Not the easiest of tracks to write about since there seems to be practically no information about it, or indeed White Trash, anywhere, including on this singles’ label or sleeve. But too wonderful a song to let that be a problem.
All I know is that White Trash hale from Sheffield and released two 12″ singles on the Showbiz Recordings label in the early 2000s. ‘I Still Don’t Love You’ was included on the first of these, alongside ‘I Don’t Love You’, ‘V.I.P.’ and ‘V.V.I.P.’. And it was produced by Ross Orton who, amongst other things, produced some of M.I.A.’s early (and better) songs and played on the first solo album of fellow son of Sheffield, Jarvis Cocker.
The track was then picked up by Rough Trade who included it on their ’Counter Culture 2003′ compilation. ‘Counter Culture’ began in 2002 as an annual collection of the 40 or so most remarkable and essential ‘left-field’ tracks of the year – as defined by the two Rough Trade Record Shops. And has been a mini, but absolutely essential, annual institution in its own right ever since.
‘Counter Culture’, like all self-respecting fonts of alternative musical inspiration, seems to take a particular delight in bringing wonderfully strange and new sounds to town. The fellows at Rough Trade must have been especially happy then when they heard a milk bottle being beaten with maybe a knife or fork on White Trash’s little number back in 2003.
Of course that wasn’t the only reason for its inclusion on the compilation - although it is a fairly compelling one. It was included because the milk bottle features as just one magical ingredient on one of the most infectious, witty and impossible-to-sit-still-to tracks of recent years.
Sounding a little like a forgotten love-child of the Flying Lizards’ ‘Money’, White Trash’s ‘I Still Don’t Love You’ is another contribution to the centuries-old debate about the various possible motivations for love, some of which have always been, let’s say, a little more financial than emotional.
Just like the Flying Lizard’s earlier masterpiece (which I’ll post later today for comparison purposes) White Trash’s contribution is clever and witty and musically original and fresh. But what White Trash have managed to do, which the Flying Lizards never quite did, is to do all that whilst creating something that is also genuinely, credibly, danceable. And to slightly rub salt in the Lizards’ wounds, anyone who spent the early 80s listening to their truly wonderful, mutant but ultimately not-very-danceable-really, music will also know that they will be very very jealous of the sound White Trash got from those milk bottles.
Released 2003.
The original 12″ vinyl single is long out of print but the Rough Trade ‘Counter Culture 03′ compilation is still available and is still as essential: Amazon