Lost soul: Jackie Moore

You’re right, Jackie Moore’s not lost – she’s got her own wiki entry; and the million-selling Precious, Precious remains an oldies radio classic – but US copies of her northern dancer, Both Ends Against The Middle, are now changing hands for £25 because of the b-side Clean Up Your Own Yard.



I picked up this single 15 years ago in Hanway Street for 25p – I knew the brilliant a-side from a compilation album, and thought the b-side might just have something going for it. And how: it’s a mini masterclass in Philly soul’s hallmark of balancing the tension between heartache and floorfilling anthem.

You can get Clean Up Your Own Yard and Both Ends on Jackie Moore’s 1973 album, Sweet Charlie Babe, for a whole lot cheaper than the US single of Both Ends is fetching: typically in the UK, it’s a £12-15 album and is worth every penny. To take one song as an example: Jackie covers The Elgins’ Darling Baby and while I wouldn’t want to say it’s better than that Motown classic, it runs it very close.
Clean Up Your Own Yard

Golden Grrrls

Golden Grrrls (neat name, ain’t it?) have in Date It made a pop record of fizzing noise set to a rocking riff that will make any fan of Kid Canaveral, Standard Fare and Brilliant Colors drop what they’re doing and secure their debut single right now. It may cause older folk to stroke their chins and smile in wistful remembrance of The Fizzbombs. Pedants may point out that the a-side is Beaches, but that goes down some art rock side turning, so it’s the b-side Date It and their equally great other pop hits (New Popz, The Red Sea) that rule the school. Pre-order it (out late Feb/early March). Date It by Golden Grrrls

Dignan Porch

Dignan Porch have a knack for writing pop songs that are short and odd and great (like Guided By Voices) of fucking around with compulsive noise (like Times New Viking) and sounding like they’re playing songs backward while moving forward (like Woods).

Last night they plugged in the songs from their excellent Tendrils album and set off on a course of psychedelic madness and pop magic.

If Dignan Porch raised the roof off the Windmill then headliners Weekend tore noise pop a new arsehole. They rattled the gates of hell, danced with the devil and were fucking phenomenal. You have to see this band. And if you haven’t already bought Sports, then you must and play it LOUD until the police are called.

DIGNAN PORCH // On A Ride from theartof agency on Vimeo.

Eux Autres

Broken Bow was the moment when Eux Autres got everything right on an album. Favourite track? There are so many! It could be Queen Turner for its wall of sound or Go Dancing, which is fabulously deep and dirty with a musical nod to The Vaselines’ Rory Rides Me Raw. I love all of the songs on this record. Today, though, You’re Alight – T-Rex play girls in the garage (dear Miss Coppola – take note and put Eux Autres on the soundtrack to your next film) – triumphs because a video’s been made for it ahead of their European tour.

Floyd Lawson: Roof Top Sugar

Floyd Lawson – a Motown alumnus who released the Stop The World: We Wanna Get Off album in 1970 – is back in business. Roof Top Sugar is a brand new single which brings the funk and for anyone with love for hammond organ and break beats (this is going to be sampled, no question) this presses all the right buttons.

I Ain’t Going Nowhere on the flip brings the pace down to midtempo and is just as strong. Hopefully, the title is a hint that Floyd Lawson is back for the duration. If there’s an album of material matching this quality, form an orderly queue behind me at the record shop.

La Sera and Dan Michaelson gig

La Sera (aka Katy Goodman or Ginger Vivian Girl if you will) hits the UK gig trail this month. Seeing how difficult it was to secure the Never Come Around 7" when it was released yesterday (first three shops I placed my order with had sold out by the time I checked out) the tickets won't stay around too long.

Support at the Lexington gig on 20 February comes from Dan Michaelson ex-Absentee - you remember: Schmotime was the best album of 2006 (according to my rule book, anyhow) - who's going to be playing in the acoustic styling, so the bill is a win-win.

Stone Foundation feat Nolan Porter

Soul legend Nolan Porter (yes, I know!) has cut a single, Tracing Paper, with the Stone Foundation. It's everything any fan of Searching For The Young Soul Rebels or Introducing The Style Council could want in 2011.




Between now and getting your copy of the 7", enjoy this film of Nolan Porter and the Stone Foundation on their UK tour last year (*kicks self for not going*).

Ghost Wave

If you were wondering where the Dunedin Sound went to, it's currently in Auckland being looked after by Ghost Wave. Hippy is a freewheelin' romp through David Kilgour's melodic maelstrom and Snapper's naggingly insistent pop art with the fx pedal stuck on buzzsaw and a dumbfuck guitar solo that is spot on.

Fans of the Mary Chain will probably take notice; fans of Surf City’s debut who were so underwhelmed by their follow-up that they only played it once (hello!) will clutch Hippy to their heart and also download the Gold demo (which sounds like a rough’n’ready version of The Clean’s In The Dream Life You Need A Rubber Soul) before demanding that at least one of the world’s leading indie labels sign Ghost Wave immediately.

