i love this song.

Hay algunas voces que nunca me cansaré de escuchar, que te toman de la mano despacito para llevarte a un viaje sublime, de ensueño y no querer despertar nunca jamás.  Así, refinado y sobrecogedor es el canto de Tracey Thorn, vocalista principal del dúo Inglés Everything but the Girl . Los habíamos escuchado hasta el cansancio a mediados de los 90s con su desconsolado “Missing” del album Amplified Heart, un disco eminentemente acústico, que sirvió de plataforma para mostrarnos con este útimo tema lo que traerían sus futuros trabajos entre los sintetizadores. Yo por mi parte los prefiero alejados de ellos.

La música de ETBTG resulta tan fácil de escuchar que bien podría deleitar una velada entre amigos o hacer de background mientras leemos algún libro o trabajamos en casa o, como en mi caso, ser el playlist ideal para un late night listening  de fin de semana.

Los dejo con mis 5 temas favoritos y un plus.

1. Disenchanted (Amplified Heart, 1994)

The Magnetic Fields. Jens Lekman. Tracey Thorn. I en och samma låt. Min entusiasm var ögonblickligen och ohejdat ohämmad när jag fick reda på det. A marriage made in heaven! Treenigheten på ett musikaliskt schackbräde med min karta och kompass.

Häromåret 2008 såg jag The Magnetic Fields i Köpenhamn. Mina förväntningar infriades direkt när Stephin Merritt dök upp med sin buttra och yrvakna uppsyn. Plågad av turnéleda och tinnitus som gjorde att han fick hålla för öronen varje gång publiken klappade efter en låt. I ett mellansnack yttrade en bandmedlem att publiken inte kunde se honom där han satt gömd bakom instrumenten.

- Well, maybe I don’t want to see them.

Klockrent. Sug på den repliken. Det går bara att älska honom.

Nu kommer vi till “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!” som Jens och Tracey har gjort en cover av. Den var den låten som drog ner mest applåder och skratt under konserten. I deras tolkning har någonting hänt. Lyriken är densamma. Musiken skiljer sig inte nämnvärt. Uttrycket däremot är annorlunda.

I originalet berättas en historia om ett par, som sjungs av Claudia Gonson och Stephin Merritt, som går mot sin undergång. Kort sagt handlar den om en ond gold digger som dödar sin stenrika fru och behåller pengarna. Gonson sång badas i ekon och saknar definition, så trots att hennes lyriska innehåll är större, är hon klart den sekundära spelaren. Hennes del är mindre dynamisk och mer monoton än mannens. Samtidigt gör Merritt den hånfulla rollen, med sina “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!” och retfulla sarkasmer.

I covern har dynamiken försvunnit. Thorns roll är mer framträdande och dominant medan Lekmans är mer slö och livlös än elak. Det största problemet är att jag inte tror på deras förhållande. Det känns inte speciellt trovärdigt. Jag drar inte på smilbanden. Tyvärr kan det gå med covers såväl som äktenskap: bra i teorin – dåligt i praktiken.

Tracey, som verkar ha blivit förälskad i Merritts låtskrivarkonst, har gjort två covers till med bättre resultat (se spellistan nedan). Fast jag undrar om inte den bästa MF-covern är Gameboy 8-bits versionen av “All my little words”.

Nu när vi är inne på temat passar Tindersticks – A Marriage Made in Heaven ft. Isabella Rossellini utmärkt för den bjuder på en likadan sarkastisk parduell som i “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!”.

When he fell in love, I was acting
I sent her flowers, asked her to marry me
But all I heard was their clapping
Now she cries with a cigarette at the window

Nu kan man få för sig att jag har en krass syn på äktenskapet. Det är inte sant. Jag är lyckligt gift. Det jag inte tror på är perfektionen utan att det måste finnas en gnutta friktion för att det ska fungera. Faktum är att Lekman och Merritt spelade på mitt eget bröllop. Inte tillsammans eller på plats (Jens hälsade från bergen i Uzbekistan) men det blev väldigt mäktigt ändå. På bröllopet hade vi förutom kyrkomusik, däribland Händel, följande setlist:

Inmarsch. Pampigt, kraftfullt och euforiskt.

If rain won’t change your mind, let it fall.
The rain won’t change my heart at all.

Det vackraste stycket om livslång kärlek jag känner till.

Spotify-playlist med alla ovanstående artister. Kärlek, längtan, bitterhet och sarkasmer i en skön förgrening.

In my Brideshead-saturated state I found myself trying to remember some lyrics by this short-lived early 80s band. We sat on our beach longers watching Germans play volleyball until, finally, I did remember them: Don’t come here try talking to me /why don’t you hang yourself from the nearest tree/I don’t hear, hear what you have to say/here’s your coat and the door is that way…

The Marine Girls produced just two albums (1982’s Beach Party and 1983’s Lazy Ways) each of which specialised in the bittersweet kiss-off song, sung and delivered off-key and flat. Of course, the quality of homemade amateurishness was part of the point. The lyrics above are not from the song on the video below, though the sound quality is so bad it would be hard to tell anyway. I’ve linked it because the promotional film is rather lovely. In those days these were exactly the sort of unobtainable sirens that used to obsess my passions. The boy in the film may be Ben Watt, who, together with Tracey Thorn, cast the other two MG’s – Gina and Jane – adrift to become Everything But the Girl. On the other hand he could be one Timothy Charles Hall who was credited with ’saxophone’ on the sleeve notes.

Tracey Thorn – Plain Sailing 7″.  Cherry Red (Cherry 53).  1982.

1. Plain Sailing
2. Goodbye Joe

Sabe quando você aquela música que te deixa bolado de cara, e na sua obsessão você ouve a dita cuja 10 vezes seguidas? Então, fiquei assim com um single da banda The xx (assim mesmo, caixa baixa).

