Jackie St. Doll

These gifts are wrapped with loving care specially for Stupiddle. 

 

Blog-friend Stupiddle asked for a gift of Couch Flambeau which I was unfortunately unable to give him. He was kind enough to accept my weak apology & make his second wish of some Jackie Leven. That I was happy to gift.

I came rather late to the Jackie Leven table. My dear friend & fellow blogger Ib Sibling turned me on to Doll by Doll & thence Jackie Leven. He also filled in the gaps here, so I name him officially Satan's little helper.

Jackie was born in 1950 into a Romany family & lived his childhood/teenage years in Fife, Scotland. His father was an Irish Cockney & his mother was from a large Northumberland (Geordie) family so Jackie was an outsider from the get-go. This seemed to give birth to an independence of mind. In his school day Jackie had few friends & the ones he had were considered 'oddball'. His attendance at school was spotty at best, but his truancy spent alone in glens, hills, & by the rivers of Scotland formed the basis for many of his songs' imagery.

In his late teens Jackie hit the road, leaving Fife & Scotland behind. The following years were filled with aimless wandering, sleeping outside, living hand to mouth, including a four months living on the streets of South Bank Centre, London, where he busked for a living.

During this period (late 60s - early 70s) he also lived in County Kerry, Ireland, as well as abroad in Berlin & Madrid. It was there that he released his first album Control under his stage name of John St Field (now considered a psychedelic underground classic).

Back in the UK & living on the street & squats, he met fellow musicians Joe Shaw, David MacIntosh, & Robin Spreafico. Together they formed Doll by Doll (1978 - 1982). They were a controversial live act at odds with the cartoon violence of punk, a sonic slap in the face, the house band from hell killing their guitars at the end of the world. This was head swirling psychedelic blues rock meeting psychotic poetry down a very dark alley. They made five albums: Gypsy - 1979; Remember - 1979; Doll by Doll -1981; Grand Passion - 1982; & Revenge of Memory - unreleased until 2003) before accepting the fact that they just weren't meant for those times &  went their separate ways.

After a late night recording session for a solo album due for release by Charisma/Virgin (1983) Jackie was the subject of an unprovoked street attack during which he was nearly murdered by strangulation. Unable to speak or sing, he lost his record deal, most of his friends, & his own way. He entered an intense period of psychic disorder, became addicted to heroin & living in isolation.

By1985 he had kicked heroin using traditional Chinese five-element acupuncture & psychic healing (his personal demons led him to co-found The CORE Trust...a holistic approach to addiction...the Trust still operates a center in London, working with people with all forms of addiction).

Shortly after kicking drugs, Jackie went to live in Oban on the west coast of Scotland. He spent the nights in bars with his country-folk & the days writing the songs that became the basis of his return to music. He released nearly forty albums before his untimely death in November 2011.

These tunes cover a bit of this heroic journey & I gift them to stupiddle with overwhelming gratitude to Ib. These songs present a timeless edge with vivid insights into the human condition, funny & scary & beautiful all at once.  Listen particularly to "Saint Judas" on Fairy Tales for Hard Men. Saint Judas was Jackie's first band from 1969. They recorded one album, When I Went Out To Kill Myself  (recorded during some BBC sessions in Newcastle) which was never released until 1998. The song "Saint Judas" tells the tale of that album & that time.

 

John St. Field - Control, Movieplay S-32 738, 1975.
all decryption codes in comments

Side A -
Soft Lowland Tongue   
Ruins   
The Problem   
Dune Voices   

Side B -
Raerona   
I'm Always a Prinlaws Boy   
Mansion Tension   
Dog Star   
Sleeping In Bracken 

 

 

Doll by Doll - Remember, Automatic Record Co K 56618, 1979.

side one -
Butcher Boy
Chances
Sleeping Partners

side two -
More than Human
Lose Myself
Janice
The Palace of Love

 

 

 

Doll by Doll - Doll by Doll, Magnet MAGL5039, 1981.

Stereo 1 -
Figure It Out   
Caritas   
Soon New Life   
Main Travelled Roads   
Those In Peril   
I Never Saw The Movie   

Stereo 2 -
The Perfect Romance   
Fantastic Sensation   
The Street I Love   
Be My Friend   
Up   
A Bright Green Field

 

 

 

Doll by Doll - Caritas, Magnet 12", 12 MAG 195, 1981

Side A -
Caritas (long version)

Side B -
Murder on the Highway
An Honest Woman 

 

 

Jackie Leven - Fairy Tales for Hard Men, Cooking Vinyl Cook CD 115, 1997.

Boy Trapped in a Man
Desolation Blues
Extremely Violent Man
Old West African Song
Saint Judas
Poortoun
Fear of Women
The Walled Coves of Ravenscraig
Sad Polish Song
Sexual Danger
Jim O'Windygates
Mad as the Mist & Snow
Kirkconnell Flow
Listening to Crows Pray
Sir Patrick Spens
Sunflower 

 

 

 

Jackie Leven - Elegy for Johnny Cash, Cooking Vinyl COOKCD331, 2005.

Blue Soul Dark Road   
Museum of Childhood   
Elegy for Johnny Cash   
The Law of Tide
All the Rage
No Honour in This Love   
Vibration White Finger   
King of the Barley   
And You'll Never Hear Surf Music Again   
In Memory of My Mother
Gladly Go Blind
Why Log Truck Drivers Rise Earlier Than Students of Zen 

 

 

As a special treat, here's a disc that in some parallel universe would have been a smash, four songs from the band Concrete Bulletproof Invisible, one of Glen Matlock's post-Pistols projects which included Glen on bass plus Jackie with former Doll by Doll band-mates Joe Shaw on guitar & David Macintosh on drums with additional help from James Hallawell on keyboards & Mike Spencer on harp. These are great songs with all the punch of Matlock's best power-punk swagger combined with Jackie's powerful voice. "Love Kills" was recorded for the film Sid & Nancy although the track was not used in the film. 

 

 

Concrete Bulletproof Invisible - Big Tears 12",  Restless Records 7 72331-1, 1988.

Side One -
Big Tears
Love Kills

Side Two -
Braid on My Shoulder
Good Thing

Enjoy,
NØ