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You are here: Home / Forum / Consecutive Compendium of Culture – Salsa, samba, sci-fi, shoegaze, ska, skiffle, soca, soukous, soul, speed metal, steampunk, stoner rock, swamp blues, synthpop – share some superb songs, sonantas, symphonies, stories, samples of stage and screen

Consecutive Compendium of Culture – Salsa, samba, sci-fi, shoegaze, ska, skiffle, soca, soukous, soul, speed metal, steampunk, stoner rock, swamp blues, synthpop – share some superb songs, sonantas, symphonies, stories, samples of stage and screen

by 188 Comments

Summer is shelved, shall we start the succeeding season with special selections of sensational sounds and sights? The compendium has now reached ‘S’ – show what you savour!.
(I think I could almost live with just music from this letter).


Swann and Flanders, (as they weren’t known), sketched by Ronald Searle

I have to start with the Sisters, from back when they were inspired by Joy Division, not Walter White
The Sisters of Mercy – Some Kind of Stranger

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Comments

  1. Status Quo – Spicks and Specks
    I’d taped 12 Gold Bars and wanted more for Christmas. My parents, in their innocence, bought their firist album, full of cod plastic pop psychedelia, not the heads down boogie I was expecting. But it was all I had and I learned to like it. I never knew this was a Bee Gees cover.

  7. S is for a classic Swedish Sketch: “Skattkammarön”.
    Two couples sit down to play a board game after dinner, and things quickly escalates into full warfare…
    (Yes, it’s in Swedish, but the body language and tone of voice is more or less universal)

  9. More Swedes…Samla Mammas Manna (Gather Mother’s Manna) – “Syster System”:

    And the wonderful and quite bonkers “Musmjölkningsmaskinen” (“The Mouse Milking Machine”) – changing musical direction all through the track in the most wonderful way. All the AW prog heads, Mahavishnu and Zappa fans, folk afficionados and lovers of strange and wonderful music who haven’t gotten into “Samla…” yet should frankly be embarrassed!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhDbgp1RX4M

  14. Soft Machine. I remember hearing this track on a transistor radio when it was first broadcast. Loved the first three albums but lost interest once Robert Wyatt departed.

      • Nice to discover a fellow Softs fan Fitter.

        I loved the witty, self-referential lyrics in this song.: Ratledge squeezing a solo and the tea machine down the corridor.

        I don’t think I’d heard a pop song quite like that before.

        I can still remember
        The last time we played on Top Gear
        And though each little song
        Was less than three minutes long
        Mike squeezed a solo in… somehow
        And although we like our longer tunes
        It seemed polite to cut them down
        To little bits – they might be hits
        Who gives an… after all?
        Tell me how would you feel
        In the place of John Peel?
        You just can’t please
        All of the musicians all the time

        Playing now is lovely
        Here in the BBC
        We’re free to play almost as long and as loud
        As a jazz group, or an orchestra on Radio Three
        There are dancehalls and theatres
        With acoustics worse than here
        Not forgetting the extra facilities
        Such as the tea machine, just along the corridor
        So to all our mates like Kevin,
        Caravan, the old Pink Floyd
        Allow me to recommend ‘Top Gear’
        Despite its extraordinary name
        Yes, playing, playing now is lovely
        Here in the BBC
        We’re free to play almost as long and as loud
        As the foreign language classes… and the John Cage interview…
        And the jazz groups… and the orchestras on Radio 3

        • I loved their jazzrock incarnation, featuring the excellent Alan Holdsworth on guitar. They played my university back around 1974 and set up in the mensa. They had a four-channel sound system which was gimmicky but fun, especially after, y’know, a few smokes.

          Sounded something like this:

        • Wyatt at his best…a complete new set of lyrics referencing Top Gear…..I first heard this on the Triple Echo LP set, many years ago….I loved it then and I love it still…..

          • Above reply for @kaisfatdad, of course….but, @declan ,I preferred the version with John Etheridge……I like Allan Holdsworth as a soloist, but I never felt he was a good fit for the Softs….I’m speaking as one who liked ALL the incarnations of Soft Machine, not just the early funny ones….

