Yep, your eyes are not deceiving you, Alice Cooper covers Pretty Ballerina by Pop Junkie gods The Left Banke. This is not hot news, by the way, he did it four years ago on his Dirty Diamonds album. I just found about it this afternoon and thought you might be as astonished as I was.

I am fully aware that were you to archive the 250 (give or take) Pop Junkie posts that I’ve written you may find that I often use the adjectives sublime or exquisite reasonably regularly. There is a good reason for this. I choose what I want to write about and tend to write about what I like.

However, by any yardstick, the Left Banke’s Pretty Ballerina is as sublime and exquisite as anything ever produced. You can throw haunting and dreamy at it as well. From the pen of keyboardist Michael Brown, everything about it is, well, just awesome; the voice of Steve Martin Caro, the orchestration, particularly the oboe (is there an ocarina in there as well?), the sheer oddness of the song = pop perfection on a par with God Only Knows, Waterloo Sunset, I Heard it Through the Grapevine, Say a Little Prayer, The Man with the Child in His Eyes, Get it on, Love Grows and Tin Soldier.

Now, for all I know, Alice Cooper may have been knocking out albums full of baroque pop gems, inbetween rounds of golf, this last third of a century. I only know Schools Out and Elected and, great as they both are, somehow imagine that he has continued to plough this rocky, perhaps tending towards metal, field ever since. Still, if it compels a few geeky longhairs to check out The Banke, then all well and good.

Do I subscribe to the ‘this is a masterpiece that shouldn’t be touched’ theory of covers? No, I don’t think so, but don’t quote me on it. Depends how much of a balls up one makes of it, I suppose? Certain songs leave one more open to abject failure. In this instance, Mr Cooper hasn’t done too bad a job. He’s kept close to the original, replacing the piano with an acoustic guitar, and though it lacks The Banke’s magic, it’s a perfectly okay piece of MOR pop. Which, you may find a criminal offence in itself, turning gold into bronze, but a guy’s gotta earn a living, and I expect Michael Brown got a payday from it. Though seeing as he wrote Walk Away Renee, I doubt he has too many money worries.

It would appear that Eels, The Bluetones, John Mellencamp and even the The Dickies (the Banana Splits punks? I presume so?) have also had a bash at it. I suppose I should investigate further, but somehow doubt that I won’t come across an abomination. Now, where’s my copy of There’s Gonna be a Storm?

A few days ago I wrote that I had returned to Scott-mode, my ‘normal’ state; that of being incapable of listening to anything other than the works of Scott Walker and The Walker Brother. About three weeks ago I got stuck on one song for around four or five days. It was a song by a band who were new to me, discovered via the wonderful Shindig compilation that I reviewed here.

For a while I only got as far as track 11  because I was listening whilst cooking dinner or tea. When I finally got around to playing the rest (for the review), track 14 blew my head off and I probably played it about 60 times over the next few days.

The song was called Into The Night Sky, a stunning piece of modern psych-rock from Scotland’s Hidden Masters. Take a listen ~ the song is currently up on their myspace. The trio are formed by drummer Johnny Wolfe, guitarist Dave Dixon and bassist Alpha Mitchell. All three also sing.

I knew nothing about the trio, read a little about them on their Myspace and found they’d recently changed formation having been a five-piece. Alpha was kind enough to answer some further questions.

1. Let’s start with Into the Night Sky & the Shindig CD. Did Shindig approach you? If so, do you know how they became aware of you?

It’s very nice to be on there. I’ve known Jon and Andy for many moons; both were friends and supporters of my erstwhile combo Bangtwister (featured way back in Shindig vol.1 issue 4) and are splendid fellows.

2. Did you set out to write in such an odd time signature or did it just turn out that way once the band started rehearsing it?

It’s the work of Mr Wolfe which yours truly saddened with a minor chord change then damned with a Satanic Sabbath riff at the end. The time signature came as part of the package when he first sang and played it to us. That boy’s not right. Actually, I reckon he’s EXACTLY right.

