Three Monkeys Online - the free current affairs & arts magazine

Imagine yourself in the anonymous looking high-street of any home-counties English town, on a tuesday morning. As you stroll, minding your own business, a man in a bowler hat brushes accidentally into you. The likelihood - in our admittedly contrived scene - is that he’ll akwardly issue an embarassed apology, perhaps going so far as to lift his hat in a well-practiced gesture to indicate he is no buffoon or braggart but rather an upstanding citizen who has unintentionally invaded your ’space’.

Take a hop, skip, and a jump out of your Anglo-Saxon surroundings, walk down the streets of Rome/Athens/Barcelona or Buenos Aires and you can spot the Englishman at a hundred yards - he’s the one wasting his time every two paces with unsearched for ‘excuse me’s .  ’Personal space’ is a very vague concept here, as people hustle and bustle, open to the sights, smells, and sounds around them.

In the 1980s synthesiser is the musical equivalent of the British Empire - dominant, disliked, and dull. Drop the Pilot, by the immensely talented Joan Armatrading, gives a perfect example of why. The song, a distinct departure from her acoustic guitar dominated sound (think of Love and Affection, or Down to Zero), boasts a memorable riff played on the then obligatory synthesiser. Each note is played clearly, all present in their own clearly defined and self-enclosed space. Play it on a guitar and there’s the danger of the notes bumping fluidly into each other - god forbid! 

Let’s be clear - manners and respect for the rules might be an admirable thing for the footpath, but they make your average song sterile.

That misplaced keyboard riff, coupled with the energetically unimaginative chord progression that the <em>actual</em> guitar plays on this song, should be enough to ban it from any of my playlists - and yet, it seems to often make its way back in. Close a door on it, and this brash, self-confident bruiser of a song will climb in the window without apologies (well, the keyboard riff would probably like to say sorry, but is running with the wrong crowd).

And marshalling all this together is Armatrading’s profound and steady voice, ready to sing any amount of foolishness - ‘Animal, Mineral, Spiritual, Physical, I’m the one you need’ - to get your attention focussed on her rich tones (foolish it may be, but ‘Drop the mahout, I’m the easy rider’ is one of the fineset ‘what is she on about?’ moments in pop history).

There may be some artistic value hidden deep in the mix, but the prime concern with 99% of hip-hop collaborations is marketing ’synergy’.  Like fancy fashion houses developing perfumes, the important thing is establishing the logo, and then attaching it to as many different markets/products as possible. Naomi Klein’s ground-breaking  No Logo may have established its thesis examining big name brands like Nike and Tommy Hilfigger,  but the system it exposed is equally valid for the business empires of Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Beyonce etc.

The genesis of the Judgement Night soundtrack was presumably no different. Take a list of big name hip-hop artists and put them together with big name rock acts, and you’re bound to get a ‘crossover’ hit (the same principle behind the Jay-Z Linkin Park album Collision Course). 

The brand in this case, though, wasn’t sufficiently robust to do anyone any good. The movie sucked, and the soundtrack album while recieving decent reviews and a reasonable amount of airplay, hardly set the world on fire.

Marketing synergy is ironic when it comes to the collaboration between Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul, fallin, that features on the album and is without doubt the best of these thrown together products (neither of the bands had met before the recording). The two bands are forever dismissed - with some reason - as slackers. Groups that should have been huge, but though filled with talent lacked the fire in the belly required for any world-class brand. 

The song breaks all the rules for this type of thing, and is all the better for it:

1) Since the days of Run DMC and Aerosmith the rule is that hip-hop goes with rock (the harder the better).  Even De La Soul seem in agreement, when recently they talked of doing another similar collaboration but with someone like Linkin Park or Korn

2) When two brands meet you have to push the bravado all the way. These slackers base a song not around bling, or pheremones, but about falling flat on your face -  a washed up rapper (’and the teenage fans are heat’). Both groups need a serious lesson in self-promotion from a guru like P.Diddy ( How about a drive-by for starters? There’s seven of you involved, so we can afford to lose one - and it’ll create great publicity)

The song is glorious though, based around laid back guitars, a Tom Petty sample, and De La Soul’s characteristically sloping light-hearted rhymes. It wins the Monkey Tunes award for laidbackness, even though all involved sound like they’re firing on all cylinders, particularly at the end when the groove takes off. 

Of all the Pavement albums, Terror Twilight is the least “Pavement-like” and of all the songs on Terror Twilight, “…And Carrot Rope” is the least Pavement-like and as such as a song it perfectly sums up the band.