            • All, you say, Fitter? I very much doubt Land of Cockayne did much to raise your blood levels. Jeez, that they still traded under the Soft Machine name with this bland pile of incidental music (being charitable here) and yes, I did buy the bloody thing..

      • Nicely topped and tailed.

        “Suspect Device” was their first recording (Limited Edition of 500, Red Labels and Had folded/hand stamped sleeve (and yes, I have a copy (pretty sure its a first press, not a later pressing as all the “clues” are there”).

        “When We We’re Young” (inspired by a conversation with Phil Lynott in 1982) is the final track on their last album (so far!))

  28. Stranglers
    Too old for punk? Too proggy/Doors influenced? Just a pub rock band who jumped on the bandwagon?
    None of the above applies, and they’re still going, even though Jet Black (drummer) is 118 years old.

    • I’m slightly disappointed that the whole ‘Talk Like A Pirate (Jim lad)’ thing has proved popular, when ‘Talk Like A Hard Policeman’ has so much going for it.

      *D.I Burnside voice* – ‘You slag, you nonce, you’re going dahn for a five stretch’.

  35. Grace Slick. The godmother of the Frisco psychedelic scene with that extraordinary foghorn voice.

    A tad frightening somehow. I wouldn’t want to meet her down a rabbit hole, I suspect that she’s several Rizlas short of a reefer.

    But I do love those early JA elpees.

  42. We managed to get about 300 posts on the alphabet thread for a really obscure, difficult letter like Q. Goodness knows how many there are going to be for S which is, let’s face it, one of the most common initial letters in the English language. I would be surprised if the entire site starts to buckle and bend with the strain of the number of posts.

    • I wouldn’t be too worried, @duco01 – I think there was a surge of interest because of the challenge. But I don’t mind – just means bit longer to listen to them all…. (I am still enjoying @locust‘s “Sluta När Jag Vill” – hypnotic and calming and fascinatingly resonant.)

      Here are the numbers for the year so far
      A – 40, B – 106, C – 60, D -89, E – 40, F – 116, G – 56, H – 95, I – 48, J – 81, K – 98, L – 102, M – 163, N – 85, O – 81, P – 52, Q – 110, R – 68,

      • Fascinating. We really pushed for the boat out for Q. Can’t wait for X and Z.

        I’m sure you’ve noticed that the Compendium is one of my favourite recurring AW features. It’s the randomness that appeals.

        A bit of a niche interest perhaps? A lot of posts but not so many views as the ginormous threads.

        But when the posts are so excellent, who gives a monkey’s?

        • Thanks for the vote of confidence, @kaisfatdad! It is completely random, in the way that a Peel Show could be. You never know what you are going to get (although with Afterworders, like with Peel, there are a certain number of expectations – who is the Afterword equivalent of the Fall?).

          It is a marmite-y niche interest as you say – an indulgence generously meted out to me by good natured AWers – and not appealing to all that many others. If it could have a lower profile, that would be good, but it usually drops out of the charts in the second week.

          I love the way it’s going this time – so much variety – a big thanks to all contributors – I try to watch all clips – even if I don’t comment on all of them.

  51. The 3rd best album by The Damned is Strawberries.
    Initial copies were available with a Scratch & Sniff cover purporting to emit the aroma of fresh Strawberries and Cream.
    There may have been a mix -up, because my copy smells like several children have been violently sick over it.
    No matter, track 3 is another ‘S’ – Stranger On The Town

  52. The Supersuckers at the Freebutt in Brighton in 1999 or 2000 was one of the most memorable gigs I’ve ever been to. It must have been grossly oversold, absolutely rammed, speaker stacks were wobbling as the crowd moshed into them, people were dancing on the bar…total mayhem.