3. I don’t know the Needles - Were they cut from a similar cloth?

Our story for these purposes begins with The Needles, featuring Dave Dixon, Johnny Wolfe and Paul Milne, a splendid Powerpop outfit with Garage and New Wave tendencies who made quite a name for themselves with some smashing songs and a vibrant live act, releasing several singles and an album, ‘In Search Of…’. Having been working up some of the material which was to form the basis of what we do now, and gradually evolving into something quite different indeed, I was enlisted to play lead guitar, being a good friend and sometime bass understudy. I brought with me Nic Denholm on keys (with whom I had been collaborating in The Likes Of Us and had latterly played in The Owsley Sunshine), whereafter the group took on a life of its own, with all five us singing and contributing ideas. This lineup played little more than a dozen shows, did a session for BBC radio, and self-recorded 11 songs (conceived as an album) before the gold-paved streets of London Town spirited Messrs Denholm and Milne away from us.

4. Have Dave & Johnny joined Alpha’s band or are you an egalitarian trio?

Our tale could have ended there, had it not been for the epiphany I experienced one night, in which I pondered that, were I to switch to bass (my first instrument) and incorporate the salient points of the missing guitar and keys parts, It Might Just Work… and HEY PRESTO! Not only DID it, but it’s even better than before, the chemistry between the three of us is special, and we’re a much more dynamic live band now.

5. Is the song still in your set?

‘Into The Night Sky’ is always aired.

6. Amazing - I noticed The Fallen Angels occupy the first place on your Top friends. Is this deliberate or random? Their Room at the Top is an all-time fave of mine and a true lost psych masterpiece. A big influence on the HM?

The Fallen Angels are a huge favourite of mine, and a major influence (on me, at least). I’m especially keen on the ‘It’s A long Way Down’ LP, and regard them as truly unsung greats, with so much depth and originality. The songwriting, arrangements and playing are magical, and their recorded legacy in general is an embarassment of riches indeed, only telling a mere fragment of their story. I’m currently working on a feature on them for Shindig with the co-operation of the band themselves. It’s been a lengthy process, mostly because quizzing sexagenarians about the events of forty years hence can take a little time, but it’ll be well worth the wait. Stay tuned…

7. I was impressed by your small but judiciously chosen set of influences and intrigued and impressed to see Johnny Kidd, Buddy Holly & Gene Vincent listed. Not many people who dig the whole garage/psych thing bother to trace it back to those guys. I suppose that’s not really a question, just an observation. Okay, here’s a question. Were you fans of the rock’n'roll stuff prior to discovering say Nazz, Zombies and The Byrds or did you work backwards to them?

It’s very much a gestalt; we all write, and have a very broad pallette of influences on which to draw as we each have diverse tastes. To simplify matters, and generalise to an extent, you could say the Kidd/Vincent/Holly thing comes mostly from Dave, who is very much the moody-yet-sensitive early-Rock’n'Roller in his singing and stage presence, John brings a kind of upbeat West Coast folk-rock melodic sensibility and I darken the proceedings with a menacing Hard-Psych-Prog mood. Or sumat.

8. I also see The Thanes and Wildebeests on your friends list. Are they chums or guys you feel a musical kinship with or both? (I’m a pal of Russ Wilkins of almost 3 decades and a more recent pal of Lenny Helsing)

I’ve known Lenny even longer as an excellent musician, beat historian and dear friend. Russ, also, is a stout fellow, and produced Bangtwister’s ‘Grounded’ ‘45 at Toerag Studios in September 1997.

9. Any chance of seeing you cross the border to play (London specifically - that’s where I live)? Have you played in England previously?

We played at The Acid Gallery at the George Tavern in London back in February with the MK1 edition, and were planning to return soon afterwards but lost a fair amount of momentum with all the musical chairs which took place around that time. We’ll come again if invited (and the price is right!). We ideally want to take this beyond the UK, primarily to Europe and the US as there just isn’t much happening here from what we can see.

10. Have you done a BBC 6Music session? If not, why not (have they got cloth ears or simply not heard of ye)?

As for BBC6 Music, I don’t suppose they know of us yet. You have our permission to make an introduction on our behalf. As previously mentioned, we did a live session for BBC Radio Scotland last December.

11. What’s next for the band? Gigs/tour/discs? How are things shaping up for the first album? Is it all recorded yet? Do you have a label to put it out?

