LAURIE CUNNINGHAM and SHOOT! MAGAZINE (1976)

As a football mad kid, one of the highlights of my week was collecting our comics from Hamer's, the newsagent at the top of our street. Reserved and kept behind the counter would be Look-In! for my sister and Shoot! for me. When a new football title, Match, was published in 1979 I had that too but Shoot! was the main event. So much so that when we moved to Spain for a year my Nana would post it out to me along with jokes she'd copy down from Tony Blackburn's radio show. It was about two weeks out of date - the magazine, not Blackburn's jokes , they were waaaaay out of the date already -by the time it arrived, but that was how I kept in touch with the scores and what was happening back in England. News traveled slowly in the late 70s.

One thing that made Shoot! stand out was their famous League Ladders. At the start of each season they'd giveaway a piece of folded card with a slot for each position of all the English and Scottish divisions and fiddly little cut-out tabs for every club. With the Sunday Mirror in front of me I'd lie on the floor and painstakingly arrange all clubs in their current league position so, at a glance, I could tell you throughout the week - should anyone care to ask, and they never did - that Sunderland were sixth in the second division and Torquay were 15th in the fourth. I didn't support one specific team for many years; I just loved football, full stop. 

Last week I bought a few old copies - three for a quid - down the market. From 1975 and 1976 they are a few years earlier than when I started getting it but they're exactly as recall them and the features the same. There are big-name columnists like Liverpool's Kevin Keegan and QPR's Gerry Francis who weren't scared to offer an opinion. Francis expresses his pride in being named England captain aged 23, "the youngest international skipper in Europe" and then takes a journalist to task for inaccurate reporting, "I am afraid Mr James has unjustly wronged me and devalued the Daily Mail in my eyes". Like Mr Francis's mullet, some things never change.

You Are The Ref was another popular feature. "Before a match you see a player inserting contact lenses into his eyes. Do you (a) take no action or (b) refuse to allow him to play?" Then there was the Focus On... questionnaire in which players revealed with predictable regularity their favourite food as steak and chips and their favourite singer Olivia Newton-John.

One player who stands out in the issues I bought is Laurie Cunningham. I loved Laurie when he played alongside Cyrille Regis for West Bromwich Albion; such exciting players. Black players weren't a common sight so always seemed that little bit cooler to me, especially with flair like Cunningham. WBA had three in 1978: Cunningham, Regis and Brendon Batson, which allowed manager Ron Atkinson to name them the Three Degrees without anyone batting an eye. Cunningham would go on to play, with great acclaim, for Real Madrid - including a European Cup Final but in 1976 he was still plying his trade in the second division for Leyton Orient. In his Focus feature from the 9th October 1976 issue Laurie doesn't come across as the archetypal mid-70s footballer. His favourite singers are Isaac Hayes and Bob Marley and I get the impression his heart was somewhere else. If he wasn't a footballer he thought he'd be a professional dancer and the story goes he would pay his fines for being late for training by winning dance competitions.

He was certainly his own man. Look at these answers. Favourite Player: Nobody. Favourite Other Team: None. Most Difficult Opponent: Nobody. Personal Ambition: None. In fairness Laurie did have an ambition of playing for England, something no black man had done, which he would achieve six times.    

Tragically Laurie Cunningham died in a car crash, aged 33, in 1989. 

SUBBA CULTURE - ISSUE THREE

Born from the website of the same name, the latest issue of Subba Culture has hit the streets and it's the best one yet.

Whilst the internet version focuses predominately on pictorial evidence of the evolution of youth subcultures, Mark Hynds's fanzine contains well written and thoughtful articles on the same. There's an emphasis this time on how those movements spread from away from the main cities into other areas and the impact they had. The opening piece perceptively links the artwork of Jamie Reid (specifically his "two coaches" graphic) to the Medway music scene featured in the recent The Kids Are All Square book; John South discusses skinhead and suedehead styles after moving from London to Norfolk in 1972; Edward Ian Armchair describes the late-70s punk scene seen from the eyes of a resident of Tamworth in the West Midlands; and Peter Jachimiak provides a fascinating look at "Minets" - considered the early 60s French version of Mods. Not to exclude London, Rob Lee - the cover star of the (in)famous Mods Mayday '79 album - gives his recollections of that era. There's more besides, from desert boots to borstals.

Limited to 200 copies which are already flying out so get on this quick-smart. Click on Subbaculture for full details.   

