COLLAPSE BOARD

The Legend! live (with Shop Assistants, Galaxie 500, Nirvana, Calvin Johnson)

Thought I’d upload a couple of songs on to YouTube.

UPDATED 26/7 amended title of my sixth single back to ‘The Ballad’ (it was never called ‘She’s Always Hiding’). The opening chord sequence came about as an attempt to play The Velvet Underground song ‘Femme Fatale’.

The Ballad (featuring Alex from Shop Assistants)
This is the A-side of a Constrictor single that came out in 1988 (Germany only). Recorded by Jowe Head in London somewhere: Jamie would’ve played on it for sure, and Simon (another old housemate), and possibly Alison Wonderland on drums? Not sure. Alex co-wrote the other side, and also sang on that one. This song is kind of an obvious rip-off of The Servants (Luke Haines’ pre-Auteurs band) song ‘She’s Always Hiding’, not that I was aware of it at the time. I think I probably thought I was ripping off The Go-Betweens (who The Servants always sounded very like). It’s the most out-and-out cutie song I ever recorded and, as such, I’m a fraction surprised it’s never resurfaced since. Perhaps it’s too obscure even for the obscurists? A few years back, I was talking with kill rock stars about releasing a double-album of Legend! songs … but nothing came of it after Maggie went off with the tape I left on Tobi’s desk (or the other way around). The idea has been mooted several times since, but The Legend! really has very little cultural cachet when it comes down to it.

What Goes On (w/ Damon & Naomi)
This was recorded in Damon & Naomi’s apartment in Boston, probably on the occasion of my first visit there. (Dean Wareham lived in Manhattan.) Earlier that week, Chris from Buffalo Tom had taken me into a record store about to close that was selling off thousands of Folkways Records. I loved the idea of creating a documentary record of The Legend!’s life to date, similar to those on Folkways: so one afternoon, I sat down with Damon & Naomi and we recorded a whole series of songs that were special to me (either originals, or cover versions like this Beatles song that I used to hammer out on the piano at home for hours on end). We also tried more experimental pieces, like reading out a review of Galaxie 500 and masturbation over music. And, true to Folkways, in-between each musical segment was a spoken word segment where I introduced each number and tried to tell the story behind it. On this version, I sing multi-tracked vocals and Damon adds acoustic guitar. Needs a trumpet.

(continues overleaf)

Pages: 1 2

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2012 at 3:42 pm. It is filed under Everett True and tagged with Beat Happening, Calvin Johnson, Damon & Naomi, Everett True, Galaxie 500, Nirvana, Shop Assistants, The Go Team, The Legend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.