Album Stories: Ultimate Painting
“Emerging from the wilderness, the feel of freedom overwhelmed me”
Album Stories is an ongoing series, in which I wax nostalgic about an album and how it fits into my life.
If you talk to cool people, they might tell you that the humble 45rpm single is the perfect medium. I, however, remain a firm believer in the long play album as the perfect medium. I love a #1 hit single as much as anyone, but it seems to me that you have to grind it out to achieve perfection in an album: enough good songs, the correct track order, flow, vibe, artwork, etc. There isn't an album story for every album I own, but there are certainly enough for a recurring segment.
Today’s album: 2014’s Ultimate Painting the debut album by Ultimate Painting, an English band that had a short but productive run, making four1 albums in four years.
October, 2014 - Preston, England: Moving overseas is a trip, in every sense of the word. There’s a sense of un-reality; it feels like you’re gonna fall on your face; and it almost feels like you’re just going on vacation for a while. It’s incredibly liberating and deeply unsettling. It’s also been seven years since it happened and the un-reality now exists in a different way: it almost feels like I was always here and never there. I can’t really explain it. It’s been a trip.
In my2 case, getting in a car and driving to an airport hotel at Gatwick, then boarding a plane without a return ticket was the easy part. The previous 10 months worth of dealing with governmental bureaucracy, embassy visits, explanatory conversations and weeks of farewells was where the heavy lifting happened. Saying farewell to friends and family, knowing you’ll likely never see at least some of them again is fucking brutal, no matter what excitement lies on the other side. So much self doubt. Maybe the grass isn’t greener on the other side? (Literally, it is not. This is Los Angeles!)
But, but, but…I’d do it all over again. In fact, I’ve become somewhat of an advocate for doing any version of this: if you don’t like the place you live, work, whatever and you think you can do better: DO IT. Quit your job; move somewhere new; do whatever it takes. Bet on yourself and roll the dice. To quote the Red Hot Chili Peppers3, in turn misquoting the Butthole Surfers: “It’s better to regret something you did / Than something you didn’t do.”
I’m 99% sure that I first heard about Ultimate Painting from Simon, which would be pretty typical for that era. (These days I just assume I’m missing out on something I’ll love because I’m not talking to Simon all the time.)
To take advantage of a classic cliché, here was a band that arrived “fully formed.” I think we saw them supporting someone in the late spring/early summer (I wanna say Parquet Courts?) and then we caught them at their first ever ‘headlining’ set in Manchester that August. That was actually a really fun night, because we played a double-header and caught Hookworms playing as openers at Gorilla (good luck following that, Pissed Jeans!) before dashing over to The Castle to see UP. Remember when Twitter was more good than bad? A series of tweets to both bands helped establish we could actually pull this double-header off.
The tiny back room at the Castle was packed out, which was great, if mildly awkward, as we ended up so close to the “stage” that it was vaguely uncomfortable to look at the band for risk of making weird eye contact. Also, when you’re seeing a band live before you really know their stuff - and you’re that physically close - you gotta hope you like it or have a good poker face. Suffice to say, the poker face wasn’t needed. To this day, it’s a treasured memory: I’ve rarely been lucky enough to see a band at (or so close to) their genesis and go onward with them from there. In retrospect, 2014 being a year of such significant transition, was really a year to cram in as many treasured memories as possible along the way.
Sidebar…at this post-vaxxx point of 2021, it actually feels kinda similar in two ways to 2014:
Wanting to create some treasured memories to allay the banality (and horror) of 2020, feels like the pre-move part of 2014
A fresh appreciation for getting out and meeting lots of people4 after a year of not doing so, feels like the post-move part of 2014 and early 2015.
The Ultimate Painting album release date was within days our departure date, but I was able to get a digital copy early, and figure out shipping later (thanks, Bill!) I decided to wait until I was on the plane to listen to it for the first time. I’m not entirely sure why. I guess I wanted it to be a new thing to start a new life with, (but I just recoiled after writing something so saccharine, so maybe let’s not say it was that?) I chose a window seat5 for that flight, something I almost never choose, least of all on an 11+ hour journey. I remember thinking that I wanted to look out of the window and really see where I was coming from and where I was going to.
The Trouble In Mind description of this record notes that the songs offer “a seamless journey that is both pastoral & cosmopolitan”, which I agree with, and maybe this is just me projecting, but it also feels like it offers something from both of the places I was travelling between. Jack Cooper is from Lancashire6, a place (and a state of mind) that has left a permanent impression on me but the record also has strong nods to America, not least in the fish-out-of-water tale presented in “Talking Central Park Blues” but also with the omni-present Velvet Underground influences. Overall, the album offers an engaging mix of excitable energy and quieter, more melancholic moments. Not unlike the weeks I spent preceding the move.
The record starts, in the grand tradition of Black Sabbath, Bad Company7 and Kool and The Gang, with a song8 that is entitled with the song name, album name and band name. More people should do this. How better to introduce yourself than with your name? And I think the song really works as an introduction to the sound (vibe?) of this band with the guitar interplay, shared vocals and relatively-simple-but-highly-effective rhythm section. From there it builds into a really great record. The aforementioned Talking Central Park Blues is an instant classic. Ten Street was always the highlight of the live shows (dating right back to that first show we saw at The Castle) and peaks the record nicely in the middle. Rolling in the Deep End is another instant classic, and a strangely jarring song when you’ve just left a place of deep familiarity. Three Piers9 is a Blackpool story that would fit nicely on Sandgrown (see footnote 6 for more on that.) Winter In Your Heart is a title that I shamelessly stole/borrowed/adapted/paid homage to in the final piece featured in Issue 1 of the Negative Progression ‘zine.10
Ultimately (pun intended!), I cannot untangle this record from an inflection point in my life of huge significance. When I hear it, I’ll never not be sat on that plane looking out of the window or sat in my dad’s office in the subsequent weeks, furiously job hunting. And those are, in retrospect, very fond memories that I am happy to have this album stir up for me. We bet on ourselves and the dice came up with a hard eight instead of a snake eyes…and that’s a whole lot more than you reasonably ask fate for.
Album Rating, Ultimate Painting: A
Life Rating, Fall (Autumn) 2014: A+
The fourth album wasn’t released but you don’t have to look very hard to find it.
As far as the move goes, it’s really in our case, but I wouldn’t presume to speak for Nic’s experience, hence in my case.
One Hot Minute is very much One Hot Mess (they were still into the drugs at that point, I think?) but Deep Kick, in which this reference is made, is a textbook 1990s RHCP jam and not without some merit.
To quote my friend Ed: “2021 is the year of adult friendships.”
Nic took the aisle, like a pro. The nice lady in the middle thought we were inadvertently separated and offered to swap with either of us, which nice try but no thanks. Middle seats are the dirt-worst, this is known.
More on this in an old blog post, specifically the part about Jack’s wonderful solo album Sandgrown: https://chriswhiteheadshow.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/my-favorite-records-of-2017/
I cannot listen to this song without thinking of Tom Scharpling hanging up the phone on someone via the medium of this song.
I’m sure there’s a bunch more of these. Tell me the ones I missed in the comments?
It’s at least 15 years since I was on any of them, but from memory here are my Blackpool Pier Power Rankings: 1) North, 2) Central, 3) South.
I still have a handful of copies left - hit me up if you want one.
Never heard of em, but will check it out 👍