To continue with the transferance of data from the old sites to the new, here are a bunch of details about the magnificent, but under-selling, album by The Cheesemakers.
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STREET DATE
MONDAY 10th DECEMBER 2007
The time has come my friends...
...time to Panic Now!
OUT NOW
Out now on Limited Edition CD with free badge while stocks last. Available at Reflex, Amazon, Play and all major and minor music establishments.
THE SONGS15 songs in all that make up the magnus opus that is 'Panic Now!'. Here we guide you through them all telling you what you need to know on a need to know basis.
1 YOU SOLD YOUR RECORDS (1983) - A traditional set opener when the band play live, this song automatically lent itself to begin with The Ramones chant, although none of the band are particular fans of the band - with the possible exception of Jim - it just felt right with the punk/new wave angle of the bands music in general. The song itself tells of when school friends see eachother again years after they've all left their seat of learning and you find that all the things you talked about when you were youths in the parks and seafront seat-stalls have dropped out of their lives. All the things you said you'd never do, they've done them. And the music you listened to, you said you'd always listen to it, and they don't. It's about still being true to the beliefs and ways of life that you fermented in high school when all others around are succumbing to the norm and what popular culture tells them. For detail enthusiasts, the 'names on the wall' in the chorus can still be seen in the pavilion of the bowling greens at North Marine Park in South Shields. An electric intro to the album and a real stomper
2 ENDOSCOPE NIGHTMARE - A far trickier song subject wise. The riffing at the beginning seems to come from an earlier period, maybe the garage bands or early rock bands of the late 60's and swells into a somewhat heavy beast with a sting in its tale. The quick part in the middle and end (there must be a name for that in the Art of Songwriting book) is made unique by two guitars, one of which decends whilst the other ascends, making a somewhat dizzying spiral. Lyrics? Well, the title comes from a terrible surgical procedure, obviously. I could say that the words tell of a journey through the body as metaphor for life, through all the various organs and tubes that all need to work at the same time to uphold it...but....it's just a batch of very cool rhyming words. 'Eusebio-Subbuteo'. Say no more! The phrase 'top navigation skills' was also a top insert. A good follow up to the opening number.
3 THE BIG HAIRY WHEEL - Why is it that people always switch their dirty minds on when they hear the title for this song, or indeed the chorus? It's nothing of the sort. 'Hairy pop' is the drink which is left on your bedside table in the morning, dust has settled on the surface so it becomes hairy! Other great lyrical couplets from the 2nd verse include 'no TV detector van - no DSS grass', both phrases taken from graffiti sprayed on a wall near my house, and 'nothing on the telvision but Mike Neville and too much soap', ironic given that the longest serving regional news TV presenter has now actually retired before the bloody album has come out! The chrous is a couplet of a nice piece of word-play I thought up in 'the curtains are drawn, but the furniture is real' added to the legendary words that were sprayed on the also now (criminally) gone Westoe Netty, 'one pence a look, two pence a feel, three pence a ride on the big hairy wheel!' Folk who know not of the Westoe Netty need look it up on the Interweb. I also find it odd that some high flying musical legends would be lauded for memorialising a local landmark (Waterloo Sunset etc) but no-one pays a blind bit of notice when it's The Cheesemakers! Just a bitter observation there folks. Some cracking Who-like chord sequences thunder this song along until the very odd sounding ending. To part-parody Lennon, 'it's Geoff on the Wheel'
4 THE CIRCLE OF A CIRCUS RING - Curious one this in that it never really cut the mustard live but became this struggling monster in the studio, topped with the terrifying genius that is Guru Greeny! If there is one person who understands what the band is on about when we talk of demons and monsters and hairy wheels, its the Green. The master of understanding metaphor, his mantra in this song made it so much more than the sum of its parts. The only thing that really saves this song lyrically from being yesterdays papers today is the harmonies that were slipped in at the last minute.Musically however, it has reared up as a veritable tour-de-farce with huge monolithic guitars battling eachother for space and roaring drum 'n' bass, the likes of which Pete Fing Tong has never laid ears on! The finish is reminiscent of some of the heavier bands of the early seventies, the types that used to urinate in Mott The Hooples shoes at Top of The Pops. In trying to nail 'the future sound' we only
5 BUILDING - I often like to think of the bands sound as a journey down the motorways of Great Britain with regular trips off the slip-roads to take in the views and unique-ness of many a B-road and country road, with all the twists and turns that entails before re-joining the M1 and hurtling along to the enxt destination. This song is a case in point. This is one of many songs where we dabbled with a sound and feel that we hadn't before and never returned to. It was never meant to sound like Talking Heads and only actually does with parts of the drums and bass-line, the other instruments take it elsewhere. Lyrically and vocally a homage to great female artists of our times such as Patti Smith and PJ Harvey, the guitars saw Tom Verlaine sitting in the shadows on a wooden chair facing away from the audience both feeding back and acoustically angelic whilst the middle eight explodes in Dexys Midnight Runners stomping madness. This would need a hell of a line-up to recreate live and would take on the form af a revue. Who knows, maybe one day. A particular favourite of mine and a toekn of genius sits on the lap of the person who decided to chance his hand at bringing horns into the bands sound.
