1985 - The Waterboys

It's only the end of February and I think I've already discovered the possible Boxset of the Year!

Mike Scott of The Waterboys really knows how to put together a set focusing on a particular album in the history of his band. You only have to look at the brilliant Fisherman's Box (2013) - 121 Tracks, 80 of which had never been released before - to see how true that is. This time around the spotlight shines on what I consider to the best album they have ever made, 'This Is The Sea'.

The 6CD set tells the story of the making of their third studio album over the course of a mammoth 95 songs, 64 of which are previously unreleased home recordings, early demos, alternate versions, outtakes, live recordings, and tv/radio sessions and ending with the remastered version of the 'This Is The Sea' album.

I listened to the set on Amazon Music yesterday as I don't have the £70+ pounds for the Limited Edition version and will wait until April for the cheaper version to be released (with only 3000 copies worldwide I doubt I would have got a copy even if I had the money as it's already sold out in a few places I checked).

The 'This Is The Sea' album was the last to feature Karl Wallinger (who departed to form World Party) and the first to include violinist Steve Wickham.Other musicians who played a part in the recording of the album include Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello and The Attractions), Lu Edmonds (who has a fairly diverse musical CV from The Damned, The Edge, The Mekons, Kirsty MacColl and Public Image Ltd, to name but a few), Matthew Seligman (Thompson Twins and Thomas Dolby) and session drummer Chris Whitten (who has played on hits by Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians, Julian Cope and Paul McCartney).

I don't know about you, but I am such a musical nerd that I love discovering the back stories of how an album or a single came to be made, especially if it's a record that I like. This set confirms my utter nerdiness! Little gems arise that you can barely contain yourself, like for instance Tom Verlaine (Television) playing lead guitar on a fast version of "This Is The Sea". My inner geek is strangely warmed! 😀

Some folks over the years have moaned that the 80s totally sucked when it came to music (I've never understood how anyone ever comes to that position as I could name many excellent singles and albums from that decade that have stood the test of time more than forty years later) but I point to "This Is The Sea" as just one of many examples of how untrue that complaint is.

I have included the playlist below for the complete Boxset below (thanks to YouTube) for your listening pleasure.

1985 - The Waterboys

 Chrysalis

23rd February 2024

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 Formats
6CD box with 220-page book Limited Edition of only 3,000 units worldwide.
6CD Clamshell Boxset with 56-page booklet (due for release 5th April 2024).

 

 Listen To The Complete Album Here:

 

 
This Is The Sea - Limited Edition Clear Vinyl LP 

Track List For the 6CD Edition:

CD 1. Towers Open Fire:
Trumpets (Radio Session)
Be My Enemy (Prototype 3)
The Ways Of Men (Session)
The Waves #1
Old England (Demo)
Towers Open Fire
Down Through The Town
Ribbon Of Steel (Live)
Bury My Heart (Live)
The Three Day Man (Live)
Medicine Bow (TV Performance)
This Is The Sea (Live)
A Door For My Soul Home (Demo)
Son Of Rags
In My Bed
The Pan Within (Inst Demo)
Even The Trees Are Dancing (Full Length)
Theme
Fuzz Guitar Vamp
Death Is Not The End

CD 2. The Black Book:
Beverly Penn (Piano Demo)
Don’t Bang The Drum (Piano Demo)
Be My Enemy (Piano Demo)
The Day I Ran Out Of People
Winter Blows
The Mercenary And The Samaritan
Looking For Dickon
Spirit (Piano Demo)
All The Bright Horses
Custer’s Blues (Piano Demo) / The Woman In Me
Paris In The Rain
The Song Of Sitting Bull
Talk About Wings
The Whole of The Moon (Writing of)
The Pan Within (Piano Demo)
No Sun In The Sky
Winter In The Blood
We Belong To The World
The Whole of The Moon (Piano Demo)

CD 3. A Sky Full Of Crows:
Medicine Jack
Medicine Jack Boogie-Woogie
The Sound Of Snow
The Pan Within (Inst)
It Should Have Been You, Guitar Play
Old England (Early Take)
Old Macmichael Had A Band / Sweet Thing
Ruby Don’t Take Your Love To Town
Spirit (Full Length)
Then You Hold Me
Trumpets (Instr #1)
Rain Come Down

Son of Dirt
This Is The Sea (Drumatix Version)

CD 4. The Ladder:
Medicine Bow (Elemental Rough Mix)
Trumpets (Inst #2)
Be My Enemy (Rough Mix)
Sleek White Schooner
Sweetheart Like You
This Is The Sea (Fast with Mike Lead Guitar Demo)
Adrian And The Piano Storm
Beverly Penn (Synth Version)
This Is The Sea (Fast with Tom Verlaine Lead Guitar Version)
The Waves #2
The Ladder (Demo)
Beverly Penn
Don’t Bang The Drum (Livingston Mix)
Ribbon of Steel Slide Guitar
Paisley Park

