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Best tunes of 1990: #2 The Charlatans “Sproston green”

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Here we are at number two on this best of 1990 list and we find ourselves back on the dance floor. But we must’ve travelled back in time because it’s “Sproston green” by The Charlatans, their second appearance (the other being “The only one I know” at #14) on this list.

I mention the time travel bit as a personal joke between me and my friend Tim. We wandered into one of our old haunts, The Dance Cave in Toronto, after a bunch of drinks on my birthday a few years ago. After a few more, Tim went up to the DJ booth to request this tune, or any Charlatans tune, really, and was denied. The DJ didn’t care that it was my birthday and that we had danced many times to that same tune on that same floor, a decade or two earlier. He wasn’t having any of it. He gestured to the crowd of millenials that made up most of the drinkers that night and said that there was no way they would dance to it.

Now maybe I’m getting old and stubborn but I disagreed then and still do today. This is a song that can’t be ignored, you just have to dance to it. It’s a song so immense in scope that the band has continued to use it over the intervening decades to close out their live shows, much to the joy of their fans. It is definitely a personal favourite. And why not? At just over five minutes, “Sproston green” builds perfectly from the echoing, just beyond earshot guitar intro to a more a solidified onslaught once the rest of the band joins in the fun, led by that muscular bass and crazed, swirling organs, all the way to its crashing, ecstatic finale.

I’ve read somewhere that the words are based on the frontman’s first sexual experience and I suppose that could be true: “This one knows she comes and goes, and when she goes she goes.” It’s as deep as they get… But you don’t really listen to the Charlies for the lyrics, do you? No, no, no. It’s all about the groove and this particular tune has that bit down solid.

Go ahead and disagree. I’m ready for you.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1990 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 1990: #12 The Happy Mondays “Step on”

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“He’s gonna step on you again, he’s gonna step on you
He’s gonna step on you again, he’s gonna step on you
You’re twistin’ my melon man, you know you talk so hip man
You’re twistin’ my melon man”

And so starts Sean Ryder’s litany of nonsense that makes up the lyrics on “Step on”, the standout track from Happy Mondays’ third long player “Pills ‘n’ thrills and bellyaches”. To write this post a couple of weeks ago, I downed a couple pints of Beau’s Tom Green Summer Stout, put on my earphones, turned up the volume and then, put the yellow vinyl copy I bought on Record Store Day a few years back on my turntable. Lights dimmed and mood created, I dropped the needle, texted my friend Andrew Rodriguez the watermelon slice emoticon, and I let the party begin.

I really didn’t know what to think the first time I heard “Step on” and really, I understood less, the more I learned about the band. They were a product of their time and place: late 80s Manchester. There were drugs. And the mixing of 60s psychedelia and acid house culture. Lots of dancing. And more drugs. The beat was king and that was all the meaning that was necessary. “Pills ‘n’ thrills” illustrates this point, all groovy bass, bongos, drum machines and samples, chaotic, yet organic guitar craziness set against Dadaist lyrics and Ryder’s unsung, shout-along vocals. It is a non-stop party as long as you keep dancing and the drugs don’t run out.

The moment “Step on” came on, the third song on the second side of the album, I wanted to get up and dance around my living room. It is a rave epitomized. It’s whistles and heavy bass. It’s Shaun Ryder yelling “call the cops”. It’s Bez dancing with his maracas. It’s that hopping keys line and growling guitars. It’s neon and glow sticks. And to top it all off… it’s a cover song… or so I learned from an Andrew Rodriguez text message while writing these very words.

What?

Yeah. Apparently, it’s a cover of song from 1971, originally by South African singer/songwriter John Kongos. Ryder and co., renamed it from the original title “He’s gonna step on you again”, and created a version that I can only imagine is completely different. And you know that there’s no way I want to go back and hear Kongos’ version now, after all these years. It can’t exist in this dance party world that I inhabit while the song plays in the background.

Such a great tune and as Rodriguez succinctly summed it all up: “By midway through the song you are too busy dancing to care what twisting my melon means”

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1990 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1990: #14 The Charlatans “The only one I know”

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I received a mixed tape from a friend back in high school, a tape that I mentioned ad nauseum on my old blog, Music Insanity, but one that bears mentioning again in these pages, because it introduced me to a number of bands back in the day, including one that would become one of my all-time favourites: The Charlatans. Known as The Charlatans UK here in North America, the group formed in 1989, “survived” the deaths of two band members and several changes in sound over the years, and have released 13 albums, including this year’s, “Different days”. Not bad for a band that was once referred to as the “also-rans” of Manchester (and later on, the “Britpop survivors”).

Indeed, at the time of “Some friendly”‘s release, the band were lumped in with the likes of Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, despite not being from the greater Manchester area at all. It was obviously more to do with their debut album’s musical proximity than the band’s geography. The album was heavy on the danceable bass and beats, acid house psychedelia, Tim Burgess’s lethargic vocals, and of course, Rob Collin’s monstrous organ work. The aforementioned mixed tape sampled heavily from “Some friendly” but surprisingly, nowhere in its contents was the album’s first single, “The only one I know”, so I didn’t hear it until I got my hands on the cassette tape of the album. And oh, when I did, there was plenty of rewinding and replaying required.

At the time, I saw it as completely new and inventive but I would learn much later that the song borrowed lyrics from The Byrds and an organ riff from Deep Purple. “The only one I know” went on to be The Charlatans’ first top ten single in the UK and hit number 5 on the US Modern Rock charts. Today, it remains one of the band’s best-known songs.

It certainly displays the early incarnation of the band firing on all five proverbial cylinders. The screaming high end on guitars and Martin Blunt’s thumping bass line, simply provide an extra large canvas for Rob Collins to paint his whirling Hammond splatters. And then… and then, there’s Jon Brookes’ mad shuffling drum beat that almost begs you to take up the maracas, à la Bez, and dance like a looney fool. Even today, I feel out of breath just listening to it and remembering all the times, all the drunken nights, I danced to this particular track, mouthing along to what I imagined were the lyrics to “The only one I know”.

Such a great song.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1990 list, click here.