V03-T04 They Don't Know

.....I first knew this song from a Tracey Ullman video, made before she had an American television series. It was when the 'M' in 'MTV' stood for 'Music' instead of 'Misanthropy'. Finding this original version on a compilation by accident was a sweet surprise.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 4

• 03:01 "THEY DON'T KNOW" (Kirsty MacColl)
• performed by Kirsty MacColl
• original source: A-side, 7"Stiff BUY47 (UK) June, 1979
• and my source: VA4CD THE STIFF RECORDS BOX SET Demon/Rhino R2 71062 (US?) August, 1992

.....This is MacColl's debut single, not counting an EP she appeared on as a member of Drug Addix the previous year. None of the songs on that were credited to her and I'm guessing she's just fine with that. This, on the other hand, is pop music gold. My original notes from 1994 haven't really changed, so I'll just quote them below, followed by the current availability of this recording.

.....[from 1994:]Most Americans who know this song know it from the Tracey Ullman version recorded just a few years later [in 1983] (and, I believe, also for Stiff [it was]). That was before Ullman had her American television show on Fox (in fact, before there was a Fox). The video for the remake recast the meaning of the song: in it, Ullman plays a teenager with an enormous crush on Paul McCartney. Obviously nothing ever comes of it, but she grows up to be a bored housewife in a loveless marriage who still daydreams that McCartney will sweep her off her feet. (He does, sort of, when the real McCartney appears briefly at the end.)

.....The original MacColl version is more in the spirit of the mid-1960's British female 'mod' singers (Sandie Shaw, Cilla Black, Petula Clark, Lulu, etc.) who were in turn inspired by Motown and Phil Spector-produced girl groups. It sounds like one of many songs about a girl in a bad relationship, but sung from the girl's perspective so that it seems as though the rest of the world has gone crazy and turned against her. The lyrics to "THEY DON'T KNOW" are sufficiently vague and general that the song could just as easily be about any of the following:

• a) a paranoid schizophrenic speaking to one of their other personalities
• b) a gay rights anthem
• c) a Romeo-and-Juliet/West Side Story couple caught in an ethnic conflict
• d) an addict singing to their drug
• e) an acolyte singing to a cult leader
• f) a prostitute seducing a client
• g) an agent signing a band (see f)

.....[back to 2010:] There was no contemporary album to this single, so it doesn't appear on any reissue even as a bonus track. The year after the Stiff Box came out there was an unimaginative package of MacColl's Stiff material called THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION (1993), but the year after I put together this mix MacColl supervised a replacement, GALORE-THE BEST OF KIRSTY MACCOLL (1995). Both contain "THEY DON'T KNOW".

.....On Monday, we take a break from the A-sides.

V03-T03 The Man Who Invented Himself

.....Many of the recordings I used for this series of compilation tapes were rare at the time that I used them. Of course, since all of these recordings, including the ones created for broadcast or promotional purposes, were mass produced, 'rare' is a relative term. If you manufacture a David Bowie title in quantities less than 50,000 that item would be considered somewhat rare because his international sales are typically in the millions. That same number would make an appropriate first pressing for a band on a small, privately owned label. Of the recordings used here that I would think were hard to come by, many have since been reissued (or issued) on CD. While their original format issue is still technically rare the newly pressed sources often ship in even larger quantities than the originals. By contrast, the recording used below may have actually become more rare since I compiled the tape due to very unusual circumstances.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 3

• 02:59 "THE MAN WHO INVENTED HIMSELF" (Robyn Hitchcock)
• performed by Robyn Hitchcock
• original source: LP BLACK SNAKE DIAMOND ROLE Armageddon ARM 4 (UK) May, 1981
• and my source: CD BLACK SNAKE DIAMOND ROLE Aftermath AFT CD 1 (UK) 1987

.....In March 1980 The Soft Boys finished the recording sessions that would be pieced together to form their last original studio album, UNDERWATER MOONLIGHT. That spring, a Virgin Records employee named Richard Bishop set out to launch his own label, Armageddon, and The Soft Boys would put any future releases on it. As it turned out, their recordings from that point on fell into four categories: songs released as Soft Boys singles; songs packaged with earlier outtakes to fill out a Soft Boys posthumous album; songs retroactively credited to guitarist Kimberley Rew for singles; and songs retroactively credited to Hitchcock for much of his first solo album and parts of a later compilation, INVISIBLE HITCHCOCK. These were mostly released over the course of the next year and a half, after Rew had tracked down a pre-Soft Boys bandmate from his old band The Waves. In his absence they had become a rock-and-country cover band called "Mama's Cooking" with an American female guitarist. They needed Rew's writing skills, so he agreed to join on condition that he play guitar and the American woman sings his songs instead of him. And "Katrina And The Waves" was a much better name.

