The Associates: Have the years been kind?

Of course, Rankine-era Associates are one of the all-time GRATES.

Am I a fhoul for feeling that "Club Country" looms large over "Party Fears Two"?

http://www.btinternet.com/~cateran/edinburgh/sinatra1x1.gif

I was pestering people in the office by humming the tune to see if anybody knew what it was but nobody knew. Then just the other day they played it on advert for the CD "Alternative Eighties" so I had to buy it. Now my mind is at rest! Strange CD, mind.

It's probably a better album than "Wild & Lonely", but probably less than essential if you've already got the Rankine-era albums.

I seem to remember that there is still supposed to be another album's worth of unreleased Boris Blank collaborations. That must be the last of the releasable stuff in the vaults.

With regard to the posthumous releases, I would have prefered "Smile"-esque compilations of the Winter Academy and Outerpol albums, as opposed to the scattershot approach of "Beyond The Sun" et al.

BTW, I've still got a sealed copy of the deleted "Eurocentric" if anyone is after it.

Didn't realise it was already worth £130. At this rate it's going to overtake my other two 'nest egg' records (Radiohead's "Drill" EP (vinyl) and XTC's "Wrapped in Grey" CD single).

Ned, you might be confusing "Eurocentric" with "Outernational" - Billy's only 'proper' solo album, released in 1992. I've got one of those as well, but it's far too good to sell...

it still sounds fresh as hell to my ears btw.

all remastered in the last three years.

ned any help on the lyrics?

You are to please tell her that my estimation of her has grown even stronger.

"Mona Property Girl" (and its superior incarnation "A Girl Named Property") should be pretty obvious...it's a rambling about females being looked upon as Earth-mothers/all-giving goddesses and having tribute paid to them by naming things after them as a sort of worship or as a means of comfort or company (like the song says) taken to silly proportions... ("Mona property girl...Mona property world...Mona office blocks...") I think it's a funny song, probably my favourite by Associates.

very, very sad news. lots of people i know locally were taught by him and all, without exception, found him an incredibly inspiring human being. he'd really go above and beyond to help people out.

I heard a couple of pretty great podcast interviews with Rankine a few months ago. I think this was one of them, think there was at least one other
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2NHxKyjHbAevQBWjFpy1Y6?si=1f287889b2e54345

would have been great to get a memoir from him.

Did love his instrument playing on the Associates material. Wish there was more elsewhere, not sure if his solo material was anywhere near as good. He seemed to touch on Krautrock among a number of other things in the textures on that Associates stuff anyway

would have been great to get a memoir from him.

he was quite often a 'talking head' on scottish televsion music programmes and always had the best stories.

he was also such a phenomenal producer and i wonder if he was the first person in the world ever to distort an 808 kick drum?

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

as much as i loved billy's voice, their eponymous instrumental was always a favourite of mine. what a great chuggy groove:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtC8zVAsJa8

yes! so great! one of my fave 12"s ever.

Having only discovered the Associates and Billy McKenzie a few years ago (one of those, why didn’t I discover them sooner things) this is sad. Rankine and McKenzie were such a great team.

Hey, never too late to realize how great they were.

I only discovered them a few years ago on a documentary about 80s scottish music. Sulk is by far my favorite thing by them and I really wish it could have kept going with that lineup. Will watch the Glamour Chase documentary soon and hope I can track down his solo albums someday.

Do they appear in the recent book Hungry Beat oral history thing on Scottish independent music. Presumably must do. I think the Pop Group do but had a very short look at the book.

Very briefly.

BA Robertson is so fucking weird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhM-nO4Yjjw

Forgive me if I'm being a dunderhead but I've only just worked out the meaning of this song after 40 odd years. In "Party Fears Two" 'this party' is not a party in the sense of 'a social gathering of invited guests, typically involving eating, drinking, and entertainment' but is instead a party in the sense of 'a person or people forming one side in an agreement or dispute', right? So the song is about fear of commitment in a relationship, right?

Hmm! Could be!

I can dig it. I think I imagined, for no good reason, that he stole an obscure headline about a *political* party and built lyrics around that. A quote on Wikipedia at least rules *that* out:

"My wee brother was at a party watching two girls who wanted to come in. They were smashing windows and attempting to kick the door in with their stiletto heels, which he admired, so he christened them the Party Fears Two and I pinched the title from him."

It's probably the greatest pop song I've ever heard, whatever his intent lol.

someone at songmeanings.com came to the same conclusion

by Pianosa23
18y ago
The 'party' in this song has nothing to do with parties in the social gathering sense. 'This party' refers to the narrator himself, as in legal references to the first party, second party and third party. 'This party fears two' is an oblique way of admitting 'I fear the prospect of being in a personal relationship'.

i have been obsessed with "Windy" ever since sleeve started his "SuperBubble" poll. i am ready to open my heart to this band

lol ... sorry. my bad. surely i can't be the first one to have done this

lol it took me a second!

Everyone knows it's bu-do

;)

In "Party Fears Two" 'this party' is not a party in the sense of 'a social gathering of invited guests, typically involving eating, drinking, and entertainment' but is instead a party in the sense of 'a person or people forming one side in an agreement or dispute', right?

Yeah, but he's also playing on the obvious connotations of the words to provide the situation with an emotional backdrop of social hysteria, paranoia.

Just watched the Glamour Chase doc on YT while riding my bike. I was disappointed. The Doyle book was so good and worthy of a brilliant yet slightly culty artist like Billy – by contrast, the documentary felt kind of cheaply made, jumped around chronologically and for being only forty minutes crammed in too many talking heads (I love him but what is Martin Fry doing there and so often?).

That said, I’m returning to this music with a vengeance and loving it all over again.

Is The Stranger In Your Voice the best track Billy did after the split? Regardless, I feel like we need a Post-Rankine Billy MacKenzie POX.

Perhaps is a great album, just as strong as Sulk.

"I can dig it. I think I imagined, for no good reason, that he stole an obscure headline about a *political* party and built lyrics around that."

This got me to wonderin' if it actually had been a headline, coincidentally. But Google Books only throws up newspaper results that reference the song. I learn from Philippa Hawker, in The Age, 26 August 1982, that "Billy McKenzie, the Associates lead singer, is a difficult guest. He sounds like a demented Eurovision Song Contest entrant trying to sing his way out of a phone box. This is a tremendously overblown record and good fun if you have a tolerant attitude towards the excessive". Across the page is a glowing review of the Steve Miller Band's Abracadabra.

I also learn that in Chairman Mao Tse-Tung's opinion the Chinese Communist Party fears two things, but I'm not going to tell you what they are. "In Shanghai the deputy mayor welcomed 250 students who had returns from abroad after the liberation. The meeting was held in the Culture Club, the art deco building that had one housed the prestigious French Club."

I am of course quoting from Frank Dikötter's The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945–1957. He lays the blame for China's economic woes in the 1930s firmly at the feet of Soft Cell.

xpost I stand by my review of the reissue five years back:

https://thequietus.com/articles/27807-associates-perhaps-review-reissue

Perhaps is an unusually long album for its time -- nearly 56 mins.

I feel like we need a Post-Rankine Billy MacKenzie POX.

― Naive Teen Idol

My picks:

Breakfast
The Best Of You
The Stranger In Your Voice
Empire Of Your Heart
The Rhythm Divine (the version with Billy on lead obviously)
Baby
Beyond The Sun
Give Me Time
Nocturne VII
Wild Is The Wind

Ah, I forgot Pain In Any Language with Apollo 440.