BLOOD AND CARPET (2015)

Annie Burkin as Ruby in Blood and Carpet

Set in a mostly unswinging East London, Blood and Carpet is a new black and white kitchen-sink 60s B-movie Mod horror film. What's not to like, eh?

Written and directed by Graham Fletcher-Cook, it was made for a mere £3000 (you'd be hard pressed to buy a decent Lambretta for that) and shot over just ten days. Yet despite its minuscule budget it's still a gripping tale which opens with Ruby (played by Annie Burkin) and Lyle (Billy Wright) attempting to clean blood off their living room carpet and discussing how to dispose of the body plonked in the bathtub upstairs. That's about as much as I'm prepared to give away.

The film is shot in mix of stark light and dark shadows which adds to the sinister atmosphere as the story unfolds with the mystery of the body deepening. The two lead characters are well acted with some great lines (and period words and phrases which made me chuckle) and the introduction of Lyle's slimy brother Melvin (Frank Boyce) adds a creepy weirdness to proceedings. His voice alone is enough to want to give him a bloody good slap.

Although set in '67 no one would mistake this for being made then but that's not an issue here unless you're a complete anorak, the carefully constructed story itself is the main draw. The music though is provided by bands familiar to the various parts of the mod/60s scenes: especially nice to hear The Magnetic Mind play over the end credits; whilst The Petty Hoodlums, who appear in a pub scene, add a bit of cheek claiming the Haunted's garage punk classic "1-2-5" as their own. 

For such a modestly produced film Blood and Carpet far exceeded my expectations. It's out on Blu-Ray and available to stream online for the price of a bowl of jellied eels from 16th February 2015. To preorder and for more details check the  Blood and Carpet page. Here's the trailer.

JANUARY PLAYLIST

This month the walls of Monkey Mansions have shook to the sound of...

1.  Powder - "Turn Another Page" (1968)

Good to see Californian anglophiles Powder back in focus thanks to a new compilation on Big Beat, Ka-Pow! An Explosive Collection and their story told in detail in the new issue of Shindig! magazine. I'm not messin', these boys were superb. Part The Who, part Simon & Garfunkel, all parts immaculate pop music. If you don't know them, check 'em out pronto.

2.  Ike Turner & The Kings of Rhythm - "Ghetto Funk" (1969)

The part of the ghetto Ike acquired his funk was the smoother section if A Black Man's Soul is anything to go by. It's a mighty fine instrumental album - nominated (i.e. didn't win) a Grammy - and even if not as tough as titles "Getting Nasty", "Up Hard" and "Nuttin' Up" suggest, it moves in all the right places.

3.  Scott Walker - "It's Raining Today" (1969)

From Scott 3. Been reading No Regrets: Writings on Scott Walker in which different writers contribute pieces on the various periods of Walker's career. The chapter "A Dandy In Aspic" by Ian Penman, looking at the largely ignored Middle Scott MOR years (post Scott 4 to The Moviegoer in '72) is music writing at its most brilliant: imaginative, thought provoking, poetic. And means I've now got some gaps to fill.

4.  The Fabulous Counts - "Dirty Red" (1969)

The Fabulous Counts came out of Detroit in 1969 and in Jan Jan made one the most bad ass organ funk LPs these honky ears have ever had the pleasure of encountering. Mose Davis was the organist but the whole band cook and swing and groove and get down and do all the things you'd want on covers and their own compositions. It's a big fat horny sound they create with jazz licks a plenty. Every track a house party winner.

5.  Reverend Charlie Jackson - "God's Got It" (1970)

Rev. Jackson plugs his guitar into a small portable amp and lays down an incessant beat for the congregation. If John Lee Hooker played churches...

6.  Fred Wesley & The JBs - "I'm Paying Taxes, What Am I Buyin'" (1974)

Fred & The JBs cut Damn Right I Am Somebody during the same session that produced James Brown's The Payback album and Mr Brown is never far away, ensuring he gets a cut of the writing credit no doubt. JB introduces the record by saying "To me, happiness is Fred Wesley playing his horn". Mr Wesley left Mr Brown's employment the following year. 

7.  MFSB - "Freddie's Dead" (1973)

A clue to Freddie's death is helpfully provided on the front cover of the Mother Funkin' (cough) Sons of Bitches debut album: a gigantic syringe laying in an open coffin in a graveyard surrounded by red poppies. Subtle. Fantastic symphonic version of Curtis's classic.

