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singlesablog · 6 months

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A New Cool

“West End Girls" (1985) Pet Shop Boys Parlophone Records (Written by Tennant/Lowe) Highest U.S. Billboard Chart Position – No. 1

There are two lines of thinking concerning the debut pop single for the seminal electronic pop band Pet Shop Boys; one, that the song is atypical of all of the hits they would ultimately create (and are still creating over 30 years later), and the other is that this is their signature song. I am of two minds, that it is at once very them, and conversely not them at all; in some ways their first hit was a makeover of the band, whether by design, or not. It is undeniable that in 1986 it was enormously successful, an evocative ear worm, and that the single introduced the strangely beautiful tenor voice of singer Neil Tennant, and ushered in one of the greatest pop duos ever.

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe met in a hi-if shop in London on Kings Road in Chelsea in 1981, and discovering a mutual love of electronic music, formed a band. Tennant was at that time an assistant editor at Smash Hits magazine, and Chris a college student studying architecture. Immediately, they began writing songs together in Neil’s bedsitter apartment (which I believe translates as a studio in the US). They signed with American producer Bobby O (who oversaw rather crude Miami-tinged 80s dance music) in 1984/85; together with him they produced for the first time many of the songs that would appear on their debut Please, and the follow-up LP, Actually. “West End Girls” was released in 1985 as a 12” disco version that was much cruder and sparer; it was a minor hit in Europe and a “Screamer of the Week” on the influential 80s radio station WLIR in Long Island, New York (who's djs had a nose for new wave talent). Nevertheless, it sank, and they spent the next year extricating themselves from Bobby O and signing with EMI, relinquishing to him some of the future royalties on many of the soon-to-be famous songs they had already written, including “West End Girls”, “Opportunities”, and “It’s A Sin” (all of which were re-recorded and eventually went top ten in the United States). It would seem that the Imperial phase for any great band must always begin with a lawsuit.

“West End Girls” was re-released by the band in late 1985 in a much different version produced by Stephen Hague, and it immediately conquered the world, selling 1.5 million copies. Where the Bobby O version squawked and squealed and sounded dated even then, this new track slithered on to the airwaves with a newer, more insinuating quality. Rather than a club banger, this was now a highly suggestive track, with droning, floating synths, every effect modulated downward into an expression of cool detachment. It was an important single not only in introducing this idea of bored aloofness from the duo, but also by permanently stamping them with the image. No matter how hard they would try in the future to produce bombast (say, on “It’s a Sin”, a truly bezerk pop hit) they would be forever labeled as sardonic, stand-offish, bored, or sarcastic. These are words that really translated into one idea for me: that they were actually gay, and smart, and therefore happy to play along with any narrative the public chose for them as long as people continued to buy their records. The song’s lyrics, written by former history major Tennant, apparently reference Eliot’s “The Waste Land”, which sounds hilariously high-toned, but for the then 19 year old that first experienced it, it was clearly a coded story of gay boys clubbing on the wrong side of town, because the gay bar is inevitably on the wrong side of town, and that perhaps West End Girls is a clever wink at describing gay men crossing over. On top of all of these suggestions was a very fey British man successfully talk-rapping lyrics (a rap I can to this day successfully recite), telling a story with no obvious conclusion, because, well, you know. It is a coded song about a coded world. And while the Pets didn’t invent the electronic pop song, like couturiers they certainly tailored it to the measure of some very strict gay signifiers, and when I fell in love with the hit (and the band) I was already acquainted with those ideas and understood them instantly. Of course, I did not experience the duo as detached; instead, they were stylistically and artistically brilliant, and their songs were clever, propulsive, and unique.

Please as an album can be examined as a cohesive slice of queer nightlife in the 1980s: escaping to the city (“Two Divided by Zero”, “Suburbia”), sneering at society (“Opportunities”), fighting oppression (“Violence”, “I Want a Lover”), and, finally, reconciling to life and love, whatever that might mean (“Later Tonight”, “Love Comes Quickly”, “Why Don’t We Live Together?”). I am sure “West End Girls” does reference “The Waste Land”, but somehow, just perhaps, Neil, the master of collage, is actually speaking more allusively to the mating habits of the male homosexual circa 1985. Chris Lowe, for his part, made absolute certain that the songs would be played were they belonged, which was in the club, his complete obsession in every way; the electronic sounds he produced are essential to the texture of what Pet Shop Boys ended up doing better than anyone else, which was to document gay lives by dropping clues and signals to fantastic disco music while leaving out the specifics. And this is possibly why the original Bobby O version was so awfully wrong, and not really them: the duo must have discovered that they didn’t need to bang bang bang, that they could be better than that. In fact, they actually didn’t need Bobby O at all; they could conjure up these subtle and delicious scenes all by themselves.

Sadly, Bobby O still got the money. Kind of just like a Pet Shop Boys song, isn’t it?

A little cynical, but true.

*The title of Please, which I always found entertaining, I imagined was a reference to gay men chastising one another with "Oh, Please", or "Girl, Please." This has never been substantiated. Instead, Neil was quoted as saying it was a little joke, so when a customer asked for it, they would be forced to say I would like Pet Shop Boys, Please. Hmmm. Regardless, this would still qualify as a double entendre.

Dropping a hairpin (verb, gay, archaic slang term): to reveal one's sexual preferences by dropping broad hints; thus keep your hairpins up, and maintaining a 'normal' mask.

Who, who wants a cocktail? (“Opportunities (Reprise)”)

Someone spread a rumor. Let’s run away. (“Two Divided By Zero”)

In every city, in every nation, from Lake Geneva to the Finland Station. (“West End Girls”)

You may not always love me I may not care But intuition tells me, baby There's something we could share If we dare, why don't we? (“Why Don’t We Live Together?”)

And you wait 'til later, ‘til later tonight. 'Cause tonight always comes. (“Later Tonight”)

Neil Comes Out

In the early 1990s, Jimmy Somerville, formerly of the very out, gay 80s band Bronski Beat, accused Neil and Chris of Pets Shop Boys of exploiting gay culture for career purposes, and of not putting anything back.

Neil came out officially in 1994, and commenting in print on the matter, said that he resented anyone telling anyone how out they should be, or just what constituted a “contribution” to gay culture:

“I do think that we have contributed, through our music and also through our videos and the general way we’ve presented things, rather a lot to what you might call ‘gay culture’. I could spend several pages discussing the notion of ‘gay culture’, but for the sake of argument, I would just say that we have contributed a lot. And the simple reason for this is that I have written songs from my own point of view…”

He pauses again. “What I’m actually saying is, I am gay, and I have written songs from that point of view. So, I mean, I’m being surprisingly honest with you here, but those are the facts of the matter.”

