PETE'S DESERT ISLAND DISKS
(or my ten favourite tracks of all time)
In the likely event that I'm never rich and famous, for the sake of posterity, and for a bit of a laugh, and in the hope that I can incite some debate, I've decided to choose my favourite bands and tracks of all time.
These days I guess you could just take your ipod with you when they strand you on the island, but as the point of this is to choose 8 tracks, here they are (though I've rounded up to a nice easy top 10 (hey, I mean why not?) though a top 100 could've been done too, though with perhaps a bit more difficulty).
I guess that what is consistent about most of these bands is that they all have some attitude, some kind of edge... Not many of these are that recent either, which is a shame, because I still buy CDs... I guess these are just the tracks that have stayed with me the longest and so inform my taste...
And in vague chronological order...
The Velvet Underground - Venus in Furs
I can't remember when I first heard this, but I am still sometimes amazed at just how good this is. It is very much its own thing, unlike anything else before or since (despite the number of bands who have been influenced by the VU). John Cale's electric viola drone is so otherworldly in its beauty. Lou Reed so New York cool.
Familiarity breeds contempt, so despite how much I love this, I don't play it too often.
The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
I almost find it almost impossible to choose a single track of theirs and I'm not sure I don't actually prefer Sonic Youth's cover of this, which is the second track off the eponymous first LP (produced by John Cale). Funhouse (their next LP) is better thought of by most, though I think neither are entirely convincing as wholes (great individual tracks rather than great albums), though Funhouse is stronger overall (and it has the great "Dirt").
I'm not even sure that this was their best period either, as I think the James Williamson era (Iggy & The Stooges) had the better songs and the better LP (Raw Power - though the 90s remix by Iggy is much better). There were also a number of great songs (such as "Open up and Bleed" and "Johanna") that were never released on an LP post Raw Power, because the band disintegrated.
But "Dog" is just a great song though, from the opening salvo to the oh so simple lyric, to Iggy barking...
Neil Young - The Needle and the Damage Done
I saw Laura Marling covering this on YouTube recently, really beautifully (almost had me in tears), and I think that I was first introduced to the song when it was covered by Henry Kaiser on the Neil Young tribute LP (The Bridge - 1989). I think this was from Young's best period, and tend to feel that all you really need is Decade, the compilation from 1975, for the best of his compositions (probably only a few tracks off Rust never Sleeps would really complete it). I also really love "Cortez The Killer" and "Down by the River" (I shot my baby dead).
Joy Division - Dead Souls
It makes me wonder about what would have happened had Ian Curtis not committed suicide. Unknown Pleasures and Closer are undoubtedly great LPs, but I wonder if they are greater because of Curtis’s Suicide (and is that a terrible thing to suggest?). I think it was Paul Morley who suggested that Curtis's suicide is what made them real, that these were the lyrics of somebody who wasn't messing around, that it gives the music more significance, some real weight. But who can really say? Had Curtis survived where would they have gone? Could they have gotten better, or would they have reached a kind of end in some other way?
Unknown Pleasures is still one of my favourite LPs, and I prefer it to Closer, because of the cut glass clarity of its sound, the smashing shards of guitar, and the solemn horror in Curtis's voice.
Though there are obviously several other tracks I could have chosen I like this one because of the slow build; the first time you hear it you think it's going to be an instrumental, and then towards the end (well near the half-way point) the voice kicks in, Curtis at his most existentially horror-stricken...
"Someone take these dreams away, that point me to another day"
And the repeat of:
"And they keep calling me..."
I am constantly annoyed that the only song of theirs they play on the radio these days is "Love will Tear us Apart" (great song though it is) - perhaps the rest are just a wee bit too dark!
Dead Kennedys - Holiday in Cambodia
"Pol Pot! Pol Pot!"
'Nuff said!
The Fall - Various Times
I'm still not sure why this is my favourite song by the Fall. I like the lyrics, which seem to tell an interesting tale (though what is actually happening in them I would be hard-pressed to say); references to Dr Doom and Ursula Le Guin add to the intrigue, and the music is quintessentially The Fall ("Always different, always the same."). Not sure if "New Face in Hell" is not a greater track (and off one of my favourite Fall LPs) but they had so many great songs between 1977 & 1989.
I kind of lost interest in The Fall in the early 90s, though I now think in terms of influence and importance they are the greatest British band of the 20th Century... (You may notice there are no Beatles, Rolling Stones or The Who in this list). I recently finished reading The Fallen, in which Dave Simpson tracks down all the ex-members of The Fall (43+ by then). I think the only band I saw more often in the 1980's was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, which funnily enough brings us to
The Birthday Party - Mutiny in Heaven
Nick Cave's finest lyric. This was one of four songs on the Mutiny! EP. This and the previous EP (The Bad Seed) were their finest works. There were several LPs before them which were never that great, despite having some tremendous songs. These EPs were the first to convince as complete works. It was a shame Mutiny! was the last thing they did as a band, even as they fell apart, but they were at their mightiest as they disintegrated it would seem... And of course the seeds for Nick Cave's solo band were born in the studio with the making of Mutiny!
