KC and the Sunshine Band - Sound Your Funky Horn

Dug out a random box of vinyl last weekend and kicked off a session with a little funky horn courtesy of KC and the Sunshine Band, which seems as good a track as any for this week's Friday 'banger'. Enjoy!

Soft Cell - Mr Self Destruct

So this Sunday really does see 'This Last Night' for Soft Cell as the band plays it's last ever (honest guv) live gig. Finances (specifically a distinct lack of) prevent me from going but I was fortunate enough to see 'em a couple of times during their noughties reboot. No idea what the set list's going to be this weekend but it'd be nice to hear one or two of their more obscure tracks, like this sleazy beauty. If you're going have a good 'un...and try not to weep too much during Say Hello Wave Goodbye.

Mush - Gig Economy

Loving this track from Mush right now, kind of puts me in mind of a New Wave Sparks. Judging from this clip they can really cut the Mush-tard live too. Sorry...there was no need for that was there eh? 

Ray Smith - RIP

"Who?" you may ask. Well, if you're a fan of Heaven 17 you'll certainly know his artwork if not his name as he was responsible for several classic Heaven 17 covers including Penthouse and Pavement, The Luxury Gap and How Men Are (a bit of a forgotten classic in my humble opinion). RIP Ray.

And the winner is...

So, Mercury Music Award time again tonight. As ever it's a bit of a mixed bag and the best album's highly unlikely to win (just cast your minds back to 2016 when Bowie's Blackstar lost out to Skepta, what were the judges thinking...?) but there's some good stuff in the shortlist (and some not so good stuff too, but we'll gloss over that). Personally I'd like Everything Everything to win, followed by Nadine Shah and then Wolf Alice, but what do I know eh?

Boy George and Culture Club - Let Somebody Love You

I meant to post the new single from Boy George and Culture Club last week but, you know, life, work and everything in between. It's a neat little update of the Culture Club sound with George in particularly good form vocally. Hopefully the band can all get on with each other this time and health issues won't get in the way of tours and stuff as the world could really do with a little Culture Club right now...

Miles Hunt - On The Ropes

Beautifully stripped back version of The Stufffies' On The Ropes (taken from new solo album The Custodian) performed by its author Mr Miles Hunt, simply one of the most underrated songwriters around.

The Surfrajettes - Toxic

Hands up who wants to hear a surf version of Britney Spears' Toxic? You too eh. Okay, my wish is your command. The Hearing Aid...making dreams come true since 2006.

Darwin Deez - The World's Best Kisser

How lovely is this? Funnily enough I was just wondering what had happened to Darwin Deez and, as if by magic, there's a bunch of new(ish) material from him on You Tube. Apparently he did the vid for this track himself too. Good grief. 

In case you're wondering who the hell Darwin Deez is maybe this track will refresh your memory.



Awesome eh? Hey, us bros with dodgy moustaches have to big each other up from time to time.

Sound of Rum

Off to a rum festival this weekend...100 different rums to try...what could possibly go wrong? All this impending rum based fun reminded me of Sound of Rum, the jazz tinged band that the wonderful Kate Tempest fronted back in the day. It's been great to see Tempest go on to bigger things but honestly she deserves far, far more acclaim than she gets. Stormzy, schmorzy eh?

Juniore - Panique

It looks as though this ultra chic slice of 60's sounding French indie pop has been out for a couple of years now but I've only recently heard it via the ever reliable 6Music. Organ-asmically good stuff.

Jesus and his Judgemental Father - It Might Get Better

Friday banger this week is a perfect slice of defiant queer punk from earlier this year courtesy of the brilliantly named Jesus and his Judgemental Father (who sadly seemingly split up in April). Play it loud and pogo yer ruddy legs off.

Katherine Priddy - Wolf

After several solo releases one of folk's brightest young things Katherine Priddy is just on the cusp of unleashing her first band backed material and this is the utterly divine title track. Lush eh? Back in Brum I was lucky enough to see Katherine a fair few times, usually at MoFolk, and was always struck by the gilded gossamer of her vocal, delicate but with a confidence that belied her age, and it's been wonderful to see that talent continue to bloom over the past few years. Order the EP right here right now for £5 before September 1st and she'll even sign a copy for you. Priddy cool eh?

Say hello to the NEW single from Soft Cell!

