W is for WATERBOYS (1983)

W

THE WATERBOYS

(1983)

“An Eponymous Debut”

Welcome, beautiful ones, to Drunken Vinyls, an ambitious project to review every LP Vinyl Record known to man. That’s a massive 26 records! We have likened this undertaking to the seasons; we are now firmly in the winter of our great content.

For those of you new to our enterprise, let us explain: our fallow weeks are taken hunting high and low the high streets of Britain looking for that rarest of treasures – vinyl gold (or as we like to call it ‘Vinyl Gold’). Having found our vinyl gold of preference – in this case ‘The Waterboys’ - we rush-release it to our turntables or ‘decks’ and play it to you – our adoring public. In order to enhance the listening experience, we recommend you join us in drinking one canister of alcoholic beverage per track and help us to write down our thoughts as they occur upon.

Foul language is strictly forbidden – or verboten as some of Bayern Munich’s players might say – as is the use of any portable downloading or playing technology – we’re strictly roots here at Dee Vee towers; or indeed, strictly analogue, because that’s the way it is. So if any of you have I Pads, I Pods, P Pods or any such chiz you can fuck off.

There are rules, this is Britain – of course there are rules:

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DRUNKEN VINYLS

1. Thou shalt play both sides of the record in their entirety
2. Thou shalt drink one can of Fosters or its alcohol equivalent per song
3. Thou shalt record ramblings as they occur to thee for the duration of the running time
4. Thou shalt edit out the swearing the next day
5. Thou shalt not suffer a Blueberry user to live
6. Thou shalt not dare to wind up any Arsenal fan in this, their time of misery and woe, by mentioning any of the following in any order that they occur to thee: Arsene Wenger, Rant, Two Year Contract Extensions, Schweinstieger, Toni Kroos, FA Cup Shock Defeat to Lower League Opposition, No Trophy in Nine Years.

Now? A word from our SPONSORS:

And this week we shall be drinking:

Bloody Marys made with Tesco’s ‘BASICS’ Finest White Rum. Not pleasant but we’re buggered if we’re wasting good booze.

W

THE WATERBOYS

(1983)

“An Eponymous Debut”

But where are The Waterboys? What do they do? How come they to our attention?

The answer to these and many other questions now follow in chronological order but, do remember, most of this we found written on the back of a fag packet discarded from a careless sailor’s pocket whilst enjoying a shore leave drink one sunny Thursday evening in June.

The name of the band was inspired by a lesser known power pop 45 issued by one hit wonders TONIGHT called ‘Waterboy’ – the lyrics can be heard, plainly here but for those of you, like us, who are a little hard of hearing, they unfold thus:

The waterboy, the waterboy told me he was so in love,

He was SO in love,

With the majorette who used to lead the band.

The waterboy, the waterboy told me he was so in love,

He was SO in love,

He’d do anything just to hold her hand.

He drank the water, he drank the water

Have you ever seen a waterboy that don’t?

These inspiring words, poetry almost, enthused young musical maestro Mike Scott – who ironically was from Llandudno, Wales - to form The Waterboys on the SPOT by assembling some unemployed, down on their luck musicians who were nonchalantly loitering around a nearby Hooverville doing a spot of impromptu dusting, a chore from which they were loathe to leave. But the young Scott was nothing if not outrageous in his claims to “Take them to Barbados.” Thus tempted, they assembled outside a local high street charity outlet that smelt vaguely of mothballs, urine and old women’s feet.

“I meant Barnados,’’ explained the unabashed Scott (not actually a Scot).

Thus appeased, Scott (not Scottish) expounded his musical philosophical vision to the assembled musicians. “It’s called ‘The Something Music’,” he explained. “I haven’t quite got the correct – adjective. But it’s coming. It’s definitely on the tip of my – er – what’s the pink thing that sticks to the roof of your mouth if you eat too much peanut butter called?”

The band explored the concept enthusiastically, rejecting the following monikers: ‘The Pink Music’ – too camp; ‘The Stick Music’ – so called because Mike Scott (never knowingly seen near Scotland) was in the proximity of a tree; ‘The Tree Music’ – same reason; ‘The Leaf Music’ – see previous explanation; ‘The Bark Music’ – the tree was in Barking but, curiously, had no bark; before settling on ‘The Big Music’ – after all, it was a very big tree.