When you do sign them, please make them change their name as Ghost Wave sounds like it's a niche musical genre. Don't change anything else, though. Thanks.

Kings Go Forth

“Rock is dead,” they said last week. “Still?” we shrugged and went to see Kings Go Forth light the fuse on their funked-up soul and burn brightly at the Jazz Cafe. The latest round of scaremongering over rock’s health focussed on the charts, a place seldom home to the very best in music and one which gives such a distorted view of music that a child of 10 could be forgiven for thinking that Sex on Fire by Kings Of Leon (118 weeks in the Top 100 and 1m+ sales) was rock’s alpha and omega.

Soul – at least Kings Go Forth’s show-stealing take on it – is alive. You might hear shades of McFadden & Whitehead’s Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now in Don’t Take My Shadow; The O’Jays’ Now That We’ve Found Love in Now We’re Gone; Curtis’s Move On Up in One Day. This is music that thrives on the interest from its diverse, natural capital; Kings Of Leon – a band for Oasis fans who wanted a second-favourite band after Stereophonics split up – and their ilk live cannibalistically on rock’s capital.

When Kings Go Forth covered The Impressions’ Stay Close To Me – Curtis’s first showing of the multi-faceted, driving funk and jubilant soul hybrid that would sustain his 1970s’ high watermark – they played with it, extending its two-minute length, celebrating it and adding to it. This is soul music embracing its inspiration and opening windows to the future; the problem with rock bands is their inherent conservatism, their curatorial sycophancy to their elders.

I was reminded of Joe Bataan’s ingenious cover of Tommy James and the Shondells’ Crystal Blue Persuasion, stifled by the issue of the Shondells’ album track as a single which shot to number 2. Bataan said: “Everyone’s always said that my rendition was better. I don’t want to argue about that, but we had more going on with it.”

The charts have always been mostly dead. As usual, it means that some of the most exciting music is overlooked. Try Kings Go Forth’s debut album from last year, The Outsiders Are Back, and dig out Joe Bataan’s 1970 album Singin’ Some Soul when you have a moment.
Photo credit

The Puddle/Robert Scott split single

The first classic of 2011 is here: The Puddle show that 25 years into their career they’re capable of writing a song that sits comfortably with the very best of their exceptional output. George D Henderson’s careworn voice is offset by guest vocalist Sharon Cunningham's sweet melody; Average Sensual Man sits somewhere between the high moutain plains of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, and the bilious back-room scuffle of Microdisney when Cathal Coughlan sparred with June Miles-Kingston.

Robert Scott and Magic Dirt's Adalita Srsen team up for That’s What I Heard, a beguiling shanty that dips into the rich reservoir of doleful folk-jangle that fans of The Magick Heads will remember fondly.

This record is worth the admission price for either of these songs; to get two great songs, both of which – whether this was planned or not – are bittersweet duets which complement each other just so make this split single even more remarkable.

To all those people who sigh wistfully that NZ music peaked in the 1980s: buy this single and live in the now where the classics are being minted.

Sweater Girls (and drums)

There was some minor blogosphere kerfuffle over Sweater Girls recently following a complaint that they featured “some of the worst recorded drums in pop history”. Moaning about the production values in indiepop is like going to a boxing bout and complaining about the blood.

I hadn’t noticed the drums being bad. I still can’t hear the problem now that it’s been mentioned. Even so, I like Pretty When You Smile, the Sweater Girls’ exceptionally fine second single, more now on principle.

Keen students of popular music will recognise, of course, that some of the worst recorded Drums in pop music are doing rather well with a hit album and an NME cover to their name. But that’s another fite altogher and I’m just avin' a giraffe...

Darren Hayman and Elizabeth Morris: I Know I Fucked Up

I Know I Fucked Up from Darren Hayman on Vimeo.

It’s too early to declare a winner, but Darren Hayman’s collaboration with Elizabeth Allo Darlin’, I Know I Fucked Up, is going to take some beating when the votes are counted after his project writing, recording and releasing a song every day this January is done.

Fans of rain-soaked miserablism (“You know I love you but you got me so mad/You were the best friend I almost had”), romantic subterfuge (“I tore pages out of your books/I wrote words where I knew you would look”) and, uh, footage of indiepop stars in their socks (29 seconds in) will not be disappointed.

I must conclude, reluctantly, that I Know I Fucked Up is marginally better than the proposal I put forward to Darren: record, with Elizabeth, a cover version of Allo Darlin’s Darren, and retitle it Karen, to go as a companion piece with Hefner’s Lee Remick in tribute to The Go-Betweens’ first single. That would, Darren cautioned, be a little Being John Malkovich.

The Notes: Wishing Well

Just as the American onslaught of Shop Assistants copyists is dying down, Southampton’s The Notes have a go at turning girl group pop upside down. Their Wishing Well album is a refreshing take on a familiar template, drawing as deeply from saturnine post-punk (particularly, any number of crepuscular Factory releases that slipped through the floorboards) as it does from the pop-punk canon.

