Long Fin Killie - Classic or Dud?

Never really followed up with any Long Fin Killie after Houdini, unfortunately. Fell through the cracks, I suppose.

Cassidy is definitely one of the year's best records thus far. If Rudi and Alex from AR Kane heard it, I think they'd be floored.

lipstick(original)
love life
rhino
nation
clinch
cz
boyracer
stacked
angel
vanilla
suki
butterbelly

that's a pretty great record actually. maybe an edited version of 'butterbelly' which is probably too long.

No "Flaccid Tabloid," then? Otherwise I have all those except "Rhino" and "Vanilla."

it was
blue vinyl-
a-rhino
b-home erectus
red vinyl-
a-heads of dead surfers
b-flower carrier(pruned version)
white vinyl-
a-vanilla
b-love smothers allergy

i have no other b-sides.

oh, & has anyone picked up LS's new novel, Venus As A Boy? I've managed to grab 2ndhand copies of his first two (even I've been deferring the pleasure of reading them) from my work . . .

This is one of my favourite bands, and was for a long time in part due to their mystery. Back in the day of CDNow(this was 97, maybe?does it still exist in any form?), I'd use the 'similar artists' link to find lots of bands, and eventually heard several 30 second RealAudio clips from Amelia, largely because I loved the cover so much. I saved the clips from 'British Summertime', 'Kismet' and 'Sugar Helping', constantly wondering what happened to the songs, what the whole album was, where the band was from, whether they were still around, and whether I could ever find an album. I eventually tracked down all three used, and wasn't disappointed a bit.

Long Fin Killie is like Suzanne Vega for me, in that I was so proud of enjoying and having discovered them in high school, to the piint that I can't be objective. Oh, and then Bows came out just as I was into Portishead and Hooverphonic and Curve and I swooned for Luke Sutherland all over again.

Valentino is probably my favourite. It's more muscular, in a sense, and maybe their most confident. The title track is the best example of barely restrained sexual anger I can think of in a song, without being cartoonish. There are undoubted classics on Houdini too, though. Lamberton Lamplighter, of course, and Love Smothers Allergy, Hollywood Gem..

yeah. CLASSIC.

DUDE PLAYS SOME NICE VIOLIN IN A FEW MOGWAI SONGS

(It's true; I often pre-judge records a little based upon the relative lengths of the songs...)

Amelia is also ace although I know it less well. Valentino I just ordered.

I've been propositioned by girls before
On me lamp rounds
Oh yes, I have
But I'm at pains to explain it's not my line of trade
Buying flowers and chocolate mice
It's just the thought of commitment's totally wild
Any sort of commitment's out of order
Isn't it?

I've had some girls come up to me
Who said it won't take that long
Just a quick one up the back
One for the road
And I'm at pains to explain I'm not that type of guy
Send the sulking (?) bitches on their way

I seem to have a lot more time for guys
Don't get me wrong now
Don't get me wrong now
It's just their wit and charm and conversation
Captures youth and that's the truth
Oh and youth's the time when cares traipse free...

I've had some girls come up to me
Who said it won't take that long
Just a quick one up the back
One for the road
And I'm at pains to explain I'm not that type of guy
Send the sulking (?) bitches on their way

Louis do you like LOOSE FUR?

I don't quite have your music-selling skills, however, Nick (the sentence from the 'This New Day' review about widescreen guitar explosions = I WANT RECORD), so I'll let the band do the talking.

This is a fucking religious experience.

http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=KpEe0ztq2ck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpEe0ztq2ck

Oh, hang on...

You can also get their albums cheaply from their own website.

Sing to God is my least favourite Cardiacs album (tho I'm not sure this is the right thread to announce this).

http://download.yousendit.com/DE7C8DC44EE79F97

http://download.yousendit.com/FCD2053C3B705000

have also sent these to yr address. consider them a taster.

Classic indeed.

I just dug out my copy of Houdini because I've been listening to a lot of AR Kane lately and was reminded of LFK. I'm glad others noted the connection, I think for it's the vocals that made the association most immediately. The most amusing part of this is that when I originally picked up the Buttergut EP when it was originally released, I loved the music but found the vocals to be a complete turn-off. Now, the vocals and lyrics are one of the most compelling parts of the record for me. Who says people don't change?

Regardless, this is a completely classic album and it's a shame that it's so thoroughly out of print and unavailable. I never picked up the follow-up albums but just scored them from emusic.

How are Sutherland's novels?

If someone were to ask me right now, I'd name LFK as my favourite band, I think.

