Category: Tunes

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Best tunes of 1993: #1 James “Sometimes (Lester Piggott)”

<< #2

“There’s a storm outside, and the gap between crack and thunder
Crack and thunder, is closing in, is closing in”

Monday, September 22nd, 2008. My wife Victoria and I took the afternoon off work and drove down to Montreal together from Ottawa to see one of our favourite bands live in concert*. The venue was an old movie theatre turned club in the quartier des spectacles called Club Soda. I remember us being quite excited, in particular because we had thought we’d never see James live after they had broken up in 2001. Also, because after reuniting in 2007, they released a new album called “Hey ma” the following year, which turned out to be my favourite by the group since 1993’s “Laid”.

The show in question lives on in our collective memory as our favourite ever concert, even after seeing them again a decade later at our local music festival. The set that night was varied, performing many of our favourite tracks. The band was big and bold, and all seven members were palpably amazed at the reception they received in a town they were told wouldn’t come see them. In fact, near the end of their show, their performance of the very song we are talking about today, “Sometimes (Lester Piggott)”, went on for well over seven minutes because the crowd refused to let drop the singalong refrain started up by frontman Tim Booth. It was an incredible moment, perhaps as much for the band, as it was for those of us in the audience.

“Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes
I swear I can see your soul”

“Sometimes (Lester Piggott)” was the first single released off of “Laid”, what is surely James’s biggest album. Much like the title track, which was also released as a single, “Sometimes” climbed into the top thirty of the UK singles charts, and is still obviously one of the band’s best loved songs. It certainly is one of my own personal faves.

It is a driving and racing number**, acoustic guitar strumming at a frantic pace and a drum beat that leaves you just as breathless, and with the typical big James sound reflecting in a steamed up mirror the raging storm portrayed in the lyrics. And it’s these words that elevate an already fantastic song into the pantheon of greatness of greatness. Booth creates for us an image of a tempest, a storm in a seaside town, expounding the naturalistic themes of man vs nature, perhaps an extended metaphor for the random and daunting elements of life. In it the protagonist laughs in the face of death and that passion in how Booth sings it and the images he creates has us all enthralled.

“He says listen, takes my head and puts my ear to his
And I swear I can hear the sea”

This is a song I could listen to over and over again and in it, find more beauty than the million times before. It is art and I just can’t get enough of it. This and all the memories over the years of listening to it and singing along with it is why it tops my best tunes chart for 1993.

*It would turn out to be the first and last time we would ever drive to Montreal and back on the same day to see a concert. Obviously, it was worth it but on the drive home, we were both exhausted and had to keep spelling each other behind the wheel lest one fall asleep.

**In fact, the high speed pace of the rhythm is the reason behind the name in parentheses in the title, being that of a well-known horse racing jockey.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.

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Eighties’ best 100 redux: #87 Wall of Voodoo “Mexican radio” (1982)

<< #88    |    #86 >>

At song #87 is Wall of Voodoo’s hit “Mexican radio”, easily the most accessible track in the band’s early catalogue.

Wall of Voodoo was an American New Wave band whose beginnings in film scores informed the band’s early spaghetti western-infused sound, along with original frontman, Stan Ridgway’s dark lyrics and easily recognizable droll vocals. “Mexican radio” took the band’s normal dark and unique sound further, almost to an oddball or kitschy place, and produced for Wall of Voodoo their only radio hit, boosting record sales of their second album, 1982’s “Call of the west,” to their highest charting. Ridgway left the band shortly afterwards for a solo career, was replaced by Andy Prieboy, and the band’s unique sound was lost to a more conventional New Wave sound. The group would release two more albums before disbanding for good in 1988.

I discovered/rediscovered “Mexican radio” on a retro compilation I purchased in 1999 called “Retro 80s volume 2: Rare and brilliant” and it quickly became a favourite of mine. It’s quirky and vibrant, and has inflecting lyrics that drum up images of picking up foreign language radio signals, a repeating chorus line that you really can’t help but digest and join in. I distinctly remember drunkenly dancing-slash-stumbling and shouting along to this song one Sunday retro night at Studio 69, a long-defunct downtown Toronto bar with my old housemate, Ryan. This one’s for you, buddy, wherever you might be.

Sing it with me: “I’m on a Mexican whoa-oh radio”

Original Eighties best 100 position: #95

Favourite lyric: I wish I was in Tijuana / Eating barbequed iguana” That’s some serious rhyming…

Where are they now?: The last we heard from Wall of Voodoo was in 2006 when Stan Ridgway resurrected the name, put together a band that included none of the other original members, and toured in support of Cyndi Lauper. No other real reunions have been serious discussed, especially since Marc Moreland, the other founding member died in 2002.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.

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100 best covers: #39 Great Big Sea “Run runaway”

<< #40    |    #38 >>

Great Big Sea has long since been a household name here in Canada and is relatively well-known elsewhere as well, counting amongst their fans actor Russell Crowe. They are likely the most famous band to come out of Newfoundland and for a while during the late 90s and into the 2000s, were one of the best-selling groups here, their high-energy folk and updated interpretations of traditional sea shanties obviously finding a home in the hearts of good Canadian youth.

It certainly found me on first listen with this very cover of Slade’s* “Run runaway”. I remember catching the video at some point in the summer of 1995 or 1996 on MuchMusic, right around the time their video for “Mari Mac” also caught my attention. It wasn’t long at all before these two songs could be heard from open residence room doors and through the open windows of student apartments all around Toronto. Both are excellent tunes but it was this re-interpretation that first sold me.

Slade’s original came out around the time that I was just finding my own feet with music, branching out from my parents’ oldies radio listening in the car and regularly watching the chumFM top 30 countdown on CityTV. I didn’t, of course, know this at the time, but this was Slade’s second go round and comeback venture, their biggest inroads into the North American market. They had been flirting with glam rock throughout the 70s and were quite popular at home in England. It took a cover by metal band Quiet Riot of their 70s hit “Cum on feel the noize” to finally drum up interest in the US, leading to a signing with a US label, and the first single released was, of course, “Run runaway”.

Recorded for their 11th studio album, “The amazing kamikaze syndrome”, “Run runaway” was very much of its time. It has soaring guitars that put together a stadium-ready hook and there’s those shout-along vocals that had me along for the ride, even though I didn’t understand them. But it was far from a sellout. Slade didn’t stray far from their roots, employing electric violin and adapting traditional Scottish jig elements for a hard rock world.

Then, more than a decade later, Great Big Sea, removed the rock and upped the traditional. Their cover has flutes, accordions and fiddles and is sung like a shanty. They even made it more upbeat, which I wouldn’t have thought possible as a pre-teen.

And though the original has the nostalgia factor going for it, I gotta give the edge to the cover here.

Cover:

Original:

*This is, I believe, the second cover of a Slade tune to find its way on to this list.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.