your mango and peach smoothie and rest easy. Bono's wooly, vague lyrics call for nothing more than all coming together and joining hands to seal the victory claimed by Jesus. You can almost here the sound of his hackles rising here as his back raises up against the wall...



TUESDAY:
Cowboy Junkies - "Sun Comes Up It's Tuesday Morning"
Cowboy Junkies offered the chance for Country Music to become more palatable to a rock audience, with their Canadian sensibilities and a beautiful voice in the form of Margo Timmins. Even I liked them. But the meme didn't quite stick and we ended up with Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus instead.



Rolling Stones - "Ruby Tuesday"
Either you respect their Bloated Satanic Majesties as they pound on into their 50th year, or you yearn for their Blues tinged early days from which this song emerged. This version makes htem sound like Flowered Up!



WEDNESDAY:
The Undertones - "Wednesday Week"
This is more like it, love marked out by the number of days without the phone call being returned. (Of course long since disappeared now with instant texting and the like). The true rhythms marked out by tiny signs and tokens, received or missed. Whole days at work lost to mooning over some object of improbable desire. Or phoning your mate to forensically dissect the previous evening's eye signals in the pub... This si what Pop Music was invented for!



Simon And Garfunkel - "Wednesday Morning 3 AM"
The sound of their voices is so tentative that it really does sound like 3am and not wanting to wake the face on the pillow next to you, even as you go through the mill wondering just what the hell it is you've done rolling over a liquor store to get money. Cops will be there with their battering ram in a couple of hours...



THURSDAY:
David Bowie - "Thiursday's Child"
I've said it before, for all his longevity, you can count the number of decent tunes Bowie's produced on the fingers of one finger, sorry hand. This isn 't one of them, but Thursday turned out to be the hardest day of the week to find tunes for.



Rollins Band - "Thursday Afternnon"
Our 'enry does even less singing on this track than on most. But he's not shouting either, so this must be one of his more mellow ditties. A peaen to love or something? Search me... Love the cocktail bar chitter-chatter in the mix! You just know two seconds after the tape cuts out, Henry is berating them for not keeping the noise down!



FRIDAY:
Nancy Sinatra - Friday's Child
You gotta love Nancy. The scion of the King of Crooners himself, it was always going to be hard to forge her own path through the 'Middle of the Road' music world, but by taking a slightly sinister and off-kilter slant she managed it alright. This is a perfect example of it I feel.



The Cure - "Friday I'm In Love"
Robert Smith, the boy who never grew up. In fact he actually regressed, from the student who wrote a song based on the novel he studied for French O-Level, to someone who seemed to want to exist in the world of Charlotte Sometimes. Is that a long-sleeved shirt or a straitjacket?



SATURDAY:
The Jam - "Saturday's Kids"
Ah the weekend, freedom, time away from the weekly grind right? Not with these two songs about desultory Saturday youth. The V-Neck shirts and baggy trousers might have changed, but not the sentiment.



The Specials - Friday Night, Saturday Morning
The B-Side to the epoch defining "Ghost Town", Terry Hall's vocal sounds even more desolate than on the flipside track. Brilliant. Wonderful Jerry Dammers keyboard solo in the middle too!

'B' Is For Better - Some top B-sides

Remember vinyl records? Remember 7 inch singles? The ones you could put into a jukebox. Usually with an A-side backed with (B/W) a B-side. Or as the Americans referred to it, a flipside. In the days before EPs, 12" singles, CD Singles with limited editions, remixes and everything that undermined the art of a B-side.

Well sometimes, just sometimes, the B-side was actually far superior to the A-Side. Here's a list of 10. I've inverted with B/W with a F/B for fronted by.

Enjoy.

1) New Order "In A Lonely Place" F/B "Ceremony"

There was huge anticipation for the first post-Joy Division release and while Ceremony is good, "In A Lonely Place" is mean, moody and magnificent (helped in this video by Bernard's irritation with Steve Morris' slow tempo). But turns out both songs were actually penned by Joy Division after all, before Ian Curtis' death, since this one appears on some of their live bootlegs. Still great though.

2) The Jam "Butterfly Collector" F/B "Strange Town"

When they weren't rehashing old Motown numbers as B-sides, The Jam actually put out some great value singles because both sides were of high standard. Weller's ropey hitting of the falsetto in "Strange Town" put me off that track, but the B-Side is creepy, unsettling and lyrically quite brilliant.

3) The Birthday Party "Kathy's Kisses" F/B "Nick The Stripper"

"Nick The Stripper" is fairly routine BP sleaze fare, but when you scroll past the bog standard "Blundertown" which opens the flipside, you are caught completely off guard by the jazzy scuzz of "Kathy's Kisses" which hints at Cave's future solo direction. This track shows Cave has a fine sense of humour which BP die hards would not have permitted at the time, demanding music to shoot up in venue toilets by. I know, I saw them... I was at a joint headline gig of The Fall & BP. Half the audience were Nick Cave homaging in their look, the others all had Mark E Smith wonky bowl cuts. The Cave fans were complaining about the Fall fans slavishly resembling their hero; the Fall fans were moaning about the Cave clones. I kid you not...Me I liked both bands

4) The Cramps "You Got Good Taste" F/B "Faster Pussycat"

I love this track for the tease that permeates it top to bottom, in the music, in the lyric and in the delivery. Wonderful and burlesque.

5) The Ruts "Love In Vain" F/B "Staring At The Rude Boys"

If Staring was all Chart acsending tribal bop, Vain displayed The Ruts' other string to their guitar, of really rather noble white reggae. Added to that this is the song of singer Malcolm Owen's confession to his ultimately fatal battle with heroin and it's a criminally hidden masterpiece that always brings a tear to my eye.

6) Spizz Energi "Virginia Plane" F/B "Soldier Soldier"

Everything Spizz did was a bit throw-away, a bit jokey. But this is a wonderfully tongue-in- cheeky punk tribute to he who is the most far removed from punk, and Spizz does a fair Brian Ferry impression. Way better than the A-side.

7) The Clash "Armagideon Time" F/B "London Calling"

I like London Calling, but it's not as great as it's B-Side, even though it's a cover version of a Willie Williams song. The theme and sound of paranoia is common to both, but is so much more held under in Armagideon, that it is a far richer and denser song.

8) The Specials "Friday Night Saturday Morning" F/B "Ghost Town"

Ghost Town was obviously a seminal track for the Thatcher riot-blighted Britain of the 1980s, but The Specials never did a bad song and Hall's wistful delivery counterpoints the 'there must be more to life than this' tone of the lyrics here. This really is a hangover comedown song, but with such aplomb you know you'll go out and do it all again the following evening.

9) The Fall "Fantastic Life" F/B "Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul"

The Fall did honour the 7" format with many fine B-Sides, so it was quite tough to pick one, but I think the jaunty, sweep-along organ of this just clinches it for me. "People tend to let you down/ It's a swine". Quite.

10) Monochrome Set "Alphaville" F/B "He's Frank"

From disorder comes a really tight lead guitar riff and rhythm section. The vocal is pleasingly plaintive as well. Knocks the socks off the A-Side.