To some extent, only Pavement fans would follow that logic, in fact Pavement were to the quantum physics of the alternative scene in the Nineties, in that if you said you understood them, you didn’t. Like the Spherical Cow, that’s the kind of comment that only really appeals to those who get excited by and can spot Star Trek references and in-jokes in other films. That’s exactly who Pavement were.

Terror Twilight wasn’t so much a Pavement album as a statement of intent from Stephen Malkmus on his solo career, but it was less noticeable than in most bands because Pavement had never really stood still. From their early days trying to recreate the Fall for the American College Radio Scene, each new Pavement album brought a new direction from the band, except with a sound and style that could only ever be “Pavement.”

Few bands actually go on to have their own adjective. Even with some of the better, more successful bands, their influences and roots define them more than their own output. Nirvana always owed that bit too much debt to the Pixies and the Replacements, who themselves owed much to Big Star, who themselves owed much to the Beatles and so on. While early on, Pavement’s records definitely owed a lot to The Fall, this soon disappeared when Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was released. From then on, there was no holding them back and by the time their last album together, Terror Twilight, was released they had come to be seen as one of the most important Alternative bands of the Nineties and band that could only be described by, “well, you know, sounds like Pavement.”

When Terror Twilight came to be, every Pavement fan knew this was there last and so were probably in a forgiving mood when it didn’t at first meet the heights of their previous releases. But at its heart it was a fun, light-hearted send off that really didn’t take itself seriously. While the sound was far more pop orientated than any Pavement album to date, this couldn’t care less attitude, along with quality output, seemed to be the only consistent thing about the band over their career.

You have to put the album into context. It was a farewell and a final salute before the guys (who all lived in separate States) got back to their family lives. Then right at the end of that album comes a shining moment of pop perfection. The title alone hints at the final fare the well, a kind of “oh and by the way, here’s Carrot Rope.”

This was still an age, probably now forgotten in the last few years, where track order was important. More so in the CD era when albums were listened to in the entirety without the need to turn it over, so the order of tracks needed to keep a listener interested. The first had to be the hook, especially for those who had taken a gamble on the purchase, it had to put you at ease and keep you interested. Then the order of the other songs couldn’t be too slapdash, you couldn’t have too many slower numbers together, the mix had to be right with the faster numbers. But the ending had to make you want to hit the repeat button. As any bloke who has ever tried to woo a potential mate with a compilation tape/CD will tell you, this is not an easy process. You can whittle down songs to the eleven or so you want, but hitting that perfect order, that takes time.

While it might be old age more than anything else, but when you can pick and chose those songs on an album that you like and ignore the rest in a purchase, there is little need for so much attention to the order of tracks and that’s a pity. The bizarre thing about …And Carrot Rope is that while undeniably great, it didn’t invoke the repeat button feeling. Instead, it was the perfect sign off to a fond farewell. Rather than feel “I must listen to that all over again”, you were left with that waving off the relatives at the airport feeling. It was really nice and we must do it again soon.

On any other album that would be frustrating, but this was a goodbye so it was more than fitting and it didn’t actually prevent you from playing the album over again. Just that if you didn’t, you still felt satisfied that all was well with the world, that George Bailey has finally realised it really is a wonderful life.

The old Pavement tones are still there in spades with the record. There’s the obscure, completely made up references such as what exactly is a Carrot Rope? The thing about Pavement lyrics is that there’s no point really trying to figure it out, while you may think you’ve found the answer, when you listen to the song in full you realise that most of it just doesn’t fit into your analysis of the song. Daytime TV psychics are more accurate in predictions than anyone who tries to figure out a Pavement song.

There are also the slight innuendos for those who have a bit of filth in their minds. “Hey little boy would you like to see what’s in my pocket or not?” can take on so many meanings that you wonder if there isn’t something wrong with you rather than the lyrics. And like all good Pavement tracks there’s the Anglophilic references that occasionally creep in, “the wicket keeper is down” has no place coming from the mouth of anyone outside of Surrey or Yorkshire.

So on paper, it’s a standard Pavement track, but on listen it isn’t. The fond farewell is encapsulated buy the opening verse where every band member gets the chance to add to the harmonies. Not unusual for most bands, but for Pavement involvement form other band members tended to be limited to squeaks, squeals, screams and yells, here even Mark Ibold gets to sing.

