Ancient potted shrubbery: some thoughts on the new Beatles track

The brand new Beatles song Now And Then caused quite the stir. The lost Lennon song returned them to the number one spot for the first time since 1969. That's an awfully long time. To be fair, Free As A Bird should have been top of the pops in 1995, but the exorable Earth Song kept it off number one.

I should be frothing at the gills for a new single by the Beatles. Truth is, the Beatles never really excited me. Yeah, I know their place in history. Their phenomenal production techniques, their tape-twisting sonic savviness, the blueprint they set for the rest of time. But songs about submarines and octopuses seemed so childish. Says the man who owns numerous cartoon rave singles.

I spent many of my younger years in the Manchester Boys Choir, a well-regarded choir that hit the buffers when its choirmaster turned out to be a wrong 'un. My overwhelming memory of our repertoire was singing the iconic Beatles song Yesterday over and over again. And again. And again. This was not a good thing. It quashed any kind of Beatlemania I could have developed as a child.

As a fan of dance music, I should be into the Beatles by law. The references throughout the history of electronic bleeps are legion. The Chemical Brothers paid tribute to the Beatles on more than one occasion, from aping Tomorrow Never Knows for Setting Sun, to dropping in a snippet of Revolution 9 into Chemical Beats. 

Danger Mouse spliced The White Album with Jay Z for The Grey Album, one of the most interesting mash-up albums. You can hear a bit of the Beatles in the Black Dog's Book Of Dogma, and on UNKLE's Psyence Fiction album. And Massive Attack directly referenced Here Comes The Sun on their Blue Lines album.

Having said all this, a few years ago, I did make a video about the Beatles. It called The Fabulous Four, made for a project called Let The Artists In. The cartoon video has television snakes, ancient potted shrubbery, a safety-conscious canary, and an unexpected fourth member of the Beatles. Absolute glorious nonsense. And quite fitting too: I have a copy of John Lennon's In His Own Write, which is also full of cartoon daftery.

Incidentally, the silly Ringo reference in the video was taken from my Seven Inch show (2018/2019). The Beatles sketches featured in the video are the actual A3 cartoon props used in that show.

There you go. A blog post about the Beatles. And I didn't mention Candy Flip once.

A few years ago, I suc

Calvin Harris launching an acid house project is the biggest music news of all time

Calvin Harris launching an acid house project called Love Regenerator is the biggest music news of all time.

This is like One Direction relaunching as a thrash metal band. Or like The Beatles returning as a drum 'n' bass act. Or like Jive Bunny revealing that all the music was made by actual bunnies.

Last month's Love Regenerator 1 EP hit a million streams in just three days. It was apologetically clubby, summoning the spirit of acid pioneers Phuture and so much more. We're talking fat pianos, liquid breaks, choppy vocal samples and filter-tweakin' squelchy goodness. All the best of the underground 1980s and 1990s.

Like a worm with an embarrassing zit, acid house has remained defiantly underground. We've had Voodoo Ray, Josh Wink and S'Express, but all of this was a long time ago. Justin Bieber was still in Calvin Klein nappies when Higher State of Consciousness was released.

So when the biggest DJ in the universe (probably) goes acid house, this is big news. It could mean the first mainstream exposure of acid house for 25 years. Imagine the BBC News at Six being presented by a Tamagotchi. THAT'S how much of a revival this is.

In the words of A Guy Called Gerald's 1989 top 20 hit Voodoo Ray:

"Ooh-oo-hoo ah-ha ha yeah
He-hey-ya hey-yah ah-ha ooh hey-yah ah-ha ooh"

Exactly, Gezza. That's exactly how I feel.

Calvin Harris has a second Love Regenerator EP arriving later this week. I'm not sure we can cope with this. It's like the earth being struck with two dinosaur-destroying meteors rather than one. The shockwave of this second EP will be so ground-shaking, no-one else will make any music for months.

