The Associates/Billy MacKenzie Appreciation Thread

At least it might be, but I'm not sure if there will be enough admirers on here to go the full distance. What I'd like to do is go through the albums and singles at least up until Perhaps. Afterwards I'm a bit shaky, so might need a helping hand, but of course it all depends if there is any interest.

I'd like to kick off by posting an excellent documentary on Billy called The Glamour Chase, which I think was made by STV in Scotland. It's a rather good overview and features contributions from the likes of Siouxsie, Marc Almond and Yello's Boris Blank among others.


Glamour Chase Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four


Next up, the Associates debut single Boys Keep Swinging.

 

Everyone on this forum should AT LEAST own the 'Sulk' album, great stuff.

 

Oh good at least there's one. Yes, I'll be covering Sulk, along with The Affectionate Punch, and those series of excellent singles released in the early 80s, which were collected later on the Fourth Drawer Down comp.

 

I own 'Sulk'. And that's especially because of the big love for MacKenzie's voice and also Rankine's bass playing, but I really hate that particular drumsound, which was so popular in the early eighties, at that album...

I love especially the first song at that album, called 'The Affectionate Punch'. Also for an odd reason. Did someone miss the close similarity (the bass sound!) with the song 'Relax' of Frankie Goes to Hollywood?

 

I love both Affectionate Punch and Sulk. I still remember browsing in 99 Records on McDougal St. while they were playing the just released Punch and thinking what is that? Affectionate Punch is, in my opinion, one of the great lost 80's pop albums. Skewed and sexy, it was glorious. The same can be said of Sulk, but my theory is that it was just a bit too gay for the great mainstream. And Billy Mackenzies voice probably turned off a lot of people. I always thought it was like a great disco album run through a demented pop sensibility. A higher pitched Sylvester with guitars.

 

Oops, doing things out of mind, means sometimes making mistakes. Of course is the song 'The Affectionate Punch' part of an album with the same name, so no part of the album 'Sulk'...

 

Count me in. Great band.

 

Alan Rankine was the guitarist, actually. Michael Dempsey < of The Cure> was the bassist in the early days <1980-1982> of the Associates...

Anyway, big fan here as well. I've amassed quite a collection of thiers - quite fun to collect thier work, there's tons of stuff out there, I can tell you.

 

There appears to be enough interest to get the thread going so let's begin.


Boys Keep Swinging/Mona Property Girl released June 1979


Right back to the beginning then, their opportunistic cover of Bowie's Boys Keep Swinging, released a few weeks after the original hit the charts, and which resulted in a phone call from Bowie's publisher. It was supposed to be a ticking off for releasing their version so soon, but was impressed enough to offer them a publishing deal which kickstarted their career.

I guess it was a way of getting their name known and perhaps picking up a few Bowie fans on the way, but this Bowie fan didn't really get it. It was a minimalist, stripped down version which plodded along aimlessly. If I wanted to hear the song then Bowie would have been my choice. I like it better now, it makes more sense, whereas I've gone right off Bowie's. So today, the tables have turned, I'd rather listen to the Associates version, but the Bowie influence would be prevalent on their debut album The Affectionate Punch.

Boys Keep Swinging

 

Massive fan here too. I've got most of the Mackenzie collaborations, including the later stuff, so should be able to chip in when needed.

I think "Mona Property Girl", one of the best songs from the early phase, should have been the A-side, but then "Boys" got them noticed more. It's a good song too, but I'm a little biased and think Bowie is way overrated.

 

It was really hard to get your hands on one of these singles here in the USA - I became a fan starting with the next single <The Affectionate Punch> due to reading a glowing review in the New Musical Express or Melody Maker. Before the cd age, this 7" used to fetch $50 and up - now it's available on at least 2 Associates cds.
I didn't finanlly get to hear this until years later - and have to admit it was a bit of a let-down after all the hype. I agree with you, though, I like it more now than I first did. One thing is evident from this single, however - Billy had a fantastic voice and this was just the beginning....

Here's a YouTube link for those that haven't heard it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4zmCuE98PE

 

Wow, I LOVE the Associates, and I've been totally obsessed with them for eons, particularly the Affectionate Punch through Sulk years. This thread is necessary!

As for the Boys Keep Swinging single, I love it as much as (and sometimes more than) Bowie's original. I love how its stripped down arrangement kind of evokes a certain atmosphere (albeit a crude one), especially with Rankine's minimalist guitar in the verses. Plus the bass really grooves along nicely. Mona Property Girl is, of course, absolutely brilliant, but I prefer the later, more finished A Girl Named Property, which turned up as the b-side on the Kites single and on the Fourth Drawer Down comp. A really strong start, in my opinion.

jsayers - I agree, it *is* fun to collect their work, and what's nice is that with patience and persistence, it can be found relatively cheaply. I'm still trying to collect all of the singles from the early 80s as there are a few holes in my collection.

