Clandestine Classic LXV - Just A Song

The sixty-fifth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Well now, I haven't done one of these since February, and with good reason: how many classics are there, that I rate but you haven't heard of? It gets harder and harder to think of them. But today's song is a corker and, given that it's an album track from 2004, is at risk of being forgotten. It also gives me the chance to lament a band who missed opportunities, made wrong decisions, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, all of that... so here goes.

It all started so promisingly for Worthing-based four-piece The Ordinary Boys. Any band that takes their name from a Morrissey song has to be worth investigating, right, before you even hear any of the tunes. Then the man himself seemed to endorse them, including the B-side to their second single on a NME cover-mounted CD that he curated. And then there was the fact that singer Samuel preferred to be known only by his surname, Preston. Remind you of anyone?

Musically, The Ordinary Boys were very now, back in 2004/5. They fitted nicely in alongside the sudden plethora of guitar bands that made music for girls to dance to - bands like Franz Ferdinand, The Kaiser Chiefs, The Libertines. They, like these other bands, had a nice line in sing-a-long, chant-like choruses that appealed to the boys whilst the girls were dancing. The future looked rosy.

Debut album Over The Counter Culture sold well enough to make the Top 20 and be certified silver. Follow-up Brassbound did even better, no doubt helped by the single Boys Will Be Boys, a 2-Tonesque song that owed much to The Specials and Madness; it even had a toasted verse by Ranking Junior (son of Ranking Roger from The Beat).

And this is where the wheels started to come off for the band. Somewhere between Boys Will Be Boys' first release and re-release, Preston signed up for Celebrity Big Brother. Now I know I am not young or on-trend or anything else, but in doing this all his hard-earned indie credentials, Moz-endorsement and ska influences got washed down the pan. Gone, in one fell swoop. And not only that, whilst locked in the fabled house he only went and fell for fake celebrity Chantelle Houghton... and married her eight months later... and sold the rights to their wedding to OK! magazine... and separated from her ten months after that. Maybe this is what passes for rock'n'roll behaviour in modern Britain but it's not the trajectory I wanted from my indie heroes. And in-between all that, Preston did himself no favours by walking off-set on Never Mind The Buzzcocks after host Simon Amstell read some extracts from Chantelle's autobiography. Meanwhile, the band were going to rack and ruin, with Preston concentrating more on being Preston than being an Ordinary Boy.

All of which is a shame, because they could really do it. Today's clandestine classic is an atypical offering from their debut album, showcasing arch lyrics, serious subject matter, delicate instrumentation, even a bit of crooning. Witness the opening stanzas:

Oh, to get ahead in this world takes a lot of kind words,
And ruthless damning actions,
And I hope I never have to hurt you, though I gladly will do, my friend.

I'll be reading in the kitchen, sipping lazy cups of tea,
I won't be brooding in my bedroom, with the shutters down on me,
And this song is not cathartic because I've done nothing wrong,
It's just a song...

With lyrics like that, you can see why Morrissey liked them. Indeed, I almost revived the Fantasy Cover Versions series to pitch Moz covering this, but I wanted to write more than that series allows.

Musically, I've just realised this song puts me in mind of late-period Gene. No wonder I like it so much.

Anyway, The Ordinary Boys called time in 2008, reformed in 2011 and have been sporadic ever since. Best to remember them like this though, I reckon, rather than dwell on what might have been.

Clandestine Classic LXIV - Saudade

The sixty-fourth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Well now, I haven't done one of these for a while, and with good reason: how many classics are there, that I rate but you haven't heard of? It gets harder and harder to think of them. But today's song, the closing track from Love and Rockets' debut album, is worth five minutes of anyone's time.

Let's get the facts out of the way: Love and Rockets were formed by three members of Bauhaus, once that band had split in '83. With a marginably more accessible sound, the band's first album Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven, released in 1985, did well enough to set the tone for a further fifteen years of output before the band called time (though neither album nor the related singles charted on either side of the pond). Today's choice is the instrumental album closer, five minutes of blissful steel-strung guitar, somewhat at odds with the 6/7/8-minute opuses that make up the rest of the album. Oh, and saudade is a Portuguese word with no direct translation in English, but that can be defined as the nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves, but you knew that already. Appropriate, wouldn't you say, for a trio of musicians who were moving on from what had got them where they were?

So what makes this a clandestine classic? Musically, it's lovely though hardly exceptional - the guitar part, for example, is beautiful but not complicated, simple chords, simple picking (even I can play it). And it maybe goes on a bit too long (see other similar bands of the era: I'm looking at you, The Church). But, but, but... I came by this song in my first year at university, living in halls. A hall-mate had a copy of Seventh Dream on cassette (TDK SA90, since you ask, the preferred cassette brand and type of the day) and, at the end of that halcyon first year, when she returned to her home country, she bequeathed that tape (and several others) to me, on the basis that she could record them from the vinyl again when she got home, and giving me her tapes would make her luggage lighter.

I still have all those cassettes, though I haven't played them in years - they'll be too fragile now, brittle ribbons of oxidised tape. But I cherish them for the memories they encapsulate, their hand-written, hand-decorated inlay cards in my friend's handwriting. Everything about them speaks to me of a golden time in my life, of unrepeatable experiences, of connection, of what was and what might have been, of paths not taken, of Jonbar points, of friendship that endures despite separation, of nostalgia, of wistfulness, of melancholy, of saudade. So whilst there are other songs from that clutch of cassettes that evoke the same feelings (Skyway by The Replacements, for one, Surfer Rosa and Come On Pilgrim by Pixies and anything from the first two R.E.M. albums, especially), it feels entirely fitting and appropriate that this is the song I feature to capture that set of very personal feelings. So I'm sorry if this song doesn't move you in the same way (and let's face it, that would be very unlikely) but remember, my gaff, my rules...

You can pick up Saudade on that debut album in your format of choice, right here, or it also closes their retrospective best of, Sorted, if that appeals. Me, I'm off to wallow...

Clandestine Classic LXIII - French Disko

The sixty-third post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

I'm going to let you into a little secret: I'm not hip, not trendy, don't have my finger on the pulse. Never have, never will. And that's completely fine ... but it does mean that the act featured in today's post, Stereolab, basically passed me by when they were in their early 90s pomp. I was, in fact, spending a lot of time relying on Suede to fill the post-Smiths gap I still felt (although Brett and Bernard were only really marking time for me, until Gene came along and I could really fall in love with a band again). Whatever, you can read between the lines and see that I was in a guitar-led, literate, occasionally fey, indie bubble. Stereolab didn't fit, ergo they passed me by. I have always been parochial, it seems.

My first real exposure came in the form of the splendidly title Lo Boob Oscillator, when that was featured on the High Fidelity soundtrack. I would struggle to name a soundtrack I've listened to more but that's a whole other blog post. Lo Boob Oscillator is notable for singer Laetitia Gane's Nico-esque delivery, French lyrics, slight 60s vibe and repetitive beats. But it's not that track I want to talk about.

