Half Man Half Biscuit - Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes
The next bevy of swans is a doo-wop quartet, from 1953...
Our next wedge of swans are two nice young men, Brendan Wade and Paul Bell, once known as The Wild Swans, but released this soporific ballad as The Swans...
And now a doo-wop/R&B crossover bank of swans honking away in this song...
And one final vocal collection of honkers...
The last group are the industrial-doom-noise-merchants from New York who released a remarkably accessible album in 1989, The Burning World, and a fantastic cover version of Love Will Tear Us Apart (better than the original), and then reverted to type with their usual output that is Not For The Faint-hearted. This is from that 1989 album...
Anyway, over to Our Man In Portugal...
There’s a plethora of bands named after birds, not all of them as atrocious as The Eagles. And unfortunately there is no band calling themselves The Atrocious Eagles. Searching through the database of my music collection reveals that swans feature many times: in a must-have Sufjan Stevens album, a soul singer, gospel groups, there’s an Americana band, a chappie who never was a security guard at Graceland, and a sonorous-industrial bunch of Americans. But the rules only allow groups called The Swans (although of late Rol seems to be stretching the rules to breaking point with some of his dodgy choices*). So today, I give you a whiteness of Swans.
(*What are rules if not to be broken, George?)
THE SWANS #1
First, here are Philadelphian sisters Jeanne and Tina Thomas...
THE SWANS #2
THE SWANS #3
Here’s the Mandatory Band-With-The-Same-Name Reggae track (this from 1972). It made me think of the Victor comic character, Killer Kennedy RN (and then of a boy in my year at school, Steven Kennedy, who of course had the nickname Killer).
THE SWANS #4
Not to be confused with The Wild Swans formed out of the Teardrop Explodes.
THE SWANS #5
More vocalising female Swans, from 1961, and a track that’s a damned sight better than the immediately prior load of old bobbins.
THE SWANS #6
Next up, a light-hearted pop tune, available free at bandcamp.
(I'm pulling a “Rol” here, 'cisne' being Portuguese for swan, although the song title is in Spanish, and unsurprisingly cisne is also the Spanish word for swan.)
THE SWANS #7
THE SWANS #8
Some Argentinian “cisnes” now, and this almost-prog track from a free EP...
THE SWANS #9
Not to be confused with a song by James Brown. I’ve just realised that it’s geese that honk, I think swans are more hissers. Some research needed, and here you are...
SWANS #10
Saving the best ´til last. But what is your favourite, dear reader?
Before you make up your minds, here's one more (George-has-used-up-all-the-decent-collective-nouns) of swans, described as a "function band" from Hertfordshire. I doubt they're on discogs, but they obviously have good internet presence, because I kept finding pictures of them while looking for pictures of the bands George dealt with...
THE SWANS #11
Thanks to Rol for posting this.
And thank you again to George for filling in while I'm waiting for my broken arm to heal. Damn those swans!
With Ernie off saving the world from SPECTRE and George delivering the goods this week, it might be a quiet week in the comments box...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, opting for 10 followed by 7. Not a bad bunch compared to some of the offerings the usual bloke inflicts on us.