Stephen Tintin Duffy collaborating with Robbie Williams

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This from the BBC website:

"Robbie's New Pop Pal

Ever since he broke up with co-songwriter Guy Chambers because he wanted to see other people Robbie has been looking for another collaborator. Well, the Sunday Mirror reports that Robbie's found that special someone and it's Stephen Tin Tin Duffy.

You're no doubt going 'who?' but those of you with loooong memories may remember that he used to be the lead singer of Duran Duran, but quit before they hit big. Then he had a solo hit with 'Kiss Me (With Your Mouth)', which always used to make us wonder what else he could have been kissed with. Subsequently he embarked on a jangly, folky pop career with the Lilac Time and co-wrote songs with Canada's Barenaked Ladies."

The tabloid's mole says: "A lot of people are very surprised. Tin Tin is a very nice man but he isn't exactly one of the hottest songwriters in town. But Robbie thinks he will definitely be able to sustain his success with Tin Tin by his side." Time will tell.

― Austin, Friday, 19 December 2003 15:58 (twenty-one years ago)

's funny but imagine robbie (sinatra impression era)
singing 'too sooner late than better' and it worx !

― piscesboy, Friday, 19 December 2003 16:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Noooo. Say it ain't so. I love Duffy. He's great. His inate pathos, bittersweetness, poignancy and deadpannery: how will a smug song'n'dance man like Williams convey any of that?

― laticsmon (laticsmon), Friday, 19 December 2003 16:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I love Duffy too, but I think the colloboration could be interesting. It's one of those "wait and see" type situations.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Friday, 19 December 2003 17:18 (twenty-one years ago)

From Nigel Kennedy to Robbie Williams. Does the man have no taste?

― Canada Briggs (Canada Briggs), Friday, 19 December 2003 20:00 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

1st single due out in october, according to duffy's website.

― felix crapper, Tuesday, 25 May 2004 09:45 (twenty-one years ago)

"Tintin is a very nice man"?

This from an 'insider'?

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 09:48 (twenty-one years ago)

i didn't know he was in DUran Duran

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 09:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, apparently he quit after three gigs because they didn't like one of his new songs.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 10:03 (twenty-one years ago)

that's a moot point, as some say that DD's JT blames the fact that Duffy insisted on plugging into a tasteless snakeskin amp on stage.

― felix crapper, Tuesday, 25 May 2004 10:09 (twenty-one years ago)

as opposed to a suave Gucci one?

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 10:11 (twenty-one years ago)

what was that Duffy electronic album. all weird cartoon cutup and the like which at the time was really on the edge. Orange Sleeve .. Dr Something (Caligula??) if this collab means that the album gets a cd reissue i will be rather chuffed as the cassette died many years ago ..
though i bet the album sound very dated now.

― mark e (mark e), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 12:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Dr Calculus!

yeah!

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 12:34 (twenty-one years ago)

ah ha .. thats it. i loved that tape soo much .. lots of Bugs bunny in the mix. suspect that it wouldn't be allowed any more. was it ever reissued on cd ?

― mark e (mark e), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 12:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I believe not.

Killed by poetry!

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 12:48 (twenty-one years ago)

damn. now i really wanna hear that stuff. designer beatnik - 1986. whoa. timewarp factor 10.
kiled by poetry. all very Thomas Dolby-esque .. good stuff.

― mark e (mark e), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 12:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I heard that Duffy's recent live performances (didn't he play at Bush Hall last Novemeber?) got a slating, but I think that he is a very good songwriter and I have no objection to him working with RW, although I have never owned a RW record and indeed never intend to. I heard that Duffy left Duran Duran coz he was unhappy that they used synthesisers so much - how many versions of the story are floating around. There are some real gems in Duffy's back catlogue, including his anti-Thatcher song The Icing on the Cake and most of the Lilac Time album Paradise Circus; the opening song American Eyes is wonderful.

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 13:01 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.davekusworth.com/images/gallery/hawks/images/7.jpg

Stevie Duffy had a hard time in those early days - being bullied by his fellow band members. Let's hope Robbie's nicer to 'im.

