The Weblog Of Leonard’s Lair

Some time ago one of the readers here suggested I do a “then and now” feature to compare and contrast a new act with one from yesteryear. Well, strictly speaking both of the acts featured here are old acts since Clor split up in 2006 after just one album. I’ve pitched them up against early 1980’s act New Musik who produced some delightful synth-pop records at the beginning of the decade.

‘World Of Water’ wasn’t their most successful song (’Living By Numbers’ charted at no. 13 in the UK) having only reached no. 31 in the singles chart but it’s my personal favourite. Led by the songwriting talents of Tony Mansfield - as you can see from the video - their awkward, nerdy image is allied to some irresistible pop. I’m still not sure the vocal effects on the chorus were a good idea but otherwise this is a lemon fresh pop song, possessing all the innocence, melody and geekiness of the best music from this genre at the time.

As I mentioned, Clor only managed one album before splitting up but it was a very promising effort. The arty pop of ‘Outlines’ shares the same cute pop values as ‘World Of Water’. I particularly like the lyric “Each of us is special in our unique way”; a sweet and old-fashioned line that again draws on the innocence of a bygone age. They also shared that same nerdy image in their promos although it’s arguably rather more mannered than New Musik’s style.

Further Reading/Listening:
New Musik MySpace
Unofficial New Musik site
Clor on Wikipedia
Clor MySpace

Since regular site reader Scott commented on Eyeless In Gaza and the group have a batch of new releases/reissues along the way, it seems like the perfect time to show a video from this unusual band. ‘New Risen’ is one of two Eyeless In Gaza tracks that feature on the ‘Pillows And Prayers’ video that was first released by Cherry Red in the early 1980’s and has since been reissued in DVD format along with the attendant double CD of music.

‘New Risen’ represents Eyeless In Gaza in their most accessible form. This is a conventional pop song by their standards and comes from the album ‘Rust Red September’, which happens to be my favourite album of theirs. I have compared Eyeless In Gaza to OMD in the past but the former weren’t ones for compromising.  Their early tracks have aged rather well; experimental and often semi-improvised but never over-complicated and I can hear their influence in modern-day artists such as Daniel Patrick Quinn.

For those seeking out more on this interesting duo (Martyn Bates and Peter Becker), I would certainly recommend a very informative official site on http://www.eyelessingaza.com:80/ where you can read about and listen to samples of music old and new from both Eyeless In Gaza and the band members’ other projects.

I can also heartily recommend the ‘Pillows And Prayers’ DVD. It features promos of Cherry Red artists sandwiched between vintage television commercials and public information films. The music is quintessentially English with appropriately quirky videos and serves as great nostalgia for lovers of cult indie pop bands of the time such as Everything But The Girl, The Monochrome Set and the haunting ‘It’s A Fine Day’ by Jane.

Other Resources:
Cherry Red Label Site & Shop

Further Listening:
Daniel Patrick Quinn, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Black September

‘Kinky Love’ has the distinction of being one of the last singles I bought. It’s one of those songs I just fell in love with. Not in a kinky way, I hasten to add, but I just fell for the jangly guitars and Meriel Barham’s languid voice. The video isn’t too shabby either in a dreamlike, shoegazey-way.

I know a lot of Pale Saints purists would argue that the floppy-fringed Ian Masters was the true vocalist of the band but there’s no doubt that Barham added commercial appeal and those lyrics of “Kinky, take me inside and let the honey slide” must have been some of the most risque lyrics featured on The Chart Show, which was the programme where I first saw this video.

Compared to a lot of indie/shoegaze acts, The Pale Saints had a relatively long career which started in 1997 and ended in 2006, by which time both Masters and Barham had departed. For me, the key album is ‘In Ribbons’, where they perfected their quiet/loud dynamics and the regular shifts between the desperate melancholy and grungy euphoria ensured listeners were always kept on their toes.

Web Sites:
Pale Saints on Wikipedia
Unofficial Pale Saints Site
Pale Saints MySpace

I loved Colder the first time I saw the video for ‘Crazy Love’ on MTV2’s ‘120 Minutes’ show. Although I don’t get to watch the programme as much as I’d like to, it’s been a regular source of bringing great artists to my attention. Some people dismiss Colder as a Joy Division clone. It would be silly to suggest that Marc Nguyen Tan isn’t influenced by JD and he’s also influenced by Kraftwerk. The fact is that these two bands are amongst my favourites so sounding like both of them is no bad thing in my book. As you can see from the video, there are similarities between the running man in the animation and Ian Curtis’ odd dancing.

