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March 08, 2006
Retrohump Day - Orange Juice
Glasgow's Orange Juice rose to non-prominence beginning in 1979, with the corpse of punk still warm. Instead of taking the obvious route by upping the noise quotient and becoming more ugly, OJ used a self deprecating wit and a love of pure pop and soul music to make their mark. Sunny melodies about miserable people, meet your maker.
Orange Juice - "Falling and Laughing"
Ah, to be a director in the early days of music video, when "Let's just take the live footage we have and put it inside a non-moving film reel frame. It'll be smaller that way! But tilt it sideways, so you know it's art" was a perfectly legitimate treatment.
The song itself is the band's first single and a nice piece of work. Long before their danceable style would be name dropped repeatedly in explaining the readymade sound of Franz Ferdinand, it's clear that their music cast an immediate shadow on much closer contemporaries. The jangly guitar, the crooning voice, even Edwyn Collins' pompadour points to the conclusion that somewhere 19 year old Morrissey may have stopped sobbing long enough to take notes. May have stopped sobbing.
Orange Juice - "Blue Boy"
Belle and Sebastian is another current fave who has walked in the Juice's footsteps, specifically in their slight tales of Glasgow hipsters unlucky in love. Also, apparently in their video making style. No prominent band footage, girls who might know the band mincing about in an amatuerish way, prominent references to other artists (check the T Rex posters), odd color filters, etc.
I see the logo, but on what planet was this ever shown on MTV?
Orange Juice - "Rip it Up"
By their second album, Rip it Up, OJ was bored with inventing indie pop, so they added a member (see if you can pick him out) and delved deeper into the then vilified disco. One of the first and most successful attempts to reconcile the Velvet Underground and the velvet rope, is that album's title track.
All of it is so charmingly low-rent that choosing is difficult, but my favorite part of this is when the boys dress up in Cabana wear and walk around to "freak people out." The low impact of the resulting crowd reactions leads them to up the ante with complete scuba suits.
Do yourselves a favor and check out last year's long overdue compilation of early singles and the unreleased rougher versions of the songs that were to be released as a first album (Ostrich Churchyard), but were scrapped and rerecorded. The collection's called the Glasgow School and you can buy it here.
Their first two properly released albums are unforgivably out of print in the US. Big spenders can follow the links to pick them up on import; You Can't Hide Your Love Forever
Rip it Up
Tags: Orange Juice, the Smiths, Morrissey, Belle and Sebastian, Cabana Wear,
Posted by Jeff Klingman at March 8, 2006 07:43 AM
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Comments
I really like Orange Juice - a band I knew little about until recently, but I'm really enjoying discovering them.
Just to add that I'm not sure how many people were aware that about a year ago Edwyn Collins had to have major surgery after a brain hemmorage and has been seriously ill for some time. However, last I heard he is improving and gave a short interview to Q magazine at Xmas.
In addition, I borrowed a copy of James Kirk's (guitarist) solo album recently "You Can Make It if You Boogie". He had given up music for 18years to become a chiropodist. The album retains the songwriting and pop sensibility that was apparent in Orange Juices music and worth a listen if you happen across it.
Posted by: Gary Parsons at March 9, 2006 07:48 AM
Yeah, I saw that and felt bad that it would come at a time when he had to be vindicated by the uptick in interest in his band's old material. Good to hear that he's up and about.
Band member solo albums are often a bit dodgy. I downloaded Jerry Harrison's album, and I thought it'd be can't miss, since he was in both the Talking Heads and the Modern Lovers, but it totally blew.
I'll gave Capt. Kirk a shot if I see it though.
Posted by: Jeff K at March 9, 2006 10:26 AM