“Basic Space” é perfeita. De uma elegância e uma qualidade pop que te faz dizer “Obrigado, Senhor!”.

The xx é a everyone’s favorite band da vez. Lá fora tá um zunzunzum só. E se você viu o clipe já entendeu por quê.

Eles são um quarteto com guitarra, baixo e  alguma programação de bases numa bateria eletrônica. Um casal de voz suave se divide no vocal – ele canta uns trechos e ela, outros.

O som é delicado, elegante, pop e cantarolável. Todos os instrumentos são econômicos ao máximo, numa levada quase minimalista (guitarra principalmente).

A vocalista tem a língua presa igual ao Romário e é tão baranga quanto a Tracey Thorn, do Everyhing But The Girl (se parecem bastante, aliás). Corre e baixa o disco num torrent perto de você.

Favourite Shirts (21 pop songs 1981-86).  Home made compilation CD.

1. The Pale Fountains – Palm Of My Hand
2. The Bluebells – Cath
3. Aztec Camera – Pillar To Post
4. The Farmer’s Boys – More Than A Dream
5. James – Hymn From A Village
6. Orange Juice – Intuition Told Me (Part 2)
7. The Smiths – Jeane
8. Everything But The Girl – Native Land
9. Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – You Will Never Be Bo Good
10. Prefab Sprout – Walk On
11. The Go-Betweens – Part Company
12. Martin Stephenson & The Daintees – Crocodile Cryer
13. Tracey Thorn – Goodbye Joe
14. Care – My Boyish Days
15. The Swinging Laurels – Rodeo
16. The Maisonettes – Heartache Avenue
17. The Style Council – Speak Like A Child
18. Tracie – The House That Jack Built
19. The Friday Club – Window Shopping
20. The Apollinaires – The Feeling’s Gone
21. Haircut 100 – Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)

Não me lembro do nome do som mas vejam o video que é bueda curtido.

I say tomorrow I’ll forget you,That I won’t always be this blue,I’ll soon forget I ever met you,I tried to hate you even run you down,I guess I told a million lies on you,I even said I’m glad your not around,But I always keep on loving you….

1.-San Soda – Doorsnee
2.-Christian Loffler – Heights
3.-Mikkel Metal – Kenton
4.-Nicolas Stefan – Time Is Over
5.-Holger Zilske – Have A Cup Of This
6.-Chopstick & Till Von Sein – Come On (Hey Girl)
7.-Click Box – Lost Road
8.-Cascandy – Two (Flip)
9.-Floating Points – Love Me Like This (Nonsense Dub)

BONUS TRACKS(LOVE IT):
*Rufus Wainwright – Tiergarten (Supermayer Remix)
*Tracey Thorn – Grand Canyon (Ada Vocal)
*Ada – Maps (Tobias Thomas and Michael Mayer Mix)

Heads bowed into winter rain,
we tramped across the Village
to a Korean bodega for chiles
and tortillas, tequila and limes.
Arm in arm we splashed
through the neighborhood,
my Loisaida girl and I.

It was our season of bilingual
wordplays, when you teased Poggi
at the hotel revolving door
by calling him oggi, Italian for
today, the only day that counted
for two lovers spinning ‘round
the axis of right now

in a wedge of whooshing kismet.
Fifth floor walk-up packed
with friends – I’m chopping salsa
while you pour frothy margaritas.
Was that the night Mark
did his funny mouth thing
in the gay bar by the little park?

Following you up the ladder
by the fridge to the sleeping loft,
oh long-legged temptress, your freckles
the stars by which I navigate
this uncharted territory, your easy
mocking laughter my siren song
above the lulling waves of Tracy Thorn

on a distant shore, head in her hands,
singing so keep your love and
I’ll keep mine.  Morning, bright sunshine,
walking south into the new day,
to Canal Street to buy acrylics
at Pearl Paints. I will paint you
the Renoir of the beautiful woman

in the blue dress and crimson hat
and the girl with the chapeau fleuri,
and I will remember forever 
your face, your auburn hair
damp and tousled, your cheeks
flushed pink, the very last time
we made love.

Thought I’d shove this up, to celebrate Marine Girls’ addition to this blog. This is reprinted from the second issue of Plan B (#0.5), which came out – when? – around the end of 2003.

“20,000 leagues under the sea/That’s where my baby said he’d meet me” – ‘20,000 Leagues’

Remember when you used to write your name over everything, in case your friends or relations half-inched it? I still have my copy of Beach Party; with ‘Property of Alan McGee’ scrawled across the label. Alan had just gotten a copy from Cherry Red or somewhere that day and I refused to let him stop playing it, so in desperation – and in kindness – he gave it to me. I still think it’s about the most heart-warming minimal pop I’ve heard. It was the sparse, beautiful melodies that got me, the deceptively shy female voices – the seaside imagery and innate Englishness of Tracey and Jane and Alice and Gina’s early Eighties school-time project. I loved what Sportique’s Mark Flunder calls their ‘un-rock’n’roll’, appreciating Marine Girls are as spontaneous and warm and life affirming as rock gets.

In 1983, I played a show as Everything But The Penguin – two large inflatable penguins looking benignly on as Paul Platypus and I ad-libbed our way through a cappella versions of ‘On My Mind’ (Marine Girls) and ‘Night And Day’ (Everything But The Girl’s first, torched single). I corresponded with bassist Jane Fox via postcard during the Eighties, and played a show in a village town hall with Beat Happening and The McTells, co-promoted by original singer Gina. I have no idea where to start my appreciation of Marine Girls – the stung melodies, the bittersweet lyrics of boy betrayal and stolen travelogues, the beach party sandcastles… Beat Happening, for God’s sake.