Having finally got all that off his chest, Neil Tennant pours himself a glass of mineral water and takes his sweatshirt off. He is looking distinctly pink around the gills. Maybe it’s the effect of suddenly admitting that for all these years he has been singing nothing but the truth. Or maybe it’s just the unbearable heat in here. “Well,” he says, in a voice which carries a distinct [air of]‘moving swiftly on’, “what’s your next question?”

Source: Neil Tennant in Attitude Magazine, 1994

#west end girls #pet shop boys #1980s #pop #disco #electronic music #Please #music history

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erasure-picnic · 9 months

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This post will cover why journalists compared Erasure to PSB, provoking their side of the “rivalry”.

Why “rivalry”? Their feud wasn’t inspired by any personal hate for each other. Even if Andy Bell had struck out first, it didn’t provoke a response from PSB–not yet, at least. Instead, the “rivalry” was largely a creation of journalists, who had started to compare the two groups. (This was already a cliche by 1989, as one article attests.) Usually, these comparisons went one way. There were far, far more articles focused on Erasure that compared them to PSB, than the reverse.

This was due to parallels in both artists’ careers, with Erasure doing many of the same things that PSB had done. In 1988, Erasure worked with producer Stephen Hague; in 1990 and 1992, they put on lavish, theatrical tours with extravagant costumes and lots of dancers. PSB had done all of these things a year earlier. Erasure also resembled PSB, in that they had a bolder, showier singer and a quieter synth player.

These parallels led many critics to assume that Erasure were merely following in PSB’s footsteps. As a result, when they would write pieces on Erasure, they would compare them to PSB. Since critics largely preferred PSB to Erasure, these comparisons were often unfavourable to Erasure. This tendency to compare the two bands shot up dramatically in the 1990s, when they were the only two synth duos of their type who had survived the 80s.

They didn’t just limit it to articles and reviews. They also did it in interviews with Erasure themselves. When interviewers would ask them about PSB, Erasure would have to distinguish themselves and justify why they did things their way. The easiest way for them to do that was by putting themselves up and putting PSB down. That’s where Erasure’s part of the “rivalry” stemmed from–in large part, because of the comparisons. Unlike PSB, Erasure hardly ever commented on their synth-pop peers unless specifically asked to. (Part 1 of 2 - see the other part in the comments)

An important element of the rivalry was class. Critics who put down Erasure in favour of PSB often implied that Erasure were a lower-class version of PSB, such as in the common phrase “poor man’s Pet Shop Boys” (a description Erasure later embraced). In fact, while PSB were middle-class, Erasure WERE working-class–and they pointed to that difference as a way to distinguish themselves. A full look into the class dimensions of Erasure and PSB could easily be its own post. It’s not in the scope of this one, but if you’re interested in reading how class played into the groups’ fanbases, this is explored in an excellent article by Lynsey Hanley, called How I became middle class (The Guardian, 2016).

Comparisons of Erasure to PSB appeared in all sorts of publications–mainstream, indie, and gay. However, the reverse–PSB being compared to Erasure–tended to be limited to the gay press, who noticed other distinctions between the bands. In the next post, we’ll look at the way the gay press treated the two groups, along with PSB’s side of the “rivalry”.

#erasure #erasure band #pet shop boys #vince clarke #andy bell #neil tennant #chris lowe #pet shop boys vs erasure

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basilepesso · 1 month

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REM, Murmur and Carnival of Sorts, Live 1 983 (USA)

Absolument (le son du live 1 est moins bon que celui du 2).

Ca fait toujours bizarre de voir Stipe avec ses superbes cheveux...

Murmur est très particulier dans la discographie du groupe, production extrêmement nette et sans fioritures, avec une basse qui sonne magnifiquement et est très audible, quasiment comme dans Violent Femmes.

Mike Mills est probablement un des meilleurs bassistes des 80's, sinon plus. Son jeu au médiator est ce qui donne ce son, en plus de la marque de sa basse.

Comme le dit ce remarquable texte anglais de Decade 7787, l'histoire de la production du disque est intéressante puisque le groupe a cessé la collaboration avec le 1er producteur, jugé trop perfectionniste.

Basile Pesso, 13 avril 2 024 avec le double live (Fb)

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"On this date in 1983, R.E.M. released their debut studio album MURMUR, (April 12, 1983).

NOTE: The video here features RADIO FREE EUROPE from MURMUR and CARNIVAL OF SORTS (the third song on the band's 1982 debut EP Chronic Town)

40 years after its original release, MURMUR is still fascinating in its eerie sense of musical space.

Back in 1983, REM were most often compared to the Byrds, and thanks to Peter Buck's ringing guitar on songs like ‘Talk About The Passion’, ‘Catapult’, or ‘Sitting Still’, along with Michael Stipes' lead vocals over soaring harmonies, it was easy to see why.

But that was merely one influence, and a misleading one at that, because with no one source dominating, R.E.M. faintly recalled a host of mid-'60s L.A. bands from The Leaves to "underground” faves like Kaleidoscope, David Lindley's first band. R.E.M. might have thoroughly transformed their influences but the result sounded both familiar and wholly original.

Murmur's oddness was affecting because it wove itself around structures and riffs that sounded familiar – a strange system hum, for instance, winds itself up into the catchiest opener, RADIO FREE EUROPE.

In these efforts, Buck's guitar solos were capable of breaking through the mix and soaring, and any band that could come up with melodies this rich knew a thing or two about pop music.

The lyrics, however, were a flight of ideas from the mind of a meditative 23-year-old. Trying to unravel them, it still feels as though you're divining the deepest of riddles for meaning.

“Early sessions for the album with Stephen Hague, the synth-pop producer who later worked on New Order's True Faith, were quickly rejected, and American producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon were brought in instead,” wrote Jude Rogers for Word in 2009.

“They seemed to understand that although REM had the rhythms of rock, the jangle of the Byrds and the raw grit of Gang Of Four in their belly, they also needed to create a sound-world of their own. Easter and Dixon brought in strange noises – bangs and bells — and recorded instruments at varying distances from the microphone, so you couldn't place where the ghostly figures were coming from.”

“At the album's centre point, like a pearl in an oyster, is a song that tells us as much about REM today as the REM that existed a quarter of a century ago. This is 'Perfect Circle', a masterpiece of simple melody and melancholy, and one of the few REM songs to be attributed mainly to the band's former drummer, Bill Berry, who also wrote most of 'Everybody Hurts'.”