To some extent it’s a pity that the harmonies don’t last longer than the first verse, but maybe that’s how it should be. Not that this gives Malkmus too much of the spotlight, but that too much of a new and good thing might have been too much for this last track on their last album.

There is no definitive point to start with Pavement, you either get them or you don’t, so irrespective of which track you begin with it’ll be for you or it won’t. But sometimes it can be best just to start at the very end and to work backwards. While taken out of its context, this song may not have as much meaning to the uninitiated, that history cannot detract from what is a genuine, cheerful little pop classic.

You just know in your heart of hearts, that it’s not really a goodbye, just a see you around…maybe.

There used to exist the perfect bar. It was on a sidestreet off Amsterdam’s main square, simply sitting there, waiting to be stumbled on. For years I used to go back there, sure each time that it wouldn’t dissapoint, until that dreadful winter evening when I turned up after an evening flight from Dublin, only to find that, for whatever reason, the place had gone leaving boarded windows and faded advertising posters in its place.

For the perfect bar, there’s also the perfect evening. It’s summer, and the air is warm but not stifling. The streets are busy with locals and tourists alike. You need to be on your toes in this city, to avoid being run down by a determined bicyclist whose only obligation to your safety is a nonchalant bell ring.

You walk into the bar, with a friend, ready to meet other friends. Soon you’ll have the whole bar almost to yourself given that it seats at best twenty people. Almost, because it’s important to leave space to possibility, to new arrivals and new avenues for the night to take.

The door, such as it is, remains open allowing a constant contact with the street - a shaft of light spilling in to the dim recesses of this long and shallow bar. You drink strong and sweet Duvel, unhurriedly, savouring the smell and texture, while beside you a friend starts rolling. The bar-man is friendly but unobtrusive - fiercely practical.

Towards the back there’s a pinball machine with lights flashing enough to give a sense of movement in this still space, but no-one in this perfect bar will ever be so out-of-place as to actually play a game here.

Then, as you start to feel that giddy tightening of your stomach, moments after your first drag, the only thing missing is the music - but no fear, there’s a jukebox filled with genius, right behind you. Sly Stone is there, beside Thin Lizzy. REM jostles for space with Solomon Burke, and for later in the night we can choose between Jimmy Cliff, Janis Joplin, or the Pixies. But right now there’s only one song you want to hear, because every perfect night needs a start somewhere:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Going Down to Liverpool by the Bangles.

That pounding bass drum, chiming guitars and those roller-coaster vocals. Forget that it’s the bangles, forget that it’s a song originally written by the Waves (as in Katrina and the Waves) forget everything, and sip your beer while tapping your toes against the foot-rests of your bar stool, in this perfect bar. Everything else can wait.

Don’t break the spell here - click on play, and close your eyes, cause this video will ruin everything

I had reservations about picking a tune so newly-lodged in my mind for the Monkeys Tunes (great idea, by the way - reviewing single songs). Ever-mindful of the ‘o.k computer fallacy’ (where Q readers voted radiohead’s then latest album as the greatest album of all time), I was more inclined to pick something sure to stand the test of time.

But then again, this is a tune that almost immediately provokes a number of questions that, in themselves, make it worthy for discussion - plus, I’ve a sneaking suspicion that in years to come some version or other of this Zutons song will still, rightly, being played (like O.K Computer).

The main question the song begs relates to authenticity. Prized, almost above all-else, in criteria for evaluating a ’serious’ artist, sincerity or ‘keeping it real’ has become a weighty millstone around the neck of modern rock. You might not be able to sing brilliantly; you might not be able to write a sophisticated bridge; you might not even - god forbid - look the part, but as long as your song is sincere you’re liable to be taken seriously by someone somewhere. Is this a good thing?

The first version of this song that I heard was on the BBC Radio One live Lounge album. A bluesy admirably drawled-out version by the Diva Amy Winehouse. Now, the first time a song sticks in your head, that particular version has an automatic head-start on any other - as I find out to my detriment when it took me years to displace Gary Moore’s pompous bombastic version of the Yardbirds Shapes of things in favour of the immensely superior earlier version by the Jeff Beck group (with the much-maligned Rod Stewart singing his soulful heart out).

So the second version of the song was always going to have a hard time competing, even though it came from the original authors of the song, the Zutons, performing a live version on the self-same BBC album. Not a bad version of the song, with plenty of space, and cracked vocals oozing world-weariness from the Liverpool band. When weighed with the other versions bouncing around, though, this version of the track sounds uncomfortably like a busking band (albeit a good one) making a decent stab at it.

