Hell's Belles

Vintage sounds, dusty grooves, and 21st-century freaks.

If you’re a fan of Nick Cave, The Birthday Party, Fucked Up, Alec Empire, Primal Scream, !!! and many, many other purveyors of politically-charged musical rage, you owe Mark Stewart a pint.  Joining you in the queue at the bar will likely be Annie Clark aka St. Vincent.  She’s been cranking out covers lately that are a surprising foil to her haunting, ethereal pop – “Kerosene” by Big Black and most recently, a very hot version of The Pop Group’s “She’s Beyond Good and Evil”, which she busted out on US TV show Jimmy Fallon last night. It’s sending the internet all aflutter, and with good reason.  Her unhinged version more than does the original justice. It’s prompted a twitter exchange between Annie and Mark (who fronted The Pop Group as a teenager), which in turn has prompted rumours that the man himself will join her onstage at tomorrow night’s show at the South Bank Centre in London.  Which would be incredible.  Unless I can’t get in, in which case, LALALALAICAN’THEARYOOOOUUUUU.

Although the track covered here is 30 years and a bit old, Mark Stewart is one of those rare artists that has not only remained steadily prolific over the course of three decades, he continues to inspire and with apocalyptic results.  The next one in line is a limited 7″ AA release later this month for the Black Friday Record Store Day, which works on so many levels, I don’t know where to start.  The A is a cover of T.Rex’s “Children Of The Revolution”, recorded over many miles and years with The Bug (Techno Animal, King Midas Sound).  The AA is “Nothing Is Sacred”, a collabo with Eve Libertine from Crass.   The record is limited to 500 copies, which in Record Store Day terms means it might as well have “rarer than rump steak still on the cow’s ass” stamped on it, and each record sleeve is an individual piece of Mark’s bombart.  The queue starts, like, yesterday.

In the meantime, here’s both St. Vincent’s and The Pop Group’s versions of “She’s Beyond Good and Evil”.  I’ll post the new Mark Stewart stuff sometime after black Friday.  Check his YouTube channel for more.

The Pop Group – She’s Beyond Good and Evil

UPDATE: They’ve only gone and done it as a DUET. I tend to think of “duets” as more like Lee & Nancy, Dolly ‘n Kenny an’ that, so this is on another plane altogether, even if it’s just on a phone:

One of my favourite UK websites, The Quietus, has just posted a rather excellent podcast by Terry Edwards.  You’ll have heard me mention Terry before, flexing his Zoot Horn Rollo muscle with Robyn Hitchcock’s Captain Beefheart ensemble earlier this year, and the eagle-eyed amongst you will have seen his name credited as sax player alongside the likes of PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Tindersticks and Faust, or in The Higsons (with funny guy Charlie Higson).

Anyway, a while back, Terry wrote a book about Madness’s album, One Step Beyond.  The podcast below features music associated with that album including ace tunes from The Ventures, Roxy Music, Julian Cope, David Bowie and Prince Buster.  Have a listen, and do go read the article on The Quietus, so’s they benefit a bit from my embedding their podcast.

Terry Edwards’ Podcast Guide To Madness’ One Step Beyond by theQuietus

At least for the US.  Can’t find any UK listings for the Runaways film yet.  Is it any surprise that all of Tits of Death are dying to see it?

MP3: The Runways – Cherry Bomb

(Of course.)

And here’s the film trailer.