As far as our recordings are concerned (some of which can be heard on MySpaz), they are a specific body of work created by an effectively different entity and as we thus far haven’t had any interested parties or benefactors, nor the resources or budget to release it ourselves, and given that we’re rapidly moving on from it musically, it’s destiny is unclear. Our set at present still comprises most of those songs, but we’ve been working on some very exciting new material which we shall be unveiling soon. We’re aiming to get the album out one way or another early next year, probably on CD (groan) with a download single ahead of it, all primarily in the interests of having some kind of “product” available to use as a promotional tool.

12. Is the lack of covers (so I’ve read) a deliberate policy or just the way it’s worked out?

We have neither the inclination nor the energy or time to invest in playing covers though, that’s just not what we’re about.

13. Some dumb(er) questions to finish - Favourite Zombies Track?

Favourite Zombies song? Where to begin? (other than ‘…Here’, that is…) For starters: ‘Don’t Cry For Me’, ‘Indication’, ‘She Does Everything For Me’, ‘It’s Alright By Me’, ‘I Want You back Again’, anything by Chris White…

14. Who’s the greatest pop songwriter?

Oh my giddy aunt. There is no “greatest pop songwriter”, there are way too many candidates to mention and such an accolade is entirely subjective in any event. Define “pop”!

15. Is Charlie Watts not the coolest dude in rock history?

Charlie Watts is indeed a fabulous guy, and easily the connoisseur’s Stone. My favourite Charlie moment may well be punching Jagger out in the 80s for referring him as “my drummer”, adding, “I’m not your drummer - you’re my singer.” His drumming is none too shabby either.

16. I always ask this - are you Elvis fans? If so, please name your fave tracks.

My choice Elvis stuff would be mostly Sun-era; ‘I’m left. You’re Right, She’s Gone’, ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, and the obvious ones. Dave’s the Presley man, I’ll ask him.

Dave says: ‘Lawdy Miss Clawdy’, ‘My Baby Left Me’, ‘Polk Salad Annie’, Run On’, Blue Moon’, ‘An Evening Prayer’, ‘Blue Moon Of Kentucky’.

17. I gather you’re originally from Sirius? What’s it like? Were there buses on Sirius?

Sirius was a good 5000-or-so years ago, and could be better described as more of a race-memory than anything else. You probably wouldn’t understand. Travelling mostly by Vimana meant we had little or no need for buses, as you would think of them.

18. What colour are the buses in Glasgow?

Glasgow buses now look much the same as buses anywhere else in the UK. They used to be orange, and before that, yellow, green and cream. Those were the ones I liked best. Such primitive vehicles, though; you have so much technological catch-up left to play on your world.

Bingo! Thanks Alpha. You can see them at The Goat (wherever that is?) this Sunday (October 4th) and Paisley’s University of the West of Scotland SU on October 17th.

Not that I was pondering who is likely to be the next rock star to be knighted. After all, there’s been Cliff, Macca, Jagger, Elton and St Bob. No, I just happened to be playing the brand new Slade Live at the BBC double disc yesterday afternoon and, overwhelmed by the music, the thought struck me that what we have here is a bona fide National Treasure. As clear as day is the thought that Nod should be recognised in an appropriate manner for his services to rock’n'roll, checked trousers, stack boots and top hats with mirrors on them. Oh, and for services to show business.

Ignore the fact that Max Bygraves and Brucie should also get one, we’re talking here of rock’s next knight, for there will be another in due course, won’t there?

So, then I began wondering who could prevent Nod from getting one.
George Michael may have had a chance if Di was still with us, but I expect he’s ballsed up his chances on more than one occasion.

Eric Crapton? Possibly, though possibly more for services to the Tory Party than music. (Never been to a Tory fundraiser, but I can’t possibly imagine that Wonderful Tonight isn’t the slowie floorfiller at each and every one. Plus the Yuppie air-guitar anthem Layla ~ Great song, but the thought of a marquee full of old Etonians, masons and Gareth Cheeseman’s doing their thing is just too much).

Phil Collins? All I can say about Phil is that he supported Terry Thomas during his final days for which much respect is due. The rest I’d rather gloss over.

