Friday, June 21, 2019

Frame Out of Focus But In Top Form

After 10 years of blogging, I'm beginning to run out of pieces in my collection of Aztec Camera that haven't been featured. This stellar 10" EP seems to have slipped through the cracks. "The Crying Scene" was the walk-up single to the 1990 album 'Stray,' and it found a place on this side of the pond, peaking at No. 3 on Billboard's Alternative Chart. The chorus was so damn catchy and the guitar solo so mesmerizing that I didn't mind the guitar during the verses sounding kind of hard rock and not very Roddy to these ears. This version was mixed by Julian Mendelsohn.

"Salvation" is a five-plus minute song from the 'Stray' sessions that didn't make the album. It is probably my favorite B-side outside of the Postcard and 'High Land Hard Rain' eras. If you are wondering about the female vocals, she was not credited and was recalled by Frame years later only as a French intern whose name escaped him. He did, however, say he thought her singing was perfect. The EP concludes with two well-known covers, and the Dylan song was performed live with just Roddy and his guitar. Many of us have grown to almost prefer him on stage this way. After repeated listens, I believe this is the same take found on the 1988 12" of "Working in a Goldmine," recorded at Colston Hall, Bristol, but it isn't credited as such on this record.

As you can see from the photo above, there was a huge poster that came with some editions of the 10", and here is what that looks like. I have never hung up this one, and before today I don't think I had unfolded it in almost 30 years.


The Crying Scene EP
The Crying Scene
Salvation
True Colors
I Threw It All Away (Live)

4 comments:

drew said...

Ah Bri, bittersweet memories of this ep for me. On that tour I saw Mick Jones on stage with the Boy Wonder and was aghast when I had to explain to my girlfriend who Mick Jones was, the same girl who gave away a load of my records to Oxfam when we parted, the 10" of this included.

I love the version of True Colours

Brian said...

Drew,
If I have nightmares tonight, it's all your fault. If you check out the charts, you'll see the Crying Scene was the hit over here while Good Morning Britain was the smash in your neck of the woods... as I suppose we should expect.

Pop Judge said...

I played Stray the other night and what a weird album it is. Half the songs are very enjoyable jazzy slowies (Stray, Notting Hill Blues etc) and the other half rather crass pop-rock tunes that sound like they are trying to get on American FM radio. It would be OK if they were split into 2 different sides of the album but they are not and just sounds, well weird.

Pop Judge said...

The reason I played it was I bought 5 AC albums on CD for total of £10 in a low budget box set. Of course, I had them on vinyl but I had my reasons.