Carter USM


Thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing

Just for silliness, and inspired by yesterday’s TMBG episodes, I’m declaring this a song titles and lyrics in post headers weekend (all the way through to Monday). Lyrics will be acknowledged and, where possible, a link to a relevant amazon page provided.

This one Abba

Previous post (after editing) Carter USM


PWEI

Before Abdoujaparov and Jim’s Super Stereoworld there was Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. And before that there was Jamie Wednesday a ‘jangle-pop’ band who were briefly unsuccessful before going their separate ways. Apart from spawning one of my all time favourite bands they are also tangentially responsible for the name of Pop Will Eat Itself after the phrase was used in an NME review of JW.

And tonight I download all 8 Wednesday’s tracks.


Safety Annoucement

Team Spinneyhead bring you an important safety announcement. Whilst travelling at high speed under no circumstances should you listen to 30 Something by Carter USM. This CD has been shown to induce manic grinning and the urge to drive faster. Seriously though, I spent the weekend working in Warwick and on the drive back I was listening to 30 Something and Frank Black (by Frank Black). I’m lucky I didn’t have a passenger as the sight of me driving at about 85 mph whilst singing along to the music and grinning like a maniac would have scared them to death.


Songs

Inspired by this Observer article, itself inspired by a Nick Hornby essay collection, I’m throwing open a Team Spinneyhead challenge to name and explain favourite and important tracks from our pasts. They don’t have to be ranked, mine are going to tumble out in the order they occur to me.
Stupid Girl by Garbage. An all time favourite for all the right reasons- excellent song, great lyrics, nastiness as pop perfection- and all the wrong ones. Suffice to say there’s a tale, but it’ll make me look all spiteful, childish and bitter. Check out this for art imitating life, so I don’t have to elaborate.
Stress by Jim’s Big Ego (Flash video) The summer of 2000, sitting in a little office downloading songs on company time, doing the bare amount of work and no-one noticing. Little did I know this song was about the year to come.
After The Watershed, Say It With Flowers and The Only Living Boy In New Cross by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. Let’s see. I pulled to Watershed (another event recorded for posterity, but less vividly, in fiction), Flowers gave me the title to Sounds of Soldiers and New Cross was a mad bastard driving song for 2001.
I Can’t Imagine The World Without me by Echobelly. Just brilliant. This lot arrived in 93/94 and were only overshadowed by Oasis. As great as the Burnage boys were, Echobelly deserved far more attention than they got.
Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve) by The Buzzcocks. Pretty much sums up my relationship with the subject of Stupid Girl.
Small Blue Thing by Suzanne Vega. Ah, first love. So sweet, so innocent, so utterly, utterly embarassing. Dedicated to Amy Hunter, who I had the biggest unrequited crush on when I was seventeen.
I’m Not In Love by 10cc. Because I’m just a disgusting, soppy romantic.
Don’t Let Me Down Gently by The Wonderstuff. Loud, loud, loud, fun, fun ,fun.
Let It Be by The Beatles. September 13th 2001. I was living with a guy who knew people who worked in the WTC, but I was far too fucked up by work to be any use or comfort. The radio alarm went off and I hit the snooze button, but got up anyway. When the radio came back on it was this song and I just stopped what I was doing and cried.
There are more, but I think I’ll save them for another post.


Just a quick mention of carterusm.co.uk.

I received my copy of Ding Dong, the ‘official bootleg’ CD of the last Who’s The Daddy Now? tour on Monday. Cool.

You can get copies from the Abdoushop. If you’re not an old time Carter fan like me, or you weren’t there on one of the nights they were recording (Mean Fiddler), then you should probably start with one of the Abdoujaparov, Jim’s Super Stereoworld or old Carter albums first.




Seeds

The tri motor banked and pointed itself east along the valley. A river lazily wound its way to the plain beyond, a spur feeding a large rectangular reservoir. There was forest and pasture on the northern slopes and mills and light industrial buildings on the southern. There was no airstrip.

�Did we read the map correctly?� Reed wondered.

�Two of the best pilots in the world getting lost? I think not.� Horse chuckled. �Watch, this is very clever.�

There was activity by the reservoir. Sluice gates on the feed channel were wound shut, and those on the drain channel opened. As Horse lined up his landing, the water level dropped sufficiently to reveal tar pack only a few digits below the surface.

�Flaps down.�

�Flaps down.� Reed echoed, mesmerised by the hidden runway.

�Gear down.�

�Gear down.�

They cleared the dyke at the western end and gently touched down, raising a plume of water behind. Horse only needed two thirds of the runway to get to taxiing speed. He pulled off the main runway, pointed to a ramp and cut the engines. The doors of the nearest building had opened and more ground crew and a light tractor were rushing over to them. Before the plane had even been pulled to the ramp, the water was flowing back into the reservoir.

�I had heard of this place. I never believed it really existed.�

�Well now you know. Welcome to Dreamland, just wait until you see the toys they have for you.�

Two turntables and a microphone- King Adora- Vibrate You, Carter USM – A World Without Dave, Carter USM – 101 Damnations, Blur – The Great Escape, Elastica – Elastica, Bentley Rhythm Ace – Bentley Rhythm Ace, Terrorvision – Shaving Peaches, Breakbeat Era – Ultra Obscene.


Randomly-
Okay, I got a little obsessive about finishing Gran Turismo 3, but not so obsessive as to create a weblog and post my results to it.
More Carter USM memorabilia is popping up on EBay.
In the text to one of my pics of the day, I wondered what linotype was. Well, Brian posted me this link and this one, which answer everything.
People find it hard to believe when I tell them one of the reasons I quit my last job was boredom. Well, this, is how bored and how much spare time I used to have. I’d spend quite a bit of my time cyberloafing as well.



Okay, I’m crap. It was raining, so I didn’t go to see the triathlon. Watched a bit of it on TV though, if that counts. I have managed to get photos scanned in up to date, but not HTML’d up and posted to the server yet.
Whilst writing the little bit of Eliza Effect that went up on Friday I was struck by a deeper plot which sort of became obvious. By the end of the third or so draft, it should form something more coherent than just a series of blunders and bad management decisions. What? You’ll have to wait and see.
Music be the food of Lurve- Blondie- Denis, Hut Recordings 1991-2001, Carter USM- 30Something, Gomez- Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline, Kinesis- Worship Yourself, Ash- Free All Angels, Primal Scream- Screamadelica