I was listening to Steve Lamacq´s show on 6 music and noticed he played Babies in the ¨From The Archives¨slot last Friday (Oct 1st). I wasn´t sure if I´d heard this rendition before so I went to the i-player and found it (about 25 mins into the programme if you want to listen - though this programme will be deleted from the i-player tomorrow afternoon). Without checking I thought it must be from the much raved-about 1992 Marc Goodier session but "Lammo" introduced it as being from a 1992 Peel session which struck me as odd as they didn´t do a Peel session that year. In fact the only Peel-related version of Babies is from a live broadcast at Glasto ´94 which of course features on the Pulp On Peel compilation so I presumed he´d made a mistake.
I´ve only got Live On and Glass from the Goodier ´92 session so can´t confirm if the version of Babies played is the same as that one. At the end of the song Steve once again repeated that it was from a ´´Maida Vale 1992 Peel Session´´ - again, he probably just repeated his earlier mistake but can someone confirm? I first heard the blinding´92 session-version of Live On on a Lamacq programme a couple of years before it appeared on the His´n´Hers deluxe and Lamacq knows his stuff when it comes to these things so I was just surprised that he probably mixed this one up but yeah, I´m sure someone here will know for sure. (I must get hold of the whole ´92 Goodier Session at some stage, I´m missing She´s A Lady too).
I suppose when it comes to radio sessions, not knowing entirely how they work, but I imagine the band goes to a BBC studio, records their three or four songs quickly enough (a ´´finished´´ demo often sounds better - in the case of Pulp who always performed new songs for these things the radio sessions are demos in all but name really) and one of the broadcaster´s engineers oversees any overdubs or whatever that needs to be done. The tie with a particular show may be superfluous enough? It´s not as if they are performing it live on air for the DJ. I don´t know what became of Goodier (he hosted TOTP a bit I recall) but if he´s a long-forgotten DJ perhaps it´s natural that Lamacq should mistake him for the man synonymous with Pulp radio sessions.
And that´s enough thinking about something like that. Nite.
-- Edited by Eamonn on Friday 8th of October 2010 12:28:37 AM
The Mark Goodier '92 session really should have been included as part of Pulp On Peel. There's no real difference between Evening Session sessions and Peel sessions - same studio, same recording ethos, just broadcast on a different show.
Just to go completely off at a tangent, I'm not really a fan of the Pulp On Peel CD for just that reason - the material is good but the way it jumps between different time periods ('81 > '93 > '94 > '01) makes it a very disjointed listen. Of course if you're sticking strictly to Peel material that can't be helped, but if it was a more general BBC Sessions compilation then the Goodier, Radcliffe and Hit the North sessions from 91-93 would have filled things out very nicely.
Devil's advocate question: hand on heart, does anyone really think the 1981 Peel session was good enough to be commercially released on a CD alongside Pulp's '90s material?
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Sturdy wrote:Devil's advocate question: hand on heart, does anyone really think the 1981 Peel session was good enough to be commercially released on a CD alongside Pulp's '90s material?
Please Don't Worry & Refuse To Be Blind, absolutely yes. The other two however, well I'd have to listen again but I seem to remember some timing issues on Turkey Mambo Momma & out of tune piano on Wishful Thinking.
Sturdy wrote:Devil's advocate question: hand on heart, does anyone really think the 1981 Peel session was good enough to be commercially released on a CD alongside Pulp's '90s material?
Please Don't Worry & Refuse To Be Blind, absolutely yes. The other two however, well I'd have to listen again but I seem to remember some timing issues on Turkey Mambo Momma & out of tune piano on Wishful Thinking.
I don't really mean in terms of technical musicianship. Do you genuinely see Please Don't Worry and Refuse to Be Blind as being up there, musically and lyrically, with Pink Glove or Underwear? For me, they just do not belong next to '90s Pulp. I'm not saying that the 1981 stuff is dross, but it's two totally different bands with next to nothing in common. I think the songs are OK, quite good in parts with an undeniable naive charm, but I can't imagine any of us would be remotely interested in them if not for the fact that the bloke singing them subsequently became quite famous.