― mick yellow, Tuesday, 25 May 2004 13:58 (twenty-one years ago)

two months pass...

following recent disc re Dr Calculus above .. i checking the bins in local charity shop on saturday when i came across a mint vinyl copy of the Dr Calc album !! along with mint vinyls of World Of Twist, Mighty Lemon Drops and the initial pressing of That Petrol Emotions debut with diff colouring typeface - quality result.

someone obv has not realised the benefits of ebay in wotton-under-edge.

means i have to now restore my deck from the storage.

― mark e (mark e), Thursday, 19 August 2004 13:11 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

He is full of praise for the apparently effortless songwriting skill of his new collaborator: "Have you seen that bit in Eat the Document where Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson are sitting on a bed writing a song and this stream of consciousness is just coming out? He does that. He played the bass synthesizer on Radio. He co-produced it. He's just about the only person of his generation that's doing that. 'Robbie Williams makes his own records.' I'm surprised that's not the front page of the newspaper."

(full article)

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Friday, 15 October 2004 08:21 (twenty years ago)

Glances at current singles chart:

1. Robbie Williams - Radio
5. Duran Duran - Reach Up (For The Sunrise)

Is this the first time that Stephen Duffy's outperformed his erstwhile colleagues in the charts?

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 15 October 2004 08:38 (twenty years ago)

It's a bit of a fairy tale for Stephen -- who is indeed a very nice man -- but also, from another angle, for Robbie. 'Radio' is, after all, at number one, which will help him earn back some of his £80 million advance.

Although Stephen isn't exactly 'left field' -- and in a way the pairing with Robbie Williams is a lot less 'subversive' than Ronan Keating's duet with Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens -- I do think this should encourage mainstream artists to look around for more interesting alternative songwriters to co-write with. I look forward to the collaboration between Elton John and Costes.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 08:42 (twenty years ago)

Hey Nick, just wondering, but has Robbie ever approached you on the quiet to write anything for him?

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 15 October 2004 08:47 (twenty years ago)

No. Once Arista Records tried to team me up to write with Alison Clarkson (Betty Boo), though. It was right before she had that huge hit with Hear'Say. But then I was having huge hits in Japan myself at the time, so I didn't care much.

My trouble is that I'm actually very hostile to my own culture, and I just can't write anything without trying to deconstruct it. I could write positively about Japan, for the Japanese market, but not about Britain for Britain. But I haven't heard 'Radio', maybe it's got a subtle undercurrent of satire and complaint, like Elvis Costello's 'Radio Radio'?

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 08:53 (twenty years ago)

Okay, I've read the lyrics, and there's a sympathische message in:

I'm searching for something
Beyond my understanding
Looking for meaning
Where nothing is demanding
There are no surprises
Where nothing is expected
If you offer nothing
Then everyone accepts

The thing is, I'd rather just forget about radio and actually make 'something beyond my understanding'. I'd rather surprise than wait for the radio to surprise me, or get the radio to play something mildly meta and self-critical about itself. That's no way out of the problem they correctly identify.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 08:58 (twenty years ago)

You know, Queen's 'Radio Gaga' to thread. It's a great British tradion, almost as well-established -- and futile -- as grumbling about the 8.05 to Slough being late.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 09:02 (twenty years ago)

He sings it like a neutralised Martin Fry circa Beauty Stab.

Apropos "Radio Ga Ga," did Roger Taylor ever pay the estate of Billy MacKenzie for nicking half the riff from "White Car In Germany" by the Associates?

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 15 October 2004 09:06 (twenty years ago)

futile? (with a small f)

Yeah, like "Radio Radio" and "Top of the pops" and the gaga one. These things can slip into public consciousness if the pill is sweetened. Happened before, happening now (R.Steven's Some Girls eg), and will happen again. It's only futile if no-one picks up on it or processes it as a thought.

You would get DJs playing "Panic" as their thinking would be "hey, he doesn't mean me. I just played their record".