Stereolab would have remained a likeable soundtrack curio for me then, if not for 6 Music, and a recent playing of today's classic, French Disko. This one's sung in English, and features vocal interplay between Laetitia and guitarist Mary Hansen. The other hallmarks are there: vintage keyboards, repetitive rhythms, almost droning vocals. But what, you might reasonably ask, elevates a song that's more than 25 years old but that I've only just discovered to Clandestine Classic status? Well, for a start, the lyrics aren't messing about:

Though this world's essentially an absurd place to be living in
It doesn't call for bubble withdrawal
I've been told it's a fact of life, men have to kill one another
Well I say there are still things worth fighting for
La resistance!

Though this world's essentially an absurd place to be living in
It doesn't call for bubble withdrawal
It's said human existence is pointless
As acts of rebellious solidarity can bring sense in this world
La resistance!
La resistance!

Very "now", arent they, for lyrics written in 1992/3? And that's the thing, really, more than just the lyrics - this feels utterly timeless. Maybe the vintage instruments coupled with a more modern pace threw me off slightly but when I first heard this on the radio, not knowing who it was or what it was called, my first reaction was to think this was a new band, a new sound. Imagine my surprise, then, on doing the research, to discover its age, and that of some of the instruments being played. I know this probably reflects on me, and the fact that I'm a white, middle-aged, lower-middle-class man living in the sticks, but to me this sounds, if not "now" then at least how I would like "now" to sound. It is, I would contend, truly timeless, in the best sense of the word.

I still don't know much about Stereolab but I am, as Henry Kelly used to say, playing catch-up (compilation Oscillons from the Anti-Sun looks a good place to start, and includes French Disko). Whilst I do that, here's today's classic, courtesy of the modern miracle/curse that is YouTube, plus a contemporary live version from The Word (because it is excellent, and because watching The Word makes me feel young). I spoil you, you know?

Clandestine Classic LXII - Sweetest Smile

The sixty-second post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

In the car at the weekend, Radio 2 was on (don't judge me). Pick of the Pops, no less, with current host Paul Gambacini, trawling through the chart of August 1987. Why, I wondered, as Paul skipped past Star Trekkin' by The Firm without hesitation, does this programme never play the novelty records of the day?

All thoughts of Klingons on the starboard bow, however, were quickly pushed away as Paul got to number 8 in the chart for that August week 33 years ago. These days most people remember Black, aka the late Colin Vearncombe, for the excellent Wonderful Life. But this, also taken from Colin's debut album and released as a single in-between Wonderful Life's first release (when it peaked at #42) and its re-release (when it peaked at #8), is equally brilliant. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's even better. It's certainly been an ear-worm for me since Paul played it at the weekend. And isn't it a shame that Colin felt he'd been labelled something of a one-hit wonder, when he was so clearly anything but?

Sweetest Smile also hit #8 in the UK chart, so it's maybe pushing the boundaries of what could be considered clandestine, but since everyone remembers Black for the other track ... either way, it gave me an excuse to blow the dust off this series. It's also very much of it late-80s time... but no less fantastic for that. What do you think? Such beautiful melancholy ... maybe I should have saved it for a Blue Friday post.

Clandestine Classic LXI - A-Punk

The sixty-first post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

There are two Vampire Weekend albums in our house. The first is Contra, bought by my partner on the strength of a broadsheet review. The second is their eponymous debut, bought by me, secondhand, purely to get hold of today's classic. I've listened to both in their entirety once. What I found thereon is perfectly serviceable, if somewhat anodyne; I could see why they were popular, for a while, but they didn't do much for me. I guess I am not, nor have I ever been, their target market.

The exception, of course, is A-Punk, a single that limped to 55 in the UK singles chart. It fared a little better in the US, and made #4 in Rolling Stone's top 100 songs of 2008. You might not know it by name, but you'll probably know it when you hear it... and surely that's a good indicator when seeking to ascribe classic status to a song. Its distinctive intro has made it ripe for commercial re-use in the intervening eleven years, you see - not just for adverts, but also as the kind of song that is used, in instrumental form, as a musical backdrop to all kinds of television programmes. But there's more to A-Punk than commercial ear-wormery.

For starters... well, I don't know what it is exactly, whether it's that infectious, right-up-the-fretboard guitar intro, or the pace of the song, or the vocal delivery, or just the underlying melody, but something in the way the New York four-piece (thanks, Wikipedia) deliver this song reminds me of Blister in the Sun by Violent Femmes (a song whose ad-friendliness I wrote about in 2008, coincidentally). I think we can all agree the Femmes track is excellent, and so is A-Punk, for many of the same reasons.

And then - bear with me here - the "Hey, hey, hey" refrain reminds me more than a little of The Ramones' "Hey! Ho!" in Blitzkrieg Bop. Yes, really! No bad thing, right?

I can't pretend I know what the lyrics are about, who Johanna is or whether turquoise harmonicas are a thing or a euphemism. I can tell you that Sloan Kettering is a renowned cancer care hospital, which may give a clue to a darker story behind the upbeat delivery of these words, as might the fact that one half of the ring mentioned ends up at the bottom of the sea. What I can tell you, for absolute certain, is that this song has the power to make me dance (in the privacy of my kitchen). And inappropriately at that, in the manner of the nutty boy dancing I did in my youth, to the sounds of ska and Two-Tone. And that's the clincher, really - any song that can make me dance, simply for the joy of it, has to be a stone cold classic.

You can buy today's selection on the aforementioned debut album if you like, but as I've already mentioned, it's not all like this. So maybe YouTube is a safer bet - good video too, I reckon. Oh - 41 million views. Maybe not so clandestine. Bollocks. But I wanted to write about it, and it's just a bit too long for a Sunday short, so... my gaff, my rules - enjoy!

Clandestine Classic LX - Yes

The sixtieth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Just like last time, here's a song I couldn't believe I hadn't already featured. Back in 1994, Bernard Butler, fresh from leaving Suede, hooked up with ex-Thieves and solo artist David McAlmont, apparently because the latter had a lyric the former felt he could put a riff to. Holing up in a French studio with drummer Mako Sakamoto, engineer Nigel Godrich and co-producer Mike Hedges (production duties shared with Butler, as I think you can tell from the end result), McAlmont and Butler laid down Yes and follow-up single You Do in just three days. I know, I know, back in the early 60s popular beat combos would knock out whole albums in that time, but even so, three days is pretty swift for such great tunes.

Given that haste, that burst of creativity, you might reasonably wonder what the lyric was the Butler thought he could do something for - well, here it is:

So, you wanna know me now? How I've been?
You can't help someone recover, after what you did.
So tell me, am I looking better?
Have you forgot whatever it was that you couldn't stand
About me, about me, about me?
Because
Yes, I do feel better.
Yes I do, I feel alright.
I feel well enough to tell you what you can do with what you've got to offer...

So, Yes is a song about meeting up with someone that once dumped you, breaking your heart in the process, and when faced with that person wanting to be nice sometime down the line, pally, maybe even to rekindle something, having the strength to remind them how they were, and to tell them where they can stick their olive branch. In other words, it's a story that lots of people, no doubt, can identify with. And importantly, it's told as a positive - it's not, "No, you can't be with me again" or "No, I don't want to let you back into my life" but as a positive - "Yes, I do feel better, actually, so much better in fact because I can see you for what you were." And who wouldn't want to face up to past heartbreak like that, with that attitude? I know I would.