I finally met Jane last Christmas in Brighton, and was lost for words.

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Young Marble Giants; The Slits; Beat Happening; Shop Assistants; Half-Japanese; Huggy Bear; The Pastels; Quasi; Some Velvet Sidewalk; Josef K; Orange Juice; Marine Girls; The Raincoats; Talulah Gosh; June Brides; The Go-Betweens…
(Partial list for a proposed book on the International Pop Underground, 2000)

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I recently exchanged emails with singer Alice Fox (sister of Jane, the main co-songwriter, who joined Marine Girls after Gina and Tracey Thorn formed the band one school lunchtime). She’s prickly. Nicely so. Wanted to know why I wanted to interview her. (“Had to make sure you weren’t a blood-sucking journalist,” she explained after.) Asked me three questions:

1) What is it you find interesting about the Marine Girls?
“DUDE! Only one of the single most important bands in my own personal history, for the tunes, the silences, the TUNES, the warm special feeling, the TUNES, the fragile yet strong vocals, the imagery, the humanity, the harmonies and knowledge that less is more, that it’s what you leave out that counts… I did a search on the Internet and discovered that although I’ve never written a proper appreciation of the Marine Girls, I’ve made 27 comparisons to them for other groups I love, trying to explain precisely why I love those groups.”

2) Did you ever come to any Marine Girls gigs?
“A couple of times, but I’m wondering where. ULU, almost certainly… you didn’t play out that much, from what I recall, and I was shy of seeing a band I loved so much.”

3) Do you think there are many people who still listen to the music or are we now a part of pop history?
“This is so easy to answer. I have many students come round to my house, wanting to discover how to be a music critic or something (I tell them they’re idiots if that’s all they want) and – well, maybe I move in rarefied circles because of who I choose to be and hang around with – but I’m still amazed by how many know who the Marine Girls are, and actively listen to them. Even my wife… who, independently of me, has been playing her Marine Girls tape in the car non-stop. Going further back, some of my former famous friends in Seattle and Olympia LOVED Marine Girls… and me! Jesus. Me. A single year doesn’t goes by without me playing my vinyl version of Beach Party to death – and I do love your second  album Lazy Ways, too, just not quite as much.

“Why do I love Marine Girls? For the same reason I love early Ramones, Beat Happening, Misty’s Big Adventure, early Blondie, growing coriander plants from seed, making blackberry crumble, cycling down to Hove Town Library (downhill all the way!)… Marine Girls make me HAPPY, help fill the roaring silence in my head for a second, make me appreciate the very act of being alive.”

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Jane: When I was a kid, I was introduced to music through the school system and having to have cello lessons, both of which I loathed. It was a classic hideous experience. I decided I didn’t want any truck with music.

Gina: I’ve always loved music, and remember even when I was tiny how it could effect your emotions. I especially loved ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ and ‘Grocer Jack’, and jumped up and down on the sofa to them. Later on, I picked up on chart stuff, then Siouxsie And The Banshees, Buzzcocks, X-Ray Spex, The Clash… finding John Peel led me onto early Rough Trade records. There were a lot of local bands, too. But I didn’t do anything musical myself until I met Jane and Tracey in the sixth form.

Alice: Music was everything, politics, friendships, love, hate, clothes and hairdos when I was a teenager. I was 14 when I did my first gig and I enjoyed the buzz and attention. I’ve always liked showing off, so singer was good for me. I loved The Clash, Young Marble Giants, Au Pairs and The Slits. My big sis Jane took me to my first gig at the Electric Ballroom and I loved it.

Jane: The whole music thing exploded when I was a teenager and I was suddenly really into listening to music and going to gigs. At the same time, we went into the sixth form at school and there were all these new exciting people I hadn’t met and was making friends with – mostly Gina and Tracey, actually. Also, there was a great, kicking, local scene. There were local bands everywhere – all over Hatfield and St Albans – and the sort of people I was making friends with were all in bands.

Gina: I’d seen Tracey wandering past my classroom with a Virgin carrier bag and nice shoes, and thought she looked interesting. Somehow we all became friendly and, as I’d been corresponding with Nikki Sudden from Swell Maps, we thought we’d do a fanzine, The Wacky Hop. It was while we were doing this I said to Tracey that I’d like to form a band. We decided one lunchtime to start Marine Girls. We liked fishy-themed stuff and remembered the cartoon Marine Boy with his air bubblegum…

Tracey: Marine Girls first came into existence in 1980. I’d been playing electric guitar in a band called Stern Bops. Later, I started talking to my school friend Gina about us forming our own band. The first thing we recorded was for a friend’s compilation tape of local bands, a song called ‘Getting Away From It All’. It had a very basic drum machine part, Gina singing and me playing rhythm and lead guitar. Then I recruited Jane to play bass. Jane wrote songs too, so that doubled the amount of stuff we had to play. We didn’t know anyone who could play drums so we decided to take our cue from Young Marble Giants and play minimalist quiet music. Colossal Youth was our favourite record.

Jane: It was poetry that brought Tracey and me together; we got into this thing where we’d show each other what we’d written. I didn’t feel like a musician in any shape or form, but I was happy to make stuff up on a bass. It was taking completely the opposite approach to cello lessons, where my music teacher had gone, “I think it’s time you give up”.

Alice: It was at a time when everyone bought second-hand guitars and taught themselves to play. It was pointed out to us later that we were the only all-girl band. It wasn’t unusual to us, since we were at an all-girl school. We had to be a bit leery at gigs to combat sexism and the sweet image we disliked.

