THE CELESTIAL JUKEBOX, PRESENT TENSE - 250 SONGS
Again, some of this is personal and sentimental, linked to time and place and experience.
50 Cent, “Many Men (Wish Death)”
100 gecs, “800db cloud”
10,000 Maniacs, “Candy Everybody Wants”
Bryan Adams, “Everything I Do”
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, “Spanish Flea”
America, “Sister Golden Hair”
Julie Andrews, “My Favorite Things”
Animal Collective, “Brother Sport”
Aphex Twin, “Tha”
Fiona Apple, “Extraordinary Machine”
Louis Armstrong, “What a Wonderful World”
Ash, “Shining Light”
Atlantic Starr, “Always”
Atlas Sound, “Washington School”
Autechre, “Vose In”
The B-52s, “Deadbeat Club”
Bananarama, “Cruel Summer”
The Beatles, “All My Loving”
Beck, “Girl”
Belle & Sebastian, “Seymour Stein”
Benoit & Sergio, “Boy Trouble”
Beyoncé, “Countdown”
Bikini Kill, “Alien She”
Bilal, “West Side Girl”
Bjork, “It’s Oh So Quiet”
Black Dice, “Pigs”
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, “Stop”
The Black-Eyed Peas, “Imma Be”
Blast Off Country Style, “Cutie Pie”
Blondie, “Heart of Glass”
The Bloodhound Gang, “Your Only Friends Are Make-Believe”
The Box Tops, “The Letter”
Brainiac, “I Am A Cracked Machine”
Michelle Branch, “Everywhere”
Laura Branigan, “Gloria”
The Breeders, “Off You”
Danny Brown, “Gremlins”
James Brown, “Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine”
Jackson Browne, “Somebody’s Baby”
Vanessa Carlton, “A Thousand Miles”
Harry Chapin, “Cat’s in the Cradle”
Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car”
The Carpenters, “Yesterday Once More”
Julian Casablancas and the Voidz, “Human Sadness”
The Chemical Brothers, “Free Yourself”
Chixdiggit!, “My Restaurant”
Cibo Matto, “Sunday, Pt. 1”
Ciara feat. Missy Elliott, “One, Two Step”
Clipse, “Dirty Money”
Jim Croce, “Operator”
Crosby, Stills, and Nash, “You Don’t Have To Cry”
Christopher Cross, “Ride Like the Wind”
Cryptacize, “Mythomania”
Crystal Castles, “Air War”
Culture Club, “Karma Chameleon”
Terrence Trent D’Arby, “Sign Your Name”
Daft Punk, “Around the World”
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, “Hold Tight”
Dead Kennedys, “Kill the Poor”
DeBarge, “The Rhythm of the Night”
Deerhoof, “+81”
Deerhunter, “Octet”
Depeche Mode, “Personal Jesus”
Dial, “Helium”
The Diplomats, “Dipset Anthem”
DMX, “Stop Being Greedy”
The Doobie Brothers, “Black Water”
Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Dogg, “Nuthin’ But a G Thang”
The-Dream, “Love King”
Duran Duran, “Hungry Like The Wolf”
Bob Dylan, “Positively 4th Street”
The Eagles, “Lyin’ Eyes”
Eat Skull, “Cooking a Way to be Happy”
Elastica, “Connection”
The Everly Brothers, “All I Have to Do is Dream”
The Ben Folds Five, “The Battle of Who Could Care Less”
Eleanor Friedberger, “Stare at the Sun”
Eminem feat. Dido, “Stan”
Brian Eno, “Cindy Tells Me”
Eurythmics, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”
Extreme, “More Than Words”
The Fall, “Glam-Racket”
Roberta Flack, “Killing Me Softly With His Song”
Flipper, “Ha Ha Ha”
Dan Fogelberg, “Longer”
The Free Design, “The Proper Ornaments”
Fur, “Devil to the Lamb”
Garbage, “Only Happy When It Rains”
Judy Garland, “Over the Rainbow”
Kevin Gates, “Paper Chasers”
Ghostface Killah, “Shakey Dog”
Freddie Gibbs, “20 Karat Jesus”
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “The Dead Flag Blues”
Gorillaz feat. De La Soul, “Feel Good Inc.”