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1980sand1990smusicclassics · 5 months

Video

youtube

"Disappointed" is the fourth single released by English alternative dance group Electronic.Like their first single "Getting Away with It", it features Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys as well as founding members Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner.

It was released on 22 June 1992 on Parlophone soon after the demise of Factory Records.

The single was assigned the Factory catalogue number FAC 348, and the logo of the label remained on the artwork.Upon the song's release, it reached the top 20 in Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

It also peaked within the top 10 on three US Billboard charts - US Dance Club Play, US Maxi-Singles Sales & US Modern Rock Tracks.In July 1992, the song was featured in the soundtrack of the live-action/animation hybrid mystery movie Cool World and its inclusion both in the film and on its soundtrack album was advertised on the US single release.

The song was based on a piano riff by Marr's brother Ian; and worked up into a full backing-track by Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner.They decided to ask Neil Tennant to complete the song and he wrote the lyrics and vocal melody.Some of the words ("Disenchanted once more...") were partly inspired by Mylène Farmer's 1991 hit "Désenchantée".

Tennant travelled to Manchester to record the lead vocal and a few weeks later went to Paris to attend the final mix of the song by Stephen Hague."Disappointed" was conceived just before the recording of New Order's sixth studio album Republic, and was performed live in December 1991 on Electronic's European tour: in Glasgow (sung by Bernard Sumner) and in London (sung by Tennant when Pet Shop Boys guested on three songs).

"Disappointed" was the last Electronic single to be released on all four major formats (7-inch, 12-inch, CD, and cassette).The content of the single was more dynamic than its predecessors, however; it had only one remix of the A-side (by 808 State; titled "808 Mix" in the US and "12-inch remix" in the UK), an additional treatment of a 1991 album track ("Idiot Country", with Ultimatum), and an earlier mix of "Disappointed" (called "Electronic Mix" in the US).The A-side of the single is itself a remix since producer Stephen Hague reworked the "Original Mix" for single release.

Although Electronic would enjoy three more top-twenty singles in the United Kingdom, "Disappointed" was the last major commercial success for the band on an international level, becoming a dance chart hit in the United States and reaching the top 20 in Germany as well as number six in the UK, their highest-charting effort there.

Until the release of Get the Message – The Best of Electronic in 2006, the track was not available on an Electronic album release.

However, since "Disappointed" was featured in the 1992 film Cool World, the song was available on the soundtrack album Songs from the Cool World.Roger Morton of NME was negative in his review, calling the song "effortless in the worse sense" and one that "drifts off into a no man's land of half-hearted disco miserablism".

He commented that Sumner and Marr "have programmed in the garagey synth lines and soft pedal Italian piano, and left out any semblance of melody", while Tennant "murmurs a few lugubrious lines with the enthusiasm of a narcoleptic jellyfish".

Andrew Mueller of Melody Maker felt it "sounds as if minimum effort was exerted over its creation" and concluded, "This sounds like a Pet Shop Boys album track. This yaws where they have stretched.”

"Electronic - Disappointed (Official Music Video) [HD Upgrade]

#youtube #electronic #bernardsumner #bernard sumner #johnnymarr #johnny marr #neiltennant #neil tennant #petshopboys #pet shop boys #neworder #new order #thesmiths #the smiths

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hollywoodfamerp · 11 months

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PLANET PRIDE!

Join us at the Brooklyn Mirage in New York City on June 24th for an unforgettable experience and night! 12 hours, 6 parties, 3 stages = the greatest pride ever! This is not a mandatory event - however, under the cut all celebs have been put into a specific color group! If you plan on having your celeb attend, please have them dress in that color (outfit entirely up to you!) and let's turn the dash into a rainbow! If you do not see your celeb in a group, please message us and we'll give you a color! #hfrppride23, #hollywoodfameoutfits Everyone's invited! Adults only.

Credit to planetpridenyc for the video and graphic.

Red:

Otto Wood

Xiao Dejun (Xiaojun)

Margot Robbie

Alycia Debnam-Carey

Sam Claflin

Kim Jungwoo

Joe Keery

Cate Blanchett

Choi Soobin

Julianna Margulies

Bill Skarsgard

Zoey Deutch

Pamela Martinez (Bayley)

Jackson Wang

Carrie Underwood

Min Yoongi

Awsten Knight

Adam Huber

Lee Taeyong

Harry Kane

Maura Higgins

Kim Hongjoong

Elizabeth Gillies

Chris Pine

Orange:

Molly-Mae Hague

Geoff Wigington

Samantha Gibb

Park Jihyo

Sarah Paulson

Olivia Rodgiro

Lili Reinhart

Lee Felix

Zoë Kravitz

Sana Minatozaki

Ashley Elizabeth Fliehr (Charlotte Flair)

Chris Hemsworth

Wong Kunhang (Hendery)

Chris Evans

Selena Gomez

Lee Donghyuck (Haechan)

Tom Holland

Mason Mount

Ariana Grande

Kim Mingyu

Kim Minjeong (Winter)

Joshua Hong

Louis Tomlinson

Yellow:

Brittany Baker (Britt Baker)

Park Seonghwa

Akanishi Jin

Jung Yoonoh (Jaehyun)

Tyler Hoechlin

Maya Hawke

Sebastian Stan

Tessa Thompson

Lee Taemin

Mazz Murray

Joseph Quinn

Jenna Ortega

Mark Lee

Anya Taylor-Joy

Elizabeth Olsen

Dylan O'Brien

Kim Ahyoung (Yura)

Kaia Gerber

Lee Minho (Lee Know)

Shay Mitchell

Lily James

Maika Monroe

Timothée Chalamet

Green:

Jonathan Good (Jon Moxley)

Natalia Dyer

Miley Cyrus

Lucy Hale

Byun Baekhyun

Yoo Jimin (Karina)

Emily Bett Rickards

Jade Thirlwall

Zendaya Coleman

Jessica Chastain

Choi San

Camila Morrone

Kelsea Ballerini

Beyoncé Knowles

Madelaine Petsch

Rachel Weisz

Gigi Hadid

Kang Seulgi

Jung Wooyoung

Jessica Lange

Wong Yukhei (Lucas Wong)

Taylor Swift

Alexa Demie

Blue:

Kim Namjoon

James Lafferty

Choi Minho

Colby Lopez (Seth Rollins)

Dylan Sprouse

Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul (Ten)

Christopher Bang (Bang Chan)