Harris has been previewing bits on his Instagram and I can declare that, in the parlance of modern youth, it is banging. Proper banging and no mistake, missus. I'm sorry if my street talk is alarming to you, but I am well cool.

Unless Def Leppard return as a KLF tribute act, Calvin Harris going acid house remains the biggest music news of all time.



Further Fats: I love acid and the acid loves me (2015)

Further Fats: "Acid house - it's not real music, is it" said the idiot (2019)

Best electronic albums of 2019: ten

10 – 808 State – Transmission Suite (808 State)

Joy Division. The Beatles. 808 State. Three bands that made their television debut at Granada Studios. And which of those three would you like to see again on television? What? No, the answer's 808 State, you toss-brain.

The Balearic boys are back, and everything sounds like they're in a decaying television production room, with crackly monitors, computers fizzing in the dust, endless corridors of wires that may or may not lead somewhere. Transmission Suite is, above all, a mood piece.

There's a cold war level of paranoia too. Just who is that Japanese radio voice addressing on Tokyo Tokyo? Why is the American guy so regretful on the the loping Cannonball Waltz? Are those congas closing in on us during Ujala? Yargles.

There's still time for the classic 808 State sound in the cheery lift music of Skylon and the careening rave chords of Trinity. But considering their 17-year hiatus, and a theme that harks back to the days of Tony Wilson on telly, Graham and Andy have produced a fantastically forward-thinking album.



Scroll the full best-of-2019 list here.

Do stop believing: the rock music fad is over

Thank goodness this awful guitar fad has passed. The moment the Beatles clanged out seven years worth of jangly pap, it was over before it started.

It was revealed yesterday that only three of the top 100 tracks of 2010 in the UK were rock songs, the best-selling of these being Glee's Don't Stop Believing.

If you're not aware of the Glee phenomenon, think of Miley Cyrus and Justin Biebpipe doing an ACDC covers tour. Now replace Miley and Justin with a baboon flinging its own excrement, and replace ACDC with every treasured memory you've ever had. That's Glee.

It turns out guitars were just a temporary fad. All those bedroom garage bands banging out noisy chords and committing it to four-track in a cousin's shed? It was the musical equivalent of space hoppers, Tab cola and happy slapping.

Now HMV have a golden ticket for turning their sales around. Have half their shops sell only neo-rave, breakcore and 8bit Kraftwerk classics, while have the other half contain hundreds of burning Fender Stratocasters, constantly on fire like sick Olympic flames and proffered worshipful sacrifices by a rock-hating public.

Here, god of guitar-death, have my collection of coloured Green Day vinyl I just smashed with a hammer, thanks be to Aphex.

Truth is, of course, guitars have never been popular. A quick finger through the UK's top ten best selling singles of all time shows all we really care about is Elton John, Boney M and (shudder) Robson And Jerome. The rockiest tracks are by the Beatles, Wings in Kintyre-mode and those bastians of death metal, Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

The shroud of lies perpetuating the rock myth has fallen and we can get back to good honest dance music like Black Eyes Peas, Basshunter and Doop.

All those annoying acronyms to memorise guitar strings can revert to something sensible like Every Band Goes Dance, Amen Evermore. And we can all have our hair short. And we can wash. With water and everything. We may even use soap. Imagine that.

Rock is dead. Long live Jean Michel Jarre's impending Autechre remix album.

(Please send letters of complaint to Axl Rose, A Hammock, Backstage At The O2 Arena, Londinium, 1LLU 51ON.)

While my guitar gently sods off

The recent news that pop music is outselling rock music is as an important a cultural change as the renaissance, the industrial revolution and processed cheese.

For too long now, the tyranny of the guitar has ruled over us. We have bowed and scraped to our six string masters, as if rebelling against the jangly bastards was as bad as strangling Bill Wyman to death with a jack lead.

The indoctrination starts early. Pony-tailed parents soundbomb their Smiths collection at pregnant tummies to 'train' their newborn into having good taste. Any gawky teenager showing a creative bent has a guitar and a Nirvana chord book shoved into their hands.