6 LICK MY HOOP - The only non-original tune on the album and penned by one of musics great losses. A band that plied it's trade in true Modernistic fashion in the late part of the 20th century, The Leapers. This band forged a deep furrow of their own playing the high roads of Tyneside whilst also putting together a mean canon of their own material. Believe me, this song is one of their throwaways but seemed to fit for us, they have many other songs that deserve to be exposed on a higher plane. The fact this band slipped under the general publics horizon before imploding in a haze is a true tragedy and begs the wider question, how many more other great bands never get to reach their true potential or audience? Subject matter? Well, you would have to ask the author for the details but I know it involves a somewhat pleasure-giving feline, which I must add, never belonged to me. See The Cheesemakers new website in the near to mid future for a specila page on The Leapers. NewOriginal Records also have plans to release an Anthology of their work so that at least a few more people get to hear their great work.
7 SOUL INTO THE SKY - A truly deep song this one, and one of the oldest on the album, finding birth around about 1998. The original riff was lifted from an early tune by the then-great Verve (before the word The was added) and was changed in feel by the tempo of this song being so different to it's origin. The idea for the words came from something the late-great Joe Strummer once said. 'You can solve a lot of problems on a five-mile walk' he said. I immediately dug this statement and realised I had already done this on several occasions. If you are troubled or confused with life, just set out on your own in the great wide open and let your mind work through all of your petty problems without the distraction of other people or machines or all of the other horrbile noises infesting our ever-packed country and world. You come back a few hours later somehow enlightened and I would recommend it to anyone. I am proud of the lyrics to this song. If these words came out of Hendrix or someone equally as lauded they would be classed as genius or legend by now! Some other-wordly acoustic guitar from Hesh on this tune send it off into the ether, it was very pleasing that he came round to the song shortly before leaving and said it was 'me favourite!' A great moment. I can now reveal that this is part one of a trilogy. Part Two has already been written and is moving into the band's set. It deals with the same topic but in a different way. Just maybe there is a metaphorical train somewhere about to pull out of the station and on it there are similarly troubled people who can help to share the burden and the weight. The idea being that there is another way if walking alone doesn't work. That song will come to you all very soon. Part Three has yet to be composed but will follow in due course.
8 LEICESTER - Now we come to the true centre of the album, both metaphorically and actually. The centre-piece. Folk of Leicester need not look over their shoulders too much, nor be offended that their town be immortalised in this way, Leicester could be any town or holmstead in our septic isles which is infested with this half-breed of human. The word Leicester came out because someone miss-heard what I had actually sung the first time we played it and in true time-honoured rock 'n' roll fashion, no-one can actually now remember what the original word was! These things are meant to be this way,and these things happen! Look around you in every bushy pathway or overgrown roundabout and they are there, dragging off poor sorry souls for a grissly end. The epicentre of this lies closer to home for us up here in the North-East and we must not reveal it here (a bit like our surnames) for fear of reprisal. Thom Yorke knows its true. You know it's true, you just need to see it and MAKE IT STOP!
9 WHITE TRASH (SLIGHT RETURN) - A very odd reprisal of the title track from our E.P. 'White Trash'. God alone only knows how this came about or why, but here it is to provide a nice natural link from parts one to two of the album. This is what some would refer to as a natural remix with added Cherman. Ever odderer is the fact that Ian of White Wolf studios plays this to all new bands in his studio to tell them 'what we're like'! Of all the tunes on all the album....Don't ask me what it's all about.