Brittany Snow

Adelaide Kane

Dua Lipa

Sarah Drew

Joe Burrow

Chace Crawford

Jensen Ackles

Sarah Hyland

Andy Biersack

Bruno Mars

Hwang Hyunjin

Emily Osment

Tyler Alvarez

Christian Yu

Diamanté Quiava Valentin Harper (Saweetie)

Florence Pugh

Violet:

Mercedes Justine Varnado (Sasha Banks)

Megan Jovon Ruth Pete (Megan Thee Stallion)

Stephen Amell

Yoo Siah (YooA)

Jennifer Morrison

Rebecca Quin (Becky Lynch)

Austin Butler

Zac Efron

Lee Sunmi

Kim Jisoo

Jeon Jungkook

Gong Jichul (Gong Yoo)

Kim Taehyung

Sophie Thatcher

Renee Paquette (Renee Young)

Leati Joseph Anoa'i (Roman Reigns)

Kim Jongin (Kai)

Ross Lynch

Vanessa Hudgens

Lupita Nyong'o

Gareth Southgate

Brett Tucker

Meryl Streep

#hollywoodfameevent #tw: flashing video

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inthewindtunnel · 2 years

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youtube

Love In Prague

Insight

(Stephen Hague mix)

#Love In Prague #Insight #Stephen Hague mix #Youtube

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neworderscans · 2 years

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Bernard Sumner: Cash For Questions, Q Magazine 1999 (article in text below:)

Cash 4 Questions with Barney By David Quantick

He is half of Electronic, a quarter of New Order and isn’t he a naughty fellow! You blamed him for Keith Allen and asked him about as many drugs as there are drugs. In return, he denied ever having "touched himself". Meet the people Bernard Sumner.

Bernard Sumner is looking rather well. In rude health, even. This may be because Bernard Sumner has stopped eating pasties, but it’s more likely because the night before Manchester United won a football match against some Germans.

In a West London hotel, the only non-purple star called Barney lounges on a well-stuffed sofa nursing a half-bottle of Chardonnay. In spite of his numerous 43 years -20 of them spent as a member of Joy Division, New Order, Electronic, and, if you want to be pedantic, Englandneworder, the short-lived rock/footie conglomeration that brought you the rapping of John Barnes - he appears younger than he has any right to.

Moreover - bucking his Mr Miseryguts reputation - Summer appears delighted to answer even the readers’ ugliest questions. Some of his replies maybe tongue-in-cheek, and some are, frankly, lies. He may, charmingly, have faith in the beauty of moustaches, he may be eerily loath to reveal the secret of his morphing surname, but the former Bernard Dicken is proving an amenable chap. Just don’t call him Warsaw, that’s all.

Q opens the ceremonial geography project folder of questions, Sumner sips his Chardonnay and off we go.

Words David Quantick

Is True Faith about ecstasy? Trisha Farmer. Hull No. It’s about drug dependency. I don’t touch smack but when I wrote that song I tried to imagine what it’s like to be a smackhead and nothing else matters to you except that day’s hit. There’s a line in the song, “When I was a very young boy, very young boys played with me/Now we’ve grown up together, they’re afraid of what they see." The original was, “Now they’re taking drugs with me,” but Stephen Hague our producer made us change it because he said it wouldn’t be a hit if we kept that line in. He was right. It was a very big hit, but we chickened out. I change it back sometimes live.

Given your chemically excessive past, what is your parental advice to your kids concerning drugs? Anthony Clifford, Taunton Don’t go anywhere near heroin or crack or acid. Taking ecstasy’s like Russian roulette, except you've got 99,000 bullets that are empty and one that’s loaded. I don’t know anyone who’s taken cocaine where it hasn’t become a friend for life. Although you can say the same for cigarettes. I don’t smoke marijuana, but if you’re going to take a drug, that’s the best one. It’s not as bad for you as alcohol and it makes people mellow and friendly, Unfortunately, it just makes me go to sleep.

Do you still have a receiver in your head? Noel Edmunds, via e-mail I think I know what this is about. I think I came out in an interview with some bullshit answer to a question about howl wrote music. I said that I had a television aerial in my head and it picked ideas out ofthe ether and I used to work at night when everyone was asleep. Maybe I did write in a different way in those days. I think now I’ve not got that many problems in my life, I want to write songs about the ones I have got, rather than that kind of... dreamscape. I used to be pretty sort of dreamy and go off on one. I still can do it. I sat in my room for twelve hours just not watching television or anything, just thinking.

What made you piss yourself on Every Little Counts? Jamie BIundell, Rednal The words were so bad, basically (“I think you are a pig/You should be in a zoo”). We kept it on because it was better than the original lyric.

What’s your excuse for having a moustache when you were Warsaw? Ursula Stevenson, Reading It’s a popular misconception that we were called Warsaw. We were never called Warsaw. At our first concert we changed it to Joy Division (He is reminded of the question) The moustach? I’d forgotten all about that. In those days moustaches were really big. The thing I was embarrassed about was it was a bumlluff moustache that didn’t quite join in the middle. Bit like Noel’s eyebrows. No, the opposite of Noel’s eyebrows. It looked like I had Noel’s eyebrows on my lip. I’ll stand by my moustache. If you look at most pop stars, you’ll find some kind of styling error in their past history.

When joy Division started, why did you keep changing your surname, from Dicken to Albrecht to Sumner? Dove Clarke, Salford Family reasons. I’d rather not go into it.

Ian Curtis, 1999 - what would he be up to? Matt Palmer, Worcestershire It’s hard to imagine because Ian was very ill. I can’t imagine him in the ‘90s. He once threatened to go off and leave the group and buy a corner shop in Bournemouth. It was an off-licence that sold books as well, I think that was his idea. These mad, completely illogical thoughts used to come into his head from time to time. So maybe eventually he would have done that. I think he would have been a writer, because he was always reading books and he was always writing anyway. Or maybe he would have retired a millionaire by now, who knows? Silly sod.

Is it true that Touched By The Hand Of God is about whacking off Aidan Vaziri, San Francisco (Long pause followed by wide-eyed response) What’s whacking off mean? (It is explained to him) I would not write a song about masturbating, No, it’s not, most definitely isn’t. And I've never done that in my life ever. Ever. Do people really do that? Masturbate? Do you masturbate? I’ve never done it ever in my life. I’ve certainly never written a song about it. (Confidentially) It’s about bestiality, actually.