Musically, Butler's trademark guitars sounds are all present and correct, as is the slightly Spector-esque, full-on production and orchestral backing he favoured at the time. Add David McAlmont's three-octave range and you have a vocal performance that positively soars; whenever I hear this, I always feel that the vocal and music are almost competing, seeing which can reach the most dizzying height, and we, the listeners, are the beneficiaries of this competition.

I suppose, technically, this classic isn't that clandestine. It peaked at 8 in the UK singles chart, and was critically acclaimed too. But that was 24 long years ago, and not much (the You Do single and parent album The Sound of... McAlmont and Butler aside) followed until much later. There were a few live shows and a dynamic performance on Later... but, apart from that, little else. And so, despite its total and utter brilliance, Yes remains a song of its time - people my age love it, but the band didn't have enough longevity for other generations to be exposed to it. It will fade away, and that is a crying shame; it becomes more clandestine with every day that passes.

You can, and should, pick up Yes on The Sound of... McAlmont and Butler - it's a great album, though nothing else reaches these heights. And here are those heights, courtesy of YouTube...

Bonus live performance from Later..., with excellent guitar wig-out from Bernard towards the end.

Clandestine Classic LIX - I Believe

The fifty-ninth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

I had to resurrect this series, just because I couldn't believe I hadn't already featured this song! Back in the early to mid 90s, James frontman Tim Booth courted, and eventually landed, a collaboration with esteemed film composer Angelo Badalamenti. Their album from which today's classic is drawn, Booth and the Bad Angel, was the result. Bolstered by guitar work from Bernard Butler, not long free from Suede and fresh from working with David McAlmont, the album was critically well received and, thanks to this track being released as a single, sold quite well too.

I Believe is the most James-like track on the album, I think, and certainly the most accessible in terms of what would make a good single. It marries an uplifting, major-key tune with quasi-orchestral backing to a typical soaring Booth vocal and equally characteristic Butler guitar riffs. The result, musically, is magic. And then there are the positive lyrics, to wit:

They turned your story all around,
They had you free when you were bound,
They raised you up when you were down,
They raised you high...

I believe someone's watching over me.
I believe in the dreams that set you free...

And what more 90s, confident, aspirational, Cool Britannia lyric is there than Why be a song when you can be a symphony? Frankly I'm amazed that no political party tried to use this as a campaign tune, then or since. Got to be better than D-REAM, right?

I'm also amazed that this only got to number 25 in the charts. Go on, name 24 songs in the whole of 1996 that were much better than this? Anyway... there was a follow-up single eighteen months later but, other than that, this was a short-lived collaboration. Tim Booth went back to his James-based day job. Bernard Butler released a number of solo albums before hooking up with Ben Watt. And Angelo Badalamenti went back to scoring film and TV.

My CD single of this is scratched and won't play any more. Luckily, I also have it on the best of the Shine compilation series, Shine 5. By contrast, you lucky buggers need only turn to YouTube, look:

Bonus Butler-less live performance from Later..., in which James deputise as the backing band...

Clandestine Classic LVIII - Lettuce

The fifty-eighth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Everyone loved The Undertones. A great, Peel-endorsed singles band with a cheeky attitude and a distinctive vocal style. Even a song about Mars bars. What was not to love? A fair proportion of the fanbase might have felt a bit short-changed by Feargal Sharkey's solo career though, aside from a couple of catchy singles - the smooth, polished sound was miles away from the rough and ready rock and roll he'd been making with his Derry mates before getting all sophisticated. Lucky for us all then that two fifths of The Undertones (guitarist and songwriter John O'Neill plus his brother Damian) went on to form That Petrol Emotion, a band whose name was, John explained, meant to evoke the frustration and anger of those living in Northern Ireland at the time.

This new five-piece, fronted by Seattle-born singer Steve Mack, released their debut album, Manic Pop Thrill, in September 1985. It would eventually limp to number 84 in the charts, although would top the indie chart. Far more diverse musically than most of The Undertones' output, the band wore their influences on their sleeves. It was also a step forward lyrically, moving away from songs about cars and girls towards politics and social issues. As guitarist Raymond Gorman memorably suggested, it was "like the Undertones after discovering drugs, literature and politics, with a lot more girls in the audience dancing." And it was a denser, heavier sound than the highly-produced pop sheen their former band-mate Sharkey would embrace.

Manic Pop Thrill was critically, if not commercially, successful. John Peel continued his endorsement and Rolling Stone magazine described the band as "The Clash crossed with Creedence", which is a pretty good tagline for any band. And it was the start of a moderately successful career that would see them release six albums, the last in 2000, after which they split. There have been subsequent reunions, of course, but not much in the way of new material.

Today's classic is an album track, not one of the three singles from Manic Pop Thrill, and is called Lettuce (Rol, take note, should you ever do a 'salad' top ten). It's a great example of the heavier sound O'Neill was now chasing, whilst retaining the increased musical complexity of the last Undertones recordings. Crucially, the knack of producing an infectious riff, an ear-worm, has not been lost. Before today, I hadn't listened to this for at least ten years, yet every note remains ingrained. O'Neill's innate pop sensibilities hadn't been lost either - this is all over in less than two and a half minutes. Lyrically? A bit more obscure, I think; it's either about getting laid or getting high, I reckon. Who knows.

There's no That Petrol Emotion "best of" anywhere, which seems like a bit of an omission on somebody's part. If you want to pick up today's classic you're looking at Manic Pop Thrill or an equally good version on their Peel Session. Alternatively, it's on the excellent (and highly recommended) New Season Peel compilation, which is where I first found it. Or there's YouTube, of course.

Clandestine Classic LVII - You Can Talk To Me

The fifty-seventh post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Remember when John Squire left the Stone Roses, first time around, leaving them to scrabble around with stand-in guitarists to fulfil concert obligations? Yeah, you're my age or thereabouts, of course you remember. And remember how excited everyone got when Squire's new project, The Seahorses, emerged, seemingly fully formed, within a year? Okay, so there were mutterings... that Squire's lauded guitar playing had descended into self-indulgence, that the Seahorses' singer was a busker, and that the two didn't see eye to eye that well... that sort of thing. But the mutterings were overlooked, debut album Do It Yourself was generally quite well received, and the singles from it - Love Is The Law, Blinded By The Sun and Love Me Or Leave Me - all did well (#3, #7 and #16 in the singles chart respectively). I seem to remember a performance of Love Is The Law on Top Of The Pops where the crowd bowed, we're not worthy style, before Squire's riffing. Forget vocalist Chris Helme's excellent voice and teen-girl-bothering looks, it was Squire's project, and he was supposed to be the star.

