Showing posts with label Balaam And The Angel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Balaam And The Angel. Show all posts

Sunday, September 21, 2025

66. The Woodentops - Well Well Well (Rough Trade)




Three weeks at number one from w/e 14th September 1985


In the Microdisney documentary “The Clock Comes Down The Stairs” – and indeed in some of the press interviews that surrounded its premiere – the group regularly mused on why they weren’t successful. The incendiary behaviour of their frontman Cathal Coughlan is frequently overlooked as an explanation in favour of other factors, such as the fact that The Smiths were dominating Rough Trade’s attention in the eighties.

I’m sure that this is largely true. Rough Trade were a small independent label often operating on creaky financial footing, and had to put the most money down on their leanest, speediest horse rather than gambling their lot on unknown quantities. The Smiths were certainly their prize filly, but what’s interesting is absolutely nobody in the documentary mentions The Woodentops, who were also rapidly catching up on the outside lane and were also stealing Rough Trade's attention.

The group, it seems, have largely been forgotten even by people who were actually in their vicinity at the time, but were distinct press favourites and earmarked as probable contenders even in the trade press. Rolo McGinty had previously unsuccessfully auditioned as the bass player for the Teardrop Explodes, and like that group, had a faint air of both the New Wave pop star and the magic mushroom guzzling hippy about him. His pixie-ish bopping made him a great English frontman in the Barrett/ Bolan tradition, while the group’s cocktail of influences made them a unique prospect.

McGinty’s rounded middle class English vowels met with frequently folky lead acoustic guitars, which mixed and matched with hyper post-punk tribal drums and squealing keyboards. The angular woodiness to their sound can’t have been unprecedented, but it felt simultaneously accessible and yet odd; the only real prior comparison I can think of is Unit 4+2 at the frantic and faintly psychedelic tail end of their career (give their final 45 “I Will” a spin to hear what I mean, but don’t ignore the better flipside). Even they never truly pushed the boat out this far, though.

McGinty made the approach sound very simple in a 1986 interview with “One Two Testing”, explaining “[There are] lots of different kinds of shapes but there's always this acoustic guitar and lots of backing vocals so it always has that kind of folkiness… The music of the drums, the bass, electric guitar and the keyboards is almost like a dream behind the acoustic guitar so the vocal and guitar are like Bob Dylan leaning against a tree, singing a song and the band is like a dream of the backing that's going on inside Bob Dylan's head when he's singing.

"He's not hearing this acoustic guitar, he's hearing this orchestra or something and he's singing with that. The acoustic guitar is just keeping his rhythm for him.”

They clearly weren’t approaching things from an orthodox direction, but the results could be astounding, and “Well Well Well” is marvellous. If you haven’t heard it in a long time, refreshing your memory is a valuable exercise – for one thing, it’s more intense than you remember, sounding polite and joyful but also faintly threatening. Rolo often sounds taunting while singing “Baby I know you like my way so wrap my soul and take it away” in the chorus, and the band pound, clatter and rattle like an old diesel train in danger of getting derailed behind him. It’s a steep downhill journey towards the buffers, or perhaps, in reality, towards a likely lady’s lap.

Usually when groups pick up acoustic guitars to enchant someone of the opposite sex, it’s done so with embarrassing displays of earnestness and passion rather than mischief, which is another way the group subvert expectations here. The fact that while doing so, they have a killer skiffling hook in the mix (Terry and Gerry would have undertaken unspeakable and possibly criminal dares to own this chorus) and know exactly when to stop is a sign that none of this is random, despite Rolo’s jazzy vagueness about their methods. It just feels eccentrically plotted, but unlike the off-kilter experiments of a lot of indie acts, it’s a scheme that Pops rather than jars.

