GOOD NEWS WITH YOUR ORANGE JUICE
Jan 9th, 2008 by Sean Baite
Good news is at a premium as this year begins - the usual reasons to be cheerful being backed up by a nice world recession approaching on tiptoes. Uncharacteristically for my good self, I’ve managed to come up with 2 pieces of good news without even having to follow that course of medication they prescribed me. My first piece of good news (and the subject of this post) is very likely well out of date for those of you with access to English-speaking media.
I managed to learn this news through a meandering Sterne-like series of clicks on search results so typical of the internet. Thinking of Conor’s post on A-House [ Great Irish 17 ] I remembered their collaboration with Edwyn Collins (produced a couple of their albums / once saw him on stage with them in MacGonagles). This got me thinking on having seen him solo on Wexford St. some time before his second coming with ‘Never Met a Girl….’ He played an acoustic only encore of around a half an hour which was worth the admission alone. I tried therefore ‘Edwyn Collins Acoustic’ under You Tube’s fairly dicky search facility. True to form, there was nothing acoustic by Collins himself but it did point me to the following clip from The Candy Twins, a fairly recent homage to the great man :
Collins, as some of you may know, had a rather severe brain haemorrhage a couple of years back which, I had thought, was going to deprive us for good of his talents. It appears that he has now made enough of a recovery to record some new tracks and even play a gig. The homage itself is in keeping with the spirit of Collins and Orange Juice - what would once have been termed a C86 band, I suppose (back to another of Conor’s posts - [ C86 ] ) - seems to be a main man originally from Hull now based in London via a detour by the Bristol area.
As for Collins himself, nothing acoustic, but here’s the video for one of his early solo singles :
Great pop songwriter, bankrolled the wonderful Setanta records (with ‘Girl Like You’), bit of a poseur betimes (OJ early 80s esp.) but we’re damn glad he’s back.
And thanks again to You Tube’s hocky search engine.
Hi Sean - many thanks for the plug for my song. Edwyn’s actually played three gigs - the first for BBC Electric Proms at Dingwalls, and then another couple at the Arts Theatre in Soho. I got to see two of them and they were fabulous. He’s announced on his myspace he’s planning to tour in April - I don’t know if it will include Dublin. We, meanwhile, will be playing Edwyn Collins Is Back on our tour of Germany in March. And there is an acoustic Edwyn on YouTube - Make Me Feel Again from I think ‘93 just before Gorgeous George. It makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. I’m pretty he sure he played this at the comeback gigs.
Sorry forgot the link to Make Me Feel Again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49ZeL_iFqfY
also deserving of special mention is his disco-tastic collaboration with mark e smith ’seventies night’ on ‘im not following you’ - http://www.visi.com/fall/discog/guestvocals.html
“steppin’ out in style…cool sister…boney as ever…what do you feature…seventies nite all over europa…und sieben und zwei…’
Begob, I had that album. I lent it to a big Fall fan who failed to return it to me. He wanted it purely for Smith’s vocals, which were terrible in my opinion. Not the lyrics, more the flemmy sound of his voice. I found myself screaming at the stereo ‘cough, Mark, for God’s Sake, just cough once. A big one would get that flem out of the way’. I’m a big Fall fan and have endured many versions of Mark’s voice, but on that occasion I wish he hadn’t.
The rest of the stuff done by Collins was alright. A bit samey - trying to recapture “Never Met a Girl”. Not his finest work.
David (innit ?) of Candy Twins… ta first off for your excellent tribute to EC… ta secondly for your persistence in searching You Tube. That acoustic song by EC was as I remembered him in Dublin in the early 90s. Blow them away in Germany in March - and don’t forget Paddie’s Day, if you’re there for it (’Shane MacGowan is back…’ ??).
Ta also to Aridal - obviously collaboration with Mark E Smith is by far preferrable to the sort of collaboration my immediate neighbours (the French) get up to on and off. Why, even Gavin Friday did it - not that he gets much credit for it round here….
As for Donagh…. EC - ’samey’ ??? Obviously, that’s why every other band of would be rockstars these days sounds like Orange Juice…
They were obviously talentless fuckers of short-term interest..
Ye aren’t suffering from Fiachra-isation of the musical taste by any chance ? (i.e.: ‘whatever you like, i’m guaranteed not to…’)
Like in your albums of 2007, for ex. - LCD Soundsystem - someone please explain to me why ?? Same old same old…
Then again, you’re not the only one blowing his trumpet
…erm, yes I should return it shouldn’t I
[…] I mentioned in my previous post that I had managed to unearth 2 pieces of good news to comfort me in this passage between a very shit year and another that promises to be even shitter. The first was Edwyn Collins proving himself to be the new Lazarus - but with a better voice EC Post […]