Last week, I spent an intriguing day at the rehearsals for the 2010 JD Set. This year, the idea from the musical strand of the Jack Daniel's brand is to take three classic albums, get bands in the studio for a week to rework them, and then play the results live at a special gig a month later. Each city has a different album, and different guests. So London had the likes of Shortwave Set reinterpreting tracks from The Human League's Dare, and Glasgow will have Malcolm Middleton taking on Madonna's greatest hits (let's hope they haven't been intimidated by Glee). But Manchester is where it really all made sense, simply because the assembled musicians rehearsed music from a great Manchester band: the Buzzcocks.
On the day I was at the studio, the gauche frontman of the excellent Dutch Uncles, Duncan Wallis, joined forces with The Whip for Nothing Left, from Buzzcocks' breakthrough 1978 album Love Bites. It was a pretty straight retelling, the propulsive drumming from Mike Joyce given an added resonance by the knowledge that post-Smiths, he was actually in the Buzzcocks line-up for a short period.
In fact, Joyce was like the father figure here, making sure everyone was in the right place and knew what they were doing. And that was the striking thing: everyone really did seem to know exactly what they were doing.
This was unexpected. When Tim Burgess from The Charlatans came by to lend his distinctive vocals to The Answering Machine version of Just Lust - also on Love Bites - he did so with lyrics printed out on a sheet of A4. The young Manchester indie band, bless them, were children when Some Friendly was released (incidentally, Burgess's floppy hair seems to be referencing those glory days, just in time for the record's 20th anniversary on May 17) and looked slightly nervy. So to see both parties nailing Just Lust on the first take was really impressive. In fact, the only reason they did it again was so it could be filmed.
Talking of filming, here's a clip of The Whip doing Ever Fallen In Love with Mike Joyce on the Tuesday - the obvious track to cover maybe, but I quite like the way they've tweaked it into a kind of dreamy ska anthem.
Anyway, it all bodes well for the Band On The Wall date on May 27 - you can apply for tickets from the JD Set website, and from what I saw, it should be a great night.