10 HATE THE MILKMAN - I do, quite literally, hate my milkman! For many reasons, although I should point out here and now, not the traditional reason for hating milkmen which usually invloves you being at work and the wife entertaining. No, that's not the reason. The title just came about and there are no other references to milkman, nice or otherwise, at any point in the song and it's not about hating milkmen in general. Just a great title which also made a top chorus without disturbing the rest of the song. This has developed over a few years into a real heavy mother whan played live. There were several techniques used to cover up the phone numbers given - of Hesh and Jim - in the verses but this is possibly the best, and evidently reproduceable in concert. For the techincally minded there was also an immense piece of editing involved where the intro to the coda (if there is one) just sounded lame and needed to be chopped out and replaced with something. What Hesh came up with sounds like a nuclear arsenal going off and when the drums and bass thunder back in the song dissappears into the earths crumbling o-zone. Inspired use of two hours if ever there was. No particular message in the songs lyrics other than little one-off toss-offs that worked at the time.
11 MAGIC - Another real old tune and finally imortalised correctly on this version. For the final record, it should be noted that several people have looked at me suspiciously and said 'ooh, that sounds like Unintended by Muse', well I can put that vicious rumour to rest once and for all by saying I have recorded evidence of demos of this while Muse were still sitting in their own shit! So bugger off. Let the song rest in peace. Thematically a thunderous chronicle of what happens when several momentous things happen in your life at the same time and it all collides and we wait to see what the aftermath will be when the dust settles. We have all had these, and we all get them from time to time but this one describes the mother of all of those cacophonous coming-togethers. Not an event you want to repeat too often in your life. 'This is a truth that one day you'll detest'
12 PANIC NOW! - Obviously the title track and basically the flag ship of the album. This is what holds it all together. The lyrics talk about trying to hold it all together through all lifes twists and turns including the bigger bangs mentioned in Magic. Musically this is one of the best pieces on the album, with lots of 'bits' as we call them, arrangement wise one of my greatest creations. The genius of the coda is that the bass takes off on a line it hasn't so far in the song allowing the guitars to re-assemble for one final assault which no-one could possibly survive. This is one of the songs where the band feels like it's one unit, one being, pulsating together towards a fundamental pancreas....of something loik that
13 FLY BUSTER - A very early favourite on the live circuit and a cracking post-punk pop song to boot. Unlike Hate The Milkman, this is about what the title tells you. Advising everyone everywhere to 'have fun killing flies'. The lyrics talk about the big problem of flies and there is seriously no methaphor within this songs pages, just strictly talking about what bastards flies are! 'Is it a bluebottle, or one that flies in squares', we've all had those little sods that fly in squares around the light bulb havent we, lets face it. Lyrics talk about 'covering your dinner up' and my personal favourite 'you tried the strip and the rolled up Ronnie Gill' (again, un-knowers should look up Ronnie Gill on the Geordie Interweb) That rare entity of a Cheesemakers song you can easily dance to! Total nonesense of course but a cracking bloody song!
14 HIGHER THAN YOU - For many people the signature tune of The Cheesemakers. My thought is that this is the most easily-memorable, with a catchy main riff, verse and chorus. Not over fussy in any way and short and to the point. As Keith Richards once said, 'the essence and ket to any hit single is that there should be something new happening every ten seconds'. Ah, there it is. There is the reason why most people see this as our theme tune. It's the one that most resembles a hit single, proving the gnarled ones thesis 100%. It does exactly what it says on the tin. Originally conceieved as a U2-type song with soaring chorus, we achieved this totally and in other hands, or even ours, WOULD be a Top 10 single, without a shadow of a doubt. Lyrically it captures how we were feeling at the time, that although we were distinctly underground, whilst we were writing this kind of tune and playing them in the way we were, there wasn't a local band that could touch us, and that was so true. We were travelling at high speed, and we were higher than YOU!