Jane: We were up to our necks in that DIY culture. People would do gigs in the local village hall after the jumble sale. I was obsessed with music: every bit of money that came my way was spent on it – including school dinner money.

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“Some girls are really obvious/And with a sidelong glance/You see them smile at every word you say” – ‘Tonight?’

——————————–

Jane: What would happen was that Tracey might have a guitar part, and I would hum along to it and translate it on to the bass. Then I’d put a sticker on my bass fret where that tune started, and learn where I had to put my fingers. Eventually, I got used to the sound that each note produced and was able to find my way around it quicker. Some people say it sounds dubby – and that’s interesting because the guy who picked up on us first of all, Patrick, was a serious reggae fan. At the time I didn’t get it – I was interested in tunes.

Gina: We did our first cassette tape A Day By The Sea, 50 copies, by ourselves on a ropey reel-to-reel tape recorder from my mum’s work (they repaired them). We had a track ‘Hate The Girl’ on a Hertford compilation record put together by Mark Flunder.

Mark Flunder: It was originally just Gina and Tracey. They put out a song about the Spanish Civil War on a tape of Hertford bands in 1980. They sounded pretty much like Marine Girls – Gina had very girly vocals, so un-rock’n’roll, and Tracey had that folky voice and lightly strummed an electric guitar. Then we did an compilation LP Rupert Preaching At A Picnic that we ran off ourselves, influenced by Peel and DIY. A friend had an eight-track tape recorder and we blagged a basement in an art centre, got 20 bands in a weekend to record. We weren’t so discerning, there weren’t enough of us so we included the old hippies – they were 19, we were 18.

Gina: Then we put out (I think) Beach Party on a cassette through In Phaze and spent some lovely days colouring in the front covers at Rough Trade, who’d agreed to sell it.

Tell us about the shed where Beach Party was recorded.

Alice: Small, smelly, hot, intense, wooden but there and great.

Gina: The shed was at the bottom of the garden of a Thirties semi-detached house in Ilford. It was the home of Pat Bermingham whose job was driving very high cranes, but he also owned the record label In Phaze. He recorded our album there. To get to the shed you had to go through the kitchen, past Pat’s mum who always tried to get us to have a cup of tea or something to eat.

Mark: I put them on locally, and got people very angry with me – saying don’t put them on again. It was a similar thing with Young Marble Giants in Cardiff until they got in the NME. Beach Party wasn’t actually recorded in Pat’s shed. They rang me up and said they didn’t want to do it there, so I found some mates whose parents were away, and they did it in their front room – most of it, and finished it off in the shed.

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It was Heather’s voice that drew me in to Beat Happening – that, and the simple graphics: the cat on the spaceship! I’ve always preferred female singers. I was a big fan of Tracey Thorn’s Marine Girls and their offshoot [Jane and Alice’s] Grab Grab The Haddock, too, bands ‘Foggy Eyes’ reminded me of. I responded to the minimal instrumentation. I’ve always hated extraneous noise, especially unnecessary drumming.
(Careless Talk Costs Lives, 2001)

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Gina: Somehow Mark had got TV Personalities to play at the local college. His band was the support and we were, too. Dan Treacy heard us, and Pat and Dan seemed to agree that he’d release Beach Party as a record. We had little or no say into any of it, just happy to be doing an LP with Dan.

Mark: They did some really good little gigs, Buntingford fire station, Lemsford village hall… Then I blagged the student union in Hertford to let me put on gigs – and I put on TVPs with Patrik Fitzgerald and Marine Girls for 50p, and introduced [TVPs singer] Dan Treacy to them.

Alice: Dan is a knock-kneed simpering hypocrite. Jane remembers more details than me.

Mark: Dan liked them, reissued Beach Party on his label Whaaam!, and ended up selling it to Cherry Red. It’s groovy those sounds have been out there for 25 years even if the people involved don’t get remunerated properly. Gina gets 1/2p every CD. They sell them for what… £13? It goes against the whole tape scene that started it off. But it’s nice this home-grown music can still inspire people and enrich their lives. Marine Girls’ music was so fresh and non-rock’n’roll. It wasn’t contrived in any way. It was honest. It had what was good about real rock’n’roll in there. You don’t have to have long hair and leather jackets. It was refreshing they were women doing it, as well. It didn’t matter.”

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This is a child’s cornucopia of found sound. Bedroom magic orchestrated silences: like the delicate fragile seven-inch singles Jane, Marine Girls and Sarah Goes Shopping released in the early Eighties; like waking up every morning and spotting wonderment in the way the grey clouds shudder.
(Review of Transistor Six’s Johnny, Where’s My Purse, CTCL, 2002)

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How did Beach Party develop?

Jane: Quite often words first, then a tune. Tracey and I would often write together, although we took separate authorship of the songs that we’d instigated. As I got a bit more confident then I would say, “This is what I’d like the guitar to do”.

Gina: Jane and Tracey came up with the songs and then we’d all fiddle around with them and decide who would sing what. We had a lot of conversations at Jane’s house chatting about the songs and making flapjack mixture, then we’d practise them at the Water Board social clubrooms (Jane’s dad worked for the water board).

Tracey: We did our first ever London gig at the Moonlight Club in West Hampstead, supporting Felt. The night before three other Cherry Red artists had played there, including [future EBTG member] Ben Watt. I missed his gig that night, but he came to the Marine Girls gig the next night. We released a single ‘On My Mind’, which made single of the week in the NME. At some point, Gina left the band and Alice became the main singer.

——————————–

“Another Friday evening/Staying in tonight/I say I don’t want to see you/You can’t believe you’ve heard me right/it’s not that I don’t love you/It’s not that I don’t care/It’s just that I’ve had enough of/The same old places, yeah” – ‘Fridays’

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What was your relationship with the musical climate Marine Girls existed in? Did you have peers?

