some candy talking

[18] The Jesus And Mary Chain, ‘Some Candy Talking EP’

The Jesus And Mary Chain

We’ve been living with 21 Singles and Psychocandy for a few weeks now – the road to actually posting our No.18 is paved with good distractions – and strange things have been happening. It’s not that I keep playing ‘Some Candy Talking’ with the daily intention of writing about it; it’s that Junior keeps asking for it. Asking for The Jesus And Mary Chain in general. She can sing this and ‘Just Like Honey’ and ‘April Skies’. More tellingly, she claims never to have heard of Jesus, which suggests she’s going to be expecting huge chunks of surfcore feedback when her reception class goes all Nativity in a few weeks.

Like me, she’s into ‘Some Candy Talking’’s calm release, its gently thrashed guitars and easy to follow chorus – she doesn’t care that it’s not really about the natter of a packet of sweets, nor that it sticks to a formula. Listen to their 21 Singles and you marvel at the if-it-ain’t-broke bloodymindedness of JAMC’s career. Yes, it all gets a bit shinier but, despite the odd loping baggy beat in the shaky early 90s, the whole set thumbs its snub nose at fashion. They were capable of dishing out scuzzily bejewelled classics like this from the off, so there was no need to shilly-shally with the template.

I want stuff:

[8] The Jesus And Mary Chain, ‘April Skies’

They replaced Bobby Gillespie with a drum machine (there’s a thought) and revved up ‘Some Candy Talking’ to make a straight-up indie pop grower. It’s more unusual than that. You get two verses and then two choruses, and this makes it feel like it’s forever building to a big finish. In a way, it is. Jim Reid lets rip with what sounds like real drive, something that Psychocandy didn’t quite give us.

Junior was distracted this morning. We think she might’ve been peeved at wearing a blue vest and blue sleepsuit. She likes her girlie accoutrements. The Jesus and Mary Chain get a passing nod. She’ll learn though, when she’s decked out in black at 14 years old and telling us how she always liked The Velvet Underground.

Listening to ‘April Skies’ again makes me wonder whether we’ve got The Strokes all wrong. They like the skinny ties, trousers and baseball boots of new wave, but they want to make goth surf pop.