Scritti Politti: Classic Or Dud

(i've just heard about Hearsay causing bad vibes by shock appearance at WOW festival on THE ONLY DAY I DIDN'T GO - supposedly lots of drunken aggro ensued )

They are, as you say, fantastic-*sounding* records; among the pop singles which I can listen to over and over again and still expect to be finding something new. I can barely describe the excitement "Wood Beez", especially, inspires in me; it's almost falling over itself with interest in, and fascination with, love and pop.

"Jacques Derrida", "Skank Bloc Bologna", "Perfect Way" (*how* could that single have missed the UK Top 40?), "Oh Patti" and "Prince Among Men" as well. So, yeah, classic in excelsis.

(Actually from my mate Dunc's car, I mean: I was still in transmit...)

I believe this was the last anyone saw of him anywhere ever.

'The Sweetest Girl' is just terrific (although it wouldn't be half as good if Robert Wyatt wasn't noodling away on organ in the background) but most of the rest of the first album is pretty ordinairy.

The other three LPs have all got some shit but the other great songs on them more than make up for the lapses.

I don't know the earliest stuff.

Otherwise? I love the sound of Scritti more than the performances - Green is too dispassionate for me. He should have been funny - a Ferry /Eno synthesis, but as the only romantic new-romantic he took himself far too seriously.

Also like a good solo the Arif Mardin trickbox is in the service of a greater whole - "Wood Beez", though the chorus is a bit coy, *moves* me.

I'm a bit ignorant of the early singles, but what I've heard is appealling scruffy and knotted. After that, of course, Green runs a mighty steel comb through the music and it's all midday sun gleaming off polished girders. "The 'Sweetest' Girl" is magnificent; I've never quite been able to decide whether it's "Wood Beez" or "Absolute" that stands as the asphyxiating pinnacle of 'Cupid & Psyche'. The collaborations and odd singles are mostly terrific; just as I'd never heard of Bermondsey before Peter Tatchell brought it to my attention, I suspect GG introduced me to Miles Davis.

Which leaves 'Anomie and Bonhomie' - which I like more in theory than practise, and a whole lot more than the fellow who lent it to me*. The gas-croon is still intact, and even the guitar-heavy moments have this cut-glass quality. Hyperventilating hyphens! Lysergic dandy axis!

(* - badly structured sentence; I don't like the LP as much as the *person* who lent it to me. He's funnier.)

I quite like the early tracks I've heard ("Skank Bloc Bologna" and "Messthetics"). They sound like a band with *ambition* to move away from the post-punk rabble, and a more precise ambition (not better or worse, just different) than that being displayed at the time by, say, the Fall.

Anyway, Holy shit! It's fantastic. The surface gloss is in fact made up of a billion clever bass 'n percussion 'n keyboard speaker- twisting studio-tricks which sound fresh and fun. Three of the songs (Oh Patti, First Boy in This Town (Lovesick) and Philosophy Now) have better pop hooks than I've heard for years. So, Cupid and Psyche next - might be prepared to spend £1.50 this time!

I love the way that the Mardin productions and the band productions *sound* completely different yet meet the same spec. of precision and accuracy.

i recently burned myself a comp of 15 or so of the earliest SP songs (basically the first 4 singles/peel sessions.) it's been about all i've wanted to listen to while sick. "skank" and "messthetics" in particular have been oddly soothing.

but i think he was just as clever on the first albums/stuff,

i never got to hear the first songs in any form until very recently, except for the poltical excesses of NME interviews circa early scritti stance, which made for entertaining rock stars, and i'm getting my head around those songs and they're sinking in just like the other two records

i think of the 4 A sides stuff as content art-punk, so the beautiful pop charms of the arty '85, not short on content as crafted pop songs with good hooks and construction, i suspect some people find it sexy

Well, I've read every Scritti thread recently so here you are:

The sound of Scritti Politti 1978 to 1985 is essentially the sound of Green Gartside getting better in bed.

-- Tom (ebro...), December 3rd, 2001 7:00 PM.
(Scritti Politti)

yes, i got the impression Green was a fun person to be in the company of -- i read numerous new wave articles in the NME at that age as a matter of daily routine, so it's with some pleasure that i actually remember a particular NME feature (i was very young), since not having had much money as a kid, i'd been handsomely rewarded with both their/his records.

you got it wrong. the most disappointing meeting with someone who was and still remains a bit of a hero of my youth possible. smug and arrogant is the way i'd put it.

was the unpeasantness there in the early phase ? was it bought out later with his subsequent success ? (Michael Jackson associations ?)

(will this gossip just lead to "i didn't want to know that stuff since yeah he was a kind'a cool hero", Dave ?)

If anyway would burn the early stuff onto CD for me I'd be forever grateful.

Thanks, but I discovered I still have them on my iPod so don't bother. What I really need is Soulseek, but I have a mac and limited hard drive space soI'll just have to wait a while.