Mick Hucknell? Possibly. But wouldn’t it just be better if they gave it to someone who made great music. I mean truly great. I don’t find Simply Red offensive, just a little bland. No crime, but no banana either.

Bowie? They don’t give knighthoods for genius as far as I’m aware. Besides, still hasn’t shaken off the stigma of Tin Machine, who were not as bad as is commonly perceived. Wouldn’t it be great if he could muster one more great song? Something to sign off with? As it stands, his last great number was Ricky Gervais’ Pathetic Little Fat Man.

Bryan Ferry? Hmm, well-connected. Another genius, though he has also dabbled with bland. Could be a dark horse.

Sting? The bookie’s favourite. But vapid music that does border on being criminal. Don’t Stand so Close to me and Englishman in New York are just appalling aren’t they?

Keef, Charlie, Bill, Ringo, Plant & Pagey? Somehow, I don’t think so.

No, there is only one clear candidate. Sir Neville John Holder. Do you know anyone who doesn’t love Slade? I don’t necessarily mean that they’re anyone’s favourite band, but he’s surely rock’n'roll’s Stephen Fry. Everyone loves Nod, don’t they?

There is no greater song that espouses good old-fashioned family values and unity than Merry Xmas Everybody, is there? It’s not a song you’ll find on the aforementioned BBC album, being that the sessions within date from their pre-Bacofoil years of 1969 to 1972.

I told you on Tuesday that it was going to take something special to get Scott Walker off my turntable. Well, they don’t come much more special than Nod and the Slade.

Disc one is a mostly great selection of psych-rockers, Quoesque boogiers, pop songs and the odd ballad. Great covers too, particularly Traffic’s ‘Coloured Rain’, Janis Joplin’s ‘Move Over’, Moby Grape’s ‘Omaha’ and Fairport Convention’s ‘It’s Alright Ma, It’s Only Witchcraft’.

Boy, is this a band I’d love to have seen in their pomp, and in their pomp is pretty much where we find them on disc two, on 17th August 1972, a month away from their third number one. A blistering eleven-track live set of stomping rock’n’rollers thrashed to within an inch of their lives ~ punk rock in all but name. We get a sensational world premiere of Mama Weer all Crazee Now and an absolute masterclass from Nod in winning over an audience. He has them banqueting out of his hand (apart from the ‘erbert at the back shouting “rubbish”!).

This is a magnificent album. Can’t recommend it too highly.

Oh and a message to Gordon. If you’ve only got six months to save your career, this could be a great feel-good vote winner. Sir Noddy ~ you know it makes sense.

Lucy O’Donnell has died at the age of 46 after suffering from lupus for many years. I saw the story on the front page of The Times as I went shopping for a spaghetti squash just now. It appears all of the major news services have run the story so it may not be news to you, but I found it a poignant tale and thought I’d pass it on.

For it was Lucy who was drawn by four-year-old Julian Lennon at nursery school in 1966 and thus inspired one of the few decent songs on a vastly overrated album.

The Times tells the story in most detail and a sad one it is. What an awful disease. Not much more I can add.

My apologies to her family if it’s inappropriate to run this as a ’story’, but it’s a reflection of the power The Beatles still cast. RIP.

Doing this Pop Junkie lark normally goes hand in hand with listening to music. Sure, I can ramble on about Bowie, Marvin gaye, Blur and Jarvis in my sleep, but it is usual for me to take a listen whilst doing so, just to set the mood or remind myself of a half-forgotten minor-gem album filler.

When it comes to reviewing albums it is, of course, imperative to listen to the thing. Yes, I could net surf and get a consensus, but do you think I trust someone else’s ears? Anyway, I’m putting my name to it. I have my integrity to think of!

I have a few albums lined up to review and there’s a good chance I’m going to like them (Mayer Hawthorne’s for instance), but alas, I cannot review them at present. The reason being that I have gone into Scott mode.

This current bout was triggered by my reading Anthony Reynolds’ (he of Pop Junkie favourites Jack) splendid account of Scott & The Brothers published by Jawbone Press, which I have reviewed for the forthcoming issue of Shindig.