Go Sailor, “I’m Still Crying”
Granddaddy, “A.M. 180”
Colleen Green, “I Want to Grow Up”
Green Day, “Basket Case”
Grimes, “REALITi”
Gucci Mane, “Break Ya Self (Brrrussia version)”
Guided By Voices, “Teenage FBI”
Harvey Danger, “Flagpole Sitta”
Helium, “XXX”
Keri Hilson, “Pretty Girl Rock”
Hole, “Malibu”
The Hollies, “All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe”
Michael Jackson, “Rock With You”
Jay-Z, “Hard Knock Life”
Henry Jacobs, “Guitar Lesson”
Jawbreaker, “Fireman”
Jeremih, “Oui”
Jewel, “Standing Still”
Jimmy Eat World, “Sweetness”
Billy Joel, “Uptown Girl”
Scott Joplin, “The Entertainer”
Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’”
Juelz Santana, “Mixin’ up the Medicine”
R. Kelly feat. T.I. & T-Pain, “I’m a Flirt (Remix)”
Kool and the Gang, “Celebration”
Lana Del Rey, “Off to the Races”
Lagwagon, “May 16”
The Libertines, “Horror Show”
Limp Bizkit, “Re-Arranged”
Lindstrom, “Where You Go I Go Too”
Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, “Lost in Emotion”
Lit, “My Own Worst Enemy”
The Lonely Island feat. T-Pain, “I’m on a Boat”
Lotus Plaza, “What Grows?”
Lower Dens, “Candy”
Courtney Love, “I’ll Do Anything”
Love As Laughter, “Idol Worship”
M.I.A, “Bamboo Banga”
Madonna, “Hung Up”
Madlib, “Mystic Bounce”
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, “Ramp of Death”
The Mamas and the Papas, “California Dreamin’”
John Mayer, “New Light”
Meek Mill, “Dreams and Nightmares Intro”
Men at Work, “Safety Dance”
George Michael, “Faith”
The Modern Lovers, “I’m Straight”
Modest Mouse, “Heart Cooks Brain”
The Moldy Peaches, “Nothing Came Out”
Chris Montez, “The More I See You”
Alanis Morissette, “Head Over Feet”
Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat, “Lucky”
MXPX, “Party, My House, Be There”
My Bloody Valentine, “You Never Should”
Nas, “The World Is Yours”
Johnny Nash, “I Can See Clearly Now”
Neu!, “Hallogallo”
New Order, “Subculture”
New Pornographers, “The Laws Have Changed”
Wayne Newton, “Danke Schoen”
Harry Nilsson, “Jump into the Fire”
Nine Inch Nails, “Wish”
Nirvana, “About a Girl”
The Notorious B.I.G., “Warning”
Maura O’Connell, “Summerfly”
The Orb, “Little Fluffy Clouds”
Panda Bear, “Mr Noah”
Pavement, “Harness Your Hopes (BBC Evening Session)”
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)”
Liz Phair, “Shane”
Pinhead Gunpowder, “I Am An Elephant”
The Platters, “Only You (And You Alone)”
The Pointer Sisters, “Jump”
Michael Praetorius, “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen”
Elvis Presley, “A Little Less Conversation”
Primal Scream, “Keep Your Dreams”
The Prodigy, “Breathe”
Propaghandi, “Anti-Manifesto”
Brian Protheroe, “Pinball”
Psychic Graveyard, “No”
Public Enemy, “Fight The Power”
Aileen Quinn, “Tomorrow”
Radiohead, “A Wolf at the Door”
Gerry Rafferty, “Right Down the Line”
Bonnie Raitt, “Something to Talk About”
The Ramones, “Chain Saw”
Otis Redding, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “In Motion”
Lou Reed and Metallica, “Junior Dad”
Rihanna feat. Jay-Z, “Umbrella”
Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, “Islands in the Stream”
The Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil”
Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram, “Somewhere Out There”
Rosemary Krust, “Private Amber”
Diana Ross, “Theme From Mahogany”
Roxy Music, “More Than This”
A Savage, “Eyeballs”
The Shangri-Las, “Leader of the Pack”
Shanice, “I Love Your Smile”
Ed Sheeran, “Thinking Out Loud”
Sightings, “Yellow”
The Silver Jews, “Blue Arrangements”
Alan Silvestri, “The Back to the Future theme”
Paul Simon, “Kodachrome”
Ashlee Simpson, “Pieces of Me”
Slade, “Cum On Feel the Noize”
The Smashing Pumpkins, “Here’s to the Atom Bomb (New Wave version)”
The Soft Pink Truth, “Do They Owe Us A Living?”
