The Fat Angel Sings

Before The Cramps descended on Memphis with Alex Chilton to record debut album “Songs The Lord Taught Us“, they produced five sets of demos, all of which have been heavily bootlegged. The best – and most mysterious – are “The Ohio Demos 1979″. Best, because these febrile, intense dozen tracks – epitomised by Lux Interior’s stuttering vocals and dense reverb of “All Tore Up” (later recorded as “I Can’t Hardly Stand It”) – encapsulate the band’s chaotic rockabilly.

Mysterious, because nobody – fans, biographers or former band members – seems entirely sure whether they were even recorded in Ohio in 1979.

Thist Song is supposed to be based on “Please give me something” by Bill Allen 1958. The Cramps did it first as “Baby Blue Rock” (you can hear that on the DO-CD “How to make a Monster”), then they changed the Lyrics to “Twist and Shout” and finally it became “Drug Train”

One clue is an interview with Lux in August 1978, in which he says the band are about to head to Akron to “record some tracks in my little brother’s basement studio”. That environment appears to suit the band down to the ground, and many prefer the urgent authenticity of the bootleg to Chilton’s finished album. It’s also been bootlegged as “All Tore Up” and “Wild Psychotic Teen Sounds“, although the definitive version is the Ohio Demos 1979 package of three coloured vinyl seven-inches.

Lux once mentioned in an interview that he was never really happy with the sound of the first two Studio Albums (Songs The Lord Taught Us – 1980 March & Psychedelic Jungle – 1981 May) and I agree! The Ohio Demos do document the Sound, that they had, much better!

Lux Interior (Erick Purkhiser) — vocals Poison Ivy (Kristy Wallace) — lead guitar Bryan Gregory (Greg Beckerleg) — guitar Nick Knox (Nicholas George Stephanoff) — drums

Sound quality: Decent, if tinny
See also: Memphis Poseurs, 1977 demos recorded by Chilton at Ardent Studio in Memphis

Van Morrison has released a third song from his next album, “Latest Record Project: Volume 1“, a two-disc set with 28 songs written during lockdown. The release, with the generic-sounding name, arrives May 7th, 2021, on Exile/BMG Records. His 42nd record, says the original March 3rd announcement, “delves into his ongoing love of blues, R&B, jazz and soul” and “proves that he’s living in the present, and remains an artist of integrity and distinction.”

Listen to the title track, plus “Love Should Come With a Warning” and “Only a Song”.

“I’m getting away from the perceived same songs, same albums all the time,” says Morrison. “This guy’s done 500 songs, maybe more, so hello? Why do you keep promoting the same ten? I’m trying to get out of the box.”

From the announcement: Unable to tour, Morrison remained busy with constant song writing, starting ideas on piano, guitar or saxophone. What emerged is a wealth of new material, which shimmers with a directness and vibrancy that comes from working with a rhythm section with whom he shares an immediate, spontaneous connection.

Of the title track, “Latest Record Project,” the announcement notes: The king of Celtic soul’s one in a million, straight-to-the-heart baritone sits in the pocket of a warm organ hum, accompanied by sha-la-la doo wop backing vocal harmonies.

Two songs, “Love Should Come With a Warning’ and “Mistaken Identity,” feature lyrics that were written with Don Black.

Other highlights range from the saxophone-led R&B gem “Jealousy” to the joyful, country-tinged “A Few Bars Early” via the spirited Them-style garage rock to the self-explanatory “Stop Bitching, Do Something.”

Other song titles include “Dead Beat Saturday Night” which addresses lockdown life in matter-of-fact style: “No life, no gigs, no choice, no voice”; the barroom rock ’n’ roll of “Where Have All the Rebels Gone,” which bemoans the lack of real independent thought; and Morrison’s views on social media, “Why Are You On Facebook?”.

Last fall, Morrison courted plenty of controversy with his anti-lockdown stance, culminating with the release of a new song, “Stand and Deliver,” recorded with Eric Clapton.

Morrison will celebrate the album’s release by playing his first-ever virtual performance on May 8th. The multiple Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter will perform a livestream event from Real World Studios in Wiltshire, U.K. that will see him debut some brand new songs alongside a selection of classic tracks. The event is in partnership with nugs.net, which hosts live streams and professionally recorded archive concerts from iconic artists. Fans can tune in to the performance live on Saturday, May 8 at 3 p.m. 

This week The Coral release their tenth studio album, “Coral Island” The album is highly compelling in its focus on a seaside town, exploring faded majesty and glamour. This is also a double album – Side One’s Welcome To Coral Island bursts with bright light and the energy of a summer season, whereas Side Two, The Ghost Of Coral Island, digs underneath this to explore its haunted, faded underbelly, as the season draws to a close. As a whole, the album is a triumph, spilling with distinct imagery that transports the listener deeply into another world.

“The wheels rattle into the thrilling unknown on The Coral’s first new music since 2018, finding the unsurpassed, metamorphic gonzo-pop five-piece in the company of crooks, sell-by-date candyfloss and plastic skeletons on their 10th release and first double album Coral Island. Squinting into the neon-lit penny arcades and draining an after hours glass with the displaced and dispossessed once the power is pulled, The Coral’s latest caper concerns listeners with the light, shade, thrills and profound melancholy of coastal palaces packed with fun and fright. Both now and then, or perhaps never as fiction encroaches on reality, the feverous anticipation of a night amongst the screams, fights and romance of the fair become part of life on the newly-built Coral Island.”

There’s two sides to our band – there’s the one you hear on the radio. And then there’s a minor chord one that’s in touch with pre-rock & roll. Death ditties they were called, it was a genre of music… it was almost like a follow on from the type of thing James Dean did, like teenage fatalism. And it was a genre. And someone always ends up getting stabbed in it or died in a drag race crash. There’s like a light side to us and a dark side to us. We were thinking, why don’t we split that side up and make Coral Island, about a seaside town that was in its heyday, say in the 30s 40s 50s, where everything’s new and the crowds are all there, and make the other side with those type of songs. The type of seaside towns that we grew up in where the money is gone, the crowds had dried up and there was a kind of haunted magic in them. And then the idea kind of just snowballed from there.

Nick Power from the band comments, We dodged the lockdown by about a month. So, it wasn’t recorded in lockdown, it was before. We were quite lucky really. The way we recorded it was kind of separately almost… well, not separately, but everyone would kind of sing at least a song, or write a song on the album. We’ve never done that before. We were in and out of the studio so quickly at the very end we thought, well we’re going to have to stitch it all together somehow now. That’s where the main work was, trying to make it work.

Taken from the band’s forthcoming album ‘Coral Island’ released on 30th April 2021.

Coral Island is out now, on Modern Sky Records..