I can remember playing The Birthday Party at a party in 1984, and people being so horrified they left the room...
I was ardently pro vinyl (and vehemently anti-CD) until the release of a CD collection (of the Mutiny and Bad Seed EPs with extra tracks) prompted me to change my tune...
The late Rowland S Howard would be my favourite guitarist if I believed in such things and had one! His subsequent group and solo material has been greatly under-rated, especially the first of the Crime and City Solution LPs (Room of Lights), These Immortal Souls and Shotgun Wedding, the LP he did with Lydia Lunch (where his unique guitar sounds almost like a voice in itself, and which is the best thing she ever did musically).
Nick Cave's music has been self-parodic since Murder Ballads in 1996 and he seems to be turning into Martin Amis.
Big Black - Kerosene
This is off Atomizer, the first and best of their two LPs. I think the sound on Atomizer is more in your face, denser too; though the songs are possibly stronger on Songs about Fucking the production seems a bit weedier, thinner, as if there is less going on, certainly less abrasive. Or perhaps cleaner. I dunno. On the back of the CD version of Songs about Fucking it says: "the future belongs to the analog loyalists. fuck digital." And of course the CD of Atomizer is called: "The Rich man's Eight Track Tape".
I still think that they are my favourite band of all time (The Birthday Party are a close second) and I saw them live during their last tour (admirably they broke up at the peak of their powers in 1987) at the late (lamented?) Hammersmith Clarendon. Yes, they made a great fucking racket, yes they wrote songs about dubious things, but bloody hell, they were awesome! Jordan Minnesota is relentless, Kerosene monumental, Fists of Love a raw roar of pain and anguish. You see in the their lyrics the worst of mankind, but it seems to me that they did care - this wasn't the music of nihilists, their noise had real meaning.
From the LP liner notes:
(Bad Houses)
a toy organ the size of a paperback book through a guitar stack the size of a walk-in freezer, god, how excessive we get sometimes, we like seventeen seconds, all of us.
(Cables)
our interests in death, force and domination can change the way we think, make us seek out new forms of "entertainment." ever been in a slaughterhouse?
Of course Steve Albini could be a bit of a prick sometimes but he was also very funny, and his integrity was beyond reproach. Now better known as a sound engineer (he despises the term "producer") I wish his current band (Shellac) were even half as good as this. It strikes me that there was so much anger in these songs, and perhaps that is why Steve Albini never bettered them. You cannot sustain that kind of anger for long, certainly not for decades (unless you're Mark E Smith).
Depeche Mode - Walking in my Shoes
I know it's pathetic but I really identify with the lyrics of this. The LP it's from is one of the most under-rated by a great under-rated band (well under-rated by those who dislike them for being popular). It was easy to hate Depeche Mode when they started - they were young (Gahan & Gore both looked about 12), played electronic pop music and were from Basildon... But Songs of Faith & Devotion is one of my favourite LPs of all time. And this is my favourite song on that LP.
Now I'm not looking for absolution
Forgiveness for the things I do
But before you come to any conclusions
Try walking in my shoes
You'll stumble in my footsteps
Keep the same appointments I kept
If you try walking in my shoes
Bands I've left off this list include (amongst countless others):
The Cocteau Twins ("Great Spangled Fritillery"), The Clash ("London Calling"), Buzzcocks ("Ever Fallen in Love"), The Walker Brothers ("My Ship is Coming In" & Scott Solo "The Seventh Seal"), The Associates, Squirrel Bait ("Sun God"), Husker Du, Queens of the Stone Age ("Lost Art of Keeping a Secret"), Placebo, Soft Cell, Interpol, Editors.
But I've sacrificed The Smiths ("Hand in Glove" or "How Soon is Now?") to name something a little more recent!
Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
Ladytron were one of those bands whose recorded material (great songs such as Seventeen and Evil) could never match their live performances (much like KaitO, another great and now late and lamented band of the early noughties), until the Witching Hour, which was a vast improvement and which included this song. Sound-wise the problem with the early material was its tinny feebleness. With the Witching Hour they actually sounded like a band for the first time. The last LP (Velocifero) I've seriously listened to was pretty good too, though there was nothing on there as good as this (though it might actually be stronger as a whole). Again I like the lyrics, nothing clearly stated, just full of implication.
AND NEXT TIME (well, perhaps not!)
My favourite Forgotten/Unknown bands/LPs of the 80's