.....In January 1995, the year after this tape was assembled, Rhino Records put out the first US release (on CD; keep reading) of BLACK SNAKE DIAMOND ROLE, the first Hitchcock solo album. The liner notes by Grant Alden answer some questions and raise others. On page 2 he states "Sessions began simply, just Robyn and Morris [Windsor] on drums"... and quotes Hitchcock:"So 'THE MAN WHO INVENTED HIMSELF' and 'ACID BIRD' were just Morris and me. I think the first thing we did was 'ACID BIRD' on a four-track machine that Pat Collier had." Then on page 3 Alden mentions,"Additional sessions took place on a barge, where Richard Branson [founder and head of Virgin Records] had installed a 16-track studio." Hitchcock: "Morris and I did 'THE MAN WHO INVENTED HIMSELF' in the middle of the night, on the barge... Howie, our roadie, came along, and there was about an 18-inch gap between the barge and the quay just out by the bow... Howie managed to fall in... so he took his trousers off and dried them over the piano." These two unrelated statements place the song both when "sessions began" and also "additional sessions". The Barge also turns up in the liner notes for INVISIBLE HITCHCOCK as the source of the songs "GIVE ME A SPANNER, RALPH" and "MY FAVORITE BUILDINGS" in June, 1980.

.....Songs that eventually made it onto BSDR included some that had been part of the Soft Boys' live set in the fall of 1980. It isn't so surprising then that each of the other band members show up in some capacity on the solo album. To this day they appear on each other's recordings, and their split early in 1981 was far from acrimonious. It was more due to exasperation with the music press in England, who at some point decided that The Soft Boys weren't wearing the right brand of shoes and shouldn't eat lunch at the cool kids' table. After they broke up their records caught on in the US, especially among upcoming musicians who routinely name-checked them and covered their songs. Unable to foresee that in their future, they had their post-band projects already prepared when their split was announced. In April 1981, the 7" Armageddon AS008 (UK) single for "THE MAN WHO INVENTED HIMSELF" was released followed in May by the BSDR album. (Although the title song doesn't appear on the album, it does exist; a live recording by The Soft Boys surfaced in October on a posthumous album.) The album version of "THE MAN WHO..." features a saxophone part by prolific session man Gary Barnacle and muted piano. However, during the long gestation period for the album it went by several working titles before release, the last of which was ZINC PEAR, for which there was a test pressing with a slightly different track selection and a different mix for "THE MAN WHO...", one without the saxophone overdubbing and the piano clear as a bell. Being a test pressing it wasn't available commercially but wasn't a secret either. When the album was reissued on the Aftermath label (on vinyl in 1985 in Germany and on CD in 1987-- which says 'Made In England' but may also have been made in Europe for UK distribution), it still carried the saxophone mix. The 1995 US Rhino CD I mentioned earlier replaced that track with the original mix from ZINC PEAR. [NOTE: When that Rhino CD initially shipped, it came with a circular blurb sticker that announced "U.S. Debut!" While the album had never before been released here in the CD format, it was briefly available on vinyl from Relativity in 1986. Having never heard a copy of that particular pressing, I can't say which mix was used. I'm also not certain that it was made in the US and not Canada, which would absolve the blurb sticker.]

.....Subsequent reissues of the album on Sequel and Yep Roc, as well as the appearance of the song on compilations, have all utilized the ZINC PEAR piano version, making the saxophone mix relatively rarer with every new release because it makes up a smaller percentage of the total versions available to an increasing audience. Of course, I learned all of this only after I made the compilation tape. I only knew that the CD was more difficult to find than later solo albums. I could have used any other song on the album, I just liked the breezy feel of this one. I've also yet to find why the sax overdub was used in the first place. Was it dubbed over the Barge recording because a wet pair of pants muted the piano? Was it even the same take as the ZINC PEAR mix? Chime in on the comments if you have any insights on this.

V03-T02 Sally Go Round The Roses

.....While discussing a Jim Carroll song on Volume 2 I mentioned that by the late 1960's Andy Warhol was forced to change his policy allowing many different strangers from different backgrounds to hang out at The Factory, his studio and headquarters of an art collective he sponsored. For a while the variety of people fueled the creativity of the artists working there, but after an attempt on his life he could no longer be certain of their safety or even his own. We would have to be content with what preceded that incident. In addition to the art, one unintentional side effect of having so many different people passing through an area is that you can get corroborations on some pretty far-fetched stories...

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 2

• 03:01 "SALLY GO ROUND THE ROSES" (Zelma Sanders, Lona Stevens)
• performed by The Jaynetts
• original source: A-side, 7"Tuff 369 (US) 1963
• and my source: CD GOLDEN GIRL GROUPS K-Tel CD 341-2 (US) Nov., 1989

.....As far back as when I made this mix tape (early 1994?) I was aware that Andy Warhol played this record in the Factory while working (except for the films, obviously). I've since seen that fact repeated by Lou Reed, Mary Woronov, Gerard Malanga and a few others who were there at the time. Reed in particular noted that Warhol didn't seem to own many records in all, but played this one repeatedly. It's hard to know exactly what he liked about it, but an educated guess would be the hypnotic, mantra effect it has since successive plays would emphasize that. Although supposedly written as an original it certainly sounds as though it was derived from a nursery rhyme or a rope-jumping chant.