Do you regret doing that Prozac documentary? Wasn’t it a rather strange thing to do? Damon Williams, Bromley I regret it but not bitterly. It was interesting tak-ing Prozac because I don’t really suffer from depression but I can be a melancholic sort of person. It was interesting being a different person for seven months. It really agreed with me. I still think it’s a very, very interesting drug. I found when I took it if I had problems, then instead of me crumbling before my problems, I would deal with the problems.

Quote a lyric from the second Electronic album that isn’t from the single, Forbidden City. William Haas, Winchester Um... I honestly can’t be bothered. You tell me. What a trainspotter. All right, here’s one: “Misguided youth/You mix some juice with alcohol." It’s from Liquor.

Finish the sentence, in less than 10 words, “Manchester is great because..." Carl Hedges, Liverpool We’ve got the best football team, we've got the best bands, we’ve got the best gang violence scene anywhere in Britain, It’s always sunny there, it never rains...

You and Michael jackson are the only pop stars who whoop. Discuss. Heather Thompson, London NB Ha ha ha! Well, I get excited. Whoopings a primeval expression of enjoyment, and sometimes if I’m getting into a vocal take, I just get into it. If I’m at a club, I like whistling... I was at a club in Bath and this girl got a bouncer over to stop me (demonstrates incredibly powerful, piercing whistle). I don’t get excited very often but when I do, I get really excited. I’ll stop doing it now, I’ll get self-conscious about it.

When did you last touch Pernod? Steve Heath, Keighley Um... Well, Pernod’s been replaced by Absinthe. There’s this whole ritual where you bake some up on a spoon, a bit like freebasing. That stuff’s like rocket fuel, I had a couple of nights with Alex James out of Blur, a couple of disastrous nights drinking Absinthe, and I don’t even remember drinking it.

Have you ever been down to your last dollar and how did you cope? Adrian Gibbon, Bassetbury Balloons Party Shop, High Wycombe It was on New Order’s first US tour and I didn’t really get the idea of tipping - I’m a bit of a tight bastard and I find the whole idea of tipping abhorrent. We bought a beer in a club and it was 75 cents, So I thought, well, you’ve got to tip here or they'll go fucking mad. I only had a dollar, I didn’t have any more money so I him the dollar and said, Keep the change, and he went, "You fucking Manc bastard," and threw the 25 cents at me.

Do you own a Sainsbury’s reward card? Jill Cash, Amersham I do, but it’s mysteriously gone missing. I probably left it in the toilet somewhere. I keep losing odd credit cards,,, It didn’t have many points on it because I cashed it. I have a special platinum reward card. You get more points than other people, being a celebrity and that.

I saw you purchase a tuna sandwich from Spinks in Wilmslow. It was a cold day - why didn’t you buy a pasty like me? Were you trying to be hard? Andy Parr, Maclesfield Ha ha ha! I’m trying to lose a bit of weight, that’s why! Tuna's much more healthy for you and I'm trying to go on a health kick. I can’t eat pasties any more without affecting my, ah, already fragile waistline.

What’s the most unusual place you’ve had sex? Polly Winterton, London W12 I couldn’t possibly tell you without offending someone. Um... ah... I might get in trouble. I'm trying to think of which particular unusual place out of all the unusual places...

Don’t you feel ashamed for having started Keith Allen out in his pop career? K Allen (thankfully no relation), Bromley Heh heh heh! K. Allen? Um... em... I think Keith’s made a wonderful contribution to pop. I think the Fat Les records are some of the all-time classic songs that’ll go down as... ‘90's classics. I’m very proud of Keith’s contribution to pop music and I’m sure that every time there’s some kind of football event to cash in on... er! help to promote I’m sure Keith’ll be there with one of his wonderful renditions.

What’s your best Shaun Ryder story? Jane Smith, Liverpool Which one? I’ve got about three. He went out in his car to score and he crashed into a vicar in a Lada. He had 500 quid in his pocket and he said to the vicar, "Look, mate, your car’s not worth 500 quid, I’ll give you this ifyou don’t call the cops." He was a vicar and he wouldn’t take it, so Shaun said, "Well, fuck off then," and got in his car and drove off. About ten minutes later, the police knocked at his house and he said, how did you find me so quick? And they just showed him his number plate. He’d left his number plate at the scene of the crime. What else? There’s a few disgusting ones...

Did you really do a version of Blue Monday for a Sunkist ad? If so, how did the lyrics go? Peter Rees, Shrewsbury (Recites) "How does it feel/When you’re drinking in the sun? Something something something/Sunkist is the one/How does it feel/When you’re drinking in the sun/All you’ve got to believe/Is Sunkist is the one" I didn’t write them. We got offered £100,000 to do it. I kept laughing when I was singing it, so Hooky (Peter Hook, New Order bassist) got a piece card and wrote “£100,000” on it, held it up, and I sang it perfectly. But then Rob Gretton (New Order’s late manager) turned up and put the kibosh on it. There’s a remix of Blue Monday by Steve “Silk” Hurley and it’s got the Sunkist lyrics on it.

People who bought the Electronic album probably see it as a substitute for New Order, and primarily use Electronic to fill the gap until the next New Order album What do you think of that? Nicklas Mandahl Enevaldsen, Denmark Well... very pleased. Fucking hell, what do you expect me to say? Um... Thank God not everybody’s like that.

Former Factory Records boss Tony Wilson comes to you with a sure-fire business proposition that “just can’t fail”. What do you do? Kevin Leslie, Oldham Ha ha! Ha ha! Piss myself laughing. In fact that’s what happened when we were recording Every Little Counts... Tony came in with a sure-fire business proposition.

Does Steven (Morris, New Order drummer) let you play with his tank? Lee Hollows, Birmingham I’ve sat in his tank, yeah. Steve’s got a tank that he has permanently pointed at my house. Me and Steve play with it and we’re in training for Kosovo. When the troops go in, we hope be in the vanguard of operations. We’re keeping the gun well-oiled and we’re going to shove it right up Slobodan’s arse. In fact, someone up the road from Steve’s had the same tank, and they’ve got a slight design fault which means that you’re driving along and swerve, it’s uncontrollable, and this guy’s tank did this and decapitated his wife. It was because it was on the news and there was a picture of Steve’s tank - we were “Steve’s crashed the tank and Gillian’s been decapitated”. So I don’t think I’ll be going in it again.

What’s your favorite memory of Rob Gretton? Ruth Quest, Gloucester (long pause) um.,. Rob used to say to everyone, “What are you doing?” nothing, Rob, nothing: “What should you be doing? Skin up!” I’ll remember those words.