Turgid

And what has it given us? The Beatles, who were responsible for the worst haircuts ever and fixed Liverpool into the '60s for all eternity. Turgid rock behemoths like the Rolling Stones and Status Quo, who somehow made stadium rock acceptable and are therefore responsible for Coldplay. And James Blunt. James Blunt.

Official Charts Company figures show a third of sales in the UK are now pop, compared to rock's tawdry one-quarter share. We have rendered our Fenders to the dustbin. Given ebows the heave-ho. Turned rage against the machine into a polite letter of complaint.

Because pop music is more enamoured with the keyboard as opposed to the guitar, this means electronic music fans win. The keyboard wizard is supreme: Adamski can finally rest in the grave of his forgotten career.

Breakcore

Okay, it's only pop music and not, say, ambient or dubstep or breakcore. Having Lady Gaga and JLS at number one is not great - we'd obviously prefer it if Aphex Twin went platinum, and I'm not talking about his hair. But an unpopular, painful compromise is the step in the right direction. It's true. Just ask a Liberal Democrat.

There are dangers in this brave new world. If rock bands start ditching their guitars, we could be saddled with more Ben Folds Fives and Keanes. They need identifying early. I would suggest border police at the door of every recording studio, with faceless but sinister staff asking everyone "are you now or ever have been a guitar player?"

They would lie of course. But then the cunning officer, feigning informality, would mutter a comment about E flat minor seventh not being the sexiest chord. The secret guitarists' instant and obvious revulsion would see them dragged out the back, cut to pieces with an overly-sharp plectrum and buried in their own guitar case with the word "IRONY" emblazoned across the top in glam lettering.

Windmilling

Having said all that, The Who were quite impressive weren't they? All that windmilling and smashing stuff up. And I quite liked Madchester. The XX and Lonelady have a kind of amazing energy, y'know? In fact, guitar bands are fantastic. Who wrote this crap?

Vive la rock music! Guitar bands are brilliant. If I find you buying pop music, I will slice you. I will smother you with Lady Gaga's hat until you are nothing but a vegetable blithering "ro mah ro-mah-mah" in the corner of an institution.

No, seriously. For too long now, the tyranny of the keyboard has reigned over-- (nurse's note - Fat Roland has gone to sleep now. You can visit him again when he's rested.)

We want hot modern classic and we want it now

My experience of mixing desks is generally limited to my infinitesimal world of home recording, DJing and tweaking knobs for bands at live events.

What I've never got mired in is the long-haul experience of mastering a band in a studio. Unlike Mixerman, who committed his experiences working for a producer in a series of brilliant diaries.

I have several mates who I love to talk production crap with, cherry-picking sweet snippets from otherwise dull r 'n' b tracks, or (as on Saturday) slagging off over-egged snares in reggae tracks.

Mixerman captures this obsession with the mores of musical fashion with this wonderful treatise on his producer's insistence that the sound be more "modern" by using a classic amplifier called a VOX AC30...

"'Modern' can be very elusive as time marches forward, and if you're not up on the latest music, modern can very easily pass you by. AC30 amps have a sound that one might call classic, but a definitive classic sound scares the hell out of record companies, and when they listen to classic, they inevitably think something's wrong with the production.

"The real bitch is that sometimes classic is modern, but you just have to keep up with the times to know when that is, and then take advantage of that window of opportunity to be both classic and modern simultaneously. Regardless of all that, what the record companies really want is 'now,' because 'now' is something that record companies understand

"Unfortunately for everyone involved, by the time a record comes out, 'now' was 'yesterday' and the record is in the shitter for not being modern enough, even if it somehow happens to be classic.

"Occasionally, a new modern sound is born from some innovative band, and every major label in existence then scrambles to sign anything and everything that sounds remotely similar to that band. Then producers, wanting to remain modern themselves, will try to make records with the similar bands, so that they can be a part of what's 'hot.'