This is no new affliction, I’ve been an Engelist since 1985 and it’s not my only such condition. I have The Kinks too. Periods where I can listen to nothing else. There is no way of telling how long this will last. Days, weeks… all I know is that at the moment I am incapable of listening to anything but Scott Walker and The Walker Brothers. The condition will alleviate when it thinks fit. I have little control over it. Until then, you’ll have to bear with me.

Next, next…

Johnny Dankworth? You mean Sir John Dankworth, of Johnny & Cleo fame?

Yep.

This is Pop Junkie, nor Jazz Junkie. What place has he here?

Well, it’s simple. Let’s Slip Away is a new 39 track double CD of soundtracks and themes composed (or played) by Sir John between 1960 and 1973, and if you find me a pop fan who doesn’t like a good film theme I’ll give you a million pounds.

Like those without an ear for classical music, I am not what you’d call a jazz buff, but we would unite in our appreciation a good film score, probably combining elements of both disciplines. The likes of Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein and Leonard Bernstein in Hollywood, Ennio Morricone and Michel Legrand on the continent and John Barry, Barry Gray, Stanley Myers, Richard Rodney Bennett, Ron Grainger and Johnny Dankworth over here.

And there were dozens of others. And their influence has been huge. Magazine, Portishead, Radiohead, Goldfrapp, Air, The Soundcarriers, Saint Etienne, Stereolab, Broadcast, Nick Cave, the list goes on.

Let’s get a couple of disappointments out of the way. Missing from this exhaustive selection compiled by Martin Green and Bob Stanley for eclipse (can’t for the life of me find a website for the label), are the themes to Saturday Night Sunday Morning and Billy Liar. There is a SNSM theme, but it’s the Cleo vocal title track (Let’s Slip Away) borrowing strongly from Elmer B’s Man with the Golden Arm score.

For years I have wanted both the clarinet piece that accompanies Albert Finney’s Arthur Seaton as he prepares for a night on the booze (and again when he and Norman Rossington go fishing), plus the xylophone and clarinet tune that follows Julie Christie’s Liz in the Billy Liar street scene. This album is culled from cuts originally released on Fontana when a lot of incidental music for film didn’t get an audio release. (To my knowledge, the only version of Billy Liar ever put to disc is on a hard to find Acker Bilk album).

Disc one also contains incidental music from Pinter/Losey/Bogarde’s The Servant and Accident, plus Sands of the Kalahari, Darling, The Idol and swinging pieces from Modesty Blaise.

Track 10, Life is a Wheel, one of many Cleo vocals on this album is just exquisite (vaguely reminiscent of Bacharach-David’s Are You There With Another Girl). A wistful ballad of the sort that were ten a penny around the time that Ray Davies was penning Waterloo Sunset, but this is among the best you’ll ever hear. From Scruggs, whatever that was, but simply delightful.

This is then followed by the jaunty, breezy theme from Morgan, A Suitable Case for Treatment, another delight. Is that a marimba, harpsichord or zither among the brass and flutes? Couldn’t tell ya, but it’s very nice.

Disc two is subtitled Home Entertainment and mops up TV works (The Frost Report and Beefeaters are particularly outstanding the latter of which will be instantly recognisable to those of a certain age. I’ll not spoil the surprise but it’s a treat) and concept pieces built around Dickens, Shakespeare and the zodiac.

This is an album of serious and seriously good music whether for full orchestra or small combo; mellow and wistful, bright & breezy, big & brassy, light & cerebral, not all of it immediately catchy, but for a tenner I can’t see any reason not to buy it.

You even get the full version of this…

I can’t pretend that I’ve had my finger on the pulse these last ten years. In fact, apart from my love of certain Britpop acts, I haven’t truly had my eye on the ball since 1982. That said, I am sure that I know a damn fine pop song when I hear one.

I heard one about six years ago when a pal loaned me Broadcast’s Noises Made By People released early in 2000. It was a good album, very good, but had one song that stopped me in my tracks. Metaphorically - I’ve never been one for walking around with earphones attached unless Test Match Special is on.

