I did say at the beginning of this year that it would be focused on Britpop releases with the occasional anniversary fantasy box set thrown in for good measure, but Beck was an artist I was listening to during this time so it felt right to include him here.
I first heard of Beck whilst watching his debut UK television performance on legendary British music show, ‘Top Of The Pops’. I didn’t know what to make of the performance as I have never been a fan of rapping, and the band seems to be made up of very old men miming quite badly. I then saw a review for his ‘Mellow Gold’ in another British music institution that has now gone to the nostalgia bin in the form of Q Magazine. The review gave it five out of five, something you did not see very often. I was feeling flush that week so ‘Mellow Gold’ was purchased. It was like nothing I had heard before and even though ‘Loser’ had the potential to be a one hit wonder, there was enough in the grooves for me to become very interested in what this guy was going to do next.
What I didn’t realise is that he was going to to quite a lot, and had already done quite a bit already. Beck had been recording in one form or another since the late 80s with some now impossible to find low-fi cassette albums. These were never going to be on my radar, as they were only ever available in the USA and 1994 was essentially the age before the internet, so I did not find out about these releases until much later. What I did have was The Record Shop in Kingston Upon Thames. The haven for vinyl releases in the vinyl desert that was the mid 90s’. If you wanted something rare, and more importantly in this case, imported from abroad, that was the place to get it. I may well have bought ‘Mellow Gold’ there in the first place. Anyway, I digress.
Going back a few weeks after first playing ‘Mellow Gold’, I found that the Beck section had a 10” Beck record in it called ‘A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight’. It even came with a limited edition finger painting, which was nothing to shout about but this was only available with the initial run. Whereas ‘Mellow Gold’ was recorded with what sounded like a budget (all be it a small one), ‘A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight’ sounded as if the money for its production had been spent having a good time before hand. It was full of curious sound experiments, a tune that sounded as though he was plonking around on a guitar and playing around with the drum machine settings on a cheap Casio keyboard. There was the odd song in there, but this was one for the completist.
I then found out that he had released another album just before ‘Mellow Gold’ called ‘Stereopathetic Soulmaure’. I thought I would give that a go and found that this was in a similar vein to ‘A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight’ more noise experiments, home and live recordings. There even recordings made out on the street with guest performers. ‘Stereopathetic Soulmanure’ did have more in the way of songs on it, some of which showed a strong country influence. The song ‘Rowboat’ has some lovely pedal steel playing in it and is possibly the best of Beck’s early songs. There was another album released before ‘Mellow Gold’ called ‘Golden Feelings’ but I have never seen a copy for sale for anything other than a staggeringly high price on line.
Beck was able to release these low-fi experimental albums because his label, which had released ‘Mellow Gold’ allowed him to do so. Great for the collector, but so much if you wanted a record that could be considered song based. Coming back to these records many years later, I wondered what would have happened if the more songs based tunes were released on their own without the more experimental efforts and so we have my version of ‘A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight’.
‘Aphid Manure Heist’ has been edited so that is just the violin intro, as I didn’t like the second section and this also meant that the run times would match up more evenly as this would be another of my what-if albums that would have been released on a 12” LP. It is still quite short for an LP and still has flashes of experimentation and is not exactly commercial, but it holds together.
Side A
- Totally Confused – A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight
- Thunder Peel – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
- Modesto – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
- Today Has Been A Fucked Up Day – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
- The Spirit Moves Me – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
- No Money No Honey – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
- One Foot In The Grave – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
Side B
- Aphid Manure Heist (Edit) – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
- Crystal Clear (Beer) – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
- Rowboat – A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight
- Puttin’ It Down – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
- Getting’ Home – A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight
- Pinefresh – A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight
- Satan Gave Me A Taco – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
- Feel Like A Piece Of Shit (Cheetos Time!) – A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight
- Ken (Hidden Track) – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
I could have used the more experimental efforts from these two albums and they could have been released as a companion piece called ‘Stereopathetic Soulmanure’ That is a project for another day, or even for somebody else.