"Of course, none of it really matters, because no matter what, any sound that happens to become 'hot', 'now', or whatever, can be directly attributed to the Beatles. The Beatles are as classic as they come, and the Beatles used VOX AC30 amplifiers on their recordings. So why the hell classic scares a record company is beyond me, since without the Beatles, we'd be fucked. There's going to be a quiz on this later, so try to keep up."

And this is what drives everything you hear. Thanks to Fil for pointing me towards this wonderful little piece of production prose.

Mixerman has a new book coming out this autumn called Zen And The Art Of Mixing. Also, you'd do well to jump onto the Womb Forums, the natural home for anyone into pots and pans and pouring tea on your Tascam.

Extract from The Daily Adventures Of Mixerman courtesy of Mixerman.. © 2002, 2004, 2006 Mixerman Multimedia, Inc.

Bored at Rustie, tapey-fingered whingers and stuffed lycra

Hello, December, you snowbag of Christmas fun, you.

Here are some things you may have missed recently, mainly because my Twitter account has shrivelled and died and so your premier source of electronica information has stopped. In fact, you've probably been so bereft without me tweeting, you're no doubt huddled in a corner shivering and dribbling.

- Rustie has dropped a bomb in the shape of a Crookers' No Security remix. Legendardy squawkbox Kelis has sassed herself all over this track, and her vocals work well with his computer-game take on the track. Having said that, it's the first thing Rustie has done that has bored me a little. (Crookers pictured above.)

- The Grauniad has been musing on the death of hip hop. Writer Simon Reynolds places it around the time of Nas' Hip Hop Is Dead, or maybe when Timbaland declared his love for tapey-finger stadium whingers Coldplay. He wins points for slagging off auto-tune, but loses points for using the dismal contraction 'slanguage' (surely, 'slang' would do?).He says:

"I still hear quite a lot of bump and skitter in street rap but there's a pedestrian familiarity to the beats: they do the job solidly enough but they're the rhythmic equivalent of comfort food, reflexively tugging at your hips and shoulders but never approaching the stark strangeness of early Noughties productions like Ludacris's What's Your Fantasy or J-Kwon's Tipsy."

I think he's got a point, although there's a danger in judging the healthiness of a scene based on what's in the charts. If you took that as a bellwether, most techno genres have supposedly never existed.

Still, I think there's a wider malaise: we haven't had a true musical revolution since rave. The Beatles made music fab, punk stuck a safety pin in that bubble, while rave danced all over the eighties' grave. What since? Drippy guitar geeks? Videos stuffed with girls in tight lycra? Susan Boyllocks?

- Finally, Eclectic Hermit has come back into the light, smothering us with some Ninja Tune scrumptiousness. Welcome back.

I sold my soul for the second time*: Oasis at Heaton Park

Y'alright our kid? Oasis were lush the other night. We well got bevvied, the burgers were well mank, but the boys brought the party on big style.

Crikes, matron, pass the vermouth, I seem to have come over all indie kid. But yes, I went to see Oasis on Thursday, courtesy of a couple of kind-hearted souls. We were some way away, as you can see from the piccie I took (above).

I'd sold my soul to Oasis before* - I was at Maine Road in 1996, when they simply entranced. But now I am older, less wise and probably a lot more cynical.

So I survived this lager-sodden football-chanting ordeal by wearing a pair of white trainers. They helped me fit in perfectly, and I always had the option of clicking the heels three times if I needed a quick getaway.

In the end, it was an incredibly good-natured affair. After waiting in the cold without sound or lights for 15 hours, one of the Gallagher boys promised to refund everyone's tickets, and the excited buzz that rippled through the crowd never quite left.

In fact, it wasn't an ordeal at all. The crowd camaraderie was infectious, and I think Oasis top U2 in that whole stadium rock spectacle thing.