CD 5. Mountaintop:
The Whole of The Moon (Livingston Mix)
High Far Soon
This Is The Sea (Livingston Mix)
Medicine Bow (Full Length)
The Pan Within (Wickham’s First Play)
Miracle / World Party (Demo)
I Am Not Here
Born To Be Together (Session)
Higher In Time (Session)
The Whole of The Moon (Video Version)
Meridian West
Don’t Bang The Drum (Session)
Medicine Bow (Session)
Behold The Sea
Beverly Penn 2023

CD 6. This Is The Sea (The Album):
Don’t Bang The Drum
The Whole of The Moon
Spirit
The Pan Within
Medicine Bow
Old England
Be My Enemy
Trumpets
This Is The Sea

Mojo Review.

40 Year Anniversary: Declaration - The Alarm

I first saw The Alarm supporting U2 at The Lyceum Ballroom, London 20th December 1981. U2 were touring on the back of their second album 'October'.

I was totally unaware that The Alarm had released their debut single in September 1981 ("Unsafe Building"/"Up For Murder") and I was even more unaware that they had previously been a Mod band called Seventeen.

I had been standing in the upstairs bar when I heard the sound of Acoustic Guitars and what could only be described as a sort of cry of the heart and a call to arms all at the same time:

"Take this song of freedom

 Put it on and arm yourself for the fight

Our hearts must have the courage 

To keep on marching on and on"

Then it burst into a song called "For Freedom" and I was hooked. Every song seemed like an anthem waiting to be sung by the masses, except only a few knew who they were that night. It was sort of Punky without being Punk or sort of Folky without being Folk and Rocky without being Rock. In other words, very difficult to describe and maybe that's why I felt drawn toward them because they were like nothing I'd really seen before.

 

I have to confess that I remember little about the U2 set because I was absolutely blown away by this band who were totally new to my ears. It had been a very rare thing when the support band had stood out at the gigs I had been to up until that moment.

I saw that they were also on the following evening as support but it was way too difficult to get a ticket due to the ever growing popularity of U2.

 I would have to wait awhile before I saw them again and by that time they had released another single called "Marching On".

By 1983 they had signed with Miles Copeland's I.R.S. Records and contined to release some cracking singles: "The Stand" (April 1983), "The Alarm EP"  (June 1983) and their first Top 30 single "Sixty Eight Guns" (September 1983, reached #17 on the Charts).

A month prior to the release of the debut album came another great single in the form of "Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke?" that peaked at #22. An excellent foretaste of what was to come. "The Deceiver" (May 1984, #51) was the only other single released from the album.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Declaration - The Alarm
I.R.S. Records
Produced by Alan Shacklock
Released 13th February 1984
UK Album Charts #6
US Album Charts #50

Listen To The Album Here:

Side 1*

 A1 Declaration

A2 Marching On

A3 Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke

A4 Third Light

A5 Sixty Eight Guns

A6 We Are The Light

Side 2*

 B1 Shout To The Devil

B2 Blaze Of Glory

B3 Tell Me

B4 The Deceiver

B5 The Stand (Prophecy)

B6 Howling Wind

*All the links here are from the 2019 Remastered 'Declaration 1984-1985'

The Alarm
    Mike Peters - vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica
    Dave Sharp - acoustic and electric guitars, vocals
    Eddie Macdonald - bass, guitar, vocals
    Nigel Twist - drums, percussion, vocals

Back in the day you didn't have all the details of a band available at click of a mouse or on a phone, yes kids, the Internet wasn't a thing back then. To access what was going on with a band you could sign up for a newsletter by post or you would read about them in the music press (who were not always favourable towards The Alarm), other than that it was TV performances on Top of The Pops or The Tube or The Oxford Road Show, where you would catch them or maybe a DJ on the radio took a liking to them and would spin their latest record.

Your streaming service back then was you physically getting up and putting the record onto the turntable and getting up to turn it over to listen to side 2. 😆

I have a number of Favourite Debut Albums that I have bought over the years and 'Declaration' sits sweetly among the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Eddie and the Hot Rods, The Clash, The Specials, Slade, Buddy Holly and The Crickets, Gene Vincent, Ramones, Blondie, Television, The Psychedelic Furs (to name but a few). I think I have bought it on Vinyl, Cassette and CD as copies have been played until they have worn out. 

When it comes to playing the album I always think that this one sounds much better when played from start to finish rather than today's habit of cherry picking a song here or there. That's not to say I don't have favourite songs on the album, because I do, "Tell Me" and "Howling Wind" are two of them.

Forty years on from its release I still think it sounds great and as a result of finding The Alarm that night back in 1981 at The Lyceum I have made some true and lasting friendships from many different places. I wouldn't trade that in for the world.