Sonic Youth, “Jams Run Free”
Jordan Sparks and Chris Brown, “No Air”
Spoon, “The Mystery Zone”
Starving Weirdos, “Land Lines”
Stereolab, “Plastic Mile”
The Strokes, “12:51”
Swell Maps, “Let’s Build A Car”
Taylor Swift, “Style”
Stylophonic, “R U Experienced”
Jazmine Sullivan, “Mascara”
Suicidal Tendencies, “Institutionalized”
Taco, “Puttin’ on the Ritz”
James Taylor, “You’ve Got a Friend”
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”
Throwing Muses, “Not Too Soon”
TLC, “Baby-Baby-Baby”
Tortoise, “Djed”
The Toys, “A Lover’s Concerto”
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, “Summer Nights”
A Tribe Called Quest, “Can I Kick It?”
UB40, “Red Red Wine”
Joe Walsh, “Life’s Been Good”
Scott Weiland, “Paralysis”
Steely Dan, “Do It Again”
Stiff Little Fingers, “Suspect Device”
Stylophonic, “RU Experienced?”
T.I., “What You Know”
Mary Timony, “Blood Tree”
that dog., “I’m Gonna See You”
The Tymes, “So Much In Love”
Ultimate Painting, “Out in the Cold”
The Unicorns, “Child Star”
The Velvet Underground, “The Gift”
Waka Flocka Flame, “Hard in da Paint”
Ween, “Even If You Don’t”
Weezer, “Endless Bummer”
Kanye West, “Devil in a New Dress (G.O.O.D. Fridays version)”
WHAM!, “Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go)”
White Hassle, “Oh, What a Feeling”
Matthew Wilder, “Break My Stride”
Bill Withers, “Lean on Me”
Wolf Eyes, “Human Animal”
Stevie Wonder, “My Cherie Amour”
Wye Oak, “Siamese”
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Maps”
Yo La Tengo, “My Heart’s Reflection”
Zaimph, “Removing Bits of History”
The Zombies, “Time of the Season”
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INTERVIEW:
(FROM THE ARCHIVE - Originally posted April 2012)
"GEOGRAPHY, SYPHILIS AND WHORES"
RIDING HIGH WITH THE IVAN WILSON CONCEPT
Back in the Spring of 2012, B-Side's Seymour Quigley and Neil Rayson met up with singing guitarists Iain Watson and Tom Stebbing of then-nascent Americana quintet The Ivan Wilson Concept. Shortly after, the band rechristened themselves The Wilsons, and went on to become an enduringly popular fixture of the East Anglian music scene.
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On the eve of two contrasting performances at this year’s Bury Fringe Festival, B-Side’s Neil Rayson and Seymour Quigley caught up with Iain Watson and Tom Stebbing of alt-country group The Ivan Wilson Concept.
“Here’s a thing. There was a play written in the 40s or 50s in America, which was set in England, specifically in a castle in the mountains of Norfolk. And I thought, ‘That’s my sort of geography’. So I now have carte blanche to do anything…”
Iain Watson is not your run-of-the-mill frontman. Having started his musical career at college in sunny Bedford, Iain moved to Bury St Edmunds in the late 80s and formed an indie band, Pipehead, who fell into Suffolk’s barely-noticed alternative scene alongside then-contemporaries (and John Peel favourites) Jacob’s Mouse. After Pipehead split in the early 90s, years went by without any musical activity, until a local open mic promoter cajoled Iain to pick up the guitar once again.
Heavily influenced by contemporary Americana, Iain initially formed an ad-hoc ensemble known as Bingo Wings, alongside future bandmates Reuben Kemp (lead guitar) and Dave Bacon (drums). Bingo Wings failed to launch, but Iain slowly developed the idea of a loose collective called The Ivan Wilson Concept. Initially intended as a “moveable feast” whereby any combination of musicians – all calling themselves “Ivan Wilson” – could play along (rehearsed or otherwise) with Iain’s songs, a core fivesome gradually came together, with Iain, Reuben and Dave joined by bassist Ronnie Hatt and guitarist/backing vocalist Tom Stebbing.
With The Ivan Wilson Concept preparing to make two appearances at this year’s Bury Fringe Festival (a straightforward, full-band gig at the Washing Machine all-dayer and a stripped-down gig in Britain’s Smallest Pub™, The Nutshell), we caught up with Iain and Tom around a makeshift campfire on the nearest available prairie for a bottle of moonshine and “a bit of a chat”.
B-SIDE: Are you looking forward to the Bury Fringe Festival then, chaps? Do you have anything special planned for The Hunter Club?
IAIN: We haven’t played a loud set for a while. We’re probably going a bit louder than usual.