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 15 October 2004 09:10 (twenty years ago)

robbie should SO SO SO cover "the gatecrasher". with a way over the top string octet accompaniment

in other news stuart moxham of young marble giants to collaborate with big brovaz

― dave amos, Friday, 15 October 2004 09:10 (twenty years ago)

Nowadays, they seem too insecure to allow negation to creep in... (xpost myself)

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 15 October 2004 09:11 (twenty years ago)

Expecting the radio to handle complaints about the radio is like letting the police police themselves... or being lectured on crime by Tony Soprano.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 09:14 (twenty years ago)

law & order

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 15 October 2004 09:21 (twenty years ago)

Duffy at least believes in what he's doing. In his Guardian puff he says of hearing his song on the Chart rundown on Radio 1 on Sunday:

"It made me realise how different it was, not just from previous Robbie Williams singles, but from everything else in the chart. It's like screaming from some far-off planet where music is still interesting."

But is Planet Meta, the planet of radio-friendly songs which declare unfriendliness to the radio, really so 'far-off'? Isn't it actually a really close and rather airless world, a mirror image of 'things exactly as they are'? And beside this kind of meta-song, this kind of song-on-the-radio-about-songs-on-the-radio, isn't the simplest love song a breath of fresh air?

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 09:21 (twenty years ago)

His singles (this one included) are usually arch and/or sarcastic. It's like comedy, it doesn't work from a position of power.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 15 October 2004 09:23 (twenty years ago)

Exactly. To put it another way, Robbie Williams's work has always been symptomatic of the worst side of post-modernism, the snake-eating-its-own tail, celebrity-culture-about-celebrity-culture side of post-modernism rather than the deconstruction and ostranenie side (its heritage from Modernism). And Tintin, despite much talk of 'experimentation', seems to be making him more meta (anagram of 'tame') rather than more weird, a la Bjork.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 09:26 (twenty years ago)

Bjork is, alas, simply Wire-weird; a demographically convenient convex mirror which ends up justifying Robbie by defining itself as nothing other than "not Robbie."

Anniemal, conversely, is the triumph of a single petal of simple love pulled out of the meta-jungle and made to grow anew (the journey from "Chewing Gum" to "My Best Friend": "a tree where animals can breathe").

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 15 October 2004 09:28 (twenty years ago)

I don't agree that Bjork is nothing more than 'not Robbie'. Bjork has chosen her place on a continuum with a bunch of other artists, and has chosen boldly. To me it's more important that she's 'almost Meredith Monk' than that she's 'not Robbie Williams'.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 09:34 (twenty years ago)

I didn't find anything bold in Medulla. It was exactly the sort of Wire-friendly album I expected Bjork to make.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 15 October 2004 09:41 (twenty years ago)

Well, if you were outside Britain maybe you wouldn't let your views of artists be coloured by your feelings about the mags that cover them. I felt the same way when I lived there, but the moment you get outside that embittered British way of thinking everything sounds better. 'Wow, so Captain Beefheart isn't a Peel Band!'

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 09:48 (twenty years ago)

(But here's where I confess that I only like one track on 'Medulla', 'Ancestors'. I have no idea whether The Wire concurs and I don't care.)

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 10:03 (twenty years ago)

My view is that Medulla was the safest record Bjork could possibly have made. She's just become part of that utterly safe and unthreatening constellation, up there with latter-day Eno, Toop, Sonic Youth, O'Rourke, Stereolab; muesli-shaped derriere-garderie for solvent retards.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 15 October 2004 10:03 (twenty years ago)

I haven't heard lots of John Peel but I find it odd that he likes 'trout mask replica' given what else he likes and also other things he doesn't like (or doesn't play -- but again I didn't bother with his show for long).

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 15 October 2004 10:06 (twenty years ago)

Back in the late '60s/early '70s Peel used to play a lot more free jazz/improv and even had people like Brotherhood of Breath, SME, etc., come in for sessions, but I think that was pretty much all down to John Walters.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 15 October 2004 10:09 (twenty years ago)

Ronnie Corbett style digression coming up. I saw John Peel outside HMV in Oxford Street yesterday - he's tiny and gnome-like. Then when I went inside HMV I saw Danny Kelly (who, conversely, is enormous) knocking over a rack of Morrissey CDs (more in sorrow than in anger I reckon) then shuffling off like a naughty school boy, leaving a member of staff to pick up the fallen CDs.