And maybe that was part of the problem. Yes, Helme was spotted busking by Squire's guitar tech, but he could really sing, and he wrote songs too... just not the sort of songs that Squire was interested in. Indeed, John was hesitant about Chris from the start, concerned that he "closed his eyes when he sang and only folk singers do that", and later observing that "he can write the odd tune but I don't really like them and it might be a problem later on if he wants to record them with the band." Equally, Chris, once established in the band, felt undervalued and concerned about Squire's guitar onanism - he would later describe Squire's material as "muso wank". As if that wasn't enough, fan rumours about the band's name were rife, The Seahorses being an anagram of He Hates Roses - a trivial coincidence, but Squire felt the need to deny it, which the NME lapped up, of course. Plus the material was patchy - yes, the singles were great but parts of the rest of the album seemed a bit Fisher-Price, to the extent that some wondered whether the acclaim and column-inches afforded the band had been earned. And to top it all, the band were parodied by DJs Mark and Lard, as The Shirehorses. For all Squire's serious aspirations, the band seemed there to be lampooned.

But there was to be a parting shot. The band, now just Seahorses, dropping the definite article in a fruitless attempt to escape the anagram theorists, released one final single, today's Clandestine Classic, You Can Talk To Me - this saw Helme and Squire share the writing credits, and is perhaps their best co-composition. Helme's voice soars as it is want to do, whilst Squire reins in his over-blown tendencies and plays it with a straight bat, keeping the chords quite simple - it feels almost like a traditional folk tune. Although if you study the lyrics closely, you can almost see the join between the Helme and Squire lyrics - the middle eight with the natural born killer/Polyfilla rhyme feels a bit out of place. Whoever's song it really is, Helme still performs this live, as part of his stripped down solo set, and it still works.

Whatever. The band's last single limped to #15 in the chart, but the expected parent album failed to materialise, and the band imploded (as bands with Squire in tend to do, sometimes more than once). This then was their swansong and, for me, remains the best, most sing-along single from what was most definitely a singles band: Helme (literally) ends on a high note and Squire tacks a bit of muso rock noodling on the end, for old times' sake.

There's no Seahorses "best of" that I can find, so if you want to own today's classic you're talking silly money on Amazon. YouTube it is then.

Clandestine Classic LVI - One Night Stand

The fifty-sixth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

I've been thinking a bit about Pete Tong and his Heritage Orchestra, who've been all over my radio lately. You know - Pete has taken another load of old house and Ibiza tunes and got a proper orchestra to play them, the idea being (presumably) to take some "classic" club tunes and give them an actual classical music style makeover. Seems this kind of cultural pretence has been very popular indeed with middle-aged ex-clubbers, with sell-out shows at large venues and not one but two albums of this kind of stuff. That new version of Killer by Seal that you've been hearing? This is where it comes from. You knew all that already, right?

But it's hardly a new idea. Today's classic comes from 90s band The Aloof, which Wikipedia tells me were "a British electronica group, mixing electronic and dance elements with dub influences." So there you go. I know nothing else about them, and today's track, One Night Stand, is the only thing by them in my collection, courtesy of a compilation album. And although it's not my usual cup of tea, I think this is excellent.

Firstly, there are the world-weary vocals, sounding not dissimilar in some respects to David McAlmont but actually belonging to one Ricky Barrow. Then there are the lyrics which, if I can borrow from a series over at The (New) Vinyl Villain, would make an excellent short story:

What am I doing here? Your face is a mess.
You walk back in the room and you put on your dress.
I say, I'll see you soon and I, I'll give you a call.
I hear the door slam and feel nothing at all.

What am I doing here? I've been here for weeks.
Gotta get outta of this room and go, go clean these sheets.
Why am I lying here and with what was her name?
I feel nothing at all; I feel no shame.

It's another one night stand
'cause it makes me feel like a real man.

Lyrically melancholic, and with those minor keys throughout, this is a real come-down track, filled with unhappiness and a touch of self-loathing. And then there's that orchestral arrangement, that's probably been smouldering in the back of Pete Tong's mind for twenty years.

One Night Stand was The Aloof's commercial highpoint, peaking at #30 in 1996. There were other singles, but none like this. And interestingly, fact fans, Radio 1 playing an extended instrumental version of this every thirty minutes for several hours on the day Princess Diana died. I didn't remember that, by the way, it's another Wikipedia fact, so caveat emptor when you throw that little nugget into pub conversation.

You can scoop up One Night Stand on The Aloof's second album, Sinking, or (like me) on none-more-90s compilation The Dogs...! Anyway, here's the track - great video too, isn't it?

Clandestine Classic LV - Is It Like Today?

The fifty-fifth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Back in the days before the Internet, if you wanted to know what was going on in the world of music, and what your favourite bands were up to, you had to read the music press. So, in the early 90s, I read Q magazine an awful lot. And, for a while, Q was very much in love with World Party.

World Party were, essentially, a vehicle for one-time Waterboy Karl Wallinger, on whom Q lavished hundreds of column-inches, especially after making World Party's second album, Goodbye Jumbo, their album of the year in 1990. They were still eulogising about Karl in 1993 when follow-up Bang! was released.

Now I hadn't bought into Q's canonisation of Wallinger, but when I saw a copy of accompanying single Is It Like Today? in a bargain box, I thought I could risk 99p to test the magazine's devotion. And you know what? This song, at least, lived up to their hype.

Is It Like Today? was World Party's UK singles chart highpoint, just squeaking into the Top 20, at 19. Musically, I loved it, for it's carefully picked guitar line and piano counterpoint, the slightly dreamy vocal delivery, Karl's harmonies, the lyrical conceit (a face-to-face with God, in which the almighty laments how messed up his creation project has become), the middle eight with its whispered "Bang!" (God deciding to destroy his creation, perhaps?) that gave the parent album its title, and its beautiful, melodic outro. All of it - tremendous. I remember putting this on every compilation tape I made for a while, back then.

Despite Q's relentless patronage, World Party never really translated critical acclaim into massive commercial success, and after the next album (1997's Egyptology, a relative flop), Karl basically took most of the next decade off, not least because, after having an aneurysm in 2000, he understandably wanted to put his energies into being well.

Anyway, World Party resumed active service in 2006, but it's been pretty quiet from Karl since box-set activity in 2012. You can find today's classic on the aforementioned Bang!, the single-disc best of Best In Show or that comprehensive box-set Arkeology. You might imagine I have some, or even all, of these, but I don't - today's classic remains the only World Party record in my collection. Why? Because I don't believe even Q's favourite son could top it, and I've never heard anything to quite convince me to give him the benefit of the doubt. But when you've recorded this, well, that's enough for anyone, isn't it? Have a listen and see if you agree.

Footnote: the Robbie Williams hit She's The One is a cover of a World Party track from Egyptology.

Clandestine Classic LIV - The Autumn Stone

The fifty-fourth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Continuing my quest to feature the most influential, most pivotal, most important acts in my personal musical history, it's time to talk about The Small Faces. As a passionate fan of The Jam, but deprived of anything new by them courtesy of Mr Weller jacking it all in to join his local Council, I started to explore the bands that had influenced Paul. The Who was an obvious touchstone, as were The Kinks. But most of all, I got very into The Small Faces.