So Supersonic soared like the anthem it's always been. Masterplan had pilled-up Ben Sherman lads hugging each other like they'd just come off a football field. And the band is turning out some pretty decent new songs as well (Waiting For The Rapture, which has the same beat as The Doors' Five To One, and Falling Down, which has almost the same beat as the fab four's Tomorrow Never Knows). (Get the set list here.)

Kasabian were moody and powerful, as I expected, and thank goodness I arrived too late for the other supports. Twisted Wheel are dull, and I made my views crystal clear about Reverend And The Makers in this piece here.

So, Oasis, I salute you. You were the best rock band in the world when Definitely Maybe came out, and 15 years later, you were compelling and funny. You just need a Moog solo in every track, that's all.

*a reference to the opening line of The Importance Of Being Idle. And no, I didn't quite sell my soul: I got free tickets on both occasions. I gave my soul away gratis.

Warp Records present the BBC Radiophonic Workshop?

A dusty tape among scores stored in an attic has just blown apart the entire history of dance music.

Among the possessions of Delia Derbyshire (pictured), knob twiddler for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, was the recording of an experimental dance piece that simply should not exist.

It sounds like the sort of thing you would expect from Aphex Twin, Massonix or Sabres Of Paradise, yet it was recorded in the late 60s.

As a piece of production well ahead of its time, it has the same woo factor as Pink Floyd's On The Run, or The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows.

And yet it's more advanced than those pieces, as though some beardy electronica fellow is messing about with a TARDIS and not telling us.

"That could be coming out next week on Warp Records," bleeps ex-Orbital man Paul Hartnoll, who, incidentally, did a cracking cover version of the Workshop's Dr Who theme tune.

Decide for yourself - jump to Delia Derbyshire's experimental 'dance' track on this BBC news piece.

Glastonbury's got 99 bands, and Jay Z should be one of them

Which twizzard decided Glastonbury was all about guitars?

Noel Gallagher flicked his dummy out of the pram over Jay Z's headline spot at this year's festival.

He said anyone who wants a rapper at Glasto is a paedophile, and Michael Eavis sleeps with monkeys. Okay, he didn't say that, but he seemed to think the booking was a jolly bad idea.

Emily Eavis has gone on the PR offensive, saying the Smiths would have provoked similar ire in 1984. The year, not the book.

I don't get the comparison. The Smiths weren't already million-selling music moguls with more clout than the Cloverfield monster's boxing glove.

And the Smiths were a guitar band, with guitars and everything. I think Gallagher's original winge was about Glastonbury's guitar heritage and the inappropriateness of a (gosh) non rock 'n' roller in a high profile spot.

Noel is, of course, talking out of his eyebrows. Baroness Lady Dame Shirley Bassey sang her blinged-up boots off last year, while Carl Cox and Basement Jaxx are among bucketloads of dance acts who have rocked Glasto.

Who could forget Orbital redefining dance music forever in 1994?

Surely Noel hasn't fallen for the drip-drip tabloid headlines about rap music being a hive on the nose of humanity? You know the headlines I mean. Just between the stories that say the internet is full of evil and the screamy ads offering you a free pony.

Jay Z isn't the reason why Glasto ticket sales are down. He fills venues, he doesn't clear them. And the Grey Album was one of the best Beatles / hip hop mash-ups of 2004.

Blame it on the weather. Or the economy. Or a lack of great new bands. Or that everyone's off to Latitude instead.

Can someone please pick that dummy off the floor? Gallagher's gob needs plugging again.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: INS OUTS, BURDEN ME

Two little boys had two little toys... (me and Lee doing a pub quiz, then)

I wouldn't want to distract you from buying new pantalons for your date with me on Wednesday, but here is the latest pub quiz news from the world of Fat Roland.

Here's the music round I foisted upon the suffering public this week. Ogle more quizzery at Nine Tenths Full Of Pingpongs.

I'll splat the answers in the comments hole below this post in about a week's time. And no googling, you flips.