The history lesson over, Mike and his musical mechanics (also not Scottish in any way whatsoever) barged into Barnados, tripped over a cardboard box of discarded coat hangers on sale at a very reasonable twenty pence each, and recorded the masterpiece we are now, even now, looking forward to.

TIME TO GET SET UP!

Good News: David Cameron has just announced that the RED ARROWS will be safe for ‘As long as I’m Prime Minister’. PHEW! That’s another 18 months, then!

…crisis at Arsenal…crisis at Arsenal…crisis at Arsenal…crisis at Arsenal…

Are you a fan of Arsenal Football Club?

If so, you have our deepest sympathies, on this sad occasion, the death of your season 2013.

They say that you haven't won a trophy for 8 years under the stewardship of French football coach and good guy, Arsene Wenger. We retort by saying we know clubs who have NEVER won a football trophy whatsoever, indeed one of us supports Wycombe Wanderers; how sad is that? So worry ye not, it is but a storm in a tea cup, a mere bagatelle, a throw of the dice, a slip of the tongue – cry havoc and let slip the Dogs of War!

But, as we’re on this topic, we feel it our duty to point our some of the mistakes, unforced errors if you will, that the mighty Arsene Wenger and the board at The Emirates made, in order that his inevitable successor may flourish and prosper and restore Arsenal to its rightful place:

1. 1. Don’t call your team ‘The Invincibles’. It is simply asking for problems from the outset by plainly setting yourselves up to be knocked down! Think about this unlikely and hypothetical scenario to highlight possible future troubles in store. Your team ‘The Invincibles’ enters a competition such as the League Cup and is knocked out by some tuppenny ha’penny team from Division Four like Bradford City or Blackburn Rovers. Where would that leave you?
   
   
   2. No more gimmicks. Trying to bolster home support and strike fear into the opposition by assembling a football team with references to ‘Arse’ in all names associated with the club was another foolhardy venture and doomed to failure. Admittedly you got off to a good start with Cesc Fabregarse and Adrey Arseshavin – and employing Arsene Wenger was a masterstroke! But sending out your scouts with instructions to look only for and sign ‘arse’ players was an easily misinterpreted direction. No wonder things took a turn for the worse. Just who was Sergei Bumtrinket anyway?
   
   
   3. Don’t go for another French Comedian when looking for a new manager. Le Petomane was only good at farting and Jaques Tati is probably dead anyway.
   
   
   4. Youth Policy. It’s all very well insisting that you are building your team with youngsters that are hungry for success and that experienced players are costly and seed disharmony in the camp, but selling your best players once they have reached maturity sets a very bad example to anyone under the age of twenty. And, in any case, how do these boys decide whose boots they are going to clean and whose shorts to scrub if they are all the same age? Draw lots? Who can hold their breath under water in the team bath the longest? See who can eat the most Monster Munch in five minutes?
   
   
   5. Avoid satirical press conferences. stay away from the gratuitous usage of foreign accents where pauses in discourse are filled with noises such as ‘but-um, but-um’ (references to arse again); avoid such trickery as ‘I am ‘ere to talk about Bay-urn,’ followed by ‘No questions about Bay-urn today will be answered’ because this confuses and alienates journalists. Cold hard stares also irritate people if followed by: ‘Why you look at me, kid?’ unless they are in the film Taxi Driver.

Good News: Comic Relief is back! How great is that? We can’t wait for those whacky antics like ‘Cake Off, Bake Off and ‘Get your Knob Out for 50p’!

Horsemeat in Burgers Scandal

We here at Drunken Vinyls have been rocked to our very foundations, and we don’t mean by AC / DC, Judas Priest or ANY other Rock Band, before you ask, by the recent revelations that we have been force fed horsemeat. One of us is very partial to ‘Econo-Save Beef Lasagne’ for dinner and not adverse to that mangy tinned Beef Bolognese either. So imagine our anger to find that we have, for all these years, been eating the sort of slop we’d expect to find in a French restaurant!

What next? Frogs legs in our pork pies? Traces of snail slime in our bangers and mash?

But on reflection, we saved our sympathy not, as you might assume, for all the inadvertent donkey munchers out there, but for our nation’s children. The British people, a race of kind hearted animal lovers and keeper of donkeys that are past their best and countless ponies being forced to tell our children what those heartless scum had been up to in pursuit of a fast buck.