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

57b. Jesus & Mary Chain - Upside Down (Creation)


 













Further 3 weeks at number one from w/e 16th March 1985


It's been a while since we've seen an old number one boomeranging back up to the top again, and I'm actually relieved about that - I dislike the way that kind of repetition messes up the narrative of the blog. Still, the facts cannot be argued with, and while The Smiths "How Soon Is Now" was a track with only a feeble grip at the top and a modest toehold in the official charts, "Upside Down" remained a curiosity to casual buyers wandering into Rough Trade. The continued Mary Chain hype kept sales steady, and as soon as The Smiths showed any signs of weakness, the Reid brothers reclaimed their crown again. 

Resting warily beneath them were this lot, who didn't really offer much of a threat.


Week One


22. Balaam And The Angel - Love Me (Chapter 22)

Peak position: 9

With a crash, a smash and a despondent but insistent reverberating guitar riff, "Love Me" cemented Balaam And The Angel's early reputation as an exciting new goth rock act. Sadly, it bears no relation to the parodical Dudley Moore track of the same name, though it does holler as loudly at times - instead, it advises children to follow their instincts, ignore hate, and find their kinfolk. Fair advice from the Balaams, really, offering the kind of hopeful thinking very few goth acts managed.



27.Billy Bragg - Between The Wars (Go! Discs)

Peak position: 27

"Marketed by Chrysalis Records" is clearly written on the back of the sleeve for this one, but in their new 1985 welcoming spirit, the NME let it in the indie charts for one week anyway. 

Stunning how much "Between The Wars" sounds even more stripped bare and underproduced than almost anything else we're discussing today, though. You could be forgiven for thinking this came out on Bluurgh Records; Bragg's honking vocals and the abrasive clang of his guitar sound bare and ragged. Nor is the lyrical content a million miles off the most politicised single on Crass Records, it's just that Bragg has more folk poetry and grandeur at his heart, despite the sonic evidence to the contrary - this is a pro-union song and a prayer for the return of more open and charitable times against the cynicism of Thatcherism, rather than a war cry to kill the rich. 

If there's one thing Bragg gets which the anarcho-punks of the era didn't, it's that sometimes you have to offer your downtrodden audience a message of unity and solidarity as well as screaming for a possible bloody revolution. "Between The Wars" is perhaps a bit too despairing to offer them everything they needed in the hopelessness of 1985, but one picket line anthem is better than none. 



28. D.O.A. - Don't Turn Yer Back (On Desperate Times): The John Peel Session (Alternative Tentacles)

Peak position: 19


29. Severed Heads​ - Goodbye Tonsils (Ink)

Peak position: 29

Australian industrial duo who specialised in synth rackets, audio junk cut-ups from film and television and an ongoing fascination with the perverse and repellant. Much of their work sounds slightly too cluttered and basic to truly surprise casual listeners in 2025, but at the time, "Goodbye Tonsils" felt inventive, threatening and strange. 



30. Rabbi Joseph Gordon - Competition (Bam Caruso)

Peak position: 30

Julian Cope masquerading as a garage rock rabbi, presumably for reasons of career slump boredom and general mischief. There's an argument to be made for "Competition" injecting a sense of purpose back into his life again, though - the road away from Mercury Records and towards Island and further Top 40 success was long at this point, but the abandonment of the introspective psychedelia of "Fried" and towards hard-hitting garage Kingsmenisms possibly started here. 

This isn't to say that "Competition" is in any way essential; it's as likeable but also as throwaway as any genuine garage obscurity you're likely to hear this month. So far as Cope was concerned, though, mission accomplished.



Week Two


9. Conflict - This Is Not Enough Stand Up And F*ucking Fight (Mortarhate)

Peak position: 3

Conflict had a fine way with snappy and abusive single and album titles - this one and "Only Stupid Bastards Help EMI" pop into my head all the time.

"This Is Not Enough" is just over two minutes of agitated noise, grinding guitars and lyrics which veer towards the incomprehensible throughout the anger, but you can guess what it is they're generally on about, and you're seldom far from wrong. Like a lorryload of spare gear boxes and biscuit tins being thrown into a thresher.