Question one. Rolf Harris' Two Little Boys goes like this: "Two little boys had two little toys. Each had a wooden horse. Gaily they played each summer's day, warriors both of course. One little chap then had a mishap, broke off his horse's head, wept for his toy then cried with joy as his young playmate said--" What's the next line?

Question two. Which musician’s publicity department was known as the Bilk Marketing Board?

Question three. According to his old nickname, what vegetable does Bronski Beat star Jimmy Somerville look like?

Question four. Name the four principal members of the Goons. (Only a music question because the first single I ever owned was by them.)

Question five. So then, Cyndi Lauper. Cyndi is partially from Lucinda, but what does Lucinda mean? (a) Bringer of light; (b) Physician; (c) All-seeing.

Question six. Kylie Minogue likened it to being hit by a nuclear bomb. What was she talking about?

Question seven. Avril Lavigne had a hit about a "skater boy". Spell her his single correctly.

Question eight. Name the men with the surname Stewart that had a hit with the following singles. (a) Donald Where’s Your Troosers; (b) There Must Be An Angel Playing With Your Heart; (c) You Can Make Me Dance Sing Or Anything (Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings)

Question nine. So, then, Thin Lizzy. Mad Lizzie kept us fit on TV-AM but who was her rival on the BBC? (This is a music quiz, honest. You have to imagine me playing music clips then veering off on a tangent in a comedy stylee.)

Question ten. On Friday June 1, what did anniversary did Beatles fans celebrate?

Question eleven. In terms of their big hit singles, who's the odd one out? Avril Lavigne, Bronski Beat, Cyndi Lauper, Rolf Harris, Thin Lizzy. There may be a clue if you scan over these questions...

Back to planning our date. Were you really thinking of going out in those shoes?

You burden me with your questions, you'd have me tell no lies

As promised to you, my faithful, delicious, succulent reader, here are the answers to the quiz I posted a week ago.

This was just one round of a whole entire pub quiz, so if you want to have a shufty at the other questions in the whole entire pub quiz, hope over to Nine Tenths Full Of Penguins' Quiztastic Volume 1 and Quiztastic Volume 2 posts.

>Answer one

In 2005, upon hearing of a sponsorship deal which would see an HP sauce logo on the brown ball at all major snooker tournaments, it was Jimmy White who announced he had changed his name by deed poll to James Brown, and would wear only brown clothing when competing.

>Answer two

In the 1980s children’s TV series Jimbo, Jimbo the jumbo jet was so small because (c) his designer couldn’t tell the difference between inches and centimetres.

>Answer three

It was for Darth Vader that David Prowse’s voice was not deep enough, and Orson Wells was thought to have too famous a voice. James Earl Jones' voice was used.

>Answer four

“This is the Bridal Suite. Would you send up a couple of caviar sandwiches and a bottle of beer?” was from The Philadelphia Story.
“Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it,” was from Harvey.
“Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair... am I talking too much?” was from It's A Wonderful Life.
“You shouldn't keep souvenirs of a killing. You shouldn't have been that sentimental," was from Vertigo.

>Answer five

Before he was Yes Prime Minister, James Hacker was minister for the department of administrative affairs.

>Answer six

St James Park is the only FA Premier League Stadium actually in the centre of a city.

>Answer seven

Paul McCartney's trio was Wings (apparently they were a trio when they topped the chart!), his quartet was the Beatles, his quintet was the Beatles with Billy Preston and the sextet was Ferry Aid. Yes, I know, sorry.

>Answer eight

James James wrote the Welsh National Anthem.

>Answer nine

Jimi Hendrix died in 1970.

>Answer ten

(a) From Here to Maternity was the comedic subtitle of Carry On Matron.

(b) You Show Me Your Waterhole And I’ll Show You Mine was the comedic subtitle of Carry On Up The Jungle.

(c) And Carry On Cleo was released in the USA as Caligula: Funniest Home Videos.

That's enough James for now. This is where you post replies saying "no, that answer was wrong" or "how on earth was I mean to get that" or "give me my leg back, Fat Roland, I can't play football without it."