B-SIDE: And then of course you’re unplugged in The Nutshell. Which sounds like a hideous euphemism.
IAIN: It’s gonna be like playing inside a Kinder Egg. But the most difficulty we’ll have is stopping Dave breaking into a reggae beat.
B-SIDE: There’s arguably a whole World of Country-Reggae that hasn’t been tapped yet.
IAIN: I often think there’s a really tight connection between country and reggae – the “roots” music. There’s an immense amount of singing about drugs in country music. Historically, you’ve got poor areas, the mining areas, and people were thinking, “We don’t really want to do mining but there’s no other jobs for us,” so that’s when they got into the drugs and moonshine. And nowadays you’ve got the same in the logging areas up in the Northwest (of America)…
TOM: …and trucking with amphetamines.
IAIN: The last Richmond Fontaine album was about people out of their trees on drugs killing people in the woods of Portland. And what’s wrong with that?
TOM: (Completely deadpan) Not at all an influence on the lyrics of the band…
Ah, yes: The lyrics. Inspired by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Violent Femmes’ Country Death Song, country legend Lyle Lovett and a lifelong love of Westerns (in particular HBO’s none-more-bleak smash hit Western series Deadwood), Iain’s lyrics address the more choice aspects of the human condition: Put The Knife Down, Brendasees the protagonist trying to negotiate the continued use of his extremities with his unbalanced partner; Chickenhouse explores the logistics of building a brothel; and the cautionary Turn The Cowgirl Around tells of a cowboy who, whilst out on the trail, misses his loved one so much that he feels compelled to seek solace in the arms of a different woman every night, eventually dying of syphilis.
IAIN: I’ve previously always been an indie boy, whereas now I’m writing to a genre, so I’m coming up with scenarios that make me laugh. So it could be the goldrush/killing your wife/becoming a cannibal-type genre. Which I realise is quite niche.
TOM: It’s quite enjoyable writing the music to be as dark as possible but still keeping that upbeat country sound. There’s quite an interesting dissonance.
IAIN: I want it to be more obvious than subtle. I want the audience to very quickly get the sketch.
B-SIDE: “Sketch” is a good word: It’s funny, but it’s not so over the top that people think you’re taking the mick. You seem to have got the balance right.
TOM: We get asked to play weddings. And there is a disclaimer that if halfway through you realise you don’t like the subject matter, it’s not our problem.
IAIN: I still think playing that village fete is a bad plan…
So it continues; and over the course of the next 30 minutes, Tom and Iain hold court, essentially interviewing themselves, much to the amusement of an increasingly large crowd. Subjects range from the Western influences on science fiction mythology (Iain insisting that a weathergirl dressed as Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard is trapped inside his phone), to The Cult’s forthcoming stadium tour, to learning to play the Four Seasons’ back catalogue on (specially-tailored Indonesian instrument ensemble) the gamelan, to the concept of owning a “spare” banjo, to North Korean owls. Eventually, our cheeks streaked with horrible tears, we make a final attempt to inject some sense back into the conversation.
B-SIDE: So, is there any kind of plan, or are you just literally seeing what happens next?
IAIN: We want to get the album out at some point. We’re writing more songs; we’ve got another album effectively written.
TOM: (We want to) bring more instruments in. I need an accordion.
IAIN: I’ve got me harmonium, got the banjo. I’d like to get the bazouki back in, maybe the cittern. We’ve got the mandolin, we’ve got a Diddley Bo being made for us by Nineboys Guitars. I think we can get theremin in there too. Brass, so we can get the mariachi feel. But NOT saxophone. Reuben plays a Gretsch guitar which is a certain tone, we’ve got Telecasters and we’ve got acoustic guitars so we can layer things.
TOM: I want to be playing clubs where there’s chicken wire across the front (of the stage). I’ve got a roll.
IAIN: We’re still trying to work out where to launch the album, and Tom’s had this incredible suggestion of (notorious banger-racing mecca) Mildenhall Stadium. But I still think that’s too dangerous.
TOM: We’ll be in the middle, on a big stage!
IAIN: We won’t be in the middle, on a big stage. I’ll be in the bar, getting hammered, watching Reuben get touched up by strange men.
You can listen to The Wilsons' subsequent albums 'Sexy Death and Cowgirls', 'Boot Hill' and 'Crow' on their Bandcamp page.
Words: Neil Rayson & Seymour Quigley
Photo: The Ivan Wilson Concept by Warwick Lowe
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