Category: unspunhero

It’s the final song on this album that most people will know, and while it’s a piece of brilliance, we should start from the beginning.

The beginning of this album is storytelling. Each song is a vignette, almost a film script contained within four minutes or so of post-punk pop songs. Stanard Ridgway, as he was before he shortened his name for pop stardom, was already well known on the scene thanks to his previous band, Wall of Voodoo. Exhibiting a more synth-led sound, they had Stanard’s idiosyncratic voice and songwriting skills in common.

However, it was to be The Big Heat that ignited my fascination with Ridgway and his ability to conjure up an entire world within a song, complete with narrative, back story, and supporting cast. You get the feeling each song could win every Oscar going despite not being a film.

Whether the noir feel of Drive, She Said, or the Depeche Mode-esque Pick It Up (And Put It In Your Pocket), or the singalong melody of Camouflage, each song has depth that pop songs rarely had, or have. Ridgway brought several of his musical influences into the songs. It makes the album feel out of its time, yet nails its 1980’s colours to the mast at the same time.

Yet, the final song, Camouflage, a song about a soldier caught without a working gun in the jungles of Vietnam who is rescued by a man-mountain who can seemingly dodge bullets, is what takes all the ideas of every other song and pulls it into something special.

That man-mountain, the eponymous Camouflage of the song’s title, who you can picture as flesh and blood (perhaps mixed with Stallone’s Rambo in my head), saving the day even while he lies dead in a tent back at the army camp. It’s got a sing-along chorus, anthemic yet intricate, with a narrative arc that could have been written by Vonnegut. It runs for over seven minutes but never feels laboured or repetitive. It’s the perfect bookend for everything that comes before it, almost as if Ridgway perfected his performative songwriting just for this final hurrah.

It’s absolutely faultless, this album. It’s not shiny, throwaway stuff, this album. It warrants deeper consideration, like all Unspun Heroes. Even though many people I mention it to consider it to be gimmicky and full of novelty. Yet, great pop songs transcend novelty and The Big Heat is chock full of pop sensibility. It’s heinous that it’s not been reissued on vinyl since its original release in 1986.

Settle back, press play and enjoy an album that deserves wider attention.

Not every Unspun Hero has to move you to tears or startle you with epic storytelling. Sometimes an album comes along that simply makes you happy and want to dance around in the kitchen. Please Describe Yourself by Dogs Die in Hot Cars is one of those.

Released in 2004, it’s the only album the Glasgow band released, but it’s a cracker – a collection of well-crafted, humorous and catchy pop songs that brighten up any mood.

The influences on the young band are clear to see, with elements of Big Country, Talking Heads, Dexy’s and more than a smattering of mid-career XTC running through the record. It could have been derivative. It could have been a bit of a mess. But it wasn’t. It was fab.

Each song offers the band’s own unique take on their influences, with witty lyrics and musicians that are obviously enjoying playing together. With the bouncy piano opening of ‘Godhopping’ (which reached no.24 in the UK singles chart), the jangly indie guitar of ‘Lounger’, and the ska-infused ‘I Love You ‘Cause I Have To’, the band opens the album with a bucketload of positive energy. Later in the album they add woodwind and vocal harmonies, dabble in country and reveal a slightly unhealthy obsession with Lucy Liu.

Yes it’s a bit naive in places and a bit goofy, but that’s its charm.

Please Describe Yourself was only released 5 years after their first single, and then only as a CD. It made number 44 in the UK album chart and received positive reviews, but somehow it never entered the mainstream. Apparently the band tried recording another album two years later, but abandoned it and went their separate ways. Demos of this exist (one of the Unspun Heroes co-founders has a copy!)

A long-awaited vinyl release of the album, with extra tracks, was issued by the band in 2020 after long delays, and it looks like there are still very reasonably-priced copies available. Do yourself a favour and give it a whirl.

Scotland has produced more than its fair share of indie musical heroes, Unspun or otherwise, so expect us to return north of the border in coming posts.

1994. The year I went travelling. The year I turned 21. The year that Kristin Hersh released an album that changed my life. I say changed my life, it changed my guitar playing. I did a reverse Dylan and moved from electric guitar to acoustic. Kristin’s beautiful acoustic debut made that happen.

But this isn’t about me. This is about an album so unexpected and different, it deserves all the attention.

I’d seen Throwing Muses several times at various festivals and shows. Their gnarly brand of indie punk soundtracked my teenage years, alongside Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, Pixies, and The Fall. I probably got introduced to them through John Peel’s radio show, I can’t remember. When I heard that Kristin was releasing a solo album, I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to buy it.

That opening track, Your Ghost, featuring R.E.M’s Michael Stipe on backing vocals, set the scene for what would become my most played album that year. I hadn’t realised how poignant and fragile Hersh’s voice was, yet powerful and serene in equal measure. More than just versatile, across all 15 songs – which together run for a little over 50 minutes, so compact is the album – the whole gamut of emotions are run, by Kristin and, consequently, also by the listener.

Hips and Makers is an album I’ve gone back to many times since. One that I carried around Europe with me on my travels, copied on to magnetic tape and rewound using a biro so I could play it again on my battered Walkman-lite personal stereo (a Sanyo, in case you wondered).

Each listen brought out something new. The punk vibe still existed, on songs like Sundrops, Close Your Eyes, and, to some extent, on Me and My Charms. Yet, there’s a vulnerability, so often hidden behind the brash uniqueness of the Muses’ song structure and fuzzy guitars, that’s present on songs such as Teeth, Velvet Days, and The Letter.

And that song, The Letter, which feels like someone reading out a painful personal missive they’ve sent (or wanted to send but didn’t, or couldn’t) rather than a song they’ve written. How it sinks into your bones and makes you ache in ways you can barely describe. A song that has to be experienced, and then replayed and experienced again and again.

Hips and Makers. A solo debut of extraordinary songs from an extraordinary artist. Kristin still makes amazing records; other highlights would be 2001’s Sunny Border Blue, and 2018’s Possible Dust Clouds. Yet, Hips and Makers remains a highlight that still sounds as if it was recorded last year. And yet, when asking around it’s not an album that many people have heard – and as it’s not been reissued on vinyl since 2012, it remains an Unspun Hero.