To redress the balance – a little – as best we can, we now present this comforting bedtime tale, we found in an Eastern European market,  to soothe those most upset; our children.

A BOOK AT BEDTIME

The REST of this BOOK is, QUITE FRANKLY, OBJECTIONABLE!

WE are APPALLED and cannot reproduce it here.

We mean, would you really WANT to read these other pages?

Abattoir Away Day

Pasta Play Time

What a Carve Up

Ready Meal Surprise

Removing the Plastic Film

Microwave Instructions

Happy Comes Home! (in cling film)

Disgusting.

W

THE WATERBOYS

(1983)

“An Eponymous Debut”

Side One

"December"

Nice to review a record we actually like and admire, for once. Breath and it begins with a Bloody Mary and an ominous echoing reverberating chord. Rhythm section appears to be a click track drum machine. The double tracked chords rise majestically then – Mike Scott, voice cracking, accent warbling, guide vocal. December IS the coolest month, lyrics that take us right back to where we came from. The song is horizontal, a one note and the tension is released with a rising chord change. In the background, what is that melody that seems like a response and call – played by a guitar? This is magnificent. When first you listen to a track the lyrics are unimportant but as appreciation grows, they start to resonate. Here are some choice phrases picked out; poetry and imagery we feel:

December isn’t always cold, this time she’s mine and I know why.

I’m stricken with fever but my heart is strong as steel

There’s a plague of fools thrown aside forever, by her soft and silent grace

Reckless as a mayday, gentle as a stone, ready to go anywhere

And that is only the beginning, dear friends – go, now – find this record own it, play it, love it. A peerless opener to an LP – where to now, Mike?

"A Girl Called Johnny"

We read once that this might be a paean to Patti Smith who only had one mediocre record – an underwhelming punk anthem called ‘Because The Night.’ Because the night what, harridan? Because the night likes jelly, trifle and dream topping? We wish he had written this for us, we’re far more deserving than Panty bloody Smith. How come all these so called punk princesses get all the good guys? Didn’t Ray Davies once have a thing with Chrissie Hynde? At least she had the taste to cover one of his songs. Oh and Bacharach, too.

Well the tune, the tune: A piano intro accompanied by a marching beat played on drum and a snarling tambourine, mixed way UP - dominated with a sorrowful minor chord saxophone literally wailing and gnashing its reedy teeth – we should get a glissando on that piano, we really should - accompanied by drums or drum machines – we are not sure – that ring out an ominous steady mid tempo thrash. Scott’s voice talks of leaving town, getting on a train – boy did she get ON that train, ashes and sand and, well who would dare? Did she burn down that house or not? We will never know.

It’s another classic, friends. This record just improves!

"The Three Day Man"

We are amused. Three day man, track three and Bloody Mary number three – this works for us, is it working for you?

Now that definitely is a drum track set on ‘fast’.  Sleep is a station and life is a train, friends. This is a minor composition next to the previous two, but, and here’s the thing, it is ominous, interesting and it grows on you. There’s some David Bowie influence here from the Aladdin Sane period we think, in the instrumental break. Scott’s voice is quite powerful but you think it might crack on the higher notes.

There was a film called ‘Three Day Man’ or the ‘Third Man’ we think, but we can’t be bothered to check.

"Gala"

We are willing to bet that this isn’t about a pony fete or swimming contest. The lovely thing about coming back to a vinyl you haven’t heard in a very long time is that each song is a mystery waiting to unfold; the chords they are the clues but the subject matter? It could be Science Fiction – after all, The Doctor, they say, came from Gala-frey. A ha ha.

So it begins with a fade-in of high register piano mixed to sound like breaking glass and the ubiquitous drum machine, mixed low, just keeping steady time. There is a long instrumental passage of conversational descending piano chords reminiscent of the soundtrack to a tragedy or horror. Tragedy we think. Call and response and – there’s the bass. Scott’s joins with a melodramatic howl, that just about works, and the instruments now build up to a crescendo.

The second section of the song begins quietly and then the vocals: Gala turns out to be a colourless girl dressed in black and white; some unspeakable tragedy is hinted at, voices in the room next door. We like these lines particularly:

‘Saying things we used to say, but we can’t believe in anymore. We’ve seen too many castles crumble, made too many innocent mistakes’

Lots of sea imagery too, sea, anchors and lost souls being pulled aboard.

