"Who Was It?" (Steve guide vocal)

People seemed interested in the “Cool In A Crisis” Steve-guide-vocal that I posted a couple of days ago, so here's another one from that “Optimistic Fool” album. I seem to remember him being especially pleased with the line “there’d always be the wrong kind of leaf on the rail” when he wrote it; I also remember quite how grumpy he was when, after we’d recorded the song and the album had been out for months, absolutely no-one had remarked on it. He said it reminded him of when Phil Spector was under-appreciated after “River Deep Mountain High”.

For something to look at, here are a couple of the rejected designs for the back of the album.

"Think Bubble" is an album (LP only) of 1995 demos for an unreleased Pooh Sticks album.
See 'About Me' for details.

(Top 50 Countdown!!!) 25. The Runaways - "Cherry Bomb"

 
Nothing says teen-dream rock-excess better than film of The Runaways, with an empty-eyed Cherie front-and-centre in a grotesque basque masquerade, on that first Japanese tour. (The key here is teen-dream; we’re not talking about Led Zeppelin and red snappers, which is more young-man-dream, or David Cassidy’s jeans, which is more safe-schoolgirl fantasy, right?) Cherie Currie, in that corset, singing “Cherry Bomb”, was ‘the first and last example of innocent debauchery in rock’n’roll’. (It is. Really. I remember being told these exact words.) Poor doomed Cherie and “Cherry Bomb” was where Kim Fowley’s commercial teen-'xploitation met the dark side: it quickly became a formula, but for that one brief moment it really was real. It was the second side of their “Live In Japan” album I remember most from Pooh Sticks days, and which probably had some kinda say in a couple of songs on “Multiple Orgasm” or something, but “Cherry Bomb” had it all in a classic two-and-a-half minute explosion. Sometimes, I really would’ve liked to have been Cherie Currie; other times, you know, it just didn’t look so much fun at all.

 "Think Bubble" is an album (LP only) of 1995 demos for an unreleased Pooh Sticks album. See 'About Me' for details.  

 

(Top 50 Countdown!!!) 26. 1910 Fruitgum Company - "1,2,3 Red Light"

It goes like this. (... or not: the copyright holders for this one don't want it on the 'net - not even shared on Soundcloud. It was removed about an hour after I added it.)

The only possible way this record could’ve been any more the very most bubblegum thing in the world would’ve been if it had been featured in an episode of The Banana Splits, accompanied by the usual multi-used-a-million-times footage of Six Flags Over Texas, bookended by the Sour Grapes Bunch scaring Drooper with their trademark hitch-hiker dancing while eating candyfloss in just that kinda way which you couldn’t get past the censors these days but which at the time the ‘suits’ just, you know, thought was funny. Something like that, that would’ve made it more bubblegum. It wasn’t a hit in Britain, but was a favourite of US-born DJ Paul Gambaccini so he’d play it on his Radio 1 show every now and again. That’s where I heard it first, don’t know about anyone else in ‘the band’. Two years later and it would surely have been prime fodder for Jonathan King to do under one of his many ‘nyms. (While I’m here: who agrees that “Johnny Reggae” is the best reggae record ever made? You can keep your Sly and Robbies, really you can. Honestly, it’s either “Johnny Reggae” or “Move Up Starsky”.) But look, you’re distracting me. The Fruitgums: there would’ve been no Pooh Sticks without them (just so you know who to complain to).

Now, before you do anything else, and because they can't touch you for it, have a go yourself! There's simply none-more-fun!

"Think Bubble" is an album (LP only) of 1995 demos for an unreleased Pooh Sticks album.
See 'About Me' for details.

"The Great White Wonder" - elusive US long-box version

When we made “The Great White Wonder” the UK version was intended to come out on Fierce (the US version was to be on Sympathy) but then the good unsuspecting folks at Cheree made a move just before the ‘window closed and the Fierce release was shelved. It got as far as test-pressings, and these are obviously not-many, but, I don’t know, maybe even the Fierce test-pressings aren’t as thin-on-the-ground as this, the Zoo long-box version. I mean, although this was how it was initially sold in the shops in the States when Zoo took over from Sympathy (and it didn’t do that badly, before you ask), I suppose most people would’ve feverishly ripped open the box and dumped it. Looks nice, though, don’t you think? Anyway, thought about this today because of the full-page about the album in the current Mojo Magazine (the one with Kate Bush on the front)... apparently. Haven't seen it yet cos Dutch shops (I'm in Holland at the mo) are a bit slow. 

"Think Bubble" is an album (LP only) of 1995 demos for an unreleased Pooh Sticks album.
See 'About Me' for details.

(Top 50 Countdown!!!) 27. The Tams - "Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy"

Again with these Tams people? I’m sure we only ever knew two songs by The Tams (didn’t even know B-sides: the record we had was a double-A-side reissue thing… but don’t tell anyone, cos the official line is probably that there was nothing so stinky as, yuk, reissues in the house). Anyway, despite the pretty solid competition later provided by “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” – which, by the way, seems to be half “Desiderata” and half “O Superman” and so is therefore pretty close to perfect, as talking records go – this still has to be the best advice-to-the-kids record ever made, right? There’s bits of this song going on, especially that “Girl meets boy and boy meets girl” thing, in our “Let The Good Times Roll”. Anyway, the title: me, I used to be all three of these things, but now I’m only one. I’m very good at being that one, though. I could ‘that’ for Wales.

"Think Bubble" is an album (LP only) of 1995 demos for an unreleased Pooh Sticks album.
See 'About Me' for details.

what's this "Think Bubble" of which you speak, again??

(It's a cautionary tale... but I'm so devil-may-care and live so much on-the-edge that whatever's the caution is sailing right over my head.) Reminder: this is kinda what this “Think Bubble” LP sounds like. What would be good would be if we could make a video game for it, where players have to insert their own piano noodlings, lead-guitar wailings and soprano sax solos (you’d get extra points for anything close to the solo in “Listen To What The Man Said”, just so you know). 

"Think Bubble" is an album (LP only) of 1995 demos for an unreleased Pooh Sticks album.
See 'About Me' for details.

(Top 50 Countdown!!!) 28. Elton John - "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"

There’s something about the “Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy” album which makes it stand apart from the other classic-period Elton stuff: earlier records seemed to be forward-looking with, if nothing else, a clear idea of some kinda career trajectory. By the time him and Bernie got here it was like ‘… and? Is that all there is?’, which is all best-there in “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”, with its self-obsessed rock-star-suicide romance sprawl. In movie terms, it’s the…

************** spoiler alert***********spoiler alert*************

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

… OD-scene in David Essex’s ‘Stardust’. It’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’. It’s every archetype rock’n’roll star. As well as “Your Song” (“I sat on the roof…”) I know this one helped quite a bit with our “Up On The Roof” on “Optimistic Fool”.

"Think Bubble" is an album (LP only) of 1995 demos for an unreleased Pooh Sticks album.
See 'About Me' for details.

"Cool In A Crisis" (Steve guide vocal)

Mostly the guide vocal recorded by Steve would be erased (either because we needed the track or sometimes because it just seemed the right thing to do), but here's one which survived, one way or another. If it’s a slow day (is it?) it might also be vaguely interesting that this is the original length: for the album, the track was edited to be quite a bit longer. (It looked like it was shaping up to be a single, and Zoo had had kittens about the brevity of “The World Is Turning On”, so…). Anyway, I prefer this shorter version. You?

"Think Bubble" is an album (LP only) of 1995 demos for an unreleased Pooh Sticks album.
See 'About Me' for details.