15 CREATURES - And we come to the final tune. This track is of extreme seriousness and is massive in every single way. I wanted it treated with respect in the studio and we probably spent more time on this than any of the other 14. Hesh and I certainly spent many hours pouring over various acoustic guitars, keyboard drop-ins, codas, backing vocals etc. I always see the last song on a studio album is the opportunity you don't get with a live set, to produce something really heavy, long and meaningful. In live shows, especially the type we do, you need to finish off with 2 or 3 of your shortest and fastest songs. Only people like Floyd get away with ending with long, deep songs. On an album, anyone can do it, and unless you're The Ramones, you need to grasp this opportunity. Some fabulous playing here by all of the band throughout, particularly the coda where all manner of things are going on and fantastically the guitar solo performed by Hesh midway through the song, a complete one-off one-take piece of genius that we were lucky enough to capture when an errant microphone happened to be turned on when recording the drums at the beginning of the process. This solo has been attempted many times since but never has it had the cutting edge nor the blistering accuracy that this take has. This is guitar playing as it is meant to be, no effects, no dabbling, just a man and his Tele, blowing all and sundry away. I am flabbergasted by this evertime I hear it and the structure of the song comforts it perfectly when the solo drops back into the sullen chorus from whence it came. Truly awesome and never to be repeated. Creatures deals with maybe the heaviest topic of all, that of life and the ability to be able to take it away from yourself. Having never seriously considered taking my own life I tried to take it from my angle and tell how I imagine it must feel. The 'creatures' in the song are the diseases and demons that inhabit the mind of a person who seriously contemplates that most final of self-help. The 'plastic trapeze' is life itself, precarious to even those that struggle on without the thought of self harm. The 'circling vultures', 'laughing and toying monkies' are the people sent to torment, cold phone callers, beggars in the street, general scum, all stacking up the reasons to clip off this mortal coil. The song can easily be down-graded, if you like, to people who just get clinically depressed or even fed-up, because the beauty of the song is that the metaphors can all be as big or as small as you like. 'It's brought me to my knees' can mean whatever it feels to you. Either you are on the brink of suicide or you have had a bugger of a day and just wanna curl up on the settee, the song can be taken on so many different grades of misery. Proud of this song? You better believe it. And this comes from the heart, not some made up cock-end nonesense from people like Blunt. This is the real deal from the street bozos so swallow that if you will.
Anyway, glad we ended the album on a lighter note. Hope those notes enlighten you and provide a little more insight into what you've bought or are now going to buy. This album has lots of tricks up it's sleeve and not all has been revealed above. This is an album of considerable weight, girth and longevity as it's gestation period was so long - see the whole story of 'Panic Now' elsewhere on this site - so purchase with the confidence that it really does belong alonside all of your other favourite albums such as 'Stanley Road', 'OK Computer' or 'Abbey Road' The list could go on. It is my hope and belief, that this album can make it into those hallowed realms, even if only for a fractious few. We know what's going on, don't we?
Andy November 2007
Order Panic Now!PANIC NOW ON LIMITED EDITION CD WITH 8-PAGE BOOKLET AND FREE BADGE WHILE STOCKS LAST IS £7.99
Shipping from Reflex is 50p UK / £1 Europe / £2 Rest of World
There are three ways to order 'Panic Now!'
As follows:
1 - You can walk into any record store and pick up a copy in person. Please ask for it in detail, The Cheesemakers, Panic Now, Catalogue Number NORIG003 Distributed by Proper. This way the store will be able to order one for you if they do not have it on the racks (shame on them!)
2 - You can order online for delivery with secure credit card. Please go to
https://www.reflexcd.co.uk/secure/request.asp?mode=Request and fill in the page there, whcih is fully secure. Your credit card will be charged only when the album is shipping. If you require more than one copy (Aunties, Uncles, Sisters etc) please be sure to mention this in the 'other' section.
3 - You can order with Paypal payment. Please send Paypal money to
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Any problems please contact either
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IF YOUR LOCAL STORE DOES NOT STOCK PANIC NOW
MAKE THEM!
TELL THEM THE FULL DETAILS LISTED RIGHT AND TELL THEM TO STOCK IT IMMEDIATELY!
SONG FACT 1
The brass section that perform on 'Building' and The Royston Vasey Messing and for reasons best left alone, this performance will be their first and last anywhere on record. They were last seen crossing an overgrown roundabout West of Sunderland!
SONG FACT 2One of the percussive sounds on one of the songs (can't remember which now) was attained by sloping off into an oily car-park and filling an empty 2 litre bottle of cheap pop with gravel (luxury). This unique percussive instrument still resides at White Wolf so please ask for it by name if you choose to record there