Web link/source

#new order #bernard sumner #electronic #text

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ukrainenews · 1 year

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Daily Wrap Up March 17-20, 2023

Family came into town and has left again. LET’S CATCH UP!

Under the cut:

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant on Friday against Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. The bold legal move will obligate the court's 123 member states to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory.

Xi Jinping said China was ready with Russia “to stand guard over the world order based on international law” as he arrived for a state visit to Moscow that comes days after Vladimir Putin was made the subject of an arrest warrant by the international criminal court. The Chinese leader is expected to position himself as a potential peacemaker in the Ukraine war during his two-day visit to Russia – his first state visit since Putin’s invasion. For his part, the Russian president will be hoping to project unity in the face of western isolation, as the US condemned Xi for providing “diplomatic cover” for Moscow to continue to commit further crimes in Ukraine.

Ukraine said on Monday the eastern town of Avdiivka could soon become a "second Bakhmut", a small city where its forces have held out against Russian invaders for eight months but risk being fully encircled. The battle for Bakhmut in the industrial Donbas has been one of the fiercest of the nearly 13-month-old war in Ukraine, drawing comparisons with World War One trench warfare.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate has no evidence of China providing Russia with weapons, the directorate's spokesperson Andrii Yusov said on March 20. According to Yusov, as cited by the Ukrinform news outlet, Russia has bought commercially available Chinese-made drones or civilian products with microcircuits suitable for military use. However, interstate aid has not been confirmed.

Geolocated footage published on March 19 indicates that Ukrainian forces conducted a successful counterattack southwest of Ivanivske, located six kilometers west of Bakhmut, and pushed Russian forces further away from the key highway in the area, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest update.

Seventeen EU member states and Norway have agreed to jointly procure ammunition to “aid Ukraine and replenish national stockpiles,” the European Defence Agency (EDA) said in a news release on Monday. Earlier Monday, Estonia’s Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said that following a meeting in Brussels, European Union member states had agreed on the joint procurement of one million rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition for Ukraine.

“The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant on Friday against Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.

The bold legal move will obligate the court's 123 member states to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory.

Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations that its forces have committed atrocities during its one-year invasion of its neighbour and the Kremlin branded the court decision as "null and void".

Neither Russia not Ukraine are members of the ICC, although Kyiv granted it jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed on its territory. The tribunal has no police force of its own and relies on member states to make arrests.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia found the very questions raised by the ICC "outrageous and unacceptable".

Asked if Putin now feared travelling to countries that recognised the ICC, Peskov said: "I have nothing to add on this subject. That's all we want to say."

Stephen Rapp, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues under former president Barack Obama, said: "This makes Putin a pariah. If he travels he risks arrest. This never goes away. Russia cannot gain relief from sanctions without compliance with the warrants."

Putin is the third serving president to be the target of an ICC arrest warrant, after Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.

Reuters reported earlier this week that the court was expected to issue warrants.

DEPORTATION OF CHILDREN In its first warrant for Ukraine, the ICC called for Putin's arrest on suspicion of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation since Feb. 24, 2022.

"Hundreds of Ukrainian children have been taken from orphanages and children’s homes to Russia," ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement on Friday. "Many of these children, we allege, have since been given up for adoption in the Russian Federation."

The alleged acts "demonstrate an intention to permanently remove these children from their own country. At the time of these deportations, the Ukrainian children were protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention."

Khan said his office will continue looking for additional suspects and "will not hesitate to submit further applications for warrants of arrest when the evidence requires us to do so."

Ukraine's top prosecutor, Andriy Kostin, hailed the ICC move as a "a historic decision for Ukraine and the entire international law system".

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said it was just the start of "holding Russia accountable for its crimes and atrocities in Ukraine".

Some Russians saw the hand of the United States in the ICC decision, although Washington, like Moscow, is not a state party.

"Yankees, hands off Putin!" wrote parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, a close ally of the president, on Telegram, saying the move was evidence of Western "hysteria".

"We regard any attacks on the President of the Russian Federation as aggression against our country," he said.

The court also issued a warrant on Friday for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, on the same charges. She responded to the news with irony, according to RIA Novosti agency: "It's great that the international community has appreciated the work to help the children of our country."

Ukraine has said more than 16,000 children have been illegally transferred to Russia or Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine.

A U.S.-backed report by Yale University researchers last month said Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children in at least 43 camps and other facilities as part of a "large-scale systematic network".

Russia has not concealed a programme under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.

The ICC's Khan opened the investigation into possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine a year ago. He highlighted during four trips to Ukraine that he was looking at alleged crimes against children and the targeting of civilian infrastructure.”-via Reuters

“Xi Jinping said China was ready with Russia “to stand guard over the world order based on international law” as he arrived for a state visit to Moscow that comes days after Vladimir Putin was made the subject of an arrest warrant by the international criminal court.

The Chinese leader is expected to position himself as a potential peacemaker in the Ukraine war during his two-day visit to Russia – his first state visit since Putin’s invasion. For his part, the Russian president will be hoping to project unity in the face of western isolation, as the US condemned Xi for providing “diplomatic cover” for Moscow to continue to commit further crimes in Ukraine.

A military brass band greeted Xi at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, where he was welcomed by Russia’s deputy prime minister for tourism, sport, culture and communications, Dmitri Chernyshenko.

“I am very glad, at the invitation of President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, to come back to the land of our close neighbour on a state visit,” Xi said upon arrival, according to Russia’s state-run Tass news agency. “I am confident the visit will be fruitful and give new momentum to the healthy and stable development of Chinese-Russian relations.”

Xi added that with Russia, China was “ready to resolutely defend the UN-centric international system, stand guard over the world order based on international law”.

The two leaders spoke briefly to the press on Monday at the Kremlin before an “informal meeting”.

“We have thoroughly studied your proposals on regulating the acute crisis in Ukraine. Of course, we will have an opportunity to discuss them,” Putin told Xi, referring to China’s peace plan for dealing with the war in Ukraine. “We are always open to negotiations,” the Russian leader added.

Xi in turn praised Putin’s “strong leadership” and said he was sure the Russian people would support him in the presidential elections next year.

The Russian leader has not yet formally announced he is running for president and the Kremlin on Monday was quick to deny Xi had inside knowledge about Putin’s plans.

The state-run Ria news agency said Monday’s informal talks lasted for four and a half hours. The talks were accompanied by a six-course meal that included blini with quail and mushrooms, fish and pomegranate sorbet, according to a menu published by a state media journalist. Putin then walked with Xi to his car and said goodbye.

Formal talks were scheduled for Tuesday, the Kremlin said.