Jane: We were just doing what we could… in an environment that was massively stimulating and empowering. It was kind of that combination of it being when, mid-to-late 18s, you’re suddenly going, ‘Oh my God’. We were in the position to go out into the world, and there was really exciting stuff happening. The whole idea of pop stars had been blown to pieces. It was amazing.

Gina: We were very insular, in a good way. We were us and that was all that counted. Also, most of the other bands were male, and most females were older than us. When you’re 17, someone who’s 20 is light years away from you. The only other female bands at the time were The Modettes (older than us), Dolly Mixture (older and too Sounds), The Raincoats (too old), The Slits (too old). It was a lot of fun. My A-levels suffered badly!

Alice: The musical climate was hilarious, both competitive and patronising. We did gigs with varied groups; The Damned, Roman Holiday, Orange Juice, Monochrome Set (very cool), Colour Field. Gary Glitter chatted me up in a recording studio lounge. Luckily, I used it as an opportunity to take the piss out of ‘The Leader’… looking back, what a letch! I was 15!

Tracey: In October 1981, I left home to go to Hull University, 300 miles away. Marine Girls kept going, but only in the holidays. We did more gigs, bigger ones. We recorded another album, Lazy Ways, produced by Stuart Moxham of Young Marble Giants. We did an interview with Melody Maker and they put us on the front cover. Meanwhile, I was so far away from the other Marine Girls that I started to record the songs I was writing on my own. The demos I did of these songs eventually became my solo album A Distant Shore. Marine Girls did their last gig in Glasgow. It was summer 1983. We were drifting apart. Alice’s boyfriend had somehow tagged onto the band playing percussion. We did an awful gig, no one listened to us and we had an argument backstage. It was the perfect excuse to split up, so we did.

Alice: Marine Girls split because Tracey was too square. Jane and I were at art school in Brighton. Tracey wanted to write ballads for estate agents. Jane wanted to throw ping-pong balls onto xylophones. I wanted to do big paintings and make films. The reason Tracey gives about the split, involving my then boyfriend, is total crap. It never happened.

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Forget Belle & Sebastian, already. This is so sweet, shy, and soulful. Dub, like dub has always been played by Marine Girls fans.
(Review of The Microphones’ Tests, The Stranger, March 1999)

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In retrospect, what is it about your music that keeps it going?

Jane: It’s a type of rawness, a type of energy, and a type of raw teenage emotion. I can’t even remember the last time I listened to it, but there’s something refreshing about it, and we weren’t conscious of it at the time.

Gina: It was heartfelt. The sound was clear and true. And it doesn’t date, because it’s about the things that affected us – things that don’t change.

Alice: You know the answer to that better than me. I am amazed at how it does.  Kirk Cobaine (sic) put us in his Top 25 Albums list in his diaries! I haven’t done a gig for 17 years, yet often people say to me, “Were you in the Marine Girls? I loved them”. It is very soulful and human. We deliberately kept in the sounds of fingers on frets, and breaths in singing, and the out-of-tune bits.

Tracey has said that your sea imagery is incidental, but there are direct references…

Jane: It isn’t coincidental at all. I was very taken up by this whole idea of being the Marine Girls. We used to play the Marine Boy theme tune. Marine Boy was a cartoon about a boy who could swim under water with Oxy-gum, which he chewed and allowed him to breath without apparatus. I used the idea of the sea to write some of the songs, like ‘20,000 Leagues [Under The Sea]’. We’d have plastic lobsters and blow-up dolphins on stage. Once, we were billed with this punk band called The Deranged at Welwyn Garden City, and we’d spent a day in Southend, me, Alice and Tracey, and brought back bucketfuls of seaweed. We threw it at The Deranged as they’d changed their lyrics to be extremely heinous about us. We had fun bags full of stickers. We had this thing called Colin the Cod. We made stickers with fish on them…

Gina: We all loved the seaside. I was born in Clacton. Mods kept me awake at night on the seafront on their scooters. Being a Marine Girl made us love it more. Jane and me always drew sea-related stuff. We liked the tackier side of things, rock breakfasts on plates, etc. Maybe Tracey couldn’t help herself. It had got into her…

Alice: It was good for jokes, and I like the mystery of the deep blue sea. We had a group of punks turn up to a gig in a cardboard boat once and dance in it all night.

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“Thinking of the jokes we used to have/Wondering if we’re laughing at them now/Somehow don’t see how we can be/So what’s a smile between us now” – ‘Times We Used To Spend’

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Your opinions on Tracey?

Jane: I wasn’t interested in taking the path she took. I was never resentful, either. I never wanted to be a pop star. I just wanted to be in a band and be adventurous.

Gina: I still love her voice, and I played A Distant Shore over and over again when it came out. Whatever she does, even if some things are a bit bland, she has a great voice.

Alice: Square, mainstream, should write a novel, and leave the Rod Stewart covers to Fame Academy contestants.

Anything else you want to add?

Alice: Being a Marine Girl was the best way to be a teenager. I loved it. My life was shit, but gigs were good. If you’re interested in what a Marine Girl does next, watch my short film Degrees Of Separation.

Gina: I’m an art technician at Broxbourne School, in Hertfordshire. I deal in second-hand, vintage clothes. I do my own art, but haven’t done much musically recently. I want to. Everything went on hold after having a daughter who’s now 12. It’s a long hold…

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It’s taken the entire two-year run of Careless Talk to find a contemporary band as wonderful as Marine Girls – minimal, not easily given over to embarrassment about their perceived lack of conventional training, gorgeous two- (and three-) part female harmonies, songs written in under two minutes, soaring violin, whistling, the barest of bare percussion (blocks, shakers, handclaps), infectious sense of humour, enough Pop knowledge to cover TV Personalities and Billy Childish, songs that double up as diaries and are all the more charming for it.
(ET on Lesbo Pig, Careless Talk Costs Lives, September 2003)

——————————–

Jane Fox interview conducted by Jon Falcone.