8.  Squire - "You're The One" (1983)

Out of the bands spawned by the '79 Mod Revival, Squire were more 60s orientated than the majority. By 1983 and their swansong album Get Smart they had 60's pop nuggets down to a fine art (so much so that for years I thought their "Jesamine" was a cover). Difficult to select a highlight from the LP but "You're The One" meshes The Who's "So Sad About Us" to touches of the Byrds, the Beatles and the Hollies. That'll do. 

9.  Superfood - "Superfood" (2014)

We've now reached such a distance from baggy and Britpop that bands now include members who weren't even born when Blur stumbled around on Top of The Pops with a chicken's head on a stick. Superfood's Don't Say That is an album that falls between the two periods and unashamedly pilfers from both and even throws in an echo of "Sympathy For The Devil" for good measure. I'm all in favour. Tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1991. 

10.  Peter Doherty - "Flags of the Old Regime" (2015)

Wasn't Pete supposed to die ten years ago? He's still here but death still stalks our troubled troubadour. When I read this was a tribute to Amy Winehouse I had visions of Pete mumbling along to the Daptone horns, but no, this is a sensitive, moving and even graceful piece of work. Getting new stuff of out him is a bit like getting blood out of one of his collapsed veins but it's usually worth the wait. 

THE SCENE UNSEEN - THE 100 CLUB, THURSDAY 7 NOVEMBER 1985

Andy Welsh, The Scene, 100 Club, 7 Nov '85

As 1.9 billion people turned on their television set on a sweltering Saturday afternoon on 13 July 1985 to watch Status Quo followed by the Style Council kick off Live Aid at Wembley Stadium, two hundred Mod kids were filtering their way into an upstairs room above a north London pub, grandly called the Savoy Ballroom, to watch - in a parallel universe, pointedly oblivious to what else was going on in the world - four of their bands. In order: The Wayout, The Moment, The Combine, and headliners and main attraction, The Scene.

Seeing how well the recent piece about The Rage and the mid-80s Mod scene was received, and in anticipation for this Friday's gig at the 100 Club, today we'll cast our minds back to remember The Scene.

Proud East Londoners with an adopted northerner (that's proper North: Hull) they cut a three singles - "Looking For Love", "Something That You Said" and a cover of "Good Lovin'". The finest 45 - and one of the best of the era - being the harmony driven pop-art splash "Something That You Said" backed with "Stop-Go", their paean to amphetamines, "Now I've got such a taste for... speed".

In an era when groups were cagey about being too closely associated with the dreaded "M" word, The Scene proudly proclaimed to the national music press, "We are the only Mod band". Which was one sure fire way of sacrificing any chance of greater success but endearing them greatly to their fellow brethren.

I saw them many times and loved their gigs; somehow they tied a jangle, that shook rather than jingled, to big Who powerchords and smashed guitars. You knew the guitar destruction was coming when Gary Wood put down his red Rickenbacker and picked up something less precious to bash through a set closer. The song which has stuck in my head most firmly all these years has been "Is She In Love (With Love)" which rather bizarrely and untypically sounds a bit like The Smiths. Me and my mates would come back from gigs singing that one on the tube journey home even though it took about 25 years to hear a recorded version, finally turning up on an album of Scene tracks and those of their previous incarnation, OO7, entitled Landscapes. 

These photos were taken at the 100 Club on 7 November '85. As you can read from my teenage scrawl below (you think I'm a bit anal about documenting things now, you should've seen me as a kid) it wasn't the most well attended gig and the next month Sounds announced the band would spilt after two years of "urgency, excitement, smashed guitars and a mountain of unpaid debts" which sounded very rock and roll.

Their farewell gig was another Saturday afternoon slot back in Tufnell Park on 22 February 1986. This one was packed, a great show, and saw excited kids invading the stage. With The Scene disappearing, the rest of the scene wasn't too far behind.

Reformed in 2010 with the full line-up intact, the band have a new EP due later this year and perform with The Rage at the 100 Club, Oxford Street, London this Friday 23rd January 2015. 