Last night Marc Riley played the track on 6Music, but a different version to that on the album. Much slower, but it was equally as good and thus a rare, almost unique case of a band playing with their own material and not goofing it up. Now, I’m struggling for examples to back up that last sentence, but remixes apart (again, not my cuppa) which don’t count, I hope you know what I mean. A band tries to slow down or speed up a familiar number and it’s always pants isn’t it? This is perhaps a live trick. Hey, recognise this one, ain’t we clever? No, you’ve messed up your best song. Ray Davies, seems to be a great one for this. I remember seeing televised concerts of the Kinks in the 70s and 80s. Awful versions of his beautiful songs, heavy on cupped-ear audience participation and turgid Dave solos (where once he had been a Wonderboy).

Anyway, if anyone can tell me where this alternative version of Come On Let’s Go exists I would be most grateful. I’ve checked a discography, Spotify and youtube to no avail. I suppose it could be a BBC session?

As for my assertion that it’s the best pop song of the last decade, well I realise this is open to debate, but just thought I’d throw it out there. What has it got to compete with? Coffee and TV certainly, but that was 1999 (10 bloody years ago!), as was Marine Research’s jaunty Parallel Horizontal. I am partial to Spiller’s Groovejet, Outkast’s Hey Ya (though it falls in the heard-it-too-often category) and the complete works of Art Brut, but for me this ethereal, slightly mysterious song with its detached vocal is simply wonderful.

Postcard Records almost passed me by. Another year older maybe and I’d have been there. By almost, I mean that I read about this whole new sound going down in a faraway mythical land called Scotland. Bands with names like Orange Juice, Aztec Camera and Josef K. I saw their pics (floppy 60s hair, ties, cardigans, tweed jackets) and read their interviews. I loved what I saw, but was too young to see them on rare London dates. I’d look at the indie chart in the NME and four or five of the ten would invariably be (postcard) titles. And the titles were weird, or at least enticing, too; Radio Drill Time, Chance Meeting, Falling and Laughing and Simply Thrilled Honey.

Then came the NME C81 cassette with the three bands contributing three ace songs; OJ’s Blue Boy, JK’s Endless Soul (still one of my most favourite ever guitar tracks) and AC’s We Could Send Letters. Without which we’d have had no twee, probably no C86 and possibly no Franz Ferdinand.

Their sounds and look were a collective mix of the Seeds (who I had still yet to hear), The Velvets and Spiral Scratch-era Buzzcocks. Orange Juice’s Felicity is a pop masterpiece. A shambling, joyous cacophony, as if Motown had moved from Detroit to Glasgow. But Pop Junkie readers know all this, don’t ya?

The reason I’m writing these words this morning is that BBC4 have done another one of their excellent music documentaries and it’s on the i-Player for another 3 days. I met with two pals who I know to be Postcard and Edwyn nuts at the weekend, neither of whom knew of the doc being broadcast. So I figured it may be worth telling you too.

Caledonia Dreaming told the story of pop in Scotland, which started apparently with Alan Horne’s DIY operation Postcard. (Marmalade, The Humblebums, The Skids and Bay City Rollers didn’t get a look in). With some delicious archive footage it traced a path through Altered Images, Wet Wet Wet, Del Amitri and The Proclaimers to Franz Ferdinand. (Oddly, I don’t recall Simple Minds or Big Country being mentioned).

The highlight was Clare Grogan and bandmate (sorry, don’t know his name - Clare was Altered Images) saying that it was cooler to be on Jim’ll Fix It than on the OGWT (not wrong there), and that a TV exec had tracked down the 10 year old boy whose dream came true in 1981 to appear with them. They were going to make a Jim Reunited type programme, except that the twerp was now a lawyer and had no wish to speak to Clare. What a dullard! She’s still cute by the way.

This documentary was followed by a welcome repeat of Home Again, the film which tracks Edwyn Collins in the years following his stroke as he fights to regain his speech, memory, ability to walk and even attempts to play guitar. He does so with stubbornness, grit, a great deal of self-deprecating humour and the heart-warming support of his wife and son. “I’m alive”, is Edwyn’s mantra. The film culminates in him treading the boards once more at a packed Dingwalls. That was two years ago, a pal saw him this summer at Lounge on the Farm Festival and thought him inspirational, which is pretty much the conclusion you’ll get from this programme. If you haven’t yet seen it, you should. Honestly.