I don't need to write a biog for Marriott, Lane, McLagan and Jones, do I, because you're discerning music lovers and know all about them already. I don't need to describe how they quickly went from teen-friendly chart hits written by other people (Whatcha Gonna Do About it, Sha-La-La-La-Lee) to more mature, self-penned material (Tin Soldier, Get Yourself Together), via a commercial high-point that was somewhere in the middle (Itchycoo Park, Lazy Sunday). You know all that. Just like you all know, now, about the influence of the band on Weller, from the early, sawing pop-art guitar work, through to the organ sounds that would permeate late-period Jam and much of The Style Council. Back in the 80s, pre-Internet, the teenage me loved this musical lineage, joining up the dots between songs that I adored and the music that begat them. No great surprise then that my love of The Jam led me to swallow The Small Faces whole.

After the success of 1968's Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake concept album, memorably containing tracks linked by Professor Stanley Unwin and packaged to look like a tobacco tin, the band began work on a fourth studio album, provisionally entitled 1862. But Marriott, like Weller fifteen years later, wanted to move on and tackle new musical challenges, to throw off the shackles of his earlier success. He officially left the band right at the end of 1968, walking off stage during a live New Year's Eve gig with a shout of "I quit!" This left label Immediate with a handful of new and unreleased songs, which they bundled together and released in 1969 as The Autumn Stone. And it's the title track from that rag-tag round-up of odds and ends that I've chosen as the Clandestine Classic to represent The Small Faces.

It's a beautiful, grown-up song, a thousand miles or more away from Sha-La-La-La-Lee and the rest. Lyrically, it's an ode to a lost love, I think. There aren't that many words, actually, for what is, by 60s standards, quite a long song, but the early verses are in praise of a new love ("I was nowhere 'til you changed my mind. Love is sent through being good to you"), whilst later verses suggest that love is gone, or broken ("Tomorrow changes fields of green today. Yesterday is dead, but not my memory"). A good third of the song is, to my untrained ear, a perfect, almost pastoral flute solo. And then there's that slightly mad outro, with what sounds like Jew's harp, sitar and tabla, the combined effect of which always make me think of the Australian Outback, for some reason. Don't ask me why.

There were plenty of other Small Faces tracks I could have chosen for today's classic - my shortlist also had Talk To You, Tin Soldier, Rollin' Over, Red Balloon and The Universal on it. Tin Soldier came really, really close. But as the teenage me started to think more about girls and romance and, inevitably, heartache, it was always The Autumn Stone that I came back to, and its wistful meditation on a special love.

For completeness, I should also mention Gene's excellent cover of this. But even they, brilliant as they were, couldn't improve on the original. Speaking of which, here it is.

You're welcome.

Clandestine Classic LIII - You've Got A Friend (cover)

The fifty-third post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

I've been thinking about cover versions a lot lately, mainly fantasy cover versions. Mainly, but not exclusively. Because you see, the other day I heard James Taylor's version of this, itself a cover, on the radio. And then, of course, there's the Carole King original. It's undoubtedly a brilliant, beautiful record, in Carole's hands and James's. Thing is though, when I think of this song I don't think of either of these renditions. I think of today's classic.

The Housemartins were, as most readers of this blog will undoubtedly already know, a jangly 80s indie band from Hull - in their own words, "the fourth best band in Hull" (the three bands that were "better" were apparently Red Guitars, Everything But The Girl and The Gargoyles). As you will also know, they had their big breakthrough moment with Happy Hour, helped no end by the Aardman-esque claymation video, and had their only number one around Christmas 1986 with an a capella cover of Isley/Jasper/Isley's Caravan of Love. And of course The Housemartins begat The Beautiful South and Norman Cook, in all his guises.

Enough intro though. The band clearly knew their way around a good cover version, and today's classic is no exception. It was recorded by the band's last line-up, in which drummer Ted Whitaker had been replaced by Dave Hemingway, an added bonus of which was Dave's nice backing vocals. The band play the song with a straight bat, perhaps mindful that the original is so well known, their only real digression being the complete omission of the middle eight.

And that's it really. A straightforward rendition of a well-loved song, simple and stripped back, with Stan's acoustic guitar to the fore. On the face of it, nothing staggering. But this is the version I always hear in my head first when I think of You've Got A Friend, and if I should ever ill-advisedly try to perform it in public, I'd take my cue from Paul and Stan, not James or Carole.

You can pick up today's classic on the career retrospective Now That's What I Call Quite Good, and you should because The Housemartins were excellent, in my view never really given the recognition they deserved. And if you are wise enough to invest in that album, you'll also get a copy of the Housemartins' track that I almost chose for today, Step Outside, another beautiful slice of Paul and acoustic Stan. It's a gem. But anyway, just because I've been thinking about cover versions here's today classic - enjoy.

This is the sort of song that gets covered to death, so if you prefer a different version, let me know in the comments. And if you still haven't submitted your fantasy cover version, what are you waiting for?

Clandestine Classic LII - Wonderful Woman (live)

The fifty-second post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Continuing my quest to feature the most influential, most pivotal, most important acts in my personal musical history, today I tackle the big one: how to present a clandestine classic from The Smiths? Not only are the majority of my readers already very well acquainted with this particular Salford lads' club but here's a band whose output has been bootlegged, anthologised, re-issued and repackaged to within an inch of its life. Simply, there isn't much out there left to discover. But there are some tracks that get played less than others. And there are some intriguing live versions out of those lesser played tracks, so that's the card I'm playing - stick with me.

Wonderful Woman originally surfaced as the second B-side on the 12" version of the band's second single, This Charming Man. What we didn't know at the time is that it had been first recorded during the aborted sessions for their debut album (and as such would later appear on the Troy Tate Sessions boot). For whatever reason, it didn't make the cut for the eventual, re-recorded eponymous debut album, which is a shame as it would have fit right in.

But what of the song? I seem to recall reading a theory somewhere once that this song is about Morrissey's mother, but I find that unlikely indeed (and I can't find a source for this theory anywhere online). A more straightforward interpretation is that wonderful is sarcastic, since this seems to be about a thoroughly unpleasant woman who has "ice water for blood, neither heart nor spine" and implores Moz, "I’m starved of mirth, let’s go and trip a dwarf." Or maybe she's wonderfully, terribly beguiling, because Morrissey adds "when she calls me, I do not walk, I run." I don't know about you but I can identify with that - she's bad for him, he knows it, but still he can't resist. Steven, I hear you.

Musically, this is cut from the same cloth as Suffer Little Children, with a deceptively simple repeating guitar motif from Johnny over a steady-as-she-goes rhythm section. Oh, and a whisper of plaintive harmonica. Morrissey's vocal delivery is typical of the earlier recordings, in that it's perfectly serviceable yet lacks the confidence of subsequent songs. So why a classic, I hear you ask? Well, there's something uncanny about the end of each chorus, as Johnny changes up, the harmonica kicks in, and Morrissey repeats "her, her, her." It's not hypnotic but it's certainly an ear-worm - you could quite easily loop that little section and leave it playing in the background all evening and get no complaints from me.

