BLUE ORCHIDS at THE SOCIAL

This is Martin Bramah of the Blue Orchids falling to his knees at the Heavenly Social. I’ll be honest with you, I’d never paid much attention to them until Idle Fret booked them but I always study their bills with interest so looked them up and wonder now how they'd eluded me.

As a founder member of The Fall Bramah quit after their 1979 debut Live At The Witch Trials and took keyboardist Una Baines with him to form the Blue Orchids. They cut some singles for Rough Trade and later released The Greatest Hit (Money Mountain) in 1982 and Bramah has intermittently used the name since.  

I’m no expert on The Fall (owning only three of their 237 albums) but doubtless aficionados debate who originated The Fall/Blue Orchids sound. To the untrained ear they are, at very least, separated at birth with their off-kilter organ, simple guitar lines and vocal delivery. If you like one you’ll like the other. Also the penny dropped about the Comet Gain song “Yoona Baines” and how much their Howl Of The Lonely Crowd (2011) owes to the Orchids.

On Tuesday they put on an engaging set centred on those early tracks ("The Flood", "Work", "Bad Education", "Hanging Man" etc). It was apparent how no band could contain both Martin Bramah and Mark E. Smith. The longer they played, the more animated and chaotic Bramah became; at one point he tried to sing into his microphone stand even though the mic was in his other hand and there was plenty of half-cut stumbling and fumbling around and banter with the crowd. “I’m from up north,” he said, and as if to accentuate his northerness, kept removing and putting on again a terrible flat cap with annoying frequency.  “Manchester isn’t up north,” he continued, “it’s in the Midlands, but don’t tell them I said that,” touching his nose.

I’ve previously discussed the merits - or otherwise - of bands reforming but this one joined up some musical dots and rather than playing only to original fans the Blue Orchids cultivated new ones, of which I’m the latest.

JULY PLAYLIST

If you’d wandered in to Monkey Mansions during July, just before you heard stars you may have heard one of these:

1. Tommy Ridgley – “Monkey Man” (1953)
Jumping New Orleans R&B songs about monkey men are always a hit round these parts.

2. Brenda Holloway – “Crying Time” (1965)
Our Brenda never cut anything less than fabulous for Motown who pissed her talent up the wall and left magical moments like this in the can for forty years.

3. The Spinners – “Truly Yours” (1966)
The lines “But the one thing I’ll never understand/ How you found the nerve to take a pen in your hand/ And sign the letter truly yours” sound more Dylan than Hunter/Stevenson.

4. Nick Drake – “At The Chime Of The City Clock” (1970)
Not the purists view but Drake’s songs were improved tenfold by adding strings and saxophones.

5. Mose Allison – “Wild Man On The Loose” (1970)
Mose lets rip on the organ, a big brassy band gallop down the road apiece, there’s a tiger in the street and a wild man on the loose.

6. Tommy Tate – “If You Got To Love Somebody” (1977)
A floating cloud of delightful disco. Sorry, “modern soul”.

7. The Fall – “Repetition” (1977)
When feeling particularly crotchety (and remember this is the Fall we’re talking about) they’d play this “for three hours” infuriating the punks so much they’d start fighting. Way to go.

8. Television Personalities – “Geoffrey Ingram” (1980)
The TVPs take Geoffrey from A Taste of Honey and wrap him in their quaint easy charm. “Me and Geoff got to a Jam gig, we got there too late/ The Marquee was sold out and it was only five past eight”.

9. The Campbell Stokes Sunshine Recorder – “Track One” (2009)
From the album Makes Your Ears Smile. Does exactly what it says.

10. Ben Kweller – “Old Hat” (2009)
It’s not easy to make Country music cool but it is possible. Exhibit A.