The lyrics climax with the scratching of faces with nails until they bleed echoing the first instrumental section and then a gentle fade out which, we see now, is the sound of a parent rocking a child to sleep – until a final chord and then the drum machine fades away.

We think a great song. What do you think? Still no ponies or jumble sold, though.

Side Two

"I Will Not Follow"

Fantastic! Those snarling ‘Diamond Dogs’ guitars are back and cue the saxophone! This is 24 carat Bowie pastiche – and the title echoes a similar U2 song called ‘I Will Follow’. One thing we notice is that Scott will often be sympathetic to the ladies but the men in his life disappoint him. They are either under achievers or gung-ho warmongers.

This is great filler, good rock n roll – all guitar and saxophone, as such, well worth a boogie and a good opener to Side 2.

"It Should Have Been You"

Another story in a minor key. Scott bemoans a fallen hero of his childhood, presumably male, who has underachieved, urging him on – fires don’t burn for those who wait, those people are ‘a sick, sad, surprise’ fantastic alliteration.

This is a super tune, except for the click track drum machine; well you can’t always have perfection. The instrumental break soars upwards, but this is a one note tune – we read that Scott thought he could find perfection in two chords – that could be bullshit of course.

"The Girl in the Swing"

The song opens with those ‘Dear Prudence’ arpeggios and a rolling beat, very slow, funereal atmosphere – now we’re in Siouxsie and the Banshees territory. Scott’s voice is so dramatic, though – subtlety is a word he doesn’t know the meaning of. This is our least favourite track so far, but no harm done, buried, as it is, in the heart of Side 2 . And it’s a slow burner, too – there’s a strange droning instrument low in the mix throughout which adds some texture. We wonder what it is?

"Savage Earth Heart"

Oh this is great, it begins with a gentle but insistent acoustic, up tempo, two chords – you simply know that this is delaying the arrival of the orchestra and, anticipation, yes it builds. Now the drum and piano joins and we’re off! Scott’s voice is warm on this track and the melody is warm too, optimistic – we can’t decipher the lyrics – he sounds like Bono (sorry), he wants to be there. Where? There! Great song, fantastic climax to an almost perfect record. Think we’ll play it again – so should you.

Well that was a perfect start to the evening, dear friends, what a record – and the eight vodkas weren’t too bad, either!

Final Thoughts:

Can we opine that this is a quite ASTONISHING debut? We know we could have picked ‘This is the Sea’ or ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ but the roots are all here, quite beautiful, buy this LP, buy decks if you have to – we can’t recommend it highly enough

So…what have we learnt tonight?

Once Mike Scott (To whom the words of ‘Flower of Scotland’ remain unknown) had disbanded his team of troopers, they gaily tripped back to their cleaning duties, having these words of advice for us all. They explained that ‘Big Music’ was all very well in its place but no substitute for a thoroughly good clean – or ‘spit and polish’ as the Royal Navy would call it. Here, then, are some solid tips for a happier life:

• If hovering without a Dyson, be sure to empty the bag on a regular basis, of course, but not on the carpet just hovered because this will necessitate another hovering of the same bag of dirt. If a Dyson is possessed, bag emptying becomes a non-event due to the bagless nature of the machine.
• If you open the kitchen door on a windy day near some trees in autumn, do not be surprised if some dead and crumpled leaf material blows into the kitchen, necessitating an irksome re-sweeping.
• Dusting need not be a chore if undertaken with a cheery smile and a happy whistle thus banishing those workaday household blues as first copywrited by those loveable the seven happy dwarves from ‘Snow White’ and of course Mary Poppins - ‘Gawd Blimey Guv’nor’.
• Cleaning out your cafetiere? Problems with ground-in coffee grounds? Well, one thing never to do is to rinse it out in the kitchen with a power hose on full blast as this will necessitate a thorough cleaning of all kitchen surfaces. Also there is a 70 percent chance of coffee grounds impacting and lodging in the eye creating severe and painful irritation of the cornea which Doctors call ‘Coffee Grit-Eye Syndrome’. Similarly, if performing the same action whilst dressed only in your underpants, there is a twenty percent chance of something Doctors call ‘Coffee Grit-Under-The-Foreskin Syndrome’.

Good night all. Sweet dreams until next time.