You can pick up Wonderful Woman, as it appeared on the B-side of This Charming Man, on the fairly comprehensive The Sound Of The Smiths (deluxe edition) and you can read more about the Troy Tate demos over at the excellent Passions Just Like Mine. But, to paraphrase Chris Tarrant, I don't want to give you those. To maximise the clandestine value of today's classic, instead let's go for a live recording from a gig at The Hacienda dating back to 4th February, 1983. I read somewhere that this was The Smiths' third gig proper, and the first for which a recording exists (albeit with pretty poor sound quality). Also the first as a four-piece (they'd had James Maker on-stage as a dancer prior to this). The night this was recorded I was twelve and a half and didn't know Morrissey existed. Little did I know how much The Smiths would mean to me over the next 30+ years. In a week when Morrissey has taken a lot of flack for comments that even I, a past apologist, struggle to explain away¹, I choose instead to remember some music from a band that, for me, was, is and always shall be life-changing.

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1. What did Morrissey say about the Manchester bombing? Here. Martin Rossiter's response? Here. For contrast, Moz's subsequent critique of Tory plans to reverse the fox hunting ban, here.

Clandestine Classic LI - Blood Sports (live)

The fifty-first post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Last time I did one of these, I lamented the fact that it's hard to feature the most influential, most pivotal, most important acts in my personal musical history. How, I mused, was it possible to come up with a clandestine classic from The Smiths/The Jam/REM when 90% or more of this blog's readership is already very familiar with The Smiths/The Jam/REM? Not easily. But I did resolve to address this problem in future posts, and that change starts here. For today's post comes from quite early on in the second phase of Paul Weller's career, when his fans were still bellowing for Jam tracks but he was moving on. Yes - tonight Matthew, I will be featuring The Style Council.

The year is 1985. The Style Council are still riding the bow wave of a run of Top 20 singles, are about to release Our Favourite Shop (which will become their only chart-topping album) and have yet to completely deter all their old Mod fans with the arty stuff (The Cappuccino Kid liner notes, fey videos), or sidetrack into Red Wedge territory. It's a good time to be a Councillor. The first single from Our Favourite Shop is chosen, and it's the excellent, rabble-rousing, quite-possible-to-imagine-The-Jam-performing Walls Come Tumbling Down. Everyone is happy.

One of that single's B-sides is today's classic: a lyrical, almost pastoral in places, critique of the lunacy of hunting animals for pleasure, and the hideousness of those who do so, Blood Sports is a song that would do Morrissey proud. As musically apart from its A-side as a B-side can be, here is a song that shows a band at the peak of their powers daring to do something a bit different (again), and not being afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves.

On the off-chance that choosing a B-side still isn't enough to make this song clandestine enough for you, let's feature a live rendition. The video featured here is a clip from an 80's television programme called Worldwise, in which the band are introduced (and later interviewed) by Sarah Greene. Weller gets away with singing the line "Who gets a hard-on with blood on their hands?" too, which must have given someone at the Beeb kittens. Some might say Mick's keyboard solo is a bit "of its time", and that's generous, but he's trying to emulate a different sound, the pan-pipe sound of the recorded version. Anyway, give them a break and instead concentrate on the lyrics, Weller's delivery and, at a time when he wasn't playing much guitar, watch those chords - easy to play and tailor-made to be adopted by the cause... (except it wasn't - a shame).

There are a plethora of greatest hits and compilations from TSC out there, but choose carefully. If you want to pick up the studio version of Blood Sports you can find it on The Collection (choose even more carefully here, as there are several compilations called The Collection or variations thereon) or Here's Some That Got Away, both of which are excellent, and both of which also feature The Ghosts Of Dachau, a slice of haunting brilliance that I almost chose for today's classic. Or why not just treat yourself, and splash out on The Complete Adventures box set, a steal at under £30.

Until then, here's that live TV performance from 1985. Who'd have thought, 32 years later and in a supposedly more enlightened time, that this subject would still be an issue, with Theresa's shade of blue looking to repeal the foxhunting ban? In that context, it would be nice to see Paul reprise this at his live shows this year. On that note, over to Sarah Greene.

Clandestine Classic L - Sleep With Me

The (...drumroll...) fiftieth (hooray!) post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

The obvious problem with writing a series like this is that it is very hard to feature some of the most influential, most pivotal, more important acts in my personal musical history. How do I come up with a clandestine classic from The Smiths, for example, when 90% or more of this blog's readership is already very, very familiar with The Smiths' output? Ditto Morrissey solo. Ditto The Jam, The Style Council and solo Weller. Ditto REM. This is something I'll be looking to remedy in future posts (assuming this blog limps on), as it's important to me that the aforementioned all feature. And whilst I have managed to get Blur, Pixies, Gene, Travis, Pulp and The Wedding Present in, there are other important acts for me (Radiohead, Billy Bragg, Suede, The Blue Aeroplanes, The Small Faces, The Who and The Kinks) who are also notable by their absence. This became very apparent when I was preparing an index of all the tracks that have featured as clandestine classics thus far, in readiness for this, the landmark (!) fiftieth post in the series.

So a change is coming, of sorts. But not yet. For today's classic is by an artist you probably don't know, from an album you probably haven't heard, and a time (1990) that seems almost unimaginably long ago, despite feeling like yesterday in so many ways. 1990... a time when the great indie hopes of the mid-80s had collapsed under the weight of Stock-Aitken-Waterman chart dominance. C86 was long gone, done. The Smiths had left the building. Madchester and grunge had yet to bring hope to the indie kids. Blur and Suede had yet to pave the way for Britpop proper. Aside from the first Stone Roses' album, it was, generally speaking, a pretty fallow time musically.

Not for me though... in October 89 I went to university. A new city, a diverse campus, living in halls with new people from an array of countries, there was so much to experience, new music included. And then, in January 1990, a new person arrived on our hall for the remaining six months of that academic year. She was from the US, a crucial couple of years older than me and, if I'm honest, quite unlike anyone I'd ever met before (and seldom since). Maybe it was because we both had that six month deadline hanging over our friendship from the start or maybe it was simply that we clicked on a level that was unprecedented for us both, I think; whatever the reason, it very quickly became apparent that we were cut from the same cloth. A link was formed that persists even now, and a crucial part of that link, of that effortless commonality, was music. She introduced me to a lot of new music, primarily American, I reciprocated, on behalf of the UK, and there were some bands and artists that we already had in common. One such artist was the Bard of Barking, Billy Bragg. Imagine our delight, then, on learning that he would be appearing on campus that May. In my cash-strapped first year, it was the only gig ticket I bought - that's how important it was for me to go.

Billy was touring to promote his new mini-album, The Internationale, still his most consistently and overtly political release in a lifetime of political releases, and worth picking up for the title track alone, let alone the brilliance of The Marching Song Of The Covert Battalions and the heart-rending My Youngest Son Came Home Today. But I digress; brilliant though he is (and was that night, especially), we're not here to talk about Uncle Bill. As I recall, there were two support acts that night - a band puntastically called The Coal Porters (which featured Sid Griffin), and a solo singer-songwriter with nothing but a guitar with which to promote her own mini-album. Caroline Trettine had, like nearly everyone from Bristol who'd ever held a guitar, previously featured in The Blue Aeroplanes but was now ploughing a solo furrow. Her debut album, Be A Devil (pictured above), had been released on Billy's short-lived Utility record label, and here she was to promote it.