The third version was the actual studio version by the Zutons, which strangely swings more than their live performance - in particular the guitar punctuates the melodic bass line allowing the song to pulse and swell. The band get, in a sense, to reclaim their work.

It’s at this point that we finally get to the version chosen above all others, as this Monkey’s tune - and it’s down predominantly to the role of producer Mark Ronson. From the opening drumbeats, this is a song ramped up into an entirely different and better context. The beats could be straight from The Supremes You can’t hurry love, but this is no pastiche. He takes an earnest indie love song, and through crystal clear ’50s beats and the extraordinary voice of Amy Winehouse (finally channeled into something worthy of it) manages to make something that sounds current, captivating, and just the right side of edgy. The gender confusion of Winehouse singing throws out questions:

“‘Cos since I’ve come on home, well my body’s been a mess
And I’ve missed your ginger hair and the way you like to dress
Won’t you come on over, stop making a fool out of me
Why won’t you come on over Valerie, Valerie.
Valerie, Valerie?”

How do we interpret Winehouse’s voice? Should the song then be read as a call to herself? Should it be taken as a Lesbian love song? Should it be taken as a simple example of brilliant technicians performing a role? We’ll take this song, obviously written by a man for a woman, and get a woman to sing it convincingly with 100% soul, just to show you we can. The singer as performer and actor, and take your authenticity and shove it. ‘ 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of big-producers, who can take a song and wrap it in their trademark sound. If I had a Papal dispensation, I’d round up the Mutt Langes and Timbalands of this world and dispatch them to a console-less pit. Ronson will probably get on my nerves just as much, should he continue to be flavour of the month (though he’s done an admirable job of improving Maximo Park’s apply some pressure, a song I already loved). In the meantime, though, let’s celebrate the crafted elevation of a good song into a brilliant one. Its a credit to all involved.

The artist Robert Luxemburg, in the thought-provoking Steal this film II (freely available through bit-torrent - download it, watch it, pass it on), talks about the absolute fear that record companies and the film industry have that the average consumer will, with the aid of cheap technology, morph themselves into producers. With the aid of filesharing and sampling software, the idea goes, we’ll be able to see that the Emporors really have no clothes on.

Where does that fit in with this brilliant tune from a Dublin vanished-without-a-trace band called  Moneypenny? Well, it’s a song that encapsulates that moment when admiration mutates into inspiration, when a band finds a voice of its own.

The local health authorities can attest to the fact that during the mid-late ’90s Dublin had the highest infestation level of singer-songwriters in the English singing world. Turn a corner in the Hibernian capital, and you were likely to run into an angst-ridden, seldom-washed troubadour busking their latest sparse offering claiming some direct connection with Rimbaud, or Van the Man at least.

Against this backdrop, a blues guitarist/singer Dave Murphy bravely held an open mic night in Dublin’s decidedly dingy International bar. The open mic (or lack of mic, in reality, as the venue was so small it needed no amplification) dragged both the best and the worst songwriters out of the woodwork, and every tuesday night you could hear the sublime (Mundy, at the start of his career), the ridiculous, and a collection of dirges that would have been better off remaining in the bedsit where they were composed. On various occasions, though, a truly special song would shine through, and become week in and week out an anthem. Moneypenny’s ‘hangin out with excellence‘ easily became one thanks to its immediate melody, its lightness of touch, and its limpet-like ability to stick in your mind.

“Hang out with Einstein, he knows it all
Hang out with Jesus, if your name is Paul
Hang out with God himself, he gets it right
Come to the International Bar, on a Tuesday night”

Self-referential without being arrogant or elitist (they cast themselves very much on the ‘hanging out with’ side of the equation); passionate without being earnest, and clever without being either calculating or slick, this is a perfect pop-song (it clocks in at just over 3minutes) which captures the uncertainty and longing of a band’s first faltering footsteps

One of the other reasons I love this song is because it has become that rare thing, a song that stands on its own, uncontaminated with images of the band that produced it. Ask me to tell you something about Moneypenny, aside from the fact that they crafted this genius of a song, and I’ll draw a blank. Blame it on the fact that there’s a richer American band of the same name, perhaps. Search for information on the band, and you’ll be dissapointed. I saw them, at most, two times, and yet the chorus of their song burned in the back of my mind, until, thanks to the charity of file-sharing, I stumbled upon the song and managed to get a copy. Now it’s a regular in any playlist - holding its own in the company of excellence