What Now?

or just who is/was Alan Rankine?

Firstly, a quick ‘Challenge 69’ update: ‘Track 10’ (titled ‘Play for Today’) is all locked and loaded and ready for posting; spread over the usual two instalments, at 10am this Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th. Please look out for this hitting your inboxes …

… and a huge personal thankyou to those ‘early adopter’ readers who have already responded to my ‘begging post’ a couple of days ago, and upgraded their subscriptions to ‘paid’. I’ll probably require a few more yet, to persuade one of those grumpy publishers of my story’s marketability, so, if you’re feeling in a charitable mood, the button below is still available!

However, while I’m on, a few more of my musical musings.

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I’ve got a breaking news ‘alert’ set up on my ‘phone, from the BBC News website, which, on average seems to sound about twice per day. This minimalist three second orchestral excerpt, borrowed from the corporation’s TV bulletins (and apparently titled a grammatically suspect ‘Into Break’), is impossible to ignore; as someone else aptly observed, when I just searched it online, this warning noise has become affectionately known, in their house, as, "for f**k's sake, now what?!"

As the reaction above would suggest, like most journalism, this BBC application rarely heralds ‘good news’. Such ‘pings’ were, seemingly, at their most frequent during the heights of Coronavirus, Partygate, and the invasion of Ukraine; while last week’s two-legged fox from Ilkeston may well have managed to go viral on TikTok, but a vulpine biped was never going to qualify for its own news siren.

Beyond the actual breaking news itself though, I often find myself more distracted by the editorial judgement process that must sit behind the process. Who decides what news is deemed sufficiently urgent to qualify for immediate broadcast? Is there an individual ‘Alert Tsar’ taking such decisions alone, or do the BBC have to quickly convene some form of ‘Catastrophe Committee’?

But most intriguing of all, to me at least, is the categorisation criteria required for which ‘celebrity deaths’ are deemed to pass muster. Presumably, filed away, somewhere in Broadcasting House, there is a rather morbid list of everybody that’s currently alive who will (just in case) qualify for a ‘ping’ once they’ve ‘passed’!

Last night, unfortunately, it was Jeff Beck’s turn; who presumably therefore must have made it onto the BBC’s (likely very short) list of guitarists who meet their ‘alert’ threshold. Terrible news obviously, but with neither The Yardbirds or The Jeff Beck Group ever likely to be regular visitors to my turntable, I couldn’t help myself ruefully, and guiltily, reflecting on, “where was the bloody guitar innovator ping for Andy Gill?”

Back on 29th December, my ‘phone provided a shocking ‘double-header’ of death announcements, as first Pele and then Vivienne Westwood sadly passed away on the same day. No quibbles from me there; both were true innovators (and mavericks?) in their chosen fields, both making a huge (yet very different) impact on the world.

This rare coincidence of two ‘death alerts’ in twenty-four hours did however, somehow softening the sadness, manage to bring an ironic thought to mind. With Pele and Vivienne making such strange bedfellows, so unlikely in life to have shared anything, just what would they have made, I mused, of each others achievements?

In my imagined ‘dinner party’ conversation, I had Vivienne just as unimpressed by Pele’s 1,279 career goals tally, as he was, in turn, unconvinced over the stylishness of some of her weirder couturial creations. I rather suspect Viv (as the one time owner of ‘Sex’) may, instead, have steered the conversation onto Pele’s advertising of Viagra!

Anyway, all of that (overly long) preamble is just me taking forever to get around to the primary purpose of this post!

Last week there was another very sad death, again far too young, of a multi-talented musician who, frankly, was never ever going to make it anywhere near the Beeb’s list (unless of course they had mistakenly appointed me as the new ‘Alert Tsar’!)

So this post is simply intended to serve as my own ‘alert’ to celebrate the life of Alan Rankine (1958-2023), the ‘other’ member of The Associates.

Without Alan’s clear talent for ‘talent spotting’, one of the, “voices of a generation,” Billy Mackenzie may never have made it beyond the ‘cabaret singer’ gig in Dundee that Rankine rescued him from; and together they wouldn’t have made two such fantastic, innovative albums; the weirdly eclectic debut of ‘The Affectionate Punch’ and their commercially successful second album (the one with all the singles) ‘Sulk’.

The Associates flame (of fame) may only have burned briefly, but their songs remain classics, and the lasting influence on so many bands that followed remains clear to see.

Alan Rankine’s love of music endured though, and he carried on working productively in the ‘business’ right up until his death; both as an in demand producer (of The Cocteau Twins, Paul Haig, and The Pale Fountains amongst others) and, possibly more impressively, as a committed nurturer of new talent, via his music college/label’s championing of leftfield artists such as Belle and Sebastian.

Alan’s passing may not have qualified for his own ‘news alert’, but hopefully I can, in some small way, compensate for this ‘oversight’ with the playlist below; containing a few of my own personal favourites from his, “life in (maverick) music.”

If nothing else, please take a quick listen, in tribute, to the wonderful ‘Even Dogs in the Wild’. RIP Alan.

PS: Just as I finished typing this I had a new BBC alert, about, “classified documents found in Joe Biden’s garage.” Interesting no doubt, but in my world the passing of the multi-instrumental tunesmith behind ‘The Associates’ is more newsworthy than that!