Tracey Thorn quotes taken from the Everything But The Girl website.

http://www.myspace.com/thevirginsteve

Imitation is said to be the highest form of flattery. Mimickery is also a compliment too – with acute embarrassment at how your weakness and public quirks are portrayed making way for quiet pride that you are worthy and important enough to be imitated. So how is a guy to feel when a Greek Punk Band decides to name itself after you? (Alright – nearly after me).

Harris, John, Sakis all from Athens were ‘just having fun’  – good luck to them all. But do them a favour and listen to the tracks – three new songs at the moment ‘Little Winter’ ‘OK’ and ‘Make Believe’ – trust me, at my age they all sound the same.  So guys – get some more muscial influences, The Divine Comedy, Kirsty McColl, The Beautiful South, Crowded House (yes I know I am stuck in the late 80’s early 90’s).

If you are looking for road manager though, don’t come calling. When I booked bands at the LSE, I made a lot of cash for the university student union. We even bought a PA system out of the profits. But, I still failed to see Culture Club would make it to the top.

It would be fair to say I was old before my time even then. I was booking 70’s throw backs Darts, Dr Feelgood, Osibisa and 60’s folk legend Roy Harper who must have been in his 90’s when he played. I thought flared jeans were cool and considered myself a trend setter with my long hair and leather jacket. What a berk I must have been.

On the credit side – not much – John Cooper Clarke the punk poet springs to mind, as does Atilla the Stockbroker (yes another punk poet) and Joe Jackson and the Jumpin Jive and an early incarnation of Everything but the Girl when it was Ben Watt and The Marine Girls on the same bill. But for God sake if you ever speak to me never mention the Wursels – even 26 years on I still get reminded of them and the day they came to play…it can still bring me out in a cold sweat even now

Elbow also won last year’s Mercury Music Prize last year

Indie band Elbow are celebrating a double win at the Ivor Novello awards, including the main award for best song.

The group, who claimed last year’s Mercury Prize, triumphed with One Day Like This while Grounds For Divorce won best contemporary song.

The Ting Tings and Duffy also picked up Ivor Novello awards, which honour excellence in music writing.

Winners of special achievement awards included electro pioneer Vince Clarke and Motown legend Smokey Robinson.

Dance music veterans Massive Attack and Scottish singer-songwriter Edwyn Collins also won special awards.

‘Fierce opposition’

Picking up Elbow’s first award for best contemporary song – beating songs by Dizzee Rascal with Calvin Harris, and The Ting Tings – lead singer Guy Garvey said: “It’s a great honour against fierce opposition with some great songs.”

Returning to the stage at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel for the main prize, he added: “This is really something else.

“I’m gonna talk about being in the band for a moment.

“We’ve got this great support surrounding us from our friends and family but, on a personal note, I’d like to say that, if nothing else ever happens to me in my life, these four boys have made the whole thing worth every single second.”

Picking up her award for most performed work Mercy alongside co-writer Steve Booker, Duffy thanked those who had helped shape her career.

“I was a girl from Wales, I did not know what music was.

“I knew I had a set of pipes and that would get me a frigging long way.”

‘Quite scary’

Eg White, who co-wrote hits including Adele’s Chasing Pavements and Warwick Avenue by Duffy, said it was “very exciting” to win the award for the “fun, fast, quite scary” art of songwriting.

I think creativity is a gift from god – some people get gifts from god Smokey Robinson

Manchester band The Ting Tings could not pick up their award because they were touring Europe, while Coldplay were unable to claim their best-selling British song gong for Viva La Vida because they are on tour in the US.

Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, who won best original film score for There Will Be Blood, was also absent.

It was left to the veterans, instead, to show how to deliver a speech.

Smokey Robinson, 69, told the audience he had flown to the UK for one day to pick up his special international award.

“I think creativity is a gift from god – some people get gifts from god.

“For everybody in this room, creativity is your gift and it’s what you get.”

He said song writing “just happens”.

“It could be in your car or in the toilet and something comes. Sometimes it’s a song.”

‘Pretty arrogant’

Meanwhile, Vince Clarke, who has had hits with acts including Depeche Mode, Yazoo, The Assembly and Erasure, simply said it was “a real honour to get this award”.

Organisers said it was the first time in his 30-year career that Clarke, 48, who won the outstanding song collection gong, had turned up to pick up an award.

Massive Attack’s hits include Karmacoma and Teardop

The biggest applause of the ceremony was reserved for Edwyn Collins, 49, formerly of 1980s Glaswegian band Orange Juice and best known for 1994 hit A Girl Like You.

Collins, who walked to the stage with a walking stick to pick up the inspiration award, suffered two brain haemorrhages in 2005 before spending a further six months in hospital after a surgical scar became infected with the MRSA bug.

He said that when he was in Orange Juice he was “a pretty arrogant man, but not any more”.

He added: “I’m writing away, 10 new songs at the moment and it truly is fantastic.

“It’s good to be back. Cheers for the special award.”

Bristol dance music collective Massive Attack won the outstanding contribution to British music award.

Founding member 3D – real name Robert Del Naja – said it was “dishonest” to stand on the stage without the many singers they had collaborated with.

They include Shara Nelson, on anthemic 1991 hit Unfinished Sympathy, and Everything But the Girl singer Tracey Thorn on 1995’s Protection.