Xi’s visit comes three days after Putin was made the subject of an arrest warrant by the international criminal court for overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children, sending Russia another significant step on the path to becoming a pariah state, and two days after he made a surprise visit to the occupied city of Mariupol in an apparent show of defiance towards the court and the west in general.

Washington said on Monday that Xi’s visit to Moscow soon after the ICC’s court order amounted to Beijing providing “diplomatic cover for Russia to continue to commit” war crimes.

“That President Xi is travelling to Russia days after the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for President Putin suggests that China feels no responsibility to hold the Kremlin accountable for the atrocities committed in Ukraine,” the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told journalists.

In a further symbolic gesture of defiance, Russia’s investigative committee said on Monday that it had opened a criminal case against the ICC prosecutor and judges who issued the warrant.

During a media briefing on Monday, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called on the ICC to avoid “politicisation and double standards”.”-via The Guardian

“Ukraine said on Monday the eastern town of Avdiivka could soon become a "second Bakhmut", a small city where its forces have held out against Russian invaders for eight months but risk being fully encircled.

The battle for Bakhmut in the industrial Donbas has been one of the fiercest of the nearly 13-month-old war in Ukraine, drawing comparisons with World War One trench warfare.

The commander of Ukraine's ground forces said last week Moscow's forces were now trying to fully encircle Bakhmut in an offensive that has made no major breakthroughs.

On Monday, the spokesperson for Ukraine's Tavria military command said he agreed with an assessment by British Defence Intelligence that Russia was mounting pressure on supply lines to Avdiivka, as it has done around Bakhmut.

"The enemy is constantly trying to encircle the town of Avdiivka. I very much agree with my colleagues from the UK that Avdiivka may soon become the second Bakhmut," spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi said.

"However, I would like to say that all is not well with the Russian units attacking in this direction," he added in televised comments.

Ukraine has said Russian forces are taking heavy losses in their offensive in eastern Ukraine.

Avdiivka had a peacetime population of more than 30,000. Unlike Bakhmut, it has been a frontline town for many years.

Ukrainian forces were dug in there long before Russia's full-scale invasion last year, holding the line against Russian-backed militants who took control of swathes of territory in east Ukraine in 2014 after Russian forces seized Crimea.

Avdiivka lies just to the north of the Russian-held city of Donetsk, of which Ukraine lost control in 2014.

British Defence Intelligence tweeted on Monday that Russian forces had made "creeping gains" around Avdiivka and said the sprawling Avdiivka Coke Plant was "likely to be seen as particularly defendable key terrain as the battle progresses".”-via Reuters

“Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate has no evidence of China providing Russia with weapons, the directorate's spokesperson Andrii Yusov said on March 20.

According to Yusov, as cited by the Ukrinform news outlet, Russia has bought commercially available Chinese-made drones or civilian products with microcircuits suitable for military use. However, interstate aid has not been confirmed.

Yusov added that information on China's supply of rifles or body armor to Russia was being checked, but there is currently no evidence of such cooperation.

Trade and customs data between June and December 2022 showed that Chinese companies had exported 1,000 assault rifles and other equipment, such as drone parts and body armor, to Russian entities, Politico reported on March 16.

Yusov's statement comes amid Chinese President Xi Jinping's three-day visit to Russia, which the military official called "a visit of a strong regional leader to a country that is undergoing geopolitical defeat."

"As a pragmatic geopolitical player, China will strengthen its position on Russia's territory, protecting its own economic and other national interests exclusively," Yusov said. "Russia will become less and less a subject, more and more dependent on other players… Putin's regime will continue to weaken."

Chinese leader Xi arrived in Moscow on March 20 for his first state visit to Russia since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. At a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Xi said Moscow and Beijing "share similar goals."

Xi's meeting with Putin is a part of a push for multilateral peace negotiations as Beijing claims it wants to play a more active role in ending the war against Ukraine.

Multiple U.S. officials have publicly stated over the past month that China was considering providing lethal aid to Russia.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN on Feb. 27 that there would be "real costs" for China if the country makes such a decision.”-via Kyiv Independent

“Geolocated footage published on March 19 indicates that Ukrainian forces conducted a successful counterattack southwest of Ivanivske, located six kilometers west of Bakhmut, and pushed Russian forces further away from the key highway in the area, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest update.

Serhii Cherevaty, a spokesperson for the eastern grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said that Russian forces conducted 25 attacks in the Bakhmut area on March 19, but Russian forces likely only secured "marginal gains."

Russian sources amplified footage on March 18 alleging to show a column of Ukrainian armored vehicles along the highway southwest of Kostiantynivka (22 kilometers southwest of Bakhmut) and speculated that Ukrainian forces are preparing to launch counteroffensive operations southwest of Bakhmut.

A prominent Russian military blogger claimed that Ukrainian forces "are currently capable of intensifying counterattacks to stabilize the front line around Bakhmut."

"The growing Russian discussions about an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Bakhmut area suggest that Russian sources are increasingly uncertain about the Russian military’s ability to maintain the initiative around Bakhmut," the ISW found.”-via Kyiv Independent

“Seventeen EU member states and Norway have agreed to jointly procure ammunition to “aid Ukraine and replenish national stockpiles,” the European Defence Agency (EDA) said in a news release on Monday.

Earlier Monday, Estonia’s Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said that following a meeting in Brussels, European Union member states had agreed on the joint procurement of one million rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition for Ukraine.

“The project opens the way for EU Member States and Norway to proceed along two paths: a two-year, fast-track procedure for 155mm artillery rounds and a seven-year project to acquire multiple ammunition types,” the European Defence Agency said.

The 18 European nations include: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden and Norway.

The EDA said that this project “sends a clear message to industry and strengthens the EU’s support for Ukraine following Russia’s war of aggression,” adding that more countries have expressed intent to join the initiative.

“Today, we take a step forward. We are delivering on our promises to provide Ukraine with more artillery ammunition. With today’s signature, 18 countries have signed up to aggregate orders and place them together with the industry through the European Defence Agency. The Ukrainian authorities have been clear about their needs and this EDA project is part of the EU response. By procuring together through the EDA framework and mobilising financial support from the European Peace Facility, we will deliver to Ukraine more and faster. We are again breaking a taboo and unlocking the potential of EU cooperation in joint procurement,” EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said. According to the EDA, the agency has been working since November of last year to identify critical shortfalls on three areas: ammunition, soldier systems and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) equipment.

