Leeds was the first city I knew. My dad worked in Leeds when I was a kid, back in the days when getting there from Huddersfield was a much shorter journey. As I grew older, Mum used to take me to Leeds Comic Marts every other month, and when I started work, I'd often catch the train from Bradford to Leeds to spend my wage in the city's many record shops. It was later that I discovered Manchester (too big and scary for a little Yorkshire lad) and later still, Sheffield (Leeds without the pretentions). Nowadays I work in Leeds myself, or close enough, but the only reason I have to visit the city centre is the occasional gig. I don't feel as welcome there as I once did... it's all too new and shiny and ever-expanding... but then, I've never been a city boy.
Still, I was encouraged to breath life into this old blog series after listening to the wonderful Cherry Red compilation, Where Were You: Independent Music From Leeds (1978-1989). Not only does that collection feature some of the best bands to ever call Leeds home, including The Wedding Present, The Sisters of Mercy, Cud, The Mekons and The Sinister Cleaners... but it also features quite a few songs about Leeds. Like this one!
Named after an Eddie Cochran song, Pink Peg Slax were a Leeds rockabilly band who scored quite a few sessions with John Peel and Andy Kershaw in the 80s, though they never broke through to the big time. They were also responsible for this little beauty...
Mandi and Debi Laek are two sisters from Leeds whose quirky tales of life in Leeds have drawn comparisons to The Kinks, The Jam, Brian Wilson and Syd Barrett.
Mark Knopfler wrote the following tune about Harry Phillips, a Leeds sculptor who never got the respect he deserved... because he wasn't from a trendy town.
Here's a contemporary American band that 30-something hipsters like Ben are into, despite the fact that they're named after that old sitcom about growing up in the 60s. The song is all about being on tour, mostly in Leeds, but far away from home...
Last night in Leeds
Ad and I found ourselves wandering the city
Looking for pizza
All we found was complacency and somewhere to sleep
I'm still waiting for the map to say home's a week away
Back in the UK, Geordie folkster Richard Dawson is someone I've been listening to quite a bit lately since Michel Faber sang his praises in Listen. Here, Richard talks about missing his daughter after driving her away to University...
But my favourite song about Leeds is still this one, from Californian songwriter John Darnielle. It's a song dedicated to Goth God and "Leeds lad" Andrew Eldritch... although he was actually born in Cambridgeshire. Nevertheless, it always makes me smile...
Because I couldn't find a picture of Herb Alpert taking a photo, here's Herbie the car. He's going bananas for today countdown of songs with herbs in them...
(Oh, and in case you were wondering about Marlene yesterday, the surname "Dill" is apparently "from a pet form of the personal name Dietrich", according to the people who know about such things.)
10. Makes a lot of parkin.
Parkin is a ginger cake. Some debate on the interweb about whether ginger is a herb or a root veg. That doesn't matter though, because we're not here for the ginger, we're here for the basil...
Mountain Goats mainman spent his lockdown watching action movies.
I'm coming to swat you down like flies
'Cause I got guys
Guys on every corner
This is the result: a visceral, pounding assault of guitar anthems with singalong choruses snatched from clichéd dialogue lines straight from the movies.
We're gonna need
We're gonna need more bandages
It's an album full of three minute revenge fantasies, but one that ultimately concludes that revenge is rather a pointless (if wholly satisfying, especially when experienced vicariously) way to carry on.
It's hard to judge Bill Callahan's records against anybody else's, since they dwell for me on an alternate plane of existence. Sometimes I find myself in a trance-like state when listening to Bill. His YTI⅃AƎЯ is strange, yet comforting. I'm not sure I can say any more. This is a beautiful record. I'll let proper reviewers try to explain to you what it's all about.
14. Del Amitri - Fatal Mistakes: Outtakes & B-Sides
The internet trolls tell me I shouldn't like Del Amitri. They're bland, apparently. So I certainly shouldn't like an album of "Outtakes & B-Sides", should I? Still. Irk the purists, and all that.
I thought this was every bit as strong as last year's comeback album. Where some hear bland, I hear biting cynicism, world weariness and mouth-watering misanthropy in Justin Currie's songs, from the chirpy "We're all going to hell" chorus of Happiness Is It to the weary wisdom of My Adulthood.
My adulthood is a masquerade I took
From the other adults that I knew
Little did I know, nobody ever grows
They just carry on as children do
Like I've carried all my adulthood
This thing I had to do
Suspend my adulthood, so every day I could
Be free from you
Hardly Coldplay, is it? And that's before we even get to This City Loves You Back, another worthy sequel to Nothing Ever Happens.
Beware, trolls - this is not the only B-sides collection you'll encounter in this countdown. And chances are, the next one will be even blander than this...
I'm fully aware you won't listen to any of those, but it kept me entertained for an hour or so.
They all came from my music library. I could have put Chevy into a streaming service and come up with a hundred more, but that would have been fake.
They are all phenomenal actually
I will make a CD with them on for it.
Once I get a CD recorder.
