DAVID BOWIE
PINUPS
PARLOPHONEHHH
Record Store Day brings its usual
array of treats and foremost this
year is this picture disc of Bowie’s
1973 covers album, Pinups.
Its ragbag of takes on 1960s
tracks like The Pretty Things’
Rosalyn, The Mojos’ Everything’s
Alright and the Merseys’ Sorrow
baffled Ziggy fans but have aged
relatively well. Yet more intriguing
were a cosmic ramble through his
early hero Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd
track See Emily Play, sinewy takes
on The Who’s I Can’t Explain and
Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,
and a glam duffing-up of The
Kinks’ Where Have All The Good
Times Gone. IGALTERED IMAGES
GREATEST HITS
DEMONHHH
Altered Images were the frothiest
of new wave confections: to
dislike them would have been
akin to kicking a kitten. Yet the
Scottish band are not lacking
in compilations, particularly
Epic’s definitive 1997 4CD set
I Could Be Happy, and this new,
pink-vinyl offering brings little to
the party save 12" versions of
I Could Be Happy and Don’t Talk
To Me About Love. Still, the high-
camp nursery-rhyme take on
Neil Diamond’s Song Sung Blue
is a fun curio, and proto-Goth
debut single Dead Pop Stars
shows that they weren’t always
all perky grins and polka dots. IGTHE FALL
LIVE AT THE WITCH TRIALS/
DRAGNET
CHERRY REDHHHH
Mark E Smith has proved as
prolific in death as in life, a trend
continued by these 3CD/3LP
boxsets of The Fall’s first two
albums. Initially, their amalgam
of scraped guitar, broken
rhythms and Smith’s nasal Manc
whine confounded – what was
this taut, atonal racket? Recorded
in one day, Live At The Witch
Trials yielded the skewed classic
Rebellious Jukebox, while
Dragnet found Smith sneering in
tongues on the mutant garage of
Printhead and Dice Man. Both
come with B-sides and live tracks
and the knowledge that here a
strange genius was born. IGGENERATION X
GENERATION X
CHRYSALISHHH
Punk produced few more
endearing chancers than Billy
Idol, the Bromley Elvis, whose
first band Generation X’s 1978
self-titled debut album gets a
reissue in a 3CD or 2LP set.
There again, Idol only ever
hitched a ride on punk: rock
stardom was always his goal. His
take on punk’s cut-the-crap ethos
verged on the cartoon: Kleenex
was a paean to masturbation,
while Ready Steady Go saw him
claim to be “in love with Cathy
McGow-ow-ow-ow-ow-an”. The
quasi-Burundi beats still enthral,
and the copious bonus material
includes B-sides, non-album
singles and assorted outtakes. IGSPEAR OF DESTINY
THE ALBUMS 1983-85
CHERRY RED
HHH
William Blake famously
observed that the fool who
persists in his folly shall become
wise. Pouting peroxide post-
punk Kirk Brandon represented
a pretty stiff challenge to that
weighty maxim.
Brandon’s brooding sense of
self-importance was exemplified
by the name of this, his second
major band: the Spear of
Destiny was
said to be the
sword with
which Roman
centurion
Longinus
killed Christ
on the cross.
Brandon’s
music, an epic
quest for rock
power and
glory, palpably
craved similar significance.
He got away with his
daftness because he wrote a
lot of killer tunes. This 3CD
compilation of their three
albums for Epic Records,
with 12" mixes, B-sides and
live tracks, confirms that if
you kept a straight face
through their bluster, fine songs
lay within.
Their 1983 debut, Grapes Of
Wrath, was originally to be an
album for Brandon’s previous
group, Theatre Of Hate, and
retained that band’s key
elements of barbed guitar, tribal
drums and vague mysticism.
Its 1984 follow-up, One Eyed
Jacks, was the same again,
only more so: propulsive rock
noir, histrionic vocals, strained
drama. Prisoner Of Love
twanged like a new wave Dick
Dale, yet the standout track was
the cyclical,
portentous
Liberator.
We get four
versions of
it here.
If anything,
Brandon’s
mock-heroic
shtick was more
pronounced
on 1985’s
World Service.
The reliably anthemic Come
Back sounded like a sermon
delivered from the mount.
The album nearly went Top
10: bonus tracks here include
thundering B-side Last Card.
They later nabbed a proper
hit single in 1987’s Never Take
Me Alive and supported U2
at Wembley Stadium, but Kirk
Brandon was not to become the
prophet he longed to be.
No matter. Even jesters can
write great tunes. IG