The Cygnet Ring

I absolutely loved this song by The Cygnet Ring when it came out and fully expected it to be a huge hit. The label were flogging copies cheap in the major chain record stores and it was getting plenty of radio play, but the chart smash I predicted never materialised. I was actively mocked by at least one friend for thinking this was a great pop song but I still stand by it today. The single version at least..



Going back to my earlier post about my penchant for 12" remixes, there was a textbook example of an extended remix gone bad for this single.

The Cygnet Ring - Love Crime [12'' Extended Mix]

It seems like they ripped the heart out of the song and replaced it with a hip and trendy baggy beat. It's not that bad (you'd have to be going some to ruin a tune like this) but it just seemed a bit half-arsed. According to the credits this was the early work of Guy Fixsen who worked with almost every shoe-gazing band of note and went on to be part of the excellent Laika so can be forgiven for this remix folly.

NB - yes I know I've labelled this post as 80's 12" Mixes and this came out in the early 90's but it's all the same to me.

Lloyd Cole

One of the great era-defining pop marketing innovations of the 1980's for me is the 12" Mix

Now in the digital age - it's amazing how many of these extended mixes have been forgotten and remain hidden away on a slab of dusty vinyl somewhere. Artistically they usually held very little merit - as the artists themselves were rarely involved and most considered them a vulgar bastardisation of their original art. Which means that when albums get reissued in their deluxe 21st Century editions, the lost 12" mixes sometimes don't get a look in.

But artistic preciousness aside, as a listener I absolutely loved them, and surely that was the point?

This chap has an amazing blog which concentrates almost exclusively on high quality vinyl rips of 80's 12" mixes and is a veritable treasure trove

http://burningthegrounddjpault.wordpress.com

However - be warned there is a LOT of Sheena Easton and Olivia Newton John involved over there so steel yourself.

But I digress - I know that Lloyd Cole is planning a companion volume to the Clearing Out The Ashtrays boxset
http://shop.lloydcole.com/products/cleaning-out-the-ashtrays
that concentrates on the Commotions period, but I bet he doesn't include the 12" mixes of the Easy Pieces singles.

It'd be a real shame as Brand New Friend and Lost Weekend both have great extended versions. Up until a few months back I didn't even know there was an extended version of the "flop" third single Cut Me Down, as I only owned the Double 7" edition, but I picked this up on 12" at a record fair for a couple of quid and lo - there it is!

Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Cut Me Down (12" extended remix)

It's a text book example. Instruments dropped out on the extended intro, then the main part of the song, followed by a dubby interlude (just put some delay on the drums - that'll do..) and then a longer outro.

Despite the fact it didn't fare too well in the charts, I adore this song and Cole still plays it live in his "Folk Singer" Set (if you've not seen him play live in the past few years then I can't recommend the following CD more. It's excellent)

http://shop.lloydcole.com/products/the-whelan

I had to laugh when I saw him in Buxton last year as he explained that the beauty of doing acoustic versions of the old songs is that he can leave out the crap middle 8 if he sees fit and no one says anything. Hence you could say the version he plays these days is the artistically enhanced shortened mix..

Lloyd Cole - Cut Me Down (Acoustic - Live At The Whelan)

Hopefully I'll post up a few more of my favourite 80's 12" mixes in the future.

Zeke Manyika

Unfashionable as it may be to admit it, but I prefer the Polydor-era Orange Juice work to the Postcard-era.

Most likely because I discovered them through Top Of The Pops and Smash Hits in '83/84, and not via John Peel and some badly photocopied fanzine article in their earlier days. By that point they were already trying to live the fizzy-pop over-produced 80's dream and had abandoned the ramshackle lo-fi approach. The turning point, it seemed to me, was the employment of a fantastically funky and talented drummer by the name of Zeke Manyika who seemed to give Edwyn's pop songs a bouncing soulful sheen. (NB I fully intend to dedicate an entire future post to the Flesh Of My Flesh single in all it's majesty)

By the time of the last Orange Juice album, the group had simmered down to just the two of them and it's still my favourite of their records.

The urban myth goes that Edwyn was unceremoniously dropped by Polydor after that album and then mortified to find that they kept Zeke on contract enabling him to go on and release a solo album and a couple more of his singles for the label.

The album Call & Response is very much in the same style as the tracks he contributed to the Rip It Up album, infusing African rhythms and melodies with 80's pop stylings, and the second single Heaven Help Us (Try) is probably the stand-out track. Contrary to the aforesaid myth I guess that Edwyn must have been happy enough with the situation because he illustrated the single sleeve with some excellent pencil sketches.

Posting it here also highlights one of my other aural fetishes - the 80's 12" Mix (but more of that later...)

Zeke Manyika - Heaven Help Us (Try) [ManyanaMegaMix]

Zeke also got dropped by Polydor after this record but returned a few years later with (the superior) Mastercrime album on Mute (and an NME front cover) before disappearing again. One for the "where are they now?" file i suspect.