An ideal excuse to post this (alas, can’t find Felicity on youtube).

As kids, my sister and I used to sit with our Nan each Tuesday to watch Vision-On and waspishly pass comment on the gallery paintings with the artist’s age displayed underneath. Along the lines of “That’s good for five…not bad for seven…that’s rubbish for ten.” The process usually has to be inverted for reunion gigs. The Bonzos were wonderful when I saw them in 2006…for 70 year-olds. No such allowances for age needed to be made for Saturday night’s reunion of The Claim.

Ignore the fact that this was one of my Top 5 bands of all time playing for the first time in 17 years. By any objective assessment, this was a magnificent gig, 20 pop songs of exquisite loveliness played by four middle-aged dads with all the zest and freshness of the 25 year-olds they once were.

Let’s get the only downer out of the way. The band had modestly underestimated the interest generated by this self-promoted gig, designed to coincide with the imminent release of their retrospective CD Black Path. As many as fifty people were turned away at the door, some having travelled from afar, who then formed a “rather sad and forlorn party” at a nearby boozer.

In the band’s defence, the venue for Saturday’s gig was twice the size as that of the setting for their final performance in January 1993 and no-one was turned away on that occasion.

The rest is nothing but good news. Like any band reunion, it is not just the protagonists who are renewing acquaintance, but fans who would have been on nodding terms way back seeing vaguely familiar faces, but can’t quite put names to these folk with less hair and wider girths. In some instances, 15 year-olds look slightly familiar, and then you realise that these are the children of so-and-so.

And it was the considerable number of offspring at the show who helped to make this such a joyous occasion. Kids who had never seen their dads play (Callum Best never saw his Dad in a Man Utd shirt, I wasn’t there when my Dad hit his only hole-in-one on the golf course) could be seen in the front row with proud smiles, mouthing every word of each song. It warmed the cockles.

The Claim’s songs (they don’t play covers) have always had a strong theme of family and place about them. They’re country boys, from the tiny village of Cliffe-at-Hoo on Kent’s Hoo peninsula, a desolate part of the world visited by few. Charles Dickens took inspiration from its bleak marshland landscape for the opening of Great Expectations.

The region was not unaffected by Thatcher’s policies and, although not as overtly political as some during those dark days, Read and Arnold did occasionally tap into the general helplessness of living under a regime you had not voted for.

I’ve written about the band previously on Pop Junkie so have no great need to go over familiar ground, but lest the band are new to you, Ray Davies’ observational songs of the struggles of the working man and family life (a la Shangri-La, Situation vacant, Picture Book, Days) would be a good signpost to The Claim. It is not hyperbole to state that their canon of songs rubs shoulders with the greats of musical ‘Englishness’ ~ Davies, Difford-Tilbrook, Dury, Madness, Weller (c. Setting Sons) and Blur. They wrote of similar characters, ordinary people with ordinary lives, with the same insight and clarity as any of the aforementioned.

Of course, The Claim had already played that farewell gig by the time Blur rose to magnificence with Modern Life is Rubbish, a precocious younger brother of their own second album, Boomy Tella. Claim fans will always wonder what might have happened if they’d stuck it out for another year. Black Path, with its eight unreleased gems, will fuel such what-might-have-been wistfulness.

The band have weathered remarkably well, it must be said, as well as their material. This cannot be put down to the Cliffe air, for although frontman Dave Read and drummer Martin Bishop still live relatively nearby, guitarist and co-songwriter David Arnold lives in Brighton and bassist Stuart Ellis resides in Cornwall.

What exactly did they play? Pretty much what you’d expect. I didn’t take notes. It was a ‘Best of’ plus some of the unreleased gems unbeknown to the majority of the audience (Between Heaven and Woolworths, Dear, Being a Minor, Do You Still Feel). I’ll update this with a set list if I can get one.

Please check photographer Phil Dillon’s brilliant snaps on his Flickr site.

For 25 year olds, it would have been magnificent. Indeed, those who did see them back then (c.1987-92), including young Bob Stanleys and Richey Manics, would agree they were rather magnificent. However, for 44 year-olds, it was simply awesome.

Black Path is released on Rev-Ola next Monday (28th September).