  54. Glad you liked Thåström @salwarpe!
    Just for you; here’s another S tune by Thåström, “Samarkanda”, a live performance:

    And here he is in his younger days in Ebba Grön – Swedish punk icons, and their most famous song “Staten och Kapitalet”. Well, it’s a cover actually, a punked up version of a song by Swedish political proggers “Blå Tåget”.
    Every Swede knows the words to this song (even I, and I know the lyrics to extremely few songs…)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya6z54IHdu0
    “Side by side, together they help each other out
    The State and the Capital, they’re in the same boat
    But they’re not the ones rowing, dripping with sweat
    and the whip that is cracking doesn’t tickle their fat necks”

    • I very much like the first of these two, @locust – thanks!
      Here’s another from him:

      (Smaken av dig)

      The rough delivery, intense, repetitive musical backdrop and (to me) impenetrable lyrics remind me of Datblygu. Here’s an ‘S’ song from them:

      (Sgorio Dafydd Iwan Dyn Eira)

    • That’s really quite courageous, leading a singalong without microphone support. Electronic amplification is a massive crutch for the vocals, and to hear Brett’s voice against the guitar in that big echoey chamber, although musically not so impressive was rather touching.
      Thanks, @sewer-robot!

  56. “Swing it, magistern” was a hugely popular Swedish musical comedy back in 1940, about a young school girl moonlighting as a night club jazz singer… This scene (and the title song idea, and parts of the story of the entire film, if we’re honest) is very similar to the Judy Garland film “Everybody Sing” from 1938 and the song that gets Judy kicked out of school.
    Here’s the Swedish scene:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7_94j2qYbk
    And here’s Judy and “Swing, Mr. Mendelsohn:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5lUT8BLWFA
    So I guess S is for Stealing… 🙂

  58. The always wonderful Kristen Scott Thomas in “Sarah’s Key”

    Snowtown – excellent film based on a true story in Australia, “intense” would be an understatement

  61. One for the Scandinavians amongst us. I first heard of this band doing a version of Frank Zappa’s “Theme From Lumpy Gravy”. Here they are in 1962 doing Danish hillbilly and looking like weird interstellar relations of Kraftwerk.

  62. Sara Isaksson has won a few friends on the AW thanks to her album of lo-fi Steely Dan covers.

    But there’s a lot more to her than that. Here she is with jazz pianist Anders Widmark’s trio.

  63. Here is some more music from Sweden:

    Burned Sugar – The Polyvox Jam

    And from an LP that I remember was prohibitively expensive back in the late 80s or early 90s.

    Wilfredo Stephenson – Night in Tunisia

      • Wow! I’d love to have seen them. There must have been an interesting latin scene in Stockholm. Sabu Martinez, responsible for Jazz Espagnole, one of the best Latin Jazz albums of all time, Bebo, father Of Chucho Valdes ad more recently known for the Bebo y Cigala and the Egyptian Bob Azzam playing Brazilian music were all there. I’ve got this track of his on a compilation and until today was unaware that it was recorded in Stockholm.

        • I was lucky enough to catch Bebo and Cigala’s gig at the Konserthuset here.

          All Bebo’s mates from the suburb where he lived were there: the atmosphere was amazing.

          I have a salsa-loving friend in Islington, Garrell, who was very keen about Hot Salsa and asked me to buy the album for him. I’d bet good money @alias, that at some point you and he have been at the same gig.

  65. Commenting on the sketch thread earlier about “Allting Faller”, I remembered that its theme tune was this wonderful piece of instrumental music from the great Swedish band Sagor & Swing.
    “In i skogen” (“Into the Woods”):

  66. Slagsmålsklubben – “Sponsored by Destiny”:

    I’m not sure what that video is about, but i like it, and it has some nice views of Stockholm in it.
    Speaking of which – here’s a timelapse video of Stockholm that’s quite nice:

    • Dedicated ‘to the victims of fascism and war’, so not surprising perhaps. Written in 3 days during July 1960, I was astonished to discover, while I was happily grooving round to Apache.

      • Yes and no. The same tunes will serve both, though the schottis tends to be ‘bouncier’ for want of a better term. For reasons I haven’t yet fathomed, I particularly like schottische above all other dance tunes. But different again from the Ecossaise. Strange how so many different folk traditions have evolved a dance named after a country whose dance it isn’t.

        Anyway, now I know that at the next Swedo-Cestrian mingle, I can offer you a dance!

  129. The Soundtrack of our lives – Transcendental Suicide
    They used to caled themselves “Union Carbide Production” buy reference to the accident in Bhopal but the company sued them…

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