.....The Jaynetts themselves are a bit of a mystery. Sanders' account is that she created the group as the head of J&S Records as a way to keep singers productive while they were between vocal groups. However, even if it were possible to pinpoint who was in the group at the time of the recording, it was made with multiple overdubs of whatever vocalists were on hand during an extended weekend. I can't find anyone involved with the recording who can claim to have reliable studio logs that detail the personnel. A Wikipedia entry names ten women known to have been working under Sanders' supervision at the time and engineer Artie Butler's website http://www.artiebutler.com/ describes, in his own words, overdubbing the vocals onto a finished instrumental track: "Each time when I added another element I added a different type of reverb." This approach to recording makes it a practical impossibility to even count distinct voices, let alone distinguish one from another.

.....Tomorrow, a different kind of dubbing mix-up.

V03-T01b Romp, Romp, Romp

.....Youthful rebellion is much like bacteria: large in quantity, diverse in quality and constantly reproducing, spreading and yielding new mutations. And like bacteria, when someone sets out to eliminate it they either chose a method potent enough to hurt themselves in the process or else some weaker method that leaves only the stronger and more destructive strains of the bacteria surviving.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 1b

• 03:28 "ROMP, ROMP, ROMP" (Sport [Mike Murphy])
• performed by The Skels
• original source: LP HOW DO YOU LIKE IT HERE NOW? Mystery Fez REC 1297 (Canada) 1988
• and my source: the same

.....First of all, this band has absolutely no relation to the band currently known as The Skels who specialize in Dropkick Murphy-style Irish pub punk and who are based in New Jersey. This earlier, New York-based band broke up at about the same time that the current band formed (c.1995). It's individual members are all on either Facebook or MySpace: John Borghardt, Jim Colford, Bill Hafener, Willy Liguori and Sport (Mike Murphy). This song comes from what I believe was the first of three albums, portions of which appear on the compilation CD EVIDENCE OF A STRUGGLE 1988-1994, also on Mystery Fez and released in 1995, after this mix tape was recorded.

.....On repeated listenings (and fortunately this song lends itself to repeated listenings) you may notice that with every chorus the singer calls for a different style of once-demonized music. Not only that, but he exchanges them in the chronological order in which each was scapegoated as The Cause Of All Our Problems; rock, metal ,punk, hip-hop. And every one of these music styles seemed to disappear off the radar when the next Cause Of All Our Problems came along. It is interesting to note that in my own experience, whenever I've played this song, which contains not one lyric that would read as a joke on paper, and observed people's reactions I have never encountered anyone who did not laugh or at least smile at some point during this song. I can't tell if they found it amusing for the same reasons but in most cases they definitely taste of a 'moment of recognition'. That's something really essential for sarcasm or 'tongue-in-cheek' humor to work. Volume 1 cast the widest possible net, but volume 3 presents what an electrician would call a "gate" and cleaves closer to my personality. Later on this side there will be an extended mood of playfulness and passing "ROMP, ROMP, ROMP" is in my estimation the minimum for going forward since the humor is often more subtle from here on out.

.....Tomorrow, more on Warhol, nursery rhymes and hypnosis.

V03-T01a Sound effect of jail doors

.....Today begins the second cassette. As it happens, we open with a closing. Slam, slam, go the jail guitar doors, alright, but this isn't a Clash song.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 1a

• 00:09 [excerpt from "WE LOVE YOU" (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards)]
• performed by The Rolling Stones
• original source: A-side, 7" Decca F12654 (UK) 08/18/67
• and my source: 3CD THE ROLLING STONES SINGLES COLLECTION* THE LONDON YEARS Abkco 1218-2 (US) 08/15/89

.....On February 12th, 1967, Chief Inspector Gordon Dinely led a raid on Keith Richards' country home while numerous guests were there. An American from the West Coast was allowed to leave carrying a suitcase filled to the gills with LSD and a bit of everything else. He was apparently a wannabe dealer planted there by a Murdoch-style scandal paper that was being sued by the Stones for libel and likely to lose the case. They alerted the police that there would be a drug fueled party at the address, and had a man on the inside to make sure that there was. Unfortunately for them he disappeared with most of it. All that was found was a small amount of heroin on an art gallery owner and a few amphetamine pills for which Jagger may or may not have had a prescription. When the Stones failed to drop the libel suit, another well-publicized raid occurred at Brian Jones' house (this time with no set up necessary) in May. (Jones readily admitted to having a small amount of hash, but not the panoply of addictive substances the police seemed to expect would be there.) In June, when Jagger and Richards were sentenced, Richards was given a year in prison simply for owning that house the police chose to target. The sentences were overturned after review (with the reasoning that, if you're going to put someone in jail for a crime, it would be nice to produce tangible evidence), but only after widespread public outcry, including an editorial from the staunchly conservative London Times. Editor William Rees-Mogg was appalled that police powers and resources were so blatantly abused and that Judge Block (who handed out the original sentences) would use his position to indulge his cultural bigotries.

.....In June the Stones recorded this single at Olympic Studios with Lennon and McCartney providing backing vocals for release in August. In the meantime, the Who rush released a cover single ("Under My Thumb" b/w "The Last Time") in July as a show of support. But it was the slamming of the doors that opens the song (excerpted here) more than the sarcastic chorus that set the tone for rebellion and outsider culture that permeates much of side three.