Please to be telling me if there are any other records out there that do what Amelia does?

PLEASE.

Also did Jamie Watson ever produce / engineer / record anyone else?

Join me in my LFK love, please...

and we go full-circle, for this is the thread on which I first alerted NS to cardiacs!

need to get hold of 'amelia' and 'valentino'. amazon it is.

Amelia might be their best.

I saw them open for Medicine, way back when...took a first date, she spent the whole set with her hands over her ears...there was no second date!

liked them lots..."medieval hip hop", the Wire wag said...

LFK, Laika, Pram, Moonshake, PJ Harvey, Stereolab...Too Pure was on a roll in those days, eh?

Hell yeah. And even some of the obscurer stuff still works -- Minxus, for instance. Great album.

not to mention Seefeel, Mouse On Mars, Th' Faith Healers, Jack, Electrane...such a range...affordable as imports, too...

ElectraLAne...but you knew that...

lol shall we tell him

no, he needs to find out the hard way

minxus were great, they got tagged as the poor man's pj harvey though. pity. minxus albums can be found in every bargain bin. when will luke stop making boring music with germans and make another bows album? will he ever?

Ooh, two new (to me, anyway) LFK singles arrived today in the mail - I only ordered them yesterday.

And it's Electrelane, kids.

BUT NOT ANYMORE BOOHOO

wut, no love for teh Voodoo Queens?

where did it all go pear-shaped with Too Pure? Hefner? Billy Mahonie? Murray the Hump? earlier, even? Seely? the execrable Jack?

hefner great through the first album. jack first album great. i think when seely came it was the end. now supposedly they are good again but they aren't really. the bands all seem so small and tinny in comparison.

Long Kill Fillie.

The first seely record was passable, but I agree that that was the beginning of the end of the unimpeachable excellence that was Too Pure circa 1992-95. I still listen to a good many of those records and many of them hold up well so I don't think it's just nostalgia.

As far as their current roster: with the end of Electrelane, I'm just not very interested. Tracey and the Plastics is just dire.

Bump.

Good gosh a superduperuber classic.

Every so often I think Amelie might be the greatest British rock record of the last... god, twenty years.

For some reason forgot how much I loved "The Heads of Dead Surfers" until yesterday.

That's the Mark E Smith one, right? Damn straight it rocks. I need to give this band a full appraisal at some point, if only to appease Southall.

Best band ever.

Got Amelia off eMusic a few months ago. Pretty good stuff. One of those records that so totally passed me by, it makes me question how much attention I was actually paying at the time. What the hell else did I miss? Was aware of the band too, it's like they were hiding in plain sight. Anyhow, 'Kismet' seems to be the song I'm listening to the most, wherein they take their basic thing and heat it right up so that eveything starts shimmering just a little in front of your ears.

Aye, Kismet's awesome; Amelia condenses their earlier work into really frenetic, highly intense packages. I love all three albums. There's a great handful of b-sides, too.

Something I wrote about Amelia a while ago:

http://whatwasitanyway.blogspot.com/2008/02/long-fin-killie-amelia.html

Jamie Watson, for reference, produced / engineered the first Snow Patrol album, before they were MOR bullshit.

I know Jamie, he lives up the street from me. Hate to be pedantic, but Grant Macn@mara did the engineering on the Snow Patrol thing.

I hate to do something quite so wankerish as this, but unless the sleevenotes are a lie, you're incorrect on this, Keith:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/IMG_8824.jpg

^^^this guy is bein' a bulldog today

It's cos I'm 30, innit.

and to think i never wished you happy birthday

happy birthday nick

there now be happy

happy happy happy

Hey Nick, no problem, and indeed it gives me a chance to explain how wankerish I was posting what I did. Happy birthday too!

Grant was my flatmate at the time, but it's Jamie's studio, so he understandably wanted to take the credits... He's done a bunch of things over the years, the Vaselines spring to mind, Idlewild too, but lots more. Grant certainly did a bunch of engineering on that record as I remember being in a pub with them after they'd all been 'at work'; however, I think my main point is a decade long beef about the Long Fin Killie thing, which Grant also did the engineering on... He did the remix of "Lipstick", which was the single, but wound up being credited as "programmed by Grant...", some way down the list from produced and engineered etc. which he was pretty pissed off by at the time, which I understand, as I watched him do it. So on occasion since then, I've tried to redress the balance!