This year’s fellowship award went to veteran lyricist Don Black, 70, who co-wrote hits including Born Free and Diamonds Are Forever, as well as musicals including Aspects of Love and Bombay Dreams.

An audience of songwriters, record company executives and pop stars included Damon Albarn, Sophie Ellis Bextor and Rolf Harris.

Ewan Pearson, ему 36, родом из Лондона, а живет в Берлине, через пару часов у него урок немецкого, первый, за последние 6 месяцев и он явно нервничает.

«Дело в том, что Берлин – очень интернациональный город, много англо-говорящих, поэтому приходится приложить усилия, чтобы выучить язык».

Ewan Pearson один из топовых диджеев наших дней, последние его компиляции: роскошная коллекция мелодичных хаус-треков для Soma и более техно-ориентированный для Fabric – просто образцы как надо делать миксы.

«Что я сейчас играю? Очень много диско и Balearic-хаус, это я к тому, что здесь в Берлине последнее время наблюдается возрождение хауса. Но вся проблема в том, что существует куча хаус-пластинок, и все их хочется сыграть, но вот попробуй-ка их вместить в один сет».

Кроме того, что он замечательный диджей, Ewan еще и продюсер, сочетающий четкое знание музыкальной мат-части с прекрасными мелодиями. В прошлом году он закончил работу над захватывающим альбомом M83 – Saturdays = Youth, а уже в этом году выпускает новый ремикс на Junior Boys и крайне этому рад: «Звук напоминает мне середину 80-х, такое пост-диско-пре-хаус звучание. Я сделал такой старомодный 12-inch ремикс, какие делает, к примеру, Shep Pettibone». А в этом году выходит вторая сольная спродюссированная им пластинка Tracey Thorn из Everything But The Girl.

«Я скорее сделаю ремикс бесплатно на то, что мне очень понравилось, чем за деньги на пустышку. Так я завернул несколько предложений, потому что просто не мог представить, как должен звучать этот трек в ремиксе. Например, мне предложили сделать ремикс на первый сингл с нового альбома Шакиры. Ах, если бы это был Hips Don’t Lie, я бы с удовольствием, но нет, это был не Hips Don’t Lie. Я люблю поп-музыку, но нет смысла делать ремикс на то, что им не понравится или, что понравится им, а мне нет».

Он говорит, что музыка для него, скорее искусство, чем ремесло: «Диджеинг хорош тем, что лично мне он обеспечивает основной заработок, поэтому я могу выбирать, над какими проектами работать, а над какими нет. Это здорово. Конечно, я никогда не разбогатею по-настоящему, но зато я буду счастливым, что более важно».

«К созданию ремиксов можно подходить по-разному, например, как это делается в диско – берется трек и делается на него ремикс, чтобы он просто мог здорово звучать в клубе. Именно так я делаю довольно часто – стараюсь не сильно менять трек, беру больше оригинальных частей, часто песню целиком. А иногда можно полностью видоизменить трек. Я вообще считаю, что зачастую ремиксы круче оригиналов и работают на танцполе лучше».

Кроме занятия музыкой, Ewan еще и попробовал себя в качестве писателя: «Я еще в детстве пробовал писать, но знаете, чтобы стать писателем, нужно быть проницательным наблюдателем и отличным слушателем. А я, знаете ли, все в облаках витаю», – смеется он. В настоящее время Ewan Pearson ничего не пишет, но много читает – WG Sebald и Philip Roth, например, а еще он очень любит длинные перелеты: «Я вставляю затычки для ушей и просто читаю, читаю, читаю». Все еще впереди, будем ждать диджейских мемуаров от Эвана Пирсона.

Hot Chip – Hold On (Ewan Pearson Remix) (alt)
Kelley Polar – Entropy Reigns (Pearson & Usher’s Second Law Dynamix) (alt)
Foals – Olympic Airways (Ewan Pearson’s Return To The Villa of Joy Remix) (alt)
Partial Arts – Trauermusik (Original Mix) (alt)
Partial Arts – Telescope (alt)

English version:

EWAN PEARSON, the British DJ and producer had just moved to Berlin and was hoping to improve his German. Perhaps sensing that the question will be asked, Pearson admits up front that he has a German lesson soon after the interview – his first in about six months – and is nervous about how it will go…

“The thing about it is,” he says, laughing, “Berlin is a very international city, and there’s a high level of English spoken here, which means you have to work very hard to learn the language, and you need to make quite a concerted effort to pick it up.” Pearson even admits that, for several nights, he has been having anxiety dreams about going back to class. Naked anxiety dreams, I wonder? “No!” he assures me, laughing even harder. “I don’t even have to be naked. I just have to be standing in front of them, unable to conjugate things …”

Although he may have difficulty with the thornier aspects of spoken German, Pearson is certainly a first-rate record spinner. His last two compilations – a lush, melodic collection of house tracks for the Soma label, and a harder, more techno oriented mix for Fabric – were both astonishingly good examples of the craft of the DJ mix album. What kind of tunes is he playing these days, I wonder? “There’s loads of really good disco and Balearic stuff around at the moment,” he tells me, “and there’s a big house revival happening in Berlin at the moment. The trouble is, there’s almost too much to choose from. There are so many records out there I want to play, but having them all fit together and make sense in the one DJ set, that’s the challenge …”

Quite aside from his work as a DJ, Ewan Pearson is also one of electronic music’s most in-demand producers and remixers – last year, he worked on M83’s breathtaking Saturdays = Youth album – and although he promised himself some time off, a number of projects have beckoned. Pearson has just completed a remix of the new Junior Boys single, and is particularly excited about it. “It has a very mid-eighties, post-disco pre-house kind of sound. I’ve done a really old-fashioned, extended 12-inch mix, kind of like a Shep Pettibone mix,” he tells me. He has also produced several more records, including the second solo album from Everything But The Girl’s Tracey Thorn (he also worked on her first), which is due out later in the year.

