"Bay City" (abandoned "Million Seller" track)

 
(Trudi’s in the other room, playing with the cats, so you get me.)

Thanks for the support for “Think Bubble”! People have been nice about it, and enough copies have been sold: the album is now deleted, and this blog will end. I hope you’ve enjoyed following the Top-50 Countdown even a fraction as much as I’ve enjoyed seeing all these great singles ‘in one place’. I couldn’t have made The Pooh Sticks records without them.

To finish, here's another abandoned “Million Seller” out-take, “Bay City”. I’d imagined this as the album-closer, like “Jungleland” on “Born To Run”… as you’ll be able to tell from the piano at the end…

Steve

(Top 50 Countdown!!!) 1. Carpenters - "Superstar"

Done pondering? The motherlode! "Superstar" is pretty much the most important of all Pooh Sticks touchstones, despite the song itself appearing to be wildly underwritten. Yes, sometime between the shriek’n’squeal excitement of “Orgasm” and the first-falterings of would-be West Coast FM-ness and rock’n’roll heaven romanticism of (bits of) “Formula One Generation”, this sad, sad tale of an everyday lovelorn groupie flashed before the eyes of our Great Creator (I called him that once; he didn’t miss a beat…) and apparently seemed to sum up everything about The Pooh Sticks relationship with pop: its DNA double-helix’d around the velvet rims (I get paid by the word here... can you tell?) of loads of our stuff. It’s also clearly the be-all-and-end-all of that International Language “Where The Bands Are” album that Steve and guitar-slinger Michel put out after “Optimistic Fool”, if you know that one. Basically: moth/flame, right? Anyway, it’s a set-up that’s doomed but immaculate, like Karen herself. I could’ve been her friend. We could’ve hung out.

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

1993 Japan shows: the last ever Pooh Sticks gigs

The final gigs that The Pooh Sticks ever did were in Japan, in 1993. The line-up on stage for those shows was Hue (obviously), plus Dick (guitar), Chris (guitar), Ray (bass) and Simon (drums): here’s what it sounded like in rehearsal, and here's a moody photo of them taken by Andrew Pothecary. 

At the end of the second Tokyo show, Simon stagedived; I was at the back of the hall next to the mixing disk, and from where I was standing he didn’t half seem to be spending a long time submerged in the crowd. Basically, it hadn’t gone well: he’d disclocated his shoulder and then had to go to hospital. He played the third Tokyo show, and the one a couple of days later in Osaka, with one arm. It was a triumph, to be fair. Anyway, so a show in Osaka with a one-armed drummer was the last ever Pooh Sticks performance: it seemed like a fitting way to end it all, and there’s never been any reason since to have another go! So, November 3rd 1993, Osaka, Japan: the last ever Pooh Sticks gig. Were you there?

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

(Top 50 Countdown!!!) 2. Ozark Mountain Daredevils - "Jackie Blue"

Ah, "Jackie Blue". Even during our most Black Crowes phase (read: Four Horsemen phase) it’s not like we really got into much of that ‘southern rock’ thing (or even post-modern ‘southern rock’, before anyone from Stillwater writes in to complain) and, realistically, there’s not a lot for us in their “It’ll Shine When It Shines” album. I mean, a couple of nice extra verses on the LP version of this one, yes, but it was even a good idea to edit them out for the single. And, gotta say, I don’t ever remember anything else by the Ozarks being played in polite Pooh Sticks-style company, which just makes it even more magical that this one is just so perfect, you know? It was always there, whenever we made a record, doing that thing it does of blending day and night until you don’t know if you’re awake or dreaming and, although I can only think of one actual direct “Jackie Blue” quote in our stuff (“… she’s going again”, in “Pandora’s Box”, is separated-at-birth), it just has this beautiful melancholy to it that, even when we were having fun (and we did have fun!), was always keeping us on the right track. (Well, it kept us on some track or other: opinions vary about if it was the right one!)

“You say it's easy, just a natural thing
Like playing music but you never sing”

A doomed girl and music: a great combination. Look, I’ve checked, so I know, but here’s a question for you to ponder: could there possibly be a record that has ever done it better? Find out in the final Top-50 instalment…


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

(Top 50 Countdown!!!) 3. Helen Reddy - "Angie Baby"

So, "Angie Baby", answers on a postcard: did she imagine the entire thing? Doesn’t matter, it was real to her… and how she experienced it is what’s real to the record, and so what’s real to us. People come up to me all the time and say “Troods, Helen Reddy, what’s that all about?”, and I slap them around the face. Really, if you don’t see Angie (a “little touched” to start with but “insane” by the end, you’ll notice) and her radio in crystal-clear pop-o-vision in at least 50% of what we did then you haven’t been getting it at all. Look, that’s OK, each to his own, and I’m sure I’ve also been missing some layers of subtlety here and there (all ‘the onion’ layers-stuff… no?), but, well, I don’t know. “Pandora’s Box” on “The Great White Wonder” is the song of ours which is most obviously down to this one but, really, it’s everywhere.

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

track 1, side 2 - "Call Me Carnival"

It's the last few days of this "Think Bubble" blog thing, so here's a quick track-1/side-2 before it all disappears! Look, it has a key-change before the first verse, like "Surrender": "I don't just throw these things together", he said.

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

(Top 50 Countdown!!!) 4. Pete Wingfield - "Eighteen With A Bullet"

I was always surprised that we didn’t have more songs like this, using pop-speak as metaphors for real-life. I brought it up with Steve once. After a pause I think he’d learned from Keith Reid in the taxi, there was an answer: “The layers of the onion”. Obviously, I left it at that cos, you know, life’s too short, right? But this one was never far from the Pooh Sticks sandbox: there’s plenty of it going on in “That Was The Greatest Song” on “Million Seller”, of course, but all its radio and chart references are pretty much all over our everything, I suppose.

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