Hope you had a great birthday.

i missed these guys back in the day. finally got houdini recently, and i'm amazed. maybe it's the mancunian accent, but it sounds like elbow bites them so hard it's almost criminal, like witchcraft and black sabbath

is luke sutherland over? the Music AM stuff was such a letdown.

He's moved into other work -- he collaborated on this production:

http://www.curious-seed.co.uk/

And apparently it won some attention at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year:

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/article/96637-its-a-jumble-out-there-found-wins-a-fringe-first

some of these guys' b-sides/EP tracks are really kicking my ass right now as I'm hearing them for the first time.

the coda of the original version of "Lipstick" is just about the eeriest 45-second snippet of music I've heard. I can understand why it wasn't included on such a propulsive album as Amelia, but I think I prefer it to the album version, if only for the moment when that massive feedback-y guitar tapers off and exposes the dissonant violin line that had been lurking deep in the mix and waiting for the right moment to unleash its horror.

the violin line toward the end of "Stacked", on the other hand, has sort of a country/folk/hoedown/(Dexys?) feel to it, and it's one of the few times that an LFK song ends on a less sinister note than it begins.

are there any other semi-rarities like these that weren't listed in keith's post upthread?

Really loved this band when they came out. Saw them in a club in Raleigh, NC and also at the Lollapalooza date they played in 1996. This song is my favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl55AFCtqKc

Great band. I stupidly sold my CDs ten years ago, and am having a helluva time finding albums #2 and 3 now, used or even just lossless files in the ether.

Will be being played tonight at Devon Record Club.

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/long-fin-killie-amelia-round-15-nicks-choice/

NEO KILLFILING

anyone heard We Can Love You? his band with Speaker Bite Me people? do they still exist?

ah, i was going to ask the same question: "anyone heard We Can Love You? his band with Speaker Bite Me people?"

The first Bows (Luke Sutherland) album Blush hit all my buttons in 1999.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjauvpx-zuY

Amelia is really one of the all-time greats. Wish I'd gotten around to making that singles comp I muttered about 8(!) years ago upthread.

AFAIK Luke Sutherland's mainly doing music work for theatre in Scotland? Would love to hear him score a film, &c.

Wish I'd gotten around to making that singles comp I muttered about 8(!) years ago upthread.

No time like the present. At least post the tracklisting!

the bows album is great, something I bought on a whim because it was $2 and it looked like something I would like. didn't even know about the LFK connection at the time.

make sure you get both albums.

I went ahead and put together that singles comp and it's kicking my ass!

Spotify has a couple of the albums. "British Summertime" is playing and it's glorious.

Blimey, how the heck did I miss this band the first time around?! Fortunately everything's cheap used from Amazon.

I went ahead and put together that singles comp and it's kicking my ass!

― Gerald McBoing-Boing

Ha, tracklisting? All my CDs/7"s are on the other side of the world, and my portable HDD is dead. Loved the woodcut-style artwork on some of them.

Pretty sure I had all of the singles at some point. Not sure why I got rid of them (to buy other records, of course, but...), though I do still have the Lipstick CD5.

All-too-brief and blurry appearance in here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jogCPK0we6k

One day I'll have to sit down and transcribe the lyrics to Amelia.

Any Sutherland updates?

Seems so... https://revmagnetic.bandcamp.com

For etc, my apologies for flaking on this in 2012. I have since gone back and picked up everything they did, it's all fantastic.

The Complete Singles (non-LP tracks only):
Suki
Boy Racer
Butterbelly (these 3 from the "Butterbelly" CD single)
Flaccid Tabloid
Stacked (these 2 from "The Heads Of Dead Surfers" CD single)
Flower Carrier (Pruned version) (from the "Heads Of Dead Surfers" 7")
Vanilla (from the "Vanilla" 7")
Rhino (from the "Rhino" 7")
Angel
Nation
Clinch (these 3 from the "Hands And Lips" CD single)
Lipstick (original)
CZ
Love Life (these 3 from the "Lipstick" CD single)

Classic classic classic!

Will now endeavour to collect up those singles tracks.

Ned remember when we both went to an LA ilxor brunch 7 years ago and you gave me a Long Fin Killie CD?

Ah, cheers Gerald!

Stoked to hear new Luke Sutherland stuff - Rev Magnetic def. closer to LFK than, say, Music A.M.

I like all of their elements: the drumming specially which is very unique for the genre and the decade but they have a frustrating tendency to get stuck on a great groove and not do much with it.