― Dataismus (Dada), Friday, 15 October 2004 10:15 (twenty years ago)

The one thing consistent about Peel is his own survival. (Don't quote me on this if it's 2007, he's just died, and you're googling.) That's where his true achievement lies. He's the Fidel Castro of independent music.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 10:19 (twenty years ago)

Inside cover of a Virgin Robert Wyatt compilation I've got has various writers Top 10 albums for 1974 - most of them are pretty good, Peel's has "Veedon Fleece", which surprised me, and .... Barclay James Harvest!

― Dataismus (Dada), Friday, 15 October 2004 10:22 (twenty years ago)

if i saw Danny Kelly i'd slap him like the big ugly baby he is. who wants it?

― Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Friday, 15 October 2004 10:41 (twenty years ago)

"Radio" is an interesting single, and kind of a musical departure for Robbie with its Bowie-influences, but it doesn't sound like Duffy nor anything he's ever been evolved with. Weird....

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 15 October 2004 11:27 (twenty years ago)

Hmph, Peel's '74 choices don't surprise me. He'd retrospectively like us all to think he was digging hip 'n' kool '74 discs like Soon Over Babaluma or Pick A Dub - but you know who actually was playing that stuff on the BBC at the time? Derek Jewell on Radio 3's Sounds Interesting, that's who. I can confirm that Peel was indeed playing Barclay James Harvest in '74, not to mention the first exclusive play of Mike Oldfield's Hergest Ridge.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 15 October 2004 12:22 (twenty years ago)

"Soon Over Babaluma" was in somebody else's Top 10 - Steve Peacock perhaps?

― Daddyismus (Dada), Friday, 15 October 2004 12:23 (twenty years ago)

And beside this kind of meta-song, this kind of song-on-the-radio-about-songs-on-the-radio, isn't the simplest love song a breath of fresh air?

-- Momus (nic...) (webmail), October 15th, 2004. (link)

Funnily enough, this just reminded me:

A few years ago, they had one of those 'on-line song competition' things on his website. I had taken part in a 'Dave Bowie' one two years before that, and penned a few verses for "What's really happening?". As part of that scenario, you got to view and vote on five other entrants at a time via one link. (boy the ones I saw ranged from bad to abysmal). The eventual winner was, fair enough, possibly better than mine.

Anyway, the tune you got (robbie la-la-laing to a synth backing) prompted a straightforward love song from me. It did not win, it was absolutely abysmal and I have erased it 'spotless mind' style. But afterwards, I had reflected that it had no place in his back catalogue anyway for the above reasons.

(xpost Am I on the wrong thread?)

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 15 October 2004 12:30 (twenty years ago)

I can confirm that Peel was indeed playing Barclay James Harvest in '74, not to mention the first exclusive play of Mike Oldfield's Hergest Ridge.

I can just remember the Hergest Ridge play. You are obv just older than me.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 15 October 2004 12:31 (twenty years ago)

Peel was still playing Barclay James Harvest in early 77. One of their singles from that era was his "Peel's Big 45" for a while.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Friday, 15 October 2004 12:59 (twenty years ago)

Oh, and he also had the exclusive first play - with interview! - of Rick Wakeman's No Earthly Connection.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Friday, 15 October 2004 13:00 (twenty years ago)

Just think, if 'Whispering Bob' Harris had adopted a few faux working class vowels, told us how much he liked football, punk, curry and The Undertones every five minutes, and dropped poor old Mike Oldfield like a hot potato, he too might now be doing voice-overs for building society commercials!

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 15 October 2004 16:37 (twenty years ago)

"Radio" is an interesting single, and kind of a musical departure for Robbie with its Bowie-influences...

Interesting you'd mention Bowie, because I was thinking Peter Murphy. Two sides of the same coin?

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:51 (twenty years ago)

I would say yes, considering Murphy's main musical influence is called David Bowie. :-)

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 18 October 2004 09:24 (twenty years ago)

"he steals all my Oscars, he's Bela Lugosi's dad"

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 18 October 2004 11:59 (twenty years ago)

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