THE SIGNAL

So Duffy is at Number 1. Great news you would think – if it was 1995. Or 1985. Or in fact any year pre-2008. Because in 2008 the moniker Duffy was stolen from one of the great songwriters of the past 20-odd years and taken by a tedious, souless, cabaret singer to front a charmless, meandering, faux-soul sound which has somehow managed to be hyped to death over the past 3 months, resulting in a Number One single.

I’ll explain – at Signal Towers we are lucky to enough to receive copies of some of our favourite records ahead of release. It’s always exciting to rip open an envelope to find a new single from Nick Cave or the debut album by the Teenagers. So it was with great joy and abandon that I opened such an envelope late last year to find a new single on Rough Trade (great label) produced by Bernard Butler (great producer) performed by Duffy – one of my true heroes and leader of The Lilac Time, as well as being sometime member of The Devils and recording under various names including Stephen “TinTin” Duffy.

So I put the single on, and seeping from my speakers like pus from a sore is a limp MOR ballad soppily sung by a wailing banshee bereft of any personality. I think the modern parlance for my reaction is WTF.

So I read the little sticker that tells you the release date and I discover the Duffy in question is not the singer- songwriter I’ve admired across a host of albums and stylings (yes even during the Robbie Williams period), but “a brand new Welsh talent” who apprarently is going to sweep all before her in 2008.

Well the little sticker writing people were right. Over the past few weeks we’ve all had to endure the mantra that Duffy is the great discovery of 2008, invoking the spirit of Dusty Springfield in voice, and heart and soul of everyone else we can think of with a great voice from Al Green to Aretha. As with her similarly boring chum Adele, we’ve all been told this by the makers and shakers in the know, so it must be true and we’d better start buying her record or we’ll miss out and look like people who are so unhip their bums are about to fall off.

Well the rot stops here – Duffy is NOT Duffy. Duffy is the moniker used by Stephen Duffy for two of the great lost pop albums of the 90s. The eponymous Duffy from 1995 (he can do that cos he’s actually called Duffy and didn’t steal his name from someone else) and I Love My Friends from 1998. Seek them out, play them to death and realise “You Are” is today’s greatest song you’ve ever heard.

As Duffy (the real Duffy, not the fake one) sings on She Freak “To be yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing to do and to do right”. Listen up Miss Not-Duffy!

In order to rescue the untarnished name of Duffy (the real Duffy, not the fake one), I’ll be playing a song from Duffy (the 1995 album by the real Duffy, not the fake one) at the top of the next show!

The next edition of The Signal is almost finished and should be online in the next few days. This time out we have an interview with Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse about the recent album Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain.

Meantime I went to see the amazing Von Bondies on the first night of the European tour. It’s been 3 years since the band’s last tour dates in Europe and four years since the last album Pawn Shoppe Heart. That album remains my favourite of this decade – I must have played it more than any other record over the past 4 years. Plus the last time I saw the VBs play was at the London Astoria in 2005, so to say this show was highly anticipated would be something of a smidgen of a hint of a whiff of an understatement!

There are been a few changes in Camp Von Bondies since 2005 – Marcie and Carrie have now left to do other things (Carrie’s last show was that Astoria gig), and the band have expanded to a five piece. They’ve also left their label and gone independent again, which mean the T-Shirts now pay for the tourbus petrol!

The gig was sensational – the band gave their all at full pelt, basically playing a greatest hits set with the very best selections from the previous albums and a few new tracks. Two of these – Pale Bride and I Don’t Wanna – can be found on the brand new EP We Are Kamikazes Aiming Straight For Your Heart. Pale Bride is a fizzing pop bomb with a holy hand grenade of a chorus at its centre, and sits perfectly with other VB classics such as Lack Of Communication and Tell Me What You See. It felt a bit weird hearing Not That Social without Carrie, but after opening with the old favourite It Came From Japan, the band had fans and newbies right in the palm of their hands until they finished up with a blasting double bill of Rock n’ Roll Nurse and Broken Man.

But the highlight of the night for me was meeting the great gentleman rocker of Detroit, Jason Von Bondie himself!! Jason was at the merchie stall and sold us a copy of the new EP so I genuinely feel I have added a little something to the Von Bondies’ efforts to stay on the road. Plus after the show he met up with us outside the venue, and was in a seriously good mood! Jason is a supercool guy – it’s such a relief when your heroes turn out to be truly cool!

Check out the new EP now – only available from the Von Bondies myspace, and hear the lead track on the next Signal!