“I’d rather do a remix for free of something that I love than be paid to remix something that I hated. I never do a remix for things that I don’t have any connection with. I’ve turned down a few quite big acts, it’s not like I wouldn’t like to do pop… I remember I turned down a Shakira’s remix for the first single from her last album, unfortunately it wasn’t “Hips Don’t Lie”, if it was “Hips Don’t Lie” I would love to remix it, but I just couldn’t hear the way to do a track. I don’t have a problem with pop, I love pop, but it has to make sense, it has to fit with what I do and have to fit with what they do, there’s no point in doing a remix they gonna hate or a remix they would like but I wouldn’t.”

In this regard, don’t you feel like a craftsman sometimes?

“No, I do, I’m interested in crafts much more that the art, I suppose. But I still have to feel it’s representing what I do. Obviously, that’s why DJ-ing is good, because DJ-ing provides me with basic income. That means that I can basically choose the projects purely on musical grounds. Which is good, but it probably means that I’ll probably never gonna be rich… [laughs]. But I gonna be happy, which is much more important”.

In your view, what’s the purpose of a remix in general or what’s your idea about remixing? Pure functionality, adding beats, something else?

“It’s different. You can look at it in almost the disco way, just doing enough to make it work in the club context, which is often what I do – I try not to change it too much and use quite a lot of original parts, or if it’s a song I try to include the entire song. Sometimes you can do a complete transformation, it’s a rich area, there’s a lot of different methods, approaches to take. I think that some of the best dance music it’s been people remixing other things. It’s a proper art form in its own right. So, I’m very proud to be continuing in that tradition”.

Although music is his consuming passion, Pearson has a strong affinity for the written word. As a child, he was determined to do something creative, but while he enjoyed writing, he felt he did not necessarily have the acumen to be a novelist. “You have to be a really acute watcher and listener, and I think I’m too much of a space case,” he laughs. To this day, he is still a voracious reader – currently, he’s working his way through the novels of WG Sebald and Philip Roth – and loves long plane flights, because, as he says, “I put earplugs in and just read and read and read.” Though he assures me he does not have a book in him, I make a bet with Pearson that, the next time I speak to him, the urge to write a DJ memoir might well have overcome him. I suppose we’ll see …

Sources: neongrad, rave magazine

John Martyn remembered here, and here.

May you never lay your head down, without a hand to hold …

A Fitinha Dourada de hoje está TRISTE.

1. Scarlett Johansson – Boys Don’t Cry – amei essa versão, parece uma véia à la Marianne Faithfull cantando
2. Everything But The Girl – I Dont Want To Talk About It – adoro a versão da Tracey Thorn para essa música do Rod Stewart. Aliás, ela cantando Atirei o pau no gato pode ficar lindo
3. Billie Myers – Kiss the Rain – essa música me lembra Atlanta (e não lembra Dawson’s Creek. TÁ, VAI, LEMBRA DAWSON’S CREEK TAMBÉM)
4. Tracy Chapman – Fast Car – tem música cafona mais bonita que essa?
5. Ornella Vanoni – L’Appuntamento – Robertão em italiano é massa, Ornella Vanoni é massa

Adventures in Stereo

Blue Album (Creeping Bent 1997)

http://www.mediafire.com/?ywtmzvcw3ey

Primal Scream was always Bobby Gillespie’s outlet for whatever genre’s corpse he felt like fucking at that particular moment. I’m not going to act like I didn’t believe Screamadelica and XTRMNTR were bold statements at the time of their release, but hindsight is a cruel mistress. Almost their entire catalogue sounds so dated and opportunistic these days, but I guess that is the nature of their game. However, I still love their debut album, Sonic Flower Groove, since it is more fey than a Little Lord Fauntleroy costume. Their early singles for Creation are even better statements of their twee purpose as the band succeeds in crafting perfect pop tunes with the heft of an empty garbage bag, This is no insult because I still hum along to “Velocity Girl” each time I hear it because it is one of the most concise and perfect sides of pop perfection.

Jim Beattie was a founding member of Primal Scream, but left before that pasty-faced Scot believed he was a hallucinogenic prophet, then Mick Jagger’s uglier kin, then a cyberpunk, trip-hopping danger to no one. He left to focus his efforts on Spirea X, a band that recorded an amazing single for 4AD before following it with an underwhelming album. The single got me all worked up over his continuation of the Creation era of Primal Scream, but his songwriting grew thin over the course of a full-length. I wrote the fellow off until I encountered the two cds released under the moniker of Adventures in Stereo. One was Blue, the other yellow, but both seemed to be semi-official releases due to the uncleared samples that formed the foundation for Beattie’s second stab at twee.

Beattie and vocalist Judith Boyle pay homage to Phil Spector’s work with 60s girl groups, but keep things somewhat fresh by incorporating tape loops and samples as the bedrock for their upate of 60s AM radio. To be honest, most of this wouldn’t sound out of place on K, Creation, Sarah or Slumberland, but the songwriting places it a step above most of their contemporaries. The Blue Album is just a stellar collection of moody, introspective indie-pop that reminds me of Tracey Thorn’s solo album or her work with the Marine Girls. It’s a dated formula, but it works wonders here.

It’s a shame that the Yellow and Blue albums were released in such limited quantities because the band shit the bed on its subsequent releases. What was once a charming patchwork quilt of AM Gold and twee was abandoned in favor of more beats and a slicker sheen. What was once rough is now sanded smooth and their music suffered because of it. Therefore, they now populate budget bins and no one cares to investigate the origins of what made them special.