Wayne Kramer (April 30th 1948 - February 2nd 2024)

Wayne Kramer of the MC5, Gangwar (with Johnny Thunders), and Solo artist, songwriter, producer and film and television producer passed away yesterday at the age of 75.

Kramer came to prominence with Detroit rock band MC5 in the late 60s who he co-founded along with Rob Tyner, Fred "Sonic" Smith, Michael Davis and Dennis Thompson.  

The band recorded two studio albums and a live record as their debut. Click on the links below to listen to the music.

Kick Out The Jams (Elektra 1969)

The album debut album was recorded at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit (a place where the MC5 had been the house band) in October 1968 and was released in February 1969. It reached #30 on the album charts in the States.

Back In The USA (Atlantic 1970)

According to Wikipedia page on this album "The central focus of the album is the band's movement away from the raw, thrashy sound pioneered and captured on their debut release. This was due in part to producer Jon Landau's distaste for the rough psychedelic rock movement, and his adoration for the straightforward rock and roll of the 1950s". In doing so Landau sucked the energy of the band's live performance out of them (something he would also do five years later when he was involved on the production of Springsteen's 'Born To Run' album). In saying that it's worth mentioning "The American Ruse" (an attack on the US Government's concept of "freedom") and "The Human Being Lawnmower" (which exposes the band's opposition to the US involment in the Vietnam War) showed that the old dogs wouldn't be silenced, even if their sound in the studio was not so good.

High Time (Atlantic 1971)

Lenny Kaye, writing for Rolling Stone in 1971, called the album "the first record that comes close to telling the tale of their legendary reputation and attendant charisma". The album though was an even worse commercial disaster than 'Back In The USA'. Dave Marsh wrote in the liner notes for the 1992 reissue, "Sadly, High Time's 1971 release represented the end of the line for MC5. Hard drugs had entered the band members' lives, and within a year they'd split up, drifting off into various other configurations. At least two members wound up in federal prison on drug charges, and they never did reunite before the untimely death of Rob Tyner in mid-summer 1992.

One of the members who ended up in jail was Wayne Kramer.

In 1975 he was convicted of selling drugs to undercover federal agents and was sentenced to four years. After his release he moved to New York City where he teamed up with Johnny Thunders (probably not the best move as Johnny was still having "drug issues" in his life) and they formed Gangwar. It was a rather short-lived project and although there were some studio recordings done they didn't see the light of day until a French release in 1996 called 'Crime of the Century'. There's also few live recordings that are around, not great by any means, but they give a wee flavour of the chaos!

A totally different change of pace in 1981 saw him as studio and touring guitarist for the Self-titled Was (Not Was) debut album.

He moved around the country a bit in the 80s and early 90s working as a Carpenter but always managed to connect with the local music scene in New York, Florida and Nashville, producing and doing session work and by 1994 he was back in Los Angeles kicking off his Solo career with the self-produced album 'The Hard Stuff'. 'Dangerous Madness' followed in 1996, 'Citizen Wayne' in 1997, 'Cocaine Blues 1974-78' in 2000 as Wayne Kramer & The Pink Faries. In 2004 there was even a Free Jazz album with the Lexington Arts Ensemble called 'Lexington'. That's just a snippet of some of the music he was doing in these years.

On May 1, 2009 Kramer attended a sold-out benefit where he was honored for his work with the nonprofit Road Recovery at New York City's Nokia Theater. The following day, on May 2, 2009 he along with fellow musicians Tom Morello, Jerry Cantrell, Billy Bragg, Perry Farrell, Gilby Clarke and Don Was among others, played for inmates at Sing Sing prison.

Following the Sing Sing concert, Kramer continued the work of Jail Guitar Doors in the United States. Kramer, Billy Bragg and Margaret Saadi Kramer founded Jail Guitar Doors, USA in 2009. Thereafter Kramer provided instruments, workshops, and prison concerts across America. More than 50 penal institutions throughout the United States have benefitted from the organisation.

 "Let me tell you 'bout Wayne and his deals of cocaine
A little more every day
Holding for a friend till the band do well
Then the DEA locked him away" - (Strummer/Jones)

 Jail Guitar Doors - The Clash

Jail Guitar Doors (Acoutic) - Wayne Kramer

Last year, Kramer announced the upcoming release of  'Heavy Lifting', the first MC5 album since 1971’s 'High Time' and featuring original drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson alongside Tom Morello, Don Was, Vernon Reid and Slash. "At the risk of sounding grandiose, fate has cast me as the curator of the MC5 legacy," Kramer told Uncut last year. "And to be true to the legacy, I have to stay connected to the basic founding principles the MC5 represents: that we have a working-class approach to the art, and that we continue to try to push the music forward to reflect the world that we live in." The album was scheduled for a Spring release, no word if that is still happening.

Kramer died of pancreatic cancer on February 2nd, 2024