New Old Stuff focuses on some recent, noteworthy reissues and compilations that we think you’ll dig. If you’re reading this, you’re probably Old! But at least you have great taste in music and know freehand.
Something that made me feel really old this month was the official Trainspotting 2 trailer...
...which replaces the seminal ‘Choose Life’ monologue with modern observations such as ‘Choose Facebook.’ It seems such a polar opposite to the pre-millenium tension that the first film captured, that it might be best to sit it out altogether. What made the original film so impactful was transferred note-perfectly on its soundtrack which gets remastered and reissued on 180 gram orange vinyl in celebration of its 20th anniversary this week by the lords over at Parlophone. Good to see they opted out of colouring the LP Heroin brown.
In the documentary ‘Live Forever,’ Britpop is talked up as the soundtrack to the first generation of British people that could be proud of their culture post Thatcher and what’s so wonderful about Danny Boyle’s interpretation of this era is that he’s able to give a sense of the temperature from across the pond with all of the smug Scottishness that Irvine Welsh conveyed in his book, without walloping you over the head with political metaphors. Indeed the soundtrack, too was a precursor of what was to come culturally; an indication of what the rest of the decade would sound like. The rise in popularity of rock n roll (after Hip Hop and Jungle, bands like Blur paved the way for Franz Ferdinand in the noughties) and Dance music injected in to public consciousness, occurring simultaneously as Trip Hop (eg. Primal Scream providing the soundtrack’s John Barry-esque titular track) began to ween off and timeless Hacienda-era eighties New Wave (New Order’s "Temptation" and Sleeper’s awesome cover of Blondie’s "Atomic") still held relevance. It’s perhaps typically UK that all of these genres fit together but there didn’t seem to be any room for this kind of reckless regard for genre-conformity when it first came out in Australia. Then again, I was 14, so what would I know!?
The benefit of hindsight allows me to hypothesise all of this, when really this could just be a great collection of tracks set to a fantastic film based on an incredible book about really horrible people! The Trainspotting OST still cooks!
From Punk Rock film-making to actual Punk Rock, Spurts is a 4CD nice-price compilation featuring "Punk and Post-Punk from the 70s and Beyond".
First thing’s first: You CAN make a Punk Rock compilation without Sex Pistols and The Clash. OK, glad we’ve got that out of the way because Spurts, for all its jam-packed value and over-arching view of early US and British Garage and Punk, Post-Punk and contemporary Pop Punk and Political Rock may still garner detractions because it doesn’t feature two of the best that ever did it. It does, however, carefully plot the earliest incarnations of the genre and trace its way through Britain and Australia (The Jam, Buzzcocks, Radio Birdman, 999) over to the US (Stooges, Dead Boys, MC5, Ramones) then through the deviations into New Wave in the 80s (PiL, The Saints, Human League, The Birthday Party) and finally the best and worst of the last two decades including Dead Kennedys, Dischord artists and Suicidal Tendencies plus tonnes from labels Fat Wreck Chords and Epitaph and our own Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Smith Street Band. It’s that 20/20 hindsight kicking in once more that allows us to know what’s really Punk and what’s not and I just love the dots this comp connects between attitudes and sounds and the figures who created them. Is Patti Smith’s cover of Van Morrison particularly Punk? Hell no! Is Patti Smith Punker than The Muffs? Hell yes (but they get a look in, too, cos they Rock). For $25, this is a fantastic time capsule that’s as much a companion to Punk as an ethos rather than a strict blueprint for the craft. And in case you’re wondering, the title refers to Richard Hell’s band The Voidoid’s single title ‘Love Comes In Spurts.’
Finally, one of the greatest ever Soul singers the world has ever known, Otis Redding released six studio albums in the three years he was active between ’64 and ’67 and his penultimate album Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul now gets the questionable ‘Deluxe Mono’ treatment
Pressed on 2LP with remastered versions of the album in Stereo and Mono plus a bonus 7”, it doesn’t skimp on value but I’m yet to be convinced on the value of Mono. I first came across the sales proposition of Mono reissues when Sony made the Miles Davis classic quintet era recordings (Kind Of Blue etc) available in Mono, so that you could hear the recordings in the ‘truest form that your ears might hear it if you were in the studio at the time of the session.’ Correct me if I’m wrong but if you’re in the middle of a room and Miles is blowing to your left and ‘Trane is tooting to your right, you’re going to hear that shit in stereo, correct? Anyway, I digress…
...Dictionary Of Soul features the hit "Try A Little Tenderness" and a staple cover of the era, The Beatles’ "Day Tripper" amongst a set heavy on original composition by Redding himself plus a few co-writes from Isaac Hayes. (Fun fact: George Harrison sites Redding’s "Respect" as an influence for "Drive My Car"). Backed by the Stax all-star band led by Booker T, …Dictionary showcases the A-Z of Soul music, taking in Pop and Blues strands, ballads and belters and whilst not a hit on release (it peaked at #73), has gone on to become one of the most revered Soul LPs of all time. Interestingly, Redding’s pained voice is often hidden in the back of the mix, even when he’s at his most fierce. Perhaps he was too raw for audiences back then in the same way that Charles Bradley’s signature growl doesn’t gel for all Soul fans. Given his prolificness and signs that he was just warming up on this LP, it’s an absolute disaster to think what a talent the world lost when Otis Redding’s plane went down in the year after …Dictionary’s’ release in 1967.
- Huwston