Or a CD drive for a laptop.
There's no need to be sarcastic.
I wasn't.
I genuinely appreciated them.
One more then...
I think you should go into work on your last day dressed in Fubu, pretending that that's who you were all along.
I had to google Fubu.
For Us By Us.
I thought it was like Fubar
Or Snafu.
Or just another one of your S&M things.
I only get my bits from M&S, not the full shop.
Have you been tested for dyslexia?
Yes. By the Marquis de Sade. (M de S.) It was a pretty grueling test.
I'm concerned about the company you're keeping.
You stay away from that boy, he's a bad influence.
I thought he was a Smooth Operator.
Did you have a special meal as a celebration for leaving the job?
Or just jam sandwiches?
That's how I picture all your meals.
Maybe the odd ham salad sandwich.
But mainly jam sandwiches and a coffee.
Breakfast, it's jam on toast.
Lunch: jam sandwiches.
Tea: confiture en croute.
I don't like jam sandwiches. I prefer my jam on scones.
So, jam on toast. Ham salad sandwich, scone for tea.
Clotted cream only at weekend.
Or Friday nights.
I eat blueberries too.
I like real blueberries. I prefer rhubarb jam.
As long as we agree quince is the king of jams.
It would be Top 5.
We stopped at a Farm Shop the other day. They're normally a good source of interesting jams. All they had was Strawberry and Raspberry. I burnt the place to the ground.
I'd leave them a two star review on Google.
Because you're a millennial. We did things properly in Gen X.
Joined the NF?
Yes! The New Frontier...
Would you consider this a Large Americano?
Small.
Regular at a push.
I'd finish that and then take the cup to the counter and say you're ready for the other half of your large coffee.
It was a thimble.
Surely that's a war crime.
Luckily. I carry my matches with me at all times.
I'd get the UN involved.
I prefer to keep my protests apolitical.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali would be furious at that comment.
Cover Me Monday was a regular feature on this blog, pre-lockdown... and then the world fell apart, and so did most of my regular features. Late last week, I stumbled across a classic forgotten cover version that made me want to resurrect the feature... particularly as it had stopped at #13, and I'm a bit superstitious that way. What if I caused the world to fall apart, just by stopping this feature at #13? (I realise that's a rather egocentric view of the world, but I have limited contact with anyone else at the moment... I'm starting to wonder if you're all just figments of my imagination.)
Anyway: Lambchop covering The Sisters of Mercy. From the bonus disc of their 2002 album Is A Woman. I'm sorry, this record can not be almost 20 years old. Where has my life gone?
First, here's the original, because I adore it. (Though I'm betting a few of you don't.)
The Sisters of Mercy produced by Jim Steinman. Like trying to put out a fire by pouring petrol in it. According to Andrew Eldritch, "I called Steinman and explained that we needed something that sounded like a disco party run by the Borgias. And that’s what we got."
Strip away that "disco party run by the Borgias" though, and you're still left with a top song. As Kurt Wagner reveals here...
And while we're on the subject, I'd be remiss if I didn't post this. It's as different from the two tracks above as can possibly be, but together they make up three sides of one very interesting triangle.
They don't throw him a parade
He just comes in on a train
One suitcase in his hand
And an old army backpack
From the second world war
From a Leipzig secondhand store
Pick the keys up from the agent
Everything's been taken care of
No big changes in the roadways
Since you've left that I'm aware of
A few old buildings gone to dust
And some new ones in the way
They'll look just like the old ones
When the winds have had their say
I do take issue with the "No big changes in the roadways" line though, since back in the late 80s, early 90s, I found it pretty easy to get around Leeds in a car. The inner loop is a Kafka-esque nightmare now though.
I've been rather taken with the latest album by The Mountain Goats recently, particularly the track Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back To Leeds, a narrative which can be read in two different ways. On the one hand, the Sisters of Mercy frontman went to Leeds after studying at Oxford University... and it was while he was mucking about pretending to study Mandarin Chinese that he formed the band which would cement his place in the history books as a Goth king. (Although he's since rejected any claim to that particular genre, saying, "it's disappointing that so many people have in all seriousness adopted just one of our many one-week-of-stupid-clothes benders".)
But of course, Eldritch didn't stay in Leeds very long after his band took off. There's a sense in this song though that a return to your roots is something everyone contemplates once fame and fortune have had their way with you...
Nobody ever gets away
Even the best of us come back some day
To the unmarked rooms, where the dry dust breeds
Andrew Eldritch is moving back to Leeds
Not that this is something I have to worry about. You have to be a success before you can worry about crashing out and crawling home like that. And I guess you also have to move more than a mile down the road. After reading a recent interview with Eldritch, it doesn't seem like it's anything he needs to worry about either. The Sisters of Mercy are still touring and Eldritch appears to be doing pretty well living off the money he made before the music industry imploded. So why The Mountain Goats chose him as the subject of their sweet dissertation on growing old, I have no idea. But it's a great song title and a pretty cool tune to boot...