On the album, Caroline is occasionally augmented by fellow Blue Aeroplanes-alumnus Ian Kearey but that night she played alone. Her voice soared faultlessly over a delicate acoustic finger-picking style and an uncommon hush feel over the venue. She was captivating, and a lot of copies of Be A Devil got sold on the merchandise stall that night.

I could have picked any of the tracks from Be A Devil, as they are all excellent, but I've gone for Sleep With Me. It's beautiful, heartfelt, intimate, direct - it presses a button somewhere in my chest. What never ceases to amaze me is that Caroline wrote this song, I once read somewhere, when she was just fifteen. What were you doing when you were that age? I know what I was doing, and it wasn't as good as this.

When I wrote about the gig some time ago, in my top ten gigs post, I gushed slightly by saying "support was great too, from Caroline Trettine, with whom I sort of fell in love for the duration of her twenty minute set." Hyperbole, maybe, but that button in my chest was pushed so hard, it never quite sprung back to its original position.

If you can hunt down a copy of Be A Devil, you should - you won't regret it. You can stream it from Amazon here, if that's your thing. I have it on Utility CD, which is pretty hard to find these days, so lucky me. But in the meantime, here's today's clandestine classic - it's so old/obscure/niche I had to resort to Myspace to find an embeddable version. I know, Myspace! Who even knew that was still a thing. In fact, hurry up and listen whilst it is still a thing...

EDIT: the MySpace widget just doesn't seem to play any more, for anyone. So here's a recent(ish) live rendition of Sleep With Me by Caroline as part of her work with Koral Society. There's some extra instrumentation here, but it's mostly just a chance to appreciate Caroline's voice and guitar. Here you go.

Clandestine Classic XLIX - Ask Johnny Dee

The forty-ninth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Last time I did a Clandestine Classic, I bemoaned the fact that the series had fallen into something of a rut, along the lines of always asking, "What do you think about when I say <insert band name here> to you?", after which I'll rattle through the obvious choices for that band and then pull a rabbit out of the hat. I bemoaned it, and then I went ahead and did it again. Shame on me. So it's back to basics, this time, as I try to wrap some personal narrative around the chosen song. Here goes.

We have to dial the clock back for this one, to the latter half of 1988 and the beginning of 1989. I was in the upper sixth of a selective boys' grammar school, and worked at weekends in the lighting department of a now-defunct high street department store. Surprisingly, for someone who had, two years earlier, described the concept of having a girlfriend as "a hypothetical situation" (much to the amusement of my mates), I had not only discovered girls but they too had discovered me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I was any kind of gigolo, quite the opposite, I was still painfully shy and socially awkward. But I'd had a couple of girlfriends of varying durations and seriousness. The situation was no longer hypothetical.

And then... then, there was Jay. That's not her real name, by the way; even though only one person who knew me back then reads this blog, I still think it's important to preserve anonymity. Jay was in the lower sixth at the neighbouring (and affiliated) selective girls' grammar school, and worked in the restaurant at the same high street department store. She was also painfully shy but, crucially for bringing us together, she was friends with the girls my mates were going out with. She was also ferociously intelligent, funny and, most attractive of all, just a bit different. For context, this was the age of peak Neighbours, when boys tried to look like Scott and Mike whilst girls tried to look like Charlene and (not so) Plain Jane Super Brain. Jay didn't try to look like anybody. She stood out from her classmates by not trying to emulate fashion, not overdoing the make-up in a horrible 80s way, not slavishly imitating the fashions of the day. She was a fully fledged individual at the age of seventeen which, looking back, was quite something.

Jay also had terrific taste in music. When most of her classmates were interested in standard chart fare, if interested at all, the only chart Jay was interested in was the indie chart. And so it was that, as friends tried to get us together and we edged around actually going out, she introduced me to a band she adored, The Chesterfields. I somehow hadn't heard of them at all at the time and, even now, had to fall back on Wikipedia to remind myself that they came from Somerset and that, although often referred to as a C86 band, they weren't actually on the landmark NME cassette. They were, if memory serves, part of the short-lived "twee" sound; with hindsight, they sounded like a lo-fi hybrid of The Housemartins, The Smiths and early REM, with a West Country accent. Today's Classic is their fourth single and indie chart highpoint (number four!), Ask Johnny Dee, from 1987. It also appeared on their debut album, the splendidly titled Kettle.

You can probably tell from the way I've written this post that there wasn't a happy ending to the story of Jay and I. She really liked me, and I liked her too but, for whatever reason, I didn't appreciate her enough. Actually, "for whatever reason" is not strictly true. I think I was just a typical eighteen year old, one whose mates all had conventionally pretty girlfriends, and I didn't want to commit to Jay in case someone else came along. That's pretty terrible, I know. But not nearly as bad as how I treated Jay at, and immediately after, one particular party - I'll spare you the details (by which I mean I'll spare my own shame) but I was a royal git to her, heartless. She deserved much, much better.

Ten-plus years later, we were once again both working for the same company, this time a US-owned corporate behemoth. We worked at the same (huge) site, but in different divisions - our paths would never normally cross, though I did see her once, from a distance across a large atrium. She looked great, of course, still a bit quirky, a little different to everyone else, but generally great. I don't know whether she saw me or not. Probably not. But she was in the company email address book, so I penned a carefully worded message to gently say hello (our first communication since that party, pretty much) and to start to suggest that I knew I had been a git, and to say sorry. She read the email, I know that much (I put a read receipt on it) but she didn't reply. A year or so later, she left the company, and that was that.

Except last year I spotted her again, in the social media timeline of a mate's wife. Jay's married now, it seems, with kids, and looks the picture of happiness. Still a little quirky, a little different from the crowd, as far as you can tell from a timeline. I thought, very briefly, of sending another message but didn't when I realised that I was in danger of turning into Rob from High Fidelity. I also asked myself whose benefit I would be apologising for, hers or mine? The answer, dear reader, does not reflect well on me. I stepped away for the keyboard.

You can pick up today's Classic on The Chesterfield's exhaustive best of compilation Electric Guitars In Their Heart, if lo-fi 80s twee is your bag. It was my bag too, for a short while a long time ago.

In the meantime, and with all apologies, this one's for Jay.

Clandestine Classic XLVIII - Bad Ambassador

The forty-eighth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

The trouble with any kind of long-running blog series (and 48 isn't especially long, but it's getting there) is that eventually you start to repeat yourself. Not necessarily in content, but insomuch as certain tropes start to appear... and reappear. For the Clandestine Classics, that trope is the question, "What do you think about when I say <insert band name here> to you?", after which I'll rattle through the obvious choices for that band and then pull a rabbit out of the hat, a non-obvious choice that is, hopefully, a belter. So, on that basis... what do you think about when I say The Divine Comedy to you? National Express, probably. Generation Sex too. Becoming More Like Alfie, hopefully. Maybe Something For The Weekend too and, with luck, the theme tune from Father Ted. And unless you're a big fan, that's probably about it.