I suppose what made me think of Colder was watching the Joy Division biopic ‘Control’ over the weekend. I found this to be a very moving film. It was extremely sad to watch a film knowing the “hero” of the film was going to die and seeing the people who obviously cared for him helplessly trying to bring him back from the brink of his despair. Given that many of the actors were largely unknown and that this was Anton Corbijn’s directorial debut, I feel the film is a triumph on all levels and would recommend it as essential viewing for Joy Division fans.

Web Sites:
Colder MySpace
Output Recordings Label
Colder On Wikipedia
Control Official Site

Now here’s a really interesting video. One which tells a story, complements an already great song and was quite ahead of its time. As is often the case, the great songs and videos often get discovered by accident. I first heard Donald Fagen’s ‘New Frontier’ whilst listening to BBC Radio Lincolnshire, which was (and still is) my local radio station. I didn’t care for most of the music that was played on there, since its target audience seemed to be the over-50s but there was always the odd AOR/MOR gem like Prefab Sprout’s ‘Nightingales’, ‘Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime’ by The Korgis and this little pop/jazz fusion treasure. I think they call these songs “guilty pleasures” nowadays.

It was a while before I saw the actual promo which accompanied ‘New Frontier’ but I remember it very clearly. My sister and I decided to video record (this being the mid 80s) a BBC2 six-hour special called ‘The Video Jukebox’ which focussed on the power of the video and how it had changed over the years. One part of this great programme centred around animated promos and ‘New Frontier’ was one of the videos featured as well as the similarly fantastic ‘Genius Of Love’ by Tom Tom Club. I really like the idea of this secret bunker where the two protagonists in the video would have a fantastic, yet sweetly innocent time and there’s a nice contrast between this and the threat of war. The animated sections are really bizarre and clever and the 1950’s themes of course were beautifully nostalgic even then.

In my typical ignorance as a young child, I had no idea then that Fagen was a member of 1970’s duo Steely Dan and certainly wouldn’t have suspected that their name came from a dildo in a William Burroughs’ novel. So in later years I eventually sought out the album from which ‘New Frontier’ came, 1982’s ‘The Nightfly’ (now reissued again as part of a new Fagen boxset) and wasn’t disappointed. I then checked out Steely Dan’s back catalogue and discovered they were not only one of the smartest groups in rock but also their songs had a timeless warmth and the kind of killer key changes which can be heard in the aforementioned Prefab Sprout and another of my favourite 80’s bands, China Crisis.

Web Sites:
Steely Dan Official Site
Steely Dan on Wikipedia

Further Listening:
Prefab Sprout, China Crisis, The Burning Effigies, Drayton Michaels

I would love to claim that I was a fan of the Cocteau Twins right from the start of their career but the truth is I didn’t start listening to them until 1990 when I was studying for my GCSEs. One of the few decent music shows on at the time was The Chart Show on ITV; a show which dispensed with presenters and just concentrated on showing promos of acts from both the UK Network Chart as well as specialist charts for Dance, Metal and Indie. The indie chart was the main attraction for me, even though only a couple of acts in the top 10 each week had actually managed to make a video. As a consequence, ‘Birthday’, the indie staple by The Sugarcubes was played just about every other week. Thankfully Cocteau Twins also got featured occasionally and ‘Iceblink Luck’ was my first introduction to what would become one of my all-time favourite bands.

The Cocteau Twins struck me because they sounded nothing like I’d ever heard before. They had a powerful and mysterious image, a wonderful singer, imaginative guitar effects, an immense production and a strong grasp of melody. A lot of music fans get hung up on lyrics but with Cocteau Twins it didn’t matter, Liz Fraser could sing any old nonsense and it still sounded wonderful. The album that ‘Iceblink Luck’ came from, ‘Heaven Or Las Vegas’, remains one of my all-time favourite albums as does its predecessor 1988’s ‘Blue Bell Knoll’. On these records the Scottish trio found pop’s holy grail, it was like a dream where you would wish for a perfect key change and then the band would achieve - and occasionally better - it. Together with Prefab Sprout, New Order and Talk Talk, they provided the “anthems” that would characterise my late teen years.

