By: Matt Butler
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Psychocandy holds a special place in my music collection. From the first sparkled fuzz of the guitar in ‘Just Like Honey’ to the final throes of feedback at the end of ‘It’s So Hard’, the whole album is a part-noisy, part-tender, part-snotty-teenaged masterpiece.
And being the age I am, it is packed full of memories. I remember driving too fast in a Morris Minor, late at night, stomach full of carbonated wine, around the sleepy town I grew up in with a tape of Psychocandy blaring from a ghetto-blaster in the back seat. I remember the look of surprise from my Don Johnson-obsessed girlfriend at the time when she found that some of the music I listened to actually had a tune.
And I remember my initial interest in a woman from the other side of the world I met at the turn of the century increased greatly when she revealed she had Psychocandy on vinyl (she is now my wife – she had way more going for her beyond the album).
Put it this way: if you haven’t heard Psychocandy, do it now. It has it all: feedback, hooks, fuzz, attitude, melody and – most importantly – rock ‘n’ roll. Then imagine hearing all that in the mid-1980s, when all else was synth-pop, hair metal and tinny R ‘n’ B. Honestly, it blew many of us away. And that was even before various commentators and critics in the years since told us how “important” the release was. Important? Pah. It was just bloody good music.
So given that the original album is laden with memories, this live record from 2014 – when they played the entire Psychocandy at Glasgow’s Barrowlands – released to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the original album feels a little like trying to improve a Picasso with a spray can.
The brothers that were the core of the band, Jim and William Reid, sound up for it – they even sound a little cheerful in the brief interludes between songs. And as the album progresses, their vocals warm up and hit the high notes required.
The production is great – the crowd noise is minimal and every instrument is crisp and clear – but what is missing is that extra edge. There isn’t enough feedback in some songs, and in the quiet numbers, the chilly echo and previously mentioned sprarkly fuzz is missing.
It would have been impossible to improve on the original album and I am well aware that this live concert is released more as a memento for completist fans. Given that it comes with a lavishly photographed 40-page book and a CD containing interviews of the band, you get the impression that the songs themselves are secondary.
And although it is interesting to hear what the album sounds like played live, it also demonstrates the restrictions the format imposes. As you hear ‘The Living End’ with barely any of the white noise that shocked listeners out of their ‘Just Like Honey’ reverie, with far more drum fills that Bobby Gillespie ever managed, you begin to understand why their gigs way back then frequently descended into angry, chaotic messes, as legend has it, anyway. If my creations came out as flat-sounding live as ‘The Living End’ or ‘My Little Underground’ sound on this record, I’d be bloody fuming.
Put it this way: the loud songs aren’t noisy enough and the tender ones – ‘Cut Dead’, ‘Sowing Seeds’ and ‘Just Like Honey’ have so much distortion that there is little change in dynamics from the rest of the songs. It is all a little one-dimensional.
The anniversary album, presented on 180-gram vinyl, of course, also comes with a 10-inch live performance of some of their other well-known tunes. Of these, the ones from later in their catalogue stand out, as they were originally recorded with a drum machine. ‘Head On’ out-Pixies the Pixies cover of the song, where a six-minute performance of ‘Revenance’, with its big drums and even bigger guitars – aided by Noel Summerville’s engineering – almost goes into stoner territory.
So if you love Psychocandy as much as me, this serves as a curiosity. And it will encourage you to dig out the original album and play it at ear-splitting volume. But if you have never heard it before, you will wonder what the fuss was all about if you hear this release. Buy the original one. Then play it at ear-splitting volume.