Also I don’t mind Luke’s whispery vocals but they are usually the least interesting sound in every song. They could’ve benefitted from a second, more dynamic vocalist. He made it work well in the Bows albums with a female vocalist.

That drums and the way they produced them though. Reason enough to listen.

I feel like a douche saying “ my favorite thing from this obscure underground indie band is an obscure 7 inch single with songs that are not found in any of their albums” but Lipstick really might be my favorite one from them.

The original, non-remix version is miles better than the album version and might just be my favorite song from them. the drummer playing non-programmed drum n bass is more interesting and the finale with strings is gorgeous. CZ is a great instrumental too and feels a nice change to not have Luke’s vocals on top. And Love Life is surprisingly catchy coming from them and sounds like it’s intentionally (?) taking its bass groove from “White Lines”.

Saw Rev Magnetic in Dundee last night. Played six or seven songs, not more than half an hour, all excellent.

Felt like a mix of LFK and Bows, with the bass player contributing vocals, and odd bits of electronic drums. The two songs on bandcamp are pretty representative.

Loved the first two LFK albums... I play them occasionally, they still sound great.

Skimming thru this thread, I guess I should give Amelia another try... it didn’t click with me at the time, but ppl seem to like it!

You should, it's all good. There's a definite evolution in their sound but it all flows really well.

Saw LFK live way back when and liked 'em but haven't played the albums in ages. I should though. I should check out Rev Magnetic songs too

Stuart Braithwaite was on 6music earlier and mentioned that Rev Magnetic had just joined Rock Action.

New Rev Magnetic song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCit3jqPhy8

Album ('Versus Universe') out today, listening now and very much enjoying it. Nothing's hit me as immediately as "Like No Girl That Ever Was" (not on the album) but that set a pretty high bar. Maybe Bows re-cast as a rock band?

Looking forward to hearing it. Few months late on the last single:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MuW7hYEFOI

Valentino is probably my favourite. It's more muscular, in a sense, and maybe their most confident. The title track is the best example of barely restrained sexual anger I can think of in a song, without being cartoonish.

― derrick (derrick), Monday, May 10, 2004 11:32 PM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

"coward" is all time

Listening to Houdini for the first time in about twenty years.... and it still transports me. LS's lyrics.... the music.... instrumentation... a truly timeless album. Won't be twenty more before I pull this one out again.

lol listened to this band for the first time the other day and I, too, thought:

DOES l0u1s jagg3r LIKE LONG FIN KILLIE?
― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, February 2, 2007 7:19 AM (sixteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nice mark e smith cameo

The Heads of Dead Surfers is all time imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ooc0R4fEWM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvcXhuE_cIk

Random Sunday morning thought: what's Sutherland up to these days?

well, as of a year ago:

https://lyceum.org.uk/whats-on/production/luke-sutherland-composing-stories-workshop

I didn’t know he was in Mogwai. I see even his Wikipedia page only spends two sentences on LFK… :/

(In fairness, the band does have its own entry)

Stef Smith
@stefsmith
·
Mar 7
The news is out! I'll be adapting @amy_may's stunning memoir The Outrun.

Directed by @vicfeatherstone and with an epic new score from Luke Sutherland. Thankful to all of them for being up for the adventure. Humbled, nervous, excited. See you in August 💙 x.com/edintfest/stat…

Luke Sutherland has a new band, Rev Magnetic. Not sure if they're doing anything just now, but worth checking out. https://revmagnetic.bandcamp.com/music

He was also a regular at Tony Bevan's free improv matinee, Help Me I'm Melting. I've not been in a while as I've left Glasgow, but he was always great. Beautiful guitarist and he'd also do processed vocal stuff, bringing an r 'n b sensibility into free music.

Rev Magnetic album came out in 2019.

On the Rev Magnetic Facebook page it says that in April 2023- Long Player. Jer Reid and Luke Sutherland will play for 7 hours. A working day. Beyond a working day. It’s an open studio. An invitation for you to dance, draw, sit, listen, speak into the mic provided. Come and go as you like

Not seeing any new posts on the band's Instagram page since February 2023

So I guess Sutherland is busy with that score djh mentioned

Missed the RM posts from a while back. Think everyone has various projects/family stuff going on, but hopefully there's more to come.

That Long Player with Jer sounds great - wish I'd caught it.

happy to hear he is a Hawkwind fan -

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24293022.luke-sutherland-olivia-colman-rise-right-cat-videos/

Great little interview - would love to hear his soundtrack to Dovzhenko's Earth!

https://edinburghtradfest.com/schedule/2024/5/11/earth