Web Sites:
Cocteau Twins Official Site

Further Listening:
Annie Barker, This Mortal Coil, The Delays, The Plague Monkeys

OK, this video is probably a little too recent to be called nostalgia but it’s in the past and the group who made it are no longer together.  ‘Let The Bells Ring’ turned out to be the swansong single from The Organ, an all-female five piece from Vancouver.

I was first made aware of The Organ’s music when a friend from New York suggested I check them out. It didn’t take me long to buy their EP, which was a wonderfully executed piece of concise but downbeat pop music.

Not long after that I discovered they were coming to tour the UK and one of the venues they would be playing at was in Lincoln, my home city. Even though they were only the support act (to The Wedding Present), I found the 20 or so minutes they were on stage absolutely riveting. I don’t normally get starstruck but I was soon tracking them down after the performance to get them to sign their latest single which was - of course - ‘Let The Bells Ring’.

That single still takes pride of place in my study and I even asked for a record player that Christmas just so I could actually hear the song. It was worth the wait too. ‘Let The Bells Ring’ shows off all the best elements of The Organ’s signature sound: Katie Sketch’s permanently haunted vocal, Debora Cohen’s nagging post-punk guitar and Jenny Smyth’s Hammond drone.

Although I bought their one and only album on import, it wasn’t until Spring 2006 that ‘Grab That Gun’ was finally released on UK shores where it received deserved critical acclaim. However, by the end of the year The Organ were no more. Little is known why they decided to call it a day but at least their short legacy made its mark.

References:
My Review of the Lincoln Gig
The Organ’s MySpace
Wikipedia Page

Here’s a post-Britpop treat for you from Oldham’s often overlooked Puressence. ‘This Feeling’ scaled the dizzy heights of no. 33 in the UK charts but it is still their biggest “hit” in their homeland.

Thankfully the good people of Greece have played a major part in sustaining the career of Puressence; their third album, 2002’s ‘Planet Helpless’ making it to No. 4 over there. ‘This Feeling’ is a memorable video with the band surrounded by a Wall Of Death. It’s a strong visual image, neatly summing up the real adrenalin rush of this exciting song.

Puressence were initially lumped in with Radiohead as a new angsty act. There’s some truth in that but the anthemic quality to their songs, guitar work to rival The Chameleons and James Mudriczki’s powerful vocals (I can only think of Geneva’s Andrew Montgomery as a close soundalike) meant that whilst they had their influences, they have always had their trademark sound.

Pleasingly, after a long time without a record label, Puressence returned earlier this year with their fourth album ‘Don’t Forget To Remember’. I hope to review this in the future although I don’t think it matches the excellence of their first three albums.

Web Sites:
Puressence Official Site
Puressence MySpace

Review:
Puressence - Planet Helpless

I’ve decided to start a new category on the blog. The idea is to display music videos which I fondly remember.

In the first of what I hope will be a regular series, I have chosen Killing Joke’s ‘Love Like Blood’.

There are several reasons why I’ve made this choice. First and foremost, it’s a cracking song with a a dark and intense promo to match. Fans of the band may also be aware that, on October 20th this year, former bassist Paul Raven died from heart failure. A sad loss since Killing Joke have always been recognised as an uncategorisable, uncompromising and hugely influential group.

‘Love Like Blood’ was the first record I ever heard by Killing Joke. I was 10 at the time when I first heard it on the radio and found it initially frightening but also thrilling at the same. This is a record where the verses sound just as vital as the chorus.

Despite being hugely impressed with this single, I didn’t really get into Killing Joke again until the early 1990s when I bought the ‘Laugh? I Nearly Bought One’ compilation and then I was introduced to several other cracking songs by them: ‘Empire Song’, ‘Eighties’ (which used a riff supposedly ripped off by Nirvana), ‘The Hum’, ‘Darkness Before Dawn’ etc.

‘Night Time’ (which features ‘Love Like Blood’) still remains my favourite album by them because I loved it when Jaz Coleman sang in a more conventional style. It’s probably their most commercial record but the balance between the natural heaviness of the band’s sound and the emotions pouring out make it the ideal choice for me.

Other sources:

Killing Joke Official Site