Gary Wood, The Scene, 7 Nov '85

Russell Wood, The Scene, 7 Nov '85

Andy Orr, The Scene, 7 Nov '85

Monkey Picks 1985 style

THE VOICES OF EAST HARLEM - RIGHT ON BE FREE (1970)

One of my favourite discoveries last year was the 1970 album on Elektra by the Voices Of East Harlem, Right On Be Free. They're probably best known for their 1973 Leroy Hutson/Rich Tufo/Curtis Mayfield produced single "Cashing In" and whilst that's a great jabbing slice of 70s soul, there's nothing particularly remarkable about it or anything to differentiate the Voices of East Harlem from countless other vocals groups. In fact, Gerri Griffin's dominant lead vocal obscures the very fact they were a group at all. The same cannot be said for their debut Right On Be Free.

Firstly, the sleeve is striking. It's a statement. Sixteen denim-clad, afro-haired, young folk from New York marching, clapping and singing. Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud. Right on. Be free. Rather than a standard group, the Voices of East Harlem were initially a community initiative set up by Chuck and Anna Griffin in 1969. With established gospel singer Bernice Cole as musical director they - up to 20 members, including the Griffin's kids - performed at benefit gigs, prisons, festivals and even on television.

With a rotation of lead singers of all ages, the grooves in the vinyl of Right On Be Free are scarcely wide enough to contain the mass of exuberant and excited voices this street choir frantically pump out backed by a loose yet funky band. They breathe fire into covers such as "For What It's Worth", "Proud Mary" and "Simple Song of Freedom" and original powerful, soul-stirring songs like "Right On Be Free" and "Gotta Be A Change" already sound like established classics.

Listening to the record made me wish there was live footage of them in action. Well, thank the good Lord, there's a whole concert available and it's bang on the time of the album.  Recorded at Tanglewood, Lenox, Massachusetts on 18 August '70 the Voices of East Harlem sing most of the album and also, appropriately enough,  "Young, Gifted and Black". They enter with a choreographed chain gang march and exit after little Kevin Griffin - approximately 11 years old - threatens to steal to the show with his moves during "Shaker Life" and Bernice Cole shows her young protégées how to really sing.

People, be upstanding for... the Voices Of East Harlem.

THE SEEDS - SINGLES As & Bs 1965-1970

In the accompanying booklet to The Seeds Singles: As & Bs 1965-1970 Alec Palao quickly counters the argument all Seeds songs sound the same by offering "Pushin' Too Hard", "Mr Farmer" and "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" as examples of their range. It's a common assertion and maybe an unfair one to suggest they had one song which simply varied in tempo and length when what the Seeds were, really, was consistent. 

Unlike contemporaries the Electric Prunes and Chocolate Watchband who saw their groups overtaken by record companies and session musicians to an extent they become unrecognisable,  the Seeds - until their last few singles - remained Sky Saxon (vocals), Jan Savage (guitar), Rick Andridge (drums) and Daryl Hooper (keyboards). Like LA counterparts The Doors, The Seeds didn't include a recognised bassist in the band but as this CD reveals their studio sessions were nearly all augmented by bass player Harvey Sharpe. Not the most virtuoso players, the Seeds were a solid unit who played to their strengths, creating well over three albums worth of creepy, crawly, menacing and unhinged psychedelic flower power built around Hooper's keyboard and Saxon's twisted otherworldly drawl and freakish yelps. I could rattle off now a dozen-to-twenty great Seeds songs without much effort. Many are featured here. 

The Singles As & Bs works for both the newish listener, giving an introduction but by no means featuring all their best material - "Evil Hoodoo" and "Chocolate River" being just two humdingers not to make it to a single - and the older fan who may not have all the non-album B-sides including "Six Dreams", "Wild Blood", "900 Million People Daily (All Making Love)".

For most of their original lifespan the Seeds recorded for GNP Crescendo with their established line-up until late '68 when Savage and Andridge left and the band went through a confusing muddle of personnel changes and winded up with a couple of releases in 1970 on MGM: the acid rock "Bad Part Of Town" and the gently trippy "Love In A Summer Basket". Both singles (and their respective B-sides) often harshly overlooked. Alec Palao's liner notes include interviews with some of these band members and sheds light on a previously dark corner of the Seeds story. It's a great insight into the band and the increasingly eccentric behaviour of the late Sky Saxon - a character worthy of his own biography - who told the band they'd go to hell if they ate an egg and how he felt sorry for chopped tomatoes. There are also plenty of previously unseen photographs.

The songs on the collection, the audio quality (original single masters), the packaging, the liner notes, all make this a superb addition to the Seeds already impressive catalogue. 

Singles As & Bs 1965-1970 by The Seeds is released by GNP Crescendo/Big Beat. Out now.