When I think about The Divine Comedy, I think about all those songs too, of course. And I think of how their 90s flirtation with the big time, for want of a better phrase, was probably made possible, indirectly, by the sudden, unexpected but zeitgeisty prominence of Common People-era Pulp. If Jarvis could be a star, record labels doubtless mused, then so could Neil Hannon. There's probably some logic in that too, as there are doubtless similarities in their approach to the so-called rock star life, their performance style, even musically. But there are plenty of differences too, not least Neil's love of a good croon. But I digress - what about today's classic?

Bad Ambassador dates from 2001; the crest of the Britpop wave that scooped up Pulp, The Divine Comedy and so many other bands, had long since broken, there was no TFI Friday to plug your songs on anymore, no more Shine compilations to showcase your work, and no Radio 1 playlisting for Neil and his crew. Record label Setanta were replaced by Parlophone, the quirky suited look was ditched, Nigel Godrich was drafted in on production duty... it all got a bit serious, in other words. The album Regeneration was the result - less twee, less quirky, slightly harder sounding, the critics lapped it up, but the record-buying public...? Not so much. The Divine Comedy would split soon after its release.

Today's classic was the second single to be drawn from Regeneration, and it limped to a lowly 34 in the UK chart, and that's a shame because, regeneration or not, all the hallmarks of what made The Divine Comedy great were still there: whip-smart lyricism, knowing delivery, great melodies... Were there really 33 better songs in the chart that week? I find it hard to believe.

Anyway, Mr Hannon has reformed The Diving Comedy, and I had the pleasure of seeing them live in October. Let me tell you, in a live setting this song really takes off - it properly rocks out! Or, to put it more eloquently, this song works on many levels and, if there was any justice, would feature in the first five songs you mention when I ask you what you think of when I say The Divine Comedy to you. Always assuming you don't go down the Danté route...

You can pick up Regeneration on Amazon, and you won't regret it. Bad Ambassador is not on the obligatory best of compilation though, as that only mops up the Setanta years (a.k.a. the glory years). So instead, courtesy of YouTube, here's today's clandestine classic in video form. Enjoy.

Clandestine Classic XLVII - Dover Beach

The forty-seventh post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Today's song was a serendipitous find for me. I bought an album on a whim because I had a massive crush on the lead singer. Don't judge me - I was in my mid-teens. But what do you think about when I say "Bangles" to you? Manic Monday, I expect. Walk Like An Egyptian, quite possibly. Eternal Flame, too. Maybe you'd trot out your Bangles pop quiz fact about Manic Monday being written for them, under an alias, by Prince. All fine, and perfectly understandable. But before all that commercial success, there was another story and another kind of band. The Bangs, formed by Susanna Hoffs and sisters Vikki and Debbi Peterson, were a spiky post-punk trio with a penchant for harmony-led Sixties music. When guitarist Michael Steele joined she brought a whole lot of crunchy guitar riffs with her, and the band changed their name to the slightly more straightforward Bangles, a name that still played on their femininity but in a less double-entendre-prone way.

Commercial success was still a little way off though. Early EPs performed unspectacularly, and their debut LP, from which today's clandestine classic is drawn, hardly fared better. Released in 1984, All Over The Place showcased the prototype Bangles sound and style perfectly, with Rickenbacker guitars chiming over four-part harmonies and just a little bit of an edge... you know, the sort of edge that later gets sanded off by record labels in the quest for mainstream success. But this LP, together with appearances on TV shows like Rock and Roll Alternative (and let's now forget, this is the kind of show that R.E.M. were also doing at the time), led to the band supporting Heart and Huey Lewis and the News, and catching Prince's eye/ear. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today's classic is a perfect example of that 1984 sound and style I was rambling about. There are big, crunchy, open chords and deceptively simple riffs, even a nice solo. And even, once, the merest trace of feedback. It's not Eternal sodding Flame, is it? Vocally, it's a case of harmonies, harmonies, harmonies. I'm trying to think of another four-piece band who all sing and whose voices mesh as well, in the same greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts way, and I can only really think of Queen. That's high praise.

Lyrically, the song seems to me to be about lost love, specifically lost through bereavement. Witness the second verse: "Late last night you cried and I couldn't come to you. But on the other side, you and I, inseparable and walking." Okay, so it's not Morrissey, but it's not girl-band pap either. Anyway, I don't know if the ladies have been to Dover, probably not since it's hardly famous for its unremarkable beach, but since those words are not even mentioned in the lyrics, who cares? Maybe the lost love of the song chucked themselves off the rather-more-famous white cliffs. Who knows? If I ever meet Susanna, I'll ask her.

You can pick up All Over The Place on Amazon, and you really should because it's far better than you'd expect. Nothing will prise my vinyl copy away. In the meantime, here is today's clandestine classic. Enjoy.

Clandestine Classic XLVI - It's Only Life

The forty-sixth post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

Now I don't know too much about The Feelies, beyond what can be gleaned from Wikipedia. Their entry in that mostly-correct encyclopaedia of our times suggests they grew out of the American post-punk/new wave scene, but that what distinguished them from their peers was the complexity, intricacy and layering of their "shimmering" guitar work. On the evidence of the only record of theirs I've ever heard, 1988 album Only Life, I'd go along with all of that.

There's a little bit of a story, actually, for me and this album, if you'll allow a digression. Back in 1992, in my last days as a full-time student, in that period of drift between the end of exams and graduation, I spent a lot of time in the University library, specifically the tiny record and CD section. I'd fill an enjoyable part of my days taking CDs out of the library and, despite the fact that home taping was still killing music back then, I'd make poor-quality cassette copies with an unbelievably chunky Philips personal CD player and a secondhand Panasonic boombox. I still have the latter, in the loft, and it still gets occasional use; the former, by contrast, didn't last five minutes. I haven't bought anything Philips-branded since. But now I'm digressing from my digression. Back to the story. So there I am, in 1992, unsure of my library choice but subconsciously yearning for Americana as a substitute for une Americaine. Looking back, I rather suspect I chose The Feelies because the name appealed. Now, I've already written about how I have gone back to that university recently, as my new place of work. And I'm frequenting the library CD section again (the vinyl has all gone). Imagine my surprise to see the exact same Feelies CD, sitting there. Naturally, I borrowed it again, 24 years later. I wonder how many others have borrowed it in the interim; from the condition of the booklet and disc itself, I'm guessing not too many. I've ripped it to MP3 this time, allowing my old, oxidised tape copy to retire from service. It's still a half-decent album, even though it still doesn't do quite enough to qualify as great.

Today's classic does, however. It's track one, side one, entitled It's Only Life. What's so good? Well, it has the Wikipedia-endorsed shimmering, layered guitars, and several subtle ear-worm hooks. It also employs the Talking Heads Road To Nowhere trick of being deceptively simple, with only two chords, but despite (or maybe because of) this the song has a slightly hypnotic effect. Soporific, maybe. And then there's the lyrical intent. There's nothing too high-brow here, nothing Morrissey-esque in its cleverness, simply a nice idea, to whit: don't worry about the bad stuff, it's only life. An admirable, if overly simplistic and ultimately naive, sentiment.

You can pick up Only Life on Amazon, though it's not cheap these days. Why not see if your library has a copy? In the meantime, here is today's clandestine classic. Enjoy.