 

Although "Sulk" was a creative peak of sorts, Billy continued to release some fantastic music right up to his untimely death in 1997, especially all the guest vocals he contributed to so many other artist's work, like Yello.

 

Oh, my god - buying the original LP version of "Affectionate Punch" from the legendary Spillers Records in Cardiff...

Going to college and buying their run of 12" singles, then "Sulk" and "Punch" redux.

Then the split, and carrying on with the vinyl although it was never quite the same, although I did see Billy's version of the Associates live in a church near Piccadilly Circus in London...

Looking forward to hearing what people say in this thread!

 

He certainly did, although in my humble view, much of that work is inconsistent. For me, it just wasn't the same without Rankine. He was the Johnny Marr to Billy's Morrissey. But we'll get to that stuff!

 

and jsayers.


This is good news. I think it's got the makings of a decent thread because as I said previously I'm fine until Perhaps and then I'm struggling, so will be happy to hand over to others to take over individual albums if they so wish. However, as thoutah says, there's a great deal of Billy Mac out there and mostly available cheaply. I'm hoping to borrow and buy in the coming weeks.

Let me tell you where I am as far as my collection goes:

I have on CD the following:

*The Affectionate Punch
*Fourth Drawer Down
*Sulk
*Perhaps/Glamour Chase 2 CD
*Radio One Sessions Vol 2
*Wild And Lonely
*Singles

And will hopefully get a loan of Auchtermatic and Transmission Impossible soon.

There are gaps as you can see, but enough to be going on with for now, particularly the first four Associates albums, 5 if you include "Glamour". I'm also a bit uncertain of the timeline after Perhaps, but will check out some of the websites to make sure I get the chronology correct.

 

To follow this thing through is going to a long hard road. As I stated before, besides his solo and Associates releases, there have been a lot of posthumous releases, plus a ton of 12" mixes, demos, b-sides, still-unreleased stuff to go over. We might as well do this right, as it will be here for posterity for future fans as well.

For a look at Billy MacKenzie's vast catalogue of work, check out Jonas Warstad's excellent site dedicated to Billy's work <isn't Jonas a member here?>. If I had a quarter for every time I've referenced his discog site....

http://www.discog.info/associates.html

Here are 3 pics of the early days, Billy and Alan, that I like a lot:

 

jsayers - those are wonderful pics!

 

Absolutely jsayers. The intention is to at least cover everything he has ever released, and I'm hoping you can be our Yello correspondent!

At last, the link I have been after. Every time I've tried to access the damn thing it's been broken. Thanks very much.

 

I loved Dempsey's bass playing. He had quite a unique sound, a sort of melodic, rolling treble sound, you can really tell it's the same bass on say Boys Don't Cry and Party Fears Two. The Cure's loss was the Associates gain obviously. He was a big part of The Cure's early sound.

Trivia fans will also know The Smiths 'William It Was Really Nothing' is apparently about Billy. I don't know if Morrissey and Billy were lovers or just friends though.

 

I've already alerted the official Billy MacKenzie mailing list to this thread, of which I've been a member of since I had a computer. Some of the members actually knew Billy, many of them are neighbors of his family. One member of that list, who shall go un-named unless she wants to come forward herself, was a fellow Whippets <Billy's passion> dog raiser/trainer. Many a hotel room was left with dog poo and havoc raised by Billy's Whippets.

For those that want to subscribe, here's the poop:

http://affectionate.bunch.pagesperso-orange.fr/

Back in the day, members produced priceless cd-r's of rare music, demos, etc. Plus a dvd with that excellent documentary the OP posted in post #1 on YT, also stuffed with promo clips and Euro TV appearances.

Pics:

 

Thanks for the link.

Personally, I think they were at their peak with the Situation 2 singles, through to 'Party Fears Two.'

Sulk I loved, but find difficult to take now. Everything, including the kitchen sink, is chucked into the mix, which overloads a lot of the songs I think.

Looking at that discography, I'm sure 'Fourth Drawer Down' came out after the 'White Car In Germany' single, not before. Maybe I'm misremembering.

 

Nice to see you here, Willowman - I thought you'd be a fan and contribute.
Welcome aboard!

 

Certain the singles came out before Fourth Drawer Down, which, initially I believe, was only available as import, but I'll have to check for sure. At the time I was working part time in a record shop, and we were following the singles avidly when they were released about a couple of months apart. I personally couldn't wait for them to be released after hearing Tell Me Easter's On A Friday. Think I've still got some of the vinyl, so will dig them out and post photos of them hopefully.

Jsayers, that DVD looks fantastic. We're going to have to set aside a post for that alone. And youtube has got some interesting clips which I will link for the relevant disc under discussion.

 

Fourth Drawer Down was simply a comp LP of the Situation 2 singles, so all the singles on it were of course released before. Things had a way of hitting hot & fast back then!

The cd on V2, by the way, is absolutely essential, chock full of bonus tracks.

I'm getting ahead of the thread, though. Sorry!