Brisbane band Silver Sircus will return to the stage this weekend (Woolly Mammoth 19 March) for the first time in 2016 (aside from the core band performing the Ziggy Stardust shows last month at MELT Festival).
The band will also be launching their newest single, produced with Magoo, next week, which will include a B-side.
Silver Sircus' drummer James Lees is quite a fan of the B-side. “For a long time, the B-side has been a relic of an almost forgotten era. But the vinyl resurgence of the last decade has seen a return of this curious little piece of the vinyl world, where some incredible songs have been tucked away.
“In a lot of cases, these B-sides have overtaken their A-sides to become the bigger hit, and sometimes even a best known and loved song.”
5. 'Silver Springs' by Fleetwood Mac
This stunning Stevie Nicks slow-burning torch song about sexual jealousy was left off their most famous album 'Rumours' to back up that album's lead single 'Go Your Own Way', released in late 1976. The fact that a song this good was left OFF the album is a testament to the quality of songs they were making for and about each other. Tellingly, the song is now included in the middle of the album of the more recent reissue versions.4. 'I Am The Walrus' by The Beatles
Even progressive listeners in the '60s would have been startled to find one of The Beatles' most surreal songs on the flip of their shiny-happy 1967 single, 'Hello Goodbye'. It might have been the song to make approving parents rethink whether their teenage children should be listening to this kind of thing, corrupting their ears like those dirty boys in The Stones or The Rolling Who.Like the best of the weird Beatles' music, it has beautiful melodies, a great sense of fun but a very dark and sinister streak at its core
3. '1963' by New Order
When 'True Faith' was released by New Order in 1987 it seemed to complete a four-year run of incredible singles that just got better with each release. These were then stunningly complied in their landmark double-album compilation 'Substance'. 'True Faith' was a beautiful piece of art, two stunning songs with one of their most recognisable 12" covers, designed by Peter Saville.The B-side of 'True Faith' is '1963' and is easily the match of it's A-side: it is one of their most impassioned, foreboding and evocative songs. Bizarrely, it was released as an A-side in remixed form in the '90s, inexplicably teamed with a video featuring Bubble from Absolutely Fabulous.
2. 'Dear God' by XTC
How XTC singer Andy Partridge thought his band's song 'Dear God' should be relegated to a B-side is anyone's guess. Quickly reissued as an A-side with a beautiful and terrifying video (nominated for an MTV Award), the song became arguably their second most well-known song after their 1982 smash hit 'Senses Working Overtime'.'Dear God' is also notable for being one of the most angry anti-religion songs to appear in the British pop charts as well as for being a song sung partially by a child that is not horribly cheesy.
1. 'How Soon Is Now?' by The Smiths
Recently Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr commented that 'How Soon Is Now?' is probably their most enduring song. Incredibly, this shimmering, hypnotic, reverb-drenched paean to loneliness started life tucked away on the B-side of their 1984 single 'William It Was Really Nothing'.Younger listeners will pick it as being the theme song to 'Charmed' and the film 'The Craft', in a version cut by Love Spit Love, but for me nothing touches the dark and dreamy guitarscape of the masterful original.