Blimey. Not content with playing a farewell gig at the O2 Arena Soft Cell have just released their first new single in almost 20 years (link here...I can't copy and paste the vid because The Guardian's put some sort of voodoo on it). It's got that distinctive plinky plonky synthy sound that the Cell were famous for together with a little extra pop polish for good measure and, suitably enough, it's a homage to Marc and Dave's formative years in the Northern soul scene. Hmmmm, I wonder if they've ever heard Tainted Love by Gloria Jones...they should do a cover of that...might get somewhere...

Aretha Franklin RIP

As The Queen of Pop turns 60 The Queen of Soul goes to that great gig in the sky. Happy birthday Madge and RIP Aretha.

The French - The Model

No bargain CDs at the weekend but picked up a handful of 7 inch singles including this little 'darkwave' gem by The French with their cover of Kraftwerk's The Model. It dates from the same year that the single version of Das Werk's track was released and really couldn't sound much more early 80s if it tried. As far as I can tell The French only released a couple of singles so there's very little about them on t'internet. If you do happen to know anything about the band though please leave a comment and we can fill in yet another little hole in the musical universe. Merci!

UPDATE!

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the loveliness of the chap concerned I managed to track down and catch up with The French's lead singer Mr William Redfern! Here's his message:

'Hi Daron, Ha! I am indeed that same person! How fantastic that all these years later people are still finding us. We were based in Manchester from 1980 until 1984 (after moving our band Art Failure from Nottingham and reinventing ourselves), which was an exciting time in that city- the band eventually fell apart and we all went our separate ways until a few years ago when thanks to Facebook we all got back in touch again, in fact our guitarist Graham Lees now has a studio in LA and he remastered all our stuff (and Art Failure's album) and it's all now available on iTunes, Spotify etc if you wanted to hear some more - though it's listed as The French 8083 as weirdly another band called The French came into being in the intervening years. Thanks for getting in touch, I'm so pleased that our 'babies' are still out there being discovered.

Ps, Just read your blog about it too, lovely thanks - and as you mention it came out the same year as Kraftwerk had a hit with The Model ...and thereby hangs a tale... The Model was of course released in 1977 on Man Machine and had never been a hit but we'd always loved it so thought it would be fun to do a funky version. Shorty after we released it Kraftwerk played at The Apollo in Manchester as part of the Computer World tour and we managed to blag in to see them backstage and gave them a copy of our single (they were a bit confused by our presence but were very sweet chaps) so, about four months later they re-released it as a double A side single with Computer Love, The Model was picked on up by a Radio 1 DJ (can't remember who) and became a number 1 for them - we are all convinced that they thought 'well if kids are doing covers of this maybe it time to release it again' - and whilst I have no proof I still reckon I play an, albeit anonymous, role in music history!'

Anonymous no more! What a ruddy great story eh? Bearing in mind that The Model first came out on the Man-Machine album in 1978 as Das Model it would be fascinating to know if Kraftwerk were indeed inspired to release the English translation on the B side of Computer Love in 1981 by The French's take on the track...

Here's a darn fine post punk track by Art Failure (pre-The French) too! 

Jake Shears - Big Bushy Moustache

At last, a song devoted to moustaches. Hurrah! And from the lovely Jake Shears too. Loooooove it! Remember people moustaches are for life, not just Movember.

CD does it...

The growing tsunami of bargain charity shop CDs continues to flood into Baron Towers at an alarming rate, but at anything from 25p - 50p each I just can't help myself. Last week I picked up Nirvana's Bleach for 50p and the Floyd 'hits' album A Foot In The Door for just 33p which, let's face really it isn't a lot of money...ahem.

All About Eve - What Kind Of Fool (Autumn Rhapsody)

Sniff the air. Can you smell it? Yep, there's a whiff of Autumn in the air quite possibly brought forward a bit by the fact that we actually had a Summer this year...with sun...and heat...and no sodding rain every sodding day. Hurrah! I actually like the different seasons so Autumn holds no fear for me, it's when every season blurs into the next in a depressing grey drizzle that I get hacked off with it all. So, in honour of Autumn's arrival (whenever it might actually finally kick in) here's a little All About Eve and the Autumn Rhapsody version of What Kind Of Fool. I can practically smell the patchouli oil oozing out of my speakers.

Chaka Khan - Like Sugar

I keep hearing this track and every time I do I think "Damn that's some funky shit, who's it by?". Maybe it's old age or maybe I simply can't believe that it's the work of Chaka Khan who's now officially a pensioner, bless her. Undoubtedly the best thing she's done since, well this equally surprising track (another solid gold Friday banger) back in the day...