It's nice to have them out there, but in my opinion they'd be far more at home on some compilation of early Pulp oddities - maybe even some imaginary 2CD of It.
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"Yes I saw her in the chip shop / so I said get yer top off"
Sturdy wrote:Devil's advocate question: hand on heart, does anyone really think the 1981 Peel session was good enough to be commercially released on a CD alongside Pulp's '90s material?
The '81 session tracks are my favourite songs on the Peel album, actually.
Its the WLL songs that I think bring the overall quality of the album down. Aside from Duck Diving (which is unremarkable) the WLL performances offer nothing new or interesting, and the other three tracks (Sunrise, Weeds, I Love Life) are repeated again on disc 2.
I'm also not too keen on the '94 Peel session. The band was still sorting out Common People, Underwear is a fairly standard performance, and only the sheer awesomeness of early Pencil Skirt redeems the session. (Honestly, why did they muck up Pencil Skirt so badly on the album?)
I do agree that the Goodier session should have been included...
I'm glad that Pulp were still trying out Common People when they did their '94 Peel Session - the fact that they tended to record brand new songs for Peel that had yet been done properly in the studio, makes for far more interesting listening than if they were recorded after they had been officially released. So in all these session songs it's an intriguing glimpse at the unfinished nature of the songs. A bit unfair to berate the uncooked Common People and then criticise the finished version of Pencil Skirt - though I do agree that the Peel version of it is very charming, and Russell's violin is majestically to the fore unlike on the album.
I think the 1993 Session is by far the best - I really wished they'd retained the energy and verve of Pink Glove for the album before Buller reverbed the hell out of it, buried the burbling synths and Jarvis enunciated his vocals too much. If 'You're A Nightmare was good enough to be left alone (bit of an anomaly in the Pulp discography - the only released song which has a radio session version as it's official one), I think Pink Glove - slightly unfinished/fluffed lyrics aside certainly was too.
Weeds and I Love Life sound more organic on Peel than on the album which I thought was the whole point of We Love Life. Both are inferior songs to Cuckoo and After You though but that's another argument.
I suppose comparing official versions to demo-like radio sessions is never fair. The extra dozens of tracks and time that go into album sessions means they'll always have more sheen to them, with little quirks or mistakes left out. Pulp were an idiosyncratic band though, maybe that's why the warts and all versions of their songs are often more interesting than a major record label throwing money at making them sound radio ready.
I'm glad that Pulp were still trying out Common People when they did their '94 Peel Session - the fact that they tended to record brand new songs for Peel that had yet been done properly in the studio, makes for far more interesting listening than if they were recorded after they had been officially released. So in all these session songs it's an intriguing glimpse at the unfinished nature of the songs. A bit unfair to berate the uncooked Common People and then criticise the finished version of Pencil Skirt - though I do agree that the Peel version of it is very charming, and Russell's violin is majestically to the fore unlike on the album.
A few points which I probably should have made in my earlier post, but extracted for brevity:
I am sure that the '94 Peel session was received well when it was new, perhaps it was even a revelation for the band. But 16 years on, its not very 'necessary' is it? Yes, Common People is an interesting historical document, but if I'm in the mood to listen to Common People, it's not a recording I would reach for.
I was a bit harsh on Pencil Skirt. The album version certainly has its charms. There's something quite menacing about the album version, whereas the Peel version is a much lighter, carnivalesque tune. I do respect the album version of Pencil Skirt for being among the darker moments on Different Class (along with I Spy, and Feeling), and as such, it does lend a certain edge to the record which otherwise might have been a bit too much of a sugary confection. Still, if you ask me, the Peel version feels like the more complete song, whereas the album version feels truncated. I suspect most listeners have dismissed it as "the creepy song" between the euphoric highs of Misshapes and Common People.
I think that the His n Hers album stands on its own merits, and I'm quite glad that the album sounds distinctively different from the live performances and radio sessions. The band used to experiment a lot more in those days, and each show seemed to have it's own distinctive character, which in turn made collecting the bootlegs worthwhile. Getting on to the latter part of the 90s, their performances became more predictable, which is a damned shame because the bulk of their commercially-available live recordings are from that period. I mean, I have dozens of different recordings of Help the Aged, and they're all virtually indistinguishable.
