Comments on: Blog ‘92: U-U-U-UTAH SAINTS

By: jason

jason — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:50:33 +0000

Utah Saints are PLAYING on the 7th of December in Cardiff Q BAr!!! wooop woooop!!! see you there:

http://www.tantrumpartyheads.com

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:37:34 +0000

Ah, that was what I was thinking of - yes!

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:34:44 +0000

Norman Cook did a remix of “One Bad Apple” in his Beats International days which incorporated portions of “Long Haired Lover From Liverpool.” Donny loved it but the record company nixed it.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:31:24 +0000

apart from their NGD version i mean! didn’t Moby cover or remix ‘New Gold Dream’ also?

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:30:02 +0000

‘I am sure that there is an amazing rave record lurking in NGD (tho NGD in itself is pretty phenomenal)’

isn’t this Usura’s ‘Open Your Mind’?

i’m intrigued by ‘Kinetic Synthetic’. i also quite like ‘Ohio’ for the Jocelyn Brown sample altho by then they were stretching the formula to breaking point really. 5 years after that they sounded a lot more Underworldy with the ‘Love Song’ single (and there’s yer actual Simple Minds connection).

By: katstevens

katstevens — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:43:07 +0000

My favourite Utah Saints track is actually ‘Kinetic Synthetic’, a high-octane instrumental with no obvious samples in it at all. It’s less pop than ‘Something Good’ in that there’s fewer hooks, but the hooks it does have are brilliantly brain-melting.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:14:34 +0000

I know Norman Cook did a Crazy Horses remix at some point.

The great Utah Saints missed opportunity is their “New Gold Dream” version - I am sure that there is an amazing rave record lurking in NGD (tho NGD in itself is pretty phenomenal) - but it surely doesn’t have Jez Saint singing it.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:45:37 +0000

As I recall they did a remix of “Crazy Horses” around 1995.

By: .

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:22:00 +0000

When I was a nipper, I actually thought they were from Utah.

By: henry s

henry s — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:29:26 +0000

the New Orleans Jazz moved to Salt Lake City in the late-70’s, and became the Utah Jazz…if the New Orleans Saints followed suit, they would become the…Utah Saints…

By: katstevens

katstevens — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:01:03 +0000

Jez recorded his own vocals for ‘I Want You’ - apparently they sampled some song called “War Ensemble”. Cool!

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:49:20 +0000

I figure my perception is affected by having recognised the sample and liking ‘Cloudbusting’ beforehand. But I agree ‘Believe In Me’ isn’t quite as good (altho as well as the ‘Love Action’ sample I like that it lifts the ‘woo hoo’s from ‘You Gave Me Love’ by Crown Heights Affair just as much) although I wouldn’t say ‘Something Good’ is necessarily cleverer as they’re both based on the same formula - same goes for the first single really. I liked ‘I Want You’ at the time too (lol used on Fisherman’s Friend advert) but don’t recognise any samples from that if there are any.

By: Billy Smart

Billy Smart — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:42:47 +0000

Perhaps the Utah Saints’ greatest achievement was in reconstructing the Eurythmics’ ‘There Must be an Angel’ to actually sound like the explosion of bliss that that misbegotten song must have been intended to evoke.

By: katstevens

katstevens — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:31:56 +0000

Their other big sample singles aren’t quite so clever, eg ‘Believe In Me’ is quite clearly all about Phil Talking throughout.

By: katstevens

katstevens — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:30:16 +0000

What I was trying to get at is that while vocal sample is definitely important & is a brilliant addition, it’s by no means the basis of the song (hello Kanye West etc). For all I know it might have started off that way but it has evolved into a higher form!

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:22:56 +0000

first time i heard this was seeing them perform it on Dance Energy, man i loved that show - and this track was definitely an instant hit with me, much more than ‘What Can U Do For Me’ which I wasn’t as mad on.

Their attitude to samples was probably more brazen and blatant than anyone else having big rave-associated hits at the time bar Shut Up And Dance, because like SUAD the sample as hook was SO ramped up and both the nucleus and the highlight (recontextualised) of the track. The Prodigy too of course but Howlett usually had a lot of other things going on in additional e.g. two or three additional big samples, his own melodic hooks plus more complicated beats. I think I’m disagreeing with Kat here re ’subtle garnish/foundation’ but maybe I’m under-estimating the piano and whatnot. But ‘Something Good’ would only be something half as good without the presence of KB imo (that’s still pretty good tho).

By: Mark M

Mark M — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:03:32 +0000

I believe that legend had it that this was conceived above the halal butcher shop at the end of Brudenell Road, LS6. (Utah Saints are not to be confused with the rather less famous Pale Saints, of course, who definitely bought their veg at the shockingly bad greengrocer on Brudenell Road).

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 13:59:14 +0000

But the kids preferred Rage Against The Machine.

By: katstevens

katstevens — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 13:44:14 +0000

Utah Saints’ own brand of ‘rockism’ was also written on the liner notes:

“Utah Saints use samples to FREE us from the confines of popular instruments. THE sample may be a vocal phrase, 100 guitars, or everyday MACHINES and animals. these are all just instruments to us. No tape was used in the making of this album. TAKE CONTROL of the machine NOW!”