The joke doing the rounds was that Sunday at this year’s London popfest was going to be Youngfuck, Middle-Aged Fuck (14 Iced Bears) and Who Gives A Fuck (tbc). Now The Notes have been added to the line-up, everyone’s going to give a fuck and the bill could more accurately read The Notes plus some other fucking bands.

Lord Echo: Melodies

Lord Echo – aka DJ Mike Fabulous from New Zealand – could just as well have called his Melodies album Lord Echo Meets Rockers Down Under. The Rhythm 77 that opens this album signals that crates have been raided for dub and disco dominance; funk flavours, African highlife and Latin rhythms are added to create an intoxicating rush that’ll take you back to Kid Loco’s first records in 96/7.

The biggest hit on the album is a version of Sister Sledge’s Thinking Of You. If this gets a vinyl release it’ll conquer the world.

White Wires II

Second-time around The White Wires have cleared up their garage for a brighter, cleaner sound. Just as you could judge the songs by the titles on their debut (Stayed Up Late; Ha Ha Holiday; Your Mother Says You’re Ugly) this fresh batch does what it says on the tin: Let’s Go To The Beach; Summer Girl; Popularity.

There may be references to The Beach Boys (Be True To Your School ('Til You Get Kicked Out)), the Raspberries (Just Wanna Be With You) and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (Bye Bye Baby) in some titles; whichever way you look at it, though, this time the White Wires have delivered the pop in equal measure with the power. It might not please the garage rock purists, but everyone else can claim this as a fist-pumpin’ punk pop triumph that trumps their first record.

Dirtnap have a free download of Be True To Your School (’Til You Get Kicked Out).

Molly Wagger

Molly Wagger’s debut 12” is in Weekend one part an anthem for the gloomy (see also: Air), and in Molly a crestfallen guitar matched with teasing electronica (see also: New Order). This is the record Arab Strap might have made after The Girls Of Summer. At least, it would've made more sense and improved their discography had that been the case.

La Sera

The Vivian Girls' rock family tree entry gets bigger by the month. Katy Goodman has struck out on her own as La Sera. Never Come Around is captivatingly druggy like Mazzy Star, hypnotically psychedelic like Apples In Stereo, and charmingly seductive and twisted in equal measure like Spector's darker moments with The Ronnettes.

All the usual UK stockists are waiting for this 7" to arrive *shakes fist at disruptive weather*


Can't wait that long? Some of your Katy Goodman needs can be met by securing a copy of It'll Come Around (yeah, her title-generating software is limited at the moment), her collaboration with Gregg Foreman of Cat Power. It, too, will make your knees weak and your heart beat a little faster.

Warning: May Contain Indie (2010)

Yes, it’s time to go over the year’s releases and compile a CD for my friends who still like music but are either obliged by social services to spend their time and money on fripperies such as their children, or just got lazy.

This compilation isn’t an exact representation of my very favourite tracks of the year; even though it contains many of those, favourites were left out in cases where everyone will most likely have the song already, or where there just wasn't room, or I screwed up because I just didn’t spend that much time thinking about it. Stacks of brilliant new music has been omitted (as well as included, natch), but it's a mix for mates, not an awards ceremony!

1. Hey Girl! – Jo Stance
2. Freudian Slips – Big Troubles
3. All-American - Weekend
4. Twelve Hundred Dollars - Outdoor Miners
5. Up To London - Phil Wilson
6. Fun - Sourpatch
7. Crazy For You - Best Coast
8. Trouble In Mind – Erland and the Carnival
9. Alone At The Pier - Gigi
10. Sky Hi - Smoothie Pie
11. Fingers Crossed - Sweater Girls
12. Somebody Else – The Babies
13. Coffin – For Ex-Lovers Only
14. Getting By - Alex Bleeker and the Freaks
15. On Broadway – Myron and E with the Soul Investigators
16. If You Want The Love Of A Man (Come And Get It) - Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed
17. Love Doesn’t Just Stop - Standard Fare
18. What You’re Looking For - Omas
19. Go-Betweens - Mazes
20. Crybaby - The Sugar Stems
21. And It’s Over 1 - Moses Campbell
22. Rose Garden - Shad
23. You’re My Yoko – Television Personalities

I stand by all of these songs as being amazing (and remain convinced that there’s no let up in the quality of new music being released each year) with the possible exception of You’re My Yoko, which despite my initial excitement at what I thought was Dan Treacy’s return to form, might actually be a crappy re-write of Don’t Look Back In Anger. I’ll let the listeners decide.

Edwyn Collins live at Blackburn College

Edwyn Collins and his band were filmed playing Losing Sleep, Searching For The Truth and In Your Eyes at Blackburn College last month. There's no embedding the video, so don't try to press play on that image; press play on this to view the magic.

File Under: Weirdo-Pop

Grab a new Fergus and Geronimo free download, Powerful Lovin, to whet your appetite for January's Unlearn album.

Cut From A Different Fur - Fergus & Geronimo "Powerful Lovin'" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.