-- Edited by Fuss Free on Sunday 10th of October 2010 09:06:45 PM
Agreed about the Peel Common People version being inessential; as a bona-fide anthem it needed the bombast it subsequently got in the studio. I was just arguing that it's the unfinished nature of a lot of these sessions and demos on the reissues a few years back that render them interesting, to geeks like us anyway. I think Common People was fairly high up Peel's Festive 50 in 1994, but I'm not terribly keen on the version. As I said, I do enjoy listening to the rougher, embryonic editions of various Pulp songs but the way this version trails off towards the end (during the ''common people like you'' bit) lets the whole song down.
Also agreed about their later bootlegs with a few exceptions. Flux being the obvious one. I suppose they were still in a period of experimentation at that time with that stripped-down, Donovan thing.
''Professionalism'' certainly became a bigger part of Pulp post-Russell and the success of Different Class. I can't imagine he would have enjoyed the making of Hardcore had he stayed.
I've got a soft spot for the Peel version of Common People because it's the first version of the song I ever heard - on the Festive Fifty at the end of 1994. I remember being struck by how hard and anthemic it sounded - quite rocky really, compared to what had gone before. Bearing in mind that this was in the days before the internet, I also assumed that if it was notable enough to be getting radio play and votes in an end-of-year poll, it must have been their imminent new single. Cue lots of confusion in the local record store when I went in to ask if they had Common People by Pulp a good 5 months before it was anywhere near getting released.
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"Yes I saw her in the chip shop / so I said get yer top off"
Can't really complain about the Peel album but had it been more of a 'Pulp at the BBC' and included some alternative songs rather than repeating (even if the bulk was still peel sessions) it'd have been better.
Sturdy wrote: I don't really mean in terms of technical musicianship. Do you genuinely see Please Don't Worry and Refuse to Be Blind as being up there, musically and lyrically, with Pink Glove or Underwear? For me, they just do not belong next to '90s Pulp. I'm not saying that the 1981 stuff is dross, but it's two totally different bands with next to nothing in common. I think the songs are OK, quite good in parts with an undeniable naive charm, but I can't imagine any of us would be remotely interested in them if not for the fact that the bloke singing them subsequently became quite famous.
So would you also say a hypothetical early Fire/Freaks era session would also seem out of place? Imagine for instance if a Russell sung song had been included - completly different lyrical style. In my opinion none of the four sessions sound like they belong 'together', but it's not presented as an album, only a compilation. Do FatBoy Slim, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Catatonia & Pulp belong on the same CD? ('Anthems'). To be honest, almost unrelated, to me both musically & lyricaly Please Don't Worry sounds almost like a Separations number.
Personally, I would still like a song like Refuse To Be Blind had I never been into Pulp, because of its Siouxie/Joy Division feel.
I also feel the 81 session sounds closer to 93-96 Pulp than WLL or the WLL era session, & it certainly sounds like the bloke from Relaxed Muscle & the Potter songs lol.
James wrote:So would you also say a hypothetical early Fire/Freaks era session would also seem out of place? Imagine for instance if a Russell sung song had been included - completly different lyrical style.
Yeah, I think a jump from, say, a 1985 session to the 1993 one would be almost as incongruous as the jump from '81 to '93 - maybe not quite as much. On the other hand, if there was a mid '80s session or two followed by the 1991 Hit the North session then the rest of the '90s stuff, that might make sense as you'd be able to see the progression there.
To be honest, almost unrelated, to me both musically & lyricaly Please Don't Worry sounds almost like a Separations number.
I can kind of see where you're coming from but I don't agree. Please Don't Worry is the sound of a moderately talented sixth-form band who are nonetheless still learning their craft, and arguably haven't seen enough of life to have much of interest to sing about. To me, it just doesn't compare to the insight, intensity and emotion of the Separations-era stuff.
I also feel the 81 session sounds closer to 93-96 Pulp than WLL or the WLL era session
That's a good point, the jump from the '94 session to the WLL one is another big one. There's not much from the intervening period that would fill it though... maybe the audio from the '98 Jools Holland show?
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