This project provides a seven-year framework “to commonly procure multiple types and calibers of ammunition (5.56 mm to 155 mm) to replenish national stocks.””-via CNN

#Daily Update #Ukraine #Russia #War in Ukraine #China #Bakhmut #Avdiivka #EU #Norway #ICC

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sharpened--edges · 1 year

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In the twentieth century, one of the most important functions of [international arbitration] tribunals became protecting alien property (property owned by foreign nationals and corporations) overseas. The expropriations of foreign property that followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the Mexican nationalisation of foreign petroleum companies in 1938 provided the impetus in Western Europe and North America to develop complex legal apparatuses, doctrines, and rules to protect the alien property of North American and European investors and firms. The postwar wave of decolonisation only intensified this urge, as newly decolonised states staked claims to their usurped national properties. In many instances, their attempts at changing the terms of existing contracts ran into ‘stabilisation clauses’ written in after Mexico’s nationalisation of oil. Stabilisation clauses froze ‘the provisions of a national system of law chosen as the law of the contract as of the date of the contract’ to prevent future alterations – in other words, nationalisation. Another condition was the settling of disputes not in the decolonising countries, but in international tribunals. After Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Iran insisted that any disputes with the Company would have to be settled in Iranian courts, since international arbitration would be ‘humiliating and incompatible with the concept of state sovereignty’; Mossadegh had nevertheless found himself facing the Company in the Hague.

International arbitration protected the property of investors, made the contract sacrosanct, and guaranteed confidentiality and secrecy to corporate litigants that did not want their practices exposed to court transparency. [International Court of Justice president Stephen] Schwebel declared triumphantly that international investment law and its tribunals ‘dethroned the State from its status as the sole object of international law’ at exactly the moment former colonies were becoming sovereign states. This was no coincidence.

Laleh Khalili, Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula (Verso, 2021), pp. 92–3.

#laleh khalili

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joemuggs · 9 months

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Winging It

Thirty years ago today, one of the greatest albums of the 90s came out. I wrote about it for MOJO in 2018, including some hilarious words from the sadly missed Andrew Weatherall.

👇🏻

The album that soundtracked the end of the acid house honeymoon – for the select few that loved it – has a suitably decadent beginning.

“I was playing at a club in Rimini as part of some Balearic charabanc,” says DJ / producer Andrew Weatherall, “and at about 6am when it finished the owner opened up the back of the club onto the beach and said we'd be carrying on on his yacht. Not quite a Roman Abramovic superyacht, but sound enough – and off we went. So there I was, spangled and enjoying the view, and a young lady came up and started singing in my ear. 'I'm Dorothy Allison and I've got a band in Glasgow,' she said. Then we landed and stumbled back up the beach, terrifying the tourists.”

Her band was called Dove, a trio of Allison, Jim McKinven (formerly of Altered Images and Berlin Blondes), and Ian Carmichael (producer and occasional keyboardist for Sarah Records janglers The Orchids). They'd only released one song, “Fallen”, on Glasgow's Soma label – but that song's dub space, insinuatingly whispered vocal and harmonica lifted from a Supertramp record had captured the bittersweet mysteries of the morning after the rave better than almost any, and caused quite a stir. Weatherall, meanwhile, was on a high in every sense having – despite next to no studio experience – just marshalled Primal Scream into completing Screamadelica.

The first collaboration to come out of the yacht introduction was reworking “Fallen” for the renamed One Dove. “I was nervous!” says Carmichael. “Andy [Weatherall] came to my studio in Glasgow and I was late meeting him so he was waiting outside when I got there. I thought he'd be really pissed off, but the reviews for Screamadelica had just come out, so he was reading the papers on the doorstep and was obviously delighted.” The remix happened quickly. “It was instinctive and spontaneous,” says Carmichael “The whole time I was watching recording levels on my old Revox 1/4” bouncing into the red, and splicing lots of sections of tape together with shaking hands; it was terrifying for me. I thought the whole thing would be a mess, but when we played it back at the end and heard his version of 'Fallen' it was miraculous.”

This quickly developed into a slick working relationship, releasing on Weatherall and friends' Boys Own Productions. The three would write, send tracks to Weatherall, who brought in associates like Jah Wobble and Primal Scream's Andrew Innes for embellishment. Surprisingly rapidly given the fervid times – “I remember next to nothing of the process, I'm afraid” says Weatherall, “or indeed of those years” – it fell together into an extraordinarily coherent whole. “Every song we came up with went on the album,” says Carmichael, “we were buzzing the whole time as each one came together.” The sound blended the ambient dub of the time with a rich streak of country heartbreak (something they'd nod explicitly to by covering “Jolene” on a b-side), everything covered in sonic velvet to match the purity of Allison's softly breathed mysteries. “There were no histrionics,” says Weatherall; “it was the antidote to the wailing diva thing we'd all embraced in house music.”

It's a gorgeous, lingering dream of an album with a dark heart, and it's a perennial puzzler why it didn't sell like hot disco biscuits; after all, Boys Own now had the backing of major label London. “It's easy to blame the record label,” says Weatherall, “so let's do just that. The album came together nice and quickly – if they'd just have put it out, said 'here's a cool new band' and let them get on with it, one suspects the second album would have been where they got big.” But London kept Morning Dove White in limbo for a year, insisting on more pop mixes of the album's singles by Stephen Hague, and pushing for quick fix success. In fact those single mixes are gorgeous, but, Carmichael says “maybe they put a lot of the hardcore Weatherall fans off.” William Orbit remixed too, sonically prefiguring his work with Madonna and All Saints.

Despite promising performance from the singles, MDW didn't become the hit London wanted, and the stress took its toll. The second album – made without Weatherall – was painful, the band's relationship disintegrated, their “failure to become the new Eurythmics” led to the label shelving the album, and they split in 1996. Allison would go on to make some great solo records, working with everyone from Death In Vegas via Pete Doherty to Scott Walker. McKinven still plays and DJs in Glasgow, and has released with occasional projects including the fantastically moody electro guises Organs Of Love and WomenSaid on the connoiseur's imprint Optimo Music. Carmichael worked with trip-hoppers Lamb for some time, produced for the likes of Bis and The Pastels, and maintains an ongoing relationship with The Orchids – as well as being a director of the School of Sound Recording. MDW, a couple of b-sides and some leaked second album demos on Soundcloud remain the only remaining monument to their time together: just a glimpse of what might have been, and as such perfectly evocative of the “Transient Truth” of the pleasures and regrets of its era.

#glasgow #acid house #chillout #country and western #dub #Andrew weatherall #dot allison #balearic #classic albums #lost classics #Spotify

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