I remember when "Cupid" came out and thinking it was just the thing I'd been looking for - "new wave" people doing r & b. Recently this promoted me to listen to all of the late seventies & early 80's funk I could find, it goes better with that music.

is this the most delightful bedroom guitar youtube of all time??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPClpdbnbk0

chik-kahhhhh

hey so i will be at the show this friday if any of you will too

:)

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/01056/97120514-cb58-11e5_1056010b.jpg

following the recent white-person-with-dreadlocks conversation, I was wondering if scritti's original drummer tom morley was the first white-person-with-dreadlocks pop star? I'm probably forgetting someone really obvious

he still has dreadlocks btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EG3LO3i4FI

Wonder if we'll get a new album from him soon? Already eight years since White Bread Black Beer.

― Kitchen Person, Tuesday, January 28, 2014 1:35 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Weird to think that he's in his 60s now.

he is appearing at the 'end of the road' festival later this year, so perhaps there is new material to showcase.

he's been threatening a new album this year, but who knows

he played new stuff in February!!

Screeetti Poleeetti's guide to DIY record releasing (from 1980):

https://twitter.com/MusicLikeDirt/status/756564212760084484

My favorites. They make my heart invincible.

alfred can i just say how much i love your blog?

Echoing that completely (your aloneness piece was great as well). I'd probably pick the same 15 tbh.

thank you both!!

Do fans of this group like these songs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RydKrJo0mko
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJkvyZ73kZ0

This is what it sounds like to me.

i do

Obvious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuWE26Qwqdg

I wanted to post this live recording up as I was going back through hard drives and have been listening to it quite a bit recently.

It's from The University Of London 11-16-1979, pretty fascinating, in my humble.

I had read that they made songs up on the fly during performances and was always a bit sceptical, but this recording bears that out and the whole gig seems, well really quite fraught but compelling.

It's interesting to hear them pull a song out of thin air and there's also a song that I can't find any mention of on Google called "John's on the dole' (the notes call it 'drums on the door' though) which is pretty great despite equipment problems and what sounds like some very vocal, smart alec-y mates in the audience.

https://we.tl/t-SzlTBDz7zf

Great in depth interview by Trevor Jackson with Green Gartside on NTS

https://www.mixcloud.com/NTSRadio/trevor-jackson-green-gartside-29th-october-2019/

THANKS!!!

somehow it's amazing to hear GG talking like a normal person thinking about things. I have actually met and spoken to him irl, fwiw, but the meeting is a blur. We talked about the fact that we were both wearing very similar yellow jackets. It's honestly the only thing I remember other than how tall he was (I'm tiny and was overwhelmed)

Yeah, this is really fascinating. (Just getting to the end right....now!) Thanks!

Thanks for sharing that, lovely stuff.

I can feel a Scritti jag coming on, where nothing else will do for a week or so.

this is a phenomenal interview

:O @ that early version of "wood beez"

That early version is as great in its own way.

waiting to see if Green pops up at all in the Henry Cow book.
Heard taht chris cutler was less than complementary about the early Scritti stuff he was played.

awesome

I love how Trevor Jackson played the System and Robert Palmer's "You Are in My System" and forced Green to choose.

Goodness -- I didn't know about this Pete Rock remix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywr4GN6DS5E

Kraftwerk saying they hate reggae vs. Robert Palmer calling while swimming with dolphins.

Green's the 600th person to insist that Palmer's appetite for music was at odds with his image.

No RP was a total music nerd...just look at his choice of covers...he even covered Husker Du...ps the story of his mum smashing the Beatles 7” was utterly heartbreaking...

ICYMI, two new Green songs (a single, in fact) released yesterday:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0kSN6bCRIdNskZmOlQhnVg?si=jksozpT_QbCSJWogjUBrtw

I've been dealing with Anomie and Bonhomie the last week. What an album. It doesn't work, but this collaboration between Gartside and Mos Def, Ndegeocello, etc is fascinating for its era. The rock guitar is a bit much.

imo it totally works

green is ashamed of the foo fighters worship tracks but i love them, great power-pop

"Brushed With Oil.." ranks among his best too, and I love the remixes.

Still thinking about it.

yes "brushed with oil" is gorgeous

i think "umm" is one of my top five scritti songs

I bought Anomie and Bonhomie not long after it came out. It was a complete WTF for most people, myself included. But even before it aged well—and that’s maybe a bit debatable and he sounds a bit like a guest at times—you had to tip your cap to the fact that the guy just gives no fucks and does what he wants, whether it’s the rap metal and fey grunge of this or the I’m-gonna-carbon-copy-my-best-album-and-top-it of Provision.

Interested in the new single.

https://scrittipolitti.ffm.to/reissues

vinyl reissues of cupid & psyche and anomie and bonhomie

yes i bought both immediately

https://pocketmags.com/mojo-magazine/jun-22/articles/1133453/he-s-back-after-16-years-green-gartside-readies-scritti-politti-lp-six

just stumbled over this - didn't read the actual article but it sure sounds promising!
fingers crossed...

Still can't get over the name Green Gartside, I love it

There's a great recent episode of the Martyn Ware podcast with David Gamson as the guest. Some funny stories about the recording of Oh Patti and a surprising citing of 'We Don't Talk Any More' by Cliff Richard as a big musical influence. And it's led me to Hannah Diamond's music (Gamson is producing her new LP) and made me wish Green would make a hyperpop record - something that pushes 21st century sound design possibilities like C&P did back in '85.